CHAPTER XIII.
MR. WEST’S WISHES.
Standing close to Mr. West—or, rather, Mr. West had attached himself to him—was his favourite fellow-traveller, a young and somewhat impecunious nobleman—Lord Anthony Foster—the son of a duke, whose pedigree was much longer than his purse, and one of a large family. Most of this family were already established in life, and had repaired their shattered fortunes by a prudent and wealthy marriage; but Lord Tony, as he was called, preferred his liberty. He was fond of sport and travelling, and was postponing the evil day (as he considered it) which, alas! must sooner or later overtake him, for his private fortune was small. His elder brother, the present duke, was close-fisted, and his personal expenses, do as he would, invariably exceeded his expectations—it is a little way they have with many people—and although he had no extravagant tastes (so he declared), yet he was liberal, and liked to “do things comfortably.” In his appearance no one would suspect that the blood of a hundred earls ran in his veins; in fact (low be it whispered), he was a rather common-looking young man—short, square, with a turned-up nose, wide nostrils, a wide mouth, and a faint light moustache; his complexion was tanned to mahogany, but a pair of merry blue eyes, and an open, good-humoured countenance made up for many deficiencies. He was not a ladies’ man, but popular with men; not at all clever, but ever ready to laugh at other folk’s good things, and his own mistakes—shrewd enough, too; a capital shot, an untiring angler, an enterprising traveller, and, according to his own account, an unparalleled sleeper. He had no profession, no ties, no landed estates to look after—the world was his landed estate—and he was now returning from a long tour of inspection in Japan and Australia.
Lord Tony had met Mr. West in Sydney society, and Mr. West had taken an immense fancy to him, and had privately arranged the date of his own departure so as to secure the young lord as a fellow-passenger. He had also shared his cabin. In this unaffected young man, with a pleasant, hearty manner, and a large connection in the peerage, he saw a link to upper circles, and a ready ladder for his nimble and ambitious foot.
Mr. West was determined to get into society, to enjoy his money, to be in the swim, and to make a splash! He had obtained one or two good introductions to merchant princes, and he had cemented a fast friendship with Lord Tony. Friendships grow quickly at sea, though these same friendships frequently languish and fade on shore. He had frequently and pointedly alluded to “his only child,” “his daughter,” “his little heiress;” he had displayed with pride the photograph of a very charming girl in her early teens; he had thrown out hints, that if she married to please him—a nice, unaffected, well-connected young fellow, who would give her a coronet on her handkerchief—the money to spend and keep up her position would be his affair.
Lord Tony’s married brothers and sisters were continually and clamorously urging heiresses upon his notice; it was “his only chance,” they assured him. “He must marry money.” If this pretty girl now speaking to West, with visible trepidation and becomingly heightened colour, was the heiress he was always swaggering about and dragging into his conversation, Lord Tony told himself, as he took his cigarette out of his mouth and blew away a cloud of smoke, “that, by George! he might do worse.” And so he might. Presently he was formally introduced to the young lady and her companion, and Mr. West, who was metaphorically carried off his feet by Madeline’s unexpected grace, was in a condition of rampant satisfaction. She would go down. She would take anywhere; and actually, for a few lofty seconds, he scorned a mere lord, and saw a wreath of strawberry leaves resting on her pretty dark hair.
Miss Harper was not slow to read the signs of the times—to interpret the expression of the millionaire’s growing complacency: he found Madeline prettier than he had anticipated; he was greatly pleased; and she immediately improved the occasion, and murmured a few well-timed words into his ear about “dearest Madeline’s air of distinction, her exquisitely shaped head, her vivacity, her remarkable beauty; fitted to adorn any sphere; always a favourite pupil; a most accomplished, popular girl;” whilst Madeline gravely answered Lord Anthony’s blunt questions. He was the first lord she had ever spoken to, and as far as she could judge, neither formidable nor imposing.
After a little she found herself being led up and presented to the captain and to several of the passengers, with a look and tone that told even Madeline, who had a very humble opinion of herself, that her father was exceedingly proud of her!
Oh, if he would only be kind—only be good to her! if her pretty face, that he appeared to value so much, would but open the door of his heart, and admit her and Laurence and his grandchild! But it would not. Do not think it, simple Madeline; it will only admit you in company with a peer of the realm.
After much fuss and bustle, Mr. West and his party disembarked. Never in all her life had Madeline been so much stared at. And she was not merely looked at curiously—as a pretty girl who had never seen her father since she was a child—she was doubly interesting as a great heiress, and a very marketable young person. She was not sorry to make her escape, and was conducted down the gangway in a kind of triumphal procession, led by her exultant parent, her arm on his, whilst Miss Harper followed, leaning on Lord Anthony—who was to be Mr. West’s guest at his hotel—and I have no hesitation in affirming that this was the happiest moment of Miss Harper’s life, if it was not that of her pupil’s (as to this latter I cannot speak with certainty). Arm-in-arm with a lord! What would people say at home when she went back? Her heart already beat high with anticipation of the sensation she would produce upon the minds of her particular circle. If one of them could only see her! But there is always an “if.”
Mr. West was rather indisposed after his voyage. He could not sleep, he declared; he missed the engines; and he remained at Plymouth for a few days. So did Lord Anthony, who was in no particular hurry. Miss Harper had reluctantly taken leave, and returned to Harperton, endowed with a valuable present “for all her kindness to Madeline,” quoth Mr. West, as he presented it with considerable pomp, and this offering she graciously and modestly accepted—yes, without the quivering of an eyelid, much less the ghost of a blush! Perhaps, so crooked are some people’s ideas, she had brought herself to believe that she had been kind to Madeline—and, indeed, she had never been as hard as Miss Selina. She would have liked to have remained at this luxurious hotel a few days longer. Everything was done en prince. A carriage and pair, a really smart turn-out (cockades and all), took them for a delightful drive. There were excursions to Mount Edgecumbe, promenades on the Hoe. Plymouth was gay, the weather was magnificent, Lord Anthony Foster of the party—and so amusing! Miss Harper was easily amused—sometimes. She threw out one or two hints to Mr. West to the effect that she was excessively comfortable, that this little visit was quite too delightful—an oasis in her existence; that mamma was not lonely—in short, that she dreaded parting with her dearest pupil; but nevertheless she had to go. Mr. West was ruthless, he was blunt; he was, moreover, wonderfully keen at interpreting other people’s motives. He perfectly understood Miss Harper. She was, no doubt, very much at her ease; but he owed her nothing. She had been amply paid; she had had his girl for twelve years, and could afford to part with her young charge.
Moreover, Miss Harper did not belong to the class of people he particularly wished to cultivate—that was sufficient—and he smilingly sped the parting guest, after a four days’ visit. During those four days Madeline had been installed as mistress of her father’s establishment, and was endeavouring to accustom herself to her new rôle. Everything was deferred to her, the ordering of dinner, the ordering of carriages, and of various items that meant a considerable outlay. She took up her position at once with a composure that astonished her school-mistress. She stared at Madeline in amazement, as she sat at the head of the table in her new black gauze, and comported herself as though she had occupied the post for years.
In about a week’s time, the Wests (still accompanied by Lord Anthony) went to London, staying at the Métropole Hotel; and here Mr. West, who was a brisk man of action, and resolved to lose not an hour in enjoying his money and realizing his plans, set about house-hunting, con amore, assuring delighted house agents that price was no consideration—what he sought was size, style, and situation.
Under these favourable circumstances, he soon discovered what he required. A superb mansion in Belgrave Square, with large suites of reception rooms, twenty bedrooms, hot and cold water, electric light, speaking-tubes, stabling for twelve horses, and, in short, to quote the advertisement, “with everything desirable for a nobleman’s or gentleman’s family.” It had just been vacated by a marquis, which made it still more desirable to Mr. West. If not near the rose, the rose had lived there! Indeed, to tell the happy truth, a duke resided next door, and an ambassador round the corner. So far so good. The next thing was to be neighbourly. Then there was the business of furnishing—of course regardless of cost. Days and days were spent, selecting, measuring, matching, and discussing at one of the most fashionable upholsterers in town, and the result was most satisfactory, most magnificent, and most expensive. There was a dining-room hung with ancestors—Charles Surface’s, perhaps—but certainly not Mr. West’s. A full-length portrait of his father in prison dress would have been a startling novelty; there was an ante-room in turquoise blue, a drawing-room in yellow and white, and a boudoir in rose and pearl-colour brocade. Of the delights of these apartments, of the paintings, statuary, bronzes, and Chinese curios, of the old silver and china and ivory work, and pianos and Persian carpets, it would take a book to catalogue.
As for Madeline, accustomed, as we know, to four Windsor chairs, two tables, a shabby rag of Kidderminster carpet, and a horsehair sofa with a lame leg, her brain was giddy as she endeavoured to realize that she was to be mistress of these treasures, and to preside over this palatial establishment. Carriages and horses found places in stables and coach-houses; a troop of well-trained servants populated the house. There was a stately lady housekeeper, a French chef, a French maid for Madeline, three footmen in mulberry and silver buttons, and a butler whom one might have mistaken for a dean, and whose deportment and dignity were of such proportions as to overawe all timid natures, and of very high value in his master’s eyes.
Madeline shrank from her lady’s maid, but she was a necessity—noblesse oblige. She did not wish the sharp-eyed Parisienne to spy out the nakedness of the land, as far as her own wardrobe was concerned, and was at many a shift to postpone her arrival until she had garments more befitting her background and her father’s purse. Indeed he had not been pleased with her gowns, “they looked cheap,” he had remarked with a frown.
“Is that all you have, Madeline, that black thing?” he asked rather querulously one evening, as they stood in the drawing-room awaiting Lord Anthony, and a friend.
“Yes, papa; and it is nearly new,” she said in a tone of deprecation. “It does very well for the present, and I must wear it out.”
“Wear out! Stuff and nonsense!” irritably. “One would think you had a shingle loose. I really sometimes fancy, when I hear you talking of the price of this and that, and so on, and economy, that you have known what it is to be poor—poor as Job! Whereas, by George! you have never known what it is to want for a single thing ever since you were born. You have as much idea of poverty as your prize black poodle has!”
Had she? Had she not known what it was to frequent pawnshops, to battle with wolfish want, to experience not merely the pleasures of a healthy appetite, but the actual pangs of painful hunger. Oh, had she not known what it was to be poor! She gave a little half-choked nervous laugh, and carefully avoided her father’s interrogative eyes.
“I’ll give you a cheque to-morrow,” he resumed, “and do go to some good dressmaker, and get yourself some smart clothes. Lady Rachel, Lord Tony’s sister, is going to call, ask her to take you to some first-class place, and choose half a dozen gowns. I really mean it; and put this thing,” flicking her fifty-shilling costume with a contemptuous finger and thumb, “behind the fire. You are not like your mother; she made the money fly. However, she was always well turned out. I don’t want you to ruin me; but there is a medium in all things. What is the good of a daughter who is a beauty if she won’t set herself off?”
“Do you really think me pretty, father?” she asked, rather timidly.
“Why, of course I do! We shall have you setting the fashions and figuring in the papers, and painted full life-size, when you have more assurance, and know how to make the most of yourself. Remember this,” now giving his collar a chuck, and speaking with sudden gravity, “that when you marry”—Madeline blushed—“when you marry, I say,” noticing this blush, “you must go into the peerage, nothing else would suit me, never forget that. Now that you know my views, there can be no misunderstandings later on. Never send a commoner to ask for my consent.”
“But, father,” she ventured boldly, now raising her eyes to his, that surveyed her like two little fiery brown beads, “supposing that I loved a poor man, what then? How would it be then?”
“Folly!” he almost yelled. “Poor man. Poor devil! Love! rot and nonsense, bred from reading trashy novels. Love a poor man! Do you want to drive me mad? Never mention it, never think of it, if I am to keep my senses.” And he began to pace about.
“But,” she answered resolutely, pressing her fan very hard into the palm of her trembling hand, “supposing that I did? Why should I not?—you married my mother for love.”
“Not a bit of it,” he rejoined emphatically, “I liked her, admired her; she was very pretty, and had blue blood—foreign blood—in her veins, but she was a good match. She had a fine fortune, she was in the best set. Her father took me into partnership. I was a rising man—and—er—I know all about love; I have been through the mill! Ha, ha, it’s bad while it lasts, but it does not last! The woman I loved was a little girl from Tasmania, without a copper. She tempted me mightily, but I knew I might just as well cut my throat at once. No, I married for good and sensible reasons, and one word will do as well as ten. If you ever make a low marriage, a love match with a pauper, or throw yourself and your beauty and your accomplishments, and all I’ve done for you, and all my hopes away, I solemnly declare to you that I shall not hesitate to turn you penniless into the street. I swear I will do it, and never own you again. You might go and die in the poor-house, and I’d never raise a finger to save you from a pauper’s funeral.”
He spoke very fast, his voice uneven and vibrating with passion, his face livid at the mere idea of his schemes being foiled. He was terribly in earnest; his very look made Madeline quail. She trembled and turned pale, as she thought of poor Laurence.
“It’s not much I ask you to do for me, is it, Maddie, after all I’ve done for you?” he continued in a softer key. “I have my ambitions, like other men, and all my ambition is for you. Give up all thoughts of your lover—that is, if you have one—and be an obedient daughter. It’s not so much to do for me, after all.”
Was it not? Little he knew!
“Promise me one thing, Madeline,” he continued once more, breathing in hard gasps, and seizing her ice-cold hand in his hot dry grip.
“What is that, father?” she asked in a whisper.
“That you will never marry without my consent, and never listen to a commoner. Will you promise me this? Can you promise this?”
“Yes, father, I can,” she answered, steadily looking him full in the eyes, with a countenance as white as marble.
“On your honour, Madeline?”
“On my honour!” she echoed in a curious, mechanical voice.
“Very well, then,” inwardly both relieved and delighted; “that is what I call a model daughter. You shall have a prize. I will get you some diamonds to-morrow that will open people’s eyes; no trumpery little half-set, but a necklet, tiara, and brooches. I saw a parure to-day, old family jewels. Hard up—selling off; one goes up, another comes down, like a see-saw. It’s our turn now! You shall wear stones that will make people blink—diamonds that will be the talk of London. If folks say they are too handsome for an unmarried girl, that is our affair, and a coronet will mend that. You have a head that will carry one well. Your mother’s blue blood shows. You shall pick and choose, too. Lord Anthony may think——”
“Lord Anthony Foster and Sir Felix Gibbs,” said a sonorous voice.
And what Lord Anthony might think was never divulged to Madeline; Mr. West, with great presence of mind, springing with one supreme mental leap from family matters to social courtesies.
The dinner was perfect, served at a round table. The floral decorations were exquisite; attendance, menu, wines were everything that could be desired. The gentlemen talked a good deal—talked of the turf, the prospect of the moors, of the latest failure in the city, and the latest play, and perhaps did not notice how very little the young hostess contributed to the conversation. She was absent in mind, if present in the body; but she smiled, and looked pretty, and that was sufficient. She was beholding with her mental eye a very different ménage, far beyond the silver centre-pieces, pines, maiden-hair ferns and orchids, far beyond the powdered footmen, with their dainty dishes and French entrées.
We know what she saw. A cosy farm parlour, with red-tiled floor, a round table spread with a clean coarse cloth, decorated by a blue mug, filled with mignonette and sweet pea, black-handled knives and forks, willow-pattern delf plates, a young man eating his frugal dinner alone, and opposite to him an empty chair—her chair. She saw in another room a curious old wooden cradle, with a pointed half-roof, which had rocked many a Holt in its day. Inside it lay a child that was not a Holt, a child of a different type, a child with black lashes, and a feeding-bottle in its vicinity. (Now, Mrs. Holt’s progeny had never been brought up by hand.) Her baby! Oh, if papa were only to know! she thought, and the idea pierced her heart like a knife, as she looked across at him, where he sat smiling, conversational, and unsuspicious. He would turn her out now this very instant into the square, were he to catch a glimpse of those two living pictures. He was unusually animated on the subject of some shooting he had heard of, and he had two attentive and, shall we confess it, personally interested listeners—listeners who had rosy visions of shooting the grouse on those very moors, as Mr. West’s guests.
So, for awhile, Madeline was left to her own thoughts, and they travelled back to her earliest married days, the pleasant little sitting-room on the first floor at No. 2, the bright fires, bright flowers, new music, and cosy dinners (the mutton-chop period), when all her world was bounded by Laurence. Was it not still the case? Alas, no! The bald-headed gentleman opposite, who was haranguing about “drives and bags,” held a bond on her happiness. He had to be studied, obeyed, and—deceived! Would she be able to play her part? Would she break down? When he looked at her, as he had done that evening, her heart failed her. She felt almost compelled to sink at his feet and tell him all. It was well she had restrained herself. She resolved to save for a rainy day some of the money he was to give her on the morrow. Yes, the clouds were beginning to gather, even now.
Oh, what a wicked wretch she felt at times! But why had cruel fate pushed her into such a corner? Why was her father so worldly and ambitious? Why had she failed to put forward Laurence’s plea, his own long absence and silence, and thus excuse herself once for all? Easy to say this now, when that desperate moment was over—it is always so easy to say these things afterwards! She had given her father a solemn promise (and oh, what a hollow promise it was!), and she was to receive her reward in diamonds of the first water—diamonds that would blind the ordinary and unaccustomed eye!
Presently she rose, and made her way slowly to her great state drawing-rooms, and as she sipped her coffee she thought of Laurence, and wondered what he was doing, and when she dared to see him, to write? Poor Laurence! how seedy his clothes were; and how much his long illness had altered his looks. With his hollow cheeks and cropped head (his head had been shaved), none of his former friends would recognize him. Then her thoughts wandered to her diamonds. She stood up and surveyed herself in the long mirror, and smiled back slightly at her own tall, graceful reflection. Diamonds always looked well in dark hair. She was but little more than nineteen, and had the natural feminine instinct for adornment. She smiled still more radiantly; and what do we hear her saying in a whisper, and with a rapid stealthy glance round the room? It is this: “I wonder how you will look in a diamond tiara, Mrs. Wynne?”
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.