'ALL FANCY, PRIDE, AND FICKLE MAIDENHOOD.'
The return to Arlington Street meant a return to the ceaseless whirl of
gaiety. Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an approach to perpetual
motion as one could hope for in this world; but the excitement and the
hurrying and scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there were
moments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blue
river and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields and
hanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark. But in
London the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; the
freshness was gone from the verdure of the parks; the glory of the
rhododendrons had faded; the Green Park below Lady Kirkbank's mansion
was baked and rusty; the towers of the Houses of Parliament yonder were
dimly seen in a mist of heat. London air tasted of smoke and dust,
vibrated with the incessant roll of carriages, and the trampling of
multitudinous feet.
There are women of rank who can take the London season quietly, and live
their own lives in the midst of the whirl and the riot--women for whom
that squirrel-like circulation round and round the fashionable wheel has
no charm--women who only receive people they like, only go into society
that is congenial. But Lady Kirkbank was not one of these. The advance
of age made her only more keen in the pursuit of pleasure. She would
have abandoned herself to despair had the glass over the mantelpiece in
her boudoir ceased to be choked and littered with cards--had her book of
engagements shown a blank page. Happily there were plenty of people--if
not all of them the best people--who wanted Sir George and Lady Kirkbank
at their parties. The gentleman was sporting and harmless, the lady was
good-natured, and just sufficiently eccentric to be amusing without
degenerating into a bore. And this year she was asked almost everywhere,
for the sake of the beauty who went under her wing. Lesbia had been as a
pearl of price to her chaperon, from a social point of view; and now
that she was engaged to Horace Smithson she was likely to be even more
valuable.
Mr. Smithson had promised Lady Kirkbank, sportively as it were, and upon
the impulse of the moment, as he would have offered to wager a dozen of
gloves, that were he so happy as to win her _protégée's_ hand he would
find her an investment for, say, a thousand, which would bring her in
twenty per cent.; nay, more, he would also find the thousand, which
would have been the initial difficulty on poor Georgie's part. But this
little matter was in Georgie's mind a detail, compared with the
advantages to accrue to her indirectly from Lesbia's union with one of
the richest men in London.
Lady Kirkbank had brought about many good matches, and had been too
often rewarded with base ingratitude upon the part of her _protégées_,
after marriage; but there was a touch of Arcady in the good soul's
nature, and she was always trustful. She told herself that Lesbia would
not be ungrateful, would not basely kick down the ladder by which she
had mounted to heights empyrean, would not cruelly shelve the friend who
had pioneered her to high fortune. She counted upon making the house in
Park Lane as her own house, upon being the prime mover of all Lesbia's
hospitalities, the supervisor of her visiting list, the shadow behind
the throne.
There were balls and parties nightly, dinners, luncheons,
garden-parties; and yet there was a sense of waning in the glory of the
world--everybody felt that the fag-end of the season was approaching.
All the really great entertainments were over--the Cabinet dinners, the
Reception at the Foreign Office, the last of the State balls and
concerts. Some of the best people had already left town; and senators
were beginning to complain that they saw no prospect of early
deliverance. There was Goodwood still to look forward to; and after
Goodwood the Deluge--or rather Cowes Regatta, about which Lady
Kirkbank's set were already talking.
Lady Lesbia was to be at Cowes for the Regatta week. That was a settled
thing. Mr. Smithson's schooner-yacht, the Cayman, was to be her hotel.
It was to be Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia's yacht for the nonce; and
Mr. Smithson was to live on shore at his villa, and at that aristocratic
club to which, by Maulevrier's influence, and on the score of his
approaching marriage with an earl's daughter, he had been just selected.
He would be only Lady Kirkbank's visitor on board the Cayman. The severe
etiquette of the situation would therefore not be infringed; and yet Mr.
Smithson would have the happiness of seeing his betrothed sole and
sovereign mistress of his yacht, and of spending the long summer days at
her feet. Even to Lady Lesbia this idea of the yacht was not without its
charm. She had never been on board such a yacht as the Cayman; she was a
good sailor, as testified by many an excursion, in hired sailing boats,
at Tynemouth, and St. Bees; and she knew that she would be the queen of
the hour. She accepted Mr. Smithson's invitation for the Cowes week more
graciously than she was wont to receive his attentions, and was pleased
to say that the whole thing would be rather enjoyable.
'It will be simple enchantment,' exclaimed the more enthusiastic
Georgie Kirkbank. 'There is nothing so rapturous as life on board a
yacht; there is a flavour of adventure, a _sansgêne_, a--in short
everything in the world that I like. I shall wear my cotton frocks, and
give myself up to enjoyment, lie on the deck and look up at the blue
sky, too deliciously idle even to read the last horrid thing of Zola's.'
But the Cowes Regatta was nearly three weeks ahead; and in the meantime
there was Goodwood, and the ravelled threads of the London season had to
be wound up. And by this time it was known everywhere that the affair
between Mr. Smithson and Maulevrier's sister was really on. 'It's as
settled a business as the entries and bets for next year's Derby,' said
one lounger to another in the smoking-room of the Haute Gomme. 'Play or
pay, don't you know.'
Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia had both written to Lady Maulevrier, Lesbia
writing somewhat coldly, very briefly, and in a half defiant tone, to
the effect that she had accepted Mr. Smithson's offer, and that she
hoped her grandmother would be pleased with a match which everybody
supposed to be extremely advantageous. She was going to Grasmere
immediately after the Cowes week to see her dear grandmother, and to be
assured of her approval. In the meanwhile she was awfully busy; there
were callers driving up to the door at that very moment, and her brain
was racked by the apprehension that she might not get her new gown in
time for the Bachelor's Ball, which was to be quite one of the nicest
things of the year, so dearest grandmother must excuse a hurried letter,
etc., etc., etc.
Georgie Kirkbank was more effusive, more lengthy. She expatiated upon
the stupendous alliance which her sweetest Lesbia was about to make; and
took credit to herself for having guided Lesbia's footsteps in the right
way.
'Smithson is a most difficult person,' she wrote. 'The least error of
taste on your dear girl's part would have _froisséd_ him. Men with that
immense wealth are always suspicious, ready to imagine mercenary
motives, on their guard against being trapped. But Lesbia had _me_ at
her back, and she managed him perfectly. He is positively her slave; and
you will be able to twist him round your little finger in the matter of
settlements. You may do what you like with him, for the ground has been
thoroughly prepared by _me_.'
Lady Maulevrier's reply was not enthusiastic. She had no doubt Mr.
Smithson was a very good match, according to the modern estimate of
matrimonial alliances, in which money seemed to be the Alpha and Omega.
But she had cherished views of another kind. She had hoped to see her
dear granddaughter wear one of those noble and historic names which are
a badge of distinction for all time. She had hoped to see her enter one
of those grand old families which are a kind of royalty. And that Lesbia
should marry a man whose sole distinction consisted of an immense
fortune amassed heaven knows how, was a terrible blow to her pride.
'But it is not the first,' wrote Lady Maulevrier. 'My pride has received
crushing blows in days past, and I ought to be humbled to the dust. But
there is a stubborn resistance in some natures which stands firm against
every shock. You and Lesbia will both be surprised to hear that Mary,
from whom I expected so little, has made a really great match. She was
married yesterday afternoon in my morning room, by special licence, to
the Earl of Hartfield, the lover of her choice, whom we at Fellside have
all known as plain John Hammond. He is an admirable young man, and sure
to make a great figure in the world, as no doubt you know better than I
do, for you are in the way of hearing all about him. His courtship of
Mary is quite an idyll; and the happy issue of this romantic love-affair
has cheered and comforted me more than anything that has happened since
Lesbia left me.'
This letter, written in Fräulein's niggling little hand, Lady Kirkbank
handed to Lesbia, who read it through in silence; but when she came to
that part of the letter which told of her sister's marriage, her cheek
grew ashy pale, her brow contracted, and she started to her feet and
stared at Lady Kirkbank with wild, dilated eyes, as if she had been
stung by an adder.
'A strange mystification, wasn't it?' said Lady Kirkbank, almost
frightened at the awful look in Lesbia's face, which was even worse than
Belle Trinder's expression when she read the announcement of Mr.
Smithson's flight.
'Strange mystification! It was base treachery--a vile and wicked lie!'
cried Lesbia, furiously. 'What right had he to come to us under false
colours, to pretend to be poor, a nobody--with only the vaguest hope of
making a decent position in the future?--and to offer himself under such
impossible conditions to a girl brought up as I had been--a girl
educated by one of the proudest and most ambitious of women--to force me
to renounce everything except him? How could he suppose that any girl,
so placed, could decide in his favour? If he had loved me he would have
told me the truth--he would not have made it impossible for me to accept
him.'
'I believe he is a very high flown young man,' said Lady Kirkbank,
soothingly; 'he was never in _my_ set, you know, dear. And I suppose he
had some old Minerva-press idea that he would find a girl who would
marry him for his own sake. And your sister, no doubt, eager to marry
_anybody_, poor child, for the sake of getting away from that very
lovely dungeon of Lady Maulevrier's, snapped at the chance; and by a
mere fluke she becomes a countess.'
Lesbia ignored these consolatory remarks. She was pacing the room like
a tigress, her delicate cambric handkerchief grasped between her two
hands, and torn and rent by the convulsive action of her fingers. She
could have thrown herself from the balcony on to the spikes of the area
railings, she could have dashed herself against yonder big plate-glass
window looking towards the Green Park, like a bird which shatters his
little life against the glass barrier which he mistakes for the open
sky. She could have flung herself down on the floor and grovelled, and
torn her hair--she could have done anything mad, wicked, desperate, in
the wild rage of this moment.
'Loved me!' she exclaimed; 'he never loved me. If he had he would have
told me the truth. What, when I was in his arms, my head upon his
breast, my whole being surrendered to him, adoring him, what more could
he want? He must have known that this meant real love. And why should he
put it upon me to fight so hard a fight--to brave my grandmother's
anger--to be cursed by her--to face poverty for his sake? I never
professed to be a heroine. He knew that I was a woman, with all a
woman's weakness, a woman's fear of trial and difficulty in the future.
It was a cowardly thing to use me so.'
'It was,' said Lady Kirkbank, in the same soothing tone; 'but if you
liked this Hammond-Hartfield creature a little in those old days, I
know you have outlived that liking long ago.'
'Of course; but it is a hard thing to know one has been fooled, cheated,
weighed in the balance and found wanting,' said Lesbia, scornfully.
She was taming down a little by this time, ashamed of that outbreak of
violent passion, feeling that she had revealed too much to Lady
Kirkbank.
'It was a caddish thing to do,' said Georgie; 'and this Hartfield is
just what I always thought him--an insufferable prig. However, my
sweetest girl, there is really nothing to lament in the matter. Your
sister has made a good alliance, which will score high in your favour
by-and-by, and you are going to marry a man who is three times as rich
as Lord Hartfield.'
'Rich, yes; and nothing but rich; while Lord Hartfield is a man of the
very highest standing, belongs to the flower of English nobility. Rich,
yes; Mr. Smithson is rich; but, as Lady Maulevrier says, he has made his
money heaven knows how.'
'Mr. Smithson has not made his money heaven knows how,' answered Lady
Kirkbank, indignantly. 'He has made it in cochineal, in iron, in
gunpowder, in coal, in all kinds of commodities. Everybody in the City
knows how he has made his money, and that he has a genius for turning
everything into gold. If the gold changes back into one of the baser
metals, it is only when Mr. Smithson has made all he wanted to make. And
now he has quite done with the City. The House is the only business of
his life; and he is becoming a power in the House. You have every reason
to be proud of your choice, Lesbia.'
'I will try to be proud of it,' said Lesbia, resolutely. 'I will not be
scorned and trampled upon by Mary.'
'She seemed a harmless kind of girl,' said Lady Kirkbank, as if she had
been talking of a housemaid.
'She is a designing minx,' exclaimed Lesbia, 'and has set her cap at
that man from the very beginning.'
'But she could not have known that he was Lord Hartfield.'
'No; but he was a man; and that was enough for her.'
From this time forward there was a change in Lady Lesbia's style and
manner--a change very much for the worse, as old-fashioned people
thought; but to the taste of some among Lady Kirkbank's set, the change
was an improvement. She was gayer than of old, gay with a reckless
vivacity, intensely eager for action and excitement, for cards and
racing, and all the strongest stimulants of fashionable life. Most
people ascribed this increased vivacity, this electric manner, to the
fact of her engagement to Horace Smithson. She was giddy with her
triumph, dazzled by a vision of the gold which was soon to be hers.
'Egad, if I saw myself in a fair way of being able to write cheques upon
such an account as Smithson's I should be as wild as Lady Lesbia,' said
one of the damsel's military admirers at the Rag. 'And I believe the
young lady was slightly dipped.'
'Who told you that?' asked his friend.
'A mother of mine,' answered the youth, with an apologetic air, as if he
hardly cared to own such a humdrum relationship. 'Seraphine, the
dressmaker, was complaining--wanted to see the colour of Lady Lesbia
Haselden's money--vulgar curiosity--asked my old mother if she thought
the account was safe, and so on. That's how I came to know all about
it.'
'Well, she'll be able to pay Seraphine next season.'
Lord Maulevrier came back to London directly after his sister's wedding.
The event, which came off so quietly, so happily, filled him with
unqualified joy. He had hoped from the very first that his Molly would
win the cup, even while Lesbia was making all the running, as he said
afterwards. And Molly had won, and was the wife of one of the best young
men in England. Maulevrier, albeit unused to the melting-mood, shed a
tear or two for very joy as the sister he loved and the friend of his
boyhood and youth stood side by side in the quiet room at Grasmere, and
spoke the solemn words that made them one for ever.
The first news he heard after his return to town was of Lesbia's
engagement, which was common talk at the clubs. The visitors at Rood
Hall had come back to London full of the event, and were proud of giving
a detailed account of the affair to outsiders.
They all talked patronisingly of Smithson, and seemed to think it
rather a wonderful fact that he did not drop his aspirates or eat peas
with a knife.
'A man of stirling metal,' said the gossips, 'who can hold his own with
many a fellow born in the purple.'
Maulevrier called in Arlington Street, but Lady Kirkbank and her
_protégée_ were out; and it was at a cricket match at the Orleans Club
that the brother and sister met for the first time after Lord
Hartfield's wedding, which by this time had been in all the papers; a
very simple announcement:
'On the 29th inst., at Grasmere, by the Reverend Douglass Brooke, the
Earl of Hartfield to Mary, younger daughter of the ninth Earl of
Maulevrier.'
Lesbia was the centre of a rather noisy little court, in which Mr.
Smithson was conspicuous by his superior reserve.
He did not exert himself as a lover, paid no compliments, was not
sentimental. The pearl was won, and he wore it very quietly; but
wherever Lesbia went he went; she was hardly ever out of his sight.
Maulevrier received the coolest possible greeting. Lesbia turned pale
with anger at sight of him, for his presence reminded her of the most
humiliating passage in her life; but the big red satin sunshade
concealed that pale angry look, and nothing in Lesbia's manner betrayed
emotion.
'Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, and why were you not
at Henley?' she asked.
'I have been at Grasmere.'
'Oh, you were a witness of that most romantic marriage. The Lady of
Lyons reversed, the gardener's son turning out to be an earl. Was it
excruciatingly funny?'
'It was one of the most solemn weddings I ever saw.'
'Solemn! what, with my Tomboy sister as bride! Impossible!'
'Your sister ceased to be a Tomboy when she fell in love. She is a sweet
and womanly woman, and will make an adorable wife to the finest fellow I
know. I hear I am to congratulate you, Lesbia, upon your engagement with
Mr. Smithson.'
'If you think _I_ am the person to be congratulated, you are at liberty
to do so. My engagement is a fact.'
'Oh, of course, Mr. Smithson is the winner. But as I hope you intend to
be happy, I wish you joy. I am told Smithson is a really excellent
fellow when one gets to know him; and I shall make it my business to be
better acquainted with him.'
Smithson was standing just out of hearing, watching the bowling.
Maulevrier went over to him and shook hands, their acquaintance hitherto
having been of the slightest, and very shy upon his lordship's part; but
now Smithson could see that Maulevrier meant to be cordial.