FOR STRATEGIC REASONS.
‘George!’ Mrs. Maitland remarked abruptly to her husband one evening, a few weeks later, as they sat by themselves, towards the small-hours, in the High Ash drawing-room, ‘we must put our foot down without delay about Geraldine and this flighty girl of poor crazy old Dumaresq’s.’
The General wavered. He was an old soldier, and he knew that when your commanding officer gives you a definite order, your duty is to obey, and not to ask for reasons or explanations. Where Geraldine was in question, however, discipline tottered, and the General ventured to temporize somewhat. He salved his conscience — his military conscience — by pretending not quite to understand his wife.
‘Put our foot down how?’ he managed to ask, prevaricating.
Mrs. Maitland, however, was not the sort of woman to stand prevarication.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ she answered, bridling up, ‘so don’t make-believe, George, you haven’t observed it yourself. Don’t look down at the carpet, like a fool, like that. You’ve seen as well as I have all this that’s going on every day between them. Geraldine’s behaved disgracefully — simply disgracefully. Knowing very well we had an eye ourselves upon that young man Linnell for her — a most eligible match, as you found out in London — instead of aiding and abetting us in our proper designs for her own happiness, what must she go and do but try her very hardest to fling him straight at the head of that bread-and-butter miss of poor crazy old Dumaresq’s? And not only that, but, what’s worse than all, she’s helped on the affair, against her own hand, by actually going and playing gooseberry for them.’
‘But what can we do?’ the General remarked helplessly. ‘A girl of Geraldine’s spirit — —’
His commanding officer crushed him ruthlessly.
‘A girl of Geraldine’s spirit!’ she repeated with scorn. ‘You call yourself a soldier! Why, George, I’m ashamed of you! Do you mean to tell me you’re afraid of your own daughter? We must put our foot down. That’s the long and the short of it!’
‘How?’ the General repeated once more with a shudder. It went against the grain with him to repress Geraldine.
‘There are no two ways about it,’ Mrs. Maitland went on, waving her closed fan like a marshal’s baton before her. ‘Look the thing plainly in the face, for once in your life, George. She must get married, and we must marry her. Last year she refused that rich young Yankee at Algiers. This year she’s flung away her one chance of this well-to-do painter man. She’s getting on, and wasting opportunities. There’s Gordon’s got into difficulties at Aldershot again: and Hugh, well, Hugh’s failed for everything: and the boys at Winchester are coming on fast: and unless Geraldine marries, I’m sure I don’t know what on earth we’re ever to do for ourselves about her.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ the General asked submissively. A soldier mayn’t like it, but a soldier must always obey orders.
‘Do? Why, speak to her plainly to-morrow,’ Mrs. Maitland said with quiet emphasis. ‘Tell her she mustn’t go round any more wasting her time with these half-and-half Dumaresqs.’
‘Dumaresq’s a gentleman,’ the General said stoutly.
‘Was one, I dare say. But he’s allowed himself to sink. And, anyhow, we can’t let Geraldine aid and abet him in angling to catch this poor young Linnell for his daughter Psyche, or whatever else he calls the pink-and-white young woman. It’s a duty we owe to Mr. Linnell himself to protect him from such unblushing and disgraceful fortune-hunting. The girl’s unfitted to be a rich man’s wife. Depend upon it, it’s always unwise to raise such people out of their natural sphere. You must speak to Geraldine yourself to-morrow, George, and speak firmly.’
The General winced. But he knew his place.
‘Very well, Maria,’ he answered without a murmur.
He would have saluted as he spoke had Mrs. Maitland and military duty compelled the performance of that additional courtesy.
So next morning after breakfast, with many misgivings, the General drew his daughter gently into his study, and begged her in set form to abstain in future, for her mother’s sake, from visiting the Dumaresqs.
Geraldine heard him out in perfect composure.
‘Is that all, papa?’ she asked at last, as the General finished with trembling lips.
‘That’s all, Geraldine.’
He said it piteously.
‘Very well, papa,’ Geraldine answered, holding herself very tall and erect, with one hand on the table. ‘I know what it means. Mamma asked you to speak to me about it. Mamma thinks Mr. Linnell might marry me. There mamma’s mistaken. Mr. Linnell doesn’t mean to ask me, and even if he did, I don’t mean to take him.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, papa; I don’t. So that’s the long and short of it. I don’t love him, and I won’t marry him. He may be as rich as Cr[oe]sus, but I won’t marry him. More than that: he’s in love with Psyche; and Psyche I think’s in love with him. They want my help in the matter very badly; and unless somebody takes their future in hand and makes the running very easy for them, I’m afraid Mr. Linnell will never summon up courage to propose to Psyche. He’s so dreadfully shy and reserved and nervous.’
‘So you mean to go there still, my child, in spite of what I say to you?’
Geraldine hesitated.
‘Father dear,’ she cried, putting her graceful arms round the old man’s neck tenderly, ‘I love you very, very much; but I can’t bear not to help poor dear lonely Psyche.’
The General’s courage, which was all physical, oozed out like Bob Acres’s at the palms of his hands. This was not being firm; but he couldn’t help it. His daughter’s attitude had his sincerest sympathy. The commanding officer might go and be hanged. Still, he temporized.
‘Geraldine,’ he said softly, bending her head to his, ‘promise me at least you won’t go to-day. Your mother’ll be so annoyed with me if you go to-day. Promise me to stop at home and — —’
‘And protect you, you old dear!’ She reflected a moment. ‘Well, yes; I’ll stop at home just this once, if only to keep you out of trouble. Give Mr. Linnell a chance of speaking if he really wants to. Though what on earth poor Psyche’ll do without me I’m sure I don’t know. She’s expecting me to-day. She counts on my coming. I’ll have to write and tell her I can’t come; and Psyche’s so quick, I’m afraid she’ll guess exactly why I can’t get round this morning to help her.’
The General breathed more freely once more.
‘There’s a dear girl,’ he said, stroking her hair gently. ‘Your mother would have been awfully annoyed if you’d gone. She thinks it’s wrong of you to encourage young Linnell in his flirtation with that girl. Though I quite agree with you, Geraldine, my dear, that if you don’t love a man, you oughtn’t to marry him. Only — it’d be a very great comfort to us both, you know, my dear, if only you could manage ever to love a man who was in a position to keep you as we’ve always kept you.’
‘I don’t know how it is,’ Geraldine answered reflectively. ‘I suppose it’s original sin or the natural perversity of human nature coming out in my case; but I never do like men with money, and I always fall in love with men without a ha’penny. But, there; I’ve no time to discuss the abstract question with you now. I must run up at once and write this note to poor Psyche.’