"Vansittart is in love with Mrs. Devereux"s eldest girl, Connie. She is a pretty little kitten of a thing, but a mere child--a doll. I go there rather often--they are old friends of mine. Whenever I go, he is always there."
For a moment Virginia feels as though she were dying; then, by an extraordinary effort, she recovers herself.
"I would rather have my tongue cut out than tell you," Lord Harford continues, half-ashamed, "only that I want you to know where your refuge is if he breaks your heart. Oh!" imploringly, "why will you not care for me who am ready to devote my life to you? Marry me, and let us go abroad and win health for you and happiness for me!"
His voice is broken with emotion--he takes one of her hands in his. She is leaning back in her chair, very white--she is hardly conscious of his action--all the hot blood in his veins cannot warm her chill white fingers.
"Do you think," she says at last, very slowly, "that if--if he were rid of me, he would marry her? Does she care for him?"
"I don"t think about it. Yes, it is very strange; but, child as she is, he has perfectly infatuated her."
There is another long pause, during which he eagerly scans her face.
Suddenly her eyes light up, and she returns his glance.
"Are you _really_ willing to marry me?" she says.
"Why do you ask?" he returns, simply. "Are my eyes not honest?"
Virginia smiles. "If you mean it," she says, "go now, and write me the same words to-night or to-morrow."
So, as she bids him, he goes.
Lord Harford had set down nothing in malice. What he told Virginia is absolutely true. Philip Vansittart is in love with a gay, pretty child, whose winsome tricks have coiled her round his heart. He has never spoken one word of love to her, for he feels and knows himself as much bound to Virginia as though the marriage-tie he once so utterly abhorred linked them. He no longer, strange to say, thinks and speaks so evilly of marriage. Were he free, would he not joyfully chain himself with all the bonds that church and society can impose to this sweet young life which would make him young again? He has no thought or desire to blast this girl-life as he had done Virginia"s. Perish the thought! When these ideas come to him, he hates and loathes himself; he makes superhuman efforts to drive them away--but the limpid blue eyes come and look at him over his briefs; the childish voice rings in his ears in the night watches! He grows pale and haggard. At last he makes a mighty resolve.
"Virginia," he says, two nights after Lord Harford"s visit to her, "let us be married!"
He takes her hand kindly, but his eyes do not meet hers, and the tender inflection of yore is missing from his voice.
Virginia betrays no surprise. Poor soul! She understands too well.
"Why?" she says quietly. "I think we are very well as we are."
"No," he returns hastily, "we are not! My views have changed on the subject--changed entirely. Marriage is the best thing. It decides your fate. To live as we do is neither one thing nor the other."
"You forget," she says, in a tone so calm as to be almost unnatural.
"This state has great advantages. There is no tie between us. If either of us tired of the other, there is nothing to hinder our parting, to-morrow--to-night even." He looks at her, speechless with amazement.
Her eyes do not flinch from his. "If," she continues, with that terrible calmness,--"if you wanted to marry Miss Constance Devereux; if I wished to marry--let us say, Lord Harford--there is nothing to prevent it except," slowly, "the unwritten law of a faithful heart."
Philip Vansittart leans his face between his hands. He cannot find a word to say. He is smitten with remorse, for he knows well enough that she is faithful. But why that allusion to Lord Harford?
"What do you mean about Harford?" he asks presently.
"He wants me to marry him," replied Virginia quietly. "He asked me four years ago; he asked me again the day before yesterday."
She draws a letter from her pocket, and scans Philip"s face as he reads it. When he has finished, he looks at her. She understands his glance but too well. There is an only half-suppressed eagerness--a half-suppressed hope in it.
"What shall I do?" she says, so quietly that it deceives him.
"There is no better fellow living than Harford," he says cordially. "If you thought you could be happy with him; if--"
He stops abruptly. There is a look of such terrible agony in Virginia"s face that he starts up and takes her hand.
"No, no," he cries. "Let it be as I said. Let us marry each other. It is the only thing to be done."
Virginia"s ears, sharpened by suffering, catch the dreary tone of the concluding words.
Next morning, when Philip, according to custom, went to Virginia"s room, he found her asleep. From that sleep she never woke. One more of those unfortunate cases of an overdose of chloral. The deceased lady had suffered much from sleeplessness, and always kept the fatal drug by her bedside.
The church gave its blessing, and society smiled when that heretic and sceptic Mr. Vansittart led his charming girl-bride to the altar a few months later. It was whispered that there had been an--entanglement, but that was all hushed up now, and he had become a respectable member of society.
MR. JOSIAH SMITH"S BALLOON JOURNEY.
It would be an injustice to Josiah to suppose that he limited his quest in the field of knowledge to that particular portion indicated by his honoured a.s.sociation with a distinguished society. He was proud in his modest way, if the paradox be permitted, when he produced his card, on which was engraved "Josiah Smith, F.R.S.A." Also it was known amongst his friends that casual references to his great work on "Underground England" were not displeasing to him. But, as he was wont to say, "The surest way of finding either mental or bodily recreation is to seek it in fresh fields of labour."
Thus it came to pa.s.s one evening in the spring of this year that Josiah, having shut himself in all day with the determination to make up for lost time, found he had, with the aid of cold tea and wet bandages, added as much as half a page to his great work. Feeling the need of a little change of thought and a.s.sociation, he had availed himself of an invitation kindly sent to him to join the meeting of an aeronautic society. Josiah had listened with profound attention to the various speeches made, and had thought, really, when he had a little more time he would devote it to the fascinating science of aeronautics.
Amongst the guests of the society, and indeed the hero of the evening, was Captain Mulberry, the famous guardsman who devoted much natural talent and a considerable portion of his life to the endeavour either to kill or hopelessly maim himself. Evil fortune had kept his sword stainless, as far as regular warfare went, but there was generally a little fighting going on somewhere, and, the captain"s leave of absence coinciding, he from time to time managed to sniff the exhilarating smell of powder, and knew the music of bullet and sh.e.l.l. These things were surrounded with difficulties. It obviously would not do for a man bearing Her Majesty"s commission to lend his sword to one or other belligerents in a conflict between nations at peace with England. In a country like Spain, for example, things naturally run a little irregularly and the captain being on the spot may have occasionally lapsed into battle.
But these were mere episodes. Having tried most things, he had taken to ballooning, as offering the largest amount of risk in the least possible s.p.a.ce of time. He had been up in all kinds of balloons in all possible circ.u.mstances, and had come down in various ways. He had just now achieved a great feat, making a voyage from the Grampian Hills to the Orkney Islands. The society desiring to do him honour had invited him to this meeting, and Josiah had heard him describe his perilous voyage.
"A mere nothing," he said; "perhaps a little difficult going, but nothing at all coming back. The difficulty in going out was to drop on the Orkneys. The place is so small that when you are up in the air it looks as if you might as well try to drop on a pin"s point. But after all, it was a nothing--a mere nothing, gentlemen, I a.s.sure you. Any one of you could have done the same."
Every one in the room was delighted, not less with the captain"s gallantry than with his modesty. Many moving stories of his escapes were retailed. Josiah listened with enthralled attention to an adventure which, it seems, the captain had had in Spain, and which Josiah"s companion (a bald-headed gentleman with spectacles) narrated with great effect. Mulberry in one of the marches of the Carlists, to whom he had attached himself, was surprised and taken prisoner by the enemy. They locked him in the kitchen of a farmhouse near, mentioning incidentally that in the morning they would shoot him. They took away his sword and pistols; and would have taken his umbrella, but the captain pleaded hard for its society, declaring that from early boyhood he had never been able to sleep without an umbrella under his pillow. The Spaniards had heard much of the eccentricity of Englishmen, and not being inclined to refuse the request of a doomed man, they left him the umbrella.
The next morning, when they came to take him out for shooting purposes, lo! the captain and the umbrella were both gone. There was a good deal of soot about the place, and regarding this and other signs of hasty flight the truth flashed upon the Spaniards. There had been a fire in the grate. The captain had opened the umbrella inside the chimney, waited till it had been inflated with the warm air, and then, hanging on the handle, had been drawn up clear to the top and descending in a neighbouring field, had shut up his umbrella and walked off.
"Dear me!" said Josiah; "how very interesting. I suppose the chimneys are wide in Spain?"
"Very wide indeed," said the bald-headed gentleman in spectacles.
Josiah regarded the captain with fresh interest after the recital of this remarkable ascent, and it was not diminished by further tales he heard. One related to his reception by an Ill.u.s.trious Personage. After his journey to Orkney the I.P. had sent for him immediately on his return to town. The captain had put on his uniform and gone cheerfully.
He had heard so much of his feat that he began to think there really was something creditable in it, and fancied the Ill.u.s.trious Personage might be going to bestow upon him some recognition of the service he had done in blazoning abroad the pluck of the British soldier. On the contrary, he found the Ill.u.s.trious Person almost speechless with wrath, and stuffed with oaths like plums in a Christmas pudding.
"What--what was the meaning of this flying by night, sir?" he cried turning a flaming visage upon the contrite captain. "You"ll be going round with a circus next, riding five horses at a time, or walking round to show your muscle. I hope I shall hear no more of this sort of thing.
Such goings-on bring disgrace upon the army and discredit upon its officers. Stop at home, sir, and get into what mischief you like. Go and idle your time at playing cards or worse; but don"t be playing these pranks any more. Did you ever see _me_ in a balloon, sir? Did you ever hear of _me_ skimming around the world in search of adventure?"
The Ill.u.s.trious Personage drew himself up to full height, and swelled visibly before the eyes of the captain, as he angrily put these questions, garnished with many e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. He knew that our army swore terribly in Flanders, and was nothing if not a soldier.
"Your Royal Highness cannot blame us if we sometimes go out of our way to get into danger," said the captain, saluting. "Your Royal Highness has much to answer for by inflaming us with the memory of Inkermann. How can we sit still or lounge about in our peaceful homes, when we think of you on that day?"