Sandra Belloni Part 59

"Had she been clumsy, would you not have been less suspicious of her?

And if she had only shown the accustomed northern retenue, and merely looked all that she had to say 'preserved her dignity'--our womanly critic would have been completely satisfied."

"But, Merthyr, to parade her feelings, and then to go on appealing!"

"On the principle that she ought to be ashamed of them, she was wrong."

"If you had heard her utter abandonment!"

"I can believe that she did not blush."

"It seems to me to belong to those excesses that prompt--that are in themselves a species of suicide."

"Love is said to be the death of self."

"No; but I must use cant words, Merthyr; I do wish to see modesty. Yes, I know I must be right."

"There is very little of it to be had in a tropical storm."

"You admit, then, that this sort of love is a storm that pa.s.ses?"

"It pa.s.ses, I hope."

"But where is your defence of her now?"

"Have I defended her? I need not try. A man has deceived her, and she doesn't think it possible; and has said so, I presume. When she sees it, she will be quieter than most. She will not reproach him subsequently.

Here is the hotel, and that must be Charlotte's room, if I may judge by the lights. What pranks will she always be playing! We seem to have brought new elements into the little town. Do you remember Bergamo the rainy night the Austrian trooped out of Milan?--one light that was a thousand in the twinkling of an eye!"

Having arrived, he ran hastily up to the room, expecting to find the three; but Lady Charlotte was alone, sitting in her chair with knotted arms. "Ah, Merthyr!" she said, "I'm sorry you should have been disturbed. I perceive what Georgey's leaving the room meant. I suppose the hotel people are used to yachting-parties." And then, not seeing any friendly demonstration on his part, she folded her arms in another knot.

Georgiana asked where Emilia was. Lady Charlotte replied that Emilia had gone, and then Wilfrid had followed her, one minute later, to get her into shelter somewhere. Or put penknives out of her way. "I am rather fatigued with a scene, Merthyr. I never had an idea before of what your Southern women were. One plays decidedly second to them while the fit lasts. Of course, you have a notion that I planned the whole of the absurd business. This is the case:--I found the girl on the beach: she follows him everywhere, which is bad for her reputation, because in this climate people suspect, positive reasons for that kind of female devotedness. So, to put an end to it--really for her own sake, quite as much as anything else--am I a monster of insensibility, Merthyr?--I made her swear an oath: one must be a point above wild animals to feel that to be binding, however! I made her swear to listen and remain there silent till I opened the door to set her at liberty. She consented--gave her word solemnly. I calculated that she might faint, and fixed her in an arm-chair. Was that cruel? Merthyr, you have called me Austrian more than once; but, upon my honour, I wanted her to get over her delusion comfortably. I thought she would have kept the oath, I confess; she looked up like a child when she was making it. You have heard the rest from Georgey. I must say the situation was rather hard on Wilfrid. If he blames me it will be excuseable, though what I did plan was to save him from a situation somewhat worse. So now you know the whole, Merthyr.

Commence your lecture. Make me a martyr to the sorrows of Italy once more."

Merthyr took her wrist, feeling the quick pulse, and dropped it. She was effectually humbled by this direct method of dealing with her secret heart. After some commonplace remarks had pa.s.sed, she herself urged him to send out men in search for Emilia. Before he went, she murmured a soft "Forgive me." The pressure of her fingers was replied to, but the words were not spoken.

"There," she cried to Georgiana, "I have offended the only man for whose esteem I care one particle! Devote yourself to your friends!"

"How? 'devote yourself!'" murmured Georgiana, astonished.

"Do you think I should have got into this hobble if I hadn't wished to serve some one else? You must have seen that Merthyr has a sentimental sort of fondness--call it pa.s.sion--for this girl. She's his Italy in the flesh. Is there a more civilized man in the world than Merthyr? So he becomes fascinated by a savage. We all play the game of opposites--or like to, and no woman in his cla.s.s will ever catch him. I couldn't have believed that he was touched by a girl, but for two or three recent indications. You must have noticed that he has given up reading others, and he objected the other day to a responsible office which would have thrown him into her neighbourhood alone. These are unmistakeable signs in Merthyr, though he has never been in love, and doesn't understand his case a bit. Tell me, do you think it impossible?"

Georgiana answered dryly, "You have fallen into a fresh mistake."

Exactly. Then let me rescue you from a similar fatality, Georgey. If your eyes are bandaged now..."

"Are you going to be devoted to me also, Charlotte?"

"I believe I'm a miracle of devotion," said the lady, retiring into indifferent topics upon that phrase. She had at any rate partially covered the figure of ridicule presented to her feminine imagination by the aspect of her fair self exposed in public contention with one of her s.e.x--and for a man. It was enough to make her pulse and her brain lively. On second thoughts, too, it had struck her that she might be serving Merthyr in disengaging Emilia; and undoubtedly she served Georgiana by giving her a warning. Through this silliness went the current of a clear mind, nevertheless. The lady's heart was justified in crying out: "What would I not abandon for my friend in his need?"

Meantime her battle in her own behalf looked less pleasing by the light of new advantages. The question recurred: "Shall I care to win at all?"

She had to force the idea of a violent love to excuse her proceedings.

To get up any flame whatsoever, an occasional blast of jealousy had to be called for. Jealousy was a quality she could not admit as possible to her. So she acted on herself by an agent she repudiated, and there was no help for it. Had Wilfrid loved her the woman's heart was ready. It was ready with a trembling tenderness, softer and deeper than a girl's.

For Charlotte would have felt: "With this love that I have craved for, you give me life." And she would have thanked him for both, exultingly, to feel: "I can repay you as no girl could do;" though she had none of the rage of love to give; as it was, she thought conscientiously that she could help him. She liked him: his peculiar suppleness of a growing mind, his shrouded sensibility, in conjunction with his reputation for an evidently quite reliable prompt courage, and the mask he wore, which was to her transparent, pleased her and touched her fancy.

Nor was he so vain of his person as to make him seem like a boy to her.

He affected maturity. He could pa.s.s a mirror on his right or his left without an abstracted look over either shoulder;--a poor example, but worth something to a judge of young men. Indeed, had she chosen from a crowd, the choice would have been one of his age. She was too set for an older man; but a youth aspiring to be older than he was; whose faults she saw and forgave; whose merits supplied two or three of her own deficiencies; whom her station might help to elevate; to whom she might come as a benefactress; feeling so while she accomplished her own desire;--such a youth was everything to her, as she awoke to discover after having played with him a season. If she lost him, what became of her? Even if she had rejoiced in a mother to plot and play,--to bait and snare for her, her time was slipping, and the choosers among her cla.s.s were wary. Her spirit, besides, was high and elective. It was gradually stooping to nature, but would never have bowed to a fool, or, save under protest, to one who gave all. On Wilfrid she had fixed her mind: so, therefore, she bore the remembrance of the recent scene without much fretting at her burdens;--the more, that Wilfrid had in no way shamed her; and the more, that the heat of Emilia's love played round him and illumined him. This borrowing of the pa.s.sion of another is not uncommon.

At daybreak Mrs. Chump was abroad. She had sat up for Wilfrid almost through the night. "Oh! the arr'stocracy!" she breathed exclamations, as she swept along the esplanade. "I'll be killed and murdered if I tell a word." Meeting Captain Gambier, she fell into a great agitation, and explained it as an anxiety she entertained for Wilfrid; when, becoming entangled in the mesh of questions, she told all she knew, and nearly as much as she suspected: which fatal step to retrieve, she entreated his secresy. Adela was now seen fluttering hastily up the walk, fresh as a creature of the sea-wave. Before Mrs. Chump could summon her old wrath of yesterday, she was kissed, and to the arch interrogation as to what she had done with this young lady's brother, replied by telling the tale of the night again. Mrs. Chump was ostentatiously caressed into a more comfortable opinion of the world's morality, for the nonce. Invited by them to breakfast at the hotel, she hurried back to her villa for a flounced dress and a lace cap of some pretensions, while they paced the sh.o.r.e.

"See what may be said!" Adela's countenance changed as she muttered it.

"Thought, would be enough," she added, shuddering.

"Yes; if one is off guard--careless," the captain a.s.sented, flowingly.

"Can one in earnest be other than careless? I shall walk on that line up to the end. Who makes me deviate is my enemy!"

The playful little person balanced herself to make one foot follow the other along a piece of washed grey rope on the s.h.i.+ngle. Soon she had to stretch out her hand for help, and the captain at full arm's length conducted her to the final knot.

"Arrived safe!" she said, smiling.

"But not disengaged," he rejoined, in similar style.

"Please!" She doubled her elbow to give a little tug for her fingers.

"No." He pressed them tighter.

"Pray?"

"No."

"Must I speak to somebody else to get me released?"

"Would you?"

"Must I?"

"Thank heaven, he is not yet in existence!"

'Husband' being implied. Games of this sweet sort are warranted to carry little people as far as they may go swifter than any other invention of lively Satan.

The yachting party, including Mrs. Chump, were at the breakfast-table, and that dumb guest had done all the blus.h.i.+ng for Lady Charlotte, when Wilfrid entered, neat, carefully brushed, and with ready answers, though his face could put on no fresh colours. To Mrs. Chump he bent, pa.s.sing, and was pushed away and drawn back. "Your eyes!" she whispered.

"My--yeyes!" went Wilfrid, in schoolboy style; and she, who rarely laughed, was struck by his humorous skill, saying to Sir Twickenham, beside her: "He's as cunnin' as a lord!"

Sir Twickenham expressed his ignorance of lords having usurped priority in that department. Frightened by his portentous parliamentary phraseology, she remained tolerably demure till the sitting was over: now sidling in her heart to the sins of the great, whom anon she angrily reproached. Her princ.i.p.al idea was, that as the world was discovered to be so wicked, they were all in a boat going to perdition, and it would be as well to jump out immediately: but while so resolving, she hung upon Lady Charlotte's looks and little speeches, altogether seduced by so fresh and frank a sinner. If safe from temptation, here was the soul of a woman in great danger of corruption.

"Among the aristocracy," thought Mrs. Chump, "it's just the male that hangs his head, and the female struts and is sprightly." The contrast between Lady Charlotte and Wilfrid (who when he ceased to set outrageously, sat like a man stricken by a bolt), produced this reflection: and in spite of her disastrous vision of the fate of the boat they were in, Mrs. Chump owned to the intoxication of gliding smoothly--gliding on the rapids.

The breakfast was coming to an end, when Braintop's name was sent in to Mrs. Chump. She gave a cry of motherly compa.s.sion for Braintop, and began to relate the little deficiencies of his temper, while, as it were, simmering on her seat to go to him. Wilfrid sent out word for him to appear, which he did, unluckily for himself, even as Mrs. Chump wound up the public description of his character by remarking: "He's just the opposite of a lord, now, in everything." Braintop stood bowing like the most faithful confirmation of an opinion ever seen. He looked the victim of fatigue, in the bargain. A light broke on Mrs. Chump.

"I'll never forgive myself, ye poor gentle heart, to throw pens and pen-wipers at ye, that did your best, poor boy! What have ye been doin'?