And now D’Orville practically demonstrated the advantage in the game of flirtation possessed by an untouched heart. With the governess he had been diffident, hesitating, almost awkward; with the pupil he was eloquent and winning as usual. His good taste told him it would be absurd to ignore Blanche’s obvious trepidation, and his knowledge of the sex taught him that the “soothing system,” with a mixture of lover-like respect and paternal kindness, might produce important results. So he begged Blanche to lean on his arm and compose her nerves, and talked kindly to her in his soft, deep voice. “I can see you have been annoyed, Miss Kettering—you know the interest I take in you, and I trust you will not consider me presumptuous in wishing to extricate you from further embarrassment. I am an old fellow now,” and the Major smiled his own winning smile, “and therefore a fit chaperon for young ladies. I have nobody to care for” (D’Orville, D’Orville! you would shoot a man who called you a liar), “and I have watched you as if you were a sister or a child of my own. Pray do not tell me more than if I can be of any service to you; and if I can, my dear Miss Kettering, command me to the utmost extent of my powers!” What could Blanche do but thank him warmly? and who shall blame the girl for feeling gratified by the interest of such a man, or for entertaining a vague sort of satisfaction that after all she was neither his sister nor his daughter. Had he been ten years older she would have thrown her arms round his neck, and kissed him in childlike confidence; as it was, she pressed closer to his side, and felt her heart warm to the kind, considerate protector. The Major saw his advantage, and proceeded—“I am alone in the world, you know, and seldom have an opportunity of doing any one a kindness. We soldiers lead a sadly unsatisfactory, desultory sort of life. Till you ‘came out’ this year, I had no one to care for, no one to interest myself about; but since I have seen you every day, and watched you enjoying yourself, and admired and sought after, I have felt like a different man. I have a great deal to thank you for, Miss Kettering; I was rapidly growing into a selfish, heartless old gentleman, but you have renewed my youthful feelings and freshened up my better nature, till I sometimes think I am almost happy. How can I repay you but by watching over your career, and should you ever require it, placing my whole existence at your disposal? It would break my heart to see you thrown away—no; believe me, Miss Kettering, you have no truer friend than myself, none that admires or loves you better than your old chaperon;” and as the Major spoke he looked so kindly and sincerely into the girl’s face, that albeit his language might bear the interpretation of actual love, and was, as Hairblower would have said, “uncommon near the wind,” it seemed the most natural thing in the world under the circumstances, and Blanche leaned on his arm, and talked and laughed, and told him to get the carriage, and otherwise ordered him about with a strangely-mixed feeling of childlike confidence and gratified vanity. The party broke up at an early hour, many of them having dinner-engagements in London; and as D’Orville handed Blanche into her carriage, he felt that he had to-day made a prodigious stride towards the great object in view. He had gained the girl’s confidence, no injudicious movement towards gaining her heart and her fortune. He pressed her hand as she wished him good-bye; and while he did so, shuddered at the consciousness of his meanness. Too well he knew he loved another—a word, a look from Mary Delaval, would have saved him even now; but her farewell was cold and short as common courtesy would admit of, and he ground his teeth as he thought those feet would spurn him, at which he would give his very life to fall. The worst passions of his nature were aroused. He swore, some day, to humble that proud heart in the dust, but the first step at all events must be to win the heiress. This morning he could have given up all for Mary, but now he was himself again, and the Major walked moodily back to barracks, a wiser (as the world would opine), but certainly not a better man.
Care, however, although, as Horace tells us, “she sits behind the horseman,” is a guest whose visits are but little encouraged by the light dragoon. Our gallant hussars were not inclined to mope down at Hounslow after their guests had returned to town, and the last carriage had scarcely driven off with its fair freight, ere phaeton, buggy, riding-horse, and curricle were put in requisition, to take their military owners back to the metropolis; that victim of discipline, the orderly officer, being alone left to console himself in his solitude, as he best might, with his own reflections and the society of a water-spaniel. To-morrow morning they must be again on the road, to reach head-quarters in time for parade; but to-morrow morning is a long way off from gentlemen who live every hour of their lives; so away they go, each on his own devices, but one and all resolved to make the most of the present, and glitter, whilst they may, in the sunshine of their too brief noon.
St. George’s clock tolls one, and Blanche has been asleep for hours in her quiet room at the back of the house in Grosvenor Square. Pure thoughts and pleasant dreams have hovered round the young girl’s pillow, and the last image present to her eyes has been the kind, handsome face of Major D’Orville—the hero who, commanding to all besides, is so gentle, so considerate, so tender with her alone. “Perhaps,” thought she, as the midnight rain beat against her window-panes, “he is even now going his bleak rounds at Hounslow” (Blanche had a vague idea that the hussars spent the night in patrolling the heath), “wrapped in his cloak, on that dear white horse, very likely thinking of me. How such a man is thrown away, with his kindly feelings, and his noble mind, and his courageous heart. ‘Nobody to care for,’ he said; ‘alone in the world’;” and little Blanche sighed a sigh of that pity which is akin to a softer feeling, and experienced for an instant that startling throb with which love knocks at the door, like some unwelcome visitor, ere habit has emboldened him to walk up-stairs, unbidden, and make himself at home.
Let us see how right the maiden was in her conjectures, and follow the Major through his bleak rounds, and his night of military hardships.
As we perambulate London at our loitering leisure, and stare about us in the desultory, wandering manner of those who have nothing to do, now admiring an edifice, now peeping into a print-shop, we are often brought up, “all standing,” in one of the great thoroughfares, by the magnificent proportions, the architectural splendour, of a building which our peaceful calling debars us from entering. Nevertheless we may gaze and gape at the stately outside; we may admire the lofty windows, with their florid ornaments, and marvel for what purpose are intended the upper casements, which seem to us like the bull’s-eyes let into the deck of a three-decker, magnified to a gigantic uselessness; we may stare till the nape of our neck warns us to desist, at the classic ornaments raised in high relief around the roof, where strange mythological devices, unknown to Lemprière, mystify alike the antiquarian and the naturalist,—centaurs, terminating in salmon-trout, career around the cornices, more grotesque than the mermaid, more inexplicable than the sphinx. In vain we cudgel our brains to ask of what faith, what principle these monsters may be the symbols. Can they represent the insignia of that corps so strangely omitted in the Army List—known to a grateful country as the horse marines? Are they a glorious emanation of modern art? or are they, as the Irish gentleman suggested of our martello towers, only intended to puzzle posterity? Splendid, however, as may be the outward magnificence of this military palace, it is nothing compared with the luxury that reigns within, and the heroes of both services enjoy a delightful contrast to the hardships of war, in the spacious saloons and exquisite repasts provided for its members by the “Peace and Plenty Club.”
“Waiter—two large cigars and another sherry-cobbler,” lisps a voice which, although somewhat thicker than usual, we have no difficulty in recognising as the property of Captain Lacquers. That officer has dined “severely,” as he calls it, and is slightly inebriated. He is reclining on three chairs, in a large, lofty apartment, devoid of furniture, and surrounded by ottomans. From its airy situation, general appearance, and pervading odour, we have no difficulty in identifying it as the smoking-room of the establishment. At our friend’s elbow stands a small table, with empty glasses, and opposite him, with his heels above the level of his head, and a cigar of “sesquipedalian” length in his mouth, sits Sir Ascot Uppercrust. Gaston D’Orville is by his side, veiling his handsome face in clouds of smoke, and they are all three talking about the heiress. Yes; these are the Major’s rounds, these are the hardships innocent Blanche sighed to think of. It is lucky that ladies can neither hear nor see us in our masculine retreats.
“So she refused you, Uppy; refused you point blank, did she? ’Gad, I like her for it,” said Lacquers, the romance of whose disposition was much enhanced by his potations.
“Deuced impertinent, I call it,” replied the repulsed; “won’t have such a chance again. After all, she’s not half a nice girl.”
“Don’t say that,” vociferated Lacquers, “don’t say that. She’s perfect, my dear boy; she’s enchanting—she’s got mind, and that—what’s a woman without intellect?—without the what-d’ye-call-it spark?—a—a—you recollect the quotation.”