Elinor made much of her boy during that day and the following days, to take away the sense of disappointment which even after the first great mortification was got over still haunted young Philip"s mind. It surprised him beyond measure to find that she did not wish to go out with him, indeed in so far as was possible avoided it altogether, save for a hurried drive to a few places, during which she kept her veil down and sheltered herself with an umbrella in the most ridiculous way.
"Are you afraid of your complexion, mother?" the boy asked of her with disdain. "It looks like it," she said, but with a laugh that was full of embarra.s.sment, "though it is a little late in the day." Elinor was perhaps better aware than Pippo was that she had a complexion which a girl might have envied, and was still as fresh as a rose, notwithstanding that she was a year or two over forty; but I need not say it was not of her complexion she was thinking. She had been careful to choose her time on previous visits to London so as to risk as little as possible the chance of meeting her husband. But now there was no doubt that he was in town, and not the least that if he met her anywhere with Pippo, her secret, so far as it had ever been a secret, would be in his hands. Even when John took the boy out it was with a beating heart that his mother saw him go, for John was too well known to make any secret possible about his movements, or who it was who was with him. Perhaps it was for this reason that John desired to take him out, and even cut short his day"s work on one or two occasions to act as cicerone to Philip. He took him to the House, to the great excitement and delight of the boy, who only wished that the entertainment could have been made complete by a speech from Uncle John, which was a point in which his guide, philosopher, and friend, though in every other way so complaisant, did not humour Pippo. On one occasion during the first week they had an encounter which made John"s middle-aged pulses move a little quicker. When they were walking along through Hyde Park, having strolled that way in the fading of the May afternoon, when the carriages were still promenading up and down, before they returned to Halkin Street to dinner, where Elinor awaited them--it happened to Mr. Tatham to meet the roving eyes of Lady Mariamne, who lay back languidly in her carriage, wrapped in a fur cloak, and shivering in the chill of the evening. She was not particularly interested in anything or any person whom she had seen, and was a little cross and desirous of getting home. But when she saw John she roused up immediately, and gave a sign to Dolly, who sat by her, to pull the check-string. "Mr. Tatham!" she cried, in her shrill voice. Lady Mariamne was not one of the people who object to hear their voice in public or are reluctant to make their wishes known to everybody. She felt herself to be of the cast in which everybody is interested, and that the public liked to know whom she honoured with her acquaintance. "Mr. Tatham! are you going to carry your rudeness so far as not to seem to know me? Oh, come here this moment, you impertinent man!"
"Can I be of any use to you, Lady Mariamne?" said John, gravely, at the carriage door.
"Oh, dear no; you can"t be of any use. What should I have those men for if I wanted you to be of use? Come and talk a moment, that"s all; or get into the carriage and I"ll take you anywhere. Dolly and I have driven round and round, and we have not seen a creature we cared to see. Yes!
there was a darling, darling little Maltese terrier, with white silk curls hanging over his eyes, on an odious woman"s lap; but I cannot expect you to find that angel for me. Mr. Tatham, who is that tall boy?"
"Pippo," said John, quickly (though probably he had never in his life before used that name, which he disapproved of angrily, as people often do of a childish name which does not please them), "go on. I"ll come after you directly. The boy is a cousin of mine, Lady Mariamne, just from school."
"Mr. Tatham, I am quite sure it is Nell"s boy. Call after him. What"s his name? Bring him back! John Thomas, run after that young gentleman, and say with my compliments----"
"Nothing," said John, stopping the footman with a lifted hand and a still more emphatic look. "He is hastening home to--an engagement. And it"s evident I had better go too--for your little friend there is showing his teeth."
"The darling!" said Lady Mariamne, "did it show its little pearls at the wicked man that will not do what its mummy says? Dolly, can"t you jump down and run after that boy? I am sure it is your Uncle Philip"s boy."
"He is out of sight, mother," said Miss Dolly, calmly.
"You are the most dreadful, wicked, unkind people, all of you. Show its little teeth, then, darling! Oo"s the only one that has any feeling. Mr.
Tatham, do tell me something about this trial. What is going to be done? Phil is mixed up in it. I know he is. Can they do anything to anybody--after all this time? They can"t make you pay up, I know, after a certain time. Oh, couldn"t it all be hushed up and stopped and kept out of the newspapers? I hate the newspapers, always chuckling over every new discovery. But this cannot be called a new discovery. If it"s true it"s old, as old as the old beginning of the world. Don"t you think somebody could get at the newspaper men and have it hushed up?"
"I doubt if you could get hold of all of them, their name is legion,"
said John.
"Oh, I don"t care what their name is. If you will help me, Mr. Tatham, we could get hold of most of them--won"t you? You know, don"t you, poor St. Serf is so bad; it may be over any day--and then only think what a complication! Dolly, turn your head the other way; look at that silly young Huntsfield capering about to catch your eye. I don"t want you to hear what I have got to say."
"I don"t in the least way want to hear what you have got to say, dear mamma," said Dolly.
"That would have made me listen to every word," said Lady Mariamne; "but girls are more queer nowadays than anything that ever was. Mr.
Tatham"--she put her hand upon his, which was on the carriage door, and bent her perfumed, powdered face towards him--"for goodness" sake--think how awkward it would be--a man just succeeding to a t.i.tle and that sort of thing put in all the papers about him. Do, do stop it, or try something to stop it, for goodness" sake!"
"I a.s.sure you," said John, "I can do nothing to stop it. I am as powerless as you are."
"Oh, I don"t say that I am powerless," said Lady Mariamne, with her shrill laugh. "One has one"s little ways of influence." Then she put her hand again upon John with a sudden grip. "Mr. Tatham," she said, "tell me, in confidence, was that Phil"s boy?"
"I have told you, Lady Mariamne, it is a nephew of mine."
"A nephew--oh, I know what kind of a nephew--_a la mode de Bretagne_!"
She turned her head to the other side, where her daughter was gazing calmly in front of her.
"Dolly! I was sure of it," she cried, "don"t you hear? Dolly, don"t you hear?"
"Which, mamma?" said Dolly, gravely; "of course I could not help hearing it all. Which part was I to notice? about the newspapers or about the boy?"
Lady Mariamne appealed to earth and heaven with the loud cackle of her laugh. "He can"t deny it," she said; "he as good as owns it. I am certain that"s the boy that will be Lomond."
"Uncle St. Serf is not dead yet," said Dolly, reprovingly.
"Poor Serf!--but he"s so very bad," said Lady Mariamne, "that it"s almost the same thing. Mr. Tatham, can"t we take you anywhere? I"m so glad I"ve seen Nell"s boy. Can"t we drive you home? Perhaps you"ve got Nell there too?"
John stood back from the carriage door, just in time to escape the start of the horses as the remorseless string was touched and the footman clambered up into his seat. Lady Mariamne"s smile went off her face, and she had forgotten all about it, to judge from appearances, before he had got himself in motion again. And a little farther on, behind the next tree, he found young Philip waiting, full of curiosity and questions.
"Who was that lady, Uncle John? Was she asking about me? I thought I heard her call. I had half a mind to run back and say "Here I am.""
"It was much better that you didn"t do anything of the kind. Never pay any attention when you think you hear a fine lady calling you, Philip.
It is better not to hear the Siren"s call."
"When they"re elderly Sirens like that!" said the boy, with a laugh.
"But I say, Uncle John, if you won"t tell me who the lady is, who is the girl? She has a pair of eyes!--not like Sirens though--eyes that go through you--like--like a pair of lancets."
"A surgical operation in fact: and I shouldn"t wonder if she meant to be a doctor," said John. "The mother has done nothing all her life, therefore the daughter means to do much. It is the natural reaction of the generations. But I never noticed that Miss Dolly had any eyes--to speak of," said the highly indifferent middle-aged man.
The boy flushed with a sense of indignation. "Perhaps you think the old lady"s were finer?" he said.
"I never admired the old lady, as you call her," said John, shortly; and then he turned Philip"s attention to something, possibly with the easily satisfied conviction of a spectator that the boy thought of it no more.
"We met my Lady Mariamne in the park," he said to Elinor when they sat at dinner an hour later at that bachelor table in Halkin Street, where everything was so exquisitely cared for. It was like Elinor, but most unlike the place in which she found herself, that she started so violently as to shake the whole table, crying out in a tone of consternation, "John!" as if he did not know very well what he might venture to say, or as if he had any intention of betraying her to her son.
"She was very anxious," he said, perhaps playing a little with her excitement, "to have Philip presented to her: but I sent him on--that is to say, I thought I sent him on. The fellow went no farther than to the next tree, where he stood and watched Miss Dolly, not feeling any interest in the old lady, as he said."
"Well, Uncle John--did you expect me to look at the old lady? You are not so fond of old ladies yourself."
"And who is Miss Dolly?" said Elinor, trying to conceal the beating of her heart and the quiver on her lips with a smile; and then she added, with a little catch of her breath, "Oh, yes, I remember there was a little girl."
"You will be surprised to hear that we are by way of being great friends. Her ladyship visits me in my chambers----"
Again Elinor uttered that startled cry, "John!" but she tried this time to cover it with a tremulous laugh. "Are you becoming a flirt in your old age?"
"It appears so," said John. And then he added, "That aphorism, which struck you as it struck me, Elinor, by its good sense--about the heir to a peerage--is really her production, and not mine."
"Miss Dolly"s? And what was the aphorism, Uncle John?" cried Philip.
"No, it was not Miss Dolly"s, my young man. It was the mother"s, and so of course does not interest you any more."
It did not as a matter of fact: the old lady was supremely indifferent to Pippo; but as he looked up saying something else which did not bear upon the subject, it occurred to the boy, as it will sometimes occur by the merest chance to a young observer, to notice his mother. She caught his eye somehow in the most accidental way; and Pippo was too well acquainted with her looks not to perceive that there was a thrill in every line of her countenance, a slight nervous tremble in her hands and entire person, such as was in no way to be accounted for (he thought) by anything that had been said or done. There was nothing surely to disquiet her in dining at Uncle John"s, the three alone, not even one other guest to fill up the vacant side of the table. Philip had himself thought that Uncle John might have asked some one to meet them. He should have remembered that he himself, Philip, was now of an age to dine out, and see a little society, and go into the world. But what in the name of all that was wonderful was there in this entertainment to agitate his mother? And John Tatham had a look--which Philip did not understand--the look of a man who was successful in argument, who was almost crushing an opponent. It was as if a duel had been going on between them, and the man was the victor, which, as was natural, immediately threw Philip violently on the other side.
"You"re not well, mother," he said.
"Do you think not, Pippo? Well, perhaps you are right. London is too much for me. I am a country bird," said Elinor, with smiling yet trembling lips.
"You shall not go to the theatre if you are not up to it," said the boy in his imperious way.
She gave him an affectionate look, and then she looked across the table at John. What did that look mean? There was a faint smile in it: and there was a great deal which Philip did not understand, things understood by Uncle John--who was after all what you might call an outsider, no more--and not by him, her son! Could anything be so monstrous? Philip blazed up with sudden fire.
"No," said John Tatham; "I think Philip"s right. We"ll take her home to be coddled by her maid, and we"ll go off, two wild young fellows, to the play by ourselves."
"No," said Philip, "I"ll leave her to be coddled by no maid. I can take care of my mother myself."