LORD ALMERIC'S SUIT
When Julia awoke in the morning, without start or shock, to the dreary consciousness of all she had lost, she was still under the influence of the despair which had settled on her spirits overnight, and had run like a dark stain through her troubled dreams. Fatigue of body and lassitude of mind, the natural consequences of the passion and excitement of her adventure, combined to deaden her faculties. She rose aching in all her limbs--yet most at heart--and wearily dressed herself; but neither saw nor heeded the objects round her. The room to which poor puzzled Mrs. Olney had hastily consigned her looked over a sunny stretch of park, sprinkled with gnarled thorn-trees that poorly filled the places of the oaks and chestnuts which the gaming-table had consumed. Still, the outlook pleased the eye, nor was the chamber itself lacking in liveliness. The panels on the walls, wherein needlework cockatoos and flamingoes, wrought under Queen Anne, strutted in the care of needlework black-boys, were faded and dull; but the pleasant white dimity with which the bed was hung relieved and lightened them.
To Julia it was all one. Wrapped in bitter thoughts and reminiscences, her bosom heaving from time to time with ill-restrained grief, she gave no thought to such things, or even to her position, until Mrs. Olney appeared and informed her that breakfast awaited her in another room.
Then, 'Can I not take it here?' she asked, shrinking painfully from the prospect of meeting any one.
'Here?' Mrs. Olney repeated. The housekeeper never closed her mouth, except when she spoke; for which reason, perhaps, her face faithfully mirrored the weakness of her mind.
'Yes,' said Julia. 'Can I not take it here, if you please? I suppose--we shall have to start by-and-by?' she added, shivering.
'By-and-by, ma'am?' Mrs. Olney answered. 'Oh, yes.'
'Then I can have it here.'
'Oh, yes, if you please to follow me, ma'am.' And she held the door open.
Julia shrugged her shoulders, and, contesting the matter no further, followed the good woman along a corridor and through a door which shut off a second and shorter passage. From this three doors opened, apparently into as many apartments. Mrs. Olney threw one wide and ushered her into a room damp-smelling, and hung with drab, but of good size and otherwise comfortable. The windows looked over a neglected Dutch garden, which was so rankly overgrown that the box hedges scarce rose above the wilderness of parterres. Beyond this, and divided from it by a deep-sunk fence, a pool fringed with sedges and marsh-weeds carried the eye to an alder thicket that closed the prospect.
Julia, in her relief on finding that the table was laid for one only, paid no heed to the outlook or to the bars that crossed the windows, but sank into a chair and mechanically ate and drank. Apprised after a while that Mrs. Olney had returned and was watching her with fatuous good-nature, she asked her if she knew at what hour she was to leave.
'To leave?' said the housekeeper, whose almost invariable custom it was to repeat the last words addressed to her. 'Oh, yes, to leave. Of course.'
'But at what time?' Julia asked, wondering whether the woman was as dull as she seemed.
'Yes, at what time?' Then after a pause and with a phenomenal effort, 'I will go and see--if you please.'
She returned presently. 'There are no horses,' she said. 'When they are ready the gentleman will let you know.'
'They have sent for some?'
'Sent for some,' repeated Mrs. Olney, and nodded, but whether in assent or imbecility it was hard to say.
After that Julia troubled her no more, but rising from her meal had recourse to the window and her own thoughts. These were in unison with the neglected garden and the sullen pool, which even the sunshine failed to enliven. Her heart was torn between the sense of Sir George's treachery--which now benumbed her brain and now awoke it to a fury of resentment--and fond memories of words and looks and gestures, that shook her very frame and left her sick--love-sick and trembling. She did not look forward or form plans; nor, in the dull lethargy in which she was for the most part sunk, was she aware of the passage of time until Mrs. Olney came in with mouth and eyes a little wider than usual, and announced that the gentleman was coming up.
Julia supposed that the woman referred to Mr. Thomasson; and, recalled to the necessity of returning to Marlborough, she gave a reluctant permission. Great was her astonishment when, a moment later, not the tutor, but Lord Almeric, fanning himself with a laced handkerchief and carrying his little French hat under his arm, appeared on the threshold, and entered simpering and bowing. He was extravagantly dressed in a mixed silk coat, pink satin waistcoat, and a mushroom stock, with breeches of silver net and white silk stockings; and had a large pearl pin thrust through his wig. Unhappily, his splendour, designed to captivate the porter's daughter, only served to exhibit more plainly the nerveless hand and sickly cheeks which he owed to last night's debauch.
Apparently he was aware of this, for his first words were, 'Oh, Lord! What a twitter I am in! I vow and protest, ma'am, I don't know where you get your roses of a morning. But I wish you would give me the secret.'
'Sir!' she said, interrupting him, surprise in her face. 'Or'--with a momentary flush of confusion--'I should say, my lord, surely there must be some mistake here.'
'None, I dare swear,' Lord Almeric answered, bowing gallantly. 'But I am in such a twitter'--he dropped his hat and picked it up again--'I hardly know what I am saying. To be sure, I was devilish cut last night! I hope nothing was said to--to--oh, Lord! I mean I hope you were not much incommoded by the night air, ma'am.'
'The night air has not hurt me, I thank you,' said Julia, who did not take the trouble to hide her impatience.
However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad to hear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming and hawing, 'Won't you sit?' he said, with a killing glance.
'I am leaving immediately,' Julia answered, and declined with coldness the chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dress might have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths to pity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in no smiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weep among the ruins, and this butterfly insect flitted between. After a moment, as he did not speak, 'I will not detain your lordship,' she continued, curtseying frigidly.
'Cruel beauty!' my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping his hands in an attitude. And then, to her astonishment, 'Look, ma'am,' he cried with animation, 'look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of your admirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don't, oh, I say, don't stare at me like that,' he continued hurriedly, plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. 'I vow and protest I am in earnest.'
'Then you must be mad!' Julia cried in great wrath. 'You can have no other excuse, sir, for talking to me like that!'
'Excuse!' he cried rapturously. 'Your eyes are my excuse, your lips, your shape! Whom would they not madden, ma'am? Whom would they not charm--insanitate--intoxicate? What man of sensibility, seeing them at an immeasurable distance, would not hasten to lay his homage at the feet of so divine, so perfect a creature, whom even to see is to taste of bliss! Deign, madam, to--Oh, I say, you don't mean to say you are really of--offended?' Lord Almeric stuttered in amazement, again falling lamentably from the standard of address which he had conned while his man was shaving him. 'You--you--look here--'
'You must be mad!' Julia cried, her eyes flashing lightning on the unhappy beau. 'If you do not leave me, I will call for some one to put you out! How dare you insult me? If there were a bell I could reach--'
Lord Almeric stared in the utmost perplexity; and fallen from his high horse, alighted on a kind of dignity. 'Madam,' he said with a little bow and a strut, ''tis the first time an offer of marriage from one of my family has been called an insult! And I don't understand it. Hang me! If we have married fools, we have married high!'
It was Julia's turn to be overwhelmed with confusion. Having nothing less in her mind than marriage, and least of all an offer of marriage from such a person, she had set down all he had said to impudence and her unguarded situation. Apprised of his meaning, she experienced a degree of shame, and muttered that she had not understood; she craved his pardon.
'Beauty asks and beauty has!' Lord Almeric answered, bowing and kissing the tips of his fingers, his self-esteem perfectly restored.
Julia frowned. 'You cannot be in earnest,' she said.
'Never more in earnest in my life!' he replied. 'Say the word--say you'll have me,' he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast and gazing over it with melting looks, 'most adorable of your sex, and I'll call up Pomeroy, I'll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose, and tell 'em, tell 'em all.'
'I must be dreaming,' Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind of fascination.
'Then if to dream is to assent, dream on, fair love!' his lordship spouted with a grand air. And then, 'Hang it! that's--that's rather clever of me,' he continued. 'And I mean it too! Oh, depend upon it, there's nothing that a man won't think of when he's in love! And I am fallen confoundedly in love with--with you, ma'am.'
'But very suddenly,' Julia replied. She was beginning to recover from her amazement.
'You don't think that I am sincere?' he protested plaintively. 'You doubt me! Then--'he advanced a pace towards her with hat and arms extended, 'let the eloquence of a--a feeling heart plead for me; a heart, too--yes, too sensible of your charms, and--and your many merits, ma'am! Yes, most adorable of your sex. But there,' he added, breaking off abruptly, 'I said that before, didn't I? Yes. Lord! what a memory I have got! I am all of a twitter. I was so cut last night, I don't know what I am saying.'
'That I believe,' Julia said with chilling severity.
'Eh, but--but you do believe I am in earnest?' he cried anxiously. 'Shall I kneel to you? Shall I call up the servants and tell them? Shall I swear that I mean honourably? Lord! I am no Mr. Thornhill! I'll make it as public as you like,' he continued eagerly. 'I'll send for a bishop--'
'Spare me the bishop,' Julia rejoined with a faint smile, 'and any farther appeals. They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from your head than your heart.'
'Oh, Lord, no!' he cried.
'Oh, Lord, yes,' she answered with a spice of her old archness. 'I may have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions--women commonly have, it is said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your heart. To what I am to attribute your sudden--shall I call it whim or fancy--' Julia continued with a faint blush, 'I do not know. I am willing to suppose that you do not mean to insult me.'
Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.
'Or to deceive me. I am willing to suppose,' she repeated, stopping him by a gesture as he tried to speak, 'that you are in earnest for the time, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden as the desire appears. It is a great honour, but it is one which I must as earnestly and positively decline.'
'Why?' he cried, gaping, and then, 'O 'swounds, ma'am, you don't mean it?' he continued piteously. 'Not have me? Not have me? And why?'
'Because,' she said modestly, 'I do not love you, my lord.'
'Oh, but--but when we are married,' he answered eagerly, rallying his scattered forces, 'when we are one, sweet maid--'
'That time will never come,' she replied cruelly. And then gloom overspreading her face, 'I shall never marry, my lord. If it be any consolation to you, no one shall be preferred to you.'
'Oh, but, damme, the desert air and all that!' Lord Almeric cried, fanning himself violently with his hat. 'I--oh, you mustn't talk like that, you know. Lord! you might be some queer old put of a dowager!' And then, with a burst of sincere feeling, for his little heart was inflamed by her beauty, and his manhood--or such of it as had survived the lessons of Vauxhall, and Mr. Thomasson--rose in arms at sight of her trouble, 'See here, child,' he said in his natural voice, 'say yes, and I'll swear I'll be kind to you! Sink me if I am not! And, mind you, you'll be my lady. You'll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best. You shall have your box at the opera and the King's House; you shall have your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for loo and brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the bearded lady, for what I care--I want nobody's lips but yours, sweet, if you'll be kind. And, so help me, I'll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play as small as a Churchwarden's club! And, Lord, I don't see why we should not be as happy together as James and Betty!'
She shook her head; but kindly, with tears in her eyes and a trembling lip. She was thinking of another who might have given her all this, or as much as was to her taste; one with whom she had looked to be as happy as any James and Betty. 'It is impossible, my lord,' she said.
'Honest Abraham?' he cried, very downcast.
'Oh, yes, yes!'
'S'help me, you are melting!'
'No, no!' she cried, 'it is not--it is not that! It is impossible, I tell you. You don't know what you ask,' she continued, struggling with the emotion that almost mastered her.
'But, curse me, I know what I want!' he answered gloomily. 'You may go farther and fare worse! Lord, I swear you may. I'd be kind to you, and it is not everybody would be that!'
She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did not answer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast, his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, 'Well, 'tisn't my fault,' he said; and then relenting again, 'But there, I know what women are--vapours one day, kissing the next. I'll try again, my lady. I am not proud.'
She flung him a gesture that meant assent, dissent, dismissal, as he pleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering, 'Well, well, have it your own way. I'll go for this time. But hang all prudes, say I,' he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the door on her.
As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and, throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all too sharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whose affections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of the prettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted life with him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? What wonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame, or that she presently passed from the extremity of grief to the extremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George's heartless desertion and more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintz of the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and there choked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?
Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with her back to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stole through the disordered masses of her hair; her face to the empty room. Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him, she could pursue him with a woman's unrelenting spite, she could hound him from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of these things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she had bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weapons that he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effect that, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she would not take.
Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the tool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia's pale face, and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Here was a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she could bring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heard that his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another? and such another that marry almost whom he might she would take precedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought, worthy of a smaller mind than Julia's; but she was a woman, and passionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the general, came home to her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; it would convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that she had taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her a home, a place, a settled position in the world.
She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulse rather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, with trembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of a bell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared her resolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulled frantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the passage, and Mrs. Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.
'Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back,' Julia cried, breathing quickly.
'To come back?'
'Yes! The gentleman who was here now.'
'Oh, yes, the gentleman,' Mrs. Olney murmured. 'Your ladyship wishes him?'
Julia's very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. 'Yes, I wish to see him,' she said imperiously. 'Tell him to come to me!'
She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while the woman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her face set hard, until far down the outer passage--Mrs. Olney had left the door open--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded Lord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitude that made the best of his white silk stockings.
'See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma'am!' he cried. 'To hear was to obey, to obey was to fly! If it's Pitt's diamond you need, or Lady Mary's soap-box, or a new conundrum, or--hang it all! I cannot think of anything else, but command me! I'll forth and get it, stap me if I won't!'
'My lord, it is nothing of that kind,' Julia answered, her voice steady, though her cheeks burned.
'Eh? what? It's not!' he babbled. 'Then what is it? Command me, whatever it is.'
'I believe, my lord,' she said, smiling faintly, 'that a woman is always privileged to change her mind--once.'
My lord stared. Then, gathering her meaning as much from her heightened colour as from her words, 'What!' he screamed. 'Eh? O Lord! Do you mean that you will have me? Eh? Have you sent for me for that? Do you really mean that?' And he fumbled for his spy-glass that he might see her face more clearly.
'I mean,' Julia began; and then, more firmly, 'Yes, I do mean that,' she said, 'if you are of the same mind, my lord, as you were half an hour ago.'
'Crikey, but I am!' Lord Almeric cried, fairly skipping in his joy. 'By jingo! I am! Here's to you, my lady! Here's to you, ducky! Oh, Lord! but I was fit to kill myself five minutes ago, and those fellows would have done naught but roast me. And now I am in the seventh heaven. Ho! ho!' he continued, with a comical pirouette of triumph, 'he laughs best who laughs last. But there, you are not afraid of me, pretty? You'll let me buss you?'
But Julia, with a face grown suddenly white, shrank back and held out her hand.
'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to get near her.
She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand to kiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship will pardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shaken me. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'
'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'
But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, with a little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.