Days passed after the events related in the last chapter, and Tremenhere
did not make his appearance in Lady Ripley's apartments, at l'Hotel
Mirabeau; to a person of Lady Dora's despotic temper, his conduct was
maddening. He never lost an opportunity of uttering words leading her to
believe his affections entangled beyond remedy; no one could look at him
without seeing that he suffered keenly from some mental cause, and
something of recent occurrence; therefore, it was not Minnie's loss--but
this she would not permit herself to think for a moment--no, 'twas
herself; consequently his manner of acting was the more inexplicable. He
never sought her, but when they met; he seemed unable to controul his
feelings, his avowal of love; but this was not all she would have. She
would have him throw himself, a slave enchained before her, beseeching
her love, to loosen his bonds, or rivet them for ever. In her impatient
rage she hated all, even Lord Randolph at last, for the very friendship
he had for Tremenhere. It was this, she thought, which, acting on an
overstrained (to her) idea of honour, prevented his admitting all, and
claiming a return. Her every thought became bitterness. Nothing is
nearer love than hate; they are two extremes a child's tiny hand might
unite. Thus, then, she fostered in absence a bitter hatred towards
Tremenhere, which melted like a waxen flower in the sun when he
approached, and became quite as impressionable, capable of any feeling
he might stamp there in its place. In her rage she looked around for
some one wherewith to wound him, and the thought after appeared in the
person of Marmaduke Burton, who returned to Paris from a long tour in
Italy and elsewhere. Coward-like, he had fled at first, then, not
finding himself pursued, he stopped, and, looking around, thought he had
deserted the field too soon.
It was at a ball Lady Dora met him, nearly a week after the events of
the past chapter. He stood for a moment uncertain how to act. She knew
Tremenhere was there; they had just spoken, and he had passed on. In an
instant she saw her advantage--for so she deemed it; and, holding out a
hand, cordially welcomed Burton's return amongst them. Her mother, among
others, had almost dropped the acquaintance, in consequence of the
coward slur attached to his name; but so completely was Lady Dora
mistress of all around her, that her mother, though still doubting the
policy of it, remembering how decidedly Lord Randolph had cut him, was
fain to receive him politely when Lady Dora came up, leaning on his arm.
"I will bend him now!" she thought, as she reflected upon the only one
occupying her mind. As she moved through the rooms, she met Lord
Randolph, who was seeking her.
He started: Marmaduke looked embarrassed, and then attempted to smile;
but the other was one of those to whom wealth was as dross, compared
with honour. All the weaker parts of his character were sinking to the
bottom, and the more sterling ones rising to the surface. Possibly it
was from constant association with so noble a mind as Tremenhere's--and
Lady Lysson's, too. Be it as it may, the struggling artist was more to
him than the wealthy but dishonourable Burton. Without glancing at him,
he held out an arm to Lady Dora, saying--
"Will you take my arm? I have been seeking you; Lady Lysson is anxious
to speak to you."
"Thank you," she replied with _hauteur_; "but you must see I am
otherwise engaged--I am going to dance with Mr. Burton. Allow me to
recall to your memory, an old friend."
Lord Randolph took not the slightest notice. This cool reprehension of
her conduct, the unworthy motive of which she was thus doubly made to
feel, drove her frantic, and she turned aside with a--
"Come, Mr. Burton--we shall be late for this _deux temps_!"
Lord Randolph moved another way, and looked anxiously about him. He soon
perceived the object of his search, as Tremenhere's tall figure rose
before him.
"Come along, Tremenhere," he said, familiarly linking his arm in his--"I
want to show you somebody."
"Any one I know?" asked the other unsuspectingly.
"A very pretty girl," replied Lord Randolph.
"Indeed! But where is Lady Dora?"
"Lady Dora?--oh, there!" And he pointed her out, where she stood with
Burton. A thrill passed through Tremenhere's frame, and the other felt
it: the former felt all the delicacy and thought which had made Lord
Randolph take him thus boldly by the arm, to publish his feelings
towards him to his cousin; and also leading him, as a jockey takes his
horse up and shows him what he has to overleap, lest he should shy at
the difficulties suddenly placed before him.
"Gray!" exclaimed he--using a term hitherto never uttered in his proud
humility--"you are a good, generous, noble fellow; I thank you!" And he
grasped his hand.
These few words were volumes from him, and the other felt them so. As
they moved on, not another word passed on the subject, and shortly
afterwards the two met Lady Dora and Burton; and Tremenhere's
countenance was free and unclouded, as he stopped and reminded her of a
prior engagement for the following dance. Burton looked cowed and
uneasy: her rage almost broke through the bounds of politeness, for in
her heart she despised Burton, and now doubly so when her revenge had
failed, and she saw herself abased in the abasement of her _protegé_.
She was almost rude in speech as she acknowledged the engagement, and
appointed where he might find her, this _valse_ concluded.
And during these heavy hours poor Minnie sat at home in her sorrow. She
had refused to leave the house since the day she met Lady Dora and
Tremenhere; nothing could persuade her but that he loved her cousin: he
might regret _her_ sad fate, but he loved Dora. She urged Skaife to give
him the proof of his mother's fame--of his own legitimacy; but Skaife
had resolved that she alone should lay this treasure, in reconciliation,
at her husband's feet. Moreover, Skaife was a man of the world, and
though he knew Tremenhere _now_ loved only Minnie, he had justly read
her cousin and Lady Ripley; and he knew man as he too generally is,
easily led by his vanity and a woman's love, even against his better
reason and judgment. He saw Lady Dora loved Tremenhere, and felt assured
only the "poor artist" stood between her love and pride. Once master of
the manor-house he would answer for nothing, and like a wise man,
resolved to spare him the temptation, and Minnie the pain, of seeing a
fruitless effort to forget her, in an impossible marriage.
We left Lady Dora dancing with Marmaduke Burton; she did so, but it was
spiritless. She had played a game unpleasing to herself, and the success
had not been all she hoped for. Tremenhere seemed perfectly indifferent;
and when she rejoined Lady Lysson, a freezing manner towards herself,
and complete ignorance of Marmaduke Burton's existence, were the things
which they met, as she approached, leaning on his arm. To make her still
more uncomfortable, she saw Tremenhere and Lord Randolph, as she passed
through an inner saloon, laughing and talking with several ladies in the
most unconcerned manner possible. At last the dance was proclaimed for
which she was engaged to the former. Had she been behind him and his
friend, as they stood unobserved by her in a doorway, watching her, she
would not have felt perfectly comfortable. Lord Randolph's face was
severe, but in nowise sad, as he said to the other--
"Tremenhere, that woman does not love me--better said, she rather
dislikes me. Look at her now. What she has done this night, has opened
my eyes to a fact some time suspected, that another motive than even
indifferent liking has induced her to accept me. She has some hidden
thought, or hidden affection in her heart, and she is struggling with
it, for whom I know not; but to me she is indifferent."
"Perhaps you judge hastily," answered Tremenhere. "She has her oddity of
temper, doubtless, like all women. Let time, he is my greatest ally,
decide every thing; he has means of bringing hidden thought to light, of
which our puny imaginings can form no idea. I must leave you; I am
engaged this _Schottische_ to her ladyship," and, loosening his arm, he
crossed over to where she stood with Burton. "May I claim my promised
_Schottische_?" he asked, offering an arm.
It was an immense relief for her to leave Burton. She felt many had
looked coldly upon her that night. A man is not publicly branded
slanderer and coward without the titles clinging to him, more especially
among an English set, acquainted with most of the persons implicated in
the affair. She expected, made up her mind to a few bitter words, or
implied doubts of her motives in having chosen Burton for her cavalier;
but though Tremenhere read her perfectly, he was a sealed book to her,
without an effort, or any thing to make her say, "He is playing a part."
He was perfectly unembarrassed in his manner--attentive, without being
gallant--gentle, without any thing overstrained--full of that quiet,
unostentatious wit which charms so much. She had never seen him to more
advantage; and every moment she felt his superiority over her own narrow
thoughts and mind; and she felt disgusted with the part she had been
playing. A word would have made her express all her overtaxed feelings
to him, but he gave her no opportunity; she was as an agreeable partner
and stranger to him--nothing more. The dance was over; he evinced no
desire to leave her, no particular wish to retain her near him; he was
the impersonation of a thoroughly idle, indifferent man. As they passed
near Lady Lysson, a fan gently touched his arm.
"Amidst more youthful engagements, don't forget you are engaged to me
for a _contredanse_," she said. "When a man solicits a thing, I hold it
as a point of conscience to make him accomplish it; you have urged me to
this folly--I wish to fulfil my kismet."
"I have _not_ forgotten it, Lady Lysson; I am counting the moments by my
stop-watch."
Lady Dora would have given worlds to hear him speak to her in such a
tone. There was a total change in the intonation when he addressed Lady
Lysson. From one to the other it seemed to say, "I know you, and you
know me; there exists a freemasonry between us."
And when she stood in the same quadrille with Lord Randolph as partner,
she felt it still more keenly. There was a freedom between Tremenhere
and Lady Lysson to which she never had attained, though related to
him--it was the familiarity of kindred spirits.
She and her mother quitted early. There was a reception at the embassy
this same evening, to which they were going. Before doing so, however,
they returned home, as it was close at hand, and Lady Dora entered her
room to re-arrange her dress, nominally; but, in fact, to collect her
shattered nerves by a few moments quiet. Accordingly, dismissing her
maid, she sat alone. There was a large mirror opposite the chair where
she sat. After surveying herself some time in the distance, she rose,
and pacing the room with her proud, queenly air, stood before it,
glowing in beauty. Never mirror gave back any thing more richly
beautiful than her face; her eyes of dazzling fire--eyes to make a man
bow down in wonder before their power--and then the long heavy ringlet
of dark chestnut falling across the heaving bosom, to the waist. She
surveyed her beauty, not in petty vanity, but in wonder herself, that so
perfect a work of nature had not awed that man to love her, and confess
his love--how could he resist her? and loving her, as assuredly he
_did_. With this thought a grim doubt arose, like a breath passing over
that mirror, to shade her beauty--almost unconsciously she dropped on a
seat opposite the glass, which her eyes never quitted; and, as if
involuntarily, her hands unclasped the massive bracelets one by one, and
laid them on a table beside her. Her maid had placed a bouquet of rich
damask roses, looped round the stem with a string of gems, on the side
of her beautiful head; for she was not simple in her dress, as Minnie--a
more gorgeous style suited her best. Her fingers, though unused to tasks
like these, unfastened them, and they dropped from her hand on the
floor--all, save the rich dress of antique _moire_, lay around her; and
then the girl, unladen by gems, unadorned but by nature, dispirited,
broken-hearted, at that nature's bidding covered her face with her
hands, and wept bitterly; she _felt_ he could not love her,--to have
been so calm beneath her bitter insult in choosing his cousin's society,
she felt how much, how madly she loved him; and the proud Lady Dora
sobbed in her bitterness. "An artist's wife! the wife of a nameless,
illegitimate man! I would be any thing he might become, if he but loved
me! But he does!" she cried with sudden energy; "he must! His every word
betokened it at once; this one fatal night cannot have made him hate me!
He does, and I will prove him! Less would be madness, a longer suspense,
the working of that hollow pride which has made me what I am!" When her
maid tapped to say, "Lady Ripley was waiting!" she found Lady Dora pale,
and with the tears still on her cheek, incapable of aught but an essay
at rest on her feverish couch. Her mother was not unused of late to her
whims, though she never had carried them to so much excess. It was her
own fault. Had she trained this fair plant otherwise, it would have
reared itself in cultured beauty towards heaven; as it was rotten at the
root, it would either decay from its own want of power, or trail
worthless on the ground, only fit to be torn from its parent earth as a
weed--nothing more.