Wylder's Hand

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  THE BALL ROOM.

  Rachel Lake, standing by the piano, turned over the leaves of the volumeof 'Moore's Melodies' from which the artist in black whiskers and whitewaistcoat had just entertained his noble patroness and his audience.

  Everyone has experienced, I suppose for a few wonderful moments, now andthen, a glow of seemingly causeless happiness, in which the earth and itspeople are glorified--peace and sunlight rest on everything--the spiritof music and love is in the air, and the heart itself sings for joy. Inthe light of this celestial illusion she stood now by the piano, turningover the pages of poor Tom Moore, as I have said, when a low pleasantvoice near her said--

  'I was so glad to see that Dorcas had prevailed, and that you were here.We both agreed that you are too much a recluse in that Der FrieschutzGlen--at least, for your friends' pleasure; and owe it to us all toappear now and then in this upper world.'

  'Excelsior, Miss Lake,' interposed dapper little Mr. Buttle, with asmirk; 'I think this little bit of music--it was got up, you know, bythat old quiz, Dowager Lady Chelford--was really not so bad--a rathergood idea, after all, Miss Lake. Don't you?'

  Poor Mr. Buttle did not know Lord Chelford, and thus shooting his 'arrowo'er the house,' he 'hurt his brother.' Chelford turned away, and bowedand smiled to one or two friends at the other side of the room.

  'Yes, the music was very pretty, and some of the songs were quitecharmingly sung. I agree with you--we are very much obliged to LadyChelford--that is her son, Lord Chelford.'

  'Oh!' said Buttle, whose smirk vanished on the instant in a very red anddismal vacancy, 'I--I'm afraid he'll think me shockingly rude.' And in aminute more Buttle was gone.

  Miss Lake again looked down upon the page, and as she did so, LordChelford turned and said--

  'You are a worshipper of Tom Moore, Miss Lake?'

  'An admirer, perhaps--certainly no worshipper. Yet, I can't say. PerhapsI do worship; but if so, it is a worship strangely mixed with contempt.'And she laughed a little. 'A kind of adoring which I fancy belongsproperly to the lords of creation, and which we of the weaker sex have noright to practise.'

  'Miss Lake is pleased to be ironical to-night,' he said, with a smile.

  'Am I? I dare say. All women are. Irony is the weapon of cowardice, andcowardice the vice of weakness. Yet I think I was naturally bold andtrue. I hate cowardice and deception even in myself--I hate perfidy--Ihate _fraud_.'

  She tapped a little emphasis upon the floor with her white satin shoe,and her eyes flashed with a dark and angry meaning among the crowd at theother end of the room, as if for a second or two following an object towhom in some way the statement applied.

  The strange bitterness of her tone, though it was low enough, andsomething wild, suffering, and revengeful in her look, though butmomentary, and hardly definable, did not escape Lord Chelford, and hefollowed unconsciously the direction of her glance; but there was nothingthere to guide him to a conclusion, and the good people who formed thatpolite and animated mob were in his eyes, one and all, quite below thelevel of tragedy, or even of melodrama.

  'And yet, Miss Lake, we are all more or less cowards or deceivers--atleast, to the extent of suppression. Who would speak the whole truth, orlike to hear it?--not I, I know.'

  'Nor I,' she said, quietly.

  'And I do think, if people had no reserves, they would be veryuninteresting,' he added.

  She was looking, with a strange light upon her face--a smile,perhaps--upon the open pages of 'Moore's Melodies' as he spoke.

  'I like a little puzzle and mystery--they surround our future and ourpast; and the present would be insipid, I think, without them. Now, Ican't tell, Miss Lake, as you look on Tom Moore there, and I try to readyour smile, whether you happen at this particular moment to adore ordespise him.'

  'Moore's is a daring morality--what do you think, for instance, of theselines?' she said, touching the verse with her bouquet.

  Lord Chelford read--

  I ask not, I know not, if guilt's in thy heart I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.'

  He laughed.

  'Very passionate, but hardly respectable. I once knew,' he continued alittle more gravely, 'a marriage made upon that principle, and not veryaudaciously either, which turned out very unhappily.'

  'So I should conjecture,' she said, rising from her chair, ratherdrearily and abstractedly, 'and there is good old Lady Sarah. I must goand ask her how she does.' She paused for a moment, holding her bouquetdrooping towards the floor, and looking with her clouded eyesdown--down--through it; and then she looked up suddenly, with an odd,fierce smile, and she said bitterly enough--'and yet, if I were a man,and capable of loving, I could love no other way; because I suppose loveto be a madness, and the sublimest and the most despicable of states. AndI admire Moore for that flash of the fallen angelic--it is the sentimentof a hero and a madman--too base and too _noble_ for this cool, wiseworld.'

  She was already moving away, nebulous in hovering folds of snowy muslin.And she floated down like a cloud upon the ottoman, beside old LadySarah, and smiled and leaned towards her, and talked in her sweet, low,distinct accents. And Lord Chelford followed her, with a sad sort ofsmile, admiring her greatly.

  Of course, _non cuivis contigit_, it was not every man's privilege todance with the splendid Lady of Brandon. It was only the demigods whoventured within the circle. Her kinsman, Lord Chelford, did so; and nowhandsome Sir Harry Bracton, six feet high, so broad-shouldered andslim-waisted, his fine but not very wise face irradiated withindefatigable smiles, stood and conversed with her, with that jauntyswagger of his--his weight now on this side, now on that, squaring hiselbows like a crack whip with four-in-hand, and wagging his perfumedtresses--boisterous, rollicking, beaming with immeasurableself-complacency.

  Stanley Lake left old Lady Chelford's side, and glided to that of DorcasBrandon.

  'Will you dance this set--are you engaged, Miss Brandon?' he said, in loweager tones.

  'Yes, to both questions,' answered she, with the faintest gleam of theconventional smile, and looking now gravely again at her bouquet.

  'Well, the next possibly, I hope?'

  'I never do that,' said the apathetic beauty, serenely.

  Stanley looked as if he did not quite understand, and there was a littlesilence.

  'I mean, I never engage myself beyond one dance. I hope you do not thinkit rude--but I never do.'

  'Miss Brandon can make what laws she pleases for all here, and for someof us everywhere,' he replied, with a mortified smile and a bow.

  At that moment Sir Harry Bracton arrived to claim her, and MissKybes--elderly and sentimental, and in no great request--timidly said, ina gobbling, confidential whisper--

  'What a handsome couple they do make! Does not it quite realise yourconception, Captain Lake, of young Lochinvar, you know, and his fairHelen--

  So stately his form and so lovely her face--

  You remember--

  'That never a hall such a galliard did grace.

  Is not it?'

  'So it is, really; it did not strike me. And that "one cup of wine"--yourecollect--which the hero drank; and, I dare say it made young Lochinvara little noisy and swaggering, when he proposed "treading themeasure"--is not that the phrase? Yes, really; it is a very prettypoetical parallel.'

  And Miss Kybes was pleased to think that Captain Lake would be sure toreport her elegant little compliment in the proper quarters, and that herincense had not missed fire.

  When Miss Brandon returned, Lake was unfortunately on duty beside oldLady Chelford, whom it was important to propitiate, and who was in themiddle of a story--an extraordinary favour from her ladyship; and he hadthe vexation to see Lord Chelford palpably engaging Miss Brandon for thenext dance.

  When she returned, she was a little tired, and doubtful whether she woulddance any more--certainly not the next dance. So he resolved to lie inwait, and anticipate any new suitor who might appear.

  His ey
es, however, happened to wander, in an unlucky moment, to old LadyChelford, who instantaneously signalled to him with her fan.

  '-- the woman,' mentally exclaimed Lake, telegraphing, at the same time,with a bow and a smile of deferential alacrity, and making his waythrough the crowd as deftly as he could; what a ---- fool I was to gonear her.'

  So the captain had to assist at the dowager lady's supper; and not onlyso, but in some sort at her digestion also, which she chose should takeplace for some ten minutes in the chair that she occupied at the suppertable.

  When he escaped, Miss Brandon _was_ engaged once more--and to Sir HarryBracton, for a second time.

  And moreover, when he again essayed his suit, the young lady hadperemptorily made up her mind to dance no more that night.

  'How _can_ Dorcas endure that man,' thought Rachel, as she saw Sir Harrylead her to her seat, after a second dance. 'Handsome, but so noisy andfoolish, and wicked; and is not he vulgar, too?'

  But Dorcas was not demonstrative. Her likings and dislikings were alwaysmore or less enigmatical. Still Rachel Lake fancied that she detectedsigns, not only of tolerance, but of positive liking, in her haughtycousin's demeanour, and wondered, after all, whether Dorcas was beginningto like Sir Harry Bracton. Dorcas had always puzzled her--not, indeed, somuch latterly--but this night the mystery began to darken once more.

  Twice, for a moment, their eyes met; but only for a moment. Rachel knewthat a tragedy might be--at that instant, and under the influence of thatvery spectacle--gathering its thunders silently in another part of theroom, where she saw Stanley's pale, peculiar face; and although heappeared in nowise occupied by what was passing between Dorcas Brandonand Sir Harry, she perfectly well knew that nothing of it escaped him.

  The sight of that pale face was a cold pang at her heart--a faceprophetic of evil, at sight of which the dark curtain which hid futurityseemed to sway and tremble, as if a hand from behind was on the point ofdrawing it. Rachel sighed profoundly, and her eyes looked sadly throughher bouquet on the floor.

  'I'm very glad you came, Radie,' said a sweet voice, which somehow madeher shiver, close to her ear. 'This kind of thing will do you good; andyou really wanted a little fillip. Shall I take you to the supper-room?'

  'No, Stanley, thank you; I prefer remaining.'

  'Have you observed how Dorcas has treated me this evening?'

  'No, Stanley; nothing unusual, is there?' answered Rachel, glancinguneasily round, lest they should be overheard.

  'Well, I think she has been more than usually repulsive--quite marked; Ialmost fancy these Gylingden people, dull as they are, must observe it. Ihave a notion I sha'n't trouble Gylingden or her after to-morrow.'

  Rachel glanced quickly at him. He was deadly pale, with his faintunpleasant smile; and he returned her glance for a second wildly, andthen dropped his eyes to the ground.

  'I told you,' he resumed again, after a short pause, and commencing witha gentle laugh, 'that she liked that fellow, Bracton.'

  'You did say something, I think, of that, some time since,' said Rachel;'but really----'

  'But really, Radie, dear, you can't need any confirmation more than thisevening affords. We both know Dorcas very well; she is not like othergirls. She does not encourage fellows as they do; but if she did not likeBracton very well indeed, she would send him about his business. She hasdanced with him twice, on the contrary, and has suffered his agreeableconversation all the evening; and that from Dorcas Brandon means, youknow, everything.'

  'I don't know that it means anything. I don't see why it should; but I amvery certain,' said Rachel, who, in the midst of this crowded, gossipingball-room, was talking much more freely to Stanley, and also, strange tosay, in more sisterly fashion, than she would have done in the littleparlour of Redman's Farm; 'I am very certain, Stanley, that if thissupposed preference leads you to abandon your wild pursuit of Dorcas, itwill prevent more ruin than, perhaps, either of us anticipates; and,Stanley,' she added in a whisper, looking full in his eyes, which wereraised for a moment to hers, 'it is hardly credible that you dare stillto persist in so desperate and cruel a project.'

  'Thank you,' said Stanley quietly, but the yellow lights glared fiercelyfrom their sockets, and were then lowered instantly to the floor.

  'She has been very rude to me to-night; and you have not been, or triedto be, of any earthly use to me; and I will take a decided course. Iperfectly know what I'm about. You don't seem to be dancing. _I_ have noteither; we have both got something more serious, I fancy, to think of.'

  And Stanley Lake glided slowly away, and was lost in the crowd. He wentinto the supper-room, and had a glass of seltzer water and sherry. Heloitered at the table. His ruminations were dreary, I fancy, and histemper by no means pleasant; and it needed a good deal of that artificialcommand of countenance which he cultivated, to prevent his betrayingsomething of the latter, when Sir Harry Bracton, talking loud and volublyas usual, swaggered into the supper-room, with Dorcas Brandon on his arm.