THE MONEY-LENDER INTERVENES
Either her hysterics or her gout kept my Lady Drumloch in her chamber long enough to try the brief patience of Prudence Brooke. Sir Geoffrey, secure of his bride, was less impatient, for after all, the grandmother's consent was a mere matter of form, although he had reasons—upon which he did not care to dilate—for wishing to propitiate the old lady, and secure her good graces.
He came to Mayfair as frequently as his parliamentary duties permitted, and never without sending up to the sick-room the most sympathetic messages, accompanied by bouquets of rare flowers, baskets of hothouse fruit and dainty porcelain or enameled boxes of French bonbons, and his gifts to Lowton were as lavish, though of a different character.
Finding no abatement in her grandmother's austerity, about a week after Sir Geoffrey's arrival, Lady Prudence ordered a chair, and concealing as many of her charms as could be hidden by a cloak and hood, made a pilgrimage to the city.
Almost under the shadow of Aldgate Church, at the entrance of a narrow court, of quiet appearance but sinister reputation, lived a certain Mr. Moses Aarons, reputed fabulously wealthy. Few were the gay inheritors of paternal acres to whom the little office in Aldgate was unfamiliar, and in the safes and deed-boxes that encumbered the upper floors of the dingy house many a bond and mortgage told a history of vast estates held by a hair, and noble fortunes of which little remained but the name.
Mr. Aarons was a man of unpretending appearance, with very little about him to suggest the Jew money-lender. Immaculately dressed, in a suit of fine plum-colored cloth, with silk stockings of the same hue, and wearing his own iron-gray hair slightly powdered, and gathered in a black ribbon, he might have passed for a respectable lawyer or merchant, had not some suggestion of power in his smooth voice and heavy-lidded eye, belied the modesty of his appearance.
The chair of a fine lady was no unaccustomed object at his door—nor, indeed, was the Viscountess Brooke a stranger. When his clerk bowed the lady into Mr. Aarons' sanctum, he rose to greet her, and returned her sweeping curtsey with a bow as ceremonious.
"My Lady Brooke! This is, indeed, a condescension," he said. "My poor place is not adapted for the entertainment of such fashion and beauty."
"Most excellent Aarons," cried Prue, a little haughtily, "a truce to your compliments, which are only meant in ridicule, I fear." She threw back her hood, however, not disdaining to try the full effect of her charms upon this Jew, from whom she had come to cajole a few hundred pounds, if possible, without security.
"Your ladyship's long absence from London hath surely been to some magic spring," said the usurer, with an exaggerated deference that bordered on insolence. "We heard you were breaking squires' hearts in Yorkshire, but sure 'twas some southern sun that has been ripening the peaches on your cheeks."