Contraband Part 21

"Moral influence!" the phrase carried with it a weight and dignity of which she herself felt conscious, even in bed; and must be overwhelming, she thought, to "dear Jin," who owed so much to their friends.h.i.+p, and who had not a bad disposition after all, though too reckless, and dreadfully wedded to her own opinion, right or wrong.

Turning her back on a ridiculous little night-light, utterly useless now that morning was already streaming through heavy curtains and close-drawn window-blinds, she became more and more impressed with the difficulty of her task, as she courted sleep in vain. So many instances recurred to her of Jin's superiority in argument, of Jin's readiness in repartee, of Jin's independence of spirit and inflexible persistency in taking her own line, that she was fain to dismiss the subject from her mind, and let her thoughts wander at will through more congenial topics--her dresses, her beauty, her widowhood, her rich brown hair, the Opera, the fiddles, the conductor's gloves, the tenor's eye-brows, Goldthred's good night, Sir Henry's back, a haze of lights, music, attentions, admiration, whiskers, boots and broadcloth, fading dimly into chaos, till they left Mrs. Lascelles fast asleep.

Miss Ross, too, laid her black head on the pillow with a sensation at her heart, so new, so strange, that it took away her breath--not triumph, for it was mingled with apprehension, misgivings, and a sense of unworthiness, as humiliating as it was unexpected;--not content, for everything seemed still to gain, except the one step made to-night, that yet to lose would be simply destruction and despair;--not happiness, surely, the uncertainty was even now too painful, the rush of joy too wild and keen. How useless, how idiotic it seemed, above all, how contemptible and unlike herself, to lock the door when she reached her room, rest her brow against the window frame, and cry for two whole minutes like a child!

"Not for sorrow, though. Certainly not for sorrow," she murmured, recovering herself with a great sob, while she resolved to yield to such absurdity no longer.

She could hardly bring herself to believe in the reality of the last few hours. The whole thing seemed wild and improbable as a dream. It was dreadful to think she might wake up at any moment, to discover that she had _not_ known Captain Vanguard for a few weeks; that she had _not_ set her heart on him, during the last few days, till he had become the one necessity of her existence; that she had _not_ sat by his side this very evening in the gloomy back of an opera-box, and leant on his arm in the crush-room, and gathered from his looks, his gestures, nay, from his very words, that he loved her. _Her_, the outcast, the adventurer, the woman warring and warred against, who had vowed vengeance for her wrongs, on the whole of his base and treacherous s.e.x. Ah! if she were indeed to wake and find so cold a reality awaiting her, would it not be better to end it all and go to sleep for ever? No; like a ray of light through a cloud, like a breath of air in the noon-day heat, like the song of a bird in a desert-place, came the recollection of her boy. What had she done to be so blessed? To have found her child, to have found her heart, to have found, even at the same moment, the love that makes a woman humble, and the love that makes a woman proud! It seemed too much, and, for a s.p.a.ce, Jin was so happy that she felt almost good.

In such a frame of mind people's slumbers are light and easily disturbed. Long before the maid came in to call her, Miss Ross was wide awake, and shaping for herself a plan, to be facilitated, and even rendered necessary, by subsequent events.

Breakfast at No. 40 was a late and unpunctual meal. It was laid in the boudoir, and each lady dawdling into that apartment at her own time, rang independently for the strip of dry toast and cup of coffee that const.i.tuted her repast. Miss Ross, earlier than usual, was surprised to find her hostess already down, making pretence of breakfasting, with obvious want of appet.i.te, and a restlessness of manner denoting that uncomfortable state of mind which the sufferer calls "worry," and the bystander "fuss."

Jin entered radiant. Fresh from her bath and morning toilet, she had even a tinge of colour in her cheek, the one thing usually wanting to complete her beauty. There was a light, too, dancing in her eyes, a buoyancy in her step and gesture, a sparkle, as it were, of joy and triumph in her whole bearing, that did not escape the notice of her friend.

"Late hours seem to suit you, my dear," said Mrs. Lascelles languidly.

"I never saw you looking so well."

"I am a fool about music," answered the other demurely, "and I did enjoy the opera last night more than I can describe."

"The opera," asked Mrs. Lascelles quietly, "or the company?"

Jin must have been hard hit, for she actually blushed.

"Both, of course," was her reply. "Everything is pleasanter, I suppose, when it's done with pleasant people."

The tone was rather too careless, and her hand shook while she poured out a cup of coffee. Mrs. Lascelles, noticing this trepidation, felt her heart sink within her.

"The company was pleasant enough last night," said she, "as far as _our_ box was concerned; but I don't think people all amused themselves equally. Helen, for instance, seemed bored to death. She does _not_ look well, and I am sure she is not happy. I'm very fond of her, Jin, and so are you. What _is_ it, do you think? and how can we do her good?"

These ladies were not fairly matched. Mrs. Lascelles became flurried and nervous as she neared the point of collision. Miss Ross, on the contrary, grew steadier and cooler with the immediate approach of danger.

"I don't think Helen knows her own mind," she replied; "girls very seldom do. You must surely have observed in your personal experience, Rose, that

"Too many lovers will puzzle a maid."

Mrs. Lascelles accepted the implied compliment with a forced smile, but it did not turn her from her object.

"Helen is unlike most girls," she answered; "and I don't fancy any number of lovers would make amends to her for losing the one she has set her heart on. People are so different, you know, and Helen's is one of those deep, quiet, reserved natures that suffer awfully, though they suffer in silence. I think, Jin, between you and me, that Helen likes Somebody, and that Somebody would like her if it wasn't for Somebody else!"

Though almost sublime in its ambiguity, Miss Ross understood this "dark sentence" perfectly, and scorned to affect misconception of its purport.

"You mean Captain Vanguard!" She came out with his name in a burst of defiance. "Well, how can I help _that_?"

"Oh, Jin, as you are strong be merciful!" pleaded Mrs. Lascelles. "You know your own power. You know you are one of the most taking creatures in the world if you only try. Look at Uncle Joseph, look at even Mr.

Goldthred, though I consider him the truest of the true. Look at Sir Henry. To be sure, it's no compliment from _him_, for he's the same to everybody. Look at all the men who come near us. You needn't even take the trouble of shooting, like Mr. Picard's American colonel and his squirrel--down they come at once. Can't you let this squirrel alone?

Can't you leave him to Helen, dear? Everybody will be so pleased, and I should be _so_ much obliged to you, Jin, if you would!"

Miss Ross laughed. "The last is certainly a strong inducement," said she; "but it seems to me you are leaving the squirrel's own inclinations out of the question. Because he comes down for Colonel Crockett, does it follow he'll be so obliging to everybody else? I suppose Frank--I mean Captain Vanguard--has a perfect right to talk to me instead of Miss Hallaton, if he is more amused in my society than in hers."

"Amused!" repeated Mrs. Lascelles, growing warm. "This is no question of amus.e.m.e.nt. It is a life's happiness or misery for two people who ought never to have been interfered with. You have no right to supplant her; you have no right to trifle with _him_!"

"Suppose I am _not_ trifling," retorted the other. "Suppose I am in earnest, just for once, by way of change. You have complimented me on my powers, in sport. Do you think I should be a less dangerous enemy, Rose, if I were fighting for my life?"

"You remember our agreement," exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles with rising colour, and a shake in her voice, denoting wrath no less than a nervous dread of its indulgence. "You are not acting fairly by me; you're not acting fairly by any of us. If you turn round now, after what you've told me, after what we agreed, I can never trust you again, Jin. I shall think you've been sailing under false colours all through."

"Explain yourself, Rose," said Miss Ross, very quietly, but with an ominously steady expression about the lower part of her face, in strong contrast with the quivering lips and tremulous chin of her companion.

"You ought to see it yourself," whimpered the latter, now in a sore predicament between her feelings of friends.h.i.+p and generosity. "I shall say something to be sorry for afterwards. I know I shall. You'll drive me to it, Jin! and when I am driven, I can't and won't stop!"

"You seem to expect that my thoughts, feelings, and opinions are to be under your control, as you would have my actions and conversation," was the grave and rather stern rejoinder. "This is not dependence, Mrs.

Lascelles, but slavery. You are not only unkind, but unreasonable and unjust."

Mrs. Lascelles turned very red. She was now obviously "driven," as she called it, and not likely to stop.

"What I expect," she retorted, "is nothing to the purpose; for there seems little chance of my obtaining it. What I _insist_ on is common propriety of demeanour and the merest fair-play. You would never have met these people at all--you would never have been in a position to know any one of them, but for _me_. You are received amongst them as--as--like anybody else, and you throw down the apple of discord to set us all at sixes and sevens. You seem to forget, Miss Ross, that your victims are my personal friends."

"And what am I?" retorted Jin, with an angry flash from her black eyes.

"Something between a companion and a servant! A piece of furniture good enough for the drawing-room, though occasionally useful in the kitchen!

The obligations are not perhaps so entirely on one side as you would like to make out. When people hunt in couples, a good deal may be done that it would be madness to attempt singly. It cannot but be convenient for an independent lady to have a friend at her elbow who is always well disposed, always ready to go anywhere, or do anything, generally good-tempered, and, above all, afflicted with an intermittent defect of sight or hearing as required. I think I have earned my wages, and returned adequate value in kind for board and lodging--both, I must admit of the best--and treatment, I am happy to think, of the kindest and most considerate, till to-day!"

Touched to the quick by this last reproach, Mrs. Lascelles was already crying vehemently.

"It's not that!" she sobbed out. "It's not that! I don't want to remind you of anything that's past and gone. But you ought to do what I ask you in common grat.i.tude because--because--you know you ought!"

Seeing the adversary wavering, Miss Ross stood firm to her guns.

"Grat.i.tude," said she, "is one thing, and obedience another. I admit that I owe the first, and hoped I had shown some consciousness of the debt. The last is a different question, and I am not naturally very submissive. But, come. Let us have a clear understanding. I am ready to receive your orders!"

"Orders!" Mrs. Lascelles fired up once more. "You've no right to put it in that way. But it's no use talking the thing over backwards and forwards. You've barely known him a fortnight. In plain English, will you or will you _not_ give Frank Vanguard up?"

Jin laughed scornfully.

"Suppose he won't give _me_ up?"

"That's nothing to do with it," retorted the other. "Once for all, Miss Ross, will you or will you _not_?"

"No, I won't! There!"

Jin looked very handsome while she thus raised the standard of revolt, with her head up, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and a little spot of colour in each cheek.

Mrs. Lascelles now lost all control over her temper. Totally unused to anger, she trembled violently under its influence, and felt, indeed, that no victory, however triumphant, could repay her for the tumult of such a contest.

"Under these circ.u.mstances," said she, vainly endeavouring to steady her voice, and a.s.sume that dignity of bearing to which only last night her "moral influence" had seemed to ent.i.tle her, "it is impossible that you and I can continue on the same terms. It is impossible that we can remain under the same roof. You will see the propriety, Miss Ross, at your earliest convenience of making arrangements to reside elsewhere."

"The sooner the better," answered Jin calmly. "I'll go directly. My things are packed. We won't part in anger, Mrs. Lascelles. Rose, you've been very, _very_ good to me, and I shall think kindly of you as long as I live!"

The tide of battle was now completely turned. It may be that the conqueror was eagerly looking for an opportunity to lay down her arms--it may be that Mrs. Lascelles had only meant to threaten, and hated herself for the menace even while it crossed her lips. She was, at any rate, quite incapable of hitting an adversary when down, and far more inclined to set a fallen foe upright, and make friends, than, like some Amazons, to crush and trample the unfortunate into the dust. She literally fell on Miss Ross's neck, and wept.