There was hardly a word—I believe not a word in that letter that was not true. Her acceptance of Sir Peregrine had been given exactly in the manner and for the reasons there explained; and since she had accepted him she had been sorry for having done so, exactly in the way now described. She was quite willing to give up her husband if it was thought best—but she was not willing to give up her friend. She was not willing to give up either friend, and her great anxiety was so to turn her conduct that she might keep them both.
Mr. Furnival was gratified as he read the letter—gratified in spite of his present frame of mind. Of course he would see her;—and of course, as he himself well knew, would take her again into favour. But he must insist on her carrying out her purpose of abandoning the marriage project. If, arising from this abandonment, there should be any coolness on the part of Sir Peregrine, Mr. Furnival would not regret it. Mr. Furnival did not feel quite sure whether in the conduct of this case he was not somewhat hampered by the—energetic zeal of Sir Peregrine’s line of defence.
When he had finished the perusal of his letter and the consideration which it required, he put it carefully into his breast coat pocket, envelope and all. What might not happen if he left that envelope about in that house? And then he took it out again, and observed upon the cover the Hamworth postmark, very clear. Postmarks nowadays are very clear, and everybody may know whence a letter comes. His letters had been brought to him by the butler; but was it not probable that that ancient female servant might have seen them first, and have conveyed to her mistress intelligence as to this postmark? If so—; and Mr. Furnival almost felt himself to be guilty as he thought of it.
While he was putting on his greatcoat in the hall, the butler assisting him, the ancient female servant came to him again. There was a look about her face which told of war, and declared her to be, if not the chief lieutenant of his wife, at any rate her colour-serjeant. Martha Biggs no doubt was chief lieutenant. “Missus desires me to ask,” said she, with her grim face and austere voice, “whether you will be pleased to dine at home today?” And yet the grim, austere woman could be affectionate and almost motherly in her ministrations to him when things were going well, and had eaten his salt and broken his bread for more than twenty years. All this was very hard! “Because,” continued the woman, “missus says she thinks she shall be out this evening herself.”
“Where is she going?”
“Missus didn’t tell me, sir.”
He almost determined to go upstairs and call upon her to tell him what she was going to do, but he remembered that if he did it would surely make a row in the house. Miss Biggs would put her head out of some adjacent door and scream, “Oh laws!” and he would have to descend his own stairs with the consciousness that all his household were regarding him as a brute. So he gave up that project. “No,” he said, “I shall not dine at home;” and then he went his way.
“Missus is very aggravating,” said the butler, as soon as the door was closed.
“You don’t know what cause she has, Spooner,” said the housekeeper very solemnly.
“Is it at his age? I believe it’s all nonsense, I do;—feminine fancies, and vagaries of the weaker sex.”
“Yes, I dare say; that’s what you men always say. But if he don’t look out he’ll find missus’ll be too much for him. What’d he do if she were to go away from him?”
“Do?—why live twice as jolly. It would only be the first rumpus of the thing.”
I am afraid that there was some truth in what Spooner said. It is the first rumpus of the thing, or rather the fear of that, which keeps together many a couple.
At one o’clock there came a timid female rap at Mr. Furnival’s chamber door, and the juvenile clerk gave admittance to Lady Mason. Crabwitz, since the affair of that mission down at Hamworth, had so far carried a point of his, that a junior satellite was now permanently installed; and for the future the indignity of opening doors, and “just stepping out” into Chancery Lane, would not await him. Lady Mason was dressed all in black—but this was usual with her when she left home. Today, however, there was about her something blacker and more sombre than usual. The veil which she wore was thick, and completely hid her face; and her voice, as she asked for Mr. Furnival, was low and plaintive. But, nevertheless, she had by no means laid aside the charm of womanhood; or it might be more just to say that the charm of womanhood had not laid aside her. There was that in her figure, step, and gait of going which compelled men to turn round and look at her. We all know that she had a son some two or three and twenty years of age, and that she had not been quite a girl when she married. But, notwithstanding this, she was yet young; and though she made no effort—no apparent effort—to maintain the power and influence which beauty gives, yet she did maintain it.
He came
