Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, Volume 2 (of 3)

CHAPTER XVII.

ENNUI AND WEARINESS.

But for her love for Bevil Goring, Alison felt at times that she would have sacrificed herself for her father. Selfish and coldly proud though his nature was, still he was her father, and she was his last link to earth—the last link of that long chain of ancestors he prized so much, and who went back to the years of the War of Independence, and beyond them.

Yes—out of pity for him she might have sacrificed herself to Cadbury; but now the image of Bevil Goring rendered that impossible, and even death itself preferable.

Poor girl! moped in that great dull hotel, she wearied sorely. Her father was kind to her after a fashion of his own, but she longed regretfully for the past time when she could throw her arms around her mother's neck and lay her head upon her breast—the panacea for all young folks whose troubles seem overwhelming; but what were the troubles that beset her when that dear mother was alive, compared with those that beset her now?

And with regard to these, she knew what that mother's advice would have been:—'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'

My Lord Cadbury was rather tiring, or getting exasperated by the slow success of his love affair, and was beginning to think seriously of how he would separate Alison from her 'bore of a father,' and get her alone with him, perhaps to Brussels, where his rascal Gaskins would easily procure him apartments.

For some time past his lordship had cunningly dropped the rôle of lover and adopted that of friend, perhaps to throw Alison off her guard, and as he did not—as some old fellows do—act 'the paternal' part, to a certain extent she became so, and her normal state or feeling of defiance and dislike was dulled for a time.

Thus her face looked calm and placid, with a curiously pathetic expression, and her eyes had at times a far-away look in them that gave Sir Ranald a strange dull pain in his heart, especially one evening, when, taking grapes one by one from a plate of painted Antwerp china-ware, she fed him playfully as a nurse might a child.

'Bird Ailie,' said he, 'my dear bird Ailie.'

He saw how her hand looked quite transparent, and a pang of dismay smote his heart.

'You are not well, darling,' said he.

'Oh, yes, papa,' she replied, with affected cheerfulness, 'I am very well; but oh, if we were only home again out of this foggy Antwerp. I think I could wheel you about in a bath chair as well as old Archie, were we only home to——'

'Where?' he asked, sharply. 'But I must take care of you now for my own sake. This confinement is killing you; go out somewhere, anywhere under Cadbury's escort.'

But Alison shook her head. As yet she had seen nothing of the famous city of Antwerp, though she could not look forth from her windows in the quaint Place Verte, or along the Marché aux Souliers, with all its shops, without a longing to explore, everything seemed so strange, so striking; for, as Sir Walter Scott wrote truthfully and graphically, 'it is in the streets of Antwerp and Brussels that the eye rests upon the forms of architecture which appear in the pictures of the Flemish school—those fronts richly decorated with various ornaments, and terminating in roofs, the slope of which is concealed from the eye by windows and gables still more highly ornamented; the whole comprising a general effect which, from its grandeur and intricacy, at once amuses and delights the spectator. In fact, this rich intermixture of towers and battlements and projecting windows, highly sculptured, joined to the height of the houses and the variety of ornaments upon their fronts, produce an effect as superior to those of the tame uniformity of a modern street as the casque of a warrior exhibits over the slouched, broad-brimmed beaver of a Quaker.'

Another remarkable feature in the Belgian streets is the enormous height of the front doors, with rings and knockers of brass often more than a foot in diameter.

Lord Cadbury had received a card of invitation pour milord et ses dames to a Redoute monstre et fête de nuit at the Théâtre des Variétés, where there was to be a species of bal masqué in the great saloon, and on the stage a 'Kermesse Flamande, Fête Venitienne,' as it was announced, and he treated Sir Ranald's permission to take Alison with him, simply as a spectator in her street costume.

All the ladies who dance at these balls wear masques and black silk dominoes over their ball dresses; the gentlemen are in evening dress, and do not wear masks, as he explained to her, and Alison, ennuyed and weary of confinement and dulness, consented to go, at her father's urgent request, though she was without a chaperon; but then, as the former said, no one knew her in Antwerp.

When Alison thought of Lord Cadbury's wishes and proposals as regarded herself, she felt that she ought not to accompany him to this fête, but her love for Bevil seemed to guard her like a suit of armour; the temptation to see a little of outdoor life prevailed, and so she yielded, but not without dread and reluctance. Was this a prevision of what was to come?

That morning she had been at a well-known coiffeur's getting her hair dressed, and was rather scared than amused to see gentlemen and ladies seated side by side in the saloon, under the hands of his assistants, the former getting their beards shaved and moustaches trimmed, and the latter their back hair brushed and dressed: but, though this was only a specimen of the freedom of Belgian life, young ladies, she knew, could not go abroad without a chaperon; but then, Lord Cadbury, she reflected, was old enough to be her father.

He would take the greatest care of her—the scene would be a brilliant one, and one, moreover, entirely new to her.

'And I am not to go in costume, or wear a domino?' said Alison, anxiously.

'No—as a spectator only—your hat and sealskin jacket, of course; but we shall see the dancers from the promenade round the saloon, and the Flemish scene on the stage about half-past ten.'

'Can you spare me, papa?' she asked, softly.

'Yes, darling, go,' he replied, weakly but earnestly.

So a voiture was summoned, and Alison departed, after dinner, escorted by Lord Cadbury. Through the broad and spacious Rue de l'Hôpital and Rue Grande, with its quaint old houses, to the private entrance of the Théâtre des Variétés in the Rue des Escrimeurs, a narrow street, and never in all her future life did she repent of any action more bitterly.

The brief change of scene or action would draw her from herself, as she had been afflicted with severe distracting thoughts of late.

Had Bevil gone to the seat of war, or was he still in England? She was as ignorant of his movements as he nearly was of hers; but it was too probably the former, and she supposed he would soon be face to face with danger and death. Her absence—her flight it would seem—from Chilcote, she supposed, must be all unexplained to him, and, if explained, he would learn that she was with Lord Cadbury; and, after all he knew, what might he not fear and think?

Think that which might lead him to believe she was untrue, and leave him to be happy yet with some other girl, who might love him as she now loved him, and as he wished to be loved.

And more keenly did these thoughts distract her mind after the—to her—fatal night of the bal masqué.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LE REDOUTE MONSTRE.

Alison found herself in a great oblong saloon, brilliantly lighted by crystal gaseliers, decorated by lofty mirrors, surrounded by a colonnade of elegant pillars and overlooked by a balustraded orchestra occupied by the fine band of the Garde Municipale. The centre of this saloon, the floor of which was carefully waxed, was specially reserved for dancers; but a platform on four sides of it, and without the lines of pillars, was occupied by promenaders, for whom there were seats and lounges.

One end was closed by the proscenium and green curtain of the Théâtre des Variétés.

The majority of the male dancers were in evening costume, though a few wore fancy dresses, and there were spider-waisted Belgian officers from the adjacent Caserne St. Georges, with loose gold epaulets, dark blue tunics, and baggy light grey pantaloons.

Many of the ladies were in fancy costume—some a little prononcé, being almost that of the Corps de Ballet, though their dresses were often trimmed with rich, old, coffee-coloured Flemish lace; but the majority wore dominoes of black satin or silk, and all had black velvet masks and thin black lace veils, or head-dresses, like the Spanish mantilla, so commonly worn by the women in some parts of Belgium—a relic of the days of the Duke of Alva—the 'Castigator de los Flamencos.'

Many were hovering about in corners, or near certain pillars, evidently waiting to keep appointments made elsewhere with those who would recognise them—though masked to the upper lip—by a particular flower worn in the breast, by the rosettes on their white kid boots, a little patch on the chin, or so forth; and while the round dances—waltzes, polkas, and mazurka—were in progress, Alison, to whom the scene was entirely new, watched the lovers—for such she supposed they must be, and no doubt many were—and, with an interest in which her own heart shared, saw many a glad meeting, a smile, a pressure of the hand interchanged; and then by tacit consent they whirled into the gay and fast-increasing throng, while overhead the music of Straus or Chopin came pealing from the lofty orchestra.

Alison felt her little feet beating time to the music, the 'Soldatenlieder' of Herr Gung'l, 'Je t'aime' of Waldteufel, and so forth. How she longed, sealskin jacket and all, to join in the then delicious waltzes! She was very young, and life would indeed be wretched were it a blank at her years. The whole scene was a novel and brilliant one; most strange to her eyes, and, if her situation was an anxious one in Antwerp, it was not without its sad romance; but for a time, as she looked around her, she forgot even that, or was only recalled to it when Lord Cadbury addressed her.

And, meanwhile, the parvenu peer, pleased with the delicate beauty of his companion, in whose pale cheeks a little rose-leaf tint now came, with a sparkle in her usually quiet eyes, felt very vain of the handsome girl who leant on his arm, and attracted the admiration of many a passing and many a lingering man, who hovered near to admire her.

Among these were two Englishmen, Sir Jasper Dehorsey (a sporting baronet) and his friend, Mr. Tom Hawksleigh, also well-known, and not very reputably, on various racecourses. They seemed to know no one there, and were mere spectators, though doubtless amid that vast throng they might have introduced themselves to some of the fair dominoes without being severely repulsed.

Both were in full evening-dress, with loose, light dust coat worn open, and crush hat under the arm; both were gentlemanly in bearing and appearance, and their faces would have been good but for the sinister, rakish, and blasé expression of their eyes, and the sensual and sneering curve of their lips. Sir Jasper, the taller of the two by half a head, stuck his glass in his right eye, and said,

'Tom, look at that girl with the blue velvet hat; she is English—I'll swear she is.'

'And a regular beauty, by Jove!'

'Doocid curious place for her to be, this. She is all right, I suppose; what do you think?'

'I think it doubtful—hails from the latitude of Regent Street, I should say,' replied the other, who thought evil of everyone and everything.

'Who is that moyen-âge individual with the white horse-shoe shaped moustache and coarse ears, who seems to regard her with such a proprietary air?'

'By Jove, it is old Cadbury!' exclaimed Mr. Hawksleigh.

'Cadbury—it is!' added the baronet; 'the little party can't be particular to a shade if she is with him. She'll not set much store on the whole duty of woman.'

'What is that?' asked Hawksleigh.

'Why, to get married—to get well married, if possible, but anyhow, to get married on any terms.'

'He is a lord; but a silk purse can't be made out of a sow's ear.'

'I am too poor a devil just now to sneer at his money or position, or, by Jove, I would do so at both. His father was "something" in the city, whatever that means. Let us take the girl from him.'

'All right—I am your man,' exclaimed Hawksleigh.

'He doesn't seem to have even an old woman to play propriety or act chaperon.'

'When did he ever study Mrs. Grundy? But to see such a girl as this with him reminds me of Beauty and the Beast.'

'Her wisdom is no doubt in her dressing-case, and her modesty—well, ah—in her pocket, I suppose. Well, here goes——'

'Stop, don't be too hasty. Ah! the old rip, he doesn't care about acting lotus-eater at Cadbury Court, and so has come abroad with "somebody's luggage." Who can the little girl be?'

'Not much, when she is with him, as I said before,' responded the blasé baronet. 'We'll soon find out. Like the conspirators in a burlesque, who turn up the collars of their coats, we must say, "Let us dissemble!"'

What their precise plans were they perhaps scarcely knew, but half-past ten was announced as the time when, as the programme had it, the curtain was to rise on the Rideau de Séparation de la Scène, et commencement de la Kermesse, when the stage appeared with a landscape and busy groups in peasant costume, showing the whole business of a Flemish fair; the dancing ceased, and an immediate rush towards the proscenium took place from all parts of the saloon, the refreshment-rooms, and adjacent passages.

The Belgians are not famous for their politeness, and many of those present on this occasion were of the bourgeois class; thus when the curtain rose there was instantly a rough, unceremonious, and furious crowding towards the proscenium, and in the crush the hand of Alison was torn from the arm of Cadbury, and they were hopelessly separated by a crowd of more than a thousand persons, tightly wedged together.

So far were they apart that he totally failed to see anything of her or where she was, and nearly an hour elapsed before the follies of the Kermesse were over, and a resumption of the dancing dispersed the crowd about the greater space of the saloon. Immediately on this taking place, Cadbury began a search on every hand, amid all the groups and in all the adjacent rooms and corridors—even between the wings of the now open stage—for Alison, but she was nowhere to be seen.

He questioned the waiters, the door-keeper, and other officials, but none had seen any lady, who answered to the description given, leave the hall.

Midnight was past now, and as the bal masqué would last till four in the morning hundreds of more ticket-holders came crowding in, and Cadbury became at last convinced—and with no small alarm—that Alison must have quitted the place, and missing him, or indifferent as to what he might think, had got a voiture and driven home to their hotel.

When he quitted the theatre and got a similar vehicle snow was falling heavily, and when he reached the Hôtel St. Antoine great was his alarm and dismay to find from the concierge and waiters that she had not returned!

Not returned—snow falling and the cathedral bell tolling one in the morning.

Her room was searched; she was evidently not there—not with her father or in any part of the house. No doubt remained of that.

With all his selfishness, Cadbury was dismayed and enraged. Where was she—with whom?

The snow was still falling, and the storm showed no sign of abatement. The vast space of the Place Verte was one sheet of white, across which the lights from the hotel windows and the street lamps cast long lines of radiance, and high in the tall spire jangled the merry carillons.

'Out in a night like this—in a foreign city, more than half the inhabitants of which speak nothing but Flemish, where can she be?' he thought. 'Why does she not make an effort to get back to the hotel?'

He drove back to the Théâtre des Variétés, where the music and the dancing were still in full progress, to repeat his inquiries in vain; when morning dawned the snow had ceased, but there was no appearance of Alison.

'This will kill her father!' was now Cadbury's thought.

Had an accident befallen her? With earliest dawn he had messengers despatched to all the hospitals and gendarme stations, but in vain. No accident had happened, nor had anyone answering to the description of Alison been seen.

Her absence could no longer be concealed from her horrified father, who at once concluded that she must have eloped with Goring, of whose predicament and whereabouts Cadbury had kept him ignorant, so he was not ill-pleased to let him think so.

Rage at the adventurer, as he deemed Goring, acted like a spur on Sir Ranald. He left his sick couch and seemed to make a struggle to get well that he might join in the search and trace them out.

Cadbury had not been without daring ideas of luring Alison away from Sir Ranald and compromising her; but now she was he knew not where, and in the hands of a man perhaps more unscrupulous than himself!

His memory was now full of the hundred terrible stories he had read in the public prints of English girls entrapped to Belgium and never heard of again, and, though his mind was always prone to evil, he was exasperated as well as dismayed when days passed and no tidings were heard of the lost one.

It was winter in earnest now. The banks of the Scheldt were fringed by masses of ice, and ice covered all the great bassins of Antwerp, while stainless snow shrouded all the surrounding country, and the stone Madonnas at the street corners had a chill and deadly aspect, for it was weather to make hands blue and noses red, as the frost was keen and strong.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CAFE AU PROGRES.

The two Englishmen to whom we have referred—Sir Jasper Dehorsey and Mr. Tom Hawksleigh—saw how Cadbury and Alison were for the time hopelessly separated by the pleasure-seeking crowd, and hastened at once to improve the occasion by taking advantage of the confusion and of her excessive dismay.

After a word or two of hasty instructions whispered to his friend, Sir Jasper approached Alison, and said, with a profound bow,

'They are rather sans cérémonie here, but don't be alarmed. I shall take care of you. Trust to me, and permit me,' he added, drawing her little hand over his left arm, and leading her away in a direction opposite to where he knew Cadbury was doing his utmost to get free of the crowd. 'Do not be alarmed,' he resumed, 'we shall soon restore you to your friend.'

He spoke most suavely, as though he was, what he wished her to think him—a chivalrous and gallant protector, and, sooth to say, Alison was glad to hear an English voice, and to see some one who appeared like an English gentleman, and, externally, Sir Jasper certainly was one.

'This way, please; let me draw you out of the crowd,' said he, guiding her towards one of the saloon doors.

'How rude—how rough the people are,' exclaimed Alison, with reference to the crowd that separated her from Lord Cadbury, of whom she could see nothing now, and the hubbub of the kermesse on the stage was stunning.

'Well,' said Sir Jasper, with a lazy smile, 'they are not the crème de la crème of Antwerp, nor crème of any kind; and, truth to tell, I was surprised to see you here.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Alison, with annoyance at having been lured, as she certainly was, into a false position.

At that moment Mr. Hawksleigh, who had been in the corridor, came to say that Lord Cadbury, being unable to find the young lady, had gone to the Café or Restaurant au Progrès.

'Without me!' exclaimed Alison.

'His lordship felt faint, and awaits you there.'

'Did he say so?'

'Yes,' was the reply of the unblushing Mr. Tom Hawksleigh.

'Most strange!'

'Shall we not follow him?' urged Sir Jasper, with his blandest tone.

'I ought to go home to the Hôtel St. Antoine,' said Alison, with doubt now added to her dismay.

'You can't do that alone. The Restaurant au Progrès is close by—almost a part of the theatre—and if Lord Cadbury is unwell——'

'Then let us go instantly, please.'

He led her at once from the hall and down the staircase, up which fresh groups—men in evening dress and ladies in masks and dominoes—were crowding, all laughing and joyous, and thence into the Rue des Escrimeurs, where they crossed the street, and entered a brilliantly lighted café; but avoiding the great pillared dining or supper hall, which was fitted up with marble tables, crowded with guests (many of them masked dominoes), he led her upstairs to a private supper-room, preceded by a waiter, to whom he gave some instructions rapidly in French.

Where was Lord Cadbury, he inquired.

The waiter did not know. Among the many now in the cafè, milord might be one; but he would inquire. Meantime, what did monsieur wish for supper.

In the fair cheek of Alison the delicate colour came and went, and in her eyes there was a strange look of inquiry as she glanced from one man to the other, ignorant that in an instant there was a secret understanding between them, and that the Belgian valet de cabaret took in the whole situation at once.

'Supper—ah—à la carte—salmi of guinea fowl, Ris d'Agneau, sauce champignon, and some Moselle. Meantime, ask for his lordship.'

The waiter grinned in what Alison thought a disagreeable manner, and disappeared with his towel over his arm.

The decorations of the little room were very handsome. The hangings were of blue silk, the floor was polished oak, and the chairs were all lounges of blue velvet, but some of the statuettes on brackets and consoles were, to say the least of them, a little startling in design.

'This is a very strange place,' said Alison. 'I cannot imagine what induced Lord Cadbury to select it.'

'Have you been in this part of the world long?' asked Sir Jasper, as he divested himself of his light dust-coat.

'A few weeks—I was about to say years.'

'Poor girl! Has the time been so slow?'

'Well,' said Alison, haughtily, as she disliked his pitying tone, 'I have the old and ailing——'

'Cadbury to nurse—surely not?'

'Of course not, sir. How could you suppose that?'

'Pardon me.'

Proud as Lucifer with all her sweetness, thought Sir Jasper, as Alison bowed haughtily, but no smile spread over the regular contour of her face.

'We have met before—at least, I remember now to have had the pleasure of seeing you,' said he.

'When?'

'This very day.'

'But where?'

'At the coiffeur's in the Rue des Tanneurs. I sat beside you, and saw your hair dressed, and lovely hair it is!'

'You sat beside me?'

'Yes, and watched you.'

'Why?

'I ought to apologise for making a lady's face a study; but need I say how deeply yours interested me?'

He was bending over her chair now in perfect confidence. He thought he had her in his power, and felt

'How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes ill deeds done.'

Not that he thought there was much harm in 'levanting with old Cadbury's girl;' it seemed rather a joke, in fact!

'Won't you take off your hat and sealskin before Lord Cadbury comes?' he urged, in a low voice.

'No—excuse me; and I shall not take them off after he does come.'

'Why so? Will you sup with them on?'

'Yes—or I don't want supper at all.'

'A deuced decided little party,' thought Sir Jasper, who never took his blasé eyes off her.

'Where can Lord Cadbury be?' she exclaimed, impatiently, after the waiter had gone twice in search of him in vain.

'Can't say for the life of me; are you anxious about him or yourself?'

'Myself, perhaps.'

'Oh, be assured I shall take the greatest care of you,' said Sir Jasper, noting with delight how perfect was the contour of her face, the form of her hands and ears.

'Thanks; but this situation is intolerable—he ought to be here.'

'I wonder he doesn't look better after his property.'

'What do you mean?' asked Alison, at this impudent remark. 'I am not his property.'

'Oh—a relation, perhaps.'

'Not even a relation.'

'And you came to Antwerp some weeks ago?'

'Yes.'

'From Paris?'

'No; from Southampton in his yacht.'

'In his yacht—oh, by Jove! what other ladies were of his party?' asked Sir Jasper, quizzically, while stroking his tawny moustache.

'No lady but me.'

'In—deed!'

There was profound insolence in his drawl, yet Alison never suspected it.

Sir Jasper Dehorsey now believed that he might be as impudent as he chose; but the girl's manner nevertheless bewildered him.

'Why, sir, do you stare at me so?' she asked.

'May I not look at you?'

'Not as you do,' she replied, with hauteur.

'You grudge me that pleasure?'

'I do not understand all this!' she exclaimed, as she started from her chair and felt a difficulty in restraining her tears.

'Do be seated. If Cadbury does not appear in five minutes, I shall go in search of him.'

'Or kindly get me a voiture to the Hôtel St. Antoine.'

'So it is there they hang out,' thought he. 'Do you often go to the theatre?'

'Not now.'

'Ah, you should see Antwerp when it is en fête.'

'When is that?'

'In the carnival time.' Then he continued, 'And how do you like this city by the Scheldt?'

'Not at all,' she replied, curtly.

'Indeed! You have been at the opera, of course?'

'No.'

'Or the picture galleries?'

'No.'

'What! Have you not seen the Royal Museum, the antiquities at the Steyne, and the Musée Plantin-Moretus?'

'I have seen none of those things.'

'Nor the splendid churches, and all the rest of it?'

'I have been nowhere,' replied Alison, thinking sadly of her father's sick-bed.

'How this old snake has kept this lovely girl all to himself!' was the thought of Sir Jasper, in whose heart envy now mingled with exultation.

'How I should like to show you all these places, and Brussels too!' said he at length.

'I have often heard of the Musée Plantin, with its quaint old rococo furniture and antique pictures—the old-world air of the place—its stillness and gloomy seclusion,' said Alison.

'It is doocid slow. Still I should like to have the pleasure of showing it to you,' said he again, stooping over her chair, but seeking even then to throw her off her guard. 'The place itself is rather dark and gloomy with its high wainscots, oak carvings, ebony and ivory cabinets, faded tapestries, casement windows, and all the rest of it—said to be haunted by the ghosts of the funny old printers who lived there and printed the first Bible with old types which are yet there, and which it is said they come once a year at midnight to set up again, for the creak of the ancient presses is heard. But, be all that as it may, I don't know a more stunning place for a steady spoon or flirtation than the solemn old quadrangular Musée Plantin, with its suites of antique rooms, furnished with cushioned lounges, heavy curtains, and beds like tombs—like plumed hearses, or the old state-beds in Hampton Court—beds in which the dead Plantins slept three hundred years ago. By Jove, you must let me show you all that to-morrow. But as that duffer, old Cadbury, is so doocid long, had we not better have supper without him? Shall I order the waiter to serve it up?' he added, laying his hand upon the bell rope, as if her assent would follow of course.

'Oh, no—no,' exclaimed Alison, starting from her seat now in positive alarm at the idea of supping alone with a man whose name was unknown to her, and in whose watery, wicked eyes she was convinced there was an expression now there could be no mistaking.

'A glass of wine, then,' he urged, suavely.

'You must excuse me.'

'How shy you are! I can never imagine why any woman who is young and handsome need be shy.'

'You know Lord Cadbury, of course,' said Alison, suddenly.

'Intimately.'

'May I ask your name?'

'Captain Smith,' he replied, without a moment's hesitation. 'The world says queer things of old Cadbury.'

'What do people say?'

'Well, people, of course, say anything but their prayers. So rough things are said of Old Cad., as he is called. But never mind him; let us talk of ourselves, and don't look so uneasy. I assure you I am a perfect archangel of virtue, and have always laughed at love at first sight till—now,' he said, in a manner so pointed that it made Alison's usually pale cheek flame. 'What a deliciously fresh, unconventional, and lovely little darling you are!' he exclaimed, laying a hand upon her arm.

'Sir!'

'Hoity-toity. Come, it mustn't give itself little airs. Look at that pretty picture.

She gave it a glance. It was the production, doubtless, of some Parisian artist, and the subject made her tremble with fear and just anger.

She felt herself deeply insulted, and was now convinced that she had been ensnared. The blood of a hundred gallant Cheynes welled up in her heart, yet there was an expression of agony in her blue-grey eyes and on her blanched and quivering lips.

At that moment the room door opened, and the waiter appeared with the supper tray. She formed her resolution quick as lightning, and acted upon it quite as quickly. Young, active, and half wild with terror, she darted from the room, nearly knocking over Mr. Tom Hawksleigh, who was coming to enjoy his share of the little supper ordered by Sir Jasper, then down the staircase of the café, and out into the darkened streets, through which she fled like a hunted hare; she knew not in what direction, nor did she care, provided that she was not overtaken by 'Captain Smith' or his companion.

At that hour the streets of Antwerp are usually deserted by all save the gendarmes, and she had fled a considerable distance, conscious only that the snow was falling fast, before she stopped, quite out of breath, and began to think by what means she could reach the Hôtel St. Antoine, or get a voiture to convey her there.

She had run to the end of the Rue des Arquebusiers, and now before her opened on either hand the long and spacious street called the Place de Mer in which the stately house of Rubens and the royal palace stand side by side.

Not a cab was to be seen, nor a gendarme; the wind was keen, the snow falling heavily, and, like 'Policeman X' and other guardians of the night, the gendarmes had betaken themselves to some cosy estaminet, or sought the hospitality of friendly kitchens and confiding cookmaids.

Which way was she to turn? where seek aid or shelter? She closed her little hands in terror and dismay, and, while shuddering with cold, suddenly a chorus burst upon her ear, and, before she could think which way to turn, a dozen of great fellows in kepis, blouses, and sabots, fresh from some estaminet, surrounded her, with shouts and mockery.

One put an arm round her and tried to kiss her, tearing away her veil; but endued with strength beyond herself, by the extremity of her terror, she dashed him back with both her hands.

'God help me!' she exclaimed.

And hemming her in by a ring, they danced round her hand in hand, singing a song, which, as it was in Flemish and unknown to her, she supposed was something very ribald and horrible, yet it was only thus:—

'Hark to the sound
    Of the fiddle and horn,
The dance and the song—
    'Tis a festal morn.
Oh! little they reck of dull care
    Or of sorrow;
They laugh for the day
    Though they weep on the morrow.'

'Ouf!' shouted one, 'that would make a grand pendant to the Zeike Jongeling,' referring to Jan Van Beers, the greatest lyric poet of the day.

'Une blonde English mees—une nymphe—parbleu!' cried one fellow.

'Sommes-nous fantastiques! N'est-elle pas jolie! ('Isn't she pretty!') cried another.

'Sur mon honneur, ma belle coquette!' cried a third, making a clutch at her.

Others shouted strange things in Flemish, showing that they were boors or artizans, redolent of garlic, beer, and tobacco; but with a gasping sob of terror she broke away from them and fled again. She heard the clatter of sabots behind her, as some started in pursuit; but she was too swift for them, and the sound soon died away in the distance.

Along the dark and now silent streets she ran, close past the great doors of innumerable houses, as there are no areas or front garden plots in Antwerp, where the entrances open directly off the footpaths. Many a bell-handle and many a large knocker—lion's heads and bull's heads as large as life—were within her reach; but, fearing to be roughly or coarsely repulsed, she dared touch neither.

She passed a church of vast height and colossal proportions—St. Jacques, though she knew it not—where Rubens lies under a slab of spotless white marble. There were few lamps in the streets in this quarter, and the oil lanterns before the Madonnas perched on stone brackets at the street corners, swung dimly and mournfully to and fro in the sleety and snowy wind.

She felt an apparently mortal chill in her heart; her whole clothes were now soaked with sleet by her falling once or twice as she slipped.

Again she heard a tipsy chorus ringing out upon the night, and, in terror lest she was about to be overtaken by the roysterers from whom she had escaped, on finding herself near a great doorway in the Rue Rouge, as it eventually proved to be, she grasped the swinging handle of a bell and pulled it violently. She heard the sound of the bell respond at a distance, and, incapable of further endurance, before the door, which was a double one of great size, was opened, she had sunk down senseless, and lay huddled in a kind of heap upon the step of the house.

The last thing of which she was conscious was feeling the hand of a man roughly and daringly searching her pockets, as he muttered, with an oath,

'Sacré! not a sou—not a centime!'

CHAPTER XX.

CROSS PURPOSES.

The morning was a clear, bright, sunny, and joyous one, the sun without cloud, the chimneys of Antwerp, as usual, without smoke, though the season was winter, and all its spires and countless crow-stepped gables were standing up clearly defined against a pure blue sky, when Bevil Goring, with high spirits, yet not without just emotions of great indignation, walked forth a free man from the place in which he had been detained, and, stepping into a voiture with his luggage, told the driver to take him to the Hôtel du Parc in the Place Verte, and kissed the ring of Alison which was on his finger again. He was free, and it had come about thus:—

The papers and manifestoes found among his property were of so serious and compromising a nature that he was on the point of being transmitted with them to Brussels, but he contrived to employ an advokat (as an attorney or barrister is called there) in the Rue de l'Hôpital, who soon traced to the arrested Belgian workman those unlucky papers, and it chanced, oddly enough, that the mischievous Mr. Gaskins, having got a serious smash up in an accident on the railway to Waterloo, believing himself to be dying, made a full confession of the trick he had played to serve a lucrative master; and the Belgian authorities, duly aware at last of Goring's rank and position in society, confessed their haste and mistake, and, with a 'million pardons,' released him from an arrest that, after it had extended to some days, was nearly making him frantic, and he was welcomed and ushered to his former apartment at the hotel by the waiter Jacquot, though Maître Jean Picot, remembering his arrest, had some unpleasant doubts about receiving him.

Bevil, however, lost no time in repairing to the Hôtel St. Antoine, resolved to see Sir Ranald—Alison too, if possible, if it was not too late; but he was rather unprepared for the state of affairs that awaited him there.

Meeting the concierge or hall-porter at the door, he asked with some anxiety if Sir Ranald Cheyne was still there.

'Oui, monsieur,' replied the porter, saluting in military fashion.

'And Miss Cheyne?'

'Non, monsieur.'

The reply sank deep in Goring's heart, and he was perplexed when the official at the same time mysteriously shook his head and shrugged his shoulders with a deprecatory expression in his face.

'Is Lord Cadbury here?'

'Milord is out also,' was the reply.

'Also—then they are together!' thought Goring. 'Take up my card to Sir Ranald, and ask if he will receive me.'

It was taken up by a waiter, who returned promptly to report, in Continental parlance, that 'Sir Cheyne desired him to walk up.'

Much depended upon the issue of this visit if Alison was still free. He had come frankly, freely, to urge humbly his suit again, backed by the undoubted wealth which had flowed upon him since last they met at Chilcote.

He found Sir Ranald in a handsome apartment, seated in an easy-chair, but looking pale, thin, and worn. He made no offer of his hand, as with both he grasped the arms of the chair, tremulous with rage, while his eyes glared like those of a rattlesnake through the glasses of his pince-nez at his unexpected visitor, who scarcely knew how or where to begin, and looked nervously round him for some evidence of the recent presence of Alison, but saw nothing.

'Permit me to congratulate you, Sir Ranald—' he began.

'On what?' asked the other, savagely.

'On the escape from death by drowning which we were all led to suppose you and Miss Cheyne had suffered.'

'I don't want your congratulations; and, so far as Miss Cheyne is concerned, your appearance in Antwerp sufficiently accounts for her mysterious disappearance.'

Utter bewilderment, in which emotions of dismay, fear, and anger coursed through his mind, tied the tongue of Bevil Goring—dismay and fear he knew not of what, and anger lest this was some fresh trickery of Lord Cadbury.

'Mysterious disappearance!' he faltered.

'Your conduct, Captain Goring, has been shamefully deceitful—most dishonourable!' exclaimed Sir Ranald, in a broken but still enraged tone.

'How?'

'You came to my house at Chilcote a welcome guest, then you stole the affections of my daughter. You have followed her to Antwerp with plans best known to yourself; and where—oh, where—is she now?'

'Sir Ranald!' expostulated Goring, piteously, and feeling his face grow pale.

'Talk not to me!' resumed Sir Ranald, in his tone of fury again; 'every silly girl thinks she is in love, or that she must love the first man who says he loves her.'

These strange utterances made Goring half forget the errand on which he had come, and utterly forget the fortuitous but fortunate wealth which would, he hoped, have made that errand perhaps successful.

'Vile trickster, you shall answer to me for all the mischief you have wrought!' exclaimed Sir Ranald, breaking the silence that had ensued, though, if glances could kill, Goring's earthly career had ended there and then. 'We are in Belgium, and, old as I am, I shall cover you with a pistol at twelve paces, even if I should be propped against a post—by heaven I shall! Do you hear me, sir?'

'You are very wrong, Sir Ranald, to address me thus,' said Goring, gravely and sadly; 'and, though you might level ten pistols at me, God forbid that I should level one at you—the father of her I have come so far to seek, and, if I understand your terrible words, apparently in vain.'

'Don't speak of my daughter, sir, and don't attempt to humbug me!' thundered Sir Ranald, almost beside himself with rage and weakness. 'Bah!' he added, scornfully, 'to follow her here was pleasanter and safer work than fighting the Ashantees. Will you meet me at any time or place—we may select to-morrow?'

'For what purpose?'

'Can you ask? To fight me.'

'Absurd—I shall not.'

'You will not?'

'No.'

'Coward!'

'You are mad, Sir Ranald, to address me, a tried soldier, thus injuriously,' said Goring, more sadly than bitterly. 'I have worn my Victoria Cross,' he added, striking his breast, 'by no solitary act of rashness, but by acknowledged proofs of disciplined courage! and my name has an echo still on the north-east frontier of India.'

'Coward!' hissed the old man's voice again, as he looked round for some missile to throw at the head of his visitor, who, seeing it was useless to protract an interview so painful and terrible, at once withdrew, and the fierce, mocking laughter—and strange laughter it was—of Sir Ranald jarred sorely on his ear as he did so.

His head was in a whirl—what was to be done? The old man's anger and epithets he pardoned; but from his utterances he gathered that Alison was abducted or absent, and that he was supposed to be the author of the mystery that now filled him with terror and anxiety.

When was she missed? Had she been decoyed from the hotel, or abducted in the street, and how long since?

On these points the concierge, on having a couple of five franc pieces deftly slipped into his palm, soon enlightened him.

She had gone one night with Lord Cadbury to the Théâtre des Variétés, and milord had come home without her in great terror and dismay, all search had proved unavailing, even the ponds in the Park of the Avenue Rubens had been dragged in vain till the ice came.

'How long is it since she disappeared?'

'A week ago, monsieur.'

A mortal terror smote the heart of Goring as he listened; but rage greatly took its place when the concierge, with apparent sympathy, referred to the dismay and anxiety of Milord Cadbury.

This Goring deemed but trickery to cover some act of deceit he had perpetrated, end terribly did the as yet baffled lover resolve to punish it; but he was rather surprised at first by the manner in which he was suddenly accosted by Cadbury, who now by chance entered the vestibule of the hotel in which several waiters were loitering, and, with all an Englishman's genuine horror of a 'scene,' made an effort to keep his temper.

As if following suit with Sir Ranald, the peer, who now connected Alison's disappearance with Goring's liberty, though the dates did not tally, said to him haughtily, and in in a low tone,

'So, Captain Goring, it seems to have pleased you to follow my intended wife.'

'Your intended wife!'

'Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, to this place—to Antwerp, and that you have forced yourself upon her as soon as you had the opportunity of finding her alone. By heavens, you must have watched her steps closely.'

'Shuffler and juggler!' exclaimed Goring, in his rage becoming as furious in his speech as Sir Ranald.

'May I ask your reason for daring to apply these epithets to me?' asked Cadbury, reddening with passion to the tips of his coarse, hairy ears.

'I shall give them to you on the ramparts of the citadel, in the Champ de Manœuvres, or anywhere else you choose.'

'Are you engaged in a melodrama, without a musical accompaniment?' asked Cadbury, with a sneer.

'You will find it terribly real, I promise you.'

'Braggadocio!—behind the age. Bah! people don't fight duels now.'

'Cads and Cadburys, perhaps.'

'Permit me to pass,' said the peer, assuming what he thought an air of dignity that only made his vulgar little figure look more absurd.

'Not until I am fully answered,' replied Goring, resolutely barring his way.

'Of your past intentions, Captain Goring, we——'

'Who are we?'

'Sir Ranald and myself.'

'Well?'

'Of your past intentions we have an idea; but what are your present?'

'To discover her, and carry her off,' replied Goring, passionately.

'You know but too well where she is; but I don't understand why you come brawling in my hotel. Concierge, get a gendarme, and have this fellow expelled.'

'Will you meet me?' asked Goring, in a low and concentrated voice.

'Most certainly not. No man of honour is obliged to go out with a man who has been in the hands of the gendarmerie and inside a prison.'

This recalled the story of the 'papers,' and roused Goring's blood to boiling heat.

He suddenly, to the mingled amusement and dismay of the concierge and group of wondering waiters, made a brisk manual application to the nose of my Lord Cadbury, which he took between the first and second fingers of his right hand, and therewith administered such a wrench as made the 'hereditary legislator' dance with rage and pain.

'Now,' thought Goring, as he flung a card at Cadbury's feet, and strode into the broad and sunlit Place Verte, 'he must come out, or the devil is in it!'

Little did either know how completely they were all at cross purposes!

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHALLENGE.

Bevil Goring had latterly from various sources heard much of Cadbury's general character, which fully bore out the opinions expressed of him by the two vauriens, who were quite as unscrupulous—to wit, Sir Jasper Dehorsey and Mr. Tom Hawksleigh, and, like him, knew many of 'the soiled doves who flutter from tree to tree in the forest of St. John, or build their nests in Brompton Groves.'

'The union of January and May is so common now-a-days,' says the author of 'Barren Honour,' 'that no one thinks of inditing epithalamia thereon, satiric or otherwise.' But that Alison could be in any way a party to the trickery of which the wealthy Cadbury was quite capable, was not for a moment to be imagined, as she idolised her father, with all his defects of temper and character, and would never leave him a prey to doubt and anxiety, though at present these emotions rather took the form of parental indignation. So what then was to be thought?

Where could she be secluded, and under what circumstances concealed from her father, whose bearing, however offensive to Goring, seemed genuine—the result of conviction? As for Cadbury, Goring misdoubted him, and believed him acting out a rôle, by which he had imposed upon Sir Ranald.

He had not the shadow of a doubt of Alison's strength of mind and purity of purpose, yet pressure often achieved much. Her father was evidently ignorant of her whereabouts, and if Cadbury had her on board his yacht, now anchored out in the stream below the Tête de Flandres (which was not impossible), how had she been taken there, and by whom?

Had she been drugged, stupefied, or what? Such things are read of in the public papers every day.

The position was well calculated to fill the mind with perplexity and anxiety, anger and indignation; and thus that of Bevil Goring was a species of chaos!

If Goring actually had Alison with him, why did he act the part he did—why come before him at all? was the thought of Sir Ranald, who missed her sweet presence and gentle ministrations painfully and fearfully.

If Cadbury had her in enforced concealment, what was his purpose in playing the part he did to Sir Ranald? thought Goring; anyhow, a bullet planted in the well-fed person of the noble peer might tend or lead to the revelation of all that, and atone for Goring's recent detention in the Rue des Beguines, so he thirsted almost savagely for the hour of a hostile meeting such as never could take place in the England of the present day.

That Cadbury should utterly disbelieve him was a matter of course, as it was a point with that personage never to believe sincerely in anyone, or that anyone ever did a single thing without an interested motive. At home he was a man who was arrogant among his equals, a tyrant among his dependents and inferiors, and was the terror of every poacher for thirty miles round Cadbury Court. So his reputation was not a pleasant one.

In coming to Antwerp, Goring had learned one great fact, that she was alive; that she had not perished in the collision at sea; but suppose that, from subsequent circumstances, it were better that the waves had closed over her? or suppose no trace of her were ever to be discovered in any way—that she had disappeared out of the world, as it were?

Such things happen even in London; so why not on the continent of Europe?

But he thrust these ideas aside as too horrible for contemplation, and bent his whole thoughts to the duel, which he never doubted must come off now, and speedily, after the terrible affront he had put upon Cadbury, in presence of the Flemish servants at the Hôtel St. Antoine.

If it took place, Alison's name, at all hazards, must be kept out of the story, which would be sure to find its way into every 'Society' paper in London, and he shrunk from the fear of her being made the subject of hack gossip, which is ever cynical or worse.

Goring waited all that day at the Hôtel du Parc, expecting some messenger from Lord Cadbury; and he waited a considerable portion of the next; but none came; so he bethought him of sending one on his own account.

He had not a single friend in Antwerp; but during those two days, while at breakfast and other meals at the table d'hôte he had sat next an officer of the Belgian artillery, with whom—in the freemasonry of soldiering—he speedily became intimate, for all soldiers have a thousand interests, sympathies, and topics in common.

Captain Victor Gabion was a handsome fellow, about thirty years of age, with an antique style of head and face, his cheeks a clear olive tint, dark moustache, and keen eye—handsome we say, but of a rare type; a little effeminate, perhaps, but not the less attractive for that. He had a suavity and sweetness of manner. His form was well knit; he was square-shouldered, singularly slender in the waist—but that is affected by all Belgian officers, and as a Captain of Artillery when in undress wore a gold aiguilette on the left shoulder, with cords across the breast.

Full of his own thoughts and terrible anxieties, Bevil Goring was not much in a mood for talking about anything; but the general bonhomie of Victor Gabion was very attractive and infectious, and so they rapidly became intimate; but we are told that 'there are times when a man must speak—even to a dog or his worst enemy—rather than keep silence altogether.'

No message seemed likely to come from Cadbury, so to kill time Goring had accompanied his new friend to the artillery quarters at the Caserne des Predicateurs, in the street of the name, and so called from being built, no doubt, on the site of an old Dominican convent.

There is a strong family likeness in all barracks, but to Goring's English eyes the brick-floored rooms, the bare brick walls looked strange; so did the batteries of bronzed guns, drawn up wheel to wheel in the square, the meagre onion soup conveyed to the messes in buckets, and the slovenly soldiers, in long-skirted, dark blue coats with red worsted epaulettes, and buttons (à la Childers) without numbers on them; and ever and anon he felt a shiver when he heard their trumpet calls—the calls with which he had become so familiar during his sojourn in the adjacent prison, in the Rue des Beguines, only two hundred metres distant.

'And your regiment, monsieur,' asked Gabion, 'where is it?'

'We have battalions in India, in Ireland, and one is now, or shall soon be in Ashanti,' replied Goring.

'Ah—Sapristi! how I should like to serve in distant lands and colonies!'

'Belgium must first get them,' thought Goring. And on returning to the hotel, finding that there was still no message from Cadbury, as his patience was utterly exhausted, he confided in his new friend Gabion.

'I have had an unpleasant affair with a countryman of mine, a Lord Cadbury, who is now at the Hôtel St. Antoine; and as I have no intimate friend in Antwerp,' said he, 'will you as an officer—a brother soldier—arrange for a meeting between us?'

The Belgian tugged his dark moustaches, and hesitated, muttering, of course, the inevitable

'Sapristi!'

'You understand?' said Goring.

'Perfectly; but, mon ami, I don't like duels. I was engaged in one once, and the terrible memory of the part I had unwittingly to play in it haunts me still. What is this quarrel about?'

'A lady—a lady whose name must at all hazards be kept out of it.'

'Then no apology will suffice?'

'None. And you will oblige me?'

'With pleasure,' replied the Belgian, as he buckled on his sword, leisurely lit a cigarette and crossed the open, sunny space of the Place Verte, went to the hotel indicated and sent up his card, which, in Belgian fashion, was twice the size of an English one, and bore his name in large letters,

VICTOR GABION,
        Capitaine d' Artillerie,

with the letters E.L.V., signifying 'En la Ville;' and after some delay he was ushered into the room of Lord Cadbury, whom he found in a rich robe de chambre tied with silk cords, and wearing an elaborate smoking-cap. He laid his cigar on the stove, near which he was standing, and tried to eye his visitor superciliously, and to the acute eyes of the latter his large feet, coarse hands and ears, looked rather strange in an English peer; but he inherited them with the alderman's money, and they showed the plebeian drop in his blood, as also did his love for trinkets and personal adornment.

'You call yourself Captain Victor Gabion of the Belgian Artillery,' said he, glancing at the card, and tossing it beside his cigar.

'I am Captain Victor Gabion, of the Belgian Artillery,' replied the officer, quietly.

'And what do you want with me? I have not the honour of your acquaintance,' said Cadbury, having all the while a perfect intuition of his visitor's purpose.

'I am here in the interest of Captain Bevil Goring, of Her Britannic Majesty's service, and monsieur must know with what views.'