It was the moment both had desired, yet when it came it found them tongue-tied and helpless.
Bessy was the first to speak. “When did you get here? You never wrote me you were coming!”
Amherst advanced toward her, holding out his hand. “No; you must forgive me. I have been very busy,” he said.
Always the same excuse! The same thrusting at her of the hateful fact that Westmore came first, and that she must put up with whatever was left of his time and thoughts!
“You are always too busy to let me hear from you,” she said coldly, and the hand which had sprung toward his fell back to her side.
Even then, if he had only said frankly: “It was too difficult—I didn’t know how,” the note of truth would have reached and moved her; but he had striven for the tone of ease and self-restraint that was habitual among her friends, and as usual his attempt had been a failure.
“I am sorry—I’m a bad hand at writing,” he rejoined; and his evil genius prompted him to add: “I hope my coming is not inconvenient?”
The colour rose to Bessy’s face. “Of course not. But it must seem rather odd to our visitors that I should know so little of your plans.”
At this he humbled himself still farther. “I know I don’t think enough about appearances—I’ll try to do better the next time.”
Appearances! He spoke as if she had been reproaching him for a breach of etiquette…it never occurred to him that the cry came from her humiliated heart! The tide of warmth that always enveloped her in his presence was receding, and in its place a chill fluid seemed to creep up slowly to her throat and lips.
In Amherst, meanwhile, the opposite process was taking place. His wife was still to him the most beautiful woman in the world, or rather, perhaps, the only woman to whose beauty his eyes had been opened. That beauty could never again penetrate to his heart, but it still touched his senses, not with passion but with a caressing kindliness, such as one might feel for the bright movements of a bird or a kitten. It seemed to plead with him not to ask of her more than she could give—to be content with the outward grace and not seek in it an inner meaning. He moved toward her again, and took her passive hands in his.
“You look tired. Why do you ride so late?”
“Oh, I just wanted to give Impulse a gallop. I hadn’t time to take her out earlier, and if I let the grooms exercise her they’ll spoil her mouth.”
Amherst frowned. “You ought not to ride that mare alone at night. She shies at everything after dark.”
“She’s the only horse I care for—the others are all cows,” she murmured, releasing her hands impatiently.
“Well, you must take me with you the next time you ride her.”
She softened a little, in spite of herself. Riding was the only amusement he cared to share with her, and the thought of a long gallop across the plains at his side brought back the warmth to her veins.
“Yes, we’ll go tomorrow. How long do you mean to stay?” she asked, looking up at him eagerly.
He was pleased that she should wish to know, yet the question embarrassed him, for it was necessary that he should be back at Westmore within three days, and he could not put her off with an evasion.
Bessy saw his hesitation, and her colour rose again. “I only asked,” she explained, “because there is to be a fancy ball at the Hunt Club on the twentieth, and I thought of giving a big dinner here first.”
Amherst did not understand that she too had her inarticulate moments, and that the allusion to the fancy ball was improvised to hide an eagerness to which he had been too slow in responding. He thought she had enquired about his plans only that he might not again interfere with the arrangements of her dinner-table. If that was all she cared about, it became suddenly easy to tell her that he could not stay, and he answered lightly: “Fancy balls are a little out of my line; but at any rate I shall have to be back at the mills the day after tomorrow.”
The disappointment brought a rush of bitterness to her lips. “The day after tomorrow? It seems hardly worth while to have come so far for two days!”
“Oh, I don’t mind the journey—and there are one or two matters I must consult you about.”
There could hardly have been a more ill-advised answer, but Amherst was reckless now. If she cared for his coming only that he might fill a place at a fancy-dress dinner, he would let her see that he had come only because he had to go through the form of submitting to her certain measures to be taken at Westmore.
Bessy was beginning to feel the physical reaction of her struggle with the mare. The fatigue which at first had deadened her nerves now woke them to acuter sensibility, and an appealing word from her husband would have drawn her to his arms. But his answer seemed to drive all the blood back to her heart.
“I don’t see why you still go through the form of consulting me about Westmore, when you have always done just as you pleased there, without regard to me or Cicely.”
Amherst made no answer, silenced by the discouragement of hearing the same old grievance on her lips; and she too seemed struck, after she had spoken, by the unprofitableness of such retorts.
“It doesn’t matter—of course I’ll do whatever you wish,” she went on listlessly. “But I could have sent my signature, if that is all you came for–-“
“Thanks,” said Amherst coldly. “I shall remember that the next time.”
They stood silent for a moment, he with his eyes fixed on her, she with averted head, twisting her riding-whip between her fingers; then she said suddenly: “We shall be late for dinner,” and passing into her dressing-room she closed the door.
Amherst roused himself as she disappeared.
“Bessy!” he exclaimed, moving toward her; but as he approached the door he heard her maid’s voice within, and turning away he went to his own room.
Bessy came down late to dinner, with vivid cheeks and an air of improvised ease; and the manner of her entrance, combined with her husband’s unannounced arrival, produced in their observant guests the sense of latent complications. Mr. Langhope, though evidently unaware of his son-in-law’s return till they greeted each other in the drawing-room, was too good a card-player to betray surprise, and Mrs. Ansell outdid herself in the delicate art of taking everything for granted; but these very dissimulations sharpened the perception of the other guests, whom long practice had rendered expert in interpreting such signs.
Of all this Justine Brent was aware; and conscious also that, by every one but herself, the suspected estrangement between the Amhersts was regarded as turning merely on the question of money. To the greater number of persons present there was, in fact, no other conceivable source of conjugal discord, since every known complication could be adjusted by means of the universal lubricant. It was this unanimity of view which bound together in the compactness of a new feudalism the members of Bessy Amherst’s world; which supplied them with their pass-words and social tests, and defended them securely against the insidious attack of ideas.