"Why should you think I am afraid?" said Lucy. "Don"t you know I am most grateful to you for being so kind to him? and it was pretty to see you.
You looked so bright and strong, and my boy so happy."
"Miss is just our salvation, my lady," said the nurse; "these wet days when we can"t get out, I don"t know what I should do without her. Master Tom, bless him, is always cross when he don"t get no air; but once set on Miss" shoulder he crows till it do your heart good to hear him," the woman cried.
Bice stood with the colour still in her face, her head thrown back a little, and her breath coming less quickly. She laughed at this applause. "I like it," she said. "I like him; he is my only little companion. He is pleased when he sees me."
This went to Lucy"s heart. "And so are we all," she said; "but you will not let me see you. I am often alone, too. If you will come and--and give me your company----"
Bice gave her a wistful look; then shook her head.
"I know you do not wish for us here; and why should you?" she said.
"My dear!" cried Lucy in alarm, with a glance at the woman who stood by, all ears. And now it was that little Tom at eighteen months showed that precocious judgment in which his mother had an instinctive belief. He had satisfied himself with the destruction of Lucy"s lace, and with printing the impression of his mouth all over her cheeks. That little wet wide open mouth was delicious to Lucy. No trouble had befallen her yet that could not be wiped out by its touch. But now a new distraction was necessary for the little hero; and his eye caught the red sash which still was round his waist. He transferred all his thoughts to it with an instant revolution of idea, and holding on by it like a little sailor on a rope, drew Bice close till he could succeed in the arduous task, not unattended by danger, of flinging himself from one to another. This game enchanted Master Tom. Had he been a little older it would have been changed into that daring faltering hop from one eminence, say a footstool, to another, which flutters the baby soul. He was too insecure in possession of those aimless little legs to venture on any such daring feat now; but, with a valour more desperate still, he flung himself across the gulf from Lucy"s arms to those of Bice and back again, with cries of delight. These cries, it must be allowed, were not very articulate, but they soon became urgent, with a demand which the little tyrant insisted upon with increasing vehemence.
"Oh, my lady," cried the nurse, "it is as plain as if he said it, and he is saying of it, the pet, as pretty!---- He wants you to kiss Miss, he do. Ain"t that it, my own? Nursey knows his little talk. Ain"t that it, my darling lamb?"
There was a momentary pause in the strange little group linked together by the baby"s clutches. The young mother and the girl with their heads so near each other, looked in each other"s faces. In Lucy"s there was a kind of awe, in Bice"s a sort of wondering wistfulness mingled with incipient defiance. They were not born to be each other"s friends. They were different in everything; they were even on different sides in this house--the one an intruder, belonging to the party which was destroying the other"s domestic peace. It would be vain to say that there was not a little reluctance in Lucy"s soul as she gazed at the younger girl, come from she knew not where, established under her roof she knew not how.
She hesitated for one moment, then she bent forward almost with solemnity and kissed Bice"s cheek. She seemed to communicate her own agitation to the girl who stood straight up with her head a little back, half eager, half defiant. When Bice felt the touch of Lucy"s lips, however, she melted in a moment. Her slight figure swayed, she took Lucy"s disengaged hand with her own, and, stooping over it, kissed it with lips that quivered. There was not a word said between them; but a secret compact was thus made under little Tom"s inspiration. The little oracle clambered up upon his mother afterwards, and laid down his head upon her shoulder and dropped off to sleep with that entire confiding and abandonment of the whole little being which is one of the deepest charms of childhood. Who is there with any semblance of a heart in his, much more her, bosom, who is not touched in the tenderest part when a child goes to sleep in his arms? The appeal conveyed in the act is one which scarcely a savage could withstand. The three women gathered round to see this common spectacle, so universal, so touching. Bice, who was almost too young for the maternal sentiment, and who was a stern young Stoic by nature, never shedding a tear, could not tell how it was that her eyes moistened. But Lucy"s filled with an emotion which was sharp and sore with alarm. "Oh, nurse, don"t call my boy a little angel!" she said, with a sentiment which a woman will understand.
This baby scene upstairs was balanced by one of a very different character below. Sir Tom had gone into his own room a little disturbed and out of sorts. Circ.u.mstances had been hard upon him, he felt. The Contessa"s letter offering her visit had been a jest to him. He was one of those who thought the best of the Contessa. He had seen a good deal of her one time and another in his life, and she held the clue to one or two matters which it would not have pleased him, at this mature period of his existence, to have published abroad. She was an adventuress, he knew, and her friends were not among the best of humanity. She had led a life which, without being positively evil, had shut her out from the sympathies of many good people. When a woman has to solve the problem how to obtain all the luxuries and amus.e.m.e.nts of life without money, it is to be expected that her attempts to do so should lead her into risky places, where the footing was far from sure. But she had never, as Lady Randolph acknowledged, gone so far as that society should refuse to receive her, and Sir Tom was always an indulgent critic. If she were coming to England, as she gave him to understand, he saw no reason why she should not come to the Hall. For himself, it would be rather amusing than otherwise, and Lucy would take no harm--even if there was harm in the Forno-Populo (which he did not believe), his wife was far too innocent even to suspect it. She would not know evil if she saw it, he said to himself proudly; and then there was no chance that the Contessa, who loved merriment and gaiety, could long be content with anything so humdrum as his quiet life in the country. Thus it will be seen that Sir Tom had got himself innocently enough into this imbroglio. He had meant no particular harm. He had meant to be kind to a poor woman, who after all needed kindness much; and if the comic character of the situation touched his sense of humour, and he was not unwilling in his own person to get a little amus.e.m.e.nt out of it, who could blame him? This was the worst that Sir Tom meant. To amuse himself partly by the sight of the conventional beauty and woman of the world in the midst of circ.u.mstances so incongruous, and partly by the fluttering of the dovecotes which the appearance of such an adventuress would cause. He liked her conversation too, and to hear all about the more noisy company, full of talk and diversion in which he had wasted so much of his youth. But there were two or three things which Sir Tom did not take into his calculations.
The first was the sort of fascination which that talk, and all the a.s.sociations of the old world, and the charms of the professional sorceress, would exercise upon himself after his settling down as the head of a family and pillar of the State. He had not thought how much amused he would be, how the contrast even would tickle his fancy and affect (for the moment) his life. He laughed within himself at the transparent way in which his old friend bade for his sympathy and society. She was the same as ever, living upon admiration, upon compliments whether fict.i.tious or not, and demanding a show of devotion, somebody always at her feet. She thought, no doubt, he said to himself, that she had got him at her feet, and he laughed to himself when he was alone at the thought. But, nevertheless, it did amuse him to talk to the Contessa, and before long, what with skilful reminders of the past, what with hints and reference to a knowledge which he would not like extended to the world, he had begun by degrees to find himself in a confidential position with her. "We know each other"s secrets," she would say to him with a meaning look. He was caught in her snare. On the other hand an indefinite visit prolonged and endless had never come within his calculation. He did not know how to put an end to the situation--perhaps as it was an amus.e.m.e.nt for his evenings to see the siren spread her snares, and even to be more or less caught in them, he did not sincerely wish to put an end to it as yet. He was caught in them more or less, but never so much as to be unaware of the skill with which the snares were laid, which would have amused him whatever had been the seriousness of the attendant circ.u.mstances. He did not, however, allow that he had no desire to make an end of these circ.u.mstances, but only said to himself, with a shrug of his shoulders, how could he do it? He could not send his old friend away. He could not but be civil and attentive to her so long as she was under his roof. It distressed him that Lucy should feel it, as this morning"s experience proved her to do, but how could he help it?
He made that other sacrifice to Lucy by way of reconciling her to the inevitable, but he could do no more. When you invite a friend to be your guest, he said to himself, you must be more or less at the mercy of that friend. If he (or she) stays too long, what can you do? Sir Tom was not the sort of man to be reduced to helplessness by such a difficulty. Yet this was what he said to himself.
It vexed him, however, that Lucy should feel it so much. He could not throw off this uneasy feeling. He had stopped her mouth as one might stop a child"s mouth with a sugar plum; but he could not escape from the consciousness that Lucy felt her domain invaded, and that her feeling was just. He had thrown himself into the great chair, and was pondering not what to do, but the impossibility of doing anything, when Williams, his confidential man, who knew all about the Contessa almost as well as he did, suddenly appeared before him. Williams had been all over the world with Sir Tom before he settled down as his butler at the Hall. He was, therefore, not one who could be dismissed summarily if he interfered in any matter out of his sphere. He appeared on the other side of Sir Tom"s writing-table with a face as long as his arm, the face with which Sir Tom was so well acquainted--the same face with which he had a hundred times announced the failure of supplies, the delay of carriages, the general hopelessness of the situation. There was tragedy in it of the most solemn kind, but there was a certain enjoyment too.
"What is the matter?" said Sir Tom; and then he jumped to his feet.
"Something is wrong with the baby," he cried.
"No, Sir Thomas; Mr. Randolph is pretty well, thank you, Sir Thomas. It is about something else that I made so bold. There is Antonio, sir, in the servants" hall; Madame the Countess" man."
"Oh, the Countess," cried Sir Tom, and he seated himself again; then said, with the confidence of a man to the follower who has been his companion in many straits, "You gave me a fright, Williams. I thought that little shaver---- But what"s the matter with Antonio? Can"t you keep a fellow like that in order without bothering me?"
"Sir Thomas," said Williams, solemnly, "I am not one as troubles my master when things are straightforward. But them foreigners, you never know when you have "em. And an idle man about an establishment, that is, so to speak, under n.o.body, and for ever a-kicking of his heels, and following the women servants about, and not a blessed hand"s turn to do"--a tone of personal offence came into Williams" complaint; "there is a deal to do in this house," he added, "and neither me nor any of the men haven"t got a moment to spare. Why, there"s your hunting things, Sir Thomas, is just a man"s work. And to see that fellow loafing, and a-hanging on about the women--I don"t wonder, Sir Thomas, that it"s more than any man can stand," said Williams, lighting up. He was a married man himself, with a very respectable family in the village, but he was not too old to be able to understand the feelings of John and Charles, whose hearts were lacerated by the success of the Italian fellow with his black eyes.
"Well, well, don"t worry me," said Sir Tom, "take him by the collar and give him a shake. You"re big enough." Then he laughed unfeelingly, which Williams did not expect. "Too big, eh, Will? Not so ready for a shindy as we used to be." This identification of himself with his factotum was mere irony, and Williams felt it; for Sir Tom, if perhaps less slim than in his young days, was still what Williams called a "fine figger of a man;" whereas the butler had widened much round the waist, and was apt to puff as he came upstairs, and no longer contemplated a shindy as a possibility at all.
"Sir Thomas," he said, with great gravity, "if I"m corpulent, which I don"t deny, but never thought to have it made a reproach, it"s neither over-feeding nor want of care, but const.i.tootion, as derived from my parents, Sir Thomas. There is nothing," he added with a pensive superiority, "as is so gen"rally misunderstood." Then Williams drew himself up to still greater dignity, stimulated by Sir Tom"s laugh. "If this fellow is to be long in the house, Sir Thomas, I won"t answer for what may happen; for he"s got the devil"s own temper, like all of them, and carries a knife like all of them."
"What do you want of me, man? Say it out! Am I to represent to Madame di Forno-Populo that three great hulking fellows of you are afraid of her slim Neapolitan?" Sir Tom cried impatiently.
"Not afraid, Sir Thomas, of nothing, but of breaking the law," said Williams, quickly. Then he added in an insinuating tone: "But I tell them, ladies don"t stop long in country visits, not at this time of the year. And a thing can be put up with for short that any man"d kick at for long. Madame the Countess will be moving on to pay her other visits, Sir Thomas, if I might make so bold? She is a lady as likes variety; leastways she was so in the old times."
Sir Thomas stared at the bold questioner, who thus went to the heart of the matter. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "If you knew so much about Madame the Countess," he cried, "my good fellow, what need have you to come and consult me?"
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CONTESSA"S BOUDOIR.
The east rooms in which Madame di Forno-Populo had been placed on her arrival at the Hall were handsome and comfortable, though they were not the best in the house, and they were furnished as English rooms generally are, the bed forming the princ.i.p.al object in each chamber. The Contessa had looked around her in dismay when first ushered into the s.p.a.cious room with its huge couch, and wardrobes, and its unmistakable destination as a sleeping-room merely: and it was only the addition of a dressing-room of tolerable proportions which had made her quarters so agreeable to her as they proved. The transformation of this room from a severe male dressing-room into the boudoir of a fanciful and luxurious woman, was a work of art of which neither the master nor the mistress of the house had the faintest conception. The Contessa was never at home; so that she was--having that regard for her own comfort which is one of the leading features in such a life as hers--everywhere at home, carrying about with her wherever she went the materials for creating an individual centre (a _chez soi_, which is something far more intimate and personal than a home), in which everything was arranged according to her fancy. Had Lucy, or even had Sir Tom, who knew more about such matters, penetrated into that sacred retirement, they would not have recognised it for a room in their own house. Out of one of the Contessa"s boxes there came a paraphernalia of decoration such as would turn the head of the aesthetic furnisher of the present day. As she had been everywhere, and had "taste," when it was not so usual to have taste as it is now, she had "picked up" priceless articles, in the shape of tapestries, embroideries, silken tissues no longer made, delicate bits of Eastern carpet, soft falling drapery of curtains, such as artistically arranged in almost any room, impressed upon it the Contessa"s individuality, and made something dainty and luxurious among the meanest surroundings. The Contessa"s maid, from long practice, had become almost an artist in the arrangement of these properties, without which her mistress could not live; and on the evening of the first day of their arrival at the Hall, when Madame di Forno-Populo emerged from the darkness of the chamber in which she had rested all day after her journey, she stepped into a little paradise of subdued colour and harmonious effect. Antonio and Marietta were the authors of these wonders. They took down Mrs. Freshwater"s curtains, which were of a solid character adapted to the locality, and replaced them by draperies that veiled the light tenderly and hung with studied grace. They took to pieces the small bed and made a divan covered with old brocade of the prosaic English mattress. They brought the finest of the furniture out of the bedchamber to add to the contents of this, and covered tables with Italian work, and veiled the bare wall with tapestry. This made such a magical change that the maids who penetrated by chance now and then into this little temple of the Graces could only stand aghast and gaze with open mouths; but no profane hand of theirs was ever permitted to touch those sacred things. There were even pictures on the wall, evolved out of the depths of that great coffer, which, more dear to the Contessa even than her wardrobe, went about with her everywhere--and precious pieces of porcelain: Madame di Forno-Populo, it need not be said, being quite above the mean and cheap decoration made with fans or unmeaning sc.r.a.ps of colour. The maids aforesaid, who obtained perilous and breathless glimpses from time to time of all these wonders, were at a loss to understand why so much trouble should be taken for a room that n.o.body but its inmate ever saw. The finer intelligence of the reader will no doubt set it down as something in the Contessa"s favour that she could not live, even when in the strictest privacy, without her pretty things about her. To be sure it was not always so; in other regions, where other habits prevailed, this shrine so artistically prepared was open to worshippers; but the Contessa knew better than to make any such innovation here. She intended, indeed, nothing that was not entirely consistent with the strictest propriety. Her objects, no doubt, were her own interest and her own pleasure, which are more or less the objects of most people; but she intended no harm. She believed that she had a hold over Sir Tom which she could work for her advantage, but she did not mean to hurt Lucy. She thought that repose and a temporary absence from the usual scenes of her existence would be of use to her, and she thought also that a campaign in London under the warrant of the highest respectability would further her grand object. It amused her besides, perhaps, to flutter the susceptibilities of the innocent little _ingenue_ whom Sir Tom had married; but she meant no harm. As for seizing upon Sir Tom in the evenings, and occupying all his attention, that was the most natural and simple of proceedings. She did this as another woman played bezique. Some entertainment was a necessity, and everybody had something. There were people who insisted upon whist--she insisted only upon "some one to talk to." What could be more natural?
The Contessa"s "some one" had to be a man and one who could pay with sense and spirit the homage to which she was accustomed. It was her only stipulation--and surely it must be an ungracious hostess indeed who could object to that.
She had just finished her breakfast on one of those gray mornings--seated before the fire in an easy-chair, which was covered with a shawl of soft but bright Indian colouring. She had her back to the light, but it was scarcely necessary even had there been any eyes to see her save those of Marietta, who naturally was familiar with her aspect at all times. Marietta made the Contessa"s chocolate, as well as arranged and kept in order the Contessa"s boudoir. To such a retainer nothing comes amiss. She would sit up till all hours, and perform marvels of waiting, of working, service of every kind. It never occurred to her that it "was not her place" to do anything that her mistress required. Antonio was her brother, which was insipid, but she generally managed to indemnify herself, one way or another, for the loss of this legitimate method of flirtation. She had not great wages, and she had a great deal of work, but Marietta felt her life amusing, and did not object to it. Here in England the excitement indeed flagged a little.
Williams was stout and married, and the other men had ties of the heart with which, as has been seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient for a little amus.e.m.e.nt had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman who disliked the bondage of question and reply.
"You do not amuse yourself, Marietta mia?" said the Contessa. She spoke Italian with her servants, and she was always caressing, fond of tender appellatives. "Patience! the country even in England is very good for the complexion, and in London there is a great deal that is amusing.
Wheel this table away and give me the other with my writing things. The cushion for my elbow. Thanks! You forget nothing. My Marietta, you will have a happy life."
"Do you think so, Signora Contessa?" said the girl, a little wistfully.
The Contessa smiled upon her and said "Cara!" with an air of tenderness that might have made any one happy. Then she addressed herself to her correspondence, while Marietta removed into the other room not only the tray but the table with the tray which her mistress had used. The Contessa did not like to know or see anything of the processes of readjustment and restoration. She glanced over her morning"s letters again with now and then a smile of satisfaction, and addressed herself to the task of answering them with apparent pleasure. Indeed, her own letters amused her even more than the others had done. When she had finished her task she took up a silver whistle and blew into it a long melodious note. She made the most charming picture, leaning back in her chair, in a white cashmere dressing-gown covered with lace, and a little cap upon her dark locks. All the accessories of her toilette were exquisite, as well as the draperies about her that relieved and set off her whiteness. Her shoes were of white plush with a c.o.c.kade of lace to correspond. Her sleeves, a little more loose than common, showed her beautiful arms through a mist of lace. She was not more carefully nor more elegantly dressed when she went downstairs in all her panoply of conquest. What a pity there was no one to see it! but the Contessa did not even think of this. In other circ.u.mstances, no doubt, there might have been spectators, but in the meantime she pleased herself, which after all is the first object with every well-const.i.tuted mind. She leaned back in her chair pleased with herself and her surroundings, in a gentle languor after her occupation, and conscious of a yellow novel within reach should her young companion be slow of appearing. But Bice she knew had the ears of a savage, and would hear her summons wherever she might be.
Bice at this moment was in a very different scene. She was in the large gallery, which was a little chill and dreary of a morning when all the windows were full of a gray, indefinable mist instead of light, and the ancestors were indistinguishable in their frames. She had just been going through her usual exercise with the baby, and had joined Lucy at the upper end of the gallery, that sport being over, and little Tom carried off to his mid-day sleep. There was a fire there, in the old-fashioned chimney, and Lucy had been sitting beside it watching the sport. Bice seated herself on a stool at a little distance. She had a half affection half dislike for this young woman, who was most near her in age of any one in the house. For one thing they were on different sides and representing different interests; and Bice had been trained to dislike the ordinary housekeeping woman. They had been brought together, indeed, in a moment of emotion by the instrumentality of the little delicate child, for whom Bice had conceived a compa.s.sionate affection.
But the girl felt that they were antagonistic. She did not expect understanding or charity, but to be judged harshly and condemned summarily by this type of the conventional and proper. She believed that Lucy would be "shocked" by what she said, and horrified by her freedom and absence of prejudice. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was an attraction in the candid eyes and countenance of little Lady Randolph which drew her in spite of herself. It was of her own will, though with a little appearance of reluctance, that she drew near, and soon plunged into talk--for to tell the truth, now that Jock was gone, Bice felt occasionally as if she must talk to the winds and trees, and could not at the hazard of her life keep silence any more. She could scarcely tell how it was that she was led into confessions of all kinds and descriptions of the details of her past life.
"We are a little alike," said Lucy. "I was not much older than you are when my father died, and afterwards we had no real home: to be sure, I had always Jock. Even when papa was living it was not very homelike, not what I should choose for a girl. I felt how different it was when I went to Lady Randolph, who thought of everything----"
Bice did not say anything for some time, and then she laughed. "The Contessa does not think of everything," she said.
Lucy looked at her with a question in her eyes. She wanted to ask if the Contessa was kind. But there was a certain domestic treachery involved in asking such a question.
"People are different," she said, with a certain soothing tone. "We are not made alike, you know; one person is good in one way and one in another." This abstract deliverance was not at all in Lucy"s way. She returned to the particular point before them with relief. "England," she said, "must seem strange to you after your own country. I suppose it is much colder and less bright?"
"I have no country" said Bice; "everywhere is my country. We have a house in Rome, but we travel; we go from one place to another--to all the places that are what you call for pleasure. We go in the season.
Sometimes it is for the waters, sometimes for the sports or the games--always _festa_ wherever we go."
"And you like that? To be sure, you are so very young; otherwise I should think it was rather tiresome," Lucy said.
"No, it is not rather tiresome," said Bice, with a roll of her "r," "it is horrible! When we came here I did not know why it was, but I rejoiced myself that there was no band playing. I thought at first it was merely _jour de relache_: but when morning after morning came and no band, that was heavenly," she said, drawing a long breath.
"A band playing!" Lucy"s laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out with all the gaiety of a child. It amused her beyond measure, and Bice, always encouraged by approbation, went on.
"I expected it every morning. The house is so large. I thought the season, perhaps, was just beginning, and the people not arrived yet.
Sometimes we go like that too soon. The rooms are cheaper. You can make your own arrangement."
Lucy looked at her very compa.s.sionately. "That is why you pa.s.s the mornings in your own room," she said, "were you never then in a country house before?"
"I do not know what is a country house. We have been in a great castle where there was the chase every day. No, that is not what _la cha.s.se_ means in England--to shoot I would say. And then in the evening the theatre, tableaux, or music. But to be quiet all day and all night too, that is what I have never seen. We have never known it. It is confusing.
It makes you feel as if all went on without any division; all one day, all one night."
Bice laughed, but Lucy looked somewhat grave. "This is our natural life in England," she said; "we like to be quiet; though I have not thought we were very quiet, we have had people almost every night."
To this Bice made no reply. But at Lucy"s next question she stared, not understanding what it meant. "You go everywhere with the Contessa," she said; "are you out?"
"Out!" Bice"s eyes opened wide. She shook her head. "What is out?" she said.