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

“I quite appreciate what my husband says, but I don’t see why poor Barb should be the one to begin.”

“I daresay she’ll like it,” said his lordship as if he were attempting a short cut.  “They say you spoil your women awfully.”

“She’s not one of their women yet,” Lady Canterville remarked in the sweetest tone in the world; and then she added without Jackson Lemon’s knowing exactly what she meant: “It seems so strange.”

He was slightly irritated, and these vague words perhaps added to the feeling.  There had been no positive opposition to his suit, and both his entertainers were most kind; but he felt them hold back a little, and though he hadn’t expected them to throw themselves on his neck he was rather disappointed—his pride was touched.  Why should they hesitate?  He knew himself such a good parti.  It was not so much his noble host—it was Lady Canterville.  As he saw her lord and master look covertly and a second time at his watch he could have believed him glad to settle the matter on the spot.  Lady Canterville seemed to wish their aspirant to come forward more, to give certain assurances and pledges.  He felt he was ready to say or do anything that was a matter of proper form, but he couldn’t take the tone of trying to purchase her ladyship’s assent, penetrated as he was with the conviction that such a man as he could be trusted to care for his wife rather more than an impecunious British peer and his wife could be supposed—with the lights he had acquired on English society—to care even for the handsomest of a dozen children.  It was a mistake on the old lady’s part not to recognise that.  He humoured this to the extent of saying just a little dryly: “My wife shall certainly have everything she wants.”

“He tells me he’s disgustingly rich,” Lord Canterville added, pausing before their companion with his hands in his pockets.

“I’m glad to hear it; but it isn’t so much that,” she made answer, sinking back a little on her sofa.  If it wasn’t that she didn’t say what it was, though she had looked for a moment as if she were going to.  She only raised her eyes to her husband’s face, she asked for inspiration.  I know not whether she found it, but in a moment she said to Jackson Lemon, seeming to imply that it was quite another point: “Do you expect to continue your profession?”

He had no such intention, so far as his profession meant getting up at three o’clock in the morning to assuage the ills of humanity; but here, as before, the touch of such a question instantly stiffened him.  “Oh, my profession!  I rather wince at that grand old name.  I’ve neglected my work so scandalously that I scarce know on what terms with it I shall be—though hoping for the best when once I’m right there again.”

Lady Canterville received these remarks in silence, fixing her eyes once more upon her husband’s.  But his countenance really rather failed her; still with his hands in his pockets, save when he needed to remove his cigar from his lips, he went and looked out of the window.  “Of course we know you don’t practise, and when you’re a married man you’ll have less time even than now.  But I should really like to know if they call you Doctor over there.”

“Oh yes, universally.  We’re almost as fond of titles as your people.”

“I don’t call that a title,” her ladyship smiled.

“It’s not so good as duke or marquis, I admit; but we have to take what we’ve got.”

“Oh bother, what does it signify?” his lordship demanded from his place at the window.  “I used to have a horse named Doctor, and a jolly good one too.”

“Don’t you call bishops Doctors?  Well, then, call me Bishop!” Jackson laughed.

Lady Canterville visibly didn’t follow.  “I don’t care for any titles,” she nevertheless observed.  “I don’t see why a gentleman shouldn’t be called Mr.”

It suddenly appeared to her young friend that there was something helpless, confused and even slightly comical in her state.  The impression was mollifying, and he too, like Lord Canterville, had begun to long for a short cut.  He relaxed a moment and, leaning toward his hostess with a smile and his hands on his little knees, he said softly: “It seems to me a question of no importance.  All I desire is that you should call me your son-in-law.”

She gave him her hand and he pressed it almost affectionately.  Then she got up, remarking that before anything was decided she must see her child, must learn from her own lips the state of her feelings.  “I don’t like at all her not having spoken to me already,” she added.

“Where has she gone—to Roehampton?  I daresay she has told it all to her godmother,” said Lord Canterville.

“She won’t have much to tell, poor girl!” Jackson freely commented.  “I must really insist on seeing with more freedom the person I wish to marry.”

“You shall have all the freedom you want in two or three days,” said Lady Canterville.  She irradiated all her charity; she appeared to have accepted him and yet still to be making tacit assumptions.  “Aren’t there certain things to be talked of first?”

“Certain things, dear lady?”

She looked at her husband, and though he was still at his window he felt it this time in her silence and had to come away and speak.  “Oh she means settlements and that kind of thing.”  This was an allusion that came with a much better grace from the father.

Jackson turned from one of his companions to the other; he coloured a little and his self-control was perhaps a trifle strained.  “Settlements?  We don’t make them in my country.  You may be sure I shall make a proper provision for my wife.”

“My dear fellow, over here—in our class, you know—it’s the custom,” said Lord Canterville with a truer ease in his face at the thought that the discussion was over.

“I’ve my own ideas,” Jackson returned with even greater confidence.

“It seems to me it’s a question for the solicitors to discuss,” Lady Canterville suggested.

“They may discuss it as much as they please”—the young man showed amusement.  He thought he saw his solicitors discussing it!  He had indeed his own ideas.  He opened the door for his hostess and the three passed out of the room together, walking into the hall in a silence that expressed a considerable awkwardness.  A note had been struck which grated and scratched a little.  A pair of shining footmen, at their approach, rose from a bench to a great altitude and stood there like sentinels presenting arms.  Jackson stopped, looking for a moment into the interior of his hat, which he had in his hand.  Then raising his keen eyes he fixed them a moment on those of Lady Canterville, addressing her instinctively rather than his other critic.  “I guess you and Lord Canterville had better leave it to me!”

“We have our traditions, Mr. Lemon,” said her ladyship with a firm grace.  “I imagine you don’t know—!” she gravely breathed.

Lord Canterville laid his hand on their visitor’s shoulder.  “My dear boy, those fellows will settle it in three minutes.”

“Very likely they will!” said Jackson Lemon.  Then he asked of Lady Canterville when he might see Lady Barb.

She turned it spaciously over.  “I’ll write you a note.”

One of the tall footmen at the end of the impressive vista had opened wide the portals, as if even he were aware of the dignity to which the small strange gentleman had virtually been raised.  But Jackson lingered; he was visibly unsatisfied, though apparently so little conscious he was unsatisfying.  “I don’t think you understand me.”

“Your ideas are certainly different,” said Lady Canterville.

His lordship, however, made comparatively light of it.  “If the girl understands you that’s enough!”

“Mayn’t she write to me?” Jackson asked of her mother.  “I certainly must write to her, you know, if you won’t let me see her.”.

“Oh yes, you may write to her, Mr. Lemon.”

There was a point, for a moment, in the look he returned on this, while he said to himself that if necessary he would transmit his appeal through the old lady at Roehampton.  “All right—good-bye.  You know what I want at any rate.”  Then as he was going he turned and added: “You needn’t be afraid I won’t always bring her over in the hot weather!”

“In the hot weather?” Lady Canterville murmured with vague visions of the torrid zone.  Jackson however quitted the house with the sense he had made great concessions.

His host and hostess passed into a small morning-room and—Lord Canterville having taken up his hat and stick to go out again—stood there a moment, face to face.  Then his lordship spoke in a summary manner.  “It’s clear enough he wants her.”

“There’s something so odd about him,” Lady Canterville answered.  “Fancy his speaking so about settlements!”

“You had better give him his head.  He’ll go much quieter.”

“He’s so obstinate—very obstinate; it’s easy to see that.  And he seems to think,” she went on, “that a girl in your daughter’s position can be married from one day to the other—with a ring and a new frock—like a housemaid.”

“Well that, of course, over there is the kind of thing.  But he seems really to have a most extraordinary fortune, and every one does say they give their women carte blanche.”

“Carte blanche is not what Barb wants; she wants a settlement.  She wants a definite income,” said Lady Canterville; “she wants to be safe.”

He looked at her rather straight.  “Has she told you so?  I thought you said—”  And then he stopped.  “I beg your pardon,” he added.

She didn’t explain her inconsequence; she only remarked that American fortunes were notoriously insecure; one heard of nothing else; they melted away like smoke.  It was their own duty to their child to demand that something should be fixed.

Well, he met this in his way.  “He has a million and a half sterling.  I can’t make out what he does with it.”

She rose to it without a flutter.  “Our child should have, then, something very handsome.”

“I agree, my dear; but you must manage it; you must consider it; you must send for Hardman.  Only take care you don’t put him off; it may be a very good opening, you know.  There’s a great deal to be done out there; I believe in all that,” Lord Canterville went on in the tone of a conscientious parent.

“There’s no doubt that he is a doctor—in some awful place,” his wife brooded.

“He may be a pedlar for all I care.”