Weaving the Spell.
The Duchess of Hexham bore the reputation of being a most accomplished
woman; if she excelled in anything it was certainly the giving of balls.
She had the largest, loftiest and best ball-room in London. It was never
overcrowded.
"As many flowers as possible," she was in the habit of saying; "but we
must limit our guests."
It did not matter either who was fashionable and who was not, the
duchess would have nothing but beauty and grace at her balls. You were
sure at Hexham House to meet the most beautiful women in London and the
most eligible men. It was consequently agreed on all sides that her
grace gave the best balls during the season. This one at which Lady
Amelie was to be present, promised unusual splendor.
An archduke of one of the European courts was just then the guest of the
queen, and he had promised to honor Hexham House with his presence.
"He shall see such lovely women," said the duchess to her husband, "that
he shall go back to his own country in despair."
To Lady Amelie she had said, laughingly: "Look your very loveliest. I
want you to make a conquest of the archduke."
And that queen of coquettes thought to herself that her hands on that
eventful evening would indeed be full. Not one word did the diplomatic
old colonel say to Basil, but that young man was not quite himself. He
had been wonderfully attracted by Lady Lisle's face; he read poetry,
love of romance and everything else beautiful and piquant in it. Of all
the women he had seen she was the only one who had interested him. He
wondered whether the mind matched the peerless face. She must be clever,
witty, brilliant, he thought, or she would not have kept all those men
enchained as she did. He was very anxious to see her again.
"If she is like everyone else," he said, "I shall soon be disenchanted,
but if she speaks as she looks, she will indeed be peerless among
women."
He longed for the evening. He said nothing of her, but he talked so
incessantly of the Duchess of Hexham, that the colonel understood
exactly where his thoughts were, and smiled again most knowingly to
himself.
He looked at his young kinsman in his faultless evening dress, and said
to himself that there was not in all England a more noble or handsome
man.
Lady Amelie called all the skill of the milliner to her aid; her dress
was superb and effective--gold flowers on a white ground--a dress that
irresistibly reminded one of sunbeams; it fell around her in statuesque
folds that would have driven a sculptor to despair. Her beautiful neck
and white arms were bare. She wore a diamond necklace of almost
priceless value; her dark, shining hair was crowned with a circlet of
the same royal stones; a diamond bracelet clasped one rounded arm. As
she moved the light shone on her dress and gleamed on her jewels, until
one was dazed with her splendor.
Lady Amelie was very particular about her flowers. On this evening, with
her costly dress and magnificent jewels, she would have nothing but
white daphnes. Did she know that the sweet, subtle fragrance of a daphne
reaches the senses long before the odor of other flowers touches them?
As she surveyed herself in the mirror, she felt devoutly satisfied.
"I shall be able to convert Basil Carruthers, Esq., to anything I like,"
she said; "if he has resisted all the world, he will yield to me."
So she drove off, resplendent, happy, animated, ready for the weaving of
her spells.
Any good Christian, seeing her pass by with that triumphant smile on her
lovely face, might have prayed their nearest and dearest should be kept
from harm.
Lady Amelie never arrived very early at a ball. She liked to make her
entree when most of the other guests were assembled. It was sweet to her
to see how sorry and shy the ladies looked at her arrival, and how the
faces of the men brightened. The first thing, of course, when she
arrived at Hexham House, was the archduke. It was wonderful to watch the
various phases of character that she could assume at will. With the
archduke, she was the brilliant woman of the world, witty, sarcastic,
adorable. He was enchanted with her; he declared that she combined all
the charms of English and French women; he danced with her and would
fain have lingered by her side, but that etiquette called him away.
Then Lady Amelie, already the belle of the ball, looked up, for Colonel
Mostyn was standing before her, and by his side one of the handsomest
and noblest young men she had ever seen. He introduced Basil Carruthers
to his fate.
She looked in his face with a smile, and drawing aside a fold of her
sumptuous dress, made room for him to sit near her.
He thought her even more dazzlingly beautiful than when he had seen her
at the opera. The perfume of the white daphnes must have touched his
senses as those most lovely eyes smiled into his; his brain seemed to
reel; he was intoxicated with her beauty as some men are with the fumes
of rare wine.
Colonel Mostyn lingered for a few minutes, then, well satisfied, went
away, leaving Basil and Lady Amelie together. She had taken her seat
under the shade of a magnificent mass of gorgeous, blooming flowers,
with wondrous leaves and rich perfume. As she sat with her gleaming
dress and jewels showing to perfection, from against this beautiful
background, Basil was completely charmed. In all his life he had never
even seen such a picture. She turned to him, when they were alone, with
the sweetest smile on her lovely lips; her eyes seemed to rain down
light into his.
"This is a brilliant scene, Mr. Carruthers; the duchess excels in the
arrangement of her rooms."
He made some reply; he never quite knew what it was. It was enough for
him to watch the charm of that irresistible face as she spoke. "Of
course, everything depends on taste," she continued; "I quite expect you
to laugh at me, but do you know what scene I should find much more
brilliant than this?"
"I cannot imagine," he replied; "but I shall not laugh."
"Ah, well. I am peculiar in my tastes. In place of this brilliant
ballroom, I should like to be seated at a tournament. I should like to
see the knights with their banners and waving plumes, in the lists--the
ladies in their balconies all hung with cloth of gold--the queen of
beauty with the prize. Ah, me! in those days, ladies had knights and men
were heroes."
As he looked at her, his whole soul shone in his eyes.
"And I, too," he cried. "I love those days ten thousand times better
than these."
"Do you?" asked her ladyship with admiring eyes, "how strange! It is not
long since I was speaking to one whom I may call a young man of the
period, and his reply was, 'Horrid bore, those kind of things were, Lady
Lisle,' and I thought most young men were of his opinion."
"I am not," said Basil, "I love those knights and heroes of old! great
men and grand men who were content to ride forth, and to battle unto
death for a woman's smile."
She raised her radiant eyes to his.
"Would you do that much for a woman's smile, Mr. Carruthers?"
He paused a moment before speaking, then said: "For one such woman as
those men loved, I would." She sighed deeply; the jewels on her white
breast gleamed and glistened.
"Ah, you think, then, that the glorious race of women heroes loved and
died for, have disappeared?"
"I thought so, until I saw you," he replied.
"You are wrong," she said. "You will live to tell me that you are wrong.
There may be no Helen such as she who lived at Troy, and no Cleopatra
such as Egypt's dusky queen, but there are grand women living yet,
worthy of heroes' love."
"I am sure of it," he said, "now that I have seen you."
But she made no reply; she did not even appear to have heard his words.
"I can understand you," she said, gently. "Women have sometimes the rare
gift of entering into the minds of reserved men. I understand you as
though I had known you for years."
His face cleared, his heart beat, his eyes brightened for her as they
had never done for any other woman.
"I can remember," she said, "when I had many similar opinions. I used to
think these, our present days of steam and progress, quite unfit for
heroes; I used to long for olden times again, when, by one great deed, a
man made a great name."
His eyes shone with new fire as he looked at her; it seemed to him that
he had found his other soul at last. His mother laughed at him; Marion
Hautville was sarcastic to him, but this beautiful woman--this
magnificent queen at whose feet men bowed--she not only sympathized with
him, but she had the self-same ideas.
"The great thing that I complain of," said Lady Amelie, "is that there
really seems in these days nothing to do. You, for instance, supposing
that you were ambitious, how would you distinguish yourself?"
And as she asked the question, my lady gave a sidelong look at her
victim and was charmed to see the progress she had made.