dawn was rising over the hills, with a settled gloom upon his face. Then
he rose, and began swinging about the room with his firm cavalry tread,
his arms crossed on his chest, and his head bent down.
"By Heaven! Vane," he said at length, in a tone low, but passionate and
bitter, "I have gone on like a baby or a fool, playing with tools till
they have cut me. Against my will, against my judgment, against reason,
hope, everything, I have lingered in that girl's fascinations till I am
bound by them hand and foot. I cannot deceive myself, I cannot shut the
truth out; it was not honor, nor chivalry, nor friendship that made me
to-night insult the man who spoke jestingly of her; it was love--love as
mad, as reckless, as misplaced, as ever cursed a man and drove him to
his ruin." He paused, breathing hard, with his teeth set, then broke out
again: "I, who held love in such disdain, who have so long kept my
passions in such strong control, who thought no woman had the power to
move me against my will--I love at last, despite myself, though I know
that she is pitiless, that nothing I have said has been able to touch
her into softer feeling, and that, mad as my passion is for her, if her
nature be as hard and haughty as I fear, I dare not, if I could, make
her my wife. No, Vane, no," he went on, hastily, as I interrupted. "She
does not love me, she has no gentler feeling in her; I thought she had,
but I was mistaken. I tried her several times, but she will never
forgive my first injustice to her; and to one with so little softness in
her nature I dare not trust my peace. It were a worse hell even than
that I now endure, to have her with me, loving her as I do, and feel
that her cold heart gave no response to mine; to possess her glorious
beauty, and yet know that her love and her soul were dead in their chill
pride to me----"
He paused again, and leaned against the window, his chest heaving, and
hot tears standing in his haughty eyes, wrung from the very anguish of
his soul. The pride that had never before bent to any human thing, was
now cast in the dust before a woman who never did, and probably never
would, love him in return.
V.
THE DUEL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
The contemptible young puppy, for whom Telfer considered the honor of a
ball from his pistol a great deal too good in the morning, sent
Heavysides, of the 40th, a chum of his found up at the Bad, to claim
"satisfaction," the valor produced in him by Sillery over night having
been kept up since by copious draughts of cognac and Seltzer. Having
signified to Heavysides that the Major would do Mr. Snobley the favor of
shooting him in the retired valley of Koenigshoehle at sunrise the next
day, I went to tell Telfer, who had a hearty laugh at the young fellow's
challenge.
"I'd give him something to shoot me through the heart," said he,
bitterly, "but I don't suppose he will. He's practised at pigeons, not
at men, probably. I won't hurt him much, but a little lesson will do him
good. Mind nobody in the house gets wind of the affair. Though I make a
fool of myself in her defence, there is no need that she or others
should know it. But if the boy should do for me, tell her, Vane--tell
her," said the Major, shading his eyes with his hand, "that I have
learnt to love her as I never dreamt I should love any woman, and that I
do not blame her for the just lesson she has read me for the rudeness
and the unjust prejudice I indulged in so long towards her. She
retaliated fairly upon me, and God forbid that she should have one hour
of her life embittered through remorse for me."
His voice sank into a whisper as he spoke; then, with an effort, he
forced himself into calmness, and went to play billiards with Marc. This
was the man who, three months before, had told me with such contemptuous
decision that "we need never fall in love unless it's convenient; and
as to caring for a girl who doesn't care for us, that was a weakness
with which he couldn't sympathize at all!"
Late that night, Telfer and I, coming down the stairs, met the
Tressillian going up them to her room. The Major stopped her, and held
out his hand, with a softened light in his eyes. "Will you not bid me
good-bye? I may not see you again."
There was a sadness in his smile bitterly significant to me, but very
likely she didn't see it, not having any key to it, as I had.
Violet turned pale, and I fancied her lips twitched, but it might be the
flickering of the light of the staircase lamps on her face. At any rate,
being a young lady born and bred in good society, she put her hand in
his, with a simple "What! are you going away?"
"Perhaps. At any rate, let us part in peace."
The proud man laughed as he said it, though he was enduring tortures.
Violet heard the laugh, and didn't see the straining anxiety in his
gaze.
She drew her hand rapidly away. "Certainly. _Bon voyage_, Major Telfer,
and good night," she answered, carelessly; and, with a graceful bend,
the Tressillian floated on up the stairs with the dignity of a young
empress.
Telfer looked after the white gossamer dress and the beautiful head,
with its wreath of scarlet flowers, and an iron sternness settled on his
face. All hope was gone now. She could not have parted with him like
this if she had cared for him one straw more than for the flowers in her
hair. Yet, in the morning, he was going to risk his life for her. Ah,
well! I've always seen that in love there's one of the two who gives all
and gets nothing.
In the morning, by five o'clock, in the valley of Koenigshoehle, a snug
bit of pasture land between two rocks, where no gendarme could pounce
upon us, young Snobley made his appearance to enjoy the honor of being
a target for one of the best shots in Europe. Snobley had a good deal of
swagger and would-be dash, and made a great show of pluck, which your
man of true pluck never does. Telfer stood talking to me up to the last
minute, took his pistol carelessly in his hand, and, without taking any
apparent aim, fired.
If Telfer made up his mind to shoot off your fifth waistcoat-button,
your fifth waistcoat-button would be irrevocably doomed; and therefore,
having determined to himself to lodge a bullet in this young puppy's
left wrist, in the left wrist did the ball lodge. Snobley was
"satisfied," very amply satisfied, I fancy, by his looks. He'd fired,
and sent his shot right into the trunk of a chestnut growing some seven
yards off his opponent, to Heavyside's supreme scorn.
"That'll teach him not to talk of young ladies in his Mabille slang,"
said Telfer, lighting his cigar. "I hope the little snob may be the
better for my lesson. Now I am _en route_, I'll go over to
Pipesandbeersbad, breakfast at the Hotel de France, and go and see
Humbugandschwerinn: he wants me to look at some English racers Brookes
has just sent him over. Make my excuses at Essellau; and I say, Vane,
see if you can't get us away in a day or two; have some call home, or
something, for I shall never stand this long."
With which not over-clear speech the Major mounted his horse and
cantered off towards the Bad.
I rode back; went to my own room, had some chocolate, read Pigault le
Brun, and about noon, seeing Virginie, the Tressillian, and several
others out on the terrace, went to join them. Marc slipped his arm
through mine and drew me aside.
"I say, Vane, what's all this about Telfer striking some fellow for
talking about the Tressillian? Staurmgaurn was over here just now, and
told me there was a row in the card-room at Humbugandschwerinn's
between Telfer and another Englishman. I knew nothing about it. Is it
true?"
"So far true," I answered, "that Telfer put a ball in the youth's wrist
at seven o'clock this morning; and serve him right too--he's an impudent
young snob."
"By Jove!" cried Marc, "what in the world made him take the
Tressillian's part? Have the _beaux yeux_ really made an impression on
the most unimpressionable of men?"
"The devil they have," said I, crossly; "but I wish she'd been at the
deuce first, for he's too good a fellow to waste his best years pining
after a pair of dark eyes."
Marc shrugged his shoulders. "_C'est vrai_; but we're all fools some
time or other. The idea of Telfer's chivalry! I declare it's quite like
the old days of Froissart and Commines--fighting for my lady's favor."
And away he went, singing those two famous lines from Alcyonee:
Pour meriter son coeur, pour plaire a ses beaux yeux,
J'ai fait la guerre aux rois: je l'aurais faite aux dieux;
and I thought to myself that if the Tressillian proved a De Longueville,
I could find it in my soul to shoot her without remorse.
But as I turned away from Marc, I came upon her, looking pale and ill
enough to satisfy anybody. The color flushed into her cheeks as she saw
me; we spoke of the weather, the chances of storm, Floss's new collar,
and other trifles; then she asked me, bending over her little dog,--
"Is Captain Staurmgaurn's news true, that your friend has--has been
quarrelling with a young Englishman?"
"Yes," I answered. "I wonder Staurmgaurn told you; it is scarcely a
topic to interest ladies. Telfer has given the young gentleman a
well-merited lesson."
"Have they fought?" she asked, breathlessly, laying her hand on my arm,
and looking as white as a ghost.
"Yes, they have," said I; "and he fought, Miss Tressillian, for one who
gave him a very cold adieu last night."
Her head drooped, she trembled perceptibly, and the color rushed back to
her cheeks.
"Is he safe?" she asked, in the lowest of whispers.
"Quite," I answered, quickly, as De Tintiniac lounged up to us; and I
left my words, like a prudent diplomatist, to bear fruit as best they
might.
I wondered if she cared for him, or if it was merely a girl's natural
feeling for a man who had let himself be shot at, rather than hear a
light word spoken of her. But they were both so deuced proud, Heaven's
special intervention alone seemed likely to bring them together.
The Major didn't come home from Pipesandbeersbad till between two and
three that night, and he's told me since that being _un peu fou_ with
his self-willed and vehement passion, never went to bed at all, but sat
and walked about his room smoking, unable to sleep, in a frame of mind
that, when sane, a few months before, he would have pronounced spoony
and contemptible in the lowest degree. At eight he strode forth into the
park, brushing off the dew with his impatient steps, glad of the fresh
morning air upon his brow, which was as burning as our first headache
from "that cursed punch of Jones's," the day after our "first wine,"
which acute suffering any gentleman who ever tasted that delicious
_melange_ of rum and milk and lemons, will keenly recall among other
passed-away passages of his green youth.
Telfer strode on and on, over the molehills and through the ferns, down
this slope and up that, under the oaks, and lindens, and fir-trees
gleaming red beneath the October sun, with very little notion of where
he was going or what he was doing, a great stag-hound of Marc's
following at his heels. The path he took, without thinking, led him to
the top of a rock overhanging the Beersbad, where that historic stream
was but a few yards in width; and here Telfer, lying down with his head
against a plane-tree, struck a fusee and lighted a cigar--for a weed's a
pleasant companion in any stage of existence: if we're happy we smoke in
the fulness of our hearts, and build airy castles on each fragrant
cloud; and if we're unhappy, we smoke to console ourselves, and draw in
with each whiff philosophy and peace. So the Major smoked and thought,
till a bark from the staghound made him look up. On the top of the
cliffs on the other side of the stream, looking down into the valleys
below, with her head turned away from him, stood Violet Tressillian; and
at the sight of that graceful figure, with its indescribable high-bred
air, I don't doubt the Major's once unimpressive heart beat faster than
it had ever done in a charge or a skirmish. She was full twenty feet
above him, and the rocks on which she stood sloped precipitately down to
a ledge exactly opposite that on which he lay smoking--a ledge in
reality but a few inches wide, but to which the treacherous boughs and
ferns waving over it gave a semblance of a firm broad footing--a
semblance which (like a good many other things one meets with) it
utterly failed to carry out when you came to try it.
Violet, not seeing Telfer lying _perdu_ among the grass at the foot of
his plane-tree, walked along to the edge of the cliff, her eyes on the
ground, so deep in thought that she never noticed the river beneath, but
began to descend the slope, little Floss coming with exceeding
trepidation after her. Telfer sprang up to warn her. "Violet! Violet! go
back! go back! Oh! my God, do you not hear?"
His passionate tones startled her. Never dreaming he was there, she
looked hurriedly up; her foot slipped; unable to stay her descent, she
came down the steep cliff with an impetus which, to a certainty, would
send her over the narrow ledge into the river below--a fall of full
thirty feet. To see her perish thus before his eyes--die thus while he
stood calmly by! A whole age of torture was crowded into the misery of
that one brief moment. There was but one way to save her. He sprang
across the gulf that parted them, while the river in its straitened bed
hissed and foamed beneath him, and, standing on the narrow ledge, where
there seemed scarce footing for a dog, he caught her as she fell in his
iron grasp, as little swayed by the shock as the rock on which he stood.
Holding her tight to him with one arm, he swung himself down by the
other to a less dangerous position, on a flat plateau of cliff, and
leaning against one of the linden-trees on its summit, he bent over her;
his eyes dim, and his pulses beating with the emotions he had controlled
while he wanted cool thought and firm nerve to save her, but over which
he had no more power now. He pressed her to his heart, forgetting pride,
and doubt, and fear; and Violet, by way of answer, only burst into a
passion of tears. Who would have recognized the proud, brilliant
Tressillian, in the pale, trembling woman who sobbed on his breast with
the _abandon_ of a child, and who, at his passionate kisses, only
blushed like a wild rose?
Telfer evidently thought the transformation complete, for he forgot all
his reserve resolutions and hauteur, and poured out the tenderest love
for a girl who, three months before, he had wished at the devil! And the
Tressillian was conquered at last; she was pitiless no longer, and,
having vanquished him, was, woman-like, ready to be a slave to her
captive; and her eyes were never more dangerous than now, when, shy and
softened, they looked up through their tears into Telfer's.
What old De Tintiniac said of her was true, that all her beauty wanted
to make it perfect was for her to be in love!
So at least I thought, when, several hours afterwards, I met them coming
across the park, and I knew by the gleam of the Major's eyes that he
had lost Calceolaria and won Violet.
"How strange it is," laughed Telfer that evening, when they were alone
in the conservatory, "that you and I, who so hated each other, should
now be so dear to one another. Oh, Violet! how ashamed I have been since
of my unjustifiable prejudices, my abominable discourtesy----"
"You _were_ dreadfully rude," said the Tressillian, smiling; "and judged
me very cruelly by all the false reports that women chose to gossip of
me. But you are wrong. I never hated you. Your father had spoken of you
as so generous, so noble, so chivalrous a soldier, so kind a son, that I
was prepared to admire you immensely, and when you looked so sternly on
me at our first introduction, and I overheard your bitter words about me
at the station, I really was never more vexed and disappointed in my
life. And then a demon entered into me, and I thought--forgive me,
Hamilton--that I would try to make you repent your hasty judgment and
recant your prejudices. But I could not always fight you with the
coolness I wished; your indifference began to pique me more and more.
Wounds from you ranked as they did from no one else, and something
besides pride made me feel your neglect so keenly. I had meant--yes, I
must tell you all," and the Tressillian, in her soft repentance, looked,
Telfer thought, more bewitching than in her most brilliant moments--"I
had wished," she went on in a whisper, with her color bright, "to make
you regret your injustice, to conquer your stubborn pride, and to
revenge myself on you for all the wrong you had done me in thoughts and
words. But, you see, I wasn't so strong as I fancied; I thought I could
fence with the buttons on, but I was mistaken, and--and--when I heard
that you had fought for me, I knew then that----" And Violet stopped
with a smile and a sigh; the sigh for the past, I suppose, and the smile
for the present.
"Well, _nous sommes quittes_, dearest," smiled Telfer. "Thank Heaven! we
no longer need reproach each other. Too many elevate the one they love
into an ideal of such superhuman excellence, that at the first shadow of
mortality they see their poor idol is shivered from its pedestal. But we
have seen the worst side of each other's character, Violet, and
henceforth love shall cover all faults, and subdue all pride between
us."
Telfer kept his word. They had had their last quarrel, and buried their
last suspicion before their marriage, and were not, like the generality,
doves first and tigers after. The governor, of course, was charmed that
a match on which he had secretly set his heart had brought itself about
so neatly without his interference. He had begun to despair of his son's
ever giving Torwood a mistress, and the diamonds he gave Violet, in the
excess of his pleasure, brought her no end of female enemies, for they
were some of the finest water in the kingdom. Seldom, indeed, has
slander been productive of such good fruits, for rarely, _very_ rarely,
does that Upas-tree put forth any but Dead Sea apples.
Violet Tressillian _was_ Violet Telfer before the Christmas recess, but
I considered the bet drawn. So Telfer and I exchanged the roan filly and
the colt, and Calceolaria in the Torwood stables, and Jockey Club in my
stalls, stand witnesses to this day of OUR WAGER, AND HOW THE MAJOR LOST
AND WON.
OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS.
OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS.
I remember well the day that we (that is the 110th Lancers) were ordered
down to Layton Rise. Savage enough we all were to quit P---- for that
detestable country place. Many and miserable were the tales we raked up
of the _ennui_ we had experienced at other provincial quarters; sadly we
dressed for Lady Dashwood's ball, the last _soiree_ before our
departure. And then the bills and the _billets-doux_ that rained down
upon our devoted heads!
However, by some miracle we escaped them all; and on a bright April
morning, 184-, we were _en route_ for this Layton Rise, this _terra
incognita_, as grumpy and as seedy as ever any poor demons were. But
there was no help for it; so leaving, we flattered ourselves, a great
many hearts the heavier for this order from the Horse Guards, we, as I
said, set out for Layton Rise.
The only bit of good news that provoking morning had brought was that my
particular chum, Drummond Fane, a captain of ours, who had been cutting
about on leave from Constantinople to Kamtchatka for the last six
months, would join us at Layton. Fane was really a good fellow, a
perfect gentleman (_ca va sans dire_, as he was one of _ours_),
intensely plucky, knew, I believe, every language under the sun, and, as
he had been tumbling about in the world ever since he went to Eton at
eight years old, had done everything, seen everything, and could talk on
every possible subject. He was a great favorite with ladies: I always
wonder they did not quite spoil him. I have seen a young lady actually
neglect a most eligible heir to a dukedom, that her mamma had been at
great pains to procure for her, if this "fascinating younger son" were
by. For Fane _was_ the younger son of the Earl of Avanley, and would, of
course, every one said, one day retrieve his fortunes by marriage with
some heiress in want of rank.
He has been my great friend ever since I, a small youth, spoiled by
having come into my property while in the nursery, became his fag at
Eton: and when I bought my commission in the 110th, of which he was a
captain, our intimacy increased.
But _revenons a nos moutons_. On the road we naturally talked of Layton,
wondering if there was any one fit to visit, anybody that gave good
dinners, if there was a pack of hounds, a billiard-room, or any pretty
girls. Suddenly the Honorable Ennuye L'Estrange threw a little light on
the matter, by recollecting, "now he thought of it, he believed that was
where an uncle of his lived; his name was Aspi--Aspinall--no! Aspeden."
"Had he any cousins?" was the inquiry. He "y'ally could not remember!"
So we were left to conjure up imaginary Miss Aspedens, more handsome
than their honorable cousin, who might relieve for us the monotony of
country quarters. The sun was very bright as we entered Layton Rise; the
clattering and clashing that we made soon brought out the inhabitants,
and, lying in the light of a spring day, it did not seem such a very
miserable little town after all. Our mess was established at the one
good inn of the one good street of the place, and I and two other young
subs fixed our residence at a grocer's, where a card of "Lodgings to let
furnished" was embordered in vine-leaves and roses.
As I was leaning out of the window smoking my last cigar before mess,
with Sydney and Mounteagle stretched in equally elegant attitudes on
equally hard sofas, I heard our grocer, a sleek little Methodist,
addressing some party in the street with--"I fear me I have done evil in
admitting these young servants of Satan into mine habitation!" "Well,
Nathan," replied a Quaker, "thou didst it for the best, and verily these
officers seem quiet and gentlemanly youths." "Gentlemanlike," I should
say we were, _rather_--but "quiet!"--how we shouted over the innocent
"Friend's" mistake. Here the voices again resumed. "Doubtless, when the
Aspedens return, there will be dances and devices of the Evil One, and
Quelps will make a good time of it; however, the custom of ungodly men I
would not take were it offered!" So these Aspedens were out--confound
it! But the clock struck six; so, flinging the remains of my cigar on
the Quaker's broad-brimmed hat, adorned with which ornament he walked
unconsciously away, we strolled down to the mess-room.
A few hours later some of them met in my room, and having sent out for
some cards, which the grocer kindly wrapped in a tract against gambling,
we had just sat down to loo, when the door was thrown open, and Captain
Fane announced. A welcome addition!
"Fane, by all that's glorious!"--"Well, young one, how are you?" were
the only salutations that passed between two men who were as true
friends as any in England. Fane was soon seated among us, and telling us
many a joke and tale. "And so," said he, "we're sent down to ruralize?
(Mounteagle, you are 'loo'd.') Any one you know here?"
"Not a creature! I am awfully afraid we shall be found dead of _ennui_
one fine morning. I'll thank you for a little more punch, Fitzspur,"
said Sydney. "I suppose, as usual, Fane," he continued, "you left at the
very least twelve dozen German princesses, Italian marchesas, and French
countesses dying for you?"
"My dear fellow," replied Fane, "you are considerably under the mark
(I'll take 'miss,' Paget!); but really, if women _will_ fall in love
with you, how _can_ you help it? And if you _will_ flirt with them, how
can they help it?"
"I see, Fane, _your_ heart is as strong as ever," I added, laughing.
"Of course," answered the gallant captain; "disinterested love is
reserved for men who are too rich or too poor to mind its attendant
evils. (The first, I must say, very rarely profit by the privilege!) No!
I steel myself against all bright eyes and dancing curls not backed by a
good dowry. Heiresses, though, somehow, are always plain; I never could
do my duty and propose to one, though, of course, whenever I _do_
surrender my liberty, which I have not the smallest intention of at
present, it will be to somebody with at least fifty thousand a year.
Hearts trumps, Mount?"