“Disappointment!” he echoed again, and then after a pause he said, earnestly, “My lady, there must be no nonsense about Lucy. There must be no second fiasco of a marriage. You are not a duenna, and I don’t want you to behave as if she was not to be trusted; but, after all, what is Lucy but a girl, like others? She must be taken care of; there must be no nonsense about her. If Arthur had behaved as he ought, it might have been different; but Arthur has been a fool, and there’s an end of it, and that changes her position.”
“John,” said Lady Curtis, hastily, “you will do nothing without consideration? I am not defending Arthur, but you will not do anything without serious thought?”
“What do you suppose I can do?” he asked, with some bitterness. “Nothing, or next to nothing. Oh, no, he will have everything his own way. But Lucy’s position is changed all the same. She is, as it were, the only one we have. If it were not that celibacy never answers, I would tie her up not to marry, at least, in our lifetime.”
“Oh, John!” cried Lady Curtis, in the extremity of her surprise.
“Well, why not? It would be a great deal pleasanter for you and me. I hate a girl marrying, losing her head, as they all do, and forgetting herself for some poor creature of a man. Lord, if they knew just what the men are that they take for something above the common! I don’t think I could bear to see my Lucy philandering and going on with a fellow, probably not worth a word from her. But celibacy, I suppose, does not answer; at least, it is supposed not to answer, especially for women. A man may get on well enough.”
“A great many women get on well enough; but you cannot wish it, John, surely you cannot wish it. Is it to secure a companion for us that you would have Lucy, poor child, give up her own life?”
“That is nonsense,” said Sir John. “Life is something more than marriage. That is the folly of women. Nothing makes up to them for this one thing. They have got it into their heads that love—love and marrying—is all life is good for. Fiddlesticks! Look at all the men in the clubs. They are chiefly unmarried men, and they lead a pleasant life enough. A married man, with all his cares, can’t come up to them. They have a much jollier time of it than I have, for example.”
“But Lucy—our Lucy! You would not like her to be like one of your old roués at the club!” cried Lady Curtis, half horrified, half laughing.
“They are not roués; that’s another of your fancies. They are worthy old fellows, many of them with a great stake in the country. Now why, I say, mightn’t a woman do just as well unmarried? There would be plenty for her to enjoy. If she hadn’t her club, she would have society as much as she could set her face to; and she could travel, if she liked that, as much as any man, and see life; and she could do no end of good, if that was her turn. Look at Miss Coutts.”
“And this is the life you would choose for Lucy!” cried her mother. “Are you out of your senses, John? No kind husband for her, like what you have been to me; no children to climb about her—”