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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Doctor Cupid," Rhoda Broughton masterfully intertwines humor and romance, crafting a narrative that explores the complexities of love and desire within the constraints of societal expectations. Set against the backdrop of Victorian England, the story follows an unconventional heroine whose quest to navigate the intricacies of romantic entanglements brings forth both comedic and poignant moments. Broughton employs a witty, engaging prose style, characterized by sharp dialogue and insightful character development, making it an archetypal work of the period that resonates with themes of autonomy and social commentary. Rhoda Broughton, often regarded as a pioneer among female novelists of her time, became well-known for her keen observations of social mores and the intricacies of human relations. Growing up in a period that was rife with strict moral codes, Broughton's literature reflects her desire to critique and challenge these norms, drawing from her own experiences and societal observations. Her vibrant narratives echo her understanding of the challenges faced by women, making her works not only entertaining but also significant in the study of feminist literary history. "Doctor Cupid" is highly recommended for readers interested in the confluence of romance, social critique, and wit. Broughton's delightful exploration of love's follies speaks to the timeless struggles between personal desires and societal expectations. This novel is an essential addition to the canon of Victorian literature, sure to delight both contemporary audiences and scholars alike. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Doctor Cupid
Table of Contents
Introduction
Where reason prides itself on cure and control, yet the heart refuses diagnosis, the polite prescriptions of society collide with the unruly course of desire, exposing how quickly good intentions, shrewd observation, and the small courtesies of everyday life can harden into pressures, mistakes, and concealed longings whose consequences ripple far beyond a single conversation or glance; in a world attuned to appearances and reputations, affection behaves like a rumor, spreading, mutating, and returning to its source, so that even kindness risks being misread as interference, prudence as indifference, candor as cruelty, and every act of care—medical, moral, or emotional—becomes a test of choosing rightly under watchful eyes.
Doctor Cupid, a novel by Rhoda Broughton, belongs to the late-Victorian tradition of social and romantic fiction and appeared in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. Broughton was widely read in her day and admired for wry wit and sharp-eyed portraits of genteel society. The book unfolds within the recognizable milieu of its time, where drawing-room manners, neighborhood ties, and implicit hierarchies shape private lives. Without departing from the conventions of the period’s domestic narratives, it balances lightness of touch with a quietly probing interest in motive and consequence, situating its characters within a culture deeply invested in reputation, self-command, and the protocols of courtship.
The premise is intentionally intimate: we enter a social circle in which small choices—visits, invitations, confidences—carry disproportionate weight, and where the stir of attraction coexists with the demand to appear sensible. The title signals an interest in how feelings are observed, interpreted, and, at times, managed, yet the novel resists melodrama in favor of close attention to how misunderstandings begin. Readers can expect a judicious blend of conversational sparkle and inward tension, guided by a narrator attuned to the slips and subtexts of polite life. The atmosphere is bright on the surface, with threads of unease gathering as expectations are tested.
Among its central concerns are reputation and the ethics of intervention: when, if ever, should one step in to guide another’s heart, and who bears the cost if guidance goes awry? The narrative weighs the difference between caring for someone and presuming to know what is best, tracing how affection can blur into authority and how discretion can shade into concealment. It also considers the subtle economies of class and gender that structure social choice, asking how much freedom individuals can claim when every decision carries public meaning. Throughout, the book invites readers to examine the distance between intention, perception, and outcome.
Broughton’s craft lies in noticing the telling detail—the glance that lingers a beat too long, the phrase that lands a shade too cool—and allowing such moments to accrue moral and emotional force. Her prose is lucid and poised, enlivened by irony without sliding into cynicism. Scenes are shaped by crisp dialogue and a steady, observant voice that values implication as much as declaration. Without sensational shocks, the story tightens through social pressure and self-scrutiny, using a language of care and cure to frame the ambiguities of desire. The result is a reading experience that is engaging, nimble, and quietly exacting.
For contemporary readers, the novel speaks to enduring questions: how do we balance feeling with judgment, intimacy with autonomy, sincerity with tact? Its world may be governed by late-nineteenth-century codes, but its dilemmas—misread signals, unequal power in relationships, the sway of public opinion—remain familiar. The book also touches, without polemic, on the cultural authority accorded to expertise and the temptation to translate emotional complexity into problems to be solved. In foregrounding the risks of misdiagnosis—of others and of oneself—it offers a humane meditation on responsibility, reminding us that care, however well meant, carries obligations to listen and to refrain.
Approached as a story of fine gradations—between kindness and control, prudence and fear—Doctor Cupid rewards attentive reading. It will appeal to those who relish Victorian social fiction for its choreography of conversation and its steady moral pulse, as well as to readers interested in how novels dramatize decision-making under constraint. The pace is measured rather than hurried, the satisfactions cumulative rather than showy, and the pleasures lie in tone, texture, and the slow unveiling of character. Without giving away its turns, one can say that it offers the delicacy of a courtship comedy with the aftertaste of serious reflection.
Synopsis
Set in a quiet provincial town, the story opens on a small circle of households whose routines are shaped by visits, teas, and local obligations. Into this settled world moves a clever young physician, quickly nicknamed Doctor Cupid for his habit of diagnosing hearts as readily as he does bodies. Observant, witty, and professionally indispensable, he becomes a favored confidant in drawing rooms where appearances matter. His detached curiosity about affection and motive provides a lens through which the narrative views friendships, flirtations, and family pressures, preparing the ground for a study of how private feeling contends with the expectations of society.
At the center stands a conscientious young woman whose days are divided between domestic duty and the mild diversions of the season. She is admired for her frankness and steadiness, qualities that attract attention without turning it into scandal. Doctor Cupid cultivates her trust, claiming a clinical interest in courtship and compatibility, and offers counsel that sounds practical rather than romantic. He arranges chances for confidences, nudging conversations in ways that seem harmless. The heroine, curious yet cautious, weighs his advice against her own instincts, as the book establishes their interplay of candor, experiment, and reserve long before consequences begin to mount.
The social balance shifts when a stranger of polish and charm settles into the neighborhood, quickly becoming the focus of interest at dinners and outdoor amusements. His manners, effortless talk, and apparent devotion stir speculation, placing the heroine between genuine sympathy and prudent distance. Doctor Cupid regards the newcomer with amused skepticism, insisting that sentiment shows symptoms as legible as any fever. Under this cool scrutiny, the trio move through dances, walks, and calls in which glances and phrases bear ambiguous weight. The narrative allows attraction to develop alongside uncertainty, entertaining multiple possibilities without foreclosing on where loyalty or desire may ultimately rest.
Country gatherings, garden parties, and charitable committees supply scenes for increasingly deliberate matchmaking. Doctor Cupid engineers pairings at table, suggests topics that test compatibility, and treats shyness as a malady to be cured by exposure. His confidence appears benign, even helpful, as he shields the heroine from awkward advances and fosters meetings that might ripen into attachment. Yet the same interventions foster small misunderstandings: a delayed message, an overheard remark, a tactful omission that reads as evasion. The quiet town amplifies murmurs into reputation, and the heroine, accustomed to clarity, begins to sense how fragile trust can be when shaped by half-knowledge and gentle manipulation.
A turning point arrives through a tangle of letters and confidences that collide with local curiosity. A reminiscence from the newcomer’s past, innocently revived, acquires sharper edges in retelling and threatens to color every subsequent scene. Doctor Cupid, unwilling to surrender his analytic poise, devises a discreet experiment meant to separate fancy from constancy. The test working in shadow, however, yields consequences in daylight: unguarded looks are misread, courtesy is mistaken for calculation, and a private hurt becomes visible. The heroine, loyal yet proud, feels both protected and constrained by counsel that speaks in the name of prudence while obscuring its own uncertain motives.
An illness within the circle forces a pause in the social theatre and brings the physician back to first principles. In sickrooms and dim corridors, he proves skillful and steady, revealing a capacity for care that needs neither epigram nor intrigue. Under this pressure, the characters strip to essentials: who returns, who endures, who falters. The heroine’s world narrows to duty, but within that duty she becomes sharper in judgment. The newcomer’s response in crisis, neither simple bravado nor craven retreat, complicates his portrait. By foregrounding service and suffering, the narrative tests the glamour of earlier scenes against a measure of responsibility.
Recovery alters the town’s dynamics. Gratitude, embarrassment, and rumor jostle for precedence, while earlier experiments in matchmaking fall under quiet suspicion. Doctor Cupid finds his position less secure, his quips sounding like evasions in the wake of harm narrowly avoided. Attempts at reconciliation begin, some successful, others revealing the limits of apology where vanity has been wounded. A secondary attachment, cultivated in the margins, moves toward resolution and mirrors the central predicament: what begins as arrangement thrives or fails according to sincerity. The heroine, more alert to the costs of interference, demands less interpretation and more plain dealing, signaling a shift in how she will be approached.
As confidences are exchanged in earnest, concealed motives come to light: who started a rumor and why, what a letter meant in its first reading rather than its last. The heroine confronts both doctor and suitor with the same expectation of candor, and the narrative orchestrates a sequence of interviews that clarify misunderstandings without draining them of feeling. Doctor Cupid must reckon with the difference between guiding and controlling, and admit where curiosity shaded into vanity. The social circle, with its appetite for tales, is reminded that stories have owners. The stage is cleared for decisions grounded not in performance but in deliberate, informed choice.
The conclusion affirms that affection resists prescriptions, even when administered with intelligence and care. Doctor Cupid retains his gifts but learns their boundary, discovering that hearts cannot be reduced to cases and trials without risk. The heroine’s decision, taken calmly rather than in a rush of surprise, honors both duty and desire in proportions she can defend. Those around her accept the outcome with the mixture of relief and wistfulness that attends any ending shaped by honesty. The book closes on equilibrium rather than triumph, suggesting that social comedy and serious feeling need not be enemies, provided each respects the other’s truth.
Historical Context
Doctor Cupid, appearing in 1886, unfolds in a fictional provincial English town typical of the late Victorian decades. It evokes rectories, market squares, and suburban villas linked by the rail network that, by the 1870s, bound county life to London, along with the expanded postal and telegraph systems. Social life is anchored in parish visiting, assemblies, and the drawing room, ruled by chaperonage and the vigilant gaze of neighbours. A general practitioner’s round of house calls situates the plot amid a consolidating medical profession. The county-town atmosphere, comparable to those of Cheshire or Shropshire, enables close scrutiny of class gradations, genteel poverty, and the economics of courtship.
The professionalization of medicine accelerated after the Medical Act of 1858 created the General Medical Council and a uniform Medical Register, standardizing qualifications across England and Wales. Surgical antisepsis, advanced by Joseph Lister in 1867, and the consolidation of sanitary law in the Public Health Act of 1875 strengthened public confidence in qualified practitioners and local health authorities. Germ theory’s spread in the 1860s and 1870s reframed domestic cleanliness and infection as matters of science and civic duty. The novel’s titular doctor embodies this new authority: a respectable, fee-based general practitioner whose medical judgment, bedside manner, and hygiene-minded advice carry social as well as clinical weight in a small town.
The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 authorized compulsory medical examinations of women suspected of prostitution in garrison towns and naval ports such as Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, and Aldershot. Led by Josephine Butler, the Ladies National Association (founded 1869) mobilized national petitions against what they condemned as state regulation of vice and the medicalized policing of women. Following a Royal Commission in 1871, the Acts were suspended in 1883 and repealed in 1886. Although not a novel of legislation, Doctor Cupid reflects the climate these Acts created: reputational anxiety, male medical authority over female bodies, and the small-town conflation of morality and medicine that shapes courtship, rumor, and scandal.
Victorian marriage and property law changed decisively with the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which moved divorce from ecclesiastical courts to a civil tribunal but retained unequal grounds for husbands and wives. The Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 granted wives control over earnings and separate property, reshaping settlements and inheritance. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878 enabled magistrates to issue separation orders for aggravated assault, and the Guardianship of Infants Act of 1886 improved maternal custody rights. These reforms inform the novel’s marital negotiations: characters calculate income, settlements, and risk, while women’s options widen but remain constrained by social censure and the lingering double standard.
Expanding women’s education and limited professional openings formed a powerful social current. Girton College (1869) and Newnham (1871) at Cambridge, the London School of Medicine for Women (1874), and the 1876 Medical Act permitting licensing of women signaled new, if contested, paths. The University of London admitted women to degrees in 1878. Politically, a mass suffrage petition in 1866 and the 1869 extension of municipal voting to single women ratepayers raised civic visibility, while the Elementary Education Act of 1870 increased literacy. In the novel, intelligent female characters inhabit these transitions: they read widely, debate propriety and vocation, and negotiate suitors from a position shaped by education yet curtailed by custom.
The economic and spatial context was marked by rail-connected provincial growth and the Long Depression of 1873–1896. Agricultural prices collapsed in 1879, squeezing rural incomes and pressing gentry and professionals toward economy and prudence. Railway companies such as the London and North Western and the Great Western bound towns to regional markets; suburban villas proliferated and consumer credit expanded through department stores. The doctor’s practice in the novel depends on fee-paying, reputation-sensitive clients; characters speak the language of income, bills, and economies. Train journeys accelerate plot transitions and widen social horizons, while the specter of genteel poverty shapes marital calculations and the delicate balance between affection, prudence, and status.
Political reform reshaped civic life. The Second Reform Act (1867) broadened the urban male franchise; the Ballot Act (1872) introduced the secret vote; the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act (1883) curbed electoral bribery; the Third Reform Act (1884) extended the vote to rural householders; and the Redistribution of Seats Act (1885) redrew constituencies. The Local Government Act (1888) created elected county councils, while the provincial press expanded rapidly after the 1860s. This produced a culture of meetings, committees, and letters to the editor. In the novel’s provincial milieu, male sociability at clubs and public boards, and the watchful local newspaper, render reputation political capital, intensifying the stakes of private choices.
As a social critique, the book exposes the tension between medical paternalism and women’s limited autonomy, the economics of the marriage market, and the surveillance of respectability. It illuminates how reputations could be made or unmade by medical pronouncement and gossip, echoing the era’s regulation of sexuality and unequal divorce provisions even amid property reforms. Class stratification and the risk of genteel decline compel prudent, strategic unions, testing the rhetoric of companionate marriage against financial necessity. By situating desire within civic scrutiny, the narrative indicts the moral double standard and reveals the costs of a social order that made women’s security contingent on compliant virtue and advantageous choice.
Doctor Cupid
CHAPTER I
'There! I do not think that the joys and sorrows of living in a little house under the shadow of a big one were ever more lucidly set forth,' says an elder sister, holding up the slate on which she has just been totting up this ingenious debit and credit account to a pink junior, kneeling, head on hand, beside her; a junior who, not so long ago, did sums on that very slate, and the straggle of briony round whose sailor-hat tells that she has only just left the sunburnt harvest-fields and the overgrown August hedgerows behind her.
'We have had a good deal of fun out of it too,' says she, rather remorsefully. 'Do you remember'—with a sigh of recollected enjoyment—'the day that we all blackened our faces with soot, and could not get the soot off again afterwards?'
To what but a mind of seventeen could such a reminiscence have appeared in the light of a departed joy?
'I have left out an item, I see,' says Margaret, running her eye once again over her work; 'an unlimited quantity of the society of Freddy Ducane, when nothing better turns up for him! Under which head, profit or loss'—glancing with a not more than semi-amused smile at her sister—'am I to enter it, eh, Prue?'
'Loss, loss!' replies Prue, with a suspiciously rosy precipitation. 'No question about it; no one makes us lose so much time as he! Loss, loss!'
Margaret's eyes rest for an instant on her sister's face, and then return not quite comfortably to the slate, upon which she painstakingly inscribes the final entry, 'An unlimited quantity of Freddy Ducane's society, when nothing better turns up for him!'
'"The acquaintance of several damaged fine ladies!"' reads Prue over her sister's shoulder. 'I suppose that means Lady Betty?'
'I name no names,' replies Margaret gravely. 'I keep to a discreet generality—
'Dear me!' repeats Prue, under her breath, in a rather awed voice; 'I wonder what it feels like to be damaged!'
'You had better ask her,' drily.
'I suppose she says dreadful things,' continues the young girl, still with that same awed curiosity. 'I heard Mrs. Evans telling you that she "stuck at nothing." I wonder how she does it.'
'You had better ask her,' more drily.
'Damaged or not damaged,' cries Prue, springing up from her knees and beginning to caper about the room, and sing to her own capering, 'we shall meet her to-night—
Or if I am not to be married, I am to go to my first dinner-party, which is a step in the right direction. Do you remember your first dinner-party, Peggy? How did you feel? How did you look?'
'I looked very plain, I believe,' replies Peggy sedately. 'At least, I was told so afterwards. I remember that I felt very swollen. I had a cold, and was shy, and I think both combined to make me feel swelled.'
'It is a pity that shyness has not the same effect upon me,' says Prue, stretching out a long girlish arm, whose thinness is apparent even through its chintz muslin covering. 'The one thing that would really improve my appearance'—stopping before the only looking-glass that the little room boasts, and putting her finger and thumb in the hollows of cheeks scarcely rounded enough to match the rest of the pansy-textured child face—'the one thing that would really improve my appearance would be to have the mumps.'
Peggy laughs.
'Unberufen! I should catch them, and you cannot say that they would improve me.'
'Never mind!' cries Prue, turning away with a joyous whirl from the mirror. 'I shall do very well. There are people who admire bones! I shall pass in a crowd.
Her dance and her song have carried her out into the garden—the small but now opulent garden; and, partly to look at her, partly to pasture her eyes upon a yet more admired object, Peggy has followed her as far as to the French window, and now stands leaning one handsome shoulder against the door-post, and looking out upon her kingdom of flowers.
'We owe the Big House one good thing, at all events,' she says, a smile of satisfaction stealing into her comely eyes. 'I never knew what peace of mind was until I had a garden-hose[1q].'
At this moment, in the hands of Jacob the gardener, it is playing comfortably on the faces of the tea-roses, and a luxurious drip and patter testify to their appreciation.
Prue has come back panting, and sunk out of breath on the window-sill. The briony garland has fallen from her hat, and a little hairy dog is now galloping about the lawn boastfully with it, his head held very high. Something in his attitude gets on the nerves of the other animals; for the parrot, brought out to sun himself upon the sward, raps out his mysterious marine oath, which he generally keeps for a crisis; and the white cat forgets herself so far as to deal him a swingeing box on the ear as he passes her.
'I met the brougham[1] from the Big House as I came up the lane,' says Prue, trying to cool herself with the inadequate fan of a small pocket-handkerchief; 'it was on its way back from the station. How tired those poor horses must be of the road to the station! It had three people inside it—Lady Betty, Mr. Harborough, and some third person.'
'Her maid, probably.'
Prue shakes her head.
'No; the maid followed in a fly with the nurses and children. Dear me, Peggy, what a number of servants they take about with them—maid, one; valet, two; footman, three; two nurses, five!'
'Nurses, five!' repeats Margaret inattentively, not thinking of what she is saying, and with her eyes still riveted on the hose; 'surely that is a very unusual number, isn't it?'
'I could not see the third person distinctly,' continues Prue narratively; 'but I think it was the man whom Lady Betty brought with her last year. She seems always to bring him with her.'
'More shame for her!' replies Peggy severely.
'Mr. Harborough was very fond of him, too,' says Prue reflectively. 'He called him "John."'
'More fool he!' still severelier; then, with a sudden and happy change of key, 'That is right, Jacob. Give it a good souse; it is covered with fly.'
'Do not you wonder what we shall do to-night?' cries Prue, her mind galloping gaily away from the blackness of Lady Betty's deeds to the splendid whiteness of her own immediate prospect. 'Charades? dancing? I prophesy dancing.'
'"For Willy will dance with Jane,"'
bursting out into song again—
'"And Betty has got her John."'
She breaks off, laughing. Margaret laughs too.
'Betty may have got her John, but I am sure I do not know who Peggy and Prue will have, unless Freddy can split himself up into several young gentlemen at once. He can do most things'—with a touch of bitterness—'possibly he can do that too.'
'Or perhaps we shall go out star-gazing in the walled garden,' interrupts Prue, hurriedly and redly shying away from the name thus introduced. 'I always think that the stars look bigger from the walled garden than anywhere else in the world.'
'Was it there that you and Freddy went to look for Cassiopeia's Chair?' inquires Peggy drily; 'and were more than an hour and a half before you could find her?'
'It is so odd that I had never noticed her before,' cries Prue hastily. 'She is such a queer shape, more like a long straggling W than a chair.'
'And, after all,' continues Margaret slowly, with an uneasy smile, and not paying any heed to her sister's interpolation, 'she turned out to be in the kiosk.'
Prue is silent. The little hairy dog has brought her ruined garland back to her feet; and, holding it between his fore-paws, is painstakingly biting off each leaf and tendril, and strewing them over the close-shaven sward. The parrot is going to sleep, standing on one leg, and making a clacking noise with his beak; not a posture that one would have thought à priori conducive to slumber.
'It was not a place in which one would have expected to find a large constellation, was it?' asks Peggy, still with that same rather rueful smile, and stroking her sister's childish head as she speaks—'the darkest corner of a kiosk.'
But at that Prue leaps to her feet; and having, in the twinkling of an eye, twitched the hose out of Jacob's hand, she points it at her sister.
'Mention the word kiosk once more,' cries she desperately, and winking away a couple of tears, 'and you will not have a dry stitch upon you.'
CHAPTER II
Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of dinner, too; and towards that dinner, about to be spread at the Big House, the inmates of the little one are hastening on foot through the park. Brougham have they none; goloshes and a lanthorn their only substitute. The apricot sunset and the harvest moon will be their two lanthorns to-night; but upon the goloshes Peggy has, in the case of her sister, sternly insisted. Hastening through the park—alternately hastening, that is to say—and loitering, as Prue's fear of being too late, and Peggy's better-grounded apprehension of being too early, get the upper hand.
'How calm you are!' cries the young girl feverishly, as Margaret stops for a moment to
'Suck the liquid air'
of the ripe harvest evening, and admire the velvet-coated stags springing through the bracken. 'How can you be so calm? Were you calm at your first dinner-party?'
'I cannot recollect,' replies Peggy, honestly trying to recall the now five-years-old dead banquet referred to. 'I can only remember that I felt swelled.'
'Do not you think that we might go on now?' asks Prue, anxiously kicking one golosh against the other. 'We cannot be much too soon; our clocks are always slow. It would be awkward, would not it, if we sailed in last of all?'
Though inwardly convinced that there is very little fear of this catastrophe, Peggy good-humouredly complies; and still more good-humouredly refrains from any 'told-you-so' observation upon their finding themselves sole occupants of the flamboyant Louis Quatorze chairs and Gobelin sofas in the large drawing-room, where the housemaids have evidently only just ceased patting cushions and replacing chair-backs.
'Never mind!' says Prue joyfully; 'we shall have all the more of it, and we shall see everybody come in. I shall love to see everybody come in. Who will be first? Guess! Not Lady Betty! she will be last. I remember your saying last year that she was always late, and that she never apologised.'
'That was very ill bred of her,' replies Margaret austerely.
'And that one night Mr. Harborough scolded her, and you saw her making a face at him behind his back. Oh! how I wish'—breaking out into delighted laughter—'that she would make a face at him to-night, and that he could catch her doing it!'
Her laughter is checked by the thrilling sound of the folding-doors being rolled back to admit some new arrivals. It is nobody very exciting, however; only Mr. Evans, the clergyman of the parish, whom they see every day, and that household angel of his, upon whose testimony lies the weight of Lady Betty Harborough's conversational laxities.
A stranger would be thunderstruck to hear that Mrs. Evans is in her wedding-dress, as the sable rook is less black from head to heel than she; but to those who know and love her, it is le secret de Polichinelle[2] that her gown—through having since taken an insignificant trip or two to the dye-pot, and been eked out with a selection of funeral scarves and hat-bands—is verily and indeed the one in which she stood in virgin modesty beside Mr. Evans at the altar, fifteen rolling years ago. During a transition stage of red, it has visited the Infirmary Ball for five years; it had an unpopular interval of snuffy-brown, during which it did nothing remarkable; and in its present inky phase it has mourned for several dead Evanses, and for every crowned head in Europe.
'I am so glad we are not last,' says Mrs. Evans, relaxing her entrance smile, and sinking into an easy conversational manner, as she sees that she has only her two young parishioners to accost; 'not that there is ever much fear of that in this house, but Mr. Evans could not get the horse along. Have you any idea'—looking curiously round—'whom we are to meet? Lady Roupell's note merely said, "Dear Mrs. Evans," or "My dear Mrs. Evans"—I forget which—"will you and Mr. Evans come and help us to eat a haunch of venison?" She knows that Mr. Evans would go any distance for a haunch of venison.'
To this somewhat extravagant statement of his appreciation of the pleasures of the table the pastor is heard to make a captious demurrer; but his wife goes on without heeding him.
'Of course that gave one no clue. I think people ought to give one some clue that one may know what to put on. However, I thought I could not go far wrong in black; never too smart, and always smart enough, you know.'
Peggy assents, and, as she does so, a trivial unbelieving wonder crosses her mind as to what the alternative 'toilette,' which Mrs. Evans implies, but upon which the eye of man has never looked, may be.
'And you are no wiser than we?' pursues the vicar's wife interrogatively. 'I wonder at that, living so near as you do. Have not you heard of anybody at all?' with a rather discouraged intonation.
'I am not sure—I think—the Harboroughs——'
'The Harboroughs?' cries the other eagerly. 'Mr. and Lady Betty? Her father died last winter; he was the second duke; succeeded by his eldest son, her brother. The Harboroughs!—and Mr. Talbot, of course?' with a knowing look.
'I do not know,' replies Margaret cautiously; 'perhaps.'
'I am afraid it is more than perhaps,' rejoins Mrs. Evans significantly. 'I am afraid it is——'
But her sentence dies unfinished, killed by the frou-frou of silk that announces the approach of a smart woman, and of the white-waistcoated gentleman who has bought the privilege of paying for the silk. Then follows an unencumbered man, whose speech bewrayeth him to be a diplomate, and who has a great deal to say to the smart woman.
After five minutes more frou-frou is audible, heralding the approach of a second smart woman—Lady Betty herself this time—with her lawful Harborough stepping somewhat insignificantly behind her.
Lady Betty is so exceedingly glad to see the two girls that Peggy asks herself whether her memory has played her false as to the amount of intimacy that existed between them last year. She has not overheard the aside that passed between her ladyship and her husband as she sailed up the long room:
'Who are they? Have we ever met them here before? Are they all one lot?'
Nor, indeed, would it ever have entered into the guileless Peggy's mind as possible that a woman who took her by both hands, and smiled into both eyes, could have clean forgotten, not only her name, but her very existence.
Once more the folding-doors roll wide, to admit this time, at last, the hostess, Lady Roupell, and her nephew, Freddy Ducane, who—both chronically late for everything—arrive simultaneously; the one still fastening his sleeve-link, and the other hastily clasping her bracelets.
'I beg you all a thousand pardons, good people,' cries the old lady, going round and dealing out hearty handshakes to her injured guests. 'I am sure you must all have been blessing me; but if you had seen me five minutes ago, you would wonder that I am here now—ha! ha! Well, at all events we are all assembled at last, are not we? No! Surely we are short of somebody; who is it? John Talbot, of course! Where is John Talbot?' looking round, first at the general company, who are quite unable to answer her; and turning, secondly, as if involuntarily, towards Lady Betty. 'Where is John Talbot?'
But at this instant, in time to save Lady Betty's blushes, which indeed are in no great hurry to show themselves, John Talbot appears to answer for himself—John Talbot, the third occupant of the brougham, the 'man whom Lady Betty always takes about with her.'
His entry is not quite what is expected, as he enters by no means alone. Clasped in his embrace, with her fat arms fastened round his neck, and her face buried—a good deal to its detriment—in his collar, is a young person in her nightgown; while running by his side is a little barefoot gentleman, with a long dressing-gown trailing behind him.
'We hope that you will forgive us,' says the young man, advancing towards his hostess; 'but we have come to say good-night. I suggested that our costume was not quite what is usual, but I was overruled.'
As he speaks his fair burden makes it clear by a wriggling movement that she wishes to be set down; and, being obliged in this particular, instantly makes for her mother, and, climbing up into Lady Betty's splendid lap, begins to whisper in her ear. The boy stands shamefaced, clutching his protector's hand, and evidently painfully conscious that no other gentleman but himself in the room is in a dressing-gown.
'Do you know what she is asking me?' cries Lady Betty, bursting into a fit of laughter. 'Freddy, I must congratulate you upon a new bonne fortune. She is asking whether she may kiss Freddy Ducane! There, be off with you! Since'—with a look of casual careless coquetry at Talbot—'you have introduced my family, perhaps you will be good enough to remove them.'
Mr. Talbot complies; and, having recaptured Miss Harborough—a feat of some difficulty, as, unlike her brother, she enjoys her déshabillé, and announces a loud intention of kissing everybody—departs in the same order in which he arrived, and the pretty little couple are seen no more.
CHAPTER III
It is obvious that, whatever else he may be, John Talbot is, with the exception of Mr. Evans, the man of smallest rank in the room, since to him is assigned the honour of leading Peggy into the dining-room. She had not at all anticipated it; but had somehow expected fully to see him, in defiance of precedence, bearing off his Betty. Nor is she by any means more pleased at, than prepared for, the provision made for her entertainment. John Talbot, the man whose name she has never heard except in connection with that of another man's wife! John Talbot, 'the man whom Lady Betty always takes about with her!' In Heaven's name, why does not she take him about with her now, and not devolve the onus of his entertainment upon other innocent and unwilling persons?
With thoughts such as these, that augur but ill for the amusingness of his dinner, running through her mind, Margaret lays her hand as lightly as it is possible to do, without absolutely not touching it, upon the coat-sleeve presented to her, and marches silently by its side into the dining-room, inwardly resolving to be as laconic, as forbidding, and as unlike Lady Betty to its owner as politeness towards her hostess will allow, and to devote as nearly as possible the whole of her conversation to her neighbour on the other side. Nor does her resolution flinch, even when that other neighbour reveals himself as Mr. Evans. It is certain that no duty compels her to take the initiative. Until John Talbot begins, she may preserve that silence which she would like to maintain intact, until she rises from the feast to which she has but just sat down. Doubtlessly he is of the same mind as she; and, maddened by separation from his idol, irritated against her, who, for even an hour, has taken that idol's place, he will ask nothing better than to sit mute in resentful pining for her, from whom Lady Roupell has so inhumanly parted him. As to his intentions to be mute, she is soon undeceived; for she has not yet finished unbuttoning her gloves when she finds herself addressed by him.
'I think I had the pleasure of meeting you here last year?'
Nothing can be more banal than the observation; more serenely civil, less maddened than the tone in which it is conveyed. He is not going to leave her in peace then? She is so surprised and annoyed at this discovery that for a moment she forgets to answer him. It is not until reminded of her omission by an expectant look on his face that she recollects to drop a curt 'Yes.'
'I came'—thinking from her manner that the incident has escaped her memory, and that he will recall it by becoming more circumstantial—'I came with the Harboroughs.'
Another 'Yes,' still more curt and bald than the last. H'm! not flattering for him, certainly; but she has obviously not yet overtaken the reminiscence.
'It was about this time of year.'
'Yes.'
What is the matter with the girl? there is certainly something very odd about her. He has noticed her but cursorily so far, but now gives her an attentively examining look. She appears to be perfectly sane, and not in the least shy. Is that handsome mouth, fresh and well cut, absolutely incapable of framing any syllable but 'Yes'? He gives himself some little trouble so to compose his next question that the answer, 'Yes,' to it shall be impossible.
'Do you happen to recollect whether it was this month or September? Lady Betty Harborough and I had an argument about it as we came up from the station.'
Lady Betty Harborough! With what a brazen front he himself has introduced her! She, Peggy, would as soon have thought of flying in the air as of mentioning that name which he has just so matter-of-factly pronounced.
'I am afraid that I do not remember,' she answers frostily.
He looks at her again, in growing wonder. What does ail her? Is it, after all, a mysterious form of shyness? He knows under how many odd disguises that strange malady of civilisation hides itself. Despite his thirty-two years, is not he shy himself sometimes? Poor girl, he can feel for her!
'Not only did we meet here,' pursues he, with a pleasant friendly smile, 'but Lady Roupell was good enough to take me down to call upon you at your own house.'
'Yes?'
Well, it is uphill work! If he has to labour at the oar like this from now until dessert, there will not be much left of him at the end. Well, never mind! it is all in the day's work; only he will ask Lady Roupell quietly not to inflict this impossible dummy upon him again.
'We came down upon you in great force, I remember—it was on a Sunday—Lady Roupell, Freddy, the Bentincks, the Harboroughs.'
He pauses, discouraged, despite himself. She has been leisurely sipping her soup, and now lays down her spoon, looking straight before her. He heaves a loud sigh, but not even that induces her to look round at him.
'Lady Roupell often brings people down on Sunday afternoons,' she says, in an indifferent voice, which implies that it is a quite impossible feat for her memory to separate the one insignificant Sunday to which he alludes from all or any others. In point of fact, she remembers it perfectly, and the recollection of it adds a double chill to her tone.
On that very Sunday afternoon did not this man and his Lady Betty flagrantly lose themselves for an hour in an orchard six yards square? Did not Lady Betty, without leave asked or given, eat all the mulberries that were ripe on Peggy's one tree? Did not she, in rude horse-play pelting a foolish guardsman with green apples, break a bell-glass that sheltered the picotee cuttings cherished of Jacob's and of Peggy's souls?
Ignorant of the offensive reminiscences he has stirred up, Mr. Talbot blunders on:
'I remember you had a tame——'
He stops. He cannot for the life of him recollect what the tame animal was that he was taken to see. He can only recall that it was some beast not usually kept as a pet, and that it lived in a house in the stable-yard. Of course if he pauses she will supply the word, and his lapse of memory need never be perceived.
But he has reckoned without his host. She has indeed turned her face a little towards him, and says 'Yes?' expectantly.
It is clear that she has not the least intention of helping him; and is it, or is it not, his fancy that there is a slight ill-natured tremor about that corner of her mouth which is nearest him?
'A tame—badger,' suggests he desperately.
But the moment that he has uttered the word he knows that it was not a badger.
'A tame badger!' repeats she slowly, and again gazing straight before her; 'yes, what a nice pet!'
She is not shy at all, nor even stupid. She is only rude and malevolent. But he will not give her the satisfaction of letting her see that he perceives it.
'Perhaps Lady Roupell will have your permission to bring us down to see you next Sunday, when I may have an opportunity of stroking my old friend the badger's' (he smiles, as if he had known all along that it was not a badger) 'head once again.'
'I do not know what Lady Roupell's plans for next Sunday are,' replies she snubbingly; and so turns, with a decided movement of head and shoulder, towards her other neighbour, Mr. Evans, who, however, is not nearly so grateful for her attentions as he should be.
Mr. Evans has the poor and Peggy Lambton always with him, but he has not a haunch of fat buck-venison more than three times a year. In everyday life he is more than willing to give his share of the Vicarage dinner to such among the sick and afflicted of his flock as can be consoled and supported by underdone shoulders of mutton and batter-puddings; but on the rare occasions when the opportunity offers of having his palate titillated by the delicate cates of the higher civilisation, he had very much rather be left in peace to enjoy them. He has no fault to find in this respect with Prue Lambton, to whom, as having taken her in to dinner, he might be supposed to have some conversational obligations.
Why, then, cannot Peggy, to whom he owes nothing, be equally considerate? Perhaps Peggy's heart speaks for him. At all events, after one or two vain shots at the harvest-home and the Workhouse tea, she desists from the futile effort to lead him into chat; but subtly remains sitting half turned towards him, as if talking to him, so as to baffle any further ventures—if, indeed, he have the spirit to make such—on the part of her other neighbour. Her tongue being idle, she allows her eyes to travel. It is true that the thick forest of oats and poppies which waves over the board renders the sight of the table's other side about as difficult as that of the coast of France; but at least she can see her fat hostess at the head of the table, and her slim host at the foot. Freddy Ducane is in his glory—something fair and female on either hand. On his right Lady Betty, who, being a duke's daughter, takes precedence of the other smart woman, who was only a miss before she blossomed into a viscountess; on his left, to ensure himself against the least risk of having any dull or vacuous moments during his dinner, he has arranged Prue Lambton—'his little friend Prue.' Beyond the mere fact of proximity—in itself, of course, a splendid boon—she does not, so far, seem to be much the gainer by her position.
However, he snatches a moment every now and then to explain to her—Peggy knows it as well as if she heard his words—how entirely a matter of irksome duty and hospitality are his whispers to Lady Betty, his tender comments upon her clothes, and long bunglings with the clasp of her pearls. And, judging by her red-stained cheeks, her empty plate (which of us in his day has not been too superbly happy to eat?), and the trembling smiles that rush out to meet his lame explanations, Prue believes him. Poor little Prue!
Margaret sighs sadly and impatiently, and looks away—looks away to find John Talbot's eyes fastened upon her with an expression of such innocent and genuine curiosity that she asks involuntarily:
'Why do you look at me?'
'I beg your pardon a thousand times!' he answers apologetically. 'I was only wondering, to be quite sincere—by the bye, do you like people to be quite sincere?'
'That depends,' replies Peggy cautiously.
'Well, then, I must risk it. I was wondering why on earth you had thought it worth your while to snub me in the way you have been doing.'
She does not answer, but again looks straight before her.
How very offensive in a woman to look straight before her! She ought to be quite certain of the perfection of her profile before she presents it so persistently to you.
Shall he tell her so? That would make her look round pretty quickly.
'I was trying to see whether I could not regard it in the light of a compliment,' continues he audaciously.
'That would not be easy,' replies she drily.
'It was something that you should have thought me worth wasting your powder and shot upon,' he answers.
Certainly her profile is anything but perfect; her chin projects too much. In her old age, if she had a hook nose (which she has not), she would be a mere nut-cracker.
Shall he tell her that? How many disagreeable things he might tell her! It puts him into quite a good humour with her to think of them.
'Now, about that badger, for instance,' says he.
But at that, against her will, she laughs outright.
'Dear little beast!' she cries maliciously; 'so playful and affectionate! such a pet!'
She has laughed. That is something gained, at all events. It is not a nice friendly laugh. On the contrary, it is a very rude, ill-natured one: she is obviously a rude, ill-natured girl; but it is a laugh.
'You can see for yourself,' pursues he, holding out one of the menus for her inspection, 'that we are only at the first entrée; we shall have to sit beside each other for a good hour more. Lady Roupell does not want to talk to me; and your neighbour—I do not know who he is, and I will not ask you, because I know you would not answer me civilly—but whoever he is, he will not talk to you. I saw you try to make him, and he would not; he snubbed you. I was avenged! I was very glad!'
Peggy would much rather not have laughed; but there is something that seems to her so ludicrous in the fact of her abortive advances to Mr. Evans having been overheard and triumphed at, that she cannot help yielding to a brief and stifled mirth at her own expense. And, after all, what he says is sense. He is a very bad man, and she dislikes him extremely; but to let him observe to her that the news from Afghanistan seems warlike; or to remark in return that she has never seen the root-crops look better, need not in the least detract from the thoroughness of her ill opinion of him, and may make the ensuing hour a shade less tedious to herself than would entire silence. So she turns her candid eyes, severely, serenely blue, for the first time, full upon him, and says:
'I think you are right; I think we had better talk.'
But of course, at that sudden permission to talk, every possible topic of conversation flies out of his head. And yet as she remains, with her two blue eyes sternly fixed upon him, awaiting the question or questions that she has given him permission to put, he must say something; so he asks stupidly:
'Who is your neighbour?'
'Our vicar.'
'What is his name?' (How infinitely little he cares what the vicar's name is; but it gives him time.)
'E V A N S,' replies she, spelling very distinctly and slowly, afraid that she may be overheard if she pronounce the whole name.
'Oh, thanks; and the lady opposite in mourning is Mrs. E V A N S?' (spelling too).
'She is Mrs. Evans; but she is not in mourning; she is in her wedding-gown!' replies Peggy, breaking into a smile.
She never can help smiling at the thought of Mrs. Evans's wedding-dress, any more than Charles Lamb's Cheshire cats can help laughing when they think of Cheshire being a County Palatine. She is smiling broadly now. Well, if her smile come seldom, there is no doubt that it is a very agreeable one when it does come. What sort of thing could he say that would be likely to bring it back?
'I did not know that people were ever married in black.'
She shakes her head oracularly.
'No more they are!'
She is smiling still. (What a delightful wide mouth! and what dents de jeune chien!)
'It is made out of an old Geneva gown of his?' suggests Talbot wildly.
Again she shakes her nut-brown head.
'Wrong.'
'I have it!' he cries eagerly. 'I know more about the subject than you think; it has been dyed.'
The mirth has retired from her mouth, and now lurks in the tail of her bright eye.
'You did not find that out for yourself,' she says distrustfully; 'some one told you.'
'Upon my honour, it is my own unassisted discovery,' replies he solemnly, and then they both laugh.
Finding herself betrayed into such a harmony of light-hearted merriment with him, Margaret pulls herself up. After all, she must not forget that there is a medium between the stiff politeness she had planned and this hail-fellow-well-met-ness into which she finds herself somehow sliding. Nor does his next sentence, though innocently enough meant, at all conduce to make her again relax her austerity.
'I should not allow my wife to dye her wedding-gown black.'
His wife! How dare he allude to such a person? He, with his illegal Betty ogling and double-entendre-ing and posturing opposite! How dare he allude to marriage at all? He to whom that sacred tie is a derision! She has frozen up again.
Without having the faintest suspicion of the cause, he is wonderingly aware of the result. Is it possible that she can object to his introducing his hypothetical wife into the consideration? She is more than welcome to retort upon him with her supposititious husband. He will give her the chance.
'Would you?'
'Would I what?'
'Dye your wedding-gown black?'
She knows that she would not. She knows that she would lay it up in lavender, and tenderly show the yellowed skirt and outlandish sleeves to her grandchildren forty years hence. But in the pleasure of contradicting him, truth is worsted.
'Yes.'
'You would?' in a tone of surprise.
She must repeat her fib.
'Yes.'
'Well, I should not have thought it.'
He would like her to ask him why he would not have thought it; but she does not oblige him.
'I think it would show a want of sentiment,' pursues he perseveringly.
'Yes?'
Good heavens! If she has not got back again to her monosyllable!
'Do not you?'
'No.'
'I should think it would bring ill-luck, should not you?'
'No.'
'Should not you, really?'
'I do not think that it is worth arguing about,' replies Peggy, roused and wearied. 'I may dye mine, and you need not dye yours, and we shall neither of us be any the worse.'
'And yet——' he begins; but she interrupts him.
'After all,' she says, turning once more upon him those two dreadfully direct blue eyes—'after all, I am not at all sure that it is not a good emblem of marriage—the white gown that goes through muddy waters, and comes out black on the other side.'
There is such a weight of meaning and emphasis in her words that he is silent, and wishes that she had kept to her monosyllables.
CHAPTER IV
'Oh, Peggy! I have had such a dinner!' cries Prue, in an ecstatic voice, drawing her sister away into a window as soon as the ladies have reached the drawing-room.
'Have you indeed?' replies Margaret distrustfully, and wilfully misunderstanding. 'Had you two helps of venison, like Mr. Evans?'
'Oh! I am not talking of the food!' rejoins the other impatiently. 'I do not know whether or not I ate anything; I do not think I did. But they were so amusing, I did not want to talk. He saw that I did not want to talk, so he let me sit and listen.'
'That was very considerate of him.'
'She was so amusing; she told us such funny stories about Mr. Harborough—no harm, you know, but rather making game of him. I do not know what Mrs. Evans meant by saying that she stuck at nothing. She said one or two things that I did not quite understand; but I am sure there was no harm in them.'
'Perhaps not.'
'And she was so kind to me,' pursues Prue, with enthusiasm; 'trying to draw me into the conversation, asking how long I had been out.'
But here the sisters' tête-à-tête[4] is broken in upon by the high-pitched voice of the subject of their conversation.
'Who would like to come and see my children in bed? Do not all speak at once. H'm! nobody? This is hardly gratifying to a mother's feelings. Miss Lambton, I am sure you will come; you look as if you were fond of children. And you, Miss Prue, I shall insist upon your coming, whether you like it or not!'
So saying she puts her hand familiarly through the delighted little girl's arm, and walks off with her, Peggy following grudgingly. She has not the slightest desire to see the young Harboroughs, asleep or wake; though she has already had to defend her heart against an inclination to grow warm towards them, upon their rosy nightgowned entry before dinner. She has to defend it still more strongly, when, the nursery being reached, she sees them lying in the all-gentleness of perfect slumber in their cribs. Even that not innumerous class who dislike the waking child, the self-assertive, interrogative, climbing, bawling, smashing, waking child, grow soft-hearted at the sight of the little sleeping angel. Is this really Lady Betty bending over the little bed? recovering the outflung chubby arm from fear of cold, straightening the coverlets, and laying a light hand on the cool forehead? Peggy ought to be pleased by such a sign of grace; but when we have formed a conception of a person we are seldom quite pleased by the discovery of a fact that declines to square with that conception.
'You are very fond of them?' she says in a whisper, that, without her intending it, is interrogative; and through which pierces perhaps a tone of more surprise than she is herself aware of.
Lady Betty stares.
'Fond of them! Why, I am a perfect fool about them; at least I am about him! I do not care so much about her; she is a thorough Harborough! Did you ever see such a likeness as hers to her father? He' (with a regretful motion of the head toward the boy's bed) 'is a little like him too; but he has a strong look of me. When his eyes are open he is the image of me. I have a good mind to wake him to show you.'
'Oh, do not!' cries Margaret eagerly; 'it would be a sin!'
But the caution is needless. The mother had no real thought of breaking in upon that lovely slumber.
'Did you ever see such a duck?' says she rapturously, stooping over him; 'and his hand!'—taking the little plump fist softly into her own palm—'look at his hand! Will not he be a fine strong man? He can pummel his nurse already, cannot he, Harris? And not a day's illness in all his little life, bless him!'
Her eyes are almost moist as she speaks. The colour would no doubt come and go in her cheeks, only that unfortunately it has contracted the habit of never going, unless washed off by eau-de-Cologne[5]. Against her will, Peggy feels her ill opinion melting away like mist; but happily, on her return to the drawing-room, she is able to restore it in its entirety. For no sooner have the men appeared than Lady Betty disappears. The exact moment of her flight and its companion Peggy has been unable to verify; as, at the moment when it must have taken place, she was buttonholed by Mrs. Evans on the subject of rose-rash, an unhandsome little disorder at present rioting among the Evans's ranks; and for which Peggy is supposed to have a specific. But though she did not actually see the person who shared Lady Betty's evasion, she is as sure as to who it was as if her very bodily eyes had looked upon him,—John Talbot, of course. With John Talbot she is now dishonestly philandering under the honest harvest-moon; to John Talbot she is now talking criminal nonsense, with those very lips that five minutes ago were laid upon the sacred velvet cheeks of her little children. With a curling lip Margaret looks round the room.
Why, Prue is missing too, and Freddy! Prue, the prone to quinsy, to throats, to delicacy of all kinds, straying over the deep-dewed grass without cloak or goloshes[6]
