Lady Hilda Tregellis rang the bell resolutely. ‘I shall have no more nonsense about it,’ she said to herself in her most decisive and determined manner. ‘Whether mamma wishes it or not, I shall go and see them this very day without another word upon the subject.’
The servant answered the bell and stood waiting for his orders by the doorway.
‘Harris, will you tell Jenkins at once that I shall want the carriage at half-past eleven?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘All right then. That’ll do. Don’t stand staring at me there like an image, but go this minute and do as I tell you.’
‘Beg pardon, my lady, but her ladyship said she wanted the carriage herself at twelve puncshual.’
‘She can’t have it, then, Harris. That’s all. Go and give my message to Jenkins at once, and I’ll settle about the carriage with my lady myself.’
‘She’s the rummest young lady ever I come across,’ the man murmured to himself in a dissatisfied fashion, as he went down the stairs again: ‘but there, it’s none of my business, thank goodness. The places and the people she does go and hunt up when she’s got the fit on are truly ridic’lous: blest if she didn’t acshally make Mr. Jenkins drive her down into Camberwell the other mornin’, to see ‘ow the poor lived, she said; as if it mattered tuppence to us in our circles of society ‘ow the poor live. I wonder what little game she’s up to now? Well, well, what the aristocracy is coming to in these days is more’n I can fathom, as sure as my name’s William ‘Arris.’
The little game that Lady Hilda was up to that morning was one that a gentleman in Mr. Harris’s position was certainly hardly like to appreciate or sympathise with.
The evening before, she had met Arthur Berkeley once more at a small At Home, and had learned from him full particulars as to the dire straits into which the poor Le Bretons had finally fallen. Now, Hilda Tregellis was a kind-hearted girl at bottom, and when she heard all about it, she said at once to Arthur, ‘I shall go and see them myself to-morrow, Mr. Berkeley, whether mamma allows me or not.’
‘What good will it do?’ Arthur had answered her quickly. ‘You can’t find work for poor Le Breton, can you? and of course if you can’t do that you can be of no earthly use in any way to the poor creatures.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Hilda responded warmly. ‘Sympathy’s always something, isn’t it, Mr. Berkeley? Nobody ought to know that better than you do. Besides, there’s no saying when one may happen to turn up useful. Of course, I’ve never been of the slightest use to anybody in all my life, myself, I know, and I dare say I never shall be, but at least there’s no harm in trying, is there? I’m on speaking terms with such an awful lot of people, all of them rich and many of them influential—Parliament, and Government offices, and all that sort of nonsense, you know—people who have no end of things to give away, and can’t tell who on earth they’d better give them to, for fear of offending all the others, that I might possibly hear of something or other.’
‘I’m afraid, Lady Hilda,’ Berkeley answered smiling, ‘none of those people would have anything to offer that could possibly be of the slightest use to poor Le Breton. If he’s to be saved at all, he must be saved in his own time and by his own methods. For my own part, I don’t see what conceivable chance of success in life there is left for him. You can’t imagine a man like him making money and living comfortably. It’s a tragedy—all the dramas of real life always ARE tragedies; but I’m terribly afraid there’s no conceivable way out of it.’
Lady Hilda only looked at him with bold good humour. ‘Nonsense,’ she said bravely. ‘All pure rubbishing pessimistic nonsense. (I hope pessimistic’s the right word—it’s a very good word, anyhow, even if it isn’t in the proper place.) Well, I don’t agree with you at all about this question, Mr. Berkeley. I’m very fond of Mr. Le Breton, really very fond of him; and I believe there’s a corner somewhere for every man if only he can jog down properly into his own corner instead of being squeezed forcibly into somebody else’s. The worst of it is, all the holes are round, and Mr. Le Breton’s a square man, I allow: he wants all the angles cutting down off him.’
‘But you can’t cut them off; that’s the very trouble,’ Arthur answered, with just a faint rising suspicion that he was half jealous of the interest Hilda showed even in poor lonely Ernest Le Breton. Gracious heavens! could he be playing false at last to the long-cherished memory of little Miss Butterfly? could he be really beginning to fall just a little in love, after all, with this bold beautiful Lady Hilda Tregellis? He didn’t know, and yet he somehow hardly liked himself to think it. And while Edie was still so poor too!
‘No, you can’t cut them off; I know that perfectly well,’ Hilda rejoined quickly. ‘I wouldn’t care twopence for him if I thought you could. It’s the angles that give him all his charming delicious originality. But you can look out a square hole for him somewhere, you know, and that of course would be a great deal better. Depend upon it, Mr. Berkeley, there are square holes up and down in the world, if only we knew where to look for them; and the mistake that everybody has made in poor Mr. Le Breton’s case has been that instead of finding one to suit him, they’ve gone on trying to poke him down anyhow by main force into one of the round ones. That goes against the grain, you know; besides which I call it a clear waste of the very valuable solid mahogany corners.’
Arthur Berkeley looked at her silently for a moment, as if a gleam of light had burst suddenly in upon him. Then he said to her slowly and deliberately, ‘Perhaps you’re right, Lady Hilda, though I never thought of it quite in that light before. But one thing certainly strikes me now, and that is that you’re a great deal cleverer after all than I ever thought you.’
Lady Hilda made a little mock curtsey. ‘It’s very good of you to say so,’ she answered, half-saucily. ‘Only the compliment is rather double-edged, you must confess, because it implies that up to now you’ve had a dreadfully low opinion of my poor little intelligence.’
So after that conversation Lady Hilda made up her mind that she would certainly go the very next day and call as soon as possible upon Edie Le Breton. Nobody could tell what good might possibly come of it; but at least there could come no harm. And so, when the carriage drew up it the door at half-past eleven, Hilda Tregellis stepped into it with a vague consciousness of an important mission, and ordered Jenkins to drive at once to the side street in Holloway, whose address Arthur Berkeley had last night given her. Jenkins touched his hat with mechanical respect, but inwardly wondered what the dickens my lady would think if only she came to know of these ‘ere extrornary goin’s on.
At the door of the lodgings Hilda alighted and rang the bell herself. Good Mrs. Halliss opened the door, and answered quickly that Mrs. Le Breton was at home. Her woman’s eye detected at once the coronet on the carriage, and she was ready to burst with delight when the tall visitor handed her a card for Edie, bearing the name of Lady Hilda Tregellis. It was almost the first time that Edie had had any lady callers; certainly the first time she had had any of such social distinction; and Mrs. Halliss made haste to usher her up in due form, and then ran down hastily to communicate the good news to honest John, who in his capacity of past coachman was already gazing out of the area window with deep interest at the carriage and horses.
‘There, John dear,’ she cried, with tears of joy in her eyes, forgetting in her excitement to drat the man for not being in the back kitchen, ‘to think that we should see a carriage an’ pair like that there a-drawin’ up in front of out own very ‘ouse, and Lady ‘Ilder Tergellis, or summat o’ the sort, a-comin’ ‘ere to see that dear little lady in the parlour, why, it’s enough to make one’s ‘eart burst, nearly, just you see now if it reelly isn’t. You could a’ knocked me down with a feather, a’most, when that there Lady ‘Ilder ‘anded me ‘er curd, and asked so sweet-like if Mrs. Le Breting was at ‘ome. Mr. Le Breting’s people is comin’ round, you may be sure of it; ‘is mother’s a lady of title, that much we know for certing; and she wouldn’t go and let ‘er own flesh an’ blood die ‘ere of downright poverty, as they’re like to do and won’t let us ‘elp it, pore dears, without sendin’ round to inquire and assist ‘em. Married against ‘er will, I understand, from what that dear Mr. Berkeley, bless ‘is kind ‘eart, do tell me; not as I can believe ‘e married beneath ‘im, no, not no ways; for a sweeter, dearer, nicer little lady than our Mrs. Le Breting I never did, an’ that I tell you. Sweeter manners you never did see yourself, John, for all you’ve lived among the aristocracy: an’ I always knew ‘is people ‘ud come round at last, and do what was right by ‘im. An’ you may depend upon it, John, this ‘ere Lady ‘Ilder’s one of his relations, an’ she’s come round on a message from Lady Le Breting, to begin a reconciliation. And though we should be sorry to lose ‘em, as ‘as stood by ‘em through all their troubles, I’m glad to ‘ear it, John, that I am, for I can’t a-bear to see that dear young fellow a-eatin’ ‘is life out with care and anxiety.’ And Mrs. Halliss, who had always felt convinced in her own mind that Ernest must really be the unacknowledged heir to a splendid fortune, began to wipe her eyes violently in her delight at this evident realisation of her wildest fancies and wishes.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the little parlour, Edie had risen in some trepidation as Mrs. Halliss placed in her hands Lady Hilda Tregellis’s card. Ernest was out, gone to walk feebly around the streets of Holloway, and she hardly knew at first what to say to so unexpected a visitor. But Lady Hilda put her almost at her ease at once by coming up to her with both her arms outstretched, as to an old friend, and saying, with one of her pleasantest smiles:
‘You must forgive me, Mrs. Le Breton, for never having come to call on you before; but I have been long meaning to, and doubting whether you would care to see me or not. You know, I’m a very old friend of your husband’s—he was SO kind to me always when he was down at our place in dear old Devonshire. (You’re a Devonshire girl yourself, aren’t you? just as I am. I thought so. I’m so glad of it. I always get on so well with the dear old Devonshire folk.) Well, I’ve been meaning to come for ever so long, and putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off, as one WILL put things off, you know, when you’re not quite sure about them, until last evening. And then our friend, Mr. Arthur Berkeley, who knows everybody, talked to me about your husband and you, and told me he thought you wouldn’t mind my coming to see you, for he fancied you hadn’t much society up here that you cared for or sympathised with: though, of course, I’m dreadfully afraid of coming to call upon you, because I know you’re the sister of that very clever Mr. Oswald, whose sad death we were all so sorry to hear about in the papers; and naturally, as you’ve lived so much with him and with Mr. Le Breton, you must be so awfully learned and all that sort of thing, and no doubt despise ignorant people like myself dreadfully. But you really mustn’t despise me, Mrs. Le Breton, because, you see, I haven’t had all the advantages that you’ve had; indeed, the only clever people I’ve ever met in all my life are your husband and Mr. Arthur Berkeley, except, of course, Cabinet ministers and so forth, and they don’t count, because they’re political, and so very old, and solemn, and grand, and won’t take any notice of us girls, except to sit upon us. So that’s what’s made me rather afraid............