A Princess of Thule

“You are very fortunate,” said Ingram, with a smile, for he was well pleased to hear that Sheila had taken a fancy to the boy, and was likely to find his society amusing. “But you have not told me yet what you think of her.”

“What I think of her?” said the lad, pausing in a bewildered way, as if he could find no words to express his opinion of Sheila. And then he said suddenly, “I think she is like the Mother of God.”

“You irreverent young rascal!” said Ingram, lighting his pipe, “how dare you say such a thing?

“I mean in the pictures – in the tall pictures you see in some churches abroad, far up in a half darkness. She has the same sweet, compassionate look, and her eyes are sometimes a little sad; and when she speaks to you, you think you have known her for a long time, and that she wishes to be very kind to you. But she is not a princess at all, as you told me. I expected to find her a grand, haughty, willful – yes: but she is much too friendly for that; and when she laughs you see she could not sweep about a room and stare at people. But if she was angry or proud, perhaps then – ”

“See you don’t make her angry, then,” said Ingram. “Now go and play over all you were practicing in the morning. No? stop a bit. Sit down and tell me something more about your experiences of Shei – of Mrs. Lavender.”

Young Mosenberg laughed, and sat down; “Do you know, Mr. Ingram, that the same thing occurred the night before last? I was about to sing some more, or I was asking Mrs. Lavender to sing some more – I forget which – but she said to me, ‘Not just now. I wish you to sit down and tell me all you know about Mr. Ingram.’ ”

“And she no sooner honors you with her confidence than you carry it to every one?” said Ingram, somewhat fearful of the boy’s tongue.

“Oh, as to that,” said the lad, delighted to see that his friend was a little embarrassed; “as to that, I believe she is in love with you.”

“Mosenberg,” said Ingram with a flash of anger in the dark eyes, “if you were half a dozen years older I would thrash the life out of you. Do you think that is a pretty sort of joke to make about a woman? Don’t you know the mischief your gabbling tongue might make? for how is every one to know that you are talking merely impertinent nonsense?”

“Oh,” said the boy, audaciously, “I did not mean anything of the kind you see in comedies or in operas, breaking up marriages and causing duels. Oh, no. I think she is in love with you, as I am in love with her; and I am, ever since yesterday.”

“Well, I will say this for you,” remarked Ingram, slowly, “that you are the cheekiest young beggar I have the pleasure to know. You are in love with her, are you? A lady admits you to her house, is particularly kind to you, talks to you in confidence, and then you go and tell people you are in love with her!”

“I did not tell people,” said Mosenberg, flushing under the severity of the reproof; “I told you only, and I thought you would understand what I meant. I should have told Lavender himself just as soon – yes; only he would not care.”

“How do you know?”

“Bah!” said the boy, impatiently. “Cannot one see it? You have a pretty wife – much prettier than any one you would see at a ball at Mrs. Kavanagh’s – and you leave her at home, and you go to the ball to amuse yourself.”

This boy, Ingram perceived, was getting to see too clearly how matters stood. He bade him go and play some music, having first admonished him gravely about the necessity of keeping some watch and ward over his tongue. Then the pipe was re-lit, and a fury of sound arose at the other end of the room.

So Lavender, forgetful of the true-hearted girl who loved him, forgetful of his own generous instincts, forgetful of the future that his fine abilities promised, was still dangling after this alien woman, and Sheila was left at home, with her troubles and piteous yearnings and fancies as her only companions? Once upon a time Ingram could have gone straight up to him and admonished him, and driven him to mend his ways. But now that was impossible.

What was still possible? One wild project occurred to him for a moment, but he laughed at it and dismissed it. It was that he should go boldly to Mrs. Lorraine herself, ask her plainly if she knew what cruel injury she was doing to this young wife, and force her to turn Lavender adrift. But what enterprise of the days of old romance could be compared with this mad proposal? To ride up to a castle, blow a trumpet, and announce that unless a certain lady were released forthwith, death and destruction would begin – all that was simple enough, easy and according to rule; but to go into a lady’s drawing-room without an introduction, and request her to stop a certain flirtation – that was a much more awful undertaking. But Ingram could not altogether dismiss this notion from his head. Mosenberg went on playing – no longer his practising-pieces, but all manner of airs which he knew Ingram liked – while the small, sallow man with the brown beard lay in his easy-chair and smoked his pipe, and gazed attentively at his toes on the fender.

“You know Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, don’t you, Mosenberg?” he said, during an interval in the music.

“Not much,” said the boy. “They were in England only a little while before I went to Leipsic.”

“I should like to know them.”

“That is very easy. Mr. Lavender will introduce you to them. Mrs. Lavender said he went there very much.”

“What would they do, do you think, if I went up and asked to see them?”

“The servant would ask if it was about beer or coals that you called.”

A man will do much for a woman who is his friend, but to be suspected of being a brewer’s traveler, to have to push one’s way into a strange drawing-room, to have to confront the awful stare of the inmates, and then to have to deliver a message which they will probably consider as the very extreme of audacious and meddling impertinence! The prospect was not pleasant, and yet Ingram, as he sat and thought over it that evening, finally resolved to encounter all these dangers and wounds. He could help Sheila in no other way. He was banished from her house. Perhaps he might induce this American girl to release her captive, and give Lavender back to his own wife. What were a few twinges of one’s self-respect, or risks of a humiliating failure, compared with the possibility of befriending Sheila in some small way?

Next morning he went early into Whitehall, and about one o’clock in the forenoon started off for Holland Park. He wore a tall hat, a black frock-coat and yellow kid gloves. He went in a hansom, so that the person who opened the door should know that he was not a brewer’s traveler. In this wise he reached Mrs. Kavanagh’s house, which Lavender had frequently pointed out to him in passing, about half-past one, and with some internal tremors, but much outward calmness, went up the broad stone steps.

A small boy in buttons opened the door.

“Is Mrs. Lorraine at home?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the boy.

It was the simplest thing in the world. In a few seconds he found himself in a big drawing-room, and the youth had taken his card up-stairs. Ingram was not very sure whether his success, so far, was due to the hansom, or to his tall hat, or to a silver-headed cane which his grandfather had brought home from India. However, here he was in the house, just like the hero of one of those fine old farces of our youth, who jumps from the street into a strange drawing-room, flirts with the maid, hides behind a screen, confronts the master, and marries his daughter, all in half an hour, the most exacting unities of time and place being faithfully observed.

Presently the door was opened, and a young lady, pale and calm and sweet of face, approached him, and not only bowed to him, but held out her hand.

“I have much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Ingram,” she said, gently and somewhat slowly. “Mr. Lavender has frequently promised to bring you to see us, for he has spoken to us so much about you that we begun to think we already knew you. Will you come with me up stairs, that I may introduce you to mamma?”

Ingram had come prepared to state harsh truths bluntly, and was ready to meet any sort of anger or opposition with a perfect frankness of intention. But he certainly had not come prepared to find the smart-tongued and fascinating American widow, of whom he had heard so much, a quiet, self possessed and gracious young lady, of singularly winning manners, and clear and resolutely honest eyes. Had Lavender been quite accurate, or even conscientious in his garrulous talk about Mrs. Lorraine?

“If you will excuse me,” said Ingram, with a smile that had less of embarrassment about it than he could have expected, “I would rather speak to you for a few minutes first. The fact is, I have come on a self-imposed errand; and that must be my apology for – for thrusting myself – ”

“I am sure no apology is needed,” said the girl. “We have always been expecting to see you. Will you sit down?”

He put his hat and his cane on the table, and as he did so he recorded a mental resolution not to be led away by the apparent innocence and sweetness of this woman. What a fool he had been to expect her to appear in the guise of some forward and giggling coquette, as if Frank Lavender, with all his faults, could have suffered anything like coarseness of manners! But was this woman any the less dangerous that she was refined and courteous, and had the speech and bearing of a gentlewoman?

“Mrs. Lorraine,” he said, lowering his eyebrows somewhat, “I may as well be frank with you. I have come upon an unpleasant errand – an affair, indeed, which ought to be no business of mine; but sometimes, when you care a little for some one, you don’t mind running the risk of being treated as an intermeddler. You know that I know Mrs. Lavender. She is an old friend of mine. She was almost a child when I knew her first, and I still have a sort of notion that she is a child, and that I should look after her, and so – and so – ”

She sat quite still. There was no surprise, no alarm, no anger when Sheila’s name was mentioned. She was merely attentive, but now seeing that he hesitated, she said, “I do not know what you have to say, but if it is serious, may not I ask mamma to join us?”

“If you please, no. I would rather speak with you alone, as this matter concerns yourself only. Well, the fact is, I have seen for some time back that Mrs. Lavender is very unhappy. She is left alone; she knows no one in London; perhaps she does not care to join much in those social amusements that her husband enjoys. I say this poor girl is an old friend of mine; I cannot help trying to do something to make her less wretched; and so I have ventured to come to you to see if you could assist me. Mr. Lavender comes very much to your house, and Sheila is left all by herself; and doubtless she begins to fancy that her husband is neglectful, perhaps indifferent to her, and may get to imagine things that are quite wrong, you know, and that could be explained away by a little kindness on your part.”

Was this, then, the fashion in which Jonah had gone up to curse the wickedness of Nineveh? As he had spoken he had been aware that those sincere, somewhat matter-of-fact and far from unfriendly eyes that were fixed on him, had undergone no change whatever. Here was no vile creature who would start up with a guilty conscience to repel the remotest hint of an accusation; and indeed, quite unconsciously to himself, he had been led on to ask for her help. Not that he feared her. Not but that he could have said the harshest things to her which there was any reason for saying. But somehow there seemed to be no occasion for the utterance of any cruel truths.

The wonder of it was, too, that instead of being wounded, indignant and angry, as he had expected her to be, she betrayed a very friendly interest in Sheila, as though she herself had nothing whatever to do with the matter.

“You have undertaken a very difficult task, Mr. Ingram,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think there are many married ladies in London who have a friend who would do as much for them. And, to tell you the truth, both my mamma and myself have come to the same conclusion as yourself about Mr. Lavender. It is really too bad, the way in which he allows that pretty young thing to remain at home, for I suppose she would go more into society if he were to coax her and persuade her. We have done what we could in sending her invitations, in calling on her, and in begging Mr. Lavender to bring her with him. But he has always some excuse for her, so that we never see her. And yet I am sure he does not mean to give her pain; for he is very proud of her, and madly extravagant wherever she is concerned; and sometimes he takes sudden fits of trying to please her and be kind to her that are quite odd in their way. Can you tell me what we should do?”

Ingram looked at her for a moment, and said gravely and slowly, “Before we talk anymore about that I must clear my conscience. I perceive that I have done you a wrong. I came here prepared to accuse you of drawing away Mr. Lavender from his wife, of seeking amusement and perhaps some social distinction, by keeping him continually dangling after you; and I meant to reproach you, or even threaten you, until you promised never to see him again.”

A quick flush, partly of shame, partly of annoyance, sprang to Mrs. Lorraine’s fair and pale face; but she answered calmly, “It is perhaps as well that you did not tell me this a few minutes ago. May I ask what has led you to change your opinion of me, if it has changed?”

“Of course it has changed,” he said, promptly and emphatically. “I can see that I did you a great injury, and I apologize for it, and beg your forgiveness. But when you ask me what has led me to change my opinion, what am I to say? Your manner, perhaps, more than what you have said has convinced me that I was wrong.”

“Perhaps you are again mistaken,” she said coldly; “you get rapidly to conclusions.”

“The reproof is just,” he said. “You are quite right. I have made a blunder; there is no mistake about it.”

“But do you think it was fair,” she said with some spirit – “do you think it was fair to believe all this harm about a woman you had never seen? Now, listen. A hundred times I have begged Mr. Lavender to be more attentive to his wife – not in these words, of course, but as directly as I could. Mamma has given parties, made arrangements for visits, drives and all sorts of things, to tempt Mrs. Lavender to come to us, and all in vain. Of course you can’t thrust yourself on any one like that. Though mamma and myself like Mrs. Lavender very well, it is asking too much that we should encounter the humiliation of intermeddling.”

Here she stopped suddenly, with the least show of embarrassment. Then she said, frankly, “You are an old friend of hers. It is very good of you to have risked so much for the sake of that girl. There are very few gentlemen whom one meets who would do as much.”

Ingram could say nothing, and was a little impatient with himself. Was he to be first reproved, and then treated with an indulgent kindness by a mere girl?

“Mamma,” said Mrs. Lorraine, as an elderly lady entered the room, “let me introduce you to Mr. Ingram, whom you must already know. He proposes we should join in some conspiracy to inveigle Mrs. Lavender into society, and make the poor little thing amuse herself.”

“Little!” said Mrs. Kavanagh, with a smile; “she is a good deal taller than you are, my dear. But I am afraid, Mr. Ingram, you have undertaken a hopeless task. Will you stay to luncheon and talk it over with us?”

“I hope you will,” said Mrs. Lorraine; and naturally enough he consented.

Luncheon was just ready. As they were going into the room on the opposite side of the hall, the younger lady said to Ingram in a quiet undertone, but with much indifference of manner, “You know, if you think I ought to give up Mr. Lavender’s acquaintance altogether, I will do so at once. But perhaps that will not be necessary.”

So this was the house in which Sheila’s husband spent so much of his time, and these were the two ladies of whom so much had been said and surmised? There were three of Lavender’s pictures on the walls of the dining-room, and as Ingram inadvertently glanced at them, Mrs. Lorraine said to him, “Don’t you think it is a pity Mr. Lavender should continue drawing those imaginative sketches of heads? I do not think, myself, that he does himself justice in that way. Some bits of landscape, now, that I have seen, seemed to me to have quite a definite character about them, and promised far more than anything else of his I have seen.”

“That is precisely what I think,” said Ingram, partly amused and partly annoyed to find that this girl, with her clear gray eyes, her soft and musical voice, and her singular delicacy of manner, had an evil trick of saying the very things he would himself have said, and leaving him with nothing but a helpless “Yes.”

“I think he ought to have given up his club when he married. Most English gentlemen do that when they marry, do they not?” said Mrs. Kavanagh.

“Some,” said Ingram. “But a good deal of nonsense is talked about the influence of clubs in that way. It is really absurd to suppose that the size or the shape of a building can alter a man’s moral character.”

“It does, though,” said Mrs. Lorraine confidently. “I can tell directly if a gentleman has been accustomed to spend his time in clubs. When he is surprised or angry or impatient, you can perceive blanks in his conversation which in a club, I suppose, would be filled up. Don’t you know poor old Colonel Hannen’s way of talking, mamma? This old gentleman, Mr. Ingram, is very fond of speaking to you about political liberty and the rights of conscience; and he generally becomes so confused that he gets vexed with himself, and makes odd pauses, as if he were invariably addressing himself in very rude language indeed. Sometimes you would think he was like a railway engine, going blindly and helplessly on through a thick and choking mist; and you can see that if there were no ladies present he would let off a few crackers – fog-signals, as it were – just to bring himself up a bit, and let people know where he was. Then he will go on again, talking away until you fancy yourself in a tunnel, with a throbbing noise in your ears and all the daylight shut out, and you perhaps getting to wish that on the whole you were dead.”

“Cecilia!”

“I beg your pardon, mamma,” said the younger lady, with a quiet smile; “you look so surprised that Mr. Ingram will give me credit for not often erring in that way. You look as though a hare had turned and attacked you.”

“That would give most people a fright,” said Ingram, with a laugh. He was rapidly forgetting the object of his mission. The almost childish softness of voice of this girl, and the perfect composure with which she uttered little sayings that showed considerable sharpness of observation and a keen enjoyment of the grotesque, had an odd sort of fascination for him. He totally forgot that Lavender had been fascinated by it, too. If he had been reminded of the fact at this moment, he would have said that the boy had, as usual, got sentimental about a pretty pair of big gray eyes and a fine profile, while he, Ingram, was possessed by nothing but a purely intellectual admiration of certain fine qualities of wit, sincerity of speech and womanly shrewdness.

Luncheon, indeed, was over before any mention was made of the Lavenders; and when they returned to that subject it appeared to Ingram that their relations had in the meantime got to be very friendly, and that they were really discussing this matter as if they formed a little family conclave.

“I have told Mr. Ingram, mamma,” Mrs. Lorraine said, “that so far as I am concerned I will do whatever he thinks I ought to do. Mr. Lavender has been a friend of ours for some time, and of course he cannot be treated with rudeness or incivility; but if we are wounding the feelings of any one by asking him to come here – and he certainly visited us pretty often – why, it would be easy to lessen the number of his calls. Is that what we should do, Mr. Ingram? You would not have us quarrel with him?”

“Especially,” said Mrs. Kavanagh, with a smile, “that there is no certainty he will spend more of his time with his wife merely because he spends less of it here. And yet I fancy he is a very good-natured man.”

“He is very good-natured,” said Ingram, with decision. “I have known him for years, and I know that he is exceedingly unselfish, and that he would do a ridiculously generous thing to serve a friend, and that a better-intentioned fellow does not breathe in the world. But he is at times, I admit, very thoughtless and inconsiderate.”

“That sort of good-nature,” said Mrs. Lorraine, in her gentlest voice, “is very good in its way, but rather uncertain. So long as it shines in one direction, it is all right and quite trustworthy, for you want a hard brush to brush sunlight off a wall. But when the sunlight shifts you know – ”

“The wall is left in the cold. Well,” said Ingram, “I am afraid it is impossible for me to dictate to you what you ought to do. I do not wish to draw you into any interference between husband and wife, or even to let Mr. Lavender know that you think he is not treating Shei – Mrs. Lavender – properly. But if you were to hint to him that he ought to pay some attention to her – that he should not be going everywhere as if he were a young bachelor in chambers; if you would discourage his coming to see you without bringing her also, and so forth – surely he would see what you mean. Perhaps I ask too much of you, but I had intended to ask more. The fact is, Mrs. Kavanagh, I had done your daughter the injustice of supposing – ”

“I thought we had agreed to say no more about that,” said Mrs. Lorraine, quickly, and Ingram was silent.

Half an hour thereafter he was walking back though Holland Park, through the warm light of an autumn afternoon. The place seemed much changed since he had seen it a couple of hours before. The double curve of big houses had a more friendly and hospitable look; the very air seemed to be more genial and comfortable since he had driven up here in the hansom.

Perhaps Mr. Ingram was at this moment a little more perturbed, pleased and bewildered than he would have liked to confess. He had discovered a great deal in these two hours, been much surprised and fascinated, and had come away fairly stupefied with the result of his mission. He had indeed been successful; Lavender would now find a different welcome awaiting him in the house in which he had been spending nearly all his time, to the neglect of his wife. But the fact is, that as Edward Ingram went rapidly over in his own mind everything that had occurred since his entrance into that house, as he anxiously recalled the remarks made to him, the tone and looks accompanying them, and his own replies, it was not of Lavender’s affairs alone that he thought. He confessed to himself frankly that he had never yet met any woman who had so surprised him into admiration on their first meeting.

Yet what had she said? Nothing very particular. Was it the bright intelligence of the gray eyes, that seemed to see everything he meant with an instant quickness, and that seemed to agree with him even before he spoke? He reflected, now that he was in the open air, that he must have persecuted these two women dreadfully. In getting away from Lavender’s affairs they had touched on pictures, books, and what not – on the young poet who was playing Alfred de Musset in England; on the great philosopher who had gone into the House to confuse and bewilder the country gentlemen there; on all sorts of topics, indeed, except those which, as Ingram had anticipated, such a creature as Mrs. Lorraine would naturally have found interesting. And he had to confess to himself that he had lectured his two helpless victims most unmercifully. He was quite conscious that he sometimes laid down the law in an authoritative and even sententious manner. On first going into the house certain things said by Mrs. Lorraine had almost surprised him into a mood of mere acquiescence; but after luncheon he had assumed his ordinary manner of tutor in general to the universe, and had informed these two women, in a distinct fashion, what their opinions ought to be on half the social conundrums of the day.

He now reflected, with much compunction, that this was highly improper. He ought to have asked about flower-shows, and inquired whether the Princess of Wales was looking well of late. Some reference to the late Parisian comedy might have introduced a disquisition on the new grays and greens of the French milliners, with a passing mention made of the price paid for a pair of ponies by a certain marquise unattached. He had not spoken of one of these things; perhaps he could not if he had tried. He remembered, with an awful consciousness of guilt, that he had actually discoursed of woman suffrage, of the public conscience of New York, of the extirpation of the Indians, and a dozen different things not only taking no heed of any opinions that his audience of two might hold, but insisting on their accepting his opinions as the expression of absolute and incontrovertible truth.