CAPÍTULO 8.

            NOEL’S astonishment may be imagined when, soon after, he read the following letter from Sophia Bevan: –

            ‘James has surprised us all by arriving suddenly and unannounced. He says little that is intelligible by way of explanation to mamma or me; but asked first for you and Margaret; and looked rather disconcerted, not to say foolish, on learning that you are in England and have not been in Rome with us at all. Were I to describe his demeanour precisely as it appears to me, I should have to employ the epithet “surly.” I keep this a couple of days in hope of being able to write a more satisfactory report.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

            ‘James is coming round. He is more as I knew him of old, when he relapses into conversation. Oh dear, oh dear, what a puzzle it all is. I feel like Fatima, only without the keys. I have no Bluebeard to trust me so far. Margaret affects to be neither surprised nor put out; and mamma, who is not one-tenth part so clever as I am, exhibits all the serenity

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of perfect knowledge; while I can only impatiently flatten the nose of my mind against the darkened windows of the mystery, without seeing anything. He says now that he has only run over for a short holiday, feeling that if England becomes embroiled with the United States, he should not be able to get away from Mexico later.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

            ‘I detain this to tell you of my luncheon party. It was very smart one, I assure you; and I think James must have been pleased with the sort of people he met. I told my cardinal privately, all about him, and he, on his part, seemed rather flattered at being accepted as a sort of envoy from Mexico by a man so distinguished as A––. They talked a great deal together in Spanish; principally, I believe, about the prospects of the Intervention and the Church in Mexico. And James seems to have spoken pretty plainly, for the cardinal said to me afterwards that if everybody was of my friend’s opinion, the Church would be a superfluity in other places than in Mexico.

            ‘This conversation was private and did no harm; but I trembled at the delicate ground James ventured upon in the more general conversation. Fancy his discussing the Inquisition before the Princes of the Holy Roman Church! I did not observe what led to it, but he said that “while there has been a great deal of talk about the pains inflicted by the Inquisition, nothing has been said about the pleasures conferred by it. The delight of inflicting torture, especially in support of one’s own opinions, which are, perhaps, incapable of being advanced in any other way, must be great enough to more than counterbalance its pains. There can be no doubt that if judges had the power of inflicting it now-a-days they would be always using it. Indeed one of them once admitted as much.”

            ‘It was Margaret’s first appearance at any of our gaieties. James would not hear of any excuse; and, indeed, she could find none, since he has returned. He must have felt proud of the sensation she made. No one could credit her having been in Rome all this time, and making his absence a reason for seclusion. She seemed to me to be a little distraite, and trying to force herself to be gay. I shall write again soon.’

            James wrote to Noel as follows: –

            ‘I fancied you were in Rome, and came straight here. Is there any chance of your coming, or shall I come to England?

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I wish to talk about the mine. But there is no need for haste. I have left things going on under the charge of the officials, whom you know; and the director of the neighbouring Real will give them advice if any difficulty arises. I have told them not to send any convoy down in my absence, unless the country becomes much quieter. I had a good deal of trouble to get the last, which I brought down with me, safe through. The struggle between the government and the invasion is a very desperate one. Juarez still holds the capital, but the promises held out by the French to the priestly party strengthen their hands so much as to make the fate of the country for the next few years very doubtful. Of the ultimate issue I have no doubt; but its date will depend on the conclusion of the American war. Neither party has yet molested the mining interests, beyond forcing a small loan, from which, by special grace of the President, I was exempted. I have directed that only sufficient silver for paying working expenses be made in my absence. The bulk is to stop at a stage short of market-condition. I shall be glad to see you again, and thank you for all your care of Margaret. She and I are quite at home together in Rome.’

            ‘No, no,’ said Noel to himself on reading this letter; ‘the mine may wait. I am not going to Rome in order to behold him exercising ownership over Margaret. I fancy, from Sophia’s account, that he is not having a very happy time of it. I wonder what brought him home just now. Oh, my poor darling,’ he cried, as the full revelation of Margaret’s position suddenly broke upon him, ‘what suffering must be yours, and I thought for a moment of myself!’ And laying his head upon the table, he gave way to a burst of irrepressible anguish.

            When at length he recovered himself, he wrote to say that he was detained for the present by law business, and that it would be time to discuss the affairs of the mine when Maynard should come to England in the spring.

            Thenceforth, Noel’s book took a form so biographical in its character, and, though not less philosophic, so true to life, and that a real life of which he knew, that he never left a line of his manuscript on his table, never a page unsecured by lock and key, when he went out, lest the entry of any one in his absence might lead to the discovery of his secret, or to surmises that could bring nought but pain.

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            His new idea grew in its firm possession of him, and the ardour with which he followed it caused the weeks to pass uncounted, and enabled him “to conquer the impulse that at times became almost too strong for him, of going to James and demanding Margaret of him.

            It was a speciality of Noel’s temperament to believe that to strong faith nothing was impossible. It betrayed its presence whenever he was under the influence of enthusiasm for any new project or idea. He felt that it needed only a supreme excitement of his will for him to be able to execute the loftiest purpose. Under such stimulus, he doubted not his ability to achieve a success in any of conduct or art that would strike the cooler minds of mankind in general as a result of the highest genius. Such confidence was not conceit, though his expression of it might sometimes appear so, for no man could be more diffident of his own powers. It was the impelling force of his inspiration that spoke in him, an inspiration which he did not feel to be of himself. He was but as its instrument. When it spoke so mightily in him, he could not help ascribing to others a participation in its influence.

            But there was a vast interval between the enthusiasm of Noel and that of the fanatic. With him, imagination was ever dominated by his reason. He was so far master of his delirium, as to be able to reason it down to practical limits whenever action was involved. Thus, when flushed with the idea of demanding from James the abandonment of Margaret to himself, he was able to reason thus: –

            ‘If James believed that she would be happier with me, he loves her well enough to yield her. Then why should I hesitate? What law do we acknowledge but that of the heart? And he would be happier in his self-sacrifice for her. Nay, he might even think that she would feel such compassion for him in his loneliness, as to undergo a revulsion of feeling and come to love him with a love as intense as his own. What, then, could hinder? What, but Margaret herself? She would not accept his sacrifice. I am sure I do not read her wrongly in this. Here she would be adamant. The more her own love was involved, the more she would refuse to take advantage of his renunciation and agony. She could not be happy, knowing him to be wretched. James might consent to give her up, believing that she would return to him. But she, believing that he could not bear it, would not consent to be given up. This is certain.

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There is, then, nothing to be done but to endure in silence, careful only to avoid aught that can add to their pain, and taking such means as I am able of proving to her my unlimited veneration and love.’

            The winter was well advanced when Noel gathered from the following letter of Sophia’s that James frequently manifested in regard to Margaret a degree of bitterness and irritability that was most distressing to Lady Bevan and herself. Noel tried in vain to conceal from himself that he derived a certain amount of satisfaction from the intelligence.

            ‘I wish you would join us, for not only do I want you for myself, but I am quite sure that it would do James good to have you with him a bit. The mystery of his temperament surpasses my penetration, and when I attempt to make Margaret take him to task for his rudeness to her, she only says with a sad laugh that it is his way, and that I do not understand him. It is a new idea to me that bitterness and sarcasm should be the off-spring of love and happiness, and I don’t believe in it. However, I will say for him that he never misbehaves himself except when she is present. Get him away from her and he is perfectly charming. All the best people here insist on having him for interpreter and cicerone in their antiquarian expeditions. A grand one is being projected to visit the excavations at Ostia, and James has promised to go there as soon as some great stone thing which has just been reached, is sufficiently uncovered to allow of the inscriptions being read. Margaret has been obliged to quit her beloved seclusion and go about a good deal. He is evidently immensely proud to have her seen and admired, though he treats her, as I think, so badly. If he were my husband I should say plainly to him, “I don’t go out with you until you learn to behave properly.” I said as much to Margaret, but she made excuses for him, saying he is so good and clever that one must allow for a little eccentricity; and that if he seems cross it is only because he suffers. She hinted at climate as a cause, and said it was no matter so long as she was the only victim. But I heard of his saying something that makes me feel sure that all is not well between them, and that one or both has a hard time of it. One of our grandees ventured to compliment him on possessing perfection of soul, as well as of body, in his wife. He replied, with a smile of the grimmest description,

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that he must disclaim any compliment on such a score. The answer remained a puzzle to his auditor until a little afterwards; when, the name of some ancient Greek, or noble Roman, cropping up, James said that that was the sage who possessed a wife universally admired no less for her mental than for her bodily excellences, and who when remonstrated with on his getting divorced from her, took off his shoe and holding it up said, “Is not that a perfect shoe in shape and make and fashion? It is only the wearer that can tell where it pinches.”

            ‘Poor Margaret was present when James said this, and people only thought how secure in the confidence of mutual affection must the man be who can venture on such a speech before his wife. Was it to be expected that any woman could be happy with a son of Lord Littmass? But his oddest speech was just after this. It was a Coliseum party, and we were all resting in the shade sitting about on the broken steps when the same gentleman whose compliment had been repelled, thinking that James’s speeches afforded a clue to his opinions, said to him, –

            ‘ “I see that your new English Court of Divorce has an approver in you.”

            ‘ “Quite the reverse,” answered James. “I consider that a husband’s duty to his wife forbids his letting her go, however wretched she may be with him. Their failure to be happy as they intended, proves that it was the design of providence to make their marriage a discipline or a penance to them. And the husband has no business to thwart such design by letting her off.”

            ‘ “A charming theory,” said his interlocutor, “for any man who loves his wife so jealously and tormentingly as to make life a misery to her!”

            “You make happiness the test,” replied James, with a degree of scorn in his tone; “and duties are to be deserted if two individuals happen to disagree with each other.”

            ‘The other answered with vivacity, –

            ‘ “Then, marriage being an institution for the promotion of human discipline, and not of human happiness, I hope I shall manage to remain single until I can kiss my rod with right good will.” Here I broke in with, –

            ‘ “You are both wrong. Marriage is a duty. If happiness comes with it, so much the better, but you have no right to

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neglect a duty simply because you happen not to like it. For myself I rather incline to an opinion I once heard somewhere, that every one ought to marry young and often.”

            ‘There was a laugh at this, and then, impelled, I suppose, by the genius of the place, we got talking about celibacy, and priesthoods, and convents, and vestals; when I said I thought it very funny that it should be held as great a crime to give life as to take it, and that I suspected it was a contrivance of the priests to make them and their sanction necessary. (We were not a very young party.) And the Prince di R––, a pleasant middle-aged man, said slyly that he suspected that the priests of old had a selfish motive in withdrawing young women from the world, and establishing such orders as that of the vestals, and surrounding them with mystery and romance for those who were outside. And then James said in reference to my speech, that the only mistake that had been made was in not making the giving of life a greater crime than destroying it; inasmuch as it is a greater responsibility to bring any one into this world than to dismiss him into the next. And he went on in that curious half-bantering, half-serious manner, which makes it impossible to say what his real opinions are, to tell us that the Manichæans of old held that the soul of the world diffused throughout matter is concentrated in man, who is a creation of the evil principle; and that the human body is a prison which is continually tightening the bonds of the soul, and so limiting and restraining God; and that in this view it might be a more virtuous action to take life than to give it.

            ‘I answered him rather indignantly, – for I saw Margaret watching him with an expression of pain, and I thought of their own lovely little darlings, – that I preferred believing in one God to believing in two; and that if the Manichæans were right about man and the soul, such a process could be but a necessary part of the divine development, in order that by means of individualisation and antagonism there may be progression towards a higher result than is attainable by undivided unity.

            “Charmingly philosophical reason for all our differences,” exclaimed the Prince; and then, as I hate being complimented when I am in earnest, and dislike holding my skirts so high as to expose any blue, I rose and broke up the party.

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