CHAPTER III.
"Indeed, my dear aunt, I must impress upon you how completely profitless is my present visit," said Miss Aubrey; "there is not a man in the house with a serious thought."
"Think for a moment," replied the Countess.
"Oh!" exclaimed her niece, "you are not going to recommend General Trevor, who has a constitution like that of France, which requires perpetual patching, and who would expect me to spend half the year at Cheltenham."
"General Trevor," returned her ladyship, gravely, "would be a desperate resource. I do not think we are driven to such yet. But—not to waste time—what do you think of Lord Allerton?"
"Think!" ejaculated Henrietta, "that he has neither eyes nor ears for any one but Mary Granard. I do not think that he would know me, if he met me out of the house."
"You will come the more freshly upon him when he does observe you," said Lady Rotheles.
"I am sure," replied Miss Aubrey, looking sullenly down, "Lord Allerton is a far more desperate resource than General Trevor."
"If you have any fancy for the General, you can try him first," retorted the Countess. Henrietta's sole reply was to raise her hands and eyes with an expression of dismay. "But I have," continued Lady Rotheles, "quite decided that you shall be Lady Allerton. I could not endure to have one of that odious Lady Anne's daughters for my nearest neighbour. I was enraged when I found that Rotheles had asked them down. But never was there a man so ill educated—his three first wives have completely spoilt him. But he is beginning a new and more rational system—he now finds the necessity of consulting his wife a little. However, in the present instance, it has been all for the best."
"For the best!" cried Miss Aubrey; "that I should find the ground preoccupied!"
"Yes," replied her aunt, "considering the character of the man. It will be far easier to make him fall in love a second time than a first. It was worth a great deal to make the bare idea of his being married possible and familiar to him."
"Very good, had it been with myself," returned Henrietta.
"Le bon tems viendra," said the Countess. "Lord Allerton is that almost impossibility to manage—a young man who has been a good match from his cradle. He looks upon himself as the point of attack to every mamma and daughter who come within ear or eyeshot. His love for Mary Granard has taken him quite by surprise, and he is still reluctant and suspicious of so novel a feeling. Once let his attention be drawn to Lady Anne's manœuvres, and once let him suppose that Mary is a party to them, and the game is in our own hands."
"But how," asked Miss Aubrey, anxiously, "is this to be effected?"
"I have already settled the whole plan," and Lady Rotheles proceeded to detail her ingenious and heartless scheme.
"Poor Mary!" was the involuntary exclamation of her rival. Lady Rotheles looked first amazed, and then scornful.
"Pray," said she, "keep any thing like sentiment for Allerton. I am not the least afraid that you will have too much. But one thing I beg to observe—I shall expect active co-operation on your part. You are clever enough if you exert yourself, and that is what people usually do when it is for themselves."
"But," continued Henrietta, "though Lord Allerton's affection may be diverted from Mary Granard, I do not understand why it should turn towards me."
"Because," replied her aunt, "he will need an object, and you are the only other girl in the house. A young man in love passes his time very pleasantly—rouse him from the dream, and, for a while, he does not know what to do with himself. He wants an object; and you, Henrietta, are just at hand to be that object."
"'Loving goes by haps;
Some Cupids kill with arrows, some with traps;'"
muttered Miss Aubrey.
"The character you assume," continued Lady Rotheles, not heeding the interruption, "must be completely in opposition to that to which his attention is at present directed. Mary is tame, meek, spiritless—you must, therefore, be lively, quick, and piquante. Fortunately, your Parisian tournure will save your vivacity from vulgarity. Though, I must say, not one English girl in a thousand is to be trusted out of the security of insipidity; but you are French enough to be animated without being pert. Moreover, I do not think it necessary that you should disguise your preference for Lord Allerton."
"I should be clever," thought Henrietta, "to disguise what does not exist."
But all that she deemed it necessary to express of her secret thoughts was her sense of her aunt's kindness, and, above all, of her aunt's talents. This tribute was graciously received, for Lady Rotheles was a Catherine de Medicis on a small scale. She delighted in schemes and in projects; she governed her husband by a series of manœuvres, whose only fault was their being entirely wasted; as a simple wish, openly expressed, would have answered every purpose. She delighted both in her own affairs and those of her neighbours; and, though she could not, like the royal intriguante, sacrifice the lives of others, she scrupled not at the chief sacrifice of domestic despotism—she sacrificed their feelings.
Lady Anne Granard was seated in an arm-chair, by an open window—it was her favourite place, for it commanded the sweep up to the house, and she saw every carriage as it drove round. Unconscious of her near vicinity, Lord Allerton was outside, on the terrace, employed in taking a view of a particular turn in the road, which Lady Rotheles had pointed out as peculiarly well adapted for a sketch. He was looking one way, and Lady Anne was looking the opposite. Moreover, a large orange-tree was a complete screen between them. Still, had they been aware of each other's presence, they might have carried on a conversation, which would have been mutually agreeable; for Lady Anne, though convinced of her own pleasant company, was always ready to bestow it on any one rather than herself—it was her only act of disinterested kindness—the only thing in the world that she was ever ready to give.
Lord Allerton was beginning to get tired of drawing, with no one to admire the freedom of his outline and the beauty of his tints; but, though fated to take an important part in Lady Anne's conversation that morning, it was only in the subordinate character of listener.
"Do you know where Miss Granard is?" said Henrietta. "I have just finished sorting the costumes in my dressing-room, which she so much wished to see."
"She told me," thought Lord Allerton, "that her mother wanted her particularly."
"Oh, pray do not," said Lady Anne, "show them to her this morning. Mary is walking in the cypress grove. Poor dear Mr. Granard gave her some very bad habits; and I find that, as they are past cure, I must give way to them; for, quiet as she seems, Mary has a will of her own."
Now the bad habits to which Lady Anne alluded were only those of air and exercise; but, not stating what they might be, Lord Allerton had full opportunity to exercise his imagination concerning them.
"I do not feel inclined to walk," said Henrietta, "so will wait till she returns."
"She is to walk one hour," replied Lady Anne; "it is for the sake of her complexion. It is necessary to keep it up, though her's is just the sort of skin on which a touch of rouge would never be suspected."
"Miss Granard has a lovely colour," continued Miss Aubrey.
"Yes," replied her mother; "and that is the reason why I always make her go down to breakfast. Moreover, Lord Allerton is an early riser, and of course he is our first object.'"
"No wonder," added her companion, "that Lord Allerton should admire Miss Granard, beautiful as she is."
"It is very fortunate," said Lady Anne, "for it will save me a world of trouble. Lord Allerton is quite unobjectionable. True, the peerage is modern; but Rotheles told me that there is not a mortgage on the estate."
"And then," exclaimed Henrietta, "Lord Allerton is so handsome, I quite understand Miss Granard's falling in love with him."
"In love!" cried Lady Anne, with every possible expression of scorn and surprise in her voice; "I beg that you will put no such nonsense into my daughter's head; and, I must say, that the sooner you put it out of your own the better."
"To love a man like Lord Allerton," interrupted Miss Aubrey, "does not seem to me nonsense; but, if Mary does not love him, what does she marry him for?"
"Why, what does a girl marry for?" cried her ladyship. "Mary marries for rank, independence—and because she well knows that she has not a shilling in the world."
"I would not marry the man whom I did not love," ejaculated Miss Aubrey, "for any earthly consideration."
"I hope you will not be silly enough to say this to Mary; not that it much matters. She knows that she is to be Lady Allerton. It was only last night," continued Lady Anne, "that we were talking of her wedding-dresses."
"Are they to be very splendid?" asked Henrietta.
"Oh no," returned her companion; "simple and elegant. Fortunately, Mary's style suits simplicity. I cannot afford much expence—when she is Lady Allerton, she can be as extravagant as she pleases."
A short pause ensued in the conversation, which was broken by Miss Aubrey saying, "I was so much interested, yesterday, at dinner, with Lord Allerton's account of the cottages that he is building! I do not wonder that a man of his wealth should prefer living in the country, where he may do so much good, and be so beloved. Then the country in England is beautiful."
Lady Anne looked at the speaker with equal surprise and scorn. "I cannot," interrupted her lady ship, "be too thankful that Mary has none of your nonsensical notions—doing good, and the beauties of the country!—what moral essay have you been reading this morning? But Mary knows what she marries Lord Allerton for."
"And," asked Henrietta, "what does she marry Lord Allerton for?"
"She marries him," replied Lady Anne, slowly, even solemnly, "for a house in town, an opera-box, and a diamond necklace."
"Three most unanswerable reasons," exclaimed Henrietta, in the most scornful tone she could assume. The entrance of some visitors interrupted the conversation, and they left the window.
Lord Allerton drew a deep breath, and put up his sketch. "And so," muttered he, "the sweet, simple, and quiet Mary marries me for a house in town, an opera-box, and a diamond necklace." He sauntered on in a reverie, divided between the remembrance of Miss Granard's soft blue eyes, and Miss Aubrey's sweet and soft expression of feeling. The time past away, and, as he returned to the house, he was met by Lady Rotheles.
"What," exclaimed she, "loitering about! I suppose I must not ask for my drawing." Lord Allerton said something about the fineness of the morning having tempted him to walk.
"Well," replied the Countess, "there is a fatality about to-day; nobody does what they intended to do. We meant to have driven over to the Priory this morning, but Lady Anne and Mary have just declared off."
"Why?" asked his lordship, who remembered that the Priory had been the chief subject of his and Miss Granard's conversation, the previous evening. He thought that his description of the beautiful old ruins had interested her to the last degree, to say nothing of the view they commanded of his own hanging woods.
"The Duke of Evandale," replied Lady Rotheles, "has just sent a courier to announce his intention of staying here to-night, on his way to the North; and Mary Granard having walked during the morning for her complexion, will now stay in the house the rest of the day to preserve it. A rich bachelor duke does not come in the way often."
"But," exclaimed Lord Allerton, "the Duke is upwards of sixty; and a man whose notorious character..."
"My dear young friend," interrupted Lady Rotheles, laughing, "to think how we may be deceived by appearances. I always took you for an unusually shrewd and sensible person. This is no flattery, for I find that I was quite mistaken; for who, with the least observation, but must know that age and character form no part of the matrimonial calculations of a girl brought up as Mary Granard has been. But I see my gardener waiting, and must let you escape without further inquiries about my unfinished sketch."
She turned away, and Lord Allerton walked rapidly towards the stables. A few moments, and he was galloping rapidly across the park, exclaiming, almost aloud, in the energy of his gratitude, "Thank Heaven, I have not committed myself by a declaration!"