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The Woman-Hater, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 15 |
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_ CHAPTER XV GOING home in the carriage, Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics were, that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her true line was governess--for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon that favorite butt, a friend. "Who but a soi-disant woman-hater would pick up a strange virago and send his sister to her with twenty pounds? I'll tell you what it is, Miss Vizard--" Here Miss Vizard, who had sat dead silent under a flow of words, which is merely indicated above, laid her hand on his arm to stop the flux for a moment, and said, quietly, "Do you know her? tell me." "Know her! How should I?" "I thought you might have met her--abroad." "Well, it is possible, of course, but very unlikely. If I did, I never spoke to her, or I should have remembered her. Don't you think so?" "She seemed very positive; and I think she is an accurate person. She seemed quite surprised and mortified when you said 'No.'" "Well, you know, of course it is a mortifying thing when a lady claims a gentleman's acquaintance, and the gentleman doesn't admit it. But what could I do? I couldn't tell a lie about it--could I?" "Of course not." "I was off my guard, and rudish; but you were not. What tact! what delicacy! what high breeding and angelic benevolence! And so clever, too!" "Oh, fie! you listened!" "You left the door ajar, and I could not bear to lose a word that dropped from those lips so near me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. 'We are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! you'll never see a shilling of it again! No matter. What do angels want of money?" "Oh, pray," said Zoe, "you make me blush!" "Then I wish there was more light to see it--yes, an angel. Do you think I can't see you have done all this for a lady you do not really approve? Fancy--a she doctor!" "My dear friend," said Zoe, with a little juvenile pomposity, "one ought not to judge one's intellectual superiors hastily, and this lady is ours"--then, gliding back to herself, "and it is my nature to approve what those I love approve--when it is not downright wrong, you know." "Oh, of course it is not wrong; but is it wise?" Zoe did not answer: the question puzzled her. "Come," said he, "I'll be frank, and speak out in time. I don't think you know your brother Harrington. He is very inflammable." "Inflammable! What! Harrington? Well, yes; for I've seen smoke issue from his mouth--ha! ha!" "Ha! ha! I'll pass that off for mine, some day when you are not by. But, seriously, your brother is the very man to make a fool of himself with a certain kind of woman. He despises the whole sex--in theory, and he is very hard upon ordinary women, and does not appreciate their good qualities. But, when he meets a remarkable woman, he catches fire like tow. He fell in love with Mademoiselle Klosking." "Oh, not in love!" "I beg your pardon. Now, this is between you and me--he was in love with her, madly in love. He was only saved by our coming away. If those two had met and made acquaintance, he would have been at her mercy. I don't say any harm would have come of it; but I do say that would have depended on the woman, and not on the man." Zoe looked very serious, and said nothing. But her long silence showed him his words had told. "And now," said he, after a judicious pause, "here is another remarkable woman; the last in the world I should fancy, or Vizard either, perhaps, if he met her in society. But the whole thing occurs in the way to catch him. He finds a lady fainting with hunger; he feeds her; and that softens his heart to her. Then she tells him the old story--victim of the world's injustice--and he is deeply interested in her. She can see that; she is as keen as a razor. If those two meet a few more times, he will be at her mercy; and then won't she throw physic to the dogs, and jump at a husband six feet high, and twelve thousand acres! I don't study women with a microscope, as our woman-hater does, but I notice a few things about them; and one is, that their eccentricities all give way at the first offer of marriage. I believe they are only adopted in desperation, to get married. What beautiful woman is ever eccentric? catch her! she can get a husband without. That doctress will prescribe Harrington a wedding-ring; and, if he swallows it, it will be her last prescription. She will send out for the family doctor after that, like other wives." "You alarm me," said Zoe. "Pray do not make me unjust. This is a lady with a fine mind, and, not a designing woman." "Oh, I don't say she has laid any plans; but these things are always extemporized the moment the chance comes. You can count beforehand on the instinct of every woman who is clever and needy, and on Vizard's peculiar weakness for women out of the common. He is hard upon the whole sex; but he is no match for individuals. He owned as much himself to me one day. You are not angry with me!" "No, no. Angry with you?" "It is you I think of in all this. He is a fine fellow, and you are proud of him. I wouldn't have him marry to mortify you. For myself, while the sister honors me with her regard, I really don't much care who has the brother and the acres. I have the best of the bargain." Zoe disputed this--in order to make him say it several times. He did, and proved it in terms that made her cheeks red with modesty and gratified pride; and by the time they had got home, he had flattered everything but pride, love, and happiness out of her heart, poor girl. The world is like the Law, full of implied contracts: we give and take, without openly agreeing to. Subtle Severne counted on this, and was not disappointed. Zoe rewarded him for his praises, and her happiness, by falling into his views about Rhoda Gale. Only she did it in her own lady-like way, and not plump. She came up to Harrington and kissed him, and said, "Thank you, dear, for sending me on a good errand. I found her in a very mean apartment, without fire or candle." "I thought as much," said Vizard. "Did she take the money?" "Yes--as a loan." "Make any difficulties?" "A little, dear." Severne put in his word. "Now, if you want to know all the tact and delicacy with which it was done, you must come to me; for Miss Vizard is not going to give you any idea of it." "Be quiet, sir, or I shall be very angry. I lent her the money, dear, and her troubles are at an end; for her mother will certainly join her before she has spent your twenty pounds. Oh! and she had not parted with her ring; that is a comfort, is it not?" "You are a good-hearted girl, Zoe," said Vizard, approvingly; then, recovering himself, "But don't you be blinded by sentiment. She deserves a good hiding for not parting with her ring. Where is the sense of starving, with thirty pounds on your finger?" Zoe smiled, and said his words were harder than his deeds. "Because he doesn't mean a word he says," put in Fanny Dover, uneasy at the long cessation of her tongue, for all conversation with Don Cigar had proved impracticable. "Are you there still, my Lady Disdain?" said Vizard. "I thought you were gone to bed." "You might well think that. I had nothing to keep me up." Said Zoe, rather smartly, "Oh, yes, you had--Curiosity;" then, turning to her brother, "In short, you make your mind quite easy. You have lent your money, or given it, to a worthy person, but a little wrong-headed. However"--with a telegraphic glance at Severne--"she is very accomplished; a linguist: she need never be in want; and she will soon have her mother to help her and advise her. Perhaps Mrs. Gale has an income; if not, Miss Gale, with her abilities, will easily find a place in some house of business, or else take to teaching. If I was them, I would set up a school." Unanimity is rare in this world; but Zoe's good sense carried every vote. Her prompter, Severne, nodded approval. Fanny said, "Why, of course;" and Vizard, who it was feared might prove refractory, assented even more warmly than the others. "Yes," said he, "that will be the end of it. You relieve me of a weight. Really, when she told me that fable of learning maltreated, honorable ambition punished, justice baffled by trickery, and virtue vilified, and did not cry like the rest of you, except at her father dying in New York the day she won her diploma at Montpelier, I forgave the poor girl her petticoats; indeed, I lost sight of them. She seemed to me a very brave little fellow, damnably ill used, and I said, 'This is not to be borne. Here is a fight, and justice down under dirty feet.' What, ho!" (roaring at the top of his voice). Zoe and Fanny (screaming, and pinching Ned Severne right and left). "Ah! ah!" "Vizard to the rescue!" "But, with the evening, cool reflection came. A sister, youthful, but suddenly sagacious (with a gleam of suspicion), very suddenly has stilled the waves of romance, and the lips of beauty have uttered common sense. Shall they utter it in vain? Never! It may be years before they do it again. We must not slight rare phenomena. Zoe locuta est--Eccentricity must be suppressed. Doctresses, warned by a little starvation, must take the world as it is, and teach little girls and boys languages, and physic them with arithmetic and the globes: these be drugs that do not kill; they only make life a burden. I don't think we have laid out our twenty pounds badly, Zoe, and there is an end of it. The incident is emptied, as the French say, and (lighting bed-candles) the ladies retire with the honors of war. Zoe has uttered good sense, and Miss Dover has done the next best thing; she has said very little--" Miss Dover shot in contemptuously, "I had no companion--" --"For want of a fool to speak her mind to." _ |
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