At this Mrs. Spencer laughed; just as a husband would have done, taking it for the merest nonsense; yet somehow propitiated, for there was an inference of superior wisdom, importance, goodness on his—I mean her—part, such as mollifies the marital mind. No one could have been more utterly bewildered than she, had she known that what her friend said was literally true. Lady Isabella had drawn a little screen between her and the fire, which sheltered her also from the modest light of the lamp; and I felt by the sound of her voice, that though, no doubt, she could restrain herself, it would have been a relief to her to have shed the tears which made her eyes hot and painful. She would have laughed, probably, while she was shedding them, but that makes no difference.
‘You don’t do enough, and Lady Denzil does too much,’ said Mrs. Spencer. ‘She surprises me, and I think I am as active as most people. I can’t tell why she does it, I am sure. She is an old woman; it can’t be any pleasure to her. There is a dinner-party there to-night, and another on Saturday; and on Monday the dance for those young Fieldings that are staying there—enough to kill a stronger woman. But these little, fragile beings get through so much. She keeps up through it all and never looks a pin the worse.’
‘Are you going there to-night?’ said I. I had scarcely said it when I saw a little flutter behind the screen, and felt it was a foolish question. But it was too late.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Spencer, pointedly; and she looked straight at Lady Isabella’s screen with a distinctness of intimation that this abstinence was on her account, which would have puzzled me much but for the previous explanation I had had. Words would have been much less emphatic. She nodded her head a great many times, and she gave me a look which promised further information. She was fond of her companion, and I am sure would have sheltered her from pain at almost any cost to herself; but yet she enjoyed the mystery, and the story which lay below. ‘All the officers from the barracks will be there,’ she added, after a pause. ‘There is a Captain Fielding, an empty-headed—but they are all empty-headed. I don’t care much about soldiers in an ordinary way, and I dislike guardsmen. So does Isabella.’
And then there followed one of those embarrassing pauses which come against one’s will when there is any secret undercurrent which everybody knows and nobody mentions. Lady Isabella sat perfectly silent, and I, who ought to have come to the rescue,—I, after running wildly in my mind over every topic of conversation possible,—at last rose to take my leave, not finding anything to say.
‘Are you going, Mrs. Mulgrave?’ said Lady Isabella. ‘I will go to the door with you. I must show you the new flowers in the hall.’
‘Good gracious, something must be going to happen,’ said Mrs. Spencer, ‘when Isabella volunteers to show you flowers. Don’t catch cold in the draught; but it is too dark: you can’t possibly see any colour in them now.’
‘Never mind,’ said Lady Isabella in an undertone; and she hurried out leading the way,—a thing I had never seen her do before. She made no pretence about the flowers when we got out to the hall. It was quite dark, and of course I could see nothing. She grasped my hand in a nervous, agitated way. She was trembling,—she, who was always so steady and calm. It was partly from cold, to be sure, but then the cold was caused by emotion. ‘His name is Colonel Brentford,’ she whispered in my ear; and then ran up-stairs suddenly, leaving me to open the door for myself. I have received a great many confidences in my life, but seldom any so strange as this. I did not know whether to laugh or to be sorry, as I walked home thinking over it. Lady Isabella was the last person in the world to be involved in any romance; and yet this was romantic enough. And it was so difficult to make out how I could perform my part in it. Ask a guardsman, a strange colonel, a man, to tea! I could not but reflect how foolish I was, always undertaking things that were so difficult to perform. But I was pledged to do it, and I could not go back.
CHAPTER II
I was to dine at Sir Thomas Denzil’s that same evening, and so no doubt would Mrs. Spencer and Lady Isabella have done, but for that obstacle which the elder lady had set up and in which the younger seemed determined to foil her. I dressed to go out, with my heart beating a little quicker than usual. For myself, as may be supposed, the officers from the barracks were not very much to me; but the undertaking with which I suddenly found myself burdened was very serious, and made me nervous in spite of myself; and then the man’s very name was strange to me. I thought over all my acquaintances, and everybody I had ever known; but I could not remember any one of the name of Brentford. There were the Brentwoods of Northam, and the Bentleys, and a great many names came up to my mind which sounded like it at the first glance; but I could not recollect a single Brentford among all my acquaintance. ‘I wonder who his mother was?’ I said to myself; for, to be sure, there might be a means of getting at him in that way; but it was impossible to find out at so short a notice. I almost felt as if I were a designing woman when I went into Lady Denzil’s drawing-room—and so I was, though I did not want to marry any of those unconscious warriors either personally or by proxy. Little did Lady Denzil suspect, as I went up to her—trying to look as innocent as possible—and little did the men of war think, of my evil projects, as they looked blandly at me, and set me down as that harmless and uninteresting being—an old lady. The one who took me in to dinner was an elderly, sober-looking, quiet gentleman. He was a Major Somebody, and I don’t think he was so fine as the others. I drew breath when I had seated myself under his wing. It was a comfort to me to have escaped the young ones, who never forgive you, when they have to take you in to dinner, for not being young and pretty. This was a man who had no pretensions above me—a man, probably, with a wife of his own and a large family, whom one could speak to freely and ask questions of. But before I would go so far, I made what private inspection I could. It was quite evident to me where the gap was which Mrs. Spencer and Lady Isabella ought to have filled. It had been hastily filled up by Lottie and Lucy Stoke, who were very much more to the taste of the guardsmen, I don’t doubt, than if they had been their own grandmothers, ladies of county influence and majesty. Lucy, whose blue eyes were dancing in her head with mingled fright and delight to find herself in such a grand party, sat by a handsome dark man, to whom my eyes returned a great many times. He looked the kind of man whom a woman might be faithful to for years. Could it be him? He was amused with Lucy’s excitement and her fright; perhaps he was flattered by it as men so often are. After a little while, I could see he took great pains to make himself agreeable; and I felt quite angry and jealous, though I am sure I could not have told why.