Elster's Folly Part 66

"You never had it in the _Times_, you know!"

"Never what?"

"Never announced its birth in the _Times_. Did you forget it?"

"It must have been very stupid of me," he remarked. "Never mind, Maude; he won't grow the less for the omission. When are you coming downstairs?"

"Mamma is in a rage about it; she says such neglect ought to be punished; and she knows you have done it on purpose."

"She is always in a rage with me, no matter what I do," returned Val, good-humouredly. "She hoped to be here at this time, and sway us all--you and me and the baby; and I stopped it. Ho, ho! young sir!"

The baby had wakened with a cry, and a watchful attendant came gliding in at the sound. Lord Hartledon left the room and went straight down to the Temple to Mr. Carr's chambers. He found him in all the bustle of departure from town. A cab stood at the foot of the stairs, and Mr.

Carr's laundress, a queer old body with an inverted black bonnet, was handing the cabman a parcel of books.

"A minute more and you'd have been too late," observed Mr. Carr, as Lord Hartledon met him on the stairs, a coat on his arm.

"I thought you did not start till to-morrow."

"But I found I must go to-day. I can give you three minutes. Is it anything particular?"

Lord Hartledon drew him into his room. "I have come to crave a favour, Carr. It has been on my lips to ask you before, but they would not frame the words. This child of mine: will you be its G.o.dfather with myself?"

One moment's hesitation, quite perceptible to the sensitive mind of Lord Hartledon, and then Mr. Carr spoke out bravely and cheerily.

"Of course I will."

"I see you hesitate: but I do not like to ask any one else."

"If I hesitated, it was at the thought of the grave responsibility attaching to the office. I believe I look upon it in a more serious light than most people do, and have never accepted the charge yet. I will be sponsor to this one with all my heart."

Lord Hartledon clasped his hand in reply, and they began to descend the stairs. "Poor Maude was dreaming of making a grand thing of the christening," he said; "she wanted to ask Lord Kirton to come to it.

It will take place in about a fortnight."

"Very well; I must run up for it, unless you let me stand by proxy.

I wish, Hartledon, you would hear me on another point," added the barrister, halting on the stairs, and dropping his voice to a whisper.

"Well?"

"If you are to go away at all, now's the time. Can't you be seized with an exploring fit, and sail to Africa, or some other place, where your travels would occupy years?"

Lord Hartledon shook his head. "How can I leave Maude to battle alone with the exposure, should it come?"

"It is a great deal less likely to come if you are a few thousand miles away."

"I question it. Should Gorton turn up he is just the one to frighten a defenceless woman, and purchase his own silence. No; my place is beside Maude."

"As you please. I have spoken for the last time. By the way, any letters bearing a certain postmark, that come addressed to me during my absence, Taylor has orders to send to you. Fare you well, Hartledon; I wish I could help you to peace."

Hartledon watched the cab rattle away, and then turned homewards. Peace!

There was no peace for him.

Lady Hartledon was not to be thwarted on all points, and she insisted on a ceremonious christening. The countess-dowager would come over for it, and did so; Lord Hartledon could not be discourteous enough to deny this; Lord and Lady Kirton came from Ireland; and for the first time since their marriage they found themselves entertaining guests. Lord Hartledon had made a faint opposition, but Maude had her own way. The countess-dowager was furiously indignant when she heard of the intended sponsors--its father and mother, and that cynical wretch, Thomas Carr!

Val played the hospitable host; but there was a shadow on his face that his wife did not fail to see.

It was the evening before the christening, and a very snowy evening too. Val was dressing for dinner, and Maude, herself ready, sat by him, her baby on her knee. The child was attired for the first time in a splendidly-worked robe with looped-up sleeves; and she had brought it in to challenge admiration for its pretty arms, with all the pardonable pride of a young mother.

"Won't you kiss it for once, Val?"

He took the child in his arms; it had its mother's fine dark eyes, and looked straight up from them into his. Lord Hartledon suddenly bent his own face down upon that little one with what seemed like a gesture of agony; and when he raised it his own eyes were wet with tears. Maude felt startled with a sort of terror: love was love; but she did not understand love so painful as this.

She sat down with the baby on her knee, saying nothing; he did not intend her to see the signs of emotion. And this brings us to where we were.

Lord Hartledon went on with his toilette, and presently someone knocked at the door.

Two letters: they had come by the afternoon post, very much delayed on account of the snow. He came back to the gaslight, opening one. A full letter, written closely; but he had barely glanced at it when he hastily folded it again, and crammed it into his pocket. If ever a movement expressed something to be concealed, that did. And Lady Hartledon was gazing at him with her questioning eyes.

"Wasn't that letter from Thomas Carr?"

"Yes."

"Is he coming up? Or is Kirton to be proxy?"

"He is--coming, I think," said Val, evidently knowing nothing one way or the other. "He'll be here, I daresay, to-morrow morning."

Opening the other letter as he spoke--a foreign-looking letter this one--he put it up in the same hasty manner, with barely a glance; and then went on slowly with his dressing.

"Why don't you read your letters, Percival?"

"I haven't time. Dinner will be waiting."

She knew that he had plenty of time, and that dinner would not be waiting; she knew quite certainly that there was something in both letters she must not see. Rising from her seat in silence, she went out of the room with her baby; resentment and an unhealthy curiosity doing battle in her heart.

Lord Hartledon slipped the bolt of the door and read the letters at once; the foreign one first, over which he seemed to take an instant's counsel with himself. Before going down he locked them up in a small ebony cabinet which stood against the wall. The room was his own exclusively; his wife had nothing to do with it.

Had they been alone he might have observed her coolness to him; but, with guests to entertain, he neither saw nor suspected it. She sat opposite him at dinner richly dressed, her jewels and smiles alike dazzling: but the smiles were not turned on him.

"Is that chosen sponsor of yours coming up for the christening; lawyer Carr?" tartly inquired the dowager from her seat, bringing her face and her turban, all scarlet together, to bear on Hartledon.

"He comes up by this evening's train; will be in London late to-night, if the snow allows him, and stay with us until Sunday night," replied Val.

"Oh! _That's_ no doubt the reason why you settled the christening for Sat.u.r.day: that your friend might have the benefit of Sunday?"

"Just so, madam."

And Lady Hartledon knew, by this, that her husband must have read the letters. "I wonder what he has done with them?" came the mental thought, shadowing forth a dim wish that she could read them too.

In the drawing-room, after dinner, someone proposed a carpet quadrille, but Lord Hartledon seemed averse to it. In his wife's present mood, his opposition was, of course, the signal for her approval, and she began pus.h.i.+ng the chairs aside with her own hands. He approached her quietly.

"Maude, do not let them dance to-night."