The Haunted Hotel | Page 8

moment's hesitation he said, 'No: I shall dine at the club.'
The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality
called 'conscience.' In one state of a man's mind, his conscience is the
severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he and
his conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in the
comfortable capacity of accomplices. When Doctor Wybrow left his
house for the second time, he did not even attempt to conceal from
himself that his sole object, in dining at the club, was to hear what the
world said of the Countess Narona.
CHAPTER III
There was a time when a man in search of the pleasures of gossip
sought the society of ladies. The man knows better now. He goes to the
smoking-room of his club.

Doctor Wybrow lit his cigar, and looked round him at his brethren in
social conclave assembled. The room was well filled; but the flow of
talk was still languid. The Doctor innocently applied the stimulant that
was wanted. When he inquired if anybody knew the Countess Narona,
he was answered by something like a shout of astonishment. Never (the
conclave agreed) had such an absurd question been asked before! Every
human creature, with the slightest claim to a place in society, knew the
Countess Narona. An adventuress with a European reputation of the
blackest possible colour-- such was the general description of the
woman with the deathlike complexion and the glittering eyes.
Descending to particulars, each member of the club contributed his own
little stock of scandal to the memoirs of the Countess. It was doubtful
whether she was really, what she called herself, a Dalmatian lady. It
was doubtful whether she had ever been married to the Count whose
widow she assumed to be. It was doubtful whether the man who
accompanied her in her travels (under the name of Baron Rivar, and in
the character of her brother) was her brother at all. Report pointed to
the Baron as a gambler at every 'table' on the Continent. Report
whispered that his so-called sister had narrowly escaped being
implicated in a famous trial for poisoning at Vienna--that she had been
known at Milan as a spy in the interests of Austria--that her 'apartment'
in Paris had been denounced to the police as nothing less than a private
gambling-house-- and that her present appearance in England was the
natural result of the discovery. Only one member of the assembly in the
smoking-room took the part of this much-abused woman, and declared
that her character had been most cruelly and most unjustly assailed. But
as the man was a lawyer, his interference went for nothing: it was
naturally attributed to the spirit of contradiction inherent in his
profession. He was asked derisively what he thought of the
circumstances under which the Countess had become engaged to be
married; and he made the characteristic answer, that he thought the
circumstances highly creditable to both parties, and that he looked on
the lady's future husband as a most enviable man.
Hearing this, the Doctor raised another shout of astonishment by
inquiring the name of the gentleman whom the Countess was about to

marry.
His friends in the smoking-room decided unanimously that the
celebrated physician must be a second 'Rip-van-Winkle,' and that he
had just awakened from a supernatural sleep of twenty years. It was all
very well to say that he was devoted to his profession, and that he had
neither time nor inclination to pick up fragments of gossip at
dinner-parties and balls. A man who did not know that the Countess
Narona had borrowed money at Homburg of no less a person than Lord
Montbarry, and had then deluded him into making her a proposal of
marriage, was a man who had probably never heard of Lord Montbarry
himself. The younger members of the club, humouring the joke, sent a
waiter for the 'Peerage'; and read aloud the memoir of the nobleman in
question, for the Doctor's benefit-- with illustrative morsels of
information interpolated by themselves.
'Herbert John Westwick. First Baron Montbarry, of Montbarry, King's
County, Ireland. Created a Peer for distinguished military services in
India. Born, 1812. Forty-eight years old, Doctor, at the present time.
Not married. Will be married next week, Doctor, to the delightful
creature we have been talking about. Heir presumptive, his lordship's
next brother, Stephen Robert, married to Ella, youngest daughter of the
Reverend Silas Marden, Rector of Runnigate, and has issue, three
daughters. Younger brothers of his lordship, Francis and Henry,
unmarried. Sisters of his lordship, Lady Barville, married to Sir
Theodore Barville, Bart.; and Anne, widow of the late Peter Norbury,
Esq., of Norbury Cross. Bear his lordship's relations well in mind,
Doctor. Three brothers Westwick, Stephen,