Lady Barbarina Part 34

Mrs. Westgate prolonged the att.i.tude of sisterly truth. "I don't really care two straws for Mr. Beaumont."

"You were certainly very nice to him."

"I'm very nice to every one," said Mrs. Westgate simply.

Nothing indeed could have been simpler save perhaps the way Bessie smiled back: "To every one but me."

Her sister continued to look at her. "Are you in love with Lord Lambeth?"

Our young woman stared a moment, and the question was too unattended with any train even to make her shy. "Not that I know of."

"Because if you are," Mrs. Westgate went on, "I shall certainly not send for him."

"That proves what I said," Bessie gaily insisted-"that you're not really nice to me."

"It would be a poor service, my dear child," said her sister.

"In what sense? There's nothing _against_ Lord Lambeth that I know of."

Mrs. Westgate seemed to cover much country in a few moments. "You _are_ in love with him then?"

Bessie stared again, but this time blus.h.i.+ng a little. "Ah, if you'll not be serious we won't mention him again."

For some minutes accordingly Lord Lambeth was shrouded in silence, and it was Mrs. Westgate who, at the end of this period, removed the ban. "Of course I shall let him know we're here. I think he'd be hurt-justly enough-if we should go away without seeing him. It's fair to give him a chance to come and thank me for the kindness we showed him. But I don't want to seem eager."

"Neither do I," said Bessie very simply.

"Though I confess," her companion added, "that I'm curious to see how he'll behave."

"He behaved very well at Newport."

"Newport isn't London. At Newport he could do as he liked; but here it's another affair. He has to have an eye to consequences."

"If he had more freedom then at Newport," argued Bessie, "it's the more to his credit that he behaved well; and if he has to be so careful here it's possible he'll behave even better."

"Better, better?" echoed her sister a little impatiently. "My dear child, what do you mean by better and what's your point of view?"

Bessie wondered. "What do _you_ mean by my point of view?"

"Don't you care for Lord Lambeth-a tiny speck?" Mrs. Westgate demanded.

This time Bessie Alden took it with still deeper reserve. She slowly got up from table, turning her face away. "You'll oblige me by not talking so."

Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for some moments as she moved slowly about the room and went and stood at the window. "I'll write to him this afternoon," she said at last.

"Do as you please!" Bessie answered; after which she turned round. "I'm not afraid to say I like Lord Lambeth. I like him very much."

Mrs. Westgate bethought herself. "He's not clever."

"Well, there have been clever people whom I've disliked," the girl said; "so I suppose I may like a stupid one. Besides, Lord Lambeth's no stupider than any one else."

"No stupider than he gives you warning of," her sister smiled.

"If I were in love with him as you said just now," Bessie returned, "it would be bad policy on your part to abuse him."

"My dear child, don't give me lessons in policy!" cried Mrs. Westgate.

"The policy I mean to follow is very deep."

The girl began once more to walk about; then she stopped before her companion. "I've never heard in the course of five minutes so many hints and innuendoes. I wish you'd tell me in plain English what you mean."

"I mean you may be much annoyed."

"That's still only a hint," said Bessie.

Her sister just hesitated. "It will be said of you that you've come after him-that you followed him."

Bessie threw back her pretty head much as a startled hind, and a look flashed into her face that made Mrs. Westgate get up. "Who says such things as that?"

"People here."

"I don't believe it."

"You've a very convenient faculty of doubt. But my policy will be, as I say, very deep. I shall leave you to find out as many things as possible for yourself."

Bessie fixed her eyes on her sister, and Mrs. Westgate could have believed there were tears in them. "Do they talk that way here?"

"You'll see. I shall let you alone."

"Don't let me alone," said Bessie Alden. "Take me away."

"No; I want to see what you make of it," her sister continued.

"I don't understand."

"You'll understand after Lord Lambeth has come," said Mrs. Westgate with a persistence of private amus.e.m.e.nt.

The two ladies had arranged that on this afternoon Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde Park, where Bessie expected it would prove a rich pa.s.sage to have sat on a little green chair under the great trees and beside Rotten Row. The want of a suitable escort had hitherto hampered this adventure; but no escort, now, for such an expedition, could have been more suitable than their devoted young countryman, whose mission in life, it might almost be said, was to find chairs for ladies and who appeared on the stroke of half-past five adorned with every superficial grace that could qualify him for the scene.

"I've written to Lord Lambeth, my dear," Mrs. Westgate mentioned on coming into the room where Bessie, drawing on long grey gloves, had given their visitor the impression that she was particularly attuned. Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley exclaimed that his lords.h.i.+p was in town; he had seen his name in the _Morning Post_. "Do you read the _Morning Post_?" Mrs. Westgate thereupon asked.

"Oh yes; it's great fun." Mr. Woodley almost spoke as if the pleasure were attended with physical risk.

"I want so to see it," said Bessie, "there's so much about it in Thackeray."

"I'll send it to you every morning!" cried the young man with elation.

He found them what Bessie thought excellent places under the great trees and beside the famous avenue the humours of which had been made familiar to the girl's childhood by the pictures in _Punch_. The day was bright and warm and the crowd of riders and spectators, as well as the great procession of carriages, proportionately dense and many-coloured. The scene bore the stamp of the London social pressure at its highest, and it made our young woman think of more things than she could easily express to her companions. She sat silent, under her parasol, while her imagination, according to its wont, kept pace with the deep strong tide of the exhibition. Old impressions and preconceptions became living things before the show, and she found herself, amid the crowd of images, fitting a history to this person and a theory to that, and making a place for them all in her small private museum of types. But if she said little her sister on one side and Willie Woodley on the other delivered themselves in lively alternation.