A Country Gentleman and His Family · Chapter 35 (1/2)

XXXV

Next day Mr. Longstaffe called upon Mrs. Warrender, nominally about the alterations that had to be made in her house, but really with objects much more important. He made notes scrupulously of what she wanted, and hoped that she would not allow anything to be neglected that was necessary for her comfort. When these necessary preliminaries were over, there was a pause. He remained silent with an expectant air, waiting to be questioned, and though she had resolved if possible to refrain from doing so, the restriction was more than her faculties could bear.

“My son tells me,” she said, as indifferently as possible, “that there is a great deal going on between him and you.”

“Naturally,” cried Mr. Longstaffe, with a certain heat of indignation. “He is making a marriage which is not at all a common kind of marriage, and yet he would have liked it to be without any settlements at all.”

“He could not wish anything that was not satisfactory to Lady Markland.”

“Do you think so? then I must undeceive you. He would have liked Lady Markland to give herself to him absolutely with no precautions, no restrictions.”

“Mr. Longstaffe, Theo is very much in love. He has always been very sensitive: he cannot bear (I suppose) mixing up business matters, which he hates, with⁠—”

“It is all very well for him to hate business, though between you and me, if you will allow me to say so, I think it very silly. Ladies may entertain such sentiments, but a man ought to know better. If you will believe me, he wants to marry her as if she were sixteen and had not a penny! To make her Mrs. Theodore Warrender and take her home to his own house!”

“What should he do else? is not that the natural thing that every man wishes to do?”

“Yes, if he marries a girl of sixteen without a penny, as I said. Mrs. Warrender, I know you are full of sense. Perhaps you will be able to put it before him in a better light. When a man marries a lady, with an established position of her own like Lady Markland, and a great many responsibilities, especially when she is a sort of queen mother and has a whole noble family to be accountable to⁠—”

“I do not wonder that Theo should be impatient, Mr. Longstaffe; all this must be terrible to him, in the midst of his⁠—Why should not they marry first, and then these things will arrange themselves?”

“Marry first! and leave her altogether unsecured.”

“I hope you know that my son is a man of honour, Mr. Longstaffe.”

“My dear madam, we have nothing to do with men of honour in the law. I felt sure that you would understand at least. Suppose we had left Miss Minnie dependent upon the honour (though I don’t doubt it at all) of the Thynne family.”

“I don’t mean in respect to money,” said Mrs. Warrender, with a slight flush. “He will not interfere with her money, of that I am certain.”

“No: only with herself; and she has been left the control of everything; and she must be free to administer her son’s property and look after his interests. If you will allow me to say it, Mrs. Warrender, Lady Markland is a much better man of business than Theo.”

Mr. Longstaffe had known Theo all his life, and had never addressed him otherwise than by that name, but it seemed an over-familiarity, a want of respect, even a sign of contempt in the position in which Theo now stood. She replied with a little offence:⁠—

“That is very possible. He has had little experience, and he is a scholar, not a person of business. But why should the marriage be delayed? This is the worst moment for them both. I know my son, Mr. Longstaffe. All this frets him beyond description now; but when the uncertainty is over, and all these negotiations, everything will come round. He will never interfere or prevent her from doing what is necessary for her son. When they are once married all will go well.”

This was a long speech for Mrs. Warrender, and she made it with interruptions, with trepidation, not quite so sure perhaps of her own argument as she had thought she was. The lawyer looked at her with a kind of respectful contempt.

“There may be a certain justice in what you say, that this is the worst moment: but I for one could never agree to anything so unbusiness-like as you seem to suggest. Marriage first, and business afterwards⁠—no, no⁠—and then there is the little boy. You would not have him sent off to nurse while his mother goes upon her honeymoon. Poor little fellow, so devoted as she was to him before!”

“A second marriage,” said Mrs. Warrender, subdued, “can never be so simple, so easy, as one in which there are no complications.”

“They are better, if they so abide,” said Mr. Longstaffe. “I agree with St. Paul for my part. But it would be hard upon a young woman, poor thing, that made such a failure in her first. If Theo were not so restive, if you could get him to take things a little more easy⁠—Dear me, of course I trust in his honour; no one doubts that. But he will lead her a pretty dance; whether it will be better for her to have a good crotchety high-tempered young fellow who adores her, or a rough young scamp who neglected her⁠—”

“There can be no comparison between the two.”

“No,” said Mr. Longstaffe ruefully, but perhaps his judgment did not lean to Theo’s side.

“And why should not they live at the Warren?” she asked. “It is not a fine house, but it is a good house, and with the improvements Theo is making⁠—”

“My dear lady, to me the Warren is a delightful little place, or at least it could be made delightful. But Markland⁠—Markland is a very different matter. To change the one for the other would be⁠—well it would be, you won’t deny, something like a sacrifice. And why should she? when Markland is all ready, wanting no alteration, an excellent house, and in the middle of the property which she has to manage, whereas the Warren⁠—”

“I have lived in the Warren all my life,” said Mrs. Warrender, with a little natural indignation. It wounded her sore that he should talk of it patronisingly as “a delightful little place.” She was not in any way devoted to the Warren; still this patronage, this unfavourable comparison irritated her, and she began to range herself with more warmth upon her own side. “I can see no reason why my son’s wife should not live there.”

“But there are reasons why Lady Markland should not live there.”

Mrs. Warrender’s eyes shot forth fire. She no longer wondered that Theo was driven to the verge of distraction. Oh that he had loved some young creature on his own level, some girl who would have gone sweetly to his home with him and glorified the old life! His mother had wept over and soothed the woman of his choice only yesterday, entering into all the difficulties that beset her path, and pledging her own assistance to overcome them; but now she was all in arms in behalf of her boy, whose individuality was to be crushed among them, who was to be made into an appendage to Lady Markland, and have no place of his own. Instead of giving her assistance to tame Theo, she felt herself take fire in his defence.

“You are very right, no doubt, to consider Lady Markland in the first place,” she said, “but I don’t think we can argue the question further, for to me my son must be the first.”

“It is the right way,” said the lawyer, “but when a young man lifts his eyes⁠—”

“We will say no more on the subject,” she said quickly. And Mr. Longstaffe was too judicious to do anything else than resume the question about the garden palings, and then to bow himself out. He turned, indeed, at the door to express his regrets that he had not brought her to his way of thinking, that he lost her valuable help, upon which he had calculated: but this did not conciliate Mrs. Warrender. She had no carriage at her orders, or she would have gone to the Warren at once, with the impulsiveness of her nature, to see what Theo was doing, what he was thinking of. But Theo was at Markland, alternating between the Paradiso and the Inferno, between the sweetness of his betrothed’s company and all the hard conditions of his happiness, and the Warren was in the hands of a set of leisurely country tradespeople, who if Theo had meant to carry his bride there must have postponed that happiness for a year or two⁠—not much wonder, perhaps, since they were left by the young master to dawdle on their own way.

Mrs. Warrender, however, had another and a surprising visitor on this same day. The ladies were sitting together in their usual way, in the heat of the afternoon, waiting until it should be cool enough for their walk, when the parlour maid, not used, perhaps, to such visitors, opened the door with a little excitement, and announced, “Lord Markland.” Mrs. Warrender rose quickly to her feet, with a low cry, and a sudden wild imagination such as will dart across a troubled mind. Lord Markland! had he never died then, was it all a dream, had he come back to stop it in time? A small voice interrupted this flash of thought, and brought her back to herself with a giddy sense of the ridiculous and a sensation of shame quite out of proportion to the momentary illusion. “It is only me, Geoff: but I thought when she asked me my name, I was obliged to give my right name.” He seemed smaller than ever, as he came across the room twitching his face as his habit was, and paler, or rather grayer, with scanty locks and little twinkling eyes. “Did you think it was someone else?” he said.

“Of course it could be no one but you. I was startled for the moment, not thinking of you by that title. And have you come all this way alone⁠—without any⁠—”

“Oh, you were thinking of that other time. There is a great deal of difference since that other time. It is nearly a year since⁠—and now I do a great many things by myself,” said the boy, looking at her keenly. “I am let to go wherever I please.”

“Because you are now old enough to take care of yourself,” said Mrs. Warrender, “with the help of Black.”

“Yes,” said Geoff, “how did you know? I have got Black. But there is more in it than that. Would mamma have ruined me, if she had kept on always coddling me, Mrs. Warrender? that is what the servants say.”

“My dear, one never allows the servants to say things of that kind. You should understand your mother’s meaning much better than they can do.”

“I see a great deal of the servants now,” said Geoff⁠—then he corrected himself with a look of sudden recollection⁠—“that is, I am afraid I disobey mamma, Mrs. Warrender. I am rather fond of the servants, they are more amusing than other people. I go to the stables often when I know I oughtn’t. To know you oughtn’t, and yet to do it, is very bad, don’t you think?”

“I am afraid it is, Geoff. Don’t you have any lessons now?”

“They say this is holiday time,” said the boy. “Of course I am glad of the holidays, but it is a little stupid too, not having anyone to play with⁠—but I may come out a great deal more than I used to. And that is a great advantage, isn’t it? I read too, chiefly stories; but a whole day is a very long time, don’t you think so? I did not say where I was coming this afternoon, in case the pony might get tired, or Black turn cross, or something, but it appears Black likes to come to Highcombe, he has friends here.” The boy had come close to Mrs. Warrender’s worktable, and was lifting up and putting down again the reels of silk, the thimbles and scissors. He went on with his occupation for some time very gravely, his back turned to the light. At length he said, “I want you to tell me one thing. They say Warrender is coming to live at our house.”

“I am afraid it is true, Geoff.”

“Don’t you like it, then?” said the boy. “I thought if you did not like it you would not let it be.”

“My dear, my son Theo is a man. I cannot tell him what he must do as your mother does to you. And if I do not like it, it is because he has a good house of his own.”

“Ah, the Warren!” said Geoff: then he added, pulling all the reels about in the worktable, and without raising his eyes to her face, “If he is coming, I wish he would come, Mrs. Warrender, then perhaps I should go to school. Don’t you think school is a good thing for a boy?”

“Everybody says so, Geoff.”

“Yes, I know⁠—it is in all the books. Mrs. Warrender, if⁠—Warrender is coming to live with us, will you be a sort of grandmother to me?”

This startled her very much. She looked at the odd child with a sensation almost of alarm.

“Because,” he continued, “I never had one, and I could come and talk to you when things were bad.”

“I hope you will never have any experience of things being bad, Geoff.”

He gave a glance at her face, his hands still busy among the threads and needles.

“Oh no, never, perhaps⁠—but, Mrs. Warrender, if⁠—Warrender is coming to Markland to live, I wish he would do it now, directly. Then it would be settled what was going to be done with me⁠—and⁠—and other things.” Geoff’s face twitched more than ever, and she understood that the reason why he did not look at her was because his little eyelids were swollen with involuntary tears. “There are a lot of things⁠—that perhaps would get⁠—settled then,” he said.

“Geoff,” she said, putting her arm round him, “I am afraid you don’t like it any more than I do, my poor boy.”

Geoff would not yield to the demoralising influence of this caress. He held himself away from her, swaying backwards, resisting the pressure of her arm. His eyelids grew bigger and bigger, his mouth twitched and quivered. “Oh, it is not that,” he said, with a quiver in his voice, “if mamma likes it. I am only little, I am rather backward, I am not⁠—company enough for mamma.”

“That must be one of the things that the servants say. You must not listen, Geoff, to what the servants say.”

“But it is quite true. Mamma knows just exactly what is best. I used to be the one that was always with her⁠—and now it is Warrender. He can talk of lots of things⁠—things I don’t understand. For I tell you I am very backward, I don’t know half, nor so much as half, what some boys do at my age.”

“That is a pity, perhaps; but it does not matter, Geoff, to your⁠—to the people who are fond of you, my dear.”

“Oh yes, it does,” cried the boy; “don’t hold me, please! I am a little beast, I am not grateful to people nor anything! the best thing for me will just be to be sent to school.” Here Geoff turned his back upon her abruptly, forced thereto by the necessity of getting rid of those tears. When he had thus relieved himself, and cleared his throat of the climbing sorrow that threatened to shake his voice, he came back and stood once more by her table. The great effort of swallowing down all that emotion had made him pale, and left the strained look which the passage of a sudden storm leaves both upon the human countenance and the sky. “They say it’s very jolly at Eton,” he resumed suddenly, taking up with his hot little nervous fingers Mrs. Warrender’s piece of work.