by Ouida
CHAPTER X.
On the First Day of a New Year.
ON another New Year’s Day, ten years from that fatal marriage, the tropic sun streamed down on parched sand, and tangled jungle, where, in the sultry stillness of the noon, a contest for life and death was raging. Far away on the blue hills slept the golden day; the great palm-leaves drooped languidly; the jaguars, and the tigers, lay couched in the grasses; the florikens, and parrots, closed their soft, brilliant-hued wings to sleep; all nature in the vast solitudes was at peace; even the broad sheet of the river was calm as a tideless lake, pausing in its rapid rush, from its mountain cradle, to its ocean grave. All nature was hushed and still, but the passions of man were warring; when do they ever rest?
It was a skirmish of British cavalry and Beloochee infantry, in a small plain between large woods or hunting grounds, and the red sun shone with an arid glare on the glittering sabres, and white linen helmets of the Europeans, and the gorgeous turbans, and dark shields of the mountaineers, who were darkening the air with their clashing swords, and breaking the holy hush of wood and hills with long rolling shouts, loud and terrible as thunder.
The mountaineers doubled the English force; they had surprised them, moreover, as, not thinking of attack, they trotted onwards from one garrison to another, and the struggle was sharp and fierce. The English were but a handful of Hussars, under command of their Major, and the odds were great against them. But at their head was one to whom fear was a word in an unknown tongue, in whose blood was fire, and whose heart was bronze.
Sitting down in his saddle as calmly as at a meet, his eyes steady and quick as an eagle’s, hewing right and left like a common trooper, the Major fought his way. The Beloochee swords gleamed round him without harm, while crashing through their bright-hued turbans, every stroke of his sabre told. They surged around him, they climbed, they wrestled, they tore, they panted for his blood, they caught his charger’s bridle, they opposed before him one dense and bristling forest of swords; still, he bore a charmed life, alike in single combat hand to hand, or in the broken charge of his scattered troop.
In the fierce noontide glow, in the pitiless vertical sun-rays, while the wild shouts of the natives rang up to the heavens, and the ceaseless clang and clash of the sabres and shields startled the birds from their rest, and the tigers from their lair, he fought like grim death, as these blows glanced harmless off him, as from Achilles of old; fought till the native warriors, savage heroes though they were, fled from his path, awe-stricken at his fierce valour, at his matchless strength, at his god-like charm from danger. He pursued them at the head of his troop, after the skirmish was over, far away across the plain; then, as he drew bridle, and put his reeking sword back into its sheath, another man near him, looked at him in amazement: “On my life, De Vigne, what an odd fellow you are! You look like the very devil in the midst of the fight; and yet when it’s over, after sharper work than any even we have seen, deuce take you if you’re not as cool as if you’d walked out of a barrack-yard!”
* * * * *
The same ist of January, while they were enjoying this Cavalry skirmish in the East, we were bored to death by a review at Woolwich. The day was soft and bright, no snow or frost, as Sabretasche, with his Italianised constitution, remarked with a thanksgiving. There was Royalty to inspect us; there were pretty women in their carriages in the inner circle: and there was as superb a luncheon as any military man could ask, in the finest mess-room in England; and we, ungrateful, I suppose, for the goods the gods gave us, swore away at it all, as the greatest curse imaginable. It is a pretty scene enough, I dare say, to those who have only to look on; the bright uniforms and the white plumes, the greys and the bays, the chesnuts and the roans, the dashing staff and the cannon’s peaceful roar, the marching and the counter-marching, the storming and the sortie, the rush and the charge! I dare say it may be all very amusing to lookers-on, but to us, heated and bothered and tired, obliged to go into harness, which we hated as cordially as we loved it the first day we sported in our Cornethood, it was a nuisance inexpressible, and we should have far preferred fatiguing ourselves for some better purpose under the teak-trees in India.
We were profoundly thankful when it was all over and done with, when H.R.H. F.M. had departed to Windsor without luncheon, and we were free to go up and chat with the women in the inner circle, and take them into the mess-room. There were very few we knew, yet up in town; but Parliament was about to meet, unusually early’that year, and there were several from jointure houses, or little villas at Richmond, or Twickenham, or Kew, with whom we were well acquainted.
“There is Lady Molyneux,” said Sabretasche, who was now Lieut.-Colonel of Ours. “I dare say that is her daughter with her. I remember she came out last season, and was very much admired, but I missed her by going that Ionian Isle trip with Brabazon. Shall we go and be introduced, Arthur? She does not look bad style, though to be sure these English winter days, are as destructive to a woman’s beauty, as any thing well can be!”
The Colonel wheeled his horse round up to the Molyneux barouche, and I followed him. Ten years had not altered Sabretasche in one iota; he had led the same lounging, indolent, fashionable, artistic kind of life; his face was as handsome, his wit as light, his conquests as various and far-famed as ever. He was still soldier, artist, sculptor, dilettante, man of fashion, all in one, the universal criterion of taste, the critic of all beauties, pictures, singers, or horses, popular with all men, adored by all women, and really chained by none. Therefore Vivian Sabretasche, whose word at White’s or the U. S. could do more to damage, or increase, her daughter’s reputation as a belle, than any other man’s, had a very pleasant bow and smile in the distance, from Lady Molyneux; and a very delicate lavender kid glove belonging to that peeress, put between his fingers, when he and I rode up to her carriage.
“Ah!” cried the Viscountess, a pretty, supercilious-looking woman, who was passée, but would not by any means allow it, “I am delighted to see you both. We only came to town yesterday; Lord Molyneux has taken a house in Lowndes-square, and there is positively scarcely a soul that we know here as yet! Rushbrooke persuaded us to come to this review to-day, and Violet wished it. Allow me to introduce my daughter to you. Violet, my love, Colonel Sabretasche, Mr. Chevasney, Miss Molyneux.”
Violet Molyneux looked up in the Colonel’s face as he bowed to her; and probably thought — at least she looked as if she did — that she had never seen any man so attractive, as he returned her gaze with his soft, mournful eyes, and that exquisite gentleness of manner, to which he owed half his reputation in the tender secrets of the boudoir and flirting-room; and leaning his hand on the door of the carriage, bent down from his saddle, studying the new beauty, while he laughed and chatted with her and her mother. We used to say Sabretasche kept a list of the new beauties entered for the year — as “Bell’s Life” has a list of the young fillies entered for the Oaks; made a cross against those worth noticing, and checked off those already flirted with and slain; for the Colonel was indisputably as dangerous to the beau sexe as Lauzun.
Violet Molyneux was certainly worthy of being entered in this mythical book if it existed; her complexion white as Parian, with a wild-rose colour in her cheeks, her eyes large, brilliant, and wonderfully expressive, generally flashing with the sweetest laughter; her hair of a soft, bright, chesnut hue; her figure slight but perfect in symmetry; on her delicate features the stamp of quick intelligence, heightened by the greatest culture; and in her whole air and manner the grace of high rank, and fashionable dress. Gifted with the gayest spirits, the cleverest brain, and the sweetest temper possible, one could not wonder that she was talked over at Clubs; engaged by more than her tablets could record at every ball, and followed by a perfect cavalcade when she cantered down the Ride. Sabretasche soon took her off to the mess-room, a Lieutenant-General escorting her mother, and I found myself sitting on her left at the luncheon: an occasion I did not improve as much as I otherwise should have done
, from the fact of his being on the other side, and persuading the young lady to give all her attention to him; for, though he was scarcely ever really interested in any woman, he liked to flirt with them all, and always made himself charming. The Hon. Violet seemed to find him charming too; and chatted with him gaily and frankly, as if she had known him for ages.
“How I enjoyed the review to-day!” she began. “If there are three sights greater favourites of mine than another, they are a review, a race, and a meet, because of the dear horses.”
“Or — their masters?” said Sabretasche, quietly.
Violet Molyneux laughed.
“Oh! their masters are very pleasant too, though they are certainly never so handsome, or so tractable, or so honest as their quadrupeds! Most of my friends abuse gentlemen. I don’t; they are always kind to me, and unless they are very young or stupid, generally speaking amusing.”
“Miss Molyneux, what a treat!” smiled Sabretasche, who could say impudent things so gracefully, that every one liked them from his lips. “You have the candour to say what every other young lady thinks. We know you all like us very much, but none of you will ever admit it! You say you enjoyed the review? I thought no belle, after her first season, ever condescended to ‘enjoy’ anything.”
“Don’t they!” laughed Violet; “how I pity them! I am an exception, then, for I enjoy an immense number of things; everything, indeed, except my presentation, where I was ironed quite flat, and very nearly crushed to death, and, finally, came before her Majesty in a state of collapse, like a maimed india-rubber ball. Not enjoy things! Why, I enjoy my morning gallop on Bonbon; I enjoy my flowers, and birds, and dogs. I delight in the opera, I adore waltzing, I perfectly idolise music, and the day when a really good book comes out, or a really good painting is exhibited, I am in a seventh heaven. Not enjoy things! Oh, Colonel Sabretasche, when I cease to enjoy life, I hope I shall cease to live!”
“You will die very early, then!” said Sabretasche, with something of that deepened melancholy which occasionally stole over him, but which he was always careful to conceal in society.
She started, and turned her bright eyes upon him, surprised and stilled:
“Colonel Sabretasche! Why!”
He smiled; his usual gay, courteous smile:
“Because the gods will grudge earth so fair a flower, and men so true a vision, of what angels ought to be; but — thanks to preachers, poets, and painters — never are.”
She shook her head with a pretty impatience:
“Ah! pray do not waste compliments upon me; I detest them.”
“Vraiment?” murmured the Colonel, with a little, quiet, incredulous glance.
“Yes, I do indeed. You don’t believe me, I dare say. Because I have so many of them, Captain Chevasney?
Perhaps it is. I have many more than are really complimentary, either to my taste or my intellect.”
“Ladies like compliments as children like bonbons,” said Sabretasche, in his low, slow voice. “They will take them till they can take no more; but if they see ever so insignificant a one going to another, how they long for it, how they grudge it, how they burn to add it to their store! This is œil de perdrix, will you try it?”
“No, thank you,” answered the Hon. Violet, with a ringing laugh. The sarcasms on her sex did not seem to touch or disturb her; she rather enjoyed them than otherwise. “What is the news to-day?”
“Nothing remarkable,” answered Sabretasche. “Births, marriages, and deaths all put together, to remind men, like Philip of Macedon’s valet, that they come into the world, to suffer in it, and go out again. Much like all other news, Miss Molyneux, except that your name is down as among those arrived in town, and my friend De Vigne is mentioned for the Bath.”
“Ah! that Major de Vigne!” cried Violet “Where is he? — who is he? — what has he really been doing? I heard Lord Hilton talking about him last night, saying that he had been a most wonderful fellow in India, and that the natives called him — what was it?— ‘the Charmed Life,’ I think. Is he your friend?”
“My best,” said Sabretasche. “Not Jonathan to my David, you know, nor Iolaüs to my Orestes; we don’t do that sort of thing in these days. We like each other, but as for dying for each other, that would be far too much trouble; and, besides, it would be bad ton — too demonstrative. But I like him; he is as true steel as any man I know, and I shall be delighted to have a cigar with him again, provided it is not too strong a one. Dying for one’s Patroclus would be preferable to enduring his bad tobacco.”
Violet looked at him with her radiant glance:
“Well, Colonel Sabretasche, if your cigar be not kindled warmer than your friendship, it will very soon go out again, that’s all!”
“Soit! there are plenty more in the case,” smiled Sabretasche, “and one Havannah is as good as another, for anything I see. But about De Vigne you have heard quite truly; he has been fighting in Scinde like all the Knights of the Round Table merged in one. He is Major of the — th Hussars, and he has done more with his handful than a general of division might have done with a whole squadron. His Colonel was put hors de combat with a ball in his hip, and De Vigne, of course, had the command for some time. The natives call him the Charmed Life, because, despite the risks he runs, and the carelessness with which he has exposed his life, he has not had a single scratch; and both the Sepoys he fights with, and the Beloochees he fights against, stand in a sort of awe of him. The — th is ordered home, so we are looking out to see him soon. I shall be heartily glad, poor old fellow!”
“Provided, I suppose, he brings cheroots with him good enough to allow him admittance!” said Violet.
“Sous entendu,” said the Colonel. “I would infinitely prefer losing a friend to incurring a disagreeable sensation. Would not you!”
“Oh! of course,” answered the young lady, with a rapid flash of her mischievous eyes. “Frederick’s feelings, when he saw Katte beheaded, must have been trifling child’s play, to what the Sybarite suffered from the doubled rose-leaves!”
“Undoubtedly,” said Sabretasche, tranquilly. “I am glad-you agree with me! If we do not take care and undouble the rose-leaves for ourselves, we may depend on it we shall find no one who will take so much trouble for us. To Aide-toi et Dieu f aidera, they should add Aide-toi et le monde t’aidera, for I have always noticed that Providence and the world generally befriend those who can do without their help.”
“Perhaps there is a deeper meaning in that,” answered Violet, “and more justice than first seems? After all, those who do aid themselves may deserve it the most, and those whose heads and hands are silent and idle, hardly have a right to have the bonbons of existence picked out and given to them.”
“I don’t know whether we have a right to them, but we find them pleasant, and that is all I look at; and besides, Miss Molyneux, when you have lived a little longer in the world, you will invariably find that it is to those who have much, that much is given, and vice versa. Establish yourself on a pedestal, the world will worship you, even though the pedestal be of very poor brick and mortar; lie modestly down on a moorland, though it be, like James Fergusson, for genius to study science, why, you may lie there for ever if you wait for anybody to pick you up! The world has a trick of serving, like the Swiss Guard and the secret police, whichever side is uppermost and pays them best However, thank Heaven I want nothing of it, and it is very civil to me.”
“Because you want nothing of it!”
“Precisely.”
CHAPTER XI.
The “Charmed Life” comes back among us.
“THANK God I have found a girl who has some notion of conversation. I believe, with the Persians, that ten measures of talk were sent down from Heaven, and the ladies took nine; but of conversation, argument, repartee — the real use of that most facile, dexterous, sharp-pointed weapon, the tongue — what woman has a notion? They employ a thousand superlatives in describing a dress, they exhaust a million expletives in damning their b
osom friend. But as for conversation, they have not a notion of it; if you begin an argument, they either get into a passion or subside into monosyllables! A woman who has good conversation is as rare as one who does not care for scandal. I have met them in Paris salons, and we have found one to-day.”
So spoke Sabretasche at mess that night à propos of Violet Molyneux, who was under discussion in common with our bisque and our wine.
“Then you allow her your approval, Colonel,” said Montressor, of Ours.
“Certainly I do,” said Sabretasche. “She is exquisitely pretty, even through my eye-glass; and, what is much better, she can talk as if Nature had given her brains, and reading had cultivated them. I dare say they count on her making a good marriage.”
“No doubt they do. Jockey Jack has hardly a rap,” replied another man. “They can’t keep up their Irish place, so they hang out in town three parts of the year, and take a shooting-box, or visit about for the rest. Confound it, I wouldn’t be one of the Upper House, without a good pot of money to keep up my dignity, for anything I could see! Violet came out last season, you know.”
“Yes, I know; I remember hearing she made a great sensation,” answered the Colonel. “Ormsbytold me she was the best thing of the season — the first, by-the-by, I was ever out of London. Lady Molyneux must try to run down, Regalia, or Cavendish Grey, or one of the great matrimonial coups. My lady knows how to manœuvre, too; I wonder she should have a daughter so frank and unaffected.”
“They’ve seen nothing of one another,” answered Pigott, who always knew everything about everybody, from the price Lord Goodwood gave for his thoroughbred roan fillies, to the private thoughts that Lady Honoria Bandoline wrote each night in her violet-velvet diary. “My lady’s always running out somewhere; if you were to call at eight in the morning you’d find her gone off to early Matins; if you were to call at twelve, she’d be off to the Sanctified and Born-again Clearstarcheris jubilee with Lord Saving-grace; at two, she’d be closeted and lunching with her spiritual master — whoever he chance to be; at three, she’d be having a snug boudoir flirtation; at four, she’d be in the Park, of course, or at a morning concert; at six, she’d be dressing for dinner; at ten, she’d be off to three or four balls and crushes; and so between the two she certainly carries out that delightful work, ‘How to Make the Best of Both Worlds,’ which my Low Church sister sent me the other day!”