The Loves of the Lady Arabella

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Giles saw it directly, and in a moment he had my secret from me. He shouted with delight, and immediately began a grotesque planning for us to run away with the two heiresses. He recalled that the abduction of an heiress was a capital crime, and drew a fantastic picture of us two standing in the prisoners’ dock, on trial for our lives, with Lady Arabella and Daphne swearing our lives away, and then relenting and marrying us at the gallows’ foot. And this tale, told with the greatest glee, amid laughter and bumpers of hot brandy and water, had a singular effect upon me. It sobered me at once, and suddenly I seemed to see a vision, as Macbeth saw Banquo’s ghost, passing before my very eyes,—just such a scene as Giles described. Only I got no farther than the spectacle of Giles a prisoner in the dock, on trial for his life. My own part seemed misty and confused, but I saw, instead of the lodging-house parlor, a great hall of justice dimly lighted with lamps, the judges in their robes on the bench, one with a black cap on his head, and Giles standing up to receive sentence. I passed into a kind of nightmare, from which I was aroused by Giles whacking me on the back and saying in a surprised voice,—

“What ails you, Dicky boy? You look as if you had seen a ghost. Rouse up here and open your lantern jaws for a glass of brandy and rid yourself of that long face.”

I came out of this singular state as quickly as I had gone into it, and, ashamed to show my weakness to Giles, grew merry, carried on the joke about the abduction, and shortly felt like myself, a light-hearted lieutenant of twenty-one. I proposed that we should go to the play the next night,—or rather that night, for it was now about four in the morning,—and shortly after we tumbled into bed together and slept until late the next day.

Giles and I went to Berkeley Square in the afternoon, professing just to have arrived from Portsmouth. Giles expressed his thanks in the handsomest manner to Sir Peter for his kindness, and made himself, as usual, highly agreeable to Lady Hawkshaw. Neither Lady Arabella nor Daphne was at home, but came in shortly after Giles had left. Lady Arabella made some slighting remark about Giles, as she always did whenever opportunity offered. Daphne was very kind to me, and I gave her to understand privately that I was ready to haul down my flag at the first summons to surrender.

The family from Berkeley Square were going to the play that night, and I mentioned that Giles and I would be there together. And so, just as the playhouse was lighting up, we walked in. After the curtain was up, and when Mrs. Trenchard was making her great speech in Percy, I motioned Giles to look toward Lady Hawkshaw’s box. Her ladyship entered on Sir Peter’s arm; his face was very red, and he was growling under his breath, to which Lady Hawkshaw contributed an obligato accompaniment in a sepulchral voice; and behind them, in all the splendor of her beauty, walked Lady Arabella, and last, came sweet, sweet Daphne.

The first glimpse Giles caught of Lady Arabella seemed to renew in an instant the spell she had cast on him five years before. He seemed almost like a madman. He could do nothing but gaze at her with eyes that seemed starting out of his head. He grew pale and then red, and was like a man in a frenzy. It was all I could do to moderate his voice and his looks in that public place. Luckily, Mrs. Trenchard being on the stage, all eyes were, for the time, bent on her.

I hardly knew how we sat the play out. I had to promise Giles a dozen times that the next day I would take him to Berkeley Square. When the curtain went down, he fairly leaped his way out of the playhouse to see Lady Arabella get into the coach.

That was a fair sample of the way he raved for days afterward. He haunted Berkeley Square, where he was welcomed always by Sir Peter and Lady Hawkshaw, asked to dine frequently, and every mark of favor shown him.

Lady Arabella remained cold and indifferent to him. About that time Overton appeared a little in his old haunts, although much changed and sobered. Neither wounds nor illness had impaired his looks and charms, but rather he had become an object of interest and sympathy from his gallant behavior in the field. Sir Peter, who had always liked him, began to pester him to come to Berkeley Square, which he did a few times, because he could not well decline Sir Peter and Lady Hawkshaw’s pressing and friendly invitations. I believed, however, that in spite of his forced composure he felt cruelly abashed before Lady Arabella. She, however, showed an amazing coolness, and even began to be a little kind to Giles, from some obscure motive of her own. I believe every act of her life with regard to men had some reference to her passion for Overton.