"THE SLAVE OF BEAUTY."
"A 'strange coincidence,' to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days."
_Byron._
"HERE'S the comrade of your glove, Miss Dido," said Biddy, descending
into the hall, where the three girls, attired in their best summer
dresses (being about to set forth for a tennis party at Ballyredmond),
were impatiently awaiting her.
"Will I do?" inquired Dido, as she received her property. "Or is my hat
too shabby? This is its third summer, you know!"
"An' deed, an' you'll do finely; 'tis only too grand you are! What
call is there to be dressing just for the ould gentleman and Miss
Calderwood, and maybe Misther Barry, that ye can see any day of the
week without putting yourselves to any rounds at all?" demanded Biddy
in an acrimonious key.
"Oh, but this is to be quite a grand affair," protested her younger
nursling. "We have had three days' invitation. It's my opinion,"
glancing at her pretty cousin, "that this 'at home' is given for _you_,
Helen. Mr. Redmond has been here twice this week; you have bewitched
him."
"I would not put it past him! for nothing grows old with a man but his
clothes," cried Biddy scornfully. "And shure he might give something
dacent when he went about it; _I've_ no opinion of these grass parties
and chape entertainments. God be with the good ould times, when no one
was axed to cross the door, under a dinner or a ball; indade, Redmond's
own father used to give the height of high feedin' and kep' a butt
of claret standing in the hall, just ready to your hand. But now,
when you go out, no one even so much as axes, if you have a mouth on
you?—for—by a drink of tay, that wake, that ye can see the bottom of
the cup!"
Notwithstanding this gloomy sketch, the three young ladies (to whom
this "chape entertainment" was a delightful novelty) were not the least
disheartened, and set off to walk across the demesne in the highest
possible spirits, leaving Biddy and her apple-cheeked niece filling up
the doorway, and gazing after them with the affectionate complacency of
people who were surveying a creditable personal possession.
"There's not their like in the county!" exclaimed Sally, as she folded
her massive arms across her apron strings.
"No, nor in ten counties! and what's the good of it all; will ye tell
me that?" inquired her aunt peevishly. "There's Miss Dido, with the
walk of a duchess and the voice of a thrush, and Miss Helen, a real
beauty, and Katie not too bad entirely,—and not a sign of any one,
watching wan of them!"
"I think Misther Barry has an eye on Miss Denis," insinuated Sally
timidly.
"Is it that spalpeen? An' much good may it do him! She would not look
at the same side of the road as him," returned Biddy fiercely. "He
would not dar' to ax her. Shure she's the only one of them all knows
how to talk to him, and that quenches him rightly."
"That's true for you," assented Sally, nodding her head in grave
acknowledgment of this indisputable fact.
"It's just killing me," continued the old woman, "to see them young
ladies wasting their looks and their years here, slaving in the house,
and garden, like blacks. What's to be the end of it, at all, at all?"
"The end will be that the masther will burn us all in our beds yet,"
replied Sally with angry promptitude. "What is he up to now?" glancing
at one of the tower windows, out of which vast volumes of dense black
smoke were curling in lazy clouds.
"Oh, the Lord only knows!" retorted her aunt impatiently, as she turned
and walked into the hall with an unusually sour expression on her
jovial old countenance.
"There's no daling with the likes of him," she muttered as she
descended to the lower regions, "for he will nayther do wan thing, or
the other; he won't go properly out of his mind, and he won't lave it
alone; and he has me fairly bothered, and me heart is broke, with his
mischeevous contrivances."
Meanwhile, the three girls walked over the hill, and passed through
Dillon's gate into the precincts of Ballyredmond, a fine park of
seemingly endless extent, through which a beautifully-kept avenue wound
like a white ribbon, by clumps of beeches, rows of lime trees, and
great solitary oaks. Nearer the house beds of brilliant flowers broke
the monotony of the turf, and a long gravelled terrace was crowned
by an ugly but dignified-looking mansion, that seemed an appropriate
centre for the surrounding scene.
The Misses Sheridan and Miss Denis were the last arrivals, and were
received by Miss Redmond in the pleasure-ground. They found her sitting
under a tree in her bath chair, arrayed in her best white shawl and a
picturesque garden bonnet. She was a pretty old lady, with white hair,
an ivory skin, and soft, caressing manners, and she greeted the three
chaperoneless (to coin a word) girls with evident pleasure. Not so
Miss Calderwood, the deputy hostess; her welcome was by no means so
gracious or so genial. She gave the two Sheridans a limp shake-hands,
and bestowed a curt bow and a long stare upon their cousin, the
governess (who was looking remarkably pretty and well-dressed in one
of the costumes upon which Mrs. Creery had once fixed her elderly
affections). Evidently she did not think that Miss Denis was entitled
to participate in the advantages of her acquaintance and patronage.
However, Mr. Redmond more than atoned for his ward's deficiencies. He
led Helen to a seat, introduced her to several of the county people,
fussed about her rather too assiduously with tea and cakes and other
light refreshments, and finally took share of the same rustic bench,
and engaged her entire attention.
Biddy's dismal forebodings had been brilliantly refuted. We notice the
party from the Rectory (a considerable contingent), several remote
families, half-a-dozen officers from a garrison town, and last, but by
no means least, our friend Barry, standing beside Miss Calderwood, with
his hands behind his back, and such an air of serious criticism in his
port, that one would imagine he was in an African slave-market, and
contemplated the purchase of one or two of Mr. Redmond's guests.
Mr. Redmond himself never left Helen's side, and coolly (and I consider
selfishly) dismissed all overtures respecting a game of tennis, with
a bland wave of his hand. His beautiful young _protégée_, the desired
partner of several eligible tennis players, was simply not allowed to
have a voice in the matter.
"We are very happy here! Just go away, my good fellow, and leave us
alone," was his complacent reply to each eager suitor. "You and I,"
to Helen, "will do better than that! we will stroll round the grounds
together by-and-by, when all these energetic idiots have settled down
to what they consider the business of life."
It never seemed to occur to him that Helen would have preferred to join
the said band of energetic idiots, or to have liked the company of a
younger swain—and presently he marched her off—to make a grand tour
of the greenhouses and gardens.
Although Mr. Redmond was a little, round, old gentleman, who had
white eyebrows, and wore an ostentatious brown wig—his heart was as
young, as susceptible, and as fickle as if he was three-and-twenty; he
delighted in a pretty face, and especially in the company of a lovely,
smiling girl, like his present companion, who, besides all her other
charms, proved to be a most accomplished listener. As they walked, he
talked, talked incessantly; indeed, the garrulous old personage became
most gratuitously confidential about his property, his neighbours,
and his nephew. "My nephew" was dragged headlong into every other
sentence,—conversationally you came face to face with "my nephew" at
each corner; his opinion was quoted on all conceivable subjects, from
politics down to black currant jam. Another listener might have been
a little bored, and even irritated, but the pretty tall girl in white
listened with a greedy attention, of which she angrily told herself she
ought to be heartily ashamed.—The world was but a small place after
all! Here, in what her aunt Julia called the "wilds," she was strolling
along, _tête-à-tête_ with Gilbert Lisle's uncle, undoubtedly the very
identical old gentleman whom he had mentioned as carrying on an ink
feud with his father, but who was somewhat partial to _him_. Partial
was no word for it! infatuation was nearer to the mark.
"I'm sure all those young fellows are mad with me for carrying you
off," and he chuckled delightedly. "But, after all, it's no reason that
because I'm an old fogey I'm not to have a pleasant afternoon, too, eh?
From the time I could walk alone, I was always the slave of Beauty!"
Here he doffed his hat, and made Helen a most courtly bow, at which she
blushed and laughed.
"Yes, the slave of Beauty; all the same," resuming his hat with a
flourish; "I never married, you see! The fact was, I butterflied about
too long, and then it was winter before I knew where I was! We are not
a marrying family; there's my sister and myself, and my nephew, I'm
always preaching to him, but he laughs when I talk to him, and tells me
to go and marry myself—impudent rascal, that's a nice way to speak to
his uncle, eh? All the same, he is a fine fellow, as true as steel,
and a more honourable, upright gentleman never drew breath; whoever
gets him for a husband will be a lucky girl."
The corners of his companion's pretty lips curved somewhat scornfully,
and she said to herself, "Shall I explode a social torpedo under this
innocent old gentleman's feet, and say I know your illustrious nephew,
he asked _me_ to marry him, and instantly took ship and left me;
although he swore that he would return, as surely as the sun rose in
the heavens! Would it be agreeable to her companion to learn that his
paragon's idea of honour was more elastic than he imagined?"
"Two or three times," continued Mr. Redmond, "I've tried to marry my
nephew to some nice girl, and it has always been a dead failure, I've
picked out a beauty, had her to stay, got up riding parties, driving
parties, and even moonlight picnics (as if moonlight picnics were
irresistible), and it was all no go. Just as I thought everything was
arranged, he would slip through my fingers like a piece of soap!"
(precisely Helen's own experience). "Well, now I want to ask your
advice. What do you think of those two yew-trees?" he demanded with
rather bewildering suddenness.
"I—candidly, I don't admire them; they remind one of a church-yard."
"Exactly, and as I don't want to be reminded of anything so deuced
unpleasant: down they shall come! And, now, what's your opinion of
these new flower-beds they have just cut out in this ribbon garden?"
"I think they are not sharp enough at the corners; they are too much
the shape of biscuits,—the 'People's mixed.'"
"So they are! and shall we have them filled with pink verbenas, or
crimson geraniums?"
"Crimson—that lovely new, deep shade."
"And crimson it shall be! Allow me to give you this rose!" suddenly
plucking one as he spoke. "My dear Miss Denis, I see that our tastes
are identical.—I only wish I was a young man for your sake."
His companion made no response, but on the whole she thought she
preferred him as he was.
By this time they had encountered various other promenading couples,
and in a shady walk they came face to face with Barry and Miss
Calderwood, and the latter, instead of passing by on the other side,
with her nose in the air, halted directly in front of Helen, and said
most abruptly,—
"Miss Denis, Mr. Sheridan tells me that you were in the Andamans with
Gilbert Lisle,—and knew him _intimately_!"
Helen coloured vividly, partly at this sudden accost and partly because
of that sting in the tail of the sentence, that thrice underlined word
"intimately;" and Mr. Redmond, wheeling swiftly round so as to face
her, ejaculated, "God bless my soul! you don't tell me so."
"Yes, I knew a Mr. Lisle in the Andamans," admitted Helen reluctantly.
"Only fancy! How immensely funny!" drawled Miss Calderwood.
To Helen there had been nothing specially amusing in the acquaintance,
so she closed her lips firmly and held her peace.
"Why—why—I've been talking to you about him for the last hour, and
you never told me this!" cried Mr. Redmond, eyeing her with an air of
angry suspicion. "Eh, what?"
"You mentioned no name," faltered the young lady, feeling that verily
this quibbling with the truth was as bad as any downright lie; but
confronted by three curious faces, with the eyes of Barry—of Gilbert
Lisle's uncle—and Gilbert Lisle's betrothed, fixed imperatively on
hers—was she to appease their greedy curiosity and boldly confess the
painful reason of her silence? was she to proclaim the humiliating fact
that they were all staring at the girl who had been jilted by that
honourable gentleman?
"Mentioned no name—neither I did! And how were you to know? Eh, what?
Well, and what did you think of my nephew?" inquired the loquacious old
relative.
At this point-blank query Miss Calderwood flashed a satirical look at
Miss Denis, as much as to say, "What a silly unnecessary question!" But
Helen met her eyes with proud steadiness.
"I think most people liked Mr. Lisle," she answered with well-assumed
carelessness.
"And how long was he at the Andamans?" continued Mr. Redmond.
"About six months."
"Six months! And what was he doing there all that time? Any little
entanglement—eh?" rather anxiously.
"I cannot tell you."
"Ah!—I see that you know more about Gilbert than you will admit!"
exclaimed Miss Calderwood with a sharp accusing glance. "I believe
girls in India are odious creatures. I have no doubt he got into some
scrape out there." Helen blushed scarlet. "Yes," with an unpleasant
little laugh, "your face tells tales. I suppose he was drawn into some
silly flirtation—men _are_ such fools! Well, it is very good of you to
keep his secret; it's more than others would have done!" and with this
insolent hint and a patronizing nod the heiress walked on.
Helen felt almost breathless with anger. "She had the passions of her
kind;" her eyes sparkled, her nostrils quivered as she gazed after
her receding rival. What had she done that she should be insulted and
flouted by this supercilious heiress?
"Scrape!—stuff! Flirtation!—rubbish! It's all jealousy, every bit of
it!" cried Mr. Redmond, as he removed his hat and cautiously passed his
bandana across his forehead. "Gilbert is not a ladies' man—I only wish
he was! And so you knew him very well? Eh, what?"
"As well as most people," turning away to break off a bit of syringa.
"Well, now let me hear all about him," very eagerly. "He hardly ever
writes, and when he does there's nothing in his letters. Come, now,
what did he do? How did he pass his time?"
"I really cannot tell you much—he lived a long way off on the
mainland. I believe he spent his days in fishing and sailing. He liked
the Andamans because they were a lazy, out-of-the-world region."
"I hope to goodness he liked them for nothing _else_. Eh, what? Six
months' sailing and fishing was the deuce of a time, you know! You
don't—just between you and me, you know—you don't think he had any
_other_ attraction? Eh, what—what?"
"Honestly, I don't believe he cared a straw for any one in the place,"
raising her eyes gravely to his, and speaking with unusual emphasis.
"Oh, well, I fancy _you_ would be likely to know," rejoined the old
gentleman innocently. "We must have some nice long talks about Gilbert;
but just now I'm afraid we will have to go back to the tennis-ground; I
want to have a chat with old Mrs. Morony. I need not tell you I'd much
rather stay here walking about with you," he added gallantly. "But I
must not be too selfish; and I'll give the young fellows a chance!"
So Helen was at last released from this purgatorial _tête-à-tête_, and
permitted to join the rest of the company.
When she took leave of Miss Calderwood (which I must say she did very
stiffly), she read more than a mere contemptuous dismissal in that
lady's eyes; she saw suspicion, ay, and dislike, lurking in those
shallow grey orbs; but Mr. Redmond wrung her hand affectionately at
parting and said in his heartiest manner,—
"And to think of your knowing Gilbert! Eh, what? Well, I have dozens of
questions to ask you about him; I shall be over to-morrow or next day."
"Poor Helen, I pitied you," said Katie as they walked home. "It was too
bad of Mr. Redmond to carry you off."
"_Il faut souffrir pour être belle_," added Dido, with a laugh. "What a
dose you must have had of 'my nephew!—my nephew'!"
As far as the Misses Sheridan were concerned "the chape entertainment"
had been a prodigious success. They had enjoyed themselves immensely;
had played tennis, sipped tea, and strolled about the grounds under
military escort. Katie's tongue as she tripped along went like the
clapper of the proverbial mill; but Helen was preoccupied and unusually
silent. To return _viâ_ dillon's Gate at the hour of seven p.m. was a
feat quite beyond the Misses Sheridan's courage, and in spite of their
cousin's protestations and remonstrances they insisted on going round
by the road and entered Crowmore by the old avenue. As they turned a
corner they noticed Sally's portly figure speeding towards the Castle
with somewhat guilty haste, and a man approaching in their direction
with his hands in his pockets and a straw in his mouth. To Helen's
amazement it was Larry Flood.
"More power, ladies," was his brief but novel greeting.
"A fine evening, Larry," returned Dido. "So you have been walking with
Sally?"
"'Tis only wance in a way, your ladyship."
"Is Biddy still against it?"
"She's that much again it, that if I wor to go next or near the house
she'd just pick mee eyes out! Maybe you'll put in a word for me, Miss?"
"I don't see why Sally should not please herself. She's old enough."
"Well, for that matter we are both of us pretty long in the tooth! But
I'll have her before the priest in spite of the old wan yet, though she
_is_ trying to draw down a match with Darby Chute!"
"Oh, _that_ would never do!" exclaimed Helen with involuntary emphasis.
"I'm entirely of your opinion, Miss," said Larry, turning towards her.
"I see you're none the worse for that little tip off the car! An' you
are looking just as beautiful as a harvest moon!"
"And how is Finnigan's mare?" she inquired, not to be outdone in
politeness.
"Oh, faix!" scratching his head, "shure she nearly drowned herself and
me about a month ago. Coming out of Terryscreen fair and aisy, we met
a band of music all of a sudden on the bridge, and without the least
provocation she just turned about and leapt over the parapet, car and
all!"
"And did YOU go over, Larry?" asked Helen with benevolent solicitude.
"Troth, and I did not. _I_ stayed on land. We had terrible work to
get her out, though she swam like an otter, and there was no great
harm done, barrin' to the shafts again; but the mails was soaking
wet—just in a sort of pulp; and the postmaster was raging and spoke
very bitter. The end of it was I had to get shut of the mare! A horse
on the road is well enough; but when they show a taste for the water
it's a different kind of driving is required. So I sold her to a canal
boatman—and maybe she's aisy now. She'll be hard set to run away with
the boat! Well, she was a fine traveller!" he concluded regretfully.
"And what have you now?"
"Only the blind brown, till the fair of Banagher. He's a hape of work
in him yet, and there's no fear of _him_ shying. Well, Miss Dido, I'll
not be detaining you. You'll mind and put in a word for me with the
ould 'fostooke,'—I mane Biddy Macgravy. Tell her I'm a warm man, and
an honest man, and a dacent man. Sure all the world knows that! She's
taking her pigs to the wrong market," he added significantly, as he
abruptly touched his caubeen, and departed.
"Modesty, thy name is Larry Flood!" ejaculated Helen. "Every one know's
he's an honest man, and a dacent man!"
"Well, yes, he is in his way," acquiesced Dido, "but HE knows who is
the heiress of these parts, and that Sally is a splendid dairy woman,
and has a fortune of forty pounds! not to speak of a second-hand gold
watch!"