Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories Part 2

His hand touched her, his voice fell on her ear once more, eager, breathless, broken.

"Cecil! Cecil! is this true? Is my ruin thrice blessed, or am I mad, and dream of heaven?"

She lifted her head and looked at him with her old proud glance, her lips trembling with words that all her pride could not summon into speech; then her eyes filled with warm, blinding tears, and softened to new beauty;--scarce louder than the sigh of the wind among the flower-bells came her words to Fulke Ravensworth's ear, as her royal head bowed on his breast.

"Stay, stay! Or, if you fly, your exile shall be my exile, your danger my danger!"

The kerchief is a treasured heirloom to her descendants now, and fair women of her race, who inherit from her her azure eyes and her queenly grace, will recall how the proudest Countess of their Line loved a ruined gentleman so well that she was wedded to him at even, in her private chapel, at the hour of his greatest peril, his lowest fortune, and went with him across the seas till friendly intercession in high places gained them royal permission to dwell again at Lilliesford unmolested. And how it was ever noticeable to those who murmured at her coldness and her pride, that Cecil Castlemaine, cold and negligent as of yore to all the world beside, would seek her husband's smile, and love to meet his eyes, and cherish her beauty for his sake, and be restless in his absence, even for the short span of a day, with a softer and more clinging tenderness than was found in many weaker, many humbler women.

They are gone now the men and women of that generation, and their voices come only to us through the faint echo of their written words. In summer nights the old beech-trees toss their leaves in the silvery light of the stars, and the river flows on unchanged, with the ceaseless, mournful burden of its mystic song, the same now as in the midsummer of a century and a half ago. The cobweb handkerchief lies before me with its broidered shield; the same now as long years since, when it was treasured close in a soldier's breast, and held by him dearer than all save his honor and his word. So, things pulseless and pa.s.sionless endure, and human life pa.s.ses away as swiftly as a song dies off from the air--as quickly succeeded, and as quickly forgot! Ronsard's refrain is the refrain of our lives:

Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame!

Las! le temps, non; mais _nous_ nous, en allons!

LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS;

OR,

OUR MALTESE PEERAGE.

All first things are voted the best: first kisses, first _toga virilis_, first hair of the first whisker; first speeches are often so superior that members subside after making them, fearful of eclipsing themselves; first money won at play must always be best, as always the dearest bought; and first wives are always so super-excellent, that, if a man lose one, he is generally as fearful of hazarding a second as a trout of biting twice.

But of all first things commend me to one's first uniform. No matter that we get sick of harness, and get into mufti as soon as we can now; there is no more exquisite pleasure than the first sight of one's self in shako and sabretasche. How we survey ourselves in the gla.s.s, and ring for hot water, that the handsome housemaid may see us in all our glory, and lounge accidentally into our sisters' schoolroom, that the governess, who is nice looking and rather flirty, may go down on the spot before us and our scarlet and gold, chains and b.u.t.tons! One's first uniform! Oh! the exquisite sensation locked up for us in that first box from Sagnarelli, or Bond Street!

I remember _my_ first uniform. I was eighteen--as raw a young cub as you could want to see. I had not been licked into shape by a public school, whose tongue may be rough, but cleans off grievances and nonsense better than anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effeminacy, Church principles and weak tea, a Private Tutor's, where mamma's darlings are wrapped up, and stuffed with a little Terence and Horace to show grand at home; and upon my life I do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, was more wide awake and up to life than I was, when the governor, an old rector, who always put me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me gazetted to as crack a corps as any in the Line.

The ----th (familiarly known in the Service as the "Dare Devils," from old Peninsular deeds) were just then at Malta, and with, among other trifles, a chest protector from my father, and a recipe for milk-arrowroot from my Aunt Matilda who lived in a constant state of catarrh and of cure for the same, tumbled across the Bay of Biscay, and found myself in Byron's confounded "little military hot-house," where most military men, some time or other, have roasted themselves to death, climbing its hilly streets, flirting with its Valetta belles, drinking Ba.s.s in its hot verandas, yawning with ennui in its palace, cursing its sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers.

From a private tutor's to a crack mess at Malta!--from a convent to a casino could hardly be a greater change. Just at first I was as much astray as a young pup taken into a stubble-field, and wondering what the deuce he is to do there; but as it is a pup's nature to sniff at birds and start them, so is it a boy's nature to s.n.a.t.c.h at the champagne of life as soon as he catches sight of it, though you may have brought him up on water from his cradle. I took to it, at least, like a retriever to water-ducks, though I was green enough to be a first-rate b.u.t.t for many a day, and the practical jokes I had pa.s.sed on me would have furnished the _Times_ with food for crushers on "The Shocking State of the Army"

for a twelvemonth. My chief friend and ally, tormentor and initiator, was a little fellow, Cosmo Grandison; in Ours he was "Little Grand" to everybody, from the Colonel to the baggage-women. He was seventeen, and had joined about a year. What a pretty boy he was, too! All the fair ones in Valetta, from his Excellency's wife to our washerwomen, admired that boy, and spoilt him and petted him, and I do not believe there was a man of Ours who would have had heart to sit in court-martial on Little Grand if he had broken every one of the Queen's regulations, and set every General Order at defiance. I think I see him now--he was new to Malta as I, having just landed with the Dare Devils, _en route_ from India to Portsmouth--as he sat one day on the table in the mess-room as cool as a cuc.u.mber, in spite of the broiling sun, smoking, and swinging his legs, and settling his forage-cap on one side of his head, as pretty-looking, plucky, impudent a young monkey as ever piqued himself on being an old hand, and a knowing bird not to be caught by any chaff however ingeniously prepared.

"Simon," began Little Grand (my "St. John," first barbarized by Mr. Pope for the convenience of his dactyles and hexameters into Sinjin, being further barbarized by this little imp into Simon)--"Simon, do you want to see the finest woman in this confounded little pepper-box? You're no judge of a woman, though, you m.u.f.f--taste been warped, perhaps, by constant contemplation of that virgin Aunt Minerva--Matilda, is it? all the same."

"Hang your chaff," said I; "you'd make one out a fool."

"Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you are!" responded Little Grand, pleasantly, "Bless your heart, I've been engaged to half a dozen women since I joined. A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way of drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, poor little dears, and so you compromise yourself out of sheer benevolence. There's such a run on a handsome man--it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor fellow, I feel for him! Well, Simon, you don't seem curious to know who my beauty is?"

"One of those Mitch.e.l.l girls of the Twenty-first? You waltzed with 'em all night; but they're too tall for you, Grand."

"The Mitch.e.l.l girls!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed he, with supreme scorn. "Great maypoles! they go about with the Fusiliers like a pair of colors. On every ball-room battlefield one's safe to see _them_ flaunting away, and as everybody has a shot at 'em, their hearts must be pretty well riddled into holes by this time. No, mine's rather higher game than that. My mother's brother-in-law's aunt's sister's cousin's cousin once removed was Viscount Twaddle, and I don't go anything lower than the Peerage."

"What, is it somebody you've met at his Excellency's?"

"Wrong again, beloved Simon. It's n.o.body I've met at old Stars and Garters', though his lady-wife could no more do without me than without her sal volatile and flirtations. No, _she_ don't go there; she's too high for that sort of thing--sick of it. After all the European Courts, Malta must be rather small and slow. I was introduced to her yesterday, and," continued Little Grand, more solemnly than was his wont, "I do a.s.sure you she's superb, divine; and I'm not very easy to please."

"What's her name?" I asked, rather impressed with this view of a lady too high for old Stars and Garters, as we irreverently termed her Majesty's representative in her island of Malta.

Little Grand took his pipe out of his lips to correct me with more dignity.

"Her _t.i.tle_, my dear Simon, is the Marchioness St. Julian."

"Is that an English peerage, Grand?"

"Hum! What! Oh yes, of course! What else should it be, you owl!"

Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went on, growing more impressive at each phrase:

"She is splendid, really! And I'm a very _difficile_ fellow, you know; but such hair, such eyes, one doesn't see every day in those sun-dried Mitch.e.l.ls or those little pink Bovilliers. Well, yesterday, after that confounded luncheon (how I hate all those complimentary affairs!--one can't enjoy the truffles for talking to the ladies, nor enjoy the ladies for discussing the truffles), I went for a ride with Conran out to Villa Neponte. I left him there, and went down to see the overland steamers come in. While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow or other, with a very agreeable, gentleman-like fellow, who asked me if I'd only just come to Malta, and all that sort of thing--you know the introductory style of action--till we got quite good friends, and he told me he was living outside this wretched little hole at the Casa di Fiori, and said--wasn't it civil of him?--said he should be very happy to see me if I'd call any time. He gave me his card--Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey--and a man with him called him 'Dolph.' As good luck had it, my weed went out just while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was monstrously pleasant, searched all over him for a fusee, couldn't find one, and asked me to go up with him to the Casa di Fiori and get a light. Of course I did, and he and I and Guatamara had some sherbet and a smoke together, and then he introduced me to the Marchioness St. Julian, his sister--by Jove!

such a magnificent woman, Simon, _you_ never saw one like her, I'll wager. She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and _such_ a smile, my boy!

She seemed to like me wonderfully--not rare that, though, you'll say--and asked me to go and take coffee there to-night after mess, and bring one of my chums with me; and as I like to show you life, young one, and your taste wants improving after Aunt Minerva, you may come, if you like. Hallo! there's Conran. I say, don't tell _him_. I don't want any poaching on my manor."

Conran came in at that minute; he was then a Brevet-Major and Captain in Ours, and one of the older men who spoilt Little Grand in one way, as much as the women did in another. He was a fine, powerful fellow, with eyes like an eagle's, and pluck like a lion's; he had a grave look, and had been of late more silent and self-reticent than the other roistering, debonnair, light-hearted "Dare Devils;" but though, perhaps, tired of the wild escapades which reputation had once attributed to him, was always the most lenient to the boy's monkey tricks, and always the one to whom he went if his larks had cost him too dear, or if he was in a sc.r.a.pe from which he saw no exit. Conran had recently come in for a good deal of money, and there were few bright eyes in Malta that would not have smiled kindly on him; but he did not care much for any of them.

There was some talk of a love-affair before he went to India, that was the cause of his hard-heartedness, though I must say he did not look much like a victim to the _grande pa.s.sion_, in my ideas, which were drawn from valentines and odes in the "Woman, thou fond and fair deceiver" style; in love that turned its collars down and let its hair go uncut and refused to eat, and recovered with a rapidity proportionate to its ostentation; and I did not know that, if a man has lost his treasure, he _may_ mourn it so deeply that he may refuse to run about like Harpagon, crying for his _ca.s.sette_ to an audience that only laughs at his miseries.

"Well, young ones," said Conran, as he came in and threw down his cap and whip, "here you are, spending your hours in pipes and bad wine. What a blessing it is to have a palate that isn't blase, and that will swallow all wine just because it _is_ wine! That South African goes down with better relish, Little Grand, than you'll find in Chateau Margaux ten years hence. As soon as one begins to want touching up with olives, one's real gusto is gone."

"Hang olives, sir! they're beastly," said Little Grand; "and I don't care who pretends they're not. Olives are like sermons and wives, everybody makes a wry face, and would rather be excused 'em, Major; but it's the custom to call 'em good things, and so men bolt 'em in complaisance, and while they hate the salt-water flavor, descant on the delicious rose taste!"

"Quite true, Little Grand! but one takes olives to enhance the wine; and so, perhaps, other men's sermons make one enjoy one's racier novel, and other men's wives make one appreciate one's liberty still better. Don't abuse olives; you'll want them figuratively and literally before you've done either drinking or living!"

"Oh! confound it, Major," cried Little Grand, "I do hope and trust a spent ball may have the kindness to double me up and finish me off before then."

"You're not philosophic, my boy."

"Thank Heaven, no!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Little Grand, piously. "I've an uncle, a very great philosopher, beats all the sages hollow, from Bion to Buckle, and writes in the Metaphysical Quarterly, but I'll be shot if he don't spend so much time in trying to puzzle out what life is, that all his has slipped away without his having _lived_ one bit. When I was staying with him one Christmas, he began boring me with a frightful theory on the non-existence of matter. I couldn't stand that, so I cut him short, and set him down to the luncheon-table; and while he was full swing with a Strasbourg pate and Comet hock, I stopped him and asked him if, with them in his mouth, he believed in matter or not? He was shut up, of course; bless your soul, those theorists always are, if you're down upon 'em with a little fact!"

"Such as a Strasbourg pate?--that _is_ an unanswerable argument with most men, I believe," said Conran, who liked to hear the boy chatter.

"What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Grand?"

"I am going to--ar--hum--to a friend of mine," said Little Grand, less glibly than usual.

"Very well; I only asked, because I would have taken you to Mrs.

Fortescue's with me; they're having some acting proverbs (horrible exertion in this oven of a place, with the thermometer at a hundred and twenty degrees); but if you've better sport it's no matter. Take care what friends you make, though, Grand; you'll find some Maltese acquaintances very costly."

"Thank you. I should say I can take care of myself," replied Little Grand, with immeasurable scorn and dignity.

Conran laughed, struck him across the shoulders with his whip, stroked his own moustaches, and went out again, whistling one of Verdi's airs.

"I don't want him bothering, you know," explained Little Grand; "she's such a deuced magnificent woman!"

She was a magnificent woman, this Eudoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St.

Julian; and proud enough Little Grand and I felt when we had that soft, jewelled hand held out to us, and that bewitching smile beamed upon us, and that joyous presence dazzling in our eyes, as we sat in the drawing-room of that Casa di Fiori. She was about thirty-five, I should say (boys always worship those who might have been schoolfellows of their mothers), tall and stately, and imposing, with the most beautiful pink and white skin, with a fine set of teeth, raven hair, and eyes tinted most exquisitely. Oh! she was magnificent, our Marchioness St.

Julian! Into what unutterable insignificance, what miserable, washed-out shadows sank Stars and Garters' lady, and the Mitch.e.l.l girls, and all the belles of La Valetta, whom we hadn't thought so very bad-looking before.