Marriage a la mode

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Marriage a la mode

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"We went to the best man we could find! We took the best advice!" cried
Lady Barnes, sitting stiff and crimson in a deep arm-chair, opposite the
luckless row of portraits that Daphne was denouncing.

"I'm sure you did. But then, you see, nobody knew anything at all about
it in those days. The restorers were all murderers. Ask Dr. Lelius."

Daphne pointed to the stranger, who was leaning against an arm-chair
beside her in an embarrassed attitude, as though he were endeavouring to
make the chair a buffer between himself and Lady Barnes.

Dr. Lelius bowed.

"It is a modern art," he said with diffidence, and an accent creditably
slight--"a quite modern art. We hafe a great man at Wuerzburg."

"I don't suppose he professes to know anything about English pictures,
does he?" asked Lady Barnes with scorn.

"Ach!--I do not propose that Mrs. Barnes entrust him wid dese pictures,
Madame. It is now too late."

And the willowy German looked, with a half-repressed smile, at the row
of pictures--all staring at the bystander with the same saucer eyes, the
same wooden arms, and the same brilliance of modern paint and varnish,
which not even the passage of four years since it was applied had been
able greatly to subdue.

Lady Barnes lifted shoulders and eyes--a woman's angry protest against
the tyranny of knowledge.

"All the same, they are my forbears, my kith and kin," she said, with
emphasis. "But of course Mrs. Barnes is mistress here: I suppose she
will do as she pleases."

The German stared politely at the carpet. It was now Daphne's turn to
shrug. She threw herself into a chair, with very red cheeks, one foot
hanging over the other, and the fingers of her hands, which shone with
diamonds, tapping the chair impatiently. Her dress of a delicate pink,
touched here and there with black, her wide black hat, and the eyes
which glowed from the small pointed face beneath it; the tumbling masses
of her dark hair as contrasted with her general lightness and
slenderness; the red of the lips, the whiteness of the hands and brow,
the dainty irregularity of feature: these things made a Watteau sketch
of her, all pure colour and lissomeness, with dots and scratches of
intense black. Daphne was much handsomer than she had been as a girl,
but also a trifle less refined. All her points were intensified--her
eyes had more flame; the damask of her cheek was deeper; her grace was
wilder, her voice a little shriller than of old.

While the uncomfortable silence which the two women had made around them
still lasted, Roger Barnes appeared on the garden steps.

"Hullo! any tea going?" He came in, without waiting for an answer,
looked from his mother to Daphne, from Daphne to his mother, and laughed
uncomfortably.

"Still bothering about those beastly pictures?" he said as he helped
himself to a cup of tea.

"_Thank_ you, Roger!" said Lady Barnes.

"I didn't mean any harm, mother." He crossed over to her and sat down
beside her. "I say, Daphne, I've got an idea. Why shouldn't mother have
them? She's going to take a house, she says. Let's hand them all over to
her!"

Lady Barnes's lips trembled with indignation. "The Trescoes who were
born and died in this house, belong here!" The tone of the words showed
the stab to feeling and self-love. "It would be a sacrilege to move
them."

"Well then, let's move ourselves!" exclaimed Daphne, springing up. "We
can let this house again, can't we, Roger?"

"We can, I suppose," said Roger, munching his bread and butter; "but
we're not going to."

He raised his head and looked quietly at her.

"I think we'd better!" The tone was imperious. Daphne, with her thin
arms and hands locked behind her, paused beside her husband.

Dr. Lelius, stealthily raising his eyes, observed the two. A strange
little scene--not English at all. The English, he understood, were a
phlegmatic people. What had this little Southerner to do among them? And
what sort of fellow was the husband?

It was evident that some mute coloquy passed between the husband and
wife--disapproval on his part, attempt to assert authority, defiance, on
hers. Then the fair-skinned English face, confronting Daphne, wavered
and weakened, and Roger smiled into the eyes transfixing him.

"Ah!" thought Lelius, "she has him, de poor fool!"

Roger, coming over to his mother, began a murmured conversation. Daphne,
still breathing quick, consented to talk to Dr. Lelius and Mrs. French.
Lelius, who travelled widely, had brought her news of some pictures in a
chateau of the Bourbonnais--pictures that her whole mind was set on
acquiring. Elsie French noticed the _expertise_ of her talk; the
intellectual development it implied; the passion of will which
accompanied it. "To the dollar, all things are possible"--one might have
phrased it so.

The soft September air came in through the open windows, from a garden
flooded with western sun. Suddenly through the subdued talk which filled
the drawing-room--each group in it avoiding the other--the sound of a
motor arriving made itself heard.

"Heavens! who on earth knows we're here?" said Barnes, looking up.

For they had only been camping a week in the house, far too busy to
think of neighbours. They sat expectant and annoyed, reproaching each
other with not having told the butler to say "Not at home." Lady
Barnes's attitude had in it something else--a little anxiety; but it
escaped notice. Steps came through the hall, and the butler, throwing
open the door, announced--

"Mrs. Fairmile."

Roger Barnes sprang to his feet. His mother, with a little gasp, caught
him by the arm instinctively. There was a general rise and a movement of
confusion, till the new-comer, advancing, offered her hand to Daphne.

"I am afraid, Mrs. Barnes, I am disturbing you all. The butler told me
you had only been here a few days. But Lady Barnes and your husband are
such old friends of mine that, as soon as I heard--through our old
postmistress, I think--that you had arrived, I thought I might venture."

The charming voice dropped, and the speaker waited, smiling, her eyes
fixed on Daphne. Daphne had taken her hand in some bewilderment, and was
now looking at her husband for assistance. It was clear to Elsie French,
in the background, that Daphne neither knew the lady nor the lady's
name, and that the visit had taken her entirely by surprise.

Barnes recovered himself quickly. "I had no idea you were in these
parts," he said, as he brought a chair forward for the visitor, and
stood beside her a moment.

Lady Barnes, observing him, as she stiffly greeted the new-comer--his
cool manner, his deepened colour--felt the usual throb of maternal pride
in him, intensified by alarm and excitement.

"Oh, I am staying a day or two with Duchess Mary," said the new-comer.
"She is a little older--and no less gouty, poor dear, than she used to
be. Mrs. Barnes, I have heard a great deal of you--though you mayn't
know anything about me. Ah! Dr. Lelius?"

The German, bowing awkwardly, yet radiant, came forward to take the hand
extended to him.

"They did nothing but talk about you at the Louvre, when I was there
last week," she said, with a little confidential nod. "You have made
them horribly uncomfortable about some of their things. Isn't it a pity
to know too much?"

She turned toward Daphne. "I'm afraid that's your case too." She smiled,
and the smile lit up a face full of delicate lines and wrinkles, which
no effort had been made to disguise; a tired face, where the eyes spoke
from caverns of shade, yet with the most appealing and persuasive
beauty.

"Do you mean about pictures?" said Daphne, a little coldly. "I don't
know as much as Dr. Lelius."

Humour leaped into the eyes fixed upon her; but Mrs. Fairmile only said:
"That's not given to the rest of us mortals. But after all, _having's_
better than knowing. Don't--_don't_ you possess the Vitali Signorelli?"

Her voice was most musical and flattering. Daphne smiled in spite of
herself. "Yes, we do. It's in London now--waiting till we can find a
place for it."

"You must let me make a pilgrimage--when it comes. But you know you'd
find a number of things at Upcott--where I'm staying now--that would
interest you. I forget whether you've met the Duchess?"

"This is our first week here," said Roger, interposing. "The house has
been let till now. We came down to see what could be made of it."

His tone was only just civil. His mother, looking on, said to herself
that he was angry--and with good reason.

But Mrs. Fairmile still smiled.

"Ah! the Lelys!" she cried, raising her hand slightly toward the row of
portraits on the wall. "The dear impossible things! Are you still
discussing them--as we used to do?"

Daphne started. "You know this house, then?"

The smile broadened into a laugh of amusement, as Mrs. Fairmile turned
to Roger's mother.

"Don't I, dear Lady Barnes--don't I know this house?"

Lady Barnes seemed to straighten in her chair. "Well, you were here
often enough to know it," she said abruptly. "Daphne, Mrs. Fairmile is a
distant cousin of ours."

"Distant, but quite enough to swear by!" said the visitor, gaily. "Yes,
Mrs. Barnes, I knew this house very well in old days. It has many
charming points." She looked round with a face that had suddenly become
coolly critical, an embodied intelligence.

Daphne, as though divining for the first time a listener worthy of her
steel, began to talk with some rapidity of the changes she wished to
make. She talked with an evident desire to show off, to make an
impression. Mrs. Fairmile listened attentively, occasionally throwing in
a word of criticism or comment, in the softest, gentlest voice. But
somehow, whenever she spoke, Daphne felt vaguely irritated. She was
generally put slightly in the wrong by her visitor, and Mrs. Fairmile's
extraordinary knowledge of Heston Park, and of everything connected with
it, was so odd and disconcerting. She had a laughing way, moreover, of
appealing to Roger Barnes himself to support a recollection or an
opinion, which presently produced a contraction of Daphne's brows. Who
was this woman? A cousin--a cousin who knew every inch of the house, and
seemed to be one of Roger's closest friends? It was really too strange
that in all these years Roger should never have said a word about her!

The red mounted in Daphne's cheek. She began, moreover, to feel herself
at a disadvantage to which she was not accustomed. Dr. Lelius,
meanwhile, turned to Mrs. Fairmile, whenever she was allowed to speak,
with a joyous yet inarticulate deference he had never shown to his
hostess. They understood each other at a word or a glance. Beside them
Daphne, with all her cleverness, soon appeared as a child for whom one
makes allowances.

A vague anger swelled in her throat. She noticed, too, Roger's silence
and Lady Barnes's discomfort. There was clearly something here that had
been kept from her--something to be unravelled!

Suddenly the new-comer rose. Mrs. Fairmile wore a dress of some pale
gray stuff, cobweb-light and transparent, over a green satin. It had the
effect of sea-water, and her gray hat, with its pale green wreath,
framed the golden-gray of her hair. Every one of her few adornments was
exquisite--so was her grace as she moved. Daphne's pink-and-black
vivacity beside her seemed a pinchbeck thing.

"Well, now, when will you all come to Upcott?" Mrs. Fairmile said
graciously, as she shook hands. "The Duchess will be enchanted to see
you any day, and----"

"Thank you! but we really can't come so far," said a determined voice.
"We have only a shaky old motor--our new one isn't ready yet--and
besides, we want all our time for the house."

"You make him work so hard?"

Mrs. Fairmile, laughing, pointed to the speaker. Roger looked up
involuntarily, and Daphne saw the look.

"Roger has nothing to do," she said, quickly. "Thank you very much: we
will certainly come. I'll write to you. How many miles did you say it
was?"

"Oh, nothing for a motor!--twenty-five. We used to think it nothing for
a ride, didn't we?"

The speaker, who was just passing through the door, turned towards
Roger, who with Lelius, was escorting her, with a last gesture--gay,
yet, like all her gestures, charged with a slight yet deliberate
significance.

They disappeared. Daphne walked to the window, biting her lip.

* * * * *

As she stood there Herbert French came into the room, looking a little
shy and ill at ease, and behind him three persons, a clergyman in an
Archdeacon's apron and gaiters, and two ladies. Daphne, perceiving them
sideways in a mirror to her right, could not repress a gesture and
muttered sound of annoyance.

French introduced Archdeacon Mountford, his wife and sister. Roger, it
seemed, had met them in the hall, and sent them in. He himself had been
carried off on some business by the head keeper.

Daphne turned ungraciously. Her colour was very bright, her eyes a
little absent and wild. The two ladies, both clad in pale brown stuffs,
large mushroom hats, and stout country boots, eyed her nervously, and as
they sat down, at her bidding, they left the Archdeacon--who was the
vicar of the neighbouring town--to explain, with much amiable
stammering, that seeing the Duchess's carriage at the front door, as
they were crossing the park, they presumed that visitors were admitted,
and had ventured to call.

Daphne received the explanation without any cordiality. She did indeed
bid the callers sit down, and ordered some fresh tea. But she took no
pains to entertain them, and if Lady Barnes and Herbert French had not
come to the rescue, they would have fared but ill. The Archdeacon, in
fact, did come to grief. For him Mrs. Barnes was just a "foreigner,"
imported from some unknown and, of course, inferior _milieu_, one who
had never been "a happy English child," and must therefore be treated
with indulgence. He endeavoured to talk to her--kindly--about her
country. A branch of his own family, he informed her, had settled about
a hundred years before this date in the United States. He gave her, at
some length, the genealogy of the branch, then of the main stock to
which he himself belonged, presuming that she was, at any rate,
acquainted with the name? It was, he said, his strong opinion that
American women were very "bright." For himself he could not say that he
even disliked the accent, it was so "quaint." Did Mrs. Barnes know many
of the American bishops? He himself had met a large number of them at a
reception at the Church House, but it had really made him quite
uncomfortable! They wore no official dress, and there was he--a mere
Archdeacon!--in gaiters. And, of course, no one thought of calling them
"my lord." It certainly was very curious--to an Englishman. And
Methodist bishops!--such as he was told America possessed in
plenty--that was still more curious. One of the Episcopalian bishops,
however, had preached--in Westminster Abbey--a remarkable sermon, on a
very sad subject, not perhaps a subject to be discussed in a
drawing-room--but still----

Suddenly the group on the other side of the room became aware that the
Archdeacon's amiable prosing had been sharply interrupted--that Daphne,
not he, was holding the field. A gust of talk arose--Daphne declaiming,
the Archdeacon, after a first pause of astonishment, changing aspect and
tone. French, looking across the room, saw the mask of conventional
amiability stripped from what was really a strong and rather tyrannical
face. The man's prominent mouth and long upper lip emerged. He drew his
chair back from Daphne's; he tried once or twice to stop or argue with
her, and finally he rose abruptly.

"My dear!"--his wife turned hastily--"We must not detain Mrs. Barnes
longer!"

The two ladies looked at the Archdeacon--the god of their idolatry; then
at Daphne. Hurriedly, like birds frightened by a shot, they crossed the
room and just touched their hostess's hand; the Archdeacon, making up
for their precipitancy by a double dose of dignity, bowed himself out;
the door closed behind them.

"Daphne!--my dear! what is the matter?" cried Lady Barnes, in dismay.

"He spoke to me impertinently about my country!" said Daphne, turning
upon her, her black eyes blazing, her cheeks white with excitement.

"The Archdeacon!--he is always so polite!"

"He talked like a fool--about things he doesn't understand!" was
Daphne's curt reply, as she gathered up her hat and some letters, and
moved towards the door.

"About what? My dear Daphne! He could not possibly have meant to offend
you! Could he, Mr. French?" Lady Barnes turned plaintively towards her
very uncomfortable companions.

Daphne confronted her.

"If he chooses to think America immoral and degraded because American
divorce laws are different from the English laws, let him think it!--but
he has no business to air his views to an American--at a first visit,
too!" said Daphne passionately, and, drawing herself up, she swept out
of the room, leaving the others dumfoundered.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" wailed Lady Barnes. "And the Archdeacon is so
important! Daphne might have been rude to anybody else--but not the
Archdeacon!"

"How did they manage to get into such a subject--so quickly?" asked
Elsie in bewilderment.

"I suppose he took it for granted that Daphne agreed with him! All
decent people do."

Lady Barnes's wrath was evident--so was her indiscretion. Elsie French
applied herself to soothing her, while Herbert French disappeared into
the garden with a book. His wife, however, presently observed from the
drawing-room that he was not reading. He was pacing the lawn, with his
hands behind him, and his eyes on the grass. The slight, slowly-moving
figure stood for meditation, and Elsie French knew enough to understand
that the incidents of the afternoon might well supply any friend of
Roger Barnes's with food for meditation. Herbert had not been in the
drawing-room when Mrs. Fairmile was calling, but no doubt he had met her
in the hall when she was on her way to her carriage.

Meanwhile Daphne, in her own room, was also employed in meditation. She
had thrown herself, frowning, into a chair beside a window which
overlooked the park. The landscape had a gentle charm--spreading grass,
low hills, and scattered woods--under a warm September sun. But it had
no particular accent, and Daphne thought it both tame and depressing;
like an English society made up of Archdeacon Mountfords and their
women-kind! What a futile, irritating man!--and what dull creatures were
the wife and daughter!--mere echoes of their lord and master. She had
behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her
outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's
sake she was not going to cringe to these poor provincial standards.

And all the time she knew very well that it was not the Archdeacon and
his fatuities that were really at fault. The afternoon had been decided
not by the Mountfords' call, but by that which had preceded it.

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Barnes, however, made no immediate reference to the matter which
was in truth filling her mind. She avoided her husband and
mother-in-law, both of whom were clearly anxious to capture her
attention; and, by way of protecting herself from them, she spent the
late afternoon in looking through Italian photographs with Dr. Lelius.

But about seven o'clock Roger found her lying on her sofa, her hands
clasped behind her head--frowning--the lips working.

He came in rather consciously, glancing at his wife in hesitation.

"Are you tired, Daphne?"

"No."

"A penny for your thoughts, then!" He stooped over her and looked into
her eyes.

Daphne made no reply. She continued to look straight before her.

"What's the matter with you?" he said, at last.

"I'm wondering," said Daphne slowly, "how many more cousins and great
friends you have, that I know nothing about. I think another time it
would be civil--just that!--to give me a word of warning."

Roger pulled at his moustache. "I hadn't an idea she was within a
thousand miles of this place! But, if I had, I couldn't have imagined
she would have the face to come here!"

"Who is she?" With a sudden movement Daphne turned her eyes upon him.

"Well, there's no good making any bones about it," said the man,
flushing. "She's a girl I was once engaged to, for a very short time,"
he added hastily. "It was the week before my father died, and our smash
came. As soon as it came she threw me over."

Daphne's intense gaze, under the slightly frowning brows, disquieted
him.

"How long were you engaged to her?"

"Three weeks."

"Had she been staying here before that?"

"Yes--she often stayed here. Daphne! don't look like that! She treated
me abominably; and before I married you I had come not to care twopence
about her."

"You did care about her when you proposed to me?"

"No!--not at all! Of course, when I went out to New York I was sore,
because she had thrown me over."

"And I"--Daphne made a scornful lip--"was the feather-bed to catch you
as you fell. It never occurred to you that it might have been honourable
to tell me?"

"Well, I don't know--I never asked you to tell me of your affairs!"

Roger, his hands in his pockets, looked round at her with an awkward
laugh.

"I told you everything!" was the quick reply--"_everything_."

Roger uncomfortably remembered that so indeed it had been; and moreover
that he had been a good deal bored at the time by Daphne's confessions.

He had not been enough in love with her--then--to find them of any great
account. And certainly it had never occurred to him to pay them back in
kind. What did it matter to her or to anyone that Chloe Morant had made
a fool of him? His recollection of the fooling, at the time he proposed
to Daphne, was still so poignant that it would have been impossible to
speak of it. And within a few months afterwards he had practically
forgotten it--and Chloe too. Of course he could not see her again, for
the first time, without being "a bit upset"; mostly, indeed, by the
boldness--the brazenness--of her behaviour. But his emotions were of no
tragic strength, and, as Lady Barnes had complained to Mrs. French, he
was now honestly in love with Daphne and his child.

So that he had nothing but impatience and annoyance for the recollection
of the visit of the afternoon; and Daphne's attitude distressed him.
Why, she was as pale as a ghost! His thoughts sent Chloe Fairmile to the
deuce.

"Look here, dear!" he said, kneeling down suddenly beside his
wife--"don't you get any nonsense into your head. I'm not the kind of
fellow who goes philandering after a woman when she's jilted him. I took
her measure, and after you accepted me I never gave her another thought.
I forgot her, dear--bag and baggage! Kiss me, Daphne!"

But Daphne still held him at bay.

"How long were you engaged to her?" she repeated.

"I've told you--three weeks!" said the man, reluctantly.

"How long had you known her?"

"A year or two. She was a distant cousin of father's. Her father was
Governor of Madras, and her mother was dead. She couldn't stand India
for long together, and she used to stay about with relations. Why she
took a fancy to me I can't imagine. She's so booky and artistic, and
that kind of thing, that I never understood half the time what she was
talking about. Now you're just as clever, you know, darling, but I do
understand you."

Roger's conscience made a few dim remonstrances. It asked him whether in
fact, standing on his own qualifications and advantages of quite a
different kind, he had not always felt himself triumphantly more than a
match for Chloe and her cleverness. But he paid no heed to them. He was
engaged in stroking Daphne's fingers and studying the small set face.

"Whom did she marry?" asked Daphne, putting an end to the stroking.

"A fellow in the army--Major Fairmile--a smart, popular sort of chap. He
was her father's aide-de-camp when they married--just after we did--and
they've been in India, or Egypt, ever since. They don't get on, and I
suppose she comes and quarters herself on the old Duchess--as she used
to on us."

"You seem to know all about her! Yes, I remember now, I've heard people
speak of her to you. Mrs. Fairmile--Mrs. Fairmile--yes, I remember,"
said Daphne, in a brooding voice, her cheeks becoming suddenly very red.
"Your uncle--in town--mentioned her. I didn't take any notice."

"Why should you? She doesn't matter a fig, either to you or to me!"

"It matters to me very much that these people who spoke of her--your
uncle and the others--knew what I didn't know!" cried Daphne,
passionately. She stared at Roger, strangely conscious that something
epoch-making and decisive had happened. Roger had had a secret from her
all these years--that was what had happened; and now she had discovered
it. That he _could_ have a secret from her, however, was the real
discovery. She felt a fierce resentment, and yet a kind of added respect
for him. All the time he had been the private owner of thoughts and
recollections that she had no part in, and the fact roused in her tumult
and bitterness. Nevertheless the disturbance which it produced in her
sense of property, the shock and anguish of it, brought back something
of the passion of love she had felt in the first year of their marriage.

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