It is impossible for two to live together, however, without mutual reaction, and Elsie had unquestionably lost something of the fineness of the breeding which was hers by right of birth. For a time after her marriage she had been excessively given up to gayety. She had figured as a leader in the fastest of the "smart set," as society journals called it. She rode well, owned a stud which could not be matched in town, and raced for stakes which startled the conservative old city. It was even affirmed by the more credulous or more scandalous of the gossips that it was only the stand taken by the managers of the County Club which prevented her on one occasion from riding as her own jockey; and short of this there was little she did not do.
All this, however, was in the early days of the marriage, before Dr. Wilson had become accustomed to his position as husband of the richest woman in town and a member of what was to him the sacred aristocracy. When the time came that he had found his place and entered his veto upon these wild doings, there was an instant and determined revolt on the part of his wife. Elsie fought desperately to maintain her position as head of the family. By way of humiliating her husband she flirted with an openness which won for her a reputation by no means to be envied, and she wantonly trampled on his wishes. Given a husband, however, with an iron will and a fibre not too fine, with a good temper and yet with a certain ruthlessness in asserting his sway, and there is little doubt that in the end he will triumph. If a clever, handsome, good-humored man does not subdue a wild, headstrong wife, it is almost surely owing to over-delicacy; and Chauncy Wilson was never hampered by this. Elsie plunged and reared when she felt the curb,—to use a figure which in those days might have been her own,—but she was by a judicious application of whip and spur taught that she had found her master. The result was that she became not only manageable, but devotedly fond of her husband. No woman was ever mastered and treated with kindness who did not thereupon love. Dr. Wilson was too good-natured to be unkind, and for the most part he allowed his wife to have her way, fully aware that he had but to speak to restrain her; and thus it came about that the household was on a most peaceful and satisfactory basis.
Mrs. Wilson, however, craved excitement, and ethical amusements she laughed to scorn. She did, it is true, take up high-church piety, which she treated, as Mrs. Staggchase did not hesitate to say, as a plaything; but her interest in church matters was chiefly in the line of politics. She took charge of the affairs of the Church of the Nativity with a high hand which abashed and disquieted the devout rector. She liked Mr. Candish, although she did not hesitate to jest at his unpolished manners and rather unprepossessing person, and it was inevitable that she should be unable to appreciate his self-denying devotion. On one or two occasions she had found him to have a will not inferior to her own; and although she resented whatever balked her pleasure, she was yet a woman and respected power in a man.
Mr. Candish was of all men the one least resembling the traditional pastor of a fashionable church, and had nothing of the caressing manner dear to the souls of self-pampered penitents. Fashionable women found little to admire in this man with the air of a bourgeois and the simplicity of a babe. He had, however, a strong will, and a sure faith which was not without its effect upon his parishioners. Ladies whose religion was largely an affair of nerves found comfort in relying upon his simple and untroubled devotion. They were piqued by being treated as souls rather than bodies, but this was perhaps one of the secrets of his influence. Every woman of his flock had unconsciously some secret conviction that to her was reserved the triumph of subduing this intractable nature, hitherto unconquered by the fascinations of the sex. An ugly man may generally be successful with women if he remains sufficiently indifferent to them. His unattractiveness, suggesting, as it must, the idea of his having cause to be especially solicitous and humble, imparts to his attitude in such a case an all-subduing flavor of mystery. The instinctive belief of the other sex is that he is but protecting his sensitiveness, and each longs to tear aside the veil of dissimulation. The rector, it may be added, was an eloquent preacher, and he intoned the service wonderfully. His voice in speaking was somewhat harsh, but when he intoned, it melted into a beautiful baritone, rich, full, and sweet, which, informed by his deep and earnest feeling, thrilled his hearers with profound emotion. Mrs. Wilson was proud of the effect which the service at the Nativity always had, and she took in it the double pleasure of one who claimed a share in religious enthusiasms and who had something of the glory of a manager whose tenor succeeds in opera.
Into the contest over the election of a bishop to fill the place recently left vacant Mrs. Wilson had thrown herself with characteristic vigor. There were but two candidates now seriously considered, the Rev. Rutherford Strathmore and Father Frontford. The former, a popular preacher of liberal views, was regarded as the more likely to receive the appointment, but the High Church party contested the point warmly, supporting the claims of the Father Superior of the Clergy House which was the home of Maurice Wynne and Philip Ashe. The political side of the matter was exactly to Mrs. Wilson's taste. A woman has but to be rich enough and determined enough to be allowed to amuse herself with the highest concerns of both church and state; and Mrs. Wilson lacked neither money nor determination. Her vigor at first disconcerted and in the end outwardly subdued the clergy. If she actually had less influence than she supposed, she was at least thoroughly entertained, and that after all was her object. She interviewed influential persons, she wrote letters, some of them sufficiently ill-judged, she sought information in regard to the character and circumstances of the clergy in the diocese, and did everything with the zeal and dash which characterized whatever she undertook.
"Have you any idea what Mrs. Wilson wants of us?" Wynne asked of
Philip, as they waited in the luxurious reception-room.
"I only know that Father Frontford said that we were to put ourselves under her orders," was the reply. "Of course it is something about the election."
Maurice looked at him keenly.
"Old fellow," he said, "you look pale. What's the matter with you?"
"I didn't sleep well," Ashe answered with a flush. "I went to Mrs. Fenton's to dine, and the indulgence wasn't good for me. It's really nothing."