THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS
ON the next day Mountjoy heard news of Iris, which was not of a nature
to relieve his anxieties. He received a visit from Fanny Mere.
The leave-taking of Mr. Vimpany, on the previous evening, was the first
event which the maid had to relate. She had been present when the
doctor said good-bye to the master and mistress. Business in London was
the reason he gave for going away. The master had taken the excuse as
if he really believed in it, and seemed to be glad to get rid of his
friend. The mistress expressed her opinion that Mr. Vimpany's return to
London must have been brought about by an act of liberality on the part
of the most generous of living men. _"Your_ friend has, as I believe,
got some money from _my_ friend," she said to her husband. My lord had
looked at her very strangely when she spoke of Mr. Mountjoy in that
way, and had walked out of the room. As soon as his back was turned,
Fanny had obtained leave of absence. She had carried out her intention
of watching the terminus, and had seen Mr. Vimpany take his place among
the passengers to London by the mail train.
Returning to the cottage, it was Fanny's duty to ascertain if her
services were required in her mistress's room.
On reaching the door, she had heard the voices of my lord and my lady,
and (as Mr. Mountjoy would perhaps be pleased to know) had been too
honourable to listen outside, on this occasion. She had at once gone
away, and had waited until she should be sent for. After a long
interval, the bell that summoned her had been rung. She had found the
mistress in a state of agitation, partly angry, and partly distressed;
and had ventured to ask if anything unpleasant had happened. No reply
was made to that inquiry. Fanny had silently performed the customary
duties of the night-toilet, in getting my lady ready for bed; they had
said good-night to each other and had said no more.
In the morning (that present morning), being again in attendance as
usual, the maid had found Lady Harry in a more indulgent frame of mind;
still troubled by anxieties, but willing to speak of them now.
She had begun by talking of Mr. Mountjoy:
"I think you like him, Fanny: everybody likes him. You will be sorry to
hear that we have no prospect of seeing him again at the cottage."
There she had stopped; something that she had not said, yet, seemed to
be in her mind, and to trouble her. She was near to crying, poor soul,
but struggled against it. "I have no sister," she said, "and no friend
who might be like a sister to me. It isn't perhaps quite right to speak
of my sorrow to my maid. Still, there is something hard to bear in
having no kind heart near one--I mean, no other woman to speak to who
knows what women feel. It is so lonely here--oh, so lonely! I wonder
whether you understand me and pity me?" Never forgetting all that she
owed to her mistress--if she might say so without seeming to praise
herself--Fanny was truly sorry. It would have been a relief to her, if
she could have freely expressed her opinion that my lord must be to
blame, when my lady was in trouble. Being a man, he was by nature cruel
to women; the wisest thing his poor wife could do would be to expect
nothing from him. The maid was sorely tempted to offer a little good
advice to this effect; but she was afraid of her own remembrances, if
she encouraged them by speaking out boldly. It would be better to wait
for what the mistress might say next.
Lord Harry's conduct was the first subject that presented itself when
the conversation was resumed.
My lady mentioned that she had noticed how he looked, and how he left
the room, when she had spoken in praise of Mr. Mountjoy. She had
pressed him to explain himself---and she had made a discovery which
proved to be the bitterest disappointment of her life. Her husband
suspected her! Her husband was jealous of her! It was too cruel; it was
an insult beyond endurance, an insult to Mr. Mountjoy as well as to
herself. If that best and dearest of good friends was to be forbidden
the house, if he was to go away and never to see her or speak to her
again, of one thing she was determined--he should not leave her without
a kind word of farewell; he should hear how truly she valued him; yes,
and how she admired and felt for him! Would Fanny not do the same
thing, in her place? And Fanny had remembered the time when she might
have done it for such a man as Mr. Mountjoy. "Mind you stay indoors
this evening, sir," the maid continued, looking and speaking so
excitedly that Hugh hardly knew her again. "My mistress is coming to
see you, and I shall come with her."
Such an act of imprudence was incredible. "You must be out of your
senses!" Mountjoy exclaimed.
"I'm out of myself sir, if that's what you mean," Fanny answered. "I do
so enjoy treating a man in that way! The master's going out to
dinner--he'll know nothing about it--and," cried the cool cold woman of
other times, "he richly deserves it."
Hugh reasoned and remonstrated, and failed to produce the slightest
effect.
His next effort was to write a few lines to Lady Harry, entreating her
to remember that a jealous man is sometimes capable of acts of the
meanest duplicity, and that she might be watched. When he gave the note
to Fanny to deliver, she informed him respectfully that he had better
not trust her. A person sometimes meant to do right (she reminded him),
and sometimes ended in doing wrong. Rather than disappoint her
mistress, she was quite capable of tearing up the letter, on her way
home, and saying nothing about it. Hugh tried a threat next: "Your
mistress will not find me, if she comes here; I shall go out to-night."
The impenetrable maid looked at him with a pitying smile, and answered:
"Not you!"
It was a humiliating reflection--but Fanny Mere understood him better
than he understood himself.
All that Mountjoy had said and done in the way of protest, had been
really dictated by consideration for the young wife. If he questioned
his conscience, selfish delight in the happy prospect of seeing Iris
again asserted itself, as the only view with which he looked forward to
the end of the day. When the evening approached, he took the precaution
of having his own discreet and faithful servant in attendance, to
receive Lady Harry at the door of the hotel, before the ringing of the
bell could summon the porter from his lodge. On calm consideration, the
chances seemed to be in favour of her escaping detection by Lord Harry.
The jealous husband of the stage, who sooner (or later) discovers the
innocent (or guilty) couple, as the case may be, is not always the
husband of the world outside the theatre. With this fragment of
experience present in his mind, Hugh saw the door of his sitting-room
cautiously opened, at an earlier hour than he had anticipated. His
trustworthy representative introduced a lady, closely veiled--and that
lady was Iris.