Doctor Cupid: A Novel

'We know that there is no harm in our friendship,' pursues she, a slight red staining her tear-washed cheeks; 'but nobody else knows it. The world is always only too pleased to think the worst, and in one sense' – again mastered by her emotion – 'it is right! I would have given up anything – everything for you – you know I would! and you – you – will give up nothing for me, not even such a trifle as this!'

Once again pity gets the upper hand of him; but a pity crossed by such a bottomless regret and remorse at having let himself slide into this tangled labyrinth of wrong, when honour and dishonour have changed coats, and he does not know which is which, as the Lost Souls in Hell, if such there be, might feel in looking back upon their earthly course.

'You are right,' he says; 'we must do the best we can for each other! We must not make life harder for one another than it already is. I will do what you wish! I ought! I will! Such a trifle, too!'

CHAPTER XIII

 
'At length burst in the argent revelry,
With plume, tiara and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
The brain new stuffed in youth with triumphs gay
Of old Romance.'
 

The 'argent revelry' has burst into the Manor in the shape of what Lady Roupell, with more vigour than elegance, is apt to call one of her 'Beast Parties,' i. e. one of those miscellaneous gatherings of the whole neighbourhood to which she thinks herself bound twice or thrice in the year – gatherings which, though dictated by hospitality, are not usually very successful. It is Lady Roupell's principle to override all the small social distinctions of the neighbourhood, to invite all the people who quarrel, all the people who look down upon each other, all the people who are bored by one another, all the people who are trying to avoid each other, to hobnob at her bounteous board.

'They all go to God's house together, my dear; why should not they come to mine?' asks she, with a logic that she thinks unanswerable. And so they do; but they do not enjoy themselves.

That, however, is no concern of milady's. The 'Beasts' must like to talk to one another, or, if they do not, they ought to like it.

Having thrown open her house to them, having given them every opportunity of over-eating themselves on her excellent food, and being exhilarated by her admirable wines, she washes her hands of them; and having enjoyed her own champagne and venison, sits down to her Patience-table, which is set out for her every night of her life, and would be were Queen Victoria to honour her with a visit.

Of the Beast Parties the Evans pair invariably form a constituent part.

'I always ask the Evanses,' says milady good-naturedly. 'It is quite pretty to see the way in which he enjoys his dinner; and she likes to wear her dyed gown, good woman, and smuggle candied apricots into her pockets for those ugly urchins of hers, and look out my friends in her "Peerage" next day!'

So the Evanses are here, and several harmless rural clergy; like them to the outer eye, though no doubt to the inner as dissimilar as each island-like human soul is from its neighbour. There are some large landowners with their wives, and some very small lawyers and doctors with theirs. There is a tallow-merchant, who to-day grovels in hides and tallow, but to-morrow will probably – oh, free and happy England! – soar to a seat in the Cabinet. There is a Colonial Bishop imported by one neighbour, and a fashionable buffoon introduced by another; and lastly, there are Peggy and Prue.

Never before has Peggy set off to a Beast Party with so light a heart. She knows how little chance of rational or even irrational entertainment such a feast affords; and yet, do what she will, she feels gay. Prue is gay too, extravagantly gay, for did not Freddy stroll in half an hour ago with a flower for her, and a request to her to wear her green gown for his sake?

Before setting off Peggy bids her eleven birds good-night, telling them that to-morrow they shall have a swinging ladder in their large cage to remind them of the swinging tree-tops. Has not Talbot promised to make them a ladder?

The girls have timed their arrival better than on a former occasion. The room is already full when they walk in with their breeze-freshened cheeks and their simple clothes.

Margaret has not even her best dress on. She had looked at it waveringly and hankeringly at dressing-time; but a sort of superstition – an undefined feeling that she is not going to meet any one for whom she has a right to prank herself out, prevents her wearing it. But she cannot help having her best face on. There is sunshiny weather in her heart. Even her repulsion for Lady Betty is weakened. Possibly she has been unjust towards her. Certainly she is not the human octopus from whose grasp no prey can escape alive, for which she took her. She herself has the best reason for knowing that from this octopus's arms prey can and does escape alive and well. After all, she has condemned her upon mere loose hearsay evidence. Henceforth she will trust only the evidence of her own eyes and ears. At present her eyes tell her that Betty is very highly rouged, and rather naked; and her ears – thanks to the din of tongues – tell her nothing.

For a wonder, Lady Roupell is down in time, her gown properly laced – usually, from excessive hurry, her maid has to skip half the eyelet-holes – and with her ornaments duly fastened on. She is following her usual rule, talking to the person who amuses her most, and leaving all the others to take care of themselves.

As soon as dinner is announced, and Freddy has walked off with his allotted lady, she turns with an easy smile to her company, and says:

'Will everybody take in somebody, please?'

At this command, so grateful and natural in a small and intimate party, so extremely ill-suited to this large and miscellaneous crowd, there is a moment of hesitating and consternation. The hearts of those who know that they are never anybody's voluntary choice, but whom conventionality generally provides with a respectable partner, sink to the soles of their shoes. The young men hang back from the girls, because they think that some one else may have a better right to them. All fear to grasp at a precedence not their due.

At length there is a movement. The tallow-merchant, true to his principle of soaring, offers his arm to the wife of the Lord-Lieutenant. The parsons and doctors begin timidly to exchange wives. The Colonial Bishop casts his landing-net over Prue. Margaret's is one of the few breasts in the room in which the order for promiscuous choice has excited a spark of pleasure. In the ordinary course of things she is aware that it is improbable that Talbot would be her portion. If it is a case of selection, the improbability vanishes. She smiles slightly to herself as she recalls the surly indignation with which she had discovered that he was to be her fate on the last occasion of her dining here. She is still smiling when he passes her by with Betty on his arm. For a few seconds it seems as if the handsomest girl in the room were to be left altogether overlooked and unclaimed; and, in point of fact, she is one of the latest to be paired. Usually such a blow to her vanity would have disquieted her but little, as her pretensions are never high. To-day she is shocked to find how much it galls her.

The ill-sorted party have taken their seats, precedence gone, natural barriers knocked on the head, reciprocal antipathies forced into close contact, in that topsy-turvy Utopia of universal equality and amity which it is Lady Roupell's principle to produce.

Margaret looks round the table to see how the principle has worked. Mrs. Evans has been led in by the doctor, to whom she is fully persuaded that she owes the death of the last Evans but one. The next largest squiress in the parish to Lady Roupell is made sulky for the evening by having had to accept the arm of her man of business. Prue's Bishop has innocently planted her as far as the length of the interminable table will allow from Freddy. Betty and Talbot, though distant, are in sight. She can see that they are sitting side by side in total silence. Is this their mode of expressing their sorrow at their approaching separation? Possibly; but, at all events, what a depth of intimacy does such a total silence imply! Margaret's own mate is the buffoon. She has often heard his name as that of the pet of royalty; the darling of the fine ladies; the crowning sparkle in each choicest social gathering. To her, whether it be that her mental palate is out of taste, he seems dull and coarse; his wit made up of ugly faces, elderly double-entendres, flat indecencies.

'It is clear that I am not made for good company,' she says to herself sadly and wearily. 'Jacob, and the birds, and the fox – these are my society! They are the only ones I am fit for.'

The long dinner ends at last, and the incongruous couples part – in most cases with mutual relief. Neither Margaret nor her merry man ever wish to set eyes upon each other again. In the drawing-room natural affinities reassert themselves: intimates gather into little groups. The squiress, escaped from her presumptuous solicitor, makes her plaint to her fellows. Mrs. Evans makes hers to Peggy.

'Did you see how unlucky I was?' cries she. 'I assure you it gave me quite a shudder to put my hand upon his arm! I declare I look upon that man as as much the murderer of my Natty as if he had stuck a knife into her. I could hardly bear to speak to him. However, I managed to secure some crackers for the children' – indicating a tell-tale bulge in the direction of her pocket. 'Their last word to me before I came away was, "Mother, be sure you bring us some crackers!"'

Then it is Prue's turn to make her lament, which she begins with almost the same words as Mrs. Evans:

'Did you ever see anything like my ill-luck? I was the farthest from him of anybody at the table. There were eighteen between us. I counted. But did you notice how he rushed to open the door? As I passed him he said to me, "Thank you, Prue." That was because I had put my green gown on. He is always so grateful for any little thing that one does for him.'

She pauses rather suddenly, for Lady Betty has drawn near.

'What a pretty frock!' says she, stopping before the two girls. 'As green as grass, as jealousy, as green peas! Come and talk to me, Miss Prue, and tell me what you have all been doing to-day. You may have been up to any amount of mischief for all I can tell. Do you know that I have been writhing on a bed of pain from morning to night? No? but I have. Are not you sorry for me?'

As she speaks she draws the childish figure down on the sofa beside her.

Margaret walks away. She would like to take Prue away too. There seems to her to be something unnatural and sinister in an alliance, however temporary, between these two, and from the distant corner to which she has retired her eye often wanders uneasily back to them.

Presently her view is obscured. It is no use her looking any longer. The sofa is shut out from her by a ring of black coats that has clustered round it. Only now and then, through the interstices, she catches the glint of one of the numerous hornets, lizards, frogs, flashing in diamonds upon Betty's breast. Bursts of laughter come from the group, which Freddy and the buffoon have joined. In the intervals of the other conversations buzzing around Peggy can hear Betty's high voice piercing. She cannot hear what she says; but apparently it is always followed by torrents of mirth, among which Prue's girl-tones are plainly audible. Oh, what is Prue laughing at? If she could but get her away!

As she so thinks, herself wedged in among a phalanx of women, she sees a stir among the band she is watching. It expands and moves, pursuing Betty, who has walked to the piano. Evidently she has been persuaded to sing.

As soon as this intention has become manifest in the room there is a polite hush in the talk. Wives look menacingly at unmusical husbands. The Bishop, who is fond of music, approaches the instrument. Betty has seated herself leisurely, her audacious eyes wandering round and taking in the prelate with a mischievous twinkle.

'I am not quite sure that you will like it,' Peggy hears her say. 'But, you know, I cannot help that – I did not write it. It is supposed to be said by an affectionate husband on the eve of his setting out for the wars.'

With this prelude she sets off —

 
'Oh! who will press that lily-white hand
When I am far away?
Some other man!'
 

Two more lines in the nature of a chorus follow, but they are so drowned by a roar of applause that Peggy can't catch them. She can only conjecture their nature from the look of impudent laughing challenge which the singer throws at the men around her. Under cover of that roar of applause the Bishop turns abruptly away.

The second verse follows —

 
'Oh! who will kiss those ruby lips
When I am far away?
Some other man!'
 

Again the two drowned lines. Again the chord and the applause; but this time it is very evident that the approbation is confined to the circle round the piano.

Betty has been well taught, and her enunciation is exceedingly pure and distinct. Not a word of her charming song is lost. She has reached the third verse —

 
'Oh! who will squeeze that little waist
When I am far away?
Some other man!'
 

Again that roar of admiring laughter from the men round the piano – all the more marked from the displeased silence of the rest of the room.

But is it only men who are encoring so ecstatically? Is not that Prue who is joining her enraptured plaudits to theirs? – Prue, with flushed face and flashing eyes, and slight shoulders convulsed with merriment? If she could but get her away! But that is out of the question; Prue is in the inner circle, utterly beyond reach.

 
'Oh! who will pay those little bills?'
 

Peggy cannot stand it any longer; it makes her sick. A gap in the ranks of ladies that had shut her in gives her the wished-for opportunity to escape. She slips towards an open French window giving on the terrace. Before reaching it she has to pass Lady Roupell and her Patience. As she does so she hears the old lady saying, in a voice of tepid annoyance, to the man beside her:

'I wish that some one would stop her singing that indecent song. She will not leave me a rag of character in the county!'

CHAPTER XIV

 
'Whilst she was here
Methought the beams of light that did appear
Were shot from her; methought the moon gave none
But what it had from her.'
 

Safely out on the terrace in the moonlight! Not, it is true, a great wash of moonlight such as went billowing over the earth when she paid her former night-visit to milady's garden; but such small radiance as a lessening crescent, now and then dimmed by over-flung cloud-kerchiefs, can lend. The stars, indeed, seeing their lady faint and fail, eke her out with their lesser lights. Peggy stands drawing deep breaths, staring up at them with her head thrown back, as they shine down upon her in their overwhelming, overpowering distance, and purity and age. But between her and their august and soothing silence comes again that odious refrain:

 
'Some other man!
 …'
 

She puts her fingers in her ears and runs, nor does she stop until she has reached the close of the long, broad gravel walk that keeps the house-front company from end to end. Then she pauses and listens. No, she is not far enough off even yet. Fainter, but still perfectly audible, comes the vulgar ribaldry:

 
'Some other man!
 …'
 

and then the storm of applause. Let her at all events reach some spot where she will be unable to detect any tone of Prue's in that insane mirth! But is there such a spot? To her excited fancy it seems as if in the remotest dell, the loneliest coppice of the park, she would still overhear her Prue's little voice applauding that disgusting pleasantry.

She walks quickly on, between flower-borders and shrubberies, until she reaches a wrought-iron gate that leads into the walled garden. She opens it and passes through, then stands still once again to listen. She has succeeded at last. Not an echo of Betty's high-pitched indecencies attains to this quiet garden-close to offend her ears. There is no noise less clean and harmless than that of the south wind delicately wagging the heads of the slumberous flowers.

The garden, as its name implies, is hedged in from each rude gust on three sides by stout walls, stone-coped and balled. On the fourth, towards the sun-setting, it is guarded only by a light decorated iron railing, now muffled in the airy fluff of the traveller's joy, and embraced by the luxuriant arms of the hop, the clematis, and the wandering vine. Between their tendrils, between the branches of the strong tea-rose and the Virginia creeper's autumn fires, one catches friendly glimpses of the church tower and the park, and the gentle deer. Inside, the garden is encompassed by wide and crowded flower-borders, but the middle is sacred to the green simplicity of the velvet grass.

Margaret draws a deep breath of relief, and begins to walk slowly along. A row of tall, white gladioli, nearly as high-statured as herself, looking ghostly fair in the starshine, keep her company, lovely and virginal as May lilies; and from the farther side of the garden comes an ineffable waft of that violet smell which we used to connect only with spring. As she paces to and fro the ugly din fades out of her ears and the ireful red out of her cheeks. A sort of peace settles down upon her – only a sort of peace, however! Her mind is still oppressed by the image of Prue, and by a vague misgiving of coming trouble, coupled with a sense, which she will not own to herself, of personal disappointment, and of a mortified covert self-gratulation upon not having worn her best gown, or in anywise tricked herself out.

To one, however, whose hand is on the garden-latch, as she so thinks, she looks tricked out enough, indeed, in her own fairness; enough to make his heart sick with the hopelessness of its longing as he goes towards her. After all, she is not much surprised at his having followed her! Possibly he may have a message of recall for her.

'Well!' she says, meeting him with a delicate moonlit smile.

Low as the light is, it is light enough to show that there is no answering smile on his face.

'So you escaped at last!' he says, with a sort of groan. 'I watched to see how long you could stand it.'

The shadow that the star-beams, and the violet breath, and Heaven knows what other gentle influence, have chased from her features, settles down on them again.

'I am never fond of comic songs,' she answers stiffly; 'and I do not think that that was a particularly favourable specimen.'

He makes a gesture of disgust.

'Pah!' Then adds: 'I should have followed you before, only that I wanted to get Prue away. I knew that you would be glad if I could; but it was impossible!'

He has never spoken of her as 'Prue' before; but in his present agitation – an agitation for which Peggy is at a loss to account – he has obviously clean forgotten the formal prefix.

She is too much touched by his thoughtfulness for her to answer.

'My chief motive for following you,' continues he, speaking in an unusual and constrained voice, 'was that I thought I might possibly not have another opportunity of giving you this.'

As he speaks he puts a small parcel into her hands.

'It is only the ladder for the birds.'

She breaks into a laugh.

'They are in no such great hurry for it,' says she gaily; 'they could have waited until to-morrow.'

He sighs.

'I am afraid that they would have had to wait longer than until to-morrow!'

'Well, I daresay that they might have made shift until Wednesday,' returns she.

The entire unsuspiciousness of her tone makes his task a tenfold harder one than it would otherwise have been.

'It is – it is better that you should take it yourself to them,' he says, hesitating and floundering. 'I – I – might be prevented after all from coming. There is a chance of my – my – being obliged after all to go to-morrow!'

The star and moonlight are falling full on her face, lifted and attentive: he can see it as plainly as at high noonday. It seems to him that a tiny change passes over it. But still she does not suspect the truth.

'What!' says she; 'has your chief telegraphed for you? What a thing it is to be so indispensable!'

Shall he leave her in her error? Nothing would be easier! Leave her in the belief that a legitimate summons to honourable work has called him away; leave her with a friendly face turned towards him, expecting and perhaps lightly hoping his return. The temptation is strong, but he conquers it.

'No,' he says, trying to speak carelessly; 'my chief is innocent this time of breaking into my holiday. I expect that he is enjoying his own too much; I am not going Londonwards; but – but – other reasons compel me to leave to-morrow.'

How unutterably flat and naked it sounds! There is no mistake now as to the change in her face – the change that he has dreaded and yet known would come – the hardening of eye and tightening of lip. Well, it is better that it should come! And yet, do what he may, he cannot leave her in the belief that, as he sees, has in one moment stolen all the frank sweetness out of her eyes.

'I – I – am not going north, either,' he cries, in miserable, eager stammering. 'I – I – do not know where I am going!'

'You are compelled to go, and yet you do not know where you are going! is that a riddle?' asks she ironically.

Her tone jars horribly upon his strung and aching nerves.

'Not much of a riddle,' he answers, with a bitter laugh. 'I do not know the exact road I am going to take; I only know the direction – downhill.'

She fixes her eyes steadily upon his for a moment or two, a ray of compassion stealing into them. So they are to pass each other, like ships upon the sea! After all, he has not been able to wrench himself out of the arms of his octopus! A transient flash of self-derision crosses her mind for having ever supposed it possible that he could, coupled with an immense pity.

This is to be their last speech together; for some instinct tells her that he will not return. Let it not, then, be bitter speech! Poor fellow! There are aloes enough, God wot, in the cup he has brewed for himself!

'Well!' she says, smiling kindly, albeit very sadly, at him, 'whether you go uphill or downhill, the birds and I must always have a good word for you. I do not know what we should have done without you; you have been so kind to us all – to me and my Prue, and my fox and my birds!'

He ought to make some acknowledgment of this farewell civility of hers; but to 'ought' and to do have, since the world was, never been one and the same thing. He receives it in a suffocated silence.

'And I was so rude to you at first,' pursues she, lightly brushing, as she speaks, her own lips with a bit of mignonette she has gathered from the odorous bed at her feet, perhaps to hide the slight tremble of which she cannot but be conscious in them – 'so angry at being sent in to dinner with you! but, then' – with another friendly starlit smile – 'you must remember that I did not know how well you could mow!'

He is still silent, his throat choked with words he dare not utter. Oh, if she would only stop! But she goes on in all innocence:

'You never took your bunch of lavender after all to-day. I thought of bringing it up for you to-night, but then I remembered that I should see you to-morrow, so I did not; I wish I had now.'

Cannot he find even one word? one word of prayer to her in mercy to be silent? Not one!

'Are you going by an early train?' continues she; 'because, if not, I might send up Alfred with it in the morning, if you really cared to have it.'

Perhaps it is that last most unnecessary clause that loosens the string of his tied tongue.

'Do not!' he says almost rudely; 'I hope I shall never smell the scent of lavender again!'

For a moment she looks at him, astonished at his discourtesy; but probably his face explains it, for her eyes drop. When next she speaks it is in a rather colder key.

'At all events I must send you back your books; you left some books with us to-day, if you remember.'

If he remember the Keats from which he was to have read aloud to her to-morrow, sitting beside her under the Judas-tree, with her little finches calling to her from the house, with Mink crouched on her white skirt, and the parrot waddling over the sward, with his toes turned in, to have his head scratched by her! If he remember! She must be the very 'belle dame sans merci' of whom John Keats spake, to ask him that! May not he at least beg her to keep his Keats to remember him by – laying here and there among the leaves a sprig of the lavender they together plucked? No! No! No! Out of her life he and his Keats must depart, as she and her lavender out of his. Who, in his place, will read her 'La Belle Dame sans merci'? As if in devilish mockery of the jealous anguish of this question comes Betty's disgusting refrain darting across his mind:

 
'Some other man!
 …
 …'
 

He grinds his teeth. It is some minutes before he can regain sufficient command over himself to answer with a tolerable appearance of composure:

'You are right; I will send for them!'

A little sighing gust has risen; sighing for him perhaps, he thinks, with a flash of imaginative self-pity, as he watches its soft antics among the lily-like flowers, and its light ruffling of Peggy's gown. It has mistaken her for one of the flowers! What foolish fancies are careering through his hot brain! There can be none in hers, or how could she be holding out such a cool hand and lifting such a suave calm look to his?

'I must be going,' she says, speaking in a rather lower voice than is her wont; 'good-bye! Since' – a wavering smile breaking tremulously over her face – 'since you are so determined to go downhill, I suppose I dare not say that I hope our roads will ever meet again!'

Her hand slides out of his unreturning clasp. He feels that if he keep that soft prisoner for one instant, he must keep it through eternity.

'Good-bye!' he says.

He would like to bid God bless her; but he can no more do it than Macbeth could say 'Amen.' What right has he to bid God bless her? Will God be more likely to send her a benison for his unworthy asking? So he lets her go unblessed.