THE SIEGE OF LONDON.
The Contessa, but perhaps not more than half, believed what she said.
Everything was on the cards in this capricious society of England, which
is not governed by the same absolute laws as in other places. It seemed
to be quite possible that she and her charge might be asked everywhere
after their appearance at the ball which, she should take care to tell
everybody, Lucy was giving for Bice. It was always possible in England
that some leader of fashion, some great lady whose nod gave distinction,
might take pity upon Bice's youth and think it hard that she should
suffer, even if without any relentings towards the Contessa. And Madame
di Forno-Populo was very strong on the point, already mentioned, that
there was nothing against her which could give any one a right to shut
her out. The mere suggestion that the doors of society might or could be
closed in her face would have driven another woman into frantic
indignation, but the Contessa had passed that stage. She took the matter
quite reasonably, philosophically. There was no reason. She had been
poor and put to many shifts. Sometimes she had been compelled to permit
herself to be indebted to a man in a way no woman should allow herself
to be. She was quite aware of this, and was not, therefore, angry with
society for its reluctance to receive her; but she said to herself, with
great energy, that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the
drawing-room, nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the
virtues, to present her, if the ball went off well at Park Lane. She
said to herself that there was nothing on her mind which would make her
shrink from seeking admission to the presence of the Queen. She was not
afraid even of that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty,
debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too
lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman
the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always
possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one
whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart
of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice.
And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every
prognostication of success and triumph would come true.
Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this, the Contessa had
furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women
were jealous, that she had been pursued by their hostility wherever she
went, that a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of
their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the
lovely had to bear from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was
fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had
carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate
to use it if necessary; but these were _grands moyens_, not to be
resorted to save in case of necessity. She would herself have been
willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing
now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her, enjoying
everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which
her soul longed, yet which she despised heartily, which she would have
undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule
afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but
there was nothing that could make up for absence from them; they alone
had in their power the _cachet_, the symbol of universal acceptance. All
these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been
going on there since she separated herself from that household which the
Contessa did not understand. Sir Tom, indeed, was comprehensible. The
discovery which he thought he had made, the things which she had allowed
him to divine, and even permitted him to prove for himself without
making a single assertion on her own part, were quite sufficient to
account for his changed looks. But Lucy, what had she found out? It was
not likely that Sir Tom had communicated his discovery to her. Lucy's
demeanour confused the Contessa more than words can say. The simple
creature had grown into a strange dignity, which nothing could explain.
Instead of the sweet compliance and almost obedience of former days, the
deference of the younger to the older woman, Lucy looked at her with
grave composure, as of an equal or superior. What had happened to the
girl? And it was so important that she should be friendly now and kept
in good humour! Madame di Forno-Populo put forth all her attractions,
gave her dear Lucy her sweetest looks and words, but made very little
impression. This gave her a little tremor when she thought of it; for
all her plans for the future were connected with the ball on the 26th at
Park Lane.
This ball appeared to Lucy, too, the most important crisis in her life.
She had made a sacrifice which was heroic that nothing might go wrong
upon that day. Somehow or other, she could not tell how, for the
struggle had been desperate within her, she had subdued the emotion in
her own heart and schooled herself to an acceptance of the old routine
of her life until that event should be over. All her calculations went
to that date, but not beyond. Life seemed to stop short there. It had
been arranged and settled with a light heart in the pleasure of knowing
that the Contessa had taken a house for herself, and that, consequently,
Lucy was henceforward to be once more mistress of her own. She had been
so ashamed of her own pleasure in this prospect, so full of compunctions
in respect to her guest, whose departure made her happy, that she had
thrown herself with enthusiasm into this expedient for making it up to
them. She had said it was to be Bice's ball. When the Dowager's
revelation came upon her like a thunderbolt, as soon as she was able to
think at all, she had thought of this ball with a depth of emotion which
was strange to be excited by so frivolous a matter. It was a pledge of
the warmest friendship, but those for whom it was to be, had turned out
the enemies of her peace, the destroyers of her happiness: and it was
high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking. Lady Randolph,
afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa, had
suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing--a
few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a
sudden illness; any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved.
There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern,
and through all her troubles she remembered that Bice, at least, had a
claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody
else could have. Under what roof but his should she make her first
appearance in the world? Lucy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness
and tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without
blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged, more wronged even
than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest
stigma, without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her
(as she counted advancement), to make her happy (as she reckoned
happiness) it was right she should have it done. Lucy suppressed her own
wretchedness heroically for this cause. She bore the confusion that had
come into her life without saying a word for the sake of the other young
creature who was her fellow-sufferer. How hard it was to do she could
not have told, nor did any one suspect, except, vaguely, Sir Tom
himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that was at work without
knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some
explanation, but Lucy would have no explanation. She avoided him as much
as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her.
Till the 26th! Nothing, she was resolved, should interfere with that.
And then--but not the baby in the nursery knew less than Lucy what was
to happen then.
They had come to London on the 2d, so that this day of fate was three
weeks off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress
in her affairs. Three weeks is a long time in a house which is open to
visitors, even if only from four o'clock in the afternoon, every day,
and without intermission; and indeed that was not the whole, for the
ladies were accessible elsewhere than in the house in Mayfair. It had
pleased the Contessa not to be visible when Lord Montjoie called at a
somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who
knew the world, and not one to have things made too easy for him. He was
all aflame accordingly to gain the _entree_ thus withheld, and when the
Contessa appeared for the first time in the Park, with her lovely
companion, Montjoie was eagerly on the watch, and lost no time in
claiming acquaintance, and joining himself to her train. He was one of
the two who were received to luncheon two or three days afterwards. When
the ladies went to the opera he was on thorns till he could join them.
He was allowed to go home with them for one song, and to come in next
afternoon for a little music. And from that time forward there was no
more question of shutting him out. He came and went almost when he
pleased, as a young man may be permitted to do when he has become one of
the intimates in an easy-going, pleasure-loving household, where there
is always "something going on." He was so little flattered that never
during all these days and nights had he once been allowed to repeat the
performance upon which he prided himself, and with which he had followed
up the singing of the Contessa and Bice at the Hall. The admirable lady
whom they had met there, with her two daughters, had been eager that
Lord Montjoie should display this accomplishment of his, and the girls
had been enchanted by his singing; but the Contessa, though not so
irreproachable, would have none of it. And Bice laughed freely at the
young nobleman who had so much to bestow, and they both threw at him
delicate little shafts of wit, which never pierced his stolid
complacency, though he was quite quick withal to see the fun when other
gentlemen looked at each other over the Contessa's shoulder, and burst
into little peals of laughter at her little speeches about the Highton
Grandmodes and other such exclusive houses. Montjoie knew all about La
Forno-Populo. "But yet that little Bice," he said, "don't you know?" No
one like her had come within Montjoie's ken. He knew all about the girls
in blue or in pink or in white, who asked him to sing. But Bice, who
laughed at his accomplishment and at himself, and was so saucy to him,
and made fun of him, he allowed, to his face, that was very different.
He described her in terms that were not chivalrous, and his own emotions
in words still less ornate; but before the fortnight was over the best
judges declared among themselves that, by Jove, the Forno-Populo had
done it this time, that the little one knew how to play her cards, that
it was all up with Montjoie, poor little beggar, with other elegances of
a similar kind. The man who had taken the Contessa's house for her, and
a great deal of trouble about all her arrangements, whom she described
as a very old friend, and whose rueful sense that house-agents and
livery stables might eventually look to him if she had no success in her
enterprise did not impair his fidelity, went so far as to speak
seriously to Montjoie on the subject. "Look here, Mont," he said, "don't
you think you are going it rather too strong? There is not a thing
against the girl, who is as nice as a girl can be, but then the aunt,
you know----"
"I'm glad she is the aunt," said Montjoie. "I thought she was the
mother: and I always heard you were devoted to her."
"We are very old friends," said this disinterested adviser. "There's
nothing I would not do for her. She is the best soul out, and was the
loveliest woman I can tell you--the girl is nothing to what she was.
Aunt or cousin, I am not sure what is the relationship; but that's not
the question. Don't you think you are coming it rather strong?"
"Oh, I've got my wits about me," said Montjoie; and then he added,
rather reluctantly--for it is the fashion of his kind to be vulgar and
to keep what generosity or nobleness there is in them carefully out of
sight--"and I've no relations, don't you know? I've got nobody to please
but myself----"
"Well, that is a piece of luck anyhow," the Mentor said; and he told the
Contessa the gist of the conversation next morning, who was highly
pleased by the news.
The curious point in all this was that Bice had not the least objection
to Montjoie. She was a clever girl and he was a stupid young man, but
whether it was that her entirely unawakened heart had no share at all in
the matter, or that her clear practical view of affairs influenced her
sentiments as well as her mind, it is certain that she was quite pleased
with her fate, and ready to embrace it without the least sense that it
was a sacrifice or anything but the happiest thing possible. He amused
her, as she had said to Jock. He made her laugh, most frequently at
himself; but what did that matter? He had a kind of good looks, and that
good nature which is the product of prosperity and well-being, and a
sense of general superiority to the world. Perhaps the girl saw no man
of a superior order to compare him with; but, as a matter of fact, she
was perfectly satisfied with Montjoie. Mr. Derwentwater and Jock were
more ridiculous to her than he was, and were less in harmony with
everything she had previously known. Their work, their intellectual
occupations, their cleverness and aspirations were out of her world
altogether. The young man-about-town who had nothing to do but amuse
himself, who was always "knocking about," as he said, whose business was
pleasure, was the kind of being with whom she was acquainted. She had no
understanding of the other kind. He who had been her comrade in the
country, whose society had amused her there, and for whom she had a sort
of half-condescending affection, was droll to her beyond measure, with
his ambitions and great ideas as to what he was to do. He, too, made her
laugh; but not as Montjoie did. She laughed, though this would have
immeasurably surprised Jock, with much less sympathy than she had with
the other, upon whom he looked with so much contempt. They were both
silly to Bice,--silly as, in her strange experience, she thought it
usual and natural for men to be,--but Montjoie's manner of being silly
was more congenial to her than the other. He was more in tune with the
life she had known. Hamburg, Baden, Wiesbaden, and all the other Bads,
even Monaco, would have suited Montjoie well enough. The trade of
pleasure-making has its affinities like every other, and a tramp on his
way from fair to fair is more _en rapport_ with a duke than the world
dreams of. Thus Bice found that the young English marquis, with more
money than he knew how to spend, was far more like the elegant
adventurer living on his wits, than all those intervening classes of
society, to whom life is a more serious, and certainly a much less
festive and costly affair. She understood him far better. And instead of
being, as Lucy thought, a sacrifice, an unfortunate victim sold to a
loveless marriage for the money and the advantages it would bring, Bice
went on very gaily, her heart as unmoved as possible, to what she felt
to be a most congenial fate.
And they all waited for the 26th and the ball with growing excitement.
It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the
character of the Contessa's campaign. It might reintroduce her into
society under better auspices than ever, or it might--but there was no
need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would conclude
at the same source as it began, Bice's triumph--a _debutante_ who was
already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the
greatest _parti_ in the kingdom. The idea was like wine, and went to the
Contessa's head.
She had in this interval of excitement a brief little note from Lucy,
which startled her beyond measure for the moment. It was to ask the
exact names of Bice. "You shall know in a few days why I ask, but it is
necessary they should be written down in full and exactly," Lucy said.
The Contessa had half forgotten, in the new flood of life about her,
what was in Lucy's power, and the further advantage that might come of
their relations, and she did not think of this even now, but felt with
momentary tremor as if some snare lay concealed under these simple
words. After a moment's consideration, however, she wrote with a bold
and flowing hand:
"SWEET LUCY--The child's name is Beatrice Ersilia. You cannot, I am
sure, mean her anything but good by such a question. She has not
been properly introduced, I know--I am fantastic, I loved the Bice,
and no more.
"DARLING, A TE."
This was signed with a cipher, which it was not very easy to make out--a
little mystery which pleased the Contessa. She thus involved in a
pleasant little uncertainty her own name, which nobody knew.