Jackson Lemon, to dissipate his chagrin, had returned to the sessions of the medical congress, where, inevitably, he had fallen into the hands of Sidney Feeder, who enjoyed in this disinterested assembly the highest esteem. It was Dr. Feeders earnest desire that his old friend should share his creditall the more easily that the medical congress was, as the young physician observed, a perpetual symposium. Jackson entertained the entire body at dinnerentertained it profusely and in a manner befitting one of the patrons of science rather than the humbler votaries; but these dissipations made him forget but for the hour the arrest of his relations with the house of Canterville. It punctually came back to him that he was disconcerted, and Dr. Feeder saw it stamped on his brow. Jackson Lemon, with his acute inclination to open himself, was on the point more than once of taking this sturdy friend into his confidence. His colleague gave him easy occasionasked him what it was he was thinking of all the time and whether the young marchioness had concluded she couldnt swallow a doctor. These forms of speech were displeasing to our baffled aspirant, whose fastidiousness was nothing new; but he had even deeper reasons for saying to himself that in such complicated cases as his there was no assistance in the Sidney Feeders. To understand his situation one must know the world, and the children of Cincinnati, prohibitively provincial, didnt know the worldat least the world with which this son of New York was now concerned.
Is there a hitch in your marriage? Just tell me that, Sidney Feeder had said, taking things for granted in a manner that of itself testified to an innocence abysmal. It is true he had added that he supposed he had no business to ask; but he had been anxious about it ever since hearing from Mr. and Mrs. Freer that the British aristocracy was down on the medical profession. Do they want you to give it up? Is that what the hitch is about? Dont desert your colours, Jackson. The suppression of pain, the mitigation of misery, constitute surely the noblest profession in the world.
My dear fellow, you dont know what youre talking about, Jackson could only observe in answer to this. I havent told any one I was going to be marriedstill less have I told any one that any one objects to my profession. I should like to see any one do it. Ive rather got out of the swim, but I dont regard myself as the sort of person that people object to. And I do expect to do something yet.
Come home, then, and do it. And dont crush me with grandeur if I say that the facilities for getting married are much greater over there.
You dont seem to have found them very great, Jackson sniffed.
Ive never had time really to go into them. But wait till my next vacation and youll see.
The facilities over there are too great. Nothings worth while but whats difficult, said Jackson with a sententious ring that quite distressed his mate.
Well, theyve got their backs up, I can see that. Im glad you like it. Only if they despise your profession what will they say to that of your friends? If they think youre queer what would they think of me? asked Sidney Feeder, whose spirit was not as a general thing in the least bitter, but who was pushed to this sharpness by a conviction thatin spite of declarations which seemed half an admission and half a denialhis friend was suffering worry, or really perhaps something almost like humiliation, for the sake of a good that might be gathered at home on every bush.
My dear fellow, all thats rot! This had been Jacksons retort, which expressed, however, not half his feeling. The other half was inexpressible, or almost, springing as it did from his depth of displeasure at its having struck even so genial a mind as Sidney Feeders that in proposing to marry a daughter of the highest civilisation he was going out of his waydeparting from his natural line. Was he then so ignoble, so pledged to inferior things, that when he saw a girl whoputting aside the fact that she hadnt genius, which was rare, and which, though he prized rarity, he didnt wantseemed to him the most naturally and functionally founded and seated feminine subject he had known, he was to think himself too different, too incongruous, to mate with her? He would mate with whom he damn pleased; that was the upshot of Jackson Lemons passion. Several days elapsed during which everybodyeven the pure-minded, like poor Sidneyseemed to him very abject.
All of which is recorded to show how he, in going to see Mrs. Freer, was prepared much less to be angry with people who, like her husband and herself a month before, had given it out that he was engaged to a peers daughter, than to resent the insinuation that there were obstacles to such a prospect. He sat with the lady of Jermyn Street alone for half an hour in the sabbatical stillness. Her husband had gone for a walk in the Parkhe always walked in the Park of a Sunday. All the world might have been there and Jackson and Mrs. Freer in sole possession of the district of Saint Jamess. This perhaps had something to do with making him at last so confidential; they had such a margin for easy egotism and spreading sympathy. Mrs. Freer was ready for anythingin the critical, the real line; she treated him as a person she had known from the age of ten; asked his leave to continue recumbent; talked a great deal about his mother and seemed almost, for a while, to perform the earnest functions of that lady. It had been wise of her from the first not to allude, even indirectly, to his having neglected so long to call; her silence on this point was in the best taste. Jackson had forgotten how it was a habit with her, and indeed a high accomplishment, never to reproach people with these omissions. You might have left her alone for months or years, her greeting was always the same; she never was either too delighted to see you or not delighted enough. After a while, however, he felt her silence to be in some measure an allusion; she appeared to take for granted his devoting all his hours to a certain young lady. It came over him for a moment that his compatriots took a great deal for granted; but when Mrs. Freer, rather abruptly sitting up on her sofa, said to him half-simply, half-solemnly: And now, my dear Jackson, I want you to tell me something!he saw that, after all, she kept within bounds and didnt pretend to know more about his business than he himself did. In the course of a quarter of an hourso appreciatively she listenedhe had given her much information. It was the first time he had said so much to any one, and the process relieved him even more than he would have supposed. There were things it made clear to him by bringing them to a pointabove all, the fact that he had been wronged. He made no mention whatever of its being out of the usual way that, as an American doctor, he should sue for the hand of a marquiss daughter; and this reserve was not voluntary, it was quite unconscious. His mind was too full of the sudden rudeness of the Cantervilles and the sordid side of their want of confidence.
He couldnt imagine that while he talked to Mrs. Freerand it amazed him afterwards that he should have chattered so; he could account for it but by the state of his nervesshe should be thinking only of the strangeness of the situation he sketched for her. She thought Americans as good as other people, but she didnt see where, in American life, the daughter of a marquis would, as she phrased it, work in. To take a simple instancethey coursed through Mrs. Freers mind with extraordinary speedwouldnt she always expect to go in to dinner first? As a novelty and for a change, over there, they might like to see her do itthere might be even a pressure for places at the show. But with the increase of every kind of sophistication that was taking place in America the humorous view to which she would owe her immediate ease mightnt continue to be taken; and then where would poor Lady Barb be? This was in truth a scant instance; but Mrs. Freers vivid imaginationmuch as she had lived in Europe she knew her native land so wellsaw a host of others massing themselves behind it. The consequence of all of which was that after listening to her young friend in the most engaging silence she raised her clasped hands, pressed them against her breast, lowered her voice to a tone of entreaty and, with all the charming cheer of her wisdom, uttered three words: My dear Jackson, dontdontdont.
He couldnt imagine that while he talked to Mrs. Freerand it amazed him afterwards that he should have chattered so; he could account for it but by the state of his nervesshe should be thinking only of the strangeness of the situation he sketched for her. She thought Americans as good as other people, but she didnt see where, in American life, the daughter of a marquis would, as she phrased it, work in. To take a simple instancethey coursed through Mrs. Freers mind with extraordinary speedwouldnt she always expect to go in to dinner first? As a novelty and for a change, over there, they might like to see her do itthere might be even a pressure for places at the show. But with the increase of every kind of sophistication that was taking place in America the humorous view to which she would owe her immediate ease mightnt continue to be taken; and then where would poor Lady Barb be? This was in truth a scant instance; but Mrs. Freers vivid imaginationmuch as she had lived in Europe she knew her native land so wellsaw a host of others massing themselves behind it. The consequence of all of which was that after listening to her young friend in the most engaging silence she raised her clasped hands, pressed them against her breast, lowered her voice to a tone of entreaty and, with all the charming cheer of her wisdom, uttered three words: My dear Jackson, dontdontdont.
Dont what? He took it at first coldly.
Dont neglect the chance you have of getting out of it. You see it would never do.
He knew what she meant by his chance of getting out of it; he had in his many meditations of course not overlooked that. The ground the old couple had taken about settlementsand the fact that Lady Beauchemin hadnt come back to him to tell him, as she promised, that she had moved them, proved how firmly they were rootedwould have offered an all-sufficient pretext to a man who should have repented of his advances. Jackson knew this, but knew at the same time that he had not repented. The old couples want of imagination didnt in the least alter the fact that the girl was, in her perfection, as he had told her father, one of the rarest of types. Therefore he simply said to Mrs. Freer that he didnt in the least wish to get out of it; he was as much in it as ever and intended to remain in it. But what did she mean, he asked in a moment, by her statement that it would never do? Why wouldnt it do? Mrs. Freer replied by another questionshould he really like her to tell him? It wouldnt do because Lady Barb wouldnt be satisfied with her place at dinner. She wouldnt be contentin a society of commonerswith any but the best; and the best she couldnt expect (and it was to be supposed he didnt expect her) always grossly to monopolise; as people of her sort, for that matter, did so successfully grab it in England.
What do you mean by commoners? Jackson rather grimly demanded.
I mean you and me and my poor husband and Dr. Feeder, said Mrs. Freer.
I dont see how there can be commoners where there arent lords. Its the lord that makes the commoner, and vice versa.
Wont a lady do as well? Our Lady Barba single English girlcan make a million inferiors.
She will be, before anything else, my wife; and she wont on the whole think it any less vulgar to talk about inferiors than I do myself.
I dont know what shell talk about, my dear Jackson, but shell think; and her thoughts wont be pleasantI mean for others. Do you expect to sink her to your own rank?
Dr. Lemons bright little eyes rested more sharply on his hostess. I dont understand you and dont think you understand yourself. This was not absolutely candid, for he did understand Mrs. Freer to a certain extent; it has been related that before he asked Lady Barbs hand of her parents there had been moments when he himself doubted if a flower only to be described as of the social hothouse, that is of aristocratic air, would flourish in American earth. But an intimation from another person that it was beyond his power to pass off his wifewhether she were the daughter of a peer or of a shoemakerset all his blood on fire. It quenched on the instant his own perception of difficulties of detail and made him feel only that he was dishonouredhe the heir of all the agesby such insinuations. It was his beliefthough he had never before had occasion to put it forwardthat his position, one of the best in the world, had about it the felicity that makes everything possible. He had had the best education the age could offer, for if he had rather wasted his time at Harvard, where he entered very young, he had, as he believed, been tremendously serious at Heidelberg and at Vienna. He had devoted himself to one of the noblest of professionsa profession recognised as such everywhere but in Englandand had inherited a fortune far beyond the expectation of his earlier years, the years when he cultivated habits of work which alone (or rather in combination with talents that he neither exaggerated nor undervalued) would have conduced to distinction. He was one of the most fortunate inhabitants of an immense fresh rich country, a country whose future was admitted to be incalculable, and he moved with perfect ease in a society in which he was not overshadowed by others. It seemed to him, therefore, beneath his dignity to wonder whether he could afford, socially speaking, to marry according to his taste. He pretended to general strength, and what was the use of strength if you werent prepared to undertake things timid people might find difficult? It was his plan to marry the woman he desired and not be afraid of her afterward. The effect of Mrs. Freers doubt of his success was to represent to him that his own character wouldnt cover his wifes; she couldnt have made him feel worse if she had told him that he was marrying beneath him and would have to ask for indulgence. I dont believe you know how much I think that any woman who marries me will be doing very well, he promptly added.
Im very sure of that; but it isnt so simpleones being an American, Mrs. Freer rejoined with a small philosophic sigh.
Its whatever one chooses to make it.
Well, youll make it what no one has done yet if you take that young lady to America and make her happy there.
Do you think our country, then, such a very dreadful place?
His hostess had a pause. Its not a question of what I think, but of what she will.
Jackson rose from his chair and took up his hat and stick. He had actually turned a little pale with the force of his emotion; there was a pang of wrath for him in this fact that his marriage to Lady Barbarina might be looked at as too high a flight. He stood a moment leaning against the mantelpiece and very much tempted to say to Mrs. Freer that she was a vulgar-minded old woman. But he said something that was really more to the point. You forget that shell have her consolations.
Dont go away or I shall think Ive offended you. You cant console an injured noblewoman.
How will she be injured? People will be charming to her.
Theyll be charming to hercharming to her! These words fell from the lips of Dexter Freer, who had opened the door of the room and stood with the knob in his hand, putting himself into relation to his wifes talk with their visitor. This harmony was achieved in an instant. Of course I know whom you mean, he said while he exchanged greetings with Jackson. My wife and Inaturally were great busybodieshave talked of your affair and we differ about it completely. She sees only the dangers, while I see all the advantages.