MRS ROYLAKE'S GAME: FIRST MOVE
The dinner at Trimley Deen has left in my memory little that I can
distinctly recall. Only a faintly-marked vision of Lady Lena rewards me
for doing my best to remember her. A tall slim graceful person, dressed
in white with a simplicity which is the perfection of art, presents to my
admiration gentle blue eyes, a pale complexion delicately touched with
color, a well-carried head crowned by lovely light brown hair. So far,
time helps the reviving past to come to life again--and permits nothing
more. I cannot say that I now remember the voice once so musical in my
ears, or that I am able to repeat the easy unaffected talk which once
interested me, or that I see again (in my thoughts) the perfect charm of
manner which delighted everybody, not forgetting myself. My unworthy
self, I might say; for I was the only young man, honored by an
introduction to Lady Lena, who stopped at admiration, and never made use
of opportunity to approach love.
On the other hand, I distinctly recollect what my stepmother and I said
to each other when our guests had wished us good-night.
If I am asked to account for this, I can only reply that the conspiracy
to lead me into proposing marriage to Lady Lena first showed itself on
the occasion to which I have referred. In her eagerness to reach her
ends, Mrs. Roylake failed to handle the fine weapons of deception as
cleverly as usual. Even I, with my small experience of worldly women,
discovered the object that she had in view.
I had retired to the seclusion of the smoking-room, and was already
encircled by the clouds which float on the heaven of tobacco, when I
heard a rustling of silk outside, and saw the smile of Mrs. Roylake
beginning to captivate me through the open door.
"If you throw away your cigar," cried this amiable person, "you will
drive me out of the room. Dear Gerard, I like your smoke."
My fat man in black, coming in at the moment to bring me some soda water,
looked at his mistress with an expression of amazement and horror, which
told me that he now saw Mrs. Roylake in the smoking-room for the first
time. I involved myself in new clouds. If I suffocated my stepmother, her
own polite equivocation would justify the act. She settled herself
opposite to me in an armchair. The agonies that she must have suffered,
in preventing her face from expressing emotions of disgust, I dare not
attempt to imagine, even at this distance of time.
"Now, Gerard, let us talk about the two ladies. What do you think of my
friend, Lady Rachel?"
"I don't like your friend, Lady Rachel."
"You astonish me. Why?"
"I think she's a false woman."
"Heavens, what a thing to say of a lady--and that lady my friend! Her
politics may very reasonably have surprised you. But surely her vigorous
intellect ought to have challenged your admiration; you can't deny that?"
I was not clever enough to be able to deny it. But I was bold enough to
say that Lady Rachel seemed to me to be a woman who talked for the sake
of producing effect. She expressed opinions, as I ventured to declare,
which (in her position) I did not believe she could honestly entertain.
Mrs. Roylake entered a vigorous protest. She assured me that I was
completely mistaken. "Lady Rachel," she said, "is the most perfectly
candid person in the whole circle of my acquaintance."
With the best intentions on my part, this was more than I could patiently
endure.
"Isn't she the daughter of a nobleman?" I asked. "Doesn't she owe her
rank and her splendor, and the respect that people show to her, to the
fortunate circumstance of her birth? And yet she talks as if she was a
red republican. You yourself heard her say that she was a thorough
Radical, and hoped she might live to see the House of Lords abolished.
Oh, I heard her! And what is more, I listened so attentively to such
sentiments as these, from a lady with a title, that I can repeat, word
for word, what she said next. "We hav'n't deserved our own titles; we
hav'n't earned our own incomes; and we legislate for the country, without
having been trusted by the country. In short, we are a set of impostors,
and the time is coming when we shall be found out." Do you believe she
really meant that? All as false as false can be--that's what I say of
it."
There I stopped, privately admiring my own eloquence.
Quite a mistake on my part; my eloquence had done just what Mrs. Roylake
wished me to do. She wanted an opportunity of dropping Lady Rachel, and
taking up Lady Lena, with a producible reason which forbade the
imputation of a personal motive on her part. I had furnished her with the
reason. Thus far, I cannot deny it, my stepmother was equal to herself.
"Really, Gerard, you are so violent in your opinions that I am sorry I
spoke of Lady Rachel. Shall I find you equally prejudiced, and equally
severe, if I change the subject to dear Lady Lena? Oh, don't say you
think She is false, too!"
Here Mrs. Roylake made her first mistake. She over-acted her part; and,
when it was too late, she arrived, I suspect, at that conclusion herself.
"If you hav'n't seen that I sincerely admire Lady Lena," I said, as
smartly as I could, "the sooner you disfigure yourself with a pair of
spectacles, my dear lady, the better. She is very pretty, perfectly
unaffected, and, if I may presume to judge, delightfully well-bred and
well-dressed."
My stepmother's face actually brightened with pleasure. Reflecting on it
now, I am strongly disposed to think that she had not allowed her
feelings to express themselves so unreservedly, since the time when she
was a girl. After all, Mrs. Roylake was paying her step-son a compliment
in trying to entrap him into a splendid marriage. It was my duty to think
kindly of my ambitious relative. I did my duty.
"You really like my sweet Lena?" she said. "I am so glad. What were you
talking about, with her? She made you exert all your powers of
conversation, and she seemed to be deeply interested."
More over-acting! Another mistake! And I could see through it! With no
English subject which we could discuss in common, Lady Lena's ready tact
alluded to my past life. Mrs. Roylake had told her that I was educated at
a German University. She had heard vaguely of students with long hair,
who wore Hessian boots, and fought duels; and she appealed to my
experience to tell her something more. I did my best to interest her,
with very indifferent success, and was undeservedly rewarded by a patient
attention, which presented the unselfish refinements of courtesy under
their most perfect form.
But let me do my step-mother justice. She contrived to bend me to her
will, before she left the smoking-room--I am sure I don't know how.
"You have entertained the charming daughters at dinner," she reminded me;
"and the least you can do, after that, is to pay your respects to their
noble father. In your position, my dear boy, you cannot neglect our
English customs without producing the worst possible impression."
In two words, I found myself pledged, under pretence of visiting my lord,
to improve my acquaintance with Lady Lena on the next day.
"And pray be careful," Mrs. Roylake proceeded, still braving the
atmosphere of the smoking-room, "not to look surprised if you find Lord
Uppercliff's house presenting rather a poor appearance just now."
I was dying for another cigar, and I entirely misunderstood the words of
warning which had just been addressed to me. I tried to bring our
interview to a close by making a generous proposal.
"Does he want money?" I asked. "I'll lend him some with the greatest
pleasure."
Mrs. Roylake's horror expressed itself in a little thin wiry scream.
"Oh, Gerard, what people you must have lived among! What shocking
ignorance of my lord's enormous fortune! He and his family have only just
returned to their country seat, after a long absence--parliament you
know, and foreign baths, and so on--and their English establishment is
not yet complete. I don't know what mistake you may not make next. Do
listen to what I want to say to you."
Listening, I must acknowledge, with an absent mind, my attention was
suddenly seized by Mrs. Roylake--without the slightest conscious effort
towards that end, on the part of the lady herself.
The first words that startled me, in her flow of speech, were these:
"And I must not forget to tell you of poor Lord Uppercliff's misfortune.
He had a fall, some time since, and broke his leg. As I think, he was so
unwise as to let a plausible young surgeon set the broken bone. Anyway,
the end of it is that my lord slightly limps when he walks; and pray
remember that he hates to see it noticed. Lady Rachel doesn't agree with
me in attributing her father's lameness to his surgeon's want of
experience. Between ourselves, the man seems to have interested her. Very
handsome, very clever, very agreeable, and the manners of a gentleman.
When his medical services came to an end, he was quite an acquisition at
their parties in London--with one drawback: he mysteriously disappeared,
and has never been heard of since. Ask Lady Lena about it. She will give
you all the details, without her elder sister's bias in favour of the
handsome young man. What a pretty compliment you are paying me! You
really look as if I had interested you."
Knowing what I knew, I was unquestionably interested.
Although the recent return of Lord Uppercliff and his daughter to their
country home had, as yet, allowed no opportunity of a meeting, out of
doors, between the deaf Lodger and the friends whom he had lost sight
of--no doubt at the time of his serious illness--still, the inevitable
discovery might happen on any day. What result would follow? And what
would be the effect on Lady Rachel, when she met with the fascinating
young surgeon, and discovered the terrible change in him?