“O! Mrs. Pullen! have you seen the Baroness?” she exclaimed.
“We are going to bathe this morning. Aren’t you coming down to the sands?”
“No! Miss Brandt, not to-day. I am unhappy about my dear baby! I am sure you will be sorry to hear that she has been quite ill all night—so restless and feverish!”
“O! she’ll be all right directly her teeth come through!” replied Harriet indifferently, as her eyes scanned the scene before them. “There’s the Baroness! She’s beckoning to me! Good-bye!” and without a word of sympathy or comfort, she rushed away to join her friends.
“Like the way of the world!” thought Margaret, as she watched the girl skimming over the sands, “but somehow—I didn’t think she would be so heartless!”
Miss Leyton and her fiancé had strolled off after breakfast to take a walk and Mrs. Pullen went back to her own room, and sat down quietly to needlework. She was becoming very anxious for Doctor Phillips’ arrival; had even written to England to ask him to hurry it if possible—for her infant, though not positively ill, rejected her food so often that she was palpably thinner and weaker.
After she had sat there for some time she took up her fieldglasses to survey the bathers on the beach. She had often done so before, when confined to the hotel—it afforded her amusement to watch their faces and antics. On the present occasion she had no difficulty in distinguishing the form of the Baroness Gobelli looking enormous as, clad in a most conspicuous bathing costume, she waddled from her machine into the water, loudly calling attention to her appearance from all assembled on the sands as she went. The Baron, looking little less comical, advanced to conduct his spouse down to the water, whilst after them flew a slight boyish figure in yellow with a mane of dark hair hanging down her back, which Margaret immediately recognised as that of Harriet Brandt.
She was dancing about in the shallow water, shrieking whenever she made a false step and clinging hold of the Baron’s hand, when Margaret saw another gentleman come up to them and join in the ring. She turned the glasses upon him and saw to her amazement that it was her brother-in-law. Her first feeling was that of annoyance. There was nothing extraordinary or improper in his joining the Baroness’s party—men and women bathed promiscuously in Heyst, and no one thought anything of it. But that Ralph should voluntarily mix himself up with the Gobellis, after Elinor’s particular request that he should keep aloof from them, was a much more serious matter. And by the way, that reminded her, where was Elinor the while? Margaret could not discern her anywhere upon the sands and wondered if she had also been persuaded to bathe. She watched Captain Pullen evidently trying to induce Miss Brandt to venture further into the water, holding out both hands for her protection—she also saw her yield to his persuasion and leaving go of her hold on the Herr Baron, trust herself entirely to the stranger’s care. Mrs. Pullen turned from the window with a sigh. She hoped there were not going to be any “ructions” between Ralph and Elinor—but she would not have liked her to see him at that moment. She bestowed a silent benediction, “not loud, but deep”[99] on the foreign fashion of promiscuous bathing, and walked across the corridor to her friend’s room to see if she had returned to the Hotel. To her surprise she found Miss Leyton dismantled of her walking attire, soberly seated at her table writing letters.
“Why! Elinor,” she said, “I thought you were out with Ralph!”
The young lady was quite composed.
“So I was,” she answered, “until half an hour ago! But as he then expressed his determination to bathe I left him to his own devices and came back to write my letters.”
“Would he not have preferred your waiting on the sands till he could join you again?”
“I did not ask him! I should think he would hardly care for me to watch him whilst bathing, and I am sure I should not consent to do so!”
“But everybody does it here, Elinor, and if you did not care to go down to the beach you might have waited for him on the Digue.”
“My dear Margaret, I am not in the habit of dancing attendance upon men. It is their business to come after me! If Ralph is eager for another walk after his dip he can easily call for me here!”
“True! and he can as easily go for his walk with any stray acquaintance he may pick up on the sands!”
“O! if he should prefer it, he is welcome to do so,” replied Elinor, resuming her scribbling.
“My dear Elinor, I don’t think you quite understand Ralph! He has been terribly spoilt you know, and when men have been accustomed to attention they will take it wherever they can get it! He has come over here expressly to be with you, so I think you should give him every minute of your time. Men are fickle creatures, my dear! It will take some time yet to despoil them of the idea that women were made for their convenience.”
“I am afraid the man is not born yet for whose convenience I was made!”
“Well! you know the old saying: ‘Most women can catch a man but it takes a clever woman to keep him.’ I don’t mean to insinuate that you are in any danger of losing Ralph, but I think he’s quite worth keeping and, I believe you think so too!”
“And I mean to keep him!” replied Miss Leyton, as she went on writing.
Margaret did not venture to give her any further hints but returned to her own room and took another look through her spyglass.
The bathers in whom she was interested had returned to their machines by this time and presently emerged, “clothed and in their right minds.”[100] Miss Brandt, looking more attractive than before with her long hair hanging down her back to dry. And then, that occurred which she had been anticipating. Captain Pullen, having taken a survey of the beach and seeing none of his own party there, climbed with Harriet Brandt to where they were high and dry above the tide and threw himself down on the hot, loose sand by her side, whilst the Baron and Baroness with a laughing injunction to the two young people to take care of themselves, toiled up to the Digue and walked off in another direction.
When they all met at déjeuner, she attacked her brother-in-law on the subject.
“Have you been bathing all this while?” she said to him, “you must have stayed very long in the water!”
“O! dear no!” he replied, “I wasn’t in above a quarter of an hour!”
“And what have you been doing since?”
“Strolling about looking for you and Elinor!” said Captain Pullen. Why the dickens didn’t you come out this lovely morning?”
“I could not leave baby!” said Margaret shortly.
“And I was writing,” chimed in Elinor.
“Very well, ladies, if you prefer your own company to mine, of course I have nothing to say against it! But I suppose you are not going to shut yourselves up this afternoon!”
“O! no. It is a public duty to attend the Bataille des Fleurs. Have you bought any confetti, Ralph?”
“I have! Miss Brandt was good enough to shew me where to get them and we are well provided. There is to be a race between lady jockeys at the end of the Digue too, I perceive!”
“What, with horses?”
“I conclude so. I see they have railed in a portion of ground for the purpose,” replied Captain Pullen.
“’Ow could they race without ’orses?” called out the Baroness.
Harriet Brandt did not join in the conversation but she was gazing all the while at Ralph Pullen—not furtively as she had done the day before, but openly and unabashedly, as though she held a proprietary right in him. Margaret noticed her manner at once and interpreted it aright but Miss Leyton, true to her principles, never raised her eyes in her direction and ignored everything that came from that side of the table.
Mrs. Pullen was annoyed; she knew how angry Elinor would be if she intercepted any telegraphic communication between her lover and Miss Brandt; and she rose from the table as soon as possible in order to avert such a catastrophe. She had never considered her brother-in-law a very warm wooer and she fancied that his manner towards Miss Leyton was more i
ndifferent than usual. She took one turn with them along the Digue to admire the flower-bedecked villas which were in full beauty and then returned to her nursery, glad of an excuse to leave them together and give Elinor a chance of becoming more cordial and affectionate to Ralph than she had yet appeared to be. The lovers had not been alone long, however, before they were waylaid, to the intense disgust of Elinor, by Harriet Brandt and her friend Olga Brimont.
Still further to her annoyance, Captain Pullen seemed almost to welcome the impertinent interference of the two girls, who could scarcely have had the audacity to join their company unless he had invited them to do so.
“The charettes are just about to start!” exclaimed Harriet, “O! they are lovely, and such dear little children! I am so glad that the Bataille des Fleurs takes place to-day because my friend’s brother, Alfred Brimont, is coming to take her to Brussels the day after to-morrow!”
“Brussels is a jolly place. Mademoiselle Brimont will enjoy herself there,” said Ralph. “There are theatres and balls and picture-galleries and every pleasure that a young lady’s heart can desire!”
“Have you been to Brussels?” asked Harriet.
“Yes! when I was a nasty little boy in jacket and trousers. I was placed at Mr. Jackson’s English school there in order that I might learn French, but I’m afraid that was the last thing I acquired. The Jackson boys were known all over the town for the greatest nuisances in it!”
“What did you do?”
“What did we not do? We tore up and down the rue Montagne de la Cour at all hours of the day, shouting and screaming and getting into scrapes. We ran up bills at the shops which we had no money to pay—we appeared at every place of amusement—and we made love to all the school-girls till we had become a terror to the school-mistresses.”
“What naughty boys!” remarked Miss Brandt, with a side-glance at Miss Leyton. She did not like to say all she thought before this very stiff and proper young English lady. “But Captain Pullen,” she continued, “where are the confetti? Have you forgotten them? Shall I go and buy some more?”
“No! no! my pockets are stuffed with them,” he said, producing two bags, of which he handed Harriet one. Her thanks were conveyed by throwing a large handful of tiny pieces of blue and white and pink paper (which do duty for the more dangerous chalk sugarplums) at him and which covered his tweed suit and sprinkled his fair hair and moustaches. He returned the compliment by flying after her retreating figure and liberally showering confetti upon her.
“O! Ralph! I do hope you are not going to engage in this horseplay,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, “because if so I would rather return to the Hotel. Surely we may leave such vulgarities to the common people and—Miss Harriet Brandt!”
“What nonsense!” he replied. “It’s evident you’ve never been in Rome during the Carnival! Why everyone does it! It’s the national custom. If you imagine I’m going to stand by, like a British tourist, and stare at everything without joining in the fun, you’re very much mistaken!”
“But is it fun?” questioned Miss Leyton.
“To me it is! Here goes!” he cried, as he threw a handful of paper into the face of a passing stranger who gave him as good as she had got in return.
“I call it low—positively vulgar,” said Miss Leyton, “to behave so familiarly with people one has never seen before—of whose antecedents one knows nothing! I should be very much surprised if the mob behaved in such a manner towards me. Oh!”
The exclamation was induced by the action of some young épicier, or hotel garçon, who threw a mass of confetti into her face with such violence as almost for the moment to blind her.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Ralph Pullen with his healthy British lungs, as he saw her outraged feelings depicted in her countenance.
“I thought you’d get it before long!” he said, as she attempted to brush the offending paper off her mantle.
“It has not altered my opinion of the indecency of the custom!” she replied.
“Never mind!” he returned soothingly. “Here come the charettes.”
They were really a charming sight. On one cart was drawn a boat, with little children dressed as fishermen and women—another represented a harvest field, with the tiny haymakers and reapers—whilst a third was piled with wool to represent snow, on the top of which were seated three little girls attired as Esquimaux.[101] The mail-carts and perambulators belonging to the visitors to Heyst were also well represented and beautifully trimmed with flowers. The first prize was embowered in lilies and white roses, whilst its tiny inmate was seated in state as the Goddess Flora,[102] with a wreath twined in her golden curls. The second was taken by a gallant Neapolitan fisherman of about four years old, who wheeled a mail-cart of pink roses in which sat his little sisters, dressed as angels with large white wings. The third was a wheel barrow hidden in moss and narcissi, on which reposed a Sleeping Beauty robed in white tissue with a coronal of forget-me-nots.
Harriet Brandt fell into ecstasies over everything she saw. When pleased and surprised she expressed herself more like a child than a young woman and became extravagant and ungovernable. She tried to kiss each baby that took part in the procession, and thrust coins into their chubby hands to buy bonbons and confetti with. Captain Pullen thought her conduct most natural and unaffected; but Miss Leyton insisted that it was all put on for effect. Olga Brimont tried to put in a good word for her friend.
“Harriet is very fond of children,” she said, “but she has never seen any—there were no children at the Convent under ten years of age, so she does not know how to make enough of them when she meets them. She wants to kiss everyone. Some times, I tell her I think she would like to eat them. But she only means to be kind!”
“I am sure of that!” said Captain Pullen.
“But she should be told,” interposed Elinor, “that it is not the custom in civilized countries for strangers to kiss every child they meet, any more than it is to speak before being introduced, or to bestow their company where it is not desired. Miss Brandt has a great deal to learn in that respect before she can enter English Society!”
As is often the case when a woman becomes unjust in abusing another, Miss Leyton made Captain Pullen say more to cover her discourtesy than, in other circumstances, he would have done.
“Miss Brandt,” he said slowly, “is so beautiful that she will have a great deal forgiven her, that would not be overlooked in a plainer woman.”
“That may be your opinion, but it is not mine,” replied Miss Leyton.
Her tone was so acid that it sent him flying from her side to battle with his confetti against the tribe of Montagues who, fortunately for the peace of all parties, joined their forces to theirs and after some time spent on the Digue they returned, a large party, to the Hotel.
It was not until they had sat down to dinner that they remembered they had never been to see the lady jockey race.
“He! he! he!” laughed Madame Gobelli, “but I did and you lost something, I can tell you! We ’ad great difficulty to get seats but when we did, it was worth it, wasn’t it, Gustave?”
“You said so, mein tear!” replied the Baron, gravely.
“And you thought so, you old rascal! don’t you tell me! I saw your wicked eyes glozing at the gals in their breeches and boots! There weren’t any ’orses after all, Captain Pullen, but sixteen gals with different coloured jackets on and top boots and tight white breeches, such a sight you never saw, Gustave ’ere, did ’ave a treat! As for Bobby, when I found we couldn’t get out again because of the crowd, I tied my ’andkerchief over ’is eyes, and made him put ’is ’ead in my lap!”
“Dear! dear!” cried Ralph, laughing, “was it as bad as that, Madame?”
“Bad! my dear boy! It was as bad as it could be! It’s a mercy you weren’t there or we shouldn’t ’ave seen you ’ome again so soon! There were the sixteen gals with their tight breeches and their short racing jackets, and a fat fellow dressed like a huntsman whipping ’em round a
nd round the ring as if they were so much cattle! You should ’ave seen them ’op when he touched ’em up with the lash of ’is whip. I expect they’ve never ’ad such a tingling since the time their mothers smacked ’em! There was a little fat one there! I wish you could ’ave seen ’er, when ’e whipped ’er to make ’er ’urry! It was comical! She ’opped like a kangaroo!”
“And what was the upshot of it all? Who won?” asked Ralph.
“O! I don’t know! I got Gustave out as soon as I could! I wasn’t going to let ’im spend the whole afternoon watching those gals ’opping. There were ’is eyes goggling out of ’is ’ead, and his lips licking each other as if ’e was sucking a sugar-stick—”
The Blood of the Vampire Page 12
