Kitabı oku: «Lady Maude's Mania», sayfa 9
Chapter Sixteen.
Music hath Charms
The private inquiry trouble was cooling down, but there was so much excitement and trouble at Portland Place, that Maude’s hair had to go untended on one occasion, and Monsieur Hector and his assistant waited in vain for the lady’s coming. Short as was the distance, Mademoiselle Justine was unable to run round and say that they need not wait.
For Sir Grantley Wilters was to dine in Portland Place that evening, and he arrived in good time.
The baronet was quite bright in spirits and youthful in appearance, having got the better of his late ailment, and Lady Barmouth smiled pensively at him when she was not watching Lord Barmouth, and seeing if he was surreptitiously supplied with wine.
Tom dined at home, and was morosely civil, being puzzled how to act towards his future brother-in-law.
Sir Grantley knew of the trouble between her ladyship and her lord, but religiously avoided all allusion thereto; he, however, found time and opportunity to mention to her ladyship the last scandal that he had heard concerning Melton.
“No?” exclaimed her ladyship, laying her plump hand upon his arm.
“Yas; fact, I assure you,” he said. “I had it from three fellows at the club, and they were present. It was at a place in Jermyn street.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed her ladyship in a low tone.
“They are retailing scandal about poor old Charley, Maude,” said Tom, leaning over the back of her chair in the drawing-room. “You think he’s quite square, eh?”
“If you mean by that, Tom, that I think him an honourable gentleman; yes, I do,” said Maude quietly.
“That’s right. He’s fond enough of you to keep him right, so never you mind what scraggy Wilters says.”
Maude did not reply, but her face flushed, and she sat looking proud and content in her faith.
Meantime her ladyship had been furnished with the last new piece of gossip regarding the young man who had gone to the bad, and was supremely happy.
In spite of her ladyship’s watchfulness Tom managed that his father should have a little wine, and the consequence was that he became very garrulous, making some personal remarks to Sir Grantley about matters of the past which the baronet wished to be considered too youthful to remember, and suffering at last from such decided twinges of his old complaint that he had to leave the table. Maude at once seized the excuse to be freed for the rest of the evening from a presence she detested, and went to attend upon her father, while Tom started to have a quiet cigar and a game of billiards, leaving her ladyship and Sir Grantley together to discuss a few more of the preliminaries of the wedding; Sir Grantley going so far, when he left, as to say that this was about the pleasantest evening he had had at the house in Portland Place, “don’t you know.”
But those below stairs were not above talking at dinner and supper in the servants’ hall, while Mademoiselle Justine sat like a smiling sphinx and listened, but said nothing.
“For my part,” said Robbins, “I think her young ladyship bears it admirably, as a well-bred lady should. She’s getting to know that people in the upper classes can’t marry as they like, and behaving quite right.”
“Ah, poor girl,” said Mrs Downes; “but under that there quiet look who knows what a volcano is a-busting in her breast. Ah, I have a heart of my own.”
“It seems to me,” said Dolly Preen, who during the past few weeks had been growing thin and acid consequent upon slighted love, much banter, the threatened loss of her situation, and genuine feminine jealousy of Justine, who had been intrusted with the task of accompanying her young mistress in her walks – “it seems to me that Lady Maude is finding consolation somewhere.”
Justine, who had been sitting so sphinx-like, suddenly flashed into life.
“You – you lil bébé of a girl, say what you mean,” she cried angrily.
“I was not talking of her ladyship, ma’amselle,” retorted Dolly, who had aptly picked up the London ways of her fellows. “It only seemed to me that Lady Maude had taken to liking music very much.”
“Ah, yes!” said Robbins. “Miss Preen is right there.”
“Some people found fault with me for liking to listen to the organ,” said Dolly, spitefully, “but nobody says nothing about my betters.”
“Lil bébé!” ejaculated Justine scornfully.
“Not quite such a little baby as you think for, ma’amselle,” retorted Dolly, tossing her head. “I’m not blind.”
“But you are lil miserable,” said Justine, scornfully. “What can you see, pray say?”
“Lady Maude giving money to that Italian musician, and listening to him very often from the balcony.”
“Ah,” said Mrs Downes, “but it’s different there, Miss Preen. Some one I know used to look out of the window at the man, Lady Maude looks out to console herself with the music, and you knows music hath charms.”
“See how right is Madame Downes,” said Justine, smiling and nodding. “My faith, Dolly Preen, but how you are bête.”
“I don’t know French,” said Dolly, rising, “but I did look in Lady Maude’s dictionary to see what that word meant, and I won’t sit here to be called a beast by a foreigner, so there.”
“Lil bébé,” said Justine, as Dolly moved toward the door.
“One moment, Miss Preen,” said the butler, speaking in an elderly, paternal tone. “Just you take my advice.”
“I don’t want anybody’s advice, Mr Robbins,” said the girl with asperity.
“Yes, you do, my dear, and what I wanted to say was, don’t you talk so free. You’ve had one narrow escape of losing a good situation through looking weak on Italian lazy ronies, don’t go and run another risk by hinting as a young lady of the highest aristocracy is giving her attention to such a thing as a black-bearded, plaster image selling man who grinds tunes in a box, because if you do you’ll find yourself wrong.”
“Thank you, Mr Robbins,” said Dolly, tartly. “I only know what I see, and I’m not afraid to speak my mind, whatever other people may be. I’m English, I am, and not French, and if I am from the country, as I said before, I’m not blind.”
Exit Miss Dolly Preen as Justine exclaimed once more, “Lil bébé,” and became so sphinx-like that she appeared deep as a knowledge mine.
“Well, such things have happened,” said Mrs Downes, sighing.
“Mrs Downes, don’t make me blush for you,” said the butler, sternly. “I’m ashamed to sit here and listen to such hints.”
“Ah, well, I’ll say no more,” said the cook, oracularly; “but I have a heart of my own, and I know what hearts is.”
“Trumps,” exclaimed the buttons.
“Henery! silence!” cried the butler sternly. “You go and see to the things in the pantry. Mrs Downes, as the oldest servant in her ladyship’s establishment, I have a right to take the lead. Such remarks as these are not seemly.”
“I only want to say, Mr Robbins,” cried the stout lady, with her heart doing its work well, “that if you check true love in one direction, out it comes in another. It will have its way. There, look at that.”
The demon of Portland Place was at the edge of the pavement turning the handle of his organ, and as a matter of fact, Maude Diphoos stepped slowly out of the French window in the drawing-room, and stood looking down at the Italian’s swarthy, smiling face.
Chapter Seventeen.
Lady Barmouth puts down her foot
Lady Maude sat in her dressing-room once more with her back hair down, listening to the strains of Luigi’s organ as it discoursed a delicious waltz, while Dolly Preen, who was rapidly developing a vicious-looking mouth, brushed away at the beautiful golden cascade, which rippled quite to the ground. The lady’s head swerved softly to the rhythm of the music, and it proved infectious; for though Dolly knew little of dancing, the music was pleasant to her soul, and she swayed her head and brushed softly with an accentuated beat at the beginning of every bar.
Just in the middle of the most sostenuto strain, and just as the ivory-backed brush was descending low, its long bristles dividing the golden threads, which crackled again in the warm air of that gloriously sunshiny day, there was a sharp tap at the dressing-room, and her ladyship entered.
“Ah, just in time,” she exclaimed, raising her gold-rimmed eye-glass. “I wanted to see your hair, Maude.”
“My hair, mamma?”
“Yes, child. Let me see; you went to Monsieur Launay’s yesterday?”
“Yes, mamma.”
“I have been telling Justine that I shall not go to any further expense over it. I have just sent him a cheque for his account, and your head looks so much better that I think we may be satisfied now.”
Maude’s cheeks turned scarlet, and so did her temple and neck, but her beautiful hair made a magnificent veil, and hid her confusion from her ladyship’s view as she examined the parting, drew it away from the temples and poked it about just at the poll.
“Don’t you think, mamma, I had better keep on for a little longer?”
“No,” said her ladyship, peremptorily. “Your hair is in beautiful condition. I grudged paying that man; but he has saved your hair, and he deserves what he has received. He is very clever.”
“I should like to continue a little longer, mamma.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said her ladyship tartly. “Your hair is perfect.”
“I must go and say that I am not about to continue his course of treatment.”
“No, you must not. I shall write to Monsieur Launay myself and tell him. I cannot afford these expenses, the demands for money are dreadful. I am always spending. Go away, Preen.”
“Yes, my lady,” said the little maid, and she “made a face” as she left the room.
“The preparations for your marriage will be more than I can afford.”
“Oh, mamma, must that go on?” cried Maude.
“Now, now, now, Maude, no more of that, please. I will not have it. Silence. The expenses will be terrible, and I shall be very glad when it is over, and so will you be, and I must say I am pleased to find you are coming more to your senses. Oh, that odious wretch. Go away, do!”
Her ladyship crossed to the window and shut it down with a crash, deadening the sound of Luigi’s minstrelsy as she returned to her daughter’s side.
“Really the expenses of our establishment are maddening. I have had the wine merchant’s bill in this morning, and it is outrageous. The man must be a swindler. Case after case of dry champagne charged for that I cannot remember having. But I must see into it at once; and, yes: I am quite satisfied there is no need for you to go to the hairdresser’s any more.”
Her ladyship gave a quick glance round the room – a glance that took in everything, the furniture, the davenport at which her daughter wrote, the books she had been reading, even to the tiny cobweb left by a careless housemaid in one corner, and then in a very dissatisfied frame of mind she descended to write to Mr Launay, leaving her daughter looking speechless with misery, and gazing wildly at the closed window.
“Shall I finish your hair, ma’am?” said a voice which made her start, for she had not heard the door opened.
“If you like, Dolly,” said Maude despairingly; and with a curiously furtive glance at her mistress, caused by her wonder what her ladyship had said, the girl went on with her interrupted work till she had done; and then when certain hooks had been persuaded to enter certain eyes, and as many buttons to pass through their button-holes, as she could obtain no further orders, Dolly left the room, and Maude walked to the window, opened it, and sat down with her elbow on the sill to listen to the distant strains of music which came from the top end of the place near Park Crescent, and as she listened the tears stole down her cheeks, for the fiat must be obeyed. There would be no more pleasant visits to the coiffeur’s – those little trips which relieved the monotony of her life so deliciously, and made her better able to bear the coming of Sir Grantley Wilters.
No more – no more! she was to be a prisoner now till she was to be decked out with garlands, and sent like a lamb to the sacrifice, and served up with mint sauce, for Sir Grantley was going to be very rich. Life was becoming an empty void with nothing to fill it. No Charley Melton allowed to visit; no assistant to arrange her hair – and Monsieur Hector Launay’s aide was so very, very nice.
Maude’s sad musings were interrupted by the door being opened quickly, and the head of Justine thrust in.
“Oh, mademoiselle —chère miladi, have you heard?”
“Yes, Justine. It is all over.”
“All ovaire, miladi? c’est atroce, but not ovaire; I will take counsel wiz M’sieu Hector, and all will be well.”
“Justine! Justine!”
“Coming, milady; I descend directly. Have a good heart, still yet, and all shall be well. Oui, milady, I come.”
Justine descended, and Maude melted into tears.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Chance looks bad
That same afternoon Monsieur Hector Launay’s assistant entered the business place hurriedly, followed by Joby, and exclaimed —
“I am rather late. Has she come?”
“Come, non, M’sieu; she comes no more.”
“What?”
“I have a letter from my lady in which she say I have done her daughter’s hair so much good that the visits will cease. I am paid, and voilà tout.”
“Good heavens! Does she suspect?”
“Non, M’sieu,” said the Frenchman, smiling. “You have been too capable an assistant, and the occasion has ceased; but I will think, and M’sieu shall see the lady again. I will take counsel with Justine, and we will have a new plan. I am a Frenchman, and spirituel. I cannot live wizout I see ma chère sometimes. Justine must come, so be of good hope; we must wait.”
Charley Melton walked out of the reception-room, followed by Joby, who kept looking up at his master in a curious manner, as if half-pitying and wholly divining his feelings. There was a curious leer too in one eye, which seemed to look maliciously at his proprietor, who took the greatest care that he, Joby, should not form any canine intimacies of a tender nature, and Joby’s leering eye seemed to say, “How do you like being morally chained up, my boy?”
Charley Melton went homeward, turned, and walked right up to the Euston Road, where he made for Park Crescent, and then walked straight down Portland Placc, so as to try and catch a glimpse of his inamorata.
He was blessed and yet annoyed, for Maude was at one of the windows with a book in her hand, apparently reading, but really looking down at Luigi, the Italian, who was turning the handle of his baize-covered chest in the most diligent manner, producing sweet sounds according to taste, and smiling and bowing to the lady.
“Lucky brute!” muttered Charley, as he went by without venturing to salute. For as he passed he saw a white packet drop from the window and fall upon the pavement, where it burst like a shell, scattering bronze discs in all directions, so that the organ-grinder had hard work to collect them laden as he was, while the tune he played was broken up into bits.
“Lucky brute!” sighed Charley Melton again, “allowed to stand upon the edge of the pavement to gaze up at her, and then paid for so doing. Ah, I’d better give it up. She won’t bolt with me. I seem as if I can get no help from Tom, and I cannot go there. Hang it all, I shall do something desperate before I’ve done. She was yielding, but the game’s up now.”
Poor Joby in the days which followed was far from happy, for his master was a great deal away from home, and the dog was shut out often enough from his rooms as well as from his confidence.
People said that Charley Melton, being crossed in love, was going to the bad – taking to drink and gambling, and steadily gliding down the slide up which there is no return; and certainly his habits seemed to indicate this to be the case, so much so that Joby thought a good deal in his dense, thick-brained fashion upon the problem that puzzled his head as well as several wiser ones – a problem that he was to solve though for himself when the due time came, for Joby could not make out his master.
Time glided on, and Charley Melton’s case seemed to grow more and more hopeless, while Maude appeared to be going melancholy mad, and passed a great portion of her time gazing dreamily down at the purveyor of tunes set afloat upon the air by the mechanical working of a large set of bellows, and the opening and shutting by a toothed barrel of the mouths of so many graduated pipes.
Everybody was miserable, so it appeared, saving Sir Grantley Wilters, whose joy approached the weird in the peculiarity of its developments. He took medicine by the bucketful, so his valet told Mr Robbins in confidence, “and the way he talks about your young lady is wonderful.”
It was wonderful, for in his amatory madness he chuckled and chattered and praised the lady’s charms, and he even went so far at times as to sing snatches of love songs in a voice that suggested the performances of a mad – or cracked – clarionet in a hilarious fit, during which it was suffering from a dry reed.
Love ruled the day at Portland Place, and Sir Grantley came and made it in the drawing-room as often as he liked, while when she could escape to the balcony, Maude stood and listened to the strains of Trovatore, and, “poor dear, seemed to get wuss and wuss.”
The last was cook’s remark, and it was received with a feminine chorus of “Ah’s!”
“Oh, that wretched Italian, why does he persist in coming here?” cried her ladyship one day. “Maude, you’ll drive me mad if you keep on encouraging him so.”
Maude looked at her mother dreamily and said nothing, but the next time the man came she wrapped some coppers in a piece of paper, and dropped them out, to be caught deftly in the soft felt hat.
“Poor fellow,” she sighed, “it may make him happy.”
“Ah, bella signora,” cried Luigi in mellifluous tones, and he ground, and smiled, and showed his white teeth till the lady retired.
But if there was love-making in Portland Place there was despair in Duke Street, human and canine, for Joby more than once proved himself to be a terrible nuisance at the chambers by uttering low snuffling whines upon the stairs and landings, which, being interpreted, meant, “Why doesn’t master come home?” But by degrees he smothered his feelings on finding that an open avowal of his trouble only resulted in boots, boot-jacks, empty soda-water bottles, and other missiles being flung at him from open doors, while he was reviled as being a beast.
His retort upon receiving such forcible salutations was very often a display of his teeth, and so threatening an action in the direction of legs that he generally caused his assailants to beat a retreat; but at last he performed the same strategic evolution himself, consequent upon having to deal with the unknown. In fact, science conquered him. He stood shot, and dodged them bravely. So clever was he indeed upon this point, that it was almost impossible to hit him with hair-brush, boot, or lump of coal; but one day an angry occupant of the chambers, upon hearing a very long-drawn howl, opened his door suddenly and hurled a bottle at the dog.
It was this bottle which puzzled Joby, for instead of being empty, it was full of the water known as soda, highly charged with gas by one Schweppe, and though it missed the dog, it struck upon a partly filled coal-scuttle, and exploded with such violence, and so great a scattering of fragments, that for two days Joby preferred to sleep in the park, and had a very narrow escape from a dog-stealer, who tried every blandishment he knew to get the animal to follow him, but without effect.
Sometimes he would go and hang about the great house in Portland Place, but there was no admission. Attempts to glide past or between the legs of the servants dismally failed; but he had a look or two at Lord Barmouth, and followed him when he went out, giving sundry sniffs at his pocket, and more than once coming in for a bone. But this was very exceptional, and Joby’s was just now a very unsatisfactory and useless life.
His lordship swore a little softly and in private about the organ, but ceased as he saw that his daughter took a little interest in the music.
“But it’s doosed bad taste, Tom, doosed bad taste, my boy; and dear me, how I do long for a glass of port.”
“Yes, and you’ll have to long, governor.”
“Yes, my boy. Seen Charley Melton lately?”
“Yes, looking as if he were going to be hung.”
“Did he though, my boy? What did you say to him?”
“Told him he was a fool.”
“Oh, Tom, my boy, you shouldn’t have done that. I hope he don’t think that I’m behaving badly to him. I’d go and see him, but her ladyship would be sure to know. Be civil to him, my boy, for my sake. His father was such an old friend.”
“Humph, don’t seem like it,” growled Tom.
“But why did you call him a fool, Tom?”
“For not making a bolt of it with Maudey.”
“Oh, no – no – no – no, my boy, that would be very wrong. But what did he say?”
“Nothing. Shook his head and walked off.”
“Yes, yes. Quite right, my boy, quite right. Charley Melton would not do anything to degrade our Maudey like that.”
“Well, I would if I had a chance,” said Tom, “and if I hadn’t I’d make one.”
