Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 2/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X.

Alaric entered his sister's room a few mornings later. She was on the sofa, and alone. He asked how she felt, and then said—

"I have accidentally made a curious discovery just now." As he spoke he slowly paced the room with folded arms. "My opinion of your friend is rather strengthened by it."

She fixed her pince-nez on her nose, and looked at her brother anxiously. "Well?" is all she said.

"The man who followed her here a week ago is a lord. I was going up the stairs just after him, and picked up two envelopes that he had dropped. They were addressed to 'Lord Robert Elton, M.P., Carlton Club,' and had been forwarded from there to the Continental Hotel. If they had not been empty I should have taken them to his room. As it was, I thought it best not to annoy him by showing that I had learnt his real position."

"Certainly—quite right. But what has that to do with Elizabeth Shaw? Why do you say that———"

"That my opinion is strengthened about her? Because she knew who this Elton really is. She tells you she is annoyed at his following her here, but it is evident there have been passages between them. You will see. She will marry this lord."

"I am told he talks very cleverly, and that must be attractive to her," said his sister, wickedly.

"Oh! of course—and the title, too!" he sneered.

"That is an insinuation quite unworthy of you. If Elizabeth marries this lord, it will be because she likes him better than any one else—for no other reason."

"She has a large circle to choose from!"

"I wish you would make it a little larger," murmured the sick woman. And then she turned round, and would not speak another word.

Just before luncheon the same day George received a telegram.

"Still a prisoner. Better come at once. Urgent business waiting.—Twisden."

The bell rang, and he went down to the dining-room. No one was there but Madame Martineau, who was warming her feet at the wood fire by lifting her black silk petticoat, and extending first one fat leg and then the other towards the flame. She smiled benignantly at him; he made himself so universally pleasant, and paid his weekly account so regularly.

"I am sorry to say, madame," he began, with a grave inclinaftion of his head, "that I have to leave you this afternoon. I am called back suddenly to England."

"Ah! mon Dieu! What is that you tell me? Called back?"

"Yes, madame; there is no help for it. I have been here three weeks to-day. I hoped it would have been six; but 'l'homme propose'—you know the rest. Still, I do not despair of being able to return in the winter. Will you be my friend, madame? Will you do me a favour?"

"Comment! But certainly! You so amiable young man! What is there I would not do for you?"

"It is simply this. Inform me if Miss Shaw leaves your pension; and if you can, let me know where she goes."

Madame's black eyes twinkled, as she wagged her head.

"Ah! quant à ça—she is fixed for the winter. She so great friends with Mademoiselle Baring, who never go away."

"Still, promise to let me know if she does leave you; but do not name my request to any one."

She gave the promise he asked, and received from him an address where, under his assumed name, any letter would reach him. And then the boarders, by ones and twos, came dropping in. Elizabeth was one of the last. She gave her customary little sweeping bow to the table, as she took her place beside Alaric Baring, and said—

"Hatty, I hope, is a little better this morning."

"I hope so; but she will not leave her room."

"Have you heard the sad news?" said madame, in her native tongue. "Monsieur George is leaving us to-day."

There was a universal chorus of "Quel dommage!" Elizabeth leant forward, and caught his eye, a little further down the table.

"So you have been recalled, as you feared, Mr. George?"

He nodded, and was about to speak, when Lord Robert, who had just entered, exclaimed—

"I also am afraid that I shall be recalled. Had letters this morning. You are right, Miss Shaw. A public man's life is slavery—positive slavery!"

"I never said so. But I have been told that slaves like the institution, and are never so happy after they are free."

"You are really departing, monsieur?" said the law-student from the end of the table. "And you have not yet heard the Senator Travieux speak?"

"It is a pity, is it not? Can't be helped, unless—something unforeseen happens."

"'Encore une étoile qui file,
Qui file, file, et disparait!'"

murmured Madame de Belcour, with her keepsake smile at him. But he did not see it; he never saw more than one thing at a time. A vain man in his own way—dogged, determined, but not accessible to open flatteries from women of this stamp.

There was not the same chorus of "Dommage!" on his account. The ugly Englishman had only been here one week, as against the fair fresh one's four, and though he had talked more than any one at table, and had kept alive the spirit of antagonism to "perfide Albion" briskly but not unpleasantly during that time, it cannot be said that he had fascinated any one.

"Monsieur Georges holds out hopes of returning to us: and you, monsieur?" asked Madame Martineau. "May we hope to see you again?"

"If I go, madame"—here he looked very directly at Elizabeth—"I do not return. I make it a rule in life never to go back."

The old professor, who had not yet spoken, but had caught his neighbour's glance across the table, and observed the girl's face flush, here observed, with his cynical smile—

"'Reculer pour mieux sauter' is not a bad proverb sometimes."

"Englishmen do not jump, monsieur. They walk straight to the target they mean to hit. If they miss it, they still walk straight on. They do not turn back. Useless."

Morin (laughing). "Pardon, monsieur. That sounds like a want of perseverance."

Elton. "No one has yet charged me with that. But a man with many calls on him must sometimes sacrifice inclination to duty. 'Duty' is the Englishman's word."

Doucet. "Duty? The greatest pleasure in life is to neglect one's duty."

The Professor. "Monsieur Doucet's life must be made up of pleasures."

Mdme. de Belcour. "He has embodied the sentiment in a charming sonnet."

Doucet. "Which those idiots the critics could not understand!"

Morin (laughing). "And yet it is a sentiment which appeals to us all, I am sure."

Eliza. (quickly). "Not to me."

George. "No; not to any of us English. I agree with—Mr. Elton. 'Duty' is the Englishman's word. It is taking me back to England, and I hate going. But I should be more unhappy if I remained."

Mdme. Clinchaut. "But you will come back to Paris to paint—no?"

Mdme. Martineau. "Yes, yes; monsieur is coming back. They do not paint in England, I am told."

George. "Oh yes, madame, they do. Only their teaching, except at the Slade School———"

Eliza. (half aside). "Oh! that Slade School again!"

Elton. "Quite as good. No use coming here for that. I think you said you had never been in England, madame?"

Mdme. M. "Ah, no! I was near to going once. I had a friend who lived in le Cantorbury———"

Mdme. de B. (under her breath). "Près du 'Petit Saint Thomas.'"

The Professor (sardonically). "We have heard of him. The fact is, monsieur, we French are the worst travellers in the world. There is not one of us here, I believe, who has ever been out of France. (Here a hubbub of voices begins again, out of which the only articulate words are "Jamais de la vie!")

Morin (shaking his head). "As Madame Martineau says, it is that crossing. Were it not for that, I—I who speak to you would———"

Elton. "What! deterred by an hour and twenty minutes' sea? And there are Mr. Baring and his sister who tell me they have crossed the Atlantic sixteen times!"

Baring. "On business—not for pleasure; though my sister, I think, is never so well as at sea."

Mdme. M. (looking bilious at the bare thought). "American stomachs must be different. That is all."

Doucet. "Why should I go to a country where they do not read French—where they do not understand what I say? I was asked to go to London, to recite some ballads at concerts there. But I said, 'It would be desecrating my talent to speak my verses to people who do not understand.'"

The Professor. "It requires a special talent to do so. I have it not. You were wise, Monsieur Doucet, not to risk it."

Mdme. de B. "To be understood is to be vulgar. Any one can be understood. Is it not so, doctor?"

Morin (moving his head from side to side). "Ah! I say not quite that. Still there is a charm in the vague—in the difficult of comprehension—as I have remarked in my lecture on Dante."

Eliza. "You have lectured on Dante?"

Morin. "Yes—from a medical point of view—quite a new one."

Baring (to Elizabeth, taking advantage of the babel of tongues, now grown louder). "Do you hear these French men? Not one of them who does not contrive to shift the conversation back to himself. Their egoism is amazing!"

Eliza. (to Baring). " I don't mind it, as I did at first. It is so naïf. Perhaps we are just as self-absorbed, though we haven't the courage to show it."

Baring. "You are not wanting in courage." (He is about to add something, but Elton, who has been firing right and left, stops him, short with a shot.)

Elton. "Mr. Baring, why not exhibit in London? Good portrait-painters scarce. More orders to be had there than here. Fat aldermen, and fat aldermen's wives—orders without end for you."

Baring. "I shall never paint subjects that are uncongenial to me. Franz Hals could paint a fat burgher, and make a splendid thing of him. I could not. As to exhibiting—there is great jealousy of foreigners with you."

Elton. "Quite a mistake. Sargent—Alma Tadema—Boehm—great favourites. All nonsense. And if you want beauty—we have the most beautiful women in the world. Isn't it so, Miss Shaw?"

Elisa. "I don't know; I suppose so. But I have never seen any of the famous beauties—only their photographs; and I remember once" (with a smile) "a lady I admired you would not admit was beautiful."

Elton. "Oh! Miss Palliser? A painted doll—no. Don't admire artifice—give me nature."

Mdme. de B. "Englishmen call corsets 'artifice,' I believe. We call the arrangement of the fat—the placing of the figure—art. As long as we wear clothes, it id useless to talk about 'nature.'"

Elton. "Quite useless to talk about it, madame. I agree with you."

But here the contention of sharp-pitched voices which arose rendered it difficult to separate any individual utterance from the tangled skein. Mesdames Martineau and Clinchaut were understood to support Madame de Belcour, who boldly announced that all the resources of art which made a woman look better were legitimate. Anatole Doucet, in his most dramatic manner, boomed out that whatever was unnatural had a strange fascination for him: it was subtle, mysterious, unexpected. The profrssor's little shrill flageolet was heard to say that, whatever else it might be, in some cases it was not unexpected. Elizabeth could not refrain from a protest, which no one heard but Baring, in favour of an untinted skin; and Morin felt bound to remind the audience that he, as a doctor, had written a valuable brochure on the subject. The men at the further end of the table swelled the turmoil, which lasted without cessation until Madame Martineau rose.

George at once came up to Elizabeth, as Alaric Baring left the room.

"I shall not see you again, Miss Shaw. I leave by the club train. Will you not give me some little commission, which may serve as an excuse for my writing to you?"

She shook her head. "I have no commissions in England. I am trying to forget it, and everything in it, except two old men."

"The poor young one will be there in a few hours, who does not wish to be forgotten."

She smiled. "You do not belong to England—to my England, I mean. You belong to my Paris; and though oar acquaintance has been so short, I shall not forget you." Then, in her odd, sudden way, she added, looking him straight in the face, "I think you are honest, Mr. George."

He coloured to the roots of his hair; it was a very inconvenient trick nature played him at times.

"Tell me I may come back here in the winter?" he said in a low voice.

"How can I prevent you? Wherever we may meet again, I shall be glad to see yon. I can say no more than that."

"But you will remain here?"

"I hope to remain—but cannot be sure, yet."

He waited a moment; then he said, "You believe in 'duty.' I heard you say so. Have you no duties to take you back to England?"

"None, at present. 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'"

"Perhaps it need not be 'evil,' if you allowed another—a man you believe to be 'honest,'—to share the burthen of those duties, whatever they may be."

She started; not visibly, but mentally. A disagreeable suggestion obtruded itself; she tried to chase it away, as she replied hurriedly—

"My duties are not pressing for consideration yet; and, however irksome, I hope to be able to cope with them, unassisted, later. I must now go to my sick friend. Good-bye."

She held out her hand. He tried to hold it an instant in his, but she withdrew it quickly. And yet he did not feci entirely baffled, as she left the apartment with a light step. On the contrary, he had made as much way, perhaps, as could reasonably be expected in the course of four weeks.

The doctor did not see Miss Baring that day. His medicines had relieved her cough, but she was very weak. She got up, and lay in her shabby grey dressing-gown on the sofa, blinking with her short-sighted eyes at the wall opposite, while Elizabeth piled wood on the fire with a recklessness which made her poor and careful friend wince, before Elizabeth sat down to read aloud to her the last number of the Revue des deux Mondes.

Alaric was at his work; the two girls were alone together till late in the afternoon, when Elizabeth felt a longing for some fresh air, and, putting on her hat and seal-skin jacket, went for a quick walk in the Luxembourg Garden. It was nearly dusk; but she was seen to leave the house by one who had decided that he must seize the first opportunity of speaking to the heiress again, definitely and definitively. It might, indeed, be a little premature to expect a positive acceptance of his hand; he did not wish to precipitate matters; still, if she maintained the same tone she had done yesterday, Robert Elton felt it would be useless to waste any more time here.

He followed and overtook her, as she was entering the garden.

"Going for a 'constitutional,' Miss Shaw?" he cried. "Let me join you. May not have another opportunity. If I am recalled, as I fear———"

"What it is to be a political man!" said Elizabeth, gaily. "How I do hug my independence!"

"Don't mean that seriously—eh? Don't mean that you will always hug it?"

"It will require a strong temptation to induce me to resign it."

"What sort of temptation?"

"Love. I know no other."

"Had no idea you were so sentimental."

"I am sensi-mental—common-sensimental. That is all. What should I resign my independence for, if not for love? For rank? For ambition? Poor little common sense tells me it isn't worth it."

"And common sense will be bowled over the first time jou meet a man who attracts yon—however worthless! It is always so—always!" he snapped out.

She looked very grave; she could not speak for a moment. Then she said slowly—

"I am not infallible. I have made mistakes. I may make them again. But it will not be with my eyes open."

"And you would think it 'a mistake.'" he replied, with more than his usual vehemence, "to marry a man who is attached to you, because—though he may have brains—he has none of the insinuating charm that wins women; because, in short, he has nothing but his heart and an honourable name to offer you?"

"It would be a mistake to marry if I did not love him —or at least think that I loved him. And there is something more than this. Shall I make a confession to you? If I ever marry, I believe it will be some one who does not know that I have any money."

He looked shocked. What a very odd girl this was! How could one answer such a speech as that? But it was final. If these were Miss Shaw's real sentiments, there was nothing further to be said or done. The awkward pause that followed was broken by Elizabeth's saying—

"You have kept my counsel, since you have been here, Lord Robert?"

"Most faithfully."

"Have you known Mr. George long?"

"For some years. Middle class, but not a bad young fellow."

"You have never spoken to him about me?"

"No; he mentioned you once to me. I answered him—nothing more."

"Does he know that I have money, Lord Robert?" She turned her head, so that she might watch his face.

"You don't mean that he——? Confound his impudence! The young jackanapes!"

"I asked you a plain question. You have not answered it."

"My answer is that be certainly does. I can say no more—am bound by a promise. But it is no breach of faith to tell you so much. He does know you have money."

"Thank you. Another reed broken by the wind." She smiled rather bitterly. "Don't imagine that I am in love—that you have dispelled an illusion. But I liked the young man, and I believed in him. I am sorry."

"And so you absolutely refuse to believe in any one who knows you have money? How absurd! Can't conceal it all your life. Ends in your believing no one. Cheerful existence, Miss Shaw!"

"You think I am too young to be so cynical? I don't want to be so. But circumstances have been against me."

"Circumstances? What circumstances?"

"Oh, never mind. I might say a combination of many. If you wish me to be frank, Lord Robert, you are one of them."

"I? What do you mean? I have helped to make you cynical?"

She hesitated a moment. "Well, it is like this, you see. The duke and duchess ignored my uncle and aunt until I came to live at Farley. They then began to overwhelm us with civilities, and your arrival there was announced to me as that of a clever, ambitious man, in search of an heiress. Do you wonder at my feeling nettled? I got over that feeling. I liked your society well enoagh, but—but it opened my eyes; that is, it ought to have opened my eyes to my own worth. The real opening came a little later."

"You hold yourself too cheap," he returned sharply. "If I were a rich man, and you hadn't a penny, I would marry you; because the more I see of you, the more I like you—a great deal better than any woman I ever met. If I didn't feel like that, I wouldn't have followed you here. Was I a fool to do so?"

"Knowing now how I feel, you will see it was useless."

"How could I tell you were so unreasonable on this subject? It is true, if you were poor I couldn't marry you, but the money is the least of your attractions to me now. That's the plain truth, Miss Shaw. You shake your head. Well, if you don't believe me—useless to stay. Only boring you, and can do no good. Hoped in time you might get to like me well enough to—well, to overlook my ugliness. I know that is it. If you had heard me speak in the House, it might have been different. Pitt was uglier than I am. But you never heard me speak. And you were prejudiced against me before you saw me. It can't be helped. I am bitterly disappointed—bitterly, Miss Shaw. But I shall try and hide my wonnd, and return to my work."

They walked on, their feet rustling among the fallen leaves, for some time longer. Elizabeth felt that the worst was over, and she did not mind hearing him to an end, this perfectly straightforward gentleman, who certainly did not "protest too much." In the light of a lover he was intolerable; in the light of a man of the world, who, if he became a friend, would be a sincere one, she felt drawn to him. It was the last half-hour they were alone together before he left for England.

Late that night Hatty said to her brother, "Both the Englishmen are gone. See how unjust you were?"

"It matters nothing to me whether they go or stay."

"Then why insinuate suoh disagreeable things about my friend?"

He was silent.