ENNUI AND WEARINESS.
But for her love for Bevil Goring, Alison felt at times that she
would have sacrificed herself for her father. Selfish and coldly
proud though his nature was, still he was her father, and she was his
last link to earth--the last link of that long chain of ancestors he
prized so much, and who went back to the years of the War of
Independence, and beyond them.
Yes--out of pity for him she might have sacrificed herself to
Cadbury; but now the image of Bevil Goring rendered that impossible,
and even death itself preferable.
Poor girl! moped in that great dull hotel, she wearied sorely. Her
father was kind to her after a fashion of his own, but she longed
regretfully for the past time when she could throw her arms around
her mother's neck and lay her head upon her breast--the panacea for
all young folks whose troubles seem overwhelming; but what were the
troubles that beset her when that dear mother was alive, compared
with those that beset her now?
And with regard to these, she knew what that mother's advice would
have been:--'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a
stalled ox and hatred therewith.'
My Lord Cadbury was rather tiring, or getting exasperated by the slow
success of his love affair, and was beginning to think seriously of
how he would separate Alison from her 'bore of a father,' and get her
alone with him, perhaps to Brussels, where his rascal Gaskins would
easily procure him apartments.
For some time past his lordship had cunningly dropped the _rôle_ of
lover and adopted that of friend, perhaps to throw Alison off her
guard, and as he did not--as some old fellows do--act 'the paternal'
part, to a certain extent she became so, and her normal state or
feeling of defiance and dislike was dulled for a time.
Thus her face looked calm and placid, with a curiously pathetic
expression, and her eyes had at times a far-away look in them that
gave Sir Ranald a strange dull pain in his heart, especially one
evening, when, taking grapes one by one from a plate of painted
Antwerp china-ware, she fed him playfully as a nurse might a child.
'Bird Ailie,' said he, 'my dear bird Ailie.'
He saw how her hand looked quite transparent, and a pang of dismay
smote his heart.
'You are not well, darling,' said he.
'Oh, yes, papa,' she replied, with affected cheerfulness, 'I am very
well; but oh, if we were only home again out of this foggy Antwerp.
I think I could wheel you about in a bath chair as well as old
Archie, were we only home to----'
'_Where?_' he asked, sharply. 'But I must take care of you now for
my own sake. This confinement is killing you; go out somewhere,
anywhere under Cadbury's escort.'
But Alison shook her head. As yet she had seen nothing of the famous
city of Antwerp, though she could not look forth from her windows in
the quaint Place Verte, or along the Marché aux Souliers, with all
its shops, without a longing to explore, everything seemed so
strange, so striking; for, as Sir Walter Scott wrote truthfully and
graphically, 'it is in the streets of Antwerp and Brussels that the
eye rests upon the forms of architecture which appear in the pictures
of the Flemish school--those fronts richly decorated with various
ornaments, and terminating in roofs, the slope of which is concealed
from the eye by windows and gables still more highly ornamented; the
whole comprising a general effect which, from its grandeur and
intricacy, at once amuses and delights the spectator. In fact, this
rich intermixture of towers and battlements and projecting windows,
highly sculptured, joined to the height of the houses and the variety
of ornaments upon their fronts, produce an effect as superior to
those of the tame uniformity of a modern street as the casque of a
warrior exhibits over the slouched, broad-brimmed beaver of a Quaker.'
Another remarkable feature in the Belgian streets is the enormous
height of the front doors, with rings and knockers of brass often
more than a foot in diameter.
Lord Cadbury had received a card of invitation _pour milord et ses
dames_ to a _Redoute monstre et fête de nuit_ at the Théâtre des
Variétés, where there was to be a species of _bal masqué_ in the
great saloon, and on the stage a 'Kermesse Flamande, Fête
Venitienne,' as it was announced, and he treated Sir Ranald's
permission to take Alison with him, simply as a spectator in her
street costume.
All the ladies who dance at these balls wear masques and black silk
dominoes over their ball dresses; the gentlemen are in evening dress,
and do not wear masks, as he explained to her, and Alison, _ennuyed_
and weary of confinement and dulness, consented to go, at her
father's urgent request, though she was without a chaperon; but then,
as the former said, no one knew her in Antwerp.
When Alison thought of Lord Cadbury's wishes and proposals as
regarded herself, she felt that she ought not to accompany him to
this fête, but her love for Bevil seemed to guard her like a suit of
armour; the temptation to see a little of outdoor life prevailed, and
so she yielded, but not without dread and reluctance. Was this a
prevision of what was to come?
That morning she had been at a well-known _coiffeur's_ getting her
hair dressed, and was rather scared than amused to see gentlemen and
ladies seated side by side in the saloon, under the hands of his
assistants, the former getting their beards shaved and moustaches
trimmed, and the latter their back hair brushed and dressed: but,
though this was only a specimen of the freedom of Belgian life, young
ladies, she knew, could not go abroad without a chaperon; but then,
Lord Cadbury, she reflected, was old enough to be her father.
He would take the greatest care of her--the scene would be a
brilliant one, and one, moreover, entirely new to her.
'And I am not to go in costume, or wear a domino?' said Alison,
anxiously.
'No--as a spectator only--your hat and sealskin jacket, of course;
but we shall see the dancers from the promenade round the saloon, and
the Flemish scene on the stage about half-past ten.'
'Can you spare me, papa?' she asked, softly.
'Yes, darling, go,' he replied, weakly but earnestly.
So a voiture was summoned, and Alison departed, after dinner,
escorted by Lord Cadbury. Through the broad and spacious Rue de
l'Hôpital and Rue Grande, with its quaint old houses, to the private
entrance of the Théâtre des Variétés in the Rue des Escrimeurs, a
narrow street, and never in all her future life did she repent of any
action more bitterly.
The brief change of scene or action would draw her from herself, as
she had been afflicted with severe distracting thoughts of late.
Had Bevil gone to the seat of war, or was he still in England? She
was as ignorant of his movements as he nearly was of hers; but it was
too probably the former, and she supposed he would soon be face to
face with danger and death. Her absence--her flight it would
seem--from Chilcote, she supposed, must be all unexplained to him,
and, if explained, he would learn that she was with Lord Cadbury;
and, after all he knew, what might he not fear and _think_?
Think that which might lead him to believe she was untrue, and leave
him to be happy yet with some _other_ girl, who might love him as she
now loved him, and as he wished to be loved.
And more keenly did these thoughts distract her mind after the--to
her--fatal night of the _bal masqué_.