CHAPTER XXIV.

Life In London

PROLOGUE.

A woman's tongue is ever slow To tell the thing she does not know.

There was a large dinner-party in Grosvenor Square at the house of Lord Kesterton, one of the new peers.

"Are you thoroughly enjoying your glories and honours?" inquired Lady Eleanor Gregory of her host, who had taken her down to dinner.

"Well, I must confess that I feel rather like the man who lost his wife, and said it was 'verra dull but verra peaceful'; and I have come to the conclusion that peace is an acquired taste."

"Then do you hanker after the fighting in your dear old House of Commons?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "I am afraid I still babble o' green benches when I get the chance. The House of Commons is like certain women of one's acquaintance: you quarrel with them, and they expect too much from you, and you vow you will enjoy yourself and have nothing more to do with them; but, all the same, they have spoilt your taste for anything else, and they make all other women seem insufferably dull."

"And now I have got to scold you for dismissing my poor, dear Harry," said Lady Eleanor.

"Uncork the vials of your wrath," replied her host, "and I will endeavour to suffer and be strong."

"I shall appeal to Mr. Madderley to second my vote of censure," continued the lady, turning to the Royal Academician who sat at her right hand. "I suppose I ought to talk to you about art, but I am going to talk to you about politics."

"Please do not talk to me about art, dear lady; I could not bear it from you," replied the artist.

"Why not?"

"Because I should thereby discover that you knew nothing at all about it; and the one rag of faith still wrapped round my jaded spirit is my belief in your omniscience. If you take that away from me I shall sink lower and lower, and shall probably end in doubting the wisdom of Woman, or the supremacy of the British rate-payer."

Lady Eleanor laughed. "Don't you feel like this when I talk about politics?"

"Far from it. I know absolutely nothing about them myself; and when I hear you speaking familiarly--nay, even flippantly--of Whips and Under Secretaries and similar ruling powers, I regard you with awe as a mighty sibyl juggling with the mysterious forces of the Unknown."

"I see; it must sound rather impressive."

"Impressive is not the word--it sounds simply tremendous. Calling Under Secretaries by their Christian names seems to me like patting a thunderstorm or playing with an earthquake; yet I have often heard you do it without an apparent qualm. It is marvellous!"

Lady Eleanor was very proud of what she considered her wire-pulling powers; therefore she enjoyed the Academician's persiflage. It was in cases like this that Madderley showed himself such a clever man; he always said disagreeable things; but he generally took care that they were the sort of disagreeable things that people wanted him to say. Women liked Mr. Madderley because, they said, he did not flatter them; they never found out that is was because he flattered them that they liked him so much.

"When I talk about art, however, you regard me as 'an unlessoned girl,' I suppose," suggested her ladyship.

"That certainly is my idea, but, had you given me time, I would have decked its crudeness with some flowers of speech."

"I am so glad that I did not give you time, then. It would be insufferable if you began to be pleasant! Your _raison d'être_ would be gone if you left off telling disagreeable truths, and we should all leave off liking you."

The artist smiled. "It is very kind of you to say that, Lady Eleanor; but don't you think that the men who tell palatable fibs are really the popular men?"

"No, I don't," Lady Eleanor hastened to assure him; "now you are immensely popular--you must know that you are; and yet you always say straight out whatever you think, and never mind how disagreeable it is. It is this truthfulness that makes us all admire and trust you."

The artist smiled again.

"Do you remember," continued Lady Eleanor, "how you once told a whole group of us our faults at a party at the Farleys'? You said that I was ambitious, and that Lady Farley was cruel, and that Isabel was shallow, and that Violet was cold. I have never forgotten it; I thought it was so nice and plucky of you to tell us the truth straight out like that."

Mr. Madderley remembered that he had once said these things; he also remembered that he had never thought any of them, but this he did not consider it necessary to confess.

"But where are the politics you said you were going to talk to me about?"

"Oh! of course--I forgot. I want to ask your opinion as to the way in which the Government has treated me. You know Harry Mortimer was Lord Kesterton's understudy--no, I mean Under Secretary--at the War Office; and it was a very comfortable arrangement for both of them."

"Well?"

"Then Lord Kesterton took his own peerage without a single twinge of conscience. But now that poor, dear Harry has succeeded to his uncle, and become Lord Gravesend, he has got to be sent away like an inefficient footman, because they say they cannot both of them be in the House of Lords. So please tell your host that you think he has behaved abominably!"

"I do indeed. Such conduct seems to me unjustifiable. It is like drinking oneself, and insisting on one's servants being teetotalers."

Lord Kesterton laughed. Madderley always amused him, and he loved to be amused. "But you are keeping back part of the truth, Lady Eleanor," he said; "we have endeavoured to break the blow to Gravesend by giving him the Governorship of New North Wales."

Lady Eleanor sighed. "That is nothing. I wanted Harry to have a career."

"You forget that he is going to marry you," replied her host; "surely that is a career sufficient to satisfy even the most ambitious of men, and to occupy the time of the most industrious."

"Of course it is. What I ought to have said was that I wanted Harry to have a recreation."

"Recreation means variety of occupation," suggested Lord Kesterton, "and he would hardly find that--after marriage--at the War Office."

"Do you think he will find it in New North Wales?"

"Most certainly; because there, in his official life, his duty will be to rule."

"You are very rude," laughed Lady Eleanor; "I shall talk to Mr. Madderley instead, and ask him if he doesn't think that Gravesend is a very depressing title for a young man to come into."

"It suggests the quintessence of finality," replied the artist, "there is no doubt of that."

Lord Gravesend's _fiancée_ nodded. "I mean to alter it, and to call him 'the Lord Harry' instead. That would be prettier, don't you think?"

"Far prettier; also more colloquial, and I love colloquialisms. They are the next best thing to stories in dialect. A story in dialect invariably does me good, because I do not understand it."

"Then do you think that it is the things we don't understand that do us good?" queried the lady.

"Of course; that is why our prescriptions are always written in Latin, and our menus in French."

"I see."

"When I read in the vulgar tongue," continued Mr. Madderley, "that a man is brave and a woman is beautiful, I am not impressed. I have met brave men in the flesh, and I have found that they generally talk about nothing but slain beasts, and go to sleep after dinner. I have also met beautiful women."

"Did you find them equally disappointing?" asked Lady Eleanor.

"A woman always seems to think that if she has a face she need not possess a head as well. Personally I prefer both."

"You are shockingly cynical!"

"Here the power of dialect comes in," continued the artist, "for when I read that a man is 'braw' and a woman is 'bonny,' I know no wells of experience from which to draw cold water to throw on these illusions; therefore my imagination runs riot, and clothes the parties thus described in impossibly perfect attributes. I never met a 'braw lad' or a 'bonny lassie' in my life, that I know of; so I still picture such beings as ideal and glorious creations."

After a little more conversation about airy nothings, Lady Eleanor turned to her host and asked in a low voice: "Who is going to take Harry's place at the War Office?"

The Secretary of State raised his eyebrows. "I really cannot tell you Cabinet secrets, my dear lady."

"Oh! yes, you can. I want dreadfully to know, and I will promise faithfully not to tell anybody, if only you will take me into your confidence. Please do, there's a dear man!"

Lord Kesterton hesitated. Lady Eleanor certainly was very attractive, and it is always pleasant to please a pretty woman. Seeing him hesitate, she increased her coaxing tenfold.

"Well, suppose that I tell you as a great secret," he said at last, "will you give me your word not to repeat it to anybody?"

"Of course I will. I should never think of doing such a thing."

Lord Kesterton lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. "The new Under Secretary for War is our honourable friend the member for Chayford."

Lady Eleanor's eyes sparkled with delight; it was her _rôle_ to stand behind the scenes of Governments and to give little jerks to the ropes--at least, she thought it was; and now both her curiosity and her love of power were gratified.

"I am so glad!" she exclaimed, "he is such a pleasant man--and very clever too, don't you think?"

Like all women, Lady Eleanor Gregory considered the word clever was complimentary; like all men, Lord Kesterton considered it quite the reverse.

"Clever?" he replied, "my dear young lady, what a word to apply to a brilliant politician I Why, he is already one of the ablest men in the Liberal party, and he has only been in the House three years."

"I am so glad you told me. It will interest Harry most tremendously!"

Lord Kesterton started. "But you gave me your word that you would not tell anybody."

"So I did; I quite forgot. But Harry doesn't count, you know. I never keep anything from him--except, of course, the number of dances that I give to other men; but that is different."

"I cannot see why Gravesend doesn't count; he always appears to me to be a man of considerable weight."

"Oh! but you are not engaged to him; if you were you would know that his considerable weight could be tampered with by the display of a little tact and persuasion. But now tell me more about Harry's successor. Of course I know all about who he is to-day; but who was he yesterday? I want to read up the back numbers of his story."

The host shook his head. "Back numbers are always dull and generally fictitious, I find."

"I don't; they amuse me immensely--especially with portraits from early and hideous childhood up to 'present day'."

"Lady Eleanor," said the Secretary for War in a very low voice, "do you know why you have been successful in extracting this confidential communication from me?"

"No."

"Guess."

Lady Eleanor thought for a moment. "Because you knew you could trust me not to repeat it?"

Lord Kesterton smiled. "That was not exactly my reason. Try again."

Lady Eleanor knitted her pretty forehead. "Because you thought that Harry had the right to know who was to step into his shoes?"

Her host shook his head.

Lady Eleanor smiled. "Because I am a very charming young woman?"

"I do not deny that that had something to do with my breach of confidence; but there was still another and a better reason."

"Then I cannot guess it."

"Will you give it up?"

Lady Eleanor nodded,

"I ventured to tell you this State secret," whispered Lord Kesterton to his pretty guest, "because the fact is already announced in the evening papers."