Mrs. Vansittart

“ But Vansittart was calmly awaiting them at the cross roads, and reined round and accompanied her as a matter of course. She gave him a desperate glance as their eyes met, and it caused him to change his tactics. He had meditated an onslaught upon her emotions during their homeward ride. "It will keep," he sagely told himself, and after an uneventful canter and a little ordinary small talk he left her at her door without even an allusion to a next meeting. ”

“ It was nearly five o'clock, and Percy Roden was doubtless waiting for her in Park Straat. It is a woman's business to know what is expected of her. Mrs. Vansittart recalled in a very matter-of-fact way the wording of her letter to Roden. She brushed some dust from her habit, and made sure that her hair was tidy. Then she fell into deep thought, and set her mind in a like order for the work that lay before her. A man's deepest schemes in love are child's play beside the woman's schemes that meet or frustrate his own. Mrs. Vansittart rode rapidly home to Park Straat. ”

“ Eve was not at home at luncheon time, so Vansittart went off to his club, and only returned to Charles Street at Eve’s usual hour for afternoon tea, when he was told that Mrs. Vansittart had gone out at three o’clock, and had left a note for him in the study.
The note was a letter.
[Pg 303]
“I am taking a step which will no doubt make you angry,” Eve began, “but I cannot help myself. I cannot go on living as we are living now. Every hour of my life increases my misery. I have been told that you visit that woman—that woman who is the cause of all my unhappiness. ”

“ He could think of nothing, care for nothing but Eve. His bailiff’s letters, his lawyer’s letters, remained unanswered. He could not bring himself even to consider his mother’s suggestions as to this or that improvement at Merewood, whither Mrs. Vansittart was going at Whitsuntide, to prepare all things for the coming of the bride, and to arrange for her own removal.
“Do as much or as little as you like, mother,” Vansittart said. “You need alter nothing. Eve will be pleased with things as they are.” ”

“ Vansittart spent five weeks at Merewood, hunting a good deal, dining with some of his neighbours once a week or so, and occasionally entertaining them at dinner or luncheon; tiring himself prodigiously with long rides to cover, or railway journeys before and [Pg 93] after the chase, and falling asleep of an evening by the drawing-room fire, lulled by the monotonous click of his mother’s knitting needles, or the flutter of the turning leaves as she read.
Those fireside evenings after the chase in January and February were delightful to Mrs. Vansittart. ”

“ Vansittart was on his feet in an instant, facing a man as tall as himself, and a good deal more bulky—a son of Anak, sandy-haired, pallid, save for red spots on his cheek-bones, spots that burnt like flame. ”

“ Never had he talked to any beautiful woman who was so thoroughly unsophisticated; and that somewhat plebeian nature had a curious charm for him. He could understand Vansittart’s infatuation for such a woman, but could not understand his giving her up for the sake of Eve Marchant, whose charms as compared with Lisa’s were
“As moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto wine.” ”

“ Philip Vansittart thinks he has never spent such a divinely happy evening as this. Virginia sings to him; her voice thrills to his very soul. Mr. Hamilton is asleep in the next room. As for Virginia, when she is alone, she first smiles a happy, triumphant smile, because she knows he loves her, and then she bursts into a passion of tears and sobs until her whole frame is convulsed. If his mind is really set against marriage, what will become of her! She feels as though life without him must be one long night of despair. ”

“ He does not air his theories about marriage, nor is religion discussed between them, but there are plenty of other topics, and they become aware of a dozen feelings and sympathies in common. Virginia is as bright and witty as she is modest and pure-minded; there is nothing in the world that Mr. Vansittart detests so much as a coarse or immodest lady. So charmed is he with Virginia, that he remains close to her side the whole evening, to the surprise of every one else. No one ever saw him devote himself to a girl before. ”

“ Well, he was cured of his passion for Eve, cured by that cold douche of indifference which the young lady had poured upon him; cured by the feeling of angry scorn which had been evoked by her preference for Vansittart; for a man who, in worldly position, in good looks, and in culture, Wilfred Sefton regarded as his inferior. He could not go on caring for a young woman who had shown herself so deficient in taste as not to prefer the dubious advances of a Sefton to the honest love of a Vansittart. ”

“ It was a face wasted by dissolute habits, a face in which the lines were premature and deep, lines that told of discontent and sullen thought. Vansittart could but agree with Hubert Hartley’s estimate of Colonel Marchant. He was not a nice man. He was not a man to whom open-hearted men could take kindly.
But he was Eve’s father. ”

“ From all that he had heard of Sefton’s character Vansittart doubted much that he was capable of a generous love, or that he was the kind of man to marry a girl whose father was under a cloud.
And she?—was she weak and foolish, innocently yielding her heart to a man who meant evil? or was she her father’s daughter, a schemer by instinct and inclination, like Becky Sharp? Vansittart tried to put himself in Joe Sedley’s place, tried to realize how a man may see honesty and sweet simplicity where there are only craft and finished acting. ”

“ Face the worst, but be honest!" She had almost flung up her arm and, opening the trap, bid the driver return, when the memory of Vansittart--of his love--of his kiss--came surging upon her with redoubled force.
"If I am a coward, I shall lose him!" cried her whole nature, fiercely. No! She must battle through: she must circumvent her enemy--the enemy to her love, and Vansittart's.
But how?
"I will dare him," was her instinct. "I will tell him to claim me if he can!" But that was the madness of passion. Reason bade her use other means. ”

“ Vansittart, who sat with drooping head and clasped hands, betwixt sorrow and anger—sorrow for her son’s suffering, anger at his obstinate adherence to the girl he loved. She gave Sefton her hand mechanically, without looking up.
“Good night, Vansittart,” said Sefton, as he moved towards the door. “I can only admire your loyalty to Miss Marchant, though I may question your wisdom. She is a very charming person, I grant you; but, after all”—with a little laugh—“she is not the only woman in the world.” ”

“ There was plenty of game, and there were those appetising kickshaws, Russian salads, and such-like, which Vansittart had bargained for, and cold and hot sweets in profusion. Hetty and Peggy eat enormously, urged thereto by Mr. Tivett, who sat between them; but Eve had no more appetite than might have been expected in a sensitive girl who finds herself suddenly in a new atmosphere—an atmosphere of unspoken love, which wraps her round like a perfume. Vansittart remonstrated with her for eating so little after a long walk and a morning on the ice ”

“ Sefton, who had admired Eve and had been scorned by her, and who doubtless hated Eve’s husband.
Nothing could be more disquieting for Vansittart than that Sefton should have made himself the friend and patron of Fiordelisa—even if he were no more than friend or patron. If he were pursuing the Venetian girl with evil meaning it would be Vansittart’s duty to warn her. He had urged her to lead a good life—to redeem the error of her girlhood by a virtuous and reputable womanhood. ”

“ I have no fear that I shall fail in getting at the truth when she and I are face to face. Woman against woman, wife against mistress, I know who will be the stronger.
“If I have wronged you, my beloved, your wife in penitent love. If you have wronged me, your wife no longer—Eve.”
A pleasant letter to greet a husband on his home-coming.
“Woman against woman, face to face, those two!” thought Vansittart. “She will discover—not that which she fears to discover, but a darker secret—and then it will be as she has said, my wife no longer.” ”

“ An hour later, walking alone on the ramparts, she told herself that in all probability this desolate wife was only throwing dust in her eyes, and that Vansittart’s inconstancy had been clearly demonstrated in accordance with Sefton’s story. It would be only like a devoted wife to violate truth in order to vindicate her husband. Pride and love would alike urge Eve to deny her husband’s infidelity. ”

“ The peaceful days, the perfect union between husband and wife, revived Eve’s spirits and did much to restore her health, sorely shaken by the ordeal through which she had passed. Fever had raged fiercely in the battle between life and death, and the long bright hair, which had made so fair a diadem in the days of her poverty, had been shorn from the burning head. She looked quaintly pretty now, with her boyish crop, framing the broad white forehead with crisp short curls. She laughed when Vansittart talked of next season, when his mother was to lend them the house in Charles Street. ”

“ Lord Harford had set down nothing in malice. What he told Virginia is absolutely true. Philip Vansittart is in love with a gay, pretty child, whose winsome tricks have coiled her round his heart. He has never spoken one word of love to her, for he feels and knows himself as much bound to Virginia as though the marriage-tie he once so utterly abhorred linked them. He no longer, strange to say, thinks and speaks so evilly of marriage. Were he free, would he not joyfully chain himself with all the bonds that church and society can impose to this sweet young life which would make him young again? ”

“ Vansittart’s sister was perfectly happy in her married life. She had a husband who petted and indulged her, with inexhaustible good humour, and who thought her the most enchanting of women, with infinite capacities for soaring to a higher level than she had yet attained. She had as much money as ever she cared to spend, and a house in which she was allowed to do what she liked, so long as she did not trample on the rights and privileges of the old servants from Hartley Manor, who had been dominant there since Hubert’s infancy ”

“ Vansittart was the first to break that agony of silence.
“Does this mean the end of love?” he asked. “Is all over and done with between you and me? Is love only a dream that we have dreamed?”
“Yes; it is a dream,” she answered, looking at him with tearless eyes, which had more misery in them than all the tears he had ever seen in the eyes of women. “It is something perhaps to have believed one’s self happy for two blessed years. You have been so good to me—so good to poor Peggy. ”

“ The interest in the death of a nameless Englishman soon died out, and the newspapers found no more to say about the fatal brawl in the Piazza, and as the years went by Vansittart told himself that this dark chapter in his life was closed for ever, that the mother who loved him would never know that his conscience was burdened with the death of a fellow-creature. ”

“ He looked boldly at Joan's uncle.
"My dear boy, no one has the slightest wish to interfere! What do you mean?" asked Sir Thomas briskly.
Vansittart sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "My dear Sir Thomas, your niece is a very extraordinary girl," he slowly said. "Once married, she will, I believe, settle down to be more like other people in her ideas, which at present are extravagance itself! But I will tell you this much--the man who refuses to fall in with them will never call her wife! ”

“ Vansittart insisted that her children should have the free use of the house in Charles Street for the London season. She wanted Eve to enjoy the privileges of her position as the wife of a man of good family and good means. She had also a lingering hope that in the high pressure of London society her son might awaken to some worthy ambition—political or social, and might try to make his mark in the world. She had always been ambitious for him—had always wanted him to do something more than shoot his own pheasants, improve the cottages on his estate, and live within his means. ”

“ Vansittart's odd behavior during her enforced sojourn on the rock. So thoroughly had she shattered those dimly outlined impressions by the quietly vivacious charm of her manner at dinner that they both experienced a jumble of sensations. A terrified woman, in wet and torn clothing, cowering in the gaunt interior of a storm-girt lighthouse, is a very different being when attired in expensive garments and surrounded by the luxuries of a first-class hotel. ”

“ Had there been any doubt in Sefton’s mind as to the nature of the intrigue, Vansittart’s evident embarrassment would have settled the question. Mr. Sefton was the kind of man who always thinks worst about everybody, and prejudice had predisposed him to think badly of Eve’s admirer. ”

“ Vansittart had seen enough of the world and its ways to know that appearances are deceitful, and that many a blushing bride whose drooping head and gentle bashfulness suggested the innocence that might ride on lions and not be afraid, has afterwards made a shameful figure in the Divorce Court. ”

“ I know how to deal with my mother’s prejudices; and I know that her affection for Eve will overcome those prejudices—in good time.”
Ferrari called at Charles Street at eleven o’clock next morning, in accordance with Vansittart’s request. As the clock struck the hour a tall, good-looking man, with reddish-brown hair, reddish-brown eyes, and a cheerful, self-satisfied smile, was ushered into Vansittart’s study.
“You are punctual, Signor Ferrari. Sit down, please, and come to business at once. Mr. Sefton tells me that you are the most business-like of men, as well as the best of fellows.” ”