Molly Bawn Part 84

"No."

"When we had left your house and walked for some time in a silence most unusual where _she_ is, she said, in her small, solemn way, 'Molly, why does Lady Stafford have her kitchen in her drawing-room?'

Now, was it not a capital bit of china-mania? I thought it very severe on the times."

"It was cruel. I shall instantly send my plates and jugs, and that delicious old Worcester tureen down-stairs to their proper place," says Cecil, laughing. "There is no criticism so cutting as a child's."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

"Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are sealed.

I strove against the stream, and all in vain.

Let the great river take me to the main.

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more."

--_The Princess._

Almost as Cecil steps into her carriage, Sir Penthony Stafford is standing on her steps, holding sweet converse with her footman at her own hall-door.

"Lady Stafford at home?" asks he of the brilliant but supercilious personage who condescends to answer to his knock.

"No, sir." Being a new acquisition of Cecil's, he is blissfully ignorant of Sir Penthony's name and status. "My lady is hout."

"When will she be home?" Feeling a good deal of surprise at her early wanderings, and, in fact, not believing a word of it.

"My lady won't be at home all this morning, sir."

"Then I shall wait till the afternoon," says Sir Penthony, faintly amused, although exasperated at what he has decided is a heinous lie.

"Lady Stafford gave strict horders that no one was to be admitted before two," says flunkey, indignant at the stranger's persistence, who has come into the hall and calmly divested himself of his overcoat.

"She will admit _me_, I don't doubt," says Sir Penthony, calmly.

"I am Sir Penthony Stafford."

"Oh, indeed! Sir Penthony, I beg your pardon. Of course, Sir Penthony, if you wish to wait----"

Here Sir Penthony, who has slowly been mounting the stairs all this time, with Chawles, much exercised in his mind, at his heels--(for Cecil's commands are not to be disputed, and the situation is a good one, and she has distinctly declared no one is to be received)--Sir Penthony pauses on the landing and lays his hand on the boudoir door.

"Not there, Sir Penthony," says the man, interposing hurriedly, and throwing open the drawing-room door, which is next to it. "If you will wait here I don't think my lady will be long, as she said she should be 'ome at one to keep an appointment."

"That will do." Sternly. "Go!--I dare say," thinks Stafford, angrily, as the drawing-room door is closed on him, "if I make a point of it, she will dismiss that fellow. Insolent and noisy as a parrot. A well-bred footman never gets beyond 'Yes' or 'No' unless required, and even then only under heavy pressure. But what appointment can she have?

And who is secreted in her room? Pshaw! Her dressmaker, no doubt."

But, for all that, he can't quite reconcile himself to the dressmaker theory, and, but that honor forbids, would have marched straight, without any warning, into "my lady's chamber."

Getting inside the heavy hanging curtains, he employs his time watching through the window the people pa.s.sing to and fro, all intent upon the great business of life,--the making and spending of money.

After a little while a carriage stops beneath him, and he sees Cecil alight from it and go with eager haste up the steps. He hears her enter, run up the stairs, pause upon the landing, and then, going into the boudoir, close the door carefully behind her.

He stifles an angry exclamation, and resolves, with all the airs of a Spartan, to be calm. Nevertheless, he is _not_ calm, and quite doubles the amount of minutes that really elapse before the drawing-room door is thrown open and Cecil, followed by Luttrell, comes in.

"Luttrell, of all men!" thinks Sir Penthony, as though he would have said, "Et tu, Brute?" forgetting to come forward,--forgetting everything,--so entirely has a wild, unreasoning jealousy mastered him.

The curtains effectually conceal him, so his close proximity remains a secret.

Luttrell is evidently in high spirits. His blue eyes are bright, his whole air triumphant. Altogether, he is as unlike the moony young man who left the Victoria Station last evening as one can well imagine.

"Oh, Cecil! what should I do without you?" he says, in a most heartfelt manner, gazing at her as though (thinks Sir Penthony) he would much like to embrace her there and then. "How happy you have made me! And just as I was on the point of despairing! I owe you all,--everything,--the best of my life."

"I am glad you rate what I have done for you so highly. But you know, Tedcastle, you were always rather a favorite of mine. Have you forgiven me my stony refusal of last night? I would have spoken willingly, but you know I was forbidden."

"What is it I would _not_ forgive you?" exclaims Luttrell, gratefully.

("Last night; and again this morning: probably he will dine this evening," thinks Sir Penthony, who by this time is black with rage and cold with an unnamed fear.)

Cecil is evidently as interested in her topic as her companion. Their heads are very near together,--as near as they can well be without kissing. She has placed her hand upon his arm, and is speaking in a low, earnest tone,--so low that Stafford cannot hear distinctly, the room being lengthy and the noise from the street confusing. How handsome Luttrell is looking! With what undisguised eagerness he is drinking in her every word!

Suddenly, with a little movement as though of sudden remembrance, Cecil puts her hand in her pocket and draws from it a tiny note, which she squeezes with much _empress.e.m.e.nt_ into Tedcastle's hand. Then follow a few more words, and then she pushes him gently in the direction of the door.

"Now go," she says, "and remember all I have said to you. Are the conditions so hard?" With her old charming, bewitching smile.

"How shall I thank you?" says the young man, fervently, his whole face transformed. He seizes her hands and presses his lips to them in what seems to the looker-on at the other end of the room an impa.s.sioned manner. "You have managed that we shall meet,--and alone?"

"Yes, alone. I have made sure of that. I really think, considering all I have done for you, Tedcastle, you owe me something."

"Name anything," says Luttrell, with considerable fervor. "I owe you, as I have said, everything. You are my good angel!"

"Well, that is as it may be. All women are angels,--at one time or other. But you must not speak to me in that strain, or I shall mention some one who would perhaps be angry." ("That's me, I presume," thinks Sir Penthony, grimly.) "I suppose"--archly--"I need not tell you to be in time? To be late under such circ.u.mstances, with _me_, would mean dismissal. Good-bye, dear boy: go, and my good wishes will follow you."

As the door closes upon Luttrell, Sir Penthony, cold, and with an alarming amount of dignity about him, comes slowly forward.

"Sir Penthony! you!" cries Cecil, coloring certainly, but whether from guilt, or pleasure, or surprise, he finds it hard to say. He inclines, however, toward the guilt. "Why, I thought you safe in Algiers." (This is not strictly true.)

"No doubt. I thought _you_ safe in London--or anywhere else. I find myself mistaken!"

"I am, dear, perfectly safe." Sweetly. "Don't alarm yourself unnecessarily. But may I ask what all this means, and why you were hiding behind my curtains as though you were a burglar or a Bashi-Bazouk? But that the pantomime season is over, I should say you were practicing for the Harlequin's window trick."

"You can be as frivolous as you please." Sternly. "Frivolity suits you best, no doubt. I came in here a half an hour ago, having first almost come to blows with your servant before being admitted,--showing me plainly the man had received orders to allow no one in but the one expected."

"That is an invaluable man, that Charles," murmurs her ladyship, _sotto voce_. "I shall raise his wages. There is nothing like obedience in a servant."

"I was standing there at that window, awaiting your arrival, when you came, hurried to your boudoir, spent an intolerable time there with Luttrell, and finally wound up your interview here by giving him a billet, and permitting him to kiss your hands until you ought to have been ashamed of yourself and him."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, lying _perdu_ in the curtains and listening to what wasn't meant for you." Maliciously. "You ought also to have been a detective. You have wasted your talents frightfully. _Did_ Teddy kiss my hands?" Examining the little white members with careful admiration. "Poor Ted! he might be tired of doing so by this. Well,--yes; and--you were saying----"

"I insist," says Sir Penthony, wrathfully, "on knowing what Luttrell was saying to you."