George Fenn - Lady Maude's Mania

The withered-looking gentleman, who blinked a good deal, and seemed as if the light was too strong for him, turned to speak to the doctor as he approached.

“Well,” said the latter – “better?”

“Yas, I think so; yas, doctor, but you know I can’t think what ails my constitution.”

“I can,” thought the doctor, as he turned away looking sharply round the room; “luxury, late hours, too much money, and nothing sensible to do. Blasé fool! Oh, there she is.”

He crossed as quickly as the crowded state of the room would allow him to where Lady Maude was standing, and made her start as he said sharply —

“I say, when’s your turn coming?”

“Never, I hope, doctor,” was the reply, as a little hand was placed in his, “never, if it is to make me so wretched as poor darling Di. Do say something kind to her if you have a chance.”

“Hum – ha – yes,” he said thoughtfully, as he retained the little hand and seemed to be examining a patient. “Don’t seem bright, eh?”

“Oh, no, doctor,” whispered Maude. “But I’m so glad you’ve come.”

“That’s right, my dear; I would come. So I will when you are married – the same as I did when you were born,” he said to himself. Then aloud – “I say, when you marry, my dear, you marry for love.”

“I will, doctor,” cried the girl with her blue eyes flashing, and just then Luigi of the organ struck up a languishing waltz. “But I really am so glad you’ve come. Do talk to papa and cheer him up. He is so low-spirited. Couldn’t you give him a tonic?”

“Wish I could,” said the doctor. “Tincture of youth. No, my dear. I can’t make the old young. Glad I’ve come, eh? There’s my little friend Tryphie yonder. But they are going to move, I see.”

Her ladyship was still very pensive, and gazed appealingly round from one to the other of her guests; but her eyes were wonderfully wide open, and she moved about like a domestic field-marshal determined to carry out her social campaign with éclat .

“Sir Grantley,” she said, softening her voice down to a contralto coo as she laid her fan on the arm of the elderly young man, whose face on one side was all eye-glass and wrinkles, on the other blank, “will you take down my daughter?”

“Charmed, I’m shaw,” was the hesitating reply, as a puzzled look came over the baronet’s face; “but her husband, don’t you know?”

“I mean Lady Maude,” said her ladyship, with a winning smile.

“Yes, of course; beg pardon, I’m shaw,” said the baronet hastily, and he crossed the room with her ladyship in a weak-kneed fashion, and apparently suffering from tight boots.

But it so happened that a flank movement had been set on foot by Viscount Diphoos.

“Charley, old man,” he was saying to the visitor with the fair beard, who now, as he stood in one of the windows, showed himself to be a fine, broad-shouldered fellow of about eight or nine and twenty, with a fair Saxon forehead half-way down to his brows, where it became ruddily tanned, as if by exposure to the air. “Charley, old man, go across and nail Maude at once, or the old lady will be handing her over to that wretched screw, Wilters. – Have you seen Tryphie?”

“There she is, over in the far corner, talking to the doctor,” said the young man addressed – a bosom friend of the viscount: Charley Melton, the son of a country gentleman with a very small income and no prospects, unless a cousin in the navy should kindly leave this world in his favour, when he would be heir to a title and a goodly domain.

He crossed the room quickly to where Lady Maude was standing, and a curious, conscious look appeared on the girl’s face as he approached. There was a warm rosy hue in her cheeks as their eyes met, and then, happy and palpitating, she let her little fingers press very timidly the strong muscular arm that held them to the side within which beat – beat – beat, rather faster than usual, Charley Melton’s heart, a habit it had had of late when fortune had thrown him close to his companion.

Her ladyship saw the movement as she was approaching with Sir Grantley Wilters, and darted an angry look at her daughter and another at her son. Then, with her face all smiles, she brought up her light cavalry and took her son in the flank in his turn.

“So sorry, Sir Grantley,” she said sweetly; “we were too late. Will you take down my niece?”

“Yas, delighted,” said Sir Grantley, screwing the whole of his face up till it formed a series of concentric circles round his eye-glass. “But who is that fellow?”

“Friend of my son,” said her ladyship in the most confidential way. “Very nice manly fellow, and that sort of thing. Tryphie, my dear, Sir Grantley Wilters will take you down,” she continued, as she stopped before a little piquante, creamy-skinned girl with large hazel eyes, abundant dark-brown hair, and a saucy-looking little mouth. She had a well-shaped nose, but her face was freckled as liberally as nature could arrange it without making the markings touch: but all the same she was remarkably bright and pretty.

“Sold!” muttered Tom, spitefully, as he saw her ladyship beaming upon him after striking him in his tenderest part. But he was consoled a little the next moment as Maude gave him a grateful glance, looking as happy and bright as Melton himself, while as Tryphie took the proffered arm of Sir Grantley Wilters, whose face expressed pain above and a smile below, the sharp little maiden made a moue with her lips expressive of disgust at her partner, and gave Diphoos a glance which made him feel decidedly better.

“I don’t like that fellow, Tom, my boy,” said Lord Barmouth, sidling up to his son, and bending down for a furtive rub at his leg. “Damme, Tom, I don’t believe he’s forty, and he looks as old as I do. If her ladyship means him to marry little Tryphie there, I shan’t – shan’t like – like – Damme, it would be too bad.”

“Hang it all, gov’nor; don’t talk like that,” cried Tom, impatiently.

“No, no, certainly not, my boy, certainly not; but I say, Tom, that’s a doosed nice boy that young Charley Melton. I like the look of him. He’s a manly sort of a fellow. Your uncle and I were at Eton with his father years ago. I say, Tom,” he continued, rubbing his leg, “he wouldn’t make a bad match for our Maude. Yes, yes, my dear; I’m coming.”

“Anthony, for shame!” whispered her ladyship. “They are all waiting. Lady Rigby. I’ve been looking for you. Take her down at once.”

The earl crossed over to make himself agreeable to Lady Rigby, the stout mamma; and the hostess took counsel with herself.

“Either would do,” she said. “But Mr Melton’s attentions will bring Sir Grantley to the point.”

A few minutes later the guests were seated at the wedding breakfast, while Dolly Preen again leaned out of the window, having returned there after attending to the bride, to whom two fresh pocket-handkerchiefs were supplied. Luigi of the organ was still below, handsome and smiling as he scented good things, and he played on as Mistress Preen listened and thought of love and marriage, and music, and how handsome Italian men were, and ended by doing as she had done for many weeks, wrapping a three-penny piece up in many papers and dropping it into Luigi’s soft felt hat. For how could she offer coppers to such a man as that!

She was not the only one who dreamed of love, for Justine Framboise, her ladyship’s maid, was enjoying a pleasant flirtation with Monsieur Hector Launay, Coiffeur de Paris, from Upper Gimp Street, Marylebone, a gentleman whose offices were largely in request in Portland Place, and who that morning had left his place of business in charge of a boy, so that he might perform certain capillary conjuring tricks, and then stay and look in the eyes of the fair Justine – a French young lady, who would have been a fortune to her father if she had been a dentist’s daughter, so liberally did she show her fine white teeth.