CHAPTER XVII
We have been married nearly three months, and are going on very comfortably. As yet no cross or angry words have arisen between us; all is smooth as unruffled waters. Though Marmaduke is, if anything, fonder of me than at first, he is perhaps a shade less slavishly attentive. For example, he can now enjoy his Times at breakfast and read it straight through without raising his eyes between every paragraph, to make sure I am still behind the teapot and have not vanished into mid air, or to ask me tenderly if I would wish to do this or care to go there.
He has also learned—which is more satisfactory still—that it is possible to know enjoyment even when I am out of sight.
Two months of delicious thoughtless idleness we spend in Spain and Switzerland, and then—we pine for home. This latter secretly, and with a sworn determination that each will be the last to confess it.
One calm glorious evening, however, after dinner, as I stand at the window of our hotel, gazing over the Lake of Geneva, something within me compels the following speech:
"How beautiful Strangemore must be looking now!"—-
I feel slightly doubtful of the wisdom of my words when they were uttered, and would have recalled them; but the encouraging amiability with which Marmaduke receives my remark speedily reassures me.
"Yes," he says, with energy, "it never looks so well as just at this time of year."
"So I should think."
A long pause.
"English scenery is always at its best in the autumn. After all, there is no place like England—I mean, of course for a continuance. Don't you agree with me, darling?"
"I do indeed. Dear Briersley Wood! How fond Billy and I were of it. You remember the clump of nut-trees, 'Duke?"
"Is it likely I should forget it?" sentimentally. "For my own part, I think the wood on the other side of Strangemore handsomer than Briersley; but of course it was too far away from Summerleas for you to know it well."
Another pause, longer than the last, and more eloquent.
"How I should like to see it—now!" I murmur, with faint emphasis and a heroically suppressed sigh.
"Would you really?" rising eagerly, and coming into the embrasure of the window. "Would you like to get back, darling? Not yet for a little while, of course," with quick correction, "but later on, when—-"
"I would like to start at once," I cry, frankly, flinging hesitation to the winds; "as soon as possible. I am longing to see every one; and you know, 'Duke," sweetly, "I have yet to make a near acquaintance with our home."
I smile up to him, and am satisfied my words have caused nothing but the extremest content.
"Very good. It is easily arranged; and next year we can come and get through what we now leave undone. They must be wanting us at home, I fancy; there are the birds and everything," concludes Marmaduke, in a reflective tone, which is the nearest approach to a return of reason he has yet shown.
We spend a fortnight in London on our way back, when I am presented to some of my husband's relations. His sister, Lady Handcock, I do not see, as she has been in Canada for the last two years with Sir James, and, though now travelling homewards and expected every day, does not arrive during our stay in the Great Babylon.
Cousins and aunts and friends, however, are numerous, and for the most part so kind that restraint vanishes, and I tell myself people-in-law are not so formidable as I have been led to believe. One thorn, however, remains among my roses and pricks me gently.
Lady Blanche Going—with whom we stay a week—of all the cousins interests me most; though it must be confessed the interest is of a disagreeable nature. She has a charming house in Park Lane, and the softest, most fascinating manners; she is in every point such as a well-bred woman ought to be, yet with her alone I am not happy. For the most part looking barely twenty-five, there are times—odd moments when the invariable smile is off her face—when I could fancy her at least seven years older. Now and then, too, a suspicious gleam—too warm, as coming from a decorous matron—falls from her sleepy almond-shaped eyes upon some favorite among the "stronger" sex, and I cannot forgive her in that she makes me appear the most unsophisticated, childish bride that ever left a nursery. So that I am glad when we leave her and move farther south to our beautiful home.
Oh, the delight, the rapture, of the first meeting, when the first day after our return, I drive over to Summerleas: The darling mother's tearful welcome, the "boy Billee's" more boisterous one. Even Dora, for a moment or two forgets her elegance and her wrongs, and gives me a hearty embrace. And how well I am looking, and how happy! And how pretty my dress is, and how becoming! And how they have all missed me! And just fancy! Roland is really engaged to the "old boy's" daughter, after all; and the colonel himself writes about it, as though quite pleased, in spite of her having such a good fortune. Though, indeed, why should he not? for where could he find any one handsomer, or dearer, or more charming than our Roly? and so on.
All too swift in its happiness flies the day, and Marmaduke comes to reclaim me. Yet the strange senses of rest and completeness that fills me, in the presence of the old beloved, distresses me. Why can I not feel for Marmaduke that romantic, all-sufficing devotion of which I have read? I certainly like him immensely. He is everything of the dearest and best, and kind almost to a fault; therefore I ought to adore him; but somehow I cannot quite make up my mind to it. One should love a husband better than all the rest of the world put together; so I have heard, so I believe; but do I?
I lay little plans; I map out small scenes, to try how far my affection for my husband will go.
For instance, I picture to myself Billy or he condemned to start in the morning for Australia, never to return; one or other must go, and the decision rests with me. Which shall I let go, which shall I keep? I send Marmaduke, and feel a deep pang at my heart; I send Billy—the pang becomes keenest torture.
Again, supposing both to be sentenced to death, and supposing also it is in my power to save one of them: which would I rescue? Marmaduke of course! I haul him triumphantly from his gloomy cell; but as I do so my Billy's beautiful eyes, filled with mute despair, shine upon me from out the semi-darkness, and I cease to drag Marmaduke: I cannot leave my brother.
When this last picture first presents itself to my vivid imagination I am in bed, and the idea overcomes me to such a degree that I find myself presently in floods of tears, unable altogether to suppress my sobs.
In a minute or two Marmaduke wakes and turns uneasily.
"What is the matter, Phyllis," he asks, anxiously. "Is anything wrong with you, my darling?"
"No, no, nothing," I answer hastily, and bury my nose in the pillow.
"But you are crying," he remonstrates, reaching out a kindly hand in the darkness that is meant for my face, but alights unexpectedly upon the back of my head. "Tell me what is troubling you, my pet."
"Nothing at all," I say again; "I was only thinking." Here I stifle a foolish sigh born of my still more foolish tears.
"Thinking of what?"
"Of Billy," I reply reluctantly. And then, though he says nothing, and though I cannot see his face, I know my husband is offended.
He goes back to his original position, and is soon again asleep, while I lie awake for half an hour longer, worrying my brain with trying to discover what there can be to vex Marmaduke in my weeping over Billy.
Still I am happy, utterly so, as one must be who is without care or sorrow, whose lightest wish meets instant fulfilment, and less and less frequently am I haunted by the vague fear of ingratitude—by the thought of how poor a return I make for all the good showered upon me, as I see how sufficient I am for my husband's happiness: while only on rare occasions does he betray his passionate longing for a more perfect hold upon my heart by the suppressed but evident jealousy with which he regards my love for my family.