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Read Ebook: Man and Wife by Collins Wilkie
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Ebook has 4952 lines and 221342 words, and 100 pages
Mr. Vanborough opened the conversation.
"If you ever marry," he said, "don't be such a fool, Kendrew, as I have been. Don't take a wife from the stage."
"If I could get such a wife as yours," replied the other, "I would take her from the stage to-morrow. A beautiful woman, a clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a woman who truly loves you. Man alive! what do you want more?"
"I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly connected and highly bred--a woman who can receive the best society in England, and open her husband's way to a position in the world."
"A position in the world!" cried Mr. Kendrew. "Here is a man whose father has left him half a million of money--with the one condition annexed to it of taking his father's place at the head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in England. And he talks about a position, as if he was a junior clerk in his own office! What on earth does your ambition see, beyond what your ambition has already got?"
Mr. Vanborough finished his glass of wine, and looked his friend steadily in the face.
"My ambition," he said, "sees a Parliamentary career, with a Peerage at the end of it--and with no obstacle in the way but my estimable wife."
Mr. Kendrew lifted his hand warningly. "Don't talk in that way," he said. "If you're joking--it's a joke I don't see. If you're in earnest--you force a suspicion on me which I would rather not feel. Let us change the subject."
"No! Let us have it out at once. What do you suspect?"
"I suspect you are getting tired of your wife."
"She is forty-two, and I am thirty-five; and I have been married to her for thirteen years. You know all that--and you only suspect I am tired of her. Bless your innocence! Have you any thing more to say?"
"If you force me to it, I take the freedom of an old friend, and I say you are not treating her fairly. It's nearly two years since you broke up your establishment abroad, and came to England on your father's death. With the exception of myself, and one or two other friends of former days, you have presented your wife to nobody. Your new position has smoothed the way for you into the best society. You never take your wife with you. You go out as if you were a single man. I have reason to know that you are actually believed to be a single man, among these new acquaintances of yours, in more than one quarter. Forgive me for speaking my mind bluntly--I say what I think. It's unworthy of you to keep your wife buried here, as if you were ashamed of her."
"Vanborough!"
Mr. Kendrew touched his host's arm, and suddenly interrupted him.
"To come to the point," he said--"a woman like Lady Jane Parnell."
Mr. Vanborough started. His eyes fell, for the first time, before the eyes of his friend.
"What do you know about Lady Jane?" he asked.
"Nothing. I don't move in Lady Jane's world--but I do go sometimes to the opera. I saw you with her last night in her box; and I heard what was said in the stalls near me. You were openly spoken of as the favored man who was singled out from the rest by Lady Jane. Imagine what would happen if your wife heard that! You are wrong, Vanborough--you are in every way wrong. You alarm, you distress, you disappoint me. I never sought this explanation--but now it has come, I won't shrink from it. Reconsider your conduct; reconsider what you have said to me--or you count me no longer among your friends. No! I want no farther talk about it now. We are both getting hot--we may end in saying what had better have been left unsaid. Once more, let us change the subject. You wrote me word that you wanted me here to-day, because you needed my advice on a matter of some importance. What is it?"
Silence followed that question. Mr. Vanborough's face betrayed signs of embarrassment. He poured himself out another glass of wine, and drank it at a draught before he replied.
"It's not so easy to tell you what I want," he said, "after the tone you have taken with me about my wife."
Mr. Kendrew looked surprised.
"Is Mrs. Vanborough concerned in the matter?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Does she know about it?"
"No."
"Yes."
"Have I any right to advise on it?"
"You have the right of an old friend."
"Then, why not tell me frankly what it is?"
There was another moment of embarrassment on Mr. Vanborough's part.
"It will come better," he answered, "from a third person, whom I expect here every minute. He is in possession of all the facts--and he is better able to state them than I am."
"Who is the person?"
"My friend, Delamayn."
"Your lawyer?"
"Yes--the junior partner in the firm of Delamayn, Hawke, and Delamayn. Do you know him?"
"I am acquainted with him. His wife's family were friends of mine before he married. I don't like him."
"You're rather hard to please to-day! Delamayn is a rising man, if ever there was one yet. A man with a career before him, and with courage enough to pursue it. He is going to leave the Firm, and try his luck at the Bar. Every body says he will do great things. What's your objection to him?"
"I have no objection whatever. We meet with people occasionally whom we dislike without knowing why. Without knowing why, I dislike Mr. Delamayn."
"Whatever you do you must put up with him this evening. He will be here directly."
He was there at that moment. The servant opened the door, and announced--"Mr. Delamayn."
Externally speaking, the rising solicitor, who was going to try his luck at the Bar, looked like a man who was going to succeed. His hard, hairless face, his watchful gray eyes, his thin, resolute lips, said plainly, in so many words, "I mean to get on in the world; and, if you are in my way, I mean to get on at your expense." Mr. Delamayn was habitually polite to every body--but he had never been known to say one unnecessary word to his dearest friend. A man of rare ability; a man of unblemished honor ; but not a man to be taken familiarly by the hand. You would never have borrowed money of him--but you would have trusted him with untold gold. Involved in private and personal troubles, you would have hesitated at asking him to help you. Involved in public and producible troubles, you would have said, Here is my man. Sure to push his way--nobody could look at him and doubt it--sure to push his way.
"No--thank you."
"Have you brought any news?"
"Yes."
"Have you got the written opinions of the two barristers?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"'Because nothing of the sort is necessary. If the facts of the case are correctly stated there is not the slightest doubt about the law."
With that reply Mr. Delamayn took a written paper from his pocket, and spread it out on the table before him.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Vanborough.
"The case relating to your marriage."
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