“Your duty, my dear, to God and man. It’ll be before you every day: all you have to do is to take it up.”
“Yes, yes, I know. But—Mr. Germain, I’m frightened—really. I’m ignorant and stupid—and of course I’m different from——”
“You’ve a pretty way of confessing it, at any rate,” said the Rector. “It will all come right, I hope. You are very quick, I can tell—you’ll learn your lesson in no time. I know you are a charming young lady, and believe a good one. There’s not much more than that in any one that I’ve ever seen in these parts. Now don’t be offended with me if I say that you are going to have a good husband, and ask you to deserve him.”
“Oh, Mr. Germain!”—her tears fell freely—“I do want to be good—I do mean to try!”
“Bless you, my dear, I’m quite sure of that,” said he, and gave her another kiss.
He told his wife that evening definitely that they must make the best of it, and gave her to understand that John’s wife must be taken at John’s valuation. If John chose to marry a kitchenmaid, that kitchenmaid was ipso facto on the Germain level; so also if John had selected an archduchess. A Germain could pick up or pull down, said the Rector in effect. But he also announced that he should go to town on the morrow—which weakened his decree.
So he did, and was away two days—an interval of time during which Mary went grimly about her duties and Mrs. Germain faced the problem of the Cantacutes. This lady may be pitied, who felt her crown slipping and throne rocking on its degrees. Her loyalty to the family into which she had been married was sapped; she did not see how Germain character was to be admired if it betrayed a Germain into such a vagary. Her husband, her temperate, frosty James, was involved; for the first time in her life she was tempted to work against him. She could do that, mind you; she had the weapon to her hand, a double-edged tool—Tristram. A hint to Tristram at Pau and he would be here—and once here, should he look upon Mary as she believed he would, as the lion on a lamb printed by his paw, why, what chance had John Germain against him? That villainy she could practise if she chose; but she knew it was a villainy, and that she was no villain. Then there was another way, not villainous—nay, was it not a duty? She could tell John Germain what she knew of Tristram and hint at more than she knew. A Germain would shiver at such a tarnish on his ideal—she could see John shut his eyes as the spasm passed over him; but there was this difficulty about it, that she could not write to him without her husband’s knowledge—nay, without his approbation—whereas, what more natural than that she should deplore with her cousin Laura Duplessis this miserable state of affairs? Mrs. James was no villain; she was merely a proud woman touched on a raw. Her security, her comfort, her authority, her self-esteem were all threatened by an act of dotage; what else was this infatuation of John Germain’s, pray? And there are sophistries to help the very best of us. Had there been nothing between Tristram and Mary, Mrs. Duplessis would have been invited to sympathize; and there was nothing, after all. Tristram, with his high connexions, his talents, and his superb air—and a little sly teacher! The thing was absurd! Fully convinced of its absurdity, Mrs. James marched down to the Cottage, and found her cousin Duplessis arranged on a sofa with a white lace mantilla over her head; her hand-bell in easy call, and a smelling-bottle attached to her wrist by a little chain.
Mrs. Duplessis had been handsome, and remembered it. Everything about her person reminded her of that—her languor, her elegance, her thin hands, her fine complexion, her tall son. “How I survived the birth of that great boy passes my comprehension. My nerves, you know! My dear Hector, all fire as he was, had the tact of a woman. ‘M’amie,’ he said, ‘never again; or I accuse myself of murder. Hence-forward I am a monk.’ He kept his word, but it killed him. Do not men die for women? My poor, brave Hector!” Apart from these tender reminiscences, she had her poverty to cherish, to tinge with dignity, to show burnished—with a lovely patina like old lacquer. “We live wretchedly, as you can see, my dear soul; but we pay our way and hold our heads up. We only owe to ourselves, and are indulgent creditors. Tristram, I suppose will marry: il doit se ranger, vraiment. But he says that we can afford leisure—our only luxury! The good Cantacutes are most kind, and Hertha a really charming girl. . . . Why is it that young men cannot see where their fortune lies? Cynicism? Arrogance? Ingratitude? I ask myself these questions.”
She was enormously interested in the news, and gratified. “My poor soul, what a blow! John Germain, of all humdrum persons in the world—and the girl not even pretty, you say. Clever, though. Have you broken it to Emily Cantacute? I don’t envy you that task.”
“It’s not done yet,” said Mrs. James grimly.