CHAPTER XVII.—PLOTTING AND COUNTER-PLOTTING.
The same post-bag in which Tom Hazlehurst dispatched his letter to his schoolfellow, conveyed also two other epistles written by inmates of the Grange. For the reader’s benefit we will take the same liberty with them, which we have already taken with the Etonian’s literary effusion. The first was from Kate Marsden to Miss Arabella Crofton, a lady some three or four years older than herself, who had been one of the teachers at the school at which Kate had been brought up, and was now governess in a German family. Miss Crofton was a woman of unusual mental ability, and having in a great degree moulded Kate’s character, was now her sole confidante and mentor. It ran thus:—
“Dear Arabella,—Since I finally determined on following your advice, fate seems to have played my game for me, and I now consider it as secure as anything which has not actually come to pass can be. I told you, when I wrote to you at Baden-Baden, that his friend, Mr. Coverdale, and my cousin Alice, were evidently becoming attached; you will therefore be the less surprised to hear that they were married yesterday; the matter came about thus:—Soon after I wrote to you, Mr. Crane, by my advice, offered; Alice of course refused him, but so equivocally (she is quite a child in such things) that the poor, dear, dull creature scarcely caught her meaning. I immediately took him in hand, and, availing myself of the situation, flattered his vanity to such a degree, that ere the evening finished he believed not only that Alice would accept him, but that I, Kate Marsden, was hopelessly in love with him. Accordingly, when he learned unmistakably next morning that Alice meant to refuse him, my good taste stood out in very favourable contrast. In the meantime, Mr. Crane’s offer brought Mr. Coverdale to the point, and Alice gladly accepted him, in doing which she acted wisely, for he is a good, amiable, sterling man! and when the romance has worn off, and they have got over the bore of awakening from ‘Love’s young dream,’ I believe they will settle down into a very happy couple. My uncle at first refused his consent, for Coverdale has only five, instead of twenty thousands a-year; and Mr. Crane sulked in a corner; but that strange Mr. D’Almayne, about whom I told you before, and who possesses a degree of influence over Mr. Crane of which I by no means approve, went to him, and persuaded him not only to give up Alice good-humouredly, but actually to play a generous part, and talk my uncle over to give his consent to my cousin’s union with Mr. Coverdale. Thus, you see, as I began by saying, my game was played for me, and I had only to sit still and avail myself of the moves as the others made them.
“I am much puzzled by this Mr. D’Almayne. He is, unless I am much deceived, a complete adventurer, scheming for his own advantage (I ought to be able to recognise such a character); but what his object can have been in this affair I cannot possibly conjecture. Pure philanthropy had nothing to do with it, of that I am certain. Again, how he contrived to influence Mr. Crane to behave so amiably I cannot conceive. Sometimes I fancy he has divined my intention of marrying the millionaire; but, if so, why should he aid me in my project?—for I know by his manner (although he is very cautious) that he admires me himself. Certain it is, that since the conversation I have alluded to, Mr. Crane has been at my feet, and is only waiting to offer till he imagines time enough shall have elapsed to prevent the transfer of his affections (?) from Alice to me appearing too ridiculous. However, the affair will unravel itself some day. And now that my plans are likely to be crowned with success, you will ask me how I feel on the subject. Determined as ever! that which I have begun I will carry through; but, Arabella, I am most miserable. For myself alone I should not care; to rescue my family from poverty, I should be happy to sacrifice my personal hopes and wishes; but to see Arthur suffer is indeed bitterness, and that he does suffer frightfully, I, who can read his every look and gesture, cannot for a moment doubt. Oh, that I had known the depth and reality of his affection sooner, or that the necessity were less cogent! Then he bears it with such manly endurance his manner to his family is exactly the same as usual; not one of them suspects that anything has occurred to pain him. Again, it is such an aggravation of my sorrow that he blames me so deeply! Sometimes, when I am talking to Mr. Crane, I catch his stern, penetrating glance fixed upon me with a calm earnestness of rebuke, which affects me more deeply than could the most vehement reproaches; and when I have acted my part for the day, and, in the solitude of my chamber, I recall all that has passed between us, and reflect that it is I who have brought this sorrow upon him—I who even now feel that I love him better than my own soul—I who would gladly have died for him, I sit, night by night, like a cold statue of despair, or lie sleepless, shedding such tears as I trust God’s mercy permits not to flow quite in vain! Yet it is my duty—you know, you cannot doubt for a moment, it is my duty—you could never have dared to counsel such a sacrifice of the only thing which can make the burden of life endurable, a real, deep, true affection, if you had not felt certain it was my duty.
“You have set me a cruel task, Arabella, but I do not flinch from it; you shall find your pupil worthy the trouble you have bestowed upon her. I shall write again when anything conclusive is settled. If all goes well, I shall be in a position to fulfil my old promise, and offer you a home on your return to England. Would to God it were likely to be a happier, though a humbler one! But that is past now. Farewell.
“Yours, in many senses of the word,
“Kate Marsden.”
The third epistle was from Horace D’Almayne to a friend and ally in Paris. “We transcribe it verbatim:—
“Alphonse, mon cher,—I enclose you a draft for 3000 francs, wherewith I beg you to satisfy Carreau, the tailor, et tous les autres brigands, who render Paris an unsafe residence for me. You will naturally ask how I have obtained the money; not at the gaming-table, nor on the highway, like Claude Duval. Railroads and police have freed England from highwaymen. No; I have for the present filled my purse by studying the great game of life; in which, like all other games, you must either pillage, or be pillaged. You and I, men of wit and of action, naturally belong to the former class, and have meritoriously laboured to fulfil our destiny. Since I have been in England this time I have sedulously cultivated the millionaire I introduced to you last season, whose pocket you so obligingly relieved of £500 at piquet. I made a bad bargain there in only claiming one-third of the spoil; I should have demanded half, for without my assistance you could have done nothing with him; but I understand them, these cautious islanders, some of their blood runs in my veins—my mother, as you know, having been an Englishwoman. However, the time spent on my millionaire has turned out a more profitable investment than I at all calculated upon. He is a weak, vacillating character, one of those feeble-minded mortals who always require some intelligence stronger than their own to lean upon. This support he has found in your humble servant; and so convinced has he become of my diplomatic powers, that just at present he can do nothing without my approval and sanction. His great object in life is to marry, and it is to assist him in obtaining a wife that my counsel is required. When I first arrived here, I found he was dangling after a charming little country girl, the daughter of a landed proprietor in these parts. I soon discovered that the said proprietor, for mercenary reasons, desired the match; but with the young lady I could do nothing. I gave her the full benefit of my eyes, which, as you know, are not wont to look in vain; but it was no use—even ‘les petites moustaches noires,’ usually so irresistible, were thrown away upon her; nor had friend Crane’s £20,000 per annum (mon Dieu, Alphonse, quelle somme merveilleuse!) any more effect upon her. But I soon found a clue to her obduracy—the silly child was enamoured of her brother’s friend, a fox-hunting squire, a true specimen of young John Bull. I saw how the game would go, John Bull returned her affection; he is a real type of his class. Rich, obstinate, and impetuous, he was resolved to marry the pretty rustic; she was equally determined; her brother befriended him; the thing was to be, so I arranged my hand accordingly. There is in the family a belle cousine—such a splendid creature, Alphonse! beautiful as an angel, the contour of a Juno, the port of an empress. She has tact and talent; a soul of fire beneath an exterior of ice; she is poor and ambitious. I could not have hoped to find one better suited to my purpose. She shall marry Crane; his purse will be in her hands; he will become her slave; and, Alphonse, she shall be mine! Do you doubt my success, mon ami? Bah! the game is as simple as child’s play. She is young, ardent; she will marry an old man to satisfy her ambition—she will despise him. Her heart will pine for an object on which to lavish its tenderness; I shall present myself, become her friend, her counsellor—and the result? Oh, you cannot doubt it. So I have pulled the strings, and my marionnettes have danced, and are dancing. My millionaire offered—the little rustic refused him. While he was smarting from this insult, I suggested to him that la belle cousine pined for love of him; praised her wit and beauty; and advised him to revenge himself by transferring his attentions to her. The bait took; I worked out all the minor incidents admirably; the young fox-hunter has married the pretty rustic, and taken her out of my way yesterday. The lovely Kate, playing her own game, labours indefatigably for my interest also. My friend Crane is delighted, and shows his gratitude by urging me to borrow money of him—(I have mortgaged my farm in Brittany to him for six times its value; when the three prior claims upon it are satisfied, and he brings forward his, this fact will surprise him, and teach him prudence for the future)—I avail myself of his liberality with caution, for I must not cut up my golden goose too quickly. But it is well to have more than one resource to rely upon; so if your rich young German countess should resolve on visiting England, send me timely notice. I feel that my star is in the ascendant. Cher Alphonse, wish your friend the success which should reward talent, in the use of which you have so well instructed your devoted,
“Horace.”
CHAPTER XVIII.—ALICE’S FIRST INTRODUCTION TO HER HUSBAND’S “QUIET MANNER.”
If our readers, gentle or simple, will obligingly stretch their imaginations sufficiently to depict for themselves the happiness of Alice and Harry during the first month of their married life, popularly denominated the honeymoon, and be content to permit us to resume our office of chronicler at the termination of that mellifluous (though, to all but the parties concerned, especially insipid) season, the readers aforesaid will merit our eternal gratitude, which we hereby beg to present them with.
Alice and Harry, then, having been married one calendar mouth, during which period they had been “up” the Rhine, and one or two of the Swiss mountains—having seen a great many strange things and strange people—having talked a vast amount of bad French and worse German, and narrowly escaped an attack of cholera from listening to the dissonance of that arch-delusion the Ranz-des-Vaches—having eaten such wonderful articles, cooked in such wonderful fashion, that if the genus Bimana were not providentially omnivorous, they would infallibly have been poisoned—having travelled over land and water by every species of conveyance known to the annals of locomotion, except perhaps a balloon, or the back of an elephant—had at length made their way to Paris; and as the inhabitants of that skittish and inconstant capital were then figuratively patting each other on the back, by way of congratulation on the fortunate accident which had preserved those that remained alive after the latest revolution from having shot each other through the head, our bride and bridegroom, established in a comfortable hotel, had determined to remain there till such time as they should mutually agree upon for their return to England. For, be it observed, that enough of the halo of the honeymoon yet lingered around this young couple, to keep them in the misty delusion that they possessed but one “will of their own” between them. They had yet to learn that there is a higher, truer, nobler state of association to be arrived at, even here on earth—a state in which we recognise the deep happiness of being privileged to sacrifice our own desires to those of the being we love better than ourselves. A logician may stigmatise this as merely a refined phase of selfishness; but it is such selfishness as might cling to us in heaven, and we yet remain sinless. Be this as it may, Alice, who had never been abroad before, found every pleasure enhanced by the charm of novelty, and was in a perfect Elysium of happy excitement. Harry had seen and done it all, and a great deal more besides; and would have found it a bore, only it was sufficient amusement to him to watch his young wife’s delight at all she saw and heard. Whether this amusement of watching, petting, and spoiling Alice, was at all beginning to lose its charm, may be gathered from the following conversation:—
“Harry, you sleepy old thing, this is the third time I’ve asked you whether Madame de Beauville is certain of getting us an invitation to Lord N————’s picnic at Versailles; do rouse yourself and answer me!”
Thus apostrophised, Coverdale—who was stretched at full length on (and beyond) a brocaded sofa, and had been lazily watching his wife, as with a vast deal of unnecessary energy she stitched away at a button, which, according to button-nature, had “come off” her husband’s glove the very first moment he attempted to draw it on—half-raised himself on his elbow as he replied—
“There is nothing certain under the sun; except that my little wife has the prettiest hand and arm of any woman (I don’t care who she may be—Jew, Turk, infidel, heretic, or Christian) in the known world. But that old humbug, Madame de Beauville, promised me faithfully to do her best for us—not that I’d believe her on her oath; she tried to book me for one of her scraggy daughters, the last time I was here; but it wouldn’t act—the trap was too visible, and the bait not sufficiently tempting. What very high action you have with that needle-hand of yours! you’ll overreach yourself, or get sprained in the back sinews, some of these days, if you don’t look out.”
“I will not allow you to ‘talk stable’ in that way, sir,” returned Alice, playfully shaking her finger at her recumbent spouse; “you shall not go to the picnic at all, you naughty boy, unless you behave better. Come, get up,” she continued, “if you lie down again you’ll be asleep in a minute; you’re so idle, you’re actually growing fat!”
“Nonsense, you don’t really mean it!” exclaimed Harry, springing up with a bound which shook the room, and startled Alice so much that she dropt the glove, needle, thread, button, and all, pricking her finger into the bargain. “By Jove,” he continued, regarding himself anxiously in a large pier-glass, “so I am! I tell you what, Mrs. Coverdale, this is getting serious, and must be put a stop to!”
“My dearest Harry, how dreadfully impetuous you are!—you’ve made me jump so, that I’ve dropt my work, and been and gone and pricked my favourite finger, as you say in your horrid slang—look!” So saying, the pretty Alice pouted like a spoilt child, as she then most assuredly was, and held up the injured finger to excite her husband’s commiseration. When a proper degree of pity had been shown, and the necessary amount of matrimonial felicity transacted, Alice resumed: “What a dreadfully conceited fellow you are, to be so alarmed at growing fat! Are you afraid of losing your beauty?”
“My how much?” was the astonished reply. “What funny ideas do come into a woman’s head to be sure! Why, you silly child, do you think I ever set up for a ‘beauty’ man? or care two straws what I look like? Such follies are very well for got up puppies, like Horace D’Almayne; but they’re not in my line.”
“I’m sure you’re fifty times as handsome as Mr. D’Almayne,” was Alice’s eager rejoinder; “but” she continued reflectively “if you are not afraid of your good looks, why are you so horrified at the idea of growing fat?”
Harry coloured slightly, and tried to evade the question; but his wife’s curiosity, being by this time excited, was not so easily baffled, and Coverdale had nothing for it but to confess the truth, which he did thus:—
“Well, if you must know, little wife, I’ve a bay colt by Fencer out of a Harkaway mare, and a chesnut filly by Hercules out of Bulfinch, both rising five (I refused 600 guineas for the pair of ’em a year ago), which I expect to do most of my work next hunting season; but as they’re both young unmade horses, I would not ride over twelve stone for anything; nothing cows a young horse more than overweighting him at starting.”
“Oh, Harry!” exclaimed Alice reproachfully, “I thought you meant to give up hunting now—I’m sure you said so when you were——, that is, before we were married. Why, you would be away from me more than half the day every time you went out! besides, it’s so dangerous! Oh, no; you may go shooting sometimes, and I can ride a pony and mark for you, as I used to do with papa and Arthur, but you must not hunt.”
“And can’t you ride and see the hounds throw off, darling? It’s one of the prettiest sights in the world. The first thing I mean to do when we get back, is to buy you a perfect lady’s horse; something rather different from that brute poor old Crane gave you.”
“Then you won’t promise to give up hunting, you naughty boy—not even when I ask you to do so to please me?”
And, confident in her own power, the young wife cast a look, half-imploring, half-commanding, on her lord and master, which he would have found it no easy matter to resist to a degree which should vindicate his right to such a title, when the opportune entrance of the valet, with a packet of letters, extricated him from his dilemma.
“A note from Madame de Beauville, containing an invitation to the picnic!—how delightful!” exclaimed Alice, appealing for sympathy to her better half; but he was engaged in perusing the following epistle, which, owing to the peculiarities both of diction, writing, and spelling, it was not too easy to decypher:—
“Honoured Sur,—I remain your humbel survunt and gaim-keepur as wos, John Markum, whech I would not ’ave intruded on you injoying of yourself in furring parts as is most fit, having married a beutiful yung English lady, as they do tell me, and the darter of Squire Hazlehurst likewise; which having caused a many things to go rong at home, I thort you would be glad to hear on it, and so rite, which I ’ope is no offence, the same being unintenshonal on my part; but the new stewart is agoin on oudacious, a ordering of me to kill gaim for him to sell, which, refusing to do, agin your ordurs, Honoured Sur, and he putting the money in his durty pocket, savin your presents, am discharged with four small childring, and a little stranger expected, which would have been welcome, but now must be a birding on the parish with his poor mother; which, knowin Honoured Sur, as injustice to unborn innocents is not in your line, nor in that of any gents but dishonest stewarts spoken agen in Scriptur, I umbly takes the liburty of trustin in Providence, which supports his poor mother agen the thorts of workous baby-linen, that hangs heavy on a woman accustomed to wash for the family and keep herself respectabul; so do not give up all hope of seeing you home, Honoured Sur, before every hed of gaim is destroyed, in which case Mr. stewart may larn that honesty is the best politics arter all; and so remain,
“Your humbel survunt to commarnd,
“John Markujm.”
“P.S.—The rabbids is agoin to town in the carriur’s cart, frightful, likewise the peasants.”
“My dearest Harry, there is to be a bal costumé after the picnic, and that kind Madame de Beauville sends us tickets for both! How charming!” exclaimed Alice, so engrossed in her pleasant anticipations that she had not observed the gloom gathering upon her husband’s brow, and was, therefore, quite unprepared when he broke out suddenly—
“’Pon my word, it’s enough to drive a man distracted! the moment one turns one’s back everything goes to———Ahem!—
“Here’s a scoundrel, who lived eight years with Lord Flashipan, and who came to me with a character fit for a bishop, and now he’s not only selling my game by cart-loads, but has actually dared to discharge Markum!—as honest, trustworthy a fellow, and as good a keeper as man need to require. Oh, if I was but near him with a horse-whip, I wouldn’t mind paying for the assault! I’d give him something to remember Harry Coverdale by—he might thank his stars if I didn’t break every bone in his skin. And that poor fellow Markum turned out, and all his little curly-headed brats, too—that makes me as mad as any of it!” He strode up and down the room angrily, his wife watching him in terrified amazement. At length he exclaimed abruptly—“Alice, my dear, we must start for England to-morrow morn——”
“But the picnic and the bal costumé, Harry, dearest, do not come off till the day after that; and Madame de Beauville has just sent me tickets for them both!” urged his wife, timidly.
“I’m sorry, my love, that it should have happened so, but go we must,” was the unyielding reply.
“But Madame de Beauville has taken so much trouble, and been so kind,” murmured Alice.
“The devil fly away with the old hag and her kindness too!” was the angry rejoinder. “I wish to heaven she’d attend to her own affairs, and not try to inspire you with a taste for dissipation. However, there is a quiet way of settling this question: if you choose to stay and go to this party, stay; and when I’ve been to Coverdale, and settled scores with that rascal Cribbins, I’ll come back and fetch you; so please yourself.”
Poor Alice! this was her first experience of Harry’s “quiet way;” the implied indifference was more than she could bear, and murmuring, in a broken voice, “Do you wish to leave me already!” she burst into a flood of tears.
Of course, that settled the question. Harry called himself a brute, and thought he was one, and felt as if he could have cried too, when he saw the bright drops glistening in Alice’s soft, loving eyes, and so set himself to work in earnest to console her; and succeeded to such an extent that ere a quarter of an hour had elapsed, Alice pronounced herself to be a silly child, and wondered how she could have been so foolish as to cry because Harry, the kindest and most affectionate of husbands, had evinced his just indignation on learning how the miscreant Cribbins had tyrannized over the faithful and unfortunate Markum, and his dear little interesting, curly-pated family. Then, as a personal favour to herself, she begged Harry would let her give up the picnic, and start for England next morning; she would be quite ready to go at five A.M., or earlier, if he wished it. To which Harry replied that nothing should induce him to deprive her of a pleasure he knew she had set her heart on; that a French picnic and bal costumé were things she could never see in England, and that as they were there it would be really a pity not to avail themselves of so good an opportunity; and he begged she would instantly sit town and write his thanks, as well as her own, to that thoroughly friendly, kind-hearted woman, Madame de Beauville.
While Alice was thus engaged, Harry took pen in hand, and dashed off a hurried epistle to Arthur, begging him to run down to Coverdale Park by the next train, and in his name cashier Cribbins, and re-instate the ill-used Markum and his much-enduring wife, if possible, before the arrival of the expected little stranger should add another small item to his embarrassments.
The picnic was a very gay one, and the bal costumé all that Alice’s “fancy had painted it,”—and a few over, as her slang husband was pleased to express it. The young couple went dressed as Romeo and Juliet. Harry, if left to himself, would have chosen a clown’s suit of motley; but Alice considered the romantic preferable to the ridiculous, and so he yielded; though it must be confessed that he afforded the most stalwart, robust, and cheerful representation of the forlorn Veronese lover that can well be imagined. Alice (although she also would have looked the part better if her damask cheek had not glowed quite so brightly with health and happiness) made an extremely fascinating little Juliet, and produced a sensation which delighted her husband, and bid fair to turn her own pretty head.
The bal and picnic being safely accomplished, and Alice perceiving that, although he did not again openly broach the subject, Harry’s thoughts were continually wandering to Coverdale Park, pretended (like a loving little hypocrite as she was) that she also began to feel home-sick; and that, although Paris was all very charming and agreeable for a little while, she should be very sorry to stay there long. Thus, the day of their departure was fixed, so that Harry should be enabled to reach home before the first of September,—as Alice (choosing the lesser of two evils) meant to encourage his shooting (occasionally for a few hours), as a bribe to induce him to give up that senseless and dangerous pastime, hunting; and she actually believed that her influence could accomplish all this—dear, innocent little Alice!
On the morning before they were to start, a letter arrived from the Grange. Alice read it eagerly.
“Oh, Harry!” she exclaimed, “what do you think Emily tells me? What a strange, extraordinary, wretched thing!—it seems quite impossible!”
“What is it, little wife?” returned Harry. “Has your father turned free-trader, and invited Messrs. Cobden and Bright to stay with him; or has Arthur been made Lord Chancellor?”
“Something almost as wonderful,” was the rejoinder. “Mr. Crane has proposed for my cousin Kate’s hand, and she has positively accepted him!”
“And a very sensible thing, too,” replied Harry, who, leaning over the back of his wife’s chair, was wickedly and surreptitiously attaching an ornamental pen-wiper to the end of one of her long, silky ringlets; “I dare say, now, you’re bitterly repenting your own folly in having allowed her the chance.”
Alice, turning her head quickly to administer condign punishment for this speech, by a tug at her lord and master’s ample whiskers, became aware of the scheme laid against her unconscious ringlet by reason of a twitch, which Harry, unprepared for her sudden movement, was unable to avoid giving it.
“You silly boy! what are you doing to me? oh! you’ve tied a horrid thing to my pet curl; take it off directly, sir! But seriously, now, about Kate;—dearest Harry—do be sensible, please, and let me talk to you.” This exhortation was called forth by the fact of the incorrigible Coverdale having placed the pen-wiper—which was a sort of cross between a three-barrelled cocked hat and an improbable pyramid—on the top of his wife’s head, just where the cross-roads in the parting of her hair occurred.
“Talk away, darling; I’m about as sensible as it’s at all likely you’ll ever find me,” was the reply.
“‘Well, don’t you really and truly think it very shocking that such a girl as Kate—so clever and handsome, so unusually superior in every point—should throw herself away upon that silly old man, whom she cannot even respect?” rejoined Alice.
“If I must speak the plain truth,” replied Harry, “I should say that a girl who could make such a sacrifice of her own free will isn’t worth pitying for it; she must be both mercenary and ambitious—serious faults in a man, but positive vices in a woman, because in yielding to them she is sinning against all the better instincts of her nature: for such a character I can feel no sympathy.”
“But indeed, Harry, she is not such a dreadful heartless creature as you imagine her; at least, she never used to be. On the contrary, when we were all children together, she was rather high-flown and romantic. It was during the time that she was at school, and under the care of a horrid woman, a Miss Crofton—”
“A Miss how much?” inquired Harry.
“Miss Crofton.”
“What was her Christian name?” continued Harry.
“Arabella,” was the reply.
“By Jove! did you ever see her? Was she a tall, dark-looking creature, with great flashing eyes like a gipsy’s?”
“Yes, that is an exact description of her,” returned Alice, in surprise; “but why do you ask? What do you know of her?”
“No good,” returned Harry, mysteriously, shaking his head; “but never mind, go on.”
“I was only going to say that I feel sure Kate must have some better reason than a mere wish to become a great lady, to induce her to marry Mr. Crane. You know her father and mother are very poor, and she has several younger brothers and sisters; perhaps she wishes to help them.”
“I dare say she does,” replied Harry, turning away to conceal a yawn; “nobody is all bad, any more than they are all the other thing. Characters are like zebras—alternate stripes of black and white; the only difference is, that in some one colour predominates, in some the other.”
There was a pause, then in a lower voice Alice resumed—
“Harry, did it ever occur to you (of course, I do not want you to betray confidence even to me), but did you ever suspect that Arthur was attached to Kate?”
“Never in my life,” was the unhesitating reply. “Arthur always laughed the tender passion, as he used to call it, to scorn.”
“I felt almost certain it was so,” continued Alice; “but I most earnestly hope, for his sake, that I was mistaken; if not, only conceive how wretched this engagement will make him!”
“Judging by my own feelings, when I fancied you had accepted the irresistible cotton-spinner,” returned Coverdale, “I should say that Prometheus, who had a perennial vulture making ‘no end’ of a meal on his liver (which I take to be simply a metaphorical method of stating that the unfortunate Titan was afflicted with hepatic disease), was, by comparison, ‘a gentleman who lived at home at ease.’”
“I used to fancy sometimes,” pursued Alice, “that Kate returned his affection; but she was so reserved, and her manner was always so calm and self-possessed, that it was impossible to judge, with any degree of certainty, what her feelings might be. However, this settles the point so far as she is concerned; if she had really cared about him, she could never have consented to marry Mr. Crane.”
“Hum! well I don’t know that,” returned Harry, meditatively; “it is not all women who have such simple, true, loving hearts as you, my own darling; and a pupil of Arabella Crofton’s may very well be capable of loving one man and marrying another.”
“Why, how came you to know anything about Miss Crofton, Harry?” exclaimed Alice, her curiosity being thoroughly roused by her husband’s second allusion to some previous acquaintance with her cousin’s ci-devant governess.
“I met her in Italy, if you must know,” returned Coverdale “She lived as governess in a family where I visited, and I saw a good deal of her at one time.”
There was something so odd and conscious in his manner of speaking, that Alice exclaimed, “She fell in love with you, I am certain of it. Come, confess now that I am right.”
“Do you think that every woman must needs be as foolish as yourself, you silly child?” was the uncomplimentary reply. “I can assure you, Miss Crofton is as utterly unlike you in tastes, habits, and opinions, as she is in person; and that is a pretty considerable assertion, I take it. And now it is time for you to get ready for our last drive in the Bois de Boulogne, and I must go out and buy a clean pair of gloves; so for ten minutes I shall wish you an affectionate farewell.”
Thus saying, Harry quitted the apartment; and Alice, going to prepare for her drive, forgot, for the time, her husband’s mysterious intimacy with Miss Crofton—it occurred to her afterwards, indeed, when——, but we must not anticipate. The next morning saw them en route. As they were about to embark at Boulogne, a sensation was created, at the hotel at which they waited till the tide served for the packet to start, by the arrival of a travelling carriage drawn by four horses, with a lady inside, and her soubrette, and an outlandish, courier-like creature in the rumble.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Harry, who, ensconced behind a window-curtain, had been examining the turn out with all the interest with which a position of enforced idleness invests every trifle. “By the powers there’s a foreign coronet on the carriage, and ditto on Don Whiskerando’s buttons! I wonder what she is like! Young and pretty, by all that is interesting and romantic! I dare say she is going to cross in the same boat as we are. Yes! Whiskerandos is gesticulating and explaining, and the landlord waves his hand in the direction of the pier. Now comes the bore of being a married man: what a splendid adventure I am shut out from! If I were but single, an opportunity now offers of captivating a lovely and accomplished foreign Countess, with a dowry of diamonds in her dressing-box, and a gold mine in her precious pocket: there’s a good opening for a nice young man!”
“Pray avail yourself of it,” returned Alice. “Don’t let me be any obstacle; carry off the Countess, and I will remain behind with that noble creature whom you style Don Whiskerandos. I prefer him infinitely to you, he is so like a very well-trained baboon.”
Harry’s conjecture that the mysterious Countess meant to cross in the same vessel with, himself and his wife proved correct; for, scarcely had he seen Alice comfortably established on a snug bench, where, if the sea-fiend should be so uncourteous as to attack her, she could on an emergency lie down, when daintily tripped along the human chicken-ladder which connected the vessel with the shore, the graceful, bien chaussé, little feet of the Countess. Then ensued a grand scene. Whiskerandos either did not comprehend, or refused to comply with some demand of the hotel commissionaire, who had taken upon himself the charge of the baggage, and who accordingly resisted his conveying his mistress’s luggage on board. Whiskerandos grimaced and chattered in a polyglot jargon, apparently compounded of every language under heaven, and utterly incomprehensible to the deepest philologist extant: the commissionaire was immovable. Whiskerandos implored—the commissionaire was deaf to his entreaties. Whiskerandos stormed—the commissionaire was inexorable. Whiskerandos, unable to endure his fate with calmness, went raving mad—he swore oaths so replete with improbable consonants that it is only a wonder they did not smash every tooth in his head; he stumped, shrieked, clenched his fists, and shook them in the face of his adversary—in vain; the commissionaire remained adamant, and prepared actually to carry off the offending luggage.
“Look at that ape,” observed Harry to his wife, who was watching the scene, half in amusement, half in terror; “he’s going into sky-blue fits apparently: of all absurd sights an angry foreigner is the most ridiculous. Do you see his moustaches?—they actually stand on end with fury, like the hairs on the tail of an excited cat. But see, the Don appeals to his mistress; the Countess will have to settle the affair in propriâ personâ.” This affair, however, was not to be arranged so easily; for the inflexible commissionaire proved as deaf to the entreaties of the mistress as he had shown himself to the threatenings of the man; and the Countess, if countess she was, having remonstrated to no purpose in a gentle, timid voice, looked helplessly round, as though she would appeal to society at large to aid her in her difficulty.
“Poor thing! those men have frightened her; she looks ready to cry!” exclaimed Alice. “Harry, dear, do go and see if you cannot assist her—you understand how to manage those people so well; besides, they always attend to a gentleman.”
Thus urged, Harry crossed the deck, and Alice saw him take off his hat and address the interesting foreigner; she bowed her head, and was evidently making a grateful answer; then Harry turned to the disputants, who both assailed him with a volley of words, upon which he first silenced Whiskerandos, then he exchanged a few cabalistic sentences with the commissionaire, and slipped a talisman into his hand, whereupon, with the celerity of some harlequinade trick, he changed into an amiable, obliging creature, only too anxious to please everybody, and went off, patting Whiskerandos on the back, and calling him a brave garçon, to assist with his own silver-absorbing fingers in conveying the Countess’s luggage on board. Then the Countess overwhelmed Harry with thanks, and Harry smiled benignantly upon the Countess, and they “talked conversation” for a few minutes; after which they both looked at Alice, and Harry with his best company manner on (which was merely his own natural manner brushed smooth), crossed over to her.
“She is really a Countess,” he began, “and a very charming, refined style of young woman too. She wants to be introduced to you, so come along.”
“But, Harry, dear, I shall break my neck, or tumble into the sea, if I attempt to walk; just look how its rolling about!” remonstrated Alice, whose essentially terrestrial education had given her rather a horror of all nautical matters.
“We’ll fall in together then,” returned Harry, laughing; “at all events don’t let us fall out about it. Come along, little wife, and trust yourself to me; I’ve paced a vessel’s deck when the sea’s shown rather a different sort of surface from that which it wears to-day.”
As he spoke, he placed his arm round his wife’s slender waist, and half supported, half led her across the deck in safety.
“What is her name, Harry?” inquired Alice, as they were effecting the transit.
“Bertha seems to be her Christian name—of course her surname is something unpronounceable and appalling; but if you call her Countess Bertha that will do; at all events, as long as our acquaintance with her is likely to last,” was the reply.
Alice having never before encountered a real, live Countess, felt a little shy at first; but the young foreigner’s manner, which was perfectly easy without being too familiar, soon re-assured her, and the two girls (for the Countess appeared little older than Alice) chatted away, at first in French, but when it came out that the stranger likewise understood English, in that language, to their mutual satisfaction. But in about half-an-hour a breeze (not metaphorical, but literal) sprung up, and the Countess signified her wish to retire to the cabin, upon which Coverdale summoned her maid, and then assisted her to effect the desired change of locality.