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'White's Novels.'
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
MODERN BRIDEGROOM
H'ROVel.r-. T- r
V ^
^ ■
0
MRS. ALEXANDER ERASER,
AUTHOR OF
"THE NEW DUCHESS," "PURPLE AND FINE LINEN,"
"DAUGHTERS OF BELGRAVIA," "MATCH OF THE SEASON,"
"THE LAST DRAWINO-ROOM," ETC. ETC.
" Combien de temps " dites la Belle,
" Peux tu m'etre fidMe ?
Pour une nuit—pour un jour,
Mon amour!"
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON!
F. V. WHITE & CO.,
14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
• 1895.
PRINTED BT
KELLT AND CO LIMITED, 182, 183 AND 184, HIGH BOLBORN W.C.,
AND K1I7GST0X-0N.TUAMES.
CONTENTS.
chap. paob
I.—Jack Lyster's Wooino .... 1
II.—The Setting of Lyster's Jewel . 19
III.—At the Frivolity 29
IV.—" Noblesse Oblige " . . , . 42
V.—A Flag of Truce . , . . . 52
VI.—Two Maids and a Man ... C7
VII.—A Modern Paul and Virginia . . 84
VIII.—"Sorry!" 96
IX.—What Aileen Does atith her Love
Letter 101
X.—" Good-bye, Jack !" . . . . 113
XL—"For the Last Time—ltuirri!" . . 124
XII.—A Model Husband .... 141
XIII.—Beau Comme un Prince . . . 149
XIV.—A Dabohter of Heth . . . 169
i CONTENTS
CBAP. FAGB
XV.—The Beoinking of the End . . 185
XVI.—Hortense at Home . . . 196
XVII.—Her First Born .... 205
XVIII.—Princess Serge Poldorazski . .217
XIX.—Lady Cecilia Gordon . . . 235
XX.—The Casino Garden . . . 244
XXI.—Marriage a Purgatory , . 253
XXII.—"L'Amitib est l'Amour sans Ailles " 261
XXIII.—"I shall Die if 'He' Doesn't" 266
XXIV.—The Old Love to the Fore . . 272
XXV.—A Fiasco ...... 28^
XXVI.—"I Did It! I did It!". . . 292
XXVII.—"Kiss mb, Marcus!" . • . 303
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
CHAPTEE I.
jack lysteu's wooing.
" Believe not the old woman's fable,
That love is as short as a kiss,
For I'll love you as long as I'm able.
And what can I say more than this ? "
It is summer—"Fair child of the sun," as
some poet melodiously calls it. It is a sunny,
sultry summer too, that makes itself felt in
this late afternoon of June.
Eight away across the horizon, small white
clouds drift along like bits of carded wool, or
as if an angel in his upward flight had left
fragments of his snowy mantle floating in the
blue ether. A swallow now and again skims
swiftly past, a lazy little breeze brushes
inertly by, just stirring the spruce and larch
leaves slothfull}'^ and no more ; big, handsome
clusters of drooping barberry shine up like
golden fringe to the dark green background
of foliage, the breath of roses—the old-
fashioned pink cabbage-roses that delighted
our grandmothers—mingling with the frag¬
rance of briony, lavender, stocks and all
2
A MODERN BBIDEGBOOM.
sorts of homely flowers, permeates the air.
There is a sleepy hum of brown bees, and a
few giddy dragon-flies, with filmy, opaline
wings, dart aimlessly backwards and forwards
athwart the wall of bloom. The sun,—
" God's crest upon His azure shield," sinks
slowly in the westward, and the burning
crimson of his robes had nearly faded out of
sight in an amber flush of sky ; but, as if loth
to leave the glorious earth on such a day, he
shoots back an arrant beam or two that,
slanting in at the drawing-room window of
" The Hollies," form an aureole for the head
of a girl, who, coiled up in an inscrutable but
fascinating girl fashion, shares the broad
ledge with a pet fox terrier and some pots of
mignonette and clove carnations.
She is charming.
It is not only her face, with its little
straight features and its proffle chiselled like
a cameo, her skin as if she had been dieted
on milk and roses, her red lips, just a trifle
too full perhaps, but simply distracting, her
hair, chestnut in the shade, spun gold under
the sunbeams, her large, star-like eyes, chest¬
nut also, as chroniclers tell us fair Marie
Stuart's were, that made up the sum total of
Aileen Ferrers' fascinations, it is something
deeper and more subtle than the sheer loveli¬
ness of flesh and blood,
Eestless as her face looks at times, it is
never cold ; quiet as it seems, it is never
tame. It possesses in a superlative degree
JACK LYSTEK'S WOOINO.
8
the extraordinary mobility of feature that
really constitutes the chief charm of beauty;
a magnetism not to be put into words, lives
in the dazzling smile, innocent as a child's;
while a something akin to majesty shines out
of her great, passionate, chestnut eyes.
Miss Ferrers, in her short life of nearly
eighteen years, has made many conquests, but
no slave greater than the man who sits near
her, and whom she has promised to marry—
some day.
The spell of her face is ovey him, just as it
is over heaps of other men^^—men who are
perhaps firmer of purpose than poor love-sick
Jack Lyster, and less prone to be enslaved by
the eye.
The outer world of the unfashionable little
suburb is so quiet that he can hear his own
heart beat as, with a yearning, wistful look
in his honest grey eyes, he goes through an
ordeal, through which he has been put rather
frequently of late; in fact, almost since the
time when he found out to his cost what a
loveable, beautiful thing a woman can be,
and how desperately tantalising and unsatis¬
factory.
Miss Ferrers is half Irish and has an Irish
temper, which is ruffled this afternoon, for
she talks to her fiance, but not as a properly
brought-up young person in love would talk
to the individual to whom she was about to
swear all manner of loyalty and obedience,
and while she talks, her little white fingers
• 1*
4
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
pluck a clove carnation mercilessly to pieces,
and scatter the red petals on the floor.
After a little the light begins to fail, long
shadows come trailing downwards in gro¬
tesque shapes, and the evening star, large
and chaste, holds up a pale beacon in the
heavens. Miss Ferrers looks up at it, and a
restless desire to reach it crops up in her
mind, Cui bono ? Since, if she reached it,
she would probably tire of her glittering
prize, fling it away and forget it.
She forgets already about the coveted star,
as something falls from her companion's lips
which vexes her, and, turning towards him,
flashes impatiently:
" Sir Lyulph Vansittart! You are alwaj's
flinging him at my head. Jack! Is that man
to b^e the hke noir of my life, pray ? It is
enough to rile an angel, and I don't pretend
to have anything angelic about me, you
know!"
Having relieved her ruffled temper by this
speech. Miss Ferrers hurls a defiant glance
at her utterly devoted, rises from her seat,
and pushing the fox-terrier down in her
haste, begins pacing up and down the room,
while the terrier, who is of a forgiving dis¬
position, follows closely on her heels.
No, indeed. She has none of the attributes
of an angel about her. She had never uttered
a greater truism than when she avowed this,
and Lyster knows it well by this time, though
his wooing has been only of a few months.
JACK LYSTER'S WOOING.
6
No stretch of imagination in her warmest
admirers could credit her with the meekness
of the traditional lamb, but the very spice of
devilry in her composition is perhaps her
greatest charm in men's eyes. It makes her
so piquante, sO provoking, and yet so
adorable. She is certainly no angel or saint,
but only a woman with a heap of womanly
faults, and a leavening of womanly virtues,
and up to this time—true, she is barely
eighteen—her flaws are all of the head and not
of the heart. Later on, maybe, if hfe treats
her badly, there will be faihngs of the heart
as well as of the head. Taking her all in all,
virtues and blemishes all thrown in, she
makes a very loveable whole. Anyway, so
Jack Lyster decides it, but a man thoroughly
in love is as blind as a mole, and he is
utterly incapable of detecting a failing in the
half-child, half-woman, he has raised to an
idol, and worships to futuous stupidity. He
sits and watches her now as she walks up
and down, apparently regardless of his pre¬
sence, even of his existence; he watches,
passion-drunk, every sway of the slender,
charming figure that promises so much
later on, each varying expression that flits
across the delicious, flower-like face, a face
curiously child-like, and yet latent with the
feelings of womanhood, and each minute a
new charm strikes his eye, from the small,
thorough-bred head, crowned with its waving,
warmth - tqpched tresses, to the quaintly
6
A MODERN BRIDEQROOM.
imperial air that hovers over the slight,
girlish form.
" Look here, Jack! If you say another
word about Sir Lyulph Vansittart, I'll never
speak to you again," Miss Ferrers announces,
pausing abruptly in her walk, and looking
straight at him with two flashing, chestnut
eyes.
"Baby!" Lyster murmurs meekly and
deprecatingly, but she is not of the sort to be
managed with meekness and sweetness.
" I wish 3'ou would not call me ' Baby,'"
she says angrilj', " everyone seems to be
allowed a Christian name, but I am not to
be permitted one, I suppose I It is no reason
because my relatives choose to designate me
by the idiotic appellation of Baby^ that every¬
body is to follow suit 1"
He looks at her flushed cheeks and angry
eyes and experiences a supreme and supine
admiration for them, but resentment at her
tone and words never enters his head.
" Everybody I Am I to be classed with
everybody ? " he asks reproachfully.
"As nobody, if it suits you better," she
retorts impatiently, feeling quite a contempt
for his lack of spirit and his willingness to be
sat upon by her.
" No, as somebody, Aileen! Somebody
whom my darling has promised to marry I
Somebody who counts each day and hour
and minute until the blessed time when his
darling will be all his own! Aileen, dearest.
JACK LYSTERS WOOING.
7
sweetest! you haven't a notion how utterly I
love you or you would forgive my jealousy!
I am jealous—I don't deny it! I can't
drive that fellow Vansittart out of my head.
If you could guess one tittle of all you are to
me, I know you would refrain from flirting
with him or any other fellow. It is play to
you, Aileen, but it is death to me. If you
really knew how it hurts me, you wouldn't do
it, you couldn't!"
She pauses irresolutely an instant, then
recommences her energetic constitutional;
but, as if changing her mind suddenly, she
stops right before him and putting two little
white hands on his shoulders, laughs out a
light, ringing laugh that is aggravating, but
which he thinks captivating.
" You dear, foolish old Jack, what a goose
you are," she tells him so nicely that the
commonplace and unsentimental terms of
endearment fall on his enamoured ears like
bits of exquisite poetry such as no poet
laureate has arrived at. "You know you
would be jealous of a mummy or gorilla, if I
looked at them twice. Jack, my dear, re¬
member that' perfect love casteth out fear.'
If you doubt me it follows that you don't
love me."
" Don't love you ! don't love you I" he
gasps, catching hold of her hands and looking
at her with big, burning eyes, longing eyes,
greedy eyes. " Listen to me, darling ! my
love for y^u is my all of happiness, my whole
8
A MODKBN BRIDKaROOSf.
existence, my life—or—death. If you take
away from me the hope 6f having you for
my wife some day, I believe I shall just shoot
myself, but, Aileen, you will never bowl me
over! You will never send me adrift! Tell
me, for God's sake, that you will never be false
to me," he cries passionately, with his pupils
darkening and dilating, his lips trembling,
and a hot, crimson colour sweeping over his
face.
Perhaps she is caught by the increased
good looks that intense emotion and excite¬
ment have brought him, for Aileen adores
beauty, like many other foolish young virgins
who are not given to looking below the
surface ; anyway, her own expression softens.
She is silent for a moment, steadied into
seriousness by the genuine feelings that makes
his mouth quiver, and the hands that grasp
hers shake—but the impression is fleeting,
like the wind. The next instant she feels
inclined to laugh, but crushes down her
mirth with her white teeth on her red under-
lip and wishes devoutly that this man was not
such a fool about her.
Meanwhile he is evidently awaiting her
answer with an anxiety which, she thinks,
must be very uncomfortable. She even
fancies she can hear his heart beating under
his tweed waistcoat, and this rather appeals
to the girlish romance in her breast.
" No, Jack, dear. I don't mean to be false
to you! anyway, I haven't thought about it
JACK LYSTEE'S WOOISO.
9
yet, and, of course, it would be very wicked
of me to bowl you over after having let you
think I intend to marry you, but I can't be
grave like you, and talk about love and all
that sort of thing seriously, as you do. And
somehow when you are with me — please.
Jack, don't be cross with me — something, I
don't know what the feeling is, makes me less
jolly than I naturally am, you know!"
She glances up at him from under her great
long lashes, after she has made this avowal,
and is horrified to see the pain on his face, so
she goes on apologetically :
"It must be, I think, because you are so
good. Jack! ten times gooder and wiser than
me," she adds humbly, forgetting Lindley
Murray's grammar in her penitence. " Some¬
times, do you know, I can't help thinking
that we have made a mistake, you and I!
That you would be twice as jolly with some
other girl who is not as ridiculous and
frivolous as I am. And then. Jack, I suppose
I ought to tell you everything in my heart ?
Well then, sometimes, do you know, it
frightens me so to think I am going to marry
3'ou, that I could — scream — if I wasn't
ashamed to!"
" My presence a restraint to you !" he
cries excitedly, letting go her hands and in
his turn beginning to pace up and down the
room, with Jackey, the fox-terrier (christened
after him in a moment of sentiment by Miss
Ferrers), yelping disapproval of his long
10
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
strides. " Oh, Aileen, you are horribly cruel!
It kiUs me to hear you say such a thing. I,
who just worship the ground you tread on,
who would gladly give up my life, if that
would ensure happiness to you for the rest of
your days!"
And the poor fellow, big and athletic
young Briton as he is, drops limply into a
chair, and, burying his face in his hands, tries
to hide the agitation of which he is ashamed.
It is just one of those monients when lack
of love prevents her from doing or saying the
right thing to comfort him.
O O
So Miss Ferrers stands motionless as a
statue, very sorry, very repentant, and rather
hored.
" I don't believe you care a rush ever to
see me again!" comes huskily through ten
fingers, and she is convinced she hears a
manly struggle with a ball in his throat.
She gazes at him aghast; all this makes
her feel dreadfully wicked, quite criminal in
fact, and once more she is conscious of a wish
that she was less loveable, or this man inore
stoical. Her feelings are unenviable enough ;
they are a curious mixture and a very un¬
pleasant one, and'she does love pleasantness
above all things! There seems to be a sort
of civil war raging inside her, in which pity
and even an incipient liking for him are con¬
fronted antagonistically by a wilful and de¬
fiant spirit. She hates the shackles of this
engagement, but has not the courage or even
JACK LYSTER'S WOOING.
11
the wish to break it off, for girls of her age
revel, as a rule, in the dignity of being " en¬
gaged."
Miss Ferrers, however, is not in love, and
fails to find amusement or gratification in a
querelle iVallemandf or in harrowing his feel¬
ings and bringing down a perfect avalanche
of pleading and lamentation over her short¬
comings. The very alternations of jealousy
and tenderness that denote the height and
might of his passion, are very wearisome to
her by their frequency.
But she is a good little girl in the main,
with a frank and impulsive temperament,
whose tendencies, as a rule, lean towards the
right side. She is frivolous and fickle, as she
is not ashamed to confess; but this may be
accounted for by the fact that the man she
has promised to marry does not possess the
power to steady her erratic fancy and con¬
centrate her affection on himself.
Poor Jack Lyster is the last man capable of
doing so, though happily, for the present, he
does not in the least guess the deplorable fact
himself.
She feels a certain amount of penitence for
having wounded the feelings of this long-
suffering, much enduring lover of hers, but
she would feel probably about as much re¬
morse if she had happened to tread on Jacky
the fox-terrier's tail, or had hurt old Sebas-
topol, Mrs. Ferrers' cat,
" Poor J^ck!" she says, in a soft little
12
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
voice, " I am really sorry I have made you
unhappy!" and down go her glowing cheek
and sweet red lips in close and tantalising
proximity to him, but she never dreams of
allowing him to touch them. She only wishes
to make the amende honorable very nicely,
and besides. Jack is so much better a com¬
panion when he is jolly than when he is down
in the dumps.
Of course, it doesn't occur to her that he is
panting for, but dares not venture to press his
lips to the lovely glowing cheek and rosebud
of a mouth; that he is just yearning — as a
man yearns for the delicious draught which
will quench his thirst in the arid desert — for
one fond, voluntary kiss from this charming
but strange sweetheart of his, who, while she
has pledged her faith, has never yielded her
lips to him to ratify it. She never dreams
that he is idolising her there and then with all
the passion of his loyal young heart, but is
afraid to put his feelings into words, though
they burn for utterance. Love has made him
as bashful and timid as a schoolboy in the
presence of this bit of a girl, who holds his
fate for weal or woe in the circle of her little
palm.
" Jack!" she says after a short silence,
during which a soft breeze steals into the
room, lifting up the chestnut tendrils that lie
on her brow ; and a big branch of white
noisette roses, looking like tiny snowballs in
the half-light, tap monotonously against the
JACK LYSTER'S WOOINO.
13
pane, and an ugly fat drone buzzes about the
room, and after sundry gyrations buzzes him¬
self out again. " Why will you misunder¬
stand me always ? I do care for you in my
own fashion, you know! I can't change my
nature, I couldn't, not even to please Queen
Victoria; I can't pretend to be awfully spoony
on you, and all that sort of bosh ; but I can
like you very well in my butterfly fashion, I
can indeed. Jack! You must take me as I
am with all my stupid faults ; you must learn
to like my faults or we shall never be jolly
together. Now, do smile. Jack, your poor old
face is as long as my arm, and long faces are
things I cannot abide. Shake hands and be
friends, my dear boy, or I shall break with
you and marry the first man who asks me —
Sir Lyulph Vansittart perhaps!" and she
laughs—not her usual bright, ringing laugh—
but a laugh that has something constrained
and nervous about it.
Jack Lyster starts and turns very white.
Hers are light words and lightly spoken, but
they seem to go like a knife through his heart
as he hearkens, and carry a curious convic¬
tion of ill with them. But what is he to do ?
In spite of his miserable jealousy and mis¬
givings he knows he must not probe her
wilful nature too much by questioning or
complaining, and run the risk of losing her
entirely. He smiles, because she tells him
she hates long faces, but the smile is lip
deep, while^his grey eyes are dashed with
14
A MODEBN BRIDEOBOOIC.
pain, and his pulses beat hard with fear and
doubt.
" Aileen! " he answers, trying to speak
gently and quietly, but failing ignominiously
in the attempt. " Sometimes, if I weary you
with my too great love, bear with me, if you
can; you don't know how utterly I have
given myself to you, you can just do with
me whatever you will, and whether you bring
me happiness or misery, you will always find
me the same, loving you, longing for you,
faithful to the end. My darling! no other
woman will ever take your place, I swear it!
We have been engaged twelve months; six
of them brought me the most perfect content
a man can have, but later, Aileen, dearest!
forgive me if I do you injustice 1 I have
fancied that you are not quite the same;
-that somebody else's coming brings a look to
your eyes that my coming never calls forth ;
that somebody else has begun to monopolise
your thoughts — that — there ! — I must out
with it, though it kills me to put the wretched
thought into words, Vansittart is quietly but
surely stealing my darling from me. Is it
so, .^leen? Answer truly, for God's sake!
never mind how much it hurts me—anything
is better than to live from day to day
tortured by uncertainty and fear. Just
look me in the face straight, Aileen, and
say whether my suspicions are true! " And
he clasps his hands so hard together in the
tension of his feelings, that his nails hurt
JACK LYSTBB'S WOOING. 15
his flesh, while he waits for the fiat from
her lips.
Instead of looking him straight in the face
and telling him his fancies are unfounderl,
Miss Ferrers turns away impatiently with a
little toss of her dainty head that sets all
the bright shades shimmering amongst her
chestnut tresses, and going up to the open
Avindow, she leans her cheek against the
broad shining leaves of a huge magnolia,
whose snowy blossoms are not purer than her
skin. Her ringing laugh is hushed, not even
a smile parts her lips. Her straight brows
almost meet above her Greek nose, and a
passionate far-oflf look creeps into her chestnut
eyes.
Is it true? she wonders, what Jack has
just said? Is Sir Lyulph Vansittart trying
to steal away her heart—and—and—if such
is the case, is it because Lyulph Vansittart
cares for her ? even just a little—little bit!
Her lids droop over the eyes into which the
softest, sweetest lovelight has come, a pink,
lovely as the flush of summer roses, flickers
on her cheek, the pucker that made her
brows meet is gone, the shadow of a happy
smile hovers on her mouth, and she hears
Vansittart's voice, as in a dream, telling her
that he loves her, even while the man she is
pledged to marry is saying:
"If we are to be husband and wife,
darling, there should be no deception any¬
where; the ^rst cloud that arose on our
16
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
married life might grow into a storm dis¬
astrous to us both. I could not, would not
survive the knowledge that the casket was
mine, while the jewel within belonged to
another man. It is not your beauty I covet,
Aileen, but your heart! Darling! my
darling! even if you don't love me as I love
you, tell me that you don't love anyone
else, and I'll believe you, for it is torture to
do otherwise. Aileen! are you listening to
me, are you remembering that my heart and
soul are at your feet? You can trample
them to the dust or you can bring them
hope and infinite happiness. What are you
going to do with me ? Send me away at
once, or bid me stay, but for pity's sake, do
not trifle with me any more 1"
Miss Ferrers, though barely eighteen, is
no fool. She knows quite well that Jack
Lyster simply adores her, that to him she is
the only thing in the world! She knows
that if she can only make up her mind to
marry him, she will be moderately happy
with a husband loyal and loving by her side
—yet! even as she goes over all this, a face
rises up before her in the gloaming, a face
more patrician than handsome, with its
aquiline features, its Saxon tints, its fair hair,
but still a face that possesses the power to
stir her heart more than any man's face
has done before—a face that magnetises her,
holds her in a sort of spell that she cannot
shake off—a pair of blue eyes rise up before
JACK LYSTER'S WOOlKa.
17
her, lazy eyes that look as if their owner did
not take much heed of aught but himself,
yet eyes, for one really passionate glance of
which Miss Ferrers feels that she would give
up all other good things in life.
Then she starts from her dream in the
gloaming, gives herself a mental shake, and
fully realises that Sir Lyulph Vansittart does
not care for her, that he is probably only
amusing himself by trying to make her care
for him.
The summer rose-pink deepens in her
cheek into hot crimson as she arrives at
this conclusion, and she brings her little
white teeth down hard on her nether lip,
then she looks up and catches Lyster's eyes.
These poor grey eyes are so piteous, they
are so dreadfully earnest and tender, that
just for the moment they send into oblivion
the lazy blue ones she has been dreaming
about, and going back to her much-put-upon
lover, she slips an arm round his neck and
drops her head on his shoulder.
"I.don't mind your kissing me. Jack! if
you would like to!" she says graciously.
He starts visibly as these words fall on his
ear ; with his grey eyes now aflame, he clasps
her to him and plants kiss after kiss on her
brow, her cheek, her milk-white lids, but not
on her—lips.
She manages, even in this gush of feeling,
to keep her pretty red lips sacred to herself,
but no matter! Proximity is enough for him.
• 2
18
A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
It is something—great things to be allowed
to hold her for five or six consecutive
minutes in his arms, close to his beating
heart, to hold her thus, unresisted and un-
rebuked, passive, maybe content, in his em¬
brace ! This girl, so cold, so passionless
hitherto, who has barely submitted to a
caress on her little palm, who has always
avoided endearment, has actually said :
" I don't mind your kissing me, Jack! if
you like to!"
What on earth has he done to be so un¬
utterably blest ? He is jealous and doubtful
no longer, her words have come like manna
in the desert, and his cup of bliss overflows.
" Oh, my sweet! my sweet! to think of
your having allowed me to kiss you," he
murmurs, with humid eyes, and quivering
lips, for love has made him a fool. " Aileen I
I am the happiest fellow on earth!"
Alas! for the duration of all things
human
WiU Aileen Ferrers ever ask him to kiss
her again ?
CHAPTEE II.
the setting of lyster's jewel.
" It was only a vulgar villa, but it
Held a pearl within."
The Hollies is a small, square, red-brick
house, bulging out inelegantly here and there
with one or two newly added rooms, built
only for convenience and with no eye to
architectural loveliness. It is a cross between
a suburban villa and a model almshouse, ugly
and uninviting; but an old magnolia kindly
.spreads its big shining leaves as a glossy
green screen over the facade, and in summer
time wonderfully brushes up the aspect of the
place with its pearl-white scented blossom.
Half an acre of ground belongs to the
domain, in which The Hollies stands modestly
back from the main road, and a high holly
hedge, from which doubtless the house takes
its name, protects it from the gaze of vulgar
eyes.
Floriculture is apparently the especial
hobby of the tenant. Flowers, profuse in
fragrance and colour, but very homely ones,
are everywhere ; they festoon the rustic
porch, deck every available window-ledge,
and grow luxuriantly in masses, wherever
masses of them ^an be grown.
20
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Some twenty years ago, when suburban
dwellings could be rented at a sum, compara¬
tively speaking a mere song with the rental
demanded nowadays, a huge placard over¬
topping the holly hedge informed passers-by
that The Hollies was to let on a long lease.
It was about the same period that a para¬
graph in the Army and Navy Gazette an¬
nounced, for the edification of the public and
of the parties concerned in the matter, that
Lieutenant Brown Jones was promoted to the
rank of captain in the 21st Mudcrushers, vice
Eichard Ferrers, resigned, and on the expira¬
tion of a month, after doffing his harness and
war-paint and investing in tweed suits and a
pot hot, the latter " military gent," on small
means and with a small family, settled down
to quiet life at The Hollies.
Of quietude there wasn't a doubt, but, like
most suburban spots, quietude degenerated
fast into stagnation. Society was a thing of
wonder. So rarely did a visitor intrude into
the little flower-hung portico, that when one
did enter, his or her coming scattered the
inmates and sent them flying into their own
rooms like so many rabbits in a warren.
To Captain Eichard Ferrers, a valetudi¬
narian, suflfering from a diseased liver and a
debilitated constitution, with a complicity of
other complaints, some real, some imaginary,
thrown in; and all the evils accruing from a
protracted residence among the swamps and
marshes of one of the most detestable places
THE SETTING OF LYSTER'S JEWEL. 21
in India—Arracan—the intense quiet and
seclusion of The Hollies was a sort of paradise.
He revelled in the April showers that re¬
freshed the grass and brightened into new life
each leaf and blossom and hung on the
tree-boughs like so many diamond pendants.
They were such a pleasant contrast to the
dreary and continuous pelting of the Indian
monsoon. He revelled in the breezes that
swished through the' larches and spruces.
They came so gratefully to an unfortunate
man whose head had ached year after year
under the broiling sun and the fierce, hot
winds of the oriental plains.
All he wanted was rest and quiet, and when
he took The Hollies, he got them. To the
mistress of the establishment all places are
pretty well alike, so long as " domestic govern¬
ment " is allowed her.
Mrs. Ferrers is not an intellectual woman
by any means, and on close criticism a little
stamp of vulgarity may be detected both in
the tone of her voice and in her gestures.
She is certainly a long way from that type of
the sex whose price is supposed to be "far
above rubies " to the man who possesses her
as wife, for in taste and feeling Mrs. Ferrers
is the antipodes of her lord and master.
But she has the excuse of her nurturing for
her shortcomings.
She is the daughter of an indigo planter;
indigo and lac dye were the surroundings of
her youth up-v^ards. One of thirteen (for
22
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
somehow tiiese poor planters are generally
blessed with children to an abnormal extent
—it may be that their life is so utterly event¬
less, socially and in every other way, that the
advent of another olive branch is quite a
pleasant excitement), she, with the remaining
dozen blossoms of the parent tree, are all
more or less dingy of skin and unattractive of
features, and perhaps the plainest amongst
them was Mrs. Ferrers in embryo.
" Jungle life," to use an Anglo-Indian term,
is not the most refined existence in the world.
Paucity of books and music, and paucity of
all the other little concomitants that tend to
elevate the human mind, is not certainly con¬
ducive to developing a rara avis, and so the
eldest Miss "Wallace merged into the world in
a raw and uncultured condition, and had but
one idea in her head
An idea which unfortunately is in many
young women's heads, to the expulsion of
other ideas—How to get a husband.
How she succeeded in her desire is a matter
of wonderment to all who see her and know
her, but it came about in this wise.
Lieutenant Ferrers, aged just twenty-two,
belonging to a regiment of Bengal Mud-
crushers before the days of amalgamation and
staff corps, was consigned to the functions of
detachment duty in the vicinity of the Wallace
indigo factory.
He was a nice, fresh, clean-looking, young
Englishman, with handsome eyes, li^ht curly
THE SETTING OF LYSTER'S JEWEL. 23
liair, and not a preponderance of brain. He
looked like a king among his kind, and within
four-and-twenty hours of his arrival at the
dak bungalow at Cheraputty his doom was
sealed.
Ce que femme veui—Dieu vent, says the
French proverb.
Isolated from whites, and preferring the
animus of any society to his own, he was
slowly but surely drawn into the matrimonial
net by the dusky fingers of Belinda Wallace,
aged thirty-two—^just ten years older than
himself.
"Will you come into my parlour?" said
the spider, and the unwary fly from sheer
ennui accepted the dangerous invite.
He was not much delighted with pater or
mater familias, nor with the coflee-coloured
progeny that peeped in to stare at his fair
skin and golden hair. Still, out of pure self-
defence against stagnation, he repeated his
visits, until one fine day he found himself irre¬
trievably entangled, and eventually (to copy
poor old Boucicault) "flummuxed."
But his feelings were very uncomfortable
wh^n he realised what had happened, and
pater and mater Wallace petted him, and the
dozen brothers and sisters looked at him ad¬
miringly and lovingly—glad, probably, that
Sister Belinda, who had the worst temper in
the world, would soon be out of the way.
But once that an honourable retreat was out
of the questi(m, and, later, the Gordian knot
24
A MODERN BRIDEGEOOM.
tied, the victim kept his own counsel bravely,
never by word or deed revealing his tardy
repentance of the fool he had been, and never
allowing the partner of his crooked lot to
guess that he had discovered his mistake.
He has been rewarded, however, as good¬
ness and patience are sometimes rewarded in
this world, for, as years rolled by, he has
ceased to murmur inwardly, his fetters have
galled him less, and habit has become second
nature.
At this present time, he endows Mrs.
Ferrers with useful, practical virtues and
energy in domestic matters, that is a boon to
a man whose ailments preclude exertion. He
is as contented, in fact, as any reasonable
man can be who leads the life of an oyster or
vegetates like a cabbage.
But although Mrs. I^errers is not a startling
specimen of her sex in the way of accomplish¬
ment or in the ways of society, she is of an
ambitious turn, though in a circumscribed
sort of fashion, and her aspirations are wont
to make themselves visible in little snatches—
simply for the reason that the sphere of life in
which it has pleased Providence to place her
is too confined to present opportunities for an
outburst of the sin by which Lucifer fell.
It used to be her pride and ambition in
the good old Indian days to assemble at her
board the magnates of the station—a Gover¬
nor-General's agent, or some such political
card—and for such she would uncomplainingly
THE SETTING OF LYSTERS JEWEL, 25
exercise her proficiency in the culinary art,
'with the sweat of her brow and the greatest
gusto. Now, however, when all her financial
advantages are derived from the miserable
"pension" of a retired captain, when "en¬
tertaining " is at end, and joints of beef or
mutton — hot, cold, hashed, minced, and
finally manufactured into soup—are the only
luxuries within reach, her ambition has takeii
a higher fiight, and has centred itself in a
grand future for her only child.
Aileen is the centering point round which
all her mother's worldly desires revolve.
Imagine, then Mrs. Ferrers' unmitigated
disgust and disappointment when Aileen, in
the flower of her youth, beautiful as a houri,
and who has by her beauty a perfect right to
strawberry leaves, has elected to marry Jack
Lyster, a briefless barrister, with a paltry
three hundred a year allowed him by an old
man who adopted him years ago.
" If the fellow had any sort of handle to his
name, if he was even the Lord Mayor, I would
not mind so much," Mrs. Ferrers confides
to her spouse, " But after all my hopes, I
may say my convictions, of a grand marriage,
that Aileen should be a plain ' Missis ' is too
cruel! '
"Let the child marry the man of her
choice, my dear Belinda. Jack Lyster is
strong and healthy, he can walk ten miles a
day, he can sleep as sound as a top, and eat
without fear ^f indigestion, and what can
26
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
one want more than that ? " Captain Ferrers
murmurs languidly from the depths of old
worn-out cretonne cushions.
" Jack Lyster may be strong and healthy
and all the rest of it, but he is not really the
man of Aileen's choice for all that. The
child let herself drift into this foolish en¬
gagement because there was no one else in
the way. Now "
" There is some one in the way—is that
what you mean, Belinda ?" And Captain
Ferrers—to whom Aileen is precious beyond
all earthly things—forgetting his numerous
ailments in anxiety for his offspring, sits bolt
upright in his invalid chair, and looks keenly
at his wife. " Not—that consummate puppy
—Vansittart—I trust ? "
"I do mean Sir Lyulph Vansittart!" she
answers boldly. " He is very handsome, and
well off, and he is the eighteenth baronet.
What more can you wish ? "
" The eighteenth baronet be blowed 1"
cries pater familias, growing very red and
hot and apoplectic. " The eighteenth
baronet is not only that contemptible thing,
a male flirt, but he is a roue^ a heartless man
about town. Little Aileen would be miser¬
able as his wife."
" Well, well, he has not asked her yet."
" I hope he never will. And, if he does,
I trust Aileen will have the good sense to
say "
" Yes" Mrs. Ferrers breaks in, "but there
THE SETTING OF LYSTER'S JEWEL, 27
is no such good luck. That fellow Lyster. is
always in the way. Besides, Sir Lyulph
Vansittart is one of the Upper Ten, and we
are—nobodies! "
" Belinda, do you wish to insult me ?
Nobodies, indeed ! Ferrers is an older name
than Vansittart, and I think myself quite as
good as the eighteenth baronet. You ought
to be ashamed of yourself to be so fond of
Bigwigs. I suppose it's because you never
saw one at Cheraputty, and think they are
different to other menkind. I wish Aileen
to marry Jack Lyster. He is a very nice,
civil-spoken young fellow, always ready to
turn my cushions, or put up my leg-rest, and
he never, by any chance, forgets my tonic.
I know he will be good to Aileen, and I
shall die comfortably, believing the child's
happiness and welfare are secured. I shall
speak to Aileen on the matter. She is not
likely to run counter to my wishes, and I
don't believe she cares a fig about that pup
Vansittart. Eighteenth baronet indeed ! He
isn't fit to tie Lyster's shoes, and if Aileen
behaves badly to Lyster for the sake of that
- conceited ass, it will be the death of me, I
knoio it will! " he says excitedly.
"There—there. Don't go and put your¬
self out, or you will bring on all your ail¬
ments."
" True," he answers, with a sigh, sinking
back in his chair. " Excitement is the devil
for bringing cerebral affection, weak heart.
28
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
sciatica, lumbago, indigestion. I feel all five
complaints coming on already." And
wrapped up in his own ailments, he loses
sight of Aileen's future, which lies greatly in
the hands of her ambitious and scheming
mother.
CHAPTER III.
AT THE FRIVOLITY.
'♦ IJer lips were of vermilion hue,
Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue^
Set all my heart in flames."
0^ 2i primd-facie judgment, man is certainly
an anomalistical sort of creature, and upon
a closer scrutiny of his mental anatomy, one
is often reluctantly forced to confess that he
is many degrees removed from being the
noble animal he is represented to be.
At least, this is a woman's opinion on the
matter.
Readers of fiction generally dislike homilies
or digressions, but whilst we are on the sub¬
ject of " man" they must forgive a little
digression from the story of Aileen Ferrers
and her lovers.
Fashion and Society—those really contemp¬
tible and very capricious autocrats before
whom many of us in this funny world bow
and scrape and eat humble-pie to—exercise a
much greater influence over our most sensible
men than they would care to acknowledge to.
Englishmen, as a rule, have an enormous
development of the organ of self-esteem—a
development that ignores everything rather
30
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
than allow the superiority of any other nation
over us. Nevertheless, there lurks in many
of our manly breasts some of that feeling
which is supposed to be indigenous to foreign^
soil, nsimely—Snobbism.
Snobbism is the root of most of the evil
that exists even in the upper current. It
produces a desire in our golden youth to
afficher themselves with the " queen of the
hour "—a queen of ephemeral majesty, w^hose
trailing satins and laces cover a multitude of
sins, and whose claim to popularity and ad¬
miration seems to be a high diploma in the
school of vice.
Snobbism inspires a wish to flaunt the
Eeine Galliarde's colours boldly and triumph¬
antly, just as if the good old days of chivalry
were back, and some " fayre damsel " had
bestowed a token to incite to great deeds.
It also makes our golden youth sport the too
well-known form as if she were an orna¬
ment ; to wear her presence like a cravat or
a glove, because she is the fashion; and to
value the decoration—forgetting that it is not
a bit more valuable than a second-hand
article at an auction, at the service of the
highest bidder.
Well! well! we can but wonder in these
days of so-called enlightenment why men
should be such fools, and why the world
wags so briskly " de mal en pis." One would
really think that if human creatures have
tasted of the tree of knowledge, the march of
AT THE FKIVOLITY.
31
intellect might discover the worthlessness of
the Dead Sea apples—but it doesn't.
Our men run after these Dead Sea apples,
blind to the ashes within, and so Society-
grows more rotten at the core as the world
goes on, and the dregs of it contrive to float
pleasantly on the surface, supported by a
strong under-current of immorality, that
exists in both high and middling classes. In
fact, it seems that to find notions of right
and wrong and a sense of morality, we must
go to our shopkeepers. According to a witty
French writer:
" L'Innocence et le laitage,
La vertu est la fromage !"
The times are in a shocking state of
deterioration, when all that savours of the
spicy attracts the million, when a broad
farce achieves a greater monetary success
than Shakespeare or Sheridan, when the
frivolities of a modern fast lady make the
woes of Juliet tame and insipid, when half-
dressed burlesques are crowded with an ap¬
preciative audiance, when Lotharios are
heroes, Benedicts nonentities, and the novel
in the compounding of which there are no
unlawful flirtations with exciting fluctuations
is flung aside, to let .a sensational novel,
highly flavoured, be devoured with avidity.
A " psychological study " it is called now¬
adays, a fine-sounding phrase by which the
Holywell Street vendors did not think of
christening thair literature.
32
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Some time ago the columns of the news¬
papers teemed with effusions from " neglected
wives," and such agonised effusions are not
to be wondered at if we sit down and calmly
dissect the men of to-day.
To many of them worthless women are at
a premium, and good women very much at a
discount.
Messalinas and Delilahs rule the roost,
while Penelope and Griselda go to the wall.
How many of our men anathematize in lan¬
guage more forcible than refined a puerile
extravagance in their legitimate partners,
while they fling lavishly banknotes into the
jaws of the lovely human sharks that cling
temporarily to their sides, swallow all they
can get, and never arrive at satiety, but, if
nakedness of the land come into view, swim
quietly away into more prolific regions!
How many of our men fritter away their
feelings on women upon whom they look a
little later with unmitigated contempt and
aversion ?
But history repeats itself, and the folly of
man will go on to the end of the chapter.
Imbued with the sentiments of the times,
it is not a matter of wonderment that Lord
Marcus Trevennen — young, good-looking,
and tolerably well off—facts that make him
a target for matrimonial shafts and a prize
looked after by dowagers and matrons of
oily address and debutantes with an eye to
business, has eschewed his class and sue-
AT THE FBIVOLITY.
83
cumbed to the fascinations of Madlle. Hor-
tense Le Grand, who plays Calypso in the
Burlesque to-night, a piece which the manager
of the Frivolity is going to produce, knowing
that it will suit the present public taste.
Critically and impartially, the attraction of
the lady who plays the title role consists in a
face rather materialistic and a form inclining
to obesity, but she is—the fashion.
From the moment the curtain rises, reveal¬
ing a cave, all glitter and sparkle, with a
couch of coral within, on which Calypso re¬
clines partially wrapped in flimsy garb held
together by a jewelled girdle, with half-a-
dozen attendant nymphs, all more or less
glitter and sparkle and flimsy apparel, posing
efiectively around. Lord Marcus has not
moved his gaze from the principal figure.
He is young, impressionable, and what the
French call fou d'elle.
No matter to him if the dames of his own
set mark his absorption in Calypso—if the
Duchess of Altremont, the Ladies Mount
Temple, the Honourable Mrs. Fitz James
frown and censure, and turn away their
aristocratic heads from a society of black
sheep — Calypso for the nonce is the one
woman in the world—to him.
And when the curtain falls on a piece in
which short skirts and shapely limbs are well
to the fore and art and sense nowhere. Lord
Marcus leans back in his stall and closes his
eyes, his cheeks are flushed, and he feels a
• 3
34
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
ghoulish longing towards the actor who plays
the Telemachus of Calypso's passion.
He is not singular in his infatuation, for
Hortense has victimised a good many of the
knockers about town, yet she is, with all the
charms attributed to her, an ordinary woman
enough. She was born in the Quartier Latin,
and even in her teens coquetted with the
students and danced the cancan at Mabille
before she was twenty. She is thirty now,
and this season is her first appearance on
the London stage, and something about her—
her foreign gestures, or a peculiar expression
in her big blue eyes, have caught the public
fancy and make her a success.,
Denuded of her diaphanous garments, her
diamonds and powder and spangles, she turns
from a bird of Paradise into a homely wren
enough, and is not a bit different to many of
the leading ladies who tread the metropolitan
or provincial boards.
Capricious fortune has showered goods into
the rather capacious lap of Hortense, and
custom has habituated her palate to recherche
food; but a peep into her domestic economy
would probably reveal that her soul is not
above the strong esculents and choux grille of
her childhood, and that she enjoys a " glass
of bitter " as much as a chic beverage. But
she is a sharp, sensible young person,
amenable to circumstances, and ready, like
a poor-box, to accept the smallest donations.
Besides, Moet and truffled game is not
AT THE FRIVOLITY.
35
unpleasant to swallow, especially at other
people's expense.
The ways of Hortense are peculiar, like the
Heathen Chinee's, and her freedom from that
unfashionable article " prudery" is a piquancy
that evidently tickles John Bull's usually
stolid temperament.
Lord Marcus is just now what men call
" clean gone " on her. As he lounges in his
stall, he thinks of her in the vapid, spoony
way which our young men do nbw-a-days—
thoughts that are generally accompanied by a
puUing and a twisting of a moustache, a
vacant stare in the eyes, an altogether silly
and sheepish appearance about the whole face
and attitude. He would not care to confess
to such intense folly, but he is really think¬
ing what a charming and adorable Lady
Marcus Hortense would make if he could only
persuade his august parents to look upon her
in the same light as he does.
The curtain has risen on the second act,
and gone down again after more glitter, more
sparWe and flimsy frocks, more love-making
and posing with Telemachus. And now the
third act is close on completion, and it is a
foregone conclusion that weeping and gnash¬
ing of teeth will be Calypso's portion and
hoary-headed Mentor will be triumphant, and
Lord Marcus sits bolt upright, his face grows
more animated, and he is conscious of the
blissful fact that in a few minutes he will not
only be able to look on the woman who has
a*
3G A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
bewitched him, but he will be able to speak
to her—hold her plump hand in his im¬
passioned clasp, and be altogether as su¬
premely happy as a man can be under such
delightful circumstances.
The instant Calypso has made her last
sweeping curtsey to the appreciative audience,
kissed her jewelled fingers with a delicious
coquettishness all her own, smiled a bewilder¬
ing smile and disappeared from view. Lord
Marcus, without looking to the right or the
left, elbows his way through the crowd and
takes up an uncomfortable position near the
stage door. He is jostled about by the
gallery gods, but no matter, in a few seconds
Hortense will emerge. Presently she appears,
wrapped in a wonderful " confection" of
white satin and swansdown, with a dainty
little hood over her shining hair, while her
French maid, carrying half-a-dozen monster
bouquets, walks behind her.
Lord Marcus, having handed her tenderly
into a chic little dark-green brougham, pre¬
pares to step in beside her. This is a privilege
she has allowed him several times before, but
to-night she pushes him playfully back.
" I am so fatiguee, so fatiguee! " she says
languidly in her broken English; " the heat of
this night overpowers me—and the role of
Calypso, it is too much! I must go to ab¬
solute quiet. Good-night, man ami, et ban
repos I"
She smiles sweetly upon him as she drives
AT THE FRIVOLITY.
37
away, leaving him plante and slightly sulky.
After a little, he strolls to his club, and fling¬
ing himself into a comfortable arm-chair
delivers himself up to a good smoke.
He is angry with her for dismissing him,
but her spell is over him still—a spell that
would be broken if the Guards' Club possessed
a necromantic mirror by which he could see
his goddess on her arrival at home
" Unclasp her warm jewels one by one.
Loosen her fragrant bodice,"
after the manner of Keats' St. Agnes, and
dressed in a seduisante tea-gown all mechlin
lace and bleu tendre—a garment that cost a
thousand francs at least—eating plovers' eggs
and drinking iced moselle to the health of her
vis-a-vis—the Duke of Fitzallen, one of our
wealthiest peers, and Hortense's last victim.
It is a bore. Lord Marcus thinks, while he
chews the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, to be
disturbed by the voice of a man who has just
dropped into the neighbouring chair. A
voice is supposed by some people to be indica¬
tive of its owner's character.
Now this voice—in spite of its being
thoroughbred—has a something hard and un¬
pleasant in its tone.
Certainly the theme on which it has chosen
to dilate is not interesting or edifying, being a
sample of the peculiar persiflage which young
England calls " chaflf."
An acute ear would detect at once that the
38
A MODERN BBIDEOROOM.
tone is habitual to the speaker, and that if he
managed to infuse warmth or earnestness into
it it would be only to arrive at some desired
end.
" Been to the Frivolity to-night, Tre-
vennen ? " he asks.
"Yes."
The reply is unpromising, especially as the
man addressed says no more, but lights an¬
other cigar.
" The feUows say you go there nightly.
Surely you are not hard hit by Hortense's
full-blown charms? Leave her to the old
roues, my dear boy. You are too young to
be adored—only to be fleeced. I cannot
understand how any man can be taken in by
a woman like that!"
" If I do admire her I'm not singular," Lord
Marcus answers sulkily. " All town seems
to be in the same box, and as for your remark
about full-blown charms, I am sure Lady
Cecilia's might be in the same category!"
" I only spoke from hearsay. I have never
seen Hortense," Sir Lyulph Vansittart says
quietly. " And as to the latter part of your
sentence, may I ask. Lady Cecilia—who f "
" Lady Cecilia Gordon, of course!"
" Lady Cecilia Gordon! My dear fellow,
what has Lady Cecilia Gordon got to do
with me ? " Vansittart asks in a tone of sur¬
prise and with an impassive face that seems
to carry out his question, convincing the
other man that he is the sublimest of hypo-
AT THE FRIVOLITY.
39
crites, since he can slip on Eichelieu's waxen
mask at will.
" What has she got to do with you ?
Come, Vansittart, that's going a little too
far, considering that for two seasons you
have been substance and shadow, and poor
old Gordon and his blindness the talk of the
clubs. By the way, ever since that hideous
rout or volunteer ball into which you in¬
veigled me, and where you picked up some
little girl, you seem to have changed your
tactics; everything fresh, juvenile, milk-and-
watery is the go with you now, but you are
so deucedly hard to decipher that one never
knows if it's humbug or not."
" Don't speak of Miss Ferrers as if she were
a milliner, or—or—Calypso!" Vansittart
says solemnly, while Trevennen frowns un¬
mistakably at the hit at Hortense; "you
mustn't really mention her name with that of
the persons we have been discussing!"
"Why not? Has the girl made you her
champion, or are you going in for unprotected
females in general?"
Vansittart laughs disagreeably,
" Miss Ferrers is not an unprotected female.
She has a father, and very much of a mother
to take care of her. If I don't mistake, she
has a lover too, who looks sharp after her."
" And whom you mean to ignore when you
commence your running, of course. Poor
chap, I dare say he is a good, honest-going
fellow, and really cares for her!"
40
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
" Which you don't think I do ? I say,
Trevennen, you are out of temper to-night,
I believe Hortense has been making eyes at
old Fitzallen. He is awfully sweet on her, so
Graham tells me, and what with his dukedom
and his dibs, you haven't the ghost of a
chance. I don't mind telling you in con¬
fidence that I may make Miss Ferrers Lady
Vansittart, by-and-bye — that is, of course,
if her belongings are decently presentable.
My people are very difficile naturally! If
there's anything fishy about the family, I
shall have to cut the connection—one must,
you know!"
And Vansittart's voice waxes quite comic¬
ally pompous, while his handsome head gives
a complacent jerk backwards, and his eyes,
instead of looking at Trevennen, wander up
to the ceiling.
But it is another of his idiosyncrasies
that he never can look anyone steadily in
the face; his eyes, grand in colour and
shape, have all the same a certain shifty
expression in them.
"I wish you joy if the happy event does
come off—and her too" Lord Marcus adds to
himself, as he rises and strolls out of the
club. " By Jove, Miss Ferrers! if you only
knew your husband in prospective as I think
I know him, you would pause before you
marry—to repent at leisure. Poor child!
She was not much more than a child and
deuced pretty too, if I remember. She de-
AT THE FEI\''OLITy. 41
serves a kinder handling from Fate. She httle
suspects what a cold, heartless chap he is.
Selfish, self-sufficient, over-bearing to any
extent. What a life for any woman to be
tied to him—to be—Lady Vansittart!"
CHAPTER IV.
"noblesse oblige."
' Tan—proud man-
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured.
His glassy essence—like an angry ape—
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep."
Down the lengthy and dreary passage of the
Albany until a door marked with the letter
" B" is reached, then an ascent up two
flights of narrow and carpetless stairs, won¬
derfully dusty and dirty, and which strike
one as a mean and inconsistent approach to
a gem of an apartment, upon the threshold
of which one's steps are arrested so that
one can fully take in all the luxury and com¬
fort herein combined.
Of course such a sybaritical abode can only
belong to a real son of luxe, to the manner
born. Everything shows perfect taste and
the money to carry it out.
The apartment consists only of a couple of
rooms divided by large folding doors,
panelled in ivory and pale blue, with a gleam
of silver about them. The rooms themselves
are of ordinarv and modest dimensions, but
♦'NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
43
Utilised to perfection. The window draperies
and portieres are of pale blue velvet, edged
with silver Jleur-de-lys, the polished parquet
reflects like glass, and on it, scattered pell-
mell, but always with an eye for effect, are
numerous pufiy cushions of the most exquisite
embroidery wrought by feminine fingers,
showing up bunches of buds and blossoms, so
real that one fears to touch them lest the
beauty of each fragile calyx or brilliance of
each flower be injured.
Every stitch in these cushions has probably
been a labour of love of some soft-hearted
woman, a temporary divinity of him who,
after a short ebullition of passion, treated as
carelessly her feelings as he does the work of
her hands.
Lounges with capacious arms invite to
pleasant siestas. In a recess in the inner
room stands a bedstead with a gorgeous cover¬
lid, fashioned in some Baldaccian loom, and
opposite to it is a toilette as chic as a
Belgravian belle's. Everything about the
place has its idiosyncrasy in the almost
obtrusive presence of an elaborate crest and
motto that adorns the ivory-backed brushes,
the silver stoppers of the taU crystal scent
flaqons, and a score of other trifles, costly and
betokening lavish self-indulgence in the
smallest details of life. This same crest
and motto are carved on the furniture,
worked on the slippers, and emblazoned in
gold on the superbly-bound volumes (they
44
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
are mostly Paul de Kock's, Balzac's and
Georges Sand's novels) that grace a superb
bookcase inlaid in ebony and silver.
The crest can only be described in appro¬
priate language by a proficient in heraldry.
The motto is pithy, but none the less wonder¬
fully absolute:
" Noblesse oblige."
In this especial case it is an evil motto,
productive of pernicious effect, and affording
an excuse to its owner for heaps of selfish
actions and mean devices, so that its rigorous
demand be preserved intact.
It coincides marvellously, however, in its
pompous ostentation with the real nature of
Sir Lyulph Vansittart—Mrs. Ferrers' "Eigh¬
teenth Baronet"—and has attracted his notice
as, lolling back lazily in one of his cosiest
chairs, he puffs slowly at a shilling cigar, with
no other company but his own thoughts, and
they are hardly the best companions he can
have. His head rests against a dark wine-
coloured pillow that forms a striking and
picturesque background for his fair, wavy hair.
His clean-cut features, each one showing the
regularity of a statue, are in complete repose,
as if carved in stone. His mouth is the one
drawback to his face; it is a mouth rarely
seen, and perfect in shape, but the smile that
plays often on it is peculiar and disagreeable.
He looks as if he had fed off "herba sar-
donica " in his foreign peregrinations, so much
irony characterises his lips. The expression of
"NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
45
his blue eyes is almost as cold as though they
belonged to an image of marble, but the bare
outline of the face is simply superb, and he
looks the aristocrat all over—not an aris¬
tocrat of the nineteenth century, many of
whom are as plebeian-visaged as coalheavers,
but an aristocrat of the old Grecian days. Sir
Lyulph is like Glaucus, whose portrait,
beautiful but effeminate, is handed down with
its surroundings of purple and fine hnen.
No single drop of muddiness mingles in the
blood that flows in his veins—save that one
kinsman had forfeited the regard and recog¬
nition of his people by a mesalliance with the
daughter of an American shopkeeper.
Barring this one flaw, Lyulph Vansittart's
forefathers had been true knights—the flower
of the Norman chivalry who had came over
with the Conqueror—and from time im¬
memorial had married and intermarried
with men and women of noble birth—to carry
out their beloved motto right rigorously.
This redoubtable scion of a magnificent
race, who has swooped down like an eagle
from the higher sphere towards the base earth,
just on purpose, as it seems, to interlope in
poor Jack Lyster's happiness and to deprive
him of the one creature he loves, of the one
jewel whose possession he covets, is a type of
man who is, unfortunately, frequently met
with in these days in Society, more especially
in what we call " the best Society."
A man freely gifted with reason and intelli-
46
A MODEEN BEIDEGKOOM.
gence, but who dribbles away the intellect
Providence has bestowed in vain and
contemptible pursuits, in frivolity and even
vice.
He is a roue at heart, but disguises mate¬
rialism under a hyperbole of sentimentalism,
which, if it were properly analysed by the
recipients of his professions, would inspire
dislike instead of liking ; for, to the credit of
most women be it said, there is nothing more
detestable to them than a true sensualist.
Vansittart is worldly, calculating, and an
egotist, but covers his multitude of faults
under an alluring exterior and an ingratiating
manner — when he likes. Ever since he
arrived at the toga virilis, he has set himself up
as a modern Julius Caesar as regards women;
and he does not set a limit on his conquests,
but takes Solomon's words a.u pied de lettre,
" Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before
they be withered."
He is cruel, too, for when the victory is
complete he positively revels in his capability
of satire and sharpness which enables him to
administer, in a quiet, gentlemanly fashion,
that most humiliating of punishments for an
erring and sensitive woman—mental flagella¬
tion, composed of small but frequent doses
of trenchant remarks that sting worse than
nettles.
Many a broken heart and ruined life lie
heavily at his door, but lightly as a morsel of
thistledown on his elastic conscience.
• NOBLESSE OBLIGK,
47
He has a resolute will that acknowledffes
^ o
no impediments to the accomplishment of his
wishes. To Lyulph Vansittart to desire is to
possess, but an immensity ol success up to
thirty-four years has fostered a domineering
vanity that has scarcely known a fall, and
which tinctures his manner at times with a
free and easy arrogance that in a less
polished man would be thought insolence,
but the refined insouciance of which seems to
attract those people who, not caring to dive
below the surface, like to accept in all good
faith one whose personal recommendations
are undeniably great.
He is a bit of a Chauvin too, but has the
sense to cover his braggart propensities under
an assumption of mock reserve.
And after all, this is but a silhouette of a
man whose real character it is difficult to
delineate properly.
Aileen Ferrers had been pointed out to
him as the belle of the Volunteer Ball, to
which she had gone with some friends, but
without Lyster's approval; and even Vansit-
tart's fastidious fancy had been thoroughly
satisfied as he watched the charming
espikglerie of her face.
like a skilled fowler, he marked his prey
then and there, and took unerring aim,
sending her home with her little head full of
her new acquaintance, and at once making
her discontented with the man she had
promised to marry.
43
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Later on—with an amount of trouble
which was unusual for him to take—he
contrived, through an old brother officer of
Captain Ferrers, to get on a visiting footing
at The Hollies, and the knowledge of Aileen's
engagement to Lyster made no possible
alteration in his intentions or feelings.
If Lyster was in his " set," frequenting the
same clubs and coteries, and occupying an
equal social status as himself, he might pausd
to recollect that it is not exactly " the thing'
—an expression more imperative than a code
of honour to men of his calibre—to poach on
another man's manor; but Lyster is to him a
mere " nobody" — a sweeping epithet of
Society as damning as the word "pariah"
out in the East.
Lyster's face is an unfamiliar sight in the
Eow ; his ways and manner are scarcely after
the approved type of Belgravia or May Fair;
and the inexorable edict of the sphere barring
all outsiders from treading on patrician
ground, Lyster's very existence is, of course,
a thing to be ignored by an ulstrissimo of
Fashion.
The eighteenth baronet, though he sets
himself up as the cream of good manners,
never by any chance acknowledges Lyster's
presence, save by a frigid bend of his aristo¬
cratic head or a quiet survey of him through
the inevitable eye-glass; he would, in fact,
just as soon be caught by the habitues of
White's or Brooks's in familiar confab with a
"NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
49
" shoppy " as with Lyster, whom he inwardly
stigmatises as " cad " or " snob."
Ilnfortunately, the result of Lyster's
appearance on the scene during Vansittart's
visits is bad for himself, as his presence gives
a greater impetus to Vansittart's pursuit of
Aileen, and keeps alive a fire which in all
likelihood would quickly burn itself out, if
the fuel of rivalry, and a petty feeling of
jealousy towards the man who has a legiti¬
mate right to Aileen's love and Aileen's
kisses, were not heaped upon it.
It is some time since his conversation with
Lord Marcus on the subject of Miss Ferrers,
and during this period he has passed several
hours in reflection. His ardour in the matter
has not a whit cooled. Vastly to his own
surprise, it has increased rather, although as
a rule his fancies are wont to be extremely
ephemeral in their nature. Aileen has caught
his imagination. Now and then he quite
believes that she has caught his heart, but—
and it is an enormous " but" that looms up
before him—what on earth is to be the end of
it all?
What, he asks himself, will be the good
of making the girl fall in love with him?
(He never doubts his power to accomplish
this.)
Miss Ferrers, though unable to boast of
such a superb genealogical tree as himself, is
yet a lady born and bred, and not in a
position to. receive any derogatory overtures.
• 4
60
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
There is nothing for it, then, but to go in
for matrimony, and this is a climax not to be
dreamt of, especially with his pompous motto
staring back at him from the cigar-case lying
before him.
Yet he feels that he cannot give her up.
He is quite unable to dismiss Her from his
thoughts, and the more he tries to chase
away from memory the haunting, sparkling
face, with its marvellous chesnut eyes and its
wonder of chesnut hair, the more pertina¬
ciously it rises up before him, appealing to
his senses with its arch sweetness and leading
him on to the perpetration of any folly, as
he terms it, that may insure him the coveted
prize.
Aileen herself, though not in the least the
sort of girl known as " fast," is by no means
averse to fanning the spark she has ignited
into a flame; feminine instinct has quickly
divined the deep impression she has made,
and with intuitive intelligence she knows that
" Sir Lyulph Vansittart, the eighteenth
baronet, do you know ?" as her mother
always speaks of him, is having a sharp tussle
between inclination and pride.
Although she is very young.— barely
eighteen, as has been said—and although she
has led a comparatively nunlike existence at
The Hollies, she was born a coquette, like so
many of her sex. And the spirit of coquetry
has revealed to her that this new man, while
playing fast and loose at the game of love,
"NOBLESSE OBLIGE."
51
has himself fallen head over ears into that
honey-pot, Cupid's trap, and is intricated
therein without much hope of escape.
She does try just at first, like a good, well-
brought-up girl, to drive away from her the
fumes of gratified vanity, which her evident
conquest has exhaled, but her struggles are
useless, and day by day she drifts further and
further from " poor old Jack," as she
inwardly calls him, and nearer and nearer to
his rival.
But then who can wonder at it ? Sir
Lyulph Vansittart seems to her a king among
men—her foolish fancy endows him with
every good quality under the sun—and his
handsome face, so difierent to any other face
she has seen, puts the finishing stroke on the
matter.
4*
CHAPTER V.
a flaa of truce.
" Love he comes—and Love he tarries
Just as fate or fancy carries,
Long he stays when sorest chidden,
Laughs or flies when pressed or bidden."
Affairs at The Hollies are iu a critical and
unfortunate condition enough when one
bright summer morning Aileen sits solitary
and rather depressed.
Some dozen years ago there hung, in rather
an obscure corner of one of the numerous
London galleries, a picture in a small, square,
gilt, exceedingly plain and unpretentious
frame. The background of this picture was
wonderfully dark and rich and it threw out
—almost too vividly perhaps—the exquisitely
white flesh tints and the slender statuesque
figure of a very young girl, sitting with her
hands folded loosely together, and with a
strangely far-off expression in the almond-
shaped eyes that were half-veiled by broad
drooping lids and long, curling lashes.
It was impossible not to be struck with the
extraordinary breadth of effect, and with the
decisive and most expressive touch displayed
in the work, and one paused involuntarily
before it, and one wondered at the lack of
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
53
ta.ste and discernment that had adjudged it so
elevated a position on the wall, with the
palpable disadvantage of a bad light. And
then one turned with curiosity to the
catalogue, to find that No. 670 might be a
portrait, or merely a sketch of some lovely
child of Fancy, born of a true artist brain,
for it had but the romantic pseudonym of
"Le Premier E^ve."
This picture, however, finds its living
embodiment in Aileen, with her luminous
chesnut eyes that look out earnestly and a
little wistfully, and with a face that in its
purity is suggestive of a white rose.
She has been out, and has forgotten on
entering to lay aside her hat, a broad-
brimmed Leghorn, simple as a peasant's,
which is tilted over her brow, and suits her
to perfection. It is in the golden days of
July, but a soft little breeze comes in at the
window, though the fiery-eyed sun-god drives
his car above, and gilds all things below with
a deep flood of yellow glory ; the green grass
lies spread beneath a sky dashed with cobalt,
and the trees sway and toss their glossy
leaves, flinging down flickering shadows on
the ground.
Nature is bountiful in her gifts, and there
is nothing like her—no charm so subtle and
irresistible as her charm—no splendour like
her splendour, which touches even these
Cockney precincts.
At no othei^ time does she hold out such
54
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
sweet smiles to mortals—at no other time
does she clothe herself in such grand robes of
state as she wears in this voluptuous summer
hour.
But all her beauty is unappreciated by
Aileen. She is evidently in no frame of mind
to revel in the warmth and pleasantness of
her surroundings. There is almost a look of
vacancy even filling the chesnut eyes as they
look out, and it is not difficult to read that
her thoughts are wandering leagues away
from the spot where she is.
She is in reality evolving in her mind what
she is to do with lover number one, so as to
arrive at lover number two. She feels a little
out of temper as well, for Sir I/yulph has
been out of Town for a whole week, and she
cannot help resenting a little bitterly a volun¬
tary absence from her.
Close to her stands a small opal vase,
containing some pink and white roses, a
little faded in beauty, but yet giving out a
strong fragrance, and every now and then
she stoops and smells them, and passes her
fingers softly and caressingly over them.
They were an offering from Vansittart on his
last visit.
It is quite certain that Lyster has no place
in her thoughts or heart, when he suddenly
and unannounced enters the room.
Aileen starts rather guiltily, and surrep¬
titiously pushes the roses away farther as she
glances up at him.
A FLAG OF TRUCE,
55
He looks harassed and ill, and over his grey
eyes there is an undeniable shadow, and he
does not even attempt to clasp the hand that
she mechanically holds out by way of
greeting.
It seems such absurd mockery to him—
this conventional handshake—in conjunction
with the fierce surging tide of love that sweeps
over him at the sight Of her. So he contents
himself with a quiet " How do you do ? " and
takes a chair that happens to be facing her.
If human eyes could just see into human
hearts sometimes, what a world of misery
might be spared. If this girl could divine the
really enormous extent of love she has in¬
spired, and knew that the man who sits
calmly before her would willingly sacrifice
years of his life to feel just for one moment—
only a little moment—that she really cares
for him, the very conviction of having aroused
so strong, so true, so faithful a love, might
change the current of her feelings, and alter
all the future that lies—undreamt of—in the
dim distance.
• Instead of this, poor Lyster, with his big
swelling heart and wealth of affection, is to
all appearance the picture of impassiveness—
even of apathy. Beneath this cold exterior,
who could guess that pulses throb painfully
fast, and that a loving, loyal, passionate soul
hungers and thirsts for the reciprocity denied ?
After her first look at him, Aileen's eyes
are obstinately lowered, but she feels that he
56
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
is looking at her, and though she tries hard to
bear the scrutiny bravely, the warm blood
mantles higher and higher, even to the deli¬
cate blue-veined temples, and she wonders, in
a vague sort of way, if this lover of hers is
gifted with clairvoyance and discovers the
keen sense of shame at her fickleness which
is the predominant feeling in her breast at
this moment.
But her restless and impatient spirit is not
one to brook for long the dead silence which
is most unpleasantly oppressing for several
minutes. So she says flippantly:
" Are you going to paint my likeness from
memory, Jack ?—you seem to be studying my
features one by one—or are you trying to
hypnotise me by that very disagreeable
stare ?" and she shifts her position, averting
her face a little.
"No," he answers quietly, smothering back
a great sigh in its birth, but which reaches
her quick ears, and irritates her, making her
dread another scene.
Oh, how she has begun to hate these
" scenes," as she calls them—she, who loves
pleasantness beyond all other good things.
The very idea that she is going to be regaled
on reproach and jealousy makes her heart
harden like a stone.
Lyster's nature is too honest, too pure to
cope properly with most other natures that he
runs counter to. If he were a man of the
world, and versed in the intricacies and per-
A FLAa OF TRUCE.
57
versities of women, he woiild meet Aileen on
equal ground, and, disguising the pain her
manner and tone gave him under a mask of
strength and decision, he would force her to
respect him, and to acknowledge his superi¬
ority to herself. But not a bit of it. He
crouches just like a spaniel at her feet, feeling
that even an ignominious kick would be better
than absence of all contact with her. His
heart is like a lute in her hands, vibrating
gaily or sadly according to her will. And
why, he asks himself vainly, is it her pleasure
to create discord so often, when she can, with
such small trouble to herself, make of it such
harmony ?
But whether his heart is joyful or sorrowful,
the refrain of it is ever the same. He loves
her—loves her with a giant love that knows
no pause or change, that beats and struggles
on through everything. She is the only
woman in all the world to him. She has
called forth -the very first passion he has"
known, and no power on earth—not even
hers—can stem the torrent of feeling she has
given rise to, or turn from its course the
steady stream that has but one source and
end.
" No! I don't want a likeness of you,
Aileen! for your face is indelibly engraved
on my memory. I wonder sometimes,"—
and he smiles a miserable woebegone smile
—"whether, like Queen Mary and her be¬
loved Calais, ^they would find your name
58
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
on my heart ?—but I was looking at you so,
because "
He can get no farther. Strong man as he
is, his voice breaks down suddenly, and she
glances at him quickly. The amount of pain
in his tone strikes her at once—and frightens
her a little too, though she would not own it.
But he does not seem to heed her, in his
emotion he sees nothing, notices nothing—all
the misery in the world seems concentrated in
his breast, as he tries to embody in words his
fears and anxieties. Plucking up courage
after a minute, he goes on in a husky voice
that will tremble in spite of him :
" Because I feel that I shall soon lose sight
of you, Aileen—because I have a conviction
that fate is dead against me—Aileen, dearest,
do let me speak to you just for once unre¬
servedly and unrebuked. I have no wish.
Heaven knows, to thrust my own grief upon
you—I know how you love everything that
is pleasant and bright, my darling, and how
all that savours of pain and disappointment is
repellent to your nature—although, perhaps,
if you knew what I do suffer, hourly, as I
watch you drifting, drifting further from me,
I believe you would feel for me a little—but
it is for your good, your happiness that I am
afraid, and I want you to try and curb, before
it becomes too strong, your liking for "
" Jack ! " she flashes angrily, her eyes and
cheeks all aflame. " I won't have you speak
like this. You presume too much on your
A FLAG OP TRUCE.
69
position; I am not your wife yet, and I will
not be bullied and lectured like this!" and
after the fashion of most women—at the best,
unreasonable, wilful creatures — she bursts
into a fierce tempest of tears, while her slender
figure literally shakes with the great gasping
sobs,
." Bullied and lectured ? "
Even in this agonising moment to a man
desperately in love, and utterly powerless to
soothe the beloved object, in anger or distress,
poor Lyster cannot help a mournful smile—
the very idea of his bullying and lecturing
this little imperious idol of his soul, who sits
upon him continually and treats him in¬
famously, is too absurd.
With due misgivings in his mind as to how
the flag of truce will fare if he raises it aloft,
-he ventures to take one little, cold, clenched
hand—he does it timidly, but as tenderly and
soothingly as a mother might to her precious
but wilful child—and Aileen wrenches it away
quickly and pitilessly, with a jerk and a visible
shudder, which in his utter misery and sensi¬
tiveness, he construes into absolute aversion
on her part and repulsion to his slightest
touch. Aileen seems to have lost even
womanly kindliness of late. Dashing her hand¬
kerchief impatiently at her streaming eyes,
she looks at him angrily, and going up to a
sofa at the farthest end of the room flings
herself down on it.
Of course, he feels that he has no place
60
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
in her heart, and determines to hesitate no
longer in having his say. He will eschew all
false delicacy rather than not take this
opportunity of pointing out to her the danger
that lies in her acquaintance with a man
whom he not only dislikes, but despises and
distrusts, both from his own judgment and
from hearsay.
He knows well enough that his task will be
a most ungrateful one—bringing down a
perfect avalanche of scorn and bitterness on
himself. But no matter—he can bear any¬
thing with the hope that her eyes may be
opened a little, and that some good angel will
tell her that he speaks in all truth and dis¬
interestedness, and is not prompted by selfish
feelings.
" Don't be angry, Aileen! Eemember that
our position does give me some little right to
warn you against anything and anybody that
my great love and care for you tells me will
be prejudicial to your happiness. Aileen,
my darling, canH you see for yourself the
rocks and shoals in your path ? Has fancy
or imagination—for I will not call it love I—
so blinded you that you can't detect flaws in
the man for whom you are going to sacrifice
not only me but—yourself? for it will be utter
wretchedness for you with your warm and
loving nature to wrestle continually with a
cold and worldly nature like his—craving
affection from him and finding none, your
heart will just starve to death, your life will
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
CI
be a bolocaust on the altar of infatuation
—for you are infatuated with him, and
nothing else, Aileen! I don't believe
that he has reached your heart a bit!
Never place me or my feelings in the balance
with the smallest real good or happiness that
can come to you, but I implore you to pause
before you let yourself drift further and
further into this liking; I implore you to use
not your judgment, Aileen, my child—for
your judgment is crude—but the judgment
of those who care for you, whose chief desire
in life is for your welfare; you are not old
enough to look below the surface, but if you
try you may yet be able to put aside the
glamour of a handsome face. Weigh the man
as he really is with the ideal creature that
your fancy has created, and if you find him
wanting send him out of your life before it is
too late, and the freedom is gone that can
never be regained, before his hand has seared
your heart with an iron grip that no power
on earth will be able to erase! Aileen,
darling, I pray of you believe that it is not
selfishness that urges me to say all this!
Though it maddens me to think that you are
being taken from me—slowly, perhaps, but
too, too surely!—my love for you is capable
of self-immolation or anything else. If I
cannot live for you, I would die for you, I
swear, and without a regret; for if you throw
me over, I don't care what becomes of me.
It is for you alone that I dread the future.
62
A MODEEN BBIDEGEOOM.
for to you it may be a life-long misery, while
to me it would only be a blank. I know you
are hating me for all this, and yet I warn you,
Aileen, warn you again and again, against
becoming this Vansittart's wife."
The words pom: from his quivering lips like
a torrent, and his face grows white as death.
She gives him a quick glance of astonish¬
ment mingled with indignation, and then her
eyes wander to the pink and white roses with
a softened light in them,
Lyster's warnings, in spite of their evident
sincerity, are entirely powerless to set her one
whit against the man to whom she may be,
as far as she knows, only an object of indiffer¬
ence. So far from prejudicing her mind
against Vansittart, Lyster's opinion of him
seems to rouse her into an increased adoration
of her maligned hero, and enlists her to take
up the cudgels in his defence.
But the thought that is really uppermost
with her just now, is that Lyster has been a
little premature in advising her not to marry
a man who has not given her the option of
becoming his wife! It is quite on the cards
that he may never do so, and in that case,
Aileen, who is an astute young person, feels
that she will be placed in rather a humiliating
and ludicrous position, and very much in the
same box as the foolish dog in the fable who
deserted substance for shadow.
She is young, pretty, and she has an
excellent opinion of herself, and she has a
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
63
great objection to being an old maid, and
before her looms up a wrinkled, vinegarish
countenance enframed in scanty locks—a
form grown stiff as buckram, which may be
the portrait of Miss Ferrers at a mature age!
She smiles so grimly, that she might as well
cry as she conjures up the picture in imagi¬
nation.
Another thing, Aileen is very proud in her
small way—proud as an empress—and she
does not relish the notion of being thought to
wear the willow for a man who does not care
about appropriating her to himself.
Pride suggests to her now that her dignity
will be best preserved by a continuance of
her engagement to Lyster—at any rate until
Sir Lyulph makes some decisive step!—
though to do her justice she feels very
wicked and dishonourable, and knows that it
would be the right thing to break off with
Jack now, when his own words give her a
loophole of escape, than to deceive him
further and encourage a hope which she is
sure she will never be able to realise. For it
would be torture to become Mrs. Jack Lyster!
she knows.
The scales have quite fallen from her eyes,
and she sees clearly that her feelings for poor
Jack do not a bit resemble the love she is
capable of giving, or resemble, in fact, the
love that she has already given to Vansittart
unasked for, save by looks.
Yet it seem| quite impossible to sever the
64
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
tie that exists. She cannot muster up courage
to be frank and true—though, as a rule, her
nature is to be both—so, mercilessly, cruelly
—and principally to get out of a transient
dilemma, from which it is difficult to rise with
proper feminine dignity—she resorts to a
contemptible hanaliie.
"Jack," she says, sitting bolt upright on
her sofa and looking sad and reproachful, " I
see how it is. You are anxious to give me
up, or you would not talk as if I were not
pledged to you and free to marry some other
fellow! The gentleman whose name has
been on j-our tongue for the last hour has
never asked me to marry him; he has never
even thought of doing so, I daresay. It is
very silly of you to be enacting Don Quixote
and fighting with windmills all about nothing,
pointing out to me all sorts of awful dangers
that exist only in your own imagination, and,
anyhow, dangers that I am not likely to run
against; I do believe it is 1 who should be
jealous, Mr. Jack Lyster. I put you on your
oath. Has Freda Charteris usurped my
place in that large heart of yours ? " she asks,
looking him gravely and innocently in the
face, while her conscience gives another
sharp twinge for trying to shuffle her own
delinquences on his shoulders, and yet she
goes on with:
" Of course, if you wish everything to be at
an end between us, so be it!"
Aileen draws up her head with the air of
A FLAG OF IKUCE.
65
a princess to the manner born, and tries hard
to look the picture of aggrieved affection,
but it will not do ; with all her legion faults,
hypocrisy does not rank amongst them. The
mock expression fades quickly away and is
replaced by a defiant, rebellious light in her
big eyes. Then, of a sudden, her long
lashes droop over hot, red cheeks and she
bites her lips hard, feeling she has put with
her own hand the noose round her little white
throat, when a mouth clings passionately to
the rounded arm that her light muslin sleeve
has left bare, and a voice whispers eagerly:
" Aileen! I wish that everything should be
at an end between us? My darling, my
darling, dont you know that you are my
all—my life ? that no man could love you as
I do? Do you still want to be my wife,
Aileen ?—is it true—say, is it true ? " And
he stoops his head and tries to read his
verdict " for life or death," as he calls it, in
his fatuous love for her.
Aileen's impulse is to jump up and rush
out of the room, and never to look at Lyster
again, but instead of following this impulse
she hides her face in her hands, so that it may
not tell a truthful tale while she manages to
answer tolerably steadily:
" Of course I do. Jack!"
He does not answer save by a humble,
almost reverential kiss on a morsel of chest¬
nut hair that has escaped from its fastening,
but the clouds clear off his face, a happy look
• 5
66
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
chases the pain out of his honest eyes, and he
falls fathoms deeper in love with the girl who
has restored him the mighty happiness he had
believed to be lost for ever.
" Aileen," he says, after a little while, " I
have been a brute to doubt you ; I'll never
doubt you again ; I know now that ten
thousand Sir Lyulph Vansittarts won't take
my darling from me—God bless her!"
She tries to smile, but fails ignominiously
in the attempt, and when he is gone and the
door shut upon him, Aileen double locks it,
and flinging herself down on the floor, cries as
if her heart would break.
Love Jack Lyster! Why at this moment
she feels as if she hates him, and yet with her
own hand she has rolled the stone to her
sepulchre.
By and bye she emerges into the hall
looking like a ghost, with her white face and
white dress, as she runs across her mother.
"What pleasure can you have in that
fellow Lyster's society, child ? " Mrs. Ferrers
says impatiently; " he has been here two
whole hours."
" Has he ? " Aileen answers. " I thought it
was two whole centuries, for I feel so old—so
old—to-night, mother."
CHAPTER VI.
two maids and a man.
" I cannot love him—
Yet I suppose him virtuous—^know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth,
But yet I cannot—love him,
He might have took his answer long ago."
"Within easy walking distance of The Hollies
stands a moderate-sized villa of very modern
build. It is all spick and span, and of
glaring red brick, which is obtrusively warm-
looking, and it has bright grass-green
Venetians from top to bottom. Altogether
the house and its circumscribed garden lying
in front, pent in with palings, green to match
the Venetians, is decidedly cockney and
common, and not fitting quarters for Mrs. and
Miss Charteris.
Fortune's quips and cranks are familiar to
most of us, and we wonder at nothing, as a
rule, that happens in this world. It is not,
therefore, a rare thing for great minds, or
refined beauty, to struggle through a wretched
existence of penuriousness within four stuffy
walls, devoid of all the luxuries and elegancies
that would be congenial to the taste of its
occupants.
The villa, aftev the fashion of the neigh-
5*
63
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
bourhood, rejoices in the name of The Lilacs,
this sort of floral nomenclature being evidently
in fashion in the precincts of Ealing and other
suburban spots.
The Lilacs, by the way, must have been
suggested by a tiny clump of stunted trees,
bearing sickly blossoms, that hold the most
conspicuous position in the centre of the plot
of grass in front.
It is not an expensive dwelling, and has
therefore for some years suited the slender
finances of the present tenants, who consist of
two persons—the wife and daughter of Major
Charteris—a grey-headed veteran belonging
to an infantry regiment, serving out its term
in India. On the daughter arriving at the
age of twenty, Mrs. and Miss Charteris are to
wend their way eastward and to a station in
the Punjaub, an event to which the deserted
and desolate old soldier looks forward with
immense relief. He is wearv of bachelor-
hood, and right through the bright, broiling
days, with a cloudless sky overhead and
parched ground under foot, he counts, the
period that intervenes between the return of
his Lares and Penates.
Mrs. Charteris is a delicate, ethereal-
looking, little woman, fair, with a good deal
of soft peach bloom, and a quantity of light
hair that has not a white thread running
through it. The only child of a well-to-do
Devonshire squire, she was brought up in
ignorance of economy until she married, for
■TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
69
desperate love, her dashing but impecunious
officer, and left her old home amidst a shower
of condolences instead of the usual congratu¬
lations that attend a wedding.
There is a curious lack of worldliness about
her. If her nature is a tiny bit shallow, its
limpid depths show up quite a child-like
frankness. She is quite incapable of grap¬
pling, like many strong-minded British
matrons, with the perpetual petty grievances
that follow in the train of rigid domestic
economy.
She lives, in fact, from morning tiU night in
a chronic condition of meek resignation and
helpless quiescence to being shamefully rifled
by those shocking harpies—servants—upon
whom she looks as so many birds of prey!
Butter, sugar, tea—she lives a sort of martyr¬
dom in watching over them! Her " cross "
might be regarded in a rather ludicrous light,
but that few people could have the heart to
laugh at the small worries that she evidently
takes so much to heart; or can refrain from
sympathising with her when she recounts her
troubles with two wistful, deprecating eyes in
her mild little face.
She, too, anxiously looks forward to the
ending of her probation in England, hoping to
find herself comfortably installed once more
within the plaster walls of the Indian bunga¬
low, her mind in a delightful state of repose,
her nerves undisturbed by miserable and
incomprehensible complications of butchers*
70
A UODEBN BBIDEGROOM.
and grocers* bills, and her slightest summons
answered with the rapidity of magic by
swarthy-faced, nude-footed attendants salaam¬
ing obsequiously—in such agreeable contrast
to the pert, flippant ways of " Mary Ann,"
a sort of tria juncta in uno—^maid, cook and
boots—at The Lilacs, and who, in spite of her
ten pounds a year and all found, including the
missis's teapot after the second edition of
water, turns up her nose at cold meat,
domineers over upstairs, and insists on whole
Sundays and one week-day out, as no followers
are allowed.
This last rule is the only one on which the
head of the household remains as firm as a
rock outwardly, though the bare notion of a
burglar, even if he is inclined to " burgle
gently," sends her trembling inwardly like an
aspen leaf.
Mrs. Charteris, under these circumstances,
passes far from an enviable existence, though
•ghe looks as if made of egg china, to be
liandled carefully and kept from all violent
concussion. Her feelings are in a chronic
condition of laceration, either by the arrival
of " bills," or the non-arrival of the Indian
mail, for she loves her old militaire with his
six feet in his stockings and his long, grizzled
moustache, with all her heart.
Freda is her staff* of life—Freda, who is
only seventeen, with a tall, slender, willowy
figure and a fragility of organization that is
almost painful, and who is the very last being
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
71
in the world suggestive of " support" to
anyone.
Her flesh tints are fair as a lily; her face
is a prototype of one of Correggio's angels,
with a pair of tender, large blue eyes that
have a tendency to glancing heavenward,
with an appealing look in them. Her hair is
palest gold and, waving in short, bright curls
on her brow, gives her quite a child-like
appearance.
And Freda's nature is as pure and sweet
as her face. She is one of those " rare and
radiant damsels " uncommon among our nine¬
teenth-century young women — good, and
really religious, with a heart that is staunch
and loyal and true.
Freda Charteris and Aileen Ferrers were
school-fellows at Madame le Blanc's finishing
academy in Kensington, and since their return
to their respective homes have been close
chums. They are almost inseparable, in fact,
in spite of tlie strong contrast between them.
On Aileen's side, the liking savours con¬
siderably of patronage, with a dash of
despotism, while Freda's feelings are intense
admiration and implicit trust. Aileen,
personally and mentally, is her beau ideal of
woman. To Freda, it is a positive necessity
to cling to somebody or something. She
cannot live without doing so—even a dog or
a cat comes in for fondling and pampering.
The charm of existence would be doubly
enhanced to her if some man, later on, cared
72
A MODEBN BBIDEGBOOM.
for her in a pure, rather sentimental, but all-
absorbing fashion, which her young dreams
have pictured as the correct mode of conju¬
gating the verb amari^ but in default of this,
she could not be happy at aU if the boon of
feeling love was denied her.
Not for a moment must it be supposed that
Freda is a gushing young person, a victim to
ill-disciplined feeling, or partial to that cheek-
by-jowl flirtation that so many of our Society
debutantes look upon as mere innocuous
pastime.
She is shy, and what Aileen calls, " dread¬
fully proper," and she is just about the age
when girl nature, if unperverted, loses all its
crudeness and begins to measure its capacity
for the higher aims and purposes that under¬
lie this life, and commences to store up a
wealth of feeling that, ripening, will make
her later on a mine of happiness to the one
man who is lucky enough to get her for his
wife.
She has one grand quality even now. She
can suffer in silence. If she loves she will do
her best to be silent, to let concealment, like
a worm, feed on her damask cheek.
Aileen—spoilt, wilful, faulty Aileen—has
acquired an ascendancy over her. Aileen's
smallest wish is her law, Aileen's smile, fitful
but charming, a reward for any amount of
trouble incurred, while Aileen's frown makes
Freda cry like a baby; but she is not singular
in her devotion, the majority of Aileen's
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
73
acquaintances fall victims to her fascinating
wiles and tricks.
Where she learnt them Heaven knows.
Not at the Kensington school, where the
pupils were mostly shopkeepers' daughters,
nor in her home, with her mother's common¬
place notions always at her ear.
There is only one secret Freda has pre¬
served carefully from her " chum." Of
course it is about a—man—and a man whom
she has elected to love with all the fervour of
a girl's first love—believing it to be entirely
hopeless.
But the object of her admiration might be
stock or stone. Jack Lyster is as ignorant as
an unborn babe of the feelings he has evoked,
and while he marks with a sharp pang every
symptom of indifference in Aileen, he is as
blind as a mole to the hot blush on Freda's
cheek at sight of him. If he did know of his
conquest, it would only be distasteful to him
and a sort of infringement on his passion for
Aileen. So that Freda's pretty blue eyes go
out yearningly in vain, and the involuntary
little tremble in her voice when she speaks to
him makes as little impression on his ear as a
swallow's wing on the water.
He is going to marry Aileen.
This is the long and the short of it, and the
only really interesting fact to him in the
world. He has, metaphorically speaking, put
down his heart before her to trample on if
she will, and, n» matter what she does, he is
74
A AIODEBN BRIDEGIiOOM.
going to be steadfast and true to her so long
as he lives,
By-and-bye, he knows Aileen will love him.
Of course she will—for love always begets
love—and he loves her more than any man
has ever loved woman since the Deluge,
Poor Jack—poor young fool—he hugs his
prospective paradise to him, and, in picturing
the delicious future, entirely forgets the un¬
certain present,
Aileen is, however, sharper-sighted than he
is. Most women are sharp in affaires du
cceur, and she has found out her old school¬
fellow's secret long ago.
She feels no anger or malice against Freda,
simply because she does not care enough for
Jack to be jealous, but, like a true daughter
of Eve, she finds a certain gratification in
flaunting her power over him before the other
girl. She domineers twice as much over her
property before Freda, which is only an
emanation of vanity on her part,
Lyster is unlike the traditional worm, for
he never tuiiis when trodden on, but bears
everything, and bears it with an exemplary
patience that beats Job to fits.
He is too much infatuated to be anything
but dumb as a sheep before her, though he
sometimes, wonders to himself in a vague,
disheartened sort of way, whether Aileen will
always be as she is now—or whether she will
wax softer and kinder.
At this especial time—though Jack does
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
75
"not guess it—Aileen's mind is in a dreadfully
chaotic condition. She is unsettled—un¬
hinged, and her conscience keeps pricking
her for her shortcomings, making her temper
fractious and rather trying.
It is quite three weeks since Vansittart has
put in an appearance, and she tries hard to
blame him and to hate him. She has not,
however, succeeded in arriving at her purpose,
when one day the delightful sunny weather
tempts her in company with Jack and Freda
into the small but shady grounds of The
Hollies.
For a graphic description of the feelings of
the trio, perhaps a map of their respective
positions may suffice.
Aileen half lies in a lazy attitude on a
grassy slope. Her shabby straw hat, with
long, faded pink streamers, is flung down
carelessly, with one of her dainty little feet
resting on the brim. She wears a rumpled
white frock—clean, but that is all; it has
seen its best days and is only worn on
occasions like this—when she feels a happy
indifference to how she looks. She pretends
to be very deep in one of Walter Scott's
novels—the only waters of literature allowed
by Captain Ferrers to his offspring—l)ut in
reality she is not reading at all, for the
volume is upside down and she has gone off
in a brown study, in which neither of her
present companions have a place.
She certainly U)oks very charming, in spite
7C A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
of her crumpled frock and her general air of
untidiness, as she lies with five little fingers
imbedded in her chestnut hair supporting her
head; her face is flushed with the sweetest of
pinks by the noon-day heat, her long lashes
droop over her cheeks, and her slight but
rounded figure is symmetry itself.
And Jack, sitting right opposite on a rustic
bench with a cigar between his lips, drinks in
with avidity the bsauty of the girl who is
going to marry him.
It is his sweetheart lying there—^his wife—
that is to be! And as he realises this
delicious fact, the blood boils within him, and
he begins to count up for the ten thousandth
time, how long it will be before that charming
form, that bewildering face, will belong to
him, and him only, till death does them part.
This is the month of July, and in October
Aileen has promised to marry him.
"Zafe in October, Jack, you know, for
then we can honeymoon it in Italy. I am
dying to see Italy. Everything is so beautiful
there, especially the figs. I dote on figs, you
know. And the men are so lovely. I adore
dark men with great big black eyes! "
This is what she had said, and he remembers
how he hated himself for being white of skin
and brown-haired.
A httle apart, placed purposely where she
can see him, herself unseen, Freda sits on a
sketching stool. She is doing violence to her
feelings, for she is really truthful as a child.
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
77
And now she is pretending to draw an old
poplar tree, that stands like a sentinel near
the gate, but in reality she is trying to put
on paper a pleasant, honest face—a face she
sees by day, and dreams of by night. Evi¬
dently it is love's labour lost, for her pretty
brows are knit and a vexed expression flits
over her eyes as she surreptitiously surveys
her work.
Silence has lasted some little time, while
the purple and yellow butterflies skim lazily
over a bed of blood-red carnations and tall
white lilies, and a vicious-looking wasp comes
and settles on the pink face of a rose, and a
few feathery clouds float across the sapphire
plain of sky, while the air seems full of the
fragrance of all sorts of flowers.
Freda looks up at the heavens, and
appreciates their serenity, and sniffs in the
scent of the flowers. The world seems very
bright and beautiful, with the man she loves
within sight.
But Jack and Aileen are matter-o'-fact
enough just now. The beauty of blue ether,
the greenness of foliage, the fragrance per¬
vading all around, find no favour in their
sight or their nostrils. Jack is thinking only
of Aileen, and Aileen is thinking only of—Sir
Lyulph Vansittart.
Presently the " Heart of Midlothian"
tumbles ignominiously from Aileen's hand
with a jerk on to the grass, betokening in its
fall the absenog of mind of its reader.
78
A MODEBN BEIDEGBOOtf.
Jack stoops and picks it up, and seizing,
as it appears to Mm, a golden opportunity, he
imprints a passionate kiss on the fingers
languidly extended for the book.
This passionate little kiss is the last straw
that breaks the camel's back.
Aileen has been wrapped in a vision of
Vansittart, and the caress from another man's
lips makes her mad.
At all times if there is anything she dislikes
it is " spooning," and before a third person
the pastime becomes doubly distasteful in
her eyes. She is just brimming over with
love for the man who has quietly left her for
three whole weeks without apology or a
tender addio, but when a woman loves she
finds it quite easy to forgive seventy times
seven.
She flushes deeply, and with dilating,
scornful eyes, she flings unfortunate Scott
down again with an impatient gesture.
"Jack," she flashes, "I wish you w^ould
leave me alone. I hate being stared at and
kissed, and made to look like a fool before
other people," and she glances meaningly at
Freda, and sees something that lashes her
into greater wrath.
Yet it is only a pretty golden-haired girl,
in a soft, white muslin dress, with enormous
tenderness in the sweet blue eyes that are
fixed sympathetically on Jack—Jack, the
culprit, who by his rash fondness has brought
down an ebullition of anger on himself.
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
79
Then the blue eyes turn on Aileen, and,
for the first time, have reproach in them.
It is enough. Aileen's quick temper rises
to bubbling pitch. She is not in the habit of
bearing reproval from any one tamely or
meekly. By-and-bye, perhaps, if pain and
disappointment become her portion, she may
learn when smitten on one cheek to turn the
other.
She does not pause to reflect—reflection is
a thing her impatient nature is not much
given to, and, not weighing the cruelty of her
words, she blurts out passionately :
"Why on earth don't you transfer your
love making to Freda, Jack ? She would
willingly be the recipient of it, and be grateful
for it, I know! "
Once she has vented her anger in these
words, she feels awfully ashamed of herself,
and to cover her mistake laughs sharply and
unpleasantly.
Jack involuntarily glanced at Freda when
Aileen spoke, and in the crimson blush, the
stricken look in the eyes, in the dumb but
eloquent appeal for forbearance on the
quivering lips, he reads at once the vigilantly-
guarded secret of poor little Freda's heart.
The next moment he has her in his arms,
her white face pillowed on his shoulder, but
she is unconscious of the blissful position,
having fainted away.
" .A^een," he whispers, " be cruel to me if
you like, but don't be cruel to this poor little
80
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
thing, who does not merit it!" and he looks
down rather softly on the pretty, white face,
then blushes like a girl as he meets two open
blue eyes that thank him mutely for his
championship.
Aileen notices the expression of the two
faces, and bites her lips with vexation.
Although she does not care for Jack, she is
unwilling to give him up to some one else—
at least—not yet.
"She pushes Jack aside, and takes charge of
Freda herself.
" Silly child," she says angrily. " What on
earth did I say to raise such a storm in a
teacup ? You must have a nice guilty
conscience, or you would never have taken
my words like this. Freda, my dear, I
believe you are in love with Jack, and all the
while he is head over ears in love with me!
What a stupid game of cross purposes we are
playing!"
Jack has, meanwhile, walked off to the
furthest limit of the rather circumscribed
grounds, in the hope that nothing will reach
his ears. He feels hot and uncomfortable
and awkward, and a shade of anger against
Freda for having placed him in such a
position flits across his mind.
" Hush!" Freda says imploringly. " How
can you say such things—such cruel, cruel
things, Aileen ? And perhaps he heard them!
You don't know how you make me suffer.
Mr. Lyster just worships the ground at your
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN,
81
feet, and I—well, I would die to see you both
happy. I would, Aileen, on my honour!"
" On your honour, little hypocrite! Don't
you know that women's honour lies at the
tips of their fingers ? I just want to impress
a little fact on your mind, which is that Jack
would be far happier with you than w-ith me.
You would just sit at his feet and adore him
—while I have "
" A contempt for him," she is going to say,
but thinks it discreet to pause. It suddenly
occurs to her that it is not wise to run down
the man she is going to marry—whatever she
may think of him herself.
" Freda, if Jack is wise enough to awaken
to the knowledge of what is good for him, I
should not think of interfering with you. I
wish we could settle it all now, do you know.
I think I'll call him "
But the skirt of her dress is seized, with
utter disregard to its further crumpling.
" Aileen, it is downright wicked of you to
try and expose my folly to a man who has no
other thought but you in the world. Listen!"
And Freda pulls her down beside her on the
turf, and in spite of the confession she is
about to make, her small white face grows
bright and her soft blue eyes shine like stars.
" I am afraid I do care for him," she says
shyly, with a gesture towards Jack, whose
back is still determinedly turned towards her,
" and I shall never care for any other man
but him, no, not even if he is ever so nice.
82
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
but I know, of course, that I am nothing to
him—that you are everything, Aileen! Don't
treat him as you do, it quite breaks my
heart to see the pain creep into his eyes when
you are unkind. Think, how rare true love
is, and don't throw it away from you!"
"Eubbish!"
This is the careless answer she gets.
Aileen hates "sentimental twaddle," as she
calls it; and as for " real love," she has not
learnt to value it yet, anyway from the man
they are discussing. Still, when Freda has
gone, and Jack comes slowly across the lawn
looking uncommonly stupid and sheepish,
she thinks, some feeling brings her to look up
quite nicely in his face. It is perhaps that
Freda's adoration of him has exalted him in
her eyes.
" I was awfully cross this afternoon. Jack.
I daresay you hate me! "
Hate me I And he is thinking that he loves
her doubly, just as we prize the sun after
clouds have hidden it away.
"Hate you, darling?" he says with
quivering lips. "I wish you knew how I
love you, but you would have to love to
be able to guess my heart."
She shakes her head.
" I wonder what a heart is like. Jack ? I
once read that some people's hearts are like
sieves, such a lot of holes have been made in
them ! Is your heart like a sieve ? " she asks
laughing.
TWO MAIDS AND A MAN.
83
But Jack looks as grave as a judge.
" You are the only being in the world that
I have loved—do love—shall love for ever.
Haven't I told you so scores of times? Is
your heart a sieve, Aileen ? have any other
fellows made holes in it ? " and he fixes his
eyes on her keenly.
She turns away from the scrutiny im¬
patiently.
"Don't ask questions and you'll hear no
stories. Jack," she replies. "And where
ignorance is bliss 'twere folly to be wise—you
know, dear boy! "
6*
CHAPTER VH.
a modern paul and virginia.
" She was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts
"Which terminated all."
Sitting there amougst the sweet-scented
carnations and garden lilies, and under the
arching trees, with a pale primrose light
filling the western sky, the stars twinkling
out timidly one by one, and nature at peace
after the cares of the day, Freda's love for
him fades right out of Jack Lyster's memory
like an idle dream. She has quietly got out
of forming a trio, and the engaged young
people have it all to themselves. All Jack
remembers is that Aileen is kind to him again,
and the sun rises and sets, and the days glide
quickly by, making no particular footprints
on the sands of time, though they lap Jack's
senses in a sort of Elysium.
What if it is a case of " Good-bye, Summer,
Good-bj'^e, Good-bye." If the golden August
weather wiU soon wane into Autumnal
dreariness—if the carnations and lilies will
soon lie faded and perfumeless, and the trees
that shelter them from the sun's bright rays
will hold out great, gaunt, bare arms towards
A MODERN PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 85
an angry sky—^Jack knows that at the fall of
the leaf Aileen will be his wife.
She has promised it!
From the hour he opens his grey eyes to the
hour he shuts them" he breathes and walks,
and talks, laughs, eats, drinks, and is merry,
in the charming fool's paradise common to
lovers.
Life is just heaven to him now.
Aileen's apparent fondness is like the
ambrosia of the gods, that, we are told,
bestows health, strength, and happiness on
those to whom it falls—Jack is to be pitied,
for he is not a bit like other fellows of the
period.
There is no froth or flummery in his nature.
He is loyal, honest, true as steel, pure as a
girl should be in her thoughts and feelings,
and staunch as men were in the old-fashioned
days—a thousand pities that the first and free
offerings of such a heart as his should be
given to a girl spoilt and wilful, and who
does not in the least appreciative the rara
avis she has won.
Aileen, however, has suddenly put on the
gentleness of the dove. It does not suit her
style, perhaps, for only to look on her face is
to know that her nature is rebellious of
control, and a perverse nature as well, that
dislikes what it ought to like. There is not
naturally anything meek in the light of her
chestnut eyes, or in the quick compression
of her lip under her little white teeth if
86
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
anything happens to ruffle her, but for awhile
Jack's horizon is remarkably serene, and he
delivers himself up to the enjoyment of so
novel a treat.
A very pair of lovers they make too, both
young, both good-looking, and both appa¬
rently in love, as they sit side by side a la
Paul and Virginia by the tall holly hedge,
with a big weeping ash curving over their
heads like a tent. The holly hedge and the
beds of homely blossoms represent the garden
of Eden to Jack, who does not see the serpent
crawling among the flowers.
He murmurs a few inanities—foolish,
loving inanities — but conversation usually
drags a little, and after a while he half
closes his eyes, and begins to picture him¬
self — this rather stolid young Briton,
with a temperament more practical than
poetical—a second Claude Melnotte. He
longs for Paphian bowers, where he and his
love might dweU, and on whose delights he
would like to expatiate, only that, unlike
Pauline, Aileen gives one of her ringing
laughs at any fantastic talk, and infinitely
prefers the gossip and topics of the day.
" Don't be a goose, Jack! A nice house in
Park Lane would be ever so much more
comfortable than those draughty tumble-down
old Italian palaces, or, if you must have trees
and all that sort of thing, Eichmond, with a
nice punt of our own, would be awfully jolly,
you know."
A MOPERN PAUL AND VIROINIA. 87
This is her answer—a little disheartening
perhaps to the gush in his soul—but he
comforts himself by the reflection that palace
or hovel would be heaven with her.
As a rule, Aileen does not care much to
break into Jack's "absurd rhapsodies " ; she
basks indolently in the sunshine, which she
loves, and which suits her tropical tempera¬
ment, and occasionally she heaves a big sigh
of ennui at the part she has elected to play
and begins to despair a little of being able
to sustain the rdle at all creditably.
Sir Lyulph Vansittart has not come back
to Town—she does not know if she will ever
see him again—she begins to feel remorse
that she ever allowed him to fill her thoughts
when she remembers how cruelly he has
behaved—never so much as one word, vocal
or written. Just if he did not know that she
is caring for him with all her heart and
thinking of him night and day. Then she
suddenly awakens to the fact that she is still
engaged to Jack, and fancies she cannot
atone too much but outward impressement
for the injury she does him in letting the
other man's face haunt her always—always.
In spite of everything, the tones of Van-
sittart's voice linger on her foolish little ears
with a sharp and subtle thrill, to the total
extinction of Jack's tender whispers, and now
and then she breaks out into one of her old
impatient fits, but this is seldom now.
" Aileen!"
83
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
"Well?"
" It's only two months to the end of
October, j^ou know!" Jack says, with a
broad smile.
" End of October ? " she asks indifferently.
She has really forgotten for the moment all
about marrying him then.
"End of October? Isn't it then that I
am going to be the happiest fellow in the
world ? "
" Oh, bother!" she blurts out involuntaril}^
then recollects herself. " It's too hot. Jack,
to discuss such an awful responsibility as
marriage!"
"Not if you cared for me," he replies
wistfully. " I want to talk to you so much
about a lot of things."
" Go on," she murmurs languidly, unfurling
a great Japanese fan with an eccentric design
of an old woman riding on a kettle on it.
" I only thought that if you and I could
settle matters a little, that I would see about
taking a small house near here, and you
could tell me exactly how you would like
things done, you know!" Jack says depre-
catingly.
" Ugh! I don't want anything done,
though I am much obliged to you for
thinking of me. I don't see why you should
begin talking of all this in this intolerable
heat, and " she gives a great gasp here—
" it makes me perfectly wretched to think
even of taking a house round here and
A MODERN PAUL AND VIRGINIA, 89
settling down to spend all one's days in a
dreadful kind of dull, domestic Darby -and
Joan jog-trot!"
Jack grows white and dazed, and has the
appearance of a person who sees a long-
cherished chdteau d'espagne tumbling in pieces
about his ears.
"You don't—^you can't really mean what
you say, Aileen ? " he whispers in a strange,
sepulchral sort of voice, and the pallor creeps
and creeps until it reaches the very roots of
his brown hair. "Why, 1 cannot imagine
anything more delightful than sitting down
round here with you."
" It would be too horrible!" she says
quietly.
"Too horrible, Aileen! Good gracious,
you cannot care for me one bit if you mean
that—and I—well, you see, I have never
cared for anyone but you, and I have loved
you desperately ever since the first moment
we met. I should have no idea how to begin
putting you out of my life—now. If you
have ever meant to throw me over, you
should have given me warning long ago—
indeed, you should have—Aileen!"
The reproach, mild as it is, vexes her. If
there is anything she hates, it is to be
blamed; a reproach hardens her heart instead
of softening it.
" That is always the way with you men,"
she remarks caustically behind her fan,
sneaking as if s]ie were quite an experienced
90
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
woman of the world. " How is one to know
how to treat you ? You are provoked if one
is not civil to you, and if one is, you consider
it necessary to fall in love forthwith and make
yourselves wearisome and disagreeable and
say that one is a flirt and nasty things of
that kind. I have told you half-a-dozen times
Jack, that I have no wish to marry and live
in the horrid country—at least not here.
Marriage ought to be a complete change;
what would be the sense of going on exactly
the same humdrum way as one has done all
one's life ? "
Jack, evidently impressed by this new view
of the blissful state of matrimony, stares at
her in a stupid, scared sort of fashion, that
does not tend to brighten her opinion of his
natural intelligence.
" So your idea is that marriage ought
to be a thorough change in everything,
Aileen ? Well, now, I rather liked the idea
of Ealing, because it is here that I first
saw you, but rather than let any notion
of mine in the matter rise up as a barrier
between us two, I will do anything, my
darling, or go anywhere you like. Shall we
settle on "
" Hong Kong!" she flashes.
" Hong Kong! "
Jack's face is a perfect study. He remem¬
bers her often-expressed wish to go round
the world, and believes that the trip is already
in contemplation^ There is not much love of
A MODERN PAUL AND VIROINIA
91
research about him, and he has an insular
weakness for the land on which he has been
nurtured since he was ten years old.
" I don't know much about Hong Kong,"
he murmurs meekly, and a little doubtfully.
" Don't you ?—then I'll tell you. Hong
Kong, an island in China, population large,
climate hot—very hot — produce bamboos,
jos-sticks, ginger, tea, candy. There, I am
last from school, and have Mangnall's
Questions at the tips of my fingers!"
" Don't you like England, Aileen ? " he asks
anxiously.
" I used, I hate it now," she replies bitterly,
" especially this place. Jack, when we are
married, I forbid you ever to speak of Ealing.
I have been very unhappy here at times, and
want to forget it. If you really care for me,
you will promise me this."
He becomes quite moved as he hears the
tremble in her voice, and tries to take her
hand in his, but she draws it back, gently but
firmly.
"Eely on me, my dearest, I shall never
allude to the subject in question or speak on
any matter you dislike."
Thus she makes arrangements to bury her
dead past out of sight.
"Let us go in and ask papa if he wants
anything. I must have a walk, I feel stifling
here," she cries, jumping up from her seat
and closing her fan with a sharp click.
Jack follows her like a faithful dog into
92
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
the house, and to the door of Captain Ferris*
special sanctum.
Knocking, she enters, with Jack still close
at her heels.
Captain Ferrers has gone in for philosophy,
and ensconced in his easy chair is lost to the
outer world in a new and startling theory he
has just discovered and which is in opposition
to Darwin.
He looks up dreamily, and wonders why
Aileen has brought Jack Lyster in to disturb
him, while he shivers at the little draught of
air which the half-open door admits.
"It's a lovely day. Captain Ferrers," Jack
remarks in his most pleasing accents. This
is to be his father-in-law, and he is anxious to
ingratiate himself with him.
" Well, I don't know if it is," is the answer.
"If you had rheumatism in your shoulders,
lumbago in your back, gout flying about
you, and these horrible draughty houses to
complete your list of grievances, to say
nothing of that easterly wind that blows
one's head off, you would not think it was a
lovely day."
And he sinks back exhausted in his chair.
Aileen gives her fiance a covert glance and
tries not to laugh.
"We are going for a walk, papa; do you
want anvthing ? "
•/ n
" Go by all means, but you had better
have your mother to chaperone you. I
dislike girls running all over the place alone
A MODERN PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 93
with young men, Aileen. Call at the chemist's
on your way and order me some camphor
julep — I feel hypochondriacal to-day—a
bottle of iron drops, some tincture for my
rheumatics—this horrible easterly wind plays
Old Harry with my joints."
" Yes, papa."
" And I want some medicated cotton wool,
and tell Godwin not to forget a box of
bronchial troches."
" All right, papa. Good-bye, you dear old
cripple," Aileen says, giving him a hearty
kiss, and stroking his cheeks caressingly
before she turns away.
" Aileen!" he cries before she is out of
hearing. " I was rather grumpy to young
Lyster just now," he says, " but I like him all
the same. I hope, you like him too, child ? "
he asks anxiously. "I hope your mother
hasn't been saying things to prejudice you
against him. You see she is very fond of
titles, and so prefers that puppy Vansittart;
but women are such fools, they can't distin¬
guish gold from dross you know."
" I don't see why you should compare Sir
Lyulph Vansittart to ' dross,' papa I" Aileen
says angrily. "I always agree with you
better than I do with mamma, but in this
case, I consider it's you who are wrong, and
—and—I hate any friend of mine to be
slandered behind his back."
Captain Ferrers stares at her amazed. She
has never spoken like this to him before, and
94
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
it makes him quite nervous and uncomfort¬
able.
"I know very little of that fellow Van-
sittart," he says stiffly, " and I don't care to
know more. Lyster is a honest, straight¬
forward 3'oung man, and will make you a,
good husband. I hope, Aileen, you are not
going to be dishonourable and throw him over
at the eleventh hour for the sake of an over¬
bearing, conceited jackass who only cares for
one person in the world, and that is—him¬
self !" And he throws himself back in his
lounge, very red in the face, frightening her
with a vision of apoplexy and bringing her to
her senses at once.
"Don't go and worry yourself, you old
dear," she whispers lovingly, " I shall be Mrs.
John Lyster in October, and you will be
satisfied. Jack isn't a bad sort. He isn't my
notion of the Apollo, and I don't expect he'll
set the Thames on fire, but I would just as
soon marry him as anyone else," she cries
with a laugh which has very little mirth in it,
and runs off to Jack, who stands with the
patience of Job in the porch.
The next day is sunny and bright, and the
easterly wind is gone, and soon after breakfast
Jack arrives at the Hollies for the purpose of
escorting Aileen to the photographer's.
He runs counter to Captain Ferrers as he
enters the gate. It is a very warm morning,
but, in spite of melting moments, his future
father in-law has on a rough monkey jacket
A MODERN PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
95
and a thick knitted cachenez, while in his
hand, as usual, is a newspaper.
He is very glad to see Lyster, to make the
amende honorable for his " grumpiness" of
yesterday, and addresses him cordially.
" I hear Aileen is off to be photographed
to-day. She is not ready yet, women take
such a devil of a time adonising, you see.
Have you looked over the papers today?
There is positively a dearth of news, nothing
in fact, but letters from different seasides. I
wonder the editors have the impudence to
print such insufferable trash!"
" Somebody must care to read it, I
imagine," Jack answers with a smile.
" So I suppose—the world is full of asses
and fools no doubt. Pity they are not made
to wear caps and bells. I think I shall go in
now and try to read if my rheumatics will
allow me. I am glad I bought that anti-
Darwinian theory ; it is really quite inter¬
esting, and makes one forget that one has a
liver. It goes to prove that we were men, but
have degenerated into monkeys. I don't
know what I should do, ill as I am, if I hadn't
some valuable work of this kind to fall back
CHAPTER VIII.
"sorry!"
" Yea, if I cotild, would I have you see
My very love of you filling me,
And know my soul to the quick."
Jack and his liege lady turn out of the gate
of The Hollies into the main road, which is
usually dusty and unpleasant enough.
This particular morning, however, it is
quite pleasant, with a nice little breeze
meeting them on the journey to the photo¬
graphers. Aileen has had an invitation by
the early post to a soiree dansante" at a
retired Indian major's, and is engrossed in
planning a smart frock for the occasion.
" If I can only persuade papa to give me
two pounds, I'll get that rose du the muslin
that I saw at Whiteley's the other day," she
thinks, when Jack's" manly voice, that proves
the soundness of his lungs, but is not out-of-
the-way subtle or soft, arouses her.
" What a lovely little house one might build
just here," he says, looking round admiringly
at an aspect which she thinks flat, stale and
unprofitable: " don't you think so, Aileen ? "
" I don't know," she answers carelessly.
" Ealing is all very well, but I shouldn't care
"SOKRYI"
97
to live here for ever, as I told you yesterday.
You are thinking of preparing a nice quiet
place where the evening of your days can be
passed, I suppose ? " she goes on with a laugh.
" Certainly there is nothing like taking Father
Time by the forelock, but I should be content
to let the evening of my days provide for
itself so long as I could have the morning as
I chose!"
Lyster looks like a man in a fog who does
not know what he is going to run against next.
He regards her fixedly, and perplexity pre¬
dominates in his gaze. The fact is that he is
doubtful whether the queen of his soul is in
joke or in earnest.
" I was not thinking of the evening of my
life, darling. I am not so very old yet. I
believe I was only twenty-five last birthday.
But I do not see how a man could wish for
a prettier bit of scenery than this to settle
down in.
" I don't know about a man" Miss Ferrers
answers, with a dubious shake of her head,
" but I am quite sure a woman likes something
different, and need not be very unreasonable
if she does!" And the straight little profile
assumes a supercilious expression as she
surveys the surroundings. She thinks that
she is quite of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that one
cannot live upon scenery.
" My good gracious I What could she
want ? " asks Jack—solid, slow-coach Jack—
waxing energetic. " This part is not only
98
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
pretty but uncommonly healthy, I have heard.
Both air and water are excellent, and the
drainage first-rate!"
" Oh, don't bother me about those horrid
things!" she says impatiently—his common¬
place allusions to air and water and drainage
irritate her. "Let us walk on quickly, or
the photographer man will think we are not
cominfT!"
O
" No, no, don't walk too fast. You will
get hot and your hair will come down. Walk¬
ing fast always brings your back hair down,
you know."
" You are really consideration itself where
my hair is concerned, but as it all happens to
be on my head, it does not much signify if it
does come down! If ever I marry, I shall
have my head cropped the first thing. It
will not signify then being beautiful, and a
Brutus coiffure is so very convenient and cool
you know!"
" Indeed, I hope you won't dream of doing
such a thing," he replies hastily. " It would
be a downright shame on your part," and he
puts out his hand and touches the doomed
locks with all the reverence possible.
Aileen lets him. She is proud of her hair,
and the soft stroke of his palm affords a
pleasant, soothing sensation to her vanity.
Suddenly she glances up at him and sees a
long face and pale cheeks that startle her.
" What's the matter. Jack ? You look as
if you had seen a ghost! "
"SOERYl"
• 99
" I feel a little unhappy, darling, that's all.
It is very stupid of me—but the idea of going
away from you, even for a little while, is an
awful wrench."
" Going away!" she exclaims, and her
heart gives quite a leap of joy, which a
moment after she is sorry for, " where are you
going to ? " she goes on quickly.
" Up to Cumberland—the old folks want
me at once. They are both ailing, and I dare
say both of them fancy they are not long for
this world, I must go, my darling, if it's only
for your sake. You see they can leave their
money to someone else if they are angry with
me, and that money may some day be nice for
you, Aileen!"
" Yes, of course you must go—to-morrow,
if possible. "It won't do to delay, you
know," she says quickly. " How long shall
you be away ? "
" I don't know. About a fortnight or three
weeks perhaps—an age it seems to me," he
answers dolefully. " Still you will write to
me, and be very good and constant to me. I
shall live on the hope of seeing you again."
" Very good and constant," she says im¬
petuously. " Surely, Jack, if by chance I fell
in love with some one during your absence,
you wouldn't wish me to marry you, would
you ? "
He colours up furiously, and a hurt look
comes into his eyes. Under this aspect,
which has the charm of novelty, as he usually
7*
100
A MODEEN BRIDEGROOM.
is rather stolid of feature, his appearance
improves wonderfully, and young women like
Miss Ferrers—foolish virgins • who have not
' trimmed their lamps with the oil of caution—
are apt to go mad occasionally if a handsome
Adonis or stalwart Hercules rises up before
them.
Jack Lyster is neither an Adonis nor a
Hercules. He is simply a very good specimen
of an Englishman, with an honest, well-look¬
ing face and a tall, powerful figure, but with
the hot blood in his cheek, and a soft light,
born of wounded love, in his gaze, his
features show up more expressively than
usual, and Aileen, as she looks at him,
almost believes that she is willing to marry
him.
" I did not mean to vex you," she says
apologetically. " You have always been nice
to me. Jack—much more than I deserve—
I'll try and keep very constant to you, and I
dare say it will be all right in the end. It's
you who are always worrying about marrying
me, but—who knows? perhaps one of these
fine days it will be I who will say ' thank
you. Jack, for your affection! I am quite
willing to accept it,' and in another year or
two, maybe, you and I shall be jog-trotting
down this very road, a regular old Darby and
Joan!"
Miss Ferrers does not flinch a bit from the
picture she draws. The truth is that marriage
with Jack seems vague, unreal altogether, but
«' SORRY!»
101
the picture she has drawn brings a world of
emotion into his countenance.
" God grant it!" poor Jack cries devoutly,
but somehow he hardly believes that what she
says will come to pass, and there is gravity
in his features, and more of wistfulness than
hopefulness in his grey eyes.
" Aileen," he says, in a soft, earnest voice—
a voice she has never heard from him before!
Love has toned its cadence almost into music,
" I may be more to you some day than I am
now, or I may be nothing, but you will always
be everything to me. I know I make a poor
lover, for I have no fine speeches at command,
but you don't want me to tell you that the
doing or undoing of my life is in your hands
—for you know it already. My darling, if it
would make you happy, I would lay my heart
down in the dust for you to crush beneath
your feet—better that than that, out of mere
pit}^, you should come to me and crush your
own happiness by the act. I will wait for
you—hope for you—pray for you, Aileen.
Aileen! I would die for you a thousand
times, but I will never let you bind your life
to mine unless love itself signs the contract I"
Aileen reads the truth of his words on the
poor young fellow's face—the white, steadfast
face is like an open book to her. His unselfish¬
ness conquers her, and she says impetuously:
" Kemember, Jack, we are going to be
married one of these days. I am not going to
let you off your bargain I "
102
A MODERN BRIDEOROOM.
He looks at her, and smiles—a tender, woe¬
begone smile and a dubious one.
The next day she goes with him to Euston,
and waves her handkerchief, looking at him
with kindly eyes, as the train slowly takes
him out of view, but there is no real regret in
the rich depths of her chesnut eyes, and
somehow her heart feels lighter as she wends
her way home.
As she enters the Hollies, she meets her
mother in the hall.
" Well, is that Lyster gone ? " Mrs. Ferrers
questions.
" It is always " that Lyster " with her, and,
although Aileen does not care for him, she
resents the man she is engaged to, the man
who is going to be her property, being spoken
of contemptuously.
" Yes," she answers curtly.
" For how long ? "
" I am sorry to say he will be away some
three weeks," she replies regretfully, but
hypocritically.
" I am glad of it, and so wiU you be, Aileen,
when I tell 3'ou something," and Mrs. Ferrers'
dusky face grows quite bright as she looks at
her daughter. " Can you guess what it is ? "
Aileen's heart seems to stop still, and a
crimson blush dyes her cheek, but though she
loves her father, to her mother she is cold and
reserved as a rule.
" I hate riddles, mamma, and you are a
riddle I can seldom unravel," she says.
"SOBRYI"
103
" Sir Lyulph Vansittart has been here, and
was so disappointed at not seeing you. He is
coming again to-morrow."
Aileen presses her hand down surreptitiously
on her heart to stop its beating.
" Is he ? "
The tone of her voice is indifference itself,
and Mrs. Ferrers' face falls as she hears it.
Surely Aileen cannot really be in love with
that Lyster, that nobody—whose name even
belongs to the man who has adopted him.
The very idea of the girl, obstinate and wilful
as she knows she can be, frustrating all her
hopes and marrying without the advantages
of title or money makes her quite ill.
" Aileen! "
Miss Ferrers has reached the top of the
stairs, but she looks down over the banisters.
" What is it?"
" What is it ? Why, I wish to know
whether you are glad or sorry at what I told
you. I won't be left in this state of suspense,"
Mrs. Ferrers cries impatiently.
« Sorry!"
And Aileen walks into her own room, and
carefully locks her door.
Her mother isn't here to see, so she throws
herself into a little wicker-chair, and sobs hke
a child for a few moments, then she dashes at
her wet eyes.
" He shall love me!" she says, with a
dazzling smile.
CHAPTER IX.
what aileen does with her love-letter
" It is to be all made of fantasy—
All made of passion—and all made of wishes-
All adoration—duty and observances—
All humbleness—all patience and impatience—
All purity—all trial."
Late in the afternoon Sir Lyulpli Vansittart
puts in his appearance, and is ushered into
the small and not too luxuriously furnished
drawing-room at the Hollies, in which the
family are taking tea.
Aileen, who has not closed her eyes all
night—but, nervous and unhinged at the
prospect of seeing him, has tossed restlessly
on her pillow—looks pale and wan, and is
very silent; in fact, after the first conven¬
tional greeting, she seems to have lost all
power of making conversation, and after a
few minutes gives the attempt up in despair.
She looks like a lovely statue, as she sits
dressed all in white; and this afternoon, her
frock is freshness itself, and Vansittart, as he
looks at her, acknowledges that what she has
lost in vivaciousness she has gained in
beauty.
Captain Ferrers gulps down his tea hastily
and nearly chokes himself in haste to get
WHAT AILEEN DOES WITH HER LOVE-LETTER. 105
back to his valuable anti-Darwinian studies ;
besides, he dislikes the guest, and takes no
trouble to hide it. Mrs. Ferrers has the
talking all to herself, and is quite at her
liveliest. It is so delightful to be pl3dng tea
and handing bread - and - butter to an
eighteenth baronet! The fact of his being
this covers any deficiencies he may possess.
She admires him and reverences him, and
looks down on Lyster, who is only plain
Lj'ster socially speaking; and she watches
with anxiety the effect this visit has on her
daughter — dreading disappointment in her
ambitious hopes.
But Aileen baffles her completely. No
one, to see the girl apparently so listless and
uninterested, would for a moment surmise
that the man opposite was anything to her
beyond an acquaintance, though at this very
moment she is caring for him with all her
heart.
The fact is that to sustain her part at all
creditably in the farce—for a wretched little
farce it is she has been playing with Lyster—
she knows that the only way to keep her
pledge will be to avoid all tete a-tetes with
Vansittart. She feels that however wnlling
h.er spirit may be to act rightly, that the flesh
is verj' weak, and that it would be impossible
for her to resist his influence if opportunity is
allowed him to exercise it. She does not put
an atom of faith in her good resolutions—all
of which will take flight, she feels persuaded.
106
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
at the first real sign of love in the other
man.
Still she makes a pretence of avoidance
which simply goads Vansittart further in his
fancy for her, imagining that she is not as
attainable as he thought, though all the while
she falls deeper and deeper in love with him.
All her old occupations have grown weari¬
some to the last degree.
Vansittart's presence, and Vansittart's
society, are such intoxicating " hashish"
after which all wholesome fare seems coarse
and unpalatable.
Altogether at this period Aileen's life is
very unhappy. What with a tortured heart
and a smiling face, and eyes heavy with
unshed tears, which she does not let fall for
very shame, her existence seems purgatory.
She believes fully that Vansittart is simply
amusing himself with her, and hates and
scorns herself for being so foolish as to care
for him. Pride, her only bulwark of defence
against herself, is failing fast, and she finds its
support grow daily weaker, while all the
softness in her nature cries out yearningly
for the love she thinks is denied her.
Poor, passionate, spoilt girl as she is, she
cannot understand why this man's heart—
the only thing she has really craved for—
should not be hers when a dozen hearts
she does not want, that are no earthly good
to her, are laid at her feet. It is too hard!
She never thinks of Jack now, and tosses
WHAT AILEEN DOES WITH HER LOVE-LETTER. 107
his poor, loving letters aside, unread and
uncared for. One word from Vansittart
would scatter all her old resolutions to the
four winds and Jack with them. That little
word would bring her a willing captive to his
feet, to sit and worship the image now
clothed in gorgeous hues. His eyes have told
her, more especially of late, that he admires
her and likes being with her, but not a
syllable has fallen from his lips that she can
construe into a declaration of love.
The love-making is charming and fascinat¬
ing, but so shadowy and vague, that if he
wished to say good-bye to her to-morrow, he
could do so without a stain on his honour.
Marriages, they say, are made in heaven or
down below. Nineteen out of a score of
marriages, judging by the immense amount of
evil that predominate over the good, suggest
the depths rather than the heights as their
place of manufacture. Anyway, without
being fatalists, we have an idea that human
beings are destined for one another, and that
human will seldom averts the match that is to
be—people must, in fact, be brought together
by blind fortune, or else men and women,
utterly antipathetic to one another in every
taste and feeling, could hardly be mated
together for hfe till death.
Jack meanwhile passes a weary time in
Cumberland, his only joy, a few words from
Aileen—conventional, uninteresting effusions,
with nothing genuine about them, but which
108
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
he devours with kisses, and lays carefully
under his pillow at night.
" It makes me dream of her, the darling!
God bless her," he says before he goes to
sleep.
He only remembers the little smile on the
pretty red lips as she waved her farewell, and
he rests confidently in the conviction that on
his return Aileen will fix the day which is to
be the white day in the calendar of his life.
It does not come into his head for a
moment how far that day is from Aileen's
thoughts, and how she would shrink from it,
knowing the barrier it would be between
her and the man whom she has elected to
love.
The accomplishment of the end decreed by
the Fates has, after all, only been delayed,
and poor Jack, with his fond, loyal heart, is a
doomed holocaust on the altar of woman's
fickleness.
Vansittart's temper, never of the best, has
been considerably riled during his visits to the
Hollies by not finding Aileen watching for his
advent, and his dignity, which, by the way,
constitutes a very large portion of himself,
has suffered supremely when the one person
he has come to see has proved an absentee.
Wounded amour propre is Aileen's best
friend after all, for it makes the man resolve
to brave his rigorous family motto and do
King Cophetua.
Directly he has made up his mind to
WHAT AILEEN DOES WITH HER LOVE-LETTER. 109
sacrifice himself, his noblesse, and everything
else in fact, sooner than lose Aileen, he is not
of the sort to let the grass grow under his
feet, especially when his steps tend towards
the nucleus of his whole being—self-gratifica¬
tion.
With Sir Lyulph Vansittart's handsome but
cold eyes fixed on her blushing face, with his
usually curling lips whispering warm words
in her ear, with his kisses pressed on her
quivering mouth, Aileen gives herself up to
the good that the gods have brought her, and
feels herself lifted to a seventh heaven. It is
quite enough to turn her head to know that
the cold blue eyes have positively softened
with unutterable tenderness for her, that the
usually measured voice has breathed such
wonderful, such passionate protestations of
love—enough for her that the man whom her
mother had taught her to look upon as im¬
measurably superior to herself in birth and
position has come at last—at last!—quite a
humble suppliant.
Who can blame a bit of a girl, inexperi¬
enced, unversed in worldly lore, impetuous,
spoilt, for breaking faith, and giving herself
over without a struggle to the new lover—
her excuse the pitiable weakness of most
women when under the mighty influence of
" love ? " Aileen is culpable and miserably
fickle, but she is the sex all over—the sex
that are helpless as new-born babes, powerless
as fragile, fluttering leaves driven by the
no
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
blast, when Cupid rides like the Erl-king over
walls of pride and five-barred gates of excel¬
lent resolutions.
The eighteenth baronet beside his long
pedigree, possesses a master spirit, and it is
not long before Aileen recognises this. It
was only quite at the commencement of their
acquaintance that she had preserved to her¬
self feminine rights, such as an occasional
indulgence in caprice, blowing hot and cold,
and endeavouring to jest or otherwise to put
down any self-conceit he showed.
But this period seems to her very long ago,
and Aileen, in these very early days of her
engagement, is not the same Aileen by any
means in her white Pacha's presence that she
is in his absence. His presence disperses in a
twinkling of an eye all attempts at flippancy
of speech or petulance of manner. She is
quiet, even subdued, but not depressed, for
the archness in her eyes is replaced by a shy
love-light, and though she does not give her
ringing laughs, her lips part continually in a
happy smile.
She is afraid of the man she is going to
marry, yet she adores him to a fatuous
extent. She sees all his faults through rose-
coloured glass, and in the prospective fulfil¬
ment of a destiny which appeared to her far
too delicious ever to be realised, she forgets
everything. She lavishes downright worship
on him, and thinks it quite inadequate to his
merits, personal and mental.
WHAT AILEEN DOES WITH HER LOVE-LETTER. Ill
In the quiet of her own room, she thinks
now and then of Lyster. She wonders how
she will ever be able to sum up courage
sufficient to speak to him of her falsity—
especially after the little episodes, sensational
at times, that have occurred between them—
reproaches—penitence — renewal of vows—
even—kisses!—by which she let him thank
her for making it up. Aileen is not at all a
fast, free-thinking girl, but it has never struck
her forcibly—until now, when she is so really
and desperately in love—the loss of self-
respect she has incurred by permitting
caresses that her heart never sanctioned.
Poor Jack's touch—though Heaven knows
it is double-distilled purity compared with
Vansittart's—seems now to have been quite a
desecration to the infatuated girl, who never
dreams of rebukin<? Vansittart's freedom of
glance, and who yields up her fresh red lips,
rejoicing in the contact of those other lips
that have been soiled, alas, so many times by
ephemeral and worthless fancies.
Aileen has shown lots of courage in over- ■
leaping all barriers of right and wrong that
stood in the way of her marriage with Sir
Lyulph, but she is very cowardly when she
thinks of the moment that Jack will know
she has spoilt his life.
When " poor old Jack," as she still calls
him to herself, said to her in the old days—
days not so very long ago, but which appear
to her like a ceniury : " Yes, Aileen, faithful
112
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
for ever—faithful unto death to you!" she
had never doubted his assertion.
It sounded ridiculously romantic and even
a little tiresome in her ears, but all the same
she thoroughly believed he meant it. She
knows quite well that Jack is no sham—that
truth is written on his honest, good-looking
face. She quite acknowledges all his sub¬
stantial virtues even though she has bowled
him over for someone whom she really knows
very little about, but who is just perfect in
her eyes.
Jack has been detained in the North nearly
five weeks, but the old people are better, and
this is what his letter says this morning:
" My very own darling—Hurra! I shall be
back to-morrow. I am longing to see you—
I am thirsting for a—kiss. Have one ready
for me, won't you, Aileen ? A nice long one,
and fix the day so that I may know at once
—ai once when my wife will come to me.
"J. L."
If he could see the frown that makes her
straight brows meet as she reads these words
and tears his letter into fragments!
CHAPTER X.
good-bye—jack!
" Whea hope is chidden that fain of love would tell,
And love forbidden in the breast to dwell,
"When fettered by a viewless chain, we turn and gaze
and turn again,
Oh, death were mercy to the pain of them that bid
farewell."
Aileen gives a great start when, just after
Vansittart has left her, Jane the housemaid
announces that Mr. Lyster is in the morning-
room.
Feeling very much of a culprit, she
descends the stairs slowly, and with fingers
that tremble just a little bit turns the handle
of the door.
The first thing that meets her view is the
back of Jack's tall, stalwart form as he stands
gazing out of the window ; but at the sound
of her step—flight as it is—he looks round,
his face beaming all over, and rushes half-way
across the room.
Here he pauses—there is something in the
girl's expression that seems to paralyze his
movements—but the next instant his heart
is stronger than himself and he makes a dash
at the slender figure and clasps it in his
arms. _
8
114
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Aileen struggles out of his embrace, emerg¬
ing with a very flushed face and great eyes
burning with indignation.
" You should not be so rough, Jack ! " she
cries angrily. One would really think you
were a Goth!"
He draws back—grievously hurt—then
mustering up courage, he says, like a penitent
schoolboy:
"Won't you let me kiss you, Aileen?
You know I have been away ages and
ages!"
" Certainly wui," she answers in a strange
manner that amazes him. " I am not in the
habit of kissing everybody I meet!"
" Everybody ? Am I become everybody,
Aileen ? "
"No!" she says, with a meaning laugh
which he cannot understand, "not exactly
everybody. Sit down, and then we can talk
comfortably. Haye you enjoyed yourself?
I think the change has done you good,
judging by your looks."
" I am quite well—and you, darling—how
are you ? You look prettier than ever—but
somehow I don't think your manner is so nice
as before!"
" I am sorry you don't approve of me,"
she replies with mock humility. " Some
people think me perfect in everything."
" Do they ? Perhaps those people hav^e
been spoiling you in my absence ? " he asks
suspiciously.
GOO JJ-BYE—JACK!
115
" I don't know about spoiling me—but it is
far pleasanter to have nice things said of one
than reproaches."
" I am sure I don't wish to reproach you,"
he says gravely. " I know you cannot help
being bright and beautiful. I would not wish
you to help it if you could. If you were
my wife, Aileen, I should never be jealous
or suspicious. I should be proud of men
admiring you. But you see you don't really
belong to me yet, and so I cannot help
being jealous and miserable and disagree¬
able. I see you are not a bit glad to have
me back, and the sooner I go away again
the better."
She looks at him, and marks positive
tears standing in his eyes, and the sight
softens her.
" Jack, you will make me feel as if I were
the wickedest girl breathing. To think that
after five week's absence the first thing I do
is to vex you."
"Never mind, darling, about that," he
replies, trying to look quite cheerful. "Of
course I knew in a manner what sort of wel¬
come you would give me—and, Aileen, what
shabby little letters you wrote—and not one
word of love in them! How have you been
amusing yourself? "
" Oh, I don't know. I have not amused
myself at all. I think I am really quite
changed lately—I am tired of everything and
everybody almost, •except ■"
8*
116
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
She pauses and blushes hotly in spite of
her. Lyster looks at her keenly.
" Well, I am afraid I cannot flatter myself
that I am the exception to the things you are
tired of," he says with a quiver on his mouth.
And he thinks how hard she is—how cold!
" The old people were not so well last
evening, and they begged me to stay with them
longer—but I just couldn't / I was 3'earning
to see you, Aileen. So I told them I would
go up North again in a day or two. Now I
am here, I may stay for a little while—
mayn't I ? I want j'^ou to tell me all about
yourself—all this long time. Did you go to
the Harrisons' dance ? "
" Harrisons' dance ? Oh, yes, I remember;
but that was ages ago," she says languidly.
" I wonder if it was as complete a failure in
the way of enjoyment to everybody as it was
to me!"
"Failure?" repeats Jack in astonishment.
"Do you mean to say that you went to a
party and didn't enjoy it ? Wh}^ that's quite
a new state of things, Aileen! "
" But all the same, it's true. The fact is I
think I am tired of attention—it's so fatiguing
you know."
"I thought all women loved attention
and never tired of it up to four-score, if
they could get it," Jack answers, trying to
laugh.
" Attention is not half as agreeble as any¬
body merely looking on might think," Aileen
GOOD-BYE-JACK I
117
pursues musingly. " One grows so tired of a
constant succession of men who say exactly
the same things in substantially the same
manner, and are, most of them, only fit for
dancing monkeys. Now, with the greatest
love for dancing in the world, one can't dance
all the time, and after a while one grows
horribly tired of looking pleased when one is
bored, and interested when one wants to
yawn."
" I should thinks it must be hard work,"
Jack remarks sympathetically.
"Awfully hard work," observes Miss
Ferrers, with suddenly developed misan¬
thropy. " I begin to agree with a lady—a
very wise lady—who told me one day that
not one acquaintance out of twenty whom
she made ever repaid her for the trouble of
knowing him."
" How pleasant and flattering for her ac¬
quaintances," says Jack, who has never lived
much in what is called " Society." " If she
spoke like that of men, how did she speak of
women ? "
" I don't think she thought they ever
repaid her," Aileen says, with a ghost of a
smile.
The afternoon has slipped by, and the
evening air comes in fresh and cool, and a
sweet subtle scent rises up from the garden
hard by. Down in a narrow streamlet that
purls at the back of the house, the frogs
croak hoarsely and loudly.
118
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
"Good gracious, what a noise the crea¬
tures are making !" Aileen says. " How
often we have sat here and listened to them
—have we not ? "
" I think the frogs croak louder here than
anywhere else; at all events, I shall hear in
the North very soon and be able to judge."
"Were you really in earnest when you
spoke about going away again soon, or were
you only anxious to see if I would burst into
tears and cry ' Oh, Jack, don't' ? "
" If I had been foolish enough to entertain
an idea like that, I am afraid I should have
been greatly disappointed," he says sorrow¬
fully. " No; I was very much in earnest—
sad, sober earnest, I assure you. I felt this
afternoon, when you received me as you did,
that I should be quite ill if I stayed, and saw
the distance between us two widening more
hopelessly each day; so I said 'Jack, my
boy, it is quite time you gave up all idea of
making her really care for you ; don't wait
till your blood is so hot that mischief may
come of it.' So I made up my mind to go
up to Cumberland to-morrow."
" What good advice you give yourself,"
Miss Ferrers says admiringly, and with an
extra soupqon of respect in her glance.
" Now I am never able to be firm and decided
with myself hke that—I wish I could be."
" You think it was good advice then ?"
asks poor Jack, very wistfully, very dolefuUy,
for he has hoped against hope that his an-
GOOD-BYE-JACK I
119
nouncement of departure would be received
very differently.
Aileen hesitates a moment, then her
natural frankness and impetuosity get the
better of her.
" Yes, I think it is good advice! I shall
be very sorry to see you go—no, don't shake
your head in that doubtful way, I mean what
I say honestly—I am not using the words as
I would to any acquaintance for whom I did
not care a fig—but if it is for your real good.
Jack, as they always told us when we were
children and had to take nasty physic, why,
I can bear it! I am sure if you stay and
come and see me you won't be happy, for
I am such an abominable person that it
only makes people miserable to care for
me!"
"What an idea to have of yourself," re¬
plies Jack, with a tender chord in his voice.
" I hope you don't think for a moment that it
is because I am angry with you that I am
going. As I said before, of course you can't
help being beautiful and being admired, and
I am not unreasonable enough to blame you
for liking to dance with and talk to other
fellows. But—it is very hard to see," he adds,
wishing to speak moderately. " It makes me
jealous and wretched, and I make you un¬
comfortable, so, on your account as well as
my own, I had better keep away as long as
I can—and—and perhaps absence may make
your heart grow^ fonder, Aileen!"
130
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Miss Ferrers gives a sigh and reflects a
moment, then she says solemnly:
" I think you are too good for this world,
Jack; you are so kind and forbearing, and I
am not fit to tie your shoe strings. I don't
know any woman who is — women are
generally such heartless, selfish flirts. I have
it!" she cries suddenly, with an animated
smile, " there's Freda! Freda Charteris ; she
simply adores you, and she is very domestic,
and you need a domestic wife, Jack,
you know, one who won't mind settling
down round here, and who will never
contradict you or call you horrid names
as I have done. If you would but make
up your mind to marry Freda, Jack, you
would make me the happiest, happiest girl
on earth."
He listens, and his temples throb and burn,
and his heart seems to leave its proper
position and to settle in a big leaden lump in
his throat.
" As to my being good," he says huskily,
" you know that is all nonsense. God knows
I don't set myself up as being better than
other men, but I always thought it a shabby
thing for a man to try and torment a woman
into marrying him. I don't mean to do that
— but you won't feel bored, will you, Aileen,
if I ask you just once if there is any hope
for me — the least, least bit of hope in the
world ? "
His voice trembles in spite of himself, and
GOOD-BYE—JACK!
121
the pleading, yearning eyes gaze at her in the
growing dusk.
Miss Ferrers gives another sigh — a deeper
one—and clasps her two little hands nervously
together in her lap.
She feels rather than sees the longing in the
good-looking, honest face turned towards her,
and she hears and understands much better
than she did a few weeks ago the eccents of
restrained passion in the familiar voice.
It comes to her for the first time, with a
sudden realisation, that she, who would not
willingly harm the meanest worm that crawls
the earth, must of necessity inflict the sharpest
and most positive pain on this poor, loving
heart. The thought costs her a real pang,
for there is in her character none of that
callous cruelty which makes so many of her
sex absolutely indiflerent to suflering of this
kind.
" I hope you won't be very sorry," she says
at last, and her voice, which to him has
always sounded sweet, sounds just now like
spoken music. " I hope you are fully con¬
vinced that I would never suit you, and that
I am not worth regretting ; for I—I think we
had better not marry. Jack ; it would not be
for your happiness or mine, I am afraid."
There is a minute's silence. The evening
breeze comes with a swish and gently stirs
the foliage of the climbing roses on the
window, the stars wink and blink naughtily
at one another#, the roistering frogs croak
1^ A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
louder and hoarser in the little streamlet, and
Jack knows his castle in the air has fallen in
ruins at his feet.
He says nothing — he gathers himself up,
smothers a rebellious sigh, and in the gloom
presses his teeth down hard on his nether lip.
What can he say, unless he casts himself
on her pity ? and he is too English at heart to
do that.
It is the girl who speaks presently again.
" Jack," she whispers, laying her hand on
his arm, while he shivers, strong man as he
is, under her touch and averts his face that
she may not read the misery written on it,
" tell me you are not very unhappy. I don't
care how angry you are. I don't care if you
think me a jilt, a horrid, unprincipled, fickle
girl, if you even only say that you don't mind
it a very great deal," and she stops and gulps
down a sob.
Jack turns round with something like a
laugh, an odd catching sound in his throat,
and taking the hand that still lies on his arm,
clasps it in a vice like grasp which almost
makes her scream. She heroically represses
the inclination however, thinking, " If it does
him any good, poor fellow, I can stand it,"
and for another second or two there is silence
then.
" Aileen," Jack says, hoarsely as the frogs
that keep him company, " I never thought a
hard thing of you since we have known each
other. I never shall — understand that. I
OOOD-BYE—JACK!
123
liave tried with all my soul to make you love
me, and I have failed. That is not your
fault, and I hope I know how to bear it like a
man. Life will be very dark, very dark," he
murmurs, dashing his hand against his eyes,
" but no doubt I shall do very well, and
perhaps some day be the better for it. But,
oh, Aileen, I love you so! I have loved you
so that it feels like getting my death blow.
However, don't let it vex you^ dear — God
bless you, and — Good-bye!"
" Good-bye, Jack."
She says it mournfully enough. The
parting saddens her somehow more than she
could have believed. She knows how im¬
possible it will be to drop back into the old
existence, the idle careless existence of a few
months ago; she feels dimly, feels, though
she does not know, that she has tasted of the
tree of knowledge and that the happy un¬
conscious ignorance of the past will never
return.
And JacTc is conscious of a wild, insane
longing to fasten his strong hands on the
thnjat of the man who he knows has robbed
him of her, though common sense tells him
that he has never possessed her in the first
instance.
CHAPTEE XI.
" FOR THE LAST TIME—LYULPH ! "
" Is it worth a tear—is it worth an hour,
To think of things that are well outworn;
Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,
The dream foregone and the deed forehorne ? '*
" So Sir Lyulph Vansittart is really married ?
I never believed it would have come off,"
little Mrs. Belton says with a decided soupqon
of regret in her liquid voice. She is one of a
small knot of idlers one bright morning in the
Park. " To think that Lady Cecilia's de¬
voted, and the most fastidious man about
Town, should be transmogrified into that
dullest and most uninteresting of bores, a
husband. What do you think of marriage.
Lord Parlington ? "
" What do 1 think of marriage ? " he says.
He is a cynical man, and though he has been
put down as a bridegroom elect of one of the
handsomest and well-preserved women among
our aristocrats, he hates matrimony. " I take
it as those that deny purgatory :
' It locally contains a Heaven or hell,
There's no third place in it.'
Vansittart has put the halter round his own
"FOR THE LAST TIME-LYULPH !" 125
neck, however, so he'll have to grin and
bear it."
" Lady Vansittart looked like a dream in
her bridal paraphernalia," puts in the Mar-
chesa Santa Cruza, a fast little Italian woman,
who, being lovely herself, can afford to be
charitable to other women.
" If she had not cried. I wonder why she
cried ?" Mrs. Belton murmurs reflectively,
her dainty head crowned with a wealth of
venetian-hued tresses, drooping a little to one
side, and her cerise-hned sun-shade touching
her pretty sentimental face with the tint of a
sea-shell. " I suppose she married for love,
or do you think she married for title and
money ? Yet it must have been for love, for
Lyulph Vansittart is so awfuUy, awfully
fascinating, when he likes, you know."
And she sighs a little for the days that are
no more, when Vansittart used to whisper
soft nothings in her ear at Greenwich dinners,
Hurlingham and such like outings.
O O
He has plenty to answer for in the way
of damage to what we are pleased in this
nineteenth century to dignify by the name of
" hearts."
" A pity then that you women have done
your best to spoil his manners," Lord Par¬
tington observes grimly. " Vansittart is the
most conceited ass I ever met, and all because
you have chosen to glorify him. An excellent
joke, however, that that little Ferrers girl, an
outsider, has wen so easily in a canter!"
126
A MODEEtT BRIDEGROOM.
" Hateful man!" the two ladies whisper
simultaneously, as if the devil were between
them, and turning their prime Directoire coat
tails towards him they begin an animated
discussion on the respective merits of the
passing frocks, till Lord Parlington's voice
attracts their attention once more.
" It's not much of happiness that Vansittart
will give that poor girl," he says, half in
sohloquy. " He comes of a comical stock.
His old father was a pompous old fool, always
cramming noblesse oblige down your throat,
but his mother and nearly all his ancestors in
the female line beat Eecamier hollow. They
were a pack of fast jades. With all his
hypocritical ways, it's not in Vansittart's
blood to be steady, and directly his fancy for
his new possession is off, he'll go slap-bang to
the Old Gentleman. I met an old brother
officer of the girl's father at the club yes¬
terday, and he says the child has less nonsense
about her than the generality of her sex, and
is a credit to any man's taste."
" Lady Vansittart ought to have been not
only lovely and stylish, but one of her
husband's own set. Nobody but you. Lord
Parlington, with your outre notions, would
ever think the Ferrers girl — an insignificant
little nobody—half good enough for the prize
she's picked up," Mrs. Belton cries effusively,
envjdng insignificant Miss Ferrers with alj
her soul.
" And the world is full of knaves and fools
••POB THE LAST TIME—LYULPH1" 127
— to tell Vansittart so — if not now, some
day," Lord Parlington snaps viciously. " How
plain I see that day! — discord, misery, flirta¬
tion, even worse, on his side—jealousy on
hers —' a house divided against itself' — the
Divorce Court — and two lives spoiled! I
know Vansittart well, and he is unstable as
water. He would never make a woman
happy!"
" He worships beauty more than any one I
know!" murmurs la Marchesa Santa Cruza,
with a conscious blush. " A plain woman
would never satisfy his eyes or his heart, poor
fellow!"
" Poor fellow, indeed! You should reserve
your pity for the girl he has married,
and not for the man, who goes in for lust of
the eye, Marchesa ; and it strikes me that the
celebrated Town beauties did not satisfy him
either !" Lord Parlington adds with a know¬
ing look.
"Did you notice Lady Cecilia Gordon
among the crowd at the church this morning,
Marchesa ? " Mrs. Belton asks in a sepulchral
whisper. "/ did, and when Lyulph Van¬
sittart kissed his bride. Lady Cecilia shut
down her lids with a snap, and such an
expression swept over her face. Ugh! it
makes me shiver to think of it! "
" Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
And Hell no fury like a woman scorned,"
Lord Parlington^ quotes with an unpleasant
128
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
sneer. " I'll lay any wager Lady Cecilia not
only looked like a ghost, but felt like a demon
when the Gordian knot was tied."
"Sir James Hannen can untie it, you
know ; and ' while there's life, there's hope,'"
little Mrs. Belton remarks, as softly and
sweetly as if she were prophesying some good
thing.
" And Sir James Hannen will! " Lord Par-
lington adds decidedly.
It is quite true what they say about Lady
Cecilia Gordon.
She had looked like a ghost and felt like a
demon in the church, where she had crept in
among a crowd with a thick veil on, hoping
that she would not be recognised by "her
world," but that world of hers is sharp-sighted
enough to see all of harm and little of good
—and so Mrs. Belton and the Marchesa Santa
Cruza, a couple of free-lances (sub rosa) had
spied her out at once.
She stood like a stone watching the cere¬
mony that put another barrier between her
and the man she loved passionately, and she
committed murder in her heart all the while.
And at the time while the trio in Eotten
Eow discuss Sir Lyulph Vansittart's marriage.
Lady Cecilia is in her own luxurious boudoir
in Belgrave Square—with her door locked.
Thank God ! she is alone—alone—with no
human eyes to mark her supreme folly, to
sneer at her supreme auguish. Flinging off*
the quiet but rich black dress and bonnet
"FOR TEE LAST TIME—LYELPE!" 129
with its heavy brussels veil impatiently, she
sends them flying to the other end of the
room.
Vanitas vaniiatum !
Sackcloth and ashes are the garments she
should wear, this poor, wretched, passionate,
but erring creature, a victim of woman's
faith and of man's falsity.
She rushes to a chair, and burying her face
in its satin pillows, half smothers back the
sobs, the hard, dry, harrowing sobs, that
break with a rapidity of passion that cannot
be restrained.
At last they sink lower and lower, until
they grow like a deep, low wail, wretched
enough to be the weird cry of one of Dante's
lost souls, yet:
" Is it \roith a tear—is it worth an hour,
To think of things that arc well outworn,
Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower.
The dream foregone and the deed foreborne ? "
In the midst of her sobs. Lady Cecilia rises
suddenly, and going to a small workbox that
stands on a magnificent tortoiseshell and
silver bureau, she unlocks it with a gold key
attached to her chatelaine, and takes out a
photograph.
It is the photograph of a man about thirty,
with a blonde, aristocratic face and aquiline
features. The blue eyes are large, but there
is something cold about them, and the tints
are all pink and white like a doll's or a
baby's. ^
130
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
It is the photograph of Sir Lyulph Van-
sittart, taken a year ago; an excellent one
by Downey, and Lady Cecilia—fond, foolish
woman as she is—gazes at it, presses her
cheek to it, snatches it up with a fierce pain
and hard pleasure, and then with big, burn¬
ing, tearless eyes, talks to it.
"Lyulph, is it really true that you have
cast me aside for that girl—that child—that
I am nothing to you now—absolutely no¬
thing ? How can I live without you ? I
cannot—I can—not—I will not! Lyulph,
whom I have loved for two long years —
whom I shall love till I die! Lyulph! "
The name dies out almost in a whisper
from her white lips, and her figure sways like
a leaf in the storm. Then, like a mad
woman, she hurls down the picture of her
lover and stamps on it in a fury.
And when this ebullition of feeling has
^ O
passed, she sinks down on the lioor, and
Stares with blank, vacant eyes at the photo¬
graph lying beside her.
Her surroundings are magnificent, for she
is the wife of a rich man, who never denies
her anything that her spoilt, extravagant
nature longs for. The walls are of a faint
sea-green, with exquisitely framed mirrors
and gems of paintings hung on them;
luxurious lounges, chairs, and cushions are
scattered about, wdth tiny tables heaped over
with costly bric-a-brac beside them. Al¬
together it is easy to see that "poor old
"FOB IDE LAST TIME—LYULPH!•• 131
Gordon," as the club call him, ministers to
the gratification and lavish tastes of the lady-
he has married to an extent which has but
spoiled and pampered her, and made her so
habituated to the charming house that its
beauty has palled on her.
Just now she would fain be homeless,
friendless, moneyless, if she could but break
the tie that has bound Sir Lyulph Vansittart
to his bride.
Presently she rises from her lowly position,
picks up the picture, and passes cold, trem¬
bling fingers caressingly over the good-look¬
ing blonde face.
She has the figure of a girl, tall and
rounded, but she has the face of a woman
who has lived all her life. At this moment
she looks years older than she usually does,
for hers is one of those mobile faces that
passion makes quite old before its time.
But her face is not one that is pleasant to
most people to look upon, though for others
—especially men—its very materialistic ex¬
pression has a certain attraction. The lips
are a great deal too full, the eyes, though
languorous, are bold, the colour on the
cheeks, as a rule, too warm a crimson, and
the hair too bright and ruddy.
Whilst Lady Cecilia had sat on the floor,
with her gaze fixed on the portrait of the
man whom she loves with a wild, unreasoning,
idolatrous, selfish passion, she registered an
path, «
9*
132
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Lyulph Vansittart, cold sensualist as he is,
has played fast and loose with scores of
women in Town. Some regret him, some
have even in a few hours resigned themselves
to the inevitable, but Lady Cecilia Gordon is
not of the common herd. She can love,
and she can hate. With her languorous blue
eyes, her white, passion-tossed features, her
tumultuous, implacable spirit, her iron will,
she regrets, but she does not dream of grow¬
ing resigned.
Lyulph Vansittart made a bad move in life
when he allowed her to love him.
She has but one animus left in life, but one
object to which her heart and soul and brain
shall be devoted ; and as brain preponderates
over her heart and soul, there is not much
chance that any sentiment or pity will sue
for clemency at her hands towards the
objects of her revenge.
She has sworn to separate the man she
loves, and the man who has loved her—after
the fashion of some men's love—from the
wife he has chosen to take unto himself.
To this woman—born and Ijred in the
great world, nurtured among worldlings,
actually a freethinker—the words, " Those
whom God hath joined together, let no man
put asunder," are but idle prattle—a mere
formula of the Church—a creed which her
blind unbelief makes her mock at and fling
aside like the voice of the wind.
Honour and loyalty are dead letters to such
"FOB THE LAST TIME—LYULPH!" 133
women as Lady Cecilia. Strong and practical
of nature, animal in instinct and passion,
savage and cruel in this greed of love, it is
not likely that women possessing such
qualifications can wage war and be beaten.
Cunning, craftiness, deceit and falsity ranged
against truth, innocence, purity and simple-
mindedness, form a very uneven contest, my
reader, and, in spite of the pleasant doctrine
that goodness rears its crest over badness, I
believe that human creatures of the Lady
Cecilia type have often a better time of it in
this world than their purer sisterhood.
Lady Cecilia had not left Vansittart in
ignorance of her wounded and desperate
passion. She was not of the nature of a
violet, or likely to let " concealment like a
worm," etc.
He had kept his approaching marriage
dark up to within a month of the ceremony.
It was not difficult to do so considering that
the bride-elect was a little "outsider," as
Lord Parlington called her, and, fortunately
for his desire, Mrs. Ferrers—anxious as she
was to flaunt in the eyes of the world the
happy fact that her daughter was to be wife
to an eighteenth baronet—was yet too
ignorant of Town ways to get the news into
the columns of the Court Journal and the
Society papers.
Somehow, however, the tidings had leaked
out, and come to the ears of the person most
interested, and "it was a stormy scene that
134
A MODEBN BBIDEGROOM.
was enacted in the bijou boudoir of Belgrave
Square.
Sir Lyulph, unaware that his programme
was known to Lady Cecilia, arrived at his
usual hour of his visits, unchanged in
manner.
She—^like a woman of the world—did not
show her cards at once. Writhing with
jealousy and wrath, she yet kept up the ball
of conversation, smiled as sweetly as ever on
him, and fell deeper in love as it dawned on
her that he might not be so entirely her
property as she had imagined. But when he
rose to make his adieux, when he took her
plump, white hand, with its bejewelled
fingers, into his warm clasp, when he even
bent his handsome head as if for a caress,
she wrenched her hand away, and threw
back her head with the air of Semiramis,
" So you are going to be married ? " she
fla.shed.
He looked at her. To say he quailed,
would be the truth. There is more moral
cowardice about men than about women, as a
rule.
Why he quailed was this. He had a horror
of a " scene." This woman was so impulsive,
so imprudent, and so desperately in love,
that he knew she would not hesitate for her
sake or his own to have a " scandal."
She stood—her head thrown back—like an
image of marble, immovable, her tall figure
pulled up to its fullest height, her features
"FOR THE LAST TIME—LYULPH!" 135
suddenly grown hard as wood, only her great
eyes burning with quite a hungry, wild,
ferocious look as thev rested on the blonde,
rather effeminate face of this fickle, faithless
lover.
For he had professed love for her—for two
long years professed it—in those sweet words
that are as sweet now as when Adam whispered
them to Eve in Paradise. He had given her
soft, treacherous kisses, in which the cruel
beak of the vulture is hid beneath the tender
touch of the dove, until the woman—who had
been good until she met him—fell from her
pedestal of pride, and learnt to find all she
knew of happiness in the caresses that had
been showered lavishly, then dealt out
sparingly to her; a strange and fitful happi¬
ness, with nothing satisfactory even at the
best, and leaving nothing behind at all but
•' Weed from the water, grass from the grave,
A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme."
Why Sir Lyulph Vansittart had done as he
had done was difficult to tell. The man
worshipped beauty, but this woman's beauty
had no glamour for him. Her only attrac¬
tion lay in her utter self-abnegation, a thing
which made her a contrast to the other
women of the London world, with whom his
flirtations were as numerous as stars in a
southern sky.
With the vehemence and intensity of her
passion for him^ which repelled even while it
136
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
attracted, his erratic fancy had been caught
and enchained for awhile. Once free again,
after this, what breath can fill and re-inspire
a dead love ?
"And you kept this horrible marriage a
secret from me—from me ! " Lady Cecilia went
on, in a quiet, hushed voice, taught by the
convenances, but which yet teemed with a
keen, concentrated scorn that cut like whip¬
cord, and from which the man shrank back
uncomfortably. For Sir Lyulph Vansittart
is thoroughly epicurean in his liking for
pleasantness, and a mental tussle disturbs his
equanimity.
" I did not like to mention it, Cecilia; I
was afraid the news would pain you," he said
with mistaken mildness, for, however much he
had deceived her, she was not of the sort to
hoist the white flag before. " I feel so much
for you. Eeally my liking for you has not
changed a bit; no one can fill your place,
my dear Cecilia! I must marry, you see; all
my people want me to settle down, and I am
sick of loafing about Town."
She looked at him—a low level look.
" And you never thought about me when
you decided to take a wife! I, and my
misery, are nothing to you—nothing !—but I
Avon't let this thing come to pass—I don't
care what becomes of me—I would bear
everything, shame, humiliation, poverty, even
death, if, so long as I live, no other woman
has a right to cling to you like this! "
"FOR THE LAST TIME-LYaLPH 1'
137
And she flung herself into his arms, pallid,
quivering from head to foot, storm-beaten.
" Lyulph, for God's sake, don't give me
up," she cried passionately.
But he. put her aside, disgusted a little
at her boldness, in asking for love which
had grown flat, stale and unprofitable to
him.
" I must give you up, Cecilia. I am pledged
to marry Miss Ferrers, and lacking in morals
as you have cause to think me, I could not
marry her if things went on as they have been
doing for the last two years. Later on, when
you are calmer, more reasonable, I hope we
shall renew our friendship ! "
" Friendship / " she flashed angrily. " I see
it all; you are in love with this girl you are
going to marry. It is no match made up to
please your people as you said. Lyulph
Vansittart, who has knocked about Town for
years, who is no Simon Pure, is fool enough
to be caught by a milk and watery sham.
Don't you know that half these innocent
young women are shams ; that men have been
taken in by them, to their bitter regret and
shame ? "
" No, I don't know it!" he answered rather
sullenly, thinking that he would rather not
listen to Lady Cecilia's opinion on girls like
Aileen. Aileen, he would stake his existence,
was as pure as an angel, as good as gold.
" Tell me," she said after a moment, and
her voice was much quieter as she spoke;
138
A MODERN BBIDEOROOM.
" after you are married, may I come to your
house ? Shall I, the poor discarded creature,
whom it has been your sovereign will to toy
with and fling aside, be allowed to touch the
hem of my Lady Vansittart's garment ? " and
a little sneer crossed her mouth.
Once more he felt the hot, indignant blood
rush to his face as he hearkened, but there
was no help for it—as men sow, so must they
reap; and with a feeling of positive dislike
towards her he replied :
" Of course ! It cannot be wrong for me
to permit my wife to know a lady for whom
I have a sincere friendship—and—and—
respect! "
She flinched at this last word, and threw
herself into a fury as she understood the stress
laid on it.
" How dare you trample on my heart like
this! when you know that I love you, have
loved you, madly, utterly, with that absorbing
love that a woman gives but once in her life !
You are a man, I but a woman; you are the
stronger, I but the weaker vessel. If you
knew that the day would come when I should
be nothing to you, you should have saved me
from m3^self. It is you who should have
placed a dam against the sluice-gates of a love
that has wrecked me and left me what I am!
I cannot be so unattractive, so unworthy,
since for two years at any rate I have found
favour in your sight. Oh, Lyulph, tell me,
have you never really cared for me ? Has it
•TOR THE LAST TIME—LYULPH!" 139
all been untrue, a hideous delusion, a chimera
of my own brain ; a device of the devil to lull
me in a slumber of paradise only to awake to
a full sense of his tortures ? Lyulph! I hate
this girl who has come between us—I could
curse her!"
He winced involuntarily as she almost hissed
out the last words. Curses were hard words
indeed to come near his soft, tender little girl,
whose love was shy and as pure as the light
of a star.
He did not answer, but moving to the
window he threw up the sash wide, for he felt
as if he was stifling. His feelings for this
bold aristocrat, if he had ever had any, were
dead, and instead of them there lived in his
breast a sense of impotent wrath and disgust
that was difflcult to conceal. He had known
for some time that she was not a dove, but an
unscrupulous woman, and he swore at himself,
and at the past with its folly, and felt as well
a little qualm about the future.
She cast a furtive look at his face, the
beloved face—beloved in her own wild way,
in spite of its insincerity and falsity ; jealousy,
love, a supreme hatred—all struggled for
mastery as she gazed.
Love, mad, absorbing, but hot and cruel,
prevailed—pro tempore.
" Lyulph, don't have that expression on
your face, it kills me! I won't bother you
any more; I'll be reasonable, sensible, pru¬
dent ; only you .must promise to care for me
110
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
a little, and you must let me see you—some¬
times !"
It takes not only a perfect man, but a
strong one, to resent a pleading woman when
her prayer is for "love." And Sir Lyulph
Vansittart was an imperfect man, and a weak
one to boot: besides, it was his policy to
conciliate the woman, so he smiled down at
her flushed, agitated face, which possessed a
decided beauty of its own, and then he took
the plump white hand, and stooping, kissed it.
It was a charming kiss, a courteous, re¬
spectful kiss, quite Grandisonean in character
—but it was fuel to the fire that raged in her
heart.
" Kiss me for the last time, Lyulph," she
whispered, lifting up her lips. "After this,
your kisses will be sacred to your—wife, you
know."
He hesitated a moment, then he bent and
kissed her—on her cheek.
Then he left Lady Cecilia Gordon, rather
glad that the flag of truce was flying, and
with the comfortable conviction that by
avoiding her full red lips he had preserved
his honour and his fealty to Miss Ferrers
intact.
Most men, now-a-days, are so addicted to
splitting hairs.
CHAPTER XII.
A MODEL HUSBAND.
" Twain' halves' of a perfect heart made fast,
Soul to soul, while the years fell past.
Had you loved me as you have not loved,
Had the chance been with us that has not been."
" How lovely Lady Vansittart looked at the
Drawing-room yesterday," the Marchesa Santa
Cruza observes to her bosom friend, Mrs.
Belton, as they slowly sip their post-prandial
coffee at Verrey's. " She had on a magnificent
dress and the Vansittart diamonds, I suppose
—I have heard that they are splendid—but
what a child she looks."
" Do you think so ?" Mrs. Belton says
captiously. " She seems to me to be quite
twenty-eight or thirty, and I must say I cannot
^ agree with you in calling her lovely. I hate
those baby faces myself."
"Sir Lyulphis awfully devoted," the little
Marchesa answers sweetly, though there is
malice frepense in her reply, for she knows
there have been several warm passages
between him and Mrs. Belton in other days.
" He seems thoroughly fascinated. What
do you think I saw him do when he helped
her into the carriage after the Drawing-
room ?" «
143
A MODEItN BBIDEGROOM.
" Can't imagine—made a moue of discontent
at her utter want of style, I should think !
I don't believe even Swaebe could give her
the cut."
" He took her hand and gave it a great
big kiss! Ah, ma chere, he is desperately
fond of his own wife, and when a man reaches
that stage of fatuous stupidity, there is really
no accounting for any eccentricity he may
commit. Why, he never even looked at
you!"
" No; nor at you or Lady Cecilia Gordon,
or any of the other women he used to
admire ; we are all in the same box, you see!
How altered he is too 1 He has quite lost that
delicious debonnaire look he had. Honey¬
mooning quite rusts people—and I really
thought him plain I"
" Did you ? T. thought him handsomer
than ever, and that marriage seems tp agree
with him wonderfully."
Mrs. Belton, at this, elevates her pencilled
eyebrows, screws up her rose-bud of a mouth,
and shrugs her fair shoulders.
" Wait I" she says, with the air of a small
Solon in petticoats. " It won't last. I give
Lady Vansittart six months—after that—nam
verrons !"
So Lady Vansittart is to have, by this
woman's verdict, only six months more of
love and happiness. At present she leads a
charmed life.
Her cup of bliss overflows, and under its
A MODEL HUSBAND.
143
influence her beautiful face is ten times love¬
lier, and she is the admiration of all Town.
"Jove! it's the best thing Vansittart ever
did when he sowed his wild oats and married
that girl," the men all say at the club—one
and all.
For a couple of months she and her
husband have been in Brook Street. Her
presentation at Court on her marriage has
been quite one of the events of the season, for
her beauty has taken Town by storm. She
looks so childish and good and simple, too—
things that are so unheard of among the
debutantes now-a-days. Sir Lyulph Vansittart
is more pompous than ever, brimming over
with pride at his new acquisition, and he
shuns all the old haunts, turns a cold shoulder
to all his old loves, and he shows a devotion
to his wife which is amazing. Prophecies
as to the duration of such strange liut
praiseworthy conduct are rife—will he stick
to it ?
" No's" preponderate considerably over
the "Yes's." As Lord Parlington had said,
" there was very little steadiness in the
Vansittart blood."
Lady Vansittart has never seen or even
heard of Jack Lyster for months, and falls to
wondering what has become of him. She
remembers how sceptical he was of any
happiness with Vansittart, and, with womanly
pettiness, she thinks she would like him to be
an eye-witness tojier supreme bliss.
Ml
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
" Never mind," she thinks, " we are sure to
run across him some day, and he will have
to retract his unjust opinion of Lvulph—dear
fellow!"
Many a man, especially a man of Vansittart's
temperament, suffers reaction from happiness
in the first consciousness of actual marriage,
no matter how ardently and persistently he
has sought his wife—when she is his—when
he suddenly realises that his occupation of
wooing is done—he does not know whether
he is happy and content or not—on the whole,
he thinks he is not—and she ?—no matter how
she loves him, she is sure she is not. They
two may emerge into a state of bliss—they
possibly will, or probably may—but that
state of bliss lies right away, right beyond the
newness, the strangeness, the partial assimila¬
tion of the honeymoon.
But the honeymoon is past, and Lady
Vansittart, having grown accustomed to being
a married woman, is fully alive to the many
advantages the state possesses. Shy by
nature, she feels that now the vows are
spoken and the Gordian knot tied, she
can show her husband all there is in her
heart. The lovely white arms that yearned
to creep round his neck need never more
be kept back from maidenly reserve, the li|)s
I'-iat longed to press his may cling as closely
as they will, with nothing to prevent
save the fear of cloying. How can she
ever be unhappy again even for a moment.
A MODEL HUSBAND.
145
when she is married to the dearest, hand¬
somest fellow—the beginning and the end of
life to her ?
The two, who have been married several
months now, are having a late breakfast to¬
day. The long dining-room in Brook Street
is not only charming and luxuriously
furnished, but there is an air of comfort and
homeliness about it which many houses in
Town seldom possess. The casements are
open, and the soft summer wind comes in,
stirring the fine lace draperies, and bringing
on its trail the scent of the flowers with which
the window-boxes are laden. Against the
rich crimson of the walls, and the dark oaken
furniture, the crystal and silver on the table
stand out in strong relief, and amidst them is
a magnificent antique bowl heaped over with
red and white roses.
Sir Lyulph Vansittart, who is a bit of a
gourmet, has not disregarded physical advan¬
tages. He is " master," even to ordering the
meals, and his wdfe, a novice in house-keeping,
is only too glad to be exempt from domestic
duty of the kind.
There are just the proper quantities of
black, savoury truffles scattered artistically
over the lamb cutlets, the omelette mix fines
herhes is faultless, the coffee excellent, and
last, not least, the presiding deity of the tea¬
cups, Lady Vansittart, in all the beautv and
freshness of virginal white, trimmed just here
and there with knots of delicate rose that
♦ 1 /-V
146
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
give colour to her cheeks, is the incarnatior
of youthful loveliness.
He looks across at her, and smiles. Cer¬
tainly he has married the most beautiful girl
in the world, he thinks complacently.
" I never saw you look so well as you did
at the Drawing-room yesterday, Aileen," he
remarks unctuously, after staring at her for
some minutes.
" Did I, darling ? So glad that you were
pleased with my looks! " she answers brightly,
jumping up from her seat, now that breakfast
is over, and coming round to him.
" I am glad I am not ugly, Lyulph!" she
says very softl}^ her little red mouth close to
his, and one arm around his neck.
" So am I. I love pretty women," he
confesses unblushingly. " A fair face plays
the devil with a man, even if its owner isn't
nice!"
Does it? I wish then that I was very
beautiful—more beautiful than any woman in
London," she says wistfully.
" Why ? " he asks, with strange intentness
in his blue eyes. And he leans his handsome
head back against her arm and looks up in
her face.
" Why ? because I believe beauty is the
greatest gift a woman can possess," she
answers rather dreamily. "It must be so
delicious to think that one has the power to
win love and to—keep it!"
"Aileen! I shall begin to think you are
A MODEL HUSBAND.
147
like the other women in Town if you talk like
that," he cries quite jealously, for no matter
how great a flirt he is, what right has his
wife to a thought of love, save as a sober
domestic deity, waving no flaming torch aloft
but holding a well-trimmed lamp, turned
down and giving a nice, moderate, steady
light. " I shall begin to think that your head
is turned already by the admiration yesterday
—that you want not one admirer, but a
dozen—that you don't care to gladden my
eyes only, but to look lovely in many men's.
Well, little one," and he draws his breath
quickly as he looks steadily at her face,
which, in its dreamy, tender aspect, is looking
its very best, " be satisfied. You are quite as
lovely as a woman, who does not wnsh to pose
as a professional beauty or a flirt, ought to be."
His voice, which has a harsh ring in it,
takes her so much by surprise, that for a
moment she does not answer—it is the first
time Van.sittart has spoken in this tone—and
in spite of herself hot tears w^ell up.
In novels the heroines always look beautiful
through their tears—the drops glisten like
dew on their long, curly lashes, and a soft,
pathetic expression lends inexpressible charm
to the quivering lips.
But even Aileen, Lady Vansittart, as an
actual woman, does not look her best under
this lugubrious aspect. Weeping ever so
little always deepens the rings under the eyes
and leaves a tinge of red about the nose—
• 10*
14S A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
which is certainly not a beautifier — and
Yansittart noticing this fact is sorry that his
wife cries. He loves her—at present awfully
—but he loves her most when she is looking
her very prettiest, and not with her little
Grecian nose red.
He moves his head away from the encircling
arm a little, and a cold, unpleasant expression
crosses his countenance, when she suddenly
bends over him—her eyes are full of light
and love—she is again the Lady Yansittart of
the Drawing-room.
" You misunderstood me, Lyulph, darling,"
she sa3^s. " I was not thinking of other men
—what do I care for them ? I was only
thinking that if I was very, very beautiful,
tlie memor}'- of my beauty would be a safe¬
guard to your heart when you were away
from me. I only longed to be out-of-the-way
beautiful to keep you!"
" You are out-of-the way beautiful," he
answers. He is very impressionable at times,
and the glamour of her face is over him now.
He draws down the face, until the child¬
like rosy mouth is close. Then he' kisses it,
as well as her brow and cheeks, passionately.
" My darling Aileen! if j-ou always look
just as 3*ou do now, I shall love j'ou so much
—so much!" he cries fervently. And she,
forgetting the "if" which is to ensure her
so much good and bliss, nestles her chestnut
head on his shoulder and feels unutterably
content.
CHAPTER Xni.
"beau comxme un pkince,"
" Shall we not laugh—shall we not weep ?
Not we—though this be as it is,
For love awake or love asleep
Ends in a laugh—a dream—a kiss—
A song like this."
The Loudon season is over, and after a couple
of months at the seaside, it is to Paris that
Sir Lyulph Vansittart elects to go.
"Eastbourne is beastly dull, and a little
distraction will do Aileen good. She has
never crossed the Channel in her life," he
says to himself, with a pleasant consciousness
that he is doing the kind and considerate
husband. And he shuts his eyes to the fact
that he does not object to being amused
himself.
Eastbourne is a charming place for a
honeymoon, especially when young love casts
a glamour over it, but, as Dr. Johnson says:
" One cannot live on scenery," and living on
a view of the sea is equally fatiguing.
The quietness of the place—out of season
—" the world forgetting, by, the world forgot"
sort of existence, sounds deliciously romantic
in the abstract.
It is so suggestive of two hearts and two
]i50 A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
souls SO sympathetic that they seem but one
—two-pairs of eyes that see everything in the
same light—two pairs of lips that never tire
of saying in more eloquent language these
words :
" I love you ! I love j'ou! "
But in the concrete it is a sort of existence
that is a trifle dull and monotonous, and to be
avoided.
The time of the year is not the best for a
visit to the most charming capital in the
world.
September is a hot, steamy month—the pave
scorches and draws tender feet—the uj^per
current are disporting themselves in the
purple waters of Trouville and Deauville—
and the caterpillars of creation take their out¬
ings to Vincennes or Versailles—but even in
September Baris is Paris still.
In the days of our grandmothers a trip
abroad was a feat rare and stupendous, but
we cross the Channel now as if it were a
duck-pond, and many of us know Paris
better than we know our native village—
London.
The Louvre is the first thing on the pro¬
gramme which Vansittart makes out for his
wife's benefit. If the visitors are few they
will have more room to wander about among
the marvellous paintings and splendid
statuary gathered together within the gold-
embellished walls.
" What a beautiful face! " Leon Le Grange
©
"BEAU COMME UN PRINCE," 161
whispers in his Frenchified English to his
companion, a tall young fellow, who has
evidently a keen eye for beauty, for he stands
rapt in contemplation of a huge picture of
Judith holding the head of Holofernes.
He turns reluctantly from Judith, with her
form so like a young Athene, her superb
physique, and an arm that, though perfect in
outline and condition, yet shows almost as
much muscle as a prize-fighter's, and glances
at the object of his friend's admiration.
"By Jove!" he whispers back, "that's
Lyulph Vansittart and—I don't know who;
but she is certainly pretty, though not my
style." ^
At this moment Vansittart catches sight of
him, and, glad to meet a fellow countryman,
makes for him at once, nearly knocking over
a couple of English tourists, opera glasses and
Bradshaws included.
" Trevennen!" he cries quite cordially,
"how are you? We haven't met for an
" What brings you to Paris at this dead
time of the year ?" Lord Marcus answers
rather coldly, for if there is anyone he dislikes
it is Mrs. Ferrers' eighteenth baronet.
" Lady Vansittart has always had a hanker¬
ing to see Paris, you know, so I thought the
dead season the best for sight-seeing."
" You can't have turned Don Juan already,
Vansittart ? Why you haven't been married
more than six m<5nths, and here you are with
152
A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
her" and Trevennen gives a meaning glance
at the beautiful face Le Grange had remarked,
and which is turned full towards them with a
look of curiosity in the big chestnut eyes.
Par parenthesCf it may be said that Lady
Vansittart looks remarkably well, and that Le
Grange is not the only man in the Louvre
who has noticed her. She wears a soft,
clinging dress of a delicate tint, and a bunch
of deep wine-coloured roses on the little black
lace hat that droops Spanish-wise and becom¬
ingly over her low brow, and the change of
scene and the sultry September day have
brought a charming pale pink flush into her
cheeks which makes her doubly attractive.
" Lady Vansittart was rather overdone in
Town, so the quiet here will benefit her "
"And you have left her at the hotel to
recruit and brought Louise or Henriette, or
whatever her name may be, to do pictures
and spooning together. Oh, Vansittart! just
like your old ways. You will never mend
them," Lord Marcus says with a laugh.
"That is Lady Vansittart," her husband
answers pompously, and rather unpleasantly.
He hates chaff always, and more now since Le
Grange, a stranger, hears it. " Come with
me and be introduced to her."
" Thanks. May Le Grange come too ? "
" Certainly."
So Lady Vansittart is made acquainted
with the two and receives them with a pretty
stately courtliness that sits wonderfully on her,
"BEAU COMME UN PKINCE." 153
and Le Grange grows more convinced that she
is the loveliest woman he has ever seen.
He passes on with her among the pictures
and expatiates so eloquently on their merits
and demerits that she grows quite interested,
and does not notice that the other two men
have dropped back a little.
" What are you doing in Paris, Trevennen,
at this season? Not much good, my dear
fellow, for you are growing thinner, and your
face is quite haggard."
*•1 am all right, and Paris is always
amusing," he answers carelessly.
"What has become of—Hortense? Have
3^0 u seen her lately ? "
" Yes," Trevennen says with the red blood
sweeping over his cheek, and his dark blue
eyes kindle as he adds, " Hortense is here."
Vansittart turns and looks at him keenly.
" So I thought," he observes. " Why don't
j'ou cut her and marry some nice woman?
People make a rule of abusing matrimony,
but I haven't found it such an evil—but then
Lady Vansittart is one in ten thousand."
" She looks very nice. I saw her, j'ou
know, at that volunteer ball, but she has
altered, I fancy, for I did not recognise her.
Le Grange thinks she is perfectly beautiful."
" Does he ? " Vansittart says rather curtly.
He is very touchy on remarks being made on
him or on what belongs to him, and he is not
sure he approves of other men pronouncing
on his wife's looks.
154
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
" I don't as a rule admire anything but a
blonde, though of course Lady Vansittart is
wonderfully pretty."
" Is Hortense blonde ? I never saw her in
Town, you know."
" Blonde,snng, with hair like gold and
eyes like violets," Trevennen replies eagerly.
" Dollish, I should say. Do you admire
her as much as ever ? "
" Dollish I" Trevennen cries contemp¬
tuously. "I really must introduce you to
her. Will you go with me to morrow to the
Eue Tronchet ? "
Vansittart, be it said to his credit, hesitates.
He has a hankering, it is true, after lovely
faces, but somehow he does not want to run
against temptation just after these very few
months of marriage.
" I don't know. You see it is not so very
long since I and Lady Vansittart were honey¬
mooning ; perhaps I had better keep quiet
and make no new acquaintances; besides,
Hortense, who I hear is the reverse of imma¬
culate, may take a fancy to me," he adds,
flushing with a consciousness of his intense
irresistibility.
Trevenhen starts, a swift pallor runs round
his mouth, which even his moustache does
not hide, and a decided shadow creeps over
his blue eves.
" She might," he says with a short laugh,
*' but I think not—in fact I may say I am
sure not!"
"BEAU COMME UN PEINCE."
165
" My dear fellow, never be sure of any¬
thing in this wicked world," Vansittart
answers with one of his most unpleasant
smiles.
" The brute! What a conceited ass he is,"
Trevennen mutters as he turns away.
This same evening Hortense is really quite
superb, as she lounges in her crimson velvet
fauteuil at the Folies Parisienne. She is the
rage in Paris as much as was the rage
in London, and numerous lorgnettes from
all parts of the house point at her, and
among those who stare at her, as everyone
stares at the woman who is on everyone's
tongue, are the Vansittarts.
Lady Van.sittart is radiantly lovely, though
her beauty is of so different a type to that
of the popular actress ; but it is not at his
wife that Vansittart looks, and during the
twenty minutes they have been in their box
his glass has never swerved from Hortense's
face.
"Lyulph, who is that?" I/ady Vansittart
asks presently, her chestnut eyes fully alive
to his proceedings, and the first sharp twinge
of jealously going through her as she marks
how distant he is, and that he even starts
slightly at her voice.
" That ? I conclude it is the famous
Hortense, as I see Trevennen in the back of
the box," he answers carelessly, and he thinks
Trevennen is a very lucky dog.
" She is a widow, I suppose ? "
156
A MODEEN BEIDEGEOOM.
"A widow? Why should you suppose
so?"
" Oh! because that gentleman behind her
looks so much in love with her."
" Little fool! " Vansittart murmurs, but
with a tender smile that does away with the
unflattei-ing epithet, and it strikes him that
Aileen is — tant soit pea—absurd in her
notions. The truth is that what seemed to
him to be a charming simplicity at East¬
bourne, is nothing more nor less than betise in
Paris.
" Don't you know that men fall in love
with married women even more frequently
than they do with legitimate objects of
pursuit ? " he asks. " I dare say Hortense is
very much married, and probably to an old
charcutier."
" Why does he let gentlemen pay his wife
so much attention?" she questions, simply
because in the Ealing world—unstylish, but
more respectable than Mayfair—she has had
little or no opportunity of studying the
edifjdng morals of the da3\
" Why ? — because he can't help it, I
suppose. He is possibly attending to his
business, and what the eye doth not see the
heart doth not grieve after, you know!"
laughs Vansittart, but the next moment he
is vexed with himself for initiating Lady
Vansittart in such things. It seems a
pity to rub the bloom so soon off the peach.
" And every married couple are not so
"BEAU COMME UN PKINCE."
157
spooney on one another as j'ou and I, Aileen,"
he adds pleasantly.
'• Did you ever see Hortense before,
Lyulph?"
" Never.""
" And she is worth seeing, isn't she ? " poor
Aileen tries to say in a quiet matter-of-fact
fashion, but the corners of her pretty mouth
twitch like a baby's, and some awfully
refractory tears will well up in her eyes.
He does not notice them, however.
" Very!" he replies laconically, then up
goes his enamelled opera-glass again, and
remains a fixture,- while his fickle fantfy
feasts on the woman's face opposite. " No
wonder Trevennen is gone on her," he thinks,
" but that's not a woman to be satisfied by
the devotion of such a fellow as he is. By
Jove! she is a grand woman, and what an
arm she has—it beats all the Louvre statuary
hollow ! " and the " born artist," as some of
his lady friends call him—and which is a
mild term for a man with an undisciplined
temperament, and full of lust of the eye—
devours with greedy admiration the white
flesh tints and voluptuous form.
Just at this moment Lord Marcus for the
first time allows his gaze to stray from his
companion. Looking across the theatre,
he catches sight of the Vansittarts — he
bows and smiles, much to the eighteenth
baronet's disgust, who, much as he admires
Hortense, consic^ers that anyone with her
158
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Siiould not presume to bow to Lady Van-
sittart.
" Who is that man ? " Hortense asks after a
moment's steady survey of her vis-a-vis.
" Sir Lyulph Vausittart! " Trevennen
answers, and for the life of him he can't help
feeling vexed that her eyes should rest so
long on anyone but himself.
" Sir Vansittart ?—the man I have heard so
many London ladies are mad about ? "
" Sir Lyulph Vansittart—but I never knew
he was such an Adonis. Do you think him
handsome ? "
Beau comme un Prince!" she answers
slowly and deliberatel}', her eyes, with a
strange fire in them, rivetted on the object of
her curiosity, and a crimson flush mounting
over her cheeks, for Hortense is undeniably a
passionate woman—passionate as most women
of the south are. If you see her with a storm-
light in her eyes, a sudden droop in two
scarlet lips, an abandon of figure and gesture,
it is easy to believe that she has had a jeunesse
.orageuse, and that she does not wax colder or
more rigid as the years creep on.
"Who's the woman?" she asks presently,
and, much as Lord Marcus is infatuated with
her, he inwardly resents the insolent tone
used to one of his own class.
" His wife I "
" His wife ? What on earth did he marry
her for ? "
" For love I"
"BEAU COMME UN PRINCE."
159
"Love! Pouf! Mon cher! you talk the
folly of unripe years! Love, indeed I She is
not the sort of woman that man could love!"
" She is lovely I" Lord Marcus glares, as
jealous as a tiger.
"She is lovely? Why where are your
eyes ? She is not chic—she is what you call
dowdy. A man like that must love only
perfect beauty and style."
" I suppose Vansittart's old enough to have
seen the stupidity of it I—beauty is only skin-
deep, you know, after all. It is the heart of a
woman that is everything I"
Upon this Hortense bursts into a loud
laugh, and putting out a very plump hand,
daintily gantee in silver grey, she gives him a
playful slap on the arm.
" Tais toi, mon cher, or if you will talk—
only children should be seen and not heard,
as they say in your country—talk of some¬
thing plus serieux than hearts. Hearts, in¬
deed! Where are our hearts? 'AA/ man
cceur I" old Vicomte de Brenen, the big roue
of Paris, said to me yesterday, with a great
sigh, and clapped his hand on I'estomac
Anglais ! Heart love is a stupid, vulgar com¬
plaint for the epiciers. We go in for some¬
thing less lasting, but more sparkling, like
champagne. Love for one year. No!—that
is too long—a great deal too long. Love for
a week—or a day—isn't that the song the
organs play in London ? Love for a day is
nice. It is so easy to stare at one another
«
160
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
for one day—to get infatiiee of one another's
beauty, and not have time to be ennuyee.
Tliat is the feeling you ought to cultivate.
You are going to be un homme du moiide, and
not a big, stupid, spooney schoolboy!"
All the time she delivers this tirade, her
eyes keep wandering to the Vansittarts' box,
and Lord Marcus notes it, notes it with
jealousy and wrath and helplessness all mixed
up together into an overwhelming whole.
But Hortense is not giving him or his
feelings a thought now, nor to the rest of the
jeunesse doree who keep dropping in to pay
her fulsome compliments, and to show them¬
selves triumphantly to the world as accepted
adorers of the pet actress of the hour.
Her imagination is monte, after the fashion
of Frenchwomen, about Vansittart, and,
lounging back indolently, she wonders how
she is to get acquainted with the man whose
handsome, supercilious face has fascinated lier.
"What are you thinking of, Hortense?"
Trevennen flashes suddenly.
She loses her ordinary calmness—starts,
flushes, and leaning forward, pretends to be
engrossed with the stage.
" What were you thinking of ? " he repeats
doggedly.
" Of nothing—that is—you I she answers
insolently.
" That is not true. You were thinking of
that fellow over there !" he cries, making
gesture towards Vansittart. " He's just
"BEAU COMME UN PEINCE." ICl
married, and it will be deuced wicked of you
to try and get hold of him !"
" Don't you speak to me like that! If
there is anything I hate, mon cher, it is being
called to account. You have no right to
harbour ridiculous ideas about me! Sup¬
posing I was thinking of that man opposite,
there is no harm in it. I was really com¬
paring him with you, and on my honour, the
comparison was in your favour!" she adds
untruthfully—recollecting thai a bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush.
" Eeally, is that so, Hortense ? " he answers
quite radiantly.
"Eeally, it is sol" she says unctuously.
"There is no one I admire so much as my
English milord," she whispers tenderly, putting
her hand on his arm caressingly.
" I believe you care for me," he whispers
back. " And, if you promise, Hortense, not
to flirt with him, I'll go and fetch Vansittart.
1 want you to make his acquaintance, for I
know you won't admire him or like him once
you have spoken to him," and pressing a
covert but fervent kiss on her hand he is
gone.
She watches him, behind her fan, as he
bends over Sir Lyulph and speaks, and her
pulse beats fast, while she waits for an
answering gesture. She is of a thoroughly
material temperament, and the baronet's
languid, blond face appeals to her senses
powerfully, and he* great eyes gleam quite
11
162
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
fiercely when she sees Vansittart shake his
head.
"Hortense wants to know you so much,
Vansittart. Can't you come for a minute ? "
It is a dreadful temptation—straight from
the devil, Vansittart thinks, for it seems so
difficult to put it from him. Under any other
circumstances, he would have succumbed at
once, but he catches his wife watching him
with a world of wistfulness on her little face.
" Some day I shall make Mademoiselle
Hortense's acquaintance perhaps," he answers
quietly, " but to-night it is impossible."
And Trevennen, with a smile, wends his
way back, while Aileen slips her hand into
her husband's, and gives him a loving, grateful
look.
" Sir Lyulph Vansittart declines the honour
of your acquaintance at present. He hopes
to make it some day — perhaps," he says,
but he shrinks from the steely light in the
woman's eye, and a mocking smile that passes
over her red mouth.
" Tant mievx! " she answers quietly, " for
I am dead with fatigue. I daresay I shall get
to know him some time or other, and what is
that saying you have in England ? ' Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof.'"
She rises and leaves the theatre, never so
much as casting a look at the opposite box.
She does this purposely, but Vansittart notices
the fact, and it riles his vanity dreadfully.
" It's all for the best I didn't go to her box
"BEAD COMME UN PRINCE."
163
to-night," he soliloquises, as he threads his
way through the crowd, guarding his wife
from being jostled. , " With that face and
figure tempting me, all the loyalty in the
world to Aileen wouldn't keep me straight.
Hortense is a woman with nothing womanly
about her, and whose love would be like
coals of fire, but very pleasant all the same.
I don't wonder at Trevennen's infatuation a
bit."
The day following, Hortense discovers that
she is ill, and must have rest. The lessee of
the Folies Parisienne is at his wits' end to
supply her place, just as the piece in which
she has chief part is on the point of being
produced, but he dares not quarrel with her ;
and so she is off to Trouville, with an injunc¬
tion not to follow her for at least a fortnight
to Lord Marcus, and he, who has learnt
that she is as obstinate as she is lovely, has
to obey.
Under these circumstances, it is out of
Vansittart's power to discover whether he is
capable or otherwise of resisting temptation,
but being of a mercurial nature, he soon
forgets the dazzling vision of the Folies Paris¬
ienne, and goes on being a model husband,
during which time he manages, however, to
relieve the monotony of. married bliss by
persuading Lord Marcus to be a trio on all
occasions of theatres and sight-seeing, and
Lady Vansittart thinks herself the happiest
woman in the world as, escorted by the two
• 11«
164
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
men, she passes the days in novel scenes,
which she enjoys like a child escaped from
school. Paris is so different to The Hollies,
Ealing, and Lyulph is so kind and gay, and
Lord Marcus is not half a bad sort!
But at the end of a fortnight Vansittart
suddenly announces his intention to go to
Monte Carlo.
As Lady Vansittart hears, she gives a little
start and cannot help stifling back a sigh.
" I hate leaving Paris!" she murmurs wist¬
fully. "You see, darling, we have been so
happy here. I have never enjoyed myself so
much in my life. And I think I feel as Eve
must have done when she went with Adam
out of Paradise, minus the pang of having
eaten of the forbidden apple!"
" No! Forbidden apples are perfectly safe
as far as you are concerned, Aileen!" he
answers, looking into her lovely, pure face,
on every line of which he can read, without
being much of a physiognomist, all the virtues
that should make a wife " far above rubies"
—only they don't.
" You will never hanker after them, little
one. For myself—ever since I was a small
boy I have always wanted what was not easy
to get, or what I ought not to have."
At this frank confession Lady Vansittart
shudders a little, and remembers how strangely
Lyulph stared at that horrible woman at the
Folies Parisiennes, then she grows angry with
herself for her bizarre ideas.
"BEAU COMME UN PRINCE." 165
" I have never cared for towns much," she
says presently, " but Paris I have positively
grown to love! Everyone is so nice to me !"
"Even — Trevennen — I say, Aileen, of
course, you are the best little woman in the
world, and, I am sure, would never forget
you have a husband, but the best of women
get into scrapes sometimes, and Trevennen is
making the running wonderfully! He has
forgotten Mademoiselle Hortense, I beheve."
She looks up into his face to see if he is
jesting, but no—he is serious.
Starting from her chair, she rushes to him,
and throws herself down on her knees.
" Lyulph ! " she cries passionately, " don't
speak to me like this again! You must not—
you dare not! I am sure you cannot care
for me one bit, if such horrible, horrible ideas
about me can come into your head! Lord
Marcus has never said one word to me that
all the world couldn't hear, he has never
looked at me "
" Yes, he has, Aileen—how could he help
looking at the loveliest woman in Paris?
There, my darling, I didn't mean to hurt
your feelings. You must really learn to con¬
trol them better than you do. Why, every¬
one will think I have married a foolish little
school - girl with no knowledge of how
she should behave, if you give way like
this. A Society woman is always cool and
quiet, Aileen, and Lady Vansittart must
learn to be a Society woman, and fit for the
166
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM,
position she holds in the world!" he says
pompously.
Lady Vansittart listens, but does not
answer. She has grown quite pale, and a
shade of disappointment lies in her chestnut
ej'es, but there is something in her husband's
manner that seems to paral3"ze her speech.
She rises quickly from her knees, and goes
over to an open window—she feels as if she
was stifling somehow.
By-and-bye, after Vansittart has gone for a
stroll, she flings herself on the sofa and
relieves the tension of her feelings by a little
cry. Paris does not seem quite such a
Paradise to her as it did two hours ago, but
she remembers that Lady Vansittart must be
a Society woman—(she wishes Lj'ulph hadn't
said it in such a measured tone)—and spring¬
ing up she goes to her room to prepare for a
grand night at the Opera.
When Vansittart comes in, he finds her
ready dressed, and waiting dinner for him.
She has donned a charming dress — the
prettiest in her trousseau—a pink flush makes
her ten times lovelier than usual, her eyes
shine like diamonds—and she has apparently
forgotten the little matrimonial breeze, he
thinks, but she has not done so in her
heart—on the contrary his tone and manner
haunt her in spite of her eflbrts to forget
them, and hurt her dreadfully, but she is
determined not to offend him by demon-
Btrativeness again, and to show him that she
"BEAU COMME UN PBINCE." 167
is fit for the position in which he has placed
her.
So she ignores the unpleasantness of the
afternoon, and laughs and talks animatedly
with him and with Trevennen, who is waiting
for them in the vestibule of the Opera house.
She is young, she loves pleasure, but her
spirits are damped as she catches sight of
Mademoiselle Hortense in a Box on the same
tier. Hortense, in a magnificent blue and
gold-embroidered wrap, with her famous
diamonds, adding to the brilliancy of her
beauty.
Lady Vansittart is not to show her feelings
if she wishes to be thought worthy of her
position in life, so she keeps a guard over her
face, and smiles even while she suffers, for
Vansittart's glass does not swerve from Hor-
tense's face, though Trevenner never even
glances her way.
Seeing this Aileen feels quite grateful to¬
wards him.
" Of course he admires that horrid woman,"
she thinks, " but he does not wish to mortif}'-
my feelings by showing it, when he must see
that Lyulph is behaving in a very strange
waj'," and she looks up at the man who does
not wish to mortify her with a grateful depre¬
cating expression in her chestnut eyes and
meets his glance. Somehow she flushes a
little as she does so, and for the rest of the
evening vigilantly guards her eyes from going
his way. Lyulph had said that Lord Marcus
ICS A MODERN BRIbEGROOM.
" looked " at her, but she had never noticed
the fact till to-night.
1 • t
This one glance from a man who is not her
husband, is her first bite of the " forbidden
apples."
And yet Vansittart had only said a few
hours ago :
" No! forbidden apples are peiTectly safe
as far as you are concerned, Aileen—you will
never hanker after them ! "
Meanwhile, to Trevennen, Lady Vansittart's
grateful look was a thing of moment.
It put a seal on his defalcation towards
Hortense.
CHAPTER XIV.
A daughter of iieth.
" Vice is a monster of so frightful a mein
As to be hated needs hut to be seen,
Yet seen too oft—familiar with her face,
We first endure—then pity—then embrace."
Though a perfect olla podrida of dainty
trifles, sucli as women love to fling together—
a gathering of reality and rococo—yet it is a
triumph of taste—the apartment au premier
in the Eue Tronchet, with a big balcony
overhanging the Marche aiix Fleurs of the
Madeleine.
The boudoir is of octagonal shape, and is
artfully lightened through pale rose curtains.
The walls are pale rose-colour as well, and
are adorned with Horace Vernet's charming
productions framed in dead gold, with one
chef d'cBuvre of Alma Tadema's in the place of
honour over the mantel, flanked by a couple
of Boucher's pastels and a couple of
Meissoniers, tiny but exquisite, gleaming out
over an elaborate " toilette."
Upon an ancient Flemish cabinet of ebony,
curiously inlaid with ivory and tortoiseshell,
and which had once been the glory of a
pompous old B»rgher, stands a huge Sevres
170
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
dish, filled with spra5's of syringa interspersed
with hot-house roses, that diffuse ambrosial
odours through the place. All the requisites
for the toilette are in the quaintest feuille de
chotuc porcelain.
Ilortense lounges indolently in a huge
chair that suits her grand proportions, and
iier plump feet, shodden in gold-embroidered
Turkish slippers, rest on a soft, ' satin
tabouret.
Sinner that she is—saint as she often pre¬
tends to be—she is surrounded by a comical
melange of costly etuis, painted fans, illumi¬
nated missals and cosmetique pots by the
famous Halle, while amber rosaries and packs
of the " devil's books," Eg3'ptian amulets with
strange hieroglyphics, and portraits of the
Parisian golden youth set in jewels are heaped
fele-mUe together.
China is another weakness of the popular
actress, and monstrosities and mandarins,
cups and saucers, and all manner of hideous
devices in oriental, Chantilly, and every other
sort that can be had for love or money,
ornament every nook and corner.
Hortense indulges in a brown study. One
hand—very white, very soft, and decidedly
fat, whose ornamentation would purchase a
very decent annuity for any reasonable
burglar — supports a brow whose natural
appeai'ance is as serene and unruffled as a
baby's, but which is just now knitted together
unmistakably enough, imparting a peevish
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
171
expression to her usually rather stolid and
good - tempered face. Her attitude" and
countenance indicate at a glance a hopeless
attack of " La Migraine," a foreign ailment,
real or imaginary from incipient tj'^phus to
decided temper.
All her gaudy surroundings, her purple
and fine linen, and everything else that
denotes no paucity in her cofTers, irritates her
at this moment instead of gratifying her. She
is in a real bad humour, and its causes are
humiliated vanity and hurt self-love—graver
grievances to most people than they are often
aware of.
The bad humour comes in this wise :
Hortense has lost her best parii — her
pigeon whom she has unmercifully plucked
while she caressed him.
Last night a " reldche " had been posted up
at the Folies Parisiennes, owing to the sudden
indisposition of the " Jeune amoreux " of the
company, and free from her labours, with
several hours heavy on her hands, she decided
to wile them away at the Italian opera, at
which a new work by a celebrated maestro,
with Madame Melba in the chief role, is
drawing crowded audiences.
Hortense had only returned from Trouville
in the forenoon—had taken a drive in the
Lois in her chic turn-out, and seen no one,
that is no one she cared to see, and sipped
her coffee alone instead of a deux—which is
more to her taste. Ennui' is her aversion,
172
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
and the opera house promised both entertain¬
ment and amusement, especially as her most
cherished acquaintances and admirers would
surely be there. Alas! for the vanity of
human anticipations, the pleasure she had
relied on changed to bitterness as she re¬
marked—even with her usual Court of grey¬
beards down to fledglings surrounding her—
that one man, the most devoted hitherto of
her lovers, had suddenly thrown her over.
There was a vast deal of acerbity, spite,
malice, and all uncharitableness in her ample
breast as she realised the fact, though her lips
wore a stereotyped smile as she received with
her habitual complacency the soothing syrup
of flattery slavishly oflered up to her by the
fools and fops that abound in the French
capital as well as in the English one.
In spite of the potations of compliments
which she apparently swallowed and enjoyed,
her heart throbbed fiercely as she noted in a
large private box on the grand tier, a familiar
head, with curly brown hair, and a face with
earnest eyes and a brown, drooping moustache,
bent downwards continually to catch as it
were the words, or, as Hortense inwardly
called it, the letise that fell from the sweet
red lips of Lady Vansittart, attired in a
simple but exquisitely-fitting dress of white
silk, with no other ornament save a cluster of
white roses in her bodice, and who occupied
with all the ease and dignity of a dowager
duchess the place of honour facing the stage.
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
173
Hortense was aggravated tenfold perhaps
by the knowledge that the object of Lord
Marcus Trevennen's present devotion was in
externals the very antipodes of herself, thus
proclaiming openly to the fashionable Parisian
world that his taste in female beauty had
materially altered.
And certainly Lady Vansittart, with her
small, thoroughbred head, with its rippling
chestnut hair, dressed a la Greque, her lovely
sparkling face, with its big, luminous eyes
and tiny features, her tall slender figure,
formed an odd contrast to Trevennen's quasi-
goddess, whose full proportions and mere¬
tricious charms were glaringly advertised by
a tiara of magnificent diamonds, and by the
gorgeous mantle of blue and gold that was a
focus of attraction for all the lorgnetted
dandies in the stalls.
Trevennen had looked towards her askance,
and then he had turned away with a hot
cheek, ashamed, in Aileen's proximity, of his
hitherto assiduous attentions to the full-blown
Circe. Notwithstanding his frequent foreign
peregrinations, he has preserved his nationality
to a certain extent, and his delicacy revolted
at the bare acknowledgment of such a known
presence while he sat side by side with one
whose name and nature were unsullied as
undriven snow.
Hortense did not regain her good temper
even when Vansittart paid her the compli¬
ment of staring^ at her throughout the per-
174
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
formance—taken as slie had been by the
baronet's blond, handsome face a fortnight
ago—anger with Trevennen filled her breast
to the expulsion of any other feeling.
She is frivole to the last degree is Hortense,
and all her caprices, though passionate, are
ephemeral. She is a coquette too, to the
backbone, and, coquette-fashion, she would
rather win back an old lover than go in for a
new one.
So that she grew positively furious when
she saw Vansittart slip quietly away just
before the termination of the opera, leaving
his wife to the kind offices of the other man,
while he went to the Maison Doree, where a
small furore hacchantium and an exciting
game of lansquenet with a few choice spirits
awaited him.
She wguld have felt slightly reassured,
perhaps, had she been in a fit condition of
mind to notice the reproachful glance that
Lady Vansittart's chesnut eyes shot at her
husband when she found that he did not
purpose being her escort, and the impatient
shrug of her fair shoulders as she somewhat
ungraciously accepted Trevennen's arm ; but
Hortense's mind was all abroad, and she was
in far too turbulent a state to mark anything
but the extremely empresse look and manner
of her recreant lover, or to recognise the fact
that the attentions she grudged were neither
courted nor desired by the unwilling recipient
of them.
A DAUGHTER OF HETfl.
175
For it may be said, en parenihhe, that if
ever a woman was desperately in love with
her husband, it is Aileen Lady Vansittart—at
this time.
Hortense took out her usual quantum of
slumber when she went to bed, for she is of
far too phlegmatic a temperament to allow
anything to interfere with her physical com¬
fort ; but even a good sleep failed in restoring
her serenity, and she rose with her plumage
considerably ruffled.
The day is growing gradually but surely to
its close, and yet no Lord Marcus has put in
his appearance as she has expected. She sent
him a peremptory summons three hours ago,
but it has met with no response as yet. She
longs for him to come doubly, as it would be
the signal for harrowing reproaches and
tragic tears—things so congenial Ao French¬
women, with their incessant craving after
unhealthy excitement. She clenches her
plump hand and murmurs a bitter anathema
against " les Anglais," when a knock comes
to the door,^ and the woolly-headed, ebon-
skinned Nubian boy, who performs the
functions of Ganymede in the household,
presents her with a silver tray of letters and
cards.
A dozen little bits of pasteboard—all more
or less ornamented with ducal or baronial
crowns (titles across the water being as
plentiful as gooseberries in July)—are tossed
over scornfully, as well as several amatory
176
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
billets. Suddenly ber eyes single out an
envelope which is sealed witli the letter " V,"
and, her curiosity excited, she tears it open
and reads:
" Someone, who has fallen a victim to
Mademoiselle Hortense's beauty, will call at
the Eue Tronchet at nine to-night. He hopes
to be rewarded by a sight of the face that
has haunted him night and day since he first
looked on it.
" L. V. Oct. 15th."
She bursts out laughing as she reads.
o
Here is vengeance indeed—vengeance on
the Anglaise who has dared to take her lover
from her.
" I'll see him at nine o'clock. He is too
handsome to be refused—and I'll keep this
letter safe—safe ! It will be of use some day
I know I"
" On Sonne!" she cries suddenly, and
hastily locking up Vansittart's note in her
desk, she throws herself into a fauteuil
with an air hien desolee, and the expression
of her features changed from anger into
grief.
" Enfin!" she says reproachfullj'^, as Tre-
vennen walks into the room and throws him¬
self on the sofa, unbidden, with no more
greeting than a curt "Bon-jour."
Hortense's English is very lame ; but, like
all foreigners, she is fond of showing off her
powers as a linguist, although her present
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
177
companion is quite as much at home in
French as in his native tongue.
" You are late, mon milord. 11 est presque
cinq heures deja, and I fatigue myself much
in expecting you all this day. Yesterday
evening "
But her English is quite forgotten in her
desire to plunge at once iuto the sore
subject.
" Je deteste cette dame," she cries angril3^
Trevennen ignores the remark, and walking
up to the big Sevres bowl, helps himself to its
freshest blossom, and arranges it quietly in
his button hole. It is a lovely tea-rose, and
its strong fragrance recalls the scent of the
flowers in Lady Vansittart's bodice the
evening before. Some impulse seizes him,
and pulling it out of his coat, he flings it on
the ground and crushes it under his heel.
"Je deteste cette femme," Hor tense
reiterates, with a hot flush spreading on her
cheek, as she watches her rare hot-house
flower treated with such contumely.
" Whom do 3'ou detest ?" he asks care¬
lessly.
" La femme de Vansittart! "
" And why ? You don't even know her,"
and Trevennen smiles, with a very pleasant
feeling in his mind as he thinks how completely
Aileen is out of the world he has suddenly
began to abhor and despise with all his heart.
" I don't want to know her! Eh, bien,
Marcus! What is Vansittart's wife to you ? "
• 12
178
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
He starts. What is, or what can be,
Vansittart's wife to him ? Nothing—simply
nothing I
And yet he has only been in her society
some dozen times, and that society has already
made all other distasteful to him in the highest
degree. He has only come now in answer to
Hortense's note, to make some excuse for
absenting himself in future, but he has not
been able to find an excuse plausible enough
to rid him of a nuisance, and yet not rouse
anger and hatred in this woman's breast. He
is afraid of her!
Her own words, however, suggest the best
excuse for absence from her house. He will
leave Paris—where Sir Lyulph has suddenly
decided to remain on for a while—and hopes
by doing so to kill two birds with one stone.
He will disencumber himself of the incubus
Hortense has become to him, and perhaps
succeed in smothering in its infancy the liking
for Lady Vansittart which has taken such
strong root in his heart.
" Lady Vansittart is nothing whatever to me
—and to prove it, I have come to-day to tell
you that 1 am leaving Paris for an indefinite
period, and as I have no end of arrangements
to make, I have not much time to spare!"
and Trevennen glances at his watch as if he
was on the point of catching the next train.
He is far from being in his " assiette " as he
sits here and has to nerve himself up to take
his conge with the same ease as usual,
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
179
Hortense pounces down upon him like a
wolf on a lamb.
" Comment!" she vociferates a little shrilly,
aghast at her golden prize slipping through
her hands like this. " You are really leaving
Paris. Non! Non! Je'ne le crois pas. Ce
n'est pas possible que tu va me quitter ainsi!
Oh! Marcus, I will break my heart. Mon
Dieu! Je mourrai!"
And she begins to sob.
Then, taking out a handkerchief richly
trimmed with point de Flandres, she dries
her eyes gently and tenderly, careful not to
destroy the work of the little crayon that lies
in its silver chased case on the toilette, and
Trevennen watches her, amused but perplexed,
as he ponders on the next best move for getting
gracefully out of the room.
"By Jove!" he soliloquises, "audi have
been fool and idiot enough to fancy I cared
for this woman! Faugh! The very sight of
this room sickens me, with its vanities and
follies. I couldn't get up a regret for leaving
to save my life!"
" No, my dear Hortense, you will not break
your heart—nor will j'ou die! You coidd not
be so cruel to mankind. You will live—live
to make another man as happy as you have
made me, and I shall always recollect the
proofs of your disinterested love for me!"
and involuntarily his eyes wander over the
costly gewgaws his purse and his folly have
supplied, •
ICO A MODERN RRIDEGROOM.
" There is one small souvenir you must
really give me, Hortense, for the sake of our
past friendship. It is a strange one to ask for
—it is this!" and he holds up a likeness of
himself in a diamond locket which lies on the
little table beside her.
It is a very valuable trinket, and he well
remembers what a fool he was when he
thought no sum too high to pay for her
gratification.
Hortense rushes at it like a wild animal,
and stares horrorstruck at the glittering gem
he holds aloft and of which she is to be
deprived. But in a trice Trevennen plucks
out the photo, tears it in pieces, and
then restores the locket to her outstretched
hand.
" Here, my good Hortense, is—I fear—all
that made the ornament precious to you. And
now I will take my leave. But before I go,
there is one little compact I want to make with
you. I will send you, parole d'honneur, another
locket more expensive than this one, if for
the term of twelve months you never once
speak to me or write to me. Will you agree
to this ? "
" Mais, Marcus ! Je t'aime tant!"
He shrugs his shoulders, while a look of
disgust steals over his features, which she sees
and hates him for.
" Eh bien—as you will!" she says in her
most suave tones. " Dieu! que les diamans
sont beaux. It must be a very fine locket to
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
181
reward me for all the purgatory you make me
suffer!"
" It shall be the best money can buy in the
Eue de la Paix. And now—good-bye I"
" Good-bj'^e! You are very cruel. You make
me suffer horriblement 1"
Trevennen turns on his heel without a
word, and is on the point of quitting the
room when Hortense runs after him.
" One word more ! We have been friends
for a long time—have you no curiosity to
know who is to be your—successor ? "
" Not I!" he answers indifferently. " Old
Fitzallen isn't in Paris, neither are Henri De
Eougemont or Louis Le Blanc. Some
bourgeois chap you have picked up in the
Bois, or some fellow you made acquaintance
with at Trouville I suppose."
Hortense makes him a low, sweeping
curtsey,
"I would not insult you, mon cher, by
giving you such a successor! It is—Sir
Vansittart!"
Trevennen starts as if he were shot, and
turns very pale. His feelings for Lady Vansit¬
tart are good and pure enough. He believes
her to be the best of her sex—innocent, and
idolizing the man she aas married. It hurts
him horribly to think how she would suffer if
she knew that he had fallen into the hands of
this unworthy and uncrupulous woman; but
Hortense is only jesting, of course.
" Why, you d»n't even know him! " he says.
182
A MODEBN BKIDEOROOM.
"And I don't believe that a man only just
married, and for—love—too—would be such
a blackguard towards his wife!"
" E/i, hieUf it is true aU the same. I don't
know him now, but I shall see him by-and-
bye. He will sup with me to-night."
"And whilst you were pretending to be
unhappy at my absence, you were making an
appointment with another man! Hortense
you are contemptible 1" he says with a sneer.
" Wrong again. It was not I who made
the appointment—it was—him. He wrote to
me!"
"I don't believe it," flashes Trevennen.
" It is a story you have trumped up for some
purpose I"
She rushes to her desk, and taking out the
note, flourishes it before his e3'^es, but holding
it firmly in her fingers the while.
He reads it through twice, then examines
the signature and seal. It is true enough.
It sickens him to find such duplicity and
dishonour in his own sex; but there is one
thought running through his brain—how he
can get possession of this infamous little docu¬
ment, so that it may never meet the eyes or
wound the heart of the woman whom he not
only admires and loves, but whom he would
fain guard from all knowledge of evil.
" listen to me, Hortense. You are going
to see that man this evening—you will have
many such tender letters from him no doubt.
This one is not of much value to you—you
A DAUGHTER OF HETH.
183
who are adored and written to by the million.
Sell it to me—for another locket even more
beautiful than the one I have promised
you!"
But she shakes her head, and thrusting the
letter into the desk, locks it.
"Never! Not for a dozen bijoux. Ven¬
geance, mon cJier, is as dear to a deserted
woman's heart as diamonds and all the other
precious stones. It is the little Anglaise who
has taken you from me. She does not want
you—I can see that She is folle of the
husband who prefers ' Hortense' to her, and
some day this little letter will be my revenge
on her for the loss of—you!"
He strides out of the charming boudoir,
where he has passed many hours, with a sense
of repulsion. He feels as if the fragrant
atmosphere stifles him, and his very soul revolts
at the hollowness and falsehood that exist
within these rose-tinted Walls.
Thank Heaven he is well rid of it all now I
And even if he remains in Paris, he will not
be annoyed by the actress. Shall he go, or
shall he stay ? Stay to watch over her, and to
do his best to guard her from the knowledge
of her husband's shameful infidelity.
He had just then turned into the Place Ven-
d6me, and within a stone's-throw stands the
Bristol, where the Vansittarts are staying.
The sight of it decides him at once. He
determines to remain in Paris.
After he is ^ gone, Hortense tames down
184
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
considerably. She sees that the game is up
where Lord Marcus is concerned, and that
her cajoleries are futile to entrap him again.
So she shrugs her plump shoulders and
subsides into resignation, and begins to
wonder if "Sir Vansittart" is a rich man.
Ehe thinks she heard in London that he was a
very rich man, and a complacent smile breaks
on her mouth.
" I daresay he is not so nice as Marcus, or
so generous, and I shall not care for him—
much. L'amour! c'est pour les epiciers et les
bonnes! Mais pour les femmes du monde—
Va! " and up goes her soft double chin with a
scornful gesture at the fools who have faith in
such twaddle
CHAPTEE XV.
the beginning of the end.
" Will it evermore be thus
Spirits still impervious ?
Shall we never fairly stand
Soul to soul, and hand to hand ?
Are the fates for ever set
That we must be strangers yet!"
Lady Vansittart stands at the window of the
Bristol, her eyes rather vacantly following the
stream of passers-by, her fingers thrumming on
the panes a monotonous accompaniment to a
song. It is a song she found years ago in an
old music book of her mother's, and, taking a
fancy to it, learnt it. For many months the
words have never come across her, but some¬
how to-day she feels unusually depressed, and
they run in her head :
" Oh, my love! my love ! I would we two were dead,
I would we were lying 'neath the deep blue sea.
Gone to our death—my heart pillowing your head,
And the knowledge in my soul that you loved but
me."
" What are you thinking of, Aileen ?"
Vansittart asks rather crossly, for the thrum
ming on the window pane irritates his ear,
and he hates anj^thing unpleasant.
186
MODERN BBIDEaROOM.
She turns round and looks at him. He is
extended full length on the sofa—a cigar in
his mouth, and with the full light on his face.
How handsome he is, she thinks, but how
cold his eyes are—they seem to freeze her,
and she positively shivers a little.
Lunch was over an hour ago, and he has
been lying in the same position ever since,
with a pre-occupied expression on his features.
Luckily she is in blessed ignorance of his
appointment in the Hue Tronchet, which is
engrossing him entirely.
He does not for a moment regret having
made it, or realise the wrong it is to his wife,
but, impatient always in self-gratification, he
finds the hours crawl towards his visit.
" I don't think I like Paris as much as I
did," Lady Vansittart announces suddenly,
but with her face turned weU to the window
again. " In fact I shall be glad to leave here.
When shall we go, Lyulph ? "
There is something in her voice—a weari¬
ness, a discontent, almost a desolation—which
should hardly be there in those still early
days of marriage, and he notices it at once,
and it strikes him at this moment that she
has not kissed him to-day—a very unusual
proceeding on her part. Surely she is not
tired of his high mightiness.
He is not tired of her yet—neither does he
desire to disenchant her with his noble self,
although he is on the eve of making the
acquaintance of Hortense.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
187
He cares for his wife as much as men of
his calibre care for a woman, though Hor-
tense's beauty appeals to his senses more
than Aileen's refined loveliness.
" What's Paris done to displease your lady¬
ship ? " he asks. " It is only a day or so ago
that you likened it to Paradise! "
She turns round, and takes a cursory
glance at the room. It lacks all superfiuous
luxury, and is typical of the Continental dis¬
comfort which is felt by most visitors abroad.
A pair of stiff-looking candelabra stare at her
from the mantelpiece, which they serve as
flanks to a showy gilt clock surmounted by
an equestrian figure of the first Napoleon, a
dozen chairs and a sofa in dingy claret, with
the ordinary amount of hardness about the
backs and seats, stand in solemn array against
the wall, an escritoire, a cheerless-looking
stove, and a good deal of shiny floor round a
small square of Brussels, completes the goods
supplied for the benefit of visitors. Not a
paradisiacal aspect truly, she thinks, but
decides that she has more imagination than
she fancied.
"Did I?" she says languidly. "I sup¬
pose the ' Paradise ' was within / Anyway, I
shall be glad to leave whenever it suits you,
Lyulph."
•'It doesn't happen to suit me just at
present," he answers icily. "Women are the
most changeable creatures going! They
don't know theq; own minds two consecutive
188
A MODEEN BEIDEUROOM.
minutes. Now where would you like to go
when we do leave Paris ? "
He asks it in such an unpleasant, mocking
tone, that she is riled for a minute.
" Anywhere. What do I care ? I should
prefer The Hollies perhaps. I haven't seen
papa for ages, and my mother writes that he
is very ill," and she says this quite yearningly.
Somehow she feels very lonely to-day. True,
Vansittart is here—but evidently his thoughts
are far away. She can see this at a glance.
" So you are tired of your husband already
and want to go back to Papa f " he answers
sneeringly, and this sneer, like the last straw
that broke the camel's back, is too much for
her. Flinging herself into a chair she bursts
into a torrent of tears.
Men detest tears—they are such a nuisance
—and as has been said before, they make a
woman look so plain as a rule. To do him
justice, Vansittart does feel as if he were a bit
of a brute to have called forth this ebuUition.
Aileen is not given to crying, so that either
she is ill and depressed, or else she is jealous
of his having lorgnetted Hortense so much
last night.
" Come here!" he orders, but his voice is
not so hard and cold, and she obeys at once,
and catching her hand he makes her kneel
down by his sofa. " I didn't mean to make
you cry, my dear child. Fact is, losing at
cards spoils a fellow's temper, and I lost
pretty heavily last night at the Maison Doree
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
189
'—^Villeneuve, Dufoy and old Le Brun are
such devils to win—but I hope I'll get my
revenge to-night. We begin early," he says
unblushingly.
She wipes her eyes and pats his hand.
" I am sorry you lost, Lyulph, but why do
you play, if losing makes you cross ? "
"Because I love it! I believe I am a
regular gambler at heart I" he answers
energetically. " Knowing I should have to go
at nine to this lansquenet affair, I ordered
dinner at seven, and thinking you would find
it dull alone, I have asked the Howards to
dine with us, and promised for you that you
will go to the theatre with them afterwards."
" Oh, I can't, Lyulph I I am not myself
to-day, and I hate strangers! "
"Fiddlesticks! You will like them im¬
mensely. Algy Howard is a capital fellow,
and little Mrs. H. is very nice—very young—
very pretty—only married a year—and des¬
perately in love with her husband. She will
make you a charming friend; besides, it
won't be all strangers. Trevennen is a cousin
of the Howards, and will join them at the
theatre."
Now Lady Vansittart doesn't know why,
but in spite of her she flushes up as she hears
this, and the cold blue eyes looking at her note
this flush at once.
" I am glad to see that Trevennen has had
the wisdom to throw off that Hortense's yoke
at last. I believe he has fallen in love with
190
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
someone else. I wonder if, by any chance,
that someone is—you f "
"I hope not," she answers in a steady
voice. " If I thought so, I would never speak
to him again!" Then she cries passionately:
" Lyulph, tell me! You would not surely
let anyone pay me attention and all that! do
say you would not, for you know, darling,
that you cannot really care for me if you are
not a little bit jealous! Are you tired of me
alread}'-, Lyulph ? "
She asks it so piteously, and her poor little-
wrung heart goes up and down so fast as she
waits anxiously for a reassuring reply. She
feels quite sick and faint lest her question
may be answered differently from what she so
earnestly hopes. She means to be very
piteous and pathetic too. There is no sham
in her quivering lips or in the sweet chesnut
eyes. She knows that her adored Lyulph
hates a scene above all things, and she dares
not give vent to her agitation. She dares
not displease him, or bring down on her-self a
word or icy look that seems to chill her all
over and concentrates into a great lump of
misery right upon her heart.
She knows very well that this man, whose
nature latterly has turned out to be cold and
passionless, and whose love for her seems so
lukewarm, is, notwithstanding, all the world
to her. She knows that she married him
from pure love, and that she lavishes on him
body and souj with truth a.nd strength iq'
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 191
expressible. Even now there seems to her
fond fancy but one drawback in his character,
and that is a curious lack of demonstrative-
ness, that does not allow of affection for her
to appear. And yet how she longs for
Lyulph's love every hour of her life! She
believes, however, that the love exists, though
dumb, and on this belief she subsists as well
as she can.
And now, when any man might be melted
into pity by her evident distress, and with
such a charming face as hers is, looking
beseechingly into his own, and with such soft
tones supplicating for a little tenderness, Van-
sittart, lolling lazily on his sofa, watches her
quite unmoved and feeling considerabl}'"
bored.
" Aileen I for Heaven's sake don't be such
a little fool, and pray don't take to tragedy.
I hate it. We have been married a devilish
deal too long a time for eternal billing and
cooing, as if we were a couple of turtle
doves. Of course I care for you—or why in
the name of all that is ridiculous, should I
have married you ?" he asks in a drawling,
patronising voice, glad to have an excellent
excuse for reminding her of the honour he
had done her in elevating her so much above
her own sphere.
True, why should he have married her if he
did not care for her ? There was no gain¬
saying the fact, and she takes heart at once.
In another n^pment two lovely arms go
1D2
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
round his neck, to his inward annoyance as
he pictures the disarrangement of his fault¬
lessly-sitting collar, while she—quite uncon¬
scious of the detrimental effect of her loving
embrace on his personal appearance—
whispers:
"I didn't want to vex you, but, darling,
you never by any chance say anything nice
to me now that I can sit and think about
when you are away! And it would make me
so happy to go over and over again every
dear little word that came from your lips.
Say something nice to me now, Lyulph, do!"
she adds coaxingly, caressing his hair; but
even as she speaks, she can't help perceiving
that he shakes himself impatiently away from
her touch.
" A wounded spirit who can bear ? "
So Lady Vansittart rises quietly from her
knees, and stands beside him with downcast
eyes and a high-swelling heart.
"What on earth can I say?" he replies,
trying to repress a great yawn. " 'Pon my
soul, women are awfully exigeante creatures.
Well, Aileen what do you wish me to say?
Shall I drop the husband, and, lover-fashion,
.swear that you are charming and beautiful
as an angel ?" and he glances up at her
ironically, and sees that she is beautiful as an
angel.
" Love is loveliest when embalmed in tears,"
quoth some poet.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
193
Lady Vansittart's tall, slender figure is
drawn up to its fullest height. A few unshed
tears ghsten on her long, thick lashes; over
her whole appearance hangs the quaint,
imperial grace that Jack Lyster's passionate
eyes had worshipped.
Her hair, loosened in its contact with
Vansittart's shoulder, falls around her in
bright masses, her small, scarlet mouth
quivers a little, and her face is replete with
expression, but expression of the saddest
kind.
Vansittart is not god-like in the smallest
degree, except, perhaps, in his handsome
face. It is only his wife's fond and foolish
imagination that has invested him with
heavenly attributes. He is, in fact, extremely
earthy, as earthy in his nature as any coal-
heaver, though education has taught him to
conceal it under a garb of refinement. His
senses are like most men's senses, and, like
most men, he is often ruled by them when
any appeal to his heart would be perfect
waste of time and labour.
Senses are predominant now!
" And, Aileen, you are beautiful!" he cries
enthusiastically as he takes in all her
numerous points of attraction in a coup d'oeil.
Then he pulls her down again on her knees,
and, throwing his arms round her, he kisses
her lovely face passionately half-a dozen
times.
This is only a^small and modified version
13
194
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
of the old, old story of Cimon and Iphigenia
played over again, that's all.
She hugged the offender, and forgave the offence,
Sex to the last!"
Lady Vansittart, pure and innocent as a
child, never dreams that this delightful
embrace arises from mere materialism,
believes once more implicitly in his love, and
considers Paris or any other place Paradise—
with him !
Algy Howard and his wife think her the
loveliest, brightest creature they have ever
seen, when Lady Vansittart, in an exquisite
demi-toilette of sapphire velvet, comes for¬
ward to greet them.
The little parti carve at dinner is a great
success, and at the end of the meal Aileen
admits to herself that Mrs. Howard is the
very nicest little woman she has ever met.
They give a revival of Pattes de Mouche, at
the Variety this evening, and Lady Vansittart,
who has never seen it before, thoroughly
enjoys the piece, even though Trevennen,
who has joined the party, seems unable to
take his eyes off the lovely, sparkling face.
She does not mind him, after all. What
can it matter who looks at her, while she has
a tower of strength in the knowledge of her
husband's love ?
" I hope he is very lucky to-night, dear old
fellow; he seems to feel losing so much! '*
phe solilo(juises iq the interlude of the acts,
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
193
If she only knew! How very easily he is
winning the game!
« « « « «
" How long have the Vansittarts been
married, Algy ? " Mrs. Howard asks on her
way home after the theatre.
"Not a year, I fancy," Algy Howard
answei's, " and he is sick of her already.
Marcus is hopelessly gone on her, and
between a cold husband and a warm lover
the poor woman is in a nice position—such a
child as she is, too ! "
" And so lovely! I'll look after her, and
see she comes to no harm as far as Marcus is
concerned," Maud Howard, who is the most
energetic little person in the world, cries with
enthusiasm. "Let us go to Monte Carlo
when the Vansittarts go, darling! "
" Agreed I"
13*
CHAPTER XVI.
iiortense at home.
" Princes, and ye whom pleasure quickeneth,
Heed well this rhyme before your pleasure tire.
Poi- life is sweet, hut after life is death :
This is the end of every man's desire."
Meanwhile, at nine by the clock, sharp,
Vansittart bowls along in a hired fiacre—he
has taken the precaution not to have one of
the Bristol's broughams. He keeps humming
"II Bacio," and for five minutes he thinks
regretfully of Aileen's little face, but before
he reaches the Rue Tronchet that which is
behind him moves him far less than that
wliich is before him.
The delicate thoroughbred face of Lady
Vansittart grows dim, while another face,
lustrous with expectancy, seems to smile
upon him and lure him on.
It almost appears to him as if he cannot
wait to reach his destination, so great is his
eagerness to be there, and his pulse, ordi¬
narily rather slow, beats very fast as he rings
the bell.
" What a blessing Trevennen's safe at the
theatre," he thinks. " I wouldn't have him
know about this small escapade of mine for
anything."
HORTENSE AT HOME.
197
The ebon-skinned, woolly-headed Nubian
boy grins in welcome and shows him into the
drawing-room.
It is got up with due regard to all that
appeals to the senses; a cart-load of exotics
scent the room, and in out-of-the-way corners,
in queer jasper, jade and malachite burners,
heavy fumes of incense rise up.
The whole atmosphere of the place is hot
and enervating and languorous.
Vansittart only feels all this, without
pausing to analyse the cause, when Hortense
enters from a little pink and gold door.
" Monsieur has come!" she cries in child¬
like accents, and she holds out a white hand,
rather too plump, but altogether lovely. " It
is very good of you to have kept the rendez¬
vous. I am so very happy!"
The words are ordinary—gushing, and
there is not much sincerity in the voice, but
he does not care about this. It is of Hortense
herself that he is thinking.
On close inspection, he is rather dis¬
appointed, perhaps, in her face, but her
figure is full of curves and bends, and,
drawn up to its full height, gives an idea
of womanly majesty, though it suggests no
majesty at this moment—only a delightful
languor.
She wears a sort of loose white garment,
that the " artists " in millinery would call a
Greek gown. It hangs in statuesque folds,
but clings close enough to define her form,
198
A MODERN BRIDEOROOM.
and is fastened at the neck and waist by
monstrous diamond wasps.
And her arms!
Vansittart has a craze for women's arms.
These arms, seen through the medium of an
opera glass, were really the things that had
most attracted him.
Now they are bare to the shoulder band,
and gleam up like great i*are bits of alabaster
close under his very eyes.
He can touch them if he wills, for truly
Hortense is too gracious a lady to rebuke
him sorely, if he desires to discover that
things so very exquisite as her arms can be
flesh and blood!
" Did you think for a moment that I
shouldn't come ?" he asks, quite softly.
"Really I have been counting the minutes
till nine o'clock!"
And as he utters this he entirely forgets that
^ny other woman has a right to his loyalty.
He only remembers this woman, and is so
much taken that womanhood, with flesh and
blood and plenty of passion and materialism,
makes a daughter of earth—very much earthy
—look like an angel from Heaven.
As he looks at her, Hortense looks back
at him, with an ardour that sets aflame his
fancy. She looks at him steadily, as if his
glance had caught her own and held it in a
spell. Then, with the finesse of a thorough¬
paced flirt, she gives a little start, and turns
away her head, slowly and reluctantly.
HORT£NSE AT HOME.
199
This is not all put on, for she adores hand
some men. And Lyulph Vansittart, to her
taste, is as handsome a man as she has ever
looked upon.
" Tell me," he says, " have you quarrelled
with Lord Marcus Trevennen ? "
She laughs out.
" Not quarrelled. Only sent him away—
bowled him oyer, as you say in your London,"
she answers. "I am afraid I am one big
papillon. I like to sip the sweets from many
flowers and not settle too long on any one."
" And are you not afraid of getting punished
for deserting men like that ? Jealousy is a
thing that men murder women for—some¬
times."
" Do they ? How terrible! but it's only
the canaille who do such things. We are too
well-bred to feel anything. Now I know you
want to find out what sort of a woman I am."
"I do!"
" I am a woman who leads a life of gaiety
and excitement, because my profession makes
me do so. I am frivole, open as the day. I
do not care one little that if a man does not
like me ; but if he did really, really like me,
I believe I would be his slave. I have the
capabilities for it, I know."
"Eeally?" he questions, looking straight
down into her great eyes.
" Eeally I At least, I believe so. Up to
now I suppose no man has ever cared about
me, for I hav^ never loved yet."
200
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Hortense leans back indolently against the
dark red back of the sofa, which effective
background shows up her outline wonder¬
fully, and she has scented her fair hair with
the perfume of some flower that has an in¬
toxicating power about it.
" Tell me, why did you refuse to make my
acquaintance at the theatre that night ? " she
asks, in a voice with a flavour of tremolo in it
that flatters him amazingly.
" I was afraid!"
" Afraid! Of whom—of your wife ? "
A frown crosses his brow and he winces.
He does not want to talk of his wife now or
think of her even ; besides, he objects for
her name to be on the full red lips that
tempt him.
" Afraid of myself."
" Is that true ? "
"Quite true! Hortense, don't you know
what your face can do to a man ? "
She shakes her head.
" It can send him into a dream of Heaven
or drive him mad with disappointment."
Vansittart pauses. Sentiment is not any
more in his line than in his confrere's. The
age is too practical for it.
He is a little surprised at his own elo¬
quence, very mediocre though it be, and
there's a little silence.
Then she leans forward, puts her hand, all
glittering with gems, on his arm and looks up
into his face.
HORTENSE AT HOME,
201
" The last would never be your fate," she
whispers, but he hears her, of course.
Men, even partially deaf men, contrive to
hear any sort of incense to their vanity, if
they can hear nothing else; and this man is
vain, from the top of his blond head to the
sole of his faultless boot. His eyes, so cold
to his wife often, kindle into great fires, and
he flushes up.
"Do you know what your face has done
to me?" and he slips an arm round her
supple, but not too small, waist. The face
he speaks of has come very near to him, and
through a sort of haze which probably lends
enchantment to the view, he really sees none
of the coarse materialism of her expression,
only a pair of big eyes with a passion in their
depths that stirs his usually calm pulse and
makes his head whirl round.
" I'll tell you! I have only been married
a short time and I married for love. My
wife is young, lovely, and devoted to me, and
it would break her heart to know I even
looked at another woman, but I can't help
that! When I saw you the first time at the
theatre, something warned me not to make
your acquaintance ; that is why I refused to
go to your box. It seems great folly for a
man of the world to go mad about a woman's
face, doesn't it? But that is just what I
have done, Hortense, believe me or not as you
will. I swear I love you already, more than
anyone else I know, and that henceforth
202
A MODERN BBIDEaROOM.
you will be the only woman in the world for
^ »
1116.
Hortense does not smile at his gushing
words, as he fully expects her to do". So
many men say such nice things to her, of
course, and it would be impossible for her to
believe in all of them.
He looks at her keenly, knowing that
one dash of ridicule in her expression would
brush off all sentiment and leave the hideous
nakedness of the fact that she is a woman to
be wooed but not a woman to be won, staring
him in the face. But he can detect nothing
save a tenderer light in her glance, a more
inviting look on the full red lips.
She is a thorough actress, but just now it
happens that there is some reality in her feel¬
ings. She is conquered ; it may be for a day,
or it may be only for an hour, or more pro¬
bably only for these few moments.
Spinsters and matrons when you read this
do not frown, for, after all, this book is taken
from life, and Hortense is unfortunately a
type of many women ; so if this little episode
shows a certain laxity of principle, it yet opens
a fdiase of human nature with which most men
are tempted and forced to grow familiar if
they live " in the world and of the world."
"Vansittart is no whit worse, no more than
he is a whit better, than many of our married
men. He is weak, impressionable, open to
advances, powerless to resist them, and his
teachers have been—women.'
HORTENSE AT HOME.
203
Hortense looks again at him. He is beau
comme un 'prince, as she had said to Tre-
vennen. She thinks so now, and, poor un-
disciplined-natured creature, it never enters
her imagination to control an impulse.
, She flings one of her wonderful arms round
his neck and lifts up her eyes towards him,
when a voice seems to whisper in his ear :
" Aileenl"
But he flings the sound of the voice away,
together with honour and loyalty and every¬
thing that is good in him to the four winds,
and remembers only—Hortense.
A feeling of relief, curiously mixed with a
little repulsion, comes to him as he stands
later on in the Eue Tronchet, counting eleven
strokes from La Madeleine. The wind,
which is keen and autumnal, is quite plea¬
sant to his hot cheeks and temples, and as he
looks up at the sky, a myriad of pale chaste
stars look down at him.
" Ugh !" he says angrily; " a temptation
straight from the devil, I believe. But I
ought to have resisted it, not only for Aileen's
sake, but for my own. Women like Hortense
are so confoundedly dangerous. Of course,
she'll play me false some day—but no! "—
and his insensate vanity gets the better of him
■—" I don't think she will! Somehow, I
always flnd it easier to give up a woman than
she finds it to give me up, worse luck!"
When he reaches the Bristol, he steals
noiselessly into tjie room not to disturb his
204
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
sleeping wife, and he feels slightly ashamed of
himself when Lady Vansittart opens her
chesiiut eyes and puts out her hand.
"How late you are," she murmurs sleepily.
" I hope you were luck}'^ to-night."
" Remarhahly lucky! " he answers, dryly.
" So glad!—kiss me, Lyulph darling."
Shall he ?
It cuts both ways. He is sufficiently taken
with Hortense just now not to wish to ob¬
literate her good-night caress, and he hardly
likes to desecrate his wife's pure lips by touch¬
ing them.
But he cannot well refuse, so he stoops and
drops a light kiss, and for the life of him he
cannot help thinking how curiously tame it is
by contrast.
CHAPTER XVII.
iier first born.
" There is iii all this cold and heartless world no
power of deep, strong, deathless love like that within a
mother's heart,"
Somehow Hortense has not pleased Vansittart
as much as he expected, or else—and it would
be to his credit to judge so—he is already
disgusted with himself for having been caught
by the woman's meretricious face and vulgar
mind. True he has been to see her every day
for a week since his first visit to the Rue
Tronchet, and Hortense is considerably richer
in jewels and all the other gew-gaws tliat she
loves, since that evening when the man bemt,
comme un prince declared that he loved her.
Loved her!—he laughs already to himself at
the folly of the declaration, and wonders how
on earth he can break with her with a good
grace and without making her an enemy,
" She could be as spiteful as a cat—my
lovely Hortense!" he says to himself, and
knowing he has done not only a wrong, but
an idiotic wrong, in placing himself in such a
position, his temper grows more irritable than
it usually is.
And, of course, as is always the case, it is
his wife who bears the brunt of his ill-huraour.
She is the legitimate object on whom he can
206
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
expend smiles or frowns, sweet speeches or
occasionally an oath.
Meanwhile, with the vacillation which is
inherent in his nature, he has put off his de¬
parture from Paris sine die. Nine months of
matrimony loitered away in any aimless,
objectless sort of fashion, have either brought
him that demon of marriage—satiety—or else
he has grown more and more selfish and
wrapped up in himself. Anyway, his affection
for Aileen has very little sparkle or brightness
about it now. It might be pleasanter for her if
it even bubbled up now and then with the effer¬
vescence of champagne, instead of presenting
a hopelessly sluggish aspect like the famous
waters of Acheron, that are said to kill slowly
but surely the foolhardy who approach them,
and though depressing and homely aphorisms
are unpalatable things to the mind of the
novel reader, it may be remarked that
Shakespeare never showed a keener insight
into human nature than when he said, "Men
are April when they woo, and December when
they wed."
They have been sitting together in the
breakfast room, this really ill-assorted couple,
without speaking. Lady Vansittart stirs her
coffee absently, with her lovely eyes fixed on
some particular figure in the morsel of carpet
that graces the centre of the apartment, and
her husband keeps nibbling in a provocative
way at little atoms of toast, while he turps over
languidly a leaf of Charivari,
HER FIRST BORN.
207
After a little he glances across at her, and
there is a cold, sneering expression on his
mouth as he remarks:
" That fellow Trevennen is quite a tame cat
here. I suppose he is really making love to
you—at any rate you seemed awfully inter¬
ested in his conversation yesterday!"
Lady Vansittart is not yet a woman of the
world, so she is guilty of the rustic crime of
blushing — blushing so deeply too that the
blush is quite a painful one. She remembers
the time perfectly to which her lord and
master alludes. It was when she was cross-
questioning Trevennen about "that horrid
woman, Hortense," whom she has a con¬
viction has deserted Lord Marcus for Van¬
sittart. But, though she blushes, a great
rush of indignation makes her answer
in the old wilful, defiant fashion of Aileen
Ferrers.
" That's the second time, Lyulph, you have
said such abominable things; considering that
for the last ten days I have not had a creature
to speak to—except Lord Marcus—who, by
the way, only comes here at your invitation,
is it any wonder that I like to talk to him or
anyone else ? "
" Don't flare up like a tigress, my dear child.
No well-bred woman would do it!" he answers
coolly, taking up another bit of toast, and
peering again at the newspaper,
Vansittart never forgets himself and rants
and raves like a opstermonger; his bluest of
208
A MODERN BBtDEGROOM.
blue blood would freeze at the bare idea of
such an infringement of dignity; but nasty
waspish little things, said with patrician
languor are quite allowable, and he seldom
loses a chance lately of carrying out his
prerogative.
Perhaps after all Lady Vansittart does not
much care. She has loved him with all her
heart and soul, but lately he has certainly
done his best to wear out the love, and evoke
instead a wonder and just the ghost of scorn
at his words and ways.
" I did love him so much—so much!" she
says to herself, with tears in her eyes and her
mouth twitching like a child's, " and I love
him now—dearly — dearly—only sometimes
he won't let me do so! "
She sits for a minute or so as silent as a
mouse, chewing the cud of very little sweet
and a very great deal of bitter fancy. It
would not be truthful to say that she sits as
meek as the traditional lamb, or that she does
not feel hotly rebellious with her husband,
her destin}', and herself, as she tilts her chair,
toys with her tea-spoon, and makes believe to
be as cool as a cucumber or a well-bred
woman; but presently she heaves a great
sigh, which arises from the painful con¬
viction that her desire to so on adoring
• c? o
Vansittart has a mortal enemy in himself.
" Please, Lyulph, don't insinuate that there
is any love-making between Lord Marcus and
me," she says quietly, " because there is not.
HER HRST BORN.
209
He is very kind, and I am not ashamed of
saying that I like him very much indeed!"
On this honest avowal Vansittart elevates
his eyebrows and colours a shade. He is one
of those men who haven't a shadow of belief
in any woman's chastity, and therefore he at
once jumps to the conclusion that Aileen's " I
like him very much indeed " will soon ripen
into " I love him awfully."
" Oh, you do, do you!" he says in a concen¬
trated sort of voice, " and yet you expect me
to go on billing and cooing ? "
" I don't know about billing and cooing,
but I do want you to care a little about me,
and I donH want to be left to my own society
or Lord Marcus Trevennen's, while you go and
see that hateful—hateful—Uortense I"
It is a stray shot which she fires in spite of
herself, but it tells.
Vansittart flushes deeply and passes his
handkerchief hastily over his face to hide it.
Of course she has been told about the matter,
and somehow he feels smaller than usual in
her eyes.
" Trevennen has been gossiping, I suppose,"
he says carelessly. " He is angry because
Hortense, I believe, led him to think she pre¬
ferred me!"
"Preferred you! How dare she prefer
you? I should like to know," she flashes
angrily. "You gave her leave to like you,
of course. If you had not got acquainted
with her she coqjd not know if you were
14
210
A UODEBN BRIDEOROOM.
preferable to Lord Marcus or any other
man!"
And Lady Vansittart flings herself on the
sofa and sobs like a child.
Then she jumps up again and stands facing
him.
"Lyulph! don't be nasty to me, darling;
do stay with me, or if you will go out, take
me with you. I want to see a lot of pictures
in the Louvre which we hadn't time to look at;
and this hotel is so dull, I shall die if I stay
here all day alone."
"Send for Trevennen to enliven you, my
dear," he answers indiflferently. " He will do
for a pis-aller since you can't have me I " and
taking his hat he saunters out of the room.
She throws herself down again on the
uncomfortably hard sofa and, burying her face
in the pillow, cries as if her heart would break.
Then she sits up, wipes her eyes, and looks
round hopelesslj'.
The room is quite oppressive in its loneliness
and formality and silence. Outside, the wintry
sunshine falls on the white houses, and the
streets are thronged with people all more or
less with cheerful faces; the very contrast
between internals and externals makes the
former almost unbearable.
Aileen walks up and down the long room
for a few moments ; then she pauses, clasping
her hands above her head.
" I can't bear it—I can't bear it," she cries
half aloud, with the impatience and rebellious
HER FIRST BORN.
211
spirit of the old life at The Hollies. " What is
to become of me? If Lyulph would only
love me a little—just a very little—I should
be so happy; but he doesn't—he doesn't.
That woman has caught his fancy, and I do
believe he dislikes me now! Oh! " and her
hands drop nervelessly down, " I must make
Lyulph go on caring for me—If it's only to
keep me out of temptation — out of—sin,
perhaps. If I knew for certain that he was
tired of me—that he liked some other woman
—I believe I should hate him—as much as I
love him now. I believe I should kill him,
rather than see another woman take my
husband from me! "
" Are you ill. Lady Vansittart, or has any
thing happened ? '' Trevennen asks anxiously.
She had not heard his knock, and she starts
as his voice sounds close to her. She looks
up at him—her long lashes are wet with tears,
and her lips are still quivering like a child's.
" No!" she says, " not ill and nothing has
happened ; but please go away. I want to be
alone—alone."
He looks at her yearningly—he longs to
take her in his arms and comfort her in what¬
ever grief she may have—but he dares not give
vent even to one word of all that is in his soul.
He knows too well that she is as chaste as ice
—as pure as snow—and that one glimpse into
his heart of hearts would take away from him
all that savours of happiness in life — the
privilege of looking on her beautiful face, and
• 14*
212
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
feeling even a conventional clasp of her little
white hand.
"I called to tell you that the Howards
have come back," he says quietl3^ " I
thought you might like to go and see them
this afternoon. May I escort you, Lady
Vansittart ? "
The words are ordinary enough—all the
world might hear them; but she catches the
expression in his eyes, and grows quite pale.
Lj'ulph seems to fling this man at her head,
and the man himself looks at her with a
longing, tender look that brings, against her
wish, a sort of comfort to the spirit that
Vansittart has cruelly wounded.
She hesitates an instant—then she realises
that after all her husband is still her only love,
her one object in life, and that therefore no
temptation can come to her.
" I was very stupid just now," she says
forcing a smile. " I was crying like a baby,
and for—nothing, you know!"
He does not know—he believes she has a
great deal to cry about with that brute of a
husband of hers, but he keeps this belief to
himself.
" I am all right now, and shall be delighted
to see the Howards."
" What time will you be ready ? " he asks,
his face brightening in sympathy with hers.
" At three; but if you have anything else
to do, don't bother about me."
" You know ! " he answers reproachfully. ,
HER FIRST BORN.
213
" How lovely Lady Vansittart is, but how
ill she looks!" Mrs. Howard says to
Trevennen the next day. " I wonder if she is
happy ? "
" How can she be happy with that double-
distilled brute ? " he growls angrily. " She is
most tmhappy, I should say. I found her
crying yesterday as if her heart would break,
and I would have given worlds to console her,
only "
He pauses, and rather repents his indiscreet
confession.
« Only ? "
" Well, Maud, she wouldn't have let me!
That's the long and the short of it. I
never saw a woman more devoted to an un¬
worthy fellow than she is—a man who has a
dozen intrigues on, and who neglects her and
makes her miserable."
" Don't you go and add to her unhappiness
by making her like you then! Just leave
her to win Sir Lyulph back to his old
affection. He married her for pure love, you
know!"
" Pure love indeed I He married her just
to gratify his fancy. He couldn't love any¬
one but himself—it isn't in him. Maud, will
you give me a promise, and keep it ? "
" Of course—if I can."
" I want you to be with Lady Vansittart as
much as you can. You are such a good
little thing, not a bit fast, you know, and just
the friend for h8r. She does not seem to
214
A MODERN BRIDEQROOM.
have a soul in the world to look after her.
Her father is a helpless invalid, her mother
she does not get on with, and the only other
creature she has belonging to her—^her
husband—is her greatest curse!"
" I'll give you the promise you want
willingly, but you will have to give me one
in return. You mustn't try and make love
to her. I know you care for her, dear boy,
but you are not selfish like Sir Lyulph, and
when you remember that your liking for her
would be a greater curse than her husband's
indifference, I know you will refrain from
seeing her oftener than possible. She is
almost a child, and has not the strength to
resist temptation."
Trevennen gives a curt laugh, which has
a little bitterness in it.
"How little you women can judge one
another! Now I could stake my existence
that Lady Vansittart can resist any tempta¬
tion, for the simple reason that, loving her
husband as she does, no temptation exists.
Never, so long as Vansittart lives, will she
even give a word or look to any other man.
I have seen a lot of her for the last two
months, and a better, more innocent being
does not exist. To tell you the truth, Maud,
I haven't been able to hide what I feel for
her as much as I ought to have done. One
can't keep guard over every look, even if one
succeeds in holding one's tongue."
" And how did she take it ? "
HEB FIRST BORN.
215
"Take it? She didn't take it ail. It
never entered her head that any man would
dare to infringe her loyalty to that stuck-up
chap, whom she has placed on a pedestal to
worship," he says bitterly.
" But about your promise, Marcus, not to
see too much of her ? "
" I can't promise that. I feel that I must
see her; but I promise that she shall nevet-
have her ears sullied by words of love from
me. There, I can't sav more than that. For
the rest, if you keep your promise, and be a
friend to her, you will know that I may eat
my heart out, but my lips will be silent as the
grave!"
It is true what Mrs. Howard says—Lady
Vansittart is as fragile as if a breath of wind
could blow her away to her sister angels in
Heaven; but her heart beats strong enough
with two feelings—^love for the man she has
married, and love for the child whose advent
is to perfect her life.
She has been in Paris four months, and on
New Year's day a little white blossom is
given to her.
But not for long, poor soul.
As far as human beings can judge, the
little life would have been a boon to the
woman whose portion of love on earth seems
so small; but Heaven knows best.
Ill as she is, the instinct of motherhood
overpowers all physical weakness, and she
strains J;he littte one in her fair arms and
216
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
presses it to her heart with a new-born
rapture. This is hers—hers without aiiy
alloy—hers to rejoice her spirit and solace
her griefs, and she falls asleep with her
darling in her embrace and a happy smile
hovering on her lips.
But the next day they take it from her—
take it to its rest in the snow-bound earth,
which is not whiter than the baby face and
form.
" I wish it had lived, Lyulph!" she says
piteously, with her chestnut eyes all dashed
with tears, and her pretty lips trembling
sorrowfully for her uncompleted joy. "I
loved it so, for itself, and because it was your
child!"
And she looks up in her husband's face, and
sees no sympathy in her grief, only a frown
on his face.
" It's a d —d nuiusance I " he says, in a
cold, harsh voice. " If we have no son, the
title goes to that Yankee cousin of mine,
whose mother was a shopwoman. Thank
goodness, the fellow won't get the money.
I'll make ducks and drakes of that^ sooner
than he shall enjoy it I"
Lady Vac sit tart hears, but says nothing,
only she will probably remember to her dying
day how her husband spoke in the most
trying hour of her life.
CHAPTER XVin.
pbincess sekge poldokazski.
" What the years mean—how time dies and is not slain,
How love grows, and laughs, and sighs, and wanes
again.
These were things she came to know—and take their
measure,
"When the play was played out so—for one man's
pleasure."
Though only nineteen, the sweet but solemn
burthen of " mother-love " has come to Lady
Vansittart in weightier measure than it comes
often to women of riper years, and the death
of the child has sobered her before her time.
She has lost a deal of that " sparkle " that to
some people had been her greatest charm.
Her face is thin and white, and her figure
slighter than ever, but it is a long time before
Vansittart's selfish eyes perceive the alteration,
and even when they do it does not appear as
if his heart suffers any remorse at his daily
neglect. The truth is, alas ! that he only
married her to satisfy an ephemeral liking,
mingled with a petty desire to carry her off
from poor Jack Lester!
It is impossible for him, with the feelings he
has now for his wife, to sacrifice himself on
her account. He knows that after her free,
healthy life at -The Hollies, fresh air and
218
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
exercise are essential to her, but he never
thinks of giving up his diurnal pursuits or his
nightly orgies for the sake of bringing back
the wild-rose bloom to the cheeks of the little
lonely woman, pining in the great, dreary
apartments of the Bristol for want of common
care and attention. It is in the full swing of
the Paris season, and the beautiful old city is
thronged by the grande-monde and demi-monde
and notorieties from all quarters of the globe;
but casting into the shade other women,
there is a certain Princess Serge Poldora3ski
who holds her own as the Belle par excellence,
and sports a wonderful series of toilettes
executed by Worth and Pingat.
To none of her worshippers is she so
amiable as to Sir Lyulph Vansittart, probably
because it is his way never to show parti¬
cular ardour in his attentions to a grande-
dame. To a demi-monde it is different.
His feelings, in fact, are not really inte¬
rested in the Pohsh beaut)'-, though he is
undeniably flattered at being singled out by
her amongst a host of admirers.
He never seeks a place by her side, but he
always lets himself be installed there by a
stroke of her diplomacy, while in his heart he
really holds her in contempt, for being a
thorough worldling himself, he fully under¬
stands a mind akin to his own. It is, however,
to say the least, derogatory to his wife to
afficher himself as he does with Princess Serge,
and if he had a spark of wholesome or moral
PRINCESS SERGE POLDORAZSKI.
219
sentiment about him he would recognise the
error of his ways. As it is it never enters his
brain to do anything but what pleases him for
the moment.
After a week or so A.ileen's impaired health
forces on him a pang of compunction. Brute
as he may be—and though "brute" is a
strong word, it is often applicable to the
aristocracy—^he would be more than mortal
man if he shut his eyes obstinately to the fact
that he is in a fair way to commit woman-
slaughter. So he makes a compromise between
his conscience and his inclination. He knows
quite well that the young wife he neglects
and bullies, as much, though in more polite
terms, as a costermonger, is as good as gold
and as pure as a pearl, and that, though she
may not adore him now as she did in the first
days, and to the extent which he considers
himself entitled to be adored, that she will
never by word, or look, or deed, dishonour
the patrician name he has deigned to bestow
on her.
But with this conviction he also knows
that Lord Marcus Trevennen admires her
immensely, and that, possibly—even probably
— according to the manners and customs
of the nineteenth century, he will let that
admiration find speech at the first favourable
opportunity.
The compact then that Vansittart makes
with himself is a dishonourable one, for
instead of sacriflfcing himself to guard his wife
220
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
from £i bite of the forbidden fruit, he prefers
throwing her into danger and letting her ears
be sullied by a declaration of love from
another man.
He forgets or chooses to ignore that " he
comes too near who comes to be denied,"
so from him emanates the proposition that
Trevennen, who has his time absolutely at his
own disposal, and who never led so quiet and
blameless a life before, shall become Lady
Vansittart's cavalier when she goes out to
take the air, and Trevennen, but too pleased
at the prospect, is careful not to throw any
impediment in the way.
" Fact is, my dear fellow, I have been
rather unlucky at speculation lately and want
to recoup a bit if I oan," Vansittart says
confidentially, but Trevennen answers nothing.
He knows the man is false, and has a con¬
viction that it is Hortense & Co. or the
Princess Serge who occupy his time instead
of the Bourse.
The feelings with which the little woman
consigned to his care has inspired him are an
extremely curious mixture.
Up to this time he has run through more
feverish fancies than most of his companions.
He has never rightly understood even the
meaning of that divine foDy that men call
" love." But a short time back he would
have laughed outright at the bare notion of
his falling prone under the influence of a
strong passion for a good and pure woman,
PRINCESS SERGE POLDORAZSKI. 221
in whose presence he feels he would rather die
than utter an irreverent word or the mildest
of double entendre.
And now it is quite sufficient for the good-
looking young guardsman to be let look at
Lady Vansittart or to speak to her alone and
unfettered by the ears and eyes of other
people. He knows that if a casual glance
from her chesnut orbs or an accidental touch
of her hand, brings the blood flaming in his
cheek, that at any rate there will be no one
by to sneer at his weakness pr smile at his
folly. He is horribly afraid of the world's
laugh, and, like many of his sex, looks upon
the world's laugh as a much more important
thing than it reaUy is.
Of course it is wrong of him to yield him¬
self up to a passion for Aileen, but it has
worked him good to a certain extent. It has
changed his nature as a serpent changes his
skin—in the far healthier atmosphere he
breathes at the Vansittarts', the noxious one
in which he has lived so long loses its influence
over him. He begins to see right from wrong
ever so much more clearly, and ceases to
palliate evil with false reasoning. He is not
even ashamed now to own to his possession of
that which is so horribly unfashionable — a
conscience.
In fact Trevennen has become a thinking
man, lifted out of the old self of conceit,
foppery, and egregious folly by the mighty
power of a genuine attachment, whichi
222
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
flanked by honour and guarded by delicacy
scarcely deserves the name of—sin I Lady
Vansittart, who is young and innocent, and
still very girlish in her tastes and feelings,
and who has as much idea as a babe unborn
of the wickedness in Tophet, agrees willingly
to anything that is likely to distract her from
her grief about her little child.
• Lulled in security, for Trevennen keeps his
promise to Mrs. Howard and guards his eyes
and tongue splendidly—though how long this
will last is slightly problematical—Aileen's
spirits grow lighter, and her face sparkles up
now and then as of old, though her experience
of matrimony has taken the bright ringing
laugh away from her lips. She likes
Trevennen, as she had honestly averred to her
husband, and at this time she does not hesi¬
tate to show it.
But he knows that she does not care for
him as he does for her—that would be im¬
possible !—still, she begins to like him just a
little.
Eight away to westward, the pale red
beams of the setting sun cast a pink flush on
her cheek, and she looks once more like the
girl with whom he had waltzed at that
volunteer ball.
She was free then! She was only Miss
Ferrers, and he had been idiot enough not to
see then how lovely she was. It wouldn't
have mattered in those days to have told
her how much he loved her, but now 1
PBINCESS SEBQK POLDOBAZSKL 223
Well, he cannot venture to do so now, for a
rebuff will hurt him awfully.
While he is thinking all this, they are
strolling down the Boulevard. She is talking
little inanities, looking into the exquisite
shops, and every now and then, glad to be
emancipated from the dreary rooms at the
hotel, she gives a little bright laugh, which
has something of the ring of life at The
Hollies.
Trevennen buys a lovely bunch of fragrant
violets, and she thanks him prettily and pins
them to her cloak, but there is not a spark of
coquettishness about her, and the fact that a
young man and a young woman of their class,
walking down the Boulevard with the freedom
of a couple of Bourgeois is rather peculiar, to
say the least of it, never enters her mind.
But the daybeams decline, and shadows
come slanting across the pavement, and
Trevennen forgets his promise to Mrs. Howard
in the glamour of the hour. It seems to him
an impossibility not to teU her all that is
making his pulse beat high and the blood
surge over his cheek.
He turns and looks at her, and once more
his courage fails as the charming, frank,
chesnut eyes return his gaze pleasantly, and
with childlike innocence.
Then suddenly a coroneted carriage, with a
couple of spanking roans, passes them quickly,
but not before Lady Vansittart has realised
that in it is seated the most beautiful woman
m
224
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
she has ever seen, and by her side—^Vansit-
tart.
He is so much engrossed in his companion
that he never notices his wife.
She stands still as if transfixed to the
ground, gazing with a dazed expression at
the receding carriage ; her face looks deathly
white in the partial gloom, and presently Tre-
vennen sees great tears shining in the sweet
piteous eyes.
It is too much.
First he swears in his heart at the " brute "
who treats his wife disgracefully, then he
suddenly seizes Aileen's hand, and regards
her steadily for a moment, while she, roused
by his action, stares back at him in wonder¬
ment, but with no suspicion in her look;
flirtation, much less sin, is far from her
thoughts, and her whole soul, her fealty and
honour, are the man's who has passed her by,
while his whole being seemed wrapped in the
magnificent piece of flesh and blood beside
him.
In fact, she is thinking how hard it all is,
how cruel it is of Lyulph to have grown tired
of her so soon—so soon—and it never occurs
to her that she has reached the prologue of a
thrilling drama of pathos and passion.
She lets Trevennen retain his clasp, and
does not even tiy to shake it off*; nay, it is
pleasanter to her to feel that firm clasp, now
that her limbs are trembling and her poor
heart is wounded and sore.
PRINCESS SERGE FOLDORAZSEI. 225
But he begins to speak, and the words that
fall volubly from his lips come like a thunder¬
bolt.
Fast she has never been in her young life.
Flirt she undoubtedly was, but since the day
she swore to " love, honour and obey," all the
levity in her—if such a word can be used—
died a natural death.
So now Trevennen's passion and pathos do
not move her even to pity, and she shrinks
away from him in undisguised annoyance.
There is no affectation in this. Those
women who have married for love, as Lady
Vansittart did, will understand at once the
feeling that makes her experience positive
pain at the words of passion on another man's
lips.
Has she so wickedly displayed the diminu¬
tion of her love for her husband, that Tre-
vennen should dare to talk to her thus—not
only avowing his love, but asking for a
return ? She feels indignant and miserable,
and longs to run away before she can hear all
that it may be his pleasure to say.
" Lady Vansittart—^Aileen !"
She flashes an angry look as he speaks her
Christian name, but in the turmoil of his
feelings Trevennen does not notice it.
"Aileen, it makes me mad to see you
treated so! I, who love you, revere you,
worship you! Forgive me for saying this,
but I can't help it! I must tell you how I
feel for you!—h(jw I love you—that I never
15
226
A MODEKN BRIDEGROOM.
loved anybody till I met you—that I shall
never love anybody but you so long as I
live !"
And he, with both her hands held tightly
in his, breathless and frightened at his own
temerity, bends imploring eyes on her face
and tries to find some compassion, some re¬
lenting in the features that look so proud and
white in the shimmering dusk, but in vain.
There is no sign of relenting, no single line
of indecision to be read in the scornful curl
of the sweet red lips, and in the gleam of
anger in the chesnut startled eyes, while the
little hands wrench themselves out of his
grasp as if stung by a serpent.
There is not a scrap of acting, not the
veriest attempt at prudery, and he feels at
once that his touch is hateful to her, and his
words an insult that perhaps she will never
forget or forgive.
" You are angry with me ! You hate me!"
he cries bitterly. " I know now that I have
been a dolt, an idiot, that you have only
regarded me as an acquaintance, a sort of
tame cat about the house !"
His heart swells with mortification and vexa¬
tion, but all the same he loves her more even
in her virtue and wrath than he did before.
One conciliatory word, one coquettish
glance would cure him at once. It would
place her on a level with most women of her
class ; but now he thinks he would give half
his life for the precious guerdon of one for-
PBINCESS SERGE POLDORAZSKI.
227
giving look—for an assurance—ever so slight
—that, though he has behaved like a mad¬
man, he has not quite forfeited her liking
or respect.
" Do speak to me. Lady Vansittart, I im¬
plore you! Tell me if I have' offended you
beyond recall. Speak my pardon, if you
cannot bring yourself to say anything kinder
to me. You don't know how awfully mean
and pitiable I feel at having taken advantage
of your goodness in entrusting yourself to my
care. I swear, by my love for you, that I will
never breathe another word that all the world
may not hear ! "
She draws a deep breath and regards him
quietly. She is not much of a judge of
human nature, but somehow the conviction is
carried home to her that this man has not
been so bad as to presume on a tete-a-teie, but
rather he has been led away by a foolish
impulse. His real contrition can be traced on
his frank Saxon face ani in the increased
respect of his manner.
She cannot help feeling a little sorry that
he has been so impulsive—both for his sake
and her own.
She has found it quite pleasant to take her
outings with him—to be lifted out of herself,
as it were, and her grief for her child. There
is an innate feeling of delicacy in her that
revolts from treating as serious a subject she
shrinks from touching on; so she tries to
take it aU as a mistake.
15*
228 A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
" I forgive you, Lord Marcus! You have
been joking, I am sure," she falters, forcing a
little laugh to hide her embarrassment; but
she catches sight of the pain in his face, and
her attempt at hilarity goes to the wall. " It is
I who am to blame in the matter, and not you,
I am afraid!" she goes on, gently. " You
see, I must have been very foolish and in¬
discreet for you to imagine that flirtation,
however harmless, is in my line. Any en¬
couragement you may have fancied has been
quite involuntary on my part, for, indeed, I
have never dreamt of doing or saying any¬
thing to mislead you. I am quite an old
married woman now," continues Aileen,
gravely, really feeling as old as Mount Horeb;
" and I am quite countrified and unfashion¬
able enough to confess that I don't think
married people ought to flirt the very least
in the world. We will forget all about this
afternoon, and be very careful to avoid all
dangerous conversation, I think ! "
" Forget my folly, my insanity, if you will,
but please. Lady Vansittart, don't be relent¬
less."
" No ; we will be good friends still, although
you have hurt my pride and made me feel
very small in my own eyes!" and she gives him
the tips of her cold fingers as a mark of truce.
He takes them^he longs to press them
once and again to his lips, but he releases
them gently, and is silent as they walk on.
By the light of the flickering lamps he can
PRINCESS SERGE POLDOBAZSKI.
229
see her face—it has a pre-occupied expres¬
sion, and a shadow lies over the beautiful
chesnut eyes. Suddenly she turns to him, and
tries to steady her voice as she asks:
"Who was that lady with whom Lyulph
was driving ? She is so lovely that I should
like to know her name!" she goes on, in the
fond belief that Trevennen will not suspect
the throb of jealousy which makes her hot
and cold and thoroughly miserable.
" It was Princess Serge Poldorazski," he
answers, and, with the impulse of a really
generous and unselfish nature, he adds, " She
is better looking at a distance; near you can
see that she is not young, and that art is con¬
siderably to be thanked for her beauty."
She heaves a short sigh of satisfaction as
she listens. It is very pleasant to her to hear
that the woman her husband is evidently on
friendly terms with is passee and " made up."
" What does Lyulph see in her, I wonder ? "
she remarks presently.
" Nothing! I daresay she came across
Vansittart and asked him to drive. She is
one of those women who must have society,
whether it is a man's or that of her own sex,"
he replies, with unblushing falsehood; but he
does not care what he asserts so long as he
can take the troubled look out of the eyes
which seeem to him the loveliest pair ever
created.
By the time Lady Vansittart has reached
her own roouk at the Bristol the demon of
A. MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
jealousy has left her, and remorse has come
in its stead.
Eemorse that for a moment she should have
suspected her husband of doing a wrong or
sinful thing. Of course it was only an acci¬
dental meeting of his with the Princess, and a
harmless drive right through the crowded
thoroughfares, which fact alone was a proof
that the whole thing is innocent.
She smiles a little as she walks to the man¬
telpiece, and taking up a small photo of Van-
sittart, she kisses it.
" I won't do you such injustice again, dear
boy," she whispers to the portrait, " but I
love you so, that I could not bear to know
any other woman admired you even!"
Presently she goes to her dressing-table
and -lights a couple of candles preparatory
to making her toilet for dinner. Yansittart
had said that he should dine with her to¬
night, and she is anxious to look her prettiest
for the iete-a tete.
Taking up her silver-backed brush, she
pauses. Something attracts her attention
lying among all the little bric-a-hrac that
women affect.
It is a letter, addressed in a tiny, cramped
hand to:
" Milady Yansittart,
" Hotel Bristol."
It looks like a bill, but she owes nothing in
Paris.
princess serge poldorazski. 231
She opens the envelope slowly. Somehow
a sort of presentiment of annoyance seizes
her. Two half sheets of paper drop out, and
the first one she reads runs thus :
" Madame,
" Hortense, whom all Paris adores, is not
going to be insulted by a man's fickleness
without revenging herself.
" Sir Vansittart has made her believe in his
eternal devotion, and now that his devotion
is given to Princess Serge Poldorazski, who,
every one knows, is nothing but a dame de
demi-monde, Hortense has her revenge.
"Sir Vansittart's wife shall know her
husband as he is, and not what she thinks
him!
"The little paper enclosed will open her
eyes."
White as a sheet, with trembling fingers,
Aileen holds the enclosure. She hesitates to
read it, but opens the paper at last.
The words burn her eyes as if written in
fire;
"Someone who has fallen a victim to
Mademoiselle Hortense's beauty will call at
the Rue Tronchet at nine to-night. He hopes
to be rewarded by a sight of th^e face that has
haunted him night and day since he first
looked on it.
" L.V. Oct. 15th."
232
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
It is terrible for a woman to find her idol
is of clay—to have respect replaced by con¬
tempt—her love turned to—hate.
Aileen feels sick and faint. She dashes
the proof of her husband's infidelity on the
lioor, and stamps on it, while a horrible feel¬
ing of repulsion towards the man she swore
to love fills her whole heart.
It is no forgery. Vansittart's signature—a
peculiar one—is on the ground staring back
at her—the fifteenth of October.
She rushes to her desk and pulls out the
programme of " Les Pattes de Mouche."
The date on it is the fifteenth of October.
She knows now that Vansittart is not only
had, but a liar—that the story of his loss at
lansquenet was trumped up to deceive her.
She remembers but too well, when he came
home that night from that woman's house.
" How late you are," she had said. " I
hope you were lucky to-night."
" Remarkably lucky I " he had answered.
And then she had asked him to kiss her!
" And he kissed me—kissed me just after
he had left the woman whose face haunted
him night and day!" she cries out loud.
" Has Heaven no punishment for a traitor
like him ? If falsehood—sin—go unpunished,
what avails it to be good ? "
" What are you ranting about like a mad
woman ?" Vansittart's cold, mocking voice
asks close to her.
She shrinks away from him, her eyes aflame.
PEINCESS SERGE POLDORAZSKI. 233
and her whole face transfigured with indigna¬
tion and wrath.
" I believe you are mad!" he says, but
before the words are out of his mouth she
drops as if shot, in a dead faint.
He looks round for some remedy. The
lovely white face—cold and insensible—
appeals to him a little, and for a moment an
approach to his old liking for her crops up in
his breast; then his gaze falls on the paper
lying on the floor.
" This is what has upset her—poor Aileen!
Women are such unreasonable creatures, they
never take things as they come—she must
know that I can't be always keeping myself
sacred to her! That devil Hortense has
done her best to punish me for taking up
with the Poldorazski, but she hasn't done
much harm. To-morrow I'll have it out
with Aileen, and she'll know that she must
put up with my erratic ways if she wants
domestic peace. She must accept the fact
that I am not immaculate, and—dont want
to he I"
He rings the bell for Lady Vansittart's
maid, and desiring her to look after her mis¬
tress and see her to bed, he goes to Bignon's for
his dinner, and drops in afterwards to coflee
at Princess Poldorazski's magnificent hotel in
the Champs Elysee.
"You are distrait, mon ami" the Princess
says pettishly, as one or two remarks of hers
elicit no response. " What ails you to-night ?
23i
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Has your wife been lecturing you for your
numerous flirtations ? "
Vansittart gives her a cool, level look. If
there is anything he dislike it is to have his
wife mentioned by these women, whom he
admires and makes love to, but considers
worthless.
"My wife is an angel. Princess, and she
never lectures me."
" Vraiment I that is because she knows it
would be no use. We cannot wash black
white, or put honour and fidelity into a man
who is by nature an intriguant and a roue.
Ah, mon ami, wives may be too angelic to
lecture, but they are human creatures after
all, and when they find their trust abused—
their home dishonoured—their love turns to
loathing. I loved Serge Poldorazski once—
madly. Then I found out that Georgette Le
Moine, at the Alcazar, was my rival, and I
hated him. I would poison him to-morrow,
only to keep well with him gives me position
and wealth."
CHAPTEE XIX.
lady cecilia gordoh.
" Oh, eyes that mine have grown into
Like April kissing May;
O ! fervent eyelids letting through
Those eyes the greenness of things blue,
The bluest of things grey,"
Lady Vansittart is downstairs this morning
earlier than her wont. She has passed an
awful night—a wretched vigil—during which
she has cried like a baby, and gone through
all the hopelessness and jealousy and despair
of a grown-up woman.
Vansittart has not been near her—and
when he walks into the room for breakfast
his face is so severe, and stern, and cold, that
it seems to turn her heart into stone as she
looks at him.
She is very young and childish and nervous,
and she cannot help being afraid of him
through all her indignation and anger.
"I am sorry I was so foolish last night,
and fainted and gave trouble, but I was
shocked—I never thought there was so much
deceit and so much evil in the world!" she
says, in a low, constrained voice.
236
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
He answers her mockingly as usual:
"Well, if you choose to suspect me of
deceit and evil on the word of that woman,
Hortense, you must do so!"
"Yes, but the letter you wrote her is
enough proof! I thought I should have died
when I read it. Lyulph, you don't know
what it is to think highly of someone, and to
find oneself mistaken, I had no suspicion of
you, I have not thought of doubting you,
but now, oh what am I to do? What am
I to do?"
"Don't be a little fool," he answers un¬
graciously. " You have seen nothing of the
world, or you wouldn't make a mountain out
of a molehill like this. I hate a fuss, and I
don't care a rap for the woman. If it will
satisfy you I will never speak to her again."
""\^ich woman?"
" Hortense, of course. It is of her you are
jealous and angry I suppose."
"I don't know," she answers helplessly,
looking dazed and as white as a sheet,
" there is that other person."
" That other person means the Princess
Poldorazski ? "
" Yes."
"Well, I daresay I shall break her heart
by it, but I am willing to give up her society
to please your exigeante ladyship, and to
prove my words we will be off to Monte Carlo
the day after to-morrow."
She stares at him amazed.
LADY CECILIA GORDON,
237
He is showing an amount of kindness and
consideration such as she has not dreamed of
crediting him with lately, and reproaching
herself for her feelings of last night, she takes
his hand and kisses it, and says very softly:
"You really mean to give up these two
dreadful women to please me, Lyulph ? Oh,
how good of you to give in to my fancies. I
will never doubt you again. You will really
promise not to have anything to say to
them again ? "
" Yes."
" On your honour ? "
" On my honour."
She throws herself into his arms and gives
him a passionate kiss, and thanks Heaven
that she has not allowed Trevennen to speak
to her as he did. It would be such utter,
utter misery to know that she had failed in
the smallest, smallest degree in wifely honour
and loyalty.
The matrimonial breeze has blown over to
Vansittart's satisfaction, and he accepts her
caress with no compunction.
"I think I'll go out and make arrange¬
ments for leaving," he says after a few
moments. " I shall not be sorry to get out
of Paris. The season is just over and the
place is as dull as ditch-water."
" I shall be glad to be out of it, too," Lady
Vansittart answers, and she thinks that if Paris
is a paradise, there are plenty of serpents
crawling about ik
238
A MODERN BRIDEOROOM.
Who does not know Monaco ? with its
chambers of rack and torture—its gamin<^
saloons—with their elaborately gilded and
porphyried walls and ceilings, with semi-
draped Cupids and Venuses, and " cherubs
sitting up aloft," and who is not more or
less familiar with the phj'siognomies of the
habitues that swarm like greedy flies over
the tapis vert f
There is a broken-down, out-at-elbow,
British M.P. or J.P., or a shabby-looking
luminary of the Church of England, consider¬
ably the worse in appearance and morals for
evil associates and unhealthy occupation ; and
here are unwashed, unkempt professors of
trente et quarante and roulette, with the
well-thumbed cards and monster marking
pins, sallow Poles and olive-skinned Spaniards
with hungry eyes, Israelites with guile and a
deal of hirsute adornment, a few pompous
Eussians, rich in bank notes and glittering
rouleaux, and a sprinkling of that very un¬
mistakable type, tourists, tweed suited, and
rosy-faced; " Bi'own, Jones, and Eobinson
doing the continent."
But we have not given place aux Dames.
There are Celandine and Henriette, noto¬
rieties from Paris, Coras and Flossies from
London, a starry-e3'ed Eoman girl of seven¬
teen, but with the boldness of seventy, fast
duchesses, some well-known divorcees, and
above all, one or two dames de grande monde,
who hold a high and mighty position as leaders
LADY CECILIA GORDON.
239
of Society, but who are no whit better than
Celandine, Henriette, Cora, or Flossie. One
of these is a very tall woman, with a form like
a rich column of beauty; everything about
her gives an idea of massiveness, commencing
from the crown of her head, circled round
with lustrous coils of light ruddy hair, her
marble pillar of a throat, her magnificent
shoulders, down to the rather ponderous feet
that show from under her trailing skirt. Her
eyes are well open, her lips are ruddy and
full, and her whole countenance when in
repose is a splendid blank.
She is a big, soft woman, and marvellously
to the taste of those few (happily) who are
lovers of the base material, and to whom
flesh and blood in redundance and a healthy,
strong physique are all in all, but she is also
a woman whose features display no gleam of
mind, and whose anatomy is deficient, since it
lacks a heart.
She is charming to look at, of course, but
in the very contemplation of her loveliness
there is a certain dissatisfaction as if some¬
thing is terribly wanting, and all her attrac¬
tions are purely physical, without a vestige
of that spirituality which, after all, is the
sole and true beauty in woman and without
which even a sensualist tires after a little
while.
She is Lady Cecilia Gordon, and she is
almost the first person Vansittart sees on his
entrance into th6 Kursaal.
210
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Verily he has fallen from the frying-pan
into the fire.
"Lady Cecilia is standing looking about her,
but not playing, when she catches sight of
her quasi-lover, and her face beams all over
as she walks up to him and holds out her
hand.
" This is our first meeting since you
married, Lyulph—Sir Lyulph, I ought to
say! Do you know I have had a sort of
presentiment that we two would never, never
meet again I"
And she lays enormous stress on the
tautological never, and piles on the pathos
with a master hand, while her voice softens,
and she calls up as much expres.sion as she
can into her wide, grey-blue eyes, then she
looks down at the patent tip of her boot and
sighs
Vansittart is quite accustomed to this sort
of thing ; he knows all the tricks and shams
of women, and he is as great an adept as she
is in that which is called intrigue.
He has torn himself away from the Delilahs,
Princess Poldorazski and Hortense, and has
made up his mind to eschew flirtation for a
while and stick to gambling, but a little
platonic lovemaking is not much trouble, so
he takes a plump, white hand and says quite
deprecatingly:
" And have you imagined for one moment
that our long, true friendship would have a
break ? "
LADY CECILIA GOEDOH. 2tl
" I don't know. Perhaps it was foolish of
me to think so, or to think about it at all, in
iact," she replies, with childlike naivete. " It
may be that I feared a great obstacle to our
friendship would be your wife. Tell me, are
you still in love with Lady Vansittart? "
It is rather a startling question, and he
shrinks a little from answering. He is not
only rather puzzled at the answer he should
give, but he is vexed that she should have
put him to the obligation of answering her.
Besides this, it appears to him that the
question verges on impertinence, and he is
more tenacious than most men of any
remarks that border on a familiar character
as to himself and his feelings, and above all
he knows that Lady Cecilia has raised a
question in his own mind that he cannot
answer satisfactorily.
Does he, or does he not, love his wife ?
He cannot solve his own doubts on the
subject and come to a true conclusion as
easily as he could solve an abstruse problem
in Euclid.
It seems very early da3'-s to repudiate love
for his wife—even though his love for her
may have been a mushroom in its birth and
have come to an untimely end. In fact it
would be bad form to do so—though at the
same time he objects to own to anything half
so absurd as a passion for his own wife. This
latter feeling, false as it is, conquers.
" In love with* Lady Vansittart! How can
16
242
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
you, with all your boasted knowledge of our
world, imagine me to be guilty of such
vulgarity? We leave Darbys and Joans to
our bakers and butchers, don't you know!"
" Let us go and have coffee at one of those
sweet little tables there, down by those
orange trees. It looks so charming there."
" I am at your disposal," he says.
So they go and sit down, and sip their
coffee, and he sees many of his own sex stare
admiringly at his companion, which im¬
mediately enhances her attractions ten-fold
in his eyes.
"Am I to make Lady Vansittart's ac¬
quaintance ?" she asks suddenly, taking him
aback.
But only for an instant, then he says care¬
lessly :
" Perhaps it would be better not, don't you
know! She is rather peculiar in her hkes
and dislikes."
" Which means to say ? "
"That she would not like you," he
murmurs languidly.
" EeaUy! And why ? "
"Because she hates all women who like
me" he answers conceitedly.
" Then she must detest all her sex," Lady
Cecilia replies, with consummate flattery.
" But why talk of her ? Let us talk only
of our two selves and the old days, when no
one had come to be a barrier between us,
Have you forgotten tltose days—f "
LADY CECILIA GORDON.
243
" Forgotten them! Lyulph, I thought the
^ay we said good-bye that I should like to
die, but since I have wanted to live, if it was
only to taste again the intense happiness of
the past. I know it is wrong of me—but I
cannot help it. Lyulph, shall those days
come again ? "
She looks uncommonly attractive at this
moment, for a gleam of sunshine is touching
her hair, making it brighter and more ruddy,
and her eyes are lifted piteously to him.
He has promised his wife to have no
more to say to Princess Poldorazski and
Hortense—but Aileen knows nothing of this
woman.
Shall he nip the aquaintance in the bud, or
shall he amuse himself by a flirtation with
Lady Cecilia ?
" Good-morning, madame," a tall, soldierly
man says. He is a handsome man, too, one
of the Belgian Guides, and Vansittart can see
written on his features how much he is struck
by the woman he addresses.
This decides him at once.
" Cecilia," he whispers, " meet me to¬
morrow evening at eight, in the Casino
garden."
" Yes!" she answers eagerly.
After all, she has not lost him—this man
whom she has loved, loved as much as she
can,
CHAPTER XX.
THE CASINO GARDEN.
" A lady clothed like Summer with sweet hours,
Her beauty fervant as a fiery moon,
Made my blood burn and swoon.''
" I SHOULD like to see the Kursaal, Lyulph,"
Lady Vansittart ventures to say, a week after
arrival at Monte Carlo—during which time
she has led as dull and monotonous a life
as if Fate had deposited her in Sahara, instead
of an exceptionally gay and fashionable spot
—and as Vansittart sees no way of getting
out of it, he agrees to take her out with him.
" For goodness' sake, Aileen, make yourself
as smart as you can. There are heaps of
people here who will notice you because you
are my wife, you know, and I shouldn't care
for them to turn up their noses at your
get-up."
So she puts on her best bib and tucker,
and when she is gowned in soft grey, with an
exquisite little hat of the same colour, trimmed
with the palest of pink roses, she looks at her¬
self in the glass, and decides that her appear¬
ance is not half bad.
She looks lovely, in fact, infinitely lovelier
and more aristocratic than any woman in the
place, though her husband probably does not
THE CASINO GARDEN.
243
think so, simply because he is used to her and
he loves novelty.
As they mount the steps, a pleasant-faced
man meets them.
" Hallo, Berriedale!" he cries. " So glad
to see you. We haven't met for years—and
how goes the world with you — well, I
hope ? "
" Well enough, thanks, Talbot. Let me
introduce you to my wife. Aileen, this is one
of my old chums at Oxford, and, if he is not
altered, you will like him very much," Van-
sittart says, quite amiably, and Talbot, who is
an ardent admirer of beauty, attaches himself
at once to her.
" I arrived here yesterday, but I did not see
you anywhere," he says. Do you patronize
the Kursaal much ? "
She laughs as she replies :
" I am going for the very first time to the
rooms—I have always had a curiosity to see
them, and yet a distaste—I suppose that
comes from an insular prejudice to such
places."
" Why did he call you Berriedale ? " Aileen
asks, as Talbot runs off to speak to some
passing acquaintance.
" Because I am a Berriedale. I took the
name of Vansittart to please an old buffer who
left me a pot of money, you know."
" No—I didn't know! " she says with a
laugh. " How funny not to know the real
name of the man one has married ! "
246
A MODERN BRIDEORGOM.
"My dear Aileen, you couldn't have been
attending to the marriage ceremony — for I
said ' I, Lyulph Berriedale.' "
" I suppose I was too overpowered by my
bliss to hear properly! "
" Bliss which has not lasted very long, I
fancy," he says cynically.
" Oh, Lyulph, I hope you are not speaking
your feelings when you say that!" she
murmurs, with tears in her eyes.
" Don't be a little fool! Here's Talbot
again."
So she twinkles away her tears and forces a
smile.
" I have come back to be your cicerone,"
Talbot says. " The rooms are worth seeing
—quite palatial—and I should like to study
your face when you see the countenances
round the table."
" Why—are they so very dreadful ? " she
asks.
"Dreadful in disappointment and despair
very often. But here we are at the Trente et
Quarante room. Why, where is your
husband ? "
She looks round, but he has. disappeared.
She is getting accustomed to his leaving her
in this sort of fashion, however, and with a
shrug of her shoulders, she walks on with
Talbot towards the players.
The game is high and the crowd intense;
one or two famous players who have gained
unenviable notoriety in the Homburg and
THB CASINO OARDEN.
247
Baden Baden days are staking the maximum
with all the nonchalance possible, and the
exciting sight makes the crowd intent on
watching the desperate struggle between
foolhardy mortals and fickle Dame Fortune.
Suddenly Lady Vansittart spies her lord and
master seated at the end of a long table, with
a lair, big woman alongside of him ; he sits
forward in his chair, eschewing elegance, and
resting both his elbows on the table. As a
rule he is too particular in the minutiae of
toilette, but now he has pushed his hair off
his hot, handsome face, his lips are very white,
and his eyes are fixed on a heap of gold that
lies on the cloth before him.
Lady Vansittart stares at him amazed. Is
this the quiet, cool man, whose pulse never
beats fast, and whose usual aspect is the
personification of languor ?
As she looks at him, feeling rather shocked
than otherwise, she sees his neighbour speak
to him, and though she cannot hear the
words, of course, a something, a sort of
familiarity of gesture and address strikes her
at once.
Losing all interest in the novel scene, she
drops back from the table, very pale, and with
her little teeth pressed down on her under lip
to keep it from trembling.
" Who is that lady next to my husband ? "
she questions of Talbot, who, being sharp and
shrewd, has taken in the whole thing, and
mentally condemned his old chum about it.
248
A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
" It is Lady Cecilia Gordon. She is an old
friend of your husband's, I think."
"Is she—proper?" poor Aileen whispers
timidly, forgetting in her jealousy that her
question is somewhat strange, and longing to
hear that Lady Cecilia Gordon is one of the
most prudish, most immaculate of English¬
women.
Talbot turns away his head to hide a smile.
" Poor child—poor little thing," he thinks ;
"how plainly she wears her heart on her
sleeve. And what a crying shame it is of any
man to have married a girl like her only to
torture her, and fling her aside when other
fancies cropped up."
" Quite proper, I fancy," he answers
gravely. "At least she belongs to a very
exclusive set in Town, who would scarcely
stand any fastness. How white 3'ou look!
Come out of this broiling atmosphere, and you
will feel better."
She takes the arm he offers gratefully and
revives when the soft Southern air kisses her
face. The band is playing under the trees,
innumerable lanterns of all colours shed
twinkling lights over the terrace and garden,
and scores of couples revel in sorbets and cafe
glacee around.
" Have an ice ? " Talbot begs her. She
looks so ill and worried, and she is so lovely,
that his heart is stirred with pity and
sympathy.
She so dreads going back to the hotel—to
THE CASINO GABDEN.
210
her own society—especially now—that she
consents to any excuse for lingering on, and
the two seat themselves near a great oleander
tree whose fragrance fills the air.
They do not talk much. He is rather a
reserved man, and she, poor soul, is eating
her heart out for her worthless husband, when
a couple descend the steps and veer round the
side of the Kursaal.
By the light of the lanterns Vansittart's
features are plainly discernible. There is
still a hot flush on them; his brows are knit,
and he glances neither to the right nor to the
left, while Lady Cecilia hangs on to his arm,
and looks up into his face.
" Mr. Talbot," Aileen says hurriedly, " I
I>ray you stay here a few moments while I go
into the garden, for I miist go," and before he
can answer she is gone.
She flies like the wind down the terrace and
along the flower-planted walk, seeing no one
and desperately nervous. On and on she goes,
till a sort of a bosquet is reached, and here
she halts, and creeps noiselessly into the
shadow of a large tree, within a pace or two
of those she has tracked.
The yellow moon is at its full—shining
down through the vaulted sky and lighting up
everything as clearly as if it were noon-day.
But Lady Vansittart's slight figure, habited
in its Quaker colours, escapes notice.
Lady Cecilia looks gorgeously lovely under
the bright moonbeams—a big, fleecy, white
250
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
shawl, like a cloud, wraps her magnificent
shoulders, and a Gainsborough hat with a
drooping plume is held carelessly in her hand.
She has taken up a pose which would drive an
artist mad, and evoke an ovation on any
stage. There is certainly a good deal of
poetry (florid) and elegance in the curves and
bends of her form, and she looks as difierent
as light from darkness to the eavesdropper
close by, who, with strained eyes and bursting
heart, watches this rival.
She did love her husband dearly, but now
she hates him as he stands beside that woman,
forgetful of her, his wife, as if she did not exist.
Although she is as innocent as a lamb, and
utterly unversed in the wicked ways of the
world, she possesses enough shrewdness to
enable her to recognise one fact. It is that,
in spite of solitude and the unseemly hour,
there is nothing really dangerous in the
situation. Lyulph and that woman stand even
a little apart from one another, and there is
not a hand-clasp even. Only his voice mur¬
murs, and murmurs so low that it is with
difficulty the words are caught.
" Why will you always speak of my wife,
Cecilia ? You know how the subject wearies
me. It has been discussed between us
before, and you promised not to give me a
second edition of it," he says, half-yawning and
in a listless tone.
Aileen flinches from this. It is no reason
because he does not care for her that he
THE CASINO GARDEN.
251
should flaunt the miserable truth before her
rival. It seems to her as if he added insult to
insult.
"Why don't you talk about yourself?" he
goes on. "Surely you know by this time
that thai is the subject that interests me most.
I am never tired of you at any rate!"
"I can't help being jealous of your wife. I
know that if you had not been awfully in love
with her vou never would have married her!"
" Pshaw!"
Aileen sickens with anger at the contempt
expressed in this exclamation.
"Jealous of her—you, who are so lovely
and whom all the world admires?" Van-
sittart says in his most seductive tone. " It is
/ who should be jealous, I think. I am only
one among the million to whom you throw
words and smiles. Don't I feel, even when
we are together like this, that a distance I
can't span divides us! Cecilia, I have sworn
that for various reasons I would never speak
of love to you again, but it is plus fort que
moi; I love you! I believe I love you even
more than I did before my marriage."
Aileen listens with bated breath.
That this man—this shameless profligate—
should be her husband!
Lady Cecilia experiences a delightful thrill
as she hearkens. She has no brains to speak
of, and it never strikes her that there is
suppressed mockery in his voice. It is really
some time now since she has heard such
252
A MODERN BBIDEOROOM.
fervent words, for though men are ready-
enough to flirt with her, she has learnt to
know^ that her impression on hearts has not
been very deep-seated of late. The man who
addresses her so tenderly is really the man
whom she has most fancied in her life. She
gazes at him now, and there is an insidious
flattery in her eyes, which Vansittart,
essentially a vain man, appreciates tho¬
roughly. He loves being worshipped, so he
gazes back at her passionately, and presently
a head wreathed round with bright ruddy
hair, drops a shade nearer to his shoulder.
The moon lends additional softness to two
pairs of eyes, and two pairs of lips seem to
approach closer and closer.
Talbot is still sitting, awaiting anxiously
the return of his companion, when a voice
says behind him—a voice low and desperately
touching:
" Take me to the hotel, Mr. Talbot; I am
not well, and I am afraid to go alone."
He does not answer—his -whole soul rises
up in arms against the man who, calling
himself a gentleman, can treat the woman he
has married worse than a coal-heaver would.
Silently the two walk back, and when the
hotel is reached. Lady Vansittart holds out a
hand cold as ice and that trembles as he
clasps it.
" Thank you!" she falters, " and if you
care to serve me, I pray you to forgeA—
to-night! "
CHAPTER XXI.
MARKIAGE A PURGATOEY.
" To have died—if you cared I should die for you—clung
To my life if you bade me—played my part
As it pleased you—these were the thoughts that stung
The dream that smote with a keener dart."
Lady Vansittart throws herself without un¬
dressing on her bed, and, wearied out
physically and mentally, falls into a deep
sleep, which is more like stupor, but an hour
after she opens her eyes and stares round her
as though in expectation of seeing Satan
disguised in seductive woman form, still
tempting her husband, but nothing meets her
gaze save— through the open Venetians—the
huge shadows, black and gaunt, that lie
beneath the toppling trees, and the wooden
benches that glisten like ivory under the
moonlight in the garden of the hotel.
For a little while she lies still vaguely
wondering what hour it is, and whether
Vansittart is still with his "old friend," as
Talbot had called the temptress.
Then she remembers all that has happened
in her married existence—how cruelly un¬
faithful her husband has been, and how even
her child has been taken from her.
254
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
She thinks what her life will be for aU time
—her loveless existence, her callous, cold
husband, and with a sob, deep and low, she
clasps a small gold locket she wears night
and day, in which lies a tiny soft golden curl,
like a morsel of down, which the French
nurse had cut ofi the baby's head and given
its mother for comfort. She kisses the
trinket passionately over and over again.
" And yet and yet, my little one, I would
not bring you back even if I could! You
are safe now—safe from this weary, wicked
world!"
This is the piteous refrain of her thoughts,
and then Lady Vansittart falls to wondering,
poor soul, if it is really sinful of her to wish
to die too I It is striking two o'clock in the
morning when her husband's step arouses her
out of her miserable reverie. She listens
with her breath coming short and hard as the
footstep approaches nearer, and keeps her hds
determinedly closed. She has watched for
him night after night when he has stayed
away in the orgies that he delights in,
watched for him longingly, yearningly,
counting the hours as they crept like snails
till he came; but this is changed—now she
has no desire or heart for reproaches or
recrimination, she knows it is hopeless—she
knows that his promises are false, false as he
is himself to the vows he has spoken.
All she wants is to be let alone, she never
wishes to touch hip hps or olasp his bftn4
MARRIAGE A PURGATORY.
255
again, and would fain go away somewhere—
anywhere—so that she might feel safe from
falsehood and desecration. But she is so
young, and she has grown so nervous in the
latter days that she cannot carry out her
wish. No! there is nothing for it but to
keep calm and quiet, and to evade as best she
can any attempt at conciliation or caress
from a man whom she has ceased to love or
—respect. She is thankful that there is no
light in the room, and, suddenly recollecting
that she still wears the " smart" garments he
had desired, she pulls a large shawl hastily
over herself.
But she need not be afraid. Vansittart has
been drinking deeply, and though sober
enough to find his way upstairs, he gets no
further than the door of his dressing-room,
and she gives a sigh of relief as she hears him
throw himself on the couch, and in a few
minutes breathing heavily.
The morning breaks fine and warm, and,
rising, she shuts the door between the two
rooms, and opening her window leans out.
All night long she has felt as if she was
stifling, but the soft little breeze seems to
bring her strength, and even a pale pink to
her face.
She only sees Vansittart for a few minutes
before he starts out early to the rooms, and
manages to keep as calm and self-contained
as he had told her a well-bred woman should
^e. P|ciUa Gordon, though
2:6
A MODERN BRIDEGKOOM.
does not know it, left Monte Carlo this
morning after her amorous ike-d ike in the
Casino grounds, and finding his time drag on
his hands, Vansittart has settled down with
redoubled vigour at the tables. Every one of
the complicated systems, which he has spent
hours in making out, burst like soap bubbles,
and the luck which usually seems to attend
the bank is too strong to be overturned.
If he follows the red it treacherously evades
him; if he goes in for series the game grows
zig-zag at once. At last, continued ill-luck
makes him cowardly and nervous, and he
completely loses pluck, without which no
gambler has ever won at rouge-et-noir.
He begins to fear pushing the little good
fortune that falls to his share, and often sits
idle through a whole deal, which might
retrieve his losses to a certain extent.
Eouleau upon rouleau of gold are offered
up by him, but aU in vain—the insatiable
goddess refuses to be propitiated, and, after
hours and hours spent in playing, he rises
from his" seat with the sick and desperately-
weary sensation that every gambler knows so
well.
By-and-bye, finding rouge-et-noir an ignis-
fatuus altogether, he rushes to roulette.
Roulette has greater fascinations than rouge-
et-noir, but to a thorough gambler it is by far
the more dangerous game of the two. The very
idea that a successful raid on one of the
numbers is so liberally paid is in itself
MAREIAGE A PURGATORY.
257
sufficient to induce excitement and assiduity
to the fickle wheel.
Vansittart throws himself heart and soul
into the task of hitting off the right numbers,
and by the end of the week linds himself
absolutely cleared out of ail funds in hand.
He had been a rich man a few years ago, but,
even before his marriage, an extravagant mode
of living—rioting, racing, and—women—had
reduced his fortune to a considerable extent.
He is one of those men who cannot live
without the command of money, and nothing
but necessity now impels him to get out of
the way of temptation in case he has to go to
the Jews.
" Sick of this hole—so am off to England
to-morrow. You must be ready by ten a.m.
sharp."
This is his peremptory fashion of announcing
his movements to his wife, but she quietly
acquiesces, and goes off to do the packing at
once.
This part of the world, which she had been
wont to imagine was a terrestrial Heaven,
with its blue skies and shining stars, its balmy
breaths, its wonders of flowers, has assuredly
proved the reverse of a Heaven to her, and
she is not loth to change it for any other
place—she has no choice, poor thing. It
seems to her an impossibility to go back to
The Hollies—to deceive her ailing father and
her inquisitive mother by appearing to be a
happy woman—•and she is too proud to desire
17
258
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
that anyone should guess at the dire disap¬
pointment her marriage has been. Somehow,
without a word being said to irritate Vansit-
tart, he, has undeniably drifted further and
further from her, and with the horrible
conviction that she can never trust him out
of sight — that, as soon as she is absent, he
has no hesitation in wronging her—that his
whole existence is given up to promiscuous
intrigues—she has neither desire nor energy
left to try and win him back to herself. Ciii
bono"? since with some men—and he is one of
them—unlawful pleasures are the very essence
of life.
It is a delicious spring morning when they
whirl through the enchanting scenery of
Southern France. The yeUow sunbeams,
bereft by the earliness of the season of their
great fervour, are yet quite brilliant enough
to gild into deepest gold the crests of the
trees that stand arrayed already in their
emerald garments. The sunbeams dance and
quiver as well on the eddying ripples of the
narrow and limpid streams that, like manifold
silver threads, intersect the country on either
side. Here and there, almost within hand-
clutch, clusters of pink and white oleander
float out amidst masses of feathery nodding
grasses and the rich glossy leaves of the
laurustinus, while the ambient air, free from
the mist of our early spring, savours more of
summer.
Vansittart has decided to eschew London
MARRIAGE A PURGATORY.
259
for awhile, knowing that the slenderness of
his purse will prevent his enjoying himself as
he has been accustomed to do. He has a
pretty little place in Hampshire — country
simply, and where a large establishment is
useless—and to Mount Eoyal, as it is rather
pretentiously called, he has determined to go.
Lady Vansittart, with all brightness dashed
out of her, is agreeable to anything, and as
the distance to England lessens, she feels less
lonely—somehow, amongst foreigners she had
felt so very desolate. The sun, grown low to
westward, sends long lance-likc rays quivering
across the shrubs and flowers, forms aureoles
of glory on the heads of the tall trees, and
makes a glittering rainbow about the queer
old-fashioned windows of the house, and the
whole aspect of Mount Eoyal is very
attractive when they arrive, but nevertheless,
as Lady Vansittart gazes on it, a strange
suffocating feeling steals over her.
A little love from her husband would have
- transferred Mount Eoyal into Eden, but,
failing that little bit of love, she shudders,
and without a word to Vansittart, who, like
the ghost in Hamlet, stalks by her side, she
pulls her wrap round her, and goes into the
house.
Triumph and elation, happiness and love
are dead letters in her life! What then has
she to live for? she wonders as she walks
lislessly upstairs.
There is onW one answer to her mental
17*
2C0
A MODERN BRIDEOROOM.
query—to serve out her bondage as best she
may. It looks dreadfully cold, and hard, and
desolate, as it stares her implacably in the
face, but Lady Vansittart—not so very long
ago wilful, frivolous, flirty — tries to bow
meekly to her destiny.
True, life holds out the merest husks, but
this has its antidote, she thinks, as she
remembers that those whom the gods love die
young, and prays, poor little soul, that she
may find favour in their sight.
CHAPTER XXII.
" l'amitie est l'amour sans ailles."
The racks of earth and the rods
Are weak as foam on the sands,
For the heart is the prey for gods.
Who crucify hearts—not hands."
Life at Mount Royal is no improvement on
the life at Monte Carlo. Lady Vansittart
might be plain Mrs. Anybody as far as
triumph and gratification go and reward a
woman for marrying well.
Here, in the heart of the country, where
she is la crime de la crime, there is no one to
vie with if she had a mind to vie. She is
apparently wealthy, but she does not care for
riches—there is nothing that can be purchased
that she covets.
And somehow now, this little truth reveals
the most pitiable part of her existence, she
always thinks of the tiny Cockney villa at
Ealing, with its squabbles and its jars, its
pinching economy and its really monotonous
life, as " Home^' even when she sits in solitary
splendour in the luxuriously furnished rooms
of Mount Royal.
Now, as she remembers the bright, exultant
face of her mother, when the "eighteenth
baronet" proposed, she laughs out bitterly.
262
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
Her grand marriage has turned out a com¬
plete fiasco as far as her family is concerned.
She has never been allowed to see her people,
and the pleasure she anticipated in sending
them presents has been a delusion and a
snare.
On her arrival at Mount Eoyal she had, on
one occasion, hinted that she should like to
see her mother, but it had been nipped in the
bud at once.
" Can't possibly have a confounded tribe of
relations here," Vansittart had answered
languidly; but it was enough—she knows
that his fiat drawled out slowly is yet as irre¬
vocable as the laws of the Medes and
Persians.
It is the first morning of July and nothing
can surpass the splendour of sky and water,
for Mount Eoyal has a little sea-side place so
close to it that it is but a few minutes' walk
from the house to the beach.
It is a poor little straggling place is Stone-
ford, that has never known the horrors of
e.vcursionists or been trodden by the dainty
feet of fashionable ladies or mashers. But its
very ignorance of such things makes its
greatest charm.
Vansittart is nowhere, as far as his wife is
concerned. Moodj^ irritable to a degree—
ice to the unfortunate girl he has married—
he wanders over the land belonging to him,
or rides for hours, returning in the dusk to an
unpleasant, constrained tke-d-iete dinner, which
"L'AMITIE EST L'AMOUR SANS AILLES." 263
he swallows in silence and which is purgatory
to his wife.
This July morning looks so lovely that
Lady Vansittart, instead of sitting in her own
room as is her wont, is tempted out, and is
rewarded for her exertion by the simple
pleasure of " being alive " on such a glorious
day.
The lovely purple waters sparkle with a
glad swish up in the yellow sunshine, and
everything seems replete with peace. Near
is a shrimper whistling a monotonous air;
farther on a tiny boat, and it seems to
merge into the sea around, both are so
weirdly still. Eager little ripples run up now
and then to kiss its immobile bow, sliding
swiftly and softly back to silence. In the
distance hovers a yacht, its white wings
spread out pure against the deep azure of the
sky and with a gaudy Union Jack drooping
in the lazy wind.
Eight away a low line of hills are outlined
athwart the horizon, while above them piles of
cumuloiis clouds lift their fieecy pinnacles
into upper deeps and rifts of blue.
These little hills wear misty veils shot with
opaline tints, while here and there a single
purple wave reaching upwards bears, trem¬
bling, for an instant, upon its creamy crest,
the same iridescent hues.
The water in one long lingering wave
breaks upon the little beach, then, as slowly,
swashes back into its bed, leaving the reach
2C4
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
of green and golden-brown sea-weed, of
pearly pebbles and pinky shells, all glowing
and weltering and waiting for its next caress.
A white sea-gull circles just above the
shrimper, a flimsy dragon-fly whizzes past, and
a swarm of midgets dance over the light
waves that come murmuring in with quite a
little stir of happiness, and the glittering foam
that breaks upon the ledges seem like the
overbearing effervescing freshness of the
charming day.
Near a flsherman's old hut that lies basking
in the sunlight some doves move in their
cotes, and one comes down and, perching on
a low rail, blinks its shy eyes and puffs out
its lustrous breast.
The atmosphere is delicious. Dame Nature
seems to have mounted at once to her zenith,
and made life and love and beauty perfect in
the prodigal largess of this July day, and
Lady Vansittart feels unconsciously happier
and more at peace than she has done for
months.
After all -she is not twenty yet, and is very
childlike. For a while she even forgets her
troubles and sits watching the sea anemones.
There they are—gleaming and trembling in
the purple water—the loveliest and most
perishable of things.
By-and-bye she rises from the ledge of stone
and strolls slowly back to the house; even
now she feels less depressed, for at last some
companionship that is congenial to her is in
"L'AMITIE tST L'AMOUR SANS AILLES." £C5
prospect. Mrs. Howard has proffered a visit
and to-da)' she will be at Mount Roj^al.
Aileen's lips part in a little smile as she
moves to and fro, filling all the available
vases with roses and mignonette, and making
all the surroundings generall}'^ beautiful to
gratify the only woman whom, even though
she has not known her long, she somehow
believes to be her friend. One must be lonely
and desolate as she is, poor soul, to appreciate
a "friend,"
CHAPTER XXHL
" I SHALL DIE IF HE DOESN'T ! "
" A broken—an emptied boat—
Sea saps it—winds blow apart,
Sick and drift and afloat,
The barren waif of a heart."
" Hoav ill you look, and so much older!"
Mrs. Howard, who is very plain-spoken,
blurts involuntarily as Lady Vansittart sits
opposite her, her head leaning back against
the bark of an old tree, a strange expression
on her features, and her two little hands
clenched together, a habit which she has
acquired of late.
" What does it matter how I look ? she
asks, with a curt little laugh, and it shocks
her companion to note the despair in her eyes
—" Who is there to see me ? "
"Your husband!"
" My husband ? "
" Yes, dear Lady Vansittart."
Don't call me Lady Vansittart—call me
Aileen, she says beggingly. " Aileen was my
name at' home' you know! "
" Agreed, we will be Aileen and Maud in
future. Dear Aileen, what ails you ? are you
"I SHALL DIE IF HE DOESN'T I"
267
ill? or what has happened to you? tell me
all about it. It will do your heart good not
to keep trouble all to yourself. But I should
not say this—of course you have told your
husband "
" My husband! I loathe him!" is the
answer in a suppressed voice. " I tell him
nothing ! I loathe him as much as a slave
loathes his tyrannical master—loathe him as
a woman loathes the man whom she knows
to be her worst enemy!"
Mrs. Howard stares at her in amazement,
then she goes over to her and kneels down
beside her.
" This is shocking! Surely you are ill and
fanciful, dear Aileen. How is your husband
your worst enemy?"
" How is he ? Because he has aroused all
the worst passions in my nature—hatred,
jealousy, revenge, contempt, and sometimes
—do you know"—and her voice drops very
low—" a craving to commit murder!"
Mrs. Howard looks at her keenly for a
moment. She blames her too for the things
O
she has said—unloyal, unwifely things, which
no woman should say, unless, indeed^ her
reason has given way under the pressure put
upon her—but there is something in the
beautiful face, beautiful in spite of its white¬
ness and misery, there is something so in¬
expressibly hopeless and dreary in the
exquisite chestnut eyes, that she cannot but
refrain fronf uttering reproach, and lays a
2G3
A MODEBN BRIDEGROOM.
hand on hers. Lady Yansittart's hand is dry
and hot, as if she were fever stricken.
" Poor Aileen," Mrs. Howard murmurs
sympathisingly.
But she almost flings off* the touch roughly.
"No, no! I don't want pity," she cries.
" I don't want anyone's pity; I can bear it
all—all I have to sufler, and God knows my
burthen is almost greater than I can bear,
because, you know, everything in this world
has an end—and I shall die, if he doesn't."
She looks frienzied as she utters this, and
the other woman shrinks away from her in¬
voluntarily.
" Oh, I am not going to kill him yet I"
she cries, with a ringing, discordant laugh.
" Listen to me; I married him for love—
sheer desperate love—married him when I
had been warned against him by a man as good
and true as steel, and who never spoke a lie
in his life; a man who loved me, it is true,
but he did not think of that when he told me
what future I had in store if I married Lyulph
Vansittart—fool that I was not to listen!
Love my husband has never given me; he
does not know the meaning of the word!
Scant satisfaction have I found in the mone}',
and silks, and laces, and jewels, which are all
I gained by marrying him. Now I would
exchange them all for my shroud, and be
thankful—no girl should marry a man with¬
out knowing him as he is, not as a few meet¬
ings show him to be. It is accursed work ;
"I SHALL DIE IF HE DOESN'T 1" 2G9
it brings Satan into one's presence each hour
of one's life, it makes Satan halt by one's
side, sit at one's hearth and board, slumber
in one's heart night after night, until—until
one almost forgets one is human in the
fierce insatiable thirst for—freedom—freedom
from the horrible shackles that bind one.
Sometimes, do you know, I have awakened
suddenly and found that my hands have
crept up and up to his neck—not to embrace
it—oh no! and I have dragged them down,
and prayed Heaven to help me resist the Devil
that had got into me—but of course, it cannot
go on," she finishes gloomily.
Mrs. Haward hearkens to it all, and looking
at. Lady Vansittart wonders if she is really
mad.
Suppose she, driven by all this trouble,
which undoubtedly exists, kills—but no!—
She draws a long breath, and pulls herself
together as it were ; such a thought seems
such utter desecration to the lovely, dainty
creature beside her, that she thrusts it forcibly
away.
" Where is Lady Vansittart ? "
It is Sir Lyulph Vansittart speaking in
rather a loud voice, at a turn of the lawn.
At the very first sound of that voice his wife
springs from her seat, and stands as if rivetted
to the ground, her chesnut eyes distended,
her red lips quivering, and her arms flung
up in a gesture of despair. Then she rushes
across the l%wn in the opposite direction to
270
A MODERN BRIDEOROOM.
where Vansittart is, and Mrs. Howard sees
her tall, slight figure drop on a far distant
rustic bench just as Vansittart's form comes
into view.
She has always disliked the man, but dislike
turns into positive aversion, as she sees him
now, with the cold, cynical smile on his cruel
mouth and a mocking light in his eyes.
"I thought my wife was out here," he sa)'s,
rather uncourteously, for he is in one of his
most irascible moods, and it is beyond him to
be civil even to a guest.
"So she was, till just now," Mrs. Howard
answers coolly.
"Left—because 1 came, I suppose," he
says with a sneer.
" I suppose so! "
She is a good, brave, straightforward little
woman, plucky to a fault, if a sense of injus¬
tice is brought home to her, and she feels that
she would give worlds to be a man so that
she might horsewhip this " cad," who treats
his wife so.
" Where is she gone ?" he demands
roughly.
" There!" and she points to the bench.
The next instant she repents in horror of her
words, for he strides across the lawn, and she
sees him raise his arm in a menacing gesture
7 • 7 1 O O
—she sees it descend, and before she has
strength to move or cry out. Lady Vansittart
lies under the brutal blow on the grass.
When she reaches the spot, trembling &e a
"I SHALL DIE IF HE DOESN'T I" 271
leaf, she finds this poor victim of a bad man's
tyranny cold and still and unconscious, in a
deep swoon, of her profound misery, or of the
man's face—^handsome enough, but evil as a
fiend's—that bends over her.
" I'll teach her to avoid me; she is the only
woman who does ! " he says in his contemp¬
tible vanity and rage.
CHAPTER XXIV.
the old love to the fore.
" 0, la belle statue! 0, le beau pedestal,
Les vertus sent a pied, le vice est a cheval."
"Sir Lyulph will be furious if you do not
put on your newest and most becoming frocks
for this evidently gala occasion," Mrs. Howard
remarks, with a curl of her lip, as she sits
tete-a-tete with Lad}' Vansittart after breakfast,
with the contents of the letter-bag scattered
before her.
Lady Vansittart glances down on her plain
little morning-dress of white cotton, and sighs
and grows a shade paler.
Vansittart has been away in Town for some
time, and she has been so much happier
without him that an intimation of his return
depresses her dreadfully.
" I cannot help his anger, Maud," she says
quite decisively. " If I must see these people,
I am sure I cannot get any fresh toilettes for
them."
Mrs. Howard shrugs her shoulders.
" Who are the people ? "
" Read for yourself," and Aileen pushes the
letter carelessly across to her friend, and then
forgets all about it until Mrs. Howard's voice
arouses her out of her unpleasant reflections.
THE OLD LOVE TO THE FORE.
273
" Ah, you see I am right. Sir Lyulph
alludes to your garments even in this note.
* Please put on your best clothes, fill the house
with flowers, and have rooms ready for half-a-
dozen people I have invited down to Mount
Eoyal for a day or two. We shall catch the
afternoon train day after to-morrow.' "
"Cool!" Mrs. Howard cries hotly. She
has taken a hatred to the man ever since the
blow he dealt his wife. "He might surely
give you a little breathing time before he
billets a troupe of men—smelling of tobacco
and horseflesh probably—on the house. I
suppose they are men ? "
"I suppose so," Lady Vansittart responds
wearily. Then she rings for the housekeeper,
gives all the necessary orders, and slips out of
the house, which seems always to suffocate
her now.
She has not seen her husband for a month,
and has never had a line from him—he is too
much engaged with the numerous ladies of
his love to write— but she does not mind;
his letter to-day has brought an intense feeling
of disturbance into her life. She knows she
must do her best to make Mount Eoyal
pleasant to his guests, but she hates the whole
thing with all her heart.
They are men of course. She is thankful
for that, even though they reek of tobacco,
and horseflesh, according to Maud Howard's
suggestion ; but she knows that with men
guests she cai^ get away when her hospitable
18
274
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
cares are done. And after all the ordeal is
only for a day or two.
The house, which, though not palatial, is
really pretty and attractive, on the day of
the arrivals looks quite beaming, as if in
welcome to its master.
A sound of horses' feet, a crunch of gravel
under carriage wheels, men's voices and then
—laughter.
Laughter—ringing—sparkling like cham¬
pagne—comes through the open doors and
windows, and reaches the ears of the two
women in the drawing-room.
"Who can that be?" she exclaims, while
Lady Vansittart rushes like a mad-woman to
the window and then rushes' back and clings
to a chair, for she feels her limbs trembling
violently, her senses going.
Oh, the shame of it—the insult of it. The
laughter comes from a woman whom she
knows by sight, and smites her to her heart.
" How dare he bring her here ? How dare
she come ? "
These thoughts flash like lightning through
her brain; but there is no time, no alternative.
She is beyond thinking how she shall act
under this fiery trial, and is simply a
mechanical figure for the time, going through
certain evolutions without sense or inclination
guiding her.
The visitors consist of three men and qne
woman.
Place aux Dames!
THE OLD LOVE TO THE FORE,
275
Lady Cecilia Gordon, dressed in the height
of the fashion, with extravagantly high
shoulders and collar, a manly vest, and a
narrow skirt, looks as if she had just stepped
out of a page of Le Follet. Lord Sainsbury,
a short sporty young man, as near an
approach to a jockey as can be. General Le
Barr, a notorious old flirt, with proclivities
which are a disgrace at three-score and ten,
and—Lord Marcus Trevennen.
" Dear Lady Vansittart! I am so delighted
. to make your acquaintance," murmurs
Lady Cecilia in her softest, most seduisante
voice.
Lady Vansittart bows frigidly and quietly
evades the daintily-gloved hand; then she
passes on to the other guests with a little
smile and word, and Vansittart, champing
at the ends of his fair moustache, registers
an inward vow to punish the quiet intimation
his wife has given of her distaste to his guests,
by devoting himself more flagrantly to Lady
Cecilia than he had intended.
"Won't you come and look at our best
view?" he asks softly, and of course she
assents at once, delighted to triumph over the
woman who has dared to snub her.
"Horrid little chit!" she says to herself.
"I'll teach her to behave properly to her
betters before I leave this place." '
So in a few minutes more, when cups of
tea and coffee and plates of cake have been
demolished, and the sun has gone down fairly
18*
276
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
to rest on his couch of crimson and gold,
leaving rather a cold grey sky, two figures
loom up against the horizon at some little
distance from the house.
But not so far as to make it invisible that
they are far more engrossed in one another
than Mount Eoyal's " best view."
Lady Vansittart notices them from the
window, but moves away quickly, without
even a pang of jealousy, although she feels
disgusted and angry ; but jealousy is a thing
that has died out of her life—she has grown
so accustomed to the utter want of dehcacy
and honourable feeling in her husband's
composition.
Lady Cecilia has elected to be transcendent
this evening, so she comes down a symphony
in eau de nil^ with the weird fire of many
opals burning at her massive throat, and she
has a huge bunch of lilies of the valley—
emblems of purity, and given her in her
twilight stroll by Vansittart—clustering in her
bosom.
She looks hke a matured Venus, with her
filmy robes billowing round her, and forms a
startling contrast to the 3'oung suzeraine of
Mount Eoyal.
Lady Vansittart wears black—dull, heavy
black—high up to her httle moulded chin,
and falling in statuesque folds to the floor.
Her gown is unrelieved by a single gleam of
white. No jewels glisten on her throat or
arms, only her broad gold wedding-ring
THE OLD LOVE TO THE FOEB.
277
shines on her third finger—a mocking symbol
of everlasting love.
It seems to stare back at her in scorn as her
eyes fall by chance on it.
Lady Cecilia's radiant face with its wide-
open blue eyes—its soft pink bloom, laid on
with a master hand on her cheek, her lips of
vivid scarlet and her pearly skin set in a
frame of ruddy hair—suggests a full-blown
tropical flower. Lady Vansittart's features
appear as if hewn in stone, so cold, so still,
so calm—there is not a shade of anger in her
large chesnut eyes, or sign of a sneer on her
mouth. She had expended all the indignation,
the violent emotions of hate and revenge, the
day her husband dealt her the cowardly
blow.
She looks just frozen now, and as Van¬
sittart's eye falls on both women critically he
shrugs his shoulders, and an ominous frown
puckers his brow as he takes his seat at the
head of his board.
Still, with all their internal jars, dinner,
that curious autocrat, especially in England,
proceeds from soup to pine, without a ruffle
on its current. Everything is first-rate, for
Vansittart, being ostentatious, does everything
en grande, and all the arrangements are
perfect, thanks to the housekeeper and the
chef, for Lady Vansittart has no more notion
of ordering a dinner than of emulating the
traditional cow in her flight over the moon.
On the table stand rare white and gold
^8 A MODERN BRIDEGBGOM.
vases, holding exquisite orchids, and there
are silver baskets heaped with pines and
peaches and luscious amber and purple
grapes. The feast is excellent too, the meats
have lost their identity in the elaboration of
their flavouring; curious entremets, are
ingeniously introduced to give fresh zest to
appetites already satiated, wines of rarest
bouquets abound, and above all, two women,
fair in their different ways, leaven the repast.
There are, however, two things that seem
out of place amidst the talk and laughter, the
shimmer of silver and glitter of crystal, and
these are Lady Vansittart's grave face and
her gloomy attire.
Mrs. Howard, not caring to join the party,
had pleaded a headache for non-appearance.
Certainly the drawing-room at Mount Eoyal
has never thrilled with such melody as when
Lady Cecilia sings " 11 Segreto " in her superb
contralto a little later on ; even Lady Vansit-
tart, with all her horror for the woman, listens
perforce, but suddenly looking up, she catches
sight of her husband's face, and it is enough.
Devils shrieking in her ears would be a more
welcome sound.
As the beautiful voice floats past him and
appeals to his senses, Vansittart just gives
himself up to the spell and makes no conceal¬
ment of his liking for the singer and her song,
and when the last notes die away. Lady
Cecilia drops into a big fauteuil, while her
innamorato leans at the window by her side.
THE OLD LOVE TO THE FORE. 279
making a very amorous tableau, with the
soft night full of glittering stars for a back¬
ground, and filmy lace curtains partially
screening the two, so that Lady Vansittart's
outraged feelings are scarcely to be marvelled
at.
She keeps her seat bravely, however, on
her sofa, and replies in a vague stupid way to
General Le Barr's soft nothings, the same as he
is in the habit of saying to every woman, be
she fair or plain.
But she is so dumbfounded, scandalised at
this flagrant display before her very eyes,
that she scarcely knows what she is doing.
In a bewildered maze she stares at them as,
deliberately crossing the long drawing-room,
they go through a French casement on to a
staircase that leads to the moonlit lawn. In a
bewildered way she sees Vansittart tenderly
wrap the big, fair form in the identical (it
seems to her) white fleecy shawl like a cloud
that the woman had worn during the well-
remembered scene in the Casino grounds at
Monte Carlo, and stiU more in a maze she
marks Lady Cecilia take his arm and stroll
quietly away towards the dense shrubberies.
Then she turns a livid face and talks ani¬
matedly to General Le Barr, and Trevennen,
who has been dumb as a sheep all the
evening, shocked to see the change in one he
still loves as devotedly as ever. She speaks
of the last town gossip, the pictures, the
opera, whil^her soul is rent in twain, and her
28Ci A MODERN DRIDEGROOM.
brain whirls round. By-and-bye, just as the
clock chimes midnight, Vansittart and his
companion saunter slowly in, and the whole
of the party form a sort of circle.
Lady Vansittart's tongue has again lost its
cunning, and she sits, not pale, but grey to
her lips, with a broad, dark shadow under¬
lining her eyes.
"I am afraid we are keeping you up,"
Trevennen says in a low voice. His heart is
sore for her, and he would give worlds to
carry her off then and there from the brute
who owns her, and guard her for evermore
from every grief and ill. " It is time for all
good people to be in bed."
"Yes!" she answers gently, rising and
standing, with her slight figure pulled up to
its utmost height, in the midst of the group.
She looks Uke a fair young empress, with
her little thoroughbred head thrown back,
and her lips quivering with unmitigated
scorn.
" I am tired and hope you will excuse me.
Good-night, General, good-night. Lord Sains-
bury, good-night. Lord Marcus," and without
a glance at Lady Cecilia, she sweeps in her
long trailing black robes to the door. But
Vansittart loses his temper and his discretion
as he starts to his feet white with rage.
"Aileen, you have in your fatigue for¬
gotten to say good-night to Lady Cecilia," he
exclaims, trying 'to control the trembling of
his voice.
THE OLD LOVE TO THE FOEE.
231
Lady Vansittart pauses, and faces him and
the rest of the company with calm placid
features.
" I see no lady here!" she says in clear,
distinct tones, her tone slightly higher than
usual. "If there had been one, no fatigue
would have made me fail in courtesy to her! *
and she is gone.
The whole thing falls like a bombshell, and
in the bewilderment of it. Lady Cecilia rushes
away, tears of wrath and mortificatian in her
eyes.
"Plucky thing, that of Lady Vansittart,"
the old General says to Lord Sainsbury, while
Vansittart has mysteriously disappeared.
" You wouldn't have thought a bit of a girl
like that capable of it, would you ? "
" I don't know! Those httle innocent
women are the very devil if they are really
roused, you see. By Jove! it was a crusher
for the fair Cecilia! "
"Serve her right!" Trevennen says ener¬
getically. " I hate those sort of women that
are semi-respectable and semi—the other
thing."
But Lady Vansittart, bit of a girl as she is,
has succeeded in making the company dis¬
perse early the next day, before she has left
her own room.
CHAPTER XXV.
a fiasco.
" Shame urges on behind—unpitying shame.
That worst of furies—whose fell aspect frights
Each tender feeling from the human heart."
The party at Mount Royal has certainly
proved a real fiasco. As for Lady Cecilia
Gordon, this visit, from which she has antici¬
pated so many frivolous triumphs, has been
such an utter downfall of position in Society,
that she is haK mad about it, wondering if
the Duchess of Axminster and the Countess of
Linfield, her two bosom friends, both of them
so strait-laced and exclusive that gossip
never goes near their ears, and who have
consequently the highest opinion of her
morals and manners, will hear somehow of
the snub Lady Vansittart gave her, and expel
her from their set. And while the grey
dawn is breaking and the birds are only just
awake and twittering in the lanes, she fairly
pants to be off to Town, and is only restrained
from starting at such an unearthly hour from
fear of les convenances.
Lady Vansittart has been sitting for two
hours, her hands clasped, her whole attitude
one of utter desolation.
The feeling of shame and humiliation of the
A FIASCO.
283
night before are still vivid, and she cannot
chase away the thoughts of her own misery,
of the wretched, loveless future that awaits
her. Is there one thing that she would not
have sacrificed to his love when she married
this thankless, graceless husband of hers?
Yes, just one thing—her honour!
She could have surrendered all else, she
believed, but when the time came for her
eyes to be opened, and she found the wrong
done to her—always—always—she could not
stand it. The sense of Vansittart's eternal
misdoing, seemed to sap her heart-strings,
and at last turned all that was sweet and
womanly in her nature into gall and worm¬
wood. Into the midst of her bitter reflections
her husband enters.
He looks pale, or rather a dead white, even
to the lips, his eyes blaze with a steely light
that his wife has begun to be sorely afraid of,
and his voice trembles so that his words are
scarcely intelligible.
" So!" he says in a low, concentrated tone,
" it has pleased you to insult my guests, and
make me look like a fool. Madam! but you
will never do it again. In your defiance of
all laws of hospitality, in your defiance of my
anger, you traded on the protection which
the presence of your lover. Lord Marcus
Trevennen, might give you ! "
" How dare you say such " she breaks
in passionately, rising and facing him, with
her eyes flashing and scorn curling her lips.
284 A MODERN BBIDEOBOOM.
" Oh! it's easy to deny things, to assume
indignation when your chastity is questioned,
but I am not likely to be taken in. Come!
can you swear on the head of your dead
child, that no love passages have passed
between you and Lord Marcus Trevennen ? "
he asks, grasping her wrist, and glaring at
her like a wild beast. " Mind, I have put
you on your oath—an oath which most
women, even viler than yourself, would
respect! "
She looks back at him unflinchingly. Her
face is livid, and her slight figure totters as
she makes a movement to wrench away her
arm from the vice in which he holds it.
" You are a coward!" she says in a low
voice, but there is a trenchant contempt in
it which aggravates him more. " In answer
to your question, I deny your assertion
that I have ever spoken words of love
to Lord Marcus in my life, or thought of
doing so."
" That won't do. I want no shilly-shally¬
ing, I require the plain, unvarnished truth."
" I have told it!" she answers, almost
sullenly, her face grown as hard as if carved
in wood.
" Swear, as I told you ; swear on the dead
child's head that no love passages have passed
between you and that man!"
"You want the truth, you shall have it!
Lord Marcus has told me that he loved me,
but his love met with no return. By my
A FIASCO.
235
dead child's memory, I swear, Sir Lyulph
Vansittart, that I have been true to my
marriage vows, the vows which you have
trodden under foot, and dishonoured yourself
and me. Oh, man, has it never come into
your mind, that to ruin a woman's life is
enough for you to answer for before God,
without adding to it a mean desire to ruin
her reputation as well, to make her as bad as
you are, when you know that all the while
you are sullying your soul with falsehood,
branding yourself a coward and a liar in her
eyes!"
He lets go her wrist, but seizes her by the
arm. He is drunk with rage, and it seems to
him that he could kill her then and there.
" Coward and liar! These are the names
you think fit to use to me," he hisses in her
ear. " Well, then, I'll deserve them!" and
he flings her from him, with all his force,
violently on the ground.
Lady Vansittart, lying on the floor, does
not weep or wail; her tears seem to be
scorched up by the fire of indignation and a
horrible sense of injustice.
And while she lies in a white heap, he
paces the room hastily, with an evil look on
his mouth and an expression of hatred for
her in his eyes. Presently he pauses.
"Get up," he orders roughly. "Don't
sham being hurt. You are a sham altogether.
You shammed modesty and chastity and aU
that sort of, rubbish last night, when you
286
A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
insulted the lady who was your guest. Get
up at once—I have another matter to speak
on.
She obeys. Her nerves are shaken, and a
physical fear of this man has taken possession
of her mind. She catches his eye, and, turn¬
ing away shudderingly, falls into a chair a
little distance off.
" Now then. Why didn't Mrs. Howard put
in an appearance last night ? "
" She said she had a headache."
" Do you believe it was a headache which
prevented her joining the party? "
Lady Vansittart has one especial virtue—
she is strictly truthful. Even as a child she
never hesitated as children do, and as years
grew on she would suffer anything rather
than have recourse to prevarication even. It
is a virtue hereditary, perhaps, for her father,
poor old Captain Ferrers, was well known for
his honest, straightforward character in the
Army. So she says at once:
" I think she objected to the company!"
" Oh, she did—did she ? " cries Vansittart
angrily. "She objected to the people I
thought good enough to visit my wife! Very
well. So that she may not be put into such
an unpleasant dilemma again, you will tell
her that I wish her to leave my house at once.
I won't have any stuck-up madams here. I
believe that woman has been putting you up
to defying my authority! "
" She has never done so," is the short.
A FIASCO.
287
determined answer in a firm tone, but she
feels doubly miserable at losing the friend
whose society has been such a boon to her in
the latter weeks.
" You will tell her to go to-day^ mind!"
"I will tell her."
And he turns on his heel and leaves the
room.
Then she throws herself on her knees, and
prays for strength to bear — strength to
exorcise the evil spirit which goads her on to
revenge herself somehow for the cruelty,
malice, injustice and blows she has suffered.
A long, long time she kneels, her face
buried in her hands, and lost in a maze oi
dreadful thoughts that she cannot chase
away.
Suddenly she remembers that the day is
wearing on, and rising, she goes into a bed¬
room on the same floor, which Mrs. Howard
occupies.
Lady Vansittart looks like a ghost witli
her white face and white wrapper, and the
sight of her makes the other woman's heart
bleed.
" My poor Aileen, how did that man dare
desecrate your presence as he did last night ? "
she cries pityingly. " Is that dreadful creature
gone ? "
" They are all gone," is the answer in a
whisper, as if the speaker feared eavesdroppers.
" AH gone—and, Maud, you must go too—
to-day. He orders it!"
.288 A MODERN BBIDEGEOOM.
"He orders it!" Mrs. Howard says in¬
dignantly. " How dare he treat me so
insolently I I wish Algy was here and I should
have been safe from such an insult, for, my
dear Aileen, your husband is one of those
cowards who are afraid of men and bully
women. Aileen, I am the last person in the
world to wish to separate man and wife, but
if you live with Sir Lyulph longer, you will
either go mad or die. No living being can
stand what you have to stand; no woman,
brought up as a lady, can endure the treat¬
ment which the commonest navvy would be
ashamed of. You have plenty of cause to ask
for a divorce — cruelty, adultery—What can
ensure freedom from marriage ties, if your
troubles are not sufficient ? Do not waste your
youth in such an existence. And later on—
when you are free—someone may come—
someone honourable, true — whose love will
make up to you for all your trouble now, dear
child I"
" No, no 1 Never again. Love and faith
in any man are dead letters to me, Maud. I
would rather die than go through what I have
done the last twelve months. Oh, Maud,
you cannot guess the misery, the humiliation
of it all! the insults and indignities I have
suffered, the fear I have of him!" she says
piteously. "But I have no one to go to.
Papa died three months ago, and my mother
—well, she would not care to have me back
—a woman separated from her husband!
A FIASCO.
289
So I must go on somehow—how, God only
knows!"
And she throws her arms round Mrs.
Howard's neck, and sobs like a child.
" One thing, Maud. You don't believe that
I have flirted with anyone—with Lord Marcus,
do you ? " she asks, flushing.
" Flirted—no. Who says so ? "
" He does. He accused me this morning of
it—of worse that flirting, I believe!" she says,
in an ashamed voice. " He made me swear
on the head of my dead baby—my poor httle
dead darling — that no love passages had
passed between me and Lord Marcus—and it
was very hard, Maud. I couldn't swear that,
for Lord Marcus did tell me that he cared for
me. It was in Paris, you know, but I told
him never to say such things again—and he
never has."
" And never will—while your husband lives
—or you are a free woman to listen to him;
but you must forgive him for what he did say,
Aileen ; poor Marcus loves you dearly."
" Hush!" and Lady Vansittart puts the
tips of her fingers to her ears so as not to
hear. "That's what Lyulph said he did—
and see how long it has lasted! I wonder if
you and I shall ever meet again, Maud! If I
am dying I shall send for you—they can't
refuse a dying woman's request!— and you
wiU come, won't you ? "
" Through thick and thin !"
And after ^he is gone from Mount Royal
19
290
A HODEBN BRIDEGBOOM.
Lady Vansittart hugs her words to her
bosom; they make her feel less desolate in
the world.
When Vansittart runs up to Town, after
the unpleasant gathering at Mount Eoyal, he
finds himself rather at a discount at White's
and the Carlton; men look up, nod to him, and
then grow absorbed in the newspaper, and
altogether make him feel that he is not quite
such a desirable acquaintance as Mrs. Ferrers
considered " an eighteenth baronet" should be.
Perhaps General Le Barr has peached. He is
too fond of the fair sex for his seventy years
—he treats them gently, " as the dear httle
things ought to be treated," he says—but lax
of morals though he be, he has never lifted
his hand to a woman or voluntarily insulted
her, and the sight of Lady Vansittart's evident
suffering appealed to his soft old heart.
Besides, men of three-score and ten incline
considerably more to youth in distress than to
full-blown beauties who can take their own
part ably. Or maybe Lord Sainsbury has
told the story of his visit to Mount Eoyal to
his choice associates in the Eing—associates
who, notwithstanding their calling, probably
respect the " Missis," and would not for the
world the knowledge of a temporary defection
should come to her ears. Or, and this is
the likeliest, Trevennen, aggravated beyond
control at Vansittart's infamous conduct
towards the woman whom he, Trevennen,
A FIASCO.
291
looks upon as the loveliest, purest, most
lovable of her sex, has made no bones to
growl his sentiments aloud.
Anyway, in another week Mount Eoyal is
let, the lease of twenty-one years of Apperly
Park—^Vansittart's other place—is renewed,
and Sir Lyulph and Lady Vansittart are gone
abroad.
CHAPTER XXVI.
" i did it ! i did it ! "
"This wretched brain gave way
And I became a wreck—at random driven,
Without a glimpse of reason or of Heaven."
" Hotel Castiglione, Paris.
" Dear Maud,—I promised you to send any
news I could about the Vansittarts. After a
long yachting cruise with Palconer, I arrived
here about a month ago, and the same
evening met De Clairville at the Cercle, who
told me that Vansittart was to be seen at the
Bourse day after day. I could glean nothing
further from him; so set to watch myself to
find out where V. lived. This was not a very
difficult task—the man, who has a curiously
ill and broken-down look, never even noticed
me, as I followed him to a shabby little house
in the Rue Choiseul. I waited outside for
over two hours in the hope of seeing her, but
no such luck. I returned the following even¬
ing and under cover of dusk got speech of a
French woman, and a louis elicited that
Monsieur was a ' heau diable,' and ill-treated
Madame, who was ' un ange,' and that they
were very poor, though Monsieur took
Madame out to the theatre sometimes and
sometimes for a drive. Madame never went
"I DID rri I DID ITI"
293
out, she said, unless Monsieur made her, but
sat quite quiet, never speaking, in her own
room all the day! I once told you how much
I cared for Lady Vansittart; judge, then, how
wretched this account made me. I could
neither sleep nor eat. I haunted the street
till the neighbours began to look with
curiosity at my movements, but I did not
mind; there was only one idea in my head—
it was to catch a glimpse of her, to see for
myself if she was well—and happy. I have
seen her twice, poor soul!—once at the Opera,
with Princess Serge Poldorazski holding the
place of honour in the box, and Vansittart
whispering in her ear, while she sat white
and rigid as an image of marble. Her eyes
even looked as if they were in stone ; and an
awful vague expression was on her face. I
saw her once again, driving in a fiacre,
opposite to her husband and—Hortense
round whom his arm was flung. Thank
Heaven, Lady Vansittart did not see me; it
would have added tenfold to her humiliation
and misery, Maud! There was this time a
cowed, crushed look in her eyes which
tortured me beyond description. She seemed
slighter than ever, and her two poor little
hands, gloveless, rested like dead hands in her
lap. Five days ago I saw the French bonne
again. ' Madame is very ill,' she said, ' and
Monsieur will not pay for her food; he says it
would be better if she was out of his way—
she genes him so.'
294
A MODERN BBIDEQROOM.
" Great Heaven! to think of it!—a fragile
girl like that to be let to die, untended—
starved — brutalised over. What can be
done? Write and suggest something for
God's sake !—^Yours,
"Marcus Trevennen."
" What can be done, Algy ? " Mrs. Howard
asks piteously—the tears rain down her
cheek, and her heart aches for the woman
whom she has grown to love—" Something
must be done you know," she goes on
passionately. " It would be inhuman not to
help her in her awful strait!"
"No one can interfere between husband
and wife, I'm afraid!" Howard answers
regretfully. " Why doesn't she leave that
blackguard ? "
" She has no one to go to, and is perforce
obliged to stay with him, poor thing!
Couldn't she come to us ? "
He hesitates a moment, but his heart gets
the better of him.
" Of course she can, but how can we get
her?"
"We must go and fetch her away in the
man's absence. Let us go soon, Algy, or she
may be dead, and I shall never forgive myself
for delaying."
" We'll start the day after to-morrow,
then!"
But on this same evening a telegram
reaches Mrs. Howard:
"I DID IT I I DID IT I"
295
" Come at once. She is dying! "
The Howards reach Paris early in the day,
having travelled by the night mail, and, pick¬
ing up Trevennen at his hotel, who is waiting
for them, drive to the Eue Choiseul.
The houses are more or less mean and
shabby, and considering Vansittart's reputed
wealth it is a curious locality for him to live in.
The house they seek—^number six—is even
more cheerless and dingy-looking than its
fellows—-for the blinds from top to bottom are
drawn down.
Trevennen's heart stands still, and he sees
by his companions' faces that they both share
his apprehensions.
" Madame is very ill!—perhaps dying I"
These had been the French bonne'^ words
two days ago.
The three hesitate on the step. Maud
Howard's face is white as a sheet, and she
grasps her husband's arm hard to save herself
from falling. It is quite sad to look on
Trevennen's anxious, piteous, face. Howard
rings at last, and they can hear the peal
distinctly resound through the weirdly silent
house.
In a few minutes, which seem hours, so
great and harrowing is the suspense, the door
opens slowly, and the servant, looking ghastly
and scared, meets their view.
" Is there death in the house ? " Howard
asks, almostfin a whisper.
296
A MODERN BRIDEaROOM.
" Yes," whispered back, sounds in their ears
like a clap of thunder.
" When did it happen ? " questions Howard
once more.
" Last night, Monsieur."
Last night! and they are after all too late
to see Aileen before her chesnut eyes closed
for ever.
"It was awfully sudden—and to think.
Monsieur, that they accuse madame of it!"
" Accuse madame of it—of what f "
Suddenly swoops across Mrs. Howard like a
fiery blast, the memory of some words Lady
Vansittart had spoken at Mount Eoyal:
" 1 shall die—if he doesn't."
God of mercy, can she—poor, rash, mis¬
guided, goaded soul—have been driven by
insult and blows to—^murder ?
It is Howard who asks the question his
wife's trembling lips refuse to utter:
" Accuse who—and of what f "
" Madame — of having killed Monsieur,"
the girl gasps. " The Commissaire of Police
came at once, and some men are still
here. It is wicked to say that madame
did it!"
They do not answer a word, their tongues
cleave to their mouths, and their hearts quake,
and there seems no hope.
Entering, the door is closed behind them.
The girl shows them upstairs to a bedroom,
au troisieme, meanly and shabbily furnished
vdth a cracked mirror, a deal dressing table.
"I DID IT! I DID IT I"
297
a couple of ricketty chairs, a strip of coarse
carpet and an old horse-hair couch, and on
this, in a stupor, lies Lady Vansittart.
Her long lashes cast dark shadows over
her deeply flushed cheeks, her magnificent
chesnut hair hangs dishevelled over her neck
and shoulders, and her arms are crossed
tightly over her chest as if she held something
precious within them.
This " something" gleams and glitters
under a streak of light, that streams in
through the small curtainless window, and it
is a small revolver.
They shudder as they mark it. This re¬
volver is the proof of her guilt, and they
learn from the servant that the supposition is
that madame had killed monsieur in the
adjoining room and carried the weapon away
with her in the feverish delirium under which
she has lain prostrate for several hours.
Poor Lady Vansittart! poor, rash, beautiful
woman; she does not look like a murderess
now.
A desperately hopeless expression is on her
perfect features, but there is no revenge, no
malice, no cruelty on her face, not even the
defiance which has characterised her in her
latter days.
No! They look upon her and feel that the
man lying dead hard by has, by dint of brutal
words and brutal blows, bent her spirit and
broken her heart. They see on her white
brow and slender wrists dull red marks, that
298
A MODEBN BRIDEaROOir.
show what her unfortunate life has been for
the last months.
In the course of the day, while the three
who are the only friends she possesses in the
world, never leave her, one or two of the
police officials walk in, gaze with ribald stare
at her exceeding beauty, then shrug their
shoulders and return downstairs, where they
can be heard talking and laughing as if no
awful life drama was being enacted a few
stairs above.
Later on, just as the sun goes down, Lady
Vansittart opens her eyes, sighs heavily,
passes her hand wearily across her fore¬
head, then starts and half recognises her
visitors.
They ought to be glad that her senses have
returned—hut they are not. Her unconscious¬
ness has been the sole cause of her being left
unmolested by the coarse men below. What
could they do with a woman lying in a stupor
like death ?
And so the three sit very quiet, not daring
to utter a word lest they should be heard.
But Lady Vansittart t uddenly gives a piercing
shriek, springs off the couch and, before they
can prevent her, flings open the door of the
adjoining room, in which all that remains of
Sir Lyulph Vansittart still lies.
" I did it! I did it! " she shouts with a
wild laugh, and kissing the revolver, she
dances round the room, but in a moment
Trevennen has her in his arms, and replacing
"I DID IT! I DID IT!"
S99
her on the couch, double locks the door of
the ghastly chamber.
The tread of steps has, however, aroused
the attention of the police, and four of them
walk in once more.
" Madame is better and must go with us,"
the chief man says very civilly, and they can
neither answer or prevent it, with Ijady
Vansittart staring at them with great dis¬
tended eyes, while she clasps still closer her
horrible weapon.
So they lift her up gently enough. Her
supreme beauty appeals to the senses of even
these rough, uncultured creatures, and be¬
tween them they carry her downstairs and
into a vigilante.
Trevennen procures another vehicle, and
he and the Howards follow with heavy hearts
and shamed faces; but at the entrance of
the place, the Procureur du Eoi wields his
power.
They are quickly dismissed.
" Madame will be well taken care of," they
are told politely, " until it is proved or dis¬
proved that she has killed monsieur."
The dreadful night passes by and some
hours of the next day, while Maud Howard
kneels and prays for the poor victim of a
man's fickleness and tyranny ; but she starts
up trembling violently as a knock comes to
her door.
It is Trevennen, aiul he smiles.
" What ne-^s ? " she asks eagerly.
300
A MODERN BBIDEOROOM.
" Good news, Maud, excellent news. She
is innocent!"
She stares at him hard, unable to realise
the fact, so great has been the tension of her
feelings.
" It is true, Maud, thank God — thank
God ! She is innocent, a paper has been
found in Vansittart's room, it had slipped
under the carpet doubtless during the in¬
quest ; by dint of a bribe I have got a copy
of it. These foreign officials are always open
to bribes—here it is."
He holds up the precious document, but a
mist is before Maud Howard's eyes.
" Eead it—Marcus—quick! "
"Failed in heavy speculations during the
last three months, and have lost everything.
Apperley Park and Mount Royal are mort¬
gaged—no friends anywhere—I cannot face
penury—death is preferable to discomfort, so
I prefer shooting myself.
" L. V."
" Thank God!" Mrs. Howaixl says heartily.
" Go and fetch her here at once."
" She is here," he answers, and before the
words have left his lips, the true-hearted,
good little woman flies downstairs, and in
another moment weeps and laughs over
Aileen.
She is strangely quiet under it all. There
is a deep flush still on her cheeks, and a
"I DID IT I I DID IT I" 801
curiously-dazed look in her large, startled
eyes, and she is perfectly passive.
Later, the vivid crimson deepens on her
face, and her eyes, losing their dazed ex¬
pression, grow wonderfully bright, and before
morning she tosses and raves in the first stage
of brain fever, muttering always :
" I killed him—killed him with this pistol.
How cold it feels—cold as my heart—cold as
he is now."
For many days and nights her life hangs on
a thread, but through it aU her beauty never
fades. At last, youth and a good constitution
conquer, and Lady Vansittart is given back
to those who love her. And as the time goes
on, the hopeless look in her eyes dies out,
though smiles play rarely on her perfect lips,
and above all, she is remorseful for the part
she played in her married life.
" Will God forgive me for my feelings
towards him, I wonder, Maud ?" she asks
earnestly. "With his many faults, he was
my husband after all, you know. I hated
him, Maud—but I did not kill him. I re¬
member it all now," she goes on, shuddering.
"He had gone out, and I awoke in the
middle of the night suddenly from a horrible
dream, like as if a thunderbolt had fallen on
me. It was so dark, and my nerves were
shaken, and springing off my couch, I went
with fear out into the adjoining room for a
light. I found a match, and was on the point
of returning ^hen my foot slipped (my feet
302
A MODERN BRIDBGROOM.
were bare), and I fell over something on the
floor. What it was I could not make out.
Oh, Maud—oh, Maud! I put out a trembling
hand, and I found that a human face—a
face so horribly, horribly cold—lay clo.se
to mine. In terror I sprang up, then a
deadly faintness came over me, and I must
have fallen down again. The daylight was
streaming into the room when I regained
consciousness, and I saw—great Heaven!
shall I ever forget it ?—his white, rigid face—
his eyes wide open and staring at me. It was
enough—the sight turned my brain and I fled ;
but not before I had gathered in my arms
the weapon that had freed me from my miser¬
able life. Mad I was no doubt, in that
moment of terror, but yet I remember I kissed
that pistol frantically, for it had brought me
a new lease of life and hope. You don't
know, Maud, what I went through during
those dreadful months—igade to herd with
the women he loved—beaten if I repulsed
their hand-clasp—or their kisses—mocking
kisses they were. Fancy Hortense and that
Princess Poldorazski kissing him before my
eyes—and he let them do it. Ay, he laughed
when I hid my eyes from looking on such
dishonour and shame 1 Perhaps all I suffered
may be some palliation for my joy when
death lifted the thraldom from my heart and
left me once more free—free I "
CHAPTER XXm
kiss me—marcus !
" Yea, if I could—would I have you see
My very love of you filling me,
And know my soul to the quick,"
Five o'clock on a lovely June day. The
sunshine peers through the Venetians of a
charming little house in Dover Street, and
lights up an exquisite Queen Anne tea-service,
with a great, wide-mouthed Capo di Monti
vase, brimmed over with moss roses and big
purple violets, set in the middle.
The room is quite a hijou— a liliputian
copy of the beautiful white drawing-room at
the Paris Exhibition, and all the appointments
are as chic as the best of taste can make
them.
Two women, sitting opposite one another
in luxurious satin fauteuils, sip the beverage
" that cheers but does not inebriate." They
are both exceedingly worth looking at, though
in quite opposite styles.
The hostess is of medium height, with clear
brunette tints, sparkling black eyes, and a
wealth of dark hair enframing !ne most
piquante of faces. Mrs. Howard wears a
gown of some material as filmy as cobweb,
S04
A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
and of a pale blue hue. A bit of rare lace,
fashioned like a butterfly's wing, perches
coquettishly on her head, a bunch of deep-
coloured clove carnations adorn her bodice,
and a tiny spider in brilliants nestles at her
throat.
Lady Vansittart is in dull black—her dress
is as plain as a Puritan's. No jewels relieve
the sombreness of her attire, and the only
gleam of colour about her is her magnificent
chesnut hair flecked by the warm sunbeams
into that rare and exquisite shade that the
old-world painters went mad over.
She looks years younger than she did nine
months ago, when the awful tragedy in her
life was enacted. Freedom has brought back
youth and strength and a sweet, pure bloom
to her cheek ; her eyes seem larger than ever,
and the little droop of the perfect lips that
trouble gave, is replaced now and then by the
dazzling smile of other days.
She is not smiling just now, however, for
she and Maud Howard are talking about the
wretched past, and the remembrance of it
always brings a great dash of pain to her eyes
and drives the colour from her face.
Sometimes she forgets all she suffered—
forgets the indignities and insults—the blows
that were heaped on her, and only recollects
the sweet early days, when she believed her
husband loved her and when she loved him
as much as a woman can love. But this
memory is quickly eflaced by the sting of
KISS ME—MARCUS!
SC5
bitterness and humiliation. After all, what
had she done to be punished through the
very being whom she had worshipped with all
her heart ?
" And was it soon after your marriage that
he began to deceive you about his doings and
sayings, Aileen?"
" I don't think he ever deceived me as to
his real nature, but I was desperately in love,
and I suppose I did not understand things he
said to me—as I did afterwards. I remember
during our honeymoon saying that nobody
could ever make me believe he would hide
anything from me, and his answer was :
"' Bosh ! There isn't one man in the
thousand who tells Ins wife everything he
does! There are such lots of extenuating
circumstances in a man's actions, you know!
A pretty face is a frightful temptation to any
man. My dear child, you may be quite sure
if you hadn't had a pretty face, I should
never have married you !'
" I listened, and felt even then misgivings
as to the soundness of his sentiments; but
what I did was to go and put my arm round
his neck, and open my heart to him. ' I
don't know how to make you understand just
what I feel, Lyulph! I don't expect you to
tell me everything—that is, everything about
ordinary matters; but in anything that con¬
cerns us two—our life, our love—oh, don't
let there be any concealment or reserve. It
would make me so awfully unhappy!'
• 20
306
a modern bridegroom.
"' A bad beginning for a married life,' he
said, in a tone of martyrdom. 'You must
really try to be less exigeante, and you must
try to curb your feelings. I had no idea they
were so violent. I am afraid to think how it
Avill all end!'"
" I cannot comprehend why you fell in love
with him, Aileen! He was handsome, of
course, but that was all! By-the-way, apropos
to our conversation the other day, about the
succession to the title, I saw something in the
Times this morning I want to show you. Here
it is:
" ' Wanted the address of John Berriedale.
He will hear of something to his advantage
by applying to Messrs. Lane & Welch, 300a,
Cannon Street, E.G.'"
" Lyulph told me the title would go to a
Yankee cousin, if we had no son," and tears
well up in Lady Vansittart's eyes as she
remembers "Baby," but she dashes them
quickly away. " I heard the name of Berrie¬
dale somewhere before I married, Maud. I
canH recollect where. Oh!" and she rises
quickly and runs upstairs. In a few moments
she comes down again, flushed and excited,
with a pleased look on her face. " I have it,
Maud I It flashed across me like lightning.
See, here is a book,' Happy Thoughts,' which
was given me by Jack Lyster—that's the
young fellow I was engaged to once, you
kiss me-marcus!
307
know. I can't think what made me keep it
—not sentiment, I am sure; but it's going to
be of service to him now, and perhaps I shall
be able to atone a little for the wicked way I
threw him over. His name was not Lyster—
that was the name of the man who adopted
him. He was really John Berriedale, and I
know he was born in America. I am so glad
that poor old Jack will be Sir John Berriedale
now!"
" He will want to marry you—now you are
free, Aileen."
" I hope not. I shouldn't like to make him
unhappy a second time. I'll just go and write
him a line at once."
She deliberates a moment as to how she
shall begin her letter ; but decides to do so as
if he were an old friend ;
" Dear Jack—
"I enclose a cutting out of the
Times, which may not meet your eyes. Sir
Lyulph Vansittart told me long ago that the
successor to the baronetcy was an American
cousin called Berriedale, and I am quite sure
it is you. I am so glad, dear Jack, that good
news may come to you through
" Yours very truly,
"Aileen Vansittart."
She reads this over, and thinks that, though
it is kindly worded, there is no encourage¬
ment to rene^ acquaintance in it. So she
308
a modern bridegroom.
addresses it to him, to Lock House, near
Carlisle—which he had said would always
find him—and in a couple of days receives an
answer:
" Dear Lady Vansittart—
" How very good of 3'ou to send
me news which I certainly did not expect. I
don't much care about a title myself, but
Freda will like to be Lady Berriedale. Freda
and I are going to be married next week.
She sends her love. Again thanking j-^ou for
your letter, I am,
" Yours very truty,
" J. Lyster."
Lady Vansittart has not a scrap of petty
vanity about her, so instead of being vexed at
Freda Charteris having evidently displaced
her entirely in her old lover's heart, she
smiles, and is really glad that the two young
people associated with her early days are
going to be happy together.
"Jack will never look at another wonan
once he is married. He is too loyal and good
for that! " she says to herself, and she sighs—
but it is not out of regret for him. Only the
thought comes to her that if Vansittart had
been loyal and good what happiness her
married life would have brought!
" Jack Lyster won't want to marry me,
Maud," she says, laughing, throwing over his
note. "I am so glad poor little Freda
KISS ME—MABCUS!
S09
Charteris is going to marry him—she has
been in love with him for ages."
" Algy wants to ask one or two men to
dinner, Aileen. You will come down, won't
you ? It is absurd eschewing society as you
do. One would think you had reason to
mourn "
"Hush! I don't want to see anyone,
Maud I" she says, imploringly. " I don't
want to see any man except "
" She is going to say " Mr. Howard," but
his wife breaks in quickly with :
" Except—poor Marcus."
Lady Vansittart stoops and picks up her
handkerchief, which has somehow fallen at
this moment, and when she raises her face
there is an undoubted remnant of a blush on
it; but she only says carelessly :
" Poor—what is he poor in ? I think he is
a very fortunate young man. He has enough
good looks and enough money, and he has
no one but himself to think about and look
after I"
" That's the rub, Aileen! he wants someone
to look after. He is such a good sort you
cannot think, and as gentle and considerate
as a woman."
Lady Vansittart leaves her seat, and, walk¬
ing up to the window, looks out absently for
some minutes, then she returns and takes a
chair which is rather behind where her
hostess sits.
" Do you ^pow, Maud, that you have never
310 A MODERN BRIDEGROOM.
told me how you came to be in Paris that
awful day. I have wanted to ask you about
it, but somehow I couldn't. Sometimes I
have thought that instinct must have brought
you, as you promised so faithfully to come if
I was in want of you."
Mrs. Howard picks up a big Khus Khus fan,
and uses it chiefly to hide the smile that
creeps to her lips.
" Oh, no, it wasn't instinct, Aileen. It was
something very much more substantial. It
was Marcus who telegraphed to us to come
at once. Poor dear fellow, he looked too
awful when we arrived. For a whole month
he had positively haunted the Hue Choiseul,
and I should be afraid to sa)^ the amount of
louis he expended on the French servant you
had for daily news of you. I believe he
would have died if it had gone on much
longer, that anxiety would have killed him.
It's a strange thing that selfish, bad men get
made up to in this funny world, while an un¬
selfish, true-hearted, capital fellow like Marcus
Trevennen goes to the wall."
" I am sure I am very grateful to
him," murmurs Lady Vansittart. " I ought
to be."
•' Yes, you ought to be; but we are not
always what we ought to be, Aileen. It's a
crying shame, I think, that you won't see him
to thank him even, and he is looking quite
old and careworn and ugly from sheer dis¬
appointment. You might try and bear with
KISS ME—MARCUS!
811
his society for a few minutes; he need not
stay longer, you know."
" I shall be glad of an opportunity to thank
him for all his kindness, but I could not stand
a long visit from anyone," is the reply in a
low, constrained voice.
" Marcus is not one to outstay his wel¬
come," Mrs. Howard answers indifferently, but
inwardly she congratulates herself on having
been so able a diplomatist.
So Lord Marcus Trevennen comes, and
looks very handsome and radiant with happi¬
ness as he gazes once more on the loveliest
face on earth to him, and clasps the little
white hand extended out of pure gratitude;
but he does not say much to the woman
whom he loves more than his life.
But women are strange creatures, and Lady
Vansittart likes him all the more for his
reticence, and makes up her mind to put up
with his daily visits, so long as he sticks to
conventional talk.
But one day she is rather taken aback when
he suddenly bursts out with:
" Aileen! Is it always going to be like this
with us ? Am I never to be nearer to you
than now ? If you decide so, I will go away
abroad or somewhere and trouble you no
more! but I can't go on like this, loving you,
longing for you, hungering and thirsting with
all my soul for—dare I say it ?—one kiss,
Aileen, and getting no more from you than
the merest haad-clasp! Decide what you are
31^ A MODERN BBIDEOROOM.
going to do with me, for God's sake, and I
will abide by your decree!"
A pause, a noise of carriages in the busy
street, a dead silence in the room—a breath
of sweet flowers on the soft wind, that,
stealing in, toys with the bright chesnut hair
on the woman's brow, and lans the hot face
of the man.
Lady Vansittart rises, and going over to
him, lifts up her beautiful face.
It is not pale now, her eyes are as big and
bright as stars, the loveliest light fills them,
the softest, tenderest pink is on her cheek,
and her perfect lips part in a happy smile as
she says:
" Kiss me, Marcus!"
* « « » «
" How soon may we get married ? " he asks,
later on.
" Hush!" she says with a shiver, " do not
speak of marriage ! I am quite happy as we
are."
" Shall it be in three months ? I canH wait
longer, Aileen!"
She does not answer, so he takes silence for
consent.
THE END.
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