SCENE XIII
THE MARCHIONESS AT BAY
“HAS anything happened?”
“The worst has happened.”
It was the morning after the concert, and the sedulous Despencer had called upon his exacting patroness, as in duty bound. The marchioness had only just descended; she had made a hurried toilette, and in consequence the pearl powder was not quite so delicately shaded off round her neck as usual, and her waist was at least half an inch wider than its wont.
Such touching traces of maternal anxiety were not lost on the observant Despencer. There is no eye like that of love.
“Why, what is it? You alarm me,” he said, lazily sinking into a chair in front of the marchioness. They were in her boudoir, an apartment which ladies reserve for the reception of gentlemen who do not happen to be married to them. The Marquis of Severn had not been in his wife’s boudoir for ten years.
“That man Hammond has had the audacity to send a note to Victoria this morning asking her to release him from their engagement,” the marchioness announced.
“Why on earth has he done that?”
“He says he finds he has mistaken the nature of his feelings for her,” said the marchioness, with fine scorn.
“What a ridiculous idea! As if his feelings had anything to do with it! The man must be a scoundrel.”
“He is worse,” said the marchioness with conviction; “he is a fool. Oh, if I had only sent the announcement to the papers last night; then they could neither of them have backed out of it.”
“What does Lady Victoria say?” inquired her friend, cautiously.
“She pretends to be perfectly indifferent. She treats the affair as if it were more my concern than hers. That is what is so hard. If she only took a proper interest in her own position, I should not be afraid; but when I have to deal with a man who says he doesn’t want to marry my daughter, and a daughter who says she doesn’t want to marry him, what am I, as a mother, to do?”
She gazed plaintively at Despencer, who considerately shook his head.
“It is a difficult position, certainly, but I don’t despair,” he remarked, encouragingly. “I have the very greatest confidence in you, marchioness. I shall be quite interested to see how you get on.”
“Don’t be so heartless and unfeeling! I consider this is as much your business as mine. You helped to bring about the engagement, and now you ought to support me in holding this man to his word.”
“Well, if you are going to bring an action, I shall be delighted to give evidence, but I don’t see what else I can do.” He paused a moment, and then asked, in a different tone: “Have you any idea of the cause of this sudden change? I thought everything was going so smoothly last night.”
The marchioness gave an emphatic nod.
“That is just what I want to know. I suspect that it has something to do with that scene in the picture-gallery, and I am determined to get at the truth about it.”
“Really!” Despencer regarded her with an amused smile. “Do you know, I quite envy you. You are so energetic, and so hopeful.”
“You mean by that, I suppose, that you don’t think I shall succeed?”
He shrugged his shoulders with bland deprecation.
“Well, I can only say that in the course of my experience I have several times tried to get at the truth where a man and a woman were concerned, and I never succeeded. You may be more fortunate.”
The marchioness darted a suspicious look at him.
“One thing I mean to know anyway, and that is, who were behind that curtain.”
Despencer stole a glance at her sideways.
“There I think you are unwise. It is always so much better not to know who are behind the curtain.”
The marchioness sat up and frowned in earnest.
“That shows that you think it was my husband and Belle Yorke. Mr. Despencer, I can see that there is some connection between those two, and that you know all about it.”
Despencer smiled pleasantly, with the satisfaction of a general who sees the enemy march straight into the ambush he has prepared. He could even afford to play with his victim.
“Oh, my dear marchioness, what do you take me for?” he returned, with an insincerity not intended to deceive. “Am I a necromancer? Am I the author of ‘Who’s Who’?”
But, much to his inward disappointment, he was saved from further questioning by the entrance at this juncture of the marchioness’s nephew, to whom she had sent an urgent summons before Despencer’s arrival.
Captain Mauleverer came in looking very guilty and ashamed, though he made a poor bravado of ignorance.
“Yes, aunt, what is it?” he inquired, scarcely troubling to acknowledge Despencer’s presence by a nod.
“Sit down, please,” ordered the marchioness. “I want you to tell me exactly what passed in the picture-gallery last night before I came in.”
Gerald sat down with ill-concealed reluctance.
“I am afraid there is nothing I can tell you,” he stammered.
“Oh, yes, there is,” his aunt retorted. “What were you and Mr. Hammond doing there?”
“I am not aware that we were doing anything,” was the sullen answer. “We met there by accident, and we fell into conversation.”
“What was the conversation about?” pursued the relentless examiner.
“I’m afraid I can’t even tell you that.”
“Do you know that Mr. Hammond is engaged to your cousin Victoria?”
“I gathered something of the kind from what he said.”
The marchioness pounced on the admission.
“So much the better. You hear that, Mr. Despencer?”
“Certainly. Most damaging evidence. He can’t possibly get out of that,” murmured the faithful one.
“My dear aunt!” exclaimed the startled captain, “surely you don’t anticipate any trouble with Hammond, do you?”
“Never mind. You say that he has made the engagement a subject of conversation among his friends, and that is sufficient to bind him as an honorable man.”
“But, good heavens! I didn’t say that,” protested her unfortunate nephew.
The marchioness turned coldly to her ally.
“Mr. Despencer, you heard?”
“Most distinctly,” said the witness. “Nothing could be clearer.”
The captain became desperate. He tried to explain:
“No—but really, it was from Victoria that I heard of it first, only she didn’t mention Hammond’s name.”
The marchioness smiled cruelly.
“Very good. Then I shall be able to tell him that she has also announced the engagement among her friends.” She turned to Despencer. “What do you say to that?”
“It is absolutely conclusive. It doesn’t leave him a single loop-hole.”
The miserable captain writhed helplessly, like a victim in the hands of the Holy Office, finding every answer twisted into a fresh heresy.
“Look here, do you mean to say that there is a chance of his breaking it off?” he asked the marchioness.
“Not the very slightest,” was the grim response; “but he may try to.” All at once her manner became coaxing. “Now, I trust to you, Gerald, as a gentleman, not to stand in your cousin’s way. You can’t marry her yourself, as you know perfectly well, and therefore you ought not to prevent her making a good match.”
“I am not likely to,” he answered, gloomily. “As long as Vick and Hammond are engaged, I am out of it altogether.”
The marchioness looked extremely relieved.
“That is right,” she said, approvingly. “I knew I could rely on your good feelings not to let two millions go out of the family. But now, are you quite sure, Gerald, that you said nothing to Mr. Hammond last night that might have led him to suspect that there was something between you and Victoria?”
Gerald, conscious of having assured Hammond with considerable earnestness that Victoria loved himself, turned red as he stammered:
“Oh—er—well—I don’t know; the fact is, you see, I didn’t understand—”
His aunt came to his relief.
“Exactly. I thought as much. Now, Gerald, I shall be seeing Mr. Hammond this morning, and I leave it to your sense of honor to go and speak to him and put things right first. You understand me?”
The wretched Mauleverer rose to go out. On his way to the door he caught Despencer’s mocking smile, and longed to kick him. As soon as he was gone, the other, unconscious of the peril he had run, uttered the words:
“Marchioness, you are a great woman!”