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

am afraid poor Georgie's set is not quite so nice as I could have wished. Yet Lesbia writes as if she were in raptures with her chaperon, and with all the people she meets. And then Georgie tells me that this Mr. Smithson whom Lesbia has refused is a very important personage, a millionaire, and very likely to be made a peer.'

'A new peer,' said Mary, making a wry face. 'One would rather have an old commoner. I always fancy a newly-made peer must be like a newly-built house, glaring, and staring, and arid and uncongenial.'

'_C'est selon_,' said Lady Maulevrier. 'One would not despise a Chatham or a Wellington because of the newness of his title; but a man who has only money to recommend him----'

Lady Maulevrier left her sentence unfinished, save by a shrug; while Mary made another wry face. She had that grand contempt for sordid wealth which is common to young people who have never known the want of money.

'I hope Lesbia will marry some one better than Mr. Smithson,' she said.

'I hope so too, dear; and yet do you know I have an idea that Lesbia means to accept Mr. Smithson, or she would hardly have consented to go to his house for the Henley week. Here is a letter from Georgie Kirkbank which you will have to answer for me to-morrow--a letter full of raptures about Mr. Smithson's place in Berkshire, Rood Hall. I remember the house well. I was there nearly fifty years ago, when the Heronvilles owned it; and now the Heronvilles are all dead or ruined, and this city person is master of the fine old mansion. It is a strange world, Mary.'

From that time forward Mary and her grandmother were on more confidential terms, and when, two days later, Fellside was startled into life by the unexpected arrival of Lord Maulevrier and Mr. Hammond, the dowager seemed almost as pleased as her granddaughter at the arrival of the young men.

As for Mary, she was almost beside herself with joy when she heard their voices from the lawn, and, rushing to the shrubbery, saw them walk up the hill, as she had seen them on that first evening nearly a year ago, when John Hammond came as a stranger to Fellside.

She tried to take her joy soberly, though her eyes were dancing with delight, as she went to the porch to meet them.

'What extraordinary young men you are,' she said, as she emerged breathless from her lover's embrace. 'The idea of your descending upon us without a moment's notice. Why did you not write or telegraph, that your rooms might be ready?'

'Am I to understand that all the spare rooms at Fellside are kept as damp as at the bottom of the lake?' asked Maulevrier.

'I did not think any preparation was necessary; but we can go back if we're not wanted, can't we, Jack?'

'You darling,' cried Mary, hanging affectionately upon her brother's arm. 'You _know_ I was only joking, you _know_ how enraptured I am to have you.'

'To have _me_, only me,' said Maulevrier. 'Jack doesn't count, I suppose?'

'You know how glad I am, and that I want to hide my gladness,' answered Mary, radiant and blushing like the rich red roses in the porch. 'You men are so vain. And now come and see grandmother, she will be cheered by your arrival. She has been so good to me just lately, so sweet.'

'She might have been good and sweet to you all your life,' said Hammond. 'I am not prepared to be grateful to her at a moment's notice for any crumbs of affection she may throw you.'

'Oh but you must be grateful, sir; and you must love her and pity her,' retorted Mary. 'Think how sadly she has suffered. We cannot be too kind to her, or too fond of her, poor dear.'

'Mary is right,' said Hammond, half in jest and half in earnest. 'What wonderful instincts these young women have.'

'Come and see her ladyship; and then you must have dinner, just as you had that first evening,' said Mary. 'We'll act that first evening over again, Jack; only you can't fall in love with Lesbia, as she isn't here.'

'I don't think I surrendered that first evening, Mary. Though I thought your sister the loveliest girl I had ever seen.'

'And what did you think of me, sir? Tell me that,' said Mary.

'Shall I tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?'

'Of course.'

'Then I freely confess that I did not think about you at all. You were there--a pretty, innocent, bright young maiden, with big brown eyes and auburn hair; but I thought no more about you than I did about the Gainsborough on the wall, which you very much resemble.'

'That is most humiliating,' said Mary, pouting a little in the midst of her bliss.

'No, dearest, it is only natural,' answered Hammond. 'I believe if all the happy lovers in this world could be questioned, at least half of them would confess to having thought very little about each other at first meeting. They meet, and touch hands, and part again, and never guess the mystery of the future, which wraps them round like a cloud, never say of each other, There is my fate; and then they meet again, and again, as hazard wills, and never know that they are drifting to their doom.'

Mary rang bells and gave orders, just as she had done in that summer gloaming a year ago. The young men had arrived just at the same hour, on the stroke of nine, when the eight o'clock dinner was over and done with; for a _tête-à-tête_ meal with Fräulein Müller was not a feast to be prolonged on account of its felicity. Perhaps they had so contrived as to arrive exactly at this hour.

Lady Maulevrier received them both with extreme cordiality. But the young men saw a change for the worse in the invalid since the spring. The face was thinner, the eyes too bright, the flush upon the hollow cheek had a hectic tinge, the voice was feebler. Hammond was reminded of a falcon or an eagle pining and wasting in a cage.

'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond,' said Lady Maulevrier, giving him her hand, and addressing him with unwonted cordiality. 'It was a happy thought that brought you and Maulevrier here. When an old woman is as near the grave as I am her relatives ought to look after her. I shall be glad to have a little private conversation with you to-morrow, Mr. Hammond, if you can spare me a few minutes.'

'As many hours, if your ladyship pleases,' said Hammond. 'My time is entirely at your service.'

'Oh, no, you will want to be roaming about the hills with Mary, discussing your plans for the future. I shall not encroach too much on your time. But I am very glad you are here.'

'We shall only trespass on you for a few days,' said Maulevrier, 'just a flying visit.'

'How is it that you are not both at Henley?' asked Mary. 'I thought all the world was at Henley.'

'Who is Henley? what is Henley?' demanded Maulevrier, pretending ignorance.

'I believe Maulevrier has lost so much money backing, his college boat on previous occasions that he is glad to run away from the regatta this year,' said Hammond.

'I have a sister there,' replied his friend. 'That's an all-sufficient explanation. When a fellow's women-kind take to going to races and regattas it is high time for _him_ to stop away.'

'Have you seen Lesbia lately?' asked his grandmother.

'About ten days ago.'

'And did she seem happy?'

Maulevrier shrugged his shoulders.

'She was vacillating between the refusal or the acceptance of a million of money and four or five fine houses. I don't know whether that condition of mind means happiness. I should call it an intermediate state.'

'Why do you make silly jokes about serious questions? Do you think Lesbia means to accept this Mr. Smithson?'

'All London thinks so.'

'And is he a good man?'

'Good for a hundred thousand pounds at half an hour's notice.'

'Is he worthy of your sister?'

Maulevrier paused, looked at his grandmother with a curious expression, and then replied--

'I think he is--quite.'

'Then I am content that she should marry him,' said Lady Maulevrier, 'although he is a nobody.'

'Oh, but he is a very important nobody, a nobody who can get a peerage next year, backed by the Maulevrier influence, which I suppose would count for something.'

'Most of my friends are dead,' said Lady Maulevrier, 'but there are a few survivors of the past who might help me.'

'I don't think there'll be any difficulty or doubt about the peerage. Smithson stumped up very handsomely at the last General Election, and the Conservatives are not strong enough to be ungrateful. "These have, no master."'


CHAPTER XXXII.


WAYS AND MEANS.

The three days that followed were among the happiest days of Mary Haselden's young life. Lady Maulevrier had become strangely indulgent. A softening influence of some kind had worked upon that haughty spirit, and it seemed as if her whole nature was changed--or it might be, Mary thought, that this softer side of her character had always been turned to Lesbia, while to Mary herself it was altogether new. Lesbia had been the peach on the sunny southern wall, ripening and reddening in a flood of sunshine; Mary had been the stunted fruit growing in a north-east corner, hidden among leaves, blown upon by cold winds green and hard and sour for lack of the warm bright light. And now Mary felt the sunshine, and grew glad and gay in those glowing beams.

'Dear grandmother, I believe you are beginning to love me,' she said, bending over to arrange the invalid's pillows in the July morning, the fresh mountain air blowing in upon old and young from the great open window, like a caress.

'I am beginning to know you,' answered Lady Maulevrier, gently.

'I think it is the magic of love, Mary, that has sweetened and softened your nature, and endeared you to me. I think you have grown ever so much sweeter a girl since your engagement. Or it may be that you were the same always, and it was I who was blind. Lesbia was all in all to me. All in all--and now I am nothing to her,' she murmured, to herself rather than to Mary.

'I am so proud to think that you see an improvement in me since my engagement,' said Mary, modestly. 'I have tried very hard to improve myself, so that I might be more worthy of him.'

'You are worthy, Mary, worthy of the best and the highest: and I believe that, although you are making what the world calls a very bad match, you are marrying wisely. You are wedding yourself to a life of obscurity; but what does that matter, if it be a happy life? I have known what it is to pursue the phantom fortune, and to find youth and hope and happiness vanish from the pathway which I followed.'

'Dear grandmother, I wish you had been able to marry the man of your choice,' answered Mary, tenderly.

She was ready to weep over that wasted life of her grandmother's; to weep for that forced parting of true lovers, albeit the