La Gloire et les Amours ne Durent pas Toujours

Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Present Work: Index Previous: XXXII - A Crusade Next: XXXIV - Love shall resume her dominion, When striving no more to be free; Comes back my lost love to me!

(p. 298)

CHAPTER XXXIII

LA GLOIRE ET LES AMOURS NE DURENT PAS TOUJOURS!

IT was spring-time once again in London. Mayfair and Belgravia crowded the parks with brilliant equipages, curvetting steeds and overdressed peeresses; dashing young heirs drove four-in-hands down to Richmond, – (the venerable Star and Garter had not then suffered from the virulence of “the devouring element”), and even Bloomsbury and Pentonville ordered themselves new suits from E. Moses and Son, and went to dine at Greenwich.

Mrs Archibald Bell having concluded – as the reporters would have said, had she been a fine lady – “a lengthened tour through the environs of the metropolis,” and victimised all the conjugal aunts and cousins by turns, was giving a final touch to the renovation of her delicate health by means of a brief and solitary sojourn within the walls of that majestic pile, the Langley Hotel, Langley-place.

The early May-day had been unusually soft and brilliant, even in London, and the glimpse of open sky visible above the tops of the West-end houses, was rosy with the fading glories of a resplendent sunset.

Our fair Cora, more composite and frisky than ever, attired with all her wonted exaggeration of the fashion, and ensconced lazily in au arm-chair by the window of her private sitting-room, awaited the arrival of her cher ami, who had promised that evening to dine with her, and subsequently to escort the little lady to any of the numerous post-prandial delights of London to which she might incline. Something, indeed, had been said about Cremorne, and Cora sat mentally weighing the respective fascinations of that terrestrial Elysium against

(p. 299)

the sensational wonders announced at half-a-dozen theatres, and contemplating the while with languid satisfaction the bustle of the whisking, officious waiters as they struggled in and out of the room with their clattering burdens of plate and glass designed to bear part in the coming symposium. And now the dinner-table stood complete, the hostess waited, the Hour had arrived in its fulness; but where was the Man? Some parliamentary committee must have delayed him; or, perhaps, an interview with his lawyer – he had always got a lawsuit on hand.

Is everything ready? Then you can go away, waiters, please, until the gentleman arrives. And Cora tries to look as if she had expected him to be rather late.

So the door is shut and Mrs. Archibald is left alone with her suspense and her finery, and the covered table and the empty room. Twenty times during the next ten minutes she consults her watch with increasing anxiety. She looks out of the window, she peers down the side streets; she opens the door and listens stealthily on the threshold. No step coming along the broad, soft-carpeted corridor, no tread on the great wide staircase; only the hurrying garçons and gliding chamber-maids. They will see her – one of them is looking this way now; she withdraws precipitately and retreats again to the arm-chair. Surely Vane has not forgotten his engagement; surely he could not intend to disappoint her! Suddenly, just as Cora is giving her soul up to despondency, and preparing herself to face as best she may the unkind desertion of her beloved Lothario, the door opens, and a domestic, bearing under his arm the usual white insignia of office, respectfully ushers in that lost and very sable sheep.

Cora rises to welcome him in a flutter of delight.

“Oh V!” she cries, “I really thought you were killed! It’s half-past six, and you said a quarter to!”

The waiter has gone out again to fetch the comestibles, and the pretty

(p. 300)

painted parsoness, as she puts her arms round Vaurien’s neck and kisses him, perceives all at once by the restless, harassed expression of his eyes, that something is amiss.

“Darling,” she whispers,” you are vexed, you look as if something bored you!”

“Do I, Pet?” he returns, absently twisting a large serpent ring on his finger; – a gage d’amour by the way, of which Cora possesses and wears the duplicate. For there is a flash of something like sentiment at times, even in the illicit loves of this hopeful couple.

Cora says no more, for she is superlative in tact. And understands perfectly well that by-and-by Vane will tell her what ails him; but that just now it is not his humour to answer questions on the subject. So she knows better than to ask any more at present, and sagely repressing her curiosity, prattles nonsense as usual upon every indifferent topic that happens to present itself while the prandial repast continues.

But by-and by, the evening beginning to wane, Mrs. Archie sees the opportunity for affording him such comfort and obtaining such information as it is in her power to give and take, and with her wonted play she leads up to the desired point.

“V,” she says, moving her chair to his side, and taking a dainty sip out of the glass from which he has just drunk, ”you know that poor fellow Sir Vivian Brabazon, who . . . died . . . at Paris you remember, – just after you went back there? Well, I heard such a curious story about him some time ago! They say he was in love with Fräulein Stern, the prima donna, and wanted to marry her!”

She eyes him pretty slyly as she utters these words, despite her negligent tone and manner, – the little brazen humbug!

“Do they, Pet?” says Vane, stroking his moustache. He is more than a match for Cora Bell at any rate.

“Yes, they do. And they say also that the young foreigner – Le Rodeur,

(p. 301)

– wasn’t it? – who got himself shot so unfortunately in the Rue Royale at a pistol practice, – there was a paragraph in the papers about the accident you know; – well, they say that he was in love with this Fräulein too, and she loved him, and that Brabazon found it all out, and gave her up to Le Rodeur, and became his rival’s best friend, and then died of grief for the loss of her. I don’t quite believe about the grief you know V, but I think it was a splendid thing in Brabazon, – if it’s true, – to give up his own happiness like that for the sake of hers, and instead of bearing malice against the man she preferred, to stand by him through it all.”

“Through all what? eh?” asks Vaurien veraciously. Why does she tell him all this long story? he wonders. And where has the little minx picked it up?

“Don’t be savage, V!” And she takes another little dainty sip out of that glass by his side. ”Can’t I narrate an interesting anecdote, you cross thing, without being scolded for it? I say if Brabazon did what they say he did, he was a first-rate fellow, and a true gentleman! And I’m awfully sorry I ever had a hand in laying snares for him! There!”

Oho! So remorse is at the bottom of all this rigmarole! Bad sign, Cora Bell, you’re falling off sadly, my dear Mrs. Archibald! But he only repeats in that old unconcerned interrogative way of his, –

“Are you, Pet?”

“Yes,” she pursues, tracing out the pattern of the tablecloth with the prongs of a fork, and sedulously avoiding the glance of her cher ami; “I am. I say that self-sacrifice of Brabazon’s was a magnificent thing. What do you think, V?”

She arrests the progress of the fork and turns her face abruptly upon his.

Vane replies by a quotation, slightly garbled and adapted.

(p. 302)

“C’était manifique, chère belle,” says he with imperturbable indifference; “mais ce n’était pas l’amour!”

She shrugs her shoulders impatiently.

“It was something better than l’amour, I think then,” says she returning to the fork.

Brava! well spoken, Cora Golightly! There is worthier stuff in thee after all than goes to make counterfeit coin; real gold, perhaps, under the brass; a heart of flesh inside the gaudy tight shut little nut, though it be a hard one for teeth to crack; – a pearl within the senseless flinty oyster that needs a knife to open its shell! Who knows, who divines it?

Not Vane, at least, for he only laughs and strokes her yellow hair, and whispers in a bantering caressive tone.

“Another trait in your character, eh? What a mass of contradictions you are, Pet. Funny child!”

But she says nothing more, and he begins again to wonder whether she had meant to ask him any questions about Brabazon just now; whether she had suspected any deception on his part about that political intrigue, – whether she had checked herself purposely – had reserved anything, or had merely desired to express her penitence for having designed anything unamiable against so noble a baronet as Vivian Brabazon?

There is a pause, of duration unprecedented in the annals of this charming friendship. Suddenly Vaurien draws the yellow head down upon his shoulder, and as though he were continuing without break or interruption the brief dialogue which had occurred on his entrance; – “Yes, Pet.” says he, “I was late this evening. A tiresome business detained me. Should you be surprised to hear that this colossal child had come to grief, eh?”

The Tichborne Trial, of recent celebrity, had not then irradiated the columns of the morning journals, and the facetious interrogatories of

(p. 303)

the Attorney-General were yet in the bosom of the Future, or Cora might perhaps have found something ludicrous in the delicate phraseology of her Don Juan.

“V?” But she did not raise her head.

“Yes. With that eccentric and pungent vivacity which distinguishes me, Pet, this dexter fin of mine indited a little salubrious satire the other day upon a certain Sir Timothy Wishwash, a man who has much to do with turf matters and horse-racing, and, – confound the flunkey, – he deserved the fling l had at him, too! Well, Pet, he chose to take my inky correction ill, and has made the devil’s own row about the thing, – enfin, Pet, for why should I enter into questions of libel and warrants and law persecutions with you? – it is sufficient to tell you that I’m in a deuce of a mess, and as I have a natural antipathy to the pillory, and am a free man with no domestic or social ties that need bind me to this small comer of the globe, why ‘hey for boot and saddle, love, and round the world, away! Young blood must have its course, love, and every dog his day!’ So I have a mind to see some adventure and, perhaps, a little service, eastward; and I go. . . . to-morrow, Petite!”

“Oh, V! V!, to-morrow?”

“It is Khismet, Petite.”

Perhaps he too feels a pang of regret at the thought of parting so soon and so finally from this peccant little matron. But whatever romantic observation on the subject might further have risen to his lips none will ever know, for just then a waiter tapped at the door and brought in a telegram for Mrs. Bell. Don Juan seeing it, remembered the arrival of that other despatch for Brabazon during the dinner at the hotel in the Rue S. Honoré, and said to himself how droll it was that the circumstance should be so nearly repeated now! Yet coincidences of this sort are not rare. Cora tore the paper open. It was addressed to her from Mudbury, in the name of her husband’s Rector and contained these rebukeful lines:

(p. 304)

“If you wish to see your husband alive, come home without delay. He has been thrown from his horse, and dangerously hurt.”

“O Archie! Archie.”

She tossed the ominous message to Vaurien, and burst into tears. For a few minutes he let her cry without interruption; and then, as her sobs began to subside, put his arm gently round her waist and drew her, unresisting, close against his breast.

“Pet,” he whispered, putting his lips to her forehead and taking her hands in his; – “listen to me, I have something to say to you. From the wording of this telegram, l believe your husband is dead; this is the Rector’s way of breaking the news to you. Try to understand what that means, Petite.”

And to give the devil his due, Vane sincerely credited the truth of his assertion. He would not have deceived this wayward little woman, now, for worlds.

“Be reasonable, my child – we can mend this misfortune – you and I – if you love me. Instead of going to Mudbury, come with me. We’lI start to-night, Pet, and I’ll give you half-an-hour by my watch to pack up your portmanteau. Eh?”

“No V! No, no.”

Still sobbing, she slides out of his embrace, rises and pulls the bell, and stands, waiting, by the mantelpiece.

“What’s that for, Pet?” he asks, watching her.

She does not answer him, for the garçon is already here. He must have been close outside. Oh, I promise you morals are jealously guarded at the Langley Hotel!

“Waiter, can you tell me whether there is any train to-night from Euston Square for Mudbury or for Sloughton?”

Yes, ma’am, he believes there is one at 9.45.

“Does it stop at Mudbury?”

(p. 305)

Oh, certain to, ma’am, but will inquire more particularly down stairs. Thanks – thanks very much. Cora would like to know as much about it as possible. Please to make haste.

And off he goes.

“Pet, come here; you are very foolish.”

“Foolish, V? Oh, but I am so miserable – so miserable! Think of poor Archie at home in that horrible place, dying by inches, perhaps, with only two servants and that deaf old Rector! I knew there would be an accident with that cob some day – he always shies so dreadfully!”

And she weeps again with piteous vehemence.

“Yes, ma’am. There is a train from Euston at 9.45, which stops at all stations, and gets to Mudbury at 1.5 a.m.” . . . Thank you, waiter. Please say that Mrs. Bell will go by that train, and ask the porter to get her a cab at nine o’clock . . . “Cert’ly ma’am.”

And off he goes again.

Vaurien rises and comes round to the mantelpiece, against which Cora leans, hysterically sobbing, her face hidden in her hands, and her elbows resting upon the black marble.

“Petite,” he says touching her softly on the neck, – “don’t you think you are acting very absurdly? Depend on it, this will be a wild-goose chase of yours; – you will get to Mudbury in the dead of the night, drive two miles in some crazy vehicle, find a desolate house, stupid, bewildered domestics, and . . . the corpse of a man who was a very good fellow, but whom you never can have loved overmuch. Be a woman of the world, now, child. Remember the fable of the dog and the shadow, and don’t cast away what you really have between your teeth, for the sake of something else which may result in the most miserable disappointment. Come, cara Cora, – choose between your husband and me! It is just eight o’clock now, we’ll go in the cab you’ve ordered at nine!”

(p. 306)

“No V. Indeed I can’t, – it mustn’t be. Poor Archie, dear old Archie, with his curls and his blue eyes that I thought so handsome once! I will go to Archie! All this. . . .” she suddenly looks up and waves her hand passionately round the room, as though she indicated by the movement the baneful circumstances and fatal companionship of her recent life, – “all this has been like a bad dream to me! Now I am awake!”

Yes, the hard little nut is broken, the impervious oyster shell has yielded to the knife! And who would have thought what lay within?

Vaurien puts his hands on her wrists and wrenching her about with a gentle force, compels her to meet his handsome face and dangerous eyes.

“Listen, Cora! I have a right to claim you, – you have given yourself to me! – by G – d I have a right! If we part now, we must part without hope of ever meeting again; if we leave England together I’ll keep to you, for I am true as steel, and I am a gentleman. Now, Pet, make up your mind; I know you love me, and I know that if you are obstinate now, you will often sigh in days to come for the shelter of these herculean arms, and the support of this adamantine chest. Won’t you now, Pet, – ah, I know you will!”

“Oh V, darling V! Kiss me, bid me goodbye . . . . . for I must go to Archie!”

She lifts towards him her tear-bedabbled face, with the rose-leaf and the powder all washed away from under the red swollen eyes; a touching pathetic little face notwithstanding its unbecoming grief and its quivering chin. But he pushes her away from him angrily, and cries out in a voice that is quite a new one to the ears of Cora Bell:

“Yes, good-bye, vacillating, irresolute woman! false to your husband, – false to me, false to your own heart!”

And the last article of his accusation was truer than perhaps Lothario knew.

(p. 307)

She can say no more, poor little sinner, for she is utterly broken down, and nearer a real swoon than she has ever yet been in all her vain, playful life. Never fear, Cora, take courage; the night has turned with thee now, bethink thee that the darkest hour comes always just before the dawn! Archie shall dry those tears for thee yet, and all shall go merrily as a marriage bell, for thou art not such a very bad little wife after all, and I, for one, will not be hard upon thee!

“Oh V! I am so miserable, don’t be angry with me, and on this night too!”

But still there is no reply, no sound save her own hysteric sobs. She rouses herself and looks round, – the room is empty . . . . Vaurien is gone!

"V! V! O what shall I do, – what shall I do?”