“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Glen joyously, as he sprang forward and caught both Marie’s hands in his, making her flush and tremble with the warmth of his greeting. “Tell me, dear Marie, the meaning of all this dreadful news.”
She did not speak, but, giving herself up to the joy of the situation, she let her hands rest in his and gazed wistfully in his face, while Ruth sat in her place in the schoolroom and trembled, she knew not why.
“You do not speak,” said Glen. “Tell me, for heaven’s sake tell me, that this is all in opposition to your sister’s wishes.”
Marie still gazed wistfully in his face, and her hands, in spite of herself, returned the warm pressure of his.
“Surely – oh no; I will not believe it!” cried Glen. “It cannot be so. Marie, dear Marie, pray have compassion on me and tell me the truth.”
“Do – you wish me to tell you?” she said in a low voice that trembled with suppressed emotion.
“Yes, everything. If you have any feeling for me, tell me honestly all.”
Marie’s hands trembled more and more, and her colour went and came as she spoke.
“I will tell you what you wish, Captain Glen,” she said, in her low rich tones; “but do not blame me if it gives you pain.”
“I will not; only pray put an end to this terrible anxiety.”
There was a few moments’ silence, and then Glen said huskily:
“You know how Clotilde loved me, Marie?”
Marie’s dark eyes gazed fully, pityingly into his, but there was a slight curl of scorn upon her upper lip as she remained silent.
“No,” she said slowly, as she shook her head; “no, I do not.”
“You – do not!”
Marie hesitated to plant so sharp a sting in his heart, but, still, she panted to speak – to tell him that he had wasted his honest love upon one who did not value it, in the hope that he might turn to her; but at the same time she feared to overstep the mark, and her compunction to hurt the man she loved came and went.
“Why do you not tell me what you mean?” he said, pressing one of her hands so that he caused her intense pain.
“Because I shrink from telling you that Clotilde never cared for you in the least,” she said bitterly.
“How dare you say that?” he cried.
“If she had loved you, Captain Glen, would she have accepted Mr Elbraham for the sake of his wealth?”
He would have dropped her hand, but she held fast, full of passionate grief for him as she saw how deadly pale he had turned, and had they been in a less public place she would have clung to him, and told him how her heart bled for his pain.
“You are her sister, and could not say that which was false,” he said simply. “Tell me, then, is this all true?”
“Do you doubt me?” she asked, looking full in his eyes.
He held her hands, and looked down in the dark, handsome face that gazed so unflinchingly in his.
“No,” he said softly, “no;” and raising one of her hands to his lips, he kissed it, and then turned and left the place.
Marie’s reverie, as she stood there holding one soft hand pressed over the back of the other, where Marcus Glen’s lips had been, was interrupted by the voice of Clotilde.
“Rie: has he gone?”
“Yes,” said her sister, with a look of disgust, almost loathing, in her face.
“Poor boy! I hope he won’t mind much. I say, Rie, you can have him now. I’ll make you a present of his love. No, I won’t,” she said, flashing into life. “You shan’t look at him. If you do, I’ll tell him such things about you as shall drive him away.”
The sisters stood there upon the stairs gazing angrily one at the other, and Ruth, whose heart felt very sore, watched them in turn, and thought how hard all this was for Captain Glen, and also, with a sigh, how weak he must be.
“But they are both so handsome,” she said to herself half aloud; and then, with a kind of shiver, she began to think about Mr Montaigne.
Volume Two – Chapter Eleven.
Lady Littletown’s Diplomacy
Mr Elbraham had not been long making up his mind to eschew shilly-shallying, and to propose at once. He was a clever man of business, and no one knew better than he how to work a few shares upon the Stock Exchange, and float a company so as to pour thousands into the laps of its promoters; but he had a weak side, and his late action was taken a good deal on account of the opposition he met with from his private secretary.
“Going to dine with ‘the maids of honour’ at Hampton Court!” said this latter gentleman, looking up in astonishment as his principal announced his intention; “why, you grumbled at having to go to Lady Littletown’s the other day, and she does give good dinners.”
“Capital,” said the financier, smacking his lips.
“But you won’t get anything fit to eat at the Palace.”
“My object is to get into better society,” said the financier promptly; “and the Dymcoxes are people of position. Of course, you know I met them there.”
“Ah, to be sure; so you did. Well, they certainly belong to a good family.”
“Yes,” said Mr Elbraham, strutting pompously up and down the room. “Lovely girl that Miss Clotilde!”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Arthur Litton; “she is handsome, certainly.”
“Humph! I should think she is, sir.”
“But I’ve seen many finer women,” continued Litton. “Not my style of girl at all.”
“Should think not, indeed,” said Elbraham hotly. “Bah, sir! stuff, sir! rubbish, sir! What do you know about handsome women?”
“Well, certainly,” said Litton humbly, and with a smile, as the financier walked away from him down the room – a smile which was replaced by a look as serious as that of the proverbial judge, when the great man turned; “I suppose my opinion is not worth much.”
“I should think not, indeed. I tell you she is magnificent.”
“Oh, nonsense, my dear sir,” said Litton warmly; “handsome if you like, but magnificent – no! You know dozens of finer women.”
“Maybe, maybe,” said the financier.
Litton paused for a few moments, tapping his teeth as if undecided, till his chief paused and looked at him curiously.
“Well, what is it?” he said.
“Look here, Mr Elbraham,” said Litton, “I suppose we are not very good friends?”
“H’m, I don’t know. You are in my pay,” said the financier coarsely, “so you ought to be one of my best friends.”
“You’ve said too many sharp things to me, Mr Elbraham, to make me feel warmly towards you; but, all the same, I confess that you have done me some very good turns in money matters; and I hope, though I take your pay, that I am too much of a gentleman to stand by and see anyone take a mean advantage of a weakness on your part.”
“Weakness? My part!” said the financier fiercely, as if the very idea of his being weak was absurd.
“Yes, sir, weakness. Look here, Mr Elbraham, I should not like to see you taken in.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Mean?” said Litton. “Well, Mr Elbraham, I’m not afraid of you; so whether you are offended or not, I shall speak out.”
“Then speak out, sir, and don’t shilly-shally.”
“Well, sir, it seems to me that there’s a good deal of fortune-hunting about. Those Dymcox people have good blood, certainly; but they’re as poor as rats, and I’ll be bound to say nothing would please the old aunts better than hooking you, with one of those girls for a bait.”
“Will you have the goodness to reply to that batch of letters, Mr Litton?” said Elbraham haughtily. “I asked your opinion – or, rather, gave you my opinion – of Miss Clotilde Dymcox, and you favour me with a pack of impertinent insinuations regarding the family at Hampton Court.” Mr Elbraham went angrily out into the hall to don his light and tight overcoat and grey hat, and walk down to the station.
As Litton heard the door close he sank back in his chair at the writing-table, and laughed silently and heartily.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he ejaculated; “and this is your clever financier – this is your man far above the ordinary race in shrewdness! Why am I not wealthy, too, when I can turn the scoundrel round my finger, clever as he believes he is? Clever, talented, great! Why, if I metaphorically pull his tail like one would that of a pig, saying, ‘You shan’t go that way!’ he grunts savagely, and makes straight for the hole.”
Arthur Litton took one of Mr Elbraham’s choice cigars from his case, deliberately pitched aside the letters he had to answer, struck a light, placed his heels upon the table, and, balancing his chair upon two legs, began to smoke.
“Well, so far so good,” he said at last, as he watched the aromatic rings of smoke ascend towards the ceiling. “I suppose it is so. Mr Elbraham is one of the cleverest men on ’Change, and he manages the money-making world. I can manage Mr Elbraham. Ergo, I am a cleverer man than the great financier; but he makes his thousands where I make shillings and pence. Why is this?”
The answer was all smoke; and satisfactory as that aromatic, sedative vapour was in the mouth, it was lighter than the air upon which it rose, and Arthur Litton continued his soliloquising.
“I’m afraid that I shall never make any money upon ’Change, or by bolstering up bad companies, and robbing the widow, the orphan, the retired officer, and the poor parson of their savings. It is not my way. I should have no compunction if they were fools enough to throw me their money. I should take it and spend it, as Elbraham and a score more such scoundrels spend theirs. What does it matter? What is the difference to him between having a few hundred pounds more or less in this world? They talk about starvation when their incomes are more than mine. They say they are beggared when they have hundreds left. Genteel poverty is one of the greatest shams under the sun.”
“Not a bad cigar,” he said, after a fresh pause. “He has that virtue in him, certainly, he does get good cigars; and money! money! money! how he does get money – a scoundrel! – while I get none, or next to none. Well, well, I think I am pulling the strings in a way that should satisfy the most exacting of Lady Littletowns, and it is ridiculous how the scoundrel of a puppet dances to the tune I play.”
He laughed in a way that would have made his fortune had he played Mephistopheles upon the stage. Then, carefully removing a good inch and a half of ash:
“And now, my sweet old match-maker,” he continued, “will you keep your promise? I am a poor unlucky devil, and the only way to save me is by settling me with a rich wife such as she promises.
“Hum, yes!” he said softly, “a wife with a good fortune. Elbraham takes one without a penny, for the sake of her looks; the aunts sell the girl for the sake of his money. A cheerful marriage, and,” he added cynically, “as the French say, après?”
“Take my case, as I am in a humour for philosophising. I am to be introduced to a rich lady, and shall marry her for the sake of the fortune. She will marry me for my youth, I suppose, and good looks – I suppose I may say good looks,” he continued, rising, crossing the room, and gazing in the glass. “Yes, Arthur, you may add good looks, for you are a gentlemanly fellow, and just of an age to attract a woman who is decidedly off colour.”
He paused, rested his elbows upon the chimney-piece, and kept on puffing little clouds of smoke against the mirror, watching them curiously as they obliterated his reflection for the moment, and then rolled slowly up, singularly close to the glass.
He did this again and again, watching his dimly-seen reflection till it had grown plain, and then he laughed as if amused.
“Yes, I am decidedly good-looking, and I say it without vanity,” he continued, “for I am looking at myself from a marketable point of view. And the lady? Suppose I always look at her through the clouds, for she will be elderly and plain – of that I may rest assured; but I can gild her; she will be gilded for me, and as the Scots say, ‘a’ cats are grey i’ the dark!’ so why should I mind? If I wed the fairest woman under the sun I should forget her looks in a week, while other men worried me by their admiration. So there it is, ladies and gentlemen; the fair Clotilde and the manly Arthur Litton about to be sold by Society’s prize-auction to the highest bidders, and this is the land where slavery is unknown – the land of the free! This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christian England!”
He seemed to be highly amused at this idea, and laughed and gazed at himself in the glass as if perfectly satisfied that his face would make a change in his lot, after which he threw away the remains of the cigar he was smoking, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he walked across to Elbraham’s cabinet, which he unlocked, and helped himself to a couple of the best Rothschilds, one of which he lit.
Arthur Litton was very thoughtful now, and it took some time to get to work; but he finished the task entrusted to him, and then, after a little consideration, he rose to go, making his way to Lady Littletown’s.
Her ladyship was at home, in the conservatory, the footman said; and treating the visitor as an old friend, he opened the drawing-room door, and Litton walked in unannounced.
Her ladyship was busy, in a pair of white kid gloves, snipping off faded leaves and flowers, and she left her occupation to greet her visitor.
“Well, Arturo, no bad news, I hope?”
“Only that the great Potiphar, the man of money, is completely hooked, and determined to embark upon the troubled sea of matrimony.”
“Is that bad news?” said her ladyship. “I call it a triumph of diplomacy, Arturo. Spoils from the enemy!”
“Then you are satisfied?”
“More than satisfied, my clever diplomat, and you shall have your reward.”
“When?”
Lady Littletown snipped here and snipped there, treating some of her choicest flowers in a way that would have maddened her head gardener had he seen, for unfaded flowers dropped here and there beneath the stands in a way that showed her ladyship to be highly excited.
“Now look here, Arturo,” she exclaimed at last, as she turned upon him, and seemed to menace him with her sharp-pointed scissors, which poked and snipped at him till a bystander might have imagined that Lady Littletown took him for a flower whose head gave her offence – “Now look here, Arturo, do you want to make me angry?”
“No: indeed no,” he cried deprecatingly.
“Then why do you ask me such a question as that?”
“Well,” he said, smiling, “is it not reasonable that I should feel impatient?”
“Perhaps so. I’ll grant it; but, my good boy, you must be a man of the world; and now that we are upon that subject, let us understand one another.”
“By all means,” assented Litton eagerly.
“First of all, though, I cannot worry myself with too much work at once. I have those two girls to marry, and I must get that out of hand before I undertake more.”
“Exactly; and all is now in train.”
“Many a slip, Arturo, ’twixt cup and lip; but we shall see – we shall see.”
Her ladyship went on snipping vigorously.
“I want you to understand me. To speak plainly, Arturo, you are a gentleman of great polish.”
“Thanks,” he said, bowing.
“And a good presence.”
He bowed again.
“You are not quite handsome, but there is an aristocratic, well-bred look about you that would recommend you to any lady – and I mean you to marry a lady.”
“Yes, by all means. Pray don’t find me a young person who might pass for a relative of the great Elbraham.”
“My good boy, there is no such party in the field; and if there were, I should not allow you to try and turn up that haughty aristocratic nose at her. A hundred thousand pounds, dear Arturo, would gild over a great many blemishes.”
“True, O queen!” he said, smiling.
“As I said before, let us understand one another. You must not be too particular. Suppose the lady chances to be old?”
Litton made a grimace.
“And rich – very rich?”
“That would make amends,” he said with a smile.
“I could marry you myself, Arturo,” she continued, looking very much attenuated and hawk-like as she smiled at him in a laughing way.
“Why not?” he cried eagerly, as the richly-furnished home and income opened out to his mind ease and comfort for life.
“Because I am too old,” she said, smiling at the young man’s impetuosity.
“Oh, no,” he cried; “you would be priceless in my eyes.”
“Hold your tongue, Arturo, and don’t be a baby,” said her ladyship. “I tell you I am too old to be foolish enough to marry. There are plenty of older women who inveigh against matrimony, and profess to have grown too sensible and too wise to embark in it, who would give their ears to win a husband.”
“Why should not Lady Littletown be placed in this list?” said Litton meaningly.
“Because I tell you she is too old in a worldly way. No, my dear boy, when an elderly woman marries, it is generally because she is infatuated with the idea of possessing a young husband. She thinks for the moment that he woos her for her worldly store; but she is so flattered by his attentions that these outweigh all else, and she jumps at the opportunity of changing her state.”
“Again, then,” he whispered impressively, “why should not this apply to Lady Littletown?”
“Silence, foolish boy!” she cried, menacing him again with the scissors, and holding up her flower-basket as if to catch the snipped-off head. “I tell you I am too old in a worldly way, When a matter-of-fact woman reaches my years, and knows that she has gradually been lessening her capital in the bank of life, she tries to get as much as possible in the way of enjoyment out of what is left.”
“Exactly,” he cried eagerly.
“She takes matters coolly and weighs them fairly before her. ‘If,’ she says, ‘I take the contents of this scale I shall get so much pleasure. If I choose the contents of this other scale, I shall again obtain so much.’”
“Well, what then?” said Litton, for her ladyship paused in the act of decapitating a magnificent Japan lily.
“What then? Foolish boy! Why, of course she chooses the scale that will give her most pleasure.”
“Naturally,” he said.
“Then that is what I do.”
“But would not life with a man who would idolise you be far beyond any other worldly pleasure?”
“Yes,” said her ladyship drily; “but give me credit, mio caro Arturo, for not being such an old idiot as to believe that you would idolise me, as you call it.”
“Ah, you don’t know,” he cried.
“What you would be guilty of to obtain a good settlement in life, my dear boy?”
“You insult me,” he cried angrily.
“Oh no, my impetuous young friend; but really, Arturo, that was well done. Capital! It would be winning with some ladies. Rest assured that you shall have a rich wife. As for me, I have had you in the scale twice over. I did once think of marrying you.”
“You did?” he cried with real surprise.
“To be sure I did,” she said quietly. “Why not? I said to myself, ‘I am careless of the opinion of the world, and shall do as I please;’ and I pictured out my home with you, a distingué man, at the head.”
“You did?” he said excitedly.
“Of course I did. And then I pictured it as it is, with Lady Littletown, a power in her way, a well-known character in society, whose word has its influence, and one who can sway the destinies of many, in many ways, in the world.”
“No; say in one,” he exclaimed rather bitterly – “in the matrimonial world.”
“As you will, cher Arthur,” replied her ladyship. “You see, I am frank with you. I weighed it all carefully, as I said, and weighed it once again, to be sure that I was making no mistake, and the result was dead against change.”
“Highly complimentary to me!”
“A very excellent thing for you, my dear boy; for you would have led a wretched life.”
“Assuming that your ladyship’s charms had conquered my youthful, ardent heart?” he said.
“Silly boy! you are trying to be sarcastic,” said Lady Littletown. “Pish! I am too thick-skinned to mind it in the least. Be reasonable and listen, dear brother-in-arms.”
“Why not lover-in-arms?” he cried quickly – “in those arms.”
Lady Littletown placed her scissors in the hand that held the basket, raised her square gold eyeglass, and looked at her visitor.
“Well done, Arturo! excellent, mon général! Why, you would carry the stoutest fort I set you to attack in a few days. I have not heard anything so clever as that apt remark of yours for months. Really,” she continued, dropping the glass and resuming her scissors, “I am growing quite proud of you – I am indeed.”
“And so you mock at me,” he said angrily.
“Not I, Arturo; you were only practising; and it was very smart. No, my dear, it would not do for you; and I tell you frankly, you have had a very narrow escape.”
“Why?” he said; and his eyes glanced round at the rich place with its many indications of wealth, and as he noted these there came to his memory his last unpaid bill.
“Because I have a horrible temper, and I am a terrible tyrant. Of course you would have married me for my money and position.”
“Don’t say that,” cried Litton.
“Don’t be a donkey, Arthur, mon cher,” said the lady. “Well, to proceed: I should have married you because you were young and handsome.”
“Your ladyship seemed to indicate just now that I was not handsome,” said Litton.
“Did I? Well, I retract. I do think you handsome, Arturo, and I should have been horribly jealous of you as soon as I found that you were paying your court elsewhere.”
“Does your ladyship still imagine that I could be such a scoundrel?” cried Litton, in indignant tones.
The square golden eyeglass went up again.
“Excellent, Arturo, my dear boy! You would have made a fortune upon the stage in tragi-comedy. Nothing could have been finer than that declaration. Really, I am proud of you! But I should have led you a horrible life, and been ready to poison you if I found you out in deception.”
“Lady Littletown, I hope I am a gentleman,” said the visitor haughtily.
“I hope you are, I’m sure, my dear boy,” said her ladyship, smiling at him serenely. “But, as you see, I could not have put up with my money being lavished upon others; and hence I thought it better to let someone else have you.”
“But, my dear Lady Littletown – ”
“Ah, tut, tut, tut! no rhapsodies, please, my sweet ingenuous Lubin. I am no Phyllis now, believe me, and all this is waste of words. There, be patient, my dear boy, and you shall have a rich wife, and she shall be as young as I can manage; but, mind, I do not promise beauty. Do you hear? Are the raptures at an end?”
“Oh yes, if you like,” he said bitterly.
“I do like, my dear boy; so they are at an end. Really, Arturo, I feel quite motherly towards you, and, believe me, I shall not rest until I see you well mated.”
“Thanks, my dear Lady Littletown,” he said; “and with that, I suppose, I am to be contented.”
“Yes, sir; and you ought to be very thankful, Do you hear?”
“Yes,” he replied, taking and kissing one of her ladyship’s gardening gloves. “And now I must be for saying au revoir.”
“Au revoir, cher garçon!” replied her ladyship; and she followed her visitor out of the conservatory into the drawing-room, and rang the bell for the servant in attendance to show him out.
“It wouldn’t have been a bad slice of luck to have married her and had this place. But, good heavens, what an old hag!”
“I should have been an idiot to marry him,” said her ladyship, as soon as she was alone. “He is very handsome and gentlemanly and nice; but he would have ruined me, I am sure of that. Ah well, the sooner I find him someone else with a good income the better. Let him squander that. Why – ”
She stopped short.
“How stupid of me! The very thing! Lady Anna Maria Morton has just come in for her brother’s estate.”
Lady Littletown stood thinking.
“She is fifty if she is a day, perhaps fifty-five, and as tremulous as Isabella Dymcox. But what of that? Dear Anna Maria! I have not called upon her for a fortnight. How wrong! I shall be obliged to have a little partie carrée to dinner. Let me see – Lady Anna Maria, Arthur, myself, and – dear, dear – dear, dear me! Who shall I have that is not stupid enough to spoil sport?”
She walked about in a fidgety manner, and then picked up her card-basket, raised the square gold eyeglass, and turned the cards over in an impatient manner.
“Not one – not one!” she cried reluctantly. “Never mind; she shall come to a tête-à-tête dinner, and Arthur shall drop in by accident, and stop. Dear boy, how I do toil and slave on his behalf! But stay,” she added, after a pause; “shall I wait and get the Dymcox business over first? No; what matters? I am diplomat enough to carry on both at once; and, by-the-bye, I must not let that little military boy slip through my fingers, for he really is a prize. Taken with Marie; but that won’t do,” she continued. “Moorpark must have her, and I dare say somebody will turn up.”
She took her seat at the table then, and began to write a tiny note upon delicately-scented paper. The first words after the date were: “My dearest Anna Maria,” and she ended with: “Your very affectionate friend.”