Man and Wife - Wilkie Collins (phonics books TXT) 📗

topic to be too painful to dwell on⁠—and, by way of varying it, goes straight to the point at last. Has Lady Holchester, in the course of her continental experience, happened to meet with, or to hear of⁠—Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?

“I have ceased, as you know, to hold any communication with my relatives,” Lady Lundie explains. “The course they took at the time of our family trial⁠—the sympathy they felt with a Person whom I cannot even now trust myself to name more particularly⁠—alienated us from each other. I may be grieved, dear Lady Holchester; but I bear no malice. And I shall always feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche’s welfare. I have been told that she and her husband were traveling, at the time when you and Lord Holchester were traveling. Did you meet with them?”

Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester is dumb. Lady Holchester replies:

“We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, and afterward at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to England a week since, in anticipation of a certain happy event, which will possibly increase the members of your family circle. They are now in London. Indeed, I may tell you that we expect them here to lunch today.”

Having made this plain statement, Lady Holchester looks at Lady Lundie. (If that doesn’t hasten her departure, nothing will!)

Quite useless! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having heard absolutely nothing of her relatives for the last six months, she is burning with curiosity to hear more. There is a name she has not mentioned yet. She places a certain constraint upon herself, and mentions it now.

“And Sir Patrick?” says her ladyship, subsiding into a gentle melancholy, suggestive of past injuries condoned by Christian forgiveness. “I only know what report tells me. Did you meet with Sir Patrick at Florence and Naples, also?”

Julius and his wife look at each other again. The clock in the hall strikes. Julius shudders. Lady Holchester’s patience begins to give way. There is an awkward pause. Somebody must say something. As before, Lady Holchester replies “Sir Patrick went abroad, Lady Lundie, with his niece and her husband; and Sir Patrick has come back with them.”

“In good health?” her ladyship inquires.

“Younger than ever,” Lady Holchester rejoins.

Lady Lundie smiles satirically. Lady Holchester notices the smile; decides that mercy shown to this woman is mercy misplaced; and announces (to her husband’s horror) that she has news to tell of Sir Patrick, which will probably take his sister-in-law by surprise.

Lady Lundie waits eagerly to hear what the news is.

“It is no secret,” Lady Holchester proceeds⁠—“though it is only known, as yet to a few intimate friends. Sir Patrick has made an important change in his life.”

Lady Lundie’s charming smile suddenly dies out.

“Sir Patrick is not only a very clever and a very agreeable man,” Lady Holchester resumes a little maliciously; “he is also, in all his habits and ways (as you well know), a man younger than his years⁠—who still possesses many of the qualities which seldom fail to attract women.”

Lady Lundie starts to her feet.

“You don’t mean to tell me, Lady Holchester, that Sir Patrick is married?”

“I do.”

Her ladyship drops back on the sofa; helpless really and truly helpless, under the double blow that has fallen on her. She is not only struck out of her place as the chief woman of the family, but (still on the right side of forty) she is socially superannuated, as The Dowager Lady Lundie, for the rest of her life!

“At his age!” she exclaims, as soon as she can speak.

“Pardon me for reminding you,” Lady Holchester answers, “that plenty of men marry at Sir Patrick’s age. In his case, it is only due to him to say that his motive raises him beyond the reach of ridicule or reproach. His marriage is a good action, in the highest sense of the word. It does honor to him, as well as to the lady who shares his position and his name.”

“A young girl, of course!” is Lady Lundie’s next remark.

“No. A woman who has been tried by no common suffering, and who has borne her hard lot nobly. A woman who deserves the calmer and the happier life on which she is entering now.”

“May I ask who she is?”

Before the question can be answered, a knock at the house door announces the arrival of visitors. For the third time, Julius and his wife look at each other. On this occasion, Julius interferes.

“My wife has already told you, Lady Lundie, that we expect Mr. and Mrs. Brinkworth to lunch. Sir Patrick, and the new Lady Lundie, accompany them. If I am mistaken in supposing that it might not be quite agreeable to you to meet them, I can only ask your pardon. If I am right, I will leave Lady Holchester to receive our friends, and will do myself the honor of taking you into another room.”

He advances to the door of an inner room. He offers his arm to Lady Lundie. Her ladyship stands immovable; determined to see the woman who has supplanted her. In a moment more, the door of entrance from the hall is thrown open; and the servant announces, “Sir Patrick and Lady Lundie. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth.”

Lady Lundie looks at the woman who has taken her place at the head of the family; and sees⁠—Anne Silvester!

Endnotes

Note.⁠—There are certain readers who feel a disposition to doubt facts, when they meet with them in a work of fiction. Persons of this way of thinking may be profitably referred to the book which first suggested to me the idea of writing the present novel. The book is the Report of the Royal Commissioners on the Laws of Marriage. Published by the Queen’s Printers For her Majesty’s Stationery Office. (London, 1868.) What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also derived from the