A Country Gentleman and his Family Part 40

CHAPTER XLVI.

Mrs. Warrender and her daughter came home in the early summer, having lingered longer than they intended in the South. They had lingered for one thing, because a long and strange interruption had occurred in the letters from America. d.i.c.k had made them aware of his arrival there, and of the beginning of his necessary business, into the details of which naturally he did not enter. He had told them of his long journey, which was not then so rapid as now, but meant long travelling in primitive ways by waggons and on horseback, and also that he had found greater delays and more trouble than he expected. In the spring he was still lingering, investigating matters which he did not explain, but which he said might very likely facilitate what he had to do and make the conclusion more fortunate than he had antic.i.p.ated. And then there came a pause. They waited, expecting the usual communication, but it did not come; they waited longer, thinking it might have been delayed by accident, and finally returned home with hearts heavier than those with which they went away. Theo came to meet them at the station, when they arrived in London. He was there with his wife in the beginning of the season. Mrs. Warrender's anxious looks, withdrawn for the moment from Chatty, fell with little more satisfaction upon her son. He was pale and thin, with that fretted look as of constant irritation which is almost more painful to look at than the indications of sorrow. He put aside with a little impatience her inquiries about himself. "I am well enough,--what should be the matter with me? I never was an invalid that I know of."

"You are not looking well, Theo. You are very thin. London does not agree with you, I fear, and the late nights."

"I am a delicate plant to be incapable of late nights," he said, with a harsh laugh.

"And how is Frances? I hope she does not do too much: and----"

"Come, mother, spare me the catalogue. Lady Markland is quite well, and my Lord Markland, for I suppose it was he who was meant by your and----"

"Geoff, poor little fellow! he is at school, I suppose."

"Not a bit of it," said Warrender, with an ugly smile. "He is delicate, you know. He has had measles or something, and has come home to his mother to be nursed. There's a little too much of Geoff, mother; let us be free of him here, at least. You are going to your old rooms?"

"Yes. I thought it might be a little painful: but Chatty made no objection. She said indeed she would like it."

"Is she dwelling on that matter still?"

"Still, Theo! I don't suppose she will ever cease to dwell on it till it comes all right."

"Which is very unlikely, mother. I don't give my opinion on the subject of divorce. It's an ugly thing, however you take it; but a man who goes to seek a divorce avowedly, with the intention of marrying again---- That is generally the motive, I believe, at the bottom, but few are so bold as to put it frankly on evidence."

"Theo! you forget d.i.c.k's position, which is so very peculiar. Could any one blame him? What could he do otherwise? I hope I am not lax--and I hate the very name of divorce as much as any one can: but what could he do?"

"He could put up with it, I suppose, as other men have had to do--and be thankful it is no worse."

"You are hard, Theo. I am sure it is not Frances that has taught you to be so hard. Do you think that Chatty's life destroyed, as well as his own, is so little? and no laws human or divine could bind him to--I don't think I am lax," Mrs. Warrender cried, with the poignant consciousness of a woman who has always known herself to be even superst.i.tiously bound to every cause of modesty, and who finds herself suddenly a.s.sailed as a champion of the immoral. Her middle-aged countenance flushed with annoyance and shame.

"No, I don't suppose you are lax," said Theo: but the lines in his careworn forehead did not melt, and Chatty, who had been directing the maid about the luggage, now came forward and stopped the conversation.

Warrender put his mother and sister into a cab, and promised to "come round" and see them in the evening. After he had shut the door, he came back and asked suddenly: "By the way, I suppose you have the last news of Cavendish. How is he?"

"We have no news. Why do you ask? is he ill?"

"Oh, you don't know then?" said Warrender. "I was wondering. He is down with fever, but getting better, I believe, getting better," he added hurriedly, as Chatty uttered a tremulous cry. "They wrote to his people.

We were wondering whether you might not have heard."

"And no one thought it worth while to let us know!"

"Lady Horton thought if you did not know it was better to say nothing: and that if you did it was unnecessary--besides, they are like me, they think it is monstrous that a man should go off with an avowed intention--they think in any case it is better to drop it altogether."

"Theo," said Chatty, in her soft voice, "can we hear exactly how he is?"

"He is better, he is going on well, he will get all right. But if you should see Lady Horton----"

Lady Horton was d.i.c.k's elder and married sister, she who had stood by him on the day that was to have been his wedding-day.

"I think we had better drive on now," Chatty said. And when Theo's somewhat astonished face had disappeared from the window, and they were rattling along over the stones, she suddenly said, "Do you think it should have been--dropped altogether? Why should it be dropped altogether? I seem to be a little bewildered--I don't --understand. Oh, mamma, I had a presentiment that he was ill--ill and alone, and so far away."

"He is getting better, dear; he would think it best not to write to make us anxious; probably he has been waiting on day by day. I will go to Lady Horton to-morrow."

"And Lady Horton thinks it should be dropped altogether," said Chatty, in a musing reflective tone. "She thinks it is monstrous--what is monstrous? I don't--seem to understand."

"Let us not think of it till we get home, till we have a little calm and--time."

"As if one could stop thinking till there is time!" said Chatty, with a faint smile. "But I feel that this is a new light. I must think. What must be dropped? Am not I married to him, mother?"

"Oh, my darling, if it had not been for that woman----"

"But that woman--my thoughts are all very confused. I don't understand it: perhaps he is not married to me--but I have always considered that I---- The first thing, however, is his health, mother. We must see at once about that."

"Yes, dear; but there is nothing alarming in it, from what Theo says."

The rest of the drive was in silence. They rattled along the London streets in all the brightness of the May evening, meeting people in carriages going out to dinner, and the steady stream of pa.s.sengers on foot, coming from the parks, coming from the hundred amus.e.m.e.nts of the new season. Chatty saw them all without seeing them; her mind was taken up by a new strain of thought. She had taken it for granted that all was natural, that d.i.c.k was doing the thing that it was right to do: and now she suddenly found herself in an atmosphere of uncertainty to which she was unaccustomed, and in which, for the moment, all her faculties seemed paralysed. Was it monstrous? Ought it to have been dropped? She was so much bewildered that she could not tell what to say.

Theo and his wife both "came round" in the evening; she with a fragile look as of impaired health, and an air of watching anxiety which it was painful to see. She seemed to have one eye upon Theo always, whatever she was doing, to see that he was pleased, or at least not displeased.

It had been her idea to go to Lady Horton's on the way and bring the last news of d.i.c.k. Much better, going on quite well, will soon be allowed to communicate with his friends, was the bulletin which Lady Markland took Chatty aside to give.

"He has not been able to write himself all the time. The people who have taken care of him--rough people, but very kind, from all that can be presumed--found his father's address, and sent him word. Otherwise for six or seven weeks there has been nothing from himself."

This gave Chatty a little consolation. "Theo says--it is all wrong, that it ought to be dropped," she said.

"Theo has become severe in his judgments, Chatty."

"Has he? he was always a little severe. He got angry"--Chatty did not observe the look of recognition in Lady Markland's face, as of a fact _connu_. She went on slowly: "I wish that you would give me your opinion.

I thought for a long time I was the first person to be thought of, and that d.i.c.k must do everything that could be done to set us right. But now it seems that is not the right view. Mamma hesitates,--she will not speak. Oh, will you tell me what you think----!"

"About," said Lady Markland, faltering, "the divorce?"

"I don't seem to know what it means; that poor creature--do people think she is--anything to him?"

"She is his wife, my dear."

"His--wife! But then I--am married to him."

"Dear Chatty, not except in form, a form which her appearance broke at once."

Chatty began to tremble, as if with cold. "I shall always feel that I am married to him. He may not be bound, but I am bound--till death do ye part."

"My dear, all that was made as if it never had been said by the appearance of the--wife."

Chatty s.h.i.+vered again, though the evening was warm. "That cannot be,"

she cried. "He may not be bound, but I am bound. I promised. It is an oath before G.o.d."

"Oh, Chatty, it was all, all made an end of when that woman appeared.

You are not bound, you are free; and I hope, dear, when a little time has pa.s.sed----"