Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode, and Other Tales

“I’ve been sick of it.  I didn’t want even to come here to-night.”

She hadn’t met his eyes, though she knew they were seeking her own.  But now she looked at him straight.  She had never objected to his appearance, and in this respect had no repugnance to surmount.  She liked a man to be tall and handsome, and Jackson Lemon was neither; but when she was sixteen, and as tall herself as she was to be at twenty, she had been in love—for three weeks—with one of her cousins, a little fellow in the Hussars, who was shorter even than the American, was of inches markedly fewer than her own.  This proved that distinction might be independent of stature—not that she had ever reasoned it out.  Doctor Lemon’s facial spareness and his bright ocular attention, which had a fine edge and a marked scale, unfolded and applied rule-fashion, affected her as original, and she thought of them as rather formidable to a good many people, which would do very well in a husband of hers.  As she made this reflexion it of course never occurred to her that she herself might suffer true measurement, for she was not a sacrificial lamb.  She felt sure his features expressed a mind—a mind immensely useful, like a good hack or whatever, and that he knew how to employ.  She would never have supposed him a doctor; though indeed when all was said this was very negative and didn’t account for the way he imposed himself.

“Why, then, did you come?” she asked in answer to his last speech.

“Because it seems to me after all better to see you this way than not to see you at all.  I want to know you better.”

“I don’t think I ought to stay here,” she said as she looked round her.

“Don’t go till I’ve told you I love you,” the young man distinctly replied.

She made no exclamation, indulged in no start; he couldn’t see even that she changed colour.  She took his request with a noble simplicity, her head erect and her eyes lowered.  “I don’t think you’ve quite a right to tell me that.”

“Why not?” Jackson demanded.  “I want to claim the right.  I want you to give it to me.”

“I can’t—I don’t know you.  You’ve said that yourself.”

“Can’t you have a little faith?” he at once asked, speaking as fast as if he were not even a little afraid to urge the pace.  “That will help us to know each other better.  It’s disgusting, the want of opportunity; even at Pasterns I could scarcely get a walk with you.  But I’ve the most absolute trust of you.  I know I love you, and I couldn’t do more than that at the end of six months.  I love your beauty, I love your nature, I love you from head to foot.  Don’t move, please don’t move.”  He lowered his tone now, but it went straight to her ear and we must believe conveyed a certain eloquence.  For himself, after he had heard himself say these words, all his being was in a glow.  It was a luxury to speak to her of her beauty; it brought him nearer to her than he had ever been.  But the colour had come into her face and seemed to remind him that her beauty wasn’t all.  “Everything about you is true and sweet and grand,” he went on; “everything’s dear to me.  I’m sure you’re good.  I don’t know what you think of me; I asked Lady Beauchemin to tell me, and she told me to judge for myself.  Well, then, I judge you like me.  Haven’t I a right to assume that till the contrary’s proved?  May I speak to your father?  That’s what I want to know.  I’ve been waiting, but now what should I wait for longer?  I want to be able to tell him you’ve given me hope.  I suppose I ought to speak to him first.  I meant to, to-morrow, but meanwhile, to-night, I thought I’d just put this in.  In my country it wouldn’t matter particularly.  You must see all that over there for yourself.  If you should tell me not to speak to your father I wouldn’t—I’d wait.  But I like better to ask your leave to speak to him than ask his to speak to you.”

His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, but, though it trembled, the fact of his pleading gave it intensity.  He had the same attitude, his thumbs in his trousers, his neat attentive young head, his smile, which was a matter of course; no one would have imagined what he was saying.  She had listened without moving and at the end she raised her eyes.  They rested on his own a moment, and he remembered for a long time the look, the clear effluence of splendid maidenhood, as deep as a surrender, that passed her lids.

Disconcertingly, however, there was no surrender in what she answered.  “You may say anything you please to my father, but I don’t wish to hear any more.  You’ve said too much, considering how little idea you’ve given me before.”

“I was watching you,” said Jackson Lemon.

She held her head higher, still looking straight at him.  Then quite seriously, “I don’t like to be watched,” she returned.

“You shouldn’t be so beautiful then.  Won’t you give me a word of hope?”

“I’ve never supposed I should marry a foreigner,” said Lady Barb.

“Do you call me a foreigner?”

“I think your ideas are very different and your country different.  You’ve told me so yourself.”

“I should like to show it to you.  I would make you like it.”

“I’m not sure what you’d make me do,” she went on very honestly.

“Nothing you don’t want.”

“I’m sure you’d try,” she smiled as for more accommodation.

“Well,” said Jackson Lemon, “I’m after all trying now.”

To this she returned that she must go to her mother, and he was obliged to lead her out of the place.  Lady Canterville was not immediately found, so that he had time to keep it up a little as they went.  “Now that I’ve spoken I’m very happy.”

“Perhaps you’re happy too soon.”

“Ah, don’t say that, Lady Barb,” he tenderly groaned.

“Of course I must think of it.”

“Of course you must!” Jackson abundantly concurred.  “I’ll speak to your father to-morrow.”

“I can’t fancy what he’ll say.”

“How can he dislike me?  But I guess he doesn’t!” the young man cried in a tone which Lady Beauchemin, had she heard him, would have felt connected with his general retreat upon the quaint.  What Lady Beauchemin’s sister thought of it is not recorded; but there is perhaps a clue to her opinion in the answer she made him after a moment’s silence: “Really, you know, you are a foreigner!”  With this she turned her back, for she was already in her mother’s hands.  Jackson Lemon said a few words to Lady Canterville; they were chiefly about its being very hot.  She gave him her vague sweet attention, as if he were saying something ingenious but of which she missed the point.  He could see she was thinking of the ways of her daughter Agatha, whose attitude toward the contemporary young man was wanting in the perception of differences—a madness too much without method; she was evidently not occupied with Lady Barb, who was more to be depended on.  This young woman never met her suitor’s eyes again; she let her own rest rather ostentatiously on other objects.  At last he was going away without a glance from her.  Her mother had asked him to luncheon for the morrow, and he had said he would come if she would promise him he should see his lordship.  “I can’t pay you another visit till I’ve had some talk with him.”

“I don’t see why not, but if I speak to him I daresay he will be at home,” she returned.

“It will be worth his while!”  At this he almost committed himself; and he left the house reflecting that as he had never proposed to a girl before he couldn’t be expected to know how women demean themselves in this emergency.  He had heard indeed that Lady Barb had had no end of offers; and though he supposed the number probably overstated, as it always is, he had to infer that her way of appearing suddenly to have dropped him was but the usual behaviour for the occasion.

III

At her mother’s the next day she was absent from luncheon, and Lady Canterville mentioned to him—he didn’t ask—that she had gone to see a dear old great-aunt who was also her godmother and who lived at Roehampton.  Lord Canterville was not present, but Jackson learned from his hostess that he had promised her he would come in exactly at three o’clock.  Our young man lunched with her ladyship and the children, who appeared in force at this repast, all the younger girls being present, and two little boys, the juniors of the two sons who were in their teens.  Doctor Lemon, who was fond of children and thought these absolutely the finest in the world—magnificent specimens of a magnificent brood, such as it would be so satisfactory in future days to see about his own knee—Doctor Lemon felt himself treated as one of the family, but was not frightened by what he read into the privilege of his admission.  Lady Canterville showed no sense whatever of his having mooted the question of becoming her son-in-law, and he believed the absent object of his attentions hadn’t told her of their evening’s talk.  This idea gave him pleasure; he liked to think Lady Barb was judging him for herself.  Perhaps indeed she was taking counsel of the old lady at Roehampton: he saw himself the sort of lover of whom a godmother would approve.  Godmothers, in his mind, were mainly associated with fairy-tales—he had had no baptismal sponsors of his own; and that point of view would be favourable to a young man with a great deal of gold who had suddenly arrived from a foreign country—an apparition surely in a proper degree elfish.  He made up his mind he should like Lady Canterville as a mother-in-law; she would be too well-bred to meddle.  Her husband came in at three o’clock, just after they had risen, and observed that it was very good in him to have waited.

“I haven’t waited,” Jackson replied with his watch in his hand; “you’re punctual to the minute.”

I know not how Lord Canterville may have judged his young friend, but Jackson Lemon had been told more than once in his life that he would have been all right if he hadn’t been so literal.  After he had lighted a cigarette in his lordship’s “den,” a large brown apartment on the ground-floor, which partook at once of the nature of an office and of that of a harness-room—it couldn’t have been called in any degree a library or even a study—he went straight to the point in these terms: “Well now, Lord Canterville, I feel I ought to let you know without more delay that I’m in love with Lady Barb and that I should like to make her my wife.”  So he spoke, puffing his cigarette, with his conscious but unextenuating eyes fixed on his host.

No man, as I have intimated, bore better being looked at than this noble personage; he seemed to bloom in the envious warmth of human contemplation and never appeared so faultless as when most exposed.  “My dear fellow, my dear fellow,” he murmured almost in disparagement, stroking his ambrosial beard from before the empty fireplace.  He lifted his eyebrows, but looked perfectly good-natured.

“Are you surprised, sir?”  Jackson asked.

“Why I suppose a fellow’s surprised at any one’s wanting one of his children.  He sometimes feels the weight of that sort of thing so much, you know.  He wonders what use on earth another man can make of them.”  And Lord Canterville laughed pleasantly through the copious fringe of his lips.

“I only want one of them,” said his guest, laughing too, but with a lighter organ.

“Polygamy would be rather good for the parents.  However, Luke told me the other night she knew you to be looking the way you speak of.”

“Yes, I mentioned to Lady Beauchemin that I love Lady Barb, and she seemed to think it natural.”

“Oh I suppose there’s no want of nature in it!  But, my dear fellow, I really don’t know what to say,” his lordship added.

“Of course you’ll have to think of it.”  In saying which Jackson felt himself make the most liberal concession to the point of view of his interlocutor; being perfectly aware that in his own country it wasn’t left much to the parents to think of.

“I shall have to talk it over with my wife.”

“Well, Lady Canterville has been very kind to me; I hope she’ll continue.”

Lord Canterville passed a large fair hand, as for inspiration, over his beard.  “My dear fellow, we’re excellent friends.  No one could appreciate you more than Lady Canterville.  Of course we can only consider such a question on the—a—the highest grounds.  You’d never want to marry without knowing—as it were—exactly what you’re doing.  I, on my side, naturally, you know, am bound to do the best I can for my own poor child.  At the same time, of course, we don’t want to spend our time in—a—walking round the horse.  We want to get at the truth about him.”  It was settled between them after a little that the truth about Lemon’s business was that he knew to a certainty the state of his affections and was in a position to pretend to the hand of a young lady who, Lord Canterville might say without undue swagger, had a right to expect to do as well as any girl about the place.

“I should think she had,” Doctor Lemon said.  “She’s a very rare type.”

His entertainer had a pleasant blank look.  “She’s a clever well-grown girl and she takes her fences like a grasshopper.  Does she know all this, by the way?”

“Oh yes, I told her last night.”