Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

But Letty noticed that his eyes strayed back to Lord Ancoats, and then again to Lady Madeleine. He seemed to be observing them, and Letty's sharpness at once took the hint. No doubt the handsome, large-featured girl was here to be "looked at." Probably a good many maidens would be passed in review before this young Sultan made his choice! By the way he must be a good deal older than George had imagined. Clearly he left college some time ago. What a curious face he had—a small, crumpled face, with very prominent blue eyes; curly hair of a reddish colour, piled high, as though for effect, above his white brow; together with a sharp chin and pointed moustache, which gave him the air of an old French portrait. He was short in stature, but at the same time agile and strongly built. He wore one or two fine old rings, which drew attention to the delicacy of his hands; and his manner struck her as at once morose and excitable. Letty regarded him with involuntary respect as the son of Mrs. Allison—much more as the master of Castle Luton and fifty thousand a year. But if he had not been the master of Castle Luton she would have probably thought, and said, that he had a disagreeable Bohemian air.

"Haven't you really made acquaintance with Lady Kent?" said Lord Naseby, returning to the charge his laziness was somewhat at a loss for conversation. "I should have thought she was the person one could least escape knowing in the three kingdoms."

"I have seen her, of course," said Letty, lightly, though, alas! untruly.
"But I am afraid you can hardly realise that I have only been three short
seasons in London—two with an old aunt, who never goes out, in Cavendish
Square, poor dull old dear! and another with Mrs. Watton, of Malford."

"Oh! with Mrs. Watton, of Malford," said Lord Naseby, vaguely. Then he became suddenly aware that Lady Leven, on the other side of the table, was beckoning to him. He leant across, and they exchanged a merry war of words about something of which Letty knew nothing.

Letty, rather incensed, thought him a puppy, drew herself up, and looked round at the ex-Governor beside her. She saw a fine head, the worn yellow face and whitened hair of a man who has suffered under a hot climate, and an agreeable, though somewhat courtly, smile. Sir Philip Wentworth was not troubled with the boyish fastidiousness of Lord Naseby. He perceived merely that a pretty young woman wished to make friends with him, and met her wish at once. Moreover, he identified her as the wife of that "promising and well-informed fellow, Tressady," with whom he had first made friends in India, and had now—just before dinner—renewed acquaintance in the most cordial fashion.

He talked graciously to the wife, then, of Tressady's abilities and Tressady's career. Letty at first liked it. Then she was seized with a curious sense of discomfort.

Her eyes wandered towards the head of the table, where George was talking—why! actually talking earnestly, and as though he were enjoying himself, to Lady Maxwell, whose noble head and neck, rising from a silver white dress, challenged a great Genoese Vandyck of a Marehesa Balbi which was hanging just behind her, and challenged it victoriously.

So other people thought and said these things of George? Letty was for a moment sharply conscious that they had not occupied much place in her mind since her marriage, or, for the matter of that, since her engagement. She had taken it for granted that he was "distinguished"—that was part of the bargain. Only, she never seemed as yet to have had either time or thought to give to those parts and elements in his life which led people to talk of him as this old Indian was doing.

Curtains, carpets, gowns, cabinets; additions to Ferth; her own effect in society; how to keep Lady Tressady in her place—of all these things she had thought, and thought much. But George's honourable ambitions, the esteem in which he was held, the place he was to make for himself in the world of men—in thinking of these her mind was all stiff and unpractised. She was conscious first of a moral prick, then of a certain irritation with other people.

Yet she could not help watching George wistfully. He looked tired and pale, in spite of the animation of his talk. Well! no doubt she looked pale too. Some of the words and phrases of their quarrel flashed across her. In this beautiful room, with its famous pictures and its historical associations, amid this accumulated art and wealth, the whole thing was peculiarly odious to remember. Under the eyes of Vandyck's Marchesa one would have liked to think of oneself as always dignified and refined, always elegant and calm.