by Ouida
A Doubled-Down Page in the Colonel’s Book of Life.
WHAT a pace one lives at through the season! And, when one is fresh to it, before one knows that its pleasant, frothy, syllabub surface is only a cover to intrigues, petty spites, jealousies, partisanships, manoeuvres; alike in St Stephen’s as in Belgravia; among uncompromising patriots as among poor foreigners farming private banks round about St James’s-street; among portly aristocratic mothers, trotting out their innocent daughters to the market, as among the gauze-winged, tinselled, hard-worked deities of the coulisses; — how agreeable it is! Illusion in one’s first season lasts, I think, about the space of one month. With its blissful bandeau over our eyes, we really do admire the belles of the Ring and the Ride; we go to balls to dance, and to dinners for society. We swallow larks for ortolans, and Cremome gooseberry for Clicquot’s. We believe in the innocent demoiselles, who look so naïve, and such sweet English rosebuds at morning fêtes, and do not dream those glossy braids cover empty, but world-shrewd little heads, ever plotting how to eclipse dearest Cecilia, or win old Hautton’s coronet; we accept their mamma’s invitations, and think how kindly they are given, not knowing that we are only asked because we bring Shako of the Guards with us, who is our bosom chum, and has fifteen thousand a year, and that, Shako fairly hooked, we, being younger sons, shall be gently dropped. We go to the Lords and Commons, and believe A. when he says he has the deepest admiration for his noble friend B., whom he hates like poison; and we reverence D. when he pleads for the liberty of “the people,” whom over his claret he classifies as “beastly snobs.” We regard the coulisses with delight, as a temple whose Eleusinia it is high honour to penetrate, and fall veritably in love with all those fair nymphs fluttering their spirit veils as Willis, or clanking their spurs as Mazurka maidens.
That delightful state of faith lasts about a month, then we discard the bandeau, and use an eye-glass instead; learn to confine ourselves to “Not bad-looking” before the handsomest woman in the Park; find out that dinners are a gathering for high feeding, but not by any means bound to furnish society; pronounce balls a bore, and grow critical of ankles. We are careful of the English rosebuds, knowing that, kept out of view, those innocent petals have thorns, which they know well how to thrust out and dexterously impale us on them. We take mamma’s invitations at their worth, and watch the dragons’ teeth opening for that luckless Shako, with grim terror of a similar fate; we laugh over seltzer with a chum of ours, a whip in the Commons, who lets us into a thing or two concerning the grandiose jobbery of Downing-street; and find out that coulisses atmosphere, however agreeable, is no exclusive boon; that its sesame is a bracelet to the first dancer, who, though she may take a Duke’s brougham, is not insensible to even a Comet’s tribute, if it come from Hunt and Roskill, and we give less love and more Cremome lobster-salad to the Willis and Mazurka maidens!
Such, at least, was my case; and when I was fairly in the saddle and off at a pace, like a Doncaster favourite’s, through my first season, enjoyed it considerably, even when the bandeau was off my eyes, which, thanks to De Vigne and Sabretasche, took place very speedily.
Of De Vigne I did not see so much as if no Trefusis had been in being, for he was constantly after her, going with her to morning concerts, or Richmond luncheons; riding with her in the Park; lending her a horse, too, for that showy bay of hers had come out of Bruton Mews, and no livery-stable mount is fit for any mortal, much less for a female; attending her everywhere, but not as yet “compromising” himself, as, according to the peculiar code of honour in such cases, we may give a girl a bracelet with impunity to ourselves; but are lost if we hazard a diamond circlet for her “third finger.” That comes rather hard on those poor women, by the way; for Lovelace may talk, and look, and make love, in every possible style; yet, if he stop short of the “essential question,” Lovelace may go scot free! We remark what a devil of a girl it is to flirt; and her sworn allies, who have expressed sympathy to her in crossed notes of the fondest pathos, agree among themselves “How conceited poor Laura is to fancy Lovelace could be serious! Why, dear, all that means nothing; only Laura, poor thing! has had so little attention, she doesn’t know what it is. If she had had a man mad about her, as you and I have had, love — ah! do you remember poor Frank Cavendish at the race ball!” Whereon the sworn allies scent their vinaigrettes, indulging pleasurable recollections; and Lovelace burns Laura’s lock of hair which he asked for, under the limes in the moonlight; thinks “How deucedly near I was! must be more careful next time,” and wonders what sort of girls he shall find at Brighton.
De Vigne, however, as long as he would not come well up to hand, received no flirting kindnesses from the Trefusis — not even so much as a note to thank him for his concert-tickets, or a flower from the very bouquet he had sent her. Perhaps she knew by clairvoyance, that her Cambridge azalea had gone ignominiously into the grate; for she tried on that style no more, but was coy and reserved, as if Hannah More had been her chaperone instead of old Sarah, Lady Fantyre. This worried, excited, and roused him, and I saw, without needing much penetration, that he was drinking deeper and deeper of a stimulant which he never refused when it was fairly to his lips, and which brings worse follies and wilder deeds, and more resistless madness to men than lie in the worst insanities of del trem., or the dreams of a thousand grains of opium! Sabretasche and I used to swear at the power of the Trefusis, and lament De Vigne’s infatuation together; but we could do nothing to weaken either; opposition to a man in love is like oil to fire!
Sabretasche was remarkably kind to me; he introduced me in his set, one of the most intellectual in town; he admitted me to his charming dinners; and he let me into his studio, the most luxurious miniature art-palace possible, where, when employed on his marble or on his canvas, no one was ever allowed to disturb him. Sabretasche knew to perfection the great art, “How to live,” and he had every facility for enjoying life: riches, refined taste, art, intellect; men who sought him, women who courted him, a facile wit, a sweet temper; yet, somehow or other, you could trace in him a certain shadow, often dissipated, it is true, in the sunshine of his gay words, and the music of his laugh; but certain to creep over him again — an intangible shade of disappointment. Perhaps he had exhausted life too early; perhaps his refinement was jarred by the very pleasures he sought; perhaps the classic mould of his mind was not, after all, satisfied with the sedatives he gave it: — however, — as for speculating on Sabretasche, all town pretty well did that, more or less, but nobody in town was ever any the wiser for it. One morning I was going to breakfast with him; his nominal breakfast-hour was noon; though I believe he often rose very much earlier, took a cup of coffee, and chipped, or read, or painted in his studio. I took my way across the Gardens to Sabretasche’s house, which was at the upper end of Park Lane, taking that détour for motives of my own. Gwendolina Brandling, Curly’s eldest sister, an exquisite nymph of eighteen, with crêpé hair, had confided to me the previous day, over strawberry-ice, at a fête at Twickenham, that she was in the habit of accompanying her little sisters in their morning walk with their governess, to “put her in mind of the country,” and the Hon. Gwen being a fresh, honest-hearted, and exceedingly nice-looking girl, I took my way through the Gardens about eleven, looking out for Curly’s sister among the pretty nursemaids, ugly children, and abominable ankle-breaking, dress-tearing perambulators which filled the walks. There was no Hon. Gwen at present; and I threw myself down under one of the trees, put my eyeglass in my eye, and took out that day’s “Punch” to while away the time till Gwen and her attendants might come in sight.
Suddenly a voice fell on my ear, speaking coarsely and jocosely in Italian, “Come, signor, why waste time about it? You know that your secret is worth more than I ask. You know you would give half your riches to make sure it would never be known by anybody, to efface it altogether — eh, eccellenza? Come! I ask a very low price; not worth jangling about; no more to you than a few scudi to me. Why waste time? You know I
can bring proofs over in twenty-four hours, and then the show-up—”
“Take it, and begone with you!”
Ye gods! — that last voice, cold, contemptuous, full of disgust and wrath, I recognised as Sabretasche’s! Involuntarily I turned to look; and saw the most fastidious and the proudest man in town, in company with a shabbily, showily-dressed fellow, with rings on his fingers and a vulgar, insolent face, which wore at that minute an abominably insulting smile, as the Colonel shoved a roll of banknotes into his hand, loathing and impatience quivering over his own features. The man laughed — a laugh as impudent as his smile:
“Thank you, signor, a thousand thanks. I won’t trouble you again till — I’m again in difficulties.”
Sabretasche gave him no answer, but turning his back upon the man, folded his arms upon his chest, and walked away across the Gardens, with his head bent down, while the fellow counted the notes with glistening, triumphant eyes, crushed them up as if he loved their crisp new rustle, stroked his beard, whistled an air from “Figaro,” and strolled on towards the gate; leaving me in a state of profound amazement at the vulgar acquaintance the Colonel had selected, and the secret, by which this underbred foreigner seemed able to hold in check, so profound a man of the world as Sabretasche.
Just at that minute, Gwen and her duenna appeared in the distance; and I went to meet them, and talked of Grisi and Mario, of Balfe’s new song, and Sims Reeves’ last concert, with the hundred topics current in the season, while the little ones ran about, and the French governess chatted and laughed, and Gwen smiled and looked like a sunbeam, and told me about her ponies and dogs and flowers down in Hampshire. Poor Gwen! She is Madame la Duchesse de la Vieillecour now, not over happy, I fear, despite the diamonds I saw flashing on her brow and neck last night at the Tuileries. In the gorgeous glories of her Champs Elysées hotel, in the light beauty of her summer villa at Enghien, in the gloomy state and magnificence of her château in the Cote d’Or, whose massive iron gates close like a death-knell, does she ever think, I wonder, of those spring mornings in the Gardens when she was in her springtime too?
It was just twelve when I reached the Colonel’s house. I was shown straight to his own room; and there he lay on one of the couches, calm, cool, imperturbable as ever, not a trace visible of his past excitement and irritation, very unlike a man with a secret hanging over his head and darkening his life! He stretched out his hand with a kind smile:
“Well, Arthur. Good morning to you. You are just in time for the match; Du Loo has not been here five minutes.”
Du Loo was a heavy, good-humoured, stupid fellow in the Blues, who prided himself on his fine teeth and his boxing, and who was going, at half-past twelve, to have a little play with Fighting Chatney, one of the Fancy, who let himself out to beat gentlemen, in order that gentlemen might learn to beat.
On the carpet at Sabretasche’s feet lay a great retriever, the one thing in the whole world for which he cared, chiefly, I believe, because, when a stray pup, it had trusted itself to his kindness.
“Poor old Cid!” said he, pausing in his breakfast to set the dog down some larded guinea-fowl. “I spoil him for sport, you say? Perhaps; but I don’t want him for sport, and I make his life comfortable. I see in him one thing in this Via Dolorosa; that is perfectly content and happy; and it is a treat to see it Cid and I are fast friends; and we love one another, don’t we, old boy?”
The Cid looked up at him with two honest, tender brown eyes, and wagged his tail: Sabretasche had talked to him till, I believe, the dog understood him, quite as well as I did.
“There are lots of women, Colonel,” said Du Loo, “who’d bid high for the words you throw away on that dog.”
“Possibly. But are any of them as faithful, and honest, and worthy, as my Cid! The Cid would like broken bones and a barn with me, as well as French cookery and velvet cushions. I’m sorry I couldn’t say as much for my fair ladies, Du Loo.”
“The devil! no,” yawned the Guardsman. “Catch a woman giving up her opera-box and her milliner. Why, the other night I saw Nelly Lacquers, the British Beggars’ Bank man’s wife, got up no end at the Silverton drum, laughing and talking, waltzing, and carrying pearls worth two thousand; and, by George! if there isn’t a warrant out against her husband this morning for swindling! Mustn’t she be a horrid, heartless, little bit of flippery.”
“It doesn’t follow,” said Sabretasche. “Most likely he sent her there to disarm suspicion, while he shipped off his specie to France or America, and got his passport to Calais. I never judge people; seemingly bad actions may have good motives, good ones may spring from base and selfish ends.”
Du Loo stared at him.
“What the deuce, Colonel! you turning sermoniser?”
“No, my dear fellow, I have enough conscience left not to preach before practising; though truly if that were the rule in the land, few pulpits would be filled! But I have one virtue — tolerance; therefore I may preach that There is your friend, Fighting Chatney. Now for your seventh heaven, Du Loo!”
“And yours too!”
“Mine? No! there is a degree of absurdity in two mortals setting solemnly to work to pommel one another; there is something unpoetic, and coarse, and savage, about blood and bruises; and, besides — it is so much exertion! However, go at it; it is for Arthur’s delectation, and I can go into my studio if I’m tired.”
Du Loo and his pet of the Fancy retired to the far end of the room, and there set-to, delivering from the left shoulder, and drinking as much beer between their rounds as a couple of draymen. As the match had been arranged for my express pleasure, of course I watched it with the deepest interest, though Sabretasche’s remarks for once gave the noble art a certain degree of ludicrousness, mingled with the admiration with which I had been accustomed to regard such “little mills.” Du Loo finally floored the bruiser, to his own extreme glorification, while the Pet very generously growled out to him that he might be as great a man as the Tipton Slasher, if he would but train himself properly. Du Loo left, and Sabretasche asked me to stay ten minutes, to let him finish a picture which he had been amusing himself by taking of me, in crayons; — a portrait, by the way, which is a far better one than any I have ever had done by R.A.’s, and which my mother still cherishes devotedly at Longholme.
“What a strange fellow Du Loo is,” said the Colonel, “or, rather, what a common one! The man’s greatest delight is a Moulsey mill, and his ambitions are locked up in the brutalities of the Ring. Of any higher world he is utterly ignorant. Talk to him of art and genius, you might as well discourse to him in Hebrew! Take him out under the summer stars, he would look bored, yawn, and ask for his cigar. Positively, Arthur, he makes one feel one’s link to the animals mortifying close. In truth, the distance between the zoophytes and man, is, not wider than the gulf between a Goethe and a prizefighter, is it? It is proportion of brain which makes the man superior to the pig; should it not make as distinct a mark between the clod of the valley and the cultured scholar? But why am I talking all this nonsense to you? You have more amusing occupation than to listen to my fancies. Turn a little nearer the light That is it! Have you seen De Vigne to-day?”
“No; he was gone somewhere with the Trefusis and Fantyre, confound them! Do you think she will win, Colonel?”
“My dear boy, how can I tell? I think she will if she can. ‘Donne gentile devote d’amore’ generally manage to marry a man if they have full play with him. If De Vigne only saw her in morning calls, when his head was cool, and others were with him, possibly he might keep out of it; but she waltzes with him — she waltzes remarkably well, too — she shoots Parthian glances at him in the tête-à-tête of conservatories, after the mess champagne; moreover, ten to one, in some of those soft moments, he will say more than, being a man of honour, he can unsay.”
“And be cursed for life!”
“Possibly. Love does that for a good many, and in the fantasy of early passion many men have surrendered their entire lives to one who
has made them — a blank! Troublesome eyes yours are, Arthur; I can’t make out their colour. What present will you give Mrs. De Vigne on her wedding-day?”
“Confound her, none!” I shouted. “He’s a vast deal too good for fifty such as she — a cold, calculating, ambitious, loveless intriguer—”
“One would think you were in love with her yourself, Chevasney! Let me catch that terrific expression, it would do for a Jupiter Tonans.”
“And she is so wretchedly clever!” I groaned.
“In artifice! yes; by education! no. Her knowledge is utterly superficial. I cannot imagine where she has lived. She speaks shockingly ungrammatical French, with a most atrocious English accent; she neither plays nor sings. Yet she waltzes, rides, and dresses splendidly, and has a shrewd, sharp sarcasm, which passes muster as wit among her admirers. In fact, she is a paradox; and I shall regret nothing more, than to see De Vigne misled through his senses by her magnificent beauty, stooping to tie himself for life to a woman with whom he will have nothing in common, who will have neither feeling to satisfy his heart, nor mind to satisfy his intellect, and with whom I would bet great odds a week after the honeymoon he will be disgusted.”
“Can’t you persuade him!” I began. He stopped me with an expressive gesture; he had much of the Italian gesticulation.
“Persuade! Bon garçon! if you want to force a man into any marriage, persuade him against it! No one should touch love affairs. Third persons are certain to barbotter the whole thing. The more undesirable the connexion, and the more you interfere, the more surely will the ‘subject’ grow obstinate as a mule under your treatment Call a person names to anybody over whom she has cast a glamour, and if he have anything of the gentleman, or the lover, in him, out of sheer amour propre, and a sort of wrong-headed, right-hearted chivalry, he will swear to you she is an angel.”
“And believe it, perhaps.”
“Most likely, until she is his wife! There is a peculiar magic in that gold circlet, badge of servitude for life, which changes the sweetest, gentlest, tenderest betrothed into the stiffest of domestic tyrants. Don’t you know that, when she’s engaged to him, she is so pretty and pleasant with his men friends, passes over the naughty stories she hears of him from ‘well-intentioned’ advisers, and pats the new mare that is to be entered for the Chester Cup? But twelve months after, his chums have the cold shoulder and the worst wine; and she gives him fifty curtain orations on his disgraceful conduct, while he wonders if the peevish woman who comes down an hour too late for breakfast, can by any possibility be identical with the smiling young lady who poured his coffee out for him, with such dainty fingers, and pleasant words, when he stayed down at her papa’s for the shooting.”