DOUBTS, PERPLEXITIES, AND A COMPROMISE.
Two days later the Countess paid her first visit to my lodging. I had
looked forward to the moment with a great longing, deeming that her
presence would in a measure consecrate the rooms, and that the memory
of what she did and said would linger about them afterwards like a
soft and tender light.
We had journeyed that morning in a party to view the Italian
Glass-house at Greenwich, and dining at a hostelry in the
neighbourhood, had returned by water. We disembarked at Westminster
steps, and I induced the company to favour me with their presence and
drink a dish of bohea in my apartment.
Now the sitting-rooms which I occupied were two in number and opened
upon each other, the first, which was the larger, lying along the
front of the house, and the second, an inner chamber, giving upon a
little garden at the back. Ilga, I noticed, wandered from one room to
the other, examining my possessions with an indefatigable curiosity.
For, said she:
"It is only by such means that one discovers the true nature of one's
friends. Conversation is but the pretty scabbard that hides the sword.
The blade may be lath for all that we can tell."
"You distrust your friends so much?"
"Have I no reason to?" she exclaimed, suddenly bending her eyes upon
me, and she paused in expectation of an answer. "But I forgot; you
know nothing of my history."
I turned away, for I felt the blood rushing to my face.
"I would fain hear you tell it me," I managed to stammer out.
"Some time I will," she replied quietly, "but not to-day; the time is
inopportune. For it is brimful of sorrow, and the telling of it will,
I trust, sadden you."
The strangeness of the words, and a passionate tension in her voice,
filled me with uneasiness, and I wheeled sharply round.
"For I take you for my friend," she explained softly, "and so count on
your sympathy. Yet, after all, can I count on it?"
I protested with some confusion that she could count on far more than
my sympathies.
"It may be," she replied. "But I believe, Mr. Buckler, the whole story
of woman might be written in one phrase. 'Tis the continual mistaking
of lath for steel."
"And never steel for lath?" I asked.
"At times, no doubt," she answered, recovering herself with an easy
laugh. "But we only find that error out when the steel cuts us. So
either way are we unfortunate. Therefore, I will e'en pursue my
inquiries," and she stepped off into the inner room, whither presently
I went to join her.
"Well, what have you discovered?" I asked.
"Nothing," she replied, with a plaintive shake of the head. "You
disappoint me sorely, Mr. Buckler. A student from the University of
Leyden should line his walls with volumes and folios, and I have found
but one book of Latin poems in that room, and not so much as a
pamphlet in this."
I started. The book of poems could be no other than my copy of Horace,
and it contained the plan of Lukstein Castle. I reflected, however,
that the plan was a mere diagram of lines, without even a letter to
explain it, and with only a cross at the point of ascent. The
Countess, moreover, had spoken in all levity; her tone betrayed no
hint of an afterthought.
A small package fastened with string lay on the table before her, and
beside of it a letter in Elmscott's handwriting. She picked up the
package.
"And what new purchase is this?" she asked, with a smile.
"I know nothing of it. It is no purchase, and I gather from the
inscription of the letter it comes from my cousin."
"I shall open it," said she, "and you must blame my sex for its
inquisitiveness."
"Madame," I replied, "the inquisitiveness implies an interest in the
object of it, and so pays me a compliment."
"Tis the sweetest way of condoning a fault that ever I met with," she
laughed, and dropped me a sweeping curtsey.
I broke the seal of Elmscott's letter while she untied the parcel.
"Marston's conversation at the theatre," he wrote, "reminded me of
these buckles. They belong of right to you, and since it seems your
turn has come to need luck's services, I send them gladly in the hope
that they may repeat their office on your behalf."
The parcel contained a shagreen case which Ilga unfastened. The
diamond buckles from it flashed with a thousand rays, and she tipped
them to and fro so that the stones might catch the light.
"Your cousin must have a great liking for you," she said. "For in
truth they are very beautiful."
"Elmscott is a gambler," I laughed, "with all a gambler's
superstitions," and I handed her the letter.
She read it through. "These buckles were your cousin's last stake, Mr.
Marston related," she said. "Do you believe that they will bring you
luck?"
"To believe would be presumption. I have no more courage than suffices
me to copy Elmscott's example, and hope."
She returned me no answer, giving, so it seemed, all her attention to
the brilliant jewels in her hands. But I saw the colour mounting in
her cheeks.
"Meanwhile," she said, after a pause, with a little nervous laugh,
"you are copying my bad example, and leaving your guests to divert
themselves."
Not knowing surely whether I had offended her or not, I deemed it best
to add nothing further or more precise to my hints, and got me back
into the larger room. Ilga remained standing where I left her, and
through the doorway I could see her still flashing the buckles
backwards and forwards. Her evident admiration raised an idea in my
mind. My guests were amusing themselves without any need of help from
me. Some new scandal concerning the King and the Countess of
Dorchester was being discussed for the tenth time that day with an
enthusiasm which expanded as the story grew, so that I was presently
able to slip back unnoticed. The inner room, however, was empty; but
the glass door which gave on to the garden stood open, and picking up
the shagreen case, I stepped out on to the lawn. Ilga was seated in a
low chair about the centre of the grass-plot, and the sun, which hung
low and red just above the ivied wall, burnished her hair, and was
rosy on her face.
"Madame," said I, advancing towards her, "I have discovered how best
to dispose of the buckles so that they may bring me luck."
"Indeed?" she asked indifferently. "And which way is it?"
"They are too fine for a plain gentleman's wearing," said I. "Sweet
looks and precious jewels go best together." With that, and awkwardly
enough, I dare say, for I always stumbled at a compliment, I opened
the case and offered it.
She looked at me for a space as though she had not understood, and
then:
"No, no," she cried, with extraordinary vehemence, repulsing my gift
so that the case flew out of my grasp, and the buckles sparkled
through the air in two divergent arcs, and dropped some few feet away
into the grass. She rose from her seat and drew herself up to her full
height, her eyes flashing and her bosom heaving. "How dare you?" she
exclaimed, and yet again, "How dare you?"
Conscious of no intention but to please her by a gift which she
plainly admired, I stared dumbfounded at the outburst.
"Madame!" I faltered out at last; and with a great effort she
recovered a part of her self-control.
"Mr. Buckler," she said, speaking with difficulty, while the blood
swirled in and out of her cheeks, "the present hurts me sorely, even
though--nay, all the more _because_, it comes from you. It is the
fashion, I know well, to believe that a few gems will bribe the good
will of any woman. But I hardly thought that--that you held me in such
poor esteem."
I protested that nothing could have been further from my designs than
the notion which she attributed to me, and went so far as to hint that
there was something extravagant and unreasonable in her anger. For,
said I, the gift was no bribe but a tribute, and, I continued, with
greater confidence as her pride diminished, if either of us had a
right to feel hurt, it was myself, whom she insulted by the imputation
of so mean a spirit.
"Then I am to humbly beg your pardon, I suppose," she cried, with
another flash of anger.
"Oh, there's no arguing with you," I burst out in a heat no less
violent than her own. "Who bids you beg my pardon? What makes you
suppose I need you should, unless it be your own proper and fitting
compunction? There's no moderation in your thoughts. You jump from one
extreme to the other as nimbly as--as----"
I was turning away with the sentence unfinished, when:
"I could supply the simile you want," she said, with a whimsical
demureness as sudden and inexplicable as her wrath, "only 'tis
something indelicate," and she broke into a ringing laugh.
To a man of my slow disposition, whose very passions have a certain
[oe]conomy which delays their growth, the rapid transitions of a
woman's humours have ever been confusing, and now I stood stockish and
dumb, gazing at the Countess open-mouthed, and vainly endeavouring,
like a fool, to reduce the various emotions she had expressed into a
logical continuity.
"And there!" she continued, "now I have shocked you by lack of
breeding!"
And once more she commenced to laugh with a mirth so natural and
infectious that presently it gained on me, and for no definite reason
that I could name I found myself laughing to her tune and with equal
heartiness. 'Twas none the less a wiser action than any deliberation
could have prompted me to, for here was our quarrel ended decisively,
and no words said.
For a while we strolled up and down the lawn, Ilga interspacing her
talk with little spirts of laughter, as now and again she looked at my
face, until we stopped at the end of the garden, just before a small
postern-door in the wall.
"It leads into the Park?" she asked.
"Yes! Shall we slip out?"
She looked back at the house.
"The host can hardly run away from his guests."
"There is no one in the room to notice us."
"But the room above? 'Twould look strange, whoever saw us."
"Nay, there can be no one there, for it is my dressing-room."
She took hold of the handle doubtfully and tried it.
"It is locked."
"But the key is on the mantelshelf. I will get it."
"In this little room?"
"No, 'tis in the larger room, but----"
"Nay," she interrupted, "our absence will be enough remarked as it is.
Clemence will read me a lecture on the proprieties all the way home."
Consequently we returned to the house, and the Countess took her leave
shortly with the rest of the company; but as I conducted her to the
door, she said a strange thing to me.
"Mr. Buckler," she said, "you should be angry more often," and so with
another laugh she walked away.
That night, as I sat smoking a pipe upon the lawn, I saw something
flash and sparkle in the rays of the moon, and I remembered that
Elmscott's buckles still lay where they had fallen. Picking them up, I
returned to my seat and fell straightway into a very bitter train of
thought. 'Twas the recollection of the Countess' indignation that set
me on it, for since the mere gift could provoke so stormy and sincere
an outburst, how would it have been, I reflected, had she really known
who the giver was? The thought pressed in upon me all the more heavily
for the reason which she had offered to account for her anger. She set
a value upon my esteem, and no small value either; so much she had
told me plainly. Now it had been my lot hitherto to meet with a
half-contemptuous tolerance rather than esteem; so that this unwonted
appreciation shown by the one person from whom I most desired it
filled me with a deep gratitude, and obliged me in her service. Yet
here was I requiting her with a calculating and continuous deception.
'Twas no longer of any use to argue that Count Lukstein had received
no greater punishment than his treachery merited; that but for his
last coward thrust he would have escaped even that; that the advantage
of the encounter had been on his side from first to last, since I was
chilled to the bone with my long vigil upon the terrace parapet. Such
excuses were the merest thistledown, and it needed but a breath from
her to blow them into air. The solid stalk of my thoughts was: "I was
deceiving her." And it was not merely the knowledge of my concealments
which tortured me, but an anticipation of the disdain and contempt
into which her kindliness would turn, should she ever discover the
truth.
For so closely had the idea and notion of her become inwoven in my
being that I ever estimated my actions and purposes by imagining the
judgment which she would be like to pass on them, and, indeed, saw no
true image of myself at all save that which was reflected from the
mirror of her thoughts.
I came then to consider what path I should follow. There were three
ways open to my choice. I might go on as heretofore, practising my
duplicity; or, again, I might pack my trunks and scurry ignominiously
back to my estate; or I might take my courage between my two hands and
tell the truth of the matter to the Countess, be the consequences what
they might.
Doubtless the last was the only honest course, and if I did not bring
myself to adopt it--well, I paid dearly enough for the fault. At the
time, however, the objections appeared to me insurmountable. In the
first place, my natural timidity cried out against this hazard of all
my happiness upon a single throw. Then, again, how could I tell her
the truth? For it was not merely myself that the story accused, nor
indeed in the main, but her husband. His treachery towards me in the
actual righting of the duel I might conceal, but not his treachery to
Julian, and I shrank from inflicting such shame upon her pride as the
disclosure must inevitably bring.
I deem it right to set out here the questions which so troubled me,
with a view to the proper understanding of this story. For on the very
next day, while I was still debating the matter in great abasement and
despondency, an incident occurred which determined me upon a
compromise.
It happened in this way. I had ridden out into the country early in
the morning, hoping that a vigorous gallop might help me to some
solution of my perplexities, and returning home in the evening,
chanced to be in my dressing-room shortly after seven of the clock.
My valet announced that Lord Culverton and my cousin were below, and I
sent word down that I would be with them in the space of a few
minutes. Elmscott, however, followed the servant up the stairs, and
coming into the room entertained me with the latest gossip, walking
about the while that he talked. In the middle of a sentence he stopped
before the window which, as I have said, overlooked the Park, and
broke off his speech with a sudden exclamation. I crossed to where he
stood, wishing to see what had brought him so abruptly to a stop. The
walks, however, were empty and deserted, it being the fashion among
the gentry of the town rather to favour Hyde Park at this hour. A
chair, certainly, stood at no great distance, but the porters were
smoking their pipes as they leaned against the poles, and I inferred
from that that it had no occupant.
"Wait," said Elmscott; "the wall of your garden hides them for the
moment."
As he spoke, two figures emerged from its shelter and walked into the
open. I gave a start as I saw them, and gripped Elmscott by the arm.
"Lord!" said he, "are you in so deep as that?"
The woman I knew at the first glance. The easy carriage of her head,
the light grace of her walk, were qualities which I had noted and
admired too often to make the ghost of a doubt possible. The man, who
was gaily dressed in a scarlet coat, an instinct of jealousy told me
was Hugh Marston. Their backs were towards the house, and I waited for
them to turn, which they did after they had walked some hundred paces.
Sure enough my suspicions were correct. The Countess was escorted by
Marston, her hand was upon his arm, and the pair sauntered slowly,
stopping here and there in their walk as though greatly concerned with
one another.
"Damn him!" I cried. "Damn him!"
Elmscott burst into a laugh.
"The pretty Countess," said he, "would be more discreet did she but
know you overlooked her."
"But she does know," I returned. "She knows that I lodge in the house;
she knows also that this room is mine."
"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a tone of comprehension, "she knows that!"
"Ay; and 'twas no further back than yesterday that she discovered it.
I told her myself."
Elmscott remained silent for a while, watching their promenade. Again
they disappeared within the shelter of the wall; again they emerged
from it, and again they promenaded some hundred paces and turned.
"I thought so," he muttered; "'tis all of a piece."
I asked what his words meant.
"You remember the evening at the Duke's Theatre, when she caught sight
of you across the pit? One might have imagined she would not have had
you see her on such close terms with our friend; that she feared you
might mistake her courtesy for proof of some deeper feeling."
"Well?" I asked, remembering how he had chuckled through the evening.
For such in truth had been my thought, and I had drawn no small
comfort from it.
"Well, she saw you long ere that; she saw you the moment she entered
the box, before I pointed her out to you. For she looked straight in
your direction and spoke to the Frenchwoman, nodding towards you."
"No, it is impossible!" I replied. I recollected how her hand had
fallen upon mine, and the musical sound of her words--"the occasion
may come, too." "There is no trace of the coquette about her. This
must be a mistake."
"It is you who are making it. Add her behaviour now," he waved his
hand to the window, "to what I have told you! See how the incidents
fit together. Yesterday she finds out your room commands the Park,
to-day she walks in Marston's company underneath the window, and
backwards and forwards, mark that! never moving out of range. 'Tis all
part of one purpose."
"But what purpose?" I cried passionately. "What purpose could she
serve?"
"The devil knows!" he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It is
of a woman we are speaking--you forget that."
I flung open the window noisily, in a desire to attract their
attention and observe how the Countess would take our discovery of her
interview. But she paid not the slightest heed to the sound. Elmscott
made a sudden dash to the door.
"Culverton!" he cried over the baluster.
I tried to check him, for I had no wish that Culverton's meddlesome
fingers should pry into the matter. I was too late, however; he
entered the room, and Elmscott drew him to the open window.
"Burn me, but 'tis the oddest thing!" he smirked.
For a minute or so we stood watching the couple in silence. Then the
Countess dropped her fan, and as Marston stooped to pick it up she
shot one quick glance towards us. Her companion handed her the fan,
and they resumed the promenade. But they took no more than half a turn
before the Countess signalled to the porters, and getting into the
chair, was carried off. Marston waited until she was out of sight,
with his hat in his hand, and then cocking it jauntily on his head,
marched off in the opposite direction. The satisfaction of his manner
made my blood boil with rage.
"The conceited ass!" I cried, stamping my feet.
"She heard the window open after all," said Elmscott.
As for Culverton, he tittered the more.
"The oddest thing!" he repeated. "The very oddest thing! Strike me
purple if I know what to make of the delightful creature!"
"'Tis as plain as my hand," replied Elmscott roughly. "No sooner did
she perceive that you were watching her than she gave Marston his
conge. He had done his work, and she had no further use for him. She
is a woman--there's the top and bottom of it. A couple of men to frown
at each other and grimace prettily to her! Her vanity demands no less.
She is like one of our Indian planters who value their wealth by the
number of their slaves; so she her beauty."
"Nay," interposed the fop. "If that were the whole business, one would
hear less concerning Mr. Buckler from her rapturous lips. But rat me
if she ever talks about any one else."
"Do you mean that?" I asked eagerly.
"Oh, most inquisitive, on my honour! In truth, your name is growing
plaguy wearisome to me. Why, but the other night, when she selected me
to lead her to her carriage at the theatre, 'twas but to question me
concerning you, and whether you gambled, and the horse of mine you
rode, and what not. And there was I with a thousand tender nothings to
whisper in her ear, and pink me if I could get one of 'em out!"
"Then I give the riddle up," rejoined Elmscott, though I would fain
have heard more of this strain from Culverton. "I make neither head
nor tail of the business, unless, Morrice, she would bring you on by a
little wholesome jealousy." He looked at me shrewdly, and continued:
"You are a timid wooer, I fancy. Why not go to her boldly? Tell her
you are going away, and have had enough of her tricks! 'Twould bring
your suit to a climax."
"One way or another," said I doubtfully.
"If Mr. Buckler would take the advice of one who has had some small
experience of ladies' whims," interposed Culverton, "and some
participation in their favours, he would buy some new clothes."
"These are new," I said. "I followed your advice before, and bought
enough to stock a shop."
"But of such a desperate colour," he replied. "Lard, Mr. Buckler, you
go dressed like a mute at a funeral! The ladies loathe it; stap me,
but they loathe it! A scarlet coat, like our friend wears, a full
periwig, an embroidered stocking, makes deeper inroads into their
affections than a year's tedious love-making. The dear creatures'
hearts, Mr. Buckler, are in their eyes."
With that the subject of Countess Lukstein dropped. For Culverton,
once started upon his favourite topic, launched forth into a complete
philosophy of clothes. The colour of each garment, according to him,
had a particular effect upon the sex; the adjustment of each ribbon
conveyed a particular meaning. He had, indeed, ingeniously classified
the various coats, hats, breeches, vests, periwigs, ruffles, cravats
and the other appurtenances of a gentleman's wardrobe, with the modes
of wearing them, as expressions of feeling and emotion. The larger and
more dominant emotions were voiced in the clothes, the delicate and
subtler shades of feeling in the disposition of ornaments. In short,
'twould be a very profitable philosophy for a race which had neither
tongues to speak nor faces and limbs to act their meaning.
This incident, as I have said, determined me upon a compromise, for it
set my heart aflame with jealousy. I had not taken Marston into my
calculations before; now I reflected that if I retired to the North, I
should be leaving a free field for him, and that I was obstinately
minded I would not do. On the other hand, however, this promenade in
front of my windows, whether undertaken of set purpose or from sheer
carelessness, seemed to show that after all I had no stable footing in
Ilga's esteem, and I feared that if I disclosed to her the deception
which I had used towards her, there could be but one result and
consequence.
I determined then to forward my suit with what ardour and haste I
might, and to unbosom myself of my fault in the very hour that I
pleaded my love.
The Countess, however, gave me no heart or occasion for the work. Her
manner towards me changed completely of a sudden, and where I had
previously met with smiles and kindly words, I got now disdainful
looks and biting speeches. She would ridicule my conversation, my
person, and my bearing, and that, too, before a room full of people,
so that I was filled with the deepest shame; or again, she would
shrink from me with all the appearances of aversion. Mademoiselle
Durette, it is true, sought to lighten my suffering. "It is ever
Love's way to blow hot and cold," she would whisper in my ear. But I
thought that she spoke only out of compassion. For 'twas the cold wind
which continually blew on me.
At times, indeed, though very rarely, she would resume her old
familiarity, but there was a note of effort in her voice as though she
subdued herself to a distasteful practice, and something hysterical in
her merriment; and as like as not, she would break off in the middle
of a kindly sentence and load me with the extremity of scorn.
Moreover, Marston was perpetually at her side, and in his company she
made more than one return to the Park; so that at last, being fallen
into a most tormenting despair, I made shift to follow Elmscott's
advice, and called at her lodging one morning to inform her that I
intended setting my face homewards that very afternoon.