The Cockaynes in Paris Part 10

"I am surprised that political economy, together with an intimate acquaintance with hydrostatics, are not exacted in these mad examination days from a queen's messenger; but I am not bound not to be a fool in political economy, so I elect to be one."

"Chablis?"

"Ay; and about ice?"

"My dear Q. M., when you have had a headache, has it ever fallen to your lot to be in the company of a pretty woman?"

"Else had I been one of the most neglected of men."

"Well, she has fetched the Eau-de-Cologne, bathed your manly brow, and then blown her balmy breath over your temples. That sweet coolness, my dear fellow, is my idea of the proper temperature for Chablis."

"It's a great bit of luck to pounce upon you, Bertram, when a man has only a few hours to spend in Paris, after a year or two's absence.

Nearly upon two years have pa.s.sed since I was here. Yes, November, '62--now August, '64."

"In that time, my dear Q. M., reputations have been made and lost by the hundred. I have had a score of eternal friendships. You can run through the matrimonial gauntlet, from courtship to the Divorce Court, in that time. We used to grieve for years: now we weep as we travel; shed tears, as we cast grain, by machinery. Two years! Why, I have pa.s.sed through half-a-dozen worlds. My bosom friend of '62 wouldn't remember me if I met him to-morrow. I met old Baron Desordres, who has made such a brilliant _fiasco_ for everybody except himself, yesterday; I knew him in '62 with poor little Bartle, who lent him a couple of thousands.

Bartle died last month. In '62 Desordres and Bartle were inseparable. I said to the Baron yesterday, 'You know poor little Bartle is dead.' The Baron, picking his teeth, murmured, turning over the leaves of his memory, '_Bartel! Bartel!_ I remember--_un pet.i.t gros, vrai?_' and the leaves of the Baron's memory were turned back, and Bartle was as much forgotten in five minutes as the burnt end of a cigarette. I daresay his sisters are gone as governesses for want of the thousands the Baron ate.

Two years! Two epochs!"

"I suppose so. While the light burns, and the summer is on, the moths come out. Tragedy, comedy, and farce elbow each other through the rooms.

I have seen very much myself, for bird of pa.s.sage. I took part in a strange incident when I pa.s.sed through last time."

"Tell your story, and drink your Roederer, my dear Q. M."

"Story! I want to get at the story. I travelled with a man and his wife from Folkestone to Paris. On the boat he was the most attentive of husbands; at the terminus he had disappeared. Poor woman in tears; fell into my arms, sir, by Jove!"

"No story!" cried Bertram, winking at the floating air-beads in his gla.s.s. "No story! my good, simple Q.M. Egad! what would you have? Pray go on."

"Go on! I've finished. I was off in the afternoon by the Ma.r.s.eilles mail. Of course, I did my utmost to find the husband. She went to the Windsor; I thought it would be quiet for her. I went to the police, paid to have inquiries kept up in all the hotels; and lastly, put her in communication with a good business man--Moffum, you know; and left her, a wreck of one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen."

"What kind of fellow was the husband? You got his name, of course?"

"Daker--Herbert Daker. Man of good family. A most agreeable, taking, travelled companion; light and bright as----"

"The light-hearted Ja.n.u.s of Lamb," Bertram interrupted, his words dancing lightly as the beads in his gla.s.s.

The a.s.sociation of Daker with Wainwright struck me sharply. For how genial and accomplished a man was the criminal! a stranger conglomeration of graces and sins never dwelt within one human breast. I was started on wild speculations.

"I've set you dreaming. You found no clue to a history?"

"None. She had been married three months to Daker. She was a poor girl left alone, with a few hundreds, I apprehend. She would not say much. A runaway match, I concluded. Not a word about her family. When I left Paris, after dinner, he had made no sign. She promised to write to me to Constantinople. I gave her my address in town. I told her Arthur's here would reach me. But not a word, my dear boy. That woman had the soul of truth in voice and look, or I never read Eve's face yet."

"Ha! ha!" Bertram laughed. "I wish I had not got beyond the risk of being snared by the un-gloving of a hand. You only pa.s.s through, I live in Paris."

"Paris or London, a heart may be read, if you will only take the trouble. I shall never hear, in all human probability, what has become of Mrs. Daker, or her husband; she may be an intrigante, and he a card-sharper now; all I know, and will swear, is that she loved that man to distraction then, and it was a girl in love."

"And he?"

Bertram's suspicions seemed to be fixed on Daker, whom he had never seen; although I had described his eminently prepossessing qualities.

"I can't understand why you should suspect Daker of villany, as I see you do, Bertram."

"I tell you he was a most accomplished, prepossessing villain, my dear Q.M. Your upper cla.s.s villains are always prepossessing. Manners are as necessary to them as a small hand to a pickpocket."

"Sharp, but unfair--only partly true, like all sweeping generalizations.

I think, as I hope, that the wife found the husband, and that they are nestling in some Italian retreat."

"And never had the grace to write you a word! No, no, you say they had manners. That, at any rate, then, is not the solution of the mystery."

Bertram was right here. Then what had become of Mrs. Daker? Daker, if alive, was a scoundrel, and one who had contrived to take care of himself. But that sweet country face! Here was a heart that might break, but would never harden.

"Mystery it must and will remain, I suppose."

"One of many," was Bertram's gay reply. "How they overload these matches with sulphur!"

He was lighting his cigar. His phaeton was at the door. A globule of Chartreuse; a compliment for the _chef_, a bow to the _dame de comptoir_, and we were on our way to the Bois, at a brisk trot, for the great world had cleared off to act tragedy and comedy by the ocean sh.o.r.e, or the invalid's well, or the gambler's green baize.

Bertram--one of that great and flourishing cla.s.s of whom Scandal says "she doesn't know how they do it, or who pays for it"--albeit a bad match, even for Miss Tayleure, was, as I have said, in good English and French society, and drove his phaeton. He was saluted on his way along the Champs Elysees and by the lake, by many, and by some ladies who were still unaccountably lingering in Paris. A superb little Victoria pa.s.sed.

Bertram raised his hat.

"An Irish girl," he said, "of superb beauty."

At the Madrid we met a few people we knew; and, driving home, Bertram saluted Miss Tayleure, who was crawling round the lake with her twin sister, and was provoked to be recognised by a man of fashion in a hack vehicle in the month of August.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOIS DE BOULOGNE.]

"Charming evening they're having," said Bertram: "taking out their watches every two minutes to be quite sure they shall get back within the hour and a half which they have made up their minds to afford.

Beastly position!"

"What! living for appearances?"

"Just so; with women especially. Their dodges are extraordinary.

Tayleure would cheapen a penny loaf, and run down the price of a box of lucifer matches. There's a chance for you! She would be an economical wife; but then, my dear fellow, she would spend all the savings on herself. Her virtue is like Gibraltar!"

"And would be safe as unintrenched tableland, I should think."

"Hang it!" Bertram handsomely interposed, "let us drop poor Tayleure.

She believes that her hour of happiness has to be rung in yet; and she is always craning out of the window to catch the first silver echoes of the bells. The old gentlewoman is happy."

"Suppose you tell me something about your Irish beauty," I suggested.

"Quite a different story, my good Q.M. Wait till I get clear of this clumsy fellow ahead. So, so, gently. Now, Miss Trefoil; the Trefoil is a girl whose success I can understand perfectly. To begin with--the girl is educated. In the second place, she is, beyond all dispute, a beautiful woman. There is not another pair of violet eyes in all Paris--I mean in the season--to be matched with hers. Milk and roses--nothing more--for complexion: and _no_ paint; which makes her light sisters--accomplished professors of the art of _maquillage_--hate her. A foot!" Bertram kissed the tip of his glove, by way of description. "A voice that seems to make the air rich about her."

"Gently, Bertram. We must be careful how we approach your queen, I see."

"Not a bit of it. I am telling you just what you would hear in any of the clubs. She has a liberal nature, my boy, and loves n.o.body, that I can find, in particular. What bewitches me in talking to her is a sort of serious background. I hate a woman all surface as I hate a flat house. The Trefoil--queer name, isn't it?--can put a tremor in her voice suddenly. The Trefoil has memories--a fact: something which she doesn't give to the world, generous as she is. It is the shade to her abounding and sparkling pa.s.sages of light. Only her deep art, I dare say; but devilish pleasant and refreshing when you get tired of laughing--gives a little repose to facial muscles. The Trefoil has decidedly made a sensation. At the races she was as popular as the winner. She must have got home with a chariot full of money. Of course, when she bet, she won--or she didn't pay. A pot of money is to be made on that system: and the women, bless 'em, how kindly they've taken to it!"

This kind of improving discourse employed us to my gate. Bertram dropped me to return for "the painted lily" in an hour.