When Ghost Meets Ghost Part 98

"I am not in a hurry."

"I can only do exactly what you have asked me to do--place the case before my son as you have placed it before me."

"I have not asked for anything else."

"Well, then, I can do that, after I have talked over it with his mother.

But I can't ... I can't undertake to _influence_ him."

"Is he so intractable?... However, young men _are_."

"I did not mean that. I ... I don't exactly know how to say it...."

"Why should you hesitate to say what you were going to say?... Do you suppose I don't know what it was?" For he had begun to antic.i.p.ate it with some weakening reservation. "I could tell you exactly. You were going to say, was it right to influence young people's futures and so on, and wasn't it taking a great responsibility, and so on? Now, were you not?"

"I had some such thought."

"Exactly. You mean you thought what I said you thought."

"And you think me mistaken?"

"Not always. In the present case, yes--if you consider that it would be influencing. I don't. It would only be refraining from keeping silence about--about something it may never occur to your son to think possible." It may have struck her hearer that to call shouting a fact on the house-tops "refraining from keeping silence" about it was straining phraseology; but it was not easy to formulate the idea, offhand. It was easier to hold his tongue. The Countess might have done better to hold hers, at this point. But she must needs be discriminating, to show how clear-sighted she was. "Of course, it is quite a different thing to try to bring about a marriage. That is certainly taking a grave responsibility." She stopped with a jerk, for she caught herself denouncing the very course of action which well-meaning friends had adopted successfully in the case of herself and her husband. If it had not been for the jerk, Sir Hamilton would not have known the comparison that was pa.s.sing in her mind. She recovered herself to continue:--"Of course, trying to bring about a marriage is a grave responsibility, but mere testing of the strength of links that bind may be no more than bare prudence. A breaking strain on lovers' vows may be acknowledged by them as an untold blessing in after-years." Here she began to feel she was not improving matters, and continued, with misgivings:--"I am scarcely asking you to do even that. I am only appealing to you to suggest to your son a fact that is obvious to myself and my husband, because it is almost impossible for us, under the circ.u.mstances, to make such an appeal to him ourselves."

"Are you so confident of the grounds of your suspicions ... about ...

about the motives that are influencing your daughter?"

"They are not suspicions. They are certainties. At least, I am convinced--and I am her mother--that her chief motive in accepting your son was vitiated--yes, vitiated!--by a mistaken zeal for--suppose we call it poetical justice. I am not going to say the girl does not fancy herself in love." She laughed a maternal sort of laugh--the laugh that seniority, undeceived by life's realities, laughs at the crazy dawn of pa.s.sion in infatuated children. "Of course she does. But knowing what I do, am I not right to make an attempt at least to protect her from herself?" She lowered her voice to an increase of earnestness, as though she had found a way to go nearer to the heart of her subject. "Does any woman know--_can_ any woman know--better than I do, the value of a girl's first love?"

It was a daring recognition of their old relation, and the veil of the thin pretence that it could be successfully ignored had fallen from between them.

The Baronet was a Man of the World. "Women do not take these things to heart as men do." And then, the moment after, was in a cold perspiration to think in what a delicate position it would have landed him. Just think!--with the Miss Abercrombie he had married cherishing her nervous system upstairs, and the pending reappearance of a son and daughter who were very liable to amus.e.m.e.nt with a parent whom they scarcely took seriously--for _him_ to be hinting at the remains of an undying pa.s.sion for this lady! He could only accept her estimate of girls by stammering:--"P-possibly! Young people--yes!"

But his embarra.s.sment and hesitation were so visible that the Countess had little choice between flinching or charging bravely up to the guns.

She chose the courageous course, influenced perhaps by the thought that if the marriage came off, there would be a long perspective of reciprocal consciousnesses in the future for herself and this man, who had an unfortunate knack of transparency. Could not she nip the first in the bud, and sterilise the rest? It was worth the attempt.

"Listen to me, Hamilton," said she; and she was perfectly cool and collected. "Did I not say to you that there need be no nonsense between _us_?... How funny men are! Why should you jump because I called you by name? Do you know that twice since we have been talking here you have all but called me the name you used to me as a girl?... Yes--you began saying 'Lip,' and made it Lady Ancester. Please say it all another time.

I shall not bite you.... Look here!--I want you to help me to laugh at the mistake we made when we were young folks; not to look solemn at it.

We were ridiculous.... You were going to say, 'Why?' Well--I don't exactly know. Young folks always _are_." The fact is, the Countess was beginning to feel comfortably detached, and could treat the subject in a free and easy manner.

The Baronet could not bring himself to allow that he had ever been ridiculous, without protest. The Man within him rose in rebellion against such an admission. He felt a little indignant at her unceremonious pooh-poohing of their early infatuation. He would have accorded it respectful obsequies at least. But what protest could he enter that would not lay him open to suspicions of that undying pa.s.sion?

It appeared to him absolutely impossible to say anything, either way. So he looked as dignified as he could, consistently with being glad the room was half dark, because he knew he was red.

His uncomfortable silence, instead of the response in kind her ladyship had hoped for, interfered a little with the development of her detachment. She judged it better to wind up the interview, and did it with spirit. "There, now, Hamilton, _don't talk_--because I know exactly what you are going to say. Shake hands upon it--a good shake, you know!--don't throw it away!"

How very different are those two ways of offering a hand, the tender one and the graspy one. The Countess's stopped out of its glove to emphasize the latter, and did it so frankly and effectually that it cleared the air, in which the smell of fire had been perceptible, as in a room where a match has gone out.

He had, as she said, twice very nearly called her by her old familiar name of the Romeo and Juliet days. Nevertheless, when he gave her his hand, saying:--"Perfectly right--perfectly right, Lip! That's the way to look at it," he threw in the name stiffly. It was under tutelage, not spontaneously uttered. Letting it come before would have given him a better position. But then, how if she had disallowed it? There was no end to the ticklishness of their relation.

A _modus vivendi_ was, however, established. She could recapitulate without endangering it. "You _will_ try to make Adrian see Gwen's motives as I see them. It is quite possible that it will make no difference in the end. If so, we must bow to the decrees of Providence, I suppose. But I am sure you agree with me that he ought not to remain in the dark. As I dare say you know, I am taking Gwen to Vienna for a time. If they are both of a mind at the end of that time--well, I suppose it can't be helped! But you must not be--I see you are not--surprised at my view of the case."

Sir Hamilton a.s.sented to everything, promised everything, saw the lady into her carriage, and returned, uncomfortable, to review his position before the drawing-room fire in solitude. He did not go upstairs to the nerve case. He would let his visitor die down before he discharged that liability. He broke a large coal, and made a flare, and rang the bell for lights, to show how little the late interview had thrown him out of gear. But it _had_ done so. In spite of the fact that Lady Ancester was well over five-and-forty, and that he himself was four or five years older, and that she had all but hinted that the sight of him would have disillusioned her if the Earl had not--for that was what he read between her lines--she had left something indefinable behind, which he was pleased to condemn as sentimental nonsense. No doubt it was, but it was _there_, for all that.

Just one little tender squeeze of that beautiful hand, instead of that candid, overwhelming wrestler's grip and double-knock handshake, would have been so delightful.

He caught himself thinking more of his handsome visitor and her easy self-mastery, compared with his own awkwardness and embarra.s.sment, than of her errand and the troublesome task she had devolved on him of illuminating his son's mind about the possible self-sacrificial motives of her daughter. His thoughts _would_ wander back to their Romeo and Juliet period, and make comparisons between this _now_ of worldly-wise maturities and the days when he would have been the glove upon that hand, that he might touch that cheek. He recalled his first meeting with the fascinating young beauty in her first season, at a moonlight dance on a lawn dangerously flanked with lonely sheltered avenues and whispering trees; and the soft rose-laden air of a dawn that broke on tired musicians and unexhausted dissipation, and his headlong reckless surrender to her irresistible intoxication; and, to say the truth, the Juliet-like acknowledgment it met with. He would have been better pleased, with the world as it was now, if less of that Juliet had been recognisable in this mature dame. The thought made him bite his lip. He exclaimed against his recognition perforce, and compelled himself to think of the question before the house.

Yes--he could quite understand why the girl's parents should find it difficult to say to his son:--"We know that Gwen is giving her love to make amends for a wrong, as she thinks, done by ourselves; and whatever personal sacrifice we should be glad to make as compensation for it, we have no right to allow our daughter to imperil her happiness." But he had a hazy recollection of Adrian's telling him something of the Earl himself having mooted this view of the subject at the outset of the engagement; and, hearing no more of it, had supposed the point to be disposed of. Why did Lady Ancester wish to impress it on him now?

Then it gradually became clearer, as he thought it out, that it would have been impossible to form conclusions at once. The Earl had no doubt expressed a suspicion at first. But his daughter would never have confessed her motives to _him_. What more likely than that her mother should gradually command her confidence, and see that Adrian could not arrive at a full appreciation of them without an ungracious persistence on the part of herself and her husband, unless it were impressed on him by some member of the young man's family? His father, naturally.

He felt perceptibly gratified that Gwen's mother should take it for granted that he would feel as she did about the injustice to her daughter of allowing her to sacrifice herself to make amends for a fault of her parents. It was a question of sensitive honour, and she had credited him rightly with possessing it. At least, he hoped so. And though he was certainly not a clever man, the Squire of Pensham was the very soul of fair play. His division of the County knew both facts. Now, it seemed to him that it would be fairer play on his part to throw his influence into the scale on the side of the Countess, and protest against the marriage unless some guarantee could be found that there was no heroic taint in the bride's motives. In this he was consciously influenced by the thought that _his_ side would suffer by his own action, so his own motives were tainted. A chivalric instinct, unbalanced by reasoning power, is so very apt to decide--on principle--against its owner's interests. Behind this there may have been a saving clause, to the effect that the young people might be relied on to pay no attention to their seniors' wishes, or anything else. Gwen was on her way to twenty-one, and then parental authority would expire. Meanwhile a little delay would do no harm. For the present, he could only rub the facts into his son, and leave them to do their worst. He would speak to him at the next opportunity.

Home came Adrian and Irene, and filled the silence of the house with voices. Something was afoot, clearly; something not unpleasant, to judge by the laugh of the latter. The room-door, whose hasp never bit properly--causing Adrian to perpetrate an atrocious joke about a disappointed Cleopatra--swung wide with an unseen cause, which was revealed by a soft nose, a dog's, in contact with Sir Hamilton's hand.

He acknowledged Achilles, who trotted away satisfied, to complete an examination of all the other inmates of the house, his invariable custom after an outing. He would ratify or sanction them, and drop asleep with a clear conscience.

"Hay? What's all that? What's all the rumpus?" says the Baronet, outside at the stair-top. The sounds of the voices are pleasant and welcome to him, and he courts their banishment of the past his old _fiancee_ had dragged from its sepulchre. Bury it again and forget it! "What's all the noise about? What's all the chatterboxing?" For the good gentleman always imputes to his offspring a volubility and a plethora of language far in excess of any meaning it conveys. His own att.i.tude, he implies, is one of weighty consideration and temperate but forcible judgment.

"What's the chatterboxing?" says the beautiful daughter, who kisses him on both sides--and she and her skirts and her voice fill the discreet country-house to the brim, and make its owner insignificant. "What's the chatterboxing, indeed? Why,--it's good news for a silly old daddy!

That's what it is. Now come in and I'll sit on his knee and tell him."

And by the time Adrian has felt his way to the drawing-room, the good news has been sprung upon his father by a Moenad who has dragged off her head-gear--so as not to scratch--and flung it on the sofa. And a tide of released black hair has burst loose about him. And--oh dear!--_how_ that garden of auld lang syne has vanished!

It behoves a Baronet and a J.P., however, to bring all this excitement down to the level of mature consideration. "Well--well--well--well!"

says he. "Now let's have it all over again. Begin _at_ the beginning.

You and your brother were walking up Pratchet's Lane. What were you doing in Pratchet's Lane?"

"Walking up it. You _can_ only walk up it or down it. Very well. We were just by the big holly-tree ..."

"Which big holly-tree? One--thing--at--a time!"

"Don't interrupt! There is only one big holly-tree. Now you know! Well!

Ply ran on in front because he caught sight of Miss Scatcherd ..."

"Easy--easy--easy! Where was Miss Scatcherd?"

"In front, of course! Ply dotes on Miss Scatcherd, although she's forty-seven."

"I don't know about the 'of course,'" says Adrian, leaning on his father's arm-chair. "Because I _don't_ dote on Miss Scatcherd. Miss Scatcherd might have been coming up behind. In which case, if I had been Ply, I should have run on in front."

"Don't be spiteful! However, I know she's bony. Well--am I to get on with my story, or not?... Very good! Where did I leave off? Oh--at Miss Scatcherd! Now, papa dear, be good, and don't be solemn."

"Well--fire away!"

"Indeed, it really happened just as I told you: as we were going to the Rectory, Ply ran on in front, and I went on to rescue Miss Scatcherd, because she doesn't like being knocked down by a dog, however affectionate. And it was just then that I heard Adrian speak...."

"Did I speak?"

"Perhaps I ought to say gasp. I heard Adrian gasp. And when I turned round to see why, he was rubbing his eyes. Because he had _seen_ Miss Scatcherd."