Like the man and woman in the toy weather-house, Mr. Schröder's two houses never were "to the fore" at the same time. When the one was lighted, the other was gloomy; when the one was tenanted, the other was empty; when the one was decorated, the other was comfortless. As the second breath of summer came floating over Kensington Gardens, after the may- and apple-blossoms had disappeared, but long before dust and drouth had settled down on the greensward and the umbrageous walks of the parks; when there was evinced among young men a perpetual desire to dine at the Star-and-Garter at Richmond, and an undying hatred of passing the Sunday within the metropolis; when Mr. Quartermaine began to wonder where he should stow all his visitors, and Mr. Skindle of the Orkney Arms began to think of building; when fashionable people thought it no more harm to sit in their carriages outside Grange's, than to call diamonds 'dimonds,' or ribbon 'ribbin;' when the Sunday-afternoon attendance at the Zoological Gardens began to exceed the week-day; when green-peas began to have some taste, and asparagus to be something else beside stalk and stick,--then the glory of the Saxe-Coburg-Square establishment showed strong symptoms of waning. The usual amount of solemn dinner-party had been gone through; every body necessary had been asked to balls, music, and conversazioni; Mrs. Schröder's taste and Mr. Schröder's wealth had been exhibited constantly at the Opera and at some of the most fashionable gatherings in London; and one, if not both, of them longed for a little quiet. This resulted in the renting of Uplands, when blank misery fell upon the establishment in Saxe-Coburg Square. All the ornaments and nicknacks were removed and put away; the chandeliers were shrouded in big holland bags; the shutters were put up; and the spurious Schröder ancestors scowled dimly from the wall over a great desert of dining-table, no longer shining with snowy damask or sparkling silver and glass. The staff of servants,--the French cook and the Italian confectioner; the ponderous butler, so frequently mistaken by Mrs. Schröder's West-end friends for a City magnate; the solemn footman, large-whiskered, large-calved, ambrosial, and most offensive; the lady's-maid and the buttons,--all, down to the kitchen-maid, who lived in a perpetual state of grease and dripping, and who was preparing herself for "plain cook, good," in the Times column of 'Want Places,'--all went away into what the said kitchen-maid was heard to designate "that rubbiging country;" and an old woman, weird, puffy, dusty, with old black silk stitched about her head where her hair should have been, and with bits of beard sticking on her chin, came and took up her abode in the housekeeper's room and "kep' 'ouse" herself.
But when October was well set in, and the days grew short, and the showers not unfrequent; when, even if there were no showers, the heavy mists of morn and dews of night left the ground moist and dank and plappy; when weird night-winds rose and sighed Banshee-like over the hushed fields; when the lawn lost its soft verdure and grew brown and corrugated; when the trees, which during the summer had so picturesquely fringed the lawn and framed the distance, now gaunt and dismal, swayed mournfully to and fro, drearily rattling their stripped limbs,--then a general inclination to return back to the comfort of London began to be manifested by all the inhabitants of Uplands. It was all very pleasant when Mr. Schröder had spun his chestnuts up the leafy lanes, or over the breezy hills, in the summer; but it was a very different thing when he had to come the same road from town in a close carriage, with the rain pattering against the windows, and with no gas for the last three miles of the journey. It was dull work for Mrs. Schröder and whatever female companion she might happen to have, with nothing to do but yawn over novels, or listlessly thrum the piano, or watch the gardeners filling their high barrows with dead leaves and unceasingly sweeping the lawns and paths. She could have relieved her tedium by a little shopping, she thought; but there were no shops--at least what she called shops--within miles of Uplands. As to the servants, they all hated the place; there were no military for the females, and the policemen were all mounted patrols, who "just looked round at night on 'orseback, and never had no time for a gossip, or a bit of supper, or anythink friendly;" while the male domestics were removed from their clubs and all the other delights which a town-life afforded. So, to the great joy of all, the word was given to march; and the whole establishment descended on Saxe-Coburg Square leaving Uplands to the care of the Scotch gardener, who removed his wife and family up from one of the lodges, and encamped in the kitchen and adjacent rooms.
Mrs. Schröder was by no means ill-pleased at the return to town. The moving gave her no trouble; she had merely to walk into her rooms and find every thing arranged for her; and she was in hopes that a salutary change would be effected in at least one arrangement which was beginning to worry her. The truth is, that during the last week of their stay at Uplands it had begun to dawn upon Mrs. Schröder that Charles Beresford's attentions were not what they should be. She had more than once endeavoured to think out the subject; but her intellects were none of the brightest, and she got frightened, and either began to cry, or let every thing go by the board in the grand certainty that "it would be all right in the end." But of late she had felt the necessity of taking some steps to bring the acquaintance between her and her admirer to some proper footing. This had not come on her entirely of her own accord. She had noticed that her husband (whose attentions to her increased day by day from the time when his heart seemed to soften so suddenly and so strangely towards her) seemed to regard the presence of the Commissioner with obvious impatience. Mr. Schröder never, indeed, said any thing to his wife on the subject; but he evidently chafed when Beresford was in the house: and if Mrs. Schröder and Beresford were at all thrown together apart from the general company, they were sure to see Mr. Schröder's eyes fixed upon them. Others of her friends had not been so reticent. Captain Lyster had hinted once or twice, what Barbara Churchill had several times roundly spoken out--that Beresford was a vaurien, whose attentions were compromising to any married woman; and that if he had the smallest spark of gentlemanly feeling in him, he would desist from paying them. So Mrs. Schröder, who was nothing but a very silly weak little woman (there are few women who are really bad, even among those who have erred: the Messalinas and the Lady Macbeths are very exceptional cases), and who really had a sincere affection for her husband, had made up her mind that she was behaving badly, and had determined to break gradually, but uncompromisingly, with Mr. Beresford and his attentions. She had been so completely hoodwinked by the fraternal relations which, at Mr. Simnel's suggestion, the Commissioner had cultivated, that it was not until immediately previous to their quitting Uplands that she saw the danger she had been running, and felt horribly incensed with Mr. Beresford for his part in the affair.
They had been back for some days in Saxe-Coburg Square, and Alice Schröder was nestling in her easy-chair after luncheon, wondering when the opportunity would occur in which she could plainly point out to Mr. Beresford that he must altogether alter his conduct for the future, when Mrs. Churchill was announced, and Barbara entered the room.
She was very pale, walked very erect, and held out her two hands to Alice as she advanced.
"Why, Barbara! Barbara darling!" said impulsive little Alice, "I'm so delighted to--why, what's the matter, dear? how strange and odd you look!"
"I want you to have me here for a few days, Alice, if you will."
"Why, of course, dear! I'm so glad you've come at last; it wasn't for the want of asking, you know. And Mr. Churchill will be here to dinner, dear, at seven, eh?"
"Mr. Churchill will not come at all, Alice," said Barbara very gravely. "I am here alone."
"But he knows you've come here, doesn't he?"