The Slaves of Society: A Comedy in Covers by Allen Upward - HTML preview

SCENE XV
 A MISFORTUNE FOR SOCIETY

HAMMOND was not left to himself for very long. The marchioness waited to give her nephew time to clear the way, and then took the field in person.

When he heard her name, a sardonic smile crossed Hammond’s lips. He stood up to receive her, a very different man to the one whom Belle Yorke’s brother had encountered.

The marchioness walked in with an angry gleam in her eyes. Hammond at once proceeded to draw first blood.

“Show Mr. Despencer in!” he called out to the footman, looking out through the door as if in the expectation of seeing that gentleman outside.

“Mr. Despencer is not with me, Mr. Hammond,” said the marchioness shortly, biting her lips.

Mr. Hammond affected to be surprised.

“I apologize!” he exclaimed, as the footman withdrew. “But this is very good of you, marchioness. Where will you sit?”

The marchioness planted herself in an arm-chair.

“I suppose you know, Mr. Hammond, why I have called?”

Hammond seated himself comfortably in another easy-chair opposite, and crossed his legs.

“No, unless it’s about that unfortunate affair last evening.”

“Mr. Hammond!” The marchioness darted a glance of withering rebuke at the recalcitrant suitor. “Is that the way in which you refer to the fact that you are engaged to my daughter Victoria?”

“Was engaged, excuse me, marchioness,” he corrected, with easy good-nature. “Didn’t you know that I had written to Lady Victoria to beg off?”

“It is in consequence of your extraordinary letter that I have come here,” said the marchioness, scowling. “I trust you will have the good sense and right feeling to withdraw it before my daughter is compelled to give it any reply.”

“I am afraid I can’t oblige you.”

The answer was given quietly enough, but the marchioness looked in his face and saw something there which she did not like.

“Have you considered the effect of such a step as this on my daughter’s reputation?” she demanded, with dignity.

“I don’t see that it need go beyond ourselves,” Hammond replied. “Nobody else knows of it but Mr. Despencer, and your influence with him—”

The marchioness interrupted, breathing angrily:

“You are utterly wrong there. The engagement is public property. I understand you yourself have freely mentioned it to your friends.”

“I? Never!”

He stared at her in amazement.

“Pardon me, I have proof of what I say,” she affirmed. “And Victoria has done the same. She has mentioned it to her friends.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

The marchioness began to hope.

“You must see that, under the circumstances, you have no alternative, as a gentleman, but to withdraw your letter.”

“I am afraid I don’t see it. I would much rather leave myself in Lady Victoria’s hands.”

“Have you no regard for her feelings, pray?”

“Every regard. If she tells me that she still wishes to marry me, I shall keep my word.”

“You have no right whatever to throw the decision on her. Have you no consideration for her parents?”

Hammond’s lip curled.

“I’m afraid I haven’t.”

The marchioness glared at him.

“Mr. Hammond, are you a gentleman?”

“Well, it is rather a question, isn’t it?” he responded, with a cheerful smile which drove her frantic.

“Do you know that our family is one of the oldest in Great Britain?” she demanded, after a moment’s pause.

“Precisely. And mine is one of the newest. It would really have been a mésalliance, my dear marchioness.”

The marchioness could hardly believe her ears.

“Have you no regard for descent?” she gasped. “My daughter has royal blood in her veins, Mr. Hammond.”

“Ah! there you have me at a disadvantage,” he returned. “All my female ancestors were respectable married women.”

The marchioness turned crimson. It was well known that the royal blood in the house of Mauleverer had entered it by irregular channels.

“I am not accustomed to this kind of language,” she proclaimed, rising. “I shall request the marquis to call on you.”

“That will suit me a great deal better. I shall be able to talk to the marquis,” was the grim answer.

The marchioness swept towards the door.

“I see I have made a mistake in coming here. I begin to ask myself whether you were really aware of what you were doing yesterday.”

Hammond smiled pleasantly.

“Ah, now, that sounds like rather a good explanation. I can say I was intoxicated, can’t I?”

“Well—”

The marchioness broke off short, her eyes fixed in stony horror on the doorway.

“Lady Victoria Mauleverer and Mr. Despencer!”

Victoria had been still considering how to deal with the letter she had received from Mr. Hammond, when the treacherous Despencer had come and informed her that her mother was on the way to her lover’s house to bring him to book. Her mind was instantly made up. She put on a hat, impressed Despencer into the service, ordered a hansom, and drove off on the track of her parent.

The two newcomers were in the room, and the door had closed on the departing footman, before the marchioness recovered herself.

“Victoria, you will oblige me by leaving this house immediately. I order it.”

Victoria laughed negligently.

“How absurd you are this morning, mother! You keep forgetting that I am over twenty-one,” she remarked. Then, crossing over to Hammond, she held out her hand with frank good-will. “Good-morning, Mr. Hammond!”

The sight of her daughter calmly shaking hands with the man who had jilted her, as if nothing had happened, nearly turned her mother’s hair gray. Fortunately it was from the best maker, and could not turn gray.

“Victoria,” she said, in a suffocated voice, “if you have no respect for yourself, perhaps you will have some respect for me! Mr. Hammond has grossly insulted me. Mr. Despencer, will you be good enough to take me to my carriage?”

“No, he can’t do that yet,” interposed Victoria. “I brought him here as my chaperon, and I haven’t done with him.”

Despencer glanced from the daughter to the mother. The contest was between fear and love.

“I apologize for being so badly constructed,” he murmured, “but I don’t take in halves. Will it do if I give somebody my visiting-card?”

“I shall not go till you do, Victoria. I decline to leave you alone with Mr. Hammond again,” the marchioness said, spitefully.

“Please don’t be impressive,” was Victoria’s unkind reply. Then, turning to Hammond and speaking rapidly, she went on: “I got that amusing note of yours. I came round to tell you that of course I quite understood that it was all a joke last night. We ought not to have said anything to my mother, because she is so easily taken in, and she believed we were quite serious. But I enjoyed the fun myself very much, and I mean to make Gerald awfully jealous about you when we are married.”

The marchioness blinked her eyes as though a sword had flashed before them, as she saw herself thus shamefully discarded and her last hope gone by the board. As for Despencer, he regarded Victoria with the admiring glance of an artist for a brilliant piece of work, in a kind which he understands.

Hammond bowed gratefully.

“Lady Victoria, you can do anything you like with Mauleverer and me except make us quarrel.”

The marchioness came to herself.

“What do you mean by talking about marrying Gerald?” she demanded.

“My dear mother, I suppose we must marry some time. We have been engaged long enough.”

“Engaged!” the poor marchioness could only ejaculate.

“Well, I thought everybody in London knew that,” said Victoria, calmly. “I am sure Mr. Hammond did.”

“Excellent!” Despencer murmured to himself. “She has come off with flying colors.”

“Engaged to a pauper!” the marchioness exclaimed, tragically. “And, pray, what do you propose to live on?”

“Oh, that is quite settled,” her daughter answered. “I have arranged to open a milliner’s shop in Piccadilly.”

“I thought everybody in London knew that,” remarked Despencer heartlessly.

It was the stab of Brutus. The marchioness turned a look on the traitor that should have rooted him to the floor.

“Mis-ter De-spencer!”

“Yes, marchioness?”

There had been a sound of wheels below. A carriage had driven up to the door. Captain Mauleverer had not been idle during the hour which had elapsed since his departure. Footsteps ascended the staircase; the door leading into an adjoining room was opened and shut. Then—

“The Marquis of Severn!”

As the marquis entered the room which his wife and daughter were in already, Hammond took a step forward, looking very pale and determined. Lady Victoria drew quietly towards a window, followed by Despencer. The marchioness, standing in the centre of the room, addressed her husband:

“George! Do you know what has happened?”

The marquis, after his first momentary surprise at finding them there, had taken no notice of any one but Hammond, on whom his eyes were fixed with an expression of mingled reproach and excuse. The excuse Hammond thought he understood, but the reproach puzzled him.

“I know too much,” the marquis began. “Hammond, I have something to say to you.”

“Hadn’t we better wait till we are by ourselves?” said Hammond, with a significant look. “I have something to say to you as well.”

The marquis glanced round, first at his wife and then at Despencer.

“No, I cannot have too many listeners, for I have to crush a slander and to make a reparation.” He stepped to the door and opened it. “Come in, Gerald!”

Captain Mauleverer came in, but not alone. Clinging to his arm, with downcast head, as if she almost feared to see her lover’s remorse, came Belle.

“Great God!” As the oath burst from him all the blood in his veins surged up to Hammond’s heart, and ebbed away again, leaving him white and faint. It needed not for Belle’s father to speak, the mere sight of her convicted him.

The marquis spoke, drawing Belle to him, and facing each of his listeners in turn with a brave dignity.

“I have just learned, within the last hour, that this young lady has been made the victim of one of the blackest falsehoods ever uttered, a falsehood in which my name is connected with hers. It is true that she and I are connected. We have been connected for nearly twenty years, and all that time I have endeavored, rightly or wrongly, to keep the fact of our connection a secret from the world. How that secret has been penetrated I do not know; but now that I do know the damnable interpretation which has been placed upon my conduct, I am determined to proclaim the truth to the whole world. I cannot atone for the injury I have done her in the past, but I will at least do my best to guard her in the present. Hammond, this is my daughter.”

A profound silence succeeded. The marchioness was frightened. Despencer was conscious of a faint emotion to which he had long been a stranger, and which he supposed to be honest shame. Hammond was too much moved to speak. Victoria hesitated only for an instant, then she went up to Belle impulsively and kissed her on the cheek.

“Lord Severn,” said Hammond, slowly, as soon as he could master himself, “you have done me the greatest service one man can do to another, and you have crushed me.”

“George!” ventured the marchioness.

Her husband frowned.

“Go home, Jane!” he said, curtly.

And that great woman walked out of the room as crestfallen as a small urchin that has been caught doing mischief and spanked.

Despencer followed of his own accord, without doing more than whisper to Hammond as he passed:

“I never apologize, and I never commit suicide, but I mean to be very firm with that marchioness.”

Victoria took her cousin’s arm.

“And I couldn’t think why Mr. Hammond jilted me this morning,” she laughed.

“I can’t think why he ever proposed to you,” retorted Gerald, smartly.

And they, too, went out.

The marquis stood silent for a minute, his daughter leaning on his arm. She had not yet dared to look up at Hammond.

“Is there anything else that you would like to say?”

Hammond started at the question. The color began slowly to return to his face.

“I should like you to beg your daughter to forgive me—if she ever can.”

The marquis looked down at Belle and gently patted the head that rested on his arm.

“What do you say?” he asked her.

The eyes remained downcast. The answer came, very soft and low:

“Tell him that it wasn’t his fault, and, if it was, I had forgiven him already.”

Her father looked back again at Hammond.

“Anything else?”

Hammond began to tremble. There was color enough, and to spare, in his face now.

“Yesterday evening your daughter told me that she did not love me. I should like you to ask her if there is any hope that she will ever change her mind.”

“Well, my dear?”

It was Belle’s turn to tremble.

“Tell him—tell him that I shall never change my mind. But”—she raised her eyes at last, with that look which only comes into a woman’s eyes once in her life, and which only one man sees there—“but—that I don’t always speak the truth.”

The Marquis of Severn went out quietly, leaving them together.

THE END