THEODORA.
One morning in April, 1889, all that part of the population around Prince's Gate that was up and stirring at seven o'clock, gaped with surprise and said to each other, "The McGuckin houses are let." The footmen loitering in the gorgeous vestibules, the housemaids lazily straightening their caps as they threw wide the silken curtains, the milkmen clattering upon their rounds, all regarded with interest the great granite pile that had stood tenantless since the day the builders and decorators left it ten years before. For the McGuckin houses were so vast and splendid that living in them would have been dear had the rent been thrown in. Luckily, there were but two of them. The lack of tenants had driven the original McGuckin to suicide—but—it never rains but it pours. The tenants that had been ten years in coming both arrived the same week. One house was taken by Sir John Blood, of Blood Hall, Suffolk, nephew and heir of the Marquis of Longacre, and the other by an American family named March.
Although Sir John's wealth and position may be inferred from the meager particulars already given of him, yet must the Marches be described first. And Theodora March must not only take precedence of the nephew and heir of the Marquis of Longacre, but of her own family as well—for to Theodora had this precedence always been allowed, although the very youngest scion of the house of March. She was slender and supple, and had a beautiful head of rich gold hair that made an aureole around her pure and sparkling face. By one of those freaks, so common in American civilization, Theodora, whose ancestors had for unnumbered generations sold hardware and cutlery and groceries, and were born and bred to trade and barter, looked as if she had all of the blood of all of the Howards in her veins. March père, like Napoleon, might have been called the first of his family, but Theodora had grown up with all the tendencies toward a privileged class floating around in American society. She stamped her letters with a crest she could almost persuade herself her ancestors had borne at the battle of Agincourt, and adopted the Earls de la Marche of the middle ages as her progenitors. Like many others who may be called fugitives from the lower middle class, she hated it with indescribable intensity, and shook her small white fist at it and stoned it whenever she got a chance.
Besides Theodora there was Anne, a pretty but incomplete model of Nature's gorgeous after-thought, the younger sister. Theodora was a leonine blonde, while Anne was a nondescript. Mrs. March, an amiable, obstinate old person, was the third and last and least interesting of the family.
The Marches had endured for years the nomadic existence preferred by many rich Americans. Like the Bedouins of the desert, they had moved their belongings from place to place at a moment's notice. But an acquaintance at Homburg with the Honorable Mrs. Wodehouse had inspired in Theodora a yearning for a London season—and Theodora, being the master spirit and motor for the March family, promptly transported them all to London, and the first week in April found them settled in one of the two finest mansions at Prince's Gate. Meanwhile a great event had happened in Anne's life. One William McBean, a lieutenant in a Highland regiment, with one thousand pounds to his fortune besides his pay, had met Anne on the Continent, and, after falling hopelessly in love and communicating the same malady to her, was just about exchanging into a regiment going to India because he had not the courage to ask the rich American girl to marry him. Theodora, who had a good heart, and was grieved to see Anne pale and distrait, and poor William McBean looking like a ghost, homely and red-headed at that, took matters into her own hands. She made a vigorous sortie on William McBean, wormed his secret out of him, laughed at his scruples, proposed for him, accepted for Anne, and had the satisfaction of seeing two worthy people perfectly happy, and all her own doing too. Mrs. Wodehouse laughed at the match; but Theodora extended her protecting arm over the lovers, and, slender and white as that arm was, it was a mighty ægis.
It can not be supposed that the Marches remained long in ignorance of the name and quality of their next neighbor at Prince's Gate. Within a fortnight Theodora had seen Sir John on his balcony smoking, had heard the click of his billiard balls through the open window, while Sir John had listened with pleasure to her clear trilling as she took her singing lesson. Anne did nothing now but sit on a bench in Kensington Palace Gardens and gaze in rapture on William McBean's honest, ugly face—a gaze which the red-headed lieutenant returned with compound interest. The sight of their innocent happiness amused and pleased Theodora excessively. It was love's young dream with a vengeance.
One morning Mrs. Wodehouse arrived at the Marches' house in a great flutter. She had got cards for them to a grand ball to be given at the house of a K. G., K. C. B., S. E. I., and what not, and the cards bore the talisman "To meet H. R. H.—" It was the finest of the very great balls of the season, and Mrs. Wodehouse was in high feather at the notion of introducing her young friends on such an occasion, for Mrs. March had thankfully rendered up to her the office of chaperon. The question of a presentation at court was wisely deferred until another season.
"And it's not improbable, dear," said Mrs. Wodehouse, surveying with admiration Theodora's fresh beauty and captivating air, "that you may go as Miladi with—"
"A great big lozenge on my carriage," laughed Theodora. "I used to think," she added more gravely, "that Englishmen were pachyderms, but upon my word they are the spooniest set—Anne, what are you blushing for?"
"I was thinking of—of—," answered Anne, turning a yet more fiery red.