Part 14 (1/2)
”I have been making arrangements to let half the house to Mr.
Smith's family, who will move in next week. They are pleasant people, and as we had twice as much room as we actually needed, I thought it best to take them. Then again, we shan't need so much furniture, and if you like, you can sell Mr. Smith some of what we have, at a fair price.”
Mr. Burgess neither frowned nor looked displeased, nor did he ever afterwards oppose his wife's designs. He soon found his expenses so reduced, that, with the fruits of his wife's industry added to his own, they were able to live quite comfortably and happily; and, although he soon became engaged in more profitable business, he never again urged her to indulge in the folly of ”living like a lady.”
LADY LUCY'S SECRET.
MR. FERRARS, who sat reading the morning paper, suddenly started with an exclamation of grief and astonishment that completely roused his absent-minded wife.
”My dear Walter, what has happened?” she asked, with real anxiety.
”A man a bankrupt, whom I thought as safe as the Bank of England!
Though it is true, people talked about him months ago--spoke suspiciously of his personal extravagance, and, above all, said that his wife was ruining him.”
”His wife!”
”Yes; but I cannot understand that sort of thing. A few hundreds a year more or less could be of little moment to a man like Beaufort, and I don't suppose she spent more than you do, my darling. At any rate she was never better dressed. Yet I believe the truth was, that she got frightfully into debt unknown to him; and debt is a sort of thing that multiplies itself in a most astonis.h.i.+ng manner, and sows by the wayside the seeds of all sorts of misery. Then people say that when payday came at last, bickerings ensued, their domestic happiness was broken up, Beaufort grew reckless, and plunged into the excitement of the maddest speculations.”
”How dreadful!” murmured Lady Lucy.
”Dreadful indeed! I don't know what I should do with such a wife.”
”Would not you forgive her if you loved her very much?” asked Lady Lucy, and she spoke in a singularly calm tone of suppressed emotion.
”Once, perhaps, once; and if her fault were the fault of youthful inexperience,--but so much falseness, mean deception, and mental deterioration must have accompanied such transactions, that--in short, I thank Heaven that I have never been put to the trial.”
As he spoke, the eyes of Mr. Ferrars were fixed on the leading article of the Times, not on his wife. Presently Lady Lucy glided from the room, without her absence being at the moment observed.
Once in her dressing-room, she turned the key, and sinking into a low chair, gave vent to her grief in some of the bitterest tears she had ever shed. She, too, was in debt; ”frightfully” her husband had used the right word; ”hopelessly” so far as satisfying her creditors, even out of the large allowance Mr. Ferrars made her; and still she had not the courage voluntarily to tell the truth, which yet she knew must burst upon him ere long. From what small beginnings had this Upas shadow come upon her! And what ”falseness, mean deception, and mental deterioration” had truly been hers!
Even the fancied relief of weeping was a luxury denied to her, for she feared to show the evidence of tears; thus after a little while she strove to drive them back, and by bathing her face before the gla.s.s, and drawing the braids of her soft hair a little nearer her eyes, she was tolerably successful in hiding their trace. Never, when dressing for court or gala, had she consulted her mirror so closely; and now, though the tears were dried, she was shocked at the lines of anguish--those delvers of the wrinkles of age--which marked her countenance. She sat before her looking-gla.s.s, one hand supporting her head, the other clutching the hidden letters which she had not yet the courage to open. There was a light tap at the door.
”Who is there?” inquired Lady Lucy.
”It is I, my lady,” replied Harris, her faithful maid. ”Madame Dalmas is here.”
Lady Lucy unlocked the door and gave orders that the visiter should be shown up. With the name had come a flush of hope that some trifling temporary help would be hers. Madame Dalmas called herself a Frenchwoman, and signed herself ”Antoinette” but she was really an English Jewess of low extraction, whose true name was Sarah Solomons. Her ”profession” was to purchase--and sell--the cast-off apparel of ladies of fas.h.i.+on; and few of the sisterhood have carried the art of double cheating to so great a proficiency. With always a roll of bank-notes in her old leather pocket-book, and always a dirty canva.s.s bag full of bright sovereigns in her pocket, she had ever the subtle temptation for her victims ready.
Madame Dalmas--for she must be called according to the name engraved on her card--was a little meanly-dressed woman of about forty, with bright eyes and a hooked nose, a restless shuffling manner, and an ill-pitched voice. Her jargon was a mixture of bad French and worse English.
”Bon jour, miladi Lucy,” she exclaimed as she entered Lady Lucy's sanctum; ”need not inquire of health, you look si charmante. Oh, si belle!--that make you wear old clothes so longer dan oder ladies, and have so leetel for me to buy. Milady Lucy Ferrars know she look well in anyting, but yet she should not wear old clothes: no right--for example--for de trade, and de hoosband always like de wife well dressed--ha--ha!”
Poor Lady Lucy! Too sick at heart to have any relish for Madame Dalmas' nauseous compliments, and more than half aware of her cheats and falsehoods, she yet tolerated the creature from her own dire necessities.
”Sit down, Madame Dalmas,” she said, ”I am dreadfully in want of money; but I really don't know what I have for you.”
”De green velvet, which you not let me have before Easter, I still give you four pounds for it, though perhaps you worn it very much since then.”
”Only twice--only seven times in all--and it cost me twenty guineas,” sighed Lady Lucy.
”Ah, but so old-fas.h.i.+oned--I do believe I not see my money for it.