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CHAPTER IV
TWENTY YEARS AFTER
TWENTY years! What a long, long time when it is at the beginning of a career; what a little span when it is at the end of a life! When we are twenty years old, we boys and girls of the rising generation, what important discoveries, what brilliant coups, what surprising achievements and names renowned, we purpose to set on record in our biographies during the next twenty years! When we are forty, we men and women of the world, we have changed all that! The gilding is off our gingerbread then; the restrospective road is dark and shadowy behind our weary steps. We may have realized the hard fight and the toil and the struggle perhaps, but the palm of triumph was not given into our outstretched hands. Theseus-like we may have heaved up our granite boulder, but the sword and the sandals of Egeus were not beneath it.
Life is so often compared to a pilgrimage, and the world to a desert, that the familiar similitude loses its point for us through frequent repetition, but, heavens! how pertinent and apt a figure it is! How close to our inexperienced, unpractised eyes appear these magnificent palaces, these princely domes and marble fanes, that garden of pleasures, that glittering river of refreshment! Allons, allons! vite! courage! – a few more hasty paces. A few more decisive steps will bring us to the gates of our Salem, to the embrace of our beloved, to the realisation of our dearest hopes, and we shall be at rest in the haven where we would be! Alas, no! It is a Mirage, and the faster we press towards it, the more swiftly the fair vision recedes before us. Long miles are traversed, long decades are passed, but the City of the Sand that seemed so near us in our youth is still unattained in our age, feebleness and famine and drought overtake us, and we lie down, still in the Desert, – to die!
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Twenty years. Tiny babies that were crooning and whimpering in their bassinettes at the time of that mysterious disappearance of the heir of Kelpies, grew into fair, graceful girls and stalwart youths; coy blossoming maidens that blushed beneath the passionate glances of their lovers then, expanded into comely dames with troops of chattering little ones about their knees, and lappets of matronly lace upon their shapely heads. Twenty seasons came and went in London, twenty sessions worried and babbled themselves out, one after another, births, deaths, and marriages increased and multiplied; until that midnight defalcation of the discontented viscount had become an event of the long past.
And again fashion and society reigned in the halls of Tyburnia and Mayfair.
The opera opened. Very great things were expected in the way of art and talent this spring behind the footlights of Her Majesty’s, for several débutantes were to be “on” there, of whom wonders had been predicated by the cognoscenti, and in particular one youthful cantatrice new to theatrical renown, concerning whose exceptional ability the Thespian votaries and grand tier habitués allowed themselves much use of adulatory comment and many notes of admiration.
Adelheid Stern, in short, was not only a rising artiste, rich in histrionic and vocal qualifications, but she had also been gloriously dowered by lady Nature; her hair carried imprisoned sunlight in its crispy luxuriant meshes, her eyes discovered in their dear translucent deeps the incessant heaven of a stainless soul. Adelheid’s face was a picture to be adored, not with the passion of love that consumes us for a beautiful woman, but with the reverent devotion that moves us for a lovely saint; such a face as that which Ary Scheffer has given to Dante’s Beatrice, spiritual, wrapt, far-seeing; grand in its divinity of beauty, sweet in its angelic tenderness. And yet for all her queenly presence, her wealth of loveliness and power of song, this opera débutante was a mere German peasant orphan, whom Miss Diana Brabazon had picked up somewhere among the States, and educated at her own expense to enchant the eyes and ears of the British public. Only that. But so far Fräulein Stern
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had been an undoubted hit, and the B. P. were “awfully fetched” about her, and the dilettanti were immensely charmed, and the Fräulein’s patroness herself was wild with pride and jubilation. Adelheid was gratified too, no doubt, at her success, yet her chief delight was not centred in her audience, but in her art, and to that she was absolutely devoted, absolutely bound with a whole heart and an unwearying love. Art was to her, not a profession, but a vocation; and to become worthy of it, such a religious delight and duty that day by day out of the fullness of her innocent, childish spirit she thanked her “lieber Gott” for the good gifts He had given her, and prayed that she might have grace of him to make the lives of others happier and lovelier for the music with which she was able to charm, and the noble passions she had the power to waken and create in the hearts of men and women. What a strange phase of the theatrical trade for the blasés languid loungers of opera stall and omnibus box! It was the first night of Gounod’s Faust, and Marguerite was to be played by Fräulein Stern. Miss Brabazon, brimming over with excitement and anticipation, was sparkling in a stage box, under the espionage of her only brother, whom she greatly affected, and without whom she was never to be seen abroad; for the parent Brabazons were not, and Diana and Vivian, the sole representatives of the house and lineage of Brabazon, kept their tiny estate in Salop, and their mutual villa in the best quarter of cockaigne and lived together in the bond of peace and in all virtue.
Adelheid’s patroness was past her première jeunesse, and the ladies of her acquaintance guessed her, with tolerable accuracy, at thirty-five. And a splendid woman too! A trifle too tall, perhaps, still her delicious embonpoint softened that mistake, and the small, graceful head poised, flower-like, above her white, round neck, and pillowy bosom, was ravishingly piquant in effect. What are girls of sweet seventeen or twenty in the presence of a beautiful woman at her prime, – blushing, unopened buds, by the side of the matured, richly perfumed rose?
Diana’s long coils of hair were of that peculiar madder-brown in which modern French painters delight so greatly, full of rich, glossy shadows,
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and mellow pinky lights; coils that seemed to reflect the deep, glowing radiance of the ruby bandeau arching them, for the Brabazon contemned chignons and curled tresses, and delighted in the natural simplicity of a statuesque coiffure. Vivian, her senior by two years, was a man of goodly parts, well-favoured in countenance, heavily moustached, and colossal in stature; but that material which his sister displayed in plump beauty, he developed in muscle, and his biceps were a source of continual envy to all his athletic friends.
Almost facing the Brabazons, upon the opposite side of the house, sat another woman, with whom we shall have much to do in the course of this eventful history; Mrs. Archibald Bell, the wife of a country curate, whose name was never heard but in connexion with the sayings and flittings of his eccentric spouse, and who plodded soberly on from month to month among the backwoods and primitive lanes of Littlebog-cum-Mudbury, a sequestered parish somewhere up by the Welsh borders, in blissful innocence of his fair Cora’s metropolitan experiences. For Cora was popularly supposed to be afflicted with delicate health, the rigorous inconveniences of which were only to be mitigated by frequent visits to the West End, and it was an actual fact incontrovertibly established by many salient proofs, that the air of the country in general, and of Littlebog in particular, was certainly in her case inconducive to a condition of physical salubrity.
Cora had a large circle of friends dotted round and about the Babylonish city, most of them aunts and uncles on her husband’s side, who, because their nephew was not particularly sagacious, and had been penniless before his marriage, were the more prone to consider the pretty wife, who had brought him four hundred a year, a prodigy of wit and learning, whom it was an honour to entertain whenever she pleased to bestow the joys of her society upon their respective establishments. Cora’s father had been an actor in his youth, in his manhood a prosperous merchant, and at his death a wealthy testator; but his sons were seven and their debts were many; and it came to pass that by the end of five years after the old gentleman’s demise there was not much of the original
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property remaining in the hands of the family. In this respect, Cora was the best off among the suvivors, for she was an only daughter and the youngest of the brood, in virtue of which pleasing accident the testator aforesaid had bequeathed her an extra five thousand, and had caused the same to be settled upon her for her separate use, so that she had an independent income, and wrote her own cheques upon the “London and County.” And, in fact, both Cora’s parents – they had been good old people in their way – had so spoiled and petted and indulged their youngest darling, that if their tenderness had not actually created that deplorable delicacy of her constitution, at least it had greatly fostered and encouraged it; and could they only have lived, poor souls, to witness the foolish and undesirable marriage that Cora was pleased to make two years after the death of her widowed father, their last moments would not have passed away in that peace and serenity of mind which had edified their children so notably. Mrs Archibald Bell was by no means a beauty, but she was fascinating and clever, and possessed a very feminine knack of making the most of the charms she had. Her hair was frothy, golden, and luxurious but it was crimped and dyed with aureoline, and her chignon had once been the property of Truefitt the Great. Her complexion was white and ruddy, but pearl-powder and bloom of roses had a large share in its production, and her confidential maid had been heard to affirm to somebody else’s abigail, that her mistress’s figure was so far from being Nature’s handiwork that it would be possible to bury a good sized bodkin to its head in the corsage of her dress without inflicting the least injury upon her person. But, however illusive and artificial Mrs. Bell might be, she was at least a delightful illusion, and contrived to look well from the topmost curl of her elaborate coiffure to the scarlet heels of her fashionable bottines.
To-night there was not a more bewitching creature in the opera-house than she, certainly none more remarked and lorgnetted. Her escort sat beside her, fingering her bouquet and exchanging verbal passages of arms and repartee with two or three men lounging behind the seat of his
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chère amie. He was a tall, loosely made man, of middle age, with a flexible countenance as full of lines and creases as the face of an india-rubber toy; jet-coloured moustaches much curved and waxed at the ends, and coffee-hued eyes shaped almond-wise and set obliquely in his head, as are the eyes of the Chinese.
This was Vane Vaurien, a very complete and satisfactory specimen of the genus homo, known as the “Man about Town,” a fellow who dined every day at his club, and was always met everywhere by everybody, who always knew the last good thing that had been said, and was invariably able to furnish particulars of the latest scandal, but concerning whose place of residence and manner of living little was understood beyond the fact that he was a bachelor and had no ostensible profession. But all the world readily admitted that he was a very great authority upon subjects connected with the turf, and in fact, it was generally supposed in polite circles that unlike many individuals of literary occupation, he lived by his books, and potted a good round sum yearly by means of such authorship; but, parenthetically, it was whispered in the strict confidentiality of certain tabagies that Vaurien knew rather more concerning the intricate mysteries of “roping,” “milking,” and “nobbling,” than was quite consistent with the unblemished honour of a gentleman. How and when Cora had managed to pick acquaintance with this worthy, were circumstances not generally known either among her people or his, but the friendship, once formed, was a fast one in two senses, and the pretty parsoness was seldom on view at the Opera, the Academy, or in the Row, whether with aunt, uncle, or cousins, but there was a lurking suspicion of Vane round the corner, and an aroma of his particular manilla and “pomade Hongrois” hovering in the air about her dainty little person. But to-night the chèr ami was not quite so devoted in his worship as it was his wont to be; and Cora, following the direction of his most frequent glances, discovered much to her annoyance and mortification, that the centre of his attraction was no other than Marguerite herself. And after the first act, Vane made no secret of his admiration.
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“‘Jove, Rankin!” said he, turning to the man behind him, “that Stern’s a splendid creature! eh? Perfect points!”
“Hang it, Vaurien,” interposed a second lounger, speaking from the back of the loge, where he was lolling against the wall with his nose in the air and his arms crossed; ”can’t you talk English? What confounded shop!” At the sound of the voice, Mrs. Archibald turned with an airy laugh, and tapped the speaker playfully with the tip of her spangled fan.
“Why, Captain Somers! I had no idea you were there! You turn up like a Greek chorus with a commentary, or, like the ghost in Hamlet, talking unexpectedly when nobody’s looking! Droll fellow! Come and sit by me, for I have no end of questions to ask, and there’s nothing to be got to-night out of this abominably odious wretch!”
She transferred the tap to Vane’s coat-sleeve as she uttered the last words, identifying thereby the object of her complimentary allusion. Fred. Somers drew his seat to her side in obedient amusement.
“At your service Mrs. Bell,” said he, leaning forward and sweeping the house with his swift, clear glance. ”Question Number One, if you please?”
“Who are those people in the opposite box?”
“Brother and sister: Sir Vivian and Diana Brabazon: live at Park-lane. He’s a Queen’s Messenger – Foreign-office chap, you know; she’s a strong-minded lady – talks Greek, and goes in tremendously for Mill’s logic, and the National Society for the Propagation of Female Suffrage. Fräulein Stern’s her protégée. Lives with the Brabazons, in fact. Diana chaperones her, and let’s her hang out at their place; and she’s got a boudoir there to herself, and her own brougham. Lucky fellow, Brabazon, isn’t he?”
“Very.”
Cora was immensely interested in the baronet, and raised her lorgnette to examine his facial perfections.
“Does the brother live there too, then?” she asked after a little pause.
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“Park-lane? Well, yes, it’s his place, you know, as much as Diana’s; but he’s got chambers, too, of course.”
“Where?”
“Oh, somewhere or other; I don’t know the fellow. Daresay Vaurien ‘ll tell you if you’re curious on the subject. He knows an awful lot about the F. O. Friend of one of the under secretaries, I believe.”
“Oh, he’s quite intent on the stage to-night, and can’t spare a word or a look for me!” Mrs. Bell turned towards the recreant one as she spoke with a little moue of deprecation, and lifted her pretty shoulders slightly with an air of helpless wonderment, curiously enchanting to see.
“Eh, ma belle dame? A thousand apologies! But absolutely, Marguerite’s matchless, you know, eh? Never saw a better strain!”
“Never heard a better strain, you mean, I suppose,” suggested Somers with much disgust. “Do be intelligible, Vaurien. Fräulein Stern’s not a filly.”
“Anyhow,” said Dick Rankin, criticizing the young prima-donna through Cora’s operaglass.” She’s magnificent. That’s real beauty, and no mistake!”
“Pouf!” rejoined Cora, somehow piqued by the emphasis on the adjective, with a pout of her painted lips and a toss of her dyed ringlets; “how do you know that? They make up horribly for the stage.”
“Can’t make up a profile, at any rate,” responded Rankin, sententiously. “And her’s is faultless.”
Whereat Mrs. Archibald’s eyes flashed, and she held her peace, for the observation was cruelly personal. Cora’s features were irregular, and her nose far too retroussé to be beautiful, and the line of her forehead was remarkable neither for nobility nor grace. But Vaurien perceived her discomfiture, and was ill-bred enough to wink at Dick Rankin and laugh.
And Cora saw the wink and heard the laugh, and never forgave either.