THE PRESENT OBTRUDES upon the Past in a manner which I had not foreseen. I had thought Miles to be quite finished and waiting submissively by the Styx until Pronto joins him. But he grows unexpectedly lively, – as troublesome as ever, else he would not have got the business of Harry Ridding put right. Few though his good deeds may have been, he has at least that one to his credit. Harry and his farm are safe.
The Past, moreover, obtrudes upon the Present. Things dead and done with don’t lie easy in their graves. A note which I wrote to Edmée fifteen years ago (I had forgotten it, but I must have sent it on that morning when I went to Brailsford to ask for the Ullacombe living) has turned up, or rather been brought up, in a way which might have ended in wigs on the green. If Ned had not chosen to take my word rather than hers, he must have called me out. The sight of those few hurried words, dashed off so long ago by an earlier Miles, affected me so much that I never considered this aspect of it until later. I don’t know if Madam wished us to fight, but she certainly meant us to quarrel.
My indignation over Harry’s wrongs so grew upon me that I was unable to remain a passive spectator. I went over to Ribstone again and saw him, and offered to pay the arrears of his rent and the next half-year in advance, if we could get some document from Ned accepting this payment, and waiving the forfeiture clause in his lease. Harry refused in a very surly manner. He said that it was as bad to owe money to one gentleman as to another and that, if he was to be ruined, he would sooner be so without accepting charity, etc. I could feel for him. A man used so ill, cheated out of his rights, must cling to his pride. But he probably talked it over with his wife, who is a sensible woman, for he appeared at the Parsonage next day in a different frame of mind. He owned that he would be very grateful for the loan from me, and told me of his hopes for a gradual repayment. I know that he will do his best. If he fails, I tell myself that I can well afford the loss.
I set off at once for the Park and had the good luck to meet Ned upon the way. He greeted me quite cordially, and I told him my errand without any preamble. He made fewer difficulties than I had expected. He seemed to be uneasy himself over Ridding’s case, though he did not understand it very well, and had been misled by Simmons over the terms of the lease. I explained that there would be no need to make out another, a task which he obviously dreaded, in face of the opposition he might expect. A letter, signed by himself, accepting the money and waiving the forfeiture clause, would suffice. He asked me to come with him to the Park and to write the letter ‘in a way no attorney fellow can upset.’ We were in the library, at work upon this, when Madam burst in upon us, demanding to know what we were about.
Ned, looking more frightened than I could have wished, began to explain. She said angrily that Ridding was not a desirable tenant, a poor farmer who could not pay his way, and that they owed it to themselves to put in a better man.
I was determined not to interfere, and kept silence while Ned valiantly brought out some of the arguments that I had used with him, – that Harry had never failed with his rent before, that he was honest and industrious, and that his family were old tenants on the Bramfield property.
‘My father and his father—’ said he, but he was not allowed to continue further.
‘Your father, Mr. Chadwick, did his best to ruin his family. We should be beggars if we continued as he did. Farms are not almshouses, nor parsonages neither!’
This was a hit at my father, as we both knew. She thinks that it is time he died, so that she may be able to dispose of the living. Ned began to look promisingly obstinate.
‘We shall not be the losers in this transaction,’ he began, ‘we are to be paid in full. Miles has—’
‘Oh I know that it is all Mr. Lufton’s doing! If he likes to frow his money away he must please himself, but he should not saddle us with a bad tenant.’
(I used once to be charmed by her inability to say thr.)
‘Harry Ridding is an old friend,’ continued Ned doggedly. ‘We used all to play cricket together, when we were boys.’
‘A fine reason for allowing him to ruin your land!’
‘I say that he does not ruin it.’
‘I say that he does.’
I suppose I should have walked out of the room. It is intolerable to witness bickering of this sort between a husband and wife. But I was unwilling to go until I had got that letter in my pocket, and I feared his resolution if I deserted him just then. I put in a word or two, since I could not stand by in silence.
I said that Ned and I had learnt a great deal from playing with the village children and tenants’ sons. Ignoring her exclamation of disgust, and her assertion that village children are nasty, dirty creatures with whom her own should never be suffered to associate, I said that in this way gentlemen’s sons may learn how villagers think, how they talk among themselves, how they regard their betters, what are their difficulties, hopes and fears. We had learnt, in that little democracy of childhood, lessons which differences in station might have withheld from us later on, for we should never again be met with such frankness.
I don’t think that she listened. She stood (we were all standing, since she would not sit) gazing at me contemptuously, not for what I said, but for being what I am. She is a formidable creature, one can’t deny it. There are no two sides to her; she is all of a piece and that is why she always gets what she wants. Nobody could call her a beauty now. She wore a morning wrapper and a strange tall cap, none too fresh; if she had washed herself recently the fact was not apparent. But she is – powerfully female. One cannot talk to her, or look at her, without being aware of it. Repulsive as she is, there is but one thing to be done with her; she knows it and despises those who expect anything else. She thinks me a fool for not having made better use of my opportunities in the avenue that night, long ago. She thinks Ned a fool for marrying her. I daresay she may have some respect for Pinney, if, as I believe, he took her measure, enjoyed her, and got clean off.
Ned, during my little homily, had been whipping up his courage. When I had done, he said that he was resolved to let Harry Ridding remain at the farm.
‘If you do,’ said she, ‘I shall never forgive you. The farm is promised to Mr. Simmons for his son.’
‘I made no such promise, and I don’t mean to change my mind. You had better leave us to get on with the business.’
Huzzah! cried I to myself, pretending to look out of the window. The next sound that I heard was the door slamming and a sigh of relief from Ned. The enemy had retreated.
We continued with our letter. Ned had signed it and I was just putting it into my pocket when she reappeared, carrying a sheet of paper. My heart sank. I thought that she might previously have got his signature to some other document which could cook our goose.
‘You force me to show you this,’ said she, putting it into his hand. ‘I have kept silence, Mr. Chadwick, only because I did not wish to cause ill feeling in your family. I have been accused too often in that way. You must know that Mr. Lufton is not to be trusted. If you knew all, you would have forbidden him the house these many years, for at one time he persecuted me with attempts which he knew to be odious to me, nor would he desist until I freatened to tell you. Will you please to read this?’
This proved to be my confounded love letter. Ned looked at it, stared, swore, demanded what the devil it meant, and was at last persuaded to let me see it.
That it was my hand I could not deny. It was undated and the ink was faded. It said that I was off to Brailsford but hoped to return in a couple of days, and that I would then say all that I had been prevented from saying ‘when Ned stumbled upon us, and you ran off.’ There were some sentences of tender apology for my own want of restraint. I hoped that she was not angry, – I had not been able to help it – I loved her too well. She would forgive me, she must forgive me, for I was all hers and would behave better next time.
‘I suppose,’ said I, when I had collected my wits, ‘that I must have written this at a time when I believed myself engaged to – Edmée de Cavignac.’
‘I was never engaged to you,’ said she coolly.
‘I beg your pardon, Madam! I never said that you were. If you had thought yourself engaged to me you would not have married my cousin. But I made you an offer, and misunderstood you so much that I believed myself accepted.’
‘When was this?’ asked Ned, who was staring suspiciously at us both.
‘Very soon before – before your marriage, Ned.’
‘That is a lie,’ stated Edmée. ‘He never made me an offer. He used every art to seduce me, both before and after I married, but he never made me any honourable proposal.’
The effrontery of this so confounded me that I was speechless. I saw that it was her word against mine. She meant to get rid of me, and my interference on Harry’s behalf, by getting up a quarrel, – any quarrel. I was to give her the lie in Ned’s presence, an insult which no husband can allow. She hoped to provoke a burst of indignation which would betray me into doing this. But, fortunately for us all, I felt none just then. I could only feel very sad, for myself, for Ned, even for her. When I spoke, it was with a mildness which startled both of them.
‘Our memories tell us different things,’ I said. ‘It all happened a long time ago. I remember that I loved you once, and told you so, and asked you to be my wife, before I ever dreamed that you would marry Ned. I am very sorry indeed if you did not understand me and believe that you have cause to remember otherwise.’
I turned to Ned and added:
‘You have known me all your life. I cannot be quite sure when I wrote this letter. I can only ask you to consider whether you think me capable—’
He interrupted me with an oath.
‘I’ll be damned if I think it. You were always a good fellow, Miles. You were after her too. I knew that. But you would always have been above-board, and once she was my wife you would keep off.’
‘You say that I lie? You insult your wife?’
She advanced upon Ned as though about to strike him, but he pushed her roughly aside exclaiming:
‘I have had enough of your tricks. I know them. Come along, Miles! If you are going to see Ridding, I think I will come too.’
As soon as we were out of the house he said that women are all the same and that one cannot trust a word they say. They are never satisfied until they have got a man hugging them and squeezing them in some snug corner, and then they cry out that it is all his fault. He was not by any means as shocked or as embarrassed as I was. Fifteen years with her have, I suppose, rid him of what little delicacy he possessed. But it was intolerable to me that she should so have exposed herself before us both, – that we should be obliged to admit what she is. I had an impulse to excuse and defend her, and said that it might have been difficult for her to understand us, coming amongst us as a stranger and unused to our way of thinking.
‘Ay! That’s what she says. They are all against her, because she is a foreigner.’
I suggested that, for this very reason, she should not play so great a part in managing his affairs. She might mean well, and, with such a family, it was but common sense that she should watch every penny. But she could not be expected to understand the management of a great property, and I was sure that Simmons imposed upon her. If he would but get an honest steward, and attend to these matters himself, a heavy burden would be taken from her.
He listened moodily, but he did not disagree with me.
We went to Ribstone and settled the business of the farm. Before we left I had the pleasure of seeing Harry grasp Ned’s hand with something of the old cordiality. This part of the affair I can never regret. Neither Edmée nor Simmons can get Harry out now, unless he has very bad luck.
My spirits rose upon the journey home. I dared to hope that this might be the turn of the tide and that, having once asserted himself, Ned might continue. He is very stupid, but I think that he could manage well, with a good steward to advise him. His family life must always be wretched, but in the world, would he but exert himself, he might be useful and respectable. He looked more like his old self, when we were at Ribstone, than I have seen him for many a year. But I noticed that his face grew longer and longer as we approached the Park. When we came into the village he burst out with:
‘’Tis all very well, Miles! You are not married.’
Since it was dinner-time I suggested that he might come to the Parsonage, when we had stabled our horses. He accepted with alacrity, poor fellow! Had I suggested that he remain for the rest of his life at the Parsonage, I believed he would have jumped at the offer.
All the family had known of my errand, when I started for the Park that morning, and were upon the watch for my return. The sight of Ned with me assured them that the news must be good, and they welcomed him with all the affection which we have missed for so long. By good luck we had an eatable dinner; Nanny had dressed some ducks and we had a side of beef.
Sukey pleased me by putting aside all her grievances against the Park; she could not have been more pleasant and civil to Ned. When at her best, as she was that night, she can be very charming. She is the cleverest, the most amusing, of all my sisters, just as Caroline was the sweetest, Kitty is the kindest, and Harriet the most beautiful. My father and George both displayed their unqualified pleasure in this settlement of Harry’s business and even Anna managed to smile. It was the pleasantest evening that we have had since my mother died; something of her spirit seemed to have returned to us.
Ned stayed late, though I knew that they were all wishing him gone, that they might learn how I managed to circumvent Edmée. When, at last, he was forced to move, he did so very unwillingly. I took him to the door and watched him slowly cross the lane and let himself into the Park by the little gate. His day of freedom was over and now he must spend the night with Edmée.
A thousand questions awaited me when I returned to the parlour. I merely told them that Edmée had been outrageous, – so outrageous that I should not repeat what she had said. I daresay they all supposed her to have said something insulting about my father. He looked a trifle grave when he heard that I had carried my point in face of open opposition from her, and said that he was sorry I should have taken part in a conjugal dispute. Nobody, said he, is justified in coming between husband and wife.
‘Would you have had me desert Harry’s cause?’ said I.
‘No. But I would have had you avoid an open dispute with her. You could have waited until you could get Ned alone.’
‘That would have been never. She would have seen to it.’
‘Poor Ned,’ cried Sukey. ‘She will make him pay for this piece of independence.’
‘He must stand up for himself better. Since he has begun, he had better go on.’
Sukey shook her head at this and doubted whether Ned could keep it up.
‘But we shall know if he does,’ she said, ‘because in that case, he will come here again quite soon. He knows that we all support him. If he keeps away from us, that will mean that he has hauled his colours down.’
We did not see him again until church on Sunday. What he must have suffered in the interval defeats imagination. He gave me a baleful, furious look, more like the glare of a baited animal than of a human being. I daresay he is now angry at me for getting him into this scrape. I fear that all may now be over, in the way of friendship between us. But, if I had not stood my ground, it would have been all over with poor Harry. I cannot regret what I did.
But I must record that I dreamt again, that night, of Maria Cotman, – in what connection I cannot remember. The fact would not have struck me had I not recently recorded my former dream. In fairness to Ludovic, I have written to tell him of it. But I do not see what reason she has, upon this occasion, to triumph over Miles.
Not that I am quite satisfied at the way in which I managed the business. I believe that I should not have tried to excuse or defend Edmée, as we rode to Ribstone. I should have let him speak out, which I believe he would have done, had I not checked him. We could have agreed that he has married a horrible creature, but that all women are much the same. In that way we could have formed a kind of brutal male alliance which might hold against such assaults as she must have made since then. Once again, we were harassed by the wish to behave and speak like gentlemen. What is a man to say about such a woman, if he may not describe her in ungentlemanly terms?
I believe that it is upon account of creatures like this that men most usually fight. ‘A woman’s honour’ is a cant phrase. It is a total lack of it in some women which engenders violence. If a man cannot describe his wife without disgracing himself, he must relinquish reason and become a fighting animal. Swords and pistols are his escape from the truth. We are lucky, Ned and I, to have come out of this as well as we did.