“I see you have cut your hair, Honoria,” I said, looking at her as she stood before me, tall and commanding as a grenadier guard, clad in her buttoned tweed ulster and deer-stalking cap. “I think you’ve spoilt yourself.”
“Do you? I don’t!” she retorted, taking off the cap and displaying a mass of short boy’s curls all over her head. “It’s ever so much cooler, and ever so much less troublesome. Excuse me, don’t be shocked!”
And unfastening her ulster, she threw it off Great heavens! what — what extraordinary sort of clothes had she got into! I mistrusted my own eyesight; were those — those nether garments knickerbockers? positively knickerbockers? Yes! by everything amazing and unfeminine they were! and over them came a loose blouse and short — very short — frilled petticoat, something like the “Bloomer” costume, only several degrees more “mannish” in make. I stared at her open-mouthed and utterly dismayed; so much so that I was speechless for the moment.
“My shooting costume,” she explained cheerfully. “It’s such a comfort to travel in, and no one sees under my ulster!”
“Would you care if any one did see, Honoria?” I inquired coldly.
“No, I don’t suppose I should,” she answered gaily, ruffling up her curls with one hand. “Well, Willie, as I said before, you look fit! Had a good time at Cromer? and are you glad to see me back again?”
“Of course, Honoria,” I replied in the same quietly unmoved tone; “of course I am glad to see you, but — well, we will talk over things presently. Supper is ready, I believe; will you not change your — your—”
And I pointed to the knickerbockers with, I think, rather a sarcastical expression on my countenance. She flushed just a little; it must have been my glance that confused her for an instant; then, I suppose, a devil of mischief entered into her and made her obstinate.
“No, what’s the good of changing; such a bother!” she answered. “Besides, I’m as hungry as a hunter; I’ll sit down to supper as I am. Awfully comfortable, you know!”
“Honoria!” I said with a sort of desperate politeness, “you must really pardon me! I refuse — I utterly refuse to sit at table with you in that costume! Do you want the very servants to giggle at you all through the meal?”
“They may giggle if they like,” she replied imperturbably; “their giggles won’t hurt me, I assure you!”
“Honoria!” and I spoke with deliberate gentleness and gravity. “Will you oblige me by changing those masculine habiliments of yours, and dressing like a lady?”
She looked at me, laughed, and her eyes flashed.
“No, I won’t!” she said curtly.
I bowed; then quietly turned round and left the room, and not only the room but the house. I went to my club and supped there, needless to say, with no enjoyment whatever, and with no heart to enter into conversation with any of my friends. I think most of them must have seen I was seriously put out, for they left me pretty much alone, and I was able to take counsel with myself as to what I should do next. I returned home late, and retired to a separate apartment, so that I saw no more of Honoria till the next morning, when she came down to breakfast in her smoking-suit — i.e.., the same sort of skirt and large-patterned man’s jacket she had surprised me with on the evening of our marriage day. I studied her attentively. Her skin, which had recently been exposed so ruthlessly to the sun and wind on the grouse moors, was beginning to look rough and coarse; her eyes had a bold, hard, indifferent expression; her very hand, as she poured out the tea, was red and veiny, like that of a man accustomed to rough weather, and I realised with immense regret that her beauty would soon be a thing of the past; that it was even possible she might become positively ugly in an incredibly short time if she continued (as it was pretty evident she would continue) her masculine mode of life. It was she who first began the conversation that morning.
“Got over your temper, Willie? Do you know you’re becoming a perfect demon?”
“Am I?” I said patiently. “I’m sorry, Honoria; I used to be considered a good-natured fool enough, but I’ve had a great deal to vex me lately, and I fancy you know the cause of my vexation.”
“Yes,” she answered indifferently, helping both me and herself to toast as she spoke; “I know, but I’ve settled all that. I never take long making up my mind! We must part — that’s about the long and the short of the matter. We can’t work together — it’s no use, oars won’t pull evenly — we shall only upset the boat. It’s easily done — have an agreement drawn up as they do for house leases, sign it before witnesses, and we split — quite amicably — no fuss. And that will leave me free and comfortable for my lecturing tour.”
“Your lecturing tour!” I echoed, forgetting for a moment my own annoyances in the fresh surprise of this announcement. “Are you going a-lecturing, Honoria?” and despite my wish to be gentle, I am aware my voice was decidedly sarcastic in its inflection. “What on, pray? Politics or temperance? Do you like the idea of becoming a platform woman?”
“As well be a platform woman as a platform man,” she replied with a touch of defiance. “I’ve got a good voice — better than most men’s — and I’ve heaps to say. I met a Mr. Sharp down at Glen Ruach; he’s an agent for that sort of thing — farmed out lots of lecturers both here and in the States; he’s agreed to farm out me. Good terms too; he says he knows I’ll ‘draw’ immensely. All expenses paid — in fact, you needn’t bother about making me any allowance unless you want to for form’s sake — I can earn my own living comfortably.”
“Has he heard you lecture?” I inquired, ignoring this independent latter part of her speech. “Is he acquainted with your capabilities in that line?”
She smiled — a wide hard smile.
“Rather; I gave them all a taste of my quality down at Glen Ruach — lectured on Man — and I thought Sharp would have split with laughing! Awfully funny fellow, Sharp — Sharp by name and Sharp by nature. But he’s first-class — awfully first-class! I signed the agreement with him before leaving.”
“Without consulting me,” I observed frigidly. “Very wifely and kind on your part, Honoria!”
“Oh, bother!” she said rapidly; “wives don’t consult their husbands now-a-days — that sort of thing’s exploded. Each party manages his or her own affairs. Besides, I knew you’d make all manner of objections.”
“Oh, you did know that!” and I looked at her steadfastly. “Well, Honoria, in that case perhaps it will be best to do as you say — mutually agree to separate, for a time at least; though you have not thought of the child in the matter; is he to be my care or yours?”
“Good gracious! Yours, of course,” she replied very emphatically. “I can’t go touring about the country with a shrieking brat! Has he roared old Mammy into deafness yet?”
“No, he has not,” I said. “He has not indulged much in ‘roaring,’ as you call it, since he left your tender maternal care, Honoria!”
I pronounced the words “tender maternal care” with marked and slightly scornful emphasis. She glanced at me, and her full lips curled disdainfully.
“Look here, Mr. William Tribkin!” she announced. “You’re a slow coach! that’s what you are — a slow coach of very mediæval pattern! Your wheels want greasing; you take too long a time getting over the road! And you talk a vast deal of old sentimental rubbish, and I never could put up with sentimental rubbish. I hate it! I hate fads too, and you are a faddist! You want me — me — to be a docile, thank-you-for-nothing-humbleservant-yours-faithfully sort of woman, dragging about the house with a child pulling at her skirts and worrying her all day long; you want to play the male tyrant and oppressor, don’t you? but you won’t! not with me, at any rate! You’ve got a free woman in me, I tell you, not a sixteenth-century slave! My constitution is as good as yours; my brain is several degrees better; I’m capable of making a brilliant career for myself in any profession I choose to follow, and you are and always will be a mere useful nonentity! You are—”
“Stop! that is e
nough, Honoria,” I said decisively, rising from the table. “You need not go out of your way to insult me — pray spare yourself! Mere ‘useful nonentity’ as I am, I am man enough to despise vulgar notoriety; and you, though your conduct is unwomanly, are still woman enough to court and eagerly accept that questionable distinction. As you so elegantly express it, I am a slow coach;’ my ideas of womanhood are sadly old-fashioned indeed! I do not wish to play the ‘male tyrant,’ but I want to feel the part of the true lover and loyal husband, and this is an honour unhappily denied to me! Our marriage has been an error; it only remains to us now to make the best of our position. You wish to go your way, and your way is distinctly not mine. As you will not submit to me, and I have not so completely ignored my manhood as to submit to you, why, then it follows that we must separate; let us hope — let me hope, Honoria, that it may only be for a short time. You may rely on my pursuing the honourable fidelity I swore to you on our marriage day, and!” I paused, then continued earnestly:
“I would not insult you by presuming to question yours.” Again I waited; she was quite silent, but she drew from her side-pocket her case of cigarettes, and lighting one, puffed away at it in a meditative fashion. “This is a fast age, Honoria,” I went on regretfully, “and it breeds an unconscionable number of ‘fast’ women and men; but I want you to believe, if you can, that chivalry is not altogether extinct — that there are a few gentlemen left, of which class I hope I may humbly call myself one — a very poor-spirited, dull gentleman, no doubt, but who still would rather lead a lonely and uncheered life in the world than interfere with your happiness, or spoil what you imagine to be the brilliant promise of your independent career. You have never deemed yourself under any sort of authority to me — that would be too ‘old-fashioned’ a notion for an advanced feminine intelligence like yours” — here she puffed out the smoke from her lips in little artistic rings—” so that there is no need to say to you, ‘Be at liberty!’ You are at liberty; you always have been — no doubt you always will be. But there are various sorts of liberty; one is the non-restraint and licence riskily enjoyed by young men about town, whose families are utterly indifferent to their fate (and this is what you seem to desire); another is that gentle latitude controlled by the affectionate solicitude and protection of those who love you better than themselves; another (and here we find the truest liberty of woman) is the freedom a wife possesses to guide and comfort and inspire to greatest ends her husband’s life and career. Through woman’s love, man performs his noblest labours. Believe it! Through woman’s love, I say, not through woman’s opposition! But I must apologise to you for talking sentimental rubbish again. It is understood that we agree to separate for the present; and I will call on my lawyer about the matter this afternoon. Half of every penny I have or earn shall be yours as is your just due; this house, which I shall vacate as soon as possible, is also at your service. And I hope, Honoria” — here I cleared my throat from an uncomfortable huskiness—” I hope this arrangement, though it seems necessary now, may not be of long continuance — I shall be a proud and happy man when the day dawns on which my wife and I can meet again and live together in that absolute sympathy I so earnestly desire!”
I ceased. She looked up through the cloud of tobacco-smoke that encircled her head, and there was just a little softness about her eyes which made them prettier for the moment. Taking her cigarette from her mouth, she flicked off the ash into her breakfast plate.
“You’re a capital fellow, Will,” she said; “regular first-class, only a leetle slow!” and she extended one hand, which I took and pressed earnestly in my own. “Look here, I tell you what! I’ll get through my lecturing tour, and if you want me back after that, why, I’ll come — honour bright!”
I sighed; released her hand gently and left her. I dared not enquire so far into the future; I hesitated to speculate as to whether I should indeed want her back then! However, our minds were unanimously made up on one point — namely, the advisability of separation for the present; and within the next few days the affair was quietly arranged, much to the distress of old Mrs. Maggs, who wept copiously when she heard of it, and for some mysterious reason, known only to herself, persisted in calling my child a “poor orphan.” Georgie said little, but no doubt thought the more, and was sweetly, silently sympathetic. My wife started for some big manufacturing town in the provinces, where she was to begin her lecturing campaign; our house was let for twelve months (Honoria’s management — she was a wonderful business woman); the baby remained in the charge of his grandmother, and I took a set of chambers near Pall Mall and resumed a hum-drum bachelor life.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE cynical philosopher and the self-sufficient epicurean may now perhaps feel disposed to congratulate me on having easily and conveniently got rid of my wife; the modern Diogenes of the literary clubs may growl “Lucky man!” and the nineteenth-century Solomon of Hyde Park and Piccadilly may murmur over these pages: “There is nothing, under the circumstances, better for a fellow to do than to eat, drink and be merry all the days of his life, for whatever cometh not of these is vanity!” But, truth to tell, I was not in an enviable condition at all. The resumption of a solitary existence in chambers was far from agreeable to me; for I had passed the age when going to the theatre seemed the chief glory of life, and I had not yet arrived at that matured paunchiness when to dine well and drink good wine till the nose becomes rosy and lustrous, is the acme of every sensible man’s ambition. So that I was very lonely, and very conscious of my loneliness. The gaunt, pious and respectable female who attended to my rooms was not exactly the sort of person one would choose to provide a drooping spirit with mental cheer; the hall porter at my club — an exceedingly friendly fellow — seemed sorry for me now and then, but refrained from inviting me to weep out my woes upon his brassbuttoned breast. True, I visited my mother-inlaw’s house frequently — saw the fair little Georgie and her betrothed earl, and looked on mournfully at their demurely graceful love-making; and I danced my infant son on my knee to Banbury Cross and back again with much satisfaction, finding that every time I did it his soft chuckles became more and more confidential, and that though at present his language was unintelligible, he evidently meant it kindly. Still I had the feeling upon me of being a desolate and deserted man, and though I absorbed myself as much as possible in books and made the best of my position, I could not deem myself happy. Life, which I had fancied rounded into completion when I married, seemed now broken off in some strange and uncouth way — it was like one of those odd-looking roses that through blight or disease bloom half-petalled, and never get shaped into the perfect flower.
Honoria had been a long time absent in the provinces; fully five months had passed since our parting, and the February of the new year was now just at an end. I had never heard from her all that time, neither had she written to any member of her own family. Her allowance had been paid to her regularly through her bankers, and so far as I knew she was well and flourishing. Now and again I heard far-off rumours of Mrs. Tribkin’s ability as a lecturer, but I rather avoided all those newspapers in which her doings were likely to be mentioned. I shrank from the pennyworths of scandal, called by courtesy journals, lest I should find her name figuring ridiculously in a set of vulgarly worded paragraphs such as are sometimes strung together for the sake of gratuitously insulting our good and noble Queen in her old age (I wonder what British officers are about, by-the-by, that they let this sort of thing go on without a single soldierly and manful protest?), and thus it happened that to me it was almost as if my wife were dead, or at any rate gone on some exceedingly far journey from which it seemed highly probable she would never return. So that I received, a positive shock of surprise one afternoon when, on arriving at my club, I found a letter addressed to me in the big bold handwriting which was like nobody’s in the world, so thoroughly characteristic was it of Honoria, and of Honoria alone. I opened it with a sort of eager trepidation. Was she regretting the step she had take
n, and was this to propose a friendly meeting with a view to partnership in joy and sorrow once more? A thick card dropped out of the envelope; — I picked it up without looking at it; my eyes were fixed on the letter itself — my wife’s letter to me — which ran as follows:
“DEAR WILLIE:
“I’ve done the provinces, and am coming to London to give a lecture in Prince’s Hall, Piccadilly. As you’ve never heard me hold forth, I enclose a Ticket — Five Shilling Fauteuil — so I hope you’ll be comfortable! It’s a good seat, where you’ll have a straight view of me any way. How are you? First-class, I hope. I never was better in my life. Am leaving for the States in the middle of March, they’re ‘booming’ me there now. I’m beating all the ‘Whistling Ladies’ hollow! Would you like to dine with me at the Grosvenor before I start? If so, come behind the platform after the lecture and let me know.
“Yours ever,
“HONORIA HATWELL-TRIBKIN.”
Dine with her at the Grosvenor! She seemed to entirely forget that I was her husband — her separated, deserted husband! It was the letter of a man to a man, yet she was my wife — parted from me — but still my wife. Dine with her at the Grosvenor! Never — never! I put the letter back in its envelope with trembling fingers, and then looked at the ticket — the “Five Shilling Fauteuil.” Good heavens! I thought I should have tumbled in a swooning heap on the carpet, so great was my astonishment and dismay! This is what I read:
PRINCE’S HALL. PICCADILLY. LECTURE
BY
MRS. HONORIA HATWELL-TRIBKIN.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 915