“I understand that old Sir John is to accept the Chiltern Hundreds at once,” said Lady Lufton, in a half whisper to Frank Gresham. Lady Lufton had always taken a keen interest in the politics of East Barsetshire, and was now desirous of expressing her satisfaction that a Gresham should again sit for the county. The Greshams had been old county members in Barsetshire, time out of mind.
“Oh, yes; I believe so,” said Frank, blushing. He was still young enough to feel almost ashamed of putting himself forward for such high honours.
“There will be no contest, of course,” said Lady Lufton, confidentially. “There seldom is in East Barsetshire, I am happy to say. But if there were, every tenant at Framley would vote on the right side; I can assure you of that. Lord Lufton was saying so to me only this morning.”
Frank Gresham made a pretty little speech in reply, such as young sucking politicians are expected to make; and this, with sundry other small courteous murmurings, detained the Lufton party for a minute or two in the ante-chamber. In the meantime the world was pressing on and passing through to the four or five large reception-rooms—the noble suite which was already piercing poor Mrs. Proudie’s heart with envy to the very core. “These are the sort of rooms,” she said to herself unconsciously, “which ought to be provided by the country for the use of its bishops.”
“But the people are not brought enough together,” she said to her lord.
“No, no; I don’t think they are,” said the bishop.
“And that is so essential for a conversazione,” continued Mrs. Proudie. “Now in Gloucester Place—” But we will not record all her adverse criticisms, as Lady Lufton is waiting for us in the ante-room.
And now another arrival of moment had taken place—an arrival indeed of very great moment. To tell the truth, Miss Dunstable’s heart had been set upon having two special persons; and though no stone had been left unturned—no stone which could be turned with discretion—she was still left in doubt as to both these two wondrous potentates. At the very moment of which we are now speaking, light and airy as she appeared to be—for it was her character to be light and airy—her mind was torn with doubts. If the wished-for two would come, her evening would be thoroughly successful; but if not, all her trouble would have been thrown away, and the thing would have been a failure; and there were circumstances connected with the present assembly which made Miss Dunstable very anxious that she should not fail. That the two great ones of the earth were Tom Towers of the Jupiter, and the Duke of Omnium, need hardly be expressed in words.
And now, at this very moment, as Lady Lufton was making her civil speeches to young Gresham, apparently in no hurry to move on, and while Miss Dunstable was endeavouring to whisper something into the doctor’s ear, which would make him feel himself at home in this new world, a sound was heard which made that lady know that half her wish had at any rate been granted to her. A sound was heard—but only by her own and one other attentive pair of ears. Mrs. Harold Smith had also caught the name, and knew that the duke was approaching.
There was great glory and triumph in this; but why had his grace come at so unchancy a moment? Miss Dunstable had been fully aware of the impropriety of bringing Lady Lufton and the Duke of Omnium into the same house at the same time; but when she had asked Lady Lufton, she had been led to believe that there was no hope of obtaining the duke; and then, when that hope had dawned upon her, she had comforted herself with the reflection that the two suns, though they might for some few minutes be in the same hemisphere, could hardly be expected to clash, or come across each other’s orbits. Her rooms were large and would be crowded; the duke would probably do little more than walk through them once, and Lady Lufton would certainly be surrounded by persons of her own class. Thus Miss Dunstable had comforted herself. But now all things were going wrong, and Lady Lufton would find herself in close contiguity to the nearest representative of Satanic agency, which, according to her ideas, was allowed to walk this nether English world of ours. Would she scream? or indignantly retreat out of the house?—or would she proudly raise her head, and with outstretched hand and audible voice, boldly defy the devil and all his works? In thinking of these things as the duke approached Miss Dunstable almost lost her presence of mind.
But Mrs. Harold Smith did not lose hers. “So here at last is the duke,” she said, in a tone intended to catch the express attention of Lady Lufton.
Mrs. Smith had calculated that there might still be time for her ladyship to pass on and avoid the interview. But Lady Lufton, if she heard the words, did not completely understand them. At any rate they did not convey to her mind at the moment the meaning they were intended to convey. She paused to whisper a last little speech to Frank Gresham, and then looking round, found that the gentleman who was pressing against her dress was—the Duke of Omnium!
On this great occasion, when the misfortune could no longer be avoided, Miss Dunstable was by no means beneath herself or her character. She deplored the calamity, but she now saw that it was only left to her to make the best of it. The duke had honoured her by coming to her house, and she was bound to welcome him, though in doing so she should bring Lady Lufton to her last gasp.
“Duke,” she said, “I am greatly honoured by this kindness on the part of your grace. I hardly expected that you would be so good to me.”
“The goodness is all on the other side,” said the duke, bowing over her hand.
And then in the usual course of things this would have been all. The duke would have walked on and shown himself, would have said a word or two to Lady Hartletop, to the bishop, to Mr. Gresham, and such like, and would then have left the rooms by another way, and quietly escaped. This was the duty expected from him, and this he would have done, and the value of the party would have been increased thirty per cent. by such doing; but now, as it was, the newsmongers of the West End were likely to get much more out of him.
Circumstances had so turned out that he had absolutely been pressed close against Lady Lufton, and she, when she heard the voice, and was made positively acquainted with the fact of the great man’s presence by Miss Dunstable’s words, turned round quickly, but still with much feminine dignity, removing her dress from the contact. In doing this she was brought absolutely face to face with the duke, so that each could not but look full at the other. “I beg your pardon,” said the duke. They were the only words that had ever passed between them, nor have they spoken to each other since; but simple as they were, accompanied by the little byplay of the speakers, they gave rise to a considerable amount of ferment in the fashionable world. Lady Lufton, as she retreated back on to Dr. Easyman, curtsied low; she curtsied low and slowly, and with a haughty arrangement of her drapery that was all her own; but the curtsy, though it was eloquent, did not say half so much—did not reprobate the habitual iniquities of the duke with a voice nearly as potent, as that which was expressed in the gradual fall of her eye and the gradual pressure of her lips. When she commenced her curtsy she was looking full in her foe’s face. By the time that she had completed it her eyes were turned upon the ground, but there was an ineffable amount of scorn expressed in the lines of her month. She spoke no word, and retreated, as modest virtue and feminine weakness must ever retreat, before barefaced vice and virile power; but nevertheless she was held by all the world to have had the best of the encounter. The duke, as he begged her pardon, wore in his countenance that expression of modified sorrow which is common to any gentleman who is supposed by himself to have incommoded a lady. But over and above this—or rather under it—there was a slight smile of derision, as though it were impossible for him to look upon the bearing of Lady Lufton without some amount of ridicule. All this was legible to eyes so keen as those of Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Harold Smith, and the duke was known to be a master of this silent inward sarcasm; but even by them—by Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Harold Smith—it was admitted that Lady Lufton had conquered. When her ladyship again looked up, the duke had passed on; she then resumed the care of Miss Grantly�
�s hand, and followed in among the company.
“That is what I call unfortunate,” said Miss Dunstable, as soon as both belligerents had departed from the field of battle, “The Fates sometimes will be against one.”
“But they have not been at all against you here,” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “If you could arrive at her ladyship’s private thoughts to-morrow morning, you would find her to be quite happy in having met the duke. It will be years before she has done boasting of her triumph, and it will be talked of by the young ladies of Framley for the next three generations.”
The Gresham party, including Dr. Thorne, had remained in the ante-chamber during the battle. The whole combat did not occupy above two minutes, and the three of them were hemmed off from escape by Lady Lufton’s retreat into Dr. Easyman’s lap; but now they, too, essayed to pass on.
“What, you will desert me,” said Miss Dunstable. “Very well; but I shall find you out by-and-by. Frank, there is to be some dancing in one of the rooms—just to distinguish the affair from Mrs. Proudie’s conversazione. It would be stupid, you know, if all conversaziones were alike; wouldn’t it? So I hope you will go and dance.”
“There will, I presume, be another variation at feeding time,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.
“Oh yes, certainly; I am the most vulgar of all wretches in that respect. I do love to set people eating and drinking—Mr. Supplehouse, I am delighted to see you; but do tell me—” and then she whispered with great energy into the ear of Mr. Supplehouse, and Mr. Supplehouse again whispered into her ear. “You think he will, then?” said Miss Dunstable.
Mr. Supplehouse assented; he did think so; but he had no warrant for stating the circumstance as a fact. And then he passed on, hardly looking at Mrs. Harold Smith as he passed.
“What a hang-dog countenance he has,” said that lady.
“Ah, you’re prejudiced, my dear, and no wonder; as for myself I always liked Supplehouse. He means mischief; but then mischief is his trade, and he does not conceal it. If I were a politician I should as soon think of being angry with Mr. Supplehouse for turning against me as I am now with a pin for pricking me. It’s my own awkwardness, and I ought to have known how to use the pin more craftily.”
“But you must detest a man who professes to stand by his party, and then does his best to ruin it.”
“So many have done that, my dear; and with much more success than Mr. Supplehouse! All is fair in love and war—why not add politics to the list? If we could only agree to do that, it would save us from such a deal of heartburning, and would make none of us a bit the worse.”
Miss Dunstable’s rooms, large as they were—”a noble suite of rooms certainly, though perhaps a little too—too—too scattered, we will say, eh, bishop?”—were now nearly full, and would have been inconveniently crowded, were it not that many who came only remained for half-an-hour or so. Space, however, had been kept for the dancers—much to Mrs. Proudie’s consternation. Not that she disapproved of dancing in London, as a rule; but she was indignant that the laws of a conversazione, as re-established by herself in the fashionable world, should be so violently infringed.
“Conversaziones will come to mean nothing,” she said to the bishop, putting great stress on the latter word, “nothing at all, if they are to be treated in this way.”
“No, they won’t; nothing in the least,” said the bishop.
“Dancing may be very well in its place,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“I have never objected to it myself; that is, for the laity,” said the bishop.
“But when people profess to assemble for higher objects,” said Mrs. Proudie, “they ought to act up to their professions.”
“Otherwise they are no better than hypocrites,” said the bishop.
“A spade should be called a spade,” said Mrs. Proudie.
“Decidedly,” said the bishop, assenting.
“And when I undertook the trouble and expense of introducing conversaziones,” continued Mrs. Proudie, with an evident feeling that she had been ill-used, “I had no idea of seeing the word so—so—so misinterpreted;” and then observing certain desirable acquaintances at the other side of the room, she went across, leaving the bishop to fend for himself.
Lady Lufton, having achieved her success, passed on to the dancing, whither it was not probable that her enemy would follow her, and she had not been there very long before she was joined by her son. Her heart at the present moment was not quite satisfied at the state of affairs with reference to Griselda. She had gone so far as to tell her young friend what were her own wishes; she had declared her desire that Griselda should become her daughter-in-law; but in answer to this Griselda herself had declared nothing. It was, to be sure, no more than natural that a young lady so well brought up as Miss Grantly should show no signs of a passion till she was warranted in showing them by the proceedings of the gentleman; but notwithstanding this—fully aware as she was of the propriety of such reticence—Lady Lufton did think that to her Griselda might have spoken some word evincing that the alliance would be satisfactory to her. Griselda, however, had spoken no such word, nor had she uttered a syllable to show that she would accept Lord Lufton if he did offer. Then again she had uttered no syllable to show that she would not accept him; but, nevertheless, although she knew that the world had been talking about her and Lord Dumbello, she stood up to dance with the future marquis on every possible occasion. All this did give annoyance to Lady Lufton, who began to bethink herself that if she could not quickly bring her little plan to a favourable issue, it might be well for her to wash her hands of it. She was still anxious for the match on her son’s account. Griselda would, she did not doubt, make a good wife; but Lady Lufton was not so sure as she once had been that she herself would be able to keep up so strong a feeling for her daughter-in-law as she had hitherto hoped to do.
“Ludovic, have you been here long?” she said, smiling as she always did smile when her eyes fell upon her son’s face.
“This instant arrived; and I hurried on after you, as Miss Dunstable told me that you were here. What a crowd she has! Did you see Lord Brock?”
“I did not observe him.”
“Or Lord De Terrier? I saw them both in the centre room.”
“Lord De Terrier did me the honour of shaking hands with me as I passed through.”
“I never saw such a mixture of people. There is Mrs. Proudie going out of her mind because you are all going to dance.”
“The Miss Proudies dance,” said Griselda Grantly.
“But not at conversaziones. You don’t see the difference. And I saw Spermoil there, looking as pleased as Punch. He had quite a circle of his own round him, and was chattering away as though he were quite accustomed to the wickedness of the world.”
“There certainly are people here whom one would not have wished to meet, had one thought of it,” said Lady Lufton, mindful of her late engagement.
“But it must be all right, for I walked up the stairs with the archdeacon. That is an absolute proof, is it not, Miss Grantly?”
“I have no fears. When I am with your mother I know I must be safe.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Lord Lufton, laughing. “Mother, you hardly know the worst of it yet. Who is here, do you think?”
“I know whom you mean; I have seen him,” said Lady Lufton, very quietly.
“We came across him just at the top of the stairs,” said Griselda, with more animation in her face than ever Lord Lufton had seen there before.
“What; the duke?”
“Yes, the duke,” said Lady Lufton. “I certainly should not have come had I expected to be brought in contact with that man. But it was an accident, and on such an occasion as this it could not be helped.”
Lord Lufton at once perceived, by the tone of his mother’s voice and by the shades of her countenance that she had absolutely endured some personal encounter with the duke, and also that she was by no means so indignant at the occurrence as might have been expected. The
re she was, still in Miss Dunstable’s house, and expressing no anger as to Miss Dunstable’s conduct. Lord Lufton could hardly have been more surprised had he seen the duke handing his mother down to supper; he said, however, nothing further on the subject.
“Are you going to dance, Ludovic?” said Lady Lufton.
“Well, I am not sure that I do not agree with Mrs. Proudie in thinking that dancing would contaminate a conversazione. What are your ideas, Miss Grantly?”
Griselda was never very good at a joke, and imagined that Lord Lufton wanted to escape the trouble of dancing with her. This angered her. For the only species of love-making, or flirtation, or sociability between herself as a young lady, and any other self as a young gentleman, which recommended itself to her taste, was to be found in the amusement of dancing. She was altogether at variance with Mrs. Proudie on this matter, and gave Miss Dunstable great credit for her innovation. In society Griselda’s toes were more serviceable to her than her tongue, and she was to be won by a rapid twirl much more probably than by a soft word. The offer of which she would approve would be conveyed by two all but breathless words during a spasmodic pause in a waltz; and then as she lifted up her arm to receive the accustomed support at her back, she might just find power enough to say, “You—must ask—papa.” After that she would not care to have the affair mentioned till everything was properly settled.
“I have not thought about it,” said Griselda, turning her face away from Lord Lufton.
It must not, however, be supposed that Miss Grantly had not thought about Lord Lufton, or that she had not considered how great might be the advantage of having Lady Lufton on her side if she made up her mind that she did wish to become Lord Lufton’s wife. She knew well that now was her time for a triumph, now in this very first season of her acknowledged beauty; and she knew also that young, good-looking bachelor lords do not grow on hedges like blackberries. Had Lord Lufton offered to her, she would have accepted him at once without any remorse as to the greater glories which might appertain to a future Marchioness of Hartletop. In that direction she was not without sufficient wisdom. But then Lord Lufton had not offered to her, nor given any signs that he intended to do so; and to give Griselda Grantly her due, she was not a girl to make a first overture. Neither had Lord Dumbello offered; but he had given signs—dumb signs, such as birds give to each other, quite as intelligible as verbal signs to a girl who preferred the use of her toes to that of her tongue.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire Page 179