He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.
Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it languidly to the wall.
Are you ill, my dear? he asked.
Men are so considerately practical! He begged urgently to be allowed to send for a doctor.
But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical consolations! She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.
Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally uttered it.
Say good-bye to me, he whispered. And my pretty one will write to me. I shall reply so punctually! I dont like to leave her at Christmas; and she will give me a line of Italian, and a little Frenchmind her accents, though!and she neednt attempt any of the nasty Germankshrra-kouzzra-kratz!which her pretty lips cant do, and wont do; but only French and Italian. Why, she learnt to speak Italian! La dolcezza ancor dentro me suona. Dont you remember, and made such fun of it at first? Amo zoo; no amo me? my sweet!
This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times, save when she is in Dahlias condition. It will serve even then, or she will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires; but it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
But Dahlias sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She felt the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, Good-bye, Edward.
He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, Good-bye, darling, he said. But I must see her sit to table first. Such a wretched dinner for her! and he mumbled, By Jove, I suppose I shant get any at all myself! His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
Never mind, he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully, thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold, the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and made no pretensions to allure it.
The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell, and said,
Dahlia, thereIm going to dine with you, my love. Ive rung the bell for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you dont take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine out. The champagne, at all events, wont be flat.
He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the wall, tottering away to her chamber.
Ah, poor thing! ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in a young mans calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,quite the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life? It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are tragic and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an admirable winea sure specific for the sex!
He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlias housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room royally open.
Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks. He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a distant street: Jump into a cabchampagnes nothing without ice, even in Winter, he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came up herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate commands. One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs. Ayrton in her room. He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrtons glass being brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became more exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that when she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her for her contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her protestations, that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to their dinner, she with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she sank in her chair.
Its not bad, after all, said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of half-cold meat with champagne. The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This is Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip.
She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went formally through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and talked, and she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she required nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and setting bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast, that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
Has my darling seen her sister? he asked softly.
Dahlia answered, No, in the same tone.
Both looked away.
She wont leave town without seeing you?
I hopeI dont know. Sheshe has called at our last lodgings twice.
Alone?
Yes; I think so.
Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered uneasily.
Why not write to her, then?
She will bring father.
The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first, while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her, that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over her, when his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her relapsing at present.
You cant see your father?
No.
But, do. Its best.
I cant.
Why not?
Not she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
Yes, yes; I know, said he; but still! You could surely see him. You rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear.
No more.
Well; as I was saying, you force him to thinkand there is no necessity for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and then a little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to gain time. You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too. He has his own idea of things. Hes a proud man, as Ive told you; tremendously ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend against. Things cant be done at once. If I give him a shockwell, well drop any consideration of the consequences. Write to your sister to tell her to bring your father. If they make particular inquiriesvery unlikely I thinkbut, if they do, put them at their ease.
She sighed.
Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in? said he.
There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
My sister called twice at myour old lodgings. The second time, she burst into tears. The girl told me so.
But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia.
Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too.
Well, that maybe her way.
I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so.
The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlias cheeks.
So, you quite refuse to see your father? he asked.
Not yet!
Not yet, he repeated.
At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:
Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I cant meet him now. If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped! but he is with her. Dont blame me, Edward. I cant explain. I only know that I really have not the power to see him.
Edward nodded. The sentiment some women put into things is inexplicable, he said. Your sister and father will return home. They will have formed their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since, however, the taste is for being a victimeh?
London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places of residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit a cigar and puffed at it fretfully.
Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour? he asked.
She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look ill in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception, rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the jewels, and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to her chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared the pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When she came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.
Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her hand in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should be sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.
CHAPTER XII
Edwards engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but five pounds or so (the hazy margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the lenders pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be dancing on Fortunes tight-rope above the old abyss).
Over claret, was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior, Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner which, during the whole course of the young mans career, had ever been failing to him. Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe in his ill-luck. He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one of the far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck himand was it not comical?
He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared clocks in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs fifty times. For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent menace of the Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it seemed incredibly derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened to him by any accident before. You are bornyou dine. Such appeared to him to be the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper one,of the matters of course following the birth of a young being.
By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner? By placing the smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man! Algernon deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and whether it can be said by other undined mortals, does not matter in the least. But we have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless: the calamitous history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the tragedy is palpable. Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash of the microscope to the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule. Five and twenty minutes had signalled their departure from the hour of seven, when Algernon pronounced his final verdict upon Edwards conduct by leaving the Club. He returned to it a quarter of an hour later, and lingered on in desperate mood till eight.
He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor disposable stud in his shirt. The sum of twenty-one pence was in his possession, and, I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to dine upon that? He laughed at the notion. The irony of Providence sent him by a cooks shop, where the mingled steam of meats and puddings rushed out upon the wayfarer like ambushed bandits, and seized him and dragged him in, or sent him qualmish and humbled on his way.
Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles against the jealously misty windows. Algernon knew himself to be accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a flash, with never a thank ye or the thought of it.
Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him, he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago. He laughed scornfully: The little beggars! considering in his soul that of such is humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and will again, to point the speech of fools. He continued strolling on, comparing the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary free dream of the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the forests, the mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the slipshod ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there! Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable things of him, as civilization did. This he thought in the vengefulness of his outraged mind.