During the ensuing greetings Carbury stood silent, looking at the horses with an expression that made the coachman uneasy. At dinner he ate sedulously, and left the task of entertaining the visitor to his mother and the girls. The clergyman was at no loss for conversation. He was delighted with the dinner, delighted with the house, delighted to see the Countess looking so well, and delighted to hear that the tennis party that day had been a pleasant one. The Earl listened with impatience, and was glad when his mother rose. Before she quitted the dining-room he made a sign to her, and she soon returned, leaving Marian, Constance, and Elinor in the drawingroom.
“You will not mind my staying, I hope, George,” she said, as she resumed her seat.
“A delightful precedent, and from a distinguished source,” said the Rev.
George. “Allow me to pass the bottle. Ha! ha!”
“Thank you, no,” said the Countess. “I never take wine.” Her tone was inconclusive, as if she intended to take something else.
“Will you take brandy-and-soda?” said her son, rather brusquely.
Lady Carbury lowered her eyelids in protest. Then she said: “A very little, if you please, Jasper. I dare not touch wine,” she continued to the clergyman. “I am the slave of my medical man in all matters relating to my unfortunate digestion.”
“Mother,” said Jasper, “George has brought us a nice piece of news concerning your pet Marmaduke.”
The clergyman became solemn and looked steadily at his glass.
“I do not know that it is fair to describe him as my pet exactly,” said the Countess, a little troubled. “I trust there is nothing unpleasant the matter.”
“Oh, nothing! He has settled down domestically in a mansion at West
Kensington, that is all.”
“What! Married!”
“Unhappily,” said the Rev. George, “no, not married.”
“Oh!” said the Countess slowly, as an expression of relief. “It is very shocking, of course; very wrong indeed. Young men will do these things. It is especially foolish in Marmaduke’s case, for he really cannot afford to make any settlement such as this kind of complication usually involves when the time comes for getting rid of it. Pray do not let it come to Constance’s ears. It is not a proper subject for a girl.”
“Quite as proper a subject as marriage with a fellow like Marmaduke,” said Jasper, rising coolly and lighting a cigaret. “However, it will be time enough to trouble about that when there is any sign of his having the slightest serious intentions toward Constance. For my part I dont believe, and I never did believe, that there was anything real in the business. This last move of his proves it — to my satisfaction, at any rate.”
Lady Carbury, with a slight but impressive bridling, and yet with an evident sense of discomfiture, proceeded to assert herself before the clergyman. “I beg you will control yourself, Jasper,” she said. “I do not like to be spoken to in that tone. In discharging the very great responsibility which rests with a mother, I am compelled to take the world as I find it, and to acknowledge that certain very deplorable tendencies must be allowed for in society. You, in the solitude of your laboratory, contemplate an ideal state of things that we all, I am sure, long for, but which unhappily does not exist. I have never enquired into Marmaduke’s private life, and I think you ought not to have done so. I could not disguise from myself the possibility of his having entered into some such relations as those you have alluded to.”
Jasper, without the slightest appearance of having heard this speech, strolled casually out of the room. The Countess, baffled, turned to her sympathetic guest.
“I am sure that you, George, must feel that it is absolutely necessary for us to keep this matter to ourselves.”
The Rev. George said, gravely, “I do not indeed see what blessing can rest on our interference in such an inexpressibly shocking business. It is for Marmaduke to wrestle with his own conscience.”
“Quite so,” said the Countess, shrugging her shoulders as if to invite her absent son’s attention to this confirmation of her judgment. “Is it not absurd of Jasper to snatch at such an excuse for breaking off the match?”
“I can sympathize with Jasper’s feeling, I trust. It is natural for a candid nature to recoil from duplicity. But all our actions need charitable construction; and, remembering that, we should take heed to prevent our forebearance toward others from wavering. Who knows that the alliance with your pure and lovely daughter may not be the means specially ordained to rescue him from his present condition.”
“I think it very possible,” drawled the Countess, looking at him, nevertheless, with a certain contempt for what she privately considered his priggish, underbred cant. “Besides, such things are recognized, though of course they are not spoken of. No lady could with common decency pretend to know that such connexions are possible, much less assign one of them as a reason for breaking off an engagement.”
“Pardon me,” said the Rev. George; “but can these worldly considerations add anything to the approval of our consciences? I think not. We will keep our own counsel in this matter in the sight of Heaven. Then, whatever the world may think, all will surely come right in the end.”
“Oh, it is sure to come right in the end: these wretched businesses always do. I cannot imagine men having such low tastes — as if there were anything in these women more than in anybody else! Come into the drawingroom, George.”
They went into the drawingroom and found it deserted. The ladies were in the veranda. The Countess took up the paper and composed herself for a nap. George went into the porch, where the girls, having seen the sun go down, were now watching the deepening gloom among the trees that skirted the lawn. Marian proposed that they should walk through the plantation whilst there was still a little light left, and the clergyman readily assented. He rather repented of this when they got into the deep gloom under the trees, and Elinor began to tell stories about adders, wild cats, poachers, and anything else that could possibly make a nervous man uncomfortable under such circumstances. He was quite relieved when they saw the spark of a cigaret ahead of them and heard the voices of Jasper and Conolly coming toward them through the darkness.
“Oh, I believe I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Conolly,” said the
Rev. George, formally, when they met. “I am glad to see you.”
“Thank you,” said Conolly. “If you ladies have thin shoes on as usual, we had better come out of this.”
“As we ladies happen to have our boots on,” said Marian, “we shall stay as long as we like.”
Nevertheless, they soon turned homeward, and as the path was narrow, they walked in pairs. The clergyman, with Constance, led the way. Lord Jasper followed with Elinor. Conolly and Marian came last.
“Does that young man — Mr. Conolly — live at the Hall?” was the Rev.
George’s first remark to Constance.
“No. He has rooms in Rose Cottage, that little place on Quilter’s farm.”
“Ha! Then he is very well off here.”
“A great deal too well off. Jasper allows him to speak to him as though he were an equal. However, I suppose Jasper knows his own business best.”
“I have observed that he is rather disposed to presume upon any encouragement he receives. It is a bad sign in a young man, and one, I fear, that will greatly interfere with his prospects.”
“He is an American, and I suppose thinks it a fine thing to be republican. But it is Jasper’s fault. He spoils him. He once wanted to have him in the drawingroom in the evenings to play accompaniments; but mamma