Lady Maude's Mania

“Sir Grantley told me that he was a very good shot,” said her ladyship.

“Oh, he did, did he?” roared Tom. “Bless his modesty. Well, I’m going to tell Maude that when she’s married she had better look out, and if ever she sees her lovely husband take up a gun she had better bolt – out of town – the seaside – or come home. She won’t be safe if she don’t.”

Lord Barmouth tittered at this, but his lady looked round at him so sharply, that he turned it off, and stared stolidly straight before him.

“It was a regular case of fireworks,” continued Tom. “His attitudes were grand, and he looked as if he were rehearsing something for a circus. You should have seen the fellows laugh.”

“I sincerely hope that you did not laugh,” said her ladyship, sternly.

“Oh, dear, no,” said Tom, “not at all. Didn’t even smile.”

“I’m very glad of it,” said her ladyship.

“Oh, you are? That’s right,” said Tom; “but somehow one of the buttons flew off the front of my coat, and my ribs ached, and I lay back in a chair in a state of convulsion. I nearly had a fit.”

“Diphoos!” ejaculated her ladyship.

“And when dear Grantley came up he gnashed his teeth at me. He did, ’pon my word, till I roared again. I say, gov’nor, it’s the funniest thing out to see him in a passion.”

“It seems to me,” exclaimed her ladyship, hysterically, “as if the whole of my family were leagued against me, and determined to try and break off this match. From what I can gather, it seems to me, Tom, that you have grossly insulted Sir Grantley.”

“Bosh!” said Tom. “He made such an ass of himself that I roared with laughter, and served him right.”

“Fresh insults,” cried her ladyship; “but I can wait. At present, as I before observed, I shall take no steps to check this domestic mutiny on the part of my husband and my son.”

“Mutiny?”

“Yes, sir, I said mutiny; but after Maude is married – then!”

The door closed behind her, and Lord Barmouth looked piteously up at his little son.

“You have got me into a devil of a scrape, Tom, my boy,” he faltered.

“Never mind, gov’nor. Tip that up. The old girl left us this.”

“But – but it is champagne, Tom.”

“All the better, gov’nor. Here’s to you.”

Lord Barmouth hesitated for a few moments, and then raised his glass.

“Your health, my dear boy,” he said. – “Yes, that’s a very nice glass of wine. I haven’t tasted champagne for a couple of months.”

“Then you shall taste it again,” said Tom. “Now, I mean to go it. Gov’nor, you should come and dine with me to-night, and we’d try and forget all about old Maude, only I have no money.”

“But I have, my boy – ten pounds.”

“You have, gov’nor? – Yes so you have.”

“Take – take it, my boy.”

“But where did you get it, gov’nor?”

“Well – er – never mind that, Tom. I – er – I borrowed it; but I shall pay it again some day.”

“But, gov’nor – ”

“Take the money, Tom, my boy. You need not mind, and if I can get away to-night I should like to dine with you.”

“Then you shall, old fellow; I’ll manage that.”

“But her ladyship?”

“Leave it to me, gov’nor.”

“And about Charley Melton, Tom, my boy – is there any hope?”

“Not a bit, gov’nor. He’s a poor thing, and not worthy of her.”

“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” sighed Lord Barmouth. “But I’m afraid I couldn’t get away.”

“You leave it to me, and we’ll dine at nine, gov’nor. Don’t take anything at ours.”

“No, Tom, no.”

“Now go down.”

The old man finished his champagne, thinking of her ladyship’s word —then.

After that he went downstairs, and that night, as good as his word, Tom shuffled him out as soon as the ladies had left the dining-room.

It was easily done, and the door was just being quietly closed as they stood under the portico, when from just outside and beyond the pillar there came the sudden burst of music from an organ, as the man who had been playing changed the tune, and as the pair hurried away they brushed against the player, who stood by the area railings in his slouched hat and ragged attire.

“What the – ”

“Devil” his lordship was going to say, for something struck him on the top of his gibus hat.

“Copper,” said Tom, as the object fell with a pat on the pavement. “Come along.”

“Yes, halfpence,” whispered his lordship, nervously, as he tottered on; “but I do wish Maudey wouldn’t be so free with her money to those vagabonds. That scoundrel makes quite an income out of our house.”

“Never mind, gov’nor, it won’t last long. Poor girl, the game’s nearly up. Now for what the Yankees call a good square meal.”

“With a drop of port, Tom, my boy.”

“Yes; you shall have a whole bottle. Barker’s, Jermyn Street,” he cried to the cabman, who drew up; and then as the cab drove off – “There, gov’nor, we’ll forget home troubles for one night.”

“Yes, my boy, we will,” said the old man, eagerly.

“I do wish Tryphie wouldn’t be so hard again,” sighed Tom, “and just too when she was growing so soft. Sympathy for Maudey, I suppose.”

“What say, Tom, my boy?”

“Thinking aloud, gov’nor.”

“What about, Tom?”

“Charley Melton, gov’nor. He’s a regular flat.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Sad Proceedings

All the servants remarked that “the poor dear” from the very first bore up like a suffering martyr, and then discoursed upon the vanity of human hopes; and Mrs Downes, who was of a pious turn of mind, and went miles “per ’bus” on Sundays to be present at religious services in theatres, said that it was a “vale of tears,” and wiped one tear out of her eye, looked at it, wrapped it up very carefully in her handkerchief, and put it in her pocket, as if fully aware of the fact that it was a sympathetic pearl.

“They might well call it the last day,” sighed the same lady, for to her mind it was as if heaven and earth had come together.

“She is bête, this woman,” said Mademoiselle Justine, who had descended for hot water; and she stood and purred softly to herself, and looked so like a cat that she only needed to have squatted down upon a chair, and begun licking her trim dress, to have completed the likeness.

It was the last day of Maude’s girlhood; the next was to see her what the fashionable gossips would call a happy wife. The previous fortnight had been spent in a whirl of busy doings. Dressmakers had been to and fro, milliners consulted, Justine and Dolly had been kept up late at night to see to packing, and so anxious was her ladyship that her child should look her best that she insisted upon Maude visiting her dentist, and seeing Dr Todd again and again. Maude tried to expostulate, but her ladyship was inexorable, and spared herself no pains. The consumption of spirits of red lavender was startling, but she bore up wonderfully; went with that dear Sir Grantley to the coachmaker’s in Long Acre, and herself selected the new brougham that was one of the baronet’s wedding presents, and declared the horses which she twice over went into the stable to see were “loves.”

Then, too, she aided in the re-decorating of her daughter’s new home; in fact, spared herself in no way to bring about the happy event, while “that wretched Lord Barmouth prowled about the house doing nothing but thinking of gluttony.” In fact, she found him one day sitting behind the curtains in the drawing-room spreading potted tongue upon an Abernethy biscuit, with a pearl paper-knife, when he ought to have been helping her, for in these days his lordship’s wolf, which constantly bade him feed, was unusually active.

Perhaps it was a natural instinct similar to that which directs wild animals to seek certain places at times to lick salt. At all events, tongue had a wonderfully attractive effect upon Lord Barmouth: he would steal or buy tongue in any shape to eat surreptitiously, and evidently from a natural effort to provide homoeopathically against that from which he suffered so much.

Tom gave her ladyship a great deal of trouble by his opposition to the very last, but his efforts were in vain.

“I might perhaps have done more, Maude,” he said, “but, hang it all, what more can I do? A fellow can’t hardly say his soul’s his own in this house. I’ve tried all I can to get the governor to take the lead, but the old woman sits upon him so heavily that he hasn’t a chance.”

Maude only wept silently and laid her head upon his shoulder.

“There, there, little girl,” he said, “cheer up. It’s fashion, and you mustn’t mind. Old Wilters is very soft after all, and you must take a leaf out of the old girl’s book, and serve him out for it all. Hang me, if I were you, if I wouldn’t make him pay dearly for all this.”

“Hush, Tom, dear Tom. Pray, pray don’t talk about it. Tom, dear, when I am gone – ”

“There, I say, hang it all, don’t talk as if you were going to pop off.”

“Listen to me, Tom dear,” said Maude, firmly. “I say when I am gone, be as kind as you can to poor papa. I may not be able to speak to you again.”

“All right,” said Tom; “but I say, you will try and hold up.”

“Yes, Tom dear, yes.”

“That’s right, old girl, make the best of a bad bargain. You won’t be much worse off than Diana. Fashionable martyrs both of you.”

“Yes, Tom dear.”

“And you will try to be happy?”

“Yes, dear, I’m going to be happy. But you’ll think the best of me, dear, and take care of poor papa?”

“Of course I will. The old man will be better off when you are gone. Her majesty won’t be so stingy when she has got you both off her hands, and married to rich men.”

“No, dear. I will try and cheer up.”

“That’s right, old girl. I wish some one would make me happy.” This was accompanied by a look at Tryphie, who was in the room.

“I don’t see how you can expect any lady to make you happy, Tom,” said the little girl, sharply. “A gentleman who worships two idols, cigars and billiards, cannot have room for a third love.”

“There she goes,” said Tom, disconsolately. “Maude, I’ve told her I loved her a score of times, and she pooh-poohs me, and looks down upon me.”

“Of course,” said Tryphie, pertly. “Is it not settled that I am to be Mrs Captain Bellman?”

“Mrs Captain Bellman!” cried Tom, savagely. “Look here, Tryphie, I thought we had settled him, and now you bring him up again like an evil spirit in a play. I tell you what it is, if somebody does not shoot that great moustached scoundrel, I will.”

“What, such a handsome, gentlemanly man?” said Tryphie, sarcastically.

“Handsome? Gentlemanly? The narrow-minded scoundrel! Look here, Tryphie, a man may do worse things than smoke cigars and play billiards. Damme, I can say I never caused a woman the heartache, or deceived my friend.”

“Are you sure, Tom?” said Tryphie, looking up at him with a melancholy droll expression upon her countenance.

“Tryphie!” he cried, running to her, and catching her hand.

“Get along, you silly boy,” she cried, laughing; and he turned away with a look of annoyance, but Maude caught his arm.

“Tom, dear,” she said, laying her head upon his shoulder, “come what may, you will always think kindly of me.”

“Why of course, my dear,” he said, “always. I shall think of you as the dearest and best of sisters, who always stuck up for me, and kept herself poor by lending me – no, hang it, I won’t be a humbug – giving me nearly all her allowance. Maude, old girl: I’m afraid we young fellows are terribly selfish beasts. Look here,” he cried, excitedly, to hide the tears that would come into his eyes, “I tell you what; I can get half a dozen fellows together who’ll help me burke old Wilters if you’ll say the word.”

“Don’t be foolish, Tom dear,” sighed Maude. “I must go now to papa. I want to stay with him all day. Thank you, dear Tom; be kind to him when I’m gone.”

“That I will, dear,” he said; and, embracing him fondly, Maude hurried away out of the room.

“Tom,” said Tryphie, coming behind him as he stood, rather moist of eye, gazing after her.

“Tryphie,” he cried excitedly, facing round, “I feel such a scoundrel; and as if I ought to put a stop to this cursed marriage. Here’s a set out: she detests him, that’s evident; and if Charley Melton had been a trump, hang me if he shouldn’t have had her. Curse it all! her ladyship’s too bad. There, I can’t stand it, and must be off. This place chokes me – What were you going to say!”

“I was only going to say, Tom,” she said, softly, “that I’m very sorry I’ve behaved so unkindly to you sometimes, and snubbed you, and been so spiteful.”

“Don’t say any more about it, Tryphie,” said the little fellow, sadly. “I’d forgive you a hundred times as much for being so good to the old man. Good-bye, Tryphie, I’m off.”

“But you’ll come back for the wedding, Tom!”

“I’ll be there, somethinged if I do,” he said.

“What! See a second sister sold by auction? – Knocked down by my lady to the highest bidder? No, that I won’t. I can’t, I tell you. Hang it all, Tryphie, you chaff me till I feel sore right through sometimes. I’m a little humbug of a fellow, but I’ve got some feeling.”

“Yes, Tom,” said Tryphie, looking at him strangely, though he did not see it. “But I was going to say something else to you.”

“Well, look sharp then,” he said. “What is it!”

“Only, Tom, that I don’t think I ever quite knew you before; and you have pleased me so by what you said to poor Maude.”

“Tryphie!” he cried, with his eyes sparkling.

“Yes, Tom, dear,” she said, looking up in his face. “Don’t let aunt marry me to any one.”

“If I do!” he cried, clasping her in his arms, and her pretty little rosebud of a mouth was turned up to his for the kiss that was placed there, just as the drawing-room door opened, and her ladyship sailed in to stand as if petrified.

“Lord Diphoos! Tryphie!” she cried in a deep contralto. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing,” said Tom. “It’s done this way,” and he imprinted half a dozen more kisses upon Tryphie’s frightened little face before she struggled from him, and ran out by another door.

“Have the goodness, sir, to ring that bell,” said her ladyship, laying her hand upon her side, and tottering to an easy-chair. “I cannot talk to you about your conduct now – your wickedness – your riot and debauchery – my mind is too full of what is about to take place; but as you are going away to-day, I must tell you that you can return here no more until Tryphie is married. I will not have her head filled full of wicked nonsense by so unprincipled a young man.”

“Yes, I am a very bad one, mother,” said Tom, quietly; “but don’t make yourself uncomfortable. I am not going away.”

“Not going away?” shrieked her ladyship. “Ah, who is that?” she continued, without turning her head.

“Robbins, my lady.”

“Oh, Robbins, send Justine to me.”

“Yes, my lady,” said the butler, retiring.

“I’m going to stop and see Maude turned off, if old Wilters don’t have a paralytic stroke on his way to church.”

“Tom!”

“Well, it’s likely enough. He’s only about forty, but he has lived twice as fast as most fellows ever since he was fifteen, so that he’s quite sixty-five.”

“I will not listen to your insults, sir. As your mother, I should at least be spared.”

“Oh, ah, of course,” said Tom, “duty to grey hairs and that sort of thing – Beg pardon though; I see they are not grey. I’m going to stop it all out now, and I shan’t go – and what’s more, mamma,” he cried, nursing one of his little patent leather shoes as he lolled back, “if you are cantankerous, hang me if I don’t contrive that the governor has the full run of the wine at the wedding breakfast, there.”

“If you dare, Tom!” cried her ladyship. “Oh, Justine, my drops.”

“Yes, milady,” said that damsel. “Ah! bold, bad lil man,” she added to herself, as she glanced at Tom, who very rudely winked at her when she closed the door after Lord Barmouth, who crept in and went timidly to an easy-chair.

“Your drops!” said Tom. “Ha – ha – ha! why don’t you take a liqueur of brandy like a woman, and not drink that stuff.”

“Tom,” said her ladyship, “you are too coarse. You will break my heart before you have done. Only to think of your conduct,” she cried, glancing at the chair in the farther room, where Lord Barmouth lay apparently asleep, as being his safest course when there was trouble on the way, “that too of your dozy, dilatory father, when one of you might make a position in Parliament, the other a most brilliant match.”

“Why, you don’t want the old man to take another wife, do you?” said Tom. “I say, dad! Here, I say: wake up.”

“Silence, sir, how dare you!” exclaimed his mother. “You wicked, offensive boy. I was, for your benefit, trying to point out to you how you might gain for yourself a first-rate establishment, when you interrupted me with your ribald jests.”

“Hang the establishment!” said Tom; “any one would think you were always getting your children into trade. I shall marry little Tryphie, if she’ll have me. I’m not going to marry for money. Pretty sort of a fellow I look for making a brilliant match, don’t I?”

“Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom,” said her ladyship, bursting into tears, “you will break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Not I,” said Tom, cynically; “it’s not one of the heart-breaking sort. But I say, you’ve made Diana miserable, and Maude half crazy, and now I hope you are happy. Tell you what, I shouldn’t be at all surprised now if it’s through you that Charley Melton is going to the bad. If so, you’ve done it and no mistake.”

“I am surprised that your father allows you to talk to me like this,” said her ladyship. “I never knew a son so wanting in respect.”

“Dad’s asleep; don’t wake him,” said Tom; “the old man’s about tired out.”

A snore from the easy-chair endorsed Tom’s words, and he sat smiling at his mother, knowing from old experience that she would not go away till he had done criticising her conduct in his rough and ready style.

“I shudder when I think of poor Maude’s escape,” said her ladyship. “Nothing could be more disgraceful than that young man’s conduct. He sees at last though that he cannot marry Maude, and that it would be little short of a crime, so he – ”

“Stands out of it,” said Tom. “Hang me if I would, if any one was to try to cut in after Tryphie.”

“Once for all, Tom,” said her ladyship, “I desire that you cease that nonsensical talk about your cousin. Tryphie will marry when I select a husband for her.”

“Oh, of course!” said Tom; “but look here – two can play at that game.”

“Will you have the goodness to explain what you mean, sir?”

“Yes,” said Tom, taking out and counting his money. “Let me see, – about two pounds ten, I should say. I dare say old Wilters would lend me a fiver, if I asked him.”

“Tom,” cried her ladyship, excitedly, “if you dared to do such a thing I should never survive the disgrace. For my sake don’t ask him – at all events not yet. There, there,” she cried hastily, “there’s a five-pound note. Now, my dear boy, for your mother’s and sister’s sake, do not do anything foolish for twenty-four hours. Only twenty-four hours, I implore you.”

“Thankye,” said Tom, taking the note and crumpling it up, as he stuffed it into his trousers pocket. “All right, then: I’ll wait twenty-four hours.”

“What – what do you want the money for?” said her ladyship, adopting now the tremolo stop to play her son, as the furioso had proved so futile.

“I’m going to buy a revolver,” said Tom, kicking up one leg as if he were dancing a child upon it.

“A revolver, Tom? You are not going to do anything rash – anything foolish?”

“What! Operate on myself? Not such a fool. I’d sweep a crossing to live, not blow my brains out if I were what people call ruined. I’m philosopher enough, mother, to know the value of life. Do you wish to know what I want that revolver for?”

“Yes,” said her ladyship, faintly; “but pray mind that your poor papa does not get hold of it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tom. “Well, mother, I’m going to stick up a lot of playing cards in my bedroom, and practice at the spots till I’m a dead shot.”

“Great Heavens, Tom! what for?”

“So as to be able to make it warm for the man who comes after Tryphie. Ah, Justine, got the drops? Why, you grow handsomer than ever.”

“Go, impudent little man,” said Justine, shaking her head at him, and then running to her ladyship, who was lying back with closed eyes. “Ah, poor, dear milady, you are ill.”

“My drops, Justine, my drops,” sighed her ladyship. “Ah, Justine, what comfort you are to me in my sorrows. My good Justine, never pray to be a mother;” and she showed her best teeth in a pensive smile of sadness by way of recompense for the attention.

“Ma foi! no, milady, I never will,” said Justine, turning very French for the moment, and her ladyship’s drops produced more tears.

Tom “made a face” at the maid while her ladyship’s eyes were buried in her scented handkerchief, and Justine gave him a Parisian smile as he rose, winked once more, and left the room.

Then Lady Barmouth took up her lament once more.

“Ah! Justine, when the gangrene of the wounds in my poor heart has been cicatrised over, I may perhaps breathe forgiveness into the ears of my children; but now – oh now – ”

“Ah, poor milady! what you do suffer,” said the sympathising Justine; “you make me so much to think of that poor Job, only he was a great lord and not a lady, and you have not the boil.”

“My poor Justine,” sighed her ladyship, as she smiled patronisingly at the innocence of her handmaiden, “there are moral and social boils as well as those external, and when I sit here alone, forsaken by my children – by my husband – by all who should be dear, left alone to the tender sympathies of an alien who is all probity and truth – ”

“Yes, poor milady, I suffer for you,” said Justine.

“Thanks, good Justine, you faithful creature,” said her ladyship, sighing; “I could not exist if it were not for you.”

And Justine said to herself maliciously, “I am what that wicked young man calls a hom-bogues.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

Lady Maude goes Mad

Meanwhile Maude had sought Lord Barmouth, whom she surprised in a corner of the library, feeding his wolf and studying the wing of a chicken, which he was picking with great gusto. He did not hear her entry, and he was talking to himself as he lifted up and smelt his pocket-handkerchief.

“Yes,” he muttered; “damme, that’s what it is. I could not make out what made the chicken taste so queer. He – he – he! it’s eau de Cologne. He – he – he —Poulet à la Jean Marie Farina. Damme, that’ll be a good thing to say at the next dinner-party, or to-morrow morning. No,” he said sadly, “not then. Oh, dear, it’s very hard to see them taken away from me like this, and I must get my strength up a bit. Who’s that?”

“It is only I, papa,” said Maude, seating herself on the hearthrug by his side, as the old man hastily popped the chicken bone out of sight.

“I’m glad to see you, my dear, glad to see you,” said Lord Barmouth, patting her soft glossy head. “Maude, my pet, I can hardly believe that you are going away from me to-morrow.”

“Pray, pray don’t talk of it, dear papa,” she faltered. “I’ve come to stay with you and talk to you; and you must tell me what to do, papa.”

“Yes, yes, yes, my dear,” he said, “I will; and you must be strong, and brave, and courageous, and not break down. Her ladyship would be so upset, you see. Maudey, my darling, matrimony’s a very different sort of thing to what we used to be taught, and read of in books. It isn’t sentimental at all, my dear, it’s real – all real – doosed real. There’s a deal of trouble in this world, my darling, especially gout, which you women escape. It’s very bad, my dear, very bad indeed, sometimes.”

Maude’s forehead wrinkled as she gazed piteously at her father, for her heart was full to overflowing, and she longed to confide in him, to lay bare the secrets of her laden breast; but his feeble ways – his wanderings – chilled the current that was beating at the flood-gates, and they remained closed.

“What can I do – what can I do?” she moaned to herself, and laying her head upon the old man’s knee, she drew his arm round her neck, and wept silently as he chatted on.

“I – I – I remember, my dear, when Lady Susan Spofforth was married, she was the thinnest girl I ever saw, and they said she hated the match – it was Lord Barleywood she married – Buck Wood we used to call him at the club. Well, next time I saw her, about three years after, I hardly knew her, she had grown so plump and round. It’s – it’s – it’s an astonishing thing, Maudey, how plump some women do get after marriage. Look at her ladyship. Doosed fine woman. Don’t look her age. Very curious, damme, yes, it is curious, I’ve never got fat since I was married. Do you know, Maudey, I think I’m thinner than I used to be.”