HERBERT ON HIS METTLE.
Herbert was all unconscious that he had been observed leaving
the cottage near the Moorish Castle; still more that he had been
overheard addressing Mrs. Larkins, as of old, by the affectionate
title of mother. Had he heard what passed between Edith and Captain
Mountcharles upon that occasion it might have modified his plans
very considerably. For now at length, after much hesitation and
delay, he had made up his mind to speak to Edith on the first
opportunity, and tell her of his love. Matters had long continued
in this most unsatisfactory state with him. He had suffered
tortures; he had been continually in suspense, for ever torn by
hopes and fears. One day he was in the seventh heaven, the next
in the very depths of despair. He could do no work. Edith seemed
to come between him and his duty. He thought of her always,
everywhere. He was for ever sketching her face upon the official
blotting pad in the orderly-room; he was all but giving Edith as
the countersign when challenged by the sentries; he very nearly
mixed up her name with the words of command upon parade.
Latterly, however, he had been in much better heart. She did not
encourage him, perhaps, as much as he would have liked, but she
favoured him more, he thought, than any of his fellows. Therefore
it was that he had brought himself up to the terrible ordeal of
staking his fate upon the throw; and it was with this intention
that he approached Miss Prioleau the very next time they met.
It was at a ball at the Convent, at the well known palace or
residence of the Governor of the Rock. Edith was seated upon a
fauteuil in the _patio_, or central courtyard, between the dances.
Her companion was Captain Mountcharles.
‘May I have the pleasure of a dance, Miss Prioleau?’ Herbert asked.
‘I’m afraid I have none left.’
‘You promised me the second valse--quite a week ago.’
‘Miss Prioleau is engaged for that to me,’ put in Captain
Mountcharles, rather rudely.
‘The next, then?’ went on Herbert to Edith, without taking any
notice of the A.D.C.
‘And for that too,’ said Mountcharles, in much the same tone as
before.
‘Pardon me, I was speaking to Miss Prioleau, and I trust she will
give me the answer herself.’
‘It’s quite--’ true she was going to say, as the easiest way out
of the thing. But she was far too honest to tell a lie, even about
a dance, and besides there was a mute appealing look in Herbert’s
face which went to her heart. ‘I mean that you are rather late in
the day, Mr. Larkins.’
She had promised not to dance with him, that was the fact. There
had been a scene at the general’s about this Mr. Larkins, as Mrs.
Prioleau called him. Edith had been taken rather sharply to task
for encouraging him, and both father and mother had begged her to
be careful. The man wasn’t half good enough for her, they said.
They had no absurd scruples about birth and position, and all that,
still she ought to do much better than take a soldier of fortune,
about whom and his belongings nothing whatever was known. Edith,
remembering the Moorish Castle adventure, thought she could have
enlightened her parents as to Herbert’s belongings, but she had
no wish to injure him or to blacken him in their eyes. She only
hotly repudiated the charge of favouring him, and agreed readily
to do anything they wished. She would cut him if they liked. Not
necessary? Well, snub him then? Not necessary either. What then?
General and Mrs. Prioleau declared they would be satisfied if she
would promise not to dance with the objectionable pretender at the
Governor’s ball, and Edith gave her word to that effect.
This was why she had received Herbert so coldly. The other
adventure had weighed, perhaps, with her, but not much.
As for Herbert, he was utterly taken aback. What could be the
matter with Edith? Why this extraordinary change? Was the girl
capricious, a mere flirt, a garrison belle, to whom admiration was
everything, and admirers or their feelings simply nothing at all?
Herbert did not like to think so hardly of her all at once, and
resolved to make another attempt.
‘Is it quite hopeless, Miss Prioleau? May I not have one dance,
only one?’ again he pleaded, with such earnest eyes that Edith
Prioleau was touched and on the point of giving way.
‘Why did you cut me the other day, Mr. Larkins?’ suddenly asked
Captain Mountcharles, with the idea of creating some diversion.
‘I never cut you’--although I probably shall, and the sooner the
better--Herbert was disposed to add. ‘When and where was it?’
‘Near the Moorish Cottage; you were coming out of some soldiers’
quarters.’
‘Oh yes, Sergeant Larkins.’
‘Relations, perhaps,’ the other observed impertinently.
‘Very near and very dear,’ Herbert replied promptly. This was not
an occasion on which he would deny his old friends.
‘At any rate you are honest, Mr. Larkins,’ Edith said, with a frank
smile, but Herbert knew from the speech that Edith had been also
present, and he seemed to understand now why she was so different
to him.
‘Honesty is not the exclusive property of high birth, Miss
Prioleau, and I can claim at least to have as much as my
neighbours.’
‘Come, Edith, the music is playing,’ cried Captain Mountcharles,
springing up; ‘we are losing half the dance.’
‘I’m not going to dance this,’ she replied coolly, adding, as he
stared at her with indignant surprise, ‘I don’t care whether you’re
cross or not. Go and find some other partners; there are plenty
upstairs. I mean to stay here. Mr. Larkins will take care of me, I
daresay.’
A quick flush of pleasure sprung to Herbert’s cheek. She was
relenting; she did not mean to quarrel with him altogether. Perhaps
after all she had been only trying him, and was ready to yield if
he only took heart of grace to speak up and out to her like a man.
Mountcharles, with a sulky snort and a very savage look, had risen
from his seat and walked off, leaving Herbert considerably elated,
master of the field.
Our hero would have been less joyous, perhaps, had he known Edith’s
reason for thus appearing to favour him. With the native quick
wittedness of a daughter of Eve, she had guessed already what was
the matter with Herbert. A man who seeks to disguise his feelings
in the presence of the woman he loves may flatter himself that he
plays his part to perfection, but it is generally the flimsiest
attempt even to ordinary feminine eyes, most of all to those of
the beloved object. Edith had seen through him from the first. She
knew that he was on the brink of a declaration, that he needed
but the slightest encouragement to fall, metaphorically, even
practically, at her feet. It was better that he and she should
come to an understanding; that he should realise, even at some pain
to himself, as well as to her, that they could only be friends to
each other, nothing more.
There was a certain amount of coquetry in her fresh young voice and
of archness in her bright eyes as she looked up to him and said,
‘Well, Mr. Larkins?’
He had been standing in front of her for some minutes, seeming
rather _gauche_ and stupid, and without uttering a word; courage
seemed to come to him at once from her voice and look.
‘I was wondering whether you would listen to me, Miss Prioleau,
while I told you a story--a long story--’
‘That depends. Is it interesting? Is it founded on fact? What is it
about?’
‘It will be as interesting as I can make it. It is undoubtedly
true, and it is all about myself.’
‘Your own history?’
‘Yes, so far as I know it.’
She made no answer, but just moved her skirts a little, with the
gesture that implied she wished him to sit by her side.
There were other couples in the _patio_, patrolling or resting
between the dances; there might be many interruptions; there
certainly could be no privacy in this place, and Herbert did not
wish his confidences published to all the world.
‘Shall we take a turn in the garden?’ Herbert asked, rather
diffidently. ‘I shall be able to speak more unreservedly there.’
She nodded her head, and, getting up, took his arm without a word.
They passed out from the _patio_ to the Convent garden--a perfect
paradise that night for lovers. The moon was at its full--a
southern moon--and flooded every place with warm white light; above
was the deep purple sky, and high into it rose the steep crags of
the great Rock. The soft and mellow air was loaded with fragrance;
a wealth of southern flowers, all now in their full bloom, filled
the beds about, and among them were great bushes like trees of
syringa, and of the _dama de noche_, which only give forth their
full perfume at night. The sweet strains of an excellent band,
playing for the dancers in the great ball-room up-stairs, rose and
fell like a distant echo, and added greatly to the enchantment of
the scene.
Walking here with the girl of his heart, Herbert spoke eloquently
and well. He told everything that had happened to him from his
earliest days. The poor home in Triggertown barracks; the sudden
appearance of the great lady who had charged herself with his
education; the fine prospects which seemed to open before him on
approaching manhood, and how they had been suddenly ruined. He
spoke feelingly of the treatment he had received at the hands of
Sir Rupert Farrington.
‘Which you so nobly repaid,’ interjected Edith.
He narrated the circumstances of his birth and parentage, and
expatiated upon the affectionate devotion of old Mrs. Larkins,
who had been a second mother to him; he touched lightly upon the
chances which were still his of obtaining a title to a large estate
and a good old name. He finished, and waited to hear what she would
say.
But she was silent, and for so long that he feared she was annoyed.
‘You are not vexed? I have not bored you, I hope?’ he said.
‘Oh, no, no; I was only thinking--thinking how hardly you had been
used--how some of us, too, had misjudged you.’
She spoke in a low soft voice, which thrilled through him.
‘You were not one of those, surely? You, whose good opinion I value
above all earthly things? Oh, Miss Prioleau, there is so much I
have still to say to you that I hardly know how to begin. Can you
not guess why I have told you my life? I wished only to interest
you in myself, to explain why as yet I appear to be other than I
really am. I felt it necessary, because I feared you despised me
for my lowly birth--’
‘No, no, indeed, I never did that.’
‘I knew it, I knew it, but I wished to be perfectly sure. You
are too good, Edith, too honest to be swayed by mere class
distinctions--’
He was suddenly and rather rudely interrupted by the abrupt tones
of General Prioleau’s voice--
‘But I am not, Mr. Larkins, and the sooner you know that the
better. You probably despise them, as you do those conventional
rules of propriety by which any one of the gentleman class would be
bound.’
The general spoke with great warmth. There was no abatement in the
angriness of his tone as he turned to his daughter and said,
‘Edith, your mother and I have been looking for you for some time
past. I hardly thought to find you here and to see that you have
not kept your promise.’
‘I gave no promise; I never said I would not speak to Mr. Larkins
again,’ Edith said stoutly, although her eyes were brimming over
with tears.
‘Gaston, give Edith your arm, and take her back to her mother. I
have a word or two to say to this--_gentleman_.’
Herbert, however, had by this time found his voice. He was brave
enough too and spoke up to the general, in spite of their disparity
in rank, as one man would to another.
‘I am truly sorry, sir, to have acted in a manner which is
distasteful to you, but I cannot admit that I deserve your harsh
words. I have done nothing wrong, sir--’
‘Nothing wrong!’ repeated the general, bitterly, ‘not in seeking to
entrap the affections of an inexperienced young girl? Nothing wrong
in inveigling her to compromise herself with you by this long and
solitary _tête-à-tête_? Nothing wrong!’
‘I am deeply and sincerely attached to your daughter, sir, and I
wished to ask her to become my wife.’
‘Was there ever such matchless effrontery? _You? You_ to aspire to
my daughter’s hand? What position could you give her? what would
you live upon?’
‘I am not utterly penniless; I have good expectations; I have hopes
indeed of succeeding to a title--’
‘That of _chevalier d’industrie_, I presume. But this is sheer
waste of time. I know all about you--all I wish to hear--and I
want nothing further. Our acquaintance must cease; I forbid you to
enter my house, or ever again to address my daughter. I decline
distinctly to hold any further communications with you. If your
own good taste does not prompt you to accede to my wishes, I must
try to protect myself and my family by other means.’
‘I will win her in spite of you, general,’ said Herbert, firmly and
very coolly, although his blood was up. ‘It is due to myself to say
that neither by word or deed have I knowingly sought to entangle
Miss Prioleau in any engagement. She is under no promise to me; I
am not certain whether she cares for me, even as a friend. But if
God but grants me strength and health to fight my way, she shall
one day be my wife, and that in spite of you all.’
And he walked away, leaving General Prioleau aghast at his
impudence.