“Not another word, my little beauty. To prayers you must go. It’s a rotten bore, but it’s the duty of a wife to advance her husband’s interests. Get our mighty cousin down on us, and we live in Hertfordshire all the year round.”
Although she hid the thought, Julia would have submitted to more than prayers to avoid living alone in a small house in the country with her husband. She had heard so much of duty during the last year (even her mother’s letters were full of it), that she had set her teeth in the face of matrimony, persuaded herself that France was no more offensive than other husbands, that hers was the common lot of woman, and, after reading Nigel’s book, that she was singularly fortunate in not having been born in the slums. But although she refused to admit to her consciousness a certain terrified mumbling in the depths of her brain, she did acknowledge that she no longer had the least desire for a child, and that she hated the scent of the pomade on her husband’s moustache. It was a pomade that had been fashionable for several years, and was used as sparingly as possible on France’s bristles; but lesser trifles have killed love in women, and Julia, frankly unloving, conceived an unconquerable aversion for this sickly scent; to this day it rises in her memory as associated with the abominable injustice that had been committed on her youth.
But she kept her mind and time fully occupied. She visited the sick, rode her good horse, and read until there was nothing left in the Bosquith library to satisfy her still insatiable mind. Then, for the first time, she realized that she had not a penny in her purse, had not had since her first few weeks in London. She made out a list of books she wanted, surmounted her diffidence, and asked her husband if she might order them from London. France, when she approached him, was smoking a pipe by the library fire, his cannon-ball head sunken luxuriously into the cushions of the chair, and his glassy eyes half closed. He pulled her down on his knee and read the list, then laughed aloud and pinched her ear.
“Never heard of one of these books, but they have an expensive look—wager not one of them costs under a pound. That would mean about ten pounds—by Gad! That would never do. I’m economizing and you must, too; for although we shall live with Kingsborough, we can’t expect him to pay for our clothes and all the rest of it. Besides, I don’t want an intellectual wife—had no idea you read such bally rot. Intellectual wives are bores, get red noses, and rims round their eyes. Jove! Think of those eyes gettin’ red and dim. I’d make a bonfire of all the books in England first. No, my lady, it’s your business to look pretty, and to remember a famous saying of our future king: ‘Bright women, yes; but no damned intellect.’ We want to have a rippin’ time as soon as Salisbury is in again, and I won’t have you frightenin’ people off.”
“I never supposed you would care so much for society,” said Julia, lamely. “I always think of you as a sailor.”
“I want what’ll be mine before long—what I’ve been kept out of long enough,” he answered savagely.
Julia was shocked. It was the first time he had betrayed himself, so anxious had he been for her good opinion, so careful not to excite himself with tempers until his heart was quite strong again. As she left his knee and turned her disconcerting eyes on him, he recovered himself with a laugh.
“I believe it’s all your mother’s fault. She told me it was your fate—by all the stars!—to be a duchess, and I don’t think I’ve got it out of my head since. But you know I’m devilish fond of my cousin—only one I’ve got, for those old hags don’t count. I’ll chuck such ideas, and—” his voice became sonorous with virtue—“think only of his kindness and of serving my country when my time comes.”
The time came in July, and he carried his borough almost without effort, so irresistible was the conservative reaction. He was not much of an orator, but not much was required of him. He made a fine appearance on a platform, and when, after a flattering introduction by the chairman, he stood up before a sympathetic audience, and between some scraps of party wisdom, furnished by the duke, doubled up his aristocratic hand and wedged it firmly into his manly thigh, and brought out in all its inflections: “Indeed, I may say—Indeed, I may say—Indeed, I may say—Indeed I may say!” the applause was stupendous.
Julia, sitting behind him with the duke, had much ado not to laugh aloud, but, then, Julia was an alien, and had no appreciation of gentlemen’s oratory.