"The night air has not hurt me, I thank you," said Julia, who did not take the trouble to hide her impatience.
However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad to hear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming and hawing, "Won"t you sit?" he said, with a killing glance.
"I am leaving immediately," Julia answered, and declined with coldness the chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dress might have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths to pity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in no smiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weep among the ruins, and this b.u.t.terfly insect flitted between. After a moment, as he did not speak, "I will not detain your lordship," she continued, curtseying frigidly.
"Cruel beauty!" my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping his hands in an att.i.tude. And then, to her astonishment, "Look, ma"am," he cried with animation, "look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of your admirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don"t, oh, I say, don"t stare at me like that," he continued hurriedly, plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. "I vow and protest I am in earnest."
"Then you must be mad!" Julia cried in great wrath. "You can have no other excuse, sir, for talking to me like that!"
"Excuse!" he cried rapturously. "Your eyes are my excuse, your lips, your shape! Whom would they not madden, ma"am? Whom would they not charm--insanitate--intoxicate? What man of sensibility, seeing them at an immeasurable distance, would not hasten to lay his homage at the feet of so divine, so perfect a creature, whom even to see is to taste of bliss! Deign, madam, to--Oh, I say, you don"t mean to say you are really of--offended?" Lord Almeric stuttered in amazement, again falling lamentably from the standard of address which he had conned while his man was shaving him. "You--you--look here--"
"You must be mad!" Julia cried, her eyes flashing lightning on the unhappy beau. "If you do not leave me, I will call for some one to put you out! How dare you insult me? If there were a bell I could reach--"
Lord Almeric stared in the utmost perplexity; and fallen from his high horse, alighted on a kind of dignity. "Madam," he said with a little bow and a strut, ""tis the first time an offer of marriage from one of my family has been called an insult! And I don"t understand it. Hang me! If we have married fools, we have married high!"
It was Julia"s turn to be overwhelmed with confusion. Having nothing less in her mind than marriage, and least of all an offer of marriage from such a person, she had set down all he had said to impudence and her unguarded situation. Apprised of his meaning, she experienced a degree of shame, and muttered that she had not understood; she craved his pardon.
"Beauty asks and beauty has!" Lord Almeric answered, bowing and kissing the tips of his fingers, his self-esteem perfectly restored.
Julia frowned. "You cannot be in earnest," she said.
"Never more in earnest in my life!" he replied. "Say the word--say you"ll have me," he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast and gazing over it with melting looks, "most adorable of your s.e.x, and I"ll call up Pomeroy, I"ll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose, and tell "em, tell "em all."
"I must be dreaming," Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind of fascination.
"Then if to dream is to a.s.sent, dream on, fair love!" his lordship spouted with a grand air. And then, "Hang it! that"s--that"s rather clever of me," he continued. "And I mean it too! Oh, depend upon it, there"s nothing that a man won"t think of when he"s in love! And I am fallen confoundedly in love with--with you, ma"am."
"But very suddenly," Julia replied. She was beginning to recover from her amazement.
"You don"t think that I am sincere?" he protested plaintively. "You doubt me! Then--"he advanced a pace towards her with hat and arms extended, "let the eloquence of a--a feeling heart plead for me; a heart, too--yes, too sensible of your charms, and--and your many merits, ma"am! Yes, most adorable of your s.e.x. But there," he added, breaking off abruptly, "I said that before, didn"t I? Yes. Lord! what a memory I have got! I am all of a twitter. I was so cut last night, I don"t know what I am saying."
"That I believe," Julia said with chilling severity.
"Eh, but--but you do believe I am in earnest?" he cried anxiously.
"Shall I kneel to you? Shall I call up the servants and tell them? Shall I swear that I mean honourably? Lord! I am no Mr. Thornhill! I"ll make it as public as you like," he continued eagerly. "I"ll send for a bishop--"
"Spare me the bishop," Julia rejoined with a faint smile, "and any farther appeals. They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from your head than your heart."
"Oh, Lord, no!" he cried.
"Oh, Lord, yes," she answered with a spice of her old archness. "I may have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions--women commonly have, it is said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your heart. To what I am to attribute your sudden--shall I call it whim or fancy--" Julia continued with a faint blush, "I do not know. I am willing to suppose that you do not mean to insult me."
Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.
"Or to deceive me. I am willing to suppose," she repeated, stopping him by a gesture as he tried to speak, "that you are in earnest for the time, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden as the desire appears. It is a great honour, but it is one which I must as earnestly and positively decline."
"Why?" he cried, gaping, and then, "O "swounds, ma"am, you don"t mean it?" he continued piteously. "Not have me? Not have me? And why?"
"Because," she said modestly, "I do not love you, my lord."
"Oh, but--but when we are married," he answered eagerly, rallying his scattered forces, "when we are one, sweet maid--"
"That time will never come," she replied cruelly. And then gloom overspreading her face, "I shall never marry, my lord. If it be any consolation to you, no one shall be preferred to you."
"Oh, but, damme, the desert air and all that!" Lord Almeric cried, fanning himself violently with his hat. "I--oh, you mustn"t talk like that, you know. Lord! you might be some queer old put of a dowager!" And then, with a burst of sincere feeling, for his little heart was inflamed by her beauty, and his manhood--or such of it as had survived the lessons of Vauxhall, and Mr. Thoma.s.son--rose in arms at sight of her trouble, "See here, child," he said in his natural voice, "say yes, and I"ll swear I"ll be kind to you! Sink me if I am not! And, mind you, you"ll be my lady. You"ll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best.
You shall have your box at the opera and the King"s House; you shall have your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for loo and brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the bearded lady, for what I care--I want n.o.body"s lips but yours, sweet, if you"ll be kind. And, so help me, I"ll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play as small as a Churchwarden"s club! And, Lord, I don"t see why we should not be as happy together as James and Betty!"
She shook her head; but kindly, with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. She was thinking of another who might have given her all this, or as much as was to her taste; one with whom she had looked to be as happy as any James and Betty. "It is impossible, my lord," she said.
"Honest Abraham?" he cried, very downcast.
"Oh, yes, yes!"
"S"help me, you are melting!"
"No, no!" she cried, "it is not--it is not that! It is impossible, I tell you. You don"t know what you ask," she continued, struggling with the emotion that almost mastered her.
"But, curse me, I know what I want!" he answered gloomily. "You may go farther and fare worse! Lord, I swear you may. I"d be kind to you, and it is not everybody would be that!"
She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did not answer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast, his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, "Well, "tisn"t my fault,"
he said; and then relenting again, "But there, I know what women are--vapours one day, kissing the next. I"ll try again, my lady. I am not proud."
She flung him a gesture that meant a.s.sent, dissent, dismissal, as he pleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering, "Well, well, have it your own way. I"ll go for this time. But hang all prudes, say I," he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the door on her.
As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia"s pride had enabled her to stern for a time, broke forth in a pa.s.sion of tears and sobs, and, throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all too sharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whose affections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of the prettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted life with him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? What wonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame, or that she presently pa.s.sed from the extremity of grief to the extremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George"s heartless desertion and more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintz of the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and there choked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?
Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with her back to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stole through the disordered ma.s.ses of her hair; her face to the empty room.
Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him, she could pursue him with a woman"s unrelenting spite, she could hound him from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of these things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she had bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weapons that he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effect that, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she would not take.
Pique in a woman"s mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the tool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia"s pale face, and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Here was a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she could bring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heard that his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another?
and such another that marry almost whom he might she would take precedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought, worthy of a smaller mind than Julia"s; but she was a woman, and pa.s.sionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the general, came home to her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; it would convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that she had taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her a home, a place, a settled position in the world.
She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulse rather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, with trembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of a bell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared her resolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulled frantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the pa.s.sage, and Mrs.
Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.
"Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back," Julia cried, breathing quickly.
"To come back?"
"Yes! The gentleman who was here now."
"Oh, yes, the gentleman," Mrs. Olney murmured. "Your ladyship wishes him?"
Julia"s very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. "Yes, I wish to see him," she said imperiously. "Tell him to come to me!"
She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while the woman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her face set hard, until far down the outer pa.s.sage--Mrs. Olney had left the door open--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded Lord Almeric"s return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an att.i.tude that made the best of his white silk stockings.
"See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma"am!" he cried.