CHAPTER XI.
_Love at a Bazaar_
THE Lady Aphrodite at first refused to sit in the Duke's pavilion. Wasshe, then, in the _habit_ of refusing? Let us not forget our Venus ofthe Waters. Shall we whisper where the young Duke first dared to hope?No, you shall guess. _Je vous le donne en trois_. The Gardens? Theopera? The tea-room? No! no! no! You are conceiving a locality much moreromantic. Already you have created the bower of a Parisina, where thewaterfall is even more musical than the birds, more lulling than theevening winds; where all is pale, except the stars; all hushed, excepttheir beating pulses! Will this do? No! What think you, then, of a_Bazaar_?
O thou wonderful nineteenth century! thou that believest in no miraclesand doest so many, hast thou brought this, too, about, that ladies'hearts should be won, and gentlemen's also, not in courts of tourney orhalls of revel, but over a counter and behind a stall? We are, indeed, anation of shopkeepers!
The king of Otaheite, though a despot, was a reformer. He discoveredthat the eating of bread-fruit was a barbarous custom, which wouldinfallibly prevent his people from being a great nation. He determinedto introduce French rolls. A party rebelled; the despot was energetic;some were executed; the rest ejected. The vagabonds arrived in England.As they had been banished in opposition to French rolls, they weredeclared to be a British interest. They professed their admiration ofcivil and religious liberty, and also of a subscription. When they haddrunk a great deal of punch, and spent all their money, they discoveredthat they had nothing to eat, and would infallibly have been starved,had not an Hibernian Marchioness, who had never been in Ireland, beenexceedingly shocked that men should die of hunger; and so, being one ofthe bustlers, she got up a fancy sale and a _Sandwich Isle Bazaar_.
All the world was there and of course our hero. Never was the arrival ofa comet watched by astronomers who had calculated its advent with moreanxiety than was the appearance of the young Duke. Never did man passthrough such dangers. It was the fiery ordeal. St. Anthony himself wasnot assailed by more temptations. Now he was saved from the lustre ofa blonde face by the superior richness of a blonde lace. He wouldinfallibly have been ravished by that ringlet had he not been nearlyreduced by that ring which sparkled on a hand like the white cat's. Hewas only preserved from his unprecedented dangers by their number. No,no! He had a better talisman: his conceit.
'Ah, Lady Balmont!' said his Grace to a smiling artist, who offered himone of her own drawings of a Swiss cottage, 'for me to be a tenant, itmust be love and a cottage!'
'What! am I to buy this ring, Mrs. Abercroft? _Point de jour_. Oh!dreadful phrase! Allow me to present it to you, for you are the only onewhom such words cannot make tremble.'
'This chain, Lady Jemima, for my glass! It will teach me where to directit.'
'Ah! Mrs. Fitzroy!' and he covered his face with affected fear. 'Can youforgive me? Your beautiful note has been half an hour unanswered. Thebox is yours for Tuesday.'
He tried to pass the next stall with a smiling bow, but he could notescape. It was Lady de Courcy, a dowager, but not old. Once beautiful,her charms had not yet disappeared. She had a pair of glittering eyes,a skilfully-carmined cheek, and locks yet raven. Her eloquence madeher now as conspicuous as once did her beauty. The young Duke was herconstant object and her occasional victim. He hated above all things atalking woman; he dreaded above all others Lady de Courcy.
He could not shirk. She summoned him by name so loud that crowds ofbarbarians stared, and a man called to a woman, and said, 'My dear! makehaste; here's a Duke!'
Lady de Courcy was prime confidant of the Irish Marchioness. Sheaffected enthusiasm about the poor sufferers. She had learnt Otaheitan,she lectured about the bread-fruit, and she played upon a barbarousthrum-thrum, the only musical instrument in those savage wastes,ironically called the Society Islands, because there is no society. Shewas dreadful. The Duke in despair took out his purse, poured forth fromthe pink and silver delicacy, worked by the slender fingers of LadyAphrodite, a shower of sovereigns, and fairly scampered off. At lengthhe reached the lady of his heart.
'I fear,' said the young Duke with a smile, and in a soft sweet voice,'that you will never speak to me again, for I am a ruined man.'
A beam of gentle affection reprimanded him even for badinage on such asubject.
'I really came here to buy up all your stock, but that gorgon, Lady deCourcy, captured me, and my ransom has sent me here free, but a beggar.I do not know a more ill-fated fellow than myself. Now, if you had onlycondescended to take me prisoner, I might have saved my money; for Ishould have kissed my chain.'
'My chains, I fear, are neither very alluring nor very strong.' Shespoke with a thoughtful air, and he answered her only with his eye.
'I must bear off something from your stall,' he resumed in a more rapidand gayer tone, 'and, as I cannot purchase you must present. Now for agift!'
'Choose!'
'Yourself.'
'Your Grace is really spoiling my sale. See! poor Lord Bagshot. What avaluable purchaser.'
'Ah! Bag, my boy!' said the Duke to a slang young nobleman whom heabhorred, but of whom he sometimes made a butt, 'am I in your way? Here!take this, and this, and this, and give me your purse. I'll pay LadyAphrodite.' And so the Duke again showered some sovereigns, and returnedthe shrunken silk to its defrauded owner, who stared, and would haveremonstrated, but the Duke turned his back upon him.
'There now,' he continued to Lady Aphrodite; 'there is two hundred percent, profit for you. You are not half a _marchande_. I will stand hereand be your shopman. Well, Annesley,' said he, as that dignitary passed,'what will you buy? I advise you to get a place. 'Pon my soul, 'tispleasant! Try Lady de Courcy. You know you are a favourite.'
'I assure your Grace,' said Mr. Annesley, speaking slowly, 'that thatstory about Lady de Courcy is quite untrue and very rude. I never turnmy back on any woman; only my heel. We are on the best possible terms.She is never to speak to me, and I am always to bow to her. But I reallymust purchase. Where did you get that glass-chain, St. James? Lady Afy,can you accommodate me?'
'Here is one prettier! But are you near-sighted, too, Mr. Annesley?'
'Very. I look upon a long-sighted man as a brute who, not being able tosee with his mind, is obliged to see with his body. The price of this?'
'A sovereign,' said the Duke; 'cheap; but we consider you as a friend.'
'A sovereign! You consider me a young Duke rather. Two shillings, andthat a severe price; a charitable price. Here is half-a-crown; give mesixpence. I was not a minor. Farewell! I go to the little Pomfret. Sheis a sweet flower, and I intend to wear her in my button-hole. Good-bye,Lady Afy!'
The gay morning had worn away, and St. James never left his fascinatingposition. Many a sweet and many a soft thing he uttered. Sometimes hewas baffled, but never beaten, and always returned to the charge withspirit. He was confident, because he was reckless: the lady had lesstrust in herself, because she was anxious. Yet she combated well, andrepressed the feelings which she could hardly conceal.
Many of her colleagues had already departed. She requested the Duke tolook after her carriage. A bold plan suddenly occurred to him, and heexecuted it with rare courage and rarer felicity.
'Lady Aphrodite Grafton's carriage!'
'Here, your Grace!'
'Oh! go home. Your lady will return with Madame de Protocoli.'
He rejoined her.
'I am sorry, that, by some blunder, your carriage has gone. What couldyou have told them?'
'Impossible! How provoking! How stupid!'
'Perhaps you told them that you would return with the Fitz-pompeys, butthey are gone; or Mrs. Aberleigh, and she is not here; or perhaps--butthey have gone too. Everyone has gone.'
'What shall I do? How distressing! I had better send. Pray send; or Iwill ask Lady de Courcy.'
'Oh! no, no! I really did not like to see you with her. As a favour--asa favour to me, I pray you not.'
'What can I do? I must send. Let me beg your Grac
e to send.'
'Certainly, certainly; but, ten to one, there will be some mistake.There always is some mistake when you send these strangers. And,besides, I forgot all this time my carriage is here. Let it take youhome.'
'No, no!'
'Dearest Lady Aphrodite, do not distress yourself. I can wait here tillthe carriage returns, or I can walk; to be sure, I can walk. Pray, praytake the carriage! As a favour--as a favour to me!'
'But I cannot bear you to walk. I know you dislike walking.'
'Well, then, I will wait.'
'Well, if it must be so; but I am ashamed to inconvenience you. Howprovoking of these men! Pray, then, tell the coachman to drive fast,that you may not have to wait. I declare there is scarcely a human beingin the room; and those odd people are staring so!'
He pressed her arm as he led her to his carriage. She is in; and yet,before the door shuts, he lingers.
'I shall certainly walk,' said he. 'I do not think the easterly windwill make me very ill. Good-bye! Oh, what a _coup-de-vent_!'
'Let me get out, then; and pray, pray take the carriage. I would muchsooner do anything than go in it. I would much rather walk. I am sureyou will be ill!'
'Not if I be with you.'
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