THE COUNTESS-DOWAGER.
The guests had arrived, and Hartledon was alive with bustle and lights.
The first link in the chain, whose fetters were to bind more than one
victim, had been forged. Link upon link; a heavy, despairing burden no
hand could lift; a burden which would have to be borne for the most part
in dread secrecy and silence.
Mirrable had exerted herself to good purpose, and Mirrable was capable
of it when occasion needed. Help had been procured from Calne, and on
the Friday evening several of the Hartledon servants arrived from the
town-house. "None but a young man would have put us to such a rout,"
quoth Mirrable, in her privileged freedom; "my lord and lady would have
sent a week's notice at least." But when Lord Hartledon arrived on the
Saturday evening with his guests, Mirrable was ready for them.
She stood at the entrance to receive them, in her black-silk gown and
lace cap, its broad white-satin strings falling on either side the bunch
of black ringlets that shaded her thin face. Who, to look at her quick,
sharp countenance, with its practical sense, her active frame, her ready
speech, her general capability, would believe her to be sister to that
silly, dreaming Mrs. Gum? But it was so. Lord Hartledon, kind, affable,
unaffected as ever was his brother Percival, shook hands with her
heartily in the eyes of his guests before he said a word of welcome to
them; and one of those guests, a remarkably broad woman, with a red face,
a wide snub nose, and a front of light flaxen hair, who had stepped into
the house leaning on her host's arm--having, in fact, taken it unasked,
and seemed to be assuming a great deal of authority--turned round to
stare at Mirrable, and screwed her little light eyes together for a
better view.
"Who is she, Hartledon?"
"Mrs. Mirrable," answered his lordship rather shortly. "I think you must
have seen her before. She has been Hartledon's mistress since my mother
died," he rather pointedly added, for he saw incipient defiance in the
old lady's countenance.
"Oh, Hartledon's head servant; the housekeeper, I presume," cried she,
as majestically as her harsh voice allowed her to speak. "Perhaps you'll
tell her who I am, Hartledon; and that I have undertaken to preside here
for a little while."
"I believe Mrs. Mirrable knows you, ma'am," spoke up Percival Elster, for
Lord Hartledon had turned away, and was lost amongst his guests. "You
have seen the Countess-Dowager of Kirton, Mirrable?"
The countess-dowager faced round upon the speaker sharply.
"Oh, it's _you_, Val Elster? Who asked you to interfere? I'll see the
rooms, Mirrable, and the arrangements you have made. Maude, where are
you? Come with me."
A tall, stately girl, with handsome features, raven hair and eyes, and
a brilliant colour, extricated herself from the crowd. It was Lady Maude
Kirton. Mirrable went first; the countess-dowager followed, talking
volubly; and Maude brought up the rear. Other servants came forward to
see to the rest of the guests.
The most remarkable quality observable in the countess-dowager, apart
from her great breadth, was her restlessness. She seemed never still for
an instant; her legs had a fidgety, nervous movement in them, and in
moments of excitement, which were not infrequent, she was given to
executing a sort of war-dance. Old she was not; but her peculiar graces
of person, her rotund form, her badly-made front of flaxen curls, which
was rarely in its place, made her appear so. A bold, scheming,
unscrupulous, vulgar-minded woman, who had never considered other
people's feelings in her life, whether equals or inferiors. In her day
she must have been rather tall--nearly as tall as that elegant Maude who
followed her; but her astounding width caused her now to appear short.
She went looking into the different rooms as shown to her by Mirrable,
and chose the best for herself and her daughter.
"Three en suite. Yes, that will be the thing, Mirrable. Lady Maude will
take the inner one, I will occupy this, and my maid the outer. Very good.
Now you may order the luggage up."
"But my lady," objected Mirrable, "these are the best rooms in the house;
and each has a separate entrance, as you perceive. With so many guests to
provide for, your maid cannot have one of these rooms."
"What?" cried the countess-dowager. "My maid not have one of these rooms?
You insolent woman! Do you know that I am come here with my nephew, Lord
Hartledon, to be mistress of this house, and of every one in it? You'd
better mind _your_ behaviour, for I can tell you that I shall look pretty
sharply after it."
"Then," said Mirrable, who never allowed herself to be put out by any
earthly thing, and rarely argued against the stream, "as your ladyship
has come here as sole mistress, perhaps you will yourself apportion the
rooms to the guests."
"Let them apportion them for themselves," cried the countess-dowager.
"These three are mine; others manage as they can. It's Hartledon's fault.
I told him not to invite a heap of people. You and I shall get on
together very well, I've no doubt, Mirrable," she continued in a false,
fawning voice; for she was remarkably alive at all times to her own
interests. "Am I to understand that you are the housekeeper?"
"I am acting as housekeeper at present," was Mirrable's answer. "When my
lord went to town, after my lady's death, the housekeeper went also, and
has remained there. I have taken her place. Lord Elster--Lord Hartledon,
I mean--has not lived yet at Hartledon, and we have had no
establishment."
"Then who are you?"
"I was maid to Lady Hartledon for many years. Her ladyship treated me
more as a friend at the last; and the young gentlemen always did so."
"_Very_ good," cried the untrue voice. "And, now, Mirrable, you can go
down and send up some tea for myself and Lady Maude. What time do we
dine?"
"Mr. Elster ordered it for eight o'clock."
"And what business had _he_ to take orders upon himself?" and the pale
little eyes flashed with anger. "Who's Val Elster, that he should
interfere? I sent word by the servants that we wouldn't dine till nine."
"Mr. Elster is in his own house, madam; and--"
"In his own house!" raved Lady Kirton. "It's no house of his; it's his
brother's. And I wish I was his brother for a day only; I'd let Mr. Val
know what presumption comes to. Can't dinner be delayed?"
"I'm afraid not, my lady."
"Ugh!" snapped the countess-dowager. "Send up tea at once; and let
it be strong, with a great deal of green in it. And some rolled
bread-and-butter, and a little well-buttered toast."
Mirrable departed with the commands, more inclined to laugh at the
selfish old woman than to be angry. She remembered the countess-dowager
arriving on an unexpected visit some three or four years before, and
finding the old Lord Hartledon away and his wife ill in bed. She remained
three days, completely upsetting the house; so completely upsetting the
invalid Lady Hartledon, that the latter was glad to lend her a sum of
money to get rid of her.
Truth to say, Lady Kirton had never been a welcome guest at Hartledon;
had been shunned, in fact, and kept away by all sorts of _ruses_. The
only other visit she had paid the family, in Mirrable's remembrance, was
to the town-house, when the children were young. Poor little Val had been
taught by his nurse to look upon her as a "bogey;" went about in terror
of her; and her ladyship detecting the feeling, administered sly pinches
whenever they met. Perhaps neither of them had completely overcome the
antagonism from that time to this.
A scrambling sort of life had been Lady Kirton's. The wife of a very poor
and improvident Irish peer, who had died early, leaving her badly
provided for, her days had been one long scramble to make both ends meet
and avoid creditors. Now in Ireland, now on the Continent, now coming out
for a few brief weeks of fashionable life, and now on the wing to some
place of safety, had she dodged about, and become utterly unscrupulous.
There was a whole troop of children, who had been allowed to go to
the good or the bad very much in their own way, with little help or
hindrance from their mother. All the daughters were married now,
excepting Maude, mostly to German barons and French counts. One had
espoused a marquis--native country not clearly indicated; one an Italian
duke: but the marquis lived somewhere over in Algeria in a small lodging,
and the Duke condescended to sing an occasional song on the Italian
stage.
It was all one to Lady Kirton. They had taken their own way, and she
washed her hands of them as easily as though they had never belonged to
her. Had they been able to supply her with an occasional bank-note, or
welcome her on a protracted visit, they had been her well-beloved and
most estimable daughters.
Of the younger sons, all were dispersed; the dowager neither knew nor
cared where. Now and again a piteous begging-letter would come from one
or the other, which she railed at and scolded over, and bade Maude
answer. Her eldest son, Lord Kirton, had married some four or five years
ago, and since then the countess-dowager's lines had been harder than
ever. Before that event she could go to the place in Ireland whenever she
liked (circumstances permitting), and stay as long as she liked; but that
was over now. For the young Lady Kirton, who on her own score spent all
the money her husband could scrape together, and more, had taken an
inveterate dislike to her mother-in-law, and would not tolerate her.
Never, since she was thus thrown upon her own resources, had the
countess-dowager's lucky star been in the ascendant as it had been this
season, for she contrived to fasten herself upon the young Lord
Hartledon, and secure a firm footing in his town-house. She called him
her nephew--"My nephew Hartledon;" but that was a little improvement upon
the actual relationship, for she and the late Lady Hartledon had been
cousins only. She invited herself for a week's sojourn in May, and had
never gone away again; and it was now August. She had come down with him,
_sans cérémonie_, to Hartledon; had told him (as a great favour) that she
would look after his house and guests during her stay, as his mother
would have done. Easy, careless, good-natured Hartledon acquiesced, and
took it all as a matter of course. To him she was ever all sweetness
and suavity.
None knew better on which side her bread was buttered than the
countess-dowager. She liked it buttered on both sides, and generally
contrived to get it.
She had come down to Hartledon House with one fixed determination--that
she did not quit it until the Lady Maude was its mistress. For a long
while Maude had been her sole hope. Her other daughters had married
according to their fancy--and what had come of it?--but Maude was
different. Maude had great beauty; and Maude, truth to say, was almost
as selfishly alive to her own interest as her mother. _She_ should marry
well, and so be in a position to shelter the poor, homeless, wandering
dowager. Had she chosen from the whole batch of peers, not one could have
been found more eligible than he whom fortune seemed to have turned up
for her purpose--Lord Hartledon; and before the countess-dowager had been
one week his guest in London she began her scheming.
Lady Maude was nothing loth. Young, beautiful, vain, selfish, she yet
possessed a woman's susceptible heart; though surrounded with luxury,
dress, pomp, show, which are said to deaden the feelings, and in some
measure do deaden them, Lady Maude insensibly managed to fall in love, as
deeply as ever did an obscure damsel of romance. She had first met him
two years before, when he was Viscount Elster; had liked him then. Their
relationship sanctioned their being now much together, and the Lady Maude
lost her heart to him.
Would it bring forth fruit, this scheming of the countess-dowager's, and
Maude's own love? In her wildest hopes the old woman never dreamed of
what that fruit would be; or, unscrupulous as she was by habit, unfeeling
by nature, she might have carried away Maude from Hartledon within the
hour of their arrival.
Of the three parties more immediately concerned, the only innocent
one--innocent of any intentions--was Lord Hartledon. He liked Maude very
well as a cousin, but otherwise he did not care for her. They might
succeed--at least, had circumstances gone on well, they might have
succeeded--in winning him at last; but it would not have been from love.
His present feeling towards Maude was one of indifference; and of
marriage at all he had not begun to think.
Val Elster, on the contrary, regarded Maude with warm admiration. Her
beauty had charms for him, and he had been oftener at her side but for
the watchful countess-dowager. It would have been horrible had Maude
fallen in love with the wrong brother, and the old lady grew to hate him
for the fear, as well as on her own score. The feeling of dislike, begun
in Val's childhood, had ripened in the last month or two to almost open
warfare. He was always in the way. Many a time when Lord Hartledon might
have enjoyed a _tête-à-tête_ with Maude, Val Elster was there to spoil
it.
But the culminating point had arrived one day, when Val, half laughingly,
half seriously, told the dowager, who had been provoking him almost
beyond endurance, that she might spare her angling in regard to Maude,
for Hartledon would never bite. But that he took his pleasant face beyond
her reach, it might have suffered, for her fingers were held out
alarmingly.
From that time she took another little scheme into her hands--that of
getting Percival Elster out of his brother's favour and his brother's
house. Val, on his part, seriously advised his brother _not_ to allow the
Kirtons to come to Hartledon; and this reached the ears of the dowager.
You may be sure it did not tend to soothe her. Lord Hartledon only
laughed at Val, saying they might come if they liked; what did it matter?
But, strange to say, Val Elster was as a very reed in the hands of the
old woman. Let her once get hold of him, and she could turn him any way
she pleased. He felt afraid of her, and bent to her will. The feeling may
have had its rise partly in the fear instilled into his boyhood, partly
in the yielding nature of his disposition. However that might be, it was
a fact; and Val could no more have openly opposed the resolute,
sharp-tongued old woman to her face than he could have changed his
nature. He rarely called her anything but "ma'am," as their nurse had
taught him and his brothers and sisters to do in those long-past years.
Before eight o'clock the guests had all assembled in the drawing-room,
except the countess-dowager and Maude. Lord Hartledon was going about
amongst them, talking to one and another of the beauties of this, his
late father's place; scarcely yet thought of as his own. He was a tall
slender man; in figure very much resembling Percival, but not in face:
the one was dark, the other fair. There was also the same indolent sort
of movement, a certain languid air discernible in both; proclaiming the
undoubted fact, that both were idle in disposition and given to ennui.
There the resemblance ended. Lord Hartledon had nothing of the
irresolution of Percival Elster, but was sufficiently decisive in
character, prompt in action.
A noble room, this they were in, as many of the rooms were in the fine
old mansion. Lord Hartledon opened the inner door, and took them into
another, to show them the portrait of his brother George--a fine young
man also, with a fair, pleasing countenance.
"He is like Elster; not like you, Hartledon," cried a young man, whose
name was Carteret.
"_Was_, you mean, Carteret," corrected Lord Hartledon, in tones of sad
regret. "There was a great family resemblance between us all, I believe."
"He died from an accident, did he not?" said Mr. O'Moore, an Irishman,
who liked to be called "The O'Moore."
"Yes."
Percival Elster turned to his brother, and spoke in low tones. "Edward,
was any particular person suspected of having fired the shot?"
"None. A set of loose, lawless characters were out that night, and--"
"What are you all looking at here?"
The interruption came from Lady Kirton, who was sailing into the room
with Maude. A striking contrast the one presented to the other. Maude in
pink silk and a pink wreath, her haughty face raised in pride, her dark
eyes flashing, radiantly beautiful. The old dowager, broad as she was
high, her face rouged, her short snub nose always carried in the air, her
light eyes unmeaning, her flaxen eyebrows heavy, her flaxen curls crowned
by a pea-green turban. Her choice attire was generally composed, as
to-day, of some cheap, flimsy, gauzy material bright in colour. This
evening it was orange lace, all flounces and frills, with a lace scarf;
and she generally had innumerable ends of quilted net flying about her
skirts, not unlike tails. It was certain she did not spend much money
upon her own attire; and how she procured the costly dresses for Maude
the latter appeared in was ever a mystery. You can hardly fancy the
bedecked old figure that she made. The O'Moore nearly laughed out, as he
civilly turned to answer her question.
"We were looking at this portrait, Lady Kirton."
"And saying how much he was like Val," put in young Carteret, between
whom and the dowager warfare also existed. "Val, which was the elder?"
"George was."
"Then his death made you heir-presumptive," cried the thoughtless young
man, speaking impulsively.
"Heir-presumptive to what?" asked the dowager snapping at the words.
"To Hartledon."
"_He_ heir to Hartledon! Don't trouble yourself, young man, to imagine
that Val Elster's ever likely to come into Hartledon. Do you want to
shoot his lordship, as _he_ was shot?"
The uncalled-for retort, the strangely intemperate tones, the quick
passionate fling of the hand towards the portrait astonished young
Carteret not a little. Others were surprised also; and not one present
but stared at the speaker. But she said no more. The pea-green turban and
flaxen curls were nodding ominously; and that was all.
The animus to Val Elster was very marked. Lord Hartledon glanced at his
brother with a smile, and led the way back to the other drawing-room. At
that moment the butler announced dinner; the party filed across the hall
to the fine old dining-room, and began finding their seats.
"I shall sit there, Val. You can take a chair at the side."
Val did look surprised at this. He was about to take the foot of his
brother's table, as usual; and there was the pea-green turban standing
over him, waiting to usurp it. It would have been quite beyond Val
Elster, in his sensitiveness, to tell her she should not have it; but he
did feel annoyed. He was sweet-tempered, however. Moreover, he was a
gentleman, and only waited to make one remark.
"I fear you will not like this place, ma'am. Won't it look odd to see a
lady at the bottom of the table?"
"I have promised my dear nephew to act as mistress, and to see after his
guests; and I don't choose to sit at the side under those circumstances."
But she had looked at Lord Hartledon, and hesitated before she spoke.
Perhaps she thought his lordship would resign the head of the table to
her, and take the foot himself. If so, she was mistaken.
"You will be more comfortable at the side, Lady Kirton," cried Lord
Hartledon, when he discovered what the bustle was about.
"Not at all, Hartledon; not at all."
"But I like my brother to face me, ma'am. It is his accustomed place."
Remonstrance was useless. The dowager nodded her pea-green turban, and
firmly seated herself. Val Elster dexterously found a seat next Lady
Maude; and a gay gleam of triumph shot out of his deep-blue eyes as he
glanced at the dowager. It was not the seat she would have wished him to
take; but to interfere again might have imperilled her own place. Maude
laughed. She did not care for Val--rather despised him in her heart; but
he was the most attractive man present, and she liked admiration.
Another link in the chain! For how many, many days and years, dating from
that evening, did that awful old woman take a seat, at intervals, at Lord
Hartledon's table, and assume it as a right!