A Charming Fellow Volume Iii Part 1

A Charming Fellow.

Volume III.

by Frances Eleanor Trollope.

CHAPTER I.

There was a "scene" that evening at Ivy Lodge--not the less a "scene" in that it was conducted on genteel methods. Mrs. Algernon Errington inflicted on her husband during dinner a recapitulation of all her wrongs and injuries which could be covertly hinted at. She would not broadly speak out her meaning before "the servants." The phrase shaped itself thus in her mind from old habit. But in truth "the servants" were represented by one plump-faced damsel in a yellow print gown, into which her person seemed to have been inserted in the same way that bran is inserted into the cover of a pincus.h.i.+on. She seemed to have been stuffed into it by means of considerable force, and with less reference to the natural shape of her body than to the arbitrary outlines of the case made for it by a Whitford dressmaker.

This girl ministered to her master and mistress during dinner, pouring water and wine, changing knives and plates, handing vegetables, and not unfrequently dropping a spoon or a sprinkling of hot gravy into the laps of her employers. She had succeeded to Slater, who resigned her post after a trial of some six weeks' duration. Castalia, in despair at this desertion, had written to Lady Seely to send her a maid from London forthwith. But to this application she received a reply to the effect that my lady could not undertake to find any one who would suit her niece, and that her ladys.h.i.+p thought Castalia had much better make up her mind to do without a regular lady's-maid, and take some humbler attendant, who would make herself generally useful.

"I always knew Slater wouldn't stay with you," wrote Lady Seely; "and you won't get any woman of that kind to stay. You can't afford to keep one. Your uncle is fairly well; but poor Fido gives me a great deal of unhappiness. He eats nothing."

Not by any means from conviction or submission to the imperious advice of Lady Seely, but under the yoke of stern necessity, Castalia had consented to try a young woman of the neighbourhood, "highly recommended." And this abigail, in her tight yellow gown, was the cause of Mrs. Algernon's reticence during dinner. The poor lady might, however, have spared herself this restraint, if its object were to keep her servants in the dark as to domestic disagreements; for no sooner had Lydia (that was the abigail's name) reached the kitchen, than she and Polly, the cook, began a discussion of Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Errington's private affairs, which displayed a surprising knowledge of very minute details, and an almost equally surprising power of piecing evidence together.

When Lydia was gone, Algernon lit a cigar and drew up his chair to the fireside, where he sat silent, staring at his elegantly-slippered feet on the fender. Castalia rose, fidgeted about the room, walked to the door, stopped, turned back, and, standing directly opposite to Algernon, said querulously, "Do you mean to remain here?"

"For the present, yes; out of consideration for you. You dislike me to smoke in the drawing-room, do you not?"

"Why should you smoke at all?"

Algernon raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, crossed one leg over the other, and made no answer. His wife went away, and sitting down alone on a corner of the sofa in her little drawing-room, cried bitterly for a long time.

She was made to raise her tear-stained face by feeling a hand pa.s.sed gently over her hair. She looked up, and found her husband standing beside her. "What's the matter, little woman?" he asked, in a half-coaxing, half-bantering tone, like one speaking to a naughty child, too young to be seriously reproved or argued with.

Now, although Castalia was haughty by education and insolent by temper, she had very little real pride and no dignity in her character. To be noticed and caressed by Algernon was to her a sufficient compensation for almost any indignity. There was but one pa.s.sion of her nature which had any chance of resisting his personal influence, and that pa.s.sion had never yet been fully aroused, although frequently irritated. Her jealousy was like a young tiger that had never yet tasted blood.

"What's the matter, little woman?" repeated Algernon, seating himself beside her, and putting his arm round her waist. She shrugged her shoulders fretfully, but at the same time nestled herself nearer to his side. She loved him, and it put her at an immense disadvantage with him.

"Don't you mean to vouchsafe me an answer, Mrs. Algernon Ancram Errington?"

"Oh, I daresay you're very sorry that I am Mrs. Errington. I have no doubt you repent."

"Really! And is that what you were crying for?"

No reply.

"It looks rather as if you repented, madam!"

"Oh, you know I don't; unless you like other people better than you like me!"

"'Other people' don't cry in my company."

"No; because they don't care for you. And because they're----they're nasty, artful minxes!"

"Hear, hear! A charming definition! Castalia, you are really _impayable_ sometimes. How my lord would enjoy that speech of yours!"

"No, he wouldn't. Uncle Val would never enjoy what vexed me. My lady might; nasty, disagreeable old thing!"

"There, I can agree with you. A vulgar kind of woman--though she is my blood-relation--thoroughly coa.r.s.e in the grain. But now that we have relieved our feelings, and spoken our minds on that score, suppose we converse rationally?"

"I don't want to converse rationally."

"Why not?"

"Because that means that you are going to scold me."

"Well--that might be highly rational, certainly; only I never do it."

"Well, but you'll manage to make out that I'm in the wrong and you're in the right, somehow or other."

"Ca.s.sy, I want you to write a letter."

"A letter? Whom do you want me to write to?"

Her tears were completely dried, and she looked up at him with a faint smile on her countenance, which, however, looked rueful enough, with red nose and swollen eyes.

"You must write to my lord, and get him to help us with a little money."

Her face fell.

"Ask Uncle Val for money again, Ancram? It is such a short time since he sent me some!"

"And to-morrow, at this hour, it will be 'such a short time' since you had your dinner! Nevertheless, I suppose you will want another dinner."

"I--I don't think Uncle Val can afford it, Ancram."

"Leave that to him. Afford it? Pshaw!"

Algernon made the little sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n in a tone expressive of the most impatient contempt.

"But do we really--is it absolutely necessary for us to beg of my uncle again?"

"Not at all. Do just as you please," answered her husband, rising and walking away from the sofa to a distant chair.

Castalia's eyes followed him piteously.

"But what can I say?" she asked. "What excuse can I make? I hate to worry Uncle Val. It isn't as if he had more money than he knew what to do with. And if Lady Seely knew about his helping us, she would lead him such a life!"

"Do as you please. It would be a thousand pities to worry your uncle.

Let all the worry fall on me."

He took up a book and threw himself back in his chair as if he had dismissed the subject.

"I don't know what to do!" exclaimed Castalia, with fretful helplessness. At length, after sitting silent for some time twisting her handkerchief backwards and forwards in her fingers, she got up and crossed the room to her husband's chair.

"Ancram!" she said softly.