THE LETTERS OF BELLEROPHON.
Wyverne's valedictory note to Mrs. Lenox, though kindly and courteous,
was brief and decisive enough to satisfy Helen perfectly. The answer
came in due course; there was no anger or even vexation in its tone, but
rather a sad humility--not at all what might have been expected from the
proud, passionate, reckless _lionne_, who kept her sauciest smile for
her bitterest foe, and scarcely ever indulged the dearest of her friends
with a sigh. A perpetual warfare was waged between that beautiful Free
Companion and all regular powers; though often worsted and forced, for
the moment, to give ground, she had never yet lost heart or shown sign
of submission; the poor little Amazonian target was sorely dinted, and
its gay blazonry nearly effaced, but the dauntless motto was still
legible as ever--_L'Empire c'est la guerre_.
So for awhile there was peace at Dene, and yet, not perfect peace. Miss
Vavasour's state of mind was by no means satisfactory; though it seemed,
at the time, to recover perfectly from the sharp shock, it really never
regained its healthy elastic tone. Miserable misgivings, that could
hardly be called suspicions, would haunt her, though she tried hard not
to listen to their irritating whispers, and always hated herself
bitterly afterwards for her weakness. She thought how unwise it would be
to show herself jealous or exacting, yet she could hardly bear Alan to
be out of her sight, and when he was away, had no rest, even in her
dreams. Her unknown correspondent, in a nice cynical letter,
congratulated Helen on her good-nature and long-suffering, and hinted
that Mrs. Lenox had been heard to express her entire approval of Alan's
choice--"it would be very inconvenient, if there were bounds to the
future Lady Wyverne's credulity." She did not dare to confess to her
cousin that she had read such a letter through, and so only took her
mother into the secret. Lady Mildred testified a proper indignation at
the spitefulness and baseness of the writer, but showed plainly enough
that her own mind was by no means easy on the subject. All that day, and
all that week, Miss Vavasour's temper was more than uncertain, and
though no actual tempest broke, there was electricity enough in the
atmosphere to have furnished a dozen storms. "My Lady" had always
indulged her daughter, but she took to humouring and petting her now,
almost ostentatiously; the compassionate motive was so very evident,
that instead of soothing the high-spirited demoiselle, it chafed her, at
times, inexpressibly.
The change did not escape Alan Wyverne. He felt a desolate conviction
that things were going wrong every way, but he was perfectly helpless,
simply because there was nothing tangible to grapple with; he did not
wish to call up evil spirits, merely to have the satisfaction of laying
them. Helen's penitence after any display of waywardness or wickedness
of temper was so charming, and the amends she contrived to make so very
delicious, that her cousin found it the easiest thing imaginable to
forgive; indeed, he would not have disliked that occasional petulance,
if he had not guessed at the hidden cause. The only one of the party who
failed to realize that anything had gone amiss, was the Squire; and
perhaps even his gay genial nature would scarcely have enabled him to
close his eyes to the altered state of things, if he had watched them
narrowly; but, having once given his adhesion frankly and freely, he
troubled himself little more about the course of the love-affair,
relying upon Alan's falling back on him as a reserve, if there occurred
serious difficulty or obstacle. The troubles threatening his house, were
quite enough to engross poor Hubert's attention just then.
A few weeks after the events recorded in that last chapter, Wyverne came
down late, as was his wont. His letters were in their usual place on the
breakfast table: on the top of the pile lay one, face downwards, showing
with exasperating distinctness the fatal scarlet monogram.
Seldom in the course of his life had Alan been so intensely provoked. He
felt angry with Nina Lenox for her folly and pertinacity--angry with the
person unknown, whose stupidity or malice had put the dangerous document
so obtrusively forward--angry, just a very little, with Helen, for
betraying, by her heightened colour and nervous manner, that she had
already detected the obnoxious letter--angrier than all with "my lady,"
whose bright quiet eyes seemed to rest on him _judicially_, not caring
to dissemble her suspicion of his guilt. It is always unwise, of course,
to act on impulse, and of all impulses anger is supposed to be the most
irrational. Such folly was the more inexcusable in Wyverne, because his
power of self-command was quite exceptional; it only enabled him, now,
to preserve a perfect outward composure; he acted just as stupidly and
_viciously_ as if he had given way to a burst of passion. In the first
five seconds he had fully determined to burn that letter, unread--a most
sage resolve, certainly--the only pity was, that he could not bring
himself to execute his purpose there and then, or at all events confide
his intention to the parties most interested therein. But you must
understand that Alan--with all his chivalrous devotion to
womankind--held orthodox notions (so _we_ should say) as to the limits
of their powers, and by no means favoured any undue usurpation of the
Old Dominion; he held, for instance, that the contents of the post-bag,
unless voluntarily confided, should be kept as sacred from feminine
curiosity as the secrets of the Rosicrucians. In the present case, he
could hardly blame Helen for betraying consciousness of a fact that had
been, so to speak, "flashed" before her eyes; but he felt somehow as if
she ought to have ignored it. He would not make the smallest concession.
I have told you, how obstinate and unrelenting the frank, kindly nature
could at times become: the shadow of a great disaster was closing round
him fast, and his heart was hardened now, even as the heart was hardened
of that unhappy King, predestined to be a world's wonder, whom the
torments of nine plagues only confirmed in his fell purpose--"not to let
Israel go."
He pushed all the letters aside with an impatient movement of his arm,
and thrust them into the pocket of his shooting-jacket before he left
the table, without opening one of them. All through breakfast he
persisted in talking carelessly on indifferent subjects, in spite of the
evident discomfort and nervousness of his cousin, and the reticence of
"my lady;" eventually he had to fall back on the Squire, who, ignorant
of this fresh cause of discord as he had been of the former one, was
open to any fair offer in the way of conversation.
An hour or so later, as Wyverne was going down to his uncle's room (they
were to shoot some small outlying covers) he met Helen in the
picture-gallery.
"I suppose you are aware that a letter came for me this morning from
Mrs. Lenox?" he said.
There was no particular reason why Miss Vavasour should feel guilty, and
blush painfully, nevertheless she did both, as she answered him.
"Yes, Alan, I could not help seeing it, you know, and--"
He interrupted her, somewhat impatiently.
"Of course you could not help it, child. You were bound to remark it,
where it lay. I suppose it was so fore-ordained by Fate, or some more
commonplace power. I know it worried you; but, indeed, it vexed me quite
as much. I have no idea what she wrote about, for I burnt the letter,
half an hour ago, without breaking the seal."
Helen did not answer at once, and when she looked up, for the first time
in their lives her cousin read uncertainty in her eyes. His own face
grew dark and stern.
"Ah, Helen, it cannot have come to this, yet--that you doubt me when I
state a simple fact."
Her cheek had paled within the last few seconds, but it crimsoned now
for very shame.
"No, no, Alan," she said impetuously, "I don't doubt you. I never do,
when I am myself; but sometimes I feel so changed--so wicked----"
Wyverne would not let her go on; but the kiss which closed her lips
carried scarcely more of caress than did his voice, as he answered what
she meant to say.
"My own, I guess it all. It is a hard battle when such as you and I have
to fight against principalities and powers. I fear we are not cool and
crafty enough to hold our own. God knows how it will all end--and when.
The sooner, perhaps the better for you. But if they would only let _you_
alone, darling! It has been my fault from the first, and I ought to have
all the trouble and pain. But indeed, now, I have done my best. I burnt
the letter unread, and I have written six lines to tell Mrs. Lenox so.
Now, we won't speak of it any more just now. There can be no repetition
of _this_ annoyance, at all events. Will you tell Aunt Mildred what I
have done? _I_ had better not enter into the subject with her, that's
certain."
Wyverne's perfect sincerity carried all before it, for the moment; when
he left her, Helen felt happier than she had done for days. Even had it
been otherwise, of course she would have made the best of it to her
mother. It is the woman's way, you know--at least till, with middle age,
wisdom has waxed and passionate affection has waned--if in anywise
maltreated by her lover, she will make her moan loudly enough to _him_,
but she will tax her little ingenuity to the utmost, to palliate that
same offence to her nearest and dearest friend.
It was well that Helen's spirits were high, when she went to her
audience in the boudoir; certes she reaped small encouragement there.
Lady Mildred was by no means disposed to be enthusiastic or unreserved
in her trustfulness, and, indeed, hinted her doubts and fears and
general disapprobation, much more plainly than she had hitherto done.
She believed Alan _now_, of course, but she could not help thinking that
the relations between him and Mrs. Lenox must have been far more
intimate than she had had any idea of. It would have been much more
satisfactory if he could have opened the letter and shown it to Helen.
So he had written to say what he had done? That was right, at all
events. (What made "my lady" smile so meaningly just then?) But every
day made her more fearful about the future.
"I ought to have been firmer at first, darling," she murmured.
The look of self-reproach was a study, and the penitential sigh rightly
executed to a breath.
"It is not that I doubt Alan's meaning fairly; indeed, I believe he does
his best; but when a man has lived that wild life, old connexions are
very difficult to shake off; sometimes it is years before he is quite
free. You don't understand these things; but I do, my Helen, and I know
how you would suffer. You are not cold-blooded enough to be patient or
prudent. Even now, see how unhappy you have been at times lately. I was
very weak and very wrong."
It is not worth while recording Helen's indignant disclaimer and eager
profession of faith, especially as neither in anywise disturbed or
affected the person to whom they were addressed. "My lady" kissed the
fair enthusiast, with intense fondness, but not in the least
sympathetically or impulsively, and went on with her scruples and
regrets and future intentions as if no interruption had occurred. There
ensued a certain amount of desultory discussion, warm only on one side,
it is needless to say. Lady Mildred did not actually bring maternal
authority to the front, but she was _very_ firm. At last it came to
this. "My lady" was understood to have taken up a fresh position, and
now to disapprove actively; but she consented to take no offensive step,
nor even to mention the changed state of her feelings to the Squire or
Alan Wyverne, till some fresh infraction of the existing treaty should
justify her in doing so. Then, the crisis was to be sharp and decisive.
This was all Helen could gain after much pleading, and perhaps it was as
much as could be expected. The Absent, who are always in the wrong,
don't often come off so well.
The instant her daughter left her, Lady Mildred rang for her own maid,
and said a dozen words to the attentive Abigail; though they were alone
in the boudoir, she whispered them. All outward-bound letters at Dene
were placed in a certain box, which was kept locked till they were
transferred to the post-bag. The confidential _cameriste_ carried on her
watch-chain several keys, one of which fitted the letter-box with
curious exactness. It was not often used; but in the dusk of the evening
a small slight figure with a footfall soft and light as the velvet tread
of a cheetah, might have been seen (if she had not chosen her time so
well) flitting through the great hall, and tarrying for a few seconds in
that special corner.
That day there were two letters burnt at Dene, both with their seals
unbroken.
Though all was not bitter in her recollections of the last twenty-four
hours--those few minutes in the picture-gallery told heavily on the
right side--Miss Vavasour's state of mind, when she woke on the
following morning, was none of the pleasantest or calmest. Her mother's
overt opposition did not dismay or discourage her much; for, after the
grateful excitement of the first interview had passed away, she had
entertained in spite of herself certain misgivings as to the duration,
if not the genuineness of "my lady's" favour, or even neutrality. But
the demoiselle could not deny to herself--though she had denied it to
her mother--that the latter had spoken truly with regard to her own
present unhappiness, and wisely as to the perils of the future. Helen's
heart, brave as it was, sank within her as she thought of what it would
be if she were destined to experience for years the wearing alternations
of hope and fear, pleasure and pain, that had been her portion only for
a few weeks. She did believe in her cousin's good faith _almost_
implicitly (there was a qualification now), but she did not feel sure
that he would always resist temptations; and even with her slight
knowledge of the world, she guessed that such might beset his path
dangerously often. New enemies to her peace might arise any day; and
Nina Lenox's pertinacity showed plainly enough how loth Alan's old
friends were to let him go free. Could _she_ wonder at their wishing to
keep him at all risks, so as at least to hear the sound of his voice
sometimes--she, who could never listen to it when softened to a whisper,
without a shiver and a tingle in her veins?
"Nina!"
As she uttered that word aloud, and fancied how he might have spoken it,
and might speak it again, black drops of bitterness welled up in the
girl's heart, poisoning all its frank and generous nature; she set her
little white teeth hard, and clenched her slender fingers involuntarily,
with a wicked vengeful passion. If wishes could kill, I fear Nina Lenox
would have been found next morning dead and cold. Helen had seen her
fancied rival once--at the great archery-meeting of the Midland
shires--and even her inexperience had appreciated the fascinations of
that dark dangerous beauty. She remembered, right well, how one man
after another drew near the low seat on which Mrs. Lenox leant back,
almost reclining, and how the lady never deigned to disturb her queenly
languor by an unnecessary look or word, till one of her especial friends
came up: she remembered how the pale statuesque face brightened and
softened then: how the rosy lips bestirred themselves to murmur quick
and low; and how from under the long heavy eyelashes glances stole out,
that Helen felt were eloquent, though she could not quite read their
meaning. She remembered watching all this, standing close by, and how
the thought had crossed her heart, How pleasant it must be to hold such
power.
Do you suppose that, because Miss Vavasour did perhaps more than justice
to the charms of the woman she had lately learned to hate, she was
unconscious of her own, or modestly disposed to undervalue them? It was
not so. Helen was perfectly aware that she herself was rarely lovely and
unusually fascinating. If she had been cool enough to reason
dispassionately, she would probably have acknowledged that the
comparison might safely be defied. Both flowers were passing fair; but
on the one lingered still the dewy bloom and scented freshness of the
morning; the other, though delicate in hue and full of fragrance still,
bore tokens on her petals, crisped here and there and slightly faded, of
storm-showers and a fiery noon; nor, at her best could she ever have
matched her rival in brilliancy of beauty.
But, supposing that Miss Vavasour had over-estimated herself and
under-estimated her enemy to such a point as to imagine any comparison
absurd, do you imagine it would have lightened one whit her trouble, or
softened her bitterness of heart? I think not.
Feminine jealousy is not to be judged by the standard of ordinary
ethics; you must measure it by the "Lesbian rule," if at all, and will
probably, even so, be wrong in your result. Not only is the field more
vast, its phases more varied, but it differs surely in many essentials
from the same passion in our sex. Don't be alarmed; I have no intention
of writing an essay on so tremendous a subject. The pen of Libyan steel,
that the old chroniclers talk about, would be worn down before it was
exhausted. Take one distinction as an example. I suppose it is because
we have more of conceit, pure and simple; but when we once thoroughly
establish the fact, that the man preferred before us is really and truly
our inferior in every way, it helps materially to soften the
disappointment. Comfortable self-complacency disposes us to be
charitable, compassionate, and forgiving; we try (not unsuccessfully) to
think, that the bad taste displayed by the Object is rather her
misfortune than her fault; nor do we nourish enduring malice even to him
who bears away the bride. Remember the story of Sir Gawaine. When the
huge black-browed carle would have reft from him his dame by force, he
bound himself to do battle to the death; but when the lady had once made
her choice, the Knight of the Golden Tongue thought no more of strife,
but rode on his way, resigned if not rejoicing. With our sisters it is
not so. Let a woman realize ever so completely the inferiority of her
rival,--moral, physical, and social--it will not remove one of her
suspicious fears, nor dull the sting of discomfiture when it comes, nor
teach forgetfulness of the bitter injury in after days.
When wild Kate Goring created universal scandal and some surprise by
eloping with that hirsute riding-master, Cecil Hamersley was intensely
disgusted at first, but did not nurse his griefs nor his wrath long;
when the unlucky couple came to the grief which was inevitable, Kate's
jilted lover pitied them from the bottom of his great honest heart, and
seemed to think it the most natural thing in the world, that he should
help them to the utmost of his power. It was entirely through Cecil,
that Mr. Martingale was enabled to start in the horse-dealing business,
which he has conducted with average honesty and fair success ever since.
Take a converse example. Ivor Montressor, for the last year or more, has
been laying his homage at the feet of Lady Blanche Pendragon, and it has
been accepted, not ungraciously; at the end of last season, it was
understood that it was nearly a settled thing. But the wooer has not
displayed intense eagerness since in pressing on the preliminaries.
There is a certain Annie Fern, whose duty it is to braid the somewhat
scanty gold of Lady Blanche's tresses--the most captivating little witch
imaginable, with the most provoking of smiles, that contrasts charmingly
with her long, pensive, dark-grey Lancashire eyes. She is prettier a
thousand-fold, and pleasanter, and really better educated, than the
tall, frigid, indolent descendant of King Uther, whom she has the honour
to serve; but that is no excuse, of course, for Ivor's infatuation. A
dreadful whisper has got abroad, of late, that he admires the maid above
the mistress. Lady Blanche is supposed to be not unconscious of all
this; but, if she guessed it, she would not deign to notice it in any
way, or even to discharge her fatally attractive handmaid. Let us hope
that the vagrant knight will be recalled to a sense of his duty, and,
remembering that he is a suitor nearly accepted, "act as such." However
it may turn out, let us hope, for Annie's sake (she has been absolutely
innocent of intriguing throughout), that it will never happen to her "to
be brought low even to the ground, and her honour laid in the dust;"--in
such a case, I know _who_ will be the first to set the heel of her
slender brodequin on the poor child's neck, and keep it there, too.
No; that conscious superiority does not help them at all. As it is now,
so it was in the ancient days. Did it much avail Calypso, that in her
realm there was wealth of earth's fairest fruits and flowers, while in
Ithaca it was barren all--that ages passed over her own divine beauty,
leaving no furrow on her brow, no line of silver in her hair, while with
every year the colour faded from the cheek, and the fire dried out of
the eyes of her mortal rival--if her guest still persisted in repining?
Be sure she never felt more wretched and hapless than when, wreathing
her swan's neck haughtily, she spoke those words of scorn:
[Greek: Ou men then keines ge chereion euchomai einai,
Ou demas, oude phyen, epei ou pos oude eoiken
Onetas athanatesi demas kai eidos erizein.]
O gentle Goddess! would your kindly heart have been most pained or
pleased, if you could have guessed how ample was the final retribution?
You never knew how often--wearied by petty public broils, worried by
Penelope's shrill shrewish tongue, overborne by the staid platitudes of
the prim, respectable Telemachus--your ancient lover strode over bleak
rocks and gusty sand-hills, till his feet were dipped in the seething
foam, and he stood straining his eyes seaward, and drinking in the wind
that he fancied blew from Ogygia--the island to which no prow of mortal
ever found the backward track. You never knew how often his thoughts
rushed back, with a desperate longing and vain regret, to the great
cave shrouded by the vine heavy with clusters of eternal grapes, deep in
the greenwood where the wild birds loved to roost, girdled by the
meadows thick with violets--where cedar and frankincense burned brightly
on the hearth, making the air heavy with fragrance--where the wine, that
whoso drank became immortal, mantled ever in unstinted goblets--where
you bent over your golden shuttle, singing a low sweet song--where your
dark divine eyes never wearied in their welcome.
I have always thought that, of all men alive or dead, of all characters
in fact or fiction, Odysseus, in his declining years, must have been the
most intensely bored. But then, you know, though passing wise in his
generation, he was wholly a pagan and half a barbarian. Far be it from
me to insinuate, that any Christian and civilized Wanderer, when once
reinstated in his domestic comforts, ever wastes a regret on a lost love
beyond the sea.