A TRAIT OF JULIUS ST. JOHN.
As Cecil was dressing for dinner that day, he asked himself whether
he really loved Violet; the answer was a decided negative. He had
loved her till that afternoon: but that one fatal incident as
completely turned his love into dislike, as it had turned Violet's
into scorn. He disliked her, as we dislike those who have humiliated
us, or who have witnessed some action which we know must appear
contemptible in their eyes, but which we feel is not really so
contemptible. He resented her superior courage; called her coarse
and unwomanly, reckless and cruel. He remembered her beating Shot on
the morning of their first interview, and it now seemed to him, as
then, an act of wanton severity. He remembered what her father and
mother said of her temper. They were right; she was a devil!
He went down to dinner quite satisfied that she was not at all the
woman he should choose.
She was seated on the sofa, talking to Mrs. Broughton, and caressing
the head of her favourite Shot. Marmaduke stood by her side, gazing
enraptured upon her beauty.
Never was there a more adorably imperial creature than Violet. If in
her riding habit, the prompt decision and energy of her manner
conveyed the impression of her being somewhat masculine; directly she
doffed it for the dress of her sex, she became at once a lovely,
loveable woman.
I have a particular distaste to masculine women, and am therefore
anxious that you should not imagine Violet one. She had, indeed, the
virile energy and strength of will, which nature seems to have
appointed to our sex; but all, who had any penetration, at once
acknowledged that she was exquisitely feminine. Her manner had such
grace, dignity, softness, and lovingness, tempering its energy and
independence. She had grandeur without hardness, and gentleness
without weakness. Her murderous eyes, whose flashing beauty few
could withstand--there was something domineering in their splendour
and fulness of life--had, at the same time, a certain tenderness, the
effect of which I know not how better to describe, than in the bold
felicitous comparison used by Goethe's mother, when she wrote to
Bettina thus: "a violoncello was played, and I thought of thee; _it
sounded so exactly like thy brown eyes_."
I dwell with some gusto on the beauty of this creature; she was so
beautiful! Majesty generally implies a certain stiffness: dignified
women are detestable; but there was such majesty in Violet--such
commanding grace--accompanied by such soft, winning manners, that, in
the midst of the sort of awe she inspired, you felt a yearning
towards her. Firenzuola would have said of her, and said truly, that
"getta quasi un odor di regina," and yet, withal, no one was more
simple and womanly.
As Cecil entered the room, he just caught this conclusion of Violet's
speech:--
"Besides, had it come to the worst--had the bull made his rush, I was
in very good hands. Mr. Chamberlayne and Shot were with me."
This was uttered before she saw Cecil. She coloured slightly as he
came in, but continued her conversation in an unaltered tone. He
felt no gratitude to her for sparing him, as, by this account of the
affair, it was evidently her intention of doing; his self-love was so
deeply wounded, that he only perceived the covert sarcasm of again
coupling him with Shot. It made him congratulate himself on being no
longer in danger of offering her his hand.
"What a wife!" he mentally exclaimed, as he walked up to Rose and
Julius, and broke in upon their _tête-à-tête_, for which neither
thanked him.
At dinner he sat between Mrs. Broughton and her niece, who, regarding
him as a wit, giggled at whatever he said. He was in high spirits.
His gaiety was forced, indeed, but it inspired some brilliant things,
which I do not chronicle here for two reasons. First, they had no
influence whatever on subsequent events. Secondly, very few
repartées bear transplantation; they have an _àpropos_ which gives
them their zest, and are singularly tame without it.
"By the way, Mr. St. John, Wincot has a mysterious story about you
which ought to be cleared up."
"Pray, what is it?"
"Oh! something impossible, grotesque, inconceivable, but true; at
least, he swears to it," said Cecil.
"Let's hear it," said Mrs. Langley Turner.
"By all means," added Mrs. Broughton.
"By all means," echoed Julius. "I find myself the hero of a romance
before I was aware of it."
All eyes were turned upon Tom Wincot.
He was not averse to be looked at, so neither blushed, nor let fall
the glass suspended to his eye.
Wincot is young, good-looking, well-dressed; rides well, waltzes
well; gains his livelihood at whist and écarté; pays debts of honour;
has no ideas; knows nothing beyond the sphere of a club or a
drawing-room, and has no power over the consonant _r_.
"I consider this vewy t_w_aite_w_ous," he said; "when I told
Chamberlayne the stowy it was under strict secrecy."
"That is to say," rejoined Cecil, "that you wished me particularly to
divulge it."
"Not at all, not at all, a secwet is a secwet."
"You excite our curiosity to the highest pitch," said Mrs. Langley
Turner.
"Quite thrilling," said Rose.
"Tell us the story yourself, Mr. Chamberlayne," said young Lufton.
"No, no; it is Wincot's story."
"Well; if your cuwiosity is excited, I must gwatify it. Besides, Mr.
St. John has pewhaps some explanation. Yesterday, as I was wambling
along the woad to town I saw him wide down by the wiver. Well, would
you cwedit it? he was cawying, its twue I vow, cawying a side of
bacon!!!"
"Is that all?" asked Violet.
"All!" exclaimed the astonished dandy; "All! why Miss Violet, I
pledge you my vewacity that I wefused to believe it, it was so
twemendous an appawition! Fancy, widing acwoss countwy with a side
of bacon on your saddle! It must have been a wager. It must. Why,
I would as soon have dwiven my gwandmother down Wegent-stweet; dwank
clawet at an inn; gone to a soiwee in shoes; or anything equally
atwocious!"
"But let Mr. St. John explain," said Cecil gaily. "This is a serious
imputation on his dandyism. Unless he can clear himself of the
charge, he will be utterly lost."
"What was it Julius, my dear?" said Mrs. St. John.
"One of those things which he alone is capable of," interposed
Marmaduke, warmly. "I will ask the ladies present to judge.
Happening to meet Julius with that same side of bacon, I naturally
asked him how he came to have it, and he told me the story with his
usual simplicity. This it is. He was riding through Little Aston on
his way home, he stopped opposite a broker's shop where an auction
was going on. A side of bacon was knocked down to him, much to his
astonishment, but he paid for it, threw it across his saddle, and
carried it twelve miles as a present to one of his poor cottagers.
The poor woman was as much shocked as Mr. Wincot, to see the young
squire so equipped, but her gratitude was unbounded. I could have
hugged him for it; the more so, as, with all my admiration for the
simple goodness and courage of the act, I doubt whether even now I
should have courage to imitate it, and certainly should never have
had such an idea come unassisted into my head."
"You are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, Marmaduke,"
said Julius. "The thing was quite simple. I had to pay for the
bacon; why should not one of my cottagers benefit by it?"
"Yes, yes; but carrying it yourself."
"I had not my servant with me. It was no trouble. As to what people
thought, that never troubled me. Those who knew me knew what I was;
those who knew me not did not bestow a thought about me."
Every one declared that it was an act of great kindness and
philosophy; except Tom Wincot, who pronounced it vewy extwaowdinawy,
and seemed to think nothing could justify such a forgetfulness of
what was due to oneself. But of all present, no one was more proud,
more pleased than Rose, who looked at her "dear, little, ugly man,"
as she called him, with fresh admiration all the evening afterwards.
It was a trait to have won her heart; if, indeed, her heart had not
been won before.