Melville looked away. "I am aware of all that, Sir Oliver, and I do not deny it. I am not prepared to marry Zillah Lambert in order to satisfy her mother's ambitions for her, or to try to be what she desires in a husband." He rose to his feet rather awkwardly, as if he were too rigid to coordinate his limbs as he normally might. "And profoundly grateful as I am to Barton Lambert for his patronage of my art, my obligation does not extend to the ruin of my personal happiness or peace… of life."
Rathbone drew in breath to ask him yet again what it was he was concealing, then saw in Melville's face that he would not answer. Perhaps if the Lamberts did indeed sue him he would change his mind. Until then the matter was speculative anyway, and he felt increasingly that it was something in which he did not wish to become involved. Melville could not win. And frankly, Rathbone thought he was being melodramatic about something which was no more than the lot of a vast proportion of mankind, and not so very bad.
"Then perhaps you had better see what transpires, Mr. Melville," he said aloud, "before presuming the worst. Perhaps if you were to explain the situation to Miss Lambert herself and give her the opportunity to break the engagement, for whatever reason you can agree upon that does her no dishonor, then such an ugly and expensive matter as a legal suit could be avoided. And your relationship with Mr. Lambert would suffer far less. I assume you have taken that into your considerations? If you break your promise to Miss Lambert, you can hardly expect his future patronage."
"Of course I have taken it into consideration!" Melville said bitterly, standing now at the door. "I cannot win! It is only a question of how much I lose. But I am not prepared to marry in order to further my professional career." He looked at Rathbone with contempt, as if he believed Rathbone would do such a thing himself, and yet beneath the anger and the disgust there was still the deep fear-and a flickering light of hope. "I am a very good architect, Sir Oliver," he added softly. "Some have even said brilliant. I should not need to prostitute myself in order to obtain work."
Rathbone was stung by the words. He realized with a flush of shame that he had half intended to insult Melville, without having the slightest idea of his professional ability or anything other of his personal situation than the one problem of which he had spoken. There were numerous personal reasons why a man might not wish to marry, many often too delicate to explain to others, whatever the pressure.
"I will help you if I can, Mr. Melville," he said more gently. "But I fear that from what you have told me, there would be very little I could do. Let us agree to leave the matter until you have done your best to persuade Miss Lambert to break the engagement herself." He sounded more encouraging than he meant to. He did not intend to take the case. He had already given his best advice in the matter.
"Thank you," Melville said with his hand on the door, his voice flat. "Thank you for your time, Sir Oliver."
Rathbone put the subject from his mind and carried out his original intention of leaving his chambers in Vere Street early. It was still a lovely afternoon and he stopped the hansom cab and walked the last half mile with pleasure. He passed a couple of fashionable ladies of his acquaintance out taking the air, their crinolined skirts obliging him to step almost to the curb in order not to be in their way. He bowed to them, raising his hat, and they smiled charmingly and continued their excited conversation.
The slight breeze carried the sound of an organ grinder, and children shouting to one another, and the rapid clip of a horse's hooves as it pulled a light carriage or gig.
He reached his home in plenty of time to eat supper, then sat and read the day's newspapers before changing into his evening clothes and leaving for Lady Hardesty's ball.
He arrived amid a crowd of other carriages and alighted, paid his driver, and went up the steps and into the blaze of lights and the swirl and glitter of enormous skirts, white shoulders, jewels of every sort, the sound of music and laughter and endless talk. Footmen moved about with trays of champagne, or lemonade for the more abstemious and the young ladies who should not overindulge, and perhaps behave in a less than seemly manner, or forget for an instant why they were there. A girl who did not make a fortunate impression in her first season was in perilous shape, and if she had not found a husband by her second, could be written off as a disaster.
Rathbone had been told these facts of life often enough, but he took them with a smile. It was an intellectual rather than emotional knowledge. Whether a man married or not was immaterial, except to himself. Society thought neither more nor less of him. All around him he heard snatches of conversation.
"What happened to Louisa?" an elderly lady in burgundy silk asked rhetorically, her eyebrows raised. "Why, my dear, she left the country. Went to live in Italy, I think. What else could she do?"
"What else?" her companion asked, her thin face expressing bewilderment, then a sudden rush of understanding. "Oh, my goodness! You don't mean she divorced him, do you? Whatever for?"
"He beat her," the lady in burgundy replied tersely, leaning her head a trifle closer. "I thought you knew that."
"I did… but really… I mean… Italy, did you say?" Her eyes widened. "I suppose it was worth it… but a terribly bad example. I don't know what the world is coming to!"
"Quite," the first matron agreed. "I shan't let my daughters know of it. It is very unsettling, and it doesn't do to allow girls to be unsettled." She lowered her voice confidentially. "One is far happier if one knows precisely what to expect of life. Rose Blaine just had her ninth, you know. Another boy. They are going to call him Albert, after the Prince."
"Speaking of whom," her friend continued, leaning even closer and moving her skirts absently, "Marian Harvey told me he is looking quite poorly these days, very pasty, you know, quite lost his good complexion, and his figure. Dyspeptic, they say."
"Well, he is a foreigner, you know," the thinner of the two said, nodding as if that explained everything. "He may be our dear Queen's husband, but-oh, you know I do wish she would stay with pink, and not ever that fierce shade of fuchsia She looks hot enough to burst into flames any moment! They say she never ever chooses a thing without taking his advice. Some men are color-blind, I hear. It's that German blood."
"Nonsense!" came the instant retort. "English men can be just as color-blind, if they choose."
Rathbone concealed a smile and moved away. He was well acquainted with the insularity of mind which still regarded the Prince Consort, given that official title three years before, in 1857, as being a foreigner, in spite of the fact that he was so deferred to by the Queen that he was king in all but name. He had a wide reputation for being painfully serious and more than a trifle pompous, not merely given to good works but completely overtaken by them to the point where pleasure of any sort was deeply suspect. Rathbone had met him once and found the experience daunting, and one he did not seek to repeat.
He passed a group of pretty girls, seventeen or eighteen years old, their fair skin gleaming in the light from the myriad candles in the chandeliers, their eyes bright, their voices high with nervousness, full of giggles and little squeaks. Their mothers or aunts were only yards away. One must never be without a chaperone. Reputations could be ruined.