AT THE OPERA HOUSE.
The next day, true to his word, Rowton took Nancy to the shops. They
went to the Bon Marché, and to many other places where finery the most
fascinating, dresses the most _bizarre_, articles of toilet the most
_chic_ in the world, were to be found. Rowton consulted one of the
shopwomen whose taste was supposed to be absolute: she brought out one
costume after another and fitted them on Nancy, while her husband looked
on and criticised and admired. Morning dresses, afternoon dresses, tea
gowns, evening dresses, were bought in variety and abundance. With a mere
nod of his head Rowton would signify to the attendant that such a thing
was to be sent to Mrs. Rowton to the Grand Hotel; he never even enquired
the price.
“You want shoes and dainty stockings and handkerchiefs and ribbons, and
feathers and flowers,” he said, just laying his hand for an instant on
Nancy’s shoulder. “Oh, I know how women ought to be dressed.”
“See here,” he said to the attendant, “fit Mrs. Rowton with all that is
necessary. Let her have some dozen of this, and of this, and this—” he
indicated costly things with his hand. “Now then, Nancy, we will go to
the millinery department.”
Nancy found herself furnished with small velvet caps, with fascinating
toques, with hats adorned with great plumes of ostrich feathers, which
made her look, Rowton said, with eyes of passionate love, as if she had
just stepped out of a Gainsborough picture. The morning passed in a
perfect whirl, and when finally the pair returned to the hotel for lunch,
Nancy said frankly that she felt as if she had been going about all the
morning with a fairy godmother.
“Ah! you will have a good deal more of that sensation,” replied her
husband. “Hurry with your lunch, now, for afterwards we must go to the
Palais Royal to look at trinkets.”
“Trinkets?” she said; “you don’t mean jewels?”
“I mean a few rings and necklaces, and ornaments for your hair,” he said.
“I have taken a box at the opera to-night and you shall look—ah! I’ll not
be the only one to look at you to-night, Nancy mine; no woman will look
fairer, more divine than my little girl.”
The trinkets were bought and Nancy’s slender fingers were laden with
sparkling rings. A necklace consisting of a single row of magnificent
pearls was secured to encircle her dainty throat.
“Not that these are much,” said Rowton; “I have diamonds which you shall
wear. They are too valuable to take away from home. We will have a
house in town next season, Nance, and you shall wear them then; I won’t
show them to you until then. Pearls suit you best however, you are so
maidenly, so delicate, so youthful. Heavens! to think that one like you
should belong to one like me. My darling, my treasure, what have I done
that Providence should be so good to me?”
“And what have I done to deserve such a husband?” she answered.
“Do not say that,” he said, his tone completely changing; “you do not
really know me.”
“I know what you are to me; I know that in all the world no more gallant
gentleman, no braver prince amongst men could live.”
“Come, come, Nancy, it is bad to flatter,” he said; but his eyes shone
and his lips trembled.
“If she only knew!” he said to himself.
They drove in the Bois in the afternoon and after dinner went to the
opera. Nancy was dressed for the opera in one of her new costumes; it was
white, shaded off to the faintest tinge of rose. She looked something
like a summer cloud when she was dressed in these billows of diaphanous
texture; the pearls round her neck gave the last touch to the dazzling
effect.
“You look like the heart of a sea-shell,” said her husband; “there, let
me look at you from this distance; yes, the effect is perfect. Now again,
favour me by standing so. Now you resemble a sunset cloud; you are all
poetry, you are a dream. In fact you are a living, walking poem.”
“Don’t, Adrian,” she said.
“Why do you say ‘don’t’? it is my delight to see how much can be made
of unique beauty like yours. To-morrow night you shall be dressed quite
differently; to-morrow night that pale sweet face, those dark deep eyes
shall gleam in more sombre surroundings, and then my princess will look
like a star. Give me my delight, Nancy; don’t refuse it to me.”
“But my father is not dead a fortnight,” she said; “I ought to be in
mourning for him.”
“Tut! not a bit of it; no mourning during our wedding tour. Afterwards
you shall be up to your throat in crêpe if you like.”
“It is strange of you, Adrian, to say so very much about afterwards; when
you say ‘afterwards,’ a cold shiver seems to go through me.”
“Faith, child,” he replied, pulling himself together with an effort, “I
don’t mean anything. You shall, if I can manage it, walk on roses as long
as you live; and now, now, Nance—during our glorious honeymoon, we will
not think for one moment of the possibility of a shadow. Come, darling,
the carriage must be waiting for us in the courtyard.”
They went downstairs in the lift.
Rowton’s prophecy was abundantly fulfilled: there was not a man in the
place who did not look with more than admiration at the lovely girl
who walked by his side. They went to the opera and Rowton watched the
faces of his fellow-men and women. Some acquaintance in a distant box
recognised him and bowed. Rowton returned their salutations icily; he did
not want old friends to crop up here; he was determined to share Nance
with no one during the golden four weeks which he had allowed himself.
But when a Frenchman of the name of D’Escourt knocked at the door of
the Rowtons’ box, Rowton felt forced to admit him and to introduce him
to Nance. The two men talked for a little time in French, and D’Escourt
promised himself the pleasure of calling on Mrs. Rowton early the
following day. He sat down presently by her side, and began to talk. He
was a man of the world, extremely polished, and with a perfect knowledge
of English as well as French. Nancy’s French was not her strong point,
and she was glad to talk to the stranger in English.
“By the way,” he said suddenly, turning and looking at Rowton, who with a
frown between his brows gazed gloomily into the house, “it is some years
now since I saw you in our gay capital, my friend; not since 18⸺” He
mentioned a date; it was the year of Anthony Follett’s death.
“I wonder,” thought Nance to herself, “if Adrian could help me in my
strange and awful search. I will not think to-night of that terrible fate
which hangs over me.”
She tried to force her thoughts from the subject, but try as she would,
they hovered round it. She suddenly felt cold and miserable; her
conscience seemed to reproach her for her present extraordinary bliss;
she thought of her dead father, the desolate Grange, and the long six
years of misery. Her present life seemed like a dream; she might awaken
any moment to find herself back at the Grange; Rowton not allowed to
visit her, her father there, and the dreadful, stingy, starved existence
once more her own.
She started, hearing Adrian’s voice in her ears.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.
“I was trying to pinch myself,” she said.
She looked up and saw that D’Escourt had left them. “I was trying to
pinch myself,” she continued, “to find out whether I was really in a
dream or not.”
“You are not in a dream; at least, if you are, I am in it too; and I vote
we stay in dream-land, for it is monstrous pleasant,” said Adrian. “Now
listen to that music, Nance; does it not uplift your soul?”
She turned and looked vaguely at the performers on the stage. The opera
was one of Rossini’s; the scene now represented was a harvest festival;
the stage was full of motion and brilliant colour; the gay, light,
uplifting music rose to the very roof of the magnificent opera house.
“It is almost too much,” said Nance, with something like a sob in her
throat. She looked suddenly so white and weary that Rowton insisted on
her returning to the hotel without seeing the piece out.
The next day, to her astonishment, he proposed that they should leave
Paris and go on to the Riviera.
“We will go to Nice,” he said; “it is gay enough there, and we shall have
warmth and sunshine; we will visit Monte Carlo, too. Oh! I don’t gamble,
you need not fear anything of that sort, but for all that we will have
one exciting evening at the roulette tables.”
“I am sorry,” said Nance. “I am interested in Paris now that I am here,
and I should like to see more of it. M. D’Escourt said, too, that he
would call, and he promised to arrange to take us to Versailles; don’t
you remember, Adrian?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Rowton; “but that fact can scarcely influence my
movements.” He spoke with the faintest sneer. “I want to get on, Nance.
Paris is all very well; it satisfies me in one sense, and yet in another
it does not.”
“Do you know Paris? Have you been often here?”
“Yes; I spent two years in this gay capital; the liveliest and yet the
most wretched time of my life.”
“I heard you mention a certain date last night,” said Nancy in a low
voice, which slightly trembled. “You mentioned the year 18⸺. It so
happened that I am interested in that date. It was just then the cloud
came which changed father’s life and mine.”
“We need not go into that subject now, need we?” asked Rowton with
manifest uneasiness. “I want you to forget those six dreadful years of
famine. You have now, to borrow a Bible simile, come into the seven years
of plenty.”
“So I have,” she replied, running to him and kissing him with passion.
“How happy you make me; how more than willing I am to do anything you
wish.”
“Then we will take the Mediterranean express from the Gare de Lyon this
evening,” said Rowton. “I will go now to try and secure a sleeping
carriage. You can begin to pack some of your pretty things while I am
away from you, Nance.”
Rowton left the salon and hailing a fiacre, drove straight to the Gare de
Lyon.
“I don’t want D’Escourt to have much to say to Nance,” he said to
himself. “We were good friends in 18⸺. Heaven! When I remember that time;
can I possibly be the same man? Yes, I was a gay dog then; but upright
and honourable, notwithstanding all my pranks. I could look men straight
in the face. Now things are different. D’Escourt knew me intimately at
that time. Yes, we were great friends. He was glad to see me last night;
he evidently knows nothing; but if he comes often he may begin to ask
questions. His questions would be highly inconvenient. Not that Nance,
bless her, could answer one of them. But suppose he asks me straight out,
while that child is looking on, ‘What have you done with yourself since
18⸺? How have you passed your life?’ I might, it is just possible, with
the clear eyes of that angel looking into mine, I might show confusion.
There! confound the horrible thing! D’Escourt and I must not meet
again. D’Escourt and Nancy must have nothing to do with each other. My
sweetheart and I go to Nice to-night and have a right gay time.”
Rowton, arrived at his destination, secured the last sleeping compartment
on the train, and went quickly back to the Grand Hotel.
Nancy was waiting for him.
“I have not been dull,” she said, her eyes dancing with excitement and
pleasure. “M. D’Escourt called: I like him extremely; he has only just
left. He is quite put out at our going to Nice.”
“You told him that?” said Rowton.
“Yes; why not? Dearest, how thick your brows look when you frown.”
“I was not aware that I had frowned, sweet Nance.”
“But are you vexed with me for telling him where we are going?”
“Not in the least; all the world may know our movements. Now let us pack.
We will leave some of our boxes here, but we must take plenty of your
finery with us. I intend you to be the most beautiful woman at the Casino
when we visit Monte Carlo.”
Nancy began to pull her different beautiful dresses out of their boxes.
Rowton stood and watched her.
“M. D’Escourt seems to have been a great friend of yours, Adrian,” she
said; “he has the highest opinion of you.” She glanced up at him as she
spoke.
“He would be sure to praise me to you,” said Rowton in a would-be
careless tone. “We will go for a drive after déjeûner; I find that I must
get several small things on my own account. Are you not hungry, little
woman?”
“No, I feel too excited to be hungry. You don’t know what this life is to
me after my starved existence; but, Adrian, I am really sorry you missed
your friend.”
“Well, I am not,” said Rowton. “On a honeymoon one only wants one’s wife,
particularly when she is such a wife as mine; but you seem fascinated
with the fellow, Nancy.”
“Only because he praised you so much,” she said, with a sweet smile.
They went down to déjeûner.
As they were finishing the meal, Nancy again reverted to D’Escourt.
“He was really disappointed,” she said. “He was quite certain we were
going to stay in Paris for another week at least.”
“I have ordered the carriage to be round by now,” said Rowton without
replying, and glancing at the clock as he spoke. “Put on your prettiest
cloak and your most becoming hat and come out with me.”
They spent the afternoon shopping and afterwards drove in the Bois. By
eight o’clock that evening they had left the Grand Hotel and were on
their way to the Gare de Lyon. They reached it in good time to catch the
Mediterranean express.
At the booking office Nancy was much astonished to hear her husband ask
for tickets for San Remo.
“You are making a mistake,” she exclaimed. “We are going to Nice.”
“I have changed my mind,” he answered. “San Remo will suit us better.”
“What a pity,” cried Nancy. “M. D’Escourt said he might visit Nice in a
few days.”
“The very reason why we go to San Remo, sweetheart. Now take your place.
Here we are. You will admire the olive woods and the flowers before many
more hours are over, _cara mia_.”