"Georgie--forgive--" and fell back dead.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
LAST WORDS.
The equipage and the establishment, the diamonds and the dress, of the Princess Tchernigow, furnished the gay inhabitants of the gayest and most gossiping city in the world with a subject for almost inexhaustible discussion. There was no sameness about them, but an ever-varying change; so that curiosity was never sated, and the last select few who had met the Princess, and told their story of her magnificence, had materials afforded them for a version of the princely splendours which differed materially from the version given by the select few of the immediately preceding occasion. With the proverbial impenetrability of the French to English social facts and customs, the Parisian beau monde could not be made to understand that there was "anything against" the Princess. They knew and cared nothing about the date at which the former husband of that fortunate lady had departed this life, and that at which he had been replaced by the Prince. Many good-natured and strictly moral English people endeavoured to instruct the Parisian mind on this point, and to make it understand that the Princess would have some difficulty with "society" in her own country. But these idées insulaires had no success.
Tchernigow had been popular in Paris before he had gratified it by bringing a new princess to sparkle and glitter, by her beauty and her splendour, in the Bois, at the Opera, at the balls, and at the Court. Paris admired the Calmuck; first because he was so immensely rich because there was nothing in the place, which contains everything in the world worth having, that he could not buy; and secondly because he was odd, so bizarre; because his character was as much out of the common as his wealth, and his eccentricities afforded them an increasing source of remark and speculation. He was the most polished Russian that had ever appeared in Parisian society--the most widely removed from the train-oil-drinking and no-shirt-wearing tradition of the Muscovites.
And the Princess? She had not been by any means unknown to fame in Paris. She had visited that city during her first bridal tour, and she had had a great success. The freshness and perfection of her beauty, which owed nothing to artificial means, but could bear any kind or degree of light; the piquancy of her manner, her first-rate seat on horseback, her dancing,--all these things had captivated the Parisians. Then, was she not so interesting, this beautiful little English lady, whose husband was so far from young? It was so charming to see them together, because one knew that in England marriages of reason had no place; and this fair creature must have reposed her affections in the feeble elderly gentleman, to whom she was so delightfully devoted, and who was so proud of her. She had had a train of admirers then, naturally; but it was early days, and there was nothing very prononcé.
Mrs. Hammond had been in Paris again and again after that first successful appearance; and if her devotion to the feeble elderly gentleman had been less conspicuous, her beauty and her vivacity had been more so. Of course she was "talked about;" but that mysterious and terrible word has one signification and effect in London, and quite another in Paris; and Mrs. Hammond's reign was undimmed.
When the Prince and Princess Tchernigow made their appearance on the scene in their attractive character of bride and bridegroom, considerable curiosity had been excited about them, quite apart from the legitimate interest to which they were entitled on their separate merits, and to which their union added vigour and intensity. The Baden story had of course got about, with more or less correctness of time, place, and circumstances; and the combination of a duel, involving the death of his adversary, with a wedding, in which the bride had been affichée to the slain man, was an irresistibly piquant anecdote,--and "so like" Tchernigow.
The Princess came off remarkably well in the innumerable discussions to which the affair gave rise. In the first place Mitford was dead, which was a great point; and in the second, the catalogue of the Prince's luxuries including some useful and devoted toadies, who made it their business to spread abroad a report which gained ample credence, that the unfortunate Englishman was a violent fellow, who had no manners, and who had assumed a tone towards Mrs. Hammond wholly unjustified by their antecedents; in fact, had persecuted that lady, and been excessivement brutale.
So it was all plain sailing with the Prince and Princess, and even the women took the liveliest interest in the latter. Poor dear creature, they said, how very sad, but how charmingly romantic it was! To think that she had been quite ignorant of the duel, and had not had the least idea that her bridegroom had shot a man just before he had married her! When she discovered it, how strange she must have felt! They wondered if it made her experience for a moment a very little of repulsion. But no, probably not,--the Prince was really such a gentleman; and the other deplorable person it was impossible to pity.