by Ouida
With which sublimely unselfish and heroic sentiment the bridegroom-elect drank the last of his hock and Seltzer, took his pipe out of his lips, flung his smoking-cap lazily on to his Skye’s head, who did not relish the attention, and rose languidly to get into his undress in time for mess.
As Belle had to get up so frightfully early in the morning, he did not think it worth while to go to bed at all, but asked us all to vingt-et-un in his room, where, with the rattle of half-sovereigns and the flow of rum-punch, kept up his courage before the impending doom of matrimony. Belle was really in love with Geraldine, but in love in his own particular way, and consoled himself for his destiny and her absence by what I dare say seems to mademoiselle, fresh from her perusal of “Aurora Leigh” or “Lucille,” very material comforters indeed. But, if truth were told, I am afraid mademoiselle would find, save that from one or two fellows here and there, who go in for love as they go in for pig-sticking or tiger-hunting, with all their might and main, wagering even their lives in the sport, the Auroras and Lucilles are very apt to have their charms supplanted by the points of a favorite, their absence made endurable by the aroma of Turkish tobacco, and their last fond admonishing words, spoken with such persuasive caresses under the moonlight and the limes, against those “horrid cards, love,” forgotten that very night under the glare of gas, while the hands that lately held their own so tenderly, clasp wellnigh with as much affection the unprecedented luck “two honors and five trumps!”
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart.
Byron was right; and if we go no deeper, how can it well be otherwise, when we have our stud, our pipe, our Pytchley, our Newmarket, our club, our coulisses, our Mabille, and our Epsom, and they — oh, Heaven help them! — have no distraction but a needle or a novel! The Fates forbid that our agrémens should be less, but I dare say, if they had a vote in it, they’d try to get a trifle more. So Belle put his “love apart,” to keep (or to rust, whichever you please) till six A. M. that morning, when, having by dint of extreme physical exertion got himself dressed, saw his valet pack his things with the keenest anxiety relative to the immaculate folding of his coats and the safe repose of his shirts, and at last was ready to go and fetch the bride his line in the Daily had procured him.
As Belle went down the stairs with Gower, who should come too, with his gun in his hand, his cap over his eyes, and a pointer following close at his heels, but Fairlie, going out to shoot over a friend’s manor.
Of course he knew that Belle had asked for and obtained leave for a couple of months, but he had never heard for what purpose; and possibly, as he saw him at such an unusual hour, going out, not in his usual travelling guise of a wide-awake and a Maude, but with a delicate lavender tie and a toilet of the most unexceptionable art, the purport of his journey flashed fully on his mind, for his face grew as fixed and unreadable as if he had had on the iron mask. Belle, guessing as he did that Fairlie would not have disliked to have been in his place that morning, was too kind-hearted and infinitely too much of a gentleman to hint at his own triumph. He laughed, and nodded a good morning.
“Off early, you see, Fairlie; going to make the most of my leave. ’Tisn’t very often we can get one; our corps is deuced stiff and strict compared to the Guards and the Cavalry.”
“At least our strictness keeps us from such disgraceful scenes as some of the other regiments have shown up of late,” answered Fairlie between his teeth.
“Ah! well, perhaps so; still, strictness ain’t pleasant, you know, when one’s the victim.”
“Certainly not.”
“And, therefore, we should never be hard upon others.”
“I perfectly agree with you.”
“There’s a good fellow. Well, I must be off; I’ve no time for philosophizing. Good-bye, Colonel.”
“Good-bye — a safe journey.”
But I noticed that he held the dog’s collar in one hand and the gun in the other, so as to have an excuse for not offering that poignée de main which ought to be as sure a type of friendship, and as safe a guarantee for good faith, as the Bedouin Arab’s salt.
Belle nodded him a farewell, and lounged down the steps and into the carriage, just as Fairlie’s man brought his mare round.
Fairlie turned on to me with unusual fierceness, for generally he was very calm, and gentle, and impassive in manner.
“Where is he gone?”
I could not help but tell him, reluctant though I was, for I guessed pretty well what it would cost him to hear it. He did not say one word while I told him, but bent over Marquis, drawing the dog’s leash tighter, so that I might not see his face, and without a sign or a reply he was out of the barracks, across his mare’s back, and rushing away at a mad gallop, as if he would leave thought, and memory, and the curse of love for a worthless woman behind him for ever.
His man stood looking at the gun Fairlie had thrown to him with a puzzled expression.
“Is the Colonel gone mad?” I heard him say to himself. “The devil’s in it, I think. He used to treat his things a little carefuller than this. As I live, he’s been and gone and broke the trigger?”
The devil wasn’t in it, but a woman was, an individual that causes as much mischief as any Asmodeus, Belphégor, or Mephistopheles. Some fair unknown correspondents assured me the other day, in a letter, that my satire on women was “a monstrous libel.” All I can say is, that if it be a libel, it is like many a one for which one pays the highest, and which sounds the blackest — a libel that is true!
While his rival rode away as recklessly as though he was riding for his life, the gallant bridegroom — as the Court Circular would have it — rolled on his way to Fern Wood, while Gower, very amiably occupying the rumble, smoked, and bore his position philosophically, comforted by the recollection that Geraldine’s French maid was an uncommonly good-looking, coquettish little person.
They rolled on, and speedily the postilion pulled up, according to order, before the white five-bar gate, its paint blistering in the hot summer dawn, and the great fern-leaves and long grass clinging up round its posts, still damp with the six o’clock dew. Five minutes passed — ten minutes — a quarter of an hour. Poor Belle got impatient. Twenty minutes — five-and-twenty — thirty. Belle couldn’t stand it. He began to pace up and down the turf, soiling his boots frightfully with the long wet grass, and rejecting all Tom’s offers of consolation and a cigar-case.
“Confound it!” cried poor Belle, piteously, “I thought women were always ready to marry. I know, when I went to turn off Lacquers of the Rifles at St. George’s, his bride had been waiting for him half an hour, and was in an awful state of mind, and all the other brides as well, for you know they always marry first the girl that gets there first, and all the other poor wretches were kept on tenter-hooks too. Lacquers had lost the ring, and found it in his waistcoat after all! I say, Tom, devil take it, where can she be? It’s forty minutes, as I live. We shall lose the train, you know. She’s never prevented coming, surely. I think she’d let me hear, don’t you? She could send Justine to me if she couldn’t come by any wretched chance. Good Heavens, Tom, what shall I do?”
“Wait, and don’t worry,” was Tom’s laconic and common-sense advice; about the most irritating probably to a lover’s feelings that could pretty well be imagined. Belle swore at him in stronger terms than he generally exerted himself to use, but was pulled up in the middle of them by the sight of Geraldine and Justine, followed by a boy bearing his bride’s dainty trunks.
On came Geraldine in a travelling-dress; Justine following after her, with a brilliant smile, that showed all her white teeth, at “Monsieur Torm,” for whom she had a very tender friendship, consolidated by certain half-sovereigns and French phrases whispered by Gower after his dinners at Fern Chase.
Belle met Geraldine with all that tender empressement which he knew well how to put into his slightest actions; but the young lady seemed already almost to have begun repenting her hasty step. She hung her head down, she h
eld a handkerchief to her bright eyes, and to Belle’s tenderest and most ecstatic whispers she only answered by a convulsive pressure of the arm, into which he had drawn her left hand, and a half-smothered sob from her heart’s depths.
Belle thought it all natural enough under the circumstances. He knew women always made a point of impressing upon you that they are making a frightful sacrifice for your good when they condescend to accept you, and he whispered what tender consolation occurred to him as best fitted for the occasion, thanked her, of course, for all the rapture, &c. &c., assured her of his life-long devotion — you know the style — and lifted her into the carriage, Geraldine only responding with broken sighs and stifled sobs.
The boxes were soon beside Belle’s valises, Justine soon beside Gower, the postilion cracked his whip over his outsider, Perkins refolded his arms, and the carriage rolled down the lane.
Gower was very well contented with his seat in the rumble. Justine was a very dainty little Frenchwoman, with the smoothest hair and the whitest teeth in the world, and she and “Monsieur Torm” were eminently good friends, as I have told you, though to-day she was very coquettish and wilful, and laughed à propos de bottes at Gower, say what Chaumière compliments he might.
“Ma chère et charmante petite,” expostulated Tom, “tes moues mutines sont ravissantes, mais je t’avoue que je préfère tes — —”
“Tais-toi, bécasse!” cried Justine, giving him a blow with her parasol, and going off into what she would have called éclats de rire.
“Mais écoute-moi, Justine,” whispered Tom, piqued by her perversity; “je raffole de toi! je t’adore, sur ma parole! je —— Hallo! what the devil’s the matter? Good gracious! Deuce take it!”
Well might Tom call on his Satanic Majesty to explain what met his eyes as he gave vent to all three ejaculations and maledictions. No less a sight than the carriage-door flying violently open, Belle descending with a violent impetus, his face crimson, and his hat in his hand, clearing the hedge at a bound, plunging up to his ankles in mud on the other side of it, and starting across country at the top of his speed, rushing frantically straight over the heavy grass-land as if he had just escaped from Hanwell, and the whole hue and cry of keepers and policemen was let loose at his heels.
“Good Heavens! By Jove! Belle, Belle, I say, stop! Are you mad? What’s happened? What’s the row? I say — the devil!”
But to his coherent but very natural exclamations poor Tom received no answer. Justine was screaming with laughter, the postilion was staring, Perkins swearing, Belle, flying across the country at express speed, rapidly diminishing into a small black dot in the green landscape, while from inside the carriage, from Geraldine, from the deserted bride, peals of laughter, loud, long, and uproarious, rang out in the summer stillness of the early morning.
“By Jupiter! but this is most extraordinary. The deuce is in it. Are they both gone stark staring mad?” asked Tom of his Cuba, or the blackbirds, or the hedge-cutter afar off, or anything or anybody that might turn out so amiable as to solve his problem for him.
No reply being given him, however, Tom could stand it no longer. Down he sprang, jerked the door open again, and put his head into the carriage.
“Hallo, old boy, done green, eh? Pity ’tisn’t the 1st of April!” cried Geraldine, with renewed screams of mirth from the interior.
“Eh? What? What did you say, Miss Vane?” ejaculated Gower, fairly staggered by this extraordinary answer of a young girl, a lady, and a forsaken bride.
“What did I say, my dear fellow? Why, that you’re done most preciously, and that I fancy it’ll be a deuced long time before your delectable friend tries his hand at matrimony again, that’s all. Done! oh, by George, he is done, and no mistake. Look at me, sir, ain’t I a charming bride?”
With which elegant language Geraldine took off her hat, pulled down some false braids, pushed her hair off her forehead, shook her head like a water-dog after a bath, and grinned in Gower’s astonished eyes — not Geraldine, but her twin-brother, Pretty Face!
“Do you know me now, old boy?” asked the Etonian, with demoniacal delight,— “do you know me now? Haven’t I chiselled him — haven’t I tricked him — haven’t I done him as green as young gooseberries, and as brown as that bag? Do you fancy he’ll boast of his conquests again, or advertise for another wife? So you didn’t know how I got Gary Clements, of the Ten Bells, to write the letters for me? and Justine to dress me in Geraldine’s things? You know they always did say they couldn’t tell her from me; I’ve proved it now, eh? — rather! Oh, by George, I never had a better luck! and not a creature guesses it, not a soul, save Justine, Nell, and I! By Jupiter, Gower, if you’d heard that unlucky Belle go on swearing devotion interminable, and enough love to stock all Mudie’s novels! But I never dare let him kiss me, though my beard is down, confound it! Oh! what jolly fun it’s been, Gower, no words can tell. I always said he shouldn’t marry her; he’ll hardly try to do it now, I fancy! What a lark it’s been! I couldn’t have done it, you know, without that spicy little French girl; — she did my hair, and got up my crinoline, and stole Geraldine’s dress, and tricked me up altogether, and carried my notes to the hollow oak, and took all my messages to Belle. Oh, Jupiter! what fun it’s been! If Belle isn’t gone clean out of his senses, it’s very odd to me. When he was going to kiss me, and whispered, ‘My dearest, my darling, my wife!’ I just took off my hat and grinned in his face, and said, ‘Ain’t this a glorious go? Oh! by George, Gower, I think the fun will kill me!”
And the wicked little dog of an Etonian sank back among the carriage cushions stifled with his laughter. Gower staggered backwards against a roadside tree, and stood there with his lips parted and his eyes wide open, bewildered, more than that cool hand had ever been in all his days, by the extraordinary finish of poor Belle’s luckless wooing; the postilion rolled off his saddle in cachinnatory fits at the little monkey’s narrative! Perkins, like a soldier as he was, utterly impassive to all surrounding circumstances, shouldered a valise and dashed at quick march after his luckless master; Justine clapped her plump French-gloved fingers with a million ma Fois! and mon Dieus! and O Ciels! and far away in the gray distance sped the retreating figure of poor Belle, with the license in one pocket and the wedding-ring in the other, flying, as if his life depended on it, from the shame, and the misery, and the horror of that awful sell, drawn on his luckless head by that ill-fated line in the Daily.
While Belle drove to his hapless wooing, Fairlie galloped on and on. Where he went he neither knew nor cared. He had ridden heedlessly along, and the Grey, left to her own devices, had taken the road to which her head for the last four months had been so often turned — the road leading to Fern Chase, — and about a mile from the Vane estate lost her left hind-shoe, and came to a dead stop of her own accord, after having been ridden for a couple of hours as hard as if she had been at the Grand Military. Fairlie threw himself off the saddle, and, leaving the bridle loose on the mare’s neck, who he knew would not stray a foot away from him, he flung himself on the grass, under the cool morning shadows of the roadside trees, no sound in the quiet country round him breaking in on his weary thoughts, till the musical ring of a pony’s hoofs came pattering down the lane. He never heard it, however, nor looked up, till the quick trot slackened and then stopped beside him.
“Colonel Fairlie!”
“Good Heavens! Geraldine!”
“Well,” she said, with tears in her eyes and petulant anger in her voice, “so you have never had the grace to come and apologize for insulting me as you did last week?”
“For mercy’s sake do not trifle with me.”
“Trifle! No, indeed!” interrupted the young lady. “Your behavior was no trifle, and it will be a very long time before I forgive it, if ever I do.”
“Stay — wait a moment.”
“How can you ask me, when, five days ago, you bid me never come near you with my cursed coquetries again?” asked Geraldine, trying, and vainly, to get the
bridle out of his grasp.
“God forgive me! I did not know what I said. What I had heard was enough to madden a colder man than I. Is it untrue?”
“Is what untrue?”
“You know well enough. Answer me, is it true or not?”
“How can I tell what you mean? You talk in enigmas. Let me go.”
“I will never let you go till you have answered me.”
“How can I answer you if I don’t know what you mean?” retorted Geraldine, half laughing.
“Do not jest. Tell me, yes or no, are you going to marry that cursed fool?”
“What ‘cursed fool’? Your language is not elegant, Colonel Fairlie!” said Geraldine, with demure mischief.
“Belle! Would you have met him? Did you intend to elope with him?”
Geraldine’s eyes, always large enough, grew larger and a darker blue still, in extremest astonishment.