"He has mounted her on a milk-white steed,
Himself on a dappled gray;
And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side
As lightly they rode away."
It is hard to describe the terrible _prestige_ which, after the event I
have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting
a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have
thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at
him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they
deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully
employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went
by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children
in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are
tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves,
with a muttered prayer, "God stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph
perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no
attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to
win the popular favor.
Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his
cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what
that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not
surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of
service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the
intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun
startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation,
that he was engaged to Constance Brandon.
I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss
Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I
told my host of the news directly.
"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good
of his _fiancée_. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her
blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should
hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one
who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a
Miss Bellasys?"
"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her
name in this letter."
"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl
comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a
struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to
compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De
Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was
like the Visconti--never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his
love."
I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of
mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her
rival had won the day.
"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I
should like to be in England to see how things are going on."
"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you.
You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard
to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to
give you a _consigne_, it would be--Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to
take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly
frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to
some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose.
_Che sara, sara_." He said this drearily, and with something like a
sigh.
I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a
fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London.
Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in
Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before
I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly.
"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you
had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their
great _coup_, and were married in Paris."
"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so
unexpected, after all.
"Ah! Bruce"--Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he _was_
doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing
has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid
state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought
he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an
accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in
the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up
for a thousand--just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse
themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable
suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if
it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his
secret so far!"
Then he went on to give me more particulars of the _escapade_. It seems
that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that
nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on
her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence
of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made
penitence--the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her
father.
That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well
into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his
pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been
reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as
to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been
an after-thought of some one's, or a _canard_ of the club. Impavid as
the Horatian model-man--(just in all his _dealings_, and tenacious of
the odd trick)--I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would
have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the
winning of the long odds.
He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an
account of that interview: it must have been a curious one.
_"xunômosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin,
pur kai thalassa--"_
Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with
the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the
sense of shameful defeat.
Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton
Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a
diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward
nature that she obeyed the summons.
His back was to the door as she entered.
"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began.
Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by
passion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over
which a tornado has passed. He did not appear to notice her words or her
offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his
parched throat once or twice, huskily:
"When did they go? At what hour?"
She told him as well as she could.
"Where have they gone to?"
"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like
to see her note?" and she held it out to him.
The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started
convulsively as he took the scrap of paper. He read it through more than
once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed
blasted in his dry, red eyeballs; they could only glare.
He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it
till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain.
"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a
hoarse whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which
route they have taken?"
"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to
prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than
useless; it could only lead to fresh evils."
Then the smouldering passion burst into a flame.
"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot.
You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw
it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think
I will not be revenged? Wait--wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it
seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing
teeth.
Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than
Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the
bell.
"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in
her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you
hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better
than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage."
Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe,
to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was
in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or
faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he
had done many times before.
"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you
had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may
scarcely be so patient with you as I have been."
If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly.
He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as
he reached the door.
Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in
thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty attitude and
expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that
Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so
rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But
did she ever forget him when she was on her knees?
Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they
could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote
from Paris to communicate her marriage.
Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied
powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was
breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper.
"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not
mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been
very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and
finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in
marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect
her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two.
Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I
should have allowed Bella £300 a year, and I suppose the necessary
outfit and presents would have cost me about £500. I will do just the
same now--neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for
the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better
travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking
about them. Charley will sell out, of course?"
"His papers are sent in," Guy replied.
"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very
likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to
try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after
nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I
didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you
go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?"
Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably
cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a
condolence.