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diff --git a/37178.txt b/37178.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..355b427 --- /dev/null +++ b/37178.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's +Troubles, and Other Stories, by Ouida + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories + +Author: Ouida + +Release Date: August 23, 2011 [EBook #37178] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Katherine Becker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + + CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE, + + LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES, + + AND + + OTHER STORIES. + + BY "OUIDA," + + AUTHOR OF "IDALIA," "STRATHMORE," "CHANDOS," + "GRANVILLE DE VIGNE," ETC. + + + PHILADELPHIA: + J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. + 1900. + + + + + CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE, + + AND OTHER STORIES. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT. + + +The Publishers have the pleasure of offering to the many admirers of the +writings of "Ouida," the present volume of Contributions, which have +appeared from time to time in the leading Journals of Europe, and which +have recently been collected and revised by the author, for publication +in book-form. + +They have also in press, to be speedily published, another similar +volume of tales, from the same pen, together with an unpublished romance +entitled "UNDER TWO FLAGS." + +Our editions of Ouida's Works are published by express arrangement with +the author; and any other editions that may appear in the American +market will be issued in violation of the courtesies usually extended +both to authors and publishers. + +PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1867. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE; OR, THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD 11 + + LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS; OR, OUR MALTESE PEERAGE 37 + + LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; OR, THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE.-- + _In Three Seasons_:-- + Season the First.--The Eligible 84 + Season the Second.--The Ogre 121 + Season the Third.--The Climax 164 + + A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE; OR, PENDANT TO A PASTEL BY LA TOUR 211 + I. The First Morning 212 + II. The Second Morning 218 + III. Midnight 227 + + "DEADLY DASH." A STORY TOLD ON THE OFF DAY. 235 + + THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING; OR, COACHES AND COUSINSHIP 265 + + THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD; OR, A DOUBLED-DOWN LEAF IN A MAN'S + LIFE 306 + + THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR; OR, NOT AT ALL A PROPER PERSON 339 + + A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE: PENDANT TO A PORTRAIT BY MIGNARD 368 + + + + +CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE; + +OR, + +THE STORY OF A BROIDERED SHIELD. + + +Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of her county and her line, the +handsomest of all the handsome women that had graced her race, when she +moved, a century and a half ago, down the stately staircase, and through +the gilded and tapestried halls of Lilliesford. The Town had run mad +after her, and her face levelled politics, and was cited as admiringly +by the Whigs at St. James's as by the Tories at the Cocoa-tree, by the +beaux and Mohocks at Garraway's as by the alumni at the Grecian, by the +wits at Will's as by the fops at Ozinda's. + +Wherever she went, whether to the Haymarket or the Opera, to the 'Change +for a fan or the palace for a state ball, to Drury Lane to see Pastoral +Philips's dreary dilution of Racine, or to some fair chief of her +faction for basset and ombre, she was surrounded by the best men of her +time, and hated by Whig beauties with virulent wrath, for she was a Tory +to the backbone, indeed a Jacobite at heart; worshipped Bolingbroke, +detested Marlborough and Eugene, believed in all the horrors of the +programme said to have been plotted by the Whigs for the anniversary +show of 1711, and was thought to have prompted the satire on those fair +politicians who are disguised as _Rosalinda_ and _Nigranilla_ in the +81st paper of the _Spectator_. + +Cecil Castlemaine was the greatest beauty of her day, lovelier still at +four-and-twenty than she had been at seventeen, unwedded, though the +highest coronets in the land had been offered to her; far above the +coquetteries and minauderies of her friends, far above imitation of the +affectations of "Lady Betty Modley's skuttle," or need of practising the +Fan exercise; haughty, peerless, radiant, unwon--nay, more--untouched; +for the finest gentleman on the town could not flatter himself that he +had ever stirred the slightest trace of interest in her, nor boast, as +he stood in the inner circle at the Chocolate-house (unless, indeed, he +lied more impudently than Tom Wharton himself), that he had ever been +honored by a glance of encouragement from the Earl's daughter. She was +too proud to cheapen herself with coquetry, too fastidious to care for +her conquests over those who whispered to her through Nicolini's song, +vied to have the privilege of carrying her fan, drove past her windows +in Soho Square, crowded about her in St. James's Park, paid court even +to her little spaniel Indamara, and, to catch but a glimpse of her +brocaded train as it swept a ball-room floor, would leave even their +play at the Groom Porter's, Mrs. Oldfield in the green-room, a night +hunt with Mohun and their brother Mohocks, a circle of wits gathered +"within the steam of the coffeepot" at Will's, a dinner at Halifax's, a +supper at Bolingbroke's,--whatever, according to their several tastes, +made their best entertainment and was hardest to quit. + +The highest suitors of the day sought her smile and sued for her hand; +men left the Court and the Mall to join the Flanders army before the +lines at Bouchain less for loyal love of England than hopeless love of +Cecil Castlemaine. Her father vainly urged her not to fling away offers +that all the women at St. James's envied her. She was untouched and +unwon, and when her friends, the court beauties, the fine ladies, the +coquettes of quality, rallied her on her coldness (envying her her +conquests), she would smile her slight proud smile and bow her stately +head. "Perhaps she was cold; she might be; they were personnable men? Oh +yes! she had nothing to say against them. His Grace of Belamour?--A +pretty wit, without doubt. Lord Millamont?--Diverting, but a coxcomb. He +had beautiful hands; it was a pity he was always thinking of them! Sir +Gage Rivers?--As obsequious a lover as the man in the 'Way of the +World,' but she had heard he was very boastful and facetious at women +over his chocolate at Ozinda's. The Earl of Argent?--A gallant soldier, +surely, but whatever he might protest, no mistress would ever rival with +him the dice at the Groom Porter's. Lord Philip Bellairs?--A proper +gentleman; no fault in him; a bel esprit and an elegant courtier; +pleased many, no doubt, but he did not please her overmuch. Perhaps her +taste was too finical, or her character too cold, as they said. She +preferred it should be so. When you were content it were folly to seek a +change. For her part, she failed to comprehend how women could stoop to +flutter their fans and choose their ribbons, and rack their tirewomen's +brains for new pulvillios, and lappets, and devices, and practise their +curtsy and recovery before their pier-glass, for no better aim or stake +than to draw the glance and win the praise of men for whom they cared +nothing. A woman who had the eloquence of beauty and a true pride should +be above heed for such affectations, pleasure in such applause!" + +So she would put them all aside and turn the tables on her friends, and +go on her own way, proud, peerless, Cecil Castlemaine, conquering and +unconquered; and Steele must have had her name in his thoughts, and +honored it heartily and sincerely, when he wrote one Tuesday, on the +21st of October, under the domino of his Church Coquette, "I say I do +honor to those who _can be coquettes and are not such_, but I despise +all who would be so, and, in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate +and vilify all those who can." A definition justly drawn by his keen, +quick graver, though doubtless it only excited the ire of, and was +entirely lost upon, those who read the paper over their dish of bohea, +or over their toilette, while they shifted a patch for an hour before +they could determine it, or regretted the loss of ten guineas at crimp. + +Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of the Town: when she sat at Drury Lane +on the Tory side of the house, the devoutest admirer of Oldfield or Mrs. +Porter scarcely heard a word of the _Heroic Daughter_, or the _Amorous +Widow_, and the "beau fullest of his own dear self" forgot his +silver-fringed gloves, his medallion snuff-box, his knotted cravat, his +clouded cane, the slaughter that he planned to do, from gazing at her +where she sat as though she were reigning sovereign at St. James's, the +Castlemaine diamond's flashing crescent-like above her brow. At church +and court, at park and assembly, there were none who could eclipse that +haughty gentlewoman; therefore her fond women friends who had caressed +her so warmly and so gracefully, and pulled her to pieces behind her +back, if they could, so eagerly over their dainty cups of tea in an +afternoon visit, were glad, one and all, when on "Barnabybright," +Anglice, the 22d (then the 11th) of June, the great Castlemaine chariot, +with its three herons blazoned on its coroneted panels, its laced +liveries and gilded harness, rolled over the heavy, ill-made roads down +into the country in almost princely pomp, the peasants pouring out from +the wayside cottages to stare at my lord's coach. + +It was said in the town that a portly divine, who wore his scarf as one +of the chaplains to the Earl of Castlemaine, had prattled somewhat +indiscreetly at Child's of his patron's politics; that certain cipher +letters had passed the Channel enclosed in chocolate-cakes as soon as +French goods were again imported after the peace of Utrecht; that +gentlemen in high places were strongly suspected of mischievous designs +against the tranquillity of the country and government; that the Earl +had, among others, received a friendly hint from a relative in power to +absent himself for a while from the court where he was not best trusted, +and the town where an incautious word might be picked up and lead to +Tower Hill, and amuse himself at his goodly castle of Lilliesford, where +the red deer would not spy upon him, and the dark beech-woods would tell +no tales. And the ladies of quality, her dear friends and sisters, were +glad when they heard it as they punted at basset and fluttered their +fans complacently. They would have the field for themselves, for a +season, while Cecil Castlemaine was immured in her manor of Lilliesford; +would be free of her beauty to eclipse them at the next birthday, be +quit of their most dreaded rival, their most omnipotent leader of +fashion; and they rejoiced at the whisper of the cipher letter, the +damaging gossipry of the Whig coffee-houses, the bad repute into which +my Lord Earl had grown at St. James's, at the misfortune of their +friend, in a word, as human nature, masculine or feminine, will ever +do--to its shame be it spoken--unless the _fomes peccati_ be more +completely wrung out of it than it ever has been since the angel Gabriel +performed that work of purification on the infant Mahomet. + +It was the June of the year '15, and the coming disaffection was +seething and boiling secretly among the Tories; the impeachment of +Ormond and Bolingbroke had strengthened the distaste to the new-come +Hanoverian pack, their attainder had been the blast of air needed to +excite the smouldering wood to flame, the gentlemen of that party in the +South began to grow impatient of the intrusion of the distant German +branch, to think lovingly of the old legitimate line, and to feel +something of the chafing irritation of the gentlemen of the North, who +were fretting like stag-hounds held in leash. + +Envoys passed to and fro between St. Germain, and Jacobite nobles, +priests of the church that had fallen out of favor and was typified as +the Scarlet Woman by a rival who, though successful, was still bitter, +plotted with ecclesiastical relish in the task; letters were conveyed in +rolls of innocent lace, plans were forwarded in frosted confections, +messages were passed in invisible cipher that defied investigation. The +times were dangerous; full of plot and counterplot, of risk and danger, +of fomenting projects and hidden disaffection--times in which men, +living habitually over mines, learned to like the uncertainty, and to +think life flavorless without the chance of losing it any hour; and +things being in this state, the Earl of Castlemaine deemed it prudent to +take the counsel of his friend in power, and retire from London for a +while, perhaps for the safety of his own person, perhaps for the +advancement of his cause, either of which were easier insured at his +seat in the western counties than amidst the Whigs of the capital. + +The castle of Lilliesford was bowered in the thick woods of the western +counties, a giant pile built by Norman masons. Troops of deer herded +under the gold-green beechen boughs, the sunlight glistened through the +aisles of the trees, and quivered down on to the thick moss, and ferns, +and tangled grass that grew under the park woodlands; the water-lilies +clustered on the river, and the swans "floated double, swan and shadow," +under the leaves that swept into the water; then, when Cecil Castlemaine +came down to share her father's retirement, as now, when her name and +titles on the gold plate of a coffin that lies with others of her race +in the mausoleum across the park, where winter snows and sumer sun-rays +are alike to those who sleep within, is all that tells at Lilliesford +of the loveliest woman of her time who once reigned there as mistress. + +The country was in its glad green midsummer beauty, and the +musk-rosebuds bloomed in profuse luxuriance over the chill marble of the +terraces, and scattered their delicate odorous petals in fragrant +showers on the sward of the lawns, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to +what she termed her exile. The morning was fair and cloudless, its +sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in the woodlands, the +thickest shroud of the ivy, the deepest-hued pane of the mullioned +windows, as she passed down the great staircase where lords and +gentlewomen of her race gazed on her from the canvas of Lely and +Jamesone, Bourdain and Vandyke, crossed the hall with her dainty step, +so stately yet so light, and standing by the window of her own +bower-room, was lured out on to the terrace overlooking the west side of +the park. + +She made such a picture as Vandyke would have liked to paint, with her +golden glow upon her, and the musk-roses clustering about her round the +pilasters of marble--the white chill marble to which Belamour and many +other of her lovers of the court and town had often likened her. Vandyke +would have lingered lovingly on the hand that rested on her stag-hound's +head, would have caught her air of court-like grace and dignity, would +have painted with delighted fidelity her deep azure eyes, her proud +brow, her delicate lips arched haughtily like a cupid's bow, would have +picked out every fold of her sweeping train, every play of light on her +silken skirts, every dainty tracery of her point-lace. Yet even painted +by Sir Anthony, that perfect master of art and of elegance, though more +finished it could have hardly been more faithful, more instinct with +grace, and life, and dignity, than a sketch drawn of her shortly after +that time by one who loved her well, which is still hanging in the +gallery at Lilliesford, lighted up by the afternoon sun when it streams +in through the western windows. + +Cecil Castlemaine stood on the terrace looking over the lawns and +gardens through the opening vistas of meeting boughs and interlaced +leaves to the woods and hills beyond, fused in a soft mist of green and +purple, with her hand lying carelessly on her hound's broad head. She +was a zealous Tory, a skilled politician, and her thoughts were busy +with the hopes and fears, the chances for and against, of a cause that +lay near her heart, but whose plans were yet immature, whose first blow +was yet unstruck, and whose well-wishers were sanguine of a success they +had not yet hazarded, though they hardly ventured to whisper to each +other their previous designs and desires. Her thoughts were far away, +and she hardly heeded the beauty round her, musing on schemes and +projects dear to her party, that would imperil the Castlemaine coronet +but would serve the only royal house the Castlemaine line had ever in +their hearts acknowledged. + +She had regretted leaving the Town, moreover; a leader of the mode, a +wit, a woman of the world, she missed her accustomed sphere; she was no +pastoral Phyllis, no country-born Mistress Fiddy, to pass her time in +provincial pleasures, in making cordial waters, in tending her +beau-pots, in preserving her fallen rose-leaves, in inspecting the +confections in the still-room; as little was she able, like many fine +ladies when in similar exile, to while it away by scolding her +tirewomen, and sorting a suit of ribbons, in ordering a set of gilded +leather hangings from Chelsea for the state chambers, and yawning over +chocolate in her bed till mid-day. She regretted leaving the Town, not +for Belamour, nor Argent, nor any, of those who vainly hoped, as they +glanced at the little mirror in the lids of their snuff-boxes, that they +might have graven themselves, were it ever so faintly, in her thoughts; +but for the wits, the pleasures, the choice clique, the accustomed +circle to which she was so used, the courtly, brilliant town-life where +she was wont to reign. + +So she stood on the terrace the first morning of her exile, her thoughts +far away, with the loyal gentlemen of the North, and the banished court +at St. Germain, the lids drooping proudly over her haughty eyes, and her +lips half parted with a faint smile of triumph in the visions limned by +ambition and imagination, while the wind softly stirred the rich lace of +her bodice, and her fingers lay lightly, yet firmly, on the head of her +stag-hound. She looked up at last as she heard the ring of a horse's +hoofs, and saw a sorrel, covered with dust and foam, spurred up the +avenue, which, rounding past the terrace, swept on to the front +entrance; the sorrel looked wellnigh spent, and his rider somewhat worn +and languid, as a man might do with justice who had been in boot and +saddle twenty-four hours at the stretch, scarce stopping for a stoup of +wine; but he lifted his hat, and bowed down to his saddle-bow as he +passed her. + +"Was it the long-looked-for messenger with definite news from St. +Germain?" wondered Lady Cecil, as her hound gave out a deep-tongued bay +of anger at the stranger. She went back into her bower-room, and toyed +absently with her flowered handkerchief, broidering a stalk to a +violet-leaf, and wondering what additional hope the horseman might have +brought to strengthen the good Cause, till her servants brought word +that his Lordship prayed the pleasure of her presence in the +octagon-room. Whereat she rose, and swept through the long corridors, +entered the octagon-room, the sunbeams gathering about her rich dress as +they passed through the stained-glass oriels, and saluted the new-comer, +when her father presented him to her as their trusty and welcome friend +and envoy, Sir Fulke Ravensworth, with her careless dignity and queenly +grace, that nameless air which was too highly bred to be condescension, +but markedly and proudly repelled familiarity, and signed a pale of +distance beyond which none must intrude. + +The new-comer was a tall and handsome man, of noble presence, bronzed by +foreign suns, pale and jaded just now with hard riding, while his dark +silver-laced suit was splashed and covered with dust; but as he bowed +low to her, critical Cecil Castlemaine saw that not Belamour himself +could have better grace, not my Lord Millamont courtlier mien nor whiter +hands, and listened with gracious air to what her father unfolded to her +of his mission from St. Germain, whither he had come, at great personal +risk, in many disguises, and at breathless speed, to place in their +hands a precious letter in cipher from James Stuart to his well-beloved +and loyal subject Herbert George, Earl of Castlemaine. A letter spoken +of with closed doors and in low whispers, loyal as was the household, +supreme as the Earl ruled over his domains of Lilliesford, for these +were times when men mistrusted those of their own blood, and when the +very figure on the tapestry seemed instinct with life to spy and +betray--when they almost feared the silk that tied a missive should +babble of its contents, and the hound that slept beside them should read +and tell their thoughts. + +To leave Lilliesford would be danger to the Envoy and danger to the +Cause; to stay as guest was to disarm suspicion. The messenger who had +brought such priceless news must rest within the shelter of his roof; +too much were risked by returning to the French coast yet awhile, or +even by joining Mar or Derwentwater, so the Earl enforced his will upon +the Envoy, and the Envoy thanked him and accepted. + +Perchance the beauty, whose eyes he had seen lighten and proud brow +flush as she read the royal greeting and injunction, made a sojourn near +her presence not distasteful; perchance he cared little where he stayed +till the dawning time of action and of rising should arrive, when he +should take the field and fight till life or death for the "White Rose +and the long heads of hair." He was a soldier of fortune, a poor +gentleman with no patrimony but his name, no chance of distinction save +by his sword; sworn to a cause whose star was set forever; for many +years his life had been of changing adventure and shifting chances, now +fighting with Berwick at Almanza, now risking his life in some delicate +and dangerous errand for James Stuart that could not have been trusted +so well to any other officer about St. Germain; gallant to rashness, yet +with much of the acumen of the diplomatist, he was invaluable to his +Court and Cause, but, Stuart-like, men-like, they hastened to employ, +but ever forgot to reward! + +Lady Cecil missed her town-life, and did not over-favor her exile in the +western counties. To note down on her Mather's tablets the drowsy +homilies droned out by the chaplain on a Sabbath noon, to play at +crambo, to talk with her tirewomen of new washes for the skin, to pass +her hours away in knotting?--she, whom Steele might have writ of when he +drew his character of _Eudoxia_, could wile her exile with none of these +inanities; neither could she consort with gentry who seemed to her +little better than the boors of a country wake, who had never heard of +Mr. Spectator and knew nothing of Mr. Cowley, countrywomen whose +ambition was in their cowslip wines, fox-hunters more ignorant and +uncouth than the dumb brutes they followed. + +Who was there for miles around with whom she could stoop to associate, +with whom she cared to exchange a word? Madam from the vicarage, in her +grogram, learned in syrups, salves, and possets? Country Lady +Bountifuls, with gossip of the village and the poultry-yard? Provincial +Peeresses, who had never been to London since Queen Anne's coronation? A +squirearchy, who knew of no music save the concert of their stop-hounds, +no court save the court of the county assize, no literature unless by +miracle 't were Tarleton's Jests? None such as these could cross the +inlaid oak parquet of Lilliesford, and be ushered into the presence of +Cecil Castlemaine. + +So the presence of the Chevalier's messenger was not altogether +unwelcome and distasteful to her. She saw him but little, merely +conversing at table with him with that distant and dignified courtesy +which marked her out from the light, free, inconsequent manners in vogue +with other women of quality of her time; the air which had chilled half +the softest things even on Belamour's lips, and kept the vainest coxcomb +hesitating and abashed. + +But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man who had lived in +many countries and in many courts, was well versed in the tongues of +France and Italy and Spain--in their belles-lettres too, moreover--and +had served his apprenticeship to good company in the salons of +Versailles, in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions of +the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished family at St. Germain. He +spoke with a high and sanguine spirit of the troublous times approaching +and the beloved Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with her +humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the airy nothings of +Millamont. He was but a soldier of fortune, a poor gentleman who, named +to her in the town, would have had never a word, and would have been +unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round to hold her fan +and hear how she had been pleasured with the drolleries of _Grief a la +Mode_. But down in the western counties she deigned to listen to the +Prince's officer, to smile--a smile beautiful when it came on her proud +lips, as the play of light on the opals of her jewelled stomacher--nay, +even to be amused when he spoke of the women of foreign courts, to be +interested when he told, which was but reluctantly, of his own perils, +escapes, and adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the +beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western terrace at curfew +to watch the sunset, of many things on which the nobles of the Mall and +the gentlemen about St. James's had never been allowed to share her +opinions. For Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply for her day, +since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented themselves +with skimming a romance of Scuderi's, or an act of _Aurungzebe_); but +she rarely spoke of those things, save perchance now and then to Mr. +Addison. + +Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and flattery was a +honeyed confection of which she had long been cloyed; he even praised +boldly before her other women of beauty and grace whom he had seen at +Versailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain; neither did he defer to her +perpetually, but where he differed would combat her sentiments +courteously but firmly. Though a soldier and a man of action, he had an +admirable skill at the limner's art; could read to her the Divina +Commedia, or the comedies of Lope da' Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin +and abstruse Greek into elegant English for her pleasures and though a +beggared gentleman of most precarious fortunes, he would speak of life +and its chances, of the Cause and its perils, with a daring which she +found preferable to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had +no better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared for no other +weapons than their toilettes and snuff-boxes, and sought no other +excitement than a _coup d'eclat_ with the lion-tumblers. + +On the whole, through these long midsummer days, Lady Cecil found the +Envoy from St. Germain a companion that did not suit her ill, sought +less the solitude of her bower-room, and listened graciously to him in +the long twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the cups of +the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver on the water-lilies +floating on the river below, that murmured along, with endless song, +under the beechen-boughs. A certain softness stole over her, relaxing +the cold hauteur of which Belamour had so often complained, giving a +nameless charm, supplying a nameless something, lacking before, in the +beauty of The Castlemaine. + +She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of her tartaret falcon +Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought her the bird from the +ostreger's wrist, with its azure velvet hood, and silver bells and +jesses. She would wonder, as she glanced through Corneille or Congreve, +Philips or Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they +all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how different their +strain. And now and then would come over her cheek and brow a faint +fitful wavering flush, delicate and changing as the flush from the +rose-hued reflexions of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and +then she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she ailed, and +grow once more haughty, calm, stately, dazzling, but chill as the +Castlemaine diamonds that she wore. + +So the summer-time passed, and the autumn came, the corn-lands brown +with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves +turning into reddened gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle, +as the nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to +wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, strengthened +and matured only to fade into disappointment and destruction! Four +months had sped by since the Prince's messenger had come to +Lilliesford--months that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet +delicious dream; and the time had come when he had orders to ride north, +secretly and swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster and other gentlemen +concerned in the meditated rising, and convey despatches and +instructions to the Earl of Mar; for Prince James was projecting soon to +join his loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was close +at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth's high and sanguine +courage, victory seemed certain; failure, if no treachery marred, no +dissension weakened, impossible; the moment to which he looked for +honor, success, distinction, that should give him claim and title to +aspire--_where_? Strong man, cool soldier though he was, he shrank from +drawing his fancied future out from the golden haze of immature hope, +lest he should see it wither upon closer sight. He was but a landless +adventurer, with nothing but his sword and his honor, and kings he knew +were slow to pay back benefits, or recollect the hands that hewed them +free passage to their thrones. + +Cecil Castlemaine stood within the window of her bower-room, the red +light of the October sun glittering on her gold-broidered skirt and her +corsage sewn with opals and emeralds; her hand was pressed lightly on +her bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there; it was new this +unrest, this weariness, this vague weight that hung upon her; it was the +perils of their Cause, she told herself; the risks her father ran: it +was weak, childish, unworthy a Castlemaine! Still the pain throbbed +there. + +Her hound, asleep beside her, raised his head with a low growl as a step +intruded on the sanctity of the bower-room, then composed himself again +to slumber, satisfied it was no foe. His mistress turned slowly; she +knew the horses waited; she had shunned this ceremony of farewell, and +never thought any would be bold enough to venture here without +permission sought and gained. + +"Lady Cecil, I could not go upon my way without one word of parting. +Pardon me if I have been too rash to seek it here." + +Why was it that his brief frank words ever pleased her better than +Belamour's most honeyed phrases, Millamont's suavest periods? She +scarcely could have told, save that there were in them an earnestness +and truth new and rare to her ear and to her heart. + +She pressed her hand closer on the opals--the jewels of calamity--and +smiled: + +"Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safe issue from all +perils." + +He bowed low; then raised himself to his fullest height, and stood +beside her, watching the light play upon the opals: + +"That is all you vouchsafe me?" + +"_All?_ It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? It is more +than I would say to many." + +"Your pardon--it _is_ more than I should claim if prudence were ever by, +if reason always ruled! I have no right to ask for, seek for, even wish +for, more; such petitions may only be addressed by men of wealth and of +high title; a landless soldier should have no pride to sting, no heart +to wound; they are the prerogative of a happier fortune." + +Her lips turned white, but she answered haughtily; the crimson light +flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless and hereditary, like her +beauty and her pride: + +"This is strange language, sir! I fail to apprehend you." + +"You have never thought that I ran a danger deadlier than that which I +have ever risked on any field? You have never guessed that I have had +the madness, the presumption, the crime--it may be in your eyes--to love +you." + +The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her brow, and then fled +back. Her first instinct was insulted pride--a beggared gentleman, a +landless soldier, spoke to her of love!--of love!--which Belamour had +barely had courage to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of her in +return. He had ventured to feel this for her! he had ventured to speak +of this to her! + +The Envoy saw the rising resentment, the pride spoken in every line of +her delicate face, and stopped her as she would have spoken. + +"Wait! I know all you would reply. You think it infinite daring, +presumption that merits highest reproof----" + +"Since you divined so justly, it were pity you subjected yourself and me +to this most useless, most unexpected interview. Why----" + +"_Why?_ Because, perchance, in this life you will see my face no more, +and you will think gently, mercifully of my offence (if offence it be to +love you more than life, and only less than honor), when you know that I +have fallen for the Cause, with your name in my heart, held only the +dearer because never on my lips! Sincere love can be no insult to +whomsoever proffered; Elizabeth Stuart saw no shame to her in the +devotion of William Craven!" + +Cecil Castlemaine stood in the crimson glory of the autumn sunset, her +head erect, her pride unshaken, but her heart stirred strangely and +unwontedly. It smote the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless +exile should thus dare to speak of what princes and dukes had almost +feared to whisper; what had she done--what had she said, to give him +license for such liberty? It stirred the other with a tremulous warmth, +a vague, sweet pleasure, that were never visitants there before; but +that she scouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the Last +of the Castlemaines. + +He saw well enough what passed within her, what made her eyes so +troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, and he bent nearer +towards her, the great love that was in him trembling in his voice: + +"Lady Cecil, hear me! If in the coming struggle I win distinction, +honor, rank--if victory come to us, and the King we serve remember me in +his prosperity as he does now in his adversity--if I can meet you +hereafter with tidings of triumph and success, my name made one which +England breathes with praise and pride, honors gained such as even you +will deem worthy of your line--then--then--will you let me speak of +what you refuse to hearken to now--then may I come to you, and seek a +gentler answer?" + +She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent towards her in the +radiance of the sunset light, the hope that hopes all things glistening +in his eyes, the high-souled daring of a gallant and sanguine spirit +flushing his forehead, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the +stillness around; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quivered for +an instant. + +Then she turned towards him with queenly grace: + +"_Yes!_" + +It was spoken with stately dignity, though scarce above her breath; but +the hue that wavered in her cheek was but the lovelier, for the pride +that would not let her eyes droop nor her tears rise, would not let her +utter one softer word. That one word cost her much. That single +utterance was much from Cecil Castlemaine. + +Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy of lace, +embroidered with her shield and chiffre; he stooped and raised it, and +thrust it in his breast to treasure it there. + +"If I fail, I send this back in token that I renounce all hope; if I can +come to you with honor and with fame, this shall be my gage that I may +speak, that you will listen?" + +She bowed her noble head, ever held haughtily, as though every crown of +Europe had a right to circle it; his hot lips lingered for a moment on +her hand; then Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her +bower-room, her hand pressed again upon the opals under which her heart +was beating with a dull, weary pain, looking out over the landscape, +where the golden leaves were falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly +dead branches on its waves, was bemoaning in plaintive language the +summer days gone by. + +Two months came and went, the beech-boughs, black and sear, creaked in +the bleak December winds that sighed through frozen ferns and over the +couches of shivering deer, the snow drifted up on the marble terrace, +and icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk-rosebuds had +nestled. Across the country came terrible whispers that struck the +hearts of men of loyal faith to the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold +terror and despair. Messengers riding in hot haste, open-mouthed +peasants gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for a +breathless rest at alehouse-doors, Whig divines who returned thanks for +God's most gracious mercy in vouchsafing victory to the strong, all told +the tale, all spread the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of +the surrender under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. The +tidings came one by one to Lilliesford, where my Lord Earl was holding +himself in readiness to co-operate with the gentlemen of the North to +set up the royal standard, broidered by his daughter's hands, in the +western counties, and proclaim James III. "sovereign lord and king of +the realms of Great Britain and Ireland." The tidings came to +Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaine clenched her white jewelled hands in +passionate anguish that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of +Argyll, instead of dying with his face towards the rebel crew; that men +had lived who could choose surrender instead of heroic death; that _she_ +had not been there, at Preston, to shame them with a woman's reading of +courage and of loyalty, and show them how to fall with a doomed city +rather than yield captive to a foe! + +Perhaps amidst her grief for her Prince and for his Cause mingled--as +the deadliest thought of all--a memory of a bright proud face, that had +bent towards her with tender love and touching grace a month before, and +that might now be lying pale and cold, turned upwards to the winter +stars, on the field of Sheriff-Muir. + +A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled since the gilded carriage of +the Castlemaines, with the lordly blazonment upon its panels, its +princely retinue and stately pomp, had come down into the western +counties. The bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower, +and the skulls over Temple-bar had bleached white in winter snows and +spring-tide suns; Kenmuir had gone to a sleep that knew no wakening, and +Derwentwater had laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause; +the heather bloomed over the mounds of dead on the plains of +Sheriff-Muir, and the yellow gorse blossomed under the city walls of +Preston. + +Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, over England; none the +less fair for human lives laid down, for human hopes crushed out; +daisies powdering the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling +their song over graves of heaped-up dead. The musk-roses tossed their +delicate heads again amidst the marble pilasters, and the +hawthorn-boughs shook their fragrant buds into the river at Lilliesford, +the purple hills lay wrapped in sunny mist, and hyacinth-bells mingled +with the tangled grass and fern under the woodland shades, where the red +deer nestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery wings down by the +water-side, swallows circled in sultry air above the great bell-tower, +and wood-pigeons cooed with soft love-notes among the leafy branches. +Yet the Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole owner of the +lands that spread around her, stood on the rose-terrace, finding no joy +in the sunlight about her, no melody in the song of the birds. + +She was the last of her name; her father, broken-hearted at the news +from Dumblain and Preston, had died the very day after his lodgment in +the Tower. There was no heir male of his line, and the title had passed +to his daughter; there had been thoughts of confiscation and attainder, +but others, unknown to her, solicited what she scorned to ask for +herself, and the greed of the hungry "Hanoverian pack" spared the lands +and the revenues of Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning, +the fairest beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to the solitude +of her western counties, and tarried there, dwelling amidst her women +and her almost regal household, in the sacred solitude of grief, wherein +none might intrude. Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than of +yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled King, she would +hold converse with none of those who had had a hand in drawing down the +disastrous fate she mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the +weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or Gabrielle the +falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked her folded wings. She stood +on the terrace, looking over her spreading lands, not the water-lilies +on the river below whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together. +Perhaps she repented of certain words, spoken to one whom now she would +never again behold--perhaps she thought of that delicate toy that was to +have been brought back in victory and hope, that now might lie stained +and stiffened with blood next a lifeless heart, for never a word in the +twelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as tidings of Fulke +Ravensworth. + +Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else; she had spoken as was +her right to speak, she had done what became a Castlemaine; it would +have been weakness to have acted otherwise; what was he--a landless +soldier--that he should have dared as he had dared? Yet the sables she +wore were not solely for the dead Earl, not solely for the lost Stuarts +the hot mist that would blind the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours +swelled to days, and days to months, and she--the flattered beauty of +the Court and Town--stayed in self-chosen solitude in her halls of +Lilliesford, still unwedded and unwon. + +The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the +morning but weighed with heavier sadness on her heart; the song of the +birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell +round her pet fawn's neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping +boughs--none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood +looking over her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she +heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the +deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his +hiding-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the terrace before +her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, +bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of +princes fall abashed. The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have +ventured thus abruptly into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine; +still it was with some touch of a page's grace that he bowed before her. + +"Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though +I watched till midnight." + +"Your master?" + +A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face +for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her +words, but went on in an eager whisper, glancing anxiously round, as a +hare would glance fearing the hunters. + +"And told me when I saw you not to speak his name, but only to give you +this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot _his_ +honor nor _your_ will." + +Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took +it--her own costly toy of cambric and lace, with her broidered shield +and coronet. + +"Your master! Then--he lives?" + +"Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his message; I must tell no +further." + +She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow-white hand, yet one +that held him now in a clasp of steel. + +"Child! answer me at your peril! Tell me of him whom you call your +master. Tell me all--quick--quick!" + +"You are his friend?" + +"His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!" + +"He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger; but if you +_are_ his friend, I sure may speak what you should know without me. It +is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or +living!" + +The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess's blanched face, she signed him +on with impetuous command; she was unused to disobedience, and the +child's words cut her to the quick. + +"Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night," the boy went on, +in tremulous haste. "He was left for dead--our men ran one way, and +Argyll's men the other--on the field of Sheriff-Muir; and sure if he had +not been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, untended, +on the bleak moor, with the winds roaring round him, and his life ebbing +away. He was not one of those who _fled_; you know that of him if you +know aught. We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid him in a +shieling; he was in the fever then, and knew nothing that was done to +him, only he kept that bit of lace in his hand for weeks and weeks, and +would not let us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we +wondered often, but 'twas a magic, mayhap, that got him well at last; it +was an even chance but that he'd died, God bless him! though we did what +best we could. We've been wandering in the Highlands all the year, +hiding here and tarrying there. Sir Fulke sets no count upon his life. +Sure I think he thanks us little for getting him through the fever of +the wounds, but he could not have borne to be pinioned, you know, lady, +like a thief, and hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs +sheep in the shambles! The worst of the danger's over--they've had +their fill of the slaughter; but we sail to-morrow night for the French +coast--England's no place for my master." + +Cecil Castlemaine let go her hold upon the boy, and her hand closed +convulsively upon the dainty handkerchief--her gage sent so faithfully +back to her! + +The child looked upon her face; perchance, in his master's delirium, he +had caught some knowledge of the story that hung to that broidered toy. + +"If you _are_ his friend, madame, doubtless you have some last word to +send him?" + +Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing softened, bowed her +head at the simple question, her heart wrestling sorely, her lips set +together in unswerving pride, a mist before her haughty eyes, the +broidered shield upon her handkerchief--the shield of her stately and +unyielding race--pressed close against her breast. + +"You have no word for him, lady?" + +Her lips parted; she signed him away. Was this child to see her yielding +to such weakness? Had she, Countess of Castlemaine, no better pride, no +better strength, no better power of resolve, than this? + +The boy lingered. + +"I will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruined have no friends?" + +Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of her face; she +raised her stately head, haughtily as she had used to glance over a +glittering Court, where each voice murmured praise of her loveliness and +reproach of her coldness; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in the +boy's hands. + +"Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage that their calamity +makes friends more dear to us than their success. Go, he will know its +meaning!" + + * * * * * + +In place of the noon chimes the curfew was ringing from the bell-tower, +the swallows were gone to roost amidst the ivy, and the herons slept +with their heads under their silvery wings among the rushes by the +riverside, the ferns and wild hyacinths were damp with evening dew, and +the summer starlight glistened amidst the quivering woodland leaves. +There was the silence of coming night over the vast forest glades, and +no sound broke the stillness, save the song of the grasshopper stirring +the tangled grasses, or the sweet low sigh of the west wind fanning the +bells of the flowers. Cecil Castlemaine stood once more on the +rose-terrace, shrouded in the dense twilight shade flung from above by +the beech-boughs, waiting, listening, catching every rustle of the +leaves, every tremor of the heads of the roses, yet hearing nothing in +the stillness around but the quick, uncertain throbs of her heart +beating like the wing of a caged bird under its costly lace. Pride was +forgotten at length, and she only remembered--fear and love. + +In the silence and the solitude came a step that she knew, came a +presence that she felt. She bowed her head upon her hands; it was new to +her this weakness, this terror, this anguish of joy; she sought to calm +herself, to steel herself, to summon back her pride, her strength; she +scorned herself for it all! + +His hand touched her, his voice fell on her ear once more, eager, +breathless, broken. + +"Cecil! Cecil! is this true? Is my ruin thrice blessed, or am I mad, and +dream of heaven?" + +She lifted her head and looked at him with her old proud glance, her +lips trembling with words that all her pride could not summon into +speech; then her eyes filled with warm, blinding tears, and softened to +new beauty;--scarce louder than the sigh of the wind among the +flower-bells came her words to Fulke Ravensworth's ear, as her royal +head bowed on his breast. + +"Stay, stay! Or, if you fly, your exile shall be my exile, your danger +my danger!" + +The kerchief is a treasured heirloom to her descendants now, and fair +women of her race, who inherit from her her azure eyes and her queenly +grace, will recall how the proudest Countess of their Line loved a +ruined gentleman so well that she was wedded to him at even, in her +private chapel, at the hour of his greatest peril, his lowest fortune, +and went with him across the seas till friendly intercession in high +places gained them royal permission to dwell again at Lilliesford +unmolested. And how it was ever noticeable to those who murmured at her +coldness and her pride, that Cecil Castlemaine, cold and negligent as of +yore to all the world beside, would seek her husband's smile, and love +to meet his eyes, and cherish her beauty for his sake, and be restless +in his absence, even for the short span of a day, with a softer and more +clinging tenderness than was found in many weaker, many humbler women. + +They are gone now the men and women of that generation, and their voices +come only to us through the faint echo of their written words. In summer +nights the old beech-trees toss their leaves in the silvery light of the +stars, and the river flows on unchanged, with the ceaseless, mournful +burden of its mystic song, the same now as in the midsummer of a century +and a half ago. The cobweb handkerchief lies before me with its +broidered shield; the same now as long years since, when it was +treasured close in a soldier's breast, and held by him dearer than all +save his honor and his word. So, things pulseless and passionless +endure, and human life passes away as swiftly as a song dies off from +the air--as quickly succeeded, and as quickly forgot! Ronsard's refrain +is the refrain of our lives: + + Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame! + Las! le temps, non; mais _nous_ nous, en allons! + + + + +LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS; + +OR, + +OUR MALTESE PEERAGE. + + +All first things are voted the best: first kisses, first _toga virilis_, +first hair of the first whisker; first speeches are often so superior +that members subside after making them, fearful of eclipsing themselves; +first money won at play must always be best, as always the dearest +bought; and first wives are always so super-excellent, that, if a man +lose one, he is generally as fearful of hazarding a second as a trout of +biting twice. + +But of all first things commend me to one's first uniform. No matter +that we get sick of harness, and get into mufti as soon as we can now; +there is no more exquisite pleasure than the first sight of one's self +in shako and sabretasche. How we survey ourselves in the glass, and ring +for hot water, that the handsome housemaid may see us in all our glory, +and lounge accidentally into our sisters' schoolroom, that the +governess, who is nice looking and rather flirty, may go down on the +spot before us and our scarlet and gold, chains and buttons! One's first +uniform! Oh! the exquisite sensation locked up for us in that first box +from Sagnarelli, or Bond Street! + +I remember _my_ first uniform. I was eighteen--as raw a young cub as you +could want to see. I had not been licked into shape by a public school, +whose tongue may be rough, but cleans off grievances and nonsense better +than anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effeminacy, Church +principles and weak tea, a Private Tutor's, where mamma's darlings are +wrapped up, and stuffed with a little Terence and Horace to show grand +at home; and upon my life I do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, +was more wide awake and up to life than I was, when the governor, an old +rector, who always put me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me +gazetted to as crack a corps as any in the Line. + +The ----th (familiarly known in the Service as the "Dare Devils," from +old Peninsular deeds) were just then at Malta, and with, among other +trifles, a chest protector from my father, and a recipe for +milk-arrowroot from my Aunt Matilda who lived in a constant state of +catarrh and of cure for the same, tumbled across the Bay of Biscay, and +found myself in Byron's confounded "little military hot-house," where +most military men, some time or other, have roasted themselves to death, +climbing its hilly streets, flirting with its Valetta belles, drinking +Bass in its hot verandas, yawning with ennui in its palace, cursing its +sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers. + +From a private tutor's to a crack mess at Malta!--from a convent to a +casino could hardly be a greater change. Just at first I was as much +astray as a young pup taken into a stubble-field, and wondering what the +deuce he is to do there; but as it is a pup's nature to sniff at birds +and start them, so is it a boy's nature to snatch at the champagne of +life as soon as he catches sight of it, though you may have brought him +up on water from his cradle. I took to it, at least, like a retriever to +water-ducks, though I was green enough to be a first-rate butt for many +a day, and the practical jokes I had passed on me would have furnished +the _Times_ with food for crushers on "The Shocking State of the Army" +for a twelvemonth. My chief friend and ally, tormentor and initiator, +was a little fellow, Cosmo Grandison; in Ours he was "Little Grand" to +everybody, from the Colonel to the baggage-women. He was seventeen, and +had joined about a year. What a pretty boy he was, too! All the fair +ones in Valetta, from his Excellency's wife to our washerwomen, admired +that boy, and spoilt him and petted him, and I do not believe there was +a man of Ours who would have had heart to sit in court-martial on Little +Grand if he had broken every one of the Queen's regulations, and set +every General Order at defiance. I think I see him now--he was new to +Malta as I, having just landed with the Dare Devils, _en route_ from +India to Portsmouth--as he sat one day on the table in the mess-room as +cool as a cucumber, in spite of the broiling sun, smoking, and swinging +his legs, and settling his forage-cap on one side of his head, as +pretty-looking, plucky, impudent a young monkey as ever piqued himself +on being an old hand, and a knowing bird not to be caught by any chaff +however ingeniously prepared. + +"Simon," began Little Grand (my "St. John," first barbarized by Mr. Pope +for the convenience of his dactyles and hexameters into Sinjin, being +further barbarized by this little imp into Simon)--"Simon, do you want +to see the finest woman in this confounded little pepper-box? You're no +judge of a woman, though, you muff--taste been warped, perhaps, by +constant contemplation of that virgin Aunt Minerva--Matilda, is it? all +the same." + +"Hang your chaff," said I; "you'd make one out a fool." + +"Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you are!" responded Little Grand, +pleasantly, "Bless your heart, I've been engaged to half a dozen women +since I joined. A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way of +drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, poor little dears, +and so you compromise yourself out of sheer benevolence. There's such a +run on a handsome man--it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall +shave my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor +fellow, I feel for him! Well, Simon, you don't seem curious to know who +my beauty is?" + +"One of those Mitchell girls of the Twenty-first? You waltzed with 'em +all night; but they're too tall for you, Grand." + +"The Mitchell girls!" ejaculated he, with supreme scorn. "Great +maypoles! they go about with the Fusiliers like a pair of colors. On +every ball-room battlefield one's safe to see _them_ flaunting away, and +as everybody has a shot at 'em, their hearts must be pretty well riddled +into holes by this time. No, mine's rather higher game than that. My +mother's brother-in-law's aunt's sister's cousin's cousin once removed +was Viscount Twaddle, and I don't go anything lower than the Peerage." + +"What, is it somebody you've met at his Excellency's?" + +"Wrong again, beloved Simon. It's nobody I've met at old Stars and +Garters', though his lady-wife could no more do without me than without +her sal volatile and flirtations. No, _she_ don't go there; she's too +high for that sort of thing--sick of it. After all the European Courts, +Malta must be rather small and slow. I was introduced to her yesterday, +and," continued Little Grand, more solemnly than was his wont, "I do +assure you she's superb, divine; and I'm not very easy to please." + +"What's her name?" I asked, rather impressed with this view of a lady +too high for old Stars and Garters, as we irreverently termed her +Majesty's representative in her island of Malta. + +Little Grand took his pipe out of his lips to correct me with more +dignity. + +"Her _title_, my dear Simon, is the Marchioness St. Julian." + +"Is that an English peerage, Grand?" + +"Hum! What! Oh yes, of course! What else should it be, you owl!" + +Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went +on, growing more impressive at each phrase: + +"She is splendid, really! And I'm a very _difficile_ fellow, you know; +but such hair, such eyes, one doesn't see every day in those sun-dried +Mitchells or those little pink Bovilliers. Well, yesterday, after that +confounded luncheon (how I hate all those complimentary affairs!--one +can't enjoy the truffles for talking to the ladies, nor enjoy the ladies +for discussing the truffles), I went for a ride with Conran out to Villa +Neponte. I left him there, and went down to see the overland steamers +come in. While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow or other, with a +very agreeable, gentleman-like fellow, who asked me if I'd only just +come to Malta, and all that sort of thing--you know the introductory +style of action--till we got quite good friends, and he told me he was +living outside this wretched little hole at the Casa di Fiori, and +said--wasn't it civil of him?--said he should be very happy to see me if +I'd call any time. He gave me his card--Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey--and a +man with him called him 'Dolph.' As good luck had it, my weed went out +just while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was monstrously pleasant, +searched all over him for a fusee, couldn't find one, and asked me to go +up with him to the Casa di Fiori and get a light. Of course I did, and +he and I and Guatamara had some sherbet and a smoke together, and then +he introduced me to the Marchioness St. Julian, his sister--by Jove! +such a magnificent woman, Simon, _you_ never saw one like her, I'll +wager. She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and _such_ a smile, my boy! +She seemed to like me wonderfully--not rare that, though, you'll +say--and asked me to go and take coffee there to-night after mess, and +bring one of my chums with me; and as I like to show you life, young +one, and your taste wants improving after Aunt Minerva, you may come, if +you like. Hallo! there's Conran. I say, don't tell _him_. I don't want +any poaching on my manor." + +Conran came in at that minute; he was then a Brevet-Major and Captain in +Ours, and one of the older men who spoilt Little Grand in one way, as +much as the women did in another. He was a fine, powerful fellow, with +eyes like an eagle's, and pluck like a lion's; he had a grave look, and +had been of late more silent and self-reticent than the other +roistering, debonnair, light-hearted "Dare Devils;" but though, perhaps, +tired of the wild escapades which reputation had once attributed to him, +was always the most lenient to the boy's monkey tricks, and always the +one to whom he went if his larks had cost him too dear, or if he was in +a scrape from which he saw no exit. Conran had recently come in for a +good deal of money, and there were few bright eyes in Malta that would +not have smiled kindly on him; but he did not care much for any of them. +There was some talk of a love-affair before he went to India, that was +the cause of his hard-heartedness, though I must say he did not look +much like a victim to the _grande passion_, in my ideas, which were +drawn from valentines and odes in the "Woman, thou fond and fair +deceiver" style; in love that turned its collars down and let its hair +go uncut and refused to eat, and recovered with a rapidity proportionate +to its ostentation; and I did not know that, if a man has lost his +treasure, he _may_ mourn it so deeply that he may refuse to run about +like Harpagon, crying for his _cassette_ to an audience that only laughs +at his miseries. + +"Well, young ones," said Conran, as he came in and threw down his cap +and whip, "here you are, spending your hours in pipes and bad wine. What +a blessing it is to have a palate that isn't blase, and that will +swallow all wine just because it _is_ wine! That South African goes +down with better relish, Little Grand, than you'll find in Chateau +Margaux ten years hence. As soon as one begins to want touching up with +olives, one's real gusto is gone." + +"Hang olives, sir! they're beastly," said Little Grand; "and I don't +care who pretends they're not. Olives are like sermons and wives, +everybody makes a wry face, and would rather be excused 'em, Major; but +it's the custom to call 'em good things, and so men bolt 'em in +complaisance, and while they hate the salt-water flavor, descant on the +delicious rose taste!" + +"Quite true, Little Grand! but one takes olives to enhance the wine; and +so, perhaps, other men's sermons make one enjoy one's racier novel, and +other men's wives make one appreciate one's liberty still better. Don't +abuse olives; you'll want them figuratively and literally before you've +done either drinking or living!" + +"Oh! confound it, Major," cried Little Grand, "I do hope and trust a +spent ball may have the kindness to double me up and finish me off +before then." + +"You're not philosophic, my boy." + +"Thank Heaven, no!" ejaculated Little Grand, piously. "I've an uncle, a +very great philosopher, beats all the sages hollow, from Bion to Buckle, +and writes in the Metaphysical Quarterly, but I'll be shot if he don't +spend so much time in trying to puzzle out what life is, that all his +has slipped away without his having _lived_ one bit. When I was staying +with him one Christmas, he began boring me with a frightful theory on +the non-existence of matter. I couldn't stand that, so I cut him short, +and set him down to the luncheon-table; and while he was full swing with +a Strasbourg pate and Comet hock, I stopped him and asked him if, with +them in his mouth, he believed in matter or not? He was shut up, of +course; bless your soul, those theorists always are, if you're down upon +'em with a little fact!" + +"Such as a Strasbourg pate?--that _is_ an unanswerable argument with +most men, I believe," said Conran, who liked to hear the boy chatter. +"What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Grand?" + +"I am going to--ar--hum--to a friend of mine," said Little Grand, less +glibly than usual. + +"Very well; I only asked, because I would have taken you to Mrs. +Fortescue's with me; they're having some acting proverbs (horrible +exertion in this oven of a place, with the thermometer at a hundred and +twenty degrees); but if you've better sport it's no matter. Take care +what friends you make, though, Grand; you'll find some Maltese +acquaintances very costly." + +"Thank you. I should say I can take care of myself," replied Little +Grand, with immeasurable scorn and dignity. + +Conran laughed, struck him across the shoulders with his whip, stroked +his own moustaches, and went out again, whistling one of Verdi's airs. + +"I don't want him bothering, you know," explained Little Grand; "she's +such a deuced magnificent woman!" + +She was a magnificent woman, this Eudoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St. +Julian; and proud enough Little Grand and I felt when we had that soft, +jewelled hand held out to us, and that bewitching smile beamed upon us, +and that joyous presence dazzling in our eyes, as we sat in the +drawing-room of that Casa di Fiori. She was about thirty-five, I should +say (boys always worship those who might have been schoolfellows of +their mothers), tall and stately, and imposing, with the most beautiful +pink and white skin, with a fine set of teeth, raven hair, and eyes +tinted most exquisitely. Oh! she was magnificent, our Marchioness St. +Julian! Into what unutterable insignificance, what miserable, washed-out +shadows sank Stars and Garters' lady, and the Mitchell girls, and all +the belles of La Valetta, whom we hadn't thought so very bad-looking +before. + +There was a young creature sitting a little out of the radiance of +light, reading; but we had no eyes for anybody except the Marchioness +St. Julian. We were in such high society, too; there was her brother, +Lord Adolphus, and his bosom Pylades, the Baron Guatamara; and there was +a big fellow, with hooked nose and very curly hair, who was introduced +to us as the Prince of Orangia Magnolia; and a little wiry fellow, with +bits of red and blue ribbon, and a star or two in his button-hole, who +was M. le Due de Saint-Jeu. We were quite dazzled with the coruscations +of so much aristocracy, especially when they talked across to each +other--so familiarly, too--of Johnnie (that we Lord Russell), and Pam, +and "old Buck" (my godfather Buckingham, Lord Adolphus explained to us), +and Montpensier and old Joinville; and chatted of when they dined at the +Tuileries, and stayed at Compiegne, and hunted at Belvoir, and spent +Christmas at Holcombe or Longleat. We were in such high society! How +contemptible appeared Mrs. Maberly's and the Fortescue soirees; how +infinitesimally small grew Charlie Ruthven, and Harry Villiers, and Grey +and Albany, and all the other young fellows who thought it such great +guns to be _au mieux_ with little Graziella, or invited to Sir George +Dashaway's. _We_ were a cut above those things now--rather! + +That splendid Marchioness! There was a head for a coronet, if you like! +And how benign she was! Grand sat on the couch beside her, and I on an +ottoman on her left, and she leaned back in her magnificent toilette, +flirting her fan like a Castilian, and flashing upon us her superb eyes +from behind it; not speaking very much, but showing her white teeth in +scores of heavenly smiles, till Little Grand, the _blase_ man of +seventeen, and I the raw Moses of private tutelage, both felt that we +had never come across anything like this; never, in fact, seen a woman +worth a glance before. + +She listened to us--or rather to him; I was too awestruck to advance +much beyond monosyllables--and laughed at him, and smiled encouragingly +on my _gaucherie_ (and when a boy is _gauche_, how ready he is to +worship such a helping hand!), and beamed upon us both with an +effulgence compared with which the radiance of Helen, Galatea, Oenone, +Messalina, Lais, and all the legendary beauties one reads about, must +have been what the railway night-lamps that _never_ burn are to the +prismatic luminaries of Cremorne. They were all uncommonly pleasant, all +except the girl who was reading, whom they introduced as the Signorina +da' Guari, a Tuscan, and daughter to Orangia Magnolia, with one of those +marvellously beautiful faces that one sees in the most splendid +painters' models of the Campagna, who never lifted her head scarcely, +though Guatamara and Saint-Jeu did their best to make her. But all the +others were wonderfully agreeable, and quite _fete'd_ Little Grand and +me, at which, they, being more than double our age, and seemingly at +home alike with Belgravia and Newmarket, the Faubourg and the Pytchley, +we felt to grow at least a foot each in the aroma of this Casa di Fiori. + +"This is rather stupid, Doxie," began Lord Adolphus, addressing his +sister; "not much entertainment for our guests. What do you say to a +game of vingt-et-un, eh, Mr. Grandison?" + +Little Grand fixed his blue eyes on the Marchioness, and said he should +be very happy, but, as for entertainment--_he_ wanted no other. + +"No compliments, _petit ami_," laughed the Marchioness, with a dainty +blow of her fan. "Yes, Dolph, have vingt-et-un, or music, or anything +you like. Sing us something, Lucrezia." + +The Italian girl thus addressed looked up with a passionate, haughty +flush, and answered, with wonderfully little courtesy I considered, "I +shall not sing to-night." + +"Are you unwell, fairest friend?" asked the Duc de Saint-Jeu, bending +his little wiry figure over her. + +She shrank away from him, and drew back, a hot color in her cheeks. + +"Signore, I did not address _you_." + +The Marchioness looked angry, if those divine eyes could look anything +so mortal. However, she shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well, my dear Lucrezia, we can't make you sing, of course, if you +won't. I, for my part, always do any little thing I can to amuse +anybody; if I fail, I fail; I have done my best, and my friends will +appreciate the effort, if not the result. No, my dear Prince, do not +tease her," said the Marchioness to Orangia Magnolia, who was arguing, I +thought, somewhat imperatively for such a well-bred and courtly man, +with Lucrezia; "we will have vingt-et-un, and Lucrezia will give us the +delight of her voice some other evening, I dare say." + +We had vingt-et-un; the Marchioness would not play, but she sat in her +rose velvet arm-chair, just behind Little Grand, putting in pretty +little speeches, and questions, and bagatelles, and calling attention to +the gambols of her darling greyhound Cupidon, and tapping Little Grand +with her fan, till, I believe, he neither knew how the game went, nor +what money he lost; and I, gazing at her, and cursing him for his facile +tongue, never noticed my naturels, couldn't have said what the maximum +was if you had paid me for it, and might, for anything I knew to the +contrary, have been seeing my life slip away with each card as Balzac's +hero with the Peau de Chagrin. Then we had sherbet, and wine, and cognac +for those who preferred it; and the Marchioness gave us permission to +smoke, and took a dainty hookah with an amber mouthpiece for her own use +(divine she did look, too, with that hookah between her ruby lips!); and +the smoke, and the cognac, and the smiles, unloosed our tongues, and we +spake like very great donkeys, I dare say, but I'm sure with not a tenth +part the wisdom that Balaam's ass developed in his brief and pithy +conversation. + +However great the bosh we talked, though, we found very lenient +auditors. Fitzhervey and Guatamara laughed at all our witticisms; the +Prince of Orangia Magnolia joined in with a "Per Baccho!" and a "Bravo!" +and little Saint-Jeu wheezed, and gave a faint echo of "Mon Dieu!" and +"Tres bien, tres bien, vraiment!" and the Marchioness St. Julian laughed +too, and joined in our nonsense, and, what was much more, bent a willing +ear to our compliments, no matter how florid; and Saint-Jeu told us a +story or two, more amusing than _comme il faut_, at which the +Marchioness tried to look grave, and _did_ look shocked, but laughed for +all that behind her fan; and Lucrezia da' Guari sat in shadow, as still +and as silent as the Parian Euphrosyne on the console, though her +passionate eyes and expressive face looked the very antipodes of silence +and statuetteism, as she flashed half-shy, half-scornful, looks upon us. + +If the first part of the evening had been delightful, this was something +like Paradise! It was such high society! and with just dash enough of +Mabille and coulisses laisseraller to give it piquancy. How different +was the pleasantry and freedom of these _real_ aristos, after the +humdrum dinners and horrid bores of dances that those snobs of Maberlys, +and Fortescues, and Mitchells, made believe to call Society! + +What with the wine, and the smoke, and the smiles, I wasn't quite clear +as to whether I saw twenty horses' heads or one when I was fairly into +saddle, and riding back to the town, just as the first dawn was rising, +Aphrodite-like, from the far blue waves of the Mediterranean. Little +Grand was better seasoned, but even he was dizzy with the parting words +of the Marchioness, which had softly breathed the delicious passport, +"Come to-morrow." + +"By Jupiter!" swore Little Grand, obliged to give relief to his +feelings--"by Jupiter, Simon! did you ever see such a glorious, +enchanting, divine, delicious, adorable creature? Faugh! who could look +at those Mitchell girls after her? Such eyes! such a smile! such a +figure! Talk of a coronet! no imperial crown would be half good enough +for her! And how pleasant those fellows are! I like that little chaffy +chap, the Duke; what a slap-up story that was about the bal de l'Opera. +And Fitzhervey, too; there's something uncommonly thorough-bred about +him, ain't there? And Guatamara's an immensely jolly fellow. Ah, myboy! +that's something like society; all the ease and freedom of real rank; no +nonsense about them, as there is about snobs. I say, what wouldn't the +other fellows give to be in our luck? I think even Conran would warm up +about her. But, Simon, she's deucedly taken with me--she is, upon my +word; and she knows how to show it you, too! By George! one could die +for a woman like that--eh?" + +"Die!" I echoed, while my horse stumbled along up the hilly road, and I +swayed forward, pretty nearly over his head, while poetry rushed to my +lips, and electric sparks danced before my eyes: + + "To die for those we love! oh, there is power + In the true heart, and pride, and joy, for this + It is to live without the vanished light + That strength is needed!" + +"But I'll be shot if it shall be vanished light," returned Little Grand; +"it don't look much like it yet. The light's only just lit, 'tisn't +likely it's going out again directly; but she is a stunner! and----" + +"A stunner!" I shouted; "she's much more than that--she's an angel, and +I'll be much obliged to you to call her by her right name, sir. She's a +beautiful, noble, loving woman; the most perfect of all Nature's +masterworks. She is divine, sir, and you and I are not worthy merely to +kiss the hem of her garment." + +"Ain't we, though? I don't care much about kissing her dress; it's silk, +and I don't know that I should derive much pleasure from pressing my +lips on its texture; but her cheek----" + + "Her cheek is like the Catherine pear, + The side that's next the sun!" + +I shouted, as my horse went down in a rut. "She's like Venus rising from +the sea-shell; she's like Aurora, when she came down on the first ray of +the dawn to Tithonus; she's like Briseis----" + +"Bother classics! she's like herself, and beats 'em all hollow. She's +the finest creature ever seen on earth, and I should like to see the man +who'd dare to say she wasn't. And--I say, Simon--_how much did you lose +to-night_?" + +From sublimest heights I tumbled straight to bathos. The cold water of +Grand's query quenched my poetry, extinguished my electric lights, and +sobered me like a douche bath. + +"I don't know," I answered, with a sense of awe and horror stealing over +me; "but I had a pony in my waistcoat-pocket that the governor had just +sent me; Guatamara changed it for me, and--_I've only sixpence left_!" + +"Old boy," said Little Grand to me, the next morning, after early +parade, "come in my room, and let's make up some despatches to the +governors. You see," he continued, five minutes after,--"you see, we're +both of us pretty well cleared out; I've only got half a pony, and you +haven't a couple of fivers left. Now you know they evidently play rather +high at the Casa di Fiori; do everything _en prince_, like nobs who've +Barclays at their back; and one mustn't hang fire; horrid shabby that +would look. Besides, fancy seeming mean before _her_! So I've been +thinking that, though governors are a screwy lot generally, if we put it +to 'em clearly the sort of set we've got into, and show 'em that we +can't help, now that we are at Rome, doing as the Romans do, I should +say they could hardly help bleeding a little--eh? Now, listen how I've +put it. My old boy has a weakness for titles; he married my mother on +the relationship to Viscount Twaddles (who doesn't know of her +existence; but who does to talk about as 'our cousin'), and he'd eat up +miles of dirt for a chance of coming to a strawberry-leaf; so I think +this will touch him up beautifully. Listen! ain't I sublimely +respectful? 'I'm sure, my dear father, you wilt be delighted to learn, +that by wonderful luck, or rather I ought to say Providence, I have +fallen on my feet in Malta, and got introduced to the very highest' +(wait! let me stick a dash under very)--'the _very_ highest society +here. They are quite tip-top. To show you what style, I need only +mention Lord A. Fitzhervey, the Baron Guatamara, and the Marchioness St. +Julian, as among my kindest friends. They have been yachting in the +Levant, and are now staying in Malta: they are all most kind to me; and +I know you will appreciate the intellectual advantages that such contact +must afford me; at the same time you will understand that I can hardly +enter such circles as a snob, and you will wish your son to comport +himself as a gentleman; but gentlemanizing comes uncommon dear, I can +tell you, with all the care in the world: and if you _could_ let me have +another couple of hundred, I should vote you'--a what, Simon?--'an +out-and-out brick' is the sensible style, but I suppose 'the best and +kindest of parents' is the filial dodge, eh? There! 'With fond love to +mamma and Florie, ever your affectionate son, COSMO GRANDISON.' Bravo! +that's prime; that'll bring the yellows down, I take it. Here, old +fellow, copy it to your governor; you couldn't have a more stunning +effusion--short, and to the purpose, as cabinet councils ought to be, +and ain't. Fire away, my juvenile." + +I did fire away; only I, of a more impressionable and poetic nature than +Little Grand, gave a certain vent to my feelings in expatiating on the +beauty, grace, condescension, &c., &c., of the Marchioness to my mother; +I did _not_ mention the grivois stories, the brandy, and the hookah: I +was quite sure they were the sign of that delirious ease and disregard +of snobbish etiquette and convenances peculiar to the "Upper Ten," but I +thought the poor people at home, in vicarage seclusion, would be too out +of the world to fully appreciate such revelations of our _creme de la +creme_; besides, my governor had James's own detestation of the divine +weed, and considered that men who "made chimneys of their mouths" might +just as well have the mark of the Beast at once. + +Little Grand and I were hard-up for cash, and _en attendant_ the +governors' replies and remittances, we had recourse to the tender +mercies and leather bags of napoleons, ducats, florins, and doubloons of +a certain Spanish Jew, one Balthazar Miraflores, a shrivelled-skinned, +weezing old cove, who was "most happy to lent anytink to his tear young +shentlesmen, but, by Got! he was as poor as Job, he was indeed!" Whether +Job ever lent money out on interest or not, I can't say; perhaps he did, +as in the finish he ended with having quadrupled his cattle and lands, +and all his goods--a knack usurers preserve in full force to this day; +but all I can say is, that if he was not poorer than Mr. Miraflores, he +was not much to be pitied, for he, miserly old shark, lived in his dark, +dirty hole, like a crocodile embedded in Nile mud, and crushed the bones +of all unwary adventurers who came within range of his great bristling +jaws. + +Money, however, Little Grand and I got out of him in plenty, only for a +little bit of paper in exchange; and at that time we didn't know that +though the paper tax would be repealed at last, there would remain, as +long as youths are green and old birds cunning, a heavy and a bitter tax +on certain bits of paper to which one's hand is put, which Mr. +Gladstone, though he achieve the herculean task of making draymen take +kindly to vin ordinaire, and the popping of champagne corks a familiar +sound by cottage-hearths, will never be able to include in his budgets, +to come among the Taxes that are Repealed! + +Well, we had our money from old Balthazar that morning, and we played +with it again that night up at the Casa di Fiori. Loo this time, by way +of change. Saint-Jeu said he always thought it well to change your game +as you change your loves: constancy, whether to cards or women, was most +fatiguing. We liked Saint-Jeu very much, we thought him such a funny +fellow. They said they did not care to play much--of course they didn't, +when Guatamara had had ecarte with the Grand-Duke of Chaffsandlarkstein +at half a million a side, and Lord Dolph had broken the bank at Homburg +"just for fun--no fun to old Blanc, who farms it, though, you know." But +the Marchioness, who was doubly gracious that night, told them they must +play, because it amused her _chers petits amis_. Besides, she said, in +her pretty, imperious way, she liked to see it--it amused her. After +that, of course, there was no more hesitation; down we sat, and young +Heavystone with us. + +The evening before we had happened to mention him, said he was a fellow +of no end of tin, though as stupid an owl as ever spelt his own name +wrong when he passed a military examination, and the Marchioness, +recalling the name, said she remembered his father, and asked us to +bring him to see her; which we did, fearing no rival in "old Heavy." + +So down we three sat, and had the evening before over again, with the +cards, and the smiles, and wiles of our divinity, and Saint-Jeu's +stories and Fitzhervey's cognac and cigars; with this difference, that +we found loo more exciting than vingt-et-un. They played it so fast, +too, it was like a breathless heat for the Goodwood Cup, and the +Marchioness watched it, leaning alternately over Grand's, and Heavy's, +and my chair, and saying, with such naive delight, "Oh, do take miss, +Cosmo; I would risk it if I were you, Mr. Heavystone; _pray_ don't let +my naughty brother win everything," that I'd have defied the stiffest of +the Stagyrites or the chilliest of Calvinists to have kept their head +cool with that syren voice in their ear. + +And La Lucrezia sat, as she had sat the night before, by the open +window, still and silent, the Cape jasmines and Southern creepers +framing her in a soft moonlight picture, contrast enough to the +brilliantly lighted room, echoing with laughter at Saint-Jeu's stories, +perfumed with Cubas and narghiles, and shrining the magnificent, +full-blown, jewelled beauty of our Marchioness St. Julian, with which we +were as rapidly, as madly, as unreasoningly, and as sentimentally in +love as any boys of seventeen or eighteen ever could be. What greater +latitude, you will exclaim, recalling certain buried-away episodes of +_your_ hobbedehoyism, when you addressed Latin distichs to that +hazel-eyed Hebe who presided over oyster patties and water ices at the +pastrycook's in Eton; or ruined your governor's young plantations +cutting the name of Adeliza Mary, your cousin, at this day a portly +person in velvet and point, whom you can now call, with a thanksgiving +in the stead of the olden tremor, Mrs. Hector M'Cutchin? Yes, we were in +love in a couple of evenings, Little Grand vehemently and unpoetically, +I shyly and sentimentally, according to our temperament, and as the fair +Emily stirred feud between the two Noble Kinsmen, so the Marchioness St. +Julian began to sow seeds of jealousy and detestation between us, sworn +allies as we were. But "_le veritable amant ne connait point_ +_d'amis_," and as soon as we began to grow jealous of each other, Little +Grand could have kicked me to the devil, and I could have kicked _him_ +with the greatest pleasure in life. + +But I was shy, Little Grand was blessed with all the audacity +imaginable; the consequence was, that when our horses came round, and +the Maltese who acted as cherub was going to close the gates of Paradise +upon us, he managed to slip into the Marchioness's boudoir to get a +tete-a-tete farewell, while I strode up and down the veranda, not +heeding Saint-Jeu, who was telling me a tale, to which, in any other +saner moments, I should have listened greedily, but longing to execute +on Little Grand some fierce and terrible vengeance, to which the +vendetta should be baby's play. Saint-Jeu left me to put his arm over +Heavy's shoulder, and tell him if ever he came to Paris he should be +transported to receive him at the Hotel de Millefleurs, and present him +at the Tuileries; and I stood swearing to myself, and breaking off +sprays of the veranda creepers, when I heard somebody say, very softly +and low,-- + +"Signore, come here a moment." + +It was that sweetly pretty mute whom we had barely noticed, absorbed as +we were in the worship of our maturer idol, leaning out of the window, +her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, her eyes sad and anxious. Of course +I went to her, surprised at her waking up so suddenly to any interest in +me. She put her hand on my coat-sleeve, and drew me down towards her. + +"Listen to me a moment. I hardly know how to warn you, and yet I must. I +cannot sit quietly by and see you and your young friends being deceived +as so many have been before you. Do not come here again---do not----" + +"Figlia mia! are you not afraid of the night-air?" said the Prince of +Orangia Magnolia, just behind us. + +His words were kind, but there was a nasty glitter in his eyes. +Lucrezia answered him in passionate Italian--of which I had no +knowledge--with such fire in her eyes, such haughty gesticulation, and +such a torrent of words, that I really began to think, pretty soft +little dear as she looked, that she must positively be a trifle out of +her mind, her silence before, and her queer speech to me, seemed such +odd behavior for a young lady in such high society. She was turning to +me again when Little Grand came out into the veranda, looking flushed, +proud, and self-complaisant, as such a winner and slayer of women would +do. My hand clenched on the jasmine, I thirsted to spring on him as he +stood there with his provoking, self-contented smile, and his confounded +coxcombical air, and his cursed fair curls--_my_ hair was dust-colored +and as rebellious as porcupine-quills--and wash out in his blood or +mine----A touch of a soft hand thrilled through my every nerve and +fibre: the Marchioness was there, and signed me to her. Lucrezia, Little +Grand, and all the rest of the universe vanished from my mind at the +lightning of that angel smile and the rustle of that moire-antique +dress. She beckoned me to her into the empty drawing-room. + +"Augustus" (I never thought my name could sound so sweet before), "tell +me, what was my niece Lucrezia saying to you just now?" + +Now I had a sad habit of telling the truth; it was an out-of-the-world +custom taught me, among other old-fashioned things, at home, though I +soon found how inconvenient a _betise_ modern society considers it; and +I blurted the truth out here, not distinctly or gracefully, though, as +Little Grand would have done, for I was in that state of exaltation +ordinarily expressed as not knowing whether one is standing in one's +Wellingtons or not. + +The Marchioness sighed. + +"Ah, did she say that? Poor dear girl! She dislikes me so much, it is +quite an hallucination, and yet, O Augustus, I have been to her like an +elder sister, like a mother. Imagine how it grieves me," and the +Marchioness shed some tears--pearls of price, thought I, worthy to drop +from angel eyes--"it is a bitter sorrow to me, but, poor darling! she is +not responsible." + +She touched her veiny temple significantly as she spoke, and I +understood, and felt tremendously shocked at it, that the young, fair +Italian girl was a fierce and cruel maniac, who had the heart (oh! most +extraordinary madness did it seem to me; if _I_ had lost my senses I +could never have harmed _her_!) to hate, absolutely hate, the noblest, +tenderest, most beautiful of women! + +"I never alluded to it to any one," continued the Marchioness. +"Guatamara and Saint-Jeu, though such intimate friends, are ignorant of +it. I would rather have any one think ever so badly of me, than reveal +to them the cruel misfortune of my sweet Lucrezia----" + +How noble she looked as she spoke! + +"But you, Augustus, you," and she smiled upon me till I grew as dizzy as +after my first taste of milk-punch, "I have not the courage to let _you_ +go off with any bad impression of me. I have known you a very little +while, it is true--but a few hours, indeed--yet there are affinities of +heart and soul which overstep the bounds of time, and, laughing at the +chill ties of ordinary custom, make strangers dearer than old +friends----" + +The room revolved round me, the lights danced up and down, my heart beat +like Thor's hammer, and my pulse went as fast as a favorite saving the +distance. _She_ speaking so to me! My senses whirled round and round +like fifty thousand witches on a Walpurgis Night, and down I went on my +knees before my magnificent idol, raving away I couldn't tell you what +now--the essence of everything I'd ever read, from Ovid to Alexander +Smith. It must have been something frightful to hear, though Heaven +knows I meant it earnestly enough. Suddenly I was pulled up with a +jerk, as one throws an unbroken colt back on his haunches in the middle +of his first start. _I thought I heard a laugh._ + +She started up too. "Hush! another time! We may be overheard." And +drawing her dress from my hands, which grasped it as agonisingly as a +cockney grasps his saddle-bow, holding on for dear life over the Burton +or Tedworth country, she stooped kindly over me, and floated away before +_I_ was recovered from the exquisite delirium of my ecstatic trance. + +She loved me! This superb creature loved me! There was not a doubt of +it; and how I got back to the barracks that night in my heavenly state +of mind I could never have told. All I know is, that Grand and I never +spoke a word, by tacit consent, all the way back; that I felt a fiendish +delight when I saw his proud triumphant air, and thought how little he +guessed, poor fellow!----And that Dream of One Fair Woman was as +superior in rapture to the "Dream of Fair Women" as Tokay to the "Fine +Fruity Port" that results from damsons and a decoction of sloes! + +The next day there was a grand affair in Malta to receive some foreign +Prince, whose name I do not remember now, who called on us _en route_ to +England. Of course all the troops turned out, and there was an +inspection of us, and a grand luncheon and dinner, and ball, and all +that sort of thing, which a month before I should have considered prime +fun, but which now, as it kept me out of my paradise, I thought the most +miserable bore that could possibly have chanced. + +"I say," said Heavy to me as I was getting into harness--"I say, don't +you wonder Fitzhervey and the Marchioness ain't coming to the palace +to-day? One would have thought Old Stars and Garters would have been +sure to ask them." + +"Ask them? I should say so," I returned, with immeasurable disdain. "Of +course he asked them; but she told me she shouldn't come, last night. +She is so tired of such things. She came yachting with Fitzhervey solely +to try and have a little quiet. She says people never give her a +moment's rest when she is in Paris or London. She was sorry to +disappoint Stars and Garters, but I don't think she likes his wife much: +she don't consider her good ton." + +On which information Heavy lapsed into a state of profoundest awe and +wonderment, it having been one of his articles of faith, for the month +that we had been in Malta, that the palace people were exalted demigods, +whom it was only permissible to worship from a distance, and a very +respectful distance too. Heavy had lost some twenty odd pounds the night +before--of course we lost, young hands as we were, unaccustomed to the +society of that entertaining gentleman, Pam--and had grumbled not a +little at the loss of his gold bobs. But now I could see that such a +contemptibly pecuniary matter was clean gone from his memory, and that +he would have thought the world well lost for the honor of playing cards +with people who could afford to disappoint Old Stars and Garters. + +The inspection was over at last; and if any other than Conran had been +my senior officer, I should have come off badly, in all probability, for +the abominable manner in which I went through my evolutions. The day +came to an end somehow or other, though I began to think it never would, +the luncheon was ended, the bigwigs were taking their sieste, or +otherwise occupied, and I, trusting to my absence not being noticed, +tore off as hard as man can who has Cupid for his Pegasus. With a +bouquet as large as a drum-head, clasped round with a bracelet, about +which I had many doubts as to the propriety of offering to the possessor +of such jewelry as the Marchioness must have, yet on which I thought I +might venture after the scene of last night, I was soon on the veranda +of the Casa di Fiori, and my natural shyness being stimulated into a +distant resemblance of Little Grand's enviable brass, seeing the windows +of the drawing-room open, I pushed aside the green venetians and entered +noiselessly. The room did not look a quarter so inviting as the night +before, though it was left in precisely a similar state. I do not know +how it was, but those cards lying about on the floor, those sconces with +the wax run down and dripping over them, those emptied caraffes that had +diffused an odor not yet dissipated, those tables and velvet couches all +_a tort et a travers_, did not look so very inviting after all, and even +to my unsophisticated senses, scarcely seemed fit for a Peeress. + +There was nobody in the room, and I walked through it towards the +boudoir; from the open door I saw Fitzhervey, Guatamara, and my +Marchioness--but oh! what horror unutterable! doing--_que pensez-vous?_ +Drinking bottled porter!--and drinking bottled porter in a _peignoir_ +not of the cleanliest, and with raven tresses not of the neatest! + +Only fancy! she, that divine, _spirituelle_ creature, who had talked but +a few hours before of the affinity of souls, to have come down, like any +ordinary woman, to Guinness's stout, and a checked dressing-gown and +unbrushed locks! To find your prophet without his silver veil, or your +Leila dead drowned in a sack, or your Guinevere flown over with Sir +Lancelot to Boulogne, or your long-esteemed Griselda gone off with your +cockaded Jeames, is nothing to the torture, the unutterable anguish, of +seeing your angel, your divinity, your bright particular star, your +hallowed Arabian rose, come down to--Bottled Porter! Do not talk to me +of Dore, sir, or Mr. Martin's pictures; their horrors dwindle into +insignificance compared with the horror of finding an intimate liaison +between one's first love and Bottled Porter! + +In my first dim, unutterable anguish, I should have turned and fled; but +my syren's voice had not lost all its power, despite the stout and dirty +dressing-gown, for she was a very handsome woman, and could stand such +things as well as anybody. She came towards me, with her softest smile, +glancing at the bracelet on the bouquet, apologizing slightly for her +neglige:--"I am so indolent. I only dress for those I care to +please--and I never hoped to see _you_ to-day." In short, magnetizing me +over again, and smoothing down my outraged sensibilities, till I ended +by becoming almost blind (_quite_ I could not manage) to the checked +_robe de chambre_ and the unbrushed bandeaux, by offering her my +braceleted bouquet, which was very graciously accepted, and even by +sharing the atrocious London porter, "that horrid stuff," she called it, +"how I hate it! but it is the only thing Sir Benjamin Brodie allows me, +I am so very delicate, you know, my sensibilities so frightfully acute!" + +I had not twenty minutes to stay, having to be back at the barracks, or +risk a reprimand, which, happily, the checked _peignoir_ had cooled me +sufficiently to enable me to recollect. So I took my farewell--one not +unlike Medora's and Conrad's, Fitzhervey and Guatamara having kindly +withdrawn as soon as the bottled porter was finished--and I went out of +the house in a very blissful state, despite Guinness and the unwelcome +demi-toilette, which did not accord with Eugene Sue's and the Parlor +Library's description of the general getting-up and stunning appearance +of heroines and peeresses, "reclining, in robes of cloud-like tissue and +folds of the richest lace, on a cabriole couch of amber velvet, while +the air was filled with the voluptuous perfume of the flower-children of +the South, and music from unseen choristers lulled the senses with its +divinest harmony," &c., &c., &c. + +Bottled porter and a checked dressing-gown! Say what you like, sirs, it +takes a very strong passion to overcome _those_. I have heard men +ascribe the waning of their affections after the honeymoon to the +constant sight of their wives--whom before they had only seen making +papa's coffee with an angelic air and a toilette _tiree a quatre +epingles_--everlastingly coming down too late for breakfast in a +dressing-gown; and, upon my soul, if ever I marry, which Heaven in +pitiful mercy forfend! and my wife make her appearance in one of those +confounded _peignoirs_, I will give that much-run-after and +deeply-to-be-pitied public character, the Divorce Judge, some more work +to do--I will, upon my honor. + +However, the _peignoir_ had not iced me enough that time to prevent my +tumbling out of the house in as delicious an ecstasy as if I had been +eating some of Monte Cristo's "hatchis." As I went out, not looking +before me, I came bang against the chest of somebody else, who, not +admiring the rencontre, hit my cap over my eyes, and exclaimed, in not +the most courtly manner you will acknowledge, "You cursed owl, take +that, then! What are you doing here, I should like to know?" + +"Confound your impudence!" I retorted, as soon as my ocular powers were +restored, and I saw the blue eyes, fair curls, and smart figure of my +ancient Iolaues, now my bitterest foe--"confound your impertinence! what +are _you_ doing here? you mean." + +"Take care, and don't ask questions about what doesn't concern you," +returned Little Grand, with a laugh--a most irritating laugh. There are +times when such cachinnations sting one's ears more than a volley of +oaths. "Go home and mind your own business, my chicken. You are a green +bird, and nobody minds you, but still you'll find it as well not to come +poaching on other men's manors." + +"Other men's manors! Mine, if you please," I shouted, so mad with him I +could have floored him where he stood. + +"Phew!" laughed Little Grand, screwing up his lips into a contemptuous +whistle, "you've been drinking too much Bass, my daisy; 'tis n't good +for young heads--can't stand it. Go home, innocent." + +The insult, the disdainful tone, froze my blood. My heart swelled with a +sense of outraged dignity and injured manhood. With a conviction of my +immeasurable superiority of position, as the beloved of that divine +creature, I emancipated myself from the certain sort of slavery I was +generally in to Little Grand, and spoke as I conceived it to be the +habit of gentlemen whose honor had been wounded to speak. + +"Mr. Grandison, you will pay for this insult. I shall expect +satisfaction." + +Little Grand laughed again--absolutely grinned, the audacious young +imp--and he twelve months younger than I, too! + +"Certainly, sir. If you wish to be made a target of, I shall be +delighted to oblige you. I can't keep ladies waiting. It is always Place +aux dames! with me; so, for the present, good morning!" + +And off went the young coxcomb into the Casa di Fiori, and I, only +consoled by the reflection of the different reception he would receive +to what mine had been (_he_ had a braceleted bouquet, too, the young +pretentious puppy!), started off again, assuaging my lacerated feelings +with the delicious word of Satisfaction. I felt myself immeasurably +raised above the heads of every other man in Malta--a perfect hero of +romance; in fact, fit to figure in my beloved Alexandre's most +highly-wrought yellow-papered _roman_, with a duel on my hands, and the +love of a magnificent creature like my Eudoxia Adelaida. She had become +Eudoxia Adelaida to me now, and I had forgiven, if not forgotten, the +dirty dressing-gown: the bottled porter lay, of course, at Brodie's +door. If he would condemn spiritual forms of life and light to the +common realistic aliments of horrible barmaids and draymen, she could +not help it, nor I either. If angels come down to earth, and are +separated from their natural nourishment of manna and nectar, they must +take what they can get, even though it be so coarse and sublunary a +thing as Guinness's XXX, must they not, sir? Yes, I felt very _exalte_ +with my affair of honor and my affair of the heart, Little Grand for my +foe, and my Marchioness, for a love. I never stopped to remember that I +might be smashing with frightful recklessness the Sixth and the Seventh +Commandments. If Little Grand got shot, he must thank himself; he should +not have insulted me; and if there was a Marquis St. Julian, why--I +pitied him, poor fellow! that was all. + +Full of these sublime sensations--grown at least three feet in my +varnished boots--I lounged into the ball-room, feeling supreme pity for +ensigns who were chattering round the door, admiring those poor, pale +garrison girls. _They_ had not a duel and a Marchioness; _they_ did not +know what beauty meant--what life was! + +I did not dance--I was above that sort of thing now--there was not a +woman worth the trouble in the room; and about the second waltz I saw my +would-be rival talking to Ruthven, a fellow in Ours. Little Grand did +not look glum or dispirited, as he ought to have done after the +interview he must have had; but probably that was the boy's brass. He +would never look beaten if you had hit him till he was black and blue. +Presently Ruthven came up to me. He was not over-used to his business, +for he began the opening chapter in rather school-boy fashion. + +"Hallo, Gus! so you and Little Grand have been falling out. Why don't +you settle it with a little mill? A vast deal better than pistols. Duels +always seem to me no fun. Two men stand up like fools, and----" + +"Mr. Ruthven," said I, very haughtily, "if your principal desires to +apologize----" + +"Apologize! Bless your soul, no! But----" + +"Then," said I, cutting him uncommonly short indeed, "you can have no +necessity to address yourself to me, and I beg to refer you to my friend +and second, Mr. Heavystone." + +Wherewith I bowed, turned on my heel, and left him. + +I did not sleep that night, though I tried hard, because I thought it +the correct thing for heroes to sleep sweetly till the clock strikes the +hour of their duel, execution, &c., or whatever it may hap. Egmont +slept, Argyle slept, Philippe Egalite, scores of them, but I could not. +Not that I funked it, thank Heaven--I never had a touch of that--but +because I was in such a delicious state of excitement, self-admiration, +and heroism, which had not cooled when I found myself walking down to +the appointed place by the beach with poor old Heavy, who was intensely +impressed by being charged with about five quires of the best +cream-laid, to be given to the Marchioness in case I fell. Little Grand +and Ruthven came on the ground at almost the same moment, Little Grand +eminently jaunty and most _confoundedly_ handsome. We took off our caps +with distant ceremony; the Castilian hidalgos were never more stately; +but, then, what Knights of the Round Table ever splintered spears for +such a woman? + +The paces were measured, the pistols taken out of their case. We were +just placed, and Ruthven, with a handkerchief in his hand, had just +enumerated, in awful accents, "One! two!"--the "three!" yet hovered on +his lips, when we heard a laugh--the third laugh that had chilled my +blood in twenty-four hours. Somebody's hand was laid on Little Grand's +shoulder, and Conran's voice interrupted the whole thing. + +"Hallo, young ones! what farce is this?" + +"Farce, sir!" retorted Little Grand, hotly--"farce! It is no farce. It +is an affair of honor, and----" + +"Don't make me laugh, my dear boy," smiled Conran; "it is so much too +warm for such an exertion. Pray, why are you and your once sworn friend +making popinjays of each other?" + +"Mr. Grandison has grossly insulted me," I began, "and I demand +satisfaction. I will not stir from the ground without it, and----" + +"You _sha'n't_," shouted Little Grand. "Do you dare to pretend I want to +funk, you little contemptible----" + +Though it was too warm, Conran went off into a fit of laughter. + +I dare say our sublimity had a comic touch in it of which we never +dreamt. "My dear boys, pray don't, it is too fatiguing. Come, Grand, +what is it all about?" + +"I deny your right to question me, Major," retorted Little Grand, in a +fury. "What have you to do with it? I mean to punish that young owl +yonder--who didn't know how to drink anything but milk-and-water, didn't +know how to say bo! to a goose, till I taught him--for very abominable +impertinence, and I'll----" + +"My impertinence! I like that!" I shouted. "It is your unwarrantable, +overbearing self-conceit, that makes you the laughing-stock of all the +mess, which----" + +"Silence!" said Conran's still stern voice, which subdued us into +involuntary respect. "No more of this nonsense! Put up those pistols, +Ruthven. You are two hot-headed, silly boys, who don't know for what you +are quarrelling. Live a few years longer, and you won't be so eager to +get into hot water, and put cartridges into your best friends. No, I +shall not hear any more about it. If you do not instantly give me your +words of honor not to attempt to repeat this folly, as your senior +officer I shall put you under arrest for six weeks." + +O Alexandra Dumas!--O Monte Cristo!--O heroes of yellow paper and pluck +invincible! I ask pardon of your shades; I must record the fact, +lowering and melancholy as it is, that before our senior officer our +heroism melted like Vanille ice in the sun, our glories tumbled to the +ground like twelfth-cake ornaments under children's fingers, and before +the threat of arrest the lions lay down like lambs. + +Conran sent us back, humbled, sulky, and crestfallen, and resumed his +solitary patrol upon the beach, where, before the sun was fairly up, he +was having a shot at curlews. But if he was a little stern, he was no +less kind-hearted; and in the afternoon of that day, while he lay, after +his siesta, smoking on his little bed, I unburdened myself to him. He +did not laugh at me, though I saw a quizzical smile under his black +moustaches. + +"What is your divinity's name?" he asked, when I had finished. + +"Eudoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St. Julian." + +"The Marchioness St. Julian! Oh!" + +"Do you know her?" I inquired, somewhat perplexed by his tone. + +He smiled straight out this time. + +"I don't know _her_, but there are a good many Peeresses in Malta and +Gibraltar, and along the line of the Pacific, as my brother Ned, in the +_Belisarius_, will tell you. I could count two score such of my +acquaintance off at this minute." + +I wondered what he meant. I dare say he knew all the Peerage; but that +had nothing to do with me, and I thought it strange that all the +Duchesses, and Countesses, and Baronesses should quit their +country-seats and town-houses to locate themselves along the line of the +Pacific. + +"She's a fine woman, St. John?" he went on. + +"Fine!" I reiterated, bursting into a panegyric, with which I won't bore +you as I bored him. + +"Well, you're going there to-night, you say; take me with you, and we'll +see what I think of your Marchioness." + +I looked at his fine figure and features, recalled certain tales of his +conquests, remembered that he knew French, Italian, German, and Spanish, +but, not being very able to refuse, acquiesced with a reluctance I could +not entirely conceal. Conran, however, did not perceive it, and after +mess took his cap, and went with me to the Casa di Fiori. + +The rooms were all right again, my Marchioness was _en grande tenue_, +amber silk, black lace, diamonds, and all that sort of style. Fitzhervey +and the other men were in evening dress, drinking coffee; there was not +a trace of bottled porter anywhere, and it was all very brilliant and +presentable. The Marchioness St. Julian rose with the warmest effusion, +her dazzling white teeth showing in the sunniest of smiles, and both +hands outstretched. + +"Augustus, _bien aime_, you are rather----" + +"Late," I suppose she was going to say, but she stopped dead short, her +teeth remained parted in a stereotyped smile, a blankness of dismay came +over her luminous eyes. She caught sight of Conran, and I imagined I +heard a very low-breathed "Curse the fellow!" from courteous Lord Dolph. +Conran came forward, however, as if he did not notice it; there was only +that queer smile lurking under his moustaches. I introduced him to them, +and the Marchioness smiled again, and Fitzhervey almost resumed his +wonted extreme urbanity. But they were somehow or other wonderfully ill +at ease--wonderfully, for people in such high society; and I was ill at +ease too, from being only able to attribute Eudoxia Adelaida's evident +consternation at the sight of Conran to his having been some time or +other an old love of hers. "Ah!" thought I, grinding my teeth, "that +comes of loving a woman older than one's self." + +The Major, however, seemed the only one who enjoyed himself. The +Marchioness was beaming on him graciously, though her ruffled feathers +were not quite smoothed down, and he was sitting by her with an intense +amusement in his eyes, alternately talking to her about Stars and +Garters, whom, by her answers, she did not seem to know so very +intimately after all, and chatting with Fitzhervey about hunting, who, +for a man that had hunted over every country, according to his own +account, seemed to confuse Tom Edge with Tom Smith, the Burton with the +Tedworth, a bullfinch with an ox-rail, in queer style, under Conran's +cross-questioning. We had been in the room about ten minutes, when a +voice, rich, low, sweet, rang out from some inner room, singing the +glorious "Inflammatus." How strange it sounded in the Casa di Fiori! + +Conran started, the dark blood rose over the clear bronze of his cheek. +He turned sharply on to the Marchioness. "Good Heaven! whose voice is +that?" + +"My niece's," she answered, staring at him, and touching a hand-bell. "I +will ask her to come and sing to us nearer. She has really a lovely +voice." + +Conran grew pale again, and sat watching the door with the most +extraordinary anxiety. Some minutes went by; then Lucrezia entered, with +the same haughty reserve which her soft young face always wore when with +her aunt. It changed, though, when her glance fell on Conran, into the +wildest rapture I ever saw on any countenance. He fixed his eyes on her +with the look Little Grand says he's seen him wear in battle--a +contemptuous smile quivering on his face. + +"Sing us something, Lucrezia dear," began the Marchioness. "You +shouldn't be like the nightingales, and give your music only to night +and solitude." + +Lucrezia seemed not to hear her. She had never taken her eyes off +Conran, and she went, as dreamily as that dear little _Amina_ in the +"Sonnambula," to her seat under the jasmines in the window. For a few +minutes Conran, who didn't seem to care two straws what the society in +general thought of him, took his leave, to the relief, apparently, of +Fitzhervey and Guatamara. + +As he went across the veranda--that memorable veranda!--I sitting in +dudgeon near the other window, while Fitzhervey was proposing ecarte to +Heavy, whom we had found there on our entrance, and the Marchioness had +vanished into her boudoir for a moment, I saw the Roman girl spring out +after him, and catch hold of his arm: + +"Victor! Victor! for pity's sake!--I never thought we should meet like +this!" + +"Nor did I." + +"Hush! hush! you will kill me. In mercy, say some kinder words!" + +"I can say nothing that it would be courteous to you to say." + +I couldn't have been as inflexible, whatever her sins might have been, +with her hands clasped on me, and her face raised so close to mine. +Lucrezia's voice changed to a piteous wail: + +"You love me no longer, then?" + +"Love!" said Conran, fiercely--"love! How dare you speak to me of love? +I held you to be fond, innocent, true as Heaven; as such, you were +dearer to me than life--as dear as honor. I loved you with as deep a +passion as ever a man knew--Heaven help me! I love you now! How am I +rewarded? By finding you the companion of blackguards, the associate of +swindlers, one of the arch-intrigantes who lead on youths to ruin with +base smiles and devilish arts. Then you dare talk to me of love!" + +With those passionate words he threw her off him. She fell at his feet +with a low moan. He either did not hear, or did not heed it; and I, +bewildered by what I heard, mechanically went and lifted her from the +ground. Lucrezia had not fainted, but she looked so wild, that I +believed the Marchioness, and set her down as mad; but then Conran must +be mad as well, which seemed too incredible a thing for me to +swallow--our cool Major mad! + +"Where does he live?" asked Lucrezia of me, in a breathless whisper. + +"He? Who?" + +"Victor--your officer--Signor Conran." + +"Why, he lives in Valetta, of course." + +"Can I find him there?" + +"I dare say, if you want him." + +"Want him! Oh, Santa Maria! is not his absence death? Can I find him?" + +"Oh, yes, I dare say. Anybody will show you Conran's rooms." + +"Thank you." + +With that, this mysterious young lady left me, and I turned in through +the window again. Heavy and the men were playing at lansquenet, that +most perilous, rapid, and bewitching of all the resistless Card Circes. +There was no Marchioness, and having done it once with impunity, I +thought I might do it again, and lifted the amber curtain that divided +the boudoir from the drawing-room. What did I behold? Oh! torture +unexampled! Oh! fiendish agony! There was Little Grand--self-conceited, +insulting, impertinent, abominable, unendurable Little Grand--on the +amber satin couch, with the Marchioness leaning her head on his +shoulder, and looking up in his thrice-confounded face with her most +adorable smile, _my_ smile, that had beamed, and, as I thought, beamed +only upon me! + +If Mephistopheles had been by to tempt me, I would have sold my soul to +have wreaked vengeance on them both. Neither saw me, thank Heaven! and I +had self-possession enough not to give them the cruel triumph of +witnessing my anguish. I withdrew in silence, dropped the curtain, and +rushed to bury my wrongs and sorrows in the friendly bosom of the gentle +night. It was my first love, and I had made a fool of myself. The two +are synonymous. + +How I reached the barracks I never knew. All the night long I sat +watching the stars out, raving to them of Eudoxia Adelaida, and cursing +in plentiful anathemas my late Orestes. How should I bear his impudent +grin every mortal night of my life across the mess-table? I tore up into +shreds about a ream of paper, inscribed with tender sonnets to my +faithless idol. I trampled into fifty thousand shreds a rosette off her +dress, for which, fool-like, I had begged the day before. I smashed the +looking-glass, which could only show me the image of a pitiful donkey. I +called on Heaven to redress my wrongs. Oh! curse it! never was a fellow +at once so utterly done for and so utterly done brown! + +And in the vicarage, as I learnt afterwards, when my letter was received +at home, there was great glorification and pleasure. My mother and the +girls were enraptured at the high society darling Gussy was moving in; +"but then, you know, mamma, dear Gussy's manners are so gentle, so +gentleman-like, they are sure to please wherever he goes!" Wherewith my +mother cried, and dried her eyes, and cried again, over that abominable +letter copied from Little Grand's, and smelling of vilest tobacco. + +Then entered a rectoress of a neighboring parish, to whom my mother and +the girls related with innocent exultation of my grand friends at Malta; +how Lord A. Fitzhervey was my sworn ally, and the Marchioness St. Julian +had quite taken me under her wing. And the rectoress, having a son of +her own, who was not doing anything so grand at Cambridge, but +principally sotting beer at a Cherryhinton public, smiled and was +wrathful, and said to her lord at dinner: + +"My dear, did you ever hear of a Marchioness St. Julian?" + +"No, my love, I believe not--never." + +"Is there one in the peerage?" + +"Can't say, my dear. Look in Burke." + +So the rectoress got Burke and closed it, after deliberate inspection, +with malignant satisfaction. + +"I thought not. How ridiculous those St. Johns are about that ugly boy +Augustus. As if Tom were not worth a hundred of him!" + +I was too occupied with my own miseries then to think about Conran and +Lucrezia, though some time after I heard all about it. It seems, that, a +year before, Conran was on leave in Rome, and at Rome, loitering about +the Campagna one day, he made a chance acquaintance with an Italian +girl, by getting some flowers for her she had tried to reach and could +not. She was young, enthusiastic, intensely interesting, and had only an +old Roman nurse, deaf as a post and purblind, with her. The girl was +Lucrezia da Guari, and Lucrezia was lovely as one of her own myrtle or +orange flowers. Somehow or other Conran went there the next day, and the +next, and the next, and so on for a good many days, and always found +Lucrezia. Now, Conran had at bottom a touch of unstirred romance, and, +moreover, his own idea of what sort of woman he could love. Something in +this untrained yet winning Campagna flower answered to both. He was old +to trust his own discernment, and, after a month or two's walks and +talks, Conran, one of the proudest men going, offered himself and his +name to a Roman girl of whom he knew nothing, except that she seemed to +care for him as he had had a fancy to be cared for all his life. It was +a deucedly romantic thing--however, he did it! Lucrezia had told him her +father was a military officer, but somehow or other this father never +came to light, and when he called at their house--or rather +rooms--Conran always found him out, which he thought queer, but, on the +whole, rather providential, and he set the accident down to a +foreigner's roaming habits. + +The day Conran had really gone the length of offering to make an unknown +Italian his wife, he went, for the first time in the evening, to Da +Guari's house. The servant showed him in unannounced to a +brightly-lighted chamber, reeking with wine and smoke, where a dozen men +were playing trente et quarante at an amateur bank, and two or three +others were gathered round what he had believed his own fair and pure +Campagna flower. He understood it all; he turned away with a curse upon +him. He wanted love and innocence; adventuresses he could have by the +score, and he was sick to death of them. From that hour he never saw her +again till he met her at the Casa di Fiori. + +The next day I went to Conran while he was breakfasting, and unburdened +my mind to him. He looked ill and haggard, but he listened to me very +kindly, though he spoke of the people at the Casa di Fiori in a hard, +brief, curious manner. + +"Plenty have been taken in like you, Gus," he said "I was, years ago, in +my youth, when I joined the Army. There are scores of such women, as I +told you, down the line of the Pacific, and about here; anywhere, in +fact, where the army and navy give them fresh pigeons to be gulled. They +take titles that sound grand in boys' ears, and fascinate them till +they've won all their money, and then--send them to the dogs. Your +Marchioness St. Julian's real name is Sarah Briggs." + +I gave an involuntary shriek. Sarah Briggs finished me. It was the +death-stroke, that could never be got over. + +"She was a ballet-girl in London," continued Conran; "then, when she was +sixteen, married that Fitzhervey, _alias_ Briggs, _alias_ Smith, _alias_ +what you please, and set up in her present more lucrative employment +with her three or four confederates. Saint-Jeu was expelled from Paris +for keeping a hell in the Chaussee d'Antin, Fitzhervey was a leg at +Newmarket, Orangia Magnolia a lawyer's clerk, who was had up for +forgery, Guatamara is--by another name--a scoundrel of Rome. There is +the history of your Maltese Peerage, Gussy. Well, you'll be wider awake +next time. Wait, there is somebody at my door. Stay here a moment, I'll +come back to you." + +Accordingly, I stayed in his bedroom, where I had found him writing, and +he went into his sitting-room, of which, from the diminutiveness of his +domicile, I commanded a full view, sit where I would. What was my +astonishment to see Lucrezia! I went to his bedroom door; it was locked +from the outside, so I perforce remained where I was, to, _nolens +volens_, witness the finish of last night's interview. + +Stern to the last extent and deadly pale, Conran stood, too surprised to +speak, and most probably at a loss for words. + +Lucrezia came up to him nevertheless with the abandonment of youth and +southern blood. + +"Victor! Victor! let me speak to you. You shall listen; you shall not +judge me unheard." + +"Signorina, I have judged you by only too ample evidence." + +He had recovered himself now, and was as cool as needs be. + +"I deny it. But you love me still?" + +"Love you? More shame on me! A laugh, a compliment, a caress, a +cashmere, is as much as such women as you are worth. Love becomes +ridiculous named in the same breath with you." + +She caught hold of his hand and crushed it in both her own. + +"Kill me you will. Death would have no sting from your hand, but never +speak such words to _me_." + +His voice trembled. + +"How can I choose but speak them? You know that I believed you in Italy, +and how on that belief I offered you my name--a name never yet stained, +never yet held unworthy. I lost you, to find you in society which +stamped you for ever. A lovely fiend, holding raw boys enchained, that +your associates might rifle their purses with marked cards and cogged +dice. I hoped to have found a diamond, without spot or flaw. I +discovered my error too late; it was only glass, which all men were free +to pick up and trample on at their pleasure." + +He tried to wrench his hand away, but she would not let it go. + +"Hush! hush! listen to me first. If you once thought me worthy of your +love, you may, surely, now accord me pity. I shall not trouble you long. +After this, you need see me no more. I am going back to my old convent. +You and the world will soon forget me, but I shall remember you, and +pray for you, as dearer than my own soul." + +Conran's head was bent down now, and his voice was thick, as he answered +briefly, + +"Go on." + +This scene half consoled me for Eudoxia Adelaida--(I mean, O Heavens, +Sarah Briggs!)--it was so exquisitely romantic, and Conran and Lucrezia +wouldn't have done at all badly for Monte Cristo and that dear little +Haidee. I was fearfully poetic in those days. + +"When I met you in Rome," Lucrezia went on, in obedience to his +injunction, "two years ago, you remember I had only left my convent and +lived with my father but a month or two. I told you he was an officer. I +only said what I had been told, and I knew no more than you that he was +the keeper of a gambling house." + +She shuddered as she paused, and leaned her forehead on Conran's hand. +He did not repulse her, and she continued, in her broken, simple +English: + +"The evening you promised me what I should have needed to have been an +angel to be worthy of--your love and your name--that very evening, when +I reached home, my father bade me dress for a soiree he was going to +give. I obeyed him, of course. I knew nothing but what he told me, and I +went down, to find a dozen young nobles and a few Englishmen drinking +and playing on a table covered with green cloth. Some few of them came +up to me, but I felt frightened; their looks, their tones, their florid +compliments, were so different to yours. But my father kept his eye on +me, and would not let me leave. While they were leaning over my chair, +and whispering in my ear, _you_ came to the door of the salon, and I +went towards you, and you looked cold, and harsh, as I had never seen +you before, and put me aside, and turned away without a word. Oh, +Victor! why did you not kill me then? Death would have been kindness. +Your Othello was kinder to Desdemona; he slew her--he did not _leave_ +her. From that hour I never saw you, and from that hour my father +persecuted me because I would never join in his schemes, nor enter his +vile gaming-rooms. Yet I have lived with him, because I could not get +away. I have been too carefully watched. We Italians are not free, like +your happy English girls. A few weeks ago we were compelled to leave +Rome, the young Contino di Firenze had been stilettoed leaving my +father's rooms, and he could stay in Italy no longer. We came here, and +joined that hateful woman, who calls herself Marchioness St. Julian; +and, because she could not bend me to her will, gives out that I am her +niece, and mad! I wonder I am _not_ mad, Victor. I wish hearts would +break, as the romancers make them; but how long one suffers and lives +on! Oh, my love, my soul, my life, only say that you believe me, and +look kindly at me once again, then I will never trouble you again, I +will only pray for you. But believe me, Victor. The Mother Superior of +my convent will tell you it is the truth that I speak. Oh, for the love +of Heaven, believe me! Believe me or I shall die!" + +It was not in the nature of man to resist her; there was truth in the +girl's voice and face, if ever truth walked abroad on earth. And Conran +did believe her, and told her so in a few unconnected words, lifting her +up in his arms, and vowing, with most unrighteous oaths, that her father +should never have power to persecute her again as long as he himself +lived to shelter and take care of her. + +I was so interested in my Monte Cristo and Haidee (it was so like a +chapter out of a book), that I entirely forgot my durance vile, and my +novel and excessively disgraceful, though enforced, occupation of spy; +and there I stayed, alternating between my interest in them and my +agonies at the revelations concerning my Eudoxia Adelaida--oh, hang it! +I mean Sarah Briggs--till, after a most confounded long time, Conran saw +fit to take Lucrezia off, to get asylum for her with the Colonel's wife +for a day or two, that "those fools might not misconstrue her." By which +comprehensive epithet he, I suppose, politely designated "Ours." + +Then I went my ways to my own room, and there I found a scented, +mauve-hued, creamy billet-doux, in uncommon bad handwriting, though, +from my miserable Eudoxia Adelaida to the "friend and lover of her +soul." Confound the woman!--how I swore at that daintily-perfumed and +most vilely-scrawled letter. To think that where that beautiful +signature stretched from one side to the other--"Eudoxia Adelaida St. +Julian"--there _ought_ to have been that short, vile, low-bred, hideous, +Billingsgate cognomen of "Sarah Briggs!" + +In the note she reproached me--the wretched hypocrite!--for my departure +the previous night, "without one farewell to your Eudoxia, O cruel +Augustus!" and asked me to give her a rendezvous at some vineyards lying +a little way off the Casa di Fiori, on the road to Melita. Now, being a +foolish boy, and regarding myself as having been loved and wronged, +whereas I had only been playing the very common _role_ of pigeon, I +could not resist the temptation of going, just to take one last look of +that fair, cruel face, and upbraid her with being the first to sow the +fatal seeds of lifelong mistrust and misery in my only too fond and +faithful, &c. &c. &c. + +So, at the appointed hour, just when the sun was setting over the +far-away Spanish shore, and the hush of night was sinking over the +little, rocky, peppery, military-thick, Mediterranean isle, I found +myself _en route_ to the vineyards; which, till I came to Malta, had +been one of my delusions, Idea picturing them in wreaths and avenues, +Reality proving them hop-sticks and parched earth. I drew near; it was +quite dark now, the sun had gone to sleep under the blue waves, and the +moon was not yet up. Though I knew she was Sarah Briggs, and an +adventuress who had made game of me, two facts that one would fancy +might chill the passion out of anybody, so mad was I about that woman, +that, if I had met her then and there, I should have let her wheedle me +over, and gone back to the Casa di Fiori with her and been fleeced +again: I am sure I should, sir, and so would you, if, at eighteen, new +to life, you had fallen in with Eudox----pshaw!--with Sarah Briggs, my +Marchioness St Julian. + +I drew near the vineyards: my heart beat thick, I could not see, but I +was certain I heard the rustle of her dress, caught the perfume of her +hair. All her sins vanished: how could I upbraid her, though she were +three times over Sarah Briggs? Yes, she was coming; I _felt_ her near; +an electric thrill rushed through me as soul met soul. I heard a +murmured "Dearest, sweetest!" I felt the warm clasp of two arms, but--a +cold row of undress waistcoat-buttons came against my face, and a voice +I knew too well cried out, as I rebounded from him, impelled thereto by +a not gentle kick,-- + +"The devil! get out! Who the deuce are you?" + +We both stopped for breath. At that minute up rose the silver moon, and +in its tell-tale rays we glared on one another, I and Little Grand. + +That silence was sublime: the pause between Beethoven's andante +allegro--the second before the Spanish bull rushes upon the torreador. + +"You little miserable wretch!" burst out Grand, slowly and terribly; +"you little, mean, sneaking, spying, contemptible milksop! I should like +to know what you mean by bringing out your ugly phiz at this hour, when +you used to be afraid of stirring out for fear of nurse's bogies? And to +dare to come lurking after me!" + +"After you, Mr. Grandison!" I repeated, with grandiloquence. "Really you +put too much importance on your own movements. I came by appointment to +meet the Marchioness St. Julian, whom, I presume, as you are well +acquainted with her, you know in her real name of Sarah Briggs, and +to----" + +"Sarah Briggs!--_you_ come by appointment?" stammered Little Grand. + +"Yes, sir; if you disbelieve my word of honor, I will condescend to show +you my invitation." + +"You little ape!" swore Grand, coming back to his previous wrath; "it is +a lie, a most abominable, unwarrantable lie! _I_ came by appointment, +sir; you did no such thing. Look there!" + +And he flaunted before my eyes in the moonlight the fac-simile of my +letter, verbatim copy, save that in his Cosmo was put in the stead of +Augustus. + +"Look there!" said I, giving him mine. + +Little Grand snatched it, read it over once, twice, thrice, then drooped +his head, with a burning color in his face, and was silent. + +The "knowing hand" was done! + +We were both of us uncommonly quiet for ten minutes, neither of us liked +to be the first to give in. + +At last Little Grand looked up and held out his hand, no more nonsense +about him now. + +"Simon, you and I have been two great fools; we can't chaff one another. +She's a cursed actress, and--let's make it up, old boy." + +We made it up accordingly--when Little Grand was not conceited he was a +very jolly fellow--and then I gave him my whole key to the mysteries, +intricacies, and charms of our Casa di Fiori. We could not chaff one +another, but poor Little Grand was pitiably sore then, and for long +afterwards. He, the "old bird," the cool hand, the sharp one of Ours, to +have been done brown, to be the joke of the mess, the laugh of all the +men, down to the weest drummer-boy! Poor Little Grand! He was too done +up to swagger, too thoroughly angry with himself to swear at anybody +else. He only whispered to me, "Why the dickens could she want you and +me to meet our selves?" + +"To give us a finishing hoax, I suppose," I suggested. + +Little Grand drew his cap over his eyes, and hung his head down in +abject humiliation. + +"I suppose so. What fools we have been, Simon! And, I say, I've borrowed +three hundred of old Miraflores, and it's all gone up at that devilish +Casa; and how I shall get it from the governor, Heaven knows, for _I_ +don't." + +"I'm in the same pickle, Grand," I groaned. "I've given that old rascal +notes of hand for two hundred pounds, and, if it don't drop from the +clouds, I shall never pay it. Oh, I say, Grand, love comes deucedly +expensive." + +"Ah!" said he, with a sympathetic shiver, "think what a pair of hunters +we might have had for the money!" With which dismal and remorseful +remembrance the old bird, who had been trapped like a young pigeon, +swore mightily, and withdrew into humbled and disgusted silence. + +Next morning we heard, to our comfort--what lots of people there always +are to tell us how to lock our stable-door when our solitary mare has +been stolen--that, with a gentle hint from the police, the Marchioness +St. Julian, with her _confreres_, had taken wing to the Ionian Isles, +where, at Corfu or Cephalonia, they will re-erect the Casa di Fiori, and +glide gently on again from vingt-et-un to loo, and from loo to +lansquenet, under eyes as young and blinded as our own. They went +without Lucrezia. Conran took her into his own hands. Any other man in +the regiment would have been pretty well ridiculed at taking a bride out +of the Casa di Fiori; but the statements made by the high-born Abbess of +her Roman convert were so clear, and so to the girl's honor, and he had +such a way of holding his own, of keeping off liberties from himself and +anything belonging to him, and was, moreover, known to be of such +fastidious honor, that his young wife was received as if she had been a +Princess in her own right. With her respected parent Conran had a brief +interview previous to his flight from Malta, in which, with a few gentle +hints, he showed that worthy it would be wiser to leave his daughter +unmolested for the future, and I doubt if Mr. Orangia Magnolia, _alias_ +Pepe Guari, would know his own child in the joyous, graceful, +daintily-dressed mistress of Conran's handsome Parisian establishment. + +Little Grand and I suffered cruelly. We were the butts of the mess for +many a long month afterwards, when every idiot's tongue asked us on +every side after the health of the Marchioness St. Julian? when we were +going to teach them lansquenet? how often we heard from the aristocratic +members of the Maltese Peerage? with like delightful pleasantries, which +the questioners deemed high wit. We paid for it, too, to that arch old +screw Balthazar; but I doubt very much if the money were not well lost, +and the experience well gained. It cured me of my rawness and Little +Grand of his self-conceit, the only thing that had before spoilt that +good-hearted, quick-tempered, and clever-brained little fellow. Oh, +Pater and Materfamilias, disturb not yourselves so unnecessarily about +the crop of wild oats which your young ones are sowing broadcast. Those +wild oats often spring from a good field of high spirit, hot courage, +and thoughtless generosity, that are the sign and basis of nobler +virtues to come, and from them very often rise two goodly +plants--Experience and Discernment. + + + + +LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES: + +OR, + +THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. + +IN THREE SEASONS. + + +SEASON THE FIRST.--THE ELIGIBLE. + +One of the kindest-natured persons that I ever knew on this earth, where +kind people are as rare as black eagles or red deer, is Helena, Countess +of Marabout, _nee_ De Boncoeur. She has foibles, she has weaknesses--who +amongst us has not?--she will wear her dresses _decolletees_, though +she's sixty, if Burke tells us truth; she will rouge and practise a +thousand other little toilette tricks, but they are surely innocent, +since they deceive nobody; and if you wait for a woman who is no +artifices, I am afraid you shall have to forswear the sex _in toto_, my +friends, and come growling back to your Diogenes' tub in the Albany, +with your lantern still lit every day of your lives. + +Lady Marabout is a very charming person. As for her weaknesses, she is +all the nicer for them, to my taste. I like people with weaknesses +myself; those without them do look so dreadfully scornfully and +unsympathizingly upon one from the altitude of their superiority, _de +toute la hauteur de sa betise_, as a witty Frenchman says. Humanity was +born with weaknesses. If I were a beggar, I might hope for a coin from +a man with some; a man without any, I know, would shut up his +porte-monnaie, with an intensified click, to make me feel trebly +envious, and consign me to D 15 and his truncheon, on the score of +vagrancy. + +Lady Marabout is a very charming person, despite her little foibles, and +she gives very pleasant little dinners, both at her house in Lowndes +Square and in her jointure villa at Twickenham, where the bad odors of +Thames are drowned in the fragrance of the geraniums, piled in great +heaps of red, white, and variegated blossom in the flowerbeds on the +lawn. She has been married twice, but has only one son, by her first +union--Carruthers, of the Guards--a very good fellow, whom his mother +thinks perfection, though if she _did_ know certain scenes in her adored +Philip's life, the good lady might hesitate before she endowed her son +with all the cardinal virtues as she does at the present moment. She has +no daughters, therefore you will wonder to hear that the prime misery, +burden, discomfort, and worry of her life is chaperonage. But so it is. + +Lady Marabout is the essence of good nature; she can't say No: that +unpleasant negative monosyllable was never heard to issue from her full, +smiling, kind-looking lips: she is in a high position, she has an +extensive circle, thanks to her own family and those of the baronet and +peer she successively espoused; and some sister, or cousin, or friend, +is incessantly hunting her up to bring out their girls, and sell them +well off out of hand; young ladies being goods extremely likely to hang +_on_ hand nowadays. + +"Of all troubles, the troubles of a chaperone are the greatest," said +Lady Marabout to me at the wedding dejeuner of one of her protegees. "In +the first place, one looks on at others' campaigns instead of conducting +them one's self; secondly, it brings back one's own bright days to see +the young things' smiles and blushes, like that girl's just now (I do +hope she'll be happy!); and thirdly, one has all the responsibility, and +gets all the blame if anything goes wrong. I'll never chaperone anybody +again now I have got rid of Leila." + +So does Lady Marabout say twenty times; yet has she invariably some +young lady under her wing, whose relatives are defunct, or invalided, or +in India, or out of society somehow; and we all of us call her house The +Yard, and her (among ourselves) not Lady Marabout but Lady Tattersall. +The worries she has in her chaperone's office would fill a folio, +specially as her heart inclines to the encouragement of romance, but her +reason to the banishment thereof; and while her tenderness suffers if +she thwarts her protegees' leanings, her conscience gives her neuralgic +twinges if she abets them to unwise matches while under her dragonnage. + +"What's the matter, mother?" asked Carruthers, one morning. He's very +fond of his mother, and will never let any one laugh at her in his +hearing. + +"Matter? Everything!" replied Lady Marabout, concisely and +comprehensively, as she sat on the sofa in her boudoir, with her white +ringed hands and her _bien conserve_ look, and her kindly pleasant eyes +and her rich dress; one could see what a pretty woman she has been, and +that Carruthers may thank her for his good looks. "To begin with, +Felicie has been so stupid as to marry; married the greengrocer (whom +she will ruin in a week!), and has left me to the mercies of a stupid +woman who puts pink with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue with +azureline, and has no recommendation except that she is as ugly as the +Medusa, and so will not tempt you to----" + +"Make love to her, as I did to Marie," laughed Carruthers. "Marie was a +pretty little dear; it was very severe in you to send her away." + +Lady Marabout tried hard to look severe and condemnatory, but failed +signally, nature had formed the smooth brow and the kindly eyes in far +too soft a mould. + +"Don't jest about it, Philip; you know it was a great pain, annoyance, +and scandal to me. Well! Felicie is gone, and Oakes was seen pawning +some of my Mechlin the other day, so I have been obliged to discharge +_her_; and they both of them suited me so well! Then Bijou is ill, poor +little pet----" + +"With repletion of chicken panada?" + +"No; Bijou isn't such a gourmet. You judge him by yourself, I suppose; +men always do! Then Lady Hautton told me last night that you were the +wildest man on town, and at forty----" + +"You think I ought to _ranger_? So I will, my dear mother, some day; but +at present I am--so very comfortable; it would be a pity to alter! What +pains one's friends are always at to tell unpalatable things; if they +would but be only half so eager to tell us the pleasant ones! I shall +expect you to cut Lady Hautton if she speak badly of me, I can't afford +to lose your worship, mother!" + +"My worship? How conceited you are, Philip! As for Lady Hautton, I +believe she does dislike you, because you did not engage yourself to +Adelina, and were selected aide-de-camp to her Majesty, instead of +Hautton; still, I am afraid she spoke too nearly the truth." + +"Perhaps Marie has entered her service and told tales." + +But Lady Marabout wouldn't laugh, she always looks very grave about +Marie. + +"My worst trouble," she began hastily, "is that your aunt Honiton is too +ill to come to town; no chance of her being well enough to come at all +this season; and of course the charge of Valencia has devolved on me. +You know how I hate chaperoning, and I did _so_ hope I should be free +this year; besides, Valencia is a great responsibility, very great; a +girl of so much beauty always is; there will be sure to be so many men +about her at once, and your aunt will expect me to marry her so very +well. It is excessively annoying." + +"My poor dear mother!" cried Carruthers. "I grant you _are_ an object of +pity. You are everlastingly having young fillies sent you to break in, +and they want such a tight hand on the ribbons." + +"And a tight hand, as you call it, I never had, and never shall have," +sighed Lady Marabout. "Valencia will be no trouble to me on that score, +however; she has been admirably educated, knows all that is due to her +position, and will never give me a moment's anxiety by any imprudence or +inadvertence. But she is excessively handsome, and a beauty is a great +responsibility when she first comes out." + +"Val was always a handsome child, if I remember. I dare say she is a +beauty now. When is she coming up? because I'll tell the men to mark the +house and keep clear of it," laughed Carruthers. "You're a dreadfully +dangerous person, mother; you have always the best-looking girl in town +with you. Fulke Nugent says if he should ever want such a thing as a +wife when he comes into the title, he shall take a look at the Marabout +Yearlings Sale." + +"Abominably rude of you and your friends to talk me over in your turf +slang! I wish _you_ would come and bid at the sale, Philip; I should +like to see you married--well married, of course." + +"My beloved mother!" cried Carruthers. "Leave me in peace, if you +please, and catch the others if you can. There's Goodey, now; every +chaperone and debutante in London has set traps for him for the last I +don't know how many years; wouldn't he do for Valencia?" + +"Goodwood? Of course he would; he would do for any one; the Dukedom's +the oldest in the peerage. Goodwood is highly eligible. Thank you for +reminding me, Philip. Since Valencia is coming, I must do my best for +her." Which phrase meant with Lady Marabout that she must be very +lynx-eyed as to settlements, and a perfect dragon to all detrimental +connections, must frown with Medusa severity on all horrors of younger +sons, and advocate with all the weight of personal experience the +advantage and agremens of a good position, in all of which +practicalities she generally broke down, with humiliation unspeakable, +immediately her heart was enlisted and her sympathies appealed to on the +enemy's side. She sighed, played with her bracelets thoughtfully, and +then, heroically resigning herself to her impending fate, brightened up +a little, and asked her son to go and choose a new pair of +carriage-horses for her. + +To look at Lady Marabout as she sat in her amber satin couch that +morning, pleasant, smiling, well-dressed, well-looking, with the grace +of good birth and the sunniness of good nature plainly written on her +smooth brow and her kindly eyes, and wealth--delicious little +god!--stamping itself all about her, from the diamond rings on her soft +white fingers to the broidered shoe on the feet, of whose smallness she +was still proud, one might have ignorantly imagined her to be the most +happy, enviable, well-conditioned, easy-going dowager in the United +Kingdom. But appearances are deceptive, and if we believe what she +constantly asserted, Lady Marabout was very nearly worn into her grave +by a thousand troubles; her almshouses, whose roofs would eternally blow +off with each high wind; her dogs, whom she would overfeed; her ladies' +maids, who were only hired to steal, tease, or scandalize her; the +begging letter-writers, who distilled tears from her eyes and sovereigns +from her purse, let Carruthers disclose their hypocrisies as he might; +the bolder begging-letters, written by hon. secs., and headed by names +with long handles, belonging to Pillars of the State and Lights of the +Church, which compelled her to make a miserable choice between a +straitened income or a remorseful conscience--tormented, in fine, with +worries small and large, from her ferns, on which she spent a large +fortune, and who drooped maliciously in their glass cases, with an +ill-natured obstinacy characteristic of desperately-courted individuals, +whether of the floral or the human world, to those marriageable young +ladies whom she took under her wing to usher into the great world, and +who were certain to run counter to her wishes and overthrow her plans, +to marry ill, or not marry at all, or do something or other to throw +discredit on her chaperoning abilities. She was, she assured us, +_petrie_ with worries, small and large, specially as she was so +eminently sunny, affable, and radiant a looking person, that all the +world took their troubles to her, selected her as their confidante, and +made her the repository of their annoyances; but her climax of misery +was to be compelled to chaperone, and as a petition for some debutante +to be intrusted to her care was invariably made each season, and "No" +was a monosyllable into which her lips utterly refused to form +themselves, each season did her life become a burden to her. There was +never any rest for the soul of Helena, Countess of Marabout, till her +house in Lowndes Square was shut up, and her charges off her hand, and +she could return in peace to her jointure-villa at Twickenham, or to +Carruthers' old Hall of Deepdene, and among her flowers, her birds, and +her hobbies, throw off for a while the weary burden of her worries as a +chaperone. + +"Valencia will give me little trouble, I hope. So admirably brought-up a +girl, and so handsome as she is, will be sure to marry soon, and marry +well," thought Lady Marabout, self-congratulatorily, as she dressed for +dinner the day of her niece's arrival in town, running over mentally the +qualifications and attractions of Valencia Valletort, while Felicie's +successor, Mademoiselle Despreaux, whose crime was then to put pink +with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue with azureline, gave the +finishing touches to her toilette--"Valencia will give me no trouble; +she has all the De Boncoeur beauty, with the Valletort dignity. Who +would do for her? Let me see; eligible men are not abundant, and those +that are eligible are shy of being marked as Philip would say--perhaps +from being hunted so much, poor things! There is Fulke Nugent, heir to a +barony, and his father is ninety--very rich, too--he would do; and +Philip's friend, Caradoc, poor, I know, but their Earldom's the oldest +peerage patent. There is Eyre Lee, too; I don't much like the man, +supercilious and empty-headed; still he's an unobjectionable alliance. +And there is Goodwood. Every one has tried for Goodwood, and failed. I +should like Valencia to win him; he is decidedly the most eligible man +in town. I will invite him to dinner. If he is not attracted by +Valencia's beauty, nothing can attract him----_Despreaux! comme vous +etes bete! Otez ces panaches, de grace!_" + +"Valencia will give me no trouble; she will marry at once," thought Lady +Marabout again, looking across the dinner-table at her niece. + +If any young patrician might be likely to marry at once, it was the Hon. +Valencia Valletort; she was, to the most critical, a beauty: her figure +was perfect, her features were perfect, and if you complained that her +large glorious eyes were a trifle too changeless in expression, that her +cheek, exquisitely independent of Marechale powder, Blanc de Perle, and +liquid rouge, though it was, rarely varied with her thoughts and +feelings, why, you were very exacting, my good fellow, and should +remember that nothing is quite perfect on the face of the earth--not +even a racer or a woman--and that whether you bid at the Marabout +yearling sales or the Rawcliffe, if you wish to be pleased you'd better +leave a hypercritical spirit behind you, and not expect to get _all_ +points to your liking. The best filly will have something faulty in +temper or breeding, symmetry or pace, for your friend Jack Martingale to +have the fun of pointing out to you when your money is paid and the +filly in your stall; and your wife will have the same, only Martingale +will point _her_ flaws out behind your back, and only hint them to you +with an all-expressive "Not allowed to smoke in the dining-room _now_!" +"A little bit of a flirt, madame--n'est-ce pas, Charlie?" "Reins kept +rather tight, eh, old fellow?" or something equally ambiguous, +significant, and unpleasant. + +"I must consider, Philip, I have brought out the beauty of the season," +said Lady Marabout to Carruthers, eying her niece as she danced at her +first ball at the Dowager-Duchess of Amandine's, and beginning to +brighten up a little under the weight of her responsibilities. + +"I think you have, mother. Val's indisputably handsome. You must tell +her to make play with Goodwood or Nugent." + +Lady Marabout unfurled her fan, and indignantly interrupted him: + +"My dear Philip! do you suppose I would teach Valencia, or any girl +under my charge, to lay herself out for any man, whoever or whatever it +might be? I trust your cousin would not stoop to use such manoeuvres, +did I even stoop to counsel them. Depend upon it, Philip, it is +precisely those women who try to 'make play,' as you call it, with your +sex that fail most to charm them. It is abominable the way in which you +men talk, as if we all hunted you down, and would drive you to St. +George's _nolens volens_!" + +"So you would, mother," laughed Carruthers. "We 'eligible men' have a +harder life of it than rabbits in a warren, with a dozen beagles after +them. From the minute we're of age we're beset with traps for the +unwary, and the spring-guns are so dexterously covered, with an +inviting, innocent-looking turf of courtesies and hospitalities that +it's next to a mural impossibility to escape them, let one retire into +one's self, keep to monosyllables through all the courses of all the +dinners and all the turns of all the valses, and avoid everything +'compromising,' as one may. I've suffered, and can tell you. I suffer +still, though I believe and hope they are beginning to look on me as an +incurable, given over to the clubs, the coulisses, and the cover-side. +There's a fellow that's known still more of the _peines fortes et dures_ +than I. Goodwood's coming to ask for an introduction to Val, I would +bet." + +He was coming for that purpose, and, though Lady Marabout had so +scornfully and sincerely repudiated her son's counsel relative to making +play with Goodwood, blandly ignorant of her own weaknesses like a good +many other people, Lady Marabout was not above a glow of chaperone +gratification when she saw the glance of admiration which the Pet +Eligible of the season bestowed on Valencia Valletort. Goodwood was a +good-looking fellow--a clever fellow--though possibly he shone best +alone at a mess luncheon, in a chat driving to Hornsey Wood, round the +fire in a smoking-room, on a yacht deck, or anywhere where ladies of the +titled world were not encountered, he having become afraid of them by +dint of much persecution, as any October partridge of a setter's nose. +He was passably good-looking, ordinarily clever, a very good fellow as I +say, and--he was elder son of his Grace of Doncaster, which fact would +have made him the desired of every unit of the _beau sexe_, had he been +hideous as the Veiled Prophet or Brutal Gilles de Rayes. The Beauty +often loves the Beast in our day, as in the days of fairy lore. We see +that beloved story of our petticoat days not seldom acted out, and when +there is no possibility of personal transmogrification and amelioration +for the Beast moreover; only--the Beauty has always had whispered in +her little ear the title she will win, and the revenues she will gain, +and the cloth of gold she will wear, if she caresses Bruin the +enamoured, swears his ugly head is god-like, and vows fidelity +unswerving! + +Goodwood was no uncouth Bruin, and he had strawberry-leaves in his gift; +none of your lacquered, or ormolu, or silver-gilt coronets, such as are +cast about nowadays with a liberality that reminds one of flinging a +handful of halfpence from a balcony, where the nimblest beggar is first +to get the prize; but of the purest and best gold; and Goodwood had been +tried for accordingly by every woman he came across for the last dozen +years. Women of every style and every order had primed all their rifles, +and had their shot at him, and done their best to make a centre and +score themselves as winner: belles and bas bleus, bewitching widows and +budding debutantes, fast young ladies who tried to capture him in the +hunting-field by clearing a bullfinch; saintly young ladies, who +illuminated missals, and hinted they would like to take his conversion +in hand; brilliant women, who talked at him all through a long rainy +day, when Perthshire was flooded, and the black-fowl unattainable; showy +women, who _pose'd_ for him whole evenings in their opera-boxes, whole +mornings in their boudoir--all styles and orders had set at him, till he +had sometimes sworn in his haste that all women were man-traps, and that +he wished to Heaven he were a younger son in the Foreign Office, or a +poor devil in the Line, or anything, rather than what he was; the Pet +Eligible of his day. + +"Goodwood is certainly struck with her," thought Lady Marabout, as +Despreaux disrobed her that night, running over with a retrogressive +glance Valencia Valletort's successes at her first ball. "Very much +struck, indeed, I should say. I will issue cards for another 'At Home.' +As for 'making play' with him, as Philip terms it, of course that is +only a man's nonsense. Valencia will need none of those trickeries, I +trust; still, it is any one's duty to make the best alliance possible +for such a girl, and--dear Adeliza would be very pleased." + +With which amiable remembrance of her sister (whom, conceiving it her +duty to love, Lady Marabout persuaded herself that she _did_ love, from +a common feminine opticism that there's an eleventh commandment which +makes it compulsory to be attached to relatives _n'importe_ of whatever +degree of disagreeability, though Lady Honiton was about the most odious +hypochondriac going, in a perpetual state of unremitting battle with the +whole outer world in general, and allopathists, homoeopathists, and +hydropathists in especial), the most amiable lady in all Christendom +bade Despreaux bring up her cup of coffee an hour earlier in the +morning, she had so much to do! asked if Bijou had had some panada set +down by his basket in case he wanted something to take in the night; +wished her maid good night, and laid her head on her pillow as the dawn +streamed through the shutters, already settling what bridal presents she +should give her niece Valencia, when she became present Marchioness of +Goodwood and prospective Duchess of Doncaster before the altar rails of +St. George's. + +"That's a decidedly handsome girl, that cousin of yours, Phil," said +Goodwood, on the pavement before her Grace of Amandine's, in Grosvenor +Place, at the same hour that night. + +"I think she _is_ counted like me!" said Carruthers. "Of course she's +handsome; hasn't she De Boncoeur blood in her, my good fellow? We're all +of us good-looking, always have been, thank God! If you're inclined to +sacrifice, Goodwood, now's your time, and my mother'll be delighted. +She's brought out about half a million of debutantes, I should say, in +her time, and all of 'em have gone wrong, somehow; wouldn't go off at +all, like damp gunpowder, or would go off too quick in the wrong +direction, like a volunteer's rifle charge; married ignominiously, or +married obstinately, or never excited pity in the breast of any man, but +had to retire to single-blessedness in the country, console themselves +with piety and an harmonium, and spread nets for young clerical victims. +Give her a triumph at last, and let her have glory for once, as a +chaperone, in catching _you_!" + +Goodwood gave a little shiver, and tried to light a Manilla, which +utterly refused to take light, for the twelfth time in half a minute. + +"Hold your tongue! If the Templars' Order were extant, wouldn't I take +the vows and bless them! What an unspeakable comfort and protection that +white cross would be to us, Phil, if we could stick it on our coats, and +know it would say to every woman that looked at us, 'No go, my pretty +little dears--not to be caught!' Marriage! I can't remember any time +that that word wasn't my bugbear. When I was but a little chicken, some +four years old, I distinctly remember, when I was playing with little +Ida Keane on the terrace, hearing her mother simper to mine, 'Perhaps +darling Goodwood may marry my little Ida some day, who knows?' I never +would play with Ida afterwards; instinct preserved me; she's six or +seven-and thirty now, and weighs ten stone, I'm positive. Why _won't_ +they let us alone? The way journalists and dowagers, the fellows who +want to write a taking article, and the women who want to get rid of a +taking daughter, all badger us, in public and private, about marriage +just now, is abominable, on my life; the affair's _ours_, I should say, +not theirs, and to marry isn't the ultimatum of a man's existence, nor +anything like it." + +"I hope not! It's more like the extinguisher. Good night, old fellow." +And Carruthers drove away in his hansom, while Goodwood got into his +night-brougham, thinking that for the sake of the title, the evil +(nuptial) day _must_ come, sooner or later, but dashed off to forget +the disagreeable obligation over the supper-table of the most sparkling +empress of the demi-monde. + +Lady Marabout had her wish; she brought out the belle of the season, and +when a little time had slipped by, when the Hon. Val had been presented +at the first Drawing-room, and shone there despite the worry, muddle, +and squeeze incidental to that royal and fashionable ceremony, and she +had gathered second-hand from her son what was said in the clubs +relative to this new specimen of the Valletort beauty, she began to be +happier under her duties than she had ever been before, and wrote +letters to "dearest Adeliza," brimful of superlative adjectives and +genuine warmth. + +"Valencia will do me credit: I shall see her engaged before the end of +June; she will have only to choose," Lady Marabout would say to herself +some twenty times in the pauses of the morning concerts, the morning +parties, the bazaar committees, the toilette consultations, the +audiences to religious beggars, whose name was Legion and rapacity +unmeasured, the mass of unanswered correspondence whose debt lay as +heavily on Lady Marabout as his chains on a convict, and were about as +little likely to be knocked off, and all the other things innumerable +that made her life in the season one teetotum whirl of small worries and +sunshiny cares, from the moment she began her day, with her earliest cup +of Mocha softened with cream from that pet dairy of hers at Fernditton, +where, according to Lady Marabout, the cows were constantly _in articulo +mortis_, but the milk invariably richer than anywhere else, an +agricultural anomaly which presented no difficulties to _her_ reason. +Like all women, she loved paradoxes, defied logic recklessly, and would +clear at a bound a chasm of solecisms that would have kept Plato in +difficulties about crossing it, and in doubt about the strength of his +jumping-pole, all his life long. + +"She will do me great credit," the semi-consoled chaperone would say to +herself with self-congratulatory relief; and if Lady Marabout thought +now and then, "I wish she were a trifle--a trifle more--demonstrative," +she instantly checked such an ungrateful and hypercritical wish, and +remembered that a heart is a highly treacherous and unadvisable +possession for any young lady, and a most happy omission in her anatomy, +though Lady Marabout had, she would confess to herself on occasions with +great self-reproach, an unworthy and lingering weakness for that +contraband article, for which she scorned and scolded herself with the +very worst success. + +Lady Marabout _had_ a heart herself; to it she had had to date the +greatest worries, troubles, imprudences, and vexations of her life; she +had had to thank it for nothing, and to dislike it for much; it had made +her grieve most absurdly for other people's griefs; it had given her a +hundred unphilosophical pangs at philosophic ingratitude from people who +wanted her no longer; it had teased, worried, and plagued her all her +life long, had often interfered in the most meddling and inconvenient +manner between her and her reason, her comfort and her prudence; and yet +she had a weakness for the same detrimental organ in other people--a +weakness of which she could no more have cured herself than of her +belief in the detection-defying powers of liquid rouge, the potentiality +of a Liliputian night-bolt against an army of burglars, the miraculous +properties of sal volatile, the efficacy of sermons, and such-like +articles of faith common to feminine orthodoxy. A weakness of which she +never felt more ignominiously convicted and more secretly ashamed than +in the presence of Miss Valletort, that young lady having a lofty and +magnificent disdain for all such follies, quite unattainable to ordinary +mortals, which oppressed Lady Marabout with a humiliating sense of +inferiority to her niece of eighteen summers. "So admirably educated! so +admirably brought up!" she would say to herself over and over again, +and if heretic suggestions that the stiffest trained flowers are not +always the best, that the upright and spotless arum-lily isn't so +fragrant as the careless, brilliant, tangled clematis; that rose-boughs, +tossing free in sunshine and liberty, beat hollow the most +carefully-pruned standard that ever won a medal at Regent's Park, with +such-like allegories, arising from contemplation of her conservatory or +her balcony flowers, _would_ present themselves, Lady Marabout repressed +them dutifully, and gratefully thought how many pounds' weight lighter +became the weary burden of a chaperone's responsibilities when the +onerous charge had been educated "on the best system." + +"Goodwood's attentions _are_ serious, Philip, say what you like," said +the Countess to her son, as determinedly as a theologian states his pet +points with wool in his ears, that he may not hear any Satan-inspired, +rational, and mathematical disproval of them, with which you may rashly +seek to soil his tympana and smash his arguments--"Goodwood's attentions +_are_ serious, Philip, say what you like," said her ladyship, at a +morning party at Kew, eating her Neapolitan ice, complacently glancing +at the "most eligible alliance of the season," who was throwing the +balls at lawn-billiards, and talking between whiles to the Hon. Val with +praiseworthy and promising animation. + +"Serious indeed, mother, if they tend matrimony-wards!" smiled +Carruthers. "It's a very serious time indeed for unwary sparrows when +they lend an ear to the call-bird, and think about hopping on to the +lime-twigs. I should think it's from a sense of compunction for the net +you've led us into, that you all particularize our attentions, whenever +they point near St. George's, by that very suggestive little adjective +'serious!' Yes, I am half afraid poor Goodey is a little touched. He +threw over our Derby sweepstakes up at Hornsey Wood yesterday to go and +stifle himself in Willis's rooms at your bazaar, and buy a guinea cup +of Souchong from Valencia; and, considering he's one of the best shots +in England, I don't think you could have a more conclusive, if you could +have a more poetic, proof of devoted renunciation. _I_'d fifty times +rather get a spear in my side, a la Ivanhoe, for a woman than give up a +Pigeon-match, a Cup-day, or a Field-night!" + +"You'll never do either!" laughed Lady Marabout, who made it one of her +chief troubles that her son would not marry, chiefly, probably, because +if he _had_ married she would have been miserable, and thought no woman +good enough for him, would have been jealous of his wife's share of his +heart, and supremely wretched, I have no doubt, at his throwing himself +away, as she would have thought it, had his handkerchief lighted on a +Princess born, lovely as Galatea, and blessed with Venus's cestus. + +"Never, _plaise a Dieu_!" responded her son, piously over his ice; "but +if Goodwood's serious, what's Cardonnel? _He_'s lost his head, if you +like, after the Valletort beauty." + +"Major Cardonnel!" said Lady Marabout, hastily. "Oh no, I don't think +so. I hope not--I trust not." + +"Why so? He's one of the finest fellows in the Service." + +"I dare say; but you see, my dear Philip, he's not--not--desirable." + +Carruthers stroked his moustaches and laughed: + +"Fie, fie, mother! if all other Belgraviennes are Mammon-worshippers, I +thought you kept clear of the paganism. I thought your freedom from it +was the only touch by which you weren't 'purely feminine,' as the lady +novelists say of their pet bits of chill propriety." + +"Worship Mammon! Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Lady Marabout. "But there +are duties, you see, my dear; your friend is a very delightful man, to +be sure; I like him excessively, and if Valencia felt any _great_ +preference for him----" + +"You'd feel it _your_ duty to counsel her to throw him over for +Goodwood." + +"I never said so, Philip," interrupted Lady Marabout, with as near an +approach to asperity as she could achieve, which approach was less like +vinegar than most people's best honey. + +"But you implied it. What are 'duties' else, and why is poor Cardonnel +'not desirable'?" + +Lady Marabout played a little tattoo with her spoon in perplexity. + +"My dear Philip, you know as well as I do what I mean. One might think +you were a boy of twenty to hear you!" + +"My dear mother, like all disputants, when beaten in argument and driven +into a corner, you resort to vituperation of your opponent!" laughed +Carruthers, as he left her and lounged away to pick up the stick with +which pretty Flora Elmers had just knocked the pipe out of Aunt Sally's +head on to the velvet lawn of Lady George Frangipane's dower-house, +leaving his mother by no means tranquillized by his suggestions. + +"Dear me!" thought Lady Marabout, uneasily, as she conversed with the +Dowager-Countess of Patchouli on the respective beauties of two new +pelargonium seedlings, the Leucadia and the Beatrice, for which her +gardener had won prizes the day before at the Regent's Park Show--"dear +me! why is there invariably this sort of cross-purposes in everything? +It will be so grievous to lose Goodwood (and he _is_ decidedly struck +with her; when he bought that rosebud yesterday of her at the bazaar, +and put it in the breast of his waistcoat, I heard what he said, and it +was no nonsense, no mere flirting complaisance either)--it would be so +grievous to lose him; and yet if Valencia really care for Cardonnel--and +sometimes I almost fancy she does--I shouldn't know which way to advise. +I thought it would be odd if a season could pass quietly without my +having some worry of this sort! With fifty men always about Valencia, as +they are, how _can_ I be responsible for any mischief that may happen, +though, to hear Philip talk, one would really imagine it was _my_ fault +that they lost their heads, as he calls it! As if a forty-horse +steam-power could stop a man when he's once off down the incline into +love! The more you try to pull him back the more impetus you give him to +go headlong down. I wish Goodwood would propose, and we could settle the +affair definitively. It is singular, but she has had no offers hardly +with all her beauty. It is very singular, in _my_ first season I had +almost as many as I had names on my tablets at Almack's. But men don't +marry now, they say. Perhaps 'tisn't to be wondered at, though I +wouldn't allow it to Philip. Poor things! they lose a very great many +pleasant things by it, and get nothing, I'm sure, nine times out of ten, +except increased expenses and unwelcome worries. I don't think I would +have married if I'd been a man, though I'd never admit it, of course, to +one of them. There are plenty of women who know too much of their own +sex ever to wonder that a man doesn't marry, though of course we don't +say so; 'twouldn't be to our interest. Sculptors might as well preach +iconoclasm, or wine-merchants tee-totalism, as women misoganism, however +little in our hearts we may marvel at it. Oh, my dear Lady Patchouli! +you praise the Leucadia too kindly--you do indeed--but if you really +think so much of it, let me send you some slips. I shall be most happy, +and Fenton will be only too proud; it is his favorite seedling." + +Carruthers was quite right. One fellow at least had lost his head after +the beauty of the season, and he was Cardonnel, of the--Lancers, as fine +a fellow, as Philip said, as any in the Queen's, but a dreadful +detrimental in the eyes of all chaperones, because he was but the fourth +son of one of the poorest peers in the United Kingdom, a fact which +gave him an aegis from all assaults matrimonial, and a freedom from all +smiles and wiles, traps and gins, which Goodwood was accustomed to tell +him he bitterly envied him, and on which Cardonnel had fervently +congratulated himself, till he came under the fire of the Hon. Val's +large luminous eyes one night, when he was levelling his glass from his +stall at Lady Marabout's box, to take a look at the new belle, as +advised to do by that most fastidious female critic, Vane Steinberg. +Valencia Valletort's luminous eyes had gleamed that night under their +lashes, and pierced through the lenses of his lorgnon. He saw her, and +saw nothing but her afterwards, as men looking on the sun keep it on +their retina to the damage and exclusion of all other objects. + +Physical beauty, even when it is a little bit soulless, is an admirable +weapon for instantaneous slaughter, and the trained and pruned standard +roses show a very effective mass of bloom; though, as Lady Marabout's +floral tastes and experiences told her, they don't give one the lasting +pleasure that a careless bough of wild rose will do, with its untutored +grace and its natural fragrance. With the standard you see we keep in +the artificial air of the horticultural tent, and are never touched out +of it for a second; its perfume seems akin to a bouquet, and its destiny +is, we are sure, to a parterre. The wild-rose fragrance breathes of the +hill-side and the woodlands, and brings back to us soft touches of +memory, of youth, of a fairer life and a purer air than that in which we +are living now. + +The Hon. Val did _not_ have as many offers as her aunt and chaperone had +on the first flush of her pride in her anticipated. Young ladies, +educated on the "best systems," are apt to be a trifle wearisome, and +_don't_, somehow or other, take so well as the sedulous efforts of their +pruners and trainers--the rarefied moral atmosphere of the +conservatories, in which they are carefully screened from ordinary air, +and the anxiety evinced lest the flower should ever forget itself, and +sway naturally in the wind--deserve. But Cardonnel had gone mad after +her, that perfect face of hers had done for him; and whatever Goodwood +might be, _he_ was serious--he positively haunted the young beauty like +her own shadow--he was leaning on the rails every morning of his life +that she took her early ride--he sent her bouquets as lavishly as if +he'd been a nursery gardener. By some species of private surveillance, +or lover's clairvoyance, he knew beforehand where she would go, and was +at the concert, fete, morning party, bazaar, or whatever it happened to +be, as surely as was Lady Marabout herself. Poor Cardonnel was serious, +and fiercely fearful of his all-powerful and entirely eligible rival; +though greater friends than he and Goodwood had been, before this girl's +face appeared on the world of Belgravia, never lounged arm-in-arm into +Pratt's, or strolled down the "sweet shady side of Pall-Mall." + +Goodwood's attentions were very marked, too, even to eyes less willing +to construe them so than Lady Marabout's. Goodwood himself, if chaffed +on the subject, vouchsafed nothing; laughed, stroked his moustaches, or +puffed his cigar, if he happened to have that blessed resource in all +difficulties, and comforter under all embarrassments, between his lips +at the moment; but decidedly he sought Valencia Valletort more, or, to +speak more correctly, he shunned her less than he'd ever done any other +young lady, and one or two Sunday mornings--_mirabile dictu!_--he was +positively seen at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, in the seat behind Lady +Marabout's sittings. A fact which, combining as it did a brace of +miracles at once, of early rising and unusual piety, set every +Belgravienne in that fashionable sanctuary watching over the top of her +illuminated prayer-book, to the utter destruction of her hopes and +interruption of her orisons. + +Dowagers began to tremble behind their fans, young ladies to quake over +their bouquets; the topic was eagerly discussed by every woman from +Clarges Street to Lowndes Square; their Graces of Doncaster smiled well +pleased on Valencia--she was unquestionable blood, and they so wished +dear Goodwood to settle! There was whispered an awful whisper to the +whole female world; whispered over matutinal chocolate, and luncheon +Strasbourg pates, ball-supper Moets', and demi-monde-supper Silleri, +over Vane Steinberg's cigar and Eulalie Rosiere's cigarette, over the +_Morning Post_ in the clubs, and _Le Follet_ in the boudoir, that--the +Pet Eligible would--marry! That the Pet Prophecy of universal smash was +going to be fulfilled could hardly have occasioned greater +consternation. + +The soul of Lady Marabout had been disquieted ever since her son's +suggestions at Lady George Frangipane's morning party, and she began to +worry: for herself, for Valencia, for Goodwood, for Cardonnel, for her +responsibilities in general, and for her "dearest Adeliza's" alternate +opinions of her duenna qualifications in particular. Lady Marabout had +an intense wish, an innocent wish enough, as innocent and very similar +in its way to that of an Eton boy to make a centre at a rifle-contest, +viz., to win the Marquis of Goodwood; innocent, surely, for though +neither the rifle prize nor the Pet Eligible could be won without +mortification unspeakable to a host of unsuccessful aspirants, if we +decree that sort of thing sinful and selfish, as everything natural +seems to me to get decreed nowadays, we may as well shut up at once; if +we may not try for the top of the pole, why erect poles at all, +monsieur? If we must not do our best to pass our friend and brother, we +must give up climbing forever, and go on all fours placably with Don and +Pontos. + +Everybody has his ambition: one sighs for the Woolsack, another for the +Hunt Cup; somebody longs to be First Minister, somebody else pines to be +first dancer; one man plumes himself on a new fish-sauce, another on a +fresh reform bill; A. thirsts to get a single brief, B. for the time +when he shall be worried with no briefs at all; C. sets his hopes on +being the acrobat at Cremorne, D. on being the acrobat of the Tuileries; +fat bacon is Hodge the hedger's _summum bonum_, and Johannisberg _pur_ +is mine; Empedocles thinks notoriety everything, and Diogenes thinks +quiet everything--each has his own reading of ambition, and Lady +Marabout had hers; the Duchess of Doncaster thirsted for the Garter for +her husband, Lady Elmers's pride was to possess the smallest terrier +that ever took daisy tea and was carried in a monkey-muff, her Grace of +Amandine slaved night and day to bring her party in and throw the +ministry out. Lady Marabout sighed but for one thing--to win the Pet +Eligible of the season, and give eclat for once to one phase of her +chaperone's existence. + +Things were nicely in train. Goodwood was beginning to bite at that very +handsome fly the Hon. Val, and promised to be hooked and landed without +much difficulty before long, and placed, hopelessly for him, +triumphantly for her, in the lime-basket of matrimony. Things were +beautifully in train, and Lady Marabout was for once flattering herself +she should float pleasantly through an unruffled and successful season, +when Carruthers poured the one drop of _amari aliquid_ into her +champagne-cup by his suggestion of Cardonnel's doom. And then Lady +Marabout begun to worry. + +She who could not endure to see a fly hurt or a flower pulled +needlessly, had nothing for it but to worry for Cardonnel's destiny, and +puzzle over the divided duties which Carruthers had hinted to her. To +reject the one man because he was not well off did seem to her +conscience, uncomfortably awakened by Phil's innuendoes, something more +mercenary than she quite liked to look at; yet to throw over the other, +future Duke of Doncaster, the eligible, the darling, the yearned-for of +all May Fair and Belgravia, seemed nothing short of madness to inculcate +to Valencia; a positive treason to that poor absent, trusting, "dearest +Adeliza," who, after the visions epistolarily spread out before her, +would utterly refuse to be comforted if Goodwood any way failed to +become her son-in-law, and, moreover, the heaviest blow to Lady Marabout +herself that the merciless axe of that brutal headsman Contretemps could +deal her. + +"I do not know really what to do or what to advise," would Lady Marabout +say to herself over and over again (so disturbed by her onerous burden +of responsibilities that she would let Despreaux arrange the most +outrageous coiffures, and, never noticing them, go out to dinner with +emeralds on blue velvet, or something as shocking to feminine nerves in +her temporary aberration), forgetting one very great point, which, +remembered, would have saved her all trouble, that nobody asked her to +do anything, and not a soul requested her advice. "But Goodwood is +decidedly won, and Goodwood must not be lost; in our position we owe +something to society," she would invariably conclude these mental +debates; which last phase, being of a vagueness and obscure application +that might have matched it with any Queen's speech or electional address +upon record, was a mysterious balm to Lady Marabout's soul, and spoke +volumes to _her_, if a trifle hazy to you and to me. + +But Lady Marabout, if she was a little bit of a sophist, had not worn +her eye-glass all these years without being keen-sighted on some +subjects, and, though perfectly satisfied with her niece's conduct with +Goodwood, saw certain symptoms which made her tremble lest the +detrimental Lancer should have won greater odds than the eligible +Marquis. + +"Arthur Cardonnel is excessively handsome! Such very good style! +Isn't it a pity they're all so poor! His father played away +everything--literally everything. The sons have no more to marry upon, +any one of them, than if they were three crossing-sweepers," said her +ladyship, carelessly, driving home from St. Paul's one Sunday morning. + +And, watching the effect of her stray arrow, she had beheld an actual +flush on the beauty's fair, impassive cheek, and had positively heard a +smothered sigh from an admirably brought-up heart, no more given +ordinarily to such weaknesses than the diamond-studded heart pendent +from her bracelet, the belle's heart and the bracelet's heart being both +formed alike, to fetch their price, and bid to do no more:--power of +volition would have been as inconvenient in, and interfered as greatly +with, the sale of one as of the other. + +"She does like him!" sighed Lady Marabout over that Sabbath's luncheon +wines. "It's always my fate--always; and Goodwood, never won before, +will be thrown--actually thrown--away, as if he were the younger son of +a Nobody!" which horrible waste was so terrible to her imagination that +Lady Marabout could positively have shed tears at the bare prospect, and +might have shed them, too, if the Hon. Val, the butler, two footmen, and +a page had not inconveniently happened to be in the room at the time, so +that she was driven to restrain her feelings and drink some Amontillado +instead. Lady Marabout is not the first person by a good many who has +had to smile over sherry with a breaking heart. Ah! lips have quivered +as they laughed over Chambertin, and trembled as they touched the bowl +of a champagne-glass. Wine has assisted at many a joyous festa enough, +but some that has been drunk in gayety has caught gleams, in the eyes of +the drinkers, of salt water brighter than its brightest sparkles: water +that no other eyes can see. Because we may drink Badminton laughingly +when the gaze of Society the Non-Sympathetic is on us, do you think we +must never have tasted any more bitter dregs? _Va-t'en, becasse!_ where +have you lived! Nero does not always fiddle while Rome is burning from +utter heartlessness, believe me, but rather--sometimes, +perhaps--because his heart is aching! + +"Goodwood will propose to-night, I fancy, he is so very attentive," +thought Lady Marabout, sitting with her sister chaperones on the cosy +causeuses of a mansion in Carlton Terrace, at one of the last balls of +the departing season. "I never saw dear Valencia look better, and +certainly her waltzing is----Ah! good evening, Major Cardonnel! Very +warm to-night, is it not? I shall be so glad when I am down again at +Fernditton. Town, in the first week of July, is really not habitable." + +And she furled her fan, and smiled on him with her pleasant eyes, and +couldn't help wishing he hadn't been on the Marchioness Rondeletia's +visiting list, he _was_ such a detrimental, and he was ten times +handsomer than Goodwood! + +"Will Miss Valletort leave you soon?" asked Cardonnel, sitting down by +her. + +"_Ah! monsieur, vous etes la!_" thought Lady Marabout, as she answered, +like a guarded diplomatist as she was, that it was not all settled at +present what her niece's post-season destiny would be, whether Devon or +Fernditton, or the Spas, with her mother, Lady Honiton; and then +unfurled her fan again, and chatted about Baden and her own indecision +as to whether she should go there this September. + +"May I ask you a question, and will you pardon me for its plainness?" +asked Cardonnel, when she'd exhausted Baden's desirable and +non-desirable points. + +Lady Marabout shuddered as she bent her head, and thought, "The creature +is never going to confide in me! He will win me over if he do, he looks +so like his mother! And what shall I say to Adeliza!" + +"Is your niece engaged to Goodwood or not?" + +If ever a little fib was tempting to any lady, from Eve downward, it was +tempting to Lady Marabout now! A falsehood would settle everything, +send Cardonnel off the field, and clear all possibility of losing the +"best match of the season." Besides, if not engaged to Goodwood actually +to-night, Val would be, if she liked, to-morrow, or the next day, or +before the week was over at the furthest--would it be such a falsehood +after all? She colored, she fidgeted her fan, she longed for the little +fib!--how terribly tempting it looked! But Lady Marabout is a bad hand +at prevarication, and she hates a lie, and she answered bravely, with a +regretful twinge, "Engaged? No; not----" + +"Not yet! Thank God!" + +Lady Marabout stared at him and at the words muttered under his +moustaches: + +"Really, Major Cardonnel, I do not see why you----" + +"Should thank Heaven for it? Yet I do--it is a reprieve. Lady Marabout, +you and my mother were close friends; will you listen to me for a +second, while we are not overheard? That I have loved your niece--had +the madness to love her, if you will--you cannot but have seen; that she +has given me some reasonable encouragement it is no coxcombry to say, +though I have known from the first what a powerful rival I had against +me; but that Valencia loves me and does not love him, I believe--nay, I +_know_. I have said nothing decided to her; when all hangs on a single +die we shrink from hazarding the throw. But I must know my fate +to-night. If she come to you--as girls will, I believe, sometimes--for +countenance and counsel, will you stand my friend?--will you, for the +sake of my friendship with your son, your friendship with my mother, +support my cause, and uphold what I believe Valencia's heart will say in +my favor?" + +Lady Marabout was silent: no Andalusian ever worried her fan more +ceaselessly in coquetry than she did in perplexity. Her heart was +appealed to, and when that was enlisted, Lady Marabout was lost! + +"But--but--my dear Major Cardonnel, you are aware----" she began, and +stopped. I should suppose it may be a little awkward to tell a man to +his face he is "not desirable!" + +"I am aware that I cannot match with Goodwood? I am; but I know, also, +that Goodwood's love cannot match with mine, and that your niece's +affection is not his. That he may win her I know women too well not to +fear, therefore I ask _you_ to be my friend. If she refuse me, will you +plead for me?--if she ask for counsel, will you give such as your own +heart dictates (I ask no other)--and, will you remember that on +Valencia's answer will rest the fate of a man's lifetime?" + +He rose and left her, but the sound of his voice rang in Lady Marabout's +ears, and the tears welled into her eyes: "Dear, dear! how like he +looked to his poor dear mother! But what a position to place me in! Am I +_never_ to have any peace?" + +Not at this ball, at any rate. Of all the worried chaperones and +distracted duennas who hid their anxieties under pleasant smiles or +affable lethargy, none were a quarter so miserable as Helena, Lady +Marabout. Her heart and her head were enlisted on opposite sides; her +wishes pulled one way, her sympathies another; her sense of justice to +Cardonnel urged her to one side, her sense of duty to "dearest Adeliza" +urged her to the other; her pride longed for one alliance, her heart +yearned for the other. Cardonnel had confided in her and appealed to +her; _sequitur_, Lady Marabout's honor would not allow her to go against +him: yet, it was nothing short of grossest treachery to poor Adeliza, +down there in Devon, expecting every day to congratulate her daughter on +a prospective duchy won, to counsel Valencia to take one of these +beggared Cardonnels, and, besides--to lose all her own laurels, to lose +the capture of Goodwood! + +No Guelphs and Ghibelins, no Royalists and Imperialists, ever fought so +hard as Lady Marabout's divided duties. + +"Valencia, Major Cardonnel spoke to me to-night," began that +best-hearted and most badgered of ladies, as she sat before her +dressing-room fire that night, alone with her niece. + +Valencia smiled slightly, and a faint idea crossed Lady Marabout's mind +that Valencia's smile was hardly a pleasant one, a trifle too much like +the play of moonbeams on ice. + +"He spoke to me about you." + +"Indeed!" + +"Perhaps you can guess, my dear, what he said?" + +"I am no clairvoyante, aunt;" and Miss Val yawned a little, and held out +one of her long slender feet to admire it. + +"Every woman, my love, becomes half a clairvoyante when she is in love," +said Lady Marabout, a little bit impatiently; she hadn't been brought up +on the best systems herself, and though she admired the refrigeration +(on principle), it irritated her just a little now and then. "Did +he--did he say anything to _you_ to-night?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"And what did you answer him, my love?" + +"What would you advise me?" + +Lady Marabout sighed, coughed, played nervously with the tassels of her +peignoir, crumpled Bijou's ears with a reckless disregard to that +priceless pet's feelings, and wished herself at the bottom of the +Serpentine. Cardonnel had trusted her, she couldn't desert _him_; poor +dear Adeliza had trusted her, she couldn't betray _her_; what was right +to one would be wrong to the other, and to reconcile her divided duties +was a Danaid's labor. For months she had worried her life out lest her +advice should be asked, and now the climax was come, and asked it was. + +"What a horrible position!" thought Lady Marabout. + +She waited and hesitated till the pendule had ticked off sixty seconds, +then she summoned her courage and spoke: + +"My dear, advice in such matters is often very harmful, and always very +useless; plenty of people have asked my counsel, but I never knew any of +them take it unless it chanced to chime in with their fancy. A woman's +best adviser is her own heart, specially on such a subject as this. But +before I give my opinion, may I ask if you have accepted him?" + +Lady Marabout's heart throbbed quick and fast as she put the momentous +question, with an agitation for which she would have blushed before her +admirably nonchalante niece; but the tug of war was coming, and if +Goodwood should be lost! + +"You have accepted him?" she asked again. + +"No! I--refused him." + +The delicate rose went out of the Hon. Val's cheeks for once, and she +breathed quickly and shortly. + +Goodwood was _not_ lost then! + +Was she sorry--was she glad? Lady Marabout hardly knew; like Wellington, +she felt the next saddest thing after a defeat is a victory. + +"But you love him, Valencia?" she asked, half ashamed of suggesting such +weakness, to this glorious beauty. + +The Hon. Val unclasped her necklet as if it were a chain, choking her, +and her face grew white and set: the coldest will feel on occasion, and +all have _some_ tender place that can wince at the touch. + +"Perhaps; but such folly is best put aside at once. Certainly I prefer +him to others, but to accept him would have been madness, absurdity. I +told him so!" + +"You told him so! If you had the heart to do so, Valencia, he has not +lost much in losing you!" burst in Lady Marabout, her indignation +getting the better of her judgment, and her heart, as usual, giving the +coup de grace to her reason. "I am shocked at you! Every tender-hearted +woman feels regret for affection she is obliged to repulse, even when +she does not return it; and you, who love this man----" + +"Would you have had me accept him, aunt?" + +"Yes," cried Lady Marabout, firmly, forgetting every vestige of "duty," +and every possibility of dear Adeliza's vengeance, "if you love him, I +would, decidedly. When I married my dear Philip's father, he was what +Cardonnel is, a cavalry man, as far off his family title then as +Cardonnel is off his now." + +"The more reason I should not imitate your imprudence, my dear aunt; +death might not carry off the intermediate heirs quite so courteously in +this case! No, I refused Major Cardonnel, and I did rightly; I should +have repented it by now had I accepted him. There is nothing more silly +than to be led away by romance. You De Boncoeurs _are_ romantic, you +know; we Valletorts are happily free from the weakness. I am very tired, +aunt, so good night." + +The Hon. Val went, the waxlight she carried shedding a paler shade on +her handsome face, whiter and more set than usual, but held more +proudly, as if it already wore the Doncaster coronet; and Lady Marabout +sighed as she rang for her maid. + +"Of course she acted wisely, and I ought to be very pleased; but that +poor dear fellow!--his eyes _are_ so like his mother's!" + +"I congratulate you, mother, on a clear field. You've sent poor Arthur +off very nicely," said Carruthers, the next morning, paying his general +visit in her boudoir before the day began, which is much the same time +in Town as in Greenland, and commences, whatever almanacs may say, +about two or half-past P.M. "Cardonnel left this morning for Heaven +knows where, and is going to exchange, Shelleto tells me, into the +----th, which is ordered to Bengal, so _he_ won't trouble you much more. +When shall I be allowed to congratulate my cousin as the future Duchess +of Doncaster?" + +"Pray, don't tease me, Philip. I've been vexed enough about your friend. +When he came to me this morning, and asked me if there was no hope, and +I was obliged to tell him there was none, I felt wretched," said Lady +Marabout, as nearly pettishly as she ever said anything; "but I am +really not responsible, not in the least. Besides, even you must admit +that Goodwood is a much more desirable alliance, and if Valencia had +accepted Cardonnel, pray what would all Belgravia have said? Why, that, +disappointed of Goodwood, she took the other out of pure pique! We owe +something to society, Philip, and something to ourselves." + +Carruthers laughed: + +"Ah, my dear mother, you women will never be worth all you ought to be +till you leave off kowtow-ing to 'what will be said,' and learn to defy +that terrible oligarchy of the Qu'en dira-t-on?" + +"When will Goodwood propose?" wondered Lady Marabout, fifty times a day, +and Valencia Valletort wondered too. Whitebait was being eaten, and +yachts being fitted, manned, and victualled, outstanding Ascot debts +were being settled, and outstanding bills were being passed hurriedly +through St. Stephen's; all the clockwork of the season was being wound +up for the last time previous to a long standstill, and going at a deuce +of a pace, as if longing to run down, and give its million wheels and +levers peace; while everybody who'd anything to settle, whether monetary +or matrimonial, personal or political, was making up his mind about it +and getting it off his hands, and some men were being pulled up by +wide-awake Jews to see what they were "made of," while others were +pulled up by adroit dowagers to know what they had "meant" before the +accounts of the season were scored out and settled. "Had Goodwood +proposed?" asked all Belgravia. "Why hadn't Goodwood proposed?" asked +Lady Marabout and Valencia. Twenty most favorable opportunities for the +performance of that ceremony had Lady Marabout made for him +"accidentally on purpose" the last fortnight; each of those times she +had fancied the precious fish hooked and landed, and each time she had +seen him, free from the hook, floating on the surface of society. + +"He _must_ speak definitely to-morrow," thought Lady Marabout. But the +larvae of to-morrow burst into the butterfly of to-day, and to-day passed +into the chrysalis of yesterday, and Goodwood was always very nearly +caught, and never _quite_! + +"Come up-stairs, Philip; I want to show you a little Paul Potter I +bought the other day," said Lady Marabout one morning, returning from a +shopping expedition to Regent Street, meeting her son at her own door +just descending from his tilbury. "Lord Goodwood calling, did you say, +Soames? Oh, very well." + +And Lady Marabout floated up the staircase, but signed to her footman to +open the door, not of the drawing-room, but of her own boudoir. + +"The Potter is in my own room, Philip; you must come in here if you wish +to see it," said that adroit lady, for the benefit of Soames. But when +the door was shut, Lady Marabout lowered her voice confidentially: "The +Potter isn't here, dear; I had it hung in the little cabinet through the +drawing-rooms, but I don't wish to go up there for a few moments--you +understand." + +Carruthers threw himself in a chair, and laughed till the dogs Bijou, +Bonbon, and Pandore all barked in a furious concert. + +"I understand! So Goody's positively coming to the point up there, is +he?" + +"No doubt he is," said Lady Marabout, reprovingly. "Why else should he +come in when I was not at home? There is nothing extraordinary in it. +The only thing I have wondered at is his having delayed so long." + +"If a man had to hang himself, would you wonder he put off pulling the +bolt?" + +"I don't see any point in your jests at all!" returned Lady Marabout. +"There is nothing ridiculous in winning such a girl as Valencia." + +"No; but the question here is not of winning her, but of buying her. The +price is a little high--a ducal coronet and splendid settlements, a +wedding-ring and bondage for life; but he will buy her, nevertheless. +Cardonnel couldn't pay the first half of the price, and so he was swept +out of the auction-room. You are shocked, mother! Ah, truth _is_ +shocking sometimes, and always _maladroit_; one oughtn't to bring it +into ladies' boudoirs." + +"Hold your tongue, Philip! I will not have you so satirical. Where do +you take it from? Not from me, I am sure! Hark! there is Goodwood going! +That is his step on the stairs, I think! Dear me, Philip, I wish you +sympathized with me a little more, for I _do_ feel happy, and I can't +help it; dear Adeliza will be so gratified." + +"My dear mother, I'll do my best to be sympathetic, I'll go and +congratulate Goodwood as he gets in his cab, if you fancy I ought; but, +you see, if I were in Dahomey beholding the head of my best friend +coming off, I couldn't quite get up the amount of sympathy in their +pleasure at the refreshing sight the Dahomites might expect from me, and +so----" + +But Lady Marabout missed the comparison of herself to a Dahomite, for +she had opened the door and was crossing to the drawing-rooms, her eyes +bright, her step elastic, her heart exultant at the triumph of her +manoeuvres. The Hon. Val was playing with some ferns in an etagere at +the bottom of the farthest room, and responded to the kiss her aunt +bestowed on her about as much as if she had been one of the statuettes +on the consoles. + +"Well, love, _what did he say_?" asked Lady Marabout, breathlessly, with +eager delight and confident anticipation. + +Like drops of ice on warm rose-leaves fell each word of the intensely +chill and slightly sulky response on Lady Marabout's heart. + +"He said that he goes to Cowes to-morrow for the Royal Yacht Squadron +dinner, and then on in the _Anadyomene_ to the Spitzbergen coast for +walruses. He left a P. P. C. card for you." + +"_Walruses!_" shrieked Lady Marabout. + +"Walruses," responded the Hon. Val. + +"And said no more than that?" + +"No more than that!" + +The Pet Eligible had flown off uncaught after all! Lady Marabout needed +no further explanation--_tout fut dit_. They were both silent and +paralyzed. Do you suppose Pompey and Cornelia had much need of words +when they met at Lesbos after the horrible deroute of Pharsalia? + + * * * * * + +"I'm in your mother's blackest books for ever, Phil," said Goodwood to +Carruthers in the express to Southampton for the R.Y.C. Squadron Regatta +of that year, "but I can't help it. It's no good to badger us into +marriage; it only makes us double, and run to earth. I _was_ near +compromising myself with your cousin, I grant, but the thing that +chilled me was, she's too _studied_. It's all got up beforehand, and +goes upon clockwork, and it don't interest one accordingly; the +mechanism's perfect, but we know when it will raise its hand, and move +its eyes, and bow its head, and when we've looked at its beauty once we +get tired of it. That's the fault in Valencia, and in scores of them, +and as long as they _won't_ be natural, why, they can't have much chance +with us!" + +Which piece of advice Carruthers, when he next saw his mother, repeated +to her, for the edification of all future debutantes, adding a small +sermon of his own: + +"My dear mother, I ask you, is it to be expected that we can marry just +to oblige women and please the newspapers? Would you have me marched off +to Hanover Square because it would be a kindness to take one of Lady +Elmers' marriageable daughters, or because a leading journal fills up an +empty column with farcical lamentation on our dislike to the bondage? Of +course you wouldn't; yet, for no better reasons, you'd have chained poor +Goodwood, if you could have caught him. Whether a man likes to marry or +not is certainly his own private business, though just now it's made a +popular public discussion. Do you wonder that we shirk the institution? +If we have not fortune, marriage cramps our energies, our resources, our +ambitions, loads us with petty cares, and trebles our anxieties. To one +who rises with such a burden on his shoulders, how many sink down in +obscurity, who, but for the leaden weight of pecuniary difficulties with +which marriage has laden their feet, might have climbed the highest +round in the social ladder? On the other side, if we have fortune, if we +have the unhappy happiness to be eligible, is it wonderful that we are +not flattered by the worship of young ladies who love us for what we +shall give them, that we don't feel exactly honored by being courted for +what we are worth, and that we're not over-willing to give up our +liberty to oblige those who look on us only as good speculations? What +think you, eh?" + +Lady Marabout looked up and shook her head mournfully: + +"My dear Philip, you are right. I see it--I don't dispute it; but when a +thing becomes personal, you know philosophy becomes difficult. I have +such letters from poor dear Adeliza--such letters! Of course she thinks +it is all my fault, and I believe she will break entirely with me. It is +so very shocking. You see all Belgravia coupled their names, and the +very day that he went off to Cowes in that heartless, abominable manner, +if an announcement of the alliance as arranged did not positively appear +in the _Court Circular_! It did indeed! I am sure Anne Hautton was at +the bottom of it; it would be just like her. Perhaps poor Valencia +cannot be pitied after her treatment of Cardonnel, but it is very hard +on _me_." + +Lady Marabout is right: when a thing becomes personal, philosophy +becomes difficult. When your gun misses fire, and a fine cock bird +whirrs up from the covert and takes wing unharmed, never to swell the +number of your triumphs and the size of your game-bag, could you by any +chance find it in your soul to sympathize with the bird's gratification +at your mortification and its own good luck? I fancy not. + + + + +LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; + +OR + +THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. + +IN THREE SEASONS. + + +SEASON THE SECOND--THE OGRE. + +"If there be one class I dislike more than another, it is that class; +and if there be one person in town I utterly detest, it is that man!" +said our friend Lady Marabout, with much unction, one morning, to an +audience consisting of Bijou, Bonbon, and Pandore, a cockatoo, an Angora +cat, and a young lady sitting in a rocking-chair, reading the magazines +of the month. The dogs barked, the cockatoo screamed, the cat purred a +vehement affirmative, the human auditor looked up, and laughed: + +"What is the class, Lady Marabout, may I ask?" + +"Those clever, detestable, idle, good-for-nothing, fashionable, +worthless men about town, who have not a penny to their fortune, and +spend a thousand a year on gloves and scented tobacco--who are seen at +everybody's house, and never at their own--who drive horses fit for a +Duke's stud, and haven't money enough to keep a donkey on thistles--who +have handsome faces and brazen consciences--who are positively leaders +of ton, and yet are glad to write feuilletons before the world is up to +pay their stall at the Opera--who give a guinea for a bouquet, and +can't pay a shilling of their just debts,--I detest the class, my dear!" + +"So it seems, Lady Marabout. I never heard you so vehement. And who is +the particular scapegoat of this type of sinners?" + +"Chandos Cheveley." + +"Chandos Cheveley? Isn't he that magnificent man Sir Philip introduced +to me at the Amandines' breakfast yesterday? Why, Lady Marabout, his +figure alone might outbalance a multitude of sins!" + +"He is handsome enough. _Did_ Philip introduce him to you, my dear? I +wonder! It was very careless of him. But men _are_ so thoughtless; they +will know anybody themselves, and they think we may do the same. The men +called here while we were driving this morning. I am glad we were out: +he very seldom comes to _my_ house." + +"But why is he so dreadful? The Amandines are tremendously exclusive, I +thought." + +"Oh, he goes everywhere! No party is complete without Chandos Cheveley, +and I have heard that at September or Christmas he has more invitations +than he could possibly accept; but he is a most objectionable man, all +the same--a man every one dreads to see come near her daughters. He has +extreme fascination of manner, but he has not a farthing! How he lives, +dresses, drives the horses he does, is one of those miracles of London +men's lives which _we_ can never hope to puzzle out. Philip says he +likes him, but Philip never speaks ill of anybody, except a woman now +and then, who teases him; but the man is my detestation--has been for +years. I was annoyed to see his card: it is the first time he has called +this season. He knows I can't endure his class or him." + +With which Lady Marabout wound up a very unusually lengthy and +uncharitable disquisition, length and uncharitableness being both out of +her line; and Lady Cecil Ormsby rolled her handkerchief into a ball, +threw it across the room for Bonbon, the spaniel puppy, and laughed till +the cockatoo screamed with delight: + +"Dear Lady Marabout, do forgive me, but it is such fun to hear you +positively, for once, malicious! Who is your Horror, genealogically +speaking? this terrible--what's his name?--Chandos Cheveley?" + +"The younger son of a younger son of one of the Marquises of Danvers, I +believe, my dear; an idle man about town, you know, with not a sou to be +idle upon, who sets the fashion, but never pays his tailor. I am never +malicious, I hope, but I do consider men of that stamp very +objectionable." + +"But what is Sir Philip but a man about town?" + +"My son! Of course he is a man about town. My dear, what else should he +be? But if Philip likes to lounge all his days away in a club-window, he +has a perfect right; he has fortune. Chandos Cheveley is not worth a +farthing, and yet yawns away his day in White's as if he were a +millionnaire; the one can support his _far niente_, the other cannot. +There are gradations in everything, my love, but in nothing more than +among the men, of the same set and the same style, whom one sees in +Pall-Mall." + +"There are chestnut horses and horse-chestnuts, chevaliers and +chevaliers d'industrie, rois and rois d'Yvetot, Carrutherses and Chandos +Cheveleys!" laughed Lady Cecil. "I understand, Lady Marabout. Il y a +femmes et femmes--men about town and men about town, I shall learn all +the classes and distinctions soon. But how is one to know the sheep that +may be let into the fold from the wolves in sheep's clothing, that must +be kept out of it? Your Ogre is really very distinguished-looking." + +"Distinguished? Oh yes, my love; but the most distinguished men are the +most objectionable sometimes. I assure you, my dear Cecil, I have seen +an elder son whom sometimes I could hardly have told from his own valet, +and a younger of the same family with the style of a D'Orsay. Why, did I +not this very winter, when I went to stay at Rochdale, take Fitzbreguet +himself, whom I had not chanced to see since he was a child, for one of +the men out of livery, and bid him bring Bijou's basket out of the +carriage. I did indeed--_I_ who hate such mistakes more than any one! +And Lionel, his second brother, has the beauty of an Apollo and the _air +noble_ to perfection. One often sees it; it's through the doctrine of +compensation, I suppose, but it's very perplexing, and causes endless +_embrouillements_." + +"When the mammas fall in love with Lord Fitz's coronet, and the +daughters with Lord Lionel's face, I suppose?" interpolated Lady Cecil. + +"Exactly so, dear. As for knowing the sheep from the wolves, as you call +them," went on Lady Marabout, sorting her embroidery silks, "you may +very soon know more of Chandos Cheveley's class--(this Magenta braid is +good for nothing; it's a beautiful color, but it fades immediately)--you +meet them in the country at all fast houses, as they call them nowadays, +like the Amandines'; they are constantly invited, because they are so +amusing, or so dead a shot, or so good a whip, and live on their +invitations, because they have no _locale_ of their own. You see, all +the women worth nothing admire, and all the women worth anything shun, +them. They have a dozen accomplishments, and not a single reliable +quality; a hundred houses open to them, and not a shooting-box of their +own property or rental. You will meet this Chandos Cheveley everywhere, +for instance, as though he were somebody desirable. You will see him in +his club-window, as though he were born only to read the papers; in the +Ride, mounted on a much better animal than Fitzbreguet, though the one +pays treble the price he ought, and the other, I dare say, no price at +all; at Ascot, on Amandine's or Goodwood's drag, made as much of among +them all as if he were an heir-apparent to the throne; and yet, my love, +that man hasn't a penny, lives Heaven knows where, and how he gets money +to keep his cab and buy his gloves is, as I say, one of those mysteries +of settling days, whist-tables, periodical writing, Baden _coups de +bonheur_, and such-like fountains of such men's fortunes which we can +never hope to penetrate--and very little we should benefit if we could! +My dearest Cecil! if it is not ten minutes to five! We must go and drive +at once." + +Lady Ormsby was a great pet of Lady Marabout's; she had been so from a +child; so much so, that when, the year after Valencia Valletort's +discomfiture (a discomfiture so heavy and so public, that that young +beauty was seized with a fit of filial devotion, attended her mamma to +Nice, and figured not in Belgravia the ensuing season, and even Lady +Marabout's temper had been slightly soured by it, as you perceive), +another terrible charge was shifted on her shoulders by an appeal from +the guardians of the late Earl of Rosediamond's daughter for her to be +brought out under the Marabout wing, she had consented, and surrendered +herself to be again a martyr to responsibility for the sake of Cecil and +Cecil's lost mother. The young lady was a beauty; she was worse, she was +an heiress; she was worse still, she was saucy, wayward, and notable for +a strong will of her own--a more dangerous young thorough-bred was never +brought to a gentler Rarey; and yet she was the first charge of this +nature that Lady Marabout had ever accepted in the whole course of her +life with no misgivings and with absolute pleasure. First, she was very +fond of Cecil Ormsby; secondly, she longed to efface her miserable +failure with Valencia by a brilliant success, which should light up all +the gloom of her past of chaperonage; thirdly, she had a sweet and +long-cherished diplomacy nestling in her heart to throw her son and Lord +Rosediamond's daughter together, for the eventual ensnaring and +fettering of Carruthers, which policy nothing could favor so well as +having the weapon for that deadly purpose in her own house through +April, May, and June. + +Cecil Ormsby was a beauty and an heiress--spirited, sarcastic, +brilliant, wilful, very proud; altogether, a more spirited young filly +never needed a tight hand on the ribbons, a light but a firm seat, and a +temperate though judicious use of the curb to make her endure being +ridden at all, even over the most level grass countries of life. And +yet, for the reasons just mentioned, Lady Marabout, who never had a +tight hand upon anything, who is to be thrown in a moment by any wilful +kick or determined plunge, who is utterly at the mercy of any filly that +chooses to take the bit between her own teeth and bolt off, and is +entirely incapable of using the curb, even to the most ill-natured and +ill-trained Shetland that ever deserved to have its mouth sawed,--Lady +Marabout undertook the jockeyship without fear. + +"I dare say you wonder, after my grief with Valencia, that I have +consented to bring another girl out, but when I heard it was poor +Rosediamond's wish--his dying wish, one may almost say--that Cecil +should make her debut with me, what _was_ I to do, my dear?" she +explained, half apologetically, to Carruthers, when the question was +first agitated. Perhaps, too, Lady Marabout had in her heart been +slightly sickened of perfectly trained young ladies brought up on the +best systems, and admitted to herself that the pets of the foreign +houses may _not_ be the most attractive flowers after all. + +So Lady Cecil Ormsby was installed in Lowndes Square, and though she was +the inheritor of her mother's wealth, which was considerable, and +possessor of her own wit and beauty, which were not inconsiderable +either, and therefore a prize to fortune-hunters and a lure to +misogamists, as Lady Marabout knew very well how to keep the first off, +and had her pet project of numbering her refractory son among the +converted second, she rather congratulated herself than otherwise in +having the pleasure and eclat of introducing her; and men voted the +Marabout Yearlings Sale of that season, since it comprised Rosediamond's +handsome daughter, as dangerous as a horse-dealer's auction to a young +greenhorn, or a draper's "sale, without reserve, at enormous sacrifice," +to a lady with a soul on bargains bent. + +"How very odd! Just as we have been talking of him, there is that man +again! I must bow to him, I suppose; though if there _be_ a person I +dislike----" said Lady Marabout, giving a frigid little bend of her head +as her barouche, with its dashing roans, rolled from her door, and a +tilbury passed them, driving slowly through the square. + +Cecil Ormsby bowed to its occupant with less severity, and laughed under +the sheltering shadow of her white parasol-fringe. + +"The Ogre has a very pretty trap, though, Lady Marabout, and the most +delicious gray horse in it! Such good action!" + +"If its action is good, my love, I dare say it is more than could be +said of its master's actions. He is going to call on that Mrs. +Marechale, very probably; he was always there last season." + +And Lady Marabout shook her head and looked grave, which, combined with +the ever-damnatory demonstrative conjunction, blackened Mrs. Marechale's +moral character as much as Lady Marabout could blacken any one's, she +loving as little to soil her own fingers and her neighbors' reputations +with the indelible Italian chalk of scandal as any lady I know; being +given, on the contrary, when compelled to draw any little social croquis +of a back-biting nature, to sketch them in as lightly as she could, take +out as many lights as possible, and rub in the shadows with a very +chary and pitying hand, except, indeed, when she took the portrait of +such an Ogre as Chandos Cheveley, when I can't say she was quite so +merciful, specially when policy and prejudice combined to suggest that +it would be best (and not unjust) to use the blackest Conte crayons +obtainable. + +The subject of it would not have denied the correctness of the +silhouette Lady Marabout had snipped out for the edification of Lady +Cecil, had he caught a glimpse of it: he had no habitation, nor was ever +likely to have any, save a bachelor's suite in a back street; he had +been an idle man for the last twenty years, with not a sou to be idle +upon; the springs of his very precarious fortunes, his pursuits, habits, +reputation, ways and means, were all much what she had described them; +yet he set the fashion much oftener than Goodwood, and dukes and +millionnaires would follow the style of his tie, or the shape of his +hat; he moved in the most brilliant circles as Court Circulars have it, +and all the best houses were open to him. At his Grace of Amandine's, +staying there for the shooting, he would alter the stud, find fault with +the claret, arrange a Drive for deer in the forest, and flirt with her +Grace herself, as though, as Lady Marabout averred, he had been +Heir-apparent or Prince Regent, who honored the Castle by his mere +presence, Amandine all the while swearing by every word he spoke, +thinking nothing well done without Cheveley, and submitting to be set +aside in his own Castle, with the greatest gratification at the +extinction. + +But that Chandos Cheveley was not worth a farthing, that he was but a +Bohemian on a brilliant scale, that any day he might disappear from that +society where he now glittered, never to reappear, everybody knew; how +he floated there as he did, kept his cab and his man, paid for his stall +at the Opera, his club fees, and all the other trifles that won't wait, +was an eternal puzzle to every one ignorant of how expensively one may +live upon nothing if one just gets the knack, and of how far a +fashionable reputation, like a cake of chocolate, will go to support +life when nothing more substantial is obtainable. Lady Marabout had +sketched him correctly enough, allowing for a little politic bitterness +thrown in to counteract Carruthers's thoughtlessness in having +introduced him to Rosediamond's daughter (that priceless treasure for +whom Lady Marabout would fain have had a guard of Janissaries, if they +would not have been likely to look singular and come expensive); and +ladies of the Marabout class did look upon him as an Ogre, guarded their +daughters from his approach at a ball as carefully, if not as +demonstratively, as any duck its ducklings from the approach of a +water-rat, did not ask him to their dinners, and bowed to him chillily +in the Ring. Others regarded him as harmless, from his perfect +pennilessness; what danger was there in the fascinations of a man whom +all Belgravia knew hadn't money enough to buy dog-skin gloves, though he +always wore the best Paris lavender kid? While others, the pretty +married women chiefly, from her Grace of Amandine downwards to Mrs. +Marechale, of Lowndes Square, flirted with him, fearfully, and +considered Chandos Cheveley what nobody ever succeeded in disproving +him, the most agreeable man on town, with the finest figure, the best +style, and the most perfect bow, to be seen in the Park any day between +March and July. But then, as Lady Marabout remarked on a subsequent +occasion, a figure, a style, and a bow are admirable and enviable +things, but they're not among the cardinal virtues, and don't do to live +upon; and though they're very good buoys to float one on the smooth +sparkling sea of society, if there come a storm, one may go down, +despite them, and become helpless prey to the sharks waiting below. + +"Philip certainly admires her very much; he said the other day there +was something in her, and that means a great deal from him," thought +Lady Marabout, complacently, as she and Cecil Ormsby were wending their +way through some crowded rooms. "Of course I shall not influence Cecil +towards him; it would not be honorable to do so, since she might look +for a higher title than my son's; still, if it should so fall out, +nothing would give me greater pleasure, and really nothing would seem +more natural with a little judicious manage----" + +"May I have the honor of this valse with you?" was spoken in, though not +to, Lady Marabout's ear. It was a soft, a rich, a melodious voice +enough, and yet Lady Marabout would rather have heard the hiss of a +Cobra Capella, for the footmen _might_ have caught the serpent and +carried it off from Cecil Ormsby's vicinity, and she couldn't very well +tell them to rid the reception-chambers of Chandos Cheveley. + +Lady Marabout vainly tried to catch Cecil's eye, and warn her of the +propriety of an utter and entire repudiation of the valse in question, +if there were no "engaged" producible to softly chill the hopes and +repulse the advances of the aspirant; but Lady Cecil's soul was +obstinately bent saltatory-wards; her chaperone's ocular telegram was +lost upon her, and only caught by the last person who should have seen +it, who read the message off the wires to his own amusement, but +naturally was not magnanimous enough to pass it on. + +"I ought to have warned her never to dance with that detestable man. If +I could but have caught her eye even now!" thought Lady Marabout, +restlessly. The capella _would_ have been much the more endurable of the +two; the serpent couldn't have passed its arm round Rosediamond's +priceless daughter and whirled her down the ball-room to the music of +Coote and Timney's band, as Chandos Cheveley was now doing. + +"Why did _you_ not ask her for that waltz, Philip?" cried the good lady, +almost petulantly. + +Carruthers opened his eyes wide. + +"My dear mother, you know I never dance! I come to balls to oblige my +hostesses and look at the women, but not to carry a seven-stone weight +of tulle illusion and white satin, going at express pace, with the +thermometer at 80 deg., and a dense crowd jostling one at every turn in +the circle. _Bien oblige!_ that's not my idea of pleasure; if it were +the Pyrrhic dance, now, or the Tarantella, or the Bolero, under a +Castilian chestnut-tree----" + +"Hold your tongue! You might have danced for once, just to have kept her +from Chandos Cheveley." + +"From the best waltzer in London? Not so selfish. Ask Amandine's wife if +women don't like to dance with that fellow!" + +"I should be very sorry to mention his name to her, or any of her set," +responded Lady Marabout, getting upon certain virtuous stilts of her +own, which she was given to mount on rare occasion and at distant +intervals, always finding them very uncomfortable and unsuitable +elevations, and being as glad to cast them off as a traveller to kick +off the _echasses_ he has had to strap on over the sandy plains of the +Landes. + +"What could possess you to introduce him to Cecil, Philip? It was +careless, silly, unlike you; you know how I dislike men of +his--his--objectionable stamp," sighed Lady Marabout, the white and gold +namesakes in her coiffure softly trembling a gentle sigh in the perfumy +zephyr raised by the rotatory whirl of the waltzers, among whom she +watched with a horrible fascination, as one watches a tiger being pugged +out of its lair, or a deserter being led out to be shot, Chandos +Cheveley, waltzing Rosediamond's priceless daughter down the ball-room. + +"He is so dreadfully handsome! I wonder why it is that men and women, +who have no fortune but their faces, will be so dangerously, so +obstinately, so provokingly attractive as one sees them so often!" +thought Lady Marabout, determining to beat an immediate retreat from the +present salons, since they were infested by the presence of her Ogre, to +Lady Hautton's house in Wilton Crescent. + +Lady Hautton headed charitable bazaars, belonged to the Cummingite +nebulae, visited Homes and Hospitals (floating to the bedside of luckless +feminine patients to read out divers edifying passages, whose effect +must have been somewhat neutralized to the hearers, one would imagine, +by the envy-inspiring rustle of her silks, the flash of her rings, and +the chimes of her bracelets, chains, and chatelaine), looked on the +"Amandine set" as lost souls, and hence "did not know" Chandos +Cheveley--a fact which, though the Marabout and Hautton antagonism was +patent to all Belgravia, served to endear her all at once to her foe; +Lady Marabout, like a good many other people, being content to sink +personal resentment, and make a truce with the infidels for the sake of +enjoying a mutual antipathy--that closest of all links of union! + +Lady Marabout and Lady Hautton were foes, but they were dear Helena and +dear Anne, all the same; dined at each other's tables, and smiled in +each other's faces. They might be private foes, but they were public +friends; and Lady Marabout beat a discreet retreat to the Hautton's +salons--"so many engagements" is so useful a plea!--and from the Hautton +she passed on to a ball at the Duke of Doncaster's; and, as at both, if +Lady Cecil Ormsby did not move "a goddess from above," she moved a +brilliant, sparkling, nonchalante, dangerous beauty, with some of her +sex's faults, all her sex's witcheries, and more than her sex's +mischief, holding her own royally, saucily, and proudly, and Chandos +Cheveley was encountered no more, but happily detained at petit souper +in a certain Section of the French Embassy, Lady Marabout drove +homewards, in the gray of the morning, relieved, complacent, and +gratified, dozing deliciously, till she was woke up with a start. + +"Lady Marabout, what a splendid waltzer your Ogre, Chandos Cheveley, +is!" + +Lady Marabout opened her eyes with a jerk that set her feathers +trembling, her diamonds scintillating, and her bracelets ringing an +astonished little carillon. + +"My love, how you frightened me!" + +Cecil Ormsby laughed--a gay, joyous laugh, innocent of having disturbed +a doze, a lapse into human weakness of which her chaperone never +permitted herself to plead guilty. + +"Frightened you, did I? Why, your _bete noire_ is as terrible to you as +Coeur de Lion to the Saracen children, or Black Douglas to the Lowland! +And, really, I can't see anything terrible in him; he is excessively +brilliant and agreeable, has something worth hearing to say to you, +and his waltzing is----!" + +Lady Cecil Ormsby had not a word in her repertory--though it +was an enthusiastic and comprehensive one, and embraced five +languages--sufficiently commendatory to finish her sentence. + +"I dare say, dear! I never denied, or heard denied, his having every +accomplishment under the sun. The only pity is, he has nothing more +substantial!" returned Lady Marabout, a little bit tartly for _her_ +lips, only used to the softest (and most genuine) milk of roses. + +Lord Rosediamond's daughter laughed a little mournfully, and played with +her fan. + +"Poor man! Brilliant and beggared, fashionable and friendless, courted +and cashiered--a sad destiny! Do you know, Lady Marabout, I have half a +mind to champion your Ogre!" + +"My love, don't talk nonsense!" said Lady Marabout, hastily, at which +Lady Cecil only laughed still more softly and gayly again, and sprung +down as the carriage stopped in Lowndes Square. + +"Rosediamond's daughter's deucedly handsome, eh, Cheveley? I saw you +waltzing with her last night," said Goodwood at Lord's the next morning, +watching a match between the Household Cavalry and the Zingari Eleven. + +"Yes, she is the best thing we have seen for some time," said Cheveley, +glancing round to see if the Marabout liveries were on the ground. + +"Don't let the Amandine or little Marechale hear you say so, or you'll +have a deuce of a row," laughed Goodwood. "She's worth a good deal, too; +she's all her mother's property, and that's something, I know. The +deaths in her family have kept her back two years or more, but now she +_is_ out, I dare say Lady Tattersall will put her up high in the +market." + +"No doubt. Why don't _you_ make the investment--she's much more +attractive than that Valletort ice statue who hooked you so nearly last +year? Fortescue's out! Well done, little Jimmy! Ah! there's the Marabout +carriage. I am as unwelcome to that good lady, I know, as if I were +Quasimodo or Quilp, and as much to be shunned, in her estimation, as +Vidocq, armed to the teeth; nevertheless, I shall go and talk to them, +if only in revenge for the telegraphic warning of 'dangerous' she shot +at Lady Cecil last night when I asked her to waltz. Goodwood, don't you +envy me my happy immunity from traps matrimonial?" + +"There is that man again--how provoking! I wish we had not come to see +Philip's return match. He is positively coming up to talk to us," +thought Lady Marabout, restlessly, as her Ogre lifted his hat to her. In +vain did she do her best to look severe, to look frigid, to chill him +with a withering "good morning," (a little word, capable, if you notice, +of expressing every gradation in feeling, from the nadir of delighted +intimacy to the zero of rebuking frigidity;) her coldest ice was as warm +as a pine-apple ice that has been melting all day under a refreshment +tent at a horticultural fete? Her _role_ was _not_ chilliness, and never +could be; she would have beamed benign on a headsman who had led her out +to instant decapitation, and been no more able to help it than a peach +to help its bloom or a claret its bouquet. She did her utmost to freeze +Chandos Cheveley, but either she failed signally, or he, being blessed +with the brazen conscience she had attributed to him, was steeled to all +the tacit repulses of her looks, for he leant against the barouche-door, +let her freeze him away as she might, and chatted to Cecil Ormsby, +"positively," Lady Marabout remarked to that safest confidante, herself, +"positively as if the man had been welcome at my house for the last ten +years! If Cecil _would_ but second me, he couldn't do it; but she _will_ +smile and talk with him just as though he were Goodwood or Fitzbreguet! +It is very disagreeable to be forced against one's will like this into +countenancing such a very objectionable person; and yet what _can_ one +do?" + +Which query she could by no means satisfactorily answer herself, being a +regular female Nerva for clemency, utterly incapable of the severity +with which that stern Catiline, Lady Hautton, would have signed the +unwelcome intruder out of the way in a brace of seconds. And under +Nerva's gentle rule, though Nerva was longing with all her heart to have +the courage to call the lictors and say, "Away with him!" Cheveley leant +against the door of the carriage unmolested, though decidedly undesired +by one of its occupants, talked to by Lady Cecil, possibly because she +found him as agreeable as her Grace of Amandine and Lillia Marechale had +done before her, possibly only from that rule of contrariety which is +such a pet motor-power with her sex; and Lady Marabout reclined among +her cushions, tucked up in her tiger-skin in precisely that state of +mind in which Fuseli said to his wife, "Swear, my dear, you don't know +how much good it will do you," dreading in herself the possible advent +of the Hautton carriage, for that ancient enemy and rigid pietist, of +whose keen tongue and eminent virtue she always stood secretly in awe, +to see this worthless and utterly objectionable member of that fast, +graceless, and "very incorrect" Amandine set, absolutely _en sentinelle_ +at the door of her barouche! + +Does your best friend _ever_ come when you want him most? Doesn't your +worst foe _always_ come when you want him least? Of course, at that +juncture, the Hautton carriage came on the ground (Hautton was one of +the Zingari Club, and maternal interest brought her foe to Lord's as it +had brought herself), and the Hautton eye-glass, significantly and +surprisedly raised, said as distinctly to Lady Marabout, as though +elfishly endowed with vocal powers, "You allow _that_ man acquaintance +with Rosediamond's daughter!" Lady Marabout was stung to the soul by the +deserved rebuke, but she didn't know how on earth to get rid of the +sinner! There he leaned, calmly, nonchalantly, determinedly, as if he +were absolutely welcome; and Lady Cecil talked on to him as if he were +absolutely welcome too. + +Lady Marabout felt branded in the eyes of all Belgravia to have Chandos +Cheveley at her carriage-door, the most objectionable man of all his +most objectionable class. + +"It is very strange!" she thought. "I have seen that man about town the +last five-and-twenty years--ever since he was a mere boy, taken up and +petted by Adeline Patchouli for some piece of witty Brummelian impudence +he said to her on his first introduction--and he has never sought my +acquaintance before, but always seemed to be quite aware of my dislike +to him and all his set. It is very grievous he should have chosen the +very season I have poor dear Rosediamond's daughter with me; but it is +always my fate--if a thing can happen to annoy me it always will!" + +With which Lady Marabout, getting fairly distracted under the iron hand +of adverse fate, and the ruthless surveillance of the Hautton glass, +invented an impromptu necessity for immediate shopping at Lewis and +Allonby's, and drove off the ground at the sole moment of interest the +match possessed for her--viz., when Carruthers was rattling down +Hautton's stumps, and getting innings innumerable for the Household. + +"Mais ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute;" the old proverb's so true +we wear it threadbare with repeating it! Lady Marabout might as well +have stayed on Lord's ground, and not lacerated her feelings by leaving +at the very hour of the Household Cavalry's triumphs, for any good that +she did thereby. The Hautton eye-glass had lighted on Chandos Cheveley, +and Chandos Cheveley's eye-glass on Rosediamond's daughter;--and Cecil +Ormsby arched her eyebrows, and gave her parasol a little impatient +shake as they quitted Lord's. + +"Lady Marabout, I never could have believed you ill-natured; you +interrupted my ball last night, and my conversation this morning! I +shall scold you if you ever do so again. And now tell me (as curiosity +is a weakness incidental to all women, no woman ought to refuse to +relieve it in another) why _are_ you so prejudiced against that very +handsome, and very amusing person?" + +"Prejudiced, my dear child! I am not in the least prejudiced," returned +Lady Marabout. (Nobody ever admitted to a prejudice that _I_ ever heard. +It's a plant that grows in all gardens, and is sedulously matted up, +watered, and strengthened; but invariably disavowed by its sturdiest +cultivators.) "As for Chandos Cheveley, I merely mentioned to you what +all town knows about him; and the dislike I have to his class is one of +principle, not of prejudice." + +Lady Cecil made a _moue mutine_: + +"Oh, Lady Marabout! if you go to 'principle,' _tout est perdu!_ +'Principle' has been made to bear the onus of every private pique since +the world began, and has had to answer for more cruelties and injustice +than any word in the language. The Romans flung the Christians to the +lions 'on principle,' and the Europeans slew the Mahomedans 'on +principle,' and 'principle' lighted the autos-da-fe, and signed to the +tormentor to give a turn more to the rack! Please don't appeal to +anything so severe and hypocritical. Come, what are the Ogre's sins?" + +Lady Marabout laughed, despite the subject. + +"Do you think I am a compiler of such catalogues, my love? Pray do not +let us talk any more about Chandos Cheveley, he is very little worth it; +all I say to you is, be as cool to him as you can, without rudeness, of +course. I am never at home when he calls, and were I you, I would be +always engaged when he asks you to waltz; his acquaintance can in no way +benefit you." + +Lady Cecil gave a little haughty toss of her head, and lay back in the +barouche. + +"_I_ will judge of that! I am not made for fetters of any kind, you +know, and I like to choose my own acquaintance as well as to choose my +own dresses. I cannot obey you either this evening, for he asked me to +put him on my tablets for the first waltz at Lord Anisette's ball, and I +consented. I had no 'engaged' ready, unless I had had a falsehood ready +too, and _you_ wouldn't counsel that, Lady Marabout, I am very sure?" + +With which straightforward and perplexing question Cecil Ormsby +successfully silenced her chaperone, by planting her in that +disagreeable position known as between the horns of a dilemma; and Lady +Marabout, shrinking alike from the responsibility of counselling a +"necessary equivocation," as society politely terms its indispensable +lies, and the responsibility of allowing Cecil acquaintance with the +"very worst" of the Amandine set, sighed, wondered envyingly how Anne +Hautton would act in her place, and almost began to wish somebody else +had had the onerous stewardship of that brilliant and priceless jewel, +Rosediamond's daughter, now that the jewel threatened to be possessed +with a will of its own:--the greatest possible flaw in a gem of pure +water, which they only want to scintillate brilliantly among the +bijouterie of society, and let itself be placed passively in the setting +most suitable for it, that can be conceived in the eyes of lady +lapidaries intrusted with its sale. + +"It is very odd," thought Lady Marabout; "she seems to have taken a much +greater fancy to that odious man than to Philip, or Goodwood, or Fitz, +or any one of the men who admire her so much. I suppose I always _am_ to +be worried in this sort of way! However, there can be no real danger; +Chandos Cheveley is the merest butterfly flirt, and with all his faults +none ever accused him of fortune-hunting. Still, they say he is +wonderfully fascinating, and certainly he has the most beautiful voice I +ever heard; and if Cecil should ever like him at all, I could never +forgive myself, and what _should_ I say to General Ormsby?" + +The General, Cecil's uncle and guardian, is one of the best-humored, +best-tempered, and most _laissez-faire_ men in the Service, but was, for +all that, a perpetual dead weight on Lady Marabout's mind just then, for +was not he the person to whom, at the end of the season, she would have +to render up account of the successes and the shortcomings of her +chaperone's career? + +"Do you think of proposing Chandos Cheveley as a suitable alliance for +Cecil Ormsby, my dear Helena?" asked Lady Hautton, with that smile which +was felt to be considerably worse than strychnine by her foes and +victims, at a house in Grosvenor Place, that night. + +"God forbid!" prayed Lady Marabout, mentally, as she joined in the +Hautton laugh, and shivered under the stab of the Hautton sneer, which +was an excessively sharp one. Lady Hautton being one of a rather +numerous class of eminent Christians, so panoplied in the armor of +righteousness that they can tread, without feeling it, on the tender +feet of others. + +The evening was spoiled to Lady Marabout; she felt morally and guiltily +responsible for an unpardonable indiscretion:--with that man waltzing +with Cecil Ormsby, her "graceful, graceless, gracious Grace" of Amandine +visibly irritated with jealousy at the sight, and Anne Hautton +whispering behind her fan with acidulated significance. Lady Marabout +had never been more miserable in her life! She heard on all sides +admiration of Rosediamond's daughter; she was gratified by seeing +Goodwood, Fitzbreguet, Fulke Nugent, every eligible man in the room, +suing for a place on her tablets; she had the delight of beholding +Carruthers positively join the negligent beauty's train; and yet the +night was a night of purgatory to Lady Marabout, for Chandos Cheveley +had his first waltz, and several after it, and the Amandine set were +there to gossip, and the Hautton clique to be shocked, at it. + +"Soames, tell Mason, when Mr. Chandos Cheveley calls, I am not at home," +said Lady Marabout at breakfast. + +"Yes, my lady," said Soames, who treasured up the order, and told it to +Mr. Chandos Cheveley's man at the first opportunity, though, greatly to +his honor, we must admit, he did _not_ imitate the mild formula of fib, +and tell his mistress her claret was not corked when it was so +incontestably. + +Cecil Ormsby lifted her head and looked across the table at her hostess, +and the steady gaze of those violet eyes, which were Rosediamond's +daughter's best weapons of war, so discomposed Lady Marabout, that she +forgot herself sufficiently to proffer Bijou a piece of bread, an +unparalleled insult, which that canine Sybarite did not forget all day +long. + +"Not at home, sir," said Mason, as duly directed, when Cheveley's cab +pulled up, a week or two after the general order, at the door. + +Cheveley smiled to himself as his gray had her head turned, and the +wheel grated off the trottoir, while he lifted his hat to Cecil Ormsby, +just visible between the amber curtains and above the balcony flowers of +one of the windows of the drawing-room--quite visible enough for her +return smile and bow to be seen in the street by Cheveley, in the room +by Lady Marabout. + +"Some of Lady Tattersall's generalship!" he thought, as the gray trotted +out of the square. "Well! I have no business there. Cecil Ormsby is not +her Grace of Amandine, nor little Marechale, and the good lady is quite +right to brand me 'dangerous' to her charge, and pronounce me +'inadmissible' to her footman. I've very little title to resent her +verdict." + +"My dearest Cecil, whatever possessed you to bow to that man!" cried +Lady Marabout, in direst distress. + +"Is it not customary to bow to one's acquaintances--I thought it was?" +asked Lady Cecil, with demure mischief. + +"But, my dear, from a window!--and when Mason is saying we are not at +home!" + +"That isn't _Mason's_ fib, or _Mason's_ fault, Lady Marabout!" suggested +Cecil, with wicked emphasis. + +"There is no falsehood or fault at all anywhere--everybody knows well +enough what 'not at home' means," returned Lady Marabout, almost +pettishly. + +"Oh yes," laughed the young lady, saucily. "It means 'I am at home and +sitting in my drawing room, but I shall not rise to receive you, because +you are not worth the trouble.' It's a polite cut direct, and a honeyed +rudeness--a bitter almond wrapped up in a sugar dragee, like a good many +other bonbons handed about in society." + +"My dear Cecil, you have some very strange ideas; you will get called +satirical if you don't take care," said Lady Marabout, nervously. + +Cecil Ormsby's tone worried her, and made her feel something as she felt +when she had a restive, half-broken pair of horses in her carriage, for +the direction of whose next plunge or next kick nobody could answer. + +"And if I be--what then?" + +"My dear child, you could not anyhow get a more disadvantageous +reputation! It may amuse gentlemen though it frightens half _them_; but +it offends all women irremediably. You see, there are so few whom it +doesn't hit somewhere," returned Lady Marabout, quite innocent of the +neat satire of her own last sentence. + +Cecil Ormsby laughed, and threw herself down by her chaperone's side: + +"Never mind: I can bear their enmity; it is a greater compliment than +their liking. The women whom women love are always quiet, colorless, +inoffensive--foils. Lady Marabout, tell me, why did you give that +general order to Mason?" + +"I have told you before, my dear. Because I have no wish to know Mr. +Chandos Cheveley," returned Lady Marabout, as stiffly as she could say +anything. "It is, as I said, not from prejudice, but from prin----" + +"Lady Marabout, if you use that word again, I will drive to uncle +Ormsby's rooms in the Albany and stay with him for the season; I will, +positively! I am sure all the gentlemen there will be delighted to have +my society! Pray, what _are_ your Ogre's crimes? Did you ever hear +anything dishonorable, mean, ungenerous, attributed to him? Did you ever +hear he broke his word, or failed to act like a gentleman, or was a +defaulter at any settling day?" + +Lady Marabout required some explanation of what a defaulter at a +settling day might be, and, on receiving it, was compelled to confess +that she never _had_ heard anything of that kind imputed to Chandos +Cheveley. + +"Of course I have not, my dear. The man is a gentleman, everybody knows, +however idle and improvident a one. If he could be accused of anything +of that kind, he would not belong to such clubs, and associate with such +men as he does. Besides, Philip would not know him; certainly would not +think well of him, which I confess he does. But that is not at all the +question." + +"_Ne vous en deplaise_, I think it very much and very entirely the +question," returned Lady Cecil, with a toss of her haughty little head. +"If you can bring nothing in evidence against a man, it is not right to +send him to the galleys and mark him 'Forcat.'" + +"My dear Cecil, there is plenty in evidence against him," said Lady +Marabout, with a mental back glance to certain stories told of the +"Amandine set," "though not of that kind. A man may be perfectly +unexceptionable in his conduct with his men friends, but very +objectionable acquaintance for us to seek, all the same." + +"Ah, I see! Lord Goodwood may bet, and flirt, and lounge his days away, +and be as fast a man as he likes, and it is all right; but if Mr. +Cheveley does the same, it is all wrong, because he is not worth +forgiving." + +"Naturally it is," returned Lady Marabout, seriously and naively. "But +how very oddly you put things, my love; and why you should interest +yourself in this man, when everything I tell you is to his disadvantage, +I cannot imagine." + +A remark that showed Lady Marabout a skilful tactician, insomuch as it +silenced Cecil--a performance rather difficult of accomplishment. + +"I am very glad I gave the order to Mason," thought that good lady. "I +only wish we did not meet the man in society; but it is impossible to +help that. We are all cards of one pack, and get shuffled together, +whether we like it or not. I wish Philip would pay her more attention; +he admires her, I can see, and he can make any woman like him in ten +days when he takes the trouble; but he is so tiresome! She would be +exactly suited to him; she has all he would exact--beauty, talent, good +blood, and even fortune, though that he would not need. The alliance +would be a great happiness to me. Well, he dines here to-night, and he +gives that concert at his barracks to-morrow morning, purely to please +Cecil, I am sure. I think it may be brought about with careful +management." + +With which pleasant reflection she went to drive in the Ring, thinking +that her maternal and duenna duties would be alike well fulfilled, and +her chaperone's career well finished, if by any amount of tact, +intrigue, finesses, and diplomacy she could live to see Cecil Ormsby +sign herself Cecil Carruthers. + +"If that man were only out of town!" she thought, as Cheveley passed +them in Amandine's mail-phaeton at the turn. + +Lady Marabout might wish Cheveley were out of town--and wish it devoutly +she did--but she wasn't very likely to have her desire gratified till +the general migration should carry him off in its tide to the deck of a +yacht, a lodge in the Highlands, a German Kursaal, or any one of those +myriad "good houses" where nobody was so welcome as he, the best shot, +the best seat, the best wit, the best billiard-player, the best +whist-player, and the best authority on all fashionable topics, of any +man in England. Cheveley used to aver that he liked Lady Marabout, +though she detested him; nay, that he liked her _for_ her detestation; +he said it was cordial, sincere, and refreshing, therefore a treat in +the world of Belgravia; still, he didn't like her so well as to leave +Town in the middle of May to oblige her; and though he took her hint as +it was meant, and pulled up his hansom no more at her door, he met her +and Rosediamond's daughter at dinners, balls, concerts, morning-parties +innumerable. He saw them in the Ring; he was seen by them at the Opera; +he came across them constantly in the gyration of London life. Night +after night Lady Cecil persisted in writing his name in her tablets; +evening after evening a bizarre fate worried Lady Marabout, by putting +him on the left hand of her priceless charge at a dinner-party. Day +after day all the harmony of a concert was marred to her ear by seeing +her Ogre talking of Beethoven and Mozart, chamber music and bravura +music in Cecil's: morning after morning gall was poured into her +luncheon sherry, and wormwood mingled in her vol-au-vent, by being told, +with frank mischief, by her desired daughter-in-law, that she "had seen +Mr. Cheveley leaning on the rails, smoking," when she had taken her +after-breakfast canter. + +"Chandos Cheveley getting up before noon! He _must_ mean something +unusual!" thought her chaperone. + +"Helena has set her heart on securing Cecil Ormsby for Carruthers. I +hope she may succeed better than she did with poor Goodwood last +season," laughed Lady Hautton, with her inimitable sneer, glancing at +the young lady in question at a bazaar in Willis's Rooms, selling +rosebuds for anything she liked to ask for them, and cigars tied up with +blue ribbon a guinea the half-dozen, at the Marabout stall. Lady Hautton +had just been paying a charitable visit to St. Cecilia's Refuge, of +which she was head patroness, where, having floated in with much +benignity, been worshipped by a select little toady troop, administered +spiritual consolation with admirable condescension, and distributed +illuminated texts for the adornment of the walls and refreshment of the +souls, she was naturally in a Christian frame of mind towards her +neighbors. Lady Marabout caught the remark--as she was intended to +do--and thought it not quite a pleasant one; but, my good sir, did you +ever know those estimable people, who spend all their time fitting +themselves for another world, ever take the trouble to make themselves +decently agreeable in the present one? The little pleasant courtesies, +affabilities, generosities, and kindnesses, that rub the edge off the +flint-stones of the Via Dolorosa, are quite beneath the attention of +Mary the Saint, and only get attended to by Martha the Worldly, poor +butterfly thing! who is fit for nothing more serviceable and profitable! + +Lady Marabout _had_ set her heart on Cecil Ormsby's filling that post of +honor--of which no living woman was deserving in her opinion--that of +"Philip's wife;" an individual who had been, for so many years, a fond +ideal, a haunting anxiety, and a dreaded rival, en meme temps, to her +imagination. She _was_ a little bit of a match-maker: she had, over and +over again, arranged the most admirable and suitable alliances; +alliances that would have shamed the scepticism of the world in general, +as to the desirability of the holy bonds, and brought every refractory +man to the steps of St. George's; alliances, that would have come off +with the greatest eclat, but for one trifling hindrance and +difficulty--namely, the people most necessary to the arrangements could +never by any chance be brought to view them in the same light, and were +certain to give her diplomacy the _croc-en-jambe_ at the very moment of +its culminating glory and finishing finesses. She was a little bit of a +match-maker--most kind-hearted women are; the tinder they play with is +much better left alone, but _they_ don't remember that! Like children in +a forest, they think they'll light a pretty bright fire, just for fun, +and never remember what a seared, dreary waste that fire may make, or +what a prairie conflagration it may stretch into before it's stopped. + +"Cecil Ormsby is a terrible flirt," said Lady Hautton, to another lady, +glancing at the rapid sale of the rosebuds and cigars, the bunches of +violets and the sprays of lilies of the valley, in which that brilliant +beauty was doing such thriving business at such extravagant profits, +while the five Ladies Hautton presided solemnly over articles of +gorgeous splendor, which threatened to be left on hand, and go in a +tombola, as ignominiously as a beauty after half a dozen seasons, left +unwooed and unwon, goes to the pele-mele raffle of German Bad society, +and is sold off at the finish to an unknown of the Line, or a Civil +Service fellow, with five hundred a year. + +"Was Cecil a flirt?" wondered Lady Marabout. Lady Marabout was fain to +confess to herself that she thought she was--nay, that she hoped she +was. If it wasn't flirting, that way in which she smiled on Chandos +Cheveley, sold him cigarettes, laughed with him over the ices and +nectarines he fetched her, and positively invested him with the cordon +d'honneur of a little bouquet of Fairy roses, for which twenty men sued, +and he (give Satan his due) did not even ask--if it wasn't flirting, +_what was it_? Lady Marabout shivered at the suggestion; and though she +was, on principle, excessively severe on flirting, she could be very +glad of what she didn't approve, when it aided her, on occasion--like +most other people--and would so far have agreed with Talleyrand, as to +welcome the worst crime (of coquetry) as far less a sin than the +unpardonable blunder of encouraging an Ogre! + +"I can't send Cecil away from the stall, as if she were a naughty child, +and I can't order the man out of Willis's Rooms," thought that unhappy +and fatally-worried lady, as she presided behind her stall, an emphatic +witness of the truth of the poeticism that "grief smiles and gives no +sign," insomuch as she looked the fairest, sunniest, best-looking, and +best-tempered Dowager that ever shrouded herself in Chantilly lace. + +"I do think those ineligible, detrimental, objectionable persons ought +not to be let loose on society as they are," she pondered; "let them +have their clubs and their mess breakfasts, their Ascot and their +Newmarket, their lansquenet parties and their handicap pigeon matches, +if they like; but to have them come amongst _us_ as they do, asked +everywhere if they happen to have good blood and good style, free to +waltz and flirt and sing, and show all sorts of attention to +marriageable girls, while all the while they are no more available for +anything serious than if they were club stewards or cabmen--creatures +that live on their fashionable aroma, and can't afford to buy the very +bottles of bouquets on their toilette-tables--fast men, too, who, +knowing they can never marry themselves, make a practice of turning +marriage into ridicule, and help to set all the rich men more dead +against it than they are,--to have them come promiscuously among the +very best people, with nothing to distinguish them as dangerous, or +label them as 'ought to be avoided,'--it's dreadful! it's a social evil! +it _ought_ to be remedied! They muzzle dogs in June, why can't they +label Ogres in the season? I mustn't send poor little Bijou out for a +walk in Kensington Gardens without a string, these men ought not to go +about in society without restriction: a snap of Bijou's doesn't do half +such mischief as a smile of theirs!" + +And Lady Marabout chatted across the stall to his Grace of Doncaster, +and entrapped him into purchases of fitting ducal prodigality, and +smiled on scores of people she didn't know, in pleasant _pro tempore_ +expediency that had, like most expediency in our day, its ultimate goal +in their purses and pockets, and longed for some select gendarmerie to +clear Willis's Rooms of her Cobra Capella, and kept an eye all the while +on Cecil Ormsby--Cecil, selling off everything on the stall by sheer +force of her bright violet eyes, receiving ten-pound notes for guinea +trifles, making her Bourse rise as high as she liked, courted for a +spray of mignonette as entreatingly as ever Law was courted in the Rue +Quincampoix for Mississippi scrip, served by a Corps d'Elite, in whom +she had actually enlisted Carruthers, Goodwood, Fulke Nugent, +Fitzbreguet, and plenty of the most desirable and most desired men in +town, yet of which--oh the obstinacy of women! she had actually made +Chandos Cheveley, with those wicked little Fairy roses in his coat, +positively the captain and the chief! + +"It is enough to break one's heart!" thought Lady Marabout, wincing +under the Hautton glance, which she saw only the plainer because she +_wouldn't_ see it at all, and which said with horrible distinctness, +"There is that man, who can hardly keep his own cab, who floats on +society like a pleasure-boat, without rudder, ballast, or anchors, of +whom I have told you, in virtuous indignation and Christian charity, +fifty thousand naughty stories, who visits that wicked, notorious little +Marechale, who belongs to the Amandine set, who is everything that he +ought not and nothing that he ought to be, who hasn't a penny he doesn't +make by a well-made betting-book or a dashed-off magazine +article,--there he is flirting all day at your own stall with +Rosediamond's daughter, and you haven't the _savoir faire_, the strength +of will, the tact, the proper feeling, to stop it!" + +To all of which charges Lady Marabout humbly bent her head, +metaphorically speaking, and writhed, in secret, under the glance of her +ancient enemy, while she talked and laughed with the Duke of Doncaster. +C. Petronius, talking epicureanisms and witicisms, while the life-blood +was ebbing away at every breath, was nothing to the suffering and the +fortitude of Helena, Lady Marabout, turning a smiling, sunny, tranquil +countenance to the world in front of her stall, while that world could +see Chandos Cheveley admitted behind it! + +"I must do something to stop this!" thought Lady Marabout, with the +desperation of a Charlotte Corday. + +"Is Cheveley going in for the Ormsby tin?" said Amandine to Eyre Lee. +"Best thing he could do, eh? But Lady Tattersall and the trustees would +cut rough, I am afraid." + +"What does Chandos mean with that daughter of Rosediamond's?" wondered +her Grace, annoyedly. She had had him some time in her own rose chains, +and when ladies have driven a lover long in that sort of harness, they +could double-thong him with all the might of their little hands, if they +fancy he is trying to break away. + +"Is Chandos Cheveley turning fortune-hunter? I suppose he would like +Lady Cecil's money to pay off his Ascot losses," said Mrs. Marechale, +with a malicious laugh. At Ascot, the day before, he had not gone near +her carriage; the year before he had driven her down in her +mail-phaeton: what would there be too black to say of him _now_? + +"I must do something to stop this!" determined Lady Marabout, driving +homewards, and glancing at Cecil Ormsby, as that young lady lay back in +the carriage, a little grave and dreamy after her day's campaign--signs +of the times terrifically ominous to her chaperone, skilled in reading +such meteorological omens. But how was the drag to be put on the wheel? +That momentous question absorbed Lady Marabout through her toilette that +evening, pursued her to dinner, haunted her through two soirees, kept +her wide awake all night, woke up with her to her early coffee, and +flavored the potted tongue and the volaille a la Richelieu she took for +her breakfast. "I can't turn the man out of town, and I can't tell +people to strike him off their visiting-lists, and I can't shut Cecil +and myself up in this house as if it were a convent, and, as to speaking +to her, it is not the slightest use. She has such a way of putting +things that one can never deny their truth, or reason them away, as one +can with other girls. Fond as I am of her, she's fearfully difficult to +manage. Still I owe it as a sacred duty to poor Rosediamond and the +General, who says he places such implicit confidence in me, to +interfere. It is my duty; it can't be helped. I must speak to Chandos +Cheveley himself. I have no right to consult my own scruples when so +much is at stake," valorously determined Lady Marabout, resolved to +follow stern moral rules, and, when right was right, to let "le diable +prendre le fruit." + +To be a perfect woman of the world, I take it, ladies must weed out +early in life all such little contemptible weaknesses as a dislike to +wounding other people; and a perfect woman of the world, therefore, Lady +Marabout was not, and never would be. Nohow could she acquire Anne +Hautton's invaluable sneer--nohow could she imitate that estimable +pietist's delightful way of dropping little icy-barbed sentences, under +which I have known the bravest to shrink, frozen, out of her path. Lady +Marabout was grieved if she broke the head off a flower needlessly, and +she could not cure herself of the same lingering folly in disliking to +say a thing that pained anybody; it is incidental to the De Boncoeur +blood--Carruthers inherits it--and I have seen fellows spared through +it, whom he could else have withered into the depths of their boots by +one of his satirical mots. So she did not go to her task of speaking to +Chandos Cheveley, armed at all points for the encounter, and taking +pleasure in feeling the edge of her rapier, as Lady Hautton would have +done. The Cobra was dangerous, and must be crushed, but Lady Marabout +did not very much relish setting her heel on it; it was a glittering, +terrible, much-to-be-feared, and much-to-be-abused serpent,--but it +might _feel_ all the same, you see. + +"I dislike the man on principle, but I don't want to pain him," she +thought, sighing for the Hautton stern _savoir faire_ and Achilles +impenetrability, and goading herself on with the remembrance of duty and +General Ormsby, when the opportunity she had resolved to seek presented +itself accidentally at a breakfast at Lady George Frangipane's toy +villa at Fulham, and she found herself comparatively alone in the +rose-garden with Cheveley, for once without Cecil's terrible violet eyes +upon her. + +"Will you allow me a few words with you, Mr. Cheveley?" she asked, in +her blandest manner--the kindly hypocrite! + +The blow must be dealt, but it might as well be softened with a few +chloroform fumes, and not struck savagely with an iron-spiked mace. + +Cheveley raised his eyes. + +"With me? With the greatest pleasure!" + +"He is a mere fortune-hunter. I will _not_ spare him, I am resolved," +determined Lady Marabout, as she toyed with her parasol-handle, remarked +incidentally how unequalled Lady George was in roses, especially in the +tea-rose, and dealt blow No. 1. "Mr. Cheveley, I am going to speak to +you very frankly. I consider frankness in all things best, myself----" + +Cheveley bowed, and smiled slightly. + +"I wish he would answer, it would make it so much easier; he will only +look at one with those eyes of his, and certainly they _are_ splendid!" +thought Lady Marabout, as she went on quickly, on the same principle as +the Chasseurs Indiens approach an abattis at double-quick. "When Lord +Rosediamond died last year he left, as probably you are aware, his +daughter in my sole care; it was a great responsibility--very great--and +I feel, of course, that I shall have to answer to him for my discharge +of it." + +Lady Marabout didn't say whether Rosediamond was accustomed to visit her +per medium, and hear her account of her stewardship nightly through a +table-claw; but we must suppose that he was. Cheveley bowed again, and +didn't inquire, not being spiritually interested. + +"Why _won't_ he answer?" thought Lady Marabout. "That I have not been +blind to your very marked attention to my dear Cecil, I think you must +be aware, Mr. Cheveley, and it is on that subject, indeed, that I----" + +"Wished to speak to me? I understand!" said Cheveley as she paused, with +that faint smile, half sad, half proud, that perplexed Lady Marabout. +"You are about to insinuate to me gently that those attentions have been +exceedingly distasteful to you, exceedingly unacceptable in me; you +would remind me that Lady Cecil Ormsby is a beauty and an heiress, and +that I am a fortune-hunter, whose designs are seen through and motives +found out; you would hint to me that our intercourse must cease: is it +not so?" + +Lady Marabout, cursed with that obstinate, ill-bred, unextinguishable +weakness for truth incidental and ever fatal to the De Boncoeurs, +couldn't say that it was _not_ what she was going to observe to him, but +it was exceedingly unpleasant, now it was put in such plain, +uncomplimentary terms, to admit to the man's face that she was about to +tell him he was a mercenary schemer, whose attentions only sprang from a +lawless passion for the _beaux yeux_ of Cecil's _cassette_. + +She would have told him all that, and much more, with greatest dignity +and effect, if he hadn't anticipated her; but to have her weapon parried +before it was fairly out of its sheath unnerved her arm at the outset. + +"What _would_ Anne Hautton do? Dear me! there never was anybody +perpetually placed in such wretched positions as I am!" thought Lady +Marabout, as she played with her parasol, and murmured something not +very clear relative to "responsibility" and "not desirable," two words +as infallibly a part of Lady Marabout's stock in trade as a sneer at the +"swells" is of _Punch's_. How she sighed for some cold, nonchalant, +bitter sentence, such as the Hautton repertoire could have supplied! how +she scorned herself for her own weakness and lack of severity! But she +would not have relished hurting a burglar's feelings, though she had +seen him in the very act of stealing her jewel-boxes, by taxing him with +the theft; and though the Ogre _must_ be crushed, the crushing began to +give Lady Marabout neuralgic twinges. She was no more able to say the +stern things she had rehearsed and resolved upon, than she was able to +stab him with her parasol, or strangle him with her handkerchief. + +"I guessed rightly what you were about to say to me?" said Cheveley, who +seemed somehow or other to have taken all the talk into his own hands, +and to have become the master of the position. "I thought so. I do not +wonder at your construction; I cannot blame you for your resolution. +Lady Cecil has some considerable fortune, they say; it is very natural +that you should have imagined a man like myself, with no wealth save a +good name, which only serves to make lack of wealth more conspicuous, +incapable of seeking her society for any better, higher, more +disinterested motive than that of her money; it was not charitable, +perhaps, to decide unhesitatingly that it was impossible I could be +drawn to her by any other attraction, that it was imperative I must be +dead to everything in her that gives her a nobler and a higher charm; +but it was very natural, and one learns never to hope for the miracle of +a charitable judgment, _even_ from Lady Marabout!" + +"My dear Mr. Cheveley, indeed you mistake!" began Lady Marabout, +restlessly. That was a little bit of a story, he didn't mistake at all; +but Lady Marabout, collapsing like an india-rubber ball under the prick +of a sarcasm, shivered all over at his words, his voice, his slight sad +smile. "The man is as dreadful as Cecil," she thought; "he puts things +so horribly clearly!" + +"Mistake? I do not think I do. You have thought all this, and very +naturally; but now hear me for a moment. I have sought Lady Cecil's +society, that is perfectly true; we have been thrown together in +society, very often accidentally; sometimes, I admit, through my own +seeking. Few men could be with her and be steeled against her. I have +been with her too much; but I sought her at first carelessly, then +irresistibly and unconsciously, never with the motive you attribute to +me. I am not as utterly beggared as you deem me, but neither am I +entirely barren of honor. Believe me, Lady Marabout, my pride alone +would be amply sufficient to raise a barrier between me and Cecil +stronger than any that could be opposed to me by others. Yesterday I +casually overheard words from Amandine which showed me that society, +like you, has put but one construction on the attention I have paid +her--a construction I might have foreseen had I not been unconsciously +fascinated, and forgetful, for the time, of the infallible whispers of +my kind friends. Her fortune, I know, was never numbered among her +attractions for me; so little, that now that Amandine's careless words +have reminded me of the verdict of society, I shall neither seek her nor +see her again. Scores of men marry women for their money, and their +money alone, but I am not one of them; with my own precarious fortunes, +only escaping ruin because I am not rich enough to tempt ruin. I would +never take advantage of any interest I may have excited in her, to speak +to her of a passion that the world would tell her was only another name +for avarice and selfishness. I dare not trust myself with her longer, +perhaps. I am no god to answer for my self-control; but you need not +fear; I will never seek her love--never even tell her of mine. I shall +leave town to-morrow; what _I_ may suffer matters not. Lady Cecil is +safe from me! Whatever you may have heard of my faults, follies, or +vices, none ever told you, I think, that I broke my word?" + + * * * * * + +"And when the man said that, my dear Philip, I assure you I felt as +guilty as if I had done him some horrible wrong; he stood there with his +head up, looking at me with his sad proud eyes--and they are +beautiful!--till, positively, I could almost have cried--I could, +indeed, for though I don't like him on principle, I couldn't help +pitying him," said Lady Marabout, in a subsequent relation of the scene +to her son. "Wasn't it a terrible position? I was as near as possible +forgetting everything due to poor Rosediamond, and saying to him that I +believed Cecil liked him and would never like anybody else, but, thank +Heaven! I remembered myself, and checked myself in time. If it had been +anybody but Chandos Cheveley, I should really have admired him, he spoke +so nobly! When he lifted his hat and left me, though I _ought_ to have +been glad (and I _was_ glad, of course) that Cecil would be free from +the society of anybody so objectionable and so dangerous, I felt +wretched for him--I did indeed. It _is_ so hard always to be placed in +such miserable positions!" + +By which you will perceive that the triumphant crushing of Lady +Marabout's Cobra didn't afford her the unmixed gratification she had +anticipated. + +"I have done what was my duty to poor Rosediamond, and what General +Ormsby's confidence merited," she solaced herself that day, feeling +uncomfortably and causelessly guilty, she hardly knew why, when she saw +Chandos Cheveley keeping sedulously with the "Amandine set," and read in +Cecil's tell-tale face wonder, perplexity, and regret thereat, till the +Frangipane fete came to an end. She had appeased the manes of the late +Rosediamond, who, to her imagination, always appeared sitting up aloft +keeping watch over the discharge of her chaperone's duties, but she had +a secret and horrible dread that she had excited the wrath of +Rosediamond's daughter. She had driven her Ogre off the scene, it is +true, but she could not feel that she had altogether come off the best +in the contest. Anne Hautton had congratulated her, indeed, on having +"acted with decision _at last_," but then she had marred it all by +asking if Carruthers was likely to be engaged to Cecil? And Lady +Marabout had been forced to confess he was not; Philip, when pressed by +her that very morning to be a little attentive to Cecil, having shaken +his head and laughed: + +"She's a bewitching creature, mother, but she don't bewitch _me_! You +know what Shakspeare says of wooing, wedding, and repentance. I've no +fancy for the inseparable trio!" + +Altogether, Lady Marabout was far from peace and tranquillity, though +the Cobra _was_ crushed, as she drove away from the Frangipane +breakfast, and she was little nearer them when Cecil turned her eyes +upon her with a question worse to Lady Marabout's ear than the roar of a +Lancaster battery. + +"What have you said to him?" + +"My dear Cecil! What have I said to whom?" returned Lady Marabout, with +Machiavellian surprise. + +"You know well enough, Lady Marabout! What have you said to him--to Mr. +Cheveley?" + +Cecil's impetuosity invariably knocked Lady Marabout down at one blow, +as a ball knocks down the pegs at lawn billiards. She rallied after the +shock, but not successfully, and tried at coldness and decision, as +recommended by Hautton prescriptions. + +"My dear Cecil, I have said to him what I think it my duty to say to +him. Responsible as I am for you----" + +"Responsible for me, Lady Marabout? Indeed you are not. I am responsible +for myself!" interrupted Lady Cecil, with that haughty arch of her +eyebrows and that flush on her face before which Lady Marabout was +powerless. "What have you said to him? I _will_ know!" + +"I said very little to him, indeed, my dear; he said it all himself." + +"What did he say himself?" + +"I _must_ tell her--she is so dreadfully persistent," thought the +unhappy and badgered Peeress; and tell her she did, being a means of +lessening the young lady's interest in the subject of discussion as +little judicious as she could well have hit upon. + +Lady Cecil listened, silent for once, shading her face with her parasol, +shading the tears that gathered on her lashes and rolled down her +delicate flushed cheeks, at the recital of Chandos Cheveley's words, +from her chaperone's sight. + +Lady Marabout gathered courage from the tranquillity with which her +recital was heard. + +"You see, my love, Chandos Cheveley's own honor points in the same +direction with my judgment," she wound up, in conclusion. "He has acted +rightly at last, I allow, and if you--if you have for the moment felt a +tinge of warmer interest in him--if you have been taken by the +fascination of his manner, and invested him with a young girl's romance, +you will soon see with us how infinitely better it is that you should +part, and how impossible it is that----" + +Lady Cecil's eyes flashed such fire through their tears, that Lady +Marabout stopped, collapsed and paralyzed. + +"It is by such advice as that you repay his nobility, his generosity, +his honor!--it is by such words as those you reward him for acting as +not one man in a hundred would have acted! Hush, hush, Lady Marabout, I +thought better of you!" + +"Good Heavens! _where will it end?_" thought Lady Marabout, +distractedly, as Rosediamond's wayward daughter sprang down at the door +with a flush in her face, and a contemptuous anger in her eyes, that +made Bijou, jumping on her, stop, stare, and whine in canine dismay. + +"And I fancied she was listening passively!" thought Lady Marabout. + +"Well! the man is gone to-day, that is one comfort. I am very thankful I +acted as I did," reasoned that ever-worried lady in her boudoir the next +morning. "I am afraid Cecil is really very fond of him, there were such +black shadows under her eyes at breakfast, poor child! But it is much +better as it is--much better. I should never have held up my head again +if I had allowed her to make such a disadvantageous alliance. I can +hardly bear to think of what would have been said, even now the danger +is over!" + +While Lady Marabout was thus comforting herself over her embroidery +silks, Cecil Ormsby was pacing into the Park, with old Twitters the +groom ten yards behind her, taking her early ride before the world was +up--it was only eleven o'clock; Cecil had been used to early rising, and +would never leave it off, having discovered some recipe that made her +independent of ordinary mortals' quantum of sleep. + +"Surely he will be here this morning to see me for the last time," +thought that young lady, as she paced up the New Ride under the +Kensington Gardens trees, with her heart beating quickly under the gold +aiglettes of her riding-jacket. + +"I must see her once more, and then----" thought Chandos Cheveley, as he +leaned against the rails, smoking, as he had done scores of mornings +before. His man had packed his things; his hansom was waiting at the +gates to take him to the station, and his portmanteau was lettered +"Ischl." He had only come to take one last look of the face that haunted +him as no other had ever succeeded in doing. The ring of a horse's hoof +fell on his ear. There she came, on her roan hack, with the sun glancing +off her chestnut hair. He looked up to bow to her as she passed on, for +the Ride had never been a rendezvous for more than a bow (Cecil's +insurrectionary tactics had always been carried on before Lady +Marabout's face), but the roan was pulled up by him that morning for +the very first time, and Cecil's eyes fell on him through their lashes. + +"Mr. Cheveley--is it true you are going out of town?" + +"Quite true." + +If her voice quivered as she asked the question, he barely kept his own +from doing the same as he answered it. + +"Will you be gone long?" + +"Till next season, at earliest." + +His promise to Lady Marabout was hard to keep! He would not have trusted +his strength if he had known she would have done more than canter on +with her usual bow and smile. + +Cecil was silent. The groom waited like a statue his ten yards behind +them. She played with her reins nervously, the color coming and going +painfully in her face. + +"Lady Marabout told me of--of some conversation you had with her +yesterday?" + +Low as the words were, Cheveley heard them, and his hand, as it lay on +the rails, shook like a girl's. + +Cecil was silent again; she looked at him, her eyes full of unshed +tears, as the color burned in her face, and she drooped her head almost +to a level with her hands as they played with the reins. + +"She told me--you----" + +She stopped again. Cecil was new to making proposals, though not to +rejecting them. Cheveley set his teeth to keep in the words that rushed +to his lips, and Cecil saw the struggle as she bent her head lower and +lower to the saddle, and twisted the reins into a Gordian knot. + +"Do you--must we--why should----" + +Fragmentary monosyllables enough, but sufficient to fell his strength. + +"For God's sake do not tempt me!" he muttered. "You little know----" + +"I know all!" she whispered softly. + +"You cannot! My worthless life!--my honor! I could not take such a +sacrifice, I would not!----" + +"But--if my peace----" + +She could not end her phrase, yet it said enough;--his hand closed on +hers. + +"Your peace! Good God! in _my_ hands! I stay; then--let the world say +what it likes!" + + * * * * * + +"Drive back; I have changed my mind about going abroad to-day," said +Cheveley, as he got into his hansom at Albert Gate. + +"How soon she has got over it! Girls do," thought Lady Marabout, as +Cecil Ormsby came in from her ride with the brightest bloom on her +cheeks a June breeze ever fanned there. She laid her hat on the table, +flung her gauntlets at Bijou, and threw herself on her knees by Lady +Marabout, a saucy smile on her face, though her lashes were wet. + +"Dear Lady Marabout, I can forgive you now, but you will never forgive +me!" + +Lady Marabout turned white as her point-lace cap, gave a little gasp of +paralyzed terror, and pushed back her chair as though a shell had +exploded on the hearth-rug. + +"Cecil! Good Heaven!--you don't mean----" + +"Yes I do," said Cecil, with a fresh access of color, and a low, soft +laugh. + +Lady Marabout gasped again for breath: + +"General Ormsby!" was all she could ejaculate. + +"General Ormsby? What of him? Did you ever know uncle Johnnie refuse to +please _me_? And if my money be to interfere with my happiness, and not +promote it, as I conceive it its duty and purpose to do, why, I am of +age in July, you know, and I shall make a deed of gift of it all to the +Soldiers' Home or the Wellington College, and there is only one person +who will care for me _then_." + +Lady Cecil was quite capable of carrying her threat into execution, and +Lady Cecil had her own way accordingly, as she had had it from her +babyhood. + + * * * * * + +"I shall never hold up my head again! And what a horrible triumph for +Anne Hautton! I am always the victim--always!" said Lady Marabout, that +day two months, when the last guest at Cecil Ormsby's wedding dejeuner +had rolled away from the house. "A girl who might have married anybody, +Philip; she refused twenty offers this season--she did, indeed! It is +heart-breaking, say what you like; you needn't laugh, it _is_. Why did I +offer them Fernditton for this month, you say, if I didn't countenance +the alliance? Nonsense! that is nothing to the purpose. Of course, I +seemed to countenance it to a degree, for Cecil's sake, and I admire +Chandos Cheveley, I confess (at least I should do, if I didn't dislike +his class on principle); but, say what you like, Philip, it is the most +terrible thing that could have happened for _me_. Those men _ought_ to +be labelled, or muzzled, or done something with, and not be let loose on +society as they are. He has a noble nature, you say. I don't say +anything against his nature! She worships him? Well, I know she does. +What is that to the point? He will make her happy? I am sure he will. He +has the gentlest way with her possible. But how does that console _me_? +Think what _you_ feel when an outsider, as you call it, beats all the +favorites, upsets all your betting-books, and carries off the Doncaster +Cup, and then realize, if you've any humanity in you, what _we_ feel +under such a trial as this is to me! Only to think what Anne Hautton +will always say!" + +Lady Marabout is not the only person to whom the first thought, the most +dreaded ghost, the ghastliest skeleton, the direst aggravation, the +sharpest dagger-thrust, under all troubles, is the remembrance of that +one omnipotent Ogre--"QU'EN DIRA-T-ON?" + +"Laugh at her, mother," counselled Carruthers; and, _amis lecteurs_, I +pass on his advice to you as the best and sole bowstring for strangling +the ogre in question, which is the grimmest we have in all Bogeydom. + + + + +LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; + +OR, + +THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. + +IN THREE SEASONS. + + +SEASON THE THIRD.--THE CLIMAX. + +"My dear Philip, the most unfortunate thing has happened," said Lady +Marabout, one morning; "really the greatest contretemps that could have +occurred. I suppose I never _am_ to be quiet!" + +"What's the row _now_, madre carissima?" asked her son. + +"It is no row, but it is an annoyance. You have heard me speak of my +poor dear friend Mrs. Montolieu; you know she married unhappily, poor +thing, to a dreadful creature, something in a West India +regiment--nobody at all. It is very odd, and it is very wrong, and there +must be a great mistake somewhere, but certainly most marriages _are_ +unhappy." + +"And yet you are always recommending the institution! What an +extraordinary obstinacy and opticism, my dear mother! I suppose you do +it on the same principle as nurses recommend children nasty medicines, +or as old Levett used to tender me dry biscuit _sans confiture_: +''Tisn't so nice as marmalade, I know, Master Philip, but then, dear, +it's _so_ wholesome!'" + +"Hold your tongue, Philip," cried Lady Marabout; "I don't mean it in +that sense at all, and you know I don't. If poor Lilla Montolieu is +unhappy, I am sure it is all her abominable odious husband's fault; she +is the sweetest creature possible. But she has a daughter, and +concerning that daughter she wrote to me about a month ago, and--I never +was more vexed in my life--she wants me to bring her out this season." + +"A victim again! My poor dear mother, you certainly deserve a Belgravian +testimonial; you shall have a statue set up in Lowndes Square +commemorative of the heroic endurance of a chaperone's existence, +subscribed for gratefully by the girls you married well, and +penitentially by the girls you couldn't marry at all." + +Lady Marabout laughed a little, but sighed again: + +"'It is fun to you, but it is death to me'----" + +"As the women say when we flirt with them," interpolated Carruthers. + +"You see, poor dear Lilla didn't know what to do. There she is, in that +miserable island with the unpronounceable name that the man is governor +of; shut out of all society, with nobody to marry this girl to if she +had her there, except their secretary, or a West Indian planter. Of +course, no mother would ruin her daughter's prospects, and take her into +such an out-of-the-world corner. She knew no one so well as myself, and +so to me she applied. She is the sweetest creature! I would do anything +to oblige or please her, but I can't help being very sorry she has +pounced upon me. And I don't the least know what this girl is like, not +even whether she is presentable. I dare say she was petted and spoiled +in that lazy, luxurious, tropical life when she was little, and she has +been brought up the last few years in a convent in France, the very last +education _I_ should choose for a girl. Fancy, if I should find her an +ignorant, unformed hoyden, or a lethargic, overgrown child, or an +artificial French girl, who goes to confession every day, and carries +on twenty undiscoverable love affairs--fancy, if she should be ugly, or +awkward, or brusque, or gauche, as ten to one she will be--fancy, if I +find her utterly unpresentable!--what in the world shall I do?" + +"Decline her," suggested Carruthers. "I wouldn't have a horse put in my +tilbury that I'd never seen, and risk driving a spavined, wall-eyed, +underbred brute through the Park; and I suppose the ignominy of the +debut would be to you much what the ignominy of such a turn-out would be +to me." + +"Decline her? I can't, my dear Philip! I agreed to have her a month ago. +I have never seen you to tell you till now, you know; you've been so +sworn to Newmarket all through the Spring Meetings. Decline her? she +comes to-night!" + +"Comes to-night?" laughed Carruthers. "All is lost, then. We shall see +the Countess of Marabout moving through London society with a West +Indian, who has a skin like Othello; has as much idea of manners as a +housemaid that suddenly turns out an heiress, and is invited by people +to whom she yesterday carried up their hot water; reflects indelible +disgrace on her chaperone by gaucheries unparalleled; throws glass or +silver missiles at Soames's head when he doesn't wait upon her at +luncheon to her liking, as she has been accustomed to do at the +negroes----" + +"Philip, pray don't!" cried Lady Marabout, piteously. + +"Or, we shall welcome under the Marabout wing a young lady fresh from +convent walls and pensionnaire flirtations, who astonishes a +dinner-party by only taking the first course, on the score of jours +maigres and conscientious scruples; who is visited by reverends peres +from Farm Street, and fills your drawing-room with High Church curates, +whom she tries to draw over from their 'mother's' to their 'sister's' +open arms; who goes every day to early morning mass instead of taking +an early morning canter, and who, when invited to sing at a soiree +musicale, begins 'Sancta Maria adorata!'" + +"Philip, _don't_!" cried Lady Marabout. "Bark at him, Bijou, the +heartless man! It is as likely as not little Montolieu may realize one +of your horrible sketches. Ah, Philip, you don't know what the worries +of a chaperone are!" + +"Thank Heaven, no!" laughed Carruthers. + +"It is easy to make a joke of it, and very tempting, I dare say--one's +woes always _are_ amusing to other people, they don't feel the smart +themselves, and only laugh at the grimace it forces from one--but I can +tell you, Philip, it is anything but a pleasant prospect to have to go +about in society with a girl one may be ashamed of!--I don't know +anything more trying; I would as soon wear paste diamonds as introduce a +girl that is not perfectly good style." + +"But why not have thought of all this in time?" + +Lady Marabout sank back in her chair, and curled Bijou's ears, with a +sigh. + +"My dear Philip, if everybody always thought of things in time, would +there be any follies committed at all? It's precisely because repentance +comes too late, that repentance is such a horrible wasp, with such a +merciless sting. Besides, _could_ I refuse poor Lilla Montolieu, unhappy +as she is with that bear of a man?" + +"I never felt more anxious in my life," thought Lady Marabout, as she +sat before the fire in her drawing-room--it was a chilly April +day--stirring the cream into her pre-prandial cup of tea, resting one of +her small satin-slippered feet on Bijou's back, while the firelight +sparkled on the Dresden figures, the statuettes, the fifty thousand +costly trifles, in which the Marabout rooms equalled any in Belgravia. +"I never felt more anxious--not on any of Philip's dreadful yachting +expeditions, nor even when he went on that perilous exploring tour into +Arabia Deserta, I do think. If she _should_ be unpresentable--and then +poor dear Lilla's was not much of a match, and the girl will not have a +sou, she tells me frankly; I can hardly hope to do anything for her. +There is one thing, she will not be a responsibility like Valencia or +Cecil, and what would have been a bad match for _them_ will be a good +one for her. She must accept the first offer made her, if she have any +at all, which will be very doubtful; few Benedicts bow to Beatrices +nowadays, unless Beatrice is a good 'investment,' as they call it. She +will soon be here. That is the carriage now stopped, I do think. How +anxious I feel! Really it can't be worse for a Turkish bridegroom never +to see his wife's face till after the ceremony than it is for one not to +have seen a girl till one has to introduce her. If she shouldn't be good +style!" + +And Lady Marabout's heart palpitated, possibly prophetically, as she set +down her little Sevres cup and rose out of her arm-chair, with Bijou +shaking his silver collar and bells, to welcome the new inmate of +Lowndes Square, with her sunny smile and her kindly voice, and her soft +beaming eyes, which, as I have often stated, would have made Lady +Marabout look amiable at an Abruzzi bandit who had demanded her purse, +or an executioner who had led her out to capital punishment, and now +made her radiate, warm and bright, on a guest whose advent she dreaded. +Hypocrisy, you say. Not a bit of it! Hypocrisy may be eminently +courteous, but take my word for it, it's never _cordial_! There are +natures who throw such golden rays around them naturally, as there are +others who think brusquerie and acidity cardinal virtues, and deal them +out as points of conscience; are there not sunbeams that shine kindly +alike on fragrant violet tufts and barren brambles, velvet lawns and +muddy trottoirs? are there not hail-clouds that send jagged points of +ice on all the world pele-mele, as mercilessly on the broken rose as on +the granite boulder? + +"She _is_ good style, thank Heaven!" thought Lady Marabout, as she went +forward, with her white soft hands, their jewels flashing in the light, +outstretched in welcome. "My dear child, how much you are like your +mother! You must let me be fond of you for her sake, first, and +then--for your own!" + +The conventional thought did not make the cordial utterance insincere. +The two ran in couples--we often drive such pairs, every one of us--and +if they entail insincerity, _Veritas, vale!_ + +"Madre mia, I called to inquire if you have survived the anxiety of last +night, and to know what _jeune sauvage_ or feir _religieuse_ you may +have had sent you for the galvanizing of Belgravia?" said Carruthers, +paying his accustomed visit in his mother's boudoir, and throwing +macaroons at Bijou's nose. + +"My dear Philip, I hardly know; she puzzles me. She's what, if she were +a man, I should classify as a detrimental." + +"Is she awkward?" + +"Not in the least. Perfect manners, wherever she learned them." + +"Brusque?" + +"Soft as a gazelle. Very like her mother." + +"Brown?" + +"Fair as that statuette, with a beautiful bloom; lovely gold hair, too, +and hazel eyes." + +"What are the shortcomings, then?" + +"There are none; and it's that that puzzles me. She's been six years in +that convent, and yet, I do assure you, her style is perfect. She's +hardly eighteen, but she's the air of the best society. She is--a--well, +_almost_ nobody, as people rank now, you know, for poor dear Lilla's +marriage was not what she should have made, but the girl might be a +royal duke's daughter for manner." + +"A premature artificial _femme du monde_? Bah! nothing more odious," +said Carruthers, poising a macaroon on Pandore's nose. "Make +ready!--present!--fire! There's a good dog!" + +"No, nothing of that sort: very natural, frank, vivacious. Nothing +artificial about her; very charming indeed! But she might be a young +Countess, the queen of a _monde_ rather than a young girl just out of a +French convent; and, you know, my dear Philip, that sort of wit and +nonchalance may be admirable for Cecil Cheveley, assured of her +position, but they're dangerous to a girl like this Flora Montolieu: +they will make people remark her and ask who she is, and try to pull her +to pieces, if they don't find her somebody they _dare_ not hit. I would +much rather she were of the general pattern, pleasing, but nothing +remarkable, well-bred, but nothing to envy, thoroughly educated, but +monosyllabic in society; such a girl as that passes among all the rest, +suits mediocre men (and the majority of men _are_ mediocre, you know, my +dear Philip), and pleases women because she is a nice girl, and no +rival; but this little Montolieu----" + +And Lady Marabout sighed with a prescience of coming troubles, while +Carruthers laughed and rose. + +"Will worry your life out! I must go, for I have to sit in court-martial +at two (for a mere trifle, a deuced bore to us, but _le service +oblige_!), so I shall escape introduction to your little Montolieu +to-day. Why _will_ you fill your house with girls, my dear mother?--it +is fifty times more agreeable when you are reigning alone. Henceforth, I +can't come in to lunch with you without going through the formula of a +mild flirtation--women think you so ill-natured if you don't flirt a +little with them, that amiable men like myself haven't strength of mind +to refuse. You should keep _your_ house an open sanctuary for me, when +you know I've no other in London except when I retreat into White's and +the U. S.!" + +"She puzzles me!" pondered Lady Marabout, as Despreaux disrobed her that +night. "I always _am_ to be puzzled, I think! I never _can_ have one of +those quiet, mediocre, well-mannered, remarkable-for-nothing girls, who +have no idiosyncrasies and give nobody any trouble; one marries them +safely to some second-rate man; nobody admires them, and nobody dislikes +them; they're to society what neutral tint is among body-colors, or +rather what grays are among dresses, inoffensive, unimpeachable, always +look ladylike, but never look brilliant; colorless dresses are very +useful, and so are characterless girls; and I dare say the draper would +tell us the grays in the long run are the easiest to sell, as the girls +are to marry; they please the commonplace taste of the generality, and +do for every-day wear! Flora Montolieu puzzles me; she is very charming, +very striking, very lovable, but she puzzles me! I have a presentiment +that that child will give me a world of anxiety, an infinitude of +trouble!" + +And Lady Marabout laid her head on her pillow, not the happier that +Flora Montolieu was lying asleep in the room next her, dreaming of the +wild-vine shadows and the night-blooming flowers of her native tropics, +under the rose-curtains of her new home in Lowndes Square, already a +burden on the soul and a responsibility on the mind of that home's most +genial and generous mistress. + +"If she were a man, I should certainly call her a detrimental," said +Lady Marabout, after a more deliberate study of her charge. "You know, +my dear Philip, the sort of man one call detrimental; attractive enough +to do a great deal of damage, and ineligible enough to make the damage +very unacceptable: handsome and winning, but a younger son, or a +something nobody wants; a delightful flirtation, but a terrible +alliance; you know what I mean! Well, that is just what this little +Montolieu is in our sex; I am quite sure it is what she will be +considered; and if it be bad for a man, it is very much worse for a +woman! Everybody will admire her, and nobody will marry her; I have a +presentiment of it!" + +With which prophetical melange of the glorious and the inglorious for +her charge's coming career, Lady Marabout sighed, and gave a little +shiver, such as + + Sous des maux ignores nous fait gemir d'avance, + +as Delphine Gay well phrased it. And she floated out of her boudoir to +the dining-room for luncheon, at which unformal and pleasant meal +Carruthers chanced to stay, criticise a new dry sherry, and take a look +at this unsalable young filly of the Marabout Yearling Sales. + +"I don't know about her being detrimental, mother, nor about her being +little; she in more than middle height," laughed he; "but I vow she is +the prettiest thing you've had in your list for some time. You've had +much greater beauties, you say? Well, perhaps so; but I bet you any +money she will make a sensation." + +"I'm sure she will," reiterated Lady Marabout, despairingly. "I have no +doubt she will have a brilliant season; there is something very +piquante, taking, and uncommon about her; but who will marry her at the +end of it?" + +Carruthers shouted with laughter. + +"Heaven forbid that I should attempt to prophesy! I would undertake as +readily to say who'll be the owner of the winner of the Oaks ten years +hence! I can tell you who _won't_----" + +"Yourself; because you'll never marry anybody at all," cried Lady +Marabout. "Well! I must say I should not wish you to renounce your +misogamistic notions here. The Montolieus are not at all what _you_ +should look for; and a child like Flora would be excessively ill suited +to you. If I could see you married, as I should desire, to some woman of +weight and dignity, five or six-and-twenty, fit for you in every +way----" + +"_De grace, de grace!_ My dear mother, the mere sketch will kill me, if +you insist on finishing it! Be reasonable! Can anything be more +comfortable, more tranquil, than I am now? I swing through life in a +rocking-chair; if I'm a trifle bored now and then, it's my heaviest +trial. I float as pleasantly on the waves of London life, in my way, as +the lotus-eaters of poetry on the Ganges in theirs; and _you'd_ have the +barbarity to introduce into my complacent existence the sting of +matrimony, the phosphorus of Hymen's torch, the symbolical serpent of a +wedding-ring?--for shame!" + +Lady Marabout laughed despite herself, and the solemnity, in _her_ eyes, +of the subject. + +"I _should_ like to see you happily married, for all that, though I +quite despair of it now; but perhaps you are right." + +"Of course I am right! Adam was tranquil and unworried till fate sent +him a wife, and he was typical of the destinies of his descendants. +Those who are wise, take warning; those who are not, neglect it and +repent. Lady Hautton et C^{ie} are very fond of twisting scriptural +obscurities into 'types.' _There's_ a type plain as day, and salutary to +mankind, if detrimental to women!" + +"Philip, you are abominable! don't be so wicked!" cried Lady Marabout, +enjoying it all the more because she was a little shocked at it, as your +best women will on occasion; human nature is human nature everywhere, +and the female heart gives pleasurable little pulses at the sight of +forbidden fruits now, as in the days of Eve. + +"Who's that Miss Montolieu with your mother this year, Phil?" dozens of +men asked Carruthers, that season, across the mess-table, in the +smoking-room of the Guards, in the Ride or the Ring, in the doorways of +ball-rooms, or anywhere where such-like questions are asked and new +pretty women discussed. + +"What is it in her that takes so astonishingly?" wondered Lady Marabout, +who is, like most women, orthodox on all points, loving things by rule, +worrying if they go out of the customary routine, and was, therefore, +quite incapable of reconciling herself to so revolutionary a fact as a +young lady being admired who was not a beauty, and sought while she was +detrimental in every way. It was "out of the general rule," and your +orthodox people hate anything "out of the general run," as they hate +their prosperous friends: the force of hatred can no further go! Flora +Montolieu's crime in Belgravia was much akin to the Bonapartes' crimes +to the Bourbons. Thrones must be filled legitimately, if not worthily, +in the eyes of the orthodox people, and this Petit Caporal of Lady +Marabout's had no business to reign where the Hereditary Princesses and +all the other noble lines failed to sway the sceptre. Lady Marabout, +belonging to the noble lines herself, agreed in her heart with them, and +felt a little bit guilty to have introduced this democratic and +unwelcome element in society. + +Flora Montolieu "took," as people say of bubble companies, meaning that +they will pleasantly ruin a million or two: or of new fashions, meaning +that they will become general with the many and, _sequitur_, unwearable +with the few. She had the brilliance and grace of one of her own +tropical flowers, with something piquante and attractive about her that +one had to leave nameless, but that was all the more charming for that +very fact perhaps; full of life and animation, but soft as a gazelle, as +her chaperone averred; not characterless, as Lady Marabout fondly +desired (on the same principle, I suppose, as a timid whip likes a horse +as spiritless as a riding-school hack), but gifted with plenty of very +marked character, so much, indeed, that it rather puzzled her +_cameriste_. + +"Girls shouldn't have marked character; they should be clay that one can +mould, not a self-chiselled statuette, that will only go into its own +niche, and won't go into any other. This little Montolieu would make +just such a woman as Vittoria Colonna or Madame de Sable, but one +doesn't want _those_ qualities in a girl, who is but a single little ear +in the wheat-sheaf of society, and whom one wants to marry off, but +can't expect to marry well. Her poor mother, of course, will look to me +to do something advantageous for her, and I verily believe she is that +sort of girl that will let me do nothing," thought Lady Marabout, +already beginning to worry, as she talked to Lady George Frangipane at a +breakfast in Palace Gardens, and watched Flora Montolieu, with +Carruthers on her left and Goodwood on her right, amusing them both, to +all semblance, and holding her own to the Lady Hautton's despite, who +held _their_ own so excessively chillily and loftily that no ordinary +mortals cared to approach them, but, beholding them, thought +involuntarily of the stately icebergs off the Spitzbergen coast, only +that the icebergs _could_ melt or explode when their time came, and the +time was never known when the Hautton surface could be moved to anger or +melt to any sunshine whatever. At least, whether their maids or their +mother ever beheld the first of the phenomena, far be it from me to say, +but the world never saw either. + +"Well, Miss Montolieu, how do you like our life here?" Carruthers was +asking. "Which is preferable--Belgravia or St. Denis?" + +"Oh, Belgravia, decidedly," laughed Lady Marabout's charge. "I think +your life charming. All change, excitement, gayety, who would not like +it?" + +"Nobody--that is not fresh to it?" + +"Fresh to it? Ah! are you one of the class who find no beauty in +anything unless it is new? If so, do not charge the blame on to the +thing, as your tone implies; take it rather to yourself and your own +fickleness." + +"Perhaps I do," smiled Carruthers. "But whether one's self or 'the +thing' is to blame, the result's much the same--satiety! Wait till you +have had two or three seasons, and then tell me if you find this +mill-wheel routine, these circus gyrations, so delightful! We are the +performing stud, who go round and round in the hippodrome, day after day +for show, till we are sick of the whole programme, knowing our white +stars are but a daub of paint, and our gay spangles only tinfoil. You +are a little pony just joined to the troupe, and just pleased with the +glitter of the arena. Wait till you've had a few years of it before you +say whether going through the same hoops and passing over the same +sawdust is so very amusing." + +"If I do not, I shall desert the troupe, and form a circus of my own +less mechanical and more enjoyable." + +"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle, il faut souffrir encore plus pour +etre a la mode!_" said Goodwood, on her right, while Lady Egidia Hautton +thought, "How bold that little Montolieu is!" and her sister, Lady +Feodorowna, wondered what her cousin Goodwood _could_ see there. + +"I do not see the necessity," interrupted Flora, "and I certainly would +never bow to the 'il faut.' I would make fashion follow me; I would not +follow fashion." ("That child talks as though she were the Duchess of +Amandine;" thought Lady Marabout, catching fragmentary portions across +the table, the Marabout oral and oracular organs being always +conveniently multiplied when she was armed cap a pie as a chaperone.) +"Sir Philip, you talk as if you belonged to the 'nothing-is-new, and +nothing-is-true, and it-don't-signify' class. I should have thought you +were above the nil admirari affectation." + +"He admires, as we all do, when we find something that compels our +homage," said Goodwood, with an emphasis that would have made the hearts +of any of the Hereditary Princesses palpitate with gratification, but at +which the ungrateful Petit Caporal only glanced at him a little +surprisedly with her large hazel eyes, as though she by no means saw the +point of the speech. + +Carruthers laughed: + +"Nil admirari? Oh no. I enjoy life, but then it is thanks to the clubs, +my yacht, my cigar-case, my stud, a thousand things,--not thanks at all +to Belgravia." + +"Complimentary to the Belgraviennes!" cried Flora, with a shrug of her +shoulders. "They have not known how to amuse you, then?" + +"Ladies never _do_ amuse us!" sighed Carruthers. "_Tant pis pour nous!_" + +"Are you going to Lady Patchouli's this evening?" asked Goodwood. + +"I believe we are. I think Lady Marabout said so." + +"Then I shall exert myself, and go too. It will be a terrible +bore--balls always are. But to waltz with _you_ I will try to encounter +it!" + +Flora Montolieu arched her eyebrows, and gave him a little disdainful +glance. + +"Lord Goodwood, do not be so sure that I shall waltz at all with you. If +_you_ take vanity for wit, _I_ cannot accept discourtesy as compliment!" + +"Well hit, little lady!" thought Carruthers, with a mental bravissima. + +"What a speech!" thought Lady Marabout, across the table, as shocked as +though a footman had dropped a cascade of iced hock over her. + +"You got it for once, Goodwood," laughed Carruthers, as they drove away +in his tilbury. "You never had such a sharp brush as that." + +"By Jove, no! Positively it was quite a new sensation--refreshing, +indeed! One grows so tired of the women who agree with one eternally. +She's charming, on my word. Who _is_ she, Phil? In an heraldic sense, I +mean." + +"My dear child, what could possess you to answer Lord Goodwood like +that?" cried Lady Marabout, as her barouche rolled down Palace Gardens. + +"Possess me? The Demon of Mischief, I suppose." + +"But, my love, it was a wonderful compliment from him!" + +"Was it? I do not see any compliment in those vain, impertinent, +Brummelian amour-propreisms. I must coin the word, there is no good one +to express it." + +"But, my dear Flora, you know he is the Marquis of Goodwood, the Duke of +Doncaster's son! It is not as if he were a boy in the Lancers, or an +unfledged _petit maitre_ from the Foreign Office----" + +"Were he her Majesty's son, he should not gratify his vanity at my +expense! If he expected me to be flattered by his condescension, he +mistook me very much. He has been allowed to adopt that tone, I suppose; +but from a man to a woman a chivalrous courtesy is due, though the man +be an emperor." + +"Perhaps so--of course; but that _is_ their tone nowadays, my love, and +you cannot alter it. I always say the Regency-men inaugurated it, and +their sons and grandsons out-Herod Herod. But to turn a tide, or be a +wit with impunity, a woman wants to occupy a prominent and unassailable +position. Were you the Duchess of Amandine, you might say that sort of +thing, but a young girl just out _must not_--indeed she must not! The +Hauttons heard you, and the Hauttons are very merciless people; +perfectly bred themselves, and pitiless on the least infringement of the +convenances. Besides, ten to one you may have gained Goodwood's +ill-will; and he is a man whose word has immense weight, I assure you." + +"I do not see anything remarkable in him to give him weight," said the +literal and unimpressible little Montolieu. "He is a commonplace person +to my taste, neither so brilliant nor so handsome by a great deal as +many gentlemen I see--as Sir Philip, for instance, Lady Marabout?" + +"An my son? No, my love, he is not; very few men have Philip's talents +and person," said Lady Marabout, consciously mollified and propitiated, +but going on, nevertheless, with a Spartan impartiality highly laudable +"Goodwood's rank, however, is much higher than Philip's (at least it +stands so, though really the Carruthers are by far the older, dating as +far back as Ethelbert II., while the Doncaster family are literally +unknown till the fourteenth century, when Gervaise d'Ascotte received +the acolade before Ascalon from Godfrey de Bouillon); Goodwood _has_ +great weight, my dear, in the best circles. A compliment from him is a +great compliment to any woman, and the sort of answer you gave him----" + +"Must have been a great treat to him, dear Lady Marabout, if every one +is in the habit of kow-towing before him. Princes, you know, are never +so happy as when they can have a little bit of nature; and my speech +must have been as refreshing to Lord Goodwood as the breath of his +Bearnese breezes and the freedom of his Pyrenean forests were to Henri +Quatre after the court etiquette and the formal ceremonial of Paris." + +"I don't know about its being a treat to him, my dear; it was more +likely to be a shower-bath. And your illustration isn't to the point. +The Bearnese breezes were Henri Quatre's native air, and might be +pleasant to him; but the figurative ones are not Goodwood's, and I am +sure cannot please him." + +"But, Lady Marabout, I do not want to please him!" persisted the young +lady, perversely. "I don't care in the least what he thinks, or what he +says of me!" + +"Dear me, how oddly things go!" thought Lady Marabout. "There was +Valencia, one of the proudest girls in England, his equal in every way, +an acknowledged beauty, who would have said the dust on the trottoir was +diamonds, and worn turquoises on azureline, or emeralds on rose, I +verily believe, if such opticisms and gaucheries had been Goodwood's +taste; and here is this child--for whom the utmost one can do will be to +secure a younger son out of the Civil Service, or a country +member--cannot be made to see that he is of an atom more importance +than Soames or Mason, and treats him with downright nonchalant +indifference. What odd anomalies one sees in everything!" + +"Who _is_ that young lady with you this season?" Lady Hautton asked, +smiling that acidulated smile with which that amiable saint always puts +long questions to you of which she knows the answer would be _peine +forte et dure_. "Not the daughter of that horrid John Montolieu, who did +all sorts of dreadful things, and was put into a West India regiment? +Indeed! that man? Dear me! Married the sister of your incumbent at +Fernditton? Ah, really!--very singular! But how do you come to have +brought out the daughter?" + +At all of which remarks Lady Marabout winced, and felt painfully guilty +of a gross democratic dereliction from legitimate and beaten paths, +conscious of having sinned heavily in the eyes of the world and Lady +Hautton, by bringing within the sacred precincts of Belgravia the +daughter of a _mauvais sujet_ in a West India corps and a sister of a +perpetual curate. The world was a terrible dragon to Lady Marabout; to +her imagination it always appeared an incarnated and omniscient bugbear, +Argus-eyed, and with all its hundred eyes relentlessly fixed on her, +spying out each item of her shortcomings, every little flaw in the +Marabout diamonds, any spur-made tear in her Honiton flounces, any +crease in her train at a Drawing-room, any lese-majeste against the +royal rule of conventionalities, any glissade on the polished oak floor +of society, though like a good many other people she often worried +herself needlessly; the flaws, tears, creases, high treasons, and false +glissades being fifty to one too infinitesimal or too unimportant to +society for one of the hundred eyes (vigilant and unwinking though I +grant they are) to take note of them. The world was a terrible bugbear +to Lady Marabout, and its special impersonation was Anne Hautton. She +disliked Anne Hautton; she didn't esteem her; she knew her to be a +narrow, censorious, prejudiced, and strongly malicious lady; but she was +the personification of the World to Lady Marabout, and had weight and +terror in consequence. Lady Marabout is not the first person who has +burnt incense and bowed in fear before a little miserable clay image she +cordially despised, for no better reason--for the self-same reason, +indeed. + +"She evidently thinks I ought not to have brought Flora out; and perhaps +I shouldn't; though, poor little thing, it seems very hard she may not +enjoy society--fitted for society, too, as she is--just because her +father is in a West India regiment, and poor Lilla was only a +clergyman's daughter. Goodwood really seems to admire her. I can never +forgive him for his heartless flirtation with Valencia; but if he _were_ +to be won by a Montolieu, what would the Hauttons say?" + +And sitting against the wall, with others of her sisterhood, at a ball, +a glorious and golden vision rose up before Lady Marabout's eyes. + +If the unknown, unwelcome, revolutionary little Montolieu should go in +and win where the Lady Hauttons had tried and failed through five +seasons--if this little tropical flower should be promoted to the +Doncaster conservatory, where all the stately stephanotises of the +peerage had vainly aspired to bloom--if this Petit Caporal should be +crowned with the Doncaster diadem, that all the legitimate rulers had +uselessly schemed to place on their brows! The soul of Lady Marabout +rose elastic at the bare prospect--it would be a great triumph for a +chaperone as for a general to conquer a valuable position with a handful +of boy recruits. + +If it _should_ be! Anne Hautton would have nothing to say after _that_! + +And Lady Marabout, though she was the most amiable lady in Christendom, +was not exempt from a feeling of longing for a stone to roll to the +door of her enemy's stronghold, or a flourish of trumpets to silence the +boastful and triumphant _fanfare_ that was perpetually sounding at sight +of her defeats from her opponent's ramparts. + +Wild, visionary, guiltily scheming, sinfully revolutionary seemed such a +project in her eyes. Still, how tempting! It would be a terrible blow to +Valencia, who'd tried for Goodwood fruitlessly, to be eclipsed by this +unknown Flora; it would be a terrible blow to their Graces of Doncaster, +who held nobody good enough, heraldically speaking, for their +heir-apparent, to see him give the best coronet in England to a +bewitching little interloper, sans money, birth, or rank. "They wouldn't +like it, of course; I shouldn't like it for Philip, for instance, though +she's a very sweet little thing; all the Ascottes would be very vexed, +and all the Valletorts would never forgive it; but it would be _such_ a +triumph over Anne Hautton!" pondered Lady Marabout, and the last clause +carried the day. Did you ever know private pique fail to carry the day +over public charity? + +And Lady Marabout glanced with a glow of prospective triumph, which, +though erring to her Order, was delicious to her individuality, at +Goodwood waltzing with the little Montolieu a suspicious number of +times, while Lady Egidia Hautton was condemned to his young brother, +Seton Ascotte, and Lady Feodorowna danced positively with nobody better +than their own county member, originally a scion of Goodwood's bankers! +Could the force of humiliation further go? Lady Hautton sat smiling and +chatting, but the tiara on her temples was a figurative thorn crown, and +Othello's occupation was gone. When a lady's daughters are dancing with +an unavailable _cadet_ of twenty, and a parvenu, only acceptable in the +last extremities of despair, what good is it for her to watch the smiles +and construe the attentions? + +"We shall see who triumphs now," thought Lady Marabout, with a glow of +pleasure, for which her heart reproached her a moment afterwards. "It is +very wrong," she thought; "if those poor girls don't marry, one ought to +pity them; and as for her--going through five seasons, with a fresh +burden of responsibility leaving the schoolroom, and added on your hands +each year, _must_ sour the sweetest temper; it would do mine, I am sure. +I dare say, if I had had daughters, I should have been ten times more +worried even than I am." + +Which she would have been, undoubtedly, and the eligibles on her +visiting-list ten times more too! Men wouldn't have voted the Marabout +dinners and soirees so pleasant as they did, under the sway of that +sunshiny hostess, if there had been Lady Maudes and Lady Marys to exact +attention, and lay mines under the Auxerre carpets, and man-traps among +the epergne flowers of Lowndes Square. Nor would Lady Marabout have been +the same; the sunshine couldn't have shone so brightly, nor the milk of +roses flowed so mildly under the weight and wear of marriageable but +unmarried daughters; the sunshine would have been fitful, the milk of +roses curdled at best. And no wonder! Those poor women! they have so +much to go through in the world, and play but such a monotonous role, +taken at its most brilliant and best, from first to last, from cradle to +grave, from the berceaunettes in which they commence their existence to +the mausoleum in which they finish it. If they _do_ get a little bit +soured when they have finished their own game, and have to sit at the +card-tables, wide awake however weary, vigilant however drowsy, alert +however bored to death, superintending the hands of the fresh players, +surreptitiously suggesting means for securing the tricks, keeping a +dragon's eye out for revokes, and bearing all the brunt of the blame if +the rubber be lost--if they do get a little bit soured, who can, after +all, greatly wonder? + +"That's a very brilliant little thing, that girl Montolieu," said +Goodwood, driving over to Hornsey Wood, the morning after, with +Carruthers and some other men, in his drag. + +"A deuced pretty waltzer!" said St. Lys, of the Bays; "turn her round in +a square foot." + +"And looks very well in the saddle; sits her horse better than any woman +in the Ride, except Rosalie Rosiere, and as she came from the Cirque +Olympique originally, one don't count _her_," said Fulke Nugent. "I _do_ +like a woman to ride well, I must say. I promised your mother to take a +look at the Marabout Yearling Sale, Phil, if ever I wanted the +never-desirable and ever-burdensome article she has to offer, and if +anything could tempt me to pay the price she asks, I think it would be +that charming Montolieu." + +"She's the best thing Lady Tattersall ever had on hand," said Goodwood, +drawing his whip over his off-wheeler's back. "You know, Phil--gently, +gently, Coronet!--what spoilt your handsome cousin was, as I said, that +it was all mechanism; perfect mechanism, I admit, but all artificial, +prearranged, put together, wound up to smile in this place, bow in that, +and frown in the other; clockwork every inch of it! Now--so-ho, Zouave! +confound you, _won't_ you be quiet?--little Montolieu hasn't a bit of +artifice about her; 'tisn't only that you don't know what she's going to +say, but that _she_ doesn't either; and whether it's a smile or a frown, +a jest or a reproof, it's what the moment brings out, not what's planned +beforehand." + +"The hard hit you had the other day seems to have piqued your interest," +said Carruthers, smoothing a loose leaf of his Manilla. + +"Naturally. The girl didn't care a button about my compliment (I only +said it to try her), and the plucky answer she gave me amused me +immensely. Anything unartificial and frank is as refreshing as +hock-and-seltzer after a field-day--one likes it, don't you know?" + +"Wonderfully eloquent you are, Goody. If you come out like that in St. +Stephen's, we sha'n't know you, and the ministerialists will look down +in the mouth with a vengeance!" + +"Don't be satirical, Phil! If I admire Mademoiselle Flora, what is it to +you, pray?" + +"Nothing at all," said Carruthers, with unnecessary rapidity of +enunciation. + +"My love, what are you going to wear to-night? The Bishop of Bonviveur +is coming. He was a college friend of your poor uncle's; knew your dear +mother before she married. I want you to look your very best and charm +him, as you certainly do most people," said Lady Marabout. Adroit +intriguer! The bishop was going, sans doute; the bishop loved good wine, +good dinners, and good society, and found all three in Lowndes Square, +but the bishop was entirely unavailable for purposes matrimonial, having +had three wives, and being held tight in hand by a fourth; however, a +bishop is a convenient piece to cover your king, in chess, and the +bishop served admirably just then in Lady Marabout's moves as a _locum +tenens_ for Goodwood. Flora Montolieu, in her innocence, made herself +look her prettiest for her mother's old friend, and Flora Montolieu was +conveniently ready, looking her prettiest, for her chaperone's +pet-eligible, when Goodwood--who hated to dine anywhere in London except +at the clubs, the Castle, or the Guards' mess, and was as difficult to +get for your dinners as birds'-nests soup or Tokay pur--entered the +Marabout drawing-rooms. + +"Anne Hautton will see he dined here to-night, in the _Morning Post_ +to-morrow morning, and she will know Flora must attract him very +unusually. What _will_ she, and Egidia, and Feodorowna say?" thought +Lady Marabout, with a glow of pleasure, which she was conscious was +uncharitable and sinful, and yet couldn't repress, let her try how she +might. + +In scheming for the future Duke of Doncaster for John Montolieu's +daughter, she felt much as democratically and treasonably guilty to her +order as a prince of the blood might feel heading a Chartist emeute; but +then, suppose the Chartist row was that Prince's sole chance of crushing +an odious foe, as it was the only chance for her to humiliate the +Hautton, don't you think it might look tempting? Judge nobody, my good +sir, till you've been in similar circumstances yourself--a golden rule, +which might with advantage employ those illuminating colors with which +ladies employ so much of their time just now. Remembering it, they might +hold their white hands from flinging those sharp flinty stones, that +surely suit them so ill, and that soil their fingers in one way quite as +much as they soil the victim's bowed head in another? Illuminate the +motto, mesdames and demoiselles! Perhaps you _will_ do that--on a smalt +ground, with a gold Persian arabesque round, and impossible flowers +twined in and out of the letters; but, _remember_ it!--pardon! It were +asking too much. + +"My dear Philip, did you notice how very marked Goodwood's attentions +were to Flora last night?" asked Lady Marabout, the morning after, in +one of her most sunshiny and radiant moods, as Carruthers paid her his +general matutinal call in her boudoir. + +"Marked?" + +"Yes, marked! Why do you repeat it in that tone? If they _were_ marked, +there is nothing to be ridiculed that I see. They were very marked, +indeed, especially for him; he's such an unimpressible, +never-show-anything man. I wonder you did not notice it!" + +"My dear mother!" said Carruthers, a little impatiently, brushing up the +Angora cat's ruff the wrong way with his cane, "do you suppose I pass my +evenings noticing the attentions other men may see fit to pay to young +ladies?" + +"Well--don't be impatient. You never used to be," said Lady Marabout. +"If you were in my place just for a night or two, or any other +chaperone's, you'd be more full of pity. But people never _will_ +sympathize with anything that doesn't touch themselves. The only chords +that strike the key-note in anybody is the chord that sounds 'self;' and +that is the reason why the world is as full of crash and tumult as +Beethoven's 'Storm.'" + +"Quite right, my dear mother!" + +"Of course it's quite right. I always think you have a great deal of +sympathy for a man, Philip, even for people you don't harmonize +with--(you could sympathize with that child Flora, yesterday, in her +rapturous delight at seeing that Coccoloba Uvifera in the Patchouli +conservatory, because it reminded her of her West Indian home, and you +care nothing whatever about flowers, nor yet about the West Indies, I +should suppose)--but you never will sympathize with me. You know how +many disappointments and grievances and vexations of every kind I have +had the last ten, twenty, ay, thirty, forty seasons--ever since I had to +chaperone your aunt Eleanore, almost as soon as I was married, and was +worried, more than anybody ever _was_ worried, by her coquetteries and +her inconsistencies and her vacillations--so badly as she married, too, +at the last! Those flirting beauties so often do; they throw away a +hundred admirable chances and put up with a wretched _dernier +resort_;--let a thousand salmon break away from the line out of their +carelessness, and end by being glad to land a little minnow. I don't +know when I _haven't_ been worried by chaperoning. Flora Montolieu is a +great anxiety, a great difficulty, little detrimental that she is!" + +"Detrimental! What an odd word you choose for her." + +"I don't choose it for her; she _is_ it," returned Lady Marabout, +decidedly. + +"How so?" + +"How so! Why, my dear Philip, I told you the very first day she came. +How so! when she is John Montolieu's daughter, when she has no birth to +speak of, and not a farthing to her fortune." + +"If she were Jack Ketch's daughter, you could not speak much worse. Her +high-breeding might do credit to a Palace; I only wish one found it in +all Palaces! and I never knew you before measure people by their money." + +"My dear Philip, no more I do. I can't bear you when you speak in that +tone; it's so hard and sarcastic, and unlike you. _I_ don't know what +you mean either. I should have thought a man of the world like yourself +knew well enough what I intend when I say Flora is a detrimental. She +has a sweet temper, very clever, very lively, very charming, as any one +knows by the number of men that crowd about her, but a detrimental she +is----" + +"Poor little heart!" muttered Carruthers in his beard, too low for his +mother to hear. + +"--And yet I am quite positive that if she herself act judiciously, and +it is well managed for her, Goodwood may be won before the season is +over," concluded Lady Marabout. + +Carruthers, not feeling much interest, it is presumed, in the +exclusively feminine pursuit of match-making, returned no answer, but +played with Bijou's silver bells, and twisted his own tawny moustaches. + +"I am quite positive it _may be_, if properly managed," reiterated Lady +Marabout. "You might second me a little, Philip." + +"_I?_ Good Heavens! my dear mother, what are you thinking of? I would +sooner turn torreador, and throw lassos over bulls at Madrid, than help +you to fling nuptial cables over poor devils in Belgravia. Twenty to +one? I'm going to the Yard to look at a bay filly of Cope Fielden's, +and then on to a mess-luncheon of the Bays." + +"Must you go?" said his mother, looking lovingly on him. "You look +tired, Philip. Don't you feel well?" + +"Perfectly; but Cambridge had us out over those confounded Wormwood +Scrubs this morning, and three hours in this June sun, in our harness, +makes one swear. If it were a sharp brush, it would put life into one; +as it is, it only inspires one with an intense suffering from boredom, +and an intense desire for hock and seltzer." + +"I am very glad you haven't a sharp brush, as you call it, for all +that," said Lady Marabout. "It might be very pleasant to you, Philip, +but it wouldn't be quite so much so to me. I wish you would stay to +luncheon." + +"Not to-day, thanks; I have so many engagements." + +"You have been very good in coming to see me this season--even better +than usual. It _is_ very good of you, with all your amusements and +distractions. You have given me a great many days this month," said Lady +Marabout, gratefully. "Anne Hautton sees nothing of Hautton, she says, +except at a distance in Pall-Mall or the Park, all the season through. +Fancy if I saw no more of you! Do you know, Philip, I am almost +reconciled to your never marrying. I have never seen anybody I should +like at all for you, unless you had chosen Cecil Ormsby--Cecil Cheveley +I mean; and I am sure I should be very jealous of your wife if you had +one. I couldn't help it!" + +"Rest tranquil, my dear mother; you will never be put to the test!" said +Carruthers, with a laugh, as he bid her good morning. + +"Perhaps it _is_ best he shouldn't marry: I begin to think so," mused +Lady Marabout, as the door closed on him. "I used to wish it very much +for some things. He is the last of his name, and it seems a pity; there +ought to be an heir for Deepdene; but still marriage _is_ such a +lottery (he is right enough there, though I don't admit it to him: it's +a tombola where there is one prize to a million of blanks; one can't +help seeing that, though, on principle, I never allow it to him or any +of his men), and if Philip had any woman who didn't appreciate him, or +didn't understand him, or didn't make him happy, how wretched _I_ should +be! I have often pictured Philip's wife to myself, I have often +idealized the sort of woman I should like to see him marry, but it's +very improbable I shall ever meet my ideal realized; one never does! +And, after all, whenever I have fancied, years ago, he _might_ be +falling in love, I have always felt a horrible dread lest she shouldn't +be worthy of him--a jealous fear of her that I could not conquer. It's +much better as it is; there is no woman good enough for him." + +With which compliment to Carruthers at her sex's expense Lady Marabout +returned to weaving her pet projected toils for the ensnaring of +Goodwood, for whom also, if asked, I dare say the Duchess of Doncaster +would have averred on _her_ part, looking through _her_ maternal Claude +glasses, no woman was good enough either. When ladies have daughters to +marry, men always present to their imaginations a battalion of +worthless, decalogue-smashing, utterly unreliable individuals, amongst +whom there is not one fit to be trusted or fit to be chosen; but when +their sons are the candidates for the holy bond, they view all women +through the same foggy and non-embellishing medium, which, if it does +not speak very much for their unprejudiced discernment, at least speaks +to the oft-disputed fact of the equality of merit in the sexes, and +would make it appear that, in vulgar parlance, there must be six of the +one and half a dozen of the other. + +"Flora, soft and careless, and rebellious as she looks, _is_ ambitious, +and has set her heart on winning Goodwood, I do believe, as much as ever +poor Valencia did. True, she takes a different plan of action, as Philip +would call it, and treats him with gay nonchalante indifference, which +certainly seems to pique him more than ever my poor niece's beauty and +quiet deference to his opinions did; but that is because she reads him +better, and knows more cleverly how to rouse him. She has set her heart +on winning Goodwood, I am certain, ambitious as it seems. How eagerly +she looked out for the Blues yesterday at that Hyde Park +inspection--though I am sure Goodwood does not look half so handsome as +Philip does in harness, as they call it; Philip is so much the finer +man! I will just sound her to-day--or to-night as we come back from the +opera," thought Lady Marabout, one morning. + +Things were moving to the very best of her expectations. Learning +experience from manifold failures, Lady Marabout had laid her plans this +time with a dexterity that defied discomfiture: seconded by both the +parties primarily necessary to the accomplishment of her manoeuvres, +with only a little outer-world opposition to give it piquancy and +excitement, she felt that she might defy the fates to checkmate her +here. This should be her Marathon and Lemnos, which, simply reverted to, +should be sufficient to secure her immunity from the attacks of any +feminine Xantippus who should try to rake up her failures and tarnish +her glory. To win Goodwood with a nobody's daughter would be a feat as +wonderful in its way as for Miltiades to have passed "in a single day +and with a north wind," as Oracle exacted, to the conquest of the +Pelasgian Isles; and Lady Marabout longed to do it, as you, my good sir, +may have longed in your day to take a king in check with your only +available pawn, or win one of the ribands of the turf with a little +filly that seemed to general judges scarcely calculated to be in the +first flight at the Chester Consolation Scramble. + +Things were beautifully in train; it even began to dawn on the +perceptions of the Hauttons, usually very slow to open to anything +revolutionary and unwelcome. Her Grace of Doncaster, a large, +lethargic, somnolent dowager, rarely awake to anything but the interests +and restoration of the old ultra-Tory party in a Utopia always dreamed +of and never realized, like many other Utopias political and poetical, +public and personal, had turned her eyes on Flora Montolieu, and asked +her son the question inevitable, "_Who_ is she?" to which Goodwood had +replied with a devil-may-care recklessness and a headlong indefiniteness +which grated on her Grace's ears, and imparted her no information +whatever: "One of Lady Tattersall's yearlings, and the most charming +creature _I_ ever met. You know that? Why did you ask me, then? You know +all I do, and all I care to do!"--a remark that made the Duchess wish +her very dear and personal friend, Lady Marabout, were comfortably and +snugly interred in the mausoleum of Fern Ditton, rather than alive in +the flesh in Belgravia, chaperoning young ladies whom nobody knew, and +who were not to be found in any of Sir E. Burke's triad of volumes. + +Belgravia, and her sister Mayfair, wondered at it, and talked over it, +raked up the parental Montolieu lineage mercilessly, and found out, from +the Bishop of Bonviveur and Sauceblanche, that the uncle on the distaff +side had been only a Tug at Eton, and had lived and died at Fern Ditton +a perpetual curate and nothing else--not even a dean, not even a rector! +Goodwood _couldn't_ be serious, settled the coteries. But the more +hints, innuendoes, questions, and adroitly concealed but simply +suggested animadversion Lady Marabout received, the greater was her +glory, the warmer her complacency, when she saw her Little Montolieu, +who was not little at all, leading, as she undoubtedly did lead, the +most desired eligible of the day captive in her chains, sent bouquets by +him, begged for waltzes by him, followed by him at the Ride, riveting +his lorgnon at the Opera, monopolizing his attention--though, clever +little intriguer, she knew too well how to pique him ever to let him +monopolize hers. + +"She certainly makes play, as Philip would call it, admirably with +Goodwood," said Lady Marabout, admiringly, at a morning party, stirring +a cup of Orange Pekoe, yet with a certain irrepressible feeling that she +should almost prefer so very young a girl not to be quite so adroit a +schemer at seventeen. "That indifference and nonchalance is the very +thing to pique and retain such a courted fastidious creature as +Goodwood; and she knows it, too. Now a clumsy casual observer might even +fancy that she liked some others--even you, Philip, for instance--much +better; she talks to you much more, appeals to you twice as often, +positively teases you to stop and lunch or come to dinner here, and +really told you the other night at the Opera she missed you when you +didn't come in the morning; but to anybody who knows anything of the +world, it is easy enough to see which way her inclinations (yes, I _do_ +hope it is inclination as well as ambition--I am not one of those who +advocate pure _mariages de convenance_; I don't think them right, +indeed, though they are undoubtedly very expedient sometimes) turn. I do +not think _anybody_ ever could prove me to have erred in my +quick-sightedness in those affairs. I may have been occasionally +mistaken in other things, or been the victim of adverse and unforeseen +circumstances which were beyond my control, and betrayed me; but I know +no one can read a girl's heart more quickly and surely than I, or a +man's either, for that matter." + +"Oh, we all know you are a clairvoyante in heart episodes, my dear +mother; they are the one business of your life!" smiled Carruthers, +setting down his ice, and lounging across the lawn to a group of cedars, +where Flora Montolieu stood playing at croquet, and who, like a scheming +adventuress, as she was, immediately verified Lady Marabout's words, and +piqued Goodwood a outrance by avowing herself tired of the game, and +entering with animated verve into the prophecies for Ascot with +Carruthers, whose bay filly Sunbeam, sister to Wild-Falcon, was entered +to run for the Queen's Cup. + +"What an odd smile that was of Philip's," thought Lady Marabout, left to +herself and her Orange Pekoe. "He has been very intimate with Goodwood +ever since they joined the Blues, cornets together, three-and-twenty +years ago; surely he can't have heard him drop anything that would make +him fancy he was _not serious_?" + +An idle fear, which Lady Marabout dismissed contemptuously from her mind +when she saw how entirely Goodwood--in defiance of the Hauttons' sneer, +the drowsy Duchess's unconcealed frown, all the comments sure to be +excited in feminine minds, and all the chaff likely to be elicited from +masculine lips at the mess-table, and in the U. S., and in the Guards' +box before the curtain went up for the ballet--vowed himself to the +service of the little detrimental throughout that morning party, and +spoke a temporary adieu, whose tenderness, if she did not exactly catch, +Lady Marabout could at least construe, as he pulled up the tiger-skin +over Flora's dainty dress, before the Marabout carriage rolled down the +Fulham Road to town. At which tenderness of farewell Carruthers--steeled +to all such weaknesses himself--gave a disdainful glance and a +contemptuous twist of his moustaches, as he stood by the door talking to +his mother. + +"You too, Phil?" said Goodwood, with a laugh, as the carriage rolled +away. + +Carruthers stared at him haughtily, as he will stare at his best friends +if they touch his private concerns more nearly than he likes; a stare +which said disdainfully, "I don't understand you," and thereby told the +only lie to which Carruthers ever stooped in the whole course of his +existence. + +Goodwood laughed again. + +"If you poach on my manor _here_, I shall kill you Phil; so _gare a +vous_!" + +"You are in an enigmatical mood to-day! I can't say I see much wit in +your riddles," said Carruthers, with his grandest and most contemptuous +air, as he lit his Havana. + +"Confound that fellow! I'd rather have had any other man in London for a +rival! Twenty and more years ago how he cut me out with that handsome +Virginie Peauderose, that we were both such mad boys after in Paris. +However, it will be odd if _I_ can't win the day here. A Goodwood +rejected--pooh! There isn't a woman in England that would do it!" +thought Goodwood, as he drove down the Fulham Road. + +"'_His_ manor!' Who's told him it's his? And if it be, what is that to +me?" thought Carruthers, as he got into his tilbury. "Philip, _you_'re +not a fool, like the rest of them, I hope? You've not forsworn yourself +surely? Pshaw!--nonsense!--impossible!" + +"Certainly she _has_ something very charming about her. If I were a man +I don't think I could resist her," thought Lady Marabout, as she sat in +her box in the grand tier, tenth from the Queen's, moving her fan +slowly, lifting her lorgnon now and then, listening vaguely to the music +of the second act of the "Barbiere," for probably about the two +hundredth time in her life, and looking at Flora Moutolieu, sitting +opposite to her. + +"The women are eternally asking me who she is, I don't care a hang +_who_, but she's the prettiest thing in London," said Fulke Nugent, +which was the warmest praise that any living man about town remembered +to have heard fall from his lips, which limited themselves religiously +to one legitimate laudation, which is a superlative nowadays, though Mr. +Lindley Murray, if alive, wouldn't, perhaps, receive or recognize it as +such: "Not bad-looking." + +"It isn't _who_ a woman is, it's _what_ she is, that's the question, I +take it," said Goodwood, as he left the Guards' box to visit the +Marabout. + +"By George!" laughed Nugent to Carruthers, "Goodey must be serious, eh, +Phil? He don't care a button for little Bibi; he don't care even for +Zerlina. When the ballet begins, I verily believe he's thinking less of +the women before him than of the woman who has left the house; and if a +fellow can give more ominous signs of being 'serious,' as the women +phrase it, I don't know 'em, do you?" + +"I don't know much about that sort of thing at all!" muttered +Carruthers, as he went out to follow Goodwood to the Marabout box. + +That is an old, old story, that of the fair Emily stirring feud between +Palamon and Arcite. It has been acted out many a time since Beaumont and +Fletcher lived and wrote their twin-thoughts and won their twin laurels; +but the bars that shut the kinsmen in their prison-walls, the ivy-leaves +that filled in the rents of their prison-stones, were not more entirely +and blissfully innocent of the feud going on within, and the battle +foaming near them, than the calm, complacent soul of Lady Marabout was +of the rivalry going on close beside her for the sake of little +Montolieu. + +She certainly thought Philip made himself specially brilliant and +agreeable that night; but then that was nothing new, he was famous for +talking well, and liked his mother enough not seldom to shower out for +her some of his very best things; certainly she thought Goodwood did not +shine by the contrast, and looked, to use an undignified word, rather +cross than otherwise; but then nobody _did_ shine beside Philip, and she +knew a reason that made Goodwood pardonably cross at the undesired +presence of his oldest and dearest chum. Even _she_ almost wished Philip +away. If the presence of her idolized son could have been unwelcome to +her at any time, it was so that night. + +"It isn't like Philip to monopolize her so, he who has so much tact +usually, and cares nothing for girls himself," thought Lady Marabout; +"he must do it for mischief, and yet _that_ isn't like him at all; it's +very tiresome, at any rate." + +And with that skilful diplomacy in such matters, on which, if it was +sometimes overthrown, Lady Marabout not unjustly plumed herself, she +dexterously entangled Carruthers in conversation, and during the crash +of one of the choruses whispered, as he bent forward to pick up her fan, +which she had let drop, + +"Leave Flora a little to Goodwood; he has a right--he spoke decisively +to her to-day." + +Carruthers bowed his head, and stooped lower for the fan. + +He left her accordingly to Goodwood till the curtain fell after the last +act of the "Barbiere;" and Lady Marabout congratulated herself on her +own adroitness. "There is nothing like a little tact," she thought; +"what would society be without the guiding genius of tact, I wonder? One +dreadful Donnybrook Fair!" + +But, someway or other, despite all her tact, or because her son +inherited that valuable quality in a triple measure to herself, someway, +it was Goodwood who led her to her carriage, and Carruthers who led the +little Montolieu. + +"Terribly _bete_ of Philip; how very unlike him!" mused Lady Marabout, +as she gathered her burnous round her. + +Carruthers talked and laughed as he led Flora Montolieu through the +passages, more gayly, perhaps, than usual. + +"My mother has told me some news to-night, Miss Montolieu," he said, +carelessly. "Am I premature in proffering you my congratulations? But +even if I be so, you will not refuse the privilege to an old friend--to +a very sincere friend--and will allow me to be the first to wish you +happiness?" + +Lady Marabout's carriage stopped the way. Flora Montolieu colored, +looked full at him, and went to it, without having time to answer his +congratulations, in which the keenest-sighted hearer would have failed +to detect anything beyond every-day friendship and genuine indifference. +The most truthful men will make the most consummate actors when spurred +up to it. + +"My dear child, you look ill to-night; I am glad you have no +engagements," said Lady Marabout, as she sat down before the +dressing-room fire, toasting her little satin-shod foot--she has a +weakness for fire even in the hottest weather--while Flora Montolieu lay +back in a low chair, crushing the roses mercilessly. "You _do_ feel +well? I should not have thought so, your face looks so flushed, and your +eyes so preternaturally dark. Perhaps it is the late hours; you were not +used to them in France, of course, and it must be such a change to this +life from your unvarying conventual routine at St. Denis. My love, what +was it Lord Goodwood said to you to-day?" + +"Do not speak to me of him, Lady Marabout, I hate his name!" + +Lady Marabout started with an astonishment that nearly upset the cup of +coffee she was sipping. + +"Hate his name? My dearest Flora, why, in Heaven's name?" + +Flora did not answer; she pulled the roses off her hair as though they +had been infected with Brinvilliers' poison. + +"What has he done?" + +"_He_ has done nothing!" + +"Who has done anything, then?" + +"Oh, no one--no one has done anything, but--I am sick of Lord Goodwood's +name--tired of it!" + +Lady Marabout sat almost speechless with surprise. + +"Tired of it, my dear Flora?" + +Little Montolieu laughed: + +"Well, tired of it, perhaps from hearing him praised so often, as the +Athenian trader grew sick of Aristides, and the Jacobin of Washington's +name. Is it unpardonably heterodox to say so?" + +Lady Marabout stirred her coffee in perplexity: + +"My dear child, pray don't speak in that way; that's like Philip's tone +when he is enigmatical and sarcastic, and worries me. I really cannot in +the least understand you about Lord Goodwood, it is quite +incomprehensible to me. I thought I overheard him to-day at Lady +George's concert speak very definitely to you indeed, and when he was +interrupted by the Duchess before you could give him his reply, I +thought I heard him say he should call to-morrow morning to know your +ultimate decision. Was I right?" + +"Quite right." + +"He really proposed marriage to you to-day?" + +"Yes." + +"And yet you say you are sick of his name?" + +"Does it follow, imperatively, Lady Marabout, that because the Sultan +throws his handkerchief, it must be picked up with humility and +thanksgiving?" asked Flora Montolieu, furling and unfurling her fan with +an impatient rapidity that threatened entire destruction of its ivory +and feathers, with their Watteau-like group elaborately painted on +them--as pretty a toy of the kind as could be got for money, which had +been given her by Carruthers one day in payment of some little bagatelle +of a bet. + +"Sultan!--Humility!" repeated Lady Marabout, scarcely crediting her +senses. "My dear Flora, do you know what you are saying? You must be +jesting! There is not a woman in England who would be insensible to the +honor of Goodwood's proposals. You are jesting, Flora!" + +"I am not, indeed!" + +"You mean to say, you could positively think of _rejecting_ him!" cried +Lady Marabout, rising from her chair in the intensity of her amazement, +convinced that she was the victim of some horrible hallucination. + +"Why should it surprise you if I did?" + +"_Why?_" repeated Lady Marabout, indignantly. "Do you ask me _why_? You +must be a child, indeed, or a consummate actress, to put such a +question; excuse me, my dear, if I speak a little strongly: you +perfectly bewilder me, and I confess I cannot see your motives or your +meaning in the least. You have made a conquest such as the proudest +women in the peerage have vainly tried to make; you have one of the +highest titles in the country offered to you; you have won a man whom +everybody declared would never be won; you have done this, pardon me, +without either birth or fortune on your own side, and then you speak of +rejecting Goodwood--Goodwood, of all the men in England! You cannot be +serious, Flora, or, if you are, you must be mad!" + +Lady Marabout spoke more hotly than Lady Marabout had ever spoken in all +her life. Goodwood absolutely won--Goodwood absolutely "come to the +point"--the crowning humiliation of the Hauttons positively within her +grasp--her Marathon and Lemnos actually gained! and all to be lost and +flung away by the unaccountable caprice of a wayward child! It was +sufficient to exasperate a saint, and a saint Lady Marabout never +pretended to be. + +Flora Montolieu toyed recklessly with her fan. + +"You told Sir Philip this evening, I think, of----" + +"I hinted it to him, my dear--yes. Philip has known all along how much I +desired it, and as Goodwood is one of his oldest and most favorite +friends, I knew it would give him sincere pleasure both for my sake and +Goodwood's, and yours too, for I think Philip likes you as much as he +ever does any young girl--better, indeed; and I could not imagine--I +could not dream for an instant--that there was any doubt of your +acceptation, as, indeed, there _cannot_ be. You have been jesting to +worry me, Flora!" + +Little Montolieu rose, threw her fan aside, as if its ivory stems had +been hot iron, and leaned against the mantelpiece. + +"You advise me to accept Lord Goodwood, then, Lady Marabout?" + +"My love, if you need my advice, certainly!--such an alliance will never +be proffered to you again; the brilliant position it will place you in I +surely have no need to point out!" returned Lady Marabout. "The little +hypocrite!" she mused, angrily, "as if her own mind were not fully made +up--as if any girl in Europe would hesitate over accepting the Doncaster +coronet--as if a nameless Montolieu could doubt for a moment her own +delight at being created Marchioness of Goodwood! Such a triumph as +_that_--why I wouldn't credit _any_ woman who pretended she wasn't +dazzled by it!" + +"I thought you did not approve of marriages of convenience?" + +Lady Marabout played a tattoo--slightly perplexed tattoo--with her spoon +in her Sevres saucer. + +"No more I do, my dear--that is, under some circumstances; it is +impossible to lay down a fixed rule for everything! Marriages of +convenience--well, perhaps not; but as _I_ understand these words, they +mean a mere business affair, arranged as they are in France, without the +slightest regard to the inclinations of either; merely regarding whether +the incidents of fortune, birth, and station are equal and suitable. +Marriages _de convenance_ are when a parvenu barters his gold for good +blood, or where an _ancienne princesse_ mends her fortune with a +_nouveau riche_, profound indifference, meanwhile, on each side. I do +not call this so; decidedly not! Goodwood must be very deeply attached +to you to have forgotten his detestation of marriage, and laid such a +title as his at your feet. Have you any idea of the weight of the Dukes +of Doncaster in the country? Have you any notion of what their +rent-roll is? Have you any conception of their enormous influence, their +very high place, the magnificence of their seats? Helmsley almost equals +Windsor! All these are yours if you will; and you affect to +hesitate----" + +"To let Lord Goodwood buy me!" + +"Buy you? Your phraseology is as strange as my son's!" + +"To accept him only for the coronet and the rent-roll, his position and +his Helmsley, seems not a very grateful and flattering return for his +preference?" + +"I do not see that at all," said Lady Marabout, irritably. Is there +anything more annoying than to have unwelcome truths thrust in our +teeth? "It is not as though he were odious to you--a hideous man, a +coarse man, a cruel man, whose very presence repelled you. Goodwood is a +man quite attractive enough to merit some regard, independent of his +position; you have an affectionate nature, you would soon grow attached +to him----" + +Flora Montolieu shook her head. + +"And, in fact," she went on, warming with her subject, and speaking all +the more determinedly because she was speaking a little against her +conscience, and wholly for her inclinations, "my dear Flora, if you need +persuasion--which you must pardon me if I doubt your doing in your +heart, for I cannot credit any woman as being insensible to the suit of +a future Duke of Doncaster, or invulnerable to the honor it does her--if +you need persuasion, I should think I need only refer to the happiness +it will afford your poor dear mother, amidst her many trials, to hear of +so brilliant a triumph for you. You are proud--Goodwood will place you +in a position where pride may be indulged with impunity, nay, with +advantage. You are ambitious--what can flatter your ambition more than +such an offer. You are clever--as Goodwood's wife you may lead society +like Madame de Rambouillet or immerse yourself in political intrigue +like the Duchess of Devonshire. It is an offer which places within your +reach everything most dazzling and attractive, and it is one, my dear +Flora, which you must forgive me if I say a young girl of obscure rank, +as rank goes, and no fortune whatever, should pause before she lightly +rejects. You cannot afford to be fastidious as if you were an heiress or +a lady-in-your-own-right." + +That was as ill-natured a thing as the best-natured lady in Christendom +ever said on the spur of self-interest, and it stung Flora Montolieu +more than her hostess dreamed. + +The color flushed into her face and her eyes flashed. + +"You have said sufficient, Lady Marabout, I accept the Marquis +to-morrow!" + +And taking up her fan and her opera-cloak, leaving the discarded roses +unheeded on the floor, she bade her chaperone good-night, and floated +out of the dressing-room, while Lady Marabout sat stirring the cream in +a second cup of coffee, a good deal puzzled, a little awed by the odd +turn affairs had taken, with a slight feeling of guilt for her own share +in the transaction, an uncomfortable dread lest the day should ever come +when Flora should reproach her for having persuaded her into the +marriage, a comfortable conviction that nothing but good _could_ come of +such a brilliant and enviable alliance, and, above all other conflicting +feelings, one delicious, dominant, glorified security of triumph over +the Hauttons, _mere et filles_. + +But when morning dawned, Lady Marabout's horizon seemed cleared of all +clouds, and only radiant with unshadowed sunshine. Goodwood was coming, +and coming to be accepted. + +She seemed already to read the newspaper paragraphs announcing his +capture and Flora's conquest, already to hear the Hauttons' enforced +congratulations, already to see the nuptial party gathered round the +altar rail of St. George's. Lady Marabout had never felt in a sunnier, +more light-hearted mood, never more completely at peace with herself and +all the world as she sat in her boudoir at her writing-table, penning a +letter which began: + + "MY DEAREST LILLA,--What happiness it gives me to congratulate + you on the brilliant future opening to your sweet Flora----" + +And which would have continued, no doubt, with similar eloquence if it +had not been interrupted by Soames opening the door and announcing "Sir +Philip Carruthers," who walked in, touched his mother's brow with his +moustaches, and went to stand on the hearth with his arm on the +mantelpiece. + +"My dear Philip, you never congratulated me last night; pray do so now!" +cried Lady Marabout, delightedly, wiping her pen on the pennon, which a +small ormolu knight obligingly carried for that useful purpose. Ladies +always wipe their pens as religiously as they bolt their bedroom doors, +believe in cosmetics, and go to church on a Sunday. + +"Was your news of last night true, then?" asked Carruthers, bending +forwards to roll Bijou on its back with his foot. + +"That Goodwood had spoken definitively to her? Perfectly. He proposed to +her yesterday at the Frangipane concert--not _at_ the concert, of +course, but afterwards, when they were alone for a moment in the +conservatories. The Duchess interrupted them--did it on purpose--and he +had only time to whisper hurriedly he should come this morning to hear +his fate. I dare say he felt tolerably secure of it. Last night I +naturally spoke to Flora about it. Oddly enough, she seemed positively +to think at first of rejecting him--_rejecting_ him!--only fancy the +madness! Between ourselves, I don't think she cares anything about him, +but with such an alliance as that, of course I felt it my bounden duty +to counsel her as strongly as I could to accept the unequalled position +it proffered her. Indeed, it could have been only a girl's waywardness, +a child's caprice to pretend to hesitate, for she _is_ very ambitious +and very clever, and I would never believe that any woman--and she less +than any--would be proof against such dazzling prospects. It would be +absurd, you know, Philip. Whether it was hypocrisy or a real reluctance, +because she doesn't feel for him the idealic love she dreams of, I don't +know, but I put it before her in a way that plainly showed her all the +brilliance of the proffered position, and before she bade me good night, +I had vanquished all her scruples, if she had any, and I am able to +say----" + +"Good God, what have you done?" + +"Done?" re-echoed Lady Marabout, vaguely terrified. "Certainly I +persuaded her to accept him. She _has_ accepted him probably; he is here +now! I should have been a strange person indeed to let any young girl in +my charge rashly refuse such an offer." + +"You induced her to accept him! God forgive you!" + +Lady Marabout turned pale as death, and gazed at him with undefinable +terror. + +"Philip! You do not mean----" + +"Great Heavens! have you never seen, mother----?" + +He leaned his arms on the marble, with his forehead bowed upon them, and +Lady Marabout gazed at him still, as a bird at a basilisk. + +"Philip, Philip! what have I done? How could I tell?" she murmured, +distractedly, tears welling into her eyes. "If I had only known! But how +could I dream that child had any fascination for you? How could I +fancy----" + +"Hush! No, you are in no way to blame. You could not know it. _I_ barely +knew it till last night," he answered, gently. + +"Philip loves her, and _I_ have made her marry Goodwood!" thought Lady +Marabout, agonized, remorseful, conscience-struck, heart-broken in a +thousand ways at once. The climax of her woes was reached, life had no +greater bitterness for her left; her son loved, and loved the last woman +in England she would have had him love; that woman was given to another, +and _she_ had been the instrument of wrecking the life to save or serve +which she would have laid down her own in glad and instant sacrifice! +Lady Marabout bowed her head under a grief, before which the worries so +great before, the schemes but so lately so precious, the small triumphs +just now so all-absorbing, shrank away into their due insignificance. +Philip suffering, and suffering through her! Self glided far away from +Lady Marabout's memory then, and she hated herself, more fiercely than +the gentle-hearted soul had ever hated any foe, for her own criminal +share in bringing down this unforeseen terrific blow on her beloved +one's head. + +"Philip, my dearest, what _can_ I do?" she cried, distractedly; "if I +had thought--if I had guessed----" + +"Do nothing. A woman who could give herself to a man whom she did not +love should be no wife of mine, let me suffer what I might." + +"But _I_ persuaded her, Philip! Mine is the blame!" + +His lips quivered painfully: + +"Had she cared for me as--I may have fancied, she had not been so easy +to persuade! She has much force of character, where she wills. He is +here now, you say; I cannot risk meeting him just yet. Leave me for a +little while; leave me--I am best alone." + +Gentle though he always was to her, his mother knew him too well ever to +dispute his will, and the most bitter tears Lady Marabout had ever +known, ready as she was to weep for other people's woes, and rarely as +she had to weep for any of her own, choked her utterance and blinded +her eyes as she obeyed and closed the door on his solitude. Philip--her +idolized Philip--that ever her house should have sheltered this creature +to bring a curse upon him! that ever she should have brought this +tropical flower to poison the air for the only one dear to her! + +"I am justly punished," thought Lady Marabout, humbly and +penitentially--"justly. I thought wickedly of Anne Hautton. I did not do +as I would be done by. I longed to enjoy their mortification. I advised +Flora against my own conscience and against hers. I am justly chastised! +But that _he_ should suffer through me, that my fault has fallen on his +head, that my Philip, my noble Philip, should love and not be loved, and +that _I_ have brought it on him----Good Heaven! what is that?" + +"That" was a man whom her eyes, being misty with tears, Lady Marabout +had brushed against, as she ascended the staircase, ere she perceived +him, and who, passing on with a muttered apology, was down in the hall +and out of the door Mason held open before she had recovered the shock +of the rencontre, much before she had a possibility of recognizing him +through the mist aforesaid. + +A fear, a hope, a joy, a dread, one so woven with another there was no +disentangling them, sprang up like a ray of light in Lady Marabout's +heart--a possibility dawned in her: to be rejected as an impossibility? +Lady Marabout crossed the ante-room, her heart throbbing tumultuously, +spurred on to noble atonement and reckless self-sacrifice, if fate +allowed them. + +She opened the drawing-room door; Flora Montolieu was alone. + +"Flora, you have seen Goodwood?" + +She turned, her own face as pale and her own eyes as dim as Lady +Marabout's. + +"Yes." + +"You have refused him?" + +Flora Montolieu misconstrued her chaperone's eagerness, and answered +haughtily enough: + +"I have told him that indifference would be too poor a return for his +affections to insult him with it, and that I would not do him the injury +of repaying his trust by falsehood and deception. I meant what I said to +you last night; I said it on the spur of pain, indignation, no matter +what; but I could not keep my word when the trial came." + +Lady Marabout bent down and kissed her, with a fervent gratitude that +not a little bewildered the recipient. + +"My dear child! thank God! little as I thought to say so. Flora, tell +me, you love some one else?" + +"Lady Marabout, you have no right----" + +"Yea, I have a right--the strongest right! Is not that other my son?" + +Flora Montolieu looked up, then dropped her head and burst into +tears--tears that Lady Marabout soothed then, tears that Carruthers +soothed, yet more effectually still, five minutes afterwards. + + * * * * * + +"That _I_ should have sued that little Montolieu, and sued to her for +Philip!" mused Lady Marabout. "It is very odd. Perhaps I get used to +being crossed and disappointed and trampled on in every way and by +everybody; but certainly, though it is most contrary to my wishes, +though a child like that is the last person I should ever have chosen or +dreamt of as Philip's wife, though it is a great pain to me, and Anne +Hautton of course will be delighted to rake up everything she can about +the Montolieus, and it _is_ heart-breaking when one thinks how a +Carruthers _might_ marry, how the Carruthers always _have_ married, +rarely any but ladies in their own right for countless generations, +still it _is_ very odd, but I certainly feel happier than ever I did in +my life, annoyed as I am and grieved as I am. It _is_ heart-breaking +(that horrid John Montolieu! I wonder what relation one stands in +legally to the father of one's son's wife; I will ask Sir Fitzroy +Kelley; not that the Montolieus are likely to come to England)--it is +very sad when one thinks whom Philip might have married; and yet she +certainly is infinitely charming, and she really appreciates and +understands him. If it were not for what Anne Hautton will always say, I +could really be pleased! To think what an anxious hope, what a dreaded +ideal, Philip's wife has always been to me; and now, just as I had got +reconciled to his determined bachelor preferences, and had grown to +argue with him that it was best he shouldn't marry, he goes and falls in +love with this child! Everything is at cross-purposes in life, I think! +There is only one thing I am resolved upon--I will NEVER chaperone +anybody again." + +And she kept her vow. None can christen her Lady Tattersall any longer +with point, for there are no yearling sales in that house in Lowndes +Square, whatever there be in the other domiciles of that fashionable +quarter. Lady Marabout has shaken that burden off her shoulders, and +moves in blissful solitude and tripled serenity through Belgravia, +relieved of responsibility, and wearing her years as lightly, losing the +odd trick at her whist as sunnily, and beaming on the world in general +as radiantly as any dowager in the English Peerage. + +That she was fully reconciled to Carruthers's change of resolve was +shown in the fact that when Anne Hautton turned to her, on the evening +of his marriage-day, after the dinner to which Lady Marabout had bidden +all her friends, and a good many of her foes, with an amiable murmur: + +"I am _so_ grieved for you, dearest Helena--I know what your +disappointment must be!--what should _I_ feel if Hautton----Your +_belle-fille_ is charming, certainly, very lovely; but then--such a +connection! You have my deepest sympathies! I always told you how wrong +you were when you fancied Goodwood admired little Montolieu--I beg her +pardon, I mean Lady Carruthers--but you _will_ give your imagination +such reins!" + +Lady Marabout smiled, calmly and amusedly, felt no pang, and--thought of +Philip. + +I take it things must be very rose-colored with us when we can smile +sincerely on our enemies, and defeat their stings simply because we feel +them not. + + + + +A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUINZE; + +OR, + +PENDANT TO A PASTEL BY LA TOUR. + + +I have, among others hanging on my wall, a pastel of La Tour's; of the +artist-lover of Julie Fel, of the monarch of pastellistes, the touch of +whose crayons was a "brevet of wit and of beauty," and on whose easel +bloomed afresh the laughing eyes, the brilliant tints, the rose-hued +lips of all the loveliest women of the "Regne Galant," from the +princesses of the Blood of the House of Bourbon to the princesses of the +green-room of the Comedie-Francaise. Painted in the days of Louis +Quinze, the light of more than a century having fallen on its soft +colors to fade and blot them with the icy brush of time, my pastel is +still fresh, still eloquent. The genius that created it is gone--gone +the beauty that inspired it--but the picture is deathless! It shows me +the face of a woman, of a beautiful woman, else, be sure she would not +have been honored by the crayons of La Tour; her full Southern lips are +parted with a smile of triumph; a chef-d'oeuvre of coquetry, a +head-dress of lace and pearls and little bouquets of roses is on her +unpowdered hair, which is arranged much like Julie Fel's herself in the +portrait that hangs, if I remember right, at the Musee de Saint Quentin; +and her large eyes are glancing at you with languor, malice, victory, +all commingled. At the back of the picture is written "Mlle. Thargelie +Dumarsais;" the letters are faded and yellow, but the pastel is living +and laughing yet, through the divine touch of the genius of La Tour. +With its perfume of dead glories, with its odor of the Beau Siecle, the +pastel hangs on my wall, living relic of a buried age, and sometimes in +my mournful moments the full laughing lips of my pastel will part, and +breathe, and speak to me of the distant past, when Thargelie Dumarsais +saw all Paris at her feet, and was not humbled then as now by being only +valued and remembered for the sake of the talent of La Tour. My +beautiful pastel gives me many confidences. I will betray one to you--a +single leaf from a life of the eighteenth century. + + +I. + +THE FIRST MORNING. + +In the heart of Lorraine, nestled down among its woods, stood an old +chateau that might have been the chateau of the Sleeping Beauty of fairy +fame, so sequestered it stood amidst its trees chained together by +fragrant fetters of honeysuckle and wild vine, so undisturbed slept the +morning shadows on the wild thyme that covered the turf, so unbroken was +the silence in which the leaves barely stirred, and the birds folded +their wings and hushed their song till the heat of the noonday should be +passed. Beyond the purple hills stretching up in the soft haze of +distance in the same province of laughing, luxurious, sunlit Lorraine, +was Luneville, the Luneville of Stanislaus, Montesquieu, of Voltaire, of +Henault, of Boufflers, a Versailles in miniature, even possessing a +perfect replica of Pompadour in its own pretty pagan of a Marquise. +Within a few leagues was Luneville, but the echo of its mots and +madrigals did not reach over the hills, did not profane the sunny air, +did not mingle with the vintage-song of the vine-dressers, the silver +babble of the woodland brook, the hushed chant of the Ave Maria, the +vesper bells chimed from the churches and monasteries, which made the +sole music known or heard in this little valley of Lorraine. + +The chateau of Grande Charmille stood nestled in its woods, gray, +lonely, still, silent as death, yet not gloomy, for white pigeons +circled above its pointed towers, brilliant dragon-flies fluttered above +the broken basin of the fountain that sang as gayly as it rippled among +the thyme as though it fell into a marble cup, and bees hummed their +busy happy buzz among the jessamine that clung to its ivy-covered +walls--walls built long before Lorraine had ceased to be a kingdom and a +power, long before a craven and effeminated Valois had dared to kick the +dead body of a slaughtered Guise. Not gloomy with the golden light of a +summer noon playing amidst the tangled boughs and on the silvered +lichens; not gloomy, for under the elm-boughs on the broken stone steps +that led to the fountain, her feet half buried in violet-roots and wild +thyme, leaning her head on her hand, as she looked into the water, where +the birds flew down to drink, and fluttered their wings fearless of her +presence, was a young girl of sixteen--and if women sometimes darken +lives, it must be allowed that they always illumine landscapes! + +Aline, when Boufflers saw her in the spring morning, in all the grace of +youth and beauty, unconscious of themselves, made not a prettier picture +than this young dreamer under the elm-boughs of the Lorraine woods, as +she bent over the water, watching it bubble and splash from the +fountain-spout, and hide itself with a rippling murmur under the broad +green reeds and the leaves of the water-lily. She was a charming +picture: a brunette with long ebon tresses, with her lashes drooping +over her black, languid, almond-shaped eyes, a smile on her half-pouted +lips, and all the innocence and dawning beauty of her sixteen years +about her, while she sat on the broken steps, now brushing the +water-drops off the violets, now weaving the reeds into a pretty, +useless toy, now beckoning the birds that came to peck on the +rose-sprays beside her. + +"Favette! where are your dreams?" + +Favette, the young naiad of the Lorraine elm-woods, looked up, the plait +of rushes dropping from her hands, and a warm sudden blush tinging her +cheeks and brow with a tint like that on the damask rose-leaves that had +fallen into the water, and floated there like delicate shells. + +"Mon Dieu, Monsieur Leon! how you frightened me!" + +And like a startled fawn, or a young bird glancing round at a rustle +amidst the leaves, Favette sprang up, half shy, half smiling, all her +treasures gathered from the woods--of flowers, of mosses, of berries, of +feathery grasses, of long ivy-sprays--falling from her lap on to the +turf in unheeded disorder. + +"_I_ frightened you, Favette? Surely not. Are you sorry to see me, +then?" + +"Sorry? Oh no, Monsieur Leon!" and Favette glanced through her thick +curled lashes, slyly yet archly, and began to braid again her plait of +rushes. + +"Come, tell me, then, what and whom were you dreaming of, ma mie, as you +looked down into the water? Tell me, Favette. You have no secrets from +your playmate, your friend, your brother?" + +Favette shook her head, smiling, and plaited her rushes all wrong, the +blush on her cheeks as bright as that on the cups of the rose-leaves +that the wind shook down in a fresh shower into the brook. + +"Come, tell me, mignonne. Was it--of me?" + +"Of you? Well, perhaps--yes!" + +It was first love that whispered in Favette's pretty voice those three +little words; it was first love that answered in his, as he threw +himself down on the violet-tufted turf at her feet, as Boufflers at +Aline's. + +"Ah, Favette, so should it be! for every hope, every dream, every +thought of _mine_, is centred in and colored by you." + +"Yet you can leave me to-day," pouted Favette, with a sigh and a _moue +mutine_, and gathering tears in her large gazelle eyes. + +"Leave you? Would to Heaven I were not forced! But against a king's will +what power has a subject? None are too great, none are too lowly, to be +touched by that iron hand if they provoke its grasp. Vincennes yawns for +those who dare to think, For-l'Eveque for those who dare to jest. +Monsieur de Voltaire was sent to the Bastille for merely defending a +truth and his own honor against De Rohan-Chabot. Who am I, that I should +look for better grace?" + +Favette struck him, with her plaited rushes, a reproachful little blow. + +"Monsieur Vincennes--Monsieur Voltaire--who are they? I know nothing of +those stupid people!" + +He smiled, and fondly stroked her hair: + +"Little darling! The one is a prison that manacles the deadly crimes of +Free Speech and Free Thought; the other, a man who has suffered for +both, but loves both still, and will, sooner or later, help to give both +to the world----" + +"Ah, you think of your studies, of your ambitions, of your great heroes! +You think nothing of me, save to call me a little darling. You are +cruel, Monsieur Leon!" + +And Favette twisted her hand from his grasp with petulant sorrow, and +dashed away her tears--the tears of sixteen--as bright and free from +bitterness as the water-drops on the violet-bells. + +"_I_ cruel--and to you! My heart must indeed be badly echoed by my lips, +if you have cause to fancy so a single moment. Cruel to you? Favette, +Favette! is a man ever cruel to the dearest thing in his life, the +dearest name in his thoughts? If I smiled I meant no sneer; I love you +as you are, mignonne; the picture is so fair, one touch added, or one +touch effaced, would mar the whole in _my_ eyes. I love you as you are! +with no knowledge but what the good sisters teach you in their convent +solitude, and what the songs of the birds, the voices of the flowers, +whisper to you of their woodland lore. I love you as you are! Every +morning when I am far away from you, and from Lorraine, I shall think of +you gathering the summer roses, calling the birds about you, bending +over the fountain to see it mirror your own beauty; every evening I +shall think of you leaning from the window, chanting softly to yourself +the Ora pro nobis, while the shadows deepen, and the stars we have so +often watched together come out above the pine-hills. Favette, Favette! +exile will have the bitterness of death to me; to give me strength to +bear it, tell me that you love me more dearly than as the brother you +have always called me; that you will so love me when I shall be no +longer here beside you, but shall have to trust to memory and fidelity +to guard for me in absence the priceless treasure of your heart?" + +Favette's head drooped, and her hands played nervously with the now torn +and twisted braid of rushes: he saw her heart beat under its muslin +corsage, like a bee caught and caged in the white leaves of a lily; and +she glanced at him under her lashes with a touch of naive coquetry. + +"If I tell you so, what gage have I, Monsieur Leon, that, a few months +gone by, you will even remember it? In those magnificent cities you will +soon forget Lorraine; with the _grandes dames_ of the courts you will +soon cease to care for Favette?" + +"Look in my eyes, Favette, they alone can answer you as I would answer! +Till we meet again none shall supplant you for an hour, none rob you of +one thought; you have my first love, you will have my last. Favette, you +believe me?" + +"Yes--I believe!" murmured Favette, resting her large eyes fondly on +him. "We will meet as we part, though you are the swallow, free to take +flight over the seas to foreign lands, and I am the violet, that must +stay where it is rooted in the Lorraine woods!" + +"Accept the augury," he whispered, resting his lips upon her low smooth +brow. "Does not the swallow ever return to the violet, holding it fairer +than all the gaudy tropical flowers that may have tempted him to rest on +the wing and delay his homeward flight? Does not the violet ever welcome +him the same, in its timid winning spring-tide loveliness, when he +returns to, as when he quitted, the only home he loves? Believe the +augury, Favette; we shall meet as we part!" + +And they believed the augury, as they believed in life, in love, in +faith; they who were beginning all, and had proved none of the +treacherous triad! + +What had he dreamed of in his solitary ancestral woods fairer than this +Lorraine violet, that had grown up with him, side by side, since he, a +boy of twelve, gathered heaths from the clefts of the rocks that the +little child of six years old cried for and could not reach? What had +she seen that she loved half so well as M. le Chevalier from the Castle, +whom her uncle, the Cure, held as his dearest and most brilliant pupil, +whose eyes always looked so lovingly into hers, and whose voice was +always lavishing fond names on his petite Favette? + +They believed the augury, and were happy even in the sweet sorrow of +parting--sorrow that they had never known before--as they sat together +in the morning sunlight, while the water bubbled among the violet tufts, +among the grasses and wild thyme, and the dragon-flies fluttered their +green and gold and purple wings amidst the tendrils of the vines, and +the rose-leaves, drifted gently by the wind, floated down the brook, +till they were lost in deepening shadow under the drooping boughs. + + +II. + +THE SECOND MORNING. + +"Savez-vous que Favart va ecrire une nouvelle comedie--La Chercheuse +d'Esprit?" + +"Vraiment? Il doit bien ecrire cela, car il s'occupe toujours a le +_chercher_, et n'arrive jamais a le trouver!" + +The mot had true feminine malice, but the lips that spoke it were so +handsome, that had even poor Favart himself, the poet-pastrycook who +composed operas and comedies while he made meringues and fanfreluches, +and dreamed of libretti while he whisked the cream for a supper, been +within hearing, they would have taken the smart from the sting; and, as +it was, the hit only caused echoes of softly-tuned laughter, for the +slightest word of those lips it was the fashion through Paris just then +to bow to, applaud, and re-echo. + +Before her Psyche, shrouded in cobweb lace, powdered by Martini, +gleaming with pearls and emeralds, scented with most delicate amber, +making her morning toilette, and receiving her morning levee according +to the fashion of the day, sat the brilliant satirist of poor Favart. +The _ruelle_ was crowded; three marshals, De Richelieu, Lowendal, and +Maurice de Saxe; a prince, De Soubise; a poet, Claude Dorat; an abbe, +Voisenon; a centenarian, Saint-Aulaire; peers uncounted, De Bievre, De +Caylus, De Villars, D'Etissac, Duras, D'Argenson--a crowd of +others--surrounded and superintended her toilette, in a glittering troop +of courtiers and gentlemen. Dames d'atours (for she had her maids of +honor as well as Marie Leczinska) handed her her flacons of perfume, or +her numberless notes, on gold salvers, chased by Reveil; the ermine +beneath her feet, humbly sent by the Russian ambassador--far superior to +what the Czarina sent to Madame de Mailly--had cost two thousand louis; +her bedroom outshone in luxury any at Versailles, Choisy, or La Muette, +with its Venetian glass, its medallions of Fragonard, its plaques of +Sevres, its landscapes of Watteau, framed in the carved and gilded +wainscoting, its Chinese lamps, swinging by garlands of roses, its +laughing Cupids, buried under flowers, painted in fresco above the +alcove, its hangings of velvet, of silk, of lace; and its cabinets, its +screens, its bonbonnieres, its jewel-boxes, were costly as those of the +Marquises de Pompadour or De Prie. + +Who was she?--a Princess of the Blood, a Duchess of France, a mistress +of the King? + +Lords of the chamber obeyed her wishes, ministers signed lettres de +cachet at her instance; "_ces messieurs_," la Queue de la Regence, had +their rendezvous at her suppers; she had a country villa that eclipsed +Trianon; she had fetes that outshone the fetes at Versailles; she had a +"_droit de chasse_" in one of the royal districts; she had the first +place on the easels of Coypel, Lancret, Pater, Vanloo, La Tour; the +first place in the butterfly odes of Crebillon le Gai, Claude Dorat; +Voisenon. + +Who was she?--the Queen of France? No; much more--the Queen of Paris! + +She was Thargelie Dumarsais; matchless as Claire Clairon, beautiful as +Madeleine Gaussin, resistless as Sophie Arnould, great as Adrienne +Lecouvreur. She was a Power in France--for was she not the Empress of +the Comedie? If Madame Lenormand d'Etioles ruled the government at +Versailles, Mademoiselle Thargelie Dumarsais ruled the world at Paris; +and if the King's favorite could sign her enemies, by a smile, to the +Bastille, the Court's favorite could sign hers, by a frown, to +For-l'Eveque. + +The foyer was nightly filled while she played in _Zaire_, or +_Polyeucte_, or _Les Folies Amoureuses_, with a court of princes and +poets, marshals and marquises, beaux esprits and abbes galants; and +mighty nobles strewed with bouquets the path from her carriage to the +coulisses; bouquets she trod on with nonchalant dignity, as though +flowers only bloomed to have the honor of dying under her foot. Louis +Quinze smilingly humored her caprices, content to wait until it was her +pleasure to play at his private theatre; dukes, marquises, viscounts, +chevaliers, vied who should ruin himself most magnificently and most +utterly for her; and lovers the most brilliant and the most flattering, +from Richelieu, Roi de Ruelles, to Dorat, poet of boudoir-graces and +court-Sapphos, left the titled beauties of Versailles for the +self-crowned Empress of the Francais. She had all Paris for her +chentela, from Versailles to the Caveau; for even the women she deposed, +the actors she braved, the journalists she consigned to For-l'Eveque, +dared not raise their voice against the idol of the hour. A Queen of +France? Bah! Pray what could Marie Leczinska, the pale, dull pietist, +singing canticles in her private chapel, compare for power, for sway, +for courtiers, for brilliant sovereignty, for unrivalled triumph, with +Thargelie Dumarsais, the Queen of the Theatre? + +Ravishingly beautiful looked the matchless actress as she sat before her +Psyche, flashing _oeillades_ on the brilliant group who made every added +aigrette, every additional bouquet of the coiffure, every little +_mouche_, every touch to the already perfect toilette, occasion for +flattering simile and soft-breathed compliment; ravishingly beautiful, +as she laughed at Maurice de Saxe, or made a disdainful _moue_ at an +impromptu couplet of Dorat's, or gave a blow of her fan to Richelieu, or +asked Saint-Aulaire what he thought of Vanloo's portrait of her as +_Rodugune_; ravishingly beautiful, with her charms that disdained alike +rouge and marechale powder, and were matchless by force of their own +coloring, form, and voluptuous languor, when, her toilette finished, +followed by her glittering crowd, she let Richelieu lead her to his +carriage. + +There was a review of Guards on the plain at Sablons that morning, a +fete afterwards, at which she would be surrounded by the most brilliant +staff of an army of Noblesse, and Richelieu was at that moment the most +favored of her troop of lovers. M. le Duc, as every one knows, never +sued at court or coulisse in vain, and the love of Thargelie Dumarsais, +though perhaps with a stronger touch of romance in it than was often +found in the atmosphere of the foyer, was, like the love of her time and +her class, as inconstant and vivacious, now settling here, now lighting +there, as any butterfly that fluttered among the limes at Trianon. Did +not the jest-loving _parterre_ ever salute with gay laughter two lines +in a bagatelle-comedy of the hour-- + + Oui l'Amour papillonne, sans entraves, a son gre; + Charge longtemps de fers, de soie meme, il mourrait!-- + +when spoken by Thargelie Dumarsais--laughter that hailed her as +head-priestess of her pleasant creed, in a city and a century where the +creed was universal? + +"Ah, bonjour! You have not seen her before, have you, semi-Englishman? +You have found nothing like her in the foggy isles, I wager you fifty +louis!" cried one of Thargelie Dumarsais's court, the Marquis de la +Thorilliere, meeting a friend of his who had arrived in Paris only the +day before, M. le Chevalier de Tallemont des Reaux, as Richelieu's +cortege rolled away, and the Marquis crossed to his own carriage. + +"Her? Whom? I have not been in Paris for six years, you know. What can I +tell of its idols, as I remember of old that they change every hour?" + +"True! but, bon Dieu! not to know la Dumarsais! What it must be to have +been buried in those benighted Britannic Isles! Did you not see her in +Richelieu's carriage?" + +"No. I saw a carriage driving off with such an escort and such fracas, +that I thought it could belong to nobody less than to Madame Lenormand +d'Etioles; but I did not observe it any further. Who is this beauty I +ought to have seen?" + +"Thargelie Dumarsais, for whom we are all ruining ourselves with the +prettiest grace in the world, and for whom you will do the same when you +have been once to the Francais; that is, if you have the good fortune to +attract her eyes and please her fancy, which you may do, for the fogs +have agreed with you, Leon!--I should not wonder if you become the +fashion, and set the women raving of you as 'leur zer zevalier!'" + +"Thanks for the prophecy, but I shall not stay long enough to fulfil it, +and steal your myrtle crowns. I leave again to-morrow." + +"_Leave?_ Sapristi! See what it is to have become half English, and +imbibed a taste for spleen and solitude! Have you written another +satire, or have you learned such barbarism as to dislike Paris?" + +"Neither; but I leave for Lorraine to-morrow. It is five years since I +saw my old pine-woods." + +"Dame! it is ten years since _I_ saw the wilds of Bretagne, and I will +take good care it shall be a hundred before I see them again. _Hors de +Paris, c'est hors du monde._ Come with me to La Dumarsais's _petit +souper_ to-night, and you will soon change your mind." + +"My good Armand, you have not been an exile, as I have; you little know +how I long for the very scent of the leaves, the very smell of the earth +at Grande Charmille! But bah! I talk in Hebrew to you. You have been +lounging away your days in titled beauties, _petits salons_, making +butterfly verses, learning their broidery, their lisp, and their +perfumes, talking to their parrots, and using their cosmetiques, till +you care for no air but what is musk-scented! But what of this +Dumarsais of yours--does she equal Lecouvreur?" + +"Eclipses her!--with Paris as with Maurice de Saxe. Thargelie Dumarsais +is superb, mon cher--unequalled, unrivalled! We have had nothing like +her for beauty, for grace, for talent, nor, pardieu! for extravagance! +She ruined _me_ last year in a couple of months. Richelieu is in favor +just now--with what woman is he not? Thargelie is very fond of the +Marshals of France! Saxe is fettered to her hand and foot, and the +Duchesse de Bouillon hates her as rancorously as she does Adrienne. Come +and see her play _Phedre_ to-night, and you will renounce Lorraine. I +will take you to supper with her afterwards; she will permit any friend +of mine entry, and then, generous man that I am, I shall have put you +_en chemin_ to sun yourself in her smiles and ingratiate yourself in her +favor. Don't give me too much credit for the virtue though, for I +confess I should like to see Richelieu supplanted." + +"Does his reign threaten to last long, then?" + +The Marquis shrugged his shoulders, and gave his badine an expressive +whisk. + +"Dieu sait! we are not prophets in Paris. It would be as easy to say +where that weathercock may have veered to-morrow, as to predict where la +Dumarsais's love may have lighted ere a month! Where are you going, may +I ask?" + +"To see Lucille de Verdreuil. I knew her at Luneville; she and Madame de +Boufflers were warm friends till Stanislaus, I believe, found Lucille's +eyes lovelier than Madame la Marquise deemed fit, and then they +quarrelled, as women ever do, with virulence in exact proportion to the +ardor of their friendship." + +"As the women quarrel at Choisy for _notre maitre_! They will be friends +again when both have lost the game, like Louise de Mailly and the +Duchesse de Chateauroux. The poor Duchess! Fitz-James and Maurepas, +Chatillon and Bouillon, Rochefoucauld and le Pere Perussot, all +together, were too strong for her. All the gossip of that Metz affair +reached you across the water, I suppose? Those pests of Jesuits! if they +want him to be their Very Christian King, and to cure him of his worship +of Cupidon, they will have to pull down all the stones of La Muette and +the Parc aux Cerfs! What good is it to kill _one_ poor woman when women +are as plentiful as roses at Versailles? And now let me drive you to +Madame de Vaudreuil; if _she_ do not convert you from your fancy for +Lorraine this morning, Thargelie Dumarsais will to-night." + +"_Mon zer zevalier, Paris at ado'able! Vous n'etes pas se'ieux en +voulant le quitter, z'en suis sure!_" cried the Comtesse de Vaudreuil, +in the pretty lisp of the day, a charming little blonde, patched and +powdered, nestled in a chair before a fire of perfumed wood, teasing her +monkey Zulme with a fan of Pater's, and giving a pretty little sign of +contempt and disbelief with some sprays of jessamine employed in the +chastisement of offenders more responsible and quite as audacious as +Zulme. + +Her companion, her "zer zevalier," was a young man of seven-and-twenty, +with a countenance frank, engaging, nobly cast, far more serious, far +more thoughtful in its expression, than was often seen in that laughing +and mocking age. Exiled when a mere boy for a satirical pamphlet which +had provoked the wrath of the Censeur Royal, and might have cost him the +Bastille but for intercession from Luneville, he had passed his youth +less in pleasure than in those philosophical and political problems then +beginning to agitate a few minds; which were developed later on in the +"Encyclopedie," later still in the Assemblee Nationale. Voltaire and +Helvetius had spoken well of him at Madame de Geoffrin's; Claudine de +Tencin had introduced him the night before in her brilliant salons; the +veteran Fontenelle had said to him, "_Monsieur, comme censeur royal je +refusai mon approbation a votre brochure; comme homme libre je vous en +felicite_"--all that circle was prepared to receive him well, the young +Chevalier de Tallemont might make a felicitous season in Paris if he +chose, with the romance of his exile about him, and Madame de Vaudreuil +smiling kindly on him. + +"The country!" she cried; "the country is all very charming in eclogues +and pastorals, but out of them it is a desert of ennui! What _can_ you +mean, Leon, by leaving Paris to-morrow? Ah, mechant, there must be +something we do not see, some love besides that of the Lorraine woods!" + +"Madame, is there not my father?" + +"_Bien zoli!_ But at your age men are not so filial. There is some other +reason--but what? Any love you had there five years ago has hardly any +attractions now. Five years! Ma foi, five months is an eternity that +kills the warmest passion!" + +"May there not be some love, madame, that time only strengthens?" + +"I never heard of it if there be. It would be a very dreary affair, I +should fancy, smouldering, smouldering on and on like an ill-lit fire. +Nobody would thank you for it, mon cher, _here_! Come, what is your +secret? Tell it me." + +Leon de Tallemont smiled; the smile of a man who has happy thoughts, and +is indifferent to ridicule. + +"Madame, one can refuse you nothing! My secret? It is a very simple one. +The greatest pang of my enforced exile was the parting from one I loved; +the greatest joy of my return is that I return to her." + +"_Bon Dieu! comme c'est drole!_ Here is a man talking to me of love, and +of a love not felt for _me_!" thought Madame la Comtesse, giving him a +soft glance of her beautiful blue eyes. "You are a very strange man. +You have lived out of France till you have grown wretchedly serious and +eccentric. Loved this woman for five years? Leon! Leon! you are telling +me a fairy tale. Who is she, this enchantress? She must have some +mysterious magic. Tell me--quick!" + +"She is no enchantress, madame, and she has no magic save the simple one +of having ever been very dear to me. We grew up together at Grande +Charmille; she was the orphan niece of the Priest, a fond, innocent, +laughing child, fresh and fair, and as untouched by a breath of impure +air as any of the violets in the valley. She was scarcely out of the +years of childhood when I left her, with beauty whose sweetest grace of +all was its own unconsciousness. Through my five long years of exile I +have remembered Favette as I saw her last under the elm-boughs in the +summer light, her eyes dim with the tears of our parting, her young +heart heaving with its first grief. I have loved her too well for others +to have power to efface or to supplant her; of her only have I thought, +of her only have I dreamed, holding her but the dearer as the years grew +further from the hour of our separation, nearer to the hour of our +reunion. I have heard no word of her since we parted; but of what value +is love without trust and fidelity in trial? The beauty of her childhood +may have merged into the beauty of womanhood, but I fear no other change +in Favette. As we parted so we vowed to meet, and I believe in her love +as in my own. I know that I shall find my Lorraine violet without stain +or soil. Madame, Favette is still dearer to me now, Heaven help me, than +five years ago. Five years--five years--true! it _is_ an eternity! Yet +the bitterness of the past has faded for ever from me _now_, and I only +see--the future!" + +Madame de Vaudreuil listened in silence; his words stirred in her chords +long untouched, never heard amidst the mots, the madrigals, the +laughter of her world of Paris, Versailles, and Choisy. She struck him a +little blow with her jessamine-sprays, with a mist gathering over her +lovely blue eyes. + +"Hush, hush, Leon! you speak in a tongue unknown here. A word +of the heart amongst us sounds a word of a _Gaulois_ out of +fashion--forbidden!" + + +III. + +MIDNIGHT. + +The Francais was crowded. Thargelie Dumarsais, great in _Electre_, +_Chimene_, _Ines_, as in "_Ninette a la Cour_," "_Les Moissonneurs_," or +"_Annette et Lubin_," was playing in "_Phedre_." Louis Quinze was +present, with all the powdered marquises, the titled wits, the +glittering gentlemen of the Court of Versailles; but no presence stayed +the shout of adoration with which the parterre welcomed the idol of the +hour, and Louis le Bien-aime (des femmes!) himself added his royal quota +to the ovation, and threw at her feet a diamond, superb as any in his +regalia. It was whispered that the Most Christian King was growing +envious of his favorite's favor with la Dumarsais, and would, ere long, +supersede him. + +The foyer was filled with princes of the blood, marshals of France, +dukes, marquises, the elite of her troop of lovers; lords and gentlemen +crowded the passages, flinging their bouquets for her carpet as she +passed; and poor scholars, young poets, youths without a sou--amongst +them Diderot, Gilbert, Jean-Jacques Rousseau--pressed forward to catch a +glimpse, by the light of the links, of this beauty, on which only the +eyes of grands seigneurs who could dress Cupidon in a court habit +_parfile d'or_ were allowed to gaze closely, as she left the Francais, +after her unmatched and uninterrupted triumphs, and went to her +carriage with Richelieu. The suppers of Thargelie Dumarsais were +renowned through Paris; they equalled in magnificence the suppers of the +Regency, rivalled them for license, and surpassed them for wit. All the +world might flock to her fetes where she undisguisedly sought to surpass +the lavishness of Versailles, even by having showers of silver flung +from her windows to the people in the streets below; but to her _soupers +a huis clos_ only a chosen few were admitted, and men would speak of +having supped with la Dumarsais as boastfully as women of having supped +with the King at Choisy. + +"What you have lost in not seeing her play _Phedre_! Helvetius would +have excused you; all the talk of his salons is not worth one glance at +la Dumarsais. Mon ami! you will be converted to Paris when once you have +seen her," said the Marquis de la Thorilliere, as his carriage stopped +in the Chaussee d'Antin. + +Leon de Tallemont laughed, and thought of the eyes that would brighten +at his glance, and the heart that would beat against his once more under +the vine shadows of Lorraine. No new magic, however seductive, should +have strength to shake his allegiance to that Memory, and, true to his +violet in Lorraine, he defied the Queen of the Foyer. + +"We are late, but that is always a more pardonable fault than to be too +early," said the Marquis, as they were ushered across the vestibule, +through several salons, into the supper-room, hung with rich tapestries +of "Les Nymphes au Bain," "Diane Chasseresse," and "Apollon et Daphne;" +with gilded consoles, and rosewood buffets, enamelled with medallion +groups, and crowded with Sevres and porcelaine de Saxe, while Venetian +mirrors at each end of the salle reflected the table, with its wines, +and fruits, and flowers, its gold dishes and Bohemian glass. The air was +heavily perfumed, and vibrating with laughter. The guests were +Richelieu, Bievre, Saxe, D'Etissac, Montcrif, and lovely Marie Camargo, +the queen of the coulisses who introduced the "short skirts" of the +ballet, and upheld her innovation so stanchly amidst the outcries of +scandalized Jansenists and journalists. But even Marie Camargo herself +paled--and would have paled even had she been, what she was not, in the +first flush of her youth--before the superb beauty, the languid +voluptuousness, the sensuous grace, the southern eyes, the full lips, +like the open leaves of a damask rose, melting yet mocking, of the most +beautiful and most notorious woman of a day in which beauty and +notoriety were rife, the woman with the diamond of Louis Quinze +sparkling in the light upon her bosom, whom Versailles and Paris hailed +as Thargelie Dumarsais. + +The air, scented with amber, rang with the gay echoes of a stanza of +Dorat's, chanted by Marie Camargo; the "Cupids and Bacchantes," painted +in the panels of Sevres, seemed to laugh in sympathy with the revel over +which they presided; the light flashed on the King's diamond, to which +Richelieu pointed, with a wicked whisper; for the Marshal was getting +tired of his own reign, and his master might pay his court when he +would. Thargelie Dumarsais, more beautiful still at her _petit souper_ +than at her _petit lever_, with her hair crowned with roses, true +flowers of Venus that might have crowned Aspasia, looked up laughingly +as her lacqueys ushered in le Marquis de la Thorilliere and le Chevalier +de Tallemont. + +"M. le Marquis," cried the actress, "you are late! It is an impertinence +forbidden at my court. I shall sup in future with barred doors, like M. +d'Orleans; then all you late-comers----" + +Through the scented air, through the echoing laughter, stopping her own +words, broke a startled bitter cry: + +"_Mon Dieu, c'est Favette!_" + +Thargelie Dumarsais shrank back in her rose velvet fauteuil as though +the blow of a dagger had struck her; the color fled from her lips, and +underneath the delicate rouge on her cheeks; her hand trembled as it +grasped the King's aigrette. + +"Favette--Favette! Who calls me that?" + +It was a forgotten name, the name of a bygone life that fell on her ear +with a strange familiar chime, breaking in on the wit, the license, the +laughter of her midnight supper, as the subdued and mournful sound of +vesper bells might fall upon the wild refrains and noisy drinking-songs +of bacchanalian melody. + +A surprised silence fell upon the group, the laughter hushed, the voices +stopped; it was a strange interruption for a midnight supper. Thargelie +Dumarsais involuntarily rose, her lips white, her eyes fixed, her hand +clasped convulsively on the King's diamond. A vague, speechless terror +held mastery over her, an awe she could not shake off had fastened upon +her, as though the dead had risen from their graves, and come thither to +rebuke her for the past forgotten, the innocence lost. The roses in her +hair, the flowers of revel, touched a cheek blanched as though she +beheld some unearthly thing, and the hand that lay on the royal jewel +shook and trembled. + +"Favette? Favette?" she echoed again. "It is so many years since I heard +that name!" + +Her guests sat silent still, comprehending nothing of this single name +which had such power to move and startle her. Richelieu alone, leaning +back in his chair, leisurely picked out one of his brandy-cherries, and +waited as a man waits for the next scene at a theatre: + +"Is it an unexpected tragedy, or an arranged comedy, ma chere? Ought one +to cry or to laugh? Give me the _mot d'ordre_!" + +His words broke the spell, and called Thargelie Dumarsais back to the +world about her. Actress by profession and by nature, she rallied with a +laugh, putting out her jewelled hand with a languid glance from her long +almond-shaped eyes. + +"A friend of early years, my dear Duc, that is all. Ah, Monsieur de +Tallemont what a strange rencontre! When did you come to Paris? I +scarcely knew you at the first moment; you have so long been an exile, +one may pardonably be startled by your apparition, and take you for a +ghost! I suppose you never dreamed of meeting Favette Fontanie under my +_nom de theatre_? Ah! how we change, do we not, Leon? Time is so short, +we have no time to stand still! Marie, ma chere, give Monsieur le +Chevalier a seat beside you--he cannot be happier placed!" + +Leon de Tallemont heard not a word that she spoke; he stood like a man +stunned and paralyzed by a sudden and violent blow, his head bowed, a +mortal pallor changing his face to the hues of death, the features that +were a moment before bright, laughing, and careless, now set in mute and +rigid anguish. + +"Favette! Favette!" he murmured, hoarsely, in the vague dreamy agony +with which a man calls wildly and futilely on the beloved dead to come +back to him from the silence and horror of the grave. + +"Peste!" laughed Richelieu. "This cast-off lover seems a strange fellow! +Does he not know that absent people have never the presumption to dream +of keeping their places, but learn to give them graciously up!--shall I +teach him the lesson? If he have his sixteen quarterings, a prick of my +sword will soon punish his impudence!" + +The jeer fell unheeded on Leon de Tallemont's ear; had he heard it, the +flippant sneer would have had no power to sting him then. Regardless of +the men around the supper-table, he grasped Thargelie Dumarsais's hands +in his: + +"This is how we meet!" + +She shrank away from his glance, terrified, she scarce knew why, at the +mute anguish upon his face. + +Perhaps for a moment she realized how utterly she had abused the love +and wrecked the life of this man; perhaps with his voice came back to +her thronging thoughts of guileless days, memories ringing through the +haze of years, as distant chimes ring over the water from lands we have +quitted, reaching us when we have floated far away out to sea--memories +of an innocent and untroubled life, when she had watched the woodland +flowers open to the morning sun, and listened to the song of the brooks +murmuring over the violet roots, and heard the sweet evening song of the +birds rise to heaven under the deep vine shadows of Lorraine. + +One moment she was silent, her eyes falling, troubled and guilty, +beneath his gaze; then she looked up, laughing gayly, and flashing on +him her languid lustrous glance. + +"You look like a somnambulist, _mon ami_! Did nobody ever tell you, +then, how Mme. de la Vrilliere carried me off from Lorraine, and brought +me in her train to Paris, till, when Favette Fontanie was tired of being +petted like the spaniel, the monkey, and the parrot, she broke away from +Madame la Marquise, and made, after a little probation at the Foire St. +Laurent, her appearance at the Francais as Thargelie Dumarsais? _Allons +donc!_ have I lost my beauty, that you look at me thus? You should be +reminding me of the proverb, '_On revient toujours a ses premiers +amours!_' Surely, Thargelie Dumarsais will be as attractive to teach +such a lesson as that little peasant girl, Favette, used to be? Bah, +Leon! Can I not love you as well again in Paris as I once loved you at +Grande Charmille? And--who knows?--perhaps I will!" + +She leaned towards him; her breath fanning his cheek, her scented hair +brushing his lips, her lustrous eyes meeting his with eloquent meaning, +her lips parted with the resistless witchery of that melting and +seductive _sourire d'amour_ to which they were so admirably trained. He +gazed down on her, breathless, silence-stricken--gazed down on the +sorceress beauty to which the innocent loveliness of his Lorraine flower +had changed. Was this woman, with the rouge upon her cheeks, the crimson +roses in her hair, the mocking light in her eyes, the wicked laugh on +her lips, the diamond glittering like a serpent's eye in her bosom--was +she the guileless child he had left weeping, on the broken steps of the +fountain, tears as pure as the dew in the violet-bells, with the summer +sunlight streaming round her, and no shade on her young brow darker than +the fleeting shadow flung from above by the vine-leaves? A cry broke +once more from his lips: + +"Would to God I had died before to-night!" + +Then he lifted his head, with a smile upon his face--a smile that +touched and vaguely terrified all those who saw it--the smile of a +breaking heart. + +"I thank you for your proffered embraces, but _I_ am faithful. I love +but one, and I have lost her; Favette is dead! I know nothing of +Thargelie Dumarsais, the Courtesan." + +He bowed low to her and left her--never to see her face again. + +A silence fell on those he had quitted, even upon Richelieu; perhaps +even he realized that all beauty, faith, and joy were stricken from this +man's life; and--reality of feeling was an exile so universally banished +from the gay salons of the Dix-huitieme Siecle, that its intrusion awed +them as by the unwonted presence of some ghostly visitant. + +Thargelie Dumarsais sat silent--her thoughts had flown away once more +from her brilliant supper-chamber to the fountain at Grande Charmille: +she was seeing the dragon-flies flutter among the elm-boughs, and the +water ripple over the wild thyme; she was feeling the old priest's +good-night kiss upon her brow, and her own hymn rise and mingle with the +chant of the vesper choir; she was hearing the song of the forest-birds +echo in the Lorraine woods, and a fond voice whisper to her, "Fear not, +Favette!--we shall meet as we part!" + +Richelieu took up his Dresden saucer of cherries once more with a burst +of laughter. + +"_Voila un drole!_--this fellow takes things seriously. What fools there +are in this world! It will be a charming little story for Versailles. +Dieu! how Louis will laugh when I tell it him! I fear though, ma cherie, +that the 'friend of your childhood' will make you lose your reputation +by his impolite epithets!" + +"When one has nothing, one can lose nothing--eh, ma chere?" laughed +Marie Camargo. "Monsieur le Duc, she does not hear us----" + +"No, _l'infidele_!" cried Richelieu. "Mademoiselle! I see plainly you +love this rude lover of bygone days better than you do us!--is it not +the truth?" + +"Chut! nobody asks for truths in a polite age!" laughed Thargelie +Dumarsais, shaking off unwelcome memories once for all, and looking down +at the King's diamond gleaming in the light--the diamond that prophesied +to her the triumph of the King's love. + +"Naturally," added La Camargo. "My friend, I shall die with envy of your +glorious jewel. _Dieu! comme il brille!_" + + + + +"DEADLY DASH." + +A STORY TOLD ON THE OFF DAY. + + +On the off-day after the Derby everybody, except the great winners, is, +it will be generally admitted, the resigned prey to a certain gentle +sadness, not to say melancholy, that will only dissipate itself under a +prolonged regimen of S. and B., seidlitz well dashed with Amontillado, +or certain heavenly West Indian decoctions;--this indisposition, I would +suggest, we should call, delicately and dubiously, Epsomitis. It will +serve to describe innumerable forms and degrees of the reactionary +malady. + +There is the severest shape of all, "dead money," that covers four +figures, dropped irretrievably, and lost to the "milkers;" lost always +_you_ say because of a cough, or because of a close finish, or because +of something dark, or because of a strain in the practising gallops, or +because of a couple of brutes that cannoned just at the start; and +never, of course, because the horse you had fancied was sheerly and +simply only fit for a plater. There is the second severe form, when you +awake with a cheerful expectation of a summons for driving "at twelve +miles an hour" (as if that wasn't moderate and discreet!), and for +thereby smashing a greengrocer's cart into the middle of next week, and +running a waggonette into an omnibus, as you came back from the Downs, +of which you have no more remembrance than that there was a crash, and +a smash, and a woman's screams, and a man's "d--n the swells!" and a +_tintamarre_ of roaring conductor and bellowing greengrocer, and +infuriated females, through which you dashed somehow with a cheer--more +shame for you--and a most inappropriate _l'Africaine_ chorus from the +men on your drag. There is the milder form, which is only the rueful +recollection of seeing, in a wild ecstasy, the chestnut with the white +blaze sweep with his superb stride to the front, and of having, in your +moment of rapturous gratitude to the red and blue, rushed, +unintentionally, during the discussion of Fortnum and Mason's hamper, +into a promise to take Euphrosyne Brown to Baden in August, where you +know very well she will cost you more than all your sums netted through +Gladiateur. There are the slenderer touches of the malady, which give +you, over your breakfast coffee, a certain dolorous meditation as to how +you could have been such a fool as to have placed all your trust in +Danebury, or to have put in a hole through Spring Cottage just what your +yacht costs for three months; which makes you wonder why on earth you +took that lot of actresses on to the hill, and threw money enough away +on them in those wages of idiotcy (or wages of sin, as your uncle the +dean would translate it), of cashmeres, eau de Cologne, gloves, and +bracelets, to have purchased those two weight-carriers offered you at +L600 the pair, and dirt-cheap at that; or which makes you only dully and +headachily conscious that you drank champagne up on the box-seat as if +you were a young fellow from Eton, and now pay for the juvenile folly, +as you know you deserve to do, when that beautiful white Burgundy at +your club, or your own cool perfect claret at home, seems to stare you +in the face and ask, "Why did you crack all those bottles of Dry on the +Downs?" + +There are symptoms and varieties innumerable of the malady that I +propose shall be known henceforward as Epsomitis; therefore, the off-day +finds everybody more or less slightly done-up and mournful. Twenty-four +hours and the Oaks, if properly prepared for by a strictly medicinal +course of _brules-gueules_, as the Chasseurs say, smoked perseveringly, +will bring all patients round on the Friday; but during the twenty-four +hours a sense that all on and off the course is vanity and vexation of +spirit will generally and somnolently predominate in the universal and +fashionable disease of Epsomitis. + +One off-day, after the magnificent victory of Monarque's unrivalled son, +an acquaintance of mine, suffering considerably from these symptoms, +sought my philosophy and my prescriptions. A very sharp irritant for +Epsomitis may be administered in the form of "I told you so? It's all +your own fault!" But this species of blister and douche bath combined is +rarely given unless the patient be mad enough to let his wife, if he +unluckily have one, learn what ails him. As far as I was concerned, I +was much too sympathetic with the sufferer to be down upon him with the +triumphant reminder that I had cautioned him all along not to place his +trust in Russley. I, instead, prescribed him cool wines, and led him on +to talk of other people's misfortunes, the very best way to get +reconciled with your own. We talked of old times, of old memories, of +old acquaintance, in the twilight, between Derby and Oaks. We got a +little melancholy; too much champagne is always productive on the morrow +of a gently sentimental tinge, and a man is always inclined to look on +the world as a desert when he has the conviction that he himself has +been made a fool in it. Among other names, that of Deadly Dash came up +between us. What had become of him? I did not know; he did. He told me; +and I will tell it here, for the story is of the past now. + +"Deadly Dash! What a shot he was! Never missed," said my friend, whose +own gun is known well enough at Hornsey-wood House; therewith falling +into a reverie, tinged with the Jacques-like gloom of Epsomitis in its +severest form, from which he awoke to tell me slowly, between long +draughts of iced drinks, what I write now. I alter his tale in nothing, +save in filling in with words the gaps and blanks that he made, +all-eloquent in his halting oratory, by meditative, plaintive, +moralizing puffs from his tonic, the _brule gueule_, and an occasional +appeal to my imagination in the customary formula of "Oh, bother!--_you_ +understand--all the rest of it you know," which, though it tells +everything over claret, is not so clear a mode of relation in type. For +all else here the story is as he gave it to me. + + * * * * * + +"Deadly Dash!" It was a fatal sounding sobriquet, and had a fatal +fascination for many, for me as well as the rest, when I was in my salad +days and joined the old ----th, amongst whose Light Dragoons, it was so +signally and ominously famous. The nickname had a wide significance; +"_he always kills_," was said with twofold truth, in twofold meaning of +Dash; in a _barriere_ duel he would wheel lightly, aim carelessly, and +send the ball straight as any arrow through heart or lung, just as he +fancied, in the neatest style anybody could dream of; and in an intrigue +he took just the same measures, and hit as invariably with the self-same +skill and the self-same indifference. "He always kills" applied equally +to either kind of affair, and got him his sobriquet, which he received +with as laughing an equanimity as a riding man gets the Gilt Vase, or a +"lover of the leash" the Ravensworth Stakes, or the Puppy Cup and +Goblet. He was proud of it, and had only one regret, that he lived in +the dead days of the duel, and could only go out when he was on French +soil. In dare-devilry of every sort he out-Heroded Herod, and distanced +any who were mad enough to try the pace with him in that steeple-chase +commonly called "going to the bad." It was a miracle how often he used +to reach the stage of "_complete_ ruin" that the Prince de Soubise once +sighed for as an unattainable paradise; and picked himself up again, +without a hair turned, as one may say, and started off with as fresh a +pace as though nothing had knocked him over. Other men got his speed +sometimes; but nobody could ever equal his stay. For an "out and out +goer" there was nobody like Deadly Dash; and though only a Captain of +Horse, with few "expectations," he did what Dukes daren't have done, and +lived at a faster rate than all the elder sons in the kingdom put +together. Dash had the best bow and the brightest wits, the lightest +morals and the heaviest debts of any _sabreur_ in the Service; very +unscrupulous fellows were staggered at _his_ devil-me-care vices; and as +for reputation,--"a deuced pleasant fellow, Dash," they used to say at +the Curragh, in the Guards' Club, at Thatched House anniversary dinners, +in North Indian cantonments, in Brighton barrack-rooms, or in any of the +many places where Deadly Dash was a household word; "a very pleasant +fellow; no end 'fit' always, best fun in life over the olives when you +get him in humor; shoot you dead though next morning, if he want, and +you be handy for him in a neat snug little Bad; make some devil of a +_mot_ on you too afterwards, just as pleasantly as if he were offering +you a Lopez to smoke!" + +Now, that was just the sort of celebrity that made me mad to see the +owner of it; there wasn't a living being, except that year's favorite +out of the Whitewall establishment, that I was half so eager to look at, +or so reverent when I thought of, as "the Killer." I was very young +then. I had gone through a classic course of yellow covers from Jeffs' +and Rolandi's, and I had a vague impression that a man who had had a +dozen _barriere_ affairs abroad, and been "_enfant_" to every lovely +_lionne_ of his day, must of necessity be like the heroes of Delphine +Demireps' novels, who had each of them always a "je ne sais quoi de +farouche et de fier dans ses grands yeux noirs, et toute la revelation +d'une ame usee, mais dominee par des passions encore inepuisables, +ecrite sur son sombre et pale visage," &c, &c, in the Demireps' most +telling style. + +I don't know quite what I expected to see in the Killer, but I think it +was a sort of compound of Monte Christo, Mephistopheles, and Murat mixed +in one; what I did see was a slight delicate man with a face as fair and +soft as a girl's, the gentlest possible manners, and a laugh like music. +Deadly Dash had led a life as bad as he could lead, had lit his cigar +without a tremor in the wrist, on many gray mornings, while his +adversary lay dying hard among the red rank grasses, had gamed so deep +twenty-four hours at a stretch that the most reckless _galerie_ in +Europe held their breath to watch his play; had had a tongue of silver +for his intrigues and a nerve of steel for his _vendetta_; had lived in +reckless rioting and drunk deep; but the Demirep would not have had him +at any price in her romance; he looked so simply and quietly +thorough-bred, he was so utterly guiltless of all her orthodox traits. +The gentlest of mortals was Deadly Dash; when you first heard his sweet +silvery voice, and his laughter as light and airy as a woman's, you +would never believe how often abroad there a dead man had been left to +get stiff and cold among the clotted herbage, while the Killer went out +of the town by the early express, smoking and reading the "Charivari," +and sipping some cold Curacoa punch out of his flask. + +"Of course!" growled a man to me once in the Guards' smoking-room, an +order of the Scots Fusilleers to Montreal having turned him misanthrope. +"Did Mephistopheles ever come out in full harness, with horns and tail +complete, eh? Not such a fool. He looked like a gentleman, and talked +like a wit. Would the most dunder-headed Cain in Christendom, I should +be glad to know, be such an ass as to go about town with the brand on +his forehead, when he could turn down Bond Street any day and get a +dash of the ladies' pearl powder? Who ever _shows_ anything now, my good +fellow? Not that Dash 'paints,' to give the deuce his due--except +himself a little blacker even than he is; he don't cant; he couldn't +cant; not to save his life, I believe. But as to his bewitching you, +almost as bad as he does the women, I know all about that. I used to +swear by him till----" + +"Till what?" + +"Till he cut a brother of mine out with Rachel, and shot him in the +woods of Chantilly for flaring-up rough at the rivalry. Charlie was +rather a good fellow, and Dash and I didn't speak after that, you see. +Great bore; bosh too, perhaps. Dash brews the best Curacoa punch in +Europe, and if he name you the winning mount for the Granby, you may let +the talent damn you as they like. Still you know as he killed +Charlie,--" and the Guardsman stuck a great cheroot in his mouth, in +doubt as to whether, after all, it wasn't humbug, and an uncalled-for +sacrifice, rather scenic and sentimental, to drop an expert at Curacoa +brew, and a sure prophet for Croxton Park, just because in a legitimate +fashion he had potted your brother and relieved your entail;--on the +whole, a friendly act rather than otherwise? "Keep clear of the Killer, +though, young one," he added, as he sauntered out. "He's like that +cheetah cub of Berkeley's; soft as silk, you know, _patte de velours_, +and what d'ye call 'em, and all the rest of it, but deucedly deadly to +deal with." + +I did know: it was the eternal refrain that was heard on all sides; from +the wily Jews through whose meshes he slipped; the unhappy duns who were +done by him; the beauties who were bewitched by him; the hosts and +husbands who, having him down for the pheasants, found him poach other +preserves than those of the cover-sides; the women who had their +characters shattered by a silvery sneer from a voice that was as soft, +in its murderous slander, as in its equally murderous wooing; and all +the rest, who, in some shape or another, owed ruin to that Apollo +Apollyon--Deadly Dash. Ruin which at last became so wide and so deep, +that even vice began to look virtuous when his name was mentioned (vice +always does when she thinks you are really cleared out), and men of his +own corps and his own club began to get shy of having the Killer's arm +linked in theirs too often down Pall Mall, for its wrist was terribly +steady in either Hazard, whether of the yard of green table or the +twenty yards of green turf. + +At last the crisis came: the Killer killed one too many; a Russian +Prince in the Bois de Vincennes, in a quarrel about a pretty wretched +little chorus-singer of the Cafe Alcazar, who took their fancies both at +once. The _mondes_ thought it terribly wicked, not the deed you know, +but the audacity of a cavalry man's having potted a Very Serene High +Mightiness. In a Duke, all these crimes and crimcons, though as scarlet, +would have been held but the crimson gold-dotted fruit adorning the +strawberry-leaves; Deadly Dash, a Light Dragoon whose name was signed to +plenty of "floating little bills," could not bid high enough to purchase +his pardon from society, which says to its sinners with austere front of +virtue, "Oblivion cannot be hired,--unless," adds Society, dropping to +mellowest murmur her whisper, "unless you can give us a premium!" So +Dash, with a certain irresistible though private pressure upon him from +the Horse Guards--sent in his papers to sell. What had been done so +often could not now be done again; the first steeple-chaser in the +Service could not at last even save his stake, but was finally, +irretrievably, struck out. + +Certainly the fellow was a bad fellow, and deserved his crash so far; he +had no scruples, and no conscience; he spared neither woman nor man; of +remorse he had never felt a twinge, and if you were in his path he would +pick you off some way or other as indifferently as if you were one of +the pigeons at Hornsey. And yet, he had been kind to me, though I was a +young one; with his own variable Free Lance sort of liberality, the man +would give his last sou to get you out of any difficulty, and would +carry off your mistress, or beggar you at chicken-hazard, with the +self-same pleasant air the next day: and I could not help being sorry +that things had come to this pass with him. He shot so superbly! Put him +where you would, in a warm corner while the bouquets of pheasants were +told off; in a punt, while a square half-mile of wild-ducks whirred up +from the marshes; in a dark forest alley in Transylvania, while the +great boar rushed down through the twilight, foaming blood and roaring +fury; in a still Indian night with the only target here and there a +dusky head diving amidst the jhow jungle three hundred yards away: put +him where you would, he was such a magnificent shot! The sins of a +Frankenstein should not have lost such a marksman as Deadly Dash to the +Service. + +But the authorities thought otherwise; they were not open to the fact, +that the man who had been out in more _barriere_ affairs, and had won +more Grand Military stakes than any other, should, by all laws of +war-policy, have had his blackest transgressions forgiven him, till he +could have been turned to account against Ghoorkas, Maories, or Caffres. +The authorities instead, made him send in his papers, not knowing the +grand knack of turning a scamp into a hero--a process that requires some +genius and some clairvoyance in the manipulator,--and Deadly Dash, with +his lightest and airiest laugh, steamed down channel one late autumn +night, marked, disgraced, and outlawed, for creditors by the score were +after him, knowing very well that he and his old gay lawless life, and +his own wild pleasant world, and his old lands yonder in the green heart +of the grass countries that had gone rood by rood to the Hebrews, were +all divorced for ever with a great gulf between them that could never +close. + +So he dropped out of the Service, out of the country, out of +remembrance, out of regret; nobody said a De Profundis over him, and +some men breathed the freer. We can rarely be sure of any who will be +sorry to miss us; but we can always be certain of some to be glad we are +gone. And in the Killer's case these last were legion. Here and there +were one or two who owed him a wayward, inconstant bizarre fit of +generosity; but there were on the other hand hundreds who owed him +nothing less than entire ruin. + +So Deadly Dash went with nobody to regret him and nobody to think of him +for a second, after the nine hours' wonder in the clubs and the +mess-rooms that his levanting "under a cloud" occasioned; and so the old +sobriquet, that had used to have so signal a notoriety, dropped out of +men's mouths and was forgotten. Where he was gone no one knew; and to be +sure no one asked. Metaphorically, he was gone to the devil; and when a +man takes that little tour, if he furnish talk for a day he has had very +distinguished and lengthened obsequies as friendship goes in this world. +Now and then in the course of half-a-dozen years I remembered him, when +I looked up at the head of a Royal over my mantelpiece, with thirteen +points, that he had stalked once in Ayrshire and given to me; but nobody +else gave a thought to the Killer. Time passed, and whether he had been +killed fighting in Chili or Bolivia, shot himself at Homburg, become +Mussulman and entered the Sultan's army, gone to fight with the Kabyles +and Bedouins, turned brigand for the Neapolitan Bourbons, or sunk +downward by the old well-worn stage, so sadly and so often travelled, +into an adventurer living by the skill of his ecarte and the dread +surety of his shot, we did not know; we did not care. When society has +given a man the sack, it matters uncommonly little whether he has given +himself a shroud. + + * * * * * + +Seven or eight years after the name of Deadly Dash had ceased to be +heard among cavalry men, and quoted on all things "horsey," whether of +the flat or of the ridge and furrow, I was in the Confederate States, on +leave for a six months' tour there. It was after Lee's raid across the +border and the days of Gettysburgh. I had run the blockade in a +fast-built clipper, and pushed on at once into the heart of Virginia, to +be in the full heat of whatever should come on the cards; cutting the +cities rather, and keeping as much as I could to the camps and the +woods, for I wanted to see the real thing in the rough. In my relish for +adventure, however, I was a trifle, as it proved, too foolhardy. + +Starting alone one day to cross the thirty miles or so that parted me +from the encampment of some Virginian Horse, with no other companions +than a very weedy-looking steel gray, and a brace of revolvers, I fairly +"lost tracks," and had not a notion of my way out of a wilderness of +morass and forest, all glowing with the scarlet and the green of the +Indian summer. Here and there were beautiful wild pools and lakes shut +in by dense vegetation, so dense, that at noon it was dark as twilight, +and great tablelands of rock jutted out black and rugged in places; but +chiefly as far as was to be seen stretched the deep entangled woodland, +with nothing else to break it, brooding quietly over square leagues of +swamp. The orioles were singing their sweetest, wildest music overhead; +sign of war there was none, save to be sure, now and then when I came on +a black, arid circle, where a few charred timbers showed where a hut had +been burnt down and deserted, or my horse shied and snorted uneasily, +and half stumbled over some shapeless log on the ground--a log that when +you looked closer was the swollen shattered body of a man who had died +hard, with the grasses wrenched up in his fingers that the ants had +eaten bare, and the hollows of his eyes staring open where the carrion +birds had plucked the eyeballs out. And near him there were sure to be, +half sunk in swamp, or cleaned to skeletons by the eagles and hawks, +five, or ten, or twenty more, lying nameless and unburied there, where +they had fallen in some scuffle with pickets, or some stray cavalry +skirmish, to be told off as "missing," and to be thought of no more. +These groups I came upon more than once rotting among the rich Virginian +soil, while the scarlet and purple weight of blossoming boughs swayed +above, and the bright insect life fluttered humming around them; they +were the only highway marks through the wooded wilderness. + +So lonely was it mile after mile, and so little notion had I of either +the way in or the way out, that the _hallali!_ of a boar-hunt, or the +sweet mellow tongues of the hounds when they have found in the coverts +at home, were never brighter music to me than the sharp crack of rifles +and the long sullen roll of musketry as they suddenly broke the silence, +while I rode along, firing from the west that lay on my left. The gray, +used to powder, pointed his ears and quickened his pace. Though a weedy, +fiddle-headed beast, his speed was not bad, and I rattled him over the +ground, crashing through undergrowth and wading through pools, with all +my blood up at the tune of those ringing cheery shots; the roar growing +louder and louder with every moment, and the sulphur scent of the smoke +borne stronger and stronger down on the wind, till the horse broke +_pele-mele_ through a network of parasites; dashed downward along a +slope of dank herbage, slipping at every step, and with his hind legs +tucked under him; and shot, like a run-in for a race, on to a green +plateau, where the skirmish was going on in hot earnest. + +A glance told me how the land lay. A handful of Southern troopers held +their own with tremendous difficulty against three divisions of Federal +infantry, whom they had unexpectedly encountered, as the latter were +marching across the plateau with some batteries of foot artillery,--the +odds were probably scarcely less than five to one. The Southerners were +fighting magnificently, as firm in their close square of four hundred as +the Consular Guard at Marengo, but so surrounded by the Northern host, +that they looked like a little island circled round by raging breakers. +Glancing down on the plain as my horse scoured and slid along the +incline, the nucleus of Southerners looked hopelessly lost amidst the +belching fire and pressing columns of the enemy. The whole was +surrounded and hidden by the whirling clouds of dust and smoke that +swirled above in a white heavy mist; but through this the sabres +flashed, the horses' heads reared, maddened and foam-covered, like so +many bas-reliefs of Bucephalus, the lean rifle-barrels glittered, and +for a moment I saw the Southern leader, steady as a rock in the centre, +hewing like a trooper right and left, and with a gray heron's feather +floating from his sombrero, a signal that seemed as well known and as +closely followed as the snowy plume of Murat. + +To have looked on at this and not have taken a share in it, one would +have been a stone, not a man, and much less a cavalry-man; I need not +tell you that I smashed the gray across the plateau, hurled him into the +thick of the melee, dashed _somehow_ through the Federal ranks, and was +near the gray plume and fighting for the Old Dominion before you could +have shouted a stave of "Dixie." I was a "non-combatant," I was a +"neutral"--delicate Anglo-euphemism for coward, friend to neither and +traitor to both!--I was on a tour of observation, and had no business to +fire a shot for one or the other perhaps, but I forgot all that, and +with the bridle in my teeth and a pistol in each hand, I rode down to +give one blow the more for the weak side. + +How superbly that Gray Feather fought!--keeping his men well up round +him, though saddle after saddle was emptied, and horse after horse tore +riderless out of the ranks, or reeled over on their heads, spurting +blood, he sat like a statue, he fought like a Titan, his sabre seemed +flashing unceasingly in the air, so often was it raised to come down +again like lightning through a sword-arm, or lay open a skull to the +brains; the shots ploughed up the earth round him, and rattled like hail +through the air, a score of balls were aimed at him alone, a score of +sabres crossed his own; but he was cool as St. Lawrence ice, and laid +the men dead in struggling heaps under his charger's hoofs; only to +fight near the man was a glorious intoxication; you seemed to "breathe +blood" till you got drunk with it. + +The four hundred had been mowed down to two; I did as good work as I +could, having wrenched a sword out of some dead trooper's hand; but I +was only one, and the Northerners counted by thousands. Come out of it +alive I never expected to do; but I vow it was the happiest day of my +life--the pace was so splendidly fast! The Gray Feather at last glanced +anxiously around; his men stuck like death to him, ready to be hewed +down one by one, and die game; his teeth were set tight, and his eyes +had a flash in them like steel. "Charge! and cut through!" he shouted, +his voice rolling out like a clarion, giving an order that it seemed +could be followed by nothing short of supernatural aid. The Southrons +thought otherwise; they only heard to obey; they closed up as steadily +as though they were a squadron on parade, despite the great gaps between +them of dying chargers, and of heaped-up killed and wounded, that broke +their ranks like so much piled stones and timber; they halted a moment, +the murderous fire raking them right and left, front and rear; then, +with that dense mass of troops round them, they charged; shivered the +first line that wedged them in; pierced by sheer force of impetus the +columns that opened fire in their path; wrenched themselves through as +through the steel jaws of a trap, and swept out on to the green level of +the open plateau, with a wild rallying Virginian shout that rings in my +ears now! + +I have been in a good many hot things in my time; but I never knew +anything that for pace and long odds could be anything near to that. + +I had kept with them through the charge with no other scratch than a +shoulder cut; and I had been close to their chief through it all. When +we were clean out on the plains beyond pursuit--for the Union-men had +not a squadron of cavalry, though their guns at long range belched a +storm in our wake--he turned in his saddle without checking his mare's +thundering gallop, and levelled his rifle that was slung at his aide. +"I'll have the General, anyhow," he said, quietly taking aim--still +without checking his speed--at the knot of staff-officers that now were +scarce more than specks in a blurred mass of mist. He fired; and the +centre figure in that indistinct and fast-vanishing group fell from the +saddle, while the yell of fury that the wind faintly floated nearer told +us that the shot had been deadly. The Gray Feather laughed, a careless +airy laugh of triumph, while he swept on at topmost pace; a little more, +and we should dive down into the dark aisles of grand forest-trees and +cavernous ravines of timber roads, safe from all pursuit; a second, and +we should reach the green core of the safe and silent woods, the cool +shelter of mountain-backed lakes, the sure refuge of tangled coverts. It +was a guinea to a shilling that we gained it; it was all but won; a +moment's straight run-in, and we should have it! But that moment was not +to be ours. + +Out of the narrow cleft of a valley on the left, all screened with +hanging tumbled foliage, and dark as death, there poured suddenly across +our front a dense body of Federal troopers and Horse Artillery, two +thousand strong at the least, full gallop, to join the main army. We +were surrounded in a second, in a second overpowered by sheer strength +of numbers; only two hundred of us, many sorely wounded, and on mounts +that were jaded and ridden out of all pace, let us fight as we would, +what could we do against fresh and picked soldiers, swarming down on us +like a swarm of hornets, while in our rear was the main body through +which we had just cut our way? That the little desperate band "died +hard," I need not say; but the vast weight of the fresh squadrons +pressed our little knot in as if between the jaws of a trap, crushing it +like grain between two iron weights. The Gray Feather fought like all +the Knights of the Round Table merged in one, till he streamed with +blood from head to foot, and his sabre was hacked and bent like an +ash-stick, as did a man near him, a tall superb Virginian, handsome as +any Vandyke or Velasquez picture. At last both the Gray Feather and he +went down, not by death--it would not come to them--but literally hurled +out of their stirrup-leathers by crowding scores who poured on them, +hamstrung or shot their horses, and made them themselves prisoners--not, +however, till the assailants lay heaped ten deep about their slaughtered +chargers. For myself, a blow from a sabre, a second afterwards, felled +me like so much wood. I saw a whirling blaze of sun, a confused circling +eddy of dizzy color, forked flames, and flashes of light, and I knew no +more, till I opened my eyes in a dark, square, unhealthy wooden chamber, +with a dreamy but settled conviction that I was dead, and in the family +vault, far away under the green old elms of Warwickshire, with the rooks +cawing above my head. + +As the delusion dissipated and the mists cleared, I saw through the +uncertain light a face that was strangely but vaguely familiar to me, +connected somehow with incoherent memories of life at home, and yet +unknown to me. It was bronzed deeply, bearded, with flakes of gray among +the fairness of the hair, much aged, much worn, scarred and stained just +now with the blood of undressed wounds and the dust of the combat, for +there was no one merciful enough there to bring a stoup of water; it was +rougher, darker, sterner, and yet, with it all, nobler, too, than the +face that I had known. I lay and stared blankly at it: it was the face +of the Southern Leader of the morning, who sat now, on a pile of straw, +looking wearily out to the dying sun, one amongst a group of twenty, +prisoners all, like myself. I moved, and he turned his eyes on me; they +had laid me down there as a "gone 'coon," and were amazed to see me come +to life again. As our eyes met I knew him--he was Deadly Dash. + +The old name left my lips with a shout as strong as a half-killed man +can give. It seemed so strange to meet him there, captives together in +the Unionists' hands! It struck him with a sharp shock. England and he +had been divorced so long. I saw the blood leap to his forehead, and the +light into his glance; then, with a single stride, he reached the straw +I lay on, holding my hands in his, looking on me with the kindly eyes +that had used to make me like the Killer, and greeting me with a warmth +that was only damped and darkened by regret that my battle done for fair +Virginia had laid me low, a prisoner with himself, and that we should +meet thus, in so sharp an hour of adversity, with nothing before us but +the Capitol, the Carroll prison, or worse. Yet thus we did meet once +more and I knew at last what had been the fate of Deadly Dash, whom +England had outlawed as a scoundrel, and the New World had found a hero. + +Though suffering almost equally himself, he tended me with the +kindliest sympathy; he came out of his own care to ponder how possible +it might be to get me eventual freedom as a tourist and a mere +accidental sharer in the fray; he was interested to hear all that I +would tell him of my own affairs and of his old friends in England, but +of himself he would not speak; he simply said he had been fighting for +the Confederacy ever since the war had begun; and I saw that he strove +in vain to shake off a deep heart-broken gloom that seemed to have +settled on him, doubtless, as I thought, from the cruel defeat of the +noon, and the hopeless captivity into which he, the most restless and +the most daring soldier that oversaw service, was now flung. + +I noticed, too, that every now and then while he sat beside me, talking +low--for there were sentinels both in and out the rude outhouse of the +farm that had been turned into our temporary prison--his eyes wandered +to the gallant Virginian who had been felled down with himself, and who, +covered like himself with blood and dust, and with his broken left arm +hanging shattered, lay on the bare earth in a far-off corner motionless +and silent, with his lips pressed tight under their long black +moustaches, and such a mute unutterable agony in his eyes as I never saw +in any human face, though I have seen deaths enough in the field and the +sick-ward. The rest of the Confederate captives were more ordinary men +(although from none was a single word of lament ever wrenched); but this +superb Virginian excited my interest, and I asked his name, in that sort +of languid curiosity at passing things which comes with weakness, of the +Killer, whose glance so incessantly wandered towards him. + +"Stuart Lane," he answered, curtly, and added no more; but if I ever saw +in this world hatred, passionate, ungovernable, and intense, I saw it in +the Killer's look as his glance flashed once more on to the motionless +form of the handsomest, bravest, and most dauntless officer of his +gallant regiment that he had seen cut to pieces there on that accursed +plateau. + +"A major of yours?" I asked him. "Ah, I thought so; he fought +magnificently. How wretched he looks, though he is too proud to show +it!" + +"He is thinking of--of his bride. He married three weeks ago." + +The words were simple enough, and spoken very quietly; but there was an +unsteadiness, as of great effort, over them; and the heel of his heavy +spurred jack-boot crashed into the dry mud with a grinding crush, as +though it trod terrible memories down. Was it a woman who was between +these two comrades in arms and companions in adversity? I wondered if it +were so, even in that moment of keen and heavy anxiety for us all, as I +looked at the face that bent very kindly over the straw to which a shot +in the knee and a deep though not dangerous shoulder-wound bound me. It +was very different to the face of eight or nine years before--browner, +harder, graver far; and yet there was a look as if "sorrow had passed by +there," and swept the old heartlessness and gay callousness away, +burning them out in its fires. + +Silence fell over us in that wretched outshed where we were huddled +together. I was hot with incipient fever, and growing light-headed +enough, though I knew what passed before me, to speak to Dash once or +twice in a dreamy idea that we were in the Shires watching the run-in +for the "Soldiers' Blue Riband." The minutes dragged very drearily as +the day wore itself away. There were the sullen monotonous tramp of the +sentinels to and fro, and, from without, the neighing of horses, the +bugle calls, the roll of the drums, the challenge of outposts--all the +varied, endless sounds of a camp; for the farmhouse in whose shed we +were thrown was the head-quarters _pro tem_. of the Federal General who +commanded the Divisions that had cost the Killer's handful of Horse so +fearfully dear. We were prisoners, and escape was impossible. All arms +of course had been removed from us; most, like myself, were too disabled +by wounds to have been able to avail ourselves of escape had it been +possible; and the guard was doubled both in and out the shed; there was +nothing before any of us but the certainty of imprisonment in all its +horrors in some far-off fortress or obscure jail. There was the possible +chance that, since certain officers on whom the Northerners set great +store had lately fallen into Southern hands, an exchange might be +effected; yet, on the other side, graver apprehensions still existed, +since we knew that the General into whose camp we had been brought had +proclaimed his deliberate purpose of shooting the three next +Secessionist officers who fell into his power, in requital for three of +his own officers who had been shot, or were said to have been shot, by a +Southern raider. We knew very well that, the threat made, it would be +executed; and each of us, as the sun sank gradually down through the hot +skies that were purple and stormy after the burning day, knew, too, that +it might never rise again to greet our sight. None of us would have +heeded whether a ball would hit or miss us in the open, in a fair fight, +in a man-to-man struggle; but the boldest and most careless amidst us +felt it very bitter to die like dogs, to die as prisoners. + +Even Deadly Dash, coolest, most hardened, most devil-may-care of +soldiers and of sinners, sat with his gaze fastened on the slowly +sinking light in the west with the shadow of a great pain upon his face, +while every now and then his glance wandered to Stuart Lane, and a +quick, irrepressible shudder shook him whenever it did so. The Virginian +never moved; no sign of any sort escaped him; but the passionate misery +that looked out of his eyes I never saw equalled, except, perhaps, in +the eyes of a stag that I once shot in Wallachia, and that looked up +with just such a look before it died. He was thinking, no doubt, of the +woman he loved--wooed amidst danger, won amidst calamity, scarcely +possessed ere lost for ever;--thinking of her proud beauty, of her +bridal caress, that would never again touch his lips, of her fair life +that would perish with the destruction of his. + +Exhaustion from the loss of blood made everything pass dreamily, and yet +with extraordinary clearness, before me, I felt in a wakening dream, and +had no sense whatever of actual existence, and yet the whole scene was +so intensely vital and vivid to me, that it seemed burned into my very +brain itself. It was like the phantasmagoria of delirium, utterly +impalpable, but yet intensely real. I had no power to act or resist, but +I seemed to have ten times redoubled power to see and hear and feel; I +was aware of all that passed, with a hundredfold more susceptibility to +it than I ever felt in health. I remember a total impossibility that +came on me to decide whether I was dreaming or was actually awake. +Twilight fell, night came; there was a change of sentries, and a light, +set up in a bottle, shed a flickering, feeble, yellow gleam over the +interior of the shed, on the dark Rembrandt faces of the Southerners and +on the steel of the guards' bayonets. And I recollect that the Killer, +who sat by the tossed straw on which they had flung me, laughed the old, +low, sweet, half-insolent laugh that I had known so well in early days. +"_Il faut souffrir pour etre beau!_ We are picturesque, at any rate, +quite Salvatoresque! Little Dickey would make a good thing of us if he +could paint us now. He is alive, I suppose?" + +I answered him I believe in the affirmative; but the name of that little +Bohemian of the Brush, who had used to be our butt and _protege_ in +England, added a haze the more to my senses. By this time I had +difficulty to hold together the thread of how, and when, and why I had +thus met again the face that looked out on me so strangely familiarly in +the dull, sickly trembling of the feeble light of this black, noisome +shed in the heart of Federal Divisions. + +Through that haze I heard the challenge of the sentries; I saw a soldier +prod with his bayonet a young lad who had fainted from haemorrhage, and +whom he swore at for shamming. I was conscious of the entrance of a +group of officers, whom I knew afterwards to be the Northern General and +his staff, who came to look at their captives. I knew, but only dreamily +still, that these men were the holders of our fate, and would decide on +it then and there. I felt a listless indifference, utter and opium-like, +as to what became of me, and I remember that Stuart Lane, and Dash +himself, rose together, and stood looking with a serene and haughty +disdain down on the conquerors who held their lives in the +balance--without a trace of pain upon their faces now. I remember how +like they looked to stags that turn at bay; like the stags, outnumbered, +hunted down, with the blood of open wounds and the dust of the long +chase on them; but, like the deer, too, uncowed, and game to the finish. + +Very soon their doom was given. Seven were to be sent back with a flag +of truce to be exchanged for the seven Federal officers they wanted out +of the Southerners' hands, ten were to be transmitted to the prisons of +the North,--three were to be shot at day-dawn in the reprisal before +named. The chances of life and of death were to be drawn for by lottery, +and at once. + +Not a sound escaped the Virginians, and not a muscle of their English +Leader's face moved: the prisoners, to a man, heard impassively, with a +grave and silent dignity, that they were to throw the die in hazard, +with death for the croupier and life for the stake. + +The General and his staff waited to amuse themselves with personally +watching the turns of this new _Rouge et Noir_; gambling in lives was a +little refreshing change that sultry, dreary, dun-colored night, camped +amongst burnt-out farms and wasted corn-lands. + +Slips of paper, with "exchange," "death," and "imprisonment" written on +them in the numbers needed, were made ready, rolled up, and tossed into +an empty canteen; each man was required to come forward and draw, I +alone excepted because I was an officer of the British Army. I remember +passionately arguing that they had no right to exempt me, since I had +been in the fray, and had killed three men on my own hook, and would +have killed thirty more had I had the chance; but I was perhaps +incoherent in the fever that was fast seizing all my limbs from the rack +of undressed wounds; at any rate, the Northerners took no heed, save to +force me into silence, and the drawing began. As long as I live I shall +see that night in remembrance with hideous distinctness: the low +blackened shed with its foetid odors from the cattle lately foddered +there; the yellow light flaring dully here and there; the glisten of the +cruel rifles; the heaps of straw and hay soaked with clotted blood; the +group of Union Officers standing near the doorway; and the war-worn +indomitable faces of the Southerners, with the fairer head and slighter +form of their English chief standing out slightly in front of all. + +The Conscription of Death commenced; a Federal private took the paper +from each man as he drew it, and read the word of destiny aloud. Not one +amongst them faltered or paused one moment; each went,--even those most +exhausted, most in agony,--with a calm and steady step, as they would +have marched up to take the Flag of the Stars and Bars from Lee or +Longstreet. Not one waited a second's breath before he plunged his hand +into the fatal lottery. + +Deadly Dash was the first called: there was not one shadow of anxiety +upon his face; it was calm without effort, careless without bravado, +simply, entirely indifferent. They took his paper and read the words of +safety and of life--"Exchange." Then, for one instant, a glory of hope +flashed like the sun into his eyes--to die the next; die utterly. + +Three followed him, and they all drew the fiat for detention; the fifth +called was Stuart Lane. + +Let him have suffered as he would, he gave no sign of it now; he +approached with his firm, bold cavalry step, and his head haughtily +lifted; the proud, fiery, dauntless Cavalier of ideal and of romance. +Without a tremor in his wrist he drew his paper out and gave it. + +One word alone fell distinct on the silence like the hiss of a shot +through the night--"_Death!_" + +He bowed his head slightly as if in assent, and stepped backward--still +without a sign. + +His English chief gave him one look,--it was that of merciless +exultation, of brutal joy, of dark, Cain-like, murderous hate; but it +passed, passed quickly: Dash's head sank on his chest, and on his face +there was the shadow, I think, of a terrible struggle--the shadow, I +know, of a great remorse. He strove with his longing greed for this +man's destruction; he knew that he thirsted _to see him die_. + +The Virginian stood erect and silent: a single night and the strong and +gallant life, the ardent passions, the chivalrous courage to do and +dare, and the love that was in its first fond hours would all be +quenched in him as though they had never been; but he was a soldier, and +he gave no sign that his death-warrant was not as dear to him as his +bridal-night had been. Even his conquerors cast one glance of admiration +on him; it was only his leader who felt for him no pang of reverence and +pity. + +The lottery continued; the hazard was played out; life and death were +scattered at reckless chance amidst the twenty who were the playthings +of that awful gaming; all had been done in perfect silence on the part +of the condemned; not one seemed to think or to feel for himself, and +in those who were sent out to their grave not a grudge lingered against +their comrades of happier fortune. Deadly Dash, whose fate was release, +alone stood with his head sunk, thoughtful and weary. + +The three condemned to execution were remanded to separate and solitary +confinement, treated already as felons for that one short night which +alone remained to them. As his guards removed him, Stuart Lane paused +slightly, and signed to his chief to approach him; he held out his hand +to Dash, and his voice was very low, though it came to my ear where they +stood beside me: "We were rivals once, but we may be friends _now_. As +you have loved her, be pitiful to her when you tell her of my +death,--God knows it may be hers! As you have loved her, feel what it is +to die without one last look on her face!" + +Then, and then only, his bronze cheek grew white as a woman's, and his +whole frame shook with one great silent sob; his guard forced him on, +and his listener had made him no promise, no farewell; neither had he +taken his hand. He had heard in silence, with a dark and evil gloom +alone upon him. + +The Federal General sharply summoned him from his musing, as the chief +of those to be exchanged on the morrow under a white flag of parley; +there were matters to be stated to and to be arranged with him. + +"I will only see you alone, General," he answered curtly. + +The Northerner stared startled, and casting a glance over the +redoubtable leader of horse, whose gray feather had become known and +dreaded, thought of possible assassination. Deadly Dash laughed his old +light, ironic, contemptuous laugh. + +"A wounded unarmed man can scarcely kill you! Have as many of your +staff about you as you please, but let none of my Virginians be present +at our interview." + +The Northerners thought he intended to desert to them, or betray some +movement of importance, and assented; and he went out with them from the +cattle-shed into the hot, stormy night, and the Southerners who were +condemned to death and detention looked after him with a long, wistful, +dog-like look. They had been with him in so many spirit-stirring days +and nights of peril, and they knew that never would they meet again. He +had not given one of them a word of adieu; he had killed too many to be +touched by his soldiers' loss. Who could expect pity from Deadly Dash? + +An hour passed; I was removed under a guard to a somewhat better lodging +in the granary, where a surgeon hastily dressed my wounds, and left me +on a rough pallet with a jug of water at my side, and the sentinel for +my only watcher, bidding me "sleep." Sleep! I could not have slept for +my ransom. Though life had hardened me, and made me sometimes, as I +fear, callous enough, I could not forget those who were to die when the +sun rose; specially, I could not forget that gallant Virginian to whom +life was so precious, yet who gave himself with so calm a fortitude to +his fate. The rivalry, I thought, must be deep and cruel, to make the +man from whom he had won what they both loved turn from him in hatred, +even in such extremity as his. On the brink of a comrade's grave, feud +might surely have been forgotten? + +All that had just passed was reeling deliriously through my brain, and I +was panting in the sheer irritation and exhaustion of gunshot wounds, +when through the gloom Dash entered the granary, closely guarded, but +allowed to be with me on account of our common country. Never was I more +thankful to see a familiar face from home than to see his through the +long watches of that burning, heavy, interminable night. He refused to +rest; he sat by me, tending me as gently as a woman, though he was +suffering acutely himself from the injuries received in the course of +the day; he watched me unweariedly, though often and often his gaze and +his thoughts wandered far from me, as he looked out through the open +granary door, past the form of the sentinel, out to the starry solemn +skies, the deep woods, and the dark silent land over which the stars +were brooding, large and clear. + +Was he thinking of the Virginian whose life would die out for ever, with +the fading of those stars, or of the woman whom he had lost, whose love +was the doomed soldier's, and would never be his own, though the grave +closed over his rival with the morrow's sun? Dreamily, half +unconsciously, in the excitement of fever, I asked him of her of whom I +knew nothing: + +"Did you love that woman so well?" + +His eyes were still fixed on the distant darkening skies, and he +answered quietly, as though rather to his own thoughts than my +words,--"Yes: I love her--as I never loved in that old life in England; +as we never love but once, I think." + +"And she?" + +"And she--has but one thought in the world--_him_." + +His voice, as he answered, now grated with dull, dragging misery over +the words. + +"Had she so much beauty that she touched you like this?" + +He smiled slightly, a faint, mournful smile, unutterably sad. + +"Yes; she is very lovely, but her beauty is the least rare charm. She is +a woman for whom a man would live his greatest, and if he cannot live +for her--may--die." + +The utterance was very slow, and seemed to lie on me like a hand on my +lips compelling me to silence; he had forgotten all, except his memory +of her, and where he sat with his eyes fixed outward on the drifting +clouds that floated across the stars, I saw his lips quiver once, and I +heard him murmur half aloud: "My darling! My darling! You will know how +I loved you _then_----" + +And the silence was never broken between us, but he sat motionless thus +all the hours through, looking out at the deep still woods, and the +serene and lustrous skies, till the first beams of the sun shone over +the hills in the east, and I shuddered, where I lay, at its light;--for +I knew it was the signal of death. + +Then he arose, and bent towards me, and the kindly eyes of old looked +down on mine. + +"Dear old fellow, the General expects me at dawn. I must leave you just +now; say good-bye." + +His hand closed on mine, he looked on me one moment longer, a little +lingeringly, a little wistfully, then he turned and went out with his +guard; went out into the young day that was just breaking on the world. + +I watched his shadow as it faded, and I saw that the sun had risen +wholly; and I thought of those who were to die with the morning light. + +All was very calm for a while; then the beat of a drum rolled through +the quiet of the dawn, and the measured tramp of armed men sounded +audibly; my heart stood still, my lips felt parched,--I knew the errand +of that column marching so slowly across the parched turf. A little +while longer yet, and I heard the sharp ring of the ramrods being +withdrawn, and the dull echo of the charge being rammed down: with a +single leap, as though the bullets were through me, I sprang, weak as I +was, from my wretched pallet, and staggered to the open doorway, leaning +there against the entrance powerless and spell-bound. I saw the file of +soldiers loading; I saw the empty coffin-shells; I saw three men +standing bound, their forms distinct against the clear, bright haze of +morning, and the fresh foliage of the woods. Two of them were +Virginians, but the third was not Stuart Lane With a great cry I sprang +forward, but the guards seized my arms and held me, helpless as a woman, +in their gripe. He whom we had called Deadly Dash heard, and looked up +and smiled. His face was tranquil and full of light, as though the pure +peace of the day shone there. + +The gripe of the sentinels held me as if in fetters of iron; the world +seemed to rock and reel under me, a sea of blood seemed eddying before +my eyes; the young day was dawning, and murder was done in its early +hours, and I was held there to look on,--its witness, yet powerless to +arrest it! I heard the formula--so hideous then!--"Make +ready!"--"Present!"--"Fire!" I saw the long line of steel tubes belch +out their smoke and flame. I heard the sullen echo of the report roll +down from the mountains above. When the mist cleared away, the three +figures stood no longer clear against the sunlight; they had fallen. + +With the mad violence of desperation I wrenched myself from my guards, +and staggered to him where he lay; he was not quite dead yet; the balls +had passed through his lungs, but he breathed still; his eyes were +unclosed, and the gleam of a last farewell came in them. He smiled +slightly, faintly once more. + +"She will know how I loved her now. Tell her I died for her," he said +softly, while his gaze looked upwards to the golden sun-rays rising in +the east. + +And with these words life passed away, the smile still lingering gently +on his lips;--and I knew no more, for I fell like a man stunned down by +him where he was stretched beside the grave that they had hewn for him +ere he was yet dead. + + * * * * * + +I knew when I saw him there, as well as I knew by detail long after, +that he had offered his life for Stuart Lane's, and that it had been +accepted; the Virginian, ignorant of the sacrifice made for him, had +been sent to the Southern lines during the night, told by the +Northerners that he was pardoned on his parole to return in his stead a +distinguished Federal officer lately captured by him. He knew nothing, +dreamt nothing, of the exchange by which his life was given back to the +woman who loved him, when his English Leader died in his place as the +sun rose over the fresh summer world, never again to rise for those +whose death-shot rang sullen and shrill through its silence. + +So Deadly Dash died, and his grave is nameless and unknown there under +the shadow of the great Virginian forests. He was outlawed, condemned, +exiled, and the world would see no good in him; sins were on him +heavily, and vices lay darkly at his door; but when I think of that +grave in the South where the grass grows so rankly now, and only the +wild deer pauses, I doubt if there was not that in him which may well +shame the best amongst us. We never knew him justly till he perished +there. + + * * * * * + +And my friend who told me this said no more, but took up his +_brule-gueule_ regretfully. The story is given as he gave it, and the +States could whisper from the depths of their silent woods many tales of +sacrifice as generous, of fortitude as great. That when he had related +it he was something ashamed of having felt it so much, is true; and you +must refer the unusual weakness, as he did, to the fact that he told it +on the off-day of the Derby, after having put a cracker on Wild Charley. +A sufficient apology for any number of frailties! + + + + +THE GENERAL'S MATCH-MAKING. + +OR, + +COACHES AND COUSINSHIP. + + +Where the devil shall I go this Long? Paris is too hot; the inside of my +adorable Chateau des Fleurs would give one a lively idea of the feelings +of eels in a frying-pan. Rome's only fit to melt down puffy cardinals, +as jocks set themselves before the kitchen fire preparatory to the +Spring Meetings. In Switzerland there's nothing fit to eat. Spain might +be the ticket--the Andalusians are a good-looking lot, but they haven't +a notion of beer. Scotland I daren't enter, because I know I should get +married under their rascally laws. I'd go to the Bads, but the V. P.'s +fillies say they mean to do 'em this summer, and I won't risk meeting +them if I know it; the baits they set to catch the unsuspecting are +quite frightful. Where the devil _shall_ I go? + +So spoke Sydenham Morton, whilom Captain of Eton, now, in due course, +having passed up to Kings, discussing ham-pie and audit, devils and +coffee, while the June sun streamed through the large oriel windows. + +"_To_ the devil, I fear, if you only find your proper fraternity," said +a man, coming in. Oak was never sported by Sydie, except when he was +rattling certain little squares of ivory in boxes lined with green felt. + +"Ah, Mr. Keane, is that you? Come in." + +The permission was needless, insomuch as Keane was already in and down +on a rocking-chair. + +"One o'clock, and only just begun your breakfast! I have finished more +than half my day's work." + +"I dare say," answered Sydie; "but one shining light like you, +monseigneur, is enough for a college. Why should I exert myself? I swore +I hadn't four marks a year, and I've my fellowship for telling the +furbelow. We all go in for the dolce here except you, and you're such a +patent machine for turning out Q. E. D.s by the dozen, that you can no +more help working than the bed-maker can help taking my tea and saying +the cat did it, and 'May she never be forgiven if she ever so much as +looked at that there blessed lock.' I say, find a Q. E. D. for me, to +the most vexatious problem, where I'm to go this Long?" + +"Go a quiet reading tour; mark out a regular plan, and travel somewhere +rugged and lonely, with not a crinoline, or a trout-stream, or a pack of +hounds within a hundred miles; the middle of Stonehenge, for example, or +with the lighthouse men out at the Smalls or Eddystone. You'd do wonders +when you came back, Sydie." + +Sydie shook his head and puffed gravely at his pipe. + +"Thank you, sir. Cramming's not my line. As for history, I don't see +anything particularly interesting in the blackguardisms of men all dust +and ashes and gelatine now; if I were the Prince of Wales, I might think +it my duty to inquire into the characters of my grandfathers; but not +being that individual, I find the Derby list much more suited to my +genius. As for the classics, they won't help me to ask for my dinner at +Tortoni's, nor to ingratiate myself with the women at the Maison Doree; +and I prefer following Ovid's counsels, and enjoying the Falernian of +life represented in these days by milk-punch, to plodding through the De +Officiis. As for mathematics, it _may_ be something very grand to draw +triangles and circles till A meets B because C is as long as D; but I +know, when I did the same operation in chalk when I was a small actor +on the nursery floor, my nurse (who might have gone along with the +barbarian who stuck Archimedes) called me an idle brat. Well, I say, +about the Long? Where are _you_ going, most grave and reverent +seignior?" + +"Where there are no impertinent boys, if there be such a paradise on +earth," rejoined Keane, lighting his pipe. "I go to my moor, of course, +for the 12th, but until then I haven't made up my mind. I think I shall +scamper over South America; I want freshening up, and I've a great fancy +to see those buried cities, not to mention a chance of buffalo hunting." + +"Travelling's such a bore," interrupted Sydie, stretching himself out +like an india-rubber tube. "Talk of the cherub that's always sitting up +aloft to watch over poor Jack, there are always ten thousand demons +watching over the life of any luckless AEothen; there are the +custom-house men, whose natural prey he becomes, and the hotel-keepers, +who fasten on him to suck his life-blood, and there are the mosquitoes, +and other things less minute but not less agonizing; and there are +guides and muleteers, and waiters and ciceroni--oh, hang it! +travelling's a dreadful bore, if it were only for the inevitable widow +with four daughters whom you've danced with once at a charity ball, who +rushes up to you on the Boulevards or a Rhine steamer, and tacks herself +on to you, and whom it's well for you if you can shake off when you +scatter the dust of the city from the sole of your foot." + +"You can't chatter, can you?" + +"Yes; my fraenum was happily cut when I was a baby. Fancy what a loss the +world would have endured if it hadn't been!" said Sydie, lazily shutting +his half-closed blue eyes. "I say, the governor has been bothering my +life out to go down to St. Crucis; he's an old brick, you know, and has +the primest dry in the kingdom. I wish you'd come, will you? There's +capital fishing and cricketing, and you'd keep me company. Do. You shall +have the best mount in the kingdom, and the General will do you no end +of good on Hippocrate's rule--contrarieties cure contrarieties." + +"I'll think about it; but you know I prefer solitude generally; +misanthropical, I admit, but decidedly lucky for me, as my companions +through life will always be my ink-stand, my terrier, and my papers. I +have never wished for any other yet, and I hope I never shall. Are you +going to smoke and drink audit on that sofa all day?" + +"No," answered Sydie, "I'm going to take a turn at beer and Brown's for +a change. Well, I shall take you down with me on Tuesday, sir, so that's +settled." + +Keane laughed, and after some few words on the business that had brought +him thither, went across the quad to his own rooms to plunge into the +intricacies of Fourrier and Laplace, or give the vigor of his brain to +stuffing some young goose's empty head, or cramming some idle young dog +with ballast enough to carry him through the shoals and quicksands of +his Greats. + +Gerald Keane was a mathematical Coach, and had taken high honors--a rare +thing for a Kingsman to do, for are they not, by their own confession, +the laziest disciples of the dolce in the whole of Granta, invariably +bumped and caught out, and from sheer idleness letting other men beat +Lord's and shame the Oxford Eleven, and graduate with Double Firsts, +while they lie perdus in the shades of Holy Henry? Keane, however, was +the one exception to the rule. He was dreadfully wild, as ladies say, +for his first term or two, though equally eloquent at the Union; then +his family exulting in the accuracies of their prophecies regarding his +worthlessness, and somebody else daring him to go in for honors, his +pluck was put up, and he set himself to work to show them all what he +could do if he chose. Once roused to put out his powers, he liked using +them; the bother of the training over, it is no trouble to keep place as +stroke-oar; and now men pointed him out in the Senate House, and at the +Senior Fellows' table, and he bid fair to rank with the writer on Jasher +and the author of the Inductive Sciences. + +People called him very cold. It was popularly averred that he had no +more feeling than Roubilliac's or Thorwaldsen's statues; but as he was a +great favorite with the under-grads, and always good-natured to them, +there were a few men who doubted the theory, though _he_ never tried to +refute or dispute it. + +Of all the young fellows, the one Keane liked the best, and to whom he +was kindest, was Sydenham Morton--Sydie to everybody in Granta, from the +little fleuriste opposite in King's Parade, to the V. P.'s wife, who +petted him because his uncle was a millionnaire--the dearest fellow in +the world, according to all the Cambridge young ladies--the darling of +all the milliner and confectioner girls in Trumpington Street and Petty +Cury--the best chap going among the kindred spirits, who got gated, and +lectured, and rusticated for skying over to Newmarket, or pommelling +bargees, or taking a lark over at Cherryhinton--the best-dressed, +fastest, and most charming of Cantabs, as he himself would gravely +assure you. + +They were totally dissimilar, and far asunder in position; but an affair +on the slope of the Matterhorn, when the boy had saved the elder man's +life, had riveted attachment between them, and bridged over the +difference of their academical rank. + +The Commencement came and went, with its speeches, and its H.R.H. +Chancellor, and its pretty women gliding among the elms of Neville's +Court (poor Leslie Ellis's daily haunt), filling the grim benches of the +Senate House, and flitting past the carved benches of King's Chapel. +Granta was henceforth a desert to all Cambridge belles; they could walk +down Trumpington Street without meeting a score of little straw hats, +and Trumpington Street became as odious as Sahara; the "darling Backs" +were free to them, and, of course, they who, by all relations, from +those of Genesis to those of Vanity Fair, have never cared, save for +_fruit defendu_, saw nothing to admire in the trees, and grass, and +river, minus outriggers and collegians. There was a general exodus: +Masters' red hoods, Fellows Commoners' gold-lace, Fellows' gown and +mortar boards, morning chapel surplices, and under-grads' straw-hats and +cutaway coats, all vanished from court and library, street and cloister. +Cambridge was empty; the married Dons and their families went off to +country-houses or Rhine steamers; Fellows went touring with views to +mediaeval architecture, Roman remains, Greek inscriptions, Paris laisser +aller, or Norwegian fishing, according to their tastes and habits; +under-grads scattered themselves over the face of the globe, and were to +be found in knots of two or three calling for stout in Vefour's, kicking +up a row with Austrian gendarmerie, chalking up effigies of Bomba on +Italian walls, striding up every mountain from Skiddaw to the Pic du +Midi, burrowing like rabbits in a warren for reading purposes on +Dartmoor, kissing sunny-haired Gretchens in German hostelries, swinging +through the Vaterland with knapsacks and sticks, doing a walking +tour--in fact, swarming everywhere with their impossible French and +hearty voices, and lithe English muscle, Granta marked on them as +distinctly as an M.B. waistcoat marks an Anglican, or utter ignorance of +modern politics a "great classic." + +Cambridge had emptied itself of the scores of naughty boys that lie in +the arms of Mater, and on Tuesday Keane and Sydie were shaking and +rattling over those dreadful nervous Eastern Counties tenders, through +that picturesque and beautiful country that does permutations with such +laudable perseverance on pollards, fens, and flats--flats, fens, and +pollards--at the snail's pace that, according to the E.G.R., we must +believe to be "express." + +"I wrote and told the governor you were coming down with me, sir," said +Sydie, hanging up his hat. "I didn't tell him what a trouble I had to +make you throw over South America for a fortnight, and come and taste +his curry at the Beeches. You'll like the old boy; he's as hot and +choleric, and as genial and good-hearted, as any old brick that ever +walked. He was born as sweet-tempered and soft-mouthed as mamma when an +eldest son waltzes twice with Adeliza, and the pepper's been put into +him by the curry-powder, the gentlemanlike transportation, and the +unlimited command over black devils, enjoyed by gentlemen of the +H.E.I.C.S." + +"A nabob uncle," thought Keane. "Oh, I see, yellow, dyspeptic, always +boring one with 'How to govern India,' and recollections of 'When I +served with Napier.' What a fool I was to let Sydie persuade me to go. A +month in Lima and the Pampas would be much pleasanter." + +"He came over last year," continued Sydie, in blissful ignorance, "and +bought the Beeches, a very jolly place, only he's crammed it with +everything anybody suggested, and tried anything that any farmer +recommended, so that the house and the estate present a peculiar +compendium of all theories of architecture, and a general exhibition of +all sorts of tastes. He's his hobbies; pouncing on and apprehending +small boys is one of 'em, for which practice he is endeared to the youth +of St. Crucis as the 'old cove,' the 'Injian devil,' and like +affectionate cognomens. But the General's weak point is me--me and +little Fay." + +"His mare, I suppose?" + +"His mare!--bless my heart, no!--his mare!" And Sydie lay back, and +laughed silently. "His mare! By George! what would she say? She's a good +deal too lively a young lady to run in harness for anybody, though +she's soft-mouthed enough when she's led. Mare! No, Fay's his niece--my +cousin. Her father and my father went to glory when we were both smalls, +and left us in legacy to the General, and a pretty pot of money the +legacy has cost him." + +"Your cousin, indeed! The name's more like a mare's than a girl's," +answered Keane, thinking to himself. "A cousin! I just wish I'd known +that. One of those Indian girls, I bet, tanned brown as a berry, flirts +a outrance, has run the gauntlet of all the Calcutta balls, been engaged +to men in all the Arms, talks horridly broad Anglo-Indian-English. I +know the style." + +The engine screamed, and pulled up at the St. Crucis station, some +seventy miles farther on, lying in the midst of Creswickian landscapes, +with woodlands, and cottages, and sweet fresh stretches of meadow-land, +such as do one's heart good after hard days and late nights in dust and +gaslight. + +"Deuced fine points," said Sydie, taking the ribbons of a high-stepping +bay that had brought one of the neatest possible traps to take him and +Keane to the Beeches, and springing, in all his glory, to the box, than +which no imperial throne could have offered to him one-half so +delightful a seat. "Governor never keeps screws. What a crying shame +we're not allowed to keep the sorriest hack at King's. That comes of +gentlemen slipping into shoes that were meant for beggars. Hallo, there +are the old beech-trees; I vow I can almost taste the curry and dry from +looking at them." + +In dashed the bay through the park-gates, sending the shingle flying up +in small simoons, and the rooks cawing in supreme surprise from their +nests in the branches of the beech-trees. + +"Hallo, my ancient, how are you?" began Sydie to the butler, while that +stately person expanded into a smile of welcome. "Down, dog, down! 'Pon +my life, the old place looks very jolly. What have you hung all that +armor up for;--to make believe our ancestors dwelt in these marble +halls? How devilish dusty I am. Where's the General? Didn't know we were +coming till next train. Fay! Fay! where are you? Ashton, where's Miss +Morton?" + +"Here, Sydie dear," cried the young lady in question, rushing across the +hall with the most ecstatic delight, and throwing herself into the +Cantab's arms, who received her with no less cordiality, and kissed her +straightway, regardless of the presence of Keane, the butler, and +Harris. + +"Oh, Sydie," began the young lady, breathlessly, "I'm so delighted +you're come. There's the archery fete, and a picnic at Shallowton, and +an election ball over at Coverdale, and I want you to dance with me, and +to try the new billiard-table, and to come and see my aviary, and to +teach me pistol-shooting (because Julia Dupuis can shoot splendidly, and +talks of joining the Rifles), and to show me how to do Euclid, and to +amuse me, and to play with me, and to tell me which is the prettiest of +Snowdrop's pups to be saved, and to----" She stopped suddenly, and +dropped from enthusiastic tirade to subdued surprise, as she caught +sight of Keane for the first time. "Oh, Sydie, why did you not introduce +me to your friend? How rude I have been!" + +"Mr. Keane, my cousin, the torment of my existence, Miss Morton in +public, Little Fay in private life. There, you know one another now. I +can't say any more. Do tell me where the governor is." + +"Mr. Keane, what can you think of me?" cried Fay. "Any friend of +Sydenham's is most welcome to the Beeches, and my uncle will scold me +frightfully for giving you such a reception. Please do forgive me, I was +so delighted to see my cousin." + +"Which I can fully enter into, having a weakness for Sydie myself," +smiled Keane. "I am sure he is very fortunate in being the cause of such +an excuse." + +Keane said it _par complaisance_, but rather carelessly; young ladies, +as a class, being one of his aversions. He looked at Fay Morton, +however, and saw she was not an Indianized girl after all. She was not +yellow, but, au contraire, had waving fair hair, long dark eyes, and a +mischievous, sunny face-- + + A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, + And sweet as English air could make her. + +"Where's the governor, Fay?" reiterated Sydie. + +"Here, my dear boy. Thought of your old uncle the first thing, Sydie? +God bless my soul, how well you look! Confound you, why didn't you tell +me what train you were coming by? Devil take you, Ashton, why's there no +fire in the hall? Thought it was warm, did you? Hum! more fool you +then." + +"Uncle dear," said Miss Fay, "here is Sydie's friend, Mr. Keane; you are +being as rude as I have been." + +The General, at this conjuration, swung sharp round, a stout, hale, +handsome old fellow, with gray moustaches and a high color, holding a +spade in his hand and clad in a linen coat. + +"Bless my soul, sir," cried the General, shaking Keane's hand with the +greatest possible energy, "charmed to see you--delighted, 'pon my honor; +only hope you're come to stay till Christmas; there are plenty of +bachelors' dens. Devil take me! of what was I thinking? I was pleased +to see that boy, I suppose. More fool I, you'll say, a lazy, +good-for-nothing young dog like him. Don't let me keep you standing in +the hall. Cursed cold, isn't it? and there's Little Fay in muslin! +Ashton, send some hot water into the west room for Mr.--Mr.----Confound +you, Sydie, why didn't you tell--I mean introduce me?--Mr. Keane. +Luncheon will be on the table in ten minutes. Like curry, Mr. Keane? +There, get along, Sydie, you foolish boy; you can talk to Fay after +luncheon." + +"Sydie," whispered Fay, an hour before dinner, when she had teased the +Cantab's life out of him till he had consented to pronounce judgment on +the puppies, "what a splendid head that man has you brought with you; +he'd do for Plato, with that grand calm brow and lofty unapproachable +look. Who is he?" + +"The greatest philosopher of modern times," responded her cousin, +solemnly. "A condensation of Solon, Thales, Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero, +Lucullus, Bion, Theophrastes, and Co.; such a giant of mathematical +knowledge, and all other knowledge, too, that every day, when he passes +under Bacon's Gate, we are afraid the old legend will come to pass, and +it will tumble down as flat as a pancake; a homage to him, but a loss to +Cambridge." + +"Nonsense," said Miss Fay, impatiently. "(I like that sweet little thing +with the black nose best, dear.) _Who_ is he? What is he? How old is he? +What's his name? Where does he live?" + +"Gently, young woman," cried Sydie. "He is Tutor and Fellow of King's, +and a great gun besides; he's some twenty-five years older than you. His +name on the rolls is Gerald, I believe, and he dwells in the shadow of +Mater, beyond the reach of my cornet; for which fact, not being +musically inclined, he is barbarian enough to return thanks daily in +chapel." + +"I am sorry he is come. It was stupid of you to bring him." + +"Wherefore, _ma cousine_? Are you afraid of him? You needn't be. Young +ladies are too insignificant atoms of creation for him to criticise. +He'll no more expect sense from you than from Snowdrop and her pups." + +"Afraid!" repeated Fay, with extreme indignation. "I should like to see +any man of whom I should feel afraid! If he doesn't like fun and +nonsense, I pity him; but if he despise me ever so much for it, I shall +enjoy myself before him, and in spite of him. I was sorry you brought +him, because he will take you away when I want you all to myself; and he +looks so haughty, that----" + +"You _are_ afraid of him, Fay, and won't own it." + +"I am _not_," reiterated Fay, impetuously; "and I will smoke a cigar +with him after dinner, to show you I am not one bit." + +"I bet you six pair of gloves you do no such thing, young lady." + +"Done. Do keep the one with a black nose, Sydie; and yet that little +liver-colored darling is too pretty to be killed. Suppose we save them +all? Snowdrop will be so pleased." + +Whereon Fay kissed all the little snub noses with the deepest affection, +and was caught in the act by Keane and the General. + +"There's that child with her arms full of dogs," said the General, +beaming with satisfaction at sight of his niece. "She's a little, +spoilt, wilful thing. She's an old bachelor's pet, and you must make +allowances. I call her the fairy of the Beeches, God bless her! She +nursed me last winter, when I was at death's door from these cursed cold +winds, sir, better than Miss Nightingale could have done. What a +devilish climate it _is_; never two days alike. I don't wonder +Englishwomen are such icicles, poor things; they're frostbitten from +their cradle upwards." + +"India warms them up, General, doesn't it?" + +The General shook with laughter. + +"To be sure, to be sure; if prudery's the fashion, they'll wear it, sir, +as they would patches or hair-powder; but they're always uncommonly glad +to leave it off and lock it out of sight when they can. What do you +think of the kennels? I say, Sydie, confound you, why did you bring down +any traps with you? Haven't room for 'em, not for one. Couldn't cram a +tilbury into the coach-house." + +"A trap, governor?" said Sydie, straightening his back after examination +of the pups; "can't keep even a wall-eyed cab-horse; wish I could." + +"Where's your drag, then?" demanded the General. + +"My drag? Don't I just wish I had one, to offer my bosom friend the +V. P. a seat on the box. Calvert, of Trinity, tooled us over in his to +the Spring Meetings, and his grays are the sweetest pair of goers--the +leaders especially--that ever you saw in harness. We came back 'cross +country, to get in time for hall, and a pretty mess we made of it, for +we broke the axle, and lamed the off-wheeler, and----" + +"But, God bless my soul," stormed the General, excited beyond measure, +"you wrote me word you were going to bring a drag down with you, and of +course I supposed you meant what you said, and I had Harris in about it, +and he swore the coach-house was as full of traps as ever it could hold, +so I had my tax-cart and Fay's phaeton turned into one of the stalls, +and then, after all, it comes out you've never brought it! Devil take +you, Sydie, why can't you be more thoughtful----" + +"But, my dear governor----" + +"Nonsense; don't talk to me!" cried the General, trying to work himself +into a passion, and diving into the recesses of six separate pockets one +after another. "Look here, sir, I suppose you'll believe your own words? +Here it is in black and white.--'P. S. I shall bring _my Coach_ down +with me.' There, what do you say now? Confound you, what are you +laughing at? _I_ don't see anything to laugh at. In my day, young +fellows didn't make fools of old men in this way. Bless my soul, why +the devil don't you leave off laughing, and talk a little common sense? +The thing's plain enough.--'P.S. _I shall bring my Coach down with +me_.'" + +"So I have," said Sydie, screaming with laughter. "Look at him--he's a +first-rate Coach, too! Wheels always oiled, and ready for any road; +always going up hill, and never caught coming down; started at a devil +of a pace, and now keeps ahead of all other vehicles on all highways. A +first-class Coach, that will tool me through the tortuous lanes and +treacherous pitfalls of the Greats with flying colors. My Coach! Bravo, +General! that's the best bit of fun I've had since I dressed up like +Sophonisba Briggs, and led the V. P. a dance all round the quad, every +hair on his head standing erect in his virtuous indignation at the awful +morals of his college." + +"Eh, what?" grunted the General, light beginning to dawn upon him. "Do +you mean Mr. Keane? Hum! how's one to be up to all your confounded +slang? How could I know? Devil take you, Sydie, why can't you write +common English? You young fellows talk as bad jargon as Sepoys. You're +sure I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Keane, though I did make the +mistake." + +"Thank you, General," said Keane; "but it's rather cool of you, Master +Sydie, to have forced me on to your uncle's hands without his wish or +his leave." + +"Not at all, not at all," swore the General, with vehement cordiality. +"I gave him carte blanche to ask whom he would, and unexpected guests +are always most welcome; _not_ that you were unexpected though, for I'd +told that boy to be sure and bring somebody down here----" + +"And have had the tax-cart and my phaeton turned out to make comfortable +quarters for him," said Miss Fay, with a glance at The Coach to see how +he took chaff, "and I only hope Mr. Keane may like his accommodation." + +"Perhaps, Miss Morton," said Keane, smiling, "I shall like it so well +that you will have to say to me as poor Voltaire to his troublesome +abbe, 'Don Quichotte prenait les auberges pour les chateaux, mais vous +avez pris les chateaux pour les auberges.'" + +"Tiresome man," thought Fay. "I wish Sydie hadn't brought him here; but +I shall do as I always do, however grand and supercilious he may look. +He has lived among all those men and books till he has grown as cold as +granite. What a pity it is people don't enjoy existence as I do!" + +"You are thinking, Miss Morton," said Keane, as he walked on beside her, +with an amused glance at her face, which was expressive enough of her +thoughts, "that if your uncle is glad to see me, you are not, and that +Sydie was very stupid not to bring down one of his kindred spirits +instead of----Don't disclaim it now; you should veil your face if you +wish your thoughts not to be read." + +"I was not going to disclaim it," said Fay, quickly looking up at him +with a rapid glance, half penitence, half irritation. "I always tell the +truth; but I was _not_ thinking exactly that; I don't want any of +Sydie's friends--I detest boys--but I certainly _was_ thinking that as +you look down on everything that we all delight in, I fancied you and +the Beeches will hardly agree. If I am rude, you must not be angry; you +wanted me to tell you the truth." + +Keane smiled again. + +"Do I look down on the things you delight in? I hardly know enough of +you, as we have only addressed about six syllables to each other, to be +able to judge what you like and what you don't like; but certainly I +must admit, that caressing the little round heads of those puppies +yonder, which seemed to afford you such extreme rapture, would not be +any source of remarkable gratification to me." + +Fay looked up at him and laughed. + +"Well, I am fond of animals as you are fond of books. Is it not an open +question whether the live dog or sheepskin is not as good as the dead +Morocco or Russian leather?" + +"Is it an open question, whether Macaulay's or Arago's brain weighs no +more than a cat's or a puppy's?" + +"Brain!" said impudent little Fay; "are your great men always as honest +and as faithful as my poor little Snowdrop? I have an idea that +Sheridan's brains were often obscured by brandy; that Richelieu had the +weakness to be prouder of his bad poems than his magnificent policies; +and that Pope and Byron had the folly to be more tenacious of a glance +at their physical defect than an onslaught on their noblest works. I +could mention a good many other instances where brain was not always a +voucher for corresponding strength of character." + +Keane was surprised to hear a sensible speech from this volatile little +puss, and honored her by answering her seriously. + +"Say, rather, Miss Morton, that those to whom many temptations fall +should have many excuses made. Where the brain preponderates, excelling +in creative faculty and rapid thought, there will the sensibilities be +proportionately acute. The vivacity and vigorous life which produced the +rapid flow of Sheridan's eloquence led him into the dissipation which +made him end his days in a spunging-house. Men of cooler minds and +natures must not presume to judge him. They had not his temptation; they +cannot judge of his fault. Richelieu, in all probability, amused himself +with his verses as he amused himself with his white kitten and its cork, +as a _delassement_; had he piqued himself upon his poetry, as they say, +he would have turned poetaster instead of politician. As for the other +two, you must remember that Pope's deformity made him a subject of +ridicule to the woman he was fool enough to worship, and Byron, poor +fellow, was over-susceptible on all points, or he would scarcely have +allowed the venomed arrows from the Scotch Reviewers to wound him, nor +would he have cared for the desertion of a wife who was to him like ice +to fire. When you are older, you will learn that it is very dangerous +and unjust to say this thing is right, that wrong, that feeling wise, or +this foolish; for all temperaments are different, and the same +circumstances may produce very different effects. Your puppies will grow +up with dissimilar characters; how much more so, then, must men?" + +Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her mischievous eyes +on him. + +"Certainly; but then, by your own admission, you have no right to decide +that your love for mathematics is wise, and my love for Snowdrop +foolish; it may be quite _au contraire_. Perhaps, after all, I may have +'chosen the better part.'" + +"Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the General, trotting up; +"your tongue would run on forever if nobody stopped it; you're no +exception to your sex on that point. Is she?" + +Keane laughed. + +"Perhaps Miss Morton's fraenum, like Sydie's, was cut too far in her +infancy, and therefore she has been 'unbridled' ever since." + +"In all things!" cried little Fay. "Nobody has put the curb on me yet, +and nobody ever shall." + +"Don't be too sure, Fay," cried Sydie. "Rarey does wonders with the +wildest fillies. Somebody may bring you down on your knees yet." + +"You'll have to see to that, Sydie," laughed the General. "Come, get +along, child, to your toilette. I never have my soup cold and my curry +overdone. To wait for his dinner is a stretch of good nature, and +patience that ought not to be expected of any man." + +The soup was not cold nor the curry overdone, and the dinner was +pleasant enough, in the long dining-room, with the June sun streaming in +through its bay-windows from out the brilliant-colored garden, and the +walls echoing with the laughter of Sydie and his cousin, the young lady +keeping true to her avowal of "not caring for Plato's presence." +"Plato," however, listened quietly, peeling his peaches with tranquil +amusement; for if the girl talked nonsense, it was clever nonsense, as +rare, by the way, and quite as refreshing as true wit. + +"My gloves are safe; you're too afraid of him, Fay," whispered Sydie, +bending forwards to give her some hautboys. + +"Am I?" cried Miss Fay, with a _moue_ of supreme contempt. Neither the +whisper nor the _moue_ escaped Keane, as he talked with the governor on +model drainage. + +"Where's my hookah, Fay?" asked the General, after dessert. "Get it, +will you, my pet?" + +"Voila!" cried Miss Fay, lifting the narghile from the sideboard. Then +taking some cigars off the mantelpiece, she put one in her own mouth, +struck a fusee, and, handing the case to Keane, said, with a saucy smile +in her soft bright eyes, though, to tell the truth, she was a little bit +afraid of taking liberties with him: + +"If you are not above such a sublunary indulgence, will you have a cigar +with me?" + +"With the greatest pleasure," said Keane, with a grave bow; "and if you +would like to further rival George Sand, I shall be very happy to give +you the address of my tailor." + +"Thank you exceedingly; but as long as crinoline is the type of the sex +that are a little lower than the angels, and ribbon-ties the seal of +those but a trifle better than Mephistopheles, I don't think I will +change it," responded Little Fay, contemptuously, as she threw herself +down on a couch with an indignant defiant glance, and puffed at her +Manilla. + +"I _hate_ him, Sydie," said the little lady, vehemently, that night. + +"Do you, dear?" answered the Cantab; "you see, you've never had anybody +to be afraid of, or had any man neglect you before." + +"He may neglect me if he please, I am sure I do not care," rejoined Fay, +disdainfully; "only I do wish, Sydie, that you had never brought him +here to make us all uncomfortable." + +"He don't make me uncomfortable, quite otherwise; nor yet the governor; +you're the only victim, Fay." + +Fay saw little enough of Keane for the next week or two. He was out all +day with Sydie trout-fishing, or walking over his farms with the +General, or sitting in the study reading, and writing his articles for +the _Cambridge Journal_, _Leonville's Mathematical Journal_, or the +_Westminster Review_. But when she was with him, there was no mischief +within her reach that Miss Fay did not perpetrate. Keane, to tease her, +would condemn--so seriously that she believed him--all that she loved +the best; he would tell her that he admired quiet, domestic women; that +he thought girls should be very subdued and retiring; that they should +work well, and not care much for society; at all of which, being her +extreme antipodes, Little Fay would be vehemently wrathful. She would +get on her pony without any saddle in her evening dress, and ride him at +the five-bar gate in the stable-yard; she would put on Sydie's +smoking-cap, and look very pretty in it, and take a Queen's on the divan +of the smoking-room, reading _Bell's Life_, and asking Keane how much he +would bet on the October; she would spend all the morning making wreaths +of roses, dressing herself and the puppies up in them, inquiring if it +was not a laudable and industrious occupation. There was no nonsense or +mischief Fay would not imagine and forthwith commit, and anything they +wanted her not to do she would do straightway, even to the imperilling +of her own life and limb. She tried hard to irritate or rouse "Plato," +as she called him, but Plato was not to be moved, and treated her as a +spoilt child, whom he alone had sense enough to resist. + +"It will be great folly for you to attempt it, Miss Morton. Those horses +are not fit to be driven by any one, much less by a woman," said Keane, +quietly, one morning. + +They were in the stable-yard, and chanced to be alone when a new +purchase of the governor's--two scarcely broken-in thorough-bred +colts--were brought with a new mail-phaeton into the yard, and Miss Fay +forthwith announced her resolution of driving them round the avenue. The +groom that came with them told her they were almost more than he could +manage, their own coachman begged and implored, Keane reasoned quietly, +all to no purpose. The rosebud had put out its little wilful thorns; +Keane's words added fuel to the fire. Up she sprang, looking the +daintiest morsel imaginable perched up on that very exalted box-seat, +told the horrified groom to mount behind, and started them off, lifting +her hat with a graceful bow to "Plato," who stood watching the phaeton +with his arms folded and his cigar in his mouth. + +Soon after, he started in the contrary direction, for the avenue circled +the Beeches in an oval of four miles, and he knew he should meet her +coming back. He strolled along under the pleasant shadow of the great +trees, enjoying the sunset and the fresh air, and capable of enjoying +them still more but for an inward misgiving. His presentiment was not +without its grounds. He had walked about a mile and a half round the +avenue, when a cloud of dust told him what was up, and in the distance +came the thorough-breds, broken away as he had prophesied, tearing along +with the bits between their teeth, Little Fay keeping gallantly hold of +the ribbons, but as powerless over the colts now they had got their +heads as the groom leaning from the back seat. + +On came the phaeton, bumping, rattling, oscillating, threatening every +second to be turned over. Keane caught one glance of Fay's face, +resolute and pale, and of her little hands grasping the ribbons, till +they were cut and bleeding with the strain. There was nothing for it but +to stand straight in the animals' path, catch their heads, and throw +them back on their haunches. Luckily, his muscles were like +iron--luckily, too, the colts had come a long way, and were not fresh. +He stood like a rock, and checked them; running a very close risk of +dislocating his arms with the shock, but saving little Fay from +destruction. The colts stood trembling, the groom jumped out and caught +the reins, Keane amused himself silently with the mingled penitence, +vexation, shame, and rebellion visible in the little lady's face. + +"Well," said he, quietly, "as you were so desirous of breaking your +neck, will you ever forgive me for defeating your purpose?" + +"Pray don't!" cried Fay, passionately. "I do thank you so much for +saving my life; I think it so generous and brave of you to have rescued +me at such risk to yourself. I feel that I can never be grateful enough +to you, but don't talk in that way. I know it was silly and self-willed +of me." + +"It was; that fact is obvious." + +"Then I shall make it more so," cried Miss Fay, with her old wilfulness. +"I do feel very grateful, and I would tell you so, if you would let me; +but if you think it has made me afraid, you are quite wrong, and so you +shall see." + +And before he could interfere, or do more than mechanically spring up +after her, she had caught the reins from the groom, and started the +trembling colts off again. But Keane put his hand on the ribbons. + +"Foolish child; are you mad?" he said, so gravely yet so gently that Fay +let them go, and let him drive her back to the stable-yard, where she +sprang out, and rushed away to her own room, terrified the governor with +a few vehement sentences, which gave him a vague idea that Keane was +murdered and both Fay's legs broken, and then had a private cry all to +herself, with her arms round Snowdrop's neck, curled up in one of the +drawing-room windows, where she had not been long when the General and +Keane passed through, not noticing her, hidden as she was, in curtains, +cushions, and flowers. + +"She's a little wilful thing, Keane," the General was saying, "but you +mustn't think the worse of her for that." + +"I don't. I am sick of those conventional young ladies who agree with +everything one says to them--who keep all the frowns for mothers and +servants, and are as serene as a cloudless sky abroad, smile blandly on +all alike, and haven't an opinion of their own." + +"Fay's plenty of opinions of her own," chuckled the General; "and she +tells 'em pretty freely, too. Bless the child, she's not ashamed of any +of her thoughts and never will be." + +"I hope not. Your little niece can do things that no other young lady +could and they are so pretty in her that it would be a thousand pities +for her to grow one atom less natural and wilful. Grapes growing wild +are charming--grapes trained to a stake are ruined. I assure you, if I +were you, I would not scold her for driving those colts to-day. High +spirits and love of fun led her on, and the courage and presence of mind +she displayed are too rare among her sex for us to do right in checking +them." + +"To be sure, to be sure," assented the governor, gleefully. "God bless +the child, she's one among a thousand, sir. Cognac, not milk and water. +There's the dinner-bell; confound it." + +Whereat the General made his exit, and Keane also; and Fay kissed the +spaniel with even more passionate attachment than ordinary. + +"Ah, Snowdrop, I don't hate him any more; he is a darling!" + +One glowing August morning Keane was in the study pondering whether he +would go to his moor or not. The General had besought him to stay. His +gamekeeper wrote him that it was a horribly bad rainy season in +Invernessshire; the trout and the rabbits were very good sport in a mild +way here. Altogether, Keane felt half disposed to keep where he was, +when a shadow fell across his paper; and, as he looked up, he saw in the +open window the English rosebud. + +"Is it not one of the open questions, Mr. Keane," asked Fay, "whether it +is very wise to spend all this glorious morning shut out of the sight of +the sun-rays and the scent of the flowers?" + +"How have _you_ been spending it, then?" + +"Putting bouquets in all the rooms, cleaning my aviary, talking to the +puppies, and reading Jocelyn under the limes in the shrubberies--all +very puerile, but all very pleasant. Perhaps if you descended to a lazy +day like that now and then, you might be none the worse!" + +"Is that a challenge? Will you take me under the limes?" + +"No, indeed! I do not admit men who despise them to my gardens of +Armida, any more than you would admit me into your Schools. I have as +great a scorn for a skeptic as you have for a tyro." + +"Pardon me. I have no scorn for a tyro. But you would not come to the +Accademe; you dislike 'Plato' too much." + +Fay looked up at him half shyly, half mischievously. + +"Yes, I do dislike you, when you look down on me as Richelieu might have +looked down on his kitten." + +"Liking to see its play?" said Keane, half sadly. "Contrasting its gay +insouciance with his own toil and turmoil, regretting, perhaps, the time +when trifles made his joy as they did his kitten's? If I were to look on +you so, there would not be much to offend you." + +"You do not think so of me, or you would speak to me as if I were an +intelligent being, not a silly little thing." + +"How do you know I think you silly?" + +"Because you think all women so." + +"Perhaps; but then you should rather try to redeem me from my error in +doctrine. Come, let us sign a treaty of peace. Take me under the limes. +I want some fresh air after writing all day; and in payment I will teach +you Euclid, as you vainly beseeched your cousin to do yesterday." + +"Will you?" cried Fay, eagerly. Then she threw back her head. "I never +am won by bribes." + +"Nor yet by threats? What a difficult young lady you are. Come, show me +your shrubbery sanctum now you have invaded mine." + +The English rosebud laid aside its wilful thorns, and Fay, a little less +afraid of her Plato, and therefore a little less defiant to him, led him +over the grounds, filled his hands with flowers, showed him her aviary, +read some of Jocelyn to him, to show him, she said, that Lamartine was +better than the Oedipus in Coloneus, and thought, as she dressed for +dinner, "I wonder if he does despise me--he has such a beautiful face, +if he were not so haughty and cold!" + +The next day Keane gave her an hour of Euclid in the study. Certainly +The Coach had never had such a pretty pupil; and he wished every dull +head he had to cram was as intelligent as this fair-haired one. Fay was +quick and clever; she was stimulated, moreover, by his decree concerning +the stupidity of all women; she really worked as hard as any young man +studying for degrees when they supposed her fast asleep in bed, and she +got over the Pons Asinorum in a style that fairly astonished her tutor. + +The Coach did not dislike his occupation either; it did him good, after +his life of solitude and study, something as the kitten and cork did +Richelieu good after his cabinets and councils; and Little Fay, with her +flowers and fun, mischief and impudence, and that winning wilfulness +which it amused him gradually to tame down, unbent the chillness which +had grown upon him. He was the better for it, as a man after hard study +or practice is the better for some fresh sea-breezes, and some days of +careless dolce. + +"Well, Fay, have you had another poor devil flinging himself at your +feet by means of a postage-stamp?" said Sydie one morning at breakfast. +"You can't disguise anything from me, your most interested, anxious, and +near and dear relative. Whenever the governor looks particularly stormy +I see the signs of the times, that if I do not forthwith remove your +dangerously attractive person, all the bricks, spooneys, swells, and +do-nothings in the county will speedily fill the Hanwell wards to +overflowing." + +"Don't talk such nonsense, Sydie," said Fay, impatiently, with a glance +at Keane, as she handed him his chocolate. + +"Ah! deuce take the fellows," chuckled the General. "Love, devotion, +admiration! What a lot of stuff they do write. I wonder if Fay were a +little beggar, how much of it all would stand the test? But we know a +trick worth two of that. Try those sardines, Keane. House is let, +Fay--eh? House is let; nobody need apply. Ha, ha!" + +And the General took some more curry, laughing till he was purple, while +Fay blushed scarlet, a trick of which she was rarely guilty; Sydie +smiled, and Keane picked out his sardines with calm deliberation. + +"Hallo! God bless my soul!" burst forth the General again. "Devil take +me! I'll be hanged if I stand it! Confound 'em all! I do call it hard +for a man not to be able to sit at his breakfast in peace. Good Heavens! +what will come to the country, if all those little devils grow up to be +food for Calcraft? He's actually pulling the bark off the trees, as I +live! Excuse me, I _can't_ sit still and see it." + +Wherewith the General bolted from his chair, darted through the window, +upsetting three dogs, two kittens, and a stand of flowers in his exit, +and bolted breathlessly across the park with the poker in his hand. + +"Bless his old heart! Ain't he a brick?" shouted Sydie. "Do excuse me, +Fay, I must go and hear him blow up that boy sky-high, and give him a +shilling for tuck afterwards; it will be so rich." + +The Cantab made his exit, and Fay busied herself calming the kittens' +minds, and restoring the dethroned geraniums. Keane read his _Times_ for +ten minutes, then looked up. + +"Miss Morton, where is your tongue? I have not heard it for a quarter of +an hour, a miracle that has never happened in the two months I have been +at the Beeches." + +"You do not want to hear it." + +"What! am I in _mauvais odeur_ again?" smiled Keane. "I thought we were +good friends. Have you found the Q. E. D. to the problem I gave you?" + +"To be sure!" cried Fay, exultantly. And kneeling down by him, she went +through the whole thing in exceeding triumph. + +"You are a good child," said her tutor, smiling, in himself amazed at +this volatile little thing's capacity for mathematics. "I think you will +be able to take your degree, if you like. Come, do you hate me now, +Fay?" + +"No," said Fay, a little shyly. "I never hated you, I always admired +you; but I was afraid of you, though I would never confess it to Sydie." + +"Never be afraid of me," said Keane, putting his hand on hers as it lay +on the arm of his chair. "You have no cause. You can do things few girls +can; but they are pretty in you, where they might be--not so pretty in +others. _I_ like them at the least. You are very fond of your cousin, +are you not?" + +"Of Sydie? Oh, I love him dearly!" + +Keane took his hand away, and rose, as the General trotted in: + +"God bless my soul, Keane, how warm it is! Confoundedly hot without +one's hat, I can tell you. Had my walk all for nothing, too. That cursed +little idiot wasn't trespassing after all. Stephen had set him to spud +out the daisies, and I'd thrashed the boy before I'd listen to him. +Devil take him!" + +August went out and September came in, and Keane stayed on at the +Beeches. They were pleasant days to them all, knocking over the +partridges right and left, enjoying a cold luncheon under the luxuriant +hedges, and going home for a dinner, full of laughter, and talk, and +good cookery; and Fay's songs afterwards, as wild and sweet in their way +as a goldfinch's on a hawthorn spray. + +"You like Little Fay, don't you, Keane?" said the General, as they went +home one evening. + +Keane looked startled for a second. + +"Of course," he said, rather haughtily. "That Miss Morton is very +charming every one must admit." + +"Bless her little heart! She's a wild little filly, Keane, but she'll go +better and truer than your quiet broken-in ones, who wear the harness so +respectably, and are so wicked and vicious in their own minds. And what +do you think of my boy?" asked the General, pointing to Sydie, who was +in front. "How does he stand at Cambridge?" + +"Sydie? Oh, he's a nice young fellow. He is a great favorite there, and +he is--the best things he can be--generous, sweet-tempered, and +honorable----" + +"To be sure," echoed the General, rubbing his hands. "He's a dear boy--a +very dear boy. They're both exactly all I wished them to be, dear +children; and I must say I am delighted to see 'em carrying out the plan +I had always made for 'em from their childhood." + +"Being what, General, may I ask?" + +"Why, any one can see, as plain as a pikestaff, that they're in love +with each other," said the General, glowing with satisfaction; "and I +mean them to be married and happy. They dote on each other, Keane, and I +sha'n't put any obstacles in their way. Youth's short enough, Heaven +knows; let 'em enjoy it, say I, it don't come back again. Don't say +anything to him about it; I want to have some fun with him. They've +settled it all, of course, long ago; but he hasn't confided in me, the +sly dog. Trust an old campaigner, though, for twigging an _affaire de +coeur_. Bless them both, they make me feel a boy again. We'll have a gay +wedding, Keane; mind you come down for it. I dare say it'll be at +Christmas." + +Keane walked along, drawing his cap over his eyes. The sun was setting +full in his face. + +"Well, what sport?" cried Fay, running up to them. + +"Pretty fair," said Keane, coldly, as he passed her. + +It was an hour before the dinner-bell rang. Then he came down cold and +calm, particularly brilliant in conversation, more courteous, perhaps, +to her than ever, but the frost had gathered round him that the sunny +atmosphere of the Beeches had melted; and Fay, though she tried to +tease, and to coax, and to win him, could not dissipate it. She felt him +an immeasurable distance from her again. He was a learned, haughty, +grave philosopher, and she a little naughty child. + +As Keane went up-stairs that night, he heard Sydie talking in the hall. + +"Yes, my worshipped Fay, I shall be intensely and utterly miserable away +from the light of your eyes; but, nevertheless, I must go and see +Kingslake from John's next Tuesday, because I've promised; and let one +idolize your divine self ever so much, one can't give up one's larks, +you know." + +Keane ground his teeth with a bitter sigh and a fierce oath. + +"Little Fay, I would have loved you more tenderly than that!" + +He went in and threw himself on his bed, not to sleep. For the first +time for many years he could not summon sleep at his will. He had gone +on petting her and amusing himself, thinking of her only as a winning, +wayward child. Now he woke with a shock to discover, too late, that she +had stolen from him unawares the heart he had so long refused to any +woman. With his high intellect and calm philosophy, after his years +spent in severe science and cold solitude, the hot well-springs of +passion had broken loose again. He longed to take her bright life into +his own grave and cheerless one; he longed to feel her warm young heart +beat with his own, icebound for so many years; but Little Fay was never +to be his. + +In the bedroom next to him the General sat, with his feet in his +slippers and his dressing-gown round him, smoking his last cheroot +before a roaring fire, chuckling complacently over his own thoughts. + +"To be sure, we'll have a very gay wedding, such as the county hasn't +seen in all its blessed days," he muttered, with supreme satisfaction. +"Sydie shall have this place. What do I want with a great town of a +house like this, big enough for a barrack? I'll take that shooting-box +that's to let four miles off; that'll be plenty large enough for me and +my old chums to smoke in and chat over bygone times, and it will do our +hearts good--freshen us up a bit to see those young things enjoying +themselves. My Little Fay will be the prettiest bride that ever was +seen. Silly young things to suppose I don't see through them. Trust an +old soldier! However, love is blind, they say. How could they have +helped falling in love with one another? and who'd have the heart to +part 'em, I should like to know!" + +Keane stayed that day; the next, receiving a letter which afforded a +true though a slight excuse to return to Cambridge, he went, the +General, Fay, and Sydie believing him gone only for a few days, he +knowing that he would never set foot in the Beeches again. He went back +to his rooms, whose dark monastic gloom in the dull October day seemed +to close round him like an iron shroud. Here, with his books, his +papers, his treasures of intellect, science and art, his "mind a +kingdom" to him, he had spent many a happy day, with his brain growing +only clearer and clearer as he followed out a close reasoning or +clenched a subtle analysis. Now, for the sake of a mischievous child but +half his age, he shuddered as he entered. + +"Well, my dear boy," began the General one day after dinner, "I've seen +your game, though you thought I didn't. How do you know, you young dog, +that I shall give my consent?" + +"Oh, bother, governor, I know you will," cried Sydie, aghast; "because, +you see, if you let me have a few cool hundreds I can give the men such +slap-up wines--and it's my last year, General." + +"You sly dog!" chuckled the governor, "I'm not talking of your +wine-merchant, and you know I'm not, Master Sydie. It's no good playing +hide-and-seek with me; I can always see through a milestone when Cupid +is behind it; and there's no need to beat round the bush with me, my +boy. I never gave my assent to anything with greater delight in my life; +I've always meant you to marry Fay, and----" + +"Marry Fay!" shouted Sydie. "Good Heavens! governor, what next?" And the +Cantab threw himself back and laughed till he cried, and Snowdrop and +her pups barked furiously in a concert of excited sympathy. + +"Why, sir, why?--why, because--devil take you, Sydie--I don't know what +you are laughing at, do you?" cried the General, starting out of his +chair. + +"Yes, I do, governor; you're laboring under a most delicious delusion." + +"Delusion!--eh?--what? Why, bless my soul, I don't think you know what +you are saying, Sydie," stormed the General. + +"Yes I do; you've an idea--how you got it into your head Heaven knows, +but there it is--you've an idea that Fay and I are in love with one +another; and I assure you you were never more mistaken in your life." + +Seeing the General standing bolt upright staring at him, and looking +decidedly apocleptic, Sydie made the matter a little clearer. + +"Fay and I would do a good deal to oblige you, my beloved governor, if +we could get up the steam a little, but I'm afraid we really _cannot_. +Love ain't in one's own hands, you see, but a skittish mare, that gets +her head, and takes the bit between her teeth, and bolts off with you +wherever she likes. Is it possible that two people who broke each +other's toys, and teased each other's lives out, and caught the measles +of each other, from their cradle upwards, should fall in love with each +other when they grow up? Besides, I don't intend to marry for the next +twenty years, if I can help it. I couldn't afford a milliner's bill to +my tailor's, and I should be ruined for life if I merged my bright +particular star of a self into a respectable, lark-shunning, +bill-paying, shabby-hatted, family man. Good Heavens, what a train of +horrors comes with the bare idea!" + +"Do you mean to say, sir, you won't marry your cousin?" shouted the +General. + +"Bless your dear old heart, _no_, governor--ten times over, _no_! I +wouldn't marry anybody, not for half the universe." + +"Then I've done with you, sir--I wash my hands of you!" shouted the +General, tearing up and down the room in a quick march, more beneficial +to his feelings than his carpet. "You are an ungrateful, unprincipled, +shameless young man, and are no more worthy of the affection and the +interest I've been fool enough to waste on you than a tom-cat. You're an +abominably selfish, ungrateful, unnatural boy; and though you _are_ poor +Phil's son, I will tell you my mind, sir; and I must say I think your +conduct with your cousin, making love to her--desperate love to +her--winning her affections, poor unhappy child, and then making a jest +of her and treating it with a laugh, is disgraceful, sir--_disgraceful_, +do you hear?" + +"Yes, I hear, General," cried Sydie, convulsed with laughter; "but Fay +cares no more for me than for those geraniums. We are fond of one +another, in a cool, cousinly sort of way, but----" + +"Hold your tongue!" stormed the General. "Don't dare to say another word +to me about it. You know well enough that it has been the one delight of +my life, and if you'd had any respect or right feeling in you, you'd +marry her to-morrow." + +"She wouldn't be a party to that. Few women _are_ blind to my manifold +attractions; but Fay's one of 'em. Look here, governor," said Sydie, +laying his hand affectionately on the General's shoulder, "did it never +occur to you that though the pretty castle's knocked down, there may be +much nicer bricks left to build a new one? Can't you see that Fay +doesn't care two buttons about me, but cares a good many diamond studs +about somebody else?" + +"Nothing has occurred to me but that you and she are two heartless, +selfish, ungrateful chits. Hold your tongue, sir!" + +"But, General----" + +"Hold your tongue, sir; don't talk to me, I tell you. In love with +somebody else? I should like to see him show his face here. Somebody +she's talked to for five minutes at a race-ball, and proposed to her in +a corner, thinking to get some of my money. Some swindler, or Italian +refugee, or blackleg, I'll be bound--taken her in, made her think him an +angel, and will persuade her to run away with him. I'll set the police +round the house--I'll send her to school in Paris. What fools men are to +have anything to do with women at all! You seem in their confidence; +who's the fellow?" + +"A man very like a swindler or a blackleg--Keane!" + +"Keane!" shouted the General, pausing in the middle of his frantic +march. + +"Keane," responded Sydie. + +"Keane!" shouted the General again. "God bless my soul, she might as +well have fallen in love with the man in the moon. Why couldn't she like +the person I'd chosen for her?" + +"If one can't guide the mare one's self, 'tisn't likely the governors +can for one," muttered Sydie. + +"Poor dear child! fallen in love with a man who don't care a button for +her, eh? Humph!--that's always the way with women--lose the good +chances, and fling themselves at a man's feet who cares no more for +their tom-foolery of worship than he cares for the blacking on his +boots. Devil take young people, what a torment they are! The ungrateful +little jade, how dare she go and smash all my plans like that? and if I +ever set my heart on anything, I set it on that match. Keane! he'll no +more love anybody than the stone cherubs on the terrace. He's a splendid +head, but his heart's every atom as cold as granite. Love her? Not a bit +of it. When I told him you were going to marry her (I thought you would, +and so you will, too, if you've the slightest particle of gratitude or +common sense in either of you), he listened as quietly and as calmly as +if he had been one of the men in armor in the hall. Love, indeed! To the +devil with love, say I! It's the head and root of everything that's +mischievous and bad." + +"Wait a bit, uncle," cried Sydie; "you told him all about your previous +match-making, eh? And didn't he go off like a shot two days after, when +we meant him to stay on a month longer? Can't you put two and two +together, my once wide-awake governor? 'Tisn't such a difficult +operation." + +"No, I can't," shouted the General: "I don't know anything, I don't see +anything, I don't believe in anything, I hate everybody and everything, +I tell you; and I'm a great fool for having ever set my heart on any +plan that wanted a woman's concurrence-- + + For if she will she will, you may depend on't, + And if she won't she won't, and there's an end on't." + +Wherewith the General stuck his wide-awake on fiercely, and darted out +of the bay-window to cool himself. Half way across the lawn, he turned +sharp round, and came back again. + +"Sydie, do you fancy Keane cares a straw for that child?" + +"I can't say. It's possible." + +"Humph! Well, can't you go and see? That's come of those mathematical +lessons. What a fool I was to allow her to be so much with him!" growled +the General, with many grunts and half-audible oaths, swinging round +again, and trotting through the window as hot and peppery as his own +idolized curry. + +Keane was sitting writing in his rooms at King's some few days after. +The backs looked dismal with their leafless, sepia-colored trees; the +streets were full of sloppy mud and dripping under-grads' umbrellas; his +own room looked sombre and dark, without any sunshine on its heavy oak +bookcases, and massive library-table, and dark bronzes. His pen moved +quickly, his head was bent over the paper, his mouth sternly set, and +his forehead paler and more severe than ever. The gloom in his chambers +had gathered round him himself, when his door was burst open, and Sydie +dashed in and threw himself down in a green leather arm-chair. + +"Well, sir, here am I back again. Just met the V. P. in the quad, and he +was so enchanted at seeing me, that he kissed me on both cheeks, flung +off his gown, tossed up his cap, and performed a _pas d'extase_ on the +spot. Isn't it delightful to be so beloved? Granta looks very delicious +to-day, I must say--about as refreshing and lively as an acidulated +spinster going district-visiting in a snow-storm. And how are you, most +noble lord?" + +"Pretty well." + +"Only that? Thought you were all muscle and iron. I say. What _do_ you +think the governor has been saying to me?" + +"How can I tell?" + +"Tell! No, I should not have guessed it if I'd tried for a hundred +years! By George! nothing less than that I should marry Fay. What do you +think of that, sir?" + +Keane traced Greek unconsciously on the margin of his _Times_. For the +life of him, with all his self-command, he could not have answered. + +"Marry Fay! _I!_" shouted Sydie. "Ye gods, what an idea! I never was so +astonished in all my days. Marry Little Fay!--the governor must be mad, +you know." + +"You will not marry your cousin?" asked Keane, tranquilly, though the +rapid glance and involuntary start did not escape Sydie's quick eyes. + +"Marry! I! By George, no! She wouldn't have me, and I'm sure I wouldn't +have her. She is a dear little monkey, and I'm very fond of her, but I +wouldn't put the halter round my neck for any woman going. I don't like +vexing the General, but it would be really too great a sacrifice merely +to oblige him." + +"She cares nothing for you, then?" + +"Nothing? Well, I don't know. Yes, in a measure, she does. If I should +be taken home on a hurdle one fine morning, she'd shed some cousinly +tears over my inanimate body; but as for _the other thing_, not one bit +of it. 'Tisn't likely. We're a great deal too like one another, too full +of devilry and carelessness, to assimilate. Isn't it the delicious +contrast and fiz of the sparkling acid of divine lemons with the +contrariety of the fiery spirit of beloved rum that makes the delectable +union known and worshipped in our symposia under the blissful name of +PUNCH? Marry Little Fay! By Jove, if all the governor's match-making was +founded on no better reasons for success, it is a small marvel that he's +a bachelor now! By George, it's time for hall!" + +And the Cantab took himself off, congratulating himself on the adroit +manner in which he had cut the Gordian knot that the General had muddled +up so inexplicably in his unpropitious match-making. + +Keane lay back in his chair some minutes, very still; then he rose to +dine in hall, pushing away his books and papers, as if throwing aside +with them a dull and heavy weight. The robins sang in the leafless +backs, the sun shone out on the sloppy streets; the youth he thought +gone for ever was come back to him. Oh, strange stale story of Hercules +and Omphale, old as the hills, and as eternal! Hercules goes on in his +strength slaying his hydra and his Laomedon for many years, but he +comes at last, whether he like it or not, to his Omphale, at whose feet +he is content to sit and spin long golden threads of pleasure and of +passion, while his lion's skin is motheaten and his club rots away. + +Little Fay sat curled up on the study hearth-rug, reading a book her +late guest had left behind him--a very light and entertaining volume, +being Delolme "On the Constitution," but which she preferred, I suppose, +to "What Will He Do With It?" or the "Feuilles d'Automne," for the sake +of that clear autograph, "Gerald Keane, King's Coll.," on its fly-leaf. +A pretty picture she made, with her handsome spaniels; and she was so +intent on what she was reading--the fly-leaf, by the way--that she never +heard the opening of the door, till a hand drew away her book. Then Fay +started up, oversetting the puppies one over another, radiant and +breathless. + +Keane took her hands and drew her near him. + +"You do not hate me now, then?" + +Fay put her head on one side with her old wilfulness. + +"Yes, I do--when you go away without any notice, and hardly bid me +good-bye. You would not have left one of your men pupils so +unceremoniously." + +Keane smiled involuntarily, and drew her closer. + +"If you do not hate me, will you go a step farther--and love me? Little +Fay, my own darling, will you come and brighten my life? It has been a +saddened and a stern one, but it shall never throw a shade on yours." + +The wild little filly was conquered--at last, she came to hand docile +and subdued, and acknowledged her master. She loved him, and told him so +with that frankness and fondness which would have covered faults far +more glaring and weighty than Little Fay's. + +"But you must never be afraid of me," whispered Keane, some time after. + +"Oh, no!" + +"And you do not wish Sydie had never brought me here to make you all +uncomfortable?" + +"Oh, please don't!" cried Fay, plaintively. "I was a child then, and I +did not know what I said." + +"'Then,' being three months ago, may I ask what you are now?" + +"A child still in knowledge, but _your_ child," whispered Fay, lifting +her face to his, "to be petted and spoiled, and never found fault with, +remember!" + +"My little darling, who would have the heart to find fault with you, +whatever your sins?" + +"God bless my soul, what's this?" cried a voice in the doorway. + +There stood the General in wide-awake and shooting-coat, with a spade in +one hand and a watering-pot in the other, too astonished to keep his +amazement to himself. Fay would fain have turned and fled, but Keane +smiled, kept one arm round her, and stretched out his hand to the +governor. + +"General, I came once uninvited, and I am come again. Will you forgive +me? I have a great deal to say to you, but I must ask you one question +first of all. Will you give me your treasure?" + +"Eh! humph! What? Well--I suppose--yes," ejaculated the General, +breathless from the combined effects of amazement and excessive and +vehement gardening. "But, bless my soul, Keane, I should as soon have +thought of one of the stone cherubs, or that bronze Milton. Never mind, +one lives and learns. Mind? Devil take me, what am I talking about? I +don't mind at all; I'm very happy, only I'd set my heart on--you know +what. More fool I. Fay, you little imp, come here. Are you fairly broken +in by Keane, then?" + +"Yes," said Miss Fay, with her old mischief, but a new blush, "as he has +promised never to use the curb." + +"God bless you, then, my little pet," cried the General, kissing her +some fifty times. Then he laughed till he cried, and dried his eyes and +laughed again, and grunted, and growled, and shook both Keane's hands +vehemently. "I was a great fool, sir, and I dare say you've managed much +better. I _did_ set my heart on the boy, you know, but it can't be +helped now, and I don't wish it should. Be kind to her, that's all; for +though she mayn't bear the curb, the whip from anybody she cares about +would break her heart. She's a dear child, Keane--a very dear child. Be +kind to her, that's all." + + * * * * * + +On the evening of January 13th, beginning the Lent Term, Mr. Sydenham +Morton sat in his own rooms with half a dozen spirits like himself, a +delicious aroma surrounding them of Maryland and rum-punch, and a rapid +flow of talk making its way through the dense atmosphere. + +"To think of Granite Keane being caught!" shouted one young fellow. "I +should as soon have thought of the Pyramids walking over to the Sphinx, +and marrying her." + +"Poor devil! I pity him," sneered Henley of Trinity, aged nineteen. + +"He don't require much pity, my dear fellow; I think he's pretty +comfortable," rejoined Sydie. "He did, to be sure, when he was trying to +beat sense into your brain-box, but that's over for the present." + +"Come, tell us about the wedding," said Somerset of King's. "I was sorry +I couldn't go down." + +"Well," began Sydie, stretching his legs and putting down his pipe, +"she--_the_ she was dressed in white tulle and----" + +"Bother the dress. Go ahead!" + +"The dress was no bother, it was the one subject in life to the women. +You must listen to the dress, because I asked the prettiest girl there +for the description of it to enlighten your minds, and it was harder to +learn than six books of Horace. The bridesmaids wore tarlatane a la +Princesse Stephanie, trois jupes bouillonnees, jupe desous de soie +glacee, guirlandes couleur dea yeux imperiaux d'Eugenie, corsets +decolletes garnis de ruches de ruban du----" + +"For Heaven's sake, hold your tongue!" cried Somerset. "That jargon's +worse than the Yahoos'. The dead languages are bad enough to learn, but +women's living language of fashion is ten hundred times worse. The +twelve girls were dressed in blue and white, and thought themselves +angels--we understand. Cut along." + +"Gunter was prime," continued Sydie, "and the governor was prime, +too--splendid old buck; only when he gave her away he was very near +saying, 'Devil take it!' which might have had a novel, but hardly a +solemn, effect. Little Fay was delightful--for all the world like a bit +of incarnated sunshine. Keane was granite all over, except his eyes, and +they were lava; if we hadn't, for our own preservation, let him put her +in a carriage and started 'em off, he might have become dangerous, after +the manner of Etna, ice outside and red-hot coals within. The +bridesmaids tears must have washed the church for a week, and made it +rather a damp affair. One would scarcely think women were so anxious to +marry, to judge from the amount of grief they get up at a friend's +sacrifice. It looks uncommonly like envy; but it _isn't_, we're sure! +The ball was like most other balls: alternate waltzing and flirtation, a +vast lot of nonsense talked, and a vast lot of champagne drunk--Cupid +running about in every direction, and a tremendous run on all the +amatory poets--Browning and Tennyson being worked as hard as cab-horses, +and used up pretty much as those quadrupeds--dandies suffering +self-inflicted torture from tight boots, and saying, like Cranmer, when +he held his hand in the fire, that it was rather agreeable than +otherwise, considering it drew admiration--spurs getting entangled in +ladies' dresses, and ladies making use thereof for a display of +amiability, which the dragoons are very much mistaken if they fancied +continued into private life--girls believing all the pretty things said +to them--men going home and laughing at them all--wallflowers very +black, women engaged ten deep very sunshiny--the governor very glorious, +and my noble self very fascinating. And now," said Sydie, taking up his +pipe, "pass the punch, old boy, and never say I can't talk!" + + + + +THE STORY OF A CRAYON-HEAD; + +OR, + +A DOUBLED-DOWN LEAF IN A MAN'S LIFE. + + +I was dining with a friend, in his house on the Lung' Arno (he fills, +never mind what, post in the British Legation), where I was passing an +autumn month. The night was oppressively hot; a still, sultry sky +brooded over the city, and the stars shining out from a purple mist on +to the Campanile near, and the slopes of Bellosguardo in the distance. +It was intensely hot; not all the iced wines on his table could remove +the oppressive warmth of the evening air, which made both him and me +think of evenings we had spent together in the voluptuous lassitude of +the East, in days gone by, when we had travelled there, fresh to life, +to new impressions, to all that gives "greenness to the grass, and glory +to the flower." + +The Arno ran on under its bridge, and we leaned out of the balcony where +we were sitting and smoking, while I tossed over, without thinking much +of what I was doing, a portfolio of his sketches. Position has lost for +art many good artists since Sir George Beaumont: my friend is one of +them; his sketches are masterly; and had he been a vagrant Bohemian +instead of an English peer, there might have been pictures on the walls +of the R. A. to console one for the meretricious daubs and pet +vulgarities of nursery episodes, hideous babies, and third-class +carriage interiors, which make one's accustomed annual visit to the +rooms that once saw the beauties of Reynolds, and Wilson, and Lawrence, +a positive martyrdom to anybody of decent refinement and educated taste. +The portfolio stood near me, and I took out a sketch or two now and then +between the pauses of our conversation, looking lazily up the river, +while the moonlight shone on Dante's city, that so long forgot, and has, +so late, remembered him. + +"Ah! what a pretty face this is! Who's the original?" I asked him, +drawing out a female head, done with great finish in pastel, under which +was written, in his own hand, "Florelle." It was a face of great beauty, +with a low Greek brow and bronze-dark hair, and those large, soft, +liquid eyes that you only see in a Southern, and that looked at you from +the sketch with an earnest, wistful regard, half childlike, half +impassioned. He looked up, glanced at the sketch, and stretched out his +hand hastily, but I held it away from him. "I want to look at it; it is +a beautiful head; I wish we had the original here now. Who is she?" + +As I spoke--holding the sketch up where the light from the room within +fell on what I had no doubt was a likeness of some fair face that had +beguiled his time in days gone by, a souvenir of one of his loves more +lasting than souvenirs of such episodes in one's life often are, if +merely trusted to that inconstant capricieuse, Memory,--I might have hit +him with a bullet rather than asked him about a mere etude a deux +crayons, for he shuddered, and drank off some white Hermitage quickly. + +"I had forgotten that was in the portfolio," he said, hurriedly, as he +took it from me and put it behind him, with its face against the wall, +as though it had been the sketch of a Medusa. + +"What do you take it away for? I had not half done looking at it. Who is +the original?" + +"One I don't care to mention." + +"Because?" + +"Because the sight of that picture gives me a twinge of what I ought to +be hardened against--regret." + +"Regret! Is any woman worth that?" + +"She was." + +"I don't believe it; and I fancied you and I thought alike on such +points. Of all the women for whom we feel twinges of conscience or +self-reproach in melancholy moments, how many _loved us_? Moralists and +poets sentimentalize over it, and make it a stalking-horse whereby to +magnify our sins and consign us more utterly to perdition, while they do +for themselves a little bit of poetic morality cheaply; but in reality +there are uncommonly few women who can love, to begin with, and in the +second, vanity, avarice, jealousy, desires for pretty toilettes, one or +other, or all combined, have quite as much to do with their 'sacrifice' +for us as anything." + +"Quite true; but--there are women and women, perhaps, and it was not of +that sort of regret that I spoke." + +"Of what sort, then?" + +He made me no reply: he broke the ash off his Manilla, and smoked +silently some moments, leaning over the balcony and watching the +monotonous flow of the Arno, with deeper gloom on his face than I +remembered to have seen there any time before. I was sorry I had chanced +to light upon a sketch that had brought him back such painful +recollections of whatever kind they might be, and I smoked too, sending +the perfumed tobacco out into the still sultry night that was brooding +over Florence. + +"Of what sort?" said he, abruptly, after some minutes' pause. "Shall I +tell you? Then you can tell _me_ whether I was a fool who made one grand +mistake, or a sensible man of the world who kept himself from a grand +folly. I have been often in doubt myself." + +He leaned back, his face in shadow, so that I could not see it, while +the Arno's ebb and flow was making mournful river-music under our +windows,--while the purple glories of the summer night deepened round +Giotto's Tower, where, in centuries past, the Immortal of Florence had +sat dreaming of the Paradiso, the mortals passing by whispering him as +"the man who had seen hell," and the light within the room shone on the +olives and grapes, the cut-glass and silver claret-jugs, the crimson +Montepulciano and the white Hermitage, on the table, as he told me the +story of the head in crayons. + +"Two years ago I went into the south of France. I was charge d'Affaires +at ---- then, you remember, and the climate had told upon me. I was not +over-well, and somebody recommended me the waters of Eaux Bonnes. The +waters I put little faith in, but in the air of the Pyrenees, in the +change from diplomacy to a life _en rase campagne_, I put much, and I +went to Eaux Bonnes accordingly, for July and August, with a vow to +forswear any society I might find at the baths--I had had only too much +of society as it was--and to spend my days in the mountains with my +sketching-block and my gun. But I did not like Eaux Bonnes; it was +intensely warm. There were several people who knew me really; no end of +others who got hold of my name, and wanted me to join their +riding-parties, and balls, and picnics. That was not what I wanted, so I +left the place and went on to Luz, hoping to find solitude there. That +valley of Luz--you know it?--is it not as lovely as any artist's dream +of Arcadia, in the evening, when the sunset light has passed off the +meadows and corn-lands of the lower valley, and just lingers golden and +rosy on the crests of the mountains, while the glow-worms are coming out +among the grasses, and the lights are being lit in the little homesteads +nestling among their orchards one above another on the hill-sides, and +its hundred streams are rushing down the mountains and under the trees, +foaming, and tumbling, and rejoicing on their way! When I have had my +fill of ambition and of pleasure, I shall go and live at Luz, I think. + +"_When!_ Well! you are quite right to repeat it ironically; that time +will never come, I dare say, and why should it? I am not the stuff to +cogitate away my years in country solitudes. If prizes are worth +winning, they are worth working for till one's death; a man should never +give up the field while he has life left in him. Well! I went to Luz, +and spent a pleasant week or so there, knocking over a few chamois or +izards, or sketching on the sides of the Pic du Midi, or Tourmalet, but +chiefly lying about under the great beech-trees in the shade, listening +to the tinkle of the sheep-bells, like an idle fellow, as I meant to be +for the time I had allotted myself. One day----" + +He stopped and blew some whiffs from his Manilla into the air. He seemed +to linger over the prelude to his story, and shrink from going on with +the story itself, I thought; and he smothered a sigh as he raised +himself. + +"How warm the night is; we shall have a tempest. Reach me that wine, +there's a good fellow. No, not the Amontillado, the Chateau Margaux, +please; one can't drink hot dry wines such a night as this. But to +satisfy your curiosity about this crayon study.--One day I thought I +would go to Gavarnie. I had heard a good deal, of course, about the +great marble wall, and the mighty waterfalls, the rocks of Marbore, and +the Breche de Roland, but, as it chanced, I had never been up to the +Cercle, nor, indeed, in that part of the Midi at all, so I went. The +gods favored me, I remember; there were no mists, the sun was brilliant, +and the great amphitheatre was for once unobscured; the white marble +flashing brown and purple, rose and golden, in the light; the cascades +tumbling and leaping down into the gigantic basin; the vast plains of +snow glittering in the sunshine; the twin rocks standing in the clear +air, straight and fluted as any two Corinthian columns hewn and +chiselled by man. Good Heaven! before a scene like Gavarnie, what true +artist must not fling away his colors and his brushes in despair and +disgust with his own puerility and impotence? What can be transferred to +canvas of such a scene as that? What does the best beauty of Claude, the +grandest sublimity of Salvator, the greatest power of Poussin, look +beside Nature when she reigns as she reigns at Gavarnie? I am an art +worshipper, as you know: but there are times in my life, places on +earth, that make me ready to renounce art for ever! + +"The day was beautiful, and thinking I knew the country pretty well, I +took no guides. I hate them when I can possibly dispense with them. But +the mist soon swooped down over the Cercle, and I began to wish I had +had one when I turned my horse's head back again. You know the route, of +course? Through the Chaos--Heaven knows it is deserving of its +name;--down the break-neck little bridle-path, along the Gave, and over +the Scia bridge to St. Sauveur. You know it? Then you know that it is +much easier to break your neck down it than to find your way by it, +though by some hazard I did not break my neck, nor the animal's knees +either, but managed to get over the bridge without falling into the +torrent, and to pick my way safely down into more level ground; once +there, I thought I should easily enough find my way to St. Sauveur, but +I was mistaken: the mists had spread over the valley, a heavy storm had +come up, and, somehow or other, I lost the way, and could not tell where +I was, whether St. Sauveur was to the left or the right, behind me or in +front of me. The horse, a miserable little Pyrenean beast, was too +frightened by the lightning to take the matter into his hands as he had +done on the road through the Chaos, and I saw nothing for it but to +surrender and come to grief in any way the elements best pleased; +swearing at myself for not having stayed at the inn at Gavarnie or +Gedre; wishing myself at the vilest mountain auberge that ever sheltered +men and mules pele-mele; and calling myself hard names for not having +listened to my landlady's dissuasions of that morning as I left her +door, from my project of going to Gavarnie without a guide, which seemed +to her the acme of all she had ever known or heard of English strangers' +fooleries. The storm only increased, the great black rocks echoing the +roll of the thunder, and the Gave lashing itself into fury in its narrow +bed; happily I was on decently level ground, and the horse being, I +suppose, tolerably used to storms like it, I pushed him on at last, by +dint of blows and conjurations combined, to where, in the flashes of the +lightning, I saw what looked to me like the outline of a homestead: it +stood in a cleft between two shelving sides of rock, and a narrow +bridle-path led up to it, through high yews and a tangled wilderness of +rhododendrons, boxwood, and birch--one of those green slopes so common +in the Pyrenees, that look in full sunlight doubly bright and +Arcadian-like, from the contrast of the dark, bare, perpendicular rocks +that shut them in. I could see but little of its beauty then in the fog +that shrouded both it and me, but I saw the shape and semblance of a +house, and urging the horse up the ascent, thundered on its gate-panels +with my whip-handle till the rocks round echoed. + +"There was no answer, and I knocked a little louder, if possible, than +before. I was wet to the skin with that wretched storm, and swore not +mildly at the inhospitable roof that would not admit me under it. I +knocked again, inclined to pick up a piece of granite and beat the panel +in; and at last a face--an old woman's weather-beaten face, but with +black southern eyes that had lost little of their fire with age--looked +through a grating at me and asked me what I wanted. + +"'I want shelter if you can give it me,' I answered her. 'I have lost +my way coming from Gavarnie, and am drenched through. I will pay you +liberally if you will give me an asylum till the weather clears.' + +"Her eyes blazed like coals through the little grille. + +"'M'sieu, we take no money here--have you mistaken it for an inn? Come +in if you want shelter, in Heaven's name! The Holy Virgin forbid we +should refuse refuge to any!' + +"And she crossed herself and uttered some conjurations to Mary to +protect them from all wolves in sheep's clothing, and guard their +dwelling from all harm, by which I suppose she thought I spoke fairly +and looked harmless, but might possibly be a thief or an assassin, or +both in one. She unlocked the gate, and calling to a boy to take my +horse into a shed, admitted me under a covered passageway into the +house, which looked like part, and a very ruined part, too, of what had +probably been, in the times of Henri-Quatre and his grandfather, a +feudal chateau fenced in by natural ramparts from the rocks that +surrounded it, shutting in the green slope on which it stood, with only +one egress, the path through which I had ascended, into the level plain +below. She marshalled me through this covered way into an interior +passage, dark and vaulted, cheerless enough, and opened a low oak door, +ushering me into a chamber, bare, gloomy, yet with something of lost +grandeur and past state lingering about its great hearth, its massive +walls, its stained windows, and its ragged tapestry hangings. The woman +went up to one of the windows and spoke with a gentleness to which I +should have never thought her voice could have been attuned with its +harsh patois. + +"'Mon enfant, v'la un m'sieu etranger qui vient chercher un abri pour un +petit peu. Veux-tu lui parler?' + +"The young girl she spoke to turned, rose, and, coming forward, bade me +welcome with the grace, simplicity, and the naive freedom from +embarrassment of a child, looking up in my face with her soft clear +eyes. She was like----No matter! you have seen that crayon-head, it is +but a portrayal of a face whose expression Raphael and Sassoferrato +themselves would have failed to render in its earnest, innocent, +elevated regard. She was very young-- + + Standing with reluctant feet + Where the brook and river meet-- + Womanhood and childhood fleet. + +Good Heavens, I am quoting poetry! what will you think of me, to have +gone back to the Wertherian and Tennysonian days so far as to repeat a +triplet of Longfellow's? No man quotes _those_ poets after his salad +days, except in a moment of weakness. Caramba! why _has_ one any +weaknesses at all? we ought not to have any; we live in an atmosphere +that would kill them all if they were not as obstinate and +indestructible as all other weeds whose seeds will linger and peer up +and spoil the ground, let one root them out ever so! I owed you an +apology for that lapse into Longfellow, and I have made it. Am I to go +on with this story?" + +He laughed as he spoke, and his laugh was by no means heartfelt. I told +him to go on, and he lighted another Manilla and obeyed me, while the +Arno murmured on its way, and the dusky, sultry clouds brooded nearer +the earth, and the lights were lit in the distant windows of the palace +of the Marchese Acqua d'Oro, that fairest of Florentines, who rouges so +indiscriminately and flirts her fan so inimitably, to one of whose balls +we were going that night. + +He settled himself back in his chair, with his face darkened again by +the shadow cast on it from the pillar of the balcony; and took his cigar +out of his mouth. + +"She looked incongruous in that bare and gloomy room, out of place with +it, and out of keeping with the old woman--a French peasant-woman, +weather-beaten and bronzed, such as you see any day by the score riding +to market or sitting knitting at their cottage-doors. It was impossible +that the girl could be either daughter or grand-daughter, or any +relation at all to her. In that room she looked more as one of these +myrtles might do, set down in the stifling gloomy horrors of a London +street than anything else, save that in certain traces about the +chamber, as I told you, there were relics of a faded grandeur which +harmonized better with her. I can see her now, as she stood there with a +strange foreign grace, an indescribable patrician delicacy mingled with +extreme youthfulness and naivete, like an old picture in costume, like +one of Raphael's child-angels in face--poor little Florelle! + +"'You would stay till the storm is over, monsieur? you are welcome to +shelter if you will,' she said, coming forward to me timidly yet +frankly. 'Cazot tells me you are a stranger, and our mountain storms are +dangerous if you have no guide.' + +"I did not know who Cazot was, but I presumed her to be the old woman, +who seemed to be portress, mistress, domestic, cameriste, and all else +in her single person, but I thanked her for her permitted shelter, and +accepted her invitation to remain till the weather had cleared, as you +can imagine. When you have lost your way, any asylum is grateful, +however desolate and tumble-down. They made me welcome, she and the old +peasant-woman, with that simple, unstrained, and unostentatious +hospitality which is, after all, the true essence of good breeding, and +of which your parvenu knows nothing, when he keeps you waiting, and +shows you that you are come at an inapropos moment, in his fussy fear +lest everything should not be _comme il faut_ to do due credit to _him_. +Old Cazot set before me some simple refreshment, a _grillade de +chataignes_, some maize and milk, and a dish of trout just caught in the +Gave below, while I looked at my chatelaine, marvelling how that young +and delicate creature could come to be shut up with an old peasant on a +remote hill-side. I did my best to draw her out and learn her history; +she was shy at first of a complete stranger, as was but natural, but I +spoke of Garvarnie, of the beauty of the Pyrenees, or Tourmalet, and the +Lac Bleu, and, warming with enthusiasm for her birthplace, the girl +forgot that I was a foreign tourist, unknown to her, and indebted to her +for an hour's shelter, and before my impromptu supper was over I had +drawn from her, by a few questions which she was too much of a child and +had too little to conceal not to answer with a child's ingenuousness, +the whole of her short history, and the explanation of her anomalous +position. Her name was Florelle de l'Heris, a name once powerful enough +among the nobles of the Midi, and the old woman, Madame Cazot, was her +father's foster-sister. Of her family, beggared in common with the best +aristocracy of France, none were now left; they had dwindled and fallen +away, till of the once great house of L'Heris this child remained alone +its representative: her mother had died in her infancy, and her father, +either too idle or too broken-hearted to care to retrieve his fortunes, +lived the life of a hermit among these ruins where I now found his +daughter, educating her himself till his death, which occurred when she +was only twelve years old, leaving her to poverty and obscurity, and +such protection and companionship as her old nurse Cazot could afford +her. Such was the story Florelle de l'Heris told me as I sat there that +evening waiting till the clouds should clear and the mists roll off +enough to let me go to St. Sauveur--a story told simply and +pathetically, and which Cazot, sitting knitting in a corner, added to by +a hundred gesticulations, expletives, appeals to the Virgin, and prolix +addenda, glad, I dare say, of any new confident, and disposed to regard +me with gratitude for my sincere praises of her fried trout. It was a +story which seemed to me to suit the delicate beauty of the flower I +had found in the wilderness, and read more like a chapter of some +versified novelette, like 'Lucille,' than a _bona fide_ page out of the +book of one's actual life, especially in a life like mine, of +essentially material pleasures and emphatically substantial and palpable +ambitions. But there _are_ odd stories in real life!--strange pathetic +ones, too--stranger, often, than those that found the plot and underplot +of a novel or the basis of a poem; but when such men as I come across +them they startle us, they look bizarre and unlike all the other leaves +of the book that glitter with worldly aphorisms, philosophical maxims, +and pungent egotisms, and we would fain cut them out; they have the ring +of that Arcadia whose golden gates shut on us when we outgrew boyhood, +and in which, _en revanche_, we have sworn ever since to +disbelieve--keeping our word sometimes, perhaps to our own +hindrance--Heaven knows! + +"I stayed as long as I could that evening, till the weather had cleared +up so long, and the sun was shining again so indisputably, that I had no +longer any excuse to linger in the dark-tapestried room, with the +chestnuts sputtering among the wood-ashes, and Madame Cazot's needles +clicking one continual refrain, and the soft gazelle eyes of my young +chatelaine glancing from my sketches to me with that mixture of shyness +and fearlessness, innocence and candor, which gave so great a charm to +her manner. She was a new study to me, both for my palette and my +mind--a pretty fresh toy to amuse me while I should stay in the Midi. I +was not going to leave without making sure of a permission to return. I +wanted to have that face among my pastels, and when I had thanked her +for her shelter and her welcome, I told her my name, and asked her leave +to come again where I had been so kindly received. + +"'Come again, monsieur? Certainly, if you care to come. But you will +find it a long way from Luz, I fear,' she said, naively, looking up at +me with her large clear fawn-like eyes--eyes so cloudless and untroubled +_then_--as she let me take her hand, and bade me adieu et bonsoir. + +"I reassured her on that score, you can fancy, and left her standing in +the deep-embrasured window, a great stag-hound at her feet, and the +setting sun, all the brighter for its past eclipse, bathing her in +light. I can always see her in memory as I saw her then, poor +child!----Faugh! How hot the night is! Can't we get more air anyhow? + +"'If you come again up here, m'sieu, you will be the first visitor the +Nid de l'Aigle has seen for four years,' said old Cazot, as she showed +me out through the dusky-vaulted passage. She was a cheerful, garrulous +old woman, strong in her devotion to the De l'Heris of the bygone past; +stronger even yet in her love for their single orphan representative of +the beggared present. 'Visitors! Is it likely we should have any, +m'sieu? Those that would suit me would be bad company for Ma'amselle +Florelle, and those that should seek her never do. I recollect the time, +m'sieu, when the highest in all the departments were glad to come to the +bidding of a De l'Heris; but generations have gone since then, and lands +and gold gone too, and, if you cannot feast them, what care people for +you? That is true in the Pyrenees, m'sieu, as well as in the rest of the +world. I have not lived eighty years without finding out that. If my +child yonder were the heiress of the De l'Heris, there would be plenty +to court and seek her; but she lives in these poor broken-down ruins +with me, an old peasant woman, to care for her as best I can, and not a +soul takes heed of her save the holy women at the convent, where, maybe, +she will seek refuge at last!' + +"She let me out at the gate where I had thundered for admittance two +hours before, and, giving her my thanks for her hospitality--money she +would not take--I wished her good day, and rode down the bridle-path to +St. Sauveur, and onwards to Luz, thinking at intervals of that fair +young life that had just sprung up, and was already destined to wither +away its bloom in a convent. Any destiny would be better to proffer to +her than that. She interested me already by her childlike loveliness and +her strange solitude of position, and I thought she would while away +some of the long summer hours during my stay in the Midi when I was +tired of chamois and palette, and my lazy dolce under the beech-wood +shades. At any rate, she was newer and more charming than the belles of +Eaux Bonnes. + +"The next morning I remembered her permission and my promise, and I rode +out through the town again, up the mountain-road, to the Nid de l'Aigle; +glad of anything that gave me an amusement and a pursuit. I never wholly +appreciate the far niente, I think; perhaps I have lived too entirely in +the world--and a world ultra-cold and courtly, too--to retain much +patience for the meditative life, the life of trees and woods, sermons +in stones, and monologues in mountains. I am a restless, ambitious man; +I must have a _pursuit_, be it of a great aim or a small, or I grow +weary, and my time hangs heavily on hand. Already having found Florelle +de l'Heris among these hills reconciled me more to my _pro tempo_ +banishment from society, excitement, and pleasure, and I thanked my good +fortune for having lighted upon her. She was very lovely, and I always +care more for the physical than the intellectual charms of any woman. I +do not share some men's visionary requirements on their mental score; I +ask but material beauty, and am content with it. + +"I rode up to the Nid de l'Aigle: by a clearer light it stood on a spot +of great picturesqueness, and before the fury of the revolutionary +peasantry had destroyed what was the then habitable and stately chateau, +must have been a place of considerable extent and beauty, and in the +feudal times, fenced in by the natural ramparts of its shelving rocks, +no doubt all but impregnable. There were but a few ruins now that held +together and had a roof over them--the part where Madame Cazot and the +last of the De l'Heris lived; it was perfectly solitary; there was +nothing to be heard round it but the foaming of the river, the music of +the sheep-bells from the flocks that fed in the clefts and on the slopes +of grass-land, and the shout of some shepherd-boy from the path below; +but it was as beautiful a spot as any in the Pyrenees, with its +overhanging beech-woods, its wilderness of wild-flowers, its rocks +covered with that soft gray moss whose tint defies one to repeat it in +oil or water colors, and its larches and beeches drooping over into the +waters of the Gave. In such a home, with no companions save her father, +old Cazot, and her great stag-hound, and, occasionally, the quiet +recluses of St. Marie Purificatrice, with everything to feed her native +poetry and susceptibility, and nothing to teach her anything of the +actual and ordinary world, it were inevitable that the character of +Florelle should take its coloring from the scenes around her, and that +she should grow up singularly childlike, imaginative, and innocent of +all that in any other life she would unavoidably have known. Well +educated she was, through her father and the nuns, but it was a +semi-religious and peculiar education, of which the chief literature had +been the legendary and sacred poetry of France and Spain, the chief +amusement copying the illuminated missals lent her by the nuns, or +joining in the choral services of the convent; an education that taught +her nothing of the world from which she was shut out, and encouraged all +that was self-devoted, visionary, and fervid in her nature, leaving her +at seventeen as unconscious of evil as the youngest child. I despair of +making you imagine what Florelle then was. Had I never met her, I should +have believed in her as little as yourself, and would have discredited +the existence of so poetic a creation out of the world of fiction; her +ethereal delicacy, her sunny gayety when anything amused her, her +intense sensitiveness, pained in a moment by a harsh word, pleased as +soon by a kind one, her innocence of all the blots and cruelties, +artifices and evils, of that world beyond her Nid de l'Aigle, made a +character strangely new to me, and strangely winning, but which to you I +despair of portraying: I could not have _imagined_ it. Had I never seen +her, and had I met with it in the pages of a novel, I should have put it +aside as a graceful but impossible conception of romance. + +"I went up that day to the Nid de l'Aigle, and Florelle received me with +pleasure; perhaps Madame Cazot had instilled into her some scepticism +that 'a grand seigneur,' as the woman was pleased to term me, would +trouble himself to ride up the mountains from Luz merely to repeat his +thanks for an hour's shelter and a supper of roasted chestnuts. She was +a simple-minded, good-hearted old woman, who had lived all her life +among the rocks and rivers of the Hautes-Pyrenees, her longest excursion +a market-day to Luz or Bagneres. She looked on her young mistress and +charge as a child--in truth, Florelle was but little more--and thought +my visit paid simply from gratitude and courtesy, never dreaming of +attributing it to 'cette beaute hereditaire des L'Heris,' which she was +proud of boasting was an inalienable heirloom to the family. + +"I often repeated my visits; so often, that in a week or so the old +ruined chateau grew a natural resort in the long summer days, and +Florelle watched for my coming from the deep-arched window where I had +seen her first, or from under the boughs of the great copper beech that +grew before the gate, and looked for me as regularly as though I were to +spend my lifetime in the valley of Luz. Poor child! I never told her my +title, but I taught her to call me by my christian name. It used to +sound very pretty when she said it, with her long Southern +pronunciation--prettier than it ever sounds now from the lips of +Beatrice Acqua d'Oro yonder, in her softest moments, when she plays at +sentiment. She had great natural talent for art, hitherto uncultivated, +of course, save by such instructions as one of the women at the convent, +skilful at illuminating, had occasionally given her. I amused myself +with teaching her to transfer to paper and canvas the scenery she loved +so passionately. I spent many hours training this talent of hers that +was of very unusual calibre, and, with due culture, might have ranked +her with Elisabetta Sirani or Rosa Bonheur. Sitting with her in the old +room, or under the beech-trees, or by the side of the torrents that tore +down the rocks into the Gave, it pleased me to draw out her unsullied +thoughts, to spread her mind out before me like a book--a pure book +enough, God knows, with not even a stain of the world upon it--to make +her eyes glisten and glow and dilate, to fill them with tears or +laughter at my will, to wake up her young life from its unconscious, +untroubled, childish repose to a new happiness, a new pain, which she +felt but could not translate, which dawned in her face for me, but never +spoke in its true language to her, ignorant then of its very name--it +amused me. Bah! our amusements are cruel sometimes, and costly too! + +"It was at that time I took the head in pastels which you have seen, and +she asked me, in innocent admiration of its loveliness, if she was +_indeed_ like that?--This night is awfully oppressive. Is there water in +that carafe? Is it iced? Push it to me. Thank you. + +"I was always welcome at the Nid de l'Aigle. Old Cazot, with the +instinct of servants who have lived with people of birth till they are +as proud of their master's heraldry as though it were their own, +discerned that I was of the same rank as her adored House of De +l'Heris--if indeed she admitted any equal to them--and with all the +cheery familiarity of a Frenchwoman treated me with punctilious +deference, being as thoroughly imbued with respect and adoration for the +aristocracy as any of those who died for the white lilies in the Place +de la Revolution. And Florelle--Florelle watched for me, and counted her +hours by those I spent with her. You are sure I had not read and played +with women's hearts so long--women, too, with a thousand veils and +evasions and artifices, of which she was in pure ignorance even of the +existence--without having this heart, young, unworn, and unoccupied, +under my power at once, plastic to mould as wax, ready to receive any +impressions at my hands, and moulded easily to my will. Florelle had +read no love stories to help her to translate this new life to which I +awoke her, or to put her on her guard against it. I went there often, +every day at last, teaching my pupil the art which she was only too glad +and too eager to learn, stirring her vivid imagination with descriptions +of that brilliant outside world, of whose pleasures, gayeties and +pursuits she was as ignorant as any little gentian flower on the rocks; +keeping her spell-bound with glimpses of its life, which looked to her +like fairyland, bizarre bal masque though it be to us; and pleasing +myself with awakening new thoughts, new impressions, new emotions, which +swept over her tell-tale face like the lights and shades over +meadow-land as the sun fades on and off it. She was a new study, a new +amusement to me, after the women of our world, and I beguiled my time +with her, not thoughtlessly, as I might have done, not too hastily, as I +_should_ have done ten years before, but pleased with my new amusement, +and more charmed with Florelle than I at first knew, though I confess I +soon wished to make her love me, and soon tried my best to make her do +so--an easy task when one has had some practice in the rose-hued +atmosphere of the boudoir, among the most difficile and the most +brilliant coquettes of Europe! Florelle, with a nature singularly +loving, and a mind singularly imaginative, with no rival for me even in +her fancy, soon lavished on me all the love of which her impassioned and +poetic character was capable. She did not know it, but I did. She loved +me, poor child!--love more pure, unselfish, and fond than I ever won +before, than I shall ever win again. + +"Basta! why need you have lighted on that crayon-head, and make me rake +up this story? I loathe looking at the past. What good ever comes of it? +A wise man lives only in his present. 'La vita e appunto una memoria, +una speranza, un punto,' writes the fool of a poet, as though the bygone +memories and the unrealized hopes were worth a straw! It is that very +present 'instant' that he despises which is available, and in which, +when we are in our senses, we absorb ourselves, knowing that that alone +will yield a fruit worth having. What are the fruits of the others? only +Dead Sea apples that crumble into ash. + +"I knew that Florelle loved me; that I, and I alone, filled both her +imagination and her heart. I would not precipitately startle her into +any avowal of it. I liked to see it dawn in her face and gleam in her +eyes, guilelessly and unconsciously. It was a new pleasure to me, a new +charm in that book of Woman of which I had thought I knew every phase, +and had exhausted every reading. I taught Florelle to love me, but I +would not give her a name to my teaching till she found it herself. I +returned it? O yes, I loved her, selfishly, as most people, men or +women, do love, let them say what they will; _very_ selfishly, +perhaps--a love that was beneath her--a love for which, had she seen +into my heart, she might have disdained and hated me, if her soft nature +could have been moved to so fierce a thing as hate--a love that sought +its own gratification, and thought nothing of her welfare--a love _not_ +worthy of her, as I sometimes felt then, as I believe now. + +"I had been about six weeks in the Pyrenees since the day I lost myself +en route from Gavarnie; most of the days I had spent three or four +hours, often more, at the Nid de l'Aigle, giving my painting lessons to +Florelle, or being guided by her among the beech-wooded and mountain +passes near her home. The dreariest fens and flats might have gathered +interest from such a guide, and the glorious beauties of the Midi, well +suited to her, gained additional poetry from her impassioned love for +them, and her fond knowledge of all their legends, superstitions, +histories, and associated memories, gathered from the oral lore of the +peasantry, the cradle songs of Madame Cazot, and the stories of the old +chronicles of the South. Heavens! what a wealth of imagination, talent, +genius, lay in her if _I_ had not destroyed it! + +"At length the time drew near when my so-called sojourn at the Baths +must end. One day Florelle and I were out sketching, as usual; she sat +under one of the great beeches, within a few feet of one of the cascades +that fell into the Gave du Pau, and I lay on the grass by her, looking +into those clear gazelle eyes that met mine so brightly and trustfully, +watching the progress of her brush, and throwing twigs and stones into +the spray of the torrent. I can remember the place as though it were +yesterday, the splash of the foam over the rocks, the tinkle of the +sheep-bells from the hills, the scent of the wild flowers growing round, +the glowing golden light that spread over the woodlands, touching even +the distant crest of Mount Aigu and the Pic du Midi. Strange how some +scenes will stamp themselves on the camera of the brain never to be +effaced, let one try all that one may. + +"There, that morning, I, for the first time since we had met, spoke of +leaving Luz, and of going back to that life which I had so often amused +her by describing. Happy in her present, ignorant of how soon the scenes +so familiar and dear to her would tire and pall on me, and infinitely +too much of a child to have looked beyond, or speculated upon anything +which I had not spoken of to her, it had not presented itself to her +that this sort of life could not go on for ever; that even she would not +reconcile me long to the banishment from my own world, and that in the +nature of things we must either become more to each other than we were +now, or part as strangers, whom chance had thrown together for a little +time. She loved me, but, as I say, so innocently and uncalculatingly, +that she never knew it till I spoke of leaving her; then she grew very +pale, her eyes filled with tears, and shunned mine for the first time, +and, as an anatomist watches the quiver of pain in his victim, so I +watched the suffering of mine. It was her first taste of the bitterness +of life, and while I inflicted the pain I smiled at it, pleased in my +egotism to see the power I had over her. It was cruel, I grant it, but +in confessing it I only confess to what nine out of ten men have felt, +though they may conceal or deny it. + +"'You will miss me, Florelle?' I asked her. She looked at me +reproachfully, wistfully, piteously, the sort of look I have seen in the +eyes of a dying deer; too bewildered by this sudden mention of my +departure to answer in words. No answer was needed with eyes so eloquent +as hers, but I repeated it again. I knew I gave pain, but I knew, too, I +should soon console her. Her lips quivered, and the tears gathered in +her eyes; she had not known enough of sorrow to have learnt to dissemble +it. I asked her if she loved me so much that she was unwilling to bid me +farewell. For the first time her eyes sank beneath mine, and a hot +painful color flushed over her face. Poor child! if ever I have been +loved by any woman, I was loved by her. Then I woke her heart from its +innocent peaceful rest, with words that spoke a language utterly new to +her. I sketched to her a life with me that made her cheeks glow, and her +lips quiver, and her eyes grow dark. She was lovelier in those moments +than any art could ever attempt to picture! She loved me, and I made +her tell me so over and over again. She put her fate unhesitatingly into +my hands, and rejoiced in the passion I vowed her, little understanding +how selfishly I sought her, little thinking, in her ignorance of the +evil of the world, that while she rejoiced in the fondness I lavished on +her, and worshipped me as though I were some superior unerring godlike +being, she was to me only a new toy, only a pursuit of the hour, a +plaything, too, of which I foresaw I should tire! Isn't it Benjamin +Constant who says,'Malheureux l'homme qui, dans le commencement d'un +amour, prevoit avec une precision cruelle l'heure ou il en sera lasse'? + +"As it happened, I had made that morning an appointment in Luz with some +men I knew, who happened to be passing through it, and had stopped there +that day to go up the Pic du Midi the next, so that I could spend only +an hour or two with Florelle. I took her to her home, parted with her +for a few hours, and went down the path. I remember how she stood +looking after me under the heavy gray stone-work of the gateway, the +tendrils of the ivy hanging down and touching her hair that glistened in +the sunshine as she smiled me her adieux. My words had translated, for +the first time, all the newly-dawned emotions that had lately stirred in +her heart, while she knew not their name. + +"I soon lost sight of her through a sharp turn of the bridle-path round +the rocks, and went on my way thinking of my new love, of how completely +I held the threads of her fate in my hands, and how entirely it lay in +my power to touch the chords of her young heart into acute pain or into +as acute pleasure with one word of mine--of how utterly I could mould +her character, her life, her fate, whether for happiness or misery, at +my will. I loved her well enough, if only for her unusual beauty, to +feel triumph at my entire power, and to feel a tinge of her own poetry +and tenderness of feeling stirring in me as I went on under the green, +drooping, fanlike boughs of the pines, thinking of Florelle de l'Heris. + +"'M'sieu! permettez-moi vous parle un p'tit mot?' + +"Madame Cazot's patois made me look up, almost startled for the moment, +though there was nothing astonishing in her appearance there, in her +accustomed spot under the shade of a mountain-ash and a great boulder of +rock, occupied at her usual task, washing linen in the Gave, as it +foamed and rushed over its stones. She raised herself from her work and +looked up at me, shading her eyes from the light--a sunburnt, wrinkled, +hardy old woman, with her scarlet capulet, her blue cloth jacket, and +her brown woollen petticoat, so strange a contrast to the figure I had +lately left under the gateway of the Nid de l'Aigle, that it was +difficult to believe them even of the same sex or country. + +"She spoke with extreme deference, as she always did, but so earnestly, +that I looked at her in surprise, and stopped to hear what it might be +she had to say. She was but a peasant woman, but she had a certain +dignity of manner for all that, caught, no doubt, from her long service +with, and her pride in, the De l'Heris. + +"'M'sieu, I have no right, perhaps, to address you; you are a grand +seigneur, and I but a poor peasant woman. Nevertheless, I must speak. I +have a charge to which I shall have to answer in the other world to God +and to my master. M'sieu, pardon me what I say, but you love Ma'amselle +Florelle?' + +"I stared at the woman, astonished at her interference and annoyed at +her presumption, and motioned her aside with my stick. But she placed +herself in the path--a narrow path--on which two people could not have +stood without one or other going into the Gave, and stopped me +resolutely and respectfully, shading her eyes from the sun, and looking +steadily at my face. + +"'M'sieu, a little while ago, in the gateway yonder, when you parted +with Ma'amselle Florelle, I was coming out behind you to bring my linen +to the river, and I saw you take her in your arms and kiss her many +times, and whisper to her that you would come again "ce soir!" Then, +m'sieu, I knew that you must love my little lady, or, at least, must +have made her love you. I have thought her--living always with her--but +a beautiful child still; but you have found her a beautiful woman, and +loved her, or taught her love, m'sieu. Pardon me if I wrong your honor, +but my master left her in my charge, and I am an ignorant old peasant, +ill fitted for such a trust; but is this love of yours such as the Sieur +de l'Heris, were he now on earth, would put his hand in your own and +thank you for, or is it such that he would wash out its insult in your +blood or his?' + +"Her words amazed me for a moment, first at the presumption of an +interference of which I had never dreamt, next at the iron firmness with +which this old woman, nothing daunted, spoke as though the blood of a +race of kings ran in her veins. I laughed a little at the absurdity of +this cross-questioning from her to me, and not choosing to bandy words +with her, bade her move aside; but her eyes blazed like fire; she stood +firm as the earth itself. + +"'M'sieu, answer me! You love Ma'amselle Florelle--you have asked her in +marriage?' + +"I smiled involuntarily: + +"'My good woman, men of my class don't marry every pretty face they +meet; we are not so fond of the institution. You mean well, I know; at +the same time, you are deucedly impertinent, and I am not accustomed to +interference. Have the goodness to let me pass, if you please.' + +"But she would not move. She folded her arms across her chest, quivering +from head to foot with passion, her deep-set eyes flashing like coals +under her bushy eyebrows. + +"'M'sieu, I understand you well enough. The house of the L'Heris is +fallen, ruined, and beggared, and you deem dishonor may approach it +unrebuked and unrevenged. Listen to me, m'sieu; I am but a woman, it is +true, and old, but I swore by Heaven and Our Lady to the Sieur de +l'Heris, when he lay dying yonder, years ago, that I would serve the +child he left, as my forefathers had served his in peace and war for +centuries, and keep and guard her as best I might dearer than my own +heart's blood. Listen to me. Before this love of yours shall breathe +another word into her ear to scorch and sully it; before your lips shall +ever meet hers again; before you say again to a De l'Heris poor and +powerless, what you would never have dared to say to a De l'Heris rich +and powerful, I will defend her as the eagles by the Nid de l'Aigle +defend their young. You shall only reach her across my dead body!' + +"She spoke with the vehemence and passionate gesticulation of a +Southern; in her patois, it is true, and with rude eloquence, but there +was an odd _timbre_ of pathos in her voice, harsh though it was, and a +certain wild dignity about her through the very earnestness and passion +that inspired her. I told her she was mad, and would have put her out of +my path, but, planting herself before me, she laid hold of my arm so +firmly that I could not have pushed forwards without violence, which I +would not have used to a woman, and a woman, moreover, as old as she +was. + +"'Listen to one word more, m'sieu. I know not what title you may bear in +your own country, but I saw a coronet upon your handkerchief the other +day, and I can tell you are a grand seigneur--you have the air of it, +the manner. M'sieu, you can have many women to love you; cannot you +spare this one? you must have many pleasures, pursuits, enjoyments in +your world, can you not leave me this single treasure? Think, m'sieu! If +Ma'amselle Florelle loves you now, she will love you only the dearer as +years go on; and _you_, you will tire of her, weary of her, want change, +fresh beauty, new excitement--you must know that you will, or why should +you shrink from the bondage of marriage?--you will weary of her; you +will neglect her first and desert her afterwards; what will be the +child's life _then_? Think! You have done her cruel harm enough now with +your wooing words, why will you do her more? What is your love beside +hers? If you have heart or conscience, you cannot dare to contrast them +together; _she_ would give up everything for you, and _you_ would give +up nothing! M'sieu, Florelle is not like the women of your world; she is +innocent of evil as the holy saints; those who meet her should guard her +from the knowledge, and not lead her to it. Were the Sieur De l'Heris +living now, were her House powerful as I have known them, would you have +dared or dreamt of seeking her as you do now? M'sieu, he who wrongs +trust, betrays hospitality, and takes advantage of that very purity, +guilelessness, and want of due protection which should be the best and +strongest appeal to every man of chivalry and honor--he, whoever he be, +the De l'Heris would have held, as what he is, a coward! Will you not +now have pity upon the child, and let her go?' + +"I have seldom been moved in, never been swayed from, any pursuit or any +purpose, whether of love, or pleasure, or ambition; but something in old +Cazot's words stirred me strangely, more strangely still from the daring +and singularity of the speaker. Her intense love for her young charge +gave her pathos, eloquence, and even a certain rude majesty, as she +spoke; her bronzed wrinkled features worked with emotions she could not +repress, and hot tears fell over her hard cheeks. I felt that what she +said was true; that as surely as the night follows the day would +weariness of it succeed to my love for Florelle, that to the hospitality +I had so readily received I had, in truth, given but an ill return, and +that I had deliberately taken advantage of the very ignorance of the +world and faith in me which should have most appealed to my honor. I +knew that what she said was true, and this epithet of 'coward' hit me +harder from the lips of a woman, on whom her sex would not let me avenge +it, with whom my conscience would not let me dispute it, than it would +have done from any man. _I_ called a coward by an old peasant woman! +absurd idea enough, wasn't it? It is a more absurd one still that I +could not listen to her unmoved, that her words touched me--how or why I +could not have told--stirred up in me something of weakness, +unselfishness, or chivalrousness--I know not what exactly--that prompted +me for once to give up my own egotistical evanescent passions and act to +Florelle as though all the males of her house were on earth to make me +render account of my acts. At old Cazot's words I shrank for once from +my own motives and my own desires, shrank from classing Florelle with +the _cocottes_ of my world, from bringing her down to their level and +their life. + +"'You will have pity on her, m'sieu, and go?' asked old Cazot, more +softly, as she looked in my face. + +"I did not answer her, but put her aside out of my way, went down the +mountain-path to where my horse was left cropping the grass on the level +ground beneath a plane-tree, and rode at a gallop into Luz without +looking back at the gray-turreted ruins of the Nid de l'Aigle. + +"And I left Luz that night without seeing Florelle de l'Heris again--a +tardy kindness--one, perhaps, as cruel as the cruelty from which old +Cazot had protected her. Don't you think I was a fool, indeed, for once +in my life, to listen to an old woman's prating? Call me so if you like, +I shall not dispute it; we hardly know when we are fools, and when wise +men! Well! I have not been much given to such weaknesses. + +"I left Luz, sending a letter to Florelle, in which I bade her farewell, +and entreated her to forget me--an entreaty which, while I made it, I +felt would not be obeyed--one which, in the selfishness of my heart, I +dare say, I hoped might not be. I went back to my old diplomatic and +social life, to my customary pursuits, amusements, and ambitions, +turning over the leaf of my life that contained my sojourn in the +Pyrenees, as you turn over the page of a romance to which you will never +recur. I led the same life, occupied myself with my old ambitions, and +enjoyed my old pleasures; but I could not forget Florelle as wholly as I +wished and tried to do. I had not usually been troubled with such +memories; if unwelcome, I could generally thrust them aside; but +Florelle I did not forget; the more I saw of other women the sweeter and +brighter seemed by contrast her sensitive, delicate nature, unsullied by +the world, and unstained by artifice and falsehood. The longer time went +on, the more I regretted having given her up--perhaps on no better +principle than that on which a child cares most for the toy he cannot +have; perhaps because, away from her, I realized I had lost the purest +and the strongest love I had ever won. In the whirl of my customary life +I sometimes wondered how she had received my letter, and how far the +iron had burnt into her young heart--wondered if she had joined the +Sisters of Sainte Marie Purificatrice, or still led her solitary life +among the rocks and beech-woods of Nid de l'Aigle. I often thought of +her, little as the life I led was conducive to regretful or romantic +thoughts. At length my desire to see her again grew ungovernable. I had +never been in the habit of refusing myself what I wished; a man is a +fool who does, if his wishes are in any degree attainable. And at the +end of the season I went over to Paris, and down again once more into +the Midi. I reached Luz, lying in the warm golden Pyrenean light as I +had left it, and took once more the old familiar road up the hills to +the Nid de l'Aigle. There had been no outward change from the year that +had flown by; there drooped the fan-like branches of the pines; there +rushed the Gave over its rocky bed; there came the silvery sheep-bell +chimes down the mountain-sides; there, over hill and wood, streamed the +mellow glories of the Southern sunlight. There is something unutterably +painful in the sight of any place after one's lengthened absence, +wearing the same smile, lying in the same sunlight. I rode on, picturing +the flush of gladness that would dawn in Florelle's face at the sight of +me, thinking that Mme. Cazot should not part me from her again, even, I +thought, as I saw the old gray turrets above the beech-woods, if I paid +old Cazot's exacted penalty of marriage! I loved Florelle more deeply +than I had done twelve months before. 'L'absence allument les grandes +passions et eteignent les petites,' they say. It had been the reverse +with me. + +"I rode up the bridle-path and passed through the old gateway. There was +an unusual stillness about the place; nothing but the roar of the +torrent near, and the songs of the birds in the branches speaking in the +summer air. My impatience to see Florelle, or to hear her, grew +ungovernable. The door stood open. I groped my way through the passage +and pushed open the door of the old room. Under the oriel window, where +I had seen her first, she lay on a little couch. I saw her again--but +_how_! My God! to the day of my death I shall never forget her face as I +saw it then; it was turned from me, and her hair streamed over her +pillows, but as the sunlight fell upon it, I knew well enough what was +written there. Old Cazot, sitting by the bed with her head on her arms, +looked up, and came towards me, forcing me back. + +"'You are come at last, to see her die. Look on your work--look well at +it--and then go; with my curse upon you!' + +"I shook off her grasp, and forcing my way towards the window, threw +myself down by Florelle's bed; till then I never knew how well I loved +her. My voice awoke her from her sleep, and, with a wild cry of joy, she +started up, weak as she was, and threw her arms round my neck, clinging +to me with her little hands, and crying to me deliriously not to leave +her while she lived--to stay with her till death should take her; where +had I been so long? why had I come so late? _So late!_--those piteous +words! As I held her in my arms, unconscious from the shock, and saw the +pitiless marks that disease, the most hopeless and the most cruel, had +made on the face that I had left fair, bright, and full of life as any +child's, I felt the full bitterness of that piteous reproach, 'Why had I +come so late?' + +"What need to tell you more. Florelle de l'Heris was dying, and I had +killed her. The child that I had loved so selfishly had loved me with +all the concentrated tenderness of her isolated and impassioned nature; +the letter I wrote bidding her farewell had given her her death-blow. +They told me that from the day she received that letter everything lost +its interest for her. She would sit for hours looking down the road to +Luz, as though watching wearily for one who never came, or kneeling +before the pictures I had left as before some altar, praying to Heaven +to take care of me, and bless me, and let her see me once again before +she died. Consumption had killed her mother in her youth; during the +chill winter at the Nid de l'Aigle the hereditary disease settled upon +her. When I found her she was dying fast. All the medical aid, all the +alleviations, luxuries, resources, that money could procure, to ward off +the death I would have given twenty years of my life to avert, I +lavished on her, but they were useless; for my consolation they told me +that, used a few months earlier, they would have saved her! She lingered +three weeks, fading away like a flower gathered before its fullest +bloom. Each day was torture to me. I knew enough of the disease to know +from the first there was no hope for her or me. Those long terrible +night-hours, when she lay with her head upon my shoulder, and her little +hot thin hands in mine, while I listened, uncertain whether every breath +was not the last, or whether life was not already fled! By God! I cannot +think of them! + +One of those long summer nights Florelle died; happy with me, loving and +forgiving me to the last; speaking to the last of that reunion in which +_she_, in her innocent faith, believed and hoped, according to the +promise of her creed!--died with her hands clasped round my neck, and +her eyes looking up to mine, till the last ray of light was quenched in +them--died while the morning dawn rose in the east and cast a golden +radiance on her face, the herald of a day to which she never awoke!" + + * * * * * + +There was a dead silence between us; the Arno splashed against the wall +below, murmuring its eternal song beneath its bridge, while the dark +heavy clouds drifted over the sky with a sullen roll of thunder. He lay +back in his chair, the deep shadow of the balcony pillar hiding his face +from me, and his voice quivered painfully as he spoke the last words of +his story. He was silent for many minutes, and so was I, regretting that +my careless question had unfolded a page out of his life's history +written in characters so painful to him. Such skeletons dwell in the +hearts of most; hands need be tender that disentomb them and drag out to +daylight ashes so mournful and so grievous, guarded so tenaciously, +hidden so jealously. Each of us is tender over his own, but who does not +think his brother's fit subject for jest, for gibe, for mocking dance +of death? + +He raised himself with a laugh, but his lips looked white as death as he +drank down a draught of the Hermitage. + +"Well! what say you: is the maxim right, _y-a-t-il femmes et femmes_? +Caramba! why need you have pitched upon that portfolio?--There are the +lights in the Acqua d'Oro's palace; we must go, or we shall get into +disgrace." + +We went, and Beatrice Acqua d'Oro talked very ardent Italian to him, and +the Comtesse Bois de Sandal remarked to me what a brilliant and +successful man Lord ---- was, but how unimpressionable!--as cold and as +glittering as ice. Nothing had ever made him _feel_, she was quite +certain, pretty complimentary nonsense though he often talked. What +would the Marchesa and the Comtesse have said, I wonder, had I told them +of that little grave under the Pyrenean beech-woods? So much does the +world know of any of us! In the lives of all men are doubled-down pages +written on in secret, folded out of sight, forgotten as they make other +entries in the diary, and never read by their fellows, only glanced at +by themselves in some midnight hour of solitude. + +Basta! they are painful reading, my friends. Don't you find them so? Let +us leave the skeletons in the closet, the pictures in the portfolio, the +doubled-down pages in the locked diary, and go to Beatrice Acqua +d'Oro's, where the lights are burning gayly. What is Madame Bois de +Sandal, _nee_ Dashwood, singing in the music room? + + The tender grace of a day that is dead + Will never come back to me! + +That is the burden of many songs sung in this world, for some dead +flowers strew most paths, and grass grows over myriad graves, and many +leaves are folded down in many lives, I fear. And--retrospection is very +idle, my good fellow, and regret is as bad as the tic, and flirting is +deucedly pleasant; the white Hermitage we drank to-night is gone, we +know, but are there no other bottles left of wine every whit as good? +Shall we waste our time sighing after spilt lees? Surely not. And +yet--ah me!--the dead fragrance of those vines that yielded us the +golden nectar of our youth! + + + + +THE BEAUTY OF VICQ D'AZYR; + +OR, + +"NOT AT ALL A PROPER PERSON." + + +Bon ami, do you consider the possession of sisters an agreeable addition +to anybody's existence? _I_ hold it very intensely the reverse. Who pats +a man down so spitefully as his sisters? Who refuses so obstinately to +see any good in the Nazarene they have known from their nurseries? Who +snubs him so contumaciously, when he's a little chap in jackets and they +young ladies already out? Who worries him so pertinaciously to marry +their pet friend, "who has ten thousand a year, dear! Red hair? I'm sure +she has not! It's the most lovely auburn! But you never see any beauty +in _refined_ women!" Who, if you incline towards a pretty little +ineligible, rakes up so laboriously every scrap of gossip detrimental to +her, and pours into your ear the delightful intelligence that she has +been engaged to Powell of the Grays, is a shocking flirt, wears false +teeth, is full five years older than she says she is, and has most +objectionable connections? Who, I should like to know, does any and all +of these things, my good fellow, so amiably and unremittingly as your +sisters? till--some day of grace, perhaps--you make a telling speech at +St. Stephen's, and fling a second-hand aroma of distinction upon them; +or marry a co-heiress and lady-in-her-own-right, and they _raffolent_ of +that charming creature, speculating on the desirability of being +invited to your house when the men are down for September. Then, what a +dear fellow you become! they always _were_ so fond of you! a little +wild! oh, yes! but they are _so_ glad you are changed, and think more +seriously now! it was only from a _real_ interest in your welfare that +they used to grieve, &c., &c. + +My sisters were my natural enemies, I remember, when I was in the daisy +age and exposed to their thraldom; they were so blandly superior, so +ineffably condescending, and wielded, with such smiling dexterity, that +feminine power of torture known familiarly as "nagging!" Now, of course, +they leave me in peace; but from my earliest to my emancipated years +they were my natural enemies. I might occasionally excite the enmity, it +is possible. I remember, when I was aged eight, covering Constance, a +stately brunette, with a mortifying amount of confusion, by asking her, +as she welcomed a visitor with effusion, why she said she was delighted +to see her when she had cried "There's that odious woman again!" as we +saw the carriage drive up. I have a criminal recollection of taking +Gwendolina's fan, fresh from Howell and James's, and stripping it of its +gold-powdered down before her face ere she could rush to its rescue, as +an invaluable medium in the manufacture of mayflies. I also have a dim +and guilty recollection of saying to the Hon. George Cursitt, standing +then in the interesting position of my prospective brother-in-law, "Mr. +Cursitt, Agneta doesn't care one straw for you. I heard her saying so +last night to Con; and that if you weren't so near the title, she would +never have accepted you;" which revelation inopportunely brought that +desirable alliance to an end, and Olympian thunders on my culprit's +head. + +I had my sins, doubtless, but they were more than avenged on me; my +sisters were my natural enemies, and I never knew of any man's who +weren't so, more or less. Ah! my good sirs, those domesticities are all +of them horrid bores, and how any man, happily and thrice blessedly +free from them, can take the very worst of them voluntarily on his head +by the Gate of Marriage (which differs thus remarkably from a certain +Gate at Jerusalem, that at the one the camels kneel down to be lightened +of all _their_ burdens ere they can pass through it; at the other, the +poor human animal kneels down to be loaded with all _his_ ere he is +permitted to enter), does pass my comprehension, I confess. I might +amply avenge the injuries of my boyhood received from _mesdemoiselles +mes soeurs_. Could I not tell Gwendolina of the pot of money dropped by +her caro sposo over the Cesarewitch Stakes? Could I not intimate to +Agneta where her Right Honorable lord and master spent the small hours +last night, when popularly supposed to be nodding on the Treasury +benches in the service of the state? Could I not rend the pride of +Constance, by casually asking monsieur her husband, as I sip her coffee +in her drawing-room this evening, who was that very pretty blonde with +him at the Crystal Palace yesterday? the blonde being as well known +about town as any other star of the demi-monde. Of course I could: but I +am magnanimous; I can too thoroughly sympathize with those poor fellows. +My vengeance would recoil on innocent heads, so I am magnanimous and +silent. + +My sisters have long ceased to be mesdemoiselles, they have become +mesdames, in that transforming crucible of marriage in which, assuredly, +all that glitters is not gold, but in which much is swamped, and +crushed, and fused with uncongenial metal, and from which the elixir of +happiness but rarely exhales, whatever feminine alchemists, who +patronize the hymeneal furnace, may choose to assure us to the contrary. +My sisters are indisputably very fine women, and develop in full bloom +all those essential qualities which their moral and mental trainers +sedulously instilled into them when they were limited to the +school-room and thorough-bass, Garcia and an "expurgated" Shakespeare, +the society of Mademoiselle Colletmonte and Fraeulein von Engel, and the +occasional refection of a mild, religious, respectably-twaddling fiction +of the milk-and-water, pious-tendency, nursery-chronicling, and +grammar-disregarding class, nowadays indited for the mental improvement +of a commonplace generation in general, and growing young ladies in +particular. My sisters are women of the world to perfection; indeed, for +talent in refrigerating with a glance; in expressing disdain of a +toilette or a ton by an upraised eyebrow; in assuming a various +impenetrable plait-il? expression at a moment's notice; in sweeping past +intimate friends with a charming unconsciousness of their existence, +when such unconsciousness is expedient or desirable; in reducing an +unwished-for intruder into an instantaneous and agonizing sense of his +own de trop-ism and insignificance--in all such accomplishments and +acquirements necessary to existence in all proper worlds, I think they +may be matched with the best-bred lady to be found any day, from April +to August, between Berkeley Square and Wilton Crescent. Constance, now +Lady Marechale, is of a saintly turn, and touched with fashionable +fanaticism, pets evangelical bishops and ragged school-boys, drives to +special services, and is called our noble and Christian patroness by +physicians and hon. secs., holds doctrinal points and strong tracts, +mixed together in equal proportion, an infallible chloride of lime for +the disinfectance of our polluted globe, and appears to receive +celestial telegrams of indisputable veracity and charming acrimony +concerning the destiny of the vengeful contents of the Seven Vials. +Agneta, now Mrs. Albany Protocol, is a Cabinet Ministress, and a second +Duchesse de Longueville (in her own estimation at the least); is +"strengthening her party" when she issues her dinner invitations, +whispers awfully of a "crisis" when even penny-paper leaders can't get +up a breeze, and spends her existence in "pushing" poor Protocol, who, +thorough Englishman that he is, considers it a point of honor to stand +still in all paths with praiseworthy Britannic obstinacy and opticism. +Gwendolina, now Lady Frederic Farniente, is a butterfly of fashion, has +delicate health, affects dilettanteism, is interested by nothing, has +many other charming minauderies, and lives in an exclusive circle--so +tremendously exclusive, indeed, that it is possible she may at last draw +the _cordon sanitaire_ so _very_ tight, that she will be left alone with +the pretty woman her mirrors reflect. + +They have each of them attained to what the world calls a "good +position"--an eminence the world dearly reveres; if you can climb to it, +_do_; never mind what dirt may cling to your feet, or what you may +chance to pull down in your ascent, so questions will be asked you at +the top, when you wave your flag victoriously from a plateau at a good +elevation. They haven't all their ambitions--who has? If a fresh +Alexander conquered the world he would fret out his life for a +standing-place to be able to try Archimedes' little experiment on his +newly-won globe. Lady Marechale dies for entrance to certain salons +which are closed to her; she is but a Baronet's wife, and, though so +heavenly-minded, has _some_ weaknesses of earth. Mrs. Protocol grieves +because she thinks a grateful country ought to wreathe her lord's brow +with laurels--_Anglice_, strawberry-leaves--and the country remains +ungrateful, and the brows bare. Lady Frederic frets because her foe and +rival, Lady Maria Fitz-Sachet, has footmen an inch taller than her own. +They haven't all their ambitions satisfied. We are too occupied with +kicking our dear friends and neighbors down off the rounds of the social +ladder to advance ourselves always perhaps as entirely as we otherwise +might do. But still they occupy "unexceptionable positions," and from +those fortified and impregnable citadels are very severe upon those who +are not, and very jealous of those who are, similarly favored by +fortune. When St. Peter lets ladies through the celestial portals, he'll +never please them unless he locks out all their acquaintance, and +indulges them with a gratifying peep at the rejected candidates. + +The triad regard each other after the manner of ladies; that is to say, +Lady Marechale holds Mrs. Protocol and Lady Frederic "frivolous and +worldly;" Lady Frederic gives them both one little supercilious +expressive epithet, "_precieuses_;" Mrs. Protocol considers Lady +Marechale a "pharisee," and Lady Frederic a "butterfly;"--in a word, +there is that charming family love to one another which ladies so +delight to evince, that I suppose we must excuse them for it on the plea +that + + 'Tis their nature to! + +which Dr. Watts puts forward so amiably and grammatically in excuse for +the bellicose propensities of the canine race, but which is never +remembered by priest or layman in extenuation of the human. + +They dislike one another--relatives always do--still, the three Arms +will combine their Horse, Line, and Field Batteries in a common cause +and against a common enemy; the Saint, the Politician, and the Butterfly +have several rallying-points in common, and when it comes to the +question of extinguishing an ineligible, of combining a sneer with a +smile, of blending the unexceptionably-courteous with the +indescribably-contemptuous, of calmly shutting their doors to those who +won't aggrandize them, and blandly throwing them open to those who will, +it would be an invidious task to give the golden apple, and decide which +of the three ladies most distinguishes herself in such social prowess. + +Need I say that I _don't_ see very much of them?--severe strictures on +society in general, with moral platitudes, over the luncheon wines at +Lady Marechale's; discourse redolent of blue-books, with vindictive +hits at Protocol and myself for our disinclination to accept a +"mission," and our levity of life and opinions at "a period so full of +social revolutions and wide-spread agitation as the present," through +the soup and fish at Agneta's; softly hissed acerbities and languidly +yawned satires on the prettiest women of my acquaintance, over the +coffee at Lady Frederic's; are none of them particularly inviting or +alluring. And as they or similar conversational confections are +invariably included in each of the three ladies' entertainments _en +petit comite_, it isn't wonderful if I forswear their drawing-rooms. +Cheres dames, you complain, and your chosen defenders for you, that men +don't affect your society nowadays save and except when making love to +you. It isn't _our_ fault, indeed: you bore us, and--what can we do?--we +shrink as naturally and pardonably from voluntary boredom as from any +other voluntary suffering, and shirk an air redolent of ennui from the +same principle as we do an air redolent of diphtheria. Self-preservation +is a law of nature, and female society consists too exclusively of +milk-and-water, dashed here and there with citric acid of malice, to be +either a recherche or refreshing beverage to palates that have tasted +warmer spices or more wholesome tonics. + +So I don't see much of my triad of sisters unless accidentally, but last +August I encountered them by chance at Vicq d'Azyr. Do you know Vicq +d'Azyr? No? All right? when it is known universally it will be spoilt; +it will soon be fashionable, dyspeptic, artificial, like the crowds that +will flock to it; its warm, bubbling springs will be gathered into long +upright glasses, and quaffed by yellow-visaged groups; brass bands will +bray where now the thrushes, orioles, and nightingales have the +woodlands to themselves; cavalcades of hired hacks will cut up its +thyme-covered turf, and young ladies will sketch in tortured outline and +miserable washes the glorious sweep of its mountains, the crimson tints +of its forests, the rush of its tumbling torrents, the golden gleam of +its southern sun. Vicq d'Azyr will be a Spa, and will be spoilt; +dyspepsia and bronchia, vanities and flirtations, cares and conquests, +physicians and intrigantes, real marchionesses puffing under asthma, +fictitious marquises strewing chaff for pigeons, monde and demi-monde, +grandes dames and dames d'industrie will float into it, a mighty army of +butterflies with a locust power of destruction: Vicq d'Azyr will be no +more, and in its stead we shall have--a Fashionable Bath. Vicq d'Azyr, +however, is free _yet_ from the hand of the spoiler, and is +charming--its vine-clad hills stretching up in sunny slopes; its little +homesteads nestling on the mountains' sides among the pines that load +the air with their rich heavy perfume; its torrents foaming down the +ravines, flinging their snowy spray far over the bows of arbutus and +mountain-ash that bend across the brinks of their rushing courses; its +dark-eyed peasant girls that dance at sunset under the linden-trees like +living incarnations of Florian's pastorals; its sultry brilliant summer +nights, when all is still, when the birds are sleeping among the +ilex-leaves, and the wind barely stirs the tangled boughs of the +woodland; when night is down on the mountains, wrapping hill and valley, +crag and forest in one soft purple mist, and the silence around is only +broken by the mystic music of the rushing waters, the soft whirr of the +night-birds' wings, or the distant chime of a village clock faintly +tolling through the air:----Caramba, messieurs! I beg your pardon! I +don't know why I poetize on Vicq d'Azyr. _I_ went there to slay, not to +sketch, with a rifle, not with a stylus, to kill izzards and chamois, +not to indite a poem a la mode, with double-barrelled adjectives, no +metre, and a "purpose;" nor to add my quota to the luckless loaded walls +of the Academy by a pre-Raphaelite landscape of arsenical green, with +the effete trammels of perspective gallantry disregarded, and trees +like Dr. Syntax's wife, "roundabout and rather squat," with just +two-dozen-and-seven leaves apiece for liberal allowance. I went to Vicq +d'Azyr, amongst other places, last August, for chamois-hunting with +Dunbar, of the Queen's Bays, taking up our abode at the Toison d'Or, +whither all artists, tourists, men who come for the sport, women who +come for its scenery, or invalids who come for its waters (whose +properties, _miserabile dictu!_ are just being discovered as a panacea +for every human ill--from a migraine to an "incurable pulmonary +affliction"), seek accommodation if they can have it, since it is the +only hotel in the place, though a very good one; is adorned with a +balcony running round the house, twined and buried in honeysuckle and +wild clematis, which enchants young ladies into instant promotion of it +into their sketch-books; and gives you, what is of rather more +importance, and what makes you ready to admire the clematis when, under +gastronomic exasperation, you might swear at it as a harbor for +tarantule--an omelette, I assure you, wellnigh as well cooked as you +have it at Mivart's or Meurice's. + +At the Toison d'Or we took up our abode, and at the Toison d'Or we +encountered my two elder sisters, Constance and Agneta, travelling for +once on the same road, as they had left Paris together, and were +together going on to the fashionable capital of a fashionable little toy +duchy on the other side of the Rhine, when they should have finished +with the wilder beauties and more unknown charms of Vicq d'Azyr and its +environs. Each lady had her little train of husband, courier, valet, +lady's-maid, small dog, and giant jewel-box. I have put the list in the +inverse ratio of their importance, I believe. Your husband _versus_ your +jewel-box? Of course, my dear madam; absurd! What's the value of a +little simple gold ring against a dozen glittering circlets of diamonds, +emeralds, rubies, and garnets? + +Each lady was bent on recruiting herself at Vicq d'Azyr after the toils +of the season, and of shining _apres_ with all the brilliance that a +fair share of beauty, good positions, and money, fairly entitled +them to expect, at the little Court of--we will call it +Lemongenseidlitz--denominated by its charming Duchess, Princess Helene +of Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz, the loveliest and most volage of all +minor royalties. Each lady was strongly opposed to whatever the other +wished; each thought the weather "sultry" when the other thought it +"chilly," and _vice versa_. Each considered her own ailments "unheard-of +suffering, dear!--I could never make any one feel!" &c. &c.--and assured +you, with mild disdain, that the other's malady was "purely nervous, +entirely exaggerated, but she _will_ dwell on it so much, poor darling!" +Each related to you how admirably they would have travelled if _her_ +counsel had been followed, and described how the other _would_ take the +direction of everything, _would_ confuse poor Chanderlos, the courier, +till he hardly knew where he was, and _would_ take the night express out +of pure unkindness, just because she knew how ill it always made her +(the speaker) feel to be torn across any country the whole night at that +dreadful pace; each was dissatisfied with everything, pleased with +nothing, and bored, as became ladies of good degree; each found the sun +too hot or the wind too cold, the mists too damp or the air too dry, and +both combined their forces to worry their ladies'-maids, find fault with +the viands, drive their lords to the registering of an oath never to +travel with women again, welcome us benignly, since they thought we +might amuse them, and smile their sunniest on Dunbar--he's +heir-prospective to the Gwynne Marquisate, and Lady Marqueterie, the +Saint, is not above keeping one eye open for worldly distinctions, while +Mrs. Albany Protocol, though a Radical, is, like certain others of the +ultra-Liberal party, not above a personal kow-towing before those +"ridiculous and ought-to-be exploded conservative institutions"--Rank +and Title. + +At the Toison d'Or, I say, when, after knocking over izzards _ad +libitum_ in another part of the district, we descended one evening into +the valley where Vicq d'Azyr lies nestled in the sunset light, with the +pretty vendangeuses trooping down from the sloping vineyards, and the +cattle winding homewards down the hill-side paths, and the vesper-bells +softly chiming from the convent-tower rising yonder above its woods of +linden and acacia--at the Toison d'Or, just alighting with the +respective suites aforesaid, and all those portable embarrassments of +books, tiger-skin rugs, flacons of bouquet, travelling-bags warranted to +carry any and everything that the most fastidious can require en route +from Piccadilly to Peru, with which ladies do love to encumber and +embitter their own persons and their companions' lives, we met, as I +have told you, mesdames mes soeurs. + +"What! Dear me, how very singular! Never should have dreamt of meeting +_you_; so much too quiet a place, I should have thought. No Kursaal +_here_? Come for sport--oh! Take Spes, will you! Poor little dear, he's +been barking the whole way because he couldn't see out of the window. +Ah, Major Dunbar, charmed to see you! What an amusing rencontre, is it +not?" And Lady Marechale, slightly out of temper for so eminent a +Christian at the commencement of her greeting, smoothed down her ruffled +feathers and turned smilingly on Dunbar. I have said he will be one day +Marquis of Gwynne. + +"By George, old fellow! _you_ in this out-of-the-way place! That's all +right. Sport good, here? Glad to hear it. The deuce take me, if ever I +am lured into travelling in a _partie carree_ again." + +And Marechale raised his eyebrows, and whispered confidentially to me +stronger language than I may commit to print, though, considering his +provocation, it was surely as pardonable as Uncle Toby's. + +"The thing I dislike in this sort of hotels and places is the admixture +of people with whom one is obliged to come in contact," said Constance, +putting up her glass as she entered the long low room where the humble +table d'hote of the Toison d'Or was spread. Lady Marechale talks sweetly +of the equality of persons in the sight of Heaven, but I never heard her +recognize the same upon the soil of earth. + +"Exactly! One may encounter such very objectionable characters! _I_ +wished to dine in our own apartments, but Albany said no; and he is so +positive, you know! This place seems miserably primitive," responded +Agneta. Mrs. Protocol pets Rouges and Republicans of every country, +talks liberalism like a feminine Sieyes or John Bright, projects a +Reform Bill that shall bear the strongest possible family resemblance to +the Decrets du 4 Aout, and considers "social distinctions _odious_ +between man and man;" but her practice is scarcely consistent with her +theory, seeing that she is about as tenacious and resentful of +objectionable contact as a sea-anemone. + +"Who is that, I wonder?" whispered Lady Marechale, acidulating herself +in readiness, after the custom of English ladies when catching sight of +a stranger whom they "don't know." + +"I wonder! All alone--how very queer!" echoed Mrs. Protocol, drawing her +black lace shawl around her, with that peculiar movement which announces +a woman's prescience of something antagonistic to her, that is to be +repelled _d'avance_, as surely as a hedgehog's transfer of itself into a +prickly ball denotes a sense of a coming enemy, and a need of caution +and self-protection. + +"Who is that deucedly handsome woman?" whispered Marechale to me. + +"What a charming creature!" echoed Dunbar. + +The person referred to was the only woman at the table d'hote besides my +sisters--a sister-tourist, probably; a handsome--nay more, a beautiful +woman, about eight-and-twenty, distinguished-looking, brilliant, with a +figure voluptuously perfect as was ever the Princess Borghese's. To say +a woman looks a lady, means nothing in our day. "That young lady will +wait on you, sir," says the shopman, referring to the shopwoman who will +show you your gloves. "Hand the 'errings to that lady, Joe," you hear a +fishmonger cry, as you pass his shop-door, referring by his epithet to +some Mrs. Gamp or Betsy Priggs in search of that piscatory cheer at his +stall. Heaven forbid we should give the abused and degenerate title to +any woman deserving of the name! Generalize a thing, and it is vulgar. +"A gentleman of my acquaintance," says Spriggs, an auctioneer and +house-agent, to Smith, a collector of the water-rate. "A man I know," +says Pursang, one of the Cabinet, to Greville Tempest, who is heir to a +Dukedom, and has intermarried with a royal house. The reason is plain +enough. Spriggs thinks it necessary to inform Smith, who otherwise might +remain ignorant of so signal a fact, that he actually does know a +gentleman, or rather what he terms such. Pursang knows that Tempest +would never suspect him of being _lie_ with men who were anything else; +the one is proud of the fine English, the other is content with the +simple phrase! Heaven forbid, I say, we should, nowadays, call any woman +a lady who is veritably such; let us fall back on the dignified, +definitive, courtly last-century-name of gentlewoman. I should be glad +to see that name revived; it draws a line that snobbissimi cannot pass, +and has a grand simplicity about it that will not attract Spriggs, +Smith, and Spark, and Mesdames S., leurs femmes! + +Our sister-tourist, then, at the Toison d'Or, looked, to my eyes at the +least, much more than a "lady," she looked an _aristocrate jusqu'au bout +des ongles_, a beautiful, brilliant, dazzling brunette, with lovely +hazel eyes, flashing like a tartaret falcon's under their arched +pencilled eyebrows, quite an unhoped godsend in Vicq d'Azyr, where only +stragglers resort as yet, though--alas for my Arcadia--my sister's pet +physician, who sent them thither, is about, I believe, to publish a +work, entitled "The Water-Spring in the Wilderness; or, A Scamper +through Spots Unknown," which will do a little advertising of himself +opportunely, and send hundreds next season to invade the wild woodlands +and sunny valleys he inhumanly drags forth into the gas-glare of the +world. + +The brilliant hazel eyes were opposite to me at dinner, and were, I +confess, more attractive to me than the stewed pigeons, the crisp +frog-legs, and the other viands prepared by the (considering we were in +the heart of one of the most remote provinces) really not bad cook of +the Toison d'Or. Lady Marechale and Mrs. Protocol honored her with that +stare by which one woman knows so well how to destroy the reputation of +another without speech; they had taken her measurement by some method of +feminine geometry unknown to us, and the result was apparently not +favorable to her, for over the countenances of the two ladies gathered +that expression of stiff dignity and virtuous disdain, in the assuming +of which, as I have observed before, they are inimitable proficients. +"Evidently not a proper person!" was written on every one of their +lineaments. Constance and Agneta had made up their minds with celerity +and decision as to her social status, with, it is to be presumed, that +unerring instinct which leads their sex to a conclusion so +instantaneously, that, according to a philosopher, a woman will be at +the top of the staircase of Reasoning by a single spring, while a man is +toiling slowly up the first few steps. + +"You are intending to remain here some days, madame?" asked the fair +stranger, with a charming smile, of Lady Marechale--a pleasant little +overture to chance ephemeral acquaintance, such as a table d'hote +surely well warrants. + +But the pleasant little overture was one to which Lady Marechale was far +too English to respond. With that inimitable breeding for which our +countrymen and women are continentally renowned, she bent her head with +stately stiffness, indulged herself with a haughty stare at the +offender, and turned to Agneta, to murmur in English her disgust with +the _cuisine_ of the really unoffending Toison d'Or. + +"Poor Spes would eat nothing. Fenton must make him some panada. But +perhaps there was nothing better than goat's milk in the house! What +could Dr. Berkeley be thinking of? He described the place quite as +though it were a second Meurice's or Badischer Hof!" + +A look of amusement glanced into the sparkling, yet languid eyes of my +opposite neighbor. + +"English!" she murmured to herself, with an almost imperceptible but +sufficiently scornful elevation of her arched eyebrows, and a slight +smile, just showing her white teeth, as I addressed her in French; and +she answered me with the ease, the aplomb, the ever suave courtesy of a +woman of the world, with that polish which gives the most common +subjects a brilliance never their own, and that vivacity which confers +on the merest trifles a spell to amuse and to charm. She was certainly a +very lovely creature, and a very charming one, too; frank, animated, +witty, with the tone of a woman who has seen the world and knows it. +Dunbar adored her, at first sight; he is an inflammable fellow, and has +been ignited a thousand times at far less provocation. Marechale +prepared for himself fifty conjugal orations by the recklessness with +which, under the very eyes of madame, he devoted himself to another +woman. Even Albany Protocol, dull, somnolent, and superior to such +weaknesses, as becomes a president of many boards and a chairman of +many committees, opened his eyes and glanced at her; and some young +Cantabs and artists at the other end of the table stopped their own +conversation, envying Dunbar and myself, I believe, for our +juxtaposition with the _belle inconnue_; while my sisters sat trifling +with the wing of a pigeon, in voluntary starvation (they would have had +nothing to complain of, you see, if they had suffered themselves to dine +well!), with strong disapprobation marked upon their lineaments, of this +lovely vivacious unknown, whoever she might be, talking exclusively to +each other, with a certain expression of sarcastic disdain and offended +virtue, hinting far more forcibly than words that they thought already +the "very worst" of her. + +So severe, indeed, did they look, that Dunbar, who is a good-natured +fellow, and thinks--and thinks justly--that Constance and Agneta are +very fine women, left me to discuss, Hoffmann, Heine, and the rest of +Germany's satirical poets, with my opposite neighbor, and endeavored to +thaw my sisters; a very difficult matter when once those ladies are +iced. He tried Paris, but only elicited a monosyllabic remark concerning +its weather; he tried Vicq d'Azyr, and was rewarded for his trouble by a +withering sarcasm on the unlucky Toison d'Or; he tried chit-chat on +mutual acquaintances, and the unhappy people he chanced to name were +severally dismissed with a cutting satire appended to each. Lady +Marechale and Mrs. Protocol were in one of those freezing and +unassailable moods in which they sealed a truce with one another, and, +combining their forces against a common foe, dealt out sharp, spherical, +hard-hitting little bullets of speech from behind the abatis in which +they intrenched themselves. + +At last he, in despair, tried Lemongenseidlitz, and the ladies thawed +slightly--their anticipations from that fashionable little quarter were +couleur de rose. They would meet their people of the best _monde_, all +their dearest--that is of course their most fashionable--friends; the +dear Duchess of Frangipane, the Millamonts those charming people, +M. le Marquis de Croix-et-Cordon, Sir Henry Pullinger, Mrs. +Merivale-Delafield, were all there; that delightful person, too, the +Graf von Rosenlaeu, who amused them so much at Baden last year, was, as +of course Dunbar knew, Master of the Horse to the Prince of +Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz; they would be well received at the +Court. Which last thing, however, they did not _say_, though they might +imply, and assuredly fully thought it; since Lady Marechale already +pictured herself gently awakening his Serene Highness to the spiritual +darkness of his soul in legitimatizing gaming-tables in his duchy, and +Mrs. Protocol already beheld herself closeted with his First Minister, +giving that venerable Metternich lessons in political economy, and +developing to him a system for filling his beggared treasury to +overflowing, without taxing the people a kreutzer--a problem which, +though it might have perplexed Kaunitz, Colbert, Pitt, Malesherbes, +Talleyrand, and Palmerston put together, offered not the slightest +difficulty to _her_ enterprising intellect. Have I not said that +Sherlock states women are at the top of the staircase while we are +toiling up the first few steps? + +"The Duchess--Princess Helene is a lovely woman, I think. Winton saw her +at the Tuileries last winter, and raved about her beauty," said Dunbar, +finding he had hit at last on an acceptable subject, and pursuing it +with more zeal than discretion; for if there be one thing, I take it, +more indiscreet than another, it is to praise woman to woman. + +Constance coughed and Agneta smiled, and both assented. "Oh yes--very +lovely, they believed!" + +"And very lively--up to everything, I think I have heard," went on +Dunbar, blandly, unconscious of the meaning of cough, smile, and +assent. + +"Very lively!" sighed the Saint. + +"_Very_ lively!" smiled the Politician. + +"As gay a woman as Marie Antoinette," continued Dunbar, too intent on +the truffles to pay en meme temps much heed to the subject he was +discussing. "She's copied the Trianon, hasn't she?--has fetes and +pastorals there, acts in comedies herself, shakes off etiquette and +ceremonial as much as she can, and all that sort of thing, I believe?" + +Lady Marechale leaned back in her chair, the severe virtue and dignified +censure of a British matron and a modern Lucretia expressed in both +attitude and countenance. + +"A second Marie Antoinette?--too truly and unfortunately so, I have +heard! Levity in _any_ station sufficiently reprehensible, but when +exhibited in the persons of those whom a higher power has placed in +exalted positions, it is most deeply to be deplored. The evil and +contagion of its example become incalculable; and even when, which I +believe her excusers are wont to assert of Princess Helene, it is merely +traceable to an over-gayety of spirit and an over-carelessness of +comment and censure, it should be remembered that we are enjoined to +abstain from every _appearance_ of evil!" + +With which Constance shook out her phylacteries, represented by the +thirty-guinea bracade-silk folds of her skirt (a dress I heard her +describe as "very plain!--serviceable for travelling"), and glanced at +my opposite neighbor with a look which said, "You are evidently not a +proper person, but you hear for once what a proper person thinks!" + +Our charming companion did hear it, for she apparently understood +English very well. She laughed a little--a sweet, low, ringing laugh--(I +was rather in love with her, I must say--I am still)--and spoke with a +slight pretty accent. + +"True, madame! but ah! what a pity your St. Paul did not advise, too, +that people should not go by appearances, and think evil where evil is +not!" + +Lady Marechale gave stare number two with a curl of her lip, and bent +her head stiffly. + +"What a very strange person!" she observed to Agneta, in a murmur, +meant, like a stage aside, to be duly heard and appreciated by the +audience. And yet my sisters are thought very admirably bred women, too! +But then, a woman alone--a foreigner, a stranger--surely no one would +exact courtesy to such, from "ladies of position?" + +"Have you ever seen Princess Helene, the Duchess of Lemongenseidlitz, +may I ask?" Marechale inquired, hastily, to cover his wife's sneer. He's +a very good fellow, and finds the constant and inevitable society of a +saint slightly trying, and a very heavy chastisement for a few words +sillily said one morning in St. George's. + +"I have seen her, monsieur--yes!" + +"And is she a second Marie Antoinette?" + +She laughed gayly, showing her beautiful white teeth. + +"Ah, bah, monsieur! many would say that is a great deal too good a +comparison for her! A second Louise de Savoie--a second Duchesse de +Chevreuse--nay, a second Lucrezia Borgia, some would tell you. She likes +pleasure--who does not, though, except those with whom 'les raisins sont +trop verts et bons pour des goujats?'" + +"What an insufferably bold person!" murmured Constance. + +"Very disagreeable to meet this style of people!" returned Agneta. + +And both stiffened themselves with a little more starch; and we know +that British wheats produce the stiffest starch in the world! + +"Who, indeed!" cried Marechale, regardless of madame's frown. "You know +this for truth, then, of Princess Helene?" + +"Ah, bah, monsieur! who knows anything for truth?" laughed the lovely +brunette. "The world dislikes truth so much, it is obliged to hide +itself in out-of-the-way corners, and very rarely comes to light. Nobody +knows the truth about her. Some think her, as you say, a second Marie +Antoinette, who is surrendered to dissipation and levity, cares for +nothing, and would dance and laugh over the dead bodies of the people. +Others judge her as others judged Marie Antoinette; discredit the +gossip, and think she is but a lively woman, who laughs at forms, likes +to amuse herself, and does not see why a court should be a prison! The +world likes the darker picture best; let it have it! I do not suppose it +will break her heart!" + +And the fair stranger laughed so sweetly, that every man at the +dinner-table fell in love with her on the spot; and Lady Marechale and +Mrs. Protocol sat throughout the remainder of the meal in frozen dignity +and unbreakable silence, while the lovely brunette talked with and +smiled on us all with enchanting gayety, wit, and abandon, chatting on +all sorts of topics of the day. + +Dinner over, she was the first to rise from the table, and bowed to us +with exquisite grace and that charming smile of hers, of which the +sweetest rays fell upon _me_, I swear, whether you consider the oath an +emanation of personal vanity or not, my good sir. My sisters returned +her bow and her good evening to them with that pointed stare which says +so plainly, "You are not my equal, how dare you insult me by a +courtesy?" + +And scarcely had we begun to sip our coffee up-stairs in the apartments +Chanderlos had secured for the miladies Anglaises, than the duo upon her +began as the two ladies sat with Spes between them on a sofa beside one +of the windows opening on the balcony that ran round the house. A chance +inadvertent assent of Dunbar's, a propos of--oh, sin unpardonable!--the +beauty of the incognita's eyes, touched the valve and unloosened the +hot springs that were seething below in silence. "A handsome woman!--oh +yes, a gentleman's beauty, I dare say!--but a very odd person!" +commenced Mrs. Protocol. "A very strange person!" assented Mrs. +Marechale. "Very free manners!" added Agneta. "Quite French!" chorused +Constance. "She has diamond rings--paste, no doubt!" said the +Politician. "And rouges--the color's much too lovely to be natural!" +sneered the Saint. "Paints her eyebrows, too!" "Not a doubt--and tints +her lashes!" "An adventuress, I should say!" "Or worse!" "Evidently not +a proper person!" "Certainly not!" + +Through the soft mellow air, hushed into evening silence, the words +reached me, as I walked through the window on to the balcony, and stood +sipping my coffee and looking lazily over the landscape wrapped in +sunset haze, over the valley where the twilight shadows were deepening, +and the mountains that were steeped yet in a rose-hued golden radiance +from the rays that had sunk behind them. + +"My dear ladies," I cried, involuntarily, "can't you find anything a +little more kindly to say of a stranger who has never done you any harm, +and who, fifty to one, will never cross your path again?" + +"Bravo!" echoed Marechale, who has never gone as quietly in the +matrimonial break as Protocol, and indeed will never be thoroughly +broken in--"bravo! women are always studying to make themselves +attractive; it's a pity they don't put down among the items a trifle of +generosity and charity, it would embellish them wonderfully." + +Lady Marechale beat an injured tattoo with the spoon on her saucer, and +leaned back with the air of a martyr, and drawing in her lips with a +smile, whose inimitable sneer any lady might have envied--it was quite +priceless! + +"It is the first time, Sir George, I should presume, that a husband and +a brother were ever heard to unite in upbraiding a wife and a sister +with her disinclination to associate with, or her averseness to +countenance, an improper person!" + +"An improper person!" I cried. "But, my dear Constance, who ever told +you that this lady you are so desperately bitter upon has any fault at +all, save the worst fault in her own sex's eyes--that of beauty? I see +nothing in her; her manners are perfect; her tone----" + +"You must pardon me if I decline taking your verdict on so delicate a +question," interrupted Lady Marechale, with withering satire. "Very +possibly you see nothing objectionable in her--nothing, at least, that +_you_ would call so! Your views and mine are sufficiently different on +every subject, and the women with whom I believe you have chiefly +associated are not those who are calculated to give you very much +appreciation for the more refined classes of our sex! Very possibly the +person in question is what _you_, and Sir George too, perhaps, find +charming; but you must excuse me if I really cannot, to oblige you, +stoop to countenance any one whom my intuition and my knowledge of the +world both declare so very evidently what she should not be. She will +endeavor, most probably, if she remain here, to push herself into our +acquaintance, but if you and my husband should choose to insult us by +favoring her efforts, Agneta and I, happily, can guard ourselves from +the objectionable companionship into which those who _should_ be our +protectors would wish to force us!" + +With which Lady Marechale, with a little more martyrdom and an air of +extreme dignity, had recourse to her _flacon_ of Viola Montana, and sank +among the sofa cushions, a model of outraged and Spartan virtue. I set +down my coffee-cup, and lounged out again to the peace of the balcony; +Marechale shrugged his shoulders, rose, and followed me. Lo! on the +part of the balcony that ran under _her_ windows, leaning on its +balustrade, her white hand, white as the flowers, playing with the +clematis tendrils, the "paste" diamond flashing in the last rays of the +setting sun, stood our "dame d'industrie--or worse!" She was but a few +feet farther on; she must have heard Lady Marechale's and Mrs. +Protocol's duo on her demerits; she _had_ heard it, without doubt, for +she was laughing gayly and joyously, laughter that sparkled all over her +_riante_ face and flashed in her bright falcon eyes. Laughing still, she +signed me to her. I need not say that the sign was obeyed. + +"Chivalrous knight, I thank you! You are a Bayard of chivalry; you +defend the absent! What a miracle, mon Dieu! Tell your friends from me +not to speak so loudly when their windows are open; and, for yourself, +rest assured your words of this evening will not be forgotten." + +"I am happy, indeed, if I have been fortunate enough to obtain a chance +remembrance, but do not give me too much praise for so simple a service; +the clumsiest Cimon would be stirred into chivalry under such +inspiration as I had----" + +The beautiful hazel eyes flashed smilingly on me under their lashes. +(_Those_ lashes tinted! Heaven forgive the malice of women!) She broke +off a sprig of the clematis, with its long slender leaves and fragrant +starry flowers, and gave it to me. + +"_Tenez, mon ami_, if ever you see me again, show me that faded flower, +and I shall remember this evening at Vicq d'Azyr. Nay, do not flatter +yourself--do not thrust it in your breast; it is no gage d'amour! it is +only a reward for loyal service, and a souvenir to refresh my own +memory, which is treacherous sometimes, though not in gratitude to those +who serve me. Adieu, mon Bayard--et bonsoir!" + +But I retained the hand that had given me my clematis-spray. + +"Meet you again! But will not that be to-morrow? If I am not to see you, +as your words threaten, till the clematis be faded and myself forgotten, +let me at least, I beseech you, know where, who, by what name----" + +She drew her hand away with something of a proud, surprised gesture; +then she laughed again that sweet, ringing, mocking laugh: + +"No, no, Bayard, it is too much to ask! Leave the future to hazard; it +is always the best philosophy. Au revoir! Adieu--perhaps for a day, +perhaps for a century!" + +And the bewitching mystery floated away from me and through the open +window of her room. You will imagine that my "intuition" did not lead me +to the conclusion to which Lady Marechale's led her, or assuredly should +I have followed the donor of the clematis, despite her prohibition. Even +with my "intuition" pointing where it did, I am not sure what I might +have done if, in her salon, I had not caught sight of a valet and a +lady's maid in waiting with her coffee, and they are not such spectators +as one generally selects. + +The servants closed her windows and drew down their Venetian blinds, and +I returned to my coffee. Whether the two ladies within had overheard her +conversation as she had heard theirs, I cannot say, but they looked +trebly refrigerated, had congealed themselves into the chilliest human +ice that is imaginable, and comported themselves towards me fully as +distantly as though I had brought a dozen ballet-girls in to dinner with +them, or introduced them to my choicest acquaintance from the Chateau +des Fleurs. + +"A man's taste is so pitiably low!" remarked Lady Marechale, in her +favorite stage aside to Mrs. Protocol; to which that other lady +responded, "Disgracefully so!" + +Who _was_ my lovely unknown with the bright falcon eyes and the charming +laugh, with her strange freedom that yet was _not_, somehow, free, and +her strange fascination? I bade my man ask Chanderlos her +name--couriers know everything generally--but neither Mills nor +Chanderlos gave me any information. The people of the house did not +know, or said they did not; they only knew she had servants in +attendance who came with her, who revealed nothing, and paid any price +for the best of everything. Are impertinent questions ever asked where +money is plentiful? + +I was dressing the next morning something later than usual, when I heard +the roll of a carriage in the courtyard below. I looked through the +half-open persiennes with a semi-presentiment that it was my sweet +foreigner who was leaving ere I could presume on my clematis or improve +our acquaintance. True enough, she it was, leaving Vicq d'Azyr in a +travelling-carriage, with handsome roans and servants in imperial-blue +liveries. Who the deuce could she be? + +"Well, Constance," said I, as I bade Lady Marechale good morning, "your +_bete noire_ won't 'press herself into your acquaintance,' as you were +dreading last night, and won't excite Marechale and me to any more high +treason. Won't you chant a Te Deum? She left this morning." + +"So I perceived," answered Lady Marechale, frigidly; by which I suppose +_she_ had not been above the weakness of looking through _her_ +persiennes. + +"What a pity you and Agneta agitated yourselves with such unnecessary +alarm! It must have cost you a great deal of eau-de-Cologne and +sal-volatile, I am afraid, last night. Do you think she contaminated the +air of the salle-a-manger, because I will order Mills to throw some +disinfectant about before you go down?" + +"I have no inclination to jest upon a person of that stamp," rejoined +Lady Marechale, with immense dignity, settling her turquoise +wristband-studs. + +"'That stamp of persons!' What! Do you think she is an adventuress, an +intrigante, 'or worse' still, then? I hoped her dashing equipage might +have done something towards cleansing her character. Wealth _is_ a +universal purifier generally." + +"Flippant impertinence!" murmured Lady Marechale, disgustedly, to Mrs. +Protocol, as she swept onwards down the staircase, not deigning me a +glance, much less a response, stiffening herself with a little extra +starch of Lucretian virtue and British-matronly dignity, which did not +grow limp again throughout breakfast, while she found fault with the +chocolate, considered the _petits pains_ execrable, condemned the +sardines as uneatable, petted Spes, kept Marechale and me at Coventry, +and sighed over their enforced incarceration, by Dr. Berkeley's orders, +in Vicq d'Azyr, that kept them in this stupid place away from +Lemongenseidlitz. + +Their anticipations from Lemongenseidlitz were charmingly golden and +rose-tinted. They looked forward to consolidating their friendship with +the dear Duchess in its balmy air, to improving a passing acquaintance +into an intimate one with that charming person the Baroness +Liebenfrauenmilch, Mistress of the Robes to Princess Helene, and to +being very intimate at the Court, while the Pullingers (their +bosom-friends and very dear rivals) would be simply presented, and +remain in chagrin, uninvited to the state balls and palace festivities. +And what more delightful than that last clause? for what sauce invented, +from Careme to Soyer, flavors our own _plats_ so deliciously, I should +like to know, as thinking that our beloved next-door neighbor is doomed +to a very dry cutlet? + +As Perette, in a humbler fashion, built visions from the pot of milk, so +mesdames mes soeurs, from the glittering court and capital of +Lemongenseidlitz, erected brilliant chateaux en Espagne of all their +sayings and doings in that fashionable little city whither they were +bound, and into which they had so many invaluable passports. They were +impatient to be journeying from our humble, solitary valley, and after +a month of Vicq d'Azyr, they departed for their golden land, and I went +with them, as I had slain izzards almost _ad nauseam_, and Dunbar's +expiration of leave had taken him back to Dublin. + +It was five o'clock when we reached its Reidenscher Hof, nine when we +had finished dinner. It was stupid work yawning over coffee and +_Galignani_. What was to be done? Marechale proposed the Opera, and for +the first time in his life was unopposed by his wife. Constance was in a +suave, benignant mood; she was thinking of her Graf von Rosenlaeu, of the +Pullingers, and of the sweet, adroit manner in which she would--when she +had captivated him and could proffer such hints--awaken his Serene +Highness to a sense of his moral guilt in not bringing to instant +capital punishment every agent in those Satanus-farmed banks that throve +throughout his duchy. Lady Marechale and Mrs. Protocol assented, and to +the little miniature gayly-decorated Opera House we drove. They were in +the middle of the second act of "Ernani." "Ernani" was stale to us all, +and we naturally lorgne'd the boxes in lieu of the stage. I had turned +my glass on the left-hand stage-box, and was going steadily round, when +a faint cry of dismay, alarm, amazement, horror, broke, muffled and low, +from mesdames mes soeurs. Their lorgnons were riveted on one spot; their +cheeks were blanched; their hands were tremulous; if they had beheld a +spiritual visitant, no consternation more profound, more intense, could +have seized both with its iron hand. _My_ sisters too! the chilliest, +the calmest, the most impenetrable, the most unassailable of mortals! + +"And we called her, in her hearing, not a proper person?" gasped Lady +Marechale. + +"We thought her a lorette! an intrigante! a dame d'industrie!" echoed +Mrs. Protocol. + +"Who wore paste jewels!" + +"Who came from the Rue Breda!" + +"Who wanted to know us!" + +"Whom we wouldn't know!" + +I turned my Voightlander where their Voightlanders turned; there, in the +royal box, leaning back in the fauteuil that marked her rank, there, +with her lovely hazel eyes, her witching smile, her radiant beauty, +matchless as the pearls gleaming above her brow, there sat the +"adventuress--or worse!" of Vicq d'Azyr; the "evidently a not proper +person" of my discerning sisters--H.S.H. Princess Helene, Grand-Duchess +of Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz! Great Heavens! how had we never +guessed her before? How had we never divined her identity? How had we +never remembered all we had heard of her love of laisser-aller, her +taste for adventure, her delight in travelling, when she could, +unattended and incognita? How had we never put this and that together, +and penetrated the metamorphosis? + +"_And I called her not a proper person!_" gasped Lady Marechale, again +shrinking back behind the azure curtains; the projectiles she had shot +with such vindictive severity, such delighted acrimony, from the +murderous mortar of malice, recoiling back upon her head for once, and +crushing her to powder. What reception would they have _now_ at the +Court? Von Rosenlaeu would be powerless; the Pullingers themselves would +be better off! Perette's pot of milk was smashed and spilt! "Adieu, +veau, vache, cochon, couvee!" + + * * * * * + +When the pitcher lies shivered into fragments, and the milk is spilt, +you know, poor Perette's dreams are shivered and spilt with them. "I +have not seen you at the palace yet?" asked her Grace of Frangipane. "We +do not see you at the Court, mesdames?" asked M. de la Croix-et-Cordons. +"How did it happen you were not at the Duchess's ball last night?" asked +"those odious Pullingers." And what had my sister to say in reply? My +clematis secured _me_ a charming reception--how charming I don't feel +called upon to reveal--but Princess Helene, with that calm dignity which +easily replaced, when she chose, her witching _abandon_, turned the +tables upon her detractors, and taught them how dangerous it may be to +speak ill--of the wrong people. + + + + +A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE: + +PENDANT TO A PORTRAIT BY MIGNARD. + + +She was surpassingly fair, Madame la Marquise. Mignard's portraits of +her may fully rival his far-famed Portrait aux Amours. One of them has +her painted as Venus Victrix, in the fashion of the day; one of them, as +herself, as Leontine Opportune de Vivonne de Rennecourt, Marquise de la +Riviere, with her creve-coeurs, and her diamonds, and her gay smile, +showing her teeth, white and gleaming as the pearls mingled with her +curls a la mode Montespan. Not Louise de la Beaume-le-Blanc, when the +elm-boughs of St. Germain first flung their shadow on her golden head, +before it bent for the Carmelite veil before the altar in the Rue St. +Jacques; not Henriette d'Angleterre, when she listened to the trouveres' +romances sung under her balcony at St. Cloud, before her young life was +quenched by the hand of Morel and the order of Monsieur; not Athenais de +Mortemart, when the liveries of lapis lazuli blue dashed through the +streets of Paris, and the outriders cleared her path with their whips, +before the game was lost, and the iron spikes were fastened inside the +Montespan bracelets;--none of them, her contemporaries and +acquaintances, eclipsed in loveliness Madame la Marquise. Had she but +been fair instead of dark, the brown Bourbon eyes would have fallen on +her of a surety; she would have outshone the lapis lazuli liveries with +a royal guard of scarlet and gold, and her friend Athenais would have +hated her as that fair lady hated "la sotte Fontanges" and "Saint +Maintenon;" for their sex, in all ages, have remembered the sage's +precept, "Love as though you will one day hate," and invariably carry +about with them, ready for need, a little essence of the acid of Malice, +to sour in an instant the sugared cream of their loves and their +friendships if occasion rise up and the storm-cloud of rivalry loom in +the horizon. + +She was a beauty, Madame la Marquise, and she knew it, as she leaned out +over the balcony of her chateau of Petite Foret, that lay close to +Clagny, under the shadow of the wood of Ville d'Avree, outside the gates +of Versailles, looking down on her bosquets, gardens, and terraces +designed by Le Notre; for though she was alone, and there was nothing +but her little dog Osmin to admire her white skin, and her dark eyes, +and her beautiful hands and arms, and her diamond pendants that +glittered in the moonlight, she smiled, her flashing triumphant smile, +as she whispered to herself, "He is mine--mine! Bah! how can he help +himself?" and pressed the ruby agraffe on her bosom with the look of a +woman who knew no resistance, and brooked no reluctance to worship at +her shrine. + +Nothing ever opposed Madame la Marquise, and life went smoothly on with +her. If Bossuet ever reproved her, it was in those _anathemes caches +sous des fleurs d'oranger_ in which that politic priest knew how to deal +when expedient, however haughty and relentless to the world in general. +M. le Marquis was not a savage eccentricity like M. de Pardaillon de +Gondran, would never have dreamt of imitating the eccentricity of going +into mourning, but if the Bourbon eye _had_ fallen on his wife, would +have said, like a loyal peer of France, that all his household treasures +were the King's. Disagreeables fled before the scintillations of her +smiles, as the crowd fled before her gilded carriage and her Flanders +horses; and if ever a little fit of piety once in a while came over her, +and Conscience whispered a mal a propos word in her delicate ear, she +would give an enamelled lamp to Sainte Marie Reparatrice, by the advice +of the Comtesse de Soubise and the Princesse de Monaco (who did such +expiatory things themselves, and knew the comfort they afforded), and +emerge from her repentance one of the most radiant of all the brilliant +butterflies that fluttered their gorgeous wings in the Jardin de Flore +under the sunny skies of Versailles. + +The moonlight glittered on the fountains, falling with measured splash +into their marble basins; the lime-leaves, faintly stirred by the sultry +breezes, perfumed the night with their voluptuous fragrance, and the +roses, twining round the carved and gilded balustrade, shook off their +bowed head drops of dew, that gleamed brightly as the diamonds among the +curls of the woman who leaned above, resting her delicate rouged cheek +on her jewelled hand, alone--a very rare circumstance with the Marquise +de la Riviere. Osmin did not admire the rare solitude, for he rattled +his silver bells and barked--an Italian greyhound's shrill, fretful +bark--as his quick ears caught the distant sound of steps coming swiftly +over the turf below, and his mistress smiled as she patted his head: + +"Ah, Osmin!--here he is?" + +A man came out from under the heavy shadow of lime sand chestnuts, whose +darkness the moon's rays had no power to pierce, crossed the lawn just +under the balcony, and, coming up the terrace-steps, stood near her--a +man, young, fair, handsome, whose age and form the uniform of a Captain +of the Guards would have suited far better than the dark robes of a +priest, which he wore; his lips were pressed closely together, and his +face was pale with a pallor that consorted painfully with the warm +passionate gleam of his eyes. + +"So! You are late in obeying my commands, monsieur!" + +Surely no other man in France would have stood silent beside her, under +the spell of her dazzling glances, with such a picture before him as +Madame la Marquise, in her azure silk and her point d'Angleterre, with +her diamond pendants shaking among her hair, and her arched eyebrows +lifted imperiously! But he did; his lips pressed closer, his eyes +gleaming brighter. She changed her tone; it was soft, seductive, +reproachful, and the smile on her lips was tender--as tender as it ever +could be with the mockery that always lay under it; and it broke at last +the spell that bound him, as she whispered, "Ah! Gaston, you love me no +longer!" + +"Not love you? O God!" + +They were but five words, but they told Madame la Marquise of a passion +such as she had never roused, despite all her fascinations and +intrigues, in the lovers that crowded round her in the salons within, or +at Versailles, over the trees yonder, where love was gallantry, and all +was light comedy, with nothing so foolish as tragedy known. + +He clasped her hands so closely that the sharp points of the diamond +rings cut his own, though he felt them not. + +"Not love you? Great Heaven! Not love you? Near you, I forget my oath, +my vows, my God!--I forget all, save you, whom I adore, as, till I met +you, I adored my Church. Torture endured with you were dearer than +Paradise won alone! Once with you, I have no strength, you bow me to +your will as the wind bows the lime-leaf. Oh! woman, woman! could you +have no mercy, that with crowds round you daily worshipping your +slightest smile, you must needs bow _me_ down before your glance, as you +bow those who have no oaths to bind them, no need to scourge themselves +in midnight solitude for the mere crime of Thought? Had you no mercy, +that with all hearts yours, you must have mine to sear it and destroy +it? Have you not lives enough vowed to you, that you seek to blast mine +for ever? I was content, untroubled, till I met you; no woman's glance +stirred my heart, no woman's eyes haunted my vigils, no woman's voice +came in memory between my soul and prayer! What devil tempted you to +throw your spells over me--could you not leave _one_ man in peace?" + +"Ah bah! the tempted love the game of temptation generally full as well +as the tempters!" thought Madame la Marquise, with an inward laugh. + +Why did she allow such language to go unrebuked? Why did she, to whom +none dared to breathe any but words the most polished, and love vows the +most honeyed, permit herself to be addressed in such a strain? Possibly +it was very new to her, such energy as this, and such an outbreak of +passion amused her. At any rate she only drew her hands away, and her +brilliant brown eyes filled with tears;--tears _were_ to be had at +Versailles when needed, even her friend Montespan knew how to use them +as the worst weapons against the artillery of the Eveque de Comdom--and +her heart heaved under the filmy lace. + +"Ah, Gaston! what words! 'What devil tempted me?' I know scarcely +whether love be angel or devil; he seems either or both! But you love me +little, unless in that name you recognize a plea for every madness and +every thought!" + +The scarlet blood flushed over his face, and his eyes shone and gleamed +like fire, while he clenched his hands in a mortal anguish. + +"Angel or devil? Ay! which, indeed! The one when it comes to us, the +other when it leaves us! You have roused love in me I shall bear to my +grave; but what gage have I that you give it me back? How do I know but +that even now you are trifling with me, mocking at me, smiling at the +beardless priest who is unlearned in all the gay gallantries of +libertine churchmen and soldierly courtiers? My Heaven! how know, as I +stand beside you, whether you pity or disdain me, love or scorn me?" + +The passionate words broke in a torrent from his lips, stirred the +stillness of the summer eve with a fiery anguish little akin to it. + +"Do I not love you?" + +Her answer was simple; but as Leontine de Rennecourt spoke it, leaning +her cheek against his breast, with her eyes dazzling as the diamonds in +her hair, looking up into his by the light of the stars, they had an +eloquence far more dangerous than speech, and delirious to the senses as +magician's perfumes. His lips lingered on hers, and felt the loud fast +throbs of the heart she had won as he bent over her, pressing her closer +and closer to him--vanquished and conquered, as men in all ages and of +all creeds have been vanquished and conquered by women, all other +thoughts fleeing away into oblivion, all fears dying out, all vows +forgotten in the warm, living life of passion and of joy, that, for the +first time in a brief life, flooded his heart with its golden voluptuous +light. + +"You love me? So be it," he murmured; "but beware what you do, my life +lies in your hands, and you must be mine till death part us!" + +"Till my fancy change rather!" thought Madame la Marquise, as she put +her jewelled hand on his lips, her hair softly brushing his cheek, with +a touch as soft, and an odor as sweet, as the leaves of one of the roses +twining below. + +Two men strolling below under the limes of Petite Foret--discussing the +last scandals of Versailles, talking of the ascendency of La Fontanges, +of the Spanish dress his Majesty had reassumed to please her, of the +Brinvilliers' Poudre de Succession, of the new chateau given to Pere de +la Chaise, of D'Aubigny's last extravagance and Lauzun's last mot, and +the last gossip about Bossuet and Mademoiselle de Mauleon, and all the +chit-chat of that varied day, glittering with wit and prolific of +poison--glanced up to the balcony by the light of the stars. + +"That cursed priest!" muttered the younger, le Vicomte de Saint-Elix, as +he struck the head off a lily with his delicate cane. + +"In a fool's paradise! Ah-ha! Madame la Marquise!" laughed the +other--the old Duc de Clos-Vougeot--taking a chocolate sweetmeat out of +his emerald-studded bonbonniere as they walked on, while the +lime-blossoms shook off in the summer night wind and dropped dead on the +grass beneath, laughing at the story of the box D'Artagnan had found in +Lauzun's rooms when he seized his papers, containing the portraits of +sixty women of high degree who had worshipped the resistless Captain of +the Guard, with critical and historical notices penned under each; +notices D'Artagnan and his aide could not help indiscreetly retailing, +in despite of the Bourbon command of secrecy--secrecy so necessary where +sixty beauties and saints were involved! + +"A fool's paradise!" said the Duc de Clos-Vougeot, tapping his +bonbonniere, enamelled by Petitot: the Duc was old, and knew women well, +and knew the value and length of a paradise dependent on that most +fickle of butterflies--female fidelity; he had heard Ninon de Lenclos +try to persuade Scarron's wife to become a coquette, and Scarron's wife +in turn beseech Ninon to discontinue her coquetteries; had seen that, +however different their theories and practice, the result was the same; +and already guessed right, that if Paris had been universally won by the +one, its monarch would eventually be won by the other. + +"A fool's paradise!" + +The courtier was right, but the priest, had he heard him, would never +have believed; _his_ heaven shone in those dazzling eyes: till the eyes +closed in death, his heaven was safe! He had never loved, he had seen +nothing of women; he had come straight from the monastic gloom of a +Dominican abbey, in the very heart of the South, down in Languedoc, +where costly missals were his only idol, and rigid pietists, profoundly +ignorant of the ways and thoughts of their brethren of Paris, had reared +him up in anchorite rigidity, and scourged his mind with iron +philosophies and stoic-like doctrines of self-mortification that would +have repudiated the sophistries and ingenuities of Sanchez, Escobar, and +Mascarenhas, as suggestions of the very Master of Evil himself. From the +ascetic gloom of that Languedoc convent he had been brought straight, by +superior will, into the glare of the life at Versailles, that brilliant, +gorgeous, sparkling, bizarre life, scintillating with wit, brimful of +intrigue, crowded with the men and women who formed the Court of that +age and the History of the next; where he found every churchman an _abbe +galant_, and heard those who performed the mass jest at it with those +who attended it; where he found no lines marked of right and wrong, but +saw them all fused in a gay, tangled web of two court colors--Expediency +and Pleasure. A life that dazzled and tired his eyes, as the glitter of +lights in a room dazzles and tires the eyes of a man who comes suddenly +in from the dark night air, till he grew giddy and sick, and in the +midst of the gilded salons, or soft confessions of titled sinners, would +ask himself if indeed he could be the same man who had sat calm and +grave with the mellow sun streaming in on his missal-page in the +monastic gloom of the Languedoc abbey but so few brief months before, +when all this world of Versailles was unknown? The same man? Truly +not--never again the same, since Madame la Marquise had bent her brown +eyes upon him, been amused with his singular difference from all those +around her, had loved him as women loved at Versailles, and bowed him +down to her feet, before he guessed the name of the forbidden language +that stirred in his heart and rushed to his lips, untaught and unbidden. + +"A fool's paradise!" said the Duc, sagaciously tapping his gold +bonbonniere. But many a paradise like it has dawned and faded, before +and since the Versailles of Louis Quatorze. + +He loved, and Madame la Marquise loved him. Through one brief tumult of +struggle he passed: struggle between the creed of the Dominican abbey, +where no sin would have been held so thrice accursed, so unpardonable, +so deserving of the scourge and the stake as this--and the creed of the +Bourbon Court, where churchmen's gallantries were every-day gossip; +where the Abbe de Rance, ere he founded the saintly gloom of La Trappe, +scandalized town and court as much as Lauzun; where the Pere de la +Chaise smiled complacently on La Fontanges' ascendancy; where three +nobles rushed to pick up the handkerchief of that royal confessor, who +washed out with holy water the royal indiscretions, as you wash off +grains of dust with perfumed water; where the great and saintly Bishop +of Condom could be checked in a rebuking harangue, and have the tables +turned on him by a mischievous reference to Mademoiselle de Mauleon; +where life was intrigue for churchmen and laymen alike, and where the +abbe's rochet and the cardinal's scarlet covered the same vices as were +openly blazoned on the gold aiglettes of the Garde du Corps and the +costly lace of the Chambellan du Roi. A storm, brief and violent as the +summer storms that raged over Versailles, was roused between the +conflicting thoughts at war within him, between the principles deeply +rooted from long habit and stern belief, and the passions sprung up +unbidden with the sudden growth and gorgeous glow of a tropical +flower--a storm, brief and violent, a struggle, ended that night, when +he stood on the balcony with the woman he loved, felt her lips upon +his, and bowed down to her feet delirious and strengthless. + +"I have won my wager with Adeline; I have vanquished _mon beau_ De +Launay," thought Madame la Marquise, smiling, two days after, as she +sat, en neglige, in her broidered chair, pulling Osmin's ears, and +stirring the frothy chocolate handed to her by her negro, Azor, brought +over in the suite of the African embassy from Ardra, full of monkeyish +espieglerie, and covered with gems--a priceless dwarf, black as ink, and +but two feet high, who could match any day with the Queen's little Moor. +"He amuses me with his vows of eternal love. Eternal love?--how _de +trop_ we should find it, here in Versailles! But it is amusing enough to +play at for a season. No, that is not half enough--he adores! This poor +Gaston!" + +So in the salons of Versailles, and in the world, where Ninon reigned, +by the Court ladies, while they loitered in the new-made gardens of +Marly, among other similar things jested of was this new amour of Madame +de la Riviere for the young Pere de Launay. "She was always eccentric, +and he _was_ very handsome, and would have charming manners if he were +not so grave and so silent," the women averred; while the young nobles +swore that these meddling churchmen had always the best luck, whether in +amatory conquest, or on fat lands and rich revenues. What the Priest of +Languedoc thought a love that would outlast life, and repay him for +peace of conscience and heaven both lost, was only one of the passing +bubbles of gossip and scandal floating for an hour, amidst myriads like +it, on the glittering, fast-rushing, diamond-bright waters of life at +Versailles! + +A new existence had dawned for him; far away in the dim dusky vista of +forgotten things, though in reality barely distant a few short months, +lay the old life in Languedoc, vague and unremembered as a passed +dream; with its calm routine, its monastic silence, its unvarying +alternations of study and prayer, its iron-bound thoughts, its rigid +creed. It had sunk away as the peaceful gray twilight of a summer's +night sinks away before the fiery burst of an artificial illumination, +and a new life had dawned for him, radiant, tumultuous, conflicting, +delicious--that dazzled his eyes with the magnificence of boundless +riches and unrestricted extravagance; that charmed his intellect with +the witty coruscations, the polished esprit, of an age unsurpassed for +genius, grace, and wit; and that swayed alike his heart, his +imagination, and his passions with the subtle intoxication of this syren +of Love, whose forbidden song had never before, in faintest echo, fallen +on his ear. + +Far away in the dim, lifeless, pulseless past, sank the memory of the +old Dominican abbey, of all it had taught him, of all it had exacted, in +its iron, stoical, merciless creed. A new life had arisen for him, and +Gaston de Launay, waking from the semi-slumber of the living death he +had endured in Languedoc, and liked because he knew no other, was +happy--happy as a prisoner is in the wild delight with which he welcomes +the sunlight after lengthened imprisonment, happy as an opium-eater is +in the delicious delirium that succeeds the lulling softness of the +opiate. + +"He loves me, poor Gaston! Bah! But how strangely he talks! If love were +this fiery, changeless, earnest thing with us that it is with him, what +in the world should we do with it? We should have to get a lettre de +cachet for it, and forbid it the Court; send it in exile to Pignerol, as +they have just done Lauzun. Love in earnest? We should lose the best +spice for our wine, the best toy for our games, and, mon Dieu! what +embroilments there would be! Love in earnest? Bagatell! Louise de la +Valliere shows us the folly of that; but for its Quixotisms she would +now be at Vaujours, instead of buried alive in that Rue St. Jacques, +with nothing to do but to weep for 'Louison,' count her beads, and +listen to M. de Condom's merciless eloquence! Like the king, + + J'aime qu'on m'aime, mais avec de l'esprit. + +People have no right to reproach each other with inconstancy; one's +caprices are not in one's own keeping; and one can no more help where +one's fancy blows, than that lime-leaf can help where the breeze chooses +to waft it. But poor Gaston! how make _him_ comprehend that?" thought +Madame la Marquise, as she turned, and smiled, and held out her warm, +jewelled hands, and listened once again to the words of the man who was +in her power as utterly as the bird in the power of the snake when it +has once looked up into the fatal eyes that lure it on to its doom. + +"You will love me ever?" he would ask, resting his lips on her white low +brow. + +"Ever!" would softly answer Madame la Marquise. + +And her lover believed her: should his deity lie? He believed her! What +did he, fresh from the solitude of his monastery, gloomy and severe as +that of the Trappist abbey, with its perpetual silence, its lowered +glances, its shrouded faces, its ever-present "memento mori," know of +women's faith, of women's love, of the sense in which _they_ meant that +vow "for ever"? He believed her, and never asked what would be at the +end of a path strewn with such odorous flowers. Alone, it is true, in +moments when he paused to think, he stood aghast at the abyss into which +he had fallen, at the sin into which, a few months before, haughty and +stern in virtue against the temptation that had never entered his path, +he would have defied devils in legion to have lured him, yet into which +he had now plunged at the mere smile of a woman! Out of her presence, +out of her spells, standing by himself under the same skies that had +blooded over his days of peace in Languedoc, back on his heart, with a +sickening anguish, would come the weight of his sin; the burden of his +broken oaths, the scorch of that curse eternal which, by his creed, he +held drawn down on him here and hereafter; and Gaston de Launay would +struggle again against this idolatrous passion, which had come with its +fell delusion betwixt him and his God; struggle--vainly, idly--struggle, +only to hug closer the sin he loved while he loathed; only to drink +deeper of the draught whose voluptuous perfume was poison; only to +forget all, forsake all, dare all, at one whisper of her voice, one +glance of her eyes, one touch of the lips whose caress he held would be +bought by a curse through eternity. + +Few women love aught "for ever," save, perchance, diamonds, lace, and +their own beauty, and Madame la Marquise was not one of those few; +certainly not--she had no desire to make herself singular in her +generation, and could set fashions much more likely to find disciples, +without reverting to anything so eccentric, plebeian, and out of date. +Love _one_ for ever! She would have thought it as terrible waste of her +fascinations, as for a jewel to shine in the solitude of its case, +looked on by only one pair of eyes, or for a priceless enamel, by +Petitot, to be only worn next the heart, shrouded away from the light of +day, hidden under the folds of linen and lace. + +"Love one for ever?"--Madame la Marquise laughed at the thought, as she +stood dressed for a ball, after assisting at the representation of a +certain tragedy, called "Berenice" (in which Mesdames Deshoulieres and +De Sevigne, despite their esprit, alone of all Paris and the Court could +see no beauty), and glanced in the mirror at her radiant face, her +delicate skin, her raven curls, with their pendants shaking, her +snow-white arms, and her costly dress of the newest mode, its stomacher +gleaming one mass of gems. "Love one for ever? The droll idea! Is it +not enough that I have loved him once?" + +It was more than enough for his rivals, who bitterly envied him; courtly +abbes, with polished smiles, and young chanoines, with scented curls and +velvet toques, courtiers, who piqued themselves on reputations only +second to Lauzun's, and men of the world, who laughed at this new +caprice of Madame la Marquise, alike bore no good will to this Languedoc +priest, and gave him a significant sneer, or a compliment that roused +his blood to fire, and stung him far worse than more open insult, when +they met in the salons, or crossed in the corridors, at Versailles or +Petite Foret. + +"Those men! those men! Should he ever lose her to any one of them?" he +would think over and over again, clenching his hand, in impotent agony +of passion that he had not the sword and the license of a soldier to +strike them on the lips with his glove for the smile with which they +dared to speak her name; to make them wash out in blood under the trees, +before the sun was up, the laugh, the mot, the delicate satire, which +were worse to bear than a blow to the man who could not avenge them. + +"Pardieu! Madame must be very unusually faithful to her handsome Priest; +she has smiled on no other for two months! What unparalleled fidelity!" +said the Vicomte de Saint-Elix, with petulant irritation. + +"Jealous, Leonce?" laughed the old Duc, whom he spoke to, tapping the +medallion portrait on his bonbonniere. "Take comfort: when the weather +has been so long fixed, it is always near a change. Ah! M. de Launay +overhears! He looks as if he would slay us. Very unchristian in a +priest!" + +Gaston de Launay overheard, as he stood by a _croisee_ at Petite Foret, +playing with Osmin--he liked even the dog, since the hand he loved so +often lay on its slender neck, and toyed with its silver chain. And, +sworn as he was to the service of his Church, sole mistress as his +Church had been, till Leontine de Rennecourt's eyes had lured him to his +desertion of her, apostate in his own eyes as such a thought confessed +him to have grown, he now loathed the garb of a priest, that bound his +hands from vengeance, and made him powerless before insult as a woman. +Fierce, ruthless longing for revenge upon these men seized on him; +devilish desires, the germ of which till that hour he never dreamt +slumbered within him, woke up into dangerous, vigorous life. Had he +lived in the world, its politic reserve, its courtly sneer, its light +gallantries, that passed the time and flattered amour-propre, its +dissimulated hate that smiled while plotting, and killed with poisoned +bonbons, would never have been learnt by him; and having long lived out +of it, having been suddenly plunged into its whirl, not guessing its +springs, ignorant of its diplomacies, its suave lies, termed good +breeding, its legeres philosophies, he knew nothing of the wisdom with +which its wise men forsook their loves and concealed their hatreds. Both +passions now sprung up in him at one birth, both the stronger for the +long years in which a chill, artificial, but unbroken calm, had chained +his very nature down, and fettered into an iron monotony, an unnatural +and colorless tranquillity, a character originally impetuous and vivid, +as the frosts of a winter chill into one cold, even, glassy surface, the +rapids of a tumultuous river. With the same force and strength with +which, in the old days in Languedoc, he had idolized and served his +Church, sparing himself no mortification, believing every iota of her +creed, carrying out her slightest rule with merciless self-examination, +so--the tide once turned the other way--so the priest now loved, so he +now hated. + +"He is growing exigeant, jealous, presuming; he amuses me no longer--he +wearies. I must give him his conge," thought Madame la Marquise. "This +play at eternal passion is very amusing for a while, but, like all +things, gets tiresome when it has lasted some time. What does not? Poor +Gaston, it is his provincial ideas, but he will soon rub such off, and +find, like us all, that sincerity is troublesome, ever de trop, and +never profitable. He loves me--but bah! so does Saint-Elix, so do they +all, and a jealous husband like M. de Nesmond, _le drole!_ could +scarcely be worse than my young De Launay is growing!" + +And Madame la Marquise glanced at her face in the mirror, and wished she +knew Madame de Maintenon's secret for the Breuvage Indien; wished she +had one of the _clefs de faveur_ to admit her to the Grande Salle du +Parlement; wished she had the _couronne d'Agrippine_ her friend Athenais +had just shown her; wished Le Brun were not now occupied on the ceiling +of the King's Grande Galerie, and were free to paint the frescoes of her +own new-built chapel; wished a thousand unattainable things, as spoilt +children of fortune will do, and swept down her chateau staircase a +little out of temper--she could not have told why--to receive her guests +at a fete given in honor of the marriage of Mademoiselle de Blois and +the Prince de Conti. + +There was the young Comte de Vermandois, who would recognize in the +Dauphin no superiority save that of his "_frere aine_;" there was "_le +petit bossu_," Prince Eugene, then soliciting the rochet of a Bishop, +and equally ridiculed when he sought a post in the army; there was M. de +Louvois, who had just signed the order for the Dragonades; there was the +Palatine de Baviere, with her German brusquerie, who had just clumsily +tried to insult Madame de Montespan by coming into the salon with a +great turnspit, led by a similar ribbon and called by the same name, in +ridicule of the pet Montespan poodle; there was La Montespan herself, +with her lovely gold hair, her dove's eyes, and her serpent's tongue; +there was Madame de Sevigne and Madame de Grignan the Duchesse de +Richelieu and the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres; there was Bussy Rabutin and +Hamilton. Who was there not that was brilliant, that was distinguished, +that was high in rank and famed in wit at the fete of Madame la +Marquise?--Madame la Marquise, who floated through the crowd that +glittered in her salon and gardens, who laughed and smiled, showing her +dazzling white teeth, who had a little Cupid gleaming with jewels +(emblematic enough of Cupid as he was known at Versailles) to present +the Princesse de Conti with a bridal bouquet whose flowers were of +pearls and whose leaves were of emeralds; who piqued herself that the +magnificence of her fete was scarcely eclipsed by His Majesty himself; +who yielded the palm neither to La Valliere's lovely daughter, nor to +her friend Athenais, nor to any one of the beauties who shone with them, +and whose likeness by Mignard laughed down from the wall where it hung, +matchless double of her own matchless self. + +The Priest of Languedoc watched her, the relentless fangs of passion +gnawing his heart, as the wolf the Spartan. For the first time he was +forgotten! His idol passed him carelessly, gave him no glance, no smile, +but lavished a thousand coquetries on Saint-Elix, on De Rohan-Soubise, +on the boy Vermandois,--on any who sought them. Once he addressed her. +Madame la Marquise shrugged her snow-white shoulders, and arched her +eyebrows with petulant irritation, and turned to laugh gayly at +Saint-Elix, who was amusing her, and La Montespan, and Madame de +Thianges, with some gay mischievous scandal concerning Madame de +Lesdiguieres and the Archbishop of Paris; for scandals, if not wholly +new are ever diverting when concerning an enemy, especially when dressed +and served up with the piquant sauce of wit. + +"I no longer then, madame, lead a dog's life in jealousy of this +priest?" whispered Saint-Elix, after other whispers, in the ear of +Madame la Marquise. The Vicomte adored her, not truly in Languedoc +fashion, but very warmly--a la mode de Versailles. + +The Marquise laughed. + +"Perhaps not! You know I bet Mme. de Montevreau that I would conquer +him. I have won now. Hush! He is close. There will be a tragedy, _mon +ami_!" + +"M. le Vicomte, if you have the honor of a noble, the heart of a man, +you fight me to-night. I seek no shelter under my cloth!" + +Saint-Elix turned as he heard the words, laughed scornfully, and signed +the speaker away with an insolent sneer: + +"Bah! _Reverend Pere!_ we do not fight with women and churchmen!" + +The fete was ended at last, the lights that had gleamed among the limes +and chestnuts had died out, the gardens and salons were emptied and +silent, the little Cupid had laid aside his weighty jewelled wings, the +carriages with their gorgeous liveries, their outriders, and their +guards of honor, had rolled from the gates of Petite Foret to the Palace +of Versailles. Madame la Marquise stood alone once more in the balcony +of her salons, leaning her white arms on its gilded balustrade, looking +down on to the gardens beneath, silvered with the breaking light of the +dawn, smiling, her white teeth gleaming between her parted rose-hued +lips, and thinking--of what? Who shall say? + +Still, still as death lay the gardens below, that an hour ago had been +peopled with a glittering crowd, re-echoing with music, laughter, witty +response, words of intrigue. Where the lights had shone on diamonds and +pearl-broidered trains, on softly rouged cheeks, and gold-laced coats, +on jewelled swords and broideries of gold, the gray hue of the breaking +day now only fell on the silvered leaves of the limes, the turf wet +with dew, he drooped heads of the Provence roses; and Madame la +Marquise, standing alone, started as a step through the salon within +broke the silence. + +"Madame, will you permit me a word _now_?" + +Gaston de Launay took her hands off the balustrade, and held them tight +in his, while his voice sounded, even in his own ears, strangely calm, +yet strangely harsh: + +"Madame, you love me no longer?" + +"Monsieur, I do not answer questions put to me in such a manner." + +She would have drawn her hands away, but he held them in a fierce grasp +till her rings cut his skin, as they had done once before. + +"No trifling! Answer--yes or no!" + +"Well! 'no,' then, monsieur. Since you _will_ have the truth, do not +blame me if you find it uncomplimentary and unacceptable." + +He let go her hands and reeled back, staggered, as if struck by a shot. + +"Mon Dieu! it is true--you love me no longer! And you tell it me +_thus_!" + +Madame la Marquise, for an instant, was silenced and touched; for the +words were uttered with the faint cry of a man in agony, and she saw, +even by the dim twilight of dawn, how livid his lips turned, how ashy +gray grew the hue of his face. But she smiled, playing with Osmin's new +collar of pearls and coral. + +"Tell it you 'thus'? I would not have told it you 'thus,' monsieur, if +you had been content with a hint, and had not evinced so strong a desire +for candor undisguised; but if people will not comprehend a delicate +suggestion, they must be wounded by plainer truths--it is their own +fault. Did you think I was like a little shepherdess in a pastoral, to +play the childish game of constancy without variations? Had you +presumption enough to fancy you could amuse me for ever----" + +He stopped her, his voice broken and hoarse, as he gasped for breath. + +"Silence! Woman, have you no mercy? For you--for such as you--I have +flung away heaven, steeped myself in sin, lost my church, my peace, my +all--forfeited all right to the reverence of my fellows, all hope for +the smile of my God! For you--for such as you--I have become a traitor, +a hypocrite, an apostate, whose prayers are insults, whose professions +are lies, whose oaths are perjury! At your smile, I have flung away +eternity; for your kiss, I have risked my life here, my life hereafter; +for your love, I held no price too vast to pay; weighed with it, honor, +faith, heaven, all seemed valueless--all were forgotten! You lured me +from tranquil calm, you broke in on the days of peace which but for you +were unbroken still, you haunted my prayers, you placed yourself between +Heaven and me, you planned to conquer my anchorite's pride, you wagered +you would lure me from my priestly vows, and yet you have so little +mercy, that when your bet is won, when your amusement grows stale, when +the victory grows valueless, you can turn on me with words like these +without one self-reproach?" + +"Ma foi, monsieur! it is you who may reproach yourself, not I," cried +his hearer, insolently. "Are you so very provincial still, that you are +ignorant that when a lover has ceased to please he has to blame his own +lack of power to retain any love he may have won, and is far too +well-bred to utter a complaint? Your language is very new to me. Most +men, monsieur, would be grateful for my slightest preference; I permit +none to rebuke me for either giving or withdrawing it." + +The eyes of Madame la Marquise sparkled angrily, and the smile on her +lips was a deadly one, full of irony, full of malice. As he beheld it, +the scales fell at last from the eyes of Gaston de Launay, and he saw +what this woman was whom he had worshipped with such mad, blind, +idolatrous passion. + +He bowed his head with a low, broken moan, as a man stunned by a mortal +blow; while Madame la Marquise stood playing with the pearl-and-coral +chain, and smiling the malicious and mischievous smile that showed her +white teeth, as they are shown in the portrait by Mignard. + +"_Comme les hommes sont fous!_" laughed Madame la Marquise. + +He lifted his eyes, and looked at her as she stood in the faint light of +the dawn, with her rich dress, her gleaming diamonds, her wicked smile, +her matchless beauty; and the passion in him broke out in a bitter cry: + +"God help me! My sin has brought home its curse!" + +He bent over her, his burning lips scorching her own like fire, holding +her in one last embrace, that clasped her in a vice of iron she had no +power to break. + +"Angel! devil! temptress! _This_ for what I have deemed thee--_that_ for +what thou art!" + +He flung her from him with unconscious violence, and left her--lying +where she fell. + + * * * * * + +The gray silvery dawn rose, and broke into the warmth and sunlight of a +summer day; the deer nestled in their couches under the chequered +shadows of the woodlands round, and the morning chimes were rung in +musical carillons from the campanile of the chateau; the Provence roses +tossed their delicate heads, joyously shaking the dew off their scented +petals; the blossoms of the limes fell in a fragrant shower on the turf +below, and the boughs, swayed softly by the wind, brushed their leaves +against the sparkling waters of the fountains; the woods and gardens of +Petite Foret lay, bright and laughing, in the mellow sunlight of the +new day to which the world was waking. And with his face turned up to +the sky, clasped in his hand a medallion enamel on which was painted the +head of a woman, the grass and ferns where he had fallen stained crimson +with his life-blood, lay a dead man, while in his bosom nestled a little +dog, moaning piteous, plaintive cries, and vainly seeking its best to +wake him to the day that for him would never dawn. + +When her household, trembling, spread the news that the dead priest had +been found lying under the limes, slain by his own hand, and it reached +Madame la Marquise in her private chambers, she was startled, shocked, +wept, hiding her radiant eyes in her broidered handkerchief, and called +Azor, and bade him bring her her flask of scented waters, and bathed her +eyes, and turned them dazzling bright on Saint-Elix, and stirred her +chocolate and asked the news. "_On peut etre emue aux larmes et +aimer le chocolat_," thought Madame la Marquise, with her friend +Montespan;--while, without, under the waving shadow of the +linden-boughs, with the sunlight streaming round him, the little dog +nestling in his breast, refusing to be comforted, lay the man whom she +had murdered. + +The portrait of Mignard still hangs on the walls of the chateau, and in +its radiant colors Madame la Marquise still lives, fair type of her age, +smiling her victorious smile, with the diamonds shining among her hair, +and her brilliant eyes flashing defiance, irony, and coquetry as of +yore, when she reigned amidst the beauties of Versailles;--and in the +gardens beyond in the summer nights, the lime-boughs softly shake their +fragrant flowers on the turf, and the moonlight falls in hushed and +mournful calm, streaming through the network of the boughs on to the +tangled mass of violets and ferns that has grown up in rank luxuriance +over the spot where Gaston de Launay died. + + + * * * * * + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + +Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. + +A few obvious errors in original printing have also been repaired: + + Page 82, first paragraph: "out of the Cara di Fiori" corrected to + "out of the Casa di Fiori". + + Page 145, last paragraph: "Lady Hautton has just" corrected to + "Lady Hautton had just". + + Page 167, 4th paragraph: "anything put a pleasant" corrected to + "anything but a pleasant". + + Page 167, last paragraph: "nor even when he went that" corrected to + "nor even when he went on that". + + Page 173, 4th paragraph: et C^{ie} is an abbreviation for the + French word "compagnie". + + Page 224, last paragraph: "Helvetius" corrected to "Helvetius". + +Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in +spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady +Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories, by Ouida + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GAGE *** + +***** This file should be named 37178.txt or 37178.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/7/37178/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Katherine Becker and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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