She was a girl to be proud of, ay, and fond of too. Miss Ross described her beauty graphically enough when she said it was that of an old Greek _bas-relief_. The features were as regular, the brow as low and wide, the under part of the face slightly prominent, and the mouth, when seen in front, forming that beautiful curve so rarely modelled but in the antique--such a mouth as denotes sensibility, firmness, courage, sympathy, and other n.o.ble characteristics of womankind.
In addition to these advantages, Helen possessed what are called "Irish eyes"--deep, soft, and winning, frank, modest, and full of intellect. I can think of no other epithet to convey their l.u.s.tre and their charm.
They were, probably, blue-grey, like Minerva"s, but you never thought of their colour, fringed as they were by curling eye-lashes darker than her hair, and surmounted by firm, well-defined eye-brows of a yet deeper shade than either. She was rather tall, too, and handsomely formed, with shapely hands and feet; but the graceful figure suggested a fair amount of strength and energy, nor were you surprised to learn that she could ride, walk, garden, and milk a cow. There were few better waltzers anywhere, and no such skater in the shire. Moreover, though she never confessed to it, I believe she used to play cricket with her brother, and was an undeniable long-stop.
Sir Henry looked fondly in her face, and his heart smote him to think that he should ever have contemplated the possibility of setting any other woman over his daughter"s head.
"Letters, Nelly," said he, tossing her over a packet of them to open, while he proceeded with his breakfast. "The old story, of course, county meetings, advertis.e.m.e.nts for wire-fences, curse them! cheap wines; nothing from Harry--he never writes but when he wants money--to be sure that"s nearly every mail--and two or three tradesmen"s bills, which you may put in the fire without opening."
"Why don"t you _pay_ your bills?" said Miss Helen, who was rather fond of lecturing her papa; it was her favourite way of petting him. "You let them run up, and forget all about it; and then, when you want to buy a horse, the money is required for something else. Now, look at me; I keep the house accounts to a fraction, and pay them the first Monday in every month to a minute."
Sir Henry laughed.
"How can I pay your debts and my own too? You spend all my money in soap and sand-paper, you little tyrant, and expect me to find myself in boots, gloves, saddlery, and the common necessaries of life. Nelly, you"re the plague of my existence!"
"I wish you would let me manage all these things for you," insisted Miss Nelly, with great solemnity; "I"m sure you"re cheated, papa, and you"re far too generous and open-hearted. Besides, you hate accounts, and I _know_ you pay them often without adding them up. How I like figures! I like managing--I like looking into things--I like having plenty to do."
"You"ll have a house of your own to manage some day," answered her father gaily, "and a husband too, you little witch. I"m sure I don"t envy him!"
But his face fell while he spoke; for he was thinking, when the fatal time came, what should he do without his darling, the light, and joy, and comfort of his home?
Miss Helen blushed. Perhaps she too had not been without her maiden dreams of some such contingency hereafter. Perhaps she had foreshadowed to herself the semblance of a future lord, whom she would tend as fondly and love even more devotedly than papa. Perhaps already that phantom shape had been filled in and coloured, and appeared visibly in the flesh.
"Halloo, young woman!" exclaimed Sir Henry, tossing another letter across the table, "here"s something for you! An enormous envelope, stamped with the arms of the Household Cavalry. Bravo, Nell! Have they offered you a cornetcy, or a situation as bandmaster, or what?"
The blush deepened on Helen"s face till it spread to the roots of her thick dark hair; but she put back the unopened letter in her father"s hand, and, stealing round his chair, leaned on his shoulder, while she stood behind him.
"Read it, papa," said she; "n.o.body in the world can have anything to say to me that ought not to come to you first."
Again that pang of remorse shot through him, as he remembered his own unworthiness. "What a good girl I have got!" he thought; "and what a poor, irresolute wretch I am! I cannot trust myself for a day! I ought to be better; I wish I could try to be better! Here have I been, ready to gamble away my child"s position and her every-day comfort for the sake of a pair of black eyes and lanthorn jaws that I had never seen a month ago, that I don"t care for half as I do for Nell!--that don"t care a bra.s.s farthing for _me_! And I"d do it again, I _know_, under temptation--that"s the worst of it! Ah! I wish I had led a different life, for Nelly"s sake. I wonder if it"s too late to begin now?"
Then he read his daughter"s letter, a correct and harmless production as could possibly be addressed to a young lady under the immediate supervision of her papa, consisting indeed but of a few choice lines, to express, with much politeness, the writer"s intention of "availing himself of Sir Henry"s kindness, and of trespa.s.sing on his hospitality for a couple of days" hunting the following week," with a studied apology for addressing the daughter of the house, according to her father"s express directions, who had feared he might be away from home when the letter arrived; the whole concluding with a vague allusion to a ball of the previous season, which might mean anything, or might not.
"I told him to write to you, Nelly," said Sir Henry, tearing the letter across and throwing it into the waste-paper basket; "it"s lucky I did, for I had forgotten all about it. And now I"m not quite sure which of these fellows it is, they"re all so alike, and they all ride chestnut horses with great liberality, I must admit. Vanguard, Vanguard--which was Vanguard? The little fellow with light hair, or the stout man who spilt sherry over your dress? I believe I asked them all here next week."
"Nonsense, papa!" replied Helen; "you"re thinking of Sir Charles Carter and Mr. Peac.o.c.k. Captain Vanguard is the gentleman we met at Lady Clearwell"s, and who was so civil about his brougham when our carriage got smashed."
"I remember!" exclaimed Sir Henry, suddenly enlightened, "a man with a squint----"
"A squint!" returned Helen, indignantly. "Oh, papa! how can you say so?
He"s got beautiful eyes; at least--I mean----" she added, picking herself up with some confusion, "he hasn"t the slightest vestige of a squint! And you thought him good-looking."
"Did _you_ think him good-looking, Nelly?" said her father; "that"s more to the purpose."
"I never thought about it," answered the girl, tossing her head, yet smiling a little with her deep expressive eyes. "He seemed gentleman-like and good-natured, and you said you wanted to be civil to him; so he"d better come here, I suppose, and I"ll see that his room is comfortable and his fire lit--that"s _my_ department. Now, papa, if you mean to be provoking, I"ll go and attend to my own business: I"ve plenty to do, and you"re not to have any more tea. What an hour to have just finished breakfast! Shall I ring?"
"Ring away, Nelly," said her father, putting a cigar in his mouth, and sauntering off for his usual visit to the stables.
But Helen dipped into the waste-paper basket, and extracted therefrom the two torn halves of Frank Vanguard"s letter, which she pieced together and perused attentively. Then she folded them carefully in their envelope, also torn, and placed the whole in her ap.r.o.n pocket, ere she rang the bell and sailed off on her daily avocations; from all which I infer that, notwithstanding her denial, she _had_ thought about the writer"s good looks, and was, at least, perfectly satisfied that his eyes had not the remotest tendency to a squint!
CHAPTER IV.
AMAZONS.
"My dear, the Amazons were quite right." It was Mrs. Lascelles who spoke, sitting in the easiest chair of her boudoir, and listening to an account of those remarkable women, read aloud by Miss Ross. The ladies had not been studying Herodotus, amusing and improbable as are the anecdotes of that gossiping historian, but took their information from an author of later date, less quaint, more voluminous, and perhaps as little to be trusted.
Miss Ross shut her book and yawned. "I think they should have gone in for man-hating altogether," she replied. "I am dead against half-measures, and I never can see why you shouldn"t kick people because they are down!"
"I wish I had always thought so," said the other, with something like a sigh. "We poor women must learn to take care of ourselves. Well, I am wiser now, and really, Jin, I think it"s partly owing to you."
Miss Ross was still thinking of the Amazons. "Why didn"t they kill their prisoners at once?" she asked. "It would have been more dignified, and more--what shall I say? more _manly_ altogether."
"I think the other plan was better," answered Mrs. Lascelles. "You see, they kept them long enough to make them unhappy, if they had no other motive, and then put them out of the way just as the captives were beginning to get attached to their conquerors. They don"t seem to have minded mutilating _themselves_; I dare say that was very natural. Jin, I think I should like to have been an Amazon."
"You"re too soft-hearted," answered the other. "Now I could condemn a man to death with less compunction than you would show in ordering a child to be whipped. I have no pity for the n.o.bler s.e.x, as they call themselves. "War to the knife!" that"s my motto!"
"I think I have been used badly enough," said Mrs. Lascelles, looking the while extremely prosperous and self-satisfied. "I am sure my early life has not been the happier for my relations with the lords of the creation. Two or three false lovers, my dear, and a bad husband, are not calculated to raise one"s opinion of the race; but I am not so bitter as you are, by many degrees."
"Heaven forbid!" replied Miss Ross, while a shadow pa.s.sed across her dark, expressive face. "I should be sorry for any woman who could feel as I do; sorrier still if she had learnt her lesson as I did."
She was silent for a few minutes, looking back, as it seemed, with horror and self-aversion, into the depths of a cruel and hideous past; a past that had uns.e.xed and made her what she was now; that had caused her to originate one of the strangest compacts ever entered into by two women, and enthusiastically to abide by her own share in the agreement.
Mrs. Lascelles and Miss Ross had struck up a firm alliance, offensive and defensive, with the object of persistently carrying out a system of aggressive warfare against the masculine half of the human race. The elder and richer lady had proposed to the younger and poorer, that she should take up her abode with her, and be to her as a sister. In the world, Mrs. Lascelles gave out that Miss Ross was her cousin; nor did a large circle of London acquaintances think it worth while to verify the a.s.sumed relationship. They saw two pretty women, living together in a good house, remarkably well dressed, driving the neatest carriage, and the truest steppers in London, going out little, but to "good places,"
and were quite willing to accept their own account of themselves, without making further inquiry. Everybody knew _who_ Mrs. Lascelles was (it would have denoted rustic ignorance not to be aware that she had missed becoming Lady St. Giles), and, after the first week or two, the companion who went about with her was no longer "_a_ Miss Ross," but had established her position as "Miss Ross--clever girl, with black eyes--cousin, you know, of dear Rose."
So these two might be seen in the Park twice a week; at the Opera once; occasionally at a ball; more frequently at those unaccountable functions called "drums," where hundreds of people congregate in a s.p.a.ce intended for tens, and the world seems engaged, somewhat wearily and with customary ill success, in looking about for its wife.
But it was Miss Ross who had struck out the happy idea on which hung the whole strength and motive of the alliance.
She it was who suggested, that at all times, and under all conditions, as much harm should be done to the peace of mind of every man within reach as could be accomplished by two fascinating women, with all the advantages of good fortune, good looks, good taste, and good position.
"You"ve got the money, dear," said she to her patroness, "and most of the beauty, in my opinion, the friends, the foothold, and the rest of it; but, I think, _I"ve_ got the energy and the obstinacy, and my share of the brains; above all, the _rancour_ that can carry us through any opposition in the world!"
So they started on the war-path at once, even before Easter; and a very pleasant "fillibustering" expedition they made of it. Not many scalps were taken perhaps at first; but the defences of the white man were examined and broken through, his habits studied, his weapons blunted, his mode of strategy laid bare. By the middle of May, sundry Pale-Faces were going about with strange sensations under their waistcoats, that only wanted a little chafing to become serious disease of the heart. The aggravation was sure to follow, else wherefore were dresses of exquisite fabric contracted, gloves and bonnets sent home, coils of fragrant hair laid fold on fold, smooth, shining, and insidious as the involutions of the great Serpent himself? It was difficult to say which of these two Amazons could boast the highest score of victims. Perhaps Mrs. Lascelles proved most successful in the ma.s.sacre of middle-aged adorers, while young boys and old gentlemen fell prostrate without effort, willing captives to the devilry and seductions of Miss Ross.
Amongst the eldest of these, and the wisest, in his own opinion, was a certain Mr. Groves, a relative by marriage of Mrs. Lascelles, who persisted in calling him "Uncle Joseph," a name by which he soon became known in the circle of her intimates. This gentleman, at a mature period of life, when years are counted by scores and romance is supposed to have made way for comfort and self-indulgence, found his defences suddenly exposed to the merciless attacks of Miss Ross. He liked it uncommonly at first, flattering himself that at his age flirtation was a harmless and pleasing excitement, which he could leave off when it became oppressive or inconvenient, and that, if worst came to worst, he was in good hands,--the girl seemed so attached to him, so confiding, so sincere! Uncle Joseph used to rub his bald head in his cooler moments, and wonder fully as much at her as himself; but, with the lapse of years, he had at least learned that it is not well to a.n.a.lyse our pleasures too minutely; and he generally summed up with the philosophical reflection, that there was no accounting for taste. If the girl liked a man old enough to be her father, why it only showed she was a girl of sense, who knew the world, "Ay, and more than that, sir, a girl who knows her own mind!"
By degrees, however, Uncle Joseph, having, it is to be presumed, forgotten the tender experiences of youth, was surprised to find his habits altered, his snuff-box put aside, his after-dinner slumbers abolished, nay, the fashion of his garments derided, his very tailor changed, and tyrannical exception taken to the thickness of his boots.
He kicked stoutly at first, but without avail. He was never comfortable now, seldom happy. The clubs and haunts he had once delighted to frequent knew him no more, and he had taken to wander about the Park like a restless spirit, amongst boys who might have been his grandsons, disappointed, as it would seem, in a vague search for some object, which yet he never really expected to find.
So altered was the man, that he actually consulted an eminent hairdresser on the propriety of setting up a wig!
"Don"t be late, dear, to-night," said Mrs. Lascelles, waking up from a fit of musing, possibly on the habits of the Amazons; "there"s n.o.body coming, I think, but Uncle Joseph, and he hates waiting for dinner.
Perhaps he"s still more fidgety when he is waiting for you."