Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 33

"You have played two roles, madame," said Nina, rising, "and not played them with you usual skill. Excuse my English ill-breeding, if I ask you to do me the favor of ending this comedy."

"Certainly, mademoiselle, if it is your wish," answered the widow, now smiling blandly. "If it please you to be blind, I have no desire to remove the bandage from your eyes. Seulement, je vous prie de me pardonner mon indiscretion, et j'ai l'honneur, mademoiselle, de vous dire adieu!"

With the lowest of _reverences_ madame glided from the room, and, as the door closed, Nina bowed her head on the miniature left behind in the _deroute_, and burst into tears.

Scarcely had la Melusine's barouche rolled away, when another visitor was shown in, and Nina, brus.h.i.+ng the tears from her cheeks, looked up hurriedly, and saw a small woman, finely dressed, with a Shetland veil on, through which her small black eyes roved listlessly.

"Mademoiselle," she said, in very quick but very bad English, "I is come to warn you against dat ver wrong man, Mr. Vaughan. I have like him, helas! I have like him too vell, but I do not vish you to suffer too."

Nina knew the voice in a moment, and rose like a little empress, though she was flushed and trembling. "I wish to hear nothing of Mr. Vaughan.

If this is the sole purport of your visit, I shall be obliged by your leaving me."

"But mademoiselle----"

"I have told you I wish to hear nothing," interposed Nina, quietly.

"Ver vell, ma'amselle; den read dat. It is a copy, and I got de original."

She laid a letter on the sofa beside Nina. Two minutes after, Bluette joined her friend Celine Gamelle in a fiacre, and laughed heartily, clapping her little plump hands. "Ah, mon Dieu! Celine, comme elle est fiere, la pet.i.te! Je ne lui ai pas dit un seul mot--elle m'a arretee si vite, si vite! Mais la lettre fera notre affaire n'est pas? Oui, oui!"

The letter unfolded in Nina's hand. It was a promise of marriage from Ernest Vaughan to Bluette Lemaire. Voiceless and tearless, Nina sat gazing on the paper: first she rose, gasping for breath; then she threw herself down, sobbing convulsively, till she heard a step, caught up the miniature and letter, dreading to see her father, and, instead, saw Ernest, pale, worn, deep lines round his mouth and eyes, standing in the doorway. Involuntarily she sprang towards him. Ernest pressed her to heart, and his hot tears fell on the chevelure doree, as he bent over her, murmuring, "_You_ have not deserted me. G.o.d bless you for your n.o.ble faith." At last he put her gently from him, and, leaning against the mantelpiece, said, with an effort, between his teeth, "Nina, I came to bid you farewell, and to ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you."

Nina caught hold of him, much as Malibran seized hold of _Elvino_: "Leave me! leave me! No, no; you cannot mean it!"

"I have no strength for it now I see you," said Ernest, looking down into her eyes; and the bold, reckless _Lion_ s.h.i.+vered under the clinging clasp of her little hands. "I need not say I was not the cause of the insult you received the other night. Pauline de Melusine was the agent, women willing to injure me the actors in it. But there is still much for you to forgive. Tell me, at once, what have you heard of me?"

She silently put the miniature and letter in his hand. The blood rushed to his very temples, and, sinking his head on his arms, his chest rose and fell with uncontrollable sobs. All the pent-up feelings of his vehement and affectionate nature poured out at last.

"And you have not condemned me even on these?" he said at length, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Did I not promise?" she murmured.

"But if I told you they were true?"

She looked at him through her tears, and put her hand in his. "Tell me nothing of your past; it can make no difference to my love. Let the world judge you as it may, it cannot alter me."

Ernest strained her to him, kissing her wildly. "G.o.d bless you for your trust! would to G.o.d I were more worthy of it! I have nothing to give you but a love such as I have never before known; but most would tell you all _my_ love is worthless, and my life has been one of reckless dissipation and of darker errors still, until you awoke me to a deeper love--to thoughts and aspirations that I thought had died out for ever.

Painful as it is to confess----"

"Hus.h.!.+" interrupted Nina, gently. "Confess nothing; with your past life I can have nothing to do, and I wish never to hear anything that it gives you pain to tell. You say that you love me now, and will never love another--that is enough for me."

Ernest kissed the flushed cheeks and eloquent lips, and thanked her with all the fiery pa.s.sion that was in him; and his heart throbbed fiercely as he put her promise to the test.

"No, my darling! Priceless as your love is to me I will not buy it by concealment. I will not sully your ears with the details of my life. G.o.d forbid I should! but it is only due to you to know that I did give both these women the love-tokens they brought you. Love! It is desecration of the name, but I knew none better then! Three years ago, Bluette Lemaire first appeared at the Odeon. She is illiterate, coa.r.s.e, heartless, but she was handsome, and she drew me to the coulisses. I was infatuated with her, though her ignorance and vulgarity constantly grated against all my tastes. One night at her pet.i.t souper I drank more Sillery than was wise. I have a stronger head than most men: perhaps there was some other stimulant in it; at any rate, she who was then poor, and is always avaricious, got from me a promise to marry her, or to pay twenty thousand francs. Three months after I gave it I cared no more for her than for my old glove. France is too wise to have Breach of Promise cases, and give money to coa.r.s.e and vengeful women for their pretended broken hearts; but I had no incentive to create a scene by breaking with her, and so she kept the promise in her hands. What Pauline de Melusine is, you can judge. Twelve months ago I met her at Vichy; the love she gave me, and the love I vowed her, were of equal value--the love of Paris boudoirs. That I sent her that picture only two days ago, is, of course, false. On my word, as a man of honor, since the moment I felt your influence upon me I have shunned her. Now, my own love, you know the truth. Will you send me from you, or will you still love and still forgive?"

In an agony of suspense he bent his head to listen for her answer. Tears rained down her cheeks as she put her arms round his neck, and whispered:

"Why ask? Are you not all the world to me? I should love you little if I condemned you for any errors of your past. I know your warm and n.o.ble heart, and I trust to it without a fear. There is no doubt between us now!"

Oh, my prudent and conventional young ladies, standing ready to accuse my poor little Nina, are you any wiser in your generation? You who have had all nature taken out of you by "finis.h.i.+ng," whose heads are crammed with "society's" laws, and whose affections are measured out by rule, who would have been cold, and dignified, and read Ernest a severe lesson, and sent him back hopeless and hardened to go ten times worse than he had gone before--believe me, that impulse points truer than "the world," and that the dictates of the heart are better than the regulations of society. Take my word for it, that love will do more for a man than lectures; and faith in him be more likely to keep him straight than all your moralising; and before you judge him severely for having drunk a little too deep of the Sillery of life, remember that his temptations are not your temptations, nor his ways your ways, and be gentle to dangers which society and custom keep out of your own path.

The stern thorn crows you offer to us when we are inclined to ask your absolution, are not the right means to win us from the rose wreaths of our baccha.n.a.lia.

Nina, as you see, loved her _Lion_ too well to remember dignity, or take her stand on principle; and gallantly did the young lady stand the bombardment from all sides that sought to break her resolutions and crush her "misplaced affections." Gordon chanced to come in that day and light upon Ernest, and the fury into which he worked himself ill beseemed so respectable a pharisee. Vaughan kept tranquilly haughty, and told the banker, calmly, that he "thanked G.o.d he had his daughter's love, and his money he would never have stooped to accept." Gordon forbade him the house, and carried Nina back to England; but before she went they had a parting interview, in which Ernest offered to leave her free. But such freedom would have been worse than death to Nina, and, before they separated, she told him that in three months more she should be of age, and then, come what might, she would be his if he would take her without wealth. Take her he would have done from the arms of Sata.n.u.s himself, but to disentangle himself from all his difficulties was a task that beat the Augean stables hollow. The three months of his probation he worked hard; he sold off all his pictures, his stud, and his _meubles_; he sold, what cost him a more bitter pang, his enc.u.mbered estates in Surrey; he paid off all his debts, Bluette's twenty thousand francs included; and shaking himself free of the acc.u.mulated embarra.s.sments of fifteen years, he crossed the water to claim his last love. No poor little Huguenot was ever persecuted for her faith more than poor little Nina for her engagement. Every relative she had thought it his duty to write admonitory letters, plentifully interspersed with texts. Eusebius and his 4000_l._ a year, and his perspective bishopric, were held up before her from morning to night; the banker, whose deception in the Melusine had turned him into sharper vinegar than before, told her with chill stoicism that she must of course choose her own path in life, but that if that path led her into the Chaussee d'Antin, she need never expect a sou from him, for all his property would be divided between her two brothers. But Nina was neither to be frightened nor bribed. She kept true to her lover, and disinherited herself.

They were married a week or two after Nina's majority; and Gordon knew it, though he could not prevent it. They did not miss the absence of bridesmaids, bishop, dejeuner, and the usual fas.h.i.+onable crowd. It was a marriage of the heart, you see, and did not want the trappings with which they gild that bitter pill so often swallowed now-a-days--a "mariage de convenance." Nina, as she saw further still into the wealth of deep feeling and strong affection which, at her touch, she had awoke in his heart, felt that money, and friends, and the world's smile were well lost since she had won him. And Ernest--Ernest's sacrifice was greater; for it is not a little thing, young ladies, for a man to give up his accustomed freedom, and luxuries, and careless vie de garcon, and to have to think and work for another, even though dearer than himself.

But he had long since seen so much of life, had exhausted all its pleasures so rapidly, that they palled upon him, and for some time he had vaguely wanted something of deeper interest, of warmer sympathy.

Unknown to himself, he had felt the "besoin d'etre aime"--a want the trash offered him by the women of his acquaintance could never satisfy--and his warm, pa.s.sionate nature found rest in a love which, though the strongest of his life, was still returned to him fourfold.

After some months of delicious _far niente_ in the south of France, they came back to Paris. Though anything but rich, he was not absolutely poor, after he had paid his debts, and the necessity to exertion rousing his dormant talents, the _Lion_ turned _litterateur_. He was too popular with men to be dropped because he had sold his stud or given up his pet.i.ts soupers. The romance of their story charmed the Parisians, and, though (behind his back) they sometimes jested about the "Lion amoureux," there were not a few who envied him his young love, and the suns.h.i.+ne that shone round them in his inexpensive appartement garni.

Ernest _was_ singularly happy--and suddenly he became the star of the literary, as he had been of the fas.h.i.+onable world. His mots were repeated, his vaudevilles applauded, his feuilletons adored. The world smiled on Nina and her _Lion_; it made little difference to them--they had been as contented when it frowned.

But it made a good deal of difference across the Channel. Gordon began to repent. Ernest's family was high, his Austrian connexions very aristocratic: there would be something after all in belonging to a man so well known. (Be successful, ami lecteur, and all your relatives will love you.) Besides, he had found out that it is no use to put your faith in princes, or clergymen. Eusebius had treated him very badly when he found he could not get Nina and her money, and spoke against the poor banker everywhere, calling him, with tender pastoral regret, a "worldly Egyptian," a "Dives," a "whitened sepulchre," and all the rest of it.

Probably, too, stoic though he was, he missed the chevelure doree; at any rate, he wrote to her stiffly, but kindly, and settled two thousand a year upon her. Vaughan was very willing she should be friends with her father, but nothing would make him draw a sou of the money. So Nina--the only sly thing she ever did in her life--after a while contrived to buy back the Surrey estate, and gave it to him, with no end of prayers and caresses, on the Jour de l'An.

"And you do not regret, my darling," smiled Ernest, after wis.h.i.+ng her the new year's wishes, "having forgiven me for once drinking too much Sillery, and all the other naughty things of my vie de garcon?"

"Regret!" interrupted Nina, vehemently--"regret that I have won your love, live your life, share your cares and joys, regret that my existence is one long day of suns.h.i.+ne? Oh, why ask! you know I can never repay you for the happiness of my life."

"Rather can I never repay you," said Vaughan, looking down into her eyes, "for the faith that made you brave calumny and opposition, and cling to my side despite all. I was heart-sick of the world, and you called me back to life. I was weary of the fools who misjudged me, and I let them think me what they might."

"Ah, how happy you make me!" cried Nina. "I should have been little worthy of your love if I had suffered slander to warp me against you, or if any revelations you cared enough for me to make of your past life, had parted us:

Love is not love That alters where it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.

There, monsieur!" she said, throwing her arms round him with a laugh, while happy tears stood in her eyes--"there is a grand quotation for you. Mind and take care, Ernest, that you never realise the Ruskinstone predictions, and make me repent having caught and caged such a terrible thing as a hunted PARIS LION!"

SIR GALAHAD'S RAID.

SIR GALAHAD'S RAID.

AN ADVENTURE ON THE SWEET WATERS.

For the punishment of my sins may the G.o.ds never again send me to Pera!

That I might have plenty on my shoulders I am frankly willing to concede; all I protest is, that when one submissively acknowledges the justice of ones future terminating in Tophet, it comes a little hard to get purgatory in this world into the bargain. Purgatory lies _perdu_ for one all over the earth. I have had fifty times more than my share already, and the gout still remains an untried experience, a Gehenna grimly waiting to avenge every morsel of white truffle and every gla.s.s of comet claret with which I innocently solace my frail mortality.

Purgatory!--I have been chained in it fifty times; _et vous_?

When you rush to a Chancellerie, with the English Arms gorgeous above its doorway, on the spur of a frightfully mysterious and autocratic telegram, that makes it life or death to catch the train for England in ten minutes, and have time enough to smoke about two dozen very big cheroots, cooling your heels in the bureau, and then hear (when properly tortured into the due amount of frantic agony for the intelligence to be fully appreciated) that his Excellency is gone snipe-shooting to ----, and that the First Secretary is in his bath, and has given orders not to be disturbed; your informant languidly p.r.i.c.king his cigar with his toothpick, and politely intimating, by his eyebrows, that you and your necessities may go to the deuce--what's _that_? When you are doing the sanitary at Weedon, by some hideous conjunction of evil destinies, in the very Ducal week itself, and thinking of the rush with which Tom Alcroft will land the filly, or the close finish with which Fordham will get the cup, while you are not there to see, are sorely tempted to realize the Parisian vision of Anglo suicide, and load the apple-trees with suspended human fruit;--what's _that_? When, having got leave, and established yourself in cosy hunting-quarters, with some cattle not to be beat in stay, blood, and pace, close to a killing pack that never score a blank day, there falls a bitter, black frost, locking the country up in iron bonds, and making every bit of ridge and furrow like a sheet of gla.s.s--what's _that_?

Bah! I could go on ad infinitum, and cite "circles of purgatory" in which mortal man is doomed to pa.s.s his time, beside which Dante's Cana, Antenora, and Ptolomea sink into insignificance. But of all Purgatories, chiefest in my memory, is----Pera. Pera in the old Crimean time--Pera the "beautiful suburb" of fond "fiction"--Pera, with the dirt, the fleas, the murders, the mosquitoes, the crooked streets, the lying Greeks, the stench, the hubbub, the dulness, and the everlasting "Bono Johnny."