It has been all very paternal and beautiful, and--abominably Tory and tyrannous! Many people, I suppose, think it perfect. Perhaps I don"t. But then, I know very well I can"t possibly disagree with her a tenth part as strongly as she disagrees with me."
"Oh! but she admires you so much," cried Letty, with effusion; "she thinks you mean so n.o.bly!"
Marcella opened her eyes, involuntarily wondering a little what Lady Tressady might know about it.
"Oh! we don"t hate each other," she said, rather drily, "in spite of politics. And my husband was Ancoats"s guardian."
"Dear me!" said Letty. "I should think it wasn"t easy to be guardian to fifty thousand a year."
Marcella did not answer--did not, indeed, hear. Her look had stolen across to Mrs. Allison--a sad, affectionate look, in no way meant for Lady Tressady. But Letty noticed it.
"I suppose she adores him," she said.
Marcella sighed.
"There was never anything like it. It frightens one to see."
"And that, of course, is why she won"t marry Lord Fontenoy?"
Marcella started, and drew away from her companion.
"I don"t know," she said stiffly; "and I am sure that no one ever dared to ask her."
"Oh! but of course it"s what everyone says," said Letty, gay and unabashed. "That"s what makes it so exciting to come here, when one knows Lord Fontenoy so very well."
Marcella met this remark with a discouraging silence.
Letty, however, was determined this time to make her impression. She plunged into a lively and often audacious gossip about every person in the room in turn, asking a number of intimate or impertinent questions, and yet very seldom waiting for Marcella"s reply, so anxious was she to show off her own information and make her own comments. She let Marcella understand that she suspected a great deal, in the matter of that handsome Lady Madeleine. It was _immensely_ interesting, of course; but wasn"t Lord Ancoats a trifle wild?--she bent over and whispered in Marcella"s ears; was it likely that he would settle himself so soon?--didn"t one hear sad tales of his theatrical friends and the rest?
And what could one expect! As if a young man in such a position was not certain to have his fling! And his mother would have to put up with it.
After all, men quieted down at last. Look at Lord Cathedine!
And with an air of boundless knowledge she touched upon the incidents of Lord Cathedine"s career, hashing up, with skilful deductions of her own, all that Lord Naseby had said or hinted to her at dinner. Poor Lady Cathedine! didn"t she look a walking skeleton, with her strange, melancholy face, and every bone showing? Well, who could wonder! And when one thought of their money difficulties, too!
Lady Tressady lifted her white shoulders in compa.s.sion.
By this time Marcella"s black eyes were wandering insistently round the room, searching for means of escape. Betty, far away, noticed her air, and concluded that the "realisation" was making rapid, too rapid, progress. Presently, with a smiling shake of her little head, she left her own seat and went to her friend"s a.s.sistance.
At the same moment Mrs. Allison, driven by her conscience as a hostess, got up for the purpose of introducing Lady Tressady to a lady in grey who had been sitting quiet, and, as Mrs. Allison feared, lonely, in a corner, looking over some photographs. Marcella, who had also risen, put out a hand to Betty, and the two moved away together.
They stopped on the threshold of a large window at the side of the room, which stood wide open to the night. Outside, beyond a broad flight of steps, stretched a formal Dutch garden. Its numberless small beds, forming stiff scrolls and circles on a ground of white gravel, lay in bright moonlight. Even the colours of the hyacinths and tulips with which they were planted could be seen, and the strong scent from them filled the still air. At the far end of this flat-patterned place a group of tall cypress and ilex, black against the sky, struck a note of Italy and the South; while, through the yew hedges which closed in the little garden, broad archways pierced at intervals revealed far breadths of silvery English lawn and the distant gleam of the river.
"Well, my dear," said Betty, laughing, and slipping her arm through Marcella"s as they stood in the opening of the window, "I see you have been doing your duty for once. Let me pat you on the back. All the more that I gather you are not exactly enchanted with Lady Tressady. You really should keep your face in order. From the other end of the room I know exactly what you think of the person you are talking to."
"Do you?" said Marcella, penitently. "I wish you didn"t."
"Well you may wish it, for it doesn"t help the political lady to get what she wants. However, I don"t think that Lady Tressady has found out yet that you don"t like her. She isn"t thin-skinned. If you had looked like that when you were talking to me, I would have paid you out somehow. What is the matter with her?"
"Oh! I don"t know," said Marcella, impatiently, raising her shoulders.
"But she jarred. I pined to get away--I don"t think I ever want to talk to her again."
"No," said Betty, ruminating; "I"ll tell you what it is--she isn"t a gentleman! Don"t interrupt me! I mean exactly what I say--_she isn"t a gentleman_. She would do and say all the things that a nice man squirms at. I always have the oddest fancy about that kind of person. I see them as they must be at night--all the fine clothes gone--just a little black soul scrawled between the bedclothes!"
"_You_ to call me censorious!" said Marcella, laughing, and pinching her friend"s arm.
"My dear, as I have often before remarked to you, _I_ am not a great lady, with a political campaign to tight. If you knew your business, you would make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness in the shape of Lady Tressadys. _I_ may do what I please--I have only a husband to manage!" and Betty"s light voice dropped into a sigh.
"Poor Betty!" said Marcella, patting her hand. "Is Frank as discontented as ever?"
"He told me yesterday he hated his existence, and thought he would try whether the Serpentine would drown him. I said I was agreeable, only he would never achieve it without me. I should have to "tice away the police while he looked for the right spot. So he has promised to take me into partnership, and it"s all right so far."
Then Betty fell to sighing in earnest.
"It"s all very well "chaffing," but I am a miserable woman. Frank says I have ruined his life; that it"s all my ambition; that he might have made a decent country gentleman if I hadn"t sown the seed of every vice in him by driving him into politics. Pleasant, isn"t it, for a model wife like me?"
"You"ll have to let him give it up," said Marcella, smiling; "I don"t believe he"ll ever reconcile himself to the grind and the town life."
Betty clenched her small hands.
"My dear! I never promised to marry a sporting boor, and I can"t yet make up my mind to sink to it. Don"t let"s talk of it! I only hope he"ll vote straight in the next few months. But the thought of being kept through August drives him desperate already. Ah! here they are--plagues of the human race!--" and she waved an accusing hand towards the incoming stream of gentlemen. "Now, I"ll prophesy, and you watch. Lady Tressady will make two friends here--Harding Watton--oh! I forgot, he"s her cousin!--and Lord Cathedine. Mark my words. By the way--" Betty caught Marcella"s arm and spoke eagerly into her friend"s ear. Her eyes meanwhile glanced over her shoulder towards Lady Madeleine and her mother, who were seated on the further side of the room.
Marcella"s look followed Betty"s, but she showed no readiness to answer Betty"s questions. When Letty had made her astonishing remarks on the subject of Madeleine Penley, Lady Maxwell had tried to stop her with a hauteur which would have abashed most women, though it had but small effect on the bride. And now, even to Betty, who was Madeleine Penley"s friend, Marcella was not communicative; although when Betty was carried off by Lord Naseby who came in search of her as soon as he entered the drawing-room, the elder woman stood for a moment by the window, watching the girl they had been talking of with a soft serious look.
But the softness pa.s.sed. A slight incident disturbed it. For the spectator saw Lady Kent, who was sitting beside her daughter, raise a gigantic fan and beckon to Lord Ancoats. He came unwillingly, and she made some bantering remark. Lady Madeleine meanwhile was bending over a book of photographs, with a flushed cheek and a look of constraint.
Ancoats stood near her for a moment uneasily, frowning and pulling at his moustache. Then with an abrupt word to Lady Kent, he turned away and threw himself on a sofa beside Lord Cathedine. Lady Madeleine bent lower over her book, her beautiful hair making a spot of fire in the room.
Marcella caught the expression of her profile, and her own face took a look of pain. She would have liked to go instantly to the girl"s side, with some tenderness, some caress. But that gorgon Lady Kent, now looking extremely fierce, was in the way, and moreover other young men had arrived to take the place Ancoats had apparently refused.
Meanwhile Letty saw the arrival of the gentlemen with delight. She had found but small entertainment in the lady to whom Mrs. Allison had introduced her. Miss Paston, the sister of Lord Ancoats"s agent, was a pleasant-looking spinster of thirty-five in a Quakerish dress of grey silk. Her face bore witness that she was capable and refined. But Letty felt no desire whatever to explore capability and refinement. She had not come to Castle Luton to make herself agreeable to Miss Paston.
So the conversation languished. Letty yawned a little, and flourished her fan a great deal, till the appearance of the men brought back the flush to her cheek and animation to her eye. She drew herself up at once, hungry for notice and success. Mrs. Hawkins, the vicar"s wife at Malford, would have been avenged could she have watched her old tyrant under these chastening circ.u.mstances.
Harding Watton crossed the room when he saw his cousin, and took the corner of the sofa beside her. Letty received him graciously, though she was perhaps disappointed that it was not Lord Ancoats or Lord Cathedine.
Looking round before she gave herself to conversation with him, she saw that George was standing near the open window with Lord Maxwell and Sir Philip Wentworth, the ex-Governor. They were talking of India, and Sir Philip had his hand on George"s arm.
"Yes, I saw Dalliousie go," he said eagerly. "I was only a lad of twenty, but I can"t think of it now without a lump in my throat. When he limped on to the Hooghly landing-stage on his crutches we couldn"t cheer him--I shall never forget that sudden silence! In eight years he had made a new India, and there we saw him,--our little hero,--dying of his work at forty-six before our eyes! ... Well, I couldn"t have imagined that a young man like you would have known or cared so much about that time.
What a talk we have had! Thank you!"
And the veteran tightened his grip cordially for a moment on Tressady"s arm, then dropped it and walked away.
Tressady threw his wife a bright glance, as though to ask her how she fared. Letty smiled graciously in reply, feeling a sudden softening pleasure in being so thought of. As her eyes met her husband"s she saw Marcella Maxwell, who was still standing by the window, turn towards George and call to him. George moved forward with alacrity. Then he and Lady Maxwell slowly walked down the steps to the garden, and disappeared through one of the archways to the left.
"That great lady and George seem at last to have made friends," said Harding Watton to Letty, in a laughing undertone. "I have no doubt she is trying to win him over. Well she may! Before the next few weeks are over the Government will be in a fix with this Bill; and not even their "beautiful lady" will help them out. Maxwell looks as glum as an owl to-night."
Letty laughed. The situation pleased her vanity a good deal. The thought of Lady Maxwell humiliated and defeated--partly by George"s means--was decidedly agreeable to her. Which would seem to show that she was, after all, more sensitive or more quick-eyed than Betty Leven had been ready to allow.
Meanwhile Marcella and George Tressady were strolling slowly towards the river, along a path that crossed the great lawns. In front of them the stretches of gra.s.s, bathed in silvery light and air, ran into far distances of shade under majestic trees just thickening to a June wealth of foliage. Below, these distant tree-ma.s.ses made sharp capes and promontories on the white gra.s.s; above, their rounded tops rose dark against a blue, light-breathing sky. At one point the river pierced the blackness of the wood, and in the s.p.a.ce thus made the spire of a n.o.ble church shot heavenward. Swans floated dimly along the stream and under the bridge. The air was fresh, but the rawness of spring was gone. It was the last week of May; the "high midsummer pomps" were near--a heavenly prophecy in wood and field.