April's Lady Part 38

She sighs heavily, as the door closes on her brother. A sense of weakness, of powerlessness oppresses her. She has fought so long, and for what? Is there nothing to be gained; no truth to be defended anywhere, no standard of right and wrong. Are all men--all--base, selfish, cowardly, dishonorable? Her whole being seems aflame with the indignation that is consuming her, when a knock sounds at the door.

There is only one person in the house who knocks at her boudoir door. To every one, servants, guests, child, it is a free land; to her husband alone it is forbidden ground.

"Come in," says she, in a cold, reluctant tone.

"I know I shall be terribly in your way," says Baltimore, entering, "but I must beg you to give me five minutes. I hear Beauclerk has returned, and that you have seen him. What kept him?"

Now Lady Baltimore--who a moment ago had condemned her brother heartily to his face--feels, as her husband addresses her, a perverse desire to openly contradict all that her honest judgment had led her to say to Beauclerk. That sense of indignation that was burning so hotly in her breast as Baltimore knocked at her door still stirs within her, but now its fire is directed against this latest comer. Who is he, that he should dare to question the honor of any man; and that there is annoyance and condemnation now in Baltimore's eyes is not to be denied.

"The weather," returns she shortly.

"By your tone I judge you deem that an adequate excuse for keeping Miss Kavanagh from her home for half a day and a night."

"There was a terrible storm," says. Lady Baltimore calmly; "the worst we have had for months."

"If it had been ten times as bad he should, in my opinion, have come home."

The words seem a mere repet.i.tion to Lady Baltimore. She had, indeed, used them to Beauclerk herself, or some such, a few minutes ago. Yet she seems to repudiate all sympathy with them now.

"On such a night as that? I hardly see why. Joyce was with an old friend. Mrs. Connolly was once a servant of her father's, and he----"

"Should have left her with the old friend and come home."

Again her own argument, and again perversity drives her to take the opposite side--the side against her conscience.

"Society must be in a very bad state if a man must perforce encounter thunder, rain, lightning; in fact, a chance of death from cold and exposure, all because he dare not spend one night beneath the roof of a respectable woman like Mrs. Connolly, with a girl friend, without bringing down on him the censures of his entire world."

"You can, it appears, be a most eloquent advocate for the supposed follies of any one but your husband. Nevertheless, I must persist in my opinion that it was, to put it very charitably indeed, inconsiderate of your brother to study his own comfort at the expense of his--girl friend. I believe that is your way of putting it, isn't it?"

"Yes," immovably. She has so far given way to movement, however, that she has taken up a feather fan lying near, and now so holds it between her and Baltimore that he cannot distinctly see her face.

"As for the world you speak of--it will not judge him as leniently as you do. It can talk. No one," bitterly, "is as good a witness of that as I am."

"But seldom," coldly, "without reason."

"And no one is a better witness of that than you are! That is what you would say, isn't it? Put down that fan, can't you?" with a touch of savage impatience. "Are you ashamed to carry out your argument with me face to face?"

"Ashamed!" Lady Baltimore has sprung suddenly to her feet, and sent the fan with a little crash to the ground. "Oh! shame on you to mention such a word."

"Am I to be forever your one scapegoat? Now take another one, I beseech you," says Baltimore with that old, queer, devilish mockery on his face that was never seen there until gossiping tongues divided him from his wife. "Here is your brother, actually thrown to you, as it were. Surely he will be a proof that I am not the only vile one among all the herd.

If nothing else, acknowledge him selfish. A man who thought more of a dry coat than a young, a very young, girl's reputation. Is that nothing?

Oh! consider, I beseech you!" his bantering manner, in which there is so much misery that it should have reached her but does not, grows stronger every instant "Even a big chill from the heavens above would not have killed him, whereas we all know how a little breath from the world below can kill many a----"

"Oh I you can talk, talk, talk," says she, that late unusual burst of pa.s.sion showing some hot embers still. "But can words alter facts?" She pauses; a sudden chill seems to enwrap her. As if horrified by her late descent into pa.s.sion she gathers herself together, and defies him once again with a cold look. "Why say anything more about it?" she says. "We do not agree."

"On this subject, at least, we should," says he hotly. "I think your brother should not have left us in ignorance of Miss Kavanagh's safety for so many hours. And you," with a sneer, "who are such a martinet for propriety, should certainly be prepared to acknowledge that he should not have so regulated his conduct as to make her a subject for unkind comment to the County. Badly," looking at her deliberately, "as you think of me, I should not have done it."

"No?" says she. It is a cruel--an unmistakable insulting monosyllable.

And, bearing no other word with it--is the more detestable to the hearer.

"No," says he loudly. "Sneer as you will--my conscience is at rest there, so I can defy your suspicions."

"Ah! there!" says she.

"My dear creature," says he, "we all know there is but one villain in the world, and you are the proud possessor of him--as a husband. Permit me to observe, however, that a man of your code of honor, and of mine for the matter of that--but I forget that honor and I have no cousinship in your estimation--would have chosen to be wet to the skin rather than imperil the fair name of the girl he loved."

"Has he told you he loved her?"

"Not in so many words."

"Then from what do you argue?"

"My dear, I have told you that you are too much for me in argument! I, a simple on-looker, have judged merely from an every-day observance of little un.o.btrusive facts. If your brother is not in love with Miss Kavanagh, I think he ought to be. I speak ignorantly, I allow. I am not, like you, a deep student of human nature. If, too, he did not feel it his duty to bring her home last night, or else to leave her at Falling and return here himself, I fail to sympathize with him. I should not have so failed her."

"Oh but you!" says his wife, with a little contemptuous smile. "You who are such a paragon of virtue. It would not be expected of you that you should make such a mistake!"

She has sent forth her dart impulsively, sharply, out of the overflowing fullness of her angry heart--and when too late, when it has sped past recall--perhaps repents the speeding!

Such repentances, when felt too late, bring vices in their train; the desire for good, when chilled, turns to evil. The mind, never idle, if debarred from the best, leans inevitably toward the worst. Angry with herself, her very soul embittered within her, Lady Baltimore feels more and more a sense of pa.s.sionate wrong against the man who had wooed and won her, and sown the seeds of gnawing distrust within her bosom.

Baltimore's face has whitened. His brow contracts.

"What a devilish unforgiving thing is a good woman," says he, with a reckless laugh. "That's a compliment, my lady--take it as you will.

What! are your sneers to outlast life itself? Is that old supposed sin of mine never to be condoned? Why--say it was a real thing, instead of being the myth it is. Even so, a woman all prayers, all holiness, such as you are, might manage to pardon it!"

Lady Baltimore, rising, walks deliberately toward the door. It is her, usual method of putting an end to all discussions of this sort between them--of terminating any allusions to what she believes to be his unfaithful past--that past that has wrecked her life.

As a rule, Baltimore makes no attempt to prolong the argument. He has always let her go, with a sneering word, perhaps, or a muttered exclamation; but to-day he follows her, and stepping between her and the door, bars her departure.

"By heavens! you shall hear me," says he, his face dark with anger. "I will not submit any longer, in silence, to your insolent treatment of me. You condemn me, but I tell you it is I who should condemn. Do you think I believe in your present att.i.tude toward me? Pretend as you will, even to yourself, in your soul it is impossible that you should give credence to that old story, false as it is old. No! you cling to it to mask the feet you have tired of me."

"Let me pa.s.s."

"Not until you have heard me!" With a light, but determined grasp of her arm, he presses her back into the chair she has just quitted.

"That story was a lie, I tell you. Before our marriage, I confess, there were some things--not creditable--to which I plead guilty, but----"

"Oh! be silent!" cries she, putting up her hand impulsively to check him. There is open disgust and horror on her pale, severe face.

"Before, before our marriage," persists he pa.s.sionately.

"What! do you think there is no temptation--no sin--no falling away from the stern path of virtue in this life? Are you so mad or so ignorant as to believe that every man you meet could show a perfectly clean record of----"

"I cannot--I will not listen," interposes she, springing to her feet, white and indignant.

"There is nothing to hear. I am not going to pollute your ears," says he, with a curl of his lip. "Pray be rea.s.sured. What I only wish to say is that if you condemn me for a few past sins you should condemn also half your acquaintances. That, however, you do not do. For me alone, for your husband, you reserve all your resentment."

"What are the others to me?"