A Heart-Song of To-day (Disturbed by Fire from the 'Unruly Member'): A Novel
"Yes, yes; you, at all events, are not a soulless woman," said
Bertram, earnestly.
"There are many of us, Mr. Bertram," said Lady Esmondet, "who actually
never think of anything old unless it be our old relations."
"And then, only, if they are on the top rung," laughed Douglas.
"You people are for once forgetting our old china," said Vaura, gaily;
"our love's all blue."
"The governor told me to ask you, Bertram," said Douglas, "how you get
on with Royalton at Saint Dydimus?"
"We don't get on at all; he has no more inclination for the church,
than I have; I pity these younger sons just ran into some fat living
as a _dernier ressort_."
"He is just the fellow," said Douglas "to hail as a godsend
disestablishment, when he will be compelled to graze in more palatable
pastures."
"Oh, when Church and State are severed, primogeniture will follow;
then he will get a slice of the estate of the pater," said Vaura.
"And for the younger sons a more comfortable dinner than of herbs,"
said Bertram.
"Then you think the 'stalled ox' brings one more content in our age of
comforts," said Lady Esmondet.
"Undoubtedly."
"And I am at one with you," continued Lady Esmondet, "for it means a
full hand, a full purse, without which one might as well be extinct;
for one could not pay Society's tolls; yes, the yellow sovereign is
all powerful; one may do as one pleases if one fills Grundy's mouth
with sugar-plums; she will then shut her eyes and see with ours, for
have we not paid our tribute-money? Yes, gold is the passport to
society; a chimney sweep, with pots of gold, would find a glad welcome
where the beggared son of a belted earl would be driven forth. But,
after all, 'tis an amusing age, and one must adapt oneself to one's
time. I own there are some unpleasantnesses, as when one meets, as
Mrs. Ross-Hatton did, a maid-servant from her mother's household; one
would grow used to these mongrels in time, I suppose, as this is the
age of progress."
"If no secret, where was the field of action for mistress and maid,
godmother mine?"
"No secret whatever, dear; they met at the Lord Elton's, Prospect
Hall; you know they are considered exclusive, and, as usual, there
were some of the best set there. At one of their dinners a Sir Richard
and Lady Jones were invited; my friend did not see their _entree_,
being seated in a deep recess with Lord Elton, admiring some rare gems
in _bric-a-brac_. She was so intently engaged that, merely glancing
upwards as her host stepped forward in welcoming them, to her
amazement a coarse, underbred woman stepping towards her, offered her
hand, saying: 'I am Lady Jones; I have met you somewhere before.' My
friend, giving her a calm British stare, without noticing the hand,
said haughtily: 'Yes, I have seen you as one of my mother's household;
as under-cook, or something in that way.'"
"By Jove, what a send-off," laughed Douglas.
"I expect at the moment she devoutly wished she had never climbed to a
higher rung; but for the _denouement_, godmother."
"Lady Jones beat a retreat immediately, Sir Richard following.
Lord Elton, after a word of apology to my friend, told her he was
aware they were _nouveaux riches_ when invited; but that Jones, a
newly-fledged M.P., had also much influence, and he wished to make use
of him; so had persuaded Lady Elton to send them cards. 'It does not
signify, my dear Lord Elton,' my friend replied; 'I have before now
met the most _outre_ people with comparative indifference; if the
woman had been silent she would, with her vulgar pretensions, be with
you now; too bad for you that I have been in the way, dear old friend;
I have hopes I shall outgrow this class prejudice, though somewhat
faint ones.'"
"'You will, dear Mrs. Ross-Hatton, should you keep pace with our age,'
Lord Elton replied.
"Your friend showed a good deal of courage," said Bertram, "to give
so direct a cut. I forget who she was, I was abroad at the time of
Ross-Hatton's marriage."
"She was a Sutherland; Fido Sutherland, a beauty and a belle, and
proud as Lucifer," answered Lady Esmondet.
"And brave as a lion," said Vaura; "for 'tis the fashion to fall down,
as the Israelites did in days of yore, and worship the golden calf."
"I fear we are not going to have a passage altogether free from
storm," remarked Bertram; "see to the west, that black cloud rolling
towards us."
"I think we shall have passed its line of travel ere it catches up to
us," said Lady Esmondet.
"By the way, Bertram, did you hear that Capt. Liddo, of the
Grenadiers, made this trip in six hours in a small canoe. What do you
think of that?" asked Douglas.
"Good enough; though I'd rather make the run in the usual time in our
present company. When did Liddo do it?"
"On last Derby day."
"So, so. How long a stay do you make at Paris, Lady Esmondet?"
"I have not decided."
"Ah, that is too bad; I enjoy anticipation, and should like to dwell
on the thought of many pleasant hours with you and Miss Vernon."
"We shall be able to manage many hours together at all events, for we
can patronize the same hotel," replied Lady Esmondet.
"It is that I know such pleasant arrangement to be impossible that I
speak, some friends having taken a French flat for me."
"Ah, I do regret this is the case," said Lady Esmondet.
"At all events, Bertram, we can enter the gates together hand-in-
hand, four-in-hand; so cheer up, old fellow," cried Douglas.
"Roland, _mon cher_," said Vaura, "you must bring Isabel from Madame
Rochefort's to our hotel, even for a few days, ere your return to
Surrey."
"Exactly my plan, fair demoiselle."
"That is" she continued, merrily, "if you promise to be submissive,
and not become a monopolist; for when you, Isabel, and myself are
together, I feel as if I had lost myself; I don't know to whom I
belong; you want me, Isabel wants me, until I don't know where I am."
"Belong to me, Vaura dear," he said, earnestly, and only heard by her,
"and all will be well;" aloud he said: "Submissive! yea, as a lamb; by
the beard of the Prophet I swear it."
"It would not be such a long look to swear by your own; you have a
very handsome one."
"_Merci_, dear Lady Esmondet; I shall take greater pride than ever in
it, now it has developed a new use."
"Or, being a true believer, you might have used Aaron's," said Vaura;
"only that then would the Prophet have no rest, even in the tomb."
"One requires rest there," said her godmother; "for the demon of
unrest hath got us in this lower sphere."
"And it's quite right that it should be so, godmother mine; and in
keeping with our ceaseless song of 'I'd be a butterfly.'"
"You are a clever actress, Miss Vernon," said Bertram; "but I am
inclined to think there is a latent depth of character, a womanliness
in you that our gay butterflies of fashion lack."
"You flatter me, Mr. Bertram."
"Not so, Miss Vernon; in our day there is much to make even a woman
think; you are a thinking woman, still one has but to look at your
eyes to know that in spite of your graver moods you have a keen zest
for what is pleasant in--"
"In this 'Vale of Tears,'" put in Douglas.
Vaura's bright expressive eyes smiled, as looking upwards, she said,
feelingly:
"Yes, even though 'much salt water here doth go to waste,' one must--
some think, not I--support the weeping human who named our pleasant
world a 'Vale of Tears.' No, 'tis better to let one's thoughts dwell
on the song of the nightingale than the voice of the night-bat; We
fear too much, and hope too little; 'tis best to dwell in the sunlight
while we may."
"Yes, 'tis better to laugh than be crying," said Lady Esmondet; "and
though one must go through life with one's eyes open, one need not
follow the example of Matthew Arnold's 'Sick King in Bokhara,' and
keep them only open to the saddening sights of sin, sorrow, and
despair, that the world we know, somewhere, has so much of; one can
only do what one can for those in distress; give one's mite, and give
it with a kindly smile, in our world of so much to do."
"So many worlds so much to do, so little done such things to be," half
sang Vaura; "but here we are at the French port, and so soon."
"One does not often find this a short trip," said Lady Esmondet; "but
time has flown, all because of congenial companionship."
"Yes, he has gone too quickly for once," said Bertram; "everyone for
his own pleasure; so, as I have a through ticket, I trust none of you
wish to linger."
"By no means, with fair Paris our goal," cried Vaura.
"Why, surely, Bertram, you heard the solemn compact entered into on
our arrival at Paris hand-in-hand, and the bearded oath I swore to be
as amenable to the wishes of _la belle_ Vernon as though I were a Jack
on wires; and, I appeal to all, could I promise more?"
"Yes," laughed Vaura; "you could promise to be quiet for five minutes,
and endeavour to bear a slight semblance to a stolid, deliberate,
dignified, wrapt-up-in-himself Briton."
"Alas! and alas for a transformation scene," sighed Douglas.
"Vaura, dear," said Lady Esmondet, "I forgot to tell you I received a
note from Felicite, saying they have not as yet left for Normandy, and
that we shall find them at their house in the Avenue de
l'Imperatrice."
"Ah! that will be pleasant; I love the de Hautervilles root and
branch; and wondered a little at their meditating a trip, with the
ball for Eau Clair on the _tapis_."
CHAPTER XIII.
ADAM.
Our friends being safely in the rail coach _en route_ for the city of
cities, a word of Roland Douglas; he is eldest son of the Rector of
Haughton (whose acquaintance we made in earlier days on the lawn at
Haughton, in chat with Col. Haughton and Trevalyon); his father is a
Scotchman, who had accepted an English living at the request of his
English wife. Roland, heir to a fine property from a Scotch uncle,
had, since leaving Cambridge, been left to his own devices, they all
frequently spending their holidays at his place, Atholdale, Dunkeld;
but his home was with them, he telling them "he was too gregarious a
fellow to live alone," that if the ghosts at Atholdale would be
agreeable and change their hours of liveliness from midnight to
midday, "he might manage to live there." And the rectory was glad to
have the life of its circle in its midst.
The three Douglas children, with Vaura Vernon, had been playmates, and
the days spent at Haughton Hall were among their most pleasant
reminiscences. Bright, merry Roland, with courtly Guy Travers, were
favourites of Vaura, each vieing with the other to win her favour,
fighting her battles with biped and quadruped, both boys coming to
love her with the whole strength of manhood, only to eat their hearts
out alone, as others, now in her womanhood, were doing, while Vaura
would tell herself, not without a heart-ache, that, "it grieved her to
say them nay, but she cared for them only in the dance, only in the
sunshine; that in the quieter walks of life, she would long for a
spirit more in kinship with her quieter, her higher nature."
Vaura had spent so much of her life with her uncle and godmother, that
the men they loved to have about them had probably spoilt her taste
for the very young men of to-day. Both she and her godmother, had many
friendships among men, believing the interchange of thought to be
mutually improving. Indeed, in most cases they trusted their
faithfulness, their sincerity, more than that of their own sex. And,
alas! with good reason, men having a larger share of that greatest of
gifts, charity! their knowledge of human nature making them rarely
censorious, their education giving them larger, broader views; how
many women, alas, are essentially censorious, uncharitable and
narrow-minded. Yes, nature has been lavish in gifts to Adam, as