XXVI In the Cage | ||
26. XXVI
Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now--looked, she thought, rather injured and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of Lady Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our heroine's thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend's combined impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round her, and continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out of the dance, as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a lively shock, with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake was--could it be possible? With the idea she found herself afresh on the edge of laughter, of a sudden and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake loomed, in a swift image, before her; such a figure as she had seen in open doorways of houses in Cocker's quarter--majestic, middle-aged, erect, flanked on either side by a footman and
"Married?" The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at last.
"Didn't you know it?"
She summoned all her sturdiness. "No, she hasn't told me."
"And her friends--haven't they?"
"I haven't seen any of them lately. I'm not so fortunate as you."
Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. "Then you haven't even heard of Lord Bradeen's death?"
Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. "You know
"She tells him everything."
"And he tells you--I see." Our young lady got up; recovering her muff and her gloves she smiled. "Well, I haven't unfortunately any Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of assistance, however, there's a trifle here and there that I do pick up. I gather that if she's to marry any one it must quite necessarily be my friend."
Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. "Is Captain Everard your friend?"
The girl considered, drawing on a glove. "I saw, at one time, an immense deal of him."
Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn't after all waited for that to be sorry it wasn't cleaner. "What time was that?"
"It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake." She had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to marry would
Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, brushed it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. "Tell me this before you go. You spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. Mudge--?"
"Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me--he has brought me at last to the point. We're to be married next month and have a nice little home. But he's only a grocer, you know"--the girl met her friend's intent eyes--"so that I'm afraid that, with the set you've got into, you won't see your way to keep up our friendship."
Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff up to her face, after which she gave it back. "You don't like it. I see, I see."
To her guest's astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. "I don't like what?" the girl asked.
"Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness," the poor lady quavered out, "you put it in your own way. I mean that you'll cool off. You already have--!" And on this, the next instant, her tears began to flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down again, burying her face and trying to smother her sobs.
Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity. "I don't put anything in any 'way,' and I'm very glad you're suited. Only, you know, you did put to me so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to you, it might lead to."
Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as feebly considered this reminder. "It has led to my not starving!" she faintly gasped.
Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in a rush, the
"We shall have our own too," Mrs. Jordan replied; "for, don't you know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?"
"A condition?"--the girl felt out of it.
"For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His lordship can't meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up."
"And all for you?"--our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible.
"For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship's too glad to get him at any price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite made her take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment."
Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause--a pause in which neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, they could now after all only look at each other across the social gulf. They remained together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also--and this most unmistakeably--that there was one thing more to go into. By the time it came to the surface, moreover,
XXVI In the Cage | ||