“You are not looking well, Theo. You are very thin. London does not agree with you, I fear, and the late nights.”
“I am a delicate plant to be incapable of late nights,” he said, with a harsh laugh.
“And how is Frances? I hope she does not do too much: and—”
“Come, mother, spare me the catalogue. Lady Markland is quite well, and my Lord Markland, for I suppose it was he who was meant by your and—”
“Geoff, poor little fellow! he is at school, I suppose.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Warrender, with an ugly smile. “He is delicate, you know. He has had measles or something, and has come home to his mother to be nursed. There’s a little too much of Geoff, mother; let us be free of him here, at least. You are going to your old rooms?”
“Yes. I thought it might be a little painful: but Chatty made no objection. She said indeed she would like it.”
“Is she dwelling on that matter still?”
“Still, Theo! I don’t suppose she will ever cease to dwell on it till it comes all right.”
“Which is very unlikely, mother. I don’t give my opinion on the subject of divorce. It’s an ugly thing, however you take it; but a man who goes to seek a divorce avowedly, with the intention of marrying again—That is generally the motive, I believe, at the bottom, but few are so bold as to put it frankly on evidence.”
“Theo! you forget Dick’s position, which is so very peculiar. Could anyone blame him? What could he do otherwise? I hope I am not lax—and I hate the very name of divorce as much as anyone can: but what could he do?”
“He could put up with it, I suppose, as other men have had to do—and be thankful it is no worse.”
“You are hard, Theo. I am sure it is not Frances that has taught you to be so hard. Do you think that Chatty’s life destroyed, as well as his own, is so little? and no laws human or divine could bind him to—I don’t think I am lax,” Mrs. Warrender cried, with the poignant consciousness of a woman who has always known herself to be even superstitiously bound to every cause of modesty, and who finds herself suddenly assailed as a champion of the immoral. Her middle-aged countenance flushed with annoyance and shame.
“No, I don’t suppose you are lax,” said Theo: but the lines in his careworn forehead did not melt, and Chatty, who had been directing the maid about the luggage, now came forward and stopped the conversation. Warrender put his mother and sister into a cab, and promised to “come round” and see them in the evening. After he had shut the door, he came back and asked suddenly: “By the way, I suppose you have the last news of Cavendish. How is he?”
“We have no news. Why do you ask? is he ill?”
“Oh, you don’t know then?” said Warrender. “I was wondering. He is down with fever, but getting better, I believe, getting better,” he added hurriedly, as Chatty uttered a tremulous cry. “They wrote to his people. We were wondering whether you might not have heard.”
“And no one thought it worth while to let us know!”
“Lady Horton thought if you did not know it was better to say nothing: and that if you did it was unnecessary—besides, they are like me, they think it is monstrous that a man should go off with an avowed intention—they think in any case it is better to drop it altogether.”
“Theo,” said Chatty, in her soft voice, “can we hear exactly how he is?”
“He is better, he is going on well, he will get all right. But if you should see Lady Horton—”
Lady Horton was Dick’s elder and married sister, she who had stood by him on the day that was to have been his wedding-day.
“I think we had better drive on now,” Chatty said. And when Theo’s somewhat astonished face had disappeared from the window, and they were rattling along over the stones, she suddenly said, “Do you think it should have been—dropped altogether? Why should it be dropped altogether? I seem to be a little bewildered—I don’t—understand. Oh, mamma, I had a presentiment that he was ill—ill and alone, and so far away.”
“He is getting better, dear; he would think it best not to write to make us anxious; probably he has been waiting on day by day. I will go to Lady Horton tomorrow.”
“And Lady Horton thinks it should be dropped altogether,” said Chatty, in a musing reflective tone. “She thinks it is monstrous—what is monstrous? I don’t—seem to understand.”
“Let us not think of it till we get home, till we have a little calm and—time.”
“As if one could stop thinking till there is time!” said Chatty, with a faint smile. “But I feel that this is a new light. I must think. What must be dropped? Am not I married to him, mother?”
“Oh, my darling, if it had not been for that woman—”
“But that woman—my thoughts are all very confused. I don’t understand it: perhaps he is not married to me—but I have always considered that I—The first thing, however, is his health, mother. We must see at once about that.”
“Yes, dear; but there is nothing alarming in it, from what Theo says.”
The rest of the drive was in
