Phantom Fortune, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [free e novels .txt] 📗

by the fire, knitting her customary muffler. She had appropriated Lady Maulevrier's place, much to Mary's disgust. It irked the girl to see that stout, clumsy figure in the chair which had been filled by her grandmother's imperial form. The very room seemed vulgarised by the change.

Fräulein looked up with a surprised air when Mary and Hammond entered together, the girl smiling and happy. She had expected that Mary would have left her ladyship's room in tears, and would have retired to her own apartment to hide her swollen eyelids and humiliated aspect. But here she was, after the fiery ordeal of an interview with her offended grandmother, not in the least crestfallen.

'Are we not to have any tea to-night?' asked Mary, looking round the room.

'I think you are unconscious of the progress of time, Lady Mary,' answered Fräulein, stiffly. 'The tea has been brought in and taken out again.'

'Then it must be brought again, if Lady Mary wants some,' said Hammond, ringing the bell in the coolest manner.

Fräulein felt that things were coming to a pretty pass, if Maulevrier's humble friend was going to give orders in the house. Quiet and commonplace as the Hanoverian was, she had her ambition, and that was to grasp the household sceptre which Lady Maulevrier must needs in some wise resign, now that she was a prisoner to her rooms. But so far Fräulein had met with but small success in this endeavour. Her ladyship's authority still ruled the house. Her ladyship's keen intellect took cognisance even of trifles: and it was only in the most insignificant details that Fräulein felt herself a power.

'Well, your ladyship, what's the row?' said Maulevrier marching into his grandmother's room with a free and easy air. He was prepared for a skirmish, and he meant to take the bull by the horns.

'I suppose you know what has happened to-day?' said her ladyship.

'Molly and Hammond's expedition, yes, of course. I went part of the way with them, but I was out of training, got pumped out after a couple of miles, and wasn't such a fool as to go to the top.'

'Do you know that Mr. Hammond made Mary an offer, while they were on the hill, and that she accepted him?'

'A queer place for a proposal, wasn't it? The wind blowing great guns all the time. I should have chosen a more tranquil spot.'

'Maulevrier, cannot you be serious? Do you forget that this business of to-day must affect your sister's welfare for the rest of her life?'

'No, I do not. I will be as serious as a judge after he has put on the black cap,' said Maulevrier, seating himself near his grandmother's couch, and altering his tone altogether. 'Seriously I am very glad that Hammond has asked Mary to be his wife, and still more glad that she is tremendously in love with him. I told you some time ago not to put your spoke in that wheel. There could not be a happier or a better marriage for Mary.'

'You must have rather a poor opinion, of your sister's attractions, personal or otherwise, if you consider a penniless young man--of no family--good enough for her.'

'I do not consider my sister a piece of merchandise to be sold to the highest bidder. Granted that Hammond is poor and a nobody. He is an honourable man, highly gifted, brave as a lion, and he is my dearest friend. Can you wonder that I rejoice at my sister's having won him for her adoring lover?'

'Can he really care for her, after having loved Lesbia?'

'That was the desire of the eye, this is the love of the heart. I know that he loves Mary ever so much better than he loved Lesbia. I can assure your ladyship that I am not such a fool as I look. I am very fond of my sister Mary, and I have not been blind to her interests. I tell you on my honour that she ought to be very happy as John Hammond's wife.'

'I am obliged to believe what you say about his character,' said Lady Maulevrier. 'And I am willing to admit that the husband's character has a great deal to do with the wife's happiness, from a moral point of view; but still there are material questions to be considered. Has your friend any means of supporting a wife?'

'Yes, he has means; quite sufficient means for Mary's views, which are very simple.'

'You mean to say he would keep her in decent poverty? Cannot you be explicit, Maulevrier, and say what means the man has, whether an income or none? If you cannot tell me I must question Mr. Hammond himself.'

'Pray do not do that,' exclaimed her grandson urgently. 'Do not take all the flavour of romance out of Molly's love story, by going into pounds, shillings, and pence. She is very young. You would hardly wish her to marry immediately?'

'Not for the next year, at the very least.'

'Then why enter upon this sordid question of ways and means. Make Hammond and Mary happy by consenting to their engagement, and trust the rest to Providence, and to me. Take my word for it, Hammond is not a beggar, and he is a man likely to make his mark in the world. If a year hence his income is not enough to allow of his marrying, I will double Mary's allowance out of my own purse. Hammond's friendship has steadied me, and saved me a good deal more than five hundred a year.'

'I can quite believe that. I believe Mr. Hammond is a worthy man, and that his influence has been very good for you; but that does not make him a good match for Mary. However, you seem to have settled the business among you, and I suppose I must submit. You had better all drink tea with me to morrow afternoon; and I will receive your friend as Mary's future husband.'

'That is the best and kindest of grandmothers.'

'But I should like to know more of his antecedents and his relations.'

'His antecedents are altogether creditable. He took honours at the University; he has been liked and respected everywhere. He is an orphan, and it is better not to talk to him of his family. He is sensitive on that point, like most men who stand alone in the world.'

'Well, I will hold my peace. You have taken this business into your hands, Maulevrier; and you must be responsible for the result.'

Maulevrier left his grandmother soon after this, and went downstairs, whistling for very joyousness. Finding the billiard-room deserted he repaired to the drawing-room, where he found Mary playing scraps of melody to her lover at the shadowy end of the room, while Fräulein sat by the fire weaving her web as steadily as one of the Fatal Sisters, and with a brow prophetic of evil.

Maulevrier crept up to the piano, and came stealthily behind the lovers.

'Bless you, my children,' he said, hovering over them with outspread hands. 'I am the dove coming back to the ark. I am the bearer of happy tidings. Lady Maulevrier consents to your acquiring the legal right to make each other miserable for the rest of your lives.'

'God bless you, Maulevrier,' said Hammond, clasping him by the hand.

'Only as this sister of mine is hardly out of the nursery you will have to wait for her at least a year. So says the dowager, whose word is like the law of the Modes and Persians, and altereth not.'

'I would wait for her twice seven years, as Jacob waited, and toil for her, as Jacob toiled,' answered Hammond, 'but I should like to call her my own to-morrow, if it were possible.'

Nothing could be happier or gayer than the tea-drinking in Lady Maulevrier's room on the following afternoon. Her ladyship having once given way upon a point knew how to make her concession gracefully. She extended her hand to Mr. Hammond as frankly as if he had been her own particular choice.

'I cannot refuse my granddaughter to her brother's dearest friend,' she said, 'but I think you are two most imprudent young people.'

'Providence takes care of imprudent lovers, just as it does of the birds in their nests,' answered Hammond, smiling.

'Just as much and no more, I fear. Providence does not keep off the cat or the tax-gatherer.'

'Birds must take care of their nests, and husbands must work for their homes,' argued Hammond. 'Heaven gives sweet air and sunlight, and a beautiful world to live in.'

'I think,' said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 'you are just the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You have ideas that would do for the Bush or the Yosemite Valley, but which are too primitive for an over-crowded country.'

'No, Lady Maulevrier, I am not going to steal your granddaughter. When she is my wife she shall live within call. I know she loves her native land, and I don't think either of us would care to put an ocean between us and rugged old Helvellyn.'

'Of course having made idiots of yourselves up there in the fog and the storm you are going to worship the mountain for ever afterwards,' said her ladyship laughing.

Never had she seemed gayer or brighter. Perhaps in her heart of hearts she rejoiced at getting Mary engaged, even to so humble a suitor as fortuneless John Hammond. Ever since the visit of the so-called Rajah she had lived as Damocles lived, with the sword of destiny--the avenging sword--hanging over her by the finest hair. Every time she heard carriage wheels in the drive--every time the hall-door bell rang a little louder than usual, her heart seemed to stop beating and her whole being to hang suspended on a thread. If the thread were to snap, there would come darkness and death. The blow that had paralysed one side of her body must needs, if repeated, bring total extinction. She who believed in no after life saw in her maimed and wasting arm the beginning of death. She who recognised only the life of the body felt that one half of her was already dead. But months had gone by, and Louis Asoph had made no sign. She began to hope that his boasted documents and witnesses were altogether mythical. And yet the engines of the law are slow to put in motion. He might be working up his case, line upon line, with some hard-headed London lawyer; arranging and marshalling his facts; preparing his witnesses; waiting for affidavits from India; working slowly but surely, underground like the mole; and all at once, in an hour, his case might be before the law courts. His story and the story of Lord Maulevrier's infamy might be town talk again; as it had been forty years ago, when the true story of that crime had been happily unknown.

Yes, with the present fear of this Louis Asoph's revelations, of a new scandal, if not a calamity, Lady Maulevrier felt that it was a good thing to have her younger granddaughter's future in some measure secured. John Hammond had said of himself to Lesbia that he was not the kind of man to fail, and looking at him critically to-day Lady Maulevrier saw the stamp of power and dauntless courage in his countenance and bearing. It is the inner mind of a man which moulds the lines of his face and figure; and a man's character may be read in the way he walks and