Part 32 (2/2)
Margaret rang the bell, and waited in feverish suspense to hear the issue.
”Who has arrived?” she asked, as the housekeeper appeared, arrayed in stiff black satin.
”The lady you were expecting, miss, I take it, with a lady's maid and groom. She has gone up to her room, and told me to tell Miss Walsingham she would appear in half an hour.”
It was ten minutes to seven when the visitor, having partaken of a hearty dinner in her own room, and gone through the intricacies of a super-elegant toilet, with the a.s.sistance of her maid, came down to the reception-room, and was met with outstretched hands by placable Margaret.
”How kind of you to come to me!” she breathed, ”and to prove a ready friend.”
The lissome figure approached--beautiful, radiant as ever--and, tripping quite up to Margaret, she took her pale hand and pressed it graciously.
”Are we friends?” she queried, with her head a little drooped on one side, and eyes raised inquiringly. ”Are you going to forget my naughty petulance? Papa and I have been so angry at ourselves that we let you go.”
”All that is forgotten, dear Lady Julie.”
”You are such a good creature, to be sure! But now tell me, what is this wonderful matter of life and death?” demanded my lady, whose eyes were roving round the ma.s.sive furniture and lordly size of the old room, as if they were accustomed to take stock. ”I could not resist such a tragic invitation; but I was not alarmed, for you always had such a strange way of putting things. Now do tell me, Margaret, dear!--there is n.o.body half as much interested as I am--are you really going to marry him after all?
Such is the report.”
”Nothing has been settled yet,” answered Margaret, quietly. ”Take a seat near the fire, Lady Juliana. I expect some visitors in a few minutes, and you may as well be well warmed before you are presented.”
My lady sat down, with a meaning smile, as directed.
”Does St. Udo expect to see me?” she asked, coquettishly. ”Is he aware that I was to come?”
”He is unconscious of your presence, my lady.”
”Ah, ha! Too jealous to tell him! Ah, ha! Margaret, my dear, so you are afraid of his old flame! Well, it isn't surprising. Everybody gets jealous of me. I am considered so very pretty, and I vow I have become so accustomed to being envied that I don't feel comfortable unless half a dozen women are glaring at me with jealousy!”
”Heartless as ever, my Lady Julie.”
”Portentous as ever, my tragic muse. Well, well, don't be so stiff with me, your Julie--why should you? I am so curious to know something about you. I think you are a most extraordinary woman. Are you going to be the mistress of Seven-Oak Waaste after all?”
”I intend to retain possession of it.”
”And to marry St. Udo? Heigh, ho! my old lover. Is he much enamored with you? Inconstant wretch! he might have run up to Hautville, if it was only to taunt me with my cruelty in jilting him. I don't seem to have got on much better for having been so obedient to papa; positively I am without a matrimonial expectation; without even an _attache_, except my snip of a cousin Harry, who cant marry anybody until his uncle Henry and three sons die. The Duke of Piermont has gone back to Ireland, and is supposed to be either mad or writing a book. My own opinion is, that he has fallen in love with some stock-jobber's daughter, or nameless orphan, and that his family have interfered, to prevent a shameful _mesalliance_.”
My lady glanced spitefully at Margaret's inflexible face, but failed to read it.
The door was opened while she was examining her shallow reservoirs for more gossip, and the two executors were announced just as the pompous hall-clock struck seven.
”You are punctual, sirs,” said the lady of the castle, pressing each hand gratefully in her feverish fingers; ”let me present you to a friend, whose name is well known to you: Lady Juliana Ducie.”
My lady bowed to each condescendingly and sank to her cus.h.i.+ons again with raised eyebrows. The executors looked at each other and at their ward, also with raised eyebrows.
”You shall see my meaning in a few minutes,” she breathed, pa.s.sing the lawyer.
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