SIR NUGENT EVERSHED.
If Cecil had sighed for a life which should be a complete change from
the dull round of existence in Brunswick Square, she could not have
found any where a more perfect realisation of her desire than was to
be found at Pevenshall Place. Here, from the ten-o'clock breakfast
to the abnormally late hour at which the last lingerers in the big
drawing-room took their reluctant departure, the order of the day was
gaiety. Florence devoted herself to one incessant round of amusement,
and her visitors seemed nothing loth to follow her example. Amidst the
pleasant frivolities of Pevenshall, it was almost difficult to remember
that there was any portion of this universe in which "men must work
and women must weep," and that reasonable beings were created for any
graver purpose than the playing of billiards, the acting of charades,
and the composition of _bouts rimés_.
Cecil would fain have seen a little more of her old friend, and in some
manner renewed the confidential intimacy that had existed between them
before Flo's marriage, but Mrs. Lobyer gave her visitor no opportunity
for confidential conversation. She was very affectionate; she was full
of anxiety for her friend's comfort and enjoyment, but she avoided all
chances of a _tête-à-tête_, and seemed to have a nervous terror of
being questioned about herself. Perceiving this, Cecil began to fear
that Florence Lobyer's life was not entirely happy, in spite of its
incessant gaiety.
"You had a pleasant tour, I hope, Flory," she said one day when they
were alone for a few minutes.
"Oh yes, we tore about Europe as fast as express-trains and post-horses
could take us, and we spent a few weeks in Paris on our way home. Paris
is a nice place for shopping. I believe I wasted a small fortune on the
boulevards and in the Rue de la Paix; for Mr. Lobyer made quite a wry
face when he saw my bills. We drove in the Bois a great deal, and went
to a few nice parties, and ate a good many expensive dinners, and went
several times to the opera; where Mr. Lobyer slept very comfortably,
and where I amused myself by looking at the diamonds, and mentally
comparing them with my own. I only saw two people whose jewelry was
worth mentioning, and they were a Russian princess and a French
actress. Yes, on the whole, I think we had a very pleasant tour. And
now tell me about Mr. O'Boyneville. Are you happy with him?"
"Yes, dear, I have every reason to be happy, for he is very kind to me."
"And you really like him?"
"I really like him very much indeed."
This was the nearest approach to a confidential conversation that
occurred between Florence and her friend during the first week of
Cecil's visit.
The days passed very quickly, the evenings were delightful, and it was
not often that even the most transient cloud obscured the brightness
of Mrs. Lobyer's countenance. The master of Pevenshall inflicted very
little of his society upon the guests who enjoyed themselves in his
mansion. There were two or three horsey-looking men and two or three
commercial magnates with whom he chiefly consorted. His mornings were
spent in hunting when the weather was favourable, or in lounging
about the great quadrangle, surrounded by outbuildings and stables,
examining his horses, presiding over a rat-hunt, or worrying his dogs,
when the hounds and huntsmen were fain to be idle. His evenings were
devoted to the society of his own particular friends in the billiard
or smoking-rooms; and except at dinner-time, he rarely intruded on his
wife's circle.
After observing her friend for some time with affectionate anxiety,
Cecil began to think that perhaps the life which the painter's daughter
had chosen for herself was very well suited to her.
"Why do I wonder about her?" Cecil thought, as she saw Mrs. Lobyer the
gayest and most animated of all the Pevenshall party; "she possesses
every thing which most women sigh for from the hour in which they leave
the nursery, and it would be strange indeed if she were not happy."
But then came the thought of the future. Must not the time come when
the pleasures of a fine house and agreeable society must pall upon
the mistress of Pevenshall? Four or five years hence, when custom had
robbed these joys of their bloom and freshness, was it not terribly
probable that Mr. Lobyer's wife would awaken to nobler aspirations,
only to find that she had awakened too late? Then how commonplace and
monotonous the unvarying round of country-house gaieties, the turmoil
of London dissipations, must seem to the woman who had made it the
business of her life to win them!
"She is younger than I am, and she does not know how soon one grows
tired of these things," thought Cecil. "I have sometimes thought, when
driving up and down by the Serpentine with my aunt, that the treadmill
could scarcely be worse than the Lady's Mile must be to women who have
lived ten or fifteen years in society, and have gone through the same
routine year after year."
On the twenty-fourth of December a letter came from Mr. O'Boyneville,
announcing his inability to spend Christmas at Pevenshall.
"I have made a great effort to come to you, but I find my work for
Hilary Term so heavy that I dare not turn my back upon my study. You
would scarcely like to see my crimson bag in the Pevenshall library,
and if I came I should be obliged to bring my bag with me. So enjoy
yourself without me, my dear, and forget that there is such a person as
Laurence O'Boyneville in existence."
"He is not jealous, at any rate," said Flo, after hearing this part
of the letter: "what a blessing it is to have a husband who is not
afflicted with a jealous disposition! If Mr. Lobyer were to see me
flirting with half-a-dozen people at once, I don't think the spectacle
would disturb the serenity of his mind."
"You speak as if you wished to make him jealous, Flo."
"Well, I don't know about that. Sometimes, perhaps, I really do wish to
make him--something. You don't know how provoking those husbands who
are not jealous can be. If Mr. Lobyer only watched me as closely as he
watches the money-market, he would be a perfect Othello."
"But you cannot be displeased with him for devoting himself very much
to business, Flo," argued Cecil; "for all the luxury and splendour of
this house are the fruits of his commercial successes."
"Now you're going to lecture me," exclaimed Florence impatiently.
"While I was engaged to Mr. Lobyer, every body seemed to take a delight
in abusing him; but now I'm married to him, people preach about him as
if he were a saint. Even papa, who was so much against my marriage,
never writes to me without some little bit of preachment about my
duties as a wife. I don't set up for being a model wife; and if Mr.
Lobyer is satisfied with me, I really can't see what right other people
have to interfere."
After this Florence apologised for her impatience, and embraced her
dearest Cecil after her wont.
"And now, darling, I want you to come and walk on the terrace with me.
It's a delightful morning, more like October than December; and we'll
leave all those worsted-working and piano-strumming people in the
drawing-room to amuse themselves. Run and put on your warmest shawl.
I'll wait for you here."
This conversation had taken place in the morning-room, where Cecil had
found Mrs. Lobyer alone for once in a way an hour after breakfast. Flo
was already dressed for walking in a coquettish black-velvet jacket,
trimmed with chinchilla, and a bewitching little hat, adorned with a
peacock's breast.
Mrs. Lobyer was dressed more carefully than she was wont to attire
herself for a walk on the terrace. Her dark-grey poplin dress was
looped up on each side, revealing a glimpse of a scarlet-cloth
petticoat, a pair of miraculous boots, and the faintest scintillation
of grey-silk stockings. Her little gauntlet-shaped gloves were the
prettiest that ever came from the hands of a glovemaker, and fitted
to perfection. Her hair was tied in a clustering knot, which was the
perfection of artistic carelessness, and one little bit of turquoise
blue ribbon peeped from amidst the gold-coloured tresses.
"I think even papa would confess I had some idea of colour if he saw
me to-day," said Mrs. Lobyer, as she mounted a little ottoman and
surveyed herself in a Venetian mirror framed in the cedar-panelling. "I
discovered the value of greys and scarlets from one of his pictures.
I'm sure I don't know why I should have taken pains with my dress this
morning: but one must amuse oneself somehow or other."
Mrs. Lobyer smothered a little yawn with the fingers of her pearl-grey
gloves, and went to one of the windows whence there was to be seen a
sunlit winter landscape, with all the varying beauties of light and
shadow playing upon hill and dale, and wood and water, which made the
prospect from the south front of Pevenshall Place one of the finest
views in the North Riding.
Cecil joined her friend a few minutes afterwards, and the two ladies
went out upon the terrace, where they met Mr. Lobyer, who was hurrying
towards the steps leading to the carriage-drive with a railway rug on
his arm.
"You are going away?" asked Flo, politely.
"Yes. I find I must run to Manchester this morning. I shall be back in
time for dinner to-morrow."
"You will travel on Christmas-day?" exclaimed Flo, with a slight
elevation of her eyebrows.
"Why not on that day as well as any other?" said Mr. Lobyer coolly. "Do
you think I am to stop my business because people choose to over-eat
themselves with beef and pudding on the twenty-fifth of December?
Good-bye, Flo: I've only half an hour for the drive."
The millionaire brushed his wife's forehead with his bushy moustache,
and then ran down the steps, where an American gig with a high-stepping
horse and a miniature tiger were in attendance upon him. In this airy
equipage Mr. Lobyer was borne along the avenue as on the wings of the
winter wind; and, seen from a distance, presented an appearance of
high-stepping horse, man, and high wheels, without any superfluous
encumbrance in the way of vehicle.
"And now let us enjoy ourselves and have some nice talk," said Flo,
when she had stood for a few moments watching her vanishing lord and
master with eyes which did not ever express that spurious kind of
interest called curiosity. "Your bonnet is very pretty. How do you like
my hat?"
After this lively commencement the conversation flagged a little. When
people deliberately set themselves to talk, they are apt to be seized
with a kind of mental paralysis, which deprives them, for the time
being, of the faculty of intelligent speech. The two ladies walked
briskly up and down the long stone-terrace, and a delicate flush
deepened in Mrs. Lobyer's cheeks, and heightened the brilliancy of her
eyes. The great clock in the quadrangle had struck twelve as Mr. Lobyer
departed; but that gentleman had scarcely been absent ten minutes
when Florence produced her watch, and consulted it as carefully as if
she had been one of the Manchester men in whose society Mr. Lobyer
delighted.
The two ladies walked several times up and down the terrace; but in
spite of Cecil's efforts the conversation still flagged. When Cecil
admired the view, Mrs. Lobyer owned that it was charming--while the
magic of novelty lasted.
"One gets used to it," Flo said indifferently. "I dare say if people
could live on the summit of the Matterhorn, they would get used to
that, and think very little of it. When first I came here I used to
look out of my dressing-room window and admire the prospect while
Carstairs was dressing my hair; and now I take no more notice of the
view than if I were living in Russell Square."
After this Mrs. Lobyer relapsed into silence; and perceiving that she
was preoccupied, Cecil abandoned herself to her own meditations, though
not without some wonderment as to why Flo had made such a point of
bringing her out on the terrace when she had nothing particular to say
to her.
They had walked for some time in silence, when the sound of horses'
hoofs upon the hard carriage-drive made them both look up. The pretty
pink flush deepened ever so little on Mrs. Lobyer's cheeks as a
horseman, followed by his groom, rode rapidly towards the terrace steps.
"It is Sir Nugent Evershed," said Flo; "now, Cecil, you are going to
see one of the best men of the country--enormous wealth, without the
faintest association with the money-market,--and oh, how delightful
money without the market must be!--and an interminable line of
ancestors; though, if ancestors didn't generally reveal themselves in
high insteps, aquiline noses, and taper fingers, I shouldn't set any
particular value upon _them_."
All this was said very rapidly, very gaily, very lightly; but lightly
as it was said, Lady Cecil wondered a little at the warmth of Mrs.
Lobyer's complexion and the new brightness in Mrs. Lobyer's eyes.
Sir Nugent Evershed surrendered his horse to the groom at the bottom
of the terrace-steps, and came on foot to greet the ladies. He was
one of those rare exotics--those hothouse flowers in the garden of
youth--which, so long as grace and beauty are worshipped upon the
earth, will always find tender cherishers, even though some drops of
subtile poison mingle with the perfume,--even though a base of clay
sustain the torso of the god.
He was the very pink and pattern of the _jeunesse dorée_, the type
of man that has appeared with but little variation of form in every
century; the Alcibiades, the Essex, the Cinq Mars, the George Villiers,
the handsome Lord Hervey, the butterfly whose gilded wings excite the
indignation of wiser men, but who laughs at their wisdom and defies
their scorn, serene in the enjoyment of his butterfly triumphs.
Sir Nugent was fair, with blue eyes and pale-amber moustache and
whiskers. The Alcibiades of the present day is generally of a fair
complexion, and our friends on the other side of the Channel may talk
now of the _blonde meesters_ as well as the _blonde meess_ of the
_brumeuse Angleterre_.
Florence introduced Cecil to the elegant young Baronet, who seemed
on very familiar terms with Mrs. Lobyer. He entreated the ladies to
continue their walk, and strolled up and down the terrace with them.
"I will go and look for Lobyer presently," he said. "I suppose I shall
find him somewhere about the house or stable, as it is scarcely a
hunting morning."
"You will not find Mr. Lobyer till to-morrow," answered Flo; "he has
gone to Manchester."
"Again! What an extraordinary attachment he has for Manchester! I never
cared much myself for the Cottonopolis; it seems to me London without
the West-end."
After this Sir Nugent made himself eminently agreeable. The butterfly
of the nineteenth century must not be altogether a foolish butterfly;
for the gentler sex, whose suffrages he courts, are very far in advance
of the Belindas and Saccharissas of the past. Sir Nugent had been to
every place that was worth a gentleman's visiting, and seen every
thing worth seeing, and read almost every book worth reading. He was
a proficient in all gentlemanly sports; at nine years of age he had
"passed" as a swimmer at Eton, and at nineteen had been stroke-oar
in one of the Oxford boats. He was as much at home deer-stalking and
eagle-shooting in the Highlands as he was in the West-end clubs, and
his only effeminacy consisted in the whiteness of his hands and the
careful tastes of his costume.
The two ladies and the baronet went into the house presently, and
made their way to the drawing-room, where Sir Nugent was welcomed
with universal cordiality. He had a cousin staying in the house, a
fast young lady with out-of-door propensities,--a young lady who wore
clump-soles to her boots, defied wet weather, and unblushingly consumed
a whole grouse at the breakfast-table before the face of mankind.
A young lady whose mother is a county heiress, and whose paternal
ancestors have been drawn and quartered in the dark ages, may venture
to take life after her own fashion.
Sir Nugent stayed to luncheon, and Sir Nugent lingered in the great
drawing-room all through the winter afternoon. In the twilight Florence
asked her friend for a little Mendelssohn; and while Cecil played the
tender music the baronet and Mrs. Lobyer stood in a bay-window near
the piano, talking in hushed voices attuned to the pensive melody.
There were a good many people in the room; but it was a dangerously
spacious apartment, in which conversation was apt to degenerate into
_tête-à-tête_. When lamps were brought, the party of ladies, with Sir
Nugent and two or three other gentlemen amongst them, adjourned to the
morning-room to take tea; and still the Baronet lingered, assisting in
the dispensing of the cups and making himself eminently useful to Mrs.
Lobyer.
"Thank Heaven, we are drifting back into the cosy ways of our
ancestors," he said, as he leant against the corner of the mantelpiece
nearest Flo's chair. "This ante-prandial tea is the most delightful
invention, and if we could only bring ourselves to dispense with the
dinner, how very agreeable our lives would be! Do you expect to see Mr.
Lobyer this evening?" he asked Florence.
"I think not. He talked about coming back to-morrow."
"On Christmas-day! Ah, well, I suppose there is no Christmas for
millionaires. Imagine the Marquis of Westminster eating turkey, and
calling it Christmas! He could have turkeys all the year round. He
might have a dish made of the tongues of a thousand turkeys on his
breakfast-table every morning if he liked. There can be no such thing
as change of season for the millionaire. His house is warmed from roof
to basement with hot-air pipes, and he has peaches all the year round.
I should like to have seen Lobyer to-day, and I have inflicted myself
upon you most shamefully in the hope of seeing him."
"I don't believe Nugent ever thought himself an infliction in the
whole course of his life," cried the fast young lady cousin. "He is the
vainest of men, and thinks that we ought all to be intensely grateful
for having enjoyed the privilege of his society. All the girls in the
North Riding spoil him, because he happens to be the most eligible
bachelor on hand now that Lord Loncesvalle has married. I remember
Lord Loncesvalle--such an elegant young fellow, when he was canvassing
the Conservative interest for Chiverley. And I really think I wrote
poetical squibs against his opponents. Pray run away, Nugent. It's no
use your staying, for Mrs. Lobyer can't ask you to dinner in that coat;
and it is time for us all to dress. Don't forget to write to Jeffs for
the comedy we want to play on the 16th of January. Remember, you are to
be the Marquis, and we must form a committee for the discussion of the
costumes early next week."
"I will ride over the day after to-morrow," answered Sir Nugent; "and I
will bring the piece with me."
He bent over Florence to shake hands and say good-bye, and there was
in that adieu just the faintest suspicion of a something beyond the
routine of ordinary acquaintance. He shook hands with his cousin, and
went through a little fernery that opened from the morning-room and led
out upon the terrace, below which his groom had been pacing up and down
for the last half-hour leading the two horses.
It was a clear moonlight night, and Miss Grace Evershed went to one of
the windows to watch her cousin's departure.
"Nugent must find our society amazingly delightful, or he would never
have allowed Pyramus to wait half-an-hour in the cold," cried the young
lady. "He is generally so absurdly particular about his horses--and
Pyramus is a recent acquisition. I think Nugent gave something between
four and five hundred for him."
Cecil and Florence went up to their rooms together that night, and Flo
followed her friend into the pretty little boudoir, where a red fire
was burning with a frosty brightness.
"You are not sleepy, are you, Cecil!"
"No, dear, not in the least."
"Then if you've no objection I'll stop for a few minutes," said Flo,
seating herself in one of the pretty chintz-cushioned easy-chairs, and
playing with a Chinese hand-screen. "For my own part I never feel so
thoroughly awake as at this time of night. I think if people sat up for
eight-and-forty hours at a stretch, they would go on getting brighter
and brighter. As it is, we chop our lives up into such little bits,
and are seldom either quite awake or quite asleep. How do you like Sir
Nugent Evershed?"
The question was asked very carelessly, and the questioner's eyes were
fixed upon the fire.
"I really don't know him well enough either to like or dislike him,"
Cecil answered.
"Nonsense, Cecil! that's a lawyer's answer. Women always jump at
conclusions, and I have no doubt you have jumped at yours in this case.
You couldn't be half-a-dozen hours in Sir Nugent's society without
forming some opinion about him."
"Well, dear, I think he is very handsome."
"Do you?" said Flo, lifting her eyebrows, and shrugging her shoulders.
"Well, yes, I suppose he is what most people would call handsome."
"But you don't call him so?"
"Well, no; I have seen handsomer men. But what do you think of
_him_--his manners--himself, in short?" Flo asked rather impatiently.
"I think he is exactly like a great many other young men I have
seen----"
"Good gracious me!" cried Flo, this time very impatiently, "do you
mean to tell me that the generality of young men are as elegant and
accomplished as Sir Nugent Evershed?"
"No, I don't mean to say that exactly. But I think the generality of
young men in the present day are very accomplished. They all travel a
great deal; they all read, they----"
"Cecil, if you're going to talk like a blue-book, or a statistical
paper, I shall go away. I see you don't like Sir Nugent."
"My dear girl, I never said any thing of the kind. I only say that
he seems to me like a great many young men I have seen. Rather more
handsome, and rather more accomplished, and rather more elegant than
the generality of them perhaps, but only differing from them in degree.
Is he a great friend of Mr. Lobyer's?"
"Yes," Flo answered, still looking at the fire; "they are very
intimate. Are not those pretty tiles, Cecil?" she asked, suddenly
turning her eyes on the encaustic tiles that surrounded the grate. "I
chose the design myself. The architect had put a bronze stove into
this room, and it was to be heated with hot-air pipes! Imagine a
boudoir heated with hot-air pipes! I think when one feels particularly
miserable there is nothing so consoling as a cosy fire. A soothing
influence seems to creep over one as one sits in the twilight, looking
into red coals. And how, in goodness' name, could one sit and stare at
pipes? I suppose architects never are unhappy."
This speech seemed to imply that unhappiness was not altogether a
stranger to Mrs. Lobyer. But Cecil did not take any notice of the
remark. When a young lady chooses to marry as Florence Crawford
had married, the wisest course for her friends is to ignore the
peculiarities of her lot, and to take it for granted that she is happy.
"Yes," Flo said, after a pause, "Sir Nugent and Mr. Lobyer are very
intimate; and there is something almost romantic in the circumstances
of their friendship. They were at Eton together; they were of the same
age, in the same class, and they lived in the same house; but they
were the most bitter foes. There was quite a Corsican vendetta between
them. Sir Nugent represented the aristocratic party, Mr. Lobyer the
commercial faction. They were the Guelphs and Ghibellines of the form.
Of course, under these circumstances, they were perpetually fighting,
for it really seems that the chief business of Eton boys is to fight
and play cricket. One day, however, they had a desperate battle in a
place called Sixpenny, though why Sixpenny is more than I can tell
you. The fight was going against Mr. Lobyer--for I believe Sir Nugent
is enormously strong, though he looks so slender--and the backers were
persuading him to take a licking--that's the Eton term, I believe, for
giving in; but he wouldn't give in: and while they were wrestling, he
took a knife from his trousers-pocket, and stabbed Sir Nugent in the
arm. It wasn't much of a stab, I believe, but the backers informed the
masters of the business, and there was a tremendous outcry about it,
and Mr. Lobyer was expelled the school. Of course he was very young at
the time," added Flo, rather nervously; "and I suppose boys of that age
scarcely know that it is wrong to use a knife when the fight is going
against them."
Cecil did not answer immediately. She had never liked the gentleman
whose hospitality she was enjoying, and this little episode from the
history of his school-days was not calculated to improve her estimate
of him.
"And yet Sir Nugent and Mr. Lobyer are now quite intimate," she said
presently, feeling that she was called upon to say something.
"Yes, that is the most singular part of the story. After that Eton
_fracas_ they saw nothing of each other for years and years. They went
to different universities, and Mr. Lobyer, as you know, finished his
education on the Continent. When the Pevenshall estate was bought, Mr.
Lobyer senior discovered that the country-seat of his son's old enemy
was within ten miles of the place. The country people received Mr.
Lobyer the elder with open arms; but he didn't care for society, and as
he went out very little, he never happened to meet Sir Nugent. And as
my husband was very seldom here, _he_ never happened to see Sir Nugent,
and I suppose the old Guelph and Ghibelline feeling still existed in
a modified degree, and might have gone on existing from generation
to generation, if it had not come to an end like a romance. When we
were travelling in Switzerland in the autumn, we went on one mountain
expedition to see the sun rise from some particularly romantic and
unapproachable peak, with rather a large party, almost all of whom were
strangers to us. By some accident I and my guide were separated from
Mr. Lobyer and his guide; and as the guide could only speak some vile
jargon of his own, and couldn't understand any language I tried him
with, I found myself wandering farther away from my own party, on the
track of a party of deserters who had started off at a tangent to see
some other prospect, and to whom the guide imagined I belonged.
"I was very much annoyed at not being able to make myself understood,
for I was very tired of the snow, and the slipperiness, and the grand
scenery, and was unromantically anxious to get back to the hotel, which
I don't think I ever should have done if one of the deserters had not
espied me following wearily in their track, and benevolently come to
my assistance. He was an Englishman, but he could speak the guide's
jargon, and he told the stupid creature what I wanted. Not content
with this, he insisted on escorting me himself to meet my own party,
and would not leave me till he had placed me in Mr. Lobyer's care. I
suppose when poor shipwrecked creatures are picked up by a passing
vessel, they are very likely to think that vessel the queen of ships;
and I know that I thought my deliverer a most agreeable person. Of
course Mr. Lobyer asked to whom he was indebted, and so on, and the
two gentlemen exchanged cards, whereupon it appeared that my deliverer
was no other than Sir Nugent Evershed. After this we met in the public
rooms of the hotel. Sir Nugent was delightful, did not ignore the Eton
business, but talked of it as a boyish folly, and said the old fogies
who made a fuss about it had no right to have interfered in the matter,
and made himself altogether so agreeable that it would have been quite
impossible for Mr. Lobyer or any one else to reject the olive-branch so
gracefully offered. Beyond this, we found our pre-arranged routes were
the same,--it was quite a romantic coincidence, Sir Nugent declared.
We were fellow-travellers for some weeks: climbed mountains together,
explored cathedrals together, inspected picture-galleries, dined
together, stopped in the same hotels, until Mr. Lobyer and Sir Nugent
became like brothers. We met again in Paris, where Sir Nugent, who is
very musical, was a delightful companion at the opera. Of course, when
we came here the intimacy continued, and now we have no more frequent
visitor than Sir Nugent."
"And you think that Mr. Lobyer really likes him?"
"Don't I tell you they are like brothers? How solemnly you look at me,
Cecil! Have you any objection to offer to the reconciliation effected
through accident and _me_? Would you prefer a continuation of the
Guelph and Ghibelline feud?"
"No, indeed, Flory. Nothing can be better than this reconciliation if
it is really quite sincere on both sides. But I fancy that the law of
society sometimes obliges men to appear friendly who never can really
be friends. Boyish quarrels are not very serious affairs, perhaps; but
I should think it was difficult to forget a schoolboy enmity of the
kind you have described. In plain words, Flo, I would strongly advise
you not to encourage any intimacy with Sir Nugent Evershed. I may
advise you, mayn't I, dear? I am older than you, Flory, you know."
"Every body in the universe is older than me, I think," answered the
impetuous Mrs. Lobyer, "for every body seems to think that his or her
special business in the world is to give me good advice. I think if
ever I do any thing desperately wicked, and am taken prisoner and tried
by a jury and written about in the newspapers, and all that sort of
thing, I shall get my counsel to plead insanity, on the ground that my
brain had been softened by the perpetual pressure of good advice. Now
don't be angry with me, Cecil," cried the wilful Florence, melting,
after her own particular fashion, into sudden penitence; "I know you
are the best and dearest friend I have in the world except papa, and I
would do any thing to please you. But as to Sir Nugent Evershed, I have
nothing to do with his intimacy with my husband. He comes here to see
Mr. Lobyer, and I can't order him not to come."
"But these private theatricals, Flo. I suppose you invited Sir Nugent
to take a part in them?"
"Oh yes; that was my doing, of course. When one has an elegant young
man hanging about the house, one likes to make use of him."
"But you have so many elegant young men about the house."
"Very likely. But there is not one of them so clever as Sir Nugent.
You see, I had set my heart on our doing a comedy of Scribe's. There
is such a rage for private theatricals just now, and I knew that the
only chance of our distinguishing ourselves was by doing something
French. The whole county will be pervaded by _The Lady of Lyons_ and
_Still Waters Run Deep_; but a comedy by Scribe in the original will
be a little out of the common. I know that Sir Nugent's accent is
irreproachable, and he is the only man I can trust with the character
of the Marquis."
"Is the Marquis a very important character?"
"Yes, he is the leading personage in the piece. Every thing depends
upon him."
"Is Mr. Lobyer to take any part in your comedy?"
"Oh no. He calls all that kind of thing nonsense. There are quite
enough people in the world ready to make fools of themselves without
his assistance, he says. Polite, is it not? But Mr. Lobyer's mind is
given up to the money-market. I think he has made a new commandment for
himself; 'Thou shalt love the Royal Exchange with all thy mind, and
soul, and----'"
"Flo!"
"Oh, of course it's very wicked of me to say that; but sometimes I feel
as if the money-market were too much for my brain. It is so dreadful
to have a husband whose temper is dependent on the state of trade, and
who is sometimes sulky for a whole day because grey shirtings have been
dull. However, I suppose, on the other hand, it is a blessing to have
a husband who sometimes makes four or five thousand pounds by a single
stroke of business. I scarcely wonder that such men as Mr. Lobyer look
down upon art, for art is really a paltry business compared to trade,
in these days, when every thing is estimated by its money value. Papa
is supposed to be at the top of the tree; but he gives a year's labour
and thought to a picture for which he gets less than Mr. Lobyer can
earn in a day, by some lucky transaction with America. Oh, Cecil, how I
detest trade, and all that appertains to it!"
This was not a very promising remark from the wife of a wealthy
trader, and it was a remark which Cecil thought it safer to leave
unnoticed. Flo's spirits seemed to have left her for the moment under
the influence of the money-market. She gave a prolonged yawn, which was
half a sigh, and then bade her friend good-night.
Cecil sat by the fire for some time that night, thinking rather sadly
of the brilliant Mrs. Lobyer's fate. For the present it seemed bright
and fair enough, but what of the years to come? Very gloomy forebodings
filled Cecil's mind as she thought of the unknown future which lay
before the careless footsteps of that frivolous young matron.