Barren Honour Part 7

"I should enjoy it, of all things, Alan. On a day like this I believe Maimouna would tire before I should. I never knew what it was to feel _rested_ while riding fast, till I mounted her. Don't be jealous if she begins to know me better than you; you never heard of my visits to the stable, under old Donald's escort, on purpose to pet her. You may order the horses as soon as you please. I must see mamma before we start; but would you like to bet that I am not ready first?"

Alan's reply was on his lips, when the door opened softly, and, gliding in with her usual quiet grace, Lady Mildred joined the party. It was rare indeed that the mistress of Dene favoured the world with her presence before noon. At intervals, upon state occasions, she condescended to preside at breakfast; but, as a rule, took her chocolate and its accessories in her own apartments, and got through the business of her day in solitude. Her letters were always impounded, as soon as the letter bag was opened, by her own maid--a placid, resolute person--a sort of cheap edition of her mistress--who had held her place for many years, and was supposed to know more of the secrets of the boudoir than any creature alive. Women of Lady Mildred's calibre rarely change their confidential servants.

"My lady" was seemingly in a charming humour that morning; she greeted every one most affectionately, and listened to the plan of the long ride with a gentle approval, and even some show of interest. But all the three felt certain that she had good reason for her early appearance.

They were not kept long in suspense.

"I had a letter from Max, this morning," Lady Mildred remarked. "Helen, dear, he says all sorts of kind things about you and Alan, but he reserves most of his congratulations, as he hopes to see you so soon.

You know he has been shooting with Lord Clydesdale, in Perths.h.i.+re, Hubert? Before this news came, he had asked him and Bertie Grenvil to come here for the early part of September; but if you don't wish the engagement to stand, you have only to let him know at once."

His astute helpmate could hardly refrain from smiling at the queer embarra.s.sed expression of the Squire's frank face--she read his feelings so well! Indeed poor Hubert was the worst dissembler alive. He looked wistfully at his two confederates, but there was small chance of succour from that quarter. Helen's glance met her mother's for a second, and she bit her scarlet lip once, but remained perfectly silent. Alan was brus.h.i.+ng away a stray crumb or two from the velvet sleeve of his riding-coat, with a provoking air of absolute unconcern. Vavasour was so intensely hospitable, that he would just as soon have thought of stabbing a guest in his sleep, as of grudging him entertainment, besides there was no earthly reason why either of the names just mentioned should be distasteful to him, or to any one else present; if he felt any real objection, it was more like a presentiment impossible to put into words. Nevertheless there was an unusual gravity in his voice, as he replied--

"Rather an unnecessary question of Max's, dear Mildred. He ought to know, by this time, that his friends are quite as welcome here as my own. As it happens, we have ample room for those two guns during the _early_ (the word was marked) part of September. So many anxious parents will be contending for the possession of Clydesdale, that he will scarcely waste his golden time here beyond a fortnight. Few men are fonder of being persecuted with the attentions of your s.e.x than that very eligible Earl. I believe he thinks it is no use being _the parti_ of England if you don't reap its advantages, before as well as after marriage. I dare say Bertie will stay longer; the mothers, at all events, don't hunt him. I hope he will, for there's no pleasanter boy in a house, and his detrimentalism won't hurt us here. Will you write at once and say that we shall be charmed to see them all?"

Those last words were spoken with rather an unnatural distinctness; it seemed as though it cost the Squire an effort to utter them, and he left the room almost immediately, muttering something about "people waiting for him in his study." After a few minutes more of insignificant conversation not worth recording, the cousins, too, went out to get ready for their ride. Lady Mildred stayed her hand for a moment--she was crumbling bread into cream, carefully, for the Maltese dog's luncheon--and looked after them with a pensive expression on her face, in which mingled a shade of pity. Just so much compa.s.sion may have softened, long ago, the rigid features of some abbess on her tribunal, when after p.r.o.nouncing the fatal _Vade in pace_, she saw an unhappy nun led out between the executioners, to expiate her broken vows.

Whatever might be Miss Vavasour's failings, dilatoriness in dressing was certainly not one of them; she would have won her wager that morning; and yet it would have puzzled the severest critic to have found a fault of omission or commission in her costume as she stood in the recess of one of the windows of the great hall, waiting for the horses and her cousin. He joined her almost immediately, though, and Helen's eyes sparkled more brilliantly, as she remarked a letter in his hand.

"I always quote you and Pauline," Wyverne said, "when people keep their horses at the door for an hour by Shrewsbury clock; but you have outdone yourselves to-day. You deserve a small recompense--_la voila_. It must be a satisfaction to a minor prophetess to find her prediction perfectly realized. My beautiful Sybil! I don't grudge you your triumph, especially as I did not contradict you on the point. The oldest and ugliest of the sisterhood never made a better guess at truth. Read _that_. I shall give 'my lady' the sense of it; but I don't think I shall show it her."

It was Bernard Haldane's answer, and it ran thus:

My dear Alan,--I thank you for your letter, because I am sure it was courteously meant, and, I believe, disinterestedly too; though, as you are my nearest male relation, it might naturally be expected that I should do or promise something on an occasion like this. I wish you to understand plainly, and once for all, that, in the event of your intended marriage taking place, you need antic.i.p.ate no a.s.sistance whatever from me, present or future, before or after my death. I think it best to enter into no explanations and to give no reasons, but simply to state the fact of my having so determined. I have given up congratulating people about anything; but, were it otherwise, I should reserve such formalities for some more auspicious occasion. Neither am I often astonished; but I had the honour of knowing Lady Mildred Vavasour slightly many years ago, and I own to being somewhat surprised at _her_ sanctioning so romantically imprudent an engagement. I will not inflict any sermon upon you; it is only to their heirs that old men have a right to preach. It is unlikely that we shall meet or correspond often again. After what I have written, it seems absurd to say, "I wish you well." Nevertheless--it is so.

Believe me,

Very faithfully yours,

BERNARD HALDANE.

There was disappointment certainly on the beautiful face, but it sprung from a very different cause from that to which Wyverne naturally a.s.signed it. Helen had expected the perusal of a more delicate handwriting. The quaint cynical letter did not interest her much under the circ.u.mstances; however she read it through, and as she gave it back, there was a smile on her proud lip partaking as much of amus.e.m.e.nt as of disdain.

"Let us give credit where credit is due," she said. "I believe it cost Mr. Haldane some pains to compose that answer, short as it is. If you ever speak to him about it, will you say that we considered it very terse and straightforward, and rather epigrammatic? Don't show it to mamma, though. I wonder when she knew Mr. Haldane? Is it not odd that she never alluded to it when his name has been mentioned? Ah, there are the horses at last. Alan, do you see Maimouna arching that beautiful neck of hers? I am certain she is thinking of me. I defy the crossest of uncles to spoil _my_ ride to-day. Will he yours?"

Every shade of bitterness had pa.s.sed away, and the sunniest side of Helen's nature--wayward and wilful at times, but always frank and honest and affectionate--showed itself before she finished speaking.

Reader of mine, whether young or old--suppose yourself, I beseech you, to be standing, with none to witness your weakness, by the side of the Oriana of the hour; let the loveliest of dark eyes be gazing into yours, full of provocative promise, till their dangerous magnetism thrills through brain and nerve and vein, and then--tax your imagination or your memory for Alan Wyverne's answer. You will write it out better than I, and it will be a charity to the printer; for, were it correctly set down, it would be so curiously _broken up_ as to puzzle the cleverest compositor of them all.

Alan and his cousin enjoyed their ride thoroughly, without one _arriere pensee_. Thus far there was not a shadow of suspicion on one side, not the faintest consciousness of intentional concealment on the other; nevertheless, there was already one subject on which they could not speak quite openly and freely. It was early, too early, to begin even a half reserve. When such a sign appears in the "pure aether" so soon after the dawning of love, however light and small and white the cloudlet may be, the weatherwise foretell a misty noon and a stormy sunset.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LONG ODDS ARE LAID.

A man must be very peculiarly const.i.tuted--indeed, there must be something wrong about his organization--if he does not entertain a certain partiality for his female cousins, even to the third and fourth generation. But the same remark by no means applies to the brothers of those attractive kinswomen. Your male cousin either stands first and foremost on the list of your friends, or you are absolutely uninterested in his existence. There _are_ instances of family feuds, of course, but these, nowadays, are comparatively rare. The intercourse between Alan Wyverne and Max Vavasour had never gone deeper than common careless courtesy. It was not to be wondered at. Both were in the best society, but they lived in different sets, meeting often, but seldom coming in actual contact. Just so, they say, the regular pa.s.sengers by the parallel lines of rail converging at London-bridge recognise familiar faces daily as they speed along side by side, though each may remain to the other "nameless, nameless evermore." Besides this, the tastes of the cousins were as dissimilar as their characters; for the mere fact of two men being extravagant by no means establishes a real sympathy between them.

Alan's favourite pursuits you know already. Max was lady Mildred reproduced, with the exception of her great talents, which he had not fully inherited; but he had the same cool calculating brain, with whose combinations the well-disciplined heart never interfered. This, added to a perfect unscrupulousness of thought and action, many diplomatists besides Vavasour have found to be a very fair subst.i.tute for unerring prescience and profound sagacity. Both morally and physically he was wonderfully indolent, and, doing most things well, rarely attempted anything involving the slightest exertion. His shooting was remarkably good; but two or three hours of a battue about the time of the best _bouquets_, or a couple of turnip-fields swarming with birds, round which the stubbles had been driven for miles, were about the extent of his patience or endurance. As for going out for a real wild day after partridges, or walking a quaking bog after snipe, or waiting for ducks at "flight time," he would just as soon have thought of climbing the Schreckhorn. He rode gracefully, and his hand on a horse was perfection; but he had not hunted since he was eighteen, and his hacks, all thoroughbreds with good action, were safe and quiet enough to carry a Premier. He especially affected watching other men start for cover on one of those raw drizzling mornings which sometimes turn out well for hunting, but in every other point of view are absolutely detestable. It was quite a picture to see him return to his breakfast, and dally over it with a leisurely enjoyment, and settle himself afterwards into the easiest of lounging chairs, close to the library fire, with a pile of French novels within reach of his hand. Occasionally, during the course of the morning, he would lay aside his book, to make some such reflective remark as--

"Pours still, doesn't it? About this time Vesey's reins must be thoroughly soaked and slippery. I wonder how he likes riding that pulling mare of his. And I should think Count Casca has more mist on his spectacles than he quite fancies. It's a very strongly enclosed country, I believe, and the ditches are proverbially deep. He must have 'left all to his vife' before this."

And then he would resume his reading, with a shrug of his shoulders, intimating as plainly as words could speak, intense self-congratulation, and contempt for those who were out in the weather. Yet it was not nerve in which Max was deficient. Twice already--he was scarcely twenty-six--his life had been in mortal peril; once at Florence, where he had got into a bad gambling quarrel, and again in a fearful railway accident in England. On both occasions he had shown a cool, careless courage, worthy of the boldest of the valiant men-at-arms whose large-limbed effigies lined the galleries at Dene. In thews and stature and outward seeming he was but a degenerate descendant of that stalwart race, for he was scarcely taller than his sister, and had inherited his mother's smooth dark complexion and delicate proportions. That same indolence, it must be owned, told both ways, and went far to neutralize, for evil as well as for good, the effect of the calculating powers referred to. He had a certain obstinacy of will, and was troubled with a few inconvenient scruples, but wanted initiative energy to entangle himself or others in any of those serious sc.r.a.pes which are not to be settled by money. So far, Max Vavasour's page in the _Chronique Scandaleuse_ was a blank.

The heir of Dene and his friends arrived so late, that they had barely time to dress for dinner. No private conference took place, apparently, between the mother and son that evening; but the latter joined the others very late in the smoking-room. It is scarcely to be presumed that the doffing of _la grande tenue_ and the donning of an elaborately embroidered suit of purple velvet, would consume forty-five minutes; so that half an hour remained unaccounted for, during which interval probably the boudoir was witness to a few important confidences.

Max was rather fond of his sister, after his own fas.h.i.+on, and never vexed or crossed her if he could help it; so when they spoke of her engagement on the following morning, he not only forbore to reproach her with its imprudence, but expressed himself hopefully and kindly enough to satisfy Helen's modest expectations. She knew her brother too well to antic.i.p.ate expansiveness or enthusiasm from _that_ quarter. To Alan he was, naturally, much less cordial in his congratulations; indeed, it was only by courtesy that they could be called congratulations at all. Max had a soft, quiet way of saying unpleasant things--truths or the reverse--that some people rather liked, and others utterly abhorred. On the present occasion he did not scruple to confess frankly his opinion as to the undesirability of the match, to which the other listened with at least equal composure.

"I wish I had not gone to Scotland," Vavasour went on, reflectively. "I do believe I could have stopped it, if I had only been on the spot, or forewarned. I needn't say, I have no prejudices against you personally--n.o.body _has_ any such weaknesses nowadays"--(how very old the young face looked as he said it); "but it's a simple question of political expediency. I may be very fond of Switzerland or Belgium; but, as an ally, I should much prefer France or Russia. The Squire has told you, of course? Things are going hard with us just now. I doubt if the smash can be staved off much longer. A _very_ great match might just have stood between us and ruin; and Helen would have had the chance of it, I am certain. _You_ know that, as well as any one. There is something peculiar about her style of beauty. I am not infatuated about her because she is my sister; but I swear, there was not a woman in London fit to be compared with her last season, and I don't know that I ever saw one--except, perhaps, Nina Lenox in her best days. By the body of Bacchus! we might have had our choice of all the eligibles in England!"

"Including Clydesdale, for instance,"--Wyverne remarked.

There was a smile on his lip, but no mirth in his eyes, which fastened on his cousin's with a piercing earnestness hard to encounter. Not a muscle of Max's face moved, his pale cheek never flushed for an instant, and he returned the other's glance quite as steadily.

"Including Clydesdale,"--he answered, in his grave, gentle tones. "Of course, that would have been the very connexion one would have liked. I should have tried to make up the match, if you had not unfortunately come in the way, and I should do so still if anything were to happen to you. Don't suppose I am going to have you poisoned, or that I shall shoot you by accident, or machinate against you in any way whatever; but life is very uncertain; and--my dear Alan--you do ride remarkably hard."

Wyverne laughed merrily, without the slightest affectation or bitterness. Perhaps he had never liked his companion better than at that moment.

"By heaven, Max," he said--contemplating the philosopher not without admiration--"you're about the coolest hand I know. I don't believe there's another man alive, who would speculate on the advantages contingent on his cousin's breaking his neck, to the face of the said unlucky relation. I've hardly the heart to disappoint you, but--I don't think I shall hunt much this season. I suppose you wouldn't allow Clydesdale to buy Red Lancer, if Vesey does not take him? Ah! I thought not. Seriously--I admit all your objections--and more; but I exhausted my penitence with 'my lady' and the Squire, who appreciated it better than you would do. What would you have? All are not born to be martyrs.

I quite allow that I ought never to have tried to win Helen; but I'm not self-denying enough to give her up. I shall keep her, if I can."

"Of course you will," the other replied, resignedly. "Well, I have said my say, and now things must take their course. _I_ am pa.s.sive. I hope the event may be better than the prospect; but I shall give myself no trouble till the crash comes--nor then, if I can help it. _You_ seem to get on rather better since you were ruined. By the bye, there's no chance, I suppose, of that old ruffian, Haldane's, dying and relenting?

My lady told me about his letter--at least, as much as you chose to tell her."

Wyverne shook his head, but had not time to answer, for at that moment they joined the rest of the shooting-party, who were at luncheon. Max had only come out just in time to have this talk with his cousin; but he remained with them for a couple of hours in the afternoon, seemed in capital spirits, and never shot better in his life.

I will try to sketch the scene, in the cedar drawing-room at Dene, on the fourth evening after the arrival of fresh guests. They are the only addition, so far, to the family party, though more are expected incontinently.

Helen Vavasour is at the piano, and close to her side, on a low chair, placed so that his head almost touches her shoulder, sits Alan Wyverne.

He has behaved perfectly to-day, never attempting to monopolize his _fiancee_, not even securing a place near her when she came out to meet the shooting-party at luncheon; apparently he thinks he has a right to indemnify himself for a brief s.p.a.ce now. It is rather a brilliant piece she is playing, but not so difficult as to interfere with a murmured conversation, evidently very pleasant and interesting to both parties.

The Squire and the Rector are playing their everlasting piquet, which has been going on for nearly a score of years, and is still undecided.

It is a very good match, and both are fair players, though each is disposed privately to undervalue his adversary's science, characterizing him as "the best card-holder in Europe." The great difference is that Vavasour looks at a bad hand with a cheerful unconcern, whereas Geoffry Knowles knits his brow, and bites his lip, when luck is running against him, and has never learnt to dissemble his discontent or discomfiture.

Lady Mildred is reclining on her own peculiar sofa, and, on a stool close to her elbow, lounges Bertie Grenvil--better known as "The Cherub"

in half the fast coteries of London, and throughout the Household Brigade.

It is a very fair face to look upon, shaded by ma.s.ses of soft, sunny silken hair, and lighted up by large, eloquent eyes of the darkest blue.

It would be almost faultless, were it not for the extreme effeminacy, which the delicately trained moustache fails to redeem. He is one of "my lady's" prime favourites; she has a.s.sisted him ere this with her countenance and counsel, when such help was sorely needed; for it is a wild, wicked little creature--reckless and enterprising as Richelieu in his pagehood--always gambling and love-making, in places where he has no earthly business to risk his money or his heart. With those smooth pink-and-white cheeks, and plaintive manner, and innocent ways of his, The Cherub has done more mischief already than a dozen years of perpetual penance could atone for. At this moment he is confiding to "my lady" the hopes and fears of his last _pa.s.sion malheureuse_, suppressing carefully the name of the object--a very superfluous precaution, for Lady Mildred has guessed it long ago, and can afford to be amused--innocently. She knows, what Bertie does not wot of, that his pursuit will be absolutely _theoretical_ and fruitless.

Very near them, lounges Max Vavasour. He looks up, ever and anon, from that eternal _novelette_, and as his eye meets his mother's, a quick glance of intelligence pa.s.ses between them. It is more than probable that he has been, told off for "interior and picket duty" this evening, but the time for action has not yet come.

Only two of the party remain to be noticed. They are sitting together, rather remote from the rest, and somewhat in the shadow. We will take the younger man first, though his appearance is not exactly attractive.

His features, naturally coa.r.s.e and exaggerated, bear evident traces of self-indulgence, if not of intemperance; that cruel sensual mouth would spoil a better face, and the effect of an unpleasantly sanguine complexion is rather heightened than relieved by crisp, strong reddish hair, coming low down on the heavy forehead, and framing the pendulous cheeks; his big, ungainly frame is far too full and fleshy for his years; one solitary sign of "race" shows itself in his hands, somewhat large, but perfectly shaped. Yet, if the possessor of all these personal disadvantages were to enter any London drawing-room side by side with Bertie Grenvil, and it were a question of being warmly welcomed, the odds would be heavily against the Guardsman. I wish an "alarum and flourish of trumpets" were available to accompany the announcement of so august a name. That is no other than Raoul, tenth Earl of Clydesdale, Viscount Artornish, lord of a dozen minor baronies, and Premier _Parti_ of England.

His income varies by tens of thousands, according to the price of divers minerals, but never falls short of the colossal. He owns broad lands and manors in nearly every county north of the Tyne; and, when he came of age four years ago, the border-side blazed with as many bale-fires, as ever were lighted in old days to give warning that the lances of Liddesdale were out on the foray. Ever since he left college, the match-makers of Great Britain have been hard on his trail; and his movements, as chronicled in the _Post_, are watched with a keener interest than attaches to the "progress" of any royal personage. He is so _terribly_ wealthy that even the great city financiers speak of his resources with a certain awe; for, independently of his vast income, there are vague reports of acc.u.mulations, varying from a quarter to half a million. His father died when the present Earl was in his cradle.

There is nothing very remarkable, outwardly, about the other man.