Though she had clearly had the worst of the battle described in the last chapter, the Baroness Bernstein, when she next met her niece showed no rancour or anger. “Of course, my Lady Maria,” she said, “you can’t suppose that I, as Harry Warrington’s near relative, can be pleased at the idea of his marrying a woman who is as old as his mother, and has not a penny to her fortune; but if he chooses to do so silly a thing, the affair is none of mine; and I doubt whether I should have been much inclined to be taken au serieux with regard to that offer of five thousand pounds which I made in the heat of our talk. So it was already at Castlewood that this pretty affair was arranged? Had I known how far it had gone, my dear, I should have spared some needless opposition. When a pitcher is broken, what railing can mend it?”
“Madam!” here interposed Maria.
“Pardon me — I mean nothing against your ladyship’s honour or character, which, no doubt, are quite safe. Harry says so, and you say so — what more can one ask?”
“You have talked to Mr. Warrington, madam?”
“And he has owned that he made you a promise at Castlewood: that you have it in his writing.”
“Certainly I have, madam!” says Lady Maria.
“Ah!” (the elder lady did not wince at this). “And I own, too, that at first I put a wrong construction upon the tenor of your letters to him. They implicate other members of the family ——”
“Who have spoken most wickedly of me, and endeavoured to prejudice me in every way in my dear Mr. Warrington’s eyes. Yes, madam, I own I have written against them, to justify myself.”
“But, of course, are pained to think that any wretch should get possession of stories to the disadvantage of our family, and make them public scandal. Hence your disquiet just now.”
“Exactly so,” said Lady Maria. “From Mr. Warrington I could have nothing concealed henceforth, and spoke freely to him. But that is a very different thing from wishing all the world to know the disputes of a noble family.”
“Upon my word, Maria, I admire you, and have done you injustice. These — these twenty years, let us say.”
“I am very glad, madam, that you end by doing me justice at all,” said the niece.
“When I saw you last night, opening the ball with my nephew, can you guess what I thought of, my dear?”
“I really have no idea what the Baroness de Bernstein thought of,” said Lady Maria, haughtily.
“I remembered that you had performed to that very tune with the dancing-master at Kensington, my dear!”
“Madam, it was an infamous calumny.”
“By which the poor dancing-master got a cudgelling for nothing!”
“It is cruel and unkind, madam, to recall that calumny — and I shall beg to decline living any longer with any one who utters it,” continued Maria, with great spirit.
“You wish to go home? I can fancy you won’t like Tunbridge. It will be very hot for you if those letters are found.”
“There was not a word against you in them, madam: about that I can make your mind easy.”
“So Harry said, and did your ladyship justice. Well, my dear, we are tired of one another, and shall be better apart for a while.”
“That is precisely my own opinion,” said Lady Maria, dropping a curtsey.
“Mr. Sampson can escort you to Castlewood. You and your maid can take a postchaise.”
“We can take a postchaise, and Mr. Sampson can escort me,” echoed the younger lady. “You see, madam, I act like a dutiful niece.”
“Do you know, my dear, I have a notion that Sampson has got the letters?” said the Baroness, frankly.
“I confess that such a notion has passed through my own mind.”
“And you want to go home in the chaise, and coax the letters from him! Delilah! Well, they can be no good to me, and I trust you may get them. When will you go? The sooner the better, you say? We are women of the world, Maria. We only call names when we are in a passion. We don’t want each other’s company; and we part on good terms. Shall we go to my Lady Yarmouth’s? ’Tis her night. There is nothing like a change of scene after one of those little nervous attacks you have had, and cards drive away unpleasant thoughts better than any doctor.”
Lady Maria agreed to go to Lady Yarmouth’s cards, and was dressed and ready first, awaiting her aunt in the drawing-room. Madame Bernstein, as she came down, remarked Maria’s door was left open. “She has the letters upon her,” thought the old lady. And the pair went off to their entertainment in their respective chairs, and exhibited towards each other that charming cordiality and respect which women can show after, and even during, the bitterest quarrels.
That night, on their return from the Countess’s drum, Mrs. Brett, Madame Bernstein’s maid, presented herself to my Lady Maria’s call, when that lady rang her hand-bell upon retiring to her room. Betty, Mrs. Brett was ashamed to say, was not in a fit state to come before my lady. Betty had been a-junketing and merry-making with Mr. Warrington’s black gentleman, with my Lord Bamborough’s valet, and several more ladies and gentlemen of that station, and the liquor — Mrs. Brett was shocked to own it — had proved too much for Mrs. Betty. Should Mrs. Brett undress my lady? My lady said she would undress without a maid, and gave Mrs. Brett leave to withdraw. “She has the letters in her stays,” thought Madame Bernstein. They had bidden each other an amicable good-night on the stairs.
Mrs. Betty had a scolding the next morning, when she came to wait on her mistress, from the closet adjoining Lady Maria’s apartment, in which Betty lay. She owned, with contrition, her partiality for rum-punch, which Mr. Gumbo had the knack of brewing most delicate. She took her scolding with meekness, and, having performed her usual duties about her lady’s person, retired.
Now Betty was one of the Castlewood girls who had been so fascinated by Gumbo, and was a very good-looking, blue-eyed lass, upon whom Mr. Case, Madame Bernstein’s confidential man, had also cast the eyes of affection. Hence, between Messrs. Gumbo and Case, there had been jealousies and even quarrels; which had caused Gumbo, who was of a peaceful disposition, to be rather shy of the Baroness’s gentlemen, the chief of whom vowed he would break the bones, or have the life of Gumbo, if he persisted in his attentions to Mrs. Betty.
But on the night of the rum-punch, though Mr. Case found Gumbo and Mrs. Betty whispering in the doorway, in the cool breeze, and Gumbo would have turned pale with fear had he been able so to do, no one could be more gracious than Mr. Case. It was he who proposed the bowl of punch, which was brewed and drunk in Mrs. Betty’s room, and which Gumbo concocted with exquisite skill. He complimented Gumbo on his music. Though a sober man ordinarily, he insisted upon more and more drinking, until poor Mrs. Betty was reduced to the state which occasioned her ladyship’s just censure.
As for Mr. Case himself, who lay out of the house, he was so ill with the punch, that he kept his bed the whole of the next day, and did not get strength to make his appearance, and wait on his ladies, until supper-time; when his mistress good-naturedly rebuked him, saying that it was not often he sinned in that way.
“Why, Case, I could have made oath it was you I saw on horseback this morning galloping on the London road,” said Mr. Warrington, who was supping with his relatives.
“Me! law bless you, sir! I was a-bed, and I thought my head would come off with the aching. I ate a bit at six o’clock, and drunk a deal of small beer, and I am almost my own man again now. But that Gumbo, saving your honour’s presence, I won’t taste none of his punch again.” And the honest major-domo went on with his duties among the bottles and glasses.
As they sate after their meal, Madame Bernstein was friendly enough. She prescribed strong fortifying drinks for Maria, against the recurrence of her fainting fits. The lady had such attacks not unfrequently. She urged her to consult her London physician, and to send up an account of her case by Harry. By Harry! asked the lady. Yes. Harry was going for two days on an errand for his aunt to London. “I do not care to tell you, my dear, that it is on business which will do him good. I wish Mr. Draper to put him into my will, and as I am going travelling upon a round of visits when you and I part, I think, for security, I shall ask Mr. Warrington to take my trinket-box in his postchaise to London with him, for there have been robberies of late, and I have no fancy for being stopped by highwaymen.”
Maria looked blank at the notion of the young gentleman’s departure, but hoped that she might have his escort back to Castlewood, whither her elder brother had now returned. “Nay,” says his aunt, “the lad hath been tied to our apron-strings long enough. A day in London will do him no harm. He can perform my errand for me and be back with you by Saturday.”
“I would offer to accompany Mr. Warrington, but I preach on Friday before her ladyship,” says Mr. Sampson. He was anxious that my Lady Yarmouth should judge of his powers as a preacher; and Madame Bernstein had exerted her influence with the king’s favourite to induce her to hear the chaplain.
Harry relished the notion of a rattling journey to London, and a day or two of sport there. He promised that his pistols were good, and that he would hand the diamonds over in safety to the banker’s strong-room. Would he occupy his aunt’s London house? No, that would be a dreary lodging with only a housemaid and a groom in charge of it. He would go to the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, or to an inn in Covent Garden. “Ah! I have often talked over that journey,” said Harry, his countenance saddening.
“And with whom, sir?” asked Lady Maria.
“With one who promised to make it with me,” said the young man, thinking, as he always did, with an extreme tenderness of the lost brother.
“He has more heart, my good Maria, than some of us!” says Harry’s aunt, witnessing his emotion. Uncontrollable gusts of grief would, not unfrequently, still pass over our young man. The parting from his brother; the scene and circumstances of George’s fall last year; the recollection of his words, or of some excursion at home which they had planned together; would recur to him and overcome him. “I doubt, madam,&rdq............