MRS LOPEZ PREPARES TO MOVE.
The Duchess of Omnium was not the most discreet woman in the world.That was admitted by her best friends, and was the great sin alleged against her by her worst enemies.In her desire to say sharp things, she would say the sharp thing in the wrong place, and in her wish to be good-natured she was apt to run into offences.Just as she was about to leave town, which did not take place for some days after Parliament had risen, she made an indiscreet proposition to her husband.'Should you mind asking Mrs Lopez down to Matching? We shall only be a small party.'
Now the very name of Lopez was terrible to the Duke's ears.
Anything which recalled the wretch and that wretched tragedy to the Duke's mind gave him a stab.The Duchess ought to have felt that any communication between her husband and even the man's widow was to be avoided rather than sought.'Quite out of the question!' said the Duke, drawing himself up.
'Why out of the question?'
'There are a thousand reasons I could not have it.'
'Then I shall say nothing more about it.But there's a romance there,--something quite touching.'
'You don't mean that she has---a lover?'
'Well;--yes.'
'And she lost her husband only the other day,--lost him in so terrible a manner? If that is so certainly I do not wish to see her again.'
'Ah, that is because you don't know the story.'
'I don't wish to know it.'
'The man who wants to marry her knew her long before she had seen Lopez, and had offered to her so many times.He is a fine fellow, and you know him.'
'I had rather not hear any more about it,' said the Duke, walking away.
There was an end to the Duchess's scheme of getting Emily down to Matching,--a scheme which could hardly have been successful even had the Duke not objected to it.But yet the Duchess would not abandon her project of befriending the widow.She had injured Lopez.She had liked what she had seen of Mrs Lopez.And she was now endeavouring to take Arthur Fletcher by the hand.She called therefore at Manchester Square on the day before she started for Matching, and left a card and a note.This was on the 15th of August, when London was as empty as it ever is.The streets at the West End were deserted.The houses were shut up.
The very sweepers of the crossings seemed to have gone out of town.The public offices were manned by one or two unfortunates each, who consoled themselves by reading novels at their desks.
Half the cab-drivers had gone apparently to the seaside,--or to bed.The shops were still open, but all the respectable shopkeepers were either in Switzerland or at their marine villas.
The travelling world had divided itself into Cookites and Hookites:--those who escaped trouble under the auspices of Mr Cook, and those who boldly combatted the extortions of foreign innkeepers and the Anti-Anglican tendencies of foreign railway officials 'on their own hooks.' The Duchess of Omnium was nevertheless in town, and the Duke might still be seen going in at the back entrance of the Treasury Chambers every day at eleven o'clock.Mr Warburton thought it very hard, for he, too, could shoot grouse; but he would have perished rather than have spoken a word.
The Duchess did not ask to see Mrs Lopez, but left her card and a note.She had not liked, she said, to leave town without calling, though she would not seek to be admitted.She hoped that Mrs Lopez was recovering her health, and trusted that on her return to town she might be allowed to renew her acquaintance.
The note was very ******, and could not be taken as other than friendly.If she had been simply Mrs Palliser, and her husband had been a junior clerk in the Treasury, such a visit would have been a courtesy; and it was not less so because it was made by the Duchess of Omnium and by the wife of the Prime Minister.But yet among all the poor widow's acquaintance she was the only one who had ventured to call since Lopez had destroyed himself.Mrs Roby had been told not to come.Lady Eustace had been sternly rejected.Even old Mrs Fletcher when she had been up in town, had, after a very solemn meeting with Mr Wharton, contented herself with sending her love.It had come to pass that the idea of being immured was growing to be natural to Emily herself.The longer that it was continued the more did it seem to be impossible to her that she should break from her seclusion.But yet she was gratified by the note from the Duchess.
'She means to be civil, papa,'
'Oh yes,--but there are people whose civility I don't want.'
'Certainly.I did not want the civility of that horrid Lady Eustace.But I can understand this.She thinks that she did Ferdinand an injury.'
'When you begin, my dear,--and I hope it will be soon,--to get back to the world, you will find it more comfortable, I think, to find yourself among your own people.'
'I don't want to go back,' she said, sobbing bitterly.
'But I want you to go back.All who know you want you to go back.Only don't begin at that end.'
'You don't suppose, papa, that I wish to go to the Duchess?'
'I wish you to go somewhere.It can't be good for you to remain here.Indeed I shall think it wicked, or at any rate weak, if you continue to seclude yourself.'
'Where shall I go,' she said imploringly.
'To Wharton.I certainly think you ought to go there first.'
'If you would go, papa, and leave me here,--just this once.
Next year I will go,--if they ask me.'
'When I may be dead, for aught any of us know.'
'Do not say that, papa.Of course anyone may die.'