Piccadilly

It required no little effort to reach Bodwinkle"s office at 10 A.M. I found that great millionaire in a peculiarly amiable frame of mind.

Though two or three of his neighbours had been smashing around him, his superior foresight had enabled him to escape the calamities which had overtaken them; and he was sitting chuckling in that rather dingy alley, from the recesses of which he had dug his fortune, when I entered.

"Ah, Lord Frank," he said, affably; "come to give me some of your valuable advice and a.s.sistance in my election affairs, I feel sure.

Don"t forget your promise about Stepton. I have already given the necessary instructions about that matter of Lady Broadhem"s; there is nothing going to be done about it for the present."

"It is just with reference to Lady Broadhem"s affairs that I have come to consult you," I said. "You have a pretty extensive Indian connection, I think?"

"Rather," said Bodwinkle, in a tone which meant to imply gigantic.

"Now I have reason to believe that her ladyship is interested in some Bombay houses, and I shall be able to throw some light upon her affairs which may be of use to us both, if you will give me the benefit of a little of that exclusive information with reference to cotton and those who are embarked in its trade which I know you possess."

Bodwinkle was loath at first to let me into those mysteries which he speedily revealed to me on my explaining more fully my reasons for requiring to know them, and I jumped into a hansom and drove off to Grosvenor Square, planning a little plot which I completed ere I arrived, and the construction of which had acted as beneficially upon my nerves as one of Lady Broadhem"s own "pick-me-ups." Drippings let me in, and his countenance wore an expression of anxious consciousness. As he led the way up-stairs he whispered, "I trust, my lord, that under the circ.u.mstances your lordship will not betray me--my own livelihood, not to say that of my wife and little ones, depends upon my keeping this place; and I would not have mentioned what had come to my knowledge with respect to her ladyship if it had not been that, knowing the interest your lordship takes in the family, and more especially when I come to consider Lady Ursula----"

"Hold your tongue," I interrupted, angrily. "If you wish me to reduce you and your family to beggary, dare to open your lips to me again unless you"re spoken to." I felt savage with him for ruffling my temper at the moment when I desired to have my faculties completely under control; and as my readers will have perceived, though my intentions are always excellent, my course is occasionally, under any unusual strain, erratic.

I never saw Lady Broadhem looking better. One or two wrinkles were positively missing altogether, and an expression of cheerful benevolence seemed to play about the corners of her mouth. She greeted me with an _empress.e.m.e.nt_ totally at variance with the terms on which we had parted upon the previous evening. I must say that, when Lady Broadhem chooses, there is n.o.body of my acquaintance whose manner is more attractive, and whose conversation is more agreeable. She had been a _belle_ in her day, and had achieved some renown among the "wholly-worldlies" when she first married the late lord. Her "history," connected chiefly with another lord of that period, is not yet altogether forgotten. The end of it was, that the world looked coldly upon her ladyship for a few seasons, and she scrambled with some difficulty into the society of the "worldly-holies," among whom she has ever since remained. There are occasions when a certain amount of coquetry of manner betrays the existence of some of those "devil"s leavings" which she is still engaged in sacrificing. Had it not been for the information I had derived from Drippings, her cordial reception and unembarra.s.sed manner would have puzzled me. As it was, I felt a.s.sured by the indications they furnished, that the butler had told me the truth.

"My dear Lady Broadhem," I said, with enthusiasm, "how well you are looking! I am sure you must have some charming news to tell me. Is some near and wealthy relation dead, or what?"

"For shame, Frank! what a satirical creature you are! Do you know I only discovered lately that irony was your strong point? I am positively beginning to be afraid of you."

"Come now," I said, "own frankly, what you have to tell me to-day makes you feel more afraid of me than you ever did before."

Lady Broadhem blushed--yes, actually blushed. It was not the flush of anger which I had often seen dye her cheeks, or of shame, which I never did; but it was a blush of maiden consciousness, if I may so express it, though it is occasionally to be observed in widows. It mounted slowly and suffused her whole neck and face, even unto the roots of her hair; it was a blush of that kind which I have seen technically described by a German philosopher as a "rhythm of exquisite sweetness."

The effect of this hardened old lady indulging in a rhythm of this description struck me as so ludicrous that I was compelled to resort to my pocket-handkerchief and pretend to sneeze behind it. At the same moment Lady Broadhem resorted to hers, and applied it with equal sincerity to her eyes. "Dear Frank," she said, and sobbed. "Dear Lady Broadhem," I responded, and nearly choked with suppressed laughter, for I knew what was coming.

"All my money difficulties are at an end at last, and if I am affected, it is that I feel I am not worthy of the happiness that is in store for me," and she lifted up her eyes, in which real tears were actually glistening, and said, "What have I done to deserve it?"

"Well, really," I replied, "if you ask me that question honestly, I must wait till I know what "it" is; perhaps you would have been better without--"it.""

"I a.s.sure you, Frank, one of the uppermost feelings in my mind is that of relief. I fully appreciate the warm-hearted generosity which has prompted you to take so much interest in my affairs; but when it was all over between you and Ursula, my conscience would not allow me to let you make pecuniary sacrifices on so large a scale for my sake. When Broadhem told me that you had determined to persevere in your munificence, notwithstanding Ursula"s most inexplicable conduct, I made up my mind at once to adopt a course which, I am happy to say, not merely my sense of propriety but my feelings told me was the right one. I must therefore relieve you from all further anxiety about my business matters. You have, I think, still got some papers of mine, which you may return to me; and I will see that my solicitor not only releases you from any engagements which you may have entered into for me, but will repay those sums which you have so kindly advanced on my account already."

There was a tone of triumph pervading this speech which clearly meant, "Now we are quits. I don"t forget the time when you drank my "pick-me-up" first, and biologised me afterwards. And this is my revenge."

I must say I looked at Lady Broadhem with a certain feeling of admiration. She was a woman made up of "forces." Last night pa.s.sionate and intemperate under the influence of the society she had called round her: to-day calm and wily, using her advantages of situation with a judgment and a moderation worthy of a great strategist. She is only arrogant and insolent in the hour of disaster; but she can conquer magnanimously. I a.s.sumed an air of the deepest regret and disappointment. "Of course, Lady Broadhem, any change in your circ.u.mstances which makes you independent, even of your friends, must be agreeable to you; but I cannot say how deeply disappointed I feel that my labour of love is over, and that I shall no longer have the pleasure of spending my resources in a cause so precious to me." The last words almost stuck in my throat; but I wanted to overdo it, to see the effect.

"My dear Frank," she said, laughing, and her eyes would have twinkled had they not become too watery from age, "I shall never make you out; I am so stupid at reading character, and I suppose so dull altogether, that sometimes I am not sure when you"re joking and when you are in earnest. Now I want you seriously to answer me truly one question, not as people of the world, you know, making pledges to each other, but as old friends, as we are, who may dispense with mystery." She held out her hand with an air of charming candour. "Tell me," she said, as she pressed mine,--"tell me honestly, what could possibly have been your motive in being prepared to go on sacrificing your fortune for me when you had no chance of Ursula?"

"Tell me honestly, Lady Broadhem," I said, and pressed her hand in return, "how you are going to render yourself independent of my a.s.sistance hence-forward, and I will tell you the motives which have actuated me in proffering it."

"It is only just settled, and I have not even told it yet either to Broadhem or my daughters. I am quite prepared for the sensation it will make when it is known, and the ill-natured things people will say of me; but my mind is made up, and we are told to expect persecution. I am going to be married to Mr Chundango!"

Lady Broadhem evidently expected to stun me with this announcement, but as I had already been prepared for it by Drippings on the occasion of our first private interview, which the reader will remember, I received it with perfect equanimity.

"I had no conception," her ladyship went on, "of the sterling worth and n.o.ble character of that man until I had an opportunity of observing it closely. The munificence of his liberality, and the good uses to which he applies his enormous wealth, the cultivation of his mind, the excellence of his principles, and the perfect harmony of feeling upon religious subjects which exists between us, all convince me that I shall best consult my own happiness and the interests of my dear children by uniting my fate to his. I suppose you know Lord Scilly is going to put him into Parliament for the Scilly boroughs instead of Lord Grandon?"

"No one could congratulate you more sincerely than I do, Lady Broadhem,"

I said. "I can conceive no greater happiness than an alliance in which that perfect harmony of thought and feeling you describe reigns paramount; and now it is my turn to tell you why I have acted the part which seems so incomprehensible to you. Grandon is, as you know, my dearest friend, but he is poor. Ursula cares for him more, if possible, than I do. And I need not tell you that my own attachment to your daughter is the strongest sentiment of my nature. Now, I determined to prove the depth of my affection for these two people by making them both happy, and when all my arrangements were completed I intended to make a final stipulation with you, that you should give your consent to their marriage, and that I should play the part of a bountiful prince in the Arabian Nights, and that we should all live happy ever after."

"A very pretty little plot indeed," said Lady Broadhem, with a sneer.

"You are too good and disinterested for this planet, Frank. So you thought you could coerce me into giving my consent to a marriage I never have approved, and never shall?"

"Don"t be too sure of that," I said, and I allowed the faintest tinge of insolence to appear in my manner, for the sentiments and the sneer that accompanied it both irritated me, and I felt that we were morally drawing our revolvers, and looking at the caps.

"Why not? What do you mean?" she said, sharply. "Who do you suppose is to dictate to me upon such a subject? Ursula will be very well off, and I shall take care that she marries suitably."

"I don"t know where she is to get her money from," I said, calmly.

"You need give yourself no anxiety about her for the future, I a.s.sure you. Mr Chundango has been most liberal in his arrangements about both my girls."

"But, unfortunately, it is not in Mr Chundango"s power to make any such arrangements," I retorted. "I am sure nothing will alter your feelings towards a man you really love, and that your own personal conduct will not be influenced by the fact that Mr Chundango is a beggar. You could go back to India with him, you know, and make a home for him in a bungalow in the Bombay Ghauts."

Lady Broadhem"s face had become rigid and stony; so had my whole nature.

I did not feel a particle of compa.s.sion or of triumph. I was cold, hard, and judicial. Her hour was come, and I had to pa.s.s the sentence. "Yes,"

I said, "there is no doubt about it. I got it from Bodwinkle this moment. The Bombay mail arrived last night, and you know the way everything has been crashing there through speculations in Back Bay shares, cotton, &c. Well, the great Pa.r.s.ee house of Burstupjee c.o.c.kabhoy has come down with a grand crash, and all our friend Chundango"s jewels in the back verandah, added to everything else he possesses in the world, will fail to meet his liabilities. Terrible thing, isn"t it? but we must bear up, you know."

But Lady Broadhem had done bearing up some time ago, and had sunk gently back on the couch, in a dead faint. As there was not the slightest sham about it, I rang the bell for Jenkins, and felt under the pillow for the "pick-me-up," which I failed to make her swallow; so I slapped the soles of her feet with her shoes, till her maid arrived, followed by Drippings, who, I suspect, had spent some portion of his time in the neighbourhood of the keyhole.

"I will go and look for Lady Ursula," I said; "where shall I find her?"

"In her own "boudwore,"" said Jenkins--"first door on the right, at the top of the stairs," and I left Lady Broadhem being ministered to with sal-volatile, and went in search of her daughter.

Lady Ursula was writing, and as she looked up I saw the traces of tears upon her cheeks, though she smiled as she frankly gave me her hand. "I half expected you, Lord Frank, as I knew you were to call on mamma to-day, and I thought you would not leave without seeing me; but I expected to have been sent for. Don"t you know that this is very sacred ground, and that the privilege of treading upon it is accorded to very few?"

"I have that to tell you," I said, gravely, "which I can only talk of privately. I have left Lady Broadhem down-stairs, and it is the result of my interview with her that I want to communicate to you. Do you know that she contemplated taking a very serious step?"

I did not know how to approach the subject, and felt embarra.s.sed now that I found myself obliged to explain to a daughter that her mother was going to marry the man that daughter had rejected, as an act of revenge.

"No," said Lady Ursula. "I have suspected by her preoccupied manner for many days past that mamma had decided upon something, but I have shrunk from speaking to her of her own plans. Indeed she seemed to have avoided me in a way which she never did before."

"Before telling you what she intended doing, I must premise that she has quite abandoned the idea; therefore don"t let yourself be distressed by what might have been, but won"t be now."

I risked this a.s.sertion as, though Lady Broadhem had not told me that she had abandoned the idea, and was at that moment in a dead faint, I felt certain that her first impulse on "coming to" would be to abandon it. "Well," said Lady Ursula, with her lip trembling and her eye cast down, "if you think it right that you should tell me, do so; remember she is my mother."

"It was nothing so very dreadful after all," I said, and tried to rea.s.sure her by a careless manner--for I saw how much she dreaded the unknown.

"The fact is, Lady Broadhem has been driven to despair by the family embarra.s.sments, and we must make allowances for her under the circ.u.mstances. Then perhaps she was under the influence of pique. At all events, she has made up her mind to accept a proposal which Mr Chundango had the audacity to make."

Lady Ursula raised her eyes in a bewildered way to mine. It was evident that she had failed even now to comprehend me. What business, I thought, had I to come up here after all? It is a piece of impertinence in me; and I trembled at my rashness. What will she think? I shall shock her, and ruin myself in her estimation irretrievably; and I wished myself back again, slapping the soles of Lady Broadhem"s feet; but Lady Broadhem was already making use of those very soles, and was marching up-stairs at that identical moment; for before I could find words to explain my meaning more fully to Lady Ursula, and while I was yet doubting whether I should not back out of the whole subject, in stalked her ladyship, very white, with lips compressed, and an expression on her face which so terrified Ursula that she forgot my speech in the amazement and alarm which her mother"s aspect caused her. "What are you doing in my daughter"s private sitting-room, Lord Frank?" said Lady Broadhem, between her teeth.

"I came to tell her of your sudden illness, and explain the cause of it," I replied, calmly.

"And have you done so?" and I saw how much depended on my answer by the nervous way in which Lady Broadhem clenched her hand to control her emotion: she has given me a good many _mauvais quarts d"heures_, I thought--I will give her one now.

"I was just telling Lady Ursula," I said, "that Mr Chundango had positively had the impudence to propose to you"--Lady Broadhem gave a sort of suppressed scream--"when you came in."

"Then you did not tell her what he proposed?" she said.