Set in Silver
rather a strain living up to him (though I do think it will pay in the
end), and in intercourse with my family I must be allowed to rest my
brain. When everything is settled, one way or the other, my features,
also, shall have repose. To keep young, every woman ought to go into
retirement for at least one month out of the twelve, a fortnight at a
time, perhaps, and do nothing but eat and sleep, see nobody, talk to
nobody, think of nothing, and especially not _smile_. If one followed
that regime religiously, with or without prayer and fasting, one need
never have crow's-feet.
Of course, with you it is different. You have now decided to live for
Dick, and let your waist measure look after itself; but I have larger
aims and fewer years than you, dearest. My conception of self-respecting
widowhood is to be as young as possible, as attractive as possible, as
rich as possible, and eventually to read my title clear to (at least) a
baronet, and have a castle in a good hunting county. There are
difficulties in my upward way, yet I feel strongly I shall overcome
them. Let my motto be, "The battle to the smart, and the situation to
the pretty." Why shouldn't I triumph on both counts? The ward, to be
sure, is pretty, and is in the situation; but she doesn't know her own
advantages, and I'm not sure she would marry Sir Lionel if he asked her;
which at present he apparently has no intention of doing, although he
admires her more warmly than either Dick or I think advisable in a
guardian.
Since I wrote you last, just before starting on this motor match-making
venture of ours, there have been several new developments. I don't know
whether you are any deeper in Dick's confidence, in this affair, than I
am (though I fancy not), but I scent a mystery. Dick really _has_
detective talent, dear Sis, and if I were you, I shouldn't oppose his
setting up as a sort of _art nouveau_ Sherlock Holmes. Whether he has
found out about some schoolgirl peccadillo of Miss Lethbridge's, and is
dangling it over her head, Damocles sword fashion, I can't tell, because
_he_ won't tell; though he looks offensively wise when I tease him, and
I have tried in vain, on my own account, to discover. But certain it is
that he is either blackmailing her in a milk-and-water way, or
hypnotizing her to obey his orders.
He hinted, you know, that he could get the girl to make Sir Lionel
invite us to join the motoring party; but I supposed then that she had a
weakness of the heart where my dear nephew was concerned. Now, my
opinion is that she dislikes, yet fears him. Not very complimentary to
Dick, but he doesn't seem to mind, and is enjoying himself immensely in
his own deliciously, impertinently, perky way. Somehow or other he has
induced her to be more or less engaged to him, a temporary arrangement,
I understand, but pleasing to him and convenient to me. What Dick gets
out of it, I don't know, and don't enquire; but _I_ get out of it the
satisfaction of "shelving" the girl as a possible rival.
Sir Lionel, who (it's useless to spare your motherly vanity!) has no
very warm appreciation of Dick's qualities, is disgusted with his ward
for encouraging D.'s advances, and is inclined to turn to me for
sympathy. In that branch I am a great success, and altogether am getting
on like a house afire. What if I do have to pump up an intelligent
interest in politics in general, and affairs in the Far East in
particular? I am fortunately so constituted that fifteen minutes' study
of the _Times_, washed down by early tea (taken strong), enables me to
discourse brilliantly on the deepest subjects during the day; and, thank
goodness, virtue is rewarded in the evening with a little bridge. If I
am ever Lady Pendragon (sounds well, doesn't it?) it shall be all bridge
and skittles, for me--and devil take politics, military science,
history, the classics, Herbert Spencer, Robert Browning, Shakespeare,
and all other boring or out-of-date things and writers (if he hasn't
already taken them) on which I am now obliged to keep up a sort of
Maxim-fire of conversation.
As to Dick's affairs, however, if the girl really is the heiress we
thought her, I shall be only too glad to use my influence in every
direction at once, to make the temporary arrangement a permanent one.
But the worst of it is, I'm not at all sure that she is any sort of an
heiress.
Sir Lionel intimated to me the other night, when I was tactfully
tickling him with hints, that she has little except what he may choose
to give her. If that be true, I fear as Mrs. Dick her _dot_ will not be
large; but it strikes me as very probable that he was only trying to put
me off--or rather, to put Dick off, if Dick were fortune-hunting. I
don't know whether to believe his version or not, therefore; but I did
get at one fact which may help us to find out for ourselves. Dear
Ellaline is a daughter of _Frederic_ Lethbridge. It was rather a shock
to hear this, for I have a vague impression that there was once a
scandal, quite a ripe, juicy scandal, about a Frederic Lethbridge. Can
it have been this Frederic Lethbridge, and if so, had it anything to do
with money matters?
I haven't mentioned my doubts to Dick, because he really is idiotically
in love with the girl, and is capable of foolishness. I intend to let
him go on as he is going for the present, as he can do himself no harm,
and can do me a great deal of good, by keeping his darling out of my way
and Sir Lionel's thoughts. But of course, he mustn't be allowed to marry
her if she has nothing of her own. Sir Lionel is rich, but not rich
enough to make his ward rich enough for Dick, and keep plenty for his
wife--when he gets one--if she be anything like _me_.
Your dear hostess, who would by this time be my hostess if I weren't
otherwise engaged, knows everything and everybody. Not only that, she
has done both for a considerable term of years. You remember the joke
about her being torn between the desire not to exceed the age of
forty-five and yet to boast a friendship with Lord Beaconsfield? Well,
she can have known Frederic Lethbridge, and all about him, without being
a day over forty, as that is Sir Lionel's age, and Mrs. Lethbridge was a
distant relative of his.
Tell Lady MacRae that. Say that the Frederic Lethbridge you are
inquiring about married a Miss de Nesville, and that there is a daughter
in existence, a girl of nineteen. If Lady Mac doesn't know anything, get
her to ask her friends; but do hurry up for Dick's sake, there's a dear,
otherwise I shan't be able to pull the strings as you would like me to;
and already my sweet nerves are jangled, out of tune. Dear Lady Mac is
so adorably frank, when she has something disagreeable to say, that
you'll have no difficulty in ferreting out the truth--if it's anything
nasty. For most reasons I hope it isn't, as a rich girl would be a
valuable bird in the hand for Dick; and I am on the spot to see his
affairs as well as my own through, whatever happens.
For my part, if Sir Lionel weren't up to such a fatiguingly high level
of intelligence, I believe I could fall in love with him. He may be
descended from King Arthur, but he looks more like Lancelot, and I fancy
might make love rather nicely, once he let himself go. Although it's
long since he did any soldiering, he shows that he _was_ a soldier,
born, not made. He has improved, if anything, since we knew him in
India, but I remember you used to be quite afraid of having to talk to
him then, and preferred Colonel O'Hagan, whom you thought jolly and
good-natured, though, somehow, I never got on with him very well. I
always had the feeling he was trying to read me, and I do dislike that
sort of thing in a man. It ruins human intercourse, and takes away all
natural desire to flirt.
You ask me how I endure Emily Norton. Well, as I sit beside Sir Lionel
in the car, I don't need to bother with her much in the daytime. She
hates bridge, and thinks playing for money wrong in most circumstances,
but considers it her duty to please her brother's guests; and as she
never wins, anyhow, it needn't affect her conscience. I tell her that
_I_ always give my winnings to charity, and didn't think it necessary to
add that, to my idea, charity should not only begin at home, but end
there, unless its resources were unlimited. The poor, dull thing has
that kind of self-conscious religion that sends her soul trotting every
other minute to look in the glass, and see that it hasn't smudged
itself. So trying! Once she asked me what I did for _my_ soul? I longed
to tell her I took cod-liver oil, or Somebody's Fruit Salt, but didn't
dare, on account of Sir Lionel. And she has such a conceited way of
saying, when speaking of the future: "If the Lord spares me till next
year, I will do so and so." As if He were in immediate need of her, but
might be induced to get on without her for a short time!
One would know, by the way she screws up her hair, that she could never
have felt a temptation. But I shall not let myself be troubled much with
her if I marry Sir Lionel. She can go back to her doctor and her
curates, and be invited for Christmas to Graylees, which, by the way, I
hope to inspect when we have finished this tour.
I am looking quite lovely in my motoring things, and enjoying myself
very much, on the whole.
Devonshire I found too hot for this time of the year, but the scenery is
pretty. I had no idea what a jolly little river the Dart is; and
Dartmouth is rather quaint. For those who are keen on old things, I
suppose the Butter Market would be interesting; but I can't really see
why, because things happened in certain places hundreds of years ago,
one should stand and stare at walls or windows, or fireplaces. The
things _must_ have happened somewhere! Although Charles the Second, for
instance, may have been great fun to know, and one would have enjoyed
flirting with him, now that he's been dead and out of reach for ages,
he's of no importance to me.
We left Torquay yesterday, and arrived here in the evening, after a
hilly but nice run, and lunching at Plymouth. Of course, a lot of
nonsense was talked about Sir Francis Drake. One almost forgets _what_
the old boy did, except to play bowls or something; but I have a way of
seeming to know things, for which I deserve more credit than anyone
(save you) would guess. When they were not jabbering about him at lunch,
it was about the _Mayflower_, which apparently sailed from Plymouth for
the purpose of supplying Americans with ancestors. I never met any
Americans yet, except the kind who boast of having begun as shoeblacks,
whose great-great-grand-parents didn't cross in the _Mayflower_. It must
have been a huge ship, or else a lot of the ancestors went in the
steerage, or were stewards or stowaways.
There was a ferry, getting from Devonshire into Cornwall, so of course
we just missed a boat and had to wait half an hour. I was dying to go to
sleep, but the others were as chirpy as possible, gabbling Cornish
legends. When I say the "others," I mean Sir Lionel and Ellaline
Lethbridge. I didn't know any legends, but I made up several on the spur
of the moment, much more exciting than theirs, and that pleased Sir
Lionel, as he is a Cornishman. Heavens, how I did take it out of myself
admiring his native land when we'd got across that ferry! Said the
scenery was quite different from that of Devonshire, at the first go
off; and I'm not sure there _weren't_ differences. The road coming
toward Launceston really was romantic; rock-walled part of the way, with
a lot of pink and yellow lichen; and again, fine open spaces with
distant blue downs against a sky which looked, as I remarked to Sir
Lionel, as if the gods had poured a libation of golden wine over it. Not
bad, that, was it? I believe we passed an Arthurian battle-field, which