And then—there was old Mrs. Picture's writing-table drawer, stood open! But only a little way, to show. For the lady's hands alone were to open it clear out, to remove the contents. Gwen felt that perhaps she had undertaken this responsibility rashly. It is rather a ticklish matter to tamper unbidden with locks.
So confident was she that old Mrs. Picture would forgive her anything, that she made no scruple of examining and reading whatever was visible. There was little beyond pens and writing-paper in the drawer, but in a desk which formed part of the table were some warrants held by the old lady as a life-annuitant, and two or three packets of letters, one carefully tied and apparently of considerable age. There was also a packet marked "Hair," and a small cardboard box. Little enough to take charge of, and soon made into a neat parcel by Mrs. Burr for Gwen to carry away in her reticule, a receptacle which in those days was almost invariably a portion of every lady's paraphernalia, high and low, rich and poor.
The desk opened with the drawer—or rather unrolled itself—a flexible wood-flap running back when it was opened, and releasing a lid that made one-half of the writing-pad when turned back. The letters were under the other half, the old packet being in a small drawer with the parcel marked "Hair." These were evidently precious. Never mind! Gwen would keep them safe.
Dave and Dolly were so delighted with the performance of opening and shutting the drawer, and seeing the cylindrical sheath slip backwards and forwards in its grooves, that they could scarcely drag themselves away to accompany their Lady to the carriage that, it appeared, was waiting for her in the beyond, outside Sapps Court.
CHAPTER XI
AN INTERVIEW AT THE TOP OF A HOUSE IN PARK LANE. THE COLOSSEUM. PACTOLUS. KENSINGTON, AS NINEVEH. DERRY'S. TOMS'S. HELEN OF TROY. THE PELLEWS. RECONSIDERATION, AND JILTING. GWEN'S LOVE OF METHOD, AND HOW SHE WOULD GO TO VIENNA. A STARTLING LETTER. HOW HER FATHER READ IT ALOUD. MRS. THRALE'S REPORT OF A BRAIN CASE. HER DOG. HOW REASON REELED BEFORE THE OLD LADY'S ACCURACIES. GWEN'S GREAT-AUNT EILEEN AND THE LORD CHANCELLOR. HOW THE EARL STRUCK THE SCENT. HIS BIG EBONY CABINET. MR. NORBURY'S STORY. HOW AN EARL CAN DO A MEAN ACTION, WITH A GOOD MOTIVE. THE FORGED LETTER SEES THE LIGHT. HOW THE COUNTESS WOKE UP, AND THE EARL GOT TO BED AT LAST
When the Earl and Countess came to Park Lane, especially if their visit was a short one, and unless it was supposed to be known to themselves and their Maker only, they were on their P's and Q's. Why the new identity that came over them on those occasions was so described by her ladyship remained a secret; and, so far as we know, remains a secret still. But that was the expression she made use of more than once in conversation with her daughter.
If her statements about herself were worthy of credence, her tastes were Arcadian, and the satisfactions incidental to her position as a Countess—wealth and position, with all the world at her feet, and a most docile husband, ready to make any reasonable, and many unreasonable, sacrifices to idols of her selection—were the merest drops on the surface of Life's crucible. What her soul really longed for was a modest competence of two or three thousand a year, with a not too ostentatious house in town, say in Portland Place; or even in one of those terraces near the Colosseum in Regent's Park, with a sweet little place in Devonshire to go to and get away from the noise, concocted from specifications from the poets, with a special clause about clotted cream and new-laid eggs. Something of that sort! Then she would be able to turn her mind to some elevating employment which it would be premature to dwell on in detail to furnish a mere castle-in-the-air, but of which particulars would be forthcoming in due course. Or rather, would have been forthcoming. For now the die was cast, and a soul that could have been pastorally satisfied with a lot of the humble type indicated, had been caught in a whirl, or entangled in a mesh, or involved in a complication—whichever you like—of Extravagance, or Worldliness, or Society, or Mammon-worship, or Plutocracy, or Pactolus—or all the lot—and there was an end of the matter!
"All I can say is that I wonder you do it. I do indeed, mamma!" Thus Gwen, a week later in the story, in her bedroom at the very top of the house, which had once been a smoking-room and which it was her young ladyship's caprice to inhabit, because it looked straight over the Park towards the Palace, which still in those days was close to Kensington, its godmother. The Palace is there still, but Kensington is gone. Look about for it in the neighbourhood, if you have the heart to do so, and see if this is a lie. You will find residential flats, and you will find Barker's, and you will find Derry's, and you will find Toms's. But you will not find Kensington.