CHAPTER XXXVIII. WITH LORD CULDUFF.
In a room of a Roman palace large enough to be a church, but furnished with all the luxury of an English drawing-room, stood Lord Culduff, with his back to an ample fire, smoking a cigarette; a small table beside him supported a very diminutive coffee-service of chased silver, and in a deep-cushioned chair at the opposite side of the fireplace lay a toy terrier, asleep.
There were two fireplaces in the spacious chamber, and at a writing-table drawn close to the second of these sat Temple Bramleigh writing. His pen as it ran rapidly along was the only sound in the perfect stillness, till Lord Culduff, throwing the end of his cigarette away, said, “It is not easy to imagine so great an idiot as your worthy brother Augustus.”
“A little selfishness would certainly not disimprove him,” said Temple, coldly.
“Say sense, common sense, sir; a very little of that humble ingredient that keeps a man from walking into a well.”
“I think you judge him hardly.”
“Judge him hardly! Why, sir, what judgment can equal the man's own condemnation of himself? He has some doubts—some very grave doubts—about his right to his estate, and straightway he goes and throws it into a law-court. He prefers, in fact, that his inheritance should be eaten up by lawyers than quietly enjoyed by his own family. Such men are usually provided with lodgings at Hanwell; their friends hide their razors, and don't trust them with toothpicks.”
“Oh, this is too much: he may take an extreme view of what his duty is in this matter, but he 's certainly no more mad than I am.”
“I repeat, sir, that the man who takes conscience for his guide in the very complicated concerns of life is unfit to manage his affairs. Conscience is a constitutional peculiarity, nothing more. To attempt to subject the business of life to conscience would be about as absurd as to regulate the funds by the state of the barometer.”
“I 'll not defend what he is doing—I 'm as sorry for it as any one; I only protest against his being thought a fool.”
“What do you say then to this last step of his, if it be indeed true that he has accepted this post?”
“I'm afraid it is; my sister Ellen says they are on their way to Cattaro.”
“I declare that I regard it as an outrage. I can give it no other name. It is an outrage. What, sir, am I, who have reached the highest rank of my career, or something very close to it; who have obtained my Grand Cross; who stand, as I feel I do, second to none in the public service;—am I to have my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, gazetted to a post I might have flung to my valet!”'
“There I admit he was wrong.”
“That is to say, sir, that you feel the personal injury his indiscreet conduct has inflicted. You see your own ruin in his rashness.”
“I can't suppose it will go that far.”
“And why not, pray? When a Minister or Secretary of State dares to offend me—for it is levelled at me—by appointing my brother to such an office, he says as plainly as words can speak, 'Your sun is set; your influence is gone. We place you below the salt to-day, that to-morrow we may put you outside the door.' You cannot be supposed to know these things, but I know them. Shall I give you a counsel, sir?”
“Any advice from you, my Lord, is always acceptable.”
“Give up the line. Retire; be a gamekeeper, a billiard-marker; turn steward of a steamer, or correspond for one of the penny papers, but don't attempt to serve a country that pays its gentlemen like toll-keepers.”
Temple seemed to regard this little outburst as such an ordinary event that he dipped his pen into the ink-bottle, and was about to resume writing, when Lord Culduff said, in a sharp, peevish tone,—
“I trust your brother and sister do not mean to come to Rome?”
“I believe they do, my Lord. I think they have promised to pay the L'Estranges a visit at Albano.”
“My Lady must write at once and prevent it. This cannot possibly be permitted. Where are they now?”
“At Como. This last letter was dated from the inn at that place.”
Lord Culduff rang the bell, and directed the servant to ask if her Ladyship had gone out.
The servant returned to say that her Ladyship was going to dress, but would see his Lordship on her way downstairs.
“Whose card is this? Where did this come from?” asked Lord Culduff, as he petulantly turned it round and round, trying to read the name.
“Oh, that's Mr. Cutbill. He called twice yesterday. I can't imagine what has brought him to Rome.”
“Perhaps I might hazard a guess,” said Lord Culduff, with a grim smile. “But I'll not see him. You'll say, Bramleigh, that I am very much engaged; that I have a press of most important business; that the Cardinal Secretary is always here. Say anything, in short, that will mean No, Cutbill!”
“He 's below at this moment.”
“Then get rid of him! My dear fellow, the A B C of your craft is to dismiss the importunate. Go and send him off!”
Lord Culduff turned to caress his whiskers as the other left the room; and having gracefully disposed a very youthful curl of his wig upon his forehead, was smiling a pleasant recognition of himself in the glass, when voices in a louder tone than were wont to be heard in such sacred precincts startled him. He listened, and suddenly the door was opened rudely, and Mr. Cutbill entered, Temple Bramleigh falling back as the other came forward, and closing the door behind.
“So, my Lord, I was to be told you'd not see me, eh?” said Cutbill, his face slightly flushed by a late altercation.
“I trusted, sir, when my private secretary had told you I was engaged, that I might have counted upon not being broken in upon.”
“There you were wrong, then,” said Cutbill, who divested himself of an overcoat, threw it on the back of a chair, and came forward towards the fire. “Quite wrong. A man does n't come a thousand and odd miles to be 'not-at homed' at the end of it.”
“Which means, sir, that I am positively reduced to the necessity of receiving you, whether I will or not?”
“Something near that, but not exactly. You see, my Lord, that when to my application to your lawyer in town I received for answer the invariable rejoinder, 'it is only my Lord himself can reply to this; his Lordship alone knows what this, that, or t'other refers to,' I knew pretty well, the intention was to choke me off. It was saying to me, Is it worth a journey to Rome to ask this question? and my reply to myself was, 'Yes, Tom Cutbill, go to Rome by all means.' And here I am.”
“So I perceive, sir,” said the other dryly and gravely.
“Now, my Lord, there are two ways of transacting business. One may do the thing pleasantly, with a disposition to make matters easy and comfortable; or one may approach everything with a determination to screw one's last farthing out of it, to squeeze the lemon to the last drop. Which of these is it your pleasure we should choose?”
“I must endeavor to imitate, though I cannot rival your frankness, sir; and therefore I would say, let us have that mode in which we shall see least of each other.”
“All right. I am completely in your Lordship's hands. You had your choice, and I don't dispute it. There, then, is my account. It's a trifle under fourteen hundred pounds. Your Lordship's generosity will make it the fourteen, I 've no doubt. All the secret-service part—that trip to town and the dinner at Greenwich—I 've left blank. Fill it up as your conscience suggests. The Irish expenses are also low, as I lived a good deal at Bishop's Folly. I also make no charge for keeping you out of 'Punch.' It was n't easy, all the same, for the fellows had you, wig, waistcoat, and all. In fact, my Lord, it's a friendly document, though your present disposition doesn't exactly seem to respond to that line of action; but Tom Cutbill is a forgiving soul. Your Lordship will look over this paper, then; and in a couple of days—no hurry, you know, for I have lots to see here—in a couple of days I 'll drop in, and talk the thing over with you; for you see there are two or three points—about the way you behaved to your brother-in-law, and such like—that I 'd like to chat a little with you about.”
As Lord Culduff listened his face grew redder and redder, and his fingers played with the back of the chair on which he leaned with a quick, convulsive motion; and as the other went on he drew from time to time long, deep inspirations, as if invoking patience to carry him through the infliction. At last he said, in a half-faint voice, “Have you done, sir,—is it over?”
“Well, pretty nigh. I 'd like to have asked you about my Lady. I know she had a temper of her own before you married her, and I 'm rather curious to hear how you hit it off together. Does she give in—eh? Has the high and mighty dodge subdued her? I thought it would.”
“Do me the great favor, sir, to ring that bell and to leave me. I am not very well,” said Culduff, gasping for breath.
“I see that. I see you've got the blood to your head. When a man comes to your time of life, he must mind what he eats, and stick to pint bottles too. That's true as the Bible—pint bottles and plenty of Seltzer when you 're amongst the seventies.”
And with this aphorism he drew on his coat, buttoned it leisurely to the collar, and with a familiar nod left the room.
“Giacomo,” said Lord Culduff, “that man is not to be admitted again on any pretext. Tell the porter his place shall pay for it, if he passes the grille.”
Giacomo bowed silent acquiescence, and Lord Culduff lay back on a sofa and said, “Tell Dr. Pritchard to come here; tell my Lady, tell Mr. Temple, I feel very ill;” and so saying he closed his eyes and seemed overcome.
CHAPTER XXXIX. AT ALBANO
“Who do you think asks himself to dine with us to-day, Julia?” said L'Estrange to his sister on the day of the scene recorded in our last chapter.
“I cannot guess; but I am prepared to say I'll be glad to see any one.”
“It is very dull for you, indeed,” said he, compassionately.
“No, George, not that. Not half so bad for me as for you; but somehow I felt it would be a relief to have a guest, who would oblige us to drop our grumblings and exert ourselves to talk of something besides our own personal worries. Now, who is it?”
“What would you say to Mr. Cutbill?”
“Do you mean the engineering man we saw at Castello?”
“The same.”
“Oh, dear! I retract. I recall my last speech, and avow, in all humility, I was wrong. All I remember of that man—not much certainly—but all I do remember of him was that he was odious.”
“He was amusing, in his way.”
“Probably—but I detested 'his way.'”
“The Bramleighs said he was good-natured.”
“With all my heart. Give him all the excellent qualities you like; but he will still remain insufferably ill-bred and coarse-minded. Why did you ask him, George?”
“I did n't; he asked himself. Here's his note: 'Dear L'Estrange'—familiar enough—'Dear L'Estrange—I have just arrived here, and want to have some talk with you. I mean, therefore, to ask you to let me take a bit of dinner with you to-day. I shall be out by five or half-past. Don't make a stranger of me, but give me the cold mutton or whatever it is.—Yours, Tom Cutbill.'”
“What a type of the writer!”
“Well; but what can we get for dinner, Ju?”
“The cold mutton, I think. I 'm sure the gentleman's estimate of his value as a guest cannot be too low.”
“No, Julia, let us treat him to our best. He means kindly by coming out here to see us.”
“I 'd have taken the will for the deed with more of gratitude. Oh, George,” cried she with fervor, “why will you be always so much obliged to the man who condescends to eat your salt? This Mr. Cutbill will be your patron for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Certainly the man who dines with us cannot come for the excellence of our fare.”
“That is a very ingenious bit of self-flattery; but don't trust it, George. Men eat bad dinners continually; and there is a sort of condescension in eating them at a friend's house, which is often mistaken for good-nature; and the fun of it is that the men who do these things are very vain of the act.”
L'Estrange gave a little shrug of his shoulders. It was his usual reply to those subtleties which his sister was so fond of, and that he was never very sure whether they were meant to puzzle or to persuade him.
“So then he is to be an honored guest, George, eh?”
He smiled a gentle assent, and she went on: “And we are to treat him to that wonderful Rhine wine Sir Marcus sent you to cure your ague. And the very thought of drinking anything so costly actually brought on a shivering attack.”
“Have we any of it left?”
“Two bottles, if those uncouth little flattened flasks can be called bottles. And since you are resolved he is to be entertained like a 'Prince Russe,' I 'll actually treat him to a dish of maccaroni of my own invention. You remember, George, Mrs. Monkton was going to withdraw her subscription from the Church when she ate of it, and remained a firm Protestant.”
“Julia, Julia!” said he, in a half-reproving tone.
“I am simply citing an historical fact, but you'll provoke me to say much worse if you stand there with that censorial face. As if I did n't know how wrong it was to speak lightly of a lady who subscribes two hundred francs a year.”
“There are very few who do so,” said he, with a sigh.
“My poor brother,” said she, caressingly, “it is a very hard case to be so poor, and we with such refined tastes and such really nice instincts; we, who would like a pretty house, and a pretty garden, and a pretty little equipage, and who would give pretty little dinners, with the very neatest cut glass and china, and be, all the time, so cultivated and so simple, so elevated in tone and so humble in spirit. There, go away, and look after some fruit—do something, and don't stand there provoking me to talk nonsense. That solemn look made me ten times more silly than I ever intended to be.”
“I 'm sure,” said L'Estrange, thoughtfully, “he has something to tell me of the coal-mine.”
“Ah, if I thought that, George? If I thought he brought us tidings of a great 'dividend'—is n't that the name for the thing the people always share amongst themselves, out of somebody else's money? So I have shocked you, at last, into running away; and now for the cares of the household.”
Now, though she liked to quiz her brother about his love of hospitality and the almost reckless way in which he would spend money to entertain a guest, it was one of her especial delights to play hostess, and receive guests with whatever display their narrow fortune permitted. Nor did she spare any pains she could bestow in preparing to welcome Mr. Cutbill, and her day was busily passed between the kitchen, the garden, and the drawing-room, ordering, aiding, and devising with a zeal and activity that one might have supposed could only have been evoked in the service of a much honored guest.
“Look at my table, George,” said she, “before you go to dress for dinner, and say if you ever saw anything more tasteful. There's a bouquet for you; and see how gracefully I have twined the grape-leaves round these flasks. You'll fancy yourself Horace entertaining Maecenas. Mr. Cutbill is certainly not very like him—but no matter. Nor is our little Monte Oliveto exactly Falernian.”
“It is quite beautiful, Ju, all of it,” said he, drawing her towards him and kissing her; but there was a touch of sadness in his voice, as in his look, to which she replied with a merry laugh, and said,—
“Say it out boldly, George, do; say frankly what a sin and a shame it is, that such a dear good girl should have to strain her wits in this hand-to-hand fight with Poverty, and not be embellishing some splendid station with her charming talents, and such like.”
“I was thinking something not very far from it,” said he, smiling.
“Of course you were; but you never thought, perhaps, how soon ennui and lassitude might have taken the place of all my present energy. I want to please you now, George, since without me you would be desolate; but if we were rich, you'd not depend on me, and I'd have been very dispirited and very sad. There now, that's quite enough of sentimentalizing for once. I 'm off to dress. Do you know,” said she, as she mounted the stairs, “I have serious thoughts of captivating Mr. Cutbill?”
“Oh, Julia, I entreat—” but she was gone ere he could finish, and her merry laughter was heard till her door closed.
Poor girl, her light-heartedness died out as she felt herself alone, and turning towards a little photograph of a man in a naval uniform, that hung over the chimney, her eyes grew dim with tears as she gazed on it.
“Ay,” said she, bitterly, “and this same humor it was that lost me the truest heart that ever beat! What would I not give now to know that he still remembered me—remembered me with kindness!”
She sat down, with her face buried in her hands, nor stirred till the sound of voices beneath apprised her that their guest had arrived.
While she was yet standing before her glass, and trying to efface the traces of sorrow on her features, George tapped softly at her door. “May I come in?” cried he. “Oh, Julia,” said he, as he drew nigh, “it is worse than I had even suspected. Cutbill tells me that—”
He could not go on, but bending his head on her shoulder, sobbed hysterically.
“George, George, do not give way thus,” said she calmly. “What is it has happened? What has he told you?”
“The mine—the Lisconnor scheme—is bankrupt.”
“Is that all?”
“All! Why, it is ruin—utter ruin! Every shilling that you had in the world is gone, and I have done it all.” And once more his feelings overcame him, and he sobbed convulsively.
“But, my dear, dear brother,” said she, fondly, “if it's lost, it's lost, and there's no help for it; and let us never fret over what binds us only the closer together. You can't get rid of me, now, for I declare, George, no earthly consideration will make me accept Mr. Cutbill.”
“Oh, how can you jest this way, Julia, at such a moment!”
“I assure you I am most serious. I know that man intends to propose to me, and you are just in the humor to mix up our present misfortunes and his pretensions, and actually espouse his cause; but it's no use, George, no use whatever. I 'll not consent. Go downstairs, now. Stay, let me wipe those red eyes. Don't let that man see any trace of this sorrow about you; bear up quietly and well. You shall see that I do not give counsel without being able to show example. Go down now, and I 'll follow you.”
As he left the room she sat down, and accidentally so as to see her face in the glass. The forced smile which she had put on was only slowly vanishing from her features, and she was shocked at the pallor that now succeeded.
“I am looking very ill,” muttered she. “There's no denying it. That man will certainly see how this news has struck me down, and I would not that he should witness my want of courage. I wish I had—no, I don't. I 'd not put on rouge if I had it; but I wish we were alone to-day, and could talk over our fortune together. Perhaps it 's as well as it is.” And now she arose and descended the stairs hastily, as though not to give herself time for further thought.
Cutbill was in the act of cautioning L'Estrange against speaking of the Lisconnor misfortune to his sister when she entered the room. “Do you forget me, Miss L'Estrange,” said he, coming forward, “or am I to remind you that we met in Ireland?”
“Forget you, Mr. Cutbill,” replied she, laughingly; “how can I forget the charming tenor who sang second to me, or the gallant cavalier who rode out with me?”
“Ay, but I got a roll in a duck-pond that day,” said he, grimly. “You persuaded me to let the beast drink, and he lay down in the water and nearly squashed me.”
“Oh, you almost killed me with laughter. I had to hold on by the crutch of my saddle to save myself from falling into the pond.”
“And I hear you made a sketch of me.”
“Have you not seen it? I declare I thought I had shown it to you; but I will after dinner if I can find it.”
The dinner was announced at this moment, and they proceeded to the dining-room.
“Taste is everything,” said Cutbill, as he unfolded his napkin, and surveyed the table, decked out with fruit and flowers with a degree of artistic elegance that appealed even to him. “Taste is everything. I declare to you that Howell and James would pay fifty pounds down just for that urn as it stands there. How you twined those lilies around it in that way is quite beyond me.”
As the dinner went on, he was in ecstasy with everything.
“Don't part with your cook, even after they make a bishop of you,” said he. “I don't know the French name of that dish, but I believe it's a stewed hare. Might I send my plate twice?”
“Mr. Cutbill saw the Bramleighs at Como, Julia,” said L'Estrange, to take him, if possible, off the subject of the entertainment.
“I did, indeed. I met them at that very hotel that was once Queen Caroline's house. There they were diverting themselves,—boating and going about just as if the world had gone all right with them; and Bramleigh told me one morning that he had cashed the last check for fifty pounds.”
“And is he really determined to touch nothing of his property till the law assures him that his right is undeniable?”
“Worse than that, far worse; he has quarrelled with old Sedley, his father's law-agent for forty years, and threatened him with an action for having entered into a compromise without instructions or permission; and he is wrong, clearly wrong, for I saw the correspondence, and if it goes before a jury, they 'll say at once that there was consent.”
“Had he then forgotten it?” asked Julia.
“No, he neither forgets nor remembers; but he has a sort of flighty way of getting himself into a white heat of enthusiasm; and though he cools down occasionally into a little common sense, it does n't last; he rushes back into his heroics, and raves about saving him from himself, rescuing him from the ignoble temptation of self-interest, and such like balderdash.”
“There must be a great deal of true nobility in such a nature,” said Julia.
“I'll tell you what, there is; and it runs through them all except the eldest daughter, and that puppy the diplomatist—there's madness!”
“Madness?”
“Well, I call it madness. Suppose now I was to decline taking another glass of that wine—Steinheimer, I think it's called—till I saw your brother's receipt for the payment of it, would n't you say I was either mad or something very near it?”
“I don't see the parity between the two cases,” said Julia.
“Ah, you 're too sharp for me, Miss Julia, too sharp; but I 'm right all the same. Is n't Jack Bramleigh mad? Is it anything but madness for a man to throw up his commission and go and serve as a sailor—before the mast or behind it, I don't care which; but isn't that madness?”
Julia felt a sense of sickness almost to fainting, but she never spoke nor stirred, while George, quickly noticing her state, turned towards Cutbill and said,—
“What news have you of him? he was a great favorite of mine.”
“Of yours and of everybody's,” said Cutbill. And now the color rushed back to Julia's cheek, and had Cutbill but looked towards her, it is very probable he would greatly have misconstrued the smile she gave him. “I wish I had news of him: but for these last few months I have none. When he got out to China he found that great house, Alcock and Baines, smashed—all the tea-merchants were smashed—and they tell me that he shipped with a Yankee for Constantinople.”
“You heard from him, then?”
“No; he never writes to any one. He may send you a newspaper, or a piece of one, to show where he is; but he says he never was able to say what was in his head, and he always found he was writing things out of the 'Complete Correspondent.'”
“Poor Jack!”
“Shall I go and look after your coffee, George? You say you like me to make it myself,” said Julia; and she arose and left the room almost before he could reply.
“You 'll never marry while she's your housekeeper, I see that,” said Cutbill, as the door closed after her.
“She is my greatest comfort in life,” said the other, warmly.
“I see it all; and the whole time of dinner I was thinking what a pity it was—No matter, I 'll not say what I was going to say. I 'm glad you have n't told her of the smash till I see what I can do with the old Viscount.”
“But I have told her; she knows it all.”
“And do you tell me she had that heavy load on her heart all the time she was talking and laughing there?”
L'Estrange nodded.
“It's only women bear up that way. Take my word for it, if it had been one of us he 'd not have come down to dinner, he 'd not have had pluck to show himself. There's where they beat us, sir,—that's real courage.”
“You are not taking your wine,” said L'Estrange, seeing him pass the bottle.
“No; I want my head clear this evening, I want to be cool and collected. I'll not drink any more. Tell me about yourself a little; how do you get on here? do you like the place? do you like the people?”
“The place is charming; we like it better every day we live in it.”
“And the people—the English, I mean; what of them?”
“They mean kindly enough, indeed they are often very kind; but they do not live in much harmony, and they only agree in one thing—”
“I know what that is. They all join to worry the parson—of course they do. Did you ever live in a lodging-house, L'Estrange? If you did, you must have seen how the whole population coalesced to torment the maid-of-all-work. She belonged to them all, collectively and individually. And so it is with you. You are the maid-of-all-work. You have to make Brown's bed, and black Robinson's boots—spiritually, I mean—and none recognizes the claim of his neighbor, each believes you belong to himself. That's the voluntary system, as they call it; and a quicker way to drive a man mad was never invented.”
“Perhaps you take an extreme view of it—” began L'Estrange.
“No, I don't,” interrupted the other. “I 've only to look at your face, and instead of the fresh cheeks and the clear bright eyes I remember when I saw you first, I see you now anxious and pale and nervous. Where's the pluck that enabled you to ride at a five-foot wall? Do you think you could do it now?”
“Very likely not. Very likely it is all the better I should not.”
“You'll not get me to believe that. No man's nature was ever bettered for being bullied.”
L'Estrange laughed heartily, not in the least degree angered by the other's somewhat coarse candor.
“It's a queer world altogether; but maybe if each of us was doing the exact thing he was fit for, life would n't be half as good a thing as it is. The whole thing would be like a piece of machinery, and instead of the hitches and makeshifts that we see now, and that bring out men's qualities and test their natures, we'd have nothing but a big workshop, where each did his own share of the work, and neither asked aid nor gave it. Do you permit a cigar?”
“Of course; but I 've nothing worth offering you.”
“I have, though,” said he, producing his case and drawing forth a cheroot, and examining it with that keen scrutiny and that seeming foretaste of enjoyment peculiar to smokers. “Try that, and tell me when you tasted the equal of it. Ah, L'Estrange, we must see and get you out of this. It's not a place for you. A nice little vicarage in Hants or Herts, a sunny glebe, with a comfortable house and a wife; later on, a wife of course, for your sister won't stay with you always.”
“You've drawn a pleasant picture—only to rub it out again.”
“Miss Julia has got a bad headache, sir,” said the maid, entering at this moment, “and begs you will excuse her. Will you please to have coffee here or in the drawing-room?”
“Ay, here,” said Cutbill, answering the look with which the other seemed to interrogate him. “She could n't stand it any longer, and no wonder; but I 'll not keep you away from her now. Go up and say, I 'll see Lord Culduff in the morning, and if I have any news worth reporting, I 'll come out here in the afternoon.”
CHAPTER XL. “A RECEPTION” AT ROME.
It was the night of the Countess Balderoni's weekly reception, and the servants had just lighted up the handsome suite of rooms and disposed the furniture in fitting order, when the Countess and Lady Augusta Bramleigh entered to take a passing look at the apartment before the arrival of the guests.
“It is so nice,” said Lady Augusta, in her peculiar languid way, “to live in a country where the people are civilized enough to meet for intercourse without being fed, or danced, or fiddled for. Now, I tried this in London; but it was a complete failure. If you tell English people you are 'at home' every Tuesday or every Thursday evening, they will make a party some particular night and storm your salons in hundreds, and you'll be left with three or four visitors for the remainder of the season. Isn't that so?”
“I suspect it is. But you see how they fall into our ways here; and if they do not adopt them at home, there may be something in the climate or the hours which forbids it.”
“No, cara; it is simply their dogged material spirit, which says, 'We go out for a déjeûné, or a dinner, or a ball.' There must be a substantial programme of a something to be eaten or to be done. I declare I believe I detest our people.”
“How are you, then, to live amongst them?”
“I don't mean to I shall not go back. If I grow weary of Europe, I 'll try Egypt, or I 'll go live at Lebanon. Do you know, since I saw Lear's picture of the cedars, I have been dying to live there. It would be so delightful to lie under the great shade of those glorious trees, with one's 'barb' standing saddled near, and groups of Arabs in their white burnouses scattered about. What's this? Here's a note for you?”
The Countess took the note from the servant, and ran her eyes hurriedly over it.
“This is impossible,” murmured she, “quite impossible. Only think, Gusta, here is the French Secretary of Legation, Baron de Limayrac, asking my permission to present to me no less a person than Monsieur de Pracontal.”
“Do you mean the Pracontal—the Pretender himself?”
“Of course. It can be no other. Can you imagine anything so outrageously in bad taste? Limayrac must know who this man is, what claims he is putting forward, who he assumes to be; and yet he proposes to present him here. Of course I shall refuse him.”
“No, cara, nothing of the kind. Receive him by all means. You or I have nothing to do with law or lawyers,—he does not come here to prosecute his suit. On the contrary, I accept his wish to make our acquaintance as an evidence of a true gentlemanlike instinct; and, besides, I am most eager to see him.”
“Remember, Gusta, the Culduffs are coming here, and they will regard this as a studied insult. I think I should feel it such myself in their place.”
“I don't think they could. I am certain they ought not. Does any one believe that every person in a room with four or five hundred is his dear friend, devoted to him, and dying to serve him? If you do not actually throw these people together, how are they more in contact in your salon than in the Piazza del Popolo?”
“This note is in pencil, too,” went she on. “I suppose it was written here. Where is the Baron de Limayrac?”
“In his carriage, my Lady, at the door.”
“You see, dearest, you cannot help admitting him.”
The Countess had but time to say a few hurried words to the servant, when the doors were thrown open, and the company began to pour in. Arrivals followed each other in rapid succession, and names of every country in Europe were announced, as their titled owners—soldiers, statesmen, cardinals, or ministers—passed on, and grandes dames in all the plenitude of splendid toilette, sailed proudly by, glittering with jewels and filmy in costly lace.
While the Countess Balderoni was exchanging salutations with a distinguished guest, the Baron de Limayrac stood respectfully waiting his time to be recognized.
“My friend, Count Pracontal, madame,” said he, presenting the stranger, and, though a most frigid bow from the hostess acknowledged the presentation, Pracontal's easy assurance remained unabashed, and, with the coolest imaginable air, he begged he might have the great honor of being presented to Lady Augusta Bramleigh.
Lady Augusta, not waiting for her sister's intervention, at once accepted the speech as addressed to herself, and spoke to him with much courtesy.
“You are new to Rome, I believe?” said she.
“Years ago I was here; but not in the society. I knew only the artists, and that Bohemian class who live with artists,” said he, quite easily. “Perhaps I might have the same difficulty still, but Baron de Limayrac and I served together in Africa, and he has been kind enough to present me to some of his friends.”
The unaffected tone and the air of good-breeding with which these few words were uttered, went far to conciliate Lady Augusta in his favor; and after some further talk together she left him, promising, at some later period of the evening, to rejoin him and tell him something of the people who were there.
“Do you know, cara, that he is downright charming?” whispered she to her sister, as they walked together through the rooms. “Of course I mean Pracontal; he is very witty, and not in the least ill-natured. I 'm so sorry the Culduffs have not come. I 'd have given anything to present Pracontal to his cousin—if she be his cousin. Oh, here they are: and is n't she splendid in pearls?”
Lord and Lady Culduff moved up the salon as might a prince and princess royal, acknowledging blandly but condescendingly the salutations that met them. Knowing and known to every one, they distributed the little graceful greetings with that graduated benignity great people or would-be great people—for they are more alike than is generally believed—so well understand.
Although Lady Augusta and Lady Culduff had exchanged cards, they had not yet met at Rome, and now, as the proud peer moved along triumphant in the homage rendered to his own claims and to his wife's beauty, Lady Augusta stepped quietly forward, and in a tone familiarly easy said, “Oh, we 've met at last, Marion. Pray make me known to Lord Culduff.” In the little act of recognition which now passed between these two people, an acute observer might have detected something almost bordering on freemasonry. They were of the same “order,” and, though the circumstances under which they met left much to explain, there was that between them which plainly said, “We at least play on 'the square' with each other. We are within the pale, and scores of little misunderstandings that might serve to separate or estrange meaner folk, with us can wait for their explanations.” They chatted away pleasantly for some minutes over the Lord Georges and Lady Georginas of their acquaintance, and reminded each other of little traits of this one's health or that one's temper, as though of these was that world they belonged to made up and fashioned. And all this while Marion stood by mute and pale with anger, for she knew well how Lady Augusta was intentionally dwelling on a theme she could have no part in. It was with a marked change of manner, so marked as to imply a sudden rush of consciousness, that Lady Augusta, turning to her, said,—
“And how do you like Rome?”
A faint motion of the eyelids, and a half-gesture with the shoulders, seeming to express something like indifference, was the reply.
“I believe all English begin in that way. It is a place to grow into—its ways, its hours, its topics are all its own.”
“I call it charming,” said Lord Culduff, who felt appealed to.
“If you stand long on the brink here,” resumed she, “like a timid bather, you 'll not have courage to plunge in. You must go at it at once, for there are scores of things will scare you, if you only let them.”
Marion stood impassive and fixed, as though she heard but did not heed what was said, while Lord Culduff smiled his approval and nodded his assent in most urbane fashion.
“What if you came and dined here to-morrow, Marion? My sister is wonderfully 'well up' in the place. I warn you as to her execrable dinner; for her cook is Italian, pur sang, and will poison you with his national dishes; but we 'll be en petit comité.”
“I think we have something for to-morrow,” said Marion, coldly, and looking to Lord Culduff.
“To-morrow—Thursday, Thursday?” said he, hesitating. “I can't remember any engagement for Thursday.”
“There is something, I'm sure,” said Marion, in the same cold tone.
“Then let it be for Friday, and you 'll meet my brother-in-law; it 's the only day he ever dines at home in the week.”
Lord Culduff bowed an assent, and Marion muttered something that possibly meant acquiescence.
“I 've made a little dinner for you for Friday,” said Lady Augusta to her sister. “The Culduff s and Monsignore Ratti—that, with Tonino and ourselves, will be six; and I 'll think of another: we can't be an even number. Marion is heart-broken about coming; indeed, I 'm not sure we shall see her, after all.”
“Are we so very terrible then?” asked the Countess.
“Not you, dearest; it is I am the dreadful one. I took that old fop a canter into the peerage, and he was so delighted to escape from Bramleighia, that he looked softly into my eyes, and held my hand so unnecessarily long, that she became actually sick with anger. Now, I 'm resolved that the old Lord shall be one of my adorers.”
“Oh, Gusta!”
“Yes. I say it calmly and advisedly; that young woman must be taught better manners than to pat the ground impatiently with her foot and to toss her head away when one is talking to her husband. Oh, there's that poor Count Pracontal waiting for me, and looking so piteously at me; I forgot I promised to take him a tour through the rooms, and tell him who everybody is.”
The company began to thin off soon after midnight, and by one o'clock the Countess and her sister found themselves standing by a fireplace in a deserted salon, while the servants passed to and fro extinguishing the lights.
“Who was that you took leave of with such emphatic courtesy a few minutes ago?” asked Lady Augusta, as she leaned on the chimney-piece.
“Don't you know; don't you remember him?”
“Not in the least.”
“It was Mr. Temple Bramleigh.”
“What, mon fils Temple! Why didn't he come and speak to me?”
“He said he had been in search of you all the evening, and even asked me to find you out.”
“These Sevigné curls do that; no one knows me. Monsignore said he thought I was a younger sister just come out, and was going to warn me of the dangerous rivalry. And that was Temple? His little bit of moustache improves him. I suppose they call him good-looking?”
“Very handsome—actually handsome.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed the other, wearily; “one likes these gatherings, but it's always pleasant when they're over; don't you find that?” And not meeting a reply, she went on: “That tiresome man, Sir Marcus Cluff, made a descent upon me, to talk of—what do you think?—the church at Albano. It seems our parson there has nothing to live on during the winter months, and he is expected to be alive and cheery when spring comes round; and Sir Marcus says, that though seals do this, it 's not so easy for a curate; and so I said, 'Why does n't he join the other army? There's a cardinal yonder will take him into his regiment;' and Sir Marcus could n't stand this, and left me.” She paused, and seemed lost in a deep reverie, and then half-murmured rather than said, “What a nice touch he has on the piano; so light and so liquid withal.”
“Sir Marcus, do you mean?”
“Of course I don't,” said she, pettishly. “I'm talking of Pracontal. I 'm sure he sings—he says not, or only for himself; and so I told him he must sing for me, and he replied, 'Willingly, for I shall then be beside myself with happiness.' Just fancy a Frenchman trying to say a smart thing in English. I wonder what the Culduffs will think of him?”
“Are they likely to have an opportunity for an opinion?”
“Most certainly they are. I have asked him for Friday. He will be the seventh at our little dinner.”
“Not possible, Gusta! You could n't have done this!”
“I have, I give you my word. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?”
“All the reason in the world. You ask your relatives to a little dinner, which implies extreme intimacy and familiarity; and you invite to meet them a man whom, by every sentiment of self-interest, they must abhor.”
“Cara mia, I can't listen to such a vulgar argument. Monsieur de Pracontal has charming personal qualities. I chatted about an hour with him, and he is delightfully amusing; he 'll no more obtrude his claims or his pretensions than Lord Culduff will speak of his fifty years of diplomatic service. There is no more perfect triumph of good-breeding than when it enables us to enjoy each other's society irrespective of scores of little personal accidents, political estrangements, and the like; and to show you that I have not been the inconsiderate creature you think me, I actually did ask Pracontal if he thought that meeting the Culduffs would be awkward or unpleasant for him, and he said he was overjoyed at the thought; that I could not have done him a favor he would prize more highly.”
“He, of course, is very vain of the distinction. It is an honor he never could have so much as dreamed of.”
“I don't know that. I half suspect he is a gentleman who does not take a depreciatory estimate of either himself or his prospects.”
“At all events, Gusta, there shall be no ambuscade in the matter, that I 'm determined on. The Culduffs shall know whom they are to meet. I 'll write a note to them before I sleep.”
“How angry you are for a mere nothing! Do you imagine that the people who sit round a dinner-table have sworn vows of eternal friendship before the soup?”
“You are too provoking, too thoughtless,” said the other, with much asperity of voice; and taking up her gloves and her fan from the chimney-piece, she moved rapidly away and left the room.