The Semi-attached Couple/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII
Lord Beaufort waited some time in his sister's room before she came to him. She had been with Mary, and had heard the history of the contretemps of the morning, and was prepared to pacify, and explain, and smooth, and conciliate, till all should be peace again. Such is the daily toil of the mistress of a large country-house. No laundress, ironing away at an obstinate row of plaits; no carpenter planing the roughest plank of wood; no gardener raking the stoniest soil, has half the trouble she has, to maintain a smooth surface in the aspect of her mixed society. Nothing more is asked. They may all hate, all envy, all rival each other; they may say everything that is ill-natured, and do everything that is mischievous, but the "general effect," as painters would call it, must be harmony; and this must be maintained by the tact of the hostess.
Such an outbreak as had occurred this morning was an unusual novelty; and Helen must quell that before the parties at variance met at dinner. She found Lord Beaufort most willing to do all in his power to deprecate Miss Forrester's resentment: her appeal to Helen had touched him, and as he hated to see a woman in tears, her struggle for composure had excited his admiration and gratitude. And when he heard her whole history he found further reason for regretting what he had said. Mary had received Colonel Stuart's attentions with pleasure during the time in which she believed him to be attached to her, and until she was surprised by a visit from a Mrs. Neville, who had good reason to suppose herself the object of Colonel Stuart's preference. Driven to desperation by the report of his marriage to Miss Forrester, she adopted the decisive expedient of making her rival her confidante. She told her story, and produced her vouchers, in the shape of some of Colonel Stuart's letters, and she cried over them, and her own guilt, and his treachery, and Mr. Neville's wrongs; and in the madness of her passion and her jealousy, threw away her own character, her pride, her delicacy, all, so that she could prove that the man she loved was a villain. She succeeded, so far as thwarting Colonel Stuart in his hope of marrying Mary could be called success. Whether disappointing him in his dearest hopes were a likely method to regain his affections she had not perhaps considered. Miss Forrester declined a continuance of Colonel Stuart's attentions, and when pressed by him to assign a reason for her change of manner, she frankly pleaded her knowledge of his want of principle, his seduction of Mrs. Neville, and his heartlessness in deserting her. He flew into a violent rage with Mrs. Neville, and ended by being scarcely less furious with Miss Forrester. A fortnight later when she became a rich heiress, his anger turned upon himself for having quarrelled so completely with her, and to save his own character he changed the date of their disagreement, and allowed his friends to suppose that her money had been the root of his evil fortune. All this Helen repeated to Lord Beaufort, and his knowledge of all parties gave him instant conviction of the truth of the story.
"But why does she say that the fortune is not hers now?"
"That is a point she would be unwilling to explain, but that she is anxious it should be understood now that she is not an heiress; and she imagines that it is ignorance on this subject which induced Colonel Stuart to follow her here. It was always supposed that the fortune which old Mrs. Forrester left to her would have been divided between her and two brothers: one is in the West Indies with his wife, and the other at sea. From some scruples about the will, not worth explaining, Mary is convinced that her brothers' claims are as good as her own; at least, so she chooses to say; and as she came of age two months ago, she has written to them, giving each of them a third of the property. I do not know the exact sum, but I believe she will have nearly £30,000 herself, which she says is quite enough for her."
"And does she really mean to give away £60,000? Well! she is a noble creature; I am in the humour just now to give her credit for every virtue under heaven; but I would rather not see her again. Can't you, dearest Nell, make the humblest apologies for me, and crown the whole by saying that as I am sure she must hate the sight of me, I have taken myself off to London?"
"Oh, no! dear Beaufort, you do not really mean you are going? that would be too absurd."
"But the best thing I can do. I shall look so foolish when I see her; and there is that blockhead. La Grange, to make his ungrammatical remarks on us; and, as I said before, she must hate the sight of me."
"No, indeed, she does not! perhaps she does not like you much at this moment, but it will all soon be forgotten. She is now waiting for me in my garden, to which she went that she might escape poor dear Lady Portmore."
"Ah! it is more than half Lady Portmore's fault. She will sit gossiping for an hour over the breakfast-table; and somehow people are always ill-natured at that early time of the day—bilious, I suppose; but those empty egg-cups and dirty plates always hear a great deal of scandal, and then Lady Portmore likes to dénigrer her dear friends."
"Well, never mind now; come with me to the garden, and make your speech of regret, etc."
"Oh, no, not with you, Nell! I could not say a word if you were standing by."
"Well then, go without me."
"That is a thousand times worse. No, the whole thing is a mess, and past cure, and the only resource is for me to take myself off."
"Oh! but that is so hard upon me," said Helen, with tears in her eyes. "You must stay, darling"; and she stooped down and kissed his forehead.
At this moment Lord Teviot entered, but, seeing how eagerly they were conversing, drew back. "Oh, come in, Teviot, pray come in!"
"I will come back presently, if you are engaged."
"No, I am not engaged, but Beaufort will insist on going away to-day; and I cannot possibly let him. Beaufort, may I tell Lord Teviot the whole story?"
"Certainly, my dear, if you like to repeat such a foolish business."
"If it is a family secret my curiosity is not ungovernable; I had no idea you were closeted together for a mysterious story, or I would not have interrupted you."
"But it is no secret," said Helen; and she told him all that had passed, which threw him into such fits of laughter that Beaufort began to think the matter was not so serious as he had supposed.
"Then you advise him to stay?" said Helen.
"In his place I should go, but———"
"There, Helen, you hear what Teviot says."
"You did not let me finish my sentence," said Lord Teviot. "I was going to add that you cannot possibly go to-day, because you promised to dine with the Mayor of N——— to-morrow, and your going away would be an affront to him and to G. and to me, etc., etc."
"Yes, that is clear," said Helen. "Long live the Mayor of N———! and now, Beaufort, I will tell you how it shall all be. Mary and I will go out riding with Ernest only, and you shall join us accidentally, and make your peace while Ernest and I are cantering on first; and then follow us directly. You and Mary will, of course, hate each other for the rest of your lives, but that does not signify. So now it is all settled. You are going to drive Lady Portmore, of course, Teviot?"
"Of course," he replied, though provoked that Helen took it so coolly for granted.
"And the Douglases are going to pay a visit in the neighbourhood. Mr. G. may ride with us if he likes; he will never discover any little treaty of peace that is made under his eyes, and without a red box. The rest are out shooting, I believe. But there is poor Mr. Fisherwick, something really ought to be done for him."
"He is quite happy; there are despatches both from Lisbon and Madrid; quite enough to keep him in perfect content till dinner."
"Then we are all provided for," she said, and ran off to Mary. Everything came to pass as planned. The riding party set off. Lord Beaufort surprised them by a clever ambuscade from the stable wall; he told Mary he had been quite mistaken and wrong in what he had asserted, and was sorry that she had overheard it. Mary agreed with him in both these propositions, and said she should think no more of it, which was a bold assertion. He begged her to forgive him, for Helen's sake, and hoped she would shake hands to show they were friends. She suggested that their shaking hands might have an alarming effect on the nerves of the grooms who were riding behind them, but she forgave him with all her heart; and then she contrived to give Selim a slight touch with her whip, which brought him cleverly up to the rest of the party; and so the affair ended, with a little additional dislike on the lady's side, and some irksome recollections on the part of the gentleman.
Lady Portmore had already seen Mary, and proved to her that she had not such a friend as herself; that when she had said Mary was cold-hearted, she meant quite the reverse, and so on. La Grange gave one or two mal-à-propos laughs when they met at dinner, which were put down by acclamation, and the only person who derived unmixed delight from the occurrence was Mrs. Douglas. Eliza told the story to her, and she was charmed, because it enabled her to give a little hit at all parties. She hoped it would cure Lady Portmore of that excessively improper practice of sitting gossiping half the morning with the gentlemen. She knew it was the right thing to say that Mary had not jilted Colonel Stuart, but somehow she, Mrs. Douglas, should never get rid of the impression that she had; and she had never been more surprised than she was to hear that Mary was only just of age. She looked six-and-twenty at least, and if Colonel Stuart were her only lover, much could not be said for her success in life. She only wondered that Lord Beaufort did not get into more scrapes from his unguarded way of talking; and she supposed that if Lady Teviot ever could believe him to have a fault, she could not be much pleased at finding he spent his mornings in taking away the reputation of her friends. Colonel Stuart and Fisherwick were the only people not in the secret; the first, because Lady Portmore had not had an opportunity of talking to him, and Fisherwick, because he had been writing from ten in the morning till the dressing-bell rang, when he took a run in the dark, round the shrubbery, and came down to dinner looking yellower and more narrow-chested than ever; but declaring that nothing agreed so well with "us official men" as plenty of fresh air and exercise.
"I am afraid you had not time for a ride to-day, Mr. Fisherwick," said Lord Teviot, civilly.
"No, my lord, though it was rather an idle day with me; but I indulged in a charming walk, only the sun was rather low" (it had been gone down about an hour); "but he had a ride, I was happy to hear. Exercise is so good for him that I was dehghted to find our despatches were not of a nature to keep him at home all day."
"Exemplary creature," murmured Ernest; "why have we not each a Fisherwick?"
Vain wish, unless each were a Cabinet Minister. There are hours in which the devoted lover grudges the attendance on his mistress which keeps him from Tattersall's; the devoted husband expects his wife to attend solely to him, and even the devoted parent has moments in which the impulse to give the idolized child a good shake is almost irresistible. All have their provocations and their fits of doubt and impatience. But the private secretary has none. He believes his chief to be faultless, and his official plans unequalled. He identifies himself with the man and the system. The minister and the red boxes, the treaties and the bills, the blue ribbon and the red tape, the members and the messengers, are all part and parcel of what he calls public life; they all stand on the same line; he looks upon them as the attributes of the individual who has made him a private secretary; and he worships and writes.
"Remember you are all up early for breakfast tomorrow," said Lord Teviot as the ladies withdrew at night: "we must be off in good time; there is the new bridge to open, and the collation to eat, and G.'s speech to hear, and we are six miles from the scene of action. Above all things, I recommend an elaborate toilette, for the sake of my friend the mayor, who hoped I should bring a 'smart party.'"
"An awful prospect! Will you tell my servant to call me the day after to-morrow?" said Ernest, turning to the groom of the chambers as he walked off to bed.
Mr. Phillips was too well educated to smile; but he thought it an excellent joke, and cut it over again on his own account to the steward's-room boy, which made all the ladies' maids nearly die of laughing.