CHAPTER XXV.
SIR LAWRENCE ACTS.
Sir Lawrence Dacre was just stepping out of Mr. Large’s house, his head erect, his eyes shining, his whole face transformed, looking as a man might who has just received some very joyful tidings, when he suddenly felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and, turning, found himself face to face with Lord Teignmouth.
Sir Lawrence’s face changed again, and he drew a little away from his former friend. He could not forget Reginald’s cruel desertion of his young sister, and was not inclined to encourage his advances under the circumstances.
But when he scrutinized him closer, Lord Teignmouth looked so thoroughly miserable and ill, that he could not help relenting a little and allowing him to walk along by his side.
“Where are you going now?” inquired the earl presently. “I want to have a little confidential talk with you, and should prefer to get out of the streets.”
“I am going to my lodgings,” replied Sir Lawrence; “but I have not much time to spare, as I leave for the country this evening.”
“Is Gwen here with you? I have been making inquiries in every direction, and couldn’t hear anything about either of you; so I imagined you were still abroad.”
Sir Lawrence colored, and said evasively:
“We were abroad for some time, but my wife is at the seaside at present with our boy. I hope we shall be settling down now. I begin to long after home.”
“I never heard anything about your boy’s birth,” said Lord Teignmouth, in a surprised tone; “and when you consider that he is heir to two estates, and an earldom into the bargain, it would have been natural to herald his birth with a flourish of trumpets.”
“How do you mean heir to an earldom?” said Sir Lawrence.
“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” replied Lord Teignmouth grimly; and he did not speak again until they were alone at Sir Lawrence’s rooms, and the other had assured him there was no fear of interruption. Then he said coolly and abruptly:
“Pauline has run away from me.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the young baronet. “Why?”
“Because she liked somebody else better, I suppose,” continued Lord Teignmouth, with assumed carelessness. “There is no answering for a woman’s fancies. Her accursed vanity makes her such an easy prey that you may always be sure she will run away from you sooner or later if any one takes the trouble to tempt her.”
“She would find it a perilous pastime if she belonged to me,” returned Sir Lawrence, with gleaming eyes, “unless she ran away alone.”
The earl shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“It is much better to be philosophical. Besides, Pauline has been deceiving me for years, and I feel as if I am well rid of such a woman on any terms.”
“How did it happen?”
“In this wise. Pauline went to the Newburg masked ball, and I went to bed. The next morning about noon I had occasion to speak to my lady about a large dressmaker’s bill that had just come in, and went to look for her up-stairs. To my surprise I found that she had not been home at all that night. Of course I rang for her maid, and asked if she knew where her mistress was; but Julie was evidently as ignorant of her whereabouts as I was. She fancied that my lady was ill, as she did not return, she said; but when we came to look about us we found that she had taken her jewel-case with her, which gave her absence rather a suspicious air.”
“And there was no letter?”
“Not until the second post, and then I was honored with a somewhat voluminous epistle informing me in the politest way possible that I was an unsympathetic brute, with whom it was impossible for a woman with any natural sensibility to be happy, and finally that she had found some one to really care for, and believed that the future would compensate for the past.”
“Confoundedly cool!” exclaimed Sir Lawrence, apparently more moved than the earl himself.
“Or, rather, well put. Women of Pauline’s caliber are always insolent, unless you make them fear you; and that sort of thing was never in my line.”
“With whom is she gone? Do you know?”
“Oh, yes! I saw it in the Court Chronicle. The man whom she thinks able to sympathize with a sensitive, tender creature is a Russian—Prince Czarski—and is married to a handsome Irish woman, whose husband, Jack O’Hara, was in your regiment, I believe.”
“Poor Norah! Her second venture was not a very fortunate one, then. What could she have been thinking of when she married that man?”
“Of pin-money, I suppose, like all women,” answered Lord Teignmouth cynically; “and from that point of view she has done very well. I heard yesterday that she has taken Lady Gorman’s house, in Mayfair, for the season; so that she must be pretty well provided for. Have you any soda and brandy in the house?” he concluded abruptly, as he leaned back in his chair and passed his hand over his damp forehead. “This sort of thing is very upsetting, even when you are a philosopher.”
Sir Lawrence rang, and ordered what he required; and when Lord Teignmouth had drunk off a tumbler of the mixture, he went on gravely:
“The worst of it is, my wife has played a part all along. You remember that Belmont affair?”
“Quite well,” answered Sir Lawrence, who thought he knew what was coming.
“Well, she was to blame there, and not poor Gwen, after all, it seems. Belmont had been her lover before even she married me, and she corresponded with and met him secretly. If he had been as rich as the Russian prince, she would probably have sympathized with him to the same extent; but his poverty stood in the way of his preferment,” added the earl, with, a bitter laugh. “I am sorry she fooled me so completely; but Gwen is a generous soul, and knows how helpless men are in the hands of artful, designing women, so that, perhaps, she will forgive me, if you ask her. Tell her Pauline has done her one good turn, anyhow—she has made her boy my heir presumptive to the earldom of Teignmouth.”
“But surely you will get a divorce and marry again?”
“I shall get a divorce, probably; but I shall never marry again. ‘Once bit, twice shy,’ you know.”
“Do you mind telling me who enlightened you about that affair of Belmont’s?”
“Not at all; it was the princess—Mrs. O’Hara that was. She naturally felt indignant when she missed her spouse in the morning, too, and found out that my wife had wronged her doubly by running off with her husband. I don’t really think human nature could bear this tamely; and she came to me at once with her brother’s last letter, and also several written to him by Lady Teignmouth.”
“Poor Norah! Was she much troubled?”
“She was more angry than hurt, I really believe; and seemed comforted by the thought that she was well provided for, pecuniarily speaking. I fancy she had caught a Tartar, and was not sorry, on the whole, to be rid of him.”
“If that is the case, he will avenge your wrongs.”
“Exactly; it generally happens so. But I think we have given more time to this subject than it deserves—don’t you? When are you going to join Gwen?”
“To-night.”
“Then I may as well go with you, and make my peace with her, and be introduced to my heir—unless you have any objection?”
“I shall be delighted to have you, and so will Gwen, I am sure; for she is, as you say, a generous soul. But, if you would not mind, I should much rather you followed me to-morrow.”
“Very well; just as you like,” he answered, lighting a cigar. “Perhaps it would be better, as you can explain matters before I come. Somehow, I don’t want to talk of that unhappy business of mine more than I am quite obliged.”
“Naturally,” said Sir Lawrence, and glanced at the clock. “I must go now,” he added, “or I shall miss my train. There’s Gwen’s address, and we shall expect you some time to-morrow.”
“All right,” answered Lord Teignmouth; and the two parted with a cordial hand-shake. One was too happy, the other too miserable, to bear malice.
It was dusk when Sir Lawrence arrived at Wintertown. He took a fly, told the man to drive him to within a few doors of Lady Gwendolyn’s cottage, then jumped out and made his way to the house under cover of the darkness. Opening the door cautiously, he stole in to find himself face to face with Phœbe, who was just going to light the hall lamp.
She was so surprised that the candle she was holding dropped out of her hand, and for one anxious moment he thought she was going to scream and spoil all. But Phœbe was quite as glad to see him as he was to be there, and so, having recovered herself a little, she beckoned him, with a confidential air, into the dining-room, and said, under her breath:
“My lady is asleep, sir. Shall I go and tell her you are here?”
“Not for the world,” replied Sir Lawrence, who thought it would be pleasant to act the prince in the fairy tale, and wake his sleeping beauty with a kiss. But he stayed for a minute to ask Phœbe a few questions.
“Is your mistress quite well?”
“As well as any one can be who is always worrying and fretting, sir.”
“We’ll soon alter that, Phœbe. There has been a miserable mistake, and I had no chance of explaining. But you may begin to pack up—we shall all be off to-morrow evening.”
“Shall we, indeed, sir?” exclaimed Phœbe joyfully. “I hope everybody will know who my mistress really is now, sir; for it wasn’t pleasant to see her looked down upon, who was so much better than all of them, and she wouldn’t even let me call her ‘my lady’ before the other servants.”
“What name did they know her by, then?”
“Mrs. St. Maur.”
“Has she had no friends in Wintertown?”
“Not one, sir. The clergyman of the parish came occasionally——”
“And his wife?”
“Oh! no, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because people misdoubted my lady’s being married at all, sir. You see, it did look odd her being here without any one to speak for her, as it were.”
“It was a miserable pity,” he said passionately. “But it is no use talking about it now, Phœbe.”
“No, sir,” answered the faithful girl, beginning to whimper; “only it has been a sad trial for me, who knew that my mistress merited the attention and respect she did not get. But come what may, she is a deal too handsome ever to have the women on her side.”
“I’ll take care they are civil to her, anyhow,” replied Sir Lawrence, with a very determined air, as he nodded kindly to Phœbe, and then went to his wife.
He had not the heart to wake her just yet, she slept so peacefully; and yet, when the fire blazed up for a moment, and he could see her face plainly, he thought it looked pale and worn.
As for the child—he was glad and proud to have a son, but it was very difficult to think of him when his mother was by. He took just one peep at the face crushed against Lady Gwendolyn’s bosom, and then he sat down on the couch at his wife’s side, and gradually insinuated his arm round her waist.
As she did not rouse he grew bolder, and presently her head was resting on his shoulder, as naturally as if there had been no break in their tender union. To listen to her soft breathing was happiness enough for awhile, but at last he began to weary for the sound of her voice—the touch of her sweet lips.
“Only that if I wake her, the child will wake, too, and then he’ll cry, as a matter of course,” thought Sir Lawrence, whose experience of babies so far had not prejudiced him in their favor. “I suppose I must wait.”
He was very patient for about five minutes, and then the soft, white cheek on his shoulder tempted him beyond his strength, and he bent down and kissed it with more vehemence than he realized.
Lady Gwendolyn stirred, then, and it seemed as if she had been dreaming of him, for his name rose to her lips, and as he drew her closer, baby and all, she opened her eyes quite wide, put up her lips to be kissed like a child, and said, very softly:
“I am glad you have come, papa; baby and I were wanting you badly.”