THE MARCHIONESS AT BAY
“Has anything happened?”
“The worst has happened.”
It was the morning after the concert, and the sedulous Despencer had
called upon his exacting patroness, as in duty bound. The marchioness
had only just descended; she had made a hurried toilette, and in
consequence the pearl powder was not quite so delicately shaded off
round her neck as usual, and her waist was at least half an inch wider
than its wont.
Such touching traces of maternal anxiety were not lost on the observant
Despencer. There is no eye like that of love.
“Why, what is it? You alarm me,” he said, lazily sinking into a chair
in front of the marchioness. They were in her boudoir, an apartment
which ladies reserve for the reception of gentlemen who do not happen
to be married to them. The Marquis of Severn had not been in his wife’s
boudoir for ten years.
“That man Hammond has had the audacity to send a note to Victoria
this morning asking her to release him from their engagement,” the
marchioness announced.
“Why on earth has he done that?”
“He says he finds he has mistaken the nature of his feelings for her,”
said the marchioness, with fine scorn.
“What a ridiculous idea! As if his feelings had anything to do with it!
The man must be a scoundrel.”
“He is worse,” said the marchioness with conviction; “he is a fool. Oh,
if I had only sent the announcement to the papers last night; then they
could neither of them have backed out of it.”
“What does Lady Victoria say?” inquired her friend, cautiously.
“She pretends to be perfectly indifferent. She treats the affair as if
it were more my concern than hers. That is what is so hard. If she only
took a proper interest in her own position, I should not be afraid; but
when I have to deal with a man who says he doesn’t want to marry my
daughter, and a daughter who says she doesn’t want to marry him, what
am I, as a mother, to do?”
She gazed plaintively at Despencer, who considerately shook his head.
“It is a difficult position, certainly, but I don’t despair,” he
remarked, encouragingly. “I have the very greatest confidence in you,
marchioness. I shall be quite interested to see how you get on.”
“Don’t be so heartless and unfeeling! I consider this is as much your
business as mine. You helped to bring about the engagement, and now you
ought to support me in holding this man to his word.”
“Well, if you are going to bring an action, I shall be delighted to
give evidence, but I don’t see what else I can do.” He paused a moment,
and then asked, in a different tone: “Have you any idea of the cause
of this sudden change? I thought everything was going so smoothly last
night.”
The marchioness gave an emphatic nod.
“That is just what I want to know. I suspect that it has something to
do with that scene in the picture-gallery, and I am determined to get
at the truth about it.”
“Really!” Despencer regarded her with an amused smile. “Do you know, I
quite envy you. You are so energetic, and so hopeful.”
“You mean by that, I suppose, that you don’t think I shall succeed?”
He shrugged his shoulders with bland deprecation.
“Well, I can only say that in the course of my experience I have
several times tried to get at the truth where a man and a woman were
concerned, and _I_ never succeeded. You may be more fortunate.”
The marchioness darted a suspicious look at him.
“One thing I mean to know anyway, and that is, who were behind that
curtain.”
Despencer stole a glance at her sideways.
“There I think you are unwise. It is always so much better _not_ to
know who are behind the curtain.”
The marchioness sat up and frowned in earnest.
“That shows that you think it was my husband and Belle Yorke. Mr.
Despencer, I can see that there is some connection between those two,
and that you know all about it.”
Despencer smiled pleasantly, with the satisfaction of a general who
sees the enemy march straight into the ambush he has prepared. He could
even afford to play with his victim.
“Oh, my dear marchioness, what do you take me for?” he returned, with
an insincerity not intended to deceive. “Am I a necromancer? Am I the
author of ‘Who’s Who’?”
But, much to his inward disappointment, he was saved from further
questioning by the entrance at this juncture of the marchioness’s
nephew, to whom she had sent an urgent summons before Despencer’s
arrival.
Captain Mauleverer came in looking very guilty and ashamed, though he
made a poor bravado of ignorance.
“Yes, aunt, what is it?” he inquired, scarcely troubling to acknowledge
Despencer’s presence by a nod.
“Sit down, please,” ordered the marchioness. “I want you to tell me
exactly what passed in the picture-gallery last night before I came in.”
Gerald sat down with ill-concealed reluctance.
“I am afraid there is nothing I can tell you,” he stammered.
“Oh, yes, there is,” his aunt retorted. “What were you and Mr. Hammond
doing there?”
“I am not aware that we were doing anything,” was the sullen answer.
“We met there by accident, and we fell into conversation.”
“What was the conversation about?” pursued the relentless examiner.
“I’m afraid I can’t even tell you that.”
“Do you know that Mr. Hammond is engaged to your cousin Victoria?”
“I gathered something of the kind from what he said.”
The marchioness pounced on the admission.
“So much the better. You hear that, Mr. Despencer?”
“Certainly. Most damaging evidence. He can’t possibly get out of that,”
murmured the faithful one.
“My dear aunt!” exclaimed the startled captain, “surely you don’t
anticipate any trouble with Hammond, do you?”
“Never mind. You say that he has made the engagement a subject of
conversation among his friends, and that is sufficient to bind him as
an honorable man.”
“But, good heavens! I didn’t say that,” protested her unfortunate
nephew.
The marchioness turned coldly to her ally.
“Mr. Despencer, you heard?”
“Most distinctly,” said the witness. “Nothing could be clearer.”
The captain became desperate. He tried to explain:
“No--but really, it was from Victoria that I heard of it first, only
she didn’t mention Hammond’s name.”
The marchioness smiled cruelly.
“Very good. Then I shall be able to tell him that she has also
announced the engagement among _her_ friends.” She turned to Despencer.
“What do you say to that?”
“It is absolutely conclusive. It doesn’t leave him a single loop-hole.”
The miserable captain writhed helplessly, like a victim in the hands of
the Holy Office, finding every answer twisted into a fresh heresy.
“Look here, do you mean to say that there is a chance of his breaking
it off?” he asked the marchioness.
“Not the very slightest,” was the grim response; “but he may try to.”
All at once her manner became coaxing. “Now, I trust to you, Gerald,
as a gentleman, not to stand in your cousin’s way. You can’t marry her
yourself, as you know perfectly well, and therefore you ought not to
prevent her making a good match.”
“I am not likely to,” he answered, gloomily. “As long as Vick and
Hammond are engaged, I am out of it altogether.”
The marchioness looked extremely relieved.
“That is right,” she said, approvingly. “I knew I could rely on your
good feelings not to let two millions go out of the family. But now,
are you quite sure, Gerald, that you said nothing to Mr. Hammond last
night that might have led him to suspect that there was something
between you and Victoria?”
Gerald, conscious of having assured Hammond with considerable
earnestness that Victoria loved himself, turned red as he stammered:
“Oh--er--well--I don’t know; the fact is, you see, I didn’t
understand--”
His aunt came to his relief.
“Exactly. I thought as much. Now, Gerald, I shall be seeing Mr. Hammond
this morning, and I leave it to your sense of honor to go and speak to
him and put things right first. You understand me?”
The wretched Mauleverer rose to go out. On his way to the door he
caught Despencer’s mocking smile, and longed to kick him. As soon as he
was gone, the other, unconscious of the peril he had run, uttered the
words:
“Marchioness, you are a great woman!”