"Oh, dear, no--at least, not quite; she has a husband in India, but then, poor man, he"s so little in the way she need hardly wish him dead."
"I _see_," said Linnett, looking at Mrs. Maberly with a grave interest.
While Miss Blunket was entertaining and instructing little Linnett with this sort of girlish chatter, and from the whist-table, between the deals, arose those critical discussions and reviews, relieved now and then by a joke from the Baronet, or from his partner, Colonel Doocey, at the piano, countenanced by old Lady Blunket, who had come to listen and remained to doze, Beatrix, her fingers still on the keys, was listening to young Strangways.
There are times, lights, accidents, under which your handsome young people become incredibly more handsome, and this Guy Strangways now shared in that translated glory, as he leaned on the back of a tall carved chair, sometimes speaking, sometimes listening.
"It is quite indescribable, Miss Marlowe, how your music interests me--I should say, haunts me. I thought at first it was because you loved ballad music, which I also love; but it is not that--it is something higher and more peculiar."
"I am sure you were right at first, for I _know_ I am a very indifferent musician," said Beatrix, looking down under her long lashes on the keys over which the jewelled fingers of her right hand wandered with hardly a tinkle, just tracing dreamily one of those sweet melancholy airs which made in fancy an accompaniment to the music of that young fellow"s words.
How beautiful she looked, too, with eyes lowered and parted lips, and that listening smile--not quite a smile--drinking in with a strange rapture of pride and softness the flatteries which she refused and yet invited.
"It _is_ something higher and mysterious, which, perhaps, I shall never attempt to explain, unless, indeed, I should risk talking very wildly--too wildly for you to understand, or, if you did, perhaps--to forgive."
"You mentioned a Breton ballad you once heard," said Beatrix, frightened, as girls will sometimes become whenever the hero of their happy hours begins on a sudden to define.
"Yes," he said, and the danger of the crisis was over. "I wish so much I could remember the air, you would so enter into its character, and make its wild unfathomable melancholy so beautifully touching in your clear contralto."
"You must not flatter me; I want to hear more of that ballad."
"If flattery be to speak more highly than one thinks, who can flatter Miss Marlowe?" Again the crisis was menacing. "Besides, I did not tell you we are leaving, I believe, in a day or two, and on the eve of so near a departure, may I not improve the few happy moments that are left me, and be permitted the privilege of a leave-taking, to speak more frankly, and perhaps less wisely than one who is destined to be all his life a neighbour?"
"Papa, I am sure, will be very sorry to hear that you and Monsieur Varbarriere are thinking of going so soon; I must try, however, to improve the time, and hear all you can tell me of those interesting people of Brittany."
"Yes, they are. I will make them another visit--a sadder visit, Mademoiselle--for me a far more interesting one. You have taught me how to hear and see them. I never felt the spirit of Villemarque, or the romance and melancholy of that antique region, till I had the honour of knowing you."
"My friends always laughed at me about Brittany. I suppose different people are interested by different subjects; but I do not think anyone could read at all about that part of the world and not be fascinated.
You promised to tell all you remember of that Breton ballad."
"Oh, yes; the haunted lady, the beautiful lady, the heiress of Carlowel, now such a grand ruin, became enamoured of a mysterious cavalier who wooed her; but he was something not of flesh and blood, but of the spirit world."
"There is exactly such a legend, _so_ far, at least, of a castle on the Rhine. I must show it to you. Do you read German?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle."
"And does the ballad end tragically?"
"Most tragically. You shall hear."
"Where are you, Guy?" in French, inquired a deep ringing voice.
And on the summons, Guy glanced over his shoulder, and replied.
"Oh," exclaimed the same voice, "I demand pardon. I am disturbing conversation, I fear; but an old man in want of a.s.sistance will be excused. I want my road book, Guy, and you have got it. Pray, run up-stairs and fetch it."
With great pleasure, of course, Guy Strangways ran up-stairs to tumble over block-books, letters, diaries, and the general residuum of a half-emptied valise.
Miss Beatrix played a spirited march, which awoke Lady Blunket, whom she had forgotten; and that interesting woman, to make up for lost time, entertained her with a history of the unreasonableness of Smidge, her maid, and a variety of other minute afflictions, which, she a.s.sured Beatrix seriously, disturbed her sleep.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Divan.
That night Sir Jekyl led the gentlemen in a body to his outpost quarters, in the rear of civilisation, where they enjoyed their cigars, brandy and water, and even "swipes," prodigiously. It is a n.o.ble privilege to be so rich as Sir Jekyl Marlowe. The Jewish price for frankincense was thrice its own weight in gold. How much did that aromatic blue canopy that rolled dimly over this Turkish divan cost that off-handed Sybarite? How many scruples of fine gold were floating in that cloud?
Varbarriere was in his way charmed with his excursion. He enjoyed the jokes and stories of the younkers, and the satiric slang and imperturbable good-humour of their host. The twinkle of his eye, from its deep cavern, and the suavity of his solemn features, testified to his profound enjoyment of a meeting to which he contributed, it must be owned, for his own share, little but smoke.
In fact, he was very silent, very observant--observant of more things than the talk perhaps.
All sorts of things were talked about. Of course, no end of horse and dog anecdote--something of wine, something of tobacco, something of the beauties of the opera and the stage, and those sad visions, the fallen angelic of the demimonde--something, but only the froth and sparkle, of politics--light conjecture, and pungent scandal, in the spirit of gay satire and profligate comedy.
"He"s a bad dog, St. Evermore. Did not you hear that about the duel?"
said Drayton.
"What?" asked the Baronet, with an unconscious glance at Guy Strangways.
"He killed that French fool--what"s his name?--unfairly, they say. There has been a letter or something in one of the Paris papers about it.
Fired before his time, I think, and very ill feeling against the English in consequence."
"Oh!" said the Baronet.
"But you know," interposed Doocey, who was an older clubman than Drayton, and remembering further back, thought that sort of anecdote of the duel a little maladroit just then and there, "St. Evermore has been talked about a good deal; there were other things--that horse, you know; and they say, by Jove! he was licked by Tromboni, at the wings of the opera, for what he called insulting his wife; and Tromboni says he"s a marquess, and devil knows what beside, at home, and wanted to fight, but St. Evermore wouldn"t, and took his licking."
"He"s not a nice fellow by any means; but he"s devilish good company--lots of good stories and capital cigars," said Drayton.
At this point M. Varbarriere was seized with a fit of coughing; and Sir Jekyl glanced sharply at him; but no, he was not laughing.
The conversation proceeded agreeably, and some charming stories were told of Sir Paul Blunket, who was not present; and in less than an hour the party broke up and left Sir Jekyl to his solitary quarters.
The Baronet bid his last guest good-night at the threshold, and then shut his door and locked himself in. It was his custom, here, to sleep with his door locked.
"What was that fellow laughing at--Varbarriere? I"m certain he was laughing. I never saw a fellow with so completely the cut of a charlatan. I"ll write to Charteris to-night. I _must_ learn all about him."
Then Sir Jekyl yawned, and reflected what a fool Drayton was, what a fellow to talk, and what a.s.ses all fellows were at that age; and, being sleepy, he postponed his letter to Charteris to the next morning, and proceeded to undress.
Next morning was bright and pleasant, and he really did not see much good in writing the letter; and so he put it off to a more convenient time.
Shortly after the ladies had left the drawing-room for their bed-rooms, Beatrix, having looked in for a moment to her grandmamma"s room, and, with a kiss and a good-night, taken wing again, there entered to Lady Alice, as the old plays express it, then composing herself for the night, Lady Jane"s maid, with--
"Please, my lady, my lady wants to know if your ladyship knows where her ladyship"s key may be?"
"_What_ key?"
"The key of her bedchamber, please, my lady."