Part 20 (2/2)
The opening door disturbed these ponderings. The nurse appeared, carrying the little boy. Lady Tranmore took him on her knee and caressed him. He was a piteous, engaging child, generally very docile, but liable at times to storms of temper out of all proportion to the fragility of his small person. His grandmother was inclined to look upon his pa.s.sions as something external and inflicted--the entering-in of the Blackwater devil to plague a tiny creature that, normally, was of a divine and clinging sweetness. She would have taught him religion, as his only s.h.i.+eld against himself; but neither his father nor his mother was religious; and Harry was likely to grow up a pagan.
He leaned now against her breast, and she, whose inmost nature was maternity, delighted in the pressure of the tiny body, crooning songs to him when they were left alone, and pausing now and then to pity and kiss the little shrunken foot that hung beside the other.
She was interrupted by a soft entrance and the rustle of a dress.
”Ah, Margaret!” she said, looking round and smiling.
The girl who had come in approached her, shook hands, and looked down at the baby. She was fair-haired and wore spectacles; her face was round and childish, her eyes round and blue, with certain lines about them, however, which showed that she was no longer in her first youth.
”I came to see if I could do anything to-day for Kitty. I know she is very busy about the ball--”
”Head over ears apparently,” said Lady Tranmore. ”Everybody has lost their wits. I see Kitty has chosen her dress.”
”Yes, if Fanchette can make it all right. Poor Kitty! She has been in such a state of mind. I think I'll go on with these invitations.”
And, taking off her gloves and hat, Margaret French went to the writing-table like one intimately acquainted with the room and its affairs, took up a pile of cards and envelopes which lay upon it, and, bringing them to Lady Tranmore's side, began to work upon them.
”I did about half yesterday,” she explained; ”but I see Kitty hasn't been able to touch them, and it is really time they were out.”
”For their party next week?”
”Yes. I hope Kitty won't tire herself out. It has been a rush lately.”
”Does she ever rest?”
”Never--as far as I can see. And I am afraid she has been very much worried.”
”About that silly affair with Prince Stephan?” said Lady Tranmore.
Margaret French nodded. ”She vows that she meant no harm, and did no harm, and that it has been all malice and exaggeration. But one can see she has been hurt.”
”Well, if you ask me,” said Lady Tranmore, in a low voice, ”I think she deserved to be.”
Their eyes met, the girl's full of a half-smiling, half-soft consideration. Lady Tranmore, on the other hand, had flushed proudly, as though the mere mention of the matter to which she had referred had been galling to her. Kitty, in fact, had just been guilty of an escapade which had set the town talking, and even found its way here and there in the newspapers. The heir to a European monarchy had been recently visiting London. A romantic interest surrounded him; for a lady, not of a rank sufficiently high to mate with his, had lately drowned herself for love of him, and the young man's melancholy good looks, together with the magnificent apathy of his manner, drew after him a chain of gossip. Kitty failed to meet him in society; certain invitations that for once she coveted did not arrive; and in a fit of pique she declared that she would make acquaintance with him in her own way. On a certain occasion, when the Princeling was at the play, his attention was drawn to a small and dazzling creature in a box opposite his own. Presently, however, there was a commotion in this box. The dazzling creature had fainted; and rumor sent round the name of Lady Kitty Ashe. The Prince despatched an equerry to make inquiries, and the inquiries were repeated that evening in Hill Street. Recovery was prompt, and the Prince let it be known that he wished to meet the lady. Invitations from high quarters descended upon Kitty; she bore herself with an engaging carelessness, and the melancholy youth was soon spending far more pains upon her than he had yet been known to spend upon any other English beauties presented to him. Ashe and Kitty's friends laughed; the old general in charge of the Princeling took alarm. And presently Kitty's audacities, alack, carried away her discretion; she began, moreover, to boast of her ruse.
Whispers crept round; and the general's ears were open. In a few days Kitty's triumph went the way of all earthly things. At a Court ball, to which her vanity had looked forward, unwarned, the Prince pa.s.sed her with gla.s.sy eyes, returning the barest bow to her smiling courtesy. She betrayed nothing; but somehow the thing got out, and set in motion a perfect hurricane of talk. It was rumored that the old Prime Minister, Lord Parham, had himself said a caustic word to Lady Kitty, that Royalty was annoyed, and that William Ashe had for once scolded his wife seriously.
Lady Tranmore was well aware that there was, at any rate, no truth in the last report; but she also knew that there was a tone of sharpness in the London chatter that was new with regard to Kitty. It was as though a certain indulgence was wearing out, and what had been amus.e.m.e.nt was pa.s.sing into criticism.
She and Margaret French discussed the matter a little, _sotto voce_, while Margaret went on with the invitations and Lady Tranmore made a French toy dance and spin for the babe's amus.e.m.e.nt. Their tone was one of close and friendly intimacy, an intimacy based clearly upon one common interest--their relation to Kitty. Margaret French was one of those beings in whom, for our salvation, this halting, hurried world of ours is still on the whole rich. She was unmarried, thirty-five, and poor. She lived with her brother, a struggling doctor, and she had come across Kitty in the first months of Kitty's married life, on some fas.h.i.+onable Soldiers' Aid Committee, where Margaret had done the work and Kitty with the other great ladies had reaped the fame. Kitty had developed a fancy for her, and presently could not live without her. But Margaret, though it soon became evident that she had taken Kitty and, in due time, the child--Ashe, too, for the matter of that--deep into her generous heart, preserved a charming measure in the friends.h.i.+p offered her. She would owe Kitty nothing, either socially or financially. When Kitty's smart friends appeared, she vanished. n.o.body in her own world ever heard her mention the name of Lady Kitty Ashe, largely as that name was beginning to figure in the gossip of the day. But there were few things concerning the Hill Street menage that Lady Tranmore could not safely and rightly discuss with her; and even Ashe himself went to her for counsel.
”I am afraid this has made things worse than ever with the Parhams,”
said Lady Tranmore, presently.
Margaret shook her head anxiously.
”I hope Kitty won't throw over their dinner next week.”
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