Oh I already know your old song! The way they like the girls they DONT marry seems to be, Mrs. Brookenham mused, what more immediately concerns us. You had better wait till you HAVE made Aggies fortune perhapsto be so sure of the working of your system. Pardon me, darling, if I dont take you for an example until youve a little more successfully become one. I know what the sort of men worth speaking of are not looking for. They ARE looking for smart safe sensible English girls.
The Duchess glanced at the clock. Whats Mr. Vanderbank looking for?
Her companion appeared to oblige her by anxiously thinking. Oh, HE, Im afraid, poor dearfor nothing at all!
The Duchess had taken off a glove to appease her appetite, and now, drawing it on, she smoothed it down. I think he has his ideas.
The same as yours?
Well, more like them than like yours.
Ah perhaps thenfor he and I, said Mrs. Brookenham, dont agree, I feel, on two things in the world. So you think poor Mitchy, she went on, whos the son of a shoemaker and who might be the grandson of a grasshopper, good enough for my child.
The Duchess appreciated for a moment the superior fit of her glove. I look facts in the face. Its exactly what Im doing for Aggie. Then she grew easy to extravagance. What are you giving her?
But Mrs. Brookenham took without wincing whatever, as between a masterful relative and an exposed frivolity, might have been the sting of it. That you must ask Edward. I havent the least idea.
There you are againthe virtuous English mother! Ive got Aggies little fortune in an old stocking and I count it over every night. If youve no old stocking for Nanda there are worse fates than shoemakers and grasshoppers. Even WITH one, you know, I dont at all say that I should sniff at poor Mitchy. We must take what we can get and I shall be the first to take it. You cant have everything for ninepence. And the Duchess got upshining, however, with a confessed light of fantasy. Speak to him, my dearspeak to him!
Do you mean offer him my child?
She laughed at the intonation. There you are once morevous autres! If youre shocked at the idea you place drolement your delicacy. Id offer mine to the son of a chimney-sweep if the principal guarantees were there. Nandas charmingyou dont do her justice. I dont say Mr. Mitchetts either beautiful or noble, and he certainly hasnt as much distinction as would cover the point of a pin. He doesnt mind moreover what he saysthe lengths he sometimes goes to!but that, added the Duchess with decision, is no doubt much a matter of how he finds youll take it. And after marriage what does it signify? He has forty thousand a year, an excellent idea of how to take care of it and a good disposition.
Mrs. Brookenham sat still; she only looked up at her friend. Is it by Lord Petherton that you know of his excellent idea?
The Duchess showed she was challenged, but also that she made allowances. I go by my impression. But Lord Petherton HAS spoken for him.
He ought to do that, said Mrs. Brookenhamsince he wholly lives on him.
Lord Pethertonon Mr. Mitchett? The Duchess stared, but rather in amusement than in horror. Why, hasnt he aproperty?
The loveliest. Mr. Mitchetts his property. Didnt you KNOW? There was an artless wail in Mrs. Brookenhams surprise.
How should I knowstill a stranger as Im often rather happy to feel myself here and choosing my friends and picking my steps very much, I can assure youhow should I know about all your social scandals and things?
Oh we dont call THAT a social scandal! Mrs. Brookenham inimitably returned.
Well, if you should wish to youd have the way I tell you of to stop it. Divert the stream of Mr. Mitchetts wealth.
Oh theres plenty for every one!Mrs. Brookenham kept up her tone. Hes always giving us thingsbonbons and dinners and opera-boxes.
He has never given ME any, the Duchess contentedly declared.
Mrs. Brookenham waited a little. Lord Petherton has the giving of some. He has never in his life before, I imagine, made so many presents.
Ah then its a shame one has nothing! On which before reaching the door, the Duchess changed the subject. You say I never bring Aggie. If you like Ill bring her back.
Mrs. Brookenham wondered. Do you mean today?
Yes, when Ive picked her up. It will be something to do with her till Miss Merriman can take her.
Delighted, dearest; do bring her. And I think she should SEE Mr. Mitchett.
Shall I find him here too then?
Oh take the chance.
The two women, on this, exchanged, tacitly and across the roomthe Duchess at the door, which a servant had arrived to open for her, and Mrs. Brookenham still at her tea-tablea further stroke of intercourse, over which the latter was not on this occasion the first to lower her lids. I think Ive shown high scruples, the departing guest said, but I understand then that Im free.
Free as air, dear Jane.
Good. Then just as she was off, Ah dear old Edward! the guest exclaimed. Her kinsman, as she was fond of calling him, had reached the top of the staircase, and Mrs. Brookenham, by the fire, heard them meet on the landingheard also the Duchess protest against his turning to see her down. Mrs. Brookenham, listening to them, hoped Edward would accept the protest and think it sufficient to leave her with the footman. Their common consciousness that she was a kind of cousin, a consciousness not devoid of satisfaction, was quite consistent with a view, early arrived at, of the absurdity of any fuss about her.
III
When Mr. Brookenham appeared his wife was prompt. Shes coming back for Lord Petherton.
Oh! he simply said.
Theres something between them.
Oh! he merely repeated. And it would have taken many such sounds on his part to represent a spirit of response discernible to any one but his mate.
There have been things before, she went on, but I havent felt sure. Dont you know how one has sometimes a flash?
It couldnt be said of Edward Brookenham, who seemed to bend for sitting down more hinges than most men, that he looked as if he knew either this or anything else. He had a pale cold face, marked and made regular, made even in a manner handsome, by a hardness of line in which, oddly, there was no significance, no accent. Clean-shaven, slightly bald, with unlighted grey eyes and a mouth that gave the impression of not working easily, he suggested a stippled drawing by an inferior master. Lean moreover and stiff, and with the air of having here and there in his person a bone or two more than his share, he had once or twice, at fancy-balls, been thought striking in a dress copied from one of Holbeins English portraits. But when once some such meaning as that had been put into him it took a long time to put another, a longer time than even his extreme exposure or anybodys study of the problem had yet made possible. If anything particular had finally been expected from him it might have been a summary or an explanation of the things he had always not said; but there was something in him that had long since pacified all impatience, drugged all curiosity. He had never in his life answered such a question as his wife had just put him and which she would not have put had she feared a reply. So dry and decent and even distinguished did he look, as if he had positively been created to meet a propriety and match some other piece, that lady, with her famous perceptions, would no more have appealed to him seriously on a general proposition than she would, for such a response, have rung the drawing-room bell. He was none the less held to have a great promiscuous wisdom. What is it thats between them? he demanded.
Whats between any woman and the man shes making up to?
Why there may often be nothing. I didnt know she even particularly knew him, Brookenham added.
Its exactly what she would like to prevent any ones knowing, and her coming here to be with him when she knows I know SHE knowsdont you see?that hes to be here, is just one of those calculations that ARE subtle enough to put off the scent a woman who has but half a nose. Mrs. Brookenham as she spoke appeared to attest by the pretty star-gazing way she thrust it into the air her own possession of the totality of such a feature. I dont know yet quite what I think, but one wakes up to such things soon enough.
Do you suppose its her idea that hell marry her? Brookenham asked in his colourless way.
My dear Edward! his wife murmured for all answer.
But if she can see him in other places why should she want to see him here? Edward persisted in a voice destitute of expression.
Mrs. Brookenham now had plenty of that. Do you mean if she can see him in his own house?
No cream, please, her husband said. Hasnt she a house too?
Yes, but so pervaded all over by Aggie and Miss Merriman.
Oh! Brookenham commented.
There has always been some manIve always known there has. And now its Petherton, said his companion.
But wheres the attraction?
In HIM? Why lots of women could tell you. Petherton has had a career.
But I mean in old Jane.
Well, I dare say lots of men could tell you. Shes no older than any one else. She has also such great elements.
Oh I dare say shes all right, Brookenham returned as if his interest in the case had dropped. You might have felt you got a little nearer to him on guessing that in so peopled a circle satiety was never far from him.
I mean for instance she has such a grand idea of duty. She thinks were nowhere!
Nowhere?
With our childrenwith our home life. Shes awfully down on Tishy.
Tishy?Edward appeared for a moment at a loss.
Tishy Grendonand her craze for Nanda.
Has she a craze for Nanda?
Surely I told you Nandas to be with her for Easter.
I believe you did, he bethought himself, but you didnt say anything about a craze. And wheres Harold? he went on.
Hes at Brander. That is he will be by dinner. He has just gone.
And how does he get there?
Why by the South-Western. Theyll send to meet him.
Brookenham appeared for a moment to view this statement in the dry light of experience. Theyll only send if there are others too.
Of course then therell be otherslots. The more the better for Harold.
This young mans father was silent a little. Perhapsif they dont play high.
Ah, said his mother, however Harold plays he has a way of winning.
He has a way too of being a hopeless ass. What I meant was how he comes there at all, Edward explained.
Why as any one comesby being invited. She wrote to himweeks ago.
Brookenham just traceably took this in, but to what profit was not calculable. To Harold? Very good-natured. He had another short reflexion, after which he continued: If they dont send hell be in for five miles in a flyand the man will see that he gets his money.
They WILL sendafter her note.
Did it say so?
Her melancholy eyes seemed, from afar, to run over the page. I dont rememberbut it was so cordial.
Again he meditated. That often doesnt prevent ones being let in for ten shillings.
There was more gloom in this forecast than his wife had desired to produce. Well, my dear Edward, what do you want me to do? Whatever a young man does, it seems to me, hes let in for ten shillings.
Ah but he neednt bethats my point. I wasnt at his age.
Harolds mother took up her book again. Perhaps you werent the same success! I mean at such places.
Well, I didnt borrow money to make me oneas Ive a sharp idea our young scamp does.
Mrs. Brookenham hesitated. From whom do you meanthe Jews?
He looked at her as if her vagueness might be assumed. No. They, I take it, are not quite so cordial to him, since you call it so, as the old ladies. He gets it from Mitchy.
Oh! said Mrs. Brookenham. Are you very sure? she then demanded.
He had got up and put his empty cup back on the tea-table, wandering afterwards a little about the room and looking out, as his wife had done half an hour before, at the dreary rain and the now duskier ugliness. He reverted in this attitude, with a complete unconsciousness of making for irritation, to an issue they might be supposed to have dropped. Hell have a lovely drive for his money! His companion, however, said nothing and he presently came round again. No, Im not absolutely sureof his having had it from Mitchy. If I were I should do something.
What would you do? She put it as if she couldnt possibly imagine.
Id speak to him.
To Harold?
Nothat might just put it into his head. Brookenham walked up and down a little with his hands in his pockets, after which, with a complete concealment of the steps of the transition, Where are we dining to-night? he brought out.
Nowhere, thank heaven. We grace our own board.
Ohwith those fellows, as you said, and Jane?
Thats not for dinner. The Baggers and Mary Pinthorpe andupon my word I forget.
Youll see when she comes, suggested Brookenham, who was again at the window.
It isnt a sheits two or three hes, I think, his wife replied with her indifferent anxiety. But I dont know what dinner it is, she bethought herself; it may be the one thats after Easter. Then that ones this one, she added with her eyes once more on her book.
Well, its a relief to dine at homeand Brookenham faced about. Would you mind finding out? he asked with some abruptness.
Do you mean whos to dine?
No, that doesnt matter. But whether Mitchy HAS come down.
I can only find out by asking him.
Oh I could ask him. He seemed disappointed at his wifes want of resource.
And you dont want to?
He looked coldly, from before the fire, over the prettiness of her brown bent head. It will be such a beastly bore if he admits it.
And you think poor I can make him not admit it? She put the question as if it were really her own thought too, but they were a couple who could, even face to face and unlike the augurs behind the altar, think these things without laughing. If he SHOULD admit it, Mrs. Brookenham threw in, will you give me the money?
The money?
To pay Mitchy back.
She had now raised her eyes to her husband, but, turning away, he failed to meet them. Hell deny it.
Well, if they all deny it, she presently remarked, its a simple enough matter. Im sure I dont want them to come down on us! But thats the advantage, she almost prattled on, of having so many such charming friends. They DONT come down.
This again was a remark of a sweep that there appeared to be nothing in Brookenhams mind to match; so that, scarcely pausing in the walk he had resumed, he only said: Who do you mean by all?