Transcriber’s Notes.
Hyphenation has been standardised.
Other changes made are noted at the end of the book.
THE REAL LADY HILDA
A SKETCH
BY
B. M. CROKER
AUTHOR OF
“PRETTY MISS NEVILLE,” “DIANA BARRINGTON,” “MR. JERVIS,”
“PROPER PRIDE,” “PEGGY OF THE BARTONS,” “BEYOND THE PALE.”
“On souffre quelquefois plus de la mort d’une illusion
que de la perte d’une réalité.”
NEW YORK
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPANY
11 EAST 16TH STREET
LONDON—CHATTO & WINDUS
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPANY
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. Waiting for the Lamp 7
II. Retrospective 21
III. A Question of Taste 33
IV. Lady Hildegarde’s Photograph 63
V. We get into Society 83
VI. A Visit of Seven Minutes 95
VII. Four in a Fly 118
VIII. The Chalgrove Eyebrows 137
IX. “We need not Ask if You have Enjoyed Yourself” 158
X. “Who _are_ these Chalgroves?” 179
XI. Mrs. Mound’s Opinion 193
XII. “Indian Papers, Please Copy” 203
XIII. Kind Inquiries 223
XIV. “Miss Hayes, I believe?” 240
XV. A New Station of Life 255
CHAPTER I.
WAITING FOR THE LAMP.
“Too early for the lamp, I suppose, and yet too dark to read a line.”
And my stepmother closed her novel, with an impatient snap, as she
added, “This is the worst of these horrid, poky lodgings; one never can
have anything at the time one wants it. What a dismal little den it is,
Gwen! What possessed us to come here?”
I could have answered the question promptly and briefly in a single
word “Poverty;” but, as it was a term my relative specially detested,
I merely shrugged my shoulders, and continued to gaze into the
miserable apology for a garden which ran between our quarters and the
high street of Stonebrook, an insignificant market town in Sussex.
Certainly there was not much to see, amid the creeping shadows of a
November afternoon. A dripping hen, wading carefully across the road;
a coal-cart, the driver enveloped in empty sacks; and the undertaker’s
retriever—black and curly, as an undertaker’s dog should be—sitting
in his master’s doorway, and yawning most infectiously. If we had lived
opposite to the post-office, the lending library, or even the hotel,
we should have enjoyed a livelier outlook, but “Mound & Son—Funeral
Establishment—Coffins, Hearses, and every Requisite,” to quote from
the inscription over the door, in rigid white characters on a mourning
ground, afforded but a gloomy and dispiriting prospect. It was too dark
to descry more than the outline of an ornamental sign, on which was
depicted an elegant open glass vehicle, drawn by four prancing black
horses, with nodding plumes and streaming tails—triumphant-looking
steeds, who seemed to say, “Man treats most of us barbarously all our
lives, then kills us, and makes money of our very skin and bones; it
affords us sincere pleasure to carry him to the grave, and ‘see the
last of him.’”
The interior of our sitting-room corresponded with its dreary view—a
lodging-house apartment _pur et simple_, with narrow windows, hideous
wall-paper, the inevitable round table, cheap chiffonier, and bulgy
green rep sofa, to complete the picture. The fire was low, and
unquestionably in a bad temper, emitting every now and then slow and
sullen puffs of yellow smoke. It was raining hard outside, and at
regular intervals an intrusive drop came spluttering down the chimney.
“Dear me, what a sigh!” exclaimed my stepmother. “Mariana in the Moated
Grange could scarcely surpass it! Cheer up, Gwen; a girl of nineteen
has no business to be melancholy—though I grant that you have some
provocation. Never meet troubles half-way, that is my motto. I have an
idea that our luck will turn soon: I saw two magpies to-day.”
I burst into a short, involuntary laugh.
“Oh yes, you may laugh, my old-head-on-young-shoulders, but I mean to
have a regular good talk with the cards by and by; in the meanwhile, we
will ring for the lamp and tea. Mrs. Gabb will say it is too early, but
I intend to brave her for once. Britons never shall be slaves!”
And she gave the bell a peal far more befitting the summons of a
wealthy woman than of a reduced widow lady, who was going to dine on
poached eggs, and was two weeks in arrears with her rent.
There was only a difference of twelve years between us, and Emma, as
my stepmother wished me to call her, was a pretty little Irishwoman,
with black hair, dark blue eyes (wonderful eyes and lashes), and a
radiant smile. No more generous, hospitable, or impulsive creature ever
breathed. She was, moreover, a determined optimist, who looked steadily
at the bright side of things, and enjoyed extraordinary high spirits,
and the comic (or sunny) view of life. Generally, she was to be seen
on what is called “the top of the wave,” though, occasionally, there
came a terrible reaction, and she sank, overwhelmed, into the black
abysmal depths which are the birthright of those who are endowed with a
nervous, highly strung, mercurial temperament.
Two years previous to this dreary November day, my father had died in
India, and six months later, Emma, having returned home, had summoned
me from school to join her in London.
I had previously been given to understand that we were now very
poor—my lessons had been curtailed, my mourning was inexpensive; I
was therefore astonished to find my stepmother established in most
luxurious lodgings in Sloane Street, for which she paid—it being the
season—twelve guineas a week. These rooms were crammed with quantities
of the choicest blooms, cut and in pots, for Emma was passionately fond
of flowers—she declared that she could not exist without them. Her
weeds were as gloomy and superb as it was possible for weeds to be, and
in no quarter was there the smallest hint of that detestable visitor
who, when it comes in at the door, sends another inmate flying out
through the window.
A smart _coupé_ from the Coupé Company, called every afternoon, and
took us out shopping and into the park; Emma’s ideas were apparently
as magnificent as of yore. I was fitted out by “Ninette,” her own
milliner, in a black crépon and silk, and a large French picture-hat,
with black ostrich feathers—expense absolutely _no_ object. It was not
for me, a girl of eighteen, to make inquiries respecting our finances.
I took for granted that the phrase “left badly off” meant at least a
thousand a year. Emma had imparted to me that her auction had brought
in a large sum, and that she expected the old Jam-Jam—meaning the
Rajah of Jam-Jam-More—“to do something handsome for both of us.”
Meanwhile we remained in Sloane Street, were extravagant in flowers,
books, and _coupés_, and hospitable Emma haled in every passing
acquaintance to lunch, tea, or dinner. She had no plans, beyond a
desire to remain in London and “look about her;” which looking about
her signified the constant expectation of coming across the familiar
faces of Eastern friends. Miserable mofussilite! poor deluded Emma!
She had a foolish idea that the metropolis resembled a great Indian
station, and that she could scarcely cross the road without meeting
some one she knew.
Her special friends were not in England. At the moment they had either
just gone back, or were not coming home till next year. I noticed—not
once, but repeatedly—that when we encountered her mere acquaintances,
and they asked where we were living, an expression of significant
astonishment was visible in their faces the moment our address was
mentioned. I also noted an increased cordiality of manner, and an
alacrity in assuring Emma that they would be delighted to come and see
her. I do not say this of all, but of some.
And then one morning the crash came. I met our landlady on the stairs,
looking excessively fierce and red in the face, and I subsequently
discovered Emma encompassed with letters, bills, and books, and
dissolved in floods of tears.
“She has just given me notice!” she cried, alluding to our landlady;
“and indeed, Gwen, after I pay her for the week, how much money do you
think I have left?” She burst into a wild, hysterical laugh, and pushed
across the table towards me a silver sixpence and two coppers.
“What—what is this?” I stammered.
“It’s eightpence. Can’t you _see_? And it’s all we have in the world!”
I remember that I turned it over mechanically, and giggled. I knew
nothing of money matters. I had never had the spending of a sovereign
in my life.
I was aware that Emma was extravagant, that she never could resist
what she called “a bargain,” never could keep money in her pocket. It
was quite one of her favorite jokes to exclaim, “Bang goes another
five-pound note!”
I had participated in this jest with smiling equanimity, and the
supreme confidence of youth: I believed that my stepmother, and only
relative, had an ample supply of money somewhere. But—eightpence!
I stared at the two coppers and the little bit of silver in dismayed
silence.
“Take off your hat, Gwen,” continued Emma, impetuously, “and listen to
me. I’m not fit to be trusted with money—never was; I _can’t_ keep
it. ‘Sufficient unto the day,’ has always been my motto. You, I can
see, are prudent; you are good at figures, old beyond your years. I
suppose you take after your mother’s people, for your father was nearly
as—as—extravagant and heedless as myself. Now I’m going to lay my
affairs before you—place everything in your hands, and let you manage
all our money.”
“Eightpence!” I repeated half under my breath.
“You know, we never saved a penny. I had a few hundreds of pounds from
our auction, and I’ve spent that. A short life, and—a—a merry one!”
looking at me with her pretty sapphire-colored eyes drowned in tears.
“We have had a good time, have we not? And I was certain that the dear
old Jam-Jam, who was _so_ fond of your father—and, indeed, with every
reason—would give us a handsome pension. But I have had a horrible
letter by the mail just in. The Jam-Jam, who has been ailing for
months—the new doctor did not understand his constitution—is dead. I
am truly sorry.” A fresh burst of tears.
“Was all this grief for the Jam?” I asked myself, and stood confounded.
“My dear, we are paupers,” she sobbed. “Mr. Watkins, the agent, says
that the new rajah, the nephew, a detestable creature, who I know
never could endure _me_, will only give a hundred and thirty pounds a
year, and that has been wrung from him with the greatest difficulty.
And then, as if this letter was not _enough_, here is one from the
bank, to say my account is overdrawn, and I thought I had three hundred
pounds there still! I never, I knew, kept a proper account. Just drew
checks, and never or seldom filled up the tiresome counterfoils, and
now there is their hideous bank-book, all so neatly made up: ‘Self,
ten pounds; Self, forty pounds; Self, twenty pounds.’ I can’t think
what has become of it! I’m not used to keeping money, you see. I
never bothered about putting down my expenses. Mrs. Keene brought me
up these horrid letters, and came in too to ask about dinner, and
I told her it was really shameful to charge two and sixpence for a
cauliflower, and that we really could not afford to pay her prices,
and she was quite insolent. When I have paid her, we shall have
just—this—this—eightpence——”
And she dashed it over nearer to me, and, leaning her head on her arms,
went off in hysterics.