“Ffrench’s place was in Hampshire, not quite out of reach by a drive from Portsmouth, although it was a long pull by road. And before she was sixteen, Fenella had bowled over the whole garrison. I believe the local chemist expected a wholesale order for prussic acid the day her engagement to Frank Onslow was announced,” said his fat little lordship, chuckling at his own wit.
“Where did she meet him?”
“At a garrison ball in Portsmouth. It was supposed to be a case of love at first sight. Regular Romeo-and-Juliet business, don’t you know?”
“Oh! she loved him?” said Jacynth, between his set teeth.
“God knows! she said she did, any way; and made him believe it. As for him, he was desperately mashed.”
“And so—and so they married, but didn’t live happy ever after.”
“No, by George! It didn’t last long. For the first year or two, it was all billing and cooing. They took a little place in Surrey, and gave themselves up to rurality and domestic affection. Old Ffrench used to spend half his time there with ’em. And when Fenella’s boy was born, they had a story that the colonel was seen wheeling a perambulator about the garden, and administering a feeding-bottle. It did seem as though Fenella had begun to put a good deal of water in her wine, as the Italians say. They hadn’t been married three years when Colonel Ffrench died suddenly. I was not in England at the time. I was in a very low state—all to pieces! In fact, Sir Abel Adamson has since confessed that he thought my nervous system—however, that will probably not interest you. I set off on a long sea voyage, which they said was my best chance. And, in point of fact, I prowled about for more than a year and a half. It was in Japan that I got hold of an old Times with the announcement of Ffrench’s death. Oho! thought I to myself. My Lady Francis Onslow will come in for a nice little pile. She had something when she married. And, of course, Ffrench left her everything he had in the world.”
“Then Lord Francis Onslow hadn’t made a bad thing of it?”
“A very good thing of it!—from the financial point of view, that is. He was a duke’s son; but I needn’t tell you that a duke’s fifth son——”
“Can’t expect to marry a lady from Chicago or New York with millions of dollars in pigs or petroleum. Of course not! That’s reserved for his seniors,” said Jacynth.