by Ellen Wood
He began to hurry through the rooms. Maude, however, was in no mood to be hurried, but stopped here and stopped there. All at once they met a large party of friends; those she had originally expected to meet. Quitting her husband’s arm, she became lost amongst them.
There was no help for it; and Lord Hartledon, resigning himself to the detention, took up his standing before the pictures and stared at them, his back to the room. He saw a good deal to interest him, in spite of his rather tumultuous state of mind, and remained there until he found himself surrounded by other spectators. Turning hastily with a view to escaping, he trod upon a lady’s dress. She looked up at his word of apology, and they stood face to face — himself and Miss Ashton!
That both utterly lost their presence of mind would have been conclusive to the spectators, had any regarded them; but none did so. They were strangers amidst the crowd. For the space of a moment each gazed on the other, spell-bound. Lord Hartledon’s honest blue eyes were riveted on her face with a strangely yearning expression of repentance — her sweet face, which had turned as white as ashes. He wore mourning still for his brother, and was the most distinguished-looking man in the château that day. Anne was in a trailing lilac silk, with a white gossamer-bonnet. That the heart of each went out to the other, as it had perhaps never gone out before, it may be no sin to say. Sin or no sin, it was the truth. The real value of a thing, as you know, is never felt until it is lost. For two months each had been dutifully striving to forget the other, and believed they were succeeding; and this first accidental meeting roused up the past in all its fever of passion.
No more conscious of what he did than if he had been in a dream, Lord Hartledon held out his hand; and she, quite as unconscious, mechanically met it with hers. What confused words of greeting went forth from his lips he never knew; she as little; but this state of bewildered feeling lasted only a minute; recollection came to both, and she strove to withdraw her hand to retreat.
“God bless you, Anne!” was all he whispered, his fervent words marred by their tone of pain; and he wrung her hand as he released it.
Turning away he caught the eyes of his wife riveted on them; she had evidently seen the meeting, and her colour was high. Lord Hartledon walked straight into the next room, and Maude went up to Anne.
“How do you do, Miss Ashton? I am so glad to meet you. I have just heard you were here from Mrs. Kattle. You have been speaking to my husband.”
Anne bowed; she did not lose her presence of mind at this encounter. A few civil words of reply given with courteous dignity, and she moved away with a bright flush on her cheek, towards Dr. and Mrs. Ashton, who were standing arm-in-arm enraptured before a remote picture, cognizant of nothing else.
“How thin she looks!” exclaimed Maude, as she rejoined her husband, and took his arm.
“Who looks thin?”
“Miss Ashton. I wonder she did not fling your hand away, instead of putting her own into it!”
“Do you wish to see the Trianon? We shall be late.”
“Yes, I do wish to see it. But you need not speak in that tone: it was not my fault that we met her.”
He answered never a syllable. His lips were compressed to pain, and his face was hectic; but he would not be drawn into reproaching his wife by so much as a word, for the sort of taste she was displaying. The manner in which he had treated Miss Ashton and her family was ever in his mind, more or less, in all its bitter, humiliating disgrace. The worst part of it to Val was, that there could be no reparation.
The following day Lord Hartledon and his wife took their departure from Paris; and if anything could have imparted especial gratification on his arriving in London at the hired house, it was to find that his wife’s mother was not in it. Val had come home against his will; he had not wished to be in London that season; rather would he have buried himself and his haunting sense of shame on the tolerant Continent; and he certainly had not wished his wife to make her debut in a small hired house. When he let his own, nothing could have been further from his thoughts than marriage. As to this house — Lady Kirton had told her daughter she would be disappointed in it; but when Maude saw its dimensions, its shabby entrance, its want of style altogether, she was dismayed. “And after that glowing advertisement!” she breathed resentfully. It was one of the smallest houses facing the Green Park.
Hedges came forward with an apology from the countess-dowager. An apology for not invading their house and inflicting her presence upon them uninvited! A telegraphic despatch from Lord Kirton had summoned her to Ireland on the previous day; and Val’s face grew bright as he heard it.
“What was the matter, Hedges?” inquired his mistress. “I’m sure my brother would not telegraph unless it was something.”
“The message didn’t say, my lady. It was just a few words, asking her ladyship to go off by the first train, but giving no reason.”
“I wonder she went, then,” observed Val to his wife, as they looked into the different rooms. But Maude did not wonder: she knew how anxious her mother was to be on good terms with her eldest son, from whom she received occasional supplies. Rather would she quarrel with the whole world than with him.
“I think it a good thing she has gone, Maude,” said he. “There certainly would not have been room for her and for us in this house.”
“And so do I,” answered Maude, looking round her bed-chamber. “If mamma fancies she’s going to inflict herself upon us for good she’s mistaken. She and I might quarrel, perhaps; for I know she’d try to control me. Val, what are we to do in this small house?”
“The best we can. We have made the bargain, you know, and taken possession now.”
“You are laughing. I declare I think you are glad it has turned out what it is!”
“I am not sorry,” he avowed. “You’ll let me cater for you another time, Maude.”
She put up her face to be kissed. “Don’t be angry with me. It is our home-coming.”
“Angry!” he repeated. “I have never shown anger to you yet, Maude. Never a woman had a more indulgent husband than you shall have in me.”
“You don’t say a loving one, Val!”
“And a loving one also: if you will only let me be so.”
“What do you mean?”
“Love requires love in return. We shall be happy, I am sure, if you so will it. Only let us pull together; one mind, one interest. Here’s your maid. I wonder where my dressing room is?”
And thus they entered on what remained of the London season. The newspapers announced the arrival of Lord and Lady Hartledon, and Maude read it aloud to her husband. She might have retained peace longer, however, had that announcement not gone forth to the four corners of the land.
“Only let us pull together!” A very few days indeed sufficed to dissipate that illusion. Lady Hartledon plunged madly into all the gaieties of the dying season, as though to make up for lost time; Lord Hartledon never felt less inclined to plunge into anything, unless it was the waters of oblivion. He held back from some places, but she did not appear to care, going her way in a very positive, off-hand manner, according to her own will, and paying not the slightest deference to his.
CHAPTER XX.
THE STRANGER AGAIN.
On a burning day at the end of June, Lord Hartledon was walking towards the Temple. He had not yet sought out his friend Thomas Carr; a sense of shame held him back; but he was on his way to do so now.
Turning down Essex Street and so to the left, he traversed the courts and windings, and mounted the stairs to the barrister’s rooms. Many a merry hour had he passed in those three small rooms, dignified with the name of “Mr. Carr’s chambers,” but which were in fact also Mr. Carr’s dwelling-place — and some sad ones.
Lord Hartledon knocked at the outer door with his stick — a somewhat faint, doubtful knock; not with the free hand of one at ease with himself and the world. For one thing, he was uncertain as to the reception he should meet with.
Mr. Carr came to the d
oor himself; his clerk was out. When he saw who was his visitor he stood in comic surprise. Val stepped in, extending his hand; and it was heartily taken.
“You are not offended with me, then, Carr?”
“Nay,” said Mr. Carr, “I have no reason to be offended. Your sin was not against me.”
“That’s a strong word, ‘sin.’”
“It is spoken,” was the answer; “but I need not speak it again. I don’t intend to quarrel with you. I was not, I repeat, the injured party.”
“Yet you took yourself off in dudgeon, as though you were, leaving me without a groomsman.”
“I would not remain to witness a marriage that — that you ought not to have entered upon.”
“Well, it’s done and over, and need not be brought up again,” returned Hartledon, a shade of annoyance in his tones.
“Certainly not. I have no wish or right to bring it up. How is Lady Hartledon?”
“She is very well. And now what has kept you away, Carr? We have been in London nearly a fortnight, and you’ve never been near me. I thought you were going to quarrel.”
“I did not know you had returned.”
“Not know it! Why all the newspapers had it in amongst the ‘fashionable intelligence.’”
“I have more to do with my time than to look at the fashionable portion of the papers. Not being fashionable myself, it doesn’t interest me.”
“Yes, it’s about a fortnight since we came back to this hateful place,” returned Hartledon, his light tone subsiding into seriousness. “I am out of conceit with England just now; and would far rather have gone to the Antipodes.”
“Then why did you come back to it?” inquired the barrister, in surprise.
“My wife gave me no choice. She possesses a will of her own. It is the ordinary thing, perhaps, for wives to do so.”
“Some do, and some don’t,” observed Thomas Carr, who never flattered at the expense of truth. “Are you going down to Hartledon?”
“Hartledon!” with a perceptible shiver. “In the mind I am in, I shall never visit Hartledon again; there are some in its vicinity I would rather not insult by my presence. Why do you bring up disagreeable subjects?”
“You will have to get over that feeling,” observed Mr. Carr, disregarding the hint, and taking out his probing-knife. “And the sooner it is got over the better for all parties. You cannot become an exile from your own place. Are they at Calne now?”
“Yes. They were in Paris just before we left it, and there was an encounter at Versailles. I wished myself dead; I declare I did. A day or two after we came to England they crossed over, and went straight down to Calne. There — don’t say any more.”
“The longer you keep away from Hartledon the greater effort it will cost you to go down to it; and—”
“I won’t go to Hartledon,” he interrupted, in a sort of fury; “neither perhaps would you, in my place.”
“Sir,” cried Mr. Carr’s clerk, bustling in and addressing his master, “you are waited for at the chambers of Serjeant Gale. The consultation is on.”
Lord Hartledon rose.
“I will not detain you, Carr; business must be attended to. Will you come and dine with us this evening? Only me and my wife. Here’s where we are staying — Piccadilly. My own house is let, you know.”
“I have no engagement, and will come with pleasure,” said Mr. Carr, taking the card. “What hour?”
“Ah, that’s just what I can’t tell you. Lady Hartledon orders dinner to suit her engagements — any time between six and nine! I never know. We are a fashionable couple, don’t you see?”
“Stay, though, Hartledon; I forget. I have a business appointment for half-past eight. Perhaps I can put it off.”
“Come up at six. You’ll be all right, then, in any case.”
Lord Hartledon left the Temple, and sauntered towards home. He had no engagement on hand — nothing to kill time. He and his wife were falling naturally into the way of — as he had just cynically styled it — fashionable people. She went her way and he went his.
Many a cabman held up his hand or his whip; but in his present mood walking was agreeable to him: why should he hurry home, when he had nothing on earth to do there? So he stared here, and gazed there, and stopped to speak to this acquaintance, and walked a few steps with that, went into his club for ten minutes, and arrived home at last.
His wife’s carriage was at the door waiting for her. She was bound on an expedition to Chiswick: Lord Hartledon had declined it. He met her hastening out as he entered, and she was looking very cross.
“How late you are going, Maude!”
“Yes, there has been a mistake,” she said peevishly, turning in with him to a small room they used as a breakfast-room. “I have been waiting all this time for Lady Langton, and she, I find, has been waiting for me. I’m now going round to take her up. Oh, I have secured that opera-box, Val, but at an extravagant price, considering the little time that remains of the season.”
“What opera-box?”
“Didn’t I tell you? It’s one I heard of yesterday. I was not going again to put up with the wretched little box they palmed you off with. I did tell you that.”
“It was the only one I could get, Maude: there was no other choice.”
“Yes, I know. Well, I have secured another for the rest of the season, and you must not talk about extravagance, please.”
“Very well,” said Val, with a smile. “For what hour have you ordered dinner?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Nine o’clock! That’s awkward — and late.”
“Why awkward? You may have to wait for me even then. It is impossible to say when we shall get home from Chiswick. All the world will be there.”
“I have just asked Carr to dine with us, and told him to come at six. I don’t fancy these hard-working men care to wait so long for their dinner. And he has an appointment for half-past eight.”
The colour came flushing into Lady Hartledon’s face, an angry light into her eyes.
“You have asked Carr to dinner! How dared you?”
Val looked up in quiet amazement.
“Dared!”
“Well — yes. Dared!”
“I do not understand you, Maude. I suppose I may exercise the right of inviting a friend to dinner.”
“Not when it is objectionable to me. I dislike that man Carr, and will not receive him.”
“You can have no grounds for disliking him,” returned Lord Hartledon warmly. “He has been a good and true friend to me ever since I knew what friendship meant; and he is a good and true man.”
“Too much of a friend,” she sarcastically retorted. “You don’t need him now, and can drop him.”
“Maude,” said Lord Hartledon, very quietly, “I have fancied several times lately that you are a little mistaking me. I am not to have a will of my own; I am to bend in all things to yours; you are to be mistress and master, I a nonentity: is it not so? This is a mistake. No woman ever had a better or more indulgent husband than you shall find in me: but in all necessary things, where it is needful and expedient that I should exercise my own judgment, and act as master, I shall do it.”
She paused in very astonishment: the tone was so calmly decisive.
“My dear, let us have no more of this; something must have vexed you to-day.”
“We will have no more of it,” she passionately retorted; “and I’ll have no more of your Thomas Carrs. It is not right that you should bring a man here who has deliberately insulted me. Be quiet, Lord Hartledon; he has. What else was it but an insult — his going out of the chapel in the manner he did, when we were before the altar? It was a direct intimation that he did not countenance the marriage. He would have preferred, I suppose, that you should marry your country sweetheart, Anne Ashton.”
A hot flush rose to Lord Hartledon’s brow, but his tone was strangely temperate. “I have already warned you, Maude, that we shall do well to discard that name from our dis
cussions, and if possible from our thoughts; it may prove better for both of us.”
“Better for you, perhaps; but you are not going to exercise any control over my will, or words, or action; and so I tell you at once. I’m quite old enough to be out of leading-strings, and I’ll be mistress in my own house. You will do well to send a note to your amiable friend Carr; it may save him a useless journey; for at my table he shall not sit. Now you know, Val.”
She spoke impatiently, haughtily, and swept out to her carriage. Val did not follow to place her in; he positively did not, but left her to the servants. Never in his whole life perhaps had he felt so nettled, never so resolute: the once vacillating, easily-persuaded man, when face to face with people, was speedily finding the will he had only exercised behind their backs. He rang the bell for Hedges.
“Her ladyship has ordered dinner for nine o’clock,” he said, when the butler appeared.
“I believe so, my lord.”
“It will be inconvenient to me to wait so long to-day. I shall dine at seven. You can serve it in this room, leaving the dining-room for Lady Hartledon. Mr. Carr dines with me.”
So Hedges gave the necessary orders, and dinner was laid in the breakfast-room. Thomas Carr came in, bringing the news that he had succeeded in putting off his appointment. Lord Hartledon received him in the same room, fearing possibly the drawing-room might be invaded by his wife. She was just as likely to be home early from Chiswick as late.
“We have it to ourselves, Carr, and I am not sorry. There was no certainty about my wife’s return, so I thought we’d dine alone.”
They very much enjoyed their tête-à-tête dinner; as they had enjoyed many a one in Hartledon’s bachelor days. Thomas Carr — one of the quiet, good men in a fast world — was an admirable companion, full of intelligence and conversation. Hedges left them alone after the cloth was removed, but in a very few minutes returned; his step rather more subdued than usual, as if he came upon some secret mission.
“Here’s that stranger come again, sir,” he began, in low tones; and it may as well be remarked that in moments of forgetfulness he often did address his master as he used to address him in the past. “He asked if—”