Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1431 page)

Wondering what he could possibly mean, Hugh said he never found Paris dull — and waited for further enlightenment. The Irish lord persisted:

“People mostly think Paris isn’t as gay as it used to be. Not such good plays and such good actors as they had at one time. The restaurants inferior, and society very much mixed. People don’t stay there as long as they used. I’m told that Americans are getting disappointed, and are trying London for a change.”

Could he have any serious motive for this irrelevant way of talking? Or was he, to judge by his own account of himself, going round and round the subject of his wife and his guest, before he could get at it?

Suspecting him of jealousy from the first, Hugh failed — naturally perhaps in his position — to understand the regard for Iris, and the fear of offending her, by which her jealous husband was restrained. Lord Harry was attempting (awkwardly indeed!) to break off the relations between his wife and her friend, by means which might keep the true state of his feelings concealed from both of them. Ignorant of this claim on his forbearance, it was Mountjoy’s impression that he was being trifled with. Once more, he waited for enlightenment, and waited in silence.

“You don’t find my conversation interesting?” Lord Harry remarked, still with perfect good-humour.

“I fail to see the connection,” Mountjoy acknowledged, “between what you have said so far, and the subject on which you expressed your intention of speaking to me. Pray forgive me if I appear to hurry you — or if you have any reasons for hesitation.”

Far from being offended, this incomprehensible man really appeared to be pleased. “You read me like a book!” he exclaimed. “It’s hesitation that’s the matter with me. I’m a variable man. If there’s something disagreeable to say, there are times when I dash at it, and times when I hang back. Can I offer you any refreshment?” he asked, getting away from the subject again, without so much as an attempt at concealment.

Hugh thanked him, and declined.

“Not even a glass of wine? Such white Burgundy, my dear sir, as you seldom taste.”

Hugh’s British obstinacy was roused; he repeated his reply. Lord Harry looked at him gravely, and made a nearer approach to an open confession of feeling than he had ventured on yet.

“With regard now to my wife. When I went away this morning with Vimpany — he’s not such good company as he used to be; soured by misfortune, poor devil; I wish he would go back to London. As I was saying — I mean as I was about to say — I left you and Lady Harry together this morning; two old friends, glad (as I supposed) to have a gossip about old times. When I come back, I find you left here alone, and I am told that Lady Harry is in her room. What do I see when I get there? I see the finest pair of eyes in the world; and the tale they tell me is, We have been crying. When I ask what may have happened to account for this — ’Nothing, dear,’ is all the answer I get. What’s the impression naturally produced on my mind? There has been a quarrel perhaps between you and my wife.”

“I fail entirely, Lord Harry, to see it in that light.”

“Ah, likely enough! Mine’s the Irish point of view. As an Englishman you fail to understand it. Let that be. One thing; Mr. Mountjoy, I’ll take the freedom of saying at once. I’ll thank you, next time, to quarrel with Me.”

“You force me to tell you, my lord, that you are under a complete delusion, if you suppose that there has been any quarrel, or approach to a quarrel, between Lady Harry and myself.”

“You tell me that, on your word of honour as a gentleman?”

“Most assuredly!”

“Sir! I deeply regret to hear it.”

“Which does your lordship deeply regret? That I have spoken to you on my word of honour, or that I have not quarrelled with Lady Harry?”

“Both, sir! By the piper that played before Moses, both!”

Hugh got up, and took his hat: “We may have a better chance of understanding each other,” he suggested, “if you will be so good as to write to me.”

“Put your hat down again, Mr. Mountjoy, and pray have a moment’s patience. I’ve tried to like you, sir — and I’m bound in candour to own that I’ve failed to find a bond of union between us. Maybe, this frank confession annoys you.”

“Far from it! You are going straight to your subject at last, if I may venture to say so.”

The Irish lord’s good-humour had completely disappeared by this time. His handsome face hardened, and his voice rose. The outbreak of jealous feeling, which motives honourable to himself had hitherto controlled, now seized on its freedom of expression. His language betrayed (as on some former occasions) that association with unworthy companions, which had been one of the evil results of his adventurous life.

“Maybe I’ll go straighter than you bargain for,” he replied; “I’m in two humours about you. My common-sense tells me that you’re my wife’s friend. And the best of friends do sometimes quarrel, don’t they? Well, sir, you deny it, on your own account. I find myself forced back on my other humour — and it’s a black humour, I can tell you. You may be my wife’s friend, my fine fellow, but you’re something more than that. You have always been in love with her — and you’re in love with her now. Thank you for your visit, but don’t repeat it. Say! do we understand each other at last?”

“I have too sincere a respect for Lady Harry to answer you,” Mountjoy said. “At the same time, let me acknowledge my obligations to your lordship. You have reminded me that I did a foolish thing when I called here without an invitation. I agree with you that the sooner my mistake is set right the better.”

He replied in those words, and left the cottage.

On the way back to his hotel, Hugh thought of what Mrs. Vimpany had said to him when they had last seen each other: “Don’t forget that there is an obstacle between you and Iris which will put even your patience and your devotion to a hard trial.” The obstacle of the husband had set itself up, and had stopped him already.

His own act (a necessary act after the language that had been addressed to him) had closed the doors of the cottage, and had put an end to future meetings between Iris and himself. If they attempted to communicate by letter, Lord Harry would have opportunities of discovering their correspondence, of which his jealousy would certainly avail itself. Through the wakeful night, Hugh’s helpless situation was perpetually in his thoughts. There seemed to be no present alternative before him but resignation, and a return to England.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS

ON the next day Mountjoy heard news of Iris, which was not of a nature to relieve his anxieties. He received a visit from Fanny Mere.

The leave-taking of Mr. Vimpany, on the previous evening, was the first event which the maid had to relate. She had been present when the doctor said good-bye to the master and mistress. Business in London was the reason he gave for going away. The master had taken the excuse as if he really believed in it, and seemed to be glad to get rid of his friend. The mistress expressed her opinion that Mr. Vimpany’s return to London must have been brought about by an act of liberality on the part of the most generous of living men.
“Your
friend has, as I believe, got some money from
my
friend,” she said to her husband. My lord had looked at her very strangely when she spoke of Mr. Mountjoy in that way, and had walked out of the room. As soon as his back was turned, Fanny had obtained leave of absence. She had carried out her intention of watching the terminus, and had seen Mr. Vimpany take his place among the passengers to London by the mail train.

Returning to the cottage, it was Fanny’s duty to ascertain if her services were required in her mistress’s room.

On reaching the door, she had heard the voices of my lord and my lady, and (as Mr. Mountjoy would perhaps be pleased to know) had been too honourable to listen outside, on this occasion. She had at once gone away, and had waited until she should be sent for. After a long interval, the bell that summoned her had been rung. She had found the mistress in a state of agitation, partly angry, and partly distressed; and had ventured to ask if anything unpleasant had happened. No reply was made to that inquiry. Fanny had silently performed the customary duties of the night-toilet, in getting my lady ready for bed; they had said good-night to each other and had said no more.

In the morning (that present morning), being again in attendance as usual, the maid had found Lady Harry in a more indulgent frame of mind; still troubled by anxieties, but willing to speak of them now.

She had begun by talking of Mr. Mountjoy:

“I think you like him, Fanny: everybody likes him. You will be sorry to hear that we have no prospect of seeing him again at the cottage.” There she had stopped; something that she had not said, yet, seemed to be in her mind, and to trouble her. She was near to crying, poor soul, but struggled against it. “I have no sister,” she said, “and no friend who might be like a sister to me. It isn’t perhaps quite right to speak of my sorrow to my maid. Still, there is something hard to bear in having no kind heart near one — I mean, no other woman to speak to who knows what women feel. It is so lonely here — oh, so lonely! I wonder whether you understand me and pity me?” Never forgetting all that she owed to her mistress — if she might say so without seeming to praise herself — Fanny was truly sorry. It would have been a relief to her, if she could have freely expressed her opinion that my lord must be to blame, when my lady was in trouble. Being a man, he was by nature cruel to women; the wisest thing his poor wife could do would be to expect nothing from him. The maid was sorely tempted to offer a little good advice to this effect; but she was afraid of her own remembrances, if she encouraged them by speaking out boldly. It would be better to wait for what the mistress might say next.

Lord Harry’s conduct was the first subject that presented itself when the conversation was resumed.

My lady mentioned that she had noticed how he looked, and how he left the room, when she had spoken in praise of Mr. Mountjoy. She had pressed him to explain himself — -and she had made a discovery which proved to be the bitterest disappointment of her life. Her husband suspected her! Her husband was jealous of her! It was too cruel; it was an insult beyond endurance, an insult to Mr. Mountjoy as well as to herself. If that best and dearest of good friends was to be forbidden the house, if he was to go away and never to see her or speak to her again, of one thing she was determined — he should not leave her without a kind word of farewell; he should hear how truly she valued him; yes, and how she admired and felt for him! Would Fanny not do the same thing, in her place? And Fanny had remembered the time when she might have done it for such a man as Mr. Mountjoy. “Mind you stay indoors this evening, sir,” the maid continued, looking and speaking so excitedly that Hugh hardly knew her again. “My mistress is coming to see you, and I shall come with her.”

Such an act of imprudence was incredible. “You must be out of your senses!” Mountjoy exclaimed.

“I’m out of myself sir, if that’s what you mean,” Fanny answered. “I do so enjoy treating a man in that way! The master’s going out to dinner — he’ll know nothing about it — and,” cried the cool cold woman of other times, “he richly deserves it.”

Hugh reasoned and remonstrated, and failed to produce the slightest effect.

His next effort was to write a few lines to Lady Harry, entreating her to remember that a jealous man is sometimes capable of acts of the meanest duplicity, and that she might be watched. When he gave the note to Fanny to deliver, she informed him respectfully that he had better not trust her. A person sometimes meant to do right (she reminded him), and sometimes ended in doing wrong. Rather than disappoint her mistress, she was quite capable of tearing up the letter, on her way home, and saying nothing about it. Hugh tried a threat next: “Your mistress will not find me, if she comes here; I shall go out to-night.” The impenetrable maid looked at him with a pitying smile, and answered:

“Not you!”

It was a humiliating reflection — but Fanny Mere understood him better than he understood himself.

All that Mountjoy had said and done in the way of protest, had been really dictated by consideration for the young wife. If he questioned his conscience, selfish delight in the happy prospect of seeing Iris again asserted itself, as the only view with which he looked forward to the end of the day. When the evening approached, he took the precaution of having his own discreet and faithful servant in attendance, to receive Lady Harry at the door of the hotel, before the ringing of the bell could summon the porter from his lodge. On calm consideration, the chances seemed to be in favour of her escaping detection by Lord Harry. The jealous husband of the stage, who sooner (or later) discovers the innocent (or guilty) couple, as the case may be, is not always the husband of the world outside the theatre. With this fragment of experience present in his mind, Hugh saw the door of his sitting-room cautiously opened, at an earlier hour than he had anticipated. His trustworthy representative introduced a lady, closely veiled — and that lady was Iris.