GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

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Lydia resumed her work next day with shaken nerves and a longing for society. Many enthusiastic young ladies of her acquaintance would have brought her kisses and devotion by the next mail in response to a telegram; and many more practical people would have taken considerable pains to make themselves agreeable to her for the sake of spending the autumn at Wiltstoken Castle. But she knew that they would only cause her to regret her former solitude. She shrank from the people who attached themselves to her strength and riches even when they had not calculated her gain, and were conscious only of admiration and gratitude. Alice, as a companion, had proved a failure. She was too young, and too much occupied with the propriety of her own behavior, to be anything more to Lydia than an occasional tax upon her patience. Lydia, to her own surprise, thought several times of Miss Gisborne, and felt tempted to invite her, but was restrained by mistrust of the impulse to communicate with Cashel’s mother, and reluctance to trace it to its source. Eventually she resolved to conquer her loneliness, and apply herself with increased diligence to the memoir of her father. To restore her nerves, she walked for an hour every day in the neighborhood, and drove out in a pony carriage, in the evening. Bashville’s duties were now fulfilled by the butler and Phoebe, Lydia being determined to admit no more young footmen to her service.

One afternoon, returning from one of her daily walks, she found a stranger on the castle terrace, in conversation with the butler. As it was warm autumn weather, Lydia was surprised to see a woman wearing a black silk mantle trimmed with fur, and heavily decorated with spurious jet beads. However, as the female inhabitants of Wiltstoken always approached Miss Carew in their best raiment, without regard to hours or seasons, she concluded that she was about to be asked for a subscription to a school treat, a temperance festival, or perhaps a testimonial to one of the Wiltstoken curates.

When she came nearer she saw that the stranger was an elderly lady — or possibly not a lady — with crimped hair, and ringlets hanging at each ear in a fashion then long obsolete.

“Here is Miss Carew,” said the butler, shortly, as if the old lady had tried his temper. “You had better talk to her yourself.”

At this she seemed fluttered, and made a solemn courtesy. Lydia, noticing the courtesy and the curls, guessed that her visitor kept a dancing academy. Yet a certain contradictory hardihood in her frame and bearing suggested that perhaps she kept a tavern. However, as her face was, on the whole, an anxious and a good face, and as her attitude towards the lady of the castle was one of embarrassed humility, Lydia acknowledged her salutation kindly, and waited for her to speak.

“I hope you won’t consider it a liberty,” said the stranger, tremulously. “I’m Mrs. Skene.”

Lydia became ominously grave; and Mrs. Skene reddened a little. Then she continued, as if repeating a carefully prepared and rehearsed speech, “It would be esteemed a favor if I might have the honor of a few words in private with your ladyship.”

Lydia looked and felt somewhat stern; but it was not in her nature to rebuff any one without strong provocation. She invited her visitor to enter, and led the way to the circular drawingroom, the strange decorations of which exactly accorded with Mrs. Skene’s ideas of aristocratic splendor. As a professor of deportment and etiquette, the ex-champion’s wife was nervous under the observation of such an expert as Lydia; but she got safely seated without having made a mistake to reproach herself with. For, although entering a room seems a simple matter to many persons, it was to Mrs. Skene an operation governed by the strict laws of the art she professed, and one so elaborate that few of her pupils mastered it satisfactorily with less than a month’s practice. Mrs Skene soon dismissed it from her mind. She was too old to dwell upon such vanities when real anxieties were pressing upon her.

“Oh, miss,” she began, appealingly, “the boy!”

Lydia knew at once who was meant. But she repeated, as if at a loss, “The boy?” And immediately accused herself of insincerity.

“Our boy, ma’am. Cashel.”

“Mrs. Skene!” said Lydia, reproachfully.

Mrs. Skene understood all that Lydia’s tone implied. “I know, ma’am,” she pleaded. “I know well. But what could I do but come to you? Whatever you said to him, it has gone to his heart; and he’s dying.”

“Pardon me,” said Lydia, promptly; “men do not die of such things; and Mr. Cashel Byron is not so deficient either in robustness of body or hardness of heart as to be an exception to THAT rule.”

“Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Skene, sadly. “You are thinking of the profession. You can’t believe he has any feelings because he fights. Ah, miss, if you only knew them as I do! More tenderhearted men don’t breathe. Cashel is like a young child, his feelings are that easily touched; and I have known stronger than he to die of broken hearts only because they were unlucky in their calling. Just think what a high-spirited young man must feel when a lady calls him a wild beast. That was a cruel word, miss; it was, indeed.”

Lydia was so disconcerted by this attack that she had to pause awhile before replying. Then she said, “Are you aware, Mrs. Skene, that my knowledge of Mr. Byron is very slight — that I have not seen him ten times in my life? Perhaps you do not know the circumstances in which I last saw him. I was greatly shocked by the injuries he had inflicted on another man; and I believe I spoke of them as the work of a wild beast. For your sake, I am sorry I said so; for he has told me that he regards you as his mother; and—”

“Oh, no! Far from it, miss. I ask your pardon a thousand times for taking the word out of your mouth; but me and Ned is no more to him than your housekeeper or governess might be to you. That’s what I’m afraid you don’t understand, miss. He’s no relation of ours. I do assure you that he’s a gentleman born and bred; and when we go back to Melbourne next Christmas, it will be just the same as if he had never known us.”

“I hope he will not be so ungrateful as to forget you. He has told me his history.”

“That’s more than he ever told me, miss; so you may judge how much he thinks of you.”

A pause followed this. Mrs. Skene felt that the first exchange was over, and that she had got the better in it.

“Mrs. Skene,” said Lydia then, penetratingly; “when you came to pay me this visit, what object did you propose to yourself? What do you expect me to do?”

“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Skene, troubled, “the poor lad has had crosses lately. There was the disappointment about you — the first one, I mean — that had been preying on his mind for a long time. Then there was that exhibition spar at the Agricultural Hall, when Paradise acted so dishonorable. Cashel heard that you were looking on; and then he read the shameful way the newspapers wrote of him; and he thought you’d believe it all. I couldn’t get that thought out of his head. I said to him, over and over again—”

“Excuse me,” said Lydia, interrupting. “We had better be frank with one another. It is useless to assume that he mistook my feeling on that subject. I WAS shocked by the severity with which he treated his opponent.”

“But bless you, that’s his business,” said Mrs. Skone, opening her eyes widely. “I put it to you, miss,” she continued, as if mildly reprobating some want of principle on Lydia’s part, “whether an honest man shouldn’t fulfil his engagements. I assure you that the pay a respectable professional usually gets for a spar like that is half a guinea; and that was all Paradise got. But Cashel stood on his reputation, and wouldn’t take less than ten guineas; and he got it, too. Now many another in his position would have gone into the ring and fooled away the time pretending to box, and just swindling those that paid him. But Cashel is as honest and highminded as a king. You saw for yourself the trouble he took. He couldn’t have spared himself less if he had been fighting for a thousand a side and the belt, instead of for a paltry ten guineas. Surely you don’t think the worse of him for his honesty, miss?”