Contraband Part 23

"And without anything particular to say," she retorted, adding hurriedly--"However, that's not the point. Sir Henry, you care for your daughter?"

"More than for anything in the world!" was his grave rejoinder.

"I know it--I know it," she answered, and the colour deepened in her cheek. "Well, now, men are blind as bats, I think, in all matters of affection; but have you not lately noticed an alteration in Helen's manner, spirits, in her very looks? Can't you see there's something wrong with the girl? Can't you guess what it is?"

He looked startled, disturbed, distressed.

"Not the lungs, Mrs. Lascelles!" he exclaimed. "She runs up-stairs like a lap-wing, and will waltz for twenty minutes together at a spin. There can't be much amiss. Not her lungs, surely; nor her heart!"

Mrs. Lascelles laughed.

"Yes, her heart," she repeated, "though not in the sense _you_ mean. Not anatomically, but sentimentally, I fear; which is sometimes almost as bad."

He looked immensely relieved.

"Oh! she'll get over that," said he, putting more sugar in his tea.

"She's a sensible girl, Helen, with a good deal of self-respect, and what I should call 'mind.' No whims, no fancies, in any way, and not the least romantic."

"Like her papa," observed Mrs. Lascelles maliciously.

"I trust in heaven _not_!" he replied, with unusual energy. "Helen is as much my superior in intellect as she is in moral qualities. She has talent, energy, self-control, and self-denial; none of which, I fear, can she inherit from _me_. Her sincerity, too, and trustfulness are like a child's, and she is as fond of me now as she was at two years old. You don't think she _really_ cares for anybody, do you, Mrs. Lascelles? It might be a serious thing for her if she did, and I had rather everything I have in the world went to ruin than that Helen should be made unhappy."

"I do," answered Mrs. Lascelles. "I think she cares for Frank Vanguard."

"Confound him!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sir Henry, upsetting his tea-cup. "A presuming young jacka.s.s! And not over steady, I'm afraid," he added, reverting in his own mind to certain memories connected with supper, cigarettes, champagne, three o'clock in the morning, and Kate Cremorne.

"Now that's so like a _man_!" said his hostess. "You want to keep your treasure all to yourself, and are furious with everybody who agrees with you in appreciating its value. Captain Vanguard is young, good-looking, a gentleman, and not badly off. Why shouldn't your daughter like him, and why shouldn't he like your daughter? Sir Henry, I needn't ask if you believe in my inclination, do you also believe in my ability to serve you?"

"Certainly," was the polite reply. "n.o.body is half so clever, and, besides, you are a perfect woman of the world."

"Will you be guided by my advice?"

"What do you propose?" was the natural answer to so comprehensive a question.

"Get Helen out of town at once. Carry her off to Windsor. I can take upon myself to offer you The Lilies. Uncle Joseph will lend the cottage to me, or any of my friends, for as long as I like. Give her plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt, but no dissipation. Early hours, a gla.s.s of port wine and a biscuit every day at twelve, and don't let her stay out after sun-down.

In three weeks the girl will be in rude health, or I know nothing of a woman's const.i.tution and ailments."

"But what has all this to do with Captain Vanguard?" asked Sir Henry, fixing in his mind, not without effort, the whole regimen, particularly the port wine at twelve o'clock.

"Oh! blindest of baronets!" laughed Mrs. Lascelles. "Lady Sycamore, or any other chaperon, would have seen it at once. Captain Vanguard is quartered at Windsor. Helen is staying at The Lilies. The young people meet every day. A mutual attachment, already, I firmly believe, in the bud, comes to maturity. General _tableau_! You give your blessing, and will become, I hope, more respectable as a father-in-law than you have hitherto been in other relations of life."

"I'll do anything for Helen--anything!" said Sir Henry vehemently. "And how can I thank you enough, Mrs. Lascelles, for your kindness and the interest you take in my girl? You'll come down every Sat.u.r.day, and stay till Monday, to see how your prescription answers, of course?"

"Not the least of course," she replied. "Jin and I mean to take ourselves off to Brighton by the end of the week. If the fine weather lasts, we shall very likely go on to Dieppe."

This, then, was her kindly scheme: to get Miss Ross out of Frank Vanguard's way to leave the coast clear for Helen; and then, having settled matters to her own satisfaction, weigh Sir Henry deliberately against Goldthred, and take whichever she considered most deserving of herself.

Mrs. Lascelles never doubted her power over any one on whom she chose to exert it, and believed that, like a spider, she need only spin her web in order to surround the desired bluebottle inextricably with its toils.

In hers, as in similar cases, I imagine that to break boldly through the meshes was the insect's best chance of turning the tables, and taking the custodian herself into custody.

"Miss Ross goes with you?" asked Sir Henry meditatively, though I believe he was thinking less of that black-eyed syren than of his daughter.

"Miss Ross goes with me, undoubtedly," was the answer, spoken rather sharply, and in some little displeasure. "Have you any objection? Can't you bear to part with her even for so short a period? You see, I know all about _that_, too."

Sir Henry never seemed to have any sense of shame. He couldn't have blushed to save his life. To this callousness he owed many of his successes, and almost all his sc.r.a.pes.

He smiled pleasantly. "You know all about everything, I believe," said he; "and you _think_ you know all about _me_. But you don't, and I don't; and n.o.body does, I fancy. I'm so different from what I feel sure I was intended to be, that I sometimes suspect, like the Irishman, they 'changed me at nurse.' Only, if I _were_ somebody else, that wouldn't account for it, after all, would it? These are puzzling speculations; but I know I _could_ have been a better and a very different man. It's not my fault."

"Whose, then?" she asked, bending her blue eyes on him with an expression of interest extremely dangerous for a man at any age.

He scarcely marked it. He was searching out the truth for once from the depths--not very profound--of his world-worn heart, and had forgotten during the moment that false and fleeting woman-worship which had so weakened and deteriorated his nature. Looking back along the path of life on which, as in some idolatrous grove, his every step had been marked by a soulless image of bra.s.s, or stucco, or marble, reared only to be defaced and overthrown, he was scarcely conscious of that lovely living companion, listening with all the attention of curiosity and self-interest to his retrospections.

"Yours!" he answered--("Now it's coming," she thought)--"Yours! Not individually, but collectively, as of that s.e.x which seems to be the natural bane of ours. If I could begin again, I would forswear female society altogether. I should be a better, and certainly a happier man.

As it is, my life has been wasted in looking for something I always failed to find. Did you ever see Grantley Berkeley's book? There it is on the table. I dare say you've never looked into it. Read it, if you want to find poetry in sport. He seems to entertain a gentle, kindly feeling for every living creature, wild or tame. He tells a story of one of his hounds--Champion or Challenger, if I remember right--that used to detach itself from the pack on hunting mornings, and come to its mistress's pony-chaise for a morsel of biscuit and a caress. Ever afterwards, when drafted into another county, the faithful, true-hearted dog would break away, and gallop up to every open carriage that arrived at the meet, returning from each succeeding disappointment with a sadder expression on his wise, honest face--a more piteous look in his meek, brown, wistful eyes. I've been like poor Champion or Challenger.

So often, I've thought I had found my heart's desire at last! Then I strained every nerve to win, and _did_ win, too; only to learn, over and over again, that she had not deceived me half so deeply as I had deceived myself. Shall I confess that the woman who, in my whole life, has approached nearest the ideal of my heart, was one whom my reason, my experience, and my moral sense, deteriorated though it is, convicted as the vilest and the worst?"

Few people had ever seen Sir Henry in earnest. Certainly not Mrs.

Lascelles; and she was almost frightened.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "After such an experience, you'll surely never try again?"

He seemed to wake up from a dream. The ruling pa.s.sion was not to be controlled; and habit, stronger than nature, impelled him, though for the hundredth time, to recommence the old story in the old familiar strain.

"Just once more," he said, drawing his chair nearer the frail spider-legged tea-table that const.i.tuted the only barrier between them.

"It's hard if a man seeks all his life without finding his object at last. Mrs. Lascelles, may I not say----"

In another moment she might have had the satisfaction of hearing, and perhaps repelling, a fervent declaration of attachment; but, at this juncture, the door of the boudoir was thrown open, and the announcement of "Lady Clearwell!" by James in person, ushered in an exceedingly courteous and sprightly personage, all smiles and rustle, who called Mrs. Lascelles "Rose," took her by both hands, and, with a distant bow to Sir Henry, dropped on the sofa as if she meant to make herself perfectly at home.

Such interruptions are almost a matter of course. There was nothing for it but to take up his hat and make his bow.

It may be that Sir Henry, walking soberly down-stairs, reflected, not without grat.i.tude, how such little _contretemps_ const.i.tute the great charm and safeguard of society in general.

Lady Clearwell stayed till nearly seven. As her carriage rolled away, Mrs. Lascelles looked wistfully at the clock, and called over the banisters to James:

"I'm not at home to anybody _now_, except Mr. Goldthred."

But Mr. Goldthred never came.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SOHO BAZAAR.

Frank Vanguard, leaving the threshold of No. 40 with unusual alacrity, lost no time in securing one of the many Hansom cabs that are to be found crawling about Belgravia, plentiful as wasps on wall-fruit, every summer's afternoon. "Soho Bazaar," said he. "Don't go to sleep over it!"