A WIDOW ON MONDAY
That day was destined to be one of accumulated trials to Prue's patience. Her ruffled temper had scarcely calmed down by the time she reached home, and found that, during her absence, communications had been received from the attorneys of various tradespeople, warning her that Mr. Aarons' view of her position was by no means exaggerated.
Although she had rigidly refrained from announcing her projected marriage, in deference to Lady Drumloch's opposition, the news had crept out in the mysterious way such things have of proclaiming themselves, and had led to a general investigation of Sir Geoffrey's solvency, by those whose only hope of payment depended upon her future husband's wealth. The immediate result of these researches displayed itself in the unanimous determination of her creditors to be paid before she could shelter herself under the coverture of a husband whose parliamentary privileges placed him out of their reach.
This blow was the more crushing because it came from those who had encouraged her extravagance and played upon her vanity while she was the favorite of the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough, and lady-in-waiting to the queen. Then, every temptation was thrown in her way, and the day of reckoning was never mentioned, unless in sly allusion to the dazzling, ever-changing panorama of her matrimonial prospects.
But, now, circumstances were different. To tell the truth, the fair viscountess had left London a year ago under the cloud of royal displeasure. Her extravagance at the card-table and elsewhere, her mad-cap frolics and countless flirtations—culminating in a fatal duel and a brilliant engagement broken off almost at the church-door—had brought upon her a sharp rebuke from the queen, coupled with a command to seek time for reflection and penitence in some retreat far enough removed from the court to relieve her of its temptations.
Under this ban, she had thrown herself upon the hospitality of her brother-in-law, himself somewhat out of favor, in consequence of his Jacobite tendencies, and living in comparative seclusion upon his heavily mortgaged estate in Yorkshire. There, Prue had held a little court of fox-hunting squires and provincial notables, until, wearying for a more congenial atmosphere, she gladly seized upon the illness of her grandmother as an excuse for a hasty and unheralded visit to London, where her bosom friend, Lady Barbara Sweeting, having paved the way for her, met her with the delightful news that her escapades were forgotten and her absence bewailed, and being on the spot, her unauthorized return would meet with no severe reprimand, but rather with a joyous welcome.
Prue knew the advantage of striking while the iron is hot. She was well aware of the fickleness of the great, and the importance of catching the smile of royalty before it has had time to cool off into a frown. So, being assured that the hand of welcome was graciously beckoning her, it did seem the irony of fate that she must needs hang back because her wardrobe was in Yorkshire, and her chance of redeeming or replacing it even more distant.
At this exasperating crisis, it was only natural that her mind should revert persistently to the one spot of light in the gloom. Was it a beacon of hope or an illusory will-o'-the-wisp? Had Sir Geoffrey been misled, or was he trying to mislead Mr. Aarons?
"Can grannie really be a miser?" she had asked both herself and Peggie a dozen times in the course of the day. She longed to question Sir Geoffrey as to the source of his information, yet dared not reveal the little she knew, for fear he might wonder how she had come by that little.
Peggie laughed heartily at the suggestion of Lady Drumloch's wealth, and vowed it must be a myth. "Could she have kept such a secret from us for all these years?" she asked. "Never once giving us a hint of it, and never once relaxing the austerity of her life, even now she is old and sick? Besides, how would it help us now, if she had a cellar full of gold, since she will not give us a guinea or a gown? You have so many friends, Prue; will none of them help you out?"