of the arcboutant in a ruined chapel of the Carmelites, some miles down
the Seine. It was very late, and I was very tired, so turned into the
Freres Provencaux to take some little refreshment, and I there saw my
unhappy cousin in society which _ought_, Miss Gordon, to disqualify him
for yours. It is very painful to me to mention such things to you. I
never thought you overheard----"
"Then, if it is very painful to you," Nina burst in, impetuously, her
_bouche de rose_, as De Kerroualle called it, curving haughtily, "why
are you ceaselessly raking up every possible bit of scandal that you can
against your cousin? His life does not clash with yours, his acts do not
matter to you, his extravagance does not rob you. I used to fancy
charity should cover a multitude of sins, but it seems to me that,
now-a-days, clergymen, like Dr. Watt's naughty dogs, only delight to
bark and bite."
"You are cruelly unjust," answered the Warden, in those smooth tones
that irritate one much more than "hard swearing." "I have no other wish
than Christian kindness to poor Ernest. If, in my place as pastor, I
justly condemn his errors and vices, it is only through a loving desire
to wean him from his downward course."
"Your love is singularly vindictive," said his vehement young opponent,
her cheeks hot and her eyes bright. "No good was ever yet done to a man
by proclaiming his faults right and left. _I_ should like you much
better, Mr. Ruskinstone, if you said, candidly, I don't like my cousin,
and I have never forgiven him for thrashing me at Rugby, and playing
football better than I did."
Eusebius winced at this little touch up of his bygone years, but he
smiled a benign, superior, pitying smile. "Such petitesses, I thank
Heaven, are utterly beneath me, and I should have fancied Miss Gordon
was too generous to suppose them. God forbid that I should envy poor
Vaughan his dazzling qualities. I sorrow over him as a relative and a
precious human soul, but as a minister of our holy Church I neither can,
nor will, countenance his gross violations of all her divinest laws."
With which peroration the Warden, with a sigh, took up a work on "The
Early English Piscini and Aspersoria," and became immersed therein.
"Poor Mr. Vaughan!" cried Nina, impatiently. "Probably he is too wise to
concern himself about what people buzz in his absence, or else he need
be cased in mail to avoid being stung to death with the musquito bites
of scandal."
Gordon came down on her with his heavy artillery. "Silence, Nina! you do
not know what you are defending. I fear that no slander can darken Mr.
Vaughan's character more than he merits."
"A gambler--a roue--a lover of married woman, of dancing-girls,"
murmured Eusebius, in an aside, meant, like those on the stage, to tell
killingly with the audience.
Nina flushed as scarlet as the camellias in her bouquet, and put up her
head with a haughty gesture. "Here comes the subject of your
vituperation, Mr. Ruskinstone, so you can repeat your denunciations, and
favor him with a sermon in person--unless, indeed, the secular
recollections of Rugby intimidate the religious arm."
I fear something as irreverent as "Little devil!" rose to the Warden's
pious lips as he flashed a fierce glance at her from his pale-blue eyes,
for he loved not her, but the splendid _dot_ which the banker was sure
to pay down if his son-in-law were to his taste. He caught his cousin's
glance as he came into the salons, and in the superb scorn gleaming in
Ernest's dark eyes, Eusebius saw that they were not merely enemies,
but--rivals: a Warden with Church principles, all the cardinal virtues,
strict morality, and money; and a _Lion_ with Paris principles (if any),
great fascinations, debts, entanglements, and an empty purse. Which will
win, with Nina for the cup and Gordon for the umpire?
IV.
MISCHIEF.
"Qui cherchez-vous, petite?"
The speaker was la Melusine, and the hearer was Nina who considerably
resented the half-patronising, half mocking, yet intensely amiable
manner the widow chose to assume towards her. Gordon was stricken with
warm admiration of madame, and never inquired into _her_ morality, only
too pleased when she condescended to talk to or invite him. They had met
at a soiree at some intimate friends of Vaughan's in the Champs Elysees.
(Ernest was a favorite wherever he went, and the good-natured French
people at once took up his relatives to please him.) He was not there
himself, but the baronne's quick eyes soon caught and construed her
restless glances through the crowded rooms.
"Je ne cherche personne, madame," said Nina, haughtily. Dressed simply
in white tulle, with the most exquisite flowers to be had out of the
Palais Royal in the famous golden hair, which gleamed in the gaslight
like sunshine, she aroused the serpent which lay hid in the roses of
madame's smiles.
Pauline laughed softly, and flirted her fan. "Nay, nay, mignonne, those
soft eyes are seeking some one. Who is it? Ah! it is that mechant
Monsieur Vaughan n'est-ce pas? He is very handsome, certainly, but
On dit an village
Qu'Argire est volage."
"Madame's own thoughts possibly suggest the supposition of mine," said
Nina, coldly.
"Comme ces Anglaises sont impolies," thought the baronne. "No, indeed,"
she said, laughing carelessly, "I know Ernest too well to let my
thoughts dwell on him. He is charming to talk to, to waltz with, to
flirt with, but from anything further Dieu nous garde! Lauzun himself
were not more dangerous or more unstable."
"You speak as bitterly, madame, as if you had suffered from the
fickleness," said Nina, with a contemptuous curl of her soft lips. Sweet
temper as she was, she could thrust a spear in her enemy's side when she
liked.
Madame's eyes glittered like a rattlesnake's. Nina's chance ball shot
home. But madame was a woman of the world, and could mask her batteries
with a skill of which Nina, with her impetuous _abandon_, was incapable.
She smiled very sweetly, as she answered, "No, petite I have unhappily
seen too much of the world not to know that we must never put our trust
in those charming mauvais sujets. At your age, I dare say I should not
have been proof against your countryman's fascinations, but now, I know
just how much his fondest vows are worth, and I have been deaf to them
all, for I would not let my heart mislead me against my reason and my
conscience. Ah, petite! you little guess what the traitor word 'love'
means here, in Paris. We women grow accustomed to our fate, but the
lesson is hard sometimes."
"You have been reading 'Mes Confidences,' lately?" asked Nina, with a
sarcastic flash of her brilliant eyes.
"How cruel! Do you suppose I can have no _emotions_ except I learn them
second-hand through Lamartine or Delphine Gay? You are very satirical,
Miss Gordon----How strange!" said the baronne, interrupting herself;
"your bouquet is the fac-simile of mine! Look! De Kerroualle sent you
that I fancy? You know he raffoles of you. I was very silly to use mine,
but Mr. Vaughan sent me such a pretty note with it, that I had not the
resolution to disappoint him. Poor Ernest!" And Madame sighed softly, as
if bewailing in her tender heart the woes her obduracy caused. The blood
flamed up in Nina's cheeks, and her hand clenched hard on Ernest's
flowers: they _were_ the fac-similes of the widow's; delicate pink
blossoms, mixed with white azalias. "Is he here to-night, do you know?"
madame continued. "I dare say not; he is behind the coulisses, most
likely. Celine, the new danseuse from the Fenice, makes her debut
to-night. Here comes poor Gaston to petition for a valse. Be kind to
him, pray."
She herself went off to the ball-room, and the effect of her exordium
was to make Nina very disagreeable to poor De Kerroualle, whom she
really liked, and who was _entete_ about her. Not long afterwards, Nina
saw in the distance Vaughan's haughty head and powerful brow, and her
silly little heart beat as quick as a pigeon's just caught in the trap:
he was talking to the widow.
"Look at our young English friend," Pauline was saying, "how she is
flirting with Gaston, and De Lafitolle, and De Concressault. Certainly,
when your Englishwomen do coquet, they go further than any of us."
"Est-ce possible?" said Ernest, raising his eyebrows.
"Mechant!" cried madame, with a chastising blow of her fan. "But, do you
know, I admire the petite very much. I believe all really beautiful
women had that rare golden hair of hers--Lucrezia Borgia (I could never
bear Grisi as _Lucrezia_, for that very reason). La Cenci, the Duchess
of Portsmouth, AEnone--and Helen, I am sure, netted Paris with those gold
threads. Don't you think it is very lovely?"
"I do, indeed," said Vaughan, with unconscious warmth.
Madame laughed gaily, but there was a disagreeable glitter in her eye.
"What, fickle already? Ah well, I give you full leave."
"And example, madame," said Ernest, as he bowed and left her side, glad
to have struck the first blow of his freedom from this handsome tyrant,
who was as capricious and exacting as she was clever and captivating.
But fetters made of fairer roses were over Ernest now, and he never
bethought himself of the probable vengeance of that bitterest foe, a
woman who is piqued.
"Tout beau!" thought Pauline, as she saw him waltzing with Nina. "Mais
je vous donnerai encore l'echec et mat, mon brave joueur."
"Did you give Madame de Melusine the bouquet she carries this evening?"
asked Nina, as he whirled her round.
"No," said Ernest, astonished. "Why do you ask?"
"Because she said you did," answered Nina, never accustomed to conceal
anything; "and, besides, it is exactly like mine."
"Infernal woman!" muttered Ernest. "How could you for a moment believe
that I would have so insulted you?"
"I didn't believe it," said Nina, lifting her frank eyes to his. "But
how very late you are; have you been at the ballet?"
His face grew stern. "Did she tell you that?"
"Yes. But why did you go there, instead of coming to dance with me? Do
you like those danseuses better than you do me? What was Celine's or
anybody's debut, to you?"
Ernest smiled at the native indignation of the question. "Never think
that I do not wish to be with you; but--I wanted oblivion, and one
cannot shake off old habits. Did you miss me among all those other men
that you have always round you?"
"How unkind that is!" whispered Nina, indignantly. "You know I always
do."
He held her closer to him in the waltz, and she felt his heart beat
quicker, but she got no other answer.
That night Nina stood before her toilette-table, putting her flowers in
water, and some hot tears fell on the azalias.
"I will have faith in him," she cried, passionately; "though all the
world be witness against him, I will believe in him. Whatever his life
may have been, his heart is warm and true; they shall never make me
doubt it."
Her last thoughts were of him, and when she slept his face was in her
dreams, while Ernest, with some of the wildest men of his set, smoked
hard and drank deep in his chambers to drive away, if he could, the
fiends of Regret and Passion and the memory of a young, radiant,
impassioned face, which lured him to an unattainable future.
"Nina dearest," said Selina Ruskinstone, affectionately, the morning
after, "I hope you will not think me unkind--you know I have no wish
but for your good--but _don't_ you think it would be better to be a
little more--more reserved, a little less free, with Mr. Vaughan?"
"Explain yourself more clearly," said Nina, tranquilly. "Do you wish me
to send to Turkey for a veil and a guard of Bashi-Bazouks, or do you
mean that Mr. Vaughan is so attractive that he is better avoided, like a
mantrap or a Maelstrom?"
"Don't be ridiculous," retorted Augusta; "you know well enough what we
mean, and certainly you do run after him a great deal too much."
"You are so _very_ demonstrative," sighed Selina, "and it is so easily
misconstrued. It is not feminine to court any man so unblushingly."
Nina's eyes flashed, and the blood colored her brow. "I am not afraid of
being misconstrued by Mr. Vaughan," she said, haughtily; "gentlemen are
kinder and wiser judges in those things than our sex."
"I wouldn't advise you to trust to Ernest's tender mercies," sneered
Augusta.
"My dear child, remember his principles," sighed Selina; "his life--his
reputation----"
"Leave both him and me alone," retorted Nina, passionately. "I will not
stand calmly by to hear him slandered with your vague calumnies. You
preach religion often enough; practice it now, and show more common
kindness to your cousin: I do not say charity, for I am sick of the cant
word, and he is above your pity. You think me utterly lost because I
dance, and laugh, and enjoy my life, but, bad as _my_ principles are, I
should be shocked--yes, Selina, and I should think I merited little
mercy myself, were I as harsh and bitter upon any one as you are upon
him. How can _you_ judge him?--how can you say what nobility, and truth,
and affection--that will shame your own cold pharisaism--may lie in his
heart unrevealed?--how can you dare to censure _him_?"
In the door of the salon, listening to the lecture his young champion
was giving these two blue, opinionated, and strongly pious ladies, stood
Ernest, his face even paler than usual, and his eyes with a strange
mixture of joy and pain in them. Nina colored scarlet, but went forward
to meet him with undisguised pleasure, utterly regardless of the
sneering lips and averted eyes of the Miss Ruskinstones. He had come to
go with them to St. Germain, and, with a dexterous manoeuvre, took the
very seat in the carriage opposite Nina that Eusebius had planned for
himself. But the Warden was no match for the _Lion_ in such affairs,
and, being exiled to the barouche with Gordon and Augusta, took from
under the seat a folio of the "Stones of Venice," and read sulkily all
the way.
"My dear fellow," said Vaughan, when they reached St. Germain, "don't
you think you would prefer to sit in the carriage, and finish that
delightful work, to coming to see some simple woods and terraces? If you
would, pray don't hesitate to say so; I am sure Miss Gordon will excuse
your absence."
The solicitous courtesy of Ernest's manner was boiling oil to the fire
raging in the Warden's gentle breast, and Eusebius, besides, was not
quick at retorts. "I am not guilty of any such bad taste," he said,
stiffly, "though I do discover a charm in severe studies, which I
believe you never did."
"No, never," said Ernest, laughing; "my genius does not lie that way;
and I've no vacant bishopric in my mind's eye to make such studies
profitable. Even you, you know, light of the Church as you are, want
recreation sometimes. Confess now, the chansons a boire last night
sounded pleasant after long months of Faithandgrace services!"
Eusebius looked much as I have seen a sleek tom-cat, who bears a
respectable character generally, surprised in surreptitiously licking
out of the cream-jug. He had the night before (when he was popularly
supposed to be sitting under Adolphe Monod) tasted rather too many
petits verres up at the Pre Catalan, utterly unconscious of his cousin's
proximity. The pure-minded soul thus cruelly caught looked prayers of
piteous entreaty to Vaughan not to damage his milk-white reputation by
further revelation of this unlucky detour into the Broad Road; and
Ernest, who, always kind-hearted, never hit a man when he was down,
contented himself with saying:
"Ah! well, we are none of us pure alabaster, though some of the
sepulchres _do_ contrive to whiten themselves up astonishingly. My
father, poor man, once wished to put me in the Church. Do you think I
should have graced it, Selina?"
"I can't say I do," sneered Selina.
"You think I should _disgrace_ it? Very probably. I am not good at
'canting.'" And giving Nina his arm, the Warden being much too confused
to forestall him, he whispered: "when is that atrocious saint going to
take himself over the water? Couldn't we bribe his diocesan to call him
before the Arches Court? Surely those long coats, so like the little
wooden men in Noah's Ark, and that straightened hair, so mathematically
parted down the centre, look 'perverted' enough to warrant it."
Nina shook her head. "Unhappily, he is here for six months for ill
health!--the sick-leave of clergymen who wish for a holiday, and are too
holy to leave their flock without an excuse to society."
Vaughan laughed, then sighed. "Six months--and you have been here four
already! Eusebius hates me cordially--all my English relatives do, I
believe; we do not get on together. They are too cold and conventional
for me. I have some of the warm Bohemian blood, though God knows I've
seen enough to chill it to ice by this time; but it is _not_ chilled--so
much the worse for me," muttered Ernest "Tell me," he said,
abruptly--"tell me why you took the trouble to defend me so generously
this morning?"
She looked up at him with her frank, beaming regard. "Because they dare
to misjudge you, and they know nothing, and are not worthy to know
anything of your real self."
He pressed his lips together as if in bodily pain. "And what do you
know?"
"Have you not yourself said that you talk to me as you talk to no one
else?" answered Nina, impetuously; "besides--I cannot tell why, but the
first day I met you I seemed to find some friend that I had lost before.
I was certain that you would never misconstrue anything I said, and I
felt that I saw further into your heart and mind than any one else could
do. Was it not very strange?" She stopped, and looked up at him. Ernest
bent his eyes on the ground, and breathed fast.
"No, no," he said at last; "yours is only an ideal of me. If you knew me
as I really am, you would cease to feel the--the interest that you
say----"
He stopped abruptly; facile as he was at pretty compliments, and versed
in tender scenes as he had been from his school-days, the longing to
make this girl love him, and his struggle not to breathe love to her,
deprived him of his customary strength and nonchalance.
"I do not fear to know you as you are," said Nina, gently. "I do not
think you yourself allow all the better things that there are in you.
People have not judged you rightly, and you have been too proud to prove
their error to them. You have found pleasure in running counter to the
prudish and illiberal bigots who presumed to judge you; and to a world
you have found heartless and false you have not cared to lift the domino
and mask you wore."
Vaughan sighed from the bottom of his heart, and walked on in silence
for a good five minutes. "Promise me, Nina," he said at length with an
effort, "that no matter what you hear against me, you will not condemn
me unheard."
"I promise," she answered, raising her eyes to his, brighter still for
the color in her checks. It was the first time he had called her Nina.
"Miss Gordon," said Eusebius, hurriedly overtaking them, "pray come with
me a moment: there is the most exquisite specimen of the Flamboyant
style in an archway----"
"Thank you for your good intentions," said Nina, pettishly, "but really,
as you might know by this time, I never can see any attractions in your
prosaic and matter-of-fact-fact study."
"It might be more profitable than----"
"Than thinking of La Valliere and poor Bragelonne, and all the gay
glories of the exiled Bourbons?" laughed Nina. "Very likely; but romance
is more to my taste than granite. You would never have killed yourself,
like Bragelonne, for the beaux yeux of Louise de la Beaume-sur-Blanc,
would you?"
"I trust," said Eusebius, stiffly, "that I should have had a deeper
sense of the important responsibilities of the gift of life than to
throw it away because a silly girl preferred another."
"You are very impolitic," said Ernest, with a satirical smile. "No lady
could feel remorse at forsaking you, if you could get over it so
easily."
"He _would_ get over it easily," laughed Nina. "You would call her
Delilah, and all the Scripture bad names, order Mr. Ruskin's new work,
turn your desires to a deanship, marry some bishop's daughter with high
ecclesiastical interest, and console yourself in the bosom of your
Mother Church--eh, Mr. Ruskinstone?"
"You are cruelly unjust," sighed Eusebius. "You little know----"
"The charms of architecture? No; and I never shall," answered his
tormentor, humming the "Queen of the Roses," and waltzing down the
forest glade, where they were walking. "How severe you look!" she said
as she waltzed back. "Is _that_ wrong, too? Miriam danced before the ark
and Jephtha's daughter."
The Warden appeared not to hear. Certainly his mode of courtship was
singular.
"Ernest," he said, turning to his cousin as the rest of the party came
up, "I had no idea your sister was in Paris. I have not seen her since
she was fourteen. I should not have known her in the least."
"Margaret is in India with her husband," answered Vaughan. "What are you
dreaming of? Where have you seen her?"
"I saw her in your chambers," answered the Warden, slowly. "I passed
three times yesterday, and she was sitting in the centre window each
time."
"Pshaw! You dreamt it in your sleep last night. Margaret's in Vellore, I
assure you."
"I saw her," said the Warden, softly; "or, at least, I saw some lady,
whom I naturally presumed to be your sister."
Ernest, who had not colored for fifteen years, and would have defied man
or woman to confuse him, flushed to his very temples.
"You are mistaken," he said, decidedly. "There is no woman in my rooms."
Eusebius raised his eyebrows, bent his head, smiled and sighed. More
polite disbelief was never expressed. The Miss Ruskinstones would have
blushed if they could; as they could not, they drew themselves bolt
upright, and put their parasols between them and the reprobate. Nina,
whose hand was still in Vaughan's arm, turned white, and flashed a
quick, upward look at him; then, with a glance at Eusebius, as fiery as
the eternal wrath that that dear divine was accustomed to deal out so
largely to other people, she led Ernest up to her father, who being
providentially somewhat deaf, had not heard this by-play, and said, to
her cousin's horror, "Papa, dear, Mr. Vaughan wants you to dine with him
at Tortoni's to-night, to meet M. de Vendanges. You will be very happy,
won't you?"
Ernest pressed her little hand against his side, and thanked her with
his eyes.
Gordon was propitiated for that day; he was not likely to quarrel with a
man who could introduce him to "Son Altesse Monseigneur le Duc de
Vendanges."
V.
MORE MISCHIEF--AND AN END.
In a little cabinet de peinture, in a house in the Place Vendome, apart
from all the other people, who having come to a dejeuner were now
dispersed in the music rooms, boudoirs, and conservatories, sat Madame
de Melusine, talking to Gordon, flatteringly, beguilingly,
bewitchingly, as that accomplished widow could. The banker found her
charming, and really, under her blandishments, began to believe, poor
old fellow, that she was in love with him!
"Ah! by-the-by, cher monsieur," began madame, when she had soft-soaped
him into a proper frame of mind, "I want to speak to you about that
mignonne Nina. You cannot tell, you cannot imagine, what interest I take
in her."
"You do her much honor, madame," replied her bourgeois gentilhomme,
always stiff, however enraptured he might feel internally.
"The honor is mine," smiled Pauline. "Yes, I do feel much interest in
her; there is a sympathy in our natures, I am certain, and--and,
Monsieur Gordon, I cannot see that darling girl on the brink of a
precipice without stretching out a hand to snatch her from the abyss."
"Precipice--abyss--Nina! Good Heavens! my dear madame, what do you
mean?" cried Gordon--a fire, an elopement, and the small-pox, all
presenting themselves to his mind.
"No, no," repeated madame, with increasing vehemence, "I will not permit
any private feelings, I will not allow my own weakness to prevent me
from saving her. It would be a crime, a cruelty, to let your innocent
child be deceived, and rendered miserable for all time, because I lack
the moral courage to preserve her. Monsieur, I speak to you, as I am
sure I may, as one friend to another, and I am perfectly certain that
you will not misjudge me. Answer me one thing; no impertinent curiosity
dictates the question. Do you wish your daughter married to Mr.
Vaughan?"