Lady Maude's Mania

“I’m going to stop and see Maude turned off, if old Wilters don’t have a paralytic stroke on his way to church.”

“Tom!”

“Well, it’s likely enough. He’s only about forty, but he has lived twice as fast as most fellows ever since he was fifteen, so that he’s quite sixty-five.”

“I will not listen to your insults, sir. As your mother, I should at least be spared.”

“Oh, ah, of course,” said Tom, “duty to grey hairs and that sort of thing – Beg pardon though; I see they are not grey. I’m going to stop it all out now, and I shan’t go – and what’s more, mamma,” he cried, nursing one of his little patent leather shoes as he lolled back, “if you are cantankerous, hang me if I don’t contrive that the governor has the full run of the wine at the wedding breakfast, there.”

“If you dare, Tom!” cried her ladyship. “Oh, Justine, my drops.”

“Yes, milady,” said that damsel. “Ah! bold, bad lil man,” she added to herself, as she glanced at Tom, who very rudely winked at her when she closed the door after Lord Barmouth, who crept in and went timidly to an easy-chair.

“Your drops!” said Tom. “Ha – ha – ha! why don’t you take a liqueur of brandy like a woman, and not drink that stuff.”

“Tom,” said her ladyship, “you are too coarse. You will break my heart before you have done. Only to think of your conduct,” she cried, glancing at the chair in the farther room, where Lord Barmouth lay apparently asleep, as being his safest course when there was trouble on the way, “that too of your dozy, dilatory father, when one of you might make a position in Parliament, the other a most brilliant match.”

“Why, you don’t want the old man to take another wife, do you?” said Tom. “I say, dad! Here, I say: wake up.”

“Silence, sir, how dare you!” exclaimed his mother. “You wicked, offensive boy. I was, for your benefit, trying to point out to you how you might gain for yourself a first-rate establishment, when you interrupted me with your ribald jests.”

“Hang the establishment!” said Tom; “any one would think you were always getting your children into trade. I shall marry little Tryphie, if she’ll have me. I’m not going to marry for money. Pretty sort of a fellow I look for making a brilliant match, don’t I?”

“Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom,” said her ladyship, bursting into tears, “you will break your poor mother’s heart.”

“Not I,” said Tom, cynically; “it’s not one of the heart-breaking sort. But I say, you’ve made Diana miserable, and Maude half crazy, and now I hope you are happy. Tell you what, I shouldn’t be at all surprised now if it’s through you that Charley Melton is going to the bad. If so, you’ve done it and no mistake.”

“I am surprised that your father allows you to talk to me like this,” said her ladyship. “I never knew a son so wanting in respect.”

“Dad’s asleep; don’t wake him,” said Tom; “the old man’s about tired out.”

A snore from the easy-chair endorsed Tom’s words, and he sat smiling at his mother, knowing from old experience that she would not go away till he had done criticising her conduct in his rough and ready style.

“I shudder when I think of poor Maude’s escape,” said her ladyship. “Nothing could be more disgraceful than that young man’s conduct. He sees at last though that he cannot marry Maude, and that it would be little short of a crime, so he – ”

“Stands out of it,” said Tom. “Hang me if I would, if any one was to try to cut in after Tryphie.”

“Once for all, Tom,” said her ladyship, “I desire that you cease that nonsensical talk about your cousin. Tryphie will marry when I select a husband for her.”

“Oh, of course!” said Tom; “but look here – two can play at that game.”

“Will you have the goodness to explain what you mean, sir?”

“Yes,” said Tom, taking out and counting his money. “Let me see, – about two pounds ten, I should say. I dare say old Wilters would lend me a fiver, if I asked him.”

“Tom,” cried her ladyship, excitedly, “if you dared to do such a thing I should never survive the disgrace. For my sake don’t ask him – at all events not yet. There, there,” she cried hastily, “there’s a five-pound note. Now, my dear boy, for your mother’s and sister’s sake, do not do anything foolish for twenty-four hours. Only twenty-four hours, I implore you.”

“Thankye,” said Tom, taking the note and crumpling it up, as he stuffed it into his trousers pocket. “All right, then: I’ll wait twenty-four hours.”

“What – what do you want the money for?” said her ladyship, adopting now the tremolo stop to play her son, as the furioso had proved so futile.

“I’m going to buy a revolver,” said Tom, kicking up one leg as if he were dancing a child upon it.

“A revolver, Tom? You are not going to do anything rash – anything foolish?”

“What! Operate on myself? Not such a fool. I’d sweep a crossing to live, not blow my brains out if I were what people call ruined. I’m philosopher enough, mother, to know the value of life. Do you wish to know what I want that revolver for?”

“Yes,” said her ladyship, faintly; “but pray mind that your poor papa does not get hold of it.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tom. “Well, mother, I’m going to stick up a lot of playing cards in my bedroom, and practice at the spots till I’m a dead shot.”

“Great Heavens, Tom! what for?”

“So as to be able to make it warm for the man who comes after Tryphie. Ah, Justine, got the drops? Why, you grow handsomer than ever.”

“Go, impudent little man,” said Justine, shaking her head at him, and then running to her ladyship, who was lying back with closed eyes. “Ah, poor, dear milady, you are ill.”

“My drops, Justine, my drops,” sighed her ladyship. “Ah, Justine, what comfort you are to me in my sorrows. My good Justine, never pray to be a mother;” and she showed her best teeth in a pensive smile of sadness by way of recompense for the attention.

“Ma foi! no, milady, I never will,” said Justine, turning very French for the moment, and her ladyship’s drops produced more tears.

Tom “made a face” at the maid while her ladyship’s eyes were buried in her scented handkerchief, and Justine gave him a Parisian smile as he rose, winked once more, and left the room.

Then Lady Barmouth took up her lament once more.

“Ah! Justine, when the gangrene of the wounds in my poor heart has been cicatrised over, I may perhaps breathe forgiveness into the ears of my children; but now – oh now – ”

“Ah, poor milady! what you do suffer,” said the sympathising Justine; “you make me so much to think of that poor Job, only he was a great lord and not a lady, and you have not the boil.”

“My poor Justine,” sighed her ladyship, as she smiled patronisingly at the innocence of her handmaiden, “there are moral and social boils as well as those external, and when I sit here alone, forsaken by my children – by my husband – by all who should be dear, left alone to the tender sympathies of an alien who is all probity and truth – ”

“Yes, poor milady, I suffer for you,” said Justine.

“Thanks, good Justine, you faithful creature,” said her ladyship, sighing; “I could not exist if it were not for you.”

And Justine said to herself maliciously, “I am what that wicked young man calls a hom-bogues.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

Lady Maude goes Mad

Meanwhile Maude had sought Lord Barmouth, whom she surprised in a corner of the library, feeding his wolf and studying the wing of a chicken, which he was picking with great gusto. He did not hear her entry, and he was talking to himself as he lifted up and smelt his pocket-handkerchief.

“Yes,” he muttered; “damme, that’s what it is. I could not make out what made the chicken taste so queer. He – he – he! it’s eau de Cologne. He – he – he —Poulet à la Jean Marie Farina. Damme, that’ll be a good thing to say at the next dinner-party, or to-morrow morning. No,” he said sadly, “not then. Oh, dear, it’s very hard to see them taken away from me like this, and I must get my strength up a bit. Who’s that?”

“It is only I, papa,” said Maude, seating herself on the hearthrug by his side, as the old man hastily popped the chicken bone out of sight.

“I’m glad to see you, my dear, glad to see you,” said Lord Barmouth, patting her soft glossy head. “Maude, my pet, I can hardly believe that you are going away from me to-morrow.”