Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

This childish treason to her at that moment was a stab. She got up with a smile, and opened her arms wide, her eyes shining under her straight brows.

“Come, dear little boy,” she said.

The tone was so winning, so compelling, it went to the child’s baby heart. He ran to his mother, with wide-open arms, who caught him and held him tight, covering his yellow mop of hair with kisses. Throckmorton looked on surprised and admiring. He had never seen Judith yield to anything emotional like that; she was laughing, blushing, and almost crying, as Beverley swung round her neck. And Throckmorton thought he had never seen her look so handsome as when she ran out of the room, carrying the child, who was a sturdy fellow, in her slender arms, her face deeply flushed. Throckmorton, as he held the door open for her to pass out, gave her a meaning smile; but Judith would not look at him. Up-stairs, Beverley was soon in his little bed. Judith, sitting on the floor, with both arms crossed on the crib, held one of the child’s little warm hands in hers; the only real and comforting thing in life then seemed that childish hand.

“I will stay an hour,” she said. “Mother will be vexed”—Mrs. Temple had old-fashioned ideas about leaving girls to themselves—“but he shall be happy. I will see that he has his chance.” But, like Throckmorton himself, she feared for his happiness. Nobody knew better than she Jacqueline’s weakness. She had, indeed, a sort of childish cleverness, which was, however, of no practical good to her; but then, as Judith remembered, Throckmorton’s love could transform any woman. “Yes, I shall go through it,” she thought, still kneeling on the carpet, and pressing her face to the child’s in the crib; “Jacqueline will insist that I shall take off the mourning I wear for the man I never loved, at the wedding of the man I do love. If Throckmorton has any doubts or troubles with Jacqueline, he will certainly come to me. I will help him loyally, and he will need a friend. So far, though, from making me suffer more, the hope of befriending him is the only hope I have left in the world. I wonder how it feels to have one’s heart aching and throbbing for another woman’s husband—to be counting time by the times one sees him? For assuredly a few words spoken by a priest can not change this.” She struck her heart. “And in everything Jacqueline will be blest above me. See how poor and straitened we are, and Jacqueline’s life will be free from any care at all! However, to be loved by Throckmorton must mean to be rich and free and happy.” And then, with a sort of clear-eyed despair, she began to look into the future, and see all of Jacqueline’s and Throckmorton’s life spread out before her. “And how unworthy she is!” she almost cried out aloud. She had now risen from the crib and was gazing out of the window at Millenbeck, that was plainly visible across the white stretch of snow between the two places. “Of course, she will love him—no woman could help that—but she can’t understand him. She will not have the slightest respect for his habits, and will always be wanting him to alter them for her. She never will understand the reserves of Throckmorton’s nature. She will tease him with questions. I would not care if Jacqueline were the one to be unhappy”—for so had pain changed her toward the child that had been to her almost as her own—“but in a few years the spell will have vanished. Throckmorton will find out that she is no companion for him. There can be no real companionship for any man like Throckmorton except with a woman somewhere near his own level—least of all now, when he is no longer young.”

Then she came back and took the child out of his little bed, and held him in her arms and wept passionately over him. “At least I have you, darling; I have you!” she cried.

Down-stairs, in the drawing-room, Throckmorton made good use of his time. With very little apprenticeship, he knew how to make love so that any woman would listen to him.

He told Jacqueline that he loved her, in his own straightforward way; and Jacqueline, whose heart beat furiously, who was frightened and half rebellious, suffered him to get a few shy words from her. Throckmorton did not stoop to deny his age, but he condescended to apologize for it. In a dim and nebulous way Jacqueline understood the value of the man who thus offered his manly and unstained heart, but she felt acutely the want of common ground between them.

Throckmorton’s love-making was not at all what simple Jacqueline fancied love-making to be. He did not protest—he did not talk poetry, nor abase himself; he made no exaggerated promises, nor did he sue for her love. At the first sign of yielding, he caught her to his heart and devoured her with kisses. Yet, when Jacqueline wanted to escape from him, he let her go. He would not keep her a moment unwillingly. Jacqueline did not understand this masterful way of doing things. She fancied that a lover meant a slave, and apparently Throckmorton considered a lover meant a master.

At the end of an hour, Judith returned to the room. Throckmorton was standing alone on the hearth-rug, in a meditative attitude. In his eyes, as they sought Judith’s, was a kind of passionate, troubled joy; he doubted much, but he did not doubt his love for Jacqueline. He went forward and took Judith’s hand, who lifted her eyes, strangely bright, to his face. She was smiling, too, and a faint blush glowed in her cheeks. There were no visible signs of tears.