by Ouida
“Fane, by all that’s glorious!”— “Well, young one, how are you?” were the only salutations that passed between two men who were as true friends as any in England. Fane was soon seated among us, and telling us many a joke and tale. “And so,” said he, “we’re sent down to ruralize? (Mounteagle, you are ‘loo’d.’) Any one you know here?”
“Not a creature! I am awfully afraid we shall be found dead of ennui one fine morning. I’ll thank you for a little more punch, Fitzspur,” said Sydney. “I suppose, as usual, Fane,” he continued, “you left at the very least twelve dozen German princesses, Italian marchesas, and French countesses dying for you?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Fane, “you are considerably under the mark (I’ll take ‘miss,’ Paget!); but really, if women will fall in love with you, how can you help it? And if you will flirt with them, how can they help it?”
“I see, Fane, your heart is as strong as ever,” I added, laughing.
“Of course,” answered the gallant captain; “disinterested love is reserved for men who are too rich or too poor to mind its attendant evils. (The first, I must say, very rarely profit by the privilege!) No! I steel myself against all bright eyes and dancing curls not backed by a good dowry. Heiresses, though, somehow, are always plain; I never could do my duty and propose to one, though, of course, whenever I do surrender my liberty, which I have not the smallest intention of at present, it will be to somebody with at least fifty thousand a year. Hearts trumps, Mount?”
“Yes — hurrah! Paget’s loo’d at last. — Here, my dear, let us have lots more punch!” said Mounteagle, addressing the female domestic, who was standing open-mouthed at the glittering pool of half-sovereigns.
I will spare the gentle reader — if I may flatter myself that I entertain a few such — a recital of the conversation which followed, and which was kept up until the very, very “small hours;” also I will leave it to her imagination to picture how we spent the next few days, how we found out a few families worth visiting, how we inspired the Layton youths with a vehement passion for smoking, billiards, and the cavalry branch of the service, and how we and our gay uniforms and our prancing horses were the admiration of all the young damsels in the place.
One morning after parade, Fane and I, having nothing better to do, lighted our cigars and strolled down one of those shady lanes which almost reconcile one to the country — out of the London season. Seeing the gate of a park standing invitingly open, we walked in and threw ourselves down under the trees. “Now we are in for it,” said Fane, “if we are trespassing, and any adventurous-minded gamekeeper appears. Whose park is this?”
“Mr. Aspeden’s, Ennuyé told me. It’s rather a nice place,” I replied.
“And that castle, of which mine eyes behold the turrets afar off?” he asked.
“Lord Linton’s, I believe; the father of Jack Vernon, of the Rifles, you know,” I answered.
“Indeed! I never saw the old gentleman, but I remember his daughter Beatrice, — we had rather a desperate flirtation at Baden-Baden. She’s a showy-looking girl,” said the captain, stretching himself on the grass.
“Why did you not allow her the sublime felicity of becoming Lady Beatrice Fane?” I asked, laughing.
“My dear fellow, she had not a sou! That old marquis is as poor as a church-mouse. You forget that I am only a younger son, with not much besides my pay, and cannot afford to marry anywhere I like. I am not in your happy position, able to espouse any pretty face I may chance to take a fancy to. It would be utter madness in me. Do you think I was made for a little house, one maid-servant, dinner at noon, and six small children? Very much obliged to you, but love in a cottage is not my style, Fred; besides j’aime à vivre garçon!” added Fane.
“Et moi aussi!” said I. “Really the girls one meets seem all tarlatan and coquetry. I have never seen one worth committing matrimony for.”
“Hear him!” cried Fane. “Here is the happy owner of Wilmot Park, at the advanced age of twenty, despairing of ever finding anything more worthy of his affection than his moustaches! Oh, what will the boys come to next? But, eureka! here comes a pretty girl if you like. Who on earth is she?” he exclaimed, raising his eye-glass to a party advancing up the avenue who really seemed worthy the attention.
Pulling at the bridle of a donkey, “what wouldn’t go,” with all her might, was indeed a pretty girl. Her hat had fallen off and showed a quantity of bright hair and a lovely face, with the largest and darkest of eyes, and a mouth now wreathing with smiles. Unconscious of our vicinity, on she came, laughing, and beseeching a little boy, seated on the aforesaid donkey, and thumping thereupon with, a large stick, “not to be so cruel and hurt poor Dapple.” At this juncture the restive steed gave a vigorous stride, and toppling its rider on the grass, trotted off with a self-satisfied air; but Fane, intending to make the rebellious charger a means of introduction, caught his bridle and led him back to his discomfited master. The young lady, who was endeavoring to pacify the child, looked prettier than ever as she smiled and thanked him. But the gallant captain was not going to let the matter drop here, so, turning to the youthful rider, he asked him to let him put him on “the naughty donkey again.” Master Tommy acquiesced, and, armed with his terrible stick, allowed himself to be mounted. Certainly Fane was a most unnecessary length of time settling that child, but then he was talking to the young lady, whom he begged to allow him to lead the donkey home.
“Oh! no, she was quite used to Dapple; she could manage him very well, and they were going farther.” So poor Fane had nothing for it but to raise his hat and gaze at her through his eye-glass until some trees hid her from sight.
“‘Pon my word, that’s a pretty girl!” said he, at length. “I wonder who she can be! However, I shall soon find out. Have another weed, Fred?”
There was to be a ball that night at the Assembly Rooms, which we were assured only the “best families” would attend for Layton was a very exclusive little town in its way. Some of us who were going were standing about the mess-room, recalling the many good balls and pretty girls of our late quarters, when Fane, who had declined to go, as he said he had a horror of “bad dancing, bad perfumes, bad ventilation, and bad champagne, and really could not stand the concentration of all of them, which he foresaw that night,” to our surprise declared his intention of accompanying us.
“I suppose, Fane, you hope to see your heroine of the donkey again?” asked Sydney.
“Precisely,” was Fane’s reply; “or if not, to find out who she is. But here comes Ennuyé, got up no end to fascinate the belles of Layton!”
“The Aspedens are home; I saw ’em to-day,” were the words of the honorable cornet, as he lounged into the room. “My uncle seems rather a brick, and hopes to make the acquaintance of all of you. He will mess with us to-morrow.”
“Have you any belles cousines?”— “Are they going to-night?” we inquired.
“Yaas, I saw one; she’s rather pretty,” said L’Estrange.
“Dark eyes — golden hair — about eighteen?” demanded Fane, eagerly.
“Not a bit of it,” replied the cornet, curling his moustache, and contemplating himself in the glass with very great satisfaction; “hair’s as dark as mine, and eyes — y’ally I forget. But, let’s have loo or whist, or something; we need not go for ages!” So down we sat, and soon nothing was heard but “Two by honors and the trick!” “Game and game!” &c., until about twelve, when we rose and adjourned to the ball-room.
No sooner had we entered the room than Fane exclaimed, “There’s my houri, by all that’s glorious! and looking lovelier than ever. By Jove! that girl’s too good for a country ball-room!” And there, in truth, waltzing like a sylph, was, as Sydney called her, the “heroine of the donkey.” The dance over, we saw her join a party at the top of the room, consisting of a handsome but passée woman, a lovely Hebe-like girl with dancing eyes, and a number of gentlemen, with whom they seemed to be keeping up an animated conversation.
; “Ennuyé is with them — he will introduce me,” said Fane, as he swept up the room.
I watched him bow, and, after talking a few minutes, lead off his “houri” for a valse; and disengaging myself from a Cambridge friend whom I had met with, I professed my intention of following his example.
“What? Who did you say? That girl at the top there? Why, man, that’s my cousin Mary, and the other lady is my most revered aunt, Mrs. Aspeden. Did you not know I and Ennuyé were related? Y’ally I forget how, exactly,” he continued, mimicking the cornet. “But do you want to be introduced to her? Come along then.”
So, following my friend, who was a Trinity-man, of the name of Cleaveland, I soon made acquaintance with Mrs. Aspeden and her daughter Mary.
“Who is he?” I heard Mrs. Aspeden ask, in a low tone, of Tom Cleaveland, as I led off Mary to the valse.
“A very good fellow,” was the good-natured Cantab’s reply, “with lots of tin and a glorious place. The shooting at Wilmot is really — —”
“Bien!” said his aunt, as she took Lord Linton’s arm to the refreshment-room, satisfied, I suppose, on the strength of my “lots of tin,” that I was a safe companion for her child.
I found Mary Aspeden a most agreeable partner for a dance; she was lively, agreeable, and a coquette, I felt sure (women with those dancing eyes always are), and I thought I could not do better than amuse myself by getting up a flirtation with her. What an intensely good opinion I had of myself then! So I condescended to dance, though it was not Almack’s, and actually permitted myself to be amused. Strolling through the rooms with Mary Aspeden on my arm, we entered one in which was an alcove fitted up with a vis-à-vis sofa (whoever planned that Layton ball-room had a sympathy in the bottom of his heart for tête-à-tête), and here Fane was seated, talking to his “houri” with the soft voice and winning smiles which had gained the heart, or at least what portion of that member they possessed, of so many London belles, and which would do their work here most assuredly.
“There is my cousin Florence — ah! she does not observe us. Who is the gentleman with her?” said Miss Aspeden.
“My friend, Captain Fane,” I replied. “You have heard of their rencontre this morning?”
“Indeed! is he Tommy’s champion, of whom he has done nothing but talk all day, and of whom I could not make Florence say one word?” asked Mary. “You must know our donkey is the most determined and resolute of animals: if she ‘will, she will,’ you may depend upon it!” she continued.
“Do you honor those most untrue lines upon ladies by a quotation?” I asked.
“I do not think they are so very untrue,” laughed Mary, “except in confining obstinacy to us poor women and exempting the ‘lords of the creation.’ The Scotch adage knows better. ‘A wilful man — —’ You know the rest.”
“Quite well,” I replied; “but another poet’s lines on you are far more true. ‘Ye are stars of the — —’” I commenced.
“Mary, my love, let me introduce you to Lord Craigarven,” said Mrs. Aspeden, coming up with Lord Linton’s heir-apparent.
At the same time I was introduced to Mr. Aspeden, a hearty Englishman, loving his horses, his dogs, and his daughter; and as much the inferior of his aristocratic-looking wife in intellect as he was her superior in heart. When we parted that night he gave Fane and me a most hospitable general invitation, and, what was more, an especial one for the next night. As we walked home “i’ the grey o’ the morning,” I asked Fane who his “houri” was.
“A niece of Mr. Aspeden’s, and cousin to your friend Cleaveland,” was the reply. “Those Aspedens really seem to be uncle and aunt to every one. She is staying there now.”
“So is Tom Cleaveland,” said I. “But, pray, are your expectations quite realized? Is she as charming as she looks, this Miss Florence — —”
“Aspeden?” added Fane. “Yes, quite. But here are my quarters; so good night, old fellow.”
We had soon established ourselves as amis de la maison at Woodlands, the Aspedens’ place, and found him, as his nephew had stated, “rather a brick,” and her daughter and niece something more. All of us, especially Fane and I, spent the best part of our time there, lounging away the days between the shady lanes, the little lake, and the music or billiard-rooms. Fane seemed entirely to appropriate Florence, and to fascinate her as he had fascinated so many others. I really felt angry with him; for, as Tom Cleaveland had candidly told me that poor Florie had not a rap — her father had run through all his property and left her an orphan, and a very poor one too — of course Fane could not marry her, but would, I feared, “ride away” some day, like the “gay dragoon,” heartwhole himself — but would she come out as scatheless? Poor Mounteagle, too, was getting quite spooney about Florence, and, owing to Fane, she paid him no more heed than if he had been an old dried-up Indianized major. He, poor fellow! followed her about everywhere, asked her to dance in quite an insane manner, and made the most horrible revokes in whist and mistakes in pool that can be imagined.
“By George! she is pretty, and no mistake!” said Sydney, as Florence rode past us one day as we were sauntering down Layton, looking charmingly en amazone.
“Pretty! I should rather think so. She is more beautiful than any other woman upon earth!” cried Mounteagle.
“Y’ally! well, I can’t see that,” replied Ennuyé. “She has tolerably good eyes, but she is too petite to please me.”
“Ah! the adjutant’s girls have rendered L’Estrange difficile. He cannot expect to meet their equals in a hurry!” said Fane, in a very audible aside.
Poor Ennuyé was silenced — nay, he even blushed. The adjutant’s girls recalled an episode in which the gallant cornet had shone in a rather verdant light. Fane had effectually quieted him.
“I wonder if Florence Aspeden will marry Mount?” I remarked to Fane, when the others had left us. “She does not seem to pay him much heed yet; but still — —”
“The devil, no!” cried Fane, in an unusually energetic manner. “I would stake my life she would not have such a muff as that, if he owned half the titles in the peerage!”
“You seem rather excited about the matter,” I observed. “It would not be such a bad match for her, for you know she has no tin; but I am sure, with your opinion on love-matches, you would not counsel Mount to such a step.”
“Of course not!” replied Fane, in his ordinary cool tones. “A man has no right to marry for love, except he is one of those fortunate individuals who own half a county, or some country doctor or parson of whom the world takes no notice. There may be a few exceptions. But yet,” he continued, with the air of a person trying to convince himself against his will, “did you ever see a love match turn out happily? It is all very well for the first week, but the roses won’t bloom in winter, and then the cottage walls look ugly. Then a fellow cannot live as he did en garçon, and all his friends drop him, and altogether it is an act no wise man would perpetrate. But I shall forget to give you a message I was intrusted with. They are going to get up some theatricals at Woodlands. I have promised to take Sir Thomas Clifford (the piece is the ‘Hunchback’). and they want you to play Modus to Mary Aspeden’s Helen. Do, old fellow. Acting is very good fun with a pretty girl — —”
“Like the Julia you will have, I suppose,” I said. “Very well, I will be amiable and take it. Mary will make a first-rate Helen. Come and have a game of billiards, will you?”
“Can’t,” replied the gallant captain. “I promised to go in half an hour with — with the Aspedens to see some waterfall or ruin, or something, and the time is up. So, au revoir, monsieur.”
Many of ours were pressed into the service for the coming theatricals, and right willingly did we rehearse a most unnecessary number of times. Many merry hours did we spend at Woodlands, and I sentimentalized away desperately to Mary Aspeden; but, somehow or other, always had an uncomfortable suspicion that she was laughing at me. She never seemed the least impressed by all my gallantries and pretty speeches, whi
ch was peculiarly mortifying to a moustached cornet of twenty, who thought himself irresistible. I began, too, to get terribly jealous of Tom Cleaveland, who, by right of his cousinship, arrived at a degree of intimacy I could not attain.
One morning Fane and I (who were going to dine there that evening), the Miss Aspedens, and, of course, that Tom Cleaveland, were sitting in the drawing-room at Woodlands. Fane and Florence were going it at some opera airs (what passionate emphasis that wicked fellow gave the loving Italian words as his rich voice rolled them out to her accompaniment!), the detestable Trinity-man had been discoursing away to Mary on boat-racing, outriggers, bumping, and Heaven knows what, and I was just taking the shine out of him with the description of a shipwreck I had had in the Mediterranean, when Mary, who sat working at her broderie, and provokingly giving just as sweet smiles to the one as to the other, interrupted me with —
“Goodness, Florie, there is Mr. Mills coming up the avenue. He is my cousin’s admirer and admiration!” she added, mischievously, as the door opened, and a little man about forty entered.
There was all over him the essence of the country. You saw at once he had never passed a season in London. His very boots proclaimed he had never been presented; and we felt almost convulsed with laughter as he shook hands with us all round, and attempted a most empressé manner with Florence.
“Beautiful weather we have now,” remarked Mrs. Aspeden.
“She is indeed!” answered the little squire, with a gaze of admiration at Florence.
Fane, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looking most superbly haughty and unapproachable, shot an annihilating glance at the small man, which would have quite extinguished him had he seen it.
“The country is very pretty in June,” said Mrs. Aspeden, hazarding another original remark.
“Lovely — too lovely!” echoed Mr. Mills, with a profound sigh, at which the country must have felt exceedingly flattered.