"With a ghost-seer's look when the ghost disappears."
"With a ghost-seer's look when the ghost disappears."
"I hope your honour's enjoyed your ball," said the linkman.
Frank started. He had never been up-stairs, nor even made his bow to Lady Shuttlecock. What had he to do with the ball?
Nevertheless, he put his hand in his pocket and gave the linkman half-a-crown.
But Frank entertained no thoughts of returning to the scene of gaiety he had quitted on its very threshold. Stopping only to put a cigar in his mouth he turned, without a pang, from these "halls of dazzling light," to walk slowly away through a succession of dark streets, like a man in a dream.
"It's waiting for you!" Of course it was; and what a fool had he been not to inquire for his letters at the "Cauliflower" ere he dressed for dinner. She must have answered his proposal very quickly, he thought; couldn't have taken time to consult papa, nor any one else; must have made up her mind in a moment—women always did. Was this a good omen or not? At each alternate lamp-post he changed his opinion. Here he argued, she had jumped at the offer the instant it was made, loving him so dearly, and being so determined to marry him that it was needless to consult any one else on the subject; ten paces further on, he saw the other side of the question. If she meant to refuse him, it couldn't be done too quickly, and the less said about it the better. Such an answer would, of course, be sent by return of post; and, pre-occupied as he was, he found himself vaguely calculating the many deliveries of that valuable institution, speculating whether he could indeed have received her letter at his club, had he called for it so early as half-past seven o'clock.
Revolving this irrelevant consideration in his mind, Helen's beauty and confusion, as he saw her ten minutes ago, rose like a vision before his eyes, and he felt all joy and confidence once more. "Sure of winning!" he said out loud, with a puff of smoke into the hot, close night. "Cock-sure, my boy, as if you'd got the race in your pocket!"
In two more streets he would reach the "Cauliflower," and his heart leaped wildly to think of the dainty white missive, with its delicate superscription, even now awaiting him in the lobby of that caravanserai.
Quickening his pace, the sooner to end suspense, he came in sight of a figure lurching along the pavement some fifty yards ahead, with the gait of a man who, not in the least overcome by wine, is yet enough under its influence to walk more leisurely and with a more pretentious swing than usual.
He saw them by dozens every night of his life, and would have taken little notice of this convivial bird returning to roost, but that his attention was aroused by the scrutinising manner in which two men, by whom he was himself overtaken at a quick walk, looked under the brim of his hat as they passed by. Returning their stare, he observed they were an ill-favoured couple enough, and that one shook his head as if dissatisfied, crossing the street forthwith to join a third figure that stole out of the shade cast by the opposite houses. Whatever might be their object, all three seemed now to join eagerly in chase. Frank slackened sail to observe their movements, and was soon satisfied they were dogging the steps of the passenger ahead, who walked carelessly on in happy unconsciousness that he was watched or pursued.
These four, tracked and trackers, were pretty close together as they turned out of the main thoroughfare into a street, which several yards of high dead wall without lamps rendered one of the darkest in the West-End of London. Frank looked up and down for a policeman in vain. Not a soul was to be seen, and finding himself the only occupant of the pavement, he ran stealthily forward to the corner round which the others had lately disappeared, much mistrusting his assistance would be wanted without delay.
He was right. Already he could hear a scuffling of feet, a smothered oath, two or three blows exchanged, in short, sharp cracks like pistol-shots, while a hoarse voice muttered:
"Slip it into him, George! Would ye now? Take that—and that?"
Notwithstanding their numbers, however, the ruffians seemed to have a hard bargain of their prey. The latter, with his back to the dead wall, fought like a wild cat, but three to one make short work, and in a couple of minutes he was overpowered, and down on his knee. Had his head touched the pavement, it might never have risen again, but at this critical juncture in leaped Frank Vanguard, like an Apollo who had learned to box. One remarkably straight left-hander doubled up the smallest assailant like the kick of a horse, while another sent the next in size staggering into the middle of the road, where he thought well to remain for a space, grasping his jaw with both hands, and blaspheming hideously. The biggest villain, shouting "Bobbies!" with an execration, and expressing his intention to "hook it," took to his scrapers, as he called them, at once, and was speedily followed by his equally cowardly auxiliaries.
Frank looked wistfully after the assailants, while he lifted their victim to his feet, exclaiming, with the utmost surprise, "Why, it's Picard!" as the dim light enabled him to identify that gentleman, considerably mauled and dishevelled, yet apparently not very seriously hurt.
Bleeding and breathless, Picard's presence of mind seemed, however, not to have deserted him. Before thanking Vanguard he felt for a parcel of notes in his breast-pocket, and laughed as heartily as aching bones and heaving lungs would permit.
"They have missed 'the swag,'" said he, wiping his bloody face with a cambric handkerchief, "and it's worth collaring, I can tell you. It's always my maxim to stick by the stuff; but if it hadn't been foryou, 'squire, I must have caved out this spell, I estimate. It would have been a pity, too," he added, relapsing into the English language as he cooled down, "for, bar one at Baltimore, two years back, it's the best night I ever had in my life. 'Pon my soul, Vanguard, I'm heartily obliged to you; and how you hit out! Why, that dirty, black-muzzled chap spun round as if he was shot."
"He's hurt my knuckles, the little beast!" said Frank, looking with much commiseration at certain abrasions on a white and bony hand. "But what have you been about, my dear fellow! and how did they know you'd got money? Were you at all screwed?"
"Sober as a judge!" answered Picard. "In fact, a deal soberer than some judges I've seen down West in my time! I've been playing billiards ever since eleven o'clock, making game after game off the balls in a form you'd hardly believe. The fact is, I caught a flat, who thought he was a sharp! First he lost his money, then his temper. Of course he played on to get back both. I didn't win so very easy, you know; indeed I had rather a squeak for it more than once; but I always managed to nail him in the last break. Then we got to double or quits, and I needn't tell you howthatwent. He'd a friend, too, from the country, what you Britishers call 'a yokel,' I suspect, who backed his man handsome and paid up like the Bank of England. I drew this sportsman to a lively tune, I can tell you. Altogether I landed a hatful, and not a drop would I have to drink till just before starting. I don'tthinkthey hocussed me; no, I've been hocussed before, and I know what it is. But their brandy was infernally strong, or the soda-water unaccountably weak, for somehow I felt so jolly I said I wouldn't have a cab, but walk home behind a weed.
"Now I think of it, there was a big, awkward-looking skunk loafing about the table most of the night, who never betted nor played, but seemed always on the watch, to see we didn't steal the chalk, as I supposed. I know better now. He sneaked out, I remarked, when I went for a cocktail. No doubt he watched me start off to walk, and followed with his pals. That's the gentleman who 'skedaddled' just now so freely when it came to a fight. Captain Vanguard, I say again, I'm infernally obliged to you!"
Frank, whose excitement had cooled down, was on thorns to receive his letter. "Have a cigar," said he, proffering his case. "I fear I can't do anything more for you now. I'll see you home, if you like, but I'm rather anxious to get to my club before they shut up. It's the 'Cauliflower,' you know. Almost in the next street."
"I live close by," exclaimed Picard. "We'll go together, and I hope you'll come and look me up at my rooms to-morrow. I've a few Yankee notions, and things I've got together knocking about Mexico and the States. They might amuse you, and I can give you a capital weed—nobody better; and you shall have the best I have, you shall! John Picard never yet forgot a good turn nor a bad one. You're the right sort, Captain, real grit; and you and me are mates for life. It's John Picard says so, and there's his hand upon it!"
Frank, who entertained a truly British horror of being thanked, would fain have escaped forthwith, but there was no avoiding the proffered hand; and it struck him also that his new friend reeled somewhat in his gait, talking the while more volubly and thicker than at first.
Resolving, therefore, to see him safely to his own door, and return as speedily as possible to the "Cauliflower," he grappled his companion firmly by the arm, and steered him without difficulty along the now deserted pavement.
A couple of heavy blows on the head, with a strong squeeze of the throat, had served, no doubt, to intensify the effect of such villanous brandy as Picard imbibed before leaving the billiard-room in which he had been so successful. He said as much, admitting a certain influence on his physical powers, but repudiating, with suspicious jealousy, the idea that hard knocks or alcohol could in any way affect his brain.
"My boots are a little screwed," he observed, contemplating them with a gentle forbearance, "but my legs are right enough, and so am I. John Picard isn't a man, sir, to be upset by a drop of corn-brandy, nor a hug from a loafer like that. I'd have whipped him into Devonshire cream if I'd had a clear stage. How many were there, now, according to your calculation? I tell ye fair, I was down (because these d—d boots chose to get drunk) before I'd time to count!"
"Only three," answered Frank, laughing, "and not a good man in the lot. They wouldn't have tried it on if we had been together; but your boots went so fast I couldn't catch them."
The other shook his head gravely. "Three," said he. "An' I hadn't even a tooth-pick."
"Tooth-pick!" repeated Frank in astonishment. "Lucky you hadn't—you'd have swallowed it!"
Picard being now arrived at that stage in which a man finds it impossible to make any statement, however trivial, without turning round and facing his companion, stopped short beneath a lamp-post, while he explained with great solemnity:
"A bowie-knife, about eighteen inches long, sharp on both sides, and weighted in the handle, is whatwecall a tooth-pick, young man, down Arkansas way. It's a neat tool—very—and balances beautiful. Some like them up the sleeve. I used to wear mine down the collar of my coat. That an' a six-shooter, if you're pretty spry, will clear the kitchen smart enough in a general row. Down to Colorado now, I'd have laid those three loafers in the larder before you could say 'bitters.' And to think that to-night I shouldn't have had so much as a pencil case on me! How old Abe Affable would laugh if he came to hear of it. Poor old Abe! The last time I saw him he wanted to scalp a nigger for blacking his boots instead of greasing them. Well, well; different countries, different manners, and different drinks, no doubt. I like this country, Captain. After all, I'm a citizen of the world, but more a Britisher than anything else."
"Are we near your house now?" asked Frank, whose impatience made him almost wish he had left this citizen of the world to his fate.
"Next lamp-post but two," replied the other, with an unmeaning laugh. "Boots know where they are now, I do believe—would find their own way to the scraper if I was to pull 'em off, I'll lay a hundred. Here you are, Captain, latch-key sober, at any rate. You won't come in? Well, perhaps itislate; good night, mate. One word before you cast off."
Poor Frank, chafing like an irritable horse at the starting-post, returned on his track, and Picard took hold of the lappet of his coat.
"I'll go back to Windsor with you," said he cordially. "I like Windsor, and I likeyou. I've reason to like both. Look here, Vanguard; there's something at Windsor that would have looked very queer if I'd been rubbed out just now; and I might have been, I don't deny it, but for you. Poor little chap, he's got nobody in the world but me! Perhaps that's why I'm so fond of him. I dare say Pharaoh's daughter thought there never was such a child as Moses when she pulled him out of the water. I know when I fishedmyboy out he put his chubby arms round my neck as if I'd been his father. Little rogue! I couldn't care more for him if hewasmy own, twenty times over.
"I'm a domestic fellow naturally, Vanguard, though I'm yarning to you now, under a lamp-post, at three in the morning. I've had a rough time of it, one way and another. Not always fair play, I fancy. Sometimes I think I'm the biggest blackguard unhung. Sometimes I hope I'm not so much worse than my neighbours."
Frank was thoroughly good-natured.
"We'll talk that over to-morrow," said he; "in the mean time, good night."
"Good night," repeated the other. "I know what I say, Vanguard," he called out after his friend, while putting his latch-key in the lock; "and to prove it, I'll show you, my boy!"
"He must be very drunk," thought Frank, speeding down the street like a deer, "and I'm glad I came across him in the nick of time—there would have been mischief if those fellows had got at him alone."
In another moment, palpitating and breathless, he was on the steps of the "Cauliflower" Club, where, passing swiftly into the hall, he espied Goldthred reading a letter by gaslight, with an expression of countenance that denoted he was profoundly mystified by its contents.
This gentleman, strolling in to quench his thirst after the glare, heat, worry, disappointment, and general penance of Lady Shuttlecock's ball, and running his eye as usual down the letter-rack, drew from the compartment "G" a laconic little epistle without signature, of which the second and third perusals bewildered him no less than the first:
"If you are really in earnest," so ran this mysterious document, "come to-morrow, there is somebody to be consulted besides me."
What could it mean? A lady's handwriting, to which he was an utter stranger. No name, no date, no monogram. "Come to-morrow," thought Goldthred. "Certainly! But where? And whenisto-morrow? It's ten minutes past three now. Oh! this can't be intended forme!"
Then he turned it upside down, backwards and forwards, inside out. The envelope was addressed correctly enough, christian and surname in full, with even a flourish of calligraphy adorning his humble title of "Esquire." Many members of the "Cauliflower" would have pocketed the effusion without emotion, as a mere every-day conquest of some anonymous admirer, but such a suspicion never entered Goldthred's honest head. In his utter freedom from self-conceit, this note puzzled him exceedingly; but to have believed it due to his own powers of fascination, would, in his loyalty to Mrs. Lascelles, have annoyed him still more.
The same letter-rack, low down, under "V," produced another epistle in a similar handwriting, which Frank snatched with eagerness from its place and pressed hungrily to his lips, as he rushed back into the street, feeling a strange suffocating necessity on him to read it in the open air. Earning an epicurean prolongation of pleasure, which most of us indulge in, by deferring its actual commencement, he walked some few paces on his homeward way ere he tore open the envelope, with a blessing on his lips for the girl he loved, and something like tears of gratitude, affection, and happiness starting to his eyes.
These started back again, however, and clustered like icicles round his heart, while he read the following terse and explicit communication:
"Dear Sir,—I regret that a previous engagement will prevent my availing myself of your polite offer. I shall, of course, inform my father of your proposal when he returns."And remain,"Yours sincerely,"Helen Hallaton."
"Dear Sir,—I regret that a previous engagement will prevent my availing myself of your polite offer. I shall, of course, inform my father of your proposal when he returns.
"And remain,
"Yours sincerely,
"Helen Hallaton."
Frank clenched his fists and shut his teeth tight, for ithurthim. Hurt him very severely, though he scorned to wince or cry out, only smiling in anything but mirth, while he said aloud to the gas-lamps:
"I didn't think she was such a bad one! Miss Ross is worth a dozen of her. O Helen, howcouldyou!"
Perhaps in all his life he never loved her better than now, while he swore nothing should induce him to see nor speak to her again.
Mrs. Lascelles, like many of her sex, entertained a high opinion of her own medical skill in all ailments of mind or body. If your finger ached she would produce an absurd little box, the size of a Geneva watch, from which, with an infinitesimal gold spoon, like a bodkin, she proceeded to give you a strong dose, consisting of two white atoms not so large as pins' heads, dissolved in a glass of pure water, which they neither flavoured nor coloured, nor otherwise affected in the least. Repeating this elfin discipline two or three times with the utmost gravity, she would have been exceedingly mortified, and almost offended, if you had not declared yourself better forthwith. And it is but fair to say that I never heard of any one being worse for the prescriptions she dispensed with such confidence and liberality.
But if the pain was in your heart this general practitioner buckled on her armour with yet greater alacrity, and confronted the enemy on a far more vigorous system of tactics. She refrained indeed, wisely enough, from prematurely assaulting his stronghold, but attacked his outworks one by one with unflinching determination, so that the citadel, deprived on all sides of its supports, wavered, collapsed, and surrendered at discretion.
One of the most powerful engines with which she battered, so to speak, the obstinate fortresses garrisoned by such tried veterans as Memory, Pique, and Disappointment, was a "little gaiety," by which Mrs. Lascelles understood a round of London amusements and continual change of scene. "Sympathy, my dear," she would say, with a comical little sigh and shake of her dainty head, "sympathy from those who have felt sorrow, and going about—to good places, of course—with dancing, you know, and plenty of partners, will cure anything.Anything!I assure you, for I've tried it; except, perhaps, a broken neck!"
In pursuance, then, of this extremely plausible theory, it was not long after the events described in the last chapter, that Miss Hallaton found herself sitting next Mrs. Lascelles in a box at the Opera, hoping, no doubt, for that distraction from sorrow which I fear is seldom found in music, mirth, or gaiety; but which is rarely sought in vain by the pillow of suffering, in the house of mourning, under any roof or in any situation where we can lend a willing hand at the great cable of brotherly love and unselfish effort, which alone hauls the ship's company into port at last.
It seems to me that sights and sounds of beauty serve but to add a cruel poison to the sting; whereas honest, unremitting toil, provides us a certain opiate; and active charity towards others draws gradually the venom from our wound.
Helen had suffered acutely. The girl's pride was humbled to the dust, and even that infliction was not the worst. Her gods had deceived her, and her idols proved to be but clay. Frank Vanguard's conduct was more than fickle, more than heartless; it seemed actually brutal and unmanly! Since her reply to the letter in which he asked her to become his wife, he had never been near her, had held no communication with her family nor herself, but had avoided them all with a persistence insulting as it was unaccountable.
Whatever reasons he might have, she felt his conduct was utterly inexcusable, and Helen endured that bitterest of all punishments, the conviction not only that her love was without return, but that she had bestowed it on an unworthy object; had misconceived the very nature, mistaken the very identity of him whom she once felt proud to know so thoroughly, whom she imagined no one thus knew but herself.
"I thought him so different!" In that simple sentence—said by how many, and how bitterly!—lurked all the sorrow, all the humiliation, all the despair. The man she loved had never really existed. She must teach herself to forget this dream, this delusion, as if it had never been. With woman's fortitude of endurance, woman's decency of courage, Helen fought her battle, hid her wounds, and swallowed her tears, but the struggle told on her severely. Sir Henry, cursing late hours and hot rooms, talked of taking his daughter back to the country. Even Jin's heart smote her when she marked the pale face, the drooping gestures, the sad, weary looks; while Mrs. Lascelles, insisting on her own treatment of a malady she was persuaded she alone could cure, took every opportunity of administering amusement in large doses, and esteemed no part of her regimen more efficacious than these long hours of heat, glare, noise, imprisonment, and musical stupefaction, spent at the Italian Opera.
So Helen, watching the business of the stage with eyes from which the tears wouldnotkeep back, while those thrilling strains rose and fell in the outcry of remorseful passion, or the wail of hopeless, yet undying love, wondered vaguely why there should be all this sorrow upon earth, springing, apparently, from the purest and most elevated instincts of the human heart. She forgot that a time would come hereafter, perhaps on this side the grave, when the misery that was eating into her own young life must seem no less unreasonable, no less unreal, than that of the harmonious lady yonder, in pearls and white satin, who would take her place at supper in an hour, with spirits and appetite unimpaired by the breaking heart that, flying mellifluously to her lips in this intricatecavatina, brought down on her a rainbow shower of bouquets, followed by a thunderstorm of applause. "Thatissinging!" said Miss Ross, from the back of the box, drawing a long breath of intense enjoyment, the enjoyment of the artist who appreciates as well as admires. "Rose, why didn't I bring a bouquet? I'd throw my head at her if it would take off!"
Mrs. Lascelles laughed, and made a sign signifying "Hush!" while Miss Ross whispered over Helen's shoulder—"Isn't ittoodelightful, dear? In my opinion music's the only thing worth living for!"
Helen, who esteemed nothing much worth living for at that moment, responded with modified enthusiasm, and turned languidly to the stage. Just then the box-door opened; and she knew, though he was behind her, and had not spoken a syllable, that it admitted Frank Vanguard!
He couldn't keep away! Of course he would not have allowed that any part of this crowded house held for him the slightest attraction.
Fidgetting in the stalls, and getting Helen's well-remembered profile within range of his opera-glasses, it was only natural he should tell himself she could never be more to him than a humiliating memory, a cause of gratitude for his narrow escape. It was also natural that he should take his good manners severely to task for negligence, in not having called lately on Mrs. Lascelles, and should scout the notion of being kept out of her box by anybody in the world, man or woman! So, looking paler than usual, and, for once in his life, almost pompous in his embarrassment, he tapped at the door, and found himself stumbling over a delicate little satin-shod foot, belonging to Miss Ross, of whose presence, to do him justice, till he made this ungainly entrance, he had not the slightest suspicion!
"It's a good omen!" thought that quaint and speculative young person, whileherheart too was beating faster than common. "I shall trip you up at last, sir; and what a fall I'll give you!" But she reflected also that they would probably go down together; and there was something not unpleasant in the apprehension.
Frank recovered himself sufficiently to greet Mrs. Lascelles with customary politeness, and made Helen a ceremonious bow, without offering to shake hands. She construed the omission into a studied and gratuitous slight.
So the poor girl turned once more to the stage, leaning her cheek on her hand, and wondering sadly, almost humbly, what she had done to be so punished, tried to interest herself in the progress of the opera.
A tenor, swelling in black velvet, was expressing intense adoration of some object unknown, possibly the great chandelier, at which he trilled and quavered with unflagging persistency—lifting to it eyes, eye-brows, chest, and shoulders, rising on his toes, as if, like the skylark soaring and singing towards the light, he would fain project himself, his voice, his trunk-breeches, and his dearest affections, right through the roof!
Nor did he seem in the slightest degree influenced by suspicion or dismay, though the stage, becoming gradually darkened, filled rapidly with assassins, all wearing black cloaks, black masks, black gloves, brandishing poniards, and bursting forth—as was extremely natural in a band of paid murderers stealing on their victim—into a magnificent and deafening chorus, such as caused the very curls of the Conductor to vibrate on his head, while he waved his baton to and fro in spasmodic frenzy, the crisis of a musical delirium.
It was Jin's opportunity. From her dark corner those black eyes flashed like lamps, while she murmured, under cover of the ophicleide and the big drum:
"You've never been to see us, Captain Vanguard. Rose has missed you sadly, and—and—so have I."
A vacant chair stood by her own, so close, that her gown partly covered its cushion. There was obvious invitation in her gesture, while she removed the intrusive fold, and Frank dropped willingly enough into that vacant seat.
Wounded, sore, reckless, angry with one woman, he was in a mood to render the attractions of such another as Miss Ross extremely dangerous. His attention being taken off his own grievances, the cessation of pain was in itself delightful; and I fear he had too little generosity to forbear the petty triumph of showing Miss Hallaton that others could care for him even if she did not. Besides, the act of flirting with such a professor as Jin in the dark corner of an opera-box, however dangerous, was, in itself, no unpleasant pastime; so, while Helen, cold and sick at heart, suffered herself to be deafened by chorus and orchestra, Frank, to use his own expression, "went in a perisher, and made tremendous running with Miss Ross!"
She was an experienced angler, so perfect in the art that being in earnest rather increased her skill than otherwise. The popularity of our Italian Opera is not entirely due to its music, the best and the highest paid for in Europe. Its boxes form also a convenient territory for the prosecution of those skirmishes, which would become actual warfare but for the nature of the ground on which they take place. There are fair and dazzling visions, there are soft, sad sounds—most intoxicating when softest and saddest. There is bright glare on others, semi-obscurity for ourselves. There are sympathy, juxta-position, a common object of interest, a necessity for whispers, and a propriety in absolute silence, which is in itself the strongest possible stimulant to conversation. Above all, there is a certain sentiment of isolation, the result of being shut up together for a definite period, that renders people mutually attractive; just as no man alive can accompany a woman, however ugly, for a long sea voyage, and not fall in love with her to a certainty.
"You don't, and youknowyou don't!" whispered Jin, in answer to some wild remark of Frank's, drowned for all ears but her own in an outrageous crash of brass instruments. "Though, mind, I won't have you fancy for a moment that I lump you in with the others, tie you all up in a bunch, and label you 'poison.' No, I shall not give you my poor gardenia. You'll take it on to Lady Clearwell's, I dare say. But it will never get any farther than the first pretty woman you dance with. Water! Pooh! It would wither, poor thing, and much you'd care for it, then! Well, if youreallypromise——No. I won't. I never did in my life, and I won't begin! You needn't move, it's only Goldie. Nowthat'sa faithful admirer, if you like!"
It was indeed none other but this devoted swain, who, meekly entering, and paying homage stiffly enough to Mrs. Lascelles, seated himself between that lady and Helen, but afforded the former far the largest share of his attention and indisputable remarks on things in general.
The mistress of the box could not be said to be disappointed, though she wished it was somebody else, for her glasses were even now fixed on that somebody's drooping aristocratic old head, a dozen feet below her. Why did he not come up? She owed him the less grudge for this neglect, that she had a strong conviction Sir Henry Hallaton was fast asleep in his stall.
Mrs. Lascelles stifled a sigh.
"It's up-hill work—very!" she said to her own heart. "And I'm making this other poor fellow sadly wretched. He's like the people one reads about in a novel. He never complains. I wish he would! I wish he'd scold me well, and tell me what a beast I am!"
Touching his arm with her fan, while she made some trifling observation, it cut her to the quick to observe how his face brightened up, like a dog's at the voice of its master; and for the first time Mrs. Lascelles found herself entertaining a vague suspicion that it might be unwise as well as unfeeling to throw away so much confiding adoration, to barter a reality that would last her lifetime, for a mere fancy, less tangible and less permanent than a dream. So, with half-a-dozen kind words, meaning nothing, she lifted this simple young man to the seventh heaven of transport, reaping, from her own act, the quiet satisfaction that follows such deeds of benevolence and common humanity.
Meanwhile, Frank had risen to go. Carefully abstaining from the slightest glance in Miss Hallaton's direction, he took an exceedingly affectionate leave of Miss Ross, and resumed his stall, which was next to that of Sir Henry, fastening a gardenia, with some little pretension, in his button-hole.
"Been on the war-path," thought Sir Henry, waking up from a doze and observing this lately-won decoration. "Quick work. Taken a scalp already, and hanging it on his belt." Then he remembered his own daughter was in the house, and meditated grimly on the deadly penalties he would exact from any man who should be so rash as to trifle with Helen; consoled, however, by the reflection that she was the last girl in the world to yield even so light a trophy as a flower to one who had not earned it in honourable and legitimate warfare.
"What's the attraction, Jin?" asked Mrs. Lascelles, with something of irritation in her tone. "You've never taken your glasses off one spot in the stalls for the last ten minutes! Will you share the object amongst us, or must you keep it all to yourself?"
Miss Ross was never at a loss.
"It's the tower of Babel, dear," she answered, good humouredly, "before the confusion of tongues. Did you ever see such a head! There, two rows behind Sir Henry Hallaton. The woman in pink, with all those beads wound round her, bangles on her arms, and, I do believe, a fish-bone through her nose! I can see it, I'm sure, when she turns this way!" Thus Jin, with her glasses in her lap, with mirth and mischief in her eyes, to all appearance with no sentiment but ridicule in her heart.
Miss Ross deserved credit, I think, for unscrupulous invention and readiness of resource, also for the quickness with which she pounced on the woman in pink, a respectable matron, whose head-gear, modelled after that of a notorious Parisian impropriety, was simply such as she saw worn by ladies of her own station and repute every night of her life.
Jin would have studied this apparition perhaps more attentively, but that her whole soul was projecting itself, as it were, through her glasses, towards Frank Vanguard and his gardenia. She did not regret giving it him now. She was falling horribly in love with him. How she would have hated Helen, she thought, but that she could afford to pity her!
I have said this enthusiastreallyenjoyed an opera, lovingfineeven more dearly thanprettymusic.
Deferring, therefore, till to-morrow the laying of plans, calculation of chances, that laborious train of reflection in which she knew too well she must collect the resources of her head to attain the desire of her heart, she sat back in her chair, and abandoned herself to one of those dreams which are perhaps the most ecstatic of all visions vouchsafed to us poor children of clay.
To repose unobserved in a corner, to drink in sounds of more than mortal sweetness, on which the soul, linked to one dear image, like Paolo in the arms of Francesca, floats away, away through the realms of space, into the fabulous regions of unchanging, unadulterated love,—is not this a happiness to which the joy of fruition, the content of security, must seem sadly tame and insipid, to which the "sober certainty of waking bliss" is but vulgar reality, clogging the wings of impossible romance?
And now the performance drew to a close. The tenor had sung hisariaof triumphant villany, and hissoloof despairing remorse. Thebasso, having cursed through the whole gamut in exceedingly correct time, had fallen on his knees at the foot-lights, tearing a white wig, after the approved pattern of King Lear. Priests, soldiers, friars, courtiers, townsmen, stately nobles, and smiling peasant-girls, thronged the entire depth of the stage, while above the motley crowd waved and flaunted symbols of religion, spoils of warfare, and the banner of France. Theprima donna, venting shriek on shriek, with surprising shrillness and rapidity, had died in convulsions of unusual energy, and even repeated her demise, after an enthusiasticencore; the orchestra, becoming louder, fiercer, faster, with each successive bar, had worked up to the grand deafening and discordant crash, which is esteemed a worthyfinaleto all great compositions, and the curtain hovering to a fall, glasses were cased, white shoulders cloaked, both on and off the stage all acting was over, and the audience rose to go away.
Let us follow Mrs. Lascelles and her party, escorted only by the constant Goldthred, as they leave their box to attain the stairs, the crush-room, the carriage, and eventually the street.
We shall not need to hurry—their progress, gaining about a yard a minute, is slow and deliberate as a funeral. At the lowest step of the whole flight, Helen is aware of Frank Vanguard making his way through the crush, apparently with the intention of joining their party. In her distress, looking wildly round for help, she catches sight of her father's grizzled head above the surface; and, meeting his eye, telegraphs for assistance. Sir Henry, whose redeeming point is the care he takes of his daughter, makes no cessation of edging, sliding, bowing, and begging pardon, till he reaches her side, and thus places himself in a false position as regards the ladies he has lately left. They cling to him with annoying persistence, and he condemns himself, very forcibly too, though below his breath, more than once for having a daughter "out," and yet choosing to know such women as Mrs. Battersea and her sister, Kate Cremorne. He must not introduce them to Mrs. Lascelles, as they obviously wish; hewillnot introduce them to Helen, though they would like this too; and how can he ignore them completely, when he is engaged to supper this very night at their house? With all his careless selfishness, it annoyed Sir Henry exceedingly to be guilty of a rudeness or unkindness towards any one, and he formed more good resolutions to avoid doubtful society for the future in the half-dozen paces he waded through that stream of muslin four feet deep, and all the colours of the rainbow, than he had made, and broken, in his whole life before.
Ere he could accost Helen, however, assistance arrived from an unexpected quarter. Picard, who was just as sure to be at the Opera as any one of the fiddles in the orchestra, recognised his fellow-travellers from Windsor with a profound and enthusiastic bow, followed by a smiling approach, in which his teeth, his whiskers, his grin, and his stealthy yet confident demeanour, proclaimed the "tiger" of social life, not wanting in some of the attributes belonging to his nobler namesake, the terror of the jungle.
In another stride he would have offered his arm to Helen, but Mrs. Lascelles, warned by Sir Henry's eye, interposed, and seeing no other way of saving her charge, with a devotion almost maternal, cast off from Goldthred and seized it herself.
"Take care of Helen!" she whispered in the latter's ear, while the flowers in her wreath brushed his very cheek. "This man mustn't take her—you understand! Come to-morrow to luncheon."
The whisper and its purport made him quite happy; Mrs. Lascelles had also the satisfaction of observing something like displeasure cloud Sir Henry's eyes as they rested on herself and herimpromptucavalier.
"If he's cross it shows hecares," was her first thought. "Ah! he'll never care like theother one,"—her second, and that which remained longest in her mind.
The "other one," in the mean time, walked meekly on towards the carriage with Helen tucked under his elbow, thus freeing Sir Henry from his embarrassment, and leaving him at leisure to devote his attentions to Mrs. Battersea, who was, indeed, by no means inclined to let him off.
Mrs. Lascelles followed on the arm of Picard, who behaved as well as he could, though he would rather have taken Helen; these were succeeded by Jin and Frank Vanguard, apparently very well pleased with each other and thoroughly disposed to accept the situation.
I know not what Frank whispered, but gather that it was something complimentary by his companion's answer.
"We're not the only ones!" said Jin, looking up from under a scarlet hood, like a bewitching gipsy.
"How do you mean?" asked Frank, innocently enough.
"Don't you see your old love and Mr. Goldthred?" was the reply. "Confess now—honour! Youdidcare for her once!"
"A little, perhaps," he answered lightly, though his lip quivered, and she saw it.
"But you don't now?" she pursued, leaning towards him with a gesture of confiding tenderness impossible to resist.
"YouknowI don't," he answered, and pressed the arm that rested on his own, gently but firmly to his heart.
She broke into one of those rare smiles by which, on occasion, she knew how to rivet her work so securely.
"It's a case, I'm sure!" she exclaimed. "They'll be a very happy couple, and I can wish her joynowwith all my heart!"
There are various phases of hospitality on which people depend for increase of social reputation and entertainment of their friends. One lady sets great store by her dinners, the excellence of her cook, the lighting and decorations of her table, the tact with which she selects her guests. Another believes it impossible to equal her "breakfasts," why so called, I am at a loss to explain, since they take place after luncheon. A third thinks this last-named meal forms the perfection of friendly intercourse, while a fourth stands or falls by the agreeable circle she gathers round her at afternoon tea. Mrs. Battersea affected none of these. She piqued herself exclusively on her suppers; and to sup with Mrs. Battersea after the Opera was to form one of a circle more remarkable for gaiety, good-humour, and general recklessness, than for wisdom, propriety of demeanour, or reputed respectability.
They were very pleasant, nevertheless, these little gatherings. She understood so thoroughly how they should be constituted, the quantity of guests, the quality of wines drank, and the dishes set on the table. You had some difficulty in finding her house, no doubt, even if you went in a hack-cab, for it lurked in those remoter regions of London which are to Belgravia what Belgravia must once have been to Grosvenor Square. She was a "settler," she said, and liked the wild, free life of the borders. When the real respectables, dowager peeresses and those sort of people, moved down to her, she would "up stick" and clear out farther west! Meantime the little house looked very charming, even at half-past twelve p.m. The delicate foliage of an acacia quivered in the light at its door; your foot trod the street pavement indeed, but your nostrils breathed the fragrance of hawthorn and hay-fields, not so very far off. A flagged passage through ten feet of garden led you into a beautiful little hall with tesselated pavement, globe lamps, statuettes, flower-boxes, a fountain, and a cockatoo. On your senses stole the heavy, subtle odour of incense, the soft strains of a self-playing pianoforte, far off in some room up-stairs. You were sure to be expected; no pompous auxiliary from Gunter's extorted your name, but the smoothest and lightest-footed of butlers received your overcoat and motioned you in silence towards a room, from the open door of which floods of light streamed across the carpeted passage, whence you heard the popping of corks, thecliquetis d'assiettes, the pleasant voices of women, the soft ripple of talk and laughter within.
You had time for scarcely a glance at that group after Watteau, that Leda in alabaster, the ormolu on velvet, the porcelain under glass, for, brushing the deep, soft carpet, with step noiseless as your conductor's, you entered an octagon room, brilliantly lighted, containing a round table, on which flowers and fruit were grouped in tasteful profusion, the whole set off by a circular lamp dependent from the ceiling, and so shaded as to throw its glare on grapes, geraniums, roses, glass and gold, table ornaments and china, glittering plate, and bubbling wine.
At this table were already seated some half-dozen noisy, pleasant individuals, when Sir Henry arrived. His entrance was the signal for a fresh burst of laughter, and a triumphant clapping of hands.
"You've won on both events, Kate," exclaimed Mrs. Battersea, making room for the belated guest by her side. "It was even betting you wouldn't come, Sir Henry. Kate shot us all round, and laid three to two you would be here before the soup was cold!"
"They thought you had been made safe, Sir Henry," said the last-named lady, whose specialty it was to speak very demurely and very distinctly. "But I knew better. Now, don't talk till you've had something to eat."
He took her advice and glanced round the table while he sipped a clear soup—brown, strong, and restorative as sherry.
There were only two people he didn't know, a man and a woman: the former, stout, florid, bearded, deep-voiced, with the unmistakable artist type, being indeed a sculptor of no mean celebrity; the latter, wrinkled, faded, a snuff-taker, with false teeth and hair. She seemed witty and agreeable, however, fruitful in anecdote, deadly in repartee, with something of foreign buoyancy in manner.
She filled her glass, and emptied it too, pretty often. Sir Henry set her down for an Englishwoman naturalised in Paris.
The rest consisted of Picard, to whom he had lately been introduced, young Kilgarron, Frank Vanguard, and Mrs. Battersea's sister, the enterprising Kate Cremorne.
What the former had been fifteen years ago, the latter lady was now: hazel eyes, high colour, dazzling teeth, auburn hair, bright in manner, dress, and appearance. The elder sister exhausted all appliances of the toilet, to put the clock back those fifteen years and look like the younger, but in vain; nevertheless, such was the difference of their ages, that she regarded Kate less with a sister's jealousy than a mother's indulgent affection.
"So you backed me in, Miss Kate?" said the baronet, touching her glass lightly with his own, ere he drank a mouthful of champagne. "Knew I was to be depended on, didn't you? Just like a great stupid cockchafer blundering to the light. You're the light, you know, and I'm the cockchafer."
"You must be pretty well singed by this time!" answered Kate, laughing. "No; the others thought you wouldn't be allowed to get away; but I was sure you would come directly if anybody told younot!"
Mrs. Battersea attacked him on the other side.
"Confess, Sir Henry, you haven't heard the last of this from a certain lady whose name begins with an L. Youknowyou won't dare call at No. 40 for a week!"
"Why?" he asked simply, and emptied his glass.
"Why, indeed!" answered the other. "She looked as black as thunder, and absolutely scowled atme. Youshouldhave put her in the carriage, I must say."
"He couldn't!" interrupted Picard; "because I did; and two people can't perform that office unless they make a queen's cushion."
"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Kate. "I suppose you think you'd do quite as well as Sir Henry. Not a bit of you. He's A 1 with the ladies. Haven't you found that out in all your travels? Why theyoungwoman looked as if she'd eat poorme, when I only bowed to him! I mean the pale girl in a——Gracious! Captain Vanguard, if you like me tell me so, or, at least, if you kick me under the table—don't kick so precious hard!"
"That was my daughter, Miss Kate," said Sir Henry, in perfect good-humour, interpreting very correctly Frank's too strenuous warning below the surface.
Kate got out of her difficulty gracefully enough.
"Your daughter!" she repeated. "And a very nice daughter too. How fond she must be of you! I should, I know!"
Here Miss Cremorne exchanged glances with Vanguard, and Sir Henry felt a vague uncomfortable consciousness that the society was too young for him; relieved, however, by virtuous disapproval of Frank's promiscuous intimacies, and a dawning conviction that, if there had ever been any tendency to such an arrangement, he was well out of him for a son-in-law.
The sculptor now produced a velvet case of cigarettes which was handed round, and from which even the ladies did not disdain to take a few whiffs of the most fragrant tobacco in the world: Kilgarron only asking leave to indulge in a long strong Havanna, or "roofer," as he called it,—urging that to offer a man a cigarette when he wanted a cigar, was like giving him a slice of bread and butter when he asked for a beefsteak!
"Nonsense!" argued Mrs. Battersea. "Half a loaf is better than no bread, and half a frolic than no fun,—consequently, half a puff is better than no smoke. What doyousay, Kate! That's your second cigarette already."
The girl would have made a pretty picture, leaning back on the red velvet cushion of a sofa to which she had now betaken herself, while daintily holding the cigarette between her delicate fingers, she pursed up the rosiest and most provoking mouth imaginable to emit a long thin stream of aromatic smoke.
"What do I say?" she repeated, looking meaningly at Frank Vanguard. "That I hate half-loaves, half-frolics, half-mouthfuls, half-measures ineverything! All or none, say I. Take it or let it alone!"
The foreign-looking woman tapped her snuff-box. "You're wrong," said she. "Everything in life is a matter of compromise. Besides, onyourprinciple, my dear, you'd have all your eggs in one basket. Suppose you drop it?"
"What a mess there would be in the basket!" observed the sculptor.
"They'd make an omeletteanyhow," said Lord Kilgarron, mixing himself a brandy-and-soda at the side-board.
"Besides, there are fresh ones laid every day," added Picard.
"With chickens in them," continued Mrs. Battersea, "if you'll only have patience."
"And after all, one egg is very like another," murmured Sir Henry somewhat hazily; "dress them how you please, there's generally a suspicion about them, and the freshest are rather tasteless at their best."
Frank said nothing; but thought of the eggs he had most valued in the world, their basket, and its fate. Well, he had learned his lesson now. He must make the most of a pretty painted egg he had chosen to-night, from the shelf, indeed, rather than the nest, and must abide by his selection, defying memory, prudence, common sense—defying even the bright eyes, pleasant smiles, and winning whispers of Kate Cremorne.
A man who has lost the flower he values most is perhaps never so unhappy as when he roams the garden to find a hundred others ready to be gathered, as sweet, as bright, as blooming, lacking only the subtle, special fragrance that was all in all tohim. He is far less lonely in the desert than in that bower of beauty, which the absence of his rose—be she red, white, or yellow—has converted to a bare and dreary waste. Young hearts are sadly impatient of sorrow. Like young horses first put in harness, they are given to fret and bounce, and dash at any distraction which serves to divert their thoughts from the collar and the curb. Frank felt in no mood for self-communing to-night; but he was well disposed to snatch at any gratification the hour could afford. As the champagne mounted to his brain, Helen's pale, proud image faded into distance, and Jin's black eyes seemed to chain him in their spells. Ere long, he began to think he was a very lucky fellow after all, and exchanged jest or repartee with Kate Cremorne, as if he had not a care nor a sorrow in the world. That discriminating young person detected, nevertheless, something hollow in all this merriment.
"His heart's not in the game," she whispered to her sister, as the whole party took up a fresh position in the conservatory. "Something's gone wrong with Frank; and I think we needn't ask him to Greenwich next Sunday."
Henceforth she divided her smiles between the sculptor, whom she had known from her childhood, and Picard, on whom she bestowed perhaps the larger share, appreciating, as women do, a certain spice of the adventurer, which he betrayed, without parading, in dress, manner, gestures, even in the curl of his moustache, and the turn of his well-shaped, sinewy, sunburnt hands.
Sir Henry fell to Mrs. Battersea, who encouraged him to drink more champagne than is good for anybody after one in the morning; while Frank, placidly smoking, suffered himself to be amused by the foreign-looking Englishwoman, whose spirits seemed rather to increase than diminish with the waning hours.
So the night wore on. It was already four o'clock in a bright summer sunrise, when Sir Henry lighting a fresh cigar as he grappled to Picard's offered arm with great good-will—expressed his intention of walking home.
"Every yard of the way, my dear fellow. Does one all the good in the world. Nothing like exercise. Never had gout, though I'm bred for it both sides; and, faith, I've earned it, too! We used to live hard in my early days. But I always took a deal of exercise—always. That is why I'm pretty fresh on my legs now."
Picard assented, as younger men are bound to assent to such platitudes from their elders; and Sir Henry, whose pedestrianism was indeed of an exceedingly intermittent nature, puffed a volume of smoke in the rosy face of morning, and proceeding with his reflections.
"Now, Frank and that heavy fellow have gone off together on the chance of finding a cab. Much better have footed it like you and me. 'Gad, what a lovely day it's going to be! And what a pleasant night we've had! I'm not sure, though,"—here he turned round full on his companion—"I'm not sure we make the most of our lives after all. Hang it! if I had to begin again, I think I'd go in more for nature. Keep always out of doors, farm more, shoot more—look after the poor, hunt the country, and never go from home. I'm getting on now, and begin to understand the old Tartar chief, who longed for the Land of Grass when he was dying—