A Valiant Ignorance (Vol. 1-3). Victorian Romance
“There are no letters for Mr. Romayne?” she said to the waiter carelessly.
The voice was rather thin, and, as would have been expected from her face, slightly unsympathetic, but it was refined and well modulated. Her French was excellent.
The waiter thus questioned showed a letter—a business-like looking letter in a blue envelope—which he had brought in on his tray; and presented it with a torrent of explanation and apology. It had arrived last night, before the arrival of monsieur and madame, and with unheard-of carelessness, but with quite amazing carelessness indeed, it had been placed in a private sitting-room ordered by another English monsieur, who had arrived only this morning. By the valet of this English monsieur it had been given to the waiter this moment only; by the waiter it was now given to madame with ten million desolations that such an accident should have occurred. Monsieur had seemed so anxious for letters on his arrival! If madame would have the goodness to explain!
Madame stopped the flood of protestations with a little gesture. However it might affect monsieur, the accident did not appear to disturb her greatly. Indeed, it was inconceivable that she should be easily ruffled.
“Let Mr. Romayne have the letter at once,” she said, “and send him also a cup of coffee and an English newspaper!”
The waiter signified his readiness to do her bidding with the greatest alacrity, took the letter from her with an apologetic bow, laid by her side a newspaper for madame’s own reading, as he said, and retired. Left once more alone, madame proceeded to breakfast in a dainty, leisurely fashion, ignoring the newspaper for the present, and drawing from the envelope in which she had replaced the childish little epistle, a second letter. It was a long one, and she read it placidly as she went on with her breakfast.
“My dear Hermia,” it ran, “Julian has just accomplished the enclosed with a great deal of pride and excitement. The wild scrawls that occur here and there were the result of imperative demands on his part to be allowed to write ‘all by himself’! The dear pet is very well, and grows sweeter every day, I believe. You were to meet Mr. Romayne at Mentone, on the second, I think he said, and to go on to Nice the next day, so I hope you will get this soon after you arrive there. I hope the change will do Mr. Romayne good. He came here to see Julian yesterday, and I did not think him looking well, nor did father. He only laughed when father told him so. We were so glad to get your last letter. You are not a very good correspondent, are you? But, of course, you were going out a great deal in Paris and had not much time for writing. You seem to have had a delightful time there.
“Dennis Falconer came back last week. He has been away nearly a year, you know. He is very brown, and has a long beard, which is rather becoming. The Royal Geographical are beginning to think rather highly of him, father is told, and he will probably get something important to do before long. Father wanted him to come and stay here, but he has gone back to his old chambers. Not very cousinly of him, I think!
“You don’t say whether you are coming to London for the season? I asked Mr. Romayne, but he said he did not know what your plans were. I do so hope you will come, though I am afraid I should not be pleased if the spirit should move you to settle down in England and demand Julian! However, I suppose that is not very likely?
“With much love, dear Hermia,
“Your very affectionate Cousin,
“Frances Falconer.”
Mrs. Romayne finished the letter, which she had read with leisurely calm, as though her interest in it was by no means of a thrilling nature, and then opened and glanced through, the others which were waiting their turn. They were of various natures; one or two came from villas about Nice, and consisted of more or less pressing invitations; one was from a well-known leader of society in Rome—a long, chatty letter, which the recipient read with evident amusement and interest. There were also one or two bills, at which Mrs. Romayne glanced with the composure of a woman with whom money is plentiful.
Breakfast and correspondence were alike disposed of at last, and by this time the room was nearly full. The laughter and talk was louder now, the atmosphere of gaiety was more accentuated. Outside in the sunshine in the public gardens a band was playing. Mrs. Romayne was alone, it is true, and her voice consequently added nothing to the pervading note, but her presence, solitary as it was, was no jarring element. She was not lonely; her solitude was evidently an affair of the moment merely; she was absolutely in touch with the spirit of the hour, and no laughing, excited girl there witnessed more eloquently or more unconsciously to the all-pervading dominion of the pleasures of life than did the self-possessed looking little woman, to whom its pleasures were also its businesses—the only businesses she knew.
She had gathered her letters together, and was rising from her seat with a certain amount of indecision in her face, when a waiter entered the room and came up to her. “Some ladies wishing to see madame were in the salon,” he said, and he handed her as he spoke a visiting-card bearing the name, “Lady Cloughton.” Underneath the name was written in pencil, “An unconscionable hour to invade you, but we are going this afternoon to La Turbie, and we hope we may perhaps persuade you to join us.”
“The ladies are in the salon, you say?” said Mrs. Romayne, glancing up with the careless satisfaction of a woman to whom the turn of events usually does bring satisfaction; perhaps because her demands and her experience are alike of the most superficial description.
“In the salon, madame,” returned the waiter. “Three ladies and two gentlemen.”
He was conducting her obsequiously across the room as he spoke, and a moment later he opened the door of the salon and stood aside to let her pass in.
A little well-bred clamour ensued upon her entrance; greetings, questions and answers as between acquaintances who had not met for some time, and met now with a pleasure which seemed rather part and parcel of the gaiety to which the atmosphere of the dining-room had witnessed than an affair of the feelings. All Mrs. Romayne’s five visitors were apparently under five-and-thirty, the eldest being a man of perhaps three or four-and-thirty, addressed by Mrs. Romayne as Lord Cloughton; the youngest a pretty girl who was introduced by the leader of the party, presumably Lady Cloughton, herself quite a young woman, as “my little sister.” They were all well-dressed; they were all apparently in the best possible spirits, and bent upon enjoyment; and gay little laughs interspersed the chatter, incessantly breaking from one or the other on little or no apparent provocation. Eventually Lady Cloughton’s voice detached itself and went on alone.
“We heard you were here,” she said, “from a man who is staying here. We are at the Français, you know. And we said at once, ‘Supposing Mrs. Romayne is not engaged for to-morrow’—so many people don’t come, you see, until the day before the carnival, and consequently, of course, one has fewer friends and fewer engagements, and this week is not so full, don’t you know—‘supposing she has no engagement for to-morrow,’ we said, ‘how pleasant it would be if she would come with us to La Turbie.’ We have to make Mr. Romayne’s acquaintance, you know. So charmed to have the opportunity! I hope he is well?”
“Fairly well, thanks,” replied his wife. “He has been in London all the winter—his business always seems to take him to the wrong place at the wrong time—and either the climate or his work seems to have knocked him up a little. He seems to have got into a shocking habit of sitting up all night and staying in bed all day. At least he has acted on that principle during the week we have been together. He is actually not up yet.”
Mrs. Romayne smiled as she spoke; her husband’s “shocking habits” apparently sat very lightly on her; in fact, there was something singularly disengaged and impersonal in her manner of speaking of him, altogether. Her visitor received her smile with a pretty little unmeaning laugh, and went on with much superficial eagerness:
“He may, perhaps, be up in time for our expedition, though! We thought of starting in about two hours’ time. They say the place is perfectly beautiful at this time of year. Perhaps you know it.”
“No,” returned Mrs. Romayne. “Oddly enough I have never been to Nice before. I have often talked of wintering here, but I have always eventually