CHAPTER XXXVIII.
At Blessington no one goes to church twice. It is the bounden duty ofevery Christian man, woman, and child to go to church in the morning;it is the duty of only the clergyman, the school-children, and theorganist to go to church in the afternoon. The old people sleep sideby side in the blaze of the saloon-fire; being, both of them, happilydeaf, they are undisturbed by each other's grunts and snores.
Since the beginning of St. John's visit, the north drawing-room hasbeen made over to him and his betrothed to be affectionate in, sothat they may enjoy, uninterrupted, those fits of affection to whichall engaged people are supposed, and sometimes unjustly supposed, tobe liable. Whether they have reached the requisite pitch of warmthon the afternoon I speak of is, to say the least, doubtful; but,all the same, in the north drawing-room they are. Constance leansback in an armchair, rather listless. She is fond of work, and itis not right to work on Sunday: her feet repose on a foot-stoolbefore her--her eyes are fixed upon them: she is thinking profoundlywhether steel buckles a size smaller than the ones she is at presentwearing would not be more becoming to the feet. St. John sits by thetable; his left hand supports his head; his right scribbles idly,on a bit of paper, horses taking impossible fences, prize pigs,ballet-girls, little skeleton men squaring up at one another. He, too,is thinking--but not of shoe-buckles. He has got something to say toMiss Blessington--something unpleasant, unpolite; and he cannot, forthe life of him, imagine how to begin to say it. Chance favours him.Miss Blessington, happening to look up, catches her lover's eyes fixed,with an expression she had never before seen in them--not on herself,as she, for the first second imagines, but (as a second glance informsher) on some object outside the window. Her gaze follows his, andlights upon "nobody very particular--only poor Miss Craven!" who, withhead rather bent, is trudging by towards the garden. "How ill that girllooks!" she says, pettishly. "I really believe those sort of peopletake a pleasure in looking as sickly and woebegone as possible, inorder to put one out of spirits,"
The opening he has been looking for has come. "Constance," ho says,bending his head, and speaking in a low voice, "what fatuity inducedyou not to send me word when you found that that girl was here?"
"You forbad me ever to mention her name to you," she answers, coldly;"and, to tell you the truth, I thought it was a good thing that youshould see her. If you had not met again, you might have carried asentimental recollection of her throughout life, which you can hardlydo now that you have seen with your own eyes how completely she haslost her beauty."
St. John lifts his head, and stares at her in blank astonishment. "Lostits beauty!"--that
"Face that one would see, And then fall blind, and die, with sight of it, Held fast between the eyelids."
"Lost her beauty!" he repeats, in a sort of stupefaction.
"Well," she replies, languidly, "why do you repeat my words? Youknow I never admired her much. I never can admire those black women,but that is a matter of taste, of course. It is not matter of taste,however--it is matter of fact, that whatever good looks she once hadare gone--_gone_."
Gerard smiles contemptuously. "I do believe that you women lose thesight of your eyes when you look at one another."
"What do you mean?" she asks, with some animation. "Is it possible thatyou don't agree with me as to her being quite _passee?_"
"I think her, as I always thought her," he answers, steadily, "theloveliest woman I ever beheld; a little additional thinness or palenessdoes not affect her much. Hers is not mere skin beauty: as you say,tastes differ, and I like _those black women_."
"That is a civil speech to make to me!" she answers, reddening--aninsult to her appearance or her clothes being the one weapon that haspower to pierce the scales of her armour of proof.
St. John smiles again. "When we engaged to marry one another, did wealso engage to think each other the handsomest specimens of the humananimal Providence ever framed?"
"It is, at least, not usual for a man to express an open preference foranother woman to the girl to whom he is engaged."
"It is no question of _preference_," he answers, quietly. "I had nothought of drawing any comparison between you and Miss Craven at themoment; I was not thinking of you."
"You said she was _the_ loveliest girl you had ever seen!" objectsConstance, pouting.
"So I did--I do think her so," he rejoins, calmly. "If there is somedefect in my eyes, hindering me from seeing things as they are, itis my misfortune, not my fault. Cannot you be content," he asks,banteringly, "with being the _next loveliest?_"
She turns away her head, too indignant to answer.
He changes his tone. "Constance," he says, gravely, "when I proposedto you, did not I tell you, honestly, what I could give you and what Icould not? Love (odd as it may sound between engaged people), and theblind admiration that accompanies love, I had not got to offer you;this is true, is not it?"
"Perfectly true," she answers, resentfully; "and as I am not, nor everwas, one of those inflammable young ladies, who think that _burning_,and _consuming_, and _melting_ are essential to married happiness,I did not much regret its absence. I have always been brought up tothink," she continues, having recourse to the high moral tone which isher last sure refuge, "that respect and esteem are the best basis fortwo people to go upon, and I think so still."
"But do you and I respect and esteem one another?" he asks,half-cynically, half-mournfully. "Is it possible that I can respectyou, who, though you did not care, or affect to care, two straws aboutme personally--though you knew, at the time I asked you to marry me,that I was madly in love with another woman--were yet willing to giveyourself to me, soul and body--to be bone of my bone, and flesh of myflesh, because I was a good _parti_, as the vile phrase goes? And asfor me," he ends, in bitter self-contempt, "what is there in all myidle wasted life, from beginning to end, that any one can respect oresteem?"
"Has this struck you now for the first time?" she asks, drily. "Iam not aware of any change in our relative circumstances since ourmarriage was arranged; I suppose our feelings towards each other aremuch what they were then, when you were troubled with none of thesescruples."
"And what _were_ our feelings then?" he asks, bitterly; "what broughtus together? Was not it that our properties dovetailed convenientlyinto one another, as Sir Thomas says--that it was advisable for both ofus to marry some one--that we were of suitable age, and had no positivedistaste for one another: was not this so?"
"I suppose so," she answers, sulkily.
"And yet," he continues, sternly, "although I had laid bare to you allmy wretched story--although you were well aware that I was utterlywithout the safeguard of any love to yourself--you yet let me fall intothis temptation--the cruelest I could have been exposed to--without aword of warning. Was this fair? Was this right?"
"Since you put me on my defence," she answers, with anger, "I mustrepeat to you what I said before, that it seemed to me the best methodof curing you of your ill-placed fancy for Esther Craven--a fancy whichshe repaid with such disgraceful deceit and duplicity--was to let yousee for yourself what a wreck she had become!"
"You meant well, perhaps," he rejoins, with a sigh that is more thanhalf a groan; "but it was terribly mistaken--terribly ill-judged; ithas done us both an irreparable injury."
"I am not aware that it has done me any injury whatever," she answers,coldly, mistaking his meaning
"I was not alluding to you," he replies, curtly.
She makes no rejoinder, and he, rising, begins to walk up and downthe room with his hands in his pockets. He has made his meaning clearenough, surely, and yet she does not appear to see it. As she continuesresolutely silent, he stops opposite to her, and speaks earnestly, andyet with some embarrassment, as one who knows that what he says will beunpleasing to his listener.
"Constance, I must tell you the truth, though I suppose it is hardlyof the complexion of the pretty flattering truths or untruths thatyou have been used to all your life. But, at
least, it is better thatyou should hear it now, than that we should tell it one another ayear hence, with mutual, useless recriminations; there is no use indisguising the fact that you and I do not feel towards each other ashusband and wife should feel."
"Pshaw!" she says, pettishly, turning her head aside; "we feel much thesame as other people do, I daresay."
"If," he continues, very gravely, "marriage were a temporaryconnection, that lasted a year--five years say--or that could bedissolved at pleasure, there might be no great harm in entering uponit with the sort of negative liking, the absence of repugnance for oneanother, which is all that we can boast; but since it is a bargainfor all time, and that there is no getting out of it except by thegate of death or disgrace, I think we ought both to reflect on it moreseriously than we have yet done before undertaking it."
"It is rather late in the day to say all this," retorts she,indignantly. "You have known me all my life; you must have been wellaware that I never could enter into those highflown, romantic notions,which I have heard you yourself ridicule a hundred times. Theseobjections should have occurred to you before you proposed to me, andnot now, when we have been engaged two months, and when our marriagehas been discussed as a settled thing by all our acquaintance."
"You are right," he answers, quietly. "They should have occurred to mebefore; but, in justice to myself, I must say that they would neverhave occurred to me: I should have remained in the same state of supineindifference to everything in which I came here, had not you yourselfthrown me in the way of Esther Craven."
She sits upright in her chair; her pale, handsome face paler, harderthan usual, in her great anger. "The drift of this long tirade, whentranslated into plain English, is, I suppose, that you wish to marryEsther Craven instead of me?"
He is silent.
"Is it so?" she repeats, her voice raised several notes above itswonted low key.
"When I am engaged to one woman," he answers, slowly, reluctantly, yetsteadily, "I hope I am not dishonourable enough willingly to harbourthe thought of marriage with any other."
The Gerard diamonds flash before her mind's eye: they are so big, andnumerous--necklace, aigrette, stomacher. The idea of seeing them gleamrestless in Esther's hair, on Esther's fair neck, is insupportable toher. She will not release him, ardently as he wishes it; she will holdhim by a strong chain that will not snap--his honour.
"I am glad to hear it," she answers, coldly. "In common fairness tome, you could hardly have entertained such an idea. It is a greatdisadvantage to a girl to be engaged, to have her engagement as widelyknown as mine has been, and then to have it broken off; people neverthink the same of her again."
He turns to the window, to hide his bitter disappointment. "Very well,"he answers, calmly; "things will remain as they are, I suppose, then?I only thought it right to warn you how small a chance of happinessthere is in a marriage so loveless as ours: for the rest you must blameyourself."