Proper pride

Among the passengers who landed at Southampton from the Peninsular and Oriental Rosetta, one warm August afternoon in the year 1858, was a stout well-to-do Bengali ayah. Her stoutness spoke for itself, her gold nose-jewel, heavy seed-pearl earrings, massive necklet, bangles, and toe-rings amply vouched for her monetary ease. She carried on one arm a thick black-and-red plaid shawl (her own property), and on the other a pale, fragile, wistful-looking infant, dressed in a short white embroidered pelisse, white bonnet, and enormous black sash.

This miserable puny little orphan had lived and thriven, and developed into the beauty and heiress alluded to by Captains Brown and Cox.

All through her early childhood she had been the care, no less than the idol, of her grand aunt and uncle Saville, an old maid and an old bachelor, who resided in an imposing but slightly dilapidated mansion in the centre of a large wild-looking demesne, near some unpronounceable village in the south of Ireland.

Here, for nearly ten years, little Alice—thanks to a supposed delicate constitution—was allowed unlimited freedom from lessons, lectures, punishments, and all the restraints that young people of her years specially detest. It was true that her fond aunt made a valiant attempt to “do lessons” with her for one hour daily; but how often was that hour curtailed in deference to the pleading of a jovial, indulgent old grand-uncle?

Allowed her own way almost entirely, she brooked no constraint; for she had a fine spirit, as her relations complacently remarked. Her violent bursts of passion were passed by unchecked. It was merely the Saville temper, as much hereditary, and seemingly as much to be proud of, as her violet eyes and the far-famed Saville nose. Mounted on her chestnut pony she would accompany her uncle in his rides or scour solus round the fields, with her long golden hair streaming in the wind, looking far more like a spirit than an ordinary Christian child.

“Ay, but isn’t she the beautiful fair creature to be born in that black country?” the servants and retainers would observe to each other, with mingled admiration and amazement.

At ten years of age Alice Saville could barely read; wrote large intoxicated-looking round-hand; knew nought of arithmetic, sewing, or spelling; and was, without doubt, as pretty and complete a little dunce as could be found in the whole province of Munster.

Nevertheless, she had some accomplishments. She was a wonderful rider for her years, and could and would ride any colt on the premises; gaily careering round and round the lawn, and sticking on as if she were part and parcel of the animal, to the pride and delight of all beholders. Moreover, she could jabber Irish, and was well versed in all the old lore, legends, fairy-tales, and superstitions current within the four adjoining counties.

Alice had ten years of boundless liberty, and at the end of that time her uncle died, his estate passed to the next heir, and his sister, finding herself no longer the mistress of a large liberally-kept establishment, but, on the contrary, an old maid in straitened circumstances, removed to a small house in the suburbs of Dublin, and talked of sending her niece to school.

Alarming rumours now began to reach Sir Greville Fairfax. His ward was an unkempt, uneducated, bare-legged little wretch, running wild among the bogs of Ireland. What a terrible picture was conjured up before his mental vision. He became at once alive to a sense of his responsibilities, and sought the advice of his most immediate matronly neighbours without a day’s delay.

“She must be sent abroad!” this was the universal opinion, that rather disappointed her guardian; for, to tell the truth, he had had hopes of keeping her under his own roof, with a governess to look after her manners and education. Since his son had gone to Sandhurst the house seemed remarkably lonely and silent, and he would have liked the child of his old friend Maurice Saville to have made her home with him. He had been her guardian now for more than a year, and he had actually never seen her. But when he had taken the suffrages of his most intimate lady-friends this hope was quenched.

“She must be sent abroad” was their verdict; nothing else could possibly counteract that odious Irish accent. Lady Bertram knew of such a charming establishment where two of her nieces had been for years.

Three miles from the city of Tours, and within sight of the village of Roche-Corbon, stood an old gray château, almost buried in woods. The Revolution of ’92 had most effectually dispersed its former owners, who surely in their wildest flight of imagination never dreamt that their venerable roof-tree would become one day a boarding-school for the English “Mees”—“Not a school,” Madame Daverne affirmed, merely a few young friends, whose education she undertook to superintend for the consideration of three hundred pounds per annum; and a very good investment Madame found that old château, and its rickety obsolete furniture. It is true that she kept char à banc and a pair of fat white horses for the use of her young friends. How otherwise could they go to Tours thrice a-week to receive lessons in music, singing, painting, riding, fencing, and dancing? How otherwise attend the English church once a-day on Sunday? But Jules and his horses were not an expensive item—rent and living were cheap; Madame was a manager, a strict disciplinarian, and a most excellent teacher.

The château at Rougemont was a delightful place to its young English inmates, entirely different to a great, formal, stiff house at home, with so many rooms on each floor, all the same size, and nothing interesting or unusual from garret to cellar. Here in the château, with its little pepper-castor towers and corkscrew staircases, they were constantly making some novel discovery, whether of a secret panel, or a secret stair, a well, a picture, or a grave. It had even been hinted that an oubliette was somewhere on the premises. Rougemont far more resembled the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty, with its large kitchen and hall, long stone passages and spacious courtyard, than the orthodox establishment for young ladies. It was surrounded by a garden laid out in terraces, connected by flights of shallow steps, and ornamented with clipped yew-trees, closely resembling in shape the toy-trees of the sheepfolds of our youth, and a wonderful and varied collection of stone, plaster, and even coloured wooden statues, which burst upon the eye in the most unlooked-for and surprising manner.

Madame Daverne, the English widow of a French avocat, was a little, thin, middle-aged woman, invariably dressed in gray, and never seen without her spectacles. She wore her still abundant dark hair in plain bandeaux—a long-exploded fashion—and no cap. Although her domestic arrangements were managed on a liberal English scale, and she believed in plenty of cold water, open windows, and tea, still she had lived sufficiently long in the country of her adoption to have imbibed a very strong prejudice in favour of surveillance, especially as regarded the young friends under her care. No idle chatter about the boys at the Lycée, of love, of lovers, was ever permitted; novels and romances were unknown and unread. The great outside world, with its sayings and doings, was an unexplored region to Madame Daverne’s pupils. Nevertheless, her six young friends found a good deal of happiness in each other’s society; they spent a very busy, healthy life—rambles in the forest, tennis, la grâce, and gardening were their usual amusements, and every Thursday during summer and autumn they made expeditions to Loches, Blois, Chinonceaux, Plessis les Tours, Amboise, or other places of, as Madame observed, “well-known historical interest.”

More than six years had passed since the wild little Irish imp had arrived at Rougemont; and in those years what a change had come over her! How marvellously she had improved! Her gusts of passion were among the things of the past, her goat-like impulses had been subdued, her craving to ride every horse she met had long been curbed, her ignorance—who dares to talk of ignorance in connection with Madame Daverne’s most brilliant and most accomplished pupil?

Few girls take leave of school and schoolfellows with as much regret as Alice Saville. Rougemont has been her home, and she has no desire to leave the shelter of its gray walls and venture out into the world alone among strangers. She loves every stick and stone about the old place; every feature in the landscape she looks out on is a dear familiar friend; from the “Lanterne” itself to venerable Marmoutier, from Marmoutier to the Cathedral, whence comes the Angelus, faintly audible across the waters of the swiftly-rolling, poplar-fringed Loire.

To-morrow Alice is to leave Rougemont for ever. Miss Fane, her guardian’s aunt, is at this instant in the city of Tours. To-morrow she comes to fetch her away; and no child at the zenith of her enjoyment at a children’s party ever heard the terrible words: “Your nurse has come,” with a chillier thrill of dismay than did Alice when Madame Daverne announced to her that her future protector was about to remove her from her care.

Alice and her friends are sitting on some broken stone steps; she in the middle, of course, for is not this their last evening together? and are they not all very fond of Alice, and very very sorry that she is leaving them? They may well be fond of Alice, for she is the brightest creature that ever lived, and the life and soul of the little community; a favourite with everyone, from Madame herself down to an old lame femme de ménage occasionally called in on domestic emergencies. Who could sing, and dance, and tell ghost-stories like her? Who dressed up and acted with the inimitable talent of their fair-haired schoolfellow? Who was as generous, as unselfish, as ready to help, to give, or to lend, as Alice? Bright and gay, warm-hearted and clever, all the inmates of Rougemont know that when she departs she will leave a blank behind her impossible to fill.

Think of the prettiest girl you ever saw, and it may give you some faint idea of Alice Saville, as she sat on the topmost step but one, with her hands locked round her knees (an easy if not graceful attitude), and her eyes gazing down on the valley of the Loire for the last time. Had your beauty mischievous violet eyes—eyes whose colour was a mystery to many, owing to their rapid change of expression and their sweeping black lashes; quantities of golden-brown wavy hair rippling and curling away from her forehead, a roseleaf complexion, a purely Grecian profile, and seventeen summers?

The farewells have been said three months ago; many tears were shed—and dried; and now the curtain rises upon new scenes. Touraine and its picturesque old châteaux and dim green woods fades away, to give place to the narrow, sun-scorched, steppy streets of Valetta.

In a cool spacious apartment, overlooking a Moorish courtyard, filled with orange-trees in green tubs and various semi-tropical plants, Alice and Miss Fane are sitting reading. The post has just come in, and Miss Fane is revelling in an abundant supply of letters, which flutter and rustle in an aggravating manner as the cool sea-breeze steals in and plays with them, and seems to try to snatch from their recipient the full enjoyment of their contents. The breeze plays tenderly and lovingly with Alice Saville’s stray little curls, but she reads on and takes no notice. Nothing short of a “Levanter” would rouse her from her study—“Ivanhoe.” The world of fiction has been opened to her at last! Miss Fane thinks that “there is no harm in the Waverley novels, with the exception of the ‘Heart of Midlothian;’” that is carefully put aside; any of the others Alice may read; and Alice is rapidly devouring them. Her crewel-work lies neglected on the floor; her cup of tea stands at her elbow untasted; and all her thoughts are entirely engrossed in the storming of Torquilstone Castle.

Miss Fane and Alice had spent the autumn in visiting Rome, Florence, and Nice, and were spending a few weeks in Malta before returning to London, where they were to reside together; and Alice was to make her début the ensuing season. She found Valetta altogether delightful. Fresh from her studies, with the history of the Crusades, and of the Knights of Rhodes and Malta still green in her memory, the half-mediæval half-oriental aspect of the place fascinated her beyond measure. Many an hour did she spend in the old Cathedral of St. John, endeavouring to decipher the tombs with which its numerous chapels are paved. Her knowledge of French and Italian helped her to find out the meaning of their Latin inscriptions, and many and various were the stories she mentally wove about those valiant, war-worn, monkish soldiers lying beneath her feet. “Exploring” was Alice’s favourite recreation, as she was not, strictly speaking, “out” as yet; and balls, dancelettes, and yachting picnics were unknown pleasures. The long narrow streets, the “Nix Mangiare” stairs, the odd steep ascents, were an amusing and delightful novelty to her light active feet, but a sore detested pilgrimage to Miss Fane’s gaunt old bones. The mysterious little shops that line these queer streets of stairs were another perennial source of interest, including the sleek cats that sat sentry in almost every doorway. The Maltese themselves were capital subjects for sketches or study; whether they lay flat on their backs, basking in the sun, with their caps pulled over their faces, or lounged in lazy groups about the corners of picturesque old houses, or drove their huge betasselled mules up and down the steep stradas, they were ever and always a fresh novelty to Alice. She little knew that she herself outrivalled the “fried monks” as one of the “sights of Malta;” or that she was the object of general interest and admiration, as, escorted by her austere-looking chaperon, she roamed about, satisfying the curiosity of youth and the craving of a highly imaginative mind.

Miss Fane had been working steadily through her correspondence. Long crossed letters, resembling lattice-work, occupied her for the best part of an hour. At length she came to one in a bold, black, manly hand, not crossed, not even filling two pages. She knit her brows more than once as she perused it, then slowly folded it, put it in its envelope, and fastened a look that a basilisk might have envied, on her companion.

Glancing up from her novel with a frank fearless countenance, she encountered Miss Fane’s cold gray eyes critically surveying her, over the top of her tortoiseshell pince-nez. To describe Miss Fane more particularly, she was a prim, dignified, elderly lady, seated bolt upright on the most uncompromising chair in the room. She had well-cut aristocratic features; a high arrogant-looking nose; rather a spiteful mouth; iron-gray sausage curls, carefully arranged on either temple, and surmounted by a sensibly sedate cap. A very handsome brown silk dress, as stiff as herself, completed her costume.

Not being overburdened with this world’s goods, owing to the failure of a bank in which most of her fortune had been invested, she had accepted a very handsome allowance and the post of chaperon to her nephew’s ward. If she could have had this immense increase to her income without the ward, so much the better; girls were not to her taste, but though narrow-minded, frigid, and intensely selfish, she was strictly conscientious, according to her lights, and was thoroughly prepared to do her duty by her young companion.

“Alice,” she said, glancing from Alice to the note she held in her hand, and then back again with an air of hesitation, “I have just heard from my nephew, your guardian, you know. He expects to leave India immediately; and if the Euphrates stops here for coaling, he says he will come and look us up. Would you like to read his letter? Perhaps I ought not to show it to you; but it will give you some idea of the kind of young man he is.”

“Thank you,” replied his ward, stretching out a slim ready hand; “if you really think I may, Miss Fane,” she added interrogatively, whereupon Miss Fane handed her her nephew’s effusion, which ran as follows:

“What a funny letter, or note rather!” exclaimed Alice; “only two sides of the paper. The Fifth Hussars have a very pretty crest; and what a good hand he writes! He certainly seems very anxious to get rid of me, does he not, Miss Fane? I am afraid I am a great infliction,” she added, colouring, “but I will do my best to trouble him as little as possible.”

“I will make you a much more suitable guardian,” returned Miss Fane complacently. “I do not know what my brother-in-law could have been dreaming about when he made his will. Poor man! he naturally thought he had yet many years to live, and never contemplated your having such a preposterously young guardian. Reginald cares for nothing beyond his profession—horses, racing, and men’s society. My brother-in-law spoiled him as a boy, and allowed him his own way completely, though I believe he was a good son and very much attached to his father. Greville was a weak-minded man,” she pursued, shaking her head reflectively, “governed first by his wife and then by his son. Reginald has always been his own master, and is headstrong and overbearing to the last degree.”

“You don’t like him, Miss Fane?” inquired Alice, slightly raising her eyebrows.

“Ah well!” hesitatingly, “I don’t exactly say that; I have seen so little of him since he was a boy; and then he was, without exception, the most troublesome, mischievous, impudent urchin I ever came across; always in trouble, falling out of trees, or downstairs, or off his pony, playing practical jokes, fighting the gardener’s big boys, riding his father’s hunters on the sly. He kept everyone in hot water. I spent six months at Looton, and added six years to my life,” concluded Miss Fane, nodding her head with much solemnity.

The truth was, Miss Fane had gone to Looton on a very long visit, with the intention of remaining permanently as virtual mistress. Her easy-going brother-in-law would have made no objection, but her impish nephew immediately saw through her object, and made her life unbearable. His practical jokes were chiefly at her expense, and the way in which he teased her beloved poodle was simply intolerable. She had to give up her intention of remaining, and leave what she had fully intended to have been a most luxurious home.

This she had never forgotten, nor forgiven; her feelings on the subject had been stifled, but they smouldered. She never cared for her nephew—never would; he was far too like his mother—her handsome stepsister—whom she had detested with all her heart. Nevertheless, she found it to her advantage to be on apparently good terms with her liberal and wealthy relative, who had not the remotest idea of the real feelings his aunt secretly cherished towards him.

About a week later the Euphrates came into Malta, late one evening. Miss Fane and the Lee-Dormers were dining at the Governor’s; Alice, not being “out,” had tea solus at home.

Time hung heavily on her hands; her book was stupid, she was not in the humour for music, and it was too early to go to bed. Opening the window, she stepped out on the balcony that ran all round the house and overlooked the courtyard. Here she remained for a long time, her chin resting on her hand, indulging in a day-dream—“in maiden meditation, fancy free.” The air was laden with the perfume of twenty different flowers; but the fragrant orange-trees in their tubs down below overpowered all.

“How delicious!” said Alice to herself, sniffing the air. “If I am ever married—which is not very likely—I shall have a wreath of real orange-blossoms, always supposing I can get them.”

Presently she turned her attention to the stars, and endeavoured to make out some of the constellations, not very successfully, it must be confessed. She listened to the distant driving through Valetta.

“Belated sightseers returning to their steamers,” she thought.

Just then a carriage drove rapidly into their quiet street, and seemed to stop close by.

“It can’t be Miss Fane come home already; they are barely at coffee yet,” she mentally remarked, as she settled herself for another reverie.

After a while, feeling rather chilly, she pushed open the window and stepped back into the sitting-room. For a moment the light dazzled her eyes. That moment past, what was her amazement to find a handsome young man, in undress cavalry uniform, standing on the rug with his back to the fire!

The surprise was apparently mutual. However, he at once came forward and said:

“Miss Saville, I am sure. The servant said my aunt was out, but that you were at home. As the room was empty, I concluded you had gone to bed.”

“When did you arrive?” she asked, offering her hand.

“We came in about two hours ago, and are going to coal all night—a most detestable but necessary performance.”

“Have you been here long?” was her next question, as she seated herself near the table.

“About twenty minutes. I have been enjoying this English-looking fire immensely. You must have found it rather chilly in the verandah, I should say.”

A thought flitted through his mind—“Was there a Romeo to this lovely Juliet?” He looked down at her with a quick keen glance. No; the idea was absurd.

“What were you doing out there this cool evening?” he added.

“Nothing,” she replied shyly. She could not bring herself to tell this brilliant stranger that she had been simply star-gazing.

“A regular bread-and-butter miss,” he thought, as he pulled his moustache with a leisurely patronising look.

Bread-and-butter or not, she was an extremely pretty girl, and his ward. The idea tickled him immensely. He put his hand before his mouth to conceal an involuntary smile.

“Vernon or Harcourt would give a good deal to be in my shoes, I fancy,” he said to himself, as he took a seat at the opposite side of the table from his charge.

Alice having mastered her first astonishment, felt that it behoved her to make some attempt at conversation, and to endeavour to entertain this unexpected guest, pending Miss Fane’s return. She offered him refreshments, coffee, etc., which he declined, having dined previously to coming on shore. With small-talk, Maltese curios, and the never-failing topic—weather, she managed to while away the time. At first her voice was very low, as it always was when she was nervous or embarrassed, but she soon recovered herself, and played the part of hostess in a manner that astonished the man who, half-an-hour before, had called her (mentally) “a bread-and-butter miss.” Seven years on the Continent had given her at least easy polished manners. She had none of the gaucherie so common to an English girl of her own age, brought up exclusively at home. It seemed to her that Sir Reginald was shy!—he sat opposite to her playing with a paperknife, and by no means properly supporting his share of the conversation. Her good-natured efforts amused him prodigiously. He was sufficiently sharp to see that she thought him bashful and diffident, whereas he was only lazy; he preferred to allow ladies, whenever they were good enough to talk to him, to carry on the most of the conversation, a few monosyllables, and his eloquent dark eyes, contributing his share. Poor deluded Alice! she little knew that the apparently diffident young man was the life and soul of his mess, and that shyness was unknown to him (except by name) since he had been out of his nurse’s arms.

Conversation presently became somewhat brisker; they exchanged experiences of Germany and India. They discussed books, horses, and music, and at the end of an hour Alice felt as if she had known him for at least a year. Certainly they had made as much progress in each other’s confidence as if they had gone through a London season together, when a few brief utterances are gasped between the pauses in a waltz, or whispered on the stairs, or interrupted by some spoil-sport in the Row.

As for Reginald, he not only felt completely at home, but, what was worse, most thoroughly bewitched.

“I’m never going to be so mad as to lose my head about this grown-up child, am I?” he indignantly asked himself. “I who have hitherto been invulnerable, as far as the tender passion is concerned. No! not likely. If I can’t face a pretty girl without immediately feeling smitten, the sooner I renounce the whole sex the better.”

Whilst he was thinking thus, he was to all appearance immersed in a series of views of Rome and Florence, and listening to a description of palaces, churches, and tombs.

There was not the slightest soupçon of a flirtation between this couple. Sir Reginald talked to his ward as he would to his grandmother, and there was a look in her clear deep gray eyes that would have abashed the most thorough-paced male flirt in Christendom—which he was very far from being—a look half of childish innocence, half of newly-awakened maiden dignity—

Miss Fane duly returned, and accorded her nephew a warm welcome and a kiss, which he very reluctantly received, for she had also a moustache! She treated him besides to a most recherché little supper, and at twelve o’clock he took his departure, faithfully promising to look them out a suitable house in London, and with an uneasy conviction that he had met his fate.

I need scarcely tell the astute reader that the acquaintance thus formed shortly ripened into something else: a few dances—a few rides in the Row—a water-party—the Cup-day at Ascot—finally a moonlight picnic, and the thing was settled.

Before the end of the season the following announcement appeared in The Times:

Sir Reginald expressed his intention of retiring, much to the disgust of his brother-officers, who said they thought Fairfax was the last man who would have married and left them. “You of all people too! After the way you used to be down on other fellows who fell in love, or got married—it’s perfectly shameful! You were actually the means of nipping several very promising affairs in the bud, and now you are going to get married yourself. What excuse have you to make?” cried an indignant hussar.

“I say,” replied Sir Reginald complacently, “‘that he jests at scars who never felt a wound.’ That was my case. Now I’m a reformed character.”

But when at the drawing-room, the opera, and elsewhere, the Fifth saw the future Lady Fairfax, even the most hardened bachelor among them frankly admitted that “Rex,” as they called him, had a very fair excuse.

After their honeymoon the Fairfaxes went down to Looton, where they were considered the handsomest and happiest couple within three counties.