THE dreary weather of November showed no signs of “taking up.” Lowering
days of fog and gloom alternated with cold winds and sleet, so that all
out-door occupation was utterly denied to that imprisoned party, who
were left with so few resources to pass the time within. It is true they
did not make the best of the bad. Lady Hester grew hourly more irritable
and peevish. Sydney Onslow seldom left her room. George took to the
hills every morning, and never returned before a late dinner; while the
doctor, when not with Sir Stafford, spent all his time at the Dal tons',
with whom he had already established a close intimacy.
Lady Hester had exhausted every possible means she could imagine to
while away the hours; she had spent whole days in letter-writing folios
of “tirades” to every one she could think of. She had all the carriages
inspected, and the imperials searched, for books she well knew had
been left behind. She had sent for the landlord's daughter to give her
lessons in German, which she thought of learning during the week. She
had given a morning to the Italian boy with his white mice, and pored
for hours long over the “Livre des Voyageurs,” reading the names of
friends who, with better fortune, had taken their departure for Italy.
But at last there came an end even to these frail resources, and she
was left utterly without an occupation to engage, or even a thought to
employ her. The five minutes of morning altercation with Grounsell over,
the dreary time was unbroken by a single event, or uncheckered by a
single hope. Sir Stafford was indeed recovering, but so slowly that
weeks might be required ere he could proceed on his journey. How were
they to be passed? was the fearful question to which she could find no
answer. She looked with actual envy at the party of boors who played at
dominos in the beer-house opposite, and followed with longing eyes the
little mail-cart as it left the village. If she could read Germau, there
were scores of books at her service. If she could but take a charitable
turn, there was poverty enough to give her occupation from morn till
night. She never knew what it was to think seriously, for meditation is
the manufacture that cannot work without its raw material, and with this
her mind was not stored.
It was in this pitiable frame of mind she was walking up and down the
drawing-room one morning, just as the doctor had taken his departure,
and with him the last little scene that was to relieve the day, when
the servant entered with the card of Colonel Haggerstone, and the daily
repeated inquiry for Sir Stafford's health.
Had the gallant colonel presented himself at Wilton Crescent, or the
Villa, it is more than likely that the well-instructed porter had not
vised his passport, but at once consigned a name of such unimposing
consonants to gentle obscurity, while such an entry in the visiting-book
had been coolly set down as a mistake. Not so now, however. Lady Hester
took up the card, and, instead of the habitual curt rejoinder, “Sir
Stafford is better,” said, “You may tell Colonel Haggerstone that Lady
Hester will receive him.”
The gallant colonel, who was negligently slapping his boots with his
riding-whip below stairs, was not a little amazed at the message.
There had been a time when he would have interpreted the favor most
flatteringly. He would have whispered to himself, “She has seen me
passing the window, she was struck with me as I rode by.” Time had,
however, toned down these bright illusions, and he read the permission
with a nearer approach to truth, as a fine-lady caprice in a moment of
ennui. “I thought as much,” muttered he to himself as he slowly ascended
the stairs; “the blockade was too strictly enforced not to tell at last.
No newspapers, no books ha! ha! Could n't help surrendering!”
The colonel had by this time given his whiskers and moustaches the
last curl, thrown back his head into a position of calm dignity, as the
servant, throwing wide the folding-doors, announced him. Advancing two
paces, and bowing low, Colonel Haggerstone said, “Your Ladyship will
pardon the liberty the very great liberty I have taken in my respectful
inquiries for some days past; but although probably not remembered by
Sir Stafford, I once did enjoy the honor of his acquaintance, we met at
Lord Kerrison's, in Scotland.”
Lady Onslow cut short this very uninteresting explanation by a bland but
somewhat supercilious smile, that seemed to say, “What possible matter
can it be?” while at the same time she motioned him to be seated.
“May I hope that Sir Stafford continues to improve?” said he, bowing
again.
“He's better to-day,” said Lady Onslow, languidly. “Perhaps as well
as anyone can be in this wretched place. You heard, I suppose, of the
series of misfortunes that befell us, and compelled us to return here?”
The colonel looked mildly compassionate and inquisitive. He anticipated
the possible pleasure her Ladyship might feel in a personal narrative,
and he was an accomplished listener. This time, however, he was wrong.
Lady Onslow either did not think the occasion or the audience worth the
trouble of the exertion, and merely said, “We had a break-down somewhere
with an odious name. Sir Stafford would travel by that road through the
Hohlen Thai, where somebody made his famous march. Who was it?”
“Massena, I think,” said the colonel, at a haphazard, thinking that at
least the name was ben trovato, just as Sunday-school children father
everything remarkable on John the Baptist.
“Oh dear, no; it was Moreau. We stopped to breakfast at the little inn
where he held his headquarters, and in the garden of which he amused
himself in pistol-shooting, strange, was it not? Are you a good shot,
Colonel?”
“Good among bad ones,” said the colonel, modestly.
“Then we must have a match. I am so fond of it! You have pistols, of
course?”
“I am fortunate enough to have a case of Schlessinger's best, and at
your Ladyship's disposal.”
“Well, that is agreed upon. You 'll be kind enough to select a suitable
spot in the garden, and if to-morrow be fine By the way what is
to-morrow not Sunday I hope?”
The colonel relieved her anxieties by the assurance that the next day
would be Monday, consequently that the present one was Sunday.
“How strange! One does make sad confusion in these things abroad,” said
she, sighing. “I think we are better in England in that respect, don't
you?”
The question was not a very clear one, but the colonel never hesitated
to give in his adhesion.
“Sir Stafford always took that view in the House, and consequently
differed from his party, as well as about Ireland. Poor dear Ireland!
what is to be done for her?”
This was a rather more embarrassing demand than the previous one, and
the colonel hemmed and coughed, and prepared for a speech of subtle
generalities; but the dexterity was all unnecessary, for her Ladyship
had already forgotten the theme, and everything about it, as she went
on. “How I pity those dear Wreckingtons, who are condemned to live
there! The Earl, you know, had promised solemnly that he would go any
lengths for the party when he got his blue riband; and so they took him
at his word, and actually named him to the viceroyalty. It was a very
cruel thing, but I hear nothing could be better than his conduct on
hearing it: and dear Lady Wreckington insisted upon accompanying him.
It was exactly like the story of what was that man's name, who assisted
in the murder of the Emperor Paul Geroboffskoi, or something like that,
and whose wife followed him to the mines.”
The colonel avowed that the cases were precisely alike, and now the
conversation if the word can be degraded to mean that bald disjointed
chat ran upon London people and events their marriages, their dinners,
their separations, coalitions, divorces, and departures; on all
which themes Haggerstone affected a considerable degree of knowledge,
although, to any one less occupied with herself than her Ladyship, it
would have been at once apparent that all his information was derived
from the newspapers. It was at the close of a lamentation on the utter
stupidity of everything and everywhere, that he adroitly asked where she
meant to pass the winter.
“I wish I knew,” said she, languidly. “The Dollingtons say Naples; the
Upsleys tell us Rome; and, for my part, I pronounce for neither. Lady
Dollingtou is my aversion, and the three Upsley girls, with their pink
noses and red hair, are insufferable.”
“What does your Ladyship think of Florence?” asked the colonel,
soothingly.
“Pretty much what I might of one of the Tonga Islands. I know nothing of
the place, the people, or the climate. Pray tell me about it.”
“There is very little to say,” said Haggerstone, shrugging his
shoulders; “not but the place might be very agreeable, if there were
some one of really fashionable standing to take the lead and give a tone
to the society; some one who would unite indispensable rank and wealth
with personal graces, and thus, as it were, by prescriptive right,
assume the first place. Then, I say, Florence would be second to no city
of Italy. Would that your Ladyship would condescend to accept the vacant
throne!”
“I!” said she, affecting astonishment; and then laughingly added: “Oh
no! I detest mock sovereignty. I actually shudder at the idea of the
lady-patroness part; besides, whom should one have to reign over?
Not the Browns and Smiths and Perkinses; not the full-pensioned East
Indians, the half-pay colonels, and the no-pay Irish gentilities, that
form the staple of small city society. You surely would not recommend me
to such a sad pre-eminence.”
The colonel smiled flatteringly at her Ladyship's smartness, and
hastened to assure her that such heresy was far from his thoughts; and
then with a practised readiness ran over a list of foreign celebrities
French, Russian, and German whose names, at least, clinked like the true
metal.
This looked promisingly; it was very like cutting all English society,
and had the appearance of something very exclusive, very impertinent,
and very ungenerous; and now she lent a willing ear as Haggerstone
revealed a plan of operations for a whole winter campaign. According
to his account, it was a perfect terra incognita, where the territorial
limits and laws might be laid down at will; it was a state which called
for a great dictatorship, and the sway of unlimited authority.
Now, Lady Hester had never at least since her marriage, and very rarely
even before it been more than on the periphery of fashionable society.
When she did obtain a footing within the charmed circle, it was by no
prescriptive right, but rather on some ground of patronage, or some
accidental political crisis, which made Sir Stafford's influence a
matter of moment. There was, therefore, a flattery in the thought of
thus becoming a leader in society; and she shrewdly remembered, that
though there might be little real power, there would be all the tyranny
of a larger sovereignty.
It is true she suffered no symptom of this satisfaction to escape
her; on the contrary, she compassionated the “poor dear things,” that
thought themselves “the world,” in such a place, and smiled with angelic
pity at their sweet simplicity; but Haggerstone saw through all these
disguises, and read her real sentiments, as a practised toadeater never
fails to do, where only affectation is the pretence. Adroitly avoiding
to press the question, he adverted to Baden and its dreary weather;
offered his books, his newspapers, his horses, his phaeton, and
everything that was his, even his companionship as a guide to the best
riding or walking roads, and, like a clever actor, made his exit at the
very moment when his presence became most desirable.
Lady Hester looked out of the window, and saw, in the street beneath,
the saddle-horses of the colonel, which were led up and down by a
groom in the most accurate of costumes. The nags themselves, too, were
handsome and in top condition. It was a little gleam of civilization,
in the midst of universal barrenness, that brought up memories, some of
which at least were not devoid of pain, so far as the expression of her
features might be trusted. “I wonder who he can be?” said she, musing.
“It's a shocking name! Haggerstone. Perhaps Sir Stafford may remember
him. It's very sad to think that one should be reduced to such people.”
So, with a slight sigh, she sat down to indulge in a mood of deep and
sincere commiseration for herself and her sorrows.
From these reveries she was aroused by the arrival of a package of books
and papers from the colonel. They included some of the latest things of
the day, both French and English, and were exactly the kind of reading
she cared for, that half-gossipry that revolves around a certain set,
and busies itself about the people and incidents of one very small
world. There were books of travel by noble authors, and novels by titled
authoresses; the one as tamely well bred and tiresome as the others were
warm and impassioned, no bad corroborative evidence, by the way, of
the French maxim, that the “safety of the Lady Georginas has an immense
relation to the coldness of the Lord Georges.” There were books of
beauty, wherein loveliness was most aristocratic; and annuals where
nobility condescended to write twaddle. There were analyses of new
operas, wherein the list of the spectators was the only matter of
interest, and better than these were the last fashions of “Longchamps,”
the newest bulletins of that great campaign which began in Adam's
garden, and will endure to the “very crack of doom.”
Lady Hester's spirits rallied at once from these well-timed stimulants;
and when the party gathered together before dinner, George and his
sister were amazed at the happy change in her manner.
“I have had a visitor,” said she, after a short mystification; “a
certain colonel, who assumes to be known to your father, but I fancy
will scarcely be remembered by him, he calls himself Haggerstone.”
“Haggerstone!” said George, repeating the name twice or thrice. “Is not
that the name of the man who was always with Arlington, and of whom all
the stories are told?”
“As I never heard of Arlington's companion, nor the stories in question,
I can't say. Pray enlighten us,” said Lady Hester, tartly.
“Haggerstone sounds so like the name,” repeated George to himself.
“So like what name? Do be good enough to explain.”
“I am unwilling to tell a story which, if not justly attributable to the
man, will certainly attach unpleasantly to his name hereafter.”
“And in your excessive caution for yourself, you are pleased to forget
me, Mr. Onslow. Pray remember that if I admit him to acquaintance--”
“But surely you don't mean to do so?”
“And why not?”
“In the first place, you know nothing about him.”
“Which is your fault.”
“Be it so. I have at least told you enough to inspire reserve and
caution.”
“Quite enough to suggest curiosity and give a degree of interest to a
very commonplace character.”
“Is he young, may I ask?” said George, with a half smile.
“No, far from it.”
“Good-looking?”
“Just as little.”
“Very agreeable and well-mannered?”
“Rather prosy, and too military in tone for my taste.”
“Does he come under the recommendatory 'firman' of any dear friend or
acquaintance?”
“Nothing of the kind. There is his passport,” said she, pointing to his
visiting ticket.
“Your Ladyship used to be more difficult of access,” said George, dryly.
“Very true; and so I may possibly become again. To make selections from
the world of one's acquaintance is a very necessary duty; but, as my
father used to say, no one thinks of using a sieve for chaff.”
“This gentleman is, then, fortunate in his obscurity.”
“Here comes Miss Onslow,” said Lady Hester, “who will probably be more
grateful to me when she learns that our solitude is to be enlivened by
the gallant colonel.”
Sydney scanned over the books and journals on the table, and then
quietly remarked, “If a man is to be judged of by his associates, these
do not augur very favorably for the gentleman's taste.”
“I see that you are both bent on making him a favorite of mine,” said
Lady Hester, pettishly; “and if Dr. Grounsell will only discover some
atrocious circumstance in his history or character, I shall be prepared
to call him 'charming.'”
The announcement of dinner fortunately broke up a discussion that
already promised unfavorably; nor were any of the party sorry at the
interruption.