Part 1

Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.)

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Punctuation has been normalized. All other printer's errors have been retained.

BEATRICE BOVILLE AND OTHER STORIES.

BY

"OUIDA."

AUTHOR OF "STRATHMORE," "GRANVILLE DE VIGNE," "CHANDOS," "IDALIA," "RANDOLPH GORDON," ETC., ETC.

Third Series.

PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 1905

CONTENTS.

BEATRICE BOVILLE.

I.--OF EARLSCOURT'S FIANCEE. 9 II.--THE FIRST SHADOW. 13 III.--HOW PRIDE SOWED AND REAPED. 23 IV.--WHERE I SAW BEATRICE BOVILLE AGAIN. 33 V.--HOW IN PERFECT INNOCENCE I PLAYED THE PART OF A RIVAL. 44 VI.--HOW PRIDE BOWED AND FELL. 51

A LINE IN THE "DAILY."

WHO DID IT, AND WHO WAS DONE BY IT. 65

HOLLY WREATHS AND ROSE CHAINS.

I.--THE COLONEL OF THE "WHITE FAVORS" AND CECIL ST. AUBYN. 109 II.--THE CANADIAN'S COLD BATH WARMS UP THE COLONEL. 119 III.--SHOWING THAT LOVE-MAKING ON HOLY GROUND DOESN'T PROSPER. 132 IV.--THE COLONEL KILLS HIS FOX, BUT LOSES HIS HEAD AFTER OTHER GAME. 146

SILVER CHIMES AND GOLDEN FETTERS.

I.--WALDEMAR FALKENSTEIN AND VALERIE L'ESTRANGE. 161 II.--FALKENSTEIN BREAKS LANCES WITH "LONGS YEUX BLEUS." 174 III.--"SCARLET AND WHITE" MAKES A HIT, AND FALKENSTEIN FEELS THE WEIGHT OF THE GOLDEN FETTERS. 188 IV.--THE GOLDEN FETTERS ARE SHAKEN OFF AND OTHERS ARE PUT ON. 202 V.--THE SILVER CHIMES RING IN A HAPPY NEW YEAR. 215

SLANDER AND SILLERY.

I.--THE LION OF THE CHAUSSEE D'ANTIN. 225 II.--NINA GORDON. 233 III.--LE LION AMOUREUX. 242 IV.--MISCHIEF. 252 V.--MORE MISCHIEF, AND AN END. 263

SIR GALAHAD'S RAID.

AN ADVENTURE ON THE SWEET WATERS. 285

"REDEEMED."

AN EPISODE WITH THE CONFEDERATE HORSE. 307

OUR WAGER; OR, HOW THE MAJOR LOST AND WON.

I.--INTRODUCES MAJOR TELFER OF THE 50TH DASHAWAY HUSSARS. 333 II.--VIOLET TRESSILLIAN. 339 III.--FROM WHICH IT WOULD APPEAR, THAT IT IS SOMETIMES WELL TO BEGIN WITH A LITTLE AVERSION. 346 IV.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR PROVOKES A QUARREL IN BEHALF OF THE FAIR TRESSILLIAN. 353 V.--THE DUEL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 367

OUR COUNTRY QUARTERS. 379

BEATRICE BOVILLE.

I

OF EARLSCOURT'S FIANCEE.

"To compass her with sweet observances, To dress her beautifully and keep her true."

That, according to Mr. Tennyson's lately-published opinion, is the devoir of that deeply-to-be-pitied individual, l'homme marie. Possibly in the times of which the Idyls treat, Launcelot and Gunevere _might_ have been the sole, exceptional mauvais sujets in the land, and woad, being the chief ingredient in the toilet-dress, mightn't come quite so expensive. But nowadays "sweet observances," rendered, I presume, by gifts from Hunt and Roskell's and boxes in the grand tier, tell on a cheque-book so severely; "keeping her true" is such an exceedingly problematical performance, to judge by Sir C. C.'s breathless work, and "dressing her beautifully" comes so awfully expensive, with crinoline and cashmeres, pink pearls, and Mechlin, and the beau sexe's scornful repudiation, not alone of a faded silk, like poor Enid's, but of the handsomest dress going, if it's damned by being "seen twice," that I have ever vowed that, plaise a Dieu, I will never marry, and with heaven's help will keep the vow better than I might most probably keep the matrimonial ones if I took them. Yet if ever I saw a woman for whom I could have fancied a man's committing that semisuicidal act, that woman was Beatrice Boville. Not for her beauty, for, except one of the loveliest figures and a pair of the most glorious eyes, she did not claim much; not for her money, for she had none; not for her birth, for on one side that was somewhat obscure; but for _herself_; and had I ever tried the herculean task of dressing anybody beautifully and keeping anybody true, it should have been she, but for the fact that when I knew her first she was engaged to my cousin Earlscourt. We had none of us ever dreamt he would marry, for he had been sworn to political life so long, given over so utterly to the battle-ground of St. Stephen's and the intrigues of Downing Street, that the ladies of our house were sorely wrathful when they heard that he had at last fallen in love and proposed to Beatrice Boville, who, though she was Lady Mechlin's niece, was the daughter of a West Indian who had married her mother, broken her heart, spent her money, deserted her, and never been heard of since; the more wrathful as they had no help for themselves, and were obliged to be contented with distinguishing her with refreshing appellations of a "very clever schemer," evidently a "perfect intrigante," and similar epithets with which their sex is driven for consolation under such trying circumstances. It's a certain amount of relief to us to call a man who has cut us down in a race "a stupid owl; very little in him!" but it is mild gratification to that enjoyed by ladies when they retaliate for injury done them by that delightful bonbon of a sentence, "No doubt a most artful person!" You see it conveys so much and proves three things in one--their own artlessness, their enemy's worthlessness, and their victim's folly. Being with Earlscourt at the time of his "singularly unwise, step," as they phrased it, I knew that he wasn't trapped in any way, and that he was loved irrespectively of his social rank; but where was the good of telling that to deeply-injured and perforce silenced ladies? "They knew better;" and when a woman says that, always bow to her superior judgment, my good fellow, even when she knows better than you what you did with yourself last evening, and informs you positively you were at that odious Mrs. Vanille's opera supper, though, to the best of your belief, you never stirred from the U. S. card-room; or you will be voted a Goth, and make an enemy for the rest of your natural life.

In opposition to the rest of the family, _I_ thought (and you must know by this time, amis lecteurs, that I hardly think marriage so enjoyable an institution as some writers do, but perhaps a little like a pipe of opium, of which the dreams are better than the awakening)--I thought that he could hardly have done better, as far as his own happiness went, as I saw her standing by him one evening in the window of Lady Mechlin's rooms at Lemongenseidlitz, where we all were that August, a brilliant, fascinating woman already, though then but nineteen, noble-hearted, frank, impetuous, with something in the turn of her head and the proud glance of her eyes, that told you, you might trust her; that she was of the stuff to keep her word even to her own hinderance; that neither would she tell a lie, nor brook one imputed to her; that she might err on the side of pride, on the side of meanness never; that she might have plenty of failings, but not anything petty, low, or ungenerous among them. The evening sun fell on them as they stood, on her high, white forehead, with its chestnut hair turned off it as you see it in old pictures, which Earlscourt was touching caressingly with his hand as he talked to her. They seemed well suited, and yet--his fault was pride, an unassailable, unyielding pride; hers was pride, too, pride in her own truth and honor, which would send you to the deuce if you ever presumed to doubt either; and I wondered idly as I looked at them, whether those two prides would ever come in conflict, and if so, whether either of them would give in in such a case--whether there would be submission on one side or on both, or on neither? Such metaphysical and romantic calculations are not often my line; but as they stood together, the sun faded off, and a cold, stormy wind blew up in its stead, which, perhaps, metaphorically suggested the problem to me. As one goes through life one gets up to so many sunny, balmy, cloudless days, and so often before the night is down gets wetted to the skin by a drenching shower, that one contracts an uncomfortable habit when the sun _does_ shine, of looking out for squalls, a fear that, sans doute, considerably damps the pleasures of the noon. But the fear is natural, isn't it, more's the pity, when one has been often caught?

I chanced to ask her that night what made her so fond of Earlscourt. She turned her fearless, flashing eyes half laughingly, half haughtily on me, the color brighter in her face:

"I should have thought you would rather have asked how could I, or any other woman whom he stooped to notice, fail to love him? There are few hearts and intellects so noble: he is as superior to you ball-room loungers, you butterfly flutterers, as the stars to that chandelier."

"Bien oblige!" laughed I. "But that is just what I meant. Most young ladies are afraid of him; you never were?"

She laughed contemptuously.

"Afraid! You do not know much of me. It is precisely his giant intellect that first drew me to him, when I heard his speech on the Austrian question. Do you remember how the Lords listened to him so quietly that you could have heard a feather fall? I like that silence of theirs when they hear what they admire, better than I do the cheers of the other house. Afraid of him! What a ludicrous idea! Do you suppose I should be afraid of any one? It is only those who are conceited or cowardly, who are timid. If you have nothing to assume, or to conceal, what cause have you to fear? I love, honor, reverence Lord Earlscourt, God knows; but fear him--never!"

"Not even his anger, if you ever incurred it?" I asked her, amused with her haughty indignation.

"Certainly not. Did I merit it, I would come to him frankly, and ask his pardon, and he would give it; if I did not deserve it, _he_ would be the one to repent."

She looked far more attractive than many a handsomer woman, and infinitely more noble than a more tractable one. She was admirably fitted for Earlscourt, if he trusted her; but it was just possible he might some day _mis_trust and _mis_understand her, and then there might be the devil to pay!

II.

THE FIRST SHADOW.

Lemongenseidlitz was a charming little Bad. Beatrice Boville and her aunt Lady Mechlin, Earlscourt and I, had been there six weeks. His brother peers--of whom there were scores at Lemongenseidlitz--complimented Earlscourt on his fiancee.

"So you're caught at last?" said an octogenarian minister, who was as sprightly as a schoolboy. "Well, my dear fellow, you might have gone higher, sans doute, but on my honor I don't think you could have done better."

It was the universal opinion. Beatrice was not the belle of the Bad, because there were dozens of beautiful women, and beautiful she was not; but she was more admired than any of them, and had Earlscourt wanted voices to justify his choice he would have had them, but he didn't; he was entirely independent of the opinions of others, and had he chosen to set his coronet on the brows of a peasant girl, would have cared little what any one thought or said. We all of us enjoyed that six weeks. Lady Mechlin lost to her heart's content at roulette, and was as complacent over her losses as any old dowager could be. Beatrice Boville shone best, as nice natures ever do, in a sunny atmosphere; and if she had any faults of impatient temper or pride, there was nothing to call them forth. Earlscourt, cold politician though he'd been, gave himself up entirely to the warmer, brighter existence, which he found in his new passion; and I, not being in love with anybody, made the pleasantest love possible wherever I liked. We all of us found a couleur de rose tint in the air of little Lemongenseidlitz, and I'd quite forgotten my presentiment, when, one night at the Kursaal, a cloud no bigger than a man's hand came up on the sunny horizon, and put me in mind of it.

Earlscourt came into the ball room rather late; he had been talking with some French ministers on some international project which he was anxious to effect, and asked Lady Mechlin where Beatrice was.

"She was with me a moment ago; she is waltzing, I dare say," said the old lady, whose soul was hankering after the ivory ball.

"Very likely," he answered, as he looked among the dancers for her; he was restless without her, though he would have liked none to see the weakness, for he was a man who felt more than he told. He could not see her, and went through the rooms till he found her, which was in a small anteroom alone. She started as he spoke to her, and a start being a timorous and nervous thing of which Beatrice Boville was never guilty, he drew her to him anxiously.

"My darling, has anything annoyed you?"

She answered him with her habitual candor:

"Yes; but I cannot tell you what, just now."

"Cannot tell me! and why?"

"Because I cannot. I can give no other reason. It is nothing of import to you, or you are sure I should not keep it from you."

"Yes; but I am equally sure that anything that concerns you _is_ of import to me. To whom should you tell anything, if not to me? I do not like concealment, Beatrice."

His tone was grave; indeed, too much like reproof to a fractious child to suit Beatrice's pride. She drew away from him.

"Nor I. You must think but meanly of me if you can impute anything like concealment to me."

"How can I do otherwise? You tell me you have been annoyed, and refuse to say how, and by whom. Is that anything but concealment? If any one has offended or insulted you, I ought to be the first you came to. A woman, Beatrice, should have nothing hidden from the man who is, or will be, her husband."

She threw her arms around him. Her moods were variable as a child's. Perhaps this very variability Earlscourt hardly understood, for it was utterly opposed to his own character: you always found him the same; _she_ would be all storm one moment, all sunshine the next.

"Do you suppose I would hide anything from you? Do you think for a moment I would hold back anything you had a right to know? You might look into my heart; there would be no thought or feeling there I should wish to keep from you. But if you exact confidence, so do I. Would you think of taking as your wife one you could not trust?"

He answered her a little sternly:

"No; if I once ceased to believe in your truth or honor, as I believe in my own, I should part from you forever, though God knows what it would cost me!"

"God knows what it would cost _me!_ But I give you free leave. The instant you find a flaw in either, I am no longer worthy of your love; withdraw it, and I will never complain. But trust me you must and will; I merit your confidence, and I exact it. Look at me, Ernest. Do you believe I could ever deceive you?"

He looked into her eyes long and earnestly.

"No. When you do, your eyes will droop before mine. I trust you, Beatrice, fully, and I know you will never wrong it."

She clung to him with caressant softness, softer in her than in a meeker-spirited woman, as she whispered, 'Never!' and a man would need have been obtuse and skeptical, indeed, who could then have doubted her. And so that cloud blew over, for a time, at the least--trusted, Beatrice Boville was soft and gentle as a lamb; mistrusted or misjudged, she was fiery as a young lioness, and Earlscourt, I thought, though originally won by her intellect, held her too much as a child to fully understand her character, and to see that, though she was his darling and plaything, she was also a passionate, ardent, proud-spirited woman, stung by injustice and impatient of doubt. No two people could be more fitted to make each other's happiness, yet it struck me that it was just possible they might make each other's misery very completely, through want of comprehension on the one side, through want of explanation on the other.

"Your marriage is fixed, isn't it, Earlscourt?" asked his sister, Lady Clive Edghill, who had come to Lemongenseidlitz, and, though compelled by him, as he compelled all the rest of the family, to show Beatrice strict courtesy, disliked her, because she was not an advantageous match, was much too young in their opinion, and had no money--the gravest crimes a woman can have in the eyes of any man's relatives. "The 14th! Indeed! yours is a very short engagement!"

"Is there any reason why it should be longer?"

"O, dear, no! none that I am aware of. I wish, earnestly, my dear Earlscourt, I could congratulate you more warmly; but I can never say what I do not feel, and I had so much hoped--"

"My dear Helena, as long as I have so much reason to congratulate myself, it matters very little whether you do or do not," smiled Earlscourt. He was too much of a lion to be stung by gnats.

"I dare say. I sincerely trust you may ever have reason. But I heard some very disagreeable things about that Mr. Boville, Beatrice's father. Do you know that he was in a West India regiment, but was deprived of his commission even there?--a perfect blackleg and sharper, I understand. I suppose she has never mentioned him to you?"

"You are very much mistaken; all that Beatrice knows of him, I know; that is but little, for Lady Mechlin took her long ago, when her mother died, from such unfit guardianship. Beatrice is as open as the day--"

"Indeed! A little too frank, perhaps?"

"Too frank? That is a paradox. No one can have too much candor. It is not a virtue of your sex, but it is one, thank God! which she possesses in a rare degree, though possibly it gains her enemies where it should gain her friends."

"Still frankness _may_ merge into indiscretion," said Helena, musingly.

"I doubt it. An indiscreet woman is never frank, for she has always the memory of silly things said and done which require concealment."

"I was merely thinking," Helena went on, regardless of a speech which she did not perhaps relish, pour cause, "merely from my deep interest in you, and my knowledge of all you will wish your wife to be, that perhaps Beatrice might be, in pure insouciance, a little too careless, a little too candid for so prominent a position as she will occupy. Last night, in passing a little anteroom in the Redoute, I saw her in such extremely earnest conversation with a man, a handsome man, about your height and age, and--"

The anteroom! Earlscourt thought, with a pang, of the start she had given when he entered it the previous night. But he was not of a jealous temperament, nor a curious one; his mind was too constantly occupied with great projects and ambitions to be capable of joining petty things together into an elaborate mosaic; he had no petitesses himself, and trifles passed unheeded. He interrupted her decidedly:

"What is there in that to build a pyramid of censure from? Doubtless it was one of her acquaintances--probably one of mine also. I should have thought you knew me better, Helena, than to attempt this gossiping nonsense with me."

"O, I say no more. I only thought you, of all men, would wish Caesar's wife to be above--"

The gnat-strings had been too insignificant to rouse him before, but at this one his eyebrows contracted, and he rose.

"Silence! Never venture to make such a speech as that to me again. In insulting Beatrice you insult me. Unless you can mention her in terms of proper respect and reverence, never presume to speak her name to me again. Her enemies are my enemies, and, whoever they may be, I will treat them as such."

Helena was sorely frightened; if she held anybody in veneration it was Earlscourt, and she would never have ventured so far with him but for the causeless hate she had taken to Beatrice, simply because Lady Clive had decided long ago that her brother was too voue to public life ever to marry, and that her son would succeed to his title. She was sorely frightened, but she comforted herself--the little thorn she had thrust in might rankle after a while; as pleasant a consolation under failure as any lady could desire.

Beatrice was coming along the corridor as Earlscourt left Helena's rooms, which were in the same hotel as Lady Mechlin's. She was stopping to look out of one of the windows at the sunset; she did not see him at first, and he watched her unobserved, and smiled at the idea of associating anything deceitful with her--smiled still more at the idea when she came up to him, with her frank, bright, regard, lifting her face for a caress, and patting both her hands through his arm. Accustomed to chill and reserved women in his own family, her abandon had a great charm for him; but perhaps it led him into his error in holding her still as half a child.

"You have been seeing my enemy?" she said, laughingly. "Your sister does not like me, does she?"

"Not like you! Why should you think so? She may not like my marrying, perhaps, because she had decided for me that I should never do so; and no woman can bear any prophecies she makes to prove wrong."

"Very possibly that may be one reason; but she does not think me good enough for you."

Her tips curved disdainfully, and Earlscourt caught a glimpse of her in her fiery mood. He laughed at her where, with her, he had better have admitted the truth. Beatrice had too much pride to be wounded by it, and far too much good sense to measure herself by money and station.

"Nonsense, Beatrice; I should have thought you too proud to suppose such a thing," he said, carelessly.

"It is the truth, nevertheless."

"More foolish she, then; but if you and I do not, what can it signify?"

"Nothing. As long as I am worthy of you in your eyes, what others think or say is nothing to me. I honor you too much to make the gauge between us a third person's opinion; or measure you or myself by a few stops higher or lower in the social ladder. Your sister thinks me below you in rank, soit! She is right; I am quite ready to admit it; but that I am your equal in all that makes men and women equal in the sight of Heaven, I know. When she finds me unworthy of you in thought or deed, then she may call me beneath you--not till then."

Her cheeks were flushed; he could hear her quick breathings, and in her vehemence and haughty indignation she picked the petals of her bouquet de corsage to pieces and flung them away. Another time he would have thought how well her pride became her, and given her some fond reply. Just now the thorn rankled as Lady Clive had hoped, and he answered her gravely, in the tone which it was as unwise to use to her as to prick a thorough-bred colt with both spurs.

"You are quite right. Were I a king, you would be my equal as long as your heart was mine, your mind as noble, and your character as unsullied as I hope them to be now."

She turned on him rapidly with the first indignant look she had ever given to him.

"_Hope!_ You might say _know_, I think!"

"I would have said 'know,' and meant it too, yesterday."

"Yesterday? What do you mean? Why am I less worthy your confidence to-day than yesterday?"