Lady Maude's Mania

“Do you, papa?” she said, smiling up at him.

“Yes, my dear, I do indeed; but it don’t matter much, and I don’t think her ladyship minds. Let me see, Sir Grantley’s coming to dinner to-day, isn’t he, my dear?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Ha! yes! A good dinner’s a nice thing when you can enjoy it free and unfettered, but it’s like matrimony, my dear, full of restrictions, and very disappointing when you come to taste it. Well, there, there, there, now we have had our little talk and confidences, we will go upstairs to the drawing-room. It will be more cheerful for you.”

He rose, taking his child’s hand, kissing it tenderly, and holding it before he drew it through his arm, while Maude sighed gently, and suffered herself to be led upstairs.

Her ladyship was better, and she smiled with a sweetly pathetic expression in her countenance as Maude entered with her father, rising, and crossing to meet them, and kissing her child upon her forehead.

“Bless you, my darling!” she said; “pray be happy in the knowledge that you are doing your duty. Go now, Justine.”

“Yes, my lady,” said that sphinx; and as soon as they were alone her ladyship continued —

“Yes, in the thought that you are doing your duty. At your age I too had my little love romance, but I was forced to marry your poor papa.”

“Oh, damn it, my dear!” cried his lordship, looking at his wife aghast; “I was forced to marry you.”

“Barmouth! That will do! Maude, my child, I begged Sir Grantley to come and dine with us en famille this evening.”

“Oh, mamma!” cried Maude, “was that wise?”

“Trust me, my dear, for doing what is best,” said her ladyship.

There was a great bouquet of flowers on the table, which was littered with presents from the bridegroom elect, and family friends; but Maude did not seem to heed them, only the flowers, which she picked up, and as Lady Barmouth smiled and shook her head at her husband, Maude went and sat down by the open window, to begin picking the petals to pieces and shower them down. Some fell fluttering out into the area; some littered her dress and the carpet; and some were wafted by the wind to a distance; but Maude’s mind seemed far away, and her little white fingers performed their task of destroying her present, as her head sank down lower and lower, bowed down by its weight of care.

It was autumn, and the shades of evening were falling, and so were Maude’s spirits; hence a tear fell from time to time upon the flowers, to lie amidst the petals like a dew-drop; but they fell faster as her ladyship uttered an impatient cry, for just then the black-bearded Italian stopped beneath the window, swung round his organ, and began to grind out dolefully the Miserere once more and its following melody from Trovatore, the whole performance sounding so depressing in her nervous state that the poor girl’s first inclination was to bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break. She set her teeth though firmly, glanced back in the room, and then, smiling down at the handsome simple face beneath her, she threw a sixpence which the man caught in his soft hat.

“Grazie, signora,” said the Italian, smiling and showing his white teeth.

“Maude, how can you be so foolish?” cried her ladyship. “You have encouraged those men about till it’s quite dreadful: we never have any peace.”

“Poor fellows!” said Maude, “they seem very glad of a few pence, and they are far away from home.”

“Yes,” said her ladyship, “where they ought to be sent back.”

“I remember once,” said Lord Barmouth, “in the old days when they used to have moving figures dancing in front of their organs, one of Lady Betty Lorimer’s daughters actually got – he, he, he! carrying on a clandestine correspondence with one of those handsome vagabonds.”

Maude looked at her father in a startled way.

“Barmouth, be silent,” cried her ladyship, as the butler entered the room with a fresh present upon a tray. “Robbins,” she said, “go downstairs and tell that man that he will be given into custody if he does not go away directly. Tell him some one is ill,” – for just then a fresh strain was ground out in a most doleful fashion, and Maude began softly humming the air to herself as she gazed down, still in the man’s handsome face.

“Some one ill, my lady?”

“Yes; I am ill. You should have sent him away without orders.”

“I did try to dismiss him, my lady, when he came,” said the butler.

“Well, and what did he say?”

“Only smiled, my lady.”

“But did you say that the police should be sent to him?”

“Yes, my lady, but he only smiled the more; and then,” continued the butler, lowering his voice as he glanced at where Maude stood outside, “he pointed up to the drawing-room window here, and wouldn’t go. If you please, my lady,” he continued in an undertone, “he never will go while Lady Maude gives him money.”

“That will do: go away,” said her ladyship, sighing; and Lord Barmouth got up and toddled towards the window to look down and elicit a fresh series of bows from the Italian, who kept on playing till the window was closed, when he directed his attention to the area, where a couple of the maids were looking up at him, ready to giggle and make signs to him to alter the tune.

Tom came back into the drawing-room just as her ladyship had closed the window and sent Lord Barmouth back to a chair, where he sat down to rub his leg. Tryphie came back a few minutes later to glance timidly at her aunt, who, however, thought it better to ignore the past for the time being, fully meaning, though, to take up poor Tryphie’s case when her mind was more free.

“Will you come and see the dress that has just come in?” said Tryphie to Maude, who was sitting gazing dreamily out of the window.

“No,” she said, “no.”

“My dear child,” cried her ladyship, “pray, pray take a little interest in your dresses.”

“I cannot, mamma,” cried Maude, passionately. “I have not the heart.”

“Bah, Maude!” cried Tom, “be a trump, I say. When you are married and have got your establishment, I’d jolly soon let some one know who was mistress then.”

“Tom, your language is disgraceful,” cried her ladyship. “It is as low and disrespectful as that of the people in the street.”

“I wish your treatment of your children were half as good. Here’s every shilling a fellow wants screwed out, till I feel as if I should like to enlist; and as for Maudey here, you’ve treated her as if she were a piece of sculpture, to be sold to the highest bidder. I suppose she has not got a heart.”

“Lord Barmouth!” exclaimed her ladyship, faintly, as she lay back in her chair, and lavishly used her smelling-salts, “if one of my brothers had spoken to dear mamma as that boy speaks to me, dear papa would have felled him to the earth.”

“There you are, gov’nor, there’s your chance,” said Tom, grinning. “Come and knock me down, but don’t bruise your knuckles, for my head’s as hard as iron.”

Lord Barmouth took out his pocket-handkerchief, and wiped his hands upon it, not noticing that it was stained with gravy, gazing in a troubled way from wife to son, and back, and then crossed to the former to say something in a whisper, to which her ladyship replied —

“Pshaw.”

“Thank you, Tom,” whispered Tryphie, as he went to the window where she stood. “I did not think you could stand up so bravely for your sister, and be so true.”

“Didn’t you?” said Tom, sulkily. “It’s a good job I can be true, for I don’t believe there’s a spark of truth anywhere else in the world. If Charley had had the spirit of a fly, he’d have come and walked her off. Hang it all! I’m mad and savage. Pretty sort of a husband you’ve got for her. Pretty sort of a brother-in-law to have! I’m ashamed of him. I’m only a little one, and nothing to boast of, but he’s no better than a pantaloon. Truth indeed! There isn’t such a thing in the world.”

“Oh, Tom!” whispered Tryphie.

“More there isn’t,” cried Tom. “Pretty brother-in-law indeed!”

“Maude,” exclaimed her ladyship, “I think you might have a word to say on behalf of your intended husband.”

The girl glanced at her in a stony way, and turned once more to the window, where she had been looking out with Tryphie, listening with aching heart to the encounter between mother and son.

“Such a brilliant match as I have made,” cried her ladyship, harping on her old string. “And such opposition as I have from the girl who owes me so much.”

“Indeed, mamma, I have yielded everything. You are having your own way entirely,” said Maude passionately.

“Have I not saved you from throwing yourself away upon a disreputable creature?” sobbed her ladyship.

“Tryphie,” whispered Maude, “I cannot bear this. It is dreadful. I feel as if I should go mad.”

“He saw plainly enough,” whined her ladyship, “that it could not be – that it would have been a complete misalliance.”

“This is unbearable,” whispered Maude, clasping her cousin’s hand, which pressed hers warmly and encouragingly, as they stood in the window recess, half screened by the heavy curtains.

“Try not to listen, dear,” whispered Tryphie.

“It nearly maddens me. I feel as if I could do anything wicked and desperate.”

“Oh, hush, hush, dear,” whispered Tryphie; and Lady Barmouth maundered on in tones asking for sympathy, as she set herself up as the suffering ill-used mother whom no one tried to comfort in her distress.

“Saved you as I did from a life of misery,” continued her ladyship, whimpering. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! how children strive to throw themselves away.”

Maude moaned, and held her hand to her side.

“Are you ill, dear?” whispered Tryphie.

“No, no,” was the reply. “It is past now – past.”

“I shall be sorry when you are gone, Maude,” said her father simply.

“Oh, papa, papa,” she cried, running to him and throwing her arms round his neck; for the tenderly-spoken sympathetic words brought the tears to her eyes. Then, unable to bear it, she turned to leave the room, but just then the door opened and the butler announced Sir Grantley Wilters.

“Ah, how do!” he said in a high-pitched voice, saluting all in turn, and bending low over Maude’s hand. “Thought I’d come soon, don’t you know, sans cérémonie, eh, mamma!” he said with a smile to Lady Barmouth, and then gave his glass a screw, and brought it to bear on all present.

“I am so glad,” said her ladyship; “so is Maude; but don’t take any notice,” she whispered. “Poor child, she is distrait, and seems cold. So deeply attached to Lord Barmouth. Ready to break her heart at leaving him.”

“Yas, oh, yas,” said Sir Grantley; and he took his seat beside Maude.

“Tryphie,” said Tom, “I can’t help it. I must be off. This fellow makes me ill. May I go?”

She gave him a nod of intelligence, and he said something about being ready for dinner, and left the room to go out, take a hansom, and bowl down to one of the clubs, where he was soon so busily engaged in a game of pool that he forgot all about the dinner.

Very shortly after, Maude rose, bowed to Sir Grantley, and left the room with Tryphie, when the baronet crossed to Lady Barmouth’s side, and was soon engaged in a most interesting conversation, whose murmur sent Lord Barmouth into a pleasant slumber, out of sight in a lounging chair, where he was quite forgotten, when her ladyship suggested that Sir Grantley should go with her to her boudoir to see the last new presents sent in for Maude.

“And you would like to wash your hands, too, before dinner,” said her ladyship. “We will not trouble about dressing to-night.”

Sir Grantley opened the door, and the old gentleman was left alone to wake up about a quarter of an hour later to find it was dark, and sit up rubbing his leg.

“Oh, damme, my leg,” he said, softly. “Where – where are they all gone? Why it’s – it’s past dinnertime,” he said, looking at his watch by the dim light. “I shall be doosed glad when everybody’s married and – and – and – why the doose doesn’t the dressing-bell ring? Heigh – oh – ha – hum!” he added, yawning. “There’s – there’s – there’s another of those abominable organs. I – I – I wish that all the set of them were at the bottom of the sea, for I lie at night with all their tunes coming back again, and seeming to grind themselves to fit the pains in my leg. Poor girl! she was always encouraging the fellows. Why dear me! Damme, haven’t I got a single sixpence left to give him, to go away. No, that I haven’t,” he continued fumbling, “not a sou. She – she – she does keep me short,” he muttered, opening the French window and looking out. “Oh, he’s done playing now, so I shan’t want the money. Why eh – eh – eh? Why – he – he, he! the fellow’s talking to one of the maids. He – he – he! Hi – hi – hi! They will do it. I – I – I was a devil of a fellow amongst the girls when I was a young man; but now – oh, dear, oh dear! this wind seems to give me tortures, that it does.”

He closed the window, but stood looking out.

“You’d better take care, you two, that my lady don’t catch you, or there’ll be such a devil of a row. He’s – he’s going down into the area. Well, well, well, I shan’t tell tales. He – he – he! Hi – hi – hi!” he chuckled, sitting down and nursing his leg. “I remember when I was about twenty, and Dick Jerrard and I – he’s Lord Marrowby now, and a sober judge! – when we got over the wall at a boarding-school to see pretty Miss Vulliamy. Oh, dear, dear, dear, those were days. They preach and talk a deal now about being wicked, but it was very nice. I used to be a devil of a wicked fellow when I was young, and – and flirted terribly, while lately I’ve been as good as gold, and, damme, I haven’t been half so happy.”

He stopped rubbing his leg for a while.

“Everything’s at sixes and sevens, damme, that it is. I’m nearly famished, that I am. If it hadn’t been for that bit of chicken I should have been quite starved. Her ladyship’s too bad, that she is. Cold boiled sole, rice pudding, and half a glass of hock in a tumbler of water. I can’t stand it, that I can’t. Damme, I’ll make a good dinner to-night, that I will, if I die for it. I’ll – I’ll – I’ll, damme, I’ll kick over the traces for once in a way. Tom will help me, I know. He’s a good boy, Tom is, and he’ll see that I have a glass of port, and – damme, where’s Maude and her ladyship, and why isn’t dinner ready? and – eh – what? – what the devil’s that. There’s something wrong.”

For at that moment a piercing shriek rang through the house, and there was the sound of a heavy fall upon the floor.