The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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"Not to me," Angelica hastily and sincerely asseverated.

She did not look up to see the effect of her words upon Mr. Kilroy. Her
eyes had been fixed on his feet as she spoke, and now it struck her that
they were exceedingly well-shaped feet, and well-booted in the quiet way
characteristic of the man. Everything about him was unobtrusive as his own
manner, but good as his own heart.

Angelica leant back in her chair, and a long silence ensued, during which
she lapsed into her old attitude, lying back in her chair, her hands on
the arms, her chin on her chest, her wandering glance upon the ground, so
that she did not see that her husband was watching her with eyes that
filled as he looked. What was to be the end of this? Should she lose his
affection? Would she be turned out of the kind heart that had loved her
with all her faults, and cherished her with a patient, enduring,
self-denying fondness that was worth more, and had been a greater comfort
to her, as she knew now, than all the things together, youth, beauty,
rank, wealth, and talents, for which she was envied. If he said to her in
his gentle way: "You had better return to Ilverthorpe, and live there,"
which would mean that he cared for her no longer, should she go? Yes, she
would go without a word. She would go and drown herself.

But Mr. Kilroy was far from thinking harsh thoughts of her. On the
contrary, he was blaming himself, little as he deserved it, for the
circumstances which had brought Angelica to this bitter moment of
self-abasement. He was not eloquent either in thought or speech, and with
regard to his wife he had always felt more than he could express even to
himself, though what he felt did find a certain form of expression,
intelligible enough to a loving soul, in his constant care for her, and in
the uncomplaining devotion which led him to sacrifice his own wishes to
her whims, to absent himself when he perceived that she did not want him,
and to suffer her neglect without bitterness, though certainly not without
pain. And now he never thought of blaming her. What occurred to him was
that this young half-educated girl had been committed to his care, and
left by him pretty much to her own devices. He had not done his duty by
her; he had not influenced her in any way; he had expected too much from
her. It was the old story. Had he not himself seen fifty households
wrecked because the husband, when he took a girl, little more than a child
in years, and quite a child in mind and experience, from her own family,
and the wholesome influences and companionship of father, mother,
brothers, sisters, probably left her to go unguided, to form her character
as best she could, putting that grave responsibility in her own weak hands
as if the mere making a wife of her must make her a mature and sensible
woman also? This was what he had done himself, and if Angelica had got
into bad hands, and come to grief irreparable, there would have been
nobody to blame but himself for it, especially as he knew she was
headstrong, excitable, wild, original, fearless, and with an intellect
large out of all proportion for the requirements of the life to which
society condemned her; a force which was liable, if otherwise unemployed,
to expend itself in outbursts of mischievous energy, although there was
not a scrap of vice in her--no, not a scrap, he loyally insisted. For just
look how she had come to him and told him! Would a girl who was not honest
at heart have done that when she might so easily have deceived him? It was
this confidence which touched him more than anything. She had come to him,
as she should have done, the first thing, and she had come full of remorse
and willing to atone. All this trouble was tending to unite them; it had
brought her home; it would prove what is called a, blessing in disguise
after all, he hoped. His great love inspired him with insight and taught
him tact in all his dealings with Angelica; and now it prompted him to do
the one wise simple thing that would avail under the circumstances. He
went to her, and bending over her, always delicately considerate of her
inclinations even in the matter of the least caress, laid a kind hand on
her shoulder, uttering at the same time brokenly the very words of her
dream that morning: "If you could care for me a little, Angelica."

She looked up, amazed at first, then, understanding, she rose. The
distressing tension relaxed in that moment, her heart expanded, her eyes
filled with tears and overflowed; she could not command her voice to
speak, but she threw herself impetuously into her husband's arms, and
kissed him passionately, and clung to him, until she was able to sob
out--"Don't let me go again, Daddy, keep me close. I am--I am grateful for
the blessing of a good man's love."

END OF BOOK V.

BOOK VI.

THE IMPRESSIONS OF DR. GALBRAITH

Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.

--_Othello_, Act V. Sc. II.

NOTE.--The fact that Dr. Galbraith had not the advantage of knowing
Evadne's early history when they first became acquainted adds a certain
piquancy to the flavour of his impressions, and the reader, better
informed than himself with regard to the antecedents of his "subject,"
will find it interesting to note both the accuracy of his insight and the
curious mistakes which it is possible even for a trained observer like
himself to make by the half light of such imperfect knowledge as he was
able to collect under the circumstances. His record, which is minute in
all important particulars, is specially valuable for the way in which it
makes apparent the changes of habit and opinion and the modifications of
character that had been brought about in a very short time by the
restriction Colonel Colquhoun had imposed upon her. In some respects it is
hard to believe that she is the same person. But more interesting still,
perhaps, are the glimpses we get of Dr. Galbraith himself in the
narrative, throughout which it is easy to decipher the simple earnestness
of the man, the cautious professionalism and integrity, the touches of
tender sentiment held in check, the dash of egotism, the healthy-minded
human nature, the capacity for enjoyment and sorrow, the love of life,
and, above all, the perfect unconsciousness with which he shows himself to
have been a man of fastidious refinement and exemplary moral strength and
delicacy; of the highest possible character; and most lovable in spite of
a somewhat irascible temper and manner which were apt to be abrupt at
times.

CHAPTER I.

Evadne puzzled me. As a rule, men of my profession, and more particularly
specialists like myself, can class a woman's character and gauge her
propensities for good or evil while he is diagnosing her disease if she
consult him, or more easily still during half an hour's ordinary
conversation if he happens to be alone with her. But even after I had seen
Evadne many times, and felt broadly that I knew her salient points as well
as such tricks of manner or habitual turns of expression as distinguished
her from other ladies, I was puzzled.

We are not sufficiently interested in all the people we meet to care to
understand their characters exactly, but a medical man who has not insight
enough to do so at will has small chance of success in his profession, and
when I found myself puzzled about Evadne it became a point of importance
with me to understand her. She was certainly an interesting study, and all
the more so because of that initial difficulty--a difficulty, by the way,
which I found from the gossip of the place that everybody else was
experiencing more or less. For it was evident from the first that whatever
her real character might be, she was anything but a nonentity. Before she
had been in the neighbourhood a fortnight she had made a distinct
impression and was freely discussed, a fact which speaks for itself in two
ways: first, her individuality was strongly marked enough to attract
immediate attention, and secondly, there was that about her which provoked
criticism. Not that the criticism of a community like ours is worth much,
consisting as it does of carping mainly, and the kind of carping which
reflects much more upon the low level of intelligence that obtains in such
neighbourhoods than upon the character of the person criticised, for what
the vulgar do not understand they are apt to condemn. Somebody has said
that to praise moderately is a sign of mediocrity; and somebody might have
added that to denounce decidedly shows deficiency in a multitude of
estimable qualities, among which discernment must be specially
mentioned--not, however, that there was any question of denouncing here,
for Evadne was always more discussed for what she was not than for what
she was. One lady of my acquaintance put part of my own feeling into words
when she declared that Evadne _could_ be nicer if _she would_,
that part of it which first made me suspect that there was something
artificial in her attitude towards the world at large, and more especially
towards the world of thought and opinion, and that, had she been natural,
she would have differed from herself as we knew her in many material
respects. Naturalness, however, is a quality upon which too much stress is
generally laid. If you are naturally nice it is all very well, but suppose
you are naturally nasty? We should be very thankful indeed to think that
some of our friends are not natural.

In looking back now, I am inclined to ask why we, Evadne's intimate
friends, should always have expected more of her than we did of other
people. That certainly was the case, and she disappointed us. We felt that
she should have been a representative woman such as the world wants at
this period of its progress, making a name for herself and an impression
on the age; and it was probably her objection, expressed with quite
passionate earnestness, to play a part in which we gathered from many
chance indications that she was eminently qualified to have excelled, that
constituted the puzzle. Her natural bent was certainly in that direction,
but something had changed it; and here in particular the external
tormenting difficulty with regard to her occurred with full force. At a
very early period of our acquaintance, however, I discovered that her
attitude in this respect was not inherent, but deliberately chosen.

"I avoid questions of the day as much as possible," she said on one
occasion in answer to some remark of mine on a current topic of
conversation. "I do not, as a rule, read anything on such subjects, and if
people begin to discuss them in my presence I fly if I can."

"I should have thought that all such questions would have interested you
deeply," I observed.

"They seem to possess a quite fatal fascination for people who allow
themselves to be interested," she answered evasively, and in a tone which
forbade further discussion of the subject.

But it was the evasion which enlightened me. She would not have been
afraid of the "fatal fascination" if she had never felt it herself, and it
was therefore evident that her objection was not the outcome of ignorant
prejudice, but of knowledge and set purpose. It was the attitude of a
burnt child.

The impression she made upon the neighbourhood was curious in one way--it
was so very mixed, In the adverse part of the mixture, however, a good
deal of personal pique was apparent, and one thing was always obvious:
people liked her as much as she would let them. She even might have been
popular had she chosen, but popularity comes of condescending to the level
of the average, and Evadne was exclusive. She was _une vraie petite
grande dame_ at heart as well as in appearance, and would associate
with none but her equals; and out of those again she was fastidious in the
selection of her friends. To servants, people who knew their proper place,
and retainers generally, with legitimate claims to her consideration, she
was all kindly courtesy, and they were devoted to her; but she met the
aspiring parvenu, seeking her acquaintance on false pretences of equality,
with that disdainful civility which is more exasperating than positive
rudeness because a lady is only rude to her equals.

And hence most of the animadversion.

But her manner was perfectly consistent. Her coldness or cordiality to
mere acquaintances only varied of necessity according to her position and
responsibilities. In her own house, where the onus of entertaining fell
upon her, she was charming to everybody to-day, neglecting none, and
giving an equally flattering share of her attention to each; but if she
met the same people at somebody else's place to-morrow, when she was off
duty, as it were, she certainly showed no more interest than she felt in
them. I do not believe, however, that she ever committed a breach of good
manners in her life. When she spoke to you she did so with the most
perfect manner, giving you her whole attention for the moment, and never
letting her eyes wander, as underbred people so often do, especially in
the act of shaking hands. Fairly considered, her attitude in society was
distinguished by an equable politeness, in which, however, there was no
heart, and that was what the world missed. She did not care for society,
and society demands your heart, having none of its own. She certainly did
her duty in that state of life, but without any affectation of delight in
it. She went to all the local entertainments as custom required, and
suffered from suspended animation under the influence of the deadly
dulness which prevailed at most of them, but in that she was not peculiar,
and she could conceal her boredom more successfully than almost anybody
else I knew, and did so heroically.

In her religion too she was quite conventional. Like most people in these
days, she was a good Churchwoman without being in any sense a Christian.
She did not love her neighbour as herself, or profess to; but she went to
church regularly and made all the responses, pleasing the clergy, and
deriving some solace herself from the occupation--at least she always said
the services were soothing. She was genuinely shocked by a sign of
irreverence, and would sing the most jingling nonsense as a hymn with
perfect gravity and without perceiving that there was any flaw in it. In
these matters she showed no originality at all. She would repeat "my duty
towards my neighbour is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I
would that they should do unto me" fervently, and come out and cut Mrs.
Chrimes to the quick just afterward because she had the misfortune to be a
tanner's wife and nobody's daughter in particular. It was what she had
been taught. Any one of her set would have said "my duty to my neighbour"
without a doubt of their own sincerity, and given Mrs. Chrimes the cold
shoulder too; the inconsistency is customary, and in this particular
Evadne was as much a creature of custom as the rest.

It was my fate to take Evadne in to dinner on the first occasion of our
meeting. I did not hear her name when I was presented, and had no idea who
she was, but I was struck by her appearance. Her figure was fragile to a
fault, and she was evidently delicate at that time, not having fully
recovered, as I was afterwards told, from a severe attack of Maltese fever;
but her complexion was not unhealthy. Her features were refined and
exquisitely feminine. She looked about twenty, and her face in repose
would have been expressionless but for the slight changes about the mouth
which showed that the mind was working within. Her long eyes seemed narrow
from a trick she had of holding them half shut. They were slow-glancing
and steadfast, and all her movements struck one at first as being languid,
but that impression wore off after a time, and then it became apparent
that they were merely rather more deliberate than is usual with a girl.

She answered my first remarks somewhat shortly; but certainly such
observations as one finds to make to a strange lady while taking her from
the drawing room to the dining room and arranging her chair at table are
not usually calculated to inspire brilliant responses. She had the habit
of society to perfection and was essentially self-possessed, but I fancied
she was shy. Coldness is often a cover for extreme shyness in women of her
station, and I did my best to thaw her; but the soup and fish had been
removed and we had arrived at the last _entree_ before I made a
remark that roused her in the least. I forget what I said exactly, but it
was some stupid commonplace about the difficulties of the political
situation at the moment.

"I hate politics," she then observed. "Business is a disagreeable thing,
whether it be the business of the nation or of the shop. I hear women say
that they are obliged to interfere just now in all that concerns
themselves because men have cheated and imposed upon them to a quite
unbearable extent. But they will do no good by it. Their position is
perfectly hopeless. And the mere trade of governing is a coarse pursuit,
and therefore most objectionable for us." She drew in her breath and
tightened her lips. "But for myself," she added, "what I object to mainly
is the thought. Why are they trying to make us think? The great difficulty
is not to think. There are plenty of men to think for us, and while they
are thinking we can be feeling. I, for one, have no joy in eventful
living. Feeling is life, not thought. You need not be afraid to give us
the suffrage," she broke off, with the first glimpse of a smile I had seen
on her lips. "After the excitement of conquering your opposition to it was
over we should all be content, and not one woman in a hundred would
trouble herself to vote."

"I believe women are more public spirited than that," I answered. "They
are toiling everywhere now for the furtherance of all good works, and they
come forward courageously whenever necessity compels them to take such an
extreme and uncongenial course. In times of war--"

She had been leaning back in her chair in a somewhat languid attitude, but
now suddenly she straightened herself, her face flushed crimson, and I
stopped short. Something in the word "War" either hurt or excited her. Her
long eyes opened on me wide and bright for the first time, and flashed a
look into mine more stirring than the wine that bubbled in the glass
between my fingers.

"She is beautiful!" I said to myself; but up to that moment I had not
suspected it.

"War!" she exclaimed, speaking under her breath, but incisively. "Do not
let us talk about it! War is the dirty work of a nation; it is one of the
indecencies of life, and should never be mentioned!"

She looked straight into my face for a moment with eyes wide open and lips
compressed when she had finished speaking, and then took her _menu_
in her left hand, and began to study it with great apparent attention.

Having discovered that she thought politics a coarse, contaminating
business, and war the dirty work of a nation, I felt curious to know her
views on literature and art.

"I have just been reading a book that might interest you," I began; "it
strikes me as being so true to life."

"I think I should be inclined to avoid it, then," she answered, "for I
always find that 'true to life' in a book means something revolting."

"Unfortunately, yes, it often does," I agreed. "But still we ought to
know. If we refused to study the bad side of life, no evil would ever be
remedied."

"Do you think any good is ever done?" she asked.

"I am afraid you are a pessimist," I rejoined.

"But do you really like books that are true to life yourself?" she
proceeded. "Don't you think we see enough of life without reading about
it? For my own part I am grateful to anyone who has the power to take me
out of this world and make me feel something--realise something--beyond.
The dash of the supernatural, for instance, in 'John Inglesant,' 'Mr.
Isaacs,' 'The Wizard's Son,' and 'The Little Pilgrim' has the effect of
rest upon my mind, and gives me greater pleasure than the most perfect
picture of real life ever presented. In fact, my ideal of perfect bliss in
these days is to know nothing and believe in ghosts."

This also was a comprehensive opinion, and I felt no further inclination
to name the book to which I had alluded. But now that she had begun to
respond I should have been well content to continue the conversation.
There was something so unusual in most of her opinions that I wanted to
hear more, although I confess that what she said interested me less than
she herself did. Before I could touch on another topic, however, the
ladies left the table.

A big blond man, middle-aged, bald, bland, and with a heavy moustache, had
been sitting opposite to us during dinner, and had attracted my attention
by the way he looked at my partner from time to time. It was a difficult
look to describe, because there was neither admiration nor interest in it,
approval nor disapproval; he might have looked at a block of wood in
exactly the same way, and it could hardly have been less responsive. Once,
however, their eyes did meet, and then the glance became one of friendly
recognition on both sides; but even after that he still continued to look
in the same queer way, and it was this fact that struck me as peculiar.

When the ladies had gone I happened to find myself beside this gentleman,
and asked him if he could tell me who it was I had taken in to dinner.

"Well, she is supposed to be my wife," he answered deliberately; "and I am
Colonel Colquhoun."

He spoke with a decidedly Irish accent of the educated sort, and seemed to
think that I should know all about him when he mentioned his name, but I
had never heard of the fellow before. I rightly conjectured, however, that
he was the new man who had come to command the Depot at Morningquest while
I had been abroad for my holiday.

CHAPTER II.

First impressions are very precious for many reasons. They have a charm of
their own to begin with, and it is interesting to recall them; and
salutary, also, if not sedative. Collect a few, and you will soon see
clearly the particular kind of ass you are by the mistakes you have made
in consequence of having confided in them. When I first met Evadne I was
still young enough, in the opprobrious sense of the word, to suppose that
I should find her mentally, when I met her again, just where she was when
she left me after our little chat at the dinner-table; and I went to pay
my duty call upon her under that most erroneous impression. I intended to
resume our interrupted conversation, and never doubted but that I should
find her willing to gratify my interest in her peculiar views. It was a
mistake, however, which anybody, whose delight in his own pursuits is
continuous, might make, and one into which the cleverest man is prone to
fall when the object is a woman.

I called on Evadne the day after the dinner. She was alone, and rising
from a seat beside a small work-table as I entered, advanced a step, and
held out a nerveless hand to me. She was not looking well. Her skin was
white and opaque, her eyes dull, her lips pale, and her apparent age ten
years more than I had given her on the previous evening. She was a
lamplight beauty, I supposed. But her dress satisfied. It was a long
indoor gown which indicated without indelicacy the natural lines of her
slender figure, and she was innocent of the shocking vulgarity of the
small waist, a common enough deformity at that time, although now, it is
said, affected by third rate actresses and women of indifferent character
only. The waist is an infallible index to the moral worth of a woman; very
little of the latter survives the pressure of a tightened corset.

"Will you sit there?" Evadne said, indicating an easy chair and subsiding
into her own again as she spoke. "Colonel Colquhoun is not at home," she
added, "but I hope he will return in time to see you. He will be sorry if
he does not."

It was quite the proper thing to say, and her manner was all that it ought
to have been, yet somehow the effect was not encouraging. Had I been
inclined to presume I should have felt myself put in my place, but, being
void of reproach, my mind was free to take notes, and I decided off-hand
that Evadne was a society woman of unexceptionable form, but ordinary, and
my nascent interest was nowhere. My visit lasted about a quarter of an
hour, during which time she gave me back commonplace for commonplace
punctually, doing damage to her gown with a pin she held in her left hand
the while, and only raising her eyes to mine for an instant at a time.
Nothing could have been easier, colder, thinner, more uninspiring than the
fluent periods with which she favoured me, and nothing more stultifying to
my own brain. If it had not been for that pin my wits must have wandered.
As it was, however, she inadvertently forced me to concentrate my
attention upon the pin, with fears for her femoral artery, by apparently
sticking it into herself in a reckless way whenever there was a pause, and
each emphatic little dig startled my imagination into lively activity and
kept me awake.