PART II. THREE YEARS AFTER . . . . 125
PART III. DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . 293
PART IV. STORM . . . . . . . . . . 365
PART V. REQUIESCAT . . . . . . . . 511
TO
D.M.W.
DAUGHTER AND FRIEND
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
MARCH, 1905
Illustrations
LADY KITTY BRISTOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
LADY TRANMORE AND MARY LYSTER . . . . . . . . . . . . _Facing page_ 6
"A SLIM GIRL IN WHITE AT THE FAR END OF THE LARGE ROOM" . . . . . . 44
THE FINISHING TOUCHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
"HE GATHERED HER IN HIS ARMS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
"THE ACTRESS PAUSED TO STARE AT LADY KITTY" . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
"SHE THOUGHT OF CLIFFE STANDING BESIDE THE DOOR OF THE GREAT HALL" . 474
"HE DREW SOME CHAIRS TOGETHER BEFORE THE FIRE" . . . . . . . . . . . 556
PART I
ACQUAINTANCE
"Just oblige me and touch
With your scourge that minx Chloe, but don't hurt her much."
The Marriage of William Ashe
I
"He ought to be here," said Lady Tranmore, as she turned away from the
window.
Mary Lyster laid down her work. It was a fine piece of church
embroidery, which, seeing that it had been designed for her by no less a
person than young Mr. Burne Jones himself, made her the envy of her
pre-Raphaelite friends.
"Yes, indeed. You made out there was a train about twelve."
"Certainly. They can't have taken more than an hour to speechify after
the declaration of the poll. And I know William meant to catch that
train if he possibly could."
"And take his seat this evening?"
Lady Tranmore nodded. She moved restlessly about the room, fidgeting
with a book here and there, and evidently full of thoughts. Mary Lyster
watched her a little longer, then quietly took up her work again. Her
air of well-bred sympathy, the measured ease of her movements,
contrasted with Lady Tranmore's impatience. Yet in truth she was
listening no less sharply than her companion to the sounds in the
street outside.
Lady Tranmore made her way to the window, and stood there looking out on
the park. It was the week before Easter, and the plane-trees were not
yet in leaf. But a few thorns inside the park railings were already
lavishly green and there was a glitter of spring flowers beside the park
walks, not showing, however, in such glorious abundance as became the
fashion a few years later. It was a mild afternoon and the drive was
full of carriages. From the bow-window of the old irregular house in
which she stood, Lady Tranmore could watch the throng passing and
repassing, could see also the traffic in Park Lane on either side.
London, from this point of sight, wore a cheerful, friendly air. The dim
sunshine, the white-clouded sky, the touches of reviving green and
flowers, the soft air blowing in from a farther window which was open,
brought with them impressions of spring, of promise, and rebirth, which
insensibly affected Lady Tranmore.
"Well, I wonder what William will do, this time, in Parliament!" she
said, as she dropped again into her seat by the fire and began to cut
the pages of a new book.
"He is sure to do extremely well," said Miss Lyster.
Lady Tranmore shrugged her shoulders. "My dear--do you know that William
has been for eight years--since he left Trinity--one of the idlest young
men alive?"
"He had one brief!"
"Yes--somewhere in the country, where all the juniors get one in turn,"
said Lady Tranmore. "That was the year he was so keen and went on
circuit, and never missed a sessions. Next year nothing would induce
him to stir out of town. What has he done with himself all these eight
years? I can't imagine."
"He has grown--uncommonly handsome," said Mary Lyster, with a momentary
hesitation as she threaded her needle afresh.
"I never remember him anything else," said Lady Tranmore. "All the
artists who came here and to Narroways wanted to paint him. I used to
think it would make him a spoiled little ape. But nothing spoiled him."
Miss Lyster smiled. "You know, Cousin Elizabeth--and you may as well
confess it at once!--that you think him the ablest, handsomest, and
charmingest of men!"
"Of course I do," said Lady Tranmore, calmly. "I am certain,
moreover--now--that he will be Prime Minister. And as for idleness,
that, of course, is only a _façon de parler_. He has worked hard enough
at the things which please him."
"There--you see!" said Mary Lyster, laughing.
"Not politics, anyway," said the elder lady, reflectively. "He went
into the House to please me, because I was a fool and wanted to see
him there. But I must say when his constituents turned him out last
year I thought they would have been a mean-spirited set if they
hadn't. They knew very well he'd never done a stroke for them.
Attendances--divisions--perfectly scandalous!"
"Well, here he is, in triumphantly for somewhere else--with all sorts of
delightful prospects!"
Lady Tranmore sighed. Her white fingers paused in their task.
"That, of course, is because--now--he's a personage. Everything'll be
made easy for him now. My dear Mary, they talk of England's being a
democracy!"
The speaker raised her handsome shoulders; then, as though to shake off
thoughts of loss and grief which had suddenly assailed her, she abruptly
changed the subject.
"Well--work or no work--the first thing we've got to do is to marry
him."
She looked up sharply. But not the smallest tremor could she detect in
Mary Lyster's gently moving hand. There was, however, no reply to her
remark.
"Don't you agree, Polly?" said Lady Tranmore, smiling.
Her smile--which still gave great beauty to her face--was charming, but
a little sly, as she observed her companion.
"Why, of course," said Miss Lyster, inclining her head to one side that
she might judge the effect of some green shades she had just put in.
"But that surely will be made easy for him, too."
"Well, after all, the girls can't propose! And I never saw him take any
interest in a girl yet--outside his own family, of course," added Lady
Tranmore, hastily.
"No--he does certainly devote himself to the married women," replied
Miss Lyster, in the half-absent tone of one more truly interested in her
embroidery than in the conversation.
"He would sooner have an hour with Madame d'Estrées than a week with the
prettiest miss in London. That's quite true, but I vow it's the girls'
own fault! They should stand on their dignity--snub the creatures
more! In my young days--"
[Illustration: LADY TRANMORE AND MARY LYSTER]
"Ah, there wasn't a glut of us then," said Mary, calmly. "Listen!"--she
held up her hand.
"Yes," said Lady Tranmore, springing up. "There he is."
She stood waiting. The door flew open, and in came a tall young man.
"William, how late you are!" said Lady Tranmore, as she flew into his
arms.
"Well, mother, are you pleased?"
Her son held her at arm's-length, smiling kindly upon her.
"Of course I am," said Lady Tranmore. "And you--are you horribly tired?"
"Not a bit. Ah, Mary!--how do you do?"
Miss Lyster had risen, and the cousins shook hands.
"But I don't deny it's very jolly to come back--out of all that beastly
scrimmage," said the new member, as he threw himself into an arm-chair
by the fire with his hands behind his head, while Lady Tranmore prepared
him a cup of tea.
"I expect you've enjoyed it," said Miss Lyster, also moving towards the
fire.
"Well, when you're in it there's a certain excitement in wondering how
you're going to come out of it! But one might say that, of course, of
the infernal regions."
"Not quite," said Mary Lyster, smiling demurely.
"Polly! you _are_ a Tory. Everybody else's hell has moved--but yours!
Thank you, mother," as Lady Tranmore gave him tea. Then, stretching out
his great frame in lazy satisfaction, he turned his brown eyes from one
lady to the other. "I say, mother, I haven't seen anything as
good-looking as you--or Polly there, if she'll forgive me--for weeks."
"Hold your tongue, goose," said his mother, as she replenished the
teapot. "What--there were no pretty girls--not one?"
"Well, they didn't come my way," said William, contentedly munching at
bread-and-butter. "I have gone through all the usual humbug--and
perjured my soul in all the usual ways--without any consolation worth
speaking of."
"Don't talk nonsense, sir," said Lady Tranmore. "You know you like
speaking--and you like compliments--and you've had plenty of both."
"You didn't read me, mother!"
"Didn't I?" she said, smiling. He groaned, and took another piece of
tea-cake.
"My own family at least, don't you think, might omit that?"
"H'm, sir--So you didn't believe a word of your own speeches?" said Lady
Tranmore, as she stood behind him and smoothed his hair back from his
forehead.
"Well, who does?" He looked up gayly and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"And it's in that spirit you're going back into the House?" Mary Lyster
threw him the question--with a slight pinching of the lips--as she
resumed her work.
"Spirit? What do you mean, Polly? One plays the game, of course--and it
has its moments--its hot corners, so to speak--or I suppose no one would
play it!"
"And the goal?" She lifted a gently disapproving face, in a movement
which showed anew the large comeliness of head and neck.
"Why--to keep the other fellows out, of course!" He lifted an arm and
drew his mother down to sit on the edge of his chair.
"William, you're not to talk like that," said Lady Tranmore, decidedly,
laying her cheek, however, against his hand the while. "It was all very
well when you were quite a free-lance--but now--Oh! never mind
Mary--she's discreet--and she knows all about it."
"What--that they're thinking of giving me Hickson's place? Parham has
just written to me--I found the letter down-stairs--to ask me to go and
see him."
"Oh! it's come?" said Lady Tranmore, with a start of pleasure. Lord
Parham was the Prime Minister. "Now don't be a humbug, William, and
pretend you're not pleased. But you'll have to work, mind!" She held up
an admonishing finger. "You'll have to answer letters, mind!--you'll
have to keep appointments, mind!"
"Shall I?... Ah!--Hudson--"
He turned. The butler was in the room.
"His lordship, my lady, would like to see Mr. William before dinner if
he could make it convenient."
"Certainly, Hudson, certainly," said the young man. "Tell his lordship
I'll be with him in ten minutes."
Then, as the butler departed--"How's father, mother?"
"Oh! much as usual," said Lady Tranmore, sadly.
"And you?"
He laid his arm boyishly round her waist, and looked up at her, his
handsome face all affection and life. Mary Lyster, observing them,
thought them a remarkable pair--he in the very prime and heyday of
brilliant youth, she so beautiful still, in spite of the filling-out of
middle life--which, indeed, was at the moment somewhat toned and
disguised by the deep mourning, the sweeping crape and dull silk in
which she was dressed.
"I'm all right, dear," she said, quietly, putting her hand on his
shoulder. "Now, go on with your tea. Mary--feed him! I'll go and talk to
father till you come."
She disappeared, and William Ashe approached his cousin.
"She _is_ better?" he said, with an anxiety that became him.
"Oh yes! Your election has been everything to her--and your letters. You
know how she adores you, William."
Ashe drew a long breath.
"Yes--isn't it bad luck?"
"William!"
"For her, I mean. Because, you know--I can't live up to it. I know it's
her doing--bless her!--that old Parham's going to give me this thing.
And it's a perfect scandal!"
"What nonsense, William!"
"It is!" he maintained, springing up and standing before her, with his
hands in his pockets. "They're going to offer me the Under-Secretaryship
for Foreign Affairs, and I shall take it, I suppose, and be thankful.
And do you know"--he dropped out the words with emphasis--"that I don't
know a word of German--and I can't talk to a Frenchman for half an hour
without disgracing myself. There--that's how we're governed!"
He stood staring at her with his bright large eyes--amused, yet
strangely detached--as though he had very little to do with what he was
talking about.
Mary Lyster met his look in some bewilderment, conscious all the time
that his neighborhood was very agreeable and stirring.
"But every one says--you speak so well on foreign subjects."
"Well, any fool can get up a Blue Book. Only--luckily for me--all the
fools don't. That's how I've scored sometimes. Oh! I don't deny
that--I've scored!" He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, his
whole tall frame vibrant, as it seemed to her, with will and good-humor.
"And you'll score again," she said, smiling. "You've got a wonderful
opportunity, William. That's what the Bishop says."
"Much obliged to him!"
Ashe looked down upon her rather oddly.
"He told me he had never believed you were such an idler as other people
thought you--that he felt sure you had great endowments, and that you
would use them for the good of your country, and"--she hesitated
slightly--"of the Church. I wish you'd talk to him sometimes, William.
He sees so clearly."
"Oh! does he?" said Ashe.
Mary had dropped her work, and her face--a little too broad, with
features a trifle too strongly marked--was raised towards him. Its pale
color had passed into a slight blush. But the more strenuous expression
had somehow not added to her charm, and her voice had taken a slightly
nasal tone.
Through the mind of William Ashe, as he stood looking down upon her,
passed a multitude of flying impressions. He knew perfectly well that
Mary Lyster was one of the maidens whom it would be possible for him to
marry. His mother had never pressed her upon him, but she would
certainly acquiesce. It would have been mere mock modesty on his part
not to guess that Mary would probably not refuse him. And she was
handsome, well provided, well connected--oppressively so, indeed; a man
might quail a little before her relations. Moreover, she and he had
always been good friends, even when as a boy he could not refrain from
teasing her for a slow-coach. During his electoral weeks in the country
the thought of "Polly" had often stolen kindly upon his rare moments of
peace. He must marry, of course. There was no particular excitement or
romance about it. Now that his elder brother was dead and he had become
the heir, it simply had to be done. And Polly was very nice--quite
sweet-tempered and intelligent. She looked well, moved well, would fill
the position admirably.
Then, suddenly, as these half-thoughts rushed through his brain, a
breath of something cold and distracting--a wind from the land of
_ennui_--seemed to blow upon them and scatter them. Was it the mention
of the Bishop--tiresome, pompous fellow--or her slightly pedantic
tone--or the infinitesimal hint of "management" that her speech implied?
Who knows? But in that moment perhaps the scales of life inclined.
"Much obliged to the Bishop," he repeated, walking up and down. "I am
afraid, however, I don't take things as seriously as he does. Oh, I hope
I shall behave decently--but, good Lord, what a comedy it is! You know
the sort of articles"--he turned towards her--"our papers will be
writing to-morrow on my appointment. They'll make me out no end of a
fine fellow--you'll see! And, of course, the real truth is, as you and I
know perfectly well, that if it hadn't been for poor Freddy's death--and
mother--and her dinners--and the chaps who come here--I might have
whistled for anything of the sort. And then I go down to Ledmenham and
stand as a Liberal, and get all the pious Radicals to work for me! It's
a humbugging world--isn't it?"
He returned to the fireplace, and stood looking down upon her--grinning.
Mary had resumed her embroidery. She, too, was dimly conscious of
something disappointing.
"Of course, if you choose to take it like that, you can," she said,
rather tartly. "Of course, everything can be made ridiculous."
"Well, that's a blessing, anyway!" said Ashe, with his merry laugh. "But
look here, Mary, tell me about yourself. What have you been
doing?--dancing--riding, eh?"
He threw himself down beside her, and began an elder-brotherly
cross-examination, which lasted till Lady Tranmore returned and begged
him to go at once to his father.
When he returned to the drawing-room, Ashe found his mother alone. It
was growing dark, and she was sitting idle, her hands in her lap,
waiting for him.
"I must be off, dear," he said to her. "You won't come down and see me
take my seat?"
She shook her head.
"I think not. What did you think of your father?"
"I don't see much change," he said, hesitating.
"No, he's much the same."
"And you?" He slid down on the sofa beside her and threw his arm round
her. "Have you been fretting?"
Lady Tranmore made no reply. She was a self-contained woman, not readily
moved to tears. But he felt her hand tremble as he pressed it.
"I sha'n't fret now"--she said after a moment--"now that you've come
back."
Ashe's face took a very soft and tender expression.
"Mother, you know--you think a great deal too much of me--you're too
ambitious for me."
She gave a sound between a laugh and a sob, and, raising her hands, she
smoothed back his curly hair and held his face between them.
"When do you see Lord Parham?" she asked.
"Eight o'clock--in his room at the House. I'll send you up a note."
"You'll be home early?"
"No--don't wait for me."
She dropped her hands, after giving him a kiss on the cheek.
"I know where you're going! It's Madame d'Estrées' evening."
"Well--you don't object?"
"Object?" She shrugged her shoulders. "So long as it amuses you--You
won't find _one_ woman there to-night."
"Last time there were two," he said, smiling, as he rose from the sofa.
"I know--Lady Quantock--and Mrs. Mallory. Now they've deserted her, I
hear. What fresh gossip has turned up I don't know. Of course," she
sighed, "I've been out of the world. But I believe there have been
developments."
"Well, I don't know anything about it--and I don't think I want to know.
She's very agreeable, and one meets everybody there."
"_Everybody_. Ungallant creature!" she said, giving a little pull to his
collar, the set of which did not please her.
"Sorry! Mother!"--his laughing eyes pursued her--"Do you want to marry
me off directly?--I know you do!"
"I want nothing but what you yourself should want. Of course, you must
marry."
"The young women don't care twopence about me!"
"William!--be a bear if you like, but not an idiot!"
"Perfectly true," he declared; "not the dazzlers and the high-fliers,
anyway--the only ones it would be an excitement to carry off."
"You know very well," she said, slowly, "that now you might marry
anybody."
He threw his head back rather haughtily.
"Oh! I wasn't thinking about money, and that kind of thing. Well, give
me time, mother--don't hurry me! And now I'd better stop talking
nonsense, change my clothes, and be off. Good-bye, dear--you shall hear
when the job's perpetrated!"
"William, really!--don't say these things--at least to anybody but me.
You understand very well"--she drew herself up rather finely--"that if I
hadn't known, in spite of your apparent idleness, you would do any work
they _set_ you to do, to your own credit and the country's, I'd never
have lifted a finger for you!"
William Ashe laughed out.
"Oh! intriguing mother!" he said, stooping again to kiss her. "So you
admit you did it?"
He went off gayly, and she heard him flying up-stairs three steps at a
time, as though he were still an untamed Eton boy, and there were no
three weeks' hard political fighting behind him, and no interview which
might decide his life before him.
He entered his own sitting-room on the second floor, shut the door
behind him, and glanced round him with delight. It was a large room
looking on a side street, and obliquely to the park. Its walls were
covered with books--books which almost at first sight betrayed to the
accustomed eye that they were the familiar companions of a student.
Almost every volume had long paper slips inside it, and when opened
would have been found to contain notes and underlinings in a somewhat
reckless and destructive abundance. A large table, also loaded untidily
with books and papers, stood in the centre of the room; many of them
were note-books, stored with evidences of the most laborious and patient
work; a Cambridge text lay beside them face downward, as he had left it
on departure. His mother's housekeeper, who had been one of his best
friends from babyhood, was the only person allowed to dust his room--but
on the strict condition that she replaced everything as she found it.
He took up the volume, and plunged a moment headlong into the Greek
chorus that met his eye. "_Jolly!_" he said, putting it down with a sigh
of regret. "These beastly politics!"
And he went muttering to his dressing-room, summoning his valet almost
with ill-temper. Yet half his library was the library of a politician,
admirably chosen and exhaustively read.
The footman who answered his call understood his moods and served him at
a look. Ashe complained hotly of the brushing of his dress-clothes, and
worked himself into a fever over the set of his tie. Nevertheless,
before he left he had managed to get from the young man the whole story
of his engagement to the under-housemaid, giving him thereupon some bits
of advice, jocular but trenchant, which James accepted with a readiness
quite unlike his normal behavior in the circles of his class.
II
Ashe took his seat, dined, and saw the Prime Minister. These things took
time, and it was not till past eleven that he presented himself in the
hall of Madame d'Estrées' house in St. James's Place. Most of her guests
were already gathered, but he mounted the stairs together with an old
friend and an old acquaintance, Philip Darrell, one of the ablest
writers of the moment, and Louis Harman, artist and man of fashion, the
friend of duchesses and painter of portraits, a person much in request
in many worlds.
"What a _cachet_ they have, these houses!" said Harman, looking round
him. "St. James's Place is the top!"
"Where else would you expect to find Madame d'Estrées?" asked Darrell,
smiling.
"Yes--what taste she has! However, it was I really who advised her to
take the house."
"Naturally," said Darrell.
Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a
complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase
wall.
"I suppose the dear lady has a hundred slaves of the lamp, as usual,"
said Ashe. "You advise her about her house--somebody else helps her to
buy her wine--"
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Harman, offended--"as if I couldn't
do that!"
"Hullo!" said Darrell, as they neared the drawing-room door. "What a
crowd there is!"
For as the butler announced them, the din of talk which burst through
the door implied indeed a multitude--much at their ease.
They made their way in with difficulty, shaping their course towards
that corner in the room where they knew they should find their hostess.
Ashe was greeted on all sides with friendly words and congratulations,
and a passage was opened for him to the famous "blue sofa" where Madame
d'Estrées sat enthroned.
She looked up with animation, broke off her talk with two elderly
diplomats who seemed to have taken possession of her, and beckoned Ashe
to a seat beside her.
"So you're in? Was it a hard fight?"
"A hard fight? Oh no! One would have had to be a great fool not to get
in."
"They say you spoke very well. I suppose you promised them everything
they wanted--from the crown downward?"
"Yes--all the usual harmless things," said Ashe.
Madame d'Estrées laughed; then looked at him across the top of her fan.
"Well!--and what else?"
"You can't wait for your newspaper?" he said, smiling, after a moment's
pause.
She shrugged her shoulders good-humoredly.
"Oh! I _know_--of course I know. Is it as good as you expected?"
"As good as--" The young man opened his mouth in wonder. "What right
had I to expect anything?"
"How modest! All the same, they want you--and they're very glad to get
you. But you can't save them."
"That's not generally expected of Under-Secretaries, is it?"
"A good deal's expected of _you_. I talked to Lord Parham about you last
night."
William Ashe flushed a little.
"Did you? Very kind of you."
"Not at all. I didn't flatter you in the least. Nor did he. But they're
going to give you your chance!"
She bent forward and lightly patted the sleeve of his coat with the
fingers of a very delicate hand. In this sympathetic aspect, Madame
d'Estrées was no doubt exceedingly attractive. There were, of course,
many people who were not moved by it; to whom it was the conjuring of an
arch pretender. But these were generally of the female sex. Men, at any
rate, lent themselves to the illusion. Ashe, certainly, had always done
so. And to-night the spell still worked; though as her action drew his
particular attention to her face and expression, he was aware of slight
changes in her which recalled his mother's words of the afternoon. The
eyes were tired; at last he perceived in them some slight signs of years
and harass. Up till now her dominating charm had been a kind of timeless
softness and sensuousness, which breathed from her whole
personality--from her fair skin and hair, her large, smiling eyes. She
put, as it were, the question of age aside. It was difficult to think of
her as a child; it had been impossible to imagine her as an old woman.
"Well, this is all very surprising," said Ashe, "considering that four
months ago I did not matter an old shoe to anybody."
"That was your own fault. You took no trouble. And besides--there was
your poor brother in the way."
Ashe's brow contracted.
"No, that he never was," he said, with energy. "Freddy was never in
anybody's way--least of all in mine."
"You know what I mean," she said, hastily. "And you know what friends he
and I were--poor Freddy! But, after all, the world's the world."
"Yes--we all grow on somebody's grave," said Ashe. Then, just as she
became conscious that she had jarred upon him, and must find a new
opening, he himself found it. "Tell me!" he said, bending forward with a
sudden alertness--"who is that lady?"
He pointed out a little figure in white, sitting in the opening of the
second drawing-room; a very young girl apparently, surrounded by a group
of men.
"Ah!" said Madame d'Estrées--"I was coming to that--that's my girl
Kitty--"
"Lady Kitty!" said Ashe, in amazement. "She's left school? I thought she
was quite a little thing."
"She's eighteen. Isn't she a darling? Don't you think her very pretty?"
Ashe looked a moment.
"Extraordinarily bewitching!--unlike other people?" he said, turning to
the mother.
Madame d'Estrées raised her eyebrows a little, in apparent amusement.
"I'm not going to describe Kitty. She's indescribable. Besides--you
must find her out. Do go and talk to her. She's to be half with me, half
with her aunt--Lady Grosville."
Ashe made some polite comment.
"Oh! don't let's be conventional!" said Madame d'Estrées, flirting her
fan with a little air of weariness--"It's an odious arrangement. Lady
Grosville and I, as you probably know, are not on terms. She says
atrocious things of me--and I--" the fair head fell back a little, and
the white shoulders rose, with the slightest air of languid
disdain--"well, bear me witness that I don't retaliate! It's not worth
while. But I know that Grosville House can help Kitty. So!--" Her
gesture, half ironical, half resigned, completed the sentence.
"Does Lady Kitty like society?"
"Kitty likes anything that flatters or excites her."
"Then of course she likes society. Anybody as pretty as that--"
"Ah! how sweet of you!" said Madame d'Estrées, softly--"how sweet of
you! I like you to think her pretty. I like you to say so."
Ashe felt and looked a trifle disconcerted, but his companion bent
forward and added--"I don't know whether I want you to flirt with her!
You must take care. Kitty's the most fantastic creature. Oh! my life
now'll be very different. I find she takes all my thoughts and most of
my time!"
There was something extravagant in the sweetness of the smile which
emphasized the speech, and altogether, Madame d'Estrées, in this new
maternal aspect, was not as agreeable as usual. Part of her charm
perhaps had always lain in the fact that she had no domestic topics of
her own, and so was endlessly ready for those of other people. Those,
indeed, who came often to her house were accustomed to speak warmly of
her "unselfishness"--by which they meant the easy patience with which
she could listen, smile, and flatter.
Perhaps Ashe made this tacit demand upon her, no less than other people.
At any rate, as she talked cooingly on about her daughter, he would have
found her tiresome for once but for some arresting quality in that
small, distant figure. As it was, he followed what she said with
attention, and as soon as she had been recaptured by the impatient
Italian Ambassador, he moved off, intending slowly to make his way to
Lady Kitty. But he was caught in many congratulations by the road, and
presently he saw that his friend Darrell was being introduced to her by
the old habitué of the house, Colonel Warington, who generally divided
with the hostess the "lead" of these social evenings.
Lady Kitty nodded carelessly to Mr. Darrell, and he sat down beside her.
"That's a cool hand for a girl of eighteen!" thought Ashe. "She has the
airs of a princess--except for the chatter."
Chatter indeed! Wherever he moved, the sound of the light hurrying voice
made itself persistently heard through the hum of male conversation.
Yet once, Ashe, looking round to see if Darrell could be dislodged,
caught the chatterer silent, and found himself all at once invaded by a
slight thrill, or shock.
What did the girl's expression mean?--what was she thinking of? She was
looking intently at the crowded room, and it seemed to Ashe that
Darrell's talk, though his lips moved quickly, was not reaching her at
all. The dark brows were drawn together, and beneath them the eyes
looked sorely out. The delicate lips were slightly, piteously open, and
the whole girlish form in its young beauty appeared, as he watched, to
shrink together. Suddenly the girl's look, so wide and searching, caught
that of Ashe; and he moved impulsively forward.
"Present me, please, to Lady Kitty," he said, catching Warington's arm.
"Poor child!" said a low voice in his ear.
Ashe turned and saw Louis Harman. The tone, however--allusive, intimate,
patronizing--in which Harman had spoken, annoyed him, and he passed on
without taking any notice.
"Lady Kitty," said Warington, "Mr. Ashe wishes to be presented to you.
He is an old friend of your mother's. Congratulate him--he has just got
into Parliament."
Lady Kitty drew herself up, and all trace of the look which Ashe had
observed disappeared. She bowed, not carelessly as she had bowed to
Darrell, but with a kind of exaggerated stateliness, not less girlish.
"I never congratulate anybody," she said, shaking her head, "till I know
them."
Ashe opened his eyes a little.
"How long must I wait?" he said, smiling, as he drew a chair beside her.
"That depends. Are you difficult to know?" She looked up at him
audaciously, and he on his side could not take his eyes from her, so
singular was the small, sparkling face. The hair and skin were very
fair, like her mother's, the eyes dark and full of fire, the neck most
daintily white and slender, the figure undeveloped, the feet and hands
extremely small. But what arrested him was, so to speak, the embodied
contradiction of the personality--as between the wild intelligence of
the eyes and the extreme youth, almost childishness, of the rest.
He asked her if she had ever known any one confess to being easy, to
know.
"Well, I'm easy to know," she said, carelessly, leaning back; "but,
then, I'm not worth knowing."
"Is one allowed to find out?"
"Oh yes--of course! Do you know--when you were over there, I _willed_
that you should come and talk to me, and you came. Only," she sat up
with animation, and began to tick off her sentences on her
fingers--"Don't ask me how long I've been in town. Don't ask where I was
in Paris. Don't inquire whether I like balls! You see, I warn you at
once"--she looked up frankly--"that we mayn't lose time."
"Well, then, I don't see how I'm ever to find out," said Ashe, stoutly.
"Whether I'm worth knowing?" She considered, then bent forward eagerly.
"Look here! I'll just tell you everything in a lump, and then that'll
do--won't it? Listen. I'm just eighteen. I was sent to the Soeurs
Blanches when I was thirteen--the year papa died. I _didn't_ like
papa--I'm very sorry, but I didn't! However, that's by-the-way. In all
those years I have only seen maman once--she doesn't like children. But
my aunt Grosville has some French relations--very, _very_ 'comme il
faut,' you understand--and I used to go and stay with them for the
holidays. Tell me!--did you ever hunt in France?"
"Never," said Ashe, startled and amused by the sudden glance of
enthusiasm that lit up the face and expressed itself in the clasped
hands.
"Oh! it's such heaven," she said, lifting her shoulders with an
extravagant gesture--"such _heaven_! First there are the old
dresses--the men look such darlings!--and then the horns, and the old
ways they have--_si noble!--si distingué!_--not like your stupid English
hunting. And then the dogs! Ah! the _dogs_"--the shoulders went higher
still; "do you know my cousin Henri actually gave me a puppy of the
great breed--_the_ breed, you know--the Dogs of St. Hubert. Or at least
he _would_ if maman would have let me bring it over. And she wouldn't!
Just think of that! When there are thousands of people in France who'd
give the eyes out of their head for one. I cried all one
night--Allons!--faut pas y penser!"--she shook back the hair from her
eyes with an impatient gesture. "My cousins have got a château, you
know, in the Seine-et-Oise. They've promised to ask me next year--when
the Grand-Duke Paul comes--if I'll promise to behave. You see, I'm not a
bit like French girls--I had so many affairs!"
Her eyes flashed with laughter.
Ashe laughed too.
"Are you going to tell me about them also?"
She drew herself up.
"No! I play fair, always--ask anybody! Oh, I _do_ want to go back to
France so badly!" Once more she was all appeal and childishness.
"Anyway, I won't stay in England! I have made up my mind to that!"
"How long has it taken?"
"A fortnight," she said, slowly--"just a fortnight."
"That hardly seems time enough--does it?" said Ashe. "Give us a little
longer."
"No--I--I hate you!" said Lady Kitty, with a strange drop in her voice.
Her little fingers began to drum on the table near her, and to Ashe's
intense astonishment he saw her eyes fill with tears.
Suddenly a movement towards the other room set in around them. Madame
d'Estrées could be heard giving directions. A space was made in the
large drawing-room--a little table appeared in it, and a footman placed
thereon a glass of water.
Lady Kitty looked up.
"Oh, that _detestable_ man!" she said, drawing back. "No--I can't, I
can't bear it. Come with me!" and beckoning to Ashe she fled with
precipitation into the farther part of the inner drawing-room, out of
her mother's sight. Ashe followed her, and she dropped panting and elate
into a chair.
Meanwhile the outer room gathered to hear the recitation of some _vers
de société_, fondly believed by their author to be of a very pretty and
Praedian make. They certainly amused the company, who laughed and
clapped as each neat personality emerged. Lady Kitty passed the time
either in a running commentary on the reciter, which occasionally
convulsed her companion, or else in holding her small hands over her
ears.
When it was over, she drew a long breath.
"How maman _can!_ Oh! how _bête_ you English are to applaud such a man!
You have only _one_ poet, haven't you--one living poet? Ah! I shouldn't
have laughed if it had been he!"
"I suppose you mean Geoffrey Cliffe?" said Ashe, amused. "Nobody abroad
seems ever to have heard of any one else."
"Well, of course, I just long to know him! Every one says he is so
dangerous!--he makes all the women fall in love with him. That's
_delicious_! He shouldn't make me! Do you know him?"
"I knew him at Eton. We were 'swished' together," said Ashe.
She inquired what the phrase might mean, and when informed, flushed
hotly, denouncing the English school system as quite unfit for gentlemen
and men of honor. Her French cousins would sooner die than suffer such a
thing. Then in the midst of her tirade she suddenly paused, and fixing
Ashe with her brilliant eyes, she asked him a surprising question, in a
changed and steady voice:
"Is Lady Tranmore not well?"
Ashe was fairly startled.
"Thank you, I left her quite well. Have you--"
"Did maman ask her to come to-night?"
It was Ashe's turn to redden.
"I don't know. But--we are in mourning, you see, for my brother."
Her face changed and softened instantly.
"Are you? I'm so sorry. I--I always say something stupid. Then--Lady
Tranmore used to come to maman's parties--before--"
She had grown quite pale; it seemed to him that her hand shook. Ashe
felt an extraordinary pang of pity and concern.
"It's I, you see, to whom your mother has been kind," he said, gently.
"We're an independent family; we each make our own friends."
"No--" she said, drawing a deep breath. "No, it's not that. Look at that
room."
Following her slight gesture, Ashe looked. It was an old, low-ceiled
room, panelled in white and gold, showing here and there an Italian
picture--saint, or holy family, agreeable school-work--from which might
be inferred the tastes if not the _expertise_ of Madame d'Estrées' first
husband, Lord Blackwater. The floor was held by a plentiful collection
of seats, neither too easy nor too stiff; arranged by one who understood
to perfection the physical conditions at least which should surround the
"great art" of conversation. At this moment every seat was full. A sea
of black coats overflowed on the farther side, into the staircase
landing, where through the open door several standing groups could be
seen; and in the inner room, where they sat, there was but little space
between its margin and themselves. It was a remarkable sight; and in his
past visits to the house Ashe had often said to himself that the
elements of which it was made up were still more remarkable. Ministers
and Opposition; ambassadors, travellers, journalists; the men of fashion
and the men of reform; here a French republican official, and beyond
him, perhaps, a man whose ancestors were already of the most ancient
_noblesse_ in Saint-Simon's day; artists, great and small, men of
letters good and indifferent; all these had been among the guests of
Madame d'Estrées, brought to the house, each of them, for some quality's
sake, some power of keeping up the social game.
But now, as he looked at the room, not to please himself but to obey
Lady Kitty, Ashe became aware of a new impression. The crowd was no
less, numerically, than he had seen it in the early winter; but it
seemed to him less distinguished, made up of coarser and commoner items.
He caught the face of a shady financier long since banished from Lady
Tranmore's parties; beyond him a red-faced colonel, conspicuous alike
for doubtful money-matters and matrimonial trouble; and in a farther
corner the sallow profile of a writer whose books were apt to rouse even
the man of the world to a healthy and contemptuous disgust. Surely these
persons had never been there of old; he could not remember one of them.
He looked again, more closely. Was it fancy, or was the gathering itself
aware of the change which had passed over it? As a whole, it was
certainly noisier than of old; the shouting and laughter were incessant.
But within the general uproar certain groups had separated from other
groups, and were talking with a studied quiet. Most of the habitué's
were still there; but they held themselves apart from their neighbors.
Were the old intimacy and solidarity beginning to break up?--and with
them the peculiar charm of these "evenings," a charm which had so far
defied a social boycott that had been active from the first?
He glanced back uncertainly at Lady Kitty, and she looked at him.
"Why are there no ladies?" she said, abruptly.
He collected his thoughts.
"It--it has always been a men's gathering. Perhaps for some men
here--I'm sorry there are such barbarians, Lady Kitty!--that makes the
charm of it. Look at that old fellow there! He is a most famous old
boy. Everybody invites him--but he never stirs out of his den but to
come here. My mother can't get him--though she has tried often."
And he pointed to a dishevelled, gray-haired gentleman, short in
stature, round in figure, something, in short, like an animated egg, who
was addressing a group not far off.
Lady Kitty's face showed a variety of expressions.
"Are there many parties like this in London? Are the ladies asked, and
don't come? I--I don't--understand!"
Ashe looked at her kindly.
"There is no other hostess in London as clever as your mother," he
declared, and then tried to change the subject; but she paid no heed.
"The other day, at Aunt Grosville's," she said, slowly, "I asked if my
two cousins might come to-night, and they looked at me as though I were
mad! Oh, _do_ talk to me!" She came impulsively nearer, and Ashe noticed
that Darrell, standing against the doorway of communication, looked
round at them in amusement. "I liked your face--the very first moment
when I saw you across the room. Do you know--you're--you're very
handsome!" She drew back, her eyes fixed gravely, intently upon him.
For the first time Ashe was conscious of annoyance.
"I hope you won't mind my saying so"--his tone was a little short--"but
in this country we don't say those things. They're not--quite polite."
"Aren't they?" Her eyebrows arched themselves and her lips fell in
penitence. "I always called my French cousin, Henri la Fresnay, _beau!_
I am sure he liked it!" The accent was almost plaintive.
Ashe's natural impulse was to say that if so the French cousin must be
an ass. But all in a moment he found himself seized with a desire to
take her little hands in his own and press them--she looked such a
child, so exquisite, and so forlorn. And he did in fact bend forward
confidentially, forgetting Darrell.
"I want you to come and see my mother?" he said, smiling at her. "Ask
Lady Grosville to bring you."
"May I? But--" She searched his face, eager still to pour out the
impulsive, uncontrolled confidences that were in her mind. But his
expression stopped her, and she gave a little, resentful sigh.
"Yes--I'll come. _We_--you and I--are a little bit cousins too--aren't
we? We talked about you at the Grosvilles."
"Was our 'great-great' the same person?" he said, laughing. "Hope it was
a decent 'great-great.' Some of mine aren't much to boast of. Well, at
any rate, let's _be_ cousins--whether we are or no, shall we?"
She assented, her whole face lighting up.
"And we're going to meet--the week after next!" she said, triumphantly,
"in the country."
"Are we?--at Grosville Park. That's delightful."
"And _then_ I'll ask your advice--I'll make you tell me--a hundred
things! That's a bargain--mind!"
"Kitty! Come and help me with tea--there's a darling!"
Lady Kitty turned. A path had opened through the crowd, and Madame
d'Estrées, much escorted, a vision of diamonds and pale-pink satin,
appeared, leading the way to the supper-room, and the light
"refection," accompanied by much champagne, which always closed these
evenings.
The girl rose, as did her companion also. Madame d'Estrées threw a
quick, half-satirical glance at Ashe, but he had eyes only for Lady
Kitty, and her transformation at the touch of her mother's voice. She
followed Madame d'Estrées with a singular and conscious dignity, her
white skirts sweeping, her delicately fine head thrown back on her thin
neck and shoulders. The black crowd closed about her; and Ashe's eyes
pursued the slender figure till it disappeared.
Extreme youth--innocence--protest--pain--was it with these touching and
pleading impressions, after all, that his first talk with Kitty Bristol
had left him? Yet what a little _étourdie_! How lacking in the reserves,
the natural instincts and shrinkings of the well-bred English girl!
* * * * *
Darrell and Ashe walked home together, through a windy night which was
bringing out April scents even from the London grass and lilac-bushes.
"Well," said Darrell, as they stepped into the Green Park, "so you're
safely in. Congratulate you, old fellow. Anything else?"
"Yes. They've offered me Hickson's place. More fools they, don't you
think?"
"Good! Upon my word, Bill, you've got your foot in the stirrup now! Hope
you'll continue to be civil to poor devils like me."
The speaker looked up smiling, but neither the tone nor the smile was
really cordial. Ashe felt the embarrassment that he had once or twice
felt before in telling Darrell news of good fortune. There seemed to be
something in Darrell that resented it--under an outer show of
felicitation.
However, they went on talking of the political moment and its prospects,
and of Ashe's personal affairs. As to the last, Darrell questioned, and
Ashe somewhat reluctantly replied. It appeared that his allowance was to
be largely raised, that his paralyzed father, in fact, was anxious to
put him in possession of a substantial share in the income of the
estates, that one of the country-houses was to be made over to him, and
so on.
"Which means, of course, that they want you to marry," said Darrell.
"Well, you've only to throw the handkerchief."
They were passing a lamp as he spoke, and the light shone on his long,
pale face--a face of discontent--with its large sunken eyes and hollow
cheeks.
Ashe treated the remark as "rot," and endeavored to get away from his
own affairs by discussing the party they had just left.
"How does she get all those people together? It's astonishing!"
"Well, I always liked Madame d'Estrées well enough," said Darrell, "but,
upon my word, she has done a beastly mean thing in bringing that girl
over."
"You mean?"--Ashe hesitated--"that her own position is too doubtful?"
"Doubtful, my dear fellow!" Darrell laughed unpleasantly. "I never
really understood what it all meant till the other night when old Lady
Grosville took and told me--more at any rate than I knew before. The
Grosvilles are on the war-path, and they regard the coming of this poor
child as the last straw."
"Why?" said Ashe.
Darrell gave a shrug. "Well, you know the story of Madame d'Estrées'
step-daughter--old Blackwater's daughter?"
"Ah! by his first marriage? I knew it was something about the
step-daughter," said Ashe, vaguely.
Darrell began to repeat his conversation with Lady Grosville. The tale
threatened presently to become a black one indeed; and at last Ashe
stood still in the broad walk crossing the Green Park.
"Look here," he said, resolutely, "don't tell me any more. I don't want
to hear any more."
"Why?" asked Darrell, in amazement.
"Because"--Ashe hesitated a moment. "Well, I don't want it to be made
impossible for me to go to Madame d'Estrées' again. Besides, we've just
eaten her salt."
"You're a good friend!" said Darrell, not without something of a sneer.
Ashe was ruffled by the tone, but tried not to show it. He merely
insisted that he knew Lady Grosville to be a bit of an old cat; that of
course there was something up; but it seemed a shame for those at least
who accepted Madame d'Estrées' hospitality to believe the worst. There
was a curious mixture of carelessness and delicacy in his remarks, very
characteristic of the man. It appeared as though he was at once too
indolent to go into the matter, and too chivalrous to talk about it.
Darrell presently maintained a rather angry silence. No man likes to be
checked in his story, especially when the check implies something like
a snub from his best friend. Suddenly, memory brought before him the
little picture of Ashe and Lady Kitty together--he bending over her, in
his large, handsome geniality, and she looking up. Darrell felt a twinge
of jealousy--then disgust. Really, men like Ashe had the world too
easily their own way. That they should pose, besides, was too much.
III
Rather more than a fortnight after the evening at Madame d'Estrées',
William Ashe found himself in a Midland train on his way to the
Cambridgeshire house of Lady Grosville. While the April country slipped
past him--like some blanched face to which life and color are
returning--Ashe divided his time between an idle skimming of the
Saturday papers and a no less idle dreaming of Kitty Bristol. He had
seen her two or three times since his first introduction to her--once at
a ball to which Lady Grosville had taken her, and once on the terrace of
the House of Commons, where he had strolled up and down with her for a
most amusing and stimulating hour, while her mother entertained a group
of elderly politicians. And the following day she had come alone--her
own choice--to take tea with Lady Tranmore, on that lady's invitation,
as prompted by her son. Ashe himself had arrived towards the end of the
visit, and had found a Lady Kitty in the height of the fashion, stiff
mannered, and flushed to a deep red by her own consciousness that she
could not possibly be making a good impression. At sight of him she
relaxed, and talked a great deal, but not wisely; and when she was gone,
Ashe could get very little opinion of any kind from his mother, who had,
however, expressed a wish that she should come and visit them in the
country.
Since then he frankly confessed to himself that in the intervals of his
new official and administrative work he had been a good deal haunted by
memories of this strange child, her eyes, her grace--even in her fits of
proud shyness--and the way in which, as he had put her into her cab
after the visit to Lady Tranmore, her tiny hand had lingered in his, a
mute, astonishing appeal. Haunted, too, by what he heard of her fortunes
and surroundings. What was the real truth of Madame d'Estrées'
situation? During the preceding weeks some ugly rumors had reached Ashe
of financial embarrassment in that quarter, of debts risen to
mountainous height, of crisis and possible disappearance. Then these
rumors were met by others, to the effect that Colonel Warington, the old
friend and support of the d'Estrées' household, had come to the rescue,
that the crisis had been averted, and that the three weekly evenings, so
well known and so well attended, would go on; and with this phase of the
story there mingled, as Ashe was well aware, not the slightest breath of
scandal, in a case where, so to speak, all was scandal.
And meanwhile what new and dolorous truths had Lady Kitty been learning
as to her mother's history and her mother's position? By Jove! it _was_
hard upon the girl. Darrell was right. Why not leave her to her French
friends and relations?--or relinquish her to Lady Grosville? Madame
d'Estrées had seen little or nothing of her for years. She could not,
therefore, be necessary to her mother's happiness, and there was a real
cruelty in thus claiming her, at the very moment of her entrance into
society, where Madame d'Estrées could only stand in her way. For
although many a man whom the girl might profitably marry was to be
found among the mother's guests, the influences of Madame d'Estrées'
"evenings" were certainly not matrimonial. Still the unforeseen was
surely the probable in Lady Kitty's case. What sort of man ought she to
marry--what sort of man could safely take the risks of marrying
her--with that mother in the background?
He descended at the way-side station prescribed to him, and looked round
him for fellow-guests--much as the card-player examines his hand. Mary
Lyster, a cabinet minister--filling an ornamental office and handed on
from ministry to ministry as a kind of necessary appendage, the public
never knew why--the minister's second wife, an attaché from the Austrian
embassy, two members of Parliament, and a well-known journalist--Ashe
said to himself flippantly that so far the trumps were not many. But he
was always reasonably glad to see Mary, and he went up to her, cared for
her bag, and made her put on her cloak, with cousinly civility. In the
omnibus on the way to the house he and Mary gossiped in a corner, while
the cabinet minister and the editor went to sleep, and the two members
of Parliament practised some courageous French on the Austrian attaché.
"Is it to be a large party?" he asked of his companion.
"Oh! they always fill the house. A good many came down yesterday."
"Well, I'm not curious," said Ashe, "except as to one person."
"Who?"
"Lady Kitty Bristol."
Mary Lyster smiled.
"Yes, poor child, I heard from the Grosville girls that she was to be
here."
"Why 'poor child'?"
"I don't know. Quite the wrong expression, I admit. It should be 'poor
hostess.'"
"Oh!--the Grosvilles complain?"
"No. They're only on tenter-hooks. They never know what she will do
next."
"How good for the Grosvilles!"
"You think society is the better for shocks?"
"Lady Grosville can do with them, anyway. What a masterful woman! But
I'll back Lady Kitty."
"I haven't seen her yet," said Mary. "I hear she is a very odd-looking
little thing."
"Extremely pretty," said Ashe.
"Really?" Mary lifted incredulous eyebrows. "Well, now I shall know what
you admire."
"Oh, my tastes are horribly catholic--I admire so many people," said
Ashe, with a glance at the well-dressed elegance beside him. Mary
colored a little, unseen; and the rattle of the carriage as it entered
the covered porch of Grosville Park cut short their conversation.
* * * * *
"Well, I'm glad you got in," said Lady Grosville, in her full, loud
voice, "because we are connections. But of course I regard the loss of a
seat to our side just now as a great disaster."
"Very grasping, on your part!" said Ashe. "You've had it all your own
way lately. Think of Portsmouth!"
Lady Grosville, however, as she met his bantering look, did not find
herself at all inclined to think of Portsmouth. She was much more
inclined to think of William Ashe. What a good-looking fellow he had
grown! She heaved an inward sigh, of mingled envy and appreciation,
directed towards Lady Tranmore.
Poor Susan indeed had suffered terribly in the death of her eldest son.
But the handsomer and abler of the two brothers still remained to
her--and the estate was safe. Lady Grosville thought of her own three
daughters, plain and almost dowerless; and of that conceited young man,
the heir, whom she could hardly persuade her husband to invite, once a
year, for appearance sake.
"Why are we so early?" said Ashe, looking at his watch. "I thought I
should be disgracefully late."
For he and Lady Grosville had the library to themselves. It was a fine,
book-walled room, with giallo antico columns and Adam decoration; and in
its richly colored lamp-lit space, the seated figure--stiffly erect--of
Lady Grosville, her profile, said by some to be like a horse and by
others to resemble Savonarola, the cap of old Venice point that crowned
her grizzled hair, her black velvet dress, and the long-fingered, ugly,
yet distinguished hands which lay upon her lap, told significantly;
especially when contrasted with the negligent ease and fresh-colored
youth of her companion.
Grosville Park was rich in second-rate antiques; and there was a
Greco-Roman head above the bookcase with which Ashe had been often
compared. As he stood now leaning against the fireplace, the close-piled
curls, and eyes--somewhat "à fleur de tête"--of the bust were
undoubtedly repeated with some closeness in the living man. Those whom
he had offended by some social carelessness or other said of him when
they wished to run him down, that he was "floridly" handsome; and there
was some truth in it.
"Didn't you get the message about dinner?" said Lady Grosville. Then, as
he shook his head: "Very remiss of Parkin. I always tell him he loses
his head directly the party goes into double figures. We had to put off
dinner a quarter of an hour because of Kitty Bristol, who missed her
train at St. Pancras, and only arrived half an hour ago. By-the-way, I
suppose you have already seen her--at that woman's?"
"I met her a week or two ago, at Madame d'Estrées'," said Ashe,
apparently preoccupied with something wrong in the set of his white
waistcoat.
"What did you think of her?"
"A charming young lady," said Ashe, smiling. "What else should I think?"
"A lamb thrown to the wolves," said Lady Grosville, grimly. "How that
woman _could_ do such a thing!"
"I saw nothing lamblike about Lady Kitty," said Ashe. "And do you
include me among the wolves?"
Lady Grosville hesitated a moment, then stuck to her colors.
"You shouldn't go to such a house," she said, boldly--"I suppose I may
say that without offence, William, as I've known you from a boy."
"Say anything you like, my dear Lady Grosville! So you--believe evil
things--of Madame d'Estrées?"
His tone was light, but his eyes sought the distant door, as though
invoking some fellow-guest to appear and protect him.
Lady Grosville did not answer. Ashe's look returned to her, and he was
startled by the expression of her face. He had always known and
unwillingly admired her for a fine Old Testament Christian, one from
whom the language of the imprecatory Psalms with regard to her enemies,
personal and political, might have flowed more naturally than from any
other person he knew, of the same class and breeding. But this
loathing--this passion of contempt--this heat of memory!--these were new
indeed, and the fire of them transfigured the old, gray face.
"I have known a fair number of bad people," said Lady Grosville, in a
low voice--"and a good many wicked women. But for meanness and vileness
combined, the things I know of the woman who was Blackwater's wife have
no equal in my experience!"
There was a moment's pause. Then Ashe said, in a voice as serious as her
own:
"I am sorry to hear you say that, partly because I like Madame
d'Estrées, and partly--because--I was particularly attracted by Lady
Kitty."
Lady Grosville looked up sharply. "Don't marry her, William!--don't
marry her! She comes of a bad stock."
Ashe recovered his gayety.
"She is your own niece. Mightn't a man dare--on that guarantee?"
"Not at all," said Lady Grosville, unappeased. "I was a hop out of kin.
Besides--a Methodist governess saved me; she converted me, at eighteen,
and I owe her everything. But my brothers--and all the rest of us!" She
threw up her eyes and hands. "What's the good of being mealy mouthed
about it? All the world knows it. A good many of us were mad--and I
sometimes think I see more than eccentricity in Kitty."
"Who was Madame d'Estrées?" said Ashe. Why should he wince so at the
girl's name?--in that hard mouth?
Lady Grosville smiled.
"Well, I can tell you a good deal about that," she said. "Ah!--another
time!"
For the door opened, and in came a group of guests, with a gush of talk
and a rustling of silks and satins.
* * * * *
Everybody was gathered; dinner had been announced; and the white-haired
and gouty Lord Grosville was in a state of seething impatience that not
even the mild-voiced Dean of the neighboring cathedral, engaged in
complimenting him on his speech at the Diocesan Conference, could
restrain.
"Adelina, need we wait any longer?" said the master of the house,
turning an angry eye upon his wife.
"Certainly not--she has had ample time," said Lady Grosville, and rang
the bell beside her.
Suddenly there was a whirlwind of noise in the hall, the angry barking
of a small dog, the sound of a girl's voice laughing and scolding, the
swish of silk skirts. A scandalized butler, obeying Lady Grosville's
summons, threw the door open, and in burst Lady Kitty.
"Oh! I'm so sorry," said the new-comer, in a tone of despair. "But I
couldn't leave him up-stairs, Aunt Lina! He'd eaten one of my shoes, and
begun upon the other. And Julie's afraid of him. He bit her last week.
_May_ he sit on my knee? I know I can keep him quiet!"
[Illustration: "A SLIM GIRL IN WHITE AT THE FAR END OF THE LARGE ROOM"]
Every conversation in the library stopped. Twenty amazed persons turned
to look. They beheld a slim girl in white at the far end of the large
room struggling with a gray terrier puppy which she held under her
left arm, and turning appealing eyes towards Lady Grosville. The dog,
half frightened, half fierce, was barking furiously. Lady Kitty's voice
could hardly be heard through the din, and she was crimson with the
effort to control her charge. Her lips laughed; her eyes implored. And
to add to the effect of the apparition, a marked strangeness of dress
was at once perceived by all the English eyes turned upon her. Lady
Kitty was robed in the extreme of French fashion, which at that moment
was a fashion of flounces; she was much _décolletée;_ and her fair,
abundant hair, carried to a great height, and arranged with a certain
calculated wildness around her small face, was surmounted by a large
scarlet butterfly which shone defiantly against the dark background of
books.
"Kitty!" said Lady Grosville, advancing indignantly, "what a dreadful
noise! Pray give the dog to Parkin at once."
Lady Kitty only held the struggling animal tighter.
"_Please_, Aunt Lina!--I'm afraid he'll bite! But he'll be quite good
with me."
"Why _did_ you bring him, Kitty? We can't have such a creature at
dinner!" said Lady Grosville, angrily.
Lord Grosville advanced behind his wife.
"How do you do, Kitty? Hadn't you better put down the dog and come and
be introduced to Mr. Rankine, who is to take you in to dinner?"
Lady Kitty shook her fair head, but advanced, still clinging to the dog,
gave a smile and a nod to Ashe, and a bow to the young Tory member
presented to her.
"You don't mind him?" she said, a flash of laughter in her dark eyes.
"We'll manage him between us, won't we?"
The young man, dazzled by her prettiness and her strangeness, murmured a
hopeful assent. Lord Grosville, with the air of a man determined on
dinner though the skies fall, offered his arm to Lady Edith Manley, the
wife of the cabinet minister, and made for the dining-room. The stream
of guests followed; when suddenly the puppy, perceiving on the floor a
ball of wool which had rolled out of Lady Grosville's work-table,
escaped in an ecstasy of mischief from his mistress's arm and flew upon
the ball. Kitty rushed after him; the wool first unrolled, then caught;
the table overturned and all its contents were flung pell-mell in the
path of Lady Grosville, who, on the arm of the amused and astonished
minister, was waiting in restrained fury till her guests should pass.
* * * * *
"I shall never get over this," said Lady Kitty, as she leaned back in
her chair, still panting, and quite incapable of eating any of the foods
that were being offered to her in quick succession.
"I don't know that you deserve to," said Ashe, turning a face upon her
which was as grave as he could make it. The attention of every one else
round the room was also in truth occupied with his companion. There was,
indeed, a general buzz of conversation and a general pretence that Lady
Kitty's proceedings might now be ignored. But in reality every guest,
male or female, kept a stealthy watch on the red butterfly and the
sparkling face beneath it; and Ashe was well aware of it.
"I vow it was not my fault," said Kitty, with dignity. "I was not
allowed to have the dog I should have had. You'd never have found a dog
of St. Hubert condescending to bedroom slippers! But as I had to have a
dog--and Colonel Warington gave me this one three days ago--and he has
already ruined half maman's things, and no one could manage him but me,
I just had to bring him, and trust to Providence."
"I have been here a good many times," said Ashe, "and I never yet saw a
dog in the sanctuary. Do you know that Pitt once wrote a speech in the
library?"
"Did he? I'm sure it never made such a stir as Ponto did." Kitty's face
suddenly broke into laughter, and she hid it a moment in her hands.
"You brazen it out," said Ashe; "but how are you going to appease Lady
Grosville?"
Kitty ceased to laugh. She drew herself up, and looked seriously,
observantly at her aunt.
"I don't know. But I must do it somehow. I don't want any more worries."
So changed were her tone and aspect that Ashe turned a friendly
examining look upon her.
"Have you been worried?" he said, in a lower voice.
She shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. But presently she
impatiently reclaimed his attention, snatching him from the lady he had
taken in to dinner, with no scruple at all.
"Will you come a walk with me to-morrow morning?"
"Proud," said Ashe. "What time?"
"As soon as we can get rid of these people," she said, her eye running
round the table. Then as it paused and lingered on the face of Mary
Lyster opposite, she abruptly asked him who that lady might be.
Ashe informed her.
"Your cousin?" she said, looking at him with a slight frown. "Your
cousin? I don't--well, I don't think I shall like her."
"That's a great pity," said Ashe.
"For me?" she said, distrustfully.
"For both, of course! My mother's very fond of Miss Lyster. She's often
with us."
"Oh!" said Kitty, and looked again at the face opposite. Then he heard
her say behind her fan, half to herself and half to him:
"She does not interest me in the least! She has no ideas! I'm sure she
has no ideas. Has she?"
She turned abruptly to Ashe.
"Every one calls her very clever."
Kitty looked contempt.
"That's nothing to do with it. It's not the clever people who have
ideas."
Ashe bantered her a little on the meaning of her words, till he
presently found that she was too young and unpractised to be able to
take his thrusts and return them, with equanimity. She could make a
daring sally or reply; but it was still the raw material of
conversation; it wanted ease and polish. And she was evidently conscious
of it herself, for presently her cheek flushed and her manner wavered.
"I suppose you--everybody--thinks her very agreeable?" she said,
sharply, her eyes returning to Miss Lyster.
"She is a most excellent gossip," said Ashe. "I always go to her for the
news."
Kitty glanced again.
"I can see that already she detests me."
"In half an hour?"
The girl nodded.
"She has looked at me twice--about. But she has made up her mind--and
she never changes." Then with an abrupt alteration of note she looked
round the room. "I suppose your English dining-rooms are all like this?
One might be sitting in a hearse. And the pictures--no! _Quelles
horreurs_!"
She raised her shoulders again impetuously, frowning at a huge
full-length opposite of Lord Grosville as M.F.H., a masterpiece indeed
of early Victorian vulgarity.
Then suddenly, hastily, with that flashing softness which so often
transformed her expression, she turned towards him, trying to make
amends.
"But the library--that was _bien_--ah! _tr-rès, tr-rès_ bien_!"
Her r's rolled a little as she spoke, with a charming effect, and she
looked at him radiantly, as though to strike and to make amends were
equally her prerogative, and she asked no man's leave.
"You've not yet seen what there is to see here," said Ashe, smiling.
"Look behind you."
The girl turned her slim neck and exclaimed. For behind Ashe's chair was
the treasure of the house. It was a "Dance of Children," by one of the
most famous of the eighteenth-century masters. From the dark wall it
shone out with a flower-like brilliance, a vision of color and of grace.
The children danced through a golden air, their bodies swaying to one of
those "unheard melodies" of art, sweeter than all mortal tunes; their
delicate faces alive with joy. The sky and grass and trees seemed to
caress them; a soft sunlight clothed them; and flowers brushed their
feet.
Kitty turned back again and was silent. Was it Ashe's fancy, or had she
grown pale?
"Did you like it?" he asked her. She turned to him, and for the second
time in their acquaintance he saw her eyes floating in tears.
"It is too beautiful!" she said, with an effort--almost an angry effort.
"I don't want to see it again."
"I thought it would give you pleasure," said Ashe, gently, suddenly
conscious of a hope that she was not aware of the slight look of
amusement with which Mary Lyster was contemplating them both.
"So it did," said Kitty, furtively applying her lace handkerchief to her
tears; "but"--her voice dropped--"when one's unhappy--very
unhappy--things like that--things like _Heaven_--hurt! Oh, what a _fool_
I am!" And she sat straightly up, looking round her.
There was a pause; then Ashe said, in another voice:
"Look here, you know this won't do. I thought we were to be cousins."
"Well?" said Kitty, indifferently, not looking at him.
"And I understood that I was to be taken into respectable cousinly
counsel?"
"Well?" said Kitty again, crumbling her bread. "I can't do it here, can
I?"
Ashe laughed.
"Well, anyhow, we're going to sample the garden to-morrow morning,
aren't we?"
"I suppose so," said Kitty. Then, after a moment, she looked at her
right-hand neighbor, the young politician to whom as yet she had
scarcely vouchsafed a word.
"What's his name?" she asked, under her breath. Ashe repeated it.
"Perhaps I ought to talk to him?"
"Of course you ought," said Ashe, with smiling decision, and turning to
the lady whom he had brought in he left her free.
* * * * *
When the ladies rose, Lady Grosville led the way to the large
drawing-room, a room which, like the library, had some character, and a
thin elegance of style, not, however, warmed and harmonized by the
delightful presence of books. The walls, blue and white in color, were
panelled in stucco relief. A few family portraits, stiff handlings of
stiff people, were placed each in the exact centre of its respective
panel. There were a few cases of china and a few polished tables. A
crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its
"cheerfulness," covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin
rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots, and the bright fire
supplied the only gay and living notes--before the ladies arrived.
Still, for an English eye, the room had a certain cold charm, was
moreover full of _history_. It hardly deserved at any rate the shiver
with which Kitty Bristol looked round it.
But she had little time to dwell upon the room and its meanings, for
Lady Grosville approached her with a manner which still showed signs of
the catastrophe before dinner.
"Kitty, I think you don't know Miss Lyster yet--Mary Lyster--she wants
to be introduced to you."
Mary advanced smiling; Kitty held out a limp hand, and they exchanged a
few words standing in the centre of the floor, while the other guests
found seats.
"What a charming contrast!" said Lady Edith Manley in Lady Grosville's
ear. She nodded smiling towards the standing pair--struck by the fine
straight lines of Mary's satin dress, the roundness of her fine figure,
the oval of her head and face, and then by the little, vibrating,
tempestuous creature beside her, so distinguished, in spite of the
billowing flounces and ribbons, so direct and significant, amid all the
elaboration.
"Kitty is ridiculously overdressed," said Lady Grosville. "I hope we
shall soon change that. My girls are going to take her to their woman."
Lady Edith put up her eye-glass slowly and looked at the two Grosville
girls; then back at Kitty.
Meanwhile a few perfunctory questions and answers were passing between
Miss Lyster and her companion. Mary's aspect as she talked was extremely
amiable; one might have called it indulgent, perhaps even by an
adjective that implied a yet further shade of delicate superiority.
Kitty met it by the same "grand manner" that Ashe had several times
observed in her, a manner caught perhaps from some French model, and
caricatured in the taking. Her eyes meanwhile took note of Mary's face
and dress, and while she listened her small teeth tormented her
under-lip, as though she restrained impatience. All at once in the midst
of some information that Miss Lyster was lucidly giving, Kitty made an
impetuous turn. She had caught some words on the farther side of the
room; and she looked hard, eagerly, at the speaker.
"Who is that?" she inquired.
Mary Lyster, with a sharp sense of interruption, replied that she
believed the lady in question was the Grosville's French governess. But
in the very midst of her sentence Kitty deserted her, left her standing
in the centre of the drawing-room, while the deserter fled across it,
and sinking down beside the astonished mademoiselle took the
Frenchwoman's hand by assault and held it in both her own.
"Vous parlez Français?--vous êtes Française? Ah! ça me fait tant de
bien! Voyons! voyons!--causons un peu!"
And bending forward, she broke into a cataract of French, all the
elements of her strange, small beauty rushing, as it were, into flame
and movement at the swift sound and cadence of the words, like a dancer
kindled by music. The occasion was of the slightest; the Frenchwoman
might well show a natural bewilderment. But into the slight occasion the
girl threw an animation, a passion, that glorified it. It was like the
leap of a wild rain-stream on the mountains, that pours into the first
channel which presents itself.
"What beautiful French!" said Lady Edith, softly, to Mary Lyster, who
had found a seat beside her.
Mary Lyster smiled.
"She has been at school, of course, in a French convent." Somehow the
tone implied that the explanation disposed of all merit in the
performance.
"I am afraid these French convent schools are not at all what they
should be," said Lady Grosville.
And rising to a pyramidal height, her ample moiré dress swelling behind
her, her gray head magnificently crowned by its lace cap and black
velvet _bandeau_, she swept across the room to where the Dean's wife,
Mrs. Winston, sat in fascinated silence observing Lady Kitty. The
silence and the attention annoyed her hostess. The first thing to be
done with girls of this type, it seemed to Lady Grosville, was to prove
to them that they would _not_ be allowed to monopolize society.
* * * * *
There are natural monopolies, however, and they are not easy to deal
with.
As soon as the gentlemen returned, Mr. Rankine, whom she had treated so
badly at dinner, the young agent of the estate, the clergyman of the
parish, the Austrian attaché, the cabinet minister, and the Dean, all
showed a strong inclination to that side of the room which seemed to be
held in force by Lady Kitty. The Dean especially was not to be gainsaid.
He placed himself in the seat shyly vacated by the French governess, and
crossed his thin, stockinged legs with the air of one who means to take
his ease. There was even a certain curious resemblance between him and
Kitty, as was noticed from a distance by Ashe. The Dean, who was very
much a man of the world, and came of an historic family, was, in his
masculine degree, planned on the same miniature scale and with the same
fine finish as the girl of eighteen. And he carried his knee-breeches,
his apron, and his exquisite white head with a natural charm and energy
akin to hers--mellowed though it were by time, and dignified by office.
He began eagerly to talk to her of Paris. His father had been
ambassador for a time under Louis Philippe, and he had boyish memories
of the great house in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and of the Orleanist
ministers and men of letters. And lo! Kitty met him at once, in a glow
and sparkle that enchanted the old man. Moreover, it appeared that this
much-beflounced young lady could talk; that she had heard of the famous
names and the great affairs to which the Dean made allusion; that she
possessed indeed a native and surprising interest in matter of the sort;
and a manner, above all, with the old, alternately soft and daring,
calculated, as Lady Grosville would no doubt have put it, merely to make
fools of them.
In her cousins' house, it seemed, she had talked with old people,
survivors of the Orleanist and Bourbon régimes--even of the Empire; had
sat at their feet, a small, excited hero-worshipper; and had then rushed
blindly into the memoirs and books that concerned them. So, in this
French world the child had found time for other things than hunting, and
the flattery of her cousin Henri? Ashe was supposed to be devoting
himself to the Dean's wife; but both he and she listened most of the
time to the sallies and the laughter of the circle where Kitty presided.
"My dear young lady," cried the delighted Dean, "I never find anybody
who can talk of these things--it is really astonishing. Ah, _now_, we
English know nothing of France--nor they of us. Why, I was a mere
school-boy then, and I had a passion for their society, and their
books--for their _plays_--dare I confess it?"--he lowered his voice and
glanced at his hostess--"their plays, above all!"
Kitty clapped her hands. The Dean looked at her, and ran on:
"My mother shared it. When I came over for my Eton holidays, she and I
lived at the Théâtre-Français. Ah, those were days! _I_ remember
Mademoiselle Mars in 'Hernani.'"
Kitty bounded in her seat. Whereupon it appeared that just before she
left Paris she had been taken by a friend to see the reigning idol of
the Comédie-Française, the young and astonishing actress, Sarah
Bernhardt, as Doña Sol. And there began straightway an excited duet
between her and the Dean; a comparison of old and new, a rivalry of
heroines, a hot and critical debate that presently silenced all other
conversation in the room, and brought Lord Grosville to stand gaping and
astounded behind the Dean, reflecting no doubt that this was not
precisely the Dean of the Diocesan Conference.
The old man indeed forgot his age, the girl her youth; they met as
equals, on poetic ground, till suddenly Kitty, springing up, and to
prove her point, began an imitation of Sarah in the great love-scene of
the last act, before arresting fate, in the person of Don Ruy, breaks in
upon the rapture of the lovers. She absolutely forgot the Grosville
drawing-room, the staring Grosville girls, the other faces, astonished
or severe, neutral or friendly. Out rolled the tide of tragic verse,
fine poetry, and high passion; and though it be not very much to say, it
must at least be said that never had such recitation, in such French,
been heard before within the walls of Grosville Park. Nor had the lips
of any English girl ever dealt there with a poetic diction so
unchastened and unashamed. Lady Grosville might well feel as though the
solid frame of things were melting and cracking round her.
Kitty ceased. She fell back upon her chair, smitten with a sudden
perception.
"You made me!" she said, reproachfully, to the Dean.
The Dean said another "Brava!" and gave another clap. Then, becoming
aware of Lord Grosville's open mouth and eye, he sat up, caught his
wife's expression, and came back to prose and the present.
"My dear young lady," he began, "you have the most extraordinary
talent--" when Lady Grosville advanced upon him. Standing before him,
she majestically signalled to her husband across his small person.
"William, kindly order Mrs. Wilson's carriage."
Lord Grosville awoke from his stupor with a jerk, and did as he was
told. Mrs. Wilson, the agent's timid wife, who was not at all aware that
she had asked for her carriage, rose obediently. Then the mistress of
the house turned to Lady Kitty.
"You recite very well, Kitty," she said, with cold and stately emphasis,
"but another time I will ask you to confine yourself to Racine and
Corneille. In England we have to be very careful about French writers.
There are, however, if I remember right, some fine passages in
'Athalie.'"
Kitty said nothing. The Austrian attaché who had been following the
little incident with the liveliest interest, retired to a close
inspection of the china. But the Dean, whose temper was of the quick and
chivalrous kind, was roused.
"She recites wonderfully! And Victor Hugo is a classic, please, my
lady--just as much as the rest of them. Ah, well, no doubt, no doubt,
there might be things more suitable." And the old man came wavering down
to earth, as the enthusiasm which Kitty had breathed into him escaped,
like the gas from a balloon. "But, do you know, Lady Kitty "--he struck
into a new subject with eagerness, partly to cover the girl, partly to
silence Lady Grosville--"you reminded me all the time so remarkably--in
your voice--certain inflections--of your sister--your step-sister, isn't
it?--Lady Alice? You know, of course, she is close to you to-day--just
the other side the park--with the Sowerbys?"
The Dean's wife sprang to her feet in despair. In general it was to her
a matter for fond complacency that her husband had no memory for gossip,
and was in such matters as innocent and as dangerous as a child. But
this was too much. At the same moment Ashe came quickly forward.
"My sister?" said Kitty. "My sister?"
She spoke low and uncertainly, her eyes fixed upon the Dean.
He looked at her with a sudden odd sense of something unusual, then went
on, still floundering:
"We met her at St. Pancras on our way down. If I had only known we were
to have had the pleasure of meeting you--Do you know, I think she is
looking decidedly better?"
His kindly expression as he rose expected a word of sisterly assent.
Meanwhile even Lady Grosville was paralyzed, and the words with which
she had meant to interpose failed on her lips.
Kitty, too, rose, looking round for something, which she seemed to find
in the face of William Ashe, for her eyes clung there.
"My sister," she repeated, in the same low, strained voice. "My sister
Alice? I--I don't know. I have never seen her."
* * * * *
Ashe could not remember afterwards precisely how the incident closed.
There was a bustle of departing guests, and from the midst of it Lady
Kitty slipped away. But as he came down-stairs in smoking trim, ten
minutes later, he overheard the injured Dean wrestling with his wife, as
she lit a candle for him on the landing.
"My dear, what did you look at me like that for? What did the child
mean? And what on _earth_ is the matter?"
IV
After the ladies had gone to bed, on the night of Lady Kitty's
recitation, William Ashe stayed up till past midnight talking with old
Lord Grosville. When relieved of the presence of his women-kind, who
were apt either to oppress him, in the person of his wife, or to puzzle
him, in the persons of his daughters, Lord Grosville was not by any
means without value as a talker. He possessed that narrow but still most
serviceable fund of human experience which the English land-owner, while
our English tradition subsists, can hardly escape, if he will. As
guardsman, volunteer, magistrate, lord-lieutenant, member--for the sake
of his name and his acres--of various important commissions, as military
_attaché_ even, for a short space, to an important embassy, he had
acquired, by mere living, that for which his intellectual betters had
often envied him--a certain shrewdness, a certain instinct, as to both
men and affairs, which were often of more service to him than finer
brains to other persons. But, like most accomplishments, these also
brought their own conceit with them. Lord Grosville having, in his own
opinion, done extremely well without much book education himself, had
but little appreciation for it in others.
Nevertheless he rarely missed a chance of conversation with William
Ashe, not because the younger man, in spite of his past indolence, was
generally held to be both able and accomplished, but because the elder
found in him an invincible taste for men and women, their fortunes,
oddities, catastrophes--especially the latter--similar to his own.
Like Mary Lyster, both were good gossips; but of a much more
disinterested type than she. Women indeed as gossips are too apt to
pursue either the damnation of some one else or the apotheosis of
themselves. But here the stupider no less than the abler man showed a
certain broad detachment not very common in women--amused by the human
comedy itself, making no profit out of it, either for themselves or
morals, but asking only that the play should go on.
The incident, or rather the heroine of the evening, had given Lord
Grosville a topic which in the case of William Ashe he saw no reason for
avoiding; and in the peace of the smoking-room, when he was no longer
either hungry for his dinner or worried by his responsibilities as host,
he fell upon his wife's family, and, as though he had been the manager
of a puppet-show, unpacked the whole box of them for Ashe's
entertainment.
Figure after figure emerged, one more besmirched than another, till
finally the most beflecked of all was shaken out and displayed--Lady
Grosville's brother and Kitty's father, the late Lord Blackwater. And on
this occasion Ashe did not try to escape the story which was thus a
second time brought across him. Lord Grosville, if he pleased, had a
right to tell it, and there was now a curious feeling in Ashe's mind
which had been entirely absent before, that he had, in some sort, a
right to hear it.
Briefly, the outlines of it fell into something like this shape: Henry,
fifth Earl of Blackwater, had begun life as an Irish peer, with more
money than the majority of his class; an initial advantage soon undone
by an insane and unscrupulous extravagance. He was, however, a fine,
handsome, voracious gentleman, born to prey upon his kind, and when he
looked for an heiress he was not long in finding her. His first wife, a
very rich woman, bore him one daughter. Before the daughter was three
years old, Lord Blackwater had developed a sturdy hatred of the mother,
chiefly because she failed to present him with a son; and he could not
even appease himself by the free spending of her money, which, so far as
the capital was concerned, was sharply looked after by a pair of
trustees, Belfast manufacturers and Presbyterians, to whom the
Blackwater type was not at all congenial.
These restrictions presently wore out Lord Blackwater's patience. He
left his wife, with a small allowance, to bring up her daughter in one
of his Irish houses, while he generously spent the rest of her large
income, and his own, and a great deal besides, in London and on the
Continent.