"And a tight hand, as you call it, I never had, and never shall have," sighed Lady Marabout. "Valencia will be no trouble to me on that score, however; she has been admirably educated, knows all that is due to her position, and will never give me a moment's anxiety by any imprudence or inadvertence. But she is excessively handsome, and a beauty is a great responsibility when she first comes out."
"Val was always a handsome child, if I remember. I dare say she is a beauty now. When is she coming up? because I'll tell the men to mark the house and keep clear of it," laughed Carruthers. "You're a dreadfully dangerous person, mother; you have always the best-looking girl in town with you. Fulke Nugent says if he should ever want such a thing as a wife when he comes into the title, he shall take a look at the Marabout Yearlings Sale."
"Abominably rude of you and your friends to talk me over in your turf slang! I wish you would come and bid at the sale, Philip; I should like to see you married—well married, of course."
"My beloved mother!" cried Carruthers. "Leave me in peace, if you please, and catch the others if you can. There's Goodey, now; every chaperone and débutante in London has set traps for him for the last I don't know how many years; wouldn't he do for Valencia?"
"Goodwood? Of course he would; he would do for any one; the Dukedom's the oldest in the peerage. Goodwood is highly eligible. Thank you for reminding me, Philip. Since Valencia is coming, I must do my best for her." Which phrase meant with Lady Marabout that she must be very lynx-eyed as to settlements, and a perfect dragon to all detrimental connections, must frown with Medusa severity on all horrors of younger sons, and advocate with all the weight of personal experience the advantage and agrémens of a good position, in all of which practicalities she generally broke down, with humiliation unspeakable, immediately her heart was enlisted and her sympathies appealed to on the enemy's side. She sighed, played with her bracelets thoughtfully, and then, heroically resigning herself to her impending fate, brightened up a little, and asked her son to go and choose a new pair of carriage-horses for her.
To look at Lady Marabout as she sat in her amber satin couch that morning, pleasant, smiling, well-dressed, well-looking, with the grace of good birth and the sunniness of good nature plainly written on her smooth brow and her kindly eyes, and wealth—delicious little god!—stamping itself all about her, from the diamond rings on her soft white fingers to the broidered shoe on the feet, of whose smallness she was still proud, one might have ignorantly imagined her to be the most happy, enviable, well-conditioned, easy-going dowager in the United Kingdom. But appearances are deceptive, and if we believe what she constantly asserted, Lady Marabout was very nearly worn into her grave by a thousand troubles; her almshouses, whose roofs would eternally blow off with each high wind; her dogs, whom she would overfeed; her ladies' maids, who were only hired to steal, tease, or scandalize her; the begging letter-writers, who distilled tears from her eyes and sovereigns from her purse, let Carruthers disclose their hypocrisies as he might; the bolder begging-letters, written by hon. secs., and headed by names with long handles, belonging to Pillars of the State and Lights of the Church, which compelled her to make a miserable choice between a straitened income or a remorseful conscience—tormented, in fine, with worries small and large, from her ferns, on which she spent a large fortune, and who drooped maliciously in their glass cases, with an ill-natured obstinacy characteristic of desperately-courted individuals, whether of the floral or the human world, to those marriageable young ladies whom she took under her wing to usher into the great world, and who were certain to run counter to her wishes and overthrow her plans, to marry ill, or not marry at all, or do something or other to throw discredit on her chaperoning abilities. She was, she assured us, pétrie with worries, small and large, specially as she was so eminently sunny, affable, and radiant a looking person, that all the world took their troubles to her, selected her as their confidante, and made her the repository of their annoyances; but her climax of misery was to be compelled to chaperone, and as a petition for some débutante to be intrusted to her care was invariably made each season, and "No" was a monosyllable into which her lips utterly refused to form themselves, each season did her life become a burden to her. There was never any rest for the soul of Helena, Countess of Marabout, till her house in Lowndes Square was shut up, and her charges off her hand, and she could return in peace to her jointure-villa at Twickenham, or to Carruthers' old Hall of Deepdene, and among her flowers, her birds, and her hobbies, throw off for a while the weary burden of her worries as a chaperone.
"Valencia will give me little trouble, I hope. So admirably brought-up a girl, and so handsome as she is, will be sure to marry soon, and marry well," thought Lady Marabout, self-congratulatorily, as she dressed for dinner the day of her niece's arrival in town, running over mentally the qualifications and attractions of Valencia Valletort, while Félicie's successor, Mademoiselle Despréaux, whose crime was then to put pink with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue with azureline, gave the finishing touches to her toilette—"Valencia will give me no trouble; she has all the De Boncoeur beauty, with the Valletort dignity. Who would do for her? Let me see; eligible men are not abundant, and those that are eligible are shy of being marked as Philip would say—perhaps from being hunted so much, poor things! There is Fulke Nugent, heir to a barony, and his father is ninety—very rich, too—he would do; and Philip's friend, Caradoc, poor, I know, but their Earldom's the oldest peerage patent. There is Eyre Lee, too; I don't much like the man, supercilious and empty-headed; still he's an unobjectionable alliance. And there is Goodwood. Every one has tried for Goodwood, and failed. I should like Valencia to win him; he is decidedly the most eligible man in town. I will invite him to dinner. If he is not attracted by Valencia's beauty, nothing can attract him——Despréaux! comme vous êtes bête! Otez ces panaches, de grace!"
"Valencia will give me no trouble; she will marry at once," thought Lady Marabout again, looking across the dinner-table at her niece.
If any young patrician might be likely to marry at once, it was the Hon. Valencia Valletort; she was, to the most critical, a beauty: her figure was perfect, her features were perfect, and if you complained that her large glorious eyes were a trifle too changeless in expression, that her cheek, exquisitely independent of Maréchale powder, Blanc de Perle, and liquid rouge, though it was, rarely varied with her thoughts and feelings, why, you were very exacting, my good fellow, and should remember that nothing is quite perfect on the face of the earth—not even a racer or a woman—and that whether you bid at the Marabout yearling sales or the Rawcliffe, if you wish to be pleased you'd better leave a hypercritical spirit behind you, and not expect to get all points to your liking. The best filly will have something faulty in temper or breeding, symmetry or pace, for your friend Jack Martingale to have the fun of pointing out to you when your money is paid and the filly in your stall; and your wife will have the same, only Martingale will point her flaws out behind your back, and only hint them to you with an all-expressive "Not allowed to smoke in the dining-room now!" "A little bit of a flirt, madame—n'est-ce pas, Charlie?" "Reins kept rather tight, eh, old fellow?" or something equally ambiguous, significant, and unpleasant.
"I must consider, Philip, I have brought out the beauty of the season," said Lady Marabout to Carruthers, eying her niece as she danced at her first ball at the Dowager-Duchess of Amandine's, and beginning to brighten up a little under the weight of her responsibilities.