by Ouida
“Glorious creature your new mare is, Mr. Mills,” cried the Cantab; “splendid style she took the fences in yesterday.”
“Wilkins may well say she is the belle of the county!” continued Mr. Mills, dreamily. “I beg your pardon, what did you say? my mother took the fences well? No, she never hunts.”
“Pray tell Mrs. Mills I am very much obliged for the beautiful azalias she sent me,” interposed Florence, with her sweet smile.
“I — I am sure anything we have you are welcome to. I — I — allow me — —” And the poor squire, stooping for Florence’s thimble, upset a tiny table, on which stood a vase with the azalias in question, on the back of a little bull of a spaniel, who yelled, and barked, and flew at the squire’s legs, who, for his part, became speechless from fright, reddened all over, and at last, stammering out that he wanted to see Mr. Aspeden, and would go to him in the grounds, rushed from the room.
We all burst out laughing at this climax of the poor little man’s misery.
“I will not have you laugh at him so,” said Florence, at length. “I know him to be truly good and charitable, for all his peculiarities of manner.”
“It is but right Miss Aspeden should defend a soupirant so charming in every way,” said the captain, his moustache curling contemptuously.
“Oh! Florie’s made an out-and-out conquest, and no mistake!” cried Tom Cleaveland.
Florence did not heed her cousin, but looked up in Fane’s face, utterly astonished at his sarcastic tones. No man could have withstood that look of those large, beautiful eyes, and Fane bent down and asked her to sing “Roberto, oh tu che adoro!”
“Yes, that will just do. Robert is his name; pity he is not here to hear it. ‘Robert Mills, oh tu che adoro!’” sang the inexorable Cantab, as he walked across the room and asked Mary to have a game of billiards. For once I had the pleasure of forestalling him, but he, nevertheless, came and marked for us in a very amiable manner. “How well you play, Mary,” said he. “Really, stunningly for a woman. Do you know Beauchamp of Kings won three whole pools the other day without losing a life!”
“Indeed!” said Mary. “What good fun it is to see Mr. Mills play; he holds his queue as if he were afraid of it.”
“I say, Mary,” said Cleaveland, “you don’t think that Florence will marry that contemptible little wretch, do you? Hang it, I should be savage if she had not better taste. There’s a cannon.”
“She has better taste,” replied Mary, in a low tone, as Mrs. Aspeden and Fane entered the room.
I never could like Mrs. Aspeden — peace be with her now, poor woman — but there was such a want of delicacy and tact, and such open manœuvring in all she did, which surprised me, clever woman as she was.
No sooner had she approached the billiard-table that day, than she began:
“Florence was called away from her singing to a conference with her uncle, and — with somebody else, I fancy.” (Fane darted a keen look of inquiry at her.) “Poor dear girl! being left so young an orphan, I have always felt such a great interest and affection for her, and I shall rejoice to see her happily settled as — as I trust there is a prospect of now,” she continued.
Could she mean Florence Aspeden had engaged herself to Mr. Mills? A roguish smile on Mary’s face reassured me, but Fane walked hastily to the window, and stood with folded arms looking out upon the sunny landscape.
Inveterate flirt that he was, his pride was hurt at the idea of a rival, and such a rival, winning in a game in which he deigned to have ever so small a stake, ever such a passing interest!
The dinner passed off heavily — very heavily — for gay Woodlands, for the gallant captain and Florence were both of them distraits and gênés, and he hardly spoke to the poor girl. Oh, wicked Fane!
We sat but little time after the ladies had retired, and Tom and Mr. Aspeden going after some horse or other, Fane and I ascended to the drawing-room alone. It was unoccupied, and we sat down to await them, I amusing myself with teaching Master Tommy, the young heir of Woodlands, some comic songs, wherewith to astonish his nurse pretty considerably, and Fane leaning back in an arm-chair, with Florence’s dog upon his knee in that, for him, most extraordinary thing, a “brown study.”
Suddenly some voices were heard in the next room.
“Florence, it is your duty, recollect.”
“Aunt, I can recollect nothing, save that it would be far, far worse than death to me to marry Mr. Mills. I hold it dread sin to marry a man for whom one can have nothing but contempt. Once for all, I cannot, — I will not.”
Here the voice was broken with sobs. Fane had raised his head eagerly at the commencement of the dialogue, but now, recollecting that we were listeners, rose, and closed the door. I did not say a word on the conversation we had just heard, for I felt out of patience with him for his heartless flirtation; so, taking up a book on Italy, I looked over the engravings for a little time, and then, Tommy having been conveyed to the nursery in a state of rebellion, I reminded Fane of a promise he had once made to accompany me to Rome the next winter, and asked him if he intended to fulfil it.
“Really, my dear fellow, I cannot tell what I may possibly do next winter; I hate making plans for the future. We may none of us be alive then,” said he, in an unusually dull strain for him: “I half fancy I may exchange into some regiment going on foreign service. But l’homme propose, you know. By the by, poor Castleton” (his elder brother) “is very ill at Brussels.”
“Yes. I was extremely sorry to hear it, in a letter I had from Vivian this morning,” I replied. “He is at Brussels also, and mentions a belle there, Lady Adeliza Fitzhowden, with whom, he says, the world is associating your name. Is it true, Fane?”
“Les on dit font la gazette des fous!” cried the captain, impatiently, stroking Florence’s little King Charles. “I saw Lady Adeliza at Paris last January, but I would not marry her — no! not if there were no other woman upon earth! I thought, Fred, really you were too sensible to believe all the scandal raked up by that gossiping Vivian. I do hope you have not been propagating his most unfounded report?” asked my gallant friend, in quite an excited tone.
At this moment the ladies entered. Florence with her dark eyes looking very sad under their long lashes, but they soon brightened when Fane seated himself by her side, and began talking in a lower tone, and with even more tendresse than ever.
I had the pleasure of quite eclipsing Tom Cleaveland, I thought, as I turned over the leaves of Mary’s music, and looked unutterable things, which, however, I fear were all lost, as Mary would look only at the notes of the piano, and I firmly believe never heard a word I said.
How Florence blushed as Fane whispered his soft good night; she looked so happy, poor girl, and he, heartless demon, talked of going into foreign service! By the by, what put that into his head, I wonder?
The night of our grand theatricals at length arrived, and we were all assembled in the library, converted for the time into a green-room. Mounteagle was repeating to himself, for the hundredth time, his part of Lord Tinsel; I, in my Modus dress, which I had a disagreeable idea was not becoming, was endeavoring to make an impression on the not-to-be impressed Mary, and Florence was looking lovelier than ever in her rich old-fashioned dress, when Fane entered, and bending, offered her a bouquet of rare flowers. She blushed deeply as she took it. Oh! Fane, Fane, what will you have to answer for?
We were waiting the summons for the first scene, when, to Mary’s horror, I suddenly exclaimed that I could not play!
“Good Heavens! why not?” was the general inquiry.
“Why!” I said. “I never thought of it until now, but certainly Modus ought to appear without moustaches, and, hang it, I cannot cut mine off.”
“Take my life, but spare my moustaches!” cried Mary, in tragic tones. “Certainly though, Mr. Wilmot, you are right; Modus ought not to be seen with the characteristic ‘musk-toshes,’ as nurse calls them; of an English officer. What is to be done?”
“Ple
ase, sir, will you come? Major Vaughan says the group is agoing to be set for the first scene, and you are wanted, sir,” was a flunkey’s admonition to Fane, who went off accordingly, after advising me to add a dishevelled beard to my tenderly cared-for moustaches, which would seem as if Modus had entirely neglected his toilette.
There was a general rush for part books, a general cry for things that were not forthcoming, and a general despair on the parts of the youngest amateurs at forgetting their cues just when they were most wanted.
Fane, when he came off the stage after the first scene, leant against a pillar to watch the pretty one between Julia and Helen, so near that he must have been seen by the audience, and presented a most handsome and interesting spectacle, I dare say, for young ladies to gaze at. Fixing his eyes on Florence, whose rendering of the part was really perfect as she uttered these words, “Helen, I’m constancy!” he unconsciously muttered aloud, “I believe it!”
“So do I!” I could not help saying, “and therefore more shame to whoever wins such a heart to throw it away. ‘Beneath her feet, a duke — a duke might lay his coronet!’” I quoted.
“Are you in love yourself, Fred?” laughed the captain; then, stroking his moustaches thoughtfully for some minutes, he said at last, as if with an effort, “You are right, young one, and yet — —”
If I was right, what need was there for him to throw such passion into his part — what need was there for him to say with such empressement those words:
A willing pupil kneels to thee, And lays his title and his fortune at thy feet?
If he intended to go into foreign service, why did he not go at once? Though I confess it seemed strange to me why Fane — the courted, the flattered, the admired Fane — should wish to leave England.
Reader, mind, the gallant captain is a desperate flirt, and I do not believe he will go into foreign service any more than I shall, but I am afraid he will win that poor girl’s heart with far less thought than you buy your last “little darling French bonnet,” and when he is tired of it will throw it away with quite as little heed. But I was not so much interested in his flirtation as to forget my own, still I was obliged to confess that Mary Aspeden did not pay me as much attention as I should have wished.
I danced the first dance with her, after the play was over — (I forgot to tell you we were very much applauded) — and Tom Cleaveland engaging her for the next, I proposed a walk through the conservatories to a sentimental young lady who was my peculiar aversion, but to whom I became extremely dévoué, for I thought I would try and pique Mary if I could.
The light strains of dance music floated in from the distance, and the air was laden with the scent of flowers, and many a tête-à-tête and partie carrée was arranged in that commodious conservatory.
Half hidden by an orange-tree, Florence Aspeden was leaning back in a garden-chair, close to where we stood looking out upon the beautiful night. Her fair face was flushed, and she was nervously picking some of the blossoms to pieces; before her stood Mounteagle, speaking eagerly. I was moving away to avoid being a hearer of his love-speech, as I doubted not it was, but my companion, with many young-ladyish expressions of adoration of the “sublime moonlight,” begged me to stay “one moment, that she might see the dear moon emerge like a swan from that dark, beautiful cloud!” and in the pauses of her ecstatics I heard poor Mount’s voice in a tone of intense entreaty.
At that moment Fane passed. He glanced at the group behind the orange-trees, and his face grew stern and cold, and his lips closed with that iron compression they always have when he is irritated. His eyes met Florences, and he bowed haughtily and stiffly as he moved on, and his upright figure, with its stately head, was seen in the room beyond, high above any of those around him. A heavy sigh came through the orange boughs, and her voice whispered, “I — I am very sorry, but — —”
“Oh! do look at the moonbeams falling on that darling little piece of water, Mr. Wilmot!” exclaimed my decidedly moonstruck companion.
“Is there no hope?” cried poor Mount.
“None!” And the low-whispered knell of hope came sighing over the flowers. I thought how little she guessed there was none for her. Poor Florence!
“Oh, this night! I could gaze on it forever, though it is saddening in its sweetness, do not you think?” asked my romantic demoiselle. “Ah! what a pretty valse they are playing!”
“May I have the pleasure of dancing it with you?” I felt myself obliged to ask, although intensely victimized thereby, as I hate dancing, and wonder whatever idiot invented it.
Miss Chesney, considering her devotion to the moon, consented very joyfully to leave it for the pleasures (?) of a valse à deux temps.
As we moved away, I saw that Florence was alone, and apparently occupied with sad thoughts. She, I dare say, was grieving over Fane’s cold bow, and poor Mount had rushed away somewhere with his great sorrow. Fane came into my room next morning while I was at breakfast, having been obliged to get up at the unconscionable hour of ten, to be in time for a review we were to have that day on Layton Common for the glorification of the country around.
The gallant captain flung himself on my sofa, and, after puffing away at his cigar for some minutes, came out with, “Any commands for London? I am going to apply for leave, and I think I shall start by the express to-morrow.”
“What’s in the wind now?” I asked. “Is Lord Avanley unwell?”
“No; the governor’s all right, thank you. I am tired of rural felicity, that is all,” replied Fane. “I must stay for this review to-day, or the colonel would make no end of a row. He is a testy old boy. I rather think I shall set out, or exchange into the Heavies.”
“What in the world have you got into your head, Fane?” I asked, utterly astonished to see him diligently smoking an extinguished cigar. “I am sorry you are going to leave us. The 110th will miss you, old fellow; and what will the Aspedens say to losing their preux chevalier? By the way, speaking of them, poor Mount received his congé last night, I expect.”
“What! are you sure? What did you say?” demanded Fane, stooping to relight his cigar.
I told him what I had overheard in the conservatory.
“Oh! well — ah! indeed — poor fellow!” ejaculated the captain. “But there’s the bugle-call! I must go and get into harness.”
And I followed his example, turning over in my mind, as I donned my uniform, what might possibly have induced Fane to leave Layton Rise so suddenly. Was it, at last, pity for Florence? And if it were, would not the pity come too late?
Layton Rise looked very pretty and bright under the combined influence of beauty and valor (that is the correct style, is it not?). The Aspedens came early, and drew up their carriages close to the flag-staff. Fane’s eye-glass soon spied them from our distant corner of the field, and, as we passed before the flagstaff, he bent low to his saddle with one of those fascinating smiles which have gone deep to so many unfortunate young ladies’ hearts. Again I felt angry with him, as I rode along thinking of that girl, her whole future most likely clouded for ever, and he going away to-morrow to enjoy himself about in the world, quite reckless of the heart he had broken, and —— But in the midst of my sentimentalism I was startled by hearing the sharp voice of old Townsend, our colonel, who was a bit of a martinet, asking poor Ennuyé “what he lifted his hand for?”
“There was a bee upon my nose, colonel.”
“Well, sir, and if there were a whole hive of bees upon your nose, what right have you to raise your hand on parade?” stormed the colonel.
There was a universal titter, and poor Ennuyé was glad to hide his confusion in the “charge” which was sounded.
On we dashed our horses at a stretching gallop, our spurs jingling, our plumes waving in the wind, and our lances gleaming in the sunlight. Hurrah! there is no charge in the world like the resistless English dragoons’! On we went, till suddenly there was a piercing cry, and one of the carriages, in which the ponies had been most negligently
left, broke from the circle and tore headlong down the common, at the bottom of which was a lake. One young lady alone was in it. It was impossible for her to pull in the excited little grays, and, unless they were stopped, down they would all go into it. But as soon as it was perceived, Fane had rushed from the ranks, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped after the carriage. Breathless we watched him. We would not follow, for we knew that he would do it, if any man could, and the sound of many in pursuit would only further exasperate the ponies. Ha! he is nearing them now. Another moment and they will be down the sloping bank into the lake. The girl gives a wild cry; Fane is straining every nerve. Bravo! well done — he has saved her! I rushed up, and arrived to find Fane supporting a half-fainting young lady, in whose soft face, as it rested on his shoulder, I recognized Florence Aspeden. Her eyes unclosed as I drew near, and, blushing, she disengaged herself from his arms. Fane bent his head over her, and murmured, “Thank God, I have saved you!” But perhaps I did not hear distinctly.
By this time all her friends had gathered round them, and Fane had consigned her to her cousin’s care, and she was endeavoring to thank him, which her looks, and blushes, and smiles did most eloquently; Mr. Aspeden was shaking Fane by the hand, and what further might have happened I know not, if the colonel (very wrathful at such an unseemly interruption to his cherished manœuvres) had not shouted out, “Fall in, gentlemen — fall in! Captain Fane, fall in with your troop, sir!” We did accordingly fall in, and the review proceeded; but my friend actually made some mistakes in his evolutions, and kept his eye-glass immovably fixed on the point in the circle, and behaved altogether in a distrait manner — Fane, whom I used to accuse of having too much sang froid — whom nothing could possibly disturb — whom I never saw agitated before in the whole course of my acquaintance!
What an inexplicable fellow he is!
The review over, we joined the Aspedens, and many were the congratulations Florence had heaped upon her; but she looked distraite, too, until Fane came up, and leaning his hand on the carriage, bent down and talked to her. Their conversation went on in a low tone, and as I was busy laughing with Mary, I cannot report it, save that from the bright blushes on the one hand, and the soft whispered tones on the other, Fane was clearly at his old and favorite work of winning hearts.