Such are the idiosyncrasies of human nature, that her father, who once liked Trevor Chute, now disliked, and more than disliked him, because he felt quite sensible that he had done the frank but unfortunate soldier who had loved his daughter a wrong.
To stay in town with this engagement on thetapis, and this marriage in prospect, was more, however, than Clare cared to endure, or Ida either. When it was pressed upon the baronet that the three sisters should go to Carnaby Court or elsewhere, he affected much surprise, as they had barely reached the middle of the season, and the engagement list contained many affairs towards which Clare, and certainly Violet, had looked forward with interest.
Though he made a show of some opposition to all this, Sir Carnaby was not unwilling to be left in town alone at this time, where he had to be in frequent attendance upon his intended, where there were settlements to arrange, atrousseauto prepare, and jewels to select, so the plan of Clare and Ida was at once adopted.
'It is bitter,' says a powerful writer, 'to know those whom we love dead; but it is more bitter to be as dead to those who, once having loved us, have sunk our memory deep beneath an oblivion that is not the oblivion of the grave.'
Jerry Vane had experienced much of this bitterness in the past time; but new hopes were already dawning within him.
He had received Clare's message from Trevor Chute, who, for the life of him, in the fulness of his own joy, could not, nathless his promise to her, help telling Vane what she had said of Ida's probable wishes; thus, with a heart light as a bird's, on the evening of the 'at-home,' he betook himself to a part of Belgravia where at that season the great houses, rising floor above floor, have usually every window ablaze with light, and awnings of brilliant hues extending from the pillared portico to the kerb, with soft bright carpets stretched beneath for the tread of pretty feet in the daintiest of boots, while the carriages, with rich liveries and flashing harness, line the way, waiting to set down or take up.
Countless carriages were there; those which had deposited their freights were drawn up on the opposite side of the square, wheel to wheel, like a park of artillery; others were setting down past the lighted portico, which was crowded by servants in livery. The bustle was great, nor were smart hansoms and even rickety 'growlers' wanting in the throng of more dashing vehicles, bringing bachelors, like Jerry, from their clubs.
Full of one thought—Ida—he was betimes at Colonel Rakes' house—earlier, indeed, than was his wont—and piloted his way up the great staircase and through the great drawing-rooms, which were hung with stately family portraits of the Rakes of other times, and were already crowded with people of the best style, for the 'at-home' was usually a 'crusher' in this house; a sea of velvets and silks, diamonds, and sapphires; and every other man wore a ribbon, star, or order of some kind.
Of his hostess Lady Rakes, afadeold woman of fashion, with her company smile and insipid remarks for all in succession, and her husband the Colonel, who, till Sir Carnaby came, was ever about Evelyn Desmond, with whom he fancied himself to have an incipient flirtation, we shall say no particular more, as they have no part in our story.
The Collingwoods had not yet arrived. Vane could see nothing of them amid the throng while looking everywhere for Ida. Any very definite idea he had none; but love was the impulse that led him to seek her society so sedulously again—to see her, and hear her voice. How often had he said and thought, even while his whole heart yearned for her, 'I shall never torment myself by looking on her face again!' and now he was searching for her with a heart that was hungry and eager.
He heard carriage after carriage come up and deposit its occupants, name after name announced, and saw group after group stream up the staircase and glide through the doors. Would she come after all? He was beginning to fear not, when suddenly the name of 'Collingwood' caught his ear, and the well-saved old dandy, with an unusually bright smile on his thin aristocratic face, appeared with Clare leaning on one arm and Ida on the other. With all their beauty, we have said that he felt his daughters a bore; thus, so soon as he could, he made all haste to leave them in the care of others, while he mixed with the glittering throng.
So dense was the latter that a considerable time elapsed ere Vane could make his way to where the sisters stood, with more than one admirer near them.
There, too, was Desmond, with his cross of the Bath, and a delicate waxen flower in his lapel. Clara's refusal had certainly piqued, but not pained, the tall, languid guardsman with the tawny hair; yet he did not think his chances of ultimate success, if he cared sufficiently to attain it, were over yet; but his love was of that easy nature—more like a listless flirtation than love—that he was in no haste to press his suit again; for if this affair, and 'a very absurd affair, by Jove!' he deemed it, between Sir Carnaby and his fast sister actually came off, he would find himself often enough in the charming society of Clare; but what a joke it would be to think that Evelyn might be his mother-in-law.
All things considered, the Honourable Major was not much in want of consolation, and if he had required it, there were plenty of lovely belles there and elsewhere 'who would gladly be bride,' not 'to young Lochinvar,' but to the future Lord Bayswater.
And what of Clare, so calm in aspect and aristocratically serene?
Her thoughts were not with the gay yet empty throng that buzzed and glittered around her, but with her soldier-lover, browned and tanned by the fierce sun-glare of India, from whom she had been so long wantonly separated, and was now separated again, yet with the sweet memory of his last passionate kisses on her lip, that looked so proud to others, and who was not now, thank God! as before—facing the toils and terrors of an obscure mountain war in India, but simply self-banished to Germany till time should show what might be before them both. Where was he then? what doing, and with whom?
Thinking, doubtless, of her! so thought and pondered Clare, when she could thrust aside the coming marriage of Sir Carnaby, with all its contingent ridicule; but it was in vain that she repelled it, for the fact took full and bitter possession of her, and could not be displaced; and her lip curled scornfully as she saw her father, with his bald head shining in the light like a billiard ball, his dyed moustache, and false teeth, his undoubtedly handsome and aristocratic figure, though thin and shrunken, clad in evening costume of the most perfect fashion, simpering and bending over Evelyn, of whom we shall have more to say anon.
None that looked on Clare, and saw the greatness of her beauty, the general sweetness of her smile, her tranquil air, and somewhat languid grace, could have dreamed that irritating or bitter thoughts were flitting through her mind.
'Oh,' thought she, as she fanned herself, 'how vapid it all is, exchanging the same hackneyed commonplaces with dozens in succession.'
Yet society compelled her to appear like other people, and she found herself listening to Desmond, who lisped away in his usual fashion of things in general: the debates in the House last night, the envious screen of the ladies' gallery, la crosse at Hurlingham, polo, tent-pegging, and lemon-slicing at Lillie Bridge, the coaching club and the teams, Colonel Rakes' greys, Bayswater's roans, the Scottish Duke of Chatelherault's snow-whites, the matching of wheelers and leaders; of this party and that rout; who were and were not at the Chiswick Garden Fete.
One circumstance pleased her. Nothing in the well-bred and impassive manner of Desmond, though he hung over her and tugged his long fair moustache, could have led anyone to suppose that he had actually made her a proposal the other morning, and as to his sister's intended 'fiasco,' for such they both deemed it, the subject was not even hinted at; and now, as he moved on to speak to some one else, a gloved hand was laid on her arm, and Clare found herself beside Evelyn Desmond.
She was perhaps about thirty, yet she had more experience of the world than Clare could ever have won in a lifetime. In girlhood she had been handsome; but her beauty—if real beauty she ever possessed—was already gone; bloom at least had departed. She was fair, blue-eyed, and not unlike her brother, with a proportionately tall figure, and a face rather aristocratic in contour, but with a keener, sharper, more haughty and defiant expression.
One of thethreesuites of diamonds that Clare had seen was sparkling on her brow and bosom. She was attired in violet velvet, with priceless point lace, cut in the extreme mode: her neck and shoulders were bare, and her dress cut so absurdly low behind as to show rather too much of a certainly fair and snow-white back.
Clare's chief objection to her, apart from the disparity of years, was that the Honourable Evelyn had the unpleasant reputation of having done more than one very fast thing in her life, though no one could precisely say what they were; and though she was the daughter of a peer and a sister of a major in the Guards, all men had a cool,insouciant, and even flippant or half 'chaffing' mode of addressing her, that they would never have dared to adopt to a girl like Clare Collingwood.
'Your papa has told you about—you know what, Clare?' said Miss Desmond, looking not in the slightest degree abashed, though lowering her tone, certainly.
'Yes,' said Clare, curtly and wearily.
'We must be better friends than ever, Clare.'
Miss Collingwood fanned herself in silence, so Evelyn spoke again:
'I suppose you know when the—the event takes place?'
'No.'
'How monosyllabic you are,' said the other, while her lip quivered, and her eye lightened. 'Has Sir Carnaby not told you?'
'I never asked him,' was the half-contemptuous response.
'Why?'
'I was not aware that matters were in such a state of progression. A time is named, then, for—for thisaffaire de fantasie?'
'A month from to-day. Pray call it anaffaire du cœur.'
'A month!' repeated Clare, dreamily.
'He would have it, he was so impatient,' said Evelyn Desmond, with something of a smile; but whether it was a triumphant or malignant one, Clare cared not to analyze. She only feared that the 'impatience' had been elsewhere, as Evelyn had been on the point of marrying with more than one man already, but there was always a flaw somewhere, and the affairs ended. Perhaps, as some hinted, they were too easily begun.
As she could neither express pleasure or congratulation, Clare fanned herself in silence, until Evelyn said:
'And so you have refused Harvey?'
'Yes.'
'How exceedingly funny.'
'Why?'
'Because on that same morning I finally accepted Sir Carnaby. By the way,' she added, with a glance that was not a pleasant one, 'I heard that your old admirer, Trevor Chute, once of the Guards, was in town again.'
'Indeed.'
'Yes; perhaps that accounts for poor Harvey's disappointment.'
'Think so if you choose,' replied Clare, haughtily, as she turned away to conceal how her soft cheek coloured with the excess of her annoyance.
By this time Vane, after being entangled by innumerable trains, had made his way to the side of Ida.
Jerry Vane was popular in society, and could have had many a girl for the asking. Clare and Ida, too, had often wished—for he was still the dearest of their friends—that he should marry; but they had never suggested it to him, for under the circumstances it would have seemed bad taste, and though he had but one thought—Ida, and Ida only—Jerry Vane went everywhere, and was deemed the gayest of the gay; and now, when their eyes met, there was a kind, sad smile in hers—a smile of the olden time—that took a load off his heart, and still lighter did it grow when, rising, she took his arm—as a widow she could do so now, and said:
'Take me to a cool place; the heat here is stifling, especially in this dark dress; there is a cool seat just within the conservatory door. Thanks, that will do.'
Many a picture—many a soft Gainsborough or softer Greuze—may suggest a face as delicate and beautiful as that which was turned up to his; but no picture ever painted by human hand had such a power of expression as that possessed by the face of Ida Beverley, as she sat there, slightly flushed by the heat of the crowded room, and feeling with pleasure the breeze from the great square without blowing on her cheek, and laden with perfumes of fresh flowers as it passed through the long conservatory.
The broken ring, the gipsy ring of the dream, rent in two by the cruel tiger's fangs, was now on the marriage finger beside the wedding hoop, as Jerry could see when she drew off her glove, but he was glad to observe that her mourning was becoming lessened by trimmings of grey silk; yet the dark costume, by its contrast to the pallor and purity of her complexion, made Ida seem lovelier than ever, and his heart ached to think that those trappings of woe were worn for a rival.
Why did he seek her presence? he was asking himself again. Did some lingering hope inspire him? Without it Jerry felt that it would be madness to place himself within the sphere of her beauty, with their mutual past; yet he could not deny himself the joy of the present, in watching the tenderness of her soft grey-blue eye, the glory of her auburn hair, and the grace of all her actions.
She had been the wife of Beverley, true; but the wife of only a few months, and left behind in loneliness while yet a bride.
Worried by her sadness, and sick of her repining, selfish old Sir Carnaby had become, unknown to her, somewhat an adherent of her first lover. He was not disinclined to let his widowed daughter become the wife of this unappropriated man, whose good looks and style were as undeniable as his position and expectations. Thus he whispered to Evelyn Desmond that he was not ill-pleased to see them draw apart within the conservatory door.
Jerry's friends would have called him 'a muff,' to sigh as he did, and make himself 'a blighted being' for Ida, whose whole heart and soul seemed devoted to another, and who sorrowed as some women only sorrow over their dead, going through the world with one visionary yet formed fancy that floated drearily and vaguely in her memory. Yet, in spite of himself, Jerry Vane hovered near the sad one like a love-bird by the nest of its young.
It was impossible that the love of this faithful, honest, and good-hearted fellow should fail to impress Ida. She was conscious that his fate was a cruel one, and of her own making; and she felt a great pity for him; for although shehadbeen fickle once, her nature was generous and compassionate.
A dead flirtation can seldom be revived, but an old love is often rekindled; yet Ida bore him none as yet; it was only pity, as we have said—compunction for what she had done—a tenderness, nothing more, save, perhaps, a sense of honour for him, that gave Jerry Vane an indefinable and, it may be, dangerous attraction to her; and now, as he spoke to her, bending over her as he used to do of old, her dark blue eyes changed and shadowed with the changing thoughts that passed quickly through her mind.
'We are good friends as ever,' said she, smiling upward in reply to some remark of his.
'Ida, some one has written that after love, mere friendship becomes more cruel than hate, and says it is the worst cruelty "when we seek love—as a stone proffered to us when we ask for bread in famine."'
Jerry felt that in this remark he had made somewhat of a 'header;' but fanning herself, she said calmly:
'Ibelievein you, Mr. Vane; is not that the highest trust one creature can give another?'
'May I not implore you to call me Jerry, as—as of old?' he asked, in a tremulous voice.
'When alone—yes.'
'Mr. Vane sounds so odiously formal after—after——' his lip quivered.
'Well—Jerry it shall be.'
'Thanks, dear, dear Ida; I begin to hope again.'
Poor Jerry did begin indeed to have fresh hope; and are we not told that its promises are sweeter than roses in the bud, and more flattering to expectation?
'Combine love with friendship, Ida,' he urged, softly, with the tip of his moustache almost touching her ear, 'and its tranquillity will be great and happy.'
She could not, without growing interest and tenderness, see the mournful love-me look that his eyes wore; yet she said, over her bouquet of stephanotis, Beverley's favourite flower and perfume:
'Do not talk thus, I implore you, Jerry Vane.'
A gesture of impatience escaped Vane, yet he said, in a voice of tenderness:
'Oh, Ida,I do know it—too well and bitterly; for as I loved you in the past time, so do I love you still!'
'Pardon me, Jerry; you are indeed a kind and faithful——'
'Fool!' he interrupted her, bitterly. 'That is the word, Ida.'
'Nay, nay, don't say so,' she urged, with tremulous lips and moistened eyes.
'The first love of a woman's heart is a holy thing, Ida—and yours was mine.'
'Let us be friends,' said she, in a painful tone.
'I can never, never be your—mere friend, Ida!'
Like that of Clare and Trevor Chute, but a few days before, it was another romance of the drawing-room, the strange intercourse and perilous friendship between these two.
She looked wistfully at Vane.
'We know not what God may have in store for us yet,' said she, colouring while she spoke, but only with the desire to soothe and not ignore the passion he was avowing. 'It may be—may be that we have only in our hearts been waiting for each other after all.'
Ere Vane could make a response to this speech, which she felt conscious was a rash one, she shivered and grew deadly pale.
'Does the night air chill you, Ida?' he asked.
'I know not—surely no,' said she, in a strange voice: 'it is close, rather; and yet——'
'What, dear Ida?'
'I felt a strange shudder come over me as I spoke.'
'It is nervousness, and will soon pass away.'
For a moment she sat with her eyes dropped and her heart palpitating. Whence came that strange, cold, and irrepressible tremor, like the shock of an electric battery, yet so chilly? What could it be? Could she have an affection of the heart?
She started from her seat with manifest uneasiness, and taking his arm, said, 'Let us return to the rooms.'
And now there occurred an episode which, however trivial then, Jerry Vane recalled with singular and very mingled emotions at a future time. As they came out of the conservatory, Colonel Rakes said, laughingly:
'Who is your friend, Vane, that is so strangely dressed—at least, not in evening costume?'
'Friend! What friend?—where, Colonel?'
'In the conservatory with you and Mrs. Beverley. Ah, Mrs. Beverley, too bad of you to appropriate our friend Vane when you know all the women are in love with him.'
'Colonel—I?'
'You, my dear girl—for I am old enough to call you so. But about your friend——'
'There was no one but ourselves in the conservatory,' said Vane.
'Oh pardon me, Vane, you three were close together.'
'Impossible!'
'As you rose to retire, I saw him slide, as it were, behind the shelves of flowers.'
'We saw no one,' urged Ida.
'Can it be a thief or an intruder? Let us see,' said the Colonel; and he and Vane searched all over the place, which was brilliantly lighted with gas, but without success.
'You must be mistaken, Colonel,' said Jerry, 'as the only other door of the conservatory is locked, and on the inside.'
'Though a little short-sighted, I was not mistaken, Vane.'
'And this man——?'
'Stood close behind Mrs. Beverley's chair, within less than arm's-length of you both.'
'What was he like?' asked Vane, with genuine irritation and astonishment.
'That I can scarcely describe.'
'His face?'
'Was singularly pale, with dark eyes and a dark, heavy moustache.'
'And he actually hung over Ida—Mrs. Beverley, I mean—unseen by me.'
'Yes; closer than good breeding warranted. You must have been very much absorbed not to have seen him,' said the Colonel, with a wicked smile in his old eyes.
'I was indeed absorbed, Colonel.'
'Don't wonder at it; there are not many Ida Beverleys even in the world of London. But, egad, the butler must be told to have an eye upon the plate-chest—the racing-cups and silver spoons!'
Whowas this strange-looking man whom the Colonel could not describe, yet had so distinctly seen close by Ida's chair, listening, doubtless, to all their remarkable conversation? It was, to say the least of it, a most ungentlemanly proceeding; and Jerry, amid the clatter of tongues around him, strove to remember all they had said, and whether he had let fall anything that shed a light upon their past relations and his present hopes; with the pleasant conviction that the eavesdropper must have heard much that was intended for Ida's ear alone!
'By Jove!' thought Jerry, 'if I had caught the fellow, there would have been an unseemly scene among the Colonel's majolica flower-pots, his orchids, and azaleas.'
The interview in the conservatory, and the strange emotion that came over her, had somewhat wearied Ida; and like Clare, who had overheard some unmistakable remarks on the 'coming event'—remarks certainly not meant for her sensitive ear—she was anxious to be home.
'A game old fellah,' she heard Lord Brixton say—a peer whose only known ancestor was one of the cottonocracy—to another, whose adjusted eye-glass was focussed on Sir Carnaby; 'game indeed! but will live to repent his matrimonial folly.She'lllead him a dance, believe me, don't you know.'
Even the servants in the hall and at the portico had heard some rumour, for there fell upon Clare's ear, as they swept out to the carriage, something like this:—
'Oh, yes! I knows 'em—the Honourable Miss Desmond, with her big mastiff, whip, and wissel, and only Sir Carnaby on dooty. I've seen 'em by the Serpentine many times.'
So, then, their names were linked together, even by the men in livery!
And as they drove home in the carriage, leaving Sir Carnaby with his fair one, by the lighted windows of the far extent of streets and squares, Ida lay back in a corner, muffled in her gossamer-like Shetland shawl, soft as Dacca muslin, the 'woven wind,' very silent and sad.
She was thinking very much of what Jerry had said, and the hopes she had, perhaps unwisely, awakened; but more of the strange cold thrill that came over her, for she had too often experienced that unwelcome emotion or sensation of late.
In another direction Jerry was 'tooling' home in a hansom, with a heart full of happiness. He had struck the vein; he had an interest, even though but a renewed interest, in the eyes and heart of his old love. Had she not admitted that they knew not what Fate had in store for them yet, and that their hearts might only have been waiting for each other after all!
Moreover, Sir Carnaby had given, and he had accepted, a formal invitation for the shooting and then for the Christmas festivities at Carnaby Court; and he drove on, sunk in happy waking dreams of all that the future might have in store for him yet.
'Married, at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, on Saturday, Sir Carnaby Collingwood, Bart., of Carnaby Court, to the Hon. Evelyn Desmond, only daughter of the Right Hon. Lord Bayswater..... The bride wore a dress composed of rich ivory-white Duchesse satin, the skirt,' &c., &c.
Such was the announcement which suddenly met the eye of startled Trevor Chute, as it was running leisurely and carelessly over the columns of aTimes, nearly a fortnight old, as he lingered over his coffee one morning, when seated under the awning in front of the Hotel d'Angleterre, in the Kongens Nytorv of Copenhagen.
'Whew!' whistled Chute, as he read and re-read the paragraph, with all its details of the bride's elaborate costume, the uniform of the bridesmaids, the presents, and so forth, down to the shower of satin slippers, and the departure of the happy couple by the Great Western Railway.
This event was all the more startling to Chute, as he had been wandering from place to place, through Germany and the North of Europe, and thus few letters and no papers from England had reached him for some time past; and now it was the end of the first week of September, when the brown partridges would be learning to their cost that the tall waving wheat, amid which their little broods had thriven, was shorn on the uplands, and the sharp-bladed plough was turning up the barley-stubbles.
It may well be supposed that the contents of this paragraph among the fashionable intelligence gave our wanderer occasion for much thought; and from the bustle around him—for he had been taking his coffee at a little marble table placed literally on the pavement of the square, which, if not one of the handsomest places in Europe, is certainly the finest in the Danish capital, with its statue of Christian V., with its green plateau and flower-borders—he retired to the solitude of his own room; but even as he did so there were others, he found, who were near him, and took a gossiping interest in the paragraph.
There were several English people in the hotel, of course, for one must travel a long way to find solitude in these our days of universal locomotion. Among others there was young Charley Rakes, at whose house we have lately seen the Collingwoods—a fast youth of Belgravian breed, whom Chute did not like; and he had rather a way of keeping at full arm's-length those whom he viewed thus.
'So, so,' he heard him say to a friend; 'the old fellow is married at last, and to the Desmond. What the little birds said proves right, after all.'
'Poor Clare!' thought Chute, as a burst of laughter followed the reading of the paragraph, with great accentuation, aloud.
'Fancy Evelyn Desmond airing flannel bags for the gouty feet of old Collingwood, fomenting his bald pate—(he is bald, isn't he?)—putting his lovely teeth into a tumbler at night, unlacing his stays, and all that sort of thing, don't you know!'
From this rough jesting with names in which he had an interest so vital now, Trevor Chute, we say, gladly sought the privacy of his own room, where, stretched upon a sofa, he gave himself tip to the luxury of lonely thinking, while watching the pale blue wreaths evoked from his meerschaum bowl floating upward into the lofty ceiling overhead, while the drowsy hum of the city came through the green jalousies of the windows, which opened to the Kongens Nytorv, and faced the Theatre Royal.
Would this alliance mar for ever the chances of the Major, or redouble them, as he would be quiteen familleat Carnaby Court and the town mansion in Piccadilly?
He recalled the parting words of Clare, and thrust the speculation aside as unworthy the consideration of a second. He could awaken in the morning now with other thoughts than the dull ache of the bitter olden time; for though their prospects were vague and undefined, he had her renewed promise, and now more than ever did he recall it, with the delicious threat that accompanied the renewal.
'Clare, Clare!' he muttered aloud; and with all the passionate longing of a lad of twenty, the man's heart went out to her, the absent one.
She was his in spirit only; but oh, for Surrey's magic mirror, to bring her before him once again, that he might revel on the calm poses of her statuesque figure, her soft, yet aristocratic face, and the curve of her lips, that were exquisite as those of a Greuze—even as Surrey revelled on the beauties of Geraldine when conjured up by Cornelius Agrippa!
Again he was sunk in thoughts of her, as when far away amid the awful and undisturbed solitude of the Himalayan forests, where the pines that rose to the height of two hundred feet were tipped with sunshine, while all was night below; and where the torrents, with their ceaseless roar, that wearied the ear, when, swollen by the winter rains, they tore past the lonely cantonment of Landour, where the last home of Beverley and many more lie, rolling on and on to the plains and tea-gardens of Assam.
But his prospects were brighter now, and thus he had thought of her happily when idling from place to place, in the glittering Kursaal at Hamburg, the many gaieties of Berlin, and of more domestic Copenhagen; when among the lonely woods of Norway, and the countless isles of the Christiana Fiord, which the Norse packet had traversed when its waters were moonlit and luminous, when the dark violet-tinted waves of eve rolled on the green shores of the Jungfrau land, when he had seen the gorgeous sun setting redly beyond the bronze-like forests of Sweden, and flushing alike the sky above and the waters of the Sound below—her face was ever before him, and he had remembered its expressions and the tone of her voice in every hour he spent, especially when alone, by land and sea, in city, wood, or wilderness.
'I have Clare's promise and assurance that she loves me still,' he would think; 'but how long am I to drag on this absurd life, this separate existence? Surely we are not so hopeless now as in that time when I was broiling up country.'
With reference to her promise, he pondered, would she write to him? Scarcely. Should he write to her, and remind her of it—not that for a moment he ever believed it to be forgotten; but of, this policy he was doubtful, and so resolved to wait a little, as he would be certain to hear from Jerry Vane or some other friend.
But while waiting, Clare might be cast into the attractive influence of some one else, and he knew that she was surrounded by all the charms and allurements of rank and of wealth. Then he deemed himself a wretch to think of such things. Anon he became terrified lest she should be ill, as he knew how much this marriage would mortify, fret, and worry her.
From his reverie he was roused by the appearance of his valet, Tom Travers, standing close by at 'attention,' by pure force of old habit. He had neither heard him knock nor enter; neither had he heard his tread on the polished floor, which as usual in these countries, was uncarpeted.
'Letter for you, sir,' said he, presenting one on a salver.
'Thanks, Tom.'
He tore it open; it was from Jerry Vane, and dated from 'Carnaby Court.' This made Trevor's heart leap.
'Jerry must have been making his innings,' thought he, 'to be there. He has surely been seized with a most unusualcacoethes scribendi. I have not heard from the fellow for months, and now he sends me nearly sixteen pages. What can they all be about? Perhaps the marriage, but more likely that alluringignis fatuus, Ida.'
And once more filling his pipe, he composed himself to peruse the letter of his old chum, Jerry, who ran on thus:—
'I suppose you have long since heard how Sir Carnaby Collingwood made a fool of himself at St. George's. He has now gone on his wedding tour, and I am thankful he is out of the way. It is ungracious to write these lines of one's host, and still more so of one I would fain be more nearly connected with; but it is the old story of Doctor Fell, and you know I never liked Sir Carnaby. How difficult it is to analyse sympathy. By Jove, Trevor, it is a thing that no fellow can understand, for it takes possession of us whether we will or no; hence it is that we are unconsciously attracted or repelled by some of those we meet at first sight. And why? No one can tell. Hence, a magnetic influence draws us sometimes even to those we should shun, or compels us to shun sometimes those whom, from policy, we should attract, and in whom we should confide.' ('Has Jerry had a sunstroke?' thought Trevor; 'whatisall this about?') 'And thus it was that a magnetic influence led me to love Ida at first sight, and at the same time to dislike Sir Carnaby, and I fear the feeling will never pass away, so far as he is concerned.
'I know not where this may find you; but any place is better than London at this season. You know what it is in August and September, with its pavement fit only for a salamander or a fireman. After Ascot, the Collingwoods—the three ladies, at least—left London in the height of the season, and went to Carnaby Court. I was with them—Ida and Clare, I mean—on Rakes' drag on the Royal Heath on the Cup day. Don't you envy me, old fellow? I am sure you do. We spoke much of you among ourselves, anyhow, and Clare looked her brightest and her best when we did so. By not starting early, we were delayed waiting for the young engaged couple; we lost the first two races, but that was nothing.
'It was with quiet anger the girls saw the half-concealed billing and cooing of the old baronet and thefiancée, and with what excellent grace he lost some heavy bets to her brother, the Guardsman, and others to the lady herself, which she entered in a dainty little book with a jewelled pencil, and laughing girlishly as she buried her pretty nose in a hot-house bouquet of the colours affected by Sir Carnaby.
'Desmond's animal was nowhere; but, perhaps, you won't be sorry for that. Some say he has lost a pot of money, and may have to leave the Brigade; anyway, it did not prevent him from returning with some dolls in his hat-band. For some reason—gout, it was whispered—the baronet did not go to the Derby, so the fair Evelyn agreed with him that it was only fit for boys, and declined to go either. Why should a gentleman go, to have his clothes covered by dust or flour, his hat, perhaps, banished by a cocoa-nut; and why a lady, to see and hear all the horrid things that were said or done? Yet, in times past, she had gone and faced all these things and more, so it suited her to play propriety on that Derby Day; but when Ascot came, she was there making bets, even 'ponies,' in full swing.
'I came here at first to have a shot or two at the birds for a week, by express invitation, as I told you, and then I may, perhaps, join you on the Continent after all. Ida matronises the household, and a lovely matron she makes, with her sweet, sad grace. Sir John and Lady Oriel are here, old Colonel Rakes and his wife, and that titledparvenu, Lord Brixton, with some others, to await the return of the "young couple" from Germany, whither they have gone to hide their blushes; and the tenantry are getting up an enormous triumphal archway at the avenue gate; the public-house at the village is getting a new signboard; the ringers are practising chimes in the old Saxon spire; the schoolmaster is composing an epithalamium, and the Carnaby volunteer artillery are to fire a salute on the lawn. But I wonder how I can write so frivolously, for something occurred on the third day after I came that has caused me much discomfort and perplexity.
'There is an arbour in the garden, one of many, but before this I mean there stands a marble Psyche.'
(How well Trevor Chute could remember that arbour—a kiosk—with all its iron lattice-work and gilded knobs, and the masses of roses and clematis, Virginia creeper and ivy, all matted and woven in profusion over it. Many a time had he sat there with Clare, and often in a silence that was not without its eloquence. 'Well; and what of the arbour?' thought he, turning again to the letter of Jerry.)
'When passing among the shrubberies, I saw Ida seated in that arbour, with a book in her lap, and, to all appearance, lost in thought. A flood of amber light, shed by the evening sun, poured aslant through an opening in the greenery upon her white neck and lustrous auburn hair, which shone like gold, as her hat was off and lay beside her. A great joy filled my heart as I thought of the hopes given me during the meeting at Rakes' house, and after watching her beauty for a minute or so in silence I was about to join her, when she looked upward, and then there appeared, what I had not before perceived, so absorbed had I been in her, a man, unknown to me, looking down upon her—a man with whom she seemed to be in close conversation.
'Some huge branches of roses concealed his figure from me, but his face was distinct enough, in closer proximity to hers than good breeding generally warrants. It was pale, very, with dark eyes and a black moustache—in detail, by Jove, Chute, the same fellow whom Colonel Rakes found eavesdropping in the conservatory!
'Startled, alarmed, and scarcely knowing what to think, I still resolved to join her. I could scarcely deem myself an intruder, considering the terms we had been on, and are on now, and approached the arbour, but in doing so had to make a circuit among the shrubberies. Half a minute had not elapsed when I reached the arbour; no one passed me on the walk, not a footfall was heard on the gravel, at least by me; but when I joined her she was alone, with her head stooped forward, her face buried in her hands, and when she looked up its pallor startled me; yet her grey-blue, changeful, and lustrous eyes looked, and with a smile, into mine.
'"Have I disturbed you?" I asked, scarcely knowing what to say.
'"Disturbed me? Oh, no; I was done reading."
'"But some one was with you."
'"When?"
'"Just now."
'"Impossible!"
'"I thought that some one was here," I said, in great perplexity.
'"Oh no—but sit down and let us talk," said she, frankly.
'I thought of the face I had just seen so near her own. I was rendered dumb, as I felt my tenure of favour was too slight to risk offending her by further remark on a subject so singular; but I was pained, grieved, and bewildered to a degree beyond what words can express. I looked at her earnestly, and seeing her so pale, said:
'"Are you not well, Ida?"
'"Only in so far that one of those mysterious shudders which I feel at times came over me a minute ago."
'I am aware that she has complained of this emotion or sensation before, and that the best medical skill in town has failed to make anything of it.
'"The odour of those flowers has perhaps affected you," said I, somewhat pettishly thrusting aside a bouquet tied by a white ribbon which lay near her.
'"Oh no," she replied, "their perfume has always been a favourite of mine."
'They were stephanotis, and I have often heard it was a favourite flower with Beverley.
'"From whom did you receive the bouquet?" I asked, but something indefinable in my tone attracted her.
'"Vane—Jerry!" she exclaimed. "It was brought me by the gardener," she added, and her calm face and serene eye all spoke of one to whom doubt or further question would have been intolerable, and the fear of anything unknown. Did she know what I had seen, or suspect what was passing in my mind? It would seem not; and still more was I perplexed and startled on perceiving, as we rose to join Clare, Violet, and others who were proceeding laughingly to the croquet lawn, a gentleman's glove lying on the seat which she had just quitted.
'"Some one has dropped this," said I, taking it up.
'"I never observed it," she replied, quietly; "is it not your own?"
'"No," said I, curtly, as I tossed it into the arbour, with the fear, the crushing conviction, that some fellowhadbeen there after all How he had effected his exit from the arbour unseen by me was a mystery; but how I enjoyed our croquet that afternoon you may imagine.
'In the course of our game I casually discovered that the lost glove belonged to Sir John Oriel, but you know that his personal appearance scarcely answers to that of the man I have described to you.
'I am loath to admit myself to be jealous; but there is a mystery in all this I cannot fathom. My visit here terminates at the end of a week, when I shall return to town more miserable in mind than I ever did before. I am to be at Carnaby Court for the Christmas festivities, but have a vague fear of what may happen in the meantime.This fellow——' (Jerry had drawn his pen through words, evidently as if checking some ebullition, and then continued).
'It was, perhaps, with the naturally kind and womanly desire to soothe the sorrow she had caused, and the wound she had inflicted, that when next day we met by chance in the same arbour—in fact, I followed her to it—she was more than usually affable and sweet with me, and I ventured in the plainest terms to speak of the subject that was nearest my heart.
'"Confident in my own unchanging love for you, Ida," said I, "honour for your feelings, tenderness and kindness have made me silent for long; but I think the better time has come when I might openly speak to you of love again, dear Ida."
'"Do not urge that subject on me now," she replied, with undisguised agitation. "You are a dear good and kind fellow—dear and good as—as—as when I first knew you; but I—I——" She paused and trembled.
'"What?" I whispered.
'"My heart is in the grave!"
'"This is absurd; it is morbid—it is irreligious!" I exclaimed.
'"Do not say so, Jerry Vane."
'I thought to myself, bitterly (excuse me, Chute), could not this confounded fellow Beverley die without bothering her with all his gloomy messages and mementoes?
'"If you do not marry me, I shall die an old bachelor. Let not the one love of my life be utterly hopeless—you, my first and last!"
'"Poor Jerry, whatcanI say?" she exclaimed, interlacing her white, slender fingers.
'"That you will love me."
'"In time, perhaps—I will try—but cease to urge me now."
'"Bless you for those words, Ida."
'"I am glad to make you happy, Jerry," said she, with a bright smile in her beautiful eyes.
'"You do indeed cause my heart to swell with happiness—but—but why do youshudder?" I exclaimed.
'"Did I shudder?" she asked, growing very pale, and withdrawing her hand from mine. "Oh, let us cease this subject, Jerry, and—and excuse me leaving you."
'She glided away from my sight down the garden walk, quitting me with an abruptness unusual to her, which I observed on more than one occasion, and the cause of which I was unable to discover, or reconcile even with the rules of common politeness; but now she returned with a sad yet smiling and somewhat confused expression of face, and showed me the book she had been perusing on the preceding day. It was the Baron von Reichenbach's work on magnetism and vital force, and pointing to a passage wherein he details the effect produced on a girl of highly sensitive organization when influenced by a magnet, she said:
'"I feel when I start and leave you exactly what this girl describes her sensation to be, drawn from you by an irresistible attraction which I am compelled to follow unconditionally and involuntarily, and which, while the power lasts, I am obliged to obey, even against my own will. So do pardon me, Jerry; I am powerless, and not to blame."
'She spoke with quiet sweetness—with an infinite gentleness and sadness, but I saw the man's glove yet lying in the arbour—the tangible glove—and thought: "Good heavens! is all this acting—insanity, or what?"
'Anyway, I was filled with keen anxiety and deep sorrow to find that she whom I loved so tenderly was under influences so strange and accountable—so far beyond one's grasp.
'Could the figure of the man I had seen so near her, with his odious face so close—so very close—to hers, have been an illusion—a hallucination—a thing born of my own heated fancy, and the shifting lights and shadows of the arbour and its foliage?
'If so, it seemed very odd indeed that an appearance exactly similar should have been seen in his conservatory by such a sentimental and matter-of-fact old fellow as Colonel Rakes!'
Here ended Jerry's long and rambling letter, many items in which gave Trevor Chute food for long thought and reverie.
As for Ida's nervous illness, for such he deemed it beyond a doubt to be—an illness born of her grief for Beverley, and annoyance at her father's marriage—he believed the bracing country air would cure all that; and as for her magnetic fancies, he thought that the less she read of such far-fetched philosophy as that of the Baron the better.
The two stories of the man who had been seen were odd, certainly, and to some minds the bouquet, though alleged to be given by the gardener, and the glove might have seemed suspicious; but Ida, though she had jilted Jerry in time that was past, was not by nature a coquette; and knowing this, Trevor Chute, as a man of the world, dismissed the whole affair as some fancy or coincidence, and then his ideas went direct to Clare and Carnaby Court, and he envied Jerry.
The strange medley of foreign sounds in the vast space of the Kongens Nytorv were forgotten and unheard, for Chute's mind was revelling amid other scenes and places now. He was even thinking over the Derby to which Vane had alluded, and he recalled the days when he had been a species of pet in 'the Brigade,' when he looked forward to the Derby as the great event of the year, and his own delight when he first drove the regimental drag, the selection of the horses, the ordering of the luncheon, the colour of the veils, and the road along which all the world of London seemed pouring, the golden laburnums at Balham in all their glory, the hawthorn hedges at Ewell, the beeches and chestnuts that shaded the dusty way, the myriads on the course, the wonderful bird's-eye view from the grand-stand, the excitement of the races, the stakes and the bets, from thousands to pretty boxes of delicate gloves for Clare and others; all of which he should never enjoy as he had enjoyed them once. And now impatience made him peripatetic, so he rang for his valet, Travers.
'Pack up, Tom,' said he; 'we leave Copenhagen to-morrow.'
'All right, sir—for where?'
'Lubeck. Have a droski ready at ten; I shall take the morning train.'
Travers saluted and withdrew, without thinking or caring whether Lubeck was in Hanover, Hindostan, or the island of Laputa.
It was the merest whim or chance in the world that led to the selection of Lubeck as a place to be visited; but Trevor Chute could little foresee whom he was to meet there, or all that meeting led to.
Though Trevor Chute's old habits of decision and activity remained, a new kind of life had come upon him of late; thus he who had found the greatest pleasure in his military duties and attending to the wants of his men, in the saddle hunting, enjoying the day-dawn gallop, or with his rifle and hog-spear, watching under the fierce sun-glare for the red-eyed tiger or the bristly boar, as they came to drink in some secluded nullah, had now changed into one of the veriest day-dreamers that ever let the slow hours steal past him uselessly in succession.
So that time were got through, he cared little how. Would Vane join him? He rather fancied that he would not.
Nor did he wish it, though Jerry was the friend he valued most in the world, for the urgent reason that through him alone could he hear aught of her to whom he could not write, and who would not write to him.
Thus Chute lived in a little world of his own, lighted up by the remembered face of Clare and the hopes she had bade him cherish.
He marvelled much how Jerry's love affair was progressing, and whether Ida would yet forget his other friend, Jack Beverley.
He thought not, by all he knew of her, yet wished that she should do so, for Jerry's sake.
There was much of humility in the latter, and he held himself of small account with her.
Though proud enough with his own sex, even to hauteur at times, his love for Ida made him her very slave; and now how often came back to Vane's memory, with regret and reproach, the bygone scoffs and silly ironies he had often cast on his friends, who, when he was heart-whole, were suffering from the lost smile of those they had loved, perhaps more truly than wisely.
Recollections of his own laughter, his gibes and his quips, came back to him as if in mockery now.
Trevor Chute and Clare were separated again; but not as before: now he did not feel, as in the old time, that he had lost her, and he looked back to his last interview with joy.
Long though the time seemed since then, it was but recently that her dark eyes had smiled lovingly into his; that all the nameless charms of her presence had been with him, that she had spoken with him, and that he had listened to her.
When would all this come to pass again?
Till then what mattered it how he killed the time, or whither he went?
Yet pleasure and amusement palled on him; the sea breeze had lost its charm, and the sparkling waves their beauty; flowers seemed to be without fragrance; the fertile green pastures of Germany and Denmark, in all their summer glory, and the woods with the first tints of autumn, were without interest to his eye; for he was, more than ever, a man of one thought, and that thought was Clare Collingwood.
In this mood of mind, without thinking how or why, he started for the famous old Hans town.
The train took him to Korsor, in Zealand; there he crossed the Great Belt, and from the deck of theMaid of Norwaysteamer could see the Danish Isles steeped in the noon-day heat, when every sandy holm and green headland seemed to vibrate in the sunshine that glistened on the blue waves which roll round Nyeborg and picturesque old Odensee; and after running through Sleswig and Holstein on a pleasant afternoon in autumn, he found himself at Hamburg, in the train for Lubeck, 'the Carthage of the North.'
Tom Travers had seen to the luggage and the inspection thereof; procured the tickets for himself and his master, and the latter had just lit his cigar, and composed himself for his journey, pleased to find himself the sole occupant of a carriage, when he suddenly observed a lady, undoubtedly an Englishwoman, procuring a bouquet of rose-buds from a Vierlanderfleuriste, one of those picturesquely costumed girls who wear a bodice that is a mass of spangles and embroidery, a straw hat shaped like a Spanish sombrero, and thick, bunchy skirts, such as we may see in an old picture of Teniers, and who come from that district which lies between the Elbe and the Bille, where the whole population are market-gardeners.
There was some delay, during which the train was shifted a little, and amid the bustle of the platform the lady looked about in confusion, uncertain which was her carriage.
Already the starting bell had been rung and the shrill steam-whistle had sent up its preparatory shriek.
'Dritte klasse, zweite klasse!' the bearded German guard was shouting, while waving his little flag of the North Germanic colours. 'Hierher—nach hinten—nach vorn—Bitte, steigen sie ein, madame!' ('Pray get in,' etc.)
Mechanically, Chute, in mere politeness, opened the carriage door, and she was half handed, half pushed in by the hasty guard, for already the train was in motion, and she found herself, it would seem, separated from her friends, and swept away by the express in companionship with a total stranger.
'How awkward,' she said in German; 'I have been put—almost thrust, I may say—into the wrong carriage.'
'You can change at Buchen, the only place where the express stops,' replied Chute.
'Ah! you are English,' said she, her countenance languidly lighted up. 'So glad; for though I speak German pretty well, I don't understand the patois of the people hereabouts, on the borders of Holstein.'
Chute merely made an inclination of his head, and was about to throw his cigar out of the window, when she begged he would not do so; smoking never incommoded her—indeed, she rather liked it.
He thanked her, and they slid into the usual little commonplaces about the weather, the scenery, and so forth.
Though handsome, she waspassée, and Trevor Chute could detect that she had in her manner much of the polishedinsouciance, the cultivated, yet apparently careless fascination of a woman of the world; and it soon became evident that she knew it, and the world of London too, in many phases.
Apart from the rank that was indicated by a coronet and monogram that were among the silver ornaments on her blue velvet Marguerite pouch, he felt certain that she was an Englishwoman of undoubted position, and was quiteaplomb—even a little 'fast'—in her manner; but that amused Chute.
He could perceive that she was married, as a wedding hoop was among the gemmed rings that sparkled on her left hand—a very lovely one in shape and whiteness; moreover, she spoke of her husband, and said they were to take the branch line at Buchen for the Elbe, adding:
'Do you go so far?'
'Farther; to Lubeck—a place few people go to, and few come from.'
'Ah! And you travel——'
'To kill time.'
'Most people do so.Wecame here to be out of the way of people one knows and is sure to meet everywhere in more beaten tracks; also to get rid of the tedium of visiting ambassadors, and undergoing their receptions—one of the greatest bores when abroad.'
She evidently knew London well. In the course of conversation they discovered that several of their acquaintances were mutual, and Chute began to wonder who she was, and became interested in her, in spite of his general indifference.
She seemed to be 'up to' a good deal, too; acknowledged that she made quite a little book on the Derby and Ascot—was above taking a bet on a favourite in kid gloves only; and told in the prettiest way how skilfully, and with a little spice of naughtiness, she had, on more than one occasion, learned the secrets of the stables, and of the trials in the early morning gallops; and actually how she had persuaded people to lay five to one, when the printed lists said 'evens,' to square herself in the end; and then she laughed, and said it was so odd to have her husband travelling in the next carriage, and thus quite separated from her; but at Buchen she would rejoin him.
'Do you travel much?' she asked, after a pause.
'Well; yes.'
'Who does not nowadays!'
'My profession——'
'The army?'
'Yes; I have just returned from India.'
'To one who has seen all the wonders and marvels there—the rock-hewn temples, the marble palaces and mosques, the vast plains and mighty mountains of India—how tame you must think these level landscapes and little German villages!'
'They are peaceful scenes, and most English in aspect.'
'But all this part of Europe is quite like the midland counties. You were, of course, with the Line in India; but—you have been in the Guards?'
'Yes,' replied Chute, becoming thoroughly interested now.
'Ah! I discovered that from a slight remark you made about the Derby.'
'Who the deuce can this woman be, who picks all my past life out of me?' thought Chute, as they mutually recalled the names of many men of 'the Brigade.'
'Do you know Major Desmond?' she asked.
'Slightly,' replied Chute, while a shade crossed his face.
She was quick enough to perceive it, so the subject was not pursued; and now the train glided into the station.
She bowed politely to Chute, who endeavoured to open the door for her; but it was locked fast, and the guard was at the other end of the train.
A sound was heard, like the clanking of a heavy chain, as some carriages were uncoupled; and the train again began to move. Chute called and gesticulated to some men on the platform.
'Sitzen sie ruhig!' was the only response. 'Sit still! the train is in motion!'
And once more they were sweeping with increased speed, through the open country. The carriages for the branch line had been left behind, with the lady's husband, suite and baggage; and she borne helplessly off by the express for Lubeck.
She became very much discomposed on learning this, and that she would be carried on fifty-six English miles in a wrong direction before she could telegraph to or communicate with her friends in any way; but after a time she laughed at it as being quite a little adventure, and to amuse her, Chute, by the aid of his Continental guide, indicated the various places of interest through which they swept with a mighty rush; now it was Ahrensburg or Bargtehude, and after traversing a flat, stupid, and uninteresting district, Oldeslohe with its salt mines and lime pits, and then Reinfeldt.
Anon the scenery became more and more English in aspect, and enclosed with hedges in English fashion, and all so homelike, that one could not but remember that not far off lies the nook which still bears the name of England, which was transferred by the emigrant Saxons to South Britain. The rich meadows, the well-tilled corn-lands, the farmhouses and villages, all looking as clean and as pretty as red brick, white plaster, green paint and flowers could make them, all seem there to remind one of the most beautiful parts in England; while in the distance, more than once could be had glimpses of the Baltic, with its dark blue waters sparkling in the evening sun. Lakes and groves add then to the beauty of the scenery, and wood-covered hills that slope gently upward from the bordering sea, or smooth sheets of inland water.
Chute's companion seemed really to enjoy her journey; and her first annoyance over, she relapsed into her occasional air of nonchalance and languid carelessness, that seemed born of Tyburnia and the West-end of London; and soon the tall red spires of Lubeck, which had been long in sight above the greenness of the level land, were close by, as the train ran into the station, near the magnificent and picturesque double towers and deep dark archways of the Holstein Thor, which stands among the long and shady avenues of the Linden-platz.
Though small, beautiful indeed looked the ancient Hans city rising on its ridge, with its twelve great earthen bastions covered by luxuriant foliage, all steeped in the glorious crimson of the after-glow from the set sun that blended with amber and blue.
Trevor Chute handed out his fair companion. There was no train for Buchen that night, nor would there be one till nearly noon on the morrow. The lady knew that her husband would be taken on to Lauenberg, but as she did not know where to telegraph to him there, she could but do so to the station-master at Buchen, and on this being done, she turned to Chute, for, traveller though she was, she was perplexed to find herself in a strange place, without servants or escort, and surrounded by unceremonious German touts bawling out, 'Stadt Hamburg,' 'Hotel du Nord,' 'Funf Thurme,' and the names of other hotels.
'Permit me to be your guide,' said he, as Travers procured an open droski; 'the Stadt Hamburg is the chief hotel. I shall have the honour to escort you there.'
'Thanks, very much indeed,' said she, bowing, and for the first time colouring slightly; 'when' (he did not catch the name amid the hubbub around them) 'my husband arrives he will be most grateful to you for all this.'
And now, as they drove through the Holstein Thor towards the hotel, Chute was provoked to see in the face of his man, Travers, a comical and perplexed expression. He had never seen his master escorting an apparent stranger thus before, and hence knew not what to make of the situation.
The great dining-hall of the hotel, where thetable d'hôtewas daily served, was empty; all the visitors had gone to the theatres, the Tivoli gardens, and so forth, so Trevor Chute and the lady found themselves seated at a long table alone, to partake of a meal that was of course deemed supper there, where people dine at 2 p.m.
Thesallewas elegant; at one end a great console glass, with all its curved branches, lit up the gilded cornices, the tall mirrors, the long extent of damask table-cloth, the rich fruit, the silver epergnes, and the wines.
Without, through the open windows, could be seen, on one side, the partially-lighted streets of quaint gable-ended houses, all of the middle ages; on the other, the dark and silent woods, where the Trave and the Wakenitz wandered towards the Baltic, showing here and there amid the shadows 'the phosphor crests of star-lit waves,' while overhead was a cloudless sky, the constellations of which had a brilliance and a clearness all unknown in England.
All was very still without, and perhaps—for all are abed betimes in these northern cities—the only sounds that stirred the air were the murmur of the Trave, with the music of a band in a distant Tivoli garden.
'Oh, that Clare were with me here!' thought Chute, while endeavouring to make himself agreeable to a woman of whom he knew nothing, and for whom he cared nothing; and Chute had a natural turn and capacity for doing it with all, but with a lady more especially; and she, to all appearance naturally fast and coquettish, could not help giving Chute, even amid her dilemma, what she deemed one of her most effective side-glances; but, though they were not unperceived, they were wholly wasted upon him, save as a little source of amusement; and after a time her face and manner seemed to express a wish to know who this man was who seemed so politely insensible to her powers—to those of all women, perhaps. He was quite unlike, she thought, anything she had ever met inherworld, and she was, consequently, somewhat piqued.
On the other side of the table Chute, while toying with the fruit and drinking with her the golden moselle, was wondering who his faircompagnon de voyagewas; and felt that it might be bad taste to inquire her name, as she had not asked for his; yet she knew many of his old friends in the Brigade—men who were well up in the service when he joined, and long before he left it for India.
She seemed fond of questioning about the latter, and led him to speak more of himself, and of wild adventures in the dark jungle, where daylight scarcely came, than was his wont. She asked him what his regiment was, and on his telling her, the expression of her face brightened; and laughingly tapping his hand with her perfumed fan, she said:
'Then you must know well a friend of mine.'
'Very probably; was he of ours?'
'If not quite a friend, one at least in whom I have an interest.'
'And his name?'
'Chute—Captain Trevor Chute.'
'I am he you speak of,' replied the other, feeling considerably mystified.
'You!' exclaimed the lady, colouring.
'There is no other so named in the regiment.'
'You the Trevor Chute who was engaged to—to Clare Collingwood!' she exclaimed.
It was Chute's turn to colour now at this blunt remark, and with some surprise and annoyance he said:
'I knew not that our engagement was such a common topic as to be known to every chance stranger.'
'But I am no stranger to all this,' she replied, with something of a haughty smile; 'I have heard much of your love and devotion—a love quite like that of a romance rather than of everyday life; but I fear greatly that in the present instance your chances of success——'
'Are rather small,' said a voice, and Sir Carnaby Collingwood, looking somewhat flurried and weary, but yet endeavouring to cover his annoyance by his perpetual smile, suddenly appeared beside them. 'Got your telegram at Buchen just in time to catch the last train for this place, and so am here; and so I find you, Evelyn,tête-à-têtewith Captain Chute!'
Evelyn!
So the lady was the sister of Desmond, and the newly married bride of Sir Carnaby. The words he had casually overheard, without understanding their exact application, had filled him with a secret annoyance that almost amounted to rage and jealousy. The old baronet was aware of Chute's great personal attractions, his popularity with women, his charms of manner and handsome person, and of the disparity in years between them; he was fully aware also of the name Lady Evelyn had for scientific flirtation, and for a time he almost feared that, perhaps in revenge, Chute might have been overattentive, or tempted to improve the occasion, so little did he understand the real nature of the man at whom he was gazing now with a cold stare, while his lips attempted a smile.
'This is a doubly unexpected pleasure, Sir Carnaby,' said Chute, presenting his hand, which the other seemed not to perceive; 'I am so glad to have been of service to Lady Evelyn, and permit me to congratulate——'
'Thanks, that will do,' replied the baronet, abruptly interrupting him; 'you are too apt, sir, to thrust yourself upon members of my family, and at times, too, when you are neither wanted nor wished for.'
'Sir, this is most unwarrantable!' exclaimed Chute, who grew very pale with mortification and bitterness of heart.
'Sir Carnaby!' urged the lady.
'I am astonished, Lady Evelyn, that you could so far forget the proprieties as to sit down and sup at a commontable d'hôte, and with a stranger!'
'A stranger!' said Lady Evelyn, with much of hauteur in her manner, for never in her life had she been reprehended before; 'he has been most kind to me, and seems to know many of my friends.'
'By name, doubtless,' sneered Sir Carnaby.
'Sir,' said Chute, 'you are offensive—unnecessarily so; and, after my past relations with your family, your manner is unjustifiable. Were you not the father of Clare Collingwood, whom I love better than my own life,' he added, with a tremulous voice, 'I would here, in Lubeck, teach you—even at your years—Sir Carnaby, the peril of insulting me thus!'
'My years! my years! impertinence!' muttered the other, who, we have said, had conceived an unwarrantable and unjust dislike of Trevor Chute, and now was disposed to give full swing to the emotion. Chute's faith to Clare, like that of Vane to Ida, was a sentiment utterly beyond Sir Carnaby's comprehension; and, indeed, was perhaps beyond 'the present unheroic, unadventurous, unmoved, and unadmiring age,' as it has, perhaps justly, been described.
Like all persons of her order, Lady Evelyn had a horror of everything that bordered on a scene. For a moment her calminsoucianceleft her, and she darted an angry glance at her husband, but was silent. She had lived amidst luxury, splendour, and pleasure, power and, at times, triumph, but now 'the perfume and effervescence of the wine were much evaporated, and there was bitterness in the cup and a canker in the roses that crowned its brim.' At that moment she felt, perhaps, ashamed of herself, and of him to whom she was bound, for thus insulting an unoffending man.
'Yes, Sir Carnaby,' continued Chute, 'your age and relationship to Clare, together with the presence of Lady Evelyn, alone protect you in daring to sneer at me.'
Feeling intuitively, with all his anger, that there was something grotesque in the situation, and that in it he was forgetting the rules he prescribed for himself, and was in 'bad form,' he looked at Chute for a moment with a languid but impertinent stare, and after ringing the hand-bell, said to the head waiter: