The girls themselves—the outspoken frankness of their world—the utter novelty of the whole thing—the novelty of young female society—the awe-struck deference of the music-hall singer for a real peer of England, who accorded to them the courtesy and deference to women which he vaguely recollected from the world of his distant youth—interested Lord Madeley.
With charming but unsophisticated hospitality he invited the sisters to visit the Manor House, thinking it an obligation of hospitality owing by him to Fitz Aylwyn. The invitation was accepted.
Eulalie, with a keen eye to opportunity, made up her mind that the position of Lady Madeley, mistress of the rent roll of the great Manor of Madeley and of Madeley Manor House, was within the possibilities. She played for that position for all she was worth, with every atom of knowledge she possessed or could acquire, played her game without the opposition of tangible rivals, played her game as a clever and beautiful woman of the world, knowing every wile and every blandishment that was permissible, played her game against an old man to whom had been given no weapon of defence and from whom had been withheld the worldly knowledge out of which such weapons could have been fashioned and which would have indicated their necessity. The result was never in doubt. Lord Madeley married, or was married, as Eulalie had intended should happen.
Let it here be said, for Lord Madeley soon passes out of the story, that never for one single instant did he ever regret his marriage. Save that his house was better ordered, his wishes more carefully respected, his comfort more scrupulously provided for, Lady Madeley was wise enough to recognise that the ingrained ways and habits of a lonely man of fifty-five are fixed, and are altered only at the cost of much discomfort. She contented herself with the rank and position, the wealth, and the house which the marriage had brought her, and left Lord Madeley to pursue his life as he inclined and much as he had done theretofore. Two years after their marriage their only child—a daughter, Consuelo—was born, and a few years later Lord Madeley died. Inertia, even if productive of a contented mind, is not especially conducive to length of years.
His widow raised a costly marble monument over his grave, mourned for a decently prolonged interval, and re-emerged in the world; whilst Consuelo, in her own right Baroness Madeley, figured in her father’s place in the peerage books.
But there had been an incident shortly after the marriage which for some time had thrown a blight upon the new-found happiness of Lord and Lady Madeley.
Passing through London on their return from a honey-moon spent upon the Continent, Lady Madeley had visited on two occasions her unmarried sister at the small flat in Kensington which had been taken for her and furnished by Lord Madeley.
The second visit was the last time the sisters met. Two hours afterwards the maid found the dead body of her mistress stretched upon the bed in her room, stark nude, and on the table by the bedside an opened half-bottle of champagne and a glass from which some of the wine had been drunk.
At the inquest which was held, however, everything was made plain by the evidence of the maid, who described the arrival of Lady Madeley at the flat. She had prepared and taken in tea, and had then been sent to Bond Street to change the library books and to purchase stalls at one of the theatres, Lady Madeley having come to invite her sister to spend the evening with her husband and herself in that manner, and having postponed the purchase of the stalls until she had ascertained to which theatre her sister would prefer to go.
