Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 42

I wondered if she cared for him, or if it was merely a girl's natural feeling for a man who had let himself be shot at, rather than hear a light word spoken of her. But they were both so deuced proud, Heaven's special intervention alone seemed likely to bring them together.

The Major didn't come home from Pipesandbeersbad till between two and three that night, and he's told me since that being _un peu fou_ with his self-willed and vehement pa.s.sion, never went to bed at all, but sat and walked about his room smoking, unable to sleep, in a frame of mind that, when sane, a few months before, he would have p.r.o.nounced spoony and contemptible in the lowest degree. At eight he strode forth into the park, brushing off the dew with his impatient steps, glad of the fresh morning air upon his brow, which was as burning as our first headache from "that cursed punch of Jones's," the day after our "first wine,"

which acute suffering any gentleman who ever tasted that delicious _melange_ of rum and milk and lemons, will keenly recall among other pa.s.sed-away pa.s.sages of his green youth.

Telfer strode on and on, over the molehills and through the ferns, down this slope and up that, under the oaks, and lindens, and fir-trees gleaming red beneath the October sun, with very little notion of where he was going or what he was doing, a great stag-hound of Marc's following at his heels. The path he took, without thinking, led him to the top of a rock overhanging the Beersbad, where that historic stream was but a few yards in width; and here Telfer, lying down with his head against a plane-tree, struck a fusee and lighted a cigar--for a weed's a pleasant companion in any stage of existence: if we're happy we smoke in the fulness of our hearts, and build airy castles on each fragrant cloud; and if we're unhappy, we smoke to console ourselves, and draw in with each whiff philosophy and peace. So the Major smoked and thought, till a bark from the staghound made him look up. On the top of the cliffs on the other side of the stream, looking down into the valleys below, with her head turned away from him, stood Violet Tressillian; and at the sight of that graceful figure, with its indescribable high-bred air, I don't doubt the Major's once unimpressive heart beat faster than it had ever done in a charge or a skirmish. She was full twenty feet above him, and the rocks on which she stood sloped precipitately down to a ledge exactly opposite that on which he lay smoking--a ledge in reality but a few inches wide, but to which the treacherous boughs and ferns waving over it gave a semblance of a firm broad footing--a semblance which (like a good many other things one meets with) it utterly failed to carry out when you came to try it.

Violet, not seeing Telfer lying _perdu_ among the gra.s.s at the foot of his plane-tree, walked along to the edge of the cliff, her eyes on the ground, so deep in thought that she never noticed the river beneath, but began to descend the slope, little Floss coming with exceeding trepidation after her. Telfer sprang up to warn her. "Violet! Violet! go back! go back! Oh! my G.o.d, do you not hear?"

His pa.s.sionate tones startled her. Never dreaming he was there, she looked hurriedly up; her foot slipped; unable to stay her descent, she came down the steep cliff with an impetus which, to a certainty, would send her over the narrow ledge into the river below--a fall of full thirty feet. To see her perish thus before his eyes--die thus while he stood calmly by! A whole age of torture was crowded into the misery of that one brief moment. There was but one way to save her. He sprang across the gulf that parted them, while the river in its straitened bed hissed and foamed beneath him, and, standing on the narrow ledge, where there seemed scarce footing for a dog, he caught her as she fell in his iron grasp, as little swayed by the shock as the rock on which he stood.

Holding her tight to him with one arm, he swung himself down by the other to a less dangerous position, on a flat plateau of cliff, and leaning against one of the linden-trees on its summit, he bent over her; his eyes dim, and his pulses beating with the emotions he had controlled while he wanted cool thought and firm nerve to save her, but over which he had no more power now. He pressed her to his heart, forgetting pride, and doubt, and fear; and Violet, by way of answer, only burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. Who would have recognized the proud, brilliant Tressillian, in the pale, trembling woman who sobbed on his breast with the _abandon_ of a child, and who, at his pa.s.sionate kisses, only blushed like a wild rose?

Telfer evidently thought the transformation complete, for he forgot all his reserve resolutions and hauteur, and poured out the tenderest love for a girl who, three months before, he had wished at the devil! And the Tressillian was conquered at last; she was pitiless no longer, and, having vanquished him, was, woman-like, ready to be a slave to her captive; and her eyes were never more dangerous than now, when, shy and softened, they looked up through their tears into Telfer's.

What old De Tintiniac said of her was true, that all her beauty wanted to make it perfect was for her to be in love!

So at least I thought, when, several hours afterwards, I met them coming across the park, and I knew by the gleam of the Major's eyes that he had lost Calceolaria and won Violet.

"How strange it is," laughed Telfer that evening, when they were alone in the conservatory, "that you and I, who so hated each other, should now be so dear to one another. Oh, Violet! how ashamed I have been since of my unjustifiable prejudices, my abominable discourtesy----"

"You _were_ dreadfully rude," said the Tressillian, smiling; "and judged me very cruelly by all the false reports that women chose to gossip of me. But you are wrong. I never hated you. Your father had spoken of you as so generous, so n.o.ble, so chivalrous a soldier, so kind a son, that I was prepared to admire you immensely, and when you looked so sternly on me at our first introduction, and I overheard your bitter words about me at the station, I really was never more vexed and disappointed in my life. And then a demon entered into me, and I thought--forgive me, Hamilton--that I would try to make you repent your hasty judgment and recant your prejudices. But I could not always fight you with the coolness I wished; your indifference began to pique me more and more.

Wounds from you ranked as they did from no one else, and something besides pride made me feel your neglect so keenly. I had meant--yes, I must tell you all," and the Tressillian, in her soft repentance, looked, Telfer thought, more bewitching than in her most brilliant moments--"I had wished," she went on in a whisper, with her color bright, "to make you regret your injustice, to conquer your stubborn pride, and to revenge myself on you for all the wrong you had done me in thoughts and words. But, you see, I wasn't so strong as I fancied; I thought I could fence with the b.u.t.tons on, but I was mistaken, and--and--when I heard that you had fought for me, I knew then that----" And Violet stopped with a smile and a sigh; the sigh for the past, I suppose, and the smile for the present.

"Well, _nous sommes quittes_, dearest," smiled Telfer. "Thank Heaven! we no longer need reproach each other. Too many elevate the one they love into an ideal of such superhuman excellence, that at the first shadow of mortality they see their poor idol is shivered from its pedestal. But we have seen the worst side of each other's character, Violet, and henceforth love shall cover all faults, and subdue all pride between us."

Telfer kept his word. They had had their last quarrel, and buried their last suspicion before their marriage, and were not, like the generality, doves first and tigers after. The governor, of course, was charmed that a match on which he had secretly set his heart had brought itself about so neatly without his interference. He had begun to despair of his son's ever giving Torwood a mistress, and the diamonds he gave Violet, in the excess of his pleasure, brought her no end of female enemies, for they were some of the finest water in the kingdom. Seldom, indeed, has slander been productive of such good fruits, for rarely, _very_ rarely, does that Upas-tree put forth any but Dead Sea apples.

Violet Tressillian _was_ Violet Telfer before the Christmas recess, but I considered the bet drawn. So Telfer and I exchanged the roan filly and the colt, and Calceolaria in the Torwood stables, and Jockey Club in my stalls, stand witnesses to this day of OUR WAGER, AND HOW THE MAJOR LOST AND WON.

OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS.

OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS.

I remember well the day that we (that is the 110th Lancers) were ordered down to Layton Rise. Savage enough we all were to quit P---- for that detestable country place. Many and miserable were the tales we raked up of the _ennui_ we had experienced at other provincial quarters; sadly we dressed for Lady Dashwood's ball, the last _soiree_ before our departure. And then the bills and the _billets-doux_ that rained down upon our devoted heads!

However, by some miracle we escaped them all; and on a bright April morning, 184-, we were _en route_ for this Layton Rise, this _terra incognita_, as grumpy and as seedy as ever any poor demons were. But there was no help for it; so leaving, we flattered ourselves, a great many hearts the heavier for this order from the Horse Guards, we, as I said, set out for Layton Rise.

The only bit of good news that provoking morning had brought was that my particular chum, Drummond Fane, a captain of ours, who had been cutting about on leave from Constantinople to Kamtchatka for the last six months, would join us at Layton. Fane was really a good fellow, a perfect gentleman (_ca va sans dire_, as he was one of _ours_), intensely plucky, knew, I believe, every language under the sun, and, as he had been tumbling about in the world ever since he went to Eton at eight years old, had done everything, seen everything, and could talk on every possible subject. He was a great favorite with ladies: I always wonder they did not quite spoil him. I have seen a young lady actually neglect a most eligible heir to a dukedom, that her mamma had been at great pains to procure for her, if this "fascinating younger son" were by. For Fane _was_ the younger son of the Earl of Avanley, and would, of course, every one said, one day retrieve his fortunes by marriage with some heiress in want of rank.

He has been my great friend ever since I, a small youth, spoiled by having come into my property while in the nursery, became his f.a.g at Eton: and when I bought my commission in the 110th, of which he was a captain, our intimacy increased.

But _revenons a nos moutons_. On the road we naturally talked of Layton, wondering if there was any one fit to visit, anybody that gave good dinners, if there was a pack of hounds, a billiard-room, or any pretty girls. Suddenly the Honorable Ennuye L'Estrange threw a little light on the matter, by recollecting, "now he thought of it, he believed that was where an uncle of his lived; his name was Aspi--Aspinall--no! Aspeden."

"Had he any cousins?" was the inquiry. He "y'ally could not remember!"

So we were left to conjure up imaginary Miss Aspedens, more handsome than their honorable cousin, who might relieve for us the monotony of country quarters. The sun was very bright as we entered Layton Rise; the clattering and clashing that we made soon brought out the inhabitants, and, lying in the light of a spring day, it did not seem such a very miserable little town after all. Our mess was established at the one good inn of the one good street of the place, and I and two other young subs fixed our residence at a grocer's, where a card of "Lodgings to let furnished" was embordered in vine-leaves and roses.

As I was leaning out of the window smoking my last cigar before mess, with Sydney and Mounteagle stretched in equally elegant att.i.tudes on equally hard sofas, I heard our grocer, a sleek little Methodist, addressing some party in the street with--"I fear me I have done evil in admitting these young servants of Satan into mine habitation!" "Well, Nathan," replied a Quaker, "thou didst it for the best, and verily these officers seem quiet and gentlemanly youths." "Gentlemanlike," I should say we were, _rather_--but "quiet!"--how we shouted over the innocent "Friend's" mistake. Here the voices again resumed. "Doubtless, when the Aspedens return, there will be dances and devices of the Evil One, and Quelps will make a good time of it; however, the custom of unG.o.dly men I would not take were it offered!" So these Aspedens were out--confound it! But the clock struck six; so, flinging the remains of my cigar on the Quaker's broad-brimmed hat, adorned with which ornament he walked unconsciously away, we strolled down to the mess-room.

A few hours later some of them met in my room, and having sent out for some cards, which the grocer kindly wrapped in a tract against gambling, we had just sat down to loo, when the door was thrown open, and Captain Fane announced. A welcome addition!

"Fane, by all that's glorious!"--"Well, young one, how are you?" were the only salutations that pa.s.sed between two men who were as true friends as any in England. Fane was soon seated among us, and telling us many a joke and tale. "And so," said he, "we're sent down to ruralize?

(Mounteagle, you are 'loo'd.') Any one you know here?"

"Not a creature! I am awfully afraid we shall be found dead of _ennui_ one fine morning. I'll thank you for a little more punch, Fitzspur,"

said Sydney. "I suppose, as usual, Fane," he continued, "you left at the very least twelve dozen German princesses, Italian marchesas, and French countesses dying for you?"

"My dear fellow," replied Fane, "you are considerably under the mark (I'll take 'miss,' Paget!); but really, if women _will_ fall in love with you, how _can_ you help it? And if you _will_ flirt with them, how can they help it?"

"I see, Fane, _your_ heart is as strong as ever," I added, laughing.

"Of course," answered the gallant captain; "disinterested love is reserved for men who are too rich or too poor to mind its attendant evils. (The first, I must say, very rarely profit by the privilege!) No!

I steel myself against all bright eyes and dancing curls not backed by a good dowry. Heiresses, though, somehow, are always plain; I never could do my duty and propose to one, though, of course, whenever I _do_ surrender my liberty, which I have not the smallest intention of at present, it will be to somebody with at least fifty thousand a year.

Hearts trumps, Mount?"

"Yes--hurrah! Paget's loo'd at last.--Here, my dear, let us have lots more punch!" said Mounteagle, addressing the female domestic, who was standing open-mouthed at the glittering pool of half-sovereigns.

I will spare the gentle reader--if I _may_ flatter myself that I entertain a _few_ such--a recital of the conversation which followed, and which was kept up until the very, very "small hours;" also I will leave it to her imagination to picture how we spent the next few days, how we found out a few families worth visiting, how we inspired the Layton youths with a vehement pa.s.sion for smoking, billiards, and the cavalry branch of the service, and how we and our gay uniforms and our prancing horses were the admiration of all the young damsels in the place.

One morning after parade, Fane and I, having nothing better to do, lighted our cigars and strolled down one of those shady lanes which almost reconcile one to the country--_out_ of the London season. Seeing the gate of a park standing invitingly open, we walked in and threw ourselves down under the trees. "Now we are in for it," said Fane, "if we are trespa.s.sing, and any adventurous-minded gamekeeper appears. Whose park is this?"

"Mr. Aspeden's, Ennuye told me. It's rather a nice place," I replied.

"And that castle, of which mine eyes behold the turrets afar off?" he asked.

"Lord Linton's, I believe; the father of Jack Vernon, of the Rifles, you know," I answered.

"Indeed! I never saw the old gentleman, but I remember his daughter Beatrice,--we had rather a desperate flirtation at Baden-Baden. She's a showy-looking girl," said the captain, stretching himself on the gra.s.s.

"Why did you not allow her the sublime felicity of becoming Lady Beatrice Fane?" I asked, laughing.

"My dear fellow, she had not a _sou_! That old marquis is as poor as a church-mouse. You forget that I am only a younger son, with not much besides my pay, and cannot afford to marry anywhere I like. I am not in your happy position, able to espouse any pretty face I may chance to take a fancy to. It would be utter madness in me. Do you think _I_ was made for a little house, one maid-servant, dinner at noon, and six small children? _Very_ much obliged to you, but love in a cottage is not _my_ style, Fred; besides _j'aime a vivre garcon_!" added Fane.

"_Et moi aussi!_" said I. "Really the girls one meets seem all tarlatan and coquetry. I have never seen one worth committing matrimony for."

"Hear him!" cried Fane. "Here is the happy owner of Wilmot Park, at the advanced age of twenty, despairing of ever finding anything more worthy of his affection than his moustaches! Oh, what will the boys come to next? But, eureka! here comes a pretty girl if you like. Who on earth is she?" he exclaimed, raising his eye-gla.s.s to a party advancing up the avenue who really seemed worthy the attention.

Pulling at the bridle of a donkey, "what wouldn't go," with all her might, was indeed a pretty girl. Her hat had fallen off and showed a quant.i.ty of bright hair and a lovely face, with the largest and darkest of eyes, and a mouth now wreathing with smiles. Unconscious of our vicinity, on she came, laughing, and beseeching a little boy, seated on the aforesaid donkey, and thumping thereupon with, a large stick, "not to be so cruel and hurt poor Dapple." At this juncture the restive steed gave a vigorous stride, and toppling its rider on the gra.s.s, trotted off with a self-satisfied air; but Fane, intending to make the rebellious charger a means of introduction, caught his bridle and led him back to his discomfited master. The young lady, who was endeavoring to pacify the child, looked prettier than ever as she smiled and thanked him. But the gallant captain was not going to let the matter drop _here_, so, turning to the youthful rider, he asked him to let him put him on "the naughty donkey again." Master Tommy acquiesced, and, armed with his terrible stick, allowed himself to be mounted. Certainly Fane was a most unnecessary length of time settling that child, but then he was talking to the young lady, whom he begged to allow him to lead the donkey home.

"Oh! no, she was quite used to Dapple; she could manage him very well, and they were going farther." So poor Fane had nothing for it but to raise his hat and gaze at her through his eye-gla.s.s until some trees hid her from sight.

"'Pon my word, that's a pretty girl!" said he, at length. "I wonder who she can be! However, I shall soon find out. Have another weed, Fred?"

There was to be a ball that night at the a.s.sembly Rooms, which we were a.s.sured only the "_best_ families" would attend for Layton was a very exclusive little town in its way. Some of us who were going were standing about the mess-room, recalling the many good b.a.l.l.s and pretty girls of our late quarters, when Fane, who had declined to go, as he said he had a horror of "bad dancing, bad perfumes, bad ventilation, and bad champagne, and really could not stand the concentration of all of them, which he foresaw that night," to our surprise declared his intention of accompanying us.