by Ellen Wood
“By a half-word he let drop, I fancy he has a crotchet in his head that his lordship will find him some work when he comes home. But I must go on my way,” added Mirrable. “Mrs. Gum’s not well, and I sent word I’d look in for half-an-hour this evening.”
Hedges had to go on his way also, for it was close upon the countess-dowager’s dinner-hour, at which ceremony he must attend. Putting his best foot forward, he walked at more than an ordinary pace, and overtook a gentleman almost at the very door of Hartledon. The stranger was approaching the front entrance, Hedges was wheeling off to the back; but the former turned and spoke. A tall, broad-shouldered, grey-haired man, with high cheek-bones. Hedges took him for a clergyman from his attire; black, with a white neckcloth.
“This is Hartledon House, I believe,” he said, speaking with a Scotch accent.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you belong to it?”
“I am Lord Hartledon’s butler.”
“Is Lord Hartledon at home?”
“No, sir. He is in France.”
“I read a notice of his marriage in the public papers,” continued the stranger, whose eyes were fixed on Hedges. “It was, I suppose, a correct one?”
“My lord was married the week before last: about ten or eleven days ago.”
“Ay; April the fourteenth, the paper said. She is one of the Kirton family. When do you expect him home?”
“I don’t know at all, sir. I’ve not heard anything about it.”
“He is in France, you say, Paris, I suppose. Can you furnish me with his address?”
Up to this point the colloquy had proceeded smoothly on both sides: but it suddenly flashed into the mind of Hedges that the stranger’s manner was somewhat mysterious, though in what the mystery lay he could not have defined. The communicative man, true to the interests of his master, became cautious at once: he supposed some of Lord Hartledon’s worries, contracted when he was Mr. Elster, were returning upon him.
“I cannot give his address, sir. And for the matter of that, it might not be of use if I could. Lord and Lady Hartledon did not intend remaining any length of time in one place.”
The stranger had dug the point of his umbrella into the level greensward that bounded the gravel, and swayed the handle about with his hand, pausing in thought.
“I have come a long way to see Lord Hartledon,” he observed. “It might be less trouble and cost for me to go on to Paris and see him there, than to start back for home, and come here again when he returns to England. Are you sure you can’t give me his address?”
“I’m very sorry I can’t, sir. There was a talk of their going on to Switzerland,” continued Hedges, improvising the journey, “and so coming back through Germany; and there was a talk of their making Italy before the heat came on, and stopping there. Any way, sir, I dare say they are already away from Paris.”
The stranger regarded Hedges attentively, rather to the discomfiture of that functionary, who thought he was doubted. He then asked a great many questions, some about Lord Hartledon’s personal habits, some about Lady Maude: the butler answered them freely or cautiously, as he thought he might, feeling inclined all the while to chase the intruder off the premises. Presently he turned his attention on the house.
“A fine old place, this, Mr. Butler.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I suppose I could look over it, if I wished?”
Hedges hesitated. He was privately asking himself whether the law would allow the stranger, if he had come after any debt of Lord Hartledon’s, to refuse to leave the house, once he got into it.
“I could ask Lady Kirton, sir, if you particularly wished it.”
“Lady Kirton? You have some one in the house, then!”
“The Dowager Lady Kirton’s here, sir. One of her sons also — Captain Kirton; but he is confined to his room.”
“Then I would rather not go in,” said the stranger quickly. “I’m very disappointed to have come all this way and not find Lord Hartledon.”
“Can I forward any letter for you, sir? If you’d like to intrust one to me, I’ll send it as soon as we know of any certain address.”
“No — no, I think not,” said the stranger, musingly. “There might be danger,” he muttered to himself, but Hedges caught the words.
He stood swaying the umbrella-handle about, looking down at it, as if that would assist his decision. Then he looked at Hedges.
“My business with Lord Hartledon is quite private, and I would rather not write. I’ll wait until he is back in England: and see him then.”
“What name, sir?” asked Hedges, as the stranger turned away.
“I would prefer not to leave my name,” was the candid answer. “Good evening.”
He walked briskly down the avenue, and Hedges stood looking after him, slightly puzzled in his mind.
“I don’t believe it’s a creditor; that I don’t. He looks like a parson to me. But it’s some trouble though, if it’s not debt. ‘Danger’ was the word: ‘there might be danger.’ Danger in writing, he meant. Any way, I’m glad he didn’t go in to that ferreting old dowager. And whatever it may be, his lordship’s able to pay it now.”
CHAPTER XIX.
A CHANCE MEETING.
Some few weeks went by. On a fine June morning Lord and Lady Hartledon were breakfasting at their hotel in the Rue Rivoli. She was listlessly playing with her cup; he was glancing over Galignani’s.
“Maude,” he suddenly exclaimed, “the fountains are to play on Sunday at Versailles. Will you go to see them?”
“I am tired of sight-seeing, and tired of Paris too,” was Lady Hartledon’s answer, spoken with apathy.
“Are you?” he returned, with animation, as though not sorry to hear the avowal. “Then we won’t stay in Paris any longer. When shall we leave?”
“Are the letters not late this morning?” she asked, allowing the question to pass.
Lord Hartledon glanced at the clock. “Very late: and we are late also. Are you expecting any in particular?”
“I don’t know. This chocolate is cold.”
“That is easily remedied,” said he, rising to ring the bell. “They can bring in some fresh.”
“And keep us waiting half-an-hour!” she grumbled.
“The hotel is crammed up to the mansarde,” said good-natured Lord Hartledon, who was easily pleased, and rather tolerant of neglect in French hotels. “Is not that the right word, Maude? You took me to task yesterday for saying garret. The servants are run off their legs.”
“Then the hotel should keep more servants. I am quite sick of having to ring twice. A week ago I wished I was out of the place.”
“My dear Maude, why did you not say so? If you’d like to go on at once to Germany—”
“Lettres et journal pour monsieur,” interrupted a waiter, entering with two letters and the Times.
“One for you, Maude,” handing a letter to his wife. “Don’t go,” he continued to the waiter; “we want some more chocolate; this is cold. Tell him in French, Maude.”
But Lady Hartledon did not hear; or if she heard, did not heed; she was already absorbed in the contents of her letter.
“Ici,” said Hartledon, pushing the chocolate-pot towards the man, and rallying the best French he could command, “encore du chocolat. Toute froide, this. Et puis dépêchez vous; il est tarde, et nous avons besoin de sortir.”
The man was accustomed to the French of Englishmen, and withdrew without moving a muscle of his face. But Lady Hartledon’s ears had been set on edge.
“Don’t attempt French again, Val. They’ll understand you if you speak in English.”
“Did I make any mistake?” he asked good-humouredly. “I could speak French once; but am out of practice. It’s the genders bother one.”
“Fine French it must have been!” thought her ladyship. “Who is your letter from?”
“My bankers, I think. About Germany, Maude — would you like to go there?”
“Yes. Lat
er. After we have been to London.”
“To London!”
“We will go to London at once, Percival; stay there for the rest of the season, and then—”
“My dear,” he interrupted, his face overcast, “the season is nearly over. It will be of no use going there now.”
“Plenty of use. We shall have quite six weeks of it. Don’t look cross, Val; I have set my heart upon it.”
“But have you considered the difficulties? In the first place, we have no house in town; in the second—”
“Oh yes we have: a very good house.”
Lord Hartledon paused, and looked at her; he thought she was joking. “Where is it?” he asked in merry tones; “at the top of the Monument?”
“It is in Piccadilly,” she coolly replied. “Do you remember, some days ago, I read out an advertisement of a house that was to be let there for the remainder of the season, and remarked that it would suit us?”
“That it might suit us, had we wanted one,” put in Val.
“I wrote off at once to mamma, and begged her to see after it and engage it for us,” she continued, disregarding her husband’s amendment. “She now tells me she has done so, and ordered servants up from Hartledon. By the time this letter reaches me she says it will be in readiness.”
Lord Hartledon in his astonishment could scarcely find words to reply. “You wrote — yourself — and ordered the house to be taken?”
“Yes. You are difficult to convince, Val.”
“Then I think it was your duty to have first consulted me, Lady Maude,” he said, feeling deeply mortified.
“Thank you,” she laughed. “I have not been Lady Maude this two months.”
“I beg your pardon, Lady Hartledon.”
“Now don’t pretend to be offended, Val. I have only saved you trouble.”
“Maude,” he said, rallying his good humour, “it was not right. Let us — for Heaven’s sake let us begin as we mean to go on: our interests must be one, not separate. Why did you not tell me you wished to return to London, and allow me to see after an abode for us? It would have been the proper way.”
“Well, the truth is, I saw you did not want to go; you kept holding back from it; and if I had spoken you would have shillyshallied over it until the season was over. Every one I know is in London now.”
The waiter entered with the fresh chocolate, and retired again. Lord Hartledon was standing at the window then. His wife went up to him, and stole her hand within his arm.
“I’m sorry if I have offended you, Val. It’s no great matter to have done.”
“I think it was, Maude. However — don’t act for yourself in future; let me know your wishes. I do not think you have expressed a wish, or half a wish, since our marriage, but I have felt a pleasure in gratifying it.”
“You good old fellow! But I am given to having a will of my own, and to act independently. I’m like mamma in that. Val, we will start to-morrow: have you any orders for the servants? I can transmit them through mamma.”
“I have no orders. This is your expedition, Maude, not mine; and, I assure you, I feel like a man in utter darkness in regard to it. Allow me to see your mother’s letter.”
Lady Hartledon had put the letter safely into her pocket.
“I would rather not, Percival: it contains a few private words to myself, and mamma has always an objection to her letters being shown. I’ll read you all necessary particulars. You must let me have some money to-day.”
“How much?” asked he, from between his compressed lips.
“Oceans. I owe for millinery and things. And, Val, I’ll go to Versailles this afternoon, if you like. I want to see some of the rooms again.”
“Very well,” he answered.
She poured out some chocolate, took it hurriedly, and quitted the room, leaving her husband in a disheartening reverie. That Lady Hartledon and Maude Kirton were two very distinct persons he had discovered already; the one had been all gentleness and childlike suavity, the other was positive, extravagant, and self-willed; the one had made a pretence of loving him beyond all other things in life, the other was making very little show of loving him at all, or of concealing her indifference. Lord Hartledon was not the only husband who has been disagreeably astonished by a similar metamorphosis.
The following was the letter of the countess-dowager:
“Darling Maude,
“I have secured the house you write about and send by this post for Hedges and a few of the rest from Hartledon. It won’t accommodate a large establishment I can tell you and you’ll be disappointed when you come over to take possession which you can do when you choose. Val was a fool for letting his town house in the spring but of course we know he is one and must put up with it. Whatever you do, don’t consult him about any earthly thing take your own way, he never did have much of a will and you must let him have none for the future. You’ve got a splendid chance can spend what you like and rule in society and he’ll subside into a tame spaniel.
“Maude if you are such an idiot I’ll shake you. Find you’ve made a dredful mistake? — can’t bear your husband? — keep thinking always of Edward? A child might write such utter rubish but not you, what does it matter whether one’s husband is liked or disliked, provided he gives one position and wealth? Go to Amiens and stop with Jane for a week and see her plight and then grumble at your own, you are an idiot.
“I’m quite glad about your taking this town-house, and shall enter into posession myself as soon as the servants are up, and await you. Bob’s quite well and joins to-day and of course gives up his lodgings, which have been wretchedly confined and uncomfortable and where I should have gone to but for this move of yours I don’t know. Mind you bring me over a Parisian bonnet or two or some articles of that sort. I’m nearly in rags, Kirton’s as undutiful as he can be but it’s that wife of his.
“Your affectionate mother,
“C. Kirton.”
The letter will give you some guide to the policy of Maude Hartledon since her marriage. She did find she had made a mistake. She cared no more for her husband now than she had cared for him before; and it was a positive fact that she despised him for walking so tamely into the snare laid for him by herself and her mother. Nevertheless she triumphed; he had made her a peeress, and she did care for that; she cared also for the broad lands of Hartledon. That she was unwise in assuming her own will so promptly, with little regard to consulting his, she might yet discover.
At Versailles that day — to which place they went in accordance with Maude’s wish — there occurred a rencontre which Lord Hartledon would willingly have gone to the very ends of the earth to avoid. It happened to be rather full for Versailles; many of the visitors in Paris apparently having taken it into their minds to go; indeed, Maude’s wish was induced by the fact that some of her acquaintances in the gay capital were going also.
You may possibly remember a very small room in the galleries, exceedingly small as compared with the rest, chiefly hung with English portraits. They were in this room, amidst the little crowd that filled it, when Lord Hartledon became aware that his wife had encountered some long-lost friend. There was much greeting and shaking of hands. He caught the name — Kattle; and being a somewhat singular name, he recognised it for that of the lady who had been sojourning at Cannes, and had sent the news of Miss Ashton’s supposed engagement to the countess-dowager. There was the usual babble on both sides — where each was staying, had been staying, would be staying; and then Lord Hartledon heard the following words from Mrs. Kattle.
“How strange I should have seen you! I have met you, the Fords, and the Ashtons here, and did not know that any of you were in Paris. It’s true I only arrived yesterday. Such a long illness, my dear, I had at Turin!”
“The Ashtons!” involuntarily repeated Maude. “Are they here? — in the château?” And it instantly occurred to her how she should like to meet them, and parade her triumph. If ever a spark of feeling for her husband arose within Maude’s
heart, it was when she thought of Anne Ashton. She was bitterly jealous of her still.
“Yes, here; I saw them not three minutes ago. They are only now on their road home from Cannes. Fancy their making so long a stay!”
“You wrote mamma word that Miss Ashton was about to marry some Colonel Barnaby.”
Mrs. Kattle laughed. It is possible that written news might have been asked for by the countess-dowager.
“Well, my dear, and so I did; but it turned out to be a mistake. He did admire her; there was no mistake about that; and I dare say she might have had him if she liked. How’s your brother and his poor leg?”
“Oh, he is well,” answered Maude. “Au revoir; I can’t stand this crush any longer.”
It was really a crush just then in the room; and though Maude escaped from it dexterously, Lord Hartledon did not. He was wedged in behind some stout women, and had the pleasure of hearing another word or two from Mrs. Kattle.
“Who was that?” asked a lady, who appeared to be her companion.
“Lady Hartledon. He was only the younger brother until a few months ago, but the elder one got drowned in some inexplicable manner on his own estate, and this one came into the title. The old dowager began at once to angle for him, and succeeded in hooking him. She used to write me word how it progressed.”
“She is very beautiful.”
“Very.”
Lord Hartledon made his escape, and found his wife looking round for him. She was struck by the aspect of his face.
“Are you ill, Percival?”
“Ill? No. But I don’t care how soon we get out of these rooms. I can’t think what brings so many people in them to-day.”
“He has heard that she’s here, and would like to avoid her,” thought Maude as she took the arm he held out. “The large rooms are empty enough, I’m sure,” she remarked. “Shall we have time to go to the Trianon?”
“If you like. Yes.”