Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green | Page 9

doctor's sixty-four Lafitte was excellent. I felt charitably inclined
towards all men and women, even towards earls and countesses.
"I don't think he had much to do with it," laughed the doctor, "beyond
being, like Barkis, 'willing.' It's a queer story; some people profess not
to believe it, but those who know her ladyship best think it is just the
story that must be true, because it is so characteristic of her. And
besides, I happen to know that it is true."
"I should like to hear it," I said.
"I am going to tell it you," said the doctor, lighting a fresh cigar, and
pushing the box towards me.
I will leave you to imagine the lad's suddenly developed appetite for
decantered sherry at sixpence a glass, and the familiar currant bun of
our youth. He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at Sewell's,
occasionally he dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed by assorted
pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair should reach his
mother's ears, for he was neither worldly-wise nor vicious, he made
love to Mary under an assumed name; and to do the girl justice, it must
be remembered that she fell in love with and agreed to marry plain Mr.
John Robinson, son of a colonial merchant, a gentleman, as she must
have seen, and a young man of easy means, but of a position not so
very much superior to her own. The first intimation she received that
her lover was none other than Lord C-, the future Earl of --, was
vouchsafed her during a painful interview with his lordship's mother.
"I never knew it, madam," asserted Mary, standing by the window of
the drawing-room above the shop, "upon my word of honour, I never
knew it"
"Perhaps not," answered her ladyship coldly. "Would you have refused
him if you had?"
"I cannot tell," was the girl's answer; "it would have been different

from the beginning. He courted me and asked me to be his wife."
"We won't go into all that," interrupted the other; "I am not here to
defend him. I do not say he acted well. The question is, how much will
compensate you for your natural disappointment?"
Her ladyship prided herself upon her bluntness and practicability. As
she spoke she took her cheque-book out of her reticule, and, opening it,
dipped her pen into the ink. I am inclined to think that the flutter of that
cheque-book was her ladyship's mistake. The girl had common sense,
and must have seen the difficulties in the way of a marriage between
the heir to an earldom and a linen- draper's daughter; and had the old
lady been a person of discernment, the interview might have ended
more to her satisfaction. She made the error of judging the world by
one standard, forgetting there are individualities. Mary Sewell came
from a West of England stock that, in the days of Drake and Frobisher,
had given more than one able-bodied pirate to the service of the
country, and that insult of the cheque-book put the fight into her. Her
lips closed with a little snap, and the fear fell from her.
"I am sorry I don't see my way to obliging your ladyship," she said.
"What do you mean, girl?" asked the elder woman.
"I don't mean to be disappointed," answered the girl, but she spoke
quietly and respectfully. "We have pledged our word to one another. If
he is a gentleman, as I know he is, he will keep his, and I shall keep
mine."
Then her ladyship began to talk reason, as people do when it is too late.
She pointed out to the girl the difference of social position, and
explained to her the miseries that come from marrying out of one's
station. But the girl by this time had got over her surprise, and perhaps
had begun to reflect that, in any case, a countess-ship was worth
fighting for. The best of women are influenced by such considerations.
"I am not a lady, I know," she replied quietly, "but my people have
always been honest folk, well known, and I shall try to learn. I am not
wishing to speak disrespectfully of my betters, but I was in service
before I came here, ma'am, as lady's maid, in a place where I saw much
of what is called Society. I think I can be as good a lady as some I
know, if not better."
The countess began to grow angry again. "And who do you think will
receive you?" she cried, "a girl who has served in a pastry-cook's

shop!"
"Lady L- came from behind the bar," Mary answered, "and that's not
much better. And the Duchess of C-, I have heard, was a ballet girl, but
nobody seems