The sentence was never completed. A ring at the bell made Mrs. Baldwin take flight in terror lest it should be the announcement of visitors, whom, with the evident traces of recent tears on her face, she felt anything but prepared to meet. She need not, have been afraid. It was only Squire Copley who had walked over to discuss drains with Geoffrey, so she was left undisturbed for the rest of the afternoon.
She felt brighter and happier. The little conversation with Geoffrey, confined thought it had been almost entirely to business matters, had yet done her good, taken her a little out of herself, given her a not unpleasant feeling that notwithstanding all that had occurred to separate them, they had yet, must have, husband and wife as they were, some interest in common, some ground on which from time to time they were likely to meet.
“And any,” thought she, “is better than none, even though it be only the unromantic one of money matters.”
Geoffrey’s tone at the commencement of their conversation had somewhat puzzled her. Transparent as she imagined him, she was beginning to find him sometimes difficult to read. If he were tired of her, worn out by her coldness and moodiness, as she had begun to fancy, could he, would he not be more than human to address her with the intense tenderness which this afternoon had breathed through his whole words and manner? On the other hand, was it not more than could be expected of any man, save an exceptionally deep and adhesive character (“Such as Ralph’s, for instance,” she said to herself,) that through all that had happened, all the bitter disappointment and mortification, he should yet continue to care for, to love such a wife, or rather no wife, as she been to him? He had echoed, without, she fancied, fully comprehending her own words, “it is too late.” Was it too late? Or could it be that even yet, even now, in what she felt to be in a figurative sense, the autumn of her life, there was rising before her a possibility such as she had been indignant with brave, unselfish Ralph for predicting, nay, urging on her, a possibility of happiness, chastened and tempered, but none the less real on this account, for herself and for the man to whom she was bound by the closest and most sacred of ties? And of better than happiness—of harmony and meaning in her life, of living rather than mere enduring of existence, of duties to do and suffering to bear, both sanctified and rendered beautiful by love. Could it be that such things were yet in store for her? She could hardly believe it. Yet as she remembered Geoffrey’s look and voice, her heart yearned within her, and the tears again welled up to her eyes, but softly, and without bitterness or burning. All that afternoon till it grew dark she sat by the fire in her room—thinking and hoping as she had not been able to do for long.
Though pale and wearied looking, there was a gentle light and brightness about her that evening very pleasant for Geoffrey to see. It reminded him of the days when he first knew her—still more of the first days of their married life. And though the remembrance brought with it a sigh, it too was less bitter than tender; and his voice was very gentle that evening when he had occasion to speak to his young wife.
Mr. Wrexham duly made his appearance. Marion’s first impression of him was unfavourable. She felt quite ready to echo Geoffrey’s indefinite expressions of dislike. But later in the evening she somewhat modified her first opinion. He was so clever and amusing, so thoroughly “up” in all the subjects of the day, from the last novel to yesterday’s debate, that she felt really interested and refreshed by his conversation. It was more the sort of talk she had been accustomed to in her father’s house, and which, as far as her experience went, was by no means indigenous to Brentshire, where the men’s ideas seldom extended beyond fox-hunting and “birds,” varied occasionally by a dip into drains and such like farmers’ interests; and where the still narrower minds of the women rotated among servants and babies, descriptions at second or third hand of the probable fashions, and gossip not unfrequently verging on something very like downright scandal.
Mr. Wrexham seemed at home on every subject and in every direction. Certainly his personal appearance was against him, and the fact that in five minutes’ time it ceased to impress his companions disagreeably, in itself says a good deal for his cleverness and tact. He was middle-sized and fat—not stout, fat—loose, and somewhat flabby. A large head, with a bare, bald forehead such as many people take as a guarantee of brains and benevolence, small twinkling eyes, a preponderance of jaw and mouth, and a pair of fat, white, and yet determined looking hands—all these do not make up an attractive whole. But he talked away his own ugliness, and talked himself, with that round, full voice of his, into his young hostess’s good graces in a really wonderful way. He did not flatter her; he was far too clever to make such a mistake. He appealed to her knowledge of the subjects they were conversing about in a matter-of-course way far more insidiously gratifying to a sensible and intellectual woman. Once or twice, as if inadvertently, he alluded to her father, the loss the country had sustained in his premature death, the immense veneration he, Mr. Wrexham, had always felt for him, though not personally acquainted with the great man, and so on, so delicately and judiciously, that Marion’s dislike was perfectly overcome, and she mentally resolved never again to trust to first impressions. After dinner, as she expected, the gentlemen sat long in the dining-room. She was growing tired and sleepy when they joined her. Geoffrey’s face, she was glad to see, looked brighter and less anxious than it had appeared during dinner. Mr. Wrexham had evidently the faculty of talking business as pleasantly as everything else, for his host’s manner to him had decidedly increased in cordiality.
“We were just talking of Miss Temple in the other room,” began Mr. Wrexham. “I am delighted to find how intimate a friend of yours she is, Mrs. Baldwin. A charming, really charming person she must be. By-the-by, how terribly abused that word often is! I have not the pleasure of knowing her personally, but her books make one feel as if she were a personal friend.”
“Her books!” repeated Marion, in surprise. “Miss Temple’s books! I never knew she had written any. Did you, Geoffrey?”
“Oh yes,” said he, “it was ever so long ago she wrote them. I believe they’re out of print now.”