CHAPTER XXII.
MRS. LOBYER'S SKELETON.
Christmas-day at Pevenshall was very much like every other day. There was perhaps a little more eating and drinking than usual in the servants' hall, where the male portion of the assembly seemed to consider the inordinate consumption of strong drinks and warm spiced beverages indispensable to the due celebration of the season. A friendly rubber and a tankard of mulled port beguiled the cheerful evening in the housekeeper's room, while the mirth of the occasion was promoted by the witticisms of a linen-draper's assistant who was paying his addresses to Miss Evershed's maid, and had come from the market-town to spend his Christmas evening in the society of his betrothed. In these inferior regions the monster plum-pudding of the traditional Christmas appeared in a blaze of spirituous splendour at the three o'clock dinner, and reappeared in cold substantiality upon the loaded supper-table. Here there were glistening holly-berries, and the frail waxen mistletoe, with all the giggling and scuffling provoked by the magic bough; here, among Mr. Lobyer's well-fed retainers, jolly King Christmas deigned to show his honest rubicund visage in all its legendary geniality. But at Mr. Lobyer's dinner-table jolly King Christmas was a poor creature, represented in one of the later courses by a turkey that was ignominiously carved by an under butler upon the great oak sideboard, and which was handed about in small modicums, to be contemptuously rejected by surfeited diners who had just been regaled with a course of spring ducklings and early green peas at half a guinea a spoonful, and introducing himself furtively at the fag end of the banquet under cover of a small mould of some black compound, which the attendant offering it explained in a low voice as "plum-pudding." In Mr. Lobyer's drawing-room it might have been midsummer; for the fires at each end of the spacious chamber were hidden by great Parian screens, through which the red blaze shed only a rosy glow, like the low sunlight in a summer evening sky; and the atmosphere was odorous with the scent of roses and myrtles, hyacinth and myosotis, blooming in jardinières of ormolu and buhl, or fading in tall slender vases of fragile glass. The possessor of a million of money is the earthly incarnation of Zeus. At his bidding the summer fruits ripen at Christmas time; for his pleasure the nipping winter becomes a "time of roses." It is not to be expected, therefore, that the millionaire should put himself out of the way, because the common herd choose to be joyful; or that he should embrace dowagers under a vulgar mistletoe bough, and burn his fingers in the extraction of indigestible raisins from a dish of blazing spirits.
Nothing in Mr. Lobyer's manner on this particular twenty-fifth of December betrayed the faintest sympathy with those genial emotions common to the vulgar at this season of the year. He appeared in the drawing-room about five minutes before dinner, faultlessly attired in evening costume, and carrying his familiar—a fawn-coloured pug—in one of his big strong hands. Cecil found her host leaning against one of the mantelpieces, in his accustomed attitude, and caressing this brute, with a moody countenance, when she entered the drawing-room. He did the honours of the dinner-table in his usually graceful manner; and those amiable people who were never weary of sounding their host's praises in his character of a rough diamond, found him peculiarly delightful this evening; he was so quaint, so original, they said to each other confidentially, as the millionaire let fall some cynical remark now and then in the course of the banquet.
He seemed very glad to get back to the fawn-coloured familiar, which was snoring peacefully, half-buried in a fleecy rug, when the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room. He lifted the animal by one ear, and retired with it into the depths of an easy-chair, whence might be heard occasional growlings and snappings as the evening proceeded.
"I am afraid that grey shirtings were not lively," Florence whispered to Cecil, as the two ladies were preparing themselves for a duet.
At ten o'clock those splendid creatures, the matched footmen, were summoned to wheel the jardinières and étagères away from the centre of the room, while Lady Cecil and a young masculine pianist seated themselves at the instrument to play quadrilles and waltzes for a carpet-dance. It was at the same hour that Mr. Lobyer emerged from the depths of his easy-chair, flung the fawn-coloured animal into a corner, and walked towards one of the doors.
"Come and have a smoke in the billiard-room, Chapman," he said to one of his commercial friends, a bald-headed, warm-looking man, of whom the county people never took the faintest notice. Departing with this gentleman in his wake, Mr. Lobyer was seen no more among his guests that evening; and the carpet-dance went merrily; and a million stars shone brightly over Pevenshall out of a frosty blue sky, while midnight melted into morning; and the belle of the great drawing-room was bright, fair-haired, coquettish little Mrs. Lobyer. But the Christmas night came and went, and the bride of six months had no loving husband to take her hands in his and say, "God bless you, my darling, on this night above all nights of the year, and in all the days and nights to come!"
Sir Nugent Evershed made his appearance before luncheon on the twenty-sixth of December, with Scribe's comedy in his hand, much to the astonishment of his Cousin Grace.
"Jeffs must have been very rapid," she said. "He generally keeps me longer when I send for any thing."
"I didn't depend upon Jeffs," answered the Baronet; "I rode over to Chiverley after leaving here the night before last, and telegraphed to the Rue Vivienne. It was as easy to telegraph to Levy as to write to Jeffs, and I had set my heart on bringing the comedy to-day." He looked at Mrs. Lobyer rather than his cousin as he said this; but the two ladies were standing side by side, and a man's eyes may take the wrong direction unconsciously.
After luncheon, the party interested in the amateur theatricals adjourned to the morning-room, where Sir Nugent read the comedy, and where the arrangement of the characters was decided. Mrs. Lobyer was to play the heroine, the most bewitching of young widows; and Sir Nugent was to be the Marquis, poor, and reckless, and proud, but passionately attached to the bewitching young widow. Miss Grace Evershed consented to perform a malicious dowager, who made mischief between the spendthrift Marquis and the bewitching widow; and the rest of the cast was made up by a county squire, who had finished his education at Bonn, and spoke the French language as taught by German masters; and two of Mr. Lobyer's London friends, of the fast and flippant school, who appeared to be proficient in every modern language, and skilled in every art except that of keeping out of debt. One of the officers from Chiverley, who was known to be strong in the Thespian art, was requested to take a part in the piece, but he declined with a regretful sigh.
"I shall be in the wilds of Kerry when your performance comes off," he said; "our fellows are ordered off to Tralee on the tenth, and the 11th Plungers come into our quarters. I've often growled about the dreariness of Chiverley, but how I shall envy those fellows,—the queer old English town, and Pevenshall Place within an hour's ride! Do people live in such a place as Tralee? I have a sort of idea that we shall be surrounded by savage natives, and scalped on the night of our arrival. What luck the 11th have had in India! That young Gordon, whose father has such mints of money, has won a step within the last few months. That skirmish at Burradalchoodah made a major of him."
Cecil felt the blood rush to her face for a moment, and then a sick faintness came over her; and the brightly-furnished room spun round before her eyes, until it seemed as if she had been sitting amidst a whirlpool of light and colour. The low-toned voices and the light laughter clashed upon her ears like the noise of cymbals; but it was only for a moment. Womanly dignity came to her rescue after the first brief shock of surprise; and when Grace Evershed appealed to her presently upon some frivolous question, she was able to answer with unfaltering tones.
"What is he to me," she thought, "or what can he ever be to me? And why should I be startled by hearing that he is likely to be within a few miles of the house in which I am staying?"
And then she began to consider whether her visit at Pevenshall could not reasonably come to an end very speedily. Florence had asked her friend to come to her for a long time, and as yet Cecil had been little more than ten days in Yorkshire; but then, as Mr. O'Boyneville was unable to leave London, his wife had a very good reason for returning thither.
While Cecil was thinking of this, the talk was going on round her, and presently she heard Sir Nugent Evershed talking of Hector Gordon.
"He is a splendid fellow," said the Baronet; "I met him in Germany six years ago, and we saw a great deal of each other. He is the kind of man we want in India; the real Napier breed; the man who doesn't know when he is beaten. I was with him in a revolutionary row at Heidelberg. Gad! how he fought! The students wanted to chair him after the squabble; but he wouldn't stand any nonsense of that kind! What a night we made of it afterwards! There was a mad-brained fellow who fancied himself a poet, a brace of transcendentalists, and Gordon and I. I remember our sitting in the balcony of the hotel, drinking Rhine wine and talking meta-physics long after midnight, when the last twinkling light in the queer old city had been extinguished and every roof and steeple stood out clear and sharp in the moonlight. Gordon must be a glorious fellow, if he hasn't degenerated since then. We used to call him the Scottish lion in those days. The girls and old women came to their windows to stare at him as he strode along the miserable pavements, with his long auburn hair flying loose about his neck. I shall be very glad if he comes my way this winter; though I'm sorry they're going to send you fellows to Tralee, Foster."
The Pevenshall party were more interested in the costumes they were to wear for the comedy than in the merits of Major Gordon; so no more was said about that gentleman. Sir Nugent was intrusted with the duty of writing to a London costumier who would provide the masculine attire, and he further engaged himself to procure a set of coloured lithographs from which the ladies might choose their dresses. Having accepted these commissions, he departed: but not before he had received an invitation to dinner for the following day from Mr. Lobyer, who came into the morning-room before the party broke up, and who seemed, so far as in him lay, to be amiably disposed towards his visitors and the world in general.
Cecil left the drawing-room early that evening, in order to write some letters in her own apartment. She wrote a long gossiping epistle to her husband, telling him of the Pevenshall gaieties, the pending amateur theatricals, any thing and every thing which she thought likely to interest him, just for the few minutes during which he read her letter. It was not because the great barrister was busy and could only write brief scrawls to his wife that she should therefore curtail her letters to him. She was so earnestly anxious to do her duty—even if duty was now and then a little tiresome.
"And yet I doubt whether he will be able to take his mind away from all that horrible law-business, even while he reads my letter," she thought, as she concluded her missive.
In the course of the letter she had expressed her desire to return to London.
"I am amongst very pleasant people here, but do not like to stay so long away from home," she wrote, and she gave a faint sigh as she wrote the word "home;" "and as you find it impossible to join me here, I think I had better return to Brunswick Square early next week. You wished me to have change of air and scene; and any benefit I am likely to receive from them I have already secured. You know how little I care for gaiety, and how very comfortable I am with my books and piano. Let me have a line please, dear Laurence, by return of post, to say I may come back at the beginning of the week."
Florence peeped into her friend's room before retiring for the night, and Cecil told her of the letter she had been writing.
"I think if Mr. O'Boyneville cannot come down, I must go back to London next week, dear," she said.
But Florence declared such an arrangement utterly impossible.
"You have come to me, and I mean to keep you," she said. "You come here for change of scene, and then you talk of running back to that hideous Bloomsbury after a fortnight, and you even talk of going before our comedy. It is positively preposterous. Ah, I ought to have insisted on your taking a part in it. But I shall write to Mr. O'Boyneville myself if you are rebellious, and ask him to put his veto against your return."
"But, my dear Florence, you must know that I ought not to be so long away from home."
"I know nothing of the kind. In the last letter you showed me, Mr. O'Boyneville said he was delighted to think you were enjoying yourself here, and that he was up to his eyes in business. What can a man who is up to his eyes in business want with a wife?"
After this there were many discussions upon the same subject, and Cecil found that it was not at all easy to get away from Pevenshall, especially as she received a letter from Mr. O'Boyneville begging her to stay as long as she liked with her friends, and promising to run down for a day or two and escort her back to town if she stayed until the beginning of February. So there was nothing for her to do but to stay; and, after all, what substantial reason was there for her hurried departure? What was it to her if Hector Gordon came to Chiverley with his regiment? Was his coming to be a reason for her running away from the county? It was just possible that the officers of the coming regiment might be visitors at Pevenshall, as the officers of the departing regiment had been; but what did it matter to Lady Cecil O'Boyneville where or when she met her old acquaintance of the little Hampshire watering-place?
Such was the tenor of Cecil's thoughts when she thought at all of Major Gordon; but after once having resolved to remain at Pevenshall until the natural termination of her visit, she tried to banish all thought of Hector and his possible coming from her mind. She abandoned herself to the frivolities of Mrs. Lobyer's circle, and found those frivolities very pleasant in their way. If it was a useless life—and in a manner sinful by reason of its utter uselessness—it was at least very agreeable while the freshness of youth lasted; and Cecil had seen in the person of her aunt, that such frivolities may be tolerably agreeable to age. But in spite of all the brightness and gaiety of Mrs. Lobyer's life, Cecil found herself pitying her friend rather than envying her.
"Surely the day must come when she will be tired of it all," thought the barrister's wife, when Flo had been delighting every body by her vivacity. "She has too many pleasures, and too much splendour and luxury. She seems to me like a feminine Xerxes, and sooner or later she must grow tired of every mortal enjoyment, and cry out wearily for some new pleasure. How tired Cleopatra must have been of every thing upon earth when she drank that melted pearl!—surely only a little less tired than when she made an end of her life with the asp. And Solomon—what unutterable weariness there is in every line of that wonderful book in which he laments the emptiness and barrenness of his life! I cannot help thinking of these things when I see Flo hurrying from one amusement to another; from a hunting breakfast at home to a morning concert at Chiverley; and then for an hour's shopping in which she spends a small fortune upon things she doesn't want; and then home to meet fresh visitors at dinner; and then charades, or tableaux vivants, or a carpet-dance. She must grow tired of all this at last; but before that time this perpetual excitement will have become a habit, and society will be necessary to her, as it is to my aunt. I remember that line of Pope's:
What a picture it conjures up! Who would not prefer a home and home duties to that perpetual round of pleasures which so soon cease to please?"
And then Lady Cecil thought of the big dingy house in Bloomsbury, and wondered whether the serenity and quiet cheerfulness of the ideal home would ever pervade that dismal mansion. She had hung birds in the southern windows, and had bought rustic baskets of flowers, and perfumed caskets and workboxes, for the adornment of the dingy drawing-rooms; but she had not been able as yet to impart that homelike aspect to Mr. O'Boyneville's dwelling for which her soul yearned.
The Pevenshall visitors were busy with the preparations for the comedy. The billiard-room was given up to rehearsals; the billiard-table was pushed into a dark corner, much to the annoyance of Mr. Lobyer, who fled in despair to Manchester. There was a rehearsal every day during the fortnight preceding the eventful evening; for it is astonishing how much rehearsing one of Scribe's comedies requires when the performers are pretty girls and elegant young men. The business might have been managed in less time, perhaps, had there not been considerable hindrance of one kind and another to the steady progress of the affair. There was one day upon which the arrival of a box of powdered wigs from London interrupted the course of rehearsal, and ultimately put a stop to it, for Mrs. Lobyer having run away to try on her wig, the other ladies followed her example, and then the gentlemen were seized with a like curiosity as to the effect of powder; and there was a general trying on of wigs, all of which were pronounced by the wearers to be hideously ugly and cruelly disappointing; for the effect of a powdered wig, combined with modern costume, in the chill winter sunlight, is by no means agreeable. Other rehearsals were interrupted by little squabbles about stage arrangements: for Sir Nugent Evershed and the West-end club-men were at variance upon many points; while one of the latter gentlemen was inclined to give himself airs upon the strength of having assisted at the getting up of the School for Scandal at the Countess of Warlinghame's place at Twickenham; and then there was time lost by reason of feminine gigglings; and particular people were missing at important moments; and there was a great deal of trying back, and perpetual disputations as to entrances and exits. But it was altogether very delightful, and every one seemed to enjoy him or herself amazingly. Mr. Lobyer, looking into the billiard-room sometimes in the course of the morning, was wont to make some contemptuous remark upon the occupation of his wife and her guests, before taking his flight to Manchester. And so the days went by, until the last rehearsal took place on the evening prior to the performance, and every body was pronounced perfect in the words of the airiest and most delightful of modern dramatists. The dresses had arrived, after the prospective wearers had endured unspeakable tortures from the fear of their non-arrival. The stage was erected in the billiard-room, and never was temporary theatre more complete in its arrangements. Mrs. Lobyer's spirits rose with the prospect of her triumph; and Mr. Lobyer grew more disdainfully indifferent to his wife's folly as the important moment drew near.
The sixteenth of January was to be altogether a very grand day at Pevenshall. There was to be a hunt-breakfast in the morning, a dinner-party in the evening; after the dinner the private theatricals; and after that display of amateur talent a ball, at which the performers in the comedy were to appear in their stage-dresses. So far as Mr. Lobyer could be interested in any thing but the money-market, he was interested in the hunt-breakfast and the dinner, at both of which entertainments the men of his own set were to muster in full force. The master of Pevenshall had the chance of pleasure at a very early period of his existence, and not being gifted with a very large stock of vivacity, had speedily exhausted the effervescence of his nature. For the last few years of his life all the force of his mind, all the energy of his character, had been directed towards the one end and aim of the successful trader. To make twenty per cent. where other men were making fifteen; to anticipate the future of the money market; to foreshadow the influence of coming events, and to enrich himself by such foresight,—for this Mr. Lobyer spent his days in meditation, and his sleepless nights in care and anguish. But he was still capable, in his own stolid way, of taking some kind of pleasure out of the splendour of his surroundings, the skill of his cook, the perfection of his wines, and the homage which he received from the minions of the money-market. He felt a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that his wife was beautiful, and that other men admired her and envied him because he was her husband. If he had been an Oriental potentate, he would have taken to himself a hundred wives—not so much for his own happiness as in the hope that other potentates who could boast only fifty wives would envy him the delights of his harem. Not being an Oriental potentate, he had done the best he could in uniting himself to the prettiest woman and the most insolent coquette he had encountered. He had gratified himself, to the annoyance and mortification of other people. From his childhood he had been fully alive to the advantage of being the son of a millionaire, of having been in a manner born in the commercial purple; and the desire of his life had been that all his belongings should be infinitely superior to the belongings of other people. If another millionaire had arisen in the county, and had built for himself a larger place than Pevenshall, Mr. Lobyer would have commissioned Messrs. Foster to dispose of Pevenshall to the highest bidder, and would have erected a nobler and bigger mansion than the palace of the new millionaire. It is just possible that Thomas Lobyer had some vague consciousness that, considered apart from his money, he was a paltry and detestable creature; and that he was therefore eager to make the most of the glamour which splendid surroundings can impart to the meanest object. Aladdin playing in the streets and by-ways of the city is only the idle waif and stray of a defunct tailor; but Aladdin with the command of an orchard whose fruits are rubies and diamonds—Aladdin the tenant of the enchanted palace, and owner of the roc's egg,—is altogether another person. One fancies him arrayed in shining tissues of gold and silver, blazing with jewels, handsome, dashing, elegant, delightful—or, in one word, successful; and the vulgar antecedents of the tailor's son are utterly forgotten.
Mr. Lobyer was neither an exacting nor a tyrannical husband. He had secured for himself the best thing in wives, as he had the best thing in horses and modern pictures and dogs. If he held her a little lower than his short-legged hunter, a little less dear than his fawn-coloured pug, he at least gave her as much as she had any right to expect from him. She had married him for his money, and he gave her his money. She spent as much as she pleased; she amused herself after her own fashion. If now and then, moved by some short-lived conscientious scruple, she made an attempt to consult him or to defer to his pleasure, Mr. Lobyer took good care to show his wife that his pleasure was in no way concerned in hers, and that to be consulted by her was to be inexpressibly bored. He let her see very plainly that she was only a part of his pomp and splendour, and that she had nothing to do but to dress herself to perfection, and excite the envy of his toadies and familiars. If he gave her costly jewels, it was in order that she might be an advertisement of his own wealth and importance; and he scowled at her if she came down to dinner in some simple girlish dress when he wanted her to swell his magnificence.
"What the doose made you stick those dam' rosebuds in your hair when Brownjohn the drysalter was over here?" he asked savagely. "What's the good of a fellow givin' you five or six thousand pounds worth of diamonds, if you lock 'em up in your jewel-case, and dress yourself up in white muslin and blue ribbon, like a boardin' school miss tricked out for a dancin' lesson. Brownjohn's fat old wife had a breastplate of diamonds that would have looked as yellow as barleysugar beside your tiara; and Brownjohn is just the sort of man to notice those things."
"But what does it matter how I am dressed?" Flo would inquire; "Mr. Brownjohn knows how rich you are."
"Perhaps he does, and perhaps he does not. You don't know those Manchester fellows; they believe in nothing except what they see; and Brownjohn knows that I have been struck rather heavily within the last six months."
Mrs. Lobyer in her own secret soul rejoiced that she was not more intimately acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of Mr. Brownjohn and other men of his class. She had a faint idea that to be "struck rather heavily" meant something unpleasant; but as her husband did not invite her sympathy, she did not consider herself in anyway bound to be uneasy because of such unpleasantness. If ever she thought about Mr. Lobyer's financial position, she thought of him as the owner of wealth so enormous that no mistaken adventure could exhaust or even diminish it in any palpable manner.
"I don't know why he worries himself about the money-market," she said to Cecil. "He couldn't spend any more money than he does if his income were trebled; but I suppose, after reaching a certain point, a man takes pleasure in the magnitude of his wealth without any reference to the use he can make of it. I dare say Mr. Lobyer is tired of being a millionaire—there are so many millionaires nowadays—and a man must be a millionaire if he wants to be any thing out of the common."
The sixteenth of January began very pleasantly. The breakfast went off delightfully. The gentlemen mounted their covert hacks at eleven o'clock, and rode off to the meet, accompanied by a party of blooming equestrians, with Miss Evershed for their leader, and followed by a landau filled with older and less adventurous ladies. These ladies were only to witness the meet, for there were no Diana Vernons at Pevenshall. Miss Evershed rode superbly, but professed a supreme contempt for hunting.
"I believe there was a time when a lady could hunt," she said, when the subject was discussed at the breakfast-table, "and when she knew whom she was likely to meet at covert. But that is all changed now, and we leave the sport to people who seem to enjoy it amazingly, and who can better afford to shake a valuable hunter once or twice in the season than we could."
Miss Evershed happened to be looking at her host as she gave utterance to these remarks, and over that gentleman's swarthy complexion there came a dusky tinge of crimson as he evaded the young lady's fearless gaze.
"It would be rather hard if the hunting-field wasn't free to good riders," he muttered. "I'm sure one meets plenty of bad ones there every day!"
Neither Mrs. Lobyer nor Lady Cecil were among the ladies who rode to covert; for Florence wanted to read one particular scene in the comedy for the last time, and she begged her dear Cecil to stay at home until the afternoon, when they could drive out together.
"They've made me a new set of harness for the grey ponies," Flo said; "harness with bells. In frosty weather it quite gives one the idea of a sledge. If it were not for the hunting people, I should wish it were frosty. We can go out directly after luncheon, Cecil; and I dare say we shall meet those hunting people somewhere or other in the course of our drive. In the mean time I shall go and inflict solitary confinement upon myself while I read over that long scene with the Marquis. I wonder whether Sir Nugent will be nervous. I'm sure I shall; and if we are both nervous, the scene will be a failure."
Mrs. Lobyer retired to her own apartments, and Cecil spent her morning in writing letters. She had heard no mention of Hector Gordon's name since the afternoon on which the comedy had been read by Sir Nugent Evershed; and she had done her uttermost to exclude all thought of him from her mind. But she knew that on the 10th the Fusiliers had left for Tralee, and that on the same day the Plungers had taken possession of Chiverley Barracks. There had been some talk about these Indian heroes amongst callers at Pevenshall, but no special mention of Major Gordon. She knew that he was near her; that although it was quite possible that she might leave Yorkshire without having seen him, it was equally possible that at any moment he might appear before her—a guest in the house which sheltered her. She had been so accustomed to think of him as utterly divided from her—the inhabitant of another world—that the knowledge of his near neighbourhood affected her with a feeling that was nearly akin to terror.
"What reason have I to be afraid of him?" she asked herself again and again; but in spite of all reason she was oppressed by some kind of fear when she thought of the many chances that might bring Hector Gordon across her path.
Mrs. Lobyer was in her highest spirits at luncheon. The gentlemen were all away in the hunting-field except Sir Nugent, who had arrived at Pevenshall an hour or two after breakfast, and had been supervising the upholsterer's men as they put the finishing touches to the theatre and dressing rooms. He was to dine and spend the night in Mr. Lobyer's mansion. After luncheon he escorted the two ladies to their carriage, patted and admired the pretty grey ponies, and placed the reins in Mrs. Lobyer's hands.
"You'll not drive far," he said; "remember that as stage-manager I have some kind of authority; and I must beg that you don't fatigue yourself. You have your dinner to go through, you know. It will be nine o'clock before you leave the dining-room; and our performance must commence at ten. An hour is a very short time for a Pompadour toilette."
"The dinner is a horrible bore," answered Flo; "those Manchester friends of Mr. Lobyer's care for nothing but dinners; and Manchester is paramount in this house. Why can't one put one's housekeeper at the head of the table on such occasions? I'm sure Mrs. Prowen is a very ladylike person, and I could lend her some of my diamonds. You don't know how I hate those wearisome banquets, Sir Nugent, with the eternal Palestine soup, and turbot, and haunches of mutton, and sparkling moselle, and crystallised fruit, and forced pineapples, and wax-candles, and that stifling odour peculiar to all dining-rooms, which seems like a combination of roast meat and rose-water. But give the ponies their heads, if you please. How long am I to drive?"
She asked the question in her most charming manner, with that half-coquettish air of submission which is so delightful when evinced by a very pretty woman towards a man to whom she has no right to defer.
"An hour and a half at the uttermost," answered the Baronet, looking at his watch. "I shall be on the look-out for your return; and if you outstay your leave of absence, I shall exercise my authority as stage-manager, and condemn you to the most awful penance I can imagine. You shall play Léonie de Presles without your wig."
"That would be a very small penance; I am sure the wig is hideously ugly, and that I shall look a perfect object in it."
"And I am sure you think no such thing, Mrs. Lobyer. I know you tried the effect of the wig last night by candlelight, and were charmed with it; yes, your blushes convict you; and Lady Cecil knows I am right."
Flo shook her head in coquettish protestation, and drove away; the bells jingling gaily in the frosty air as she went.
"Isn't he nice, Cecil?" she asked presently.
"Who, dear?"
"Sir Nugent, of course."
"Yes, he is very agreeable. But I think——"
"You think what, Cecil? Pray speak out. I can't bear people to begin sentences they can't finish."
"Perhaps you'll be offended if I speak frankly."
"Oh dear, no, say just what you like. It is my normal state to be lectured. People never hesitate to say what they please about me and my goings on."
"I think, dear, you are a little too much inclined to talk to him in a manner, or to let him talk to you in a manner that is almost like flirting. I know how difficult it is to draw the line between what is and what is not flirting; and I dare say you will think me very absurd, dear——"
"I don't think you at all absurd. I know that I flirt with Sir Nugent Evershed."
"Flo!"
"Do you think that I am going to pretend about it, or to dispute as to the exact shade of my iniquity? I talk to Sir Nugent, and I let him pay me compliments—of course they are the airiest and most elegant compliments, like the little epigrammatic speeches in a comedy—and I sing the songs he recommends me to sing, and I read the books he begs me to read, and I have allowed him to bring me ferns from the fernery at Howden Park; and I suppose all that constitutes a flirtation of a very abominable character. But after all, Cecil, why shouldn't I flirt, if it amuses me to do so?"
"But, Florence——"
"But, Cecil, who cares about my flirtations? Mr. Lobyer does not; and I suppose if he is satisfied, other people may let me go my own way. Mr. Lobyer likes to see Sir Nugent dancing attendance upon me, because Sir Nugent is one of the best men in the county, and his hanging about Pevenshall improves Mr. Lobyer's position auprès de Manchester. I know I am a very worthless creature, Cecil; but I am not utterly iniquitous; and I try to do my duty to my husband after a fashion. If I saw that my flirting annoyed him, I would turn district-visitor, and never open my lips except to talk of charity-schools and new iron churches."
"But how do you know that Mr. Lobyer is not annoyed? Some men are so reserved upon such points."
"I know that he is almost always at Manchester; and that when he is at home he is generally in the billiard or smoking-room. Please, Cecil, don't say any more about it. There are some things that won't bear talking of. Tell me how you like the bells; they do give you the idea of a sledge, don't they?"
Nothing could be more charming than the vivacity of Mrs. Lobyer's manner as she turned to her friend with this frivolous question; and yet only a moment before she had been very much in earnest, and the face half averted from Cecil had been a very sad one.
They drove for some miles along a pleasant country road, and then turned into a lane.
"I think we had better go home by Gorsemoor," said Flo; "I know you like that wild bleak open country."
They had emerged from the lane on to the wide hard road which skirted the broad stretch of common land called Gorsemoor, where Flo espied a little group of country people clustered at a spot where two roads crossed, and where there was a little wayside inn.
"You may depend they are waiting for some of the hunting-party," exclaimed Mrs. Lobyer. "Look out, Cecil; do you see any signs of pink in the distance?"
"Yes, I see two or three red coats coming across the common, and a lady."
"A lady? Yes, it is a lady! Who can it be? I know no lady about here who hunts. It must be a stranger; shall we stop and indulge our curiosity, Cecil?"
"If you like."
They had reached the cross roads and the little cluster of country people by this time; and Flo's ponies, which had been driven at a good pace by that young lady, were by no means disinclined to draw breath. The country people within a few paces of the carriage looked at the two ladies. One old gaffer touched his hat, and a woman dropped a curtsey; but this was only the ordinary deferential greeting given to unknown "quality." The lady in the pony carriage was not recognised as the mistress of Pevenshall Place. Gorse Common was just a little outside the radius within which the influence of Pevenshall reigned supreme.
The red-coats were riding at a leisurely pace, and their horses gave evidence of having done a good day's work. Flo had not drawn up her ponies three minutes when the huntsmen and the lady reached the cross-roads. There were four hunts-men—two stout middle-aged men, whose tired horses straggled in the rear, and a young man who rode abreast with the lady by his side. It was upon this lady that the little cluster of villagers and the two friends in the pony carriage, as if by common consent, concentrated their attention. She was a very handsome lady—of the red-and-white school; very red and very white—in spite of a little blowsiness incidental to a hard day's hunting; she had a great deal of hair; and if some of the voluminous tresses, which had escaped from a chenille net and had fallen loose on her shoulders, did not quite correspond in shade, it was the fault of her hairdresser. She had bold black eyebrows, and a bush of frizzled ringlets plastered very low upon her forehead; so low, indeed, that there was scarcely any thing between the eyebrows and the frizzy hair. Her habit fitted her exquisitely—if possible, just a little too exquisitely—and there was more braid about it than is compatible with the strictest pureism in the ethics of costume. She wore a white chimney-pot hat, with a black veil, and a stand-up collar of the most masculine type, and the stand-up collar was fastened with one very large diamond—a diamond which Florence remembered as the fastening of Mr. Lobyer's collar when he had first attended the Sunday evenings at the Fountains.
The lady was talking very loudly to the gentleman who rode by her side as they passed the pony carriage, and neither the gentleman nor the lady appeared to observe the grey ponies or their owner. This was, perhaps, fortunate, inasmuch as the gentleman was Mr. Lobyer. He was laughing quite heartily at something his companion was saying, and had half turned in his saddle to speak to the two men behind.
"Did you hear her?" he cried triumphantly. "Say what you will, she'll put a topper on it."
In all Cecil's acquaintance with the master of Pevenshall, she had never heard him laugh so heartily, or give any such evidence of high spirits. She had just time enough to see what manner of person the lady was when the two riders had passed and were gone. The stout men on the tired horses followed. They were two of the Pevenshall visitors who talked "money-market" with Mr. Lobyer, and one of them espied Florence. He lifted his hat, and saluted her as he passed, with abject confusion visible in every line of his countenance. Young ladies who put "toppers" upon conversation may be very agreeable, but a man who devotes himself to their society is apt to expose himself to the chances of rather awkward encounters.
"Doant yon lassie make Tom Lobyer's money spin?" said the gaffer. "Dick Stanner tould me as young Lobyer bought yon mare in York after t' last soommer reaces, and gave close upon fower hundred pound for her. And they say as the bay hoonter she staked at the early part of the winter cost nigh upon as mooch. I think t' ould gentleman would turn in his grave if he could know th' dooks and drakes th' yoong'un is making of his brass."
"Is that lady in the white hat Mrs. Lobyer?" asked a country woman.
"Loard bless ye heart, no, missis—no more than you be. But I'll tell you what she is. She's Mr. Lobyer's master. Dick Stanner, one of the grooms at Howden, he tould me all about her. She lives at Manchester, she does, most of her time. Miss de Raymond they call her; but she comes over to Chiverley in the hoonting season. She's got a house they call a willer, outside Manchester, and keeps her brougham. Dick Stanner had a friend as lived coachman with her, but he said she was such a wild cat in her tantrums, he wouldn't have stayed in her service for ten pound a-week. She'd been a regular out and outer up in London, Dick says, and had helped to ruin as rich a man as young Lobyer. He picked her up in town, and Dick says he's more afraid of a black look from her than——"
Florence whipped her ponies sharply, and they started off at a pace which startled the little group of country people. She had heard quite enough in those three minutes during which she had listened almost involuntarily to the gaffer's discourse. Cecil had laid her hand upon her friend's arm entreatingly when the old man mentioned Mr. Lobyer's name, but Flo sat quite still with her eyes fixed on the speaker, and was not to be aroused from the kind of stupor that had seized her at sight of the bold red-and-white-faced woman riding by her husband's side.
They drove some distance on their way homeward before either of the ladies spoke. To Cecil the situation was cruelly painful. Her heart bled for the frivolous girl who had sold herself for wealth and splendour, and of whose future she thought with absolute terror. What was to become of her? So young, so reckless, so much admired; surrounded by every species of temptation, and exposed to neglect and outrage from the husband who should have protected her.
"Perhaps they can be separated on account of this horrible woman," Cecil thought as she pondered the matter during the silent drive. "If Mr. Crawford could only know his son-in-law's conduct, I am sure he would interfere."
And then she determined, whenever a fitting opportunity arose, to implore Flo to intrust her father with the story of her wrongs. In the mean time she looked anxiously at the fair young face half averted from her, and she saw that although Mrs. Lobyer was very pale, her countenance wore a look of quiet resolution scarcely to be expected from so frivolous a person.
"You can understand now, Cecil, how little my flirting with Sir Nugent can matter to Mr. Lobyer," she said, as they passed the gates of Pevenshall, speaking for the first time since she had stopped to listen to the country people's talk.
"Did you know any thing about this before to-day, Flo?"
"I did not know any thing about Miss de Raymond, if that is what you mean; but I have known that my husband does not care about me ever since we came back to England. I dare say Miss de Raymond is a very agreeable person; she seemed to be making them laugh very much. Don't you think her handsome? I do. And I suppose that white hat with the black veil is the sort of thing you call chic."
"Flory, for Heaven's sake, don't talk like that."
"How should I talk? I mean to be wise in my generation, and take life lightly. If Mr. Lobyer buys four-hundred-guinea mares for Miss de Raymond, I suppose Sir Nugent Evershed may bring me maiden's hair from the Howden fernery. I'm afraid you don't understand modern philosophy, Cecil. I do; and I mean to be profoundly philosophical. There is Sir Nugent waiting for us on the terrace. Wasn't it fortunate I insisted on going out without a groom? Though, for the matter of that, I dare say they know all about Miss de Raymond in the servants' hall."
The Baronet came down the steps to assist the ladies in dismounting, while a clanging bell rang in the cupola above the stables, and two eager grooms ran out to receive the vehicle.
"You have been away two hours, Mrs. Lobyer," said Sir Nugent. "Am I to blame you or Lady Cecil for this disobedience to managerial orders?"
His airy gaiety jarred upon Cecil; but Flo answered him vivaciously in her clear ringing voice, and looked at him with a bright smile, though her face was still colourless.
"How pale you are looking!" he said, with some alarm. "The air has been too cold for you."
"It is rather cold—a dull, damp, penetrating cold," said Flo, with a piteous little shiver; "and now I am going for my own reasons to take a siesta, and I shall forbid any body to come near me."
She glanced at Cecil as she spoke, and ran away, as if she would fain have avoided the possibility of any further discussion. Cecil and Sir Nugent went into the house together.
"All the theatrical party are possessed by a kind of fever this afternoon," said the Baronet. "My Cousin Grace has been walking up and down the terrace muttering to herself like a sibyl, and George Miniver has been pacing the picture-gallery in a dramatic frenzy. How little this evening's visitors will appreciate the agonies we have undergone for their amusement! As for me, I feel a kind of despairing resignation to the ordeal that awaits me, such as one can fancy a man may feel the night before his execution. I have been playing billiards all the afternoon with some officers from Chiverley, in order to get rid of the time."
"Some officers from Chiverley." The phrase set Cecil's heart beating at an abnormal pace. The only officers now at Chiverley were the Plungers. And yet Lady Cecil O'Boyneville had no right to be affected by any intelligence relating to the Plungers. She thought of poor Flo's miserable circumstances, and remembered how much happier her own life was, even in Bloomsbury. It may be a hard thing to have a husband who gives his best thoughts to the interests of a soap-boiling company; but it is infinitely harder to have a husband who devotes his leisure to the society of a Miss de Raymond.
Cecil went to her own pretty sitting-room, where the candles were lighted and the fire burning brightly. She took a book, and tried to read until it was time to dress for dinner; but the thought of Flo's and her own domestic circumstances came between her and the page. She was glad when the little clock on the chimney-piece struck half-past six, and there was some excuse for beginning her toilette for the eight-o'clock dinner. It was about half-past seven when she went down stairs, dressed for the evening, and looking very elegant and very girlish in a fresh toilette of white tulle, with wreath and bouquets of snowdrops—a costume which had been ordered from a French milliner for this especial evening, in accordance with a suggestion of Mrs. Lobyer's.
The great drawing-room was blazing with light, and bright with assembled guests, when Cecil entered it—so bright that its first effect was eminently bewildering, and the newcomer was glad to gain the sanctuary of a triangular ottoman on which Clara Evershed and the sentimental widow were talking scandal under a pyramid of exotics.
"We have been amusing ourselves by the study of Mr. Lobyer's friends," said Miss Evershed. "What delightful people they are, and what a privilege it is to meet them! They have begun to talk about American finance and the drain of gold already. However, we are not entirely given over to Manchester. The military element is strong among us. There are three or four of the Plungers, and amongst them that Major Gordon, who distinguished himself at Burradalchoodah."
The room, bright and confused before, span round before Cecil's eyes for a moment, a chaos of light and splendour.
"Is Major Gordon here?" she asked.
"Yes. Do you know him? He is over there by the fireplace, talking to Nugent and Mr. Lobyer. Don't you think him very handsome? I do; much handsomer than Nugent; grander and more distinguished; not such a dash of petit-maître about him; but then no civilian is ever quite equal to a high-bred military man. I suppose the girls here will allow poor Nugent a relâche, and devote their attention to the Major, who is a widower, and enormously rich, I am told."
"Yes," Cecil answered quietly; "he is very rich; he is my aunt's nephew, and a kind of distant connection of my own, I suppose."
Miss Evershed's volubility had given Cecil time to recover her composure, and to read herself one of those little lectures with which she had been accustomed of late to school herself. What reason had she to be agitated? What was it to her that chance had brought Hector Gordon to Pevenshall? Could there be any one in the room more utterly a stranger to her than he must be for evermore? She remembered this, and tried to think of her absent husband-brooding over the details of Snooks versus Tomkins by his lonely hearth, while she affected to listen to Miss Evershed's vivacious chatter.
Across the crowd she saw the proud head that had bent over her on the misty sands. They were strangers—such utter strangers now and for evermore; but even in that lighted room, amidst the odour of exotics, the buzz and hum of many voices, the breath of the ocean came back to her, and like a rushing wind from that unforgotten sea returned the memory of the past, with all its sorrow and passion, its silent anguish and despair.