London Pride by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook reader for surface pro txt) 📕

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"Fate is always perverse, and a husband is very lucky if there is but one day out of seven on which his return would be troublesome," answered one of her gossips.

Fate had been perverse, for Angela heard her brother-in-law's deep strong voice talking in the hall, and presently he came down the marble steps to the terrace, and came towards her, white with Kentish dust, and carrying an open letter in his hand. She had risen at the sound of the bell, and was hurrying to the house as he met her. He came close up to her, scarcely according her the civility of greeting. Never had she seen his countenance more gloomy.

"You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs," he said. "Where is your sister?"

"At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury's."

"So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in the hall, say they set her down at the palace."

"At Whitehall?"

"Yes, at Whitehall. There is a modish performance there to-night, I hear; but I doubt it is over, for the Strand was crowded with hackney coaches moving eastward. I passed a pair of handsome eyes in a gilded chair, that flashed fury at me as I rode by, which I'll swear were Mrs. Palmer's; and, waiting for me in the hall, I found this letter, that had just been handed in by a link, who doubtless belonged to the same lady. Read, Angela; the contents are scarce long enough to weary you." She took the letter from him with a hand that trembled so that she could hardly hold the sheet of paper.

"Watch! There is an intrigue afoot this night; and you must be a greater dullard than I think you if you cannot unmask a deceitful----"

The final word was one which modern manners forbid in speech or printed page. Angela's pallid cheek flushed crimson at the sight of the vile epithet. Oh, insane lightness of conduct which made such an insult possible! Standing there, confronting the angry husband, with that detestable paper in her hand, she felt a pang of compunction at the thought that she might have been more strenuous in her arguments with her sister, more earnest and constant in reproof. When the peace and good repute of two lives were at stake, was it for her to consider any question of older or younger, or to be restrained by the fear of offending a sister who had been so generous and indulgent to her?

Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with angry suspicion.

"Come," he said, "I scarce expected a lying answer from you; and yet you join with servants to deceive me. You know your sister is not at Lady Sarah's."

"I know nothing, except that, wherever she is, I will vouch that she is innocently employed, and has done nothing to deserve that infamous aspersion," giving him back the letter.

"Innocently employed! You carry matters with a high hand. Innocently employed, in a company of she-profligates, listening to Killigrew's ribald jokes--Killigrew, the profanest of them all, who can turn the greatest calamity this city ever suffered to horseplay and jeering. Innocently employed, in direct disobedience to her husband! So innocently employed that she makes her servants--and her sister--tell lies to cover her innocence!"

"Hector as much as you please, I have told your lordship no lies; and, with your permission, I will leave you to recover your temper before my sister's return, which I doubt will happen within the next hour."

She moved quickly past him towards the house.

"Angela, forgive me----" he began, trying to detain her; but she hurried on through the open French window, and ran upstairs to her room, where she locked herself in.

For some minutes she walked up and down, profoundly agitated, thinking out the position of affairs. To Fareham she had carried matters with a high hand, but she was full of fear. The play was over, and her sister, who doubtless had been among the audience, had not come home. Was she staying at the palace, gossiping with the maids-of-honour, shining among that brilliant, unscrupulous crowd, where intrigue was in the very air, where no woman was credited with virtue, and every man was remorseless?

The anonymous letter scarcely influenced Angela's thoughts in these agitated moments--that was but a foul assault on character by a foul-minded woman. But the furtive confabulations of the past week must have had some motive; and her sister's fluttered manner before leaving the house had marked this night as the crisis of the plot.

Angela could imagine nothing but that ghostly masquerading which had, in the first place, been discussed freely in her presence; and she could but wonder that De Malfort and her sister should have made a mystery about a plan which she had known in its inception. The more deeply she considered all the circumstances, the more she inclined to suspect some evil intention on De Malfort's part, of which Hyacinth, so frank, so shallow, might be too easy a dupe.

"I do little good doubting and suspecting and wondering here," she said to herself; and after hastily lighting the candles on her toilet-table, she began to unlace the bodice of her light-coloured silk mantua, and in a few minutes had changed her elegant evening attire for a dark cloth gown, short in the skirt, and loose in the sleeves, which had been made for her to wear upon the river. In this costume she could handle a pair of sculls as freely as a waterman.

When she had put on a little black silk hood, she extinguished her candles, pulled aside the curtain which obscured the open window, and looked out on the terrace. There was just light enough to show her that the coast was clear. The iron gate at the top of the water-stairs was seldom locked, nor were the boat-houses often shut, as boats were being taken in and out at all hours, and, for the rest, neglect and carelessness might always be reckoned upon in the Fareham household.

She ran lightly down a side staircase, and so by an obscure door to the river-front. No, the gate was not locked, and there was not a creature within sight to observe or impede her movements. She went down the steps to the paved quay below the garden terrace. The house where the wherries were kept was wide open, and, better still, there was a skiff moored by the side of the steps, as if waiting for her; and she had but to take a pair of sculls from the rack and step into the boat, unmoor and away westward, with swiftly dipping oars, in the soft summer silence, broken now and then by sounds of singing--a tipsy, unmelodious strain, perhaps, were it heard too near, but musical in the distance--as the rise and fall of voices crept along a reach of running water.

The night was hot and oppressive, even on the river. But it was better here than anywhere else; and Angela breathed more freely as she bent over her sculls, rowing with all her might, intent upon reaching that landing-stage she knew of in the very shortest possible time. The boat was heavy, but she had the incoming tide to help her.

Was Fareham hunting for his wife, she wondered? Would he go to Lady Sarah's lodgings, in the first place; and, not finding Hyacinth there, to Whitehall? And then, would he remember the assembly at Millbank, in which he had taken no part, and apparently no interest? And would he extend his search to the ruined abbey? At the worst, Angela would be there before him, to prepare her sister for the angry suspicions which she would have to meet. He was not likely to think of that place till he had exhausted all other chances.

It was not much more than a mile from Fareham House to that desolate bit of country betwixt Westminster and Chelsea, where the modern dairy-farm occupied the old monkish pastures. As Angela ran her boat inshore, she expected to see Venetian lanterns, and to hear music and voices, and all the indications of a gay assembly; but there were only silence and darkness, save for one lighted window in the dairyman's dwelling-house, and she thought that she had come upon a futile errand, and had been mistaken in her conjectures.

She moored her boat to the wooden landing-stage, and went on shore to examine the premises. The revelry might be designed for a later hour, though it was now near midnight, and Lady Sarah's party had assembled at eleven. She walked across a meadow, where the dewy grass was cool under her feet, and so to the open space in front of the dairyman's house--a shabby building attached like a wen to the ruined refectory.

She started at hearing the snort of a horse, and the jingling of bit and curb-chain, and came suddenly upon a coach-and-four, with a couple of post-boys standing beside their team.

"Whose coach is this?" she asked.

"Mr. Malfy's, your ladyship."

"The French gentleman from St. James's Street, my lady," explained the other man.

"Did you bring Monsieur de Malfort here?"

"No, madam. We was told to be here at eleven, with horses as fresh as fire; and the poor tits be mighty impatient to be moving. Steady, Champion! You'll have work enough this side Dartford,"--to the near leader, who was shaking his head vehemently, and pawing the gravel.

Angela waited to ask no further questions, but made straight for the unglazed window, through which Mr. Spavinger and his companions had entered.

There was no light in the great vaulted room, save the faint light of summer stars, and two figures were there in the dimness--a woman standing straight and tall in a satin gown, whose pale sheen reflected the starlight; a woman whose right arm was flung above her head, bare and white, her hand clasping her brow distractedly; and a man, who knelt at her feet, grasping the hand that hung at her side, looking up at her, and talking eagerly, with passionate gestures.

Her voice was clearer than his; and Angela heard her repeating with a piteous shrillness, "No, no, no! No, Henri, no!"

She stayed to hear no more, but sprang through the opening between the broken mullions, and rushed to her sister's side; and as De Malfort started to his feet, she thrust him vehemently aside, and clasped Hyacinth in her arms.

"You here, Mistress Kill-joy?" he muttered, in a surly tone. "May I ask what business brought you? For I'll swear you wasn't invited."

"I have come to save my sister from a villain, sir. But oh, my sweet, I little dreamt thou hadst such need of me!"

"Nay, love, thou didst ever make tragedies out of nothing," said Hyacinth, struggling to disguise hysterical tears with airy laughter. "But I am right glad all the same that you are come; for this gentleman has put a scurvy trick upon me, and brought me here on pretence of a gay assembly that has no existence."

"He is a villain and a traitor," said Angela, in deep, indignant tones. "Dear love, thou hast been in danger I dare scarce think of. Fareham is searching for you."

"Fareham! In London?"

"Returned an hour ago. Hark!"

She lifted her finger warningly as a bell rang, and the well-known voice sounded outside the house, calling to some one to open the door.

"He is here!" cried Hyacinth, distractedly. "For God's sake, hide me from him! Not for worlds--not for worlds would I meet him!"

"Nay, you have nothing to fear. It