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Updated: April 30, 2025
She hung over Lady Maulevrier's chair, attending to her small wants, and seeming scarcely to remember the existence of anyone else. In this phase of her character she seemed to Mr. Hammond the perfection of womanly grace. Mary had rushed off to her room to change her muddy gown, and came in presently, dressed for dinner, looking the picture of innocence.
But their first act was to send the old earl's treasure chest under safe convoy to the India House, with a letter explaining how this long-hidden wealth, brought from India by Lord Maulevrier, had been discovered among other effects in a lumber-room at Lady Maulevrier's country house.
The Duc de Grammont, then our ambassador at Madrid, wrote word to the King of the rumours that were in circulation of Maulevrier's audacious conduct towards the Queen of Spain, and of the reward it was to meet with. The King at once sent a very strong letter to the King of Spain about Maulevrier, who, by the same courier, was prohibited from accepting any favour that might be offered him.
The entailed estates belonged to Maulevrier, were he never such a fool or spendthrift; but this fortune of the dowager's was her own, to dispose of as she pleased, and not a penny of it was likely to go to the young Earl. Lady Maulevrier's pride and hopes were concentrated upon her granddaughter Lesbia.
They left the Lodore Hotel in an open carriage, after luncheon next day, and posted to Fellside, where they arrived just in time to assist at Lady Maulevrier's afternoon tea.
'Our walks and drives have been very pleasant. Mr. Hammond is extremely clever, and can talk about everything. Her colour heightened ever so little as she spoke of him, an indication duly observed by Lady Maulevrier. 'No doubt the man is clever; all adventurers are clever; and you have sense enough to see that this man is an adventurer a mere sponge and toady of Maulevrier's.
Just now, in the pine wood, carried away by the force of her lover's passion, by her own softer feelings, it had seemed to her as if she could count the world well lost for his sake; but now, at Lady Maulevrier's feet, she became again true to her training, and the world was too much to lose. 'What can I do, grandmother? she asked, submissively, despairingly. 'He loves me, and I love him.
He knew no actual harm in the matter. Lady Kirkbank's was rather a fast set; and had he been allowed to choose it was not to Lady Kirkbank that he would have delegated his grandmother's duty. In Maulevrier's own phrase it was 'not good enough' for Lesbia. But it was not in his power to interfere. He was not told of the plan until everything had been settled.
His story and the story of Lord Maulevrier's infamy might be town talk again; as it had been forty years ago, when the true story of that crime had been happily unknown. Yes, with the present fear of this Louis Asoph's revelations, of a new scandal, if not a calamity, Lady Maulevrier felt that it was a good thing to have her younger granddaughter's future in some measure secured.
I want no goddess, but a nice little womanly woman, to jog along the rough and tumble road of life with me. 'Lady Maulevrier's influence, no doubt, has in a great measure determined the bent of your sister's character: and from what you have told me about her ladyship, I should think a fixed idea of her own superiority would be inevitable in any girl trained by her.
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