Thelma
a tone of meek inquiry.
"An American woman _never_ has sufficient," declared Mrs. Marvelle. "You
know that as well as I do. And poor dear Mrs. Van Clupp has so set her
heart on a really brilliant match for her girl--and I had positively
promised she should have Bruce-Errington. It is really too bad!" And
Mrs. Marvelle paced the room with a stately, sweeping movement, pausing
every now and then to glance at herself approvingly in the mirror above
the chimney-piece, while her husband resumed his perusal of the _Times_.
By-and-by she said abruptly--
"Montague!"
Mr. Marvelle dropped his paper with an alarmed air.
"My dear!"
"I shall go to Clara Winsleigh this morning--and see what she means to
do in the matter. Poor Clara! She must be disgusted at the whole
affair!"
"She had rather a liking for Errington, hadn't she?" inquired Mr.
Marvelle, folding up the _Times_ in a neat parcel, preparatory to taking
it with him in order to read it in peace on his way to the Law Courts.
"Liking? Well!" And Mrs. Marvelle, looking at herself once more in the
glass, carefully arranged the ruffle of Honiton lace about her massive
throat,--"It was a little more than liking--though, of course, her
feelings were perfectly proper, and all that sort of thing,--at least, I
suppose they were! She had a great friendship for him,--one of those
emotional, perfectly spiritual and innocent attachments, I believe,
which are so rare in this wicked world." Mrs. Marvelle sighed, then
suddenly becoming practical again, she continued. "Yes, I shall go there
and stop to luncheon, and talk this thing over. Then I'll drive on to
the Van Clupps, and bring Marcia home to dinner. I suppose you don't
object?"
"Object!" Mr. Marvelle made a deprecatory gesture, and raised his eyes
in wonder. As if he dared object to anything whatsoever that his wife
desired!
She smiled graciously as he approached, and respectfully kissed her
smooth cool cheek, before taking his departure for his daily work as a
lawyer in the city, and when he was gone, she betook herself to her own
small boudoir, where she busied herself for more than an hour in writing
letters, and answering invitations.
She was, in her own line, a person of importance. She made it her
business to know everything and everybody--she was fond of meddling with
other people's domestic concerns, and she had a finger in every family
pie. She was, moreover, a regular match-maker,--fond of taking young
ladies under her maternal wing, and "introducing" them to the proper
quarters, and when, as was often the case, a distinguished American of
many dollars but no influence offered her three or four hundred guineas
for chaperoning his daughter into English society and marrying her well,
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pocketed the _douceur_ quite gracefully, and did her
best for the girl. She was a good-looking woman, tall, portly, and with
an air of distinction about her, though her features were by no means
striking, and the smallness of her nose was out of all proportion to the
majesty of her form--but she had a very charming smile, and a pleasant,
taking manner, and she was universally admired in that particular "set"
wherein she moved. Girls adored her, and wrote her gushing letters, full
of the most dulcet flatteries--married ladies on the verge of a scandal
came to her to help them out of their difficulties--old dowagers,
troubled with rheumatism or refractory daughters, poured their troubles
into her sympathizing ears--in short, her hands were full of other
people's business to such an extent that she had scarcely any leisure to
attend to her own. Mr. Rush-Marvelle,--but why describe this gentleman
at all? He was a mere nonentity--known simply as the husband of Mrs.
Rush-Marvelle. He knew he was nobody--and, unlike many men placed in a
similar position, he was satisfied with his lot. He admired his wife
intensely, and never failed to flatter her vanity to the utmost excess,
so that, on the whole, they were excellent friends, and agreed much
better than most married people.
It was about twelve o'clock in the day, when Mrs. Rush-Marvelle's neat
little brougham and pair stopped at Lord Winsleigh's great house in Park
Lane. A gorgeous flunkey threw open the door with a virtuously severe
expression on his breakfast-flushed countenance,--an expression which
relaxed into a smile of condescension on seeing who the visitor was.
"I suppose Lady Winsleigh is at home, Briggs?" inquired Mrs. Marvelle,
with the air of one familiar with the ways of the household.
"Yes'm," replied Briggs slowly, taking in the "style" of Mrs.
Rush-Marvelle's bonnet, and mentally calculating its cost. "Her ladyship
is in the boo-dwar."
"I'll go there," said Mrs. Marvelle, stepping into the hall, and
beginning to walk across it, in her own important and self-assertive
manner. "You needn't announce me."
Briggs closed the street-door, settled his powdered wig, and looked
after her meditatively. Then he shut up one eye in a sufficiently
laborious manner and grinned. After this he retired slowly to a small
ante-room, where he found the _World_ with its leaves uncut. Taking up
his master's ivory paper-knife, he proceeded to remedy this slight
inconvenience,--and, yawning heavily, he seated himself in a velvet
arm-chair, and was soon absorbed in perusing the pages of the journal in
question.
Meanwhile Mrs. Marvelle, in her way across the great hall to the
"boo-dwar," had been interrupted and nearly knocked down by the playful
embrace of a handsome boy, who sprang out upon her suddenly with a shout
of laughter,--a boy of about twelve years old, with frank, bright blue
eyes and clustering dark curls.
"Hullo, Mimsey!" cried this young gentleman--"here you are again! Do you
want to see papa? Papa's in there!"--pointing to the door from which he
had emerged--"he's correcting my Latin exercise. Five good marks to-day,
and I'm going to the circus this afternoon! Isn't it jolly?"
"Dear me, Ernest!" exclaimed Mrs. Marvelle half crossly, yet with an
indulgent smile,--"I wish you would not be so boisterous! You've nearly
knocked my bonnet off."
"No, I haven't," laughed Ernest; "it's as straight as--wait a bit!" And
waving a lead pencil in the air, he drew an imaginary stroke with it.
"The middle feather is bobbing up and down just on a line with your
nose--it couldn't be better!"
"There, go along, you silly boy!" said Mrs. Marvelle, amused in spite of
herself. "Get back to your lessons. There'll be no circus for you if you
don't behave properly! I'm going to see your mother."
"Mamma's reading," announced Ernest. "Mudie's cart has just been and
brought a lot of new novels. Mamma wants to finish them all before
night. I say, are you going to stop to lunch?"
"Ernest, why are you making such a noise in the passage?" said a gentle,
grave voice at this juncture. "I am waiting for you, you know. You
haven't finished your work yet. Ah, Mrs. Marvelle! How do you do?"
And Lord Winsleigh came forward and shook hands. "You will find her
ladyship in, I believe. She will be delighted to see you. This young
scapegrace," here he caressed his son's clustering curls tenderly--"has
not yet done with his lessons--the idea of the circus to-day seems to
have turned his head."
"Papa, you promised you'd let me off Virgil this morning!" cried Ernest,
slipping his arm coaxingly through his father's. Lord Winsleigh smiled.
Mrs. Rush-Marvelle shook her head with a sort of mild reproachfulness.
"He really ought to go to school," she said, feigning severity. "You
will find him too much for you, Winsleigh, in a little while."
"I think not," replied Lord Winsleigh, though an anxious look troubled
for an instant the calm of his deep-set grey eyes. "We get on very well
together, don't we, Ernest?" The boy glanced up fondly at his father's
face and nodded emphatically. "At a public-school, you see, the boys are
educated on hard and fast lines--all ground down to one
pattern,--there's no chance of any originality possible. But don't let
me detain you, Mrs. Marvelle--you have no doubt much to say to Lady
Winsleigh. Come, Ernest! If I let you off Virgil, you must do the rest
of your work thoroughly."
And with a courteous salute, the grave, kindly-faced nobleman re-entered
his library, his young son clinging to his arm and pouring forth boyish
confidences, which seemingly received instant attention and
sympathy,--while Mrs. Rush-Marvelle looked after their retreating
figures with something of doubt and wonder on her placid features. But
whatever her thoughts, they were not made manifest just then. Arriving
at a door draped richly with old-gold plush and satin, she knocked.
"Come in!" cried a voice that, though sweet in tone, was also somewhat
petulant.
Mrs. Marvelle at once entered, and the occupant of the room sprang up in
haste from her luxurious reading-chair, where she was having her long
tresses brushed out by a prim-looking maid, and uttered an exclamation
of delight.
"My dearest Mimsey!" she cried, "this is quite too sweet of you! You're
just the very person I wanted to see!" And she drew an easy fauteuil to
the sparkling fire,--for the weather was cold, with that particularly
cruel coldness common to an English May,--and dismissed her attendant.
"Now sit down, you dear old darling," she continued, "and let me have
all the news!"
Throwing herself back on her lounge, she laughed, and tossed her waving
hair loose over her shoulders, as the maid had left it,--then she
arranged, with a coquettish touch here and there, the folds of her pale
pink dressing-gown, showered with delicate Valenciennes. She was
undeniably a lovely woman. Tall and elegantly formed, with an almost
regal grace of manner, Clara, Lady Winsleigh, deserved to be considered,
as she was, one of the reigning beauties of the day. Her full dark eyes
were of a bewitching and dangerous softness,--her complexion was pale,
but of such a creamy, transparent pallor as to be almost brilliant,--her
mouth was small and exquisitely shaped. True,--her long eyelashes were
not altogether innocent of "kohl,"--true, there was a faint odor about
her as of rare perfumes and cosmetics,--true, there was something not
altogether sincere or natural even in her ravishing smile and
fascinating ways--but few, save cynics, could reasonably dispute her
physical perfections, or question the right she had to tempt and arouse
the passions of men, or to trample underfoot? with an air of insolent
superiority, the feelings of women less fair and fortunate. Most of her
sex envied her,--but Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, who was past the prime of life,
and, who, moreover, gained her social successes through intelligence and
tact alone, was far too sensible to grudge any woman her beauty. On the
contrary, she was a frank admirer of handsome persons, and she surveyed
Lady Winsleigh now through her glasses with a smile of bland approval.
"You are looking very well, Clara," she said. "Let me see--you went to
Kissingen in the summer, didn't you?"
"Of course I did," laughed her ladyship. "It was delicious! I suppose
you know Lennie came after me there! Wasn't it ridiculous!"
Mrs. Marvelle coughed dubiously. "Didn't Winsleigh put in an appearance
at all?" she asked.
Lady Clara's brow clouded. "Oh yes! For a couple of weeks or so. Ernest
came with him, of course, and they rambled about together all the time.
The boy enjoyed it."
"I remember now," said Mrs. Marvelle. "But I've not seen anything of you
since you came back, Clara, except once in the park and once at the
theatre. You've been all the time at Winsleigh Court--by-the-by, was Sir
Francis Lennox there too?"
"Why, naturally!" replied the beauty, with a cool smile. "He follows me
everywhere like a dog! Poor Lennie!"