Lady Connie Part 12

He was already nervously jealous of Sorell--and contemptuously jealous of Radowitz. And if they could torment him so, what would it be when Constance pa.s.sed into that larger world of society to which sooner or later she was bound? No, she was to be wooed and married now. The Falloden custom was to marry early--and a good custom too. His father would approve, and money from the estate would of course be forthcoming.

Constance was on her father's side extremely well-born; the Hooper blood would soon be lost sight of in a Risborough and Falloden descent. She was sufficiently endowed; and she had all the grace of person and mind that a Falloden had a right to look for in his wife.

Marriage, then, in the autumn, when he would be twenty-four--two years of travel--then Parliament--

On this dream he fell asleep. A brisk wind sprang up with the sunrise, and rustled round his lightly-darkened room. One might have heard in it the low laughter of Fortune on the watch.

CHAPTER V

"You do have the oddest ways," said Nora, perched at the foot of her cousin's bed; "why do you stay in bed to breakfast?"

"Because I always have--and because it's the proper and reasonable thing to do," said Constance defiantly. "Your English custom of coming down at half past eight to eat poached eggs and bacon is perfectly detestable."

She waved her teaspoon in Nora's face, and Nora reflected--though her sunburnt countenance was still severe--that Connie was never so attractive as when, in the freshest of white dressing-gowns, propped among the lace and silk of her ridiculous pillows and bedspreads, she was toying with the coffee and roll which Annette brought her at eight o'clock, as she had been accustomed to bring it since Connie was a child. Mrs. Hooper had clearly expressed her disapproval of such habits, but neither Annette nor Connie had paid any attention. Annette had long since come to an understanding with the servants, and it was she who descended at half past seven, made the coffee herself, and brought up with it the nearest thing to the morning rolls of the Palazzo Barberini which Oxford could provide--with a copy of _The Times_ specially ordered for Lady Constance. The household itself subsisted on a copy of the _Morning Post_, religiously reserved to Mrs. Hooper after Dr. Hooper had glanced through it--he, of course, saw _The Times_ at the Union. But Connie regarded a newspaper at breakfast as a necessary part of life.

After her coffee, accordingly, she read _The Times_, and smoked a cigarette, proceedings which were a daily source of wonder to Nora and reprobation in the minds of Mrs. Hooper and Alice. Then she generally wrote her letters, and was downstairs after all by half past ten, dressed and ready for the day. Mrs. Hooper declared to Dr. Ewen that she would be ashamed for any of their Oxford friends to know that a niece of his kept such hours, and that it was a shocking example for the servants. But the maids took it with smiles, and were always ready to run up and down stairs for Lady Connie; while as for Oxford, the invitations which had descended upon the Hooper family, even during the few days since Connie's arrival, had given Aunt Ellen some feverish pleasure, but perhaps more annoyance. So far from Ewen's "position"

being of any advantage to Connie, it was Connie who seemed likely to bring the Hoopers into circles of Oxford society where they had till now possessed but the slenderest footing. An invitation to dinner from the Provost of Winton and Mrs. Manson, to "Dr. and Mrs. Hooper, Miss Hooper and Lady Constance Bledlow," to meet an archbishop, had fairly taken Mrs. Hooper's breath away. But she declaimed to Alice none the less in private on the innate sn.o.bbishness of people.

Nora, however, wished to understand.

"I can't imagine why you should read _The Times_," she said with emphasis, as Connie pushed her tray away, and looked for her cigarettes.

"What have you to do with politics?"

"Why, _The Times_ is all about people I know!" said Connie, opening amused eyes. "Look there!" And she pointed to the newspaper lying open amid the general litter of her morning's post, and to a paragraph among the foreign telegrams describing the excitement in Rome over a change of Ministry. "Fall of the Italian Cabinet. The King sends for the Marchese Bardinelli."

"And there's a letter from Elisa Bardinelli, telling me all about it!"

She tossed some closely-written sheets to Nora, who took them up doubtfully.

"It is in Italian!" she said, as though she resented the fact.

"Well, of course! Did you think it would be in Russian? You really ought to learn Italian, Nora. Shall I teach you?"

"Well--it might be useful for my Literature," said Nora slowly. "There are all those fellows Chaucer borrowed from--and then Shakespeare. I wouldn't mind."

"Thank you!" said Connie, laughing. "And then look at the French news.

That's thrilling! Sir Wilfrid's going to throw up the Emba.s.sy and retire. I stayed with them a night in Paris on my way through--and they never breathed. But I thought something was up. Sir Wilfrid's a queer temper. I expect he's had a row with the Foreign Office. They were years in Rome, and of course we knew them awfully well. Mamma adored her!"

And leaning back with her hands behind her head, Connie's sparkling look subsided for a moment into a dreamy sweetness.

"I suppose you think Oxford a duck-pond after all that!" said Nora pugnaciously.

Constance laughed.

"Why, it's new. It's experience. It's all to the good."

"Oh, you needn't suppose I am apologising for Oxford!" cried Nora. "I think, of course, it's the most interesting place in the world. It's ideas that matter, and ideas come from the universities!" And the child-student of seventeen drew herself up proudly, as though she bore the honour of all _academie_ on her st.u.r.dy shoulders.

Constance went into a fit of laughter.

"And I think they come from the people who do things, and not only from the people who read and write about them when they're done. But goodness--what does it matter where they come from? Go away, Nora, and let me dress!"

"There are several things I want to know," said Nora deliberately, not budging. "Where did you get to know Mr. Falloden?"

The colour ran up inconveniently in Connie's cheeks.

"I told you," she said impatiently. "No!--I suppose you weren't there. I met him on the Riviera. He came out for the Christmas holidays. He was in the villa next to us, and we saw him every day."

"How you must have hated him!" said Nora, with energy, her hands round her knees, her dark brows frowning.

Constance laughed again, but rather angrily.

"Why should I hate him, please? He's extraordinarily clever--"

"Yes, but such a sn.o.b!" said Nora, setting her white teeth. Connie sprang up in bed.

"Nora, really, the way you talk of other people's friends. You should learn--indeed, you should--not to say rude and provoking things!"

"Why should it provoke you? I'm certain you don't care for him--you can't!" cried Nora. "He's the most hectoring, overbearing creature! The way he took possession of you the other day at the boats! Of course he didn't care, if he made everybody talk about you!"

Constance turned a little white.

"Why should anybody talk?" she said coldly. "But really, Nora, I must turn you out. I shall ring for Annette." She raised herself in bed.

"No, no!" Nora caught her hand as it stretched out towards the bell.

"Oh, Connie, you shall not fall in love with Mr. Falloden! I should go mad if you did."

"You are mad already," said Constance, half laughing, half furious. "I tell you Mr. Falloden is a friend of mine--as other people are. He is very good company, and I won't have him abused--for nothing. His manners are abominable. I have told him so dozens of times. All the same, he amuses me--and interests me--and you are not to talk about him, Nora, if you can't talk civilly."

And looking rather formidably great-ladyish, Constance threw severe glances at her cousin.

Nora stood up, first on one foot, then on the other. She was bursting with things to say, and could not find words to say them in. At last she broke out--

"I'm not abusing him for nothing! If you only knew the horrid, rude things--mean things too--at dances and parties--he does to some of the girls I know here; just because they're not swells and not rich, and he doesn't care what they think about him. That's what I call a sn.o.b--judging people by whether they're rich and important--by whether it's worth while to know them. Hateful!"

"You foolish child!" cried Connie. "He's so rich and important himself, what can it matter to him? You talk as though he were a hanger-on--as though he had anything to gain by making up to people. You are absurd!"

"Oh, no--I know he's not like Herbert Pryce," said Nora, panting, but undaunted. "There, that was disgusting of me!--don't remember that I ever said that, Connie!--I know Mr. Falloden needn't be a sn.o.b, because he's got everything that sn.o.bs want--and he's clever besides. But it is sn.o.bbish all the same to be so proud and stand-off, to like to make other people feel small and miserable, just that you may feel big."

"Go away!" said Constance, and taking up one of her pillows, she threw it neatly at Nora, who dodged it with equal skill. Nora retreated to the other side of the door, then quickly put her head through again.

"Connie!--don't!"

"Go away!" repeated Connie, smiling, but determined.

Nora looked at her appealingly, then shut her lips firmly, turned and went away. Connie spent a few minutes in meditation. She resented the kind of quasi-guardianship that this clever _backfisch_ a.s.sumed towards her, though she knew it meant that Nora had fallen in love with her. But it was inconvenient to be so fallen in love with--if it was to mean interference with her private affairs.

"As if I couldn't protect myself!"