GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

“Do you mean to tell me,” he said sternly, “that you have not made the acquaintance of Sutherland here?”

“I do tell you so. And it seems to me that you do not believe me.”

“And that he has not passed the night here.”

“Oh!” she cried, and shrank a little.

“Aurélie,” he said, with a menacing expression which so disfigured and debased his face that she involuntarily recoiled and covered her eyes with her hands: “I have never before opened a letter addressed to you; but I will do so now. There are occasions when confidence is mere infatuation; and it is time, I fear, to shew you that my infatuation is not so blind as you suppose. This note was left for you this morning, under circumstances which have been explained to me by the woman downstairs.” A silence followed whilst he opened the note and read it. Then, looking up, and finding her looking at him quite calmly, he said sadly, “There is nothing in it that you need be ashamed of, Aurélie. You might have told me the truth. It is in the handwriting of Charlie Sutherland.”

This startled her for a moment. “Ah,” she said, “the scamp gave me a false name. But as for thee, unhappy one,” she added, as a ray of hope appeared in Herbert’s eyes, “adieu for ever.” And she was gone before he recovered himself.

His first impulse was to follow her and apologize, so simply and completely did her exclamation that Sutherland had given her a false name seem to explain her denial of having met him. Then he asked himself how came she to bring home a young man in her carriage; and why had she made a secret of it? She had said, he now remembered, that she had not heard any English voice except his own since she had come to Paris. Herbert was constitutionally apt to feel at a disadvantage with other men, and to give credit to the least sign that they were preferred to himself. He did not even now accuse his wife of infidelity; but he had long felt that she misunderstood him, withheld her confidence from him, and kept him apart from those friends of hers in whose society she felt happy and unrestrained. In the thought of this there was for him there was more jealousy and mortification than a coarser man might have suffered from a wicked woman. Whilst he was thinking over it all, the door opened and Madame Sczympliça, in tears, entered hastily.

“My God, Monsieur Adrian, what is the matter betwixt you and Aurélie?”

“Nothing at all,’ said Herbert, with constrained politeness. “Nothing of any consequence.”

“Do not tell me that,” she protested pathetically. “I know her too well to believe it. She is going away and she will not tell me why. And now you will not tell me either. I am made nothing of.”

“Did you say she is going away?*

“Yes. What have you done to her? — my poor child!”

Herbert did not feel bound to account for his conduct to his motherin-law: yet he felt that she was entitled to some answer. “Madame Sczympliça, “ he said, after a moment’s reflexion: “can you tell me under what circumstances Aurélie met the young gentleman who was here last night?”

“That is it, is it? I knew it: I told Aurélie that she was acting foolishly. But there was nothing in that to quarrel about.”

“I do not say there was. How did it happen?”

“Nothing in the world but this. I had neuralgia; and Aurélie would not suffer me to accompany her to the concert. As she was returning, her carriage knocked down this miserable boy, who was drunk. You know how impetuous she is. She would not leave him there insensible; and she took him into the carriage and brought him here. She made the woman below harbor him for the night in her sitting room. That is all.”

“But did he not behave himself badly?”

“Mon cher, he was drunk — drunk as a beast, with his nose beaten in.”

“It is strange that Aurélie never told me of such a remarkable incident.”

“Why, you are not an hour arrived; and the poor child has been full of the joy and surprise of seeing you so unexpectedly. It is necessary to be reasonable, Monsieur Adrian.”

“The fact is, madame, that I have had a misunderstanding with Aurélie in which neither of us was to blame. I should not have doubted her, perhaps; but I think, under the circumstances, my mistake was excusable. I owe her an apology, and will make it at once.”

Wait a little, “ said Madame Szczympliça nervously, as he moved towards the door. “You had better let me go first: I will ask her to receive you. She is excessively annoyed.”

Herbert did not like this suggestion; but he submitted to it, and sat down at the pianoforte to await Madame Sczympliça’s return. To while away the time and and to persuade himself that he was not too fearful of the result of her mission he played softly as much of his favorite Mendelssohnian airs as conld be accompanied by the three chords which exhausted his knowledge of the art of harmonizing. At last, after a long absence, bis motherin-law returned, evidently much troubled.

“I am a most unlucky mother,” she said, seating herself, and trying to keep back her tears. “She will not listen to me. Oh, Monsieur Adrien, what can have passed between you to enrage her so? You, who are always so gentle! — she will not let me mention your name.”

“But have you explained to her — ?”

“What is the use of explaining? She is not rational.”

“What does she say?”

“She says absurd things. Recollect that she is as yet only a child. She says you have betrayed your real opinion of her at last. I told her that circumstances seemed at the time to prove that she had acted foolishly, but that you now admitted your error.”

“And then—”

“Then she said that her maid might have doubted her, and afterwards admitted her error on the same ground. Oh, she is a strange creature, is Aurélie. What can one do with such a terrible child? She is positive that she will never speak to you again; and I fear she is in earnest. I can do no more. I have argued — implored — wept; but she is an ingrate, a heart of marble.”

Here there was a tap at the door; and a servant appeared.

“Madame Herbert wishes you to accompany her to the pianoforte place, madame. She is going thither to practise.”

Herbert only looked downcast; and Madame Szczympliça left the room stifling a sob. Herbert knew not what to do. A domestic quarrel involving the interference of a motherin-law had always seemed to him an incident common among vulgar people, but quite foreign to his own course of life; and now that it had actually occurred to him, he felt humiliated. He found a little relief as the conviction grew upon him that he, and not Aurélie, was to blame. There was nothing new to him in the reflexion that he had been weak and hasty: there would be pleasure in making reparation, in begging her forgiveness, in believing in and loving her more than ever. But this would be on condition that she ultimately forgave him, of which he did not feel at all sure, as indeed he never felt sure of her on any point, not even that she had really loved him.

In this state of mind he saw her carriage arrive, and heard her descend the stairs and pass the door of the room where he was. Whilst he was hesitating as to whether he should go out and speak to her then, she drove away; and the opportunity, now that it was lost, seemed a precious one. He went downstairs, and asked the old woman when she expected Madame Herbert to return. Not until six o’clock, she told him. he resigned himself to eight hours’ suspense, and went to the Luxembourg, where he enjoyed such pleasure as he could obtain by admiring the works of men who could paint better than he. It was a long day; but it came to an end at last.

“I will announce you, monsieur,” said the old woman hastily, as she admitted him at half-past six.