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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




"No, it is not Mr. Vizard; indeed, it is no convert of mine. It is an
independent enthusiast. But I really believe your work at home had some
hand in firing her enthusiasm."

"A lady! Do I know her?"

"You may. I suppose you know everybody in Barfordshire. Will you come?
Do!"

"Of course I will come, Miss Gale. Please tell one of your people to walk
my horse down after us."

She had her hat on in a moment, and walked him down to Islip.

Her tongue was not idle on the road. "You don't ask after the people,"
said she. "There's poor Miss Vizard. She had a sad illness. We were
almost afraid we should lose her."

"Heaven forbid!" said Uxmoor, startled by this sudden news.

"Mademoiselle Klosking got quite well; and oh! what do you think? Mr.
Severne turned out to be her husband."

"What is that?" shouted Uxmoor, and stopped dead short. "Mr. Severne a
married man!"

"Yes; and Mademoiselle Klosking a married woman."

"You amaze me. Why, that Mr. Severne was paying his attentions to Miss
Vizard."

"So I used to fancy," said Rhoda carelessly. "But you see it came out he
was married, and so of course she packed him off with a flea in his ear."

"Did she? When was that?"

"Let me see, it was the 17th of October."

"Why, that was the very day I left England."

"How odd! Why did you not stay another week? Gentlemen are so impatient.
Never mind, that is an old story now. Here we are; those are the
cottages. The workmen are at dinner. Ten to one the enthusiast is there:
this is her time. You stay here. I'll go and see."

She went off on tiptoe, and peeped and pried here and there, like a young
witch. Presently she took a few steps toward him, with her finger
mysteriously to her lips, and beckoned him. He entered into the
pantomime--she seemed so earnest in it--and came to her softly.

"Do just take a peep in at that opening for a door," said she, "then
you'll see her; her back is turned. She is lovely; only, you know, she
has been ill, and I don't think she is very happy."

Uxmoor thought this peeping at enthusiasts rather an odd proceeding, but
Miss Gale had primed his curiosity, and he felt naturally proud of a
female pupil. He stepped up lightly, looked in at the door, and, to his
amazement, saw Zoe Vizard sitting on a carpenter's bench, with her lovely
head in the sun's rays. He started, then gazed, then devoured her with
his eyes.

What! was this his pupil?

How gentle and sad she seemed! All his stoicism melted at the sight of
her. She sat in a sweet, pensive attitude, pale and drooping, but, to his
fancy, lovelier than ever. She gave a little sigh. His heart yearned. She
took out a letter, read it slowly, and said, softly and slowly, "Poor
fellow!" He thought he recognized his own handwriting, and could stand no
more. He rushed, in, and was going to speak to her; but she screamed, and
no conjurer ever made a card disappear quicker than she did that letter,
as she bounded away like a deer, and stood, blushing scarlet, and
palpitating all over.

Uxmoor was ashamed of his _brusquerie._ "What a brute I am to frighten
you like this!" said he. "Pray forgive me; but the sight of you, after
all these weary months--and you said 'Poor fellow!'"

"Did I?" said Zoe, faintly, looking scared.

"Yes, sweet Zoe, and you were reading a letter."

No reply.

"I thought the poor fellow might be myself. Not that I am to be pitied,
if you think of me still."

"I do, then--very often. Oh, Lord Uxmoor, I want to go down on my knees
to you."

"That is odd, now; for it is exactly what I should like to do to you."

"What for? It is I who have behaved so ill."

"Never mind that; I love you."

"But you mustn't. You must love some worthy person."

"Oh, you leave that to me. I have no other intention. But may I just see
whose letter you were reading?"

"Oh, pray don't ask me."

"I insist on knowing."

"I will not tell you. There it is." She gave it to him with a guilty air,
and hid her face.

"Dear Zoe, suppose I were to repeat the offer I made here?"

"I advise you not," said she, all in a flurry.

"Why?"

"Because. Because--I might say 'Yes.'"

"Well, then I'll take my chance once more. Zoe, will you try and love
me?"

"Try? I believe I do love you, or nearly. I think of you very often."

"Then you will do something to make me happy."

"Anything; everything."

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes, that I will," said Zoe, almost impetuously; "and then," with a
grand look of conscious beauty, "I can _make_ you forgive me."

Uxmoor, on this, caught her in his arms, and kissed her with such fire
that she uttered a little stifled cry of alarm; but it was soon followed
by a sigh of complacency, and she sunk, resistless, on his manly breast.

So, after two sieges, he carried that fair citadel by assault.

Then let not the manly heart despair, nor take a mere brace of "Noes"
from any woman. Nothing short of three negatives is serious.

They walked out in arm-in-arm and very close to each other; and he left
her, solemnly engaged.

Leaving this pair to the delights of courtship, and growing affection on
Zoe's side--for a warm attachment of the noblest kind did grow, by
degrees, out of her penitence, and esteem, and desire to repair her
fault--I must now take up the other thread of this narrative, and
apologize for having inverted the order of events; for it was, in
reality, several days after this happy scene that Mademoiselle Klosking
sent for Miss Gale.



CHAPTER XXXII.

VIZARD, then, with Ashmead, returned home in despair; and Zoe, now happy
in her own mind, was all tenderness and sisterly consolation. They opened
their hearts to each other, and she showed her wish to repay the debt she
owed him. How far she might have succeeded, in time, will never be known.
For he had hardly been home a week, when Miss Gale returned, all in
black, and told him Severne was dead and buried.

He was startled, and even shocked, remembering old times; but it was not
in human nature he should be sorry. Not to be indecorously glad at so
opportune an exit was all that could be expected from him.

When she had given him the details, his first question was, "How did she
bear it?"

"She is terribly cut up--more than one would think possible; for she was
ice and marble to him before he was hurt to death."

"Where is she?"

"Gone to London. She will write to me, I suppose--poor dear. But one must
give her time."

From that hour Vizard was in a state of excitement, hoping to hear from
Ina Klosking, or about her; but unwilling, from delicacy, to hurry
matters.

At last he became impatient, and wrote to Ashmead, whose address he had,
and said, frankly, he had a delicacy in intruding on Mademoiselle
Klosking, in her grief. Yet his own feelings would not allow him to seem
to neglect her. Would Mr. Ashmead, then, tell him where she was, as she
had not written to any one in Barfordshire--not even to her tried friend,
Miss Gale.

He received an answer by return of post.





"DEAR SIR--I am grieved to tell you that Mademoiselle Klosking has
retired from public life. She wrote to me, three weeks ago, from Dover,
requesting me to accept, as a token of her esteem, the surplus money I
hold in hand for her--I always drew her salary--and bidding me farewell.
The sum included her profits by psalmody, minus her expenses, and was so
large it could never have been intended as a mere recognition of my
humble services; and I think I have seldom felt so down-hearted as on
receiving this princely donation. It has enabled me to take better
offices, and it may be the foundation of a little fortune; but I feel
that I have lost the truly great lady who has made a man of me. Sir, the
relish is gone for my occupation: I can never be so happy as I was in
working the interests of that great genius, whose voice made our leading
soprani sound like whistles, and who honored me with her friendship. Sir,
she was not like other leading ladies. She never bragged, never spoke ill
of any one; and _you_ can testify to her virtue and her discretion.

"I am truly sorry to learn from you that she has written to no one in
Barfordshire. I saw, by her letter to me, she had left the stage; but her
dropping you all looks as if she had left the world. I do hope she has
not been so mad as to go into one of those cursed convents.

"Mr. Vizard, I will now write to friends in all the Continental towns
where there is good music. She will not be able to keep away from that
long. I will also send photographs; and hope we may hear something. If
not, perhaps a _judicious advertisement_ might remind her that she is
inflicting pain upon persons to whom she is dear. I am, sir, your obliged
and grateful servant,

JOSEPH ASHMEAD."





Here was a blow. I really believe Vizard felt this more deeply than all
his other disappointments.

He brooded over it for a day or two; and then, as he thought Miss Gale a
very ill-used person, though not, of course, so ill-used as himself, he
took her Ashmead's letter.

"This is nice!" said she. "There--I must give up loving women. Besides,
they throw me over the moment a man comes, if it happens to be the right
one."

"Unnatural creatures!" said Vizard.

"Ungrateful, at all events."

"Do you think she has gone into a convent?"

"Not she. In the first place, she is a Protestant; and, in the second,
she is not a fool."

"I will advertise."

"The idea!"

"Do you think I am going to sit down with my hands before me, and lose
her forever?"

"No, indeed; I don't think you are that sort of a man at all, ha! ha!"

"Oh, Miss Gale, pity me. Tell me how to find her. That Fanny Dover says
women are only enigmas to men; they understand one another."

"What," said Rhoda, turning swiftly on him; "does that little chit
pretend to read my noble Ina?"

"If she cannot, perhaps you can. You are so shrewd. Do tell me, what does
it all mean?"

"It means nothing at all, I dare say; only a woman's impulse. They are
such geese at times, every one of them."

"Oh, if I did but know what country she is in, I would ransack it."

"Hum!--countries are biggish places."

"I don't care."

"What will you give me to tell you where she is at this moment?"

"All I have in the world."

"That is sufficient. Well, then, first assign me your estates; then fetch
me an ordnance map of creation, and I will put my finger on her."

"You little mocking fiend, you!"

"I am not. I'm a tall, beneficent angel; and I'll tell you where she
is--for nothing. Keep your land: who wants it?--it is only a bother."

"For pity's sake, don't trifle with me."

"I never will, where your heart is interested. She is at Zutzig."

"Ah, you good girl! She has written to you."

"Not a line, the monster! And I'll serve her out. I'll teach her to play
hide-and-seek with Gale, M.D.!"

"Zutzig!" said Vizard; "how can you know?"

"What does that matter? Well, yes--I will reveal the mental process.
First of all, she has gone to her mother."

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, dear, dear, dear! Because that is where every daughter goes in
trouble. I should--she _has._ Fancy you not seeing that--why, Fanny Dover
would have told you that much in a moment. But now you will have to thank
_my_ mother for teaching me Attention, the parent of Memory. Pray, sir,
who were the witnesses to that abominable marriage of hers?"

"I remember two, Baron Hompesch--"

"No, Count Hompesch."

"And Count Meurice."

"Viscount. What, have you forgotten Herr Formes, Fraulein Graafe, Zug the
Capellmeister, and her very mother? Come now, whose daughter is she?"

"I forget, I'm sure."

"Walter Ferris and Eva Klosking, of Zutzig, in Denmark. Pack--start for
Copenhagen. Consult an ordnance map there. Find out Zutzig. Go to Zutzig,
and you have got her. It is some hole in a wilderness, and she can't
escape."

"You clever little angel! I'll be there in three days. Do you really
think I shall succeed?"

"Your own fault if you don't. She has run into a _cul-de-sac_ through
being too clever; and, besides, women sometimes run away just to be
caught, and hide on purpose to be found. I should not wonder if she has
said to herself, 'He will find me if he loves me so very, very much--I'll
try him.'"

"Not a word more, angelic fox," said Vizard; "I'm off to Zutzig."

He went out on fire. She opened the window and screeched after him,
"Everything is fair after her behavior to me. Take her a book of those
spiritual songs she is so fond of. 'Johnny comes marching home,' is worth
the lot, I reckon."

Away went Vizard; found Copenhagen with ease; Zutzig with difficulty,
being a small village. But once there, he soon found the farmhouse of Eva
Klosking. He drove up to the door. A Danish laborer came out from the
stable directly; and a buxom girl, with pale golden hair, opened the
door. These two seized his luggage, and conveyed it into the house, and
the hired vehicle to the stable. Vizard thought it must be an inn.

The girl bubbled melodious sounds, and ran off and brought a sweet,
venerable name. Vizard recognized Eva Klosking at once. The old lady
said, "Few strangers come here--are you not English?"

"Yes, madam."

"It is Mr. Vizard--is it not?"

"Yes, madam."

"Ah, sir, my daughter will welcome you, but not more heartily than I do.
My child has told me all she owes to you"--then in Danish, "God bless the
hour you come under this roof."

Vizard's heart beat tumultuously, wondering how Ina Klosking would
receive him. The servant had told her a tall stranger was come. She knew
in a moment who it was; so she had the advantage of being prepared.

She came to him, her cheeks dyed with blushes, and gave him both hands.
"You here!" said she; "oh, happy day! Mother, he must have the south
chamber. I will go and prepare it for him. Tecla!--Tecla!"--and she was
all hostess. She committed him to her mother, while she and the servant
went upstairs.

He felt discomfited a little. He wanted to know, all in a moment, whether
she would love him.

However, Danish hospitality has its good side. He soon found out he might
live the rest of his days there if he chose.

He soon got her alone, and said, "You knew I should find you, cruel one."

"How could I dream of such a thing?" said she, blushing.

"Oh, Love is a detective. You said to yourself, 'If he loves me as I
ought to be loved, he will search Europe for me; but he will find me.'"

"Oh, then it was not to be at peace and rest on my mother's bosom I came
here; it was to give you the trouble of running after me. Oh, fie!"

"You are right. I am a vain fool."

"No, that you are not. After all, how do I know all that was in my heart?
(Ahem!) Be sure of this, you are very welcome. I must go and see about
your dinner."

In that Danish farmhouse life was very primitive. Eva Klosking, and both
her daughters, helped the two female servants, or directed them, in every
department. So Ina, who was on her defense, had many excuses for escaping
Vizard, when he pressed her too hotly. But at last she was obliged to
say, "Oh, pray, my friend--we are in Denmark: here widows are expected to
be discreet."

"But that is no reason why the English fellows who adore them should be
discreet."

"Perhaps not: but then the Danish lady runs away."

Which she did.

But, after the bustle of the first day, he had so many opportunities. He
walked with her, sat with her while she worked, and hung over her,
entranced, while she sung. He produced the book from Vizard Court without
warning, and she screamed with delight at sight of it, and caught his
hand in both hers and kissed it. She reveled in those sweet strains which
had comforted her in affliction: and oh, the eyes she turned on him after
singing any song in this particular book! Those tender glances thrilled
him to the very marrow.

To tell the honest truth, his arrival was a godsend to Ina Klosking. When
she first came home to her native place, and laid her head on her
mother's bosom, she was in Elysium. The house, the wood fires, the cooing
doves, the bleating calves, the primitive life, the recollections of
childhood--all were balm to her, and she felt like ending her days there.
But, as the days rolled on, came a sense of monotony and excessive
tranquillity. She was on the verge of _ennui_ when Vizard broke in upon
her.

From that moment there was no stagnation. He made life very pleasant to
her; only her delicacy took the alarm at his open declarations; she
thought them so premature.

At last he said to her, one day, "I begin to fear you will never love me
as I love you."

"Who knows?" said she. "Time works wonders."

"I wonder," said he, "whether you will ever marry any other man?"

Ina was shocked at that. "Oh, my friend, how could I--unless," said she,
with a sly side-glance, "you consented."

"Consent? I'd massacre him."

Ina turned toward him. "You asked my hand at a time when you thought
me--I don't know what you thought--that is a thing no woman could forget.
And now you have come all this way for me. I am yours, if you can wait
for me."

He caught her in his arms. She disengaged herself, gently, and her hand
rested an unnecessary moment on his shoulder. "Is that how you understand
'waiting?'" said she, with a blush, but an indulgent smile.

"What is the use waiting?"

"It is a matter of propriety."

"How long are we to wait?"

"Only a few months. My friend, it is like a boy to be too impatient.
Alas! would you marry me in my widow's cap?"

"Of course I would. Now, Ina, love, a widow who has been two years
separated from her husband!"

"Certainly, that makes a difference--in one's own mind. But one must
respect the opinion of the world. Dear friend, it is of you I think,
though I speak of myself."

"You are an angel. Take your own time. After all, what does it matter? I
don't leave Zutzig without you."

Ina's pink tint and sparkling eyes betrayed anything but horror at that
insane resolution. However, she felt it her duty to say that it was
unfortunate she should always be the person to distract him from his home
duties.

"Oh, never mind them," said this single-hearted lover. "I have appointed
Miss Gale viceroy."

However, one day he had a letter from Zoe, telling him that Lord Uxmoor
was now urging her to name the day; but she had declined to do that, not
knowing when it might suit him to be at Vizard Court. "But, dearest,"
said she, "mind, you are not to hurry home for me. I am very happy as I
am, and I hope you will soon be as happy, love. She is a noble woman."

The latter part of this letter tempted Vizard to show it to Ina. He soon
found his mistake. She kissed it, and ordered him off. He remonstrated.
She put on, for the first time in Denmark, her marble look, and said,
"You will lessen my esteem, if you are cruel to your sister. Let her name
the wedding-day at once; and you must be there to give her away, and
bless her union, with a brother's love."

He submitted, but a little sullenly, and said it was very hard.

He wrote to his sister, accordingly, and she named the day, and Vizard
settled to start for home, and be in time.

As to the proprieties, he had instructed Miss Maitland and Fanny Dover,
and given them and La Gale _carte blanche._ It was to be a magnificent
wedding.

This being excitement, Fanny Dover was in paradise. Moreover, a
rosy-cheeked curate had taken the place of the venerable vicar, and Miss
Dover's threat to flirt out the stigma of a nun was executed with
promptitude, zeal, pertinacity, and the dexterity that comes of practice.
When the day came for his leaving Zutzig, Vizard was dejected. "Who knows
when we may meet again?" said he.

Ina consoled him. "Do not be sad, dear friend. You are doing your duty;
and as you do it partly to please me, I ought to try and reward you;
ought I not?" And she gave him a strange look.

"I advise you not to press that question," said he.

At the very hour of parting, Ina's eyes were moist with tenderness, but
there was a smile on her face very expressive; yet he could not make out
what it meant. She did not cry. He thought that hard. It was his opinion
that women could always cry. She might have done the usual thing just to
gratify him.

He reached home in good time: and played the _grand seigneur_--nobody
could do it better when driven to it--to do honor to his sister. She was
a peerless bride: she stood superior with ebon locks and coal black eyes,
encircled by six bridemaids--all picked blondes. The bevy, with that
glorious figure in the middle, seemed one glorious and rare flower.

After the wedding, the breakfast; and then the traveling carriage; the
four liveried postilions bedecked with favors.

But the bride wept on Vizard's neck; and a light seemed to leave the
house when she was gone. The carriages kept driving away one after
another till four o'clock: and then Vizard sat disconsolate in his study,
and felt very lonely.

Yet a thing no bigger than a leaf sufficed to drive away this somber
mood, a piece of amber-colored paper scribbled on with a pencil: a
telegram from Ashmead: "Good news: lost sheep turned up. Is now with her
mother at Claridge's Hotel."

Then Vizard was in raptures. Now he understood Ina's composure, and the
half sly look she had given him, and her dry eyes at parting, and other
things. He tore up to London directly, with a telegram flying ahead:
burst in upon her, and had her in his arms in a moment, before her
mother: she fenced no longer, but owned he had gained her love, as he had
deserved it in every way.

She consented to be married that week in London: only she asked for a
Continental tour before entering Vizard Court as his wife; but she did
not stipulate even for that--she only asked it submissively, as one whose
duty it now was to obey, not dictate.

They were married in St. George's Church very quietly, by special
license. Then they saw her mother off, and crossed to Calais. They spent
two happy months together on the Continent, and returned to London.

But Vizard was too old-fashioned, and too proud of his wife, to sneak
into Vizard Court with her. He did not make it a county matter; but he
gave the village such a _fete_ as had not been seen for many a day. The
preparations were intrusted to Mr. Ashmead, at Ina's request. "He will be
sure to make it theatrical," she said; "but perhaps the simple villagers
will admire that, and it will amuse you and me, love: and the poor dear
old Thing will be in his glory--I hope he will not drink too much."

Ashmead was indeed in his glory. Nothing had been seen in a play that he
did not electrify Islip with, and the surrounding villages. He pasted
large posters on walls and barn doors, and his small bills curled round
the patriarchs of the forest and the roadside trees, and blistered the
gate posts.

The day came. A soapy pole, with a leg of mutton on high for the
successful climber. Races in sacks. Short blindfold races with
wheelbarrows. Pig with a greasy tail, to be won by him who could catch
him and shoulder him, without touching any other part of him; bowls of
treacle for the boys to duck heads in and fish out coins; skittles, nine
pins, Aunt Sally, etc., etc., etc.

But what astonished the villagers most was a May-pole, with long ribbons,
about which ballet girls, undisguised as Highlanders, danced, and wound
and unwound the party-colored streamers, to the merry fiddle, and then
danced reels upon a platform, then returned to their little tent: but out
again and danced hornpipes undisguised as Jacky Tars.

Beer flowed from a sturdy regiment of barrels. "The Court" kitchen and
the village bakehouse kept pouring forth meats, baked, boiled, and roast;
there was a pile of loaves like a haystack; and they roasted an ox whole
on the Green; and, when they found they were burning him raw, they
fetched the butcher, like sensible fellows, and dismembered the giant,
and so roasted him reasonably.

In the midst of the reveling and feasting, Vizard and Mrs. Vizard were
driven into Islip village in the family coach, with four horses streaming
with ribbons.

They drove round the Green, bowing and smiling in answer to the
acclamations and blessings of the poor, and then to Vizard Court. The
great doors flew open. The servants, male and female, lined the hall on
both sides, and received her bowing and courtesying low, on the very spot
where she had nearly met her death; her husband took her hand and
conducted her in state to her own apartment.

It was open house to all that joyful day, and at night magnificent
fireworks on the sweep, seen from the drawing-room by Mrs. Vizard, Miss
Maitland, Miss Gale, Miss Dover, and the rosy-cheeked curate, whom she
had tied to her apron-strings.

At two in the morning, Mr. Harris showed Mr. Ashmead to his couch. Both
gentlemen went upstairs a little graver than any of our modern judges,
and firm as a rock; but their firmness resembled that of a roof rather
than a wall; for these dignities as they went made one inverted V--so, A.





It is time the "Woman-hater" drew to a close, for the woman-hater is
spoiled. He begins sarcastic speeches, from force of habit, but stops
short in the middle. He is a very happy man, and owes it to a woman, and
knows it. He adores her; and to love well is to be happy. But, besides
that, she watches over his happiness and his good with that unobtrusive
but minute vigilance which belongs to her sex, and is often misapplied,
but not so very often as cynics say. Even the honest friendship between
him and the remarkable woman he calls his "viragos" gives him many a
pleasant hour. He is still a humorist, though cured of his fling at the
fair sex. His last tolerable hit was at the monosyllabic names of the
immortal composers his wife had disinterred in his library. Says he to
parson Denison, hot from Oxford, "They remind me of the Oxford poets in
the last century:

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