The Loves of the Lady Arabella. 1898

The Loves of the Lady Arabella

I

’Tis not in my nature to be cowed by any woman whatever. Therefore, when I found myself in the presence of my Lady Hawkshaw, in her Chinese drawing-room, with her great black eyes glaring at me, and her huge black plume of feathers nodding at me, as she sat, enveloped in a vast black velvet robe like a pall, I said to myself, “After all, she is but a woman.” So I stared back at her with all the coolness in the world—and I was a seeker after favor, too—and but fourteen years of age, and had only seven and sixpence in my pocket. The tall footman who stood behind Lady Hawkshaw’s chair made a grimace at me; and I responded by a fierce look, as if I were about to run him through the body.

“Jeames,” said her ladyship, “go and make 

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my compliments to Sir Peter Hawkshaw, and say to him that his roistering kept me awake half the night, and consequently I feel very ill this morning; and that his great-nephew, Master Richard Glyn from America, is come after a midshipman’s warrant in his Majesty’s navy,—and I desire Sir Peter to attend me in my bowdwor immediately.”

Her ladyship’s French was the queerest imaginable,—yet in her youth she had the French tutor who had taught the daughters of the Regent of France.

There was a silence after the tall footman left, during which my lady and I eyed each other closely. I remembered having heard that she had defied her father, Lord Bosanquet, and one of the greatest family connections in the kingdom, in order to marry Sir Peter, who was then a penniless lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy and the son of a drysalter in the city. This same drysalter was my great-grandfather; but I had an infusion of another blood through my mother, God bless her!—who was of a high family and a baronet’s daughter. The drysalter strain was honest, but plebeian, while the baronet strain was rather more lofty than honest, I fancy.