OF THE COUSIN AND THE BLACK CABINET--AND OF HENRY ASHWOODE'S DECISIVE
INTERVIEW WITH LADY STUKELY.
"Well, then," said Ashwoode, a few days after the occurrences which
have just been faithfully recorded, "it behoves me without loss of time
to make provision for this infernal bond; until I see it burned to
dust, I feel as if I stood in the dock. This sha'n't last long--my
stars be thanked, one door of escape lies open to me, and through it I
will pass; the sun shall not go down upon my uncertainty. To be sure, I
shall be--but curse it, it can't be helped now; and let them laugh, and
quiz, and sneer as they please, two-thirds of them would be but too
glad to marry Lady Stukely with half her fortune, were she twice as old
and twice as ugly--if, indeed, either were possible. Pshaw! the laugh
will subside in a week, and in the style in which I shall open, curse
me, if half the world won't lie at my feet. Give me but
money--money--plenty of money, and though I be a paragon of absurdity
and vice, the whole town will vote me a Solomon and a saint; so let's
have no more shivering by the brink, but plunge boldly in at once and
have it over."
Fortified with these reflections, Sir Henry Ashwoode vaulted lightly
into his saddle, and putting his horse into an easy canter, he found
himself speedily at Lady Stukely's house in Stephen's Green. His
servant held the rein and he dismounted, and, having obtained
admission, summoned all his resolution, lightly mounted the stairs, and
entered the handsome drawing-room. Lady Stukely was not there, but his
cousin, Emily Copland, received him.
"Lady Betty is not visible, then?" inquired he, after a little chat
upon indifferent subjects.
"I believe she is out shopping--indeed, you may be very certain she is
not at home," replied Emily, with a malicious smile; "her ladyship is
always visible to you. Now confess, have you ever had much cruelty or
coldness to complain of at dear Lady Stukely's hands?"
Ashwoode laughed, and perhaps for a moment appeared a little
disconcerted.
"I _do_ admit, then, as you insist on placing me in the confessional,
that I have always found Lady Betty as kind and polite as I could have
expected or hoped," rejoined Ashwoode, assuming a grave and
particularly proper air; "I were particularly ungrateful if I said
otherwise."
"Oh, ho! so her ladyship has actually succeeded in inspiring my
platonic cousin with gratitude," continued Emily, in the same tone,
"and gratitude we all know is Cupid's best disguise. Alas, and
alack-a-day, to what vile uses may we come at last--alas, my poor coz."
"Nay, nay, Emily," replied he, a little piqued, "you need not write my
epitaph yet; I don't see exactly why you should pity me so enormously."
"Haven't you confessed that you glow with gratitude to Lady Stukely?"
rejoined she.
"Nonsense! I said nothing about _glowing_; but what if I had?" answered
he.
"Then you acknowledge that you _do_ glow! Heaven help him, the man
actually _glows_," ejaculated Emily.
"Pshaw! stuff, nonsense. Emily, don't be a blockhead," said he,
impatiently.
"Oh! Harry, Harry, Harry, don't deny it," continued she, shaking her
head with intense solemnity, and holding up her fingers in a monitory
manner--"you are then actually in love. Oh, Benedick, poor Benedick!
would thou hadst chosen some Beatrice not quite so well stricken in
years; but what of that?--the beauties of age, if less attractive to
the eye of thoughtless folly than those of youth, are unquestionably
more durable; time may rob the cheek of its bloom, but I defy him to
rob it of its rouge; years--I might say centuries--have no power to
blanche a wig or thin its flowing locks; and though the nymph be blind
with age, what matters it if the swain be blind with love? I make no
doubt you'll be fully as happy together as if she had twice as long to
live."
Ashwoode poked the fire and blew his nose violently, but nevertheless
answered nothing.
"The brilliant blush of her cheek and the raven blackness of her wig,"
continued the incorrigible Emily, "in close and striking contrast, will
remind you, and I trust usefully, of that _rouge et noir_ which has
been your ruin all your days."
Still Ashwoode spoke not.
"The exquisite roundness of her ladyship's figure will remind you that
flesh, if not exactly grass, is at least very little better than bran
and buckram; and her smile will invariably suggest the great truth,
that whenever you do not intend to bite it is better not to show your
teeth, especially when they happen to be like her ladyship's; in short,
you cannot look at her without feeling that in every particular, if
rightly read, she supplied a moral lesson, so that in her presence
every unruly passion of man's nature must entirely subside and sink to
rest. Yes, she will make you happy--eminently happy; every little
attention, every caress, every fond glance she throws at you, will
delightfully assure your affectionate spirit, as it wanders in memory
back to the days of earliest childhood, that she will be to you all
that your beloved grandmother could have been, had she been spared. Oh!
Harry, Harry, this will indeed be too much happiness."
Another pause ensued, and Emily approached Sir Henry as he stood
sulkily by the mantelpiece, and laying her hand upon his arm, looked
archly up into his face, while shaking her head she slowly said,--
"Oh! love, love--oh! Cupid, Cupid, mischievous little boy, what hast
thou done with my poor cousin's heart?
"''Twas on a widow's jointure land
The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'"
As she said this, she looked so unutterably mischievous and comical,
that in spite of his vexation and all his efforts to the contrary, he
burst into a long and hearty fit of laughter.
"Emily," said he, at length, "you are absolutely incorrigible--gravity
in your company is entirely out of the question; but listen to me
seriously for one moment, if you can. I will tell you plainly how I am
circumstanced, and you must promise me in return that you will not quiz
me any more about the matter. But first," he added, cautiously, "let us
guard against eavesdroppers."
He accordingly walked into the next room, which opened upon that in
which they were, and proceeded to close the far door. Before he had
reached it, however, that in the other room opened, and Lady Stukely
herself entered. The instant she appeared, Emily Copland by a gesture
enjoined silence, nodded towards the door of the next room, from which
Ashwoode's voice, as he carelessly hummed an air, was audible; she then
frowned, nodded, and pointed with vehement repetition toward a dark
recess in the wall, made darker and more secure by the flanking
projection of a huge, black, varnished cabinet. Lady Stukely looked
puzzled, took a step in the direction of the post of concealment
indicated by the girl, then looked puzzled, and hesitated again. More
impatiently Emily repeated her signal, and her ladyship, without any
distinct reason, but with her curiosity all alive, glided behind the
protecting cabinet, with all its army of china ornaments, into the
recess, and there remained entirely concealed. She had hardly effected
this movement, which the deep-piled carpet enabled her to do without
noise, when Ashwoode returned, closed the door of communication between
the two rooms, and then shut that through which Lady Stukely had just
entered, almost brushing against her as he did so, so close was their
proximity. These precautions taken, he returned.
"Now," said he, in a low and deliberate tone, "the plain facts of the
case are just these. I am dipped over head and ears in debt--debts,
too, of the most urgent kind--debts which threaten me with ruin. Now,
these _must_ be paid--one way or another they _must_ be met. And to
effect this I have but one course--one expedient, and you have guessed
it. No man knows better than I what Lady Stukely is. I can see all that
is ridiculous and repulsive about her just as clearly as anybody else.
She is old enough to be my grandmother, and ugly enough to be the
devil's--and, moreover, painted and varnished over like a signboard.
She may be a fool--she may be a termagant--she may be what you
please--but--_but_ she has money. She has been throwing herself into my
arms this twelvemonth or more--and--but what the deuce is that?"
This interrogatory was caused by certain choking sounds which proceeded
with fearful suddenness from the place of Lady Stukely's concealment,
and which were instantaneously followed by the appearance of her
ladyship in bodily presence. She opened her mouth, but gave utterance
to nothing but a gasp--drew herself up with such portentous and
swelling magnificence, that Ashwoode almost expected to see her expand
like the spectre of a magic-lantern until her head touched the ceiling.
Forward she came, in her progress sweeping a score of china ornaments
from the cabinet, and strewing the whole floor with the crashing
fragments of monkeys, monsters, and mandarins, breathless, choking, and
almost black with rage, Lady Stukely advanced to Ashwoode, who stood,
for the first time in his life, bereft of every vestige of
self-possession.
"Painted! varnished!" she screamed hysterically, "ridiculous!
repulsive! Oh, heaven and earth! you--you preternatural monster!" With
these words she uttered two piercing shrieks, and threw herself in
strong hysterics into a chair, holding on her wig distractedly with one
hand, for fear of accidents.
[Illustration: "'Painted! Varnished!' she screamed, hysterically."
_To face page 188._]
"Don't--don't ring the bell," said she, with an abrupt accession of
fortitude, observing Emily Copland approach the bell. "Don't, I shall
be better presently." And then, with another shriek, she opened afresh.
As the hysterics subsided, Ashwoode began a little to recover his
scattered wits, and observing that Lady Stukely had sunk back in
extreme languor and exhaustion, with closed eyes, he ventured to
approach the shrine of his outraged divinity.
"I feel--indeed I own, Lady Stukely," he said, hesitatingly, "I have
much to explain. I ought to explain--yes, I ought. I will, Lady
Stukely--and--and I can entirely satisfy--completely dispel----"
He was interrupted here; for Lady Stukely, starting bolt upright in the
chair, exclaimed,--
"You wretch! you villain! you perjured, scheming, designing, lying,
paltry, stupid, insignificant, outrageous----"
Whether it was that her ladyship wanted words to supply a climax, or
that hysterics are usually attended with such results, we cannot
pretend to say, but certain it is that at this precise point the
languishing, fashionable, die-away Lady Stukely actually spat in the
young baronet's face.
Ashwoode changed colour, as he promptly discharged the ridiculous but
very necessary task of wiping his face. With difficulty he restrained
himself under this provocation, but he did command himself so far as to
say nothing. He turned on his heel and walked downstairs, muttering as
he went,--
"An old painted devil!"
The cool air, as he passed out, speedily dissipated the confusion and
excitement of the scene that had just passed, and all the consequences
of his rupture with Lady Stukely rushed upon his mind with overwhelming
and maddening force.
"You were right, perfectly right--he _is_ a cheat--a trickster--a
villain!" exclaimed Lady Stukely. "Only to think of him! Oh, heaven and
earth!" And again she was seized with violent hysterics, in which state
she was conducted up to her bedroom by Emily Copland, who had enjoyed
the catastrophe with an intensity of relish which none but a female,
and a mischievous one to boot, can know.
Loud and repeated were Lady Stukely's thanksgivings for having escaped
the snares of the designing young baronet, and warm and multiplied and
grateful her acknowledgments to Emily Copland--to whom, however, from
that time forth she cherished an intense dislike.