"My dear Winterfield," she began, "I have behaved infamously.Iwon't say that appearances were against you at Brussels--I will only say I ought not to have trusted to appearances.You are the injured person; please forgive me.Shall we go on with the subject? or shall we shake hands, and say no more about it?"I shook hands, of course.Mrs.Eyrecourt perceived that I was looking for Stella.
"Sit down," she said; "and be good enough to put up with no more attractive society than mine.Unless I set things straight, my good friend, you and my daughter--oh, with the best intentions!--will drift into a false position.You won't see Stella to-day.Quite impossible--and I will tell you why.I am the worldly old mother; I don't mind what I say.My innocent daughter would die before she would confess what I am going to tell you.Can I offer you anything? Have you had lunch?"I begged her to continue.She perplexed--I am not sure that she did not even alarm me.
"Very well," she proceeded."You may be surprised to hear it--but I don't mean to allow things to go on in this way.My contemptible son-in-law shall return to his wife."This startled me, and I suppose I showed it.
"Wait a little," said Mrs.Eyrecourt."There is nothing to be alarmed about.Romayne is a weak fool; and Father Benwell's greedy hands are (of course) in both his pockets.But he has, unless I am e ntirely mistaken, some small sense of shame, and some little human feeling still left.After the manner in which he has behaved, these are the merest possibilities, you will say.
Very likely.I have boldly appealed to those possibilities nevertheless.He has already gone away to Rome; and I need hardly add--Father Benwell would take good care of that--he has left us no address.It doesn't in the least matter.One of the advantages of being so much in society as I am is that I have nice acquaintances everywhere, always ready to oblige me, provided Idon't borrow money of them.I have written to Romayne, under cover to one of my friends living in Rome.Wherever he may be, there my letter will find him."So far, I listened quietly enough, naturally supposing that Mrs.
Eyrecourt trusted to her own arguments and persuasions.I confess it even to myself, with shame.It was a relief to me to feel that the chances (with such a fanatic as Romayne) were a hundred to one against her.
This unworthy way of thinking was instantly checked by Mrs.
Eyrecourt's next words.
"Don't suppose that I am foolish enough to attempt to reason with him," she went on."My letter begins and ends on the first page.
His wife has a claim on him, which no newly-married man can resist.Let me do him justice.He knew nothing of it before he went away.My letter--my daughter has no suspicion that I have written it--tells him plainly what the claim is."She paused.Her eyes softened, her voice sank low--she became quite unlike the Mrs.Eyrecourt whom I knew.
"In a few months more, Winterfield," she said, "my poor Stella will be a mother.My letter calls Romayne back to his wife--_and his child."_Mrs.Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of some sort.For the moment I was really unable to speak.
Stella's mother never had a very high opinion of my abilities.
She now appeared to consider me the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.
"Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?" she asked.
"Not that I know of."
"Do you understand me?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then why can't you say something? I want a man's opinion of our prospects.Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne's place, and tell me this.If _you_ had left Stella--""I should never have left her, Mrs.Eyrecourt.""Be quiet.You don't know what you would have done.I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool.You understand? Now, tell me, then.Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child? Could you resist that?""Most assuredly not!"
I contrived to reply with an appearance of tranquillity.It was not very easy to speak with composure.Envious, selfish, contemptible--no language is too strong to describe the turn my thoughts now took.I never hated any human being as I hated Romayne at that moment.
"Damn him, he will come back!" There was my inmost feeling expressed in words.
In the meantime, Mrs.Eyrecourt was satisfied.
She dashed at the next subject as fluent and as confident as ever.
"Now, Winterfield, it is surely plain to your mind that you must not see Stella again--except when I am present to tie the tongue of scandal.My daughter's conduct must not allow her husband--if you only knew how I detest that man!--must not, I say, allow her husband the slightest excuse for keeping away from her.If we give that odious old Jesuit the chance, he will make a priest of Romayne before we know where we are.The audacity of these Papists is really beyond belief.You remember how they made Bishops and Archbishops here, in flat defiance of our laws?
Father Benwell follows that example, and sets our other laws at defiance--I mean our marriage laws.I am so indignant I can't express myself as clearly as usual.Did Stella tell you that he actually shook Romayne's belief in his own marriage? Ah, Iunderstand--she kept that to herself, poor dear, and with good reason, too."I thought of the turned-down page in the letter.Mrs.Eyrecourt readily revealed what her daughter's delicacy had forbidden me to read--including the monstrous assumption which connected my marriage before the registrar with her son-in-law's scruples.