The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 34

"I am sure the letter is true," Ethel said, rising up very haughtily.

"It is not by calling me bad names that your ladyship will disprove it.

Keep them, if you please, for my Aunt Julia; she is sick and weak, and can't defend herself. I do not choose to bear abuse from you, or lectures from Lord Kew. He happened to be here a short while since, when the letter arrived. He had been good enough to come to preach me a sermon on his own account. He to find fault with my actions!" cried Miss Ethel, quivering with wrath and clenching the luckless paper in her hand. "He to accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making improper acquaintances! He began his lectures too soon. I am not a lawful slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as I am free."

"And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcome, and you showed him that letter?" said the old lady.

"The letter was actually brought to me whilst his lordship was in the midst of his sermon," Ethel replied. "I read it as he was making his speech," she continued, gathering anger and scorn as she recalled the circ.u.mstances of the interview. "He was perfectly polite in his language. He did not call me a fool or use a single other bad name. He was good enough to advise me and to make such virtuous pretty speeches, that if he had been a bishop he could not have spoken better; and as I thought the letter was a nice commentary on his lordship's sermon, I gave it to him. I gave it to him," cried the young woman, "and much good may it do him. I don't think my Lord Kew will preach to me again for some time."

"I don't think he will indeed," said Lady Kew, in a hard dry voice. "You don't know what you may have done. Will you be pleased to ring the bell and order my carriage? I congratulate you on having performed a most charming morning's work."

Ethel made her grandmother a very stately curtsey. I pity Lady Julia's condition when her mother reached home.

All who know Lord Kew may be pretty sure that in that unlucky interview with Ethel, to which the young lady has alluded, he just said no single word to her that was not kind, and just, and gentle. Considering the relation between them, he thought himself justified in remonstrating with her as to the conduct which she chose to pursue, and in warning her against acquaintances of whom his own experience had taught him the dangerous character. He knew Madame d'Ivry and her friends so well that he would not have his wife-elect a member of their circle. He could not tell Ethel what he knew of those women and their history. She chose not to understand his hints--did not, very likely, comprehend them. She was quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had never been told before her. She was indignant at the surveillance which Lord Kew exerted over her, and the authority which he began to a.s.sume. At another moment and in a better frame of mind she would have been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after she did justice to his many admirable qualities--his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this time against the bondage in which her family strove to keep her. The very worldly advantages of the position which they offered her served but to chafe her the more. Had her proposed husband been a young prince with a crown to lay at her feet, she had been yet more indignant very likely, and more rebellious.

Had Kew's younger brother been her suitor, or Kew in his place, she had been not unwilling to follow her parents' wishes. Hence the revolt in which she was engaged--the wayward freaks and outbreaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the justice of Lord Kew's reproofs.

That self-consciousness was not likely to add to her good-humour. No doubt she was sorry for having shown Lord Kew the letter the moment after she had done that act, of which the poor young lady could not calculate the consequences that were now to ensue.

Lord Kew, on glancing over the letter, at once divined the quarter whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, as our characters described by those who hate us are not unlike. He had pa.s.sed a reckless youth; indeed he was sad and ashamed of that past life, longed like the poor prodigal to return to better courses, and had embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a union with a woman young, virtuous, and beautiful, against whom and against heaven he hoped to sin no more. If we have told or hinted at more of his story than will please the ear of modern conventionalism, I beseech the reader to believe that the writer's purpose at least is not dishonest, nor unkindly. The young gentleman hung his head with sorrow over that sad detail of his life and its follies. What would he have given to be able to say to Ethel, "This is not true."

His reproaches to Miss Newcome of course were at once stopped by this terrible a.s.sault on himself. The letter had been put in the Baden post-box, and so had come to its destination. It was in a disguised handwriting. Lord Kew could form no idea even of the s.e.x of the scribe.

He put the envelope in his pocket, when Ethel's back was turned.

He examined the paper when he left her. He could make little of the superscription or of the wafer which had served to close the note. He did not choose to caution Ethel as to whether she should burn the letter or divulge it to her friends. He took his share of the pain, as a boy at school takes his flogging, stoutly and in silence.

When he saw Ethel again, which he did in an hour's time, the generous young gentleman held his hand out to her. "My dear," he said, "if you had loved me you never would have shown me that letter." It was his only reproof. After that he never again reproved or advised her.

Ethel blushed. "You are very brave and generous, Frank," said, bending her head, "and I am captious and wicked." He felt the hot tear blotting on his hand from his cousin's downcast eyes.

He kissed her little hand. Lady Anne, who was in the room with her children when these few words pa.s.sed between the two in a very low tone, thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it was a renunciation on Kew's part--she never liked him so much as at that moment. The young man was too modest and simple to guess himself what the girl's feelings were. Could he have told them, his fate and hers might have been changed.

"You must not allow our kind letter-writing friend," Lord Kew continued, "to fancy we are hurt. We must walk out this afternoon, and we must appear very good friends."

"Yes, always, Kew," said Ethel, holding out her hand again. The next minute her cousin was at the table carving roast-fowls, and distributing the portions to the hungry children.

The a.s.sembly of the previous evening had been one of those which the fermier des jeux at Baden beneficently provides for the frequenters of the place, and now was to come off a much more brilliant entertainment, in which poor Clive, who is far into Switzerland by this time, was to have taken a share. The Bachelors had agreed to give a ball, one of the last entertainments of the season: a dozen or more of them had subscribed the funds, and we may be sure Lord Kew's name was at the head of the list, as it was of any list, of any scheme, whether of charity or fun. The English were invited, and the Russians were invited; the Spaniards and Italians, Poles, Prussians, and Hebrews; all the motley frequenters of the place, and the warriors in the Duke of Baden's army.

Unlimited supper was set in the restaurant. The dancing-room glittered with extra lights, and a profusion of cut-paper flowers decorated the festive scene. Everybody was present, those crowds with whom our story has nothing to do, and those two or three groups of persons who enact minor or greater parts in it. Madame d'Ivry came in a dress of stupendous splendour, even more brilliant than that in which Miss Ethel had figured at the last a.s.sembly. If the d.u.c.h.ess intended to ecraser Miss Newcome by the superior magnificence of her toilet, she was disappointed. Miss Newcome wore a plain white frock on the occasion, and resumed, Madame d'Ivry said, her role of ingenue for that night.

During the brief season in which gentlemen enjoyed the favour of Mary Queen of Scots, that wandering sovereign led them through all the paces and vagaries of a regular pa.s.sion. As in a fair, where time is short and pleasures numerous, the master of the theatrical booth shows you a tragedy, a farce, and a pantomime, all in a quarter of an hour, having a dozen new audiences to witness his entertainments in the course of the forenoon; so this lady with her platonic lovers went through the complete dramatic course,--tragedies of jealousy, pantomimes of rapture, and farces of parting. There were billets on one side and the other; hints of a fatal destiny, and a ruthless, lynx-eyed tyrant, who held a demoniac grasp over the d.u.c.h.ess by means of certain secrets which he knew: there were regrets that we had not known each other sooner: why were we brought out of our convent and sacrificed to Monsieur le Duc?

There were frolic interchanges of fancy and poesy: pretty bouderies; sweet reconciliations; yawns finally--and separation. Adolphe went out and Alphonse came in. It was the new audience; for which the bell rang, the band played, and the curtain rose; and the tragedy, comedy, and farce were repeated.

Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces above-mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary tragedians; and if they have to denounce a villain, to declare a pa.s.sion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists, and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la d.u.c.h.esse d'Ivry perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines' parts liking to strike her audiences quickly, and also to change them often. Like good performers, she flung herself heart and soul into the business of the stage, and was what she acted. She was Phedre, and if in the first part of the play she was uncommonly tender to Hippolyte, in the second she hated him furiously. She was Medea, and if Jason was volage, woe to Creusa!

Perhaps our poor Lord Kew had taken the first character in a performance with Madame d'Ivry; for his behaviour in which part it was difficult enough to forgive him; but when he appeared at Baden the affianced husband of one of the most beautiful young creatures in Europe,--when his relatives scorned Madame d'Ivry,--no wonder she was maddened and enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, steel, poison.

There was in the d.u.c.h.ess's court a young fellow from the South of France, whose friends had sent him to faire son droit at Paris, where he had gone through the usual course of pleasure and studies of the young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. He had at one time exalted republican opinions, and had fired his shot with distinction at St. Meri. He was a poet of some little note--a book of his lyrics, Les Rales d'un Asphyxie, having made a sensation at the time of their appearance. He drank great quant.i.ties of absinthe of a morning; smoked incessantly; played roulette whenever he could get a few pieces; contributed to a small journal, and was especially great in his hatred of l'infame Angleterre. Delenda est Carthago was tattooed beneath his shirt-sleeves. Fifine and Clarisse, young milliners of the students' district, had punctured this terrible motto on his manly right arm. Le leopard, emblem of England, was his aversion; he shook his fist at the caged monster in the Garden of Plants. He desired to have "Here lies an enemy of England" engraved upon his early tomb. He was skilled at billiards and dominoes, adroit in the use of arms, of unquestionable courage and fierceness. Mr. Jones of England was afraid of M. de Castillonnes, and cowered before his scowls and sarcasms. Captain Blackball, the other English aide-de-camp of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Ivry, a warrior of undoubted courage, who had been "on the ground" more than once, gave him a wide berth, and wondered what the little beggar meant when he used to say, "Since the days of the Prince Noir, monsieur, my family has been at feud with l'Angleterre!" His family were grocers at Bordeaux, and his father's name was M. Caba.s.se.

He had married a n.o.ble in the revolutionary times; and the son at Paris himself himself Victor Caba.s.se de Castillonnes; then Victor C. de Castillonnes; then M. de Castillonnes. One of the followers of the Black Prince had insulted a lady of the house of Castillonnes, when the English were lords of Guienne; hence our friend's wrath against the Leopard. He had written, and afterwards dramatised a terrific legend describing the circ.u.mstances, and the punishment of the Briton by a knight of the Castillonnes family. A more awful coward never existed in a melodrama than that felon English knight. His blanche-fille, of course, died of hopeless love for the conquering Frenchman, her father's murderer. The paper in which the feuilleton appeared died at the sixth number of the story. The theatre of the Boulevard refused the drama; so the author's rage against l'infame Albion was yet unappeased. On beholding Miss Newcome, Victor had fancied a resemblance between her and Agnes de Calverley, the blanche Miss of his novel and drama, and cast an eye of favour upon the young creature. He even composed verses in her honour (for I presume that the "Miss Betti" and the Princess Crimhilde of the poems which he subsequently published, were no other than Miss Newcome, and the d.u.c.h.ess, her rival). He had been one of the lucky gentlemen who had danced with Ethel on the previous evening. On the occasion of the ball, he came to her with a highflown compliment, and a request to be once more allowed to waltz with her--a request to which he expected a favourable answer, thinking, no doubt, that his wit, his powers of conversation, and the amour qui flambait dans son regard, had had their effect upon the charming Meess. Perhaps he had a copy of the very verses in his breast-pocket, with which he intended to complete his work of fascination. For her sake alone, he had been heard to say that he would enter into a truce with England, and forget the hereditary wrongs of his race.

But the blanche Miss on this evening declined to waltz with him. His compliments were not of the least avail. He retired with them and his unuttered verses in his crumpled bosom. Miss Newcome only danced in one quadrille with Lord Kew, and left the party quite early, to the despair of many of the bachelors, who lost the fairest ornament of their ball.

Lord Kew, however, had been seen walking with her in public, and particularly attentive to her during her brief appearance in the ballroom; and the old Dowager, who regularly attended all places of amus.e.m.e.nt, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week before she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame d'Ivry upon this evening, and, far from shunning the d.u.c.h.esse's presence or being rude to her, as on former occasions, was entirely smiling and good-humoured.

Lady Kew, too, thought there had been a reconciliation between Ethel and her cousin. Lady Anne had given her mother some account of the handshaking. Kew's walk with Ethel, the quadrille which she had danced with him alone, induced the elder lady to believe that matters had been made up between the young people.

So, by way of showing the d.u.c.h.esse that her little shot of the morning had failed in its effect, as Frank left the room with his cousin, Lady Kew gaily hinted, "that the young earl was aux pet.i.ts soins with Miss Ethel; that she was sure her old friend, the Duc d'Ivry, would be glad to hear that his G.o.dson was about to range himself. He would settle down on his estates. He would attend to his duties as an English peer and a country gentleman. We shall go home," says the benevolent Countess, "and kill the veau gras, and you shall see our dear prodigal will become a very quiet gentleman."

The d.u.c.h.esse said, "my Lady Kew's plan was most edifying. She was charmed to hear that Lady Kew loved veal; there were some who thought that meat rather insipid." A waltzer came to claim her hand at this moment; and as she twirled round the room upon that gentleman's arm, wafting odours as she moved, her pink silks, pink feathers, pink ribands, making a mighty rustling, the Countess of Kew had the satisfaction of thinking that she had planted an arrow in that shrivelled little waist, which Count Punter's arms embraced, and had returned the stab which Madame d'Ivry had delivered in the morning.

Mr. Barnes, and his elect bride, had also appeared, danced, and disappeared. Lady Kew soon followed her young ones; and the ball went on very gaily, in spite of the absence of these respectable personages.

Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Kew returned to it after conducting Lady Anne and her daughter to their carriage, and now danced with great vigour, and with his usual kindness, selecting those ladies whom other waltzers rejected because they were too old, or too plain, or too stout, or what not. But he did not ask Madame d'Ivry to dance. He could condescend to dissemble so far as to hide the pain which he felt; but did not care to engage in that more advanced hypocrisy of friendship, which for her part, his old grandmother had not shown the least scruple in a.s.suming.

Amongst other partners, my lord selected that intrepid waltzer, the Graefinn von Gumpelheim, who, in spite of her age, size, and large family, never lost a chance of enjoying her favourite recreation. "Look with what a camel my lord waltzes," said M. Victor to Madame d'Ivry, whose slim waist he had the honour of embracing to the same music. "What man but an Englishman would ever select such a dromedary?"

"Avant de se marier," said Madame d'Ivry, "il faut avouer que my lord se permet d'enormes distractions."

"My lord marries himself! And when and whom?" cried the d.u.c.h.esse's partner.

"Miss Newcome. Do not you approve of his choice? I thought the eyes of Stenio" (the d.u.c.h.ess called M. Victor, Stenio) "looked with some favour upon that little person. She is handsome, even very handsome. Is it not so often in life, Stenio? Are not youth and innocence (I give Miss Ethel the compliment of her innocence, now surtout that the little painter is dismissed)--are we not cast into the arms of jaded roues? Tender young flowers, are we not torn from our convent gardens, and flung into a world of which the air poisons our pure life, and withers the sainted buds of hope and love and faith? Faith! The mocking world tramples on it, n'est-ce pas? Love! The brutal world strangles the heaven-born infant at its birth. Hope! It smiled at me in my little convent chamber, played among the flowers which I cherished, warbled with the birds that I loved. But it quitted me at the door of the world, Stenio. It folded its white wings and veiled its radiant face! In return for my young love, they gave me--sixty years, the dregs of a selfish heart, egotism cowering over its fire, and cold for all its mantle of ermine! In place of the sweet flowers of my young years, they gave me these, Stenio!" and she pointed to her feathers and her artificial roses. "Oh, I should like to crush them under my feet!" and she put out the neatest little slipper. The d.u.c.h.esse was great upon her wrongs, and paraded her blighted innocence to every one who would feel interested by that piteous spectacle. The music here burst out more swiftly and melodiously than before; the pretty little feet forgot their desire to trample upon the world. She shrugged the lean little shoulders--"Eh!" said the Queen of Scots, "dansons et oublions;" and Stenio's arm once more surrounded her fairy waist (she called herself a fairy; other ladies called her a skeleton); and they whirled away in the waltz again and presently she and Stenio came b.u.mping up against the stalwart Lord Kew and the ponderous Madame de Gumpelheim, as a wherry dashes against the oaken ribs of a steamer.

The little couple did not fall; they were struck on to a neighbouring bench, luckily: but there was a laugh at the expense of Stenio and the Queen of Scots--and Lord Kew, settling his panting partner on to a seat, came up to make excuses for his awkwardness to the lady who had been its victim. At the laugh produced by the catastrophe, the d.u.c.h.esse's eyes gleamed with anger.

"M. de Castillonnes," she said to her partner, "have you had any quarrel with that Englishman?"

"With ce milor? But no," said Stenio.

"He did it on purpose. There has been no day but his family has insulted me!" hissed out the d.u.c.h.esse, and at this moment Lord Kew came up to make his apologies. He asked a thousand pardons of Madame la d.u.c.h.esse for being so maladroit.

"Maladroit! et tres maladroit, monsieur," says Stenio, curling his moustache; "c'est bien le mot, monsieur!

"Also, I make my excuses to Madame la d.u.c.h.esse, which I hope she will receive," said Lord Kew. The d.u.c.h.esse shrugged her shoulders and sunk her head.

"When one does not know how to dance, one ought not to dance," continued the d.u.c.h.esse's knight.

"Monsieur is very good to give me lessons in dancing," said Lord Kew.

"Any lessons which you please, milor!" cries Stenio; "and everywhere where you will them."

Lord Kew looked at the little man with surprise. He could not understand so much anger for so trifling an accident, which happens a dozen times in every crowded ball. He again bowed to the d.u.c.h.esse, and walked away.

"This is your Englishman--your Kew, whom you vaunt everywhere," said Stenio to M. de Florac, who was standing by and witnessed the scene. "Is he simply bete, or is he poltron as well? I believe him to be both."

"Silence, Victor!" cried Florac, seizing his arm, and drawing him away.

"You know me, and that I am neither one or the other. Believe my word, that my Lord Kew wants neither courage nor wit!"

"Will you be my witness, Florac?" continues the other.

"To take him your excuses? yes. It is you who have insulted--"

"Yes, parbleu, I have insulted!" says the Gascon.

"--A man who never willingly offended soul alive. A man full of heart: the most frank: the most loyal. I have seen him put to the proof, and believe me he is all I say."

"Eh! so much the better for me!" cried the Southron. "I shall have the honour of meeting a gallant man: and there will be two on the field."