When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

"It would carry weight. It does carry weight. But ... However, I must talk to Lady Torrens about this." He appeared very uncomfortable indeed, and was visibly flushed. But that may have been the red glow of a dying fire in the half-light, or half-darkness, striking his face as he rested his elbow on the chimney-piece, while its hand wandered from his brow to his chin, expressing irresolute perplexity. Until, as she sat silent, as though satisfied that he could have now no doubt about her wishes, he spoke again, abruptly. "I wish you would tell me exactly what you suppose to be the case."

She addressed herself to explicit statement. "I believe Gwen is acting under an unselfish impulse, and I do not believe in unselfish impulses. If a girl is to run counter to the wishes of her parents, and to obvious common sense, at least let her impulse be a selfish one. Let her act entirely for her own sake. Gwen made your son's acquaintance under peculiar circumstances—romantic circumstances—and, as I know, instantly saw that his eyesight might be destroyed and that the blame would rest with her family...."

"No, L-Lady Ancester"—he stumbled somehow over the name, for no apparent reason—"I deny that. I protest against it...."

"We need not settle that point. Your feeling is a generous one. But do let us keep to Gwen and Adrian." Her ladyship went on to develop her view of the case, not at all illogically. Her objection to the marriage turned entirely on Adrian's blindness—had not a particle of personal feeling in it. On the contrary, she and her husband saw every reason to believe that the young man, with eyes in his head, would have met with a most affectionate welcome as a son-in-law. This applied especially to the Earl, who, of course, had seen more of Adrian than herself. He had, in fact, conceived an extraordinary entichement for him; so much so that he would sooner, for his own sake purely, that the marriage should come off, as the blindness would affect him very little. But his duty to his daughter remained exactly the same. If there was the slightest reason to suppose that Gwen was immolating herself as a sacrifice—something was implied of an analogy in the case of Jephtha's daughter, but not pressed home owing to obvious weak points—he had no choice, and she had no choice, but to protect the victim from herself. If they did not do so, what was there to prevent an irrevocable step being taken which might easily lead to disastrous consequences for both? "You must see," said Gwen's mother very earnestly, "that if my daughter is acting, as my husband and I suppose, from a Quixotic desire to make up to your son for the terrible injury we have done him ... No protests, please!... it is our business to protect her from the consequences of her own rashness—to stand between her and a possible lifelong unhappiness!"

"But what," said the perplexed Baronet, "can I do?" A reasonable question!

"If you can do nothing, no one can. The Earl and myself are so handicapped by our sense of the fearful injury that we have—however unintentionally—inflicted on your son, that we are really tied hand and foot. But you can at least place the case before Adrian as I have placed it before you, and I appeal to you to do so. I am sure you will see that it is impossible for my husband or myself to say the same thing to him."

"But to what end? What do you suppose will come of it? What ... a ... what difference will it make?"

"It will make a difference. It must make a difference, if your son is made fully aware—he is not, now—of the motives that may be influencing Gwen." The Countess was not at all confident of her case, in respect of any definite change it would produce in the bearing of Adrian towards his fiancée, and still less of any effect such change would produce upon that headstrong young lady, if once she suspected its cause. But she had confidence in her memories of the rather stupid middle-aged gentleman of whom, as a young dragoon, she had had such very intimate experience. He was still sensitively honourable, as in those old days—she was sure of that. Unless, indeed, he had changed very much morally, as he had certainly done physically. He would shrink from the idea of his son profiting by an heroic self-devotion of the daughter of a man who was no more to blame for his son's mishap than he himself would have been in the counter-case he had supposed. And he would impress her view of the position on his son. It would have no visible and immediate result now, but how about the six months at Vienna? Might it not be utilised to undermine that position during those six months of fascinating change? She pictured to herself an abatement of what her mind thought of as "the heroics" in the first six weeks.

At least, she could see, at this moment, that she had gained her immediate end. The uneasiness of the Baronet was visible in all that can show uneasiness in a not very expressive exterior—restlessness of hand and lips, and the fixed brow of perplexity. "Very good—very good!" he was saying, "I will talk to my wife about it. You may depend on me to do what I can. Only—if you are mistaken...."

"About Gwen? If I am, things must take their own course. But I think it will turn out that I am right.... That is all, is it not? I am truly sorry not to have seen Lady Torrens. I hope she will be better.... Oh yes—it's all right about the time. They know I am coming, at Poynders. And I should have time to dress for dinner, anyhow. Good-bye!" Her ladyship held out a decisive hand, that said:—"Curtain."