LORD DOLLAMORE'S COUNSEL.
Lady Mitford remained in the library, where Colonel Alsager had bidden
her farewell, for a long time after he had departed. She was sorely
perplexed in spirit and depressed in mind. She was heartily grieved
for Alsager, whom she had learned long ago to distinguish from the
crowd of casual acquaintance by whom she had been surrounded as soon
as her "brilliant marriage" had introduced her to the London world.
Implicit confidence in him had come to reconcile her to the novel
feeling of distrust towards others, which had gradually, under the
deteriorating influence of her recent experiences, taken possession of
her. He represented to her a great exception to a rule whose extent
she had not yet thoroughly learned to estimate, and whose existence
pained and disgusted her. His conversation with her just before his
departure had ratified the tacit bond between them; and as Lady
Mitford sat gazing idly from the wide window down the broad
carriage-drive by which the riding-party had departed, she dwelt with
grateful warmth upon every detail of Alsager's words, every variation
of his manner and inflection of his voice.
"At least he is my friend," she thought; "and what a comfort it is to
know that! what a support in the state of wretched uncertainty I seem
doomed to!" Anon she ceased to think of Colonel Alsager at all, and
her fancy strayed, as fancy always does, to scenes and subjects whence
pain is to be extracted. If any stranger could have looked into that
handsome and luxurious room just then, and seen its tenant, he would
have recoiled from the contrast and contradictions of the picture. She
sat, as Alsager had left her sitting, on a low brown-morocco couch,
facing the deep bay-window; her hands lay idly in her lap, her small
head was bent listlessly forward; but the gaze of the lustrous and
thoughtful eves was fixed and troubled. The soft tempered light
touched her hair, her quiet hands, the graceful outlines of her
figure, and the rich folds of her dress with a tender brilliance, but
no sunshine from within lighted up the pale brow or brightened the
calm sorrowful lips. Time passed on, and still she sat absorbed in her
thoughts, until at length the loud chiming of the clocks aroused her.
She threw off her preoccupation by an effort, and saying half aloud,
"At least they shall not return and find me moping here," she passed
out of the library. She paused a moment in the hall, debating with
herself whether she would betake herself at once to the piano in her
dressing-room, or go and inquire for poor old Mr. Hammond, to whom she
had not yet made her customary daily visit. Lady Mitford was in the
mood just then to do a kindness; her heart was full of Alsager's
kindness to herself, and she sent for Mr. Hammond's man, and bade him
tell his master she requested admittance to his room if he felt able
to see her.
"I suppose if he had not been," she added mentally, "his wife would
have been afraid to have left him to-day."
Lady Mitford had made considerable progress in the science of life
since the friend who had left her presence that morning had seen her
for the first time at the Parthenium, but she had need to make a great
deal more before she could be qualified to comprehend Laura Hammond.
Georgie found Mr. Hammond pretty well, and tolerably cheerful. The
feeble old man liked his gentle and considerate hostess. He had liked
her when he was in health; and he liked her still better now that the
languor of illness rendered him liable to being fatigued by ordinarily
dull or extraordinarily brilliant people. Georgie was neither;--she
was only a gentle, refined, humble-minded, pure-hearted lady; and the
old man, though of course he did not admire her at all in comparison
with his own brilliant and bewitching Laura, and had considered her
(under Laura's instructions) rather vapid and commonplace the
preceding season, was in a position just then to appreciate these
tamely admirable qualities to their fullest extent. She remained with
Mr. Hammond until the sound of the horses' hoofs upon the avenue
warned her that the cavalcade was returning. She then went hastily
down the great staircase, and reached the hall just in time to see
Mrs. Hammond lifted from her saddle by Sir Charles with demonstrative
gallantry, and to observe that he looked into her face as he placed
her upon the ground with an expression which rendered words wholly
superfluous. The unborn strength which had been created by Alsager's
counsel was too weak to bear this sharp trial. Georgie shrunk as if
she had been stung, and, abandoning her brave purpose of giving her
guests a cheerful greeting at the door, she took refuge in her own
room.
On this day Sir Charles for the first time departed from the custom he
had maintained since their marriage, of seeking Georgie on his return
home after any absence. It was a significant omission; and as she took
her place at the dinner-table, Lady Mitford felt that the few hours
which had elapsed since Colonel Alsager had given her that counsel,
which every hour became more difficult for her to follow, had made
a disastrous difference in her position. She would make a great
effort--she would do all that Laurence had advised, but how if Sir
Charles estranged himself from her altogether?--and even to her
inexperience there was something ominous in any marked departure from
his accustomed habits,--what should she do then? He might either
persist in a tacit estrangement, which would place her at a hopeless
disadvantage, or he might quarrel with her, and end all by an open
rupture. Georgie was beginning to understand the man she had married,
without as yet ceasing to love him; and it is wonderful what rapid
progress the dullest of women will make in such knowledge when they
are once set on its right track.
Lord Dollamore took Lady Mitford to dinner, as usual, on that day,
and Sir Charles gave his arm to Mrs. Hammond. He had entered the
drawing-room only a moment before dinner was announced, and had not
exchanged a word with his wife. Among the first topics of conversation
was Colonel Alsager's departure, which Sir Charles treated with much
indifference, and to whose cause Mrs. Hammond adverted with a pert
flippancy, so much at variance with her customary adherence to the
rules of good taste that the circumstance attracted Lord Dollamore's
attention. He made no remark when she had concluded her lively sallies
upon the inconvenience of fathers in general, the inconsiderateness of
fathers who had paralytic strokes in particular, and the generic
detestability of all old people; but he watched her closely, and when
her exclusive attention was once more claimed by Sir Charles, whose
undisguised devotion almost reached the point of insult to the
remainder of the company, he smiled a satisfied smile, like that of a
man who has been somewhat puzzled by an enigma, and who finds the key
to it all of a sudden. A little was said about Miss Gillespie, but not
much; she was speedily relegated to the category of "creatures" by
Mrs. Hammond, and then she was forgotten. The general conversation was
perhaps a little flat, as general conversation is apt to be under such
inharmonious circumstances; and Lady Mitford's assumed spirits flagged
suddenly and desperately. A feeling of weariness, of exhaustion, which
quenched pride and put bitterness aside, came over her; a dreary
loathing of the scene and its surroundings; a swift passing vision of
the dear old home she had left so cheerfully--abandoned so
heartlessly, she would now have said--of the dear old father of whom
she had thought so little latterly, whose advice would be so precious
to her now,--only that she would not tell him for the world; a horrid
sense of powerlessness in the hands of a pitiless enemy--all these
rushed over her in one cold wave of trouble. Another moment and she
would have burst into hysterical tears, when a low firm whisper
recalled her to herself.
"Command yourself," it said; "she is looking at you, though you cannot
perceive it. Drink some wine, and smile."
It was Lord Dollamore who spoke, and Lady Mitford obeyed him. He did
not give her time to feel surprise or anger at his interpretation of
her feelings, or his interposition to save her from betraying them;
but instantly, with the utmost ease and readiness, he applied himself
to the task of enlivening the company, and that so effectually, that
he soon gained even the attention of the preoccupied pair at the other
end of the table, and turned a dinner-party which had threatened to
become a lamentable failure into a success. It was a bold stroke; but
he played it with coolness and judgment, and it told admirably. Lady
Mitford lifted her candid eyes to his as she left the dining-room, and
there was neither anger nor reproach in them; but there was gratitude,
and the dawn of confidence.
"Just so," thought Lord Dollamore, as he drew his chair up to the
table again; "she's the sort of woman who must trust somebody; and she
has found out that her reclaimed Charley is not to be trusted. I'll
see if I can't make her trust me."
It suited Laura Hammond's humour to exert her powers of pleasing on
this evening, or perhaps even her audacious spirit quailed before the
ordeal of the female after-dinner conclave, and she was forced to
cover her fear by bravado. At any rate, she appeared in an entirely
new character. The insolent indolence, the _ennui_ which usually
characterized her demeanour when there were no men present, were
thrown aside, and she deliberately set herself to carry the women by
storm. She talked, she laughed, she admired their dresses, and made
suggestions respecting their _coiffures_. She offered one a copy of a
song unpurchaseable for money and unprocurable for love; she promised
another that her maid should perform certain miracles in millinery on
her behalf; she sat down at the piano and played and sang brilliantly.
Lady Mitford watched her in silent amazement, in growing
consternation. The witchery of her beauty was irresistible; the
power of an evil purpose lent her the subtlest seductive charm. The
dark-grey eyes flashed fire, and glowed with triumph; the wanton mouth
trembled with irrepressible fun.
It was an easy and a common thing for Laura Hammond to captivate men,
and she really thought nothing about it, unless some deeper purpose,
some remoter end, happened, as in the present instance, to be in view;
but women, to tell the simple truth, always feared, generally envied,
and frequently hated her; she enjoyed her triumph over the "feminine
clique," as she disdainfully called them, at Redmoor thoroughly, and
with keen cynical appreciation. She played her game steadily all that
evening. When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room she almost
ignored their presence; she was innocently, ingenuously polite, but
she admitted no exclusive attentions; she never relapsed for a moment
in her wheedling, but never overdone, civilities to the women. She
brought forward the bashful young ladies; she actually played a
perfect accompaniment, full of the most enchanting trills and shakes,
to a feeble bleat which one of them believed to be a song; and when
Sir Charles Mitford, whose ungoverned temper and natural ill-breeding
invariably got the better of the conventional restraints which were
even yet strange to him, endeavoured to interrupt her proceedings, she
stopped him with a stealthy uplifted finger, and a warning glance
directed towards his wife. Her victim was persuaded that he fully
understood her; he rendered her admirable _ruse_ in his feeble way,
the warmest tribute of admiration; and he left the room with a vague
consciousness that the indifference which had been for some time his
only feeling towards his wife was rapidly turning into hatred.
Laura Hammond's own game was not the only one she played that night.
Lord Dollamore had watched her quite as closely as Lady Mitford, and
to more purpose. He saw that--where sheer recklessness or from some
deeper motive,--which he thought he could dimly discern--she was
hurrying matters to a crisis, and that he might take advantage of the
position which she had created. They were dainty jewelled claws with
which he proposed to snatch the fruit he coveted from the fire; but
what of that; they were cruel also; and when they had done his work he
cared little what became of them. Let them be scorched and burnt; let
the sharp talons be torn out from their roots; what cared he? So he
watched the feline skill, the deft, supple, graceful dexterity of the
woman, with a new interest--personal this time; any he had previously
felt had been mere connoisseurship, mere cynical curiosity, in a
marked and somewhat rare specimen.
Every evidence of this observation, every sign Of this new interest,
was carefully and successfully suppressed. When all other yes were
turned on Mrs. Hammond, his never rested on her even by accident. She
sang; and while the greater part of the company gathered round the
piano, and those who could not obtain places near the singer kept
profound silence, and listened with eager intensity, Dollamore
ostentatiously suppressed a yawn, turned over the upholstery-books
which ornamented the useless tables, scrutinized the
chimney-decorations, and finally strolled into the adjoining room.
Equally artistic was his demeanour towards Lady Mitford. He was
delicately deferential and frankly cordial; but neither by word or
look did he remind her of the service he had rendered her at dinner.
Georgie might have been slow to comprehend genius and appreciate wit,
but she recognized delicacy and good taste at a glance: and so it fell
out that when she received Lord Dollamore's "goodnight," she thought,
as she returned the valediction, "There is one man besides Colonel
Alsager over whom she has no power. Lord Dollamore holds her in
contempt."
The next morning at breakfast Lord Dollamore announced regretfully
that he must leave Redmoor for a few days, but hoped to return by the
end of the week. He addressed this announcement to Sir Charles
Mitford, who was gazing intently on Mrs. Hammond as she broke the
seals of several notes, and tossed them down one after another, half
read, with a most reassuring air of indifference. Lady Mitford was not
present; breakfast was a free and unceremonious meal at Redmoor, to
which everybody came when everybody liked, and nobody was surprised if
anybody stayed away. Sir Charles expressed polite regret.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Hammond, "how very sorry Lady Mitford will
be! Bereft of her two courtiers, she will be bereaved indeed. First
Colonel Alsager, and now Lord Dollamore. She will be quite _au
déspoir_.
"I wish I could hope to make so deep an impression by my absence, Mrs.
Hammond," he answered in the careless tone in which one replies to a
silly observation made by a petted child. "Mitford, can you come with
me into the library a minute?" And he moved away, taking with him a
parcel of letters.--"When you are spiteful, and show it, you grow
vulgar, madam," he muttered under his breath--"after the manner of
your kind--and a trifle coarse; but Mitford is not the man to see
that, or to mind it if he did."
Half an hour later Lord Dollamore had left Redmoor; and as he leant
back in the railway carriage which bore him towards town, he quietly
reviewed all that had taken place during his visit, and arrived at a
conclusion perfectly satisfactory to himself. Then he resolved to
think no more of the matter till his return; and dismissed it with the
reflection that "Mitford was a regular beast,--low, and all that;" but
that she "was a devilish nice woman;--no fool, but not clever enough
to bore one, and pretty enough for anything."
Matters continued pretty much in the same state at Redmoor during the
week which followed Lord Dollamore's departure. Lady Mitford wrote to
Colonel Alsager, and heard from him; but her letter--that which we
have seen him receive at Knockholt--said as little as possible of the
real state of affairs. The truth made a faint attempt to struggle out
in the postscript; but pride, reserve, an instinct of propriety, the
numberless obstacles to a woman in such a position as that of Lady
Mitford telling it in its entirety to any man rendered the attempt
abortive. Could he not come? she had asked him. Could he not come? she
asked herself, in the weary days through which she was passing--days
of which each one was wearier and more hopeless than its predecessor;
for things were becoming desperate now. The other guests had taken
their leave, but still the Hammonds remained at Redmoor. Not a woman
of the party but had known Laura's hollowness and falsehood well--had
known that the powers of fascination she had employed were mere tricks
of cunning art; but they were all fascinated for all that. Laura had
made the close of the time at Redmoor incomparably pleasant, whereas
its opening had been undeniably dull; and there was another reason for
their letting Mrs. Hammond down easily. They had remained as long as
they could in the same house with her; and how were they to excuse or
account for their having done so, if they disclosed their real opinion
of her character and conduct? It was a keen privation, no doubt, not
to be able to descant upon the "doings" at Redmoor, but they had to
bear it; and the only alleviation within their reach was an occasional
compassionate mention of Lady Mitford as "hardly up to the mark for
her position and fortune, and sadly jealous, poor thing!"
It would have been impossible, in common decency, to have avoided all
mention of the departure of the Hammonds; and accordingly Sir Charles
Mitford told his wife, as curtly and sullenly as possible, that she
might make her preparations for going to town, as he supposed they
would be moving off in a few days. Georgie had suffered dreadfully,
but the worst was over. The keen agony of outraged love had died out,
and the sense of shame, humiliation, terrible apprehension, and
uncertainty, was uppermost now. In her distress and perplexity she was
quite alone; she had no female friend at all in any real sense of the
word. It was not likely Sir Charles Mitford's wife should have any;
and the only friend she could rely upon was away, and hopelessly
detained. The only friend she could rely on--As she repeated the
lamentation over and over again in the solitude of her room, and
in the bitterness of her heart, did it ever occur to her that the
only friend she could rely on might be a dangerous, though not a
treacherous one;--that she was crying peace, peace, where there was no
peace?
"When we know what the Hammonds are going to do, I shall write to
Dollamore," said Sir Charles. He spoke to Georgie.
She felt an eager longing to see her old home, and to breathe a purer
moral atmosphere than that of Redmoor. "I can only suffer and be
perplexed here," she thought. "Let me get away, and I can think
freely, and make up my mind to some line of action. Out of her sight,
I should be easier, even in town; and how much easier at home!--once
more in the old place, and among the old people, where I used to be
before I knew there were such women as this one in the world." So she
thought she would do a courageous thing, and ask Sir Charles to take
her home for a little, as soon as the Hammonds should have left
Redmoor.
She came to this resolution one morning before she went down to
breakfast,--before she had to encounter Mrs. Hammond, who brought a
fresh supply of ammunition to the attack on each such occasion; whose
beauty was never brighter or more alluring than when she arrayed it in
the elaborate simplicity of Parisian morning-dress; who was not
sufficiently sensitive to be _journalière_, and who might always
cherish a well-founded confidence in her own good looks, and the
perfect efficiency of her weapons. Not that Georgie was fighting her
any longer on the old _terrain_; she had retreated from that, and had
no other object now than to shield herself from the perpetual sharp
fire of Laura's polished impertinence, her epigrammatic sarcasms, her
contemptuous pity. Lady Mitford, whose good sense was apt to do its
proper office in spite of the tumult of feeling constantly striving to
overpower it, wondered sometimes why Laura took so much trouble to
wound her. "She has made sure of Sir Charles," the pure simple lady
would say to herself, when some sharp arrow had been shot at her, and
she felt the smart, not quite so keenly as the archer thought perhaps,
but keenly still. "She does not need to turn me into ridicule before
him, to expose my defects and _gaucheries_; she does not need to test
his devotion to her by the strength and impenetrability of his
indifference to me,--at least not now. She is clever enough to know
that wit and humour, sarcasm and finesse, are all thrown away upon
_him_, if she is showing them off for her own sake." Of a surety Lady
Mitford was rapidly learning to estimate Sir Charles aright. "Her
beauty and her unscrupulousness have fascinated him, and all the rest
is more likely to bore him than otherwise. If she were in love with
him she might not understand this; but she is not in love with him--not
even after her fashion and his own; and I am sure she does understand
it perfectly. What does she throw so much vigilance away for,
then?--for she never loses a chance. Why does she waste so much energy
on _me_? Of course, I know she hates me; and if she be as good a hater
as such a woman should be, she would not be satisfied with the one
grand injury she has done me; hatred might be pacified by so large
a sop, but spite would crave for more. Yes, that must be the
explanation--she is feeding spite."
If the old clergyman who had cried over Georgie Stanfield on her
wedding-day, and uttered that futile blessing on the marriage which
was so unblessed, could have heard her speak thus to her own heart,
how utterly confounded and astonished that good but not "knowledgable"
individual would have been! A few months in the great world to have
turned Georgie into this woman, who seeks for motives, who reads
character, who has all the dreary cunning in interpretation of the
human heart which his life-long experience had failed to impart to
him, though he had passed half a century in professional proclamation
that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked." But it was not her short experience of the great world in any
general sense which had so far forwarded her education in the science
of life as to enable her thus to analyze conduct and motives,--she had
had a surer, subtler teacher; she had loved, and been betrayed; she
had hoped, and been deceived. She had dreamed a young girl's dream,
and one by no means so exaggerated and exalted as most young girls
indulge in; and the awakening had come, not only with such rudeness
and bitterness as seldom accompany the inevitable disillusionment,
but with such startling rapidity, that the lasting of her vision had
borne no more proportion to the usual duration of "love's young
dream," than the forty winks of an after-dinner nap bear to the
dimensions of "a good night's rest." Experience had not tapped at the
sleeper's door, and lingered softly near the couch, and insinuated a
gently-remonstrative remark that really it was time to risk--tenderly
letting in the garish light by tempered degrees the while--cheerfully
impressing, without hurry or severity, the truth that a work-day
world--busy, stirring, dutiful, and real--lay beyond the glorified
realms of slumber, and awaited the passing of the foot going forth to
the appointed task over the enchanted threshold. The summary process
of awakening by which the sleeper has a basinful of cold water flung
on his face, and is pulled out of bed by his feet, bears a stricter
metaphorical analogy to that by which Lady Mitford had been roused
from her delusion; and though she had reeled and staggered under it at
first, the shock had effectually done its work. Georgie Mitford was a
wiser woman than Georgie Stanfield could ever have been made by any
more considerate process.
All Lady Mitford's newly-sprung wisdom, all the acuteness she had
gained by being sharpened on the grindstone of suffering, did not
enable her to reach a complete comprehension of Mrs. Hammond's
motives. She had not the key to the enigma; she knew nothing of
Laura's former relations with Colonel Alsager. If she had ever heard
the story, or any garbled version of it, at all, it was before she had
any distinct knowledge of, or interest in, either of the parties
concerned,--when she was confused and harassed with the crowd of new
names and unfamiliar faces,--and she had forgotten it. Even that
advantage was her enemy's. Mrs. Hammond had been peculiarly bewitching
to Sir Charles, and preternaturally impertinent to Lady Mitford, at
the breakfast-table, on the morning when Colonel Alsager's first
letter had arrived; indeed, she had a little overdone her part, which
was not altogether unnatural. Fierce passions, a violent temper, and a
cold heart, form a powerful but occasionally troublesome combination,
and imperatively demand a cool brain and steady judgment to control
and utilize them. Laura Hammond had as cool a brain and as steady a
judgment as even a very bad woman could reasonably be expected to
possess; but they were not invariably dominant. The cold heart did not
always aid them successfully in subduing the violent temper; and when
it failed to do so, the combination was apt to be mischievous. On the
occasion in question, Mrs. Hammond had been, to begin with, out of
sorts, as the best-regulated natures, and the most intent on their
purposes in their worst sense, will occasionally be. Sir Charles bored
her, and she was on the point of letting him perceive the fact, and
thus giving her temper its head, when the cool brain interposed and
curbed it in time. She exerted herself then to bewitch and enslave the
Baronet, even beyond his usual condition of enchantment and
subjugation. Her success was complete; but its enjoyment was mitigated
by her perception that it had failed to affect Lady Mitford. The
husband whom she had undoubtedly loved, and of whom she had been
undeniably jealous, slighted her more openly than ever, and offered to
her rival before her face undisguised and passionate homage; and yet
Lady Mitford maintained perfect composure; and though she was
occasionally _distraite_, the expression of her face indicated
anything but painful thoughts as the cause of her abstraction. Her
serene beauty was particularly impressive, and there was an
indefinable added attraction in the calm unconscious grace of her
manner. The quick instinct of hate warned her enemy that she was
losing ground, and she listened eagerly, while she never interrupted
her conversation with Sir Charles, for an indication of the cause. It
came quickly. Alsager's letter was mentioned, and Lady Mitford
imparted its contents to Captain Bligh, who had dropped in late, and
had not heard her communication to Sir Charles. She looked away from
Mrs. Hammond while she spoke, and while she and Bligh discussed the
letter, Sir Peregrine's state, Laurence's detention at Knockholt, and
other topics connected with the subject. It was fortunate that she did
not see Laura's face; the sight would have enlightened her probably,
but at the cost of infinite perplexity and distress, deepening and
darkening a coming sorrow, swooping now very near to her unconscious
head. The look, which would have been a revelation, lasted only a
moment. It did not deform the beauty of the face, which it lighted up
with a lurid glare of baffled passion and raging jealousy; for that
beauty owed nothing to expression--its charm, its power were entirely
sensuous; but it changed it from the seductive loveliness of a wicked
woman to the evil splendour of a remorseless devil. If Lady Mitford
had seen it, the light which its lurid fury would have flashed upon
her might have been vivid enough to show her that in the rage and
torment whence it sprung, she was avenged; but Georgie was not the
sort of woman to be comforted by that view of the subject.
Lady Mitford made her request of Sir Charles, and was refused more
peremptorily than her letter to Laurence Alsager had implied. The
increasing rudeness of Mitford to his wife was characteristic of the
man. He had neither courage, tact, nor breeding; and when he went
wrong, he did so doggedly, and without making any attempt to mitigate
or disguise the ugliness of the aberration. His demeanour to his wife
at this juncture exhibited a pleasing combination of viciousness and
stupidity. He was maddened by the near inevitability of Laura's
departure. The Hammonds must leave Redmoor, and there was no
possibility of their going to town. Mr. Hammond's physician had
prescribed Devonshire air, and in Devonshire he must be permitted to
remain. Sir Charles heartily cursed the poor old gentleman for the
ill-health by which he and Laura had so largely profited; but curses
could do nothing,--the Hammonds must go. He must be separated from
Laura for a time, unless indeed Hammond would be kind enough to die,
or she would be devoted enough to elope with him. The latter
alternative presented itself to Sir Charles only in the vaguest and
remotest manner, and but for a moment. He had become very much of a
brute, and he had always been somewhat of a fool; but he had not
reached the point of folly at which he could have supposed that Laura
Hammond would forfeit the wealth for which she had sold herself, and
which in the course of nature must soon fall into her hands, for any
inducement of sentiment or passion. He had been brooding over these
grievances alone in the library, when Georgie, with whom he had not
exchanged a dozen words for as many days, came in, and spoke to him,
with a miserable affectation of unconsciousness, about a wish to visit
her old home before their return to town for the season. He refused
with curt incivility and obstinacy; and it is probable that the
ensuing few minutes might have brought about a decided quarrel between
the husband and wife, had not Captain Bligh entered the room abruptly,
and called out, apparently without noticing Lady Mitford's presence:
"I say, Mitford, you're wanted. Hammond is ever so much worse. Gifford
has been round to the stables to get a groom sent off for Dr.
Wilkinson.--I beg your pardon, Lady Mitford,--I ought to have
mentioned that Mrs. Hammond's maid is looking for _you_."
Confusion reigned at Redmoor all that day, which seemed likely, during
many hours, to have been the last of Mr. Hammond's life. Sir Charles
felt that his morning meditation had had something prophetic in it;
here was the other alternative almost within his grasp. At all events,
whether he died a little sooner or lingered a little longer, Mr.
Hammond must remain at Redmoor. The evil day was postponed. Lady
Mitford simply devoted herself to the invalid, and behaved towards
Mrs. Hammond with magnanimous kindness and consideration, which might
have disarmed even Laura, had her inveterate coquetry and love of
intrigue been the only animating motives of her conduct. She might
have sacrificed the lesser passions to an impulse of the kind, but the
greater--no. So she accepted all the delicate kindness which poor
Georgie did her, she accepted the _rôle_ of devoted and afflicted wife
assigned to her before the household, and she hardened her heart
against every appeal of her feebly-speaking conscience. With the
following day the aspect of things changed a little. Mr. Hammond
rallied; the doctors considered him likely to get over the attack; and
Lord Dollamore arrived at Redmoor.
"I didn't hear anything from anybody, Mitford, and so I came on
according to previous arrangement," said his lordship, as he greeted
his host and looked about for Lady Mitford.
Lord Dollamore had strictly adhered to his programme. He never
burdened his mind with the pursuit of two objects at the same time. He
had completely disposed of the business which had called him away, and
with which the present narrative has no concern; and he had come back
to Redmoor as a kind of _divertissement_ before the serious business
of the season should commence. He entertained no doubt that he could
resume his relation with Lady Mitford precisely at the point which it
had attained when he left Redmoor. Georgie was not a fickle woman in
anything; rather methodical, he had observed, in trifles. The
impression he had made was likely to have been aided rather than
lessened by the intermediate course of events at Redmoor. On the whole
he felt tolerably confident; besides, he did not very much care. Lord
Dollamore's was a happy temperament--a fortunate constitution, in
fact--always supposing that life on this planet was _tout potage_, and
nothing to follow. He could be pleasantly excited by the ardour of
pursuit, and moderately elated by success; but failure had no terrors
for him; he never fell into the weakness of caring sufficiently about
anything to furnish fate with the gratification of disappointing him,
in the heart-sickening or enraging sense of that elastic expression.
The Hammonds and Lord Dollamore were the only people now at Redmoor
who could be strictly called guests. Captain Bligh was rather more at
home than Sir Charles; and one or two stragglers, who had remained
after the general break-up, addicted themselves to the versatile and
good-humoured _vaurien_, and were generally to be found in his
company. Accordingly, and as he anticipated, Lord Dollamore found Lady
Mitford alone in, the drawing-room when he quitted the delectable
society of the gentlemen. Mrs. Hammond had left the dinner-table,
proclaiming her intention of at once resuming her place by her
husband's side--a declaration by which she secured two purposes: one,
the avoidance of a _tête-à-tête_ with Lady Mitford; the other, the
prevention of a visit by her hostess to the sickroom, on any
supposition that Mr. Hammond might require extra attention. During
dinner she had been quiet and subdued; her manner, in short, had been
perfectly _comme-il-faut_, and she was dressed for her part to
perfection. She had kept alive Lady Mitford's gentler feelings towards
her; she had forged a fresh chain for Sir Charles, who, like "Joey
B.," had great admiration for proceedings which he considered
"devilish sly;" and she had afforded Dollamore much amusement of the
kind which he peculiarly appreciated--quiet, ill-natured, and
philosophical.
It does not much signify whether Laura went to her husband's sickroom
at all, or how long she remained there; but there was some
significance in the fact, which Lord Dollamore found eminently
convenient and agreeable, that Sir Charles sent a footman to tell my
lady that he had business to attend to in the library, and requested
she would send his coffee thither; and there was a fortunate
coincidence in the adjournment of Captain Bligh and his companions to
the smoking-room, without any embarrassing drawing-room parade at all.
As Lord Dollamore entered the room, Lady Mitford was bidding
goodnight to Mr. Hammond's little daughter, to whom she had been
uniformly kind since the mysterious departure of Miss Gillespie. Lord
Dollamore had, hardly ever seen the child, whom her stepmother wholly
neglected, leaving her to the care of her maid, if the foreign damsel
who officiated in that enviable capacity chose to take care of
her,--and to chance, if she did not. Laura Hammond hardly knew that
Lady Mitford had taken the child under her kindly protection, and had
kept her with her during many of the hours of each day which she was
not obliged to devote to her social duties; but the child's father
knew the fact, and felt grateful to the one woman, after his senile
fashion, without daring to express or even to feel any condemnation of
the other. As the child left the room, Lord Dollamore looked after her
for a moment before he closed the door; then he went up to Lady
Mitford's sofa by the fireplace, and said quietly:
"Mrs. Hammond is as admirable as a stepmother as in all the other
relations of life, I fancy."
Georgie made no reply, and he did not appear to expect any. Then came
Sir Charles's message; and Dollamore watched Lady Mitford closely
during its delivery, and until the servant had left the room, carrying
a single cup of coffee on a salver.
"Does Mrs. Hammond disdain that celestial beverage?" he asked then, in
a voice so full of meaning that Lady Mitford started and blushed
crimson. This symptom of anger did not disconcert Lord Dollamore in
the least. He had made up his mind to use the first opportunity which
should present itself, and it had come. Of course she would start and
blush, no matter how he phrased his meaning, but the start was rather
graceful, and the blush was decidedly becoming.
"I don't know. I--what do you mean, Lord Dollamore? Mrs. Hammond has
gone to her room; you heard what she said?"
"I did; and I don't believe a word of it. 'My poor dear Hammond' will
have very little of her society this evening. Lady Mitford," he said,
with a sudden change of tone, "how long do you intend to endure this
kind of thing? Now I know what you are going to say; "--he put up
his hand with a deferential but decided gesture, to prevent her
speaking;--"I am quite aware that I have no business to talk to you
about Mitford and Mrs. Hammond. I could repeat all that conventional
catechism about the whole duty of men and women without a blunder; but
it's all nonsense--all hypocrisy, which is worse. I am a man of the
world, and you are a woman of the world, or nearly: you will very soon
be completely so. Allow me to anticipate the period at which your
education will be finished, and to speak to you with perfect
frankness."
Georgie looked at him in complete bewilderment. What did this new tone
which he had assumed mean?--To insult her? No; she had no reason to
think, to fear anything of that kind. Had he not done her at least one
substantial service--had he not saved her from ridicule, from
affording her enemy a triumph? Had not his manner been always
respectful, and, in his indolent way, kind? Even while he spoke of her
as "nearly" a woman of the world, she knew that he was thinking of her
newness, her ignorance of that very world, and of life. Perhaps she
should only expose herself to ridicule on his part now, if she shrank
from hearing him. It was certain that things had gone too far--the
state of affairs had become too evident--for her to affect indignation
or assume prudery, without making herself supremely ridiculous;
besides, there was already a tacit confidence between them, which she
could neither ignore nor recall. She wished vaguely that Colonel
Alsager had been there; then, that some one might come into the room;
but she felt, amid her perplexity and perturbation, a strong desire to
hear what he had to say to her--to learn what was the view which a man
so completely of society, and so capable of interpreting its judgment,
took of her position and prospects. Nervously, yet not unreadily, she
assented; and Lord Dollamore, standing on the hearth-rug and looking
down at her bent head and drooping eyelids, spoke in a low tone:
"You are no match for Mrs. Hammond, Lady Mitford. You would not be,
even if you did not labour under the insurmountable disadvantage of
being Sir Charles's wife. That must be as evident to yourself--for you
are wonderfully sensible and free from vanity--as it is to the
lookers-on, who proverbially see most of the game. You have feeling
and delicacy, and she is encumbered by no such obstacles to the
attainment of any purpose she may set before her. But because you
can't fight her on any ground, that's no reason why you should let her
make you wretched, and, above all, ridiculous."
"She cannot. I--"
Georgie had looked up with an angry beautiful flush on her cheeks and
a sparkle in her eyes, which Mrs. Hammond could not have managed by
any contrivance to excel. But when she saw the look that was fixed on
her, her eyes fell, and she covered her face with her hands. It was
not a bold glance; it was quiet, powerful, and pitying--pitying from
Dollamore's point of view, not of her grief, but of her "greenness."
"She _can_, and she _has_, Lady Mitford; but it will be your own
fault, and a very silly fault too, if she has that power much longer.
Look the truth in the face; don't be afraid of it. You have lost
Mitford's affections, I suppose you will say; and there never was any
one so miserable; and so forth. It's quite a mistake. Mitford never
had any affections--he had, and has, passions; and they will be won
and lost many and many a time, long after you will have ceased even to
notice in what direction they may happen to be straying. Because your
reign was short, you fancy Mrs. Hammond's will be eternal. Pooh! It
will come to a timely end with the beginning of the opera-season; and
nothing will remain to her of it but a rent in her reputation--which
even that endurable material will hardly bear--and much mortification.
Your reign is over, as you believe; and we will grant, for the sake of
argument, that you are right. Well, what remains to you after this
terrible imaginary bereavement of Mitford's affections? Why, Mitford's
fortune, Mitford's rank, and a position which, if you were under his
influence, might very possibly come to grief; but which you, free and
blameless,--a very pleasant combination, let me tell you, and one that
many a woman would gladly purchase at the price of a little
sentimental blighting,--will elevate and dignify. If you will only
realize your position, Lady Mitford, and act with good sense, you will
have as brilliant a destiny before you as any woman not afflicted with
a mission could possibly desire."
The dream she had dreamed--the home-life her fancy had pictured--came
back in a moment to Georgie's mental vision; and she said, in a tone
of keen distress:
"Don't say these things, Lord Dollamore. I know you don't mean them;
but they sound cold and wicked. How could I care for any position? and
what is wealth to me?"
"Pretty much what it is to every rational being, Lady
Mitford--happiness; or if not quite the real sterling thing, the very
best plated or paste imitation of it procurable in this state of
existence. But you have not only wealth, rank, position, and a career
of fashion and pleasure to look forward to; there are other things in
your future. Think of your youth, estimate your beauty;--stay--no, you
cannot do that; you never could conceive the effect it must produce on
men who are gentlemen and have taste. If you ever learn to use its
full power, you will be as dangerous as Helen or Cleopatra."
He had spoken in a calm business-like manner, which disguised the real
freedom of his speech; but he lingered just a little over the last few
words, and thou went on hurriedly:
"What charm do you think Mrs. Hammond, or all the women like her--who
swarm like vipers in society--will have against you? I am not
flattering you, Lady Mitford,--you know that; I am merely telling you
the simple truth. Your experience has been narrow, and you think all,
or most men, are like Mitford. Because she has beaten you in this
inglorious strife, do you think she could rival you in a grander and
higher warfare?"
"Inglorious!" she said, amazed. "Oh, Lord Dollamore, he is my
husband!"
Dollamore smiled--not at all a pleasant smile; there was too much
contemptuous toleration in it.
"Your husband! Yes, he is your husband; but is he therefore any the
less a commonplace and vulgar-minded person? You are too clever, Lady
Mitford" (he understood the art of praising a woman for those
qualities which she does _not_ possess), "to believe in or repeat the
stupid methodistical cant which would limit a woman's perceptions,
sympathies, and associations, to her husband only,--a worse than
Eastern bondage; for it does not involve indulgence, and it sins
against knowledge. You are not going to 'live forgotten and die
forlorn,' because you have married a man who is certainly not much
better than his neighbours, and who is really no worse. Of course he
does not suit you, and he never would have suited you, if Mrs. Hammond
had never existed. You would have found that out a little later, and
rather less unpleasantly, perhaps; but why not make the best of the
early date of the discovery, which, after all, has its advantages?
Mitford does not 'understand' you-that's the phrase, I think. Well,
it's no worse because he does 'understand' some one of a lower calibre
which is wonderfully like his own. He won't annoy you in any way, I
daresay; he is ill at ease in society at the best, and he will keep
out of it,--out of good society, I mean--_your_ set. He will find
resources at his own level, I daresay. Then do not trouble yourself
about him; by and by, I mean, when the Hammond will be nowhere. Of
course that business vexes you now; people always are vexed in the
country by things they would never care about in town. It's the trees
and the moon and the boredom, I suppose. Make up your mind not to
trouble yourself about him; study the advantages of your position
well, and determine to take the fullest possible enjoyment of them
all."
He paused and looked at her, with a covert anxiety in his gaze. She
sat quite still, and she was very pale; but she did not say a word.
Her thoughts were painful and confused. Only one thing was clear to
her: this man's counsel was very different from that which Colonel
Alsager had given her. Which of the two would be the easier to follow?
Georgie had strayed--at least a little way--into a dangerous path,
when she acknowledged the possibility that it might be a struggle to
act upon Alsager's, and might be even possible to follow Lord
Dollamore's counsel. The pale face was very still; but Dollamore
thought he could read indecision in it. He drew a little nearer to
her, and bent a little more towards her, as he said:
"Do you really believe-do you even make-believe-that love is never
more to be yours? Put such a cruel delusion far from you. You find it
hard to live without love now; you grieve because you cannot keep the
old feeling alive in your own heart, as keenly as you grieve because
it has died in your husband's. You will find it impossible in the time
to come. Then, when the tribute of passionate devotion is offered to
you, you will not always refuse to accept it. Then, if one who has
seen you in these dark days, radiant in beauty and unequalled in
goodness,--one whom you have taught to believe in the reality of--"
A servant entered the room, and handed Lady Mitford a small twisted
note. It was from Sir Charles, and merely said, "Come to me at
once--to the library."