Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 2

"Earlscourt is quite infatuated," said Lady Clive to me one evening.

"Beatrice is very charming, of course, but she is not at all suited to him, she is so fiery, so impetuous, so self-reliant."

"I think you are mistaken," said I. I admired Beatrice Boville--comme je vous ai dit--and I didn't like our family's snaps and snarls at her.

"She may be impetuous, but, as her impulses are always generous, that doesn't matter much. She is only fiery at injustice, and, for myself, I prefer a woman who can stand up for her own rights and her friends' to one who'll sit by in--you'll call it meekness, I suppose? I call it cowardice and hypocrisy--to hear herself or them abused."

"Thank you, mon ami," said Beatrice's voice at my elbow, as Lady Clive rose and crossed the room. "I am much obliged for your defence; I couldn't help hearing it as I stood in the balcony, and I wish very much I deserved it. I am afraid, though, I cannot dispute Helena's verdict of 'fiery,' 'impetuous,'--"

"And self-reliant?" I asked her. She laughed softly, and her eyes unconsciously sought Earlscourt, who was talking to Lady Mechlin.

"Well? Not quite, now! But, by the way, why should people charge self-reliance on to one as something reprehensible and undesirable? A proper self-reliance is an indispensable ground-work to any success. If you cannot rely upon yourself, upon your power to judge and to act, you must rely upon some other person, possibly upon many people, and you become, perforce, vacillating and unstable.

'To thine own self be true, And it shall follow, as the day the night, Thou canst not then be false to any man.'"

As she spoke a servant brought a note to her, and I noticed her cheeks grow pale as she saw the handwriting upon it. She broke it open, and read it hastily, an oddly troubled, worried look coming over her face, a look that Earlscourt could not help but notice as he stood beside her.

"Is there anything in that letter to annoy you, Beatrice?" he asked, very naturally.

She started--rather guiltily, I thought--and crushed the note in her hand.

"Whom is it from? It troubles you, I think. Tell me, my darling, is it anything that vexes or offends you?" he whispered, bending down to her.

She laughed, a little nervously for her, and tore the note into tiny pieces.

"Why do you not tell me, Beatrice?" he said again, with a shade of annoyance on his face.

"Because I would rather not," she said, frankly enough, letting the pieces float out of the window into the street below. The shadow grew darker in his face; he bent his head in acquiescence, and said no more, but I don't think he forgot either the note or her destroyal of it.

"I thought there was implicit confidence _before_ marriage whatever there is after," sneered his sister, as she pa.s.sed him. He answered her calmly:--

"I should say, Helena, that neither before nor after marriage would any man who respected his wife suffer curiosity or suspicion to enter into him. If he do, he has no right to expect happiness, and he will certainly not go the way to get it."

That was the only reply he gave Lady Clive, but her thorn No. 2 festered in him, and when he bade Beatrice good night, standing alone with her in the little drawing room, he took both her hands in his, and looked straight into her eyes.

"Beatrice, why would you not let me see that note this evening?"

She looked up at him as fearlessly and clearly.

"If I tell you why, I must tell you whom the note was from, and what it was about, and I would much rather do neither as yet."

"That is very strange. I dislike concealment of all kinds, especially from you, who so soon will be my wife. It is inconceivable to me why you should need or desire any. I thought your life was a fair open book, every line of which I might read if I desired."

Beatrice looked at him in amazement.

"So you may. Do you suppose, if I had any secret from you that I feared you should know, I could have a moment's peace in your society, or look at you for an instant as I do now? I give you my word of honor that there was nothing either in the note that concerns you, or that you would wish me to tell you. In a few days you shall know all that was in it, but I ask you as a kindness not to press me now. Surely you do not think me such a child but that you can trust me in so small a trifle. If you say I am not worthy of your confidence, you imply that I am not worthy of your love. You spoke n.o.bly to your sister just now, Ernest; do not act less n.o.bly to me."

He could not but admire her as she looked at him, with her fearless, unshadowed regard, her head thrown a little back, and her att.i.tude half-commanding, half-entreating. He smiled in spite of himself.

"You are a wayward, spoiled child, Beatrice. You must have your own way?"

She gave a little stamp of her foot. She hated being called a spoiled child, specially by him, and in a serious moment.

"If I have my own way, have I your full confidence too?"

"Yes; but, my dear Beatrice, the only way to gain confidence is never to excite suspicion." And Lady Clive's thorn rankled a ravir; for even as he pressed his goodnight kisses on her lips, he thought, restlessly, "Shall we make each other happy?--am I too grave for her?--and is she too wilful for me? I want rest, not contention."

The night after that there was a bal-masque at the Redoute. I was just coming out of my room as Beatrice came down the corridor; She had her mask in her hand, her dress was something white starred with gold, and round her hair she had a little band of pearls of Earlscourt's gift. I never saw her look better, specially when her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened as Earlscourt opened his door next mine, and met her. He did not see me, the corridor was empty, and he bent down to her with fond words and caresses.

"Do I look well?" she said, with child-like delight.

"I am so glad, Ernest, I want to do you honor."

In that mood he understood her well enough, and he pressed her against his heart with the pa.s.sion that was in him, whose strength he so rarely let her see. Then he drew her hand through his arm, and led her down the stairs; and, as I laughed to find to what lengths our cold statesman could come at last, I thought Lady Clive's thorns would be innocuous, however well planted.

Earlscourt never danced; nothing but what was calm and stately could possibly have suited him; but Beatrice did, and waltzed like a Willis, (though she liked even better than that standing on his arm and talking with his friends--diplomatic, military, and ministerial--on all sorts of questions, most of which she could handle nearly as well as they;) and about the middle of the evening, while she was waltzing with some man or other who had begged to be introduced to her, Earlscourt left the ball-room for ten minutes in earnest conversation with one of the French ministers, who was leaving the next morning. As he came back again, I asked him where Beatrice was, because Powell, of the Bays, was bothering my life out to introduce him to her.

"In the ball room, isn't she? She is with Lady Mechlin, of course, if, the waltz is over."

A familiar voice stopped him.

"She is not in the ball room. Go where you found her the other night, and see if Caesar's promised wife be above suspicion!"

I could have sworn the voice was Lady Clive's; a pink domino pa.s.sed us too fast for detention, but Earlscourt's lips turned white at the subtle whisper, and he muttered a fierce oath--fiercer from him, because he's never stirred into fiery expletives. "There is some vile plot against her. I must sift it to the bottom;" and, pus.h.i.+ng past me, he entered the ball room. Beatrice was not there; and wending his way through the crowd, he went in through several other apartments leading off to the right, and involuntarily I followed him, to see what the malicious whisper of the pink domino had meant. Earlscourt lifted the curtain that parted the anteroom from the other chamber--lifted it to see Beatrice Boville, as the pink domino had prophesied, and not alone! With her was a man, masked, but about Earlscourt's height, and seemingly about his age, who, as he saw us, let go her hand with a laugh, turned on to a balcony, which was but a yard or so from the street, and dropped on to the pave below. Beatrice started and colored, but I thought she must be the most desperate actress going, for she came up to Earlscourt with a smile, and was about to put her hand through his arm, but he signed her away from him.

"Your acting is quite useless with me. I am not to be blinded by it again. I have believed in your truth as in my own--"

"So you may still. Listen to me, Ernest!"

"Hus.h.!.+ Do not add falsehood to falsehood."

He spoke sternly and coldly; his pride, which was as strong as his love for her, would not gratify her by a sign of the torture within him, and even in his bitterest anger Earlscourt would never have been ungentle to a woman. That word acted like an incantation on her, the blood crimsoned her temples, her eyes literally flashed fire, and she threw back her head with the haughty, impatient gesture habitual to her.

"Falsehood? Three times of late you have used that word to me."

"And why? Because you merited it."

She stood before him, the indignant flush hotter still upon her cheeks, her lips curved into scornful anger. If she was an actress, she knew her role to perfection.

"Do you speak that seriously, Lord Earlscourt? Do you believe that I have lied to you?"

"G.o.d help me! What else can I believe?" he muttered, too low for her to hear it.

She asked him the question again, fiercely, and he answered her briefly and sternly,--

"I believe that all your life with me has been a lie. I trusted you implicitly, and how do you return it? By carrying on clandestine intercourse with another man, giving him interviews that you conceal from me, having letters that you destroy, doubtless receiving caresses that you take care are unwitnessed; while you dare to smile in my face, and to dupe me with child-like tenderness, and to bid me 'trust' you and believe in you! Love shared to me is worthless, and on my wife, Beatrice, no stain must rest!"

As he spoke, a dark shadow spread over her countenance, her evil spirit rose up in her, and her bright, frank, fearless face grew almost as hard and cold as his, while her teeth were set together, till her lips, usually soft and laughing, were pressed into one straight haughty line.

"Since you give me up so easily, far be it from me to dispute your will.

We part from this hour, if you desire it. My honor is as dear to me as yours to you, and to those who dare to suspect it I never stoop to defend it!"