CUPID
“The U.S. citizen is a brainy lad, and it isn’t only for titles he comes over this side: I hardly suppose! Wilse Harkness, anyhow, Lord Porstock as he is since those birthday honours set things buzzing, knew a good thing when he saw one; and pretty Miss Winterhead, daughter of the lamented Lord Blisworth, was too good a thing to miss when he met her flying over Boston. When he found he hadn’t foul-hooked an angel (his first impression) he lost no time in exhorting her to nominate the anniversary. So the red carpets will have to be got out against her return to her charming country seat at Greylands, near West Mill in Herts, and the congregation will have another set of banns to sit out on Sunday. Lord Porstock’s fame as a good sportsman and a charming host has preceded him here, and those who envy him his fortune will not be slow to hold out to him the hand of good-fellowship. The best of luck to him and his winsome lady!”
They are yellow now with age, those lines that once looked fresh and clean in my scrap-book, and their old-world diction falls oddly on the ear, that once sounded so modern and so vivid. Yet they are still fresh to the heart of a sentimental old woman, whose wrinkled features could once justify those sprightly gallantries, and who felt then, with a certainty she has never had reason to regret, that the summer-time of her life was coming and that all was well with her world.
CHAPTER VIII
MY MARRIAGE
Mrs. Bilston: Marriage is a necessary evil; without it, we
should have no divorce.—Sheepshanks: Love, the Registrar.
I suppose all of us, except those methodical people who keep all their letters, and those who, yet more cold-blooded, destroy all their letters, find that they have little bundles left about in old drawers containing the correspondence that was addressed to them on such and such an occasion—when they won a prize, when they suffered a bereavement, and so on. I find I have just such a batch of documents relating to my engagement. Some of them are too conventional, some of them too personal to quote, but it can do no harm to give a few of them here, to show how we congratulated one another in those days upon a situation which, however the centuries slip past us, never loses its freshness. Here, then, is Lady Combe: the frigidity of her manner, I must here insist, was due to a natural incapacity to expand even in honour of an occasion, and does not betray any lack of good-will towards her fortunate young tenant:
My dear Opal,—
I cannot wait till your return to Greylands to send you my heartiest good wishes, and Sir Richard’s along with them. You would think me ungracious if I did not record the pleasure it gives me personally to hear that you intend remaining at Greylands and bringing your husband over to live in England. In my young days it was thought more natural for a wife to take up her residence with her husband and allow him to follow his own career, but doubtless this feeling has changed, as so much else has. Anyhow, I trust that you will be very happy. I am sure that you will have been too sensible to allow yourself to be carried away by your impetuous temperament into a step you would afterwards regret. Americans, I believe, have great charm sometimes: indeed, Sir Richard’s grandmother was a Canadian. So many marriages seem to turn out unhappy nowadays, and yet I don’t believe it’s because men are different from what they were; it seems to me that modern women don’t know how to treat them: they haven’t the home tact and the yieldingness, if I may use such a word, which makes for domestic harmony. You, I am sure, my dear Opal, will not fall into the mistake of looking upon your husband as a chattel to be played with. I do hope you will see your way to having the marriage performed down at West Mill. That Rowlands woman, of course, does make it difficult, but I know you agree with me that down in the country we must keep things together: and Rowlands himself is an excellent, well-meaning little man; I sometimes think it is a pity the Bishop does not recognize his services by transferring him to another living. Please let us know what you mean to do as soon as it is convenient, and accept my very earnest hopes that all will turn out for the best with regard to the step you are taking.
Yours very sincerely,