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CHAPTER X

“NOTICE TO QUIT”

            IT WAS somewhere about half-past ten, and chocolate and Burgundy were going on in Belgravia.

            Not my Lady’s chamber this time, but a spacious dining-room, somewhat lugubrious in aspect on account of the heavy drapery about the windows, and the grim stolid-looking furniture, hewn in massive mahogany of ancient date, that garnished the walls in pompous rows; as though each spectral chair were a monument to a departed member of the house, and the ponderous sideboard, with its carven arms and low crypt-like doors, looming through the funereal gloom at the end of the apartment, were no less an ancestral fabric than the family vault itself.

            An allegorical room truly!

            Lofty was the corniced ceiling as the pride and station of the Cairnsmuir nobility, dark and mysterious the remote recesses of the apartment as the boding doom that environed the present fortunes of the dying earldom, formal and uncompromizing the great bronze clock and statuettes on the mantlepiece as the character and outward man of their illustrious owner, and stoically serene as became the head of such a peerage under certainty of its imminent extinction, the four marble busts on their four fluted pedestals that decorated the comers of this parabolic chamber.

            Statue-like too, and chilly, at the top of the table, immediately opposite the centre window, sat the Right Honourable the Earl of Cairnsmuir himself, sipping his noble chocolate, and patronizing at intervals in his own lordly style, the leading Conservative newspaper of the day.

            He was not yet decided in his approbation of the principal articles, when the door beside him opened softly, and his political cogitations were indefinitely postponed by the entrance of Lady Dolores, as languidly imperious and perfectly coiffée, as the staunchest conventionalist could desire.

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            “Hubert.” said the Countess, “Ella has just reminded me that she has a stall to hold with Lady Miranda in the afternoon, at the Duchess' bazaar. Do you think Sir Godfrey would excuse a short invitation and dine with us quietly this evening? for I told him that Ella and I should drive in the park after luncheon, quite forgetting her engagement. He might think us intentionally neglectful, if no explanation were offered.”

            “If Templar had no other appointment for to-night,” answered the Earl, majestically placing one of the ghostly chairs for Lady Cairnsmuir, I am sure he would have been very happy to meet you. But he is in great request just at present. There is an important measure to be discussed in the Lower House to-night, and Templar’s attendance is as necessary as the Premier’s. More so, in fact, for the measure is his.”

            “Sir Godfrey is a powerful man in the Government,” observed Lady Cairnsmuir.

            “Immensely so,” said the Earl. “He is the central figure of the Cabinet, and the greatest diplomatist of the day.”

            “Singular,” remarked my Lady, toying with the pages of a new London Society, "that such a man should have remained so long unmarried!”

            “Very,” assented the Earl. And a peculiar association of ideas forthwith suggested to him an enquiry for his daughter.

            “Ella is taking her chocolate upstairs this morning. Lady Mount-Fidgette was imprudent enough to take her to two balls last night after the opera, and the fatigue was a little too much for her. I shall be glad for my part when the season is over.”

            “You never go out now, Dolores, it seems?"

            The remark was not proffered in a tone of much concern and yet my Lady was palpably agitated by it. So much agitated, that a bright pink tint suddenly suffused her beautiful expressionless face, and the pallid fingers that dallied with the magazine quivered visibly. But the Earl had no great observation for trifling incidents, few individuals of the masculine gender are wont to note such things.

            “I am tired of receptions,” quoth Lady Cairnsmuir indifferently. “Do you know I think it quite foolish to give oneself so much exertion during

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such weather as this! I am sure this is quite the hottest July I can remember! But we have already accomplished two months of penance – there are not many more weeks to wait.”

            “And then you will be at home,” concluded her husband, finishing his chocolate.

            Again the even palor of my Lady’s complexion was unaccountably disturbed, but the measured intonation of her voice when she next spoke, was, if possible, a thought more listless and wearied than before.

            Do you know, I have rather a fancy to visit Paris this autumn. I hope you do not object?”

            “Paris! Rather early in the season for Paris, surely!”

            “Rather, perhaps. But it is long since we were there, and I should like to reconnoitre a little before the gaieties begin.”

            So nonchalant, so languid, so serenely careless. And her heart throbbing so wildly, O, so wildly! all the time.

            "As you please, Dolores. But you will go home first, I suppose?”

            “I would rather not, Hubert. I have not been very well this season, and I fancy – it may be a mere whim – that entire change of scene, of climate, and of surroundings, would do more for my health than the familiar air of Scotland, and the old routine of home life.”

            “But why Paris in particular?” argued the Earl, tenaciously. ”If you want scenery and change, let us visit the Tyrol or Biarritz, – or the Holy Land.”

            “And make a picnic party to the Mount of Olives, and promenade while the band plays in the Garden of Gethsemane! I have too deep a respect for these sacred places to visit them in any other character than that of a pilgrim.”

            “Talking of pilgrims,” said Lord Cairnsmuir, pushing back his chair a little nervously, “reminds one of Rome. I should propose Rome for a change, but you have always expressed so decided an objection to go there, that I never insisted much on the topic. We ought to go there, Dolores, no Catholics in our position are such strangers in the City of St. Peter as we.”

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            “How long have we been married?” asked my Lady, after a little pause.

            “Nearly eighteen years. And during all that time you have never permitted me to visit Rome in your company. I have been there some half-dozen times alone, you remember, while you preferred German watering-places or Swiss lakes. You must be well aware, Dolores, that your continued avoidance of Rome is a subject of some comment among our acquaintances. And you used to be there so often – at one time.”

            “It was a fatal place to me,” murmured my Lady, with white lips, and she pressed her hand upon her bosom softly, as though to still the turbulent feverish throbbing there.

            “A fatal place?” echoed the Earl somewhat sternly. “It should be a sacred place, I think. All your ancestors are buried at Rome, and there, too, your own father is laid. You have never seen that last inscription tablet, Dolores.”

            She raised her dark eyes, – these strange phantasmagoric eyes that seemed always looking at some picture in the Past, and met his restless glance composedly.

            “No; I have never cared to see it. The latest fortunes of my family were none of the most brilliant, and I have chosen since my marriage to avoid a place where every spot of ground and every familiar name would awaken in my mind some melancholy reminiscence, – where every scene must of necessity be intimately connected with the saddest years of my life, and where, as you now remind me, my unhappy parents decreed that the last of the Arisaig Catholics should be committed to forgetfulness. It appears to me that whatever the world may be disposed to remark on the subject, the avoidance on my part of which you complain, has not been unnatural.”

            The Earl reddened in his turn, and the tone of his voice was softer as he hastened to reply. “I beg your pardon, Dolores. Perhaps you have acted prudently. We are unfortunate, both of us. Unfortunate!”

            He sat for a minute moodily leaning his head on his hand and repeating the word again and again as though the sound of it had some

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gloomy fascination for him, and Lady Cairnsmuir, watching him with impervious stony eyes, neither moved, nor uttered a word. She was very white now, and the hand that still lay upon her bosom had ceased to tremble.

            “We will go to Paris, then,” said the Earl, breaking the pause at last, and uncovering his restless face.

            “No!” returned my Lady with sudden energy, a new light shining in the glance she bent upon him. “You have vanquished my resolution by challenging it, and henceforth my purpose is changed. Paris shall welcome us later in the autumn, but first let us make our track for Rome!”

            “So be it then by all means,” answered Lord Cairnsmuir, with polite concession of the subject. But he scrutinized his wife’s countenance with some uneasy curiosity notwithstanding, and his thoughts reverted, possibly, to the peculiarities of her mother the late Baroness, The light tattoo of feminine steps sounded on the staircase without.

            “It is Ella,” observed Lady Dolores. “I should like to see the paper, please.”

            He handed it to her.

            “You will see, by the way, Dolores, that Sir Godfrey made a long and most effective speech last night on the subject of that preposterous Bill for legalizing marriage with a deceased wife’s sister.”

            “Uncompromisingly against the Bill, of course? interrogated my Lady, with entire resumption of her usual languor.

            “Of course,” rejoined the Earl. “Uncompromisingly.”

            “Most proper on Sir Godfrey’s part,” remarked Lady Cairnsmuir, glancing at the Debates as Ella approached. “I never heard a more impious or revolutionary measure proposed. The consequences of passing such an Act would be of too terribly disastrous a character to bear contemplation. Good-morning, my dear child. You have recovered from your fatigue I hope, by this time?”

            “So I hear you were quite dissipated last night, Ella,” said the Earl, touching her forhead lightly with his thin lips. “Two balls and the Opera!”

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            “Not exactly two balls, papa. One of the entertainments in question was a sort of Conversazione, – singing and talking, and supper, you know.”

            “I understand,” said Lady Cairnsmuir. “An ‘At Home.’ Tedious affairs usually. Whose was it?”

            “Mrs. Lennox’s, mamma. Lady Mount-Fidgette is very intimate with her, and seems to think her very clever, this was the third party of the sort she has given this season.”

            “Mrs. Lennox! Ah, of course. I had quite forgotton we had a card! She is fond of filling her rooms with celebrities. Nobody goes there who does not paint, or write, or sing, or do something else as clever and surprising. And Lady Mount-Fidgette is a poetess, is she not?”

            “Indeed, mamma, I really cannot say. I daresay she may be. But there were some people there last night, whom I think even you would have liked to meet. Fräulein Stern, for instance, – the new prima-donna.”

            “Ah! Then the Brabazons must have been there?”

            “Yes, both of them. Miss Brabazon sat by me a little while, and we talked together. I think she is very nice, though hardly quiet enough in her style. She seems to me to want repose.”

            “I should imagine, Ella, that you saw a great many fresh faces at Mrs. Lennox’s? Her set is unique, but the members of it clique together, and one does not meet them elsewhere.”

            “I noticed a great many strangers. One gentleman attracted my attention particularly, on account of the assiduous compliments he paid the Fräulein, and the peculiarity of his name; – a Mr. Vaurien.”

            “Some French philosopher or novelist, I suppose?”

            “No, I think not. Miss Brabazon told me something about him. She says he is a very recent acquisition of Mrs. Lennox’s, and was only brought to the house for the first time a month ago by a Captain Somers, who is a friend of Mr. Lennox. It was on the occasion of the first of these parties, I think Miss Brabazon said. But oh, mamma! you don’t know how exquisitely lovely Fräulein Stern is! She is quite as beautiful

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off the stage as upon it! Her expression is more like an angel’s than a woman’s. I am sure these old Italian painters would have given worlds to have seen a face like hers!”

            “You remind me, Ella, by speaking of Italy,” interposed the Earl, shifting his restless glance to and fro between the faces of his wife and daughter, – “to inform you that your mamma and I have just been making an arrangement for the autumn. We have decided to visit Rome.”

            Ella’s eyes sparkled.

            “How delightful!” she said enthusiastically; “I have longed so often to see Rome.”

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