DINNER AT RANELAGH.
Here is the whole set, a character dead at every word.
Sheridan.
It was the fag end of the London season; people were talking about Goodwood and the Ryde week, about grouse and about salmon-fishing. Members of Parliament went about, like martyrs at the stake, groaning over the interminable nature of every debate, and shaking their heads over the prospect of getting away. Women in society knew all their own and their neighbours' dresses by heart, and were dead sick of them all; and even the very gossip and scandal that is always afloat to keep up the spirits of the idlers and the chatterers had lost all the zest, all the charm of novelty that gave flavour and piquancy to every canard that was started two months ago.
It was all stale, flat, and unprofitable.
What was the use of constantly asserting, on the very best authority, that Lady So-and-so was on the eve of running away with that handsome young actor, whose eyes had taken the female population by storm, when Lady So-and-so persisted in walking about arm-in-arm with her husband day after day, with a child on either side of them, in the most provoking way, as though to prove the utter fallacy of the report, and her own incontestable domestic felicity? Or, what merit had a man any longer who had stated in May that the heiress par excellence of the season was about to sell herself and her gold to that debauched and drunken marquis, who had evidently not six months of life left in him in which to enjoy his bargain, when the heiress herself gave the lie to the on dit in July by talking calmly about going to Norway with her papa for a month's retirement and rest after the fatigues of the season?
What a number of lies are there not propounded during the months of May and June by the inventive Londoner, and how many of them are there not proved to be so during the latter end of July!
Heaven only knows how and where the voice of scandal is first raised. Is it at the five o'clock tea-tables? Or, is it in the smoking-rooms of the clubs that things are first spoken of, and the noxious breath of slander started upon its career? Or, are there evil-minded persons, both men and women, prowling about, like unclean animals, at the skirts of that society into whose inner recesses they would fain gain admittance, picking up greedily, here and there, in their eaves-dropping career, some scrap or morsel of truth out of which they weave a well-varnished tale wherewith to delight the ears of the vulgar and the coarse-minded? There are such men and such women; God forgive them for their wickedness!
Do any of these scandal-mongers ever call to mind, I wonder, an ancient and, seemingly, a well-nigh forgotten injunction?
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," said the same Voice who has also said, "Thou shalt do no murder."
And which is the worst—to kill a man's body, or to slay a man's honour, or a woman's reputation?
In truth, there seems to me to be but little difference between the two; and the man or the woman who will do the one might very possibly be guilty of the other—but for the hanging!
We should all do a great many more wicked things than we do if there were no consequences.
It is a very trite observation, which is, nevertheless, never spoken with more justice or more truth than at or about Hyde Park Corner between May and July, that the world we live in is a very wicked one.
Well, the season, as I have said, was well-nigh over, and all the scandal had run dry, and the gossip, for the most part, been proved to be incorrect, and there was nobody in all London who excited so much irritation among the talkers as the new beauty, Vera Nevill.
For Vera was Miss Nevill still, and there was every prospect of her remaining so. What on earth possessed the girl that she would not marry? Had not men dangled at her elbow all the season? Could she not have had such and such elder sons, or such and such wealthy commoner? What was she waiting for? A girl without a penny, who came nobody knew from where, ushered in under Mrs. Hazeldine's wings, with not a decent connection in the world to her name! What did she want—this girl who had only her beauty to depend upon? and everybody knows how fleeting that is!
And then, presently, the women who were envious of her began to whisper amongst themselves. There was something against her; she was not what she seemed to be. The men flirted, of course—men will always flirt! but they were careful not to commit themselves! And even that mysterious word "adventuress," which has an ugly sound, but of which no one exactly knows the precise meaning, began to be bruited about.
"There was an unpleasant story about her, somebody told me once," said one prettily-dressed nonentity to another, as they wandered slowly up and down the velvet lawns at Ranelagh. "She was mixed up in some way with the Kynaston family. Sir John was to have married her, and then something dreadful came out, and he threw her over."
"Oh, I thought she jilted him."
"I daresay it was one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas or other. I believe her mother was—hum, hum—you understand—she couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been thankful to get out of it."
"It looks very bad, her not marrying any one, with all the fuss there has been made over her."
"Yes; even Cissy Hazeldine told me, in confidence, yesterday, she could not try her again next season. It wouldn't do, you know; it would look too much as if she had some object of her own in getting her married. Cissy must find something else for another year. Of course, with a husband, she could sail her own course and make her own way; but a girl can't go on attracting attention with impunity—she gets herself talked about—it is only we married women can do as we like."
"Exactly. Do you suppose that will come to anything?" casting a glance towards the further end of the lawn, where Vera Nevill sat in a low basket-chair, under the shadow of a spreading tulip-tree, whilst a slight boyish figure, stretched at her feet, alternately chewed blades of grass and looked up worshippingly into her face.
"That!" following the direction of her companion's eyes. "Oh dear, no! Denis Wilde is too wideawake to be caught, though he is such a boy! They say she is crazy to get him; everybody else has slipped through her fingers, you see, and he would be better than nothing. Now we are in the last week in July, I daresay she is getting desperate; but young Wilde knows pretty well what he is about, I expect!"
"He seems to admire her."
"Oh, yes, I daresay; those large kind of women do get admired; men look upon them as fine animals. I should not care to be admired in that way, would you?"
"No, indeed! it is disgusting," replied the other, who was fain to conceal the bony corners of her angular figure with a multiplicity of lace ruchings and puffings.
"As to Miss Nevill, she is nothing else. A most material type; why, her waist must be twenty-two inches round!"
"Quite that, dear," with sweetness, from the owner of a nineteen-inch article, which two maids struggled with daily in order to reduce it to the required measurement.
"Well, I never could—between you and me—see much to admire in her."
"Neither could I, although, of course, it has been the fashion to rave over her."
And, with that, these two amiable young women fell at it tooth and nail, and proceeded to cry down their victim's personal appearance in the most unmeasured and sweeping terms.
After the taking away of a fellow-woman's character, comes as a natural sequence the condemnation of her face and figure, and it is doubtful which indictment is the most grave in eyes feminine. Meanwhile the object of all this animadversion sat tranquilly unconscious under her tulip-tree, whilst Denis Wilde, that astute young gentleman, whom they had declared to be too well aware of what he was about to be entrapped into matrimony, was engaged in proposing to her for the fourth time.
"I thought we had settled this subject long ago, Mr. Wilde," says Vera, tranquilly unfolding her large, black, feather fan—for it is hot—and slowly folding it up again.
"It will never be settled for me, Vera; never, so long as you are unmarried."
"What a dreadful mistake life is!" sighs Vera, wearily, more to herself than to the boy at her feet. Was anybody ever happy in this world? she began to wonder.
"I know very well," resumed Denis Wilde, "that I am not good enough for you; but, then, who is? My prospects, such as they are, are very distant, and your friends, I daresay, expect you to marry well."
"How often must I tell you that that has nothing to do with it," cries Vera, impatiently. "If I loved a beggar, I should marry him."
Young Wilde plucked at the grass again, and chewed a daisy up almost viciously. There was a supreme selfishness in the way she had of perpetually harping upon her lack of love for him.
"There is always some fellow or other hanging about you," grumbles the young man, irritably; "you are an inveterate flirt!"
"No woman is worthy of the name who is not!" retorts Vera, laughing.
"I hate a flirt," angrily.
"This is very amusing when you know that your flirtation with Mrs. Hazeldine is a chronic disease of two years' standing!"
"Pooh!—mere child's play on both sides, and you know it is! You are very different; you lead a fellow on till he doesn't know whether his very soul is his own, and then you turn round and snap your fingers in his face and send him to the devil."
"What an awful accusation! Pray give me an instance of a victim to this shocking conduct."
"Why, there's that wretched little Frenchman whom you are playing the same game with that you have already done with me; he follows you like a shadow."
"Poor Monsieur D'Arblet!" laughed Vera, and then grew suddenly serious. "But do you know, Mr. Wilde, it is a very singular thing about that man—I can't think why he follows me about so."
"Can't you!" very grimly.
"I assure you the man is in no more love with me than—than——"
"I am! I suppose you will say next."
"Oh dear, no, you are utterly incorrigible and quite in earnest; but Monsieur D'Arblet is pretending to be in love with me."
"He makes a very good pretence of it, at all events. Here he comes, confound him! If I had known Mrs. Hazeldine had asked him, I would never have come."
At which Vera, who had heard these outbursts of indignant jealousy before, and knew how little poor Denis meant the terrible threats he uttered, only laughed with the pitiless amusement of a woman who knows her own power.
Lucien D'Arblet came towards her smiling, and sank down into a vacant basket-chair by her side with the air of a man who knows himself to be welcome.
He had been paying a great deal of attention latterly to the beautiful Miss Nevill; he had followed her about everywhere, and had made it patent in every public place where he had met her that she alone was the sole aim and object of his thoughts. And yet, with it all, Monsieur Le Vicomte was only playing a part, and not only that, but he was pretty certain that she knew it to be so. He gazed rapturously into her beautiful face, he lowered his voice tenderly in speaking to her, he pressed her hand when she gave it to him, and even on occasions he raised it furtively to his lips; but, with all this, he knew perfectly well that she was not one whit deceived by him. She no more believed him to be in love with her than he believed it of himself. She was clever and beautiful, and he admired and even liked her, but in the beginning of their acquaintance Monsieur D'Arblet had had no thought of making her the object of any sentimental attentions. He had been driven to it by a discovery that he had made concerning her character.
Miss Nevill had a good heart. She was no enraged, injured woman, thirsting for revenge upon the woman who had stolen her lover from her—such as he had desired to find in her; she was only a true-hearted and unhappy girl, who was not in any case likely to develop into the instrument of vengeance which he sought for.
It was a disappointment to him, but he was not completely disheartened. It was through her that he desired to punish Helen for daring to brave him, and he swore to himself that he would do it still; only he must now set about it in a different way, so he began to make love to Miss Nevill.
And Vera was shrewd enough to perceive that he was only playing a part. Nevertheless, there were times when she felt so completely puzzled by his persistent adoration, that she could hardly tell what to make of it. Was he trying to make some other woman jealous? It even came into her head, once or twice, to suspect that Cissy Hazeldine was the real object of his devotion, so utterly incomprehensible did his conduct appear to her.
If she had been told that Lucien D'Arblet's real quest was not love, but revenge, she would have laughed. An Englishman does not spend his time nor his energies in plotting a desperate retaliation on a lady who has disregarded his threats and evaded his persecution; it is not in the nature of any Briton, however irascible, to do so; but a Frenchman is differently constituted. There is something delightfully refreshing to him in an atmosphere of plotting and intrigue. There is the same instinct of the chase in both nationalities, but it is more amusing to the Frenchman to hunt down his fellow-creatures than to pursue unhappy little beasts of the field; and he understands himself in the pursuit of the larger game infinitely better.
Nevertheless, Monsieur D'Arblet had no intention of getting himself into trouble, nor of risking the just fury of an indignant British husband, who stood six feet in his stockings, nor did he desire, by any anonymous libel, to bring himself in any way under the arm of the law. All he meant to do was to dig his trench and to lay his mine, to place the fuse in Vera Nevill's hands—leave her to set fire to it—and then retire himself, covered with satisfaction at his cleverness, to his own side of the Channel.
Who could possibly grudge him so harmless an entertainment?
Monsieur D'Arblet, as he sat down by her side under the tulip-tree, began by paying Miss Nevill a prettily turned compliment upon her fresh white toilette; as he did so Vera smiled and bent her head; she had seen him before to-day.
"Fine evening, Mr. Wilde," said the Frenchman, turning civilly, but with no evident empressement, towards the gentleman he addressed.
Denis only answered by a sulky grunt.
Then began that process between the two men which is known in polite society as the endeavour to sit each other out.
Monsieur D'Arblet discoursed upon the weather and the beauty of the gardens, with long and expressive pauses between each insignificant remark, and the air of a man who wishes to say, "I could talk about much more interesting things if that other fellow was out of the way."
Denis Wilde simply reversed himself, that is to say, he lay on his back instead of his face, stared up at the sky, and chewed grass perseveringly. He had evidently no intention of being driven off the field.
"I had something of great importance to say to you this evening," murmured Monsieur D'Arblet, at length, looking fixedly at his enemy's upturned face.
"All right, go ahead, don't mind me," says the young gentleman, amiably. "I'm never in the way, am I, Miss Nevill?"
"Never, Mr. Wilde," answers Vera, sweetly. Like a true woman, she quite appreciates the fun of the situation, and thoroughly enjoys it; "pray tell me what you have to say, monsieur."
"Ah! Ces choses-là ne se disent qu'à deux!" murmurs he Frenchman, with a sentimental sigh.
"It is no use your saying it in French," says Denis, with a chuckle, twisting himself round again upon his chest, "because I have the good fortune, D'Arblet, to understand your charming language like a native, absolutely like a native."
"You have a useful proverb in English, which says, that two is company, and three is none," retorts D'Arblet, with a smile.
"I'm awfully sorry, old fellow; but I am so exceedingly comfortable, I really can't get up; if I could oblige you in any other way, I certainly would."
"Come to dinner!" cries out Mrs. Hazeldine, coming towards them from the garden side of the lawn; "we are all here now."
The two men sprang simultaneously to their feet. This is, of course, the moment that they have both been waiting for. Each offers an arm to Miss Nevill; Monsieur D'Arblet bends blandly and smilingly forward; Denis Wilde has a thunder-cloud upon his face, and holds out his arm as though he were ready to knock somebody down with it.
"What am I to do?" cries Vera, laughing, and looking with feigned indecision from one to the other.
"Make haste and decide, my dear," says Mrs. Hazeldine; "for whichever of you two gentlemen does not take in Miss Nevill must go and take that eldest Miss Frampton for me."
The eldest Miss Frampton is thirty-five if she is a day; she is large and bony, much given to beads and bangles, and to talking about the military men she has known, and whom she usually calls by their surnames alone, like a man. She goes familiarly amongst her acquaintance by the name of the Dragoon.
A cold shiver passes visibly down Mr. Wilde's back; unfortunately Miss Nevill perceives it, and makes up her mind instantly.
"I would not deprive you of so charming a companion," she says, smiling sweetly at him, and passes her arm through that of the French vicomte.
At dinner, poor Denis Wilde curses Monsieur D'Arblet; Miss Frampton, and his own fate, indiscriminately and ineffectually. He is sitting exactly opposite to his divinity, but he cannot even enjoy the felicity of staring at her, for Miss Frampton will not let him alone. She chatters unceasingly and gushingly. At an early period of the repast the string of her amber-bead necklace suddenly gives way with a snap. The beads trickle slowly down, one by one; half a dozen of them drop with a cracking noise, like little marbles, upon the polished floor, where there is a general scramble of waiters and gentlemen under the table together after them; two fall into her own soup, three more on to Denis Wilde's table-napkin; as fast as the truants are picked up others are shed down in their wake from the four apparently inexhaustible rows that garnish her neck.
Miss Frampton bears it all with serene and smiling good temper.
"Dear me, I am really very sorry to give so much trouble. It doesn't signify in the least, Mr. Wilde—thanks, that is one more. Oh, there goes another into the sweet-breads; but I really don't mind if they are lost. Jameson, of the 17th, gave them to me. Do you know Jameson? cousin of Jameson, in the 9th; he brought them from Italy, or Turkey, or somewhere. I am sure I don't remember where amber comes from; do you, Mr. Wilde?"
Mr. Wilde, if he is vague as to where it comes from, is quite decided as to where he would desire it to go. At this moment he had crunched a tender tooth down upon one of these infernal beads, having helped himself to it unconsciously out of the sweetbread dish.
Is he doomed to swallow amber beads for the remainder of the repast? he asks himself.
"Did you ever meet Archdale, the man who was in the 16th?" continues Miss Frampton, glibly, unconscious of his agonies; "he exchanged afterwards into the 4th—he is such a nice fellow. I lunched every day at Ascot this year on the 16th's drag. The first day I met Lester—that's the major, you know—and Lester is such a pet! He told me to come every day to lunch, and bring any of my friends with me; so, of course, I did, and there wasn't a better lunch on the course; and, on the cup-day, Archdale came up and talked to me—he abused the champagne-cup, though; he said there was more soda-water than champagne in it—the more he drank of it the more dreadfully sober he got. However, I am invited to lunch with the 4th at Goodwood. They are going to have a spread under the trees, so I shall be able to compare notes about the champagne-cup. I know two other men in the 4th; Hopkins and Lambert; do you know them?" and so on, until pretty well half the army list and all the luncheon-giving regiments in the service had been passed under review.
And there, straight opposite to him, was Vera, laughing at his discomfiture, he was sure, but also listening to the flattering rubbish which that odious little Frenchman was pouring into her ears.
Did ever young man sit through such a detestable and abominable repast?
If Denis Wilde had been rash enough to nourish insane hopes with regard to moonlight wanderings in the pleasant garden after dinner, these hopes were destined to be blighted.
They were a party of twelve; the waiting was bad, and the courses numerous; the dinner was a lengthy affair altogether. By the time it was over, and coffee had been discussed on the terrace outside the house, the carriages came round to the door, and the ladies of the party voted that it was time to go home.
Soon everybody stood clothed in summer ulsters or white dust-cloaks, waiting in the hall. The coach started from the door with much noise and confusion, with a good deal of plunging from the leaders, and some jibbing from the wheelers, accompanied by a very feeble performance on that much-abused instrument, the horn, by an amateur who occupied a back seat; and after it had departed, a humble train of neat broughams and victorias came trooping up in its wake.
"You will see," said nonentity number one, in her friend's ear; "you will see that Nevill girl will go back in some man's brougham—that is what she has been waiting for; otherwise, she would have perched herself up on the box-seat of the coach, in the most conspicuous place she could find."
"What a disgraceful creature she must be!" is the indignantly virtuous reply.
The "Nevill girl," however, disappointed the expectations of both these charitable ladies by quietly taking her place in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham, by her friend's side, amid a shower of "Good-nights" from the remainder of the party.
"Ah!" said the nonentity, with a vicious gasp, "you may be sure she has some disreputable supper of men, and cigars, and brandies and sodas waiting for her up in town, or she would never go off so meekly as that in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham. Still waters run deep, my dear!"
"She is a horrid, disreputable girl, I am quite sure of that," is the answer. "I am very thankful, indeed, that I haven't the misfortune of knowing her."