That Unfortunate Marriage Volume I Part 19

Again he shook his head.

"It is to me, at all events."

"Well, I shall sing for you; a little song _sotto voce_, all to ourselves."

"Oh, but that would be too selfish on my part, to enjoy your singing all to myself."

"It is a very good plan to be selfish," returned Valli; and forthwith he began a little Neapolitan love-song--murmuring, rather than singing it--and still keeping his eyes fixed on Miss Hadlow.

At the first sound of his voice, low and subdued though it was, Miss Piper held up her finger to bespeak silence. There was a general hush.

Every one looked towards the piano, against which Constance was still leaning, with her back to the rest of the company. She made a little movement to withdraw to a seat, but Valli immediately ceased singing, and, under cover of a noisy _ritournelle_ which he played on the piano, said to her, "I am singing for you. If you go away, my song will go away too."

"But I can't stand here by myself, Signor Valli," protested Constance, by no means displeased. At this moment Miss Piper approached to implore the _maestro_ to continue, and Constance whispered to her in a few words the state of the case.

"Caprices of genius, my dear," said the little woman. "When you have seen as much of professional people as I have, you will not be astonished." Then to Valli, "Will you not continue that exquisite air?

We are all dying to hear it."

"Yes; on condition that you both stay there and inspire me," answered he, with an unconcealed sneer.

Miss Piper, however, took him at his word, and, linking her arm in Constance's, remained standing close to the instrument. Valli, upon this, resumed his song. He gave it now at the full pitch of his voice, addressing it ostentatiously to Miss Hadlow, and throwing an exaggerated amount of expression into the love pa.s.sages. Miss Piper was enchanted, and led off the applause enthusiastically. Valli was soon surrounded by a group of admirers, Mr. Dormer-Smith among them. May was conscious of a painful impression, which destroyed any pleasure she might have had in the song. And that Owen Rivers shared this impression was proved by his walking up to the piano, and unceremoniously putting his cousin's hand on his arm to lead her away.

"Oh, don't take Conny away, Mr. Rivers," cried Miss Piper. "Signor Valli is going to favour us with some more of his delicious national airs."

"Come and sit down, Constance," said Owen authoritatively. "Let me get you a seat also, Miss Piper," he added. "It can scarcely be necessary for the due exhibition of this gentleman's national airs to keep two ladies standing."

"Oh no, no; please don't mind me. I'm quite comfortable," said Miss Piper, with a shade of vexation on her good-humoured round face.

Constance remained perfectly calm and self-possessed; only a faint smile and a sparkle in her eyes revealed a gratified vanity as she took the chair near May, to which her cousin conducted her.

Miss Piper shrugged up her shoulders and pursed up her mouth. "He has no idea what artists are," she whispered in Lady Moppett's ear. "And, besides, poor dear young man, he's so desperately in love with his cousin that he can't bear her to be even looked at. I only hope Signor Valli won't take offence."

But Valli, finding himself now the object of general attention, was very gracious. He sang song after song without the inspiration of Miss Hadlow's handsome face opposite to him; and he sang far better than before;--with less exaggeration, and managing his naturally defective voice with singular skill and _finesse_. But the praise and flattery which his hearers poured forth unstintingly did not seem quite to satisfy him. His glance wandered restlessly, as though in search of something; and finally, after a very clever rendering of an old air by Carissimi, he addressed himself suddenly to Miss Bertram, who was standing somewhat apart in the background, and asked, in Italian--

"Is the Signorina content?"

"I always like your singing of that aria," she answered, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone.

"Like it, indeed!" exclaimed Lady Moppett, with her severest manner. "I should think you did like it, Clara! And you ought to profit by it. To hear singing so finished--of such a perfect school--is a lesson for you."

Valli, upon this, made a low bow to Lady Moppett--a bow so low as to seem almost burlesque. As he raised his face again he turned it towards Miss Bertram with a subtle smile, saying, "Miladi is such a judge! Her praise is very precious." Clara, however, kept an impa.s.sive countenance, and declined to meet the glance he shot at her. Then Valli made a second and equally low bow to the hostess, and, cutting short her ecstatic compliments and thanks, left the room without further ceremony.

The party now broke up. Lady Moppett departed with Miss Bertram and Mr.

Jawler, to whom she offered a seat in her carriage. Mr. Cleveland Turner and his patron, Mr. Sweeting, went away together. In a few minutes there remained Mr. Dormer-Smith, with his niece, and Owen Rivers. Miss Patty bustled in with the two children.

"Dear me," said she. "Is the music all over? Well, now let us be comfortable."

But Mr. Dormer-Smith declared he must reluctantly bring his visit to an end. "I don't know how to thank you," said he to Miss Patty, "for your kindness to my children. I hope you will forgive me for bringing them."

Miss Patty heartily a.s.sured him that there was nothing to forgive, and that she hoped he would bring them again. She had gathered from the artless utterances of Harold and Wilfred an idea of their home life, which made her feel compa.s.sionately towards them.

As for Miss Polly, she was in the highest spirits. Mr. Jawler and Signor Valli, both stars of considerable magnitude in the musical world, had shone for her with unclouded l.u.s.tre. It had been, she thought, a highly successful afternoon. So also thought Harold and Wilfred. And perhaps these were the only three persons who had enjoyed themselves thoroughly and unaffectedly.

CHAPTER XIV.

The London season proceeded with its usual acc.u.mulation of engagements, its usual breathless chase after half-hours that have got too long a start ever to be recaptured, its usual fleeting satisfactions and abiding disappointments, its snubs, sneers, smiles, follies, falsehoods, and flirtations. The rushing current of fashionable life in London carried little May Cheffington on its surface, together with many brazen vessels of a very different kind. Constance Hadlow observed half-enviously to her friend that she was thoroughly "in the swim," a phrase which May found singularly inappropriate in her own case, feeling that there was no more question of a swim than in shooting Niagara! To her, especially, the whirl of society was confusing, phantasmagoric, and unreal. All the faces were new to her, most of the names awoke no a.s.sociations in her mind. On the other hand, this peculiar inexperience gave freshness to her impressions and keenness to her insight. She had none of those social traditions which, nine times out of ten, supply the place of private judgment. She found her impression of many personages startlingly at variance with the label which the world had agreed to affix to them. It is possible to be at once simple and shrewd, just as it is possible to be both _ruse_ and dull-witted.

May's simplicity was not of the blundering thick-skinned type; and her ingenuous freshness was admired by a great many persons, among whom was Mrs. Griffin. Far from being offended by May's moral indignation against those who accepted the hospitality of vulgar people, and then ridiculed them for being vulgar, Mrs. Griffin entirely approved her sentiments.

Mrs. Griffin herself deplored, as she often said, "the servility towards mere money, which was degrading the tone of society." And whenever any new instance of it came to her knowledge, she would shake her head, and exclaim, softly, "Oh, Mammon, Mammon!" But this did not, of course, apply to her daughter the d.u.c.h.ess, who sometimes went to the Aaronssohns'. Her daughter was so very great a lady as to be above ordinary restrictions. Other people worshipped Mammon; the d.u.c.h.ess only patronized Mammon--which was, surely, a very different thing!

Aunt Pauline, however, derived no gratification from May's unconventional frankness. It was, on the contrary, a source of constant anxiety to her; and she felt daily more and more that it would be a relief to get May off her hands. Introducing her niece into society--even although the niece was a pretty girl, and a Cheffington to boot--had not proved so pleasing a task as she had antic.i.p.ated. There was, to her thinking, a strange perversity in the girl's character, which made her callous where she should be sensitive, and sensitive where she might well be indifferent. For instance, she showed culpable coolness about her great-uncle Castlecombe and his family, and provoking warmth about her Oldchester friends. Not that May was apt to speak much of her life in Oldchester. In the natural course of things she would have talked freely and eagerly about her dear granny; but very soon after her arrival in London, her affectionate loquacity on this subject received a check. Aunt Pauline had hinted, with her usual mild politeness, that it would be desirable not to speak of Mrs. Dobbs before Smithson or any of the servants. Seeing the startled look in May's eyes, and the indignant flush on May's cheeks, her aunt added diplomatically, "Your father would not like it, May. I am trying to carry out his expressed wishes. That ought to be enough for you."

It was enough, at all events, to close May's lips. Her love and pride combined to make her silent. She tried to persuade herself that her father, at all events, had some good and reasonable motive for this prohibition, and that he, at least, was not ashamed of Mrs.

Dobbs--ashamed of granny! The very thought made her hot with anger. But that Aunt Pauline was ashamed of her was too clear to May's honest mind.

Painful as this conviction was, however, she came by degrees to hold it rather in sorrow than in anger, and to regard her aunt with something of the same indulgent toleration that Mrs. Dobbs had once expressed to Jo Weatherhead. For Mrs. Dormer-Smith's worldliness was not at all of a cynical sort. It was rather in the nature of a deep-rooted superst.i.tion conscientiously held.

To some points of her worldly creed Pauline clung with religious fervour. One of these was the duty inc.u.mbent on a dowerless young lady to marry well. To marry _very_ well was to marry a man with birth and money; but to secure a husband with money only--provided there were enough of it--she allowed to be marrying well. She did not look at the matter with vulgar flippancy. It was, no doubt, a sacrifice for a well-born woman to become the wife of an underbred man, however wealthy.

But well-born women were no less called upon than their humbler sisters to make sacrifices in a good cause.

None of the Castlecombes much frequented fashionable society, and Mrs.

Dormer-Smith had hitherto resigned herself, without much difficulty, to seeing very little of her n.o.ble kinsfolk. But when May was introduced, her aunt thought it desirable to cultivate them. Lord Castlecombe's big, gloomy, family mansion in town had been let ever since his wife's death many years ago; and whenever his lordship came to London to give his vote in the House of Peers--which was almost the sole object that had power to bring him up from the country--he occupied furnished lodgings.

Of his two sons, both bachelors, the elder was governor of a colony on the other side of the globe, and the younger held a permanent post under Government. This Lucius Cheffington occasionally met Mr. Dormer-Smith at the club, and exchanged a few words with him. Captain Cheffington, on his penultimate visit to England, when his ungrateful country declined to provide for him, had quarrelled with all the Castlecombes, and had made himself particularly obnoxious to Lucius; for Lucius, whom his cousin considered a solemn a.s.s, held a lucrative place, whilst Augustus, who knew himself to be a remarkably clever fellow, with immense knowledge of the world, was relegated to poverty and obscurity. But Pauline had not quarrelled with them. She would not willingly have quarrelled with any one, least of all with her Uncle Castlecombe and his family. And as to Mr. Dormer-Smith, it chanced that the one point of sympathy between himself and his cousin-in-law Lucius was the latter's cordial dislike to Gus. Nevertheless, the dislike did not descend to Gus's daughter. Lucius was pleased to approve of his young kinswoman, none the less, perhaps, that it was evident her father troubled himself little about her.

Mr. Dormer-Smith knew very well that the most effectual way of winning Lord Castlecombe's goodwill for his grand-niece was to a.s.sure his lordship that he would not be called upon to do anything for her. He, therefore, confidentially informed Lucius that the girl's grandmother in Oldchester was defraying her expenses, and would, no doubt, eventually provide for her altogether. The sagacity of this course was proved soon afterwards, when Lucius announced that his father would come and dine with Pauline the next time he should be in town, and make Miranda's acquaintance.

This was well. And even as to May's Oldchester friends matters turned out better than her aunt could have hoped. In the first place, the Misses Piper showed no disposition whatever to force themselves on Mrs.

Dormer-Smith. That being the case, there was no objection to May's going to see them every Sunday with her uncle and the children. To Harold and Wilfred these Sunday visits were such a delightful break in the dull routine of their lives that their father would have endured considerable boredom and discomfort rather than deprive them of it. But, in fact, he was not bored. Whenever the music became too severe, he could withdraw into the tea-room, where he always found some one to chat with. Possibly he, too, felt these Sundays to be a break in the monotony of his daily life. There was a cordial, hearty tone about the hostesses which was decidedly pleasant, although he was aware that Pauline would p.r.o.nounce it sadly underbred. But Pauline was not there to be shocked, and there were some red drops in Mr. Dormer-Smith's veins (he was not quite so blue-blooded as his wife) which warmed to this plebeian kindness.

Sometimes even the moisture would come into his eyes when he watched his little boys clinging familiarly about Miss Patty as they never clung about their mother. The good-natured old maid had won the children's hearts completely. They were overheard one day in a lively discussion as to which was the prettier, Miss Patty or Cousin May: Wilfred inclining, on the whole, to award the palm of beauty to his cousin, but Harold powerfully arguing in favour of Miss Patty that she had such "beautiful curls" (an ingenuous, and probably unique, tribute to the ginger-bread coloured wig!) and a "shiny brooch like a b.u.t.terfly."

Then Constance Hadlow, whom Mrs. Dormer-Smith had unwillingly invited to lunch one day with her former schoolfellow, proved to be in every respect "most presentable," as Aunt Pauline herself candidly admitted.

So presentable was she in fact, so handsome, self-possessed, and even (on the mother's side) well connected, that there might have arisen objections of a different sort against receiving her, as being a dangerous compet.i.tor for that solemn duty of marrying well. But a chance word of May's to the effect that young Bransby had long been an admirer of Constance, and that they were supposed by many persons in Oldchester to be engaged to each other, relieved Aunt Pauline's mind on that score.

"It would be very suitable," she said approvingly. "I think Mr. Bransby a very nice person; so quiet."

The subject of this glowing eulogium had not appeared at Mrs.

Dormer-Smith's receptions for some time. He had been ordered into the country, to cure a violent cold by change of air; and although he much disliked leaving town at that moment, he never thought of neglecting his physician's advice. Theodore's mother had been consumptive; and the fear that he inherited her const.i.tution made him anxiously careful of his health. Immediately on his return to London he presented himself, about half-past five o'clock one Thursday afternoon, in Mrs. Dormer-Smith's drawing-room, and experienced a shock of disagreeable surprise on finding Constance Hadlow seated near May at the tea-table. May, innocently supposing that she was doing him a good turn, gave him her place, and went to another part of the room. But Constance coolly greeted him with a "How d'ye do, Theodore?" in a tone of the politest insipidity, which he sincerely approved of. Nevertheless, he would rather not have found her there. On glancing round he was struck by several innovations. In the first place, the pianoforte--usually a dumb piece of furniture in Mrs. Dormer-Smith's house--stood open, with some loose sheets of music lying on it; and Signor Vincenzo Valli sat, teacup in hand, smiling his false smile beside Mrs. Griffin. Theodore knew perfectly well who Signor Valli was; and it needed not Mrs. Griffin's gracious demeanour to instruct this rising young man that Valli was sufficiently the fashion to be worth being civil to. But he was surprised to find him there. His surprises, however, were not at an end; for whom should he behold in familiar conversation with a gentleman at the opposite side of the room but Owen Rivers? And near them was--he could hardly believe his eyes--Mr. Bragg! It seemed to Theodore as if there had been a conspiracy amongst his acquaintance to make all sorts of fresh combinations on the social chess-board during his brief absence. He felt that it was necessary for him to take an accurate survey of the new positions. But he saw no immediate opportunity of doing so; for there was no one at hand to interrogate, except Constance Hadlow, who, of course, knew nothing. She must be spoken to, however; but he would cut the conversation as short as possible.

Thoughts--even the weighty thoughts of a diplomatically-minded young gentleman--move quickly, and there was scarcely any perceptible pause between Constance's greeting and his gravely polite remark that it was quite an unexpected pleasure to see her there.

"Yes; I came up a few weeks ago with the Pipers."

"Oh! you are staying with _them_?" (This with a strong flavour of his superior manner; for the Pipers were really n.o.bodies.)

"And what have you been doing with yourself? I haven't seen you anywhere," said Constance coolly.

"I have been out of town. But in any case we might possibly not have met. Have you been going out much?"