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

a quarter as long. It isn't so many years, after all, since Steadman's poor old uncle went a little queer in his head; and Steadman, having such a quiet home here, and plenty of spare room, made bold to ask her ladyship if he might give the poor old man a home, where he would be in nobody's way.'

'And the poor old man seems to have a very luxurious home,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'Pray when and where did Mr. Steadman's uncle learn to smoke a hookah?'

Simple as the question was, it proved too much for Mrs. Steadman. She only shook her head, and faltered some unintelligible reply.

'Where is your husband?' asked Lord Hartfield: 'I should like to have a little talk with him, if he is disengaged.'

'He is not very well, my lord,' answered Mrs. Steadman. 'He has been ailing off and on for the last six months, but I couldn't get him to see the doctor, or to tell her ladyship that he was in bad health. And about a week ago he broke down altogether, and fell into a kind of drowsy state. He keeps about, and he does his work pretty much the same as usual, but I can see that it's too much for him. If you like to come downstairs I can let you through the lower door into the hall; and if he should have woke up since I have left him he'll be at your lordship's service. But I'd rather not wake him out of his sleep.'

'There is no occasion. What I have to say will keep till to-morrow.'

Lord Hartfield and his wife followed Mrs. Steadman downstairs to the low dark hall, where an old eight-day clock ticked with hoarse and solemn heat, and a fine stag's head over each doorway gave evidence of some former Haselden's sporting tastes. The door of a small panelled parlour stood half-way open; and within the room Lord Hartfield saw James Steadman asleep in an arm-chair by the fire, which burned as brightly as if it had been Christmas time.

'He was so chilly and shivery this afternoon that I was obliged to light a fire,' said Mrs. Steadman.

'He seems to be sleeping heavily,' said Hartfield. 'Don't awaken him. I'll see him to-morrow morning before I go to London.'

'He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my lord,' said the wife, with a troubled air. 'I don't think it can be right.'

'I don't think so either,' answered Lord Hartfield. 'You had better call in the doctor.'

'I will, my lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry with me, I daresay; but I must take upon myself to do it without his leave.'

She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one above, and unlocked a door opening into a lobby near the billiard-room.

'Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game,' said Lord Hartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off the impression of some dominant idea.

'Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to play,' answered Mary. 'That strange old man has given me a shock. Everything about his surroundings is so different from what I expected. And how could an uncle of Steadman's come by all that money--and those jewels--if they were jewels, and not bits of glass which the poor old thing has chopped up, in order to delude himself with an imaginary treasure?'

'I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly.'

'They sparkled tremendously--almost as much as my--our--the family diamonds,' said Mary, puzzled how to describe that property which she held in right of her position as countess regnant; 'but if they are real jewels, and all those rouleaux real money, how could Steadman's uncle become possessed of such wealth?'

'How, indeed?' said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue


CHAPTER XXXVIII.


ON BOARD THE 'CAYMAN.'

Goodwood had come and gone, a brief bright season of loss and gain, fine gowns, flirtation, lobster en mayonaise, champagne, sunshine, dust, glare, babble of many voices, successes, failures, triumphs, humiliations. A very pretty picture to contemplate from the outside, this little world in holiday clothes, framed in greenery! but just on the Brocken, where the nicest girl among the dancers had the unpleasant peculiarity of dropping a little red mouse out of her mouth--so too here under different forms there were red mice dropping about among the company. Here a hint of coming insolvency; there a whisper of a threatened divorce suit, staved off for awhile, compromises, family secrets, little difficulties everywhere; betrothed couples smilingly accepting congratulations, who should never have been affianced were truth and honour the rule of life; forsaken wives pretending to think their husbands models of fidelity; jovial creatures with ruin staring in their faces; households divided and shamming union; almost everybody living above his or her means; and the knowledge that nobody is any better or any happier than his neighbour society's only fountain of consolation.

Lady Lesbia's gowns and parasols had been admired, her engagement had furnished an infinity of gossip, and the fact of Montesma's constant attendance upon her had given zest to the situation, just that flavour of peril and fatality which the soul of society loveth.

'Is she going to marry them both?' asked an ancient dowager of the ever-young type.

'No, dear Lady Sevenoaks, she can only marry one, don't you know; but the other is nice to go about with; and I believe it is the other she really likes.'

'It is always the other that a woman likes,' answered the dowager; 'I am madly in love with this Peruvian--no, I think you said Cuban--myself. I wish some good-natured creature would present him to me. If you know anybody who knows him, tell them to bring him to my next afternoon--Saturday. But why does--_chose_--_machin_--Smithson allow such a handsome hanger-on? After marriage I could understand that he might not be able to help himself; but before marriage a man generally has some kind of authority.'

The world wondered a little, just as Lady Sevenoaks wondered, at Smithson's complacency in allowing a man so attractive as Montesma to be so much in the society of his future wife, yet even the censorious could but admit that the Cuban's manner offered no ground for offence. He came to Goodwood 'on his own hook,' as society put it: and every man who wears a decent coat and is not a welsher has a right to enjoy the prettiest race-course in England. He spent a considerable part of the day in Lesbia's company; but since she was the centre of a little crowd all the time, there could be no offence in this. He was a stranger, knowing very few people, and having nothing to do but to amuse himself. Smithson was an old and familiar friend, and was in a measure bound to give him hospitality.

Mr. Smithson had recognised that obligation, but in a somewhat sparing manner. There were a dozen unoccupied bedchambers in the Park Lane Renaissance villa; but Smithson did not invite his Cuban acquaintance to shift his quarters from the Bristol to Park Lane. He was civil to Don Gomez: but anyone who had taken the trouble to watch and study the conduct and social relations of these two men would have seen that his civility was a forced civility, and that he endured the Spaniard's society under constraint of some kind.

And now all the world was flocking to Cowes for the regatta, and Lesbia and her chaperon were established on board Mr. Smithson's yacht, the _Cayman_; and the captain of the _Cayman_ and all her crew were delivered over to Lesbia to be her slaves and to obey her lightest breath. The _Cayman_ was to lie at anchor off Cowes for the regatta week; and then she was to sail for Hyde, and lie at anchor there for another regatta week; and she was to be a floating-hotel for Lady Lesbia so long as the young lady would condescend to occupy her.

The captain was an altogether exceptional captain, and the crew were a picked crew, ruddy faced, sandy whiskered for the most part, Englishmen all, honest, hardy fellows from between the Nore and the Wash, talking in an honest provincial patois, dashed with sea slang. They were the very pink and pattern of cleanliness, and the _Cayman_ herself from stem to stern was dazzling and spotless to an almost painful degree.

Not content with the existing arrangements of the yacht, which were at once elegant and luxurious, Mr. Smithson had sent down a Bond Street upholsterer to refit the saloon and Lady Lesbia's cabin. The dark velvet and morocco which suited a masculine occupant would not have harmonised with girlhood and beauty; and Mr. Smithson's saloon, as originally designed, had something of the air of a _tabagie_. The Bond Street man stripped away all the velvet and morocco, plucked up the Turkey carpet, draped the scuttle-ports with pale yellow cretonne garnished with orange pompons, subdued the glare of the skylight by a blind of oriental silk, covered the divans with Persian saddlebags, the floor with a delicate Indian matting, and furnished the saloon with all that was most feminine in the way of bamboo chairs and tea-tables, Japanese screens and fans of gorgeous colouring. Here and there against the fluted yellow drapery he fastened a large Rhodes plate; and the thing was done. Lady Lesbia's cabin was all bamboo and embroidered India muslin. An oval glass, framed in Dresden biscuit, adorned the side, a large white bearskin covered the floor. The berth was pretty enough for the cradle of a duchess's first baby. Even Lesbia, spoiled by much indulgence and unlimited credit, gave a little cry of pleasure at sight of the nest that had been made ready for her.

'Really, Mr. Smithson is immensely kind!' she exclaimed.

'Smithson is always kind,' answered Lady Kirkbank, 'and you don't half enough appreciate him. He has given me his very own cabin--such a dear little den! There are his cigar boxes and everything lovely on the shelves, and his own particular dressing-case put open for me to use--all the backs of all the brushes _repoussé_ silver, and all the scent-bottles filled expressly for me. If the yacht would only stand quite still, I should think it more delicious than the best house I ever stayed in: only I don't altogether enjoy that little way it has of gurgling up and down perpetually.'

Mr. Smithson's chief butler, a German Swiss, and a treasure of intelligence, had come down to take the domestic arrangements of the yacht into his control. The Park Lane _chef_ was also on board, Mr. Smithson's steward acting as his subordinate. This great man grumbled sorely at the smallness of his surroundings; for the most luxurious yacht was a poor substitute for the spacious kitchens and storerooms and stillrooms of the London mansion. There was a cabin for Lady Kirkbank's Rilboche and Lady Lesbia's Kibble, where the two might squabble at their leisure; in a word, everything had been done that forethought could do to make the yacht as perfect a place of sojourn as any floating habitation, from Noah's Ark to the Orient steamers, had ever been made.

It was between four and five upon a delicious July afternoon that Lady Kirkbank and her charge came on board. The maids and the luggage had been sent a day in advance, so that everything might be in its place, and the empty boxes all stowed away, before the ladies arrived. They had nothing to do but walk on board and fling themselves into the low luxurious chairs ready for them