Daughters of Belgravia; vol 2 of 3

Of course such glittering fish must not be lost sight of before they are safely landed.

It is not unusual in the Upper Ten, as has recently been proved, for the noblesse to rise from the funeral baked-meats to sit down to wedding-cake.

Anyway, as the convenances are not rigid on this score, it is on the cards that before Trixy’s crape grows rusty she will don the orange and myrtle.

And now that Sandilands offers no flirting material with which she can keep her hand in and show off her power, save “poor Mr. Stubbs,” she goes with less reluctant feet towards the altar of Moloch than she did in Town, where her “future” cut such a comical appearance among the golden youths that she really hated the very sight of him.

“It’s rather a bore that one can’t go and get married respectably at St. Peter’s,” she remarks pettishly to Zai. “I might as well be a housemaid, to walk across the garden path to that paltry little church, and hear old Boresome gabble a few words by which Stubbs and I shall be made —one! Ugh! Do you know, Zai, I expect we shall be very much two! We haven’t a single idea in common, and only one pleasure – contradicting one another.”

“Don’t marry him, then, for goodness sake, Trixy! You’ll be a wretched girl if you do. If you can’t love a man, you must at any rate respect him, or look up to him as having a superior intellect to your own,” Zai replies, thinking of Lord Delaval; then she frowns and chases away the thought of him as fast as she can.

“Well, I don’t love Stubbs – (he asked me this morning to call him Peter, but I couldn’t, I really couldn’t) – and I don’t respect him particularly, and I certainly don’t consider his intellect superior to mine, but I intend to marry him all the same. Love and respect! Good heavens, Zai! Such things are all very well in their way, but you don’t suppose that I should think of balancing them with that lovely suite from Jackson and Graham’s? Why, those white and gold chairs, with the crests carved on the backs, are ten times more worth having than all that fiddle-faddle of love and respect!”

Zai does not answer. She knows, perhaps, that some of Trixy’s notions are unanswerable, and is simply conscious of the fact that she rather envies her her sentiments.

“And what’s the good of having point de Venise on my dress for the gardeners and stable boys to gape at?” Trixy goes on, peevishly. “I think it is too bad to be done out of everything like this! I had made up my mind to have a fine wedding, all the good-looking men in town, a lot of bridesmaids, and – why, what’s the matter, Zai?”

The matter is that Zai has allowed a sob to break in on her talk.

“Nothing,” she says, in a low voice; “only your speaking of bridesmaids made me think of Baby!”

“You were always a wet blanket, Zai. Whenever one is trying to look on the bright side of things, you are sure to say something horrible,” Trixy replies, in a tone of martyrdom. “I think of Baby too; but I drive away the thought because it is my bounden duty. Mamma says I’m not to make myself ugly with crying and fretting, and, Zai, do you know, I don’t think there’s much to grieve about Baby. She’s escaped marrying a – Mr. Stubbs!”

It strikes Zai again that Trixy’s ideas are a little out of the way, and wiping her tears, she takes up a book.

“I say Zai! I want to tell you something,” Trixy announces suddenly, in a half whisper. “It’s a secret, a dead secret, and you will have to swear you will keep it.”

“I promise,” Zai answers quietly, wondering what important thing is to be divulged, as Trixy crosses the room and comes close up to her.

“No, no! you must swear.”

“I never swear; but my promise holds as good.”

“Well, then, listen. Gabrielle told me this morning that there is something between you and Lord Delaval.”

“Well, if there is, what of it?”

“Only that Gabrielle went down on her knees on the damp grass, and swore (she swears awfully, you know) that if he married you, she would destroy herself, body and soul!”

“I am sure she is welcome to him if she wants him so very much,” Zai flashes impetuously; “but I must say that if Gabrielle really fancies he is going to be her brother-in-law, she ought to curb her feelings for him!”

Trixy opens her big blue eyes wide with amazement.

“You don’t mean to tell me, Zai, that there is the very least bit of foundation for Gabrielle’s fancies?”

“Yes, I do,” Zai blurts out, “a very great deal of foundation. I have been engaged to Lord Delaval ever since the State Ball, and I suppose I shall marry him some day.”

“And you really accepted him in cold blood, although you have always said you disliked him so?”

Zai reddens to the roots of her chesnut hair.

“Women are allowed to change their minds, I suppose?”

“You didn’t change your mind, Zai. You have only accepted Lord Delaval out of pique. It’s all because that dishonourable fellow, Conway, pitched you over for Crystal Meredyth. Oh! Zai! cannot you arrange to be married the same day as I am? It would make me so much jollier to know I had a fellow-sufferer! It is quite a month to it – lots of time to gallop through the trousseau – and then people won’t say that you only married Lord Delaval when Carl had put a Mrs. Conway between you and him.”

Zai looks up at her sister rather piteously; her grey eyes are dimmed with tears, her face is very pale, and there is a falter in her voice as she asks:

“When is Mr. Conway’s wedding to be?”

“Just six weeks hence.”

A pause. The September sun shines down hot and glary, but under its broiling rays Zai shivers. Her heart is cold, her hands are cold, and it seems to her that life altogether is awfully cold. Still in this moment she makes up her mind.

“All right, Trixy!” she cries, in ringing accents, just as if she was as blithe as the sunbeams and the birds; “the same day shall make us both – wives – on two conditions. One is that you will not tell Gabrielle a word about our little arrangements until I give you permission. The other condition is – ” She pauses a second and turns away her face, and when she speaks again her voice is so husky that Trixy wonders – “that you will never mention Mr. Conway’s name to me again! Before I marry Lord Delaval, I should like to bury my dead past for ever and for ever out of sight.”

“But Mamma must know of our arrangement, and she will tell Gabrielle, of course.”

“Oh, no, she won’t; not if I ask her. Look here, Trixy. We are a set of paupers! Even our mourning for Baby – ” in spite of her she falters – “is all on credit. I heard May’s man say ‘Crape’s a very dear article, my lady; and the deeper the affliction the more it costs, in course! So it’s only the quality, my lady, as can really indulge in mourning; the commonality mourn usually in narrow frills or small pleats, but the quality, to be fashionable, must mourn in deep kilts. Sorrow cannot be better shown than by as little silk as possible, and full crape draperies, the buttons to be covered in crape, in course, and crape collars and cuffs, and jabot on the bodice.’ ‘The mourning must be deep, of course. I suppose, in your very large way of business, you do not trouble to make up the account but once in a year or so, do you?’ Mamma asked, in her most benign voice. ‘The mourning must be sent home with as little delay as possible, and of course if it inconveniences you to wait, I will give you a cheque in advance.’ ”

“Good gracious!” cries Trixy, “what a state of funk the mater must have been in for fear he’d take her at her word!”

“Yes; but he didn’t. ‘No, no, my lady. We can afford to wait quite well. We are in no hurry whatever; in fact, we shall be only too pleased and honoured by having your ladyship’s name on our books, so long as your ladyship will allow us;’ and it was only in this way that we got this outward and visible sign of our grief for Baby, and it is only in this way that we get our bread and butter, you know. The Governor and Mamma are delighted at your marrying Mr. Stubbs, and the idea of my catching Lord Delaval has filled their cup of bliss to the brim; so they won’t do anything to make us turn rusty. Besides, Mamma knows better than to tell Gabrielle anything, in case she should put a spoke in my wheel of matrimony. She is so much in love with my fiancé.”

“And does he care for her?”

“What a question!” cries Zai, flushing a little. “Now is it likely that he should want to marry me if he cares for my step-sister?”

“Cela selon!” Trixy replies carelessly, “Men don’t much mind that sort of thing. I heard Charlie Wentwaite only made love to Virginia South because he admired her mother!”

“You shouldn’t listen to such things, Trixy. Lord Delaval may have talked nonsense to Gabrielle, because she encouraged him, but I am sure he only cares for me!”

“And you – are you in love with him?” Trixy asks in a solemn voice, putting her hand on her sister’s shoulder, and staring at her fixedly.

But Zai cannot or will not meet this enquiring gaze.

She springs up from her chair and throwing up the window sash looks out on the fair world, the glowing fragrant roses and the clear blue sky overhead. There isn’t a fleecy cloud on the azure surface. Somehow all these things have a subtle charm of their own, and bring her an impetus to bury her dead past as fast as she can, and to begin a new era. So instead of answering Trixy, she plucks a rose with a deep blood-red heart and flings it deliberately at somebody who is lying his full length of six feet two inches on the sward, his straw hat thrown aside, and the daylight falling full on his very handsome blond face. His lids are closed, and he looks the picture of laziness – but a picture that most women would take the trouble to look at several times. As the rose falls full on the tip of his aquiline nose, he slowly opens his ultramarine eyes, and looks up at the face at the window with a depth of admiration and tenderness in the look that makes Zai blush and hastily withdraw her head.

“Yes Trixy!” she cries with quite a beaming smile. “I believe I am in love with him, anyway I intend to be directly I am Countess of Delaval!” And five minutes afterwards Trixy sees her on a rustic bench under a big elm tree, and Lord Delaval lying at her feet. Trixy watches them a moment. What a handsome couple they make. She sighs as she looks at them, and rather envies Zai the good looks of her lover. Then she turns away and murmurs in a tone of resignation:

“A handsome man always wants worshipping, while I like to be worshipped myself, and another thing, poor old Stubbs won’t ever make me jealous!”

END OF VOLUME II