LORD CHERITON LOOKS IN
Three days later there was delivered in Hill Street a letter bearing
the west-country postmark. It was written in narrow, upright
characters, which seemed to bear a shade of defiance in them. The
envelope was inscribed with some formality to the Right Honorable the
Countess of Crewkerne, yet its shape was unfashionable, the paper was
of inferior quality, and was innocent of any sort of adornment.
When this document was borne upon the silver dish by Mr. Marchbanks to
the chamber of his aged mistress, and delivered to her in the sanctity
of her four-poster, there was a slight flicker of the eyelids of that
elderly diplomatist. It was as though with the _flair_ that always
distinguished him, he had come to divine that a great event was in the
air.
The conduct of his mistress added weight to this theory. No sooner
did she observe this commonplace missive to be nestling among those
more ornate communications emanating, as Mr. Marchbanks knew perfectly
well, from dukes and marquises and earls, and the ladies of dukes and
marquises and earls, than she swooped down upon it for all the world
as some old eagle might have done with outstretched talon. She read as
follows:--
_The Revd Aloysius Perry has the honor to present his compliments to
the Countess of Crewkerne, and begs to say in response to her request
that he is forwarding to-morrow (Tuesday) per passenger train, his
second daughter Araminta, who in his humble judgment is the most
attractive of those with which it has pleased Providence to endow
him._
The old lady, propped up in her four-poster, honored this communication
with two readings and with a knitted brow. She was a very sharp-witted
old woman, as we are constantly having to remark, and she could not
quite make up her mind whether the unconventional flavor that clung to
the letter of the man that had been married by her sister Polly was the
fruit of conscious irony or of _bona-fide_ rusticity.
“Humph,” said she, her invariable exclamation when in doubt about
anything. “An underbred person, I am afraid.”
She flung the cause of her uncertainty across the counterpane to her
gentlewoman with a contemptuous gesture.
“It is an experiment,” said she. “I dare say it is not wise for a woman
of my age to add to her responsibilities. We shall see. At any rate,
Burden, you are getting tiresome, and Ponto is getting fat.”
“I feel sure she will be a sweet girl,” Miss Burden ventured to say.
“Why do you think so?”
“Girlhood is so delightful,” said Miss Burden. “All young things are so
adorable.”
“Burden,” said the old lady, ruthlessly, “you are a fool.”
Miss Burden blushed faintly, as she always did when her birthright
was applied to her scornfully. Yet it was a trial she had had daily
to endure for many years past. She had been called a fool so often
that she had come to believe that she was one. And that is the kind of
belief that renders the human lot very hard. The faint tinge of shame
that dyed the cheek of the poor, sensitive, downtrodden dependent was
the sign manual of something that lay too deep for tears.
“It is a dangerous experiment,” said the old lady. “At my age I ought
to know better than to try experiments. I hope the creature will be
decently bred.”
“Surely, dear Lady Crewkerne,” said Miss Burden, “a girl of poor dear
Lady Augusta’s can hardly fail to be that.”
“The father is quite a common man; a person of no particular family.
And, unfortunately, girls take after their fathers.”
“I feel sure the husband of dear Lady Augusta is a gentleman.”
“Burden,” said the old lady, ruthlessly, “you are a born fool. Ring the
bell. It is time I had my massage.”
During the course of the morning Caroline Crewkerne’s oldest friend
looked in to pass the time of day with her. He stayed to luncheon.
Cheriton was one of those men whose mission in life it is to appear on
all occasions and in every season as one apart from the vulgar herd.
There can be no doubt that he succeeded in this laudable ambition.
His corsets were not to everybody’s taste, and there were also those
who did not care greatly for the color of his wig and the way in
which he wore it. Its hue was as the raven’s, abundant in texture and
arranged low on the forehead in the form of a fringe. But Caroline
Crewkerne’s judgment of her old gossip was the correct one. Whatever
Cheriton was or whatever he was not, emphatically he was not a fool.
Had he been in any sort oppressed by that not unamiable form of human
weakness the redoubtable Caroline would have been very quick to expose
it. In a matter of that kind no one could have had a keener or more
uncompromising instinct. They knew each other so well, they had crossed
swords so often, each derived so much zest from the display of the
other’s dexterity, that while interpreting one another with a frankness
that less robust persons might have found almost brutal, it had respect
for a mutual basis.
To Cheriton’s credit let it be written, he was an admirer of women. If
they were pretty his admiration was apt to increase. If a character of
quite singular merit had its vulnerable point--and I do not positively
assert that it had--it was perhaps to be found in his dealings with the
most attractive members of what has always been allowed to be a most
attractive institution.
To the whole of that sex, however, it was his wont to be
extraordinarily polite, charming, supple, and attentive. No one could
call Miss Burden supremely attractive. She had so many things against
her, including the immediate loss of her place had she developed
any special powers in this direction. But she had long been Lord
Cheriton’s devoted slave and adherent. It was merely the result of his
way with the whole of womankind. Young or old, fair or ugly, it made
no difference. An air of deferential pleasantness, of candid homage
so lightly touched with sarcasm that it passed for whimsicality,
was extended towards all who bore the name of woman, whether it was
Caroline Crewkerne herself, her penniless dependent, or the old
flower-seller at the top of the Haymarket. His grace of demeanor and
his slightly ironical _bonhomie_ were at the service of each of them
equally.
It is not too much to say that Miss Burden adored Lord Cheriton. Not
openly, of course, not in the broad light of day; but there can be
little doubt that had the occasion ever arisen she would gladly have
yielded her life for this handsome, deferential, finely preserved
nobleman of five-and-sixty. Nor is it a matter to be wondered at.
Although she was a well-read woman with an excellent taste of her own,
he made out her circulating-library lists for her; he invariably had a
bunch of violets to offer her, or any other simple flower that was in
season; he took a genuine interest in the condition of her health; and
further there was every reason to suspect that in his heart of hearts
he shared her intense dislike of Ponto, who had very rudimentary ideas
indeed of the deference due to light-gray trousers.
“Cheriton,” said the old lady, as soon as they were seated at luncheon,
“did you know that George Betterton was in London?”
The pair of old gossips looked one another in the face with an air of
demure innocence.
“And she at Biarritz,” said Cheriton, musically.
The old lady bent across the table with the gesture of a sibyl.
“Mark my words,” said she. “The _régime_ is at an end.”
“I never prophesy in these cases,” said Cheriton. “She is a very able
woman, which of course is not surprising, and George is the incarnation
of sheer stupidity, which is not surprising either. All the same,
Caroline, I don’t say you are not right.”
“Of course I am right,” said Caroline Crewkerne, robustly. “And I put
it to you, Cheriton, what will be the next move upon the _tapis_?”
“George will marry,” said Cheriton, tentatively.
“Precisely,” said the old woman, nodding her head in sage approval.
“Have you selected a duchess for him?”
“Why do you ask?” said the old lady, with an air of diplomacy which
amused Cheriton, because it was so unnecessary.
“I ask merely for information. If I were a sporting tipster, Priscilla
L’Estrange would be my selection.”
“No,” said Caroline Crewkerne, with immense decision, “a man never
marries a woman as stupid as himself. Nature’s an old fool, but she
knows better than that.”
Cheriton pondered this philosophical statement with a sagacious smile.
Caroline’s air, however, was so pontifical that it was not for his sex
to dissent from it.
“Well, there is a great amount of stupidity in the world,” said he,
“and it seems to be increasing. By the way, was George sober?”
“He was holding himself very erectly, and he was walking very slowly.”
“Then I am afraid he wasn’t. But it must be the most tedious thing out
to spend one’s life in losing one’s money at cards and in criticising
the Militia.”
“Yes,” said the old lady. “I share your opinion that it is time George
began to pay attention to more permanent things.”
“The Militia is always with us.”
“I meant spiritual things, Cheriton,” said Caroline Crewkerne, whose
day-of-judgment demeanor nearly choked his lordship.
“George Betterton,” said he, “has the spirituality of a wheelbarrow.
It will give me great pleasure to be present when the subject is
mentioned.”
“He is coming to my Wednesday,” said the old lady. “I shall speak
to him then. That reminds me that Mary Ann Farquhar says this new
Lancashire bishop eats his cheese in the old-fashioned manner and he
is now in London. If I knew his address I would send him a card.”
“The Carlton Hotel,” said Cheriton, “is the headquarters of the Church
in London.”
“Burden,” said the old lady, “make a note of that.”
With an ostentation that Caroline Crewkerne considered wholly
unnecessary, Cheriton inscribed this important contribution to
sociology on the tablets of the gentlewoman. “What new game is the old
heathen going to play, I wonder?” was the question that passed through
his mind as he did so.
“What was Gobo doing in the parish?” inquired Cheriton. “Come to worry
the War Office as usual?”
“No,” said the old lady, “he seemed more serious than usual, but that
may have been drink. As I am showing Ponto at the dog show on Tuesday
week, George has consented to award the prizes. I have chosen a silver
collar with his name inscribed suitably. I don’t know anything more
becoming than a silver collar for a dog of Ponto’s type.”
“I am afraid it’s a job; and don’t forget, my dear Caroline, the last
one you perpetrated did no good to the country.”
“What do you mean, Cheriton?” said the old lady, with her bristles
going up like a badger. “Have the goodness to explain your meaning.”
“That boy from Eton--your _protégé_--whom you sent out to South Africa
to command a brigade, made a dooce of a hash of it, they tell me.”
“That is a lie, Cheriton, and you know it,” said the old lady, whose
voice quivered so much with passion that it frightened Miss Burden
considerably. “Poor dear Arthur once told me himself that the battle of
Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton.”
“It is your thoughtlessness, my dear Caroline, in taking for gospel the
senile speeches of an old fogy who lived far longer than he ought to
have done, that has so nearly cost us a continent. The playing-fields
of Eton forsooth!”
“Cheriton,” said the old lady, “I despise you.”
The light of battle was in her eye. It is hardly correct to speak of
their crossing swords. The weapons they used were cudgels, in the use
of which they were very expert.
Miss Burden was not a little shocked and affrighted. But she had
witnessed so many exhibitions of a similar character between these
combatants, who fully enjoyed a rough and tumble whenever they met,
that I am by no means sure that the gentlewoman’s fear was not in the
nature of a pleasant emotion. It seems to be right and proper that a
gentlewoman shall derive a legitimate pride from being shocked and
affrighted. At least it used to be so in that bright and glad heyday of
decorum before some person unknown invented a hockey stick to beat out
the brains of female sensibility.
It was not until they were drinking coffee in the seclusion of her
ladyship’s boudoir that peace was restored between the combatants. They
had both appeared to advantage, for they had had long practice in
all kinds of verbal warfare. Cheriton’s phrases, by long association
with the great world, were as direct as possible. He called a spade a
spade, but his manner of so doing was extremely charming. Miss Burden
thought his most incisive speeches were full of melody. As for Caroline
Crewkerne, she was the sharpest-tongued old woman in London. And the
least scrupulous, said the very considerable body who had been flayed
by it.
Peace restored, the old lady made an abrupt suggestion.
“Cheriton,” said she, “it has occurred to me that it is time you
settled down. You ought to marry.”
“Cherchez la femme,” said Cheriton, with a lightness of tone that ill
became him.
“If you will place the matter in my hands,” said Caroline Crewkerne, “I
shall be happy to do what I can for you.”
“I am overwhelmed.”
“Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline, sharply. “Let us take
a broad view of the subject and let us place it on a matter-of-fact
basis. I repeat, in my opinion you ought to marry.”
“Pourquoi?”
“In the first place,” said the old woman, ruthlessly, “you are not
quite what you were. Five-and-sixty is--well, five-and-sixty. It is no
use disguising the fact that young and attractive women are a little
inclined to smile at you.”
Cheriton writhed. Rather pitifully he raised a hollow guffaw. It was
perhaps the worst thing he could have done in the circumstances; but
the poor butterfly, when the pin is through its middle, is prone to
augment its own tortures by twisting its body and flapping its wings.
Caroline Crewkerne smiled grimly.
“The fact is, Cheriton,” said she, “you have grown already a little
_passé_ for the _rôle_ of Phœbus Apollo. Understand the phrase is not
mine. It was whispered in my ear by an insolent girl who looks upon you
in the light of a grandfather.”
Cheriton mopped his perspiring features with a yellow silk
handkerchief. He conducted this operation very delicately because his
cheeks were flushed with a carmine that was apt to run all over the
place.
“I have heard a complaint of your mustache,” said his old friend.
“In my opinion it requires careful treatment. At present it does not
harmonize with your general scheme of color. When did you dye it last?”
“The same day on which you last dyed your hair, my dear Caroline,” said
Cheriton, rather laboriously. “As they both belong to the same period,
I thought it right to----”
“Don’t explain at length,” said Caroline. “I dye my hair weekly. But
what I want to point out to you is this. In my opinion it is quite time
you were married. You are rich. It is almost a national scandal that
there is no entertaining at Cheriton House; and the title reverts to
a branch of the family you don’t esteem. Surely there is to be found
in the world some youngish person of modest attractions--do not delude
yourself, Cheriton, that you can ask for more--to whom you can offer a
vocation.”
“There is a little actress at the Gayety,” said Cheriton, thoughtfully.
“She seems a healthy creature. I dare say she----”
“Burden, quit the room,” said the old lady.
Blushing like a peony and trembling like an aspen--a double feat of
which gentlewomen nurtured in the best Victorian traditions were always
capable--Miss Burden obeyed.
Cheriton closed the door.
“Yes, I dare say she would,” said Caroline Crewkerne, with her
hanging-judge demeanor. “All the same, Cheriton, you talk like a fool.”
What Caroline Crewkerne said to Cheriton, and what Cheriton said
to Caroline Crewkerne, I shall not set down. The plain truth is, I
dare not. She was a survival of a famous aristocracy which was never
accustomed to mince its language. She had always been used, as her
Georgian forbears had before her, to call a spade a spade. It was a
mark of caste. And Cheriton, too, beneath his superficial airs and
dandified graces, which had earned for him the title of “the last of
the macaronis,” which really meant nothing at all, had a strain of the
most uncompromising frankness.
Really I must apologize to my readers for these two old and hardened
worldlings. I hope they will make all the allowance that is possible,
for whatever the pretensions of one of them, neither was inclined to
view the great institution we call Woman at all romantically. Cheriton
would certainly have rebutted the charge with scorn, but none the less
it is perfectly just. His affectation of delicacy was only skin deep.
Had a third person overheard their conversation without being furnished
with the key to it, he would have concluded that it had to do with
the bringing into the world of a pedigree horse, a thoroughbred dog,
a prize cow, or a speckled rhinoceros. And he must have wondered how
it was that two persons who had obviously moved in good society from
their youth up, could sit _tête-à-tête_ in a beautiful room in one of
the most fashionable thoroughfares in all London, discoursing with
remarkable point and gusto upon a subject which would have befitted a
couple of yokels in a farmyard.
“There’s my niece,” said Caroline Crewkerne.
“Have you a niece?” said Cheriton.
“A girl of Polly’s. You remember Polly?”
“Polly was a very plain woman,” said Cheriton, slowly. “I think, take
her altogether, she was the plainest woman I ever saw.”
“It is odd,” said Caroline, “that I had all the good looks as well as
all the brains. It made life so difficult for Polly. Yet I think her
heart was better than mine.”
“Yes, Caroline, I think so,” said Cheriton, assenting gracefully. “But
I don’t seem to remember Polly’s marriage.”
“It was not a marriage.”
“No?” said Cheriton, with a sudden access of interest which was open to
misinterpretation.
“Polly married the village curate, who hadn’t a shilling.”
“Poor devil.”
“To which of the contracting parties do you refer?” said Caroline,
incisively.
“Must have been a poor devil if he hadn’t a shilling.”
“Of course,” said Caroline, “the Family never forgave her. Dearest
papa forbade her the neighborhood. He might have forgiven the village,
and he might have forgiven the curacy, but he could not forgive the
shilling.”
“Naturally,” said Cheriton. “But I’ve known parsons’ daughters turn out
very well before now. I’ve seen one or two who looked capital in the
Gayety chorus. What’s the age of the gal?”
“Nineteen.”
“An alluring period. Has she a good disposition?”
“She is my niece,” said Caroline, with admirable succinctness.
“I shall come and see her. When is she on view?”
Caroline Crewkerne enfolded herself in her mantle of high diplomacy.
She paused to measure Cheriton with that hawklike eye of hers.
“A month to-morrow.”
“Capital,” said Cheriton.
He rose at his leisure.
“So long, Caroline,” said he. “It is a great pleasure to find you so
fit.”
Caroline gave him a withered talon.
“Get another wig,” said she. “And consult a specialist about your
mustache.”
“What, for a parson’s daughter!”
“A duke’s granddaughter,” said the imperious Caroline.
“I’m damned if I do,” said Cheriton, amiably.
“You are damned if you don’t,” said Caroline, making the obvious retort
which is so apt to be mistaken for wit, and fixing an eye upon him that
was positively arctic. “That is, if the creature is worth her salt.”
“You are doubtless correct, Caroline,” said Cheriton, with the air of
a man who made a god of reason. “You have a good head. If only your
heart----!”
With a bow and a smile, which had wrought great havoc in their time,
although to some they had a certain pathos now, Cheriton withdrew. He
pointed a course towards a famous shop at the corner of Burlington
Gardens.
“It is quite true what they say,” this nobleman of distinguished
appearance and open manners might have been heard to mutter to high
heaven, as he gazed upwards to inquire of Jove whether he intended to
ruin his hat. “She _is_ the most disagreeable old woman in London.”
However, there is always the reverse of the medal, the other side to
the picture. This handsome, courtly and carefully-preserved specimen
had been somewhat badly mauled no doubt by the old lioness. But had he
been endowed with eyes in the back of his head, or been gifted with
some occult faculty, he would have found a salve for his wounds. For
his exit from the house in Hill Street was marked by a mildly ascetic
form which was efficiently and discreetly veiled amid the curtains of
the dining-room windows. Could he have been conscious of the eyes that
were concentrated upon the back of his gracefully erect and faultlessly
tailored exterior; could he by some special process of the mind have
ravished the secrets of that chaste yet susceptible bosom, he would
have been assured that it is not always necessary to invoke the black
arts of the perruquier to recommend one’s self to the mind and heart
of a Christian gentlewoman. Had Lord Cheriton cut off his mustache as
a Lenten sacrifice--which we regret to say was not at all likely, as
there is reason to fear he did not respect the Church sufficiently to
contemplate such a course of action--or had he been as bald as an egg,
which Caroline Crewkerne declared he certainly was, within the sanctity
of Miss Burden’s breast there would still only have reigned the image
of one perfect man, of one true prince.