LADY MARDYKES'S BALL.
The autumn deepened, and leaves were brown, and summer's leafy honours
spread drifting over the short grass and the forest roots. Winter came,
and snow was on the ground, and presently spring began to show its buds,
and blades, and earliest flowers; and the London season was again upon
us.
Lady Lorrimer had gone, soon after our visit to Golden Friars, to Naples
for the winter. She was to pass the summer in Switzerland, and the
autumn somewhere in the north of Italy, and again she was to winter in
her old quarters at Naples. We had little chance, therefore, of seeing
her again in England for more than a year. Her letters were written in
varying spirits, sometimes cheery, sometimes _de profundis_. Sometimes
she seemed to think that she was just going to break up and sink; and
then her next letter would unfold plans looking far into the future, and
talking of her next visit to England. There was an uneasy and even
violent fluctuation in these accounts, which did not exactly suggest the
idea of a merely fanciful invalid. She spoke at times, also, of intense
and exhausting pain. And she mentioned that in Paris she had been in the
surgeons' hands, and that there was still uncertainty as to what good
they might have done her. This may have been at the root of her
hysterical vacillations. But, in addition to this, there was something
very odd in Lady Lorrimer's correspondence. She had told mamma to write
to her once a fortnight, and promised to answer punctually; but nothing
could be more irregular. At one time, so long an interval as two whole
months passed without bringing a line from her. Then, again, she would
complain of mamma's want of punctuality. She seemed to have forgotten
things that mamma had told her; and sometimes she alluded to things as
if she had told them to mamma, which she had never mentioned before.
Either the post-office was playing tricks with her letters, or poor Lady
Lorrimer was losing her head.
I think, if we had been in a quiet place like Malory, we should have
been more uneasy about Lady Lorrimer than, in the whirl of London, we
had time to be. There was one odd passage in one of her letters; it was
as follows: "Send your letters, not by the post, I move about so much;
but, when you have an opportunity, send them by a friend. I wish I were
happier. I don't do always as I like. If we were for a time
together--but all I do is so uncertain!"
Papa heard more than her letters told of her state of health. A friend
of his, who happened to be in Paris at the time, told papa that one of
the medical celebrities whom she had consulted there had spoken to him
in the most desponding terms of poor Lady Lorrimer's chances of
recovery, I do not know whether it was referable to that account of her
state of health or simply to the approach of the time when he was to
make his _debut_ in the House; but the fact is that papa gave a great
many dinner-parties this season; and mamma took her drives in a new
carriage, with a new and very pretty pair of horses; and a great deal of
new plate came home; and it was plain that he was making a fresh start
in a style suited to his new position, which he assumed to be certain
and near. He was playing rather deep upon this throw. It must be
allowed, however, that nothing could look more promising.
Sir Luke Pyneweck, a young man, with an estate and an overpowering
influence in the town of Shillingsworth, had sat for three years for
that borough, not in the House, but in his carriage, or a Bath-chair, in
various watering-places at home and abroad--being, in fact, a miserable
invalid. This influential young politician had written a confidential
letter, with only two or three slips in spelling and grammar, to his
friend the Patronage Secretary, telling him to look out for a man to
represent Shillingsworth till he had recovered his health, which was not
returning quite so quickly as he expected, and promising his strenuous
support to the nominee of the minister. Papa's confidence, therefore,
was very reasonably justified, and the matter was looked upon by those
sages of the lobbies who count the shadowy noses of unborn Houses of
Commons as settled. It was known that the dissolution would take place
early in the autumn.
Presently there came a letter to the "whip," from his friend Sir Luke
Pyneweck, announcing that he was so much better that he had made up his
mind to try once more before retiring.
This was a stunning blow to papa. Sir Luke could do without the
government better than the government could do without him. And do or
say what they might, no one could carry the borough against him. The
Patronage Secretary really liked my father; and, I believe, would have
wished him, for many reasons, in the House. But what was to be done? Sir
Luke was neither to be managed nor bullied; he was cunning and
obstinate. He did not want anything for himself, and did not want
anything for any other person. With a patriot of that type who could do
anything?
It was a pity the "whip" did not know this before every safe
constituency was engaged. A pity papa did not know it before he put an
organ into Shillingsworth church, and subscribed six hundred pounds
towards the building of the meeting-house. I never saw papa so cast down
and excited as he was by this disappointment. Looking very ill, however,
he contrived to rally his spirits when he was among his friends, and
seemed resolved, one way or other, to conquer fortune.
Balls, dinners, concerts, garden-parties, nevertheless, devoured our
time, and our drives, and shopping, and visits went on, as if nothing
had happened, and nothing was impending.
Two notable engagements for the next week, because they were connected,
in the event, with my strange story, I mention now. On Tuesday there was
Lady Mardykes's ball, on that day week papa had a political party to
dinner, among whom were some very considerable names indeed. Lady
Mardykes's balls were always, as you know, among the most brilliant of
the season. While dancing one of those quadrilles that give us breathing
time between the round dances, I saw a face that riveted my attention,
and excited my curiosity. A slight old gentleman, in evening costume,
with one of those obsolete under-waistcoats, which seemed to me such a
pretty fashion (his was of blue satin), was the person I mean. A
forbidding-looking man was this, with a thin face, as brown as a nut,
hawk's eyes and beak, thin lips, and a certain character of dignified
ill-temper, and even insolence, which, however, did not prevent its
being a very gentleman-like face. I instantly recognised him as the old
man, in the chocolate-coloured coat, who had talked so sharply, as it
seemed to me and poor Nelly, with Laura Grey on the Milk-walk, in the
shadow of the steep bank and the overhanging trees.
"Who is that old gentleman standing near the door at the end of the
room, with that blue satin about his neck? Now he's speaking to Lady
Westerbroke."
"Oh! that's Lord Rillingdon," answered my friend.
"He does not go to many places? I have seen him, I think, but once
before," I said.
"No, I fancy he does not care about this sort of thing."
"Doesn't he speak very well? I think I've heard----"
"Yes, he speaks only in Indian debates. He's very well up on India--he
was there, you know."
"Don't you think he looks very cross?" I said.
"They say he is very cross," said my informant, laughing: and here the
dance was resumed, and I heard no more of him.
Old Lord Rillingdon had his eyes about him. He seemed, as much as
possible, to avoid talking to people, and I thought was looking very
busily for somebody. As I now and then saw this old man, who, from time
to time, changed his point of observation, my thoughts were busy with
Laura Grey, and the pain of my uncertainty returned--pain mingled with
remorse. My enjoyment of this scene contrasted with her possible lot,
upbraided me, and for a time I wished myself at home.
A little later I thought I saw a face that had not been seen in London
for more than a year. I was not quite sure, but I thought I saw Monsieur
Droqville. In rooms so crowded, one sometimes has so momentary a peep of
a distant face that recognition is uncertain. Very soon I saw him again,
and this time I had no doubt whatever. He seemed as usual, chatty, and
full of energy; but I soon saw, or at least fancied, that he did not
choose to see mamma or me. It is just possible I may have been doing him
wrong. I did not see him, it is true, so much as once glance towards us;
but Doctor or Monsieur Droqville was a man who saw everything, as
Rebecca Torkill would say, with half an eye--always noting everything
that passed; full of curiosity, suspicion, and conclusion, and with an
eye quick and piercing as a falcon's.
This man, I thought, had seen, and was avoiding us, without wishing to
appear to do so. It so happened, however, that some time later, in the
tea-room, mamma was placed beside him. I was near enough to hear. Mamma
recognised him with a smile and a little bow. He replied with just
surprise enough in his looks and tones to imply that he had not known,
up to that moment, that she was there.
"You are surprised to see me here?" he said; "I can scarcely believe it
myself. I've been away thirteen months--a wanderer all over Europe; and
I shall be off again in a few days. By-the-bye, you hear from Lady
Lorrimer sometimes: I saw her at Naples, in January. She was looking
flourishing then, but complaining a good deal. She has not been so well
since--but I'll look in upon you to-morrow or the next day. I shall be
sure to see her again, immediately. Your friends, the Wiclyffs, were at
Baden this summer, so were the D'Acres. Lord Charles is to marry that
French lady; it turns out she's rather an heiress; it is very nearly
arranged, and they seemed all very well pleased. Have you seen my friend
Carmel lately?"
"About three weeks ago; he was going to North Wales," she said.
"He is another of those interesting people who are always dying, and
never die," said Monsieur Droqville.
I felt a growing disgust for this unfeeling man. He talked a little
longer, and then turned to me and said:
"There's one advantage, Miss Ware, in being an old fellow--one can tell
a young lady, in such charming and brilliant looks as yours to-night,
what he thinks, just as he might give his opinion upon a picture. But I
won't venture mine; I'll content myself with making a petition. I only
ask that, when you are a very great lady, you'll remember a threadbare
doctor, who would be very glad of an humble post about the court, and
who is tired of wandering over the world in search of happiness, and
finding a fee only once in fifty miles."
I do not know what was in this man's mind at that moment. If he was a
Jesuit, he certainly owed very little to those arts and graces of which
rumour allows so large a share to the order. But brusque and almost
offensive as I thought him, there was something about him that seemed to
command acceptance, and carry him everywhere he chose to go. He went
away, and I saw him afterwards talking now to one great lady, and now to
another. Lord Rillingdon, who looked like the envious witch whom Madame
D'Aulnois introduces sometimes at the feasts of her happy kings and
queens, throwing a malign gloom on all about them, had vanished.
That night, however, was to recall, as unexpectedly, another face, a
more startling reminder of Malory and Laura Grey.