Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

  Chapter II.

  SIR OLIVER SAILS.

  Mr. Langton was right. Theologians, preaching mysteries, arehelpless before the logical mind until they abandon defence andboldly attack their opponents' capital incapacity, saying, "Preciselybecause you insist upon daylight, you miss discovering the stars."The battle is a secular one, and that sentence contains the reason,too, why it will never be ended in this world. But the theologiansmay strengthen their conviction, if not their argument, by noting howoften the more delicate shades of human feeling will opposethemselves to the logical mind as a mere wall of blindness.

  Oliver Vyell loved his bride as passionately as his nature, hardenedby his past, allowed him. To the women who envied her, to thegossips and backbiters, he opposed a nescience inexpugnable,unscalable as a wall of polished stone: but the mischief was, heequally ignored her sensitiveness.

  Being sensitive, she understood the hostile shadows better than thehard protecting fence. To noble natures enemies are often nearerthan friends, and more easily forgiven.

  But Mr. Langton was also right in guessing her ignorant of therumours set going by Silk, who, as yet, had whispered falsehoodsonly. The worst rumour of all--the truth--was beyond his courage.

  Ruth loved her lord devoutly. To love him was so easy that it seemedno repayment of her infinite debt. She desired some harder task; andtherefore, since he laid this upon her, she--who would have chosen asolitude to be happy in--rejoiced to meet these envious ladies withsmiles, with a hundred small graces of hospitality; and still herbliss swallowed up their rancour, scarcely tasting its gall. He(they allowed) was the very pattern of a lover.

  He was also a model man of business. Even from his most flagrantextravagances, as Batty Langton notes in another epistle, he usuallycontrived to get back something like his money's worth.He would lend money, or give it, where he chose: but to the man whooverreached him in a money bargain he could be implacable. Moreover,though a hater of quarrels, he never neglected an enmity he had oncetaken up, but treated it with no less exactitude than a businessaccount.

  Their happiness had endured a little more than three months when, onemorning, he entered Ruth's morning-room with a packet of letters inhis hand. He was frowning, not so much in wrath, as in distaste ofwhat he had to tell.

  "Dear," he said brusquely, bending to kiss her, "I have ill news. Imust go back to England, on business."

  "To England ?" she echoed. Her wrists were laid along the arms ofher chair, and, as she spoke, her fingers clutched sharply at thepadding. She was not conscious of it. She was aware only thatsomehow, at the back of her happiness this shadow had always lurked;and that England lay across the seas, at an immense distance. . . .

  He went on--his tone moody, but the words brief and distinct."For a few months, only; five or six, perhaps; with any luck, evenless. That infernal aunt of mine--"

  "Lady Caroline ?" She asked it less out of curiosity than as aprompter gives a cue; for he had come to a full stop. She waswondering how Lady Caroline could injure him, being so faraway. . . .

  He laughed savagely, yet--having broken his news, or the worst ofit--with something of relief. "She shall smart for it--if thatconsole you?"

  "Is it on my account?"

  "Only, as I guess, in so far as she accuses you of having played thedevil with her plan for marrying me up with my cousin Di'? If Di'had been the last woman in the world. . . . But the old harridannever spoke to me after the grooming I gave her that morning atNatchett. 'Faith, and I did treat her to some plain talk!" he woundup with another laugh.

  "But what harm can she do you?"

  He explained that his late uncle Sir Thomas had, in the closing yearsof his life, shown unmistakable signs of brain-softening, and that asymptom of his complaint had been his addiction to making a number ofwills--"two-thirds of 'em incoherent. Every two or three days he'dcompose a new one and send for Huskisson, his lawyer; and Huskisson,after reading the rigmarole through, as solemn as a judge, would getit solemnly witnessed and carry it off. He had three boxes full ofthese lunacies when the old man died, and I'll wager he has notdestroyed 'em. Lawyers never destroy handwriting, however foolish.It's against their principles."

  "But," said Ruth, musing. "I understood that he died of a jailfever, caught at the Assizes, where he was serving on--what do youcall it?"

  "The Grand Jury."

  "Well, how could he be serving on a Grand Jury if his head wasaffected as you say?"

  "You don't know England," he assured her. "Ten to one as a Countymagnate he stickled for it, and the High Sheriff put him on the panelto keep him amused."

  "But a Grand Jury deals sometimes with matters of life and death,does it not?"

  "Often, but only in the first instance. It finds a true billusually, and sends the cause down to be tried by judge and jury, whodispose of it. Actually the incompetence of a grand juror or twodoesn't count, if the scandal be not too glaring. . . . But I seeyour drift. It will be a point for the other side, no matter howlunatic the document, that after perpetrating it he was still thoughtcapable by the High Sheriff of his county."

  "I do not know that the point struck me. I was wondering--" Hereshe broke off. The thought, in fact, uppermost in her mind was thathe had not suggested her voyaging to England with him.

  "It _is_ a point, anyway," he persisted. "But it won't stand againstHuskisson's documentary proof of lunacy. . . . You see, the greaterpart of the property was entailed, and the poor old fool couldn'ttouch it. But there's an unentailed estate in Devonshire--Downton byname--worth about two thousand a year. By a will made in '41, whenhis mind was admittedly sound, he left it to me with a charge upon itof five hundred for Lady Caroline. By a second, made three yearslater and duly witnessed, he left her Downton for her life; and withthat I chose not to quarrel, though I could have brought evidencethat he was unfit to make any will. I agreed with the infernal womanto let things stand on that. But now, being at daggers drawn withme, she digs up (if you please) a will made in '46 and apparentlysane in wording, by which, without any provision for the heir-at-law,the whole bagful, real and personal, goes to her, to be used by herand willed away, as she pleases; this, although she well knows I canprove Sir Thomas to have been a blethering idiot at the time."

  "Is it worth while?"

  "Worth while?" he echoed, as if doubtful that she had understood."The woman is doing it out of spite, of course. Very likely she isfool enough to think that, fixed here with the Atlantic between us, Ishall give her the double gratification of annoying me and lettingher win by default."

  "It is a large sum," she mused.

  "Of course it is," he agreed sharply. "An estate yielding twothousand pounds interest. You would not suggest my letting it go, Ishould hope!"

  "Certainly not, if you cannot afford it."

  "If it were a twentieth part of the sum, I'd not be jockeyed out ofit." He laughed harshly. "As men go, I am well-to-do: but, dear, hasit never occurred to you to wonder what this place and its householdcost me?"

  She answered with a small wry smile. "Often it has occurred to me.Often I tell myself that I am wicked to accept, as you are foolishperhaps to give, all this luxury."

  "You adorn it. . . . Dear, do not misunderstand me. All the offeringI can bring is too little for my love."

  "I know," she murmured, looking up at him with moist eyes. "I know;and yet--"

  "I meant only that you are not used to handling money or calculatingit--as why should you be?"

  "If my lord will only try me!"

  "Hey?"

  "Of what use is a wife if she may not contrive for her husband'sgood--take thought for his household? Ah, my dear, these cares arehalf a woman's happiness! . . . I might make mistakes. Nay, 'tiscertain. I would the house were smaller: in a sense I would thatyour wealth were smaller--it would frighten me less. But somethingtells me that, though frightened, I should not fail you."

  He stared down at her, pulling his lip moodily. "I was thinkin
g,"said he, "to ask Langton to be my steward. Would you really chooseto be cumbered with all this business?"

  She held her breath for a moment; for his question meant that he hadno design to take her with him. Her face paled a little, but sheanswered steadily.

  "It will at least fill my empty hours. . . . Better, dear--it willkeep you before me in all the day's duties; since, though I miss you,all day long I shall be learning to be a good wife."

  As she said it her hand went up to her side beneath her left breast,as something fluttered there, soft as a bird's wing stirring.It fluttered for a moment under her palm, then ceased. The room hadgrown strangely still. . . . Yet he was speaking.

  He was saying--"I'll teach these good people who's Head of theFamily!"

  Ah, yes--"the Family!" Should she tell him? . . . She bethought herof Mrs. Harry's sudden giddiness in the waggon. Mrs. Harrywas now the mother of a lusty boy--Sir Oliver's heir, and theFamily's prospective Head. . . . Should she tell him? . . .

  He stooped and kissed her. "Love, you are pale. I have broken thisnews too roughly."

  She faltered. "When must you start?"

  "In three days. That's as soon as the _Maryland_ can take in therest of her cargo and clear the customs."

  "They will be busy days for you."

  "Desperately."

  "Yet you must spare me a part of one, and teach me to keep accounts,"said she, and smiled bravely albeit her face was wan.