Presently Lucy was sitting in a corner of the magnificent green drawing-room, to which Lady Driffield had carelessly led the way.
In her vague humiliation and unhappiness, she craved that some one should come and talk to her and be kind to her--even Mrs. Shepton, who had addressed a few pleasant remarks to her on their way from the dining-room. But Mrs. Shepton was absorbed by Lady Driffield, who sat down beside her, and took some trouble to talk. "Then why not to me?" was Lucy"s instinctive thought. For she realised that she and Mrs. Shepton were socially not far apart. Yet Lady Driffield had so far addressed about six words to Mrs. David Grieve, while she was now bending her aristocratic neck to listen to Mrs. Shepton, who was talking entirely at her ease, with her arm round the back of a neighbouring chair, and, as it seemed to Lucy, about politics.
The rest of the ladies, with the exception of the Master of Hounds"
wife, who sat in a chair by the fire and dozed, were all either old friends or relations, and they gathered in a group on the Aubusson rug in front of the fire, chatting merrily about their common kindred, the visits they had paid, or were to pay, the fate of their fathers and brothers in the recent election, "the Duke"s"
terrible embarra.s.sments, or "Sir Alfred"s" yachting party to Norway, of which little Lady Alice gave a sparkling account.
In her chair on the outskirts of the talkers, Lucy sat painfully turning over the leaves of a costly collection of autographs, which lay on the table near her. Sometimes she tried to interest herself in the splendid room, with its hangings of pale flowered silk, its gla.s.s cases, full of historical relics, miniatures, and precious things, representing the long and brilliant past of the house of Driffield, the Sir Joshuas and Romneys, which repeated on the walls the grace and physical perfection of some of the living women below. But she had too few a.s.sociations with anything she saw to care for it, and, indeed, her mind was too wholly given to her own vague, but overmastering sense of isolation and defeat. If it were only bedtime!
Mrs. Wellesdon glanced at the solitary figure from time to time, but Lady Alice had her arm round "Marcia"s" waist, and kept close hold of her favourite cousin. At last, however, Mrs. Wellesdon drew the young girl with her to the side of Lucy"s chair, and, sitting down by the stranger, they both tried to entertain her, and to show her some of the things in the room.
Lucy brightened up at once, and thought them both the most beautiful and fascinating of human beings. But her good fortune was soon over, alas! for the gentlemen came in, and the social elements were once more redistributed. "Reggie", the young diplomatist, freshly returned from Berlin, laid hold of his sister Marcia, and his cousin Lady Alice, and carried them off for a family gossip into a corner of the room, whence peals of young laughter were soon to be heard from him and Lady Alice.
Mr. Edwardes and Colonel Danby pa.s.sed Mrs. Grieve by, in quest of metal more attractive; Lord Driffield, the Dean, Canon Aylwin, and David stood absorbed in conversation; while Lady Driffield transferred her attentions to Mr. Shepton, and the husband of the lady by the fire walked up to her, insisting, somewhat crossly, on waking her. Lucy was once more left alone.
"Lavinia, haven"t we done our duty to this apartment?" cried Lord Driffield, impatiently; "it always puts me on stilts. The library is ten times more comfortable. I propose an adjournment."
Lady Driffield shrugged her shoulders, and a.s.sented. So the whole party, Lucy timidly attaching herself to Mrs. Shepton, moved slowly through a long suite of beautiful rooms, till they reached the great cedar-fitted library, which was Lord Driffield"s paradise.
Here was every book to be desired of the scholar to make him wise, and every chair to make him comfortable. Lord Driffield went to one of the bookcases, and took a vellum-bound book, found a pa.s.sage in it, and showed it to David Grieve. Canon Aylwin and the Dean pressed in to look, and they all fell back into the recess of a great oriel, talking earnestly.
The others pa.s.sed on into a conservatory beyond the library, where was a billard-table, and many nooks for conversation amid the cunning labyrinths of flowers.
Lucy sank into a cane chair, close to a towering ma.s.s of arum lilies, and looked back into the library. n.o.body in the conservatory had any thought for her. They were absorbed in each other, and a merry game of pyramids had been already organised. So Lucy watched her husband wistfully.
What a beautiful face was that of Canon Aylwin, with whom he was talking! She could not take her eyes from its long, thin outlines, the apostolic white hair, the eager eyes and quivering mouth, contrasting with the patient courtesy of manner. Yet in her present soreness and heat, the saintly charm of the old man"s figure did somehow but depress her the more.
A little after ten it became evident that _nothing_ could keep the lady with the white eyelashes out of bed any longer, so the billiard-room party broke up, and, with a few gentlemen in attendance, the ladies streamed into the hall, and possessed themselves of bedroom candlesticks. The great house seemed to be alive with talk and laughter as they strolled upstairs, the girls making dressing-gown appointments in each other"s rooms for a quarter of an hour later.
When Lucy reached her own door she stopped awkwardly. Lady Driffield walked on, talking to Marcia Wellesdon. But Marcia looked back:
"Good night, Mrs. Grieve."
She returned, and pressed Lucy"s hand kindly. "I am afraid you must be tired," she said; "you look so."
Lady Driffield also shook hands, but, with const.i.tutional _gaucherie_, she did not second Mrs. Wellesdon"s remark; she stood by silent and stiff.
"Oh, no, thank you," said Lucy, hurriedly, "I am quite well."
When she had disappeared, the other two walked on.
"What a stupid little thing!" said Lady Driffield. "The husband may be interesting--Driffield says he is--but I defy anybody to get anything out of the wife."
It occurred to Marcia that n.o.body had been very anxious to make the attempt. But she only said aloud:
"I"m sure she is very shy. What a pity she wears that kind of dress! She might be quite pretty in something else."
Meanwhile Lucy, after shutting the outer door of their little suite behind her, was overtaken as she opened that leading to her own room by a sudden gust of wind coming from a back staircase emerging on to their private pa.s.sage, which she had not noticed before. The candle was blown out, and she entered the room in complete darkness. She groped for the matches, and found the little stand; but there were none there. She must have used the last in the making of her great illumination before dinner. After much hesitation, she at last summoned up courage to ring the bell, groping her way to it by the help of the light in the pa.s.sage.
For a long time no one came. Lucy, standing near her own door, seemed to hear two sounds--the angry beating of her own heart, and a murmur of far-off talk and jollity, conveyed to her up the mysterious staircase, which apparently led to some of the servants"
quarters.
Fully five minutes pa.s.sed; then steps were heard approaching, and a housemaid appeared. Lucy timidly asked for fresh matches. The girl said "Yes, ma"am," in an off-hand way, looked at Lucy with a somewhat hostile eye, and vanished.
The minutes pa.s.sed, but no matches were forthcoming. The whirlpool of the lower regions, where the fun was growing uproarious, seemed to have engulfed the messenger. At last Lucy was fain to undress by the help of a glimmer of light from her door left ajar, and after many stumbles and fumblings at last crept, tired and wounded, into bed. This finale seemed to her of a piece with all the rest.
As she lay there in the dark, incident after incident of her luckless evening coming back upon her, her heart grew hungry for David. Nay, her craving for him mounted to jealousy and pa.s.sion.
After all, though he did get on so much better in grand houses than she did, though they were all kind to him and despised her, he was _hers_, her very own, and no one should take him from her.
Beautiful Mrs. Wellesdon might talk to him and make friends with him, but he did not belong to any of them, but to _her_, Lucy.
She pined for the sound of his step--thought of throwing herself into his arms, and seeking consolation there for the pains of an habitual self-importance crushed beyond bearing.
But when that step was actually heard outside, her mind veered in an instant. She had made him come; he would think she had disgraced him; he had probably noticed nothing, for a certain absent-mindedness in society had grown upon him of late years. No, she would hold her peace.
So when David, stepping softly and shading his candle, came in, and called "Lucy" under his breath to see whether she might be awake, Lucy pretended to be sound asleep. He waited a minute, and then went out to change his coat and go down to the smoking-room.
Poor little Lucy! As she lay there in the dark, the tears dropping slowly on her embroidered pillow, the issue of all her mortification was a new and troubled consciousness about her husband. Why this difference between them? How was it that he commanded from all who knew him either a warm sympathy or an involuntary respect, while she--
She had gathered from some sc.r.a.ps of the talk round him which had reached her that it was just those sides of his life--those quixotic ideal sides--which were an offence and annoyance to her that touched other people"s imagination, opened their hearts. And she had worried and teased him all these years! Not since the beginning. For, looking back, she could well remember the days when it was still an intoxication that he should have married her, when she was at once in awe of him and foolishly, proudly, happy. But there had come a year when David"s profits from his business had amounted to over 2, 000 pounds, and when, thanks to a large loan pressed upon him by his Unitarian landlord, Mr. Doyle, he had taken the new premises in Prince"s Street. And from that moment Lucy"s horizon had changed, her ambitions had hardened and narrowed; she had begun to be impatient with her husband, first, that he could not make her rich faster, then, after their Tantalus gleam of wealth, that he would put mysterious and provoking obstacles in the way of their getting rich at all.
She meant to keep awake--to wait for him. But she began to think of Sandy. _He_ would be glad to see his "mummy" again! In fancy she pressed his cheek against her own burning one. He and David were still alive--still hers--it was all right somehow. Consolation began to steal upon her, and in ten minutes she was asleep.
CHAPTER IV
When David came in later, he took advantage of Lucy"s sleep to sit up awhile in his own room. He was excited, and any strong impression, in the practical loneliness of his deepest life, always now produced the impulse to write.
"_Midnight_.--Lucy is asleep. I hope she has been happy and they have been kind to her. I saw Mrs. Wellesdon talking to her after dinner. She must have liked that. But _at_ dinner she seemed to be sitting silent a good deal.
"What a strange spectacle is this country-house life to anyone bringing to it a fresh and unaccustomed eye! "After all," said Mrs.
Wellesdon, "you must admit that the best of anything is worth keeping. And in these country-houses, with all their drawbacks, you do from time to time get the best of social intercourse, a phase of social life as gay, complex, and highly finished as it can possibly be made."
"Certainly this applies to me to-night. When have I enjoyed any social pleasure so much as my talk with her at dinner? When have I been conscious of such stimulus, such exhilaration, as the evening"s discussion produced in me? In the one case, Mrs.
Wellesdon taught me what general conversation might be how nimble, delicate, and pleasure-giving; in the other, there was the joy of the intellectual wrestle, mingled with a glad respect for one"s opponents. Perhaps nowhere, except on some such ground and in some such circ.u.mstances as these, could a debate so earnest have taken quite so wholesome a tone, so wide a range. We were equals--debaters, not controversialists--friends, not rivals--in the quest for truth.
"Yet what drawbacks! This army of servants--which might be an army of slaves without a single manly right, so mute, impa.s.sive, and highly trained it is--the breeding of a tyrannous temper in the men, of a certain contempt for facts and actuality even in the best of the women. Mrs. Wellesdon poured out her social aspirations to me. How naive and fanciful they were! They do her credit, but they will hardly do anyone else much good. And it is evident that they mark her out in her own circle, that they have brought her easily admiration and respect, so that she has never been led to test them, as any one, with the same social interest, living closer to the average realities and griefs of life, must have been led to test them.
"The culture, too, of these aristocratic women, when they are cultured, is so curious. Quite unconsciously and innocently it takes itself for much more than it is, merely by contrast with the _milieu_--the _milieu_ of material luxury and complication--in which it moves.
"But I am ungrateful. What a social power in the best sense such a woman might become--a woman so sensitively endowed, so n.o.bly planned!"
David dropped his pen awhile. In the silence of the great house, a silence broken only by the breathings of a rainy autumn wind through the trees outside, his thought took that picture-making intensity which was its peculiar gift. Images of what had been in his own life, and what might have been--the dream of pa.s.sion which had so deeply marked and modified his manhood--Elise, seen in the clearer light of his richer experience--his married years--the place of the woman in the common life--on these his mind brooded, one by one, till gradually the solemn consciousness of opportunities for ever missed, of failure, of limitation, evoked another, as solemn, but sweeter and more touching, of human lives irrevocably dependent on his, of the pathetic unalterable claim of marriage, the poverty and hopelessness of all self-seeking, the essential wealth, rich and making rich, of all self-spending. As he thought of his wife and son a deep tenderness flooded the man"s whole nature. With a long sigh, it was as though he took them both in his arms, adjusting his strength patiently and gladly to the familiar weight.
Then, by a natural reaction, feeling, to escape itself, pa.s.sed into speculative reminiscence and meditation of a wholly different kind.
"Our discussion to-night arose from an attack--if anyone so gentle can be said to attack--made upon me by Canon Aylwin, on the subject of those "Tracts on the New Testament"--tracts of mine, of which we have published three, while I have two or three more half done in my writing-table drawer. He said, with a certain nervous decision, that he did not wish to discuss the main question, but he would like to ask me, Could anyone be so sure of supposed critical and historical fact as to be clear that he was right in proclaiming it, when the proclamation of it meant the inevitable disturbance in his fellow-men of conceptions whereon their moral life depended? It was certain that he could destroy; it was most uncertain, even to himself, whether he could do anything else, with the best intentions; and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, ought not the certainty of doing a moral mischief to outweigh, with any just and kindly mind, the much feebler and less solid certainty he may imagine himself to have attained with regard to certain matters of history and criticism?
"It was the old question of the rights of "heresy," the function of the individual in the long history of thought. We fell into sides: Lord Driffield and I against the Dean and Canon Aylwin. The Dean did not, indeed, contribute much. He sat with his square powerful head bent forward, throwing in a shrewd comment here and there, mainly on the logical course of the argument. But when we came to the main question, as we inevitably did, he withdrew altogether, though he listened.