Part 17

“Oh it’s Mr. Waterville come to spy me out as usual!” It was with this remark she greeted the slightly-embarrassed young man.

“Hallo, you’ve come home from church?” Sir Arthur said, pulling out his watch.

Waterville was struck with his coolness. He admired it; for, after all, he noted, it must have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He felt rather an ass, and wished he had kept hold of Mrs. April, to give him the air of having come for her sake. Mrs. Headway was looking adorably fresh in attire that Waterville, who had his ideas on such matters, felt sure wouldn’t be regarded as the proper thing for a Sunday morning in an English country-house: a négligé of white flounces and frills interspersed with yellow ribbons—a garment Madame de Pompadour might have sported to receive Louis XV., but probably wouldn’t have worn for a public airing. The sight of this costume gave the finishing touch to his impression that she knew on the whole what she was about. She would take a line of her own; she wouldn’t be too accommodating. She wouldn’t come down to breakfast; she wouldn’t go to church; she would wear on Sunday mornings little elaborately informal dresses and look dreadfully un-British and un-Protestant. Perhaps after all this was best. She began to talk with a certain volubility.

“Isn’t this too lovely? I walked all the way from the house. I’m not much at walking, but the grass in this place is like a parlour. The whole thing’s driving me wild. Sir Arthur, you ought to go and look after the Ambassador; it’s shameful the way I’ve kept you. You don’t trouble about the Ambassador? You said just now you had scarcely spoken to him, and you must make that right up. I never saw such a way of neglecting your guests. Is it the usual style over here? Go and take him out to ride or make him play a game of billiards. Mr. Waterville will take me home; besides, I want to scold him for spying on me.”

Our young man sharply resented her charge. “I had no idea whatever you were here.”

“We weren’t hiding,” said Sir Arthur quietly. “Perhaps you’ll see Mrs. Headway back to the house. I think I ought to look after old Davidoff. I believe luncheon’s at two.”

He left them, and Waterville wandered through the gardens with Mrs. Headway. She at once sought again to learn if he had come there to “dog” her; but this inquiry wasn’t accompanied, to his surprise, with the acrimony she had displayed the night before. He was determined not to let that pass, however; when people had treated him in that way they shouldn’t be allowed to forget it.

“Do you suppose I’m always thinking of you?” he derisively demanded. “You’re out of my mind _sometimes_. I came this way to look at the gardens, and if you hadn’t spoken to me should have passed on.”

Mrs. Headway was perfectly good-natured; she appeared not even to hear his defence. “He has got two other places,” she simply rejoined. “That’s just what I wanted to know.”

He wouldn’t nevertheless be turned from his grievance. That mode of reparation to a person whom you had insulted which consisted in forgetting you had done so was doubtless largely in use on back piazzas; but a creature of any spirit required a different form. “What did you mean last night by accusing me of having come down here to watch you? Pardon me if I tell you I think you grossly rude.” The sting of the imputation lay in the fact that there was a certain amount of truth in it; yet for a moment Mrs. Headway, looking very blank, failed to recover it. “She’s a barbarian, after all,” thought Waterville. “She thinks a woman may slap a man’s face and run away!”

“Oh,” she cried suddenly, “I remember—I was angry with you! I didn’t expect to see you. But I didn’t really mind about it at all. Every now and then I get mad like that and work it off on any one that’s handy. But it’s over in three minutes and I never think of it again. I confess I was mad last night; I could have shot the old woman.”

“‘The old woman’?”

“Sir Arthur’s mother. She has no business here anyway. In this country when the husband dies they’re expected to clear out. She has a house of her own ten miles from here and another in Portman Square; so she ain’t in want of good locations. But she sticks—she sticks to him like a strong plaster. It came over me as I kind of analysed that she didn’t invite me here because she liked me, but because she suspects me. She’s afraid we’ll make a match and she thinks I ain’t good enough for her son. She must think I’m in a great hurry to make him mine. I never went after him, he came after me. I should never have thought of anything if it hadn’t been for him. He began it last summer at Homburg; he wanted to know why I didn’t come to England; he told me I should have great success. He doesn’t know much about it anyway; he hasn’t got much gumption. But he’s a very nice man all the same; it’s very pleasant to see him surrounded by his—” And Mrs. Headway paused a moment, her appreciation ranging: “Surrounded by all his old heirlooms. I like the old place,” she went on; “it’s beautifully mounted; I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve seen. I thought Lady Demesne well-impressed; she left a card on me in London and very soon after wrote to me to ask me here. But I’m very quick; I sometimes see things in a flash. I saw something yesterday when she came to speak to me at dinner-time. She saw I looked pretty and refined, and it made her blue with rage; she hoped I’d be some sort of a horror. I’d like very much to oblige her, but what can one do? Then I saw she had asked me only because he insisted. He didn’t come to see me when I first arrived—he never came near me for ten days. She managed to prevent him; she got him to make some promise. But he changed his mind after a little, and then he had to do something really polite. He called three days in succession, and he made her come. She’s one of those women who holds out as long as she can and then seems to give in while she’s really fussing more than ever. She hates me as if I knew something about her—when I don’t even know what she thinks I’ve done myself. She’s very underhand; she’s a regular old cat. When I saw you last night at dinner I thought she had got you here to help her.”

“To help her?” Waterville echoed.

“To tell her about me. To give her information she can make use of against me. You may give her all you like!”

Waterville was almost breathless with the attention he had paid this extraordinary burst of confidence, and now he really felt faint. He stopped short; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps and then, stopping too, turned and shone at him in the glow of her egotism. “You’re the most unspeakable woman!” he wailed. She seemed to him indeed a barbarian.

She laughed at him—he felt she was laughing at his expression of face—and her laugh rang through the stately gardens. “What sort of a woman’s that?”

“You’ve got no delicacy”—he’d keep it up.

She coloured quickly, though, strange to say, without further irritation. “No delicacy?”

“You ought to keep those things to yourself.”

“Oh I know what you mean; I talk about everything. When I’m excited I’ve got to talk. But I must do things in my own way. I’ve got plenty of delicacy when people are nice to me. Ask Arthur Demesne if I ain’t delicate—ask George Littlemore if I ain’t. Don’t stand there all day; come on to lunch!” And Mrs. Headway resumed her walk while her companion, having balanced, slowly overtook her. “Wait till I get settled; then I’ll be delicate,” she pursued. “You can’t be delicate when you’re trying to save your life. It’s very well for _you_ to talk, with the whole State Department to back you. Of course I’m excited. I’ve got right hold of this thing, and I don’t mean to let go!” Before they reached the house she let him know why he had been invited to Longlands at the same time as herself. Waterville would have liked to believe his personal attractions sufficiently explained the fact, but she took no account of this supposition. Mrs. Headway preferred to see herself in an element of ingenious machination, where everything that happened referred to her and was aimed at her. Waterville had been asked then because he represented, however modestly, the American Legation, and their host had a friendly desire to make it appear that his pretty American visitor, of whom no one knew anything, was under the protection of that establishment. “It would start me better,” the lady in question complacently set forth. “You can’t help yourself—you’ve helped to start me. If he had known the Minister he’d have asked him—or the first secretary. But he don’t know them.”

They reached the house by the time she had developed her idea, which gave Waterville a pretext more than sufficient for detaining her in the portico. “Do you mean to say Sir Arthur has told you this?” he inquired almost sternly.

“Told me? Of course not! Do you suppose I’d let him take the tone with me that I need any favours? I’d like to hear him tell me I’m in want of assistance!”

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to every one.”

“To every one? I say it to you and to George Littlemore—when I get nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I’m afraid of him. I’m not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I’m all alone—I haven’t got any one. I must have some comfort, mustn’t I? Sir Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that was what made me guess his idea.”

“I’m much obliged to him,” said Waterville rather bewildered.

“So mind you answer for me. Don’t you want me to take your arm to go in?”

“You’re a most extraordinary combination!” he gave to all the winds as she stood smiling at him.

“Oh come, don’t _you_ fall in love with me!” she cried with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, she passed in before him.

That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, he wandered into the library, where he felt certain he should find some superior bindings. There was no one in the room and he spent a happy half-hour among treasures of old reading and triumphs of old morocco. He had a great esteem for good literature, he held that it should have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself face to face with Lady Demesne. He was sharply startled, for her tall slim figure, her preserved fairness, which looked white in the high brown room, and the air of serious intention with which she presented herself, all gave something spectral to her presence. He saw her countenance dimly light, however, and heard her say with the vague despair of her neutrality: “Are you looking at our books? I’m afraid they’re rather dull.”

“Dull? Why they’re as bright as the day they were bound.” And he turned on her the glittering panels of his folio.

“I’m afraid I haven’t looked at them for a long time,” she murmured, going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear pane the park stretched away, the menace of night already mantling the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as if Nature herself had been bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Her ladyship was no easy person for talk; spontaneity had never come to her, and to express herself might have been for her modesty like some act of undressing in public. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a noble convention. You might have pitied her for the sense of her living tied so tight, with consequent moral cramps, to certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem tired, like a person who had undertaken too much. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know she had appealed to him without the trouble of announcing it. She had been accustomed to expect people would suppose things, to save her questions and explanations. Waterville made some haphazard remark about the beauty of the evening—in point of fact the weather had changed for the worse—to which she vouchsafed no reply. But she presently said with her usual gentleness: “I hoped I should find you here—I should like to ask you something.”

“Anything I can tell you—I shall be delighted!” the young man declared.

She gave him a pleading look that seemed to say: “Please be very simple—very simple indeed.” Then she glanced about her as if there had been other people in the room; she didn’t wish to appear closeted with him or to have come on purpose. There she was at any rate, and she proceeded. “When my son told me he should ask you to come down I was very glad. I mean of course we were delighted—” And she paused a moment. But she next went on: “I want to ask you about Mrs. Headway.”

“Ah, here it is!” cried Waterville within himself. But he could show no wincing. “Ah yes, I see!”

“Do you mind my asking you? I hope you don’t mind. I haven’t any one else to ask.”

“Your son knows her much better than I do.” He said this without intention of malice, simply to escape from the difficulties of the situation, but after he had spoken was almost frightened by his mocking sound.

“I don’t think he knows her. She knows _him_—which is very different. When I ask him about her he merely tells me she’s fascinating. She _is_ fascinating,” said her ladyship with inimitable dryness.

“So I think, myself. I like her very much,” Waterville returned cheerfully.

“You’re in all the better position to speak of her then.”

“To speak well of her,” the young man smiled.

“Of course—if you can. I should be delighted to hear you do that. That’s what I wish—to hear some good of her.”

It might have seemed after this that nothing could have remained but for our friend to break out in categoric praise of his fellow guest; but he was no more to be tempted into that danger than into another. “I can only say I like her,” he repeated. “She has been very kind to me.”

“Every one seems to like her,” said Lady Demesne with an unstudied effect of pathos. “She’s certainly very amusing.”

“She’s very good-natured. I think she has no end of good intentions.”

“What do you mean by good intentions?” asked Lady Demesne very sweetly.

“Well, it strikes me she wants to be friendly and pleasant.”

“Indeed she does! But of course you have to defend her. She’s your countrywoman.”

“To defend her I must wait till she’s attacked,” Waterville laughed.

“That’s very true. I needn’t call your attention to the fact that I’m not attacking her,” his hostess observed. “I should never attack a person staying in this house. I only want to know something about her, and if you can’t tell me perhaps at least you can mention some one who will.”

“She’ll tell you herself. Tell you by the hour!”

“What she has told my son? I shouldn’t understand it. My son doesn’t understand it.” She had a full pause, a profusion of patience; then she resumed disappointedly: “It’s very strange. I rather hoped you might explain it.”

He turned the case over. “I’m afraid I can’t explain Mrs. Headway,” he concluded.

“I see you admit she’s very peculiar.”

Even to this, however, he hesitated to commit himself. “It’s too great a responsibility to answer you.” He allowed he was very disobliging; he knew exactly what Lady Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to blight the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommodate her; and yet, with his cultivated imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feelings of this tender formal serious woman who—it was easy to see—had looked for her own happiness in the observance of duty and in extreme constancy to two or three objects of devotion chosen once for all. She must indeed have had a conception of life in the light of which Nancy Beck would show both for displeasing and for dangerous. But he presently became aware she had taken his last words as a concession in which she might find help.

“You know why I ask you these things then?”

“I think I’ve an idea,” said Waterville, persisting in irrelevant laughter. His laugh sounded foolish in his own ears.

“If you know that, I think you ought to assist me.” Her tone changed now; there was a quick tremor in it; he could feel the confession of distress. The distress verily was deep; it had pressed her hard before she made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry for her and determined to be very serious.

“If I could help you I would. But my position’s very difficult.”

“It’s not so difficult as mine!” She was going all lengths; she was really appealing to him. “I don’t imagine you under obligations to Mrs. Headway. You seem to me so different,” she added.

He was not insensible to any discrimination that told in his favour; but these words shocked him as if they had been an attempt at bribery. “I’m surprised you don’t like her,” he ventured to bring out.

She turned her eyes through the window. “I don’t think you’re really surprised, though possibly you try to be. I don’t like her at any rate, and I can’t fancy why my son should. She’s very pretty and appears very clever; but I don’t trust her. I don’t know what has taken possession of him; it’s not usual in his family to marry people like that. Surely she’s of _no_ breeding. The person I should propose would be so very different—perhaps you can see what I mean. There’s something in her history we don’t understand. My son understands it no better than I. If you could throw any light on it, that might be a help. If I treat you with such confidence the first time I see you it’s because I don’t know where to turn. I’m exceedingly anxious.”

It was plain enough she was anxious; her manner had become more vehement; her eyes seemed to shine in the thickening dusk. “Are you very sure there’s danger?” Waterville asked. “Has he proposed to her and has she jumped at him?”

“If I wait till they settle it all it will be too late. I’ve reason to believe that my son’s not engaged, but I fear he’s terribly entangled. At the same time he’s very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has a great sense of honour. He’s not satisfied about her past life; he doesn’t know what to think of what we’ve been told. Even what she admits is so strange. She has been married four or five times. She has been divorced again and again. It seems so extraordinary. She tells him that in America it’s different, and I dare say you haven’t our ideas; but really there’s a limit to everything. There must have been great irregularities—I’m afraid great scandals. It’s dreadful to have to accept such things. He hasn’t told me all this, but it’s not necessary he should tell me. I know him well enough to guess.”

“Does he know you’re speaking to me?” Waterville asked.

“Not in the least. But I must tell you I shall repeat to him anything you may say against her.”

“I had better say nothing then. It’s very delicate. Mrs. Headway’s quite undefended. One may like her or not, of course. I’ve seen nothing of her that isn’t perfectly correct,” our young man wound up.

“And you’ve heard nothing?”

He remembered Littlemore’s view that there were cases in which a man was bound in honour to tell an untruth, and he wondered if this were such a one. Lady Demesne imposed herself, she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing little woman who had lived with Western editors. She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his relations with that lady to hold him down to lying for her. He hadn’t sought her acquaintance, she had sought his; she had sent for him to come and see her. And yet he couldn’t give her away—that stuck in his throat. “I’m afraid I really can’t say anything. And it wouldn’t matter. Your son won’t give her up because I happen not to like her.”

“If he were to believe she had done wrong he’d give her up.”

“Well, I’ve no right to say so,” said Waterville.

Lady Demesne turned away; he indeed disappointed her and he feared she was going to break out: “Why then do you suppose I asked you here?” She quitted her place near the window and prepared apparently to leave the room. But she stopped short. “You know something against her, but you won’t say it.”

He hugged his folio and looked awkward. “You attribute things to me. I shall never say anything.”

“Of course you’re perfectly free. There’s some one else who knows, I think—another American—a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was there. I’ve forgotten his name.”

“A friend of Mrs. Headway’s? I suppose you mean George Littlemore.”

“Yes—Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister whom I’ve met; I didn’t know she was his sister till to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she doesn’t know her. That itself is a proof, I think. Do you think _he_ would help me?” Lady Demesne asked very simply.

“I doubt it, but you can try.”

“I wish he had come with you. Do you think he’d come?”

“He’s in America at this moment, but I believe he soon comes back.”

She took this in with interest. “I shall go to his sister; I shall ask her to bring him to see me. She’s extremely nice; I think she’ll understand. Unfortunately there’s very little time.”

Waterville bethought himself. “Don’t count too much on George Littlemore,” he said gravely.

“You men have no pity,” she grimly sighed.

“Why should we pity you? How can Mrs. Headway hurt such a person as you?” he asked.

Lady Demesne cast about. “It hurts me to hear her voice.”

“Her voice is very liquid.” He liked his word.

“Possibly. But she’s horrible!”

This was too much, it seemed to Waterville; Nancy Beck was open to criticism, and he himself had declared she was a barbarian. Yet she wasn’t horrible. “It’s for your son to pity you. If he doesn’t how can you expect it of others?”

“Oh but he does!” And with a majesty that was more striking even than her logic his hostess moved to the door.

Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she passed out he said: “There’s one thing you can do—try to like her!”

She shot him a woeful glance. “That would be—worst of all!”

VIII

George Littlemore arrived in London on the twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where he mentioned that he had taken for the rest of the season a house at Queen Anne’s Gate, so that his sister and her husband, who, under the pressure of diminished rents, had let their own town residence, might come up and spend a couple of months with him.

“One of the consequences of your having a house will be that you’ll have to entertain the Texan belle,” our young man said.

Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed on his stick; he looked at his friend with an eye that failed to kindle at the mention of this lady’s name. “Has she got into European society?” he rather languidly inquired.

“Very much, I should say. She has a house and a carriage and diamonds and everything handsome. She seems already to know a lot of people; they put her name in the _Morning Post_. She has come up very quickly; she’s almost famous. Every one’s asking about her—you’ll be plied with questions.”

Littlemore listened gravely. “How did she get in?”

“She met a large party at Longlands and made them all think her great fun. They must have taken her up; she only wanted a start.”