Mrs. Arbuthnot

“ Fisher, “knows.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
“Lady Caroline has already told her,” said Mrs. Fisher.
“Oh?” said Mrs. Arbuthnot again.
“Yes. Lady Caroline speaks the kind of Italian cooks understand. I am prevented going into the kitchen because of my stick. And even if I were able to go, I fear I shouldn’t be understood.”
“But—” began Mrs. Arbuthnot.
“But it’s too wonderful,” Mrs. Wilkins finished for her from the table, delighted with these unexpected simplifications in her and Rose’s lives. “Why, we’ve got positively nothing to do here, either of us, except just be happy. ”

“ Arbuthnot’s husband has acquaintance without stint.’
‘You must not believe half “they” say, when men and women’s domestic concerns are the theme of conversation. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband chanced to meet accidentally with a Doctor and Mrs. Thorne here. The lady was a friend of former student days in Paris. It was the kind of meeting,’ added Geff apologetically, ‘in which a man has no choice but to renew an acquaintance, and——’
‘And Linda Thorne, of course, has called upon Mrs. Arbuthnot?’
The question came like a sword-thrust from Marjorie Bartrand. ”

“ Linda Thorne was the first to break it.
‘And Mrs. Arbuthnot has accepted? I need hardly ask the question.’
‘Yes,’ returned Lord Rex, staunchly enough, ‘I am glad to say that Mrs. Arbuthnot has accepted.’
Rosie Verschoyle turned over and examined a band of silver on her round white wrist.
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot? Surely that is the same person we saw with Marjorie Bartrand at the rose-show? How wonderfully handsome she is! Mamma has talked of nothing else. One will be quite too glad to see her near. In these democratic days we must all bow unquestioningly before Beauty. ”

“ My name is Jack Capstone of Deptford, and are not you the man that has the raree-show of oyster-shells and pebble-stones?
Fos. What if I am?
Sail. Why, then my invoice is right, I must leave my cargo here.
Town. Miserable woman that I am! how shall I support this fight! thy bastard brought into thy family as soon as thy bride!
Fos. Patience, patience, I beseech you. Indeed I have no posterity.
Town. You lascivious brute you.
Fos. Passion is but the tempestuous cloud that obscures reason; be calm and I'll convince you. Friend, how come you to bring the infant hither? ”

“ Wilkins’s legs. All she saw was her small, eager, shy face, and her thin shoulders, and the look of childish longing in her eyes for something that she was sure was going to make her happy. No; such things didn’t make people happy, such fleeting things. Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned in her long life with Frederick—he was her husband, and she had married him at twenty and was now thirty-three—where alone true joys are to be found. They are to be found, she now knew, only in daily, in hourly, living for others ”

“ Verschoyle. But we want a great deal more than venerable chaperons. We want a young and charming lady to do the honours for us. Mrs. Arbuthnot, we want you!’
Now Dinah’s nature held as little commonplace vanity as could well fall to woman’s share: through commonplace vanity had Lord Rex never, at this juncture, won her to say ‘Yes.’ From pleasure, so-called, she had shrunk, more than ever, since the taste she got of pleasure at the rose-show—yes, during the very hours when, with rash strategy, she had been planning to act a part in Gaston Arbuthnot’s world, among Gaston’s friends. ”

“ And it is heaven, isn’t it, Rose? See how everything has been let in together—the dandelions and the irises, the vulgar and the superior, me and Mrs. Fisher—all welcome, all mixed up anyhow, and all so visibly happy and enjoying ourselves.”
“Mrs. Fisher doesn’t seem happy—not visibly, anyhow,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling.
“She’ll begin soon, you’ll see.”
Mrs. Arbuthnot said she didn’t believe that after a certain age people began anything.
Mrs. Wilkins said she was sure no one, however old and tough, could resist the effects of perfect beauty. ”

“ The smile trembled out.
“Of course,” she said in a low voice, almost as if she were afraid the vicar and the Savings Bank were listening, “it would be most beautiful—most beautiful—”
“Even if it were wrong,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it would only be for a month.”
“That—” began Mrs. Arbuthnot, quite clear as to the reprehensibleness of such a point of view; but Mrs. Wilkins stopped her before she could finish.
“Anyhow,” said Mrs. Wilkins, stopping her, “I’m sure it’s wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable. ”

“ I will not be more selfish than nature and habit made me.”
Mrs. Arbuthnot endeavored to speak, but her voice failed her, and she looked towards her husband.
“Squire,” said the young man, stepping forward, “my wife wishes me to explain to you that her 298gratitude would be but ill-displayed were she, in return for all your great goodness to her child, to bring a cloud upon your later life. But for you, no one can say what might by this time have befallen the little waif; but for you, it would hardly have been possible that mother and son could ever have met again this side of the grave. ”

“ But that was because he took too much. What Lady Caroline wants is one dose, and one only. It is a mistake to keep on taking castor oil.”
“Do you know the Italian for it?” asked Mrs. Arbuthnot.
“Ah, that I’m afraid I don’t. However, she would know. You can ask her.”
“But she hasn’t got a headache,” repeated Mrs. Wilkins, who was struggling with the maccaroni. “She only wants to be let alone.”
They both looked at her. The word shovel crossed Mrs. Fisher’s mind in connection with Mrs. Wilkins’s actions at that moment.
“Then why should she say she has?” asked Mrs. Arbuthnot. ”

“ We men know life too early.
Mrs. Arbuthnot. And we women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women. ”

“ Arbuthnot. He is really doing and saying the absurdest things!’ Rosie Verschoyle must have been, surely, at the zenith of good temper when she thus addressed that poor Mrs. Arbuthnot! ‘Now, Lord Rex, I command you to drop this talk about [Pg 239] candles instantly. Of course the whole business is a ridiculous piece of Popish superstition, still,’ observed Rosie, with a certain largeness, ‘one has one’s ideas. A church is a church. ”

“ Mrs. Arbuthnot's beam was of childlike benignity. "She is not such a bad sort, really. Besides, plain people are always the nicest, aren't they, poor dears? Yes, Parkins, what is it?"
Parkins the peerless had entered the drawing-room after a discreet preliminary knock for which the circumstances really made no demand whatever. He had sidled up to his mistress, and in his mien natural reserve and a desire to dispense information were finely mingled.
"Beg pardon, ma'am, but have you seen the glare in the sky?" ”

“ She had a sad face, yet she was evidently efficient. The combination used to make Mrs. Wilkins wonder, for she had been told by Mellersh, on days when she had only been able to get plaice, that if one were efficient one wouldn’t be depressed, and that if one does one’s job well one becomes automatically bright and brisk.
About Mrs. Arbuthnot there was nothing bright and brisk, though much in her way with the Sunday School children that was automatic ”

“ Arbuthnot,’ cried Pouchée, warming on the instant, ‘is the most noble-hearted man living. Yes, and I have travelled! I have had my experiences widened. I know my world. That he should work hard at the hospital or over his books, I comprehend. A high degree is at stake. Men have their ambition. Mr. Arbuthnot goes into courts and alleys, vile places, left alone by the police, and where priests or parsons might get their throats cut. He searches out the worst outcasts in Barnwell and Chesterton, only to serve them.’
‘Now—at this present time?’ stammered Marjorie, conscience-stricken. ”

“ Arbuthnot.’
‘To Mrs. Arbuthnot! This is rough on a man,’ cried Geff. ‘Why, Miss Bartrand, you must have forgotten. Those flowers were given to me.’
‘Don’t make too certain of that.’
‘But I am certain. I can see you as you stood in the strip of moonlight by the water-lane, wishing me good-night. Your last words were, “the flowers are for yourself—your better self.”’
‘The ribbon, at least, was given to no one,’ retorted Marjorie, changing colour under his gaze. ‘It was lent to [Pg 114] hinder you from breaking your neck. You meant to climb the Gros Nez cliffs if you could. ”

“ Wilkins, made courageous by being, as she felt, at bay; for she very well knew that the only reference she could give without getting into trouble was Shoolbred, and she had little confidence in that, as it would be entirely based on Mellersh’s fish. “We’re not business people. We needn’t distrust each other—”
And Mrs. Arbuthnot said, with a dignity that yet was sweet, “I’m afraid references do bring an atmosphere into our holiday plan that isn’t quite what we want, and I don’t think we’ll take yours up or give you any ourselves. ”

“ Merriam. "Such a story would interest any woman. Tell it to her at once."
"I wish you would do it for me," said Arbuthnot, with a rather reluctant accession of gravity. "It is really out of my line. You will make it touching—women see things so differently. I'll confess to you that I only see the miserable, sordid, forlorn side of it, and don't know what to do with the pathos. When that poor, little wretch cried at me and wrung her hands I had not the remotest idea what I ought to say to stop her—and Heaven knows I wanted her to stop. ”

“ At his side was a very dandily dressed, sun-tanned youth, his arm in a sling; a youth whom as yet Dinah Arbuthnot knew not.
‘He is coming! Miss Bartrand, I look to you to smooth things over. Just say you pressed me to come to the show, and I refused at first, and——’
‘I will say everything that can decently be compressed into one act of contrition.’ Marjorie’s tone was fraught with ironical seriousness. ‘But your eyes are better than mine, Mrs. Arbuthnot. A guilty conscience perhaps sharpens the external senses. I am looking with the best of my seeing power over the whole Arsenal. I see no Mr. ”

“ Miller’s limes was paradoxical.
‘Yes,’ resumed Gaston Arbuthnot, tilting himself to the outside limit of equilibrium on his garden-chair, and clasping his arms, with a gesture admirably suggestive of habitual laziness, above his head, ‘look the position in the face for one moment, and you reduce it to an absurdity. No girl of seventeen has ever yet been a man-hater; has she, Dinah?’
‘I was not,’ admitted Mrs. Arbuthnot frankly, although she blushed. ‘But Miss Bartrand of Tintajeux, young though she is, has gone through disappointment. Mrs. ”

“ Linda Thorne fell into position quickly. That Dinah, good Griselda-like woman, loved her careless husband to the pitch of jealous idolatry, had been patent to her long before. Still, viewing the Arbuthnot household from her own level, Linda’s judgment was—that Griselda had consolations. Mild ones, if you will: the devotion of Lord Rex Basire, impartially offered to every pink-and-white nonentity he came across; the constant society, tinged by that glamour which beautiful women confer on all their relationships, of the excellent, detestable Scotch cousin, Geoffrey Arbuthnot. ”

“ We live in the day of little things. Sensation is out of vogue. Nobody pushes husbands down wells. Nobody “beguiles” the husbands of worthier people. Even if it were otherwise, if Viviens were as the sands of yonder Channel, your happiness, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, would be secure.’ It must be confessed that Linda made her counter-stroke with admirable neatness. ‘A beautiful woman married to an artist holds him in chains, rose-decked ones, of course, but chains—chains.’
She forced Dinah to touch fingers. ”

“ On that head Cassandra Tighe has been a more than sufficient oracle. By the bye, witch,’ with the memory of over-boiled fish strong upon him the Seigneur turned his piercing old gaze towards his granddaughter, ‘Cassandra informs me that Mrs. Arbuthnot is an extraordinarily pretty woman; good, too, as she is pretty. Your tutor shows poor taste in dancing attendance on anything so vapidly commonplace as Doctor Thorne’s Indian wife.’
Marjorie Bartrand, who, three weeks ago, had never changed colour before mortal, was conscious, at this moment, of blushing furiously before the Reverend Andros. ”

“ If Phil Arbuthnot should ever prove himself my worst enemy, I never could forget the considerateness of that morning. He was tender-hearted and kind as a woman, and great, strong man as he was, there was a delicacy of feeling and gentleness about him, that suffered with everything weak and suffering, and strove, at all costs, to give aid and comfort. And aid and comfort, prompted by such a heart, could not fail to soothe. In his eyes, women were sacred ”

“ Mrs. Wilkins’s remarks seemed to Mrs. Fisher persistently unfortunate. Each time she opened her mouth she said something best left unsaid. Loose talk about husbands had never in Mrs. Fisher’s circle been encouraged. In the ’eighties, when she chiefly flourished, husbands were taken seriously, as the only real obstacles to sin. Beds too, if they had to be mentioned, were approached with caution; and a decent reserve prevented them and husbands ever being spoken of in the same breath.
She turned more markedly than ever to Mrs. Arbuthnot. ”

“ The parish flourished because, to take a handful at random, of the ill-behaviour of the ladies Du Barri, Montespan, Pompadour, Ninon de l’Enclos, and even of learned Maintenon. The poor were the filter through which the money was passed, to come out, Mrs. Arbuthnot hoped, purified. She could do no more. She had tried in days gone by to think the situation out, to discover the exact right course for her to take, but had found it, as she had found Frederick, too difficult, and had left it, as she had left Frederick, to God. ”