Marriage a la mode

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Marriage a la Mode

BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

ILLUSTRATED BY FRED PEGRAM

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1909

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN
LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY MARY AUGUSTA WARD
PUBLISHED, MAY, 1909

TO L. C. W.

[Illustration: DAPHNE FLOYD]

NOTE

THIS STORY APPEARED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE OF "DAPHNE." THE
PUBLISHERS ARE INDEBTED TO THE PROPRIETORS OF THE "PALL MALL MAGAZINE"
FOR THEIR PERMISSION TO USE THE DRAWINGS BY MR. FRED PEGRAM.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Daphne Floyd

"He caught the hand, he gathered its owner into a pair of strong arms,
and bending over her, he kissed her"

"In the dead of night Daphne sat up in bed, looking at the face and head
of her husband beside her on the pillow"

"Her whole being was seething with passionate and revengeful thought"

Marriage a la Mode

PART I

CHAPTER I

"A stifling hot day!" General Hobson lifted his hat and mopped his
forehead indignantly. "What on earth this place can be like in June I
can't conceive! The tenth of April, and I'll be bound the thermometer's
somewhere near eighty in the shade. You never find the English climate
playing you these tricks."

Roger Barnes looked at his uncle with amusement.

"Don't you like heat, Uncle Archie? Ah, but I forgot, it's American
heat."

"I like a climate you can depend on," said the General, quite conscious
that he was talking absurdly, yet none the less determined to talk, by
way of relief to some obscure annoyance. "Here we are sweltering in this
abominable heat, and in New York last week they had a blizzard, and
here, even, it was cold enough to give me rheumatism. The climate's
always in extremes--like the people."

"I'm sorry to find you don't like the States, Uncle Archie."

The young man sat down beside his uncle. They were in the deck saloon of
a steamer which had left Washington about an hour before for Mount
Vernon. Through the open doorway to their left they saw a wide expanse
of river, flowing between banks of spring green, and above it thunderous
clouds, in a hot blue. The saloon, and the decks outside, held a great
crowd of passengers, of whom the majority were women.

The tone in which Roger Barnes spoke was good-tempered, but quite
perfunctory. Any shrewd observer would have seen that whether his uncle
liked the States or not did not in truth matter to him a whit.

"And I consider all the arrangements for this trip most unsatisfactory,"
the General continued angrily. "The steamer's too small, the
landing-place is too small, the crowd getting on board was something
disgraceful. They'll have a shocking accident one of these days. And
what on earth are all these women here for--in the middle of the day?
It's not a holiday."

"I believe it's a teachers' excursion," said young Barnes absently, his
eyes resting on the rows of young women in white blouses and spring hats
who sat in close-packed chairs upon the deck--an eager, talkative host.

"H'm--Teachers!" The General's tone was still more pugnacious. "Going to
learn more lies about us, I suppose, that they may teach them to
school-children? I was turning over some of their school-books in a shop
yesterday. Perfectly abominable! It's monstrous what they teach the
children here about what they're pleased to call their War of
Independence. All that we did was to ask them to pay something for their
own protection. What did it matter to us whether they were mopped up by
the Indians, or the French, or not? 'But if you want us to go to all the
expense and trouble of protecting you, and putting down those fellows,
why, hang it,' we said, 'you must pay some of the bill!' That was all
English Ministers asked; and perfectly right too. And as for the men
they make such a fuss about, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, and Franklin,
and all the rest of the crew, I tell you, the stuff they teach American
school-children about them is a poisoning of the wells! Franklin was a
man of profligate life, whom I would never have admitted inside my
doors! And as for the Adamses--intriguers--canting fellows!--both of
them."

"Well, at least you'll give them George Washington." As he spoke, Barnes
concealed a yawn, followed immediately afterwards by a look of greater
alertness, caused by the discovery that a girl sitting not far from the
doorway in the crowd outside was certainly pretty.

The red-faced, white-haired General paused a moment before replying,
then broke out: "What George Washington might have been if he had held a
straight course I am not prepared to say. As it is, I don't hesitate for
a moment! George Washington was nothing more nor less than a rebel--a
damned rebel! And what Englishmen mean by joining in the worship of him
I've never been able to understand."

"I say, uncle, take care," said the young man, looking round him, and
observing with some relief that they seemed to have the saloon to
themselves. "These Yankees will stand most things, but----"

"You needn't trouble yourself, Roger," was the testy reply; "I am not in
the habit of annoying my neighbours. Well now, look here, what I want to
know is, what is the meaning of this absurd journey of yours?"

The young man's frown increased. He began to poke the floor with his
stick. "I don't know why you call it absurd?"

"To me it seems both absurd and extravagant," said the other with
emphasis. "The last thing I heard of you was that Burdon and Co. had
offered you a place in their office, and that you were prepared to take
it. When a man has lost his money and becomes dependent upon others, the
sooner he gets to work the better."

Roger Barnes reddened under the onslaught, and the sulky expression of
his handsome mouth became more pronounced. "I think my mother and I
ought to be left to judge for ourselves," he said rather hotly. "We
haven't asked anybody for money _yet_, Uncle Archie. Burdon and Co. can
have me in September just as well as now; and my mother wished me to
make some friends over here who might be useful to me."

"Useful to you. How?"

"I think that's my affair. In this country there are always
openings--things turning up--chances--you can't get at home."

The General gave a disapproving laugh. "The only chance that'll help
you, Roger, at present--excuse me if I speak frankly--is the chance of
regular work. Your poor mother has nothing but her small fixed income,
and you haven't a farthing to chuck away on what you call chances. Why,
your passage by the _Lucania_ alone must have cost a pretty penny. I'll
bet my hat you came first class."

The young man was clearly on the brink of an explosion, but controlled
himself with an effort. "I paid the winter rate; and mother who knows
the Cunard people very well, got a reduction. I assure you, Uncle
Archie, neither mother nor I is a fool, and we know quite well what we
are about."

As he spoke he raised himself with energy, and looked his companion in
the face.

The General, surveying him, was mollified, as usual, by nothing in the
world but the youth's extraordinary good looks. Roger Barnes's good
looks had been, indeed, from his childhood upward the distinguishing and
remarkable feature about him. He had been a king among his schoolfellows
largely because of them, and of the athletic prowess which went with
them; and while at Oxford he had been cast for the part of Apollo in
"The Eumenides," Nature having clearly designed him for it in spite of
the lamentable deficiencies in his Greek scholarship, which gave his
prompters and trainers so much trouble. Nose, chin, brow, the poising of
the head on the shoulders, the large blue eyes, lidded and set with a
Greek perfection, the delicacy of the lean, slightly hollow cheeks,
combined with the astonishing beauty and strength of the head, crowned
with ambrosial curls--these possessions, together with others, had so
far made life an easy and triumphant business for their owner. The
"others," let it be noted, however, had till now always been present;
and, chief amongst them, great wealth and an important and popular
father. The father was recently dead, as the black band on the young
man's arm still testified, and the wealth had suddenly vanished, wholly
and completely, in one of the financial calamities of the day. General
Hobson, contemplating his nephew, and mollified, as we have said, by his
splendid appearance, kept saying to himself: "He hasn't a farthing but
what poor Laura allows him; he has the tastes of forty thousand a year;
a very indifferent education; and what the deuce is he going to do?"

Aloud he said:

"Well, all I know is, I had a deplorable letter last mail from your poor
mother."

The young man turned his head away, his cigarette still poised at his
lips. "Yes, I know--mother's awfully down."

"Well, certainly your mother was never meant for a poor woman," said the
General, with energy. "She takes it uncommonly hard."

Roger, with face still averted, showed no inclination to discuss his
mother's character on these lines.

"However, she'll get along all right, if you do your duty by her," added
the General, not without a certain severity.

"I mean to do it, sir." Barnes rose as he spoke. "I should think we're
getting near Mount Vernon by this time. I'll go and look."

He made his way to the outer deck, the General following. The old
soldier, as he moved through the crowd of chairs in the wake of his
nephew, was well aware of the attention excited by the young man. The
eyes of many damsels were upon him; and, while the girls looked and said
nothing, their mothers laughed and whispered to each other as the young
Apollo passed.

Standing at the side of the steamer, the uncle and nephew perceived that
the river had widened to a still more stately breadth, and that, on the
southern bank, a white building, high placed, had come into view. The
excursionists crowded to look, expressing their admiration for the
natural scene and their sense of its patriotic meaning in a frank,
enthusiastic chatter, which presently enveloped the General, standing in
a silent endurance like a rock among the waves.

"Isn't it fine to think of his coming back here to die, so simply, when
he'd made a nation?" said a young girl--perhaps from Omaha--to her
companion. "Wasn't it just lovely?"

Her voice, restrained, yet warm with feeling, annoyed General Hobson. He
moved away, and as they hung over the taffrail he said, with suppressed
venom to his companion: "Much good it did them to be 'made a nation'!
Look at their press--look at their corruption--their divorce scandals!"

Barnes laughed, and threw his cigarette-end into the swift brown water.

"Upon my word, Uncle Archie, I can't play up to you. As far as I've
gone, I like America and the Americans."

"Which means, I suppose, that your mother gave you some introductions to
rich people in New York, and they entertained you?" said the General
drily.

"Well, is there any crime in that? I met a lot of uncommonly nice
people."

"And didn't particularly bless me when I wired to you to come here?"

The young man laughed again and paused a moment before replying.

"I'm always very glad to come and keep you company, Uncle Archie."

The old General reddened a little. Privately, he knew very well that his
telegram summoning young Barnes from New York had been an act of
tyranny--mild, elderly tyranny. He was not amusing himself in
Washington, where he was paying a second visit after an absence of
twenty years. His English soul was disturbed and affronted by a wholly
new realization of the strength of America, by the giant forces of the
young nation, as they are to be felt pulsing in the Federal City. He was
up in arms for the Old World, wondering sorely and secretly what the New
might do with her in the times to come, and foreseeing an
ever-increasing deluge of unlovely things--ideals, principles,
manners--flowing from this western civilization, under which his own
gods were already half buried, and would soon be hidden beyond recovery.
And in this despondency which possessed him, in spite of the attentions
of Embassies, and luncheons at the White House, he had heard that Roger
was in New York, and could not resist the temptation to send for him.
After all, Roger was his heir. Unless the boy flagrantly misbehaved
himself, he would inherit General Hobson's money and small estate in
Northamptonshire. Before the death of Roger's father this prospective
inheritance, indeed, had not counted for very much in the family
calculations. The General had even felt a shyness in alluding to a
matter so insignificant in comparison with the general scale on which
the Barnes family lived. But since the death of Barnes _pere_, and the
complete pecuniary ruin revealed by that event, Roger's expectations
from his uncle had assumed a new importance. The General was quite aware
of it. A year before this date he would never have dreamed of summoning
Roger to attend him at a moment's notice. That he had done so, and that
Roger had obeyed him, showed how closely even the family relation may
depend on pecuniary circumstance.

The steamer swung round to the landing-place under the hill of Mount
Vernon. Again, in disembarkation, there was a crowd and rush which set
the General's temper on edge. He emerged from it, hot and breathless,
after haranguing the functionary at the gates on the inadequacy of the
arrangements and the likelihood of an accident. Then he and Roger strode
up the steep path, beside beds of blue periwinkles, and under old trees
just bursting into leaf. A spring sunshine was in the air and on the
grass, which had already donned its "livelier emerald." The air quivered
with heat, and the blue dome of sky diffused it. Here and there a
magnolia in full flower on the green slopes spread its splendour of
white or pinkish blossom to the sun; the great river, shimmering and
streaked with light, swept round the hill, and out into a pearly
distance; and on the height the old pillared house with its flanking
colonnades stood under the thinly green trees in a sharp light and shade
which emphasized all its delightful qualities--made, as it were, the
most of it, in response to the eagerness of the crowd now flowing round
it.

Half-way up the hill Roger suddenly raised his hat.

"Who is it?" said the General, putting up his eyeglass.

"The girl we met last night and her brother."

"Captain Boyson? So it is. They seem to have a party with them."

The lady whom young Barnes had greeted moved toward the Englishmen,
followed by her brother.

"I didn't know we were to meet to-day," she said gaily, with a mocking
look at Roger. "I thought you said you were bored--and going back to New
York."

Roger was relieved to see that his uncle, engaged in shaking hands with
the American officer, had not heard this remark. Tact was certainly not
Miss Boyson's strong point.

"I am sure I never said anything of the kind," he said, looking brazenly
down upon her; "nothing in the least like it."

"Oh! oh!" the lady protested, with an extravagant archness. "Mrs.
Phillips, this is Mr. Barnes. We were just talking of him, weren't we?"

An elderly lady, quietly dressed in gray silk, turned, bowed, and looked
curiously at the Englishman.

"I hear you and Miss Boyson discovered some common friends last night."

"We did, indeed. Miss Boyson posted me up in a lot of the people I have
been seeing in New York. I am most awfully obliged to her," said Barnes.
His manner was easy and forthcoming, the manner of one accustomed to
feel himself welcome and considered.

"I behaved like a walking 'Who's Who,' only I was much more interesting,
and didn't tell half as many lies," said the girl, in a high penetrating
voice. "Daphne, let me introduce you to Mr. Barnes. Mr. Barnes--Miss
Floyd; Mr. Barnes--Mrs. Verrier."

Two ladies beyond Mrs. Phillips made vague inclinations, and young
Barnes raised his hat. The whole party walked on up the hill. The
General and Captain Boyson fell into a discussion of some military news
of the morning. Roger Barnes was mostly occupied with Miss Boyson, who
had a turn for monopoly; and he could only glance occasionally at the
two ladies with Mrs. Phillips. But he was conscious that the whole group
made a distinguished appearance. Among the hundreds of young women
streaming over the lawn they were clearly marked out by their carriage
and their clothes--especially their clothes--as belonging to the
fastidious cosmopolitan class, between whom and the young
school-teachers from the West, in their white cotton blouses, leathern
belts, and neat short skirts, the links were few. Miss Floyd, indeed,
was dressed with great simplicity. A white muslin dress, _a la_ Romney,
with a rose at the waist, and a black-and-white Romney hat deeply
shading the face beneath--nothing could have been plainer; yet it was a
simplicity not to be had for the asking, a calculated, a Parisian
simplicity; while her companion, Mrs. Verrier, was attired in what the
fashion-papers would have called a "creation in mauve." And Roger knew
quite enough about women's dress to be aware that it was a creation that
meant dollars. She was a tall, dark-eyed, olive-skinned woman, thin
almost to emaciation: and young Barnes noticed that, while Miss Floyd
talked much, Mrs. Verrier answered little, and smiled less. She moved
with a languid step, and looked absently about her. Roger could not make
up his mind whether she was American or English.

In the house itself the crowd was almost unmanageable. The General's ire
was roused afresh when he was warned off the front door by the polite
official on guard, and made to mount a back stair in the midst of a
panting multitude.

"I really cannot congratulate you on your management of these affairs,"
he said severely to Captain Boyson, as they stood at last, breathless
and hustled, on the first-floor landing. "It is most improper, I may say
dangerous, to admit such a number at once. And, as for seeing the house,
it is simply impossible. I shall make my way down as soon as possible,
and go for a walk."

Captain Boyson looked perplexed. General Hobson was a person of
eminence; Washington had been very civil to him; and the American
officer felt a kind of host's responsibility.

"Wait a moment; I'll try and find somebody." He disappeared, and the
party maintained itself with difficulty in a corner of the landing
against the pressure of a stream of damsels, who crowded to the open
doors of the rooms, looked through the gratings which bar the entrance
without obstructing the view, chattered, and moved on. General Hobson
stood against the wall, a model of angry patience. Cecilia Boyson,
glancing at him with a laughing eye, said in Roger's ear: "How sad it is
that your uncle dislikes us so!"

"Us? What do you mean?"

"That he hates America so. Oh, don't say he doesn't, because I've
watched him, at one, two, three parties. He thinks we're a horrid,
noisy, vulgar people, with most unpleasant voices, and he thanks God for
the Atlantic--and hopes he may never see us again."

"Well, of course, if you're so certain about it, there's no good in
contradicting you. Did you say that lady's name was Floyd? Could I have
seen her last week in New York?"

"Quite possible. Perhaps you heard something about her?"

"No," said Barnes, after thinking a moment. "I remember--somebody
pointed her out at the opera."

His companion looked at him with a kind of hard amusement. Cecilia
Boyson was only five-and-twenty, but there was already something in her
that foretold the formidable old maid.

"Well, when people begin upon Daphne Floyd," she said, "they generally
go through with it. Ah! here comes Alfred."

Captain Boyson, pushing his way through the throng, announced to his
sister and General Hobson that he had found the curator in charge of the
house, who sent a message by him to the effect that if only the party
would wait till four o'clock, the official closing hour, he himself
would have great pleasure in showing them the house when all the
tourists of the day had taken their departure.

"Then," said Miss Floyd, smiling at the General, "let us go and sit in
the garden, and feel ourselves aristocratic and superior."

The General's brow smoothed. Voice and smile were alike engaging. Their
owner was not exactly pretty, but she had very large dark eyes, and a
small glowing face, set in a profusion of hair. Her neck, the General
thought, was the slenderest he had ever seen, and the slight round lines
of her form spoke of youth in its first delicate maturity. He followed
her obediently, and they were all soon in the garden again, and free of
the crowd. Miss Floyd led the way across the grass with the General.

"Ah! now you will see the General will begin to like us," said Miss
Boyson. "Daphne has got him in hand."

Her tone was slightly mocking. Barnes observed the two figures in front
of them, and remarked that Miss Floyd had a "very--well--a very foreign
look."

"Not English, you mean?--or American? Well, naturally. Her mother was a
Spaniard--a South American--from Buenos Ayres. That's why she is so
dark, and so graceful."

"I never saw a prettier dress," said Barnes, following the slight figure
with his eyes. "It's so simple."

His companion laughed again. The manner of the laugh puzzled her
companion, but, just as he was about to put a question, the General and
the young lady paused in front, to let the rest of the party come up
with them. Miss Floyd proposed a seat a little way down the slope, where
they might wait the half-hour appointed.

That half-hour passed quickly for all concerned. In looking back upon it
afterwards two of the party were conscious that it had all hung upon one
person. Daphne Floyd sat beside the General, who paid her a
half-reluctant, half-fascinated attention. Without any apparent effort
on her part she became indeed the centre of the group who sat or lay on
the grass. All faces were turned towards her, and presently all ears
listened for her remarks. Her talk was young and vivacious, nothing
more. But all she said came, as it were, steeped in personality, a
personality so energetic, so charged with movement and with action that
it arrested the spectators--not always agreeably. It was like the
passage of a train through the darkness, when, for the moment, the
quietest landscape turns to fire and force.

The comparison suggested itself to Captain Boyson as he lay watching
her, only to be received with an inward mockery, half bitter, half
amused. This girl was always awakening in him these violent or desperate
images. Was it her fault that she possessed those brilliant eyes--eyes,
as it seemed, of the typical, essential woman?--and that downy brunette
skin, with the tinge in it of damask red?--and that instinctive art of
lovely gesture in which her whole being seemed to express itself?
Boyson, who was not only a rising soldier, but an excellent amateur
artist, knew every line of the face by heart. He had drawn Miss Daphne
from the life on several occasions; and from memory scores of times. He
was not likely to draw her from life any more; and thereby hung a tale.
As far as he was concerned the train had passed--in flame and
fury--leaving an echoing silence behind it.

What folly! He turned resolutely to Mrs. Verrier, and tried to discuss
with her an exhibition of French art recently opened in Washington. In
vain. After a few sentences, the talk between them dropped, and both he
and she were once more watching Miss Floyd, and joining in the
conversation whenever she chose to draw them in.

As for Roger Barnes, he too was steadily subjugated--up to a certain
point. He was not sure that he liked Miss Floyd, or her conversation.
She was so much mistress of herself and of the company, that his
masculine vanity occasionally rebelled. A little flirt!--that gave
herself airs. It startled his English mind that at twenty--for she could
be no more--a girl should so take the floor, and hold the stage.
Sometimes he turned his back upon her--almost; and Cecilia Boyson held
him. But, if there was too much of the "eternal womanly" in Miss Floyd,
there was not enough in Cecilia Boyson. He began to discover also that
she was too clever for him, and was in fact talking down to him. Some of
the things that she said to him about New York and Washington puzzled
him extremely. She was, he supposed, intellectual; but the intellectual
women in England did not talk in the same way. He was equal to them, or
flattered himself that he was; but Miss Boyson was beyond him. He was
getting into great difficulties with her, when suddenly Miss Floyd
addressed him:

"I am sure I saw you in New York, at the opera?"

She bent over to him as she spoke, and lowered her voice. Her look was
merry, perhaps a little satirical. It put him on his guard.

"Yes, I was there. You were pointed out to me."

"You were with some old friends of mine. I suppose they gave you an
account of me?"

"They were beginning it; but then Melba began to sing, and some horrid
people in the next box said 'Hush!'"

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