george lord bramleigh, roundest and youngest of men of six-and-twenty, overtaking jocelyn lord gunner in st. james’s-street, tipped him on the shoulder with his stick-handle. gunner turned, red in the face.
“damn you, bramleigh, shut up,” he said.
“couldn’t shut up to save my life, old chap,” his friend replied. “i’m so fit i don’t know what to do with myself. come back into the fencing club and make passes at me.”
gunner growled, “see you shot first,” and walked on. bramleigh joined him, humming an air.
“look here,” said gunner, after a time. “d’you know a man called duplessis?”
“rather,” says lord bramleigh. “go on.”
“that’s what he’s doing,” lord gunner mused. “his goings-on are awful. he’ll make the lady talked about—and she don’t deserve it.”
the lady must be named, and lord bramleigh whistled at her name. reminiscences of a morning at san sebastian came upon him, but were withheld. lord gunner poured out his grievances.
“i don’t mind a chap hanging round—not one bit. if i wasn’t hanging round myself a good lot i shouldn’t see it, and shouldn’t much care if i did. there’s nothing in that. besides, there are plenty of us. but he messes about; that’s what i can’t stand. he messes about. and he seems to think she belongs to him.”
“that’s the way to make her,” said the sapient youth. “that’s his little plan.”
“no, it’s not, my boy,” he was corrected. “you’re off the line. that’s what he really thinks—and, by god, he shows it. he’s like a dog with a bone. he snarls and turns up his lip the moment you come into the place. or if he comes late and finds any one there—as he mostly does—he sulks. ’pon my soul, i hate the brute.” the young man tilted back his hat, and looked up at the sky—a pale blue sky, irradiated by the sun and by the burnished copper wires of our affairs. “where are we now—end of april?—beginning of may? she came to town in february—and here we are in may. i believe he’s only been away from the house for three days on end—and that’s just now when he’s in paris.”
“you ought to know,” said bramleigh: the other snorted.
“i do know. he’s up to no good, that chap, i’ll bet you he’s not. he’s not a good sort with women, i happen to know. now—”
“may a man ask,” lord bramleigh interjected, “what you are up to?”
lord gunner looked down at him in surprise.
“oh, you may, bramleigh. i can stand it from you. i’m all right, you know; i wouldn’t hurt her. she’d have a pretty stiff time of it with old fowls-of-the-air germain[a] if it wasn’t for some of us, who go and amuse her. she’s a jolly girl, you know, and she deserves something.”
“dash it all,” cried bramleigh, “she got something when she married old germain. she had nothing at all. i’m told he picked her up in a nursery.” lord gunner jerked an angry head.
“yes, i know, i know. that wasn’t the game, i’ll be shot. why, any one could have done it! he played the god in the machine; came bouncing out of the sky, and sent the servant in for her. ‘beg pardon, miss, but here’s the archangel michael come for you. best clothes, please, shut your eyes, and you’ll be married to-morrow.’ that was the way it was sprung upon her. what was a girl to do but bless her stars, and say she’d be with him directly? well, and what i say is, if old fowls-of-the-air finds he ain’t up to the part, he can’t drop it and leave her in the lurch. if he can’t make himself entertaining, he must be helped.”
“that’s what duplessis says,” lord bramleigh supposed. but gunner could not allow it.
“i beg your pardon. he says, ‘my bread, i believe.’ he’s a grabber. the mischief of it is that i can’t say anything.”
“i think not,” said bramleigh tersely. “but i know a man who could. just left him.”
“who’s your friend, bramleigh?”
lord bramleigh would not be drawn. “oh—man you wouldn’t know. not your sort. but the lady knows him.”
“couldn’t you give him a hint?”
“i could,” said bramleigh with deliberation. “i could, but”—he looked up at his tall friend—“but if i did, i shouldn’t leave you out, old chap.”
lord gunner halted and faced him. “you may say what you please about me. i don’t care what you say.” he looked over to bond-street. “that’s my road,” he said.
“the way to hill-street?” asked bramleigh.
“the way to hill-street,” he was told.
lord bramleigh remained upon the piccadilly pavement for some minutes, lost in what must be described as thought. his lips were framed for whistling, but no sound came. his eyes stared at nothing in particular. then he was heard to say, “i’ll do it, by gad,” and seen to turn on his heel. he walked down the hill again, the way he had come up.
her life was such a whirl, it may well be that she had no time to wonder whither she was flying. at any rate, she marked neither time nor direction, nor was aware that her friends were remarking on both. if you had checked her suddenly with the question, was she happy? she would have stared before she answered you, of course!
from day to day she hardly saw her husband alone. he breakfasted, as of old, in his room; his secretary came at ten, and stayed to luncheon. he had a nap after that, and went down to the house at four. he might return to dinner, he might join her at a party in time to take her home; but by then he would be so tired that he would drop asleep in the carriage. she may have known, or she may not, that his eyes were often upon her, intensely observant of her gaiety and appreciative of her good manners; she can hardly have known that she was seldom out of his thoughts. it must be confessed that he was not more than a perfunctory guest in hers: she wore his name in her prayers as she wore it abroad—in that world of his to which he had enlarged her, where she now fluttered her happy wings. she paid him, in fact, the service of lip and eye which we pay to god in church. he was, no doubt, the author of her being. “my husband says”—“my husband thinks—”: she never used such a phrase without the little reverential hush in her voice, or without a momentary curtsey of the eyelids. when he showed himself in a room she went instantly to his side; when he was present at a dinner-table her tones were lower, her laughter less infectious. he was disposer supreme: he was secure of that dignified but remote office. it was one which he was well qualified to fill; and it was, unfortunately for him, the only one about her person which was then at his service. nobody knew this better than the poor stoic himself, nobody knew it less than the engrossed little lady.
it was not until the end of april, or, as lord gunner had ascertained it, the beginning of may that she became aware of the fact that she had been seeing duplessis every day since the short easter recess. it was forced upon her notice by this other, that for those days he was absent, and that she missed the homage of his knit brows. they were more to her, she found, than horace wing’s postures or palmer lovell’s placid contemplation of her charms. yet each of these rising statesmen was much more her servant than tristram could care to be. lovell used to advise her about her gowns: it had got to that. his aunt, lady paynswick, had a shop—so that it was reasonable. mr. wing took each new apparition of her as an occasion for poetry—surface poetry, so to speak, which a more experienced subject might have found pert; but it sounded very well at the time. duplessis did none of these things, neither saw, nor admired: he simply frowned. but she liked to be frowned at in that sort of way—she had always liked it. it meant, “you sting me. i have no rest. you could cure my scowls, but you won’t. i detest you, because i love you.” it was a tribute, implied power—and how could she help liking that? one of the great joys of power is that you can sit back at your ease, twiddle your thumbs and say to yourself, “an i would, i could—!” you must needs feel charitable to him who puts you in the way of that.
after his three days’ truantry, when he returned to her side, she showed him that she was glad to see him. generous, but mistaken: it made him crosser than ever. he could be abominably rude when he chose—and he chose to be so now. she was at the opera, alone in her box. he came in after the first act, nodded and sat down. this she forgave, even to the extent of offering her hand. “you’ve been away—it is nice of you to come. i’m all alone, you see.”
he said, one must go somewhere. she laughed that off. what had been the favoured country? he named paris, as if it hurt him horribly. paris! she had been there once—on her way home from madrid. some day she must be taken there again. it had been extraordinary—had seemed like walking on light. duplessis said that it hadn’t been like that at all, but like walking in smells among a leering populace. all this was far from gay; but she was very good-tempered.
it would seem that he had come there to quarrel with her; for that is what he did. after an act and an interval of monosyllabic answers, spells of brooding, moustache-gnawing, and other symptoms of the devil, she roundly asked him what ailed him. he affected blank astonishment. ailed him? ailed? what on earth should ail him?
“then,” said she, with colour, “i think you might be civil.” he stared, and met a pair of stormy eyes.
“am i to understand—?” he began.
“you are to understand,” she told him, “that you are making me very uncomfortable. i have done you no harm.”
her ancestry, you see, must peep out. she was preparing a scene—and what can one do then?
“is that a hint?” he asked her. she turned to the stage.
“you drive me to it,” she said. “you have been very rude.” he rose.
“i can spare you that, at any rate,” he said, opened his hat with a clatter, bowed and left her. her bosom rose and fell fast, and faster, as the clouds gathered and swept across her eyes. hateful man—but what had she done? a tyrant: he bullied women. she felt very lonely; the great house seemed to grow dark, the great music to howl and bray. palmer lovell came in presently, after him came gunner; but she could get no joy out of them, and waited on miserably for her husband. she found herself praying for him, who at least would be gentle with her. he was late, however, and she could bear no more. she left after the third act.
in her brougham she had a vision—it could have been nothing else. at the corner of endell-street, under a gas-lamp and in the full light of it, she saw a tall man standing. he was reading a newspaper, and had no hat on his head. her heart jumped—oh, that could be but one person in the world! her friend! senhouse in london!
the detestable tristram was forgotten; palmer lovell, the mellifluous wing went down, soused in cornish seas. cornish seas, sluiced rocks, green downs, birds adrift in the wind, opened out across the yellow flare of a london night. she went wide-awake to bed, and lay sleeplessly there. the very next afternoon, as she was coming out of a great shop in regent-street, crossing the pavement to get into her carriage, she almost ran into his arms.
[a]
the poor gentleman must have been more than usually on stilts when he made the speech (on poultry farming) which earned him this sobriquet.
