“Thank you!” replied the girl, but she still seemed to be lost in a kind of reverie. Her gaze was fixed—her full crimsom lips were slightly parted—her slender hands kept nervously clasping and unclasping each other.
“Well, you are ’andsome and no mistake!” exclaimed the Baroness. “You remind me a little of the Duchess of Bewlay before she was married! The first wife, I mean—the second is a poor, pale-faced, sandy-’aired creature. (’Ow the Dook can stomach ’er after the other, I can’t make out!) The first Duchess’s mother was a great flame of my grandfather, the Dook of—however, I mustn’t tell you that! It’s a State secret, and I might get into trouble at Court! You’d better not say I mentioned it.”
But Harriet Brandt was not in a condition to remember or repeat anything. She was lost in a dream of the possibilities of the Future.
The bell for déjeuner roused them at last and brought them to their feet. They resembled each other in one particular: they were equally fond of the pleasures of the table.
The little Baron appeared dutifully to afford his clumsy spouse the benefit of his support in climbing the hillocks of shifting sand which lay between them and the hotel, and Miss Brandt sped swiftly on her way alone.
“I’ve been ’aving a talk with that gal Brandt,” chuckled the Baroness to her husband, “she’s a regular green-’orn and swallows everything you tell ’er. I’ve been stuffing ’er up that she ought to marry a Prince with ’er looks and money, and she quite believes it. But she ain’t bad-looking when she colours up and I expect she’s rather a warm customer, and if she takes a fancy to a man ’e won’t well know ’ow to get out of it! And if he tries to she’ll make the fur fly. Ha! ha! ha!”
“Better leave it alone, better leave it alone!” said the stolid German, who had had more than one battle to fight already on account of his wife’s matchmaking propensities, and considered her quite too clumsy an artificer to engage in so delicate a game.
- CHAPTER V -
There was a marked difference observable in the manner of Harriet Brandt after her conversation with the Baroness. Thitherto she had been shy and somewhat diffident—the seclusion of her conventual life and its religious teachings had cast a veil, as it were, between her and the outer world and she had not known how to behave, nor how much she might venture to do, on being first cast upon it. But Madame Gobelli’s revelations concerning her beauty and her prospects had torn the veil aside and placed a talisman in her hands against her secret fear.
She was beautiful and dangerous—she might become a Princess if she played her cards well—the knowledge changed the whole face of Nature for her. She became assured, confident, and anticipatory. She began to frequent the company of the Baroness and without neglecting her first acquaintances, Mrs. Pullen and her baby, spent more time in the Gobellis’ private sitting-room than in the balcony or public salon, a fact for which Margaret did not hesitate to declare herself grateful.
“I do not know how it is,” she confided to Elinor Leyton, “I rather like the girl, and I would not be unkind to her for all the world, but there is something about her that oppresses me. I seem never to have quite lost the sensation she gave me the first evening that she came here. Her company enervates me—I get neuralgia whenever we have been a short time together—and she leaves me in low spirits and more disposed to cry than laugh!”
“And no wonder,” said her friend, “considering that she has that detestable school-girl habit of hanging upon one’s arm and dragging one down almost to the earth! How you have stood it so long beats me! Such a delicate woman as you are too. It proves how selfish Miss Brandt must be, not to have seen that she was distressing you!”
“Well! it will take a large amount of expended force to drag Madame Gobelli to the ground,” said Margaret, laughing, “so I hope Miss Brandt will direct that portion of her attention to her and leave me only the residue. Poor girl! she seems to have had so few people to love, or to love her during her lifetime, that she is glad to practise on anyone who will reciprocate her affection. Did you see the Baroness kissing her this morning?”
“I saw the Baroness scrubbing her beard against Miss Brandt’s cheek, if you call that ‘kissing’?” replied Elinor. “The Baroness never kisses! I have noticed her salute poor Bobby in the morning exactly in the same manner. I have a curiosity to know if it hurts.”
“Why don’t you try it?” said Margaret.
“No, thank you! I am not so curious as all that! But the Gobellis and Miss Brandt have evidently struck up a great friendship. She will be the recipient of the Baroness’s cast-off trinkets and laces next!”
“She is too well off for that, Elinor! Madame Lamont told me she has a fortune in her own right of fifteen hundred a year!”
“She will want it all to gild herself with!” said Elinor.
Margaret Pullen looked at Miss Leyton thoughtfully. Did she really mean what she said, or did her jealousy of the West Indian heiress render her capable of uttering untruths? Surely she must see that Harriet Brandt was handsome—growing handsomer indeed every day, with the pure sea air tinting her cheeks with a delicate flush like the inside of a shell—and that her beauty, joined to her money, would render her a tempting morsel for the men and a formidable rival for the women.
“I do not think you would find many people to agree with your opinion, Elinor!” she said after a pause, in answer to Miss Leyton’s last remark.
“Well! I think she’s altogether odious,” replied her friend with a toss of her head. “I thought it the first time I saw her and I shall think it to the last!”
It was the day that Captain Ralph Pullen was expected to arrive in Heyst and the two ladies were preparing to go to the station to meet him.
“The Baroness has at all events done you one good turn,” continued Miss Leyton, “she has delivered you for a few hours from your ‘Old Man of the Sea.’ What have you been doing with yourself all the morning! I expected you to meet me on the sands, after I had done bathing!”
“I have not stirred out, Elinor. I am uneasy about baby! She does not seem at all well. I have been waiting your return to ask you whether I had not better send for a doctor to see her. But I am not sure if there is such a thing in Heyst!”
“Sure to be, but don’t send unless it is absolutely necessary. What is the matter with her?”
The nurse was sitting by the open window with little Ethel on her lap. The infant looked much the same as usual—a little paler perhaps, but in a sound sleep and apparently enjoying it.
“She does not seem ill to me,” continued Elinor, “is she in any pain?”
“Not at all, Miss,” said the nurse, “and begging the mistress’s pardon, I am sure she is frightening herself without cause. Baby is cutting two more teeth and she feels the heat. That’s all!”
“Why are you frightened, Margaret?” asked Miss Leyton.
“Because her sleep is unnatural, I am sure of it,” replied Mrs. Pullen. “She slept all yesterday and has hardly opened her eyes today. It is more like torpor than sleep. We can hardly rouse her to take her bottle and you know what a lively, restless little creature she has always been.”
“But her teeth,” argued Elinor Leyton, “surely her teeth account for everything! I know my sister, Lady Armisdale, says that nothing varies so quickly as teething children—that they’re at the point of death one hour and quite well the next, and she has five so she ought to know!”
“That’s quite right, Miss,” interposed the nurse respectfully, “and you can hardly expect the dear child to be lively when she’s in pain. She has a little fever on her too! If she were awake she would only be fretful! I am sure that the best medicine for her is sleep!”
“You hear what Nurse says, Margaret, but if you are nervous why not send for a doctor to see her! We can ask Madame Lamont as we go down stairs who is the best here and call on him as we go to the station, or we can telegraph to Bruges for one if you think it would be better!”
“O! no! no! I wi
ll not be foolish! I will try and believe that you and Nurse know better than myself. I will wait at all events until to-morrow.”
“Where has baby been this morning?”
“She was with Miss Brandt on the sands, Miss!” replied the nurse.
“Since you are so anxious about Ethel, Margaret, I really wonder that you should trust her with a stranger like Miss Brandt! Perhaps she let the sun beat on her head.”
“O! no, Elinor, Nurse was with them all the time. I would not let Miss Brandt or anyone take baby away alone. But she is so good-natured and so anxious to have her that I don’t quite know how to refuse.”
“Perhaps she has been stuffing the child with some of her horrid chocolates or caramels. She is gorging them all day long herself!”
“I know my duty too well for that, Miss!” said the nurse resentfully. “I wouldn’t have allowed it! The dear baby did not have anything to eat at all.”
“Well! you’re both on her side evidently, so I will say no more,” concluded Miss Leyton. “At the same time if I had a child I’d sooner trust it to a wild beast than the tender mercies of Miss Brandt. But it’s past four o’clock, Margaret! If we are to reach the entrepôt in time we must be going!” [95]
Mrs. Pullen hastily assumed her hat and mantle, and prepared to accompany her friend. They had opened the door and were about to leave the room when a flood of melody suddenly poured into the apartment. It proceeded from a room at the other end of the corridor and was produced by a mandoline most skilfully played. The silvery notes in rills and trills and chords, such as might have been evolved from a fairy harp, arrested the attention of both Miss Leyton and Mrs. Pullen. They had scarcely expressed their wonder and admiration to each other at the skilful manipulation of the instrument (which evinced such art as they had never heard before except in public) when the strings of the mandoline were accompanied by a young, fresh contralto voice.
“O! hush! hush!” cried Elinor, with her finger on her lip, as the rich mellow strains floated through the corridor. “I don’t think I ever heard such a lovely voice before. Whose on earth can it be?”
The words of the song were in Spanish, and the only one they could recognise was the refrain of “Seralie! Seralie!” But the melody was wild, pathetic, and passionate, and the singer’s voice was touching beyond description.
“Some professional must have arrived at the Hotel,” said Margaret. “I am sure that is not the singing of an amateur. But I hope she will not practise at night and keep baby awake!”
Elinor laughed.
“O! you mother!” she said, “I thought you were lamenting just now that your ewe lamb slept too much! For my part I should like to be lulled to sleep each night by just such strains as those. Listen, Margaret! She has commenced another song. Ah! Gounod’s[96] delicious ‘Ave Maria’. How beautiful!”
“I don’t profess to know much about music” said Margaret, “but it strikes me that the charm of that singing lies more in the voice than the actual delivery. Whoever it is must be very young!”
“Whoever it proceeds from it is charming,” repeated Elinor. “How Ralph would revel in it! Nothing affects him like music. It is the only thing which makes me regret my inability to play or sing. But I am most curious to learn who the new arrival is. Ah! here is Mademoiselle Brimont!” she continued, as she caught sight of Olga Brimont slowly mounting the steep staircase, “Mademoiselle, do you happen to know who it is who owns that lovely voice? Mrs. Pullen and I are perfectly enchanted with it!”
Olga Brimont coloured a little. She had never got over her shyness of the English ladies, particularly of the one who spoke so sharply. But she answered at once,
“It is Harriet Brandt! Didn’t you know that she sung?”
Miss Leyton took a step backward. Her face expressed the intensest surprise—not to say incredulity.
“Harriet Brandt! Impossible!” she ejaculated.
“Indeed it is her,” repeated Olga. “She always sung the solos in the Convent choir. They used to say she had the finest voice in the Island. O! yes, it is Harriet, really.”
And she passed on to her own apartment.
“Do you believe it?” said Elinor Leyton, turning almost fiercely upon Mrs. Pullen.
“How can I do otherwise,” replied Margaret, “in the face of Mademoiselle Brimont’s assertion? But it is strange that we have heard nothing of Miss Brandt’s talent before!”
“Has she ever mentioned the fact to you that she could sing?”
“Never! But there has been no opportunity. There is no instrument here and we have never talked of such a thing! Only fancy her possessing so magnificent a voice! What a gift! She might make her fortune by it if she needed to do so.”
“Well! she ought to be able to sing with that mouth of hers,” remarked Miss Leyton almost bitterly as she walked into the corridor. She was unwilling to accord Harriet Brandt the possession of a single good attribute. As the ladies traversed the corridor they perceived that others had been attracted by the singing as well as themselves and most of the bedroom doors were open. Mrs. Montague caught Margaret by the sleeve as she passed.
“O! Mrs. Pullen, what a heavenly voice! Whose is it? Fred is just mad to know!”
“It’s only that girl Brandt!” replied Elinor roughly, as she tried to escape further questioning.
“Miss Brandt! what, the little West Indian! Mrs. Pullen, is Miss Leyton jesting?”
“No, indeed, Mrs. Montague! Mademoiselle Brimont was our inform-ant,” said Margaret.
But at that moment their attention was diverted by the appearance of Harriet Brandt herself. She looked brilliant. In one hand she carried her mandoline, a lovely little instrument of sandalwood inlaid with mother-o’-pearl,—her face was flushed with the exertion she had gone through and her abundant hair was somewhat in disorder. Mrs. Montague pounced on her at once.
“O! Miss Brandt! you are a sly puss! We have all been delighted— enchanted! What do you mean by hiding your light under a bushel in this way? Do come in here for a minute and sing us another song! Major Montague is in ecstasies over your voice!”
“I can’t stop, I can’t indeed!” replied Miss Brandt, evidently pleased with the effect she had produced, “because I am on my way down to dear Madame Gobelli. I promised to sing for her this afternoon. I was only trying my voice to see if it was fit for anything!”
She smiled at Mrs. Pullen as she spoke and added, “I hope I have not disturbed the darling baby! I thought she would be out this lovely afternoon!”
“O! no! you did not disturb her. We have all been much pleased and surprised to think that you have never told us that you could sing!”
“How could I tell that anyone would care about it?” replied Harriet indifferently, with a shrug of her shoulders. “But the Baron is very musical! He has a charming tenor voice. I have promised to accompany him! I mustn’t delay any longer! Good afternoon!”
And she flew down the stairs with her mandoline.
“It is all the dear Baroness and the dear Baron now, you perceive,” remarked Elinor to Mrs. Pullen as they walked together to the railway station, “you and the baby are at a discount. Miss Brandt is the sort of young lady, I fancy, who will follow her own interests wherever they may lead her!”
“You should be the last to complain of her for that, Elinor, since you have tried to get rid of her at any cost,” replied her friend.
Captain Ralph Pullen arrived punctually by the train which he had appointed and greeted his sister-in-law and fiancée with marked cordiality.
He was certainly a man to be proud of as far as outward appearance went. He was acknowledged, by general consent, to be one of the handsomest men in the British Army and he was fully aware of the fact. He was tall and well built with good features, almost golden hair; womanish blue eyes, and a long drooping moustache which he was always caressing with his left hand. He regarded all women with the same languishing, tired-to-death glance, as if the attentions shewn him by the beau se
xe had been altogether too much for him and the most he could do now was to regard them with an indolent, worn-out favour which had had all the excitement and freshness and flavour taken out of it long before. Most women would have considered his method of treatment as savouring little short of insult but Elinor Leyton’s nature did not make extravagant demands upon her lover, and so long as he dressed and looked well and paid her the courtesies due from a gentleman to a gentlewoman, she was quite satisfied. Margaret, on the other hand, had seen through her brother-in-law’s affectations from the first and despised him for them. She thought him foolish, vain, and uncompanionable, but she bore with him for Arthur’s sake. She would have welcomed his cousin Anthony Pennell, though, with twice the fervour.
Ralph was looking remarkably well. His light grey suit of tweed was fresh and youthful looking and the yellow rose in his buttonhole was as dainty as if he had just walked out of his Piccadilly club.
He was quite animated (for him) at the idea of spending a short time in Heyst and actually went the length of informing Elinor that she looked “very fit” and if it was not so public a place he should kiss her. Miss Leyton coloured faintly at the remark but she turned her head away and would not let him see that she was sorry the place was so public.
“Heyst seems to have done you both a lot of good,” Captain Pullen went on presently. “I am sure you are fatter, Margaret, than when you were in Town. And how is the daughter?”
“Not very well, I am sorry to say, Ralph! She is cutting more teeth. Elinor and I were consulting whether we should send for a doctor to see her only this afternoon.”
“By the way, I have good news for you, or you will consider it so. Old Phillips is coming over to join us next week.”
“Doctor Phillips, my dear old godfather!” exclaimed Margaret, “O! I am glad to hear it! He will set baby to rights at once. But who told you so, Ralph?”
“The old gentleman himself! I met him coming out of his club the other day and told him I was coming over here and he said he should follow suit as soon as ever he could get away, and I was to tell you to get a room for him by next Monday!”
The Blood of the Vampire Page 10