The Haute Noblesse: A Novel

“You have chosen a delightful morning for your walk, Miss Vine.”

“Yes, but we were just going back.”

“No; don’t go back yet,” said Harry quickly, for he had strung himself up. “Vic, old boy, you walk on with my sister. I want to have a chat with Miss Van Heldre.”

The girls exchanged glances, each seeming to ask the other for counsel.

Then, in a quiet, decisive way, Madelaine spoke.

“Yes, do, Louie dear; I wanted to speak to your brother, too.”

There was another quick look passing between the friends, and then Louise bowed and walked on, Pradelle giving Harry a short nod which meant, according to his judgment, “It’s all right.”

Louise was for keeping close to her companion, but her brother evidently intended her to have a tête-à-tête encounter with his friend, and she realised directly that Madelaine did not second her efforts. In fact the latter yielded at once to Harry’s manoeuvres, and hung back with him, while Pradelle pressed forward, so that before many minutes had elapsed, the couples, as they walked west, were separated by a space of quite a couple of hundred yards.

“Now I do call that good of you, Maddy,” said Harry eagerly. “You are, and you always were, a dear good little thing.”

“Do you think so?” she said directly, and her pleasant bright face was now very grave.

“Do I think so! You know I do. There, I want a good talk to you, dear. It’s time I spoke plainly, and that we fully understood one another.”

“I thought we did, Harry.”

“Well, yes, of course, but I want to be more plain. We’re no boy and girl now.”

“No, Harry, we have grown up to be man and woman.”

“Yes, and ever since we were boy and girl, Maddy, I’ve loved you very dearly.”

Madelaine turned her clear searching eyes upon him in the most calm and untroubled way.

“Yes, Harry, you have always seemed to.”

“And you have always cared for me very much?”

“Yes, Harry. Always.”

“Well, don’t say it in such a cold, serious way, dear.”

“But it is a matter upon which one is bound to be cool and very serious.”

“Well, yes, of course. I don’t know that people are any the better for showing a lot of gush.”

“No, Harry, it is not so deep as the liking which is calm and cool and enduring.”

“I s’pose not,” said the young man very disconcertedly. “But don’t be quite so cool. I know you too well to think you would play with me.”

“I hope I shall always be very sincere, Harry.”

“Of course you will. I know you will. We began by being playmates – almost like brother and sister.”

“Yes, Harry.”

“But I always felt as I grew older that I should some day ask you to be my darling little wife, and, come now, you always thought so too?”

“Yes, Harry, I always thought so too.”

“Ah, that’s right, dear,” said the young man flushing. “You always were the dearest and most honest and plain-spoken girl I ever met.”

“I try to be.”

“Of course; and look yonder, there’s old Pradelle, the dearest and best friend a fellow ever had, talking to Louise as I’m talking to you.”

“Yes, I’m afraid he is.”

“Afraid? Oh, come now, don’t be prejudiced. I want you to like Victor.”

“That would be impossible.”

“Impossible! What, the man who will most likely be Louie’s husband?”

“Mr Pradelle will never be Louie’s husband.”

“What! Why, how do you know?”

“Because I know your sister’s heart too well.”

“And you don’t like Pradelle?”

“No, Harry; and I’m sorry you ever chose him for a companion.”

“Oh, come, dear, that’s prejudice and a bit of jealousy. Well, never mind about that now. I want to talk about ourselves.”

“Yes, Harry.”

“I want you to promise to be my little wife. I’m four-and-twenty, and you are nearly twenty, so it’s quite time to talk about it.”

Madelaine shook her head.

“Oh, come!” he said merrily, “no girl’s coyness; we are too old friends for that, and understand one another too well. Come, dear, when is it to be?”

She turned and looked in the handsome flushed face beside her, and then said in the most cool and matter-of-fact way:

“It is too soon to talk like that. Harry.”

“Too soon? Not a bit of it. You have told me that you will be my wife.”

“Some day; perhaps.”

“Oh, nonsense, dear! I’ve been thinking this all over well. You see, Maddy, you’ve let my not sticking to business trouble you.”

“Yes, Harry, very much.”

“Well, I’m very sorry, dear; and I suppose I have been a bit to blame, but I’ve been doing distasteful work, and I’ve been like a boat swinging about without an anchor. I want you to be my anchor to hold me fast. I’ve wanted something to steady me – something to work for; and if I’ve got you for a wife I shall be a different man directly.”

Madelaine sighed.

“Aunt Marguerite won’t like it, because she is not very fond of you.”

“No,” said Madelaine, “she does not like fat Dutch fraüleins – Dutch dolls.”

“Get out! What stuff! She’s a prejudiced old woman full of fads. She never did like you.”

“Never, Harry.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter a bit.”

“No. That does not matter a bit.”

“You see I’ve had no end of thinks about all this, and it seems to me that if we’re married at once, it will settle all the worries and bothers I’ve had lately. The governor wants me to go to business again; but what’s the use of that? He’s rich, and so is your father, and they can easily supply us with all that we should want, and then we shall be as happy as can be. Of course I shall work at something. I don’t believe in a fellow with nothing to do. You don’t either?”

“No, Harry.”

“Of course not, but all that toiling and moiling for the sake of money is a mistake. Never mind what Aunt Marguerite says. I’ll soon work her round, and of course I can do what I like with the governor. He’s so fond of you that he’ll be delighted, and he knows it will do me good. So now there’s nothing to do but for me to go and see your father and ask his permission. I did think of letting you coax him round; but that would be cowardly, wouldn’t it.”

“Yes, Harry, very cowardly, and lower you very much in my eyes.”

“Of course; but, I say, don’t be so serious. Well, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, for your governor will be down on me tremendously. I’ll face him, though. I’ll talk about our love and all that sort of thing, and it will be all right. I’ll go to him to-day.”

“No, Harry,” said Madelaine, looking him full in the face, “don’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because it would expose you to a very severe rebuff.”

“Will you speak to him then? No; I’ll do it.”

“No. If you did my father would immediately speak to me, and I should have to tell him what I am going to tell you.”

“Well. Out with it.”

“Do you suppose,” said Madelaine, once more turning her clear frank eyes upon the young man, and speaking with a quiet decision that startled him; “do you suppose I could be so wanting in duty to those at home, so wanting in love to you, Harry, that I could consent to a marriage which would only mean fixing you permanently in your present thoughtless ways? You talk like a foolish boy, and not like the Harry Vine whom I have always looked forward to being my protector through life.”

“Madelaine!”

“Let me finish, Harry, and tell what has been on my lips for months past, but which you have never given me the opportunity to say to you till now. I am younger by several years than you, but do you think I am so wanting in worldly experience that I am blind to your reckless folly, or the pain you are giving father and sister by your acts?”

“Why, Maddy,” he cried, in a voice full of vexation, which belied the mocking laugh upon his lips, “I didn’t think you could preach like that.”

“It is time to preach, Harry, when I see you so lost to self-respect, and find that you are ready to place yourself and the girl you wish to call wife, in a dependent position, instead of proudly and manfully making yourself your own master.”

“Well, this is pleasant,” cried Harry, as soon as he had recovered somewhat from his astonishment, “and am I to understand that you throw me over?”

“No, Harry,” said Madelaine sadly, “you are to understand that I care for you too much to encourage you in a weak folly.”

“A weak folly – to ask you what you have always expected I should ask!”

“Yes, to ask it at such a time when, after being placed in post after post by my father’s help, and losing them one by one by your folly, you – ”

“Oh, come, that will do,” cried the young man angrily; “if it’s to be like this it’s a good job that we came to an explanation at once. So this is gentle, amiable, sweet-tempered Madelaine, eh! Hallo! You?”

He turned sharply, for during the latter part of the conversation they had been standing still, and Louise and Pradelle had come over a stretch of sand with their footsteps inaudible.

“It is quite time we returned, Madelaine,” said Louise gravely; and without another word the two girls walked away.

“’Pon my word,” cried Harry with a laugh, “things are improving. Well, Vic, how did you get on?”

“How did I get on indeed!” cried Pradelle angrily. “Look here, Harry Vine, are you playing square with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say; are you honest, or have you been setting her against me?”

“Why you – no, I won’t quarrel,” cried Harry.

“What did she say to you?”

“Say to me? I was never so snubbed in my life. Any one would think I had been the dirt under her feet; but I’ve not done yet. Her ladyship doesn’t know me if she thinks I’m going to give up like that.”

“There, that’ll do, Vic. No threats, please.”

“Oh, no; I’m not going to threaten. I can wait.”

“Yes,” said Harry, thoughtfully; “we chose the wrong time. We mustn’t give up, Vic; we shall have to wait.”

And they went back to their old nook beneath the cliff to smoke their pipes, while as the thin blue vapour arose, Harry’s hot anger grew cool, and he began to think of his aunt’s words, of Comte Henri des Vignes, and of the fair daughters of France – a reverie from which he was aroused by his companion, as he said suddenly —

“I say, Harry lad, I want you to lend me a little coin.”

Chapter Seven

Chez Van Heldre

The two friends parted at the gate, Madelaine refusing to go in.

“No,” she said; “they will be expecting me at home.”

They kissed, and then stood holding one another’s hands, both wanting to relieve their full hearts, but dreading to begin. Hardly a word had been spoken on their way back, and such words as had been said were upon indifferent subjects.

But now the moment for parting had come, and they gazed wistfully in each other’s eyes.

Louise was the first to break the painful since.

“Maddy, dear, ought we not to confide in each other?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Madelaine, with a sigh of relief that the constraint was over. “Yes, dear. Did Mr Pradelle propose to you?”

“Yes.”

“And you told him it was impossible?”

“Yes. What did my brother want to say?”

“That we ought to be married now, and it would make him a better man.”

“And you told him it was impossible?”

“Yes.”

There was another sigh as if of relief on both sides, and the two girls kissed again and parted.

It was a brisk quarter of an hour’s walk to the Van Heldre’s, which lay at the end of the main street up the valley down which the little river ran; and on entering the door, with a longing upon her to go at once to her room and sit down and cry, Madelaine uttered a sigh full of misery, for she saw that it was impossible.

As she approached the great stone porch leading into the broad hall, which was one of the most attractive looking places in the house, filled as it was with curiosities and other objects brought by the various captains from the Mediterranean, and embracing cabinets from Constantinople with rugs and pipes, little terra-cotta figures from Sardinia, and pictures and pieces of statuary from Rome, Naples, and Trieste – there was the sound of music, but such music as might be expected from a tiny bird organ, whose handle Mrs Van Heldre was turning as she gazed wistfully up at a bullfinch, whose black cap was set on one side, and little beady eyes gazed down from the first one and then the other side of their owner’s little black stumpy beak, which it every now and then used to ruffle the delicate red feathers of its breast or the soft grey blue of its back.

The notes that came from the little box-like instrument – a very baby of an organ – as Mrs Van Heldre turned, were feeble in the extreme, but there was a method in the machine which piped forth most irregularly and in the most feeble way the quaint old French air “Ma Normandie;” and as Madelaine heard it, her broad white forehead grew perplexed and a thrill of misery and discomfort ran through her.

“Ah, my dear, I’m so glad you’ve come back. Where’s papa?”

“I have not seen him, mamma.”

“Busy, I suppose. How he does work! But do look, dear, at this tiresome bird. He’ll never learn to pipe.”

“Not with patience, mamma? I think so.”

“I don’t, Maddy. It seems to take more patience than I’ve got. It’s worse than trying to teach that parrot. It never would learn the words you wanted it to.”

“Is it worth the trouble, mamma, dear?”

“No, my dear, I don’t think it is; but I seemed to fancy that I should like to have a piping bullfinch. Every body has some fancy, dear; and I’m sure mine’s better than Margaret Vine’s for aristocratic connections. Ah! how cross that woman does make me feel.”

“She is rather irritating,” said Madelaine, holding the tip of a white finger between the bars of the cage.

“Irritating?” said the plump little woman flushing; “I call her maddening. The life she leads that poor patient man! dictating as she does, and worrying him about the French estates and the family name, while George Vine is so patient that – ”

“He would succeed in teaching a bullfinch to pipe, mamma.”

“Ah, now you’re laughing at me, and thinking me weak; but it’s better to have my weakness than hers. Only fancy: ever since she formed that mad, foolish attachment for that French scoundrel, who coaxed the whole of her money away from her and then threw her over, has George Vine taken her to his home and let her tyrannise over him. A silly woman! Your father always said the man was a scamp. And, by the way, that Mr Pradelle, I don’t like him, my dear.”

“Neither do I, mamma.”

“That’s right, my dear; I’m very glad to hear you say so; but surely Louie Vine is not going to be beguiled by him?”

“Oh, no.”

“Ah, that’s all very well; but Luke Vine came in as he went by, to say in his sneering fashion that Louie and Mr Pradelle were down on the shore, and that you were walking some distance behind with Harry.”

“Mr Luke Vine seems to have plenty of time for watching his neighbours,” said Madelaine, contemptuously.

“Yes; he is always noticing things; but don’t blame him, dear. I’m sure he means well, and I can forgive him anything for that. Ah! here’s your father.”

“Ah! my dears,” said Van Heldre cheerily. “Tired out.”

“You must be,” said Mrs Van Heldre, bustling about him to take his hat and gloves. “Here do come and sit down.”

The merchant went into the drawing-room very readily, and submitted to several little pleasant attentions from wife and daughter, as he asked questions about the bullfinch, laughing slily the while at Madelaine.

Evening came on with Van Heldre seated in his easy chair, thoughtfully watching wife and daughter, both of whom had work in their laps; but Mrs Van Heldre’s was all a pretence, for, after a few stitches, her head began to nod forward, then back against the cushion, and then, as if by magic, she was fast asleep.

Madelaine’s needle, however, flew fast, and she went on working, with her father watching her attentively, till she raised her eyes, let her hands rest in her lap, and returned his gaze with a frank, calm look of love and trust that made him nod his head in a satisfied way.

“You want to say something to me, Maddy,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes, papa.”

“About your walk down on the beach?”

Madelaine nodded.

“You know I went.”

“Yes; I saw you, and Luke Vine came and told me as well.”

“It was very kind of him,” said Madelaine, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

“Kind and unkind, my dear. You see he has no business – nothing to do but to think of other people. But he means well, my dear, and he likes you.”

“I have often thought so.”

“Yes; and you were right. He warned me that I was not to let your intimacy grow closer with his nephew.”

“Indeed, papa!”

“Yes, my dear. He said that I was a – well, I will not tell you what, for not stopping it directly, for that Harry was rapidly drifting into a bad course – that it was a hopeless case.”

“That is not the way to redeem him, father.”

“No, my dear, it is not. But you were going to say something to me?”

“Yes,” said Madelaine, hesitating. Then putting down her work she rose and went to her father’s side, knelt down, and resting her arms upon his knees, looked straight up in his face.

“Well, Maddy?”

“I wanted to speak to you about Harry Vine.”

There was a slight twitching about the merchant’s brows, but his face was calm directly, and he said coolly —

“What about Harry Vine?”

Madelaine hesitated for a few moments, and then spoke out firmly and bravely.

“I have been thinking about his position, father, and of how sad it is for him to be wasting his days as he is down here.”

“Very sad, Maddy. He is, as Luke Vine says, going wrong. Well?”

“I have been thinking, papa, that you might take him into your office and give him a chance of redeeming the past.”

“Nice suggestion, my dear. What would old Crampton say?”

“Mr Crampton could only say that you had done a very kind act for the son of your old friend.”

“Humph! Well?”

“You could easily arrange to take him, papa, and with your firm hand over him it would do an immense deal of good.”

“Not to me.”

There was a pause during which Van Heldre gazed into his child’s unblenching eyes.

“So we are coming at facts,” he said at last. “Harry asked you to interfere on his behalf?”

Madelaine shook her head and smiled.

“Is this your own idea?”

“Entirely.”

“Then what was the meaning of the walk on the beach to-day?”

“Harry sought for it, and said that we had been playfellows from children, that he loved me very dearly, and he asked me to be his wife.”

“The – ”

Van Heldre checked himself.

“And what did you say?”

“That it was impossible.”

“Then you do not care for him?” cried Van Heldre eagerly.

Madelaine was silent.

“Then you do not care for him?” said Van Heldre again.

“I’m afraid I care for him very much indeed, father,” said Madelaine firmly; “and it grieves me so to see him drifting away that I determined to ask you to come to his help.”

“Let me thoroughly understand you, my darling. You love George Vine’s son – your old friend’s brother?”

“Yes, father,” said Madelaine, in a voice little above a whisper.

“And he has asked you to be his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what answer you gave him?”

“In brief, that I would never marry a man so wanting in self-respect and independence as he has shown himself to be.”

“Hah!”

It was a softly-uttered ejaculation, full of content.

“He said that our parents were rich, that there was no need for him to toil as he had done, but that if I consented it would give him an impetus to work.”

“And you declined conditionally?”

“I declined absolutely, father.”

“And yet you love him?”

“I’m afraid I love him very dearly, father.”

“You are a strange girl, Madelaine.”

“Yes, father.”

“Do you know what it means for me to take this wilful young fellow into my office?”

“Much trouble and care.”

“Yes. Then why should I at my time of life fill my brain with worry and care?”

“Because, as you have so often taught me, we cannot live for ourselves alone. Because he is the son of your very old friend.”

“Yes,” said Van Heldre softly.

“Because it might save him from a downward course now that there is, I believe, a crisis in his life.”

“And because you love him, Maddy?”

She answered with a look.

“And if I were so insane, so quixotic, as to do all this, what guarantee have I that he would not gradually lead you to think differently – to consent to be his wife before he had redeemed his character?”

“The trust you have in me that I should not do anything you did not consider right.”

“Hah!” ejaculated Van Heldre again. And there was another long silence.

“I feel that I must plead for him, father. It would be the turning-point of his life. You could influence him so much.”

“I’m afraid not, my child. If he has not the manliness to do what is right for your sake, I’m afraid that anything I could do or say would not be of much avail.”

“You underrate your power, father,” said Madelaine, with a look full of pride in him.

“And if I did this I might have absolute confidence that matters should go no farther until he had completely changed?”

“You know you might.”

“Hah!” sighed Van Heldre. “You will think this over, father?”

“There is no need, my dear.”

“No need?”

“No, my child. I have for some days past been thinking over this very thing, just in the light in which you placed it.”

“You have, father?”

“Yes, and I had a long talk with George Vine this afternoon respecting his son.”

“Oh, father!”

“I told him I could see that the trouble was growing bigger and telling upon him, and proposed that I should take Harry here.” Madelaine had started to her feet.

“Presuming that he does not refuse after his father has made my proposals known, Harry Vine comes here daily to work under Crampton’s guidance.” Madelaine’s arms were round her father’s neck.

“You have made me feel very happy and satisfied, my dear,” said Van Heldre, pressing her to his breast; “and may heaven speed what is going to be a very arduous task. He will commence in the office next week.”

Just then Mrs Van Heldre raised her head and looked round.

“Bless my heart!” she exclaimed. “I do believe I have nearly been to sleep.”

Chapter Eight

Uncle Luke Speaks His Mind

“Hallo, Scotchman!”

“Hallo, Eng – I mean, French – What am I to call you Mr Luke Vine?”

“Englishman, of course.”

Uncle Luke was seated, in a very shabby-looking grey aged Norfolk jacket made long, a garment which suited his tastes, from its being an easy comfortable article of attire. He had on an old Panama hat, a good deal stained, and a thick stick armed with a strong iron point useful for walking among the rocks; and upon this staff he rested as he sat outside his cottage door watching the sea and pondering as to the probability of a shoal of fish being off the point.

His home with its tiny scrap of rough walled-in garden, which grew nothing but sea holly and tamarisk, was desolate looking in the extreme, but the view therefrom of the half-natural pier sheltering the vessels in the harbour of the twin town, with its busy wharves and warehouses and residences, rising in terrace above terrace, and of the blue, ever-changing sea, was glorious.

He had had his breakfast and taken his seat out in the sunshine, when he became aware of the fact that Duncan Leslie was coming down from the mine buildings above, and he hailed him with a snarl and the above words.

“Glorious morning.”

“Humph! Yes,” said the old man, looking up at the handsome young mine-owner with his face all in lines, “but what’s that got to do with you?”

“Everything. Do you suppose I don’t like fine weather?”

“I thought you didn’t care for anything but money grubbing.”

“Then you were mistaken, because I do.”

“Nonsense! You think of nothing but copper, spoiling the face of nature with the broken rubbish your men dig out of the bowels of the earth, poisoning the air with the fumes of those abominable furnaces. Look at that!”

The old man raised his stick and made a vicious dig with it in the direction of the mine.

“Look at what?”

“That shaft. Looks like some huge worm that your men disturbed down below, and sent it crawling along the hill slope till it could rear its abominable head in the air and look which way to go to be at rest.”