Sandra Belloni Part 45

"Oh! she stands that. Some of those absurd women like it, I think. She's fussing about another girl."

"You wouldn't?"

"What man's worth it?"

"But, would you?"

"It depends upon the 'him,' monsieur.

"Depends upon his being very handsome!"

"And good."

"And rich?"

"No!" the lady fired up. "There you don't know us."

The colloquy became almost tender, until she said, "Isn't this ga.s.sy, and stifling? I confess I do like a carriage, and Richmond on a Sunday.

And then, with two daughters, you know! But what I complain of is her folly in being in love, or something like it, with a rich fellow."

"Love the poor devil--manage the rich, you mean."

"Yes, of course; that makes them both happy."

"It's a method of being charitable to two."

A rather fleshy fairy now entered, and walked straight up to the looking-gla.s.s to examine her paint--p.r.o.nouncedly turning her back to the sofa, where Mr. Pericles still lay at provoking full length. Her panting was ominous of a further explosion.

"Innocent child!" in the mockery of a foreign accent, commenced it; while Wilfrid thought how unjustly and coldly critically he had accused his little Emilia of vulgarity, now that he had this feminine display of it swarming about him.

"Innocent child, indeed! Be as deaf as you like, you shall hear. And sofas are not made for men's dirty boots, in this country. I believe they're all pigs abroad--the men; and the women--cats! Oh! don't open your eyes--don't speak, pray. You're certain I must go when the bell rings. You're waiting for that, you unmanly dog!"

"A pig," Mr. Pericles here ventured to remind her, murmuring as one in a dream.

"A peeg!" she retorted mildly, somewhat mollified by her apparent success. But Mr. Pericles had relapsed into his exasperating composure.

The breath of a deliberate and undeserved peacefulness continued to be drawn in by his nostrils.

At the accustomed warning there was an ostentatious rustle of retiring dresses; whereat Mr. Pericles chose to proclaim himself awake. The astute fairy-fury immediately stepped before him.

"Now you can't go on pretending sleep. You shall hear, and everybody shall hear. You know you're a villain! You're a wolf seeking..."

Mr. Pericles waved his hand, and she was caught by the wrist and told that the scene awaited her.

"Let them wait!" she shouted, and, sharpening her cry as she was dragged off, "Dare to take that girl to Italy! I know what that means, with you.

An Englishman might mean right--but you! You think you've been dealing with a fool! Why, I can stop this in a minute, and I will. It's you're the fool! Why, I know her father: he plays in the orchestra. I know her name--Belloni!"

Up sprang the Greek like a galvanized corpse; while two violent jerks from the man hauling her out rattled the laugh of triumph which burst from her. At the same time Wilfrid strove forward, with the frown of one still bent listening, and he and Pericles were face to face. The eyebrows of the latter shot up in a lively arch. He made a motion toward the ceremony of 'shake-hands;' but, perceiving no correspondent overture, grinned, "It is warm--ha?"

"You feel the heat? Step outside a minute," said Wilfrid.

"Oh, no!" Mr. Pericles looked pleasantly sagacious. "Ze draught--a cold."

"Will you come?" pursued Wilfrid.

"Many sanks!"

Wilfrid's hand was rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. Pericles said, "You are on a search for your father? You have found him? Hom! I should say a maladie of nerfs will come to him. A pin fall--he start! A storm at night--he is out dancing among his s.h.i.+ps of venture! Not a bid of corage!--which is bad. If you shall find Mr. Pole for to-morrow on ze lawn, vary glad."

With a smile compounded of sniffing dog and Parisian obsequiousness, Mr. Pericles pa.s.sed, thinking "He has not got her:" for such was his deduction if he saw that a man could flush for a woman's name.

Wilfrid stood like a machine with a thousand wheels in revolt.

Sensations p.r.i.c.ked at ideas, and immediately left them to account for their existence as they best could. The ideas committed suicide without a second's consideration. He felt the great gurgling sea in which they were drowned heave and throb. Then came a fresh set, that poised better on the slack-rope of his understanding. By degrees, a buried dread in his brain threw off its shroud. The thought that there was something wrong with his father stood clearly over him, to be swallowed at once in the less tangible belief that a harm had come to Emilia--not was coming, but had come. Pa.s.sion thinks wilfully when it thinks at all. That night he lay in a deep anguish, revolving the means by which he might help and protect her. There seemed no way open, save by making her his own; and did he belong to himself? What bound him to Lady Charlotte? She was not lovely or loving. He had not even kissed her hand; yet she held him in a chain.

The two men composing most of us at the outset of actual life began their deadly wrestle within him, both having become awakened. If they wait for circ.u.mstance, that steady fire will fuse them into one, who is commonly a person of some strength; but throttling is the custom between them, and we are used to see men of murdered halves. These men have what they fought for: they are unaware of any guilt that may be charged against them, though they know that they do not embrace Life; and so it is that we have vague discontent too universal. Change, O Lawgiver!

the length of our minority, and let it not end till this battle is thoroughly fought out in approving daylight. The period of our duality should be one as irresponsible in your eyes as that of our infancy.

Is he we call a young man an individual--who is a pair of alternately kicking scales? Is he educated, when he dreams not that he is divided?

He has drunk Latin like a vital air, and can quote what he remembers of Homer; but how has he been fortified for this tremendous conflict of opening manhood, which is to our life here what is the landing of a soul to the life to come?

Meantime, it is a bad business when the double-man goes about kneeling at the feet of more than one lady. Society (to give that inst.i.tution its due) permits him to seek partial invulnerability by dipping himself in a dirty Styx, which corrects, as we hear said, the adolescent tendency to folly. Wilfrid's sentiment had served him (well or ill as it may be), by keeping him from a headlong plunge in the protecting river; and his folly was unchastened. He did not even contemplate an escape from the net at Emilia's expense. The idea came. The idea will come to a young man in such a difficulty. "My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My dark angel of love!" He deserves a little credit for seeing that Emilia never could be his mistress, in the debased sense of the term. Union with her meant life-long union, he knew. Ultimate mental subjection he may also have seen in it, unconsciously. For, hazy thoughts of that nature may mix with the belief that an alliance with her degrades us, in this curious hotch-potch of emotions known to the world as youthful man.

A wife superior to her husband makes him ridiculous wilfully, if the wretch is to be laughed at; but a mistress thus ill-matched cannot fail to cast the absurdest light on her monstrous dwarf-custodian. Wilfrid had the sagacity to perceive, and the keen apprehension of ridicule to shrink from, the picture. Besides, he was beginning to love Emilia.

His struggle now was to pluck his pa.s.sion from his heart; and such was already his plight that he saw no other way of attempting it than by taking horse and riding furiously in the direction of Besworth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

"I am curious to see what you will make of this gathering. I can cook a small company myself. It requires the powers of a giantess to mix a body of people in the open air; and all that is said of commanders of armies shall be said of you, if you succeed."

This was Lady Gosstre's encouragement to the fair presidents of the fete on Besworth Lawn. There had been a time when they would have cried out internally: "We will do it, fail who may." That fallow hour was over.

Their sole thought was to get through the day. A little feverish impulse of rivalry with her great pattern may have moved Arabella; but the pressure of grief and dread, and the contrast between her actions and feelings, forcibly restrained a vain display. As a consequence, she did her duty better, and won applause from the great lady's moveable court on eminences of the ground.

"These girls are clever," she said to Lady Charlotte. "They don't bustle too much. They don't make too distinct a difference of tone with the different sets. I shall propose Miss Pole as secretary to our Pin and Needle Relief Society."

"Do," was the reply. "There is also the Polish Dance Committee; and, if she has any energy left, she might be treasurer to the Ladies' General Revolution Ball."

"That is an a.s.sociation with which I am not acquainted," said Lady Gosstre, directing her eye-gla.s.s on the field. "Here comes young Pole.

He's gallant, they tell me, and handsome: he studies us too obviously.

That's a mistake to be corrected, Charlotte. One doesn't like to see a pair of eyes measuring us against a preconception quelconque. Now, there is our Ionian Am...but you have corrected me, Merthyr:--host, if you please. But, see! What is the man doing? Is he smitten with madness?"

Mr. Pericles had made a furious dash at the band in the centre of the lawn, scattered their music, and knocked over the stands. When his gesticulations had been observed for some moments, Freshfield Sumner said: "He has the look of a plucked hen, who remembers that she once clapped wings, and tries to recover the practice."

"Very good," said Lady Gosstre. She was not one who could be unkind to the professional wit. "And the music-leaves go for feathers. What has the band done to displease him? I thought the playing was good."

"The instruments appear to have received a dismissal," said Lady Charlotte. "I suppose this is a clearing of the stage for coming alarums and excursions. Behold! the 'female element' is agitated. There are--can you reckon at this distance, Merthyr?--twelve, fourteen of my s.e.x entreating him in the best tragic fas.h.i.+on. Can he continue stern?"

"They seem to be as violent as the women who tore up Orpheus," said Lady Gosstre.

Tracy Runningbrook shrieked, in a paroxysm, "Splendid!" from his couch on the sward, and immediately ran off with the idea, bodily.