Leaving them thus in happy pleasantry and enjoyment, let us turn for a moment to a very different scene,--to a drawing-room in Merrion Square, where at that same hour Lady Lendrick and Mrs. Sewell sat in close conference.
Mrs. Sewell had related the whole story of the intended duel, and its finale, and was now explaining to her mother-in-law how impossible it would be for her to continue any longer to live under the Chief Baron"s roof, if even--which she deemed unlikely--he would still desire it.
"He "ll not turn you out, dear,--of that I am quite certain. I suspect I am the only one in the world he would treat in that fashion."
"I must not incur the risk."
"Dear me, have you not been running risks all your life, Lucy? Besides, what else have you open to you?"
"Join my husband, I suppose, whenever he sends for me,--whenever he says he has a home to receive me." "Dudley, I "m certain, will do his best,"
said Lady Lendrick, stiffly. "It is not very easy for a poor man to make these arrangements in a moment. But, with all his faults,--and even his mother must own that he has many faults,--yet I have never known him to bear malice." "Certainly, Madam, you are justified in your panegyric by his conduct on the present occasion; he has, indeed, displayed a most forgiving nature."
"You mean by not fighting Trafford, I suppose; but come now, Lucy, we are here alone, and can talk freely to each other; why should he fight him?"
"I will not follow you, Lady Lendrick, into that inquiry, nor give you any pretext for saying to me what your candor is evidently eager for.
I will only repeat that the one thing I ever knew Colonel Sewell pardon was the outrage that no gentleman ever endures."
"He fought once before, and was greatly condemned for it."
"I suppose you know why, Madam. I take it you have no need I should tell you the Agra story, with all its shameful details?"
"I don"t want to hear it; and if I did I would certainly hesitate to listen to it from one so deeply and painfully implicated as yourself."
"Lady Lendrick, I will have no insinuations," said she, haughtily. "When I came here, it never occurred to me I was to be insulted."
"Sit down again, Lucy, and don"t be angry with me," said Lady Lendrick, pressing her back into her chair. "Your position is a very painful one,--let us not make it worse by irritation; and to avoid all possibility of this, we will not look back at all, but only regard the future."
"That may be more easy for _you_ to do than for _me_"
"Easy or not easy, Lucy, we have no alternative; we cannot change the past."
"No, no, no! I know that,--I know that," cried she, bitterly, as her clasped hands dropped upon her knee.
"For that reason then, Lucy, forget it, ignore it. I have no need to tell you, my dear, that my own life has not been a very happy one, and if I venture to give advice, it is not without having had my share of sorrows. You say you cannot go back to the Priory?"
"No; that is impossible."
"Unpleasant it would certainly be, and all the more so with these marriage festivities. The wedding, I suppose, will take place there?"
"I don"t know; I have not heard;" and she tried to say this with an easy indifference.
"Trafford is disinherited, is he not?--pa.s.sed over in the entail, or something or other?"
"I don"t know," she muttered out; but this time her confusion was not to be concealed.
"And will this old man they talk of--this Sir Brook somebody--make such a settlement on them as they can live on?"
"I know nothing about it at all."
"I wonder, Lucy dear, it never occurred to you to fascinate Dives yourself. What nice crumbs these would have been for Algy and Cary!"
"You forget, Madam, what a jealous husband I have!" and her eyes now darted a glance of almost wild malignity.
"Poor Dudley, how many faults we shall find in you if we come to discuss you!"
"Let us not discuss Colonel Sewell, Madam; it will be better for all of us. A thought has just occurred; it was a thing I was quite forgetting.
May I send one of your servants with a note, for which he will wait the answer?"
"Certainly. You will find paper and pens there."
The note was barely a few lines, and addressed to George Kincaid, Esq., Ely Place. "You are to wait for the answer, Richard," said she, as she gave it to the servant.
"Do you expect he will let you have some money, Lucy?" asked Lady Lendrick, as she heard the name.
"No; it was about something else I wrote. I"m quite sure he would not have given me money if I asked for it."
"I wish _I_ could, my dear Lucy; but I am miserably poor. Sir William, who was once the very soul of punctuality, has grown of late most neglectful. My last quarter is over-due two months. I must own all this has taken place since Dudley went to live at the Priory. I hear the expenses were something fabulous."
"There was a great deal of waste; a great deal of mock splendor and real discomfort."
"Is it true the wine bill was fifteen hundred pounds for the last year?"
"I think I heard it was something to that amount."
"And four hundred for cigars?"
"No; that included pipes, and amber mouthpieces, and meerschaums for presents,--it rained presents!"
"And did Sir William make no remark or remonstrance about this?"
"I believe not. I rather think I heard that he liked it. They persuaded him that all these indiscretions, like his new wigs, and his rouge, and his embroidered waistcoats, made him quite juvenile, and that nothing made a man so youthful as living beyond his income."
"It is easy enough to see how I was left in arrear; and _you_, dear, were you forgotten all this while and left without a shilling?"
"Oh, no; I could make as many debts as I pleased; and I pleased to make them, too, as they will discover one of these days. I never asked the price of anything, and therefore I enjoyed unlimited credit. If you remark, shopkeepers never dun the people who simply say, "Send that home."--How quickly you did your message, Richard! Have you brought an answer? Give it to me at once."
She broke open the note with eager impatience, but it fell from her fingers as she read it, and she lay back almost fainting in her chair.
"Are you ill, dear,--are you faint?" asked Lady Len-drick.
"No; I "m quite well again. I was only provoked,--put out;" and she stooped and took up the letter. "I wrote to Mr. Kincaid to give me certain papers which were in his hands, and which I know Colonel Sewell would wish to have in his own keeping, and he writes me this:--
"Dear Madam,--I am sorry that it is not in my power to comply with the request of your note, inasmuch as the letters referred to were this morning handed over to Sir Brook Fossbrooke on his producing an order from Colonel Sewell to that intent.--I am, Madam, your most obedient servant,
"George Kincaid."
"They were letters, then?"