Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

“Florian!” she would say, for Cerise had so accustomed herself to his Christian name in talking of him with her husband, that she did not always call him Monsieur de St. Croix to his face. “Florian! come and help me to tie up this rose-tree—there, hold the knot while I fasten it—now run and fetch me the scissors, they are lying by my flowers on the step. Quick—or it will slip out of my hands! So there is my Provence rose at last—truly a rose without a thorn!”

And Florian did her bidding like a dog, watched her eye, followed her about, and seemed to take a dog’s pleasure in the mere fact of being near her. His reward, too, was much the same as that faithful animal’s, a kind word, a bright look, a wave of the white hand, denoting a mark of approval rather than a caress. Sometimes, for a minute or two, he could almost fancy he was happy.

And Sir George—did Sir George approve of this constant intercourse, this daily companionship? Were his hawks and his hounds, his meetings with his neighbours for the administration of justice and the training of militia, for the excitement of a cock-fight or the relaxation of a bowling-match, so engrossing that he never thought of his fair young wife, left for hours in that lonely mansion on the hill to her own thoughts and the society of a Jesuit priest? It was hard to say—Sir George Hamilton’s disposition was shrewd though noble, ready to form suspicion but disdaining to entertain it, prone more than another to suffer from misplaced confidence, but the last in the world to confess its injuries even to himself.

He had never seemed more energetic, never showed better spirits than now. His hawks struck their quarry, his hounds ran into their game, his horses carried him far ahead of his fellow-sportsmen. His advice was listened to at their meetings, his opinions quoted at their tables, his popularity was at its height with all the country gentlemen of the neighbourhood. He cheered lustily in the field, and drank his bottle fairly at the fire-side, yet all the time, under that smooth brow, that jovial manner, that comely cheek, there lurked a something which turned the chase to penance, and the claret to gall.

He was not jealous, far from it. He jealous—what degradation! And of Cerise—what sacrilege! No, it was not jealousy that thus obtruded its shadow over those sunny moors, athwart that fair autumn sky; it was more a sense of self-reproach, of repentance, of remorse, as if he had committed some injustice to a poor helpless being, that he could never now repay. A lower nature incapable of the sentiment would in its inferiority have been spared much needless pain. It was as if he had wounded a child, a lamb, or some such weak loveable creature, by accident, and could not stanch the wound. It would have been cowardly had he meant it, but he did not mean it, and it was only clumsy; yet none the less was he haunted by the patient eyes, the mute appealing sorrow that spoke so humbly to his heart.

What if this girl, whose affection he had never doubted, did really not love him after all? What if the fancy that he knew she had entertained for him was but a girl’s fancy for the first man who had roused her vanity and flattered her self-esteem? It might be that she had only prized him because she had seen so few others, that her ideal was something quite different, he said in bitterness of spirit, to a rough ignorant soldier, a mere hunting, hawking, north-country baronet, whose good qualities, if he had any, were but a blunt honesty, and an affection for herself he had not the wit to express; whose personal advantages did but consist in a strong arm, and a weather-browned cheek, like any ploughman on his estate. Perhaps the man who would really have suited her was of a different type altogether, a refined scholar, an accomplished courtier, one who could overlay a masculine understanding with the graceful trickeries of a woman’s fancy, who could talk to her of sentiment, romance, affinity of spirits, and congeniality of character. Such a man as this pale-faced priest—not him in particular, that had nothing to do with it! but some one like him—there were hundreds of them whom she might meet at any time. It was not that he thought she loved another, but that the possibility now dawned of her not loving him.

He did not realise this at first. It was long before he could bring himself to look such a privation in the face—the blank it would make in his own life was too chilling to contemplate—and to do him justice his first thought was not of his own certain misery, but of her lost chances of happiness. If now, when it was too late, she should find one whom she could really love, had he not stood between her and the light? Would he not be the clog round her neck, the curse rather than the blessing of her existence?

Of all this he was vaguely conscious, not actually thinking out his reflections, far less expressing them, but aware, nevertheless, of some deadening, depressing influence that weighed him down like a nightmare, from which, morning after morning, he never woke.

But this inner life which all men must live, affected the outer not at all. Sir George flung his hawks aloft and cheered his hounds with unabated zest, while Florian held Lady Hamilton’s scissors, and helped to tie up her roses, under the grey and gold of the soft autumnal sky.

They had a thousand matters to talk about, a thousand reminiscences in common, now that the old intimacy had returned. On many points they thought alike, and discoursed pleasantly enough, on many they differed, and it was to these, I think, that they reverted with the keenest relish again and again.