Alice’s words and action were neither of them lost upon her husband or his companion.
CHAPTER XXXVI.—ARCADIA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
It is popularly asserted and believed that everything has two sides to it. Even a plum-pudding has an inside and an out; and that romantic malady, yclept “love unrequited,” although at first sight it appears an entirely one-sided affair, often demonstrates its bilateral capabilities by proving a much less heart-rending business than was imagined, when the lapse of time enables one to discern the bright side of the picture. The Crane expedition to the Horticultural Fête formed no exception to this law of nature:—thus, at the moment when Harry, like Hamlet’s unfortunate papa, was having poison poured into his ear, and was gradually working himself up to the bolster-scene-in-Othello pitch, Alice, that pleasant little Desdemona, unconsciously amused herself with Cassio, Lord Courtland, emulating Dr. Watts’s “busy bee,” by flitting from flower to flower, laughing at very small jokes, and altogether conducting herself with great levity, and in a singularly undignified manner—at least, so Mr. Crane thought; and as he was said to be made of gold, his opinions ought to have partaken of the value of that precious metal. But Mr. Crane had never quite forgiven Alice for not appreciating his many excellences, and was disposed to judge her harshly. After a time, however, when the novelty of the scene began to wear off—when Alice had reviewed the contents of Howell and James’s, Swan and Edgar’s, Redmayne’s, and other ruination shops, on the fair forms of the ladies of the land—when she had “oh-how-beautiful-ed” and “isn’t-it-lovely-ed” the flowers to her heart’s content—when she had heard, and longed to dance to, the Guard’s band, suddenly a dark vision rose to her mind’s eye—her husband tête-à-tête with that evil mystery, Arabella Crofton, obscured the sunshine of her spirit; the rose-coloured spectacles through which she had beheld Vanity Fair fell off; the serpent had entered in; and, for Alice Coverdale, Chiswick was Paradise no longer. Thereupon she decided that Lord Alfred was a silly, tiresome boy, and worried her with his childish nonsense; that Mr. Crane was a fractious old idiot, who ought to be shut up in an appropriate asylum; that Kate looked bored and tired, which she did not wonder at; that Horace D’Almayne was fitter for the Zoological than the Horticultural Gardens, and deserved to be caged with the chimpanzees without loss of time; and, finally (forgetting their separation had resulted from a caprice of her own), that Harry was very unkind to stay away from her in that way, with that hateful creature, Arabella Crofton, whom she was sure he liked after all, though he did pretend to treat her so coldly.
Then people began to push and crowd, and dresses became tumbled; and D’Almayne having left the party to look for Harry and Miss Crofton, Mr. Crane misled them, and they fell into difficulties, and were very hot and uncomfortable; and Alice quite pined to meet her husband, whose sturdy arm would have supported her, and whose tall figure and broad shoulders would have forced a way for her through the crowd. Next, Lord Alfred began to tease her to give him a flower from her bouquet, and got snubbed for his pains; until Horace D’Almayne, returning, made his report, viz., that, after much toil and trouble, he had at length discovered Miss Crofton and Mr. Coverdale, seated together in a shady corner, apparently absorbed in some deeply interesting topic of conversation. This information, tallying so exactly with her worst fears, and finding poor little Mrs. Coverdale both vexed and tired, very nearly produced a burst of tears, to avoid which pathetic display she did that which the unfortunate first Mrs. Dombey failed to effect—viz., she “made an effort,” and became, not exactly herself again, but Alice Coverdale as she appeared when enacting the heartless coquette. And this she did, poor child! not from a want, but from a superfluity of heart. So, seeking to read her truant husband a practical moral lesson on the iniquity of charioteering dangerous damsels, in common with whom he possessed mysterious antecedents, she afforded Lord Alfred a “material guarantee” of her favour, in the shape of the flower he had coveted; and having thus firmly riveted his chains, ostensibly petted and made much of her captive. This conduct on his wife’s part was by no means calculated to soothe Harry Coverdale, pained, ruffled, and excited by his conversation with Arabella Crofton; and, without reflecting on the prudence or politeness of such a proceeding, he left his late companion to take care of herself, and stalking with stately steps, as of an offended lion, up to Lord Alfred Courtland, observed, in a tone of dignified irony—
“I am much obliged to your Lordship for taking such extreme care of Mrs. Coverdale, but will now relieve you from any further trouble on her account: take my arm, Alice.”
Lord Alfred, strong in the possession of his rosebud, felt inclined to resist, and murmured something about its being a pleasure rather than a trouble; while Alice was just determining to support her swain, when luckily she happened to read in Harry’s flashing eye symptoms of the approach of an attack of his “quiet manner,” so hastily disengaging her arm, she placed it within that of her husband, saying, as she did so—
“I am not going to let this truant escape, now that I have caught him. He deserves punishment—so I shall inflict my society upon him for the rest of the afternoon, unless,” she added, with a glance which bewitched Lord Alfred more completely than before, “I should find any stringent necessity to exercise my feminine prerogative of changing my mind.”
“Your friend Mr. Coverdale’s method of relieving you of your fair charge was more vigorous than polite, mon cher,” remarked D’Almayne to Lord Alfred, who, feeling he was de trop, had left the wedded pair to their own devices. “However, I think I have obtained a clue, which I have only to follow up, to arrive at a discovery which will help you on with your pretty little lady-patroness, by rendering her more the femme incomprise, and neglected wife than ever.”