“Lord Silverbridge,” said Mr. Boncassen, speaking a little through his nose, “I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir. Your father is a man for whom we in our country have a great respect. I think, sir, you must be proud of such a father.”
“Oh yes, — no doubt,” said Silverbridge awkwardly. Then Mr. Boncassen continued his discourse with the gentlemen around him. Upon this our friend turned to the young lady. “Have you been long in England, Miss Boncassen?”
“Long enough to have heard about you and your father,” she said, speaking with no slightest twang.
“I hope you have not heard any evil of me.”
“Well!”
“I’m sure you can’t have heard much good.”
“I know you didn’t win the Derby.”
“You’ve been long enough to hear that?”
“Do you suppose we don’t interest ourselves about the Derby in New York? Why, when we arrived at Queenstown I was leaning over the taffrail so that I might ask the first man on board the tender whether the Prime Minister had won.”
“And he said he hadn’t.”
“I can’t conceive why you of all men should call your horse by such a name. If my father had been President of the United States, I don’t think I’d call a horse President.”
“I didn’t name the horse.”
“I’d have changed it. But is it not very impudent in me to be finding fault with you the first time I have ever seen you? Shall you have a horse at Ascot?”
“There will be something going, I suppose. Nothing that I care about.” Lord Silverbridge had made up his mind that he would go to no races with Tifto before the Leger. The Leger would be an affair of such moment as to demand his presence. After that should come the complete rupture between him and Tifto.
Then there was a movement among the elders, and Lord Silverbridge soon found himself walking alone with Miss Boncassen. It seemed to her to be quite natural to do so, and there certainly was no reason why he should decline anything so pleasant. It was thus that he had intended to walk with Mabel Grex; — only as yet he had not found her. “Oh yes,” said Miss Boncassen, when they had been together about twenty minutes; “we shall be here all the summer, and all the fall, and all the winter. Indeed father means to read every book in the British Museum before he goes back.”
“He’ll have something to do.”
“He reads by steam, and he has two or three young men with him to take it all down and make other books out of it; — just as you’ll see a lady take a lace shawl and turn it all about till she has trimmed a petticoat with it. It is the same lace all through, — and so I tell father it’s the same knowledge.”
“But he puts it where more people will find it.”
“The lady endeavours to do the same with the lace. That depends on whether people look up or down. Father however is a very learned man. You mustn’t suppose that I am laughing at him. He is going to write a very learned book. Only everybody will be dead before it can be half finished.” They still went on together, and then he gave her his arm and took her into the place where the strawberries and cream were prepared. As he was going in he saw Mabel Grex walking with Tregear, and she bowed to him pleasantly and playfully. “Is that lady a great friend of yours?” asked Miss Boncassen.
“A very great friend indeed.”
“She is very beautiful.”
“And clever as well, — and good as gold.”
“Dear me! Do tell me who it is that owns all these qualities.”
“Lady Mabel Grex. She is daughter of Lord Grex. That man with her is my particular friend. His name is Frank Tregear, and they are cousins.”
“I am so glad they are cousins.”
“Why glad?”
“Because his being with her won’t make you unhappy.”
“Supposing I was in love with her, — which I am not, — do you suppose it would make me jealous to see her with another man?”
“In our country it would not. A young lady may walk about with a young gentleman just as she might with another young lady; but I thought it was different here. Do you know, judging by English ways, I believe I am behaving very improperly in walking about with you so long. Ought I not to tell you to go away?”
“Pray do not.”
“As I am going to stay here so long I wish to behave well to English eyes.”
“People know who you are, and discount all that.”
“If the difference be very marked they do. For instance, I needn’t wear a hideous long bit of cloth over my face in Constantinople because I am a woman. But when the discrepancies are small, then they have to be attended to. So I shan’t walk about with you any more.”
“Oh yes, you will,” said Silverbridge, who began to think that he liked walking about with Miss Boncassen.
“Certainly not. There is Mr. Sprottle. He is father’s secretary. He will take me back.”
“Cannot I take you back as well as Mr. Sprottle?”
“Indeed no; — I am not going to monopolise such a man as you. Do you think that I don’t understand that everybody will be making remarks upon the American girl who won’t leave the son of the Duke of Omnium alone? There is your particular friend Lady Mabel, and here is my particular friend Mr. Sprottle.”
“May I come and call?”
“Certainly. Father will only be too proud, — and I shall be prouder. Mother will be the proudest of all. Mother very seldom goes out. Till we get a house we are at The Langham. Thank you, Mr. Sprottle. I think we’ll go and find father.”
Lord Silverbridge found himself close to Lady Mabel and Tregear, and also to Miss Cassewary, who had now joined Lady Mabel. He had been much struck with the American beauty, but was not on that account the less anxious to carry out his great plan. It was essentially necessary that he should do so at once, because the matter had been settled between him and his father. He was anxious to assure her that if she would consent, then the Duke would be ready to pour out all kinds of paternal blessings on their heads. “Come and take a turn among the haycocks,” he said.
“Frank declares,” said Lady Mabel, “that the hay is hired for the occasion. I wonder whether that is true.”
“Anybody can see,” said Tregear, “that it has not been cut off the grass it stands upon.”
“If I could find Mrs. Montacute Jones I’d ask her where she got it,” said Lady Mabel.
“Are you coming?” asked Silverbridge impatiently.
“I don’t think I am. I have been walking round the haycocks till I am tired of them.”
“Anywhere else then?”
“There isn’t anywhere else. What have you done with your American beauty? The truth is, Lord Silverbridge, you ask me for my company when she won’t give you hers any longer. Doesn’t it look like it, Miss Cassewary?”
“I don’t think Lord Silverbridge is the man to forget an old friend for a new one.”
“Not though the new friend be as lovely as Miss Boncassen?”
“I don’t know that I ever saw a prettier girl,” said Tregear.
“I quite admit it,” said Lady Mabel. “But that is no salve for my injured feelings I have heard so much about Miss Boncassen’s beauty for the last week, that I mean to get up a company of British females, limited, for the express purpose of putting her down. Who is Miss Boncassen that we are all to be put on one side for her?”
Of course he knew that she was joking, but he hardly knew how to take her joke. There is a manner of joking which carries with it much serious intention. He did feel that Lady Mabel was not gracious to him because he had spent half an hour with this new beauty, and he was half inclined to be angry with her. Was it fitting that she should be cross with him, seeing that he was resolved to throw at her feet all the good things that he had in the world? “Bother Miss Boncassen,” he said; “you might as well come and take a turn with a fellow.”
“Come along, Miss Cassewary,” said she. “We will go round the haycocks yet once again.” So they turned and
the two ladies accompanied Lord Silverbridge.
But this was not what he wanted. He could not say what he had to say in the presence of Miss Cassewary, — nor could he ask her to take herself off in another direction. Nor could he take himself off. Now that he had joined himself to these two ladies he must make with them the tour of the gardens. All this made him cross. “These kind of things are a great bore,” he said.
“I dare say you would rather be in the House of Commons; — or, better still, at the Beargarden.”
“You mean to be ill-natured when you say that, Lady Mab.”
“You ask us to come and walk with you, and then you tell us that we are bores!”
“I did nothing of the kind.”
“I should have thought that you would be particularly pleased with yourself for coming here to-day, seeing that you have made Miss Boncassen’s acquaintance. To be allowed to walk half an hour alone with the acknowledged beauty of the two hemispheres ought to be enough even for Lord Silverbridge.”
“That is nonsense, Lady Mab.”
“Nothing gives so much zest to admiration as novelty. A republican charmer must be exciting after all the blasées habituées of the London drawing-rooms.”
“How can you talk such nonsense, Mabel?” said Miss Cassewary.
“But it is so. I feel that people must be sick of seeing me. I know I am very often sick of seeing them. Here is something fresh, — and not only unlike, but so much more lovely. I quite acknowledge that I may be jealous, but no one can say that I am spiteful. I wish that some republican Adonis or Apollo would crop up, — so that we might have our turn. But I don’t think the republican gentlemen are equal to the republican ladies. Do you, Lord Silverbridge?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“Mr. Sprottle for instance.”
“I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Sprottle.”
“Now we’ve been round the haycocks, and really, Lord Silverbridge, I don’t think we have gained much by it. Those forced marches never do any good.” And so they parted.
He was thinking with a bitter spirit of the ill-result of his morning’s work when he again found himself close to Miss Boncassen in the crowd of departing people on the terrace. “Mind you keep your word,” she said. And then she turned to her father. “Lord Silverbridge has promised to call.”
“Mrs. Boncassen will be delighted to make his acquaintance.”
He got into his cab and was driven off towards Richmond. As he went he began to think of the two young women with whom he had passed his morning. Mabel had certainly behaved badly to him. Even if she suspected nothing of his object, did she not owe it to their friendship to be more courteous to him than she had been? And if she suspected that object, should she not at any rate have given him the opportunity?
Or could it be that she was really jealous of the American girl? No; — that idea he rejected instantly. It was not compatible with the innate modesty of his disposition. But no doubt the American girl was very lovely. Merely as a thing to be looked at she was superior to Mabel. He did feel that as to mere personal beauty she was in truth superior to anything he had ever seen before. And she was clever too; — and good-humoured; — whereas Mabel had been both ill-natured and unpleasant.
CHAPTER XXIX
The Lovers Meet
Lord Silverbridge found his sister alone. “I particularly want you,” said he, “to come and call on Mabel Grex. She wishes to know you, and I am sure you would like her.”
“But I haven’t been out anywhere yet,” she said. “I don’t feel as though I wanted to go anywhere.”
Nevertheless she was very anxious to know Lady Mabel Grex, of whom she had heard much. A girl if she has had a former love passage says nothing of it to her new lover; but a man is not so reticent. Frank Tregear had perhaps not told her everything, but he had told her something. “I was very fond of her; — very fond of her,” he had said. “And so I am still,” he had added. “As you are my love of loves, she is my friend of friends.” Lady Mary had been satisfied by the assurance, but had become anxious to see the friend of friends. She resisted at first her brother’s entreaties. She felt that her father in delivering her over to the seclusion of The Horns had intended to preclude her from showing herself in London. She was conscious that she was being treated with cruelty, and had a certain pride in her martyrdom. She would obey her father to the letter; she would give him no right to call her conduct in question; but he and any other to whom he might entrust the care of her, should be made to know that she thought him cruel. He had his power to which she must submit. But she also had hers, — to which it was possible he might be made to submit. “I do not know that papa would wish me to go,” she said.
“But it is just what he would wish. He thinks a good deal about Mabel.”
“Why should he think about her at all?”
“I can’t exactly explain,” said Silverbridge, “but he does.”
“If you mean to tell me that Mabel Grex is anything particular to you, and that papa approves of it, I will go all round the world to see her.” But he had not meant to tell her this. The request had been made at Lady Mabel’s instance. When his sister had spoken of her father’s possible objection, then he had become eager in explaining the Duke’s feeling, not remembering that such anxiety might betray himself. At that moment Lady Cantrip came in, and the question was referred to her. She did not see any objection to such a visit, and expressed her opinion that it would be a good thing that Mary should be taken out. “She should begin to go somewhere,” said Lady Cantrip. And so it was decided. On the next Friday he would come down early in his hansom and drive her up to Belgrave Square. Then he would take her to Carlton Terrace, and Lady Cantrip’s carriage should pick her up there and bring her home. He would arrange it all.
“What did you think of the American beauty?” asked Lady Cantrip when that was settled.
“I thought she was a beauty.”
“So I perceived. You had eyes for nobody else,” said Lady Cantrip, who had been at the garden-party.
“Somebody introduced her to me, and then I had to walk about the grounds with her. That’s the kind of thing one always does in those places.”
“Just so. That is what ‘those places’ are meant for, I suppose. But it was not apparently a great infliction.” Lord Silverbridge had to explain that it was not an infliction; — that it was a privilege, seeing that Miss Boncassen was both clever and lovely; but that it did not mean anything in particular.
When he took his leave he asked his sister to go out into the grounds with him for a moment. This she did almost unwillingly, fearing that he was about to speak to her of Tregear. But he had no such purpose on his mind. “Of course you know,” he began, “all that was nonsense you were saying about Mabel.”
“I did not know.”
“I was afraid you might blurt out something before her.”
“I should not be so imprudent.”
“Girls do make such fools of themselves sometimes. They are always thinking about people being in love. But it is the truth that my father said to me the other day how very much he liked what he had heard of her, and that he would like you to know her.”
On that same evening Silverbridge wrote from the Beargarden the shortest possible note to Lady Mabel, telling her what he had arranged. “I and Mary propose to call in B. Square on Friday at two. I must be early because of the House. You will give us lunch. S.” There was no word of endearment, — none even of those ordinary words which people who hate each other use to one another. But he received the next day at home a much more kindly-written note from her:
Dear Lord Silverbridge,
You are so good! You always do just what you think people will like best. Nothing could please me so much as seeing your sister, of whom of course I have heard very very much. There shall be nobody here but Miss Cass.
Yours most sincerely,
M. G.
“How I do wish I were a man!” his sister
said to him when they were in the hansom together.
“You’d have a great deal more trouble.”
“But I’d have a hansom of my own, and go where I pleased. How would you like to be shut up at a place like The Horns?”
“You can go out if you like it.”
“Not like you. Papa thinks it’s the proper place for me to live in, and so I must live there. I don’t think a woman ever chooses how or where she shall live herself.”
“You are not going to take up woman’s rights, I hope.”
“I think I shall if I stay at The Horns much longer. What would papa say if he heard that I was going to give a lecture at an Institute?”
“The governor has had so many things to bear that a trifle such as that would make but little difference.”
“Poor papa!”
“He was dreadfully cut up about Gerald. And then he is so good! He said more to me about Gerald than he ever did about my own little misfortune at Oxford; but to Gerald himself he said almost nothing. Now he has forgiven me because he thinks I am constant at the House.”
“And are you?”
“Not so much as he thinks. I do go there, — for his sake. He has been so good about my changing sides.”
The Palliser Novels Page 426
