"But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you," she repeated. "If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth!
But that"s what he cannot possibly learn in England--not possibly! As for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of yours, Caroline!" addressing the wife of the Marine, "he looks as if he were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier--good anything you will--but, Diacho! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so many intrusive oxen--absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then the half of him forward--I thought he was going to break in two--then grins, and grunts, "Oh! "m sure, beg pardon, "m sure!" I don"t know whether he didn"t say, MARM!"
The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.
"Now that happened to me once at one of our great b.a.l.l.s," she pursued.
"I had on one side of me the d.u.c.h.esse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua; on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love with the Count Belmarana. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de Pel--a horrible creature! Oh! she was the d.u.c.h.ess"s determined enemy-would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men! Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had just said, "This ice sickens me! I do not taste the flavour of the vanille." I answered, "It is here! It must--it cannot but be here! You love the flavour of the vanille?" With her exquisite smile, I see her now saying, "Too well! it is necessary to me! I live on it!"--when up he came. In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe. Oh! I never shall forget! In an instant he was down on one knee it was so momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace. "Pardon!"
he said, in his sweet Portuguese; "Pardon!" looking up--the handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the other night, with his "Oh! "m sure, beg pardon, "m sure! "pon my honour!" I could have kicked him--I could, indeed!"
Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into:
"Alas! that Belmarana should have betrayed that beautiful trusting creature to De Pel. Such scandal! a duel!--the Duke was wounded. For a whole year Eugenia did not dare to appear at Court, but had to remain immured in her country-house, where she heard that Belmarana had married De Pel! It was for her money, of course. Rich as Croesus, and as wicked as the black man below! as dear papa used to say. By the way, weren"t we talking of Evan? Ah,--yes!"
And so forth. The Countess was immensely admired, and though her sisters said that she was "foreignized" overmuch, they clung to her desperately.
She seemed so entirely to have eclipsed tailordom, or "Demogorgon,"
as the Countess was pleased to call it. Who could suppose this grand-mannered lady, with her coroneted anecdotes and delicious breeding, the daughter of that thing? It was not possible to suppose it.
It seemed to defy the fact itself.
They congratulated her on her complete escape from Demogorgon. The Countess smiled on them with a lovely sorrow.
"Safe from the whisper, my dears; the ceaseless dread? If you knew what I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. "Pon my honour, I sometimes wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent husband.
Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a way--a wriggle with his shoulders in company--I cannot describe it to you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire. But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa will go about so, and behave so extraordinarily? I was at dinner at your English emba.s.sy a month ago, and there was Admiral Combleman, then on the station off Lisbon, Sir Jackson Racial"s friend, who was the Admiral at Lymport formerly. I knew him at once, and thought, oh! what shall I do! My heart was like a lump of lead. I would have given worlds that we might one of us have smothered the other! I had to sit beside him--it always happens! Thank heaven! he did not identify me. And then he told an anecdote of Papa. It was the dreadful old "Bath" story. I thought I should have died. I could not but fancy the Admiral suspected. Was it not natural? And what do you think I had the audacity to do? I asked him coolly, whether the Mr. Harrington he mentioned was not the son of Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay,--the gentleman who lost his yacht in the Lisbon waters last year? I brought it on myself. "Gentleman, ma"am,--MA"AM!" says the horrid old creature, laughing, "gentleman! he"s a ---- I cannot speak it: I choke!" And then he began praising Papa.
Diacho! what I suffered. But, you know, I can keep my countenance, if I perish. I am a Harrington as much as any of us!"
And the Countess looked superb in the pride with which she said she was what she would have given her hand not to be. But few feelings are single on this globe, and junction of sentiments need not imply unity in our yeasty compositions.
"After it was over--my supplice," continued the Countess, "I was questioned by all the ladies--I mean our ladies--not your English. They wanted to know how I could be so civil to that intolerable man. I gained a deal of credit, my dears. I laid it all on--Diplomacy." The Countess laughed bitterly. "Diplomacy bears the burden of it all. I pretended that Combleman could be useful to Silva! Oh! what hypocrites we all are, mio Deus!"
The ladies listening could not gainsay this favourite claim of universal brotherhood among the select who wear masks instead of faces.
With regard to Evan, the Countess had far outstripped her sisters in her views. A gentleman she had discovered must have one of two things--a t.i.tle or money. He might have all the breeding in the world; he might be as good as an angel; but without a t.i.tle or money he was under eclipse almost total. On a gentleman the sun must shine. Now, Evan had no t.i.tle, no money. The clouds were thick above the youth. To gain a t.i.tle he would have to scale aged mountains. There was one break in his firmament through which the radiant luminary might be a.s.sisted to cast its beams on him still young. That divine portal was matrimony. If he could but make a rich marriage he would blaze transfigured; all would be well! And why should not Evan marry an heiress, as well as another?
"I know a young creature who would exactly suit him," said the Countess.
"She is related to the emba.s.sy, and is in Lisbon now. A charming child--just sixteen! Dios! how the men rave about her! and she isn"t a beauty,--there"s the wonder; and she is a little too gauche too English in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but doesn"t know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes our ladies, but when you know her!--She will have, they say, a hundred "thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of Sir Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle, Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth, we turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the c.o.c.kchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see, my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an age to receive an impression. And I would take care she did. Instance me a case where I have failed?
"Or there is the Portuguese widow, the Rostral. She"s thirty, certainly; but she possesses millions! Estates all over the kingdom, and the sweetest creature. But, no. Evan would be out of the way there, certainly. But--our women are very nice: they have the dearest, sweetest ways: but I would rather Evan did not marry one of them. And then there "s the religion!"
This was a sore of the Countess"s own, and she dropped a tear in coming across it.
"No, my dears, it shall be Rose Jocelyn!" she concluded: "I will take Evan over with me, and see that he has opportunities. It shall be Rose, and then I can call her mine; for in verity I love the child."
It is not my part to dispute the Countess"s love for Miss Jocelyn; and I have only to add that Evan, unaware of the soft training he was to undergo, and the brilliant chance in store for him, offered no impediment to the proposition that he should journey to Portugal with his sister (whose subtlest flattery was to tell him that she should not be ashamed to own him there); and ultimately, furnished with cash for the trip by the remonstrating brewer, went.
So these Parcae, daughters of the shears, arranged and settled the young man"s fate. His task was to learn the management of his mouth, how to dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--rare qualities in man or woman, I a.s.sure you; the management of the mouth being especially admirable, and correspondingly difficult. These achieved, he was to place his battery in position, and win the heart and hand of an heiress.
Our comedy opens with his return from Portugal, in company with Miss Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and the Count and Countess de Saldar, refugees out of that explosive little kingdom.
CHAPTER IV. ON BOARD THE JOCASTA
From the Tagus to the Thames the Government sloop-of-war, Jocasta, had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed diplomatist and his family; for whose uses let a sufficient vindication be found in the exercise he affords our crews in the science of seamanship. She entered our n.o.ble river somewhat early on a fine July morning. Early as it was, two young people, who had nothing to do with the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g or guiding of the vessel, stood on deck, and watched the double-sh.o.r.e, beginning to embrace them more and more closely as they sailed onward. One, a young lady, very young in manner, wore a black felt hat with a floating scarlet feather, and was clad about the shoulders in a mantle of foreign style and pattern. The other you might have taken for a wandering Don, were such an object ever known; so simply he a.s.sumed the dusky sombrero and dangling cloak, of which one fold was flung across his breast and drooped behind him. The line of an adolescent dark moustache ran along his lip, and only at intervals could you see that his eyes were blue and of the land he was nearing. For the youth was meditative, and held his head much down. The young lady, on the contrary, permitted an open inspection of her countenance, and seemed, for the moment at least, to be neither caring nor thinking of what kind of judgement would be pa.s.sed on her. Her pretty nose was up, sniffing the still salt breeze with vivacious delight.
"Oh!" she cried, clapping her hands, "there goes a dear old English gull! How I have wished to see him! I haven"t seen one for two years and seven months. When I "m at home, I "ll leave my window open all night, just to hear the rooks, when they wake in the morning. There goes another!"
She tossed up her nose again, exclaiming:
"I "m sure I smell England nearer and nearer! I smell the fields, and the cows in them. I"d have given anything to be a dairy-maid for half an hour! I used to lie and pant in that stifling air among those stupid people, and wonder why anybody ever left England. Aren"t you glad to come back?"
This time the fair speaker lent her eyes to the question, and shut her lips; sweet, cold, chaste lips she had: a mouth that had not yet dreamed of kisses, and most honest eyes.
The young man felt that they were not to be satisfied by his own, and after seeking to fill them with a doleful look, which was immediately succeeded by one of superhuman indifference, he answered:
"Yes! We shall soon have to part!" and commenced tapping with his foot the cheerful martyr"s march.
Speech that has to be hauled from the depths usually betrays the effort.
Listening an instant to catch the import of this cavernous gasp upon the brink of sound, the girl said:
"Part? what do you mean?"
Apparently it required a yet vaster effort to p.r.o.nounce an explanation.
The doleful look, the superhuman indifference, were repeated in due order: sound, a little more distinct, uttered the words:
"We cannot be as we have been, in England!" and then the cheerful martyr took a few steps farther.
"Why, you don"t mean to say you"re going to give me up, and not be friends with me, because we"ve come back to England?" cried the girl in a rapid breath, eyeing him seriously.
Most conscientiously he did not mean it! but he replied with the quietest negative.
"No?" she mimicked him. "Why do you say "No" like that? Why are you so mysterious, Evan? Won"t you promise me to come and stop with us for weeks? Haven"t you said we would ride, and hunt, and fish together, and read books, and do all sorts of things?"
He replied with the quietest affirmative.
"Yes? What does "Yes!" mean?" She lifted her chest to shake out the dead-alive monosyllable, as he had done. "Why are you so singular this morning, Evan? Have I offended you? You are so touchy!"
The slur on his reputation for sensitiveness induced the young man to attempt being more explicit.
"I mean," he said, hesitating; "why, we must part. We shall not see each other every day. Nothing more than that." And away went the cheerful martyr in sublimest mood.
"Oh! and that makes you, sorry?" A shade of archness was in her voice.
The girl waited as if to collect something in her mind, and was now a patronizing woman.
"Why, you dear sentimental boy! You don"t suppose we could see each other every day for ever?"
It was perhaps the cruelest question that could have been addressed to the sentimental boy from her mouth. But he was a cheerful martyr!
"You dear Don Doloroso!" she resumed. "I declare if you are not just like those young Portugals this morning; and over there you were such a dear English fellow; and that"s why I liked you so much! Do change!
Do, please, be lively, and yourself again. Or mind; I"ll call you Don Doloroso, and that shall be your name in England. See there!--that"s--that"s? what"s the name of that place? Hoy! Mr. Skerne!"