HER LADYSHIP SHUFFLES THE CARDS.
Lady Annesley sat in speechless fury over the note that arrived from
the duchess the very next morning.
About her was spread her whole wardrobe, which she had been looking
over with the eye of a born milliner, quite certain that Levallion’s
hints about London had meant he would give her the money to take
Ravenel there. And this--with a vicious glance at the duchess’
letter--was their real meaning!
“For, of course, it’s all Levallion!” She drummed angrily on her knee
with slim, white fingers. “I have half a mind to checkmate him. He
might, considering everything, have sent me to town. But for me he
never would have seen his pink-and-white doll.”
She threw the duchess’ letter on a table, where it hit a pile of
other letters--blue enveloped, ominous--and sent them rustling to the
floor. They were merely the quarter’s bills from the butcher and the
wine-merchant for those luxuries Sylvia Annesley could never deny
herself, but she picked them up with a vicious hand.
“It’s well for you, Levallion, that I haven’t a penny to pay these, or
you might whistle for my lovely stepdaughter!” she said aloud. “But I
can’t stand five more years like this before Tom comes of age. Five
more years of dulness, of skimping, without a soul to speak to, and
then the prospect of turning out of this and living on nothing a week
in lodgings--no! it’s not to be done!”
She went to the glass and looked at herself feverishly, pushing back
her curled golden hair from her temples, dragging up the blinds till
the unkind daylight made her look every hour of her age.
“I’m getting old--old and hideous!” she stamped with passion. “I who
love youth and good looks and life. Why did I ever bury myself here
with the old fool who’s dead? Oh, I want to go out into the world
again--to live! To dine, dress, and gamble, to make fools of men--that
is life. And that girl’s marriage to Levallion is the only way I shall
ever see it again. He shall marry her if I have to swallow my pride ten
times over. He’d have to give me an allowance that would not disgrace
Lady Levallion’s mother! Ravenel shall go to the duchess; Levallion
will take care no other man gets a chance at her”--in spite of her rage
with him, she was secure in her old knowledge of his cleverness--“and I
will stay here and try to help things on!” with a pale smile.
She went to the door and locked it, then to her dressing-case and
dragged out a photograph. For a minute she stood and stared at it,
biting her lips.
“I can’t do anything with it,” she thought angrily. “And I daren’t
trust any one--but----” With swift inspiration a thought had come to
her.
“Hester Murray!” she cried half-aloud. “Hester can tell her a bit
of--truth! The silly old duchess will never imagine that Hester and
I are old acquaintances--Hester, who runs in and out of Avonmore to
help me; if she doesn’t I’ll make an unpleasant squall in the Murray
mansion. This match-making,” with a little laugh, “is most amusing.”
Her ill humor gone utterly, she sat down at her writing-table and
constructed a letter to make her old friend shake in her shoes, in
spite of its affection. She sealed up her letter and the photograph,
for Hester might not have one, and then turned her attention to
something else.
“I have a great mind to get rid of Adams,” she thought. “She is getting
beyond herself. But I’ll wait a little; she might talk. And, after
all, ‘better a devil you know than a devil you don’t know’!” forcibly.
“Though I doubt if Hester will think so,” with a curious look, as if
something had come back from the past and pleased her.
“Well,” she said half-aloud, “I suppose the duchess will deck out my
dear stepdaughter in purple and fine linen, but unless I want to look
a beast, I suppose I ought to provide her with at least one gown. I,
who haven’t two coins to rub together nowadays. She wouldn’t wear my
clothes if I gave them to her, and I’ve no desire to part with them.
I don’t care to interview her, either. She does hate me so!” for her
ladyship’s wits at least were young still, whatever her eyes might be.
“I must do the best I can,” she said thoughtfully; and there alone in
the little rose-colored room did a curious thing, for Lady Annesley,
not for a woman who loved her dead husband’s child. She took a ruby
ring from her finger and slipped it in a note quickly written and
addressed to her stepdaughter. It was a simple little effort enough,
saying merely that she had received from the duchess an invitation for
Tom and Ravenel to spend a month with her in London and would accept
for them with pleasure if they cared to go.
“As for gowns,” it ran, “I will do the best I can for you, but as that
may be small just now, I send you this ring, which you can wear or turn
into money, as you choose. It is one your father gave me. I would send
for you to talk over your frocks, but my neuralgia is terrific to-day.”
She rang for Adams to deliver the note and waited for her to come back
with a curious anxiety. It looked well to be generous, but she hated
giving away her rubies. It seemed half a year before the maid returned
with--yes--with a note!
Lady Annesley tore it open, and her strained lips grew triumphant. She
had been generous at no cost whatever.
“Thank you very much”--Ravenel had written with furious haste, having
no mind for any more of her ladyship’s gifts--“but I don’t want
to keep your ring. I send it back in this. You had better wear it
yourself.
“RAVENEL.”
That was absolutely all. Lady Annesley slipped her recovered ring on
her finger.
“You can go, Adams,” she said carelessly. But when she was alone she
laughed a laugh that showed her gums.
“I’ll have my house in town,” she gasped. “You’re a clever man,
Levallion, but you’ll never know who is helping me to get you married.
I’ll take care that you go on thinking me a fool. But to make Hester
Murray help to get you--it’s too good!” She wiped her eyes where she
sat helpless with laughter.
“Hester!” she murmured, “of all people.”