Chapter XI: A Romance of the Drawing-Room

'It is bitter,' says a powerful writer, 'to know those whom we love dead; but it is more bitter to be as dead to those who, once having loved us, have sunk our memory deep beneath an oblivion that is not the oblivion of the grave.'

Jerry Vane had experienced much of this bitterness in the past time; but new hopes were already dawning within him.

He had received Clare's message from Trevor Chute, who, for the life of him, in the fulness of his own joy, could not, nathless his promise to her, help telling Vane what she had said of Ida's probable wishes; thus, with a heart light as a bird's, on the evening of the 'at-home,' he betook himself to a part of Belgravia where at that season the great houses, rising floor above floor, have usually every window ablaze with light, and awnings of brilliant hues extending from the pillared portico to the kerb, with soft bright carpets stretched beneath for the tread of pretty feet in the daintiest of boots, while the carriages, with rich liveries and flashing harness, line the way, waiting to set down or take up.

Countless carriages were there; those which had deposited their freights were drawn up on the opposite side of the square, wheel to wheel, like a park of artillery; others were setting down past the lighted portico, which was crowded by servants in livery. The bustle was great, nor were smart hansoms and even rickety 'growlers' wanting in the throng of more dashing vehicles, bringing bachelors, like Jerry, from their clubs.

Full of one thought--Ida--he was betimes at Colonel Rakes' house--earlier, indeed, than was his wont--and piloted his way up the great staircase and through the great drawing-rooms, which were hung with stately family portraits of the Rakes of other times, and were already crowded with people of the best style, for the 'at-home' was usually a 'crusher' in this house; a sea of velvets and silks, diamonds, and sapphires; and every other man wore a ribbon, star, or order of some kind.

Of his hostess Lady Rakes, a _fade_ old woman of fashion, with her company smile and insipid remarks for all in succession, and her husband the Colonel, who, till Sir Carnaby came, was ever about Evelyn Desmond, with whom he fancied himself to have an incipient flirtation, we shall say no particular more, as they have no part in our story.

The Collingwoods had not yet arrived. Vane could see nothing of them amid the throng while looking everywhere for Ida. Any very definite idea he had none; but love was the impulse that led him to seek her society so sedulously again--to see her, and hear her voice. How often had he said and thought, even while his whole heart yearned for her, 'I shall never torment myself by looking on her face again!' and now he was searching for her with a heart that was hungry and eager.

He heard carriage after carriage come up and deposit its occupants, name after name announced, and saw group after group stream up the staircase and glide through the doors. Would she come after all? He was beginning to fear not, when suddenly the name of 'Collingwood' caught his ear, and the well-saved old dandy, with an unusually bright smile on his thin aristocratic face, appeared with Clare leaning on one arm and Ida on the other. With all their beauty, we have said that he felt his daughters a bore; thus, so soon as he could, he made all haste to leave them in the care of others, while he mixed with the glittering throng.

So dense was the latter that a considerable time elapsed ere Vane could make his way to where the sisters stood, with more than one admirer near them.

There, too, was Desmond, with his cross of the Bath, and a delicate waxen flower in his lapel. Clara's refusal had certainly piqued, but not pained, the tall, languid guardsman with the tawny hair; yet he did not think his chances of ultimate success, if he cared sufficiently to attain it, were over yet; but his love was of that easy nature--more like a listless flirtation than love--that he was in no haste to press his suit again; for if this affair, and 'a very absurd affair, by Jove!' he deemed it, between Sir Carnaby and his fast sister actually came off, he would find himself often enough in the charming society of Clare; but what a joke it would be to think that Evelyn might be his mother-in-law.

All things considered, the Honourable Major was not much in want of consolation, and if he had required it, there were plenty of lovely belles there and elsewhere 'who would gladly be bride,' not 'to young Lochinvar,' but to the future Lord Bayswater.

And what of Clare, so calm in aspect and aristocratically serene?

Her thoughts were not with the gay yet empty throng that buzzed and glittered around her, but with her soldier-lover, browned and tanned by the fierce sun-glare of India, from whom she had been so long wantonly separated, and was now separated again, yet with the sweet memory of his last passionate kisses on her lip, that looked so proud to others, and who was not now, thank God! as before--facing the toils and terrors of an obscure mountain war in India, but simply self-banished to Germany till time should show what might be before them both. Where was he then? what doing, and with whom?

Thinking, doubtless, of her! so thought and pondered Clare, when she could thrust aside the coming marriage of Sir Carnaby, with all its contingent ridicule; but it was in vain that she repelled it, for the fact took full and bitter possession of her, and could not be displaced; and her lip curled scornfully as she saw her father, with his bald head shining in the light like a billiard ball, his dyed moustache, and false teeth, his undoubtedly handsome and aristocratic figure, though thin and shrunken, clad in evening costume of the most perfect fashion, simpering and bending over Evelyn, of whom we shall have more to say anon.

None that looked on Clare, and saw the greatness of her beauty, the general sweetness of her smile, her tranquil air, and somewhat languid grace, could have dreamed that irritating or bitter thoughts were flitting through her mind.

'Oh,' thought she, as she fanned herself, 'how vapid it all is, exchanging the same hackneyed commonplaces with dozens in succession.'

Yet society compelled her to appear like other people, and she found herself listening to Desmond, who lisped away in his usual fashion of things in general: the debates in the House last night, the envious screen of the ladies' gallery, la crosse at Hurlingham, polo, tent-pegging, and lemon-slicing at Lillie Bridge, the coaching club and the teams, Colonel Rakes' greys, Bayswater's roans, the Scottish Duke of Chatelherault's snow-whites, the matching of wheelers and leaders; of this party and that rout; who were and were not at the Chiswick Garden Fete.

One circumstance pleased her. Nothing in the well-bred and impassive manner of Desmond, though he hung over her and tugged his long fair moustache, could have led anyone to suppose that he had actually made her a proposal the other morning, and as to his sister's intended 'fiasco,' for such they both deemed it, the subject was not even hinted at; and now, as he moved on to speak to some one else, a gloved hand was laid on her arm, and Clare found herself beside Evelyn Desmond.

She was perhaps about thirty, yet she had more experience of the world than Clare could ever have won in a lifetime. In girlhood she had been handsome; but her beauty--if real beauty she ever possessed--was already gone; bloom at least had departed. She was fair, blue-eyed, and not unlike her brother, with a proportionately tall figure, and a face rather aristocratic in contour, but with a keener, sharper, more haughty and defiant expression.

One of the _three_ suites of diamonds that Clare had seen was sparkling on her brow and bosom. She was attired in violet velvet, with priceless point lace, cut in the extreme mode: her neck and shoulders were bare, and her dress cut so absurdly low behind as to show rather too much of a certainly fair and snow-white back.

Clare's chief objection to her, apart from the disparity of years, was that the Honourable Evelyn had the unpleasant reputation of having done more than one very fast thing in her life, though no one could precisely say what they were; and though she was the daughter of a peer and a sister of a major in the Guards, all men had a cool, _insouciant_, and even flippant or half 'chaffing' mode of addressing her, that they would never have dared to adopt to a girl like Clare Collingwood.

'Your papa has told you about--you know what, Clare?' said Miss Desmond, looking not in the slightest degree abashed, though lowering her tone, certainly.

'Yes,' said Clare, curtly and wearily.

'We must be better friends than ever, Clare.'

Miss Collingwood fanned herself in silence, so Evelyn spoke again:

'I suppose you know when the--the event takes place?'

'No.'

'How monosyllabic you are,' said the other, while her lip quivered, and her eye lightened. 'Has Sir Carnaby not told you?'

'I never asked him,' was the half-contemptuous response.

'Why?'

'I was not aware that matters were in such a state of progression. A time is named, then, for--for this _affaire de fantasie_?'

'A month from to-day. Pray call it an _affaire du cœur_.'

'A month!' repeated Clare, dreamily.

'He would have it, he was so impatient,' said Evelyn Desmond, with something of a smile; but whether it was a triumphant or malignant one, Clare cared not to analyze. She only feared that the 'impatience' had been elsewhere, as Evelyn had been on the point of marrying with more than one man already, but there was always a flaw somewhere, and the affairs ended. Perhaps, as some hinted, they were too easily begun.

As she could neither express pleasure or congratulation, Clare fanned herself in silence, until Evelyn said:

'And so you have refused Harvey?'

'Yes.'

'How exceedingly funny.'

'Why?'

'Because on that same morning I finally accepted Sir Carnaby. By the way,' she added, with a glance that was not a pleasant one, 'I heard that your old admirer, Trevor Chute, once of the Guards, was in town again.'

'Indeed.'

'Yes; perhaps that accounts for poor Harvey's disappointment.'

'Think so if you choose,' replied Clare, haughtily, as she turned away to conceal how her soft cheek coloured with the excess of her annoyance.

By this time Vane, after being entangled by innumerable trains, had made his way to the side of Ida.

Jerry Vane was popular in society, and could have had many a girl for the asking. Clare and Ida, too, had often wished--for he was still the dearest of their friends--that he should marry; but they had never suggested it to him, for under the circumstances it would have seemed bad taste, and though he had but one thought--Ida, and Ida only--Jerry Vane went everywhere, and was deemed the gayest of the gay; and now, when their eyes met, there was a kind, sad smile in hers--a smile of the olden time--that took a load off his heart, and still lighter did it grow when, rising, she took his arm--as a widow she could do so now, and said:

'Take me to a cool place; the heat here is stifling, especially in this dark dress; there is a cool seat just within the conservatory door. Thanks, that will do.'

Many a picture--many a soft Gainsborough or softer Greuze--may suggest a face as delicate and beautiful as that which was turned up to his; but no picture ever painted by human hand had such a power of expression as that possessed by the face of Ida Beverley, as she sat there, slightly flushed by the heat of the crowded room, and feeling with pleasure the breeze from the great square without blowing on her cheek, and laden with perfumes of fresh flowers as it passed through the long conservatory.

The broken ring, the gipsy ring of the dream, rent in two by the cruel tiger's fangs, was now on the marriage finger beside the wedding hoop, as Jerry could see when she drew off her glove, but he was glad to observe that her mourning was becoming lessened by trimmings of grey silk; yet the dark costume, by its contrast to the pallor and purity of her complexion, made Ida seem lovelier than ever, and his heart ached to think that those trappings of woe were worn for a rival.

Why did he seek her presence? he was asking himself again. Did some lingering hope inspire him? Without it Jerry felt that it would be madness to place himself within the sphere of her beauty, with their mutual past; yet he could not deny himself the joy of the present, in watching the tenderness of her soft grey-blue eye, the glory of her auburn hair, and the grace of all her actions.

She had been the wife of Beverley, true; but the wife of only a few months, and left behind in loneliness while yet a bride.

Worried by her sadness, and sick of her repining, selfish old Sir Carnaby had become, unknown to her, somewhat an adherent of her first lover. He was not disinclined to let his widowed daughter become the wife of this unappropriated man, whose good looks and style were as undeniable as his position and expectations. Thus he whispered to Evelyn Desmond that he was not ill-pleased to see them draw apart within the conservatory door.

Jerry's friends would have called him 'a muff,' to sigh as he did, and make himself 'a blighted being' for Ida, whose whole heart and soul seemed devoted to another, and who sorrowed as some women only sorrow over their dead, going through the world with one visionary yet formed fancy that floated drearily and vaguely in her memory. Yet, in spite of himself, Jerry Vane hovered near the sad one like a love-bird by the nest of its young.

It was impossible that the love of this faithful, honest, and good-hearted fellow should fail to impress Ida. She was conscious that his fate was a cruel one, and of her own making; and she felt a great pity for him; for although she _had_ been fickle once, her nature was generous and compassionate.

A dead flirtation can seldom be revived, but an old love is often rekindled; yet Ida bore him none as yet; it was only pity, as we have said--compunction for what she had done--a tenderness, nothing more, save, perhaps, a sense of honour for him, that gave Jerry Vane an indefinable and, it may be, dangerous attraction to her; and now, as he spoke to her, bending over her as he used to do of old, her dark blue eyes changed and shadowed with the changing thoughts that passed quickly through her mind.

'We are good friends as ever,' said she, smiling upward in reply to some remark of his.

'Ida, some one has written that after love, mere friendship becomes more cruel than hate, and says it is the worst cruelty "when we seek love--as a stone proffered to us when we ask for bread in famine."'

Jerry felt that in this remark he had made somewhat of a 'header;' but fanning herself, she said calmly:

'I _believe_ in you, Mr. Vane; is not that the highest trust one creature can give another?'

'May I not implore you to call me Jerry, as--as of old?' he asked, in a tremulous voice.

'When alone--yes.'

'Mr. Vane sounds so odiously formal after--after----' his lip quivered.

'Well--Jerry it shall be.'

'Thanks, dear, dear Ida; I begin to hope again.'

Poor Jerry did begin indeed to have fresh hope; and are we not told that its promises are sweeter than roses in the bud, and more flattering to expectation?

'Combine love with friendship, Ida,' he urged, softly, with the tip of his moustache almost touching her ear, 'and its tranquillity will be great and happy.'

She could not, without growing interest and tenderness, see the mournful love-me look that his eyes wore; yet she said, over her bouquet of stephanotis, Beverley's favourite flower and perfume:

'Do not talk thus, I implore you, Jerry Vane.'

A gesture of impatience escaped Vane, yet he said, in a voice of tenderness:

'Oh, Ida, _I do know it_--too well and bitterly; for as I loved you in the past time, so do I love you still!'

'Pardon me, Jerry; you are indeed a kind and faithful----'

'Fool!' he interrupted her, bitterly. 'That is the word, Ida.'

'Nay, nay, don't say so,' she urged, with tremulous lips and moistened eyes.

'The first love of a woman's heart is a holy thing, Ida--and yours was mine.'

'Let us be friends,' said she, in a painful tone.

'I can never, never be your--mere friend, Ida!'

Like that of Clare and Trevor Chute, but a few days before, it was another romance of the drawing-room, the strange intercourse and perilous friendship between these two.

She looked wistfully at Vane.

'We know not what God may have in store for us yet,' said she, colouring while she spoke, but only with the desire to soothe and not ignore the passion he was avowing. 'It may be--may be that we have only in our hearts been waiting for each other after all.'

Ere Vane could make a response to this speech, which she felt conscious was a rash one, she shivered and grew deadly pale.

'Does the night air chill you, Ida?' he asked.

'I know not--surely no,' said she, in a strange voice: 'it is close, rather; and yet----'

'What, dear Ida?'

'I felt a strange shudder come over me as I spoke.'

'It is nervousness, and will soon pass away.'

For a moment she sat with her eyes dropped and her heart palpitating. Whence came that strange, cold, and irrepressible tremor, like the shock of an electric battery, yet so chilly? What could it be? Could she have an affection of the heart?

She started from her seat with manifest uneasiness, and taking his arm, said, 'Let us return to the rooms.'

And now there occurred an episode which, however trivial then, Jerry Vane recalled with singular and very mingled emotions at a future time. As they came out of the conservatory, Colonel Rakes said, laughingly:

'Who is your friend, Vane, that is so strangely dressed--at least, not in evening costume?'

'Friend! What friend?--where, Colonel?'

'In the conservatory with you and Mrs. Beverley. Ah, Mrs. Beverley, too bad of you to appropriate our friend Vane when you know all the women are in love with him.'

'Colonel--I?'

'You, my dear girl--for I am old enough to call you so. But about your friend----'

'There was no one but ourselves in the conservatory,' said Vane.

'Oh pardon me, Vane, you three were close together.'

'Impossible!'

'As you rose to retire, I saw him slide, as it were, behind the shelves of flowers.'

'We saw no one,' urged Ida.

'Can it be a thief or an intruder? Let us see,' said the Colonel; and he and Vane searched all over the place, which was brilliantly lighted with gas, but without success.

'You must be mistaken, Colonel,' said Jerry, 'as the only other door of the conservatory is locked, and on the inside.'

'Though a little short-sighted, I was not mistaken, Vane.'

'And this man----?'

'Stood close behind Mrs. Beverley's chair, within less than arm's-length of you both.'

'What was he like?' asked Vane, with genuine irritation and astonishment.

'That I can scarcely describe.'

'His face?'

'Was singularly pale, with dark eyes and a dark, heavy moustache.'

'And he actually hung over Ida--Mrs. Beverley, I mean--unseen by me.'

'Yes; closer than good breeding warranted. You must have been very much absorbed not to have seen him,' said the Colonel, with a wicked smile in his old eyes.

'I was indeed absorbed, Colonel.'

'Don't wonder at it; there are not many Ida Beverleys even in the world of London. But, egad, the butler must be told to have an eye upon the plate-chest--the racing-cups and silver spoons!'

_Who_ was this strange-looking man whom the Colonel could not describe, yet had so distinctly seen close by Ida's chair, listening, doubtless, to all their remarkable conversation? It was, to say the least of it, a most ungentlemanly proceeding; and Jerry, amid the clatter of tongues around him, strove to remember all they had said, and whether he had let fall anything that shed a light upon their past relations and his present hopes; with the pleasant conviction that the eavesdropper must have heard much that was intended for Ida's ear alone!

'By Jove!' thought Jerry, 'if I had caught the fellow, there would have been an unseemly scene among the Colonel's majolica flower-pots, his orchids, and azaleas.'

The interview in the conservatory, and the strange emotion that came over her, had somewhat wearied Ida; and like Clare, who had overheard some unmistakable remarks on the 'coming event'--remarks certainly not meant for her sensitive ear--she was anxious to be home.

'A game old fellah,' she heard Lord Brixton say--a peer whose only known ancestor was one of the cottonocracy--to another, whose adjusted eye-glass was focussed on Sir Carnaby; 'game indeed! but will live to repent his matrimonial folly. _She'll_ lead him a dance, believe me, don't you know.'

Even the servants in the hall and at the portico had heard some rumour, for there fell upon Clare's ear, as they swept out to the carriage, something like this:--

'Oh, yes! I knows 'em--the Honourable Miss Desmond, with her big mastiff, whip, and wissel, and only Sir Carnaby on dooty. I've seen 'em by the Serpentine many times.'

So, then, their names were linked together, even by the men in livery!

And as they drove home in the carriage, leaving Sir Carnaby with his fair one, by the lighted windows of the far extent of streets and squares, Ida lay back in a corner, muffled in her gossamer-like Shetland shawl, soft as Dacca muslin, the 'woven wind,' very silent and sad.

She was thinking very much of what Jerry had said, and the hopes she had, perhaps unwisely, awakened; but more of the strange cold thrill that came over her, for she had too often experienced that unwelcome emotion or sensation of late.

In another direction Jerry was 'tooling' home in a hansom, with a heart full of happiness. He had struck the vein; he had an interest, even though but a renewed interest, in the eyes and heart of his old love. Had she not admitted that they knew not what Fate had in store for them yet, and that their hearts might only have been waiting for each other after all!

Moreover, Sir Carnaby had given, and he had accepted, a formal invitation for the shooting and then for the Christmas festivities at Carnaby Court; and he drove on, sunk in happy waking dreams of all that the future might have in store for him yet.