Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

Mr. Hamleigh had no near relations – and albeit a whole bevy of cousins and a herd of men from the clubs would have gladly attended to witness his excision from the ranks of gilded youth, and to bid him God-speed on his voyage to the domestic haven – their presence at the sacrifice would have given him no pleasure – while, on the other hand, there was one person resident in London whose presence would have caused him acute pain. Thus, each of the lovers pleading for the same favour, Mrs. Tregonell had foregone her idea of a London wedding, and had come to see that it would be very hard upon all the kindly inhabitants of Forrabury and Minster – Boscastle – Trevalga – Bossiney and Trevena – to deprive them of the pleasurable excitement to be derived from Christabel's wedding.

Early in September, in the golden light of that lovely time, they were to be quietly married in the dear old church, and then away to Tyrolean woods and hills – scenes which, for Christabel, seemed to be the chosen background of poetry, legend, and romance, rather than an actual country, provided with hotels, and accessible by tourists. Once having consented to the naming of an exact time, Mrs. Tregonell felt there could be no withdrawal of her word. She telegraphed to Leonard, who was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, with a chosen friend, a couple of English servants and three or four Canadians, – and who, were he so minded, could be home in a month – and having despatched this message she felt the last wrench had been endured. Nothing that could ever come afterwards – save death itself – could give her sharper pain.

"Poor Leonard," she replied; "it will break his heart."

In the years that were gone she had so identified herself with her son's hopes and schemes, had so projected her thoughts into his future – seeing him in her waking dreams as he would be in the days to come, a model squire, possessed of all his father's old-fashioned virtues, with a great deal of modern cleverness superadded, a proud and happy husband, the father of a noble race – she had kept this vision of the future in her mind so long, had dwelt upon it so fondly, had coloured it so brightly, that to forego it now, to say to herself "This thing was but a dream which I dreamed, and it can never be realized," was like relinquishing a part of her own life. She was a deeply religious woman, and if called upon to bear physical pain – to suffer the agonies of a slow, incurable illness – she would have suffered with the patience of a Christian martyr, saying to herself, as brave Dr. Arnold said in the agony of his sudden fatal malady, "Whom He loveth He chasteneth," – but she could not surrender the day-dream of her life without bitterest repining. In all her love of Christabel, in all her careful education and moral training of the niece to whom she had been as a mother, there had been this leaven of selfishness. She had been rearing a wife for her son – such a wife as would be a man's better angel – a guiding, restraining, elevating principle, so interwoven with his life that he should never know himself in leading-strings – an influence so gently exercised that he should never suspect that he was influenced.

"Leonard has a noble heart and a fine manly character," the mother had often told herself; "but he wants the association of a milder nature than his own. He is just the kind of man to be guided and governed by a good wife – a wife who would obey his lightest wish, and yet rule him always for good."

She had seen how, when Leonard had been disposed to act unkindly or illiberally by a tenant, Christabel had been able to persuade him to kindness or generosity – how, when he had set his face against going to church, being minded to devote Sunday morning to the agreeable duty of cleaning a favourite gun, or physicking a favourite spaniel, or greasing a cherished pair of fishing-boots, Christabel had taken him there – how she had softened and toned down his small social discourtesies, checked his tendency to strong language – and, as it were, expurgated, edited, and amended him.

And having seen and rejoiced in this state of things, it was very hard to be told that another had won the wife she had moulded, after her own fashion, to be the gladness and glory of her son's life; all the harder because it was her own shortsighted folly which had brought Angus Hamleigh to Mount Royal.

All through that gay London season – for Christabel a time of unclouded sadness – carking care had been at Mrs. Tregonell's heart. She tried to be just to the niece whom she dearly loved, and who had so tenderly and fully repaid her affection. Yet she could not help feeling as if Christabel's choice was a personal injury – nay, almost treachery and ingratitude. "She must have known that I meant her to be my son's wife," she said to herself; "yet she takes advantage of my poor boy's absence, and gives herself to the first comer."

"Surely September is soon enough," she said, pettishly, when Angus pleaded for an earlier date. "You will not have known Christabel for a year, even then. Some men love a girl for half a lifetime before they win her."

"But it was not my privilege to know Christabel at the beginning of my life," replied Angus. "I made the most of my opportunities by loving her the moment I saw her."

"It is impossible to be angry with you," sighed Mrs. Tregonell. "You are so like your father."

That was one of the worst hardships of the case. Mrs. Tregonell could not help liking the man who had thwarted the dearest desire of her heart. She could not help admiring him, and making comparisons between him and Leonard – not to the advantage of her son. Had not her first love been given to his father – the girl's romantic love, ever so much more fervid and intense than any later passion – the love that sees ideal perfection in a lover?

CHAPTER VII

CUPID AND PSYCHE

In all the bright June weather, Christabel had been too busy and too happy to remember her caprice about Cupid and Psyche. But just after the Henley week – which to some thousands, and to these two lovers, had been as a dream of bliss – a magical mixture of sunlight and balmy airs and flowery meads, fine gowns and fine luncheons, nigger singers, stone-breaking athletes, gipsy sorceresses, eager to read high fortunes on any hand for half-a-crown, rowing men, racing men, artists, actors, poets, critics, swells – just after the wild excitement of that watery saturnalia, Mr. Hamleigh had occasion to go to the north of Scotland to see an ancient kinswoman of his father – an eccentric maiden aunt – who had stood for him, by proxy, at the baptismal font, and at the same time announced her intention of leaving him her comfortable fortune, together with all those snuff-mulls, quaighs, knives and forks, spoons, and other curiosities of Caledonia, which had been in the family for centuries – provided always that he grew up with a high opinion of Mary Stuart, and religiously believed the casket letters to be the vile forgeries of George Buchanan. The old lady, who was a kindly soul, with a broad Scotch tongue, had an inconvenient habit of sending for her nephew at odd times and seasons, when she imagined herself on the point of death – and he was too kind to turn a deaf ear to this oft-repeated cry of "wolf" – lest, after making light of her summons, he should hear that the real wolf had come and devoured the harmless, affectionate old lady.

So now, just when London life was at its gayest and brightest, when the moonlit city after midnight looked like fairy-land, and the Thames Embankment, with its long chain of glittering lamps, gleaming golden above the sapphire river, was a scene to dream about, Mr. Hamleigh had to order his portmanteau and a hansom, and drive from the Albany to one of the great railway stations in the Euston Road, and to curl himself up in his corner of the limited mail, scarcely to budge till he was landed at Inverness. It was hard to leave Christabel, though it were only for a week. He swore to her that his absence should not outlast a week, unless the grisly wolf called Death did indeed claim his victim.

"I know I shall find the dear old soul up and hearty," he said, lightly, "devouring Scotch collops, or haggis, or cock-a-leeky, or something equally loathsome, and offering me some of that extraordinary soup which she always talks of in the plural. 'Do have a few more broth, Angus; they're very good the day.' But she is a sweet old woman, despite her barbarities, and one of the happiest days of my life will be that on which I take you to see her."

"And if – if she is not very ill, you will come back soon, won't you, Angus," pleaded Christabel.

"As soon as ever I can tear myself away from the collops and the few broth. If I find the dear old impostor in rude health, as I quite expect, I will hob and nob with her over one glass of toddy, sleep one night under her roof, and then across the Border as fast as the express will carry me."

So they parted; and Angus had scarcely left Bolton Row an hour, when Major Bree came in, and, by some random flight of fancy, Christabel remembered "Cupid and Psyche."

The three ladies had just come upstairs after dinner. Mrs. Tregonell was enjoying forty winks in a low capacious chair, near an open window, in the first drawing-room, softly lit by shaded Carcel lamps, scented with tea-roses and stephanotis. Christabel and Jessie were in the tiny third room, where there was only the faint light of a pair of wax candles on the mantelpiece. Here the Major found them, when he came creeping in from the front room, where he had refrained from disturbing Mrs. Tregonell.

"Auntie is asleep," said Christabel. "We must talk in subdued murmurs. She looked sadly tired after Mrs. Dulcimer's garden party."

"I ought not to have come so early," apologized the Major.

"Yes you ought; we are very glad to have you. It is dreadfully dull without Angus."

"What! you begin to miss him already?"

"Already!" echoed Christabel. "I missed him before the sound of his cab wheels was out of the street. I have been missing him ever since."

"Poor little Belle!"

"And he is not half-way to Scotland yet," she sighed. "How long and slow the hours will be. You must do all you can to amuse me. I shall want distractions – dissipation even. If we were at home I should go and wander up by Willapark, and talk to the gulls. Here there is nothing to do. Another stupid garden party at Twickenham to-morrow, exactly opposite the one to-day at Richmond – the only variety being that we shall be on the north bank of the river instead of the south bank – a prosy dinner in Regent's Park the day after. Let me see," said Christabel, suddenly animated. "We are quite free for to-morrow evening. We can go and see 'Cupid and Psyche,' and I can tell Angus all about it when he comes back. Please get us a nice see-able box, like a dear obliging Uncle Oliver, as you are."

"Of course I am obliging," groaned the Major, "but the most obliging person that ever was can't perform impossibilities. If you want a box at the Kaleidoscope you must engage one for to-morrow month – or to-morrow six weeks. It is a mere bandbox of a theatre, and everybody in London wants to see this farrago of nonsense illustrated by pretty women."

"You have seen it, I suppose."

"Yes, I dropped in one night with an old naval friend, who had taken a stall for his wife, which she was not able to occupy."

"Major Bree, you are a very selfish person," said Christabel, straightening her slim waist, and drawing herself up with mock dignity. "You have seen this play yourself, and you are artful enough to tell us it is not worth seeing, just to save yourself the trouble of hunting for a box. Uncle Oliver, that is not chivalry. I used to think you were a chivalrous person."

"Is there anything improper in the play?" asked Jessie, striking in with her usual bluntness – never afraid to put her thoughts into speech. "Is that your reason for not wishing Christabel to see it?"

"No, the piece is perfectly correct," stammered the Major, "there is not a word – "

"Then I think Belle's whim ought to be indulged," said Jessie, "especially as Mr. Hamleigh's absence makes her feel out of spirits."

The Major murmured something vague about the difficulty of getting places with less than six weeks' notice, whereupon Christabel told him, with a dignified air, that he need not trouble himself any further.

But a young lady who has plenty of money, and who has been accustomed, while dutiful and obedient to her elders, to have her own way in all essentials, is not so easily satisfied as the guileless Major supposed. As soon as the West-end shops were open next morning, before the jewellers had set out their dazzling wares – those diamond parures and rivières, which are always inviting the casual lounger to step in and buy them – those goodly chased claret jugs, and Queen Anne tea-kettles, and mighty venison dishes, which seem to say, this is an age of luxury, and we are indispensable to a gentleman's table – before those still more attractive shops which deal in hundred-guinea dressing-cases, jasper inkstands, ormolu paper-weights, lapis lazuli blotting-books, and coral powder-boxes – had laid themselves out for the tempter's work – Miss Courtenay and Miss Bridgeman, in their neat morning attire, were tripping from library to library, in quest of a box at the Kaleidoscope for that very evening.

They found what they wanted in Bond Street. Lady Somebody had sent back her box by a footman, just ten minutes ago, on account of Lord Somebody's attack of gout. The librarian could have sold it were it fifty boxes, and at a fabulous price, but he virtuously accepted four guineas, which gave him a premium of only one guinea for his trouble – and Christabel went home rejoicing.

"It will be such fun to show the Major that we are cleverer than he," she said to Jessie.

Miss Bridgeman was thoughtful, and made no reply to this remark. She was pondering the Major's conduct in this small matter, and it seemed to her that he must have some hidden reason for wishing Christabel not to see "Cupid and Psyche." That he, who had so faithfully waited upon all their fancies, taking infinite trouble to give them pleasure, could in this matter be disobliging or indifferent seemed hardly possible. There must be a reason; and yet what reason could there be to taboo a piece which the Major distinctly declared to be correct, and which all the fashionable world went to see? "Perhaps there is something wrong with the drainage of the theatre," Jessie thought, speculating vaguely – a suspicion of typhoid fever, which the Major had shrunk from mentioning, out of respect for feminine nerves.

"Did you ever tell Mr. Hamleigh you wanted to see 'Cupid and Psyche'?" asked Miss Bridgeman at last, sorely exercised in spirit – fearful lest Christabel was incurring some kind of peril by her persistence.

"Yes, I told him; but it was at a time when we had a good many engagements, and I think he forgot all about it. Hardly like Angus, was it, to forget one's wishes, when he is generally so eager to anticipate them?"

"A strange coincidence!" thought Jessie. Mr. Hamleigh and the Major had been unanimous in their neglect of this particular fancy of Christabel's.

At luncheon Miss Courtenay told her aunt the whole story – how Major Bree had been most disobliging, and how she had circumvented him.

"And my revenge will be to make him sit out 'Cupid and Psyche' for the second time," she said, lightly, "for he must be our escort. You will go, of course, dearest, to please me?"

"My pet, you know how the heat of a theatre always exhausts me!" pleaded Mrs. Tregonell, whose health, long delicate, had been considerably damaged by her duties as chaperon. "When you are going anywhere with Angus, I like to be seen with you; but to-night, with the Major and Jessie, I shall not be wanted. I can enjoy an evening's rest."

"But do you enjoy that long, blank evening, Auntie?" asked Christabel, looking anxiously at her aunt's somewhat careworn face. People who have one solitary care make so much of it, nurse and fondle it, as if it were an only child. "Once or twice when we have let you have your own way and stay at home, you have looked so pale and melancholy when we came back, as if you had been brooding upon sad thoughts all the evening."

"Sad thoughts will come, Belle."

"They ought not to come to you, Auntie. What cause have you for sadness?"

"I have a dear son far away, Belle – don't you think that is cause enough?"

"A son who enjoys the wild sports of the West ever so much better than he enjoys his home; but who will settle down by-and-by into a model country Squire."

"I doubt that, Christabel. I don't think he will ever settle down – now."

There was an emphasis – an almost angry emphasis – upon the last word which told Christabel only too plainly what her aunt meant. She could guess what disappointment it was that her aunt sighed over in the long, lonely evenings; and, albeit the latent resentfulness in Mrs. Tregonell's mind was an injustice, her niece could not help being sorry for her.

"Yes, dearest, he will – he will," she said, resolutely. "He will have his fill of shooting bisons, and all manner of big and small game, out yonder; and he will come home, and marry some good sweet girl, who will love you only just a little less than I do, and he will be the last grand example of the old-fashioned country Squire – a race fast dying out; and he will be as much respected as if the power of the Norman Botterells still ruled in the land, and he had the right of dealing out high-handed justice, and immuring his fellow-creatures in a dungeon under his drawing-room."

"I would rather you would not talk about him," answered the widow, gloomily; "you turn everything into a joke. You forget that in my uncertainty about his fate, every thought of him is fraught with pain."

Belle hung her head, and the meal ended in silence. After luncheon came dressing, and then the drive to Twickenham, with Major Bree in attendance. Christabel told him of her success as they drove through the Park to Kensington.

"I have the pleasure to invite you to a seat in my box at the Kaleidoscope this evening," she said.

"What box?"

"A box which Jessie and I secured this morning, before you had finished your breakfast."

"A box for this evening?"

"For this evening."

"I wonder you care to go to a theatre without Hamleigh."

"It is very cruel of you to say that!" exclaimed Christabel, her eyes brightening with girlish tears, which her pride checked before they could fall. "You ought to know that I am wretched without him – and that I want to lose the sense of my misery in dreamland. The theatre for me is what opium was for Coleridge and De Quincey."

"I understand," said Major Bree; "'you are not merry, but you do beguile the thing you are by seeming otherwise.'"

"You will go with us?"

"Of course, if Mrs. Tregonell does not object."

"I shall be very grateful to you for taking care of them," answered the dowager languidly, as she leant back in her carriage – a fine example of handsome middle-age: gracious, elegant, bearing every mark of good birth, yet with a worn look, as of one for whom fading beauty and decline of strength would come too swiftly. "I know I shall be tired to death when we get back to town."

"I don't think London society suits you so well as the monotony of Mount Royal," said Major Bree.

"No; but I am glad Christabel has had her first season. People have been extremely kind. I never thought we should have so many invitations."

"You did not know that beauty is the ace of trumps in the game of society."

The garden party was as other parties of the same genus: strawberry ices and iced coffee in a tent under a spreading Spanish chestnut – music and recitations in a drawing-room, with many windows looking upon the bright swift river – and the picturesque roofs of Old Richmond – just that one little picturesque group of bridge and old tiled-gables which still remains – fine gowns, fine talk; a dash of the æsthetic element; strange colours, strange forms and fashions; pretty girls in grandmother bonnets; elderly women in limp Ophelia gowns, with tumbled frills and lank hair. Christabel and the Major walked about the pretty garden, and criticized all the eccentricities, she glad to keep aloof from her many admirers – safe under the wing of a familiar friend.

"Five o'clock," she said; "that makes twenty-four hours. Do you think he will be back to-morrow?"

"He? Might I ask whom you mean by that pronoun?"

"Angus. His telegram this morning said that his aunt was really ill – not in any danger – but still quite an invalid, and that he would be obliged to stay a little longer than he had hoped might be needful, in order to cheer her. Do you think he will be able to come back to-morrow?"

"Hardly, I fear. Twenty-four hours would be a very short time for the cheering process. I think you ought to allow him a week. Did you answer his telegram?"

"Why, of course! I told him how miserable I was without him; but that he must do whatever was right and kind for his aunt. I wrote him a long letter before luncheon to the same effect. But, oh, I hope the dear old lady will get well very quickly!"

"If usquebaugh can mend her, no doubt the recovery will be rapid," answered the Major, laughing. "I dare say that is why you are so anxious for Hamleigh's return. You think if he stays in the North he may become a confirmed toddy-drinker. By-the-by, when his return is so uncertain, do you think it is quite safe for you to go to the theatre to-night? He might come to Bolton Row during your absence."

"That is hardly possible," said Christabel. "But even if such a happy thing should occur, he would come and join us at the Kaleidoscope."

This was the Major's last feeble and futile effort to prevent a wilful woman having her own way. They rejoined Mrs. Tregonell, and went back to their carriage almost immediately – were in Bolton Row in time for a seven o'clock dinner, and were seated in the box at the Kaleidoscope a few minutes after eight. The Kaleidoscope was one of the new theatres which have been added to the attractions of London during the last twenty years. It was a small house, and of exceeding elegance; the inspiration of the architect thereof seemingly derived rather from the bonbonnières of Siraudin and Boissier than from the severer exemplars of high art. Somebody said it was a theatre which looked as if it ought to be filled with glacé chestnuts, or crystallized violets, rather than with substantial flesh and blood. The draperies thereof were of palest dove-coloured poplin and cream-white satin; the fauteuils were upholstered in velvet of the same dove colour, with a monogram in dead gold; the pilasters and mouldings were of the slenderest and most delicate order – no heavy masses of gold or colour – all airy, light, graceful; the sweeping curve of the auditorium was in itself a thing of beauty: every fold of the voluminous dove-coloured curtain, lined with crimson satin – which flashed among the dove tints here and there, like a gleam of vivid colour in the breast of a tropical bird – was a study. The front of the house was lighted with old-fashioned wax candles, a recurrence to obsolete fashion which reminded the few survivors of the D'Orsay period of Her Majesty's in the splendid days of Pasta and Malibran, and which delighted the Court and Livery of the Tallow Chandlers' Company.

"What a lovely theatre!" cried Christabel, looking round the house, which was crowded with a brilliant audience; "and how cruel of you not to bring us here! It is the prettiest theatre we have seen yet."

"Yes; it's a nice little place," said the Major, feebly; "but, you see, they've been playing the same piece all the season – no variety."

"What did that matter, when we had not seen the piece? Besides, a young man I danced with told me he had been to see it fifteen times."

"That young man was an ass!" grumbled the Major.

"Well, I can't help thinking so too," assented Christabel. And then the overture began – a dreamy, classical compound, made up of reminiscences of Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber – a melodious patchwork, dignified by scientific orchestration. Christabel listened dreamily to the dreamy music, thinking of Angus all the while – wondering what he was doing in the far-away Scottish land, which she knew only from Sir Walter's novels.