How Lady Glencora Went to Lady Monk's Party.
Lady Monk's house in Gloucester Square was admirably well adapted for
the giving of parties. It was a large house, and seemed to the eyes
of guests to be much larger than it was. The hall was spacious, and
the stairs went up in the centre, facing you as you entered the inner
hall. Round the top of the stairs there was a broad gallery, with an
ornamented railing, and from this opened the doors into the three
reception-rooms. There were two on the right, the larger of which
looked out backwards, and these two were connected by an archway, as
though made for folding-doors; but the doors, I believe, never were
there. Fronting the top of the staircase there was a smaller room,
looking out backwards, very prettily furnished, and much used by Lady
Monk when alone. It was here that Burgo had held that conference with
his aunt of which mention has been made. Below stairs there was the
great dining-room, on which, on these occasions, a huge buffet was
erected for refreshments,--what I may call a masculine buffet, as it
was attended by butlers and men in livery,--and there was a smaller
room looking out into the square, in which there was a feminine
battery for the dispensing of tea and such like smaller good things,
and from which female aid could be attained for the arrangement or
mending of dresses in a further sanctum within it. For such purposes
as that now on foot the house was most commodious. Lady Monk, on
these occasions, was moved by a noble ambition to do something
different from that done by her neighbours in similar circumstances,
and therefore she never came forward to receive her guests. She
ensconced herself, early in the evening, in that room at the head of
the stairs, and there they who chose to see her made their way up to
her, and spoke their little speeches. They who thought her to be a
great woman,--and many people did think her to be great,--were wont
to declare that she never forgot those who did come, or those who did
not. And even they who desired to describe her as little,--for even
Lady Monk had enemies,--would hint that though she never came out
of the room, she would rise from her chair and make a step towards
the door whenever any name very high in fashionable life greeted
her ears. So that a mighty Cabinet Minister, or a duchess in great
repute, or any special wonder of the season, could not fail of
entering her precincts and being seen there for a few moments. It
would, of course, happen that the doorway of her chamber would become
blocked; but there were precautions taken to avoid this inconvenience
as far as possible, and one man in livery was employed to go
backwards and forwards between his mistress and the outer world, so
as to keep the thread of a passage open.
But though Lady Monk was in this way enabled to rest herself during
her labours, there was much in her night's work which was not
altogether exhilarating. Ladies would come into her small room and
sit there by the hour, with whom she had not the slightest wish
to hold conversation. The Duchess of St. Bungay would always be
there,--so that there was a special seat in one corner of the room
which was called the Duchess' stool. "I shouldn't care a straw about
her," Lady Monk had been heard to complain, "if she would talk
to anybody. But nobody will talk to her, and then she listens to
everything."
There had been another word or two between Burgo Fitzgerald and his
aunt before the evening came, a word or two in the speaking of which
she had found some difficulty. She was prepared with the money,--with
that two hundred pounds for which he had asked,--obtained with what
wiles, and lies, and baseness of subterfuge I need not stop here to
describe. But she was by no means willing to give this over into her
nephew's hands without security. She was willing to advance him this
money; she had been willing even to go through unusual dirt to get
it for him; but she was desirous that he should have it only for a
certain purpose. How could she bind him down to spend it as she would
have it spent? Could she undertake to hand it to him as soon as Lady
Glencora should be in his power? Even though she could have brought
herself to say as much,--and I think she might also have done so
after what she had said,--she could not have carried out such a
plan. In that case the want would be instant, and the action must be
rapid. She therefore had no alternative but to entrust him with the
bank-notes at once. "Burgo," she said, "if I find that you deceive me
now, I will never trust you again." "All right," said Burgo, as he
barely counted the money before he thrust it into his breast-pocket.
"It is lent to you for a certain purpose, should you happen to want
it," she said, solemnly. "I do happen to want it very much," he
answered. She did not dare to say more; but as her nephew turned away
from her with a step that was quite light in its gaiety, she almost
felt that she was already cozened. Let Burgo's troubles be as heavy
as they might be, there was something to him ecstatic in the touch of
ready money which always cured them for the moment.
[Illustration: "All right," said Burgo, as he thrust the money
into his breast-pocket.]
On the morning of Lady Monk's party a few very uncomfortable words
passed between Mr. Palliser and his wife.
"Your cousin is not going, then?" said he.
"Alice is not going."
"Then you can give Mrs. Marsham a seat in your carriage?"
"Impossible, Plantagenet. I thought I had told you that I had
promised my cousin Jane."
"But you can take three."
"Indeed I can't,--unless you would like me to sit out with the
coachman."
There was something in this,--a tone of loudness, a touch of what he
called to himself vulgarity,--which made him very angry. So he turned
away from her, and looked as black as a thundercloud.
"You must know, Plantagenet," she went on, "that it is impossible for
three women dressed to go out in one carriage. I am sure you wouldn't
like to see me afterwards if I had been one of them."
"You need not have said anything to Lady Jane when Miss Vavasor
refused. I had asked you before that."
"And I had told you that I liked going with young women, and not with
old ones. That's the long and the short of it."
"Glencora, I wish you would not use such expressions."
"What! not the long and the short? It's good English. Quite as good
as Mr. Bott's, when he said in the House the other night that the
Government kept their accounts in a higgledy-piggledy way. You see, I
have been studying the debates, and you shouldn't be angry with me."
"I am not angry with you. You speak like a child to say so. Then,
I suppose, the carriage must go for Mrs. Marsham after it has taken
you?"
"It shall go before. Jane will not be in a hurry, and I am sure I
shall not."
"She will think you very uncivil; that is all. I told her that she
could go with you when I heard that Miss Vavasor was not to be
there."
"Then, Plantagenet, you shouldn't have told her so, and that's the
long--; but I mustn't say that. The truth is this, if you give me any
orders I'll obey them,--as far as I can. If I can't I'll say so. But
if I'm left to go by my own judgement, it's not fair that I should be
scolded afterwards."
"I have never scolded you."
"Yes, you have. You have told me that I was uncivil."
"I said that she would think you so."
"Then, if it's only what she thinks, I don't care two straws about
it. She may have the carriage to herself if she likes, but she shan't
have me in it,--not unless I'm ordered to go. I don't like her, and I
won't pretend to like her. My belief is that she follows me about to
tell you if she thinks that I do wrong."
"Glencora!"
"And that odious baboon with the red bristles does the same
thing,--only he goes to her because he doesn't dare to go to you."
Plantagenet Palliser was struck wild with dismay. He understood well
who it was whom his wife intended to describe; but that she should
have spoken of any man as a baboon with red bristles, was terrible to
his mind! He was beginning to think that he hardly knew how to manage
his wife. And the picture she had drawn was very distressing to him.
She had no mother; neither had he; and he had wished that Mrs. Marsham
should give to her some of that matronly assistance and guidance
which a mother does give to her young married daughter. It was true,
too, as he knew, that a word or two as to some socially domestic
matters had filtered through to him from Mr. Bott, down at Matching
Priory, but only in such a way as to enable him to see what counsel
it was needful that he should give. As for espionage over his
wife,--no man could despise it more than he did! No man would be less
willing to resort to it! And now his wife was accusing him of keeping
spies, both male and female.
"Glencora!" he said again; and then he stopped, not knowing what to
say to her.
"Well, my dear, it's better you should know at once what I feel about
it. I don't suppose I'm very good; indeed I dare say I'm bad enough,
but these people about me won't make me any better. The duennas don't
make the Spanish ladies worth much."
"Duennas!" After that, Lady Glencora sat herself down, and Mr.
Palliser stood for some moments looking at her.
It ended in his making her a long speech, in which he said a good
deal of his own justice and forbearance, and something also of her
frivolity and childishness. He told her that his only complaint of
her was that she was too young, and, as he did so, she made a little
grimace,--not to him, but to herself, as though saying to herself
that that was all he knew about it. He did not notice it, or, if he
did, his notice did not stop his eloquence. He assured her that he
was far from keeping any watch over her, and declared that she had
altogether mistaken Mrs. Marsham's character. Then there was another
little grimace. "There's somebody has mistaken it worse than I have,"
the grimace said. Of the bristly baboon he condescended to say
nothing, and he wound up by giving her a cold kiss, and saying that
he would meet her at Lady Monk's.
When the evening came,--or rather the night,--the carriage went
first for Mrs. Marsham, and having deposited her at Lady Monk's, went
back to Park Lane for Lady Glencora. Then she had herself driven to
St. James's Square, to pick up Lady Jane, so that altogether the
coachman and horses did not have a good time of it. "I wish he'd
keep a separate carriage for her," Lady Glencora said to her cousin
Jane,--having perceived that her servants were not in a good humour.
"That would be expensive," said Lady Jane. "Yes, it would be
expensive," said Lady Glencora. She would not condescend to make any
remark as to the non-importance of such expense to a man so wealthy
as her husband, knowing that his wealth was, in fact, hers. Never to
him or to any other,--not even to herself,--had she hinted that much
was due to her because she had been magnificent as an heiress. There
were many things about this woman that were not altogether what a
husband might wish. She was not softly delicate in all her ways; but
in disposition and temper she was altogether generous. I do not know
that she was at all points a lady, but had Fate so willed it she
would have been a thorough gentleman.
Mrs. Marsham was by no means satisfied with the way in which she was
treated. She would not have cared to go at all to Lady Monk's party
had she supposed that she would have to make her entry there alone.
With Lady Glencora she would have seemed to receive some of that
homage which would certainly have been paid to her companion. The
carriage called, moreover, before she was fully ready, and the
footman, as he stood at the door to hand her in, had been very sulky.
She understood it all. She knew that Lady Glencora had positively
declined her companionship; and if she resolved to be revenged, such
resolution on her part was only natural. When she reached Lady Monk's
house, she had to make her way up stairs all alone. The servants
called her Mrs. Marsh, and under that name she got passed on into the
front drawing-room. There she sat down, not having seen Lady Monk,
and meditated over her injuries.
It was past eleven before Lady Glencora arrived, and Burgo Fitzgerald
had begun to think that his evil stars intended that he should never
see her again. He had been wickedly baulked at Monkshade, by what
influence he had never yet ascertained; and now he thought that the
same influence must be at work to keep her again away from his aunt's
house. He had settled in his mind no accurate plan of a campaign; he
had in his thoughts no fixed arrangement by which he might do the
thing which he meditated. He had attempted to make some such plan;
but, as is the case with all men to whom thinking is an unusual
operation, concluded at last that he had better leave it to the
course of events. It was, however, obviously necessary that he should
see Lady Glencora before the course of events could be made to do
anything for him. He had written to her, making his proposition in
bold terms, and he felt that if she were utterly decided against him,
her anger at his suggestion, or at least her refusal, would have
been made known to him in some way. Silence did not absolutely give
consent, but it seemed to show that consent was not impossible. From
ten o'clock to past eleven he stood about on the staircase of his
aunt's house, waiting for the name which he was desirous of hearing,
and which he almost feared to hear. Men spoke to him, and women also,
but he hardly answered. His aunt once called him into her room, and
with a cautionary frown on her brow, bade him go dance. "Don't look
so dreadfully preoccupied," she said to him in a whisper. But he
shook his head at her, almost savagely, and went away, and did not
dance. Dance! How was he to dance with such an enterprise as that
upon his mind? Even to Burgo Fitzgerald the task of running away
with another man's wife had in it something which prevented dancing.
Lady Monk was older, and was able to regulate her feelings with more
exactness. But Burgo, though he could not dance, went down into the
dining-room and drank. He took a large beer-glass full of champagne
and soon after that another. The drink did not flush his cheeks or
make his forehead red, or bring out the sweat-drops on his brow, as
it does with some men; but it added a peculiar brightness to his blue
eyes. It was by the light of his eyes that men knew when Burgo had
been drinking.
At last, while he was still in the supper room, he heard Lady
Glencora's name announced. He had already seen Mr. Palliser come in
and make his way up-stairs some quarter of an hour before; but as
to that he was indifferent. He had known that the husband was to be
there. When the long-expected name reached his ears, his heart seemed
to jump within him. What, on the spur of the moment, should he do?
As he had resolved that he would be doing,--that something should be
done, let it be what it might,--he hurried to the dining-room door,
and was just in time to see and be seen as Lady Glencora was passing
up the stairs. She was just above him as he got himself out into the
hall, so that he could not absolutely greet her with his hand; but
he looked up at her, and caught her eye. He looked up, and moved his
hand to her in token of salutation. She looked down at him, and the
expression of her face altered visibly as her glance met his. She
barely bowed to him,--with her eyes rather than with her head, but
he flattered himself that there was, at any rate, no anger in her
countenance. How beautiful he was as he gazed up at her, leaning
against the wall as he stood, and watching her as she made her slow
way up the stairs! She felt that his eyes were on her, and where the
stairs turned she could not restrain herself from one other glance.
As her eyes fell on his again, his mouth opened, and she fancied that
she could hear the faint sigh that he uttered. It was a glorious
mouth, such as the old sculptors gave to their marble gods! And
Burgo, if it was so that he had not heart enough to love truly, could
look as though he loved. It was not in him deceit,--or what men call
acting. The expression came to him naturally, though it expressed so
much more than there was within; as strong words come to some men who
have no knowledge that they are speaking strongly. At this moment
Burgo Fitzgerald looked as though it were possible that he might die
of love.
Lady Glencora was met at the top of the stairs by Lady Monk, who came
out to her, almost into the gallery, with her sweetest smile,--so
that the newly-arrived guest, of course, entered into the small
room. There sat the Duchess of St. Bungay on her stool in the corner,
and there, next to the Duchess, but at the moment engaged in no
conversation, stood Mr. Bott. There was another lady there, who
stood very high in the world, and whom Lady Monk was very glad to
welcome--the young Marchioness of Hartletop. She was in slight
mourning; for her father-in-law, the late Marquis, had died no
t yet quite six months since. Very beautiful she was, and one whose
presence at their houses ladies and gentlemen prized alike. She never
said silly things, like the Duchess, never was troublesome as to
people's conduct to her, was always gracious, yet was never led away
into intimacies, was without peer the best-dressed woman in London,
and yet gave herself no airs;--and then she was so exquisitely
beautiful. Her smile was loveliness itself. There were, indeed,
people who said that it meant nothing; but then, what should the
smile of a young married woman mean? She had not been born in the
purple, like Lady Glencora, her father being a country clergyman who
had never reached a higher grade than that of an archdeacon; but she
knew the ways of high life, and what an exigeant husband would demand
of her, much better than poor Glencora. She would have spoken of no
man as a baboon with a bristly beard. She never talked of the long
and the short of it. She did not wander out o' nights in winter among
the ruins. She made no fast friendship with ladies whom her lord did
not like. She had once, indeed, been approached by a lover since she
had been married,--Mr. Palliser himself having been the offender,--but
she had turned the affair to infinite credit and profit, had gained
her husband's closest confidence by telling him of it all, had yet
not brought on any hostile collision, and had even dismissed her
lover without annoying him. But then Lady Hartletop was a miracle of
a woman!
Lady Glencora was no miracle. Though born in the purple, she was
made of ordinary flesh and blood, and as she entered Lady Monk's
little room, hardly knew how to recover herself sufficiently for
the purposes of ordinary conversation. "Dear Lady Glencora, do come
in for a moment to my den. We were so sorry not to have you at
Monkshade. We heard such terrible things about your health." Lady
Glencora said that it was only a cold,--a bad cold. "Oh, yes; we
heard,--something about moonlight and ruins. So like you, you know.
I love that sort of thing, above all people; but it doesn't do;
does it? Circumstances are so exacting. I think you know Lady
Hartletop;--and there's the Duchess of St. Bungay. Mr. Palliser was
here five minutes since." Then Lady Monk was obliged to get to her
door again and Lady Glencora found herself standing close to Lady
Hartletop.
"We saw Mr. Palliser just pass through," said Lady Hartletop, who was
able to meet and speak of the man who had dared to approach her with
his love, without the slightest nervousness.
"Yes; he said he should be here," said Lady Glencora.
"There's a great crowd," said Lady Hartletop. "I didn't think London
was so full."
"Very great." said Lady Glencora, and then they had said to each
other all that society required. Lady Glencora, as we know, could
talk with imprudent vehemence by the hour together if she liked her
companion; but the other lady seldom committed herself by more words
than she had uttered now,--unless it was to her tirewoman.
"How very well you are looking," said the Duchess. "And I heard you
had been so ill." Of that midnight escapade among the ruins it was
fated that Lady Glencora should never hear the last.
"How d'ye do, Lady Glencowrer?" sounded in her ear, and there was a
great red paw stuck out for her to take. But after what had passed
between Lady Glencora and her husband to-day about Mr. Bott, she was
determined that she would not take Mr. Bott's hand.
"How are you, Mr. Bott?" she said. "I think I'll look for Mr. Palliser
in the back room."
"Dear Lady Glencora," whispered the Duchess, in an ecstasy of agony.
Lady Glencora turned and bowed her head to her stout friend. "Do let
me go away with you. There's that woman, Mrs. Conway Sparkes, coming,
and you know how I hate her." She had nothing to do but to take the
Duchess under her wing, and they passed into the large room together.
It is, I think, more than probable that Mrs. Conway Sparkes had been
brought in by Lady Monk as the only way of removing the Duchess from
her stool.
Just within the dancing-room Lady Glencora found her husband,
standing in a corner, looking as though he were making calculations.
"I'm going away," said he, coming up to her. "I only just came
because I said I would. Shall you be late?"
"Oh, no; I suppose not."
"Shall you dance?"
"Perhaps once,--just to show that I'm not an old woman."
"Don't heat yourself. Good-bye." Then he went, and in the crush of
the doorway he passed Burgo Fitzgerald, whose eye was intently fixed
upon his wife. He looked at Burgo, and some thought of that young
man's former hopes flashed across his mind,--some remembrance, too,
of a caution that had been whispered to him; but for no moment did a
suspicion come to him that he ought to stop and watch by his wife.