Lady Maude's Mania Part 36

"Thankye," said Tom, taking the note and crumpling it up, as he stuffed it into his trousers pocket. "All right, then: I'll wait twenty-four hours."

"What--what do you want the money for?" said her ladyship, adopting now the _tremolo_ stop to play her son, as the _furioso_ had proved so futile.

"I'm going to buy a revolver," said Tom, kicking up one leg as if he were dancing a child upon it.

"A revolver, Tom? You are not going to do anything rash--anything foolish?"

"What! Operate on myself? Not such a fool. I'd sweep a crossing to live, not blow my brains out if I were what people call ruined. I'm philosopher enough, mother, to know the value of life. Do you wish to know what I want that revolver for?"

"Yes," said her ladyship, faintly; "but pray mind that your poor papa does not get hold of it."

"Oh, yes," said Tom. "Well, mother, I'm going to stick up a lot of playing cards in my bedroom, and practice at the spots till I'm a dead shot."

"Great Heavens, Tom! what for?"

"So as to be able to make it warm for the man who comes after Tryphie.

Ah, Justine, got the drops? Why, you grow handsomer than ever."

"Go, impudent little man," said Justine, shaking her head at him, and then running to her ladyship, who was lying back with closed eyes. "Ah, poor, dear milady, you are ill."

"My drops, Justine, my drops," sighed her ladyship. "Ah, Justine, what comfort you are to me in my sorrows. My good Justine, never pray to be a mother;" and she showed her best teeth in a pensive smile of sadness by way of recompense for the attention.

"_Ma foi_! no, milady, I never will," said Justine, turning very French for the moment, and her ladyship's drops produced more tears.

Tom "made a face" at the maid while her ladyship's eyes were buried in her scented handkerchief, and Justine gave him a Parisian smile as he rose, winked once more, and left the room.

Then Lady Barmouth took up her lament once more.

"Ah! Justine, when the gangrene of the wounds in my poor heart has been cicatrised over, I may perhaps breathe forgiveness into the ears of my children; but now--oh now--"

"Ah, poor milady! what you do suffer," said the sympathising Justine; "you make me so much to think of that poor Job, only he was a great lord and not a lady, and you have not the boil."

"My poor Justine," sighed her ladyship, as she smiled patronisingly at the innocence of her handmaiden, "there are moral and social boils as well as those external, and when I sit here alone, forsaken by my children--by my husband--by all who should be dear, left alone to the tender sympathies of an alien who is all probity and truth--"

"Yes, poor milady, I suffer for you," said Justine.

"Thanks, good Justine, you faithful creature," said her ladyship, sighing; "I could not exist if it were not for you."

And Justine said to herself maliciously, "I am what that wicked young man calls a hom-bogues."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

LADY MAUDE GOES MAD.

Meanwhile Maude had sought Lord Barmouth, whom she surprised in a corner of the library, feeding his wolf and studying the wing of a chicken, which he was picking with great gusto. He did not hear her entry, and he was talking to himself as he lifted up and smelt his pocket-handkerchief.

"Yes," he muttered; "damme, that's what it is. I could not make out what made the chicken taste so queer. He--he--he! it's eau de Cologne.

He--he--he--_Poulet a la Jean Marie Farina_. Damme, that'll be a good thing to say at the next dinner-party, or to-morrow morning. No," he said sadly, "not then. Oh, dear, it's very hard to see them taken away from me like this, and I must get my strength up a bit. Who's that?"

"It is only I, papa," said Maude, seating herself on the hearthrug by his side, as the old man hastily popped the chicken bone out of sight.

"I'm glad to see you, my dear, glad to see you," said Lord Barmouth, patting her soft glossy head. "Maude, my pet, I can hardly believe that you are going away from me to-morrow."

"Pray, pray don't talk of it, dear papa," she faltered. "I've come to stay with you and talk to you; and you must tell me what to do, papa."

"Yes, yes, yes, my dear," he said, "I will; and you must be strong, and brave, and courageous, and not break down. Her ladyship would be so upset, you see. Maudey, my darling, matrimony's a very different sort of thing to what we used to be taught, and read of in books. It isn't sentimental at all, my dear, it's real--all real--doosed real. There's a deal of trouble in this world, my darling, especially gout, which you women escape. It's very bad, my dear, very bad indeed, sometimes."

Maude's forehead wrinkled as she gazed piteously at her father, for her heart was full to overflowing, and she longed to confide in him, to lay bare the secrets of her laden breast; but his feeble ways--his wanderings--chilled the current that was beating at the flood-gates, and they remained closed.

"What can I do--what can I do?" she moaned to herself, and laying her head upon the old man's knee, she drew his arm round her neck, and wept silently as he chatted on.

"I--I--I remember, my dear, when Lady Susan Spofforth was married, she was the thinnest girl I ever saw, and they said she hated the match--it was Lord Barleywood she married--Buck Wood we used to call him at the club. Well, next time I saw her, about three years after, I hardly knew her, she had grown so plump and round. It's--it's--it's an astonishing thing, Maudey, how plump some women do get after marriage. Look at her ladyship. Doosed fine woman. Don't look her age. Very curious, damme, yes, it is curious, I've never got fat since I was married. Do you know, Maudey, I think I'm thinner than I used to be."

"Do you, papa?" she said, smiling up at him.

"Yes, my dear, I do indeed; but it don't matter much, and I don't think her ladyship minds. Let me see, Sir Grantley's coming to dinner to-day, isn't he, my dear?"

"Yes, papa."

"Ha! yes! A good dinner's a nice thing when you can enjoy it free and unfettered, but it's like matrimony, my dear, full of restrictions, and very disappointing when you come to taste it. Well, there, there, there, now we have had our little talk and confidences, we will go upstairs to the drawing-room. It will be more cheerful for you."

He rose, taking his child's hand, kissing it tenderly, and holding it before he drew it through his arm, while Maude sighed gently, and suffered herself to be led upstairs.

Her ladyship was better, and she smiled with a sweetly pathetic expression in her countenance as Maude entered with her father, rising, and crossing to meet them, and kissing her child upon her forehead.

"Bless you, my darling!" she said; "pray be happy in the knowledge that you are doing your duty. Go now, Justine."

"Yes, my lady," said that sphinx; and as soon as they were alone her ladyship continued--

"Yes, in the thought that you are doing your duty. At your age I too had my little love romance, but I was forced to marry your poor papa."

"Oh, d.a.m.n it, my dear!" cried his lordship, looking at his wife aghast; "I was forced to marry you."

"Barmouth! That will do! Maude, my child, I begged Sir Grantley to come and dine with us _en famille_ this evening."

"Oh, mamma!" cried Maude, "was that wise?"

"Trust me, my dear, for doing what is best," said her ladyship.

There was a great bouquet of flowers on the table, which was littered with presents from the bridegroom elect, and family friends; but Maude did not seem to heed them, only the flowers, which she picked up, and as Lady Barmouth smiled and shook her head at her husband, Maude went and sat down by the open window, to begin picking the petals to pieces and shower them down. Some fell fluttering out into the area; some littered her dress and the carpet; and some were wafted by the wind to a distance; but Maude's mind seemed far away, and her little white fingers performed their task of destroying her present, as her head sank down lower and lower, bowed down by its weight of care.

It was autumn, and the shades of evening were falling, and so were Maude's spirits; hence a tear fell from time to time upon the flowers, to lie amidst the petals like a dew-drop; but they fell faster as her ladyship uttered an impatient cry, for just then the black-bearded Italian stopped beneath the window, swung round his organ, and began to grind out dolefully the _Miserere_ once more and its following melody from _Trovatore_, the whole performance sounding so depressing in her nervous state that the poor girl's first inclination was to bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break. She set her teeth though firmly, glanced back in the room, and then, smiling down at the handsome simple face beneath her, she threw a sixpence which the man caught in his soft hat.

"Grazie, signora," said the Italian, smiling and showing his white teeth.

"Maude, how can you be so foolish?" cried her ladyship. "You have encouraged those men about till it's quite dreadful: we never have any peace."