Stinson Jarvis - Geoffrey Hampstead - A Novel

Mrs. Lindon had been a pretty woman in her day, which, of course, had lost its first freshness, and she was approaching that period when the retrospect of a well-spent life is expected to be gratifying. Her married life with Mr. Lindon had not been the gradual conquest of that complete union which makes later years a climax and old age the harvest of sweet memories in common, as marriage has been defined for us. On the contrary, their married life had been a gradual acquisition of that disunion which law and public opinion prevent from becoming complete. The two had now established the semblance of a union – the system in which the various pretenses of deep regard become so well defined by long years of mutual make-believe, as to often encourage the married to hope that it will be publicly supposed to be the glad culmination of their courtship dreams.

Mrs. Lindon said of herself that she had been of a Lower Canadian family, with some French name, prior to her marriage, and her story seemed to suggest, in the absence of further particulars, that Mr. Lindon had married her more for her family than her good looks. The "looks" were pretty nearly gone, but the "family" was still within the reach of a sufficiently fertile imagination, and so often had the suggestion been made that of late years the idea had assumed a definiteness in her mind which materially assisted her in holding her own in the society in which she now floated. A natural untidiness in the way she put on her expensive garments, which in a poorer woman would have been called slatternly, and the dark, French prettiness which she still showed traces of (and which was rather of the nurse-girl type) combined to suggest that in reality she was the offspring of Irish and French emigrants, "and steerage at that" – some of the first families said – "decidedly steerage."

Mrs. Lindon was supremely her own mistress. This was not, perhaps, an ultimate benefit to her, but, as she had nothing on earth to trouble about, long years of idleness and indulgence in every whim had led her to conjure up a grievance, which she nursed in her bosom, and on account of it she excused herself for all shortcomings. This was that she was left so much without the society of Mr. Lindon. Often, in the pauses between the excitements she created for herself, tears of self-pity would arise at the thought of her abandoned condition. The truth was that she did not care anymore for Lindon than he did for her; but from the fact that she really did desire to have a husband who would see better the advantages of shining in society, the poor lady contrived to convince herself that he had been greatly wanting in his duties to her as a husband, that the affection was all on her side, and that that affection was from year to year quietly repulsed. Their domestic bearing toward each other was now that of a quiet neutrality. They always addressed each other in public as "my dear," and, if either of them had died, no doubt the bereaved one would have mourned in the usual way, on the principle of "Nil de mortuis nisi bunkum ."

It had not occurred to Mrs. Lindon that, if more time had been spent with her daughter in fulfilling a mother's duties toward a young girl, there would have been less need for extraneous assistance to aid her in her passage through the world. Nina was fond of her mother, and it was strange that the two did not see more of each other. Nina could be a credit to her in any social gathering, and this made it all the more strange. But Mrs. Lindon was forever gadding about to different institutions, Bible-readings, and other little excitements of her own (for which Nina had no marked liking), and she seemed rather more easy in her mind when Nina was not with her. Perhaps Mr. Lindon was not solely at fault concerning the coolness pervading the domestic atmosphere.

The charitable institutions had been the salvation of Mrs. Lindon – that is, in a mundane sense. When Joseph Lindon, with characteristic method, came home one day and said, "My dear, I have bought the Ramsay mansion, and now I am going to spend my money," Mrs. Lindon enjoyed a pleasure exceeding anything she had known. That was a happy day for her! The dream of her life was to be consummated! She immediately left the small church which she had attended for years and changed her creed slightly to take a good pew in a certain fashionable church. After this it was merely a question of time and money, both of which were available to any extent. She showed great interest in charities. She contributed humbly but lavishly. The ladies of good position who go around with subscription-books smiled in their hearts at seeing the old game going on. They smiled and bled her profusely. They discussed Mrs. Lindon among themselves – with care, of course, because they did not wish to appear to have known her before. But as time wore on they thought she could be bled to a much greater extent if she were induced to become "a worker in the flock," which the good lady was quite willing to do. On being approached by some of the leading spirits, she went first to a weekly Bible-class, which she had previously been afraid to attend because the audience was so select, and after this she showed such an interest in various charities that she was soon placed upon committees. By ladies with heads for real management on their shoulders she was led to believe that they really could not do without her mental assistance, so that at first when she was gravely consulted on a financial question and asked for her advice she generally eased the tension on her mind by writing a substantial check. This led her to believe that she had something of the financier about her, and she even told her husband that she was beginning to quite understand all about money matters, at which Joseph smiled an ineffable smile.

She could have been used more advantageously if she had been kept out of the desired circle for a couple of years longer, because she was ready to pay any price for her admission. The good ladies made a slight mistake in being too hasty to control the bottomless purse, because, after she had got fairly installed, the purse was worked in several other ways, and the ecclesiastical drain on it became reduced to an ordinary amount. She gave a fair sum to each of the charities and accepted the attentions of those whom the odor of money attracted, without troubling herself in the slightest degree about the periodical financial difficulties of the institutions.

Yet she never altogether relaxed her efforts in "working for the Lord," as she called it, in such good company. She acquired a taste for it that never left her. She would take a couple of the "poor but honest" ladies of good family with her, in her sumptuous barouche, to the "Incurables" and other places. After a capital luncheon at her house they would visit the "Home," and sometimes kiss the poor women there; and if the strengthening sympathy and religious value of Mrs. Lindon's kiss did not bind them to a life of virtue ever afterward they must indeed have been lost – in every sense of the word.

Nina was not born for some time after Mr. and Mrs. Lindon had been married. Her mother had kept her, when a child, very much in the dark as to their antecedents, and, as the social position of the family had been well established by Mrs. Lindon when Nina was very young, the girl always had grown up with the idea that she was a lady; and in spite of a few wants in her father and some doubts as to her mother's origin, she came out into society with a fixed idea that she was "quite good enough for the colonies," as she laughingly told her friends.

No pains or expense had been spared in her education. She had first gone to the best Toronto school, and had "finished" at a boarding-school in England. Jack Cresswell knew her when she was at school, where she shared his heart with several others. When she emerged from the educational chrysalis and floated for the first time down a society ball-room Jack was after the butterfly hat-in-hand, as it were, and never as yet had he given up the chase. Mr. Lindon knew nothing of domestic affairs, but he had found Jack so frequently at his house that he had begun to see that his ambitious plans for his daughter were perhaps in danger of being frustrated, and so, having at that time to send a man to England to float the shares of some company on the London market, he decided to go himself, and one day, when Jack was dining there, he rather paralyzed all, especially Jack, by instructing his wife and daughter to be ready in a week for the journey.