Lady Carse

“ With a feeling of delicacy that did her honor she had declined to appear as the acknowledged heiress at the festival given to Lady Hope, feeling that it might interfere with her grandmother's independent action with regard to the vast property at her disposal, if she allowed herself to be proclaimed thus early as the chosen heiress, which she now undoubtedly was. The will had been read, and, with the exception of a considerable legacy to Caroline Brown, the adopted daughter, and provisions for the servants, young Lady Carset came in for everything. ”

“ Lady Carset had extended numerous invitations to her old friends, and it was understood that Lady Hope would represent the head of the house and do the honors. This compliment was partly in atonement for the wrong that had been done Rachael Closs, and partly from the infirmities of extreme old age, which rendered it even dangerous for the old countess to entertain her guests in person. ”

“ The old lady turned herself towards the entrance, with a stiffening of the whole frame, an instinctive and passionate dignity in her whole aspect, which struck a thrill through her companion.
The little Duchess approached, amid a flutter of satin and lace, heralded by the scent of the Parma violets she wore in profusion at her breast and waist. Her eye glanced uncertainly, and she approached with daintiness, like one stepping on mined ground. ”

“ Of that she could say nothing to her husband, nor of Janet’s rebellion, nor above all of what was intolerable in Edith’s gentle society, the sense of her superior happiness, her pity for poor Carry! He might have divined what it was which made the house intolerable to her; but if he did not, how could she say it? Thus Lady Car gradually achieved the power of living on, of smiling upon all who surrounded her with something in her eyes which nobody comprehended, but which some few people were vaguely aware of, though they comprehended it not. ”

“ To-morrow I shall send you home to Lady Scarsdale."
"But——"
"There is nothing more to be said on the subject. I have made up my mind." And having pronounced sentence, she left her distracted great-niece to her own reflections.
It was a very doleful couple who sat down to dinner that evening in Lady Melton's private room.
"It is ridiculous!" said Mrs. Scarsdale. "We are being treated like naughty children. I feel as if I were about to be whipped and put to bed. Sent home with the butler, indeed! I'd just like to see her ladyship try to do it!" ”

“ To Colonel Delaney he was an "agitator," if not a rebel; and the careless pungency of his talk soon classed him as an atheist besides. In the case of Lady Rose, this man's free and generous nature, his independence of money and convention, his passion for the things of the mind, his contempt for the mode, whether in dress or politics, his light evasions of the red tape of life as of something that no one could reasonably expect of a vagabond like himself--these things presently transformed a woman in despair to a woman in revolt. ”

“ She thought, with the simplicity of her age, that perhaps if she went away a little, was absent for an hour or so from the room, that her mother would not look so pale when she came back, and Lady Car’s smile went to Janet’s heart. It was too like an angel’s, she thought to herself. A living woman ought not to be too like an angel. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid looked at her thoughtfully as he stirred the sugar in his coffee.
"I think so," he said. "She is Lady Rose Delaney's daughter."
Lady Henry gave a sudden laugh.
"I hardly expected you to guess! What helped you?"
"First your own hints. Then the strange feeling I had that I had seen the face, or some face just like it, before. And, lastly, at the Foreign Office I caught sight, for a moment, of Lord Lackington. That finished it."
"Ah!" said Lady Henry, with a nod. "Yes, that likeness is extraordinary. Isn't it amazing that that foolish old man has never perceived it?" ”

“ He thought at first that his wife was ill, and hurried forward anxiously, asking, ‘What is the matter?’ He saw Carry pale as death, her mouth drawn, her eyes dilated, leaning back against the rocks, holding the hand of a girl unknown who knelt beside her, while Tom, who had laughed, stood over the pair with still that mirthless grimace distending his lips.
‘Edward,’ Lady Car said, ‘I have something to ask you; something at once, before you ask me a question. A marriage under a false name—is that no marriage? ”

“ Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Lausanne, where I received every courtesy at the hands of M. Moser, the well-known manager. Lady Frances, as he informed me, had stayed there for several weeks. She had been much liked by all who met her. Her age was not more than forty. She was still handsome and bore every sign of having in her youth been a very lovely woman. M. Moser knew nothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by the servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always scrupulously locked. Marie Devine, the maid, was as popular as her mistress. ”

“ Yes, Rose was a lady, and he—well, he was a brick-mason, and ignorant and rough by contrast. There was no dodging that. But hadn't he already rebuilt himself so well that the sharp-eyed lawyer had called him a wonder? And with Rose right in his home for him to watch and see how she did things, couldn't he keep on rebuilding until he was at least a brick-veneer gentleman? He would never let up on that job—never!—not so long as he had Rose!
"It's Saturday night," he said, when dinner had ended, "and I ought to see Boyle. He's a good boss-carpenter and knows how to get work out of men. ”

“ But here was some one, all joy, animation, and indulgence--a glorified Julie who trod on air. Why? Because good-fortune had befallen her friend? His heart smote him. He had never seen her so touching, so charming. Since the incubus of Lady Henry's house and presence had been removed she seemed to have grown years younger. A white muslin dress of her youth, touched here and there by the Duchess's maid, replaced the familiar black satin. When Warkworth first saw her he paused unconsciously in surprise. ”

“ Her ladyship was suddenly grown most tender of her reputation now that it was in peril.
'Your ladyship's care for me, and your hospitality overcome me, but I have, as you perhaps remarked, an assignation of honour with Colonel Montague which nothing must prevent me from keeping. He is longing for an instant revenge—at the Hazard Table. A while ago, you may pardon me for observing, your ladyship was remote from feeling this sudden and violent anxiety on my hand.'
Mr. Kelly's irony was poured out to deaf ears. Lady Oxford paced to and fro about the room, wringing her hands in her extremity. ”

“ When a woman comes to this climax of happiness, she generally does so more thoroughly with her arrière-pensée than a man. Only one thing could have made Carry’s bliss more exquisite—if he had done it for her—and yet, on the whole, I am not sure that to have done it for him was not a higher pleasure still. Little Janet had held by her mother’s dress coming into the new, strange house, and thus had been swept into this rapture without intention, and stood gazing at it with great eyes, half wondering, half critical. ”

“ An Educated Lady
BY FORREST CRISSEY
SHE was his. And what a heart-siege it had taken to make her his own! All the Irish ardor, wit, readiness, and chivalry that had ever reddened a drop of Beamish blood, and all the cunning, prudence, and constancy that his Welsh mother had given him as a heritage, had gone into that winning. ”

“ I have known many of those persons whom the world calls "great ladies" in later times, but I have never known any one who was more truly "a lady" in every best and highest sense, than Mrs. Pile.
On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella, Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think) , and I were in the other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door. ”

“ Her offer to elucidate the situation, or, at any rate, the part which she had played in it, made with all humility, was not greeted with any show of heartiness. Rather the faces in front of her hardened, as if her words added fuel to the fire of their resentment.
"You're a pretty piece, upon my word! You look a fine lady, and no error! Anyone would think you were one, to hear you talk. You impudent cat, to try to carry it off with us. You shut your mouth, and don't you speak unless you're spoken to, or we'll soon shut it for you, and don't you make any mistake, my beauty. ”

“ You would be coming to see me, and Jan, and kiss me, and call me “Tom,” and make the other fellows laugh.{49}’
‘What should you be called but Tom?’ said Lady Car, with a smile.
‘Torrance!’ cried the child with pride, as who should say Plantagenet. She had been looking at him, smiling, but at this utterance of the boy Lady Car started and turned burning red, then coldly pale. Why should she? Nothing could be more fantastic, more absurd, than the feeling. She had done no harm in making a second marriage, in which she had found happiness, after the first one, which had brought nothing but misery. ”

“ He had set out to make that woman eat ashes out of his hand—and he'd been living on them himself!
"Well," said his friend, reflectively, packing his pipe, "I suppose you'll take your lady around to see that woman get what's coming to her? That's the way it's always done at the theater and the film shows."
Danny shook his head. "Not Rose!" he finally answered. Then he stammered: "You see—well—Rose is an educated lady. They—she don't do things like that." ”

“ Of course I had to be careful what I said; but you know she's clever, and I hope I made her understand that her old friends are not going to forget her, even if she did marry an ignorant brick-mason—a common laboring man. She wouldn't say a word—you know how proud Rose has always been—but I could see that she was on the verge of breaking down."
"Do you think she feels that she's made a mistake?" Danny heard the other woman ask.
"How could she help it?" came the quick answer. "Rose Wills is too keen and sensitive a woman not to wake up to the difference before the honeymoon is over. ”

“ Nor in any way, Edith reflected, as she sat down at her husband’s table: a sympathetic sister must not even venture to show that she was compassionate. She must conceal the consciousness of his father’s look in Tom Torrance’s face, and of the fact that Beaufort’s book had never been written, and that his name was altogether unknown to the world save as that of Lady Caroline Torrance’s second husband. Oh, poor Carry! Edith said again. But this time only in the depths of her own heart, not to John.
The only other person who saw the change in Lady Car’s look was Janet, who had defied her mother. ”

“ As best she could, Mrs Bankes drew herself together.
"You are making some mistake," she said, and went into the other room.
She was conscious that her entry created some emotion which was akin to surprise. There were four women. They all looked at her with something very like astonishment; as if this pretty, graceful girl, every inch of her unmistakably a lady, dressed in such perfect taste, forming altogether such a pleasant picture for the eye to rest upon, was hardly the sort of person they had expected to see. ”

“ The weather map of Rose's face was a variable and exciting study for the next few months. Danny's scrutiny was as worshipful as ever, but more silent. At times he almost wished that she were an Irish lass with whom he could "fight it out" and have it over. But, if she were, she wouldn't be Rose. Oh, there was a world of difference between a common woman and an educated lady! And that difference seemed to be building a solid wall about her that made it harder for him to reach her every day. If it kept on this way for long—but the money on that mortgage was due to him the 17th of December. ”

“ The Duchess of Chudleigh may intrigue and tell lies, if she pleases. I am not giving her a hundred a year."
There was a pause.
"Why, if I may ask," said Sir Wilfrid, at the end of it, "did you quarrel with Jacob? I understand there was a separate cause:"
Lady Henry hesitated.
"He paid me a debt," she said, at last, and a sudden flush rose in her old, blanched cheek.
"And that annoyed you? You have the oddest code!"
Lady Henry bit her lip.
"One does not like one's money thrown in one's face."
"Most unreasonable of women!"
"Never mind, Wilfrid. We all have our feelings." ”

“ He was the most perfect gentleman; his every tone, his every thought was full of refinement. And Lady Car was well pleased, who could doubt? to lie back in her deep chair and listen. What happiness could a woman—a woman no longer young, not in very good health, an idealist, a minor poet—what could she desire more?
There came, however, a time when the claims of the Towers could no longer be ignored. Tom came of age, and Lady Car could no longer combat the necessity of going{231} back to hold the necessary festivities and put him in possession of his lands and his home. ”

“ Women have no business with a brain like hers—that is, if they wish to be women and not sexual monsters. Mrs. Carr is not a lady, though she might have been one. I don't think she is a good woman either. It is possible, indeed, that she has known the factory before now. There is a mystery about her, for I was informed that she was a Mrs. Purfoy, the widow of a whaling captain, and had married one of her assigned servants, who had deserted her five years ago, as soon as he obtained his freedom. ”