"Soon after this my boy was born. Such a noble little fellow, Mrs. Lascelles—so strong, so handsome, with beautiful little hands and finger-nails as perfect as a model. My darling boy! He knew me, I am sure he did, when he was ten days old, and—and—it's nonsense, of course, and they hate one when they're grown up. But I wasn't such a bad mother to him, after all!
"Did I tell you my husband's name was Achille? Well, Achille wasverygood to me at first—sending in flowers, and things for baby, and coming to see me every day. To be sure, the doctor wouldn't let him stay above five minutes. I was very happy, and looked forward to getting well and singing again, and working hard at home and abroad for the comfort of my husband and child.
"But I didn't get well. I was very young, you know, and it was weeks before I was able to walk into the next room, so that I couldn't accompany my husband anywhere out-of-doors, and I dare say I was a sadly stupid companion in the house. Perhaps that was why he got tired of me. How can I tell? or what does it signify? It seems as if all these things had happened a hundred years ago. What a fuss people make about their feelings and their affections, and so on! What is the good of them after all? and how long do they last?
"Achille hadn't been to see me for a week, when one day the nurse came in, and said a gentleman was waiting outside, and wished to know if he might be admitted. I was on the sofa with baby in my lap, and felt stronger than usual of late, so I said 'Certainly,' when, behold, enter my friend the Manager, bearing an enormous bouquet, profuse in civilities, congratulations, compliments, and more hateful than ever; he wanted to kiss baby, who was frightened at him—no wonder—and drew his chair so close to my sofa, that I should have liked to box his ears on the spot.
"He hadn't been five minutes in the room before he made a declaration of love, which I resented with considerable energy; finally, as a last resource, threatening to acquaint my husband with his insolence, who, I said, should kick him from one end of the Boulevard to the other. I shall never forget the hateful laugh with which he received my menace.
"'Is Madame aware,' said he, 'that Monsieur has left Paris; that I am his chosen friend and comrade; that I have regulated his affairs to the last; that he wishes me to protect Madame as he would himself, and to stand in the place of a father to his child?'
"Then he put a letter in my hand, which he kissed at the same time with much effusion, and, walking to the other end of the room, buried himself in theCharivari, while I read.
"Such a letter, Mrs. Lascelles! Need I tell you what it all meant? Need I tell you that Achille was base, treacherous, cowardly, shameless?Enfin, that he was aman! He said I had no legal claim on him; that our marriage was a sham; that we had lived pleasantly enough for a time, but of course this could not go on for ever, and that I could hardly expect his future—hisfuture!—I should like to know what he had done with mine!—to be sacrificed to aliaison, however romantic, of a few months' standing. He had left funds, he went on to say, at my disposal, in the hands of his good friend, the Manager, with whom, as he had made a point of arranging, I could place myself advantageously at once. With regard to the boy, he added, I must consult my own feelings; but so long as a noble institution was supported by the State for the reception ofenfants trouvés, he could not charge himself with the support of us both. The Manager was an excellent man, in the prime of life, and he wished me much happiness in the successful career in which, thanks to his care and provision, I could now embark.
"I suppose I am not like other women: I neither fainted, nor raved, nor burst into fits of weeping, nor sat as they do on the stage, white and motionless, turned to stone. All in a moment I seemed to have grown quite cool and composed, and as strong as a milkmaid. My instinct was doubtless to hit again. Achille might be out of reach, but here was his confederate, disarmed, and open to a blow. Some intuitive consciousness, possessed, I believe, only by women, taught me that this man was in my power. I determined he should know what that meant before I had done with him.
"The crackling of the letter, as I refolded it, brought him back to my side. He took my hand and kissed it once more. I did not withdraw it now.
"'I was quite prepared for this,' I said quietly, 'as, of course, you know. My husband and I have been on bad terms for some time. You must be very much in his confidence, however, if he has told youwhy—that is my affair, so is the question of money; in that matter he has behaved well, but I cannot take it.'
"His fat, heavy face gleamed with absolute delight.
"'You cannot take it!' he repeated; 'and why?'
"'Because I have no claim on him as a wife; because, morally, he is not my husband; because women have sentiments, affections,amour propre, egoism, if you will;enfin, because I love another.'
"But I was careful, you may be sure, not to tell him who that other was. Before he quitted me that afternoon he had persuaded me, nothing loth, to accept the pittance left by my good-for-nothing husband; though a fortnight afterwards, having been to see me every day, he was still in torments about the unknown object, growing always more and more infatuated, in a way that would have been ludicrous had it not been simply contemptible.
"I doled him out little morsels of encouragement; I accepted from him valuable presents, and even sums of money; I tantalized, irritated, and provoked him with the ingenuity of a fiend. I shuddered when he came near me, yet I let him kiss my face once,—my baby'snever! At last I gave way, with a great storm of sobs and emotion, made my confession, whispered thathe, andhealone, had been the mysterious object; that I had cared for him from the first; that to him was owing my coldness towards my husband, our estrangement, and eventual separation. Finally, I promised to meet him the very next morning, never more to part; and within six hours my baby and I were established, bag and baggage, in the train for Lyons; nor have I ever seen my fat friend from that day to this.
"Except a flower I once gave him in exchange for a Spanish fan, I don't think he got anything out of our acquaintance but, as Hamlet says, 'the shame and the odd hits.'
"I wasn't altogether unhappy at Lyons. Baby was my constant companion; and, so long as my money lasted, I was contented enough only to wash and nurse him, and see him grow, and teach him to say 'Mamma.' It was a long while before I gained sufficient strength to sing again, and in the mean time I picked up a few francs by sitting to artists for a model, but I didn't like it. If I took baby, I couldn't keep him quiet; and a painting room was so bad for him. If I left him at home, I always expected to find something dreadful had happened when I came back. I was advised to put him out to nurse. Though I couldn't bear to part with my boy, I saw that, sooner or later, it must come to this; but he was over two years old before I made up my mind.
"They had offered me a six weeks' engagement at Avignon. My voice had come back, the terms were good, it looked likely to lead to something better, and I accepted eagerly.
"There was low fever then prevalent in that town. I could not take little Gustave to a hot-bed of sickness, so I left him in charge of a kind, motherly woman, who had a child of her own, in a healthy part of Lyons, only too near the river.
"Poor little darling! I am sure he knew I was going away, for he set up a dreadful howl when I put him down. It seems silly enough, but I suppose I wasn't properly trained then, for I could have howled too with all my heart.
"What a long six weeks it was! And, after all, I came back before the close of my engagement, and forfeited half my salary. There had been floods as usual in Lyons, the poor woman I had left him with couldn't write, and I was getting uneasy about my boy.
"Oh! Mrs. Lascelles, when I returned there I couldn't find him. The cottage I left him in had been swept away when the river rose. No trace even remained of the quiet little street. The authorities had done all in their power for hundreds of ruined families; what was one poor woman and a two-years old child amongst all those sufferers! I searched the markets, the streets, the hospitals. I haunted the police-office; I offered everything I possessed, freely, everything! for tidings of my boy. One Commissary of Police was especially kind and considerate, but even he let out at last that I was well rid of my child! Madame, as he expressed it, so young, so handsome, with such talents, sosympathiquewith himself! And this was aman, my dear, not a brute—at least, not more a brute than the rest!
"He it was who found out for me that the poor woman was drowned with whom I had left my boy; there was no clue to the fate of her child nor of mine.Monsieur le Commissaire, with supreme good taste, chose the hour in which he made me this communication, to couple with it a proposal that did not increase my respect for himself or his sex. You may imagine I did not even yet relax my endeavours to find out something certain about my boy. I went to the Mayor, the Préfet; in my desolation, I even wrote to my old admirer, the Manager, in Paris. On all sides I met with the same treatment; civility, compliment, egoism, and utter heartlessness. In time I came to think that there was not only nothingnew, but nothinggood, under the sun. If I were romantic I should say I was a tigress robbed of her cub; as I am only practical, I call myself simply a woman of the world, whom the world has hardened; cunning, because deceived; pitiless, because ill-treated; heartless, becausedésillusionée. You have taken me in, and tamed me for a time, but nothing will change my nature now.
"The rest of my history you know; the depths to which I sank, the meannesses of which I was capable, the hypocrisy that re-established me in a station of respectability, and swindled people out of such recommendations as the one that enabled me to make a fool of Sir Henry Hallaton. As I told you before, my motto now is, 'War to the knife!' I might add, 'Woe to the vanquished!'"
The tears stood in her listener's blue eyes more than once during this strange recital; but Mrs. Lascelles brightened up when it was over, and pointed to the clock, with a light laugh—
"Go and put your armour on, my dear," said she, "and bid your maid look to the joints of your harness. We fight to-night inchamp clos, and you have two champions to encounter, both eager for the fray!"
Miss Ross smiled—
"Let the best man win!" she answered. "He may find to-night that the 'latter end of a feast' is not at all unlike 'the beginning of a fray!'"
No Amazon, I imagine, in the experience of Herodotus, Sir Walter Raleigh, or our own, was ever known to be careless of her weapons, suffering them to grow blunt from neglect or rusty from disuse. The boar whets his tusks, the stag sharpens his antlers; the nobler beasts of chase are not dependent for safety on flight alone; and shall not woman study how she can best bring to perfection that armour with which Nature provides her for attack, defence, and eventual capture of her prey?
Brighter or more accomplished warriors never entered lists, than the two now sitting in the drawing-room at No. 40; cool, fragrant, diaphanous; redoubtable in that style of beauty which is so enhanced and set off by art.
To these, enter a young gentleman, hot, shy, bewildered; who has followed into the room a name not the least like his own, with considerable trepidation; hardly clear if he is on his head or his heels; and, although worshipping the very pattern of the carpet on which one of these divinities treads, yet conscious, in his heart of hearts, that it would be unspeakable relief to wake up and find himself three-quarters of a mile off at his club.
Mr. Goldthred, whose announcement by a pompous butler as "Mr. Gotobed" had not served to increase his confidence, was by no means a bold person in general society, and possessed, indeed, as little of that native dignity they call "cheek," as any of the rising generation with whom it was his habit to associate; but on the present occasion he felt nervous to an unusual degree, because, alas! he had fallen in love with a woman older, cleverer, more experienced, and altogether of higher calibre than himself.
He had come early, half hoping to find her alone, yet was it a relief to be spared the ordeal of atête-à-têtethat seemed so delightful in fancy. Of course, being her utter bond-slave, he paid his homage to Mrs. Lascelles with ludicrous stiffness, and blundered at once into an inconsequent conversation with Miss Ross. That syren took pity on his embarrassment—the pity a cat takes on a mouse. It amused her to mark the poor youth's efforts to seem at ease, his uncomfortable contortions, his wandering replies, and the timid glances he cast on the hem of his conqueror's garment, who would willingly have met him half-way, had he only gone up and flirted with her in good earnest.
"We haven't seen you for ages, Mr. Goldthred. What have you been doing? Where have you been hiding? Rose and I were talking about you this very afternoon."
How he wished he, too, might call his goddess "Rose;" but she had been talking about him, blessed thought! that very day. His heart was in his throat, and he murmured something about "French play."
"You can't have been at the French play day and night," laughed Miss Ross; "but I'm not going to cross-examine you. Besides, you weren't asked here to flirt withme. I've got my own young man coming, and he's hideously jealous. I hear him now coughing on the stairs! Only us four. It's a small party. We shall find each other very stupid, I dare say."
Gathering encouragement, no doubt, from this supposition, and emboldened by a fresh arrival, Mr. Goldthred stole a glance in his idol's face while she rose to welcome Uncle Joseph. The blue eyes rested on their worshipper very kindly for about half a second. But that half second did his business as effectually as half an hour. If Uncle Joseph was also shy, greater age, wisdom, and corpulence rendered him more capable of concealing such embarrassment. He shook his hostess cordially by the hand; he told Miss Ross she looked like a "China-rose," a flower of which he had formed some vague conception, far removed from reality; and announced that he had spent his day in the City, and was very hungry,—more like a man in business than a man in love. This gentleman took down Miss Ross; Mrs. Lascelles followed with young Goldthred, leaning more weight on his arm than the steepness of the stairs seemed to necessitate. He wished the journey twice as long, and for half a minute was half persuaded he felt happy!
I am sorry I cannot furnish the bill of fare: Uncle Joseph put it in his pocket. It was a way he had, after perusing it solemnly through a pair of gold eye-glasses, with the intention of working it deliberately to the end.
A dinner organised for an express purpose is generally a failure. On the present occasion there was no particular object to be gained beyond the general discomfiture of two unoffending males, and it went on merrily enough. Drinking is, no doubt, conducive to sentiment; but eating has, I think, a contrary tendency, and should never be mixed up with the affections. Uncle Joseph, though far gone, had not yet lost enough heart to weaken his appetite, and young Goldthred helped himself to everything with the indiscriminate and indecent carelessness of a man under thirty. The ladies pecked, and sipped, and simpered, yet managed to take a fair share of provender on board; and after champagne had been twice round, the party were thoroughly satisfied with themselves, and with each other. Even Goldthred mustered courage enough to carry on the siege, and began making up for lost time. Her fish was so lively, Mrs. Lascelles thought well to wind in a few yards of line.
"Either you are very romantic, Mr. Goldthred," she objected, "or else you don't mean us to believe what you say."
"I wishyouto believe it," he answered, lowering his voice and blushing,reallyblushing, though he was aman, "and—and—I never used to be romantic till I camehere."
"It's in the air I suppose," she answered, laughing, "and we shall all catch it in turn—I hope it isn't painful! I sometimes think it must be, unless one has it in the mildest form. We'll ask Miss Ross. Jin, dear, Mr. Goldthred wants to know if you've any romance about you. I tell him I don't think you've an atom."
"How can you say so!" exclaimed Miss Ross. "Don't you know my especial weakness? Can't anybody see I'm heart all over?"
Uncle Joseph looked up from his cutlet, masticating steadily the while, and his grave eyes rested on the dark, meaning face of the lady by his side. Their gaze indicated surprise, incredulity, and the least touch of scorn.
She was a beautiful fighter, she had practised so much, and knew exactly when and how to return. Shooting one reproachful glance from her large dark eyes full into his own, under cover of the others' voices she murmured two words,—"Strangers yet!"
It was the title of a song she sang to him only the day before in the boudoir; a song into which she put all the wild, tender pathos of her flexible and expressive voice. Its burden had been ringing in his ears half an hour ago, while he dressed for dinner.
The round, you see, was a short one; but Uncle Joseph caught it heavily and went down! To borrow the language of the prize-ring—"First blood for Miss Ross."
He came up smiling nevertheless, and finished his glass of champagne.
"I wish you were a little plainer, Miss Ross. I'm not paying you a compliment, or I should say you could easily afford to be a great deal plainer than you are. I mean what I say."
"And I mean what I say too—sometimes," she whispered, drooping her thick black eye-lashes. "I don't think I should like to be thought so very plain byyou."
Uncle Joseph went down again, having received, I fancy, no less punishment in this round than the last.
Meanwhile young Goldthred, fortified by refreshment, and further stimulated by the interest Mrs. Lascelles either felt or affected, embarked on a touching recital of his pursuits, belongings, and general private history. He described in turn, and with strict attention to details, his schooner, his tax-cart, and his poodle; enlarging on the trim and rigging of the first, the varnish of the second, the elaborate shaving of the third—and, indeed, almost soared into eloquence about his dog.
"It shows he has a good heart," thought the listener; "but none the less must he take his punishment like the rest!"
With a little more champagne he glided, by an easy transition, into his possessions, his expectations, his prospects in general; why he had done well in "Spanish," what a mess he had made of "Peruvians," the advantage of early information about American politics, and how nearly he had missed a great uncle's munificent bequest by exposing his ignorance of the FrenchCredit Mobilier. He was not quite a fool, however, and stopped himself with a laugh.
"What a bore you will think me, Mrs. Lascelles," said he. "One is so apt to fancy everybody is interested in what one cares for oneself."
"I am," she answered, with her brightest, kindest look. "I always want to know everything about people I like. When they leave the stage I follow them in fancy behind the scenes, and Idothink I should feel hurt if I believed they were really so different without their rouge, wigs, padding, and false calves."
"It's not 'Out of sight, out of mind' with you, eh?" observed the young gentleman, in considerable trepidation. To do him justice, he saw his opportunity, but could make no more of it than the above.
"Do you think it is?" she returned. "And what would one be worth if it was? How little people know each other. We all seem to go about with masks for faces. I dare say mine is like the rest, but I would take it off in a minute if I was asked."
Another opening for Goldthred. He felt full of sentiment, up to his eye-lids; was, indeed, choking with it, but somehow it wouldn't come out.
"I've never been to a regular masquerade," said he simply; "I should think it was capital fun."
Miss Ross, whom nothing escaped, whatever she had on hand, saw his discomfiture, and came to the rescue.
"You're at one every day of your life," she broke in. "Rose is quite right. Nobody speaks the whole truth, except Mr. Groves, who has just told me I'm hideous. You know you did, and you think you're a capital judge. I shall not forgive you till after coffee. I must say I can't agree with Rose about one's friends. As for mine, with a few brilliant exceptions, the less I see of them the better I like it."
"If that's the case, Jin, we'll go up-stairs," said the hostess, rising slowly and gracefully, as she fastened the last button of her glove. "Uncle Joseph," she added, with her sweetest smile, "you're at home, you know. You must take care of Mr. Goldthred;" and so swept out, keeping the blue eyes Goldthred so admired steadily averted from his eager face. He returned to the table after shutting the door quite crest-fallen and disappointed. He had counted on one more look to carry him through the tedious half-hour that must intervene ere he could see her again, and she probably knew this as well as he did. Ladies are sometimes exceedingly liberal of such small encouragements; sometimes, as if from mere caprice, withhold them altogether. No doubt they adapt their treatment to the symptoms shown by the sufferer.
Itwasa long half-hour for the two gentlemen thus left over their dessert, without a subject of interest in common. Uncle Joseph's mature prudence, over-reaching itself, mistrusted a single lady's cellar, and he stuck faithfully to pale sherry; while Goldthred, with youthful temerity, dashed boldly at the claret, and was rewarded by finding an exceedingly sound and fragrant vintage. Not that he knew the least what he was drinking, but swallowed sweetmeats and filled bumpers with a nervous impatience for release, that lengthened every minute into ten. The other, wondering why his relative had asked this guest to dinner, and what merit she could see in him, thought him the stupidest young man he had ever come across, and was sorely tempted to tell him so.
They tried the usual topics in vain—the instability of the Government, the good looks of the Princess, the disgraceful uncertainty of the weather. At last, Goldthred, driven to despair, propounded the comprehensive question, "What were they doing to-day in the City?" and the companions got on better after so suggestive an inquiry.
Uncle Joseph delivered his opinions solemnly on certain doubtful securities; the younger man made a shrewd observation concerning his own investments. Obviously they had in one respect a similarity of tastes, and each found his dislike of the other decreasing every moment. Uncle Joseph even began to debate in his own mind, whether he ought not to ask his new acquaintance to dinner. He had drunk five glasses of sherry, and I think one more would have settled the point; but the welcome moment of release chimed out with the half-hour from a clock on the chimney-piece, so flinging down his napkin he pointed to the empty claret-jug, and suggested they should proceed up-stairs.
There was nothing Goldthred desired so much. He pulled his tie straight,—it had a tendency to get under his left ear,—bounced into the passage, whisked his hat off the hall table, weathered the butler coming out with tea, and was already engaged with the enemy, before Uncle Joseph had fairly extricated himself from the dining-room.
The ladies were wrapped in silence; they generally are when the men come up after dinner. They had disposed themselves, also, very judiciously. Mrs. Lascelles sat at the open window, not quite in the room, not quite on the balcony. Jin, with considerable forethought, had entrenched herself in a corner near the pianoforte, free from draughts. The soft mellow lamp-light threw a very becoming lustre on these bewitching individuals. Each knew she was looking well, and it made her look better still. After a bottle of sound claret, it was not to be expected that a man should enact "his grandsire cut in alabaster" in such company. Goldthred, armed with a flat hat and a coffee-cup, advanced in tolerably good order to the attack.
It was a fine night even in London. The moon sailed broad and bright in a clear, fathomless sky. The very gas-lamps, studding street and square, through the flickering leaves of spring flashed out a diabolical enchantment of their own, half revelry, half romance. The scent of geraniums and mignionette stole with a soft, intoxicating fragrance on the rebellious senses; and a German band, round the corner, was playing a seductive measure of love and languor and lawlessness from the last new opera. Mrs. Lascelles, moving out on the balcony, drank in the soft night-air with a deep-drawn breath that was almost a sigh. Young Goldthred followed as the medium follows the mesmerist, the bird the rattlesnake. His heart beat fast, and the coffee-cup clattered in his hand. Time and scene were adapted, no doubt, for sentiment, especially out of doors.
It is done every day, and all day long. Also, perhaps, more effectually still on nights like these. Pull a man's purse, madam, from his waistcoat-pocket, and although you have Iago's authority for considering it "trash," you may find yourself picking oakum as a first consequence, and may finish, in due course, at the penitentiary; but dive those pretty fingers a thought deeper, take his heart scientifically out of his pericardium, or wherever he keeps it, squeeze it, drain it, rinse it quite dry, return him the shrivelled fragments, with a curtsy, and a "thank you kindly, sir," you will receive applause from the bystanders, and hearty approbation from the world in general for your skill.
So Mrs. Lascelles, stifling all compunction, played out the pretty game. They leaned over the balcony, side by side; they smelt the mignionette, with their heads very close together; they looked at the moon, and into each other's eyes, and down on the street, where a faded figure, in torn shawl and tawdry bonnet, flitted past, to be lost in the shadow of darkness farther on; sighing, smiling, whispering, till the boy's blood surged madly to his brain; and the woman, despite of craft, science, and experience, felt that she must practise all her self-command not to be softer and kinder, if only for a moment, than she desired.
Her white, cool hand lay on the edge of the mignionette box. He covered it with his own. In another moment he would have seized and pressed it, hungrily, rapturously, to his lips. She rose just in time, and came full into the lamp-light from within.
"What nonsense we have been talking!" she exclaimed, with a laugh; "and what a deal of sentiment! It is nice to talk nonsense sometimes, and sentiment too, but a little goes a long way."
He was hurt, and, not being a woman, showed it.
"I am sorry," said he, gloomily; "I thought you liked it."
She did not want to snub him too much.
"So I do," she answered, stepping back into the drawing-room, "when it's the real thing, sweet and strong, little and good. Come and listen to Jin's song; it's better for you than flirting in the dark on the balcony."
Though mocking and mischievous, there was yet something kind and playful in her tone; he felt quite happy again as he followed her in, meekly, like a lamb to the slaughter.
Miss Ross, although she had taken up a position more adapted to the comfort of an elderly and rheumatic admirer, did not suffer the shining hour to pass away unimproved. She possessed a full, sweet voice, of rare compass, and was a thorough mistress of the musical art, accompanying her own or other people's songs with equal taste and skill. Uncle Joseph, in an arm-chair, with a hand on each knee, sat spell-bound by the Syren,—eyes, ears, and mouth wide open, under the influence of her strains.
It was but a simple ditty of which she gave him the benefit, yet neither nature nor art were spared to render it as destructive as she could. He had never heard it before; but, as he expressed entire approval of its rhythm, and asked for it again, I feel justified in giving it here. She called it—
"OVER THE WATER."I stand on the brink of the river,The river that runs to the sea;The fears of a maid I forgive her,And bid her come over to me.She knows that her lover is waiting,She's longing his darling to be,And spring is the season of mating,But—she dares not come over to thee!I have jewels and gold without measure,I have mountain and meadow and sea;I have store of possessions and treasure,All wasting and spoiling for thee.Her heart is well worthy the winning,But Love is a gift of the free,And she vowed from the very beginning,She'd never come over to thee.Then lonely I'll wed with my sorrow—Dead branch on a desolate tree—My night hath no hope of a morrow,Unless she come over to me.Love takes no denial, and pityIs love in a second degree,So long ere I'd ended my ditty,The maiden came over to me!
"OVER THE WATER."
I stand on the brink of the river,The river that runs to the sea;The fears of a maid I forgive her,And bid her come over to me.She knows that her lover is waiting,She's longing his darling to be,And spring is the season of mating,But—she dares not come over to thee!
I have jewels and gold without measure,I have mountain and meadow and sea;I have store of possessions and treasure,All wasting and spoiling for thee.Her heart is well worthy the winning,But Love is a gift of the free,And she vowed from the very beginning,She'd never come over to thee.
Then lonely I'll wed with my sorrow—Dead branch on a desolate tree—My night hath no hope of a morrow,Unless she come over to me.Love takes no denial, and pityIs love in a second degree,So long ere I'd ended my ditty,The maiden came over to me!
The two guests left No. 40 together, and parted at the end of the street; the junior betaking himself to his cigar, the senior to his whist. Each carried away with him a vague idea that he had spent an evening in Paradise. Which of the two had been made the greater fool of, it is not my province to decide; but I have some recollection of an old couplet in the West of England to the following effect:
"Young man's love soon blazeth and is done,Old man's love burneth to the bone."
"Young man's love soon blazeth and is done,Old man's love burneth to the bone."
"Near side, man! the near side! Take it up two holes—that'll do. Sit tight behind!"
The leaders cringed and winced against their bars. One wheeler, accepting under protest a wipe with the double thong across his quarters, threw himself widely off the pole; the other, butting like a goat, bounced into his collar; and so, starting the whole coach, the painted, varnished, glittering toy passed on, in clouds of dust, through all that wealth of oak and fern, and hill and dale, and gleaming glade and darkling dell, that make a midsummer fairy-land of Windsor Forest on your way to Ascot Races.
The man who had thus pulled up his team for alteration of their harness was a well-dressed, clean-made, good-looking young fellow enough. From the crown of his white hat to the soles of his varnished boots he was a "gentleman" all over; and if the choice little posy in his button-hole betrayed a suspicion of dandyism, it was redeemed by the frankness of manner, the good-humoured and unaffectedbonhomiecultivated by our young warriors of the Household Brigade, horse and foot.
Frank Vanguard, who belonged to the former of these services, was now steering the regimental drag and a roof-ful of brother officers to the great Olympic gathering of modern times on the Cup Day at Ascot.
Good spirits, good humour, banter, repartee, and nonsense, reigned supreme, constituting a combination called "chaff;" just as light wine, effervescence, and fragrant herbs, in due proportions, become "cup." The driver had enough to do, with a free but not very handy team and a crowded road, to the whole of which every carriage he passed assumed a prescriptive right; yet could he find leisure to answer in corresponding vein a volley of jesting remarks shot freely at him from behind.
"Frank," says a fresh-coloured young warrior, well qualified to enact the part of Achilles, so long as that hero was yet in girl's clothes, "there's a nice bit of galloping ground over the rise. You're not driving a hearse!Dospring 'em a bit, and give 'em the silk!"
"I'm not so fond of the silk asyouare!" answered Frank, touching his near leader lightly under the bars, as a fly-fisher throws his line. "You used to get double-thonged pretty handsomely at Eton, I remember, but it hasn't done you much good."
"Rating and flogging," answered the other, puffing out volumes of smoke; "that's the way to spoil your young entry!"
"Waste of whipcord," says a graver youth, desirous, of all things in life, that he should become a Master of Hounds. "They never made you steady from hare!"
"You got that, Charlie!" laughed another; but Charlie, ere this, has found a new interest in spasms of anxiety lest they should be passed by a rival drag, coming up in clouds of dust on their quarter, like an enemy's frigate through the smoke of battle.
"Who's this cove?" he exclaimed eagerly. "Sits well on his box—nice short-legged team—keeps his whip quiet, and drives to an inch."
"Snob!" replies a sententious captain, with long moustaches, "by name, Picard. Wouldn't have him in the Club. Did something abroad. Quite right. Heavy load and a roughish lot. Team, I should say, better bred than the company. Don't let him get by. D—n it all, Frank! that's a close shave!"
Itwasa close shave! Nothing but the affability with which the near wheeler, having recovered its temper, answered both rein and thong, kept the coach out of a roadside ditch, which would have sent one of the most promising coveys of Her Majesty's peculiar defenders into the thick of Her Majesty's preserves.
In keeping ahead of his rival, Frank Vanguard passed a barouche, from the inside of which was turned up to him a fair statue-like face, with dark eyes and hair, that flushed faintly under its white lace veil, as it gave him a little modest nod of recognition. No wonder he looked back; no wonder, thus looking, he brought his wheel so near the edge of a chasm, that one turn more would have turned him over, and that Miss Hallaton, holding her breath, shut both hands tight, while her father exclaimed:
"Nearest thing I ever saw in my life! Who's driving, Helen? He bowed toyou."
And Helen, answering demurely—"Captain Vanguard, Ithink, papa"—reflected how, had he been upset and hurt, the whole brightness ofherday would have darkened into sorrow, and how she wished he wouldn't be quite so reckless, though she liked him for being so bold.
Behind their barouche came a tax-cart, and behind the tax-cart another open carriage, in which drove the party who had assembled at dinner in No. 40, not very long ago.
Uncle Joseph, with his back to the horses, sat in unusual pomp and magnificence, pointing out the humours, explaining the races, and generally laying down the law, as though he combined in his own person the Mastership of the Buckhounds with the authority of the whole Jockey Club. Owner of a pretty little villa on the Thames, he had invited his kinswoman, the lady of his affections, and Mr. Goldthred to stay with him for Ascot Races. Therefore "The Lilies" smiled gay in chintz and muslin and fresh-cut flowers. Therefore Uncle Joseph, basking in a June sun and the light of Miss Ross's eyes, felt ten, twenty years younger—hopeful, enterprising, volatile as a boy!
Mrs. Lascelles was at all times a person of equable spirits. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that she possessed that self-command which forbids emotion to appear on the surface. She looked bright, smiling, gracious as usual; her lustrous eyes, rosy lips, and white teeth, enhanced by bonnet, dress, pink-tinted parasol, general sense of triumph, and flush of the summer's day. Poor Goldthred, sitting over against her, strove to stifle certain misgivings that such a goddess was too noble a prize for creatures of common mould, and vaguely wished he had kept away from the flame, round which, like some singed moth, he could not help fluttering in senseless, suicidal infatuation!
Parties of pleasure cannot always be equally pleasant to everybody concerned. Miss Ross, too, seemed out of spirits and pre-occupied; less gracious to Goldthred, less confiding with Mrs. Lascelles, less susceptible to the attentions of Uncle Joseph himself. Jin, as she was now called in her own set, sank back among the cushions, buried in strange, sad memories, that made her unconscious of the noise, the dust, the glare, the confusion of tongues, the crush of carriages, all the charms of the expedition. This, because playing at a cottage door, shouting vigorously as they passed, she had caught a glimpse of a ruddy, dark-eyed urchin, who reminded her painfully of her child. It was but one glance, as he sat triumphant in the dust, waving two dirty little hands round a black curly head, yet it was enough. She was back in sunny France once more, with something to trust in, something to work for, something to love. Looking in Uncle Joseph's battered old face and cloudy eyes, rather near her own, she could scarcely repress a movement of abhorrence and disgust; while he, good man, under the impression that he was more delightful than usual, inveighed against the furious driving, the extravagant habits, and general recklessness of the Household Cavalry.
"He'sverygood-looking!" observed Jin, rousing herself to make a remark that she knew would be unpalatable to her listener; "isn't he, Rose?"
"Very!" assented Mrs. Lascelles; "but you should see him in regimentals, my dear. I think I'll ask him to dinner."
Symptoms of mental disquietude in Uncle Joseph and young Goldthred. Each marvelling that a transitory glimpse, while passing at a hand-gallop, should have made so vivid an impression; and the latter wondering whether, if he were to alter the whole tenor of his life, to arm his chest with a cuirass, and plunge his legs into jack-boots, Mrs. Lascelles would deem him also worth looking at in "regimentals," as an officer's uniform is called by nobody but ladies who have never been in a regiment.
No amusement, except perhaps cricket, seems so popular as racing, yet out of every hundred people who attend Epsom, Ascot, or Doncaster, do you suppose five know one favourite from another, or, indeed, ever look at the noble animal, except he shows temper in his canter before the start? Helen Hallaton, though she dearly loved a horse, could not even have told you how many were going for the race about to commence as she took up her station on the Course; and yet the pretty pageant, bright and blooming like a June flower-bed, passed under her very nose. But she could have given a clear account of the masterly manner in which Frank Vanguard brought his coach into the enclosure; how he laid it alongside Viscount Jericho's, with as much pomp and little less manœuvring than moors an iron-clad at regulation distance from her consort; with what easy magnificence he flung his reins to right and left, condescendingly facetious the while with sundry muscular cads, who put their shoulders to the wheels and deftly extracted the pole. She could have told you how he leaped like a Mercury from his box, how carefully he laid aside his whip in its case, how with a silk handkerchief he dusted his white hat, his shirt-front, his curling moustaches, and the places where his whiskers were coming fast; lastly, how he took from the inside of the coach a beautiful little nosegay, daintily tied up, and stuck it into his button-hole, causing her to admit in her own mind that she wouldn't mind wearing one of those flowers herself, if she could have it without its being given her.
Of all this, I say, Miss Hallaton made accurate note; but I doubt if she had an idea of Mr. Picard's team, though it came next; of his flash-looking load, with aloudishlady on the box; of his blue coach, his red wheels, his well-dressed servants, or the workman-like pull up which brought the whole thing to an anchor, and was, indeed, one of the best performances of the day.
And now a dozen two-year-olds, after a dozen false starts, have run off their five furlongs with the speed of an express train, and "the Termagant filly," overpowering her jockey, a little bundle of pink satin and puff, huddled up on her back, has won by a neck. There is a lull till the numbers are up for the next race, and even the Ring, hungry, insatiate, roaring like the ocean, has subsided into a momentary calm. Sir Henry takes a cigar from a gorgeous case, and turns to his daughter.
"Backed her for her blood, Nell," says he; "they're all speedy, but they can't stay. Only a pony—that's better than nothing, however."
"Howcanyou, papa?" replies Nell. "It's wicked of you to bet, though youdogenerally seem to win."
Helen draws the usual distinction as to the immorality of gambling. To win is less than folly, to lose is more than sin. I do not think though that Sir Henry was equally confiding about his wagers when his judgment had been at fault. He seemed in the best of humours now.
"Nell, that's the prettiest bonnet we've hoisted the whole season, and the dress isn't the worst I've seen to-day. It's cruel to waste such a 'get-up' in a carriage. Come across, and we'll show ourselves on the Lawn."
"And you won't bet on the next race, papa?" says Helen, delighted; for is there not a chance, nay, almost a certainty, that Captain Vanguard, having eaten, and drunk, and smoked, and been through all the other privileged portals, will come to the Lawn for inspection of countless ladies drawn up in line-of-battle on their own special parade-ground?
The great tumult of the day was over; the Royal party had arrived under the usual burst of cheers; the greys had been admired; the carriages commented on; the Master of the Buckhounds, his horse, his figure, his boots, his seat, and all that covered it, subjected to rigid criticism. Everybody had a few spare minutes to walk about and admire or ridicule everybody else. As father and daughter set foot on the smooth burnt-up slope in front of the boxes, they came suddenly face to face with Mrs. Lascelles and Miss Ross. Each lady caught sight of Sir Henry at the same moment, and waited to see what her friend would do. I believe that if one had turned coldly on her heel, in answer to his ready salute, the other would have followed suit, and neither would ever have spoken to her fickle admirer again. But it is probable that the latter's habits familiarised him with such meetings, for in an instant he had both by the hand, and was accosting them with that mixture of interest, deference, and cordiality, which constituted the charm of his very agreeable manner. He seemed to take it as a matter of course that he should have made love to both, that they should all meet at Ascot, and that he should proceed to make love to them again.
"So glad to see you, Mrs. Lascelles!" exclaimed this hardened offender. "How wet you must have got the last time we parted. I sent my carriage after you directly I got home, but it was too late. So glad to see you, Miss Ross. You left us in such a hurry we didn't half wish you good-bye. Helen and I were very dull without you. Here she is—don't she look well? don't you both look well? don't we all look well?"
With such effrontery it was impossible not to fall into an easy strain of conversation, and after an affectionate greeting had been exchanged between Helen and her two presumptive step-mothers, the whole party proceeded to Mrs. Lascelles's box, from whence, without crowding or inconvenience, they could see the race for the Cup, in so far as it was affected by the run-in seventy yards from home.
Sir Henry, who had another "pony" depending on this event, would have liked to be a little nearer the Judge's chair; but I doubt if the ladies cared much for the final struggle, decided by half a length. Mrs. Lascelles, thinking that her old admirer looked worn, handsome, and gentleman-like, in spite of crow's-feet and grizzling whiskers, while resolving to punish him severely for his treachery, was reflecting that the process would be by no means unpleasant to herself. Miss Ross continued silent and pre-occupied, haunted by the vision of that sturdy boy kicking and crowing in the dirt. While Helen, commanding the four-in-hand coaches with her glass, saw only Vanguard's shapely figure on the roof of his drag as he turned to watch the race; and when the excitement was over, sprang down to mingle with the crowd that poured into the Course, on his way, as she hoped and believed, to join them here.
Now he stops to speak to a good-looking bad-looking man, whom she recognises as the driver of the coach which so nearly overtook his own. Certain courtesies of the road have already made these two acquaintances and almost friends. Now he bows to a duchess, now nods to a gipsy; presently he is lost in the throng, and emerges under their very box, when good-humoured Mrs. Lascelles, doing as she would be done by, beckons him up at once, and makes ready a place for him at Miss Hallaton's side.
He has something pleasant to say to each lady; and Miss Ross rouses herself to observe his good looks, enhanced by that frank air of courtesy, peculiar to an English gentleman, which is so fascinating to the women least accustomed to it. She gives him the benefit of a deadly shot or two from her black eyes, as he seats himself by Helen's side, and the girl, quick-sighted, silent, sensitive, feels each glance like a stab.
But it is pleasant to have him here, out of the crowd, amidst this beautiful scenery, under the summer sun, and over her steals that feeling of security and complete repose which is the infallible test of genuine affection.
He is quiet and happy too. Neither of them says much; perhaps they have a good deal to think of, and are thinking of it.
Uncle Joseph and young Goldthred, returning from an unremunerative expedition to the betting-ring, are somewhat discomfited to observe this invasion of their territories, but become speedily reassured in detecting Sir Henry's obvious anxiety to escape, that he may get "on" for the next race, and the ill-concealed admiration of Frank Vanguard for that reckless individual's daughter.
Mr. Groves backs Mrs. Lascelles's invitation freely.
"You will come and dine, Sir Henry," says she; "promise, and I'll let you off this minute. You know you are dying to get back to that wicked betting. Think of Helen. She'll be tired to death with the journey to London in a stuffy railway. Things! You don't want any things. Besides, why not work the wires? Telegraph for your servants to bring them down. We needn't dress for dinner. Captain Vanguard, if you can get away from the barracks, won't you come too?"
Frank looked at Helen, Helen looked resolutely at the card in her hand. He was forced, unwillingly, to decline, but doubtless remarked the colour fade in her cheek while he did so, expressing at the same time a hope of meeting next day. Uncle Joseph, who had quite abandoned the control of his own household, expressed entire satisfaction with everybody's arrangements, and Miss Ross whispered in his ear, "it was very dear of him to be so good-natured!"
Goldthred, too, having lost nine pairs of gloves, six and a half, three buttons, to Mrs. Lascelles, was in the seventh heaven. Altogether, not many race-goers left the Course better pleased with themselves that day. And Mr. Picard, looking down at Helen as he passed her carriage driving home, said to the loudish lady by his side—
"That'sthe handsomest girl I've seen the whole season! I wonder who she is?"
To which the loudish lady replied with acrimony—
"Doyou think so? Well, perhaps she is fresh looking, in a bread-and-butter, missy-ish sort of style. Can't you go a little faster? One gets choked with this horrid dust!"
The barrack-room of a subaltern in the Household Cavalry has been lately described by a gifted authoress as resembling "the boudoir of a young duchess." My experience of the latter, I honestly confess, is exceedingly limited, but I think I know enough of the former tenement to submit that our talented romancer has overstated her case. She would have been nearer the mark, I imagine, had she compared the lair of the formidable warrior to a servants' hall, a laundry, a condemned cell, or some such abode of vacuity and desolation, modified principally by whitewash. Gaudy pictures on the walls, gaudy flowers in the window-sill, do indeed serve to brighten the neutral tints prevailing in an officer's quarters, as provided by his grateful country, and a barrack-room chair is an exceedingly comfortable resting-place in which to smoke the pipe of peace in the stronghold of war. For ease, merriment, and good-fellowship, give me the habitation of the dragoon; but when you talk of pomp, luxury, taste, and refinement, I am prepared to back the duchess, ay, even though she be a dowager duchess, against all the cavalry regiments in the Army List, and give you the Horse Artillery in!
Let us take, for example, the room in which Frank Vanguard lies fast asleep, at ten in the morning, though a summer sun, streaming through the open window, bathes him, like a male Danaë, in floods of gold. He possesses horses, carriages, costly jewellery, clothes in abundance, boots innumerable, yet his furniture consists of the following items:—
One iron bedstead, without curtains; one wooden tub; one enormous sponge, one medium-sized ditto; a chest of drawers, constructed to travel by baggage-waggon; a huge box, meant to hold saddlery; a stick and whip stand; twelve pairs of spurs; a set of boxing-gloves; four steeple-chase prints; and a meerschaum pipe he never smokes. These, with a chair or two, and a few toilet necessaries, comprise the whole furniture of his apartment; and he is happier here than in luxurious London lodgings, lordly castle, or stately country house.
The song of birds, the flutter of the summer morning, snort, stamp, and stable-call, ring of bridle, and clink of steel, all fail to wake him. He is not for duty to-day, and never went to bed till five in the morning.
To say nothing of the mess-man and his satellites, it is a heavy week, that of Ascot Races, for field-officers, captains, subalterns, and all concerned in the dispensation of unbounded hospitality at Windsor during the meeting. They entertain countless guests, they convey them to and from the Course, they provide board and lodging for the gentlemen, amusement and adoration for the ladies, they are afoot day and night; yet seem always fresh, lively, good-humoured, and on the alert. But even cavalry officers are mortal, and though they never confess it, theymustbe very tired, and a little thankful when the whole function is over.
No wonder Frank sleeps so sound—dreaming doubtless of—what? His dark-brown charger, his chestnut mare, the stag he shot last year in Scotland, the team he drove yesterday to Ascot? Of Miss Hallaton, perhaps, and the deep lustrous eyes that haunted him so while he flung himself on his bed and went off into the very slumber from which he is roused, even now, by unceremonious knuckles tapping at the door.
A sleepy man says "come in" without waking, and enter a soldier-servant nearly seven feet high, who proceeds to fill the tub, and further dressing arrangements generally, with a clatter, that he has found from experience of many masters is the surest way to get a sluggard out of bed. This stalwart personage considers himself responsible (and it is no light burthen) that his officer should always be in time. With a Cornet his prevision is touching, and almost maternal in its care. Having thoroughly roused the sleeper, his servant plants himself at the bedside, drawn up to an exceeding altitude, in the position drill-sergeants call "attention."
"What is it?" says Frank yawning.
"Gentleman come to breakfast, sir. Waiting in the little mess-room."
"Order it at once, Blake, and say I'll be down in twenty minutes."
Exit Blake, facing to the right, solemnly but far less noisily than he came in; while Frank with one bound is on the floor, and with another in his tub, not feeling his eyes quite open till he has splashed the bracing cold water into them more than once.
While he shaves and dresses, getting through each process with surprising celerity, I may state that the gentleman waiting breakfast for him below is none other than Mr. Picard, the driver of the blue coach with red wheels, the quick-stepping browns, and the loudish lady of the day before.
A timely pull in Frank's favour, when the latter was in difficulties with his team at an awkward corner on the Heath,—a little judicious flattery extolling the capabilities of that team, and the mode in which it was handled,—a draught of champagne-cup offered,—a cigar exchanged,—and Vanguard was so pleased with his new friend, that he pressed the invitation which now brought him to breakfast in the officers' mess-room, accompanied by an appetite that never failed, and a determination to make the most of this, as of all other advantages in the game of life.
A couple of Cornets are already hard at work, with the voracity of youth just done growing in length but not breadth. Their jaws cease simultaneously at the entrance of a stranger, and, boys as they are, the instinct of each warns him against this plausible personage whom, as a guest, they welcome nevertheless with hospitality and perfect good breeding. It speaks well for Picard'ssavoir faire, that long ere his entertainer comes down, he has made a favourable impression on these late Etonians, so that, emerging to smoke outside in couples as usual, says one inseparable to the other—
"Pleasant company that hairy chap, and tongue enough for a street-preacher! Who the devil is he, Jack, and where did Frank pick him up?"
To which Jack, whose real name is Frederic, replies with deliberation:
"Notquitethe clean potato, young man, you may take my word for it. But that makes no odds. We'll have him to dinner. Shouldn't wonder if the party could sing a good song and do conjuring tricks."
"Pea-and-thimble and the rest of it," rejoins his friend. "Come and look at my bay mare."
So, dismissing Picard from their thoughts, they leave him to Frank Vanguard and breakfast.
These appear simultaneously. Frank, looking exceedingly clean, fresh, and handsome, is full of apologies for keeping his guest waiting.
"But you see we were very late last night," he urges, "and I'm not one of those fellows who can do entirely without sleep. If I don't get four or five hours I'm fit for nothing. It's constitutional, no doubt. I think I must have beenborntired."
Picard laughs—and when he laughs his expression changes for the worse. "I can sit up for ever," says he, "if there's anything to sit up for. A roll in the blankets and a tub are as good as a night's rest to me. Now, you'll hardly believe I was playingécartétill six this morning, and came down by the nine o'clock train!"
Frankdidn'tbelieve it, though it was true enough, but helped himself to a cutlet without expressing incredulity.
"Did you drive all the way back yesterday?" said he. "You must have been late in London, and it's a good day's work."
"I had three teams on the road," answered the other, "and only one of them took any getting together. Faith, the heaviest part of the business was talking to Mrs. Battersea! Shewouldcome, and shewouldsit on the box, and she sulked all the way home. You'll never guess why."
Mrs. Battersea was a celebrity of a certain standing in certain circles, not quite without the pale of decent society, yet as near the edge as was possible, short of actual expulsion. If a male Battersea existed he never appeared, and the lady who bore his name, a showy middle-aged woman, with a fine figure, and all the airs of a beauty, seemed in no wise restricted by matrimonial thraldom. She was one of those people to be seen at reviews, races, and all open-air gatherings within twenty miles of London—at flower-shows, plays, operas, and charity concerts in the metropolis; but nobody ever met her at a dinner-party, a ball, or a "drum." To sum up—men like Picard called her "a stunner;" ladies like Mrs. Lascelles said she was "bad style."
Frank, thinking none the better of this new friend for the freedom with which he talked of his female acquaintance, professed ignorance of Mrs. Battersea's reasons for discontent.
"Not easily pleased, I dare say," he answered carelessly. "Sometimes they're not, when they have everything their own way. Nervous on a coach, perhaps? And yet that could hardly be, for you've got the handiest team out, and I can see you're as good as most professionals."
"Guess again," said the other, who had finished breakfast, and was lighting a cigar.
Frank pondered.
"Seen a better-looking woman than herself, then; that'll do it sometimes, I've remarked. And they're bad to hold when they think there's something else in the race. If it wasn't that, I give it up."
"You're right, Vanguard," exclaimed his guest. "You've hit it, sir, plumb-centre, as we used to say on the Potomac. Mrs. Battersea never ceased talking all the way down; and some queer things she told us, too! The rough side of her tongue rasps like a file! Well, she was in high feather the whole day. Liked her luncheon, liked her bonnet, liked herself, liked her company, so she said; but, coming off the Course, we passed aduckof a girl in an open carriage: a girl with wonderful eyes and a pale face, but features like Melpomene. She'd got on a light-coloured dress, with a lilac sort of bonnet—I dare say you didn't notice her."
Frank's heart leaped to his throat, meeting his final gulp of coffee.Didn't notice her, forsooth! while the wonderful eyes, pale face, Melpomene mouth, light dress, even the lilac bonnet, had been haunting him for the last twelve hours.
"I only said, 'What a pretty girl!' as we went by," continued Picard, "and, will you believe it, Mrs. Battersea got her frill out on the instant! She never gave us another civil word the whole way to London: not one to share amongst the whole coach-load. Those two little Carmine girls that I brought down for Macdonald and Algy Brown were so frightened they wanted to stop at Hounslow and go home by the omnibus! That was after she caught Rosie making faces behind her back. Algy tried to take his poor little 'pal's' part, and didn't she chawhimup, too! Rather! I'd nothing to do but mind my driving and think of the Helen who had done all this mischief."
"How did you know her name was Helen?" asked Frank, completely off his guard.
"Well, Ididn't," said the other, wondering at his host's excitement; "but I suppose now that it is, and that you know her. Couldn't you introduceme?"
"Certainly, if you wish it," was the reply, "though probably we don't mean the same lady. There is a Miss Hallaton that answers to your description, and shewasat the races yesterday. Daughter of Sir Henry Hallaton, rather a good-looking, oldish man, in a white hat and red neckcloth."
"That's it!" exclaimed Picard; "I spotted the father, red neckcloth and all! Depend upon it you're right, and it must have been Miss——What's her name? Hallaton? Well, all I can say is, I've not seen a better-looking one since I left Charleston, and very few who could beat her there. Do they go much to London? Do they live anywhere near here? I think the governor's a loosish fish. I saw him drinking 'cup' with some queer-looking people behind my coach, and he was in and out of the Ring all day. Beg pardon, Vanguard, if they're friends of yours. I didn't mean to say anything disagreeable, I give you my word."
"Oh! I don't know them very well," said Frank, growing red, and feeling that he was making himself ridiculous. "I stayed with them last winter, near Bragford. Capital place to hunt from, and Sir Henry was very kind and hospitable. If you're quite done, shall we come outside? The drag will start in an hour, and I will have a place kept for you, if you'd like to go with the others from here."
"I am not going at all," answered Picard. "The fact is, I'm not much of a racing man, and two days running is rather a benefit. Don't let me put you out in your arrangements, I beg. This is a beautiful neighbourhood, and I've been so much abroad, that I quite enjoy the air, and the English scenery, and the rest of it. I'd rather take a quiet walk while you're all at the races; but I'll stay and see you start the team notwithstanding."
"Not going!" thought Frank. "How very odd! Now, what can a fellow like this have to do down here on the sly? Country walk! Gammon! He's after some robbery, I'll lay a hundred!" But he onlysaid:
"My Cornet's going to drive. I don't think I shall be on the Heath at all, unless I gallop a hack over in the afternoon."
"Hot work," answered Picard carelessly. "I thought everybody was keen about racing, except me." But he too wondered at the taste of his entertainer in thus preferring a solitary morning to a pleasant drive in the merriest of company, accounting for it on a theory of his own.
"War-path, of course! and, keen as a true Indian, means to follow it up alone. Got 'sign,' no doubt, and sticks to the trail like a wolf. Won't come back, I'll lay a thousand, without 'raising hair.' Ah! this child, too, could take scalps once, and hang them round his belt, with the best of ye! Andnow——Well, I'm about no harm to-day, at any rate, and that's refreshing, if it's only for a change!"
So he sat himself down on a garden seat in front of the officers' quarters, where, producing a case the size of a portmanteau, filled with such cigars as are only consumed by trans-Atlantic smokers, and, offering them liberally all round, he soon became the centre of an admiring circle, civil as well as military, to whom he related sundry experiences of international warfare in the States, well told, interesting, no doubt, and more startling than probable.
Mr. Picard had certain elements of popularity, such as launch a man in general society fairly enough, but fail to afford him secure anchorage in that restless element. He was good-looking, well-dressed, plausible, always ready to eat, drink, smoke, dance, play, or, indeed, partake in the amusement of the hour. He looked like a gentleman, but nobody knew who he was. He seemed to have a sufficiency of money, but nobody knew where he got it. TheCourt Guidevouched for him as J. Picard, Esq., under the letter "P," with two addresses, a first-rate hotel and a third-rate club. TheMorning Posteven took charge of him in its fashionable arrivals and departures. Men began to know him after "the Epsom Spring," and by Hampton Races he had ceased to arouse interest, scarcely even excited curiosity, but had failed to make a single female acquaintance above the class of Mrs. Battersea; nor had he, indeed, gained one step of the social ladder people take such pains to climb, in order to obtain, after all, but a wider view from Dan to Beersheba.
Such men crop up like mushrooms at the beginning of every London season, and fade like annuals with the recess. Goodwood sees the last expiring blaze of their splendour, and next year, if you ask for them, they are extinct; but, as the Highland soldier says, "There are plenty more where they come from." In dress, style, manner, they vary but little. All dine constantly at Richmond, shoot well, and drive a team, in the handling of which they improve vastly as the season wears on.
Mr. Picard could, however, lay claim to a little more interest than the rest, in his character of a soldier-adventurer, to which he was entitled by service with the Confederates during their prolonged struggle against overwhelming odds. Somehow, every soldier-adventurer concerned in that war seems to have been a Southerner. Certainly the romance was all on their side, though the scale, weighed down by "great battalions," turned in favour of the North. From his own account, Picard had done his "little best," as he called it, for the party he espoused; and observing a gash on his cheek, which could only be a sabre-cut, it was hard to listen coldly while he talked of Stonewall Jackson and Brigadier Stuart as ordinary men do of Bright and Gladstone—perhaps with no more familiar knowledge of the heroes than a general public has of these statesmen. Still, the subject was captivating and well treated, the contrast between Stuart's dashing, desperate, rapidly-moving light horsemen and Her Majesty's Cuirassiers of the Guard was exciting, the similarity in many points flattering to both. Cornets listened open-mouthed, and felt the professional instinct rising strong in their martial young souls; older officers smiled approbation, not disdaining to gather hints from one who had seenrealwarfare, as to nosebags, haversacks, picket-ropes, and such trifling minutiæ as affect the efficiency of armies and turn the tide of campaigns. When the drag appeared nobody discovered that Frank Vanguard had made a masterly retreat; and Picard had received as many invitations to remain and be "put-up" in barracks as would have lasted him till the regiment changed quarters, and his entertainers had found out half he said was anoldstory and the other half not true.