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344 pages

English

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Settle in for a wild ride of taut suspense and completely unpredictable plot twists with Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Phantom Fortune. A scandal that detonates within the upper-crust Maulevrier clan has implications that continue to plague the family for decades.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776596072
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

PHANTOM FORTUNE
A NOVEL
* * *
MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON

*
Phantom Fortune A Novel First published in 1883 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-607-2 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-608-9 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter I - Penelope Chapter II - Ulysses Chapter III - On the Wrong Road Chapter IV - The Last Stage Chapter V - Forty Years After Chapter VI - Maulevrier's Humble Friend Chapter VII - In the Summer Morning Chapter VIII - There is Always a Skeleton Chapter IX - A Cry in the Darkness Chapter X - 'O Bitterness of Things Too Sweet' Chapter XI - 'If I Were to Do as Iseult Did' Chapter XII - 'The Greater Cantle of the World is Lost' Chapter XIII - 'Since Painted or Not Painted All Shall Fade' Chapter XIV - 'Not Yet' Chapter XV - 'Of All Men Else I Have Avoided Thee' Chapter XVI - 'Her Face Resigned to Bliss or Bale' Chapter XVII - 'And the Spring Comes Slowly up this Way' Chapter XVIII - 'And Come Agen Be it by Night or Day' Chapter XIX - The Old Man on the Fell Chapter XX - Lady Maulevrier's Letter-Bag Chapter XXI - On the Dark Brow of Helvellyn Chapter XXII - Wiser than Lesbia Chapter XXIII - 'A Young Lamb's Heart Among the Full-Grown Flocks' Chapter XXIV - 'Now Nothing Left to Love or Hate' Chapter XXV - Carte Blanche Chapter XXVI - 'Proud Can I Never Be of What I Hate' Chapter XXVII - Lesbia Crosses Piccadilly Chapter XXVIII - 'Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in Wild Disorder Seen' Chapter XXIX - 'Swift Subtle Post, Carrier of Grisly Care' Chapter XXX - 'Roses Choked Among Thorns and Thistles' Chapter XXXI - 'Kind is My Love To-Day, To-Morrow Kind' Chapter XXXII - Ways and Means Chapter XXXIII - By Special Licence Chapter XXXIV - 'Our Love was New, and then but in the Spring' Chapter XXXV - 'All Fancy, Pride, and Fickle Maidenhood' Chapter XXXVI - A Rastaquouère Chapter XXXVII - Lord Hartfield Refuses a Fortune Chapter XXXVIII - On Board the 'Cayman' Chapter XXXIX - In Storm and Darkness Chapter XL - A Note of Alarm Chapter XLI - Privileged Information Chapter XLII - 'Shall it Be?' Chapter XLIII - 'Alas, for Sorrow is All the End of This' Chapter XLIV - 'Oh, Sad Kissed Mouth, How Sorrowful it Is!' Chapter XLV - 'That Fell Arrest, Without All Bail' Chapter XLVI - The Day of Reckoning
Chapter I - Penelope
*
People dined earlier forty years ago than they do now. Even that salt ofthe earth, the elect of society, represented by that little great worldwhich lies between the narrow circle bounded by Bryanstone Square on thenorth and by Birdcage Walk on the south, did not consider seven o'clocktoo early an hour for a dinner party which was to be followed by routs,drums, concerts, conversazione, as the case might be. It was seveno'clock on a lovely June evening, and the Park was already deserted, andcarriages were rolling swiftly along all the Westend squares, carryingrank, fashion, wealth, and beauty, political influence, and intellectualpower, to the particular circle in which each was destined to illumineupon that particular evening.
Stateliest among London squares, Grosvenor—in some wise a wonder to theuniverse as newly lighted with gas—grave Grosvenor, with its heavy oldGeorgian houses and pompous porticoes, sparkled and shone, not alonewith the novel splendour of gas, but with the light of many wax candles,clustering flower-like in silver branches and girandoles, multiplyingtheir flame in numerous mirrors; and of all the houses in that statelysquare none had a more imposing aspect than Lord Denyer's dark red brickmansion, with stone dressings, and the massive grandeur of an Egyptianmausoleum.
Lord Denyer was an important personage in the political and diplomaticworld. He had been ambassador at Constantinople and at Paris, and hadnow retired on his laurels, an influence still, but no longer an activepower in the machine of government. At his house gathered all that wasmost brilliant in London society. To be seen at Lady Denyer's eveningparties was the guinea stamp of social distinction; to dine with LordDenyer was an opening in life, almost as valuable as University honours,and more difficult of attainment.
It was during the quarter of an hour before dinner that a group ofpersons, mostly personages, congregated round Lord Denyer'schimney-piece, naturally trending towards the social hearth, albeit itwas the season for roses and lilies rather than of fires, and the hum ofthe city was floating in upon the breath of the warm June eveningthrough the five tall windows which opened upon Lord Denyer's balcony.
The ten or twelve persons assembled seemed only a sprinkling in the largelofty room, furnished sparsely with amber satin sofas, a pair of Florentinemarble tables, and half an acre or so of looking glass. Voluminous amberdraperies shrouded the windows, and deadened the sound of rolling wheels,and the voices and footfalls of western London. The drawing rooms of thosedays were neither artistic nor picturesque—neither Early English nor LowDutch, nor Renaissance, nor Anglo-Japanese. A stately commonplacedistinguished the reception rooms of the great world. Upholstery stagnatedat a dead level of fluted legs, gilding, plate glass, and amber satin.
Lady Denyer stood a little way in advance of the group on the hearthrug,fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while she listened languidlyto the remarks of a youthful diplomatist, a sprig of a lordly tree, uponthe last début at Her Majesty's Theatre.
'My own idea was that she screamed,' said her ladyship. 'But the newRosinas generally do scream. Why do we have a new Rosina every year,whom nobody ever hears of afterwards? What becomes of them? Do they die,or do they set up as singing mistresses in second-rate watering-places?'hazarded her ladyship, with her eye always on the door.
She was a large woman in amethyst satin, and a gauze turban with adiamond aigrette, a splendid jewel, which would not have misbeseemed thehead-gear of an Indian prince. Lady Denyer was one of the last women whowore a turban, and that Oriental head-dress became her bold and massivefeatures.
Infinitely bored by the whiskerless attaché, who had entered upon adisquisition on the genius of Rossini as compared with this new manMeyerbeer, her ladyship made believe to hear, while she listenedintently to the confidential murmurs of the group on the hearthrug, thelittle knot of personages clustered round Lord Denyer.
'Indian mail in this morning,' said one—'nothing else talked of at theclub. Very flagrant case! A good deal worse than Warren Hastings.Quite clear there must be a public inquiry—House of Lords—criminalprosecution.'
'I was told on very good authority, that he has been recalled, and isnow on his passage home,' said another man.
Lord Denyer shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, and lookedineffably wise, a way he had when he knew very little about the subjectunder discussion.
'How will she take it, do you think?' inquired Colonel Madison, of theLife Guards, a man about town, and an inveterate gossip, who kneweverybody, and everybody's family history, down to the peccadilloes ofpeople's great grandmothers.
'You will have an opportunity of judging,' replied his lordship, coolly.'She's to be here this evening.'
'But do you think she'll show?' asked the Colonel. 'The mail must havebrought the news to her, as well as to other people—supposing she knewnothing about it beforehand. She must know that the storm has burst. Doyou think she'll—'
'Come out in the thunder and lightning?' interrupted Lord Denver; 'I'msure she will. She has the pride of Lucifer and the courage of a lion.Five to one in ponies that she is here before the clock strikes seven!'
'I think you are right. I knew her mother, Constance Talmash. Pluck wasa family characteristic of the Talmashes. Wicked as devils, and brave aslions. Old Talmash, the grandfather, shot his valet in a paroxysm of delirium tremens ,' said Colonel Madison. 'She's a splendid woman, andshe won't flinch. I'd rather back her than bet against her.'
'Lady Maulevrier!' announced the groom of the chambers; and Lady Denyermoved at least three paces forward to meet her guest.
The lady who entered, with slow and stately movements and proudlybalanced head, might have served for a model as Juno or the EmpressLivia. She was still in the bloom of youth, at most seven-and-twenty,but she had all the calm assurance of middle-age. No dowager, hardenedby the varied experiences of a quarter of a century in the great world,could have faced society with more perfect coolness and self-possession.She was beautiful, and she let the world see that she was conscious ofher beauty, and the power that went along with it. She was clever, andshe used her cleverness with unfailing tact and unscrupulous audacity.She had won her place in the world as an acknowledged beauty, and one ofthe leaders of fashion. Two years ago she had been the glory and delightof Anglo-Indian society in the city of Madras, ruling that remote andlimited kingdom with a despotic power. Then all of a sudden she wasordered, or she ordered her physician to order her, an immediatedeparture from that perilous climate, and she came back to England withher three-year-old son, two Ayahs, and four European servants, leavingher husband, Lord Maulevrier, Governor of the Madras Presidency, tofinish the term of his service in an enforced widowhood.
She returned to be the delight of London society. She threw open thefamily mansion in Curzon