Phantom Fortune by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ereader iphone TXT) 📕

asked if Lady Lesbia's answer was final--and on being told that it was so, he dismissed the subject in the easiest manner, and with a gentlemanlike placidity which very much astonished the lady.

'You say that you regard me as your friend,' he said. 'Do not withdraw that privilege from me because I have asked for a higher place in your esteem. Forget all I have said this morning. Be assured I shall never offend you by repeating it.'

'You are more than good,' murmured Lesbia, who had expected a wild outbreak of despair or fury, rather than this friendly calm.

'I hope that you and Lady Kirkbank will go and hear Madame Metzikoff this afternoon,' pursued Mr. Smithson, returning to the subject of the _matinée_. 'The duchess's rooms are lovely; but no doubt you know them.'

Lesbia blushed, and confessed that the Duchess of Lostwithiel was one of those select few who were not on Lady Kirkbank's visiting list.

'There are people Lady Kirkbank cannot get on with,' she said. 'Perhaps she will hardly like to go to the duchess's, as she does not visit her.'

'Oh, but this affair counts for nothing. We go to hear Metzikoff, not to bow down to the duchess. All the people in town who care for music will be there, and you who play so divinely must enjoy fine professional playing.'

'I worship a really great player,' said Lesbia, 'and if I can drag Lady Kirkbank to the house of the enemy, we will be there.'

On this Mr. Smithson discreetly murmured '_au revoir_,' took up his hat and cane, and departed, without, in Sir George's parlance, having turned a hair.

'Refusal number one,' he said to himself, as he went downstairs, with his leisurely catlike pace, that velvet step by which he had gradually crept into society. 'We may have to go through refusal number two and number three; but she means to have me. She is a very clever girl for a countrybred one; and she knows that it is worth her while to be Lady Lesbia Smithson.'

This soliloquy may be taken to prove that Horace Smithson knew Lesbia Haselden better than she knew herself. She had refused him in all good faith; but even to-day, after he had left her, she fell into a day-dream in which Mr. Smithson's houses and yachts, drags and hunters, formed the shifting pictures in a dissolving view of society; and Lesbia wondered if there were any other young woman in London who would refuse such an offer as that which she had quietly rejected half-an-hour ago.

Lady Kirkbank surprised her while she was still absorbed in this dreamy review of the position. It is just possible that the fair Georgie may have had notice of Mr. Smithson's morning visit, and may have kept out of the way on purpose, for she was not a person of lazy habits, and was generally ready for her nine o'clock breakfast and her morning stroll in the park, however late she might have been out overnight.

'Mr. Smithson has been here, I understand,' said Lady Kirkbank, settling herself in an arm-chair by the open window, after she had kissed her _protégée_. 'Rilboche passed him on the stairs.'

'Rilboche is always passing people on the stairs,' answered Lesbia rather pettishly. 'I think she must spend her life on the landing, listening for arrivals and departures.'

'I had a kind of vague idea that Smithson would call to-day. He was so fussy about those tickets for the Metzikoff recital. I hate pianoforte recitals, and I detest that starched old duchess, but I suppose I shall have to take you there--or poor Smithson will be miserable,' said Lady Kirkbank, watching Lesbia keenly over the top of the newspaper.

She expected Lesbia to confide in her, to announce herself blushingly as the betrothed of one of the richest commoners in England. But Lesbia sat gazing dreamily across the flowers in the balcony at the house over the way, and said never a word; so Lady Kirkbank's curiosity burst into speech.

'Well, my dear, has he proposed? There was something in his manner last night when he put on your wraps that made me think the crisis was near.'

'The crisis is come and is past, and Mr. Smithson and I are just as good friends as ever.'

'What!' screamed Lady Kirkbank. 'Do you mean to tell me that you have refused him?'

'Certainly. You know I never meant to do anything else. Did you think I was like Miss Trinder, bent upon marrying town and country houses, stables and diamonds?'

'I did not think you were a fool,' cried Lady Kirkbank, almost beside herself with vexation, for it had been borne in upon her, as the Methodists sometimes say, that if Mr. Smithson should prosper in his wooing it would be better for her, Lady Kirkbank, who would have a claim upon his kindness ever after. 'What can be your motive in refusing one of the very best matches of the season--or of ever so many seasons? You think, perhaps, you will marry a duke, if you wait long enough for his Grace to appear: but the number of marrying dukes is rather small, Lady Lesbia, and I don't think any of those would care to marry Lord Maulevrier's granddaughter.'

Lesbia started to her feet, pale as ashes.

'Why do you fling my grandfather's name in my face--and with that diabolical sneer?' she exclaimed. 'When I have asked you about him you have always evaded my questions. Why should a man of the highest rank shrink from marrying Lord Maulevrier's granddaughter? My grandfather was a distinguished man--Governor of Madras. Such posts are not given to nobodies. How can you dare to speak as if it were a disgrace to me to belong to him?'


CHAPTER XXVIII.


'CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, IN WILD DISORDER SEEN.'

Lady Kirkbank had considerable difficulty in smoothing Lesbia's ruffled plumage. She did all in her power to undo the effect of her rash words--declared that she had been carried away by temper--she had spoken she knew not what--words of no meaning. Of course Lesbia's grandfather had been a great man--Governor of Madras; altogether an important and celebrated person--and Lady Kirkbank had meant nothing, could have meant nothing to his disparagement.

'My dearest girl, I was beside myself, and talked sheer nonsense,' said Georgie. 'But you know really now, dearest, any woman of the world would be provoked at your foolish refusal of that dear good Smithson. Only think of that too lovely house in Park Lane, a palace in the style of the Italian Renaissance--such a house is in itself equivalent to a peerage--and there is no doubt Smithson will be offered a peerage before he is much older. I have heard it confidently asserted that when the present Ministry retires Smithson will be made a Peer. You have no idea what a useful man he is, or what henchman's service he has done the Ministry in financial matters. And then there is his villa at Deauville--you don't know Deauville--a positively perfect place, the villa, I mean, built by the Duke de Morny in the golden days of the Empire--and another at Cowes, and his palace in Berkshire, a manor, my love, with a glorious old Tudor manor-house; and he has a _pied à terre_ in Paris, in the Faubourg, a ground-floor furnished in the Pompeian style, half-a-dozen rooms opening one out of the other, and surrounding a small garden, with a fountain in the middle. Some of the greatest people in Paris occupy the upper part of the house, and their rooms of course are splendid; but Smithson's ground-floor is the gem of the Faubourg. However, I suppose there is no use in talking any more; for there is the gong for luncheon.'

Lesbia was in no humour for luncheon.

'I would rather have a cup of tea in my own room,' she said. 'This Smithson business has given me an abominable headache.'

'But you will go to hear Metzikoff?'

'No, thanks. You detest the Duchess of Lostwithiel, and you don't care for pianoforte recitals. Why should I drag you there?'

'But, my dearest Lesbia, I am not such a selfish wretch as to keep you at home, when I know you are passionately fond of good music. Forget all about your headache, and let me see how that lovely little Catherine of Aragon bonnet suits you. I'm so glad I happened to see it in Seraphine's hands yesterday, just as she was going to send it to Lady Fonvielle, who gives herself such intolerable airs on the strength of a pretty face, and always wants to get the _primeures_ in bonnets and things.'

'Another new bonnet!' replied Lesbia. 'What an infinity of things I seem to be having from Seraphine. I'm afraid I must owe her a good deal of money.'

This was a vague way of speaking about actual facts. Lady Lesbia might have spoken with more certainty. Her wardrobes and old-fashioned hanging closets and chests of drawers in Arlington Street were crammed to overflowing with finery; and then there were all the things that she had grown tired of, or had thought unbecoming, and had given away to Kibble, her own maid, or to Rilboche, who had in a great measure superseded Kibble on all important occasions; for how could a Westmoreland girl know how to dress a young lady for London balls and drawing-rooms?

'If you had only accepted Mr. Smithson it would not matter how much money you owed people,' said Lady Kirkbank. 'You had better come down to lunch. A glass of Heidseck will bring you up to concert pitch.'

Champagne was Lady Kirkbank's idea of a universal panacea; and she had gradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe in the sovereign power of Heidseck as a restorative for shattered nerves. At Fellside Lesbia had drunk only water; but then at Fellside she had never known that feeling of exhaustion and prostration which follows days and nights spent in society, the wear and tear of a mind forever on the alert, and brilliant spirits which are more often forced than real. For her chief stimulant Lesbia had recourse to the teapot; but there were occasions when she found that something more than tea was needed to maintain that indispensable vivacity of manner which Lady Kirkbank called concert pitch.

To-day she allowed herself to be persuaded. She went down to luncheon, and took a couple of glasses of dry champagne with her cutlet, and, thus restored, was equal to putting on the new bonnet, which was so becoming that her spirits revived as she contemplated the effect in her glass. So Lady Kirkbank carried her off to the musical _matinée_, beaming and radiant, having forgotten all about that dark hint of evil glancing at the name of her long dead grandfather.

The duchess was not on view when Lady Kirkbank and her _protégée_ arrived, and a good many people belonging to Georgie's own particular set were scattered like flowers among those real music-lovers who had come solely to hear the new pianiste. The music-lovers were mostly dowdy in their attire, and seemed a race apart. Among them were several young women of the Blessed Damozel school, who wore flowing garments of sap-green or orche, or puffed raiment of Venetian red, and among whom the cartwheel hat, the Elizabethan sleeve, and the Toby frill were conspicuous.

There were very few men except the musical critics in this select assemblage, and Lesbia began to think that it was going to be very dreary. She had lived in such an atmosphere of masculine adulation while under Lady Kirkbank's wing that it was a