“You are going to the meet?” inquired Leonard, as his wife handed him his coffee.
“Do you think I would take the trouble to put on my habit in order to ride from here to Trevena?” exclaimed Christabel. “I am going with the rest of them, of course. Emily St. Aubyn will show me the way.”
“But you have never hunted.”
“Because your dear mother was too nervous to allow me. But I have ridden over every inch of the ground. I know my horse, and my horse knows me. You needn’t be afraid.”
“Mrs. Tregonell is one of the finest horsewomen I ever saw,” said de Cazalet. “It is a delight to ride by her side. Are not you coming with us?” he asked.
“Yes, I’ll ride after you,” said Leonard. “I forgot all about the harriers. Nobody told me they were to begin work this morning.”
The horses were brought round to the porch, the ladies put on their gloves, and adjusted themselves in those skimpy lop-sided petticoats which have replaced the flowing drapery of the dark ages when a horsewoman’s legs and boots were in somewise a mystery to the outside world.
Leonard went out to look at the horses. A strange horse would have interested him even on his death bed, while one ray of consciousness yet remained to recognize the degrees of equine strength and quality. He overhauled the mare which Major Bree had chosen for Christabel a month ago — a magnificent three-quarter bred hunter, full of power.
“Do you think she can carry me?” asked Christabel.
“She could carry a house. Yes; you ought to be safe upon her. Is that big black brute the Baron’s horse?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so — a coarse clumsy beast, all show,” muttered Leonard; “like master, like man.”
He turned away to examine Colonel Blathwayt’s hunter, a good looking chestnut, and in that moment the Baron had taken up his ground by Christabel’s mare, and was ready to lift her into the saddle. She went up as lightly as a shuttlecock from a battledore, scarcely touching the corduroy shoulder — but Leonard felt angry with the Baron for usurping a function which should have been left for the husband.
“Is Betsy Baker in condition?” he asked the head groom, as the party rode away, de Cazalet on Mrs. Tregonell’s right hand.
“Splendid, sir. She only wants work.”
“Get her ready as quick as you can. I’ll take it out of her.”
Mr. Tregonell kept his word. Wherever de Cazalet and Christabel rode that day, Christabel’s husband went with them. The Baron was a bold, bad rider — reckless of himself, brutal to his horse. Christabel rode superbly, and was superbly mounted. Those hills which seemed murderous to the stranger, were as nothing to her, who had galloped up and down them on her Shetland pony, and had seldom ridden over better ground from the time when Major Bree first took her out with a leading rein. The day was long, and there was plenty of fast going — but these three were always in the front. Yet even the husband’s immediate neighbourhood in no wise lessened the Baron’s marked attention to the wife, and Leonard rode homeward at dusk sorely troubled in spirit. What did it mean? Could it be that she, whose conduct last year had seemed without reproach; who had borne herself with matronly dignity; with virginal purity towards the lover of her girlhood — the refined and accomplished Angus Hamleigh — could it be that she had allowed herself to be involved in a flirtation with such a tinsel dandy as this de Cazalet?
“It would be sheer lunacy,” he said to himself. “Perhaps she is carrying on like this to annoy me — punishing me for — —”
He rode home a little way behind those other two, full of vexation and bewilderment. Nothing had happened of which he could reasonably complain. He could scarcely kick this man out of his house because he inclined his head at a certain angle — because he dropped his voice to a lower key when he spoke to Christabel. Yet his very attitude in the saddle as he rode on ahead — his hand on his horse’s flank, his figure turned towards Christabel — was a provocation.
Opera bouffe duets — recitations — acted charades — bouts rimés — all the catalogue of grown-up playfulness — began again after dinner; but this evening Leonard did not stay in the drawing-room. He felt that he could not trust himself. His disgust must needs explode into some rudeness of speech, if he remained to witness these vagaries.
“I like the society of barmaids, and I can tolerate the company of ladies,” he said to his bosom friend, Jack; “but a mixture of the two is unendurable: so we’ll have a good smoke and half-crown pool, shilling lives.”
This was as much as to say, that Leonard and his other friends were about to render their half-crowns and shillings as tribute to Captain Vandeleur’s superior play; that gentleman having made pool his profession since he left the army.
They played till midnight, in an atmosphere which grew thick with tobacco smoke before the night was done. They played till Jack Vandeleur’s pockets were full of loose silver, and till the other men had come to the conclusion that pool was a slow game, with an element of childishness in it, at the best — no real skill, only a mere mechanical knack, acquired by incessant practice in fusty public rooms, reeking with alcohol.
“Show me a man who plays like that, and I’ll show you a scamp,” muttered little Monty in a friendly aside to Leonard, as Jack Vandeleur swept up the last pool.
“I know he’s a scamp,” answered Leonard, “but he’s a pleasant scamp, and a capital fellow to travel with — never ill — never out of temper — always ready for the day’s work, whatever it is, and always able to make the best of things. Why don’t you marry one of his sisters? — they’re both jolly good fellows.”
“No coin,” said Monty, shaking his neat little flaxen head. “I can just contrive to keep myself—’still to be neat, still to be drest.’ What in mercy’s name should I do with a wife who would want food and gowns, and stalls at the theatres? I have been thinking that if those St. Aubyn girls have money — on the nail, you know, not in the form of expectations from that painfully healthy father — I might think seriously of one of them. They are horridly rustic — smell of clover and beans, and would be likely to disgrace one in London society — but they are not hideous.”
“I don’t think there’s much ready money in that quarter, Monty,” answered Leonard. “St. Aubyn has a good deal of land.”
“Land,” screamed Monty. “I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs! The workhouses of the next century will be peopled by the offspring of the landed gentry. I shudder when I think of the country squire and his prospects.”
“Hard lines,” said Jack, who had made that remark two or three times before in the course of the evening.
They were sitting round the fire by this time — smoking and drinking mulled Burgundy, and the conversation had become general.
This night was as many other nights. Sometimes Mr. Tregonell tried to live through the evening in the drawing-room — enduring the society games — the Boulevard music — the recitations and tableaux and general frivolity — but he found these amusements hang upon his spirits like a nightmare. He watched his wife, but could discover nothing actually reprehensible in her conduct — nothing upon which he could take his stand as an outraged husband, and say “This shall not be.” If the Baron’s devotion to her was marked enough for every one to see, and if her acceptance of his attentions was gracious in the extreme, his devotion and her graciousness were no more than he had seen everywhere accepted as the small change of society, meaning nothing, tending towards nothing but gradual satiety; except in those few exceptional cases which ended in open scandal and took society by surprise. That which impressed Leonard was the utter change in his wife’s character. It seemed as if her very nature were altered. Womanly tenderness, a gentle and subdued manner, had given place to a hard brilliancy. It was as if he had lost a pearl, and found a diamond in its place — one all softness and purity, the other all sparkle and light.
He was too proud to sue to her for any renewal of old confidences — to claim from her any of th
e duties of a wife. If she could live and be happy without him — and he knew but too surely that his presence, his affection, had never contributed to her happiness — he would let her see that he could live without her — that he was content to accept the position she had chosen — union which was no union — marriage that had ceased to be marriage — a chain drawn out to its furthest length, yet held so lightly that neither need feel the bondage.
Everybody at Mount Royal was loud in praise of Christabel. She was so brilliant, so versatile, she made her house so utterly charming. This was the verdict of her new friends — but her old friends were less enthusiastic. Major Bree came to the Manor House very seldom now, and frankly owned himself a fish out of water in Mrs. Tregonell’s new circle.
“Everybody is so laboriously lively,” he said; “there is an air of forced hilarity. I sigh for the house as it was in your mother’s time, Leonard. ‘A haunt of ancient peace.’”
“There’s not much peace about it now, by Jove,” said Leonard. “Why did you put it into my wife’s head to ride to hounds?”
“I had nothing to do with it. She asked me to choose her a hunter, and I chose her something good and safe, that’s all. But I don’t think you ought to object to her hunting, Leonard, or to her doing anything else that may help to keep her in good spirits. She was in a very bad way all the winter.”
“Do you mean that she was seriously ill? Their letters to me were so d —— d short. I hardly know anything that went on while I was away.”
“Yes. She was very ill — given over to melancholy. It was only natural that she should be affected by Angus Hamleigh’s death, when you remember what they had been to each other before you came home. A woman may break an engagement of that kind, and may be very happy in her union with another man, but she can’t forget her first lover, if it were only because he is the first. It was an unlucky thing your bringing him to Mount Royal. One of your impulsive follies.”
“Yes, one of my follies. So you say that Christabel was out of health and spirits all the winter.”
“Yes, she would see no one — not even me — or the Rector. No one but the doctor ever crossed the threshold. But surely Miss Bridgeman has told you all about it. Miss Bridgeman was devoted to her.”
“Miss Bridgeman is as close as the grave; and I am not going to demean myself by questioning her.”
“Well, there is no need to be unhappy about the past. Christabel is herself again, thank God — brighter, prettier than ever. That Swiss tour with Miss Bridgeman and the boy did her worlds of good. I thought you made a mistake in leaving her at Mount Royal after that melancholy event. You should have taken her with you.”
“Perhaps I ought to have done so,” assented Leonard, thinking bitterly how very improbable it was that she would have consented to go with him.
He tried to make the best of his position, painful as it was. He blustered and hectored as of old — gave his days to field sports — his evenings for the most part to billiards and tobacco. He drank more than he had been accustomed to drink, sat up late of nights. His nerves were not benefited by these latter habits.
“Your hand is as shaky as an old woman’s,” exclaimed Jack, upon his opponent missing an easy cannon. “Why, you might have done that with a boot-jack. If you’re not careful you’ll be in for an attack of del. trem., and that will chaw you up in a very short time. A man of your stamina is the worst kind of subject for nervous diseases. We shall have you catching flies, and seeing imaginary snow-storms before long.”
Leonard received this friendly warning with a scornful laugh.
“De Cazalet drinks more brandy in a day than I do in a week,” he said.
“Ah, but look at his advantages — brought up in Jersey, where cognac is duty-free. None of us have had his fine training. Wonderful constitution he must have — hand as steady as a rock. You saw him this morning knock off a particular acorn from the oak in the stable yard with a bullet.”
“Yes, the fellow can shoot; he’s less of an impostor than I expected.”
“Wonderful eye and hand. He must have spent years of his life in a shooting gallery. You’re a dooced good shot, Tregonell; but, compared with him, you’re not in it.”
“That’s very likely, though I have had to live by my gun in the Rockies. FitzJesse told me that in South America de Cazalet was known as a professed duellist.”
“And you have only shot four-footed beasts — never gone for a fellow creature,” answered Jack lightly.
CHAPTER VIII.
“TIME TURNS THE OLD DAYS TO DERISION.”
If Leonard Tregonell was troubled and perplexed by the change in his wife’s character, there was one other person at Mount Royal, Christabel’s nearest and dearest friend, to whom that change was even a greater mystification. Jessie Bridgeman, who had been with her in the dark hours of her grief — who had seen her sunk in the apathy of despair — who had comforted and watched her, and sympathized and wept with her, looked on now in blank wonderment at a phase of character which was altogether enigmatical. She had been with Mrs. Tregonell at Zermatt, when de Cazalet had obtruded himself on their notice by his officious attentions during a pilgrimage to the Riffel, and she had been bewildered at Christabel’s civility to a man of such obvious bad style. He had stayed at the same hotel with them for three or four days, and had given them as much of his society as he could without being absolutely intrusive, taking advantage of having met Christabel five seasons ago, at two or three quasi literary assemblies; and at parting Christabel had invited him to Mount Royal. “Mr. Tregonell will be at home in the autumn,” she said, “and if you should find yourself in Cornwall” — he had talked of exploring the West of England—”I know he would be glad to see you at Mount Royal.”
When Jessie hinted at the unwisdom of an invitation to a man of whom they knew so little, Christabel answered carelessly that “Leonard liked to have his house full of lively people, and would no doubt be pleased with the Baron de Cazalet.”
“You used to leave him to choose his own visitors.”
“I know; but I mean to take a more active part in the arrangement of things in future. I am tired of being a cipher.”
“Did you hear those people talking of the Baron at table d’hôte yesterday?”
“I heard a little — I was not particularly attentive.”
“Then perhaps you did not hear that he is a thorough Bohemian — that he led a very wild life in South America, and was a notorious duellist.”
“What can that matter to us, even if it is true?”
It seemed to Jessie that Christabel’s whole nature underwent a change, and that the transformation dated from her acquaintance with this man. They were at the end of their tour at the time of this meeting, and they came straight through to Paris, where Mrs. Tregonell abandoned herself to frivolity — going to all the theatres — buying all the newest and lightest music, spending long mornings with milliners and dressmakers — squandering money upon fine clothes, which a year ago she would have scorned to wear. Hitherto her taste had tended to simplicity of attire — not without richness — for she was too much of an artist not to value the artistic effects of costly fabrics, the beauty of warm colouring. But she now pursued that Will o’ the Wisp fashion from Worth to Pingat, and bought any number of gowns, some of which, to Miss Bridgeman’s severe taste, seemed simply odious.
“Do you intend spending next season in May Fair, and do you expect to be asked to a good many fancy balls?” asked Jessie, as Mrs. Tregonell’s maid exhibited the gowns in the spacious bedroom at the Bristol.
“Nonsense, Jessie. These are all dinner gowns. The infinite variety of modern fashion is its chief merit. The style of to-day embraces three centuries of the past, from Catherine de Médicis to Madame Récamier.”
At one of the Boulevard theatres Mrs. Tregonell and Miss Bridgeman met Mr. FitzJesse, who was also returning from a summer holiday. He was Angus Hamleigh’s friend, and had known Christabel during the happy days of her first
London season. It seemed hardly strange that she should be glad to meet him, and that she should ask him to Mount Royal.
“And now I must have some women to meet these men,” she said, when she and Jessie were at home again, and the travelled infant had gone back to his nursery, and had inquired why the hills he saw from his windows were no longer white, and why the sea was so much bigger than the lakes he had seen lately. “I mean to make the house as pleasant as possible for Leonard when he comes home.”
She and Jessie were alone in the oak panelled parlour — the room with the alcove overlooking the hills and the sea. They were seated at a little table in this recess — Christabel’s desk open before her — Jessie knitting.
“How gaily you speak. Have you — —”
She was going to say, “Have you forgiven him for what was done at St. Nectan’s Kieve?” but she checked herself when the words were on her lips. What if Leonard’s crime was not forgiven, but forgotten? In that long dreary winter they had never spoken of the manner of Angus Hamleigh’s death. Christabel’s despair had been silent. Jessie had comforted her with vague words which never touched upon the cruel details of her grief. How if the mind had been affected by that long interval of sorrow, and the memory of Leonard’s deed blotted out? Christabel’s new delight in frivolous things — her sudden fancy for filling her house with lively people — might be the awakening of new life and vigour in a mind that had trembled on the confines of madness. Was it for her to recall bitter facts — to reopen the fountain of tears? She gave one little sigh for the untimely dead — and then addressed herself to the duty of pleasing Christabel, just as in days gone by her every effort had been devoted to making the elder Mrs. Tregonell happy.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 724
