Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

“That was Paradise,” she thought; “but I couldn’t live in it now!”

“I’d rather be downright wicked than worldly,” she said, defiantly.

“Oh, my darling,” said Una, “you don’t know what being wicked is like! But, Amethyst, our lives are made for us. That is what I have found out – made just as they ought to be.”

“Oh yes, in a sense, of course,” said Amethyst, “but there’s a good deal of making left for ourselves and other people, and we, or they, don’t make them very well.”

“Yes,” said Una, with shining eyes, “outside things; but not the real life, not the life within. Amethyst, the feel of that Presence is as real to me, as the feel of your arms round me when I am tired and miserable – as real, and even better. Come what may, I shall have it to remember. I know now, how the Martyrs could smile when they were burnt to death!”

Amethyst gazed at her, uncomprehending, almost wishing that Una was not going to enter on grown-up life with this new strange force within her. She recalled a saying that she had once heard Mr Riddell quote, “that a great deal of religion needed a great deal of looking after,” and she felt half afraid. She was correct and careful in the performance of the religious duties in which she had been trained; but all the glow of feeling, with which she had knelt by Lucian’s side in Cleverley Church, had departed with the earthly love from which she had hardly distinguished it.

“I’m afraid, dear,” she said gently, “that Eaton Square won’t be a very heavenly sort of place for either of us. If we are tied to any stakes there, no doubt we shall have to smile at them, but I doubt whether the smiles will come from heaven!”

“I shall not mind Eaton Square now,” said Una.

“Well,” said Amethyst, giving herself a sort of mental shake, “anyhow, we have to live there for the next three months. So we must do the best we can.”

Chapter Nineteen

Marshalling the Company

“I never did see any use in making pretences. People always see through them, and then where are you? If I did try to look as if I had thousands to spare, not a soul would believe me. Nothing answers like telling the truth.”

This beautiful sentiment was uttered by Lady Haredale one bright afternoon, some few weeks after the arrival of the party from Silverfold at the house in Eaton Square.

The big drawing-rooms were flooded with all the sunlight that a spring day in London could supply, perhaps in illustration of Lady Haredale’s contempt of pretences; for their handsome fittings and furniture had seen many sets of tenants for the season, and were by no means in their first freshness. But, as Lady Haredale said, “Who cared? – There were some houses, she believed, where people were asked to come and see the furniture, but she asked people to come and see herself and her girls – and they generally came.”

Liberally supplied with flowers, and filled with graceful inhabitants, the effect of the shabby, elegant drawing-room, with its open windows and fearless daylight, was not amiss.

Indeed, there was a touch of genius in the way Lady Haredale faced the situation, and, spite of the ineffaceable memories behind her, Amethyst was sometimes almost bewitched into believing her mother to be the most ingenuous of women. Lady Haredale often bought trifles for herself or for her daughters, which took her fancy, and which were always tasteful and becoming, quite regardless of the cost; but she never bought anything, or chose anything, to conceal the fact that they had less than the usual amount to spend on their clothes. She forestalled the comments of acquaintances by the simplest confession.

“You see,” she would sometimes say, with her wide-open eyes and her sweet smile, “we have scraped every farthing we can get together, and joined with Miss Haredale’s nice little heiress to give our girls a chance. We think Amethyst is so pretty, that it is quite a duty to make a great effort. Of course we shall have to pay for it afterwards, or perhaps we shan’t – Dear me! – one can’t always, you know. We can no more afford, properly, to have a London season, than we can fly, but I can’t sacrifice such a beauty as I think my girl is, and I’ve brought all her sisters to town, that they may get a little pleasure when they can. Perhaps we shall never be able to come up again. But here we are – and so enjoying it. We have to do it all simply, but we don’t mind that the least little bit.”

Simplicity is comparative, but it was quite true that Lady Haredale wasted far less regret than most women would have done, on the defects of the turn-out in which she drove in the park with her beautiful daughter.

“What does it matter?” she would say. “My lord has had good horses more than once, and every one knows that he has always had to sell them.”

She did not mind wearing her dresses several times over; she knew that they always suited her. She appeared to be the least scheming of mothers, would throw over an invitation, for which many women would have plotted in vain, for another that seemed to her more amusing. She let Amethyst dance and talk with whom she would, cared little apparently where the young beauty was seen, or where she was not seen; and when Miss Haredale would have anxiously guarded Amethyst’s footsteps, chosen her acquaintances, and guided her smallest actions, as she would have said “for the best,” Lady Haredale observed —

“My dear Anna, you are much more worldly than I am. Let the child alone. She is getting on well enough. Let her enjoy herself, she looks much prettier when she is happy. She is getting quite enough talked about, and written about too in the Society papers. And that is the great point, you know, in getting her started.”

“I should be very sorry,” said Miss Haredale, “if anything came of the attentions of that Italian Prince.”

“What, Prince Pontresina? – Very old family. But, for my part, I’ve learned prudence, and I should be very well content if she chose Sir Richard Grattan. No – I don’t think Lord Broadstairs would do; he is nearly as badly off as we are – and a very bad character into the bargain. Amethyst wouldn’t like that.”

Miss Haredale sighed, and felt that she would have to swallow a great deal of old-fashioned prejudice before she could willingly see her niece marry a man in business, whose father had got a baronetcy through being mayor on the occasion of a royal visit to his borough; while to see her given to an old roué nobleman would nearly break her heart. It vexed her that Amethyst should be allowed to give up an eligible partner because Una was tired and wanted to go home, and she would much rather have taken her to a morning concert at a duchesss, than to look at pictures in an artist’s studio, farther west than Miss Haredale had ever paid a visit in her life, where she saw celebrities, and was seen by them.

“They will write about her and criticise her picture, and besides, it will be more amusing,” said Lady Haredale. “Take Carrie to the duchess’s. – Quite the best thing for her. And as for Una, it’s very pretty to see Amethyst taken up with her.”

By the sunshiny afternoon on which we lift the curtain, Lady Haredale’s method, or no method, had had time to work, and Amethyst’s name as a beauty was being rapidly made. She had danced with princes, and been praised by painters; her help at a coming fancy-fair, where princesses and actresses held the stalls, had been asked as a special favour, her presence and her costume was mentioned in accounts of fashionable gatherings; all was going well, and Lady Haredale, as she said, was enjoying herself immensely.

Her endorsement of the old proverb that honesty is the best policy, though illustrated by Amethyst’s career, had not, however, been intended to apply to it.

The party had come in from their various afternoon engagements. Amethyst, looking bright and fresh, and Carrie Carisbrooke, with much improved costume and manner, were touching up some flowers at a side table, while the elder ladies rested and talked before dressing for dinner.

“You know,” said Lady Haredale, “there’s not the least use in making pretences about Charles. Every one knows that he has been quite a trial. Now he is going to turn over a new leaf, and I think it is quite my duty to help him, now his debts are paid.”

“It’s very clever of him to have got his debts paid. I can’t think how he has done it,” said a slow, high voice from the end of the long room.

“Tory!” exclaimed Lady Haredale, “what are you doing there?”

“I’m learning a German verb, mother,” said Tory, standing up. “Don’t you think that, as our brother is coming home for the first time, Kat and I might dine down-stairs? We won’t speak unless we’re spoken to.”

“You had much better go up-stairs and finish your lessons,” said Amethyst, who preferred Tory’s absence at critical moments.

“Now don’t try to suppress us, Amethyst. It isn’t worthy of you. It isn’t, indeed,” said Tory, holding the end of her long tail of hair, and arranging the ribbon on it, with an absurdly childish look.

“Well,” said Lady Haredale, “as there are only the Grattans and Mr Carisbrooke coming, I don’t see why you should not come in. – But, as I was saying, we must try to make it pleasant and home-like for Charles. He has not been all he should have been, but we must forget that.”

“Yes, we know all about it, mother, all of us,” said Tory, – “except Carrie.”

“Carrie is one of us now,” said Lady Haredale, “so we won’t make a stranger of her.”

Carrie, who adored Lady Haredale, smiled and coloured as she ran away to dress for dinner; while Amethyst, as she too went up-stairs, remembered the conversation they had held at Silverfold, and thought it strange that Mr Oliver Carisbrooke and Charles Haredale should both make their first visit on the same day.

Amethyst, like her mother, was “enjoying herself very much.” She did inherit the same liking for life, and for the pleasant things of life, and, in spite of the occasional pressure of the past and of the future, it was not wonderful that the present was enchanting to her. A cup, rare, sweet, and intoxicating, was held to her lips, it was something to taste so fine a flavour.

She was so full of life, that she would have enjoyed all the elements of a London season heartily, if she had been but an insignificant figure in it, and to feel herself to be one of its chief attractions, naturally enhanced the charm. While the leaves in the Park were still young and green, the air cool, and all the fine clothes fresh, the end of the season seemed far away, and the result of it needed not to be forestalled.

Neither success nor amusement ever made her forget Una, who played a much more passive part in the great Masque of Pleasure in which they were all engaged. It was for her, at any rate for the time being, an outward show. Her real life was elsewhere. This was partly, of course, because fatigue took off the edge of the pleasure, but quite as much because nothing really interested her but her emotions. She did not pass unnoticed even by Amethyst’s side, being an uncommon and interesting creature, with her extreme fragility and delicacy of appearance, and absolute self-possession and indifference of manner.

She recollected, and probably knew more about, the prodigal brother than Amethyst did, and she shrank nervously from his return. Amethyst had learned to shrug her shoulders, and “make the best of a bad business.” She encouraged Una, and would not let her dwell on what Tory called “the family crisis,” but she was a little surprised that the two younger ones also were evidently uncomfortable, and made a point of going down-stairs under her protection.

Probably they were none of them nearly so uncomfortable as the man who had lived for years under a cloud, whose reputation was tarnished, not only in the eyes of innocent girls, but in those of the men of the world with whom he ought to have associated, whose ways of life had unfitted him for a family circle, and who knew that he was watched, criticised, and tolerated.

Charles Haredale had never dined in his father’s house since his own sister Blanche had left home. He hated his step-mother, and, in blaming her for her share in the family misfortunes, eased himself a little of his self-blame. He received the kindest welcome from his aunt, who had once been fond of him, and still regarded him as the “hope” of the family, still believed that all should be pardoned to the heir.

He was meant to be an easy-going, good-natured man like his father; but his conduct had passed the bounds which he could justify to himself, his present situation contained elements difficult to swallow, and a sense of shame-faced discomfort made him look sulky.

“Here is Amethyst, Charles,” said Lady Haredale, in her sweetest tones, “you have hardly seen her since she was a baby.”

“Oh yes, I have,” said Charles, “of course I’ve seen her. Every one’s seen her. Very glad to know her, I’m sure. Great privilege.”

Amethyst shook hands, rather glad that this strange brother did not offer to kiss her, and he nodded shyly at the younger ones.

“Una? No – should never have known her. Oh yes – that’s Tory. No mistake about her.”

“You used to give me rides on your back,” said Tory, in a tone that made her sisters inclined to shake her; but just then Carrie came in, trim and fashionable in blue silk, and was introduced in due form, as Sir Richard Grattan and his sister were announced.

Sir Richard was a fair, fresh-coloured man of thirty, well-dressed and well-looking. There was nothing against him in manner, character, or appearance, and his wealth was so great, that he was worthy spoil – “big game” for the beauty of the season; while it was an open secret that the beauty of the season was the prize he meant to win. He had met Amethyst at a country house in the winter, and, with the inherited energy and determination that had made his great fortune, took measures to win what, he was enough in love to know, was not to be had without trouble and pains. He had won the good will of all her family, and he did not think the lady discouraging; but he recognised that he must let her have her great success, and submit to the approach of at any rate apparent rivals.

The right of intimacy in the house was allowed both to him and to his sisters, and he took full advantage of it. He now greeted Charles, to the surprise of the girls, as an old acquaintance, with slightly patronising friendliness, and Tory, watching with her keen eyes, caught a look, under the polite response, of savage annoyance.

“We are all here but your uncle, my dear Carrie,” said Lady Haredale, glancing round.

“Perhaps he won’t come. Sometimes he doesn’t,” said Carrie, in her clear abrupt voice.

But “Mr Oliver Carisbrooke,” chimed in with the end of her sentence, and a small slight man, with a bronzed face and a little grey pointed beard, came in. There was a little greeting and introducing, and then, men being scarce, there was a difficulty as to pairing off for dinner. Lady Haredale laughed, apologised, and went in with her two little girls. Mr Carisbrooke was given to Miss Haredale, but Amethyst found herself on his other side, and when she turned away from Sir Richard Grattan to give him courteously a small share of her attention, making some trivial remark about the London season, he looked at her keenly for a moment, and said —

“You find it very delightful?”

Amethyst was suddenly seized with the most curious self-questioning, and felt as if she wanted to settle with herself, first of all the fact of her delight, and then the why and the wherefore of it, before she answered – as of course she did —

“Oh yes, I do indeed.”

Chapter Twenty

The Beauty

A soirée was held at a new and fashionable Art Gallery, the shining lights alike of Fame and Fashion were streaming in at the doors, and spreading themselves through the rooms, when Sylvester Riddell sprang out of a hansom cab, and mounted the steps, glancing about him at the various celebrities as he passed, exchanging greetings with his friends, and watching secretly for one face.

“Iris” had just made its appearance before the public. Sylvester, at present, was suffering from a fit of depression as to its merits, and was disposed to think that it would be an utter failure. His father’s criticisms rang in his ears, and were echoed by his own understanding, and he had felt himself so unable to decide as to the hero’s final fate, that he had left the poem unfinished, calling it “Iris, as far as Manifested” and had taken leave of Amelot, still straining after the mystic vision.

Some of his friends told him that this indefiniteness was far more artistic than a commonplace conclusion, but he knew that his father would never grant that imagination could result in vagueness. He did not think himself that it could, but for him the story of Iris was still incomplete, and he could not decide on its outcome. Lucian was off to the Rocky Mountains; and the interest of Sylvester’s life had consisted in picking up reports as to the success of the new beauty.

He was engaged as art critic to a very select and enlightened journal, hence his presence to-night, and he made his way at once to the portrait of the “Hon. Amethyst Haredale, by – ,” and so encountered several of his acquaintance, all looking and criticising, for the picture was much talked of, and was painted by a rising artist. It represented Amethyst in a simple white dress, showing the long soft curves of her neck and arms, her ideal perfection of form and feature. The head was slightly turned over the shoulder, and the eyes looked out at the spectators, with the mystical far-away look which Sylvester had caught in their depths, even in the first freshness of her happy girlhood. It was somewhat faintly coloured, less blooming than the original.

“Miss Haredale is more of a flesh and blood beauty than that,” said one of the young men; “I don’t see that she looks visionary at all, but as if she enjoyed herself immensely.”

“That is altogether too etherealised,” said another, “and misses the young lady of fashion!”

“It’s a lovely picture,” said a third, “like a statue with a soul – Galatea, possibly.”

“Yes, – I say, just look,” – said the first. “It’s ideal beauty – look at the sweep of her throat and shoulder.” And he continued to call attention to the “points” of the picture, with perfectly legitimate and artistic enthusiasm, but to the distraction of Sylvester, who, on being appealed to as “a lucky fellow who knew her at home in the country,” replied sharply and untruly, that the picture did not strike him as a good likeness of Miss Haredale at all.

“No?” said another voice, as Mr Oliver Carisbrooke came up, and joined the group. “I saw her once last year – though I had not the pleasure of an introduction. I should have thought it like her then. But she is altered. Ah, Mr Sylvester Riddell, let me claim our slight acquaintance. Like every one else, I am admiring your poem.”

Sylvester ought to have been gratified, and was obliged to be civil; but his nerves were all on edge, and something in Mr Carisbrooke’s tone jarred on him.

He glanced round at the brilliant throng, noticed the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition apparently comparing notes as to each other’s portraits, saw the artist, who had painted Miss Haredale, stop and speak to a new novelist, whose book was on every one’s table; and then, down the room, behind her mother, came Amethyst herself, flashing as suddenly on his vision as when first he had seen her in the drawing-room at Cleverley, with the jewels on her neck, and the happy light in her eyes.

She looked happy and eager now, the fatal amethysts were once more clasped round her throat and shining in her hair; her dress was of some faint indescribable tint that harmonised with the jewels, it hung in soft, simple folds. She carried some quaint rare orchids in her hand. Her dress was noticeable, as well as her person, and it seemed to Sylvester that she came like a queen with her court, for she was with a large party, who all made for the portrait, near which Sylvester stood.

It was neither Lady Haredale’s way to resent the past, nor to slight an unprofitable acquaintance; and, though Sylvester stepped aside, feeling acutely that she had a right to refuse to know him, she paused and said quite sweetly, —

“Why, it’s young Mr Riddell! How do you do? And how is our dear old Rector, and your aunt? Amethyst – Una – Mr Sylvester Riddell is here!”

What could be sweeter? Sylvester’s friends were envious, as Amethyst turned away from the tall foreigner to whom she had been speaking, and gave her hand to Sylvester, courteously, but without the slightest effusion. She was perfectly at her ease, but he felt that she did not mean to be cordial, while he coloured and looked embarrassed, as he answered, and Lady Haredale asked him to dinner for the next day. “So lucky that we are dining at home.” He accepted of course, and Lady Haredale went on talking to him; whether from mere purposeless geniality, or from a “wish to tease” – as the nursery poem has it – the other men in attendance, he could not tell. The young lady remained passive. She stood still, and gave words when they were demanded of her, “as if they had been flowers from her bouquet,” thought the poetical Sylvester. When Sir Richard Grattan asked her to come and look at a landscape which he thought of buying, and to give her opinion on it, she went at once, and studied the picture, appraising its merits, and appearing genuinely to forget herself in admiring it. That was like the old Amethyst, but the action was noted, and conclusions drawn by every bystander. The odds were certainly with Sir Richard Grattan. Sylvester managed to stand about within sight, and more or less within hearing.

“The advantage of modern pictures,” said Sir Richard Grattan, “is that one knows their real value. ‘Old Masters’ are a mere swindle. I don’t believe even the experts can tell if they’re genuine.”

“I like modern landscapes – they are so real,” said Amethyst.

“There is a picture by Titian, as you call him, in my house in Rome,” said Prince Pontresina in delicate careful English, “which was painted for my ancestor by the master himself, and we possess his receipt for the money that was paid to him.”

“Oh, that is interesting! I should like to see Titian’s handwriting,” said Amethyst with enthusiasm.

“If I have ever the privilege of showing that precious heirloom to Miss Haredale, the moment for which it has been preserved for ages will have come. I can then destroy it,” said the prince.

“Then, since you like this picture, I shall add it to the landscapes by modern artists with which I am filling the dining-room at Merrifield House,” said Sir Richard. “I have secured the refusal of it. You think it good, Miss Haredale.”

Amethyst stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other, from the pale, finely-finished prince, like one of his own old pictures, to the florid, substantial baronet, who seemed to carry his prosperity written on his face.

Was she really weighing their merits in the balance? Or was she amusing herself with their pretensions, like any little suburban belle with a pair of rival partners, playing a common game with exceptionally splendid playthings?

It did not occur to the miserable Sylvester that she was actuated by another motive, that she was showing the man who had once misjudged and injured her, how little harm he had been able to do; that the person she was chiefly conscious of was himself. He only felt that he had lost Iris, in seeing Amethyst.

She plunged into a discussion on the respective merits of ancient and modern art, in which Sylvester perceived that she talked with skill, and pulled both her admirers out of their depths. Suddenly she paused, looked across the room, with attention suddenly caught, turned to Sir Richard Grattan, and said —

“I should like to find my sister now. Will you take me to her?”

Una, dressed in pale yellow, with some large delicate daffodils on her shoulder, rather like a pale daffodil herself in her fragile slenderness, was not without admirers, but she had little attention to spare for them. To her, at any rate, the sight of Sylvester recalled the most miserable hours of her life; and, with a self-absorption and want of appreciation only possible to early youth, the thought of the conservatory at Loseby, of the pond in the wood at Cleverley, blotted out alike the brilliant people and the beautiful pictures now before her eyes. In her excuse, it may be said that she was very tired, her head and back were aching. Standing was a painful effort, so she sat down on a bench, near the rest of her party, and lost herself in wondering, whether the wretched impulse that had once driven her to plunge into the cold muddy pool from which Sylvester had rescued her, had been the unpardonable sin that she often felt it to be. How hateful were the memories of that childish delusion and folly! Her life, since then, had indeed become new.