We are to see her now spread her wings for London, and butterfly flights about the flowers and sweets there. Hill-street affords a standard by which to measure her growth. That decorous house in Hill-street which had cowed her when she went to it on trousseau-business, and had driven her once, fairly crying, upon the mercies of Mrs. James, she could now find small and dark. She thought it a stuffy little house, and wondered how many the table would dine, how many must be shut out of the drawing-rooms. There’s a famous anecdote of Mrs. James’s, often and impressively told by her, which comes to mind here. It concerns Gerald Gunner, “Laura Gunner’s second boy,” a famous gentleman-jockey, and, though his years were few, remarkably a rip. “Charming manners, like all that family, but most high-spirited, wild, they say. Bad influences were at work, no doubt. His friends were loyalty itself; everything was hushed up, and more than once. But—” and Mrs. James used to lower her voice—“there was a fracas at Sandown. Lord Windlesham's horse—they say, my dear, that he ‘pulled’ it. You will know what that means, I dare say. I believe there was no room for doubt. Lord Gunner—” that was, of course, the old lord, father of our recent acquaintance—“allowed him fifty pounds a year, so long as he remained in Canada, cutting logs or building railways—or whatever they do in the wilds; and the poor boy went out—in the steerage. The Heskeths, during their tour, went to see him some years ago, and, my dear, it was deplorable! Miles and miles into desert-swamps. No neighbours, and, of course, no church privileges. A hovel, literally a hovel, built by his own hands; barely weather-proof—not quite that, I am told, in one corner. They arrived in the evening, rather late, and found him shelling peas into an old biscuit-tin. His Eton birch and a portrait of the Queen were absolutely the only ornaments; but this, to my mind, is deeply pathetic. Would you believe it? That poor young man dressed for dinner every night, directly he had cooked it. It got cold, and his jacket was in holes—but he never omitted it. Mrs. Hesketh assured me that she wept. And fifty pounds a year! Think of it. Of course, he made nothing. What could he make, with his training?”
It is a sad story. Mrs. John Germain’s polite education had begun later than Gerald Gunner’s; but to find a house in Hill-street stuffy is symptomatic of broadening views.
On the other hand, she showed the bourgeoise undismayed when she permitted herself to be excited. She was all agog for town delights. Lady Carhawk, a Berkshire dame, was to present her, and photographs of her little person, stiff, feathered and bejewelled, making her look, as some wit said, like a Spanish Madonna strayed into a fair, went down to Blackheath with promises of a speedy visit in full dress. Cards fluttered daily upon the hall-table. Mr. Germain engaged a second secretary: Mrs. Germain began to think of one, too.
She attacked her pleasures, as once her task-work, with zest and spirit; she made scores of acquaintances. Lady Carhawk must have liked her—herself a likable, florid lady; the Duchess of Lanark showed that she did; Lady Barbara Rewish and others of the sort found their old hearts touched by the grateful, graceful girl, who never took a favour without showing that she was much obliged, never refused one (and that’s a rare abnegation), and if she asked you to do anything for her, coaxed for it with bright eyes and wooing lips. The Duchess called her a nice little thing, a pretty soul, a good girl; and the Duchess’s third son, Lord Vernon, did his best to prove how good she was—and succeeded. She got nothing but good out of that, for his weaknesses were well known.
Much of this little success she owed to her Southover drilling, which had taught her how little she had to fear, how little was expected of her in a world where chatter is the staple, and high spirits a matter of good taste. Practically, she only had to listen and to smile. Now she looked her best when she smiled—her teeth were really perfect. As for listening, excitement gave her colour and glitter, her gowns were as good as they could be—and what more do you want but the wish to please? That she had. She courted your good opinion, was anxious to be approved. Besides, she could be patronized, and liked it.
There had never been any question of her success with the men, so little, indeed, that it was curious to see how well she stood with the women. Her early years, it has been hinted, did not want of experience: she proved her femininity before she was sixteen. And betwixt the cubs of the village and the young lions of politics is no difference in kind. You vary the allure; but brown eyes are still brown, and ginger is always hot in the mouth. Of these splendid youths Palmer Lovell must perhaps be reckoned with first, he who, for her sake (or so it is said), forsook a young and handsome Viscountess. After a stormy sowing in one field he was now complacently reaping in another. Mr. Germain’s party owned him an acquisition, and the same feeling was to be expected of Mr. Germain’s wife. Lovell constituted himself her Mentor, waited about great stairways for her, attached himself to her side, and sat out all and sundry. He explained himself unaffectedly as a Hope of the Party, and she was very willing to believe him. But somehow the information did not thrill her as it had when she received it from Tristram Duplessis; with the rising of whose light above the firmament sank the orb of Mr. Lovell.
Horace Wing—romantic to the waist, thence downwards dancing master, approved himself in her eyes. He was handsome, affable, an artist in his way. She had an instinct for style; and he had that. He knew where to depart from the tailor’s ideal, which is tightness; he knew where to be loose. He could unbutton a coat to better purpose than any man living—or a phrase, when he saw his way. He always coloured his phrases. You were thought to hear birds in the brake, to see cowslips adrift in a pasture—happy country things—when he discoursed. Some considered his flowers forced, things of the hot-bed. But he was discreet, because really he was timid. The Byron of the Boudoir, Lovell called him, scorning Mr. Wing. But Mrs. Germain, who knew little to Byron’s discredit, and understood boudoirs to be made for two, was much taken with this fine gentleman. On his part, he found her attractive because his world did. He was acutely sensitive to opinion, with the feelers of a woman ............