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As to this house Lady Kirton had told her daughter she would be disappointed in it; but when Maude saw its dimensions, its shabby entrance, its want of style altogether, she was dismayed. "And after that glowing advertisement!" she breathed resentfully. It was one of the smallest houses facing the Green Park. Hedges came forward with an apology from the countess-dowager.
"Then," said Mirrable, who never allowed herself to be put out by any earthly thing, and rarely argued against the stream, "as your ladyship has come here as sole mistress, perhaps you will yourself apportion the rooms to the guests." "Let them apportion them for themselves," cried the countess-dowager. "These three are mine; others manage as they can. It's Hartledon's fault.
Devoted to her as he was, as she knew him to be, in the children's petty disputes he invariably took the part of his first wife's to the glowing satisfaction of the countess-dowager. No matter how glaringly wrong they might be, how tyrannical, Hartledon screened the elder, and to use the expression of the nurses snubbed the younger.
Had she chosen from the whole batch of peers, not one could have been found more eligible than he whom fortune seemed to have turned up for her purpose Lord Hartledon; and before the countess-dowager had been one week his guest in London she began her scheming. Lady Maude was nothing loth.
If Val has gone down once to that Temple about it, he has gone fifty times. He would not go for pleasure." The countess-dowager sat fanning herself quietly: for her daughter's words were gaining ground. "There's a mistake somewhere, Maude, and it is on your side and not mine. I'll lay my life that no action has been entered by Dr. Ashton.
The countess-dowager hardly knew whether she deserved pitying or shaking, and went off in a fit of exasperation, breaking in upon her son-in-law as he was busy looking over some accounts in the library. "I want to know what is the matter with Maude." He turned round in his chair, and met the dowager's flaxen wig and crimson face.
He went out; but returned immediately. "We are all under a mistake," was his greeting. "Hartledon has not returned yet. His servant is in his room waiting for him." "Then what do you mean by telling stories?" demanded the countess-dowager, turning sharply on Mr. Carteret. "Good Heavens, ma'am! you need not begin upon me!" returned young Carteret. "I have told no stories.
With a shriek the countess-dowager darted to the far end of the room, turning up her gown as she went, and muffling it over her head and face, so that only the little eyes, round now with horror, were seen. Lord Hartledon gazed in amazement. "You have been at the Rectory, when I warned you not to go! You have been inside that house of infection, and come home here to me to my darling Maude!
"We'll see," said the dowager, pushing up her front, of which she had just caught sight in a glass. "Thank Heaven, there's no fear of it!" resumed Maude, collecting her senses, and sitting down again with a relieved sigh; "he is to marry Anne Ashton. Thank Heaven that he loves her!" "Anne Ashton!" scornfully returned the countess-dowager.
The countess-dowager would come over for it, and did so; Lord Hartledon could not be discourteous enough to deny this; Lord and Lady Kirton came from Ireland; and for the first time since their marriage they found themselves entertaining guests. Lord Hartledon had made a faint opposition, but Maude had her own way.
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