“I shall feel quite happy about my baby now,” said Mrs. Pullen. “I have not much faith in Belgian doctors. Their pharmacopœia is quite different from ours, but Doctor Phillips will see if there is anything wrong with her at once!”
“I hope you will not be disappointed with the Hotel visitors, Ralph,” said Elinor, “but they are a terrible set of riffraff. It is impossible to make friends with any one of them. They are such dreadful people!”
“O! you mustn’t class them all together, Elinor,” interposed Margaret. “I am sure the Montagues and the Vieuxtemps are nice enough! And du reste, there is no occasion for Ralph even to speak to them.”
“Of course not,” said Captain Pullen. “I have come over for the sake of your company and Margaret’s and have no intention of making the acquaintance of any strangers. When is the Bataille des Fleurs? Next week! that’s jolly. Old Phillips will be here by that time, and he and Margaret can flirt together whilst you and I are billing and cooing, eh Elinor?”
“Don’t be vulgar, Ralph,” she answered, “you know how I dislike that sort of thing! And we have had so much of it here!”
“What, billing and cooing?” he questioned. But Elinor disdained to make any further remark on the subject.
The appearance of Ralph Pullen at the table d’hôte dinner naturally excited a good deal of speculation. The English knew that Mrs. Pullen expected her brother-in-law to stay with her but the foreigners were all curious to ascertain who the handsome, well-groomed, military looking stranger might be, who was so familiar with Mrs. Pullen and her friend. The Baroness was not behind the rest in curiosity and admiration. She was much before them in her determination to gratify her curiosity and make the acquaintance of the newcomer whose name she guessed, though no introduction had passed between them. She waited through two courses to see if Margaret Pullen would take the initiative but finding that she addressed all her conversation to Captain Pullen, keeping her face, meanwhile, pertinaciously turned from the party sitting opposite to her, she determined to force her hand.
“Mrs. Pullen!” she cried, in her coarse voice, “when are you going to introduce me to your ’andsome friend?”
Margaret coloured uneasily and murmured,
“My brother-in-law, Captain Pullen—Madame Gobelli.”
“Very glad to see you, Captain,” said the Baroness, as Ralph bowed to her in his most approved fashion, “your sister thought she’d keep you all to ’erself, I suppose! But the young ladies of Heyst would soon make mincemeat of Mrs. Pullen if she tried that little game on them. We ’aven’t got too many good-looking young men ’ereabouts, I can tell you. Are you going to stay long?”
Captain Pullen murmured something about “uncertain” and “not being quite sure,” whilst the Baroness regarded him full in the face with a broad smile on her own. She always had a keen eye for a handsome young man!
“Ah! you’ll stay as long as it suits your purpose, won’t you? I expect you ’ave your own little game to play, same as most of us! And it’s a pretty little game too, isn’t it, especially when a fellow’s young and goodlooking and ’as the chink-a-chink, eh?
“I fancy I know some of your brother officers, Mr. Naggett and Lord Menzies. They belong to the Rangers don’t they?” continued Madame Gobelli, “Prince Adalbert of Waxsquiemer used to bring ’em to the Red ’Ouse! By the way I ’aven’t introduced you to my ’usband, Baron Gobelli! Gustave, this is Captain Ralph Pullen, the Colonel’s brother you know. You must ’ave a talk with ’im after dinner! You two would ’it it off first-rate together! Gustave’s in the boot trade you know, Captain Pullen! We trade under the name of Fantaisie et Cie! The best boots and shoes in London and the largest manufactory, I give you my word! You should get your boots from us. I know you dandy officers are awfully particular about your tootsies. If you’ll come and see me in London I’ll take you over the manufactory and give you a pair. You’ll never buy any others once you’ve tried ’em!”
Ralph Pullen bowed again and said he felt certain that Madame was right and he looked forward to the fulfilment of her promise with the keenest anticipation.
Harriet Brandt meanwhile, sitting almost opposite to the stranger, was regarding him from under the thick lashes of her slumbrous eyes like a lynx watching its prey. She had never seen so good-looking and aristo-cratic a young man before. His crisp golden hair and drooping moustaches, his fair complexion, blue eyes and chiselled features were a revelation to her. Would the Princes whom Madame Gobelli had promised she should meet at her house be anything like him she wondered—could they be as handsome, as perfectly dressed, as fashion-able, as completely at their ease as the man before her? Every other moment she was stealing a veiled glance at him—and Captain Pullen was quite aware of the fact. What young man, or woman is not aware when they are being furtively admired? Ralph Pullen was one of the most conceited of his sex, which is not saying a little—he was accablé[97] with female attentions wherever he went, yet he was not blasé with them so long as he was not called upon to reciprocate in kind. Each time that Harriet’s magnetic gaze sought his face, his eyes, by some mystical chance, were lifted to meet it and though all four lids were modestly dropped again, their owners did not forget the effect their encounter had left behind it.
“’Ave you been round Heyst yet, Captain Pullen,” vociferated Madame Gobelli, “and met the Procession? I never saw such rubbish in my life. I laughed fit to burst myself! A lot of children rigged out in blue and white, carrying a doll on a stick, and a crowd of fools following and singing ’ymns. Call that Religion? It’s all tommy rot. Don’t you agree with me, Mrs. Pullen?”
“I cannot say that I do, Madame! I have been taught to respect every religion that is followed with sincerity, whether I agree with its doctrine or not. Besides, I thought the procession you allude to a very pretty sight. Some of the children with their fair hair and wreaths of flowers looked like little angels!”
“O! you’re an ’umbug!” exclaimed the Baroness, “you say that just to please these Papists. Not that I wouldn’t just as soon be a Papist as a Protestant, but I ’ate cant. I wouldn’t ’ave Bobby ’ere, brought up in any religion. Let ’im choose for ’imself when ’e’s a man, I said, but no cant, no ’umbug! I ’ad a governess for ’im once, a dirty little sneak, who thought she’d get the better of me, so she made the boy kneel down each night and say, ‘God bless father and mother and all kind friends, and God bless my enemies.’ I came on ’em one evening and I ’ad ’im up on his legs in a moment. I won’t ’ave it, Bobby, I said, I won’t ’ave you telling lies for anyone, and I made ’im repeat after me, ‘God bless father and mother and all kind friends, and d—n my enemies.’ The governess was so angry with me that she gave warning, he! he! he! But I ’ad my way, and Bobby ’asn’t said a prayer since, ’ave you, Bobby?”
“Sometimes, Mamma!” replied the lad in a low voice. Margaret Pullen’s kind eyes sought his at once with an encouraging smile.
“Well! you’d better not let me ’ear you, or I’ll give you ‘what for.’ I ’ate ’umbug, don’t you, Captain Pullen?”
“Unreservedly, Madame!” replied Ralph in a stifled voice and with an inflamed countenance. He had been trying to conceal his amusement for some time past, greatly to the disgust of Miss Leyton who would have had him pass by his opposite neighbour’s remarks in silent contempt, and the effort had been rather trying. As he spoke his eyes sought those of Harriet Brandt again and discovered the sympathy with his distress lurking in them, coupled with a very evident look of admiration for himself. He looked at her back again—only one look, but it spoke volumes! Captain Pullen had never given such a glance at his fiancée, nor received one from her! It is problematical if Elinor Leyton could make a telegraph of her calm brown eyes—if her soul (if indeed she had in that sense a soul at all) ever pierced the bounds of its dwelling-place to look through its windows. As the dessert appeared, Margaret whispered to her brother-in-law, “If we do not make our escape now we may not get rid of her
all the evening,” at which hint he rose from table, and the trio left the salle à manger together. As Margaret descended again, equipped for their evening stroll, she perceived Harriet Brandt in the corridor also ready and waiting apparently for her. She took her aside at once.
“I cannot ask you to join us in our walk this evening, Miss Brandt,” she said, “because, as it is the first day of my brother’s arrival, we shall naturally have many family topics to discuss together!”
For the first time since their acquaintance she observed a sullen look creep over Harriet Brandt’s features.
“I am going to walk with the Baron and Baroness, thank you all the same!” she replied to Margaret’s remark, and turning on her heel she re-entered her room. Margaret did not believe her statement but she was glad she had had the courage to warn her—she knew it would have greatly annoyed Elinor if the girl she detested had accompanied them on that first evening. The walk proved after all to be a very ordinary one. They paraded up and down the Digue until they were tired and then they sat down on green chairs and listened to the orchestra whilst Ralph smoked his cigarettes. Elinor was looking her best. She was pleased and mildly excited—her costume became her—and she was presumably enjoying herself, but as far as her joy in Captain Pullen went she might have been walking with her father or her brother. The conscious looks that had passed between him and Harriet Brandt were utterly wanting.
They began by talking of home, of Elinor’s family, and the last news that Margaret had received from Arthur—and then went on to discuss the visitors to the Hotel. Miss Leyton waxed loud in her denunciation of the Baroness and her familiar vulgarity—she deplored the ill fate that had placed them in such close proximity at the table d’hôte, and hoped that Ralph would not hesitate to change his seat if the annoyance became too great. She had warned him, she said, of what he might expect by joining them at Heyst.
“My dear girl,” he replied, “pray don’t distress yourself! In the first place I know a great deal more about foreign hotels than you do and knew exactly what I might expect to encounter, and in the second, I don’t mind it in the least—in fact I like it, it amuses me. I think the Baroness is quite a character, and look forward to cultivating her acquaintance with the keenest anticipations.”
“O! don’t, Ralph, pray don’t!” exclaimed Miss Leyton fastidiously, “the woman is beneath contempt! I should be exceedingly annoyed if you permitted her to get at all intimate with you.”
“Why not, if it amuses him?” demanded Margaret laughing, “for my part I agree with Ralph that her very vulgarity makes her most amusing as a change, and it is not as if we were likely to be thrown in her way when we return to England!”
“She is a rara avis,”[98] cried Captain Pullen enthusiastically. “She certainly must know some good people if men like Naggett and Menzies have been at her house, and yet the way she advertises her boots and shoes is too delicious! O! dear yes! I cannot consent to cut the Baroness Gobelli! I am half in love with her already!”
Elinor Leyton made a gesture of disgust.
“And you—who are considered to be one of the most select and fastidious men in Town,” she said, “I wonder at you!”
Then he made a bad matter worse by saying,
“By the way, Margaret, who was that beautiful girl who sat on the opposite side of the table?”
“The what,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, ungrammatically, as she turned round upon the Digue and confronted him.
“He means Miss Brandt!” interposed Margaret hastily, “many people think that she is handsome!”
“No one could think otherwise,” responded Ralph. “Is she Spanish?”
“O! no; her parents were English. She comes from Jamaica!”
“Ah! a drop of Creole blood in her then, I daresay! You never see such eyes in an English face!”
“What’s the matter with her eyes?” asked Elinor sharply.
“They’re very large and dark, you know, Elinor!” said Mrs. Pullen, observing the cloud which was settling down upon the girl’s face, “but it is not everybody who admires dark eyes, or you and I would come off badly!”
“Well, with all due deference to you, my fair sister-in-law,” replied Ralph with the stupidity of a selfish man who never knows when he is wounding his hearers, “most people give the preference to dark eyes in women. Anyway, Miss Brandt (if that is her name), is a beauty and no mistake!”
“I can’t say that I admire your taste,” said Elinor, “and I sincerely hope that Miss Brandt will not force her company upon us whilst you are here. Margaret and I have suffered more than enough already in that respect! She is only half educated and knows nothing of the world, and is altogether a most uninteresting companion. I dislike her exceedingly!”
“Ah! don’t forget her singing!” cried Margaret, unwittingly.
“Does she sing?” demanded the Captain.
“Yes! and wonderfully well for an amateur! She plays the mandoline also. I think Elinor is a little hard on her! Of course she is very young and unformed, but she has only just come out of a convent where she has been educated for the last ten years. What can you expect of a girl who has never been out in Society? I know that she is very good-natured and has waited on baby as if she had been her servant!”
“Don’t you think we have had about enough of Miss Harriet Brandt?” said Elinor, “I want to hear what Ralph thinks of Heyst, or if he advises our going on to Ostende. I believe Ostende is much gayer and brighter than Heyst!”
“But we must wait now till Doctor Phillips joins us,” interposed Margaret.
“He could come after us, if Ralph preferred Ostende or Blanken-burghe,” said Elinor eagerly.
“My dear ladies,” exclaimed Captain Pullen, “allow me to form an opinion of Heyst first and then we will talk about other places. This seems pleasant enough in all conscience to me now!”
“O! you two are bound to think any place pleasant,” laughed Margaret, “but I think I must go in to my baby! I do not feel easy to be away from her too long now that she is ailing. But there is no need for you to come in, Elinor! It is only just nine o’clock!”
“I would rather accompany you,” replied Miss Leyton, primly.
“No! no! Elinor, stay with me! If you are tired we can sit in the balcony. I have seen nothing of you yet!” remonstrated her lover.
She consented to sit in the balcony with him for a few minutes, but she would not permit his chair to be placed too close to hers.
“The waiters pass backward and forward,” she said, “and what would they think?”
“The deuce take what they think,” replied Captain Pullen, “I haven’t seen you for two months and you keep me at arm’s length as if I should poison you! What do you suppose a man is made of?”
“My dear Ralph, you know it is nothing of the kind, but it is quite impossible that we can sit side by side like a pair of turtle doves in a public Hotel like this!”
“Let us go up to your room then?”
“To my bedroom?” she ejaculated with horror.
“To Margaret’s room then! she won’t be so prudish, I’m sure! Anywhere where I can speak to you alone!”
“The nurse will be in Margaret’s room with little Ethel!”
“Hang it all, then, come for another walk! Let us go away from the town, out on those sand hills. I’m sure no one will see us there!”
“Dear Ralph, you must be reasonable! If I were seen walking about Heyst alone with you at night it would be all over the town to-morrow.”
“Let it be! Where’s the harm?”
“But I have kept our engagement most scrupulously secret! No one knows anything but that you are Margaret’s brother-in-law! You don’t know how they gossip and chatter in a place like this. I could never consent to appear at the public table d’hôte again if I thought that all those vulgarians had been discussing my most private affairs!”
“O! well! just as you choose!” replied Ralph Pullen discontentedly, “but I suppose
you will not object to my taking another turn along the Digue before I go to bed! Here, garçon, bring me a chasse! Good-night then, if you will not stay!”
“It is not that I will not—it is that I cannot, Ralph!” said Miss Leyton, as she gave him her hand. “Good-night! I hope you will find your room comfortable, and if it is fine to-morrow we will have a nice walk in whichever direction you prefer!”
“And much good that will be!” grumbled the young man as he lighted his cigarette and strolled out again upon the Digue.
As he stood for a moment looking out upon the sea which was one mass of silvery ripples, he heard himself called by name. He looked up. The Gobellis had a private sitting-room facing the Digue on the ground floor and the Baroness was leaning out of the open window and beckoning to him.
“Won’t you come in and ’ave a whiskey and soda?” she asked. “The Baron ’as ’is own whiskey ’ere, real Scotch, none of your nasty Belgian stuff, ’alf spirits of wine and ’alf varnish! Come along! We’ve got a jolly little parlour and my little friend ’Arriet Brandt shall sing to you! Unless you’re off on some lark of your own, eh?”
“No! indeed,” replied Ralph, “I was only wondering what I should do with myself for the next hour. Thank you so much! I’ll come with pleasure.”
And in another minute he was seated in the company of the Baron and Baroness and Harriet Brandt.
- CHAPTER VI -
The day had heralded in the Bataille des Fleurs and all Heyst was en fête. The little furnished villas, hired for the season, were all built alike with a balcony on the ground floor which was transformed into a veritable bower for the occasion. Villa Imperatrice vied with Villa Mentone and Villa Sebastien as to which decoration should be the most beautiful and effective, and the result was a long line of arbours garlanded with every sort of blossom. From early morning the occupants were busy entwining their pillars with evergreens interspersed with flags and knots of ribbon, whilst the balustrades were laden with growing flowers and the tables inside bore vases of severed blooms. One balcony was decorated with corn, poppies and bluets, whilst the next would display pink roses mixed with the delicate blue of the sea-nettle, and the third would be all yellow silk and white marguerites. The procession of charettes and the Bataille itself was not to commence till the afternoon, so the visitors crowded the sands as usual in the morning, leaving the temporary owners of the various villas to toil for their gratification during their absence. Margaret Pullen felt sad as she sat in the hotel balcony watching the proceedings on each side of her. She had intended her baby’s peram-bulator to take part in the procession of charettes and had ordered a quantity of white field lilies with which to decorate it. It was to be a veritable triumph—so she and Miss Leyton had decided between themselves—and she had fondly pictured how lovely little Ethel would look with her fluffy yellow hair lying amongst the blossoms, but now baby was too languid and ill to be taken out of doors and Margaret had given all the flowers to the little Montagues who were trimming their mail-cart with them in their own fashion. As she sat there, with a pensive, thoughtful look upon her face, Harriet Brandt, dressed in a costume of grass-cloth with a broad-brimmed hat, nodding with poppies and green leaves that wonderfully became her, on her head, entered the balcony with an eager, excited appearance.
The Blood of the Vampire Page 11
