Lady Maude's Mania Part 18

"Maude, my darling," he said, "here's her ladyship. I--I think I'll slip off this way down to my study."

He went out by one door, timing himself carefully, as her ladyship came in at the other, and began praising the "lovely" little pet dog which Sir Grantley had left, to which the little brute replied by snapping at her fiercely as she approached her hand.

All the same though it had to make friends with her ladyship, who adopted it from the next day, Maude stubbornly refusing to have anything to do with the black and tan specimen of the canine race wrought by the "fancy" in filigree.

CHAPTER TEN.

LOVE'S MESSENGERS.

"How a young lady as calls herself a young lady can bemean herself by making a pet of a low-bred, ill-looking dog like that, I can't think,"

said Mr Robbins, laying himself out for a speech in the servants' hall.

"That's a nice enough little tarrier as Sir Grantley Wilters brought, and she won't have none of it, but leaves it to her ladyship."

"Yes," said the footman, "and a nice mess is made, with sops and milk and cutlets all over the carpet."

"Joseph," said the butler with dignity, "it is not the place of a young man like you in livery to find fault with the acts of your superiors.

Servants as do such things never rises to be out of livery."

"Thanky, sir," said Joseph, who, being a young man of a lively imagination _and_ much whiskers, turned his head, squinted horribly at an under housemaid, and made her giggle.

"Such a dog as that ugly brute as comes brushing into the house every time the door is opened is only fit to go with a costermonger or a butcher."

"Well, I'm sure, Mr Robbins," said the cook, who for reasons of her own had a weakness for tradesmen in the latter line, "butchers are as good as butlers any day."

"Perhaps they are, Mrs Downes--perhaps they are not," said the butler with dignity; "but what I say is, Mr Melton ought to have known better than ever to have brought such a beast into a gentleman's house."

"That for your opinion, Mr Robbins," said Mademoiselle Justine, colouring up and snapping her fingers. "I know what you think," she said, speaking in a high-pitched, excited voice. "You think that a lady should admire scented men in fine tailor's clothes and flowers, and wiz zere leetle wretched dogs. Bah! Tish! A woman loves the big and ugly and ster-r-r-rong. She can be weak and beautiful herself. Is it not so, my friends? Yes."

Mademoiselle Justine shook her head, tightened her lips, and with sparkling eyes looked round the table, ending with heightened colour and patting her little _bottine_ upon the floor.

"Well, that dog's ugly enough anyhow," said Robbins, smiling faintly, and making a second chin above his cravat. "As for that Mr Melton--"

"Ah, bah! stop you there," cried Mademoiselle Justine. "I do not say he is ugly, but he is big and sterong and has broad shouldaire. He is all a man--_tout-a-fait_ all a--quite a man."

There was another sharp burst of nods and jerks at this.

"You think, you, that my young lady will marry this Sir Wilters? That for him! He is a man for the _Maison Dieu_ or the _Invalides_. He marry! ha, ha, ha! I could blow him out myself. Poof! He is gone."

Mademoiselle Justine blew some imaginary bit of fluff from her fingers as she spoke, apparently shook her head into a kind of notch or catch in the spine, and then sat very upright and very rigid, while the butler said grace and the party broke up.

Lunch had been over in the dining-room some time, and her ladyship was going out for a drive. Maude had again declined, and her ladyship had smiled, knowing that Sir Grantley Wilters would probably call. Her ladyship was wonderfully made up, and looked her best, for Monsieur Hector Launay from Upper Gimp Street had had an interview with her that morning. There had been a consultation on freckles, and a large mole which troubled her ladyship's chin had been condemned to death, executed with some peculiar acid, and its funeral performed and mourning arranged with a piece of black court plaster, which now looked like a beauty spot upon the lady's chin.

Her gloves, of the sweetest pearl grey, fitted her plump hands to perfection, and she was quite ready to go out.

"Where is your papa, dear Maude," said her ladyship, stopping to smell a bouquet. "Ah me, how sweet! How kind Sir Grantley is, and what taste he has in flowers."

"Papa is in the library," said Maude, quietly, and she glanced nervously towards the door.

"Come then, a sweet," cried her ladyship; "and he shall go and have a nice ride in the carriage, he shall, and look down and bark at all the dirty dogs in the road."

As she showed her second best teeth in a large smile, the little terrier took it to be a challenge of war, and displayed his own pigmy set; but after a due amount of coaxing, and the gift of a lump of sugar, he permitted himself to be caught and placed beneath her ladyship's plump arm, presenting to a spectator who had a side view a little head c.o.c.king out in front, and a little tail c.o.c.king out behind--nothing more.

"I shall be back by five, I dare say, Maude. Where is Tryphie?"

"I am here, aunt, quite ready," said a cheerful voice, and the bright little girl appeared at the door.

"You are not quite ready: you have only one glove on. Tryphie, you might pay some respect to those who find you a home and protection."

The girl coloured slightly but made no answer, only exchanged glances with Maude, and kissed her hand to her.

"Dear me!" exclaimed her ladyship, "where did I put my _flacon_? Oh, I remember."

She marched in a stately manner with the roll of a female beadle, or an alderman in his gold chain of office, to an Indian cabinet, opened a drawer and inserted her hand.

"Why, what is this?" she exclaimed, drawing out something whitey brown and throwing it down with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of annoyance. "Disgusting!"

The toy terrier uttered a sharp yelp of excitement, leaped from her ladyship's arms on to a table, upsetting a china cup and saucer, bounded on to the floor and seized that which her ladyship had rejected--to wit, a savoury-looking chicken bone, and proceeded to denude it of its flesh.

"I declare your papa grows insufferable," cried her ladyship. "His brain must be softening. I shall consult the doctor about him."

Certainly it was very annoying, for her ladyship's pearly grey Parisian glove had a broad brown smear of osmazome across it, and all due to Lord Barmouth's magpie-like trick of hiding sc.r.a.ps of food away for future consumption, in Indian cabinets and china jars, and then forgetting the _cache_ he had made.

Mademoiselle Justine was summoned, a fresh pair of gloves obtained and put on with the maid's a.s.sistance, by which time the dog had polished the bone, and probably in his own tongue, being a well-bred animal, said a grace and blessed Lord Barmouth. Then he was once more taken up, his mouth and paws wiped by Justine on one of her ladyship's clean handkerchiefs; Tryphie nodded a good-bye to her cousin, to whom she had hardly dared to speak, and then followed her ladyship downstairs.

Maude rose, trembling and in dread lest something she feared should occur, for her ladyship was later than usual in going out, and this was a Wednesday, which day was sacred to the canine post.

In fact, as Maude heard the steps of the carriage rattled down with a great deal of noise--her ladyship encouraged her servants to bang them down well, for it let the neighbours know she kept a carriage and was going out--there was a pattering of feet, and as she opened the door, Joby came trotting in, with his great eyes full of animation, and the grinning smile in which he indulged a little more broad, for he had rushed in between the footman's legs nearly upsetting him as the door was opened, in his eagerness to play postman for his master.

"Good dog, then!" whispered Maude, and then her heart seemed to stand still, for the carriage did not drive off, there was a rustling of silks on the stairs, and her ladyship came panting up.

Maude threw herself, colouring vividly, into a _bergere_ chair, and Joby dived under the couch, not leaving so much as the point of his tail visible as her ladyship sailed into the room and looked hastily round.

"Maude," she cried, "there is some mystery here. I insist on knowing what this means."

There was no reply, but Tryphie came in, and darted a sympathetic glance at the poor girl, mentally wishing that Tom were at home.

"I--insist upon knowing what this means."

"What, mamma?" said Maude, huskily.

"That dog; where is he? Mr Melton's hideous wretch. Here: dog, dog, dog!" she cried.

She might have called till she was speechless, for Joby would not have moved. All the same, though, he was to be stirred, for her ladyship, now in a towering pa.s.sion, set down the toy terrier upon a chair, when it immediately leaped to the carpet, barking furiously, and made a dead set at the sofa.

"It is yonder! You have hidden the wretch there!" cried her ladyship, "and I am certain that that dog has been made the bearer of clandestine correspondence. I have read of such things. But there's an end to it now, and it is only just and fit--false, abandoned girl!--that it should be discovered by the faithful little dog of the gentleman who is to-be your husband. Good little pet, then, to protect your master's interests. Fetch him out, then."