XVIII
IF Mr. Langhope had ever stooped to such facile triumphs as that summedup in the convenient "I told you so," he would have loosed the phrase onMrs. Ansell in the course of a colloquy which these two, the nextafternoon, were at some pains to defend from the incursions of theLynbrook house-party.
Mrs. Ansell was the kind of woman who could encircle herself withprivacy on an excursion-boat and create a nook in an hotel drawing-room,but it taxed even her ingenuity to segregate herself from the Telfers.When the feat was accomplished, and it became evident that Mr. Langhopecould yield himself securely to the joys of confidential discourse, hepaused on the brink of disclosure to say: "It's as well I saved thatMing from the ruins."
"What ruins?" she exclaimed, her startled look giving him the fullbenefit of the effect he was seeking to produce.
He addressed himself deliberately to the selecting and lighting of acigarette. "Truscomb is down and out--resigned, 'the wise it call.' Andthe alterations at Westmore are going to cost a great deal more than myexperienced son-in-law expected. This is Westy's morning budget--he andAmherst had it out last night. I tell my poor girl that at least she'lllose nothing when the _bibelots_ I've bought for her go up the spout."
Mrs. Ansell received this with a troubled countenance. "What has becomeof Bessy? I've not seen her since luncheon."
"No. She and Blanche Carbury have motored over to dine with the NickLedgers at Islip."
"Did you see her before she left?"
"For a moment, but she said very little. Westy tells me that Amhersthints at leasing the New York house. One can understand that she's leftspeechless."
Mrs. Ansell, at this, sat bolt upright. "The New York house?" But shebroke off to add, with seeming irrelevance: "If you knew how I detestBlanche Carbury!"
Mr. Langhope made a gesture of semi-acquiescence. "She is not the friendI should have chosen for Bessy--but we know that Providence makes use ofstrange instruments."
"Providence and Blanche Carbury?" She stared at him. "Ah, you areprofoundly corrupt!"
"I have the coarse masculine habit of looking facts in the face.Woman-like, you prefer to make use of them privately, and cut them whenyou meet in public."
"Blanche is not the kind of fact I should care to make use of under anycircumstances whatever!"
"No one asks you to. Simply regard her as a force of nature--let heralone, and don't put up too many lightning-rods."
She raised her eyes to his face. "Do you really mean that you want Bessyto get a divorce?"
"Your style is elliptical, dear Maria; but divorce does not frighten mevery much. It has grown almost as painless as modern dentistry."
"It's our odious insensibility that makes it so!"
Mr. Langhope received this with the mildness of suspended judgment. "Howelse, then, do you propose that Bessy shall save what is left of hermoney?"
"I would rather see her save what is left of her happiness. Bessy willnever be happy in the new way."
"What do you call the new way?"
"Launching one's boat over a human body--or several, as the case maybe!"
"But don't you see that, as an expedient to bring this madman toreason----"
"I've told you that you don't understand him!"
Mr. Langhope turned on her with what would have been a show of temper inany one less provided with shades of manner. "Well, then, explain him,for God's sake!"
"I might explain him by saying that she's still in love with him."
"Ah, if you're still imprisoned in the old formulas!"
Mrs. Ansell confronted him with a grave face. "Isn't that precisely whatBessy is? Isn't she one of the most harrowing victims of the plan ofbringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality,corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, andleaving them to reconcile the two as best they can, or lose their soulsin the attempt?"
Mr. Langhope smiled. "I may observe that, with my poor child so earlyleft alone to me, I supposed I was doing my best in committing herguidance to some of the most admirable women I know."
"Of whom I was one--and not the least lamentable example of the system!Of course the only thing that saves us from their vengeance," Mrs.Ansell added, "is that so few of them ever stop to think...."
"And yet, as I make out, it's precisely what you would have Bessy do!"
"It's what neither you nor I can help her doing. You've given her justacuteness enough to question, without consecutiveness enough to explain.But if she must perish in the struggle--and I see no hope for her--"cried Mrs. Ansell, starting suddenly and dramatically to her feet, "atleast let her perish defending her ideals and not denying them--even ifshe has to sell the New York house and all your china pots into thebargain!"
Mr. Langhope, rising also, deprecatingly lifted his hands, "If that'swhat you call saving me from her vengeance--sending the crockerycrashing round my ears!" And, as she turned away without any pretense ofcapping his pleasantry, he added, with a gleam of friendly malice: "Isuppose you're going to the Hunt ball as Cassandra?"
* * * * *
Amherst, that morning, had sought out his wife with the definite resolveto efface the unhappy impression of their previous talk. He blamedhimself for having been too easily repelled by her impatience. As thestronger of the two, with the power of a fixed purpose to sustain him,he should have allowed for the instability of her impulses, and aboveall for the automatic influences of habit.
Knowing that she did not keep early hours he delayed till ten o'clock topresent himself at her sitting-room door, but the maid who answered hisknock informed him that Mrs. Amherst was not yet up.
His reply that he would wait did not appear to hasten the leisurelyprocess of her toilet, and he had the room to himself for a fullhalf-hour. Many months had passed since he had spent so long a time init, and though habitually unobservant of external details, he now foundan outlet for his restlessness in mechanically noting the intimateappurtenances of Bessy's life. He was at first merely conscious of asoothing harmony of line and colour, extending from the blurred tints ofthe rug to the subdued gleam of light on old picture-frames and on theslender flanks of porcelain vases; but gradually he began to notice howevery chair and screen and cushion, and even every trifling utensil onthe inlaid writing-desk, had been chosen with reference to the wholecomposition, and to the minutest requirements of a fastidious leisure. Afew months ago this studied setting, if he had thought of it at all,would have justified itself as expressing the pretty woman's naturalaffinity with pretty toys; but now it was the cost of it that struckhim. He was beginning to learn from Bessy's bills that no commodity istaxed as high as beauty, and the beauty about him filled him with suddenrepugnance, as the disguise of the evil influences that were separatinghis wife's life from his.
But with her entrance he dismissed the thought, and tried to meet her asif nothing stood in the way of their full communion. Her hair, still wetfrom the bath, broke from its dryad-like knot in dusky rings and spiralsthreaded with gold, and from her loose flexible draperies, and her wholeperson as she moved, there came a scent of youth and morning freshness.Her beauty touched him, and made it easier for him to humble himself.
"I was stupid and disagreeable last night. I can never say what I wantwhen I have to count the minutes, and I've come back now for a quiettalk," he began.
A shade of distrust passed over Bessy's face. "About business?" sheasked, pausing a few feet away from him.
"Don't let us give it that name!" He went up to her and drew her twohands into his. "You used to call it our work--won't you go back to thatway of looking at it?"
Her hands resisted his pressure. "I didn't know, then, that it was goingto be the only thing you cared for----"
But for her own sake he would not let her go on. "Some day I shall makeyou see how much my caring for it means my caring for you. Butmeanwhile," he urged, "won't you overcome your aversion to the subject,and bear with it as my work, if you no longer
care to think of it asyours?"
Bessy, freeing herself, sat down on the edge of the straight-backedchair near the desk, as though to mark the parenthetical nature of theinterview.
"I know you think me stupid--but wives are not usually expected to gointo all the details of their husband's business. I have told you to dowhatever you wish at Westmore, and I can't see why that is not enough."
Amherst looked at her in surprise. Something in her quick mechanicalutterance suggested that not only the thought but the actual words shespoke had been inspired, and he fancied he heard in them an echo ofBlanche Carbury's tones. Though Bessy's intimacy with Mrs. Carbury wasof such recent date, fragments of unheeded smoking-room gossip nowrecurred to confirm the vague antipathy which Amherst had felt for herthe previous evening.
"I know that, among your friends, wives are not expected to interestthemselves in their husbands' work, and if the mills were mine I shouldtry to conform to the custom, though I should always think it a pitythat the questions that fill a man's thoughts should be ruled out of histalk with his wife; but as it is, I am only your representative atWestmore, and I don't see how we can help having the subject come upbetween us."
Bessy remained silent, not as if acquiescing in his plea, but as thoughher own small stock of arguments had temporarily failed her; and he wenton, enlarging on his theme with a careful avoidance of technical terms,and with the constant effort to keep the human and personal side of thequestion before her.
She listened without comment, her eyes fixed on a little jewelledletter-opener which she had picked up from the writing-table, and whichshe continued to turn in her fingers while he spoke.
The full development of Amherst's plans at Westmore, besides resulting,as he had foreseen, in Truscomb's resignation, and in Halford Gaines'soutspoken resistance to the new policy, had necessitated a largerimmediate outlay of capital than the first estimates demanded, andAmherst, in putting his case to Bessy, was prepared to have her meet iton the old ground of the disapproval of all her advisers. But when hehad ended she merely said, without looking up from the toy in her hand:"I always expected that you would need a great deal more money than youthought."
The comment touched him at his most vulnerable point. "But you see why?You understand how the work has gone on growing--?"
His wife lifted her head to glance at him for a moment. "I am not surethat I understand," she said indifferently; "but if another loan isnecessary, of course I will sign the note for it."
The words checked his reply by bringing up, before he was prepared todeal with it, the other and more embarrassing aspect of the question. Hehad hoped to reawaken in Bessy some feeling for the urgency of his taskbefore having to take up the subject of its cost; but her coldanticipation of his demands as part of a disagreeable business to bedespatched and put out of mind, doubled the difficulty of what he hadleft to say; and it occurred to him that she had perhaps foreseen andreckoned on this result.
He met her eyes gravely. "Another loan _is_ necessary; but if any properprovision is to be made for paying it back, your expenses will have tobe cut down a good deal for the next few months."
The blood leapt to Bessy's face. "My expenses? You seem to forget howmuch I've had to cut them down already."
"The household bills certainly don't show it. They are increasingsteadily, and there have been some very heavy incidental paymentslately."
"What do you mean by incidental payments?"
"Well, there was the pair of cobs you bought last month----"
She returned to a resigned contemplation of the letter-opener. "Withonly one motor, one must have more horses, of course."
"The stables seemed to me fairly full before. But if you required morehorses, I don't see why, at this particular moment, it was alsonecessary to buy a set of Chinese vases for twenty-five hundreddollars."
Bessy, at this, lifted her head with an air of decision that surprisedhim. Her blush had faded as quickly as it came, and he noticed that shewas pale to the lips.
"I know you don't care about such things; but I had an exceptionalchance of securing the vases at a low price--they are really worthtwice as much--and Dick always wanted a set of Ming for the drawing-roommantelpiece."
Richard Westmore's name was always tacitly avoided between them, for inAmherst's case the disagreeable sense of dependence on a dead man'sbounty increased that feeling of obscure constraint and repugnance whichany reminder of the first husband's existence is wont to produce in hissuccessor.
He reddened at the reply, and Bessy, profiting by an embarrassment whichshe had perhaps consciously provoked, went on hastily, and as if byrote: "I have left you perfectly free to do as you think best at themills, but this perpetual discussion of my personal expenses is veryunpleasant to me, as I am sure it must be to you, and in future I thinkit would be much better for us to have separate accounts."
"Separate accounts?" Amherst echoed in genuine astonishment.
"I should like my personal expenses to be under my own control again--Ihave never been used to accounting for every penny I spend."
The vertical lines deepened between Amherst's brows. "You are of coursefree to spend your money as you like--and I thought you were doing sowhen you authorized me, last spring, to begin the changes at Westmore."
Her lip trembled. "Do you reproach me for that? I didn'tunderstand...you took advantage...."
"Oh!" he exclaimed.
At his tone the blood rushed back to her face. "It was my fault, ofcourse--I only wanted to please you----"
Amherst was silent, confronted by the sudden sense of his ownresponsibility. What she said was true--he had known, when he exactedthe sacrifice, that she made it only to please him, on an impulse ofreawakened feeling, and not from any real recognition of a larger duty.The perception of this made him answer gently: "I am willing to take anyblame you think I deserve; but it won't help us now to go back to thepast. It is more important that we should come to an understanding aboutthe future. If by keeping your personal account separate, you mean thatyou wish to resume control of your whole income, then you ought tounderstand that the improvements at the mills will have to be dropped atonce, and things there go back to their old state."
She started up with an impatient gesture. "Oh, I should like never tohear of the mills again!"
He looked at her a moment in silence. "Am I to take that as youranswer?"
She walked toward her door without returning his look. "Of course," shemurmured, "you will end by doing as you please."
The retort moved him, for he heard in it the cry of her wounded pride.He longed to be able to cry out in return that Westmore was nothing tohim, that all he asked was to see her happy.... But it was not true, andhis manhood revolted from the deception. Besides, its effect would beonly temporary--would wear no better than her vain efforts to simulatean interest in his work. Between them, forever, were the insurmountablebarriers of character, of education, of habit--and yet it was not in himto believe that any barrier was insurmountable.
"Bessy," he exclaimed, following her, "don't let us part in thisway----"
She paused with her hand on her dressing-room door. "It is time to dressfor church," she objected, turning to glance at the little gilt clock onthe chimney-piece.
"For church?" Amherst stared, wondering that at such a crisis she shouldhave remained detached enough to take note of the hour.
"You forget," she replied, with an air of gentle reproof, "that beforewe married I was in the habit of going to church every Sunday."
"Yes--to be sure. Would you not like me to go with you?" he rejoinedgently, as if roused to the consciousness of another omission in thelong list of his social shortcomings; for church-going, at Lynbrook, hadalways struck him as a purely social observance.
But Bessy had opened the door of her dressing-room. "I much prefer thatyou should do what you like," she said as she passed from the room.
Amherst made no farther attempt to detain her, and the door closed onher as though it were
closing on a chapter in their lives.
"That's the end of it!" he murmured, picking up the letter-opener shehad been playing with, and twirling it absently in his fingers. Butnothing in life ever ends, and the next moment a new question confrontedhim--how was the next chapter to open?
BOOK III