“Maude,” said Charley Melton at last, “if you were put to the test, should you give up any one you loved, and accept a comparative stranger because he could do as that man has done – load you with diamonds?”
She turned her eyes to his with a reproachful look, and the colour suffused her face.
“No one can hear what I say,” he whispered, with his eyes fixed upon his plate. “But listen to me. I feel that it is almost madness, but I love you very, very dearly. You know it – you must know it. Ever since we met, six months since, you have been my sole thought. I ought not to speak, but I cannot keep it back waiting for an opportunity that may never come. And if some day I awoke to the fact that I had made no declaration and another had carried you off, I believe I should go mad. Give me one word of hope. I am very poor – terribly poor, but times may change, and money does not provide all the happiness of life. – Not one word? Have I been deceived? Was I mad to think that you met me these many times with pleasure? Give me one word – one look.”
“I mustn’t,” said Lady Maude, colouring. “Mamma is giving you one.”
Charley Melton gave an unintentional kick under the table, touching his opposite neighbour so hard that he turned reproachfully to the gentleman at his side.
“Oh, Lady Maude!” groaned Charley in tragic tones.
There was a hearty laugh here at some sally made by the doctor, and Maude whispered back in a husky voice —
“I dare not look at you;” and he saw that the colour was mounting to her temples.
“One word then,” he whispered, as the conversation waxed louder, but there was no reply.
“Maude,” he said, in a low deep voice, “I will not believe you to be cold – heartless.”
“Oh no,” she sighed.
“Then give me one word to tell me that I may hope.”
Still no reply, as the lady sat playing with the viands upon her plate; then her face turned slightly towards him; her long lashes lifted softly, her eyes rested for a moment upon his, and he drew a long breath of relief, turning composed and quiet the next moment as he leaned towards her, saying —
“I never felt what it was to be truly happy until now.”
“Nonsense?” said the doctor loudly, after just finishing a very medical story – one he always told after his third glass of champagne, “I can assure you it is perfectly true. Good – isn’t it? She really did elope with her music-master. Fact, – twins.”
Several ladies looked shocked, for Lady Rigby, the stout mamma, an old patient, had laughed loudly, and then wiped her mouth with her lace handkerchief as if to take off the smile of which she felt rather ashamed, for her countenance afterwards looked preternaturally solemn.
The earl had escaped the usual supervision, and he also had partaken of a glass of champagne or two – or three – and he thoroughly enjoyed the doctors story.
“It puts me in mind of one,” he said, with a chuckle. “You know it, doctor. If the ladies will excuse its being a little indelicate. Quite medical though, quite.”
“I am quite sure that Lord Barmouth would not say anything shocking,” said the stout mamma, and she began to utter little dry coughs, suggestive of mittens, and muffins, and tea.
“Of course not – of course not, I – I – I wouldn’t say it – say it on any consideration,” said his lordship, chuckling. “It – it – was about a friend of mine who built a house by Primrose Hill, he – he – he! It’s quite a medical story, doctor, over the railway, you know.”
“The old girl will be down upon him directly,” thought Tom.
“Capital story,” said the doctor, laughing, and glancing sidewise at her ladyship. “There’ll be an eruption directly,” he added to himself.
“He – he – he!” laughed his lordship; “her ladyship never lets me tell this story, does she, my dears?” he continued, smiling at his daughters, “but I assure you, ladies, it’s very innocent. I used to go and see him when he had furnished the place, over the railway, and every now and then there used to be quite a rumble and quiver when the trains went through the tunnel! Why, I said to him, one day – ‘Why, my dear fellow, I – I – I’ eh? – eh? – eh? Bless my heart what was it I said to him, Tom?”
“Pain, father,” said Diphoos, grinning, for he had noticed the look of relief that appeared upon the ladies’ faces when the hope came that the dreadful old gentleman had forgotten the story. There would not have been much Tom left if their looks had been lightning, for his words set the old gentleman off again.
“Yes, to be sure: I said to him, ‘My dear fellow’ – just after one of these rumbling noises made by the train in the tunnel – ‘my dear boy, you must call in the doctor, or lay down some more good port wine.’ – ‘Why?’ he said. – ‘Because,’ I replied, ‘your house always sounds to me as if it had got a pain in its cellar!’ Eh! He – he! devilish good that, wasn’t it?”
No one enjoyed that feeble joke as well as the narrator who used to recollect it about once a year, and try to fire it off; but unless his son was there to prompt him, it rarely made more than a flash in the pan.
It was observable that the conversation became very loud just then, and Charley Melton seized the opportunity to whisper a few words to Lady Maude – words which deepened the colour on her cheeks.
They were interrupted by the clapping of hands, for just then the host rose, and Tom stole gently behind him, taking the seat he had vacated, and preparing himself for the break down he anticipated.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said his lordship, gazing meekly round like a very old Welsh mutton, “I – I – I, believe me, never rose upon such an occasion as this, and – er – and – er.”
He gazed piteously at her ladyship at the other end of the table, and at whose instigation, a message having been sent by Robbins the butler, he had risen.
“I say I have never before risen upon such an occasion as this, but I hope that my darling child who is about to – to – to – to – eh, what did you say, Tom my boy.”
“Hang it, go on, governor. Quit your roof – paternal roof,” whispered Tom.
“Quit your paternal roof, will shine – yes, shine in her new sphere as an ornament to society, as her mother has been before her. A woman all love, all gentleness, and sweetness of disposition.”
“Oh, hang it governor; draw it mild,” whispered Tom.
“Yes, mild,” said his lordship, “mild to a fault. Eh? bless me, what is the matter?”
It was a favourable opportunity for a display of emotion, and her ladyship displayed it beautifully for the assembled company to study and take a lesson in maternal and wifely tenderness. Her beloved child was being handed over to the tender mercies of a man – was about to leave her home – about to be torn away.
Her ladyship burst into an agony of tears – of wild sobbing – for she was a model of all the virtues; but when virtues were made, nature selected another pattern and this one was cast aside.
A sympathetic coo ran round the table, tears were shed, and Tom winked at Charley Melton, who kept his countenance.
Then her ladyship declared that it was “so foolish,” and that she was “quite well now”; and other speeches good and bad were made. And at last the bridegroom’s carriage was at the door; the bride was handed in; there was the usual cheering; white satin slippers and showers of rice were thrown, and the carriage rolled away. For Lady Barmouth had achieved one of the objects of her life – a brilliant match for her elder daughter – leaving her free to execute her plans for Maude.
All