"At least he is my friend," she thought; "and what a comfort it is to know that! what a support in the state of wretched uncertainty I seem doomed to!" Anon she ceased to think of Colonel Alsager at all, and her fancy strayed, as fancy always does, to scenes and subjects whence pain is to be extracted. If any stranger could have looked into that handsome and luxurious room just then, and seen its tenant, he would have recoiled from the contrast and contradictions of the picture. She sat, as Alsager had left her sitting, on a low brown-morocco couch, facing the deep bay-window; her hands lay idly in her lap, her small head was bent listlessly forward; but the gaze of the lustrous and thoughtful eves was fixed and troubled. The soft tempered light touched her hair, her quiet hands, the graceful outlines of her figure, and the rich folds of her dress with a tender brilliance, but no sunshine from within lighted up the pale brow or brightened the calm sorrowful lips. Time passed on, and still she sat absorbed in her thoughts, until at length the loud chiming of the clocks aroused her. She threw off her preoccupation by an effort, and saying half aloud, "At least they shall not return and find me moping here," she passed out of the library. She paused a moment in the hall, debating with herself whether she would betake herself at once to the piano in her dressing-room, or go and inquire for poor old Mr. Hammond, to whom she had not yet made her customary daily visit. Lady Mitford was in the mood just then to do a kindness; her heart was full of Alsager's kindness to herself, and she sent for Mr. Hammond's man, and bade him tell his master she requested admittance to his room if he felt able to see her.
"I suppose if he had not been," she added mentally, "his wife would have been afraid to have left him to-day."
Lady Mitford had made considerable progress in the science of life since the friend who had left her presence that morning had seen her for the first time at the Parthenium, but she had need to make a great deal more before she could be qualified to comprehend Laura Hammond.
Georgie found Mr. Hammond pretty well, and tolerably cheerful. The feeble old man liked his gentle and considerate hostess. He had liked her when he was in health; and he liked her still better now that the languor of illness rendered him liable to being fatigued by ordinarily dull or extraordinarily brilliant people. Georgie was neither;--she was only a gentle, refined, humble-minded, pure-hearted lady; and the old man, though of course he did not admire her at all in comparison with his own brilliant and bewitching Laura, and had considered her (under Laura's instructions) rather vapid and commonplace the preceding season, was in a position just then to appreciate these tamely admirable qualities to their fullest extent. She remained with Mr. Hammond until the sound of the horses' hoofs upon the avenue warned her that the cavalcade was returning. She then went hastily down the great staircase, and reached the hall just in time to see Mrs. Hammond lifted from her saddle by Sir Charles with demonstrative gallantry, and to observe that he looked into her face as he placed her upon the ground with an expression which rendered words wholly superfluous. The unborn strength which had been created by Alsager's counsel was too weak to bear this sharp trial. Georgie shrunk as if she had been stung, and, abandoning her brave purpose of giving her guests a cheerful greeting at the door, she took refuge in her own room.
On this day Sir Charles for the first time departed from the custom he had maintained since their marriage, of seeking Georgie on his return home after any absence. It was a significant omission; and as she took her place at the dinner-table, Lady Mitford felt that the few hours which had elapsed since Colonel Alsager had given her that counsel, which every hour became more difficult for her to follow, had made a disastrous difference in her position. She would make a great effort--she would do all that Laurence had advised, but how if Sir Charles estranged himself from her altogether?--and even to her inexperience there was something ominous in any marked departure from his accustomed habits,--what should she do then? He might either persist in a tacit estrangement, which would place her at a hopeless disadvantage, or he might quarrel with her, and end all by an open rupture. Georgie was beginning to understand the man she had married, without as yet ceasing to love him; and it is wonderful what rapid progress the dullest of women will make in such knowledge when they are once set on its right track.
Lord Dollamore took Lady Mitford to dinner, as usual, on that day, and Sir Charles gave his arm to Mrs. Hammond. He had entered the drawing-room only a moment before dinner was announced, and had not exchanged a word with his wife. Among the first topics of conversation was Colonel Alsager's departure, which Sir Charles treated with much indifference, and to whose cause Mrs. Hammond adverted with a pert flippancy, so much at variance with her customary adherence to the rules of good taste that the circumstance attracted Lord Dollamore's attention. He made no remark when she had concluded her lively sallies upon the inconvenience of fathers in general, the inconsiderateness of fathers who had paralytic strokes in particular, and the generic detestability of all old people; but he watched her closely, and when her exclusive attention was once more claimed by Sir Charles, whose undisguised devotion almost reached the point of insult to the remainder of the company, he smiled a satisfied smile, like that of a man who has been somewhat puzzled by an enigma, and who finds the key to it all of a sudden. A little was said about Miss Gillespie, but not much; she was speedily relegated to the category of "creatures" by Mrs. Hammond, and then she was forgotten. The general conversation was perhaps a little flat, as general conversation is apt to be under such inharmonious circumstances; and Lady Mitford's assumed spirits flagged suddenly and desperately. A feeling of weariness, of exhaustion, which quenched pride and put bitterness aside, came over her; a dreary loathing of the scene and its surroundings; a swift passing vision of the dear old home she had left so cheerfully--abandoned so heartlessly, she would now have said--of the dear old father of whom she had thought so little latterly, whose advice would be so precious to her now,--only that she would not tell him for the world; a horrid sense of powerlessness in the hands of a pitiless enemy--all these rushed over her in one cold wave of trouble. Another moment and she would have burst into hysterical tears, when a low firm whisper recalled her to herself.
"Command yourself," it said; "she is looking at you, though you cannot perceive it. Drink some wine, and smile."
It was Lord Dollamore who spoke, and Lady Mitford obeyed him. He did not give her time to feel surprise or anger at his interpretation of her feelings, or his interposition to save her from betraying them; but instantly, with the utmost ease and readiness, he applied himself to the task of enlivening the company, and that so effectually, that he soon gained even the attention of the preoccupied pair at the other end of the table, and turned a dinner-party which had threatened to become a lamentable failure into a success. It was a bold stroke; but he played it with coolness and judgment, and it told admirably. Lady Mitford lifted her candid eyes to his as she left the dining-room, and there was neither anger nor reproach in them; but there was gratitude, and the dawn of confidence.
"Just so," thought Lord Dollamore, as he drew his chair up to the table again; "she's the sort of woman who must trust somebody; and she has found out that her reclaimed Charley is not to be trusted. I'll see if I can't make her trust me."
It suited Laura Hammond's humour to exert her powers of pleasing on this evening, or perhaps even her audacious spirit quailed before the ordeal of the female after-dinner conclave, and she was forced to cover her fear by bravado. At any rate, she appeared in an entirely new character. The insolent indolence, the ennui which usually characterized her demeanour when there were no men present, were thrown aside, and she deliberately set herself to carry the women by storm. She talked, she laughed, she admired their dresses, and made suggestions respecting their coiffures. She offered one a copy of a song unpurchaseable for money and unprocurable for love; she promised another that her maid should perform certain miracles in millinery on her behalf; she sat down at the piano and played and sang brilliantly. Lady Mitford watched her in silent amazement, in growing consternation. The witchery of her beauty was irresistible; the power of an evil purpose lent her the subtlest seductive charm. The dark-grey eyes flashed fire, and glowed with triumph; the wanton mouth trembled with irrepressible fun.
It was an easy and a common thing for Laura Hammond to captivate men, and she really thought nothing about it, unless some deeper purpose, some remoter end, happened, as in the present instance, to be in view; but women, to tell the simple truth, always feared, generally envied, and frequently hated her; she enjoyed her triumph over the "feminine clique," as she disdainfully called them, at Redmoor thoroughly, and with keen cynical appreciation. She played her game steadily all that evening. When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room she almost ignored their presence; she was innocently, ingenuously polite, but she admitted no exclusive attentions; she never relapsed for a moment in her wheedling, but never overdone, civilities to the women. She brought forward the bashful young ladies; she actually played a perfect accompaniment, full of the most enchanting trills and shakes, to a feeble bleat which one of them believed to be a song; and when Sir Charles Mitford, whose ungoverned temper and natural ill-breeding invariably got the better of the conventional restraints which were even yet strange to him, endeavoured to interrupt her proceedings, she stopped him with a stealthy uplifted finger, and a warning glance directed towards his wife. Her victim was persuaded that he fully understood her; he rendered her admirable ruse in his feeble way, the warmest tribute of admiration; and he left the room with a vague consciousness that the indifference which had been for some time his only feeling towards his wife was rapidly turning into hatred.
Laura Hammond's own game was not the only one she played that night. Lord Dollamore had watched her quite as closely as Lady Mitford, and to more purpose. He saw that--where sheer recklessness or from some deeper motive,--which he thought he could dimly discern--she was hurrying matters to a crisis, and that he might take advantage of the position which she had created. They were dainty jewelled claws with which he proposed to snatch the fruit he coveted from the fire; but what of that; they were cruel also; and when they had done his work he cared little what became of them. Let them be scorched and burnt; let the sharp talons be torn out from their roots; what cared he? So he watched the feline skill, the deft, supple, graceful dexterity of the woman, with a new interest--personal this time; any he had previously felt had been mere connoisseurship, mere cynical curiosity, in a marked and somewhat rare specimen.
Every evidence of this observation, every sign Of this new interest, was carefully and successfully suppressed. When all other yes were turned on Mrs. Hammond, his never rested on her even by accident. She sang; and while the greater part of the company gathered round the piano, and those who could not obtain places near the singer kept profound silence, and listened with eager intensity, Dollamore ostentatiously suppressed a yawn, turned over the upholstery-books which ornamented the useless tables, scrutinized the chimney-decorations, and finally strolled into the adjoining room. Equally artistic was his demeanour towards Lady Mitford. He was delicately deferential and frankly cordial; but neither by word or look did he remind her of the service he had rendered her at dinner. Georgie might have been slow to comprehend genius and appreciate wit, but she recognized delicacy and good taste at a glance: and so it fell out that when she received Lord Dollamore's "goodnight," she thought, as she returned the valediction, "There is one man besides Colonel Alsager over whom she has no power. Lord Dollamore holds her in contempt."
The next morning at breakfast Lord Dollamore announced regretfully that he must leave Redmoor for a few days, but hoped to return by the end of the week. He addressed this announcement to Sir Charles Mitford, who was gazing intently on Mrs. Hammond as she broke the seals of several notes, and tossed them down one after another, half read, with a most reassuring air of indifference. Lady Mitford was not present; breakfast was a free and unceremonious meal at Redmoor, to which everybody came when everybody liked, and nobody was surprised if anybody stayed away. Sir Charles expressed polite regret.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Hammond, "how very sorry Lady Mitford will be! Bereft of her two courtiers, she will be bereaved indeed. First Colonel Alsager, and now Lord Dollamore. She will be quite au déspoir.
"I wish I could hope to make so deep an impression by my absence, Mrs. Hammond," he answered in the careless tone in which one replies to a silly observation made by a petted child. "Mitford, can you come with me into the library a minute?" And he moved away, taking with him a parcel of letters.--"When you are spiteful, and show it, you grow vulgar, madam," he muttered under his breath--"after the manner of your kind--and a trifle coarse; but Mitford is not the man to see that, or to mind it if he did."
Half an hour later Lord Dollamore had left Redmoor; and as he leant back in the railway carriage which bore him towards town, he quietly reviewed all that had taken place during his visit, and arrived at a conclusion perfectly satisfactory to himself. Then he resolved to think no more of the matter till his return; and dismissed it with the reflection that "Mitford was a regular beast,--low, and all that;" but that she "was a devilish nice woman;--no fool, but not clever enough to bore one, and pretty enough for anything."
Matters continued pretty much in the same state at Redmoor during the week which followed Lord Dollamore's departure. Lady Mitford wrote to Colonel Alsager, and heard from him; but her letter--that which we have seen him receive at Knockholt--said as little as possible of the real state of affairs. The truth made a faint attempt to struggle out in the postscript; but pride, reserve, an instinct of propriety, the numberless obstacles to a woman in such a position as that of Lady Mitford telling it in its entirety to any man rendered the attempt abortive. Could he not come? she had asked him. Could he not come? she asked herself, in the weary days through which she was passing--days of which each one was wearier and more hopeless than its predecessor; for things were becoming desperate now. The other guests had taken their leave, but still the Hammonds remained at Redmoor. Not a woman of the party but had known Laura's hollowness and falsehood well--had known that the powers of fascination she had employed were mere tricks of cunning art; but they were all fascinated for all that. Laura had made the close of the time at Redmoor incomparably pleasant, whereas its opening had been undeniably dull; and there was another reason for their letting Mrs. Hammond down easily. They had remained as long as they could in the same house with her; and how were they to excuse or account for their having done so, if they disclosed their real opinion of her character and conduct? It was a keen privation, no doubt, not to be able to descant upon the "doings" at Redmoor, but they had to bear it; and the only alleviation within their reach was an occasional compassionate mention of Lady Mitford as "hardly up to the mark for her position and fortune, and sadly jealous, poor thing!"
It would have been impossible, in common decency, to have avoided all mention of the departure of the Hammonds; and accordingly Sir Charles Mitford told his wife, as curtly and sullenly as possible, that she might make her preparations for going to town, as he supposed they would be moving off in a few days. Georgie had suffered dreadfully, but the worst was over. The keen agony of outraged love had died out, and the sense of shame, humiliation, terrible apprehension, and uncertainty, was uppermost now. In her distress and perplexity she was quite alone; she had no female friend at all in any real sense of the word. It was not likely Sir Charles Mitford's wife should have any; and the only friend she could rely upon was away, and hopelessly detained. The only friend she could rely on--As she repeated the lamentation over and over again in the solitude of her room, and in the bitterness of her heart, did it ever occur to her that the only friend she could rely on might be a dangerous, though not a treacherous one;--that she was crying peace, peace, where there was no peace?
"When we know what the Hammonds are going to do, I shall write to Dollamore," said Sir Charles. He spoke to Georgie.
She felt an eager longing to see her old home, and to breathe a purer moral atmosphere than that of Redmoor. "I can only suffer and be perplexed here," she thought. "Let me get away, and I can think freely, and make up my mind to some line of action. Out of her sight, I should be easier, even in town; and how much easier at home!--once more in the old place, and among the old people, where I used to be before I knew there were such women as this one in the world." So she thought she would do a courageous thing, and ask Sir Charles to take her home for a little, as soon as the Hammonds should have left Redmoor.
She came to this resolution one morning before she went down to breakfast,--before she had to encounter Mrs. Hammond, who brought a fresh supply of ammunition to the attack on each such occasion; whose beauty was never brighter or more alluring than when she arrayed it in the elaborate simplicity of Parisian morning-dress; who was not sufficiently sensitive to be journalière, and who might always cherish a well-founded confidence in her own good looks, and the perfect efficiency of her weapons. Not that Georgie was fighting her any longer on the old terrain; she had retreated from that, and had no other object now than to shield herself from the perpetual sharp fire of Laura's polished impertinence, her epigrammatic sarcasms, her contemptuous pity. Lady Mitford, whose good sense was apt to do its proper office in spite of the tumult of feeling constantly striving to overpower it, wondered sometimes why Laura took so much trouble to wound her. "She has made sure of Sir Charles," the pure simple lady would say to herself, when some sharp arrow had been shot at her, and she felt the smart, not quite so keenly as the archer thought perhaps, but keenly still. "She does not need to turn me into ridicule before him, to expose my defects and gaucheries; she does not need to test his devotion to her by the strength and impenetrability of his indifference to me,--at least not now. She is clever enough to know that wit and humour, sarcasm and finesse, are all thrown away upon him, if she is showing them off for her own sake." Of a surety Lady Mitford was rapidly learning to estimate Sir Charles aright. "Her beauty and her unscrupulousness have fascinated him, and all the rest is more likely to bore him than otherwise. If she were in love with him she might not understand this; but she is not in love with him--not even after her fashion and his own; and I am sure she does understand it perfectly. What does she throw so much vigilance away for, then?--for she never loses a chance. Why does she waste so much energy on me? Of course, I know she hates me; and if she be as good a hater as such a woman should be, she would not be satisfied with the one grand injury she has done me; hatred might be pacified by so large a sop, but spite would crave for more. Yes, that must be the explanation--she is feeding spite."
If the old clergyman who had cried over Georgie Stanfield on her wedding-day, and uttered that futile blessing on the marriage which was so unblessed, could have heard her speak thus to her own heart, how utterly confounded and astonished that good but not "knowledgable" individual would have been! A few months in the great world to have turned Georgie into this woman, who seeks for motives, who reads character, who has all the dreary cunning in interpretation of the human heart which his life-long experience had failed to impart to him, though he had passed half a century in professional proclamation that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." But it was not her short experience of the great world in any general sense which had so far forwarded her education in the science of life as to enable her thus to analyze conduct and motives,--she had had a surer, subtler teacher; she had loved, and been betrayed; she had hoped, and been deceived. She had dreamed a young girl's dream, and one by no means so exaggerated and exalted as most young girls indulge in; and the awakening had come, not only with such rudeness and bitterness as seldom accompany the inevitable disillusionment, but with such startling rapidity, that the lasting of her vision had borne no more proportion to the usual duration of "love's young dream," than the forty winks of an after-dinner nap bear to the dimensions of "a good night's rest." Experience had not tapped at the sleeper's door, and lingered softly near the couch, and insinuated a gently-remonstrative remark that really it was time to risk--tenderly letting in the garish light by tempered degrees the while--cheerfully impressing, without hurry or severity, the truth that a work-day world--busy, stirring, dutiful, and real--lay beyond the glorified realms of slumber, and awaited the passing of the foot going forth to the appointed task over the enchanted threshold. The summary process of awakening by which the sleeper has a basinful of cold water flung on his face, and is pulled out of bed by his feet, bears a stricter metaphorical analogy to that by which Lady Mitford had been roused from her delusion; and though she had reeled and staggered under it at first, the shock had effectually done its work. Georgie Mitford was a wiser woman than Georgie Stanfield could ever have been made by any more considerate process.
All Lady Mitford's newly-sprung wisdom, all the acuteness she had gained by being sharpened on the grindstone of suffering, did not enable her to reach a complete comprehension of Mrs. Hammond's motives. She had not the key to the enigma; she knew nothing of Laura's former relations with Colonel Alsager. If she had ever heard the story, or any garbled version of it, at all, it was before she had any distinct knowledge of, or interest in, either of the parties concerned,--when she was confused and harassed with the crowd of new names and unfamiliar faces,--and she had forgotten it. Even that advantage was her enemy's. Mrs. Hammond had been peculiarly bewitching to Sir Charles, and preternaturally impertinent to Lady Mitford, at the breakfast-table, on the morning when Colonel Alsager's first letter had arrived; indeed, she had a little overdone her part, which was not altogether unnatural. Fierce passions, a violent temper, and a cold heart, form a powerful but occasionally troublesome combination, and imperatively demand a cool brain and steady judgment to control and utilize them. Laura Hammond had as cool a brain and as steady a judgment as even a very bad woman could reasonably be expected to possess; but they were not invariably dominant. The cold heart did not always aid them successfully in subduing the violent temper; and when it failed to do so, the combination was apt to be mischievous. On the occasion in question, Mrs. Hammond had been, to begin with, out of sorts, as the best-regulated natures, and the most intent on their purposes in their worst sense, will occasionally be. Sir Charles bored her, and she was on the point of letting him perceive the fact, and thus giving her temper its head, when the cool brain interposed and curbed it in time. She exerted herself then to bewitch and enslave the Baronet, even beyond his usual condition of enchantment and subjugation. Her success was complete; but its enjoyment was mitigated by her perception that it had failed to affect Lady Mitford. The husband whom she had undoubtedly loved, and of whom she had been undeniably jealous, slighted her more openly than ever, and offered to her rival before her face undisguised and passionate homage; and yet Lady Mitford maintained perfect composure; and though she was occasionally distraite, the expression of her face indicated anything but painful thoughts as the cause of her abstraction. Her serene beauty was particularly impressive, and there was an indefinable added attraction in the calm unconscious grace of her manner. The quick instinct of hate warned her enemy that she was losing ground, and she listened eagerly, while she never interrupted her conversation with Sir Charles, for an indication of the cause. It came quickly. Alsager's letter was mentioned, and Lady Mitford imparted its contents to Captain Bligh, who had dropped in late, and had not heard her communication to Sir Charles. She looked away from Mrs. Hammond while she spoke, and while she and Bligh discussed the letter, Sir Peregrine's state, Laurence's detention at Knockholt, and other topics connected with the subject. It was fortunate that she did not see Laura's face; the sight would have enlightened her probably, but at the cost of infinite perplexity and distress, deepening and darkening a coming sorrow, swooping now very near to her unconscious head. The look, which would have been a revelation, lasted only a moment. It did not deform the beauty of the face, which it lighted up with a lurid glare of baffled passion and raging jealousy; for that beauty owed nothing to expression--its charm, its power were entirely sensuous; but it changed it from the seductive loveliness of a wicked woman to the evil splendour of a remorseless devil. If Lady Mitford had seen it, the light which its lurid fury would have flashed upon her might have been vivid enough to show her that in the rage and torment whence it sprung, she was avenged; but Georgie was not the sort of woman to be comforted by that view of the subject.
Lady Mitford made her request of Sir Charles, and was refused more peremptorily than her letter to Laurence Alsager had implied. The increasing rudeness of Mitford to his wife was characteristic of the man. He had neither courage, tact, nor breeding; and when he went wrong, he did so doggedly, and without making any attempt to mitigate or disguise the ugliness of the aberration. His demeanour to his wife at this juncture exhibited a pleasing combination of viciousness and stupidity. He was maddened by the near inevitability of Laura's departure. The Hammonds must leave Redmoor, and there was no possibility of their going to town. Mr. Hammond's physician had prescribed Devonshire air, and in Devonshire he must be permitted to remain. Sir Charles heartily cursed the poor old gentleman for the ill-health by which he and Laura had so largely profited; but curses could do nothing,--the Hammonds must go. He must be separated from Laura for a time, unless indeed Hammond would be kind enough to die, or she would be devoted enough to elope with him. The latter alternative presented itself to Sir Charles only in the vaguest and remotest manner, and but for a moment. He had become very much of a brute, and he had always been somewhat of a fool; but he had not reached the point of folly at which he could have supposed that Laura Hammond would forfeit the wealth for which she had sold herself, and which in the course of nature must soon fall into her hands, for any inducement of sentiment or passion. He had been brooding over these grievances alone in the library, when Georgie, with whom he had not exchanged a dozen words for as many days, came in, and spoke to him, with a miserable affectation of unconsciousness, about a wish to visit her old home before their return to town for the season. He refused with curt incivility and obstinacy; and it is probable that the ensuing few minutes might have brought about a decided quarrel between the husband and wife, had not Captain Bligh entered the room abruptly, and called out, apparently without noticing Lady Mitford's presence:
"I say, Mitford, you're wanted. Hammond is ever so much worse. Gifford has been round to the stables to get a groom sent off for Dr. Wilkinson.--I beg your pardon, Lady Mitford,--I ought to have mentioned that Mrs. Hammond's maid is looking for you."
Confusion reigned at Redmoor all that day, which seemed likely, during many hours, to have been the last of Mr. Hammond's life. Sir Charles felt that his morning meditation had had something prophetic in it; here was the other alternative almost within his grasp. At all events, whether he died a little sooner or lingered a little longer, Mr. Hammond must remain at Redmoor. The evil day was postponed. Lady Mitford simply devoted herself to the invalid, and behaved towards Mrs. Hammond with magnanimous kindness and consideration, which might have disarmed even Laura, had her inveterate coquetry and love of intrigue been the only animating motives of her conduct. She might have sacrificed the lesser passions to an impulse of the kind, but the greater--no. So she accepted all the delicate kindness which poor Georgie did her, she accepted the r?le of devoted and afflicted wife assigned to her before the household, and she hardened her heart against every appeal of her feebly-speaking conscience. With the following day the aspect of things changed a little. Mr. Hammond rallied; the doctors considered him likely to get over the attack; and Lord Dollamore arrived at Redmoor.
"I didn't hear anything from anybody, Mitford, and so I came on according to previous arrangement," said his lordship, as he greeted his host and looked about for Lady Mitford.
Lord Dollamore had strictly adhered to his programme. He never burdened his mind with the pursuit of two objects at the same time. He had completely disposed of the business which had called him away, and with which the present narrative has no concern; and he had come back to Redmoor as a kind of divertissement before the serious business of the season should commence. He entertained no doubt that he could resume his relation with Lady Mitford precisely at the point which it had attained when he left Redmoor. Georgie was not a fickle woman in anything; rather methodical, he had observed, in trifles. The impression he had made was likely to have been aided rather than lessened by the intermediate course of events at Redmoor. On the whole he felt tolerably confident; besides, he did not very much care. Lord Dollamore's was a happy temperament--a fortunate constitution, in fact--always supposing that life on this planet was tout potage, and nothing to follow. He could be pleasantly excited by the ardour of pursuit, and moderately elated by success; but failure had no terrors for him; he never fell into the weakness of caring sufficiently about anything to furnish fate with the gratification of disappointing him, in the heart-sickening or enraging sense of that elastic expression.
The Hammonds and Lord Dollamore were the only people now at Redmoor who could be strictly called guests. Captain Bligh was rather more at home than Sir Charles; and one or two stragglers, who had remained after the general break-up, addicted themselves to the versatile and good-humoured vaurien, and were generally to be found in his company. Accordingly, and as he anticipated, Lord Dollamore found Lady Mitford alone in, the drawing-room when he quitted the delectable society of the gentlemen. Mrs. Hammond had left the dinner-table, proclaiming her intention of at once resuming her place by her husband's side--a declaration by which she secured two purposes: one, the avoidance of a tête-à-tête with Lady Mitford; the other, the prevention of a visit by her hostess to the sickroom, on any supposition that Mr. Hammond might require extra attention. During dinner she had been quiet and subdued; her manner, in short, had been perfectly comme-il-faut, and she was dressed for her part to perfection. She had kept alive Lady Mitford's gentler feelings towards her; she had forged a fresh chain for Sir Charles, who, like "Joey B.," had great admiration for proceedings which he considered "devilish sly;" and she had afforded Dollamore much amusement of the kind which he peculiarly appreciated--quiet, ill-natured, and philosophical.
It does not much signify whether Laura went to her husband's sickroom at all, or how long she remained there; but there was some significance in the fact, which Lord Dollamore found eminently convenient and agreeable, that Sir Charles sent a footman to tell my lady that he had business to attend to in the library, and requested she would send his coffee thither; and there was a fortunate coincidence in the adjournment of Captain Bligh and his companions to the smoking-room, without any embarrassing drawing-room parade at all.
As Lord Dollamore entered the room, Lady Mitford was bidding goodnight to Mr. Hammond's little daughter, to whom she had been uniformly kind since the mysterious departure of Miss Gillespie. Lord Dollamore had, hardly ever seen the child, whom her stepmother wholly neglected, leaving her to the care of her maid, if the foreign damsel who officiated in that enviable capacity chose to take care of her,--and to chance, if she did not. Laura Hammond hardly knew that Lady Mitford had taken the child under her kindly protection, and had kept her with her during many of the hours of each day which she was not obliged to devote to her social duties; but the child's father knew the fact, and felt grateful to the one woman, after his senile fashion, without daring to express or even to feel any condemnation of the other. As the child left the room, Lord Dollamore looked after her for a moment before he closed the door; then he went up to Lady Mitford's sofa by the fireplace, and said quietly:
"Mrs. Hammond is as admirable as a stepmother as in all the other relations of life, I fancy."
Georgie made no reply, and he did not appear to expect any. Then came Sir Charles's message; and Dollamore watched Lady Mitford closely during its delivery, and until the servant had left the room, carrying a single cup of coffee on a salver.
"Does Mrs. Hammond disdain that celestial beverage?" he asked then, in a voice so full of meaning that Lady Mitford started and blushed crimson. This symptom of anger did not disconcert Lord Dollamore in the least. He had made up his mind to use the first opportunity which should present itself, and it had come. Of course she would start and blush, no matter how he phrased his meaning, but the start was rather graceful, and the blush was decidedly becoming.
"I don't know. I--what do you mean, Lord Dollamore? Mrs. Hammond has gone to her room; you heard what she said?"
"I did; and I don't believe a word of it. 'My poor dear Hammond' will have very little of her society this evening. Lady Mitford," he said, with a sudden change of tone, "how long do you intend to endure this kind of thing? Now I know what you are going to say; "--he put up his hand with a deferential but decided gesture, to prevent her speaking;--"I am quite aware that I have no business to talk to you about Mitford and Mrs. Hammond. I could repeat all that conventional catechism about the whole duty of men and women without a blunder; but it's all nonsense--all hypocrisy, which is worse. I am a man of the world, and you are a woman of the world, or nearly: you will very soon be completely so. Allow me to anticipate the period at which your education will be finished, and to speak to you with perfect frankness."
Georgie looked at him in complete bewilderment. What did this new tone which he had assumed mean?--To insult her? No; she had no reason to think, to fear anything of that kind. Had he not done her at least one substantial service--had he not saved her from ridicule, from affording her enemy a triumph? Had not his manner been always respectful, and, in his indolent way, kind? Even while he spoke of her as "nearly" a woman of the world, she knew that he was thinking of her newness, her ignorance of that very world, and of life. Perhaps she should only expose herself to ridicule on his part now, if she shrank from hearing him. It was certain that things had gone too far--the state of affairs had become too evident--for her to affect indignation or assume prudery, without making herself supremely ridiculous; besides, there was already a tacit confidence between them, which she could neither ignore nor recall. She wished vaguely that Colonel Alsager had been there; then, that some one might come into the room; but she felt, amid her perplexity and perturbation, a strong desire to hear what he had to say to her--to learn what was the view which a man so completely of society, and so capable of interpreting its judgment, took of her position and prospects. Nervously, yet not unreadily, she assented; and Lord Dollamore, standing on the hearth-rug and looking down at her bent head and drooping eyelids, spoke in a low tone:
"You are no match for Mrs. Hammond, Lady Mitford. You would not be, even if you did not labour under the insurmountable disadvantage of being Sir Charles's wife. That must be as evident to yourself--for you are wonderfully sensible and free from vanity--as it is to the lookers-on, who proverbially see most of the game. You have feeling and delicacy, and she is encumbered by no such obstacles to the attainment of any purpose she may set before her. But because you can't fight her on any ground, that's no reason why you should let her make you wretched, and, above all, ridiculous."
"She cannot. I--"
Georgie had looked up with an angry beautiful flush on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes, which Mrs. Hammond could not have managed by any contrivance to excel. But when she saw the look that was fixed on her, her eyes fell, and she covered her face with her hands. It was not a bold glance; it was quiet, powerful, and pitying--pitying from Dollamore's point of view, not of her grief, but of her "greenness."
"She can, and she has, Lady Mitford; but it will be your own fault, and a very silly fault too, if she has that power much longer. Look the truth in the face; don't be afraid of it. You have lost Mitford's affections, I suppose you will say; and there never was any one so miserable; and so forth. It's quite a mistake. Mitford never had any affections--he had, and has, passions; and they will be won and lost many and many a time, long after you will have ceased even to notice in what direction they may happen to be straying. Because your reign was short, you fancy Mrs. Hammond's will be eternal. Pooh! It will come to a timely end with the beginning of the opera-season; and nothing will remain to her of it but a rent in her reputation--which even that endurable material will hardly bear--and much mortification. Your reign is over, as you believe; and we will grant, for the sake of argument, that you are right. Well, what remains to you after this terrible imaginary bereavement of Mitford's affections? Why, Mitford's fortune, Mitford's rank, and a position which, if you were under his influence, might very possibly come to grief; but which you, free and blameless,--a very pleasant combination, let me tell you, and one that many a woman would gladly purchase at the price of a little sentimental blighting,--will elevate and dignify. If you will only realize your position, Lady Mitford, and act with good sense, you will have as brilliant a destiny before you as any woman not afflicted with a mission could possibly desire."
The dream she had dreamed--the home-life her fancy had pictured--came back in a moment to Georgie's mental vision; and she said, in a tone of keen distress:
"Don't say these things, Lord Dollamore. I know you don't mean them; but they sound cold and wicked. How could I care for any position? and what is wealth to me?"
"Pretty much what it is to every rational being, Lady Mitford--happiness; or if not quite the real sterling thing, the very best plated or paste imitation of it procurable in this state of existence. But you have not only wealth, rank, position, and a career of fashion and pleasure to look forward to; there are other things in your future. Think of your youth, estimate your beauty;--stay--no, you cannot do that; you never could conceive the effect it must produce on men who are gentlemen and have taste. If you ever learn to use its full power, you will be as dangerous as Helen or Cleopatra."
He had spoken in a calm business-like manner, which disguised the real freedom of his speech; but he lingered just a little over the last few words, and thou went on hurriedly:
"What charm do you think Mrs. Hammond, or all the women like her--who swarm like vipers in society--will have against you? I am not flattering you, Lady Mitford,--you know that; I am merely telling you the simple truth. Your experience has been narrow, and you think all, or most men, are like Mitford. Because she has beaten you in this inglorious strife, do you think she could rival you in a grander and higher warfare?"
"Inglorious!" she said, amazed. "Oh, Lord Dollamore, he is my husband!"
Dollamore smiled--not at all a pleasant smile; there was too much contemptuous toleration in it.
"Your husband! Yes, he is your husband; but is he therefore any the less a commonplace and vulgar-minded person? You are too clever, Lady Mitford" (he understood the art of praising a woman for those qualities which she does not possess), "to believe in or repeat the stupid methodistical cant which would limit a woman's perceptions, sympathies, and associations, to her husband only,--a worse than Eastern bondage; for it does not involve indulgence, and it sins against knowledge. You are not going to 'live forgotten and die forlorn,' because you have married a man who is certainly not much better than his neighbours, and who is really no worse. Of course he does not suit you, and he never would have suited you, if Mrs. Hammond had never existed. You would have found that out a little later, and rather less unpleasantly, perhaps; but why not make the best of the early date of the discovery, which, after all, has its advantages? Mitford does not 'understand' you-that's the phrase, I think. Well, it's no worse because he does 'understand' some one of a lower calibre which is wonderfully like his own. He won't annoy you in any way, I daresay; he is ill at ease in society at the best, and he will keep out of it,--out of good society, I mean--your set. He will find resources at his own level, I daresay. Then do not trouble yourself about him; by and by, I mean, when the Hammond will be nowhere. Of course that business vexes you now; people always are vexed in the country by things they would never care about in town. It's the trees and the moon and the boredom, I suppose. Make up your mind not to trouble yourself about him; study the advantages of your position well, and determine to take the fullest possible enjoyment of them all."
He paused and looked at her, with a covert anxiety in his gaze. She sat quite still, and she was very pale; but she did not say a word. Her thoughts were painful and confused. Only one thing was clear to her: this man's counsel was very different from that which Colonel Alsager had given her. Which of the two would be the easier to follow? Georgie had strayed--at least a little way--into a dangerous path, when she acknowledged the possibility that it might be a struggle to act upon Alsager's, and might be even possible to follow Lord Dollamore's counsel. The pale face was very still; but Dollamore thought he could read indecision in it. He drew a little nearer to her, and bent a little more towards her, as he said:
"Do you really believe-do you even make-believe-that love is never more to be yours? Put such a cruel delusion far from you. You find it hard to live without love now; you grieve because you cannot keep the old feeling alive in your own heart, as keenly as you grieve because it has died in your husband's. You will find it impossible in the time to come. Then, when the tribute of passionate devotion is offered to you, you will not always refuse to accept it. Then, if one who has seen you in these dark days, radiant in beauty and unequalled in goodness,--one whom you have taught to believe in the reality of--"
A servant entered the room, and handed Lady Mitford a small twisted note. It was from Sir Charles, and merely said, "Come to me at once--to the library."