Only a clod
her book doesn’t happen to be interesting, I’m afraid she’ll be cross,
for I am sure I must have been an unconscionable time.”
There was a little embrace, and then Susan opened the gate and Maude
tripped away. The vulgar gravel seemed like empyreal air under her
high-heeled boots this time; so changed were her feelings since she had
discovered how deeply she had wronged her husband by the shapeless
jealousies that Harcourt Lowther had inspired in her breast.
Julia looked with astonishment at her friend’s altered countenance as
Maude apologized for the length of her absence, while the _blasé_
footman let down the steps; she was still more astonished when the
carriage drove townwards, and Maude gushed into French, to the
discomfiture of the footman, who had a habit of looking behind him for
imaginary vehicles when his mistress’s conversation happened to interest
him.
In French, Maude informed Julia that the mythic rival had melted into a
“little cousin,” who was “all that there is of the most charming,” “an
all young girl,” “a candid angel,” whom Mrs. Tredethlyn was ready to
take to her heart forthwith. Julia found it a great deal harder to
sympathize with Maude’s happiness than with her misery.
But the happiness did not last very long; for on inquiry at Stuccoville,
Maude found that her husband had not been home; and on penetrating
Holborn-wards to Gray’s Inn, to the disgust of the languid footman, she
met with a second disappointment in the offices of Messrs. Kursdale and
Scardon, who had heard nothing of the absent Mr. Tredethlyn. After this
Maude drove homewards with a very sad countenance, and was glad to
shrink from even Julia’s sympathy, and to hide herself in her own rooms,
where she paced disconsolately to and fro, listening for the crunching
wheels, and banging door of a hansom cab, and stopping every now and
then to look hopelessly out into the monotonous street.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GONE.
All through the dreary day, and far into the still more dreary night,
Maude Tredethlyn waited and listened for her husband’s coming. She could
not believe that he would hold to the purpose so earnestly expressed in
his letter. His resolution had no doubt been fixed as the Monument
itself while he wrote, for he had written immediately after his wife’s
unjustifiable denunciation of him; but surely long before the time came
for action Francis Tredethlyn’s purpose would waver, and the faithful
slave would come back to his place at the feet of his mistress. In any
case he would surely seek some explanation of Maude’s anger.
“He never could be so cruel as to leave me because of a few foolish
words,” thought Mrs. Tredethlyn; “he could not be so unjust as not to
give me the opportunity of explaining myself.”
But on reading Francis Tredethlyn’s letter for the third or fourth time,
Maude discovered how complete the estrangement was that had divided her
from her husband. The indignant reproaches inspired by unreasoning
jealousy had been received by Francis as the deliberate utterance of a
contemptuous dislike that had reached a point at which it could no
longer be hidden under the mask of fashionable indifference. Mrs.
Tredethlyn perceived, as she read that mournful letter, that, in her
conduct of the previous night, her husband had only seen the miserable
climax of his married life. He beheld, as he fancied, his wife’s silent
scorn transformed all at once into passionate reproach; and the proud
spirit which breathes in all simple natures had asserted itself in the
farewell letter which Maude read through a mist of tears.
“He thinks I married him for his money, and that I have disliked and
despised him,” she thought sadly. “Ah, if he could know how often I have
reproached myself for being unworthy of his devotion,--if he could know
how my heart has sunk day by day as I have seen the breach grow wider
between us! I fancied that I had lost his love, and yet this letter is
full of the old devotion.”
Maude awoke from the brief morning slumber that generally succeeds a
sleepless night to a second day of suspense. She did not talk to Julia
of her troubles now. They were growing too serious for feminine
discussion or friendly sympathy. Mrs. Tredethlyn shut herself in her own
rooms, and would see no one. She pleaded a headache, and the plea was no
empty excuse; for when her all-absorbing anxieties permitted her to
remember the existence of her head, she knew that it ached with a dull
heavy pain which all the eau-de-Cologne in her dressing-case could not
assuage. She roamed hopelessly to and fro between her bedroom and
dressing-room, and failed most utterly in her attempt to hide her
distress from the omniscient eye of her maid.
The second day passed, and there was no Francis. In the evening Maude
despatched a messenger to Mr. Kursdale with a note of inquiry about
Francis: had his solicitors heard or seen anything of him; and so on.
The messenger was to wait an answer. But as old-established solicitors
do not usually reside in Gray’s Inn, the messenger found only darkness
and stout oaken doors when he obeyed his mistress’s behest. Maude wrote
another letter that evening, addressed to Harcourt Lowther, and
containing only these few lines, hurriedly written and with all the
important words underlined:
“DEAR MR. LOWTHER,--Have you seen my husband since the day
before yesterday? He _left home_ on Tuesday night, and I have
_not seen him since_. I am _terribly_ anxious about him. I have
_been to Petersham_, and have _seen the lady_. We were _quite
wrong_ about her, and I am _ashamed_ of myself for having been
_so foolish_. She is a _near relation_ of Frank’s; and his
conduct to her has been _most noble_. Pray find him
_immediately_, if possible, and show him this letter.
“Yours sincerely,
“M.T.
“_Thursday night._”
A pleasant letter this for Harcourt Lowther to receive the next day, as
he lay helpless on the lodging-house sofa, with his head and face sadly
dilapidated by the effects of his fall under a shower of broken
wine-glasses and cruets.
He groaned aloud as he read Maude’s missive.
“Is there any possibility of comprehending a woman’s tactics?” he
muttered. “She writes as if this boor were an idolized husband. Is it
all hypocrisy--or what? So the bubble of jealousy has burst, and the
young person at the Petersham cottage _is_ a cousin, after all; and
Francis has kicked up his heels; and I lie here as miserably bruised and
battered as if I had just been beaten in a fight for the championship,
at the very time when I most want to be up and astir.”
Yes, Mr. Lowther was a prisoner. He had been seriously shaken by the
scuffle with Francis, and had been in the doctor’s hands since the
unpleasant termination of his supper-party. But this was not the worst.
It was the disfigurement of his handsome face which Harcourt took most
deeply to heart. A black eye or a scarred forehead will keep a man as
close a captive as a warrant of committal to the Tower. At the very
moment when the sudden entanglement of his web threatened to render all
past efforts useless, when the schemer had most need of his dexterity,
Harcourt Lowther found himself an unpresentable object, and knew that he
must spend dreary weeks of seclusion before he dared emerge into the
world once more, and take up the disordered threads which he still hoped
to weave into a harmonious network. Imagine Paris, with all his plans
laid for the abduction of Helen, brought suddenly to a standstill by a
score of vulgar cuts and bruises, the sight of any one of which might
have restored the lady to a sense of her duty. Harcourt Lowther, with
his face bandaged, felt himself a contemptible creature, a modern Samson
without the glorious remnant of a Samson’s strength. For the first time
in his life the fine gentleman discovered how much he depended on his
handsome face, and what a lost wretch he would be without it.
He felt a savage rage against Roderick, who strolled in and out of the
room half the morning, dressing and breakfasting by instalments,
smoking, and writing letters, and crackling the daily papers, as it
seemed to Harcourt, more persistently than newspapers were ever crackled
before. _He_ was free to sally forth after his careful toilet, while his
junior lay on that rickety sofa as furious in his wretched helplessness
as some wounded hyena. Roderick had volunteered to call upon Francis at
the Covent Garden hotel, to demand a reckoning for the scuffle at the
supper-party; but Harcourt declined the friendly offer.
“As soon as I can leave the house, I will go to him myself,” he said.
“The fellow’s talk about going abroad is all bombast, I dare say. He
will be sneaking back to his wife’s apron-string now that I am laid by
the heels.”
When Harcourt had read Maude’s letter, he tossed it over to his brother.
“Do you know how to reckon that up?” he asked. “What does it mean?”
Mr. Lowther the elder had by no means a high estimate of the female
character. In his idea of the sex, the woman who was not a profound
simpleton was only something very much worse than a simpleton.
“The fellow has _not_ gone back to his wife; so that’s one point in your
favour, at any rate,” said Roderick, after reading Maude’s epistle. “I
dare say he’ll go altogether to the bad now, at a railroad pace, and
finish himself off before the year is out. The lady’s anxious inquiries
about her husband may be read in more ways than one. This letter _may_
be only intended to put _you_ _au courant_ as to the state of affairs.
Unluckily, that ugly scar about your nose will prevent your calling on
Mrs. Tredethlyn for some weeks. But I don’t mind being brotherly for
once in a way; and I’ll look in at the Stuccoville mansion this
afternoon, if you like. Virtue is sometimes rewarded, and there is just
a chance that I may see the lovely Grunderson, and improve the
occasion.”
Harcourt, after a little deliberation, consented to this arrangement.
His confidence in the honour of his brother was about as small as it
could be; but as the interests of the two Antipholi were in this
instance not antagonistic, he could scarcely have anything to fear from
Roderick’s intervention.
“You can tell Mrs. Tredethlyn that I am seriously ill,” he said, when
his brother was leaving him. “If you could drop a hint or two about a
rapid decline--a secret sorrow undermining a constitution that was
originally delicate--the sword and the scabbard, and so on, it would
only be friendly to do so. Of course I have seen nothing of Francis
since Tuesday, which is perfectly true; only you need say nothing of
Tuesday night--curse him!” muttered Harcourt, with a lively recollection
of the wounds inflicted by a broken vinegar-cruet, and the pernicious
effects of the adulterated vinegar, as exhibited in his inflamed eyes.
“You can take care to let Mrs. Tredethlyn understand that her husband
has returned to his old haunts and his old companions; and that any
anxiety she may be so absurd as to feel about him is wasted upon a
person who would be the first to laugh at her folly.”
“Dear boy, I have not served my country for nothing,” answered the
diplomatist. “You may trust in my discretion and in my power to make the
best of an opportunity. The people who plan a conversation beforehand
never are able to talk according to their programme. The other party
doesn’t give the necessary cues. The man who trusts to the inspiration
of the moment never makes a failure. The divine _afflatus_ is always