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The Marriage of Elinor
"What can I do?" he said. "They've planted themselves by the fire, and there they mean to stay. 'Oh, very well, we'll wait,' they said, quite calm. And I make no doubt they will, having nothing else to do, till all is blue."
Mr. Simmons had a gift of expression of which all his friends were flatteringly sensible, and he was very friendly and condescending to John, of whom he had taken care for many years.
"What is to be done?" said Mr. Tatham. "Can't you do anything to get them away?"
Simmons shook his head. "There's two of them," he said, "and they entertain each other, and they think it's fun to jabber like that in a lawyer's office. The young one says, 'What a queer place!' and the other, she holds forth about other times when she's been here."
"Oh, she's been here other times – Do you know her, Simmons?"
"Not from Adam, Mr. Tatham – or, I should say, from Eve, as she's a lady. But a real lady I should say, though she don't behave herself as such – one of the impudent ones. They are never impudent like that," said Mr. Simmons, with profound observation, "unless they are real high or – real low."
"Hum!" said John, hesitating. And then he added, "There is a young one, you say?"
But I do not myself think, though the light-minded may imagine it to be so, that it was because there was a young one that John gave in. It was because he could do nothing else, the noise and chatter of the voices being entirely destructive of that undisturbed state of the atmosphere in which work can be done. It was not merely the sounds but the vibration they made in the air, breaking all its harmony and concentration. He tried a little longer, but was unsuccessful, and finally in despair he said to Simmons, "You had better show them in, and let me get done with them," in an angry tone.
"Oh, he will see us after all," said the high-pitched voice. "So good of Mr. Tatham; but of course I should have waited all the same. Dolly, take Toto; I can't possibly get up while I have him on my knee. You can tell Mr. Tatham I did not send in my name to disturb him, which makes it all the more charitable of him to receive me; but, dear me, of course I can tell him that himself as he consents to see us. Dolly, don't strangle my poor darling! I never saw a girl that didn't know how to take up a dear dog before."
"He's only a snappish little demon, and you spoil him so," said the other voice. This was attended by the sound of movement as if the party were getting under weigh.
"My poor darling pet, it is only her jealousy: is that the way? Yes, to be sure it is the next room. Now, Dolly, remember this is where all the poor people are ruined and done for. Leave hope behind all ye who enter here." A little shriek of laughter ended this speech. And John, looking up, taking off his spectacles, and raising a little the shade of the lamp, saw in the doorway Lady Mariamne, altered as was inevitable by the strain and stress of nearly twenty years.
CHAPTER XXXIV
I do not mean to assert that John Tatham had not seen Lady Mariamne during these twenty years, or that her changed appearance burst upon him with anything like a shock. In society, when you are once a member of that little world within a world, everybody sees everybody else from time to time. He had not recognised her voice, for he was not in the smallest degree thinking of Lady Mariamne or of any member of her family, notwithstanding that they now and then did make a very marked appearance in his mind in respect of the important question of that connection which Elinor in her foolishness tried to ignore. And John was not at all shocked by the progress of that twenty years, as reflected in the appearance of this lady, who was about his own standing, a woman very near fifty, but who had fought strenuously against every sign of her age, as some women foolishly do. The result was in Lady Mariamne's case, as in many others, that the number of her years looked more like a hundred and fifty than their natural limit. A woman of her class has but two alternatives as she gets old. She must get stout, in which case, though she becomes unwieldy, she preserves something of her bloom; or she may grow thin, and become a spectre upon which art has to do so much that nature, flouted and tortured, becomes vindictive, and withdraws every modifying quality. Lady Mariamne had, I fear, false hair, false teeth, false complexion, everything that invention could do in a poor little human countenance intended for no such manipulation. The consequence was that every natural advantage (and there are some which age confers, as well as many that age takes away) was lost. The skin was parchment, the eyes were like eyes of fishes, the teeth – too white and too perfect – looked like the horrible things in the dentists' windows, which was precisely what they were. On such a woman, the very height of the fashion, to which she so often attaches herself with desperation, has an antiquated air. Everything "swears," as the French say, with everything else. The softness, the whiteness, the ease, the self-abnegation of advancing age are all so many ornaments if people but knew. But Lady Mariamne had none of these. She wore a warm cloak in her carriage, it is true, but that had dropped from her shoulders, leaving her in all the bound-up rigidity in which youth is trim and slim and elastic, as becomes it. It is true that many a woman of fifty is, as John Tatham was, serenely dwelling on that tableland which shows but little difference between thirty-five, the crown of life, and fifty-five; but Lady Mariamne was not one of these. She had gone "too fast," she would herself have allowed; "the pace" had been too much for such survivals. She was of the awful order of superannuated beauties of which Mr. Rider Haggard would in vain persuade us "She" was not one. I am myself convinced that "She's" thousands of years were all written on her fictitious complexion, and that other people saw them clearly if not her unfortunate lover. And Lady Mariamne had come to be of the order of "She." By dint of wiping out the traces of her fifty years, she had made herself look as if she might have been a thousand, and in this guise she appeared to the robust, ruddy, well-preserved man of her own age, as she stood, with a fantastic little giggle, calling his attention, on the threshold of his door.
Behind Lady Mariamne was a very different figure – that of the serious and independent girl without any illusions, who is in so many cases the child of such a mother, and who is in revolt so complete from all that mother's traditions, so highly set on the crown of every opposite principle, that nature vindicates itself by the possibility that she may at any moment topple over and become again what her mother was. He would have been a bold man, however, who in the present stage would have prophesied any such fate for Dolly Prestwich, who between working at Whitechapel, attending on a ward in St. Thomas's, drawing three days a week in the Slade School, and other labours of equally varied descriptions, had her time very fully taken up, and only on special occasions had time to accompany her mother. She had been beguiled on this occasion by the family history which was concerned, and which, fin de siècle as Dolly was, excited her curiosity almost as much as if she had been born in the "forties." Dolly was never unkind, sometimes indeed was quite the reverse, to her mother. When Mr. Tatham, with a man's brutal unconsciousness of what is desirable, placed a chair for Lady Mariamne in front of the fire, Dolly twisted it round with a dexterous movement so as to shield the countenance which was not adapted for any such illumination. For herself, Dolly cared nothing, whether it was the noonday sun or the blaze of a furnace that shone upon her; she defied them both to make her wink. As for complexion, she scorned that old-fashioned vanity. She had not very much, it is true. Having been scorched red and brown in Alpine expeditions in the autumn, she was now of a somewhat dry whitish-greyish hue, the result of much loss of cuticle and constant encounter with London fogs and smoke. She carried Toto – who was a shrinking, chilly Italian greyhound – in a coat, carelessly under one arm, and sat down beside her mother, studying the papers on John's table with exceedingly curious eyes. She would have liked to go over all his notes about his case, and form her own opinion on it – which she would have done, we may be sure, much more rapidly, and with more decision, than Mr. Tatham could do.
"So here I am again, you will say," said Lady Mariamne. She had taken off her gloves, and was smoothing her hands, from the points of the fingers downwards, not, I believe, with any intention of demonstrating their whiteness, but solely because she had once done so, and the habit remained. She wore several fine rings, and her hands were still pretty, and – unlike the rest of her – younger than her age. They made a little show with their sparkling diamonds, just catching the edge of the light from John's shaded lamp. Her face by Dolly's help was in the shadow of the green shade. "You will say so, Mr. Tatham, I know: here she is again – without thinking how self-denying I have been, never to come, never to ask a single question, for all these years."
"The loss is mine, Lady Mariamne," said John, gravely.
"It's very pretty of you to say that, isn't it, Dolly? One's old flirts don't always show up so well." And here the lady gave a laugh, such as had once been supposed to be one of Lady Mariamne's charms, but which was rather like a giggle now – an antiquated giggle, which is much less satisfactory than the genuine article. "How I used to worry you about poor Phil, and that little spitfire of a Nell – and what a mess they have made of it! I suppose you know what changes have happened in the family, Mr. Tatham, since those days?"
"I heard indeed, with regret, Lady Mariamne, that you had lost a brother – "
"A brother! two!" she cried. "Isn't it extraordinary – poor Hal, that was the picture of health? How little one knows! He just went, don't you know, without any one ever thinking he would go. Regg in India was different – you expect that sort of thing when a man is in India. But poor Hal! I told you Mr. Tatham wouldn't have heard of it, Dolly, not being in our own set, don't you know."
"It was in all the papers," said Miss Dolly.
"Ah, well, you didn't notice it, I suppose: or perhaps you were away. I always say it is of no use being married or dying or anything else in September – your friends never hear of it. You will wonder that I am not in black, but black was always very unbecoming to me, and dark grey is just as good, and doesn't make one quite so ghastly. But the funny thing is that now Phil – who looked as if he never could be in the running, don't you know – is heir presumptive. Isn't it extraordinary? Two gone, and Phil, that lived much faster than either of them, and at one time kept up an awful pace, has seen them both out. And St. Serf has never married. He won't now, though I have been at him on the subject for years. He says, not if he knows it, in the horrid way men have. And I don't wonder much, for he has had some nasty experiences, poor fellow. There was Lady – Oh, I almost forgot you were there, Dolly."
"You needn't mind me," said Dolly, gravely; "I've heard just as bad."
"Well," said Lady Mariamne, with a giggle, "did you ever know anything like those girls? They are not afraid of anything. Now, when I was a girl – don't you remember what an innocent dear I was, Mr. Tatham? – like a lamb; never suspecting that there was any naughtiness in the world – "
John endeavoured to put on a smile, in feeble sympathy with the uproariousness of Lady Mariamne's laugh – but her daughter took no such trouble. She sat as grave as a young judge, never moving a muscle. The dog, however, held in her arms, and not at all comfortable, then making prodigious efforts to struggle on to its mistress's more commodious lap, burst out into a responsive bark, as shrill and not much unlike.
"Darling Toto," said Lady Mariamne, "come! – it always knows what it's mummy means. Did you ever see such a darling little head, Mr. Tatham? – and the faithful pet always laughs when I laugh. What was I talking of? – St. Serf and his ladies. Well, it is not much wonder, you know, is it? for he has always been a sort of an invalid, and he will never marry now – and poor Hal being gone there's only Phil. Phil's been going a pace, Mr. Tatham; but he has had a bad illness, too, and the other boys going has sobered him a bit; and I do believe, now, that he'll probably mend. And there he is, you know, tied to a – Oh, of course, she is as right as a – as right as a – trivet, whatever that may be. Those sort of heartless people always are: and then there's the child. Is it living, Mr. Tatham? – that's what I want to know."
"Philip is alive and well, Lady Mariamne, if that is what you want to know."
"Philip! – she called him after Phil, after all! Well, that is something wonderful. I expected to hear he was John, or Jonathan, or something. Now, where is he?" said Lady Mariamne, with the most insinuating air.
John burst into a short laugh. "I don't suppose you expect me to tell you," he said.
"Why not? – you can't hide a boy that is heir to a peerage, Mr. Tatham! – it is impossible. Nell has done the best she could in that way. They know nothing about her in that awful place she was married from – of course you remember it – a dreadful place, enough to make one commit suicide, don't you know. The Cottage, or whatever they call it, is let, and nobody knows anything about them. I took the trouble to go there, I assure you, on my own hook, to see if I could find out something. Toto nearly died of it, didn't you, darling? Not a drop of cream to be had for him, the poor angel; only a little nasty skim milk. But Mr. Tatham has the barbarity to smile," she went on, with a shrill outcry. "Fancy, Toto – the cruelty to smile!"
"No cream for the angel, and no information for his mistress," said John.
"You horrid, cruel, cold-blooded man! – and you sit there at your ease, and will do nothing for us – "
"Should you like me," said John, "to send out for cream for your dog, Lady Mariamne?"
"Cream in the Temple?" said the lady. "What sort of a compound would it be, Dolly? All plaster of Paris, or stuff of that sort. Perhaps you have tea sometimes in these parts – "
"Very seldom," said John; "but it might be obtainable if you would like it." He put forward his hand, but not with much alacrity, to the bell.
"Mother never takes any tea," said Miss Dolly, hastily; "she only crumbles down cake into it for that little brute."
"It is you who are a little brute, you unnatural child. Toto likes his tea very much – he is dying for it. But you must have patience, my pet, for probably it would be very bad, and the cream all stucco, or something. Mr. Tatham, do tell us what has become of Nell? Now, have you hidden her somewhere in London, St. John's Wood, and that sort of thing, don't you know? or where is she? Is the old woman living? and how has that boy been brought up? At a dame's school, or something of that sort, I suppose."
"Mother," said Dolly, "you ought to know there are now no dame's schools. There's Board Schools, which is what you mean, I suppose; and it would be very good for him if he had been there. They would teach him a great deal more than was ever taught to Uncle Phil."
"Teach him!" said Lady Mariamne, with another shriek. "Did I ask anything about teaching? Heaven forbid! Mr. Tatham knows what I mean, Dolly. Has he been at any decent place – or has he been where it will never be heard of? Eton and Harrow one knows, and the dame's schools one knows, but horrible Board Schools, or things, where they might say young Lord Lomond was brought up – oh, goodness gracious! One has to bear a great many things, but I could not bear that."
"It does not matter much, does it, so long as he does not come within the range of his nearest relations?" This was from John, who was almost at the end of his patience. He began to put his papers back in a portfolio, with the intention of carrying them home with him, for his hour's work had been spoilt as well as his temper. "I am afraid," he added, "that I cannot give you any information, Lady Mariamne."
"Oh, such nonsense, Mr. Tatham! – as if the heir to a peerage could be hid."
It was not often that Lady Mariamne produced an unanswerable effect, but against this last sentence of hers John had absolutely nothing to say. He stared at her for a moment, and then he returned to his papers, shovelling them into the portfolio with vehemence. Fortunately, she did not herself see how potent was her argument. She went on diluting it till it lost all its power.
"There is the 'Peerage,' if it was nothing else – they must have the right particulars for that. Why, Dolly is at full length in it, her age and all, poor child; and Toto, too, for anything I know. Is du in the 'Peerage,' dear Toto, darling? And yet Toto can't succeed, nor Dolly either. And this year Phil will be in as heir presumptive and his marriage and all – and then a blank line. It's ridiculous, it's horrible, it's a thing that can't, can't be! Only think of all the troops of people, nice people, the best people, that read the 'Peerage,' Mr. Tatham! – and that know Phil is married, and that there is a child, and yet will see nothing but that blank line. Nell was always a little fool, and never could see things in a common-sense way. But a man ought to know better – and a lawyer, with chambers in the Temple! Why, people come and consult you on such matters – I might be coming to ask you to send out detectives, and that sort of thing. How do you dare to hide away that boy?"
Lady Mariamne stamped her foot at John, but this proceeding very much incommoded Toto, who, disturbed in his position on her knee, got upon his feet and began to bark furiously, first at his mistress and then, following her impulse, at the gentleman opposite to her, backing against the lady's shoulder and setting up his little nose furiously with vibrations of rage against John, while stumbling upon the uncertain footing of the lap, volcanically shaken by the movement. The result of this onslaught was to send Lady Mariamne into shrieks of laughter, in the midst of which she half smothered Toto with mingled endearments and attempts at restraint, until Dolly, coming to the rescue, seized him summarily and snatched him away.
"The darling!" cried Lady Mariamne, "he sees it, and you can't see it, a great big lawyer though you are. Dolly, don't throttle my angel child. Stands up for his family, don't he, the dear? Mr. Tatham, how can you be so bigoted and stubborn, when our dear little Toto – But you always were the most obstinate man. Do you remember once, when I wanted to take you to Lady Dogberry's dance – wasn't it Lady Dogberry's? – well, it was Lady Somebody's – and you said you were not asked, and I said, what did it matter: but to make you go, and Nell was with me – we might as well have tried to make St. Paul's go – "
"My dear Lady Mariamne," said John.
She held up a finger at him with the engaging playfulness of old. "How can I be your dear Lady Mariamne, Mr. Tatham, when you won't do a thing I ask you? What, Dolly? Yes, we must go, of course, or I shall not have my nap before dinner. I always have a nap before dinner, for the sake of my complexion, don't you know – my beauty nap, they call it. Now, Mr. Tatham, come to me to-morrow, and you shall give Toto his cream, to show you bear no malice, and tell me all about the boy. Don't be an obstinate pig, Mr. Tatham. Now, I shall look for you – without fail. Shan't we look for him, Dolly? – and Toto will give you a paw and forgive you – and you must tell me all about the boy."
CHAPTER XXXV
To tell her all about the boy!
John Tatham shovelled his papers into his portfolio, and shut it up with a snap of embarrassment, a sort of confession of weakness. He pushed back his chair with the same sharpness, almost making a noise upon the old Turkey carpet, and he touched his bell so that it sounded with a shrill electric ping, almost like a pistol-shot. Simmons understood all these signs, and he was very sympathetic when he came in to take Mr. Tatham's last orders and help him on with his coat.
"Spoilt your evening's work," said Simmons, compassionately. "I knew they would. Ladies never should enter a gentleman's chambers if I could help it. They've got nothing to do in the Temple."
"You forget some men in the Temple are married, Simmons."
"What does that matter?" said the clerk; "let 'em see their wives at home, sir. What I will maintain is that ladies have no business here."
This was a little ungrateful, it must be said, for Simmons probably got off three-quarters of an hour earlier than he would have done had Mr. Tatham remained undisturbed. As it was, John had some ten minutes to wait before his habitual hansom drew up at the door.
It was not the first time by many times that Mr. Tatham had considered the question which he now took with him into his hansom, and which occupied him more or less all the way to Halkin Street. Lady Mariamne, however, had put it very neatly and very conclusively when she said that you can't hide the heir to a peerage – more concisely at least than John had himself put it in his many thoughts on the subject – for, to tell the truth, John had never considered the boy in this aspect. That he should ever be the heir to a peerage had seemed one of those possibilities which so outrage nature, and are so very like fiction, that the sober mind rejects them with almost a fling of impatience. And yet how often they come true! He had never heard – a fact of which he felt partly ashamed, for it was an event of too much importance to be ignored by any one connected with Elinor – of Hal Compton's death. John was not acquainted with Hal Compton any more than he was with other men who come and go in society, occasionally seen, but open to no particular remark. A son of Lord St. Serf – the best of the lot – a Compton with very little against him: these were things which he had heard said and had taken little notice of. Hal was healthier, less objectionable, a better life than Phil's, and yet Hal was gone, who ought by all rights to have succeeded his invalid brother. It was true that the invalid brother, who had seen the end of two vigorous men, might also see out Phil. But that would make little difference in the position, unless indeed by modifying Elinor's feelings and removing her reluctance to make her boy known. John shook his head as he went on with his thoughts, and decided within himself that this was the very reason why Phil Compton should survive and become Lord St. Serf, and make the imbroglio worse, if worse were possible. It had not required this to make it a hideous imbroglio, the most foolish and wanton that ever a woman made. He wondered at himself when he thought of it how he had ever consented to it, ever permitted such a state of affairs; and yet what could he have done? He had no right to interfere even in the way of advice, which he had given until everybody was sick of him and his counsels. He could not have betrayed his cousin. To tell her that she was conducting her affairs very foolishly, laying up untold troubles for herself, was what he had done freely, going to the very edge of a breach. And he had no right to do any more. He could not force her to adopt his method, neither could he betray her when she took her own way. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that John felt himself almost an accomplice, involved in this unwise folly, with a sort of responsibility for it, and almost guilt. It did not indeed change young Philip's moral position in any way, or make the discovery that he had a father living more likely to shock and bewilder him that this discovery should come mingled with many extraneous wonders. And yet these facts did alter the circumstances. "You cannot hide the heir to a peerage." Lady Mariamne was far, very far, from being a philosopher or a person of genius, and yet this which she had said was in reality quite unanswerable. Phil Compton might have been ignored for ever by his wife and child had he remained only the dis-Honourable Phil, a younger son and a nobody. But Phil Compton as Lord St. Serf could not be ignored. Elinor had been wise enough never to change her name, that is to say, she had been too proud to do so, though nobody knew of the existence of that prefix which was so inappropriate to her husband's character. But now Mrs. Compton would no longer be her name; and Philip, the boy at the big northern grammar-school, would be Lord Lomond. An unlooked-for summons like this has sometimes the power of turning the heads of the heirs so suddenly ennobled, but it did anything but convey elation to John's mind in the prospect of its effect upon his relations. Would she see reason now? Would she be brought to allow that something must be done, or would she remain obdurate to the end of the chapter? A great impatience with Elinor filled John's mind. She was, as the reader knows, the only woman to John Tatham; but what does that matter? He did not approve of her any more on that account. He was even more conscious of the faults of which she was guilty. He was aware of her obstinacy, her determined adherence to her own way as no other man in the world was. Would she acknowledge now at last that she was wrong, and give in? I am obliged to confess that the giving in of Elinor was the last spectacle in heaven or earth which John Tatham could conceive.
He went over these circumstances as he drove through all of London that is to some people worth calling London, on that dark January night, passing from the light of the busy streets into the comparative darkness of those in which people live, without in the least remarking where he was going, except in his thoughts. He had not the least intention of accepting the invitation of Lady Mariamne, nor did his mind dwell upon her or the change that age had wrought in her. But yet the Compton family had gained an interest in John's eyes which it did not possess even at the time when Elinor's marriage first brought its name into his thoughts. Philip – young Philip – the boy, as John called him in his own mind, in fond identification – was as near John's own child as anything ever could be in this world. He had many nephews and nieces belonging to him by a more authentic title, but none of these was in the least like Philip, whom none of all the kindred knew but himself, and who, so far as he was aware, had but one kinsman in the world, who was Uncle John. He had followed the development of the boy's mind always with a reference to those facts of which Philip knew nothing, which would be so wonderful to him when the revelation came. To John that little world at Lakeside – where the ladies had made an artificial existence for themselves, which was at the same time so natural, so sweet, so full of all the humanities and charities – was something like what we might suppose this erring world to be to some archangel great enough to see how everything is, not great enough to give the impulse that would put it right. If the great celestial intelligences are allowed to know and mark out perverse human ways, how much impatience with us must mingle with their tenderness and pity! John Tatham had little perhaps that was heavenly about him, but he loved Elinor and her son, and was absolutely free of selfishness in respect to them. Never, he was aware, could either woman or child be more to him than they were now. Nay, they were everything to him, but on their own account, not his; he desired their welfare absolutely, and not his own through them. Elinor was capable at any moment of turning upon him, of saying, if not in words, yet in undeniable inference, what is it to you? and the boy, though he gladly referred to Uncle John when Uncle John was in the way, took him with perfect composure as a being apart from his life. They were everything to him, but he was nothing to them. His whole heart was set upon their peace, upon their comfort and well-being, but as much apart from himself as if he had not been.
Mr. Tatham was dining out that night, which was a good thing for him to distract his thoughts from this problem, which he could only torment himself about and could not solve; and there was an evening party at the same house – one of those quieter, less-frequented parties which are, people in London tell you, so much more agreeable than in the crowd of the season. It was a curious kind of coincidence that at this little assembly, which might have been thought not at all in her way, he met Lady Mariamne, accompanied by her daughter, again. It was not in her way, being a judge's house, where frivolity, though it had a certain place, was not the first element. But then when there are few things to choose from, people must not be too particular, and those who cannot have society absolutely of their own choosing, are bound, as in other cases of necessity, to take what they can get. And then Dolly liked to hear people talking of things which she did not understand. When Lady Mariamne saw that John Tatham was there she gave a little shriek of satisfaction, and rushed at him as if they had been the dearest friends in the world. "So delighted to see you again," she cried, giving everybody around the idea of the most intimate relationship. "It was the most wonderful good fortune that I got my Toto home in safety, poor darling; for you know, Mr. Tatham, you would not give him any tea, and Dolly, who is quite unnatural, pitched him into the carriage and simply sat upon him – sat upon him, Mr. Tatham! before I could interfere. Oh, you do not know half the trials a woman has to go through! And now please take me to have some coffee or something, and let us finish the conversation we were having when Dolly made me go away."
