Beyond The Rocks Part 7

If a woman absolutely wors.h.i.+ps a man, even if she is only his mother, she is bound to spend many moments of unhappiness, and Lady Bracondale was no exception to the general rule. Hector had always gone his own way, and there were several aspects of his life she disapproved of.

These visits to Paris--his antipathy to matrimony--his boredom with girls--such nice girls she knew, too, and had often thrown him with!--his delight in big-game shooting in alarming and impossible countries--and, above all, his absolute indifference to Morella Winmarleigh, the only woman who really and truly in her heart of hearts Lady Bracondale thought worthy of him, although she would have accepted several other girls as choosing the lesser evil to bachelorhood. But Morella Winmarleigh was perfection! She owned the enormous property adjoining Bracondale; she was twenty-six years old, of unblemished reputation, nice looking, and not--not one of those modern women who are bound to cause anxieties. Under any circ.u.mstances one could count upon Morella Winmarleigh behaving with absolute propriety. A girl born to be a mother-in-law's joy.

But Hector persistently remained at large. It was not that he openly defied his mother--he simply made love to her whenever they were together, twisted her round his finger, and was off again.

"To see mother with Hector," Lady Annigford said, "is a wonderful sight.

Although I adore him myself, I am not at the stage she is! She sits there beaming on him exactly like an exceedingly proud and fond cat with new kittens. He treats her as if she were a young and beautiful woman, caresses her, pets her, pays not the least attention to anything she says, and does absolutely what he pleases!"

Hector and Lady Bracondale together had often made the women who were in love with him jealous.

When she had finished her letter the stately lady read it over carefully--she had a certain tact, and Hector must be cajoled to return, not irritated. Monica's epistle, in spite of that touch of vulgarity which she had deplored, had held out some grains of comfort. She had been getting really anxious over this affair with the--French person.

Even to herself Lady Bracondale would not use any of the terms which usually designate ladies of the type of Esclarmonde de Chartres.

Since her brother-in-law Evermond had returned from Monte Carlo bringing that disturbing story of the diamond chain, she had been on thorns--of such a light mind and always so full of worldly gossip, Evermond!

Hector had gone from Monte Carlo to Venice, and then to Paris, where he had been for more than a month, and she had heard that men could become quite infatuated and absolutely ruined by these creatures. So for him to have taken a fancy to a married American was considerably better than that. She had met several members of this nation herself in England, and were they not always very discreet, with well-balanced heads! So altogether the puckered frown soon left her smooth brow, and she was able to resume the knitting of a tie she was doing for her son, with a spirit more or less at rest, though she sighed now and then as she remembered Morella Winmarleigh could not be expected to wait forever--and her cherished vision of perfectly behaved, vigorously healthy grandchildren was still a long way from being realized. For with such a mother what perfect children they would be! This was always her final reflection.

VII

At twelve o'clock punctually Lord Bracondale was ushered into Mrs.

McBride's sitting-room at the Ritz, the day after her dinner-party at Armenonville. He expected she would not be ready to receive him for at least half an hour; having said twelve he might have known she meant half-past, but he was in a mood of impatience, and felt obliged to be punctual.

He was suffering more or less from a reaction. He had begun towards morning to realize the manner in which he had spent the evening was not altogether wise. Not that he had the least intention of not repeating his folly--indeed, he was where he was at this hour for no other purpose than to enlist the widow's sympathy, and her co-operation in arranging as many opportunities for similar evenings as together they could devise.

After all, she only kept him waiting twenty minutes, and he had been rather amused looking at the piles of bric-a-brac obsequious art dealers had left for this rich lady's inspection.

A number of spurious bronzes warranted pure antique, clocks, brocades, what not, lying about on all the available s.p.a.ce.

"And I wonder what it will look like in her marble palace halls," he thought, as he pa.s.sed from one article to another.

"I am just too sorry to keep you, mon cher Bracondale," Mrs. McBride said, presently, suddenly opening the adjoining door a few inches, "but it is a quite exasperating hat which has delayed me. I can't get the thing on at the angle I want. I--"

"Mayn't I come and help, dear lady?" interrupted Hector. "I know all about the subject. I had to buy forty-seven at Monte Carlo, and see them all tried on, too--and only lately! Do ask Marie to open that door a little wider; I will decide in a minute how it should be."

"Insolent!" said the widow, who spoke French with perfect fluency and a quite marvellously pure American accent. But she permitted the giggling and beaming Marie to open the door wide, and let Hector advance and kiss her hand.

He then took a chair by the dressing-table and inspected the situation.

Seven or eight dainty bandboxes strewed the floor, some of their contents peeping from them--feathers, aigrettes, flowers, impossible birds--all had their place, and on the sofa were three _chef d'oeuvres_ ruthlessly tossed aside. While in the widow's fair hands was a gem of gray tulle and the most expensive feather heart of woman could desire.

"You see," she said, plaintively, "it is meant to go just so," and she placed it once more upon her head, a handsome head of forty-five, fresh and well preserved and comely. "But the vile-tempered thing refuses to stay there once I let go, and no pin will correct it."

"Base ingrat.i.tude," said Lord Bracondale, with feeling; "but couldn't you stuff these in the hiatus," and he tenderly lifted a bunch of nut-brown curls from the dressing-table. "They would fill up the gap and keep the fractious thing steady."

"Of course they would," said Mrs. McBride; "but I have a rooted objection to auxiliary nature tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. That bunch was sent with the hat, and Marie has been trying to persuade me to wear it ever since we began this struggle. But I won't! My hair's my own, and I don't mean to have any one else's alongside of it. There is my trouble."

"If milor were to hold madame's 'at one side, while I de other, madame might force her emerald parrot pin through him," suggested Marie, which advice was followed, and the widow beamed with satisfaction at the gratifying result.

"There!" she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, "that will do; and I am just ready. Gloves, handkerchief--oh! and my purse, Marie." And in five minutes more she was leading the way back into her sitting-room.

"I have not ordered lunch until one o'clock," she said, "so we have oceans of time to talk and tell each other secrets. Sit down, jeune homme, and confess to me." She pointed to a _bergere_, but it was filled with Italian embroideries. "Marie, take this rubbish away!" she called, and presently some chairs were made clear.

"And what must I confess?" asked Hector, when they were seated. "That I am frantically in love with you, and your coldness is driving me wild?"

"Certainly not!" said the widow, while she rose again and began to arrange some giant roses in a wonderful basket which looked as if it had just arrived--her shrewd eye had seen the card, "From Captain Fitzgerald, with his best bonjour." "Certainly not! We are going to talk truth, or, to punish you, I shall not ask you to meet her again, and I shall warn her father of your strictly dishonorable intentions."

"You would not be so cruel!"

"Yes I would. And it is what I ought to do, anyway. She is as innocent as a woolly lamb, and unsophisticated and guileless, and will probably be falling in love with you. You take the wind out of the sails of that husband of hers, you see!"

"Do I?" said Hector, with overdone incredulity.

She looked at him. His long, lithe limbs stretched out, every line indicative of breeding and strength. She noted the shape of his head, the perfect grooming, his lazy, insolent grace, his whimsical smile.

Englishmen of this cla.s.s were certainly the most provokingly beautiful creatures in the world.

"It is because they have done nothing but order men, kill beasts, and subjugate women for generations," she said to herself. "Lazy, naughty darlings! If they came to our country and worked their brains a little, they would soon lose that look. But it would be a pity," she added--"yes, a pity."

"What are you thinking of?" asked Lord Bracondale, while she gazed at him.

"I was thinking you are a beautiful, useless creature. Just like all your nation. You think the world is made for you; in any case, all the women and animals to kill are."

"What an abominable libel! But I am fond of both things--women and animals to kill."

"And you cla.s.s them equally--or perhaps the animals are ahead."

"Indeed not always," said Hector, rea.s.suringly. "Some women have quite the first place."

"You are too flattering!" retorted the widow. "Those sentiments are all very well for your own poor-spirited, down-trodden women, but they won't do for Americans! A man has to learn a number of lessons before he is fitted to cope with them."

"Oh, tell me," said Hector.

"He has got to learn to wait, for one thing, to wait about for hours if necessary, and not to lose his temper, because the woman can't make up her mind to be in time for things, or to change it often as to where she will dine. Then he has to learn to give up any pleasure of his own for hers--and travel when she wants to travel, or stay home when she wants to go alone. If he is an Englishman he don't have brains enough to make the money, but he must let her spend what he has got how she likes, and not interfere with her own."

"And in return he gets?"

"The woman he happens to want, I suppose." And the widow laughed, showing her wonderfully preserved brilliant white teeth.

"You enunciate great truths, belle dame!" said Hector, "and your last sentence is the greatest of all--'_The woman he happens to want._'"

"Which brings us back to our muttons--in this case only a defenceless baby lamb. Now tell me what you are here for, trying to cajole me with your good looks and mock humility."

"I am here to ask you to help me to see her again, then," said Hector, who knew when to be direct. "I have only met her three times, as you know, but I have fallen in love, and she is going away next week, and there is only one Paris in the world."

"You can do a great deal of mischief in a week," Mrs. McBride said, looking at him again critically. "I ought not to help you, but I can't resist you--there! What can we devise?"