MRS. DAKER.
"You must come, my dear fellow. You know, when I promise you a pleasant
evening I don't disappoint you. You'll meet everybody. You dine with me.
_Sole Joinville_, at Philippe's--best to be had, I think--and a bird. In
the cool, the Madrid for our coffee, and so gently back. I'll drop you
at your door--leave you for an hour to paint the lily, and then fetch
and take you. You shall not say me nay."
I protested a little, but I was won. I had a couple of days to spend in
Paris, and, like a man on the wing, had no particular engagements.
We met, my host and I, at the _Napolitain_. He knew everybody, and was
everybody's favourite. Cosmo Bertram, once guardsman, then fashionable
saunterer wherever society was gayest, quietly extravagant and
sentimentally dissipated, had, after much flitting about the sunny
centres of the Continent, settled down to Paris and a happy place in the
English society that has agglomerated in the west of Napoleon's capital.
Fortunately for his "little peace of mind"--as he described a shrewd,
worldly head--he was put down by the dowagers, after some sharp
discussions of his antecedents, as "no match." There was the orphan
daughter of a Baronet who had some hundred and twenty a year, and tastes
which she hoped one day to satisfy by annexing a creature wearing a hat,
and a pocket with ten times that sum. She had thought for a moment of
Cosmo Bertram when she had enjoyed her first half-hour of his amusing
rattle; but she had been quickly undeceived--Bertram could not have
added a chicken to her broth, a pair of gloves to her toilette; so she
shut up the thing she called a heart, for lack of some fitter name, and
cruised again through the ominous gold rings of her glasses round the
_salons_, and hoped the growing taste for travel might send her some one
for annexation at last.
"We're jigging on pretty much as usual," Bertram said at Philippe's.
"Plenty of scandal and plenty of reason for it. The demand creates the
supply--is that sound political economy?"
"I am surprised that political economy, together with an intimate
acquaintance with hydrostatics, are not exacted in these mad examination
days from a queen's messenger; but I am not bound not to be a fool in
political economy, so I elect to be one."
"Chablis?"
"Ay; and about ice?"
"My dear Q. M., when you have had a headache, has it ever fallen to your
lot to be in the company of a pretty woman?"
"Else had I been one of the most neglected of men."
"Well, she has fetched the Eau-de-Cologne, bathed your manly brow, and
then blown her balmy breath over your temples. That sweet coolness, my
dear fellow, is my idea of the proper temperature for Chablis."
"It's a great bit of luck to pounce upon you, Bertram, when a man has
only a few hours to spend in Paris, after a year or two's absence.
Nearly upon two years have passed since I was here. Yes, November,
'62--now August, '64."
"In that time, my dear Q. M., reputations have been made and lost by the
hundred. I have had a score of eternal friendships. You can run through
the matrimonial gauntlet, from courtship to the Divorce Court, in that
time. We used to grieve for years: now we weep as we travel; shed tears,
as we cast grain, by machinery. Two years! Why, I have passed through
half-a-dozen worlds. My bosom friend of '62 wouldn't remember me if I
met him to-morrow. I met old Baron Desordres, who has made such a
brilliant _fiasco_ for everybody except himself, yesterday; I knew him
in '62 with poor little Bartle, who lent him a couple of thousands.
Bartle died last month. In '62 Desordres and Bartle were inseparable. I
said to the Baron yesterday, 'You know poor little Bartle is dead.' The
Baron, picking his teeth, murmured, turning over the leaves of his
memory, '_Bartel! Bartel!_ I remember--_un petit gros, vrai?_' and the
leaves of the Baron's memory were turned back, and Bartle was as much
forgotten in five minutes as the burnt end of a cigarette. I daresay his
sisters are gone as governesses for want of the thousands the Baron ate.
Two years! Two epochs!"
"I suppose so. While the light burns, and the summer is on, the moths
come out. Tragedy, comedy, and farce elbow each other through the rooms.
I have seen very much myself, for bird of passage. I took part in a
strange incident when I passed through last time."
"Tell your story, and drink your Roederer, my dear Q. M."
"Story! I want to get at the story. I travelled with a man and his wife
from Folkestone to Paris. On the boat he was the most attentive of
husbands; at the terminus he had disappeared. Poor woman in tears; fell
into my arms, sir, by Jove!"
"No story!" cried Bertram, winking at the floating air-beads in his
glass. "No story! my good, simple Q.M. Egad! what would you have? Pray
go on."
"Go on! I've finished. I was off in the afternoon by the Marseilles
mail. Of course, I did my utmost to find the husband. She went to the
Windsor; I thought it would be quiet for her. I went to the police, paid
to have inquiries kept up in all the hotels; and lastly, put her in
communication with a good business man--Moffum, you know; and left her,
a wreck of one of the prettiest creatures I have ever seen."
"What kind of fellow was the husband? You got his name, of course?"
"Daker--Herbert Daker. Man of good family. A most agreeable, taking,
travelled companion; light and bright as----"
"The light-hearted Janus of Lamb," Bertram interrupted, his words
dancing lightly as the beads in his glass.
The association of Daker with Wainwright struck me sharply. For how
genial and accomplished a man was the criminal! a stranger
conglomeration of graces and sins never dwelt within one human breast. I
was started on wild speculations.
"I've set you dreaming. You found no clue to a history?"
"None. She had been married three months to Daker. She was a poor girl
left alone, with a few hundreds, I apprehend. She would not say much. A
runaway match, I concluded. Not a word about her family. When I left
Paris, after dinner, he had made no sign. She promised to write to me to
Constantinople. I gave her my address in town. I told her Arthur's here
would reach me. But not a word, my dear boy. That woman had the soul of
truth in voice and look, or I never read Eve's face yet."
"Ha! ha!" Bertram laughed. "I wish I had not got beyond the risk of
being snared by the un-gloving of a hand. You only pass through, I live
in Paris."
"Paris or London, a heart may be read, if you will only take the
trouble. I shall never hear, in all human probability, what has become
of Mrs. Daker, or her husband; she may be an intrigante, and he a
card-sharper now; all I know, and will swear, is that she loved that man
to distraction then, and it was a girl in love."
"And he?"
Bertram's suspicions seemed to be fixed on Daker, whom he had never
seen; although I had described his eminently prepossessing qualities.
"I can't understand why you should suspect Daker of villany, as I see
you do, Bertram."
"I tell you he was a most accomplished, prepossessing villain, my dear
Q.M. Your upper class villains are always prepossessing. Manners are as
necessary to them as a small hand to a pickpocket."
"Sharp, but unfair--only partly true, like all sweeping generalizations.
I think, as I hope, that the wife found the husband, and that they are
nestling in some Italian retreat."
"And never had the grace to write you a word! No, no, you say they had
manners. That, at any rate, then, is not the solution of the mystery."
Bertram was right here. Then what had become of Mrs. Daker? Daker, if
alive, was a scoundrel, and one who had contrived to take care of
himself. But that sweet country face! Here was a heart that might break,
but would never harden.
"Mystery it must and will remain, I suppose."
"One of many," was Bertram's gay reply. "How they overload these matches
with sulphur!"
He was lighting his cigar. His phaeton was at the door. A globule of
Chartreuse; a compliment for the _chef_, a bow to the _dame de
comptoir_, and we were on our way to the Bois, at a brisk trot, for the
great world had cleared off to act tragedy and comedy by the ocean
shore, or the invalid's well, or the gambler's green baize.
Bertram--one of that great and flourishing class of whom Scandal says
"she doesn't know how they do it, or who pays for it"--albeit a bad
match, even for Miss Tayleure, was, as I have said, in good English and
French society, and drove his phaeton. He was saluted on his way along
the Champs Elysées and by the lake, by many, and by some ladies who were
still unaccountably lingering in Paris. A superb little Victoria passed.
Bertram raised his hat.
"An Irish girl," he said, "of superb beauty."
At the Madrid we met a few people we knew; and, driving home, Bertram
saluted Miss Tayleure, who was crawling round the lake with her twin
sister, and was provoked to be recognised by a man of fashion in a hack
vehicle in the month of August.
[Illustration: BOIS DE BOULOGNE.]
"Charming evening they're having," said Bertram: "taking out their
watches every two minutes to be quite sure they shall get back within
the hour and a half which they have made up their minds to afford.
Beastly position!"
"What! living for appearances?"
"Just so; with women especially. Their dodges are extraordinary.
Tayleure would cheapen a penny loaf, and run down the price of a box of
lucifer matches. There's a chance for you! She would be an economical
wife; but then, my dear fellow, she would spend all the savings on
herself. Her virtue is like Gibraltar!"
"And would be safe as unintrenched tableland, I should think."
"Hang it!" Bertram handsomely interposed, "let us drop poor Tayleure.
She believes that her hour of happiness has to be rung in yet; and she
is always craning out of the window to catch the first silver echoes of
the bells. The old gentlewoman is happy."
"Suppose you tell me something about your Irish beauty," I suggested.
"Quite a different story, my good Q.M. Wait till I get clear of this
clumsy fellow ahead. So, so, gently. Now, Miss Trefoil; the Trefoil is a
girl whose success I can understand perfectly. To begin with--the girl
is educated. In the second place, she is, beyond all dispute, a
beautiful woman. There is not another pair of violet eyes in all
Paris--I mean in the season--to be matched with hers. Milk and
roses--nothing more--for complexion: and _no_ paint; which makes her
light sisters--accomplished professors of the art of _maquillage_--hate
her. A foot!" Bertram kissed the tip of his glove, by way of
description. "A voice that seems to make the air rich about her."
"Gently, Bertram. We must be careful how we approach your queen, I see."
"Not a bit of it. I am telling you just what you would hear in any of
the clubs. She has a liberal nature, my boy, and loves nobody, that I
can find, in particular. What bewitches me in talking to her is a sort
of serious background. I hate a woman all surface as I hate a flat
house. The Trefoil--queer name, isn't it?--can put a tremor in her voice
suddenly. The Trefoil has memories--a fact: something which she doesn't
give to the world, generous as she is. It is the shade to her abounding
and sparkling passages of light. Only her deep art, I dare say; but
devilish pleasant and refreshing when you get tired of laughing--gives a
little repose to facial muscles. The Trefoil has decidedly made a
sensation. At the races she was as popular as the winner. She must have
got home with a chariot full of money. Of course, when she bet, she
won--or she didn't pay. A pot of money is to be made on that system: and
the women, bless 'em, how kindly they've taken to it!"
This kind of improving discourse employed us to my gate. Bertram dropped
me to return for "the painted lily" in an hour.
I am no squeamish man, or I should have passed a wretched life. The man
who is perpetually travelling must bear with him a pliant nature that
will adapt itself to any society, to various codes of morals, habits of
thought, rules of conduct, and varieties of temperament. I can make
myself at home in most places, but least in those regions which the
progress of civilization, or the progress of something, has established
in every capital of Europe, and to the description of which the younger
Dumas has devoted his genius. The atmosphere of the _demi-monde_ never
delighted me. I see why it charms; I guess why it has become the potent
rival of good society; the reason why men of genius, scholars,
statesmen, princes, and all the great of the earth take pleasure in it,
is not far to seek; silly women at home are to blame in great part. This
new state of the body social is very much to be regretted; but I am not
yet of those who think that good, decent society--the converse of
honourable men with honourable women--is come or coming to an end. I am
of the old-fashioned, who have always been better pleased and more
diverted with the society of ladies than with that of the free graces
who allow smoke and indulge in it, and who have wit but lack wisdom. I
was not in high glee at the prospect of accompanying Cosmo Bertram to
his free dancing party.
They are all very much alike. The fifteen sous basket, to use Dumas'
fine illustration, in Paris, is very like the Vienna, the Berlin, or the
London basket. The ladies are beautiful, exquisitely dressed, vivacious,
and, early in the evening, well-mannered. At the outset you might think
yourself at your embassy; at the close you catch yourself hoping you
will get away safely. Shrill voices pipe in corners of the room. "_On
sautera!_" People are jumping with a vengeance. The paint is disturbed
upon your partner's face. Pretty lips speak ugly words. _Honi soit qui
mal y pense;_ but then the gentleman is between two and three wines, and
the lady is rallying him because he has sense enough left to be a
little modest. A couple sprawl in a waltz. A gentleman roars a toast.
The hostess prays for less noise. An altercation breaks out in the
antechamber. Two ladies exchange slaps on the face, and you thank madame
for a charming evening.
The next morning you are besieged, at your club, for news about
Aspasia's reception. She did the honours _en souveraine_; but it is
really a pity she will not be less attentive to the champagne.
Everything would have gone off splendidly if that little _diablesse_
Titi had not revived her feud with Fanchette. You are not surprised to
hear that Aspasia's goods were seized this morning. The duke must have
had more than enough of it by this time, and has, of course, discovered
that he has been the laughing-stock of his friends for a long time past.
Over the absinthe tripping commentary Aspasia sinks from the Chasusée
d'Antin to the porter's lodge. A little _crévé_ taps his teeth with the
end of his cane, blinks his tired, wicked eyes, like a monkey in the
sun, through his _pince-nez_, and opines, with a sharp relish, that
Aspasia is destined to sweep her five stories--well.
Pah! What kind of discourse is all this for born and bred gentlemen to
hold in these days, when the portals of noble knowledge lie wide open,
and every man may grace his humanity with some special wisdom of his
own!
Bertram, a ribbon in his buttonhole, and arrayed to justify his fame as
one of the best-dressed men in Paris, came in haste for me.
"We are late, my dear Q.M. This is not carnival time, remember. We jump
early."
The rooms were--but I cannot be at the pains of describing them. The
reader knows what Sévres and Aubusson, St. Gobain, Barbédienne,
Fourdinois, Jeanseline, Tahan, and the rest, can do for a first floor
within a stone's throw of the Boulevard des Italiens. The fashion in all
its most striking aspects is here. The presents lie thick as autumn
leaves. The bonne says you might fill a portmanteau with madame's fans.
Bertram is recognised by a dozen ladies at once. The lady of the house
receives me with the lowest curtsey. No ambassadress could be more
_gracieuse_. The toilettes are amazing. It is early, after all Bertram's
impatience. The state is that of a duchesse for the present. Bertram
leaves me and is lost in the crowd. The conversation is measured and
orderly. The dancing begins, and I figure in the quadrille of honour. I
am giving my partner--a dark-eyed, vivacious lady--an ice, when I am
tapped upon the shoulder by Cosmo Bertram. Bertram has a lady on his
arm. He turns to her, saying--
"Permit me to present my friend to you, Madame Trefoil----"
"What! Mrs. Daker!" I cried.
Mrs. Daker's still sweet eyes fell upon me; and she shook my hand; and
by her commanding calmness smothered my astonishment, so that the
bystanders should not see it.
Later in the evening she said--passing me in the crowd--"Come and see
me."
I did not--I could not--next morning, tell Lucy nor Mrs. Rowe.