The Odd Women Part 30

'If you will go, dear. And I have no doubt she will be present at our wedding. Unfortunately, she's my only relative; or the only one I know anything about. After our marriage I don't think we shall see much of her--'

'No, I dare say not,' was Monica's remark. And thereupon they turned to pleasanter themes.

That morning Widdowson had received from his sister-in-law a scribbled post-card, asking him to call upon Mrs. Luke early the day that followed. Of course this meant that the lady was desirous of further talk concerning Miss Madden. Unwillingly, but as a matter of duty, he kept the appointment. It was at eleven in the morning, and, when admitted to the flat in Victoria Street which was his relative's abode, he had to wait a quarter of an hour for the lady's appearance.

Luxurious fas.h.i.+on, as might have been expected, distinguished Mrs.

Luke's drawing-room. Costly and beautiful things superabounded; perfume soothed the air. Only since her bereavement had Mrs. Widdowson been able to indulge this taste for modern exuberance in domestic adornment.

The deceased Luke was a plain man of business, who clung to the fas.h.i.+ons which had been familiar to him in his youth; his second wife found a suburban house already furnished, and her influence with him could not prevail to banish the horrors amid which he chose to live: chairs in maroon rep, Brussels carpets of red roses on a green ground, horse-hair sofas of the most uncomfortable shape ever designed, antimaca.s.sars everywhere, chimney ornaments of cut gla.s.s trembling in sympathy with the kindred chandeliers. She belonged to an obscure branch of a house that culminated in an obscure baronetcy; penniless and ambitious, she had to thank her imposing physique for rescue at a perilous age, and though despising Mr. Luke Widdowson for his plebeian tastes, she shrewdly retained the good-will of a husband who seemed no candidate for length of years. The money-maker died much sooner than she could reasonably have hoped, and left her an income of four thousand pounds. Thereupon began for Mrs. Luke a life of feverish aspiration. The baronetcy to which she was akin had inspired her, even from childhood, with an aristocratic ideal; a handsome widow of only eight-and-thirty, she resolved that her wealth should pave the way for her to a t.i.tled alliance. Her acquaintance lay among City people, but with the opportunities of freedom it was soon extended to the sphere of what is known as smart society; her flat in Victoria Street attracted a heterogeneous cl.u.s.ter of pleasure-seekers and fortune-hunters, among them one or two vagrant members of the younger aristocracy. She lived at the utmost pace compatible with technical virtue. When, as shortly happened, it became evident that her income was not large enough for her serious purpose, she took counsel with an old friend great in finance, and thenceforth the excitement of the gambler gave a new zest to her turbid existence. Like most of her female a.s.sociates, she had free recourse to the bottle; but for such stimulus the life of a smart woman would be physically impossible. And Mrs. Luke enjoyed life, enjoyed it vastly. The goal of her ambition, if all went well in the City, was quite within reasonable hope. She foretasted the day when a vulgar prefix would no longer attach to her name, and when the journals of society would reflect her rising effulgence.

Widdowson was growing impatient, when his relative at length appeared.

She threw herself into a deep chair, crossed her legs, and gazed at him mockingly.

'Well, it isn't quite so bad as I feared, Edmund.'

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, she's a decent enough little girl, I can see. But you're a silly fellow for all that. You couldn't have deceived me, you know. If there'd been anything--you understand?--I should have spotted it at once.'

'I don't relish this kind of talk,' observed Widdowson acidly. 'In plain English, you supposed I was going to marry some one about whom I couldn't confess the truth.'

'Of course I did. Now come; tell me how you got to know her.'

The man moved uneasily, but in the end related the whole story. Mrs.

Luke kept nodding, with an amused air.

'Yes, yes; she managed it capitally. Clever little witch. Fetching eyes she has.'

'If you sent for me to make insulting remarks--'

'Bos.h.!.+ I'll come to the wedding gaily. But you're a silly fellow. Now, why didn't you come and ask me to find you a wife? Why, I know two or three girls of really good family who would have jumped, simply jumped, at a man with your money. Pretty girls too. But you always were so horribly unpractical. Don't you know, my dear boy, that there are heaps of ladies, real ladies, waiting the first decent man who offers them five or six hundred a year? Why haven't you used the opportunities that you knew I could put in your way?'

Widdowson rose from his seat and stood stiffly.

'I see you don't understand me in the least. I am going to marry because, for the first time in my life, I have met the woman whom I can respect and love.'

'That's very nice and proper. But why shouldn't you respect and love a girl who belongs to good society?'

'Miss Madden is a lady,' he replied indignantly.

'Oh--yes--to be sure,' hummed the other, letting her head roll back.

'Well, bring her here some day when we can lunch quietly together. I see it's no use. You're not a sharp man, Edmund.'

'Do you seriously tell me,' asked Widdowson, with grave curiosity, 'that there are ladies in good society who would have married me just because I have a few hundreds a year?'

'My dear boy, I would get together a round dozen in two or three days.

Girls who would make good, faithful wives, in mere grat.i.tude to the man who saved them from--horrors.'

'Excuse me if I say that I don't believe it.'

Mrs. Luke laughed merrily, and the conversation went on in this strain for another ten minutes. At the end, Mrs. Luke made herself very agreeable, praised Monica for her sweet face and gentle manners, and so dismissed the solemn man with a renewed promise to countenance the marriage by her gracious presence.

When Rhoda Nunn returned from her holiday it wanted but a week to Monica's wedding, so speedily had everything been determined and arranged. Miss Barfoot, having learnt from Virginia all that was to be known concerning Mr. Widdowson, felt able to hope for the best; a grave husband, of mature years, and with means more than sufficient, seemed, to the eye of experience, no unsuitable match for a girl such as Monica. This view of the situation caused Rhoda to smile with contemptuous tolerance.

'And yet,' she remarked, 'I have heard you speak severely of such marriages.'

'It isn't the ideal wedlock,' replied Miss Barfoot. 'But so much in life is compromise. After all, she may regard him more affectionally than we imagine.'

'No doubt she has weighed advantages. If the prospects you offered her had proved more to her taste she would have dismissed this elderly admirer. His fate has been decided during the last few weeks. It's probable that the invitation to your Wednesday evenings gave her a hope of meeting young men.'

'I see no harm if it did,' said Miss Barfoot, smiling. 'But Miss Vesper would very soon undeceive her on that point.'

'I hardly thought of her as a girl likely to make chance friends.h.i.+ps with men in highways and by-ways.'

'No more did I; and that makes all the more content with what has come about. She ran a terrible risk, poor child. You see, Rhoda, nature is too strong for us.'

Rhoda threw her head back.

'And the delight of her sister! It is really pathetic. The mere fact that Monica is to be married blinds the poor woman to every possibility of misfortune.' In the course of the same conversation, Rhoda remarked thoughtfully,--

'It strikes me that Mr. Widdowson must be of a confiding nature. I don't think men in general, at all events those with money, care to propose marriage to girls they encounter by the way.'

'I suppose he saw that the case was exceptional.'

'How was he to see that?'

'You are severe. Her shop training accounts for much. The elder sisters could never have found a husband in this way. The revelation must have shocked them at first.'

Rhoda dismissed the subject lightly, and henceforth showed only the faintest interest in Monica's concerns.

Monica meanwhile rejoiced in her liberation from the work and philosophic severities of Great Portland Street. She saw Widdowson somewhere or other every day, and heard him discourse on the life that was before them, herself for the most part keeping silence. Together they called upon Mrs. Luke, and had luncheon with her. Monica was not displeased with her reception, and began secretly to hope that more than a glimpse of that gorgeous world might some day be vouchsafed to her.

Apart from her future husband, Monica was in a sportive mood, with occasional fits of exhilaration which seemed rather unnatural. She had declared to Mildred her intention of inviting Miss Nunn to the wedding, and her mind was evidently set on carrying out this joke, as she regarded it. When the desire was intimated by letter, Rhoda replied with a civil refusal: she would be altogether out of place at such a ceremony, but hoped that Monica would accept her heartiest good wishes.

Virginia was then dispatched to Queen's Road, and appealed so movingly that the prophetess at length yielded. On hearing this Monica danced with delight, and her companion in Rutland Street could not help sharing her merriment.

The ceremony was performed at a church at Herne Hill. By an odd arrangement--like everything else in the story of this pair, a result of social and personal embarra.s.sments--Monica's belongings, including her apparel for the day, were previously dispatched to the bridegroom's house, whither, in company with Virginia, the bride went early in the morning. It was one of the quietest of weddings, but all ordinary formalities were complied with, Widdowson having no independent views on the subject. Present were Virginia (to give away the bride), Miss Vesper (who looked decidedly odd in a pretty dress given her by Monica), Rhoda Nunn (who appeared to advantage in a costume of quite unexpected appropriateness), Mrs. Widdowson (an imposing figure, evidently feeling that she had got into strange society), and, as friend of the bridegroom, one Mr. Newd.i.c.k, a musty and nervous City clerk. Depression was manifest on every countenance, not excepting Widdowson's; the man had such a stern, gloomy look, and held himself with so much awkwardness, that he might have been imagined to stand here on compulsion. For an hour before going to the church, Monica cried and seemed unutterably doleful; she had not slept for two nights; her face was ghastly. Virginia's gladness gave way just before the company a.s.sembled, and she too shed many tears.

There was a breakfast, more dismal fooling than even this species of fooling is wont to be. Mr. Newd.i.c.k, trembling and bloodless, proposed Monica's health; Widdowson, stern and dark as ever, gloomily responded; and then, _that_ was happily over. By one o'clock the gathering began to disperse. Monica drew Rhoda Nunn aside.

'It was very kind of you to come,' she whispered, with half a sob. 'It all seems very silly, and I'm sure you have wished yourself away a hundred times. I am really, seriously, grateful to you.'

Rhoda put a hand on each side of the girl's face, and kissed her, but without saying a word; and thereupon left the house. Mildred Vesper, after changing her dress in the room used by Monica, as she had done on arriving, went off by train to her duties in Great Portland Street.

Virginia alone remained to see the married couple start for their honeymoon. They were going into Cornwall, and on the return journey would manage to see Miss Madden at her Somerset retreat. For the present, Virginia was to live on at Mrs. Conisbee's, but not in the old way; henceforth she would have proper attendance, and modify her vegetarian diet--at the express bidding of the doctor, as she explained to her landlady.

Though that very evening Everard Barfoot made a call upon his friends in Chelsea, the first since Rhoda's return from Cheddar, he heard nothing of the event that marked the day. But Miss Nunn appeared to him unlike herself; she was absent, had little to say, and looked, what he had never yet known her, oppressed by low spirits. For some reason or other Miss Barfoot left the room.

'You are thinking with regret of your old home,' Everard remarked, taking a seat nearer to Miss Nunn.'

'No. Why should you fancy that?'