Herbert Wells - Marriage

"Oh well," he said, "I don't understand. But I'm entirely in your hands, of course."

Marjorie's pose and expression altered. For an instant she was a miracle of instinctive expression, she shone at him, she conveyed herself to him, she assured him. Her eyes met his, she stood warmly flushed and quite unconquered—visibly, magnificently his . She poured into him just that riotous pride and admiration that gives a man altogether to a woman.... Then it seemed as if a light passed, and she was just an everyday Marjorie standing there.

"I'll do anything you want me to," said Trafford.

"Then I want you to go."

"Ah!" said Mr. Pope.

"Yes," said Trafford, with his eyes on her self-possession.

"I've promised not to write or send to you, or—think more than I can help of you, until I'm twenty-one—nearly two months from now."

"And then?"

"I don't know. How can I?"

"You hear, sir?" from Mr. Pope, in the pause of mutual scrutiny that followed.

"One question," said Mr. Trafford.

"You've surely asked enough, sir," said Mr. Pope.

"Are you still engaged to Magnet?"

"Sir!"

"Please, father;" said Marjorie, with unusual daring and in her mother's voice. "Mr. Trafford, after what I've told you—you must leave that to me."

"She is engaged to Mr. Magnet," said Mr. Pope. "Tell him outright, Marjorie. Make it clear."

"I think I understand," said Trafford, with his eyes on Marjorie.

"I've not seen Mr. Magnet since last night," said Marjorie. "And so—naturally—I'm still engaged to him."

"Precisely!" said Mr. Pope, and turned with a face of harsh interrogation to his importunate caller. Mr. Trafford seemed disposed for further questions. "I don't think we need detain you, Madge," said Mr. Pope, over his shoulder.

The two young people stood facing one another for a moment, and I am afraid that they were both extremely happy and satisfied with each other. It was all right, they were quite sure—all right. Their lips were almost smiling. Then Marjorie made an entirely dignified exit. She closed the door very softly, and Mr. Pope turned to his visitor again with a bleak politeness. "I hope that satisfies you," he said.

"There is nothing more to be said at present, I admit," said Mr. Trafford.

"Nothing," said Mr. Pope.

Both gentlemen bowed. Mr. Pope rose ceremoniously, and Mr. Trafford walked doorward. He had a sense of latent absurdities in these tremendous attitudes. They passed through the hall—processionally. But just at the end some lower strain in Mr. Trafford's nature touched the fine dignity of the occasion with an inappropriate remark.

"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Pope, holding the housedoor wide.

"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Trafford, and then added with a note of untimely intimacy in his voice, with an inexcusable levity upon his lips: "You know—there's nobody—no man in the world—I'd sooner have for a father-in-law than you."

Mr. Pope, caught unprepared on the spur of the moment, bowed in a cold and distant manner, and then almost immediately closed the door to save himself from violence....

From first to last neither gentleman had made the slightest allusion to a considerable bruise upon Mr. Trafford's left cheek, and a large abrasion above his ear.

That afternoon Marjorie began her difficult task of getting disengaged from Mr. Magnet. It was difficult because she was pledged not to tell him of the one thing that made this line of action not only explicable, but necessary. Magnet, perplexed, and disconcerted, and secretly sustained by her mother's glancing sidelights on the feminine character and the instability of "girlish whims," remained at Buryhamstreet until the family returned to Hartstone Square. The engagement was ended—formally—but in such a manner that Magnet was left a rather pathetic and invincibly assiduous besieger. He lavished little presents upon both sisters, he devised little treats for the entire family, he enriched Theodore beyond the dreams of avarice, and he discussed his love and admiration for Marjorie, and the perplexities and delicacies of the situation not only with Mrs. Pope, but with Daphne. At first he had thought very little of Daphne, but now he was beginning to experience the subtle pleasures of a confidential friendship. She understood, he felt; it was quite wonderful how she understood. He found Daffy much richer in response than Marjorie, and far less disconcerting in reply....

Mr. Pope, for all Marjorie's submission to his wishes, developed a Grand Dudgeon of exceptionally fine proportions when he heard of the breach of the engagement. He ceased to speak to his daughter or admit himself aware of her existence, and the Grand Dudgeon's blighting shadow threw a chill over the life of every one in the house. He made it clear that the Grand Dudgeon would only be lifted by Marjorie's re-engagement to Magnet, and that whatever blight or inconvenience fell on the others was due entirely to Marjorie's wicked obstinacy. Using Mrs. Pope as an intermediary, he also conveyed to Marjorie his decision to be no longer burthened with the charges of her education at Oxbridge, and he made it seem extremely doubtful whether he should remember her approaching twenty-first birthday.

Marjorie received the news of her severance from Oxbridge, Mrs. Pope thought, with a certain hardness.

"I thought he would do that," said Marjorie. "He's always wanted to do that," and said no more.

Trafford went back to Solomonson for a day or so, and then to London, to resume the experimental work of the research he had in hand. But he was so much in love with Marjorie that for some days it was a very dazed mind that fumbled with the apparatus—arranged it and rearranged it, and fell into daydreams that gave the utmost concern to Durgan the bottle-washer.

"He's not going straight at things," said Durgan the bottle-washer to his wife. "He usually goes so straight at things it's a pleasure to watch it. He told me he was going down into Kent to think everything out." Mr. Durgan paused impressively, and spoke with a sigh of perplexity. "He hasn't...."

But later Durgan was able to report that Trafford had pulled himself together. The work was moving.

"I was worried for a bit," said Mr. Durgan. "But I think it's all right again. I believe it's all right again."

Trafford was one of those rare scientific men who really ought to be engaged in scientific research.

He could never leave an accepted formula alone. His mind was like some insatiable corrosive, that ate into all the hidden inequalities and plastered weaknesses of accepted theories, and bit its way through every plausibility of appearance. He was extraordinarily fertile in exasperating alternative hypotheses. His invention of destructive test experiments was as happy as the respectful irony with which he brought them into contact with the generalizations they doomed. He was already, at six-and-twenty, hated, abused, obstructed, and respected. He was still outside the Royal Society, of course, and the editors of the scientific periodicals admired his papers greatly, and delayed publication; but it was fairly certain that that pressure of foreign criticism and competition which prevents English scientific men of good family and social position from maintaining any such national standards as we are able to do in art, literature, and politics, would finally carry him in. And since he had a small professorship worth three hundred a year, which gave him the command of a sufficient research laboratory and the services of Mr. Durgan, a private income of nearly three hundred more, a devoted mother to keep house for him, and an invincible faith in Truth, he had every prospect of winning in his particular struggle to inflict more Truth, new lucidities, and fresh powers upon this fractious and unreasonable universe.