In Silk Attire: A Novel

"She has no friends," he said to himself, many a time, "neither have I. Why should not we make common cause against the indifference and hauteur of society? I can make a good husband – I would yield in all things to her wishes. And away down in Kent together – we two – even if we should live only for each other – "

The Count tried hard to keep this view of the matter before his eyes. When sometimes his errant imagination would picture his marriage with the poor actress, – then his claim, on behalf of his wife, for the estates and title of the Marquis of Knottingley's daughter – then the surprise, the chatter of the clubs, the position in society he would assume, the money he would have at his command, the easy invitations to battues he could dispense like so many worthless coppers among the young lords and venerable baronets – and so forth, and so forth – he dwelt upon the prospect with an unholy and ashamed delight, and strove to banish it from his mind as a temptation of the devil.

These conflicting motives, and the long train of anticipations connected with them, only served to render his present situation the more tragic. He knew that one great crisis of his life had come; and it is not only incomparable heroes, possessed of all human graces and virtues, who meet with such crises.

"When do you propose to leave the stage?" he asked.

"I have left," she answered.

"You won't play to-night?"

"No."

"But Mr. Melton – ?"

"Since he has been so kind as to give me, at your instigation, this release, must get Miss Featherstone to play 'Rosalind.' Nelly will play it very nicely, and my best wishes will go with her."

"Then I must see him instantly," said the Count, "and give him notice to get a handbill printed."

"If you would be so kind – "

But this was too bad. She intimated by her manner that she expected him to leave at once, merely for the sake of the wretched theatre. He took up the newspaper, by way of excuse, and for a minute or two glanced down its columns.

"Have you any fixed plans about what you mean to do?" he asked.

"None whatever," she replied. "Indeed I am in no hurry. You have no idea how I love this sense of freedom you have just given me, and I mean to enjoy it for a little time."

"But after then?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled: he thought he had never seen her look so charming.

"You don't know what lies before you," he said, gravely, "if you think of battling single-handed against the crowds of London. You don't know the thousands who are far more eager in the fight for bread than you are; because you haven't experienced the necessity yet – "

"I have fought for my bread ever since my poor mother died," she said.

"With exceptional advantages, and these you now abandon. My dear Miss Brunel," he added, earnestly, "you don't know what you're doing. I shudder to think of the future that you seem to have chalked out for yourself. On the other hand, I see a probable future for you in which you would not have to depend upon any one for your support; you would be independent of those people whom you profess to dislike; you would be rich, happy, with plenty of amusement, nothing to trouble you, and you would also secure a pleasant home for Mrs. Christmas – "

"Have you imagined all that out of one of these advertisements?" she asked, with a smile.

"No, Miss Brunel," said the Count, whose earnestness gave him an eloquence which certainly did not often characterise his speech. "Can't you guess what I mean? I am sure you know how I esteem you – you must have seen it – and perhaps you guessed what feelings lay behind that – and – and – now you are alone, as it were, you have no friends – why not accept my home, and become my wife?"

"Your wife?" she repeated, suddenly becoming quite grave, and looking down.

"Yes," he said, delighted to find that she did not get up in a towering passion, as he had seen so many ladies do, under similar circumstances, on the stage. "I hope you do not feel offended. I have spoken too abruptly, perhaps – but now it is out, let me beg of you to listen to me. Look at this, Miss Brunel, fairly: I don't think I have an unkind disposition – I am sincerely attached to you – you are alone, as I say, with scarcely a friend – we have many tastes in common, and as I should have nothing to do but invent amusements for you, I think we should lead an agreeable life. I am not a very young man, but on the other hand I haven't my way to make in the world. You don't like the stage. I am glad of it. It assures me that if you would only think well of my proposal, we should lead a very agreeable life. I'm sure we should have a pleasant agreeable life; for, after all, – it is absurd to mention this just now, perhaps – but one has a good deal of latitude in 30,000*l.* a year – and you don't have to trouble your mind – and if the most devoted affection can make you happy, then happy you'll be."

Annie Brunel sate quite silent, and not very much affected or put out. She had been in good spirits all the morning, had been nerving herself for a heroic and cheerful view of the future; and now here was something to engage her imagination! There is no woman in the world, whatever her training may have been, who, under such circumstances, and with such a picturesque offer held out to her, would refuse at least to regard and try to realise the prospect.

"You are very kind," she said, "to do me so much honour. But you are too kind. You wish to prevent my being subjected to the hardships of being poor and having to work for a living, and you think the easiest way to do that is to make me the mistress of all your money – "

"I declare, Miss Brunel, you wrong me," said the Count, warmly. "Money has nothing to do with it. I mentioned these things as inducements – unwisely, perhaps. Indeed it has nothing to do with it. Won't you believe me when I say that I could hope for no greater fortune and blessing in the world, if neither you nor I had a farthing of money, than to make you my wife?"

"I am afraid you would be sadly disappointed," she said, with a smile.

"Will you let me risk that?" he said, eagerly, and trying to take her hand.

She withdrew her hand, and rose.

"I can't tell you yet," she said; "I can scarcely believe that we are talking seriously. But you have been always very kind, and I'm very much obliged to you – "

"Miss Brunel," said the Count, hurriedly – he did not like to hear a lady say she was much obliged by his offer of 30,000*l.* a year – "don't make any abrupt decision, if you have not made up your mind. At any rate, you don't refuse to consider the matter? I knew you would at least do me that justice – in a week's time, perhaps – "

She gave him her hand, as he lifted his hat and cane, and he gratefully bowed over it, and ventured to kiss it; and then he took his leave, with a radiant smile on his face as he went downstairs.

"Club. And, d – n it, be quick!" he said to his astonished coachman.

Arrived there, he ordered the waiter to take up to the smoking-room a bottle of the pale port which the Count was in the habit of drinking there. Then he countermanded the order.

"I needn't make a beast of myself because I feel happy," he said to himself, wisely, as he went into the dining-room. "Alfred, I'll have a bit of cold chicken, and a bottle of the wine that you flatter yourself is Château Yquem."

Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red hair and no h's, was not less astonished than the Count's coachman had been. However, he brought the various dishes, and then the wine. The Count poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and took a draught of it:

"Here's to her health, whether the wine came from Bordeaux or Biberich!"

But as a rule the Château Yquem of clubs is a cold drink, which never sparkled under the warm sun of France; and so, as the Count went upstairs to the smoking-room, he returned to his old love, and told them to send him a pint-bottle of port. He had already put twenty-two shillings' worth of wine into his capacious interior; and he had only to add a glass or two of port, and surround his face with the perfume of an old, hard, and dry cigar, in order to get into that happy mood when visions are born of the half-somnolent brain.

"… I have done it – I have broken the ice, and there is still hope. Her face was pleased, her smile was friendly, her soft clear eyes – fancy having that smile and those eyes at your breakfast-table every morning, to sweeten the morning air for you, and make you snap your fingers at the outside world. 'Gad, I could write poetry about her. I'll livepoetry – which will be something better…"

At this moment there looked into the room a handsome and dressy young gentleman who was the funny fellow of the club. He lived by his wits, and managed to make a good income, considering the material on which he had to work.

"What a courageous man – port in the forenoon!" he said, to the Count.

The other said nothing, but inwardly devoted the newcomer to the deeps of Hades.

"And smoking to our old port!"

"A cigar doesn't make much difference to club-wines, young gentleman," said the Count, grandly.

"Heard a good thing just now. Fellow was abusing Scotchmen to a Scotch tradesman, and of course Bannockburn was mentioned. 'Why,' says the Englishman, 'plenty of my countrymen were buried at Bannockburn, and there you have rich harvests of grain. Plenty of your countrymen were buried at Culloden, and there you have only a barren waste. Scotchmen can't even fatten the land.'"

"Did he kill him?"

"No; the Englishman was a customer."

Once more the Count was left to his happy imaginings.

"Then the marriage," he thought to himself, "then the marriage, – the girls in white, champagne, fun, horses, and flowers, and away for France! No Trouville for me, no Etretât, no Biarritz. A quiet old Norman town, with an old inn, and an old priest; and she and I walking about like the lord and lady of the place, with all the children turning and looking at her as if she were an Italian saint come down from one of the pictures in the church. This is what I offer her – instead of what? A sempstress's garret in Camden Town, or a music-mistress's lodgings in Islington, surrounded by squalid and dingy people, glaring publichouses, smoke, foul air, wretchedness, and misery. I take her from the slums of Islington, and I lead her down into the sweet air of Kent, and I make a queen of her!"

The Count's face beamed with pleasure, and port. The very nimbleness of his own imagination tickled him —

"Look at her! In a white cool morning-dress, with her big heaps of black hair braided up, as she goes daintily down into the garden in the warm sunshine, and her little fingers are gathering a bouquet for her breast. The raw-boned wives of your country gentry, trying to cut a dash on the money they get from selling their extra fruit and potatoes, turn and look at my soft little Italian princess as she lies back in her barouche, and regards them kindly enough, God bless her! What a job I shall have to teach her her position – to let her know that now she is a lady the time for general good-humour is gone! Mrs. Anerley, yes; but none of your clergymen's wives, nor your doctors' wives, nor your cow-breeding squires' wives for her! Day after day, week after week, nothing but brightness, and pleasure, and change. All this I am going to give her in exchange for the squalor of Islington!"

The Count regarded himself as the best of men. At this moment, however, there strolled into the smoking-room a certain Colonel Tyrwhitt, who was connected by blood or marriage with half-a-dozen peerages, had a cousin in the Cabinet, and wore on his finger a ring given him by the decent and devout old King of Saxony. This colonel – "a poor devil I could buy up twenty times over," said the Count, many a time – walked up to the fireplace, and turning, proceeded to contemplate the Count, his wine, and cigar, as if these objects had no sensible existence. He stroked his grey moustache once or twice, yawned very openly, and then walked lazily out of the room again without having uttered a word.

"D – n him!" said the Count, mentally; "the wretched pauper, who lives by loo, and looks as grand as an emperor because he has some swell relations, who won't give him a farthing. These are the people who will be struck dumb with amazement and envy by-and-by. My time is coming.

"'Ah! my dear fellah!' says this colonel to me, some morning; 'I've heard the news. Congratulate you – all my heart. Lord Bockerminster tells me you've some wonderful shooting down in Berks.'

"'So I have,' says I; 'and I should be glad, Colonel, to ask you down, but you know my wife and I have to be rather select in our choice of visitors – '

"'What the devil do you mean?' says he.

"'Only that our list of invitations is closed for the present.'

"Suppose he gets furious? Let him! I don't know much about fencing or pistol-shooting, but I'd undertake to punch his head twenty times a week."

The Count took another sip of port, and pacified himself.

"Then the presentations to Her Majesty. I shouldn't wonder if the Queen took us up when she gets to learn Annie's story. It would be just like the Queen to make some sort of compensation; and once she saw her it would be all right. The Court Circular– 'Osborne, May 1. Count Schönstein and Lady Annie Knottingley had the honour of dining with the Queen and the Royal Family.' Lord Bockerminster comes up to me, and says —

"'Schönstein, old boy, when are you going to give me a turn at your pheasants? I hear you have the best preserves in the South of England.'

"'Well, you see, my lord,' I say, carelessly, 'I have the Duke of S – and a party of gentlemen going down on the 1st, and the Duke is so particular about the people he meets that I – you understand?'

"And why only a Duke? The Prince of Wales is as fond of pheasant-shooting as anybody else, I suppose. Why shouldn't he come down with the Princess and a party? And I'd make the papers talk of the splendid hospitality of the place, if I paid, damme, a thousand pounds for every dish. Then to see the Princess – God bless her, for she's the handsomest woman in England, bar one! – walking down on the terrace with Annie, while the Prince comes up to me and chaffs me about some blunder I made the day before. Then I say —

"'Well, your Royal Highness, if your Royal Highness was over at Schönstein and shooting with my keepers there, perhaps you might put your foot in it too.'

"'Count Schönstein,' says he, 'you're a good fellow and a trump, and you'll come with your pretty wife and see us at Marlborough House?'"

The Count broke into a loud and triumphant laugh, and had nearly demolished the glass in front of him by an unlucky sweep of the arm. Indeed, further than this interview with these celebrated persons, the imagination of the Count could not carry him. He could wish for nothing beyond these things except the perpetuity of them. The Prince of Wales should live for ever, if only to be his friend.

And if this ultimate and royal view of the future was even more pleasing than the immediate and personal one, it never occurred to him that there could be any material change in passing from one to the other. Annie Brunel was to be grateful and loving towards him for having taken her from "the squalor of Islington" to give her a wealthy station; she was to be equally grateful and loving when she found herself the means of securing to her husband that position and respect which he had deceived her to obtain. Such trifling points were lost in the full glory which now bathed the future that lay before his eyes. Annie Brunel had shown herself not unwilling to consent, which was equivalent to consenting; and there only remained to be reaped all the gorgeous happiness which his imagination, assisted by a tolerable quantity of wine, could conceive.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MOTHER CHRISTMAS'S STORY

Annie Brunel ran into Mrs. Christmas's room the moment Count Schönstein had left, and, sitting down by the bedside, took the old woman's lean hand in hers.

"Lady Jane, I have been looking over the advertisements in the Times, and do you know what I have found?"

"No."

"One offering me a marvellous lot of money, and a fine house in the country, with nice fresh air and constant attendance for you. Horses, carriages, opera-boxes, months at the seaside – everything complete. There!"

"Why don't you take it, sweetheart?" said the old woman, with a faint smile.

"Because – I don't say that I shan't take it – there is a condition attached, and such a condition! Not to puzzle you, mother, any more, Count Schönstein wants me to be his wife. Now!"

"Are you serious, Annie?" said Mrs. Christmas, her aged eyes full of astonishment.

"I can't say. I don't think the Count was. You know he is not a witty man, mother, and it mightbe a joke. But if it was a joke, he acted the part admirably – he pulled two leaves out of my photographic album, and nibbled a hole in the table-cover with his nail. He sate so, Lady Jane, and said, in a deep bass voice, 'Miss Brunel, I have 30,000*l.* a year; I am old; I am affectionate; and will you marry me?' Anything more romantic you could not imagine: and the sighs he heaved, and the anxiety of his face, would have been admirable, had he been dressed as 'Orlando,' and playing to my 'Rosalind.' 'For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.' 'Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!'"

"Sweetheart, have you grown mad? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. Must I describe the whole scene to you? – my lover's fearful diffidence, my gentle silence, his growing confidence, my wonder and bewilderment, finally, his half-concealed joy, and my hasty rush to you, Lady Jane, to tell you the news?"

"And a pretty return you are making for any man's confidence and affection, to go on in that way. What did you say to him?"

"Nothing."

"And what do you mean to say?"

"Nothing. What can I say, Lady Jane? I am sure he must have been joking; and, if not, he ought to have been. At the same time, I don't laugh at the Count himself, mother, but at his position a few minutes ago."

"And as you laugh at that, you laugh at the notion of becoming his wife."

The smile died away from the girl's face, and for some time she sate and gazed wistfully before her. Then she said —

"You ought to be able to say what I ought to do, mother. I did not say no, I did not say yes; I was too afraid to say either. And now, if we are to talk seriously about it, I am quite as much afraid. Tell me what to do, Lady Jane."

"Is it so entirely a matter of indifference that you can accept my advice?"

"It is quite a matter of indifference," said the girl, calmly.

"Do you love him, Annie?" said the old woman.

For one brief second the girl's thoughts flashed to the man whom she did love; but they returned with only a vague impression of pain and doubt. She had not had time to sit down and reason out her course of duty. She could only judge as yet by the feelings awakened by the Count's proposal, and the pictures which it exhibited to her mind.

"Do I love him, mother?" she said, in a low voice. "I like him very well, and I am sure he is very fond of me; I am quite sure of that."

"And what do you say yourself about it?"

"What can I say? If I marry him," she said, coldly, "it will give him pleasure, and I know he will be kind to me and to you. It is his wish – not mine. We should not be asking or receiving a favour, mother. I suppose he loves me as well as he loves any one; and I suppose I can make as good a wife as any one else."

There was in this speech the faint indication of a bitterness having its root in a far deeper bitterness, which had suggested the whole tone of this interview. When Mrs. Christmas thought the girl was laughing cruelly at a man who had paid her the highest compliment in his power, when she saw this girl exhibiting an exaggerated heartlessness in talking of the proposed marriage as a marriage of convenience, she did not know that this indifference and heartlessness were but the expression of a deep, and hopeless, and despairing love.

"Poverty is not a nice thing, mother; and until I should have established myself as a teacher of music, we should have to be almost beggars. The Count offers us a pleasant life; and I dare say I can make his dull house a little more cheerful to him. It is a fair bargain. He did not ask me if I loved him: probably he did not see the necessity any more than I do. What he proposes will be a comfortable arrangement for all of us."

Mrs. Christmas looked at the calm, beautiful, sad face, and said nothing.

"I think the Count is an honourable, well-meaning man," continued the girl, in the same cold tone. "If he sometimes makes himself ridiculous, so do most of us; and doubtless he is open to improvement. I think he is remarkably good-natured and generous, and I am sure he will be kind to us."

Consider Mrs. Christmas's position. An old woman, almost bedridden, ailing, and requiring careful and delicate attention, – one who has seen much of the folly of love and much of the power of money, – is asked for her advice by a young girl who is either on the one hand to marry a wealthy good-natured man, willing to give both a comfortable home, or, on the other hand, to go out alone into the world of London, unprotected and friendless, to earn bread for two people. Even admitting that no grain of selfishness should colour or shape her advice, what was she likely to say?

Ninety-nine women out of a hundred, under such circumstances, would say: "My dear, be sensible, and accept the offer of a worthy and honourable gentleman, instead of exposing yourself to the wretchedness and humiliation of poverty. Romance won't keep you from starving; and besides, in your case, there is no romantic affection to compel you to choose between love and money. People who have come to my time of life know the advantages of securing a happy home and kind friends."

This, too, is probably what Mrs. Christmas would have said – if she had not been born and bred an actress. This is what she did say: —

"My dear" (with a kindly smile on the wan face), "suppose you and I are going forward to the footlights, and I take your hand in mine, and look into your face, and say, 'Listen to the sad story of your mother's life?'"

"Well, Lady Jane?"

"You are supposed to be interested in it, and take its moral deeply to heart. Well, I'm going to tell you a story, sweetheart, although you may not see any moral in it – it's a story your mother knew."

"If she were here now!" the girl murmured, inadvertently.

"When I was three years younger than you, I was first chambermaid in the Theatre Royal, Bristol. Half the pit were my sweethearts; and I got heaps of letters, of the kind that you know, Annie – some of them impudent, some of them very loving and respectful. Sometimes it was, 'My dear Miss, will you take a glass of wine with me at such and such a place, on such and such a night?' and sometimes it was, 'I dare not seek an introduction, lest I read my fate in your refusal. I can only look at you from afar off, and be miserable.' Poor boys! they were all very kind to me, and used to take such heaps of tickets for my benefits, for in Bristol, you know, the first chambermaid had a benefit like her betters."

"There were none better than you in the theatre, I'm sure, mother," said Annie.

"Don't interrupt the story, my dear; for we are at the footlights, and the gallery is supposed to be anxious to hear it. I declare I have always loved the top gallery. There you find critics who are attentive, watchful, who are ready to applaud when they're pleased, and to hiss when they're not. Well, there was one poor lad, out of all my admirers, got to be acquainted with our little household, and he and I became – friends. He was a wood-engraver, or something like that, only a little older than myself – long fair hair, a boyish face, gentleness like a girl about him; and nothing would do but that I should engage to be his wife, and he was to be a great artist and do wonders for my sake."

The hard look on the young girl's face had died away now, and there was a dreaminess in her eyes.

"I did promise; and for about two years we were a couple of the maddest young fools in the world – I begging him to make haste, and get money, and marry me – he full of audacious schemes, and as cheerful as a lark in the certainty of marrying me. He tried painting pictures; then he began scene-painting, and succeeded so well that he at last got an engagement in a London theatre, and nearly broke his heart when he went away there to make money for both of us."