He glances once more at the leviathan timekeeper he carries, and discovers that he has outstayed his limit fifteen minutes, and that his regular constitutional before feeding time will have to be curtailed.
“I, too, have numerous letters to write, so I think I’ll say au revoir.”
Trixy sticks out five fingers carelessly, and he takes them in silence, but he is not bold enough to squeeze them ever so little, and he breathes more freely directly he is outside the big drawing-room door.
His broad back turned, Trixy steals out on tip-toe upon the landing, and when he is fairly out of the house, she opens the ivory and ebony box, takes out the two morocco cases, and walking up to the large mirror opposite, she leisurely puts the chain of brilliants and the band of rubies round her snowy throat. Rubies flash in her ears, and a huge bracelet of the same gems gleams blood-red on her rounded arm.
For a minute or two she gazes enraptured at herself, then she rushes up the stairs, two steps at a time, like a tomboy, and bursts like a whirlwind into what is called Baby’s school-room.
Baby has for some time given up instructive books for more refreshing waters of literature in the shape of French romances; but she still clings, with the small amount of tenacity there is in her nature, to the old ink-stained table and hard chairs, in whose company she tottled up four and four, and invariably made them nine, and wept bitter tears over the dry food provided for her mind by Miss Jenkinson, a staid sanctimonious old spinster that Lady Beranger had picked up out of the Guardian, and who, for twenty pounds a year and her laundress, agreed to the herculean task of bringing up the youngest Miss Beranger in the way she should go, so that when she was old she would not depart from it.
Alas! Miss Jenkinson’s counsels have fallen on stony ground, for Baby is the biggest young reprobate that ever danced through life in kittenish glee and kittenish mischief.
The school-room, now that Miss Jenkinson is gone, probably through worry, to a premature grave, is used as a sort of omnium gatherum for all the Miss Berangers, and here they gather usually when not en toilette and en evidence.
“Look at me,” cries Trixy in a shrill voice, “and admire me.”
And jumping on to the centre of the table she stands with a half-conscious, half-comical expression on her face that elicits a burst of laughter from the other three.
“How can old Stubbs make such a fool of himself? He must know you are only marrying him for those things!” Gabrielle says contemptuously.
Trixy takes no notice. Gabrielle is not a pet or a pal of hers, and Gabrielle’s wits are too sharp for her.
“I say, Zai, what wouldn’t you give for such beauties as these?”
“Nothing! I don’t care a bit for jewels, and I wouldn’t accept such costly gifts from a man I did not care about for anything,” Zai answers quietly, going on with her drawing.
“Grapes are sour, my lass. The man you did care for might not be able to give you them,” Trixy says spitefully.
“I would accept them fast enough if I had the chance,” Baby confesses ruefully, climbing on to the table as well, and enviously examining the brilliants and rubies. “Just fancy, that old Hamilton has never offered a thing but that!” and she sticks out her third finger, on which reposes an old-fashioned ring, with a bit of Archibald Hamilton’s sandy hair shining through the crystal. “Scotch are such screws, I hate them. Do you know, girls, that I have nearly made up my mind to give the old gentleman the slip, and to elope with Gladstone Beaconsfield Hargreaves.”
“Heavens! what a name for a common village Veterinary,” Gabrielle says, with a curl of her scarlet lip. “And to think of his awful people having the audacity to mention Beaconsfield in the same breath with Gladstone!”
“Rather mentioning Gladstone in the same breath as Beaconsfield!” cries Zai, horror-struck. She is a thorough little Conservative to the back-bone, and even goes to sleep in her dainty white-curtained bed with a badge of the Primrose League upon her bosom.
“A very good name it is!” flashes Baby, taking up the cudgels in defence of her rustic admirer. “I think his godfather and godmother were sensible people, and had no narrow-minded party-feeling and that sort of rubbish in their heads. Real Liberal-Conservatives they were, of course. I can’t stand politics, Trixy, can you?”
“Can’t abide them,” Trixy murmurs lazily. “I hate everything it gives one trouble to understand.”
“Politics make me quite ill,” Baby goes on, as she jumps off the table and flings herself full-length on the hearth-rug. “When the governor and Lord Delaval begin at them, I always feel inclined to roar. The governor shuts up one eye, and tries to look so awfully clever, you know.
“ ‘Dolly Churchill, my dear fellow, is the man —the man! Our only hope in these days of misguided, dangerous democrats. Our only stay! The Liberal Government have been the very devil – they have played ducks and drakes with everybody and everything, and if they had lasted one day longer —one day longer! mark my words!– we should have been at – at – well, not where we are now!’
“And Delaval, who is a red-hot Republican at heart, just smiles that beautiful cynical smile of his, and thinks the governor a regular jackass, and so do I.”
“You shouldn’t speak so of Papa, you irreverent monkey,” Zai says gravely.
“Shouldn’t I really!” Baby replies, mimicking her voice. “Well, then, I will. I love my Papsey. He is a dear old boy, but all the same, I don’t think he will ever set the Thames on fire with his brilliancy. Why, ever since he has been in the House he has never said anything but ‘hear, hear!’ or joined in the ironical cheers.”
“Lord Salisbury thinks a lot of the governor. I heard him say to Count Karoly the other night that Beranger was one of the most reliable men in the House, and so very cautious,” Zai says quietly.
“No wonder, as he never opens his mouth,” Baby laughs. “What do they have a lot of dummies for in Parliament?”
“Oh, just to make the whole thing look more imposing than it is, I suppose,” Trixy drawls languidly. “Very likely they prefer most of the members not speaking, as the stupid ones might let out the secrets to the Opposition.”
“Gladstone speaks!” Gabrielle announces solemnly, as if it is not a remarkably well-known fact. “He has been known to speak for three days and three nights without pausing to take breath even, and his eloquence has so overwhelmed the House – ”
“With sleep, that no one ever got at the real meaning of his speeches,” interrupts incorrigible Baby. “Any way, the Irish didn’t. My Hargreaves is an Irishman (that is why he was christened Gladstone Beaconsfield I dare say. The Irish muddle up politics so, you know), and he told me that in Paddy land Gladstone is the new name for Blarney-stone.”
“I wish you would not regale us with the imbecile witticisms of your Vet, Mirabelle,” Gabrielle mutters crossly, for she worships the G.O.M., and feels a slash at him acutely. And Baby knows she is wroth, for it is in ire only that she calls her Mirabelle, but Baby cares for nothing or nobody.
“My Hargreaves is not a vet, now. He is assistant riding-master to the great Challen.”
“Baby, is this why you coaxed the governor into letting you have riding-lessons?” Zai questions anxiously.
Baby springs up from the hearth-rug, and turning a pirouette, pauses beside her pet sister.
Leaning over she whispers in her ear:
“It is, but if you promise not to peach, Zai, I’ll tell you something about – ”
“Who?” Zai whispers back, colouring vividly.
“C. C., but not before Gabrielle and Trixy.”
Zai blushes more deeply still as she bends over her drawing, and wonders if the letters C. C. will always send the blood surging over her face and set her pulses throbbing.
In spite of his heartless conduct at Elm Lodge she loves him dearly still, and lives from day to day in the hope that the clouds will clear away, and give her back the sunshine of life – Carl’s love and presence.
And as she sits and drops off into a sweet waking dream, Gabrielle’s voice startles her, and drags her back into everyday existence.
“Seven o’clock! We must be off and dress for dinner. There goes the first bell. Zai, there’s a treat in store for you to-night.”
Zai looks up, the dreamy expression still lingering in her eyes. A treat! For one moment she really fancies “he” is going to appear somewhere or somehow, but the next instant she fully awakens to her folly.
“Lord Delaval dines with us to-night, and afterwards we are all going to the theatre.”
“What theatre?” Zai asks quickly.
“The Bagatelle, to see ‘Hearts versus Diamonds.’ ”
“And ‘him!’ ” Zai thinks to herself, waxing white as a lily at such an ordeal with Lord Delaval’s mocking smile before her, and Lord Delaval’s cold, keen gaze watching her face.
“Who sent the box for to-night?” she asks, for she knows Lady Beranger never spends her money on such things.
“Lord Delaval.”
Zai colours again, and stoops down on pretence of picking up her pencil. She feels that Gabrielle is looking at her.
“That man has sent it on purpose to vex me,” she thinks. “I detest him.”
CHAPTER IV.
AT THE BAGATELLE THEATRE
“Why did she love him? Curious fool, be still,
Is human love the growth of human will?”
When Lady Beranger and her party enter a large stage-box and settle themselves noiselessly in their seats, the first act of ‘Hearts versus Diamonds’ has begun, and the big bass is booming out a lugubrious overture to Ferdinand – the deserted lover’s reproaches to his faithless and diamond-worshipping Lady Yolande.
On the whole Carlton Conway looks superbly handsome and effective, when, as Ferdinand, he takes up a highly picturesque pose right in the centre of the stage. His head erect, his chest well thrown out, a little after Kyrle Bellew; his shirt-front ample; his tail-coat, and waistcoat and trousers, his patent leather boots, unimpeachable; and a gardenia from Hooper’s, in Oxford Street, although he can ill-afford the half-a-crown paid for it, fresh and snowy and fragrant, reposing on his broad breast.
With one white hand uplifted, the forefinger pointing in scorn; the third finger sparkling with a tiny but pure brilliant (Zai’s gift), he hurls:
“Oh, cursed hunger of pernicious gold,
What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?”
in a deep, impassioned voice, that fairly electrifies his audience, but makes very little impression apparently on the Lady Yolande, who has quite made up her mind to give up love and poverty for a comfortable mansion in Mayfair and plenty of diamonds and money.
Miss Flora Fitzallan, as the Lady Yolande, is at her best to-night. She looks, in fact, as if a whole page of “Debrett” was devoted to her ancestry, thereby proving that we are not what we seem, and often seem what we are not.
In the palest of blue brocades, heavily embroidered with silver, and a tuft of pale blue ostrich tips placed jauntily a little on one side of her head, and a long Court train, edged with the very best imitation ermine, she looks quite good enough for a leader of Society.
On the finger of scorn being pointed at her, the Lady Yolande laughs tragically, and with an artistic twirl of her skirt swoops down close to the foot-lights, and while her glance roves over the jeunesse dorée gathered in the stalls, cries in a contralto voice:
My name is Blue-blood! In the House of Lords
My father sits and has his say;
My mother was a Mistress of the Robes,
Before those awful Tories had their sway!
Thou forgettest, Ferdinand, that sangre azul flows
Through all my veins; that in my face
Not only love, but high ambition glows,
With which, alas! thou never canst keep pace!
Lapped in soft luxury, born in marble halls,
Vassals and serfs to answer to my calls,
I could not brave the humiliating woe
Of in this world coming down so low.
Ferdinand, forgive me! and let me go!
Without my purse full, I should surely pine,
I love good dinners, and I love good wine;
My beauty decked in velvets, satins, lace,
A jewelled diadem to crown my face.
Ferdinand, I leave thee! heart-broken, with a sigh,
But without gold and diamonds I should die! – die!
Upon this confession Ferdinand shows the laceration of his feelings by striking another attitude, an attitude of giant but picturesque despair. He folds his arms tightly across his chest, strides heavily towards her, and wears generally a depressed appearance.
“Oh!” he exclaims, lifting up his fine eyes to the gods in the gallery. “Lend me, I pray, strength to bear her perfidy.”
As his glance slowly travels earthwards he espies Zai, and starts slightly, but the sight of her sweet face gives real pathos and eloquence to his voice as he murmurs tenderly:
“Yolande! Beloved Yolande! Thou knowest not the vulture that gnaws my heart, or thou would’st pause in thy fiendish work. False Yolande! Thou hast never known what heart is, but —
“ ‘I will tell thee what it is to love.
It is to build with human thoughts a shrine,
Where Hope sits brooding like a beauteous dove,
Where life seems young and like a thing divine.
All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine,
To consecrate this sanctuary of bliss.
Above, the stars in cloudless beauty shine.
Around, the streams their flowery margins kiss,
And if there’s Heaven on earth – that Heaven is surely this!’ ”
Carl Conway is really a very fair actor, and his voice is both musical and entrainante, and he spouts these lines with a wonderful passion and softness that appeal to all the women present, and as he speaks them, ever and anon his handsome brown eyes rest a second on the stage-box where poor little Zai sits well back in her corner.
Her eyes fixed on the beloved face, she forgets the existence of anyone else, her cheeks are flushed with excitement, her heart throbs fast, and a suspicion of a tear shines on her long lashes. Not a word does she utter, not a word does she hear; engrossed in this, the first love of her life, the play itself goes on without her taking in the gist of it. All she sees is Carl – Carl, with his superb face, and with his eyes full of the old, old passion as they linger on her and seem loth to turn away.
The curtain falls and rises twice over, and she thanks Providence that for once her people leave her alone so that she may gaze her fill. Who knows when they two will meet again – and how?
The girl’s poor heart grows cold as ice when the dénouement of the play comes, and Ferdinand, praying for the boon of a last kiss, the Lady Yolande yields her proud lips to him.
Yields them con amore, too, it seems to Zai, as she shrinks back from the sight with a jealous pang that makes her shiver and clasp her little hands desperately together.
Then the curtain falls for the last time, and she looks up and catches Lord Delaval’s eye.
It seems to be searching her very soul with a fixed, keen gaze that has something regretful about it, though his lips have a half-mocking smile.
“That fellow, Conway, really acts tolerably,” he says aloud to Gabrielle. “Did you notice the ring of pathos and truth in his voice? And yet those sort of chaps lead such a hollow life of shams and tricks, that they can’t possibly have a genuine feeling in them. What do you think of Flora Fitzallan, Miss Beranger?”
“Just what one thinks of such creatures,” Gabrielle answers contemptuously, “outside all paint and powder. Inside – ”
“Pray don’t give your opinion on people like Miss Fitzallan, Gabrielle. They are not fit subjects for your discussion; at any rate before me and my daughters!” Lady Beranger remarks severely.
Gabrielle elevates her brows and shrugs her shoulders. Then, as her stepmother sweeps away, she says:
“I think one thing about Miss Fitzallan, Lord Delaval. I think she has a grande passion for Carl Conway, and I expect she does not try to hide it —off the stage!”
And Zai hearkens in bitterness of spirit, but does not love Carl one whit the less.
“I say, Zai, did you see that Lady Yolande kiss Carl? She kissed him right on the mouth. And I have heard that it is not convenable to do that sort of thing on the stage!” Baby whispers.
And still Zai holds her tongue, but as she listens, it seems to her that it is the last straw to break the camel’s back.
CHAPTER V.
CARYLLON HOUSE
“You loved me, and you loved me not
A little, much, and over much;
Will you forget, as I forgot?
Let all dead things lie dead – such
Are not soft to touch.”
Fanchette, having arrayed Trixy and Baby for the Duchess of Caryllon’s fancy ball, finally seeks Zai. Zai – who still lies dreaming her love’s young dream in the soft twilight, while a star or two peeps down inquisitively through the open window upon the increased loveliness that love has called up on her sweet face.
Regretfully she rises at Fanchette’s entrance, and certainly no fairer daughter of Belgravia ever tripped through Belgravian salons. When her toilette is complete, Fanchette does wonders with her little artistic touches here and there, and Zai’s costume, though simple, is exquisitely picturesque.
The bodice is long-waisted; the stomacher thickly embroidered in pearls; the Vandyke corsage is low in front, with a high ruffle behind, and the whole makes a beau-ideal of the old time Maestros; ropes of glistening pearls go round the slim throat and are wreathed in the chestnut hair. The dress of Blanche of Navarre is marvellously becoming, and would be becoming to a plain woman. What, then, must it be to this daughter of Belgravia, to whom Nature has been lavish in seductive tints? – this girl with a beauty so very fair that
“If to her share some human errors fall,
Look in her face and you’ll forget them all,”
and who is very proud of herself, as she thinks that Carlton Conway will be at Caryllon House to-night, and will see how “nice” she looks.
Let us own that a woman must be composed of very strange materials who does not feel that it is charming to be young and pretty, considering that youth and beauty are the recognised weapons for slaughtering men’s hearts.
Lady Beranger has always a fancy for “her own party” when she goes to a ball, and on this occasion the dinner in Belgrave Square has three additions to the family circle – Mr. Stubbs, Archibald Hamilton, and Percy Rayne – a connection of Lord Beranger’s – a clerk in the Foreign Office, good-looking, harum-scarum, a pauper, and a detrimental. Lord Delaval was asked, of course, but had another engagement. When all her brood is gathered together, Lady Beranger, in silver moire, with the Beranger diamonds (but no! not the Beranger diamonds, for they are under safe lock and key and surveillance of one of the many Attenboroughs – but the duplicates in finished Parisian paste, which are quite as lovely and costly to the uninitiated eye), steps into the family landau.
They are late, and the crush of the room is uncomfortable beyond description, like all London crushes. But great as it is, Zai makes a decided sensation as she wades through the crowd on Percy Bayne’s arm. Gabrielle is a Spanish gipsy; Trixy, Fair Rosamond; Baby, with her pink and white skin, golden hair, and white short draperies showered with rosebuds – a delicious piece of “Dresden” – but Zai to-night put every one into the shade. There is the usual quantum of sea-nymphs and flower-girls, characters from history and characters from fiction, of piquant costumes and of costumes which are chiefly remarkable for being bizarre.
As she and Percy Rayne fall into the line which just now is promenading the long room in the interludes of dancing, the Foreign Office clerk is conscious of that pleasant thrill of complacency – a sort of moral and even physical inflation – which a man feels when escorting a woman whose beauty glorifies her escort.
Zai’s card is soon full – so full that only one waltz remains, which she guards pertinaciously. She is determined to valse it with Carl, even if the heavens fall. Several ask for it, but she laughingly says she is keeping it for a friend. That friend does not, however, seem in any haste to take advantage of her generosity.
She has been nearly an hour in the room before she even sees him, and then he is talking earnestly to Miss Crystal Meredyth, and only acknowledges her by a formal bow; and to add to this, Crystal Meredyth makes a very lovely Ondine to-night. How strange it seems to her that he should bow like this, when only a week or two before he looked at her with all his soul in his eyes, at the Bagatelle Theatre!
Zai’s heart is full to bursting, and her red lips quiver a little; but while a weeping and gnashing of teeth is carried on inwardly, she returns his bow with one still more frigid.
And at this inopportune moment, Lord Delaval comes up to her.
“I think the next dance is mine?” he says, rather stiffly, offering his arm.
“You mistake,” Zai answers.
She does not wish to go off with one man when she can stand here, the centre of a group of jeunesse dorée– all begging for “one turn,” and this within earshot of Carl.
She would give anything to pique him now that he is so engrossed with this girl who has money.
“The next dance is Mr. Bayne’s; at least his name is on my card,” she goes on.
Lord Delaval bows – not a bow like the one Carlton Conway has given her just now, but a bow on the Grandison model. His taste and tact are perfect; nothing would induce him to dispute a point of this kind; but a look steals over his handsome face which is not common to it when Zai is its object – a look of cold hauteur, a look that has even a soupçon of dislike in it.
“I understood the dance was mine,” he says, and quietly turning on his heel, he walks away. There are visible surprise and satisfaction among the butterfly youths at this little rebuff to the best match in Town – for lords of the creation, noble animals though they be, are yet creatures of weak mould.
But Zai’s conscience smites her.
That the dance is Lord Delaval’s she knew quite well when she allowed Percy Bayne to write his name over his. At the moment she felt a sort of perverse defiance of displeasure on the part of any man. But now she regrets having sullied her lips by a white lie, and she feels ashamed – as one always feels ashamed – when one has taken shabby advantage of the immunity which is chivalrously permitted a woman to do or say uncivil things by Society. It is a retributive justice perhaps, which accords her nothing for her incivility, for Carlton Conway, who is standing not far off, and alone – Miss Meredyth having gone off to dance – presently moves off too, without even a glance in her direction. It is really too much!
Blanche of Navarre’s grey eyes sadly follow his retreating figure, and with a decidedly sinking heart, and forlorn spirit, she sees him a few moments after, careering “au grand galop” with his arm round Miss Meredyth’s supple waist. Always that Miss Meredyth!
She feels wickedly vindictive against this girl – almost ghoulish, as though she would willingly scrunch her up, bones and all – this dollish beauty who has lured away her lover.
Zai grinds her to powder (mentally), under her high military heel, and turning to one of her adorers, asks for a pencil and deliberately writes down Lord Delaval’s name for the dance she has reserved for Carl.
It is some time, however, before this tardy reparation becomes known. Lord Delaval feels that he has borne as much as aristocratic flesh and blood can stand from this girl, who seems so little aware of the magnificent distinction he has conferred upon her, and that it is full time to assert his dignity.
He asserts it therefore in the ordinary fashion of men who are épris– by bestowing his attention upon other women, of whom there are a multitude willing – and Gabrielle in particular – to accept everything or anything he chooses to offer, this Prince of Beauty, with his blond hair and ultramarine eyes.
Like so many poor boxes, they are ready to receive the smallest donation – a smile – a word – his arm for a promenade – or his hand for a dance. Yet even while apparently engrossed in wholesale flirtations with the fairest of the sex in the room, even while lavishing soft nothings, pressing fingers, he finds himself covertly looking again and again, and fervently admiring the slender figure in its old-fashioned quaint costume, the fair sweet face of the girl who he knows is over head and ears in love with “that actor fellow.” Despite himself and his anger he cannot help secretly owning that never did woman exist more fitted to wear the purple, and to don the Delaval coronet than this one, and he resolves to win her – somehow.
Having “put down his foot” on this point, he feels that all flirtations with Carlton Conway, Rayne and all others must end, that he must clearly make it understood that such doings must stop.
Flirt though he has been himself ever since he dropped round jackets and donned the toga virilis, and flirt though he probably intends to remain until the very end of the chapter, he has not the slightest idea of allowing his wife to indulge in the same amusement.
No! no! no! a thousand times no!
The woman of his choice must be an exceptional being, and a very different stamp of woman to the puppets of the Belgravian salons, with whom he has been in the habit of dallying and associating, and with whom he has passed so many hours of agreeable foolery.
Cæsar himself may of course do what he likes, but we all know what is expected from Cæsar’s wife.
It is an old, old story – carried down from generation to generation, and alas! for the honour of Society, a story infinitely more theoretical than practical.
The hours go on towards midnight – the crowd is suffocating, the heat intense, the gaiety at its height.
Since they entered the room, all the Beranger girls have been dancing, they are not the sort to personate wallflowers, none of them, and Zai in particular has not been five minutes under her mother’s ample wing.
Instead of looking worn out, however, she seems in higher beauty and gayer spirits then usual, when Lord Delaval again approaches her.
“You are only just in time,” she says, meeting his vexed eyes with a little laugh which he would think the most delicious in the world if he had not heard it bestowed upon any number of the golden youths during the last hour. “I have put your name down for this very waltz, and I was reflecting a moment ago whether I should have to send Percy to look you up, or whether I should give it to the multitude who are begging for it!”
Zai says all this with an air of delightful coquetry which is perfectly foreign to her. Poor child, she is of course only playing a part to hide her misery and mortification about Carl, but she plays it extremely well, and the coquettishness is remarkably becoming to her.
“I wonder you hesitated over the alternative, when there are so many to whom you could give the dance with satisfaction, no doubt, to both sides;” he answers a little sulkily.
“Yes! there are a good many,” Zai admits with ingenuous frankness. “But, then, you see, I thought you really wanted it! If you don’t – ”
“You know I do!” he cries, quite unable to resist the pure, soft, sweet face uplifted to him.
All his mighty vexation is scattered to the four winds as he looks down on her.
In this world everything repeats itself.
Like the judges of old – whose fiat was stayed by fair Phryne’s face and form – so Zai’s pretty grey eyes, snowlidded and blacklashed, and her smile, even though it be forced, disperse this man’s anger in a trice.
As he speaks the band strikes up “Bitter Sweet,” and putting his arm around her elaborately whaleboned waist, yet a dainty lissom waist in spite of whalebone, he whirls her away.
It is a glorious waltz – the room is lengthy, the floor well waxed, the lights glitter, and the music peals out an exhilarating strain, and these two have danced often enough together to know well the other’s step and peculiarities.
It is also the end – though they don’t know it – of butterfly flirtation.
A very fitting end, too, for flirtations.
In the end of some serious love affairs, so much faith and hope go down for ever that we might well play over them that Marche Funébre of Chopin – that charming old Listz called the Mélopée, so funereal, so full of desolating woe.