Meanwhile, a period of convulsion was at hand for the happy family
at Shrewsbury. As soon as it was decided that Miss Maywood was to
return to England, a number of obstacles arose, as if by magic, to her
departure--and they were all inspired by Mr. Romaine. As she was to
cross alone he declared that she must do it only under the charge of a
certain captain--and when inquiries were made at the steamship office
in New York, it turned out that this particular captain had a leave of
absence on account of ill health, and would not command his ship again
until after Christmas. Mr. Romaine proposed to wait for this event,
if it did not occur until midsummer. Then some acquaintances were
discovered who intended sailing almost immediately, but Mr. Romaine
suddenly grew very ailing, and could not part with Mr. Chessingham to
take his sister-in-law to New York. Besides he found every imaginable
fault with the proposed traveling companions, and the Chessinghams
and Ethel felt that, after enjoying Mr. Romaine’s hospitality for so
long, they ought to defer to him as regarded the impending departure.
Therefore, although Miss Maywood had undoubtedly got her congé from
Mr. Romaine, she was still under his roof well on in December, and it
looked as if he would succeed in doing to her what Letty complained of
in her own case--making a fool of her. Ethel was really very anxious to
leave; but this reluctance to give her up on the part of her elderly
and eccentric friend made her wonder sometimes whether, after all, Mr.
Romaine would let her return to England without him. He openly declared
that he was tired of Virginia and meant to take a house in London for
the season; and he actually engaged, by correspondence, a charming
house at Prince’s Gate, from the first of April. Ethel felt that it
would be flying in the face of Providence to insist upon going, as long
as there was a chance of her presiding over the house in Prince’s Gate.
And the liberty and spending-money enjoyed by American women seemed
daily more pleasing to her. Whatever could be said against Mr. Romaine,
his worst enemy could not charge him with meanness. He gave with a
princely generosity that made Ethel--who thought that nobody got more
than three per cent. interest on money--think he was worth millions.
Sir Archy had gone away from Corbin Hall a few days after Farebrother
left, but was to return after Christmas; but Ethel put Sir Archy out of
her mind altogether--she was eminently reasonable, and never counted
upon the vaguely brilliant.
The beginning of more serious upheavals was the announcement, one
day, from Bridge, Mr. Romaine’s own man, and Dodson, who was also Mr.
Romaine’s man, but waited on Mr. Chessingham, that they desired to
leave at the end of the month; and Carroll, the ladies’ maid, gave
simultaneous warning.
“I ’ave been, sir, with Mr. Romaine for sixteen year, and I ’ave put
hup with ’im, and I could put hup with ’im for sixteen year more; but
this stoopid country and the willainous blacks is too much for me,”
Bridge announced to Chessingham, with an injured air. Dodson followed
suit, and Carroll tearfully explained that she ’ad been in mortial
terror ever since she first knew the blacks, for fear they would kill
and eat her.
Chessingham was secretly much delighted with this, and confided his
feelings to his wife and Ethel.
“It will take the old curmudgeon back to London quicker than anything
on earth that could have been devised,” he said. “He can’t get on
without Bridge--nobody else, I’m told, ever stayed with him more than
three months--and he’ll be forced to quit.”
In the library a characteristic interview was taking place between
Bridge and his master. Bridge, feeling like a felon, announced his
determination to leave.
“That’s quite satisfactory,” remarked Mr. Romaine, raising his black
eyes from his book. “I have been thinking for some time that I needed
a younger and more active man. I do not like men of any sort when they
become antiquated.”
Bridge opened his mouth to speak, but dared not. He was at least twenty
years younger than Mr. Romaine, and there he was reproached with his
age!
However, some faint stirring of the heart toward the man he had served
so long, and who had given him some kicks, but a good many ha’pence,
too, made him say hesitatingly:
“Wot’s troublin’ me, sir, is how is you goin’ to be hattended to when
you’re hill; and how is you to get shaved, sir?”
“As to my attendance when I am ill, that is a trifle; and shaving will
be unnecessary, as I have intended for some time past to turn out a
full beard,” promptly responded Mr. Romaine. “Now you may go. When you
are ready to leave come to me and I will give you a check.”
The idea of Mr. Romaine in a full beard drove Bridge immediately
into the pantry, where he confided the news to Dodson, and they both
haw-hawed in company.
Nevertheless, the loss of his man, who knew some secrets about his
health, was a very serious one to Mr. Romaine. Also, he had never
shaved or dressed himself in his life, and to him immaculateness of
attire was a necessity. He turned the ridiculous and embarrassing
question over in his mind--how was he to get shaved?--until it nearly
drove him to asking Bridge to reconsider his decision. But before
doing that, he went over to Corbin Hall one day, where a new solution
of the difficulty presented itself.
It was a bright, wintry day in December when he was ushered into the
shabby library, where sat the Colonel. Now, although none of the family
from Corbin Hall had darkened the doors of Shrewsbury for a month past,
Mr. Romaine had calmly ignored this, and had treated the Colonel’s
studied standoffishness with the most exasperating nonchalance. Colonel
Corbin could not be actively rude to any one to have saved his own
life, and the extent of his resentment was shown merely in not visiting
Mr. Romaine, and receiving him with a stiffness that he found much more
difficult to maintain than Mr. Romaine did to endure. The struggle
between the Colonel’s natural and sonorous urbanity toward a guest
and his grave displeasure with Mr. Romaine was desperate; and Mr.
Romaine, seeing it with half an eye, enjoyed it hugely. The idea of
taking Colonel Corbin seriously was excessively ludicrous to him; and
the Colonel’s expectation of being taken seriously on all occasions he
thought the most diverting thing in the world.
“How d’ye do, Corbin?” said Mr. Romaine, entering with a very jaunty
air.
“Good-day, Mr. Romaine,” answered the Colonel, sternly--and then
suddenly and unexpectedly falling into his habitual tone, he continued,
grandiloquently:
“Has your horse been put up, and may we have the satisfaction of
entertaining you at dinner?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” answered Mr. Romaine, smiling; “I merely came over
to see how you and Miss Corbin were coming on--and to ask you a most
absurd question.”
“My granddaughter is coming on very well. For myself, at my time of
life--and yours, too, I may say--there is but one thing to do--which
constitutes coming on well--and that is to prepare for the ferriage
over the dark river.”
“I do not anticipate needing the services of the ferryman for a good
while yet, and my heirs, I apprehend, will have a long wait for their
inheritance,” snapped Mr. Romaine, who was always put in a bad humor
by any allusion to his age. Colonel Corbin, though, could not stand
Mr. Romaine’s hasty allusion to his heirs, and without saying a word,
turned away, and with a portentous frown began to stare out of the
window.
Mr. Romaine, after a moment or two, cooled down and proceeded to make
amends in his own peculiar fashion for his remark.
“Excuse me, Corbin, but you are so devilish persistent on the subject
of my age that I inadvertently used an illustration I should not have
done had I reflected for one instant whom I was addressing. But I take
it that no gentleman will hold another accountable for a few words
said in heat and under provocation. Remember, ‘an affront handsomely
acknowledged becomes an obligation.’”
“Your acknowledgment, sir, was not what I should call a handsome one.”
“Hang it, Corbin, we can’t quarrel. Here I am in trouble, and I have
come to you, as to my friend of forty years, to help me out.”
It was always hard for the Colonel to maintain his anger, and Mr.
Romaine, when he said this, put on one of his characteristic appealing
looks, and spoke in his sweetest voice, and the Colonel could not help
relaxing a little.
“I think you understand, Romaine, the attitude I feel compelled
to assume toward you; but--but--if you are really in unpleasant
circumstances--”
“Deuced unpleasant, I assure you. I’ve had a man for sixteen
years--never knew him to make a mistake, to be off duty when required,
or to have any serious fault--and now he swears he can’t stand Virginia
any longer, and intends leaving me in the lurch. I can’t stand Virginia
much longer myself, but I don’t want the villain to know that his loss
is actually driving me back to England before my time. But the case is
this--I can’t shave myself. Does that black fellow of yours, David,
shave you?”
“I always shave myself--but David understands the art of shaving, and
has practised it on guests upon various occasions, with much success.”
“I wish you would send him over to Shrewsbury to-morrow. If I can’t get
a man by the time Bridge leaves--which will be next week--I might ride
over here every day, and, with your permission, make use of David’s
services until I can get a capable white man.”
To say “No” was generally impossible to the Colonel, so he weakly
yielded. He would send David over on the next day.
Mr. Romaine did not ask to see Letty, and went off after a short visit,
leaving the Colonel in a very bad humor indeed.
Nevertheless, next day Dad Davy appeared and was introduced into Mr.
Romaine’s bed-room. Dad Davy was not only honored by being thought
capable of shaving Mr. Romaine, but he had brought his implements with
him in a rusty-looking rush basket.
“You may know that I am about to dismiss my man; and I desired to find
out if I could get any sort of a barber, in case there might be delay
in the arrival of a man from New York that my agent will send me,” said
Mr. Romaine. He was sitting in a large chair, with a newspaper in his
hand, and wore a flowered silk dressing-gown, and evidently had not
been shaved.
“Lord, yes, sir; I kin shave er gent’mun,” answered Dad Davy, with
visions of a silver quarter illuminating his imagination. “I done brung
some new shavin’ things wid me, and ef you wuz to let me git de hot
water, I kin trim yo’ face jes’ ez clean ez er b’iled onion.”
“Very well; you may try your hand,” said Mr. Romaine, picking up his
paper. “There is the shaving-table.”
Dad Davy tiptoed over to the shaving-table, and examined suspiciously
the silver toilet articles, the spirit-lamps, scented soaps, etc., etc.
Mr. Romaine, absorbed in his paper, presently heard Dad Davy, in an
apologetic tone, saying:
“Marse Richard, I k’yarn do nuttin’ wid dem gorgeousome things. I got
some mighty good soap here, an’ a new shavin’-bresh; an’ ef you will
jes’ lem me took yo’ razor--”
“All right,” answered Mr. Romaine, deep in his paper.
In a few minutes Dad Davy remarked, “I’se ready,” and Mr. Romaine,
lying back in his chair, shut his eyes, while Dad Davy began the
lathering process. When it was about half done Mr. Romaine began
sniffing suspiciously, but he could not open his mouth. Dad Davy then
began with the razor, and a smoother or more luxurious shave Mr.
Romaine never had in his life. As soon as he could speak, he growled:
“What infernal soap is that you’ve got there?”
“Hi, Marse Richard,” answered Dad Davy, in a surprised voice. “I got
de bes’ kin’ o’ soap fur shavin’. Dis heah is de bes’ sort o’ _sof’_
soap, made outen beef taller an’ ash lye--none o’ your consecrated lye,
but de drippin’s f’um er reg’lar lye gum, full o’ hick’ry ashes--an’ I
brung er go’d full.”
Dad Davy produced a large gourd full of a molasses-like substance,
which he poked under Mr. Romaine’s high-bred nose.
“Good heavens!” yelled Mr. Romaine, jumping up and seizing a towel with
much violence.
“Now, Marse Richard, what you gwine on dat way fur? Sof’ soap is de
bes’ fur shavin’. Didn’t I gin you er easy shave?”
“Yes, you did--but this villainous stuff--where’s your shaving-brush?”
Dad Davy triumphantly produced a shaving-brush made mop-fashion by
tying a mass of cotton threads to a short wooden handle.
“My ole ’oman made dis heah,” said Dad Davy, exhibiting this instrument
with great pride. “She make ’em fur ole Marse--and dis heah is er bran
new one--co’se I war n’ goin’ use no u’rr but a new one fur you, Marse
Richard--”
Mr. Romaine looked in speechless disgust from Dad Davy to the rusty
basket, the “go’d” of soap, and the mop for a shaving-brush. But
without one word he sat down again, and Dad Davy finished the job in
perfect style. Just as he had got through, a tap came at the door, and
Bridge entered--and came very near dropping dead in his tracks at the
paraphernalia of the new barber. Mr. Romaine was saying affably:
“A most satisfactory shave--the best I’ve had for years. I would
prefer, however, my own things next time. Give me the bay rum.”
Dad Davy soused his client with bay rum, and then taking up the gourd,
mop, etc., put them in the basket, and stood, expectant of his quarter.
“Here’s a dollar for you,” said Mr. Romaine; “and say to Colonel Corbin
I am much obliged for your visit to-day--and if I had as good a barber
as you I should not follow his plan of shaving himself.”
Dad Davy, although secretly astounded at the magnificence of the gift,
disdained to show his delight before “po’ white trash,” as he regarded
Bridge, and making a profound bow, took himself and his basket off.
Bridge, however, after the manner of his kind, seeing his master
independent of him, began to reflect that he had a good place and high
wages, and that if Mr. Romaine was a difficult master to serve, all
masters had their faults; and he finally concluded to stay. He went to
Mr. Romaine therefore a few days afterward, and with much shuffling,
hemming, and hawing, declared his willingness to remain, provided
Mr. Romaine went to England in April. At this Mr. Romaine expressed
much surprise, and declared that his return to England was quite
problematical and might never occur. Bridge, though, saw unmistakable
signs that Mr. Romaine’s latest freak had outworn itself, and at last
knuckled down completely--when he was restored to favor. Dodson then
followed the prevailing wind and asked to be reinstated; and Carroll,
the maid, being a diffident maiden of forty, declared she couldn’t
think of traveling alone from Virginia to New York; and so, with
the delays attending Miss Maywood’s departure, it looked as if the
Shrewsbury party would depart intact as when it came.
But a disturbance greater than any that yet occurred was now impending,
and was brought about by the innocent agency of Colonel Corbin.
One evening the Colonel had his two fine horses hitched up to a
two-wheeled chaise which had been resurrected from the loft of the
carriage-house during the emergencies of the war time, and started out
for the river landing for a parcel he expected by the boat.
It was now past Christmas, and the “Christmas snow” had come, whitening
the ground. The Colonel’s position in the chaise was one calculated
to make a nervous person uneasy. The vehicle ran down on the horses’
withers in the most uncomfortable way, and if the traces broke--and
they had several breaks in them, mended with twine--the Colonel would
be under the horses’ hind feet before he knew it. But Colonel Corbin
did not know what it was to be afraid of man or beast, and sat back
composedly in the chaise, bracing his feet against the low dashboard,
while the horses dashed along the slushy country road. The snow does
not last in Eastern Virginia, and it only made the road wet and
slippery to the most unsatisfactory degree. But over the fields and
woods it lay soft and unsoiled. The afternoon was gray, and a biting
east wind was blowing.
The Colonel got to the landing in ample time, but it would be dusk
before the great river steamboat would arrive. Meanwhile, he went into
the little waiting-room, with its red-hot stove, and conversed amicably
with the wharfinger, a blacksmith, and two drummers, waiting to take
the boat “up the bay.” It was almost dark when a long, shrill whistle
resounded, and everybody jumped up, saying, “The boat!” A truck loaded
with boxes and freight of all sorts, and the drummers’ trunks, and
drawn by a patient mule, was started down the tramway on the wharf that
extended nearly four hundred yards into the river. The Colonel, like
most country gentlemen, liked to see what was to be seen, and walked
out on the wharf to watch the exciting spectacle of the boat making her
landing.
The sky had darkened still more, and it looked as if more snow were
coming. The great, broad salt river, with its fierce tides and foaming
like the ocean that it was so near, was quite black, except for the
phosphorescent glare left in the steamer’s wake as she plowed her
way along, looking like a gigantic illuminated lantern with lights
blazing from one end of her to the other. At intervals her long, hoarse
whistle screamed over the waters, and presently, with much noise
and churning, she bumped against the wharf and was made fast. Her
gang-plank was thrown out, and a few passengers in the humbler walks
of life stepped off; but, in a moment, the captain himself appeared,
escorting a woman in a long fur cloak. The light from a lantern on
the wharf fell directly upon her, and as soon as the Colonel saw her,
he understood why she should have the captain’s escort. She was about
forty, apparently, and her abundant dark hair was slightly streaked
with gray. But there was not a line or a wrinkle in her clear, pale
face, and her eyes had the beauty of a girl of fifteen. There was
something peculiarly elegant in her whole air--the long seal-skin
mantle that enveloped her, the close black bonnet that she wore, her
immaculate gloves and shoes--Colonel Corbin at once recognized in her a
metropolitan.
She remained talking with the captain for a few moments, until he was
obliged to leave. It took only a short while to discharge the small
amount of freight, and in five minutes the boat had lurched off, and
the noise of her churning wheels and the myriad lights from her saloons
were melting in the blackness where the river and night sky blent
together.
The stranger looked around her with calm self-possession, and seemed
surprised at the loneliness of the landscape and the deserted look of
things around the little waiting-room and freight-house at the end of
the wharf. Colonel Corbin, imagining her the unexpectedly arrived guest
of some one in the county, advanced with a profound bow, and taking off
his hat in the cutting blast, said:
“Madam, permit me to say that you seem to be a stranger and to have
no one to meet you. I am Colonel Corbin, and I should esteem it a
privilege to be of assistance to you.”
“Thank you,” she answered, turning to him and speaking with a very
French accent, “I did not expect any one to meet me, but I thought
there would be a town--or a village at least, when I left the steamer.
I am foreign to this country--I am French, but I am accustomed to
traveling.”
“Every word that you say, madam, is another claim upon me. A lady,
and alone in a strange country! Pray command my services. May I ask if
you are a visitor to any of the county families?--for in that event
everything would be very much simplified.”
“Scarcely,” responded the stranger, with the ghost of a smile upon her
handsome face; “but I have traveled many thousand miles to have an
interview with Mr. Richard Romaine. Permit me to introduce myself--I am
Madame de Fonblanque.”
The Colonel’s face was a study as Madame de Fonblanque continued,
calmly: “I should like first to go to a hotel--somewhere--and then I
could arrange to meet Mr. Romaine.”
“But, madam, there is no hotel, except a country tavern at the Court
House, ten miles away. My residence, however, Corbin Hall, is only four
miles from here--and Mr. Romaine’s place, Shrewsbury, is also within
that distance; and if you would accept of my hospitality, and that of
my sister and my granddaughter, I should be most happy. I have here a
chaise and pair, and would feel honored if you would accept of their
service as well as mine.”
Madame de Fonblanque then showed considerable knowledge of human
nature: for she at once agreed to trust the Colonel, although she had
never laid eyes on him before.
“I think,” she said, after a slight pause, “that I shall be compelled
to accept of your kindness as frankly as you offer it. I will say at
once, that as I have come to demand an act of justice from Mr. Romaine,
he may not make any effort toward seeing me--and as he may do me that
act of justice, I must ask you to trust me for that. But the sooner I
see him the better. If, therefore, you would drive me at once to his
château--house--I could in a few moments discern his intentions. The
boat, I understand, passes here daily before the sun rises--and I could
leave to-morrow morning.”
The simplicity and directness of Madame de Fonblanque’s language
prepossessed the Colonel still more in her favor. But at the
proposition to go to Shrewsbury he winced a little. However, there
was no help for it--he had offered to befriend her, and he stood
unflinchingly to his word.
“Then, madam,” said the Colonel, bowing, “it shall be my privilege
to drive you to Shrewsbury, Mr. Romaine’s residence--and from there
to my own place, where my sister and granddaughter will be happy to
entertain you as long as you find it agreeable to remain with us.”
“I thank you a thousand times,” replied Madame de Fonblanque. “I have
never met with greater kindness, and you have the gratitude of a
woman and a stranger, whom you have relieved from a most inconvenient
predicament.”
The Colonel then offered her his arm, and together they traversed the
long wharf in the descending night, while a wild east wind raved about
them and made the black water seethe below them. There was not much
talking in the teeth of such a wind, but when Madame de Fonblanque was
seated in the chaise with the lap-robes tucked around her, and the
horses were making good time along the soggy road, she told all that
was necessary about herself. She was the widow of an army officer, and
since her widowhood had spent much time in traveling. She had come to
this country to see Mr. Romaine on a matter which she frankly declared
was chiefly one of money; and she desired a personal interview with him
before taking legal steps. She had had a maid with her, but the woman,
having found an unexpected opportunity of going back to France, had
basely left her only the day before.
“And so, as I am a soldier’s daughter and a soldier’s widow,” she
said, with a smile, “I thought, ‘What can harm one in this chivalrous
country? I will go alone. I will take enough money with me’--I was
careful not to take too much--‘and I will simply find out the quickest
way to reach Mr. Romaine, and see him; and then I will return to New
York, where I have friends.’”
“A very courageous thing for a lady to do, madam,” replied the Colonel,
gallantly. “But I think you will find, particularly in the State of
Virginia, that a woman’s weakness is her strength. Every Virginia
gentleman is the protector of a defenseless woman.”
Madame de Fonblanque smiled prettily, showing very white teeth. She
did not quite understand the Colonel’s allusion to Virginia gentlemen
especially, but having great tact, she appeared to comprehend it
perfectly.
“But do not think for a moment,” she said, “that I would bestow my
confidence upon all men as I have bestowed it on you. The supreme
honesty of your character was perfectly visible to me the instant you
addressed me. I have seen much of the world, and I am no bad reader of
character, and I trusted you from the moment I saw you.”
The Colonel took off his hat, and bowed so low that the chaise, at
that moment giving a lurch, nearly pitched him head foremost under his
horses’ heels. Madame de Fonblanque uttered a little scream.
“I always was so nervous about horses,” she said; “although both my
father and my husband were in the Lancers, they never could induce me
to ride.”
Then she began asking some questions about Mr. Romaine, which showed
that she had a very clear knowledge of his character.
“And is the English mees there still?” she inquired, with a slight
smile.
“Yes; but I understand that she has been desirous to leave for some
time,” answered the Colonel.
“Mr. Romaine is a very extraordinary man,” continued Madame de
Fonblanque, after a pause. “I have known him for a long time, and I do
not think in all these years I have ever known him to do one thing in
the usual manner.”
“I have known him, madam, many more years than you have--we were
boys together sixty years ago--and I must say your estimate of him is
correct. Yet Romaine is not without his virtues.”
“Quite true,” replied Madame de Fonblanque, composedly. “He can be the
most generous of men--but I do not think he knows what justice is.”
“Precisely--precisely, madam. After Romaine has spoiled a life, or
has used the power of his money most remorselessly, he will then turn
around and do the most generous and princely thing in the world. But I
should not like to be in his power.”
“Nor I,” said Madame de Fonblanque, in a low voice.
“At present,” continued the Colonel, “the relations between us are
somewhat strained. I am much vexed with him, and have shown it. But
Romaine, as you say, being totally unlike any created being, sees fit
to ignore it, and actually rides over and borrows my man David--a
worthy negro, of very inferior intellect, though--to shave him!”
It did not take long to make the four miles to Shrewsbury, and
presently they dashed up to the door of the large, brightly lighted
house, and the Colonel rapped smartly on the door. There was a bell--an
innovation introduced by Mr. Romaine--but Colonel Corbin disdained to
use so modern and unheard-of an appliance.
Dodson opened the door, and a flood of light from the fine
old-fashioned entrance hall poured out into the night. Colonel Corbin,
according to the Virginia custom, walked in, escorting Madame de
Fonblanque, without asking if any one was home--somebody was certain to
be at home and delighted to see visitors.
Dodson was about to usher them politely in the drawing-room, when
Bridge suddenly appeared. To say that his hair stood on end when he
caught sight of Madame de Fonblanque is hardly putting it strong
enough. His jaw dropped, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He
recovered himself and ran and seized the knob of the drawing-room door.
“Please,” he said, in a very positive tone, “Mr. Romaine hisn’t at
’ome.”
“How do you know that, sir?” sternly demanded the Colonel, advancing on
Bridge, who still held on to the door-knob.
“Because--because--I _knows_ he ain’t--to--that--’ere--pusson.”
The Colonel, who was tall and strong, caught Bridge by the coat collar,
and, with clenched teeth, shook him up and down as a terrier shakes a
rat.
“You insolent scoundrel,” he said, in a fierce basso, “I have a great
mind to throw you out of the door. Go this instant and tell your master
that Madame de Fonblanque and Colonel Corbin are here.”
Bridge, nearly frightened out of his life, and black in the face, was
glad to escape. He made his way half across the hall to Mr. Romaine’s
study door, and then hesitated. Afraid as he was of the Colonel,
the idea of facing Mr. Romaine with such a message was still more
terrifying. The Colonel helped him to make up his mind by advancing and
giving him a well-directed kick on the shins which nearly threw him
into Mr. Romaine’s arms, as that individual unexpectedly opened the
door.
Then there was a pause.
Madame de Fonblanque had remained a silent spectator of the whole
scene, wearing a look of calm amusement. As soon as Mr. Romaine caught
sight of her, his pale face grew still more ashy, and his inscrutable
black eyes blazed with a still more somber splendor. Colonel Corbin,
quite unmoved by his little rencontre with “that infernal flunkey,” as
he described the worthy Bridge afterward, advanced and said, with his
most magnificent air:
“Allow me, Romaine, to announce a lady with whom I imagine you to have
the honor of a previous acquaintance--Madame de Fonblanque.”
“The devil I have!” replied Mr. Romaine.
X
Colonel Corbin could not kick his friend Romaine as he had done poor
Bridge--but he would have dearly liked to at that moment.
Mr. Romaine, after glaring at Madame de Fonblanque, without the
slightest greeting, turned to the Colonel.
“Corbin,” he said, “you always were and always will be the most
unsophisticated, impractical creature God ever made. The idea of your
taking up with this brazen adventuress and bringing her to my house!”
“Hear me, sir,” responded the Colonel; “if you utter another
disparaging word respecting this lady, I will forget your age and
infirmities, and give you the most genteel walloping you ever had in
your life.”
“It will be the first time you ever forgot my age and infirmities,”
coolly answered Mr. Romaine; and then turning to Madame de Fonblanque,
he said:
“What do you want of me?”
“You know very well what I want of you.”
“You will never get it.”
“I shall try, nevertheless. I wish to see you in private.”
“Madam,” said the Colonel, “if you desire the protection of my
presence, you shall have it. I have not the slightest regard for
this--person--who so maligned you; and you see that physically I am
still worth a good deal.”
“You are worth a good deal in every way,” replied Madame de Fonblanque
warmly. “Still, I will see Mr. Romaine alone; and when the interview is
over I will again throw myself upon your protection.”
Mr. Romaine turned and led the way to his library, Madame de Fonblanque
following him. He closed the door, and stood waiting for her to speak.
He was in the greatest rage of his life, but he did not in the least
lose his self-possession.
“Well?” he said, his face blazing with the intensity of his anger.
“One hundred thousand francs,” responded Madame de Fonblanque, sweetly.
They were standing in the middle of the floor, the soft light of the
fire and of a great lamp on the table falling upon them.
“You have raised your price since we last met.”
“Yes. I reckoned up the interest and added it. Besides, I really think
a woman who was disappointed in being made your wife needs a hundred
thousand francs to console her for your loss. Now, most men would not
be worth more than thirty or forty thousand.”
Madame de Fonblanque spoke quite cheerfully and even gaily. She tapped
her pocket gracefully.
“Here I have those letters of yours. They never leave me--particularly
the one proposing marriage, and the half dozen in which you call me
your dearest Athanaise and reproach me bitterly for not loving you
enough. Just imagine the hurricane of amusement they would cause if
read out in court with proper elocutionary effect.”
Madame de Fonblanque laughed, and Mr. Romaine positively blushed.
“What an infernal, infernal ass I was!”
“Yes, I thought so, too,” responded the pretty and sprightly French
woman--“I have often noticed that people who can make fools of others,
invariably, at some time in their lives, make fools of themselves.”
“I did,” answered Mr. Romaine, sententiously. “But I tell you, once for
all, not a penny will I pay.”
“Ah, my dear M. Romaine, that is not for you to say. These
breach-of-promise cases sometimes turn out very badly for the
gentlemen. I can so easily prove my position, my respectability--the
way you pursued me from London to Brighton, from Brighton to
Folkestone, from Folkestone to Eastbourne--and these invaluable and
delightful letters. It will be a _cause célèbre_--that you may depend
upon. And what a figure you will cut! The New York papers will have a
column a day--the London papers two columns. By the way, I hear you
have leased a fine house at Prince’s Gate for the season. You will have
to give up that lease, my friend--you will not dare to show your face
in London this season, M. Romaine.”
All this time Madame de Fonblanque had been laughing, as if it were a
very good joke; but she now became serious.
“There is a tragic side to it,” she continued, going closer to Mr.
Romaine, and looking at him in a threatening way. “I know all about
that visit to Dr. Chambers. No matter how I found it out--I know
he passed sentence of death on you; and while this good, amiable
Chessingham is doctoring you for all sorts of imaginary aches and
pains, you have one constant ache and pain that he does not suspect,
because you have so carefully concealed it from him--and the slightest
annoyance or chagrin may be fatal to you. I know that you have tried
to persuade the good Chessingham that you have every disease in the
calendar of diseases--except the one that is killing you.”
Mr. Romaine walked rather unsteadily to a chair and sat down, burying
his face in his hands. Madame de Fonblanque, after a moment, felt an
impulse of pity toward him. She went and touched him lightly.
“You called me a brazen adventuress just now--and I acknowledge that
I am not engaged in a very high business, trying to make you pay me
for not keeping your word. But I feel sorry for you now. I dislike to
witness your unhappiness. Say you will pay me, and let me go.”
“Never,” answered Mr. Romaine, looking up, with an unquenchable
determination in his eyes.
“Very well, then,” answered Madame de Fonblanque, quietly; “you know
I am a very determined woman. I came here to see for myself what your
condition is. I shall go away to instruct my lawyers to bring suit
against you immediately. I may not get one hundred thousand francs in
money--but I will get a hundred thousand francs’ worth of revenge.”
“It seems to me,” presently said Mr. Romaine, with a cynical smile on
his face, “your revenge will be two-edged.”
“So is nearly all revenge. It’s a very ignoble thing to avenge one’s
self--few people can do it without sharing in the ignominy. But I
weighed the matter well before I made up my mind. French newspapers
take but little notice of what goes on outside of Paris. I have
influence enough to silence those that would say anything about it--and
I care not a sou for anybody or anything in this country or England. I
shall go back to Paris and say it was another Madame de Fonblanque.”
Madame de Fonblanque, following Mr. Romaine’s example, seated herself,
and opened the long, rich cloak of fur she wore. She was certainly very
handsome, particularly when the heat of the room brought a slight flush
to her clear cheeks.
“It is strange to me that a woman of your education and standing should
engage in this scheme of yours,” after a while said Mr. Romaine.
“One hundred thousand francs,” responded Madame de Fonblanque.
“You might have married well a dozen times if you had played your cards
right,” he continued.
“One hundred thousand francs,” again said Madame de Fonblanque.
“What are your plans of campaign, may I ask?”
“To get one hundred thousand francs from you.”
“That ridiculous old blunderbuss, Corbin! I suppose he has invited you
to take up your quarters at Corbin Hall, indefinitely, without knowing
any more about you than he does of the man in the moon.”
“He has--the dear, innocent old gentleman--and I shall stay until I get
my one hundred thousand francs. But he shall not regret it. I know how
to appreciate kindness. I have met with so little. The man I loved--my
husband--squandered my _dot_, which I gave him, and it is on account of
my rash fondness for one man that it is now absolutely necessary for me
to have some money from another; and I intend to make every effort to
get a hundred thousand francs from you.”
Mr. Romaine remained silent for a few minutes, considering a _coup_.
Then his usual sly smile appeared upon his countenance. When he spoke
his voice had more than its usual velvety softness.
“Your efforts, Madame de Fonblanque, will not be necessary; for I
hereby declare to you my perfect willingness to marry you, and I shall
put it in writing.”
It was now Madame de Fonblanque’s turn to be disconcerted. She fell
back in her chair and gazed dumbly at Mr. Romaine. Marry him! And as
she had laughed while Mr. Romaine had suffered, now he laughed wickedly
while she literally cowered at the prospect presented to her.
“And as regards my sudden and speedy death, which you seem to
anticipate, it could not benefit you”--he leaned over and said
something to her in a low tone, which caused Madame de Fonblanque
to start--“so that you will have the satisfaction of enjoying my
money--such as I may choose to give you--as long as I live. But I warn
you--I am not an easy man to live with, nor would the circumstances of
our marriage render me more so. Ask Chessingham if I am easy to live
with, and he will tell you that I am not, even at my best. It would
not surprise me, in case our marriage took place, if you were to wish
yourself free again. You say you desire revenge. So would I--and I
would take it.”
Madame de Fonblanque grew steadily paler as Mr. Romaine spoke. She
knew well enough the purgatory he was offering her. To marry him! Such
an idea had never dawned upon her. The conviction of his insincerity
had caused her coyness in the first instance which had stimulated Mr.
Romaine so much. It had really looked, in the beginning, as if he
would not succeed in the least in making a fool of this pretty French
widow. But he had finally succeeded at the cost of making a fool of
himself. However, it was now his turn to score--because it was plain
that Madame de Fonblanque was anything but enraptured at the notion of
marrying him.
She caught sight of Mr. Romaine’s black eyes dancing in enjoyment of
her predicament. She rose and drew her fur cloak around her.
“I will think it over, Mr. Romaine,” she said, calmly.
“Pray do,” responded Mr. Romaine; “and I will write you a letter
to-morrow morning, making a specific offer to fulfil my promise, which
will make those cherished letters of yours worth considerably less than
the paper they are written on--and what a honeymoon we will have!”
At this, Madame de Fonblanque positively shuddered, but she held her
head up bravely as Mr. Romaine opened the door politely for her, and
they discovered Colonel Corbin stalking up and down the hall alone.
“Corbin,” said Mr. Romaine, blandly, “Madame de Fonblanque and I have
reached a perfectly satisfactory agreement.”
“Sir,” replied the Colonel, glowering with wrath, “it must also be made
satisfactory to me. When I bring a lady to a house, she is under my
protection; and when she has the term ‘brazen adventuress’ applied to
her, simply because she has come to demand a mere act of justice--and I
know this to be a fact, because she has so informed me--I must insist
upon an apology from the person applying that term.”
“Very well, then,” said Mr. Romaine, debonair and smiling. “I
apologize. Madame de Fonblanque is not a brazen adventuress--she is
merely a lady of great enterprise and assurance, and I wish you joy of
her acquaintance.”
In Madame de Fonblanque’s breast there sprang up that desire that
is never wholly smothered in any human being--to appear well in the
presence of a person she respected. She did sincerely respect Colonel
Corbin, who had befriended her on that risky expedition, and it cut her
to the heart to be insulted before him. Her eyes filled with tears, and
she turned to him with trembling lips.
“Do not mind what he says. He hates me because he has injured me, and
keeps me out of money that he ought to pay me.”
“I do not mind him in the least, madam,” replied the Colonel, suavely.
“Mr. Romaine knows perfectly well my opinion of him. He keeps you out
of money he owes you, and insists upon forcing on my granddaughter
money that she does not want, and which will involve her in endless
trouble. I think that is quite characteristic of Romaine. Let us now
leave this inhospitable house.”
Madame de Fonblanque took the arm the Colonel offered her, and walked
out of the hall without noticing Mr. Romaine’s courteous bow.
The proposition made to Madame de Fonblanque was truly startling.
Almost anything on earth was better than marrying him--and what he
had whispered to her proved that she could not profit one penny by
his death. She would gladly have foregone that offer on paper for
some other letters she had in which he flatly refused to keep his
word, and which she had held over him _in terrorem_. She could not
determine in a moment what to do, but she was convinced that she could
not see Mr. Romaine again, and the matter would have to be settled
by correspondence. And then she felt the sooner she got away from
this place where she had been checkmated the better. When they were
traveling fast through the murky night toward Corbin Hall, she broached
the subject at once of her return in the morning. The Colonel declared
it depended upon the weather, which puzzled Madame de Fonblanque very
much until it was explained to her that it was a question of weather
whether the boat came or not. Sometimes, in that climate, the river
froze over, and then the river steamers stopped running until there was
a thaw--for ice-boats were unknown in that region. It was very cold,
and getting colder, and the Colonel was of the opinion that a freeze
was upon them, and no boat could get down the river that night.
When they got to Corbin Hall, Madame de Fonblanque was extremely
nervous about the greeting she would get from the Colonel’s
womankind--but it was as cordial and unsuspicious as his had been.
The Colonel explained that Madame de Fonblanque had business with Mr.
Romaine, who had treated her like--Mr. Romaine; and Letty, as soon as
she found somebody with a community of prejudice against the master of
Shrewsbury, felt much drawn toward her. There was no doubt that Madame
de Fonblanque was a lady; and in the innocent and unworldly lives of
the ladies at Corbin Hall, the desperate shifts and devices to get
money of people with adventurous tendencies were altogether unknown and
unsuspected. Besides, people from a foreign country were very great
novelties to them; and Letty seated herself, after tea, to hear all
about that marvelous world beyond the sea. The Colonel still talked
about his visit to Europe in 1835, and Paris in the days of the Citizen
King, and imagined that everything had remained unchanged since then.
Madame de Fonblanque was a stout Monarchist, as most French people of
dubious antecedents profess to be, and gave out with much tact that,
although only the widow of a poor officer in the Lancers, she was on
intimate terms with all the Faubourg St. Germains. As she frankly
admitted her modest means, there was no hint of braggadocio in anything
she said in her fluent French-English. She had great curiosity about
Mr. Romaine, and was well up in all his adventures since he had been in
America. She spoke of him so coolly and critically that it never dawned
upon her listeners that the difficulties between them were not of the
usual business kind.
“As for the English mees,” she said, calmly, “I would say to her, ‘Go
home, my pretty demoiselle; don’t waste your time on that--that aged
crocodile.’ The English, you know, have no sentiment. They call us
unfeeling because French parents select a suitable man for an innocent
young daughter to marry, and bid her feel for him all the tenderness
possible. But those calculating English meeses would marry old
Scaramouch himself if he had money enough.”
The Colonel did not like to hear his favorite nation abused, and rather
squirmed under this; but he reflected that Madame de Fonblanque’s
remarks were due, no doubt, to the traditional jealousy between the
French and the English.
Madame de Fonblanque gave the straightest possible account of herself,
including the desertion of her maid the day before.
“I thought, with my trusty Suzanne, I could face anything. I did not
imagine I could go anywhere in this part of America that I would not
find hotels, railroads, telegraph offices--”
“There is one tavern in the county, and that a very poor one, six miles
away--and not a line of telegraph wire or railway nearer than two
counties off,” explained Letty, smiling.
Madame de Fonblanque clapped her hands.
“How delicious! I shall tell this in France. It is like some of our
retired places in the provinces, where the government has erected
telegraph lines, but the people do not know exactly what they are meant
for! And when that wretched Suzanne left me, I asked at once for the
French consul--but I found there was none in town. All of my adventures
here have been novel--and as I have met with such very great kindness,
I shall always regard them as amusing.”
She showed no disposition to trespass on the hospitality so generously
offered her, and looked out of the window anxiously when they rose to
go to their rooms. But it had begun snowing early in the evening, and
the ground was now perfectly white.
“No boat to-morrow, madam,” said the Colonel. “You will, I am sure, be
forced to content yourself at Corbin Hall for some days yet.”
“I content myself perfectly,” replied Madame de Fonblanque, with ready
grace; “but one must be careful not to take advantage of so much
generosity as yours.”
When she was alone in the same old-fashioned bed-room that Farebrother
had occupied, enjoying, as he had done, the sparkling wood-fire,
she reflected gratefully upon the goodness of these refined and
simple-minded people--but she also reflected with much bitterness
upon the extremely slim prospect of her getting any money from Mr.
Romaine. She had fully counted upon his dread of ridicule, his fear of
publicity, to induce him to hand over a considerable sum of money; but
she had not in the least counted upon what she considered his truly
diabolical offer to come up to his word. To marry Mr. Romaine! She
could have brought herself to it, reflecting that he could not live
forever; but those few words he whispered to her showed her that it
was out of her power to get any money at his death. She believed what
he told her--it was so thoroughly characteristic of him--and she would
by no means risk the horrors of marrying this embodied whim with that
probability hanging over her. She turned it over and over in her mind,
wearily, until past midnight, when she tossed to and fro until the gray
dawn shone upon the snow-covered world.
But Mr. Romaine suffered from more than sleeplessness that night. The
Chessinghams guessed from the accounts given by the servants of the
strange visitor that Madame de Fonblanque had turned up miraculously
with Colonel Corbin, and after a short interview with Mr. Romaine had
disappeared. They knew all about the old report that Mr. Romaine had
been very marked in his attentions at one time to the pretty widow and
Chessingham shrewdly guessed very near the truth concerning her visit,
which truth convulsed him with laughter.
“It is the most absurd thing,” he said to his wife and Ethel Maywood,
in their own sitting-room that night. “No doubt the old fellow has some
entanglement with her, and finding widows a little more difficult to
impose upon than guileless maidens, he’s been trapped in some way.”
“And serves him right,” said Mrs. Chessingham, with energy. “I know
he’s kind to us, Reggie--but--was there ever such another man as Mr.
Romaine, do you think?”
“The Lord be praised, no,” answered Chessingham. “And he is not only
mentally and morally different from any man I ever saw, but physically,
too. I swear, after having been his doctor for two years, I don’t know
his constitution yet. He will describe to me the most contradictory
symptoms. He will profess to take a prescription and apparently it
will have just the opposite effect from that intended. Sometimes I
have asked myself if he has not, all the time, some disease that he
rigorously conceals from me, and he simply uses these subterfuges to
deceive me.”
“Anything is possible with Mr. Romaine,” said Ethel quietly. “And
yet--he is the most generous of men. Our own father was not half so
free with his money to us as Mr. Romaine is. And he seems to shrink
from the least acknowledgment of it. How many men, do you think, would
allow a doctor to carry his wife and sister-in-law around with him
as he does, and do everything for us, as if we were the most valued
friends and guests?”
“Oh, Romaine isn’t a bad man, so much as a perverse one,” replied
Chessingham, lightly, “and he is a tremendously interesting one.”
At that very moment, Mr. Romaine was in the condition that any man but
himself would have called for a doctor--but not for worlds would he
have allowed Chessingham to see him then. He understood his own case
perfectly--and the one human being near him that was in his confidence
was Bridge.
The evening was a very unhappy one for Mr. Romaine--the more so that
what the great specialist he had consulted had predicted was actually
happening. Being disturbed in mind, he was becoming ill in body. How
on earth had that cruel French woman found out about Dr. Chambers? So
Mr. Romaine thought, sitting in his library chair, suffering acutely.
Dr. Chessingham offered to come in and read to him, to play écarté
with him--but it occurred to Mr. Romaine that perhaps a visit to the
Chessinghams’ part of the house might divert his spirits and take
his mind off the torturing subject of Madame de Fonblanque. He took
Bridge’s arm and tottered off to the Chessinghams’ sitting-room. But
the instant he entered the door his indomitable spirit asserted itself.
He stood upright, walked steadily, and even forced a smile to his lips.
Mrs. Chessingham and Ethel were at their everlasting fancy work, of
which Mr. Romaine had never seen a completed specimen. Ethel rose and
placed a chair for him--which, as he was old and infirm and needed it,
nettled him extremely.
“Pray, my dear Miss Maywood, don’t trouble yourself. I do not yet
require the kind coddling you would bestow upon me.”
Ethel, being an amiable and patient creature, took this with a smile.
“I am looking forward with great pleasure,” said Mr. Romaine, after
having seated himself in a straight-backed chair, while he yearned
for an easy one, “to the season in London. I have had my eye on that
house in Prince’s Gate for several years, and, of course, feel pleased
to have it. Being an old-fashioned man, I have kept pretty closely
to the localities which were modish when I was a young attaché some
years since--such as Belgravia, Grosvenor, and Lowndes Squares, and
all those places. But there is something very attractive about the new
Kensington--and I have intended for some years to take a house in that
part of town for a season--and this one particularly struck my fancy.”
“It is very handsome--but very expensive,” said Mrs. Chessingham.
“Most handsome things are expensive, dear madam, but this house is
reasonable, considering its charm, and I hope that you as well as your
sister will enjoy some of its pleasures with me.”
Both young women smiled--it would be nice to have the run of the house
at Prince’s Gate--and after going through with a winter in the country,
and in Virginia, too, they thought they had earned it.
“Heretofore,” continued Mr. Romaine, stroking his white mustache with
his delicate hand, “while I have been fond of entertaining, it has
always been of a sedate kind--chiefly dinners. But last year I was
beguiled into promising my young friend, Lady Gwendolen Beauclerc,
a ball, if I could get a house with a ball-room--and a few days ago
I received a very pretty reminder of my promise, in the shape of a
photograph and a letter.”
“Better and better,” thought Ethel--“to be invited to a ball given to
please Lady Gwendolen Beauclerc!” But Gladys spoke up with her usual
simplicity and straightforwardness.
“I hardly think, being now married to a medical man with his way to
make in the world, that I shall be asked to many swell balls--and
perhaps it is better that I should not go.”
“But, Gladys, we went once to swell balls,” said Ethel, reproachfully.
“Oh, yes,” answered Gladys, “but that was over and done with when I
married my husband--and he is well worth the sacrifice. Reggie himself
is of good family, as you know, but he is on that account too proud
to associate with people upon terms of condescension--so, when we
were married, we agreed to be very careful about giving and accepting
invitations.”
“The social prejudices of you English are peculiar,” remarked Mr.
Romaine. “It is from you that we Virginia people inherit that profound
respect for land. I found, early in life, when I first went to
England and when Americans were scarce there, that it was more in my
favor to be a landholder and a slave-owner than if I had been worth
millions. The landed people in all countries are united by a powerful
bond, which does not seem to exist with other forms of property. But
because agriculture is perhaps the first and the most absorbing and
conservative of all industrial callings, the people who own land are
naturally bound together and appreciative of each other.”
While Mr. Romaine was giving this little disquisition, he suffered
furious pain, but the only indication he gave of it was a furtive
wiping of his brow.
“And the hold of the land upon one is peculiar. I could never bring
myself to part with an acre of it which I had either bought or
inherited. Of course, during my practical expatriation for many years,
my landed property here has suffered. I have often wondered at myself
for holding on to it, when I could have invested the money in an
English estate which really would have been much more profitable--but
I could never divest myself of the feeling that the land would yet
draw me back to it. However,” he continued, quite gaily, “it is now so
depreciated, and the new system is so impossible for the old masters
to adopt, that I can’t sell it, and I can’t live on it--so I shall be
compelled to buy an estate in England in the country, for a town house,
even the Prince’s Gate one, is only endurable for five months in the
year.”
Ethel’s eyes glistened--a town house at Prince’s Gate--an estate in the
country! Might she not, after all, be Mrs. Romaine? And Mr. Romaine’s
position was so much better than that of any other American she knew;
the others were all striving for recognition, but Mr. Romaine had had
an assured place in English society for a generation. He had not only
dandled Lady Gwendolen Beauclerc, who was a duke’s daughter, on his
knee, but he had danced, at a court ball, with the Queen herself, when
she was a youthful matron, and he was a slim young diplomat. And in a
flash of imagination, Ethel saw herself becomingly attired in widow’s
weeds and leaving, by the hands of a footman in mourning livery,
black-bordered cards, bearing the inscription, “_Mrs. Romaine_.”