PROPER PRIDE.
A Novel.
Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth,
Love repulsed--but it returneth.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1882.
[_All rights reserved._]
CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
MALTA 1
CHAPTER II.
ALICE SAVILLE 11
CHAPTER III.
LOOTON PARK 48
CHAPTER IV.
A PRACTICAL JOKE 54
CHAPTER V.
THE THUNDERBOLT 74
CHAPTER VI.
“A WELCOME HOME” 109
CHAPTER VII.
WESSEX GARDENS 130
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. MAYHEW’S LITTLE SCHEME 148
CHAPTER IX.
THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM 177
CHAPTER X.
GEOFFREY SPEAKS HIS MIND 192
CHAPTER XI.
“EASTWARD HO!” 211
PROPER PRIDE.
CHAPTER I.
MALTA.
December in Malta is very different from that month in England. There
is no snow, no black frost, no fog; a bright, turquoise-blue sky, and
deep indigo sea, smooth as glass, and dotted here and there with the
white sails of fishing-boats, make a becoming background for this
buff-coloured island. The air is soft, yet exhilarating; a perfume of
oranges, cheroots, and flowers pervades the atmosphere. Little boys,
with superb dark eyes, are thrusting delicious bunches of roses and
heliotrope into the hands of passers-by, and demanding “sixpence.” The
new piano-organs are grinding away mercilessly at the corner of every
street. A trooper, a Peninsular and Oriental, and a vicious-looking
ironclad are all in simultaneously, and Valetta is crammed. Such,
at least, was the scene one December afternoon, not many years ago.
It was the fashionable hour; the Strada Reale was full of shoppers,
sightseers, and loungers; half the garrison were strolling up and down.
Fat monks in brown, thin nuns in black, fruitsellers, Maltese women in
their picturesque faldettas, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men,
beggar men, and no doubt thieves, thronged the hot white pavement.
Outside Marîche’s, the well-known tobacconist, two young men, bearing
the unmistakable stamp of the British warrior of the period, were
smoking the inevitable weed.
Cox, “the horsey,” with hands in pockets, was holding forth at
intervals, to Brown, “the _blasé_,” and ladies’ man _par excellence_,
of the gallant smashers.
“Never saw such a hole as this is in my life--_never_! No hunting, no
shooting, no sport of any kind. Think of all the tiptop runs they are
having at home now! If _The Field_ is to be believed, there never was
such going; nor, for the matter of that, such grief. Here we are--stuck
on an island; water wherever you look; not a horse worth twenty pounds
in the place!”
“Oh come, my dear fellow,” remonstrated his friend, “what about the
Colonel’s barb, and half-a-dozen others I could mention?”
“Well, not a _hunter_, at any rate, and that’s all the same. If we
are left here another year, I believe I shall cut my throat--or get
_married_.”
Looking at his companion with critical gravity, to see how he took this
tremendous alternative, but observing no wonderful expression of alarm
or anxiety depicted on his face, he continued to puff furiously at the
cigar, which he held almost savagely between his set teeth. Suddenly he
exclaimed:
“By Jove, there’s that Miss Saville that all the fellows are talking
about! Why she’s nothing but a schoolgirl after all.”
“Nevertheless, she is the prettiest girl in Valetta,” replied Mr.
Brown, taking his cheroot out of his mouth and gazing with an air of
languid approval after a tall slight figure, in a well-cut blue serge
costume, that, in company with an elderly lady, was crossing the Palace
Square.
“By the way, Brown, who _is_ this Miss Saville when she is at home?”
“Miss Saville,” replied Brown, propping himself against the doorway,
and evidently preparing for a narrative, “is----In the first place, an
heiress, four thousand a-year, my dear boy--think of that.”
* * * * *
Encouraged by a nod from Cox, he proceeded:
“She is also an orphan.”
“Good!” quoth Cox emphatically.
“But you need not run away with the idea that she is an unprotected
female. She has a guardian,” continued his friend impressively.
“It seems that her father, General Saville, saved or made a lot of
money out in India, and this girl was his only child. Her mother died
when she was a baby, and she was sent home and received a first-class
education, including _all_ the extras. Are you listening?”
“Of course I am; get on with the story.”
“Well, old Saville, who had always meant to come home and live on his
fortune and repose on his laurels, trusted too long to the climate, and
left his bones in the cemetery at Lahore, and his daughter to his great
chum, Sir Greville Fairfax, with her fortune and her hand, both tightly
tied up, not to marry without his full consent, not to come of age till
she was five-and-twenty, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“Yes, yes; go on.”
“Hurry no man’s cattle, the day is young,” said Brown, removing his
cheroot after two or three puffs, and contemplating it with apparent
interest.
“About six months later,” he proceeded oracularly, “Sir Greville died
suddenly of heart disease, and it was found by his will that he had
passed on the guardianship of the fair Alice to his son--to his _son_,
a young fellow of four-and-twenty, a captain in the Fifth Hussars, and
now with his regiment in India. What do you think of that?”
“Think!” returned his friend, with emphasis; “I think it was meant as
an uncommonly strong hint for the son to marry her.”
“And so he will, be sure. A pretty girl, with four thousand pounds
a-year and no relations, is not to be had every day. I only wish I had
such a chance. But I am afraid that a sub in a marching regiment, with
a pittance of a hundred pounds a year and his pay, would be rather out
of the running.”
“You may say so,” replied Cox candidly, plunging his hands still deeper
into his pockets. “That old dowager would make short work of ‘the likes
of you,’ as they say in the Green Isle.”
“No doubt she would. She is a Miss Fane, an aunt of Fairfax’s, and has
been all autumn at Nice; and is now here on a visit to the Lee-Dormers.
Of course she will keep the fair Alice for her nephew.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know her name is Alice?” inquired
Captain Cox.
“Oh, I know a good many things,” returned his friend, with careless
complacency, resuming his cheroot and a critical inspection of all
passers-by.
His companion gazed at him for some moments with a kind of sleepy
admiration, and then suddenly burst out:
“Is this Fairfax a dark, slim, good-looking fellow? for I recollect a
Fairfax, an A1 rider, winning the Grand Military at Punchestown some
three years ago; he was in the cavalry, I know.”
“Yes, that’s he--Reginald Fairfax. Since then he has been improving
the shining hour in the gorgeous East, tiger-shooting, pig-sticking,
polo-playing, and so on. His regiment is in this season’s reliefs, and,
very likely, on its way home now.”
“But the Fairfax I knew had lots of coin, never went near a lady, and
would be the last man in the world to settle down and get married. He
cared for nothing but sport of all kinds--hunting, racing, shooting,
and so on; and if he is the identical guardian, Miss Saville is likely
to remain Miss Saville as far as he is concerned. Money would be no
temptation to him,” he concluded triumphantly.
“Well,” rejoined Mr. Brown, “if he won’t marry her, someone else will;
it will be all the same to you and me. Here, my cheroot is out; come
along and take a turn in the Strada, and give the natives a treat.”
_Exeunt_, arm-in-arm.