Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1134 page)

Romayne promised, and sealed the promise — unresisted this time — with a kiss. “When are we to be married?” he whispered.

She lifted her head from his shoulder with a sigh. “If I am to answer you honestly,” she replied, “I must speak of my mother, before I speak of myself.”

Romayne submitted to the duties of his new position, as well as he understood them. “Do you mean that you have told your mother of our engagement?” he said. “In that case, is it my duty or yours — I am very ignorant in these matters — to consult her wishes? My own idea is, that I ought to ask her if she approves of me as her son-in-law, and that you might then speak to her of the marriage.”

Stella thought of Romayne’s tastes, all in favor of modest retirement, and of her mother’s tastes, all in favor of ostentation and display. She frankly owned the result produced in her own mind. “I am afraid to consult my mother about our marriage,” she said.

Romayne looked astonished. “Do you think Mrs. Eyrecourt will disapprove of it?” he asked.

Stella was equally astonished on her side. “Disapprove of it?” she repeated. “I know for certain that my mother will be delighted.”

“Then where is the difficulty?”

There was but one way of definitely answering that question. Stella boldly described her mother’s idea of a wedding — including the Archbishop, the twelve bridesmaids in green and gold, and the hundred guests at breakfast in Lord Loring’s picture gallery. Romayne’s consternation literally deprived him, for the moment, of the power of speech. To say that he looked at Stella, as a prisoner in “the condemned cell” might have looked at the sheriff, announcing the morning of his execution, would be to do injustice to the prisoner. He receives
his
shock without flinching; and, in proof of his composure, celebrates his wedding with the gallows by a breakfast which he will not live to digest.

“If you think as your mother does,” Romayne began, as soon as he had recovered his self-possession, “no opinion of mine shall stand in the way — ” He could get no further. His vivid imagination saw the Archbishop and the bridesmaids, heard the hundred guests and their dreadful speeches: his voice faltered, in spite of himself.

Stella eagerly relieved him. “My darling, I don’t think as my mother does,” she interposed, tenderly. “I am sorry to say we have very few sympathies in common. Marriages, as I think, ought to be celebrated as privately as possible — the near and dear relations present, and no one else. If there must be rejoicings and banquets, and hundreds of invitations, let them come when the wedded pair are at home after the honeymoon, beginning life in earnest. These are odd ideas for a woman to have — but they
are
my ideas, for all that.”

Romayne’s face brightened. “How few women possess your fine sense and your delicacy of feeling!” he exclaimed “Surely your mother must give way, when she hears we are both of one mind about our marriage.”

Stella knew her mother too well to share the opinion thus expressed. Mrs. Eyrecourt’s capacity for holding to her own little ideas, and for persisting (where her social interests were concerned) in trying to insinuate those ideas into the minds of other persons, was a capacity which no resistance, short of absolute brutality, could overcome. She was perfectly capable of worrying Romayne (as well as her daughter) to the utmost limits of human endurance, in the firm conviction that she was bound to convert all heretics, of their way of thinking, to the orthodox faith in the matter of weddings. Putting this view of the case with all possible delicacy, in speaking of her mother, Stella expressed herself plainly enough, nevertheless, to enlighten Romayne.

He made another suggestion. “Can we marry privately,” he said, “and tell Mrs. Eyrecourt of it afterward?”

This essentially masculine solution of the difficulty was at once rejected. Stella was too good a daughter to suffer her mother to be treated with even the appearance of disrespect. “Oh,” she said, “think how mortified and distressed my mother would be! She
must
be present at my marriage.”

An idea of a compromise occurred to Romayne. “What do you say,” he proposed, “to arranging for the marriage privately — and then telling Mrs. Eyrecourt only a day or two beforehand, when it would be too late to send out invitations? If your mother would be disappointed — ”

“She would be angry,” Stella interposed.

“Very well — lay all the blame on me. Besides, there might be two other persons present, whom I am sure Mrs. Eyrecourt is always glad to meet. You don’t object to Lord and Lady Loring?”

“Object? They are my dearest friends, as well as yours!”

“Any one else, Stella?”

“Any one, Lewis, whom
you
like.

“Then I say — no one else. My own love, when may it be? My lawyers can get the settlements ready in a fortnight, or less. Will you say in a fortnight?”

His arm was round her waist; his lips were touching her lovely neck. She was not a woman to take refuge in the commonplace coquetries of the sex. “Yes,” she said, softly, “if you wish it.” She rose and withdrew herself from him. “For my sake, we must not be here together any longer, Lewis.” As she spoke, the music in the ballroom ceased. Stella ran out of the conservatory.

The first person she encountered, on returning to the reception-room, was Father Benwell.

CHAPTER III.

THE END OF THE BALL.

THE priest’s long journey did not appear to have fatigued him. He was as cheerful and as polite as ever — and so paternally attentive to Stella that it was quite impossible for her to pass him with a formal bow.

“I have come all the way from Devonshire,” he said. “The train has been behind time as usual, and I am one of the late arrivals in consequence. I miss some familiar faces at this delightful party. Mr. Romayne, for instance. Perhaps he is not one of the guests?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Has he gone away?”

“Not that I know of.”

The tone of her replies warned Father Benwell to let Romayne be. He tried another name.

“And Arthur Penrose?” he inquired next.

“I think Mr. Penrose has left us.”

As she answered she looked toward Lady Loring. The hostess was the centre of a circle of ladles and gentlemen. Before she was at liberty, Father Benwell might take his departure. Stella resolved to make the attempt for herself which she had asked Lady Loring to make for her. It was better to try, and to be defeated, than not to try at all.

“I asked Mr. Penrose what part of Devonshire you were visiting,” she resumed, assuming her more gracious manner. “I know something myself of the north coast, especially the neighbourhood of Clovelly.”

Not the faintest change passed over the priest’s face; his fatherly smile had never been in a better state of preservation.

“Isn’t it a charming place?” he said with enthusiasm. “Clovelly is the most remarkable and most beautiful village in England. I have so enjoyed my little holiday — excursions by sea and excursions by land — you know I feel quite young again?”

He lifted his eyebrows playfully, and rubbed his plump hands one over the other with such an intolerably innocent air of enjoyment that Stella positively hated him. She felt her capacity for self-restraint failing her. Under the influence of strong emotion her thoughts lost their customary discipline. In attempting to fathom Father Benwell, she was conscious of having undertaken a task which required more pliable moral qualities than she possessed. To her own unutterable annoyance, she was at a loss what to say next.

At that critical moment her mother appeared — eager for news of the conquest of Romayne.

“My dear child, how pale you look!” said Mrs. Eyrecourt. “Come with me directly — you must have a glass of wine.”

This dexterous device for entrapping Stella into a private conversation failed. “Not now, mamma, thank you,” she said.

Father Benwell, on the point of discreetly withdrawing, stopped, and looked at Mrs. Eyrecourt with an appearance of respectful interest. As things were, it might not have been worth his while to take the trouble of discovering her. But when she actually placed herself in his way, the chance of turning Mrs. Eyrecourt to useful account was not a chance to be neglected. “Your mother?” he said to Stella. “I should feel honoured if you will introduce me.”

Having (not very willingly) performed the ceremony of presentation, Stella drew back a little. She had no desire to take any part in the conversation that might follow — but she had her own reasons for waiting near enough to hear it.

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Eyrecourt turned on her inexhaustible flow of small-talk with her customary facility. No distinction of persons troubled her; no convictions of any sort stood in her way. She was equally ready (provided she met him in good society) to make herself agreeable to a Puritan or a Papist.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Father Benwell. Surely I met you at that delightful evening at the Duke’s? I mean when we welcomed the Cardinal back from Rome. Dear old man — if one may speak so familiarly of a Prince of the Church. How charmingly he bears his new honours. Such patriarchal simplicity, as every one remarked. Have you seen him lately?”

The idea of the Order to which he belonged feeling any special interest in a Cardinal (except when they made him of some use to them) privately amused Father Benwell. “How wise the Church was,” he thought, “in inventing a spiritual aristocracy. Even this fool of a woman is impressed by it.” His spoken reply was true to his assumed character as one of the inferior clergy. “Poor priests like me, madam, see but little of Princes of the Church in the houses of Dukes.” Saying this with the most becoming humility, he turned the talk in a more productive direction, before Mrs. Eyrecourt could proceed with her recollections of “the evening at the Duke’s.”

“Your charming daughter and I have been talking about Clovelly,” he continued. “I have just been spending a little holiday in that delightful place. It was a surprise to me, Mrs. Eyrecourt, to see so many really beautiful country seats in the neighbourhood. I was particularly struck — you know it, of course? — by Beaupark House.”

Mrs. Eyrecourt’s little twinging eyes suddenly became still and steady. It was only for a moment. But that trifling change boded ill for the purpose which the priest had in view. Even the wits of a fool can be quickened by contact with the world. For many years Mrs. Eyrecourt had held her place in society, acting under an intensely selfish sense of her own interests, fortified by those cunning instincts which grow best in a barren intellect. Perfectly unworthy of being trusted with secrets which only concerned other people, this frivolous creature could be the unassailable guardian of secrets which concerned herself. The instant the priest referred indirectly to Winterfield, by speaking of Beaupark: House, her instincts warned her, as if in words: — Be careful for Stella’s sake!

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Eyrecourt. “I know Beaupark House; but — may I make a confession?” she added, with her sweetest smile.

Father Benwell caught her tone, with his customary tact. “A confession at a ball is a novelty, even in my experience,” he answered with
his
sweetest smile.

“How good of you to encourage me!” proceeded Mrs. Eyrecourt. “No, thank you, I don’t want to sit down. My confession won’t take long — and I really must give that poor pale daughter of mine a glass of wine. A student of human nature like you — they say all priests are students of human nature; accustomed of course to be consulted in difficulties, and to hear
real
confessions — must know that we poor women are sadly subject to whims and caprices. We can’t resist them as men do; and the dear good men generally make allowances for us. Well, do you know that place of Mr. Winterfield’s is one of my caprices? Oh, dear, I speak carelessly; I ought to have said the place represents one of my caprices. In short. Father Benwell, Beaupark House is perfectly odious to me, and I think Clovelly the most overrated place in the world. I haven’t the least reason to give, but so it is. Excessively foolish of me. It’s like hysterics, I can’t help it; I’m sure you will forgive me. There isn’t a place on the habitable globe that I am not ready to feel interested in, except detestable Devonshire. I am so sorry you went there. The next time you have a holiday, take my advice. Try the Continent.”