MARIETTA'S MARRIAGE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9817, 28 August 1897, Page 2

MARIETTA'S MARRIAGE.

Br W. E. Norbis,

CHAPTER XXVIII.—The Devout Lover,

The shadow of black care was not very far distant from Colonel-Vigne'a elbow wLile ho reclined in his daughter's luxurious equipage and chatted, with every outward show of cheerfulness and elderly high spirits. The truth was that his daughter reminded him terribly of her mother, and there had been episodes in her mother's existence which he would have been well pleased to be able to forget. The late Mrs Vignc, unhappily, had not been an altogether model wife, and although, in one sense, her husband was remorsefully conscious of having misunderstood her, in another sense he had) understood her only too well. Was he now, in his old age, to suffer again those torments of anxiety, those humiliating fits of impotent rage against men with whom it was difficult to pick a quarrel, which had embittered the days of his youth? Flirtation is an elastic term, which may be made to cover a multitndo of sins, as well as a multitude of proceedings which it would bo an exaggeration to call sinful. Ho had never known for certain what the nature of his wife's proceedings had beon; but lie knew that she had made him thoroughly unhappy, and ifc made his heart sink to see Marietta treating Stvahan after much the same fashion aa certain Austrian officers, now gray-headed or dead, had been treated by one to whom she bore so striking a physical resemblance. He knew better, however, than to remonstrate with her or catechise her. He asked a few careless questions, indeed, and received answers which he surmised to ba disingenuous ; but there he stopped. Experience warned him against speaking as plainly to hia daughter as he had done to St. Qiuntin.

St. Quintin, meanwhile, was walking slowly towards his club, v/ith lsis hands behind his back and a bent head, full of thoughts wherein Lady Middlewood and Strahan had no share. The troubles, the follies, tho destinies of our neighbours become interesting when we ourselves have reached middle-life, and have a little breathing space in which to watch the progress of the unvarying, yet mildly exciting human tragi-comedy which is being enacted around us; but in youth we are naturally apt to be pre-occupied with our own affaire, and the affairs of this young man had taken an ill turn.

They had taken, that is to say, a turn which, as a reasonable, sensible being, he could not but call deplorable ; although lie would not, if the choice could have been offered him, have had them altered. This, of course, means—are there any other circumstances under which such a condition of feeling would be possible ?—that a man who was nothing if not sensible, had fallen in love with a lady hopelessly out of his reach. For some days past St. Quintin had been .aware that he stood in that rather absurd position, and calling himself by various unflattering names had not altered it in the least. It was a thing which must be submitted to, like any other iuenrable malady, and which, like some incurable maladies, admitted of concealment from the tinsympathetic gaze of bystanders. The only question was whether it did or did not behove him to steer clear of further contact with its cause. He did not consider that he was placing his reputation for common sense in jeopardy by answering that question in the negative.

"Having caught a disease," said he to himself, "one can't catch it over again, that's certain, and I don't see what possible harm it can do mc to go to St. Winifred's next Sunday. Perhaps it will do mc as little good as it lias to attend this tedious concert, at which she never appeared, after all; but I'm willing to take my chance. On the one side there's the possible disappointment of not seeing her, and the probable misery of seeing her in the company of people whom I hate; on the other side—well, there isn't much on the other side, I must admit ; but there's all I have to hope for henceforth. Good Lord ! what an unspeakable ass I am."

It will be observed that, in striking tbie balance, he did not take any conceivable danger to the lady's peace of mind into account. An as 3h« might be ; bat he really was not quite such an ass as to imagine that the Honourable Betty Mallet, that renowned beauty and heires3, could become enamoured of his homely countenance and modest social position. The young lady herself had, indeed, been so explicit with him of late that he could hardly, even if he had been so inclined, have cherished such an illusion. Their friendship, though liable, as we have seen, to occasional interruptions, stood upon a sufficiently tirm basis to render mutual comprehension easy, and he knew from * Copright

Betty's own lip 3 that, were she disposed to fall in love with anybody, it would be Lord Charles Jocelyn. " Not that I mean to marry him," she had added reassuringly ; " that would be rather too great a risk. * Still it teould be jolly to pay the poor fellow's debts and set him on his legs again. Whit's the use of mc, except to pay somebody's debts ? " St. Qointiu had inwardly rejoined, " And vhat's the use of mc, except to preserve you and your fortune from being devoted to that purpose ? " He really thought that he might thus be of some alight use to her. The paternal affection with which he had formerly regarded her was not extinct, although, for his misfortune, he had been compelled to acknowledge that he now saw her with less dispassionate eyes, and he was keenly alive to her unprotected state. Lady Maria was old, besides being determined, as old people so frequently are, to see nothing except what she* wanted to see, while Lionel, if he chose to interfere at all, would be apt to do so with a hand somewhat too heavy to be serviceable.

The upshot of all this was that St. Qiiintin attended the church of St. Winifred's on tho following Sunday morning, and was ail edified participant in a Missa cantata, celebrated in strict accordance with the use of Sarum. Being in a state of lamentable ignorance with reg.ird to questions of ritual, and too uneducated, from a musical point of view, to appreciate the beauties of plain song, he arrived at conclusions respecting the service and those who took part in it which, were neither very just nor very charitable. He was, however, just enough to admit that he no position to throw stones seeing that hi had not come to church for the purpose of saying his prayers, and indeed made no attempt to do anything of the kind while on. his kneea. Hia gaze and all his attention were riveted upon two female heads a short distance in front of him, one of which, surmounted by a flowery bonnet, nodded and quivered continually, while the other —a little blonde head, poised firmly above a well-shaped pair of shoulders —was turned every non dnd again to right and left after a fashion which suggested that its owner was not wholly absorbed in devotional exercises. Tho congregation was a largo and evidently aristocratic one ; it included a great many people whom St. Quintin knew by name, together with a few whom he knew personally, and it did not include Lord Charles Jocelyii. Of that he satisfied himself very soon after his entrance ; perhaps, next to the fact that 15etty Mallet was amongst the worshippers, that was the chief thing that he had been anxious to ascertain.

But, ot course, he was not there with the sole object of contemplating the back of Betty's head, wishing vainly that it were still adorned with the childish pigtail which had been discarded for ever, and sipjhing under his breath at regular intervals. Having appointed hiin3elf the young lady's unofficial watch-dog, it was clearly incumbent upon him to wftteh ovev her to the best of his ability, and he was not without hope that she would grant, him a brief opportunity of discharging this humble function on the conclusion of the service. So he was waiting in the porch when Lady Maria and her grand-daughter emerged, ready to extend a hand which both of them seemed pleased to grasp.

" This is really nice of you ! " said Betty. " I am sure you are a malignant Protestant at heart and hate the smell of incense, so we may accept your presence as a personal compliment. You are coming back to lunch, of course. lam going to the Park for half-an-hout* as soon as I have tucked granny into her brougham, and you may accompany rne if you like." Lady Maria, whom he was assisting into her carriage, at once seconded the iuvitation to luncheon.

"Always so glad to see you !" she was kind enough to say. " And do, like a good man, walk off to the Park with that child and keep an eye upon her. At my age one can't be everywhere, and she invariably picks up such a crew of disreputable women corning out of church that—oh, how do you do? I didn't sco you. I was just telling Mr St. Quintin that I don't half like Betty to exhibit herself in the Park with some of you; nobody, meeting her in such company, would bs likely to believe that she had been to cli,urc<'i at all."

The lady thus politely accosted—who wa.3 a tall, handsfjme, finely-developed personage, with bold eyes, auburn hair, and a. complexion so utterly impossible that no charge of falsity could be brought against ifc —laughed aloud., " Thanks so much \ " she returned. "I heard you calling mc dUreputable, so I thought I would step forward and try to make you feel ashamed of yourself. But it doesn't* seem to have been much of a success."

The old lady grunted. " I wish you had as little reason to be ashamed of yourself as I have," said she. " No, lam not going to beg your pardon ; I can't help it if listeners sometimes hear the truth about themselves. But you are a good-natured sort of sinner, I must admit." -

Lady J&usncliffe laughed again. She was certainly good-natured, and we are all sinners. Possibly her sins were not so very much more numerous or heinous than those of her fellow-creatures ; but, such as they were, it pleased her to draw the thinnest of veils over them, and the consequence was that no wise mother would have cared to lot her daughter appear in public under Lady Rushcliffe's wine. This wa3 what St. Quintin was thinking to himself, with a puckered brow, after Lady Maria had been whirled away and he had joined a small procession of smartly attired ladies and gentlemen. He could not, in fact, resist hinting as much to hia companion, although he knew that hints of that kind were rather dangerous. " Lady Maria is quite right, you know," he remarked.

"In what she says or in what she does, do you mean ?" asked Betty. " Oh," answered her mentor, smiling, " I am afraid very few of us are as good as our wovd. Lady Maria is extremely kind and indulgent, but ■" '•Now look here," interrupted Betty, "if you have it in your mind to abuse my friends, leb mc implore you to change your mind while there is still time; beoauso I won't stand that sort of thing, even from you." " Do you call Lady Sushcliffe a friend of yours ?" St. Quintin inquired. "Yes, I do," replied Betty, decisively and a little defiantly. " What then ?' "I am sorry to bear it, that's all. Sorrow isn't equivalent to abuse I hope ?" "It is, when it is expressed in that way. And why should you be either sorrowful or abusive ? I don't force you to associate with my friends, do I ? " "No ; but you force mc to see you associating with them, which is a good deal worse. Say what you will, they are not fit associates for you, some of them, and you show that you know it by being so touchy." "I am afraid," said Betty, "you were not listening to the sermon thia morning. It was a nice, bright little discourse, as all the St. Winifred's discourses are, and I quite agreed with the preacher. There is nothing so easy, he told us, as to discover other people's failings, and there are few things more difficult than to recognise our own."

" Really," observed St. Quintin, "if that was all he could do for you in the way of a novel announcement, I think he might have spared himself the trouble of climbing up into the pulpit. No, I wasn't listening to him, I confess. I was thinking about other things—chiefly about ycu and the people v/hom you choose to call your friends. I don't believe you have any real liking for them, and I ani sure that you do yourself more harm than you are aware of by accepting hospitality and other favours from them. It may be owing to some mistaken feeling of generosity on your part, or it may——" " Or it may," interrupted Betty, " be clue to my obstinate determination to lot nobody dictate to mc. I don't like your sermon nearly as well as the other, and I would rather not hear the end of it, please. You can't have anything to say that you haven't said a dozen times already, without the smallest effect. Lady Rushcfiffe is what she is, and Charlie Jocelyn is what he is, and— and sometimes you make mc wish that you weren't what you are! It is so stupid of you to make an old friend and ally wish that '.'*

"I suppose it is," sighed St. Quintin ; "I suppose I might as well hold my tongue for any good that lam likely to do. And yet I can't help seeing that you stand very much in need of some disinterested adviser."

He looked so rueful, and withal so humble, that Betty's temper, which had been in momentary danger of giving way, recovered itself.

" Bless you !" said she, laughing, " I can take care of myself ; I am not the raw rustic that youaeem to take mc for. You must re*

member that I was treated as a grown-up person ever so long ago, and I have heard and seen a lot more than most girls of my ajje. Oh, I'm quite capable of taking care ot myself."

" I hope so—l a?n sure I hope so !" was all that poor St. Quiiitin could rejoin.

Indeed, ehe gave him no opportunity to commit himself further ; for at that moment she ma-Je a barely perceptible signal to one of Lady Rnshcliffe'u young men, who had been glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, and who now fell back with alacrity to join Miss M.illet.

The Pjirk was very full that fine morning, and Betty \en3 soon the centre of a group of iively acquaintances, by whom St. Quintin was gradually shouldered into the background. From that obscure post of observation—so painfully symbolic of his actual position with regard to the girl whom he was so ridiculous as to love—he watched and listened to her for a time. Ho neither jjh , nor heard anything that could fairly be described as objectionable, even by a somewhat strait-laced bystander ; yet there were several innocent young gentlemen whose heads he longed to punch, and whose easy familiarity did not appear to give the o(fence to Miss Mallet which it ought to have given. Presently Betty glanced at her watch. " Hullo ! " she exclaimed, " I must be off. Granny is lunching a couple of eowley fathers, who are bound to be punctual lest they should keep their afternoon congregations waiting, and I have noticed that they don't like being hurried over their iood or the port wine ■which their doctors order them to take before preaching. Where is Mr St. Quintin ? We shall have to cull a hansom in Piccadilly, if you don't mind."

St. Quintin certainly did nob mind the prospect of escorting .Betty to (Jheshamplace, and was rather relieved to find that her present companions were not to be included among Lady Maria's ytu'sts. She took leave of them with a circular sweep of her hand, to which Lady Rushclifte responded by calling out, in loud ringing accents: "I'll pick you up as soon as I can after three o'clock, then. Rly love to the old lady, and tell her not to wait dinner for you if you aren't back in time."

" Now, I know," remarked Betty, after she and her attendant squire had seated themselves in the hansom which was soon secured, " that you are dying to ask to what resort of wickedness Lady Rushcliffe is going to take mc this af tornoon. Be calm ! \Ve are only going to a sequestered spot to practise riding our bikes. Afc the same time I should take it as a favour if you would kindly regard this communication as confidential. Granny's prejudices are capricious, and, for some reason or other, she has takeD it into her head that no lady who rcspscts herself can be seen upon a bicycle.''

It would have been jnore to the purpose, St. Quintin thought, if Lady Maria had taken it into hor hsad that loss of selfrespect was a probable result of being seen witU Lady Rushclifl'e. However, he held his peace us to that, and promised to do so with regard to Butty's afternoon engagement: although it presently transpired that what she called "a sequestered spot" was a certain riverside club where solitude could scarcely be expected by Sunday visitors.

For the rest, her behaviour during luncheon was all that could ba desired, and it appeared to give satisfaction to the two benevolent-looking ascetics, whose glasses she was careful to keep filled. She left the drawing-room immediately after their departure, and, a3 she did not return, Lady Maria remarked placidly : "I suppose that child is off somewhere. J. wish I could think that she had gone to Evensong." " Oil, I don't imagine that she has gone to Evensong," said St. Quintin, with a slight smile. The old lady straightened herself a little in her chair, and frowned at him over her spectacles. "Young man," said she, "do you know that you are rather impertinent ?" St. Quintin replied that he had not bee ft aware of being so. " Well, you are Ifc is distinctly impertinent to imply, as you do with that speaking countenance of yours, that I have no control over Betty, and that lam allowing her to get into bad company." "I really did not mean to imply all that," St. Quintin declared.

"Oh, didn't you? Well, you might have meant to imply it aod yet not have been quite as much in the wrong as I should like you to be." Nevertheless, lam not quite as much in the wrong as you think I am. I know what I can do and what I cau't, tiiat's all. Ifc is possible to lead Betty; it is almost impossible to drive her. And, as I remember telling you once before, I believe she is more disposed to be led by you than by anybody else." St. Quintin shook his head. " 1 have tried, and it hasn't been much of a success," said he.

" Try, again, will you ? And if you happen to hear of her doing anything really outrageous—but I don't think she will—just let mc know. After all, lam in authority over her, and I can exert my authority if need be."

St. Quintin agreed that there could be no question as to that; bub the discouraging conviction which he took away with him was that Lady Maria was as powerless as he himself was to coerce a young woman who had declared to him in so many words her determination to be dictated to by nobody. (To be Continued.)