"All right; then I shan't want Buncle."
"Not a bit; get rid of him at once. But I'll tell you what; Pontifex has quarrelled with the Parthenium people--he was with me yesterday--and I'd pick him up to support her."
Mr. Wuff agreed to this, and told Mr. Trapman to take the necessary steps; and that gentleman then took his departure.
"Wasn't going to let Wuff look at her letter," said he, as he walked away; "wouldn't do at all. What a doosed clever gal! What does she say?" and he pulled the letter from his pocket: "'Not a word to any one until after my appearance. After that I shan't care.' All right, my dear; you may depend upon me."
Mr. Wuff went to work with a will, and spared no expense in his bills and advertisements. The nobleman's daughter's story was duly filtered through the newspapers, and popular curiosity was excited. Miss Constance Greenwood arrived from America by the next mail, bringing with her an American play, founded on a French subject, full of interest, and what we should in the present day call sensation, but wretchedly written. This play was given to the accomplished Spofforth; and under his manipulation it became a very capital acting drama, with a splendid character for Miss Greenwood, and very good chances for Pontifex. Wuff, Bond, Spofforth, and Oldboy, the critic of the Statesman, had a little dinner at Wuff's house before the evening dress-rehearsal, which Miss Greenwood had requested before the production of the piece; and they were all delighted with what they saw. Oldboy was especially pleased. "I thought," said he, "that ladylike women left the stage with Miss Fortescue; but this girl restores my hopes." And Wuff winked at Spofforth, and they both knew that meant a column and a half the morning after the performance.
Sir Laurence Alsager drove straight from the railway-station to the Maecenas Club, where his servant was waiting for him with his dressing-things. As he pushed through the streets, the placards on the walls announcing the theatrical novelty for the evening recalled to his mind the night of his return from the East. Then he drove to the Club, then he had returned to be present at the first representation of a theatrical novelty; but ah, how different was his state of mind then from what it was now! Then the iron had passed over the slight scratch which he at that time imagined was a wound, and had completely cicatrized it; now a real wound was gaping and bare. Kismet! kismet! the old story. That night he saw Georgie Mitford for the first time; and ever since then what had he not suffered on her account! Ah, what had she herself not suffered, poor child! His absence from London and his manner of life down at Knockholt had precluded him from hearing any recent news of her; and he wondered whether the lapse of time had had any effect on Sir Charles Mitford's mad infatuation, or whether it still continued. More than anything else, Laurence wanted to know whether Lady Mitford's domestic misery was known to the world at large, or confined to the few acquaintances who had such splendid opportunities of inspecting in the quiet of Redmoor. He knew that her first appearance in society had excited a great deal of notice, a great deal of admiration, and, consequently, a great deal of envy; and he was too much a man of the world not to feel certain that anything to her disadvantage would be sought out with the greatest perseverance, and spread abroad with the greatest alacrity. And it was to her disadvantage in the eyes of society, that her home was unhappy; there were people in numbers who would declare that the result was her fault; that she was prim, puritanical, bad-tempered; that her jealousy was perfectly ridiculous; that her missy ways and affectation rendered it impossible for any man to live with her. There were numbers of people who would take an opposite view of the question, and who would pity her--not indeed with that pity which is akin to love, but from a feeling springing from a very different source,--a pity which consists in loudly denouncing the cause for compassion, and wondering how the person to be compassionated can endure what has to be gone through. There would be people who could not understand how anything otherwise could have been expected: a young person from the bourgeoisie introduced into the nous-autres class must expect that the silly fancy which had captivated her husband would not last, and must be prepared to take the consequences of her vaulting ambition. The Clanronald and Tappington set would infallibly regard it from this last-mentioned point of view, accordingly.
How Laurence Alsager's blood boiled within him as all these thoughts passed through his mind! During the quietude of his life at Knockholt, he had had sufficient opportunities so thoroughly to catechise himself, so perfectly to dissect the feelings of his breast, as to leave no doubt in his own mind that he loved Lady Mitford deeply and passionately. The notion of the guardian angel, the protecting genius, which he had so encouraged at first, had now entirely faded out, and he had not scrupled to show to himself the actual state of his feelings towards her. Not that they would ever be known; he had made up his mind to keep them rigidly locked in his own bosom. But still it was worse than horrible to think that the woman in whose service he would willingly have perilled his life, was in all probability dragging on a miserable existence, exposed to the perverse misunderstandings or degrading pity of the world! On these latter points he should soon be assured. They discussed everybody at the Maecenas; and if there had been anything sufficiently noticeable in the Mitford ménage to call for comment, it was sure to receive the freest and most outspoken discussion in the tabak-parliament of the Club.
Meanwhile, the mere notion of being back in London conduced in no small degree to raise Laurence's spirits. His time at Knockholt had been, he felt, far from unprofitably spent; he had had opportunities not merely of examining his own heart, but of making himself acquainted with the hopes and fears, the wishes and prospects, of some of those with whose lives he was to a certain extent concerned. He had had opportunities of carrying out certain pet projects of the good old man, whose last days he had been permitted to console; and he had been enabled to take up that position in his county which was required of him, not merely by the hollow ordinances of "gentility," but by the great binding rivets of society. He hoped in all honesty and humility to be able "to do his duty in that state of life unto which God had called him;" but he felt all the delight of a schoolboy out of bounds in laying-by the county magnate, the landed proprietor, the many-acred wealthy baronet, for a time, and making a very small unit in the grand population of London. The crowded streets, the gas-lamps, the dull rumble of the passing vehicles,--all were delightful to him; and as he drew up at the club-door he felt happier than he had done for many a long day.
He dressed himself and went down into the coffee-room, which he found thronged. Mr. Wuff's advertisements and bills had been so far fruitful, that two-thirds of the diners at the Maecenas seemed from their talk to be going to the Hatton-Garden Theatre. Laurence was welcomed with great cordiality by all who knew him, and had numerous offers of "joining tables;" but he expected George Bertram, and when he found that that pillar of the state did not arrive, he preferred dining by himself. The solitary life he had been leading, the event which had led to that life, the reflections which had engrossed him since he had led it,--all concurred to prevent him from suddenly plunging into the light gossip of a club-room. After dinner, finding that the piece in which Miss Constance Greenwood was to appear did not commence until half-past eight, he went into the smoking-room, where most of the diners had assembled, and in addition to them, Lord Dollamore. He looked up and saw Alsager's entrance; then stretched out his hand, and pointed to a vacant seat on the couch beside him.
"My dear Alsager, delighted to see you,--honestly and truly delighted! How are you? What a hermit you have become! though of course I understand,--family-business and all that; and what has brought you up at last--not this new play?"