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Suddenly there burst in upon her the countess-dowager: that estimable lady's bonnet awry, her face scarlet, herself in a commotion. "I didn't suppose you'd have done it, Maude! You might play tricks upon other people, I think, but not upon your own mother." The interlude was rather welcome to Maude, rousing her from her apathy.
A change for the worse occurred in the child, Lord Elster; and after two or three weeks' sinking he died, and was buried at Hartledon by the side of his mother. Hartledon's sister quitted Hartledon House for a change; but the countess-dowager was there still, and disturbed its silence with moans and impromptu lamentations, especially when going up and down the staircase and along the corridors.
He came in, ready with an apology for his tardiness, but found he need not offer it; neither Lord Hartledon nor his brother having yet appeared. "Hartledon and that boy Carteret have not returned home yet," said the countess-dowager, in her fiercest tones, for she liked her dinner more than any other earthly thing, and could not brook being kept waiting for it.
You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and I should not like you for my sister-in-law at all. That dreadful old countess-dowager! How she dislikes Val, and how rude she is! I'll try not to come in her way again after to-day, as long as they are at Hartledon." "What are you thinking of, Anne?" "Oh, not much," she answered, with a soft blush, for the questioner was Mr. Elster.
"You can terrify this woman with the thunders of the law if she persists in kidnapping children that don't belong to her." And he forthwith explained the state of affairs. Mr. Carr laughed. "She will not keep them away long. She is no fool, that countess-dowager. It is a ruse, no doubt, to induce you to give them up to her." "Give them up to her, indeed!"
The countess-dowager came flying down the steps if that term may be applied to one of her age and size with rather demonstrative affection; which, however, was not cordially received. "What's the matter, Maude? How you stare!" "Is it you, mamma? How can it be you?" "How can it be me?" returned the dowager, giving Maude's bonnet a few kisses. "It is me, and that's enough.
Other servants came forward to see to the rest of the guests. The most remarkable quality observable in the countess-dowager, apart from her great breadth, was her restlessness. She seemed never still for an instant; her legs had a fidgety, nervous movement in them, and in moments of excitement, which were not infrequent, she was given to executing a sort of war-dance.
"Will you let me sit down in this coat?" asked Val. The countess-dowager would willingly have allowed him to sit down without any. Her welcome was demonstrative; her display of affection quite warm, and she called him "Val," tenderly. He escaped for a minute to his room, washed his hands, brushed his hair, and was down again, and taking the head of his own table.
"Where in the world can he have gone to?" angrily questioned the countess-dowager; and she glared from her seat at the head of the table on the offender Val, as she asked it. "I must say all this is most unseemly, and Hartledon ought to be brought to his senses for causing it. I suppose he has taken himself off to a surgeon's." It was possible, but unlikely, as none knew better than Val Elster.
And some rolled bread-and-butter, and a little well-buttered toast." Mirrable departed with the commands, more inclined to laugh at the selfish old woman than to be angry. She remembered the countess-dowager arriving on an unexpected visit some three or four years before, and finding the old Lord Hartledon away and his wife ill in bed.
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