Vera Nevill Part 46

The eldest Miss Frampton is thirty-five if she is a day; she is large and bony, much given to beads and bangles, and to talking about the military men she has known, and whom she usually calls by their surnames alone, like a man. She goes familiarly amongst her acquaintance by the name of the Dragoon.

A cold s.h.i.+ver pa.s.ses visibly down Mr. Wilde's back; unfortunately Miss Nevill perceives it, and makes up her mind instantly.

"I would not deprive you of so charming a companion," she says, smiling sweetly at him, and pa.s.ses her arm through that of the French vicomte.

At dinner, poor Denis Wilde curses Monsieur D'Arblet; Miss Frampton, and his own fate, indiscriminately and ineffectually. He is sitting exactly opposite to his divinity, but he cannot even enjoy the felicity of staring at her, for Miss Frampton will not let him alone. She chatters unceasingly and gus.h.i.+ngly. At an early period of the repast the string of her amber-bead necklace suddenly gives way with a snap. The beads trickle slowly down, one by one; half a dozen of them drop with a cracking noise, like little marbles, upon the polished floor, where there is a general scramble of waiters and gentlemen under the table together after them; two fall into her own soup, three more on to Denis Wilde's table-napkin; as fast as the truants are picked up others are shed down in their wake from the four apparently inexhaustible rows that garnish her neck.

Miss Frampton bears it all with serene and smiling good temper.

"Dear me, I am really very sorry to give so much trouble. It doesn't signify in the least, Mr. Wilde--thanks, that is one more. Oh, there goes another into the sweet-breads; but I really don't mind if they are lost.

Jameson, of the 17th, gave them to me. Do you know Jameson? cousin of Jameson, in the 9th; he brought them from Italy, or Turkey, or somewhere.

I am sure I don't remember where amber comes from; do you, Mr. Wilde?"

Mr. Wilde, if he is vague as to where it comes from, is quite decided as to where he would desire it to go. At this moment he had crunched a tender tooth down upon one of these infernal beads, having helped himself to it unconsciously out of the sweetbread dish.

Is he doomed to swallow amber beads for the remainder of the repast? he asks himself.

"Did you ever meet Archdale, the man who was in the 16th?" continues Miss Frampton, glibly, unconscious of his agonies; "he exchanged afterwards into the 4th--he is such a nice fellow. I lunched every day at Ascot this year on the 16th's drag. The first day I met Lester--that's the major, you know--and Lester is _such_ a pet! He told me to come every day to lunch, and bring any of my friends with me; so, of course, I did, and there wasn't a better lunch on the course; and, on the cup-day, Archdale came up and talked to me--he abused the champagne-cup, though; he said there was more soda-water than champagne in it--the more he drank of it the more dreadfully sober he got. However, I am invited to lunch with the 4th at Goodwood. They are going to have a spread under the trees, so I shall be able to compare notes about the champagne-cup. I know two other men in the 4th; Hopkins and Lambert; do you know them?" and so on, until pretty well half the army list and all the luncheon-giving regiments in the service had been pa.s.sed under review.

And there, straight opposite to him, was Vera, laughing at his discomfiture, he was sure, but also listening to the flattering rubbish which that odious little Frenchman was pouring into her ears.

Did ever young man sit through such a detestable and abominable repast?

If Denis Wilde had been rash enough to nourish insane hopes with regard to moonlight wanderings in the pleasant garden after dinner, these hopes were destined to be blighted.

They were a party of twelve; the waiting was bad, and the courses numerous; the dinner was a lengthy affair altogether. By the time it was over, and coffee had been discussed on the terrace outside the house, the carriages came round to the door, and the ladies of the party voted that it was time to go home.

Soon everybody stood clothed in summer ulsters or white dust-cloaks, waiting in the hall. The coach started from the door with much noise and confusion, with a good deal of plunging from the leaders, and some jibbing from the wheelers, accompanied by a very feeble performance on that much-abused instrument, the horn, by an amateur who occupied a back seat; and after it had departed, a humble train of neat broughams and victorias came trooping up in its wake.

"You will see," said nonent.i.ty number one, in her friend's ear; "you will see that Nevill girl will go back in some man's brougham--that is what she has been waiting for; otherwise, she would have perched herself up on the box-seat of the coach, in the most conspicuous place she could find."

"What a disgraceful creature she must be!" is the indignantly virtuous reply.

The "Nevill girl," however, disappointed the expectations of both these charitable ladies by quietly taking her place in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham, by her friend's side, amid a shower of "Good-nights" from the remainder of the party.

"Ah!" said the nonent.i.ty, with a vicious gasp, "you may be sure she has some disreputable supper of men, and cigars, and brandies and sodas waiting for her up in town, or she would never go off so meekly as that in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham. Still waters run deep, my dear!"

"She is a horrid, disreputable girl, I am quite sure of that," is the answer. "I am very thankful, indeed, that I haven't the misfortune of knowing her."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MRS. HAZELDINE'S "LONG ELIZA."

Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool.

Christopher Marlowe.

For every inch that is not fool is rogue.

Dryden.

The scene is Mrs. Hazeldine's drawing-room, in Park Lane, the hour is four o'clock in the afternoon, and the _dramatis personae_ are Miss Nevill, very red in the face, standing in a corner, behind an oblong velvet table covered with china ornaments, and Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet, also red in the face, gesticulating violently on the further side of it.

Miss Nevill, having retired behind the oblong table, purely from prudential motives of personal safety, is devoured with anxiety concerning the too imminent fate of her hostess' china. There is a little Lowestoft tea-service that was picked up only last week at Christie and Manson's, a turquoise blue crackle jar that is supposed to be priceless, and a pair of "Long Eliza" vases, which her hostess loves as much as she does her toy terrier, and far better than she loves her husband.

What will become of her, Vera Nevill, if Mrs. Hazeldine comes in presently and finds these treasures lying in a thousand pieces upon the floor? And yet this is what she is looking forward to, as only too probable a catastrophe.

Vera feels much as must have felt the owner of the proverbial bull in the crockery shop--terror mingled with an overpowering sense of responsibility. All personal considerations are well-nigh merged in the realization of the danger which menaces her hostess' property.

"Monsieur D'Arblet, I must implore you to calm yourself," she says, desperately.

"And how, mademoiselle, I ask you, am I to be calm when you speak of shattering the hopes of my life?" cries the vicomte, who is dancing about frantically backwards and forwards, in a clear s.p.a.ce of three square yards, between the different pieces of furniture by which he is surrounded, all equally fragile, and equally loaded with destructible objects.

"_Pray_ be careful, Monsieur D'Arblet, your sleeve nearly caught then in the handle of that Chelsea basket," cries Vera, in anguish.

"And what to me are Chelsea baskets, or china, or trash of that kind, when you, cruel one, are determined to scorn me?"

"Oh, if you would only come outside and have it out on the staircase,"

murmurs Vera, piteously.

"No, I will never leave this room, never, mademoiselle, until you give me hope; never will I cease to importune you until your heart relents towards the _miserable_ who adores you!"

Here Monsieur D'Arblet made an attempt to get at his charmer by coming round the end of the velvet table.

Vera felt distracted. To allow him to execute his maneuver was to run the chance of being clasped in his arms; to struggle to get free was the almost certainty of upsetting the table.

She cast a despairing glance across the room at the bell-handle, which was utterly beyond her reach. There was no hope in that direction.

Apparently, moral persuasion was her only chance.

"Monsieur D'Arblet, I _forbid_ you to advance a step nearer to me!"

He fell back with a profound sigh.

"Mademoiselle, I love you to distraction. I am unable to disobey your commands."

"Very well, then, listen to me. I cannot understand this violent outburst of emotion. You have done me the honour to propose to marry me, and I have, with many thanks for your most flattering distinction, declined your offer. Surely, between a lady and a gentleman, there can be nothing further to say; it is not inc.u.mbent upon you to persecute me in this fas.h.i.+on."

"Miss Nevill, you have treated me with a terrible cruelty. You have encouraged my ardent pa.s.sion for you until you did lift me up to Heaven."

Here Monsieur D'Arblet stretched up both his arms with a suddenness which endangered the branches of the tall Dresden candelabra on the high mantelpiece behind him. "After which you do reject me and cast me down to h.e.l.l!" and down came both hands heavily upon the velvet table between them. The blue crackle jar, the two "Long Eliza" vases, and all the Lowestoft cups and saucers, literally jumped upon their foundations.

"For Heaven's sake!" cried Vera.

"Ah!" in a tone of deep reproach, "do not plead with me, mademoiselle; you have broken my heart."