One month from the time I arrived in London, I was on my way to
Portsmouth to meet Giles Vernon, who had been brought over with a batch
of exchanged officers from France.
In that month, during which I had lived continuously in Berkeley
Square, things were so little changed, except in one respect, which I
shall mention presently, that I could scarcely persuade myself five
years had passed. Peter and Polly, as Giles disrespectfully called
them, had not grown a day older, and quarreled as vigorously as ever.
Lady Arabella was then her own mistress, although still living under
Sir Peter’s roof; but, as far as I could see, this spoiled child of
nature and fortune had always been her own mistress. I found that
Overton had been away for some years on foreign service, and, after
distinguishing himself greatly, had lately returned suffering from
severe wounds and injuries to his constitution. He was, however, in
London, and able to ride and walk out, and visit his friends; but it
was doubted by many whether, on the expiration of his leave, he would
ever be fit for duty again.
I heard and saw enough to convince me that Lady Arabella had been wild
with grief and despair when she heard of his wounds; and, although
since his return to London he avoided company generally, she managed
to see him occasionally, and spent much of her time driving in the
parks upon the mere chance of seeing him taking his daily ride or
walk. Lady Arabella Stormont had everything in life that heart could
wish, except one. She had chosen to give her wilful and wayward heart
to Philip Overton, and it must be acknowledged that he was a man well
fitted to enchain a woman’s imagination. Overton had disdained the
spontaneous gift of Arabella’s love; but I believe her haughty and
arrogant mind could never be brought to believe that any man could be
really insensible to her beauty, her rank, and her fortune. Overton
could not in any way be considered a great match for her. His fortune
was modest, and his chance of succeeding to the Vernon estates remote;
but, with the desperate perversity of her nature, him she would have
and no other. It always seemed to me as if Overton were the one thing
denied her, but that she had determined to do battle with fate until
she conquered her soul’s desire.
For myself, she treated me exactly as she had done five years
before,--called me Dicky in her good humors, and a variety of sneering
names in her bad humors,--and, little as it may be believed, I, Richard
Glyn, lieutenant in his Majesty’s sea-service, with three thousand
pounds to my name, would have gone to the gibbet rather than marry Lady
Arabella, with her thirty thousand pounds.
Perhaps Daphne Carmichael had something to do with it. She was the same
gentle, winning creature at nineteen as at twelve. She was still Sir
Peter’s pet, and Lady Hawkshaw’s comfort; but I had not been in the
house a week before the change I alluded to came about, and the change
was in me concerning Daphne. I began to find it very hard to keep away
from her. She treated me with great kindness before others, but when
we were alone together, she was capricious. I began to despair of
ever finding a woman who could be kind to a man three times running.
And I was very much surprised at the end of a fortnight to find myself
experiencing the identical symptoms I had felt five years before, with
Arabella--only much aggravated. There was this difference, too. I had
admired Arabella as a star, afar off, and I think I should have been
very much frightened, if, at the time, she had chosen formally to
accept my devotion. Not so with Daphne. I felt I should never be really
at ease until I had the prospect of having her by my side the rest of
my life. I reached this phase at the end of the third week. At the end
of the fourth, I was in a desperate case, but it was then time to go
to Portsmouth to meet Giles, according to my promise, and I felt, when
I parted from Daphne, as if I were starting on a three years’ cruise,
and I was only to be gone a day and a half. She, dear girl, showed some
feeling, too, and I left, bearing with me the pack which every lover
carries,--pains and hopes.
I left London at night, and next morning on reaching Portsmouth,
as I jumped from the coach, I ran into Giles’ arms; he had reached
Portsmouth some hours in advance of the time.
He showed marks of his imprisonment in his appearance, but his soul had
ever been free, and he was the same brave and joyous spirit I had ever
known. Not being minded to waste our time in Portsmouth, we took coach
for London town at noon. As we were mounting, a countryman standing by
held up a wooden cage full of larks, and asked us to buy, expatiating
on their beautiful song.
“I will take them all, my lad,” cried Giles, throwing him a guinea.
The fellow gaped for a moment, and then made off as fast as his legs
could carry him. I wondered what Giles meant to do with the birds.
He held the cage in his hand until we had started and were well into
the country; then, opening the little slide, he took out one poor,
fluttering bird, and, poising on his finger for a moment, the lark flew
upward with a rush of joyous wings.
Each bird he liberated in the same way, all of us on the coach-top
watching him in silence. As the last captive disappeared in the blue
heavens, Giles, crushing the cage in his strong hands, threw it away.
“I have been a prisoner for fourteen months,” he said, “and I shall
never see any harmless living thing again imprisoned without trying to
set it free.”
We reached London that night, and Giles went to his old lodgings, where
his landlady was delighted to see him, as all women were who knew Giles
Vernon. She gave us supper, and then we sat up all night talking. I had
thought from the guinea he had thrown the vender of larks, that he had
money. I found he had none, or next to none.
“And how I am to live until I get another ship, I am at a loss, my
boy,” he cried, quite cheerfully. “Two courses are open to me--play and
running away with an heiress. Do you know of a charming girl, Dicky,
with something under a hundred thousand pounds, who could be reconciled
to a penniless lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy? And remember, she
must be as beautiful as the dawn besides, and of good family, and keen
of wit--no lunkhead of a woman for me.” To this, fate impelled me to
reply that Lady Arabella Stormont was still single.
“Faith!” cried Giles, slapping his knee, “she is the girl for me. I
always intended to marry her, if only to spite her.”
I was sorry I had raked up the embers of his passion of five years
before, and attempted to cover my step by saying,--
“She is still infatuated with Overton, whom, however, she sees rarely,
and that only at the houses of others; but he has ever looked coldly
upon her.”
“She’ll not be coldly looked on by me. And let me see; there is her
cousin you used to tell me about,--the Carmichael girl,--suppose you,
Dicky, run away with her; then no two lieutenants in the service will
have more of the rhino than we!”
I declare this was the very first time I had remembered Daphne’s
thirty thousand pounds. She had the same fortune as Lady Arabella. The
reflection damped my spirits dreadfully.
Giles saw it directly, and in a moment he had my secret from me. He
shouted with delight, and immediately began a grotesque planning for
us to run away with the two heiresses. He recalled that the abduction
of an heiress was a capital crime, and drew a fantastic picture of
us two standing in the prisoners’ dock, on trial for our lives, with
Lady Arabella and Daphne swearing our lives away, and then relenting
and marrying us at the gallows’ foot. And this tale, told with the
greatest glee, amid laughter and bumpers of hot brandy and water, had a
singular effect upon me. It sobered me at once, and suddenly I seemed
to see a vision, as Macbeth saw Banquo’s ghost, passing before my very
eyes,--just such a scene as Giles described. Only I got no farther
than the spectacle of Giles a prisoner in the dock, on trial for his
life. My own part seemed misty and confused, but I saw, instead of the
lodging-house parlor, a great hall of justice dimly lighted with lamps,
the judges in their robes on the bench, one with a black cap on his
head, and Giles standing up to receive sentence. I passed into a kind
of nightmare, from which I was aroused by Giles whacking me on the back
and saying in a surprised voice,--
“What ails you, Dicky boy? You look as if you had seen a ghost. Rouse
up here and open your lantern jaws for a glass of brandy and rid
yourself of that long face.”
I came out of this singular state as quickly as I had gone into it,
and, ashamed to show my weakness to Giles, grew merry, carried on the
joke about the abduction, and shortly felt like myself, a light-hearted
lieutenant of twenty-one. I proposed that we should go to the play the
next night,--or rather that night, for it was now about four in the
morning,--and shortly after we tumbled into bed together and slept
until late the next day.
Giles and I went to Berkeley Square in the afternoon, professing just
to have arrived from Portsmouth. Giles expressed his thanks in the
handsomest manner to Sir Peter for his kindness, and made himself, as
usual, highly agreeable to Lady Hawkshaw. Neither Lady Arabella nor
Daphne was at home, but came in shortly after Giles had left. Lady
Arabella made some slighting remark about Giles, as she always did
whenever opportunity offered. Daphne was very kind to me, and I gave
her to understand privately that I was ready to haul down my flag at
the first summons to surrender.
The family from Berkeley Square were going to the play that night, and
I mentioned that Giles and I would be there together. And so, just as
the playhouse was lighting up, we walked in. After the curtain was
up, and when Mrs. Trenchard was making her great speech in _Percy_,
I motioned Giles to look toward Lady Hawkshaw’s box. Her ladyship
entered on Sir Peter’s arm; his face was very red, and he was growling
under his breath, to which Lady Hawkshaw contributed an obligato
accompaniment in a sepulchral voice; and behind them, in all the
splendor of her beauty, walked Lady Arabella, and last, came sweet,
sweet Daphne.
The first glimpse Giles caught of Lady Arabella seemed to renew in an
instant the spell she had cast on him five years before. He seemed
almost like a madman. He could do nothing but gaze at her with eyes
that seemed starting out of his head. He grew pale and then red, and
was like a man in a frenzy. It was all I could do to moderate his voice
and his looks in that public place. Luckily, Mrs. Trenchard being on
the stage, all eyes were, for the time, bent on her.
I hardly knew how we sat the play out. I had to promise Giles a dozen
times that the next day I would take him to Berkeley Square. When the
curtain went down, he fairly leaped his way out of the playhouse to see
Lady Arabella get into the coach.
That was a fair sample of the way he raved for days afterward. He
haunted Berkeley Square, where he was welcomed always by Sir Peter and
Lady Hawkshaw, asked to dine frequently, and every mark of favor shown
him.
Lady Arabella remained cold and indifferent to him. About that time
Overton appeared a little in his old haunts, although much changed
and sobered. Neither wounds nor illness had impaired his looks and
charms, but rather he had become an object of interest and sympathy
from his gallant behavior in the field. Sir Peter, who had always
liked him, began to pester him to come to Berkeley Square, which he
did a few times, because he could not well decline Sir Peter and Lady
Hawkshaw’s pressing and friendly invitations. I believed, however,
that in spite of his forced composure he felt cruelly abashed before
Lady Arabella. She, however, showed an amazing coolness, and even began
to be a little kind to Giles, from some obscure motive of her own. I
believe every act of her life with regard to men had some reference to
her passion for Overton.
[Illustration: She suddenly fell into my arms. _Page 145_]
All this time, though, from the night of the play, Daphne and I had
been secretly happy; for on the very next day, catching her alone, I
told her, in plain and seamanlike language, that I loved her, and when
she showed a disposition to cut and run, I said to her, very boldly,--
“Since you scorn my love, I have the resource that every one of my
calling has in these days. I shall soon go to sea, and upon the deck
of my ship I can find death, since life is nothing to me without my
Daphne’s love.”
At which, without the least warning, she suddenly fell into my arms,
crying,--
“You’ll break my heart, if you talk in that way!” and I perceived that
she was only manœuvering for position.
I do not know exactly what happened next, except I was in that heaven,
Daphne’s arms, when I looked up and caught the butler and two footmen
grinning at me. But it mattered not.
Next morning Daphne and I met in the drawing-room, as usual, after
breakfast; but what a meeting it was! We had barely time to scuttle
back to our chairs when Sir Peter entered with the newspaper, and
informed me that the _Bellona_ frigate was being fitted for the West
Indies, and he thought he could get me a berth in her, at which I felt
myself grow weak in the knees, so great is the power of love.
Presently he went out. Then Daphne and I began to speculate upon Sir
Peter’s personal equation in our affairs.
“He will never let me marry you,” she said. “He will say I am too
young.”
This depressed me so that I could say nothing in reply. Daphne
continued, quite in an offhand manner,--
“If we should elope, he would make a great hullabaloo.”
This admirable suggestion at once commended itself to me.
“His hullabaloo could not separate us, if we were married,” I replied.
“True,” said Daphne; “and after all, he and Lady Hawkshaw as good as
eloped, and she was but eighteen--a year younger than I.”
Thus was I supplied with another argument.
I again swear that I had not a thought of Daphne’s fortune in all this.
I would have taken the dear girl with nothing but the clothes upon her
back.
True to his word, Sir Peter worked like a Trojan to get me a berth on
the _Bellona_, and, meaning to do Giles the greatest service in the
world, tried likewise for him; and mightily afraid we were that he
would soon succeed.
This brought matters to a crisis with Daphne. I mentioned the word
“elope” to her again, and she made a great outcry, after the manner of
young women, and then began straightway to show me precisely how it
might be done, protesting, meanwhile, that she would never, no, never,
consent. We both agreed, though, that it was proper we should lay the
matter of our marriage before Sir Peter and Lady Hawkshaw; but I saw
that Daphne, who was of a romantic turn, had her imagination fired by
the notion of an elopement.
“A pair of good horses and a light traveling chaise!” she exclaimed.
“If only it were not wrong!”
“No, no! Four horses!” cried I, “and there is nothing wrong in either a
two or a four horse chaise.”
Daphne clapped her hands.
“A trip to Scotland--I have always longed for Scotland. I know a dozen
people who have married in Scotland, and happy marriages, every one of
them. But I forbid you, Richard, to think of an elopement.”
“We shall set out at midnight; we shall not be missed until morning,
and we shall have at least twelve hours’ start. Then, at every stage,
we shall leave something behind, which will ensure a broken axle, or a
linchpin gone, for our pursuers.”
We were both so charmed with the picture we had conjured up, that when
I said, “Suppose, after all, though, that Sir Peter consents?” Daphne’s
face fell; but presently she smiled, when I said,--
“If he does consent, why, then, there is no harm in our marrying any
way we like, and he will excuse us for running away. And if he does
_not_ consent, there is no help for it,--we _must_ elope!”
I considered myself a casuist of the first order. I felt obliged to
take the first opportunity of letting Sir Peter know the state of
affairs, and, as usual, I determined to begin through Lady Hawkshaw.
“And,” as Daphne shrewdly remarked, “they will certainly differ, so we
shall at least have one of them on our side.”
I sought Lady Hawkshaw, and found her in her usual place, in the
Chinese room. I began, halting, stammering, and blushing, as if I were
a charity school-boy, instead of a lieutenant in his Majesty’s service,
who had been thanked by Lord Nelson.
“M-m-my lady,” I stuttered, “I have experienced so much k-k-kindness
from you that I have come to you in the greatest emergency of my life.”
“You want to get married,” promptly replied Lady Hawkshaw.
I was so staggered by having the words taken out of my mouth, that I
could only gape and stare at her. To render my confusion worse, she
added,--
“And you want to marry Daphne.”
“I can not deny it, Madam,” I managed to say.
“Will you ring the bell?” she asked.
I rang the bell like a churchwarden, and the footman came, and Lady
Hawkshaw immediately sent him for Sir Peter.
I think my courage would wholly have given out at that, except for a
glimpse of Daphne, flitting up the stairs. The dear girl wished to give
me heart, so she told me afterward.