So the same afternoon, Lady Modyford had powdered her round, fat, little face, and put on her pretty coquettish French bonnet, and driven round in full state from Government House to Edward Hawthorn’s new bungalow in the Westmoreland valleys.
As the carriage with its red-liveried black footmen drove up to the door, Marian’s heart sank once more within her: she knew it was the governor’s wife come to call; and she had a vague presentiment in her own mind that the fat little woman inside the carriage would send in her card out of formal politeness, and drive away at once without waiting to see her. But instead of that, Lady Modyford came up the steps with great demureness, and walked into the bare drawing-room, after Marian’s rather untidy and quite raw black waiting-maid; and the moment she saw Marian, she stepped up to her very impulsively, and held out both her hands, and kissed the poor young bride on either cheek with genuine tenderness. ‘My dear,’ she said, with a motherly tremor in her kind old voice, ‘you must forgive me for making myself quite at home with you at once, and not standing upon ceremony in any way; but I knew your mother years ago—she was just like you then—and I know what a lonely thing it is for a newly married girl to come out to a country like this, quite away from her own people; and I shall be so glad if you’ll take Sir Adalbert and me just as we are. We’re homely people, and we don’t live far away from you; and if you’ll run round and see me any time you feel lonely or are in want of anything, why, you know, of course, my dear, we shall be delighted to see you.’
And then, before Marian could wipe away the tears that rose quickly to her eyes, fat little Lady Modyford had gone off into reminiscences of Singapore and Bombay, and that dear Mrs Ord, and the baby that died—‘Your sister, you know, my dear—the one that was born at Calcutta, and died soon after your dear mamma reached England.—No, of course, my dear; your mamma couldn’t know that I was here, because, you see, when she and I came home together—why, that was twenty-two years ago—no, twenty-four, I declare, because Sir Adalbert—he was plain Mr Modyford then, on three hundred a year, in the Straits Settlements colonial service—didn’t propose to me till the next summer, when he came home on leave, you know, just before he was removed to Hong-kong by that horrid Lord Modbury, who was Colonial Secretary in those days, and afterwards died of suppressed gout, the doctors said, at his own villa at that delightful Spezzia. So you see I was Kitty Fitzroy at that time, my child; and I daresay your mamma, who’s older than me a good bit, of course, never heard about my marrying Sir Adalbert, for we were married very quietly down in Devonshire, where Sir Adalbert’s father was a rector in a very small parish, on a tiny income; and we started at once for Hong-kong, and spent our honeymoon at Venice—a nasty, damp, uncomfortable place for a wedding tour, I call it, but not nearly so bad as you coming out here straight from the church door almost, Miss Dupuy told me; and Trinidad too, well known to be an unsociable, dead-alive sort of an island. But whenever you like, dear, you must just jump on your horse—you’ve got horses, of course?—yes, I thought so—and ride over to Government House, and have a good chat with me and Emily; for, indeed, Mrs Hawthorn—what’s your Christian name?—Marian—ah, very pretty—we should like to see you as often as you choose; and next week, after you’ve settled down a little, you must really come up and stop some time with us; for I assure you I have quite taken a fancy to you, my dear; and Sir Adalbert, when he saw Mr Hawthorn the other day, at the Island Secretary’s office, came home quite delighted, and said to me: “Kitty, the young man they’ve sent out for the new District judge is the very man to keep that something old fool Dupuy in order in future.”’
Lady Modyford waited a good deal longer than is usual with a first call, and got very friendly indeed with poor Marian before the end of her visit; for coarse-grained woman of the world as she was, her heart warmed not a little towards the friendless young bride who had come out to Trinidad—dull hole, Trinidad, not at all like Singapore, or Mauritius, or Cape Town—to find herself so utterly deserted by all society. And next day, all female Trinidad was talking, over five-o’-clock tea, about the remarkable fact, learnt indirectly through those unrecognised purveyors of fashionable intelligence, the servants, that that horrid proud Lady Modyford—‘who treats you and me, my dear, as if we were the dirt beneath her feet, don’t you know, and must call with two footmen and so much grandeur and formality’—had actually kissed that brown man’s wife, that’s to be the new District judge in Westmoreland, on both cheeks, the very first moment she saw her. Female Trinidad was so inexpressibly shocked at this disgraceful behaviour in a person officially charged with the maintenance of a high standard of decorum, that it was really half inclined to think it ought to cut Lady Modyford direct on next meeting her. It was restrained from this extreme measure, however, by a wholesome consideration of the fact that Lady Modyford would undoubtedly take the rebuff with unruffled amusement; so it contented itself by merely showing a little coldness to the governor’s wife when it happened to meet her, and refusing to enter into conversation with her on the subject of Marian and Edward Hawthorn.
As for Marian herself, she had a good cry, as soon as Lady Modyford was gone, over this interview also. Kind as the governor’s wife had wished to show herself, and genuinely sympathetic as she had actually been, Marian couldn’t help recognising that there was a certain profound undercurrent of degradation in having to accept the ready sympathy of such a woman at all on such a matter. Anywhere else, Marian would have felt that Lady Modyford, motherly as she was, stood just a grade or two by nature below her; in fact, she felt so there too; but still, she was compelled by circumstances to take the good fat body’s consolation and condolence as a sort of favour; while anywhere else she would rather have repelled it as a disagreeable impertinence, or at least as a distasteful interference with her own individuality. It was impossible not to be dimly conscious that coming to Trinidad had made a real difference in her own social position. At home, she had no need for anybody’s condescension or anybody’s affability; here, she was forced to recognise the fact that even Lady Modyford was making generous concessions on purpose in her favour. It was galling, but it was inevitable. There is nothing more painful to persons who have always mixed in society on terms of perfect and undoubted equality, than thus to put themselves into false positions, where it is possible for equals, or even for natural inferiors, to seem to patronise them.
Nevertheless, that evening, Marian said to Edward very firmly: ‘Edward, you must make up your mind to stop in Trinidad. I shall never feel so much confidence again in your real courage if you turn and run from Nora’s father. Besides, now Lady Modyford has called, and Nora has been here, I daresay we shall get a little society of our own—people who know too much about the outer world to be wholly governed by the fads and fancies of Trinidad planters.’
And Edward answered in a somewhat faltering voice: ‘Very well, my darling. One’s duty lies that way, I know; and if you’re strong enough to stand up and face it, why, I must try to face it also.’
And they did face it, with less difficulty even than they at first imagined. Presently, Mrs Castello came to call, the wife of the governor’s aide-de-camp: a pretty, pleasant, sisterly little woman, who struck up a mutual attachment with Marian almost at first sight, and often dropped in to see them afterwards. Then one or two others of the English officials brought their wives; and before long, when Marian went to stay at Government House, it was clear that in the imported official society at anyrate the Hawthorns were to be at least tolerated. Toleration is a miserable sort of standing for people to submit to; but in the last resort, it is better than isolation. And as time went on, the toleration grew into friendliness and intimacy in many quarters, though never among the native planter aristocracy. Those noble people, intensely proud of their pure white blood, held themselves entirely aloof with profound dignity. ‘Poor souls!’ Sir Adalbert Modyford said contemptuously to Captain Castello, ‘they forget how little it is to be proud of, and that every small street arab in London could consider himself a gentleman in Trinidad on the very self-same grounds of birth as they do.’
CONSCIENTIOUS MONEY-SPENDING.
‘Never treat money affairs with levity—money is character.’ It is to be feared that many neglect this wise caution, and do not put conscience into the spending of their money, whatever they may do as regards the making of it. Rich people think that it is good for trade to be free-handed with wealth, and do not always distinguish between productive and unproductive expenditure. They are frequently guilty of demoralising the poorer classes by careless almsgiving and the bad example of their thoughtless money-spending.