The love child, p.2
The Love Child, page 2
The reader has been led to suppose that she left behind her, as she went, but a single lady. To perpetuate such an illusion would be to do a grave injustice to Miss Lotta Chilton, a person of seven-and-twenty years who—for all she had been silent this past hour—was yet very much present in the Rose Saloon. She sat in a deep window-seat at the foot of a long, elaborately paned window in the northern wall of the apartment; in one hand she held a slender needle—in the other, a piece of filagree half-completed. By her side on the wooden seat was an ivory case, from which she drew from time to time a tiny silver bead; this she threaded through with her needle, and so worked continually, serenely, at the unfinished piece. Her dark hair, smoothly combed and coiled in a massive plait at the nape of her neck, gleamed a little in the fading September day; her white morning dress, trimmed with ruches at the bodice and hem, and ornamented with a long sash, dipped low at the back to reveal shoulder-bones of flawless delicacy, and a pure white back. Her face, now bent to her work and half in shadow, manifested a very pretty symmetry. The complexion of her countenance was not so creamy as that of her back; rather it seemed nearly transparent, like a glaze applied to fine porcelain to enhance the clarity of its colours and the daintiness of its work. Blue eyes, oval in shape and set wide apart, abundantly fringed above cheeks whose colour shone with pale radiance through their gossamer glaze, a tiny, straight nose and full red mouth—these and other features equally delicate, equally fine, conspired to make up a face as pretty as it was open and fresh. Her figure, when she rose (and she was on the point of rising) might be observed to be slender and lithe; her carriage was elegant, even proud, and her step light and quick. Such were her observable attributes; one might even observe, if one did so carefully, something of her more inward traits. She worked, it is true, at her filagree—serenely, I have said. Yet perhaps she evidenced not quite so much serenity as detachment. She worked continually, but she was not absorbed by it. On the contrary, she listened most acutely to the voices round her; she heard their words, she noted them—maybe she even judged them. Certainly she was not unconscious of them, for after Lady Louisa had left the room, she addressed the duchess thus:
“I do not wish to interrupt your thoughts, Your Grace, but ought I to disappear?”
The duchess, who had reseated herself, turned toward her interrogator with a look of tentative surprise. “Disappear? Can you?”
“I can from His Grace’s range of vision,” Miss Chilton returned with a smile. She set her work down and crossed the room to the arm-chair recently vacated by Lady Louisa. “I am not sure if you wish me to meet him, or when,” she explained.
“Oh, indeed!” said her employer—for such the greater lady was—“He has not met you. I had forgot. I wonder what he will make of you,” she added more musingly.
“I trust he will allow me to remain what I am,” said the girl, with a pertness many grandes dames would not have welcomed in their hired companions. The duchess, however, had engaged Miss Chilton precisely because of her tendency to candour; the acquaintance had been in existence barely a week now, but it had already proved very interesting to both parties.
The Duchess of Karr elevated, then dropped, her dark eyebrows. “He has an unfortunate habit, I must confess, of allowing all young ladies to remain what they are. No doubt you are right. Now tell me why you suppose you ought to disappear—or is it that you prefer to?”
“On the contrary,” Miss Chilton rejoined, in a sweet, musical voice distinctive for its clarity, “I should by far prefer to remain. I have been five years with my Lady Elsworth, as Your Grace may recall, and my Lady Elsworth lived hideously retired. I have a great curiosity to know your son; I own it freely. I should even like to sit to dinner with you,” she ended, with a laugh.
“Then you shall,” the duchess said abruptly. “I am sure there is nothing so dreadful in it, and it will greatly please me to hear some fresh conversation.”
Some of the colour drained from Lotta Chilton’s pretty cheeks. “Madam, I hope you do not mistake me. It was mere pleasantry.”
“I am aware of that,” the other observed tonelessly. “It will teach you to be careful in your jokes; some of them may come true.”
“Like wishes,” Lotta mused.
“Very much like wishes,” said the duchess. “Does the prospect of dining with us alarm you? I have no wish to induce an indigestion in you.”
“No repast taken with Your Grace could disagree with me,” said Miss Chilton.
“Your stomach may not be so gallant as your sentiments,” the duchess cautioned her.
“If it is not I will know the reason why,” was the answer.
“Very bravely spoke,” the duchess commended. “Now run off and find something suitable to wear. I suppose you have something?”
The colour of Miss Chilton’s cheeks returned somewhat more precipitately than she could have wished.
“I shall send my dresser to you,” said the dowager.
“Your Grace is much too good,” cried Lotta.
“If I hear another pretty speech from you, I will turn you off without a reference. Remember, that is not why I engaged you.”
Miss Chilton had been on the point of offering to stay in the Rose Saloon until another attendant had been found for the duchess, but this speech checked her, and she simply curtsied and departed. Her employer, who really had had a good deal more of chivalry and kindness in her life than she cared for, was more satisfied by this behaviour than she could have been by any other, and fell to gazing at the Chinese scroll in silence. Her long white fingers trembled and moved in her lap as she sat alone, but they moved to no purpose; she merely stroked her right hand with her left, then her left hand with her right, and again the right with the left. It was an indication of impatience; Timothy stopped away too long.
A knock at the door disturbed her at length. She turned, hoping to see her son enter, but was disappointed. The gentleman who came in was not the duke but rather Mr. Septimus Faust, the erstwhile opponent of Sir Isaac Bridwell. Mr. Faust was a tall, nervous gentleman, a pale and healthless man, who had yet a certain grace about his angular person—if one could but disregard his most obvious deficiencies. These were several: his nose was exceedingly long, and irregular; his cheeks and eyes were sunk into deep declivities; the carelessness of his dark, long curls was, alas, completely unfeigned. He slouched and lounged about, continually crossed his long, skeletal limbs into awkward and uncomfortable-looking configurations, spoke in riddles, and slurred his words. And yet his dark eyes were of an extraordinary beauty; they shone from within their hollows with a deep brilliance neither hard nor ironic but seductive, intrigued, compelling. He was a man of sudden delights and passions, who absorbed insatiably the nature, the air, of everything and everyone round him. He was exquisitely greedy, if such a thing may be.
At three-and-thirty Mr. Faust had achieved no great fame or success; he had done nothing with the modest estate he had inherited from his father except live on its income; he had, in brief, no claim whatever on the attention of so exalted a personage as the Duchess of Karr, nor on that of her son. If he was sensible of this fact, however, he never showed it. It seemed as natural to him that the dowager duchess should take him up as that farmers should farm and gardeners garden. His manner toward the lady was free, friendly, and whimsical; he regarded her in some sort as his patroness, though no such official relationship existed between them. He did have some claim to patronage, being the author of numerous odes and satires, the composer of some dozens of ditties, and the painter of multitudinous canvasses; however, to say that these had promise, and ought to be encouraged, was like saying that a patch of wild strawberries had promise, and ought to be cultivated: the resultant fruit might be sweet, but it would not be grateful. It and Mr. Septimus Faust were better left to the forces of nature.
On the occasion of his entrance to the Rose Saloon, Mr. Faust (for no apparent reason) put a slender hand to his prominent white temples and produced, in greeting to his hostess, a deep salaam. “Ah, Madam—” he intoned. “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” Upon which he drew a chair up near to her and seated himself on it. “How does my lady today?” he asked, adding an outrageous, familiar grin which revealed, behind crimson lips, two rows of crooked teeth.
“Do not quote Ecclesiastes at me,” directed she, but smiling faintly nonetheless. “I know more of vanity than you will ever do.”
“Ah, yes,” he agreed; “but does that entitle you to refuse new prophets of it?”
“The privilege of refusing prophets belongs to everyone; it need not be won by experience.”
“Your Grace is more accurate than comforting.”
“If you are in want of comfort you may apply to Sir Isaac Bridwell. Or to his lady wife. Or to Miss Chilton, for that matter. Comfort is to be had in abundance from any number of sources—but not from me.”
“Ah, yes, Miss Chilton,” said he, catching at the name. “Comfort from her would be a delicious thing indeed. Hyper-delicious, one might say.”
“If one were fond of such affectations of speech.”
“One is fond of all affectations, verbal and otherwise.”
“And is one fond of Miss Chilton?” she inquired rather sharply.
“One has had so little time to know her,” he answered, as if apologetically. “Tell me something of her; her complexion is a glazier’s dream.”
“And what, pray tell, of your own dreams, Mr. Faust?”
“Miss Chilton,” he insisted. “Tell me about her.”
“Very well. You have seen, I think, what is most interesting about her—I mean her person and her manner. Her history is not intriguing, unless I have been misled. She was born, I believe, in Italy, and orphaned when still an infant. An English family then residing in Florence, the Chiltons, took her in. Mr. Chilton teaches languages. He was, at the time, teaching English to Italians; after some years, the family removed to London, where Mr. Chilton taught Italian to the English. The girl grew up with the other daughters of the house; at a certain age she hired herself out as companion to a Lady Elsworth, who died some years later. Thence she came to me. That is all I know,” she added, as Mr. Faust appeared to wait for more.
“Who were her parents?” he asked.
“Her parents? She is legitimate, if that is what you mean.”
“That is only half what I mean. Such a beautiful flower as Miss Chilton does not generally grow without some toil and trouble; I am looking for the sand and rocks in her soil.”
“Mr. Faust, you are quite romantic.”
“It is one of my least offensive faults.”
“In any case, I do not know of any great mysteries or hardships attached to Lotta Chilton’s case. I believe her father was a member of the petty nobility of Italy. Her mother, I suppose, was a girl of the district.”
“It is disappointing,” Septimus was at last obliged to admit. “However, Florence is very suggestive, and I will undertake to compose a more suitable background for her in my imagination.”
“As you like,” said the duchess. “At all events, she is entertaining. She is very quick-witted, and keen of observation. She has already begun to imitate my gestures—whether to flatter me or to improve herself, I hardly know. I suspect her of cherishing ambitions.”
“Ambitions?” he echoed. “This is good. If not a past, then at least a future. Do you mean she schemes?”
“She would like to, but she has scruples. She is jealous of power, but she would not usurp it.”
“Do you mean she envies you?”
“I mean she esteems me.”
“This is very good. But I am sorry for those scruples.”
“If an unscrupulous character amuses you, wait until you have met the Contessa di Tremini,” the duchess suggested. “To her the aura of Italy clings also, and I assure you she is not burdened with any undue moral freight.”
“But is she beautiful?” he asked.
“She is very beautiful. Not so young as she was once, perhaps; none of us is. But indisputably a beauty.”
“Then I await her arrival with impatience. When may I expect to meet her?”
“Tomorrow, I think. Yes, tomorrow,” the duchess affirmed. “Until then I must ask you to hold your interest in Lotta in check. I have not done with her yet.”
“I will try to hold in the reins of my fancy,” said he, “but alas, they are but frayed and fragile ribbons. Restraint has always been my weakest point.”
“And excess your strongest, I suppose,” the duchess observed, with some amusement.
“Excess my very strongest,” he agreed, starting suddenly from his chair and repeating his salaam on these words. He was about to quit the saloon when a knock, immediately followed by an entry, caused him to hesitate. This, at last, was the Duke of Karr; he entered in all haste, still sporting the riding-breeches and muddied boots which attested to his recent journey, and strode at once across the circular Turkey carpet to his mother.
“Madam,” said he, bestowing on her white hand a dry salute; “I hope I find you in the best of health?”
“Never mind my health; where have you been?” she said in accents of irritation, adding irrelevantly, “Mr. Faust is here.”
“Good-day, Mr. Faust,” said His Grace, shaking this gentleman’s hand with a hearty vigour which that emaciated limb seemed scarcely able to support. He had met the less illustrious man before, and did not care for him overmuch, but a policy and habit of hospitality forbade his being otherwise than cordial.
Mr. Faust responded to his host’s greeting with equal courtesy, and stepped back to observe him. He was by far too much fascinated with human nature and character to bother actually to dislike someone; however, the Duke of Karr was so very different a man from himself, it was impossible for him to feel any of his habitual empathy for the great nobleman—he could merely, as I have said, observed him. What he saw was a gentleman of about his own height, but who probably weighed nearly half again as much as himself. His Grace was robust, and visibly muscular; his garments, though now in disarray, were of the fit, quality, and elegance one would expect on so exalted a person. His dark eyes and straight nose, imparted to him by his progenitrix, were complemented by a high, handsome brow, a strong mouth and chin, an unfashionably swarthy complexion, and a healthy mass of chestnut hair. The style of his coiffure was somewhat remarkable, having been more common in the previous century than in this: it was dressed in ailes de pigeon, the bulk of his locks being secured at the nape of his neck by a white muslin riband. If it was not the most modish of fashions, however, it was certainly very well suited to His Grace: he looked at once strong, attractive, and intelligent. Dandies might demur, but Mr. Faust thought his host’s coiffure very wisely chosen.
The duchess had repeated her irritable query as to her son’s recent whereabouts, but Karr seemed to refuse to respond in kind. “I am desolate if I have delayed dinner,” said he, with a good deal of manner. “I stopped in Melton Mowbray to collect Mr. Longstreth and Mr. Remington. I trust you don’t mind their arriving a few days early?”
“Of course I do not mind; I only mind your arriving late. Dinner need not be delayed, if only you will go and dress.”
“I sent Longstreth and Remington upon that very errand,” said he, referring to two of his intimates. “I only stopped down here to allay any anxiety you may have had regarding my fortune on the road, and to receive your gracious welcome—dear ma’am.”
The duchess, who was not given to being anxious about such commonplace events as journeys from London, knew she was being teased but would not smile. “I assure you, my heart was racing before; but it is now calm, and you are thoroughly, exceedingly welcomed—so do go on, won’t you, and dress? I am beginning to be quite hungry.”
The duke bowed and departed, taking Septimus Faust with him. “She’s furious with me,” Karr confided, as they strolled together down a lofty corridor, and up a wide, spiralling stair-case. “She told me to look in upon the Earl of Marland—and particularly, upon his daughter—when I passed through Hertfordshire, and she knows I did not. I did not tell her as much, you understand, but she guesses it from my silence just as well. She is very shrewd, you know; I do not believe she has ever been duped.”
“Ah,” cried the other, “in that case I shall stop trying to persuade her that I am her son, and you a mere imposter. I wondered she did not take the bait,” he added musingly. “It had seemed such a good idea at its inception.”
The duke laughed, and assured his fanciful guest that any other duchess would have been certain to have believed him. They parted at the top of the stairs, the duke proceeding to his vast suite of private chambers, Mr. Faust to the turret-room he had begged of the duchess—for the notion of a room with but a single wall had taken his fancy, and he swore to her he could not sleep in any other sort of place.
2
“I do not care about the chasse,” Lady Anne Stanton was saying to her husband. “I do not care if you killed one hundred head of game; I do not care if—”
“But that is just what we did,” Lord Stanton interrupted eagerly. “Seventy-three pheasants, fourteen partri—”
“My dear Walker, I have just told you I do not care!” her ladyship insisted. “Now I have sent for Amabel and she will be here in a moment; I wish you will help me speak to her.”
Lord Stanton shrugged off his shooting-jacket and resigned himself to the obvious: he was not to be given the satisfaction of boasting about the success of his day. He tossed his jacket onto a chair—one of many in the spacious suite of chambers assigned to the Stantons by Her Grace the duchess—and set about loosening his soiled cravat. His lady wife was preparing to dress for dinner; in a moment he would repair to his own apartment to do the same. It might have appeared more reasonable, in light of these circumstances, for his lordship to delay the removal of his jacket and cravat until his valet had come to him with suitable replacements; but my lord was a restless man, an industrious man, and he was rarely still. Consequently his fingers worked busily at the stubborn knot while his wife addressed him; even after the cravat had been untied and flung aside with the jacket, Lord Stanton walked briskly up and down the room.
