I BEHAVE LIKE A GOOSE
“Coachman!” I cried. The driver reined in his horse. “Where are you
taking me?”
“Home, my lady.”
“Home? To whose home? To my home?”
“To His Grace’s, my lady--Chelmsford House.”
He called me “my lady,” and spoke of “His Grace,” and of Chelmsford
House. Then the brown man must be the Duke of Chelmsford? No woman can
suddenly awake to the fact that she has been in the society of a real
live duke--and such a duke--without becoming conscious of a singular
something. I withdrew my head from the window with a sort of spasmodic
rush.
“Are you the Duke of Chelmsford?”
“I am; and hope that you will shortly be the Duchess.”
The Duchess! the Duchess of Chelmsford! the consort of the richest
duke in the world, and, as my own eyes told me--the very handsomest;
the queen of English society--palaces and lands just everywhere--the
world at my feet, ready, willing, eager to do me homage--me! Small
wonder that everything seemed all at once to be going round. Was it
possible that the greatest of life’s prizes--from every sensible
woman’s point of view--was being offered me? that I was actually being
entreated to accept it? This was something like an adventure.
The brown man’s--I mean the Duke’s--voice came to my still startled
ear.
“You’ll find being a Duchess rather a bore. The natural boredom, to
which all flesh is heir, will afflict you in an accentuated form. But
you’ll get used to it. Use is by way of being a universal panacea.
Then you’ll discover that it’s a sort of boredom which you have rather
grown to like. My mother used to say she had.”
I turned the handle of the door, and, without a word, stepped out into
the road. So soon as I stood upright I realised that I was trembling
from head to foot. I wondered, hazily, if I was going to be silly;
dimly aware that it was an absurdly inconvenient place in which to
make a fuss. Instantly the brown man--I mean the Duke--was at my side.
“Why have you got out here? You prefer to walk the remainder of the
distance? It’s fine for walking. My house--our house--is but over the
way.”
“Will you please tell me where is the nearest place at which I can
find a cab?”
I know little of that part of London. Especially is it strange to me
at night. We seemed to be in a great square, with huge houses all
round it, and a fine wide road, which, apparently, we had all to
ourselves.
“We shall not need one, it is but a step.” Then, I suppose, he
perceived that I was looking queer, because all at once his tone
became solicitous. “May I beg you to accept my arm. Has anything
distressed you?”
“I want a cab,” was all that I could murmur.
What he would have said I do not know. Before he could speak another
brougham came bowling along. It stopped just by us, and out of it--of
all persons in the world--walked that wicked old man. He marched
straight up to where we were standing--as if he had the slightest
ground for interference. What he imagined had occurred I, of course,
cannot say; but he addressed us in a truly remarkable strain.
“Just what I expected--knew I should find this sort of thing going on.
If you had asked me, you would have been warned in time. You young
people are never able to judge for yourselves whom you can trust. Now,
my dear young lady, you would have seen how much wiser you would have
been if you had remained with me.”
“Who is this gentleman?” inquired the Duke.
“I don’t know who he is--I don’t want to have anything to do with
him--he’s no acquaintance of mine--I wish he’d go away!”
That old man actually dared to pretend to be hurt by my repudiation of
him.
“There now, listen to that! And, for all I know, my wife’s still
standing on the pavement waiting for her carriage; while, at this hour
of the night, I’ve been following this ungrateful girl in it like
a--like a--like a true friend. And I arrive at the moment when the
protection of a true friend is most needed, and this is the welcome I
receive. There’s nothing so ungrateful as a young girl--especially
when gratitude is owing to a man of my years. But, my dear young lady,
I will forgive you everything; so come back to my carriage and don’t
let us trouble this young gentleman any further.”
His fingers fastened about my arm. I shrunk back.
“Don’t touch me.”
The Duke, placing himself between us, spoke to that horrid old wretch.
“Have the goodness not to allow us to detain you any longer.”
I believe there would have been a scene before we could have got rid
of him, because, so far as I could see, he showed no sign of budging,
and every second I was growing queerer and queerer. Something inside
of me seemed to have escaped from my control, so that I could not pull
myself together and behave like a reasonable being. Just as I was
beginning to be afraid that I should have to sit down in the middle of
the road, or do something else equally insane, up dashed another
vehicle. I believe it was a hansom cab, but as I was seeing everything
through a kind of mist, I could not be sure. Anyhow, out of it jumped
the brown man’s sister. I thought her voice, as it reached my dulling
ears, was the pleasantest I had heard that night. After all, there is
nothing like a woman, when you have had enough of men.
“So I’ve found you, have I? Pray, what’s doing now? Bernard, what
fresh freak are you indulging in?”
“Louisa, will you take this lady to Chelmsford House. I fear she’s
feeling tired. There are a few words which I must say to this
gentleman.”
I felt the brown man’s sister’s arm go round my waist; it was so nice.
“Tired? You poor child! You’ve upset her with your nonsense. Bernard!
quick! help me with her to the carriage. Who are all these people who
are coming?”
“All these people” were the five. They came clattering up
together--the four in the omnibus, Walter Hammond alone in a hansom
cab. I fancy that there was a fine to-do. But it was lost on me. For
the first time in my life I was behaving like a goose--in the Duke of
Chelmsford’s arms.
So I rode home in the brown man’s sister’s brougham.