The Evening Party.
---------------------------------------------------- MR. TURLINGTON,
LADY WINWOOD At Home.
Wednesday, December 15th.--Ten o'clock.
----------------------------------------------------
"Dearest Natalie--As the brute insists, the brute must have the
invitation which I inclose. Never mind, my child. You and Launce are
coming to dinner, and I will see that you have your little private
opportunities of retirement afterward. All I expect of you in return is,
_not_ to look (when you come back) as if your husband had been kissing
you. You will certainly let out the secret of those stolen kisses, if
you don't take care. At mamma's dinner yesterday, your color (when you
came out of the conservatory) was a sight to see. Even your shoulders
were red! They are charming shoulders, I know, and men take the
strangest fancies sometimes. But, my dear, suppose you wear a chemisette
next time, if you haven't authority enough over him to prevent his doing
it again!
"Your affectionate LOUISA."
The private history of the days that had passed since the marriage was
written in that letter. An additional chapter--of some importance in its
bearing on the future--was contributed by the progress of events at Lady
Winwood's party.
By previous arrangement with Natalie, the Graybrookes (invited to
dinner) arrived early. Leaving her husband and her stepdaughters to
entertain Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia, Lady Winwood took Natalie into
her own boudoir, which communicated by a curtained opening with the
drawing-room.
"My dear, you are looking positively haggard this evening. Has anything
happened?"
"I am nearly worn out, Louisa. The life I am leading is so unendurable
that, if Launce pressed me, I believe I should consent to run away with
him when we leave your house tonight."
"You will do nothing of the sort, if you please. Wait till you are
sixteen. I delight in novelty, but the novelty of appearing at the Old
Bailey is beyond my ambition. Is the brute coming to-night?"
"Of course. He insists on following me wherever I go. He lunched at
Muswell Hill today. More complaints of my incomprehensible coldness to
him. Another scolding from papa. A furious letter from Launce. If I
let Richard kiss my hand again in his presence, Launce warns me he will
knock him down. Oh, the meanness and the guiltiness of the life I am
leading now! I am in the falsest of all false positions, Louisa, and you
encouraged me to do it. I believe Richard Turlington suspects us. The
last two times Launce and I tried to get a minute together at my aunt's,
he contrived to put himself in our way. There he was, my dear, with
his scowling face, looking as if he longed to kill Launce. Can you do
anything for us tonight? Not on my account. But Launce is so impatient.
If he can't say two words to me alone this evening, he declares he will
come to Muswell Hill, and catch me in the garden tomorrow."
"Compose yourself, my dear; he shall say his two words to-night."
"How?"
Lady Winwood pointed through the curtained entrance of the boudoir to
the door of the drawing-room. Beyond the door was the staircase landing.
And beyond the landing was a second drawing-room, the smaller of the
two.
"There are only three or four people coming to dinner," her ladyship
proceeded; "and a few more in the evening. Being a small party, the
small drawing-room will do for us. This drawing-room will not be
lighted, and there will be only my reading-lamp here in the boudoir. I
shall give the signal for leaving the dining-room earlier than usual.
Launce will join us before the evening party begins. The moment he
appears, send him in here--boldly before your aunt and all of us."
"For what?"
"For your fan. Leave it there under the sofa-cushion before we go down
to dinner. You will sit next to Launce, and you will give him private
instructions not to find the fan. You will get impatient--you will go to
find it yourself--and there you are. Take care of your shoulders, Mrs.
Linzie! I have nothing more to say."
The guests asked to dinner began to arrive. Lady Winwood was recalled to
her duties as mistress of the house.
It was a pleasant little dinner--with one drawback. It began too late.
The ladies only reached the small drawing-room at ten minutes to ten.
Launce was only able to join them as the clock struck.
"Too late!" whispered Natalie. "He will be here directly."
"Nobody comes punctually to an evening party," said Launce. "Don't let
us lose a moment. Send me for your fan."
Natalie opened her lips to say the necessary words. Before she could
speak, the servant announced--"Mr. Turlington."
He came in, with his stiffly-upright shirt collar and his
loosely-fitting glossy black clothes. He made his sullen and clumsy
bow to Lady Winwood. And then he did, what he had done dozens of times
already--he caught Natalie, with her eyes still bright and her face
still animated (after talking to Launce)--a striking contrast to the
cold and unimpulsive young lady whom he was accustomed to see while
Natalie was talking to _him_.
Lord Winwood's daughters were persons of some celebrity in the world of
amateur music. Noticing the look that Turlington cast at Launce, Lady
Winwood whispered to Miss Lavinia--who instantly asked the young ladies
to sing. Launce, in obedience to a sign from Natalie, volunteered to
find the music-books. It is needless to add that he pitched on the wrong
volume at starting. As he lifted it from the piano to take it back to
the stand, there dropped out from between the leaves a printed letter,
looking like a circular. One of the young ladies took it up, and ran her
eye over it, with a start.
"The Sacred Concerts!" she exclaimed.
Her two sisters, standing by, looked at each other guiltily: "What will
the Committee say to us? We entirely forgot the meeting last month."
"Is there a meeting this month?"
They all looked anxiously at the printed letter.
"Yes! The twenty-third of December. Put it down in your book, Amelia."
Amelia, then and there, put it down among the engagements for the latter
end of the month. And Natalie's unacknowledged husband placidly looked
on.
So did the merciless irony of circumstances make Launce the innocent
means of exposing his own secret to discovery. Thanks to his success
in laying his hand on the wrong music-book, there would now be a
meeting--two good days before the elopement could take place--between
the lord's daughters and the rector's wife!
The guests of the evening began to appear by twos and threes. The
gentlemen below stairs left the dinner-table, and joined them.
The small drawing-room was pleasantly filled, and no more. Sir Joseph
Graybrooke, taking Turlington's hand, led him eagerly to their host.
The talk in the dining-room had turned on finance. Lord Winwood was not
quite satisfied with some of his foreign investments; and Sir Joseph's
"dear Richard" was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The
three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them)
slyly pressed Natalie's hand. A renowned "virtuoso" had arrived, and
was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was
absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for
the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While the financial
discussion was still proceeding, the married lovers were ensconced
together alone in the boudoir.
Lady Winwood (privately observant of their absence) kept her eye on the
corner, watching Richard Turlington.
He was talking earnestly--with his back toward the company. He neither
moved nor looked round. It came to Lord Winwood's turn to speak.
He preserved the same position, listening. Sir Joseph took up the
conversation next. Then his attention wandered--he knew beforehand what
Sir Joseph would say. His eyes turned anxiously toward the place in
which he had left Natalie. Lord Winwood said a word. His head turned
back again toward the corner. Sir Joseph put an objection. He glanced
once more over his shoulder--this time at the place in which Launce had
been standing. The next moment his host recalled his attention, and made
it impossible for him to continue his scrutiny of the room. At the same
times two among the evening guests, bound for another party, approached
to take leave of the lady of the house. Lady Winwood was obliged to
rise, and attend to them. They had something to say to her before they
left, and they said it at terrible length, standing so as to intercept
her view of the proceedings of the enemy. When she had got rid of them
at last, she looked--and behold Lord Winwood and Sir Joseph were the
only occupants of the corner!
Delaying one moment, to set the "virtuoso" thundering once more, Lady
Winwood slipped out of the room and crossed the landing. At the
entrance to the empty drawing-room she heard Turlington's voice, low and
threatening, in the boudoir. Jealousy has a Second Sight of its own.
He had looked in the right place at starting--and, oh heavens! he had
caught them.
Her ladyship's courage was beyond dispute; but she turned pale as she
approached the entrance to the boudoir.
There stood Natalie--at once angry and afraid--between the man to
whom she was ostensibly engaged, and the man to whom she was actually
married. Turlington's rugged face expressed a martyrdom of suppressed
fury. Launce--in the act of offering Natalie her fan--smiled, with the
cool superiority of a man who knew that he had won his advantage, and
who triumphed in knowing it.
"I forbid you to take your fan from that man's hands," said Turlington,
speaking to Natalie, and pointing to Launce.
"Isn't it rather too soon to begin 'forbidding'?" asked Lady Winwood,
good-humoredly.
"Exactly what I say!" exclaimed Launce. "It seems necessary to remind
Mr. Turlington that he is not married to Natalie yet!"
Those last words were spoken in a tone which made both the women tremble
inwardly for results. Lady Winwood took the fan from Launce with one
hand, and took Natalie's arm with the other.
"There is your fan, my dear," she said, in her easy off-hand manner.
"Why do you allow these two barbarous men to keep you here while the
great Bootmann is playing the Nightmare Sonata in the next room? Launce!
Mr. Turlington! follow me, and learn to be musical directly! You have
only to shut your eyes, and you will fancy you hear four modern German
composers playing, instead of one, and not the ghost of a melody among
all the four." She led the way out with Natalie, and whispered, "Did he
catch you?" Natalie whispered back, "I heard him in time. He only caught
us looking for the fan." The two men waited behind to have two words
together alone in the boudoir.
"This doesn't end here, Mr. Linzie!"
Launce smiled satirically. "For once I agree with you," he answered. "It
doesn't end here, as you say."
Lady Winwood stopped, and looked back at them from the drawing-room
door. They were keeping her waiting--they had no choice but to follow
the mistress of the house.
Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their
places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary
result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special
remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was beforehand
with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph's
private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against
Turlington's jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the
sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from
a distance, Turlington's suspicious eye detected the appearance of
something unduly confidential in the colloquy between the two. Under
cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened.
The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in
which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to
describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a
country church-yard and a dance of Vampires round a maiden's grave. Sir
Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a whisper, was obliged
to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting
Launce. "I sincerely sympathize with you," Turlington heard him say;
"and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our
way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard
found us out." He nodded kindly to his nephew; and, declining to pursue
the subject, moved away to another part of the room.
Turlington's jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of
irritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just
heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded
him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work
under the surface? and was the object to persuade weak Sir Joseph to
reconsider his daughter's contemplated marriage in a sense favorable
to Launce? Turlington's blind suspicion overleaped at a bound all the
manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After
an instant's consideration with himself, he decided on keeping his own
counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph's good faith then and there to a test
which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie's father by surprise.
"Graybrooke!"
Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in-law's face.
"My dear Richard, you are looking very strangely! Is the heat of the
room too much for you?"
"Never mind the heat! I have seen enough to-night to justify me in
insisting that your daughter and Launcelot Linzie shall meet no more
between this and the day of my marriage." Sir Joseph attempted to speak.
Turlington declined to give him the opportunity. "Yes! yes! your opinion
of Linzie isn't mine, I know. I saw you as thick as thieves together
just now." Sir Joseph once more attempted to make himself heard. Wearied
by Turlington's perpetual complaints of his daughter and his nephew, he
was sufficiently irritated by this time to have reported what Launce had
actually said to him if he had been allowed the chance. But Turlington
persisted in going on. "I cannot prevent Linzie from being received in
this house, and at your sister's," he said; "but I can keep him out of
_my_ house in the country, and to the country let us go. I propose a
change in the arrangements. Have you any engagement for the Christmas
holidays?"
He paused, and fixed his eyes attentively on Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph,
looking a little surprised, replied briefly that he had no engagement.
"In that case," resumed Turlington, "I invite you all to Somersetshire,
and I propose that the marriage shall take place from my house, and not
from yours. Do you refuse?"
"It is contrary to the usual course of proceeding in such cases,
Richard," Sir Joseph began.
"Do you refuse?" reiterated Turlington. "I tell you plainly, I shall
place a construction of my own upon your motive if you do."
"No, Richard," said Sir Joseph, quietly, "I accept."
Turlington drew back a step in silence. Sir Joseph had turned the tables
on him, and had taken _him_ by surprise.
"It will upset several plans, and be strongly objected to by the
ladies," proceeded the old gentleman. "But if nothing less will satisfy
you, I say, Yes! I shall have occasion, when we meet to-morrow at
Muswell Hill, to appeal to your indulgence under circumstances which may
greatly astonish you. The least I can do, in the meantime, is to set an
example of friendly sympathy and forbearance on my side. No more now,
Richard. Hush! the music!"
It was impossible to make him explain himself further that night.
Turlington was left to interpret Sir Joseph's mysterious communication
with such doubtful aid to success as his own unassisted ingenuity might
afford.
The meeting of the next day at Muswell Hill had for its object--as
Turlington had already been informed--the drawing of Natalie's
marriage-settlement. Was the question of money at the bottom of Sir
Joseph's contemplated appeal to his indulgence? He thought of his
commercial position. The depression in the Levant trade still continued.
Never had his business at any previous time required such constant
attention, and repaid that attention with so little profit. The Bills
of Lading had been already used by the firm, in the ordinary course of
trade, to obtain possession of the goods. The duplicates in the hands
of Bulpit Brothers were literally waste paper. Repayment of the loan
of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a
month's time. There was his commercial position! Was it possible that
money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter
of his daughter's dowry? The bare dread that it might be so struck him
cold. He quitted the house--and forgot to wish Natalie goodnight.
Meanwhile, Launce had left the evening party before him--and Launce
also found matter for serious reflection presented to his mind before he
slept that night. In other words, he found, on reaching his lodgings,
a letter from his brother marked "private." Had the inquiry into the
secrets of Turlington's early life--now prolonged over some weeks--led
to positive results at last? Launce eagerly opened the letter. It
contained a Report and a Summary. He passed at once to the Summary, and
read these words:
"If you only want moral evidence to satisfy your own mind, your end is
gained. There is, morally, no doubt that Turlington and the sea-captain
who cast the foreign sailor overboard to drown are on e and the same
man. Legally, the matter is beset by difficulties, Turlington having
destroyed all provable connection between his present self and his past
life. There is only one chance for us. A sailor on board the ship (who
was in his master's secrets) is supposed to be still living (under his
master's protection). All the black deeds of Turlington's early life are
known to this man. He can prove the facts, if we can find him, and make
it worth his while to speak. Under what alias he is hidden we do not
know. His own name is Thomas Wildfang. If we are to make the attempt to
find him, not a moment is to be lost. The expenses may be serious. Let
me know whether we are to go on, or whether enough has been done to
attain the end you have in view."
Enough had been done--not only to satisfy Launce, but to produce the
right effect on Sir Joseph's mind if Sir Joseph proved obdurate when the
secret of the marriage was revealed. Launce wrote a line directing the
stoppage of the proceedings at the point which they had now reached.
"Here is a reason for her not marrying Turlington," he said to himself,
as he placed the papers under lock and key. "And if she doesn't marry
Turlington," he added, with a lover's logic, "why shouldn't she marry
Me?"