"Well, be so good as to read this."
And Lady Alice placed Beatrix"s note of invitation in Mrs. Sinnott"s hand, and pointed to a pa.s.sage in the autograph of Sir Jekyl, which spoke thus:--
"P.S.--Do come, dearest little mamma, and you shall command everything.
Choose your own apartments and hours, and, in short, rule us all. With all my worldly goods I thee endow, and place Mrs. Sinnott at your orders."
"Well, Mrs. Sinnott, I choose _these_ apartments, if you please," said Lady Alice, sitting down stiffly, and thereby taking possession.
"Very well, my lady," said Mrs. Sinnott, dropping another courtesy; but her sharp red nose and little black eyes looked sceptical and uneasy; "and I suppose, Miss," here she paused, looking at Beatrix.
"You are to do whatever Lady Alice directs," said the young lady.
"This here room, you know, Miss, is the dressing-room properly of the green chamber."
"Lady Jane does not use it, though?" replied the new visitor.
"But the General, when he comes back," insinuated Mrs. Sinnott.
"Of course, he shall have it. I"ll remove then; but in the meantime, liking these rooms, from old remembrances, best of any, I will occupy them, Beatrix; _this_ as a dressing-room, and the apartment _there_ as bed-room. I hope I don"t give you a great deal of trouble," added Lady Alice, addressing the housekeeper, with an air that plainly said that she did not care a pin whether she did or not.
So this point was settled, and Lady Alice sent for her maid and her boxes; and rising, she approached the door of the green chamber, and pointing to it, said to Beatrix--
"And so Lady Jane has this room. Do you like her, Beatrix?"
"I can"t say I know her, grandmamma."
"No, I dare say not. It is a large room--too large for my notion of a cheerful bed-room."
The old lady drew near, and knocked.
"She"s not there?"
"No, she"s in the terrace-garden."
Lady Alice pushed the door open, and looked in.
"A very long room. That room is longer than my drawing-room at Wardlock, and that is five and thirty feet long. Dismal, I say--though so much light, and that portrait--Sir Harry smirking there. What a look of duplicity in that face! He was an old man when I can remember him; an old beau; a wicked old man, rouged and whitened; he used to paint under his eyelashes, and had, they said, nine or ten sets of false teeth, and always wore a black curled wig that made his contracted countenance more narrow. There were such lines of cunning and meanness about his eyes, actually crossing one another. Jekyl hated him, I think. I don"t think anybody but a fool could have really liked him; he was so curiously selfish, and so contemptible; he was attempting the life of a wicked young man at seventy!"
Lady Alice had been speaking as it were in soliloquy, staring drearily on the clever portrait in gold lace and ruffles, stricken by the spell of that painted canvas into a dream.
"Your grandpapa, my dear, was not a good man; and I believe he injured my poor son irreparably, and your _father_. Well--these things, though never forgotten, are best not spoken of when people happen to be connected. For the sake of others we bear our pain in silence; but the heart knoweth its own bitterness."
And so saying, the old lady drew back from the threshold of Lady Jane"s apartment, and closed the door with a stern countenance.
CHAPTER XX.
An Altercation.
Almost at the same moment Sir Jekyl entered the hexagon, or, as it was more pleasantly called, the Window dressing-room, from the lobby. He was quite radiant, and, in that warm evening light, struck Lady Alice as looking quite marvellously youthful.
"Well, Jekyl Marlowe, you see you have brought me here at last," said the old lady, extending her hand stiffly, like a wooden marionette, her thin elbow making a right angle.
"So I have; and I shall always think the better of my eloquence for having prevailed. You"re a thousand times welcome, and not tired, I hope; the journey is not much after all."
"Thanks; no, the distance is not much, the fatigue nothing," said Lady Alice, drawing her fingers horizontally back from his hospitable pressure. "But it is not always distance that separates people, or fatigue that depresses one."
"No, of course; fifty things; rheumatism, temper, hatred, affliction: and I am so delighted to see you! Trixie, dear, would not grandmamma like to see her room? Send for--"
"Thank you, I mean to stay here," said Lady Alice.
"_Here!_" echoed Sir Jekyl, with a rather bewildered smile.
"I avail myself of the privilege you give me; your postscript to Beatrix"s note, you know. You tell me there to choose what rooms I like best," said the old lady, drily, at the same time drawing her bag toward her, that she might be ready to put the doc.u.ments in evidence, in case he should dispute it.
"Oh! did I?" said the Baronet, with the same faint smile.
Lady Alice nodded, and then threw back her head, challenging contradiction by a supercilious stare, her hand firmly upon the bag as before.
"But this room, you know; it"s anything but a comfortable one--don"t you think?" said Sir Jekyl.
"I like it," said the inflexible old lady, sitting down.
"And I"m afraid there"s a little difficulty," he continued, not minding.
"For this is General Lennox"s dressing-room. Don"t you think it might be awkward?" and he chuckled agreeably.
"General Lennox is absent in London, on business," said Lady Alice, grim as an old Diana; "and Jane does not use it, and there _can_ be no _intelligible_ objection to my having it in his absence."
There was a little smile, that yet was not a smile, and a slight play about Sir Jekyl"s nostrils, as he listened to this speech. They came when he was vicious; but with a flush, he commanded himself, and only laughed slightly, and said--
"It is really hardly a concern of mine, provided my guests are happy.
You don"t mean to have your bed into this room, do you?"
"I mean to sleep _there_," she replied drily, stabbing with her long forefinger toward the door on the opposite side of the room.
"Well, I can only say I"d have fancied, for other reasons, these the very last rooms in the house you would have chosen--particularly as this really belongs to the green chamber. However, you and Lady Jane can arrange that between you. You"d have been very comfortable where we would have put you, and you"ll be very _un_comfortable here, I"m afraid; but perhaps I"m not making allowance for the affection you have for Lady Jane, the length of time that has pa.s.sed since you"ve seen her, and the pleasure of being so near her."
There was an agreeable irony in this; for the Baronet knew that they had never agreed very well together, and that neither spoke very handsomely of the other behind her back. At the same time, this was no conclusive proof of unkindness on Lady Alice"s part, for her goodwill sometimes showed itself under strange and uncomfortable disguises.
"Beatrix, dear, I hope they are seeing to your grandmamma"s room; and you"ll want candles, it is growing dark. Altogether I"m afraid you"re very uncomfortable, little mother; but if _you_ prefer it, you know, of course I"m silent."
With these words he kissed the old lady"s chilly cheek, and vanished.
As he ran down the darkening stairs the Baronet was smiling mischievously; and when, having made his long straight journey to the foot of the back stairs, he re-ascended, and pa.s.sing through the two little ante-rooms, entered his own homely bedchamber, and looked at his handsome and wonderfully preserved face in the gla.s.s, he laughed outright two or three comfortable explosions at intervals, and was evidently enjoying some fun in antic.i.p.ation.