Lesbia gave a little sigh, and submitted. She had talked of women obeying their masters; and the implication was that she meant to obey Mr. Smithson. But there is a fate in these things; and the man who was to be her master, whose lightest breath was to sway her, whose lightest look was to rule her, was here at her side in the silence of the summer night.
They talked long, but of indifferent subjects; and their talk might have been heard by every member of the Orleans Club, and no harm done. Yet words and phrases count for very little in such a case. It is the tone, it is the melody of a voice, it is the magic of the hour that tells.
The tide came, in the person of Mr. Smithson, and parted these two weeds that were drifting towards the great mysterious ocean of fate.
'I have been hunting for you everywhere,' he said, cheerfully. 'If you want another waltz, Lady Lesbia, you had better take the next. I believe it is to be the last. At any rate our party are clamouring to be driven home. I found poor Lady Kirkbank fast asleep in a corner of the drawing-room.'
'Will you give me that last waltz?' asked Don Gomez.
Lady Lesbia felt that the long-suffering Smithson had endured enough. Womanly instinct constrained her to refuse that final waltz: but it seemed to her as if she were making a tremendous sacrifice in so doing. And yet she had waltzed to her heart's content during the season that was waning, and knew all the waltzes played by all the fashionable bands. She gave a little sigh, as she said—
'No, I must not indulge myself. I must go and take care of Lady Kirkbank.'
Mr. Smithson offered his arm, and she took it and went away with him, leaving Don Gomez to follow at his leisure. There would be some delay no doubt before the drag started. The lamps had gone out among the foliage, and the stars were waning a little, and there was a faint cold light creeping over the garden which meant the advent of morning. Don Gomez strolled towards the lighted house, smoking a cigarette.
'She is very lovely, and she is—well—not quite spoiled by herentourage, and they tell me she is an heiress—sure to inherit a fine fortune from some ancient grandmother, buried alive in Westmoreland,' he mused. 'What a splendid opportunity it would be if—if the business could be arranged on the square. But as it is—well—as it is there is the chance of an adventure; and when did a Montesma ever avoid an adventure, although there were dagger or poison lurking in the background? And here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovely woman, and an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough to disgrace and ruin an archbishop. Poor Smithson! How very unlucky that I should happen to come across your pathway in the heyday of your latest love affair. We have had our little adventures in that line already, and we have measured swords together, metaphorically, before to-night. When it comes to a question of actual swords my Smithson declines.Pas si bête.'
A honeymoon among lakes and mountains, amidst the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale, in a little world of wild, strange loveliness, shut in and isolated from the prosaic outer world by the vast and towering masses of Skiddaw and Blencathara—a world of one's own, as it were, a world steeped in romance and poetry, dear to the souls of poets. There are many such honeymoons every summer; indeed, the mountain paths, the waterfalls and lakes swarm with happy lovers; and this land of hills and waters seems to have been made expressly for honeymoon travellers; yet never went truer lovers wandering by lake and torrent, by hill and valley, than those two whose brief honeymoon was now drawing to a close.
It was altogether a magical time for Mary, this dawn of a new life. The immensity of her happiness almost frightened her. She could hardly believe in it, or trust in its continuance.
'Am I really, really, really your wife?' she asked on their last day, bending down to speak to her husband, as he led her pony up the rough ways of Skiddaw. 'It is all so dreadfully like a dream.'
'Thank God, it is the very truth,' answered Lord Hartfield, looking fondly at the fresh young face, brightened by the summer wind, which faintly stirred the auburn hair under the neat little hat.
'And am I actually a Countess? I don't care about it one little bit, you know, except as a stupendous joke. If you were to tell me that you had been only making fun of poor grandmother and me, and that those diamonds are glass, and you only plain John Hammond, it wouldn't make the faintest difference. Indeed, it would be a weight off my mind. It is an awfully oppressive thing to be a Countess.'
'I'm sorry I cannot relieve you of the burden. The law of the land has made you Lady Hartfield; and I hope you are preparing your mind for the duties of your position.'
'It is very dreadful,' sighed Mary. 'If her ladyship were as well and as active as she was when first you came to Fellside, she could have helped me; but now there will be no one, except you. And you will help me, won't you Jack?'
'With all my heart.'
'My own true Jack,' with a little fervent squeeze of his sunburnt hand. 'In society I suppose I shall have to call you Hartfield. "Hartfield, please ring the bell." "Give me a footstool, Hartfield." How odd it sounds. I shall be blurting out the old dear name.'
'I don't think it will much matter. It will pass for one of Lady Hartfield's little ways. Every woman is supposed to have little ways, don't you know. One has a little way of dropping her friends; another has a little way of not paying her dressmaker; another's little way is to take too much champagne. I hope Lady Hartfield's little way will be her devotion to her husband.'
'I'm afraid I shall end by being a nuisance to you, for I shall love you ridiculously,' answered Mary, gaily; 'and from what you have told me about society, it seems to me that there can be nothing so unfashionable as an affectionate wife. Will you mind my being quite out of fashion, Jack?'
'I should very much object to your being in the fashion.'
'Then I am happy. I don't think it is in my nature to become a woman of fashion; although I have cured myself, for your sake, of being a hoyden. I had so schooled myself for what I thought our new life was to be; so trained myself to be a managing economical wife, that I feel quite at sea now that I am to be mistress of a house in Grosvenor Square and a place in Kent. Still, I will bear with it all; yes, even endure the weight of those diamonds for your sake.'
She laughed, and he laughed. They were quite alone among the hills—hardy mountaineers both—and they could be as foolish as they liked. She rested her head upon his shoulder, and he and she and the pony made one as they climbed the hill, close together.
'Our last day,' sighed Mary, as they went down again, after a couple of blissful hours in that wild world between earth and sky. 'I shall be glad to go back to poor grandmother, who must be sadly lonely; but it is so sweet to be quite alone with you.'
They left the Lodore Hotel in an open carriage, after luncheon next day, and posted to Fellside, where they arrived just in time to assist at Lady Maulevrier's afternoon tea. She received them both with warm affection, and made Hartfield sit close beside her sofa; and every now and then, in the pauses of their talk, she laid her wasted and too delicate fingers upon the young man's strong brown hand, with a caressing gesture.
'You can never know how sweet it is to me to be able to love you,' she said tenderly. 'You can never know how my heart yearned to you from the very first, and how hard it was to keep myself in check and not be too kind to you. Oh, Hartfield, you should have told me the truth. You should not have come here under false colours.'
'Should I not, Lady Maulevrier? It was my only chance of being loved for my own sake; or, at least of knowing that I was so loved. If I had come with my rank and my fortune in my hand, as it were—one of the good matches of the year—what security could I ever have felt in the disinterested love of the girl who chose me? As plain John Hammond I wooed and was rejected; as plain John Hammond I wooed and won; and the prize which I so won is a pearl above price. Not for worlds, were the last year to be lived over again, would I have one day of my life altered.'
'Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied. I wanted you for Lesbia, and I have got you for Mary. Best of all, I have got you for myself. Ronald Hollister's son is mine; he is of my kin; he belongs to me; he will not forsake me in life; he will be near me, God grant, when I die.'
'Dear Lady Maulevrier, as far as in me lies, I will be to you as a son,' said Lord Hartfield, very solemnly, stooping to kiss her hand.
Mary came away from her tea-table to embrace her grandmother.
'It makes me so happy to have won a little of your regard,' she murmured, 'and to know that I have married a man whom you can love.'
'Of course you have heard of Lesbia's engagement?' Lady Maulevrier said presently, when they were taking their tea.
'Maulevrier wrote to us about it.'
'To us.' How nice it sounded, thought Mary, as if they were a firm, and a letter written to one was written to both.
'And do you know this Mr. Smithson?'
'Not intimately. I have met him at the Carlton.'
'I am told that he is very much esteemed by your party, and that he is very likely to get a peerage when this Ministry goes out of office.'
'That is not improbable. Peerages are to be had if a man is rich enough; and Smithson is supposed to be inordinately rich.'
'I hope he has character as well as money,' said Lady Maulevrier, gravely. 'But do you think a man can become inordinately rich in a short time, with unblemished honour?'
'We are told that nothing is impossible,' answered Hartfield. 'Faith can remove a mountain; only one does not often see it done. However, I believe Mr. Smithson's character is fairly good as millionaires go. We do not inquire too closely into these things nowadays.'
Lady Maulevrier sighed and held her peace. She remembered the day when she had protested vehemently, passionately, against Lesbia's marriage with a poor man. And now she had an unhappy feeling about Mr. Smithson's wealth, a doubt, a dread that all might not be well with those millions, that some portion of that golden tide might flow from impure sources. She had lived remote from the world, but she had read the papers diligently, and she knew how often the splendour of commercial wealth has been suddenly obscured behind a black cloud of obloquy. She could not rejoice heartily at the idea of Lesbia's engagement.
'I am to see the man early in August,' she said, as if she were talking of a butler. 'I hope I may like him. Lady Kirkbank tells me it is a brilliant marriage, and I must take her word. What canIdo for my granddaughter—a useless log—a prisoner in two rooms?'
'It is very hard,' murmured Mary, tenderly, 'but I do not see any reason why Lesbia should not be happy. She likes a brilliant life; and Mr. Smithson can give her as much gaiety and variety as she can possibly desire. And, after all, yachts, and horses, and villas, and diamondsarenice things.'
'They are the things for which half the world is ready to cheat or murder the other half,' said Lady Maulevrier, bitterly. She had told herself long ago that wealth was power, and she had sacrificed many things, her own peace, her own conscience among them, in order that her children and grandchildren should be rich; and, knowing this, she felt it ill became her to be scrupulous, and to inquire too closely as to the sources of Mr. Smithson's wealth. He was rich, and the world had no fault to find with him. He had attended the lastlevée. He went into reputable society. And he could give Lesbia all those things which the world calls good.
Fräulein Müller had packed her heavy old German trunks, and had gone back to theHeimath, laden with presents of all kinds from Lady Maulevrier; so Mary and her husband felt as if Fellside was really their own. They dined with her ladyship, and left her for the night an hour after dinner; and then they went down to the gardens, and roamed about in the twilight, and talked, and talked, and talked, as only true lovers can talk, be they Strephon and Daphne in life's glad morning, or grey-haired Darby and Joan; and lastly they went down to the lake, and rowed about in the moonlight, and talked of King Arthur's death, and of that mystic sword, Excalibur, 'wrought by the lonely maiden of the lake.'
They spent three happy days in wandering about the neighbourhood, revisiting in the delicious freedom of their wedded life those spots which they had seen together, when Mary was still in bondage, and the eye of propriety, as represented by Miss Müller, was always upon her. Now they were free to go where they pleased—to linger where they liked—they belonged to each other, and were under no other dominion.
The dogcart, James Steadman's dogcart, which he had rarely used during the last six months, was put in requisition and Lord Hartfield drove his wife about the country. They went to the Langdale Pikes, and to Dungeon Ghyll; and, standing beside the waterfall, Mary told her husband how miserable she had felt on that very spot a little less than a year ago, when she believed that he thought her plain and altogether horrid. Whereupon he had to console her with many kisses and sweet words, for the bygone pain on her part, the neglect on his.
'I was a wretch,' he said, 'blind, besotted, imbecile.'
'No, no, no. Lesbia is very lovely—and I could not expect you would care for me till she was gone away. How glad I am that she went,' added Mary, naïvely.
The sky, which had been cloudless all day, began to darken as Lord Hartfield drove back to Fellside, and Mary drew a little closer to the driver's elbow, as if for shelter from an impending tempest.
'You have your waterproof, of course,' he said, looking down at her, as the first big drops of a thunder shower dashed upon the splash-board. 'No young woman in the Lake country would think of being without a waterproof.'
Mary was duly provided, and with the help of the groom put herself into a snug little tartan Inverness, while Hartfield sent the cart spinning along twelve miles an hour.
They were at Fellside before the storm developed its full power, but the sky was leaden, the landscape dull and blotted, the atmosphere heavy and stifling. The thunder grumbled hoarsely, far away yonder in the wild gorges of Borrowdale; and Mary and her husband made up their minds that the tempest would come before midnight.
Lady Maulevrier was suffering from the condition of the atmosphere. She had gone to bed, prostrate with a neuralgic headache, and had given orders that no one but her maid should go near her. So Lord Hartfield and his wife dined by themselves, in the room where Mary had eaten so many uninteresting dinnerstête-à-têtewith Fräulein; and in spite of the storm which howled, pelted, and lightened every now and then, Mary felt as if she were in Paradise.
There was no chance of going out after dinner. The lake looked like a pool of ink, the mountains were monsters of dark and threatening aspect, the rain rattled against the windows, and ran from the verandah in miniature water-spouts. There was nothing to do but stay in doors, in the sultry, dusky house.
'Let us go to my boudoir,' said Mary. 'Let me enjoy the full privilege of having a boudoir—my very own room. Wasn't it too good of grandmother to have it made so smart for me?'
'Nothing can be too good for my Mary,' answered her husband, still in the doting stage, 'but it was very nice of her ladyship—and the room is charming.'
Delightful as the new boudoir might be, they dawdled in the picture gallery, that long corridor on which all the upper rooms opened, and at one end of which was the door of Lady Maulevrier's bedroom, at right angles with that red-cloth door, which was never opened, except to give egress or ingress to James Steadman, who kept the key of it, as if the old part of Fellside House had been an enchanted castle. Lord Hartfield had not forgotten that summer midnight last year, when his meditations were disturbed by a woman's piercing cry. He thought of it this evening, as Mary and he lowered their voices on drawing near Lady Maulevrier's door. She was asleep within there now, perhaps, that strange old woman; and at any moment an awful shriek, as of a soul in mortal agony, might startle them in the midst of their bliss.
The lamps were lighted below; but this upper part of the house was wrapped in the dull grey twilight of a stormy evening. A single lamp burned dimly at the further end of the corridor, and all the rest was shadow.
Mary and her husband walked up and down, talking in subdued tones. He was explaining the necessity of his being in London next week, and promising to come back to Fellside directly his business at the House was over.
'It will be delightful to read your speeches,' said Mary; 'but I am silly and selfish enough to wish you were a country squire, with no business in London. And yet I don't wish that either, for I am intensely proud of you.'
'And some day, before we are much older, you will sit in your robes in the peeress's gallery.'
'Oh, I couldn't,' cried Mary. 'I should make a fool of myself, somehow. I should look like a housemaid in borrowed plumes. Remember, I have noAnstand—I have been told so all my life.'
'You will be one of the prettiest peeresses who ever sat in that gallery, and the purest, and truest, and dearest,' protested her lover-husband.
'Oh, if I am good enough for you, I am satisfied. I marriedyou, and not the House of Lords. But I am afraid your friends will all say, "Hartfield, why in heaven's name did you marry that uncultivated person?" Look!'
She stopped suddenly, with her hand on her husband's arm. It was growing momentarily darker in the corridor. They were at the end near the lamp, and that other end by Lady Maulevrier's door was in deeper darkness, yet not too dark for Lord Hartfield to see what it was to which Mary pointed.
The red-cloth door was open, and a faint glimmer of light showed within. A man was standing in the corridor, a small, shrunken figure, bent and old.
'It is Steadman's uncle,' said Mary. 'Do let me go and speak to him, poor, poor old man.'
'The madman!' exclaimed Hartfield. 'No, Mary; go to your room at once. I'll get him back to his own den.'
'But he is not mad—at any rate, he is quite harmless. Let me just say a few words to him. Surely I am safe with you.'
Lord Hartfield was not inclined to dispute that argument; indeed, he felt himself strong enough to protect his wife from all the lunatics in Bedlam. He went towards the end of the corridor, keeping Mary well behind him; but Mary did not mean to lose the opportunity of renewing her acquaintance with Steadman's uncle.
'I hope you are better, poor old soul,' she murmured, gently, lovingly almost, nestling at her husband's side.
'What, is it you?' cried the old man, tremulous with joy. 'Oh, I have been looking for you—looking—looking—waiting, waiting for you. I have been hoping for you every hour and every minute. Why didn't you come to me, cruel girl?'
'I tried with all my might,' said Mary, 'but people blocked up the door in the stables, and they wouldn't let me go to you; and I have been rather busy for the last fortnight,' added Mary, blushing in the darkness, 'I—I—am married to this gentleman.'
'Married! Ah, that is a good thing. He will take care of you, if he is an honest man.'
'I thought he was an honest man, but he has turned out to be an earl,' answered Mary, proudly. 'My husband is Lord Hartfield.' 'Hartfield—Hartfield,' the old man repeated, feebly. 'Surely I have heard that name before.'
There was no violence in his manner, nothing but imbecility; so Lord Hartfield made up his mind that Mary was right, and that the old man was quite harmless, worthy of all compassion and kindly treatment.
This was the same old man whom he had met on the Fell in the bleak March morning. There was no doubt in his mind about that, although he could hardly see the man's face in the shadowy corridor.
'Come,' said the man, 'come with me, my dear. You forgot me, but I have not forgotten you. I mean to leave you my fortune. Come with me, and I'll show you your legacy. It is all for you—every rupee—every jewel.'
This word rupee startled Lord Hartfield. It had a strange sound from the lips of a Westmoreland peasant.
'Come, child, come!' said the man impatiently. 'Come and see what I have left you in my will. I make a new will every day, but I leave everything to you—every will is in your favour. But if you are married you had better have your legacy at once. Your husband is strong enough to take care of you and your fortune.'
'Poor old man,' whispered Mary; 'pray let us humour him.'
It was the usual madman's fancy, no doubt. Boundless wealth, exalted rank, sanctity, power—these things all belong to the lunatic. He is the lord of creation, and, fed by such fancies, he enjoys flashes of wild happiness in the midst of his woe.
'Come, come, both of you,' said the old man, eagerly, breathless with impatience.
He led the way across the sacred threshold, looking back, beckoning to them with his wasted old hand, and Mary for the first time in her life entered that house which had seemed to her from her very childhood as a temple of silence and mystery. The passage was dimly lighted by a little lamp on a bracket. The old man crept along stealthily, looking back, with a face full of cunning, till he came to a broad landing, from which an old staircase, with massive oak banisters, led down to the square hall below. The ceilings were low, the passages were narrow. All things in the house were curiously different from that spacious mansion which Lady Maulevrier had built for herself.
A door on the landing stood ajar. The old man pushed it open and went in, followed by Mary and her husband.
They both expected to see a room humble almost to poverty—an iron bedstead, perhaps, and such furniture as the under servants in a nobleman's household are privileged to enjoy. Both were alike surprised at the luxury of the apartment they entered, and which was evidently reserved exclusively for Steadman's uncle.
It was a sitting-room. The furniture was old-fashioned, but almost as handsome as any in Lady Maulevrier's apartments. There was a large sofa of most comfortable shape, covered with dark red velvet, and furnished with pillows and foot rugs, which would have satisfied a Sybarite of the first water. Beside the sofa stood a hookah, with all appliances in the Oriental fashion; and half a dozen long cherry-wood pipes neatly arranged above the mantelpiece showed that Mr. Steadman's uncle was a smoker of a luxurious type.
In the centre of the room stood a large writing table, with a case of pigeon-holes at the back, a table which would not have disgraced a Prime Minister's study. A pair of wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks, lighted this table, which was littered with papers, in a wild confusion that too plainly indicated the condition of the owner's mind. The oak floor was covered with Persian prayer rugs, old and faded, but of the richest quality. The window curtains were dark red velvet; and through an open doorway Mary and her husband saw a corresponding luxury in the arrangements of the adjoining bedroom.
The whole thing seemed wild and strange as a fairy tale. The weird and wizened old man, grinning and nodding his head at them. The handsome room, rich with dark, subdued colour, in the dim light of four wax candles, two on the table, two on the mantelpiece. The perfume of stephanotis and tea-roses, blended faintly with the all-pervading odour of latakia and Turkish attar. All was alike strange, bearing in mind that this old man was a recipient of Lady Maulevrier's charity, a hanger-on upon a confidential servant, who might be supposed to be generously treated if he had the run of his teeth and the shelter of a decent garret. Verily, there was something regal in such hospitality as this, accorded to a pauper lunatic.
Where was Steadman, the alert, the watchful, all this time? Mary wondered. They had met no one. The house was as mute as if it were under the spell of a magician. It was like that awful chamber in the Arabian story, where the young man found the magic horse, and started on his fatal journey. Mary felt as if here, too, there must be peril; here, too, fate was working.
The old man went to the writing table, pushed aside the papers, and then stooped down and turned a mysterious handle or winch under the knee-hole, and the writing-desk moved slowly on one side, while the pigeon-holes sank, and a deep well full of secret drawers was laid open.
From one of these secret drawers the old man took a bunch of keys, nodding, chuckling, muttering to himself as he groped for them with tremulous hand.
'Steadman is uncommonly clever—thinks he knows everything—but he doesn't know the trick of this table. I could hide a regiment of Sepoys in this table, my dear. Well, well, perhaps not Sepoys—too big, too big—but I could hide all the State papers of the Presidency. There are drawers enough for that.'
Hartfield watched him intently, with thoughtful brow. There was a mystery here, a mystery of the deepest dye; and it was for him—it must needs be his task, welcome or unwelcome, to unravel it.
This was the Maulevrier skeleton.
'Now, come with me,' said the old man, clutching Mary's wrist, and drawing her towards the half-open door leading into the bedroom.
She had a feeling of shrinking, for there was something uncanny about the old man, something that might be life or death, might belong to this world or the next; but she had no fear. In the first place, she was courageous by nature, and in the second her husband was with her, a tower of strength, and she could know no fear while he was at her side.
The strange old man led the way across his bedroom to an inner chamber, oak pannelled, with very little furniture, but holding much treasure in the shape of trunks, portmanteaux—all very old and dusty—and two large wooden cases, banded with iron.
Before one of these cases the man knelt down, and applied a key to the padlock which fastened it. He gave the candle to Lord Hartfield to hold, and then opened the box. It seemed to be full of books, which he began to remove, heaping them on the floor beside him; and it was not till he had cleared away a layer of dingy volumes that he came to a large metal strong box, so heavy that he could not lift it out of the chest.
Slowly, tremulously, and with quickened breathing, he unlocked the box where it was, and raised the lid.
'Look,' he said eagerly, 'this is her legacy—this is my little girl's legacy.'
Lord Hartfield bent down and looked at the old man's treasure, by the wavering light of the candle; Mary looking over his shoulder, breathless with wonder.
The strong box was divided into compartments. One, and the largest, was filled with rouleaux of coin, packed as closely as possible. The others contained jewels, set and unset—diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires—which flashed back the flickering flame of the candle with glintings of rainbow light.
'These are all for her—all—all,' exclaimed the old man. 'They are worth a prince's ransom. Those rouleaux are all gold; those gems are priceless. They were the dowry of a princess. But they are hers now—yes, my dear, they are yours—because you spoke sweetly, and smiled prettily, and were very good to a lonely old man—and because you have my mother's face, dear, a smile that recalls the days of my youth. Lift out the box and take it away with you, if you are strong enough,—you, you,' he said, touching Lord Hartfield. 'Hide it somewhere—keep it fromher. Let no one know—no one except your wife and you must be in the secret.'
'My dear sir, it is out of the question—impossible that my wife or I should accept one of those coins—or the smallest of those jewels.'
'Why not, in the devil's name?'
'First and foremost, we do not know how you came in possession of them; secondly, we do not know who you are.'
'They came to me fairly enough—bequeathed to me by one who had the right to leave them. Would you have had all that gold left for an adventurer to wallow in?'
'You must keep your treasure, sir, however it may have come to you,' answered Lord Hartfield firmly. 'My wife cannot take upon herself the burden of a single gold coin—least of all from a stranger. Remember, sir, to us your possession of this wealth—nay, your whole existence—is a mystery.'
'You want to know who I am?' said the old man drawing himself up, with a suddenhauteurwhich was not without dignity, despite his shrunken form and grotesque appearence. 'Well, sir. I am----'
He checked himself abruptly, and looked round the room with a scared expression.
'No, no, no,' he muttered; 'caution, caution! They have not done with me yet; she warned me—they are lying in wait; I mustn't walk into their trap.' And then turning to Lord Hartfield, he said, haughtily, 'I shall not condescend to tell you who I am, sir. You must know that I am a gentleman, and that is enough for you. There is my gift to your wife'—pointing to the chest—'take it or leave it.'
'I shall leave it, sir, with all due respect.'
A frightful change came over the old man's face at this determined refusal. His eyes glowered at Lord Hartfield under the heavy scowling brows; his bloodless lips worked convulsively.
'Do you take me for a thief?' he exclaimed. 'Are you afraid to touch my gold—that gold for which men and women sell their souls, blast their lives with shame, and pain, and dishonour, all the world over? Do you stand aloof from it—refuse to touch it, as if it were infected? And you, too, girl! Have you no sense? Are you an idiot?'
'I can do nothing against my husband's wish,' Mary answered, quietly; 'and, indeed, there is no need for us to take your money. We are rich without it. Please leave that chest to a hospital. It will be ever so much better than giving it to us.'
'You told me you were going to marry a poor man?'
'I know. But he cheated me, and turned out to be a rich man. He was a horrid impostor,' said Mary, drawing closer to her husband, and smiling up at him.
The old man flung down the lid of his strong box, which shut with a sonorous clang. He locked it, and put the key in his pocket.
'I have done with you.' he said. 'You can go your ways, both of you. Fools, fools, fools! The world is peopled with rogues and fools; and, by heaven, I would rather have to do with the rogues!'
He flung himself into an arm-chair, one of the few objects of furniture in the room, and left them to find their way back alone.
'Good-night, sir,' said Lord Hartfield; but the old man made no reply. He sat frowning sullenly.
'Good-night, sir,' said Mary, in her gentle voice, breathing infinite pity.
'Good-night, child,' he growled. 'I am sorry you have married an ass.'
This was more than Mary could stand, and she was about to reply with some acrimony, when her husband put his hand upon her lips and hurried her away.
On the landing they met Mrs. Steadman, a stout, commonplace person, who always had the same half-frightened look, as of one who lived in the shadow of an abiding terror, obviously cowed and brow-beaten by her husband, according to the Fellside household.
At sight of Lord Hartfield and his wife she looked a little more frightened than usual.
'Goodness gracious, Lady Mary! how ever did you come here?' she gasped, not yet having quite realised the fact that Mary had been promoted.
'We came to please Steadman's uncle—he brought us in here,' Mary answered, quietly.
'But where did you find him?'
'In the corridor—just by her ladyship's room.'
'Then he must have taken the key out of Steadman's pocket, or Steadman must have left it about somewhere,' muttered Mrs. Steadman, as if explaining the matter to herself, rather than to Mary. 'My poor husband is not the man he was. And so you met him in the corridor, and he brought you in here. Poor old gentleman! He gets madder and madder every day.'
'There is method in his madness,' said Lord Hartfield. 'He talked very much like sanity just now. Has your husband had the charge of him long?'
Mrs. Steadman answered somewhat confusedly.
'A goodish time, sir. I can't quite exactly say—time passes so quiet in a place like this. One hardly keeps count of the years.'
'Forty years, perhaps?'
Mrs. Steadman blenched under Lord Hartfield's steadfast look—a look which questioned more searchingly than his words.
'Forty years,' she repeated, with a faint laugh. 'Oh, dear no, sir, not a quarter as long. It isn't so many years, after all, since Steadman's poor old uncle went a little queer in his head; and Steadman, having such a quiet home here, and plenty of spare room, made bold to ask her ladyship if he might give the poor old man a home, where he would be in nobody's way.'
'And the poor old man seems to have a very luxurious home,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'Pray when and where did Mr. Steadman's uncle learn to smoke a hookah?'
Simple as the question was, it proved too much for Mrs. Steadman. She only shook her head, and faltered some unintelligible reply.
'Where is your husband?' asked Lord Hartfield; 'I should like to have a little talk with him, if he is disengaged.'
'He is not very well, my lord,' answered Mrs. Steadman. 'He has been ailing off and on for the last six months, but I couldn't get him to see the doctor, or to tell her ladyship that he was in bad health. And about a week ago he broke down altogether, and fell into a kind of drowsy state. He keeps about, and he does his work pretty much the same as usual, but I can see that it's too much for him. If you like to come downstairs I can let you through the lower door into the hall; and if he should have woke up since I have left him he'll be at your lordship's service. But I'd rather not wake him out of his sleep.'
'There is no occasion. What I have to say will keep till to-morrow.'
Lord Hartfield and his wife followed Mrs. Steadman downstairs to the low dark hall, where an old eight-day clock ticked with hoarse and solemn beat, and a fine stag's head over each doorway gave evidence of some former Haselden's sporting tastes. The door of a small panelled parlour stood half-way open; and within the room Lord Hartfield saw James Steadman asleep in an arm-chair by the fire, which burned as brightly as if it had been Christmas time.
'He was so chilly and shivery this afternoon that I was obliged to light a fire,' said Mrs. Steadman.
'He seems to be sleeping heavily,' said Hartfield. 'Don't awaken him. I'll see him to-morrow morning before I go to London.'
'He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my lord,' said the wife, with a troubled air. 'I don't think it can be right.'
'I don't think so either,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'You had better call in the doctor.'
'I will, my lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry with me, I daresay; but I must take upon myself to do it without his leave.'
She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one above, and unlocked a door opening into a lobby near the billiard-room.
'Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game,' said Lord Hartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off the impression of some dominant idea.
'Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to play,' answered Mary. 'That strange old man has given me a shock. Everything about his surroundings is so different from what I expected. And how could an uncle of Steadman's come by all that money—and those jewels—if they were jewels, and not bits of glass which the poor old thing has chopped up, in order to delude himself with an imaginary treasure?'
'I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly.'
'They sparkled tremendously—almost as much as my—our—the family diamonds,' said Mary, puzzled how to describe that property which she held in right of her position as countess regnant; 'but if they are real jewels, and all those rouleaux real money, how could Steadman's uncle become possessed of such wealth?'
'How, indeed?' said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue
Goodwood had come and gone, a brief bright season of loss and gain, fine gowns, flirtation, lobster en mayonaise, champagne, sunshine, dust, glare, babble of many voices, successes, failures, triumphs, humiliations. A very pretty picture to contemplate from the outside, this little world in holiday clothes, framed in greenery! but just on the Brocken, where the nicest girl among the dancers had the unpleasant peculiarity of dropping a little red mouse out of her mouth—so too here under different forms there were red mice dropping about among the company. Here a hint of coming insolvency; there a whisper of a threatened divorce suit, staved off for a while, compromises, family secrets, little difficulties everywhere; betrothed couples smilingly accepting congratulations, who should never have been affianced were truth and honour the rule of life; forsaken wives pretending to think their husbands models of fidelity; jovial creatures with ruin staring in their faces; households divided and shamming union; almost everybody living above his or her means; and the knowledge that nobody is any better or any happier than his neighbour society's only fountain of consolation.
Lady Lesbia's gowns and parasols had been admired, her engagement had furnished an infinity of gossip, and the fact of Montesma's constant attendance upon her had given zest to the situation, just that flavour of peril and fatality which the soul of society loveth.
'Is she going to marry them both?' asked an ancient dowager of the ever-young type.
'No, dear Lady Sevenoaks, she can only marry one, don't you know; but the other is nice to go about with; and I believe it is the other she really likes.'
'It is always the other that a woman likes,' answered the dowager; 'I am madly in love with this Peruvian—no, I think you said Cuban—myself. I wish some good-natured creature would present him to me. If you know anybody who knows him, tell them to bring him to my next afternoon—Saturday. But why does—chose—machin—Smithson allow such a handsome hanger-on? After marriage I could understand that he might not be able to help himself; but before marriage a man generally has some kind of authority.'
The world wondered a little, just as Lady Sevenoaks wondered, at Smithson's complacency in allowing a man so attractive as Montesma to be so much in the society of his future wife, yet even the censorious could but admit that the Cuban's manner offered no ground for offence. He came to Goodwood 'on his own hook,' as society put it: and every man who wears a decent coat and is not a welsher has a right to enjoy the prettiest race-course in England. He spent a considerable part of the day in Lesbia's company; but since she was the centre of a little crowd all the time, there could be no offence in this. He was a stranger, knowing very few people, and having nothing to do but to amuse himself. Smithson was an old and familiar friend, and was in a measure bound to give him hospitality.
Mr. Smithson had recognised that obligation, but in a somewhat sparing manner. There were a dozen unoccupied bedchambers in the Park Lane Renaissance villa; but Smithson did not invite his Cuban acquaintance to shift his quarters from the Bristol to Park Lane. He was civil to Don Gomez: but anyone who had taken the trouble to watch and study the conduct and social relations of these two men would have seen that his civility was a forced civility, and that he endured the Spaniard's society under constraint of some kind.
And now all the world was flocking to Cowes for the regatta, and Lesbia and her chaperon were established on board Mr. Smithson's yacht, theCayman; and the captain of theCaymanand all her crew were delivered over to Lesbia to be her slaves and to obey her lightest breath. TheCaymanwas to lie at anchor off Cowes for the regatta week; and then she was to sail for Hyde, and lie at anchor there for another regatta week; and she was to be a floating hotel for Lady Lesbia so long as the young lady would condescend to occupy her.
The captain was an altogether exceptional captain, and the crew were a picked crew, ruddy faced, sandy whiskered for the most part, Englishmen all, honest, hardy fellows from between the Nore and the Wash, talking in an honest provincial patois, dashed with sea slang. They were the very pink and pattern of cleanliness, and theCaymanherself from stem to stern was dazzling and spotless to an almost painful degree.
Not content with the existing arrangements of the yacht, which were at once elegant and luxurious, Mr. Smithson had sent down a Bond Street upholsterer to refit the saloon and Lady Lesbia's cabin. The dark velvet and morocco which suited a masculine occupant would not have harmonised with girlhood and beauty; and Mr. Smithson's saloon, as originally designed, had something of the air of atabagie. The Bond Street man stripped away all the velvet and morocco, plucked up the Turkey carpet, draped the scuttle-ports with pale yellow cretonne garnished with orange pompons, subdued the glare of the skylight by a blind of oriental silk, covered the divans with Persian saddlebags, the floor with a delicate Indian matting, and furnished the saloon with all that was most feminine in the way of bamboo chairs and tea-tables, Japanese screens and fans of gorgeous colouring. Here and there against the fluted yellow drapery he fastened a large Rhodes plate; and the thing was done. Lady Lesbia's cabin was all bamboo and embroidered India muslin. An oval glass, framed in Dresden biscuit, adorned the side, a large white bearskin covered the floor. The berth was pretty enough for the cradle of a duchess's first baby. Even Lesbia, spoiled by much indulgence and unlimited credit, gave a little cry of pleasure at sight of the nest that had been made ready for her.
'Really, Mr. Smithson is immensely kind!' she exclaimed.
'Smithson is always kind,' answered Lady Kirkbank, 'and you don't half enough appreciate him. He has given me his very own cabin—such a dear little den! There are his cigar boxes and everything lovely on the shelves, and his own particular dressing-case put open for me to use—all the backs of all the brushesrepoussésilver, and all the scent-bottles filled expressly for me. If the yacht would only stand quite still, I should think it more delicious than the best house I ever stayed in: only I don't altogether enjoy that little way it has of gurgling up and down perpetually.'
Mr. Smithson's chief butler, a German Swiss, and a treasure of intelligence, had come down to take the domestic arrangements of the yacht into his control. The Park Lanechefwas also on board, Mr. Smithson's steward acting as his subordinate. This great man grumbled sorely at the smallness of his surroundings; for the most luxurious yacht was a poor substitute for the spacious kitchens and storerooms and stillrooms of the London mansion. There was a cabin for Lady Kirkbank's Rilboche and Lady Lesbia's Kibble, where the two might squabble at their leisure; in a word, everything had been done that forethought could do to make the yacht as perfect a place of sojourn as any floating habitation, from Noah's Ark to the Orient steamers, had ever been made.
It was between four and five upon a delicious July afternoon that Lady Kirkbank and her charge came on board. The maids and the luggage had been sent a day in advance, so that everything might be in its place, and the empty boxes all stowed away, before the ladies arrived. They had nothing to do but walk on board and fling themselves into the low luxurious chairs ready for them on the deck, a little wearied by the heat and dust of a railway journey, and with that delicious sense of languid indifference to all the cares of life which seems to be in the very atmosphere of a perfect summer afternoon.
A striped awning covered the deck, and great baskets of roses—pink, and red, and yellow—were placed about here and there. Tea was ready on a low table, a swinging brass kettle hissing merrily, with an air of supreme homeliness.
Mr. Smithson had accompanied hisfiancéefrom town, and now sat reading theGlobe, and meekly waiting for his tea, while Lesbia took a languid survey of the shore and the flotilla of boats, little and big, and while Lady Kirkbank rhapsodised about the yacht, praising everything, and calling everything by a wrong name. He was to be their guest all day, and every day. They were to have enough of him, as Lesbia had observed to her chaperon, with a spice of discontent, not quite so delighted with the arrangement as her faithful swain. To him the idea was rapture.
'You have contrived somehow to keep me very much at a distance hitherto,' he told Lesbia, 'and I feel sometimes as if we were almost strangers; but a yacht is the best place in the world to bring two people together, and a week at Cowes will make us nearer to each other and more to each other than three months in London;' and Lesbia had said nothing, inwardly revolting at the idea of becoming any nearer and dearer to this man whom she had pledged herself to marry. She was to be his wife—yes, some day—and it was his desire the some day should be soon: but in the interval her dearest privilege was the power to keep him at a distance.
And yet she could not make up her mind to break with him, to say honestly, 'I never liked you much, and now we are engaged I find myself liking you less and less every day. Save me from the irrevocable wickedness of a loveless marriage. Forgive me, and let me go.' No, this she could not bring herself to say. She did not like Mr. Smithson, but she valued the position he was able to give her. She wanted to be mistress of that infinite wealth—she could not renounce that right to which she fancied she had been born, her right to be one of the Queens of Society: and the only man who had offered to crown her as queen, to find her a palace and a court, was Horace Smithson. Without Mr. Smithson her first season would have resulted in dire failure. She might perhaps have endured that failure, and been content to abide the chances of a second season, had it not been for Mary's triumph. But for Mary to be a Countess, and for Lesbia to remain Lesbia Haselden, a nobody, dependent upon the caprices of a grandmother whose means might after all be but limited—no, such a concatenation as that was not to be endured. Lesbia told herself that she could not go back to Fellside to remain there indefinitely, a spinster and a dependent. She had learnt the true value of money; she had found out what the world was like; and it seemed to her that some such person as Mr. Smithson was essential to her existence, just as a butler is a necessity in a house. One may not like the man, but the post must be filled.
Again, if she were to throw over Mr. Smithson, and speculate upon her chances of next year, what hope had she of doing better in her second season than in her first? The horizon was blank. There was no greatpartilikely to offer himself for competition. She had seen all that the market could produce. Wealthy bachelors, high-born lovers, could not drop from the moon. Lesbia, schooled by Lady Kirkbank, knew her peerage by heart; and she knew that, having missed Lord Hartfield, there was really no one in the Blue Book worth waiting for. Thus, caring only for those things which wealth can buy, she had made up her mind that she could not do without Horace Smithson's money; and she must therefore needs resign herself to the disagreeable necessity of taking Smithson and his money together. The great auctioneer Fate would not divide the lot.
She told herself that for her a loveless marriage was, after all, no prodigious sacrifice. She had found out that heart made but a small figure in the sum of her life. She could do without love. A year ago she had fancied herself in love with John Hammond. In her seclusion at St. Bees, in the long, dull August days, sauntering up and down by the edge of the sea, in the melancholy sunset hour, she thought that her heart was broken, that life was worthless without the man she loved. She had thought and felt all this, but not strongly enough to urge her to any great effort, not keenly enough to make her burst her chains. She had preferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances of future aggrandisement. And now she looked back and remembered those sunset walks by the sea, and all her thoughts and feelings in those silent summer hours; and she smiled at herself, half in scorn, half in pity, for her own weakness. How easily she had learned to do without him who at that hour seemed the better part of her existence. A good deal of gaiety and praise, a little mild flirtation at Kirkbank Castle, and lo! the image of her first lover began to grow dim and blurred, like a faded photograph. A season at Cannes, and she was cured. A week in London, and that first love was a thing of the past, a dream from which the dreamer awaketh, forgetting the things that he has dreamt.
Remembering all this she told herself that she had no heart, that love or no love was a question of very little moment, and that the personal qualities of the man whom she chose for a husband mattered nothing to her, provided that his lands and houses and social status came up to her standard of merit. She had seen Mr. Smithson's houses and lands; and she was distinctly assured that he would in due course be raised to the peerage. She had, therefore, every reason to be satisfied.
Having thus reasoned out the circumstances of her new life, she accepted her fate with a languid grace, which harmonised with her delicate and patrician beauty. Nobody could have for a moment supposed from her manner that she loved Horace Smithson; but nobody had the right to think that she detested him. She accepted all his attentions as a thing of course. The flowers which he strewed beneath her footsteps, the pearls which he melted in her wine—metaphorically speaking—were just 'good enough' and no more. This afternoon, when Mr. Smithson asked her how she liked the arrangements of the saloon and cabin, she said she thought they would do very nicely. 'They would do.' Nothing more.
'It is dreadfully small, of course,' she said, 'when one is accustomed to rooms: but it is rather amusing to be in a sort of doll's house, and on deck it is really very nice.'
This was the most Mr. Smithson had for his pains, and he seemed to be content therewith. If a man will marry the prettiest girl of the year he must be satisfied with such scant civility as conscious perfection may give him. We know that Aphrodite was not altogether the most comfortable wife, and that Helen was a cause of trouble.
Mr. Smithson sat in a bamboo chair beside his mistress, and looked ineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea. Sky and sea were one exquisite azure—the colours of the boats glancing in the sunshine as if they had been jewels; here an emerald rudder, there a gunwale painted with liquid rubies. White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vivid patches of light against the blue. The landscape yonder shone and sparkled as if it had been incandescent. All the world of land and sky and sea was steeped in sunshine. A day on which to do nothing, read nothing, think nothing, only to exist.
While they sat basking in the balmy atmosphere, looking lazily at that bright, almost insupportable picture of blue sea under blue sky, there came the dip of oars, making music, and a sound of coolness with every plash of water.
'How good it is of somebody to row about, just to give us that nice soothing sound,' murmured Lesbia.
Lady Kirkbank, with her dear old head thrown back upon the cushion of her luxurious chair, and her dear little cornflower hat just a thought on one side, was sleeping the sleep of the just, and unconsciously revealing the little golden arrangements which gave variety to her front teeth.
The soothing sound came nearer and nearer, close under theCayman'squarter, and then a brown hand clasped the man-ropes, and a light slim figure swung itself upon deck, while the boat bobbed and splashed below.
It was Montesma, who had not been expected till the racing, which was not to begin for two days. A faint, faint rose bloom flushed Lady Lesbia's cheek at sight of him; and Mr. Smithson gave a little look of vexation, just one rapid contraction of the eyebrows, which resumed their conventional placidity the next instant.
'So good of you,' he murmured. 'I really did not expect you till the beginning of the week.'
'London is simply insupportable in this weather—most of all for a man born in the Havanas. My soul thirsted for blue water. So I said to myself, This good Smithson is at Cowes; he will give me the run of his yacht and a room at his villa. Why not go to Cowes at once?'
'The room is at your service. I have only two or three of my people at Formosa, but just enough to look after a bachelor friend.'
'I want very little service, my dear fellow,' answered Montesma, pleasantly. 'A man who has crossed the Cordilleras and camped in the primeval forest on the shores of the Amazon, learns to help himself. So this is theCayman?Muy deleitoso, mi amigo. A floating Paradise in little. If the ark had been like this, I don't think any of the passengers would have wanted the flood to dry up.'
He shook hands with Lady Lesbia as he spoke, and with Lady Kirkbank, who looked at him as if he were part of her dream, and then he sank into the chair on Lesbia's left hand, with the air of being established for the rest of the day.
'I have left my portmanteaux at the end of the pier,' he said lazily. 'I dare say one of your fellows will be good enough to take them to Formosa for me?'
Mr. Smithson gave the necessary order. All the beauty had gone out of the sea and the sky for him, all the contentment from his mind; and yet he was in no position to rebel against Fate—in no position to say directly or indirectly, 'Don Gomez de Montesma, I don't want you here, and I must request you to transfer yourself elsewhither.'
Lesbia's feelings were curiously different. The very sight of that nervous brown hand upon the rope just now had sent a strange thrill through her veins. She who believed herself heartless could scarce trust herself to speak for the vehement throbbing of her heart. A sense of joy too deep for words possessed her as she reclined in her low chair, with drooping eyelids, yet feeling the fire of those dark southern eyes upon her face, scorching her like an actual flame.
'Lady Lesbia, may I have a cup of tea?' he asked; not because he wanted the tea, but only for the cruel delight of seeing if she were able to give it to him calmly.
Her hands shook, fluttered, wandered helplessly, as she poured out that cup of tea and handed it to Montesma, a feminine office which she had performed placidly enough for Mr. Smithson. The Spaniard took the cup from her with a quiet smile, a subtle look which seemed to explore the inmost depth of her consciousness.
Yes, this man was verily her master. She knew it, and he know it, as that look of his told her. Vain to play her part of languid indifference—vain to struggle against her bondage. In heart and spirit she was at his feet, an odalisque, recognising and bowing down to her sultan.
Happily for the general peace, Mr. Smithson had been looking away seaward, with a somewhat troubled brow, while that little cup and saucer episode was being enacted. And in the next minute Lesbia had recovered her self-command, and resumed that graceful languor which was one of her charms. She was weak, but she was not altogether foolish; and she had no idea of succumbing to this new influence—of yielding herself up to this conqueror, who seemed to take her life into his hand as if it were a bit of thistledown. Her agitation of those first few minutes was due to the suddenness of his appearance—the reaction from dulness to delight. She had been told that he was not to be at Cowes till Monday, and lo! he was here at her side, just as she was thinking how empty and dreary life was without him.
He dropped into his place so naturally and easily, made himself so thoroughly at home and so agreeable to every one, that it was almost impossible for Horace Smithson to resent his audacity! Mr. Smithson's vitals might be devoured by the gnawing of the green-eyed monster, but however fierce that gnawing were, he did not want to seem jealous. Montesma was there as the very incarnation of some experiences in Mr. Smithson's past career, and he dared not object to the man's presence.
And so the summer day wore on. They had the yacht all to themselves that evening, for the racing yachts were fulfilling engagements in other waters, and the gay company of pleasure-seekers had not yet fully assembled. They were dropping in one by one, all the evening, and Cowes roads grew fuller of life with every hour of the summer night.
Mr. Smithson and his guests dined in the saloon, a snug little party of four, and sat long over dessert, deep into the dusk; and they talked of all things under heaven, things frivolous, things grave, but most of all about that fair, strange world in far-off southern waters, the sunny islands of the Caribbean Sea, and the dreamy, luxurious life of that tropical clime, half Spanish, half Oriental, wholly independent of European conventionalities. Lesbia listened, enchanted by the picture. What were Park Lane palaces, and Berkshire manors, the petty splendours of the architect and the upholsterer, weighed against a world in which all nature is on a grander scale? Mr. Smithson might give her fine houses and costly upholstery; but only the Tropic of Cancer could give her larger and brighter stars, a world of richer colouring, a land of perpetual summer, nights luminous with fire-flies, gardens in which the fern and the cactus were as forest trees, and where humming-birds flashed among the foliage like living flowers; nay, where the flowers themselves took the forms of the animal world and seemed instinct with life and motion.
'Yes,' said Mr. Smithson, with his gentlemanlike drawl, 'Spanish America and the West Indies are delightful places to talk about. There are so many things one leaves out of the picture—thieves, niggers, jiggers, snakes, mosquitoes, yellow Jack, creeping, crawling creatures of all kinds. I always feel very glad I have been to South America.'
'Why?'
'In order that I may never go there again,' replied Mr. Smithson.
'I was beginning to hope you would take me there some day,' said Lesbia.
'Never again, no, not even for your sake. No man should ever leave Europe after he is five-and-thirty; indeed, I doubt if after that age he should venture beyond the Mediterranean. That is the sea of civilisation. Anything outside it means barbarism.'
'I hope we are going to travel by-and-by,' said Lesbia; 'I have been mewed up in Grasmere half my life, and if you are going to confine me to the shores of the Mediterranean, which is, after all, only a larger lake, for the other half of my life, my existence will be a dull piece of work after all. I agree with what Don Gomez said the other night: "Not to travel is not to live."'
They went on deck presently and sat in the summer darkness, lighted only by the stars, and by the lights of the yachts, and the faintly gleaming windows of the lighted town, sat long and late, in a state of ineffable repose. Lady Kirkbank, fortified by the produce of Mr. Smithson's particularclos, and by a couple of glasses of green Chartreuse, slept profoundly. She had not enjoyed herself so much for the last three months. She had been stretched on Society's rack, and she had been ground in Society's mill; and neither mind nor body had been her own to do what she liked withal. She had toiled early and late, and had spared herself in no wise. And now the trouble was over for a space. Here were rest and respite. She had done her duty as a chaperon, had provided her charge with the very best thing the matrimonial market offered. She had paid her creditors something on account all round, and had left them appeased and trustful, if not content. Sir George had gone oft alone to drink the waters at Spa, and to fortify himself for Scotland and the grouse season. She was her own mistress, and she could fold her hands and take her rest, eat and drink and sleep and be merry, all at Mr. Smithson's expense.
The yachts came flocking in next day, like a flight of white-winged sea birds, and Mr. Smithson had enough to do receiving visitors upon theCayman. He was fully occupied; but Montesma had nothing to do, except to amuse Lady Lesbia and her chaperon, and in this onerous task he succeeded admirably. Lesbia found that it was too warm to be on the deck when there were perspiring people, whose breath must be ninety by the thermometer, perpetually coming on board; so she and Lady Kirkbank sat in the saloon, and had the more distinguished guests brought down to them as to a Court; and the shrewder of the guests were quick to divine that no company beyond that of Don Gomez de Montesma was really wanted in that rose-scented saloon.
The Spaniard taught Lady Kirkbankmonte, which delighted her, and which she vowed she would introduce at her supper parties in the half season of November, when she should be in London for a week or two, as a bird of passage, flitting southwards. He began to teach Lesbia Spanish, a language for which she had taken a sudden fancy; and it is curious what tender accents, what hidden meanings even a grammar can take from such a teacher. Spanish came easily enough to a learner who had been thoroughly drilled in French and Italian, and who had been taught the rudiments of Latin; so by the end of a lesson, which went on at intervals all day, the pupil was able to lisp a passage of Don Quixote in the sweetest Castilian, very sweet to the ear of Don Gomez—a kind of baby language, precious as the first half-formed syllables of infancy to mothers.
Montesma had nothing to do but to amuse himself and his companions all day in the saloon, amidst odours of roses and peaches, in a shadowy coolness made by striped silken blinds; but Mr. Smithson was not so much his own master. That innumerable company of friends which are the portion of the rich man given to hospitality would not let the owner of theCaymango scot-free.
At a place like Cowes, on the eve of the regatta week, the freelances of society expect to find entertainment; and Mr. Smithson had to maintain his character for princely hospitalities at the sacrifice of his feelings as a lover. Every ripple of Lesbia's silvery laughter, every deep tone of Montesma's voice, from the cabin below, sent a pang to his jealous soul; and yet he had to smile, and to order more champagne cup, and to be lavish of his best cigars, albeit insisting that his friends should smoke their cigars in the bows well to leeward, so that no foul breathings of tobacco should pollute his Cleopatra galley.
Cleopatra was very happy meanwhile, sublimely indifferent even to the odours of tobacco. She had her Antony at her feet, looking up at her, as she recited her lesson, with darkly luminous eyes, obviously worshipping her, obviously intent on winning her without counting the cost. When had a Montesma ever counted the cost to himself or others—the cost in gold, in honour, in human life? The records of Cuba in the palmy days of the slave trade would tell how lightly they held the last; and for honour, well, the private hells of island and main could tell their tale of specially printed playing cards, in which the swords or stars on the back of each card had a secret language of their own, and were as finger-posts for the initiated player.
Mr. Smithson had business on shore, and was fain to leave the yacht for an hour or two before dinner. He invited Don Gomez to go with him, but the offer was graciously declined.
'Amigo, I don't care even to look at land in such weather. It is so detestably dry,' he pleaded. 'It is only the sound of the sea gurgling against the hull that reconciles one to existence. Go, and be happy at your club, and send off those occult telegrams of yours, dearest. I shall not leave theCaymantill bed-time.'
He looked as fresh and cool as if utterly unaffected by the heat, which to a Cuban must have been a merely lukewarm condition of the atmosphere. But he affected to be prostrate, and Smithson could not insist. He had his cards to play in a game which required extremest caution, and there were no friendly indicators on the backs of his kings and aces. He was feeling his way in the dark, and did not know how much mischief Montesma was prepared to do.
When the owner of the yacht was gone Don Gomez proposed an adjournment to the deck for afternoon tea, and the trio sat under the awning, tea-drinking and gossiping for the next hour. Lady Kirkbank told the steward to say not at home to everybody, just as if she had a street door.
'There is a good deal of thedolce far nienteabout this,' said Montesma, presently; 'but don't you think we have been anchored in sight of that shabby little town quite long enough, and that it would be rather nice to spread our wings and sail round the island before the racing begins?'
'It would be exquisite,' said Lesbia. 'I am very tired of inaction, though I dearly love learning Spanish,' she added, with a lovely smile, and a look that was half submissive, half mutinous. 'But I have really been beginning to wonder whether this boat can move.'
'You will see that she can, and at a smart pace, too, if I sail her. Shall we circumnavigate the island? We can set sail after dinner.'
'Will Mr. Smithson consent, do you think?'
'Why does Smithson exist, except to obey you?'
'I don't know if Lady Kirkbank would quite like it,' said Lesbia, looking at her chaperon, who was waving a big Japanese fan, slowly, unsteadily, and with a somewhat drunken air, the while she slid into dreamland.
'Quite like what?' she murmured, drowsily.
'A little sail.'
'I should dearly love it, if it didn't make me sea-sick.'
'Sea-sick on a glassy lake like this! Impossible,' said Montesma. 'I consider the thing settled. We set sail after dinner.'
Mr. Smithson came back to the yacht just in time to dress for dinner. Don Gomez excused himself from putting on his dress suit. He was going to sail the yacht himself, and he was dressed for his work, picturesquely, in white duck trousers, white silk shirt, and black velvet shooting jacket. He dined with the permission of the ladies, in this costume, in which he looked so much handsomer than in the livery of polite life. He had a red scarf tied round his waist, and when at his work by-and-by, he wore a little red silk cap, just stuck lightly on his dark hair. The dinner to-day was all animation and even excitement, very different from the languorous calm of yesterday. Lesbia seemed a new creature. She talked and laughed and flashed and sparkled as she had never yet done within Mr. Smithson's experience. He contemplated the transformation with wonder not unmixed with suspicion. Never for him had she been so brilliant—never in response to his glances had her violet eyes thus kindled, had her smile been so entrancingly sweet. He watched Montesma, but in him he could find no fault. Even jealousy could hardly take objection to the Spaniard's manner to Lady Lesbia. There was not a look, not a word that hinted at a private understanding between them, or which seemed to convey deeper meanings than the common language of society. No, there was no ground for fault-finding; and yet Smithson was miserable. He knew this man of old, and knew his influence over women.
Mr. Smithson handed over the management of the yacht without a murmer, albeit he pretended to be able to sail her himself, and was in the habit of taking the command for a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon, much to the amusement of skipper and crew. But Montesma was a sailor born and bred—the salt keen breath of the sea had been the first breath in his nostrils—he had managed his light felucca before he was twelve years old, had sailed every inch of the Caribbean Sea, and northward to the furthermost of the Bahamas before he was fifteen. He had lived more on the water than on the land in that wild boyhood of his; a boyhood in which books and professors had played but small part. Montesma's school had been the world, and beautiful women his only professors. He had learnt arithmetic from the transactions of bubble companies; modern languages from the lips of the women who loved him. He was a crack shot, a perfect swordsman, a reckless horseman, and a dancer in whom dancing almost rose to genius. Beyond these limits he was as ignorant as dirt; but he had a cleverness which served as a substitute for book learning, and he seldom failed in impressing the people he met with the idea that he, Gomez de Montesma, was no ordinary man.
Directly after dinner the preparations for an immediate start began; very much to the disgust of skipper and crew, who were not in the habit of working after dinner; but Montesma cared nothing for the short answers of the captain, or the black look of the men.
Lesbia wanted to learn all about everything—the name of every sail, of every rope. She stood near the helmsman, a slim graceful figure in a white gown of some soft material, with never a jewel or a flower to relieve that statuesque simplicity. She wore no hat, and the rich chesnut hair was rolled in a loose knot at the back of the small Greek-looking head. Montesma came to her every now and then to explain what was being done; and by-and-by, when the canvas was all up, and the yacht was skimming over the water, like a giant swan borne by the current of some vast strong river, he came and stayed by her side, and they two sat making little baby sentences in Spanish, he as teacher and she as pupil, with no one near them but the sailors.
The owner of theCaymanhad disappeared mysteriously a quarter of an hour after the sails were unfurled, and Lady Kirkbank had tottered down to the saloon.