CHAPTER XXV
LORD ALMERIC'S SUIT
When Julia awoke in the morning, without start or shock, to the drearyconsciousness of all she had lost, she was still under the influence ofthe despair which had settled on her spirits overnight, and had run likea dark stain through her troubled dreams. Fatigue of body and lassitudeof mind, the natural consequences of the passion and excitement of heradventure, combined to deaden her faculties. She rose aching in all herlimbs--yet most at heart--and wearily dressed herself; but neither sawnor heeded the objects round her. The room to which poor puzzled Mrs.Olney had hastily consigned her looked over a sunny stretch of park,sprinkled with gnarled thorn-trees that poorly filled the places of theoaks and chestnuts which the gaming-table had consumed. Still, theoutlook pleased the eye, nor was the chamber itself lacking inliveliness. The panels on the walls, wherein needlework cockatoos andflamingoes, wrought under Queen Anne, strutted in the care of needleworkblack-boys, were faded and dull; but the pleasant white dimity withwhich the bed was hung relieved and lightened them.
To Julia it was all one. Wrapped in bitter thoughts and reminiscences,her bosom heaving from time to time with ill-restrained grief, she gaveno thought to such things, or even to her position, until Mrs. Olneyappeared and informed her that breakfast awaited her in another room.
Then, 'Can I not take it here?' she asked, shrinking painfully from theprospect of meeting any one.
'Here?' Mrs. Olney repeated. The housekeeper never closed her mouth,except when she spoke; for which reason, perhaps, her face faithfullymirrored the weakness of her mind.
'Yes,' said Julia. 'Can I not take it here, if you please? I suppose--weshall have to start by-and-by?' she added, shivering.
'By-and-by, ma'am?' Mrs. Olney answered. 'Oh, yes.'
'Then I can have it here.'
'Oh, yes, if you please to follow me, ma'am.' And she held the dooropen.
Julia shrugged her shoulders, and, contesting the matter no further,followed the good woman along a corridor and through a door which shutoff a second and shorter passage. From this three doors opened,apparently into as many apartments. Mrs. Olney threw one wide andushered her into a room damp-smelling, and hung with drab, but of goodsize and otherwise comfortable. The windows looked over a neglectedDutch garden, which was so rankly overgrown that the box hedges scarcerose above the wilderness of parterres. Beyond this, and divided from itby a deep-sunk fence, a pool fringed with sedges and marsh-weeds carriedthe eye to an alder thicket that closed the prospect.
Julia, in her relief on finding that the table was laid for one only,paid no heed to the outlook or to the bars that crossed the windows, butsank into a chair and mechanically ate and drank. Apprised after a whilethat Mrs. Olney had returned and was watching her with fatuousgood-nature, she asked her if she knew at what hour she was to leave.
'To leave?' said the housekeeper, whose almost invariable custom it wasto repeat the last words addressed to her. 'Oh, yes, to leave.Of course.'
'But at what time?' Julia asked, wondering whether the woman was as dullas she seemed.
'Yes, at what time?' Then after a pause and with a phenomenal effort, 'Iwill go and see--if you please.'
She returned presently. 'There are no horses,' she said. 'When they areready the gentleman will let you know.'
'They have sent for some?'
'Sent for some,' repeated Mrs. Olney, and nodded, but whether in assentor imbecility it was hard to say.
After that Julia troubled her no more, but rising from her meal hadrecourse to the window and her own thoughts. These were in unison withthe neglected garden and the sullen pool, which even the sunshine failedto enliven. Her heart was torn between the sense of Sir George'streachery--which now benumbed her brain and now awoke it to a fury ofresentment--and fond memories of words and looks and gestures, thatshook her very frame and left her sick--love-sick and trembling. She didnot look forward or form plans; nor, in the dull lethargy in which shewas for the most part sunk, was she aware of the passage of time untilMrs. Olney came in with mouth and eyes a little wider than usual, andannounced that the gentleman was coming up.
Julia supposed that the woman referred to Mr. Thomasson; and, recalledto the necessity of returning to Marlborough, she gave a reluctantpermission. Great was her astonishment when, a moment later, not thetutor, but Lord Almeric, fanning himself with a laced handkerchief andcarrying his little French hat under his arm, appeared on the threshold,and entered simpering and bowing. He was extravagantly dressed in amixed silk coat, pink satin waistcoat, and a mushroom stock, withbreeches of silver net and white silk stockings; and had a large pearlpin thrust through his wig. Unhappily, his splendour, designed tocaptivate the porter's daughter, only served to exhibit more plainly thenerveless hand and sickly cheeks which he owed to last night's debauch.
Apparently he was aware of this, for his first words were, 'Oh, Lord!What a twitter I am in! I vow and protest, ma'am, I don't know where youget your roses of a morning. But I wish you would give me the secret.'
'Sir!' she said, interrupting him, surprise in her face. 'Or'--with amomentary flush of confusion--'I should say, my lord, surely there mustbe some mistake here.'
'None, I dare swear,' Lord Almeric answered, bowing gallantly. 'But I amin such a twitter'--he dropped his hat and picked it up again--'I hardlyknow what I am saying. To be sure, I was devilish cut last night! I hopenothing was said to--to--oh, Lord! I mean I hope you were not muchincommoded by the night air, ma'am.'
'The night air has not hurt me, I thank you,' said Julia, who did nottake the trouble to hide her impatience.
However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad tohear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming andhawing, 'Won't you sit?' he said, with a killing glance.
'I am leaving immediately,' Julia answered, and declined with coldnessthe chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dressmight have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths topity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in nosmiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weepamong the ruins, and this butterfly insect flitted between. After amoment, as he did not speak, 'I will not detain your lordship,' shecontinued, curtseying frigidly.
'Cruel beauty!' my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping hishands in an attitude. And then, to her astonishment, 'Look, ma'am,' hecried with animation, 'look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of youradmirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don't, oh,I say, don't stare at me like that,' he continued hurriedly,plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. 'I vow andprotest I am in earnest.'
'Then you must be mad!' Julia cried in great wrath. 'You can have noother excuse, sir, for talking to me like that!'
'Excuse!' he cried rapturously. 'Your eyes are my excuse, your lips,your shape! Whom would they not madden, ma'am? Whom would they notcharm--insanitate--intoxicate? What man of sensibility, seeing them atan immeasurable distance, would not hasten to lay his homage at the feetof so divine, so perfect a creature, whom even to see is to taste ofbliss! Deign, madam, to--Oh, I say, you don't mean to say you are reallyof--offended?' Lord Almeric stuttered in amazement, again fallinglamentably from the standard of address which he had conned while hisman was shaving him. 'You--you--look here--'
'You must be mad!' Julia cried, her eyes flashing lightning on theunhappy beau. 'If you do not leave me, I will call for some one to putyou out! How dare you insult me? If there were a bell I could reach--'
Lord Almeric stared in the utmost perplexity; and fallen from his highhorse, alighted on a kind of dignity. 'Madam,' he said with a little bowand a strut, ''tis the first time an offer of marriage from one of myfamily has been called an insult! And I don't understand it. Hang me! Ifwe have married fools, we have married high!'
It was Julia's turn to be overwhelmed with confusion. Having nothingless in her mind than marriage, and least of all an offer of marriagefrom such a person, sh
e had set down all he had said to impudence andher unguarded situation. Apprised of his meaning, she experienced adegree of shame, and muttered that she had not understood; she cravedhis pardon.
'Beauty asks and beauty has!' Lord Almeric answered, bowing and kissingthe tips of his fingers, his self-esteem perfectly restored.
Julia frowned. 'You cannot be in earnest,' she said.
'Never more in earnest in my life!' he replied. 'Say the word--sayyou'll have me,' he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast andgazing over it with melting looks, 'most adorable of your sex, and I'llcall up Pomeroy, I'll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose,and tell 'em, tell 'em all.'
'I must be dreaming,' Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind offascination.
'Then if to dream is to assent, dream on, fair love!' his lordshipspouted with a grand air. And then, 'Hang it! that's--that's ratherclever of me,' he continued. 'And I mean it too! Oh, depend upon it,there's nothing that a man won't think of when he's in love! And I amfallen confoundedly in love with--with you, ma'am.'
'But very suddenly,' Julia replied. She was beginning to recover fromher amazement.
'You don't think that I am sincere?' he protested plaintively. 'Youdoubt me! Then--'he advanced a pace towards her with hat and armsextended, 'let the eloquence of a--a feeling heart plead for me; aheart, too--yes, too sensible of your charms, and--and your many merits,ma'am! Yes, most adorable of your sex. But there,' he added, breakingoff abruptly, 'I said that before, didn't I? Yes. Lord! what a memory Ihave got! I am all of a twitter. I was so cut last night, I don't knowwhat I am saying.'
'That I believe,' Julia said with chilling severity.
'Eh, but--but you do believe I am in earnest?' he cried anxiously.'Shall I kneel to you? Shall I call up the servants and tell them? ShallI swear that I mean honourably? Lord! I am no Mr. Thornhill! I'll makeit as public as you like,' he continued eagerly. 'I'll send fora bishop--'
'Spare me the bishop,' Julia rejoined with a faint smile, 'and anyfarther appeals. They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from yourhead than your heart.'
'Oh, Lord, no!' he cried.
'Oh, Lord, yes,' she answered with a spice of her old archness. 'I mayhave a tolerable opinion of my own attractions--women commonly have, itis said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on thethree or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained yourheart. To what I am to attribute your sudden--shall I call it whim orfancy--' Julia continued with a faint blush, 'I do not know. I amwilling to suppose that you do not mean to insult me.'
Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.
'Or to deceive me. I am willing to suppose,' she repeated, stopping himby a gesture as he tried to speak, 'that you are in earnest for thetime, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden asthe desire appears. It is a great honour, but it is one which I must asearnestly and positively decline.'
'Why?' he cried, gaping, and then, 'O 'swounds, ma'am, you don't meanit?' he continued piteously. 'Not have me? Not have me? And why?'
'Because,' she said modestly, 'I do not love you, my lord.'
'Oh, but--but when we are married,' he answered eagerly, rallying hisscattered forces, 'when we are one, sweet maid--'
'That time will never come,' she replied cruelly. And then gloomoverspreading her face, 'I shall never marry, my lord. If it be anyconsolation to you, no one shall be preferred to you.'
'Oh, but, damme, the desert air and all that!' Lord Almeric cried,fanning himself violently with his hat. 'I--oh, you mustn't talk likethat, you know. Lord! you might be some queer old put of a dowager!' Andthen, with a burst of sincere feeling, for his little heart was inflamedby her beauty, and his manhood--or such of it as had survived thelessons of Vauxhall, and Mr. Thomasson--rose in arms at sight of hertrouble, 'See here, child,' he said in his natural voice, 'say yes, andI'll swear I'll be kind to you! Sink me if I am not! And, mind you,you'll be my lady. You'll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best.You shall have your box at the opera and the King's House; you shallhave your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for looand brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the beardedlady, for what I care--I want nobody's lips but yours, sweet, if you'llbe kind. And, so help me, I'll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play assmall as a Churchwarden's club! And, Lord, I don't see why we should notbe as happy together as James and Betty!'
She shook her head; but kindly, with tears in her eyes and a tremblinglip. She was thinking of another who might have given her all this, oras much as was to her taste; one with whom she had looked to be as happyas any James and Betty. 'It is impossible, my lord,' she said.
'Honest Abraham?' he cried, very downcast.
'Oh, yes, yes!'
'S'help me, you are melting!'
'No, no!' she cried, 'it is not--it is not that! It is impossible, Itell you. You don't know what you ask,' she continued, struggling withthe emotion that almost mastered her.
'But, curse me, I know what I want!' he answered gloomily. 'You may gofarther and fare worse! Lord, I swear you may. I'd be kind to you, andit is not everybody would be that!'
She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did notanswer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast,his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, 'Well, 'tisn't my fault,'he said; and then relenting again, 'But there, I know what womenare--vapours one day, kissing the next. I'll try again, my lady. I amnot proud.'
She flung him a gesture that meant assent, dissent, dismissal, as hepleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering,'Well, well, have it your own way. I'll go for this time. But hang allprudes, say I,' he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the dooron her.
As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled herto stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and,throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to hergrief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before hereyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all toosharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whoseaffections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of theprettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted lifewith him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? Whatwonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame,or that she presently passed from the extremity of grief to theextremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George's heartless desertionand more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintzof the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and therechoked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?
Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with herback to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stolethrough the disordered masses of her hair; her face to the empty room.Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him,she could pursue him with a woman's unrelenting spite, she could houndhim from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of thesethings would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stainof his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which shehad bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weaponsthat he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effectthat, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she wouldnot take.
Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival thetool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia's pale face,and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Herewas a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she couldbring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heardthat his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another?and such another that marry almost whom he might she would takeprecedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought,worthy of a smaller mind than Julia's; but she was a woman, andpassionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the
general, came hometo her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; itwould convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that shehad taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her ahome, a place, a settled position in the world.
She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulserather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, withtrembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of abell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared herresolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulledfrantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the passage, and Mrs.Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.
'Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back,' Julia cried, breathingquickly.
'To come back?'
'Yes! The gentleman who was here now.'
'Oh, yes, the gentleman,' Mrs. Olney murmured. 'Your ladyship wisheshim?'
Julia's very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. 'Yes, I wishto see him,' she said imperiously. 'Tell him to come to me!'
She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while thewoman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her faceset hard, until far down the outer passage--Mrs. Olney had left the dooropen--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heraldedLord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and abow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recoveredthe breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitudethat made the best of his white silk stockings.
'See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma'am!' he cried.'To hear was to obey, to obey was to fly! If it's Pitt's diamond youneed, or Lady Mary's soap-box, or a new conundrum, or--hang it all! Icannot think of anything else, but command me! I'll forth and get it,stap me if I won't!'
'My lord, it is nothing of that kind,' Julia answered, her voice steady,though her cheeks burned.
'Eh? what? It's not!' he babbled. 'Then what is it? Command me, whateverit is.'
'I believe, my lord,' she said, smiling faintly, 'that a woman is alwaysprivileged to change her mind--once.'
My lord stared. Then, gathering her meaning as much from her heightenedcolour as from her words, 'What!' he screamed. 'Eh? O Lord! Do you meanthat you will have me? Eh? Have you sent for me for that? Do you reallymean that?' And he fumbled for his spy-glass that he might see her facemore clearly.
'I mean,' Julia began; and then, more firmly, 'Yes, I do mean that,' shesaid, 'if you are of the same mind, my lord, as you were half anhour ago.'
'Crikey, but I am!' Lord Almeric cried, fairly skipping in his joy. 'Byjingo! I am! Here's to you, my lady! Here's to you, ducky! Oh, Lord! butI was fit to kill myself five minutes ago, and those fellows would havedone naught but roast me. And now I am in the seventh heaven. Ho! ho!'he continued, with a comical pirouette of triumph, 'he laughs best wholaughs last. But there, you are not afraid of me, pretty? You'll let mebuss you?'
But Julia, with a face grown suddenly white, shrank back and held outher hand.
'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to getnear her.
She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand tokiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship willpardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shakenme. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'
'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'
But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, witha little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.
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