LET THE DEAD PAST BE BURIED.
“Let this be said between us here,
One love grows green when one turns grey,
This year knows nothing of last year,
To-morrow has no more to say to yesterday.”
“The pomps and vanities and sinful lusts of the flesh” being put a stop
to by poor little Baby’s untimely death, Lady Beranger has elected to
mourn in sackcloth and ashes among the sylvan shades of Sandilands. It
would be dreadful to assert that this worldly mother does not lament to
a certain degree the gap in the domestic circle, or that now and again
the memory of Baby’s sweet pretty face and winsome, kittenish ways does
not bring a mist into her fine eyes, but this much is true, that she
leaves Belgravia with regret, especially as the season is not quite
dead. And now that three months have nearly gone by since
“MIRABELLE BERANGER,
Aged 17,”
went away to the angels, Lady Beranger, knowing that mitigated
affliction in the shape of jet and bugles are always becoming, has “just
one or two intimate friends” come down to share the quiet of the country
and to sympathise with the family woe.
It need not be said that, with that worldly wisdom that looks sharp
after its own interests, these intimate friends are Lord Delaval and Mr.
Stubbs.
Of course such glittering fish must not be lost sight of before they
are safely landed.
It is not unusual in the Upper Ten, as has recently been proved, for the
_noblesse_ to rise from the funeral baked-meats to sit down to
wedding-cake.
Anyway, as the _convenances_ are not rigid on this score, it is on the
cards that before Trixy’s crape grows rusty she will don the orange and
myrtle.
And now that Sandilands offers no flirting material with which she can
keep her hand in and show off her power, save “poor Mr. Stubbs,” she
goes with less reluctant feet towards the altar of Moloch than she did
in Town, where her “future” cut such a comical appearance among the
golden youths that she really hated the very sight of him.
“It’s rather a bore that one can’t go and get married respectably at
St. Peter’s,” she remarks pettishly to Zai. “I might as well be a
housemaid, to walk across the garden path to that paltry little church,
and hear old Boresome gabble a few words by which Stubbs and I shall be
made--_one_! Ugh! Do you know, Zai, I expect we shall be very much
_two_! We haven’t a single idea in common, and only one
pleasure--contradicting one another.”
“Don’t marry him, then, for goodness sake, Trixy! You’ll be a wretched
girl if you do. If you _can’t love_ a man, you must at any rate respect
him, or look up to him as having a superior intellect to your own,” Zai
replies, thinking of Lord Delaval; then she frowns and chases away the
thought of him as fast as she can.
“Well, I don’t love Stubbs--(he asked me this morning to call him
_Peter_, but I _couldn’t_, I really _couldn’t_)--and I don’t respect
him particularly, and I certainly don’t consider his intellect superior
to mine, but I intend to marry him all the same. Love and respect! Good
heavens, Zai! Such things are all very well in their way, but you don’t
suppose that I should think of balancing them with that lovely suite
from Jackson and Graham’s? Why, those white and gold chairs, with the
crests carved on the backs, are ten times more worth having than all
that fiddle-faddle of love and respect!”
Zai does not answer. She knows, perhaps, that some of Trixy’s notions
are unanswerable, and is simply conscious of the fact that she rather
envies her her sentiments.
“And what’s the good of having _point de Venise_ on my dress for the
gardeners and stable boys to gape at?” Trixy goes on, peevishly. “I
think it is too bad to be done out of everything like this! I had made
up my mind to have a fine wedding, all the good-looking men in town, a
lot of bridesmaids, and--why, what’s the matter, Zai?”
The matter is that Zai has allowed a sob to break in on her talk.
“Nothing,” she says, in a low voice; “only your speaking of bridesmaids
made me think of _Baby_!”
“You were always a wet blanket, Zai. Whenever one is trying to look on
the bright side of things, you are sure to say something horrible,”
Trixy replies, in a tone of martyrdom. “_I_ think of Baby too; but I
drive away the thought because it is my bounden duty. Mamma says I’m not
to make myself ugly with crying and fretting, and, Zai, do you know, I
don’t think there’s much to grieve about Baby. _She’s escaped marrying
a--Mr. Stubbs!_”
It strikes Zai again that Trixy’s ideas are a little out of the way, and
wiping her tears, she takes up a book.
“I say Zai! I want to tell you something,” Trixy announces suddenly, in
a half whisper. “It’s a secret, a dead secret, and you will have to
swear you will keep it.”
“I promise,” Zai answers quietly, wondering what important thing is to
be divulged, as Trixy crosses the room and comes close up to her.
“No, no! you must swear.”
“I never swear; but my promise holds as good.”
“Well, then, listen. Gabrielle told me this morning that there is
something between you and Lord Delaval.”
“Well, if there is, what of it?”
“Only that Gabrielle went down on her knees on the damp grass, and swore
(she swears awfully, you know) that if he married you, she would destroy
herself, body and soul!”
“I am sure she is welcome to him if she wants him so very much,” Zai
flashes impetuously; “but I _must_ say that if Gabrielle really fancies
he is going to be her brother-in-law, she ought to curb her feelings for
him!”
Trixy opens her big blue eyes wide with amazement.
“You don’t mean to tell me, Zai, that there is the very least bit of
foundation for Gabrielle’s fancies?”
“Yes, I do,” Zai blurts out, “a very great deal of foundation. I have
been engaged to Lord Delaval ever since the State Ball, and I suppose I
shall marry him some day.”
“And you really accepted him in cold blood, although you have always
said you disliked him so?”
Zai reddens to the roots of her chesnut hair.
“Women are allowed to change their minds, I suppose?”
“You didn’t change your mind, Zai. You have only accepted Lord Delaval
out of pique. It’s all because that dishonourable fellow, Conway,
pitched you over for Crystal Meredyth. Oh! Zai! _cannot_ you arrange to
be married the same day as I am? It would make me so much jollier to
know I had a fellow-sufferer! It is quite a month to it--lots of time to
gallop through the trousseau--and then people won’t say that you only
married Lord Delaval when Carl had put a Mrs. Conway between you and
him.”
Zai looks up at her sister rather piteously; her grey eyes are dimmed
with tears, her face is very pale, and there is a falter in her voice as
she asks:
“When is Mr. Conway’s wedding to be?”
“Just six weeks hence.”
A pause. The September sun shines down hot and glary, but under its
broiling rays Zai shivers. Her heart is cold, her hands are cold, and it
seems to her that life altogether is awfully cold. Still in this moment
she makes up her mind.
“All right, Trixy!” she cries, in ringing accents, just as if she was as
blithe as the sunbeams and the birds; “the same day shall make us
both--wives--on two conditions. One is that you will not tell Gabrielle
a word about our little arrangements until I give you permission. The
other condition is----” She pauses a second and turns away her face, and
when she speaks again her voice is so husky that Trixy wonders--“that
you will never mention Mr. Conway’s name to me again! Before I marry
Lord Delaval, I should like to bury my dead past for ever and for ever
out of sight.”
“But Mamma must know of our arrangement, and she will tell Gabrielle, of
course.”
“Oh, no, she won’t; not if I ask her. Look here, Trixy. We are a set of
paupers! Even our mourning for Baby--” in spite of her she falters--“is
all on credit. I heard May’s man say ‘Crape’s a very dear article, my
lady; and the deeper the affliction the more it costs, in course! So
it’s only the quality, my lady, as can _really_ indulge in mourning; the
commonality mourn usually in narrow frills or small pleats, _but the
quality, to be fashionable, must mourn in deep kilts_. Sorrow cannot be
better shown than by as little silk as possible, and full crape
draperies, the buttons to be covered in crape, in course, and crape
collars and cuffs, and jabot on the bodice.’ ‘The mourning must be deep,
of course. I suppose, in your very large way of business, you do not
trouble to make up the account but once in a year or so, do you?’ Mamma
asked, in her most benign voice. ‘The mourning must be sent home with as
little delay as possible, and of course if it inconveniences you to
wait, I will give you a cheque in advance.’”
“Good gracious!” cries Trixy, “what a state of funk the mater must have
been in for fear he’d take her at her word!”
“Yes; but he didn’t. ‘No, no, my lady. We can afford to wait quite
well. We are in no hurry whatever; in fact, we shall be only too pleased
and honoured by having your ladyship’s name on our books, so long as
your ladyship will allow us;’ and it was only in this way that we got
this outward and visible sign of our grief for Baby, and it is only in
this way that we get our bread and butter, you know. The Governor and
Mamma are delighted at your marrying Mr. Stubbs, and the idea of my
catching Lord Delaval has filled their cup of bliss to the brim; so they
won’t do anything to make us turn rusty. Besides, Mamma knows better
than to tell Gabrielle anything, in case she should put a spoke in my
wheel of matrimony. She is so much in love with my _fiancé_.”
“And does he care for her?”
“What a question!” cries Zai, flushing a little. “Now is it likely that
he should want to marry me if he cares for my step-sister?”
“_Cela selon!_” Trixy replies carelessly, “Men don’t much mind that sort
of thing. I heard Charlie Wentwaite only made love to Virginia South
because he admired her mother!”
“You shouldn’t listen to such things, Trixy. Lord Delaval may have
talked nonsense to Gabrielle, because she encouraged him, but I am sure
he only cares for _me_!”
“And you--are you in love with him?” Trixy asks in a solemn voice,
putting her hand on her sister’s shoulder, and staring at her fixedly.
But Zai cannot or will not meet this enquiring gaze.
She springs up from her chair and throwing up the window sash looks out
on the fair world, the glowing fragrant roses and the clear blue sky
overhead. There isn’t a fleecy cloud on the azure surface. Somehow all
these things have a subtle charm of their own, and bring her an impetus
to bury her dead past as fast as she can, and to begin a new era. So
instead of answering Trixy, she plucks a rose with a deep blood-red
heart and flings it deliberately at somebody who is lying his full
length of six feet two inches on the sward, his straw hat thrown aside,
and the daylight falling full on his very handsome blond face. His lids
are closed, and he looks the picture of laziness--but a picture that
most women would take the trouble to look at several times. As the rose
falls full on the tip of his aquiline nose, he slowly opens his
ultramarine eyes, and looks up at the face at the window with a depth of
admiration and tenderness in the look that makes Zai blush and hastily
withdraw her head.
“Yes Trixy!” she cries with quite a beaming smile. “I believe I _am_ in
love with him, anyway I intend to be directly I am Countess of Delaval!”
And five minutes afterwards Trixy sees her on a rustic bench under a big
elm tree, and Lord Delaval lying at her feet. Trixy watches them a
moment. What a handsome couple they make. She sighs as she looks at
them, and rather envies Zai the good looks of her lover. Then she turns
away and murmurs in a tone of resignation:
“A handsome man always wants worshipping, while I like to be worshipped
myself, and another thing, poor old Stubbs won’t ever make me jealous!”
END OF VOLUME II.
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KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS,
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