Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories Part 19

She certainly thought Philip made himself specially brilliant and agreeable that night; but then that was nothing new, he was famous for talking well, and liked his mother enough not seldom to shower out for her some of his very best things; certainly she thought Goodwood did not shine by the contrast, and looked, to use an undignified word, rather cross than otherwise; but then n.o.body _did_ shine beside Philip, and she knew a reason that made Goodwood pardonably cross at the undesired presence of his oldest and dearest chum. Even _she_ almost wished Philip away. If the presence of her idolized son could have been unwelcome to her at any time, it was so that night.

"It isn't like Philip to monopolize her so, he who has so much tact usually, and cares nothing for girls himself," thought Lady Marabout; "he must do it for mischief, and yet _that_ isn't like him at all; it's very tiresome, at any rate."

And with that skilful diplomacy in such matters, on which, if it was sometimes overthrown, Lady Marabout not unjustly plumed herself, she dexterously entangled Carruthers in conversation, and during the crash of one of the choruses whispered, as he bent forward to pick up her fan, which she had let drop,

"Leave Flora a little to Goodwood; he has a right--he spoke decisively to her to-day."

Carruthers bowed his head, and stooped lower for the fan.

He left her accordingly to Goodwood till the curtain fell after the last act of the "Barbiere;" and Lady Marabout congratulated herself on her own adroitness. "There is nothing like a little tact," she thought; "what would society be without the guiding genius of tact, I wonder? One dreadful Donnybrook Fair!"

But, someway or other, despite all her tact, or because her son inherited that valuable quality in a triple measure to herself, someway, it was Goodwood who led her to her carriage, and Carruthers who led the little Montolieu.

"Terribly _bete_ of Philip; how very unlike him!" mused Lady Marabout, as she gathered her burnous round her.

Carruthers talked and laughed as he led Flora Montolieu through the pa.s.sages, more gayly, perhaps, than usual.

"My mother has told me some news to-night, Miss Montolieu," he said, carelessly. "Am I premature in proffering you my congratulations? But even if I be so, you will not refuse the privilege to an old friend--to a very sincere friend--and will allow me to be the first to wish you happiness?"

Lady Marabout's carriage stopped the way. Flora Montolieu colored, looked full at him, and went to it, without having time to answer his congratulations, in which the keenest-sighted hearer would have failed to detect anything beyond every-day friendship and genuine indifference.

The most truthful men will make the most consummate actors when spurred up to it.

"My dear child, you look ill to-night; I am glad you have no engagements," said Lady Marabout, as she sat down before the dressing-room fire, toasting her little satin-shod foot--she has a weakness for fire even in the hottest weather--while Flora Montolieu lay back in a low chair, crushing the roses mercilessly. "You _do_ feel well? I should not have thought so, your face looks so flushed, and your eyes so preternaturally dark. Perhaps it is the late hours; you were not used to them in France, of course, and it must be such a change to this life from your unvarying conventual routine at St. Denis. My love, what was it Lord Goodwood said to you to-day?"

"Do not speak to me of him, Lady Marabout, I hate his name!"

Lady Marabout started with an astonishment that nearly upset the cup of coffee she was sipping.

"Hate his name? My dearest Flora, why, in Heaven's name?"

Flora did not answer; she pulled the roses off her hair as though they had been infected with Brinvilliers' poison.

"What has he done?"

"_He_ has done nothing!"

"Who has done anything, then?"

"Oh, no one--no one has done anything, but--I am sick of Lord Goodwood's name--tired of it!"

Lady Marabout sat almost speechless with surprise.

"Tired of it, my dear Flora?"

Little Montolieu laughed:

"Well, tired of it, perhaps from hearing him praised so often, as the Athenian trader grew sick of Aristides, and the Jacobin of Washington's name. Is it unpardonably heterodox to say so?"

Lady Marabout stirred her coffee in perplexity:

"My dear child, pray don't speak in that way; that's like Philip's tone when he is enigmatical and sarcastic, and worries me. I really cannot in the least understand you about Lord Goodwood, it is quite incomprehensible to me. I thought I overheard him to-day at Lady George's concert speak very definitely to you indeed, and when he was interrupted by the d.u.c.h.ess before you could give him his reply, I thought I heard him say he should call to-morrow morning to know your ultimate decision. Was I right?"

"Quite right."

"He really proposed marriage to you to-day?"

"Yes."

"And yet you say you are sick of his name?"

"Does it follow, imperatively, Lady Marabout, that because the Sultan throws his handkerchief, it must be picked up with humility and thanksgiving?" asked Flora Montolieu, furling and unfurling her fan with an impatient rapidity that threatened entire destruction of its ivory and feathers, with their Watteau-like group elaborately painted on them--as pretty a toy of the kind as could be got for money, which had been given her by Carruthers one day in payment of some little bagatelle of a bet.

"Sultan!--Humility!" repeated Lady Marabout, scarcely crediting her senses. "My dear Flora, do you know what you are saying? You must be jesting! There is not a woman in England who would be insensible to the honor of Goodwood's proposals. You are jesting, Flora!"

"I am not, indeed!"

"You mean to say, you could positively think of _rejecting_ him!" cried Lady Marabout, rising from her chair in the intensity of her amazement, convinced that she was the victim of some horrible hallucination.

"Why should it surprise you if I did?"

"_Why?_" repeated Lady Marabout, indignantly. "Do you ask me _why_? You must be a child, indeed, or a consummate actress, to put such a question; excuse me, my dear, if I speak a little strongly: you perfectly bewilder me, and I confess I cannot see your motives or your meaning in the least. You have made a conquest such as the proudest women in the peerage have vainly tried to make; you have one of the highest t.i.tles in the country offered to you; you have won a man whom everybody declared would never be won; you have done this, pardon me, without either birth or fortune on your own side, and then you speak of rejecting Goodwood--Goodwood, of all the men in England! You cannot be serious, Flora, or, if you are, you must be mad!"

Lady Marabout spoke more hotly than Lady Marabout had ever spoken in all her life. Goodwood absolutely won--Goodwood absolutely "come to the point"--the crowning humiliation of the Hauttons positively within her grasp--her Marathon and Lemnos actually gained! and all to be lost and flung away by the unaccountable caprice of a wayward child! It was sufficient to exasperate a saint, and a saint Lady Marabout never pretended to be.

Flora Montolieu toyed recklessly with her fan.

"You told Sir Philip this evening, I think, of----"

"I hinted it to him, my dear--yes. Philip has known all along how much I desired it, and as Goodwood is one of his oldest and most favorite friends, I knew it would give him sincere pleasure both for my sake and Goodwood's, and yours too, for I think Philip likes you as much as he ever does any young girl--better, indeed; and I could not imagine--I could not dream for an instant--that there was any doubt of your acceptation, as, indeed, there _cannot_ be. You have been jesting to worry me, Flora!"

Little Montolieu rose, threw her fan aside, as if its ivory stems had been hot iron, and leaned against the mantelpiece.

"You advise me to accept Lord Goodwood, then, Lady Marabout?"

"My love, if you need my advice, certainly!--such an alliance will never be proffered to you again; the brilliant position it will place you in I surely have no need to point out!" returned Lady Marabout. "The little hypocrite!" she mused, angrily, "as if her own mind were not fully made up--as if any girl in Europe would hesitate over accepting the Doncaster coronet--as if a nameless Montolieu could doubt for a moment her own delight at being created Marchioness of Goodwood! Such a triumph as _that_--why I wouldn't credit _any_ woman who pretended she wasn't dazzled by it!"

"I thought you did not approve of marriages of convenience?"

Lady Marabout played a tattoo--slightly perplexed tattoo--with her spoon in her Sevres saucer.

"No more I do, my dear--that is, under some circ.u.mstances; it is impossible to lay down a fixed rule for everything! Marriages of convenience--well, perhaps not; but as _I_ understand these words, they mean a mere business affair, arranged as they are in France, without the slightest regard to the inclinations of either; merely regarding whether the incidents of fortune, birth, and station are equal and suitable.

Marriages _de convenance_ are when a parvenu barters his gold for good blood, or where an _ancienne princesse_ mends her fortune with a _nouveau riche_, profound indifference, meanwhile, on each side. I do not call this so; decidedly not! Goodwood must be very deeply attached to you to have forgotten his detestation of marriage, and laid such a t.i.tle as his at your feet. Have you any idea of the weight of the Dukes of Doncaster in the country? Have you any notion of what their rent-roll is? Have you any conception of their enormous influence, their very high place, the magnificence of their seats? Helmsley almost equals Windsor! All these are yours if you will; and you affect to hesitate----"

"To let Lord Goodwood buy me!"

"Buy you? Your phraseology is as strange as my son's!"

"To accept him only for the coronet and the rent-roll, his position and his Helmsley, seems not a very grateful and flattering return for his preference?"