on the following day, at luncheon, france remarked:—
“i shall leave cards on the county. when they are returned, no one will be admitted. i do not wish you to have any relations with my neighbors.”
“i haven’t the least desire to have any relations with our neighbors.”
“and you will exercise on foot hereafter. i shall want all the mounts.”
“very well.”
“if you wish to go to london, you will walk to stanmore. i have given orders at the stables that none are to be taken from you, and the servants will take none to stanmore.”
“very well.”
julia looked up, and their eyes met for the first time. in his was the strange glitter that had terrified her early in her married life and with which she had grown horribly familiar during her previous sojourn at white lodge. it was an expression of utterly soulless mirth, such, no doubt, as lit the eyes of savages while watching their victims at the stake. she saw at once that he was devising new methods of tormenting her and debated whether it would be wiser to laugh at him or to let him think he was accomplishing his purpose. being now poised and entirely without fear, it was her disposition to reveal herself, if only as a compensation for what he had made her suffer; but, on the other hand, she wanted what peace she could get; she felt no desire to vary the monotony of her life by egging him on to a point where, in spite of her pistols and her courage, he could easily, with his devilish resource, make her life unbearable. she believed that if she possessed her soul in patience, he would weary of the game and leave, even if he did not fulfil her hopes and go quite out of his mind first. she decided to temporize, and dropped her eyes.
“you make my life very hard, but i can only submit,” she murmured.
“i wish you never to forget that you are, so to speak, a prisoner of state.”
julia controlled her muscles and replied demurely:?—
“the king commands. i have only to obey. i shall probably expire of ennui, but, after all, i am only a woman, so what matter?”
“quite so!”
julia raised her lashes. the dancing glitter in his eyes was appalling. there was no doubt in her mind at that moment that his complete loss of reason was but a question of months. so much the better if she must merely humor a madman; that, at least, was “managing” without loss of self-respect. she sighed, and looked wistfully out of the window.
“i suppose you do not intend to permit me to follow the hounds?”
“certainly not. i intend that you shall remain within the walls of white lodge for the rest of your life and do nothing.”
“oh, very well.”
having banished all expression from her eyes, she looked at him again. this time he was regarding her with condescension and approval. “you may go to your room,” he said.
she thanked him and retired in good order.
he did not address her again for quite a month. then he informed her that there would be a large hunt breakfast at the house on the following morning, and commanded her to appear. he had already entertained a number of red-coated men at breakfast, and julia wondered at their complaisance in admitting him to something like intimacy; for, in spite of the position he had enjoyed for a time as a respectable benedict and heir to a dukedom, he had never made a friend, and it was patent that he was swallowed with many grimaces. but she guessed that noblesse oblige had much to do with it. the man had been accepted when placed in a position by his powerful relative to press home his social rights; therefore, was it impossible, in his fallen fortunes, to retreat to their old position, unless he proved himself a flagrant cad. besides, he had fought bravely in south africa, and personal courage and patriotism compensate for many shortcomings. moreover, he was an admirable cross-country rider. he was safe enough for the present.
she dressed herself with some excitement on the following morning, for it was long since gayety of any sort had entered her life. but when she stood in her house gown among some twenty men and women in pink coats and riding habits, all chattering of the prospective meet, and of the one two days before, she felt sadly out of it, and wished she had been permitted to remain in seclusion. it was nearly two years since she had presided at a hunt breakfast, and then she had worn her own habit, and been as keen for the chase as any of her guests. but as she stood with a group of women waiting for breakfast to be announced, and answering polite questions, assuring her indifferent neighbors that her frail health alone forbade her joining them in the field, she was astonished to find that she did not envy them, nor did she feel the least desire to race across the country after a frantic fox. it seemed such a futile attempt at self-delusion in the matter of pleasure. what had come over her? had she seen too much of the serious side of life during her eight months in london?
if she had wondered at france’s benevolence in permitting her to meet his guests and preside at his table, she was not long receiving enlightenment. they sat opposite each other in the table’s width, and before ten minutes had passed, he opened upon her batteries which hardly could be called masked. she had almost forgotten him, and was laughing merrily at a sally of the good-natured youth who sat on her left, when france leaned across the table and said softly:?—
“not so loud, my dear. you have forgotten your manners this last year. this is not nevis.”
julia was so completely taken by surprise that to her intense annoyance she colored violently. but she instantly understood his new tactics, and blazing defiance on him, regardless of consequences, turned to her neighbor. whatever she might submit to in private, pride commanded that she hold her own in public.
but every time that she answered a remark addressed to her by some one opposite, his dry sarcastic glance crossed hers, and once he said, raising his voice: “workin’ in a bonnet shop doesn’t improve manners, by jove. but my wife is only a child yet, and my cousin kingsborough and lady arabella worked too hard over her not to have been rewarded if she could have remained with them. of course, i’m only a rough sailor.”
there was an intense and painful pause after this speech, although julia paid no attention, and once more permitted her musical laugh, not the least of her charms, to ring out. she fancied this was the last time the county would honor white lodge, but shrewdly surmised that it was the last time they would be invited. they had been brought together to satisfy her husband’s passion for inflicting torment.
and not once did he betray himself. he looked superior, tolerant, lightly annoyed, but never vicious. his guests pronounced him a cad by the grace of god, but too great an ass to know what he was up to. they had long since accepted the fact that he was off his head about his wife; and, although this was damned uncomfortable, could only conclude that he was trying in his blundering way to apologize for her; why, heaven only knew, as she could give him cards and spades on breeding. julia secretly hoped that he would suddenly lose his self-control and burst out in a torrent of abuse, but france still had sentinels posted at every turn in his brain, and played his part throughout the breakfast without an instant’s lapse. he laughed tolerantly whenever he caught her making an observation or airing an opinion, but it was not until just before they rose from the table that he made another attack. the incessant sporting talk had ceased for a moment, and some one had mentioned nigel herbert’s books, apropos of his fine record in south africa.
“is he goin’ to hammer away at socialism for the rest of his life?” asked one of the young women. “awful bore, because he’s an old pal of mine, and i’d like to read him. do use your influence, mrs. france. he thinks a towerin’ lot of your opinion.”
“oh, now! now!” broke in france. “don’t encourage my little wife in any of her nonsense. she’s straight, all right, but an awful little goose about men. hope you haven’t turned her head, lansing,” addressing the young man beside her. “she’s only a child yet, and devoted to me, but i don’t want to be teased noon and night for a new toy.”
“by god,” muttered one of the men, “let’s take him to the duck pond. serves us right for coming here. wish i’d opposed his election. silly asses, all of us. leopards don’t change spots. but she’s a brick.”
julia, at least, had won the admiration of the company by her attitude, after the first attack, of serene unconsciousness. she might have been deaf and blind, and at the same time there was no betraying note of defiance in her voice or flash in her eyes. it was impossible to call france cruel, but the guests, as they filed out, and got on their mounts as quickly as possible, voted that it must be harder to be shut up with a bounder like that than to have lost the prospect of being a duchess.
after they had gone, and julia had brought the angry blood from her head by a long tramp in the opposite direction, she recalled a visit she had once paid with france to the castle of a young peer of the realm who had married a wealthy american girl for whom he had conceived an intense dislike. this man had appeared to take a peculiar pleasure in mortifying his wife in company, by an irresistible play of wit directed at herself. julia had felt a passionate sympathy for the helpless young duchess, who had neither the subtlety of tongue nor the bad manners of the man who was spending her money, and had expressed her wrath to france in no measured terms. france forgot nothing. when he felt the time had come for a new weapon, he selected one that is in every husband’s armory, and, although he used it clumsily, possessing nothing of the young duke’s cold irony and glancing wit, there was no chance that it should miss its aim.
julia was apprehensive that france, irritated at his failure to provoke her to retort, if not to tears, might seek other vengeance. but when they met on the following day it was evident by the expression of his eyes that he was quite satisfied. the arrogance of his manner, indeed, led her to suspect that his faith in himself was too great to recognize failure if it sprang at him, and for small mercies she was thankful.
it was nearly three months before he addressed another remark to her beyond polite phrases calculated to impress the servants. but one morning, shortly after the first of the year, he sent her word that he wished her presence in the library. she went at once and found him sitting before the table in a magisterial attitude. before him was a long itemized bill.
“you have been ordering books,” he said in a voice of cutting reproof, as if speaking to a dependant who must be shown his place. “i gave you no permission to run up bills of any sort.”
“i have always ordered books—for years, at least—it did not occur to me.”
this time julia was deeply mortified, and showed it as plainly as he could wish.
“you pretend to loathe me—your own word—and yet you are not too proud to run up bills for me to pay.”
julia’s gorge rose, and her humiliation fled. “you compel me to live with you, and i am entitled to compensation. besides, after all, you are my husband and i see no reason why you should not pay my bills. if you permit me to live away from you, that is another matter. i had nothing charged to you while i was earning my living.”
“if you want books, my lady, you can write to your mother for the money to pay for them. silly ass i was to marry a girl without a penny. who else would have married you if i hadn’t, and you thrown at my head? you ought to be thankful for bread and butter and a roof. no girl has a right to marry a man in my position unless she brings him her weight in gold.”
“what a pity i shall cost you so much when i’m a duchess,” said julia, mildly. “you would better let me go at once.”
“when you are a duchess, you’ll have clothes, but you’ll have no books, and no more liberty than you have here. as for this bill, i’ll pay it—when i get ready—but i shall write to-day and tell them that you have no further credit. you can go now.”
julia, as she left the room, felt dismayed for the first time. what should she do without books? the winter was very wet, and english winters are very long, and often wet. she was forced to remain indoors a good deal; and to sit and hold her hands!
in the course of another month she found a new cause for uneasiness. several times she awakened suddenly in the night and listened to heavy breathing outside her door; and when france was unable to hunt he prowled unceasingly about the house in the daytime. it was all very well to wish he would go quite out of his mind, but to be forced to accompany him through the various stages might be too great an ordeal even for her sound nerves.
