NO. 60, PARK LANE.
In a work of fiction, says a writer, 'the reader will find a hundred
strange meetings and coincidences--old lovers coming face to face
after years of separation, friends thought dead rising up at the
corners of the streets, and the good characters appearing _ad
libitum_ to confound all the bad in the concluding chapters.
Critics,' he adds, 'laugh at all these wires which pull the Minerva
puppets, but _real life_ has often, more than one imagines, its
strange meetings and coincidences too--old lovers and friends do
start as from Hades into our presence sometimes, and if a good genius
in the shape of a father, or big brother, or a policeman did not come
to the rescue at times when the last hope was failing us, what a deal
more misery there would be in the world.'
Thus it was, through this doctrine of strange chances, that Mary
Wellwood was soon fated to meet Colville on two occasions, and they
came to pass as follows.
Mary had clever little hands, and had frequently made up _such_ caps
for Mrs. Fubsby, and arranged her ribbons and laces so nicely, that
she conceived the idea of obtaining some employment for her needle,
as Ellinor still required many little things that were procured for
her with difficulty.
With high beating heart she one day entered a millinery
establishment, and timidly suggested that she was clever as a worker,
at trimming, cap and bonnet-making, and entreated a trial to be given
her. Her soft voice and pleading face went for nothing. She was
repelled coldly, even superciliously, and the door was pretty plainly
indicated to her; so she issued forth into the bustle of the Edgeware
Road again with a heavy, bitter, and irrepressible sigh.
It was a dull and depressing day early in October, when what remains
to us of foliage and sunshine are held on a precarious tenure indeed,
and people become conscious of 'snow in the air;' when the gardener's
work consists chiefly of 'sweeping up' the leaves that come rustling
down and tidying borders after the blasts of wind. Frost, however,
had not come, and the parterres of Hyde Park, the phloxes and the
late gladioli, still continued to make a brave show, though the
dahlias drooped heavily when the dews fell. Overhead the sky was
dull and leaden, of the usual London tint, and no one could tell in
what quarter of it the sun was hidden.
Mary peeped into the dealer's window, and another sigh escaped her.
Ellinor's landscape was still there, and, of course, unsold; so again
she thought to herself, 'what was to be the end of it all?'
As a last effort she sought a music shop, where she had often given
specimens of her accomplishments on the piano, and where she had
frequently applied, without success, for pupils.
The proprietors liked her voice, but her pale face, with its rare
charm of expression, and soft violet-blue eyes, was beginning to have
a sad and hunted look. They also (for they were judges) liked her
manner--who did not?--so faultless and graceful in its
self-possession even yet, and her tones so sweetly modulated and
pleasant; thus they were honestly anxious to help her if they could,
and had hinted if she took to the stage she might make a fortune in
'the profession.'
They had heard of no pupils yet; but music--a musician--an
accomplished pianist was wanted for a dance, to be given on the
morrow night--two guineas were the honorarium--would she accept it?
She thought what the sum might get for Ellinor, and accepted the
proposal at once.
The money would be paid her at the house.
'Where is it?' she asked.
'No. 60, Park Lane.'
And her informant added that she must go nicely--at least
neatly--dressed; and she hurried home with a lighter heart.
Distasteful though the position and occupation, it was at least a
beginning, and no one knew aught of her or her antecedents.
Next night she attired herself with care, gracefully, and, perhaps,
artistically, in a soft and clinging lace-trimmed dress of creamy
Indian muslin. It was perhaps rather too much for the _rôle_ she had
to play; but it was one of her best costumes, with lace at her white
slender throat, and shading her bare and very lovely arms, while her
only ornament was a single white rose in her breast. So, gloved,
shawled, and with her roll of music, she drove away in a 'growler,'
the last words she heard being expressions of admiration at her
appearance from Ellinor and Mrs. Fubsby.
On past the Marble Arch, and into that aristocratic line of varied
and strange-looking houses, Park Lane, which, in the time of Queen
Anne, was generally known as 'the lane leading to Tyburn,' where the
gallows bore its ghastly freight.
'Number sixty,' she again told her cabman, when he suddenly pulled
up, and she now remembered that she had omitted to ask to whose house
she was going. Though she ought to have been there among, or prior
to, the first arrivals, the position was so new to her that she was a
little late, and already several carriages were on the line before
her, 'setting down,' at a lighted portico, duly furnished with a
striped canopy and carpeted steps. Thus, during the brief pause that
ensued, she was enabled to see that it was a stately house she was
bound for. Though October, the night was fine, and the windows were
open. She obtained, through them, a glimpse of a
splendidly-furnished double drawing-room, with blue silk curtains
festooned within an arch; already several guests were gliding to and
fro, and the fragrance of flowers and perfumes was wafted outward on
the night air.
A painted and partially curtained verandah overhung the garden--a
verandah made like a fairy abode by shrubs and flowers, by Chinese
lanterns, ottomans, and couches; and she felt a strange, spasmodic
tightening of the heart, for there was a figure that seemed familiar
to her hanging over a lovely girl, who was flirting languidly with
her fan.
As one in a dream, she found herself deposited at the door, and
ascending with her music-roll the fast crowding staircase that led to
the dancing-room, attended by a footman as a guide; but the lady of
the house, whoever she was, did not condescend to receive her. And
her pretty bare arms were noticed as she seated herself at the
piano-stool. She had too much dress 'for one in her position,' some
matrons thought suspiciously, all the more so that many men remarked
and admired her; but she adjusted her music and programme, bent her
sweet face closely over the former, and played on, and on, and on,
till her little fingers ached, oh, so wearily, into the hours of the
night and the early hours of the morning.
But ere the latter came one or two episodes occurred.
She discovered, first, that she was in the house of Lord Dunkeld!
Parliament was sitting, and his lordship, as one of the precious
sixteen called 'Representative Peers,' was consequently in town; but
for all the good he ever did Scotland or her interests he might as
well have been at the North Pole.
To Mary Wellwood, with her sensitive pride and memories of the past,
this was a sickening discovery to make! There was, however, no
retreating now. She resolutely kept her face from the guests, and
played on as one in a dream, with the soft patter of feet and
whirling of skirts in her ear.
Once or twice she thought that the cold, calm eyes of Lady Dunkeld
recognised her, and then, flushing deep to the nape of her delicate
neck, she bent lower still over her music. If it was so, the pale
and handsome peeress made no sign, and gave not the slightest
evidence of recognition.
The longing to be gone in Mary's heart was intense, and to her the
hours of that night seemed interminable.
Though 'town was empty,' as she heard, she was thankful that the
rooms were crowded to excess; that the dancers had scarcely room to
move, and thus she had the less chance of recognition.
Mouthing fools with lisping lips, parted hair, and a great display of
shirt-front were there, and men of brilliant intellect too, with many
stately women and lovely girls such as London alone can boast; and
Blanche Galloway moved among them like a bewitching little queen,
superbly dressed by all the care of Rosette.
Suddenly Mary had another shock and tightening of the heart when two
familiar voices fell on her ear, and she discovered near her
Colville--Colville and Sir Redmond Sleath, the latter, as usual in
accurate evening costume, with his tawny moustache, _insouciant_ air,
and china-blue eyes.
The sense of Colville's presence suffocated her, and memory went back
to that last interview in which he suddenly drew her towards him and
kissed her so tenderly and hurried away on their being interrupted,
leaving unsaid what he was bound in honour to say, but urging her to
do nothing rash until 'to-morrow'--the morrow that never came!
'Hah, when did you come to town?' asked Sir Redmond.
'More than a month ago,' replied Colville.
'From Craigmhor?'
'Yes; you left before I did, you remember?'
'Sudden business called me to town. When you left how were our fair
friends at Birkwoodbrae?'
It was terrible for Mary to sit there helplessly and overhear this
conversation; but there was a buzzing sound in her ears, and she
failed to catch Colville's answer; and Sleath spoke again--
'I knew you were deuced spooney on the eldest one. Got over it all
now, of course--_pour passer le temps_.'
'Spooney? I do not choose to have this term applied either to myself
or the lady referred to.'
'As you please. But surely you had no more intention of committing
yourself seriously with her than I had with her younger sister?'
'What do you mean by talking of these young ladies in this style to
me?' asked Colville, in a voice that seemed to have suppressed
passion in it, for at that moment he was recalling some of Doctor
Wodrow's communications regarding the speaker.
'Why, what on earth are they to you? demanded Sleath, focussing him
with his eyeglass.
Mary did not hear the response, but was aware that Sleath started and
said,
'What new dodge is this?'
'I am thinking of going to India again,' said Colville, bluntly, to
change the subject.
'Again--with all your wealth--what folly!'
'I seem to have neither kith nor kin to care for, or aught to keep me
here now.'
'Ah--that red-coat business!'
'What do you mean?'
'As some one says, "We all know that half a man's life is often spent
in wanting to put on the red-coat, and the other half in wanting to
put it off."'
'No part of _your_ life is likely to be spent in either, Sir
Redmond,' said Colville, as he turned on his heel and left him.
'To India again,' whispered Mary in her heart; 'he thinks of going to
India! Well--what is he to me--what am I to him?'
Mary observed that he danced little, if at all, and that he certainly
looked grave--even sad and preoccupied, as he had never done at
Birkwoodbrae.
Colville had never enlightened the Dunkeld family, even before
leaving Craigmhor, of his relationship to the missing sisters, or of
those views, intentions, and the little romantic plan between himself
and Dr. Wodrow, which had proved the cause of so much distress and
mischief.
Blanche Galloway, her rival, as Mary began to deem her again, was the
gayest of the throng there, and, leaning on Colville's arm clingingly
after a long swinging waltz, was fanning herself, and laughing at
some remark that was, in her own parlance, 'quite too awfully funny.'
Intent on Colville and on others too, smiling her brightest upon them
all, but on him in particular, and bestowing flowers with great
_empressement_ from her ample bouquet, as she sat with them in the
dimly-lighted conservatory, and flirted with a science born of her
partly French blood, she never bestowed a thought on the weary and
silent musician, any more than on the aiguletted valets who took
about the jellies and ices, etc.
Mary saw that Colville sat out dances, often with pretty companions,
over whom his handsome head was bent low in confidential
conversation, while he fanned them with gallant assiduity.
'You play most brilliantly, my dear!' said a soft, sweet voice
suddenly in Mary's ear.
No one, as yet, had addressed her that night, and she looked up with
a startled air to see a very handsome and motherly-looking woman
regarding her with kindly interest.
'You have a most exquisite touch,' she continued; 'how I should like
my youngest girl to have some lessons from you--even as a permanent
musical governess. May I speak to Lady Dunkeld about it?'
'Do not--please do not!' replied Mary, imploringly; 'she knows
nothing about me; but I have another reason for declining----'
'Indeed.'
'Yes, madam.'
'A serious one?'
'Very--a sickly sister whom I cannot and would not leave to live
alone.'
'A most creditable reason to give,' said the elderly lady, and was
about to add something more, when Lady Dunkeld suddenly drew near,
and in a hard, metallic voice said,
'Dear Mrs. Deroubigne, a word with you before supper.'
So, as the lady left her side, Mary learned that Deroubigne was her
name, and, with gratitude in her heart for the little bit of praise,
recognition, and sympathy, Mary thought she would never forget her.
The guests filed off to the supper-room, whence ere long came the
murmur of voices, the sounds of laughter, the clink of plates and
glasses, and looking round the empty drawing-room, strewed with
fragments of flowers, lace, muslin, and so forth, Mary, like a hunted
creature, thought only of escape, but was informed that refreshment
for her was set apart from all the rest in a private apartment.
It was a pretty place, with carved oak furniture, valuable pictures,
and the subdued light of a beautiful lamp was shed on the dainty
napery, silver and quaint blue and gold service of the repast set
before her; but Mary was incapable of eating--food would have choked
her. She held a glass of wine to her tremulous and dry lips, but so
tremulous too were her fingers by long playing that she had to set it
down untasted.
She then told the valet who attended her that she was too ill to
remain longer, to make her apologies to Lady Dunkeld, and to get her
shawl and cloak from the women in charge of the cloak-room.
He did so with some surprise, that increased when, on proffering her
two guineas on a silver salver as her fee, she said, sharply,
'Thanks. Keep the money, or spend it in the servants' hall,' and
hurried away.
'Off her blessed chump, by jingo!' muttered 'Jeames,' as he thrust
the money into the pocket of his yellow-plush breeches.
Escaping recognition by Mademoiselle Rosette, who was having a
flirtation in the hall with John Gaiters (Sir Redmond's man), Mary,
in a tumult of distracting thoughts, cabbed it back to St. Mary's
Terrace, so called, though it is a narrow _street_; but that matters
nothing in London, where thoroughfares are called roads, that are
streets or squares, terraces or crescents, and even hills, such as
Ludgate, or vales, such as Maida, without being the slightest
approach to anything of the kind; but such are some of the many
idiosyncrasies of Babylon that puzzle the intelligent foreigner.
Mary was a wise girl; she knew that the wounded heart of Ellinor,
suffering from certain remorse at her treatment of the loving Robert
Wodrow, and mortification at the conduct of Sleath in never
attempting to visit or seek an explanation, would not be healed by
telling _all_ that she had overheard, and more that she suspected,
now only said that she had recognised him and Colville at the ball
and nothing more.
But this reticence proved rather a mistake eventually.