In a handsome apartment of the Hôtel Bristol at Paris, sat Lord and
Lady Culduff at tea. They were in deep mourning; and though they were
perfectly alone, the room was splendidly lighted--branches of candles
figuring on every console, and the glass lustre that hung from the
ceiling a blaze of waxlights.
If Lord Culduff looked older and more careworn than we have lately
seem him, Marion seemed in higher bloom and beauty, and the haughty,
half-defiant air which had, in a measure, spoiled the charm of her
girlhood, sat with a sort of dignity on her features as a woman.
Not a word was spoken on either side; and from her look of intense
preoccupation, as she sat gazing on the broad hem of her handkerchief,
it was evident that her thoughts were wandering far away from the place
she was in. As they sat thus, the door was noiselessly opened by a
servant in deep black, who, in a very subdued voice, said, “The Duke de
Castro, your Excellency.”
“I don 't receive,” was the cold reply, and the man withdrew. In about
a quarter of an hour after, he reappeared, and in the same stealthy tone
said, “Madame la Comtesse de Renneville begs she may have the honor--”
“Lady Culduff does not receive,” said his Lordship, sternly.
“The Countess has been very kind; she has been here to inquire after me
several times.”
“She is a woman of intense curiosity,” said he, slowly.
“I 'd have said of great good nature.”
“And you 'd have said perfectly wrong, madam. The woman is a political
_intriguante_ who only lives to unravel mysteries; and the one that is
now puzzling her is too much for her good manners.”
“I declare, my Lord, that I do not follow you.”
“I'm quite sure of that, madam. The sort of address Madame de
Renneville boasts was not a quality that your life in Ireland was likely
to make you familiar with.”
“I beg you to remember, my Lord,” said she, angrily, “that all my
experiences of the world have not been derived from that side of the
Channel.”
“I 'm cruel enough to say, madam, that I wish they had! There is nothing
so difficult as unlearning.”
“I wish, my Lord--I heartily wish--that you had made this discovery
earlier.”
“Madam,” said he, slowly, and with much solemnity of manner, “I owe it
to each of us to own that I had made what you are pleased to call this
'discovery' while there was yet time to obviate its consequences. My
very great admiration had not blinded me as to certain peculiarities,
let me call them, of manner; and if my vanity induced me to believe that
I should be able to correct them, it is my only error.”
“I protest, my Lord, if my temper sustain me under such insult as this,
I think I might be acquitted of ill breeding.”
“I live in the hope, madam, that such a charge would be impossible.”
“I suppose you mean,” said she, with a sneering smile, “when I have
taken more lessons--when I have completed the course of instruction you
so courteously began with me yesterday?”
“Precisely, madam, precisely. There are no heaven-born courtiers. The
graces of manner are as much matter of acquirement as are the notes of
music. A delicate organization has the same disadvantage in the one case
that a fine ear has in the other. It substitutes an aptitude for what
ought to be pure acquirement. The people who are naturally well mannered
are like the people who sing by ear; and I need not say what inflictions
are both.”
“And you really think, my Lord, that I may yet be able to enter a room
and leave it with becoming grace and dignity.”
“You enter a room well, madam,” said he, with a judicial slowness. “Now
that you have subdued the triumphant air I objected to, and assumed more
quietness--the blended softness with reserve--your approach is good, I
should say, extremely good. To withdraw is, however, far more difficult.
To throw into the deference of leave-taking--for it is always a
permission you seem to ask--the tempered sorrow of departure with the
sense of tasted enjoyment, to do this with ease and elegance, and not a
touch of the dramatic about it, is a very high success; and I grieve to
say, madam,” added he, seriously, “it is a success not yet accorded you.
Would you do me the great favor to repeat our lesson of this morning--I
mean the courtesy with the two steps retiring, and then the slide?”
“If you do not think me well mannered, my Lord, you must at least
believe me very good-tempered,” said she, flushing.
“Let me assure you, my Lady, that to the latter quality I attach
no importance whatever. Persons who respect themselves never visit
peculiarities of temperament on others. We have our infirmities of
nature, as we have our maladies; but we keep them for ourselves, or for
our doctor. It is the triumph of the well-bred world to need nothing but
good manners.”
“What charming people! I take it that heaven must be peopled with
lords-in-waiting.”
“Let me observe to your Ladyship that there is no greater enormity
in manners than an epigram. Keep this smartness for correspondence
exclusively, abstain from it strictly in conversation.”
“I protest, my Lord, your lessons come so thick that I despair of
being able to profit by half of them. Meanwhile, if I am not committing
another solecism against good manners, I should like to say good-night.”
Lord Culduff arose and walked to the door, to be ready to open it as
she approached. Meanwhile, she busied herself collecting her fan and her
scent-bottle and her handkerchief, and a book she had been reading.
“Hadn't Virginie better come for these things?” said he, quietly.
“Oh, certainly,” replied she, dropping them hurriedly on the table;
“I'm always transgressing; but I do hope, my Lord, with time, and with
that sincere desire to learn that animates me, I may yet attain to at
least so many of the habits of your Lordship's order as may enable me to
escape censure.”
He smiled and bowed a courteous concurrence with the wish, but did not
speak. Though her lip now trembled with indignation, and her cheek
was flushed, she controlled her temper, and as she drew nigh the door
dropped a low and most respectful courtesy.
“Very nice, very nice, indeed; a thought, perhaps, too formal--I
mean for the occasion--but in admirable taste. Your Ladyship is grace
itself.”
“My Lord, you are a model of courtesy.”
“I cannot even attempt to convey what pleasure your words give me,” said
he, pressing his hand to his heart and bowing low. Meanwhile, with a
darkening brow and a look of haughty defiance, she swept past him and
left the room.
“Is n't Marion well?” said Temple Bramleigh, as he entered a few
minutes later; “her maid told me she had gone to her room.”
“Quite well: a little fagged, perhaps, by a day of visiting; nothing
beyond that. You have been dining at the embassy? whom had you there?”
“A family party and a few of the smaller diplomacies.”
“To be sure. It was Friday. Any news stirring?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Does Bartleton talk of retiring still?”'
“Yes. He says he is sick of sending in his demand for retirement. That
they always say, 'We can't spare you; you must hold on a little longer.
If you go out now, there's Bailey and Hammersmith, and half a dozen
others will come insisting on advancement.'”
“Did n't he say Culduff too? eh, didn't he?” said the old lord, with a
wicked twinkle of the eye.
“I'm not sure he didn't,” said Temple, blushing.
“He did, sir, and he said more--he said, 'Rather than see Culduff here,
I 'd stay on and serve these twenty years.'”
“I did n't hear him say that, certainly.”
“No, sir, perhaps not, but he said it to himself, as sure as I stand
here. There is n't a country in Europe--I say it advisedly--where
intellect--I mean superior intellect--is so persistently persecuted as
in England. I don't want my enemy to have any heavier misfortune than
to be born a man of brains and a Briton! Once that it's known that you
stand above your fellow-men, the whole world is arrayed against you.
Who knows that better than he who now speaks to you? Have I ever been
forgiven the Erzeroum convention? Even George Canning--from whom one
might have expected better--even he used to say, 'How well Culduff
managed that commercial treaty with the Hanse Towns!' he never got over
it, sir, never! You are a young fellow entering upon life--let me give
you a word of counsel. Always be inferior to the man you are, for the
time being, in contact with. Outbid him, outjockey him, overreach him,
but never forget to make him believe he knows more of the game than you
do. If you have any success over him, ascribe it to 'luck,' mere 'luck.'
The most envious of men will forgive 'luck,' all the more if they
despise the fellow who has profited by it. Therefore, I say, if the
intellectual standard of your rival is only four feet, take care that
with your tallest heels on, you don't stand above three feet eleven! No
harm if only three ten and a half.”
The little applauding ha! ha! ha! with which his Lordship ended was
faintly chorussed by the secretary.
“And what is your news from home; you 've had letters, have n't you?”
“Yes. Augustus writes me in great confusion. They have not found the
will, and they begin to fear that the very informal scrap of paper I
already mentioned is all that represents one.”
“What! do you mean that memorandum stating that your father bequeathed
all he had to Augustus, and trusted he would make a suitable provision
for his brothers and sisters?”
“Yes; that is all that has been found. Augustus says in his last
letter, my poor father would seem to have been most painfully affected
for some time back by a claim put forward to the title of all his landed
property, by a person assuming to be the heir of my grandfather, and
this claim is actually about to be asserted at law. The weight of this
charge and all its consequent publicity and exposure appear to have
crushed him for some months before his death, and he had made great
efforts to effect a compromise.”
A long, low, plaintive whistle from Lord Culduff arrested Temple's
speech, and for a few seconds there was a dead silence in the room.
“This, then, would have left you all ruined--eh?” asked Culduff, after a
pause.
“I don't exactly see to what extent we should have been liable--whether
only the estated property, or also all funded moneys.”
“Everything; every stick and stone; every scrip and debenture, you
may swear. The rental of the estates for years back would have to be
accounted for--with interest.”
“Sedley does not say so,” said Temple, in a tone of considerable
irritation.
“These fellows never do; they always imply there is a game to be
played, an issue to be waited for, else their occupation were gone. How
much of all this story was known to your sister Marion?”
“Nothing. Neither she nor any of us ever suspected it.”
“It's always the same thing,” said the Viscount, as he arose and
settled his wig before the glass. “The same episode goes on repeating
itself forever. These trade fortunes are just card-houses; they are
raised in a night, and blown away in the morning.”
“You forget, my Lord, that my father inherited an entailed estate.”
“Which turns out not to have been his,” replied he, with a grin.
“You are going too fast, my Lord, faster than judge and jury. Sedley
never took a very serious view of this claim, and he only concurred in
the attempt to compromise it out of deference to my father's dislike to
public scandal.”
“And a very wise antipathy it was, I must say. No gentleman ever
consulted his self-respect by inviting the world to criticise his
private affairs. And how does this pleasing incident stand now? In which
act of the drama are we at this moment? Is there an action at law, or
are we in the stage of compromise?”
“This is what Augustus says,” said Temple, taking the letter from
his pocket and reading: “'Sedley thinks that a handsome offer of a sum
down--say twenty thousand pounds--might possibly be accepted; but to
meet this would require a united effort by all of us. Would Lord Culduff
be disposed to accept his share in this liability? Would he, I mean, be
willing to devote a portion of Marion's fortune to this object, seeing
that he is now one of us? I have engaged Cutbill to go over to Paris and
confer with him, and he will probably arrive there by Tuesday. Nelly
has placed at my disposal the only sum over which she has exclusive
control--it is but two thousand pounds. As for Jack, matters have gone
very ill with him, and rather than accept a court-martial, he has
thrown up his commission and left the service. We are expecting him here
to-night, but only to say good-bye, as he sails for China on Thursday.'”
Lord Culduflf walked quietly towards the chimney-piece as Temple
concluded, and took up a small tobacco-box of chased silver, from which
he proceeded to manufacture a cigarette--a process on which he displayed
considerable skill and patience; having lighted which, and taken a
couple of puffs, he said, “You'll have to go to Bogota, Temple, that's
clear.”
“Go to Bogota! I declare I don't see why.”
“Yes, you'll have to go; every man has to take his turn of some
objectionable post, his Gaboon and yellow fever days. I myself passed a
year at Stutgard. The Bramleighs are now events of the past. There's
no use in fighting against these things. They were, and they are not:
that's the whole story. It's very hard on every one, especially
hard upon _me_. Reverses in life sit easily enough on the class that
furnishes adventurers, but in _my_ condition there are no adventurers.
You and others like you descend to the ranks, and nobody thinks the
worse of you. _We_--we cannot! that's the pull you have. We are born
with our epaulettes, and we must wear them till we die.”
“It does not seem a very logical consequence, notwithstanding, to me,
that because my brother may have to defend his title to his estate, that
I must accept a post that is highly distasteful to me.”
“And yet it is the direct consequence. Will you do me the favor to
touch that bell. I should like some claret-cup. The fact is, we all of
us take too little out of our prosperity! Where we err is, we experiment
on good fortune: now we should n't do that, we should realize. You,
for instance, ought to have made your 'running' while your father
was entertaining all the world in Belgravia The people could n't have
ignored _you_, and dined with _him_; at least, you need not have let
them.”
“So that your Lordship already looks upon us as bygones, as things of
the past?”
“I am forced to take this very disagreeable view. Will you try that cup?
it is scarcely iced enough for my liking. Have you remarked that they
never make cup properly in an hotel? The clubs alone have the secret.”
“I suppose you will confer with Cutbill before you return an answer to
Augustus?” said Temple, stiffly.
“I may--that is, I may listen to what that very plausible but not very
polished individual has to say, before I frame the exact terms of my
reply. We are all of us, so to say, 'dans des mauvais draps.' _You_ are
going where you hate to go, and I, who really should have had no share
in this general disaster, have taken my ticket in the lottery when the
last prize has just been paid over the counter.”
“It is very hard on you indeed,” said the other, scornfully.
“Nothing less than your sympathy would make it endurable;” and as he
spoke he lighted a bedroom candle and moved towards the door. “Don't
tell them at F. O. that you are going out unwillingly, or they'll
keep you there. Trust to some irregularity when you are there, to get
recalled, and be injured. If a man can only be injured and brought
before the House, it's worth ten years' active service to him. The first
time I was injured I was made secretary of embassy. The second gave
me my K. C. B., and I look to my next misfortune for the Grand Cross.
Good-bye. Don't take the yellow fever, don't marry a squaw.”
And with a graceful move of the hand he motioned an adieu, and
disappeared.