Contraband Part 22

"I didn't mean it!" she sobbed. "I didn't mean it! Jin, dear Jin, I was angry, and didn't know what I was saying! I am a wretch and a heathen and a beast! Think no more of it, dear, I implore you! And promise me that you won't dream of packing up your things and leaving me. What should I do without you, Jin? Indeed--indeed--I should be perfectly miserable, dear, if you were to go away!"

So the ladies embraced, and cried, and laughed, and cried again, as is the manner of their s.e.x in the ratification of all treaties, permanent or otherwise, arriving at the conclusion that their friendship was imperishable, that they were all in all to each other, and that henceforth nothing should part them but the grave. None the less, however, did Miss Ross determine that she would subject herself no more to such scenes of reproach and recrimination; that she would take a certain step, only, after all, a little sooner than expected, which she had already vaguely contemplated as a possibility, a probability, nay, a positive necessity, for her happiness; and, if he would only open them to receive her, throw herself, without delay, into the arms of Frank Vanguard.

CHAPTER XX.

A RECONNAISSANCE.

Violent tempests like that described in the last chapter do not pa.s.s away without leaving a "ground swell" as it were, on the domestic surface. Neither Mrs. Lascelles nor Miss Ross felt disposed to take their usual drive in the open carriage for the purpose of shopping and "leaving cards;" two functions that const.i.tute the whole duty of women, from three to six P.M. of every week-day, during the London season. The principle of acquisitiveness inherent in the female breast, together with an insatiable desire to see and to be seen, may account for the shopping; but why society enjoins the penance of leaving cards surpa.s.ses my comprehension altogether. Unmeaning, endless, and exceedingly troublesome, this custom seems to produce no definite result, but to fill the waste-paper basket with a mult.i.tude of other cards left in return. To-day, however, the ladies at No. 40 resolved they would devote their afternoon to refreshment and repose: a good luncheon, a comfortable arm-chair, the newest novel, and a casual dropping in of visitors to tea.

The luncheon was heavy, the arm-chair provocative of slumbers; so was the novel; and Mrs. Lascelles, I am bound to admit, went fast asleep over its pages; while Miss Ross stole softly up-stairs to read one important little note, write another, and otherwise bring her schemes to maturity.

In the mean time, a considerable bustle was going on in Messrs.

Tattersalls' celebrated emporium for the sale of horses--good, bad, and indifferent. To use correct language, "The entire stud of a n.o.bleman, well known in Leicestershire," was being brought to the hammer; and a very motley crowd of sportsmen, dandies, horse-dealers, lords, louts, yeomen, yokels, and nondescripts were gathered round the auctioneer's box in consequence. A well-bred chestnut horse, with magnificent shoulders, and a white fore-leg, was the object of compet.i.tion at the moment Sir Henry Hallaton entered the yard; and, although he neither wanted a hunter, nor could have afforded to buy this one even at its reserved price, it was not in his power to refrain from elbowing his way through the crowd, and stationing himself in perilous vicinity to the hind-legs of the animal.

"Handsome--fast--up to great weight--with an European reputation! And only two hundred bid for him!" said the voice of Fate from under an exceedingly well-brushed and rather curly-brimmed hat; while the object of these encomiums, whose restless eye and ear denoted excitement, if not alarm, gave a stamp of his foot and a whisk of his tail that caused considerable swaying, surging, and treading on toes in the encircling crowd.

"Ten! Twenty!" continued the voice of Fate. "Thirty! Thank you, my lord.

Fifty! Two hundred and fifty bid for him. Run him down once more. Take care!" And Sir Henry found himself jostled against his new friend Picard, who, having made the last bid with an a.s.sumption of great carelessness, seemed in danger of becoming the actual proprietor of this desirable purchase.

"Make me a wheeler, I think," said he, as the horse was led back to the stable, and another brought out to elicit a fresh burst of compet.i.tion, all the more lively, perhaps, that the Leicestershire n.o.bleman had put such a reserve price on his stud as precluded the sale of anything but a hack he didn't like.

"Rather light for harness," observed Sir Henry, with a certain covert approval of his friend's extravagance. "I suppose they _are_ to be sold?" he added, on further reflection.

"I conclude so, of course," replied the other, though he well knew they were _not_, and had been bidding pompously for some half-dozen with the comfortable conviction that there was nothing to pay for his whistle.

"It's a long price," resumed the baronet, as he took Picard's arm to saunter leisurely in the direction of Belgravia. "At least, it makes them very dear when you come to match them. That's the worst of having too good a team."

"Oh! I don't know," said Picard loftily. "I always find it cheapest, in the long run, to drive the best horses, though I do have to give thundering prices now and then, I admit. Still, things must begin to look up for us soon. We Southern proprietors can't be always on the shady side of the hedge; and we've had a rough time of it enough, in all conscience."

They were already at the gate, and it appeared this "Southern proprietor" had no intention of buying any more horses to-day.

Sir Henry hazarded a pertinent, or, as he himself considered it, an _im_pertinent, inquiry.

"Have you much property," said he, "in the South? And do you get anything from it?"

"Not, perhaps, what _you_ would call much, in actual value," answered his companion; "but for extent, of course, unlimited." He waved his arm as Robinson Crusoe might, while describing his circle:

"From the centre all round to the sea."

"But American property," he added, "is so difficult to define. Halloo!

here's our friend Vanguard."

That gentleman was indeed strolling leisurely into the yard, apparently with no particular object, for he strolled out again willingly enough at the invitation of his two friends.

"It's rather early for the park," observed Picard, as the three crossed to the shady side of the street, "and too late for St. James's Street.

What shall we do with ourselves for the next half-hour?"

"Go and look at the Serpentine--see if it's still there," said Frank, who seemed in unusually high spirits, though his manner was somewhat restless. "If that bores you, there's always the British Museum. It's cool, and, I've been told, very solitary."

"Too far off," answered Sir Henry, in perfect good faith. "No. I'll tell you what. Let's go and ask Mrs. Lascelles to give us a cup of tea."

Frank started, and his heart thumped against a little note lying in his waistcoat-pocket; but, though the thump was for Helen, the note was from some one very different to that well-conducted young lady. Was he disloyal enough, even now, to leap at the chance of seeing Miss Hallaton just once more, and for the last time? If so, he was doomed to be disappointed, and it served him right.

Picard, who carried no notes of any description in his pockets, and whose heart seldom beat unless he walked fast up-hill, agreed willingly to the baronet's proposition. He, too, entertained a vague sentiment of admiration for Helen, capable of soon ripening into something warmer if she had any fortune, and under such circ.u.mstances his game now was to see as much of her as he could.

Thus it fell out, that these three gentlemen, arriving at Mrs.

Lascelles's door, found themselves face to face with Uncle Joseph, fresh from the City, who had just rung the bell, and was utilising his time by grinding a pair of thick soles fiercely against the sc.r.a.per.

It would have amused a bystander to observe the effect produced on each visitor by the footman's appearance and the information he tendered.

"Has Miss Hallaton been here?" said Sir Henry, whose position on the top step gave him priority of speech with the doorkeeper.

"Called to leave a note after luncheon, Sir Henry, and I was to say she'd a-gone out driving with Lady Sycamore, and wouldn't be home till seven, if you came for her here."

Picard, pulling out a memorandum-book, muttered that "he had forgotten an appointment at his Club," while Frank's face darkened, and he smothered something between an oath and a sigh.

"Is Miss Ross at home?" then demanded Uncle Joseph, with the air of a man who submits to an unnecessary formality in compliance with the usages of society.

"Miss Ross had stepped out--oh! _not_ five minutes ago--the gentlemen might almost have met her at the corner of the street."

Frank now seemed uneasy, looked at his watch, observed it was "rather too late to call," and disappeared.

Uncle Joseph gasped. Did Miss Ross leave no message? For _him_, Mr.

Groves? Was the man quite sure?

The man _was_ quite sure, so far as he knew; should he ask the maid?

"D----n the maid!" I am sorry to say, was Uncle Joseph's reply, and without further leave-taking he bustled off in a towering pa.s.sion, while Sir Henry and the footman, on the door-step, contemplated each other in some amus.e.m.e.nt and no little surprise.

The baronet broke into a laugh.

"You soon clear off your visitors, James. Is Mrs. Lascelles at home to _me_!"

"Certainly, sir! Yes, sir! In the boodore, sir!" answered James. "I'd just taken in tea when you rang."

So Sir Henry found himself _tete-a-tete_ with the lady for whom, during the foregoing winter, he had half-felt and half-professed a spurious kind of attachment, and was conscious of an uncomfortable wish that he, too, had made his escape with the others, or that it had never entered his head to come to tea at all.

She was always gracious, just as she was always well-dressed. There is a dignity and a decency of beauty, which nothing will induce a beautiful woman to forego. It was a very cool and steady hand that Mrs. Lascelles tendered to her vacillating admirer, while she bade him sit down, and poured him out a cup of tea.

"I was on the point of writing to you," said she; "but you have saved me the trouble. I wanted to see you, Sir Henry, very much. I have something particular to say."

He bowed, and settled himself in a low easy-chair with his back to the windows. No faded beauty of the other s.e.x could have entertained a greater objection than Sir Henry to flourishing "crow's-feet" and wrinkles in the light of day.

"It's no wonder I'm here," was the smiling reply, "for I always want to see you!"