Mr. Smithson was smoking a cigarette on the lawn with a sporting peer. A man to whom tobacco is a necessity cannot be always on guard; but it is quite possible that in the present state of Lady Lesbia’s feelings Smithson would have had no restraining influence had he been ever so watchful. To what act in the passion drama had her love come to-night as she floated round the room, with her head inclined towards her lover’s breast, the strong pulsation of his heart sounding in her ear, like the rhythmical beat of the basses yonder in Waldteufel’s last waltz? Was there still the uncertainty as to the dénouement which marks the third act of a good play? or was there the dread foreboding, the sense of impending doom which should stir the spectators with pity and terror as the fourth act hurries to its passionate close? Who could tell? She had been full of life and energy to-day on board the yacht during the racing, in which she seemed to take an ardent interest. The Cayman had followed the racers for three hours through a freshening sea, much to Lady Kirkbank’s disgust, and Lesbia had been the soul of the party. The same yesterday. The yacht had only got back to Cowes in time for the ball, and all had been hurry and excitement while the ladies dressed and crossed to the club, the spray dashing over their opera mantles, poor Lady Kirkbank’s complexion yellow with mal de mer, in spite of a double coating of Blanc de Fedora, the last fashionable cosmetic.
To-night Lesbia was curiously silent, depressed even, as it seemed to those who were interested in observing her; and all the world is interested in a famous beauty. She was very pale, even her lips were colourless, and the large violet eyes and firmly pencilled brows alone gave colour to her face. She looked like a marble statue, the eyes and eyebrows accentuated with touches of colour. Those lovely eyes had a heavy look, as of trouble, weariness; nay, absolute distress.
Never had she looked less brilliant than to-night; never had she looked more beautiful. It was the loveliness of a newly-awakened soul. The wonderful Pandora-casket of life, with its infinite evil, its little good, had given up its secret. She knew what passionate love really means. She knew what such love mostly means — self-sacrifice, surrender of the world’s wealth, severance from friends, the breaking of all old ties. To love as she loved means the crossing of a river more fatal than the Rubicon, the casting of a die more desperate than that which Cæsar flung upon the board when he took up arms against the Republic.
The river was not yet crossed, but her feet were on the margin, wet with the ripple of the stream. The fatal die was not yet cast, but the dice-box was in her hand ready for the throw. Lesbia and Montesma danced together — not too often, three waltzes out of sixteen — but when they were so waltzing they were the cynosure of the room. That betting of which Maulevrier had heard was rife to-night, and the odds upon the Cuban had gone up. It was nine to four now that those two would be over the border before the week was out.
Mr. Smithson was not neglectful of his affianced. He took her into the supper-room, where she drank some Moselle cup, but ate nothing. He sat out three or four waltzes with her on the lawn, listening to the murmer of the sea, and talking very little.
‘You are looking wretchedly ill to-night, Lesbia,’ he said, after a dismal silence.
‘I am sorry that I should put you to shame by my bad looks,’ she answered, with that keen acidity of tone which indicates irritated nerves.
‘You know that I don’t mean anything of the kind; you are always lovely, always the loveliest everywhere; but I don’t like to see you so ghastly pale.’
‘I suppose I am over-fatigued: that I have done too much in London and here. Life in Westmoreland was very different,’ she added, with a sigh, and a touch of wonder that the Lesbia Haselden, whose methodical life had never been stirred by a ruffle of passion, could have been the same flesh and blood — yes, verily, the same woman, whose heart throbbed so vehemently to-night, whose brain seemed on fire.
‘Are you sure there is nothing the matter?’ he asked, with a faint quiver in his voice.
‘What should there be the matter?’
‘Who can say? God knows that I know no cause for evil. I am honest enough, and faithful enough, Lesbia. But your face to-night is like a presage of calamity, like the dull, livid sky that goes before a thunderstorm.’
‘I hope there is no thunderbolt coming,’ she answered, lightly. ‘What very tall talk about a headache, for really that is all that ails me. Hark, they have begun “My Queen.” I am engaged for this waltz.’
‘I am sorry for that.’
‘So am I. I would ever so much rather have stayed out here.’
Two hours later, in the steely morning light, when sea and land and sky had a metallic look as if lit by electricity, Lady Lesbia stood with her chaperon and her affianced husband on the landing stage belonging to the club, ready to step into the boat in which six swarthy seamen in red shirts and caps were to row them back to the yacht. Mr. Smithson drew the warm sortie de bal, with its gold-coloured satin lining and white fox border, closer round Lesbia’s slender form.
‘You are shivering,’ he said; ‘you ought to have warmer wraps.
‘This is warm enough for St. Petersburg. I am only tired — very tired.’
‘The Cayman will rock you to sleep.’
Don Gomez was standing close by, waiting for his host. The two men were to walk up the hill to Formosa, a village with a classic portico, delightfully situated above the town.
‘What time are we to come to breakfast? asked Mr. Smithson.
‘Not too early, in mercy’s name. Two o’clock in the afternoon, three, four; — why not make it five — combine breakfast with afternoon tea,’ exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with a tremendous yawn. ‘I never was so thoroughly fagged; I feel as if I had been beaten with sticks, basti — what’s its name.’
She was leaning all her weight upon Mr. Smithson, as he handed her down the steps and into the boat. Her normal weight was not a trifle, and this morning she was heavy with champagne and sleep. Carefully as Smithson supported her she gave a lurch at the bottom of the steps, and plunged ponderously into the boat, which dipped and careened under her, whereat she shrieked, and implored Mr. Smithson to save her.
All this occupied some minutes, and gave Lesbia and the Cuban just time for a few words that had to be said somehow.
‘Good-night,’ said Montesma, as they clasped hands; ‘good-night;’ and then in a lower voice he said, ‘Well, have you decided at last? Shall it be?’
She looked at him for a moment or so, pale in the starlight, and then murmured an almost inaudible syllable.
‘Yes.’
He bent quickly and pressed his lips upon her gloved hand, and when Mr. Smithson looked round they two were standing apart, Montesma in a listless attitude, as if tired of waiting for his host.
It was Smithson who handed Lesbia into the boat and arranged her wraps, and hung over her tenderly as he performed those small offices.
‘Now really,’ he asked, just before the boat put off, ‘when are we to be with you to-morrow?’
‘Lady Kirkbank says not till afternoon tea, but I think you may come a few hours earlier. I am not at all sleepy.’
‘You look as if you needed sleep badly,’ answered Smithson. ‘I’m afraid you are not half careful enough of yourself. Good-night.’
The boat was gliding off, the oars dipping, as he spoke. How swiftly it shot from his ken, flashing in and out among the yachts, where the lamps were burning dimly in that clear radiance of new-born day.
Montesma gave a tremendous yawn as he took out his cigar-case, and he and Mr. Smithson did not say twenty words between them during the walk to Formosa, where servants were sitting up, lamps burning, a great silver tray, with brandy, soda, liqueurs, coffee, in readiness.
* * *
CHAPTER XLIII.
‘ALAS, FOR SORROW IS ALL THE END OF THIS’
Lady Kirkbank retired to her cabin directly she got on board the Cayman.
‘Good-night, child! I am more than half asleep,’ she said; ‘and I think if there were to be an earthq
uake an hour hence I should hardly hear it. Go to your berth directly, Lesbia; you look positively awful. I have seen girls look bad after balls before now, but I never saw such a spectre as you look this morning.’
Poor Georgie’s own complexion left something to be desired. The Blanc de Fedora had been a brilliant success for the first two hours: after that the warm room began to tell upon it, and there came a greasiness, then a streakiness, and now all that was left of an alabaster skin was a livid patch of purplish paint here and there, upon a crow’s-foot ground. The eyebrows, too, had given in, and narrow lines of Vandyke brown meandered down Lady Kirkbank’s cheeks. The frizzy hair had gone altogether wrong, and had a wild look, suggestive of the witches in Macbeth, and the scraggy neck and poor old shoulders showed every year of their age in the ghastly morning light.
Lesbia waited in the saloon till Lady Kirkbank had bolted herself into her cabin, and then she went up to the deck wrapped in her satin-lined, fur-bordered cloak, and coiled herself in a bamboo arm-chair, and nestled her bare head into a Turkish pillow, and tried to sleep, there with the cool morning breeze blowing upon her burning forehead, and the plish-plash of seawater soothing her ear.
There were only three or four sailors on deck, weird, almost diabolical-looking creatures, Lesbia thought, in striped shirts, with bare arms, of a shining bronze complexion, flashing black eyes, sleek raven hair, a sinister look. What species of men they were — Mestizoes, Coolies, Yucatekes — she knew not, but she felt that they were something wild and strange, and their presence filled her with a vague fear. He, whose influence now ruled her life, had told her that these men were born mariners, and that she was twenty times safer with them than when the yacht had been under the control of those honest, grinning red-whiskered English Jack Tars. But she liked the English sailors best, all the same; and she shrank from the faintest contact with these tawny-visaged strangers, plucking away the train of her gown as they passed her chair, lest they should brush against her drapery.
On deck this morning, with only those dark faces near, she had a sense of loneliness, of helplessness, of abandonment even. Unbidden the image of her home at Grasmere flashed into her mind — all things so calm, so perfectly ordered, such a sense of safety, of home — no peril, no temptation, no fever — only peace: and she had grown sick to death of peace. She had prayed for tempest: and the tempest had come.
There was a heavenly quiet in the air in the early summer morning, only the creaking of a spar, the scream of a seagull now and then. How pale the lamps were growing on board the yachts. Paler still, yellow, and dim, and blurred yonder in the town. The eastward facing windows were golden with the rising sun. Yes, this was morning. The yachts were moving away yonder, majestical, swan-like, white sails shining against the blue.
She closed her eyes, and tried to sleep; but sleep would not come. She was always listening — listening for the dip of oars, listening for a snatch of melody from a mellow baritone whose every accent she knew so well.
It came at last, the sound her soul longed for. She lay among her cushions with closed eyes, listening, drinking in those rich ripe notes as they came nearer and nearer, to the measure of dipping oars, ‘La donna e mobile—’
Nearer and nearer, until the little boat ground against the hull. She lifted her heavy eyelids as Montesma leapt over the gunwale, almost into her arms. He was at her side, kneeling by her low chair, kissing the little hands, chill with the freshness of morning.
‘My own, my very own,’ he murmured, passionately.
He cared no more for those copper-faced Helots yonder than if they had been made of wood. He had fate in his own hands now, as it seemed to him. He went to the skipper and gave him some orders in Spanish, and then the sails were unfurled, the Cayman spread her broad white wings, and moved off among those other yachts which were gliding, gliding, gliding out to sea, melting from Cowes Roads like a vision that fadeth with the broad light of morning.
When the sails were up and the yacht was running merrily through the water, Montesma went back to Lady Lesbia, and they two sat side by side, gilded and glorified in the vivid lights of sunrise, talking as they had never talked before, her head upon his shoulder, a smile of ineffable peace upon her lips, as of a weary child that has found rest.
They were sailing for Havre, and at Havre they were to be married by the English chaplain, and from Havre they were to sail for the Havana, and to live there ever afterwards in a fairy-tale dream of bliss, broken only by an annual visit to Paris, just to buy gowns and bonnets. Surrendered were all Lesbia’s ambitious hopes — forgotten — gone; her desire to reign princess paramount in the kingdom of fashion — her thirst to be wealthiest among the wealthy — gone — forgotten. Her dreams now were of the dolce far niente of a tropical climate, a boudoir giving on the Caribbean sea, cigarettes, coffee, nights spent in a foreign opera house, the languid, reposeful existence of a Spanish dama — with him, with him. It was for his sake that she had modified all her ideas of life. To be with him she would have been content to dwell in the tents of the Patagonians, on the wild and snow-clad Pampas. A love which was strong enough to make her sacrifice duty, the world, her fair fame as a well-bred woman, was a love that recked but little of the paths along which her lover’s hand was to lead. For him, to be with him, she renounced the world. The rest did not count.
The summer hours glided past them. The Cayman was far out at sea; all the other yachts had vanished, and they were alone amidst the blue, with only a solitary three-master yonder, on the edge of the horizon. More than once Lesbia had talked of going below to change her ball gown for the attire of everyday life; but each time her lover had detained her a little longer, had pleaded for a few more words. Lady Kirkbank would be astir presently, and there would be no more solitude for them till they were married, and could shake her off altogether. So Lesbia stayed, and those two drank the cup of bliss, hushed by the monotonous sing-song of the sea, the rhythm of the swinging sails. But now it was broad morning. The hour when society, however late it may keep its revels overnight, is apt to awaken, were it only to call for a cup of strong tea and to turn again on the pillow of lassitude, after that refreshment, like the sluggard of Holy Writ. At ten o’clock the sun sent his golden arrows across the silken coverlet of her berth and awakened Lady Kirkbank, who opened her eyes and looked about languidly. The little cabin was heaving itself up and down in a curious way; Mr. Smithson’s cigar-cases were sloping as if they were going to fall upon Lady Kirkbank’s couch, and the looking-glass, with all its dainty appliances, was making an angle of forty-five degrees. There was more swirling and washing of water against the hull than ever Georgie Kirkbank had heard in Cowes Roads.
‘Mercy on me! this horrid thing must be moving,’ she exclaimed to the empty air. ‘It must have broken loose in the night.’
She had no confidence in those savage-looking sailors, and she had a vision of the yacht drifting at the mercy of winds and waves, drifting for days, weeks, and months; drifting to the German Ocean, drifting to the North Pole. Mr. Smithson and Montesma on shore — no one on board to exercise authority over those fearful men.
Perhaps they had mutinied, and were carrying off the yacht as their booty, with Lesbia and her chaperon, and all their gowns.
‘I am almost glad that harpy Seraphine has my diamonds,’ thought poor Georgie, ‘or I should have had them with me on board this hateful boat.’
And then she rapped vehemently against the panel of the cabin, and screamed for Rilboche, whose den was adjacent.
Rilboche, who detested the sea, made her appearance after some delay, looking even greener than her mistress, who, in rising from her berth, already began to suffer the agonies of sea-sickness.
‘What does this mean?’ exclaimed Lady Kirkbank; ‘and where are we going?’
‘That’s what I should like to know, my lady. But I daresay Lady Lesbia and Mr. Montesma can tell you. They are both on deck.’
‘Montesma! Why, we left him on shore!’
‘And now it is ten. Five hours on deck — impossible!’
‘Time doesn’t seem long when one is happy, my lady,’ murmured Rilboche, in her own language.
‘Help me to dress this instant,’ screamed her mistress: ‘that dreadful Spaniard is eloping with us.’
Despite the hideous depression of that malady which strikes down Kaiser and beggar with the same rough hand, Lady Kirkbank contrived to get herself dressed decently, and to stagger up the companion to that part of the deck where the Persian carpet was spread, and the bamboo chairs and tables were set out under the striped awning. Lesbia and her lover were sitting together, he giving her a first lesson in the art of smoking a cigarette. He had told her playfully that every man, woman, and child in Cuba was a smoker, and she had besought him to let her begin, and now, with infinite coquetry, was taking her first lesson.
‘You shameless minx!’ exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger.
‘Where is Smithson — my poor, good Smithson?’
‘Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirkbank,’ the Cuban answered, with perfect sang froid. ‘Smithson is out of it, as you idiomatic English say. I hope, Lady Kirkbank, you will be as kind to me as you have been to Smithson; and depend upon it I shall make Lady Lesbia as good a husband as ever Smithson could have done.’
‘You!’ exclaimed the matron, contemptuously. ‘You! — a foreigner, an adventurer, who may be as poor as Job, for anything I know about you.’
‘Job was once rather comfortably off, Lady Kirkbank; and I can answer for it that Montesma’s wife will know none of the pangs of poverty.’
‘If you were a beggar I would not care,’ said Lesbia, drawing nearer to him.
They had both risen at Lady Kirkbank’s approach, and were standing side by side, confronting her. Lesbia had shrunk from the idea of poverty with John Hammond; yet, for this man’s sake, she was ready to face penury, ruin, disgrace, anything.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 784
