"Pa.s.s the English lady!"
SECOND SCENE.--Mablethorpe House.
PREAMBLE.
THE place is England.
The time is winter, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy.
The persons are, Julian Gray, Horace Holmcroft, Lady Janet Roy, Grace Roseberry, and Mercy Merrick.
CHAPTER VI. LADY JANET"S COMPANION.
IT is a glorious winter"s day. The sky is clear, the frost is hard, the ice bears for skating.
The dining-room of the ancient mansion called Mablethorpe House, situated in the London suburb of Kensington, is famous among artists and other persons of taste for the carved wood-work, of Italian origin, which covers the walls on three sides. On the fourth side the march of modern improvement has broken in, and has va ried and brightened the scene by means of a conservatory, forming an entrance to the room through a winter-garden of rare plants and flowers. On your right hand, as you stand fronting the conservatory, the monotony of the paneled wall is relieved by a quaintly patterned door of old inlaid wood, leading into the library, and thence, across the great hall, to the other reception-rooms of the house. A corresponding door on the left hand gives access to the billiard-room, to the smoking-room next to it, and to a smaller hall commanding one of the secondary entrances to the building. On the left side also is the ample fireplace, surmounted by its marble mantelpiece, carved in the profusely and confusedly ornate style of eighty years since. To the educated eye the dining-room, with its modern furniture and conservatory, its ancient walls and doors, and its lofty mantelpiece (neither very old nor very new), presents a startling, almost a revolutionary, mixture of the decorative workmanship of widely differing schools. To the ignorant eye the one result produced is an impression of perfect luxury and comfort, united in the friendliest combination, and developed on the largest scale.
The clock has just struck two. The table is spread for luncheon.
The persons seated at the table are three in number. First, Lady Janet Roy. Second, a young lady who is her reader and companion. Third, a guest staying in the house, who has already appeared in these pages under the name of Horace Holmcroft--attached to the German army as war correspondent of an English newspaper.
Lady Janet Roy needs but little introduction. Everybody with the slightest pretension to experience in London society knows Lady Janet Roy.
Who has not heard of her old lace and her priceless rubies? Who has not admired her commanding figure, her beautifully dressed white hair, her wonderful black eyes, which still preserve their youthful brightness, after first opening on the world seventy years since? Who has not felt the charm of her frank, easily flowing talk, her inexhaustible spirits, her good-humored, gracious sociability of manner? Where is the modern hermit who is not familiarly acquainted, by hearsay at least, with the fantastic novelty and humor of her opinions; with her generous encouragement of rising merit of any sort, in all ranks, high or low; with her charities, which know no distinction between abroad and at home; with her large indulgence, which no ingrat.i.tude can discourage, and no servility pervert? Everybody has heard of the popular old lady--the childless widow of a long-forgotten lord. Everybody knows Lady Janet Roy.
But who knows the handsome young woman sitting on her right hand, playing with her luncheon instead of eating it? n.o.body really knows her.
She is prettily dressed in gray poplin, trimmed with gray velvet, and set off by a ribbon of deep red tied in a bow at the throat. She is nearly as tall as Lady Janet herself, and possesses a grace and beauty of figure not always seen in women who rise above the medium height.
Judging by a certain innate grandeur in the carriage of her head and in the expression of her large melancholy gray eyes, believers in blood and breeding will be apt to guess that this is another n.o.ble lady. Alas! she is nothing but Lady Janet"s companion and reader. Her head, crowned with its lovely light brown hair, bends with a gentle respect when Lady Janet speaks. Her fine firm hand is easily and incessantly watchful to supply Lady Janet"s slightest wants. The old lady--affectionately familiar with her--speaks to her as she might speak to an adopted child. But the grat.i.tude of the beautiful companion has always the same restraint in its acknowledgment of kindness; the smile of the beautiful companion has always the same underlying sadness when it responds to Lady Janet"s hearty laugh. Is there something wrong here, under the surface? Is she suffering in mind, or suffering in body? What is the matter with her?
The matter with her is secret remorse. This delicate and beautiful creature pines under the slow torment of constant self-reproach.
To the mistress of the house, and to all who inhabit it or enter it, she is known as Grace Roseberry, the orphan relative by marriage of Lady Janet Roy. To herself alone she is known as the outcast of the London streets; the inmate of the London Refuge; the lost woman who has stolen her way back--after vainly trying to fight her way back--to Home and Name. There she sits in the grim shadow of her own terrible secret, disguised in another person"s ident.i.ty, and established in another person"s place. Mercy Merrick had only to dare, and to become Grace Roseberry if she pleased. She has dared, and she has been Grace Roseberry for nearly four months past.
At this moment, while Lady Janet is talking to Horace Holmcroft, something that has pa.s.sed between them has set her thinking of the day when she took the first fatal step which committed her to the fraud.
How marvelously easy of accomplishment the act of personation had been!
At first sight Lady Janet had yielded to the fascination of the n.o.ble and interesting face. No need to present the stolen letter; no need to repeat the ready-made story. The old lady had put the letter aside unopened, and had stopped the story at the first words. "Your face is your introduction, my dear; your father can say nothing for you which you have not already said for yourself." There was the welcome which established her firmly in her false ident.i.ty at the outset. Thanks to her own experience, and thanks to the "Journal" of events at Rome, questions about her life in Canada and questions about Colonel Roseberry"s illness found her ready with answers which (even if suspicion had existed) would have disarmed suspicion on the spot. While the true Grace was slowly and painfully winning her way back to life on her bed in a German hospital, the false Grace was presented to Lady Janet"s friends as the relative by marriage of the Mistress of Mablethorpe House. From that time forward nothing had happened to rouse in her the faintest suspicion that Grace Roseberry was other than a dead-and-buried woman. So far as she now knew--so far as any one now knew--she might live out her life in perfect security (if her conscience would let her), respected, distinguished, and beloved, in the position which she had usurped.
She rose abruptly from the table. The effort of her life was to shake herself free of the remembrances which haunted her perpetually as they were haunting her now. Her memory was her worst enemy; her one refuge from it was in change of occupation and change of scene.
"May I go into the conservatory, Lady Janet?" she asked.
"Certainly, my dear."
She bent her head to her protectress, looked for a moment with a steady, compa.s.sionate attention at Horace Holmcroft, and, slowly crossing the room, entered the winter-garden. The eyes of Horace followed her, as long as she was in view, with a curious contradictory expression of admiration and disapproval. When she had pa.s.sed out of sight the admiration vanished, but the disapproval remained. The face of the young man contracted into a frown: he sat silent, with his fork in his hand, playing absently with the fragments on his plate.
"Take some French pie, Horace," said Lady Janet.
"No, thank you."
"Some more chicken, then?"
"No more chicken."
"Will nothing tempt you?"
"I will take some more wine, if you will allow me."
He filled his gla.s.s (for the fifth or sixth time) with claret, and emptied it sullenly at a draught. Lady Janet"s bright eyes watched him with sardonic attention; Lady Janet"s ready tongue spoke out as freely as usual what was pa.s.sing in her mind at the time.
"The air of Kensington doesn"t seem to suit you, my young friend," she said. "The longer you have been my guest, the oftener you fill your gla.s.s and empty your cigar-case. Those are bad signs in a young man.
When you first came here you arrived invalided by a wound. In your place, I should not have exposed myself to be shot, with no other object in view than describing a battle in a newspaper. I suppose tastes differ. Are you ill? Does your wound still plague you?"
"Not in the least."
"Are you out of spirits?"
Horace Holmcroft dropped his fork, rested his elbows on the table, and answered:
"Awfully."
Even Lady Janet"s large toleration had its limits. It embraced every human offense except a breach of good manners. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the nearest weapon of correction at hand--a tablespoon--and rapped her young friend smartly with it on the arm that was nearest to her.
"My table is not the club table," said the old lady. "Hold up your head.
Don"t look at your fork--look at me. I allow n.o.body to be out of spirits in My house. I consider it to be a reflection on Me. If our quiet life here doesn"t suit you, say so plainly, and find something else to do.
There is employment to be had, I suppose--if you choose to apply for it?
You needn"t smile. I don"t want to see your teeth--I want an answer."
Horace admitted, with all needful gravity, that there was employment to be had. The war between France and Germany, he remarked, was still going on: the newspaper had offered to employ him again in the capacity of correspondent.
"Don"t speak of the newspapers and the war!" cried Lady Janet, with a sudden explosion of anger, which was genuine anger this time. "I detest the newspapers! I won"t allow the newspapers to enter this house. I lay the whole blame of the blood shed between France and Germany at their door."
Horace"s eyes opened wide in amazement. The old lady was evidently in earnest. "What can you possibly mean?" he asked. "Are the newspapers responsible for the war?"
"Entirely responsible," answered Lady Janet. "Why, you don"t understand the age you live in! Does anybody do anything nowadays (fighting included) without wishing to see it in the newspapers? _I_ subscribe to a charity; _thou_ art presented with a testimonial; _he_ preaches a sermon; _we_ suffer a grievance; _you_ make a discovery; _they_ go to church and get married. And I, thou, he; we, you, they, all want one and the same thing--we want to see it in the papers. Are kings, soldiers, and diplomatists exceptions to the general rule of humanity? Not they! I tell you seriously, if the newspapers of Europe had one and all decided not to take the smallest notice in print of the war between France and Germany, it is my firm conviction the war would have come to an end for want of encouragement long since. Let the pen cease to advertise the sword, and I, for one, can see the result. No report--no fighting."
"Your views have the merit of perfect novelty, ma"am," said Horace.
"Would you object to see them in the newspapers?"
Lady Janet worsted her young friend with his own weapons.