The Law and the Lady Part 9

"Look at your complexion, ma'am. You will frighten him if he sees you like that. A touch of color you _must_ have. Where do you keep it? What!

you haven't got it? you never use it? Dear, dear, dear me!"

For a moment surprise fairly deprived her of her self-possession.

Recovering herself, she begged permission to leave me for a minute. I let her go, knowing what her errand was. She came back with a box of paint and powders; and I said nothing to check her. I saw, in the gla.s.s, my skin take a false fairness, my cheeks a false color, my eyes a false brightness--and I never shrank from it. No! I let the odious conceit go on; I even admired the extraordinary delicacy and dexterity with which it was all done. "Anything" (I thought to myself, in the madness of that miserable time) "so long as it helps me to win the Major's confidence!

Anything, so long as I discover what those last words of my husband's really mean!"

The transformation of my face was accomplished. The chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the direction of the gla.s.s.

"Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you sent for me," she said. "And just see for yourself how you look now. You're the prettiest woman (of your style) in London. Ah what a thing pearl-powder is, when one knows how to use it!"

CHAPTER VIII. THE FRIEND OF THE WOMEN.

I FIND it impossible to describe my sensations while the carriage was taking me to Major Fitz-David's house. I doubt, indeed, if I really felt or thought at all, in the true sense of those words.

From the moment when I had resigned myself into the hands of the chambermaid I seemed in some strange way to have lost my ordinary ident.i.ty--to have stepped out of my own character. At other times my temperament was of the nervous and anxious sort, and my tendency was to exaggerate any difficulties that might place themselves in my way. At other times, having before me the prospect of a critical interview with a stranger, I should have considered with myself what it might be wise to pa.s.s over, and what it might be wise to say. Now I never gave my coming interview with the Major a thought; I felt an unreasoning confidence in myself, and a blind faith in _him_. Now neither the past nor the future troubled me; I lived unreflectingly in the present. I looked at the shops as we drove by them, and at the other carriages as they pa.s.sed mine. I noticed--yes, and enjoyed--the glances of admiration which chance foot-pa.s.sengers on the pavement cast on me. I said to myself, "This looks well for my prospect of making a friend of the Major!" When we drew up at the door in Vivian Place, it is no exaggeration to say that I had but one anxiety--anxiety to find the Major at home.

The door was opened by a servant out of livery, an old man who looked as if he might have been a soldier in his earlier days. He eyed me with a grave attention, which relaxed little by little into sly approval. I asked for Major Fitz-David. The answer was not altogether encouraging: the man was not sure whether his master were at home or not.

I gave him my card. My cards, being part of my wedding outfit, necessarily had the false name printed on them--_Mrs. Eustace Woodville_. The servant showed me into a front room on the ground-floor, and disappeared with my card in his hand.

Looking about me, I noticed a door in the wall opposite the window, communicating with some inner room. The door was not of the ordinary kind. It fitted into the thickness of the part.i.tion wall, and worked in grooves. Looking a little nearer, I saw that it had not been pulled out so as completely to close the doorway. Only the merest c.h.i.n.k was left; but it was enough to convey to my ears all that pa.s.sed in the next room.

"What did you say, Oliver, when she asked for me?" inquired a man's voice, pitched cautiously in a low key.

"I said I was not sure you were at home, sir," answered the voice of the servant who had let me in.

There was a pause. The first speaker was evidently Major Fitz-David himself. I waited to hear more.

"I think I had better not see her, Oliver," the Major's voice resumed.

"Very good, sir."

"Say I have gone out, and you don't know when I shall be back again. Beg the lady to write, if she has any business with me."

"Yes, sir."

"Stop, Oliver!"

Oliver stopped. There was another and longer pause. Then the master resumed the examination of the man.

"Is she young, Oliver?"

"Yes, sir."

"And--pretty?"

"Better than pretty, sir, to my thinking."

"Aye? aye? What you call a fine woman--eh, Oliver?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Tall?"

"Nearly as tall as I am, Major."

"Aye? aye? aye? A good figure?"

"As slim as a sapling, sir, and as upright as a dart."

"On second thoughts, I am at home, Oliver. Show her in! show her in!"

So far, one thing at least seemed to be clear. I had done well in sending for the chambermaid. What would Oliver's report of me have been if I had presented myself to him with my colorless cheeks and my ill-dressed hair?

The servant reappeared, and conducted me to the inner room. Major Fitz-David advanced to welcome me. What was the Major like?

Well, he was like a well-preserved old gentleman of, say, sixty years old, little and lean, and chiefly remarkable by the extraordinary length of his nose. After this feature, I noticed next his beautiful brown wig; his sparkling little gray eyes; his rosy complexion; his short military whisker, dyed to match his wig; his white teeth and his winning smile; his smart blue frock-coat, with a camellia in the b.u.t.ton-hole; and his splendid ring, a ruby, flas.h.i.+ng on his little finger as he courteously signed to me to take a chair.

"Dear Mrs. Woodville, how very kind of you this is! I have been longing to have the happiness of knowing you. Eustace is an old friend of mine. I congratulated him when I heard of his marriage. May I make a confession?--I envy him now I have seen his wife."

The future of my life was perhaps in this man's hands. I studied him attentively: I tried to read his character in his face.

The Major's sparkling little gray eyes softened as they looked at me; the Major's strong and st.u.r.dy voice dropped to its lowest and tenderest tones when he spoke to me; the Major's manner expressed, from the moment when I entered the room, a happy mixture of admiration and respect. He drew his chair close to mine, as if it were a privilege to be near me.

He took my hand and lifted my glove to his lips, as if that glove were the most delicious luxury the world could produce. "Dear Mrs.

Woodville," he said, as he softly laid my hand back on my lap, "bear with an old fellow who wors.h.i.+ps your enchanting s.e.x. You really brighten this dull house. It is _such_ a pleasure to see you!"

There was no need for the old gentleman to make his little confession.

Women, children, and dogs proverbially know by instinct who the people are who really like them. The women had a warm friend--perhaps at one time a dangerously warm friend--in Major Fitz-David. I knew as much of him as that before I had settled myself in my chair and opened my lips to answer him.

"Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your pretty compliment,"

I said, matching my host's easy tone as closely as the necessary restraints on my side would permit. "You have made your confession. May I make mine?"

Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and drew his chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him gravely and tried to release my hand. Major Fitz-David declined to let go of it, and proceeded to tell me why.

"I have just heard you speak for the first time," he said. "I am under the charm of your voice. Dear Mrs. Woodville, bear with an old fellow who is under the charm! Don't grudge me my innocent little pleasures.

Lend me--I wish I could say _give_ me--this pretty hand. I am such an admirer of pretty hands! I can listen so much better with a pretty hand in mine. The ladies indulge my weakness. Please indulge me too. Yes? And what were you going to say?"

"I was going to say, Major, that I felt particularly sensible of your kind welcome because, as it happens, I have a favor to ask of you."

I was conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the object of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major Fitz-David's admiration rose from one climax to another with such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical check to it. I trusted to those ominous words, "a favor to ask of you," to administer the check, and I did not trust in vain. My aged admirer gently dropped my hand, and, with all possible politeness, changed the subject.

"The favor is granted, of course!" he said. "And now, tell me, how is our dear Eustace?"

"Anxious and out of spirits." I answered.

"Anxious and out of spirits!" repeated the Major. "The enviable man who is married to You anxious and out of spirits? Monstrous! Eustace fairly disgusts me. I shall take him off the list of my friends."