The Golden Butterfly

by Walter Besant; James Rice

"What do they see in her?"

"I cannot tell," replied her friend. "She seems to me more farouche than ever."

For, having decided that farouche was the word to express poor Phillis's distinguishing quality, there was no longer any room for question, and farouche she continued to be. If there is anything that Phillis never was, it is that quality of fierce shy wildness which requires the adjective farouche. But the word stuck, because it sounded well. To this day—to be sure, it is only a twelvemonth since—the girls say still, "Oh, yes! Phillis Fleming. She was pretty, but extremely farouche."

Gabriel Cassilis stood by the hedge and looked through the trees. He has come all the way from town to attend this party, and now he hesitated at the very gates. For he became conscious of two things: first, that the old feeling of not finding his words was upon him again; and secondly, that he was not exactly dressed for a festive occasion. Like most City men who have long remained bachelors, Gabriel Cassilis was careful of his personal appearance. He considered a garden-party as an occasion demanding something special. Now he not only wore his habitual pepper-and-salt suit, but the coat in which he wrote at his office—a comfortable easy old frock, a little baggy at the elbows. His mind was strung to such an intense pitch, that such a trifling objection as his dress—because Gabriel Cassilis never looked other than a gentleman—appeared to him insuperable. He withdrew from the hedge, and retraced his steps. Presently he came to a lane. He left the road, and turned down the path. He found himself by the river. He sat down under a tree, and began to think.

He thought of the time when his lonely life was wearisome to him, when he longed for a wife and a house of his own. He remembered how he pictured a girl who would be his darling, who would return his caresses and love him for his own sake. And how, when he met Victoria Pengelley, his thoughts changed, and he pictured that girl, stately and statuesque, at the head of the table. There would be no pettings and caressings from her, that was quite certain. On the other hand, there would be a woman of whom he would be proud—one who would wear his wealth properly. And a woman of good family, well connected all round. There were no caresses, he remembered now; there was the coldest acceptance of him; and there had been no caresses since. But he had been proud of her; and as for her honour—how was it possible that the doubt should arise? That man must be himself distinctly of the lower order of men who would begin by doubting or suspecting his wife.

To end in this: doubt so strong as to be almost certainty: suspicion like a knife cutting at his heart; his brain clouded; and he himself driven to creep down clandestinely to watch his wife.

He sat there till the June sun began to sink in the west. The river was covered with the evening craft. They were manned by the young City men but just beginning the worship of Mammon, who would have looked with envy upon the figure sitting motionless in the shade by the river's edge had they known who he was. Presently he roused himself, and looked at his watch. It was past seven. Perhaps the party would be over by this time; he could go home with his wife; it would be something, at least, to be with her, to keep her from that other man. He rose,—his brain in a tumult—and repaired once more to his point of vantage at the hedge. The lawn was empty; there was no one there. But he saw his own carriage in the yard, and therefore his wife was not yet gone.

In the garden, no one. He crept in softly, and looked round him. No one saw him enter the place; and he felt something like a burglar as he walked, with a stealthy step which he vainly tried to make confident, across the lawn.

Two ways of entrance stood open before him. One was the porch of the house, covered with creepers and hung with flowers. The door stood open, and beyond it was the hall, looking dark from the bright light outside. He heard voices within. Another way was by the conservatory, the door of which was also open. He looked in. Among the flowers and vines there stood a figure he knew—his wife's. But she was alone. And she was listening. On her face was an expression which he had never seen there, and never dreamed of. Her features were distorted; her hands were closed in a tight clutch; her arms were stiffened—but she was trembling. What was she doing. To whom was she listening?

He hesitated a moment, and then he stepped through the porch into the hall. The voices came from the right, in fact, from the morning room,—Phillis's room,—which opened by its single window upon the lawn, and by its two doors into the hall on one side and the conservatory on the other.