Lady Barbarina Part 10

"I'm going now-she may tell you whatever she likes."

"I'm afraid we've displeased you," she went on; "I've said too much what I think. You must pardon me-it's all for your mother."

"It's she whom I want Lady Barb to see!" Jackson exclaimed with the inconsequence of filial affection.

"Deary me!" Mrs. Freer gently wailed.

"We shall go back to America to see how you get on," her husband said; "and if you succeed it will be a great precedent."

"Oh I shall succeed!" And with this he took his departure. He walked away with the quick step of a man labouring under a certain excitement; walked up to Piccadilly and down past Hyde Park Corner. It relieved him to measure these distances, for he was thinking hard, under the influence of irritation, and it was as if his movement phrased his pa.s.sion.

Certain lights flashed on him in the last half-hour turned to fire in him; the more that they had a representative value and were an echo of the common voice. If his prospects wore that face to Mrs. Freer they would probably wear it to others; so he felt a strong sharp need to show such others that they took a mean measure of his position. He walked and walked till he found himself on the highway of Hammersmith. I have represented him as a young man with a stiff back, and I may appear to undermine this plea when I note that he wrote that evening to his solicitor that Mr. Hardman was to be informed he would agree to any proposals for settlements that this worthy should make. Jackson's stiff back was shown in his deciding to marry Lady Barbarina on any terms. It had come over him through the action of this desire to prove he wasn't afraid-so odious was the imputation-that terms of any kind were very superficial things. What was fundamental and of the essence of the matter would be to secure the grand girl and _then_ carry everything out.

V

"On Sundays now you might be at home," he said to his wife in the following month of March-more than six months after his marriage.

"Are the people any nicer on Sundays than they are on other days?" Lady Barb asked from the depths of her chair and without looking up from a stiff little book.

He waited ever so briefly before answering. "I don't know whether they are, but I think you might be."

"I'm as nice as I know how to be. You must take me as I am. You knew when you married me that I wasn't American."

Jackson stood before the fire toward which his wife's face was turned and her feet extended; stood there some time with his hands behind him and his eyes dropped a little obliquely on Lady Barb's bent head and richly-draped figure. It may be said without delay that he was sore of soul, and it may be added that he had a double cause. He knew himself on the verge of the first crisis that had occurred between himself and his wife-the reader will note that it had occurred rather promptly-and he was annoyed at his annoyance. A glimpse of his state of mind before his marriage has been given the reader, who will remember that at that period our young man had believed himself lifted above possibilities of irritation. When one was strong one wasn't fidgety, and a union with a species of calm G.o.ddess would of course be a source of repose. Lady Barb was a calm, was an even calmer G.o.ddess still, and he had a much more intimate view of her divinity than on the day he had led her to the altar; but I'm not sure he felt either as firm or as easy.

"How do you know what people are?" he said in a moment. "You've seen so few; you're perpetually denying yourself. If you should leave New York to-morrow you'd know wonderfully little about it."

"It's all just the same," she pleaded. "The people are all exactly alike. There's only one sort."

"How can you tell? You never see them."

"Didn't I go out every night for the first two months we were here?"

"It was only to about a dozen houses-those, I agree, always the same; people, moreover, you had already met in London. You've got no general impressions."

She raised her beautiful blank face. "That's just what I _have_ got; I had them before I came. I see no difference whatever. They've just the same names-just the same manners."

Again for an instant Jackson hung fire; then he said with that practised flat candour of which mention has already been made and which he sometimes used in London during his courts.h.i.+p: "Don't you like it over here?"

Lady Barb had returned to her book, but she looked up again. "Did you expect me to like it?"

"I hoped you would, of course. I think I told you so."

"I don't remember. You said very little about it; you seemed to make a kind of mystery. I knew of course you expected me to live here, but I didn't know you expected me to like it."

"You thought I asked of you the sacrifice, as it were."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Lady Barb. She got up from her chair and tossed her unconsolatory volume into the empty seat. "I recommend you to read that book," she added.

"Is it interesting?"

"It's an American novel."

"I never read novels."

"You had really better look at that one. It will show you the kind of people you want me to know."

"I've no doubt it's very vulgar," Jackson said. "I don't see why you read it."

"What else can I do? I can't always be riding in the Park. I hate the Park," she quite rang out.

"It's just as good as your own," said her husband.

She glanced at him with a certain quickness, her eyebrows slightly lifted. "Do you mean the park at Pasterns?"

"No; I mean the park in London."

"Oh I don't care about London. One was only in London a few weeks." She had a horrible lovely ease.

Yet he but wanted to help her to turn round. "I suppose you miss the country," he suggested. It was his idea of life that he shouldn't be afraid of anything, not be afraid, in any situation, of knowing the worst that was to be known about it; and the demon of a courage with which discretion was not properly commingled prompted him to take soundings that were perhaps not absolutely necessary for safety and yet that revealed unmistakable rocks. It was useless to know about rocks if he couldn't avoid them; the only thing was to trust to the wind.

"I don't know what I miss. I think I miss everything!" This was his wife's answer to his too-curious inquiry. It wasn't peevish, for that wasn't the tone of a calm G.o.ddess; but it expressed a good deal-a good deal more than Lady Barb, who was rarely eloquent, had expressed before.

Nevertheless, though his question had been precipitate, Jackson said to himself that he might take his time to think over what her fewness of words enclosed; he couldn't help seeing that the future would give him plenty of chance. He was in no hurry to ask himself whether poor Mrs.

Freer, in Jermyn Street, mightn't after all have been right in saying that when it came to marrying an English caste-product it wasn't so simple to be an American doctor-it might avail little even in such a case to be the heir of all the ages. The transition was complicated, but in his bright mind it was rapid, from the brush of a momentary contact with such ideas to certain considerations which led him to go on after an instant: "Should you like to go down into Connecticut?"

"Into Connecticut?"

"That's one of our States. It's about as large as Ireland. I'll take you there if you like."

"What does one do there?"

"We can try and get some hunting."

"You and I alone?"

"Perhaps we can get a party to join us."

"The people in the State?"

"Yes-we might propose it to them."

"The tradespeople in the towns?"

"Very true-they'll have to mind their shops," Jackson said. "But we might hunt alone."

"Are there any foxes?"