Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 17

Aubyn. I caught hold of Blanche's arm and held her back as she was about to spring forward. I thought their meeting had much best be uninterrupted; for, if Cecil's had been mere flirtation I fancied the Colonel's return could scarcely have moved her like this.

Vivian stood looking down on her, all the pa.s.sion in him breaking bounds. He could not stand calmly by the woman he loved. He did not wait to know whether she was his or another's--whether she was worthy or unworthy of him--but he lifted her up and pressed her unconscious form against his heart, covering her lips with wild caresses. Waking from her trance, she opened her eyes with a terrified stare, and gazed up in his face; then tears came to her relief, and she sank down at his feet again with a pitiful cry, "Forgive me--forgive me!" Weak as Syd was, he found strength to raise her in his arms, and whisper, as he bent over her, "If you love me, I have nothing to forgive."

The snow fell softly without over the woods and fields and the winds roared through the old oaks and whistled among the frozen ferns, but Christmas-eve pa.s.sed brightly enough to us at home within the strong walls of Deerhurst.

I am sure that all Moore's pictures of Paradise seemed to me tame compared to that drawing-room, with its warmth, and coziness, and luxuries; with the waxlights shining on the silver of the English tea equipage (pleasant to eye and taste, let one love campaigning ever so well, after the roast beans of the Commissariat), and the fire-gleams dancing on the soft brow and shining hair of the face beside me. I doubt if Vivian either ever spent a happier Christmas-eve as he lay on the sofa in the back drawing-room, with Cecil sitting on a low seat by him, her hand in his, and the Canadian eyes telling him eloquently of love and reconciliation. They had such volumes to say! As soon as she knew that wild farewell of his preceded his departure to the Crimea, Cecil, always impulsive, had written to him on the instant, telling him how she loved him, detailing what she had heard in the green-room, confessing that, in desperation, she had done everything she could to rouse his jealousy, a.s.suring him that that same evening she had refused Cos's proposals, and beseeching him to forgive her and come back to her. That letter Vivian had never had (six months from that time, by the way, it turned up, after a journey to India and Melbourne, following a cousin of his, colonel of a line regiment, she in her haste having omitted to put his troop on the address), and Cecil, whose feeling was too deep to let her mention the subject to Blanche or Helena, made up her mind that he would never forgive her, and being an impressionable young lady, had, on the anniversary of Christmas-eve, been comparing her fate with that of Muriel in the ghost legend, and, on seeing the Colonel's unexpected apparition, had fainted straight away in the over-excitement and sudden joy of the moment.

Such was Cecil's story, and Vivian was content with it and gladly took occasion to practise the Christmas duties of peace, and love, and pardon. He had the best anodyne for his wounds now, and there was no danger for him, since Cecil had taken the place of the Scutari nurses.

No "Crimean heroes," as they call us in the papers, were ever more feted and petted than were the Colonel and I.

Christmas morning dawned, the sun shining bright on the snow-covered trees, and the Christmas bells chiming merrily; and as we stood on the terrace to see the whole village trooping up through the avenue to receive the gifts left to them by some old Vivian long gone to his rest with his forefathers under the churchyard cedars, Syd looked down with a smile into Cecil's eyes as she hung on his arm, and whispered,

"I will double those alms, love, in memory of the priceless gift this Christmas has given me. Ah! Thornton and I little knew, when we came down for the hunting, how fast you and Blanche would capture us with your--HOLLY WREATHS AND ROSE CHAINS."

SILVER CHIMES AND GOLDEN FETTERS.

SILVER CHIMES AND GOLDEN FETTERS.

I.

WALDEMAR FALKENSTEIN AND VALeRIE L'ESTRANGE.

"A quarter to twelve! By Heaven if my luck don't change before the year is out, I vow I'll never touch a card in the next!" exclaimed one of several men playing lansquenet in Harry G.o.dolphin's rooms at Knightsbridge.

There were seven or eight of them, some with long rent-rolls, others within an ace of the Queen's Bench; the poor devils losing in the long run much oftener and more recklessly than the rich fellows; all of them playing high, as that _beau joueur_ of the Guards, G.o.dolphin, always did.

Luck had been dead against the man who spoke ever since they had deserted the mess-room for the _cartes_ in the privacy of Harry's rooms.

If Fortune is a woman, he ought to have found favor in her eyes. His age was between thirty and thirty-five, his figure with grace and strength combined, his features n.o.bly and delicately cut, his head, like Canning's, one of great intellectual beauty, and by the flash of his large dark eyes, and the additional paleness of his cheek, it was easy to see he was playing high once too often.

Five minutes pa.s.sed--he lost still; ten minutes' luck was yet against him. A little French clock began the Silver Chimes that rang out the Old Year; the twelfth stroke sounded, the New Year was come, and Waldemar Falkenstein rose and drank down some cognac--a ruined man.

"A happy New Year to you, and better luck, Falkenstein," cried G.o.dolphin, drinking his toast with a ringing laugh and a foaming b.u.mper of Chambertin. "What shall I wish you? The richest wife in the kingdom, a cabal that will break all the banks, for Mistletoe to win the Oaks, or for your eyes to be opened to your sinful state, as the parson phrases it--which, eh?"

"Thank you, Harry," laughed Falkenstein. (Like the old Spartans, we can laugh while the wolf gnaws our vitals.) "You remind me of what my holy-minded brother wrote to me when I broke my shoulder-bone down at Melton last season: 'My dear Waldemar, I am sorry to hear of your sad accident; but all things are ordered for the best, and I trust that in your present hours of solitude your thoughts may be mercifully turned to higher and better things.' Queer style of sympathy, wasn't it? I preferred yours, when you sent me 'Adelade Meran,' and that splendid hock I wasn't allowed to touch."

"I should say so; but catch the Pharisees giving anybody anything warmer than texts and counsels, that cost them nothing," said Tom Bevan of the Blues. "Apropos of Pharisees, have you heard that old Cash is going to build a chapel-of-ease in Belgravia, to endow that young owl Gus with as soon as he can pull himself through his 'greats?' It is thought that the dear Bella will be painted as St. Catherine for the altar-piece."

"She'll strychnine herself if we're all so hard-hearted as to leave her to St. Catharine's nightcap," laughed Falkenstein.

"Why don't _you_ take up with her, old fellow?" said a man in G.o.dolphin's troop. "Not the sangue puro, you'd say; rather sallied with x.x.x. But what does that signify? you've quarterings enough for two."

"Much good the quarterings do me. No, thank you," said Falkenstein bitterly. "I'm not going to sell myself, though my dear friends would insinuate that I was sold already to a gentleman who never quits hold of his bargains. I've fetters enough now too heavy by half to add matrimonial handcuffs to them."

"Right, old boy," said Harry. "The Cashranger hops and vats, even done in the brightest parvenu _or_, would scarcely look well blazoned on the royal _gules_. Come, sit down. Where are you going?"

"He's going to Eulalie Brown's, I bet," said Bevan. "Nonsense, Waldemar; throw her over, and stay and take your revenge--it's so early."

"No, thank you," said Falkenstein briefly. "By the way, I suppose you all go to Cashranger's to-morrow?"

"Make a point of it, answered G.o.dolphin. I feel I'm sinning against my Order to visit him, but really his Lafitte's so good----I'm sorry you _will_ leave us, Waldemar, but I know I might as well try to move the Marble Arch as try to turn you."

"Indeed I never set up for a Roman, Harry. The deuce take this pipe, it won't light. Good night to you all." And leaving them drinking hard, laughing loud, and telling _grivois_ tales before they sat down to play in all its delirious delight, he sprang into a hanson, and drove, not to Eulalie Brown's _pet.i.t souper_, but to his own rooms in Duke Street, St.

James's.

Falkenstein's governor, some two-score years before, had got in mauvaise odeur in Vienna for some youthful escapade at court; powerful as his princely family was, had been obliged to fly the country; and, coming over here, entered himself at the Bar, and, setting himself to work with characteristic energy, had, wonderful to relate, made a fortune at it. A fine, gallant, courtly _ancien n.o.ble_ was the Count, haughty and pa.s.sionate at times, after the manner of the house; fond of his younger son Waldemar, who at school had tanned boys twice his size; rode his pony in at the finish; smoked, swam, and otherwise conducted himself, till all the rest of the boys worshipped him, though I believe the masters generally attributed to him more _diablerie_ than divinity.

But of late, unluckily, his father had been much dominated over by Waldemar's three sisters, ladies of a chill and High Church turn of mind, and by his brother, who in early life had been a prize boy and a sap, and received severe buffetings from his junior at football; and now, being much the more conventional and unimpeachable of the two, took his revenge by carrying many tales to the old Count of his wilder son--tales to which Falkenstein gave strong foundation. For he was restless and reckless, strikingly original, and, above the common herd, too impatient to take any meddling with his affairs, and too proud to explain where he was misjudged; and, though he held a crack government place, good pay, and all but a sinecure, he often spent more than he had, for economy was a dead-letter to him, and if any man asked him a loan, he was too generous to say "No." Life in all its phases he had seen from the time he left school, and you know, mon ami, we cannot see life on a groat--at least, through the bouquet of the wines at Vefours, and the brilliance of the gas-light in Casinos and Redoutes. The fascinations of play were over him--the iron hand of debt pressed upon him; altogether, as he sat through the first hours of the New Year, smoking, and gazing on the flickering fire gleams, there was not much light either in his past or future!

Keenly imaginative and susceptible, blase and skeptical though he was, the weight of the Old Year and of many gone before it, weighed heavily on his thoughts. Scenes and deeds of his life, that he would willingly have blotted out, rose before him; vague regrets, unformed desires, floated to him on the midnight chimes.

The Old Year was drifting away on the dark clouds floating on to the sea, the New Year was dawning on the vast human life swarming in the costly palaces and crowded dens around him. The past was past, ineffaceable, and relentless; the future lay hid in the unborn days, and Falkenstein, his pipe out, his fire cold and black, took a sedative, and threw himself on his bed, to sleep heavily and restlessly through the struggling morning light of the New Year.

James Cashranger, Esq., of 133, Lowndes Square, was a millionnaire, and the million owed its being to the sale of his entire, which was of high celebrity, being patronised by all the messes and clubs, shipped to all the colonies, blessed by all the H. E. I. C.s, shouted by all the potmen as "Beer-r-r-how," and consumed by all England generally. But Cashranger's soul soared above the sn.o.bisms of malt and jack, and a la Jourdain, of bourgeois celebrity, he would have let any Dorante of the beau monde fleece him through thick and thin, and, _en effet_, gave dinners and drums unnumbered to men and women, who, like G.o.dolphin, went there for the sake of his Lafitte, and quizzed him mercilessly behind his back. The first day Harry dined there with nine other spirits worse than himself--Cashranger having begged him to bring some of his particular chums--he looked at the eleventh seat, and asked, with consummate impudence, who it was for?

"Why, really, my dear Colonel, it is for--for myself," faltered the luckless brewer.

"Oh?--ah?--I see," drawled Harry; "you mistook me; I said I'd dine _here_--I didn't say I'd dine with _you_."

That, however, was four or five years before; now, G.o.dolphin having proclaimed his cook and cellar worth countenancing, and his wife, the relict of a lieutenant in the navy, being an admirable adept in the sn.o.b's art of "pushing," plenty of exclusive dandies and extensive fine ladies crushed up the stairs on New Year's-night to one of Cashranger's numerous "At homes." Among them, late enough, came Falkenstein. These sort of crushes bored him beyond measure, but he wanted to see G.o.dolphin about some intelligence he had had of an intended illegitimate use of the twitch to Mistletoe, that sweet little chestnut who stood favorite for the Oaks. He soon paid his devoir to madame, who wasn't quite accustomed even yet to all this grandeur after her early struggles on half-pay, and to her eldest daughter, the Bella aforesaid, a showy, flaunting girl with a peony color, and went on through the rooms seeking Harry, stopping, however, for a word to every pretty woman he knew; for though he began to find his game grow stale, he and the beau s.e.xe have a mutual attraction. Little those women guessed, as they smiled in his handsome eyes, and laughed at his witty talk, and blushed at his soft voice, how heartily sick he was of their frivolities, and how often disappointment and sarcasm lurked in his mocking words. To be blase was no affectation with Falkenstein; it was a very earnest reality, as with most of us who have knocked about in the world, not only from the variety of his manifold experiences, but from the trickery, and censure, and cold water with which the world had treated him.

"You here, old fellow?" said Bevan of the Blues, meeting him in the music-room, where some artistes were singing Traviata airs. "You don't care for this row, do you? Come along with me, and I'll show you something that will amuse you better."

"Show me G.o.dolphin, and I'll thank you. I didn't come to stay--did you?"

"No. Horrid bore, ain't it? But since you are here, you may as well take a look at the dearest little actress I ever saw since I was a boy, and bewitched by Leontine Fay. Sit down." Bevan went on, as they entered a room fitted up like a theatre, "There, it's that one with blue eyes, got up like a Watteau's huntress; isn't she a brilliant little thing?"

"Very. She plays as well as Dejazet. Who is she?"

"Don't know. Can you tell us, Forester?"

"She's old Cash's niece," said Forester, not taking his eyes off the stage. "Come as a sort of companion to the beloved Bella; dangerous companion, I should say, for there's no comparing the two."

"What's her name?"

"Viola--Violet--no, Valerie L'Estrange. L'Estrange, of the 10th, ran away with Cash's sister. G.o.d knows why. Horrid low connexion, and no money. She went speedily to glory, and he drank himself to death two years ago in Lah.o.r.e. I remember him, a big fellow, fourteen stone, pounded Bully Batson once at Moseley, and there wasn't such another hard hitter among the fancy as Bully. When he departed this life, of course his daughter was left to her own devices, with scarcely a rap to buy her bonnets. Clever little animal she is, too; she wrote those proverbs they're now playing; full of dash, and spice, ain't they? especially when you think a girl wrote 'em."

"Introduce me as soon as they're over," said Falkenstein, leaning back to study the young actress and author, who was an engaging study enough, being full of grace and vivacity, with animated features, mobile eyebrows, dark-blue eyes, and chestnut hair. "Anything original would be as great a wonder as to buy Cavendish in Regent-Street that wasn't bird's-eye."