SIR CHARLES and Mr. Oldfield settled that lady's retiring pension, and
Mr. Oldfield took the memoranda home, with instructions to prepare a
draft deed for Miss Somerset's approval.
Meantime Sir Charles visited Miss Bruce every day. Her affections for
him grew visibly, for being engaged gave her the courage to love.
Mr. Bassett called pretty often; but one day he met Sir Charles on the
stairs, and scowled.
That scowl cost him dear, for Sir Charles thereupon represented to
Bella that a man with a grievance is a bore to the very eye, and asked
her to receive no more visits from his scowling cousin. The lady
smiled, and said, with soft complacency, “I obey.”
Sir Charles's gallantry was shocked.
“No, don't say 'obey.' It is a little favor I ventured to ask.”
“It is like you to ask what you have a right to command. I shall be out
to him in future, and to every one who is disagreeable to you. What!
does 'obey' frighten you from my lips? To me it is the sweetest in the
language. Oh, please let me 'obey' you! _May_ I?”
Upon this, as vanity is seldom out of call, Sir Charles swelled like a
turkey-cock, and loftily consented to indulge Bella Bruce's strange
propensity. From that hour she was never at home to Mr. Bassett.
He began to suspect; and one day, after he had been kept out with the
loud, stolid “Not at home” of practiced mendacity, he watched, and saw
Sir Charles admitted.
He divined it all in a moment, and turned to wormwood. What! was he to
be robbed of the lady he loved--and her fifteen thousand pounds--by the
very man who had robbed him of his ancestral fields? He dwelt on the
double grievance till it nearly frenzied him. But he could do nothing:
it was his fate. His only hope was that Sir Charles, the arrant flirt,
would desert this beauty after a time, as he had the others.
But one afternoon, in the smoking-room of his club, a gentleman said to
him, “So your cousin Charles is engaged to the Yorkshire beauty, Bell
Bruce?”
“He is flirting with her, I believe,” said Richard.
“No, no,” said the other; “they are engaged. I know it for a fact. They
are to be married next month.”
Mr. Richard Bassett digested this fresh pill in moody silence, while
the gentlemen of the club discussed the engagement with easy levity.
They soon passed to a topic of wider interest, viz., who was to succeed
Sir Charles with La Somerset. Bassett began to listen attentively, and
learned for the first time Sir Charles Bassett's connection with that
lady, and also that she was a woman of a daring nature and furious
temper. At first he was merely surprised; but soon hatred and jealousy
whispered in his ear that with these materials it must be possible to
wound those who had wounded him.
Mr. Marsh, a young gentleman with a receding chin, and a mustache
between hay and straw, had taken great care to let them all know he was
acquainted with Miss Somerset. So Richard got Marsh alone, and sounded
him. Could he call upon the lady without ceremony?
“You won't get in. Her street door is jolly well guarded, I can tell
you.”
“I am very curious to see her in her own house.”
“So are a good many fellows.”
“Could you not give me an introduction?”
Marsh shook his head sapiently for a considerable time, and with all
this shaking, as it appeared, out fell words of wisdom. “Don't see it.
I'm awfully spooney on her myself; and, you know, when a fellow
introduces another fellow, that fellow always cuts the other out.”
Then, descending from the words of the wise and their dark sayings to a
petty but pertinent fact, he added, _“Besides,_ I'm only let in myself
about once in five times.”
“She gives herself wonderful airs, it seems,” said Bassett, rather
bitterly.
Marsh fired up. “So would any woman that was as beautiful, and as witty
and as much run after as she is. Why she is a leader of fashion. Look
at all the ladies following her round the park. They used to drive on
the north side of the Serpentine. She just held up her finger, and now
they have cut the Serpentine, and followed her to the south drive.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Bassett. “Ah then this is a great lady; a poor
country squire must not venture into her august presence.” He turned
savagely on his heel, and Marsh went and made sickly mirth at his
expense.
By this means the matter soon came to the ears of old Mr. Woodgate, the
father of that club, and a genial gossip. He got hold of Bassett in the
dinner-room and examined him. “So you want an introduction to La
Somerset, and Marsh refuses--Marsh, hitherto celebrated for his weak
head rather than his hard heart?”
Richard Bassett nodded rather sullenly. He had not bargained for this
rapid publicity.
The venerable chief resumed: “We all consider Marsh's conduct
unclubable and a thing to be combined against. Wanted--an
Anti-dog-in-the-manger League. I'll introduce you to the Somerset.”
“What! do _you_ visit her?” asked Bassett, in some astonishment.
The old gentleman held up his hands in droll disclaimer, and chuckled
merrily “No, no; I enjoy from the shore the disasters of my youthful
friends--that sacred pleasure is left me. Do you see that elegant
creature with the little auburn beard and mustache, waiting sweetly for
his dinner. He launched the Somerset.”
“Launched her?”
“Yes; but for him she might have wasted her time breaking hearts and
slapping faces in some country village. He it was set her devastating
society; and with his aid she shall devastate you.--Vandeleur, will you
join Bassett and me?”
Mr. Vandeleur, with ready grace, said he should be delighted, and they
dined together accordingly.
Mr. Vandeleur, six feet high, lank, but graceful as a panther, and the
pink of politeness, was, beneath his varnish, one of the wildest young
men in London--gambler, horse-racer, libertine, what not?--but in
society charming, and his manners singularly elegant and winning. He
never obtruded his vices in good company; in fact, you might dine with
him all your life and not detect him. The young serpent was torpid in
wine; but he came out, a bit at a time, in the sunshine of Cigar.
After a brisk conversation on current topics, the venerable chief told
him plainly they were both curious to know the history of Miss
Somerset, and he must tell it them.
“Oh, with pleasure,” said the obliging youth. “Let us go into the
smoking-room.”
“Let--me--see. I picked her up by the sea-side. She promised well at
first. We put her on my chestnut mare, and she showed lots of courage,
so she soon learned to ride; but she kicked, even down there.”
“Kicked!--whom?”
“Kicked all round; I mean showed temper. And when she got to London,
and had ridden a few times in the park, and swallowed flattery, there
was no holding her. I stood her cheek for a good while, but at last I
told the servants they must not turn her out, but they could keep her
out. They sided with me for once. She had ridden over them, as well.
The first time she went out they bolted the doors, and handed her boxes
up the area steps.”
“How did she take that?”
“Easier than we expected. She said, 'Lucky for you beggars that I'm a
lady, or I'd break every d--d window in the house.'”
This caused a laugh. It subsided. The historian resumed.
“Next day she cooled, and wrote a letter.”
“To you?”
“No, to my groom. Would you like to see it? It is a curiosity.”
He sent one of the club waiters for his servant, and his servant for
his desk, and produced the letter.
“There!” said Vandeleur. “She looks like a queen, and steps like an
empress, and this is how she writes:
“'DEAR JORGE--i have got the sak, an' praps your turn nex. dear jorge
he alwaies promise me the grey oss, which now an oss is life an death
to me. If you was to ast him to lend me the grey he wouldn't refuse
you,
“'Yours respecfully,
“'RHODA SOMERSET.'”
When the letter and the handwriting, which, unfortunately, I cannot
reproduce, had been duly studied and approved, Vandeleur continued--
“Now, you know, she had her good points, after all. If any creature was
ill, she'd sit up all night and nurse them, and she used to go to
church on Sundays, and come back with the sting out of her; only then
she would preach to a fellow, and bore him. She is awfully fond of
preaching. Her dream is to jump on a first-rate hunter, and ride across
country, and preach to the villages. So, when George came grinning to
me with the letter, I told him to buy a new side-saddle for the gray,
and take her the lot, with my compliments. I had noticed a slight
spavin in his near foreleg. She rode him that very day in the park, all
alone, and made such a sensation that next day my gray was standing in
Lord Hailey's stables. But she rode Hailey, like my gray, with a long
spur, and he couldn't stand it. None of 'em could except Sir Charles
Bassett, and he doesn't play fair--never goes near her.”
“And that gives him an unfair advantage over his fascinating
predecessors?” inquired the senior, slyly.
“Of course it does,” said Vandeleur, stoutly. “You ask a girl to dine
at Richmond once a month, and keep out of her way all the rest of the
time, and give her lots of money--she will never quarrel with you.”
“Profit by this information, young man,” said old Woodgate, severely;
“it comes too late for me. In my day there existed no sure method of
pleasing the fair. But now that is invented, along with everything
else. Richmond and--absence, equivalent to 'Richmond and victory!' Now,
Bassett, we have heard the truth from the fountain-head, and it is
rather serious. She swears, she kicks, she preaches. Do you still
desire an introduction? As for me, my manly spirit is beginning to
quake at Vandeleur's revelations, and some lines of Scott recur to my
Gothic memory--
“'From the chafed tiger rend his prey, Bar the fell dragon's blighting
way, But shun that lovely snare.”'
Bassett replied, gravely, that he had no such motive as Mr. Woodgate
gave him credit for, but still desired the introduction.
“With pleasure,” said Vandeleur; “but it will be no use to you. She
hates me like poison; says I have no heart. That is what all
ill-tempered women say.”
Notwithstanding his misgivings the obliging youth called for writing
materials, and produced the following epistle--
“DEAR MISS SOMERSET--Mr. Richard Bassett, a cousin of Sir Charles,
wishes very much to be introduced to you, and has begged me to assist
in an object so laudable. I should hardly venture to present myself,
and, therefore, shall feel surprised as well as flattered if you will
receive Mr. Bassett on my introduction, and my assurance that he is a
respectable country gentleman, and bears no resemblance in character to
“Yours faithfully,
“ARTHUR VANDELEUR.”
Next day Bassett called at Miss Somerset's house in May Fair, and
delivered his introduction.
He was admitted after a short delay and entered the lady's boudoir. It
was Luxury's nest. The walls were rose colored satin, padded and
puckered; the voluminous curtains were pale satin, with floods and
billows of real lace; the chairs embroidered, the tables all buhl and
ormolu, and the sofas felt like little seas. The lady herself, in a
delightful peignoir, sat nestled cozily in a sort of ottoman with arms.
Her finely formed hand, clogged with brilliants, was just conveying
brandy and soda-water to a very handsome mouth when Richard Bassett
entered.
She raised herself superbly, but without leaving her seat, and just
looked at a chair in a way that seemed to say, “I permit you to sit
down;” and that done, she carried the glass to her lips with the same
admirable firmness of hand she showed in driving. Her lofty manner,
coupled with her beautiful but rather haughty features, smacked of
imperial origin. Yet she was the writer to “jorge,” and four years ago
a shrimp-girl, running into the sea with legs as brown as a berry.
So swiftly does merit rise in this world which, nevertheless, some
morose folk pretend is a wicked one.
I ought to explain, however, that this haughty reception was partly
caused by a breach of propriety. Vandeleur ought first to have written
to her and asked permission to present Richard Bassett. He had no
business to send the man and the introduction together. This law a
Parliament of Sirens had passed, and the slightest breach of it was a
bitter offense Equilibrium governs the world. These ladies were bound
to be overstrict in something or other, being just a little lax in
certain things where other ladies are strict.
Now Bassett had pondered well what he should say, but he was
disconcerted by her superb presence and demeanor and her large gray
eyes, that rested steadily upon his face.
However, he began to murmur mellifluously. Said he had often seen her
in public, and admired her, and desired to make her acquaintance, etc.,
etc.
“Then why did you not ask Sir Charles to bring you here?” said Miss
Somerset, abruptly, and searching him with her eyes, that were not to
say bold, but singularly brave, and examiners pointblank.
“I am not on good terms with Sir Charles. He holds the estates that
ought to be mine; and now he has robbed me of my love. He is the last
man in the world I would ask a favor of.”
“You came here to abuse him behind his back, eh?” asked the lady with
undisguised contempt.
Bassett winced, but kept his temper. “No, Miss Somerset; but you seem
to think I ought to have come to you through Sir Charles. I would not
enter your house if I did not feel sure I shall not meet him here.”
Miss Somerset looked rather puzzled. “Sir Charles does not come here
every day, but he comes now and then, and he is always welcome.”
“You surprise me.”
“Thank you. Now some of my gentlemen friends think it is a wonder he
does not come every minute.”
“You mistake me. What surprises me is that you are such good friends
under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances! what circumstances?”
“Oh, you know. You are in his confidence, I presume?”--this rather
satirically. So the lady answered, defiantly:
“Yes, I am; he knows I can hold my tongue, so he tells me things he
tells nobody else.”
“Then, if you are in his confidence, you know he is about to be
married.”
“Married! Sir Charles married!”
“In three weeks.”
“It's a lie! You get out of my house this moment!”
Mr. Bassett colored at this insult. He rose from his seat with some
little dignity, made her a low bow, and retired. But her blood was up:
she made a wonderful rush, sweeping down a chair with her dress as she
went, and caught him at the door, clutched him by the shoulder and half
dragged him back, and made him sit down again, while she stood opposite
him, with the knuckles of one hand resting on the table.
“Now,” said she, panting, “you look me in the face and say that again.”
“Excuse me; you punish me too severely for telling the truth.”
“Well, I beg your pardon--there. Now tell me--this instant. Can't you
speak, man?” And her knuckles drummed the table.
“He is to be married in three weeks.”
“Oh! Who to?”
“A young lady I love.”
“Her name?”
“Miss Arabella Bruce.”
“Where does she live?”
“Portman Square.”
“I'll stop that marriage.”
“How?” asked Richard, eagerly.
“I don't know; that I'll think over. But he shall not marry
her--never!”
Bassett sat and looked up with almost as much awe as complacency at the
fury he had evoked; for this woman was really at times a poetic
impersonation of that fiery passion she was so apt to indulge. She
stood before him, her cheek pale, her eyes glittering and roving
savagely, and her nostrils literally expanding, while her tall body
quivered with wrath, and her clinched knuckles pattered on the table.
“He shall not marry her. I'll kill him first!”