Lady Maude's Mania

Chapter Eighteen.

The Chance looks bad

That same afternoon Monsieur Hector Launay’s assistant entered the business place hurriedly, followed by Joby, and exclaimed —

“I am rather late. Has she come?”

“Come, non, M’sieu; she comes no more.”

“What?”

“I have a letter from my lady in which she say I have done her daughter’s hair so much good that the visits will cease. I am paid, and voilà tout.”

“Good heavens! Does she suspect?”

“Non, M’sieu,” said the Frenchman, smiling. “You have been too capable an assistant, and the occasion has ceased; but I will think, and M’sieu shall see the lady again. I will take counsel with Justine, and we will have a new plan. I am a Frenchman, and spirituel. I cannot live wizout I see ma chère sometimes. Justine must come, so be of good hope; we must wait.”

Charley Melton walked out of the reception-room, followed by Joby, who kept looking up at his master in a curious manner, as if half-pitying and wholly divining his feelings. There was a curious leer too in one eye, which seemed to look maliciously at his proprietor, who took the greatest care that he, Joby, should not form any canine intimacies of a tender nature, and Joby’s leering eye seemed to say, “How do you like being morally chained up, my boy?”

Charley Melton went homeward, turned, and walked right up to the Euston Road, where he made for Park Crescent, and then walked straight down Portland Placc, so as to try and catch a glimpse of his inamorata.

He was blessed and yet annoyed, for Maude was at one of the windows with a book in her hand, apparently reading, but really looking down at Luigi, the Italian, who was turning the handle of his baize-covered chest in the most diligent manner, producing sweet sounds according to taste, and smiling and bowing to the lady.

“Lucky brute!” muttered Charley, as he went by without venturing to salute. For as he passed he saw a white packet drop from the window and fall upon the pavement, where it burst like a shell, scattering bronze discs in all directions, so that the organ-grinder had hard work to collect them laden as he was, while the tune he played was broken up into bits.

“Lucky brute!” sighed Charley Melton again, “allowed to stand upon the edge of the pavement to gaze up at her, and then paid for so doing. Ah, I’d better give it up. She won’t bolt with me. I seem as if I can get no help from Tom, and I cannot go there. Hang it all, I shall do something desperate before I’ve done. She was yielding, but the game’s up now.”

Poor Joby in the days which followed was far from happy, for his master was a great deal away from home, and the dog was shut out often enough from his rooms as well as from his confidence.

People said that Charley Melton, being crossed in love, was going to the bad – taking to drink and gambling, and steadily gliding down the slide up which there is no return; and certainly his habits seemed to indicate this to be the case, so much so that Joby thought a good deal in his dense, thick-brained fashion upon the problem that puzzled his head as well as several wiser ones – a problem that he was to solve though for himself when the due time came, for Joby could not make out his master.

Time glided on, and Charley Melton’s case seemed to grow more and more hopeless, while Maude appeared to be going melancholy mad, and passed a great portion of her time gazing dreamily down at the purveyor of tunes set afloat upon the air by the mechanical working of a large set of bellows, and the opening and shutting by a toothed barrel of the mouths of so many graduated pipes.

Everybody was miserable, so it appeared, saving Sir Grantley Wilters, whose joy approached the weird in the peculiarity of its developments. He took medicine by the bucketful, so his valet told Mr Robbins in confidence, “and the way he talks about your young lady is wonderful.”

It was wonderful, for in his amatory madness he chuckled and chattered and praised the lady’s charms, and he even went so far at times as to sing snatches of love songs in a voice that suggested the performances of a mad – or cracked – clarionet in a hilarious fit, during which it was suffering from a dry reed.

Love ruled the day at Portland Place, and Sir Grantley came and made it in the drawing-room as often as he liked, while when she could escape to the balcony, Maude stood and listened to the strains of Trovatore, and, “poor dear, seemed to get wuss and wuss.”

The last was cook’s remark, and it was received with a feminine chorus of “Ah’s!”

“Oh, that wretched Italian, why does he persist in coming here?” cried her ladyship one day. “Maude, you’ll drive me mad if you keep on encouraging him so.”

Maude looked at her mother dreamily and said nothing, but the next time the man came she wrapped some coppers in a piece of paper, and dropped them out, to be caught deftly in the soft felt hat.

“Poor fellow,” she sighed, “it may make him happy.”

“Ah, bella signora,” cried Luigi in mellifluous tones, and he ground, and smiled, and showed his white teeth till the lady retired.

But if there was love-making in Portland Place there was despair in Duke Street, human and canine, for Joby more than once proved himself to be a terrible nuisance at the chambers by uttering low snuffling whines upon the stairs and landings, which, being interpreted, meant, “Why doesn’t master come home?” But by degrees he smothered his feelings on finding that an open avowal of his trouble only resulted in boots, boot-jacks, empty soda-water bottles, and other missiles being flung at him from open doors, while he was reviled as being a beast.

His retort upon receiving such forcible salutations was very often a display of his teeth, and so threatening an action in the direction of legs that he generally caused his assailants to beat a retreat; but at last he performed the same strategic evolution himself, consequent upon having to deal with the unknown. In fact, science conquered him. He stood shot, and dodged them bravely. So clever was he indeed upon this point, that it was almost impossible to hit him with hair-brush, boot, or lump of coal; but one day an angry occupant of the chambers, upon hearing a very long-drawn howl, opened his door suddenly and hurled a bottle at the dog.

It was this bottle which puzzled Joby, for instead of being empty, it was full of the water known as soda, highly charged with gas by one Schweppe, and though it missed the dog, it struck upon a partly filled coal-scuttle, and exploded with such violence, and so great a scattering of fragments, that for two days Joby preferred to sleep in the park, and had a very narrow escape from a dog-stealer, who tried every blandishment he knew to get the animal to follow him, but without effect.

Sometimes he would go and hang about the great house in Portland Place, but there was no admission. Attempts to glide past or between the legs of the servants dismally failed; but he had a look or two at Lord Barmouth, and followed him when he went out, giving sundry sniffs at his pocket, and more than once coming in for a bone. But this was very exceptional, and Joby’s was just now a very unsatisfactory and useless life.

His lordship swore a little softly and in private about the organ, but ceased as he saw that his daughter took a little interest in the music.

“But it’s doosed bad taste, Tom, doosed bad taste, my boy; and dear me, how I do long for a glass of port.”

“Yes, and you’ll have to long, governor.”

“Yes, my boy. Seen Charley Melton lately?”

“Yes, looking as if he were going to be hung.”

“Did he though, my boy? What did you say to him?”

“Told him he was a fool.”

“Oh, Tom, my boy, you shouldn’t have done that. I hope he don’t think that I’m behaving badly to him. I’d go and see him, but her ladyship would be sure to know. Be civil to him, my boy, for my sake. His father was such an old friend.”

“Humph, don’t seem like it,” growled Tom.

“But why did you call him a fool, Tom?”

“For not making a bolt of it with Maudey.”

“Oh, no – no – no – no, my boy, that would be very wrong. But what did he say?”

“Nothing. Shook his head and walked off.”

“Yes, yes. Quite right, my boy, quite right. Charley Melton would not do anything to degrade our Maudey like that.”

“Well, I would if I had a chance,” said Tom, “and if I hadn’t I’d make one.”

Chapter Nineteen.

Tom and the Tartar

All the same though, consequent upon thinking so much about his sister, Tom made very little progress with his own love affairs.

Tryphie Wilder’s was not a very pleasant life at Lady Barmouth’s. She felt that she had been adopted out of charity, and in her bitterness she would sometimes call herself her ladyship’s abuse block, for that lady would call her “little wretch” in private with as much vigour as there was sweetness in the “my dear” of public life. Her ladyship had before now gone so far as to strike her. That very day Tryphie had her revenge, for, going into the drawing-room, she found Tom fast asleep on the sofa, and snipped off the ends of his moustache, wax and all. Tom awoke, and caught and kissed her, and she flew at him, boxed his ears, and then ran out of the room and upstairs, to strike her hand against the wall for being so cruel.

The girl’s bright spirits and unvarying tenderness to his father, for whom she was always buying Bath buns or finding snacks, made Tom desperately in love with her, but he had only received chaff as his amatory food in return. Tryphie meantime went on as a sort of upper servant, with the entrée of the drawing-room; and while Justine was the repository of much that was false in Lady Barmouth, she alone was admitted to the secrets of her aunt’s first and second sets of teeth, which she had to clean in her own room with the door locked, it being supposed that it was her ladyship’s diamond suite then undergoing a renovating brush, while poor Tryphie all the time was operating upon what looked like a ghastly grin without any softening smile given by overhanging lips.

“I tell you what it is, Tryphie,” said Tom one day, as he met her on the stairs – “but I say, what’s that?” and he pointed to a little case which she tried to conceal.

“Don’t ask impertinent questions, sir,” was the reply. “Now then, what is it?”

“Well, I was going to say – oh, I say, how pretty you look this morning.”

“You were not going to say anything of the kind, sir.”

“Well then, I was going to say if I am worried much more, I shall hook it.”

“Slang!” cried Tryphie.

“Well, I must slang somebody. I mustn’t swear. I’m half mad, Tryphie.”

“Poor fellow! you have been smoking yourself so.”

“Nonsense!” he said, “a fellow must do something to keep off the blues.”

“Yes; smoke in bed.”

“I shouldn’t if I was married. If I had a wife now – ”

“Married!” said Tryphie, “without any money, sir! What would you do? Keep a billiard table or open a cigar shop? I suppose I might sit behind the counter – ”

“Go it,” said Tom. “How down you are on a fellow.”

“While my little liege lord wore his elegant shawl-pattern smoking trousers, dressing-gown and cap, and showed his prowess to customers at the billiard table.”

“Little, eh?” said Tom. “Well, I am little, but you must have some little fellows in the world, to sort up with. We can’t all be great handsome black chaps like Captain Bellman.”

“Captain Bellman is not always smoking.”

“I don’t care, I’m getting reckless. I own it all: I do go to sleep with a cigar in my mouth. I can smoke as many cigars for my size as any man in London and there are not many men who can beat me at billiards.”

“How is the new cue, Tom?” said Tryphie, mockingly.

“All right,” he said. “I tried it last night at the rooms, and played a game with an uncommonly gentlemanly Frenchman, who made the most delicious little cigarettes. I thought I’d met him before. Who do you think it was?”

“Don’t know, and – ”

“Don’t care, eh? Well, it was Launay the barber.”

“Tom!”

“Well, I don’t care; home’s wretched and I’m miserable. Besides, other people enjoy seeing me so. Maude is always going about the house like a ghost, or listening to that organ man. She’s going mad, I fancy. Then Charley Melton has turned out a fool to cave in as he has done, and Tryphie cuts me – ”

“As you deserve.”

“That’s right, go it. The governor’s miserable, and that mummy Wilters is always here. Nice place to stop in. Perhaps I ought to aim higher than billiards, and keeping one’s cue in a japanned case hanging up in a public room. But look at me; hang it, I hardly get a shilling, if I don’t have some fellow at billiards. What have I to look forward to?”

Tryphie made a movement to continue her way, but Tom spread his hands so as to stop her descent.

“Will you have the goodness to allow me to pass, Lord Diphoos?” she said, demurely.

“Lord!” he cried, peevishly.

“Very well, then, most spoiled child of the house,” said Tryphie, maliciously, “Master Diphoos.”

“You make my life quite miserable, Tryphie, you do, ’pon my honour. You’re the most ungracious – ”

“There’s pretty language to use to a lady, sir,” cried Tryphie, speaking as if in an angry fit. “Say I’m the most disgraceful at once, sir.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said Tom; “I meant ungracious and unyielding.”

“Of course, sir. Pretty words to apply to a lady.”

“Bother!” cried Tom. “I never looked upon you as a lady.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, making him a most profound curtsey.

“Well, you know what I mean,” grumbled Tom; “I always think of you as Cousin Tryphie, whom I – there,” he whispered, “I will say it – I love with all my heart.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed Tryphie.

“There’s pretty language to use to a gentleman,” retorted Tom.

“I never look upon you as a gentleman,” said Tryphie in her turn; and she darted a mischievous look at him.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom, who was now quite out of heart and temper. “And so you go on snub, snub, peck, peck, till a fellow feels as if he would like to make a hole in the water, he’s so sick of his life.”

“But he only makes a hole in his manners instead,” cried Tryphie.

“I say, Tryphie, you know,” cried Tom, now appealingly. “Don’t be so jolly hard on a fellow who loves you as I do. I can’t bear it when you snub me so. I say, dear,” he continued, taking her hand, “say a kind word to me.”

“Let go my hand, sir, and don’t be stupid,” she cried.

“Tryphie!”

“Well, Tom! Now look here, I’ve got to be so that I can hardly believe in there being such a thing as sincerity in the world, after what I’ve seen in this house: but all the same I do think you mean what you say.”

“Thankye, Tryphie; that’s the kindest thing you’ve said to me for months,” said Tom.

“Stop a bit, sir, and listen. I was going to say – ”

“No, don’t say any more, dear,” cried Tom, imploringly. “You’ve said something kind to me, and I shall go and get fat on that for a month.”

“Listen to me, sir,” cried Tryphie, unable to repress a smile – “I was going to say – Do you think I am going to promise to marry an idle, thoughtless, selfish man, with only two ideas in his head?”

“Two?” said Tom, dolefully. “No, you’re wrong. I’ve only got one.”

“I say two, sir – cigars and billiards. Do you think I want to marry a chimney-pot, or an animated cue?”

“Chimney-pot! Animated cue!” said Tom, with a groan, as he took off his little scarlet smoking-cap, and wrung it in his hands as if it were wet.

“Let me see, sir, that you’ve got some energy in you as well as good sincere feeling, before you speak to me again, if you please.”

“I may speak to you again, then?” cried Tom.

“Of course you may,” said Tryphie, tartly.

“And then?” cried Tom.

“Well, then we shall see,” replied the sarcastic little lady.

“Energy, eh?” said Tom. “Well, I will: so now to begin again. You know I have been energetic about Maude?”

“Ye-es, pretty well,” said Tryphie. “Not half enough.”

“Well, now then, dear – may I say dear?”

“If you please, Lord Diphoos,” said Tryphie. “I can’t help it.”

“Well, I’m going to be energetic now, and see if I can’t do something for Maude.”

“What are you going to do?”

“See Charley Melton and stir him up. Then I shall stir up the gov’nor and Maude, and if none of these things do any good I shall have a go at Wilters.”

“Ah,” said Tryphie, “now I’m beginning to believe in you, and there is some hope that I shall not be forced into a marriage with that odious Captain Bellman.”

“Tryphie,” whispered Tom, as he stared, “just say that again.”

She shook her head.

Tom looked upstairs and then down, saw nobody, and hastily catching the little maiden in his arms, stole a kiss before she fled, when, giving his head a satisfied shake, he went down to the hall, saw that his hat was brushed, and went off to Duke street, in utter ignorance of the fact that his father had been sitting in the curtained recess on the landing, where the flowers dwindled in a kind of conservatory, calmly devouring a piece of Bologna sausage and half a French roll.

“He, he, he,” chuckled the old gentleman, “that’s how they make love when they’re young. I was – was – was a devil of a fellow among the ladies when I was Tom’s age; but somehow now I never want to meet her ladyship on the stairs and kiss her. I’d – I’d – I’d a doosed deal rather have a nice piece of chicken, or a bit of tongue.”

Chapter Twenty.

Tom Expresses his Opinion

Charley Melton was not at home.

Tom went again. Not at home.

Three weeks passed before he could meet him, and then it was by accident at one of the clubs, and during all this time Tryphie had grown colder, and the wedding-day was approaching. But at last the two young men encountered, and Tom went straight to the point, “Hit out,” as he termed it.

“Charley Melton,” he said, “are you going to let this cursed marriage come off?”

“What can I do?” said Charley, lighting a cigar. “I have tried everything, and am forbidden the house.”

“Why not coax Maudey to come and meet you somewhere?”

“I have tried,” said Melton, quietly, “but it is hopeless now.”

“Why?”

“Her ladyship never lets your sister go out of her sight.”

“Then make a bolt of it, Charley.”

“You proposed that before. Oh, undutiful son.”

“There, don’t talk like a Turk,” said Tom.

“I feel like one, Bismillah! It is Kismet,” said Charley Melton, grimly.

“Fate’s what a man makes himself.”

“Yes, but you can’t make bricks without straw. O! my Diphoos,” said the other, mockingly, “I have so little golden straw that her ladyship refuses to let me make bricks at all, and – There, let the matter slide, old man.”

“By George!” cried Tom, savagely. “And this is my old friend Charley Melton! Where’s your spirit?”

“Ah! where indeed.”

“I’d shoot Wilters if I were in your case.”

“It would be agreeable, but the consequences are so precious unpleasant, Tom. I’ve had one awful drop: I don’t want another.”

“You’re a coward, Charley, big as you are.”

“I am, Tom, if it comes to being hung for shooting a baronet dead. No, Tom, I love Maude very much, but I am not chivalrous enough to risk the rope.”

“Bah!”

“Yes, if you like, I am willing for the matrimonial noose, but that prepared for homicides – no: I would rather remain a bachelor.”

“Then I cut you henceforth,” said Tom, angrily. “I’ve done with you.”

“No, you haven’t, old fellow; some day after Maude is married we shall be quite brothers again.”

“Never.”

“Nonsense. Have a B. and S.”

“With you? No, sir; I have done. Good-day.”

“Good-bye, Tom, for I’m going off shortly.”

“And pray where?”

“Italy, I think,” said Melton, smiling.

“Won’t you stop and see Wilters married?”

“No; I will not. Have a B. and S., old fellow.”

Little Tom looked his friend over from top to toe, and then, with an ejaculation full of contempt, he stalked out of the club, and went straight to Portland Place, where the first person he met was Tryphie alone in the drawing-room.

“Well,” she cried, “have you seen Mr Melton?”

“Yes.”

“And – ”

“And? Bah! he’s a miserable sneak. I haven’t patience with him. Here, Tryphie, don’t go.”

The little maiden made no answer, but sailed out of the room, just as Lord Barmouth came in.

“Ah, Tom, my boy, any news?”

“Yes, governor – the world’s coming to an end.”

“Dear me! Is it, my boy? I was in hopes that it would have lasted my time. But perhaps it’s for the best. Will it stop poor Maudey’s marriage?”

“I hope so, gov’nor. Here, come along with me.”

“Certainly, my boy, certainly; but, by the way, I’m very hungry. Can we get something to eat?”

The old man looked very haggard, for his internal wolf was gnawing.

“Come and see, gov’nor.”

“Yes, my boy, I will. But, by the way, have you noticed anything particular about Maudey?”

“Looks precious miserable.”

“Yes, my boy, she does; but I mean about her standing out in the balcony so much of an evening. You don’t think – ”

“Think what, gov’nor?”

“It’s – it’s – it’s a devil of a way down into the area, Tom; and if she were – ”

“To jump over and kill herself? Pooh! nonsense, old fellow. Here, come up to my room.”

“I’m – I’m glad to hear you speak with so much confidence,” said Lord Barmouth. “Yes, certainly, my boy, certainly. Dear me, I feel very faint.”

Tom took his father’s arm, and led the way to his bedroom, where he placed an easy-chair for the old man, and then stooping down, drew a case from beneath the bed and a glass or two from a cupboard.

“Why, Tom, my boy – wine?”

“Yes, gov’nor, wine. Fizz. Pfungst’s dry fruity.”

“But up here, Tom!”

“Yes, up here, gov’nor. A man must have something to take the taste of this nasty wedding out of his mouth.”

“But how came it to be here, Tom?”

“I ordered the wine merchant to send it in, and here it is.”

“But does her ladyship know?”

“Skeercely, gov’nor, as the Yankee said.”

“But did – did you pay for it yourself, my boy?”

“No; I told ’em to put it down in the bill. Here, tip that off.”

Tom filled a couple of small tumblers, and handed one to his father, who took it with trembling fingers.

“But really, my boy, this is very reprehensible. I – I – I – I – as your father, I feel bound to say – ”

“Nothing at all, gov’nor. Tip it off. Do you good.”

“No, no, Tom, it’s champagne, and I – I – really, I – Now if it had been port.”

“Tip it up, gov’nor.”

“I shall investigate the whole matter, Robbins,” said a strident voice outside, and the door-handle began to turn.

“Hi! Stop! Dressing!” cried Tom, frantically.

“Do not tell untruths, sir,” exclaimed her ladyship, sternly, as she entered without the slightest hesitation. “Ah, as I expected. Wait, till the servants are gone. Robbins, take down that wine.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Not this, you don’t,” said Tom, seizing the gold-foiled bottle by the neck.

“You knew that Lord Diphoos was having cases of wine up in his bedroom, Robbins?”

“No, my lady.”

“You brought it up?”

“No, my lady – Joseph.”

“Then Joseph knew.”

“He said it was cases of modelling clay, my lady.”

“That’s right,” said Tom, “modelling clay. Try a glass, mamma, to moisten yours.”

“Take away that case.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Robbins stooped with difficulty, picked up the case, and slowly bore it out, her ladyship standing in a studied attitude pointing the while.

“Another time,” said her ladyship, turning tragically to her son, and then withering her lord. “I have too much on my mind at present to trouble about this domestic mutiny.”

“Domestic grandmother,” cried Tom. “There, you needn’t make so much fuss about it. It was all your fault, mamma.”

“My fault, sir?”

“Yes, I was driven to drink by trying to obey you, and being civil to Wilters. Hang him, he makes one a regular laughing-stock.”

“Explain yourself, sir.”

“Well, you gammoned me into going to Hurlingham with your pet poodle.”

“My pet poodle!” exclaimed her ladyship.

“Bah! yes, your pet baronet; but never any more. Hang him, he came there dressed up like a theatrical super, in grey velvet, and with a soft hat and a rosette. I felt so mad that I could have punched his head, for all the fellows there were sniggering. But you should have seen him shoot.”