“That will hardly be possible, Louis,” she answered. “I cannot forget that I have been—cautioned.”
“But cannot you bring yourself to believe that I have meant it all for your good?”
“I have never doubted it, Louis;—never for a moment. But it has hurt me to find that you should think that such caution was needed for my good.”
It was almost on his tongue to beg her pardon, to acknowledge that he had made a mistake, and to implore her to forget that he had ever made an objection to Colonel Osborne’s visit. He remembered at this moment the painful odiousness of that “Dear Emily;” but he had to reconcile himself even to that, telling himself that, after all, Colonel Osborne was an old man,—a man older even than his wife’s father. If she would only have met him with gentleness, he would have withdrawn his command, and have acknowledged that he had been wrong. But she was hard, dignified, obedient, and resentful. “It will, I think,” he said, “be better for both of us that he should be asked in to lunch to-day.”
“You must judge of that,” said Emily. “Perhaps, upon the whole, it will be best. I can only say that I will not be present. I will lunch upstairs with baby, and you can make what excuse for me you please.” This was all very bad, but it was in this way that things were allowed to arrange themselves. Richard was told that Colonel Osborne was coming to lunch, and when he came something was muttered to him about Mrs. Trevelyan being not quite well. It was Nora who told the innocent fib, and though she did not tell it well, she did her very best. She felt that her brother-in-law was very wretched, and she was most anxious to relieve him. Colonel Osborne did not stay long, and then Nora went upstairs to her sister.
Louis Trevelyan felt that he had disgraced himself. He had meant to have been strong, and he had, as he knew, been very weak. He had meant to have acted in a highminded, honest, manly manner; but circumstances had been so untoward with him, that on looking at his own conduct, it seemed to him to have been mean, and almost false and cowardly. As the order for the exclusion of this hated man from his house had been given, he should at any rate have stuck to the order. At the moment of his vacillation he had simply intended to make things easy for his wife; but she had taken advantage of his vacillation, and had now clearly conquered him. Perhaps he respected her more than he had done when he was resolving, three or four days since, that he would be the master in his own house; but it may be feared that the tenderness of his love for her had been impaired.
Late in the afternoon his wife and sister-in-law came down dressed for walking, and, finding Trevelyan in the library, they asked him to join them,—it was a custom with them to walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon,—and he at once assented, and went out with them. Emily, who had had her triumph, was very gracious. There should not be a word more said by her about Colonel Osborne. She would avoid that gentleman, never receiving him in Curzon Street, and having as little to say to him as possible elsewhere; but she would not throw his name in her husband’s teeth, or make any reference to the injury which had so manifestly been done to her. Unless Louis should be indiscreet, it should be as though it had been forgotten. As they walked by Chesterfield House and Stanhope Street into the park, she began to discuss the sermon they had heard that morning, and when she found that that subject was not alluring, she spoke of a dinner to which they were to go at Mrs. Fairfax’s house. Louis Trevelyan was quite aware that he was being treated as a naughty boy, who was to be forgiven.
They went across Hyde Park into Kensington Gardens, and still the same thing was going on. Nora found it to be almost impossible to say a word. Trevelyan answered his wife’s questions, but was otherwise silent. Emily worked very hard at her mission of forgiveness, and hardly ceased in her efforts at conciliatory conversation. Women can work so much harder in this way than men find it possible to do! She never flagged, but continued to be fluent, conciliatory, and intolerably wearisome. On a sudden they came across two men together, who, as they all knew, were barely acquainted with each other. These were Colonel Osborne and Hugh Stanbury.
“I am glad to find you are able to be out,” said the Colonel.
“Thanks; yes. I think my seclusion just now was almost as much due to baby as to anything else. Mr. Stanbury, how is it we never see you now?”
“It is the D. R., Mrs. Trevelyan;—nothing else. The D. R. is a most grateful mistress, but somewhat exacting. I am allowed a couple of hours on Sundays, but otherwise my time is wholly passed in Fleet Street.”
“How very unpleasant.”
“Well; yes. The unpleasantness of this world consists chiefly in the fact that when a man wants wages, he must earn them. The Christian philosophers have a theory about it. Don’t they call it the primeval fall, original sin, and that kind of thing?”
“Mr. Stanbury, I won’t have irreligion. I hope that doesn’t come from writing for the newspapers.”
“Certainly not with me, Mrs. Trevelyan. I have never been put on to take that branch yet. Scrubby does that with us, and does it excellently. It was he who touched up the Ritualists, and then the Commission, and then the Low Church bishops, till he didn’t leave one of them a leg to stand upon.”
“What is it, then, that the Daily Record upholds?”
“It upholds the Daily Record. Believe in that and you will surely be saved.” Then he turned to Miss Rowley, and they two were soon walking on together, each manifestly interested in what the other was saying, though there was no word of tenderness spoken between them.
Colonel Osborne was now between Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan. She would have avoided the position had it been possible for her to do so. While they were falling into their present places, she had made a little mute appeal to her husband to take her away from the spot, to give her his arm and return with her, to save her in some way from remaining in company with the man to whose company for her he had objected; but he took no such step. It had seemed to him that he could take no such step without showing his hostility to Colonel Osborne.
They walked on along the broad path together, and the Colonel was between them.
“I hope you think it satisfactory,—about Sir Rowley,” he said.
“Beggars must not be choosers, you know, Colonel Osborne. I felt a little disappointed when I found that we were not to see them till February next.”
“They will stay longer then, you know, than they could now.”
“I have no doubt when the time comes we shall all believe it to be better.”
“I suppose you think, Emily, that a little pudding to-day is better than much tomorrow.”
Colonel Osborne certainly had a caressing, would-be affectionate mode of talking to women, which, unless it were reciprocated and enjoyed, was likely to make itself disagreeable. No possible words could have been more innocent than those he had now spoken; but he had turned his face down close to her face, and had almost whispered them. And then, too, he had again called her by her Christian name. Trevelyan had not heard the words. He had walked on, making the distance between him and the other man greater than was necessary, anxious to show to his wife that he had no jealousy at such a meeting as this. But his wife was determined that she would put an end to this state of things, let the cost be what it might. She did not say a word to Colonel Osborne, but addressed herself at once to her husband.
“Louis,” she said, “will you give me your arm? We will go back, if you please.” Then she took her husband’s arm, and turned herself and him abruptly away from their companion.
The thing was done in such a manner that it was impossible that Colonel Osborne should not perceive that he had been left in anger. When Trevelyan and his wife had gone back a few yards, he was obliged to return for Nora. He did so, and then rejoined his wife.
“It was quite unnecessary, Emily,” he said, “that you should behave like that.”
“Your suspicions,” she said, “have made it almost impossible for me to behave with propriety.”