The Greater Inclination

Lady Susan held her own.  She ignored the Lintons, and her little family, as Miss Pinsent phrased it, followed suit.  Even Mrs. Ainger agreed that it was obligatory.  If Lady Susan owed it to the others not to speak to the Lintons, the others clearly owed it to Lady Susan to back her up.  It was generally found expedient, at the Hotel Bellosguardo, to adopt this form of reasoning.

Whatever effect this combined action may have had upon the Lintons, it did not at least have that of driving them away.  Monsieur Grossart, after a few days of suspense, had the satisfaction of seeing them settle down in his yellow damask premier with what looked like a permanent installation of palm-trees and silk sofa-cushions, and a gratifying continuance in the consumption of champagne.  Mrs. Linton trailed her Doucet draperies up and down the garden with the same challenging air, while her husband, smoking innumerable cigarettes, dragged himself dejectedly in her wake; but neither of them, after the first encounter with Lady Susan, made any attempt to extend their acquaintance.  They simply ignored their ignorers.  As Miss Pinsent resentfully observed, they behaved exactly as though the hotel were empty.

It was therefore a matter of surprise, as well as of displeasure, to Lydia, to find, on glancing up one day from her seat in the garden, that the shadow which had fallen across her book was that of the enigmatic Mrs. Linton.

“I want to speak to you,” that lady said, in a rich hard voice that seemed the audible expression of her gown and her complexion.

Lydia started.  She certainly did not want to speak to Mrs. Linton.

“Shall I sit down here?” the latter continued, fixing her intensely-shaded eyes on Lydia’s face, “or are you afraid of being seen with me?”

“Afraid?” Lydia colored.  “Sit down, please.  What is it that you wish to say?”

Mrs. Linton, with a smile, drew up a garden-chair and crossed one open-work ankle above the other.

“I want you to tell me what my husband said to your husband last night.”

Lydia turned pale.

“My husband—­to yours?” she faltered, staring at the other.

“Didn’t you know they were closeted together for hours in the smoking-room after you went upstairs?  My man didn’t get to bed until nearly two o’clock and when he did I couldn’t get a word out of him.  When he wants to be aggravating I’ll back him against anybody living!” Her teeth and eyes flashed persuasively upon Lydia.  “But you’ll tell me what they were talking about, won’t you?  I know I can trust you—­you look so awfully kind.  And it’s for his own good.  He’s such a precious donkey and I’m so afraid he’s got into some beastly scrape or other.  If he’d only trust his own old woman!  But they’re always writing to him and setting him against me.  And I’ve got nobody to turn to.”  She laid her hand on Lydia’s with a rattle of bracelets.  “You’ll help me, won’t you?”

Lydia drew back from the smiling fierceness of her brows.

“I’m sorry—­but I don’t think I understand.  My husband has said nothing to me of—­of yours.”

The great black crescents above Mrs. Linton’s eyes met angrily.

“I say—­is that true?” she demanded.

Lydia rose from her seat.

“Oh, look here, I didn’t mean that, you know—­you mustn’t take one up so!  Can’t you see how rattled I am?”

Lydia saw that, in fact, her beautiful mouth was quivering beneath softened eyes.

“I’m beside myself!” the splendid creature wailed, dropping into her seat.

“I’m so sorry,” Lydia repeated, forcing herself to speak kindly; “but how can I help you?”

Mrs. Linton raised her head sharply.

“By finding out—­there’s a darling!”

“Finding what out?”

“What Trevenna told him.”

“Trevenna—?” Lydia echoed in bewilderment.

Mrs. Linton clapped her hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Lord—­there, it’s out!  What a fool I am!  But I supposed of course you knew; I supposed everybody knew.”  She dried her eyes and bridled.  “Didn’t you know that he’s Lord Trevenna?  I’m Mrs. Cope.”

Lydia recognized the names.  They had figured in a flamboyant elopement which had thrilled fashionable London some six months earlier.

“Now you see how it is—­you understand, don’t you?” Mrs. Cope continued on a note of appeal.  “I knew you would—­that’s the reason I came to you.  I suppose he felt the same thing about your husband; he’s not spoken to another soul in the place.”  Her face grew anxious again.  “He’s awfully sensitive, generally—­he feels our position, he says—­as if it wasn’t my place to feel that!  But when he does get talking there’s no knowing what he’ll say.  I know he’s been brooding over something lately, and I must find out what it is—­it’s to his interest that I should.  I always tell him that I think only of his interest; if he’d only trust me!  But he’s been so odd lately—­I can’t think what he’s plotting.  You will help me, dear?”

Lydia, who had remained standing, looked away uncomfortably.

“If you mean by finding out what Lord Trevenna has told my husband, I’m afraid it’s impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

“Because I infer that it was told in confidence.”

Mrs. Cope stared incredulously.

“Well, what of that?  Your husband looks such a dear—­any one can see he’s awfully gone on you.  What’s to prevent your getting it out of him?”

Lydia flushed.

“I’m not a spy!” she exclaimed.

“A spy—­a spy?  How dare you?” Mrs. Cope flamed out.  “Oh, I don’t mean that either!  Don’t be angry with me—­I’m so miserable.”  She essayed a softer note.  “Do you call that spying—­for one woman to help out another?  I do need help so dreadfully!  I’m at my wits’ end with Trevenna, I am indeed.  He’s such a boy—­a mere baby, you know; he’s only two-and-twenty.”  She dropped her orbed lids.  “He’s younger than me—­only fancy! a few months younger.  I tell him he ought to listen to me as if I was his mother; oughtn’t he now?  But he won’t, he won’t!  All his people are at him, you see—­oh, I know their little game!  Trying to get him away from me before I can get my divorce—­that’s what they’re up to.  At first he wouldn’t listen to them; he used to toss their letters over to me to read; but now he reads them himself, and answers ’em too, I fancy; he’s always shut up in his room, writing.  If I only knew what his plan is I could stop him fast enough—­he’s such a simpleton.  But he’s dreadfully deep too—­at times I can’t make him out.  But I know he’s told your husband everything—­I knew that last night the minute I laid eyes on him.  And I must find out—­you must help me—­I’ve got no one else to turn to!”

She caught Lydia’s fingers in a stormy pressure.

“Say you’ll help me—­you and your husband.”

Lydia tried to free herself.

“What you ask is impossible; you must see that it is.  No one could interfere in—­in the way you ask.”

Mrs. Cope’s clutch tightened.

“You won’t, then?  You won’t?”

“Certainly not.  Let me go, please.”

Mrs. Cope released her with a laugh.

“Oh, go by all means—­pray don’t let me detain you!  Shall you go and tell Lady Susan Condit that there’s a pair of us—­or shall I save you the trouble of enlightening her?”

Lydia stood still in the middle of the path, seeing her antagonist through a mist of terror.  Mrs. Cope was still laughing.

“Oh, I’m not spiteful by nature, my dear; but you’re a little more than flesh and blood can stand!  It’s impossible, is it?  Let you go, indeed!  You’re too good to be mixed up in my affairs, are you?  Why, you little fool, the first day I laid eyes on you I saw that you and I were both in the same box—­that’s the reason I spoke to you.”

She stepped nearer, her smile dilating on Lydia like a lamp through a fog.

“You can take your choice, you know; I always play fair.  If you’ll tell I’ll promise not to.  Now then, which is it to be?”

Lydia, involuntarily, had begun to move away from the pelting storm of words; but at this she turned and sat down again.

“You may go,” she said simply.  “I shall stay here.”