Chapter 6

Percy Beaumont had all this time been a very much less frequent visitor at Jones’s Hotel than his former fellow traveller; he had in fact called but twice on the two American ladies. Lord Lambeth, who often saw him, reproached him with his neglect and declared that though Mrs. Westgate had said nothing about it he made no doubt she was secretly wounded by it. “She suffers too much to speak,” said his comrade.

“That’s all gammon,” Percy returned; “there’s a limit to what people can suffer!” And though sending no apologies to Jones’s Hotel he undertook in a manner to explain his absence. “You’re always there yourself, confound you, and that’s reason enough for my not going.”

“I don’t see why. There’s enough for both of us.”

“Well, I don’t care to be a witness of your reckless passion,” said Percy Beaumont.

His friend turned on him a cold eye and for a moment said nothing, presently, however, speaking a little stiffly. “My passion doesn’t make such a show as you might suppose, considering what a demonstrative beggar I am.”

“I don’t want to know anything about it — anything whatever,” said Beaumont. “Your mother asks me every time she sees me whether I believe you’re really lost — and Lady Pimlico does the same. I prefer to be able to answer that I’m in complete ignorance, that I never go there. I stay away for consistency’s sake. As I said the other day, they must look after you themselves.”

“Well, you’re wonderfully considerate,” the young man returned. “They never question me.”

“They’re afraid of you. They’re afraid of annoying you and making you worse. So they go to work very cautiously, and, somewhere or other, they get their information. They know a great deal about you. They know you’ve been with those ladies to the dome of Saint Paul’s and — where was the other place? — to the Thames Tunnel.”

“If all their knowledge is as accurate as that it must be very valuable,” said Lord Lambeth.

“Well, at any rate, they know you’ve been visiting the ‘sights of the metropolis.’ They think — very naturally, as it seems to me — that when you take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little nobody of an American girl something may be supposed to be ‘up.’” The young man met this remark with scornful laughter, but his companion continued after a pause: “I told you just now that I cultivate my ignorance, but I find I can no longer stand my suspense. I confess I do want to know whether you propose to marry Miss Alden.”

On this point Lord Lambeth gave his questioner no prompt satisfaction; he only mused — frowningly, portentously. “By Jove they go rather too far. They shall have cause to worry — I promise them.”

Percy Beaumont, however, continued to aim at lucidity. “You don’t, it’s true, quite redeem your threats. You said the other day you’d make your mother call.”

Lord Lambeth just hung fire. “Well, I asked her to.”

“And she declined?”

“Yes, but she shall do it yet.”

“Upon my word,” said Percy, “if she gets much more scared I verily believe she will.” His friend watched him on this, and he went on. “She’ll go to the girl herself.”

“How do you mean ‘go’ to her?”

“She’ll try to get ‘at’ her — to square her. She won’t care what she does.”

Lord Lambeth turned away in silence; he took twenty steps and slowly returned. “She had better take care what she does. I’ve invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to Branches, and this evening I shall name a day.”

“And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to meet them?”

Lord Lambeth indulged in one of his rare discriminations. “I shall give them the opportunity.”

“That will touch the Duchess up,” said Percy Beaumont. “I ‘guess’ she’ll come.”

“She may do as she pleases.”

“Then do you really propose to marry the little sister?”

“I like the way you talk about it!” the young man cried. “She won’t gobble me down. Don’t be afraid.”

“She won’t leave you on your knees,” Percy declared. “What the devil’s the inducement?”

“You talk about proposing — wait till I have proposed,” Lord Lambeth went on.

His friend looked at him harder. “That’s right, my dear chap. Think of all the bearings.”

“She’s a charming girl,” pursued his lordship.

“Of course she’s a charming girl. I don’t know a girl more charming — in a very quiet way. But there are other charming girls — charming in all sorts of ways — nearer home.”

“I particularly like her spirit,” said Bessie’s admirer — almost as on a policy of aggravation.

“What’s the peculiarity of her spirit?”

“She’s not afraid, and she says things out and thinks herself as good as any one. She’s the only girl I’ve ever seen,” Lord Lambeth explained, “who hasn’t seemed to me dying to marry me.”

Mr. Beaumont considered it. “How do you know she isn’t dying if you haven’t felt her pulse? I mean if you haven’t asked her?”

“I don’t know how; but I know it.”

“I’m sure she asked me— over there — questions enough about your property and your titles,” Percy declared.

“She has done that to me too — again and again,” his friend returned. “But she wants to know about everything.”

“Everything? Ah, I’ll warrant she wants to know. Depend upon it she’s dying to marry you just as much, and just by the same law, as all the rest of them.”

It appeared to give the young man, for a moment, something rather special to think of. “I shouldn’t like her to refuse me — I shouldn’t like that.”

“If the thing would be so disagreeable then, both to you and to her, in heaven’s name leave it alone.” Such was the moral drawn by Mr. Beaumont; which left him practically the last word in the discussion.

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity of the latter’s visits and the non-appearance at their own door of the Duchess of Bayswater. She confessed, however, to taking more pleasure in this hush of symptoms than she could have taken in the most lavish attentions on the part of that great lady. “It’s unmistakable,” she said, “delightfully unmistakable; a most interesting sign that we’ve made them wretched. The day we dined with him I was really sorry for the poor boy.” It will have been gathered that the entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth to his American friends had been graced by the presence of no near relation. He had invited several choice spirits to meet them, but the ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. Westgate’s sense — a sense perhaps morbidly acute — conspicuous by their hostile absence.

“I don’t want to work you up any further,” Bessie at last ventured to remark, “but I don’t know why you should have so many theories about Lord Lambeth’s poor mother. You know a great many young men in New York without knowing their mothers.”

Mrs. Westgate rested deep eyes on her sister and then turned away. “My dear Bessie, you’re superb!”

“One thing’s certain”— the girl continued not to blench at her irony. “If I believed I were a cause of annoyance, however unwitting, to Lord Lambeth’s family I should insist —”

“Insist on my leaving England?” Mrs. Westgate broke in.

“No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again; I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathedral. But I should insist on his ceasing relations with us.”

“That would be very modest and very pretty of you — but you wouldn’t do it at this point.”

“Why do you say ‘at this point’?” Bessie asked. “Have I ceased to be modest?”

“You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said you didn’t, I believe it was quite true. But at present, my dear child,” said Mrs. Westgate, “you wouldn’t find it quite so simple a matter never to see Lord Lambeth again. I’ve watched it come on.”

“You’re mistaken,” Bessie declared. “You don’t understand.”

“Ah, you poor proud thing, don’t be perverse!” her companion returned.

The girl gave the matter, thus admonished, some visible thought. “I know him better certainly, if you mean that. And I like him very much. But I don’t like him enough to make trouble for him with his family. However, I don’t believe in that.”

“I like the way you say ‘however’!” Mrs. Westgate commented. “Do you pretend you wouldn’t be glad to marry him?”

Again Bessie calmly considered. “It would take a great deal more than is at all imaginable to make me marry him.”

Her relative showed an impatience. “And what’s the great difficulty?”

“The great difficulty is that I shouldn’t care to,” said Bessie Alden.

The morning after Lord Lambeth had had with his own frankest critic that exchange of ideas which has just been narrated, the ladies at Jones’s Hotel received from him a written invitation to pay their projected visit to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday. “I think I’ve made up a very pleasant party,” his lordship went on. “Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have been accidentally prevented from making your acquaintance sooner.” Bessie at this lost no time in calling her sister’s attention to the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion.

“Wait till you see if she comes,” said Mrs. Westgate. “And if she’s to meet us at her son’s house the obligation’s all the greater for her to call on us.”

Bessie hadn’t to wait long, for it appeared that her friend’s parent now descried the direction in which, according to her companion’s observation, courtesy pointed. On the morrow, early in the afternoon, two cards were brought to the apartment of the American ladies — one of them bearing the name of the Duchess of Bayswater and the other that of the Countess of Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. “It isn’t yet four,” she said; “they’ve come early; they want really to find us. We’ll receive them.” And she gave orders that her visitors should be admitted. A few moments later they were introduced and a solemn exchange of amenities took place. The Duchess was a large lady with a fine fresh colour; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.

The Duchess looked about her as she sat down — looked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. “I daresay my son has told you that I’ve been wanting to come to see you,” she dropped — and from no towering nor inconvenient height.

“You’re very kind,” said Mrs. Westgate vaguely — her conscience not allowing her to assent to this proposition, and indeed not permitting her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.

“He tells us you were so kind to him in America,” said the Duchess.

“We’re very glad,” Mrs. Westgate replied, “to have been able to make him feel a little more — a little less — a little at home.”

“I think he stayed at your house,” the visitor more heavily breathed, but as an overture, across to Bessie Alden.

Mrs. Westgate intercepted the remark. “A very short time indeed.”

“Oh!” said the Duchess; and she continued to address her interest to Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with her daughter.

“Do you like London?” Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie, after looking at her a good deal — at her face and her hands, her dress and her hair.

The girl was prompt and clear. “Very much indeed.”

“Do you like this hotel?”

“It’s very comfortable.”

“Do you like stopping at hotels?” Lady Pimlico asked after a pause.

“I’m very fond of travelling, and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But they’re not the part I’m fondest of,” Bessie without difficulty admitted.

“Oh I hate travelling!” said Lord Lambeth’s sister, who transferred her attention to Mrs. Westgate.

“My son tells me you’re going to Branches,” the Duchess presently resumed.

“Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us,” said Mrs. Westgate, who felt herself now under the eyes of both visitors and who had her customary happy consciousness of a distinguished appearance. The only mitigation of her felicity on this point was that, having taken in every item of that of the Duchess, she said to herself: “She won’t know how well I’m dressed!”

“He has been so good as to tell me he expects me, but I’m not quite sure of what I can do,” the noble lady exhaled.

“He had offered us the p — the prospect of meeting you,” Mrs. Westgate further contributed.

“I hate the country at this season,” the Duchess went on.

Her hostess melted to sweetness. “I delight in it at all seasons. And I think it now above all pleasanter than London.”

But the Duchess’s eyes were absent again; she was looking very fixedly at Bessie. In a minute she slowly rose, passed across the room with a great rustle and an effect of momentous displacement, reached a chair that stood empty at the girl’s right hand and silently seated herself. As she was a majestic voluminous woman this little transaction had inevitably an air of somewhat impressive intention. It diffused a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate. “I suppose you go out immensely.”

“No, very little. We’re strangers, and we didn’t come for the local society.”

“I see,” said Lady Pimlico. “It’s rather nice in town just now.”

“I’ve known it of course duskier and dingier. But we only go to see a few people,” Mrs. Westgate added —“old friends or persons we particularly like.”

“Of course one can’t like every one,” Lady Pimlico conceded.

“It depends on one’s society,” Mrs. Westgate returned.

The Duchess meanwhile had addressed herself to Bessie. “My son tells me the young ladies in America are so clever.”

“I’m glad they made so good an impression on him,” our heroine smiled.

The Duchess took the case, clearly, as no matter for grimacing; there reigned in her large pink face a meridian calm. “He’s very susceptible. He thinks every one clever — and sometimes they are.”

“Sometimes,” Bessie cheerfully assented.

The Duchess continued all serenely and publicly to appraise her. “Lambeth’s very susceptible, but he’s very volatile too.”

“Volatile?” Bessie echoed.

“He’s very inconstant. It won’t do to depend on him.”

“Ah,” the girl returned, “I don’t recognise that description. We’ve depended on him greatly, my sister and I, and have found him so faithful. He has never disappointed us.”

“He’ll disappoint you yet,” said her Grace with a certain rich force.

Bessie gave a laugh of amusement as at such a contention from such a quarter. “I suppose it will depend on what we expect of him.”

“The less you expect the better,” said her massive monitress.

“Well, we expect nothing unreasonable.”

The Duchess had a fine contemplative pause — evidently with more to say. She made, in the quantity, her next selection. “Lambeth says he has seen so much of you.”

“He has been with us very often — he has been a ministering angel,” Bessie hastened to put on record.

“I daresay you’re used to that. I’m told there’s a great deal of that in America.”

“A great deal of angelic ministering?” the girl laughed again.

“Is that what you call it? I know you’ve different expressions.”

“We certainly don’t always understand each other,” said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of whose interview with Lady Pimlico had allowed her to revert to their elder visitor.

“I’m speaking of the young men calling so much on the young ladies,” the Duchess explained.

“But surely in England,” Mrs. Westgate appealed, “the young ladies don’t call on the young men?”

“Some of them do — almost!” Lady Pimlico declared. “When a young man’s a great parti.”

“Bessie, you must make a note of that,” said Mrs. Westgate. “My sister”— she gave their friends the benefit of the knowledge —“is a model traveller. She writes down all the curious facts she hears in a little book she keeps for the purpose.”

The Duchess took it, with a noble art of her own, as if she hadn’t heard it; and while she was so occupied — for this involved a large deliberation — her daughter turned to Bessie. “My brother has told us of your being so clever.”

“He should have said my sister,” Bessie returned —“when she treats you to such flights as that.”

“Shall you be long at Branches?” the Duchess abruptly asked of her.

Bessie was to have afterwards a vivid remembrance of wondering what her Grace (she was so glad Duchesses had that predicate) would mean by “long.” But she might as well somehow have wondered what the occupants of the planet Mars would. “He has invited us for three days.”

“I think I must really manage it,” the Duchess declared —“and my daughter too.”

“That will be charming!”

“Delightful!” cried Mrs. Westgate.

“I shall expect to see a deal of you,” the Duchess continued. “When I go to Branches I monopolise my son’s guests.”

“They must give themselves up to you,” said Mrs. Westgate all graciously.

“I quite yearn to see it — to see the Castle,” Bessie went on to the larger lady. “I’ve never seen one — in England at least; and you know we’ve none in America.”

“Ah, you’re fond of castles?”— her Grace quite took it up.

“Of the idea of them — which is all I know — immensely.” And the girl’s pale light deepened for the assurance. “It has been the dream of my life to live in one.”

The Duchess looked at her as if hardly knowing how to take such words, which, from the ducal point of view, had either to be very artless or very aggressive. “Well,” she said, rising, “I’ll show you Branches myself.” And upon this the noble ladies took their departure.

“What did they mean by it?” Mrs. Westgate sought to know when they had gone.

“They meant to do the friendly thing,” Bessie surmised, “because we’re going to meet them.”

“It’s too late to do the friendly thing,” Mrs. Westgate replied almost grimly. “They meant to overawe us by their fine manners and their grandeur; they meant to make you lacher prise.”

“Lacher prise? What strange things you say!” the girl sighed as fairly for pain.

“They meant to snub us so that we shouldn’t dare to go to Branches,” Mrs. Westgate substituted with confidence.

“On the contrary,” said Bessie, “the Duchess offered to show me the place herself.”

“Yes, you may depend upon it she won’t let you out of her sight. She’ll show you the place from morning till night.”

“You’ve a theory for everything,” our young woman a little more helplessly allowed.

“And you apparently have none for anything.”

“I saw no attempt to ‘overawe’ us,” Bessie nevertheless persisted. “Their manners weren’t fine.”

“They were not even good!” Mrs. Westgate declared.

Her sister had a pause, but in a few moments claimed the possession of an excellent theory. “They just came to look at me!” she brought out as with much ingenuity. Mrs. Westgate did the idea justice; she greeted it with a smile and pronounced it a credit to a fresh young mind; while in reality she felt that the girl’s scepticism, or her charity, or, as she had sometimes called it appropriately, her idealism, was proof against irony. Bessie, however, remained meditative all the rest of that day and well on into the morrow. She privately ached — almost as under a dishonour — with the aftersense of having been inspected in that particular way.

On the morrow before luncheon Mrs. Westgate, having occasion to go out for an hour, left her sister writing a letter. When she came back she met Lord Lambeth at the door of the hotel and in the act of leaving it. She thought he looked considerably embarrassed; he certainly, she said to herself, had no spring. “I’m sorry to have missed you. Won’t you come back?” she asked.

“No — I can’t. I’ve seen your sister. I can never come back.” Then he looked at her a moment and took her hand. “Good-bye, Mrs. Westgate — you’ve been very kind to me.” And with what she thought a strange sad air on his handsome young face he turned away.

She went in only to find Bessie still writing her letter; find her, that is, seated at the table with the arrested pen in her hand. She put her question after a moment. “Lord Lambeth has been here?”

Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale serious face — bending it on her for some time, confessing silently and, a little, pleading. “I told him,” the girl said at last, “that we couldn’t go to Branches.”

Mrs. Westgate gave a gasp of temporary disappointment. “He might have waited,” she nevertheless smiled, “till one had seen the Castle.” An hour afterwards she spoke again. “I do wish, you know, you might have accepted him.”

“I couldn’t,” said Bessie, with the slowest gravest gentlest of headshakes.

“He’s really such a dear,” Mrs. Westgate pursued.

“I couldn’t,” Bessie repeated.

“If it’s only,” her sister added, “because those women will think they succeeded — that they paralysed us!”

Our young lady turned away, but presently added: “They were interesting. I should have liked to see them again.”

“So should I!” cried Mrs. Westgate, with much point.

“And I should have liked to see the Castle,” said Bessie. “But now we must leave England.”

Her sister’s eyes studied her. “You won’t wait to go to the National Gallery?”

“Not now.”

“Nor to Canterbury Cathedral?”

Bessie lost herself for a little in this. “We can stop there on our way to Paris,” she then said.

Lord Lambeth didn’t tell Percy Beaumont that the contingency he was not prepared at all to like had occurred; but that gentleman, on hearing that the two ladies had left London, wondered with some intensity what had happened; wondered, that is, till the Duchess of Bayswater came a little to his assistance. The two ladies went to Paris — when Mrs. Westgate beguiled the journey by repeating several times: “That’s what I regret; they’ll think they petrified us.” But Bessie Alden, strange and charming girl, seemed to regret nothing.

The End