Читать книгу One of the Six Hundred - James Grant - Страница 9
CHAPTER VI.
ОглавлениеNo, tempt me not—love's sweetest flower
Hath poison in its smile;
Love only woos with dazzling power,
To fetter hearts the while.
I will not wear its rosy chain,
Nor e'en its fragrance prove;
I fear too much love's silent pain—
No, no! I will not love.
Through the cool and airy corridor, with its cabinets full of Sèvres jars, Indian bowls, and sculptured marble busts—on one side the Marli horses in full career crowning a buhl pedestal; on the other a bronze Laocoon, with his two sons, in the coils of the brazen serpents—we proceeded to the drawing-room, a merry and laughing party, for it was impossible to resist the influence of a good dinner, good wines, and jovial company.
On entering we found the ladies variously engaged. A graceful group was about the piano; the Countess of Chillingham was half hidden in the soft arms of a vast velvet chair, where she was playing indolently with her fan, and watching her daughter; others were busy with books of engravings, and some were laughing at the pencil sketches of a local artist, who portrayed the wars of the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, and other nude barbarians, while old Binns and two powdered lacqueys served the tea and coffee on silver trays.
I had hoped to meet Lady Louisa's eye on entering, but the first smile that greeted me was the sweet one of Cora, who, approaching me, put her plump little arm through mine, and said, half reproachfully and half jestingly—
"How long you have lingered over that odious wine, and you have not been here for six years, Newton. Think of that—for six years."
"How many may elapse before I am here again? Do you reproach me, Cora?" I was beginning, for her voice and smile were very alluring.
"Yes, very much," she said, with playful severity.
"Your papa, my good uncle, is somewhat of a stickler for etiquette, consequently I could not rise before the seniors; and then this is the festive season of the year. But hush; Lady Louisa is about to sing, I think."
"A duet, too."
"With whom?"
"Mr. Berkeley. They are always practising duets."
"Always?"
"Yes; she dotes on music."
"Ah, and he pretends to do so, too."
Spreading her ample flounces over the carved walnut-wood piano stool, Lady Louisa ran her white fingers rapidly and with some brilliancy of execution—certainly with perfect confidence—over the keys of a sonorous grand piano; while Berkeley stood near, with an air of considerable affectation and satisfaction, to accompany her, his delicate hands being cased in the tightest of straw-coloured kid gloves; and all the room became hushed into well-bred silence, while they favoured us with the famous duet by Leonora and the Conde di Luna, "Vivra! Contende il Guibilo."
Berkeley acquitted himself pretty well; so well, that I regretted my own timbre tones. But I must confess to being enchanted while Louisa sang; her voice was very seductive, and she had been admirably trained by a good Italian master. I remained a silent listener, full of admiration for her performance, and not a little for the contour of her fine neck and snowy shoulders, from which her maize-coloured opera cloak had fallen.
"Lady Loftus," said Berkeley, "your touch upon the piano is like—like——"
"What, Mr. Berkeley? Now tax your imagination for a new compliment."
"The fingers—haw—of a tenth muse."
She uttered a merry laugh, and continued to run those fingers over the keys.
"Homely style of thing, the baronet's dinner," I heard him whisper, as he stooped over her, with a covert smile in his eyes.
"Ah, you prefer the continental mode we are adopting so successfully in England?"
"The dinner à la Russe; exactly."
"Ah, you will get dinners enough of that kind in the Crimea, more than you may have appetite for," she replied, with a manner so quiet, that it was difficult to detect a little satire.
"Most likely," drawled Berkeley, as he twirled his moustaches, without seeing the retort to his bad taste; and then, without invitation, the fair musician gave us a song or two from the "Trovatore;" till her watchful mother advancing, contrived to end her performance, and, greatly to my satisfaction, marched her into the outer drawing-room.
"Cora must sing something now," said I; "her voice has long been strange to me."
"I cannot sing after Lady Loftus's brilliant performance," she said, nervously and hurriedly. "Don't ask me, pray, Newton, dear."
"Nonsense! she shall sing us something. We were talking about snobbish people in the other room," said honest, old blundering Sir Nigel. "I have observed it is a peculiarity of that style of society in Scotland to banish alike national music and national songs. But such is not our rôle in Calderwood Glen. A few of our girls certainly attempt with success such glorious airs as those we have just heard, or those from "Roberto il Diavolo" and "Lucia;" but I have heard men, who might sing a plain Scottish song fairly enough, and with credit, make absolute maniacs of themselves by attempting to howl like Edgardo in the churchyard, or like Manrico at the prison-gate—an affectation of operatic excellence with which I have no patience."
"To take out in fashion what we lose in genuine amusement and enthusiasm is an English habit becoming more common in Scotland every day," said the general.
"So, Cora, darling, sing us one of our songs. Give Newton the old ballad of 'The Thistle and the Rose.' I am sure he has not heard it for many a day."
"Not since I was last under this roof, dear uncle," said I.
This ballad was one of the memories of our childhood, and a great favourite with the old Tory baronet; so I led Cora to the piano.
"It will sound so odd—so primitive, in fact—to these people, especially after what we have heard, Newton," she urged, in a whisper; "but then papa is so obstinate."
"But to please me, Cora."
"To please you, Newton, I would do anything," she replied, with a blush and a happy smile.
I stood by her side while she sang a simple old ballad, that had been taught her by my mother. The air was plaintive, and the words were quaint. By whom they were written I know not, for they are neither to be found in Allan Ramsay's "Miscellany," or any other book of Scottish songs that I have seen. Cora sang with great sweetness, and her voice awakened a flood of old memories and forgotten hopes and fears, with many a boyish aspiration, for music, like perfume, can exert a wonderful effect upon the imagination and on the memory.
THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE.
It was in old times,
When trees composed rhymes,
And flowers did with elegy flow;
In an old battle-field,
That fair flowers did yield,
A rose and a thistle did grow.
On a soft summer day,
The rose chanced to say,
"Friend thistle, I'll with you be plain;
And if you'd simply be
But united to me,
You would ne'er be a thistle again."
The thistle said, "My spears
Shield me from all fears,
While you quite unguarded remain;
And well, I suppose,
Though I were a rose,
I'd fain be a thistle again."
"Dearest friend," quoth the rose,
"You falsely suppose—
Bear witness ye flowers of the plain!—
You'd take so much pleasure
In beauty's vast treasure,
You'd ne'er be a thistle again."
The thistle, by guile,
Preferred the rose's smile
To all the gay flowers of the plain;
She threw off her sharp spears,
Unarmed she appears—
And then were united the twain.
But one cold, stormy day,
While helpless she lay,
No longer could sorrow refrain;
She gave a deep moan,
And with many an "Ohone!
Alas for the days when a Stuart filled the throne—
OH! WERE I A THISTLE AGAIN!"
Sir Nigel clapped his hands in applause, and said to the M.P.—
"Lickspittal, my boy, I consider that an anti-centralization song—but, of course, your sympathies and mine are widely apart."
"It is decidedly behind the age, at all events," said the member, laughing.
"You have a delightful voice, Cora—soft and sweet as ever," said I in her ear.
"Thanks, Cora," added Sir Nigel, patting her white shoulder with his strong embrowned hand. "Newton seems quite enchanted; but you must not seek to captivate our lancer."
"Why may I not, papa?"
"Because, as Thackeray says, 'A lady who sets her heart on a lad in uniform, must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.'"
"You are always quoting Thackeray," said Cora, with a little perceptible shrug of her plump shoulders.
"Is such really the case, Mr. Norcliff?" asked Lady Louisa, who had approached us; "are you gentlemen of the sword so heartless?"
"Nay, I trust that, in this instance, the author of 'Esmond' rather quizzes than libels the service," said I. "How beautiful the conservatory looks when lighted up," I added, drawing back the crimson velvet hangings that concealed the door, which stood invitingly open.
"Yes; there are some magnificent exotics here," said the tall, pale beauty, as she swept through, accompanied by Cora and myself.
I had hoped to have a single moment for a tête-à-tête with her; but in vain, for the pertinacious Berkeley, with his slow, invariable saunter, lounged in after us, and, with all the air of a privileged man, followed us from flower to flower as we passed critically along, displaying much vapid interest, and some ignorance alike of botany and floriculture. Without the conservatory, the clear, starry sky of a Scottish winter night arched its blue dome above the summits of the Lomonds; and within, thanks to skill and hot-water pipes, were the yellow flowering cactus, the golden Jobelia, the scarlet querena, the slender tendrils and blue flowers of the liana, the oranges and grapes of the sunny tropics.
"What is that dangling from the vine branch overhead?" asked Lady Louisa.
"Just above us?" said Cora, laughing, as she looked up with a charming smile on her bright girlish face.
"Haw—mistletoe, by Jove!" exclaimed Berkeley, looking up too, with his glass in his eye, and his hands in his pockets.
I am not usually a very timid fellow in matters appertaining to that peculiar parasite; yet I must own that when I saw Lady Loftus, in all the glory of her aristocratic loveliness, so pale and yet so dark, with cousin Cora standing coquettishly by her side, under the gifted branch, that my heart failed me, and its pulses fairly stood still.
"My privilege, cousin," said I, and kissed Cora, as I might have done a sister, ere she could draw back; and the usually laughing girl trembled, and grew so deadly pale, that I surveyed her with surprise.
Lady Louisa hastily drew aside, as I bent over her hand, and barely ventured to touch it with my lips; but judge of my rage and her hauteur when my cool and sarcastic brother officer, Mr. Berkeley, came languidly forward, and claiming what he termed "the privilege of the season," ere she could avoid it, somewhat brusquely pressed his well-moustached lip to her cheek.
Though affecting to smile, she drew haughtily back, with her nether lip quivering, and her black eyes sparkling dangerously.
"The season, as you term it, for these absurdities is over, Berkeley," said I, gravely. "Moreover, this house is not a casino, and that trophy should have been removed by the gardener long since."
I twitched down the branch, and tossed it into a corner. Berkeley only uttered one of his quiet, almost noiseless, laughs, and, without being in the least put out of countenance, made a species of pirouette on the brass heels of his glazed boots, which brought him face to face with the Countess, who at that moment came into the conservatory after her daughter, whom she rarely permitted to go far beyond the range of her eyeglass.
"Lady Chillingham," said he, resolved at once to launch into conversation, "have you heard the rumour that our friend, Lord Lucan, is to command a brigade in the Army of the East?"
"I have heard that he is to command a division, Mr. Berkeley, but Lord George Paget is to have a brigade," replied the Countess, coldly and precisely.
"Ah, Paget—haw—glad to hear it," said he, as he passed loungingly away; "he was an old chum of my father's—haw—doocid glad."
It was a weakness of Berkeley's to talk thus; indeed, it was a common mess-room joke with Wilford, Scriven, Studhome, and others of ours, to bring the peerage on the tapis, at a certain hour of the evening, and "trot him out;" but on hearing him speak thus of his father, who—honest man—began life as a drayman, it was too much for me, and I fairly laughed aloud.
The salute he had so daringly given Lady Loftus was to me a keen source of jealous anger and annoyance, which I could neither readily forgive nor forget, and had the old duelling fashion still been extant, the penalty might have proved a dear one. I had the bitter consciousness that she whose hand I had barely ventured to touch with a lip that trembled with suppressed emotion had been brusquely saluted—-actually kissed before my face—by one for whom I had rather more, if possible, than a profound contempt.
What she thought of the episode I know not. A horror of what all well-bred people deem a scene no doubt prevailed, for she took her mother's arm, and passed away, while Cora and I followed them.
Jealousy suggested that much must have passed between them prior to my arrival, otherwise Berkeley, with all his assurance, dared not have acted as he did. This supposition was to me a source of real torture and mortification.
"When love steals into the nature," says a writer, "day by day infiltrating its sentiments, as it were, through every crevice of the being, it will enlist every selfish trait into the service, so that he who loves is half enamoured of himself; but where the passion comes with the overwhelming force of a sudden conviction, when the whole heart is captivated at once, self is forgotten, and the image of the loved one is all that presents itself."
Sleepless that night I lay, tormenting myself with the "trifles light as air," that to young men in my condition are "confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ."
At last I slept; but my dreams—those visions that come before the sleeping mind and eye towards the hours of morning—were not of her I loved, but of my pretty and playful cousin, fair-skinned and dark-haired Cora Calderwood.
