Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  Physical beauty, even when it is a little bit soulless, is an admirable weapon for instantaneous slaughter, and the trained and pruned standard roses show a very effective mass of bloom; though, as Lady Marabout’s floral tastes and experiences told her, they don’t give one the lasting pleasure that a careless bough of wild rose will do, with its untutored grace and its natural fragrance. With the standard you see we keep in the artificial air of the horticultural tent, and are never touched out of it for a second; its perfume seems akin to a bouquet, and its destiny is, we are sure, to a parterre. The wild-rose fragrance breathes of the hill-side and the woodlands, and brings back to us soft touches of memory, of youth, of a fairer life and a purer air than that in which we are living now.

  The Hon. Val did not have as many offers as her aunt and chaperone had on the first flush of her pride in her anticipated. Young ladies, educated on the “best systems,” are apt to be a trifle wearisome, and don’t, somehow or other, take so well as the sedulous efforts of their pruners and trainers — the rarefied moral atmosphere of the conservatories, in which they are carefully screened from ordinary air, and the anxiety evinced lest the flower should ever forget itself, and sway naturally in the wind — deserve. But Cardonnel had gone mad after her, that perfect face of hers had done for him; and whatever Goodwood might be, he was serious — he positively haunted the young beauty like her own shadow — he was leaning on the rails every morning of his life that she took her early ride — he sent her bouquets as lavishly as if he’d been a nursery gardener. By some species of private surveillance, or lover’s clairvoyance, he knew beforehand where she would go, and was at the concert, fête, morning party, bazaar, or whatever it happened to be, as surely as was Lady Marabout herself. Poor Cardonnel was serious, and fiercely fearful of his all-powerful and entirely eligible rival; though greater friends than he and Goodwood had been, before this girl’s face appeared on the world of Belgravia, never lounged arm-in-arm into Pratt’s, or strolled down the “sweet shady side of Pall-Mall.”

  Goodwood’s attentions were very marked, too, even to eyes less willing to construe them so than Lady Marabout’s. Goodwood himself, if chaffed on the subject, vouchsafed nothing; laughed, stroked his moustaches, or puffed his cigar, if he happened to have that blessed resource in all difficulties, and comforter under all embarrassments, between his lips at the moment; but decidedly he sought Valencia Valletort more, or, to speak more correctly, he shunned her less than he’d ever done any other young lady, and one or two Sunday mornings — mirabile dictu! — he was positively seen at St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, in the seat behind Lady Marabout’s sittings. A fact which, combining as it did a brace of miracles at once, of early rising and unusual piety, set every Belgravienne in that fashionable sanctuary watching over the top of her illuminated prayer-book, to the utter destruction of her hopes and interruption of her orisons.

  Dowagers began to tremble behind their fans, young ladies to quake over their bouquets; the topic was eagerly discussed by every woman from Clarges Street to Lowndes Square; their Graces of Doncaster smiled well pleased on Valencia — she was unquestionable blood, and they so wished dear Goodwood to settle! There was whispered an awful whisper to the whole female world; whispered over matutinal chocolate, and luncheon Strasbourg pâtés, ball-supper Moëts’, and demi-monde-supper Silleri, over Vane Steinberg’s cigar and Eulalie Rosière’s cigarette, over the Morning Post in the clubs, and Le Follet in the boudoir, that — the Pet Eligible would — marry! That the Pet Prophecy of universal smash was going to be fulfilled could hardly have occasioned greater consternation.

  The soul of Lady Marabout had been disquieted ever since her son’s suggestions at Lady George Frangipane’s morning party, and she began to worry: for herself, for Valencia, for Goodwood, for Cardonnel, for her responsibilities in general, and for her “dearest Adeliza’s” alternate opinions of her duenna qualifications in particular. Lady Marabout had an intense wish, an innocent wish enough, as innocent and very similar in its way to that of an Eton boy to make a centre at a rifle-contest, viz., to win the Marquis of Goodwood; innocent, surely, for though neither the rifle prize nor the Pet Eligible could be won without mortification unspeakable to a host of unsuccessful aspirants, if we decree that sort of thing sinful and selfish, as everything natural seems to me to get decreed nowadays, we may as well shut up at once; if we may not try for the top of the pole, why erect poles at all, monsieur? If we must not do our best to pass our friend and brother, we must give up climbing forever, and go on all fours placably with Don and Pontos.

  Everybody has his ambition: one sighs for the Woolsack, another for the Hunt Cup; somebody longs to be First Minister, somebody else pines to be first dancer; one man plumes himself on a new fish-sauce, another on a fresh reform bill; A. thirsts to get a single brief, B. for the time when he shall be worried with no briefs at all; C. sets his hopes on being the acrobat at Cremorne, D. on being the acrobat of the Tuileries; fat bacon is Hodge the hedger’s summum bonum, and Johannisberg pur is mine; Empedocles thinks notoriety everything, and Diogenes thinks quiet everything — each has his own reading of ambition, and Lady Marabout had hers; the Duchess of Doncaster thirsted for the Garter for her husband, Lady Elmers’s pride was to possess the smallest terrier that ever took daisy tea and was carried in a monkey-muff, her Grace of Amandine slaved night and day to bring her party in and throw the ministry out. Lady Marabout sighed but for one thing — to win the Pet Eligible of the season, and give éclat for once to one phase of her chaperone’s existence.

  Things were nicely in train. Goodwood was beginning to bite at that very handsome fly the Hon. Val, and promised to be hooked and landed without much difficulty before long, and placed, hopelessly for him, triumphantly for her, in the lime-basket of matrimony. Things were beautifully in train, and Lady Marabout was for once flattering herself she should float pleasantly through an unruffled and successful season, when Carruthers poured the one drop of amari aliquid into her champagne-cup by his suggestion of Cardonnel’s doom. And then Lady Marabout begun to worry.

  She who could not endure to see a fly hurt or a flower pulled needlessly, had nothing for it but to worry for Cardonnel’s destiny, and puzzle over the divided duties which Carruthers had hinted to her. To reject the one man because he was not well off did seem to her conscience, uncomfortably awakened by Phil’s innuendoes, something more mercenary than she quite liked to look at; yet to throw over the other, future Duke of Doncaster, the eligible, the darling, the yearned-for of all May Fair and Belgravia, seemed nothing short of madness to inculcate to Valencia; a positive treason to that poor absent, trusting, “dearest Adeliza,” who, after the visions epistolarily spread out before her, would utterly refuse to be comforted if Goodwood any way failed to become her son-in-law, and, moreover, the heaviest blow to Lady Marabout herself that the merciless axe of that brutal headsman Contretemps could deal her.

  “I do not know really what to do or what to advise,” would Lady Marabout say to herself over and over again (so disturbed by her onerous burden of responsibilities that she would let Despréaux arrange the most outrageous coiffures, and, never noticing them, go out to dinner with emeralds on blue velvet, or something as shocking to feminine nerves in her temporary aberration), forgetting one very great point, which, remembered, would have saved her all trouble, that nobody asked her to do anything, and not a soul requested her advice. “But Goodwood is decidedly won, and Goodwood must not be lost; in our position we owe something to society,” she would invariably conclude these mental debates; which last phase, being of a vagueness and obscure application that might have matched it with any Queen’s speech or electional address upon record, was a mysterious balm to Lady Marabout’s soul, and spoke volumes to her, if a trifle hazy to you and to me.

  But Lady Marabout, if she was a little bit of a sophist, had not worn her eye-glass all these years without being keen-sighted on some subjects, and, though perfectly satisfied with her niece’s conduct with Goodwood, s
aw certain symptoms which made her tremble lest the detrimental Lancer should have won greater odds than the eligible Marquis.

  “Arthur Cardonnel is excessively handsome! Such very good style! Isn’t it a pity they’re all so poor! His father played away everything — literally everything. The sons have no more to marry upon, any one of them, than if they were three crossing-sweepers,” said her ladyship, carelessly, driving home from St. Paul’s one Sunday morning.

  And, watching the effect of her stray arrow, she had beheld an actual flush on the beauty’s fair, impassive cheek, and had positively heard a smothered sigh from an admirably brought-up heart, no more given ordinarily to such weaknesses than the diamond-studded heart pendent from her bracelet, the belle’s heart and the bracelet’s heart being both formed alike, to fetch their price, and bid to do no more: — power of volition would have been as inconvenient in, and interfered as greatly with, the sale of one as of the other.

  “She does like him!” sighed Lady Marabout over that Sabbath’s luncheon wines. “It’s always my fate — always; and Goodwood, never won before, will be thrown — actually thrown — away, as if he were the younger son of a Nobody!” which horrible waste was so terrible to her imagination that Lady Marabout could positively have shed tears at the bare prospect, and might have shed them, too, if the Hon. Val, the butler, two footmen, and a page had not inconveniently happened to be in the room at the time, so that she was driven to restrain her feelings and drink some Amontillado instead. Lady Marabout is not the first person by a good many who has had to smile over sherry with a breaking heart. Ah! lips have quivered as they laughed over Chambertin, and trembled as they touched the bowl of a champagne-glass. Wine has assisted at many a joyous festa enough, but some that has been drunk in gayety has caught gleams, in the eyes of the drinkers, of salt water brighter than its brightest sparkles: water that no other eyes can see. Because we may drink Badminton laughingly when the gaze of Society the Non-Sympathetic is on us, do you think we must never have tasted any more bitter dregs? Va-t’en, bécasse! where have you lived! Nero does not always fiddle while Rome is burning from utter heartlessness, believe me, but rather — sometimes, perhaps — because his heart is aching!

  “Goodwood will propose to-night, I fancy, he is so very attentive,” thought Lady Marabout, sitting with her sister chaperones on the cosy causeuses of a mansion in Carlton Terrace, at one of the last balls of the departing season. “I never saw dear Valencia look better, and certainly her waltzing is —— Ah! good evening, Major Cardonnel! Very warm to-night, is it not? I shall be so glad when I am down again at Fernditton. Town, in the first week of July, is really not habitable.”

  And she furled her fan, and smiled on him with her pleasant eyes, and couldn’t help wishing he hadn’t been on the Marchioness Rondeletia’s visiting list, he was such a detrimental, and he was ten times handsomer than Goodwood!

  “Will Miss Valletort leave you soon?” asked Cardonnel, sitting down by her.

  “Ah! monsieur, vous êtes là!” thought Lady Marabout, as she answered, like a guarded diplomatist as she was, that it was not all settled at present what her niece’s post-season destiny would be, whether Devon or Fernditton, or the Spas, with her mother, Lady Honiton; and then unfurled her fan again, and chatted about Baden and her own indecision as to whether she should go there this September.

  “May I ask you a question, and will you pardon me for its plainness?” asked Cardonnel, when she’d exhausted Baden’s desirable and non-desirable points.

  Lady Marabout shuddered as she bent her head, and thought, “The creature is never going to confide in me! He will win me over if he do, he looks so like his mother! And what shall I say to Adeliza!”

  “Is your niece engaged to Goodwood or not?”

  If ever a little fib was tempting to any lady, from Eve downward, it was tempting to Lady Marabout now! A falsehood would settle everything, send Cardonnel off the field, and clear all possibility of losing the “best match of the season.” Besides, if not engaged to Goodwood actually to-night, Val would be, if she liked, to-morrow, or the next day, or before the week was over at the furthest — would it be such a falsehood after all? She colored, she fidgeted her fan, she longed for the little fib! — how terribly tempting it looked! But Lady Marabout is a bad hand at prevarication, and she hates a lie, and she answered bravely, with a regretful twinge, “Engaged? No; not — —”

  “Not yet! Thank God!”

  Lady Marabout stared at him and at the words muttered under his moustaches:

  “Really, Major Cardonnel, I do not see why you — —”

  “Should thank Heaven for it? Yet I do — it is a reprieve. Lady Marabout, you and my mother were close friends; will you listen to me for a second, while we are not overheard? That I have loved your niece — had the madness to love her, if you will — you cannot but have seen; that she has given me some reasonable encouragement it is no coxcombry to say, though I have known from the first what a powerful rival I had against me; but that Valencia loves me and does not love him, I believe — nay, I know. I have said nothing decided to her; when all hangs on a single die we shrink from hazarding the throw. But I must know my fate to-night. If she come to you — as girls will, I believe, sometimes — for countenance and counsel, will you stand my friend? — will you, for the sake of my friendship with your son, your friendship with my mother, support my cause, and uphold what I believe Valencia’s heart will say in my favor?”

  Lady Marabout was silent: no Andalusian ever worried her fan more ceaselessly in coquetry than she did in perplexity. Her heart was appealed to, and when that was enlisted, Lady Marabout was lost!

  “But — but — my dear Major Cardonnel, you are aware — —” she began, and stopped. I should suppose it may be a little awkward to tell a man to his face he is “not desirable!”

  “I am aware that I cannot match with Goodwood? I am; but I know, also, that Goodwood’s love cannot match with mine, and that your niece’s affection is not his. That he may win her I know women too well not to fear, therefore I ask you to be my friend. If she refuse me, will you plead for me? — if she ask for counsel, will you give such as your own heart dictates (I ask no other) — and, will you remember that on Valencia’s answer will rest the fate of a man’s lifetime?”

  He rose and left her, but the sound of his voice rang in Lady Marabout’s ears, and the tears welled into her eyes: “Dear, dear! how like he looked to his poor dear mother! But what a position to place me in! Am I never to have any peace?”

  Not at this ball, at any rate. Of all the worried chaperones and distracted duennas who hid their anxieties under pleasant smiles or affable lethargy, none were a quarter so miserable as Helena, Lady Marabout. Her heart and her head were enlisted on opposite sides; her wishes pulled one way, her sympathies another; her sense of justice to Cardonnel urged her to one side, her sense of duty to “dearest Adeliza” urged her to the other; her pride longed for one alliance, her heart yearned for the other. Cardonnel had confided in her and appealed to her; sequitur, Lady Marabout’s honor would not allow her to go against him: yet, it was nothing short of grossest treachery to poor Adeliza, down there in Devon, expecting every day to congratulate her daughter on a prospective duchy won, to counsel Valencia to take one of these beggared Cardonnels, and, besides — to lose all her own laurels, to lose the capture of Goodwood!

  No Guelphs and Ghibelins, no Royalists and Imperialists, ever fought so hard as Lady Marabout’s divided duties.

  “Valencia, Major Cardonnel spoke to me to-night,” began that best-hearted and most badgered of ladies, as she sat before her dressing-room fire that night, alone with her niece.

  Valencia smiled slightly, and a faint idea crossed Lady Marabout’s mind that Valencia’s smile was hardly a pleasant one, a trifle too much like the play of moonbeams on ice.

  “He spoke to me about you.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Perhaps you can guess, my dear, what he said?”

 
“I am no clairvoyante, aunt;” and Miss Val yawned a little, and held out one of her long slender feet to admire it.

  “Every woman, my love, becomes half a clairvoyante when she is in love,” said Lady Marabout, a little bit impatiently; she hadn’t been brought up on the best systems herself, and though she admired the refrigeration (on principle), it irritated her just a little now and then. “Did he — did he say anything to you to-night?”

  “Oh yes!”

  “And what did you answer him, my love?”

  “What would you advise me?”

  Lady Marabout sighed, coughed, played nervously with the tassels of her peignoir, crumpled Bijou’s ears with a reckless disregard to that priceless pet’s feelings, and wished herself at the bottom of the Serpentine. Cardonnel had trusted her, she couldn’t desert him; poor dear Adeliza had trusted her, she couldn’t betray her; what was right to one would be wrong to the other, and to reconcile her divided duties was a Danaid’s labor. For months she had worried her life out lest her advice should be asked, and now the climax was come, and asked it was.