by Ouida
“Ah! it is such women as Madame de Mélusine who have taught you that doctrine,” cried Nina, with an energy that rather startled Ernest, though his nerves were as strong as any man’s in Paris. “My romances, as you term them, still I believe sleep in your heart, but the world you live in has stifled them. Do you think amusement will always be enough for you? — do you think you will never want something better than your empty champagne foam?”
“I hope I shall not, mademoiselle,” said Vaughan, bitterly, “for I am certain I do not believe in it, and am quite sure I should never get it. Leave me to the roses of my Tritericæ; they are all I shall ever enjoy, and they, at the best, are withered.”
“Nina, love,” interrupted Selina, coming up with much amiability, “I was obliged to come and tell you not to be quite so energetic. All the people in the room are looking at you.”
“I dare say they are,” said Vaughan, calmly. “It is not often the Parisians have the pleasure of seeing beauty unaffected, and fascinations careless of their own charms. Nature, Selina, is unhappily as rare one side the Channel as the other, and we men appreciate it when we do see it.”
When Vaughan parted from them soon after, he swore at himself for three things. First, for having driven Bluette, en plein jour, through the Boulevards, though he had driven Bluette, and such as Bluette, a thousand times before; secondly, for having been so weak as to introduce Madame de Mélusine to the Gordons; and, thirdly, for having — he the thorough-paced Lion, whose manual was Rochefoucauld, and tutor in love, De Kock — actually talked romance as if he were Werter or Paul Flemming, or some other sentimental simpleton.
Vaughan, to his great disgust, felt a fit of blue devils stealing on him, hurled one or two rose notes waiting for him into the fire with an oath, smoked half a dozen Manillas fiercely, and then, to get excitement, went to a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale, played écarté with a beau joueur, went to an Opera supper — not to the De Mélusine’s — then to Mabille and came home at seven in the morning after a night such as would have raised every hair off Brutus’s head, given a triumphant glitter to the Warden’s small blue eyes, and possibly even staggered the hot faith of his young champion. Pauline de Mélusine was as good as her word — she did call on the Gordons — and Brutus, stoic though he was, was well pleased; for the baronne, though her nobility only dated from the Restoration, and was not received by the exclusive Legitimists of the old Faubourg St. Germain, had a very pleasant set of her own, and figured among the nouvelle noblesse and bourgeois décorés who fill the vacant places of the De Rochefoucauld, the De Rohan, and the Montmorency, in the “imperial” salons of the Tuileries, where once the noblest blood in Europe was gathered.
“It is painful to me to frequent Ernest’s society,” the Warden was wont to say, “for every word he utters impresses me but more sadly with the conviction of his lost state. But we are commanded to be in the world though not of it, and, if I shun him, how can I hope to benefit him?”
“True; and, as your cousin, it would scarcely be charitable to avoid him entirely, terrible as we know his habits to be. But there is no necessity to be too intimate, and I do not wish Nina to be too much with him,” the banker was accustomed to answer.
“Anglice, Vaughan gets us good introductions, and makes Paris pleasant to us; we’ll use him while we want him: when we don’t, we will give him his congé.”
That’s the reading of most of our dear friends’ compliments and caresses, isn’t it?
Vaughan knew perfectly well that they would like to make a cat’s-paw of him, and was the last man likely to play that simple and certainly not agreeable rôle unless it suited him. But he had reasons of his own for forcing Gordon to be civil and obliged to him, despite the prejudices of that English, and therefore, of course, opinionated gentleman. It amused him to mortify Eusebius, whom he saw at a glance was bewitched with the prospect of Nina’s dot, and it amused him very much to see Nina’s joyous laughter as he leaned over her chair at the Opéra Comique, to hear her animated satire on Madame de Mélusine, for whom, knowing nothing of her, the young lady had conceived hot aversion, and to listen to her enthusiasm when she poured out to him her vivid imaginings.
Gradually the cafés, and the Boulevards, and the boudoirs missed Ernest while he accompanied Nina through the glades of St. Cloud, or down the Seine to Asnières, or up the slopes of Père la Chaise, in his new pursuit; and often at night he would leave the coulisses, or a lansquenet, or the gas-lights of the Maison Dorée, and the Closerie des Lilas, to watch her thorough enjoyment of a vaudeville, her fervent feeling in an opera, or to waltz with her at a ball, and note her glad recognition of him.
To this girl, Ernest opened his heart and mind as he — being a reserved, proud, and skeptical man — had never done to any one; there was a sympathy and confidence between them, and she learned much of his inner nature as she talked to him soft and low under the forest trees of Fontainebleau, such talk as could not be heard in Bluette’s boudoir, under the wax-lights of the Quartier Bréda, or in the flow of the Sillery at la Mélusine’s soupers. All this was new to the tired Lion, and amused him immensely. La chevelure dorée was twisting the golden meshes of its net round him, as De Concressault told him one day.
“Nonsense,” said Ernest; “have I not two loves already on my hands more than I want?”
“Dethrone them, and promote la petite.”
Vaughan turned on his friend with his eyes flashing.
“Bon Dieu! do you take her for a ballet-girl or a grisette?”
“Well, if you don’t like that, marry her then, mon cher. You will satisfy your fancy, and get cinquante mille francs de rente — at a sacrifice, of course; but, que veux-tu? There is no medal without its reverse, though a ‘lion marié’ is certainly an anomaly, an absurdity, and an intense pity.”
“Tais-toi,” said Ernest, impatiently; “tu es fou! Caught in the toils of a wretched intrigante, in the power of any tailor in the Rue Vivienne, any jeweller in the Palais Royal, my money spent on follies, my life wasted in play, the turf, and worthless women, I have much indeed to offer to a young girl who has wealth, beauty, genius, and heart!”
“All the more reason why you should make a good coup,” said Emile, calmly, after listening with pitying surprise to his friend in his new mood. “You have a handsome face, a fashionable reputation, and a good name. Bah! you can do anything. As for your life, all women like a mauvais sujet, and unless the De Mélusine turn out a Brinvilliers, I don’t see what you have to fear.”
“When I want your counsel, Emile, I will ask it,” said Vaughan, shortly; “but, as I have no intention of going in for the prize, there is no need for you to bet on the chance of the throw.”
“Comme tu veux!” said the Parisian, shrugging his shoulders. “That homme de paille, your priestly cousin, will take her back to the English fogs, and make her a much better husband than you’d ever be, mon garçon.”
Vaughan moved restlessly.
“The idiot! if I thought so —— The devil take you, Emile! why do you talk of such things?”
At that minute Nina was sitting by one of the windows of their hotel, watching for Ernest, with a bouquet he had sent her on a table by her side; and the Rev. Eusebius was talking in a very low tone to her father. She caught a few words. “Last night — Vaughan at the Frères Provençaux — a souper au cabinet — Mademoiselle Céline, première danseuse — quite terrible,” &c., &c.
Nina flushed scarlet, and turned round. “If you blame your cousin, Mr. Ruskinstone, why were you there yourself?”
The Warden colored too. With him, as with a good many, foreign air relaxed the severity of the Decalogue, and what was sin at home, where everybody knew it, was none at all abroad — under the rose. Some dear pharisees will not endanger their souls by a carpet-dance in England, but if a little bird followed them in their holiday across the Channel, it might chance to see them disporting under a domino noir.
“I had been,” he stammered, “to see, as you
know, a beautiful specimen of the arcboutant in a ruined chapel of the Carmélites, some miles down the Seine. It was very late, and I was very tired, so turned into the Frères Provençaux to take some little refreshment, and I there saw my unhappy cousin in society which ought, Miss Gordon, to disqualify him for yours. It is very painful to me to mention such things to you. I never thought you overheard — —”
“Then, if it is very painful to you,” Nina burst in, impetuously, her bouche de rose, as De Kerroualle called it, curving haughtily, “why are you ceaselessly raking up every possible bit of scandal that you can against your cousin? His life does not clash with yours, his acts do not matter to you, his extravagance does not rob you. I used to fancy charity should cover a multitude of sins, but it seems to me that, now-a-days, clergymen, like Dr. Watt’s naughty dogs, only delight to bark and bite.”
“You are cruelly unjust,” answered the Warden, in those smooth tones that irritate one much more than “hard swearing.” “I have no other wish than Christian kindness to poor Ernest. If, in my place as pastor, I justly condemn his errors and vices, it is only through a loving desire to wean him from his downward course.”
“Your love is singularly vindictive,” said his vehement young opponent, her cheeks hot and her eyes bright. “No good was ever yet done to a man by proclaiming his faults right and left. I should like you much better, Mr. Ruskinstone, if you said, candidly, I don’t like my cousin, and I have never forgiven him for thrashing me at Rugby, and playing football better than I did.”
Eusebius winced at this little touch up of his bygone years, but he smiled a benign, superior, pitying smile. “Such petitesses, I thank Heaven, are utterly beneath me, and I should have fancied Miss Gordon was too generous to suppose them. God forbid that I should envy poor Vaughan his dazzling qualities. I sorrow over him as a relative and a precious human soul, but as a minister of our holy Church I neither can, nor will, countenance his gross violations of all her divinest laws.” With which peroration the Warden, with a sigh, took up a work on “The Early English Piscini and Aspersoria,” and became immersed therein.
“Poor Mr. Vaughan!” cried Nina, impatiently. “Probably he is too wise to concern himself about what people buzz in his absence, or else he need be cased in mail to avoid being stung to death with the musquito bites of scandal.”
Gordon came down on her with his heavy artillery. “Silence, Nina! you do not know what you are defending. I fear that no slander can darken Mr. Vaughan’s character more than he merits.”
“A gambler — a roué — a lover of married woman, of dancing-girls,” murmured Eusebius, in an aside, meant, like those on the stage, to tell killingly with the audience.
Nina flushed as scarlet as the camellias in her bouquet, and put up her head with a haughty gesture. “Here comes the subject of your vituperation, Mr. Ruskinstone, so you can repeat your denunciations, and favor him with a sermon in person — unless, indeed, the secular recollections of Rugby intimidate the religious arm.”
I fear something as irreverent as “Little devil!” rose to the Warden’s pious lips as he flashed a fierce glance at her from his pale-blue eyes, for he loved not her, but the splendid dot which the banker was sure to pay down if his son-in-law were to his taste. He caught his cousin’s glance as he came into the salons, and in the superb scorn gleaming in Ernest’s dark eyes, Eusebius saw that they were not merely enemies, but — rivals: a Warden with Church principles, all the cardinal virtues, strict morality, and money; and a Lion with Paris principles (if any), great fascinations, debts, entanglements, and an empty purse. Which will win, with Nina for the cup and Gordon for the umpire?
IV. MISCHIEF.
“Qui cherchez-vous, petite?”
The speaker was la Mélusine, and the hearer was Nina who considerably resented the half-patronising, half mocking, yet intensely amiable manner the widow chose to assume towards her. Gordon was stricken with warm admiration of madame, and never inquired into her morality, only too pleased when she condescended to talk to or invite him. They had met at a soirée at some intimate friends of Vaughan’s in the Champs Elysées. (Ernest was a favorite wherever he went, and the good-natured French people at once took up his relatives to please him.) He was not there himself, but the baronne’s quick eyes soon caught and construed her restless glances through the crowded rooms.
“Je ne cherche personne, madame,” said Nina, haughtily. Dressed simply in white tulle, with the most exquisite flowers to be had out of the Palais Royal in the famous golden hair, which gleamed in the gaslight like sunshine, she aroused the serpent which lay hid in the roses of madame’s smiles.
Pauline laughed softly, and flirted her fan. “Nay, nay, mignonne, those soft eyes are seeking some one. Who is it? Ah! it is that méchant Monsieur Vaughan n’est-ce pas? He is very handsome, certainly, but
On dit an village Qu’Argire est volage.”
“Madame’s own thoughts possibly suggest the supposition of mine,” said Nina, coldly.
“Comme ces Anglaises sont impolies,” thought the baronne. “No, indeed,” she said, laughing carelessly, “I know Ernest too well to let my thoughts dwell on him. He is charming to talk to, to waltz with, to flirt with, but from anything further Dieu nous garde! Lauzun himself were not more dangerous or more unstable.”
“You speak as bitterly, madame, as if you had suffered from the fickleness,” said Nina, with a contemptuous curl of her soft lips. Sweet temper as she was, she could thrust a spear in her enemy’s side when she liked.
Madame’s eyes glittered like a rattlesnake’s. Nina’s chance ball shot home. But madame was a woman of the world, and could mask her batteries with a skill of which Nina, with her impetuous abandon, was incapable. She smiled very sweetly, as she answered, “No, petite I have unhappily seen too much of the world not to know that we must never put our trust in those charming mauvais sujets. At your age, I dare say I should not have been proof against your countryman’s fascinations, but now, I know just how much his fondest vows are worth, and I have been deaf to them all, for I would not let my heart mislead me against my reason and my conscience. Ah, petite! you little guess what the traitor word ‘love’ means here, in Paris. We women grow accustomed to our fate, but the lesson is hard sometimes.”
“You have been reading ‘Mes Confidences,’ lately?” asked Nina, with a sarcastic flash of her brilliant eyes.
“How cruel! Do you suppose I can have no émotions except I learn them second-hand through Lamartine or Delphine Gay? You are very satirical, Miss Gordon —— How strange!” said the baronne, interrupting herself; “your bouquet is the fac-simile of mine! Look! De Kerroualle sent you that I fancy? You know he raffoles of you. I was very silly to use mine, but Mr. Vaughan sent me such a pretty note with it, that I had not the resolution to disappoint him. Poor Ernest!” And Madame sighed softly, as if bewailing in her tender heart the woes her obduracy caused. The blood flamed up in Nina’s cheeks, and her hand clenched hard on Ernest’s flowers: they were the fac-similes of the widow’s; delicate pink blossoms, mixed with white azalias. “Is he here to-night, do you know?” madame continued. “I dare say not; he is behind the coulisses, most likely. Céline, the new danseuse from the Fenice, makes her début to-night. Here comes poor Gaston to petition for a valse. Be kind to him, pray.”
She herself went off to the ball-room, and the effect of her exordium was to make Nina very disagreeable to poor De Kerroualle, whom she really liked, and who was entêté about her. Not long afterwards, Nina saw in the distance Vaughan’s haughty head and powerful brow, and her silly little heart beat as quick as a pigeon’s just caught in the trap: he was talking to the widow.
“Look at our young English friend,” Pauline was saying, “how she is flirting with Gaston, and De Lafitolle, and De Concressault. Certainly, when your Englishwomen do coquet, they go further than any of us.”
“Est-ce possible?” said Ernest, raising his eyebrows.
“Méchant!” cried madame, with a chastising blow
of her fan. “But, do you know, I admire the petite very much. I believe all really beautiful women had that rare golden hair of hers — Lucrezia Borgia (I could never bear Grisi as Lucrezia, for that very reason). La Cenci, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Ænone — and Helen, I am sure, netted Paris with those gold threads. Don’t you think it is very lovely?”
“I do, indeed,” said Vaughan, with unconscious warmth.
Madame laughed gaily, but there was a disagreeable glitter in her eye. “What, fickle already? Ah well, I give you full leave.”
“And example, madame,” said Ernest, as he bowed and left her side, glad to have struck the first blow of his freedom from this handsome tyrant, who was as capricious and exacting as she was clever and captivating. But fetters made of fairer roses were over Ernest now, and he never bethought himself of the probable vengeance of that bitterest foe, a woman who is piqued.
“Tout beau!” thought Pauline, as she saw him waltzing with Nina. “Mais je vous donnerai encore l’échec et mat, mon brave joueur.”
“Did you give Madame de Mélusine the bouquet she carries this evening?” asked Nina, as he whirled her round.
“No,” said Ernest, astonished. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she said you did,” answered Nina, never accustomed to conceal anything; “and, besides, it is exactly like mine.”
“Infernal woman!” muttered Ernest. “How could you for a moment believe that I would have so insulted you?”
“I didn’t believe it,” said Nina, lifting her frank eyes to his. “But how very late you are; have you been at the ballet?”
His face grew stern. “Did she tell you that?”
“Yes. But why did you go there, instead of coming to dance with me? Do you like those danseuses better than you do me? What was Céline’s or anybody’s début, to you?”