Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Mary stood up by her grandmother’s sofa, and looked rather frightened.

  ‘Dear Lady Maulevrier,’ said Hammond, ‘I ventured to telegraph to my lawyer to meet me at York last night, and come on here with me this morning. He has prepared a settlement, which I should like you to hear him read, and which he will explain to you, if necessary, while Molly and I go for a stroll in the grounds.’

  He had never called her Molly before. He put his arm round her with a proud air of possession, even under her grandmother’s eyes. And she nestled close up to his side, forgetting everything but the delight of belonging to him.

  They went downstairs, and through the billiard room to the terrace, and from the terrace to the tennis lawn, where John Hammond sat reading Heine nearly a year ago, just before he proposed to Lesbia.

  ‘Do you remember that day?’ asked Mary, looking at him, solemnly.

  ‘I remember every day and every hour we have spent together since I began to love you,’ answered Hammond.

  ‘Ah, but this was before you began to love me,’ said Mary, with a piteous little grimace. ‘This was while you were loving Lesbia as hard as ever you could. Don’t you remember the day you proposed to her — a lovely summer day like this, the lake just as blue, the sun shining upon Fairfield just as it is shining now, and you sat there reading Heine — those sweet, sweet verses, that seemed made of sighs and tears; and every now and then you paused and looked up at Lesbia, and there was more love in your eyes than in all Heine’s poetry, though that brims over with love.’

  ‘But how did you know all this, Molly? You were not here.’

  ‘I was not very far off. I was behind those bushes, watching and listening. I knew you were in love with Lesbia, and I thought you despised me, and I was very, very wretched; and I listened afterwards when you proposed to her there — behind the pine trees — and I hated her for refusing you, and I am afraid I hated you for proposing to her.’

  ‘When I ought to have been proposing to my Molly, blind fool that I was,’ said Hammond, smiling tenderly at her, smiling, though his eyes were dim with tears. ‘My own sweet love, it was a terrible mistake, a mistake that might have cost me the happiness of a lifetime. But Fate was very good to me, and let me have my Mary after all. And now let us sit down under the old red beech and talk till it is time to go and get ready for our wedding. I suppose one ought to brush one’s hair and wash one’s hands for that kind of thing, even when the function is not on a ceremonious scale.’

  Mary laughed.

  ‘I have a prettier gown than this to be married in, although it isn’t a wedding gown,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, by-the-by, I have something for you,’ said her lover, ‘something in the way of ornaments, but I don’t suppose you’d care to wear them to-day. I’ll run and get them.’

  He went back to the house, leaving Mary sitting on the rustic bench under the fine old copper beech, a tree that had been standing long before Lady Maulevrier enlarged the old stone house into a stately villa. He returned in a few minutes, bringing a morocco bag about the size of those usually carried by lawyers or lawyers’ clerks.

  ‘I don’t think I have given you anything since we were engaged, Mary,’ he said, as he seated himself by her side.

  Mary blushed, remembering how Clara, the maid, had remarked upon this fact.

  ‘You gave me my ring,’ she said, looking down at the massive band of gold, ‘and you have given me ever so many delightful books.’

  ‘Those were very humble gifts, Molly: but to-day I have brought you a wedding present.’

  He opened the bag and took out a red morocco case, and then half-a-dozen more red morocco cases of various shapes and sizes. The first looked new, but the others were old-fashioned and passing shabby, as if they had been knocking about brokers’ shops for the last quarter of a century.

  ‘There is my wedding gift, Mary,’ he said, handing her the new case.

  It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beautiful woman, in a large oval locket set with sapphires.

  ‘You have asked me for my portrait, dearest,’ he said. ‘I give you my mother’s rather than my own, because I loved her as I never thought to love again, till I knew you. I should like you to wear that locket sometimes, Mary, as a kind of link between the love of the past and the love of the present. Were my mother living, she would welcome and cherish my bride and my wife. She is dead, and you and she can never meet on earth: but I should like you to be familiar with the face which was once the light of my life.’

  Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the miniature. It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty — a face of exquisite refinement, of calm and pensive beauty.

  ‘I shall treasure this picture always, above all things,’ she said: but ‘why did you have it set so splendidly, Jack? No gems were needed to give your mother’s portrait value in my eyes.’

  ‘I know that, dearest, but I wanted to make the locket worth wearing. And now for the other cases. The locket is your lover’s free gift, and is yours to keep and to bequeath to your children. These are heirlooms, and yours only during your husband’s lifetime.’

  He opened one of the largest cases, and on a bed of black velvet Mary beheld a magnificent diamond necklace, with a large pendant. He opened another and displayed a set of sprays for the hair. Another contained earrings, another bracelets, the last a tiara.

  ‘What are they for?’ gasped Mary.

  ‘For my wife to wear.’

  ‘Oh, but I could never wear such things,’ she exclaimed, with an idea that these must be stage jewellery. ‘They are paste, of course — very beautiful for people who like that kind of thing — but I don’t.’

  She felt deeply shocked at this evidence of bad taste on the part of her lover. How the things flashed in the sunshine — but so did the crystal drops in the old Venetian girandoles.

  ‘No, Molly, they are not paste; they are Brazilian diamonds, and, as Maulevrier would say, they are as good as they make them. They are heirlooms, Molly. My dear mother wore them in her summer-tide of wedded happiness. My grandmother wore them for thirty years before her; my great grandmother wore them at the Court of Queen Charlotte, and they were worn at the Court of Queen Anne. They are nearly two hundred years old; and those central stones in the tiara came out of a cap worn by the Great Mogul, and are the largest table diamonds known. They are historic, Mary.’

  ‘Why, they must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘They are valued at something over seventy thousand pounds.’

  ‘But why don’t you sell them?’ exclaimed Mary, opening her eyes wide with surprise, ‘they would give you a handsome income.’

  ‘They are not mine to sell, Molly. Did not I tell you that they are heirlooms? They are the family jewels of the Countesses of Hartfield.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  ‘Ronald Hollister, Earl of Hartfield, and your adoring lover!’

  Mary gave a cry of surprise, a cry of distress even.

  ‘Oh, that is too dreadful!’ she exclaimed; ‘grandmother will be so unhappy. She had set her heart upon Lesbia marrying Lord Hartfield, the son of the man she loved.’

  ‘I got wind of her wish more than a year ago,’ said Hartfield, ‘from your brother; and he and I hatched a little plot between us. He told me Lesbia was not worthy of his friend’s devotion — told me that she was vain and ambitious — that she had been educated to be so. I determined to come and try my fate. I would try to win her as plain John Hammond. If she was a true woman, I told myself, vanity and ambition would be blown to the four winds, provided I could win her love. I came, I saw her; and to see was to love her. God knows I tried honestly to win her; but I had sworn to myself that I would woo her as John Hammond, and I did not waver in my resolution — no, not when a word would have turned the scale. She liked me, I think, a little; but she did not like the notion of an obscure life as the wife of a hardworking professional man. The pomps and vanities of this world had it
against love or liking, and she gave me up. I thank God that the pomps and vanities prevailed; for this happy chance gave me Mary, my sweet Wordsworthian damsel, found, like the violet or the celandine, by the wayside, in Wordsworth’s own country.’

  ‘And you are Lord Hartfield!’ exclaimed Mary, still lost in wonder, and with no elation at this change in the aspect of her life. ‘I always knew you were a great man. But poor grandmother! It will be a dreadful disappointment to her.’

  ‘I think not. I think she has learned my Molly’s value; rather late, as I learned it; and I believe she will be glad that one of her granddaughters should marry the son of her first lover. Let us go to her, love, and see if she is reconciled to the idea, and whether the settlement is ready for execution. Dorncliffe and his clerk were working at it half through the night.’

  ‘What is the good of a settlement?’ asked Mary. ‘I’m sure I don’t want one.’

  ‘Lady Hartfield must not be dependent upon her husband’s whim or pleasure for her milliner’s bill or her private charities,’ answered her lover, smiling at her eagerness to repudiate anything business-like.

  ‘But I would rather be dependent on your pleasure. I shall never have any milliner’s bills; and I am sure you would never deny me money for charity.’

  ‘You shall not have to ask me for it, except when you have exceeded your pin-money. I hope you will do that now and then, just to afford me the pleasure of doing you a favour.’

  ‘Hartfield,’ repeated Mary, to herself, as they went towards the house; ‘shall I have to call you Hartfield? I don’t like the name nearly so well as Jack.’

  ‘You shall call me Jack for old sake’s sake,’ said Hartfield, tenderly.

  ‘How did you think of such a name as Jack?’

  ‘Rather an effort of genius, wasn’t it. Well, first and foremost I was christened Ronald John — all the Hollisters are christened John — name of the founder of the race; and, secondly, Maulevrier and I were always plain Mr. Morland and Mr. Hammond in our travels, and always called each other Jack and Jim.’

  ‘How nice!’ said Mary; ‘would you very much mind our being plain Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, while we are on our honeymoon trip?’

  ‘I should like it of all things.’

  ‘So should I. People will not take so much notice of us, and we can do what we like, and go where we like.’

  ‘Delightful! We’ll even disguise ourselves as Cook’s tourists, if you like. I would not mind.’

  They were at the door of Lady Maulevrier’s sitting room by this time. They went in, and were greeted with smiles.

  ‘Let me look at the Countess of Hartfield that is to be in half an hour,’ said her ladyship. ‘Oh, Mary, Mary, what a blind idiot I have been, and what a lucky girl you are! I told you once that you were wiser than Lesbia, but I little thought how much wiser you had been.’

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  ‘OUR LOVE WAS NEW, AND THEN BUT IN THE SPRING.’

  Henley Regatta was over. It had passed like a tale that is told; like Epsom and Ascot, and all the other glories of the London season. Happy those for whom the glory of Henley, the grace of Ascot, the fever of Epsom, are not as weary as a twice-told tale, bringing with them only bitterest memories of youth that has fled, of hopes that have withered, of day-dreams that have never been realised. There are some to whom that mad hastening from pleasure to pleasure, that rush from scene to scene of excitement, that eager crowding into one day and night of gaieties which might fairly relieve the placid monotony of a month’s domesticity, a month’s professional work — some there are to whom this Vanity Fair is as a treadmill or the turning of a crank, the felon’s deepest humiliation, purposeless, unprofitable, labour.

  The regatta was over, and Lady Kirkbank and her charge hastened back to Arlington Street. Theirs was the very first departure; albeit Mr. Smithson pleaded hard for a prolongation of their visit. The weather was exceptionally lovely, he urged. Water picnics were delightful just now — the banks were alive with the colour of innumerable wild flowers, as beautiful and more poetical than the gorgeous flora of the Amazon or the Paraguay river. And Lady Lesbia had developed a genius for punting; and leaning against her pole, with her hair flying loose and sleeves rolled up above the elbow, she was a subject for canvas or marble, Millais or Adams Acton.

  ‘When we are in Italy I will have her modelled, just in that attitude, and that dress,’ said Mr. Smithson. ‘She will make a lovely companion for my Reading Girl: one all repose and reverie, the other all life and action. Dear Lady Kirkbank, you really must stay for another week at least. Why go back to the smoke and sultriness of town? Here we can almost live on the water; and I will send to London for some people to make music for us in the evenings, or if you miss your little game at “Nap,” we will play for an hour or so every night. It shall not be my fault if my house is not pleasant for you.’

  ‘Your house is charming, and I shall be here only too often in the days to come; you will have more than enough of me then, I promise you,’ replied Georgie, with her girlish laugh, ‘but we must not stop a day longer now. People would begin to talk. Besides, we have engagements for every hour of the week that is coming, and for a fortnight after; and then I suppose I ought to take Lesbia to the North to see her grandmother, and to discuss all the preparations and arrangements for this very serious event in which you and Lesbia are to be the chief performers.’

  ‘I shall be very glad to go to Grasmere myself, and to make the acquaintance of my future grandmother-in-law,’ said Mr. Smithson.

  ‘You will be charmed with her. She belongs to the old school — something of a fossil, perhaps, but a very dignified fossil. She has grown old in a rustic seclusion, and knows less of our world than a mother abbess; but she has read immensely, and is wonderfully clever. I am bound to tell you that she has very lofty ideas about her granddaughter; and I believe she will only be reconciled to Lesbia’s marriage with a commoner by the notion that you are sure of a peerage. I ventured to hint as much in my letter to Lady Maulevrier yesterday.’

  A shade of sullenness crept over Horace Smithson’s visage.

  ‘I should hope that such settlements as I am in a position to make will convince Lady Maulevrier that I am a respectable suitor for her granddaughter, ex peerage,’ he said, somewhat haughtily.

  ‘My dear Smithson, did I not tell you that poor Lady Maulevrier is a century behind the times,’ exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with an aggrieved look. ‘If she were one of us, of course she would know that wealth is the paramount consideration, and that you are quite the best match of the season. But she is dreadfully arriérée, poor dear thing; and she must have amused herself with the day-dream of seeing Lesbia a duchess, or something of that kind. I shall tell her that Lesbia can be one of the queens of society without having strawberry leaves on her coach panels, and that my dear friend Horace Smithson is a much better match than a seedy duke. So don’t look cross, my dear fellow; in me you have a friend who will never desert you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Smithson, inwardly resolving that, so soon as this little transaction of his marriage were over, he would see as little of Georgie Kirkbank and her cotton frocks and schoolgirl hats as bare civility would allow.

  He had promised her that she should be the richer by a neat little bundle of fat and flourishing railway stock when his happiness was secured, and he was not going to break his promise. But he did not mean to give George and Georgie free quarters at Rood Hall, or at Cowes, or Deauville; and he meant to withdraw his wife altogether from Lady Kirkbank’s pinchbeck set.

  What were Lesbia’s feelings in the early morning after the last day of the regatta, as she slowly paced the lavender walk in the Ladies’ Garden, alone? — for happily Mr. Smithson was not so early a riser as the Grasmere-bred damsel, and she had this fresh morning hour to herself. Of what was she thinking as she paced slowly up and down the broad gravel walk, between two rows of tall old bushes, on which masses of purple blossom stood up from the
pale grey foliage, silvery where the summer breeze touched it?

  Well, she was thinking first what a grand old place Rood Hall was, and that it was in a manner hers henceforward. She was to be mistress of this house, and of other houses, each after its fashion as perfect as Rood Hall. She was to have illimitable money at her command, to spend and give away as she liked. She, who yesterday had been tortured by the idea of owing a paltry three thousand pounds, was henceforward to count her thousands by the hundred. Her senses reeled before that dazzling vision of figures with rows of ciphers after them, one cipher more or less meaning the difference between thousands and millions. Everybody had agreed in assuring her that Mr. Smithson was inordinately rich. Everybody had considered it his or her business to give her information about the gentleman’s income; clearly implying thereby that in the opinion of society Mr. Smithson’s merits as a suitor were a question of so much bullion.

  Could she doubt — she who had learned in one short season to know what the world was made of and what it most valued — could she, steeped to the lips in the wisdom of Lady Kirkbank’s set, doubt for an instant that she was making a better match in the eye of society, than if she had married a man of the highest lineage in all England, a peer of the highest rank, without large means? She knew that money was power, that a man might begin life as a pot-boy or a greengrocer, a knacker or a dust contractor, and climb to the topmost pinnacles, were he only rich enough. She knew that society would eat such a man’s dinners and dance at his wife’s balls, and pretend to think him an altogether exceptional man, make believe to admire him for his own sake, to think his wife most brilliant among women, if he were only rich enough. And could she doubt that society would bow down to her as Lady Lesbia Smithson? She had learned a great deal in her single season, and she knew how society was influenced and governed, almost as well as Sir Robert Walpole knew how human nature could be moulded and directed at the will of a shrewd diplomatist. She knew that in the fashionable world every man and every woman, every child even, has his or her price, and may be bought and sold at pleasure. She had her price, she, Lesbia, the pearl of Grasmere; and the price having been fairly bidden she had surrendered to the bidder.