IN THE TRAP
"'Sit fast—dost fear?—The moon shines clear—
Fleet goes my barb—keep hold!
Fearst thou?'—'Oh, no!' she faintly said;
'But why so stern and cold?'"—Scott.
Virgie awoke, so to speak, from her numbness in the train, somewhere between London and Derby.
She was sitting, with her pile of light literature and fashion papers, opposite the man who had married her, and who was to all appearance immersed in the folios of blue foolscap, which he was marking here and there with red pencil. The documents, so far as she could judge, were leases.
The motion of the train had lulled her into a short nap, and it seemed as if quite suddenly she was wide awake, and pinching herself to make sure that it was not all a dream. Here was a man who had, as it were, leaped at a girl, and married her in such hot haste that there was no time for reflection. One argued, one assumed, the strong feeling which made such behaviour credible. Yet now he sat, as a man twenty years married might sit, marking passages in a lease with red pencil, while his few hours' bride, in all her delicate loveliness, faced him, neglected, ignored.
Surely this was puzzling!
Had she but known, her own demeanour was much more surprising to him than his could be to her. He was wondering when an outburst of wounded vanity would come, how much longer she could refrain from comment upon his behaviour. Surely she must be piqued beyond endurance, she who imagined herself to have captured his heart at a glance, and was doubtless pondering the question of exactly what her conquest represented, in money, luxury, and pleasure.
His seemingly absorbed attention had, as a fact, hardly wandered from her for an instant since they met that morning; and the results of his observations were not according to his expectation. So far, she had not merely been pliant, she had seemed grateful for kindness. Of course he knew her to be badly frightened. At the Savoy, for a few minutes, under the influence of gay surroundings and champagne, there had been, as he thought, a glimpse of the real woman—the coquette incarnate. It had vanished, however, the moment he set his heavy hand thereon.
Now she sat before him in her Dresden china daintiness, a picture of luxury, carefully tended down to her very finger-nails. While she slept he had perused the features that moved him so vitally—the well remembered breadth of brow and pointedness of chin, the deep setting of the shadowy eyes, the lines of the throat, the base of which rose milky from its setting of misty chiffon.
As soon as she stirred, he returned to his blue foolscap. Now she was returning his compliment—studying him.
Reluctantly she found that experience was confirming the judgment she had formed instantaneously at Hertford House. She did not like her husband's face, and could hardly say why this was so, since in a virile, somewhat rough-hewn fashion, his features were good. She was just saying to herself, "It is the expression that is wrong; it must be the expression," when he raised his head, met her eyes, and smiled in the way she was learning to dislike.
"Well, don't you think I am an ideal husband?" he asked.
She answered his smile. "That remains to be seen," she countered.
"At least," he said, "I fulfil the one essential condition, don't I? The one thing needful for husbands?"
"What is that?"
"Why, a long purse, of course."
She coloured warmly, and showed, by downcast eye and close-pressed lips, how this wounded. She felt that she had nothing to say in reply, except a low, reproachful, "Oh!" in the shock of such an unkindness.
"Not very tactful of me, was it, to taunt you with the amiable weakness which has procured me the lifelong privilege of your society?"
"Amiable weakness?" she repeated vaguely.
"The woman's desire for physical comforts, luxury, and so on, at any cost."
"Oh," murmured Virgie, "I don't think—indeed, I'm sure you don't understand."
"No? We must discuss the matter at greater length; but as I told you this morning, I dislike talking in the train. We shall be at Luton in a minute, and I telegraphed for a tea-basket."
The train slowed down as he spoke. He rose, leaned from the window, and took the tray from the boy who was waiting on the platform.
Virginia poured out the tea, and dispensed the bread and butter and cake with a sinking heart.
Of all the things she had anticipated, unkindness from her newly made husband had been farthest from her thoughts. Her maiden terrors had concerned themselves in the opposite direction. She had feared demonstrative display of feeling which as yet she must be unable to reciprocate. His attitude froze her timid efforts to make friends. The remaining words that passed between them during the journey were negligible, except for once, when he looked up suddenly—they were passing a lonely stretch of moorland, and he had been gazing from the window—and said:
"So you think you will like living in the country?"
"I know I shall. I have always lived in the country," she replied.
"Not with me," was his comment, while a faint smile crossed his eyes.
"No. Not with you," was her gentle answer.
She wanted to speak to him, to tell him how well she meant to keep her new-made vows, that though her marriage was, as he must know, a marriage of convenience, she intended to do her duty to the utmost limit of her powers. But he said he did not like talking in the train; and her spirits were so exhausted that she dare not risk a breakdown. She remained, therefore, rapt in the silence which seemed the sole alternative, until they reached their journey's end.
A brougham awaited them, drawn by a pair of fine horses. There followed a drive of more than five miles through country which grew each moment wilder and more beautiful. They came at last to a pine wood, set among swelling uplands. A lodge gate here flanked the road, and as the lodge-keeper's child opened it, and touched his forelock, Virginia guessed that they were in their own domain.
The trees were so thick and dark as to produce a premature twilight. Through this they drove for the best part of a mile. The name of Omberleigh could be well understood. It was, indeed, a place of shadows. The house stood in the depths of the wood, so far as the side from which they approached was concerned. It was a Georgian house, straight and square, with a classic porch of grey stone, supported upon columns.
The house door stood open, and revealed a dark hall, somewhat untidy, and furnished with big black cupboards, surmounted by foxes' masks, antlers, and stuffed fish. On its shabby turkey carpet stood an elderly man-servant, a middle-aged parlourmaid, and a grey-haired woman who was presumably a cook-housekeeper. All of them looked as though they were patiently trying to grapple with undeserved calamity in the shape of a new mistress.
"Mrs. Wells, this is my wife," said Gaunt, in tones that sounded as if he were trying to conceal his triumph.
"I am sure I wish you joy, ma'am," replied Mrs. Wells, with an implied despair of the fulfilment of any such wish.
Virginia was used to a large household. She slipped off her glove, and shook hands kindly with Mrs. Wells. "Thank you so much. I am sure I shall be happy in this beautiful place," said she cordially.
"This is Hemming, who has been with me a great many years," went on Gaunt, indicating the man-servant, who murmured, "Namely fifteen," as he glanced at the fair creature standing there, who looked, as he afterwards remarked, like a fairy strayed in from the woods.
"And this is Grover, who will wait upon you," he went on. "Grover, you had better take Mrs. Gaunt straight upstairs. Hemming, let the men carry up the luggage into Mrs. Gaunt's room forthwith."
"This way, ma'am," said Grover, distantly. She took the dust-cloak which Virgie had slipped off, flashing a glance of reluctant admiration as she did so at the pretty frock displayed. The staircase was on the dark side of the house, and the corridor above seemed very sombre to the girl as she followed her guide.
Her bedroom was big and old-fashioned, with three high sash windows, set deep in the walls. This lay on the other side of the house, and the bride stepped forward into the full glory of a sunset, far over land which sloped away downward in a wide prospect. The aspect of this side of the house was south with a touch of west.
Grover was pleased at the involuntary cry of pleasure which the new mistress gave as she went to one of the windows and gazed out. She thawed a little as she pointed out to the eager girl the fine hill which was the pride of their part of the county, Gladby Top.
The men brought up the boxes, and by the time she had arrayed Virginia in the frock which young Mr. Bent so much admired in Bryanston Square, Grover had laid aside the greater part of her resentment, and was inclined to think that very few of the neighbouring families could show anything in the way of a bride approaching the quality of the specimen just brought to Omberleigh.
"You can excuse him and understand him, if you take what I mean," she said later on in the kitchen. "Most times there's really no knowing what it is as takes their fancy when they get to his age. But with her—well, I don't see how he could help himself! If she was to be had, right he was to snap her up. What seems odd to me is that she should have taken him, for you can see she's a tip-topper—none of your soap-makers' daughters, but real gentry."
Grover showed the bride downstairs into the drawing-room with an uncomfortable feeling that it was not an adequate setting for so fair and youthful a presence. Virginia had not lingered over her dressing, and found that there was half an hour yet before the dinner would be served. She stood in the long, bare room, probably last re-furnished in the '60's, and gazed about her forlornly. This room was on the sunny side of the house, and its windows opened upon a paved terrace with an Italian balustrade in stone.
She strayed across the Brussels carpet to the window, and stood there gazing out upon the falling slopes of a garden—yes, a garden—but as it seemed to her a somewhat bare one. There was just enough bedding-out to make a meagre display; but when she thought of the flaming herbaceous flowers which ought to fill those long border edgings, of the Alpine plants which ought to bloom from every cleft in those limestone walls, she sighed at the thought of wasted opportunities. The tastes of the master of the house were not for horticulture, it appeared.
The thought of his sneer at her for a mercenary marriage rushed to her mind. This husband—this stranger—what manner of man was he? What was to be her fate at his hands? The doubt and terror turned her blood to water. She put her two hands to her throat to keep down the swelling sobs. Then she turned swiftly, instinctively backward, and saw that Gaunt had noiselessly entered, and stood just behind her.
"Well," he said, "it is done now. The trap has closed behind you, and you cannot get out. What do you think of your life-sentence?"
A sudden determination came to her not to show fear. His manner was that of one grimly jesting. She answered playfully, "I think my jailer likes to tease."
"Well," he went on, "you walked into the snare with your eyes open. You knew nothing of me, did you, beyond the one glorious fact that I am rich? Nothing else mattered. My negligence, my rudeness, my neglect, could not drive you from your purpose. True daughter of Virginia Sheringham, you have made your bed, and now you must lie upon it."
His wife's eyes flashed, and her answer came clearly. "Pardon me! You say that I knew nothing of you but that you were rich. That is not true. I knew that you were a man of whom my own mother thought so well that she engaged herself to marry you. I knew also—or guessed—that you were lonely and unhappy. I could see that you were—lame."
"What?" he cut her off short. "You have the assurance to tell me to my face that my infirmity was a reason for your marrying me? You thought that you could elude the vigilance of a lame man—was that it? But though I limp I am no cripple. In fact, I am particularly active—active enough to guard you very carefully, as I warn you."
Bewildered, roused to hot indignation though she now was, Virginia felt her spirits rise defiant to meet this bullying tone. "A husband should guard his wife, and I hope you will guard me," she replied promptly, "but you speak as though you intended to hold me captive. What do you mean by that?"
"I mean," he said, measuring his words, and keeping his eyes steadily upon her, "to undertake the task of your reformation. I am going to turn you into something human—into a feeling, breathing, and, if necessary, a suffering woman. I am going to take away your false standards, to humble your vanity, to mortify your avarice. You shall see yourself, Virginia Gaunt, as you really are! Your outward beauty, upon which you trade, as your mother traded, is nothing to me but a whip, reminding me of the fool I was in my youth. I saw you first, using your lure, casting your net, hoping to secure young Rosenberg as your escape from poverty and debt. You nearly succeeded; you would have succeeded had not your friend belonged to a race which likes to have its money's-worth. You blush—yes, that shows the truth of my surmise. He would doubtless have been a more congenial solution of your problem than I; but he, alas, was not available! So you took me! And so you were very careful about the settlements! But there were things for which you forgot to stipulate—and those you must learn to do without!"
She was white now. Only her force of will kept her upon her feet. The insulting words stormed at her brain, and filled her with despair.
"You say this to me—to your wife. Is it fair, do you think?... I have not deceived you. You never asked me to give you love. I mean to keep my promises, without the goad of threats.... If—if I did wrong, in accepting what you offered, I am sorry. I want to do my duty, if you will help me ... but don't make it too—difficult."
"Excellent!" he commented. "A picture of wifely submission! We shall make something of you yet—perhaps in time. Meanwhile, it is as well to warn you that yours is to be no life of luxury. You must work, my girl—work, do you hear?"
"That will be nothing new," she replied tremulously. "I am used to hard work."
He laughed out. She looked like a creature whom the weariness of toil had never touched. He was so convinced of her idleness and frivolity that he could see nothing else.
"Work? You look like it. Your mother looks like it too. She fluttered into her Dover Street Club, clad like Solomon in all his glory, and with no more concern about the cost of her finery than the lilies of the field. The only work that women like you understand is how to spend money. That's your vocation, the business of your life! How to catch some man and wring from him the means to indulge your desires."
He was mounted on his hobby now, and his words came with a sudden fluency for which his previous taciturnity made her unprepared. "She was quite young—young enough to have been unworldly, you would have thought—when she jilted a poor man to marry a rich one. In spite of that innocent exterior, she was as clever as a pickpocket, as cautious as a Jew. Afterwards I remembered how carefully she had questioned me as to the likelihood of my coming into this property. There was a life between me and it. She was not taking any chances!... But, after all, the life failed. I came into my inheritance not so many years after my jilting ... and, by the Lord! when she was a needy widow and I was a rich man, she would have married me, had I so much as held up a finger. Do you deny it?"
Virginia could hardly breathe. If the hands she had clutched when drowning had contracted about her throat and held her down under water, she might have felt something the same consternation. Love! Love at first sight! Why, the man loathed her.
"But," she brought out breathlessly, "if this—if this is what you think of me, why—why have you married me?"
"I'll tell you why. I married because I am siren-proof, and I am going to reform you. You're young; you may not be irreclaimable. We'll see if I can change your nature; but if I can't do that, I swear I will control your actions. For the first time in your life, you are going to be disciplined. The starting-point for your training is that you should be completely cut off from your past. Therefore, you will not again see any of the members of your family, either here, or elsewhere. You need not look so incredulous. I carry out the things I undertake. Don't suppose you can escape from me."
The hatred in his voice was the outcome of twenty years of morbid egotism. The very atrocity of his amazing tirade helped his wife to rally. All her dignity, all her good breeding, came now to her support.
She spoke low but steadily. "It is true that I cannot escape. I bound myself this morning, by vows which to me are more binding than cords. But let me remind you that you also took vows—to love and to cherish."
He bowed ironically. "Oh, be sure that I shall cherish my piece of perfection," he replied, "and, when I have broken her to harness, I may reward her with my affection."
Her face, as she met his look, merited study. She had found a source of consolation in her misery—the consciousness of her own immense height above him. Terror, which had been succeeded by disgust, now disappeared altogether in sheer contempt.
"You have made us quits," she said simply. "This morning I felt myself under a great weight of obligation. Now you have paid yourself in full, paid yourself in insult to a helpless woman."
"Take care! Take care what you say to me!" he cried, swayed by a tumult of inexplicable feeling.
She made no answer. Only she faced him, no longer afraid, but coldly critical. Her look was almost pitying. As they stood confronted, the man had a curious experience. Her wonderful likeness to her mother vanished utterly, and he saw a woman strange to him not only in person but in type—a type as yet unknown.
There was a pause, which was broken by the roll of the gong in the hall. Gaunt started. Hemming threw open the door and announced dinner.
Caught at such a moment, the master of the house, to his annoyance, was taken aback and hesitated. His wife did not seem to share his embarrassment. With her head held high she advanced the few steps which separated them, and laid her hand upon his arm.
Together they walked out into the hall, under the respectful but close observation of the butler, and entered the dining-room, a dark and gloomy apartment, on the wooded north side of the house.
Here dinner was laid, in the style of a half-century ago.
To Gaunt's surprise, his wife began to talk almost at once. She spoke of the glorious view from the window of her room, inquired the height of Gladby Top, and mentioned her own taste for gardening. After a few minutes of moody uncertainty, Gaunt joined in her attempt to keep up appearances; and it was not until Hemming and Grover had placed dessert upon the table and left the room that the inevitable silence fell.