"HOW SHOULD I GREET THEE?"
The German diplomatist took Cecil in to dinner, and she found herself
seated a very long way from Major Gordon, who was quite hidden from her
by a barrier of hothouse flowers, crystallised fruits, and oxydised
silver candelabra. There was a little interval in the drawing-room
after the long elaborate banquet, during which Flo and the rest of the
amateur performers disappeared from the horizon. There were constant
arrivals of people who came from short distances to assist at the
private theatricals, and the room filled rapidly in this interregnum.
And in all the time Major Gordon and Cecil O'Boyneville happened to be
at different ends of the long room, almost as far apart as they had
been with the Overland journey between them, Cecil thought, as she
caught glimpses of the familiar figure now and then at the end of a
long vista.
There was rather a longer interval than had been anticipated, and
Mr. Lobyer, lounging in his favourite attitude against one of the
mantelpieces, looked at his watch more than once with a disagreeable
sneer upon his face.
"Half-past ten," he said, "and these amateurs were to have begun at
ten. I suppose Evershed has lost his boots--or his memory--at the last
moment; or my wife has set fire to her wig, or the machinery of the
curtains is found to be unmanageable, or there is something agreeable
of that kind in the wind. I never knew people make fools of themselves
in this way that they didn't come to grief in some manner."
But Mr. Lobyer's forebodings were not realised. The door was flung open
presently, and a solemn butler announced that the performance was about
to commence; whereupon there was considerable rejoicing and some little
bustle.
The German diplomatist again presented himself to Cecil, and escorted
by that gentleman, she made her way to the billiard-room, where, in the
confusion attendant on the placing of some fifty or sixty people, she
had little time to notice who occupied the seat next her. It was only
when the rustling of silk and fluttering of tulle, the whispering and
exclaiming, the questioning and answering, and entreating and refusing,
and all the polite squabbling was over, and every one fairly settled,
that Cecil glanced towards the person on her right hand. Her heart had
been beating at an abnormal pace all the evening; but perhaps it beat
a little faster when she perceived that her right-hand neighbour was
Major Gordon.
They were to be seated side by side during the performance of a
five-act comedy--for two hours at least--so near that when he moved his
arm in unfolding his perfumed programme he stirred the airy puffings
of her dress. As yet he was--or appeared to be unconscious of her
presence, and was listening deferentially to Miss Evershed's animated
discourse; for though that young lady was apt to express herself very
strongly in reprobation of the husband-hunting propensities of other
girls, she was renowned as one of the most desperate flirts in the
county.
Cecil found herself wondering that Hector Gordon should be there,
listening to the foolish talk of a lighthearted coquette, when it
was only nine or ten months since the current of his life had been
overshadowed by sorrow and death. His manner was graver and more
subdued than of old, it is true; but still he was there, amidst that
scene of foolish gaiety, while his young wife's grave was not yet a
year old.
The band-master waved his baton while Cecil was thinking this, and the
band began the overture to the _Bronze Horse_. It was in the midst of
this lively music that Hector Gordon turned and met the eyes of the
woman he had once asked to be his wife. They saluted each other as
ceremoniously as if they faintly remembered having met once before
at a ball, or a morning concert, or somewhere. Cecil had been paler
than usual from the early part of that evening, and on first seeing
the Scotchman she had observed that the old warm glow of colour had
vanished from his bearded face. If she fancied for a moment that he
grew paler as he looked at her, it was only a foolish fancy, which she
dismissed in the next instant.
"How do you do, Lady Cecil O'Boyneville?" he said, with just the
faintest emphasis on the surname.
"How do you do, Major Gordon?"
Cecil would have been terribly perplexed had she been called upon to
say any thing more; but amidst the brazen prancings of the _Bronze
Horse_ this was about as much as could be said.
The band-master flourished his baton in a kind of frenzy as he urged
his men to the climax; the cornets and trombones blew themselves into
convulsions, and with a brilliant volley of chords, short and sharp as
file-firing, the crimson velvet curtains swept apart, revealing a bijou
chamber which Vestris herself might have envied.
It was a boudoir hung with white satin, and furnished with chairs and
sofas and tiny fragile tables of white wood, that were miracles of the
upholsterer's art. On tables and cabinets there were vases of Sèvres
biscuit filled with white exotics. Every thing in the gem-like chamber
was white. It was the virginal nest of a Parisian _aristocrate_ of the
old _régime;_ such a nest as one might find nowadays in the _Champs
Elysées_ or the _Rue Taibout_, occupied by a different tenant. The
comedy was called _On accorde à qui persévère_, and was one of those
airy fabrics which can only be constructed by the light hand of a
Gallic workman.
The Comtesse de Presles is lovely, rich, aristocratic, a widow,
and two-and-twenty. For her the universe is the sunniest and most
delightful affair. She revels in her beauty, her wealth, her youth, her
freedom: but so many charms are accompanied with certain penalties.
The Countess is persecuted by the crowd of her adorers; and at last,
in order to escape their importunities, in very despair she accepts
the addresses of the Duc d'Auberive, a gentleman of forty years, _bien
sonnées_, stiff, grand, all that there is of the most patrician--a man
whose ancestors have made their own terms with the Kings of France--a
man whose great-grandfather's arrogance would have defied the throne,
had it not been strangled by the iron hand of a Richelieu.
Affianced to this gentleman, whom she respects but does not love,
Léonie de Presles is tranquil. Her lovers can no longer molest her. The
name of the Duc d'Auberive will serve as an ægis, before which the most
presumptuous of these _soupirants_ must retire abashed.
No, not the most presumptuous. There is the Marquis, the most utter
scapegrace amongst them all. The man whose case was of all others most
hopeless--_le dernier des derniers_; the rejected of the rejected;
poor, out-at-elbows--morally, not actually, for he makes his creditors
dress him handsomely in spite of themselves--dissipated, reckless; a
man who has squandered an enormous fortune at _lansquenet_, and has
lampooned the Pompadour; a man who at any moment may be consigned to
the darkest underground cell in the Bastille, to finish his worthless
life in the society of rats and spiders. And this man dares to pursue
the lovely Countess with his insolent importunities. He dares even
more. He tells her that she shall marry him. Yes; though he is poor
and worthless and a scapegrace--though he has lost all his money at
_lansquenet_--though she has affianced herself to that respectable
idiot the Duke. He loves her. Is not that enough? As to the fortune he
has lost--a bagatelle! For her sake he will win another fortune. As for
the fury of the Pompadour--he defies the Pompadour. For Léonie's sake
he will do any thing that is desperate--save the King's life when it
has not been in peril; discover the details of a great political plot
that has never existed; do something to win the favour of the monarch
himself, in spite of the Pompadour.
It is in vain that the Countess would banish this insolent. She denies
him her door--he comes in at the window. She gives her servants the
most severe orders--instant dismissal for the renegade who admits the
Marquis. But in spite of her the rejected wretch is perpetually at
her feet. She triumphs in the thought of having outwitted him, and
the next moment he is there--by her side. She sends for her milliner,
and lo, her milliner is the Marquis. She orders a cup of chocolate,
and the lackey who brings it is the Marquis. She summonses one of her
gardeners to complain of the poverty of her exotics, and the gardener
is transformed into the Marquis.
And in all this there are involved those exquisite complications,
that delicious _èquivoque_ of which Scribe was so great a master.
Every moment there is some fresh situation, some new and delightful
perplexity. Now the Marquis is hiding behind a screen--now dipping
his powered head up and down behind an ottoman. The Duke is always
being fooled more or less, and the Countess is forced into deceptions
she abhors by the artifices of her impertinent suitor. And with the
fabulous good luck of all these fascinating scapegraces of the Parisian
drama, the Marquis triumphs over every difficulty. All that he has
promised to do in jest, he is able to achieve in earnest: without
effort, for the trump-cards of fortune drop into his hands. He _does_
save the King's life, in a hunting party, almost by accident. He _does_
discover a real political conspiracy, and again almost by accident. The
King is delighted with him, the Pompadour forgives him, the forfeited
lands of an ancestor are restored to him. A Jew miser who has begged
of him, and whom he has assisted, dies and leaves him millions. And
at last, tormented beyond all measure, the Countess yields; the Duke
retires, glad to be out of a contest which is altogether unfamiliar to
his stateliness, and the Marquis triumphs.
Such a piece as this seems written to be acted in a drawing-room.
There is no declamation, there are no heroics. Nothing is wanted but
coquettish grace in the women, ease and assurance in the men. And
who can imagine any thing more delightful than Florence Lobyer in
the _rôle_ of the persecuted Countess? Such bewitching insolence of
the grand dame; such fascinating hauteur; such delicious grace in
refusing; such lovely tenderness in the moment of relenting. And the
Pompadour dress--that most perfect of all fashions ever invented to
render loveliness irresistible--that costume in which plebeian beauty
loses its alloy of vulgar clay, and is sublimated into the ideal--that
bewildering and bewitching attire which imparts to the snub-nose of a
Dunbarry a grace unsurpassed by the classic profile of a Phryne--what
of Florence Lobyer in blue brocade and old point, powder and diamonds,
patches and hoop, high-heeled shoes with glittering buckles and
gold-embroidered stockings? If Mr. Lobyer had chosen his wife because
she was the best thing to be had in the way of wives, he had good
reason to be proud of her to-night, when she flashed her beauty and her
diamonds upon the dazzled eyes of his guests.
He was proud of her--after his own sullen fashion--and angry with
her too; for another man shared the applause which she won, and made
himself the central feature in the night's triumph. It was not of Mr.
Lobyer's wealth, or the glories of Pevenshall--the oxydised silver
candelabra and epergnes--the looking-glass plateau, with its border of
silver bulrushes and silver stags drinking in the placid stream; it
was not of the splendour of Mr. Lobyer's dinner-table, or the cost of
Mr. Lobyer's modern pictures, that these people would talk when they
went home. The event of the evening was the amateur acting, which the
master of Pevenshall stigmatised as tomfoolery; and the triumphs of the
evening belonged to Florence and Sir Nugent.
Lolling in his luxurious chair, and staring at the brilliant little
stage with a moody countenance, Mr. Lobyer reflected upon many things,
the thought of which was scarcely adapted to the scene in which he
found himself. Ah, if at some delightful assembly where every one is
looking so pleased and happy, one could take the roofs off people's
brains, as Asmodeus lifted the tiles and timbers of Madrid, what
strange subjects we should find our friends pondering! There would be
Smith thinking of that iniquitous lawsuit, in which the villany of some
pettifogging attorney has involved him; Brown calculating the amounts
of renewed accommodation-bills, which must so soon be renewed again;
Mrs. Jones thinking what a brute Jones has been for the last week,
and how shamefully he is flirting with that brazen-faced Mrs. Smith;
Thomson brooding over the gloom of the Stock Exchange, and the amount
of capital he has squandered on "contango." And yet "the dalliance
and the wit" go on all the while. Mrs. Brown sings one of her pretty
sentimental songs--"Robin Adair," or "John Anderson my Jo"--while
her feelings towards Brown are almost murderous; Smith warbles his
little French _chanson_--all about _laissons rire-er_, and _un beau
sourire-er_--and is thinking of what he should like to do to the lawyer
even as he warbles. Oh sublime hypocrisies of social intercourse! Is
sadde-of-mutton very often cold; salmon, whose attendant cucumber
comes too late; ice-pudding, dissolving languidly on the napkin that
envelopes it; are the cates and confections of a modern dinner worth
so much deception? Instead of the stereotyped invitation prepared by
a fashionable stationer, why do not our friends write to us, saying,
"Come, let us weep and howl together; for sorrows are many, and life is
bitter?"
Leaning back in his chair, and looking at the stage, where the
Marquis in violet velvet and gold was coquetting with the Countess in
blue brocade and diamonds, Thomas Lobyer's thoughts went back to an
unforgotten time, and he saw a grassy angle, shut in by ivy-covered
walls, and heard the clamorous voices of a crowd of boys. He felt a
shower of blows sent home by a practised arm, the hot breath of an
antagonist upon his cheek, a handsome face pressing closer and closer
to his own. He felt all this; and the vengeful fury of that moment came
back to him, intensified by certain feelings that had influenced him of
late.
"He makes himself at home in my house," thought the millionaire. "_He_
gives his orders to the upholsterers, I'll warrant, though they'll send
their bills to me. _He_ chooses the piece that is to be played; _he_
secures the services of the band. And I know that he hates me, and he
knows that I hate him; and yet we smirk and grin at each other, like
a couple of clowns at a fair. If that knife had struck nearer home,
and had done for him altogether, it couldn't have been much worse for
me than it was. I dare say I should only have had a twelvemonth's
imprisonment or so, and I shouldn't have had him turning up on my
wedding tour, and taking possession of my house."
The comedy came to an end at last. It had seemed _very_ long to Cecil.
The German diplomatist had talked to her between the acts, and Major
Gordon had talked to Miss Evershed.
After the comedy there was an adjournment to the dining-room, for a
stand-up supper,--one of those suppers which admit of such ravages
in stealthy middle-aged devourers, who prowl from table to table and
from sideboard to buffet, sipping of one sweet and then flying to the
rest; consuming unknown quantities of white soup and lobster-salad;
taking now a seven-and-sixpenny peach, now a plate of plovers' eggs
embedded in savoury jelly; pausing here to quaff sparkling hock, and
lingering there to imbibe dry champagne. Such a supper-room affords a
superb platform for flirtation; and the young ladies staying in the
house, and the young lady-visitors of the evening, did considerable
execution among the Plungers, recently returned from the pale beauties
of Hindostan, and ready to fall victims to the rosy brightness of fresh
young British belles.
Cecil saw that Hector Gordon was graver and more subdued than his
brother officers; but she saw also that he talked to Miss Evershed
very much as he had talked to herself in the first days of their
acquaintance at Fortinbras, and that he was undisturbed by any memory
of the past. She felt that she had reason to be very glad of this.
Any apparent consciousness of that brief romance by the sea-shore on
his part must have been unspeakably painful to her now; and yet--and
yet--she felt, at the same time, that Hector Gordon's calm indifference
did not give her so much pleasure as it should have done.
The close of the evening was very brilliant. The band of the Plungers
adjourned to the great conservatory opening out of the drawing-room,
after having supped luxuriously--so luxuriously indeed, that one of
the cornet-players bungled considerably in the process of changing his
keys, and was severely reprimanded by his chief. But the Pevenshall
guests were too deep in flirtation and pleasure to be aware of any
transient hitch in the harmony of that delicious Plunger band, which
played waltzes and galops to perfection; and the effect of the red
coats and glittering brazen instruments seen athwart the dusky foliage
of palm and orange, citron and cactus, was picturesque in the extreme.
Foremost among the waltzers were Florence in her Pompadour dress, and
Sir Nugent in his violet-velvet coat and diamond-hilted rapier; and the
German diplomatist watching them observed to Cecil that it was evident
the baronet had learned to waltz upon the other side of the Alps.
Conspicuous on account of her position as mistress of the house, doubly
conspicuous because of her beauty and brilliant costume, Mrs. Lobyer
could not indulge in the mildest flirtation without incurring a certain
degree of observation; and her flirtation with Sir Nugent to-night was
not of the mildest order. It seemed as if he could not quite put off
his character of the scapegrace adorer while he still wore the dress.
As he had pursued the lovely Countess in the comedy, so he pursued
the bewitching Mrs. Lobyer now that the comedy was over. As Flo had
coquetted in her _rôle_ of the Countess, so she coquetted now.
Fast young squires remarked to their intimates that the pretty little
woman was "going the pace." Dowagers regarded Mrs. Lobyer curiously
through double eye-glasses. Even Miss Evershed shrugged her shoulders,
and told her confidante of the moment that the flirtation was really
becoming a little too glaring.
"I shall speak to Nugent about it to-morrow," she said; "for I think he
minds me as much as he does any one; and as I know she is a good little
thing, with no real harm in her, I don't like to see her make a fool of
herself."
It was nearly four o'clock when the last carriage rolled away from
beneath the Italian portico. It was quite four o'clock when Florence
went up stairs with Cecil.
"Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day:
Low on the sand, and loud on the stone,
The last wheel echoes away,"
exclaimed Mrs. Lobyer, whose gaiety throughout the evening had been of
a very feverish order. "Let me come to your room, Cecil. We'll have
some strong tea, and talk over our evening. Do you think it has been
successful?"
The two ladies were on the threshold of Cecil's room as Florence asked
this question. They went into the luxurious little retreat, where the
fire and candles were always burning as brightly as if they had been
watched by some genius of comfort rather than by an ordinary attendant.
Mrs. Lobyer rang for tea; and then, after flinging herself into one of
the low chairs, pulled off her powdered wig with its superstructure of
plumes and diamonds.
"Oh, how my head aches!" she exclaimed as she loosened her hair and
let it fall in a shower upon her shoulders. "I wonder whether real
actresses ever feel as I have felt to-night. Do you know that I had a
splitting headache before dinner, and that my brain has been throbbing
like a steam-engine all the evening. Just put your hand upon my head."
Cecil laid her fingers gently upon the fair young head, which was
burning with fever. She brought eau-de-cologne from the adjoining room,
and bathed her friend's forehead. Mrs. Lobyer's maid appeared while
Cecil was doing this.
"Let us have some strong green-tea, Martin," said Flo; "and bring me a
dressing-gown. I want to get rid of this horrible dress."
The maid retired to give her order, and returned almost immediately
with a loose garment of white cashmere and quilted satin. She took
to pieces the brilliant Pompadour toilette, the diamonds and lace
and bouquets and plumes, and removed the useless litter, leaving her
mistress wrapped in the dressing-gown, with her fair hair falling about
her face and neck.
She lay back in her luxurious chair in a listless attitude, looking
dreamily at the fire, and did not speak until some little time after
the tea-service had been brought.
"You are sure that you are not sleepy, Cecil, and that I am not making
myself a nuisance?" she said at last.
"Quite sure, dear. Shall I pour you out some tea?"
"If you please: only it isn't fair that you should wait upon me."
"You have so much more reason to be tired than I have."
"But I am not in the least tired," exclaimed Flo; "I am only
preternaturally awake. And now tell me, Cecil, do you think my evening
has been a success?"
"I think people enjoyed themselves extremely."
"That is no answer, Cecil."
"And I think you acted charmingly; indeed every one thought so; but----"
"Ah, there it is! I expected the 'but.' What is it, Cecil?"
"Am I to be candid, Flory? You know I love you very sincerely, dear;
and I want our friendship to be something more than the conventional
friendliness of women who praise each other's dresses and bonnets. Am I
to speak without reserve?"
"Oh yes, if you please," answered Flo, with a sigh of resignation. "I
have been doing something dreadful, I suppose?"
"I think you know what I am going to say as well as I do, Florence."
"Perhaps I do; but you shall say it notwithstanding. What is it?"
"You remember what we talked of this afternoon. I told you that I
thought your manner with Sir Nugent Evershed was a little different
from your manner with other people, and apt to invite observation on
that account. I tell you frankly, Florence, that your manner and his
manner to-night _did_ attract observation, and that some of your guests
spoke of you as they had no right to speak. People are very incautious
in a crowded room, and one hears things that are not intended to be
heard."
To Cecil's surprise her friend burst into a laugh--a clear silvery peal
of laughter, which would have been charming if it had not been in such
strange discord with the occasion.
"And so people have begun to talk of me?" she said. "I dare say they
have talked enough of Mr. Lobyer and Miss de Raymond; and now I suppose
they will talk of me and Sir Nugent Evershed."
"Florence, for Heaven's sake don't talk like that!"
"How would you have me talk? Am I to submit tamely to my wrongs? If my
husband outrages me, I will outrage him. Why, those ignorant country
people could give me the clue to Mr. Lobyer's indifference. They know
that my husband devotes his life to another woman--and has only married
me because he wants some one to sit at the head of his table who
does not smoke or swear or paint herself red and white, like Miss de
Raymond. He likes the smoking and the swearing and the red and white
paint, you know; and I have no doubt he thinks me a horribly insipid
creature; but society is not yet so advanced that he can afford to
place a Miss de Raymond at the head of his table. That will come in due
course."
"Florence, you must not speak of things in this way. I know, dear, that
your position is a most painful one, and I can only think of one thing
that you can do to lessen its misery."
"And what is that?"
"Write to your father, telling him every thing, or beg him to come to
you. He is the only person you can safely trust with the secret you
have so unhappily discovered."
"Secret!" cried Flo, bitterly; "a secret that is known to all the
country side. No, Cecil; your advice is very good, I dare say; but it
is advice that I can never act upon. I have made a mistake, but I made
it with my eyes open; and I will never tell my father how miserably
my folly has come home to me. He gave his consent to my marriage with
such reluctance; he knew that I was selling myself for fine clothes
and a splendid establishment. But I tried to deceive him--I tried to
deceive myself. Modern London is a kind of Maelstrom, Cecil, and my
poor foolish head was giddy with all that confusion of carriages and
horses, and bric-à-brac and jewelry. Every body is so rich nowadays,
and one is stifled with the wealth of other people. I had begun to
think that life was intolerable without a million of money, some time
before I met Mr. Lobyer. He was the first millionaire who crossed my
path, and I accepted him blindly. But I thought that he asked me to be
his wife because he loved me, Cecil--honestly, after his own unromantic
fashion--and I meant to do my duty to him; I did indeed, Cecil."
"I believe it, darling; and you may still do your duty," answered
Cecil, bending tenderly over the slight figure. Mrs. Lobyer had slipped
from the low chair to the ground, and was half-sitting, half-kneeling,
at her friend's feet.
"What, with a Miss de Raymond in the background? Never, Cecil! Besides,
I had long given over that idea of doing my duty. Within a week of my
marriage I discovered how mistaken I had been in thinking Mr. Lobyer
cared for me. It was for his own glorification, the gratification of
his own vanity that he married me; and I am not so much to him as
his horses or his dogs, for he takes some pleasure in their society.
He swore at me before our honeymoon was over, because I ventured to
remonstrate with him for his brutality to a waiter who had made
some mistake about the arrangements of the dinner. From that time
all thought of doing my duty honestly and conscientiously, as I had
meant to do it, was over. Our marriage was reduced to the level of a
bargain, and I resolved to perform my part of the bargain as fairly
as I could. So I dress to the best of my ability, and I receive my
husband's friends, and am civil even to those Manchester people; and
I fill up invitation-cards, and give the housekeeper her orders, and
discuss the arrangements of the house--who is to have the blue-room,
and who is to have the chintz-room, and who we may venture to put
upon the second-floor, and so on. With regard to Sir Nugent Evershed,
I will frankly confess that he is an unutterable relief to me after
Manchester; and if I flirt with him a little now and then, I consider
myself quite at liberty to do so. To-night my nerves were irritated
by the rencontre of the afternoon, and I dare say I behaved very
foolishly. I wanted to demonstrate my defiance of my husband. I wished
to show these people--who, no doubt, know all about Miss de Raymond--I
wished them to see that I was no sentimental wife devoted to an
unfaithful husband."
"But, my dearest Florence, was it wise to sacrifice your own
self-respect in order to gratify your pride?"
"I have no self-respect. I have never respected myself since I married
Mr. Lobyer. Oh Cecil, there is nothing that has ever been written
about such marriages too strong or too bitter for their iniquity. We
sell ourselves like slaves, and when the bargain is completed, we hate
the master who has bought us. Don't kiss me, Cecil. I am not worthy
that any good woman's lips should touch mine. I have sold myself to a
man whom I despised before I hated him; and now that it is too late I
repent of my wickedness."
"But if Mr. Lobyer outrages you by association with such a woman as
that person we saw to-day, you may be released from this unhappy union.
You have only to appeal to your father, Florence; surely he can help
you."
"Yes, he can take me back to the Fountains, to be the laughing-stock of
every body who ever knew me before my marriage. Ah, how the manœuvring
mothers and husband-hunting daughters would triumph if they could
discover that my brilliant match had ended in failure and misery! No,
Cecil, I must abide by the bargain I have made for myself; and, after
all, I cannot complain that I am cheated. I sold myself for diamonds,
and carriages, and horses, and servants; and Mr. Lobyer has given them
to me. I told you it would be a bad thing for me when I came to talk
seriously of things. I must take life lightly, Cecil, like other women
who marry for money And now _parlons toilette_; tell me how you like
my dress to-night. Is that blue a good candle-light colour? I had awful
doubts on the subject. If there were any green tinges in it, I must
have looked hideous."
After this Cecil tried in vain to bring her friend back to any thing
like serious conversation. Mrs. Lobyer chattered as gaily as if
no sorrow had ever shadowed her life, and the dim winter daylight
glimmered coldly behind the rose-tinted curtains before Cecil could
induce her to retire. They separated at last, however, after kissing
each other affectionately: and Florence Lobyer's grand field-night came
to a close.
* * * * *
After the amateur theatricals, there was a little lull at Pevenshall.
Mrs. Lobyer kept her room for a day or two, attended constantly by
Lady Cecil O'Boyneville. Medical wisdom pronounced that she had over
fatigued herself, and ordered extreme quiet. But to endure such a
regimen as the doctor prescribed for more than eight and forty hours
was quite beyond Florence's patience. On the evening of the second day
she reappeared in the drawing-room, paler than usual, and all the more
fascinating by reason of that delicate pallor.
Pevenshall was besieged by callers during that particular week--people
who had been so delighted, and so charmed, and so surprised by the
amateur comedy, and who were eager to testify their gratification and
their delight to the mistress of the mansion. Amongst these callers
were the officers of the Plungers, and amongst the officers came Major
Gordon.
He came one bright frosty morning, when a bevy of ladies, headed by
Miss Evershed, had sailed off to the billiard-room, and when the group
in the drawing-room was a very small one. The sentimental widow sat by
the fire reading a new French novel--the philosophy of which she took
the trouble to expound now and then for the benefit of her companions;
an elderly dowager dozed over the morning paper; Mrs. Lobyer sat at a
little table by one of the windows, trifling with her brushes, before
a half-finished water-colour sketch of a group of camellia japonicas
that had been brought from the conservatory for the gratification of
a sudden artistic impulse on the part of the mistress of Pevenshall;
and Cecil bent over an elaborately embroidered slipper which she was
preparing for the great O'Boyneville.
"I think it would be rather nice if I could only get a bird's-nest,"
said Flo, after a lengthened contemplation of her sketch; "'Camellia
Japonicas and a Bird's Nest--Mrs. Lobyer.' That would look very well in
a catalogue, wouldn't it? But I suppose bird's-nests are out of season
in January. People talk about money being able to buy any thing, and
yet I dare say my picture will be a failure for want of a bird's-nest.
Camellia japonicas by themselves are so uninteresting; and I did so
want to astonish papa by sending something to the British Institution,
just to show him that I hadn't neglected my painting. What do you think
of a cut lemon, Cecil? one of those big clumsy lemons one sees in old
pictures, with the rind trailing from it. Or what would you say to
a silver salver, or one of Mr. Lobyer's great chased tankards, or a
Sèvres vase? I positively must have something to relieve the insipidity
of my camellia japonicas."
While Mrs. Lobyer was debating this important subject, Major Gordon
was announced. Cecil and Florence were seated very near each other;
and after shaking hands with both ladies, the soldier took the chair
nearest his hostess.
Then for the first time Cecil felt the extreme embarrassment of her
position. The man who had once loved her approached her as a stranger,
and yet, in spite of her prayers--in spite of her struggles to hold
firmly to the right, the vision of the past came back to her; and
she thought of him, not as she saw him now, courteously indifferent,
conventionally polite--but as she had seen him on that last day at
Fortinbras, with his head bent, and his eyes dim with tears.
But with him it was otherwise, thought Cecil. Surely if any
recollection of that time had been present to his mind, he could not
have seemed so entirely at his ease. He inquired about his aunt. He
had not seen her since his return to England, and he was very anxious
to see her, dear soul, he said. She was visiting, of course, always
visiting at this time of year. He had received delightful letters from
her, and invitations to some of the houses at which she was staying.
"If I can get away from Chiverley for a week, I shall run over to
Thornley Grange, in Leicestershire, where she is to be in March," he
said; "but at the worst I shall see her in town I suppose early in the
spring."
This last remark seemed to require an answer, so Cecil replied that she
had no doubt Mrs. MacClaverhouse would return to Dorset Square in the
spring.
And after this the conversation became general. Florence told Major
Gordon her difficulties with regard to the camellia japonicas.
"They will come out so stiffly," she said despondingly; "no one but a
Miss Mutrie or a Van Huysum could make any thing out of them."
Mr. Lobyer came in from a morning's ride while the Scotchman was
talking to the two ladies, and on this particular occasion Mr. Lobyer
happened to be in very good humour with himself and the world in
general. The Chili Island loan, in which he was vitally interested, was
beginning to look up in the market, after having been for some time
in bad odour; and the influence of a rapid advance of seven-eighths
brightened the millionaire's countenance. He made himself as agreeable
as it was in him to be, and invited the Major to dinner the next day,
when some "other fellows" were coming from Manchester.
The Major hesitated just a little before he accepted the invitation,
and it seemed to Mrs. Lobyer that he glanced towards Cecil in that
moment of hesitation; but he did accept it.
"Why, Cecil, you never told me that Major Gordon was related to you,"
said Flo when that gentleman had departed.
"He is not related to me. My aunt, Mrs. MacClaverhouse, is only his
aunt-in-law; there is no real relationship even between Major Gordon
and her whatever; there is no relationship between him and me."
"Indeed! But you did not even tell me that you knew him. How very nice
he is--and a young widower! I think there is nothing so interesting as
a young widower. One generally associates a widower with baldness, and
stoutness, and half-a-dozen children in rusty mourning: but a young
widower is delightful: and he is, or is to be, very rich, is he not?
Mr. Lobyer says so, and he keeps a kind of mental register of other
people's banking accounts. I wish there were no such person as Mr.
O'Boyneville."
"Florence!"
"Oh, I don't mean any unkindness towards him. But if you were only
single, it would be so nice to make a match between you and the Major.
Match-making is the natural occupation of a married woman, and I want
an eligible couple to operate upon. Depend upon it, Mrs. Vancourt will
set her cap at our Major."
This was said _sotto voce_, for Mrs. Vancourt was the sentimental widow.
The lady in question looked up from her book five minutes afterwards to
expatiate upon a passage thereof.
"Is not this true?" she said. "How well this man knows the human heart!
'Il n'y a jamais d'oubli où il y a eu de l'amour. Durant l'absence on
croit toujours oublier, et on se trompe toujours. Mais lorsqu'on revoit
celle qu'on a aimée, les années passées s'envolent comme le songe d'une
nuit d'été, et on s'aperçoit qu'on n'a jamais cessé d'aimer.'"
A faint blush spread itself over Cecil O'Boyneville's face as the
widow finished her lecture; for there seemed to her some grain of truth
amidst the French romancer's flimsy sentimentality.