Studies in Wives

his tabernacle, and it shall bring him

Althea Scrope turned quickly round from the window by which

ad been far away from the old house in Westminster which was now her home; her thoughts had been in Newcastle, dw

ecalled her to hersel

ou are at home this

are event, for Dockett liked to be master in his master's house. Before the marriage of Perceval Scrope, Dockett had been Scrope's valet, and, as Althea was well aware, the man still regarded her as an interloper. Althea did not like Docke

stard if he comes,

on, for Dockett always knew, by a sort of instinct, whom

less windows. Perceval Scrope did not like curtains, and so

s Park, and was caught in whirling drifts on the frozen sheet of water which reflected the lights on the bridge spanning the little

o intently oppressed her, and, suddenly, from having felt w

ng up from the strong serviceable boots to the short brown skirt, and so to the sable cape which had

ow she looks. This was the case with Althea, and yet she was only twenty-two, and looked even younger; no one

on herself, and she was not very tidy-one of her few points of resemblance with her husband, and not one which made for harmony

all," she said to the footman. And now the room was once more neat

anciful name of Althea. Her husband, in a fit of petulance at some exceptional density of vision, had once told her that her name should have been Jane-Jan

and its delightful outlook on St. James's Park, but also because quite a num

ferred the house as it had been before her marriage, in the days when it was scarcely furnished, when this room, for instance, had been the library-s

making the pleasant old house in Delahay Street look as it perchance had looked eighty or a hundred years ago. The illusion was almost perfect, so cleverly had the flotsam of Perc

ot buy, that is an ugly word, and besides it had been Perceval who had been bought, not Althea-

ad not bee

y barred-Americans, and that although everybody knows how useful an American heiress can be, not only with her money, but with her brightness an

ctly country-bred-she was the only child of a Newcastle magnate-she had seen nothing of the world to which Scr

t, passionate sense of the word; in fact, she was ashamed that she had ever been so, for she now felt sure that Perceval woul

ral, if uglier, relationship on the part of a married man, and of a man whom the

ng to herself the man's folly, Althea had a curious liking for Egeria's husband. There was, in fact, more between them than their common interest in the other couple; for he, like Althea, provided what old-fashioned people used to call the wherewithal; he, like Althea,

-lived quite close to Althea and Perceval Scrope, for they dwelt in Old

her small, graceful person, her picturesque and dateless dress, even in her low melodious voice, that harmony w

ld Queen Street from Birdcage Walk. This garden looked fresher and greener than its fellows because, by Mrs. Panfillen's care, the miniature parterres were constantly tend

were not much together, and as a rule they only met, but that was, of course, ve

ucted his careless wooing. It was in Mrs. Panfillen's boudoir, an octagon-shaped room on the park side of the house, that he had actually made his proposal, and that Althea, believing herself to

n deep mourning, had filled St. Margaret's with one of those gatherings only brought together on such an occasion-a gathering in which

time her girlish complacency had forsaken her, and she had been made to understand how inadequate her husband found her to the position she was now called upon to fill. It was then that there had first come to her the humiliating suspicion that her bridegroom c

tesses, had always been taking the bride's part, but how

his afternoon she suddenly remembered it with singular vividness. Scrope had b

ing examination, concerning people and places some of whom she had never heard of, while others seemed vaguely, worryingly familiar. He had ended up with the words, "And I suppose you consider

had cried, "That's not fair! In fact you are being quite absurd, Perceval! I've never cared for Dickens, and I'm sure most people, at any rate most women, who say they like him are pretending-pretending all

nder Althea's chin. "Crying?" he had said, "Baby! She shan't b

ation, and who had been at such pains to obtain for his motherless only child an ideal chaperon-governess, a lady who had always lived with the best families in Newcastle. Miss Burt would cer

nch in France, for her father had a prejudice against the French; he belonged to a generation which admired Germany, and disliked and distrusted the French. She had, however, been taught French by an exc

about education, and when they were at last settling down in their own house, arranging the details of their first dinn

far too clever a woman to hope to do that-but into a bright, cheerful companion for Perceval Scrope's lighter hours. She had always vaguely

y to do something; there had come a moment when not only she, but even Scrope himself, had felt that he must be lifted out of the class-always distrusted and despised in England-of political

renouncement, Joan Panfillen found that after all no

advice on all that concerned his brilliant, meteoric career. He seldom mentioned his wife, but Mrs. Panfillen knew her friend far too well

s, did not seem so large an income as it had seemed at first; and the fact that Scrope's marriage had extinguished the od

and the fact that he had known her father made him complacently suppose that he had brought abou

a compensation. His name was John Bustard. He was in a public office-to be precise, the Privy Council Office. He lived in rooms not far from h

s to associate herself with her husband's interests past and present. But of the innumerable people with whom Scrope had brought her into temporary cont

mself to take two constitutionals a day, he indulged in no other manlier form of exercise, and his contempt for golf was the only thing that tended to a lack of perfect understanding between his colleagues

supposed it to be uninteresting to anyone but himself, and also on account of a certa

younger brothers and an orphan sister whom he supremely de

ardent wish, it was that her husband would permit her to invite Mr. Bustard's sister for a few weeks when the girl

husband's circle who thought well of her judgment, who trusted in her discretion,

re needed, of his brilliant schoolfellow's acute intelligence. He had ventured to say as much to Scrope's late official chief, one of the few men to whom Mr. Bustard, without a sufficient cause, would have mentioned a lad

think his old schoolfellow a typical member of the British public, and he had nicknamed him "the Bullo

d. "How's your fat friend?" he would ask, and a feeling of resentment filled Althea's breast. It was not John Bustard's fault that he had a bad figure; it was caused by the sedentary nature of his w

ere gathering over the park. Soon a veil of fog would shut out the still landscape. If Mr. Bustar

f his own political household and who now regarded him as a renegade, but the subject was one sure to inspire him, for it was that which he had made his own, and which had led to his s

t had been mentioned in the papers. The intense cold had t

, but still very far from well. Only to herself did Althea say what she felt sure was the truth, namely that Perceval's state was due to himself, due to his constant

Indeed, there were some in her circle, kindly amiable folk, who believed, and said perhaps a little too loudly, that Alth

ring of the telephone bell. No doubt a message saying tha

ut to suggest. She felt sure that he would tell her, as he had told her so many t

val Scrope. It was a woman's voice, and it seemed to float towards h

the answer in a voice she knew well, "It is I-Joan Panfillen! Are you alone, Althea? Yes? Ah! that's good! I want you to do me a kindness, dear

esitatingly, "yes, I hear

cked, and I will let you in by the window. Be careful as you walk acr

he answered, in her low, even voi

in the early days of Scrope's marriage, Mrs. Panfillen had more than once tried to use her friend's wife, believing-strange that she should have made such a mistake-that Althea might suc

om she had one or two rather important things to say about his sister--But stay, why should he be told that she was out? Why indeed should she be still out when Mr. Bustar

fully hung up as she had directed. Perceval always said Luke was a stupid servant, but she liked

wondered why her husband chose to live in such a place. Of course she knew that their friends raved about the park side of the house, but the wife of P

e passed Boar's Head Yard, where lived an old cabman in whom she

soon after their marriage; it had seemed to please him very much that they lived so near the spot where Cromw

e could have understood, perhaps to a certain extent sympathised with, Perceval's feeling, for Cromw

rope! And so thinking of him she suddenly remembered, with a tightening of the heart, how often her husband's feet had trod

it was hateful, to know that there were people who pitied her because of this peculiar intimacy between Perceval and Joan. Why, quite

to "manage" Perceval; but the moment when such an alliance would have been possible had now gone for ever-even if it had ever existed. Althea would have had to h

y leave her house at Joan Panfillen's bidding? But Althea, even as she hesitated, knew that she wou

Yard. It had been standing there when she had come in from her walk, and she felt a thrill of pity-th

ich she had just allowed to possess and shake her with jealous pain. And yet-yet, though many people envied her, how

n gate which Mrs. Panfillen had told her was unlocked, she saw tha

here, cloakless and hatless, Joan's maid, a tall, gaunt, grey-haired woman named Bolt, who in the long ago had been nurse to the Panfillens' dead child. Scrope had told Althea the story of th

d her grim honesty of manner, but since Althea's marriage to Perceval Scrope there had come a change over Bolt's manner. She also

was even a little breathless. As she touched the gate, she saw that it swung loosely. E

stioningly. "Is Mrs. Panfillen ill?" she asked. The other shook her h

r mistress's visitor up the iron steps leading to the boudoir window, and leaving her there, on the little ba

sed before it was opened from within Althea Scrope took unconscious note of the room she kn

edgwood blue, while just below the ceiling concave med

e window behind which Althea was standing. It concealed the straight Empire sofa which, as Mr. Panfillen was fond of telling his wife's friends, on the very rare occasions when he found himself in this room w

he were listening, and the lemon-coloured shade of the lamp standing on the table threw a strange gleam on her lavender silk gown

n who had sent for her turned round, and,

ea-how strange that you had to knock

could-I don't think I ca

air. She looked questioningly at Mrs. Panfillen. She felt, she hardly kne

air face, usually

doorstep as Althea and Perceval started for their honeymoon, just after there had taken place a strange little scene-for Scrope, following th

d it, closely, as she spoke, "don't be frightened,-but Perc

t-that would be dreadful-he'd be terribly upset, terribly disappointed!" Even as she spoke

en hesitated a moment, and again she said the words "'ill', 'here'," and for the first tim

quickly. "Of course he mustn't be i

ntment warring together in her heart. How strange London people were! This woman whom folk-the old provincial word rose to her lips-who

s mind, saw quite clearly what Perceval's wife was feeling, saw it with a bitter sense of wha

et a cab," she said, without turning round; "we thought that it would be simplest. The old cabman knows us all-it will be quicker." She spo

re is Pe

t flung carelessly across two chairs lay his outdoor coat, his gloves, h

towards her with slo

notes of his speech, and-and he fell back." She began moving the screen, and as she did so she wen

and. Yes, Perceval looked ill-very ill,-and he was lying in so peculiar a position! "I suppose when people fai

rail-looking little couch. His fair, almost lint white, hair was pushed back from his forehead, showing its unusual breadth. The gr

in such a condition of helplessness and unease. And yet she went on looking at him, strangely impressed, not so much by the rigidity, as by

a small table, on which st

?" Althea whispered at leng

the younger woman; again she put

r looked down into the quivering face turned up to hers, she added with sudden passion, "Should I want you to t

e moved quickly, and she saw with mingled terror and revolt what it was t

me to take h

y perceptible movement of assent. "It is what he would have wished," she

ut I don't think

of mortal horror and fear. She had always been afraid of Perceval Scrope, afraid and yet fascina

asked, a little wildly. "If you hadn't told me that he was dead I should neve

an infamous thing from me to you--" She waited a moment, and then in a very different voice, in her own usual measured and gentle accents, she added, "My dear, forgive me. We will never speak of this again. I was wrong,

s to the window and opened it. The action was symbolic-and

y seemed very long moments to Joan Panfillen-before she said the irrevocable words, and when she did say them, they sounded muffled, and uttered from far

You were right just now-right, I mean, in t

ste, and, to her relief, the o

d made as if to pass through the window, but Althea stopped her with a quick movement of recoil-"No, no!" she cried, "let me do that!" and she ran down the i

Althea who put out her young strength to help to lift the dead man, and, under cover of the sheltering mist, to make the leaden

slow, but to Althea it was all too swift; she dreaded with

anfillen, for at the very last Scrope's Egeria forgot self, and

er eyes from that which lay huddled up by Althea's

hurried refusal. She felt that with sp

n the pavement, and on whose pale faces there fell the quivering gleam of the old-fashioned cab lamp. Then, when the footfalls of these passers-by had become faint, Bolt spoke to the driver, and handed him some money

drive began, the horse slipping, the cab

round the inert, sagging thing which had been till an hour ago Perceval Scrope. And, as she did so, as she presse

t her husband was at last satisfied with her; for the first time she was able to do Perceval Scrope dead what sh

lavished; and this long-lost feeling of joy in her husband's approval came back, filling her eyes with tears. Now at last Althea felt as if she and Perceval Scr

, Althea lost count of time; it might have been a moment, i

his cab, and rang the bell, Big Be

had been afraid when she, Joan and Perceval had formed for the last time a trinity. The feeling which had so upheld her, the feeling that for the first time she and her husband were in u

at she would have to deal. As she saw his tall, thin figure emerge hesitatingly into the street, Mrs. Scrope called out in a strong, confident voice, "Lu

who carried Perceval Scrope over the threshold of his own house, and so into a small ro

s startled out of his acquired passivity. "I'

he less to her a very agonising form of fear. Althea was afraid that now, when approaching the end of her ordeal, she would fail Scrope and the woman he had loved. What was she to say, what story could s

e exception of the kindly, stupid youth who had now gone to find a doctor, there was not a memb

She had been accustomed to a well-ordered, decorous household, and would even have enjoyed managing such a one; but Perceval-Perceval influenced by Dockett-had ordained otherwise, and Althea

loud double knock which stilled, as if b

course supposed Luke to be on duty. It might be-nay, it almost certainly was-the doctor. With faltering steps she again came out into the hall and

Bustard, looking at her with deep concern and dismay, was quite u

ope-what is the matter? Would you like m

o away-stay with me-I'm-I'm so frightened, Mr. Bustard. Perceval-

bed; command of the excited household, whose excitement he sternly suppressed; it was Mr. Busta

ce, was actually in the house when poor Perceval Scrope's death took place!" bold and cruel people wou

ith Althea. Poor Althea is so alone in the world. I hope she will come and stay with us when she comes back to town; we were P

mindful, as he had a right to be, of his lawful perquisites, and who w

hat and stick. That common ash stick's a relic-it may be worth money some day!" he observe

probably disappeared in the confusion, the hurried coming and going, of that evening when Luke had been almost run off his legs answering the door, and his head made