"Titania and Bottom, by Jove!" whispered Ronalds to me as Tompkins followed his wife into the drawing-room on the evening of their arrival at Grantleigh Manor. (Tompkins is asked everywhere on account of his relationship to old Lord Wrexford.) My fancy, which I had allowed to play freely about the lady of Tompkins' choice since I had heard of his marriage, had wavered between a spinster of uncertain age who had accepted him as a dernier resort and a simpering school girl too young to know her own mind. I now glanced at the bride—and gasped.
She was one of those women whose beauty is so absolute, so compelling, as to admit of neither question nor criticism. It quite took away one's breath. Every man in the room was gaping at her, but she bore the ordeal with all grace and calm, though she was the daughter of a struggling curate in some obscure locality remote from social advantages. She was of a singularly striking type: the beauty of her face was almost tragic in its intensity: the ghost of some immemorial sorrow seemed to lurk in the depths of her dark eyes: but when her too sombre expression was irradiated by the transient gleam of her rare smile, she was positively dazzling. (I am aware that I shall seem to "promulgate rhapsodies for dogmas" so to speak, but my proverbial indifference to feminine charm should endorse me.)
As the days passed—we were at Grantleigh for a fortnight—I found myself watching for some flaw in her conception, some inaccuracy in her interpretation of her role. But I watched in vain. There was always a perfect appreciation of the requirements of the situation, always the perfection of taste in its treatment. Evidently she had thrown herself into the part and was playing it—would play it, perhaps, to the end—with artistic abandon, tempered by a fine discretion and discrimination. If her yoke galled, this proud woman made no sign. But even the subtlest artiste has her unguarded moment, and it was in such a moment that I chanced to see her the night before the last of our stay.
The men had come in late from a day's shooting over the moors and were on their way to their rooms to dress for dinner. Tompkins had gone up stairs just ahead of me (his apartments were next mine) and had carelessly left a door opening on the corridor slightly ajar. In passing I unconsciously glanced that way and my eyes fell full upon the mirrored face of Elinor Tompkins as her husband crossed toward where she sat at her dressing table. The flash of feeling that crossed her countenance held me for a moment transfixed. Such a look, such an unbelievable complex of shrinking, repugnance, utter loathing and self-contempt I had never seen or imagined.... Like a flash it came and went. The next instant she had forced herself to smile and was lifting her face for her husband's caress, while Tompkins, physically and mentally short-sighted, bent and inclined his lips to hers. I caught my breath sharply. A choking sensation in my throat paid tribute to her art. Not even Duse was more a mistress of emotional control, expression, and repression. But this was something more than the perfection of acting: it was courage, the courage of endurance long drawn out—a greater than that which impels men to the cannon's mouth and a swift and sure surcease from suffering.
That evening at dinner, Villars, who had run up to town for the day, and found time for a gossip at the Club, proceeded to open his budget. He had had the satisfaction of surprising us with the rumored engagement of Lady Agatha Trelor to the scapegrace son of an impoverished peer: he had hinted delicately at a scandal in high official life: and had made his climax with the announcement of the sudden demise of old Lord Ilverton and the consequent succession of Delmar to his title and estates—when I glanced, by purest chance, at Mrs. Tompkins. (I had fallen into a way of looking at her often—she was certainly an interesting study.) Her face was white, even to the lips. Chancing to turn, she found my eyes upon her. In an instant she had somehow compelled the color to her cheeks and recovered her wonted perfect poise and calm.
That night in the smoking room, Villars shed light upon the subject. Tompkins was presumably haunting his wife's footsteps at the moment. In his unconscious egotism he never spared her: there was seldom a moment when she might drop her smiling mask: the essence of his personality pervaded her whole atmosphere.
"I met old Waxby at the Club to-day," Villars was saying, "and—apropos of Delmar's succession to the title—he mentioned that there had been a serious affair of the heart between him and our fellow-guest, Mrs. Tompkins, then Elinor Barton. It seems one of Ilverton's innumerable country places was near the village where the Bartons lived and Delmar met the girl there last Autumn. The affair soon assumed serious proportions: Ilverton heard of the engagement: cut up an awful shindy: had a scene with Del, and finally bundled him off to India post haste. The girl had grit, though. She sent her compliments to Lord Ilverton with the assurance that he need have given himself no uneasiness, as she had already twice refused his son and heir, and was prepared to repeat the refusal should occasion arise. They say his Lordship, who had cooled down a bit, chuckled mightily over the message and vowed that had it only been one of his younger sons, she should have had him, by Jupiter!... But things weren't easy for the girl at home. She had an invalid mother, a nervous, nagging creature, who dinned it into her ears that she'd lost the chance of a lifetime: that she was standing in the light of three marriageable younger sisters: that with her limited social advantages few matrimonial opportunities might be expected to come her way—and more to the same effect till the poor girl was nearly driven frantic."
"Why not have tried the stage—with her voice and presence any manager would have been glad to take her on," Landis suggested.