The Opera-house was very full and proportionably hot on the evening when Coverdale and his wife visited it (it being the début of the since famous Signora Bettimartini), Alice, unused to London gaieties, and uneasy from the suspicions she could not contrive to banish, acquired a headache, which, when she went to bed, prevented her from falling asleep. Thus, being anxious to court without loss of time nature’s sweet restorer, of course she chose the most vexatious and exciting topic she could select as a subject of thought, and began to speculate on all the evidence she could call to mind in regard to her husband’s relations, past and present, towards Arabella Crofton, who, as the reader must have perceived, was just at that especial epoch poor little Mrs. Coverdale’s bête noire. The first circumstance she could recollect to form the initial link in her chain of evidence, was Harry’s inquiry about her when Alice casually mentioned her name during the halcyon days of their honeymoon. In this conversation, Harry had confessed to a previous acquaintance with Miss Crofton, and when pressed farther, added that he knew no good of her, or words to that effect. His manner, Alice remembered, was so peculiar that her curiosity had been at once excited, or as she mentally put it, that “naturally she felt her husband ought immediately to have told her everything about it—she had no concealments from him, she was sure.” Following up this train of thought, another instance of this unkind and unflattering want of confidence occurred to her—the mysterious epistle which he had received that very afternoon, which had annoyed him so much, and about which he had refused to afford her any explanation; and here a new idea flashed like an infernal inspiration across her brain—could that note be in any way connected with Miss Crofton’s arrival? “Yes! it must be so.” She remembered when they entered the drawing-room, and she had felt surprise at finding a stranger there, Harry seemed to take it as a matter of course: good reason why, he knew it previously—this hateful woman, this detestable creature, Arabella Crofton, had written to him privately, informing him of her arrival! Oh! she saw it all; and how she would try to wean his affections away from his poor wife—his poor, neglected, betrayed wife! and succeed most likely—men were such fickle, wicked things; and then it would break her heart, that there could be no question of and she should die in the course of a year—in six months, very likely, for she wasn’t at all strong though she had a colour—consumptive people always had brilliant complexions—think of her poor aunt Kitty! and Harry would be sorry when it was too late, perhaps. And so, drawing a vivid picture of her repentant husband grieving over her untimely decease, she cried herself to sleep, bedewing with her tears the “fickle, wicked thing,” calmly slumbering at her side; who straightway dreamed that, being out hunting, and riding a young thorough-bred, he had charged a brook, and that his horse, refusing it, had pitched him head foremost into its rapid waters.
A month soon elapsed—the London season was at its height. Everybody had been everywhere, and was going again; Grisi and Mario had arrived, recovered from sea-sickness and British catarrh, and “surpassed themselves” in their favourite characters. A mob of costly equipages jostled each other round Hyde Park every afternoon; carriage-horses, deprived of their sleep o’nights, began to grieve coachmen’s hearts by revealing the position of their ribs; young ladies from the Country danced away their roses and their embonpoint; men whose book for the Derby was at all “shy” trembled in their patent-leather boots; the glory of the lilacs in the squares had departed; water-carts made unpleasant canals of the principal thoroughfares; the Honourable Mrs. Windsor Soape had presented her youngest daughter at the last drawing-room, and tried without success to stuff her down the throats of several eligible eldest sons; Lady Close Shaver had inveigled an hundred and seventy unfortunates into her hot drawing-rooms, bored them with Signor Violini’s scientific rendering of Beethoven’s sonata in A B C minor, poisoned them with bad ice and worse Champagne, and turned them out to grass upon lobster salads, of which the principal feature was the unaccountable absence of lobster: these, and many other miseries, attendant on the “joys of our dancing days,” had been gladly suffered by the fanatical votaries of the Juggernaut of Fashion, and still the Coverdales lingered within the precincts of the modern Babylon. Lord Alfred Courtland having received a summons to join his family at Leghorn, had refused to obey it on the plea of ill health, backed by a physician’s opinion, which cost one guinea, and was worth——! Well, really, in this case it was worth something, for it saved Lord Alfred a lecture, and he disliked being lectured, even for his good—silly young man! so he stayed in town, doing as other folks did, and hoping thereby to become a man of fashion; but, as he only acted like other people, and did nothing very clever, or very foolish, or very wrong, he by no means succeeded in obtaining the reputation he coveted. With this consciousness of failure before his eyes, he one night lounged dismally out of his stall at the Opera, and was proceeding with dejected steps along the lobby, when he suddenly encountered Horace D’Almayne, better dressed and better pleased with himself than ever.
“Well met, my lord; I was just wishing for an agreeable companion,” was his complimentary salutation. “I am naturally a sociable animal; if you have no better employment, will you take pity on me for an hour or so?”
Deeply impressed with such unexpected condescension, and overcome by the transcendant cut of D’Almayne’s waistcoat, nothing remained for Lord Alfred but gratefully to consent; which he accordingly did. Linking his arm in that of his companion, D’Almayne continued:—
“You are looking triste, ennuyé; has Grisi developed a cold, or Cerito a corn? is it opera or ballet which has thus bored you?”
“Neither one nor the other,” was the reply; “though even operas cease to excite after one has grown accustomed to them.”
“Yes! that is true; except to an educated musician” (and D’Almayne looked as if he humbly trusted that he was equal to Mendelssohn, at the very least), “I can conceive they grow tedious; but,” he continued, “you should seek some more exciting amusement: mix in clever, witty society; do things—see things; in fact, enjoy life as a young man with such advantages of person and of station should do.”
“It may seem easy to you, who have achieved a reputation in the beau monde, and can command any society you please, to accomplish this; but it is the reverse of easy for a young man in these days, even if he have a handle to his name, to persuade people that he has anything in him; in fact I think a title stands rather in a young fellow’s way on entering London life; people have somehow taken to connect the ideas of a lord and a fool, until I believe they begin to think the terms synonymous!”
“What a frightfully democratic opinion for one of your order to promulgate!” returned D’Almayne, smiling at the disconsolate tone in which Lord Alfred spoke; “really you ought to have been born on the other side of the Channel; but I think I perceive your difficulty: you do not care to be admitted into society merely for your rank, but wish to achieve a distinctive social reputation for yourself; is it not so?”
“Yes! you have expressed my ideas exactly; a great deal better than I could have done myself,” was the reply. “And now tell me in what way is this desirable consummation to be effected.”
“Nothing is more easy. In the first place you require self-confidence; let people see that you think yourself a fine fellow, and they will begin to think so too. In the next place, take a decided line of some kind, and adhere to it steadily; but, in order to be able to do so, be careful, ere you select it, that it is in accordance with your natural dispositions and tastes.”
“Good general maxims,” returned Lord Alfred; “and now to apply them to the particular instance.”
D’Almayne paused for a moment ere he replied—
“If you really wish me to constitute myself your Mentor, you must allow me more opportunities of enjoying your society than I have hitherto possessed, and then, from time to time, I dare say I may be able to give you a few hints which you may find practically beneficial; and as there is nothing like making use of the present occasion, what say you to allowing me to introduce you to a kind of private club, where I and a few of my particular set sometimes meet after the Opera, and while away an hour or two with a hand at whist or écarté, or exchange our ideas on the topics of the day over a game of billiards; the stakes are, of course, suited to the measure of our purses, my own being an uncomfortably shallow one. We are close to the entrance, shall we turn in?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the result of an indefinite notion that he was about to do something wrong, Lord Alfred consented; and D’Almayne knocked at the door of what looked like a good private house. The portal unclosed, and immediately shut again by some mysterious agency, for, when they entered, no domestic was visible; and they proceeded along a passage to a second door covered with red baize, with a glass eye, placed Cyclop-like in the middle of its forehead, through which a human face observed them for a moment, then disappeared, and the red baize door opened and admitted them of its own accord, as the outer one had set it the example. Following his companion up a flight of stone stairs, at the top of which yet another baize door with a Cyclopian optic presented itself, Lord Alfred Courtland heard the sounds of laughing and conversation, and in another moment found himself in a large, well-lighted apartment, round which were dispersed sundry small tables, at which were seated, in groups of three or four, from a dozen to fifteen men, all of whom were recruiting exhausted nature with Champagne, pine-apple ice, or more substantial viands, if their tastes inclined them thereunto. Placing himself at an unoccupied table, D’Almayne inquired in his most insinuating tone—“Champagne, Claret, Johannisberg—what is your pet vanity, my lord?—c’est affreux, the inefficient ventilation of that Opera-house. I am positively famished with thirst, and must drown my enemy before Horace is himself again.”
“Having obtained the privilege of considering you my Mentor, I cannot do better than avail myself of your valuable taste and experience in the selection of a beverage,” returned Lord Alfred, falling into his companion’s humour with that dangerous facility which was at once his bane and his greatest charm. So Champagne and ice, and biscuits, all first-rate of their kind, were brought and discussed; and during the demolition thereof, one or two intimates of D’Almayne, faultless in mien and manners, lounged up, and were introduced to his lordship, and drank wine dreamily, and talked smart nothings with a sleepy wittiness as of inspired dormice; and otherwise exhibited symptoms of that life-weary, all-to-pieces condition which very young men believe in as the ne plus ultra of modern dandyism; and Lord Alfred’s heart leaped within him as he thought that now he had at last really begun “life,” and was in a fair way to become a man-about-town. Such wonderful beings are we, ætatis nineteen!
When a man is thirsty nothing is easier than to drink a bottle of Champagne without knowing it, perhaps even till the next morning; I never heard of the delusion lasting longer. Whether Lord Alfred Courtland drank more or less than a bottle on the occasion in question, history relateth not, but certainly, when he rose and strolled into the billiard-room, he felt considerably exhilarated, and eager to achieve something “fast,” which might tend to impress his incipient “about-townishness” in the minds of his fashionable acquaintances. Thus, hearing the rattle of dice in a further apartment, he, to D’Almayne’s surprise and amusement, declared billiards a bore, and whist “slow,” and “voted” for something with a little more fun in it. So, “Dante"-like, entering the infernal regions, they very soon “knew a bank whereon” much “wild time” had been wasted, and an immense crop of wild oats sown;—and off which certain proprietors had reaped many golden sheaves, while the sowers themselves had gained only experience, teaching them how to take care of their money, about the time when their money was all gone, which must have been more improving than consolatory to the “cleaned-out ones.” Then first upon Lord Alfred’s youthful ear fell the command, diabolical in its persuasive eloquence, “Faites le jeu, messieurs!” then timidly, and with feelings akin to those of mediæval youths who, in the good old feudal times, signed uncomfortable compacts with the Evil One, which never turned out satisfactorily for them even in this world, did Lord Alfred stake his first guinea, and unfortunately lose it. We say unfortunately, for had he won, and so come, seen, and conquered, he might have listened to the appeals of conscience which just then were striving to make a coward of this neophyte man about town; but, as matters stood, he felt a stern necessity to vindicate the sang froid with which he could support a run of ill luck; and playing again—won, doubled his stake—won; then, against D’Almayne’s advice, staked his winnings on “le rouge,” and that colour proved successful; and then the gambler-spirit came upon him, and he played with a fierce eagerness, and drank more Champagne, and played again, until two hours later D’Almayne almost forced him away from the table, and took him home, flushed and excited, a winner of one hundred pounds! Poor boy! as he left that haunt of sordid vice and idle folly, he believed that he had done something clever, and spirited, and manly, and longed for the next evening, when he might again distinguish himself; but could he have foreseen half the consequences of this, his first step in evil, or the sorrow he was thereby bringing upon true hearts that loved him, he would have shrunk from again crossing the threshold, as though it were indeed that of the hell which in their unseemly jesting men term it.
Rising late the next morning, he was informed that a gentleman was waiting to see him, and on entering the sitting-room, found Horace D’Almayne in an easy-chair and an elegant attitude.
“I was anxious about you, mon cher” (they had grown wonder fully familiar over their Champagne), “you appeared so much excited last night,” he began, uncrossing his graceful legs, clad in a seraphic pair of Blin et Fils chef-d’œuvres.
“Sure such a pair were never seen!”
“You seemed so carried away by your enthusiasm that I thought you would not sleep, and thus ventured to call at this unreasonable hour to see how you were getting on.”
“Very kind and friendly of you, I’m sure,” returned Lord Alfred, quite overcome by such unhoped-for condescension on the part of his model Mentor. “I suppose I did get rather excited, but I’m all right again this morning,—at least I shall be,” he continued, as a dizzy swimming in the head obliged him to grasp a chair-back for support, “as soon as I have had a cup of coffee.”
“Or if I might suggest, a bottle of Seltzer-water with a suspicion of Cognac in it, is a much more efficient substitute: allow me to brew for you;—may I ring the bell?”
Receiving the permission he sought, Horace acted accordingly, and when the servant appeared, desired him (on a glance from Lord Alfred, delegating all authority to him) to bring a bottle of Seltzer-water, brandy, and a lemon. Possessed of these desiderata, he commenced shredding off two or three delicate little spiral circles of lemon-peel, like yellow watch-springs, then dropping these into a Brobdignagian tumbler, warranted not to run over under any severity of effervescence, he added thereunto a liqueur glass full of the purest (and strongest) Cognac. Unwiring the Seltzer-water, he allowed it to draw its own cork (for thus, under his skilful control, did the operation appear to be performed), and, forcing it to explode into the tumbler, he presented the beverage, foaming wildly, to Lord Alfred, who, at the risk of immediate suffocation, drank it off in that rabid condition, and providentially surviving, declared himself greatly benefited by the treatment. Having thus re-invigorated his patient’s exhausted frame, D’Almayne proceeded to perform the same friendly office by his mind, and very good counsel did he bestow upon him—only that his advice had this peculiarity, viz., that whilst in words he recommended Lord Alfred Courtland to bend his steps in a northerly direction, that young nobleman felt an unaccountable conviction that by proceeding due south, he should raise himself in the estimation of his Mentor and of all other men of spirit. Thus he heard, with a complacent smile, that D’Almayne was surprised at the manner in which he had carried all before him at the gaming-table on the previous evening; that every one imagined him to be an old hand at such matters; and one individual, who was generally supposed to make a very decent living by gambling, had declared his conviction that Lord Alfred played on a system, and a deucedly clever system too!—At all of which D’Almayne appeared alarmed and uneasy, and assured his friend that it was a very dangerous talent for a young man, and that it would be a great relief to his mind if Lord Alfred would promise never to go there again; to which his lordship replied by lighting a cigar, handing the box to his Mentor, and asking him whether he considered him such an irreclaimable muff as not to be able to win or lose a matter of a hundred pounds without making a ninny of himself. Declaring himself innocent of any such disrespectful innuendo, D’Almayne also lighted a cigar (it being impossible in these piping times to do anything without plenty of puffing), and these new allies grew loquacious and confidential; but with this difference, that Lord Alfred gave his confidence, and Horace obligingly received the sacred deposit. Thus, after a fair amount of the horticultural cruelty, yclept “beating about the bush,” had been committed, that good young man was made acquainted with the “secret sorrow,” which, as the reader is aware, was with much success performing the part of the “worm i’ the bud” to Lord Alfred’s “damask cheek.” As soon as Mentor thoroughly understood the state of the case, which he did in an incredibly short space of time—tact being so strongly developed in him that it almost amounted to intuition—he followed the advice of Polly in the “Beggar’s Opera,” by “pondering well” before he ventured to prescribe for the complaint of his Telemachus. Having sat with bent brows until his cigar was exhausted, he flung the end into the grate, smoothed his beloved moustaches, and then spoke oracularly:—
“You see, mon cher,” he began, “you are taking to the rôle of a flâneur, what you call a man-about-town, full early for an Englishman; thus, the chief thing you want is self-confidence, without which a man can neither do proper justice to himself nor to his position. Now it seems to me the best thing for you would be to get some pretty woman of good station to take you in hand; you must try and establish a flirtation with somebody.”
“Cui bono?” inquired Telemachus; “the governor would never stand me marrying for—oh! not for the next five years!”
“Marrying before you’re one-and-twenty! My dear fellow, what can have put such a frightful idea into your head!” exclaimed Mentor, aghast at the supposition. “No, no; marriage is the last thing I should dream of recommending, except quite as a dernier ressort. For which reason, I was about to add, that the best practice to set you at ease with yourself, and therefore with other people, will be to devote your attentions to some pretty and fashionable married woman;—there! don’t look so awfully scandalized; of course I only mean a sentimental and platonic affair—just enough to excite and interest you into self-oblivion. When you once forget your ipsissimus ego—when, as that punning friend of yours, Mr. Coverdale, would say, you cease to mind your I—all your anxieties in regard to popular opinion will vanish, and you will soon find that with your face, figure, address, and position, Lord Alfred Courtland will become the admired of all admirers. And that reminds me that Mrs. Coverdale would be just the person for that purpose;—she is very pretty, moves in good society, and, entre nous, is smitten with you already!”
“But really—of course I don’t set up to be any better than my neighbours,” stammered the poor boy, colouring at the possibility of being suspected of such slow attributes as good feeling and right principle, and yet unable entirely to silence the promptings of his better nature;—“of course I don’t set up for a saint; but Harry Coverdale is an old friend and schoolfellow, and one of the best creatures in the world; I should not like—that is, I really couldn’t—But, I beg your pardon, I don’t think I exactly understand your meaning.”
“I don’t think you do,” returned D’Almayne, his sarcastic tone expressing such unmistakable contempt that Lord Alfred actually winced as if in pain.
“I don’t think you have the faintest glimmer of my meaning. You don’t suppose I intend you to order a chaise and four, and run off with pretty Mrs. Coverdale to the Continent, do you? My ideas are much less alarming, I can assure you! par exemple—your friend Harry is a physical force man; he is a mighty hunter, a dead shot; he loves only his dogs and his horses; but requires a Joe Manton to ensure him good sport, and a pretty wife to sit at the head of his table: Mrs. Coverdale, on the other hand, has a soul—reads Tennyson, feels her husband’s neglect, and pines for some one who will appreciate her and sympathize with her; you, in the kindness of your heart, pity her, and knowing you can afford her the consolations of congeniality, obligingly make up for her good man’s deficiency; therefore, you read poetry with her, explain the obscure passages which neither she, you, nor any one else can understand; her mind reposes on your superior intelligence; she trusts you, and confides to you important secrets,—the exact age of her dearest female friend, whom she suspects of designs upon your heart, the dress she is going to wear at the next fancy ball,—and eventually, with heightened colour and averted eyes, the history of that ring with the turquoise forget-me-not, together with a biographical sketch of the noble giver—showing how he lived pathetically, and died in the odour of heroism, fighting at the head of his regiment in the Punjaub, the centre of a select circle of slaughtered foemen; which latter confidence may be considered as the latchkey to the fair lady’s heart, ensuring you admittance at all times and seasons.”
“And having attained this agreeable position, how long do you expect so pleasant a state of things to last, and what is to be the end of it?” inquired Telemachus.
“Oh! until she has got rid of her romance, and you of your diffidence; by which time you will have grown mutually tired of each other, and the London season will have come to an end,” was Mentor’s oracular reply. Telemachus mused, lit a fresh cigar, and mused again. He liked the idea, had a faint suspicion it might be wrong, but was quite sure it would be very pleasant. Mentor, thinking this a promising frame of mind in which to leave his pupil, would not weaken the force of his argument by vain repetitions, so made an engagement to meet again in the evening, and departed. And while les petites moustaches noires wounded female hearts as he passed down courtly St. James’s Street, the spirit of the good young man, their wearer, glowed within him, and—
“As he walked by himself,
He talked to himself,
And thus to himself said he!”
“Ha! ha! Milord Courtland, you are mine—your purse, your credit, your influence—all are mine! But what a child it is! what a baby! Sacré! at his age I was winning twenty pounds a day at billiards in New Orleans!—And you, Harry Coverdale, mon ami, I will teach you to watch me with black looks when I am conversing with la belle millionaire; you had better attend to your own wife now—young, pretty, and neglected! Le petit Alfred has a fair game before him, if he have but wit to play it—yes! all goes as it should! fortune fills the sails! there is a cool head and a steady hand at the helm: vogue la galère!”
In this “tight little island,”—of which as a whole we are all so proud, although it affords ample occupation for its public in grumbling at its institutions, viâ its Times newspaper—the only season of the year when fogs are not, and every day does not resemble a “washing-day” on a large scale, the only period in fact when the country is endurable, is the early summer. Thus the educated classes, whose well-balanced and carefully developed minds enable them to arrive at sound conclusions, and whose well-stored pockets render them free to come and go untrammelled by pecuniary considerations, have bound themselves by the laws of the tyrant Fashion to spend June and July in London, where they simmer in hot rooms, when they should be in bed and asleep, until all the goodness is boiled out of them—which new “theory of evil” beg to offer to the notice of Miss Martineau, and all other speculative minds anxious to elevate humanity by substituting earthly nonsense for heavenly revelation. But however you may brick her up and smoke-dry her, nature will assert herself, and, turning with disgust from oats at 40s. the quarter in a mahogany manger, pine for green meat and a canter over the spring turf. So a compromise has been effected between town and country amusements, and horticultural fêtes have been devised to afford parboiled fashionables breathing time between their rounds of dissipation, together with a gentle reminder of the “pleasures of the plains,” which they are sacrificing to their craving for unnatural excitement. Horticultural fêtes are brought about in this wise: Early in the inclemency of a British spring, while London is shivering over its fondly cherished fire, that noun of multitude perceives in the first column of its Times a notice that members of the Horticultural Society may obtain tickets at privileged prices until some specified day; thereupon All-London writes to its particular friend the M. H. S. for an “order,” and the member vouching by implication for All-London’s standing and respectability—into which he has probably gone no deeper than its coat—All-London besieges the office of that floral autocrat, Dr. Lindley, and clamours for tickets, crying “Give, give,” and insatiable as the daughter of the horse-leech. Having at length obtained its desire, All-London buttons up its great-coat and waits timidly but eagerly for the first Horticultural. But the London season is an outrage upon, and an insult to nature, and nature takes her change out of the first Horticultural; it is a pouring wet day, Chiswick becomes Keswick, and the Duke of Devonshire’s grounds, yielding to hydraulic pressure, cease to be dry grounds any longer. Dr. Lindley... we have not the pleasure of that gentleman’s personal acquaintance, but we can imagine Dr. Lindley feels disappointed and... expresses it. Then All-London exchanges its greatcoat for a paletot, and looks forward with a timid anxiety to the second Horticultural, which being in June enjoys the advantage of April weather, and is only showery, so the boldest quarter of London goes, from the Herbert Fitz-tip-tops, careless of the bronchial tubes of their serving-men and carriage-horses, down to the Robinson Joneses, safe in the immunity of a hack brougham, driver, and horse—a long-suffering trio, so accustomed to wait in the rain, that use has become a second nature to these amphibious hirelings. Our enterprising pleasure-seekers come back ere dewy eve, and say that, considering the fact that flowers won’t blow out of doors in cold weather, and that the gravel was a swamp, and the turf a morass, the tents very hot, and the east wind very cold, and that there was nobody there except a few dreadful people, who really ought not to be anywhere—(Mrs. Robinson Jones was actually pushed up against Mr. Cutlet and his rib, her own butcher, who makes a clear £2000 a-year, while genteel Robinson Jones scarcely averages £1500 at the Bar; but what does that signify?)—and that the female Quarter-of-London had got the ridiculous soles of its little French shoes wet through in five minutes, and had felt a tightness at its chest ever since; allowing for these and several other slight drawbacks, it really was not such a complete failure after all! But even English weather has its bright side; and, content with taking the shine out of the first two, on the third Horticultural fête the sun seems resolved to come out strong, and, setting parasols at defiance, imprint his burning kisses on the pale features of all the pretty women in town, like an ardent old luminary as he is. And All-London, finding that it really is a beautiful day, puts on its best bib and tucker, and takes its wife and daughters to Chiswick. Where the roads are watered they are very muddy, where they are not watered they are dusty; and as the dust sticks to the carriages, and the dust sticks to the mud, and the horses get first very hot going there, then very cold waiting there, and the pole of every other carriage invariably runs through the back panel of the vehicle immediately preceding it, coachmen are not, as a general rule, fond of the third Horticultural; but nothing can please everybody, and these Flower-shows “please the ladies” (to quote Mr. Crane’s favourite phrase), and that is the great point after all. It was probably with a view to “pleasing the ladies” that Mr. Crane had thought proper to invest capital in half a dozen Horticultural tickets—seeing that his own horticultural tastes were confined to drinking Sherry-cobbler in an arbour, whenever such a privilege was vouchsafed to him, and his knowledge limited to the capability of discriminating between a cabbage and a cauliflower. The weather having been such as we have described it during the first and second fêtes—on both which occasions Mr. Crane bewailed the useless expense into which his gallantry had seduced him, with a truly touching degree of pathos—these tickets remained unused until the third and last flower-show, when “the face of all nature looking gay,” and “bright Phoebus” obligingly condescending to “adorn the hills,” the ex-cotton-spinner and his spouse, Harry Coverdale and Alice, together with Arabella Crofton, availed themselves of five of them—Horace D’Almayne quietly pocketing the sixth in a fit of mental (and physical) abstraction. They were to start at a quarter before two, as Mr. Crane always preferred being early on all occasions; but at a quarter before two, when the carriages drew up to the door, Alice was not ready, and moreover it was Alice’s own fault that she was not ready; and thus it fell out. Lord Alfred Courtland played the flute well for so young a man, and an amateur; since he had been in town, a talented professor instructed him in this art, who was an exiled patriot—that is to say, he and several other ardent young men had attempted one fine morning to take their “Fatherland” away from the gentleman in possession, and give it to the Secret-blood-and-bones-united-brother band—the same being a pet name by which they saw fit to call themselves. What they would have done with their fatherland, if they had got it, neither do they, nor does any one else appear to have the least idea; but this difficulty of disposing of their country was fortunately spared them, as their enterprise consisted simply of a stroll along the principal street of their native city, in company with a drum and a little red flag, bearing the cheerful device of a skull and cross-bones, with the motto, “Death to Tyrants!” which stroll continued until they accidentally encountered a company of soldiers, who conveyed them—drum, flag, and all—to the state prison, where they were detained, until it being discovered that they were eating their heads off, the authorities exiled them, to save their keep. Herr Hildebrand Tootletoot-zakoffski, one of this devoted band, had brought his Polish sorrows and his German flute to England, and between them both managed to make a much more comfortable income than tyranny had hitherto allowed him to enjoy under the mildewed institutions of his own blighted country. For the rest he was a mild little man, addicted to conversing on music and patriotism with a sort of washy sentimentality, which enabled him to pass as an individual of refined tastes and cultivated mind with those who did not look beyond the surface; personally he rejoiced in a complexion as of bad putty, and an amount of heroic beard and moustaches which would have stuffed a chair-cushion very comfortably. And being such as we have described him, Herr Hildebrand—an acquaintance of and introduced by Horace D’Almayne, who, in his multifarious occupations, may have been a banded-brother, for aught we know to the contrary—had suggested to Lord Alfred Courtland the great advantage it would be to him in his, the professor’s, talented absence, if he, Lord Alfred, could find any amiable pianiste of his acquaintance, able and willing to play duets with him, to “improve his time;” and as he said this in the presence of and immediately after a tête-à-tête with Horace D’Almayne, it really was scarcely necessary for that judicious mentor to suggest to his lordship pretty little Mrs. Coverdale, although to guard against mistakes he did so. Thus Alfred Courtland and Alice had played a good many duets in Park Lane; and on the morning in question, luncheon being announced in the middle of one of these interesting performances half an hour sooner than usual, to guard against the possibility of anybody’s being too late, Alice, feeling by this time quite at home in her cousin’s house, coolly told Lord Alfred to come down and partake of the mid-day meal, as she was resolved to finish the duet after it was over, before she went to dress, and if they made haste she was sure there was plenty of time. But time unfortunately is one of those stubborn facts with which it is impossible to take a liberty without suffering for one’s rashness; and although the latter part of the duet was rattled through with a Costa-like rapidity, which elicited from his breathless lordship an acknowledgment that “it is the pace that kills,” yet when all the rest of the party were assembled, Alice was only half dressed. Then, as was his wont on such occasions, Mr. Crane fell into a fretful fuss, and trotted up and down the room, and made everybody fidgety and uncomfortable, especially Harry, who was provoked with Mr. Crane for being annoyed with Alice, and with Alice for having given him cause for annoyance.
“There is a quiet way of arranging the matter, my dear sir,” he said; “let those who are ready start in the barouche, and I will wait and drive Alice in the mail-phaeton.”
“Yes, and then we shall never meet at the gardens, and never all come away at the same time, and my arrangements will be completely subverted, and everything will go wrong,” whined Mr. Crane. On this Harry ran up to hasten Alice, and Alice, who was attiring herself at express speed, was cross, and snubbed him out of the room, and he rejoined the company in the drawing-room with compressed lips and an angry flush on each cheek; and Arabella Crofton favoured him with a glance of intelligent pity, which, if it were intended to soothe his wounded spirit, failed in its effect most signally. After the lapse of an awful ten minutes, by the expiration of which period Mr. Crane was on the verge of tears, the culprit Alice made her appearance, looking very pretty, but not altogether as penitent as might have been desired; but as she said in a cheerful tone that she “really was quite distressed at having kept them all waiting,” we will hope she felt more than she allowed to appear. Then arose a debate and confusion of tongues and opinions as to how the party was to divide. Harry offered to drive the phaeton, Mr. Crane having privately hinted that such an arrangement would meet with his approval,—who was to accompany him? Harry suggested his own wife, meaning to treat her to a gentle reproof on the road for her want of consideration in having kept a whole party waiting merely to finish a silly duet with that boy Alfred Courtland. But Kate disapproved of this arrangement—perhaps because she had begun to suspect that the Coverdale couple did not always in “their little nest agree,” and had read in Harry’s flashing eyes warning of a perturbed spirit. Whether Alice’s conscience led her to the same result we do not pretend to decide, but for some reason she seconded her cousin until she discovered that by doing so Arabella Crofton would be her substitute, by which time the affair was settled beyond her power of altering. Her annoyance would have been sensibly diminished, however, if she could have known that the arrangement was if possible more distasteful to her husband than to herself, but unfortunately there was no clairvoyant at hand to afford her this desirable intelligence. Having handed up his companion, and done all that his chivalrous nature taught him was due from a gentleman to any woman entrusted to his care, and nothing farther, Harry gathered up his reins, placed himself by Miss Crofton’s side in the phaeton, and sitting bolt upright, drove off with an unapproachable expression of face, which indicated, as plainly as words could have done, his resolve not to advance beyond monosyllables until they reached Chiswick. But Harry was in such matters no match for the astute woman of the world who sat beside him. Apparently falling in with his humour she leaned back in the carriage, and the only sign she gave of her presence was an occasional sigh, which escaped her, as it appeared, involuntarily. Before they had proceeded far, however, they encountered the peripatetic theatre of that inconvenient humourist, dear old Punch, with his private band pop-going-the-weasel like an harmonious steam-engine; whereof the horses (the identical pair which had run away with Harry and Alice in the early spring-time of their courtship, and which Mr. Crane still retained, although he carefully avoided driving them himself)—preferring probably a more classical style of music—began to express their disapprobation by plunging violently, nearly dashing the phaeton against a coal waggon, a catastrophe which nothing but the most consummate skill on the part of their driver could have averted. As Coverdale succeeded in reducing the rebellious steeds to order, he could not help involuntarily glancing at his companion to ascertain how the incident had affected her. She was leaning forward, her attitude and the expression of her features indicated excitement and interest rather than terror, while her fine eyes, dilated and sparkling with a more than ordinary lustre, were fixed upon his countenance with looks of unmistakable admiration. Courage, or as he would have termed it “pluck,” especially in a woman, where he considered it as an “additional attraction,” while in a man it was simply a sine quâ non, always delighted Harry Coverdale; and, being as innocent and natural as a child, he could no more help expressing his sentiments, than he could exist without inhaling vital air.
“Well, I never did see such nerve in a woman!” he exclaimed; “why you look pleased rather than frightened! not that there was any danger, except of damaging Mr. Crane’s near hind wheel. They don’t bit these horses properly, and that white-nosed animal hasn’t the tenderest mouth at the best of times.” And as he spoke he administered a smartish cut across the ears as a practical comment on the delinquent’s oral insensibility.
“You are such a good whip,” was the reply, “and it always interests me to see brute force controlled by skill, energy, and strength of will. You guide these fiery horses with such a calm sense of power, that I could never feel afraid when you were driving me.”
Miss Crofton was decidedly a clever woman; if there was one thing on which in his secret soul Harry prided himself, it was on his driving; and this practical compliment, standing as it unfortunately did in somewhat marked contrast to his wife’s feminine dislike of certain contentions with “queer tempered” horses, which had at odd times come in for a specimen of Coverdale’s “quiet manner,” appealed to his weak point—he was mortal, and it touched him, and at the touch his taciturnity vanished, and straightway he began to confide to his dangerous companion all his most secret thoughts and feelings in regard to——bitting hard-mouthed horses. It seemed an unlikely topic for Arabella to make much of, and yet she allowed him to run on, listening with a smile of pleased attention; for though his talk was solely equestrian, yet it served as well as any other subject to melt away the icy barrier behind which Harry had hitherto entrenched himself, and thus effectually defended himself against all attempts at a renewal of the former intimacy which appeared to have existed between them. Having explained completely to his own satisfaction the advantage which in the instance under consideration would be gained by driving “brown muzzle” up at the “cheek,” and the white-nosed horse in the “lower-bar,” together with copious notes, descriptive and explanatory, and voluminous annotations and reflections on this momentous question, Harry metaphorically resumed his seat amid continued cheering, and Arabella Crofton rose in reply. Of course she started on horses, to which she soon attached carriages, by means of which she in an incredibly short time contrived to ride back to Italy, and finding Harry stood it better than she expected, she continued in a voice indicative of deep but repressed feeling—
“Ah! that was a strange, strange summer we passed there! And yet, now I can calmly look back upon it, there were many happy hours, bright, sunny little bits, to set against the deep shadows of such a life as mine, times when I enjoyed the privilege of your friendship, before”—and here her voice faltered—“before I forfeited that and everything, even my self-respect, by my own mad folly!”
She paused in emotion, and her companion replied in a kind, frank manner,—
“Why distress yourself by reviving a disagreeable reminiscence?” (as he used the word a slight shudder seemed to convulse her, and a look of pain, but not the pain of contrition, flitted across her handsome features)—“an affair which I have, as I promised you, practically forgotten, which I should never again have entered upon with you, and in regard to which my lips are sealed to every other living creature.”
“You are kind and generous-hearted, as you ever were,” was the rejoinder, “but I cannot forget so readily”—here she paused, sighed deeply, then continued—“I am so glad to have had this—this conversation with you; your manner has been so cold and stern, I was afraid you had repented of your promise that if we ever met again it should be as friends.”
“Well, you see,” returned Harry, in an embarrassed tone, “you see circumstances have changed with me since the time to which you refer; and I thought—in fact, you yourself said in that note it would be better—I assure you I meant nothing unkind, why should I? as long as you——” and here, having been on the point of “putting his foot in it,” as he mentally paraphrased his colloquial étourderie, Harry paused in confusion, actually blushing in his generous fear of wounding his companion’s feelings. Having relieved his embarrassment by giving that unfortunate scapegoat, the white-nosed horse, one more for himself, he resumed—“And now let me ask you whether you approve of the wife I have chosen?”
Harry made this inquiry, not because he felt particularly anxious to learn Arabella’s opinion of Alice, but because he wanted to say something, and this was the first idea which occurred to him, thus the moment he had spoken he wished the speech unsaid. Miss Crofton hesitated for a moment ere she replied, in a slightly constrained tone of voice—
“Your choice does your taste credit; for, in her style, Mrs. Coverdale is singularly pretty, and I can imagine her very attractive—when she pleases.”
“You speak as if she had not pleased, in your case,” rejoined Harry, smiling at the unmistakable emphasis with which the concluding words had been spoken. Miss Crofton smiled also; then with a melancholy expression she replied—
“In my anomalous position in life, I am too well accustomed to slights to feel a moment’s annoyance at such trifles.”
“But it annoys me though,” returned Coverdale, firing up with the indignation all generous natures feel at the idea of indignity being offered to any one in a dependent situation. “I am surprised at such want of right feeling, or even common courtesy, in Alice! She cannot be aware of the impression her manner has made on you. I shall speak to her about it.”
“Do not think of such a thing!” exclaimed Arabella, hastily; “it was folly in me to mention it:”—she fixed her eyes on his face, and reading there that his resolution was unchanged, she laid her hand gently on his arm, and continued. “Listen, and I will tell you the whole truth: womanly instinct, I suppose, made your wife dislike me from the first moment she was introduced to me. I have tried in vain to conquer her dislike, and we now, by a sort of tacit consent, avoid each other; were you to interfere in my behalf, it would be of no avail; on the contrary, it would increase the evil, and, pardon my saying, might lead to a disagreement between you; for, I may be mistaken, but I have fancied Mrs. Coverdale appears a little impatient of control sometimes—I hope I am mistaken.”
She waited for a reply; but Harry, not being able to deny the charge, and not choosing to assent to it, remained silent, and she, rightly interpreting his reserve, continued:—
“In that case, I implore you, do not dream of advocating my cause. Were I to be the occasion of any difference between you, it would render me most unhappy.”
After a moment’s silence, she added—
“I was so much interested when I heard you were going to be married, and hoped, nay prayed, that you might be as happy as I would—would always have you. I am grieved to think that Mrs. Coverdale should not fully appreciate the prize she has drawn in that most uncertain of all lotteries, marriage; but I feel sure she will learn to understand you better, and all will come right: you are evidently much attached to her, and that being the case, she must love you.” Then in a lower tone she added—“You are not one likely to love in vain.”
What reply, if any, Harry would have made to this speech, will never be known, as at that minute they entered the line of carriages setting down at the gate of the Chiswick Gardens, and Coverdale had enough to occupy him in preventing his excitable horses from committing a breach of the peace. Whether or no the phaeton groom was an observant man we cannot say, but if he felt the degree of amiable interest usually displayed by domestic servants in the affairs of their superiors, he must have been struck when mentally contrasting Mr. Coverdale’s manner of handing Miss Crofton into and out of that open carriage by an immense accession of cordiality, for which he was probably more puzzled to account than we trust the reader finds himself.