Part 57 (1/2)
Wilton knew all the persons that he was always thinking about, but whom, it might be noticed, they seemed to agree now rarely to mention. As for the rest, there was n.o.body to call upon in the delightful hours between official duties and dinner. No Lady Roehampton now, no brilliant Berengaria, and not even the gentle Imogene with her welcome smile.
He looked in at the Coventry Club, a club of fas.h.i.+on, and also much frequented by diplomatists. There were a good many persons there, and a foreign minister immediately b.u.t.tonholed the Under-Secretary of State.
”I called at the Foreign Office to-day,” said the foreign minister. ”I a.s.sure you it is very pressing.”
”I had the American with me,” said Endymion, ”and he is very lengthy.
However, as to your business, I think we might talk it over here, and perhaps settle it.” And so they left the room together.
”I wonder what is going to happen to that gentleman,” said Mr. Ormsby, glancing at Endymion, and speaking to Mr. Ca.s.silis.
”Why?” replied Mr. Ca.s.silis, ”is anything up?”
”Will he marry Lady Montfort?”
”Poh!” said Mr. Ca.s.silis.
”You may poh!” said Mr. Ormsby, ”but he was a great favourite.”
”Lady Montfort will never marry. She had always a poodle, and always will have. She was never so _liee_ with Ferrars as with the Count of Ferroll, and half a dozen others. She must have a slave.”
”A very good mistress with thirty thousand a year.”
”She has not that,” said Mr. Ca.s.silis doubtingly.
”What do you put Princedown at?” said Mr. Ormsby.
”That I can tell you to a T,” replied Mr. Ca.s.silis, ”for it was offered to me when old Rambrooke died. You will never get twelve thousand a year out of it.”
”Well, I will answer for half a million consols,” said Ormsby, ”for my lawyer, when he made a little investment for me the other day, saw the entry himself in the bank-books; our names are very near, you know--M, and O. Then there is her jointure, something like ten thousand a year.”
”No, no; not seven.”
”Well, that would do.”
”And what is the amount of your little investment in consols altogether, Ormsby?”
”Well, I believe I top Montfort,” said Mr. Ormsby with a complacent smile, ”but then you know, I am not a swell like you; I have no land.”
”Lady Montfort, thirty thousand a year,” said Mr. Ca.s.silis musingly.
”She is only thirty. She is a woman who will set the Thames on fire, but she will never marry. Do you dine to-day, by any chance, with Sidney Wilton?”
When Endymion returned home this evening, he found a letter from Lady Montfort. It was a month since he had written to her. He was so nervous that he absolutely for a moment could not break the seal, and the palpitation of his heart was almost overpowering.
Lady Montfort thanked him for his kind letter, which she ought to have acknowledged before, but she had been very busy--indeed, quite overwhelmed with affairs. She wished to see him, but was sorry she could not ask him to come down to Princedown, as she was living in complete retirement, only her aunt with her, Lady Gertrude, whom, she believed, he knew. He was aware, probably, how good Lord Montfort had been to her.
Sincerely she could say, nothing could have been more unexpected. If she could have seen her husband before the fatal moment, it would have been a consolation to her. He had always been kind to Endymion; she really believed sometimes that Lord Montfort was even a little attached to him. She should like Endymion to have some souvenir of her late husband.
Would he choose something, or would he leave it to her?
One would rather agree, from the tone of this letter, that Mr. Ca.s.silis knew what he was talking about. It fell rather odd on Endymion's heart, and he pa.s.sed a night of some disquietude; not one of those nights, exactly, when we feel that the end of the world has at length arrived, and that we are the first victim, but a night when you slumber rather than sleep, and wake with the consciousness of some indefinable chagrin.
This was a dull Christmas for Endymion Ferrars. He pa.s.sed it, as he had pa.s.sed others, at Gaydene, but what a contrast to the old a.s.semblies there! Every source of excitement that could make existence absolutely fascinating seemed then to unite in his happy fate. Entrancing love and the very romance of domestic affection, and friends.h.i.+ps of honour and happiness, and all the charms of an accomplished society, and the feeling of a n.o.ble future, and the present and urgent interest in national affairs--all gone, except some ambition which might tend to consequences not more successful than those that had ultimately visited his house with irreparable calamity.