V
Sir Eustace and his brother carried out their programme. They dined
together, and about half-past nine drove round to Grosvenor Street.
Here they were shown into the drawing-room by the solemn footman, who
informed Sir Eustace that her ladyship was upstairs in the nursery and
had left a message for him that she would be down presently.
"All right; there is no hurry," said Sir Eustace absently, and the man
went downstairs.
Bottles, being nervous, was fidgeting round the room as usual, and his
brother, being very much at ease, was standing with his back to the
fire, and staring about him. Presently his glance lit upon the blue
velvet curtains which shut off the room they were in from the larger
saloon that had not been used since Lady Croston's widowhood, and an
idea which had been floating about in his brain suddenly took definite
shape and form. He was a prompt man, and in another second he had
acted up to that idea.
"George," he said in a quick, low voice, "listen to me, and for
Heaven's sake don't interrupt for a minute. You know that I do not
like the idea of your marrying Lady Croston. You know that I think her
worthless--no, wait a minute, don't interrupt--I am only saying what I
think. You believe in her; you believe that she is in love with you
and will marry you, and have good reason to believe it, have you not?"
Bottles nodded.
"Very well. Supposing that I can show you within half an hour that she
is perfectly ready to marry somebody else--myself, for instance--would
you still believe in her?"
Bottles turned pale. "The thing is impossible," he said.
"That is not the question. Would you still believe in her, and would
you still marry her?"
"Great heavens! no."
"Good. Then I tell you what I will do for you, and it will perhaps
give you some idea of how deeply I feel in the matter; I will
sacrifice myself."
"Sacrifice yourself?"
"Yes. I mean that I will this very evening propose to Madeline Croston
under your nose, and I bet you five pounds she accepts me."
"Impossible," said Bottles again. "Besides, if she did you don't want
to marry her."
"Marry her! No, indeed. /I/ am not mad. I shall have to get out of the
scrape as best I can--always supposing my view of the lady is
correct."
"Excuse me," said Bottles with a gasp, "but I must ask you--in short,
have /you/ ever been on affectionate terms with Madeline?"
"Never, on my honour."
"And yet you think she will marry you if you ask her, even after what
took place with me yesterday?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because, my boy," replied Sir Eustace with a cynical smile, "I have
eight thousand a year and you have eight hundred--because I have a
title and you have none. That you may happen to be the better fellow
of the two will, I fear, not make up for those deficiencies."
Bottles with a motion of his hand waved his brother's courtly
compliment away, as it were, and turned on him with a set white face.
"I do not believe you, Eustace," he said. "Do you understand what you
make out this lady to be when you say that she could kiss me and tell
me that she loved me--for she did both yesterday--and promise to marry
you to-day?"
Sir Eustace shrugged his shoulders. "I think that the lady in question
has done something like that before, George."
"That was years ago and under pressure. Now, Eustace, you have made
this charge; you have upset my faith in Madeline, whom I hope to
marry, and I say, prove it--prove it if you can. I will stake my life
you cannot."
"Don't agitate yourself, my dear fellow; and as to betting, I would
not risk more than a fiver. Now oblige me by stepping behind those
velvet curtains--/a la/ 'School for Scandal'--and listening in perfect
silence to my conversation with Lady Croston. She does not know that
you are here, so she will not miss you. You can escape when you have
had enough of it, for there is a door through on to the landing, and
as we came up I noticed that it was ajar. Or if you like you can
appear from between the curtains like an infuriated husband on the
stage and play whatever /role/ occasion may demand. Really the
situation has a laughable side. I should enjoy it immensely if /I/
were behind the curtain too. Come, in you go."
Bottles hesitated. "I can't hide," he said.
"Nonsense; remember how much depends on it. All is fair in love or
war. Quick; here she comes."
Bottles grew flurried and yielded, scarcely knowing what he did. In
another second he was in the darkened room behind the curtains,
through the crack in which he could command the lighted scene before
him, and Sir Eustace was back at his place before the fire, reflecting
that in his ardour to extricate his brother from what he considered a
suicidal engagement he had let himself in for a very pretty
undertaking. Suppose she accepted him, his brother would be furious,
and he would probably have to go abroad to get out of the lady's way;
and suppose she refused him, he would look a fool.
Meanwhile the sweep, sweep of Madeline's dress as she passed down the
stairs was drawing nearer, and in another instant she was in the room.
She was beautifully dressed in silver-grey silk, plentifully trimmed
with black lace, and cut square back and front so as to show her
rounded shoulders. She wore no ornaments, being one of the few women
who are able to dispense with them, unless indeed a red camellia
pinned in the front of her dress can be called an ornament. Bottles,
shivering with shame and doubt behind his curtain, marked that red
camellia, and wondered of what it reminded him.
Then in a flash it all came back, the scene of years and years ago--
the verandah in far-away Natal, with himself sitting on it, an open
letter in his hand and staring with all his eyes at the camellia bush
covered with bloom before him. It seemed a bad omen to him--that
camellia in Madeline's bosom. Next second she was speaking.
"Oh, Sir Eustace, I owe you a thousand apologies. You must have been
here for quite ten minutes, for I heard the front door bang when you
came. But my poor little girl Effie is ill with a sore throat which
has made her feverish, and she absolutely refused to go to sleep
unless she had my hand to hold."
"Lucky Effie," said Sir Eustace, with his politest bow; "I am sure I
can understand her fancy."
At the moment he was holding Madeline's hand himself, and gave
emphasis to his words by communicating the gentlest possible pressure
to it as he let it fall. But knowing his habits, she did not take much
notice. Comparative strangers when Sir Eustace shook hands with them
were sometimes in doubt whether he was about to propose to them or to
make a remark upon the weather. Alas! it had always been the weather.
"I come as a man of business besides, and men of business are
accustomed to being kept waiting," he went on.
"You are really very good, Sir Eustace, to take so much trouble about
my affairs."
"It is a pleasure, Lady Croston."
"Ah, Sir Eustace, you do not expect me to believe that," laughed the
radiant creature at his side. "But if you only knew how I detest
lawyers, and what you spare me by the trouble you take, I am sure you
would not grudge me your time."
"Do not talk of it, Lady Croston. I would do a great deal more than
that for you; in fact," here he dropped his voice a little, "there are
few things that I would not do for you, /Madeline/."
She raised her delicate eyebrows till they looked like notes of
interrogation, and blushed a little. This was quite a new style for
Sir Eustace. Was he in earnest? she wondered. Impossible!
"And now for business," he continued; "not that there is much
business; as I understand it, you have only to sign this document,
which I have already witnessed, and the stock can be transferred."
She signed the paper which he had brought in a big envelope almost
without looking at it, for she was thinking of Sir Eustace's remark,
and he put it back in the envelope.
"Is that all the business, Sir Eustace?" she asked.
"Yes; quite all. Now I suppose that as I have done my duty I had
better go away."
"I wish to Heaven he would!" groaned Bottles to himself behind the
curtains. He did not like his brother's affectionate little ways or
Madeline's tolerance of them.
"Indeed, no; you had better sit down and talk to me--that is, if you
have got nothing pleasanter to do."
We can guess Sir Eustace's prompt reply and Madeline's smiling
reception of the compliment, as she seated herself in a low chair--
that same low chair she had occupied the day before.
"Now for it," said Sir Eustace to himself. "I wonder how George is
getting on?"
"My brother tells me that he came to see you yesterday," he began.
"Yes," she answered, smiling again, but wondering in her heart how
much he had told him.
"Do you find him much changed?"
"Not much."
"You used to be very fond of each other once, if I remember right?"
said he.
"Yes, once."
"I often think how curious it is," went on Sir Eustace in a reflective
tone, "to watch the various changes time brings about, especially
where the affections are concerned. One sees children at the seaside
making little mounds of sand, and they think, if they are very young
children, that they will find them there to-morrow. But they reckon
without their tide. To-morrow the sands will have swept as level as
ever, and the little boys will have to begin again. It is like that
with our youthful love affairs, is it not? The tide of time comes up
and sweeps them away, fortunately for ourselves. Now in your case, for
instance, it is, I think, a happy thing for both of you that your
sandhouse did not last. Is it not?"
Madeline sighed softly. "Yes, I suppose so," she answered.
Bottles, behind the curtains, rapidly reviewed the past, and came to a
different conclusion.
"Well, that is all done with," said Sir Eustace cheerfully.
Madeline did not contradict him; she did not see her way to doing so
just at present.
Then came a pause.
"Madeline," said Sir Eustace presently, in a changed voice, "I have
something to say to you."
"Indeed, Sir Eustace," she answered, lifting her eyebrows again in her
note of interrogation manner, "what is it?"
"It is this, Madeline--I want to ask you to be my wife."
The blue velvet curtains suddenly gave a jump as though they were
assisting at at spiritualistic /seance/.
Sir Eustace looked at the curtains with warning in his eye.
Madeline saw nothing.
"Really, Sir Eustace!"
"I dare say I surprise you," went on this ardent lover; "my suit may
seem a sudden one, but in truth it is nothing of the sort."
"O Lord, what a lie!" groaned the distracted Bottles.
"I thought, Sir Eustace," murmured Madeline in her sweet low voice,
"that you told me not very long ago that you never meant to marry."
"Nor did I, Madeline, because I thought there was no chance of my
marrying you" ("which I am sure I hope there isn't," he added to
himself). "But--but, Madeline, I love you." ("Heaven forgive me for
that!") "Listen to me, Madeline, before you answer," and he drew his
chair closer to her own. "I feel the loneliness of my position, and I
want to get married. I think that we should suit each other very well.
At our age, now that our youth is past" (he could not resist this dig,
at which Madeline winced), "probably neither of us would wish to marry
anybody much our junior. I have had many opportunities lately,
Madeline, of seeing the beauty of your character, and to the beauties
of your person no man could be blind. I can offer you a good position,
a good fortune, and myself, such as I am. Will you take me?" and he
laid his hand upon hers and gazed earnestly into her eyes.
"Really, Sir Eustace," she murmured, "this is so very unexpected and
sudden."
"Yes, Madeline, I know it is. I have no right to take you by storm in
this way, but I trust you will not allow my precipitancy to weight
against me. Take a little time to think it over--a week say" ("by
which time," he reflected, "I hope to be in Algiers.") "Only, if you
can, Madeline, tell me that I may hope."
She made no immediate answer, but, letting her hands fall idly in her
lap, looked straight before her, her beautiful eyes fixed upon
vacancy, and her mind amply occupied in considering the pros and cons
of the situation. Then Sir Eustace took heart of grace; bending down,
he kissed the Madonna-like face. Still there was no response. Only
very gently she pushed him from her, whispering:
"Yes, Eustace, I think I shall be able to tell you that you may hope."
Bottles waited to see no more. With set teeth and flaming eyes he
crept, a broken man, through the door that led on to the landing,
crept down the stairs and into the hall. On the pegs were his hat and
coat; he took them and passed into the street.
"I have done a disgraceful thing," he thought, "and I have paid for
it."
Softly as the door closed Sir Eustace heard it; and then he too left
the room, murmuring, "I shall soon come for my answer, Madeline."
When he reached the street his brother was gone.
