“On the cards! Oh, the obtuseness of man! Do you think the Duchess will let herself be beaten? Oh yes, her husband has been too many for her again and again. I know she has had to give in and let him take his own way: but now that Jane is concerned, and she has pledged herself to you——”
“She has been very kind. I had not the least right to expect such kindness as she has shown me: but she has given no pledge,” said Winton with a recurrence of his despondency.
Lady Germaine, who had stopped herself in the full career of her shopping to hold this conversation with him in a luxurious corner of the great shop, where all was still at this dead moment of the year, and only velvet-footed assistants passed now and then noiselessly—gave him at this moment a look of disdain, and rose up from her chair. “I did not think you had been such a noodle,” she said, and, before he could answer a word, went forward to the nearest counter, where an elegant youth had been waiting all the time with bales of silks and stuffs half unfolded for her ladyship’s inspection—and plunged into business. That elegant youth had not in any way betrayed his weariness. He had stood by his wares as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wait for half an hour, so to speak, between the cup and the lip: but he had not been without his thoughts, and these thoughts were not very favourable to Lady Germaine. Most likely this was the origin of a paragraph which crept into one of the Society papers in the deadness of the season and puzzled all the tantalised circles in country houses, and even bewildered the clubs. Who could the “Lady G.” be who had awakened the echoes of the back shop at Allen and Lewisby’s? Here is the advantage of an immaculate reputation. Neither the clubs nor the country houses ever associated Lady Germaine with such a possibility; but this, of course was what that elegant young person did not know.
“Why am I a noodle?” said Winton, going after her, and too much absorbed in the subject to think of the attendant at all.
“If you can think of a stronger word put that instead,” said Lady Germaine. “I can’t call names here, don’t you see, though I should so like to. No pledge! Oh, you—— What should you like in that way? Something on parchment, with seals hanging to it like a Pope’s bull? as if every word she said and every suggestion she made was not a pledge, and the strongest of pledges? Go away, and let me choose the children’s new frocks in peace. It is easier to do that than to make people understand.”
But Winton did not go away. He leaned over her chair, making certainty more certain to the spectator behind the counter. “Look here,” he said; “do you really mean what you say—that I ought to have everything ready?”
“Don’t you think these two shades go nicely together?” said Lady Germaine, putting the silk and the merino side by side with skilful hands, and with an air of the profoundest deliberation. “The girls have not a thing to wear. I should have the steeds in the stables and the knights in the hall, if I were you, and William of Deloraine ready to ride by night or by day.”
Perhaps this advice was not the clearest in the world, but, such as it was, it was all the lady would give; and it sent Winton along the half-lighted half-empty streets, in the twilight of the soft September evening, with an alert pace and a heart beating as it had not beat since London had suddenly become empty to him by the departure of one family from it. He went over every room of his house that evening, calculating and considering. It was a charming house, and he had regarded it with no small satisfaction when, only a year or two before, its decorations had been completed. But now, with the idea in his mind that at any moment (was not that what she said?) he might have to be ready for the princess, the wife—that his happiness might come upon him suddenly, and his life be transformed, and his house turned into her house—in this view it was astonishing how many things he found that were incomplete. Nay, everything was incomplete. It was dingy—it was small; it was commonplace. The drawing-rooms had become old-fashioned, though yesterday he had been under the impression that there was an antique grace about them—a flavour of the old world which gave them character. The dining-room was heavy and elaborate; the library too dark; the morning-room—good heavens! there was no morning-room in which a lady could establish herself, but only a half-furnished place uninhabited, cold, with no character at all. It brought a cold dew all over him when he opened the door of that empty chamber. He could scarcely sleep for thinking of it. What if she might be ready before her house was! The idea was intolerable: and everything was petty, mean, without beauty, unworthy of her. He had not thought so when he walked through those over-gilded drawing-rooms in Grosvenor Square, and said to himself that not amid such tawdry fineries as these should his wife be housed. Everything had changed since that brief moment of confidence. He was dissatisfied with everything. Next morning he had no sooner awoke from a sleep troubled by dreams of chaotic upholstery, than he went to work. Perhaps, after all, things were not so bad. With the aid of a few experts, and a great deal of money, much, if not everything, can be done in a very short space of time. He ran down into the country as soon as he had set things going in Kensington, and arrived at his old manor-house without warning, to the great consternation of the housekeeper. Winton had still more need of the experts and the bric-a-brac. It wanted many things besides, which were not to be had in a moment, and his life for the next week was as laborious as that of the busiest workman. The excitement among the servants and hangers-on at both places was indescribable. He said nothing of his approaching marriage, and yet nothing but an approaching marriage could account for it; or else that he was going clean out of his senses, which was another hypothesis produced.
This fit of active and hopeful exertion got over these remaining days with the speed of a dream. The hours galloped along with him as lightly at least, if not as merrily, as though they were indeed carrying him to his wedding-day. But when all was done that he could do, and the moment approached for his visit to Billings, a cold shade fell over him. Lady Germaine’s clever little speeches began to look like nonsense as he thought them over; “quicker than the legitimate drama;” what did she mean by that? Could he imagine for a moment to himself that Jane, the princess of her own race as well as of his affections, the serene and perfect lady of his thoughts, would be the heroine of any vulgar romance? That he could have entertained such a thought for a moment horrified him when he paused in his feverish exertion and began to think what it all meant. But this was only on the way to Billings, when every pulse in his body began to throb high with the thought of being once more in her presence, under the same roof with her, and about to put his fortune to the test to gain everything or—no, not to lose her. He said to himself with a sudden passion that he would not lose Jane. Such a calamity was not possible. Father and mother and all the powers might do what they would or could, but she was his, and give her up he would not. Thus the anxious lover went round the compass and came back to the point from which he started. He found Lady Germaine as wise and clever as he had always thought her, when he came thus far. There were expedients—and the Duchess was pledged to the employment of them as certainly as if he had her word for it engrossed on parchments sealed and signed and delivered. One way or another, his visit to Billings would be decisive. He went like a soldier to the field of battle, with a thrill of excitement over him, as well as with all the softening enthusiasm of a lover. Happen how it might, he could not leave that unknown fortress, that Castle Dangerous, as he came.