B. M. Croker

“ Dinner went off much more cheerfully than on the previous day. Alice and Geoffrey seemed to have forgotten their feud and fallen into their old ways; their gay repartees and small jokes provoked general amusement. Alice caught her husband’s eyes fixed on her more than once in grave, puzzled amazement.
In the drawing-room, Alice went unasked to the piano and sang two songs, “Rest on your battle-fields, ye brave,” and “The Rhine Maiden.” She sang the former with such intense pathos and feeling that Mrs. Mayhew and Mary were on the very verge of tears. ”

“ But Maurice, who had inherited all his father’s deliberation and decision of character, calmly remarked:
“He is not my father. My father,” with much pride, and hands stuck in the belt of his blouse, “is a soldier, and rides a horse with a long tail, and wears a sword and a red coat, and fights people. You,” said he, nodding his head towards Sir Reginald, “are just like anybody else.”
“Come here, sir,” said his father, stretching out an arm; and, much to everyone’s amazement, the boy went quietly over and stood at his knee. ”

“ I have not finished,” she continued hastily. “The husband, after an absence of three years, returns; comes to London, mixes freely in society, but never goes to see his young wife. You must remember,” she pursued, literally button-holing him by his mess-jacket, “that you are Alice’s guardian as well as her husband; she has no father or mother, nor any relation in the world to protect her good name except yourself and Geoffrey, and he is only a boy.”
“Geoffrey!” he exclaimed contemptuously.
“You don’t know what you are doing, Regy,” she pleaded. ”

“ Instead of cold looks and short answers, try once more smiles and jests, assume a virtue if you have it not; get out some of your former perfect wardrobe and make yourself as lovely as you can, and I promise you you will find yourself much happier ere long. You will make an effort to make friends, will you not, my dear girl?” said Helen, smoothing Alice’s shining hair and kissing her on the forehead. “As a wife, it is your duty to be submissive.” ”

“ Alice scarcely opened her lips. Sir Reginald might have been a casual visitor, who had just dropped in, for all the warmth, sympathy, or interest displayed by his wife. A more uncomfortable quartette seldom took tea together. No one would suppose that the pale haughty-looking girl and the dark bronzed young man, so leisurely sipping his tea, were husband and wife, and had only met within the last ten minutes after a separation of years. Mary Ferrars [Pg 139] gazed from one to the other in silent amazement. ”

“ The enemy behaved with the most determined courage, rabble horde as they were; some merely armed with long knives and yataghans, some carrying the dear familiar Jazail, and some—oh, proud and happy men!—the British Enfield rifle. They were led by a man on a powerful black horse, who wore a prodigious green turban, and had his face whitened with ashes or some such substance. He was a very holy moolah, and harangued the multitude with an energy and vehemence only surpassed by his wild and frenzied gesticulations. ”

“ I never heard of anything so utterly absurd. I told him that it was entirely a delusion; that living so much alone had made you fancy and imagine things; and that I was certain it was all a mistake—mere imagination.”
“You should not have said that, Helen,” replied Alice gravely. “Is it imagination that, although I have lived here for three years, not one in the neighbourhood has crossed the threshold with the exception of the rector and the Ruffords? ”

“ At length her aunt, Miss Saville, greatly concerned by her niece’s listlessness and dejection, took upon herself to invite Miss Ferrars, one of Alice’s former companions, on a long visit. “The young,” she rightly argued, “like the young; her former schoolfellow will cheer her up. After all, an old woman like myself is no companion for a girl from one year’s end to another.”
Miss Ferrars duly arrived at Monkswood. She was a year older than Lady Fairfax, a clever, warm-hearted girl, with untiring spirits and energy. ”

“ The friendship of which you have visions is out of the question between us, and only possible between husband and wife. Be satisfied with your own arrangements; we are ward and guardian, nothing more. ”

“ As the door closed on him, a triumphant smile broke over her face. “He is all right, at any rate. If Alice were as easily managed or talked over all would be as it ought to be in no time. I am only sorry I did not make this opportunity before,” said Mrs. Mayhew aloud, as she turned to seek her well-earned repose, firmly persuaded that she had achieved a triumph of finesse.
Sir Reginald kept his promise, and went down to Monkswood “solely in the character of Alice’s guardian,” he kept telling himself. ”

“ The weather, and tennis, as a popular and healthy game, had been alike exhausted, and conversation flagged visibly, in spite of Mary’s gallant exertions.
“Why were you not at the grand cricket-match in Manister yesterday?” asked Mrs. Blundell in a loud authoritative tone.
“I don’t know, I’m sure; we never thought of it,” replied Miss Ferrars meekly.
“If you had it would not have done you much good,” put in Geoffrey; “there are no carriage-horses. I never knew such a little duffer as Alice—sending them back to Looton,” he added in a low aside. ”

“ She is rather what I call a gentleman’s beauty,” she added in a deprecating tone; “but still I think her decidedly good-looking,” with an air that signified that Alice had now, and once for all, received an invaluable cachet of distinction.
“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” muttered Geoffrey.
“Frederick has been most anxious for me to call ever since he met Lady Fairfax one day out riding; he has been dying to make [Pg 227] her acquaintance. He has such an eye for beauty.”
“He looks like it,” assented Geoffrey in a cheerful shout.
“Be quiet, Geoffrey,” muttered Reginald from behind. ”

“ A long, solitary, monotonous life at Monkswood, where youth and beauty would alike fade away unnoticed and unregretted; her husband implacable, following with ardour his beloved profession; her friends indifferent and forgetful ”

“ She was quite correct—Alice was actually sallying forth, escorting two elderly ladies and a vapid-looking youth, with hay-coloured hair and an incipient ditto moustache. He wore an extraordinarily high collar, an eye-glass, and pale lavender gloves, and it was easy to see that he considered James Blundell, Esq., the very glass of fashion and the mould of form. He was sucking the knob of his cane with greedy relish, and casting every now and then glances of marked approbation on his pretty young hostess, as he stalked along beside her. ”

“ Now, this cold weather, they are wrapped in poshteens, with or without sleeves, of very dubious cleanliness. A good serviceable garment descends from generation to generation. An enormous dark-blue puggaree encircling a little red cap forms their turban. But the headman of a village, in a richly-embroidered poshteen, ‘the woolly side in,’ like the immortal Brian O’Lynn—magnificent gold and blue turban, and long silver-mounted matchlock, is as handsome and picturesque a looking fellow as you could wish to see. ”

“ What a foolish reckless girl you are! Your happiness comes to you, and you spurn it. ‘Too late, too late!’ will be the answer when you yourself go to seek it ere long.”
“But listen to me for one second, Helen,” interrupted Alice, vainly endeavouring to stem the torrent of her friend’s eloquence. ”

“ I can tell you that I surprise myself very much at times.”
“Alice! Alice!” shouted Geoffrey from downstairs.
“There, I must be off. Do not look so dismal, my dear horrified Helen. Now that Reginald has come here, people will think better of me, you will see. Come along,” she continued, taking her arm and hurrying her down the corridor, and flying with her downstairs at a breakneck pace, “they are all waiting for us on the tennis-ground; even Mark is going to play.” ”

“ All sympathy will be for him. For you, living here in remote seclusion, eating your heart out with unavailing regrets, what will you do? You will not even have the comfort of your own compassion; all you can say will be, ‘It serves me right!’ And as year by year snatches a portion [Pg 170] of your youth and beauty from you, you will settle down into a miserable, dejected, hopeless woman.”
“My goodness, Helen, what a horoscope! what a picture!”
“Then, Alice, unless you would see it a reality, be up and doing; rouse yourself, endeavour to be the gay lighthearted Alice of former days. ”

“ A very dreary evening at last came to an end, and when the ladies had departed Reginald strolled out into the pleasure-grounds to have a smoke and a think.
As he paced moodily up and down, his reflections were anything but agreeable—very much the reverse.
[Pg 162]
“What an infernal idiot I was to have come here! Fairfax, thy name is fool,” he added with bitter emphasis. “Far from being inclined for peace, Alice does all she can to pose as the injured wife. There is nothing like taking high ground,” he muttered to himself, contemptuously kicking a fir-cone out of his way. ”

“ Ferrars and Mrs. Mayhew in a state of mental coma.
When this tirade had been interpreted to Mrs. Blundell—she had heard a good deal more than she pretended—she returned across the grass, from where she was awaiting her carriage, and humbly accosting Alice, overwhelmed her with excuses and apologies which there was no avoiding. The worldly-wise old lady said to herself: “It will never do to quarrel with the Fairfaxes—people of great wealth and influence, if all is as it seems. ”

“ After languidly gazing at his friends for some time, his eyes fell on his rifled desk and his wife’s photograph. To his gesture of amazement Captain Vaughan hurriedly replied:
[Pg 75]
“Fairfax, my dear fellow, I know you think we have been guilty of the greatest liberty; but we had to ferret out your friends’ address by the doctor’s orders.”
“Had you? Am I so bad as all that?” he asked in a low tone. Receiving no reply, he added, as if to himself: “I suppose I am, I feel very weak and queer; but I must write a line myself,” he said, looking at Captain Vaughan gravely. ”

“ Mary, Geoffrey, and Mr. Mayhew exchanged looks of unqualified amazement, and again an awkward silence ensued.
Mrs. Blundell once more proceeded in a louder and more forte key:
“I am surprised to see Lady Fairfax entertaining visitors; I had no idea she ever had people staying here.”
“We are the exception that proves the rule,” replied Geoffrey at the top of his naturally robust organ.
“Are you staying in the house—you two young men?” indicating Geoffrey and Reginald with a fat forefinger. ”

“ The moon arose, owls and bats made their appearance and flitted [Pg 14] to and fro, apparently unconscious of the silent figure on the temple steps. At length the pawing and neighing of his horse aroused him. He started up hastily, pulled himself morally together, and hurried down to the impatient steed, whom he unfastened and mounted, and in another moment was galloping away over the moonlit midan, leaving the old temple to the undisturbed possession of a veteran hyena and a family of jackals. ”

“ When not occupied in the nursery, Alice spent a good deal of time in taking long rides in the neighbourhood. In company with Martin, the old family groom, she scoured the country for miles far and near, very much to her own enjoyment and greatly to the indignation of the surrounding élite, who had no idea that a young woman sent to Monkswood by her husband in the deepest disgrace should be permitted so much relaxation and amusement. ”

“ Never a very demonstrative lover; yet a look, a word, a caress from him were ten times more precious from their rarity, and because they bore the stamp of a tender, almost reverent affection, than if another man of more shallow feelings had overwhelmed her with perpetual adoration. ”