The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v5
by George Meredith
#93 in our series by George Meredith

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Title: The Amazing Marriage, v5

Author: George Meredith

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4487]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 26, 2002]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v5, by Meredith
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[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them.  D.W.]




THE AMAZING MARRIAGE

By George Meredith

1895



BOOK 5.

XXXIX.    THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR
XL.       A RECORD OF MINOR INCIDENTS
XLI.      IN WHICH THE FATES ARE SEEN AND A CHOICE OF THE REFUGES FROM
          THEM
XLII.     THE RETARDED COURTSHIP
XLIII.    ON THE ROAD TO THE ACT OF PENANCE
XLIV.     BETWEEN THE EARL; THE COUNTESS AND HER BROTHER, AND OF A SILVER
          CROSS
XLV.      CONTAINS A RECORD OF WHAT WAS FEARED, WHAT WAS HOPED, AND WHAT
          HAPPENED
XLVI.     A CHAPTER OF UNDERCURRENTS AND SOME SURFACE FLASHES
XLVII.    THE LAST: WITH A CONCLUDING WORD BY THE DAME



CHAPTER XXXIX

THE RED WARNING FROM A SON OF VAPOUR

Desiring loneliness or else Lord Feltre's company, Fleetwood had to grant
a deferred audience at home to various tradesmen, absurdly fussy about
having the house of his leased estate of Calesford furnished complete and
habitable on the very day stipulated by his peremptory orders that the
place should be both habitable and hospitable.  They were right, they
were excused; grand entertainments of London had been projected, and he
fell into the weariful business with them, thinking of Henrietta's
insatiable appetite for the pleasures.  He had taken the lease of this
burdensome Calesford, at an eight-miles' drive from the Northwest of
town, to gratify the devouring woman's taste which was, to have all the
luxuries of the town in a framework of country scenery.

Gower Woodseer and he were dining together in the evening.  The
circumstance was just endurable, but Gower would play the secretary,
and doggedly subjected him to hear a statement of the woeful plight of
Countess Livia's affairs.  Gower, commissioned to examine them, remarked:
'If we have all the figures!'

'If we could stop the bleeding!'  Fleetwood replied.  'Come to the Opera
to-night; I promised.  I promised Abrane for to-morrow.  There's no end
to it.  This gambling mania's a flux.  Not one of them except your old
enemy, Corby, keeps clear of it; and they're at him for subsidies, as
they are at me, and would be at you or any passenger on the suspected of
a purse.  Corby shines among them.'

That was heavy judgement enough, Gower thought.  No allusion to Esslemont
ensued.  The earl ate sparely, and silently for the most part.

He was warmed a little at the Opera by hearing Henrietta's honest
raptures over her Columelli in the Pirata.  But Lord Brailstone sat
behind her, and their exchange of ecstasies upon the tattered pathos of

                    E il mio tradito amor,

was not moderately offensive.

His countenance in Henrietta's presence had to be studied and interpreted
by Livia.  Why did it darken? The demurest of fuliginous intriguers
argued that Brail stone was but doing the spiriting required of him,
and would have to pay the penalty unrewarded, let him Italianize as much
as he pleased.  Not many months longer, and there would be the bit of an
outburst, the whiff of scandal, perhaps a shot, and the rupture of an
improvident alliance, followed by Henrietta's free hand to the moody
young earl, who would then have possession of the only woman he could
ever love: and at no cost.  Jealousy of a man like Brailstone, however
infatuated the man, was too foolish.  He must perceive how matters were
tending?  The die-away acid eyeballs-at-the-ceiling of a pair of fanatics
per la musica might irritate a husband,