AN INTERRUPTION.
It was certainly strange that Lord Tony had not sought him out the
evening after the picnic, said Mr. West to himself, considering that it
was all settled now. Indeed, it struck him that his future son-in-law
pointedly avoided him, and had lounged out of the smoking-room when he
found himself with him alone. Of course, Lord Tony was aware that his
consent was granted, but he would have liked him to have come to him at
once. The next day, despite an effort to escape, Mr. West captured his
reluctant quarry _en route_ to the stables, and said, as he overtook
him, rather out of breath, “Well, my boy, I see you made it all right
yesterday! Why have you not been to tell the old man--eh?” and he
beamed upon him and poked him playfully with his cane.
Lord Tony suddenly found himself in a very nice moral dilemma. Oh! here
was a fix and no mistake!
“There is nothing to tell yet, Mr. West,” he blurted out.
“What! when I saw you both philandering behind the party hand-in-hand,
and--and--left you the dog-cart on the strength of it!”
“Oh, I only took Miss West’s hand for a moment--to--to ratify a
promise.”
“Promise of what?” impatiently.
“A promise of her friendship,” stammered his companion. It was a moment
of mental reservations.
“Oh!” with an expression of deepest scorn. “That wasn’t the way we made
love when I was a young man. What a miserable milk-and-watery set you
are! Friendship!”
“Yes, I know there is a falling off,” admitted Lord Tony, with
humility. “But we are not as energetic in any way as the last
generation. We prefer to take things easy, and to take our own time.
Miss West is young--‘marry in haste and repent at leisure,’ you know,”
he pursued collectedly. “You must not rush Miss West, you know.
She--she--all she asks for is _time_.”
“Did she _name_ any time?”
“Er--well--no.”
“I’m afraid you mismanaged the business--eh? You just leave it to me.
_I’ll_ arrange it!”
“No--no--no. That’s just the one thing I bar. Interference would
dish the whole concern. I beg and implore of you to leave--a--well
alone--for the present, at any rate. Miss West and I understand one
another.”
“I’m glad of that; for I’m blessed if I understand _either_ of you!”
exclaimed his disgusted listener.
“Ah! hullo, there goes Miss Pace, and I promised to play tennis with
her. I must go and get my bat and shoes.” Exit.
At the end of September the tide of enjoyment at Clane was at its
height. Theatricals were in rehearsal--that fertile field for
flirtation and fighting. The bags of the season had been enviably
heavy; the poor neighbours were sensible of a pleasant circulation
of money and new ideas; prices were rising steadily. The wealthy
neighbours appreciated Mr. West’s princely hospitality, and spoke of
him as “not a bad sort in his way, though a shocking little bounder.”
Mrs. Leach had prolonged her visit, and her attentions to her host were
becoming quite remarkable. He was not an ardent sportsman; his short
legs were unaccustomed to striding over the heather-clad mountains; he
did not want to shoot deer--in fact, he was rather afraid of them. So
he left the delights of his shooting to well-contented, keen young men,
and was easily beguiled into long saunters among the grounds and woods
in the syren’s company. To tell the truth, they were not much missed,
and they frequently rested on rustic seats, and talked to one another
with apparent confidence--flattering confidence. He spoke of Madeline’s
future--his earnest desire to see her suitably married. “A girl like
her might marry a duke; don’t you think so, Mrs. Leach?”
“She might,” said the lady, but without a trace of enthusiasm in her
voice--in fact, there was an inflection of doubt. “She is undeniably
lovely, but----”
“But what?”
“I--well--I am sentimental” (about as sentimental as a charwoman), “and
I have my own ideas. I think that dear Madeline has a private romance:
that she either cares for some one whom she can never marry----”
“That’s nonsense,” interrupted her companion, impatiently. “I have her
word of honour that there is no one she wants to marry.”
“Oh, well, she may have loved and _lost_,” said the lady, sweetly;
“for, speaking as a woman, it is inconceivable that a girl who is, or
was, heart-free could be absolutely indifferent to _every one_. She
has dozens of admirers, for she is not only very pretty, but”--and
she smiled enchantingly into Mr. West’s little eyes--“very rich--your
heiress. It is my opinion that Madeline has some little closet in her
heart that you have never seen--that she is constant to some memory. Of
course, time tries all things, and in time this memory will fade; but I
am positive that dearest Madeline will not marry for some years.” Then
she tapped his arm playfully. They were sitting side-by-side in a shady
path in the vast pleasure grounds. “You will be married before her
_yourself_.”
“I--I--marry! I have never dreamt of such a thing.”
“Why not, pray? You are comparatively young. A man is always young,
until he is really going downhill. A man is young at fifty. Now, look
at a woman at fifty!” and she paused expressively.
He turned his eyes upon her. Little did he suppose that he was
contemplating a woman of fifty--a woman who was extravagant, luxurious,
dreadfully in debt, almost at the end of her resources and her friends’
forbearance, and who was resolved upon marrying him whom she had once
called “that vulgar horror, the little Australian squatter.”
He looked at her with a rather shame-faced air and a grin. Alas!
flattery was hurrying him to destruction. She was an extremely handsome
woman, of the Juno type--erect, stately, with bright, dark eyes, dark
hair, a short straight nose, and beautiful teeth (some were her own).
She was dressed in a pale yellow muslin, with white ribbons, and wore a
most fascinating picture-hat and veil; her gloves, shoes, and sunshade
were of the choicest, and it was not improbable that, in the coming
by-and-by, Mr. West would have the pleasure of paying for this charming
toilette.
“A woman of fifty,” she pursued, “is an old hag; her day has gone
by, her hour of retreat has sounded. She is grey, stout--ten to one,
unwieldy--and dowdy. Now, a _man_ of fifty shoots, hunts, dances as he
did when he was twenty-five--in fact, as far as dancing goes, he is
thrice as keen as the ordinary ball-room boy, who simply won’t dance,
and is the despair of hostesses!”
“I’ve never thought of marrying,” he repeated. “Never!”
“No; all your thoughts are for Madeline, I am aware, and the alliance
she is to make; but my motto is, ‘Live while you live; live your own
individual life, and don’t starve on the scraps of other people’s good
things.’”
“Do you think any one would have me, Mrs. Leach?” he asked, as he leant
on his elbow and looked up into her glorious eyes.
She was the Honourable Mrs. Leach, well-connected, fashionable,
handsome, and--oh, climax!--“smart.” Yes, the idea was an illumination.
How well she would look at the head of his table and in the landau!
“Dear Mr. West, how humble you are! I am sure you would--(she meant his
money)--make any reasonable woman happy.” She glanced at him timidly,
and looked down and played coyly with her châtelaine.
What eyelashes she had, what a small white ear, what a pretty hand! His
own was already gently laid upon it, the words were actually on his
lips, when a bareheaded page burst through an adjacent path, breathless
from running. He had a telegram in his hand, and halted the moment he
caught sight of his master, who instantly withdrew his hand and became
the alert man of business.
Mrs. Leach was a lady, so she was unable to breathe an oath into her
moustache,--had oaths been her safety-valve. She, however, thought
some hasty thoughts of round-faced pages who brought telegrams (which
she kept to herself). Mr. West, however, was not so self-possessed.
As soon as he cast his eyes over the telegram he gave vent to a loud
exclamation of impatience, and then subsided into an inarticulate
mutter, whilst the page and the lady devoured him with their eyes!
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” she said sympathetically.
“Um--ah, yes. My stockbroker in London has made a most confounded mess
of some business. Buys in when I tell him to sell out. I wish I had him
by the ear this minute.”
“Is there an answer, sir?” asked the page.
“Yes; I’m coming in directly. Tell the fellow to wait.” And Mr. West
and the handsome widow turned towards the house.
This vile telegram had entirely distracted his ideas. His mind was
now fastened on the Stock Exchange, on the money market; he had not a
thought to spare for the lady beside him.
“It’s the twenty-ninth, is it not?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I must go home sooner than I intended. I shall have to be in London
next week. The fox is his own best messenger” (and the fox was going to
escape!).
Mrs. Leach had intended remaining in her present comfortable quarters
for another fortnight. This odious telegram had upset her plans.
“Then, you will not return here?”
“Oh no. What would be the good of that?”
“It seems a pity. You will be losing all the lovely autumn tints.
October is a charming month.”
“Yes; but it is not charming when some one at a distance is making
ducks and drakes of your coin, and I’d rather see the colour of my own
money again than any autumn tint,” was the practical remark.
“I have had a most delightful visit here. I shall never, never forget
dear Clane, nor all your kindness and hospitality.”
“You must come to us in London.”
“Thank you so much, and I shall always be delighted to chaperon dear
Maddie at any time. A girl like her is in such a difficult position.
She is very young, you know, to go out without a married lady. Of
course, you are a host in yourself; but----”
“But Lady Rachel and Mrs. Lorraine take Maddie out, you know,” broke in
Mr. West, “and a girl can go anywhere with her father.”
“Now there, dear Mr. West, I differ with you totally--indeed I do.
A girl should have an older woman as well--a woman for choice who
has no young people of her own, who is well-connected, well-looking,
well-dressed, and who knows the ropes, as they say.” She was sketching
a portrait of herself. “And Madeline is so remarkably pretty, too,
the observed of all observers. I am so fond of her. She _is_ so
sweet. I almost feel as if she were my own daughter. Ah! I never had
a daughter!” (But she could have a step-daughter; and if she was once
established as Madeline’s friend and chaperon, the rest would be an
easy matter.)
“I am very sorry to have to leave Clane sooner than I expected; but
business is business. Business first, pleasure afterwards.”
“And you have given us all a great deal of pleasure. I don’t know such
a host anywhere; and it has been such a comfort to me to talk to you
about my hateful law business, and to tell you things unreservedly, and
consult you. My odious brother-in-law, Lord Suckington, never will
assist me, and I never seem to be out of the hands of my solicitors.
Ah, here is your horrid telegraph-boy waiting. May I go in and order
tea, and pour you out a cup?”
* * * * *
In ten days’ time the entire party had dispersed. Madeline and her
father travelled over to London. As the latter took leave of Mrs. Leech
at Mallow Junction, and saw her into the Cork train, that warm-hearted
lady, looking bewitching in a charming travelling-cloak and hat, leant
out of the window and whispered as she pressed his hand, “Good-bye, or,
rather, _au revoir_. Be _sure_ you write to me!”
And was it possible that he had seen a tear in her eye?