Lady Fleetwood

“ The substance is the same, but the colour and the form are always varying. In the substance lie the permanence and the identity: all else is moulded and painted by circumstance.
Now, substantially there never was a kinder or a better heart in the world than that of Lady Fleetwood. She was ever anxious for the happiness of those around her. ”

“ Fleetwood nodded. ‘You are read without the words: You read in history, too, I suppose, that there are two sides to most cases. The loudest is not often the strongest. However, now the lady shows herself crazed. That’s reading her charitably. Else she has to be taken for a spiteful shrew, who pretends to suspect anything that’s villanous, because she can hit on no other way of striking.’
‘Crazed, is a wide shot and hits half the world,’ muttered Gower. ‘Lady Fleetwood had a troubled period after her marriage. ”

“ Well, I dare say she will not be much obliged to him for saying that."
"He did not say that at all, my dear Charles," replied Lady Fleetwood in a little alarm: "he only said what a good thing it would be if you and Maria were to marry; and I thought so too, for you are very fond of each other, and you are both only-children, and----"
"Poor orphans!" exclaimed Charles Marston, laughing heartily. "Well, matrimony is as good as any other orphan asylum. I don't think it will do, my dear aunt. We are more like brother and sister than lovers. ”

“ In London her aunt's house was the only proper place for her, but still it made Mr. Scriven somewhat uneasy; for Lady Fleetwood was the kindest and best intentioned woman in the world, and though by no means what is called a matchmaker, she had a very strong conviction--which her own experience had not shaken in the least--that marriage was the only state in which a woman could be really happy.
On this point Mr. Scriven differed with her entirely; and it was not at all pleasant to him to know that she was continually dinning her own system into Maria's ears. ”

“ I need not add, after this, that there dwelt Lady Fleetwood. When she was alone, her household consisted of a footman, well powdered and laced, a cook, a housemaid, and her own maid--a somewhat extravagant establishment, considering her income; but in all other things she was very economical--at least she thought so, and Maria Monkton fully agreed in her opinion. She did not pamper any of the appetites, nor indeed any of the vanities, of the flesh, except in the instance of the powdered footman. ”

“ She is of age. She can do what she pleases; and I have only to do the best that I can to prevent anything she does from affecting her more injuriously than it otherwise might. Now, then, our ground is clear; what's the matter?"
Lady Fleetwood hesitated, but it was too late to retreat.
"Why," she said--and be it remarked, that whenever woman makes use of the little word "why," as an expletive, she knows she is coming on difficult ground--"Why, I cannot help seeing--that is to say, fancying--that is to say, believing--that Maria has a partiality for Colonel Middleton," said Lady Fleetwood ”

“ Hitherto, Maria and Lady Anne had been walking on arm in arm, with Colonel Middleton by the side of the former and Charles Marston by the side of the latter, when suddenly, to Lady Fleetwood's infinite surprise, Lady Anne disengaged herself from her fair friend, went round, and took Colonel Middleton's arm. Then, pointing with her parasol to the right, she walked away with him, leaving Charles Marston sauntering on by Maria's side.
"Dear me!" said Lady Fleetwood; "Lady Anne is really very strange. Let us go on and overtake them. I am afraid Maria will feel hurt." ”

“ No way presented itself to her imagination for some moments; and while Maria retired to her room to dress for going out, and moreover to recover from a greater degree of agitation than she had suffered to appear, Lady Fleetwood went on considering what could best be done to remove all difficulties from her niece's way. As mischief would have it, the only thing she could think of was to go and persuade Mr. Scriven that it would be the best possible thing, after all, for Maria to marry Colonel Middleton. She felt not the slightest doubt in the world that she should be quite successful ”

“ It occurs also, nine times out of ten, with persons of the disposition and character of Lady Fleetwood, that they are discreet at the wrong moment; the angel visits of discretion come at times when they are unserviceable; and so poor Lady Fleetwood found it. ”

“ As I have said, Maria dressed herself with the utmost expedition, and descended as fast as possible to the drawing-room. She found her aunt and uncle full tilt, however, in what seemed a very interesting conversation, for Maria had rarely beheld Mr. Scriven's face so full of expression before. Her entrance took place with ladylike grace, just as Lady Fleetwood was finishing a sentence.
"As like as it is possible to conceive," quoth Lady Fleetwood; "exactly the same person, only taller and older." ”

“ Her table was always regulated with great exactness, and her certain number of glasses of wine was never exceeded. Her dresses, by the skill of her maid, appeared in various forms, with very great success; and when Maria was with her there was always a carriage at her command. Nor, in truth, when Maria was at Bolton Park, did Lady Fleetwood go without; for a chariot and a pair of horses were always left at the stables, with a particular request from the niece that her aunt would use them every day, lest the horses should grow frisky for want of exercise. ”

“ His excellency, my master, has got cousins in London who have known him from his birth; and, do what you will, you cannot make him out anything but what he is. So, as this blackguard is going himself, you say, to Lady Fleetwood, the day after to-morrow, you can let him go. He'll only get himself into a scrape, and nobody else. ”

“ However, as I have said, Lady Fleetwood felt perfectly confident of success. She was convinced herself, and she thought the same arguments which had produced that effect on her must be convincing with others. She did not remember, indeed, that she was not unlikely to forget one-half of them. Nevertheless she thought, "I will not say a word about it to Maria. It will be a pleasant surprise to her to find that her uncle offers no opposition. I will just wait till she has gone out, and then drive to the city at once."
CHAPTER XXV.
At the door of a hotel in St. ”

“ Fleetwood was about to follow, but he suddenly stopped.
“It will only enrage the old man, and excite suspicions in his mind. Perhaps he will insult me to get rid of me altogether,—I had better not.”
Ada found herself seated next to Lady Marmion, with whose niece Jack Raby was dancing. Her attention was easily riveted by the praises which her ladyship lavished on Captain Fleetwood, and the secret of her affection, if secret it could be called, was easily penetrated by the astute dame. ”

“ Ines up at the castle smelt of beer, and his eyelids were sottish. Nothing to do tries the virtue of the best. He sought his excuse in a heavy lamentation over my lady’s unjust suspicion of him,—a known man of honour, though he did serve his paytron.
The cause of Lady Fleetwood’s absence was exposed to her outraged lord, who had sent the man purely to protect her at this castle, where she insisted on staying. The suspicion cast on the dreary lusher was the wife’s wild shot at her husband. One could understand a silly woman’s passing terror. ”

“ Nevertheless, Lord Fleetwood mounted the steps to his house door, still listening. His ‘Asmodeus,’ on the tongue of the world, might be doing the part of Mentor really. The house door stood open.
Fleetwood said something to Gower; he swung round, beheld the ladies and advanced to them, saluting. ‘My dear Lady Arpington! quite so, you arrive opportunely. When the enemy occupies the citadel, it’s proper to surrender. Say, I beg, she can have the house, if she prefers it. I will fall back on Esslemont. Arrangements for her convenience will be made. ”

“ Is the man unsympathetic with women a hater of Nature deductively? Most women are actresses. As to worshipping Nature, we go back to the state of heathen beast, Mr. Philosopher Gower could be answered....
Fleetwood drew in his argument. She stood before him. There was on his part an insular representation of old French court salute to the lady, and she replied to it in the exactest measure, as if an instructed proficient.
She stood unshadowed. ‘We have come to bid you adieu, my lord,’ she said, and no trouble of the bosom shook her mellow tones. ”

“ The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he had not the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work upon sneaking inclinations. ‘Promised Lady F.’—do you hear him?’ Fleetwood called to the couple behind; and as gamblers must needs be parasites, manly were the things they spoke to invigorate the youthful plunger and second the whim of their paymaster. ”

“ These are nights that weaken us to below the level of women. A shuttle worked in Fleetwood’s head. He defended the men of the world. Lord Feltre oiled them, damned them, kindled them to a terrific expiatory blaze, and extinguishingly salved and wafted aloft the released essence of them. Maniacal for argument, Fleetwood rejected the forgiveness of sins, if sins they be. Prove them sins, and the suffering is of necessity everlasting, his insomnia logic insisted. Whichever side he took, his wife was against him; not in speech, but in her look. ”

“ Truly, there could not be a woman of flesh so near to a likeness with the beatific image of Feltre’s worshipped Madonna!
The thought sparkled and darkened in Fleetwood’s mind, as a star passing into cloud. For an uproarious world claimed the woman, jeered at all allied with her; at her husband most, of course:—the punctilious noodle! the golden jackass, tethered and goaded! He had choice among the pick of women: the daughter of the Old Buccaneer was preferred by the wiseacre Coelebs. She tricked him cunningly and struck a tremendous return blow in producing her male infant. ”

“ A rich man’s easy smile over losses at play, merely taught his emulous troop to feel themselves poor devils in the pocket. But Fleetwood’s contempt of Sleep was a marvel, superhuman, and accused them of an inferior vigour, hard for young men to admit by the example. He never went to bed. Issuing from Fortune’s hall-doors in the bright, lively, summer morning, he mounted horse and was away to the hills. Or he took the arm of a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Feltre, and walked with him from the green tables and the establishment’s renowned dry still Sillery to a Papist chapel. ”

“ The girls at the magazine racks had tuned up conversationally. Chit-chat was their medium, of the sort that, for all its lack of substance, takes on a certain penetration after a time. In the end, Fleetwood found himself slipping, no matter how unwillingly, into the role of the eavesdropper. As it was, though, he couldn't have selected a more illuminating moment in which to fall from grace.
"I've been following him for years," one of the girls said as Fleetwood dialed in full strength. "I watch for him every time he comes out." ”

“ He had to learn something of changes that had come to others as well as to himself. Ah, and then would he dare hint, as base men will? He may blow foul smoke on her, she will shine out of it. He has to learn what she is, that is his lesson; and let him pray all night and work hard all day for it not to be too late. Let him try to be a little like Mr. Woodseer, who worships the countess, and is hearty with the gentleman she treats as her best of friends. There is the real nobleman.
Fleetwood chatted on airily. ”

“ Then the door was opened by a very old man wearing the black “swallow-tail” clothes and choker of an old-time butler, spotless, quite immaculate, but cut after a fashion no young man remembers.
“Good evening,” said Fleetwood, entering, followed on tiptoe by Plank.
“Good evening, sir.”... A pause; and in the unsteady voice of age: “Mr. Fleetwood, sir.... Mr.—.” A bow, and the dim eyes peering up at Plank, who stood fumbling for his card-case.
Fleetwood dropped both cards on the salver unsteadily extended. The butler ushered them into a dim room on the right.
“How is Mr. Siward?” ”

“ Once she did it, innocently enough, and enjoyed it, never realising that it hurt a man to be doubled up.”
Fleetwood yawned again and said: “She can have me to-morrow. But she won't. She's tired of the sport. Any girl would get enough with the pack at her heels day in and day out. Besides she's done for—unless she looses Quarrier and starts on a duke-hunt over in Blinky's country!... Is anybody on for a sail? Is anybody on for anything? No? Oh, very well. Shove that decanter north by west, Billy.” ”

“ Prone to admire and bend the knee where he admired, he chafed at subjection, unless he had the particular spell constantly renewed. A tone in him once or twice of late, different from the comrade’s, had warned Woodseer to be guarded.
Susceptible, however, of the extreme contrast between the gamblers below and Nature’s lover beside him, Fleetwood returned to his enthusiasm without thinking it a bondage.
‘I shall never forget the walk we ‘ve had. I have to thank you for the noblest of pleasures. You ‘ve taught me—well, a thousand things; the things money can’t buy. ”

“ Her face remained pale and strongly agitated. Before self-control was regained, Mr. Fleetwood entered the library.
“See, Uncle John,” cried Mrs. Dainty; “we have already taken this dear, good girl into our love and confidence. She shall be as our daughter.”
Mr. Fleetwood was taken by surprise. He stood still for a moment or two, half bewildered. Then, comprehending the scene, he advanced to Florence, and, drawing an arm around her, said, with much feeling,—
“The trial is over, dear child! There are no more rough paths for your tender feet.”
And he pressed his lips against her pure forehead. ”