Mrs. Wradisley was not at all a nervous nor a timorous woman. She was very free of fancies, but still she was disturbed a little. She allowed Lucy to run on with exclamations and conjectures after the master of the house had retired. “What is the matter with Reginald? What has happened? What does he mean by it? He never paid any attention to our garden parties before.”
Mrs. Wradisley was a very sensible woman, as has been said. After a very short interval she replied, calmly, “Most likely he does not mean anything at all, my dear. He has just taken a fancy to have everything very nice. It is delightful of him to let his collection be seen. That almost makes us independent of the weather, as there is so much in the house to see; but I do believe Stevenson is right, and that we are going to have a most beautiful day.”
But though she made this statement, a little wonder remained in her mind. She had not, she remembered, been very well lately. Did Reginald think she was failing, and that it might really be his mother’s last entertainment to her neighbors? It was not a very pleasant thought, for nothing had occurred for a long time to disturb the quiet tenor of Mrs. Wradisley’s life, and Ralph had come back to her out of the wilds, and she was contented. She put the thought away, going out to the housekeeper to talk over anything that was necessary, but it gave her a little shock in spite of herself.
Mr. Wradisley, as may well be believed, had no thought at all of his mother’s health, which he believed to be excellent, but he had begun to think a little of brighter possibilities, of the substitution of another feminine head to the house, and entertainments in which, through her, he would take a warmer interest. But it was only partly this, and partly nothing at all, as his sensible mother said, only the suppressed excitement in him and impulse to do something to get through the time until he should see Mrs. Nugent again and know his fate. He did not feel very much afraid, notwithstanding all she had said in the shock of the moment. He could understand that to a young widow, a fanciful young woman, more or less touched by the new fancies women had taken up, the idea of replacing her husband by another, of loving a second time, which all the sentimentalists are against, would be for the moment a great shock. She might feel the shock all the more if she felt, too, that there was something in her heart that answered to that alarming proposal, and might feel that to push off the thought with both hands, with all her might, was the only thing possible. But the reflections of the night and of the new morning, which had risen with such splendor of autumnal sunshine, would, he felt almost sure, make a great difference. Mrs. Nugent did not wear mourning; it was probably some years since her husband’s death. She was not very well off, and did not seem to have many relations who could help her, or she would not have come here so unfriended, to a district in which nobody knew her. Was it likely that she should resist all that he had to offer, the love of a good man, the shelter of a well-known, wealthy, important name and house? It was not possible that for a mere sentiment a woman so full of sense as she was, could resist these. The love of a good man—if he had not had a penny in the world, that would be worth any woman’s while; and she would feel that. He thought, as he arranged with a zeal he had never felt before, the means of amusing and occupying his mother’s guests, that he would have all the more chance of getting her by herself, of finding time and opportunity to lead her out of the crowd to get her answer. Surely, surely, the chances were all in favor of a favorable answer. It was not as if he were a nobody, a chance-comer, a trifling or unimportant person. He had always been aware that he was an important person, and it seemed impossible that she should not see it too.
Ralph Wradisley and his friend Bertram went out for a long walk. They were both “out of it,” the son as much as the visitor, and both moved with similar inclinations to run away. “Of course I’ll meet some fellows I know,” Ralph said. “Shall I though? The fellows of my age are knocking about somewhere, or married and settled, and that sort of thing. I’ll meet the women of them, sisters, and so forth, and perhaps some wives. It’s only the women that are fixtures in a country like this; and what are the women to you and me?”
“Well, to me nothing but strangers—but so would the men be too.”
“Ah, it’s all very well to talk,” said Ralph. “Women have their place in society, and so forth—wouldn’t be so comfortable without them, I suppose. But between you and me, Bertram, there ain’t very much in women for fellows like us. I’m not a marrying man—neither are you, I suppose? The most of them about here are even past the pretty girl stage, don’t you know, and I don’t know how to talk to them. Africa plays the deuce with you for that.”
“No,” said Bertram, “I am not a marrying man. I am—I feel I ought to tell you, Wradisley—there never was any need to go into such questions before, and you may believe I don’t want to carry a placard round my neck in the circumstances;—well—I am a married man, and that is the truth.”
Ralph turned upon him with a long whistle and a lifting of the eyebrows. “By Jove!” he said.
“I hope you won’t bear me a grudge for not telling you before. In that case I’ll be off at once and bother you no more.”