Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 18

"Valerie's original enough for anybody's money. Hark how she's firing away at Egerton. Pretty little soft voice she has. I do like a pretty voice for a woman," said Forester, clapping softly, with many a murmured bravisima.

"You're quite enthusiastic," smiled Falkenstein. "Pity you haven't a bouquet to throw at her."

"Don't you poke fun at me, you cynic," growled Forester. "I've seen you throw bouquets at much plainer women."

"And the bouquets and the women were much alike in morning light--faded and colorless on their artificial stalks as soon as the gas glare was off them."

"Hold your tongue, Juvenal," laughed Forester, "or I vow I won't introduce you. You'll begin satirising poor little Val as soon as you've spoken to her."

"Oh, I can be merciful to the weak; don't I let _you_ alone, Forester?"

laughed Waldemar, as the curtain fell.

The proverbs were over, and having put herself in ball-room style, the author came among the audience. He amused himself with watching how she took her numerous compliments, and was astonished to detect neither vanity nor shyness, and to hear her turn most of them aside with a laugh. She was quite as attractive off as on the stage, especially with the aroma of her sparkling proverbs hanging about her; and Falkenstein got his introduction, and consigning G.o.dolphin and Mistletoe to futurity, waltzed with her, and found her dancing as full of grace and lightness as an Andalusian's or Arlesienne's. Falkenstein cared little enough for the saltatory art, but this waltz did not bore him, and when it was over, regardless of some dozen names written on her tablets, he gave her his arm, and they strolled out of the ball-room into a cooler atmosphere. He found plenty of fun in her, as he had expected from her proverbs, and sat down beside her in the conservatory to let himself be amused for half an hour.

"Do you know many of the people here?" she asked him. "Is there anybody worth pointing out? There ought to be, in four or five hundred dwellers in the aristocratic west."

"I know most of them personally or by report, but they are all of the same stamp, like the petals of that camellia, some larger and some smaller, but all cut in the same pattern. Most of them apostles of fashion, martyrs to debt, worshippers of the rising sun. All of them created by art, from the young ladies who owe their roses and lilies to Breidenbach, to the ci-devant jeunes hommes, who buy their figures in Bond Street and their faces from Isidore. All of them actors--and pretty good actors, too--from that pretty woman yonder, who knows her milliner may imprison her any day for the lace she is now drawing round her with a laugh, to that sleek old philanthropist playing whist through the doors there, whose guinea points are paid by the swindle of half England."

She laughed.

"Lend me your lorgnon. I should like to see around me as you do."

"Wait twenty years, you will have it; there are two gla.s.ses to it--experience and observation."

"But your gla.s.ses are smoked, are they not?" said Valerie, with a quick glance at him; "for you seem to me to see everything en noir."

He smiled.

"When I was a boy I had a Claude gla.s.s, but they break very soon; or rather, as you say, grow dark and dim with the smoke of society. But you ask me about these people. You know them, do you not, as they are your uncle's guests?"

She shook her head.

"I have been here but a week or two. For the last two years I have been vegetating among the fens, with a maiden aunt of poor papa's."

"And did you like the country?"

"Like it!" cried Valerie, "I was buried alive. Everything was so dreadfully punctual and severe in that house, that I believe the very cat had forgotten how to purr. Breakfast at eight, drive at two, dinner at five, prayers at ten. Can't you fancy the dreary diurnal round, with a pursy old rector or two, and three or four high-dried county princesses as callers once a quarter? Luckily, I can amuse myself, but oh, you cannot think how I sickened of the monotony, how I longed to _live!_ At last, I grew so naughty, I was expelled."

"May I inquire your sins?" asked Falkenstein, really amused for once.

She laughed at the remembrance.

"I read 'Notre-Dame' against orders, and I rode the fat old mare round the paddock without a saddle. I saw no harm in it; as a child, I read and rode everything I came near, but the rough-riding was condemned as unfeminine, and any French book, were it even the 'Genie du Christianisme,' or the 'Pet.i.t Careme,' would be regarded by Aunt Agatha, who doesn't know a word of the language, as a powder magazine of immorality and infidelity."

"C'est la profonde ignorance qui inspire le ton dogmatique," laughed Falkenstein. "But surely you have been accustomed to society."

"No, never; but I am made for it, I fancy," said Valerie, with an unconscious compliment to herself. "When I was with the dear old Tenth, I used to enjoy myself, but I was a child then. The officers were very kind to me--gentlemen always are much more so than ladies"--("Pour cause," thought Waldemar, as she went on)--"but ever since then I have vegetated as I tell you, in much the same still life as the anemones in my vase."

"Yet you could write those proverbs," said he, involuntarily.

She laughed, and colored.

"Oh, I have written ever since I could make A B C, and I have not forgotten all I saw with the old Tenth. But come, tell me more of these people; I like to hear your satire."

"I am glad you do," said Falkenstein, with a smile; "for only those who have no foibles to hit have a relish for sarcasm. Do you think Messaline and Lelie had much admiration for La Bruyere's periods, however well turned or justly pointed? but those whom the caps did not fit probably enjoyed them as you and I do. All satirists, from Martial downwards, most likely gain an enemy for each truth they utter, for in this bal masque of life it is not permitted to tear the masks off our companions."

"Do you wear one?" asked Valerie, quickly. "I fancy, like Monte Cristo, your pleasure is to 'usurper les vices que vous n'avez pas, et de cacher les vertus que vous avez.'"

"Virtues? If you knew me better, you would know that I never pretend to any. If you compare me to Monte Cristo, say rather that I 'preche loyalement l'egoisme,'" laughed Falkenstein. "Upon my word, we are talking very seriously for a ball-room. I ought to be admiring your bouquet, Miss L'Estrange, or pet.i.tioning for another waltz."

"Don't trouble yourself. I like this best," said Valerie, playing with the flowers round her. "And I ought to have my own way, for this is my birthday."

"New Year's-day? Indeed! Then I am sure I wish you most sincerely the realisation of all your ideals and desires, which, to the imaginative author of the proverbs, will be as good as wishing her Aladdin's lamp,"

smiled Falkenstein.

She smiled too, and sighed.

"And about as improbable as Aladdin's lamp. Did you see the Old Year out last night?"

"Yes," he answered, briefly; for the remembrance of what he had lost watching it out was not agreeable to him.

"There was a musical party here," continued Valerie, "but I got away from it, for I like to be alone when the past and the future meet--do not you?"

"No; your past is pure, your future is bright. Mine are not so; I don't want to be stopped to contemplate them."

"Nor are mine, indeed; but the death of an Old Year is sad and solemn to me as the death of a friend, and I like to be alone in its last hour. I wonder," she continued, suddenly, "what this year will bring. I wonder where you and I shall be next New Year's-night?"

Falkenstein laughed, not merrily.

"_I_ shall be in Kensal Green or the Queen's Bench, very likely. Why do you look astonished Miss L'Estrange; one is the destination of everybody in these rooms, and the other probably of one-half of them."

"Don't speak so bitterly--don't give me sad thoughts on my birthday. Oh, how tiresome!" cried Valerie, interrupting herself, "there comes Major D'Orwood."

"To claim you?"

"Yes; I'd forgotten him entirely. I promised to waltz with him an hour ago."

"What the devil brought you here to interrupt us?" thought Falkenstein, as the Guardsman lisped a reproof at Valerie's cruelty, and gave her his arm back to the ball-room. Waldemar stopped her, however, engaged her for the next, and sauntered through the room on her other side. He waltzed a good deal with her, paying her that sort of attention which Falkenstein knew how to make the softest and subtlest homage a woman could have. Amused himself, he amused her with his brilliant and pointed wit, so well, that Valerie L'Estrange told him, when he bid her good night, that she had never enjoyed any birthday so much.

"Well," said Bevan, as they drove away from 133, Lowndes Square, "did you find that wonderful little L'Estrange as charming a companion as actress? You ought to know, for you've been after her all night, like a ferret after a rabbit."

"Yes," said Falkenstein, taking out a little pet briarwood pipe, "I was very pleased with her: she's worth no more than the others, probably, au fond, but she's very entertaining and frank: she'll tell you anything.

Poor child! she can't be over-comfortable in Cash's house. She's a lady by instinct; that odious ostentation and sn.o.bbish toadying must disgust her. Besides, Bella is not very likely to lead a girl a very nice life who is partially dependent on her father, and infinitely better style than herself."

"The devil, no! That flaunting, flirting, over-dressed Cashranger girl is my detestation. She'll soon find means to worry littil Valerie. Women have a great spice of the mosquito in 'em, and enjoy nothing more than stinging each other to death."

"Well, she must get Forester or D'Orwood--some man who can afford it--to take compa.s.sion upon her. All of them finish so when they can; the rich ones marry for a t.i.tle, and the poor ones for a home," said the Count, stirring up his pipe. "Here's my number; thank you for dropping me; and good night, old fellow."

"Good night. Pleasant dreams of your author and actress, _aux longs yeux bleus_."