by Ouida
“I don’t know much about that sort of thing at all!” muttered Carruthers, as he went out to follow Goodwood to the Marabout box.
That is an old, old story, that of the fair Emily stirring feud between Palamon and Arcite. It has been acted out many a time since Beaumont and Fletcher lived and wrote their twin-thoughts and won their twin laurels; but the bars that shut the kinsmen in their prison-walls, the ivy-leaves that filled in the rents of their prison-stones, were not more entirely and blissfully innocent of the feud going on within, and the battle foaming near them, than the calm, complacent soul of Lady Marabout was of the rivalry going on close beside her for the sake of little Montolieu.
She certainly thought Philip made himself specially brilliant and agreeable that night; but then that was nothing new, he was famous for talking well, and liked his mother enough not seldom to shower out for her some of his very best things; certainly she thought Goodwood did not shine by the contrast, and looked, to use an undignified word, rather cross than otherwise; but then nobody did shine beside Philip, and she knew a reason that made Goodwood pardonably cross at the undesired presence of his oldest and dearest chum. Even she almost wished Philip away. If the presence of her idolized son could have been unwelcome to her at any time, it was so that night.
“It isn’t like Philip to monopolize her so, he who has so much tact usually, and cares nothing for girls himself,” thought Lady Marabout; “he must do it for mischief, and yet that isn’t like him at all; it’s very tiresome, at any rate.”
And with that skilful diplomacy in such matters, on which, if it was sometimes overthrown, Lady Marabout not unjustly plumed herself, she dexterously entangled Carruthers in conversation, and during the crash of one of the choruses whispered, as he bent forward to pick up her fan, which she had let drop,
“Leave Flora a little to Goodwood; he has a right — he spoke decisively to her to-day.”
Carruthers bowed his head, and stooped lower for the fan.
He left her accordingly to Goodwood till the curtain fell after the last act of the “Barbiere;” and Lady Marabout congratulated herself on her own adroitness. “There is nothing like a little tact,” she thought; “what would society be without the guiding genius of tact, I wonder? One dreadful Donnybrook Fair!”
But, someway or other, despite all her tact, or because her son inherited that valuable quality in a triple measure to herself, someway, it was Goodwood who led her to her carriage, and Carruthers who led the little Montolieu.
“Terribly bête of Philip; how very unlike him!” mused Lady Marabout, as she gathered her burnous round her.
Carruthers talked and laughed as he led Flora Montolieu through the passages, more gayly, perhaps, than usual.
“My mother has told me some news to-night, Miss Montolieu,” he said, carelessly. “Am I premature in proffering you my congratulations? But even if I be so, you will not refuse the privilege to an old friend — to a very sincere friend — and will allow me to be the first to wish you happiness?”
Lady Marabout’s carriage stopped the way. Flora Montolieu colored, looked full at him, and went to it, without having time to answer his congratulations, in which the keenest-sighted hearer would have failed to detect anything beyond every-day friendship and genuine indifference. The most truthful men will make the most consummate actors when spurred up to it.
“My dear child, you look ill to-night; I am glad you have no engagements,” said Lady Marabout, as she sat down before the dressing-room fire, toasting her little satin-shod foot — she has a weakness for fire even in the hottest weather — while Flora Montolieu lay back in a low chair, crushing the roses mercilessly. “You do feel well? I should not have thought so, your face looks so flushed, and your eyes so preternaturally dark. Perhaps it is the late hours; you were not used to them in France, of course, and it must be such a change to this life from your unvarying conventual routine at St. Denis. My love, what was it Lord Goodwood said to you to-day?”
“Do not speak to me of him, Lady Marabout, I hate his name!”
Lady Marabout started with an astonishment that nearly upset the cup of coffee she was sipping.
“Hate his name? My dearest Flora, why, in Heaven’s name?”
Flora did not answer; she pulled the roses off her hair as though they had been infected with Brinvilliers’ poison.
“What has he done?”
“He has done nothing!”
“Who has done anything, then?”
“Oh, no one — no one has done anything, but — I am sick of Lord Goodwood’s name — tired of it!”
Lady Marabout sat almost speechless with surprise.
“Tired of it, my dear Flora?”
Little Montolieu laughed:
“Well, tired of it, perhaps from hearing him praised so often, as the Athenian trader grew sick of Aristides, and the Jacobin of Washington’s name. Is it unpardonably heterodox to say so?”
Lady Marabout stirred her coffee in perplexity:
“My dear child, pray don’t speak in that way; that’s like Philip’s tone when he is enigmatical and sarcastic, and worries me. I really cannot in the least understand you about Lord Goodwood, it is quite incomprehensible to me. I thought I overheard him to-day at Lady George’s concert speak very definitely to you indeed, and when he was interrupted by the Duchess before you could give him his reply, I thought I heard him say he should call to-morrow morning to know your ultimate decision. Was I right?”
“Quite right.”
“He really proposed marriage to you to-day?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you say you are sick of his name?”
“Does it follow, imperatively, Lady Marabout, that because the Sultan throws his handkerchief, it must be picked up with humility and thanksgiving?” asked Flora Montolieu, furling and unfurling her fan with an impatient rapidity that threatened entire destruction of its ivory and feathers, with their Watteau-like group elaborately painted on them — as pretty a toy of the kind as could be got for money, which had been given her by Carruthers one day in payment of some little bagatelle of a bet.
“Sultan! — Humility!” repeated Lady Marabout, scarcely crediting her senses. “My dear Flora, do you know what you are saying? You must be jesting! There is not a woman in England who would be insensible to the honor of Goodwood’s proposals. You are jesting, Flora!”
“I am not, indeed!”
“You mean to say, you could positively think of rejecting him!” cried Lady Marabout, rising from her chair in the intensity of her amazement, convinced that she was the victim of some horrible hallucination.
“Why should it surprise you if I did?”
“Why?” repeated Lady Marabout, indignantly. “Do you ask me why? You must be a child, indeed, or a consummate actress, to put such a question; excuse me, my dear, if I speak a little strongly: you perfectly bewilder me, and I confess I cannot see your motives or your meaning in the least. You have made a conquest such as the proudest women in the peerage have vainly tried to make; you have one of the highest titles in the country offered to you; you have won a man whom everybody declared would never be won; you have done this, pardon me, without either birth or fortune on your own side, and then you speak of rejecting Goodwood — Goodwood, of all the men in England! You cannot be serious, Flora, or, if you are, you must be mad!”
Lady Marabout spoke more hotly than Lady Marabout had ever spoken in all her life. Goodwood absolutely won — Goodwood absolutely “come to the point” — the crowning humiliation of the Hauttons positively within her grasp — her Marathon and Lemnos actually gained! and all to be lost and flung away by the unaccountable caprice of a wayward child! It was sufficient to exasperate a saint, and a saint Lady Marabout never pretended to be.
Flora Montolieu toyed recklessly with her fan.
“You told Sir Philip this evening, I think, of — —”
“I hinted it to him, my dear — yes. Philip has known all along how much I desired it, an
d as Goodwood is one of his oldest and most favorite friends, I knew it would give him sincere pleasure both for my sake and Goodwood’s, and yours too, for I think Philip likes you as much as he ever does any young girl — better, indeed; and I could not imagine — I could not dream for an instant — that there was any doubt of your acceptation, as, indeed, there cannot be. You have been jesting to worry me, Flora!”
Little Montolieu rose, threw her fan aside, as if its ivory stems had been hot iron, and leaned against the mantelpiece.
“You advise me to accept Lord Goodwood, then, Lady Marabout?”
“My love, if you need my advice, certainly! — such an alliance will never be proffered to you again; the brilliant position it will place you in I surely have no need to point out!” returned Lady Marabout. “The little hypocrite!” she mused, angrily, “as if her own mind were not fully made up — as if any girl in Europe would hesitate over accepting the Doncaster coronet — as if a nameless Montolieu could doubt for a moment her own delight at being created Marchioness of Goodwood! Such a triumph as that — why I wouldn’t credit any woman who pretended she wasn’t dazzled by it!”
“I thought you did not approve of marriages of convenience?”
Lady Marabout played a tattoo — slightly perplexed tattoo — with her spoon in her Sèvres saucer.
“No more I do, my dear — that is, under some circumstances; it is impossible to lay down a fixed rule for everything! Marriages of convenience — well, perhaps not; but as I understand these words, they mean a mere business affair, arranged as they are in France, without the slightest regard to the inclinations of either; merely regarding whether the incidents of fortune, birth, and station are equal and suitable. Marriages de convenance are when a parvenu barters his gold for good blood, or where an ancienne princesse mends her fortune with a nouveau riche, profound indifference, meanwhile, on each side. I do not call this so; decidedly not! Goodwood must be very deeply attached to you to have forgotten his detestation of marriage, and laid such a title as his at your feet. Have you any idea of the weight of the Dukes of Doncaster in the country? Have you any notion of what their rent-roll is? Have you any conception of their enormous influence, their very high place, the magnificence of their seats? Helmsley almost equals Windsor! All these are yours if you will; and you affect to hesitate — —”
“To let Lord Goodwood buy me!”
“Buy you? Your phraseology is as strange as my son’s!”
“To accept him only for the coronet and the rent-roll, his position and his Helmsley, seems not a very grateful and flattering return for his preference?”
“I do not see that at all,” said Lady Marabout, irritably. Is there anything more annoying than to have unwelcome truths thrust in our teeth? “It is not as though he were odious to you — a hideous man, a coarse man, a cruel man, whose very presence repelled you. Goodwood is a man quite attractive enough to merit some regard, independent of his position; you have an affectionate nature, you would soon grow attached to him — —”
Flora Montolieu shook her head.
“And, in fact,” she went on, warming with her subject, and speaking all the more determinedly because she was speaking a little against her conscience, and wholly for her inclinations, “my dear Flora, if you need persuasion — which you must pardon me if I doubt your doing in your heart, for I cannot credit any woman as being insensible to the suit of a future Duke of Doncaster, or invulnerable to the honor it does her — if you need persuasion, I should think I need only refer to the happiness it will afford your poor dear mother, amidst her many trials, to hear of so brilliant a triumph for you. You are proud — Goodwood will place you in a position where pride may be indulged with impunity, nay, with advantage. You are ambitious — what can flatter your ambition more than such an offer. You are clever — as Goodwood’s wife you may lead society like Madame de Rambouillet or immerse yourself in political intrigue like the Duchess of Devonshire. It is an offer which places within your reach everything most dazzling and attractive, and it is one, my dear Flora, which you must forgive me if I say a young girl of obscure rank, as rank goes, and no fortune whatever, should pause before she lightly rejects. You cannot afford to be fastidious as if you were an heiress or a lady-in-your-own-right.”
That was as ill-natured a thing as the best-natured lady in Christendom ever said on the spur of self-interest, and it stung Flora Montolieu more than her hostess dreamed.
The color flushed into her face and her eyes flashed.
“You have said sufficient, Lady Marabout, I accept the Marquis to-morrow!”
And taking up her fan and her opera-cloak, leaving the discarded roses unheeded on the floor, she bade her chaperone good-night, and floated out of the dressing-room, while Lady Marabout sat stirring the cream in a second cup of coffee, a good deal puzzled, a little awed by the odd turn affairs had taken, with a slight feeling of guilt for her own share in the transaction, an uncomfortable dread lest the day should ever come when Flora should reproach her for having persuaded her into the marriage, a comfortable conviction that nothing but good could come of such a brilliant and enviable alliance, and, above all other conflicting feelings, one delicious, dominant, glorified security of triumph over the Hauttons, mère et filles.
But when morning dawned, Lady Marabout’s horizon seemed cleared of all clouds, and only radiant with unshadowed sunshine. Goodwood was coming, and coming to be accepted.
She seemed already to read the newspaper paragraphs announcing his capture and Flora’s conquest, already to hear the Hauttons’ enforced congratulations, already to see the nuptial party gathered round the altar rail of St. George’s. Lady Marabout had never felt in a sunnier, more light-hearted mood, never more completely at peace with herself and all the world as she sat in her boudoir at her writing-table, penning a letter which began:
“My dearest Lilla, — What happiness it gives me to congratulate you on the brilliant future opening to your sweet Flora — —”
And which would have continued, no doubt, with similar eloquence if it had not been interrupted by Soames opening the door and announcing “Sir Philip Carruthers,” who walked in, touched his mother’s brow with his moustaches, and went to stand on the hearth with his arm on the mantelpiece.
“My dear Philip, you never congratulated me last night; pray do so now!” cried Lady Marabout, delightedly, wiping her pen on the pennon, which a small ormolu knight obligingly carried for that useful purpose. Ladies always wipe their pens as religiously as they bolt their bedroom doors, believe in cosmetics, and go to church on a Sunday.
“Was your news of last night true, then?” asked Carruthers, bending forwards to roll Bijou on its back with his foot.
“That Goodwood had spoken definitively to her? Perfectly. He proposed to her yesterday at the Frangipane concert — not at the concert, of course, but afterwards, when they were alone for a moment in the conservatories. The Duchess interrupted them — did it on purpose — and he had only time to whisper hurriedly he should come this morning to hear his fate. I dare say he felt tolerably secure of it. Last night I naturally spoke to Flora about it. Oddly enough, she seemed positively to think at first of rejecting him — rejecting him! — only fancy the madness! Between ourselves, I don’t think she cares anything about him, but with such an alliance as that, of course I felt it my bounden duty to counsel her as strongly as I could to accept the unequalled position it proffered her. Indeed, it could have been only a girl’s waywardness, a child’s caprice to pretend to hesitate, for she is very ambitious and very clever, and I would never believe that any woman — and she less than any — would be proof against such dazzling prospects. It would be absurd, you know, Philip. Whether it was hypocrisy or a real reluctance, because she doesn’t feel for him the idealic love she dreams of, I don’t know, but I put it before her in a way that plainly showed her all the brilliance of the proffered position, and before she bade me good night, I had vanquished all her scruples, if she had any, and I am abl
e to say — —”
“Good God, what have you done?”
“Done?” re-echoed Lady Marabout, vaguely terrified. “Certainly I persuaded her to accept him. She has accepted him probably; he is here now! I should have been a strange person indeed to let any young girl in my charge rashly refuse such an offer.”
“You induced her to accept him! God forgive you!”
Lady Marabout turned pale as death, and gazed at him with undefinable terror.
“Philip! You do not mean — —”
“Great Heavens! have you never seen, mother —— ?”
He leaned his arms on the marble, with his forehead bowed upon them, and Lady Marabout gazed at him still, as a bird at a basilisk.
“Philip, Philip! what have I done? How could I tell?” she murmured, distractedly, tears welling into her eyes. “If I had only known! But how could I dream that child had any fascination for you? How could I fancy — —”
“Hush! No, you are in no way to blame. You could not know it. I barely knew it till last night,” he answered, gently.
“Philip loves her, and I have made her marry Goodwood!” thought Lady Marabout, agonized, remorseful, conscience-struck, heart-broken in a thousand ways at once. The climax of her woes was reached, life had no greater bitterness for her left; her son loved, and loved the last woman in England she would have had him love; that woman was given to another, and she had been the instrument of wrecking the life to save or serve which she would have laid down her own in glad and instant sacrifice! Lady Marabout bowed her head under a grief, before which the worries so great before, the schemes but so lately so precious, the small triumphs just now so all-absorbing, shrank away into their due insignificance. Philip suffering, and suffering through her! Self glided far away from Lady Marabout’s memory then, and she hated herself, more fiercely than the gentle-hearted soul had ever hated any foe, for her own criminal share in bringing down this unforeseen terrific blow on her beloved one’s head.