Some pigeons lent themselves more kindly to the plucking than others; and the Miss Vandeleurs had long ago discovered that it was not the wealthiest men who were most lavish. Given a gentleman with a settled estate of fourteen thousand a year, and the probabilities were that he would not rise above a dozen gloves or a couple of bouquets. It was the simple youth who had just come into five or ten thousand, and had nothing but the workhouse ahead of him when that was gone, who spent his money most freely. It is only the man who is steadfastly intent upon ruining himself, who ever quite comes up to the feminine idea of generosity. The spendthrift, during his brief season of fortune, leads a charmed life. For him it is hardly a question whether gloves cost five or ten shillings a pair — whether stephanotis is in or out of season. He offers his tribute to beauty without any base scruples of economy. What does it matter to him whether ruin comes a few months earlier by reason of this lavish liberality, seeing that the ultimate result is inevitable.
With the Miss Vandeleurs Leonard Tregonell ranked as an old friend. They had met him at theatres and races; they had been invited to little dinners at which he was host. Jack Vandeleur had a special genius for ordering a dinner, and for acting as guide to a man who liked dining in the highways and byways of London; it being an understood thing that Captain Vandeleur’s professional position as counsellor exempted him from any share in the reckoning. Under his fraternal protection, Dopsy and Mopsy had dined snugly in all manner of foreign restaurants, and had eaten and drunk their fill at Mr. Tregonell’s expense. They were both gourmands, and they were not ashamed of enjoying the pleasures of the table. It seemed to them that the class of men who could not endure to see a woman eat had departed with Byron, and Bulwer, and D’Orsay, and De Musset. A new race has arisen, which likes a “jolly” girl who can appreciate a recherché dinner, and knows the difference between good and bad wine.
Mr. Tregonell did not yield himself up a victim to the fascinations of either Dopsy or Mopsy. He had seen too much of that class of beauty during his London experiences, to be caught by the auricomous tangles of one or the flaxen fringe of the other. He talked of them to their brother as nice girls, with no nonsense about them; he gave them gloves, and dinners, and stalls for “Madame Angot;” but his appreciation took no higher form.
“It would have been a fine thing for one of you if you could have hooked him,” said their brother, as he smoked a final pipe, between midnight and morning, in the untidy little drawing-room in South Belgravia, after an evening with Chaumont. “He’s a heavy swell in Cornwall, I can tell you. Plenty of money — fine old place. But there’s a girl down there he’s sweet upon — a cousin. He’s very close; but I caught him kissing and crying over her photograph one night in the Rockies — when our rations had run short, and two of our horses gone dead, and our best guide was down with ague, and there was an idea that we’d lost our track, and should never see England again. That’s the only time I ever saw Tregonell sentimental. ‘I’m not afraid of death,’ he said, ‘but I should like to live to see home again, for her sake;’ and he showed me the photo — a sweet, fresh, young face, smiling at us with a look of home and home-affection, and we poor beggars not knowing if we should ever see a woman’s face again.”
“If you knew he was in love with his cousin, what’s the use of talking about his marrying us?” asked Mopsy petulantly, speaking of herself and her sister as if they were a firm.
“Oh, there’s no knowing,” answered Jack, coolly, as he puffed at his meerschaum. “A man may change his mind. Girls with your experience ought to be able to twist a fellow round your little finger. But though you’re deuced keen at getting things out of men, you’re uncommonly slow at bringing down your bird.”
“Look at our surroundings,” said Dopsy bitterly. “Could we ever dare to bring a man here; and it is in her own home that a man gets fond of a girl.”
“Well, a fellow would have to be very far gone to stand this,” Captain Vandeleur admitted, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he glanced round the room, with its blotchy paper, and smoky ceiling, its tawdry chandelier, and dilapidated furniture, flabby faded covers to chairs and sofa, side-table piled with shabby books and accumulated newspapers, the half-pay father’s canes and umbrellas in the corner, his ancient slippers by the fender, his easy-chair, with its morocco cover indented with the greasy imprint of his venerable shoulders, and over all the rank odours of yesterday’s dinner and stale tobacco-smoke.
“A man in the last stage of spooniness will stand anything — you remember the opening chapter of ‘Wilhelm Meister?’” said Captain Jack, meditatively—”but he’d need be very far gone to stand this,” he repeated, with conviction.
Six months after this conversation, Mopsy read to Dopsy the announcement of Mr. Tregonell’s marriage with the Cornish cousin.
“We shall never see any more of him, you may depend,” said Dopsy, with the air of pronouncing an elegy on the ingratitude of man. But she was wrong, for two years later Leonard Tregonell was knocking about town again, in the height of the season, with Poker Vandeleur, and the course of his diversions included a little dinner given to Dopsy and Mopsy at a choice Italian restaurateur’s not very far from South Belgravia.
They both made themselves as agreeable as in them lay. He was married. All matrimonial hopes in that quarter were blighted. But marriage need not prevent his giving them dinners and stalls for the play, or being a serviceable friend to their brother.
“Poor Jack’s friends are his only reliable income,” said Mopsy. “He had need hold them fast.”
Mopsy put on her lively Madame Chaumont manner, and tried to amuse the Benedict. Dopsy was graver, and talked to him about his wife.
“She must be very sweet,” she said, “from Jack’s account of her.”
“Why, he’s never seen her,” exclaimed Mr. Tregonell, looking puzzled.
“No; but you showed him her photograph once in the Rockies. Jack never forgot it.”
Leonard was pleased at this tribute to his good taste.
“She’s the loveliest woman I ever saw, though she is my wife,” he said; “and I’m not ashamed to say I think so.”
“How I should like to know her,” sighed Dopsy; “but I’m afraid she seldom comes to London.”
“That makes no difference,” answered Leonard, warmed into exceptional good humour by the soft influences of Italian cookery and Italian wines. “Why should not you both come to Mount Royal? I want Jack to come for the shooting. He can bring you, and you’ll be able to amuse my wife, while he and I are out on the hills.”
“It would be quite too lovely, and we should like it of all things; but do you think Mrs. Tregonell would be able to get on with us?” asked Dopsy, diffidently.
It was not often she and her sister were asked to country houses. They were both fluttered at the idea, and turned their thoughts inward for a mental review of their wardrobes.
“We could do it,” decided Mopsy, “with a little help from Jack.”
Nothing more was said about the visit that night, but a month later, when Leonard had gone back to Mount Royal, a courteous letter from Mrs. Tregonell to Miss Vandeleur confirmed the Squire’s invitation, and the two set out for the West of England under their brother’s wing, rejoicing at this stroke of good luck. Christabel had been told that they were nice girls, just the kind of girls to be useful in a country house — girls who had very few opportunities of enjoying life, and to whom any kindness would be a charity — and she had done her husband’s bidding without an objection of any kind. But when the two damsels appeared at Mount Royal tightly sheathed in sage-green merino, with limp little capes on their shoulders, and picturesque hats upon picturesque heads of hair, Mrs. Tregonell’s heart failed her at the idea of a month spent in such company. Without caring a straw for art, without knowing more of modern poetry than the names of the poets and the covers of their books, Mopsy and Dopsy had been shrewd enough to discover that for young women with narrow means the æsthetic style of dres
s was by far the safest fashion. Stuff might do duty for silk — a sunflower, if it were only big enough, might make as startling an effect as a blaze of diamonds — a rag of limp tulle or muslin serve instead of costly lace — hair worn after the ideal suffice instead of expensive headgear, and home dressmaking pass current for originality. Christabel speedily found, however, that these damsels were not exacting in the matter of attention from herself. So long as they were allowed to be with the men they were happy. In the billiard-room, or the tennis-court, in the old Tudor hall, which was Leonard’s favourite tabagie, in the saddle-room, or the stable-yard, on the hills, or on the sea, wherever the men would suffer their presence, Dopsy and Mopsy were charmed to be. On those rare occasions when the out-of-door party was made up without them they sat about the drawing-room in hopeless, helpless idleness — turning over yesterday’s London papers, or stumbling through German waltzes on the iron-framed Kirkman grand, which had been Leonard’s birthday gift to his wife. At their worst the Miss Vandeleurs gave Christabel very little trouble, for they felt curiously shy in her society. She was not of their world. They had not one thought or one taste in common. Mrs. Torrington, who insisted upon taking her hostess under her wing, was a much more troublesome person. The Vandeleur girls helped to amuse Leonard, who laughed at their slang and their mannishness, and who liked the sound of girlish voices in the house — albeit those voices were loud and vulgar. They made themselves particularly agreeable to Jessie Bridgeman, who declared that she took the keenest interest in them — as natural curiosities.
“Why should we pore over moths and zoophytes, and puzzle our brains with long Greek and Latin names,” demanded Jessie, “when our own species affords an inexhaustible variety of creatures, all infinitely interesting. These Vandeleur girls are as new to me as if they had dropped from Mars or Saturn.”
Life, therefore, to all outward seeming, went very pleasantly at Mount Royal. A perfectly appointed house in which money is spent lavishly can hardly fail to be agreeable to those casual inmates who have nothing to do with its maintenance. To Dopsy and Mopsy Mount Royal was a terrestrial paradise. They had never imagined an existence so entirely blissful. This perfumed atmosphere — this unfailing procession of luxurious meals — no cold mutton to hang on hand — no beggarly mutation from bacon to bloater and bloater to bacon at breakfast-time — no wolf at the door.
“To think that money can make all this difference,” exclaimed Mopsy, as she sat with Dopsy on a heather-covered knoll waiting for the shooters to join them at luncheon, while the servants grouped themselves respectfully a little way off with the break and horses. “Won’t it be too dreadful to have to go home again?”
“Loathsome!” said Dopsy, whose conversational strength consisted in the liberal use of about half a dozen vigorous epithets.
“I wish there were some rich young men staying here, that one might get a chance of promotion.”
“Rich men never marry poor girls,” answered Mopsy, dejectedly, “unless the girl is a famous beauty or a favourite actress. You and I are nothing. Heaven only knows what is to become of us when the pater dies. Jack will never be able to give us free quarters. We shall have to go out as shop girls. We’re a great deal too ignorant for governesses.”
“I shall go on the stage,” said Dopsy, with decision. “I may not be handsome — but I can sing in tune, and my feet and ankles have always been my strong point. All the rest is leather and prunella, as Shakespeare says.”
“I shall engage myself to Spiers and Pond,” said Mopsy. “It must be a more lively life, and doesn’t require either voice or ankles — which I” — rather vindictively—”do not possess. Of course Jack won’t like it — but I can’t help that.”
Thus, in the face of all that is loveliest and most poetical in Nature — the dreamy moorland — the distant sea — the Lion-rock with the afternoon sunshine on it — the blue boundless sky — and one far-away sail, silvered with light, standing out against the low dark line of Lundy Island — debated Mopsy and Dopsy, waiting with keen appetites for the game pasty, and the welcome bottle or two of Moët, which they were to share with the sportsmen.
While these damsels thus beguiled the autumn afternoon, Christabel and Jessie had sallied out alone for one of their old rambles; such a solitary walk as had been their delight in the careless long ago, before ever passionate love, and sorrow, his handmaiden, came to Mount Royal.
Mrs. Torrington and three other guests had left that morning; the Vandeleurs, and Reginald Montagu, a free and easy little war-office clerk, were now the only visitors at Mount Royal, and Mrs. Tregonell was free to lead her own life — so with Jessie and Randie for company, she started at noontide for Tintagel. She could never weary of the walk by the cliffs — or even of the quiet country road with its blossoming hedgerows and boundless outlook. Every step of the way, every tint on field or meadow, every change in sky and sea was familiar to her, but she loved them all.
They had loitered in their ramble by the cliffs, talking a good deal of the past, for Jessie was now the only listener to whom Christabel could freely open her heart, and she loved to talk with her of the days that were gone, and of her first lover. Of their love and of their parting she never spoke — to talk of those things might have seemed treason in the wedded wife — but she loved to talk of the man himself — of his opinions, his ideas, the stories he had told them in their many rambles — his creed, his dreams — speaking of him always as “Mr. Hamleigh,” and just as she might have spoken of any clever and intimate friend, lost to her, through adverse circumstance, for ever. It is hardly likely, since they talked of him so often when they were alone, that they spoke of him more on this day than usual: but it seemed to them afterwards as if they had done so — and as if their conversation in somewise forecast that which was to happen before yonder sun had dipped behind the wave.
They climbed the castle hill, and seated themselves on a low fragment of wall with their faces seaward. There was a lovely light on the sea, scarcely a breath of wind to curl the edges of the long waves which rolled slowly in and slid over the dark rocks in shining slabs of emerald-tinted water. Here and there deep purple patches showed where the sea-weed grew thickest, and here and there the dark outline of a convocation of shags stood out sharply above the crest of a rock.
“It was on just such a day that we first brought Mr. Hamleigh to this place,” said Christabel.
“Yes, our Cornish autumns are almost always lovely, and this year the weather is particularly mild,” answered Jessie, in her matter-of-fact way. She always put on this air when she saw Christabel drifting into dangerous feeling. “I shouldn’t wonder if we were to have a second crop of strawberries this year.”
“Do you remember how we talked of Tristan and Iseult — poor Iseult?”
“Poor Marc, I think.”
“Marc? One can’t pity him. He was an ingrate, and a coward.”
“He was a man and a husband,” retorted Jessie; “and he seems to have been badly treated all round.”
“Whither does he wander now?” said Christabel, softly repeating lines learnt long ago.
“Haply in his dreams the wind Wafts him here and lets him find The lovely orphan child again, In her castle by the coast; The youngest fairest chatelaine, That this realm of France can boast, Our snowdrop by the Atlantic sea, Iseult of Brittany,”
“Poor Iseult of the White Hand,” said a voice at Christabel’s shoulder, “after all was not her lot the saddest — had not she the best claim to our pity?”
Christabel started, turned, and she and Angus Hamleigh looked in each other’s faces in the clear bright light. It was over four years since they had parted, tenderly, fondly, as plighted husband and wife, locked in each other’s arms, promising each other speedy reunion, ineffably happy in their assurance of a future to be spent together: and now they met with pale cheeks, and lips dressed in a society smile — eyes — to which tears would have been a glad relief — assuming a careless astonishment.
> “You here, Mr. Hamleigh!” cried Jessie, seeing Christabel’s lips quiver dumbly, as if in the vain attempt at words, and rushing to the rescue. “We were told you were in Russia.”
“I have been in Russia. I spent last winter at Petersburg — the only place where caviare and Adelina Patti are to be enjoyed in perfection — and I spent a good deal of this summer that is just gone in the Caucasus.”
“How nice!” exclaimed Jessie, as if he had been talking of Buxton or Malvern. “And did you really enjoy it?”
“Immensely. All I ever saw in Switzerland is as nothing compared with the gloomy grandeur of that mighty semicircle of mountain peaks, of which Elburz, the shining mountain, the throne of Ormuzd, occupies the centre.”
“And how do you happen to be here — on this insignificant mound?” asked Jessie.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 711
