Ouida_Granville_de_Vigne.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
CHAPTER I.
THE SENIOR PUPIL OF THE CHANCERY.
It was pleasant down there in Berkshire, when
the water rushed beneath the keel; our oars
feathered neatly on the ringing rowlocks; the
river foamed and flew as we gripped it; and the
alders and willows tossed in the sunshine, while
we private pupils, as our tutor called us, ^men,
as we called ourselves used to pull up the
Kennet, as though we were some of an University
Eight, and lunch at the Ferry-inn off raw chops
and half-and-half, making love to its big-boned, red-
haired Hebe, and happy as kings in those summer
days, in the dead years long past and gone. What
a royal time it was ! (who amongst us does not
say so ?) ^when our hearts owned no heavier cares
VOL. I. B
2 "held in bondage;" or,
than a vulgus, and a theorem ; and no skeleton in
the closet, spoiled our trolling, and long bowling ;
when old Horace and Euripides, were the only
bores we knew ; and Galatrea at the pastry-cook's,
seemed fairer, than do ever titled Helens now;
when gallops on hired shying hacks, were doubly
dear, by prohibition; and filthy bird's-eye, smoked
in clays, sweeter to our senses then, than purest
Havannahs smoked to-day, on the steps of Pratt's,
or the U. S. ! I often think of those days when,
A ith a handsome tip, from the dear old governor ;
and a parting injunction respecting the unspeak-
able blessings and advantages of flannel, from my
mother; I was sent off to be a private pupil, under
the Rev. Josiah Primrose, D.D,, F.R.S., F.R.G.S.,
and all the letters of the alphabet beside, I dare
say, if I could but remember them.
Our modem Gamaliel was an immaculate and
insignificant little man ; who, on the strength of a
Double First, good connections, and M.B. waist-
coats ; offered to train up the sons of noblemen and
gentlemen, in the way they should go, drill Greek,
and instil religious principles into them, for the
trifling consideration of 300Z. per annum. He
lived in a quiet little borough in the south of Berk-
shire, at a long, low, ivy-clad house, called the
Chancery; which had stupendous pretensions to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 3
the picturesque and the mediaeval ; and, what was
of much more consequence to us, a capital little
trout stream at the bottom of its grounds. Here
he dwelt with a fat old housekeeper, a very good
cook, a quasi-juvenile niece, (who went in for the
kitten line, and did it very badly, too,) and four,
or, when times were good, six, hot-brained young
dogs, worse to keep in order than a team of
unbroke thorough-breds. No authority, however,
d!d our Doctor, in familiar parlance, * Old Joey,'
attempt to exercise. We had prayers at eight,
which he read in a style of intoning peculiar to
himself, more soporific in its efiects than a scien-
tific lecture, or an Exeter Hall meeting, and dinner
at six ; a very good dinner, too ; over which the
fair Arabella presided : and between those hours
we amused ourselves as we chose, with cricket, and
smoking, jack and trout, boating and swimming,
rides on hacks, such as job-masters let out to young
fellows with long purses ; and desperate flirtations
with all the shop girls in Frestonhills. We did do
an amount of Greek and Logic, of course, as other-
wise the 300Z. might have been jeopardized ; but
the Doctor was generally dreaming over his pos- '
sible chance of the Bampton Lectureship, or his
next report for the Geological Society, and was as
glad to give us our conge as we were to take it.
B 2
4 "held in bondage;" or,
It was a mild September evening, I remember,
when I first went to the Chancery. I had been a
little down in the mouth at leaving home, just in
the best of the shooting season ; and at saying good-
by to my genial-hearted governor, and my own
highly-prized bay, * Ballet-girl ' : but a brisk coach
drive and a good inn-dinner never yet failed to
raise a boy's spirits, and by the time I reached
Frestonhills I was ready to face a much more
imposing individual than * Old Joey.' The Doctor
received me in his library, with a suspicious ap-
pearance of having just tumbled out of a nap
called me his * dear young friend ; ' on my first
introduction treated me to a text or two, in-
geniously dove-tailed with classic quotations ; took
me to the drawing-room for presentation to his
niece, who smiled graciously on me for the sake
of the pines, and melons, and game my mother
had sent as a propitiatory offering with her
darling ; and, finally, consigned me to the tender
mercies of the senior pupil.
The senior pupil was standing with his back
to the fire and his elbows on the mantel-piece,
smoking a short pipe, in the common study. He
was but just eighteen; but even then he had
more of the * grand air ' about him than anyone
else I had ever seen. His figure, from its deve-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 5
loped muscle, broad chest, and splendidly-moulded
arm, might have passed him for much older; but
in his face were all the spirit, the eagerness, the fire
of early youth ; the glow of ardour that has never
been chilled, the longing of the young gladiator
for the untried arena. His features were clear-
cut, proud, and firm ; the lines of the lips delicate
and haughty ; his eyes were long, dark, and keen
as a falcon's ; his brow was wide, high, and power-
ful; his head grandly set upon his throat: he
looked altogether, as I told him some time after-
wards, very like a thorough-bred racer, who was
longing to do the distance, and who would never
allow punishing by curb, or whip, or snaffle.
Such was the senior pupil, Granville de Vigne.
He was alone, and took his pipe out of his lips
without altering his position.
* Well, sir, what's your name ? *
' Chevasney.'
* Not a bad one. A Chevasney of Longholme ? '
' Yes. John Chevasney's son.'
* So you are coming to be fleeced by Old Joey ?
Deuced pity ! Are you good for anything ? '
*Only for grilling a devil, and riding cross
country.'
He threw back his head, and laughed, a clear
ringing laugh ; and gave me his hand, cor-
6 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
dially and frankly, for all his hauteur and his
seniority.
* You'll do. Sit down, innocent. I am Gran-
ville de Vigne. You know us^ of course. Your
father rode with our hounds last January. Very
game old gentleman, he seemed ; I should have
thought him too sensible to have sent you down
here ! You'd have been much better at Eton, or
Ilugby; there's nothing like a public school for
taking the nonsense out of people. / liked Eton,
at least ; but if you know how to hold your own
and have your own way, you can make yourself
comfortable anywhere. The other fellows are out,
gone to a flower-show, I think ; I never go to
such places myself, they're too slow. There is
only one of the boys \yorth cultivating, and he's
a very little chap, only thirteen, but he's a jolly
little monkey ; we call him ' Curly ' from his dandy
gold locks. His father's a peer' and De Vigne
laughed again ' one of the fresh creation ; may
Heaven preserve us from it ! This Frestonhills is
a detestable place ; you'll be glad enough to get
out of it. If it weren't for sport, I should have
cut it long ago, but with a hunter and a rod a man
can never be dull. Are you a good shot, seat, and
oar, young one ? '
Those were De Vigne's first words to me, and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 7
I was honoured and delighted with his notice,
for I had heard how, at seven years old, he
had ridden unnoticed to the finish with Assheton
Smith's hounds ; how, three years later, he had
mounted a mare none of the grooms dare touch,
and, breaking his shoulder-bone in the attempt to
tame her, had shut his teeth like a little Spartan,
that he might not cry out during its setting ; how,
when he had seen his Newfoundland drowning
from cramp in the mere, he had plunged in after
his dog, and only been rescued as both were sink-
ing, the boy's arms round the animal's neck :
with many other such tales current in the county
of the young heir to 20,000Z. a year.
I did know his family the royal-sounding * Us/
They had been the lords of the manor at Vigne
ever since tradition could tell ; their legends were
among the country lore, and their names in the
old cradle songs of rough chivalry, and vague
romance, handed down among the peasantry from
generation to generation. Many coronets had lain
at their feet, but they had courteously declined
them ; to say the truth, they held the strawberry-
leaves in supreme contempt, and looked down not
unjustly on many of the roturiei'S of the peerage.
DeVigne's father, a Colonel of Dragoons, had
fallen fighting in India when his son was six years
fi "held in bondage;" or,
old ; and how this high-spirited representative of a
haughty House came to be living down in the dull
seclusion of Frestonhills was owing to a circum-
stance very characteristic of De Vigne. At twelve
his mother had sent him to Eton, a match in
pluck, and muscle, and talent, for boys five years
his senior. There he helped to fight the Lord's
men ; pounded bargees with a skill worthy of the
P. B. ; made himself captain of the boats ; enjoyed
mingled popularity and detestation; and from
thence, when he was seventeen, got himself
expelled.
His Dame chanced to have a niece a niece,
tradition says, with the loveliest complexion and
the most divine auburn hair in the world, and
with whom, when she visited her aunt, all Oppi-
dans and Tugs, who saw the beatific vision, became
straightway enamoured. Whether De Vigne was
in love with her, I can't say; he always averred
notj but I doubt the truth of his statement ; at any
rate, he made her in love with him, being already
rather skilled in that line of conquest, and all, I
dare say, went merry as a marriage-bell, till the
Dame found out the mischief, was scandalized and
horrified at it, and confiding the affair to the tutor,
made no end of a row in Eton. She would have
pulled all the authorities about De Vigne's ears if
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 9
he bad not performed that operation for himself.
The tutor, having had a tender leaning to the
auburn hair on his own account, was furious ; and
coming in contact with De Vigne and mademoiselle
strolling along by the river-side, took occasion to
tell them his mind. Now opposition, much less
lecturing, De Vigne in all his life never could
brook ; and he and his tutor coming to hot words,
as men are apt when they quarrel about a woman,
De Vigne flung him into the water and gave
him such a ducking for his impudence, as Eton
master never had before, or since. De Vigne, of
course, was expelled for his double crime; and
to please his mother, as nothing would make
him hear of three years of college life, he con-
sented to live twelve months in the semi-aca-
demic solitude of Frestonhills, while his name was
entered at the Horse Guards for a commission.
So at the Chancery he had domiciled himself,
more as a guest than a pupil, for the Doctor was
a trifle afraid of his keen eyes and quick wit;
since his pupil knew twenty times more of modern
literature and valuable available information than
himself, and fifty times more of the world and
its ways. But Old Joey, like all people, be their
tendencies ever so heavenward, had a certain
respect for twenty thousand a year. De Vigne
10 "held in bondage;" ok,
kept two hunters and a hack in Frestonhills, He
smoked Cavendish under the Doctor's own win-
dow; he read De Kock and Le Brun in the
drawing-room before the Doctor's very eyes (and
did not Miss Arabella read them too, upon the sly,
though she blushed if you mentioned poor * Don
Juan ! ') ; he absented himself when he chose, and
went to shoot and hunt and fish with men he
knew in the county ; he had his own way, in fact,
as he had been accustomed to have it all his life.
But it was not an obstinate nor a disagreeable
*own way;' true, he turned restive at the least
attempt at coercion, but he was gentle enough to
a coax ; and though he could work up into very
fiery passion, he was, generally speaking, sweet
tempered enough, and had almost always, a kind
word, or a generous thought, or a laughing jest,
for us less favoured young ones.
I had a sort of boyish devoted loyalty to him
then, and he deserved it. Many a scrape did a
word or two from him get me out of with the
Doctor; many a time did he send me into the
seventh heaven by the loan of his magnificent four-
year-old ; more than once did fivers come from his
hand when I was deep in debt for a boy's fancies,
or had been cheated through thick and thin at the
billiard-table in the Ten Bells, where De Vigne
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 11
paid my debts, refreshed himself by kicking the
^wo sharpers out of the apartment, and threatened
to shoot me if I offered him the money back again.
A warm-hearted reverence I had for him in those
boyish days, and always have had, God bless him !
But I little foresaw how often in the life to come
we should be together in revelry and in danger, in
thoughtless pleasures and dark sorrows, in the
whirl of fast life and the din and dash of the bat-
tle-field, when I first saw the senior pupil
smoking in the study of the old Chancery at
Frestonhills.
One sunny summer's afternoon, while the Doctor
dosed over his * Treatise on the Wise Tooth of the
Fossil Hum-and-bosh Ichthyosaurus,' and Arabella
watered her geraniums and looked interesting in a
white hat with very blue ribbons, De Vigne, with
his fishingtrod in his hand, looked into the study,
and told Curly and me, who were vainly and
wretchedly puzzling our brains over Terence, that
he was going after jack, and we might go with him
if we chose. Curly and I, in our adoration of
our senior pupil, would have gone after him to
martyrdom, and we sent Terence to the dogs
(literally, for we shied him at Arabella's wheezing
King Charles), rushed for our rods and baskets,
and went down to the banks of the Kennet. De
12 "held in bondage;*' or,
Vigne had an especial tenderness for old Izaak's
gentle art ; it was the only thing over which he
displayed any patience, and even in this, he might
have caught more, if he had not twitched his line
80 often in anger at the slow-going fish, and sworn
against them for not biting, roundly enough to
terrify them out of all such intentions, if they had
ever possessed any !
How pleasant it was there beside Pope*s
" Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned/'
rushing through the sunny meadow lands of Berk-
shire ; lingering on its way, beneath the chequered .
shadows of the oaks and elms, that rival their
great neighbours, the beech-woods of Bucks ; dash-
ing swiftly, with busy joyous song, under the
rough-hewn arch of some picturesque rustic
bridge ; flowing clear and cool in the summer sun
through the fragrant woodlands and moss-grown
orchards, the nestling villages and quiet country
towns, and hawthorn hedges dropping their white
buds into its changeful gleaming waters ! How
pleasant it was, fishing for jack among our Kennet
meadows, lying under the pale willows and the
dark wayfaring tree with its white starry blossoms,
while the cattle trooped down to drink, up to their
hocks in the flags and lilies and snowflakes fringing
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 13
the river's edge ; and the air came fresh and
fragrant over the swathes of new-mown grass and
the crimson buds of the little dog-roses ! Half its
beauty, however, was lost upon us, with our boyish
density to all appeals made to our less material
senses ; except, indeed, upon De Vigne, who
stopped to have a glance across country as he
stood trolling, spinning the line with much more
outlay of strength and vehemence than was
needed, or landing every now and then a ten-pound
pike, with a violent anathema upon it for having
dared to dispute his will so long ; while little
Curly lazily whipped the water, stretched full
length on a fragrant bed of wild thyme. What a
pretty child he was, poor little fellow ! more
like one of Pompadour's pages, or a boy-hero
of the Trouveres, with his white skin and his violet
eyes, than an every-day slang-talking, lark-loving
English lad !
* By George ! what a handsome girl,' said De
Vigne, taking off his cap and standing at ease
for a minute, after landing a great jack. ' I'm
not fond of dark women generally, but pon my
life she is splendid. What a contour! What
a figure ! Do for the queen of the gipsies,
eh ? Why the deuce isn't she this side of the
river ? '
14 "held in bondage;'* or,
The object of his admiration was on the oppo-
site bank, strolling along by herself, with a certain
dignity of air and stateliness of step which would not
have ill become a duchess, though her station in life
was probably that of a dressmaker's apprentice, or
a small shopkeeper's daughter, at the very highest.
She was as handsome as one of those brunette
peasant beauties in the plains of La Caraargue,
with a clear dark skin which had a rich carnation
glow on the cheeks ; large black eyes, perfect in
shape and colour ; and a form such as would de-
velop with years for she was now probably not
more than sixteen or seventeen into full Juno-
esque magnificence.
'By Jove ! she is very handsome; and she
knows it, too,' began De Vigne again. ' I have
never seen her about here before. I'll go across
and talk to her.'
Go he assuredly would have done, for female
beauty was De Vigne's weakness; but at that
minute a short, square, choleric-looking keeper
came out of the wood at our back, and went up to
little Curly.
* Hallo, you there ^you young swell ; don't you
know you are trespassing ? '
' No, I don't,' answered Curly, in his pretty soft
voice.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 15
'Don't you know you're on Mr. Tressillian's
ground ? ' sang out the keeper.
* Am I ? Well, give my love to him, and say
I shall be very happy to give him the pleasure of
my company at dinner to-night,' rejoined Curly,
imperturbably.
* You imperent young dog will you march off
this ere minute ! ' roared the bellicose guardian of
Mr. Tressillian's rights of fishery.
* Wouldn't you like to see me ? ' laughed Curly,
flinging his marchbrown into the stream.
* Curse you, if you don't, I'll come and take
your rod away,' sang out the keeper.
* Will you really ? That'll be too obliging, you
look so sweet and amiable as it is,' said Curly,
with a provoking smile on his girlish little face.
* Yes, I will; and take you up to the house and
get you a month at the mill for trespass, you
abominable little devil ! ' vowed his adversary,
laying his great fist on Curly's rod ; but the little
chap sprang to his feet and struck him a vigorous
blow with his childish hand, which fell on the
keeper's brawny form, much as a fly's kick might on
the Apollo Belvidere. The man seized him round
the waist, but Curly struck out right and left, and
kicked and struggled with such hearty good will,
that the keeper let him go; but, keeping his
16 "held in BOyDAGE; OR,
hand on the boj's collar, he was about to drag him
up to the lord of the manor, whose house stood
some mile distant, when, at the sound of the
scuffle, De Vigne, intent upon watching his beauty
across the Kennet, swung round to Curly's rescue :
the boy being rather a pet of his, and De Vigne
never seeing a fight between might and right
without striking in with a blow for the weak
one.
* Take your hands off that young gentleman !
Take your hands off, do you hear ? or I will give
you in charge for assault/
* Will yer, Master Stilts,' growled the keeper,
purple with dire wrath. * 111 give you in charge,
you mean. You're poaching ay, poaching, for
all yer grand airs ; and I'll be hanged if I don't
take you and the little uns, all of yer, up to the
house, and see if a committal don't take the rise
out of yer, my game-cocks ! '
Wherewith the keeper, whom anger must have
totally blinded ere he attempted such an indignity
with our senior pupil, whose manorial rights
stretched over woods and waters twenty times the
extent of Boughton Tressillian's, let go his hold
upon Curly, and turned upon De Vigne, to collar
him instead.
De Vigne's eyes flashed, and the blood mounted
GRATTVILLE DE VIGNTE. 17
hot over his temples, as he straightened his left
arm, and received him by a plant in the middle of
his chest, with a dexterity that would have done
no discredit to Tom Sayers. Down went the
man under the tremendous punishing, only to
pick himself up again, and charge at De Vigne
with all the fury which* in such attacks, defeats its
own ends, and makes a man strike wildly and at
random. De Vigne however had not had mills at
Eton, and rounds with bargees at Little Surley,
without becoming a boxer, such as would have
delighted a Ring at Moulsey. He threw him-
self into a scientific attitude ; and, contenting
himself vnth the defensive for the first couple of
rounds, without being touched himself, caught the
keeper on the left temple, with a force which sent
him down like a felled ox. There the man lay,
like a log, on the thyme and ground-ivy and wood-
bine, till I fancy his conqueror had certain uncom-
fortable suspicions that he might have killed him.
So he lifted him up, gave him a good shake; and
finding him all right, though he was bleeding pro-
fusely, was frightfully vengeftil, and full of most
unrighteous oaths, though not apparently willing to
encounter such another round, De Vigne pushed
him on before him, and took him up to Mr. Tressil-
lian's to keep his word, and give him in charge.
VOL. I. c
18 "held in bondage; or,
Weive Hurst, Boughton Tressillian s manor-
honse, was a fine, rambling, antique old place, its
fa9ade looking all the greyer and the old^ in
contrast to the green lawn, with its larches, foun-
tains, and flower-beds which stretched in front.
The powdered servant who opened the door looked
not a little startled at our unusual style of morn-
ing visit; but gave way before De Vigne, and
showed us into the library, where Mr. Tressillian
sat a stately, kindly, silver-haired old man. De
Vigne sank into the easy-chair wheeled for him,
told his tale frankly and briefly, demonstrated,
as clearly as if he had been a lawyer, our right to
fish on the highway side of the river (an often-
disputed point for anglers), and the consequent
illegality of the keeper's assault. Boughton Tres-
sillian was open to conviction, though he was a
county magnate and a magistrate, admitted that
he had no right over that part of the Kennet,
agreed with De Vigne that his keeper was in
the wrong, promised to give the man a good
lecture, and apologized to his visitor for the in-
terference and the affiront.
* If you will stay and dine with me, Mr. De
Vigne, and your young friends also, it will give
me very great pleasure;* said the cordial and cour-
teous old man.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 19
*I thank you. We should have been most
happy,' returned our senior pupil ; * but as it is,
I am afraid we shall be late for Dr, Prim-
rose.'
*For Dr. Primrose!' exclaimed Tressillian,
involuntarily. * You are not '
* I am a pupil at the Chancery/ laughed De
Vigne.
Our host actually started ; De Vigne certainly
did look very little like a pupil of any man's ; but
he smiled in return.
* Indeed ! Then I hope you will often give me
the pleasure of your society. There is a billiard-
table in wet weather, and good fishing and shoot-
ing in the fine. It will be a great kindness, I
assure you, to come and enliven us at Weive
Hurst a little.'
* The kindness will be to us,' returned De Vigne,
cordially. *Good day to you, Mr. Tressillian;
accept my best thanks for your '
A shower of roses, lilies, and laburnums, pelted
at him with a merry laugh, stopped his harangue.
The culprit was a little girl of about two years
old, standing just outside the low windows of the
library ^a pretty child, with golden hair waving
to her waist, and no end. of mischief in her dark
blue eyes. Unlike most children, she was not at all
c 2
20 "held in boxdage;" or,
frightened at her own misdemeanours, but stood
her ground, till Bonghton Tressillian stretched out
his arm to catch her. Then, she turned round, and
took wing as rapidly as a bird off a bough, her
clear childish laughter ringing on the summer air;
while De Vigne gave chase to the only child in
his life he ever deigned to notice, justly thinking
children great nuisances, and led her prisoner to
the library, holding the blue sash by which he had
caught her.
* Here is my second captive, Mr. Tressillian
what shall we do to her ? '
Boughton Tressillian smiled.
* Alma, how could you be so naughty ? Tell
this gentleman you are a spoilt child, and ask him
to forgive you/ -
She looked up under her long black lashes half
shyly, half wickedly.
* Sigruyr, perdonatemi I ' she said, with a mis-
chievous laugh, in broken Italian, though how a
little Berkshire girl came to talk Neapolitan
instead of English I could not imagine.
* Alma, you are very naughty to-day,' said
Tressillian, half impatiently. * Why do you not
speak English ? Ask his forgiveness properly.'
* I will pardon her without it,' laughed De
Vigne. * There, Alma, will you not love me now ? '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 21
She pushed her sunny hair off her eyes and
looked at him a strangely earnest and wistful
look, too, for so young a child. * Si! Alma vi
ama I ' she answered him with joyous vivacity,
pressing upon him with eager generosity some
geraniums the head-gardener had given her, and
which but a moment ago she had fastened into
her white dress with extreme admiration and
triumph.
* Bravo ! ' said Curly, as five minutes afterwards
we passed out from the great hall door. * You
are a brick, De Vigne, and no mistake. How
splendidly you pitched into that rascally keeper !
De Vigne laughed.
^ It was a good bit of fun. Always stand up
for your rights, my boy ; if you don't, who will ?
I never was done yet in my life, and never intend
to be.'
With which wise resolution the senior pupil
struck a fusee and lit his pipe; reaching home
just in time to dress, and hand Arabella in to
dinner, who paid him at all times desperate court,
hoping, doubtless, to make such an impression on
him with her long ringlets, and bravura songs, as
might trap him in his early youth into such
* serious' action as would make her mistress of
Vigne and its long rent-roll. That Granville
22 "held in bondage;" or,
saw no more of her than he could help in common
courtesy, and paid her not so much attention as
he did to her King Charles, was no check to the
young lady's wild imaginings. At eight-and-twenty,
women grown desperate don't stick to probabili-
ties, but fly their hawks at any or at all quarries,
so that * perad venture they may catch one ! '
Weive Hurst proved a great gain to us Tres-
sillian was as good as his word, and we were at all
times cordially welcomed there, when the Doctor
gave us permission, to shoot and fish and ride
about his grounds. He grew extremely fond of
De Vigne, who, haughty as he could be at times,
and impatient as he was at any of the Doctor^s
weak attempts at coercion, had a very winning
manner with old people; and played billiards,
heard his tales of the Regency, and broke in his
colts for him, till he fairly won his way into Tres-
sillian's heart. It was for De Vigne that the
butler was always bid to bring the Steinberg and
the 18 15 port ; De Vigne, to whom he gave a mare
worth five hundred sovs., the most beautiful piece
of horse-flesh ever mounted ; De Vigne, who might
have knocked down every head of game in the
preserves if he had chosen ; De Vigne, to whom
little Alma Tressillian, the old man's only grand-
child, and the future heiress, of course, of Weive
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 23
Hurst, presented with the darling of her heart a
donkey, minus head or tail or panniers.
But De Vigne did not avail himself of the sport
at Weive Hurst so much as he might have done
had he no other game in hand. His affair with
Tressillian's keeper had prevented his going to
make impromptu acquaintance with the handsome
girl across the Kennet ; but she had not slipped
from his mind, and had made sufficient impres-
sion upon him for him to try the next day to see
her again in Frestonhills, and find out who she
was and where she lived, two questions he soon
settled, by some means or other, greatly to his own
satisfaction. The girl's name was Lucy Davis;
whence she came nobody knew or perhaps in-
quired ; but she was one of the hands at a mil-
liner's in Frestonhills, prized by her employers for
her extreme talent and skill, though equally de-
tested, I believe, for her tyrannous and tempes-
tuous temper. The girl was handsome enough
for an Empress ; and had wonderful style in her
when she was dressed in her Sunday silks and
cashmeres, for dress was her passion, and all her
earnings were spent in imitating the toilettes she
assisted in getting up to adorn the rectors' and
lawyers' wives of Frestonhills. * The Davis ' was
handsome enough to send a much older man mad
24 "held in bondage; or,
after her; and De Vigne, after meetiug her once
or twice in the deep shady lanes of our green
Berkshire, accompanied her in her strolls, and
fell in love with her, as De Vigne had a knack of
doing with every handsome woman who came
near him. We all adored the stately, black-
eyed, black-browed Davis, but she never deigned
any notice of our boyish worship; and when
De Vigne came into the field, we gave up all
hope, and fled the scene in desperation. The
Doctor, of course, knew nothing of the affair,
though almost every one else in Frestonhills did,
especially the young bankers and solicitors and
grammar-school assistant-masters, who swore at
that * cursed fellow at the Chancery ' for monopo-
lizing the Davis especially as the * cursed fellow '
treated them considerably de haut en has. De
Vigne was really in love, for the time being ; one
of those hot, vehement, short-lived attachments
natural to his age and character ; based on eye-
love alone, for the girl had nothing else
lovable about her, and had one of the worst
tempers possible; which she did not always spare
even to him, and which, when his first glamour
had a little cooled, made De Vigne rather glad
that his departure from Frestonhills was drawing
near, some four months after he had seen her
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 25
across the Kennet, and would give him an oppor-
tunity to break off his liaison which he otherwise
might have found it diflScult to make.
The evening of the day which had brought the
letter which announced him as gazetted to the
^th P, W, O. Hussars; little Curly and I, having
been sent with a message to a neighbouring rector
from the Doctor, were riding by turns on Miss
Arabella's white pony, talking over the coming
holidays' * vacation,' as Old Joey called them,
and of the long sunny future that stretched before
us in dim golden haze, so near and yet so far from
our young longing eyes when De Vigne's terrier
rolled out of a hedge, and jumped upon us.
* Holloa ! ' cried Curly, * where's your master,
eh boy ? There he is, by Jove ! Arthur, talking
to the Davis. What prime fun ! I wish I dare
chaff him ! '
Curly, being on the pony's back, could see
over the hedge; I could not, so I swung my-
self upon an elm-bough, and saw at some little
distance De Vigne and Lucy Davis in very ear-
nest conversation, or rather, as it seemed to me,
altercation; for De Vigne was switching the
long meadow grass impatiently with his cane,
looking pale and annoyed, while the girl Davis
stood before him, seemingly in one of those
26 "held in bondage;" or,
violent fiiries which reputation attributed to her,
by turns adjuring, abusing, and threatening
him.
Curly and I stayed some minutes looking at
them, for the scene piqued our interest, making us
think of Eugene Sue, and Dumas, and all the love
scenes we had devoured, when the Doctor sup-
posed us plodding at the Pons Adnorum or the
De Officiis : but we could make nothing out of
it, except that De Vigne and the Davis were
quarrelling; and an intuitive perception, that the
senior pupil would not admire our playing the spy
on him, made me leave my elm branch, and Curly
start off the pony homewards.
That night De Vigne was silent and gloomy in
the drawing-room; gave us but a brief *Good
night,' and shut his bedroom door with a bang ;
the next morning, however, he seemed all right
again, as he breakfasted for the last time in the
old Chancery.
* What a lucky fellow you are, De Vigne ! '
sighed Curly, enviously, as he stood in the hall,
waiting for the fly to take him to the station.
He laughed :
* Oh, I don't know ! We shall see if we all say
so this time twenty years ! If I could foresee the
future, I wouldn't: I love the glorious uncer-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 27
taiDtj ; it is the only sav/ie piquante one has, and
I can't say I fear fate very much ! '
And well he might not at eighteen ! Master,
when he came of age, of a splendid fortune, his
own guide, his own arbiter, able to see life in all
its most deliciously attractive forms, truly it
seemed that he, if any one, might trust to the
sauce piquante of uncertain fate ? Qui lira^ verra.
Off he went by the express with his portman-
teaus, lettered, as we enviously read, * Granville de
Vigne, Esq., th P. W. O. Hussars;' off with
Punch and an Havannah to amuse him on the
way, to much more than Exeter Barracks, on the
way to Manhood ; with all its chances and its
changes, its wild revels and its dark regrets, its
sparkling champagne-cup, and its bitter aconite
lying at the dregs! Off he went, and we, left
behind in the dull solitude of academic Freston-
hills, watched the smoke curling from the engine
as it disappeared round the bend of a cutting,
and wondered in vague schoolboy fashion what
sort of thing De Vigne would make of Life.
28 ' "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER 11.
" A SOUl^HERLY WIND AND A CLOUDY SKY PROCLAIM
IT A HUNTING MORNING.*
* Confound it, I can't cram, and I won't cram,
SO there's an end of it!' sang out a Cantab one
fine October morning, flinging Plato's Republic to
the far end of the room, where it knocked down a
grind-cup, smashed a punch-bowl, and cracked the
glass, that glazed the charms, of the last pet of the
ballet.
The sun streamed through the oriel windows of
my rooms in dear old Trinity. The roaring fire
crackled, blazed, and chatted away to a slate-
coloured Skye that lay full-length before it. The
table was spread with coffee, audit, devils, omelets,
hare-pies, and all the other articles of the buttery.
The sunshine within, shone on pipes and pictures,
tobacco-boxes and little bronzes, books, cards,
cigar-cases, statuettes, portraits of Derby winners,
and likenesses of fair Anonymas all in confusion.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 29
tumbled pell-mell together among soias and easy-
chairs, rifles, cricket^bats, boxing-gloves, and skates.
The sunshine without, shone on the backs, where
outriggers and four-oars were pulling up and down
the cold classic muddy waters of the Cam, more
celebrated, but far less clear and lovely, I must
say, than our old dancing, rapid, joyous Kennet.
Everything looked essentially jolly, and jolly did
I and my two companions feel, smoking before a
huge fire, in the easiest of attitudes and couches,
a very trifle seedy from a prolonged Wine the
night previous.
One of them was a handsome young fellow of
twenty, a great deal too handsome for the peace
of the master s daughters, and of the fair patissieres
andfleuristes of Petty Cury and King's Parade; the
self- same, save some additional feet of height and
some fondly-cherished whiskers, as our little Curly
of Frestonhills. The other was a man of six-and-
twenty, his figure superbly developed in strength
and power vnthout losing one atom in symmetry,
showing how his nerve and muscle would tell
pulling up stream, or in a fast fifty minutes
across country, or, if occasion turned up, in
that 'noble art of self-defence,' now growing
as popular in England, as in days of yore at
Elis.
30 "held in bondage;" or,
* Cram ? ' he said, looking up as Curly spoke.
* Why should you? What's the good of it? Youth
is made for something warmer than academic
routine ; and knowledge of the world will stand a
man in better stead, than the quarrels of com-
mentators, and the dry deriionstrations of mathe-
maticians.'
* Of course. Not a doubt about it,' said Curly,
stretching himself. * I find soda-water and brandy
the best guano for the cultivation of my intellect,
I can tell you, De Vigne.'
* Do you think it will get you a double first ? '
* Heaven forefend ! ' cried Curly, with extreme
piety. * I've no ambition for lawn sleeves, though
they do bring with them as neat a little income as
any Vessel of Grace, who lives on clover, and for-
swears the pomps and vanities of this wicked world,
can possibly desire.'
* You\S. live in clover, my boy, trust you for
that,' said De Vigne. *But you won't pretend
that you only take it because you're "called" to
it, and that you would infinitely prefer, if left to
yourself, a hovel and dry bread! Don't cram.
Curly; your great saps are like the geese they
fatten for foie gras ; they overfeed one part of the
system till all the rest is weak, diseased, and
worthless. But the geese have the best of it, for
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 31
their livers do make something worth eating, while
the reading-man's brains are rarely productive of
anything worth writing.'
*Ah!' re-echoed Curly, with an envious sigh
of assent. * I wonder whose knowledge is worth
the most; my old Coach's, a living miracle of
classic research, who couldn't, to save his life,
tell you who was Premier, translate ** Comment
vans portez'vous ? " or know a Creswick from a
Rubens, or yours ; who have everything at your
fingers' ends that one can want to hear about, from
the last clause in the budget, to the best make in
rifles?'
De Vigne laughed. * Well, a man can't tumble
about in the world, if he has any brains at all,
without learning something ; but, my dear fellow,
that's all " superficial," they'll tell you ; and it is
atrociously bad taste to study leading articles
instead of Greek unities ! Chacun a son goiit,
you know. That young fellow above your head
is a mild, spectacled youth, Arthur says, who gives
scientific teas, where you give roistering wines,
wins Craven scholarships where you get gated, and
falls in love with the fair structure of the (Edipus
Tyrannus, where you go mad about the unfor-
tunately more perishable form of that pretty little
girl at the cigar-shop over the way ! You think
32 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
him a muff and he, I dare say, looks on you as
an dme davmie^ both in the French and Engh'sh
sense of the words. You both fill up niches in
your own little world ; you needn't jostle one
another. If all horses ran for one Cup only, the
turf would soon come to grief. Why ain't you
like me ? I go on my own way, and never trouble
my head about other people ! '
*Why am I not like you?' repeated Curly,
with a prolonged whistle. * Why isn't water as
good as rum punch, or my bed-maker as pretty
as little Rosalie ? Don't I wish I were you, instead
of a beggarly younger son, tied by the leg in
Granta, bothered with chapel, and all sorts of
horrors, and rusticated if I try to see the smallest
atom of life. By George ! De Vigne, what a jolly
time you must have had of it since you left the
Chancery ! '
* Oh, I don't know,' said De Vigne, looking
into the fire with a smile. * I've gone the pace, I
dare say, as fast as most men, and there are few
things I have not tried ; but I am not blas^ yet,
thank Heaven ! When other things begin to bore
me, I turn back to sport that never palls; there's
too much excitement in it. Wine one cannot
drink too much of I can't, at the least without
getting tired of it; women well, for all the poets
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 33
write* about the joys of constancy, there is no plea-
sure so great as change there ; but with a good
speat in the river, or clever dogs among the
turnips, or a fine fox along a cramped country, a
man need never be dull. The ping of a bullet, the
shine of a trout's back, never lose their pleasure.
One can't say as much for the brightest Rhenish
that ever cooled one's throats, nor the brightest
glances that ever lured one into folly; though
Heaven forbid that I should ever say a word
against either ! '
* You'd be a very ungrateful fellow if you did,'
said I, * seeing that you generally monopolize the
very best of both ! '
He laughed again. * Well, I've seen life I
told you young fellows at Frestonhills, I trusted to
my 8aiu:e piquarUe ; and I must say it has used
me very well hitherto, and I dare say always will
a.s long as I keep away from the Jews. While a
man has plenty of tin, all the world offers him the
choicest dinner; though, when he has overdrawn
at Coutts's, his friends wouldn't give him dry
bread to keep him out of the union ! Be able to
dine en prince at home, and you'll be invited out
every night of your life ; be hungry au troisihney
and you must not lick the crumbs from under
your sworn allies' tables, those jolly good fellows,
VOL. I. D
34 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
who have surfeited themselves at yours many a
time ! Oh yes, I enjoy life ; a man always can
as long as he can pay for it ! '
With which axiom De Vigiie rose from his
rocking-chair laid down his pipe, and stretched
himself.
* It looks fine out yonder. Our club think of
challenging your University Eight for love, good
will, and a gold cup. We never do anything
for nothing in England ; if we play, we must play
for money or ornaments: / should like to do
the thing for the sake of the fun, but that isn't a
general British feeling at all. Money is to us, all
that glory was to the Romans, and is to the
French. Genius is valued by the money it makes ;
artists are prized by the price of their pictures.
If the nation is grateful, once in a hundred years,
it votes ^a pension ; and if we want to have a good-
humoured contest, we must wait till there are
subscriptions enough to buy a reward to tempt us !
Come along, Arthur, let's have a pull to keep us
in practice ? '
We accordingly had a pull up that time-
honoured stream, where Trinity has so often won
challenge cups, and luckless King's got bumped,
thanks to its quasi-Etonians' idleness. Where
grave philosophers have watched the setting
GRAXVILLE DE VIGXE, 35
8un die out of the sky, as the glories of their
own youth have died away unvalued, till lost for
ever. Where ascetic reading-men have mooned
along its banks blind to all the loveliness of the
water-lily below, or the clouds above, as they todk
their constitutional and pondered their prize essay.
Where thousands of young fellows have dropped
down under its trees, dreaming over Don Juan or
the Lotus-eaters ; or pulled along, straining muscle
and nerve against the Head-Boat ; or sauntered
beside it in sweet midsummer eves, with some
fkir face upraised to theirs, long forgotten, out
of mind now, but which then had power to
make them oblivious of proctors and rustication !
We pulled along with hearty good-will, aided by
an oar with which, could we have had it to help us
in the University race, we must have beaten Oxford
out-and-out. For the Brocas, and Little Surley,
could have told you tales of that long, lofty, slash-
ing, stroke ; and if, monsieur or madame, you are
a ^sentimental psychologist,' and sneer it down as
* animal,' let me tell you it is the hand M'hich is
strong in sport, and in righteous strife, that will be
warmer in help, and firmer in friendship, and more
generous in deed, than the puny weakling's who
cannot hold his own.
*By George!' said De Vigne, resting at last
d2
36 "held in bondage;" or,
upon his oar, ^is there anything that gives one
a greater zest in life than bodily exertion ? '
A sentiment, however, in which indolent
Curly declined to coincide. * Give me,* said he,
' a lot of cushions, a hookah, and a novel ; and
your "bodily exertion" may go to the deuce
for me!'
De Vigne laughed ; he was not over merciful
on the present-day assumption in beardless boys
of effeminacy, nil admirari-ism and blas6 in
difference. He was far too frank himself for
affectation, and too spirited for ennui; at the
present, at least, his sauce piquante had not lost
its flavour.
He had seen life; he had hunted with the
Pytchley, stalked royals in the Highlands, flirted
with maids of honour, supped in the Breda Quartier,
had dinners fit for princes at the Star and Garter,
and pleasant hours in mbinets particvliers at Ve-
fours and the Maison Doree. He and his yacht,
when he had got leave, had gone everywhere that
a yacht could go ; the Ionian Isles knew no figure-
head better than his Aphrodite's of the R. V. Y.S. ;
it had carried him up to salmon fishing in Nor-
way, and across the Atlantic to hunt buffaloes and
cariboos; to Granada, to look into soft Spanish
faces by the dim moonlight in the Aihambra ; and
GRANVILLE DE YIGNE, 37
to Venice, to fling bouquets upwards to the
balconies, and whisper to Venetian masks which
showed him the glance of long almond eyes, in
the riotous Camiyal time. He bad a brief cam-
paign in Scinde, where he was wounded in the
hip, and tenderly nursed by a charming Civil
Service widow ; where his daring drew down upon
him the admiring rebuke of his commanding
officer, but won him his troop, which promotion
brought him back to England and enabled him
to exchange into the th Lancers, techni-
cally the Dashers, the nom de gtierre of that
daring and brilliant corps. And now, De Vigne,
who had never lost sight of me since the Freston-
hills days, but, on the contrary, had often asked
me to go and shoot over Vigne, when he assem-
bled a crowd of guests in that magnificent man-
sion ; having a couple of months' leave, had run
down to Newmarket, for the October Meeting;
and had come at my entreaty to spend a week
in Granta, where, I need not tell you, we feted
him, and did him the honours of the place in
style.
Crash ! crash ! went the relentless chapel-bell
the next morning, waking us out of dreamless
slumber that had endured not much more than an
hour, owing to a late night of it with a man at
38 "held in bondage;" or,
John's over punch and vingt-et-un ; and we had
to tumble out of bed and rush into chapel, twisting
on our coats, and swearing at our destinies, as we
went. The Viewaway (the cleverest pack in the
easterly counties, though not, I admit, up to the
Burton, or Tedworth, or Melton mark) met that
day, for the first run of the season, at Euston Hol-
lows, five miles from Cambridge; and Curly, who
overcame his laziness on such occasions, staggered
into his stall, the pink dexterously covered with
his surplice, his bright hair for once in disorden
and his blue eyes most unmistakably sleepy.
* Who'd be a hapless undergrad? That fellow
De Vigne's dreaming away in comfort, while we're
dragged out by the heels, for a lot of confounded
* humbug and form,' lamented Curly to me as we
entered ; while the readers hurried the prayers over,
in that sing-song recitative in favour with college-
men a cross between the drone of a gnat, and
the whine of a Suffolk peasant. We dozed com-
fortably, sitting down, and getting up, at the right
times, by sheer force of habit ; or read Dumas, or
Balzac, under cover of our prayer-books. The
freshmen alone, tried to look alive and attentive;
those better seasoned knew it was but a ritual,
much such an empty, but time-honoured, one, as
the gathering of Fellows at the Signing of the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 39
Leases, at King's; or any other moss-grown formula
of Mater; and attempted no such thing; but rushed
out of chapel again, the worse instead of the
better for the ill-timed devotions, which forced us,
in our thoughtless youth, into irreverence and
hypocrisy : a formula as absurd, as soulless, and as
sad to see, as the praying windmills of the Hindoos,
at which those * heads of the Church,' who uphold
morning-chapel as the sole safeguard of Granta,
smile in pitying derision !
When I got back to my rooms 1 found break-
last waiting, and De Vigne standing on the hearth-
rug. Audit and hare-pie had not much temptation
for us that morning; we were soon in the sad-
dle, and off to Euston Hollows. After a brisk
gallop to cover, we found ourselves riding up the
approach to the M.F.H.'s house, where the meet
took place in an open sweep of grassland belted
with trees, just facing the hall, where were gathered
all the men of the Viewaway, mounted on power-
ful hunters, and looking all over like goers.
There was every type of the genus sporting man ;
stout, square farmers, with honest bull-dog phy-
sique, characteristic of John Bull plebeian ; wild
young Cantabs, mounted showily from livery-
stables, with the fair, fearless, delicate features
characteristic of John Bull patrician : steady old
40 "held in bondage; or,
whippers-in, very suspicious of brandy; wrinkled
feeders, with stentorian voices that the wildest
puppy had learned to know and dread ; the cour-
teous, cordial, aristocratic M.F.H., with the men
of his class, the county gentry ; rough, ill-looking
cads, awkward at all things save crossing country ;
no end of pedestrians, nearly run over themselves,
and falling into everybody's way ; and last, but in
our eyes, not least, the ladies who had come to see
the hounds throw off.
DeVigne exchanged his reeking hack for his
own hunter, a splendid thorough-bred, with as
much light action, he said, as a danseuse, and as
much strength and power as a bargeman. Then
we rode up to talk to the M.F.H 's wife, who was
mounted on a beautiful little mare, and intended
to follow her husband and his hounds over the Cam-
bridge fences.
* Who is that lady yonder ? ' asked De Vigne,
after he had chatted some moments with her.
* The one on the horse with a white star on his
forehead? Lady Blanche Fairelesyeux. Don't
you know her? She is a widow, very pretty and
very rich.'
* Yes, yes, I know Lady Blanche,' laughed De
Vigne. * She married old Faire two years ago,
and persuaded him to drink himself to death most
GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 41
opportunely. No, I meant that very handsome
woman there, talking to your husband at this
moment, mounted on a chesnut with a very wild
eye/
' Oh, that is Miss Trefusis ! '
* And can you tell me no more than her mere
name?'
* Not much. She is some relation what I do
not know exactly of that detestable old woman
Lady Fantyre, whose "recollections" of court
people are sometimes as gross anachronisms as the
Comte de St. Germain's. They are staying with
Mrs. St. Croix, and she brought them here ; but
I do not like Miss Trefusis very much myself, and
Mr. L'Estrange does not wish me to cultivate
her acquaintance.'
* Then I must not ask you to introduce me ? '
said De Vigne, disappointedly.
* Oh yes, if you wish. I know her well enough
for that; and she dines here to-night with the
St. Croix. But there is a wide difference, you
know, between making passing acquaintances, and
ripening them into friends. Come, Captain de
Vigne, I am sure you will ride the hounds off
the scents or do something dreadful, if I do not let
you talk to your new beauty,' laughed the young
mistress of Euston Hollows, turning her mare's
42 "held in bondage; or,
head towards the showy chesnut, whose rider had
won so much of De Vigne's admiration.
She was as dashing and magnificent in her way as
her horse in his with a tall and voluptuously-perfect
figure, which her tight dark riding-jacket showed
in all the heauty of its rounded outlines, while her
little hat, with a single white feather, scarcely
shadowed, and did not conceal, her clear profile,
magnificent eyes, and lips by which Velasquez or
Titian would have sworn. Splendid she was, and
she had spared no pains to make the tableau;
and though to a keen eye, her brilliant colour,
which was not rouge, and her pencilled eyebrows,
which were tinted, gave her a trifle of the acjbress
or the lorette style, there was no wonder that
De Vigne, impressible as a Southern by women's
beauty and at that time as long as it was beauty,
not caring much of what stamp or of what order
was not easy till Flora L'Estrange had introduced
him to her. So we rush upon our doom ! So we,
in thoughtless play, twist the first gleaming ahd
silky threads of the fatal cord which will cling
about our necks, fastened beyond hope of release,
as long as our lives shall last !
The Trefusis (as she was called in the smok-
ing-rooms), surrounded as she was by the best
men of the Viewaway^ ruling them by force of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 43
that superb form and face, bowed very gra-
ciously to De Vigne, and smiled upon him. He
had caught her eyes once or twice before he
had asked Mrs. L' Estrange who she was; and
now, displacing the others with that calm un-
conscious air of superiority, the more irritating
to his rivals that it was invariably successful,
he leaned his hand on the pommel of her saddle,
and talked away to her the chit-chat of the hour.
The Trefusis intended to follow the hounds, as
well as L'Estrange's wife and Lady Blanche Faire-
iesyeux ; so De Vigne and she rode oflF together
as the hounds, symmetrical in form, and all in
good condition, though they were a provincial
establishment, trotted aM^ay, with waving sterns
and eager eyes, to draw the Euston Hollow's
covert.
The cheery . * Halloo ! ' rang over coppice and
brushwood and plantation; the white sterns of
the hounds flourished among the dark-brown
bushes of the cover ; stentorian lungs shouted out
the * Stole away! hark for-r-r-r-rard ! ' and as
the finest fox in the county broke away, De Vigne
struck his spurs into his hunter's flanks, and rattled
down the cover, all his thoughts centered on the
clever little pack that streamed along before him ;
while the whole field burst over the low pastures
44 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
and oak fences and ox-rails, across \vhich the fox
was leading us. I dashed along the first three
meadows, which were only divided by low hedges,
with all the excitement and breathlessness of a
first start; but as we crossed the fourth at an easy
gallo]), cooling the horses before the formidable leap
which we knew the Cam, or rather a narrow sedgy
tributary of it, would give us at the bottom, I took
time, and looked around. Before any of us, De
Vigne was going along, as straight as an arrow's
flighty working his bay up for the approaching
trial; never looking back, going into the sport
before him as if he never had had, and never
could have had, any other interest in life. The
Trefusis, riding as few women could, sitting well
down in her saddle, like any of the Pytchley or
Belvoir men, was some yards behind him, * riding
jealous,* I could see ; rather a hopeless task for a
young lady with a man known in the hunting-
field as he was. The M.F.H. was, of course*
handling his hunter in masterly style, his little
wife keeping gallantly up with him, though she
and her mare looked as likely to be smashed by
the first staken-bound fence as a Sevres figure or
a Parian statuette. Curly, who, thanks to his
half-broken hunter, had split four strong oak bars,
and been once pitched neck and crop into Cam-
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 45
bridge mud, was coming along with his pink sadly
stained ; while Lady Blanche and four of the men
were within a few paces of him, and the rest of
the field were scattered far and wide : quaint bits
of scarlet, green, and black, dotting the short
brown turf of the pasture lands.
Splash! went the fox into the sedgy waters of
this branch of classic Cam, and scrambled up upon
the opposite bank. For a second the hounds lost
the scent ; then, they threw up their heads with a
joyous challenge, breasted the stream, dashed on
after him, and sped along beyond the pollards on
the opposite side &r ahead of us, streaming out
like the white tail of a comet. De Vigne put his
bay at the leap, but before he could lift him over,
the Treftisis cleared it, with unblanched cheek and
unshaken nerve. She looked back with a laugh,
not of gay girlish merriment, such as Flora
L*Estrange would have given, but a laugh with a
certain gratified malice in it : and he gave a mut-
tered oath at being *cut down' by a woman, as
he landed his bay beside her.
I cleared it, so did the M .F.H., and, by some
species of sporting miracle, so did his wife and her
little mare. One of the yeomen found a watery
bed among the tadpoles, clay, and rushes it might
be a watery grave, for anything I know to the
46 "held in bondage; or,
contrary and poor dear Curly was tumbled
straight off his young one, and lay there, a help-
less mass of human and equine flesh, while Lady
Blanche lifted her roan over him, with a gay, un-
sympathizing ^ Keep still, or Mazeppa will damage
you ! '
The run had lasted but ten minutes and a half
as yet, and the hounds, giving tongue in joyous
concert, led the way for those who could follow
them, over blackthorn hedges, staken-bound
fences, and heavy ploughed lands, while the fox
was heading for Sifton Wood, where, once lodged,
we should never unearth him again. On we went
at a killing pace; De Vigne leading the first
flight, by two lengths, up to a cramped and awk-
ward leap; a high, stifi", straggling hedge, with
a double ditch, almost as wide as a Leicestershire
bullfinch. Absorbed as I was in working up my
hunter for the leap, I looked to see if the Trefusis
funked it. Not she ! and she cleared it, too,
lifting her chesnut high in the air, over the ugly
blackthorn boughs; but on the slippery marshy
ground the horse fell, heavily and awkwardly, fling-
ing her forward ; so at least they told me after-
wards. The courtly M.F.H. stopped to offer her
assistance, but she waved him on ; De Vigne had
forgotten all his chivalry, and led straight ahead
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 47
without looking back ; while picking up her hunter,
the Trefusis remounted, nothing daunted by her
fall. Lady Blanche's Mazeppa refused the leap;
and with a little petulant French oath, she rode
further down, to try and find a gap; while my
luckless under-bred one flung me over his head,
rolling on his back in rushes, nettles, mud, and
duckweed, and before either he or I could re-
cover ourselves and shake off the slough, the fox
was killed, and the whoop of triumph came ring-
ing far over plantations and pastures, on the clear
October air.
With not a few unholy oaths, less choice than
Lady Blanche's, I rode through the gap lower
down, and made my way to the finish. The
brush was awarded to De Vigne by the old
huntsman, who might have given it to the Tre-
fusis, for she was only a yard or two behind him ;
but Squib had no tenderness for the sex ; indeed,
he looked on them as having no earthly business
in the field, arid gave it with a gruff word of
compliment to Granville, who of course handed it
to Miss Trefusis, but claimed the right of sending
it up to town,' to be mounted on ivory for her.
That dashing Amazon herself, sat on her trem-
bling and foam-covered chesnut, with the dignity
and royal beauty of Cynisea, returning in her cha-
48 "held in bondage;" or,
riot from the Olympic games^ and De Vigne seemed
to think nothing more attractive than this haughty,
triumphant, imperial woman, who had skill and
pluck worthy a Pytchley Nestor, /preferred little
Flora's girlish pity for the *poor dear fox,' and
her pathetic lamentation to her husband that she
* dearly loved the riding, but she would rather
never see the finish.' However, as De Vigne
said the morning before, chacun d son gout ; if we
all liked the same style of woman where should
we be ? We rival and jostle and hate each other
enough as it is, about that centre of all mischief^
the Beau Sexe, Heaven knows !
We had another run that day, but it was a very
slow afiair. We killed the fox, but he made
scarcely any running at all, and we might have
scored it almost as a blank day; but for our first
glorious twenty minutes, one of the fastest things
I ever knew, from Euston Hollows up to Sifton
Wood. Lady Blanche went back in ill-humour :
missing that ditch had put the pretty widow in
dudgeon for all the day ; but the Trefiisis ! it's
my firm conviction that Mazeppa's gallop could
not have tired that woman. She rode, as De
Vigne observed admiringly to me, with as firm a
seat and as strong a hand as any rough-rider.
Excellence in his own art pleased him, I suppose,
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 49
for he watched her more and more ; and rode back
to Euston Hollows, with her through the gloam-
ing, some nine miles from where the last fox was
killed, looking down on her beauty with bold,
tender glances.
VOL. L E
50 "held in BONDAGE;" OK,
CHAPTER III.
IN THE ACADEMIC SHADES OF GRANTA.
L'EsTRANGE had bid us send our things over to
his house, and make our toilettes there, after the
day's sport ; and when we went down into the
drawing-room, we found the Trefiisis sitting on an
amber satin couch, queening it over the county
men, a few college fellows or professors, and the
borough Members. There were Mrs. St. Croix
and her two daughters, showy, flighty, hawked-
about women, and the Gwyn-Erlens, fresh, nice-
looking girls ; and Lady Blanche, recovered from
her ill-humour, and ready to shoot down any game
worth or not worth the hitting ; and the Countess
of Turquoise, who thought very few people knew
what fun was, she told me, and instanced the
dreary social torture called dining out ; and Mrs.
Fitzrubric, a bishop's wife, staying in the neigh-
bourhood, who considered the practice of giving
buns at school feasts sensual, but showed herself
no disrelish for champagne and mock turtle. And
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 51
there was that * detestable old woman,' according
to Flora, the Lady Fantyre, widow of an Irish
peer, a little, shrivelled, witty, nasty-thinking,
and amusing-talking old lady, with a thin, sharp
face, a hooked nose, very keen, bright, cunning,
quizzical eyes, a very candid wig, and unmistak-
able rouge. She chattered away, in a shrill treble,
of intimate acquaintance with court celebrities,
some of whom certainly she could never have
known, for the best of reasons, that they were
dead before she was bom; and, having seen a
vast deal of life, not all of the nicest, and picked up
a good deal of information, she passed current in
nine cases out of ten, with her apocryphal stories
and well-worn title, which covered a multitude of
sins, as coronets do and charity doesn't. But she
was * not visited ' where her departed lord's rank
might have entitled her to be, partly because she
had a rather too marked skill at cards; but chiefly,
I have no doubt, because she had no balance
at any bank save Homburg and Baden, and was
obliged to live by her wits, those wits being repre-
sented by the four honours and the odd trick. If
poor old Fantyre had had a half-million or so at
Barclay's, I dare say the charitable world would
have let her buy oblivion for all the naughty se-
crets hidden in her old wigged head.
E 2
52 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
Diana turned to Venus, and no mistake,' whis-
pered Curly to me, as we looked at the Trefusis,
her beauty heightened by her toilette, which was
as tasteful as a Parisienne's, and would have
chimed in with M. Chevreul's artistic notions.
De Vigne, the moment he entered, crossed over
to her, and, seating himself^ began to talk.
Whether the lustrous gaze of -his eyes, which
knew how to express their admiration, got their
admiration returned ; or whether she had wit
enough to appreciate his conversation, where the
true gold of sense, and talent, rang out in dis-
tinction to the second-hand platitudes, or Punch"
cribbed mots, of the generality of people, I will not
pretend to decide. At any rate, by some spell or
other, he distanced his rivals by many lengths.
They naturally spoke of the run of that morn-
ing, and the Trefusis, flirting her fan with stately
movement, and turning her full glittering eyes
upon him, asked very softly, * What do you think
you did this morning that pleased me ? '
De Vigne expressed his happiness that any act
of his should do so.
It was when we took that ditch by Sifton
Wood, and my stupid chesnut fell with me. You
rode on, and never looked back ; your thoughts
were with the hounds, not with me ! '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 53
* You are more foi^ving to my discourtesy than
I can be to myself,' smiled De Vigne. * What
you are so generous as to pardon I cannot recall
without shame/
*Then you are very silly,' she interrupted him,
* A man in a time of excitement or danger should
have something better to think about than a
woman.'
It is diflScult, with Miss Trefusis before us, to
think there can be anything better than a woman,'
whispered De Vigne.
She looked at him and smiled, too; with some-
thing of malice in it as when she had cleared the
Cam before him 7- a smile that at once repulsed,
and fascinated ; annoyed, and piqued him. Just
then dinner was announced as served. L'Estrange
took away my bewitching Countess of Turquoise ;
Curly led in Julia St. Croix, with whom he
seemed wonderfully struck, Heaven knows why,
except .h.t you J fellow, will go dow befo^
any battered or war-worn arrows at times ; and
De Vigne gave his arm to the Trefusis, to whom
he talked during all the courses with a devotion
which must have interfered with his proper ap-
preciation of the really masterly productions of
the Euston Hollows chef^ and the very excellent
hock and claret of L'Estrange's cellar. Whether
54 "held in BONDAGE;' OR,
he had much response I cannot say for I was
absorbed in looking at Lady Turquoise from far too
respectful a distance to please me : but I should
fancy not, for the Trefusis was never, that I heard,
much famed for conversation; still someway or
other she fascinated him with her basilisk-beauty,
and when Flora gave the move she looked into
his eyes rather warmly for an acquaintance not
twelve hours old as yet. We were some little
time before we followed them, for De Vigne and
the Members got on the Reform Bill, and did not
get off it again in a hurry; and though Lady
Turquoise was bewitching, and the Trefusis' eyes
magnificent, and the St. Croix very effective as
they sang duets in studied poses, Chateau Man-
gaux and unfettered talk proved more attractive
to us. When we returned to the drawing-room,
however, De Vigne took up his station beside the
Trefiisis again, paying her marked attention, while
Flora L'Estrange sang charming little French
chansons^ and Julia St. Croix tortured us with
bravuras, and the cruel Countess of Turquoise
flirted with the county Member, What an into-
lerably empty-headed coxcomb, he seemed to me^
I remember !
*What a fine creature that Trefusis is!' said
De Vigne, aa he drove us back to Cambridge in a
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 55
dog-cart. *0n my life, she is a magtiificent
woman! Arthur, she reminds me of somebody
or other I can't tell whom somebody, I dare
say, I saw in Spain or in Italy, or in India,
perhaps.'
' Shall I tell you? ' said Curly,
* Yes, pray do ; but you've never been about
with me, old boy, how should you know ? '
* I was with you at the Chancery, and I haven't
forgotten Lucy Davis.'
*The Davis!' exclaimed De Vigne, the light
of old days breaking in upon him, half faded, half
familiar. ^ By Jove ! she is something like that
girl ; I declare I had forgotten that schoolboy
episode, Curly. So she is like her, if Lucy had
been a lady instead of a dressmaker. The deuce !
I hadn't bad taste then, boy as I was ! How many
things of that kind one forgets '
*Lucy didn't look like a woman who'd allow
herself to be forgotten. She'd make you remem-
ber her by fair means or foul,' said Curly.
*What! do you recollect her so well, young
one ? ' laughed De Vigne. * I must say, she seems
to have made more impression upon you, than
she has done on me. There was the very devil in
that girl, poor thing, young as she was ! She was
bold, bad, hardened to the core. But this Tre-
56 "held in bondage; or,
fusis, Curly! she does bring that girl to my
TniDd, certainly, and there is in her something
there was in Lucy Davis a something intangible
which repels, while her exterior beauty allures
one. Perhaps it is in both alike a cold heart
within;
* If we were only allured where there are warm
hearts, we should keep in a blessed state of indif-
ference,' said I, thinking savagely of Lady Tur-
quoise and that confounded county Member.
* Hallo, Arthur ! what has turned you cynic ? '
laughed De Vigne. *Only this very morning
were you sentimentalizing over the "Lady of
Shalott," and wanting to inflict it on me ! '
* Yes, and you stopped me with the abominable
quotation, " Ass ! am I onioiv^jed ? " I say, De
Vigne, I wish you'd tell us how that affair with
Lucy Davis ended ? Curly and I saw you quar-
relling the day before you left.'
* I never quarrelled ! ' said De Vigne, con-
temptuously. * I never do with anybody ; if they
don't say what I like, I tell them my mind at once,
and there's an end of it. But I never quarrel !
I met Lucy that evening as I was going into
Frestonhills, and when I told her I was about to
leave, she demanded ^^what do you think ?
nothing less than a promise of marriage ! Only
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 57
fkncy from me to her I She even said I had
made her one ! I've been guilty of many mad
things, but never of one quite so insane as that.
I told her flatly it was a lie so it was, and it put
me in a passion, to be saddled with such an
atrocious falsehood: I never can stand quiet,
and see people trying to chisel me, you know. I
offered to do anything she liked for her ; to pro-
vide for her as liberally as she chose. But not
a word would she hear from me; she was mad,
I suppose, because she could not startle or chicane
me into admitting the promise of marriage, having
possibly in her eye the heavy damages an enlight-
ened court would grant to her " innocent years "
and her " wrongs ! " At any rate, she would not
hear a word I said, but she poured her invectives
into my ear, letting out that she had never loved
me, but had intended to make me a stepping-stone,
to the money, and rank, she was always pining
after ; that, having failed, she hated me, and that
before she died, would be revenged.
* By George ! what an amusing idea. She'd be
puzzled to do it, I fancy.'
* Rather,' laughed De Vigne, reigning up his
mare ; * but women say anything in a passion.
Lucy Davis had gone straight out of my mind, till
you said that handsome Trefusis made you think
58 "held in bondage;" or,
of her. I am glad the St. Croix and L'Estranges
are coming to lunch with you, Curly ; I want to
see more of my imperial beauty; and I must
be back at Vigne by Saturday. Sabretasche, and
Pigott, and Severn, and no end of men are coming
down for the pheasants; I wish you were too,
old fellows ! Good night ; Au revoir ! ' And De
Vigne set us down before Trinity, and drove on to
the Bnll ; smoking, and thinking, very likely, of
his superb Trefusis.
. Oh, those jolly Cambridge days ! The splendid
manner in which we bumped Corpus and Kathe-
rine Hall, and carried off the Cup, to the envy of
all the University ; the style in which we thrashed
the Exeter Eight, with ignominy unspeakable,
before the eyes of Henley ; the row and scuffle of
Town and Gown rows, dear to the British passion
for hard hits, where Curly knocked a cobbler down
and then gave him in charge for an assault ; the
skill with which that mischievous young Honour-
able caught his whip round the shovel-hat of a
dean, raising that venerated article of dress in mid-
air, and only escaping rustication by dashing on
with his tandem-team too quickly for identifica^
tion: were they not all written, in their day,
among the records of Trinity men's larks ?
We used to vow we were confoundedly tired of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 59
Granta, and so I dare say we might feel at the
time; but how pleasant they were, those light-
hearted college days ! the honours of the Eight-
oar ; the thrashing of the Marylebone Eleven ; the
rattle cross country, for the Cesarewitch, or the
Cambridge Sweepstakes ; the flirtations of pretty
shop-girls in Petty Cury, or Trumpington Street ;
the raving politics of the Union, occasional pre-
lude to triumphs, forensic and senatorial; the
noisy wines, where scanty humour woke more mer-
riment than wittiest mots do twenty years after;
and Cambridge port passed with a flavour, that no
olives or anchovies can give to Comet claret now.
How pleasant they were, those jolly college days !
As I think of them, many kindly faces and joyous
voices rise before me ! Where are they all ? Some
lying with the colours on their breast beside the
Euxine Sea, and along the line of the Pacific ;
some struck down by the assassin's knife in the
temples at Cawnpore ; some sleeping beneath the
sighing of the Delhi palms, or of the sad Atlantic
waves ; some wasting classic eloquence on country
hinds, in moss-grown village churches; some
fighting the great fight, between science and death,
in the crowded hospital-wards of London ; some
wearing honour, and honesty, and truth from their
hearts, in the breathless, up-hill press of the great
60 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
world ; all of them, living or dead, scattered far
away over the earth, since those old days, in the
shadow of the academic walls !
The time to lionize Cambridge, as everybody
knows, is May and June, when the backs are all
in their glory ; when the graceful spires of King's
rise up against blue skies ; when the white towers
of John's stand bosomed in green leafy shades ;
when the Trinity limes fill the air with fragrance,
and the sun peers through the great shadowy elm-
boughs, of Neville's Court; and the brown
Cam flows under its bridges, with water-lilies
and forget-me-nots on its breast, gliding, as though
conscious that it was in classic shades, through
vistas of waving boughs, and past gray, stately
college walls ; bringing into the grave haunts of
Learning, the glad and vernal freshness of the
Spring. May is the time for Cambridge; still,
even in October, we managed to give the
L'Estranges, and the St. Croix, a very good recep-
tion. Women are always royally received by
Cantabs, and our guests were calculated to excite
the envy of all the University. We did the lions
with very little architectural appreciation ; but the
science of eyes and smiles, is a pleasanter one than
the science of styles and orders ; and we were
quite as contented, and I have no doubt much
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 61
better amused, than if, Ruskin a la fnairij we had
been competent to pull to pieces the beauty of
King's, and prate of * severity' and * purity.'
Happy in our barbarianism, we crossed the Bridge
of Sighs with a laugh at old Fan tyre's jokes;
strolled down the Fellowship Walk, telling Julia
St. Croix, who had not two ideas in her head,
that Bacon's Gate would, to a surety, fell down on
her; went in at Humility, through Virtue, and out
at Honour, flirting desperately under those grave
archways; and hurried irreverently through the
libraries, where reading-men, cramming in niches,
looked up, forgetting their studies at the rustle of
Lady Blanche's silk flounces, and Thorwaldsen's
* Byron ' seemed to glance with Juanesque admi-
ration at the superb eye of the Trefusis, as she
lifted them to that statue ; which does, indeed, as
the poet himself averred, make a shocking nigger
of him.
* How strange it seems to me,' said De Vigne,
as, entering King's Chapel, we brushed against
one of the senior Fellows, who had dozed away in
college chambers all the prime of his life * how
incomprehensible, that men can pass a whole
existence, in the sort of chrysalis state of which
one sees so much in Universities. That muff is
a Kingsman ; he obtained his fellowship by right.
62 **HBLD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
his degree without distinction. He lives on, fud-
dling his brains which he has never worked since
he got his Eton captaincy with port, and playing
solemn rubbers, and eating heavy dinners, till a
living falls as fat as his avarice desires. He has
no thoughts, no ambition, no sphere beyond the
academic pale.'
* And no love, I dare say, save audit, and no mis-
tress save turtlensoup,* laughed Flora L'Estrange.
* Perhaps he had once, one whom the selfish
creeds of the Fellowship system parted from him
long ago/ said Curly, with a tender glance at that
very practical-minded flirt, Julia St. Croix.
* That's right, Curly,' said De Vigne, amusedly,
* make a romance of it. Fellows of colleges, with
snuff and whist, and dry routine, are such appro-
priate subjects for sentiment ! But after all. Miss
Trefusis, that man is not a greater marvel to me
than one of those classical scholars, who is nothing
but a classical scholar, such as one meets here and
in Oxford, binding down his ambitions to the
elucidation of a dead tongue, exhausting his
energies in the evolving of decayed philosophies,
spending, as Pelham says, " one long school-day
of lexicons and grammars," his memory the charnel-
house for the bones of a lifeless language, his brain
enacting the mechanical rdle of a dictionary or an
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 63
encyclopaedia, living all his life without human
aspirations or human sympathies, and in his death
leaving no void among men, not missed even by a
dog.'
* It would not suit you ? ' asked the Trefusis,
smiling.
* No, no,' chuckled the old Fantyre to herself,
* he'll have - his pleasure, I take it, cost him what
it may.'
*//' echoed De Vigne, * chained down to the
limits of a commentator's studies ; or a Hellenist's
labours ! Heaven forbid ! I love excitement,
action, change ; a mill-wheel monotony would be
the death of me. I would rather have storms to
encounter, than no movement to keep me alive.'
' Are you so changeable, then ?'
* Well, yes ! I fancy I am. At least, I never
met anything that could chain me long as yet/ ^
He laughed as he spoke, leaning against one of
the stalls, the sun streaming through the rich
stained glass full upon his face, and his dark lus-
trous eyes, gleaming with amusement, at a thou-
sand reminiscences evoked by her speech. The
Trefiisis looked at him with a curious smile,
perhaps of longing to chain the restless and way-
ward spirit, perhaps of pique at his careless words,
perhaps of resolve to conquer and to win him ; it
64 "held in bondage;" or,
might have been hate, but it certainly was not
love! Still Flora L'Estrange whispered to her
husband :
*Miss Trefusis will marry De Vigne if she
can?'
L'Estrange laughed, and looked at Granville
and his companion, as they were (in appearance)
discussing the subjects of the storied windows of
Holy Henry's chapel, but talking, I fancy, of other
topics than sacred art or history.
* Quite right, my pet, but I hope she wont. I
would as soon see him marry a tigress ! '
Tired of lionizing, we soon returned to Curly's
rooms, where the best luncheon which could be had
out of Cambridge shops, and Trinity buttery, with
London wine, and game from his governor's pre-
serves, was ready for us. Curly never did any-
thing without doing it well, and his rooms were,
I think, the most luxurious in all Granta, with his
grand piano, his bronzes, and his landscapes, mixed
up with tobacco-pots, boxing-gloves, pipes, and
portraits of ballet pets, and heroes of the Turf and
the P. R. The luncheon was as merry as it was
lavish what college meal, with fast, pretty women
at the board, ever was not ? and while the Bad-
minton and Champagne-cup went round, and the
gyps waited as solemnly and dreadfully as gyps
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 65
ever do, on like occasions, a cross-fire of wit and
inn and nonsense, shot across the table, and mingled
with the perfume of Curly s hothouse bouquets,
enough to bring the stones of time-honoured
Trinity about our irreverent heads. De Vigne, in
very high spirits, laughed and talked with all the
brilliance for which society had distinguished him;
Flora and Lady Blanche were always full of mis-
chievous repartee ; Curly and Julia St. Croix
flirted so desperately, that if it had not been for
the publicity of the scene, I believe the boy would
have gone straight away into a proposal. Lady
Fantyre, especially, when the claret cup had gone
round freely, was so amusing that we forgot she
was old, and the Trefusis, if she did not contribute
equally to the conversation, sat beside De Vigne,
darting glances at him from her large Spanish
eyes, and looking handsome enough to be inspira-
tion to anybody.
* So you leave Cambridge to-morrow?' she said,
as they were waiting for the St. Croix carriage
to take them home again.
* Yes. If you were going to remain I should
stay too ; but Mrs. St. Croix tells me you leave
on Monday,' said De Vigne, in a low tone, with
an admiring glance, to which few women would
have been insensible.
VOL. I. * F
66 "held in bondage;" or,
She looked at bim with that cold, malicious
smile, which, had I been he, would have made
me very careful of that woman.
* It is easy to say that, when, as I am going on
Monday, I cannot put you to the test ! '
De Vigne's eyes flashed; he threw back his
head, coldly and haughtily.
* I never trouble myself to say what I do not
mean, Miss Trefusis.*
She laughed; she had found she had power
to pique him !
* Then will you come and see me in town after
Christmas?'
What he answered I know not, but I dare say
it was in the affirmative ; he would hardly have
refused anything to such a glance as she gave him.
He Hngered beside their carriage, and when it
rolled away, stood in the Trinity gateway with a
smile on his lips, twisting in his fingers a white
azalea she had given him. But, two hours after,
the flower was thrown into the college grate, and
the bedmaker swept it out with the cinders ! So
he was not very far gone as yet. The next morn-
ing, after we had * done chapel,' De Vigne, who
had sent on his groom^ hunters, and luggage the
day before, walked down to the station, and we
with him.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. G7
* I wish you two fellows were coming to Vigne
with me,' he said, as we went along. * You don't
know what a bore it is having a place like that !
So much is expected of one. You belong to the
county, and the county makes you feel the rela-
tionship pretty keenly, too. You must fill the
house in the Recesses. You must hear horrible
long speeches from your tenantry, wishing you
health and happiness, while you're wishing them at
the devil. You must have confounded interviews
vdth your steward, who looks frightfully glum at the
pot of money that has been dropped over the Good-
wood, and hints at the advisability of cutting down
the very clump of oaks that makes the beauty of
the drawing-room view. Then, worst of all, you're
expected to hunt your own county, even though
it be as unfit as the Wash or the Black Forest,
while you're longing to be with the Burton or
Tedworth, following Tom Smith, or Tom Edge, or
Pytchley men, who don't funk at every bull-
finch ! '
* Do you hunt the Vigne pack, then, always ? '
asked Curly.
* I ? No. I never said I did all those things.
I only said they are expected of me, and it*s tire-
some to say no.'
' Then you must make love to the Trefusis, if
F 2
68 "held in bondage; or,
you dont*t like " No," for her eyes say, " Do do
it," as clearly as eyes can speak.'
He laughed. * Yes. I must admit she doesn't
look a very impregnable citadel.'
* Not if you make it worth her while to sur-
render?'
* None of them surrender for nothing,' said De
Vigne, smiling. * With some, it's cashmeres ;
with others, yellow-boys ; with some, it's position ;
with others, a wedding-ring. I can't see much
difference myself, though I'd give cashmeres in
plenty, and should be remarkably sorry to be
chiselled into settlements.'
' I should fancy so,' said Curly ; * only think of
the annihilation of larks, liberty, fun, claret, latch-
keys, oyster suppers, guinguettes, and Cafes Re-
gence, expressed in those two doomed words, " a
married man ! " To my mind, marrying's as bad
as hanging, and equally puts a finish to all life
worth supporting !'
^ Did you tell Julia your views. Curly ? ' asked
De Vigne, quietly.
'Pooh ! stuff! What's Julia to do with me?
the girl at the Cherryhinton public, is a vast lot
better-looking,' muttered Curly, with an embar-
rassment that made me doubt if the limes of
Trinity had not heard different opinions enunciated
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 69
with regard to the Holy Bond. N.B, Julia St.
Croix that day three months, tied herself to that
same snuffy, portly, wine-embalmed Fellow, she
had laughed at with us, in King's Chapel. To be
sure he had then become rector of Snooze-cum-
Rest ; and when Ruth goes to woo Boaz, we may
always be pretty certain she knows he is master
of the harvest, and has the golden wheat-ears in
her eye, sweet innocent little dear though she look.
* The Cherryhinton public ! I see that's why
skittles and beer have become suddenly delightful,'
laughed De Vigne.
* Why not ?' asked Curly, meekly. ' Skittles
are no sin, and malt and hops are man's natural
aliment ; and as for barmaids ! why, if one's
denied houris and nectar^ one must take to Jane
and bitter beer, rCest-ce pas ? '
* Don't know,' said De Vigne. * I prefer Quartier
Breda and Champagne. As Balzac says, "/w^
femme^ beUe comme Galatee ou HHhie^ ne pourrait
me plaire tarU soitpeu quelle soit crottSe ! " '
* You forgot that once you didn't repudiate
Lucy Davis ?
* Lucy was half a lady, in dress at least,' laughed
De Vigne, 'and she got up uncommonly well,
too; however, that was in my schoolboy days.
After vulguses and problems a kitchen-maid is
70 "held in bondage;" or,
pardonable; and as for the young woman who
presides over the post-oflSce, or the oyster patties,
she is perfectly irresistible ! The hissez-dller of
the Paphian Temple, as the fine writers say, is so
delightfiil after the stiff stoicism of the Porch ! '
* Well, thank Heaven, the Paphian Temple is
built everywhere,' said Curly, *and you find it
under the taps of XXX, as well as in the gilt walls
of a Breda boudoir ; or the poor wretches who
haven't the Breda gold key, would get locked into
very outer darkness indeed ! Here's the train just
starting. By Jove, that's lucky! All right, old
fellow. Here's Puck ; tumble in, old boy/
And the * old boy ' being ' tumbled in ' (he was
a wiry blue terrier), De Vigne seated himself, and
was rolled off en route to Vigne with a pretty
brunette opposite him, who seemed imbued with
extreme admiration of the terrier or his master.
Oirls always begin by calling his children * little
loves ' to a widower, though the brats be as ugly
as sin; and by admiring his dog to a bachelor,
though frightened to death it should snap at them !
Curly and I saw the train off and walked back
to Granta, to console ourselves, first with billiards
and beer at Brown's, then with some hard practice
on the river.
Eheu ! fugaces ! I belong to the Blue
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 71
Jersey B.C., the first in England ; bnt somehow I
don't feel the zest now that I used to feel, with
' Time, Five ! ' ' Well pulled Five ! ' in my ear
from our Stroke (poor fellow ! he went down with
jungle-fever, and is lying in the banyan shadows, in
Ceylon sand) and the shrill imperous shrieking, as
the speed and bottom of Oxford told against us, of
that wicked little dog Hervey, our Coxswain {he^8 a
bishop now, and hush-hushes you, and strokes his
apron, if you whisper the smallest crumb of fun over
his capital comet wine). Dear old Cambridge ! I
wouldn't give a straw for a Cambridge man who
didn't grow prolix as he talked, or wrote of her, and
didn't empty a bumper of Guinness's or Moet as
his taste may lie in her honour. A man may read,
or he may not read, at college. I prefer the boy
who knows how to feather his oar, to one who only
knows Latin quantities and Greek unities ; but at
any rate, whether he get first classes or not, he will
find his level, measure his weight, and learn un-
less he be obtuse indeed that through college life,
as through all other life, the best watchwords are
Pluck, and Honour !
/ learnt that much at least, and it is. no mean
lesson, though I must admit that, after having had
my cross taken away, been gated times innumer-
able, having done all the books of Virgil by way
72 "held in bondage;" or,
of penance (paying little Crib, my wine-merchant s
son, to write them out for me), and been shown
Tip before the proctor on no less tlian six separate
occasions, I got rusticated in my fourth term, and
finally took my name off the books. The governor
laughed, preferred the Pewter I had to show, and
my share in winning the Challenge Cup, to any
Bell's or Craven's scholarships, and paid my debts
without a murmur. Too good to be true, you will
say, ami lecteur ? No ; there are fathers who can
remember they have been young ; though they are
unspeakably rare as rare as ladies who can let you
forget it !
Now came the question, what should I do?
* Nothing,' the correct thing, according to the
governor. * Stand for the county,' my mother
suggested. *Go as attache to my cousin, the
envoy to St. Petersburg,' my relatives opined,
who had triumphed, with much unholy glory, over
my rustication, as is the custom of relatives from
time immemorial. As it chanced, I had no fancy
for either utter dolce^ the bray of St. Stephen's or
the snows of Russia, so I put down my name for
a commission. We had plenty of interest to push
it, and the ''Gazette' soon announced, ' th P. O.
Lancers, Arthur Vane Tierney Chevasney, to be
Cornet, vice James Yelverton, promoted ;' and the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 73
th, always known in the service as the Dashers,
was De Vigne's regiment, my old Frestonhills hero.
The Dashers were then quartered at Kensington
and Hounslow, and the first person I saw as I drove
through Knightsbridge was De Vigne's groom,
Harris, riding a powerful thorough-bred, swathed in
body-clothing, whom I recognized as the bay of the
Euston Hollows lom. As soon as my interview
with the Adjutant and the Colonel were over, I
found out De Vigne's rooms speedily. He had
the drawing-room floor of a house in Kensington
Gore, well furnished, and further crowded with
crowds of things of his Qwn, from Persian carpets
bought in his travels, to the last new rifle sent
home only the day before. I made my way up
unannounced, and stood a minute or two in the
open doorway. They were pleasant rooms, just
as a man likes to have them, with all the things
he wants about him, ready to his hand ; no madame
to make him miserable by putting his pipes away
out of sight, and no housekeeper to drive him
distracted by sorting his papers, and introducing
order among his pet lumber. A setter, a retriever,
and a couple of Skyes, were on the hearth-rug
(veritable tiger-skin) ; breakfast, in dainty Sevres,
and silver, stood on one table, sending up an
aroma of coffee, omelettes, and devils ; the morn-
74 "held in bondage;" or,
ing papers lay on the floor, a smoking-cap wns
hung on a Parian Venus ; a parrot, who appa-
rently considered himself master of the place, was
perched irreverently on a bronze Milton, and
pipes, whips, pistols, and cards, were thrown down
on a Louis Quinze couch, that Louise de Keroualle
or Sophie A mould might have graced. From the
inner room came the rapid clash of small-swords,
while ^^Tomhe^ touches touche 1 riposte ! hola ! " was
shouted, in a silvery voice, from a man who, lying
back in a rocking-chair in the bay-window of the
front room, was looking on at a bout with the foils
that was taking place beyond the folding-doors.
The two men who were fencing were De Vigne
and a smaller, slighter fel low ; the one calm, cool,
steady, and never at a disadvantage, the other,
skilful indeed, but too hot, eager, and rapid : for in
fencing, whether with the foils or the tongue, the
grand secret is to be cool, since, in proportion to
your tranquillity, grows your opponent's exaspera-
tion ! The man in the bay-window was too deeply
interested to observe me, so I waited patiently
till De Vigne had sent his adversary's foil flying
from his hand.
He turned with one of his sunny smiles : * Ah !
dear old fellow, how are you ? Charmed to see you.
This is the best move you ever made, Arthur. Mr.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 75
Chevasney, Colonel Sabretasche, M. de Cheffon-
taine, a trio of my best friends. We only want
Curiy to make the partie carrke perfect. Sit
down, old boy ; we have just breakfasted, I am
sorry to say, but here are the things, and all the
sardines, and you shall soon have some hot choco-
late, and cotelettes.'
While he talked he forced me into an arm-
chair, and disregarding all my protests that I had
already breakfasted twice once at Longholme
and once at a station rang for his man. De
Cheffontaine flung himself on a sofa, and began
with a mot on his own defeat ; the fellow in the
bay-window got lazily out of his rocking-chair
and strolled over to us. De Vigne took his meer-
schaum, and we were soon talking away as hard as
we could go, of the belles of that season, the pets
of the ballet, Richmond, the Spring Meetings, the
best sales in the Yard, the last matches at Lord's,
the chances of Heliotrope's being scratched, the
certainty that Vane Stevens's roan filly would
lose the trotting-match, with other like topics of
the Town and the Hour. Sabretasche was, I
found, a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, and Major of
the Dashers, and a most agreeable man he seemed,
lying back in his chair, making us laugh at witti-
cisms which he spoke, quietly and indolently, in a
76 "held in bondage;" or,
soft, low, mellow voice. Had I been a woman
that beautiful face would have done for me irre-
trievably, as, according to report, it had done for
a good many. Beautiful it was ; with its pallid,
aristocratic features, its large mournful eyes, its
silky moustaches, and rich wavy hair. Reckless
devil-may-care, the man looked, the recklessness of
one who heeds nothing in heaven or earth ; a little
hardened by the world and its rubs, rendered
cynical, perhaps, by injustice and wrong ; but in
the eyes there lay a kindness, and in the mouth a
sadness which betokened better things. He might
have been thirty, five-and- thirty, forty. One could
no more tell his age than his character, though,
looking at him, one could fancy it true what the
world said of him that no man ever found so
faithful a friend, and no woman so faithless a
lover, as in Vivian Sabretasche.
^ Chevasney, who do you think is one of the
reigning beauties up here?' asked De Vigne,
pushing me some cubas.
* How should I know? The Cherryhinton bar-
maid ? '
* Don't be a fool.'
* The Trefusis, then ? '
* Of course. She is still living with that abomi-
nable old Irish woman. They're in Bruton Street ;
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 77
a pleasant house, only everybody wonders
where the Peeress finds the needful. They give
uncommonly agreeable receptions. Don't they,
Sabretasche ? '
* Oh, very ! ' answered the Colonel, with an
enigmatical smile, ' especially to you, I've no
doubt ; and the only tax levied on one for the
entertainment is to pay a few compliments to
mademoiselle, and a few guinea points to my lady.
I can't say all the guests are the best ton ; there
are too many ladies designated by the definite
article, and too many gentlemen with cordons in
their button-holes ; but they know how to amuse
one another, and the women, if not exclusive, are
at least remarkably pretty. The Trefusis is more
than pretty, especially smoking a cigarette. Shall
you allow her cigars when you're married to her,
DeVigne?'
* Not when I am.'
* There's an unjust fellow ! How like a man
that is ! ' cried Sabretasche. * What's charming
in any other woman becomes horrid in his wife.
You remind me of Jessie Villars : when her hus-
band smokes, she vows the scent will kill her;
when Wyndham meets her on the terrace, taking
his good-night pipe, she lisps there's nothing so
delightful as the scent of Latakia! Come, Mr.
78 "held in bondage;" or,
Chevasney, I don't mind prjring into my friends'
affairs before ,their faces. Have not De Vigne
and the Trefusis bad some nice little flirtation
before now ? '
* To be sure/ I answered. * It began to be
rather a desperate affair ; the Trinity backs could
tell you many a tale, I dare say. He came down
for Diana, and forsook her for Venus.'
* But you can't say, old fellow, I ever deserted
the Quiver for the Ceinture,' cried De Vigne.
* The Viewaway was never eclipsed by the Tre-
fusis ! '
* I don't know that. Have you taken up the
affair where you left it ? '
* I never reveal secrets that ladies share,' said
De Vigne, with a demure air, * but I'll be very
generous, Arthur. I'll take you to call on
her.'
* Bien ohligL What do you think of this
beauty, M. de Cheffontaine ? ' I asked of the
lively little Baron.
* Oh ! ' laughed he, * all your English women are
superb, divine, when they are not prudes ! '
^ And that is a fault you cannot pardon ? ' asked
Sabretasche, with his low silvery laugh.
* Nor you ! but one cannot reproach the Tre-
fusis with it ! '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 79
Sabretascbe laughed again, and quoted
* Non, jamais tourterelle
N'aima plus tendrement.
Comme elle c^tait fiddle
A son dernier amant I '
De Vigne did not appear best pleased ; he lifted
his head to look out of the window into the park,
and as he looked his annoyance seemed to increase.
I followed his glance, and saw the Trefusis on a
very showy bay, of not first-rate action, taking
her morning canter.
* Ah, talk of an angel, you know ! there she
is,' said Sabretascbe, * Wise woman to show
often en amazone ; it suits her better than any-
thing. She has met little Jimmy Levison, and
taken him on with her. Poor. Jimmy ! between
her smiles and old Fantyre's honours he won't
come off the better for those Bruton-street soirees.
Why, De Vigne, you look quite wrathful ! You
wouldn't be jealous of little Jimmy, would
you ? '
I don't suppose De Vigne was jealous of little
Jimmy ; but I dare say he was not flattered to see
the same wiles given to trap that very young
pigeon, which were bestowed to lure a fiery hawk
like himself.
* It amuses me to see all those women taking
80 "held in bondage;* or,
their morning rides,' Sabretasche continued.
* They love their darling horses so ! and they do
80 delight in the morning air ; and the green trees
look so pleasant after the dusty pavS I and they
never hint that they know the Knightsbridge men
vrill be looking out for them, and that Charlie will
be accidentally lounging by the rails, and Johnnie
be found reading the " Morning Post " under
the large avenue. The Trefiisis will tell us that
she cannot exist without her morning trot on
" dear Diamond," but, sans doute^ she remembered
that De Vigne would be pretty sure to be break-
fasting by this window; not to mention that she
had whispered to little Jimmy her wish to see his
new grey hack. I always look under women's
words as I look under their veils; they mean
them to embellish, but I don't choose they should
hide.'
* How do you act. Colonel,' laughed De Vigne,
* when you come to a Shetland veil tied down
very tight ? '
* I never yet met one that hadn't some holes ! '
said Sabretasche. * No women are long a puzzle ;
they are too inconsistent, and betray their arti-
fices by overdoing them. She is out of sight now,
De Vigne. Would you like your horse ordered ? '
De Vigne laughed.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 81
* Thank you, no. Do you go to the new opera
to-night, Sabretasche V
* Yes ; though I should go with infinitely more
pleasure, if I could get the glories of Gluck, and
Mozart, instead of the sing-song ballads of Verdi
and Balfe/
' Music is the god of his idolatry ! ' said De
Vigne, turning to me. * It is positively a passion !
Your heaven will be composed of sweet sounds,
eh, Sabretasche ? *
* As yours of houris and of thorough-breds ? '
* Perhaps ! I should combine Mahomet's and
the Indian's ideas into one almond eyes and a
good hunting-ground! Look here, Arthur, at
this " Challenge." That man yonder did it. Isn't
he a clever fellow too good to lie still in a
rocking chair, and talk about women ? '
I looked at the * Challenge' a little marble
statuette from Landseer s picture ; and product of
the Colonel's chisel. It was really a wonderful
little thing; every minutia, even each fine point
of the delicate antlers, being most beautifully
and perfectly finished.
*How immensely jolly to have such talent!'
said I, involuntarily expressing my honest admi-
ration. * What a resource it must be what a
refuge when other things pall ! '
VOL. I. G
82 "held in bondage;" or,
He smiled at my enthusiasm, and raised his
eyebrows,
* Cui bono ? ' he said softly, as he rose and
pushed back his chair.
The man interested me ; and when he and the
Baron were gone, I asked De Vigne what he
knew of him, as we stood waiting for his tilbury,
to go and call in Bruton Street.
* Of Vivian Sabretasche ? I know much of him
socially, little of himself; and of his history if
history he have nothing. He is excessively kind
to me ; honourable and generous in all his deal-
ings ; a gentleman always. More of him I know
not, nor, were we acquainted ten years, should I
at the end, I dare say, know more.'
'Whv?'
* Why ? For this reason that nobody does.
HoUingsworth and he were cornets together ; yet
HoUingsworth is as much a stranger to the real man
as you or I. There are some fellows, you know,
who don't wear their hearts on their sleeves ; he
is one, I am another. Men axe like snowballs : to
begin with, it's a piece of snow, soft and pure and
malleable, and easily enough melted; but the
snowball soon gets kicked about and mixed up
with other snow, and knocked against stones and
angles, and hurried, and shoved, and pushed along
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 83
till) in sheer self-defence, it hardens itself into a
solid, impenetrable, immovable block of ice ! '
* Nonsense ? You are not that/
* Not yet, thank God!'
I should say he was not ! The passionate blood
of six-and-twenty, was more likely to be at boiling-
point, than at zero.
(i 2
84 "held in BONDAGE;" 0,
CHAPTER IV.
A SUBTLE POISON DRUNK IN THE CHAMPAGNE AT
AN OPERA SUPPER.
Very good style was the BrutoD Street house, and
very good style the Trefusis, with the rose light
falling on her from the window, where she was
surrounded by plants, and birds in cages and on
stands, with a little fellow of the Guards, and a
courtly French exile, lounging away their morning
there. She was dressed in the extreme of fashion
almost too well, if ladies will admit such a
thing to be possible. She always reminded
me of some first-rate actresses at the Fran-
9ais or the Bouffes playing the rdles of high-bred
women, looking and speaking like ladies of the
best society ; and yet whom, do what one will, and
be they as graceful as they may, one cannot divest
of a certain aroma, due rather to the proximity
of the proscenium and foot-lights, than to any
fault of breeding in themselves ; yet a something
which we know we should not discover in the
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB, ' 85
true Marquises and Baronnes of the Fau-
bourg.
She looked up with a smile of conscious power;
gave her hand tenderly to De Vigne, with a full
sweep of her superb eyes under their thick fringes ;
bent her head to me, and put her Pomeranian dog
on his knee. Old Lady Fantyre was there play-
ing propriety, if Propriety could ever be persuaded
to let herself be represented by that hook-nosed,
disreputable, detestable, amusing old woman, who
sat working away at the tapestry-frame, with her
gold spectacles on, occasionally lifting up her little
keen brown eyes and mingling in the conversation,
telling the old tales of * majeunesae^ of the Bath
and the Wells, of Ombre and Quadrille, Sheri-
dan and Selwyn, Talleyrand and Burke, * old Q.*
and Lady Coventry.
* I remember you at Cambridge, Mr. Chevasney,
and our merry luncheon too,' said the Trefusis,
as if Cambridge belonged to some dim era of her
childhood, which it was astonishing she could
recall at all.
* What ! my dear,' burst in Lady Fantyre, * you
don't mean to say you remember all your acquaint-
ances, do you ? If so, ye'U have enough to do.'
* Certainly not. But when they are as agree-
able as Mr. Chevasney-'
86 "held in bondage;" or,
* Of course of course. Lea presents ant toujours
raison^ continued the Viscountess, in her lively
treble , * as true, by the way, that is, as its twin
maxim, Les absents anJt toujours tort ; it would be
hard, indeed, if we might not tell tales of our
friends when they couldn't hear us ! But I know
we used to give cuts by the dozen. I remember
walking down the Birdcage Walk with Selwyn,
(poor dear Selwyn, there isn't his like in this day;
I remember him so well, though I was but a little
chit then !) and a man, a very personable man, too
but Lord ! my dear, not one of us came up
and reminded George he had known him in Bath.
What do you think Selwyn did, my dear ? . Why,
stared him in the face, of course, and said,
"Well, sir, in Bath I may possibly know you
agam.
^ That beats Brummel, when a lady apologized
for keeping him so long standing by her carriage :
" My dear lady, there is no one to see it ! " ' said
De Vigne, laughing.
* Abominable ! ' cried the Trefiisis. * If I had
been that woman, I would have told him I had
made sure of that, or I would not have hazarded
my reputation by speaking to him !'
* Brummel would have been very willing to
have been seen with ^you' said De Vigne, fixing
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 87
his eyes on her, and he knew pretty well how to
make his eyes talk.
* There's not one of you men now-a-days like
Selwyn,' began the old raconteuse again, while the
Trefiisis bent her stately head to her boy Guards-
man, and De Vigne balanced his cane thought-*
fully on the Pomeranian's nose, *You talk of
your great wit Lord John Bonmot^ why, he hasn't
as much wit in his whole body as there was in
poor dear Gteorge's little finger ! Ah ! there isn't
one half the verve among you new people there
was in my young tinie. Where is the man among
you, who can make laughter run down the table
as my friend Sheridan could ? Which of you can
move heads, and hearts, like Billy Pitt ? Where
among those idle lads in the Temple, who smoke
Cavendish, and drink Bass, till they think nothing
better than tobacco and beer, shall I see another
Tom Erskine? Which among those brainless
scribblers who print poems, that make one want
a Tennyson's Dictionary only to understand the
foolish adjectives in 'em, can write like that boy
Byron, with his handsome face and his wry foot ?
Lord ! and what a fuss there was with him when
he was first made a lion ! And then to turn his
coffin from the Abbey ! Such comic verses as he
made on my parrot too, he and young Hobhouse ! '
88 " HELD IN BONDAGE ; OR,
And old Fantjrre, having feirly talked herself
out of breathy at last halted ; and De Vigne, an-
noyed first of all with little Jimmy in the morn-
ing, and secondly with the attention the Trefusis
gave her Cornet, neglected her for the Vis-
countess, with much parade thereof.
^ I fear you are right, madam,' he said, laughing.
^Ours is an age of general action rather than
individual greatness. We have a good catalogue
of ships, but no Ulysses, no Atrides, no Agamem-
non '
* Ah ! I don't remember them ; they weren't in
our set ! ' responded Lady Fantyre, naively.
'Or perhaps,' continued De Vigne, stroking his
moustaches with laudable gravity, *it is rather
that education is diffused so much more widely
that the particular owners of it are not so much
noticed. Arago may be as great a man as Galileo,
but it is natural that a world which teaches the
laws of gravitation in its twopenny schools,
scarcely regards him with the same wonder
as if they disbelieved in the earth's move-
ment, and were ready to burn him for his
audacity.'
*Ours is an age of science and of money,'
suggested the Frenchman, * whose chief aim is to
economize labour and time; an age in which
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 89
everything is turned to full account, from dead
seaweed, to living brains.'
* Yes,' said De Vigne, * we are eminently prac-
tical ; we extract the veratrin from crocuses, and
value Brunei more than Bulwer ! We throw our
millions into a scheme for cutting through an isth-
mus, but we should not spare our minutes to listen
to the music of the spheres though Pythagoras
were resuscitated to teach us them. So best!
Many more of us find it, of much greater import-
ance to get quickly to India, than to wait for all
the learning of the schools ; and Adam Smith,
though infinitely more prosaic, is a much more
useful philosopher than Bolingbroke.'
* Captain de Vigne, why don't you stand for
your county ? ' asked the Trefusis, playing with
her breloques, and looking truly magnificent in
her rose-velvet setting.
* Because I'm before my time,' laughed De
Vigne. * If I could have a select Cabinet of esprits
forts I should be delightQ.d to join them, and help
them to seminate liberty and tolerance ; but really
to settle Maynooth grants, to quarrel on *^ rags or
no rags," to settle whether we shall confine our-
selves to " corks squared for rounding " or admit
rounded corks into the country, to hear one noble
lord blackguard his noble friend opposite, and one
90 "held in bondage;" or,
hon. member split hairs with another hon. member
it would be beyond me, it would indeed ! I
would as soon go every night to an old ladies' tea-
fight, where bonnets were rancorously discussed
and characters mercilessly blackened over Sou-
chong and muffins ! '
* Come ! ' said the Trefusis, *you find such fault
with your generation, you should set to work and
regenerate it ? Hunting with the Viewaway, and
lounging about drawing-rooms, won't do much
towards improving your species ? '
* Why should I ? As Sabretasche says, " Cui
bono f " * answered De Vigne, annoyed at her sar-
castic and nonchalant tone.
* Then you have certainly no business to sit at
home at ease and laugh at other men over your
claret and Cubas ! Why may not other geniuses
have equal right to that easy put off of yours,
" Cui bono?'''
* They have not equal right, if they have once as-
sumed to be geniuses. Let a man assert himself to
be something^ be it a great man or a scoundrel, and
the world expects him to prove his assertion. But
an innocent man like myself, who troubles nobody ;
and never sets up for a mute inglorious Milton,
declining to sing, only because his audience isn't
good enough for him ; has a right to be left to his
GRANVILLE DE ViaNB. 91
claret and Cubas, and not to be worried, because
it happens he is not, what he never pretended
to be.'
The Trefiisis looked at him maliciously ; there
was the very devil in that woman's eye.
* And are you content to be lost in the bouquet
of the wine, and buried in the smx)ke of the
tobacco? Are you satisfied with spending your
noble existence in an allegorical chaise-lounge,
picking out the motes and never remembering the
beam ? '
The tone was provoking in the extreme ; it put
up De Vigne's blood, as the first touch of the
snaffle does a young thorough-bred. He stroked
his long moustaches.
*That depends upon circumstances. When I
have had my fiiU swing of devilries, extravagances,
dissipations, pleasures, Trefusises, and other
charming flowers which beset the path of youth, I
may, perhaps, turn to something better ! '
It was an abominably rude speech ; and though
De Vigne spoke in the soft, courteous tone he
used to all women, whether peeress or peasant,
eighty or eighteen, it had its fiill effect on the
Trefusis. She flushed deeply, then turned pale, and
I should not have cared to provoke the malignant
glance those superb eyes shot upon him. She
92 "held in bondage ;" or,
took no notice, however, and, turning to her
Guardsman, thanked him for a bouquet which
he had sent to her, and pointed it out to him,
set on a console near.
De Vigne drove the tilbury from the door
supremely gloomy and silent :
*I say, Arthur,' he said at last, * Victor Hugo
says, somewhere, that we are women's playthings,
and women are the devil's. I fancy Satan will
get the worse of the bargain, don't you ? '
* The deuce I do ! that's to say, if the war's in
words ; though I must say you polished off the
Trefusis neatly enough just now. Did you see
the look she gave you ? '
* Yes,' said De Vigne, shortly. ' However any-
thing's better than a milk-and-water woman. I
should grow sick of a girl who always agreed with
me. They look so pretty when their blood's up !
Where shall we go now ? Suppose we turn into
the Yard, and take a look at those steel greys
Sabretasche mentioned ? I want a new pair to
run tandem. And then we can take a turn or
two round the Ring, and I'll show you the women
worth cultivating, young one.'
We followed out his programme, bargained for
the greys at two hundred and fifty and immensely
cheap, too, for they were three-parts thorough-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 93
bred, with beautiful action drove half-a-dozen
times round the Ring, where fifty pair of bright
eyes gleamed softly on De Vigne, from the Mar-
chioness of Hautton in her stately barouche, to
little Coralie of Her Majesty's ballet in her single
horse brougham ; and then went to mess, where
the Dashers (being as crack a corps as the Tenth,
the Eleventh, or the Blues,) had a peculiar pattern
for their plate, a Cordon bleu for their cook, and
a good claret connoisseur in their ColoneL The
claret was better than Cambridge port, the dinner
was rather superior to Hall, and the men furnished
wit choicer than Monckton's Joe Miller jokes, and
Phil Hervey's Simon the Cellarer, at our Wines.
I liked this dash of my new life at any rate,
and I regretted leaving the table when Sabretasche
invited me to go with him, to the Opera, for I
didn't care two pins for music ; I did not dare,
however, to refuse the first favour from such an
exclusive man, and, besides, having just seen little
Coralie in the Ring, I consoled myself with the
thought of the ballet. De Vigne was going too,
for reasons best known to himself; and went to
his stall, while I followed the Colonel to his box,
in the middle of the second act.
Sabretasche spoke not at all while Grisi was on
the stage, and I put my lorgnon up and took a
94 "held in bondage; or,
glance round the house. I always think Her Ma-
jesty's, on a grand night, with all the boxes filled
with the handsomest and best-dressed women in
town, one of the prettiest sights going ; and I did
the grand tier deliberately, going from logo to
loge, so that it was some little time before I got
on the second ; and in one of its centre boxes, with
the scarlet folds of an opera cloak floating round
her, and scarlet camellias against her white lace
dress, and in her rich dark hair, sat the Trefusis,
with little bright-eyed, hooked-nosed, bewigged,
and black Mechlin'd, old Fantyre as a foil.
Presently the Trefusis raised her bouquet to
her lips quite carelessly, to take its perfume, I
presume! I happened to look down at De
Vigne: his lorgnon was fixed on her too. He
smiled, left his stall, and in a minute or two I
saw him displacing young Lascelles of the Blues
and bending down over the Trefusis.
* What do you think of that affair, Chevasney ? '
said the Colonel to me, as the curtain came down.
* I don't know how it stands. Enlighten me,
will you ? '
Sabretasche shook his head.
*I know no more than yourself. De Vigne,
like all wise men, is silent upon his own business,
and I never attempt to pry into it. I see the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 95
thing on its surface, and it seems to me that the
lady is serious, whatever he be.*
* Serious ? Oh, hang it ! he can't be serious.'
* Tant pis pour lui if he be,' said the Colonel,
smiling. * But, my dear boy, you do not know
women as yet ; how should you, in two-and-
twenty years, have read that enigmatical book,
which is harder to guess at than Sanscrit or Black
letter? You can never fathom the deep game
that a clever one like the Trefusis, if I mistake
her not, can play when she chooses.'
/, the most knowing hand in Granta I, who if
I did pique myself on any one thing, piqued my-
self on my skill and knowledge in managing the
beau sexe /, to be told I did not know women !
I pocketed the affront, however, as best I mighty
for I felt a growing respect for the Colonel, with
his myriad talents, his brilliant reputation, and
mysterious reserve ; and told him I did not believe
De Vigne cared an atom more for the Trefusis
than for twenty others before her.
*I hope so,' he answered ; *but that chess they
are playing yonder ends too often in checkmate.
However, we will not prophesy so bad a fate for
our friend ; for worse he could not have than to fall
into those soft hands. By the way, though, her
hands are not soft, they are not the hands of a lady.*
96 "held in bondage; or,
You have a bad opinion of the Trefusis,
Colonel ?
' Not of the Trefusis in particular/
* Of her sex, then ? '
* I may have cause,' he answered briefly. * How
full the house is, and how few of those people
come for music ! How few of them would care if
it were dance trash of D'Albert's, instead of Doni-
zetti's symphonies, if the dance-music chanced to
be most in fashion. Make it the rage, and three-
quarters of the music lovers here would run after
a barrel-organ ground on that stage, as they are
now doing after Mario. Half England, if the
Court, the Peerage, and Belgravia voted the sun a
bore, and a rushlight comme U favt^ would in-
stantly shut their shutters and bum rushlights
while the fashion lasted ! And then people care
for the world's opinion ! '
* Because they can't get on without it.'
* True enough ! they despise it, but they must
bow to it before they can use it and turn it to
their own ends; those must, at least, who live by
sufferance on it, and through it. Thank God, 1
want nothing from it, and can defy it at my
leisure; or rather forget and neglect it; de-
fying is too much trouble. A man who defies
is certain to raise a hue and cry at his heels.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 97
whose bray and clamour is as senseless as it is
deafening, and no more able to declare what it
has come out after than Dogberry. Ah, you are
studying that girl in the fifth from the centre.
That is little Eulalie Papillon. Does she not look
a pretty, innocent dove? Yet she will cost those
three fellows with her more thaii a racing stud,
and she is as avaricious as Harpagon ! ' I should
like to' make a con^putation of how many of these
people come for music. That old man there, who
droops his head and takes snuff during the
entr'actes ; those fellows on the ground-tier taking
shorthand notes for the daily journals ; one or two
dilettante ladies who really know something of
fugues and symphonies: those are all, I verily
believe. Little Eulalie comes to show herself,
and carry Bevan off to her petit souper, for fear
any iairer Lais should pounce on hiih; those
decolletees and diamondized old ladies come be-
cause it is one of the Yards where their young
fillies tell best, and may chance to get a bid;
Lady Ormolu there, that one with marabouts in
her hair, comes because'her lord is a Georges
Dandin, and she has no chance of meeting V illiers,
who is her present lover, anywhere else. Mrs.
Lacquers is here because there was a rumour that
her husband's Bank would not stand, and h^ who
VOL. I. H
98 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
is a Bible Society president and vessel of grace^
but who still keeps one eye open on terrestrial
af&irs, has told her to exhibit here to-night, and
be as lively as possible, with plenty of rubies about
her, so that he may get off to Boulogne. Dear
man ! he remembers *^Aide4oi et Dim faidera.^ '
* Have you a private Belph^gor in your pocket,
sir ? said I, dropping my lorgnon, * to help you
unroof the houses and unlock your acquaintances'
brains ? '
* My Belph^gor is Experience,' laughed Sabre-
tasche. * And now hush, if you please, Chevas-
ney; there is Grisi again, and as / come for
music, though nobody else may, I like to be
quiet.'
It was curious to note the change that came
over his melancholy expressive countenance, as he
listened to the prima donna, and I saw the gaze of
many women fixed upon him, as, with his eyes
half-closed, and his thoughts far away, he leaned
against the side of his box. They said he was
dangerous to women, and one could hardly won-
der if he were. A gallant soldier in the field ; a
charming companion in club or mess-room ; accom-
plished in music, painting, sculpture, as in the
hardier arts of rifle and rod; speaking most conti-
nental languages with equal facility ; his manners
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 99
exquisitely tender and gentle, his voice soft as the
Italian he best loved to speak, his face and form
of unusual beauty; and, to back him, all that
subtler art which is only acquired in the Eleusinia
of the boudoir, no marvel if women, his pet play-
things, did go down before Vivian Sabretasche.
He had been born in Italy, where his father, having
spent what money he had at the green tables,
lived to retrench retrenchment being always
synonymous in English minds with the Continent,
though whether a palace, even if a little tumble-
down, ortolans, lachryma-christi, and nightly
reunions, do tend to tighten purse-strings and
benefit cheque - books, is an open question.
Luckily for Sabretasche, his uncle, a rich old roui,
of the Alvanley and Pierrepoint time, went off the
stage without an heir, and he came in for all the
property, a princely balance at Barclay's, a town
house, and a moor up in Inverness-shire. On his
accession, he left the Neapolitan Hussars, entered
the Queen's^ and took the position to which his
old name and new wealth entitled him. It was
always the popular idea that Sabretasche had
some history or other, though why he should have
nobody could probably have told you ; but every-
body loved him, from the charger that followed
him like a dog and ate out of his hand, to the
H 2
100 "held in bondage;** or,
young comets who, in their debts and their diffi-^
culties, always found a lenient judge and a kind
friend in gay, liberal, highly-gifted, and ultra-
fiushionable Vivian Sabretasche.
When he had drunk his fill of music, and I had
clapped little Coralie to my heart's content ; an
ovation that young lady little needed, having a
hired daqm jof her own in omnibus-boxes, not to
mention some twenty men who threw her bouquets
with genuine bracelets and hrdoimme; Sabre-
tasche and I, passing through the crush-room, or
rather the draughty, catarrh*conferring passages
which answer to that portion of Her Majesty's now-
a-days, came close to De Vigne with the Trefusis
on his arm, while little Lascelles escorted Lady
Fantyre, nowise enraptured apparently at the
charge of that shrewd old dame, with her sandal-
wood perfume, and her old lace, of a price, and dirt,
untold. Lady Fantyre's carriage was not yet up
and we stood and chatted together, the Trefusis
smiling very graciously on us, but reserving ail
her most teUing glances for De Vigne, on whose
arm she hung with a sort of proprietorship, for
which I cursed her with most unchristian earnest*
ness.
* Come home to supper with us,' whispered the
Trefusis, as their carriage was at last announced.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 101
De Vigne accepted the inyitation with a flash
of his eyes, which showed one well enough the
Trefnsis was beginning to play the deuce with him ;
and old Fantyre extended it to Sabretasche and
to me. The Colonel smiled, bowed his acqui-
escence, and told his man to drive us to Bruton
Street, as De Vigne sprang into the Fantyre
brougham.
^ I was engaged to what I liked much better,
lansquenet at Hollingsworth's ; but I want to see
how the game lies in Bruton Street. I fancy that
woman's moves will be worth watching,' said
Sabretasche, throwing himself back on his cushions.
* By the way, wJio is she do you know ? '
* The devil I don't ! Somebody up at Cam-
bridge said she was old Fantyre's companion;
others whispered her daughter, others her niece,
others, what the old woman said herself, that she
is the child of her brother a John, or James, or
something monosyllabic, Trefusis.
* No very exalted lineage that,' returned Sabre-
tasche ; * for if report be true and I believe it is
the Fantyre at sixteen was an orange-girl, crying,
" Who'll buy 'em, two a penny ! " up Pall Mall ; that
Fantyre, the most eccentric of eccentric Irishmen
(and all Hibernians have a touch of madness !)
beheld her from his window in Arthur's, fell in
102 "held in bondage; or,
love with her foot and leg, walked out, offered to
her in the street, was accepted of course, and
married her at seventy-five. What fools there
are in the world, Chevasney ! . She pushed her
way cleverly enough, though as to knowing all
the exclusives she talks about, she no more knew
them than my dog did. She heard of them, of
course ; saw some of the later ones at Ranelagh
and the Wells ; very likely won francs at piquet
from poor Brummel, when he was in decadence at
Caen, to put him in mind of the palmy days when
he fleeced Coombe of ponies ; possibly entertained
Talleyrand when he was glad of an English
asylum ; and, of course, would get together Moore,
and Jeffreys, and Tom Erskine, and all the young
fellows ; for a pretty woman and a shrewd woman
can always make men forget she sprang from the
gutter. But as to the others pooh ! she was no
more intimate with them than I; old Fantvre
himself was in far too md odeur^ and left his widow
to live by her wits rather than to figure as a leader
of ton. Here we are : it will all be very comme il
faut I bet you, Chevasney, Lady Fantyre is
afraid of my eye-glass ! '
It was all eomme il faut. De Vigne was sitting
beside the Trefusis, his glowing, passionate eyes
fixed on hers ; while in her face was merely the
GRANVnXB DB VIGNB. 103
look of calm, conscious beauty, gratified at triumph
and exigeant of homage ; a beauty the embodiment
of tyranny; a beauty which would exult in denying
the passion it excited ; a beauty only a tool in the
hands of its possessor, to pioneer a path for her
ambitions, and draw within her reach the prizes
that she coveted.
De Vigne did not look best pleased to see us,
I dare say he would have preferred a t^te-a-tSte
supper with old Lady Fantyre dozing after her
champagne ! Such, however, was denied to him ;
perhaps they knew how to manage him better
than to make his game too easy. Do any of us
care for the tame pheasants knocked over at our
feet in a battue, as we do for an outlying royal that
has led us many hours' weary toil, through burn
and bracken, over rock and furze ? We knock
down the pheasants to swell our bag, and leave
them where they fall, to be picked up after, us ;
but difficulty and excitement warm our blood and
fire our pride, and we think no toil or trouble too
great to hear the ping of the bullet, and see the
deer grallocked at last !
We had a very pleasant supper. Opera-
suppers are always pleasant to my mind; there
is a freedom about them that gives a certain
pointe a la saucCy which it would be better for
104 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
ladies to put down among their items for enter-
tainment, a good deal oftener than they do. There
was plenty of champagne, and, under its genial
influences the Fantyre tongue was loosened, and
Sabretasche amused himself with the old lady's
shrewd wit and not over-particular stories ; a
queer contrast enough himself to the little
snuffy, rouged, and wigged Irish peeress, with his
delicate beauty of feature, and singular refinement
of tone ; while De Vigne, fired by the Parthian
glances which had been so freely bestowed on
him, and the proximity of that superb Trefusis, his
idol at least for the present ^talked with the
wit of which, when he chose, no man on earth
could give out more brilliant corruscations. The
Trefusis never said very much ; hers was chiefly
silent warfare.
* What did you think of the ballet. Colonel?'
asked old Fantyre, peering up into his face. At
seventy-six women are still much kinder to a
handsome man than to a plain one.
* I thought very little of it,' answered Sabre-
tasche. ^ Coralie has no grace ; boys make a fuss
with her because she happens to be pretty, but as
for her dancing faugh ! scores of Castilian girls
I have seen doing the fandango, under the village
chesuut-trees, would beat her hollow.'
GRANYILLE DB VIGNB. 106
* Glorious dance that Ibndango is ! ' said De
Vigne. * I have danced the fandango ; no more
able to help myself when the girl and the casta-
nets began, than the holy cardinals, who, when
they came to Madrid to excommunicate the
cachucha, ended by joining in it ! Like the rest
of us, I suppose, they found forbidding a thing to
other people, very easy and pleasant, but going
without it themselves rather more difficult.'
* You never go without a thing you Hke, do
you ? ' asked the Trefusis.
* Certainly not. Why should I ? '
* I don't know ; only ^boys who have revelled
in Bath buns, sometimes rue it, when they realize
Chromate of lead.'
* Oh ! as for that,' laughed De Vigne, * the
moralists make out that a sort of Chromate of lead
follows, as natural sequence, any Bath buns one
may fancy to eat. I don't see it myself.'
* Your best Bath buns are women, De Vigne ? '
said Lady Fantyre, with her silent chuckle, * and
you'll be uncommonly lucky, my dear, if you don't
find some Chromate of lead, as you call it, after
one or two of them.'
* He will, indeed,' smiled Sabretasche. ' Ladies
are the exact antipodes of olives : the one begins
in salt, and leaves us blessed with a delicious rose
106 " HELD IN BONDAGE f OR,
aroma ; the other, with all due deference, is nectar
to commence with, but how soon, through our
fault entirely, of course, they turn into very gall ! *
Lady Fantyre chuckled again ; she was a wise
old woman, in her way, and enjoyed nothing more
than a hit at her own sex. To be sure, she was
leaving the field very fast, and perhaps grudged
the new combatants her cast-off weapons.
* True enough, Colonel ; yet, if one may believe
naughty stories, the flavour's been one uncommonly
to your taste ? *
Sabretasche shrugged his shoulders.
* My dear lady, can one put aside the Falemian
because there will be some amari aliquid at the
bottom of the glass ? Nobody loved the sex
better than Mahomet, yet he learned enough
from his fevourite almond eyes to create his heaven
without women ! '
* What a heathen you are, Sabretasche ! ' cried
De Vigne. * If I were Miss Trefusis, I wouldn't
speak to you ! '
* My dear fellow, I could support it ! ' said
Sabretasche, naively, with such delicious Brum-
melian impudence that I believe Lady Fantyre
could have kissed him a favour for which the
Colonel would have been anything but grateful.
The Trefusis's eyes glared; De Vigne, sitting
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 107
next her, did not catch their expression, or I
think, though he might be getting mad about her,
he would not have taken the trouble he did, to
look so tenderly at her, and whisper, * If he could
bear it, / could not/
* Yes, you could,' said the Trefusis, through her
pearly teeth. * You would make me the occasion
for an epigram on female caprice, and go and pay
the same compliments to Lady Hautton or Coralie
the danseuse. I never knew the man who could
not support, with most philosophic indifference,
the cruelty of one woman if he had another to
turn to ! ^provided indeed she had not left him for
some one else, when, perhaps, his pride might be
a little piqued.'
De Vigne smiled; he was pleased to see her
annoyed.
* Well ! we are philosophic in self-defence,
probably; but you are mistaken in thinking so
lightly of the wounds you give : and I am sorry
you should be so, for you will be more likely to
refuse to what you fancy a mere scratch, the heal-
ing touch that you might, perhaps, be persuaded
to accord if you were more fully aware of the
harm you bad done.'
Sabretasche interrupted him.
* Talking of wounds, De Vigne ? My dear
108 "held m BONDAGE;" OK,
fellow, who gets them now ? (This vanille cream
is excellent, Lady Fantyre. VaniUe is a very
favourite flavour of mine.) The surest way of
wounding, if such a thing be possible when the
softest little ingenue wears a chain-armour of
practical egotism, is to keep invulnerable your-
self. Miss Trefusis teaches us that.'
* Curse the fellow ! * muttered De Vigne.
He liked Sabretasche cordially, but he could
have kicked him at that moment with an intense
degree of pleasure !
*You know the world, Colonel,' smiled old
Fantyre. ^ I like men who do : they amuse one.
When one's been behind the scenes oneself, those
poor silly fools who sit in front of the stage, and
believe in Talma s strut and Siddons's tears, in
the rouge and the paint, and the tinsel and the
trap-doors, do tire one so ! You talk of your
ingSnues; I'm sure they're the most stupid lot
possible ! '
* Except when they're ingenues de Saint L6^
laughed De Vigne.
* Which most of them are,' said the Fantyre.
*Take my word for it, my dear, if you find a
woman extra simple, sweet, and prudish, you will
be no match for her ! Sherry's a very pleasant,
light, innocent sort of wine, but strychnine's
GRANVILLB DB VIGNE. 109
sometimes given in it, you knbw^ for all that;
and if a girl cast her eyes down more timidly than
usual^ you may be pretty sure those eyes have
looked on queerer scenes than you fiEincy.'
* To be sure,' said De Vigne. * I would a good
deal sooner have to deal with an Athenais de
Mortemar, than with a Fraufoise d'Aubigne. I
should be on my guard against the wicked little
Montespan, but I should be no match for Sainte
Maintenon. " (Test trcp contre un mari " (or un
amant) '^ d^itre coquette et devote : unefemme devrcdt
opterr
"Then when you marry, you will take your
wife out of a guinguette rather than a convent?'
asked the old lady, with a comical smile.
The Trefusis shot a keen, rapid, hard glance at
him, as he laughed, ^ Come, come. Lady Fantyre,
is there no medium ? '
^ Between prudes and Aspasias V said her shrill
little treble. * No, sir ^not that I ever saw ^and
even, les extremes se toucheni, you know.'
' Hush ! hush ! ' cried Sabretasche, ^ you will
corrupt me. Lady Fantyre ^positively you will
you will make me think shockingly of all my
kind, soft-voiced, soft-skinned friends ! '
^Somebody has made you think as badly of
women as you can,' said the sharp old woman.
110 "held in bondage;" or,
*NotI! What do you think of that Moselle,
De Vigne ? '
He thought it good, but not so good as the
Trefiisis, who acted out the song, ^ Drink to me
with thine eyes,' in a manner eminently calculated
to intoxicate him more, than all the wine ever
pressed from Rhenish vineyards. And when she
took a little dainty cigarette between her lips, and
leant back on her favourite rose couch, laughing
at the Fantyre scandals, and flashing on De Vigne
her brightest glances; even Sabretasche and I,
who were set against her by that most dogged
thing, a prejudice, could not deny that a finer
woman had never worried a man's peace of mind
out of him, or sent him headlong into follies which
shut out all chance of a fairer future or a wiser
path.
' Come in and smoke a pipe, Arthur,' said De
Vigne, when we had at length left the [Fantyre
petit souper^ and Sabretasche had gone to his lans-
quenet at HoUirigsworth's. ' Tisn't worth while
going anywhere else to-night ; it's three now. I
have some splendid Glenlivet (how naturally one
offers a Cantab something to drink ! as naturally
as to a cabman, I declare), and I shall like a chat
with you. Hallo! where's my number. Con-
found it ! why do they build town-houses all alike,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. Ill
that one can't know one's own by a particular
mark, as the mother in the novels always knows
her stolen child ? Symmetry ? Oh ! that's like
Sabretasche. One wants symmetry in a racer, I
allow, but in one's lodging-house I could put up
without it, rather than pull up Vivandi^re on
her haunches twice for nothing. Where's my
latch-key ? Right on, up the stairs ; I'll follow
you. By George! who's that smoking in my
rooms ? It can't be Harris, because I gave him
leave.to go to Cremome, and not come home till
morning, in time to fill my bath. It is tobacco,
Arthur. What a devilish impertinence !'
He pushed open the door. On De Vigne's pet
sofa, with a French novel in his hand, and a meer-
schaum in his lips, lay lazy, girlish-looking, light-
hearted * Little Curly.'
* Curly ! ' cried De Vigne. * By Jove, how
delighted I am ! Curly ! Where, in Heaven's
name, did you spring from, my boy ? '
*I sprang from nowhere,' responded Curly,
taking his pipe out of his mouth. ' I've given up
gymnastics, they're too fatiguing. I drove down
from Claridge's, in a cab that privately informed
me it had just taken six cases of scarlet fever, and
three of small-pox, to the hospitals ; I found you
were out of course I knew you would be ^and
112 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
with the philosophy which always characterizes my
slightest movements, took Le Bran, found out a
pipe (how well you brown yours, by the way), and
made myself jolly/
* Quite right,' Tesponded De Vigne, who was a
perfect Arab for hospitality. * Delighted to see
you. We're quite a Frestonhills reunion. What
a pity the Doctor is Hot here, and dear Arabella !
But I sayy Curly, have you got quit of Granta,
like this direputable fellow, or are you only run
up on leave, or how is it?' .
* Don't you remember my degree was given me
this year because I am a Peer's son ? ' asked Curly,
reprovingly. ' See what it is to be a Goth, with-
out a classical education ! You should have gone
to Granta, De Vigne, you'd have been Stroke of
the Cambridge Eight, not a doubt of it. There's
muscle gone to waste ! It's very jolly, you see,
being an Honourable, though I never knew it ;
one gets credit for brains whether one has them
or not. What an inestimable blessing to some of
the pillars of the aristocracy, isn't it ? I suppose
the House of Lords was instituted on that prin-
ciple ; and its members are no more required to
know why they pass their bills, than we, their sons
and heirs, are required to know why we pass our
examinations^ eh ? '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 113
* And what are you going to do with yourself
now?' put in De Vigne. *For the present you'll
keep on that sofa, and make yourself whisky-toddy;
but aprhV
* Aprls f Well, the governor wanted me to go
in for diplomacy, but I wasn't up to it lies are
not my specialty, they're too much trouble ; so I
demonstrated to him that it was clearly my mission
to drink brandy, distract women, run into debt,
curse parade, turn out on show days, move from
Windsor to Knightsbridge and back, and otherwise
enjoy life, and swear at ennui with you fellows in
the Queen's. His mind was not open to it at
first, but I soon improved his limited vision, and
my name's now down at the Horse Guards, where,
after a little neat jobbery, I dare say the thing'll
soon be done.'
* Your governor manageable ? ' said I.
Curly yawned, and opened his blue eyes a little
wider.
*0f course; I should cut him if he wasn't.
You see he's a snob (I wanted him to put on his
carriage-panel
" Who'd have thought it ?
Cotton bought it I "
but he declined), and my mother s a Dorset ; gave
her title for his yellows. Now my brother Gus,
VOL. L I
114 "held IK BONDAGE;'' OR,
poor devil ! is the regular parvenu breed : short,
thick, red whiskers, snub nose, and all the rest of
it ; while I, as you see, gentlemen,' said Curly,
glancing at himself with calm, complacent vanity,
* am a remarkably good-looking fellow, eminently
presentable and creditable to my progenitors : a
second Spurina, and a regular Dorset. Therefore,
the governor hates Gus (sneaky I consider it,
as it is through his remarkable likeness to him
that Gus is fit to frighten his looking-glass), but
adores me^ and lets me twist him round this little
finger of mine, voyez-vous f '
* And how's Julia ? ' asked De Vigne.
Curly looked as savage as he could look.
* Julia? Confound her! how should I know?
She's been and hooked some old boy or other, I
believe, poor devil ! '
' Who's the poor devil ? ' laughed De Vigne ;
*the man for being caught, or you for being
deserted ? Take comfort, Curly ; there never was
a man jilted yet who didn't return thanks for it
twelve months after. When I was twenty, and
went over to Canada for six weeks' buffalo-hunt-
ing, 1 fell mad in love with a great Toronto
beauty, a sheriflTs widow. Such ankles she had,
and didn't she show them on the Ontario! It
was really one of the most serious affairs I ever
GItANVILLE BE VIGNE. ' 115
had, and she flirted me into a downright proposal.
The most wide-awake man, is a donkey when he
is young. But who should come on the scene
just then but a rich old iur-merchant, with no end
of dollars, and a tremendous house at New York ;
and my little widow, thinking I was very young,
and knowing nothing whatever of Vigne and its
belongings, quietly threw me over, forswore all
the pretty things we'd said to one another in
sledging and skating, and went to live among the
Brosidway belles. I swore and suffered horribly ;
she turned the pampas into swamps, and absolutely
made me utterly indifferent to bison I lived on
pipes and soda-water for a week, and recovered.
But when I ran over to America last winter to
see Egerton of the Rifles, I met in Quebec a
dreadful woman, ten stone at the least, in a bright
green dress, with blue things in her hair, and
rubies for her jewels, her skin as yellow as gold,
and as wrinkled as the Fantyre's ; and / might have
married tbat woman, with her shocking broad
English, and her atrocious "Do tell!*' What
fervent thanks I returned for the fur-merchant's
creation and my own preservation ! So will you.
Curly, when, ten years hence, you happen to drop
in at the Snoozeinrest Rectory, and find Julia as
stiff as her brown-paper tracts, and as vinegar as
i2
116 "held m bondage;'* or,
the moral lessons she gives her parishioners, re-
stricting her pastor and master to three glasses,
and making your existence miserable at dessert
by the entrance of four or five brats with shrill
voices and monkey propensities, who make you
look at them and their mother with a thrill of the
deepest rapture, rejoicing that, thank Heaven, you
are not a family man ! '
De Vigne spoke the truth. Why the deuce
did not he remember that his passion for the
Trefiisis might be quite as utterly misplaced as
his fancy for the Toronto widow, or the Cantab's
flirtation with Miss Julia ? But, ah me ! if the
truth were always in our minds, or the future
always plain before us, should we make the fifty
false steps that the wisest man amongst us is cer-
tain to rue before half his sands are run ? If they
knew that before night was down the sea-foam
would be whirling high, and the curlews screaming
in human fear, and the gay little boat lying keel
upwards on the salt ocean surf, would the plea-
sure-party set out so fearlessly in the morning
sunshine, with champagne flowing and bright eyes
glancing, and joyous laughter ringing over the
golden sands and up to the fleecv heavens ?
GRANVILLE DE VIGNK. 117
CHAPTER V.
WHAT WAS UNDER THE CARDS.
That night, after we were gone, old Fantyre sat with
her feet on the fender of her dressing-room, sans
wig, teeth, rouge, cosmetique, velvet, or lace ; and
an uncommonly hideous old woman she must have
looked in that guise, I am certain, though, thank
Heaven ! I cannot speak to the fact from ocular
observation. The Trefiisis sat there, too, looking
all the handsomer for dishabille, in a cerise-
hued peignoir and fiir slippers, and her thick long
raven hair unbraided, and hanging to her waist.
' My dear,' began the Fantyre, * do you think
you hold the trumps in that game you're
playing? '
*CertainlyIdo. Why?'
* Beause Fm not so sure. You're playing fast
and loose with De Vigne, and that don't always
succeed. Brummel said to me, " If we pique a
woman, she is ours." That's true enough with us,
because we're such fools ; nine times out of ten a
118 **HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
woman don't care a rush for a man who's dying
at her feet; while she's crazy about some ugly
brute, who takes no more notice of her, than he
does of his dirty boots. Women love to go to
heel, and they'll crawl after a man who double-
thongs them, in preference to one who lets them
rule him. Besides, z^7^'re jealous; we hate one
another like poison from our cradles; and if a man
neglects us we fancy he likes somebody else, and,
of course, that's quite enough to make us want to
trap him away from her, whoever she be ! But
with men sometimes it's a dangerous game.
They're the most impatient creatures in creation,
and if one trout won't rise to the fly, they go off
and whip another stream. All fish are alike pretty
well to 'em, so that they fill their basket. Men's
aim is Pleasure, and if you don't give it to 'em
they will go somewhere else for it.'
' True enough,' said the Trefiisis ; * but, at the
same time, to a good many men Difficulty is
everything. Men of hot passion and strong will
delight in pursuit, and soon grow tired of victory.
They enjoy knocking the bird over ; that done, it
loses all interest for them. De Vigne is such a
man : rouse his pride, you win him yield easily,
and you miss him.'
' Maybe, my dear maybe ! You know him
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. ' ll9
better than I do, and must manage him as you
choose. I dare say he does like climbing over
spikes and chevaux-de-frise to get \vhat he
fencies; he's the stamp of creature that's never
happy out of excitement or danger, and Mon-
taigne thinks like you : ^ EUes rums hattent mieux
en fuyant, camme les Scythesr How racy his old
French is ! I wish I had known that man ! I
say, those two friends of his, shouldn't be with
him too much, for they don't like us : that boy
Chevasney '
* Boy, indeed ! ' echoed the Trefusis.
' But De Vigne is fond of him ? '
* I believe so ; but De Vigne is never influenced
by anybody.'
' I hope he may not be, except by you, and that
won't be to his advantage, poor fellow ! He's a
very handsome pigeon, my dear a very hand-
some one, indeed ! ' chuckled the old lady. * But
the other one is more dangerous than Chevasney ;
I mean that beautiful creature what's his name ?
Vivian Sabretasche. He don't think much
about us, I dare say ; but he don't like us. He
sees through' us, my dear, and, ten to one, he'll
put De Vigne on his guard.'
' De Vigne listens to nobody who comes be-
tween him and his passion of the moment ; and
120 "held in bondage; or,
how is it possible that Sabretasche should see
through us, as you term it ? '
' Not all our hand, my dear, but one or two
cards. That calm nonchalant way of his conceals
a wonderful deal of keen observation ^too keen
for us. Vivian Sabretasche is very witty and
very careless, and the world tells very light stories
of him ; but he's a man that not Satan himself
could deceive.*
* Well, nobody wants to deceive him.'
' Don't you want to marry his friend ? '
* Enough of that, Lady Fantyre ! I will neither
be lectured nor schooled. You agreed to help
me, but you agreed, too, to let me succeed in my
own way. I tell you, I know how to manage
him, and that before this year is out, in spite of
Chevasney, Sabretasche, or anybody ^yes, in spite
of himself I shall be Granville de Vigne's
wife!'
' I wish you may, my dear,' said the Fantyre,
with another chuckle. *Well, don't talk to me
any more, child. Get Le Brun, will you, and
read me to sleep.'
GBANVILLE DE VIGNE. 121
CHAPTER VI.
A DOUBLED-DOWN PAGE IN THE COLONEL'S BOOK
OP LIFE.
What a pace one lives at through the season!
And, when one is fresh to it, before one knows
that its pleasant, frothy^ syllabub surface is
only a cover to intrigues, petty spites, jea^
lousies, partisanships, manoeuvres ; alike in St.
Stephens as at Almack's; among uncompro-
mising patriots as among poor foreigners farm-
ing private banks round about St. James's
Street; among portly aristocratic mothers, trot-
ting out their innocent daughters to the market,
as among the gauze-winged, tinselled, hard-
worked deities of the coulisses ; how agreeable it
is ! Illusion in one's first season lasts, I think,
about the space of one month. With its blissful
bandeau over our eyes, we really do admire the
belles of the Ring and the Ride ; we go to balls
to dance, and to dinners for society. We swallow
larks for ortolans, and Cremorne gooseberry for
Clicquot's. We believe in the innocent demoiselles.
122 "held in bondage;" or,
who look so naive, and such sweet English rose-
buds at morning fetes, and do not dream those
glossy braids cover empty, but world-shrewd little
heads, ever plotting how to eclipse dearest Cecilia
or win old Hauton's coronet; we accept their
mamma's invitations, and think how kindly they
are given, not knowing that we are only asked
because we bring Shako of the Guards with us,
who is our bosom chum, and has fifteen thousand
a . year, and that, Shako fiedrly hooked, we, being
younger sons, shall be gently dropped. We go
to the Lords and Commons, and believe A. when
he says he has the deepest admiration for his
noble friend B., whom he hates like poison ; and
we reverence D. when he pleads for the liberty
of *the people,' whom over his claret he classi-
fies as beastly snobs.' We regard the coulisses
with delight, as a temple whose Eleusinia it is
high honour to penetrate, and fall veritably in
love with all those fair nymphs fluttering their
spirit veils as Willis's, or clanking their spurs as
Mazurka maidens.
That delightful state of faith lasts about a
month, then we discard the bandeau, and use
an eye-glass instead; learn to confine ourselves
to * Not bad-looking ' before the handsomest
woman in the Park; find out that dinners are
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 123
a gathering to consume hock and turbot, but
not by any means bound to furnish society ; pro-
nounce balls a bore, and grow critical of Meets.
We are careful of the English rosebuds, knowing
that, kept out of view, those innocent petals have
thorns, which they know well how to thrust out
and dexterously impale us on them. We take
mamma's invitations at their worth, and watch
the dragons' teeth opening for that luckless Shako,
with grim terror of a similar fate ; we laugh over
rum-punch with a chum of ours, a whip in the
Commons, who lets us into a thing or two con-
cerning the grandiose jobbery of Downing Street ;
and find out that coulisses atmosphere, however
agreeable, is no exclusive boon ; that its sesame
is a bracelet to the first dancer, who, though she
may take a Duke's brougham, is not insensible
to even a Cornet's tribute, if it come from Hunt
and Koskill, and we give less love and more
Cremorne lobster-salad to the Willis and Mazurka
maidens !
Such, at least, was my case ; and when I was
fairly in the saddle and off at a pace, like a
Doncaster favourite's, through my first season,
enjoyed it considerably, even when the bandeau
was off my eyes, which, thanks to De Vigne and
Sabretasche, took place very speedily.
124 "held in bondage;" or,
Of De Vigne I did not see so much as if no
Trefiisis had been in being, for he was constantly
after her, going with her to morning concerts, or
Richmond luncheons; riding with her ip the
Park; lending her a horse, too, for that showy
bay of hers had come out of Bruton Mews, and
no livery-stable mount is fit for any mortal, much
less for a female ; attending her everywhere, but
not as yet ^compromising' himself, as, according
to the peculiar code of honour in such cases, we
may give a girl a bracelet with impunity to our-
selves; but are lost if we hazard a diamond
circlet for her * third finger ; ' That comes rather
hard on those poor women, by the way; for
Lovelace may talk, and look, and make love, in
every possible style ; yet, if he stop short of the
* essential question,' Lovelace may go scot free !
We remark what a devil of a girl it is to
flirt; and her sworn allies, who have expressed
sympathy to her in crossed notes of the fondest
pathos, agree among themselves *How conceited
poor Laura is to fancy Lovelace covM be serious !
Why, dear, all that means nothing ; only Laura,
poor thing! has had so little attention, she
doesn't know what it is. If she had had a man
mad about her, as you and I have had, love ah !
do you remember poor Frank Cavendish at the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 125
race ball ? ' Whereon the sworn allies scent their
vinaigrettes^ indulging pleasurable recollections;
and Lovelace burns Laura's lock of hair which
he asked for, under the limes in the moonlight ;
thinks * How deucedly near I was ! must be more
careful next time/ and wonders what sort of girls
he shall find at Brighton.
De Vigne, however, as long as he would not
come well up to hand, received no flirting kind-
nesses from the Trefusis not even so much as
a note to thank him for his concert-tickets, or
a flower from the very bouquet he had sent her.
Perhaps she knew by clairvoyance, that her Cam-
bridge azalea had gone ignominiously into the
grate; for she tried on that style no more, but was
coy and reserved, as if Hannah More had been
her chaperone instead of old Sarah, Lady Fantyre.
This worried, excited, and roused De Vigne, and
I saw, without needing much penetration, that he
was drinking deeper and deeper of a stimulant
which he never refused when it was fairly to his
lips, and which brings worse follies and wilder
deeds, and more resistless madness to men than
lie in the worst insanities of del. trem.^ or the
dreams of a thousand grains of opium ! Sabre-
tasche and I used to swear at the power of the
Trefusis, and lament De Vigne's infatuation toge-
126 ' "held in bondage;" or,
ther ; but we could do nothing to weaken either :
opposition to a man in love is like oil to fire !
Sabretasche was remarkably kind to me; he
introduced me in his set, one of the most intel-
lectual in town ; he admitted me to his charming
dinners ; and he let me into his studio, the most
luxurious miniature art-palace possible, where,
when employed on his marble or on his canvas,
no one was ever allowed to disturb him. Sabre-
tasche knew to perfection the great art, * How
to live,* and he had every facility for enjoying
life: riches, refined taste, art, intellect; men
who sought him, women who courted him, a
figtcile wit, a sweet temper; yet, somehow or
other, you could trace in him a certain shadow,
often dissipated, it is true, in the sunshine of his
gay words, and the music of his laugh ; but cer-
tain to creep over him again an intangible
shade of disappointment Perhaps he had ex-
hausted life too early ; perhaps his excessive re-
finement was jarred by the very pleasures he
sought; perhaps the classic mould of his mind
was not, after all, satisfied with the sedatives he
gave it : however, as for speculating on Sabre-
tasche, all town pretty well did that, more or less,
but nobody in town was ever any the wiser for it.
One morning I was going to breakfast with him; his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 127
nominal breakfast-hour was noon; though I be-
lieve he often rose very much earlier, took a
cup of coffee, and chipped, or read, or painted
in his studio. I took my way across the Gar-
dens to Sabretasche's house, which was at the
upper end of Park Lane, taking that dStour for
motives of my own. Gwendolina Brandling,
Curly 's eldest sister, an exquisite nymph of
eighteen, with cripS hair, had confided to me the
previous day, over strawberry-ice, at a f&te at
Twickenham, that she was in the habit of accom-
panying her little sisters in their morning walk
with their governess, to * put her in mind of the
country,' and the Hon, Owen being a fresh,
honest-hearted, and exceedingly nice-looking girl,
I took my way through the Grardens about eleven,
looking out for Curly 's sister among the pretty
nursemaids, ugly children, and abominable ankle-
breaking, dress-tearing perambulators which filled
the walks. There was no Hon. Gwen at present ;
and I threw myself down under one of the trees,
put my eye-glass in my eye, and took out that
day's * Punch ' to while away the time till Gwen
and her attendants might come in sight.
Suddenly a voice fell on my ear, speaking
coarsely and jocosely in Italian, * Come, signer, why
M aste time about it ? You know that your secret
128 "held in bondage;" or,
is worth more than I ask. You know you would
give half your riches to make sure it would never
be known by anybody, to efface it altogether eh,
excellenza ? Come ! I ask a very low price ; not
worth jangling about ; no more to you than a few
sciuli to me. Why waste time? You know I
can bring proofs over in twenty-four hours, and
then the show-up '
*Take it, and begone with you !'
Ye gods ! that last voice, cold, contemptuous,
fuli of disgust and wrath, I recognized as Sabre-
tasehe's ! Involuntarily I turned to look ; and saw
the most fastidious and the proudest man in town,
in company with a shabbily, showily-dressed fellow,
with rings on his fingers and a vulgar, insolent
ikce, which wore at that minute an abominably
insulting smile^ as the Colonel shoved a roll of
bank-notes into his hand, loathing and impatience
quivering over his own features. The man laughed
^a laugh as impudent as his smile :
* Thank you, signer, a thousand thanks. I won't
trouble you again till I'm again in difficulties.'
Sabretasche gave him no answer, but turning
his back upon the man, folded his arms upon his
chest, and walked away across the Gardens, with
his head bent down, while the fellow counted the
notes with glistening, triumphant eyes, crushed
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 129
them up as if he loved their crisp new rustle,
stroked his beard, whistled an air from * Figaro,'
and strolled on towards the gate ; leaving me in a
state of profound amazement at the vulgar ac-
quaintance the Colonel had selected, and the
secret, by which this underbred foreigner seemed
able to hold in check, so profound a man of the
world as Sabretasche.
Just at that minute, Gwen and her duenna
appeared in the distance; and I went to meet
them, and talked of Grisi and Mario, of Balfe's
new song, and Sims Reeve's last concert, with the
hundred topics current in the season, while the
little ones ran about, and the French governess
chatted and laughed, and Gwen smiled and looked
like a sunbeam, and told me about her ponies and
dogs and flowers down in Hampshire. Poor Gwen !
She is Madame la Duchesse de La Vieillecour now,
not over happy, I fear, despite the diamonds I saw
flashing on her brow and neck last night at the
Tuileries. In the gorgeous glories of her Champs
Elysees hotel, in the light beauty of her summer
villa at Enghien, in the gloomy state and magni-
ficence of her chateau in the Cote d'Or, whose mas-
sive iron gates close like a death-knell, does she ever
think, I wonder, of those spring mornings in the
Gardens when she was in her spring-time too ?
VOL. L K
130 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
It was just twelve when I reached the Coloners
house. I was shown straight to his own room;
and there he lay on one of the couches, calm, cool,
imperturbable as ever, not a trace visible of his
past excitement and irritation, very unlike a man
with a secret hanging over his head and darkening
his life ! He stretched out his hand with a kind
smile :
* Well, Arthur. Good morning to you. You
are just in time for the match ; Du Loo has not
been here five minutes.'
Du Loo was a heavy, good-humoured, stupid
fellow in the Blues, who prided himself on his fine
teeth and his boxing, and who was going, at half-
past twelve, to have a little play with Fighting
Chatney, one of the Fancy, who let himself out to
beat gentlemen, in order that gentlemen might
learn to beat.
On the carpet at Sabretasche*s feet lay a great
retriever, the one thing in the whole world for which
he cared, chiefly, I believe, because, when a stray
pup, it had trusted itself to bis kindness.
* Poor old Cid ! ' said he, pausing in his break-
fast to set the dog down some larded guinea-fowl.
* I spoil him for sport, you say? Perhaps; but I
don't want him for sport, and I make his life
comfortable. I see in liim one thing in this Via
, GftANVILLB DB VIGNB. 131
Dolordsa; that is perffectly content aiid happy; and
it is a tre$t to see it. Oid and I are fast friends ;
and we love one another^ don't we, old boy ? '
Th0 Cid looked up at him with two honest,
tender bro\tn eyes, and wagged hi6 tail : Sabre-
tasche had talked to him till, I believe, the dog
undefi^tobd him, quite as well as I did.
* There ate lots of women, Colonel,' said Du
Locf, * who'd bid high for the words you throw
away on that dog ! '
' Possibly. Biit are any of them as faithful, and
honest, and worthy, as my Cid ? The Cid would
like broken bonei^ and a bam with me, as well as
French cookery and velvet cushions. I'm sorry I
couldn't say as much for my fair ladies, Du Loo.'
' The devil ! no,' ykwnfed the Guiardsifian. *Catch
a woman giving up her opera-box, and her mil-
liner. Whyj the other night I saw NeUy Lac-
quers, the British Beggars' BaEnk man's wife, got
up no end at the Silverton drum, laughing and
talking, waltzing, and carrying pearb worth two
thousand ; and, by George ! if there isn't h war-
rant ott against her husband this morning fo!r
swindling! Mustn't she be a horrid, heartless,
little bit of flippery?'
*It doesn't follow,' said Sabi^tasche. *Most
likely he sent her there to disarm suspicion, while
k2
132 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
he shipped off his specie to France or America, and
got his passport to Calais. I never judge people ;
seemingly bad actions may have good motives,
good ones may spring from base and selfish ends.
" Judge not, lest ye be judged.*' When will the
world take that gentle injunction to heart ? Never !
It loves to quote " An eye for an eye," and " Depart
from me, ye accursed ; " but it is oblivious of the
" Mote and the beam," and of " He that is without
sin among you, let him cast a stone at her ! " If
a man break his own leg, he thinks it a " sad ac-
cident," a " great affliction ; " if he see his friend
break his, he has no hesitation in pronouncing it
"a judgment."'
Du Loo stared at him.
* What the deuce. Colonel ! ycm turning ser-
monizer ? '
' No, my dear fellow, I have enough conscience
left not to preach before practising ; though truly
if that were the rule in the land, few pulpits would
be filled ! But I have one virtue ^tolerance; there-
fore I may preach that. There is your friend.
Fighting Chatney. Now for your seventh heaven,
Du Loo!'
* And yours too ? '
*Mine? No! there is a degree of absurdity in two
mortals setting solemnly to work to pommel one
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 133
another ; there is something unpoetic, and coarse,
and savage, about blood and bruises; and, besides,
it is so much exertion ! However, go at it ; it
is for Arthur's delectation, and I can go into my
studio if I'm tired,'
Du Loo and his pet of the Fancy retired to the
far end of the room, and there set-to, delivering
from the left shoulder, and drinking as much beer
between their rounds as a couple of draymen. As
the match had been arranged for my express plea-
sure, of course I watched it with the deepest in-
terest, though Sabretaschfe's remarks for once gave
the noble art a certain degree of ludicrousness, min-
gled with the admiration with which I had been
accustomed to regard such * little mills.' Du Loo
finally floored the bruiser, to his own extreme
glorification, while the Pet very generously growled
out to him that he might be as great a man as the
Tipton Slasher, if he would but train himself pro-
perly. Du Loo left, and Sabretasche asked me to
stay ten minutes, to let him finish a picture which
he had been amusing himself by taking of me, in
crayons ; a portrait, by the way, which is a far
better one than any I have ever had done by R.A.s,
and which my mother still cherishes devotedly at
Longholme.
* What a strange fellow Du Loo is,' said the
134 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
Colonel, ' or, rather, what a common one ! The
man's greatest delight is a Moulsey mill, and his
ambitions are locked up in the brutalities of the
Ring, Of any higher world he is utterly ignorant.
Talk to him of art and genius, you might as well
discourse to him in Hebrew ! Take him out under
the summer stars, he would look bored, yawn, and
ask for his cigar. Positively, Arthur, he makes
one feel one's link to the animals mortif jing close.
In truth, the distance between the zoophytes and
man, is not wider than the gulf between a Goethe
and a prize-fighter, is it?* It is proportion of brain
which makes the master superior to his dog;
should it not make as distinct a mark, between
the clod of the valley, and the cultured scholar ?
But why am I talking all this nonsense to
you? You have more amusing occupation than
to listen to my fancies. Turn a little nearer
the light. That is it ! Have you seen De Vigne
to-day ? '
* No ; he was gone to Albert Smith's with the
Trefusis and Fantyre, confound them ! Do you
think she will win, Colonel ? '
* My dear boy, how can I tell, I think she
will if she can. " Donne gentile devote d' amove "
generally manage to marry a man if they have full
play with him. If De Vigne only saw her in
ORANVnXE DE VIGNB. 135
morning calls, v^hen his head was cool, and others
were with him, possihly he might keep Mit of it ;
hut she waltzes with him she waltzes remarkably
well, too she shoots Parthian glances at him in
the Ute-^'tite of conservatories, after the mees
champagne ; moreover, ten to one, in some of
those soft moments, he will say more than, being
a man of honour, he can unsay.'
* And be cursed for life ! '
* Possibly. Love does that for a good many,
and in the fantasy of eariy passion many mea
have surrendered their entire lives to one who
has made them a blank ! Troublesome eyes
yours are, Arthur ; I can't make out their colour.
What present will you give Mrs. de Vigne on her
wedding-day ? '
* Confound her, none ! * I shouted. * He's a
vast deal too good for fifty such as she a cold,
calculating, ambitious, loveless intriguer '
* One would think you were in love with her
yourself, Chevasney! Let me catch that terri-
fic expression^ it would do for a Jupiter To-
nans.'
* And she is so wretchedly clever ! ' I groaned.
* In artifice ! yes ; by education ! no. Her
knowledge is utterly superficial. I cannot ima-
gine where she has lived. She speaks shockingly
136 "HELD m bondage;" or,
ungrammatical French, with a most atrocious
English accent;' she neither plays nor sings. Yet
she waltzes, rides, and dresses splendidly, and has
a shrewd, sharp sarcasm, which passes muster as
wit among her admirers. In fact, she is a para-
dox ; and I shall regret nothing more, than to see
De Vigne misled through his senses by her mag-
nificent beauty, stooping to tie himself for life
to a woman with whom he will have nothing in
common, who will have neither feeling to satisfy
his heart, nor mind to satisfy his intellect, and
with whom I would bet great odds a week after
the honeymoon he will be disgusted.'
* Can't you persuade him ? ' I began. He
stopped me with an expressve gesture ; he had
much of the Italian gesticulation.
* Persuade ? Bon gargon ! if you want to
force a man into any marriage, persuade him
against it! No one should touch love affairs.
Third persons are certain to barbotter the whole
thing. The more undesirable the connection, and
the more you interfere, the more surely will the
" subject " grow obstinate as a mule under your
treatment. Call a person names to anybody over
whom she has cast a glamour, and if he have any-
thing of the gentleman, or the lover, in him, out of
sheer amour propre, and a sort of wrong-headed,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 137
right-hearted chivalry, he will swear to you she is
an angel/
* And believe it, perhaps.*
* Most likely, until she is his wife ! There is a
peculiar magic in that gold circlet, badge of servi-
tude for life, which changes the sweetest, gentlest,
tenderest betrothed into the stiffest of domestic
tyrants. Don't you know that, when she's en-
gaged to him, she is so pretty and pleasant with
his men friends, passes over the naughty stories
she hears of him from "well-intentioned" ad-
visers, and pats the new mare that is to be
entered for the Chester Cup ? But twelve months
after, his chums have the cold shoulder and the
worst wine ; and she gives him fifty curtain ora-
tions on his disgraceful conduct, while he wonders
if the peevish woman who comes down an hour
too late for breakfast, can by any possibility be
identical with the smiling young lady who poured
his coffee out for him, with such dainty fingers,
and pleasant words, when he stayed down at her
papa's for the shooting.'
I laughed. * Don't ever get married yourself.
Colonel, for the sake of Heaven, women, and con-
sistency ! '
He smiled, too, as he answered :
' " A young man married is a man that's
138 "HELD m BONDAGE;" OR,
marred." ' That's a golden rule, Arthur ; take it
to heart. Anne Hathaway, I have not a doubt,
suggested it; experience is the sole abestos,
only unluckily one seldom gets it before one's
hands are burnt irrevocably. Shakspeare took to
wife the ignorant, rosy-cheeked, Warwickshire
peasant girl, at eighteen 1 Poor fellow ! I picture
him, with all his untried powers, struggling like
new-bom Hercules Ibr strength and utterance,
and the great germ of poetry within him, ting-
ing all the common realities of life with its rose
hue ; genius giving him power to see with God-
like vision, the '^ fairies nestling in the cowslip
chalices," and the golden gleam of Cleopatra's sails ;
to feel the " spiced Indian air " by night, and .the
wild working of kings' ambitious lust ; to know
by intuition, alike the voices of nature unheard
by common ears, and the fierce schemes and
passions of a world from which social position
shut him out ! I picture him in his hot imagi-
native youth, finding his first love in the yeoman's
daughter at Shottery, strolling with her by the
Avon, making her an " odorous chaplet of sweet
summer buds," and dressing her up in the fond
array of a boy's poetic imaginings ! Then when
he had married her, he, with the passionate ideals
of Juliets and Violas, Ophelias and Hermiones
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 139
in his brain and heart, must have awoke to find
that the voices so sweet to him, were dumb to her.
The " cinque spotted cowslip-bells " brought only
thoughts of wine to her. When he was watching
"certain stars shoot madly from their spheres,*'
she most likely was grumbling at him for moon-
ing there after curfew-bell. When he was learning
Nature's lore in ** the fresh cup of the crimson
rose/' she was dinning in his ear that Hammet
and Judith wanted worsted socks. When he was
listening in fancy to the ^^ sea-maid's song," and
weaving thoughts to which a world still stands re-
verentially to listen, she was buzzing behind him,
and bidding him go card the wool, and weeping
that, in her girlhood, she had not chosen some
rich glover or ale-taster, instead of idle, useless,
wayward Willie Shakspeare ! Poor fellow ! I can
picture him in his vehement youth and his re-
gretful manhood. He did not write, I would
swear, without fellow-feeling, and yearning, over
souls similarly shipwrecked, that wise saw **A
young man married, is a man that's marred ! " My
dear Arthur, I beg your pardon! I am keeping
you a most unconscionable time, but really your
eyes are very troublesome. I say, some men are
coming here for lansquenet to-night, will you
come too ? and do bring De Vigne if you can.
140 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
One sees nothing of him now, and there are few
so well worth seeing. Au revoivy mon cher. I
have an immense deal of work before me. I am
going to the Yard to bid for Steel Patterson s
cream filly ; then to the Twelfth's mess luncheon ;
next I have an appointment to meet the Go-
dolphin ^all town's talking of that fidr lady, so I
reveal no secret ; and apr^5, I must dress to dine
in Eaton Square, and I much question if any of
them are worth the exertion they will cost me,
except, indeed, the cream filly ! '
Wherewith the Colonel dismissed me. As I
saw him that night when De Vigne and I went
there for the promised lansquenet, courteous, ur-
bane, gay, nonchalant, witty, I saw no trace of any
mysterious secret, nor any lingering touch of the
haughty anger and impatient disgust which he had
shown to his singular companion of the morn-
ing. But then no more did I see, what all the
world said they saw, that Vivian Sabretasche was
a heartless libertine, an unprincipled gambler,
an egotist, a sceptic, a sinner of the deepest dye,
to be condemned immeasurably in boudoir scan-
dals and bishops' dinners, and only to be courted,
and visited, and have his crimes passed over, be-
cause he was rich, and was the fashion.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 141
CHAPTER VII.
THE LITTLE QUEEN OP THE FAIRIES.
' Arthur, who do you think has gone to the dogs
through that rascally British Beggars' Bank ? '
said De Vigne one afternoon, unharnessing himself
after one of the greatest bores in life a field-day
in Hyde Park and talking from his bedroom to
me, as I sat drinking sherry and seltzer, before
going into my rooms in the barracks.
* How should I know, out of half-a-million ! '
' Do you remember old Tressillian, of Weive
Hurst ? *
* Of course. The devil ; you don't mean him V
* I am sorry to say I do ; he has lost every
penny. To think of that scoundrel^ Sir John
Lacquers, flinging Bible texts at your head,
thrusting his charities into your face, going to
church every Sunday as regularly as a verger, and
to morning prayers on a week-day, building his
almshouses, and attending his ragged schools ! And
now he's cut off to Boulogne, vrith a neat surplus.
142 "HELD m BONDAGE;" OR,
I'll be bound, hidden up somewhere ; and widows,
and chUdren, and ruined gentlemen will reap the
harvest he has sown. Bah ! it makes one sick of
humanity ! '
' And is Tressillian one of his victims ? '
* I believe you ! I saw his name on the list
some days ago, and on Monday I met him with
the child that used to be at Weive Hurst
daughter ; no, grand-daughter wasn't she ? '
* Little Alma. Yes. We used to say she'd be
a pretty woman. Well, go on ? '
* I was very pleased to see him. You know I
always liked him exceedingly. I asked him where
he was living : he said, with a smile, " In lodgings,
in Surrey Street; you know I can't aflford
Mam-igy's now : " and I called on him there yes-
terday : such a detestable lodging-house, Arthur !
Brummagem furniture and Irish maids ! He is
just the same simple, courtly old man as ever.
I'm not a susceptible fellow; but, I give you
my honour, it cut me to the heart to see that
gallant old gentleman beggared through that
psalm^inging, pharisaical swindler; and bearing
his reverses like the plucky French noblesse that
my father used to shelter at Vigne after the '89.'
* And has he nothing now ? '
' Nothing. His entire principal was placed in
GRAmriLLE DB VIGNE. 143
Lacquers's hands; Weire Hurst is gone to pay
his creditors, and ote can do nothing to aid him :
he is so dencedly no ! so rightly proud. Come
with me to-day and see him ; we shall drive there
in ten minutes, and we must be doubly attentive
to him now. There will be just time between this
and mes^ if you ring, and tell them to bring the
tilbury round.'
The tilbury soon came round, and the new steel
greys, tandem, set us down in Surrey Street.
One of the Irish maids who had so excited De
Vigne's disgust showed us up-stairs. Tressillian
was not at home, but was expected in every
minute ; and we sat down to wait for him. Through
the windows, on those dismal leads which admit to
the denizens of Surrey Street a view of the murky
Thames and steam transports of the Cockneys, the
little girl was standing, who, as soon as she caught
sight of De Vigne, ran into the room and wel-
comed him with exceeding warmth and an accession
of colour that might have flattered him much had
she been a few years older.
She was about nine or ten, an awkward and
angular age; but she had neither angles nor
awkwardness, and was as pretty as they ever are
in their growing time, with hafr of glistening gold,
bright in shade as in sunshine^ and deep blue eyes.
144 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
brilliant and dark under her black silken lashes,
which promised, in due time, to do a good deal of
damage. In her little dainty Paris-mode dress
of soft white muslin and floating azure ribbons, the
child looked ill-fitted for the gloomy atmosphere
of Surrey Street. Poor little thing ! a few weeks
before she had been the heiress of Weive Hurst,
now, thanks to that goodly, creature Sir John
Lacquers, her future promised to be a struggle
almost for daily bread.
*I am glad you are come!' she exclaimed,
running up to De Vigne. * Grandpapa will be
pleased to see you, and you will do him good.
When he is alone he grows so sad, and I can do
nothing to help him. I am no companion for him,
and if I try to amuse him if I sing to him, or
talk, or draw I think it only makes him worse :
he remembers Weive Hurst still more ! '
* Do you not miss Weive Hurst, Alma?' asked
De Vigne.
The child's eyes filled with tears, and the blood
rushed over her face.
' Miss Weive Hurst ! Oh, you do not guess
how much, or you would not ask me ! My
beautiful, darling home, with its trees, and its
flowers, and its sunshine ! Miss Weive Hurst !
In this cold, dark, smoky place, where I never see
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 145
the sun, or hear the birds, or feel the summer
wind ! '
And the little lady stopped in her vehement
oration, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
* What an excitable little thing ! ' said De
Vigne, raising his eyebrows ; then he bent gently
towards her, as courteously as if she had been
a Duchess. *I beg your pardon, Alma; I am
sorry if I have vexed you. I could not know
how much you loved your home ; and, perhaps
who knows ? ^you will go back to it again some
day/
She raised her head eagerly.
* Ah ! if I could hope that ! '
*Well, we tmll hope it!' smiled De Vigne.
* Some of those flowers which love you so much,
will tell the fairies that sleep in their buds, to
come and fetch you back, because they want to see
their little Queen.'
She looked at him half in surprise.
* Ah ! you believe in fairies, then ? I love you
for that.*
' Thank you. Do you, then ? '
' Of course,' said Alma, with the reproving tone
of a believer in sacred creed, to a heathenish sceptic.
* Shakspeare did, you know. He writes of Ariel
and Puck, Peas-blossom and Cobweb, who " pluck
VOL. L L
146 "HELD IN bondage;" or,
the wings from painted butterflies," and "kill
cankers in the musk rose-buds." Milton, too,
believed in Fairy Mab, and the Goblin, whose
"shadowy flail bad threshed the com that ten
day-labourers could not end." Flowers would not
be half flowers to me without their fairies, and^
besides !' continued Alma, with the decision of a
person who clinches an argument, * I have seen
tbem, too ! '
* Indeed ! But so have I.'
* Where?' asked Alma, breathless as a dilet-
tante to whom one breathes tidings of a lost
Correggio.
* There ! ' said De Vigne, lifting her up in his
iron grasp before the high mirror on the mantel-
piece.
She laughed, but turned upon him with injured
indignation.
* What a shame ! You do not believe in them
not the least more than grandpapa. I will not
love you now ^no, never again ! '
* My dear child,' laughed De Vigne, * even your
sex don't love and unlove, quite in sucji a hurry.
Don't you care for your grandpapa, then, because
he has never seen fairies ? '
*Care for grandpapa! Oh, yes!' she cried
passionately, * as much as I hate hate I those
i
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 147
cruel men who have robbed him of his money.
I would try not to care for Weive Hurst if he
were happy, but he will never be happy with-
out it any more than 1/
* Do you remember me, Alma ? " I asked, to
change her thoughts.
She shook her head.
' Do you remember him ? '
She looked very tenderly and admiringly on
De Vigne.
' Oh yes ! When I read Sintram," I thought
of him as Sir Folko.'
De Vigne laughed.
' You bit of a child, what do you understand of
" Sin tram ? " '
* I understand Sir Folko, and I wish I had been
Gertrude.'
* Then you wish you had been my wife, made-
moiselle ? '
Alma considered gravely for a moment, looking
steadily in De Vigne's face.
'Yes; I think I should like to have you to
take care of me, as he took care of Gertrude.'
We went off into shouts of laughter, which
Alma could not understand. She could not see
that she had said anything laughable.
' I thought you were never going to love me
l2
148 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
again. Alma? A wife ought to love her husband/
said De Vigne.
Alma made a moue mutine and turned away,
her blue ribbons, and her gold hair fluttering
impatient defiance. Just then her grandfather
came in, the stately, old master of Weive
Hurst.
*How do you do?' cried De Vigne. *I am
having an offer made me, Mr. Tressillian, though
it is not leap year. I hope you will give your
consent ? '
*I will never marry anybody who does not
believe in fairies ! ' interrupted Alma, running back
again to her leads.
' If she make a like proposal five or six years
hence to any man, she'll hardly have it neglected,*
said I, when Tressillian had recalled who I was,
and shaken hands with me.
Tressillian smiled sadly. ' Her love will be a
curse to her, poor child, for she will love too well ;
as for her being neglected, she will not have the
gilding necessary to make youth protected, beauty
appreciated, or talent go down, if she should chance
to have the two latter as she grows older.'
* Which she is pretty sure to have, unless she
alters dreadfully.'
Boughton Tressillian sighed. ' Yes, she is
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 149
pretty enough, and she is clever. I believe she
already knows much more than young ladies
who have just " finished." She would learn even
better still if she were not so wildly imagina-
tive. Poverina! she is ill-fitted to grapple with
the world. Whether I spend my few years
between four bare walls or not, matters little;
but hers Well, De Vigne, what news to-
day. Is the Ministry going to keep in or
not?'
De Vigne stayed some half-hour chatting with
him, telling him all the amusing on dits of the Clubs,
and all the fresh political tittle-tattle of the morn-
ing, while Tressillian, after that single expression
of regret for Alma, alluded no more to his own
affairs, and discussed current topics with the intel-
ligence and interest of a man of intellect ; enter-
taining us with the same cheerful ease as he had
done at Weive Hurst, meeting his reverses with
a philosophy of the highest, yet of the simplest,
order. De Vigne was more courtly, more delicate,
more respectful to the ruined gentleman, than he
was to many a leader of high ton, for, haughty
and imperious on occasion as he was, there was
a touch of true chivalry in his character. Go
down in the world, De Vigne stretched out his
hand to you, be you what you might ; rise high.
150 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
and he cut you, or snubbed you, as he might see
fit. De Vigne was not like the world, mes-
sieurs !
*How I should enjoy straightening my left
arm for the benefit of that cursed hypocrite of
the British Beggars Bank,' began De Vigne,
tooling the tilbury back again through the Strand ;
and, so far forgetting himself in his irritation as to
venture to use the whip to his wheeler, who re-
venged the insult by a pas (Tewtase, which pro-
duced frightful commotion among the omnibusses,
whose conductors swore in inelegant language at
the confounded break-neck nob ! ' ^ The morality
of the age is too ridiculous ! For the banker's
clerk, who, with a sick wife and starving children,
yields to one of the fiercest temptations tliat can
beset a man, and takes one drop out of the sea of
gold around him, it thinks penal servitude too
kind a boon! To the Banker himself, who has
reduced forty thousand people to want, the world
is lenient, because he stuck his name on mis-
sionary lists, and came to public meetings with
the Bible on his lips : and, after a little time has
slipped away, men will see him installed in a
Roman palace, or a Paris hotel, and will flock to
his soirees by the dozens ! '
* Of course ; don't you think that if Mephis-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 151
topheles set up here in Belgravia, and gave the
best dinners in London; he would get us all
to dine with him ? *
* To be sure. Men measure you by what you
give them. If you're a poor devil with only small
beer in your cellar you are ostracized, though you
be the best and wisest man in Athens ; if you've
good claret, they will come and drink it with
you, and only discuss your sins behind your back;
and if by any chance you have pipefuls of
Johannisberg and Tokay, you will have all the
cardinal virtues voted to you, without your giving
testimony to your even recognizing the cardinal
virtues at all! Hallo! gently, gently. Psyche!
what a hard mouth she has. Confound her ! she
will set Cupid off again, and I shall figure in the
police reports as taken up for furious driving. I
say, what can Tressillian do ? '
*Do?'
* Yes. What can he do that I can find him ?
he is a gentleman and a scholar, but his age shuts
him out from any post such as he could ever
accept. He has no money -he must do some-
thing. I shall talk to Sabretasche; he has no
end of interest everywhere if he would only exert
it. I think he would if I asked him, so that we
might get some pleasant gentlemanlike sinecure
152 ''HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
for the old man, where he would not have much
to remind him painfully of his reverses. I'll see !
By the way, Chevasney, you'll try and get leave
to come down with me for the 1st. It's a horrid
bore, but I can't get mine till then. I wanted
it a month earlier/
To go to Brighton?' I knew the last
week in July would see the Fantyre and Tre-
fusis transplanted from Bruton Street to Kemp
Town.
He laughed. * Well, Brighton's very pleasant
in its season, and tovm is utterly detestable in
August, when everybody not tied by the leg as
we are is yachting in the Levant, or fishing in
Norway, or bagging black game, or doing some-
thing worth doing. However, we must make up
for it among the turnips and stubble; I think
my preserves are the best in the county. You
must come down, Arthur, I can't do without
you, it's a crying cruelty to coop military men
up in the shooting season; besides, you are a
great pet of my mother's.'
Doesn't she ever come to town ! '
* Oh, yes ; but her health is delicate. She has
no daughters to bring out, and I think she prefers
the eountry in the spring and summer. Here one
loses Summer altogether. We don't know such a
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 153
word; it is merged into the Season, and the
flowers grow on ladies' bonnets instead of meadow
lands. Well ! I like it best. I prefer society to
solitude. St. Simon Stylites had very fine medi-
tations, I dare say, and a magnificent bird's-eye
view of the country; but I must say Rabela-
sian Philosophies would seem more like life to
me, and I fancy I see more of human nature in
the Pre Catalan than the Prairies.'
* Yet you go mad after nature sometimes, yo.u
odd fellow ? '
* Of course. There is a grandeur about the
wide stretch of sea in a sunny dawn, or the sweep
of hills and birch woods on a Highland moor,
beside which the fret and flippery of human life
are miserably insignificant. No man, who has
any manhood in him at all, but feels the better
for the fresh rush of a mountain wind. But for
all that, I am neither poet nor philosopher enough,
to live with nature always, and forswear the
coarser elements of life; lansquenet, racing, Co-
ralies, champagne, and all one's other habitual
agrements. Hang it, Arthur, why do you set
me defining ; can't you let me enjoy ? Ten years
hence I will theorize on life as much as you
please, just now I prefer taking it as it comes.
There ! we did the distance in no time. Re-
154 **HELD IN bondage;" or,
mind me to speak to the messmen about that
would-be '15 port. It is the most daring sloes-
and-damsons that was ever palmed off on any-
body. Thank Heaven, nobody can deceive me
in wine/
* Nor in anything else ? '
' I hope not. If they can, I have not knocked
about the world to much purpose, eh ? '
If De Vigne set his mind on doing anything,
whether it was taking a cropper, or winning a
woman, hooking a salmon, or canvassing a county,
he never rested till it was done ; therefore, having
taken Boughton Tressillian's cause steadily to
heart, he set all the levers going which were
available, to find something suitable to the old
man's broken fortunes and refined tastes. He
never let Sabretasche alone till the Colonel,
who knew everybody, used his interest too, a
thing he detested doing, because, as he said, it
* gives you so much trouble, and lays you under
Obligation; a debt nobody ever allows you to
forget that you owe them.' To please De Vigne,
however, he exerted himself; and between them
they procured a consulate for Tressillian, at a
large pleasant town on the Mediterranean shore,
which had of late years become almost an English
settlement, ' whose climate was exquisite, scenery
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 155
perfect, combined with admirable English and
Italian society/ according to the elegant language
of the guide-books, who told no lies about it for a
wonder.
Anybody who wanted to see the side of De
Vigne's character that made those who' really
knew him love him with the love of Jonathan for
David, should have seen him offering his consul-
ship to Tressillian, with the most delicate tact and
feeling, so that the ruined gentleman could feel
no obligation which could touch his pride, and
could receive it only as a thoughtful forestalling
of his wishes. That Tressillian felt it deeply I
could see, but De Vigne refused all thanks, and
the old man felt the kindness all the deeper
for his disclaimer of it. * You are a noble fellow,'
he said heartily ; * you will find your reward some
day.'
* My dear sir,' laughed De Vigne when he
felt things at all he generally turned them off in a
jest * I get many more rewards than I deserve, I
fancy ; my life's all prizes and no blanks, except,
now and then, the blank of satiety. I am not one
of those who "do good and blush to find it known;"
for the simple reason that I never do any good
at all, and have not blushed since I was seven,
and fell in love with my mother's lady's-maid, a
156 **HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
most divine Frenchwoman, with gold ear-rings,
who eventually took up with the butler bad
taste, after me, was it not ? You won't desert
me for anybody I hope. Alma? You will see
sublime Italians at Lorave ? '
* They will not be as handsome as you are. Sir
Folko,' responded Alma Tressillian, with frank
admiration.
* Thank you, cher enfant ; you vnll teach me to
blush if you flatter me so much. Will you take
me in. Alma, if I and my yacht call upon you
any time ? '
* Oh, do ! do ! ' cried Alma, vehemently, * and
sail me on the sea, and I will show you the mer-
maids under the waves, with their necklets of sea-
shells, and their fans of pink weed ! You will see
them, indeed you will, if you will only believe in
them ! '
*Most apt illustration of faith,' laughed De
Vigne. * People see tables turn, and violins
dance with broomsticks, and hear Shakspeare
talk through a loo-table, by sheer force of be-
lieving in them ! When will that child ever
learn to come down to the coarse realities of
actual every day existence ? '
* No,' said Tressillian, * I am afraid I have
hardly taken the best way of educating her for
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 157
the real world. She should have gone to school,
to learn the sober practicalities, and wise inanities
of English schoolgirls. Her solitary life, with
books and flowers, has encouraged the enthu-
siasm, and imagination, which come, I suppose,
with her foreign blood; but then, I always
thought she would be raised above heeding, or
considering, the world! much more above ever
working in it ! *
A few days afterwards, Tressillian, with his
grand-daughter and an English governess he had
engaged for her, set off for Lorave. De Vigne
and T saw them at the South-Easten\ station,
and little Alma cried as bitterly at parting with
him as any of the women who loved him could
have done; only the tears were not got up for
effect, and washed off no rouge, like most of
theirs! De Vigne consoled her with the pro-
mise of a yachting trip to Lorave, and came away
from the station to drive the Trefusis down to
dinner at the Star and Garter, where he was
going to give an entertainment of unusual ex-
travagance and splendour even for that dashing
hotel, of which the Trefusis was undisputed Queen,
and looked it too, drinking Badminton with
much the same air as Juno must have worn
drinking Ambrosia, and outshining all the women
158 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
in beauty, and figure, and toilette: for which
the women of course hated her, and respected
her in one breath: for, cordially as a lady de-
tests a handsome sister, it is notable that she
no less despises an ill-dressed or ugly one. To
be handsome a woman thinks an unpardonable
crime in her rival; but to be plain is a most
contemptible fava pas !
I can remember De Vigne now, sitting at the
head of the table, that bright June evening, at
Richmond. How happy he looked! his fore-
head slightly flushed with pleasure and triumph,
his eyes flashing fire, or beaming softness and
tenderness, on the Trefusis, his musical voice
ringing out with a careless, happy harmony. Dear
old fellow! Life's best gifts seemed to lurk for
him in that goblet of Claret Cup, which he lifted
to his lips, with a fond pledge (by the eyes) to
the woman he loved. Yet, if he had known
his future, he would have filled the glass with
hemlock rather than have coupled the Bodmin-
ton with her name ! Ah, well, mes freres ! he is
not the only man for whom, the name that rang
so sweetly, breathed in the toast of love, has
chimed a bitter death-knell through all his after-
life!
The Trefusis did her best to lure him into
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 159
* definite action' that night, as he sat by her at
dinner ; and leaned out of the window afterwards
beside her; the delicate perfume of her hair
mingling with the fragrance of roses and helio-
tropes from the garden below, the low jug-jug
of the nightingale joining with their own low
voices, and the summer starlight gleaming on both
their faces his, impassioned, eager, earnest; hers,
fair indeed, but fair with the beauty of the rock-
crystal, which will melt neither for wintry frost
nor tropic sunshine. She did her best ; and the
hour and the scene alike favoured her. She bent
forward, she looked up in his face, and the moon's
rays gave to her eyes a liquid sweetness never
their own : De Vigne began to lose control over
himself ; the passion within him took the reins ;
he who all his life through had denied himself
nothing; neither knew nor cared how to check
it. He bent towards the Trefusis, his fiery pulses
beating loud ; while his moustaches touched her
low, smooth brow : Heaven knows what he might
have said, but I went up to them, ruthlessly :
* De Vigne, the horses are put to, and Miss
Trefusis wants to be in town by eleven, in time
for Mrs. Delany's ball; everybody's gone or
going.'
A fierce oath was muttered under De Vigne's
160 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
moustaches he can be fiery enough if he's
crossed. The Trefusis gave me a look well!
such as you, madame, will never give a man, if
you are prudent, even though he be your lover's
Jidrjis Achates, and comes in just when he is not
wanted. Then she rose, drawing on her gloves
with a sweet, courteous smile :
* Oh ! thank you, Mr. Chevasney ; how kind
of you to come and tell us ! I would not be late
at dear Mrs. Delany's for the world ; you know
she is a very pet friend of mine.'
I had saved him that time, and, idiot-like,
triumphed at my success. Might I not have
known that no forty-horse power can keep a man
from committing himself, if he is bent upon it ?
and might I not have known that if a fellow
enters himself for any stakes with a woman, she
will have cantered in and carried off the Cup
before he has saved half the distance, let him
pride himself upon his jockeyship never so
highly ?
I had saved De Vigne, and I don't think he
bore me any good will for it, for he drove me and
a couple of other men back in his phaeton to Ken-
sington, in gloomy silence. He could not go to
Mrs. Delany's, for the best of all reasons that
he was not asked. Ladies never do invite with
V
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 161
their pet friends the quarry their pet friends are
trying the hardest to lure ; not from envy, pretty
little dears ! who would think of accusing them of
thai f Do they ever, by any chance, break the
Tenth Commandment, and covet their neighbour's
carriage, horses, or appointments, diamonds, point,
flirtations, or anything that she has ?
And the day after that the Trefusis went down
to Brighton, to drive the Dragoons distracted, who
should see her cantering over the South Dovnis,
or waltz with her at their own balls, to drink
in intoxication with the clang of the Express
Galop ; or meet her on the Esplanade, with that
magnificent face shadowed by her little cobweb
veil, swaying them all with her grand beauty, as if
her carved ivory parasol-handle had been a sceptre,
with a spell as potent as Venus's ceinture.
VOL. I. M
162 "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FORGING OF THE FETTERS,
De Vigne and I consumed not a little cognac and
Cavendish, swearing over our durance vile, when
everybody was gone, and town was empty; and
after six weeks' consummation of anathemas, soda
water, and Latakia, sufficient to last a troop for a
twelvemonth, he and I were glad enough when
we were at last swinging down in the express to
Vigne on the 31st of August. I wondered in
my own mind he was not off to Kemp Town, but
I was too glad to find that the partridges out-
balanced the Trefusis to make any comment upon
it.
Vigne was about eighty miles from London ; a
pretty picturesque village, of which nearly every
rood belonged to him ; and his park was almost as
magnificent a sweep of land as Holcombe or Long-
leat. It was with something warmer than pride,
that he looked across, over his wide woodlands
glowing in the August sunset, the great elm-trees
GRAIiTVILLE DE VIGNE. 163
throwing their wide cool shadows far over the rich
pasture land beneath ; the ferns, high as a man's
elbow, waving in the breeze ; the deer trooping
away into the deep forest glades ; and the length-
ened avenues, stretching off in aisles of burnished
green and gold, like one of Creswick's English
landscapes. A mile and-a-half of one of those
magnificent elm-avenues, brought Us to the house,
which was more like Hardwick Hall in exterior
than any other place I know, standing grandly,
too, something as Hardwick does ; but in interior,
though the hall and other parts of it, were mediaeval
enough, it was what Hardwick certainly is not
or was not, when last I saw it luxurious and
modern to the last degree, with every elegance
and comfort which upholstery and science have
taught the nineteenth century to look upon as
absolute requirements.
De Vigne threw the ribbons of the drag to a
groom, and sprang down, while the deep bay of the
dogs in the kennels some way off, gave him a wel-
come. In the hall he had another : as his mother,
Lady Flora, a soft, delicate woman, with eyes and
voice of great beauty and sweetness, came out from
a morning-room to meet him, with both her hands
outstretched, and a fond smile on her face. De
Vigne loved his mother tenderly and reveren-
M 2
164 "HEU) m BONDAGE;" OR,
tidly. She had been a ^e woman with him : as
a child, she had stimulated his energies instead of
repressing them, and, with strong self-command,
let him risk a broken limb, rather than teach him
his first idea of fear, a thing of which De Yigne
was as profoundly ignorant as little Nelson. As a
boy, she had entered into aU his sports and amuse-
ments, listening to his tales of rounders, ponies,
cricket, and boatings as if she really understood
them. As a man she had never attempted to inter-
fere with him. She knew that she had trained him
in honour and truth, and was too skilled in human
nature to seek to pry into a young man's life.
The consequence was, that she kept all her son's
affection, trust, and confidence, and, when she did
speak, was always heard gently and respectfully;
indeed, he would often tell her as naturally of his
errors and entanglements as he had, when a child,
told her of his faults to his servant or his Shet-
land.
The house was fall, chiefly of men come down
for the shooting, with one or two girls of the
Ferrers family. Lady Flora's nieces, who would
have liked very well to have caught their cousin,
for their father, though he was a Marquis, was
as poor for a peer, as a curate with six daughters,
and no chance of preferrrent. But their cousin
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 165
was not to be caught by their trolling, at
least.
* I am delighted to see you, Mr. Chevasney/
said Lady Flora, when I went down to the draw-
ing-room after my bath, and hot coffee. *You
know you were always a favourite of mine, at first,
ne vous en dSplaise^ because you were a friend of
Granville's, and then for your own sake. There
will be some people here to-morrow to amuse you,
though you gentlemen never seem to me so happy
as when you are without us. Shut you up in your
smoking, or billiard, or card-room, and you want
nothing more ! '
* True enough ! ' laughed De Vigne. * It is an
ungallant admission, but it is a fact, nevertheless.
See men at college wines, in the jollity and merri-
ment of a camp, in the sans ffSne enjoyment of a
man dinner ! Deny it who will, we can be happy
without ladies, but ladies cannot be happy with-
out us ! '
* How conceited you are, Granville ! ' cried
Adelina Ferrers, a handsome blonde, who thought
very well of herself. * I am quite sure we can ! '
* Can you, Lina ? ' said De Vigne, leaning against
the mantelpiece, and watching his mother's dia-
mond rings flash in and out, as she did some bead-
work, ' Why do we never hear of ladies' parties^
166 "held in bondage;" or,
then ? Why, when we come in after dinner, do
we invariably find you all bored to the last extent,
and half asleep, till you revive under our kindly
influence ? Why, if you are as happy without us,
do we never see you establish Women Clubs to
drink tea, or eau de Cologne, or sal volatile ; to
read new novels and talk over dress ? '
^Because we are too kind. Our society im-
proves you so much, that, through principle, we
do not deprive you of it,' answered Lady Lina,
with a long glance of her large azure eyes.
* That's a pity, dear,' smiled De Vigne, ' because,
if we thought you were comfortably employed, we
could go ofi^ to the partridges to-morrow with much
greater pleasure ; whereas to know, as we do, that
you will all be victims of ennui till we come back
;again, naturally spoils sport to men like myself, of
tender conscience and amiable disposition ! '
* This is the fruit of Miss Trefusis's flattery, I
suppose,' sneered Blanche Ferrers, the other cousin,
who could not stand fun, and who had made hard
running after De Vigne a season ago.
* Miss Tresis never flatters,' said De Vigne,
quietly.
* Indeed ! ' said Lady Blanche. ' I know nothing
of her. I do not desire ! '
The volumes expressed in those four last words
GRANVILLE DE ViaNB. 167
were such, as only women like Blanche Ferrers,
could possibly compress in one little sneering sen-
tence. De Vigne felt all that was intended in it ;
his eyebrows contracted, his eyes flashed fire ; he
had too knightly a heart not to defend an absent
woman, and a woman he loved; as dearly as he
would his own honour.
* It would be to your advantage, Blanche, if you
had that pleasure. Miss Trefusis would make any
one proud to know her ; even the Ladies Ferrers,
though the world does say they are fond of ima-
gining the sun created solely that it may have the
honour of shining on them.'
He spoke very quietly, but sarcastically. His
mother looked up at him hastily, then bent over
her work ; Blanche coloured with annoyance, and
smiled another sneer.
* Positively, Granville, you are quite chivalrous
in her defence ! I know it is the law at Vigne for
nobody to disagree with you ; nevertheless, I shall
venture, for I must assure you, that far from
esteeming it an honour to know Miss Trefusis, I
should deem it rather a dishonour ! '
How like a lion fairly roused, and longing to
spring, he looked ! He kept cool, however, but his
teeth were set hard.
* Lady Blanche, it is rather dishonour to your-
168 ^HELD IN BONDAGE;'' OR,
lelf, to dare to speak in that manner of a lady
of whom 70U have never heard any evil, and who
ii my friend. Miss Trefusis is as worthy respect
and admiration as yourself, and she shall never be
mentioned in any other terms in my presence/
Gallant he looked, with his steady eyes looking
sternly down at her, and his firm mouth set into
iron ! A whole history of love and trust, honour
and confidence, the chivalry which defended the
absent, the strength which protected the woman
dear to him, were written on his face. Was she,
who was absent and slandered, worthy it ?
Blanche laughed derisively, but a little timid-
ly; it was not easy even for her to be rude to
him.
* Respect and admiration! Really, Granville,
one would believe report, and imagine you in-
tended to give Lady Fantyre's ^what ? niece, de-
pendent, companion which is it ? your name ? *
* Perhaps I do. As it is, I exact the same
courtesy for her, as my friend, that I shall do if
ever she be ^my wife ! '
He spoke slowly and calmly, still leaning on
the mantelpiece; but his face was white with
passion, and his dark eyes glowed like fire. A
dead silence followed on his words : the silence of
breathless astonishment, of unutterable dismay:
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 169
Lady Flora turned as white as her bead-work,
and she did not trust herself to look at her son,
but in a moment or two she spoke, with gentle
dignity.
^Blanche, you forget what you are saying.
You can have no possible right to question your
cousin's actions or opinions. Let this be the last
I hear of such a discussion. Mr.'^Chevasney, if
you wish to be useful, will you be kind enough to
hol^ this skein of floss silk for me ? '
Just at that moment some of the men came in
and surrounded Adelina and Blanche; it was a
relief to everybody : Lady Flora went on winding
her silk, not daring to look up at her son, and he
stayed where he was, leaning on the mantelpiece,
playing with a setter's ears, till dinner was an-
nounced as served : then he gave his arm to the
Marchioness, and was especially brilliant and
agreeable all the evening.
That night, however, when most of us had gone
off to the bachelor wing, De Vigne rapped at the
door of his mother's dressing-room. She expected
it, and admitted him at once. He sat by the fire
for some moments, holding her hand in his own ;
De Vigne was very gentle with what he loved.
His mother looked up at him, with a few words :
* Dearest, is it true ? '
170 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
^ Yes.' Where be meant much, he also gene-
rally said few words.
His mother was silent. Perhaps, until now, she
had never realized how entirely she would lose
her son to his wife ; how entirely the new passion
would sweep away and replace the old affection ;
how wholly, and how justly, his confidences, his
ambitions, hir griefs, his joys, would go to another
instead of to herself. Perhaps she knew how unfit
De Vigne was to be curbed and tied ; how much
bis fiery nature would shrink from the burden
married life, and his fiery heart refuse to give
the love exacted as a right : perhaps she knew, by
knowledge of human nature, and experience of
human life, how true it is that ^a young man
married is a man that's marred.'
*Your wife!* she said, at last, tears in her
voice and in her eyes. * Granville, you little
guess all those words sound to me ; how much I
have hoped, how much I have feared, how much
I have prayed for, in your wife ! Forgive me,
dear ; I can hardly accustom myself to it yet.'
And she bent her head, and sobbed bitterly.
May we believe with Madame de Girardin ?
^ C'est en vain que Ton nomme erreur,
Cette secrete intelligeDce,
Qui portant la lumi^re au fond,
Sur des niaux ignor^ nous fait g^mir d'avance ! '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 171
De Vigne bent his head, and kissed her. It
was very rarely he saw his mother's tears ; and in
proportion to their rarity they always touched
him. They were both of them silent. The next
question she asked, camd with the resignation of a
woman, to a man whose purpose she knew she
could never alter, nor even sway, any more than
she could stir the elm-trees in the avenues, from
the beds that they had lain in for lengthened
centuries.
* You really love her then ? '
* More passionately than I have ever loved a
woman yet ! *
That sealed the sentence. Lady Flora knew,
that never in love, as in sport, had De Vigne
checked his fancy, or turned back from his
quarry.
* God help you then ! '
He started at the uncalled-for prayer ; it was an
involuntary utterance of the trembling tenderness,
the undefined dread with which she regarded his
future. He smiled down gaily at her. *Why,
mother, what is there so dreadful in love ? One
would fancy you thought shockingly of your sex,
to view my first thought of marriage, through
smoked glasses.'
She tried to smile. * It is such a lottery ! '
172 "HELD IN 30NDAGE;" OR,
'Of course it is; but so are all games of
chance ; and, if one ventures nothing, one may go
without play all one's life. As for happiness, tftat
is at very uncertain odds at all times, and the
only wise thing one can do is to enjoy the present.
Does not La Bruy^re tell us that no man ever
married yet, who did not in twelve months' time
wish he had never seen his wife? It is true
enough for that matter ; so that, whether one does
it sooner or later, one is equally certain to repent/
He spoke with a light laugh and a fearless confi-
dence in his own future which went to his mo-
ther's heart. She took both his hands in hers.
* Granville, you know I never seek to interfere
with your opinions, plans, or actions. You are a
man of the world, far fitter to judge for yourself
than I am to judge for you ; but no one can love
you better than I ? '
* Indeed no,* said De Vigne, tenderly, * none so
well.'
* And no one cares for your future life as I ?
Therefore, will you listen to me for a minute ? '
* Sixty, if you like.'
*Then, tell me,' said his mother gently, 'do
you really think yourself that you are fitted for
married life, or married life fitted for you ? '
' Don't put it in that way ! ' cried De Vigne,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 173
impatiently. * Married life ? No ! n6t if I were
chained down into dull domesticity; but in our
position marriage makes little or no difference in
our way of life. We keep the sanie society, have
the same diversions as before. We are not chained
together like two galley-slaves, toiling away at one
oar, without change of scene or of companion.
She must be my wife, because, if she is not,
I shall go mad; but she is no woman only fit
"to suckle fools and chronicle small beer," and
she would be the last to deprive me of that
liberty, of which, you are quite right in thinking,
I should chafe incessantly at the loss ! But I am
talking myself, not listening to you. What else
were you going to say ? '
' I was going to say ^are you sure you will
never love again ? '
De Vigne grew impatient again. He threw
back his head ; these were not pleasant -sugges-
tions to him.
* Really, my dear mother, you are looking very
far into futurity! How can I, or any man, by
any possibility, answer such a question? We
are not gods, to foresee what lies before us. I
know that I love now love more deeply than I
have ever done yet, and that is enough for me ! '
' That is not enough for me,' answered his mo-
174 "held in bondage;" or,
ther, with a heavy sigh. *I can foresee your
future, for I know your nature, your mind, your
heart. You will marry now, in the mad passion
of the hour ; marry as a thousand men do, giving
up their birthright of free choice and liberty, and
an open future, for a mess of porridge of a few
hours' delight ! I know nothing of Miss Trefiisis,
nor do I wish to say anything against her ; but
I know yaa. You marry her, no doubt, from
eye-love; for her magnificent beauty, which re-
port says is unrivalled. After a time that beauty
will grow stale and tame to you ; it will not be
your fault ; men are bom inconstant, and eye-love
expires, when the eye has dwelt long enough on it,
to grow tired and satiated. Have you not, times
out of number, admired and wearied before, Gran-
ville ? Then there will come long years of regret,
impatience of the fetters once joyfully assumed,
perhaps ; for you require sympathy and compre-
hension ; miserable years of wrangling and re-
proaches, such as you are least fitted of all men to
endure. You will see that your earlier judgment
was crude, your younger taste at fault ; tlrniy with
your passions strengthened, your discernment
matured, you wilj love again ^love with all the
tenderness, the depth of later years love, to find
the crowning sorrow of your life, or to drag another
GRANVILLE DE VIUNE. 175
in to share the curse you already have brought
upon yourself. Can you look steadily at such a
future ? '
A chill of ice passed through his veins as he heard
her ^the true foreshadowing of a most bitter doom !
Then he threvr the presentiment oS, and his hot
blood flowed on again in its wilful and fiery course ;
he answered her passionately and decidedly.
* Yes ! I have, no fear of any evil coming to me
through my love. If she will, she shall be my
wife, and whatever my future be, I accept it.'
The day after our arrival I found the reason for
De Vignes throwing over Brighton for his own
home. The Trefusis and Lady Fantyre came down
to stay at FoUet, a place some three or four miles
from Vigne, vdth some firiends of the F^ityre,
whose acquaintance she had made on the Conti-
nent ; people whom De Vigne knew but slightly,
but whom he now cultivated, more than he gene-
rally troubled himself to do, much more exclusive
members of that invariably stiltified, stuck-up, and
pitiably-toadied thing, the County.
The 1st of September came, gray, soft, stilL as
that delightful epoch of one's existence always
should, and up vdth the dawn we swallowed beer
and coffee, devils and omelettes, too hastily to
appreciate them, and went out, a large party;
176 "held in bondage;" or,
for Sabretasche had come there the night before,
with several other men, to knock the birds over,
in De Vigne's princely preserves. What magic
is there in sport to make us so mad after it?
What is the charm that lies hid in the whirr of
the covey up from the stubble, and makes dan-
dies contentedly wade through ploughed fields in
sloppy weather ; carrying their gun through drip-
ping turnips ; knee-deep in mud, or dead-beat, but
triumphant, from the knowledge of forty brace in
the bag on the pony's back ? A strange charm
there is a charm we enjoy too much to analyze ;
and De Vigne, whose head and heart were full of
different game, and Sabretasche, who hated dirty-
ing his hands, and shrank from most people and
most things as too coarse for his artistic taste, alike
swore to the truth of it, with the dogs and the beat-
ers round them in the open, or lying in the shade
of some great hedge-trees, discussing Bass and a
cold luncheon, with more appetite than they ever
had for the most delicious breakfast at the Maison
Doree, or the daintiest hors d'oeuvre at Tortoni's.
Though De Vigne did not allow a battue on his
lands, I think we had almost as many head of game
in the bags as if we had had one, when twilight
had put an end to the ever-longed-for First, and
we had returned to the bachelor's wing to dress for
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 177
dinner. Coming out of my room, 1 met De
Vigne, and he put his hand on my shoulder.
* Well, Arthur, hadn't we good sport to-day ?
I say, send off any of that game you like any-
where ; you know lots of people. Isn't it
beautiful to see Sabretasche knock down the
birds ; such a lazy fellow as he is, too ? '
' He's not a better shot than you ? '
' Don't you think so ? But then he's a disciple
of the dolce, and I always go hard at anything I
take in hand.'
' You don't sell your game ? ' I asked, knowing
I might just as well ask him if he sold hot pota-
toes!
* Sell it ? No, thank you ; I am not a
poulterer ! I have sport, not trade ; the fellows
who sell the game their friends help them to kill,
should write up over their lodge-gates, "Game
sold here, by men who would like to be thought
gentlemen, but find it a losing concern." I would
as soon send my trees up to London for building
purposes as my partridges to Leadenhall. The
fellows who do that sort of thing must have some
leaven of old Lombards, or Chepe goldsmiths in
them ; and though they have an Escutcheon in-
stead of a Si^ now, can't get rid of the trader's
instinct ! '
VOL. I. N
178 "held in BOin)AGE;" OR,
I loved to set De Vigne up on his aristocratic
stilts, they were so delicious! j contradictory to the
radical opinions he was so fond of enunciating !
The fact was, he was an aristocrat at his heart, a
radical by his head, and the two Creeds sometimes
had a tilt, and upset one another.
* Is anybody coming to dinner to-night ? ' I was
half afraid somebody was, whom I detested to see
near him at all.
*Yes,' he answered, curtly. * There are the
Levisons, Lady Fantyre and Miss Trefusis, Caven-
dish and Ashton.'
For my life I couldn't help a long whistle, I
was so savage at that woman getting the better
of us all so cleverly !
* The deuce ! De Vigne, your mother and that
nasty, gambling, story-telling old Fantyre will
hardly run in couples ? '
For a second his cheek flushed.
' It is my house, I invite whom I see fit. As
for my mother, God bless her ! she will hardly
find a woman good or true enough to run in
couples with her. She is too good and true to
be prudish or censorious. I have always noticed
that it is women who live in glass houses who
learn quickest to throw stones, I suppose in the
futile hope of inducing people to imagine that
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 179
their dwellings are such as nobody could possibly
assail.'
' Why the devil, De Vigne,' said I, * are you so
mad about that woman ? What is it you admire
in her?'
He answered with the reckless passion which
was day by day getting more mastery over him.
* How should I define ? I admire nothing I
admire everything ! I only know that I will move
heaven and earth to gain her, and that I would
shoot any man dead who ventured to dispute her
with me ! '
' Is she worth all that ? '
His eyes grew cold and annoyed ; I had gone a
step too far. He took his hand oif my shoulder,
and saying, with that hauteur which no man
could assume more chillingly, ' My dear Che-
vasney, you may apply the lesson I gave Lady
Blanche yesterday, to yourself; I never allow any
remarks on my personal concerns/ passed down
before me into the hall : where, just alighted from
the Levisons' carriage, her cloak dropped off one
shoulder, something shining and jewelled wreathed
over her hair, the strong wax-light gleaming on
her face, with its rich geranium-hue in the cheek,
and its large, luminous eyes, and its short, curved,
upper lip, stood in brilliant relief against the carved
N 2
180 "held in bondage;" or,
oak, dark armour, and deep-hued windows of the
hall the Trefusis. De Vigne went down the
wide oak staircase and across the tesselated pave-
ment to her side, to welcome her to Vigne ; and
she she thought^ I dare say, as she glanced round,
that it would be a conquest worth making : the
master and the home.
Lady Flora looked earnestly at her as she
entered. It was the first time she had seen her,
for the Trefusis had been driving when, by her
son's request, she had called on the Levisons, with
whom she had not more acquaintance than an
occasional dinner, or rencontre at some county
gathering. Beautiful woman as the Trefusis
looked and that she was this her worst enemies
could never deny in that hard though superb
profile, in those lips curved downwards while of
such voluptuous beauty, in those eyes so relent-
less and defiant though of such perfect hue and
shape, his mother found how little to hope, how
much to fear !
Yel the Trefusis played her cards well. She
was very gentle to Lady Flora. She did not
seem to seek De Vigne, nor to try and mono-
polize him; and with the Ladies Ferrers she
was so calm, so self-possessed, and yet had so little
assumption, that, hard as Lina and Blanche were
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 181
Studying to pick her to pieces, they could not find
where to begin, till she drew off her glove at
dinner, when Blanche whispered to Sabretasche,
who had taken her in, * No sang pur there^ but
plenty of almond paste!* to which the Colonel,
hating the Trefusis, but liking De Vigne too well
to give the Ferrers a handle against their possible
future cousin, replied, ' Well, Lady Blanche, per-
haps so* but one is so sated with pretty hands
and empty heads, that one is almost grateful for a
change ! '
Whereat Blanche, all her governesses, Paris
schools, and finishing, not having succeeded in
drilling much understanding into her brain, was
bitterly wrathful, and, in consequence, smiled extra
pleasantly.
The Trefusis acted her part admirably that night,
and people of less skill in society and physiognomy
than Lady Flora would have been blinded by it.
* What a master-spirit of intrigue that woman
would be in a court ! ' said Sabretasche to me.
* No man certainly no man in love with her
can stand against the strong will and skilful
artifices of an ambitious and designing intrigante.
Solomon tells you, you know, Arthur, that the
worst enemy you young fellows have is Woman,
and I tell you the same.'
182 "held in bondage;'* or,
* Yet, if report speak truly, Colonel, the sex
has no warmer votary than you ? '
* Whenever c^m/ report speak truly? Perhaps
I may be only revenging myself; how should
you know? It is the fashion, to look on Pa-r
mela as a fallen star, and on Lovelace as a hor-
rid cruel wretch. I don't see it always so, my-
self. Stars that are dragged from heaven by the
very material magnets of guineas, cashmeres, love
of dress, avarice, or ambition for a St. John's
Wood villa, are not deeply to be pitied ; and men
who buy toys at such low prices are little to
be censured for not estimating their goods very
high. The price of a virtuous woman is rarely
above rubies ; it has only this difference, that the
rubies set as a bracelet will suffice for Coralie, while
they must go round a coronet to win Lady Blanche !
A propos! whatever other silly things you do,
Chevasney, never make an early marriage.'
* I never intend, I assure you,' I said, tartly. I
thought he might have heard of Gwendolina, and
be poking fun at me ; and Gwen, I knew, was not
for me, but for M. le Due de Vieillecour, a poor,
wiry, effete old beau, who had been about
Charles X.
* Very well, so far ; but you need not look so
indignant, no man can tell into what he may be
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 183
drawn. No one is so secure ; but that next year
he may commit the sin, he utterly ridicules this*
Look at De Vigne; six months past he would
have laughed in your face if you had spoken to
him of marriage. Now he would be tempted to
knock you down if you attempted to dissuade him
from marriage ! What will he gain by it ; what
won't he lose ? If she were a charming woman,
he would lose his liberty, his pleasant bachelor
life, his power of disposing of himself how and
where he choses, without query or comment.
With a woman like the Trefusis he will lose
more ; he will lose his peace, his self-respect, his
belief in human nature; and it will be well if
he lose not his honour! He will have always
beside him a wife from whom his whole soul
revolts, but to whom his hot-headed youth has
fettered him, till one or the other shall lie in the
grave. There is no knowing to what madness,
what misery, his early marriage may not lead him
to what depths of hopelessness, or error, it may
not drag him. Were he a weak man, he would
collapse under her rein, and be henpecked, cheated,
and cajoled; being a strong one, he will rebel,
and, still acting and seeing for himself, he will
find out in too short a time, that he has sacrificed
himself, and life, and name, to a Mistake.'
184 "held in bondage;" or,
He spoke so earnestly for listless, careless, non-
chalant, indolent Sabretasche, that I stared at him,
for he was almost proverbially impassive; he
caught my eye, and laughed.
* What do you think of my sermon, Arthur?
Bear it in mind if you are in danger, that is all.
Will you come out into the card-room, and have
a game or two at ecarte ? You play wonderfully
well for so young as you are ; but then you say a
Frenchman taught you ? I hate to play with a man
who cannot beat me tolerably often ; there is no
excitement without difficulty. The Trefusis knows
that ! Look at her flirting with Monckton in her
stately style, while De Vigne stands by, looks
superbly indifierent, and chafes all the time like a
hound held in leash, while another is pulling down
the stag ! '
' She will not make you happy, Granville ! '
said his mother that night, when De Vigne bid
her good night in her dressing-room, as was his
invariable custom.
He answered her stiffly. ' It is unfortunate you
are all so prejudiced against her.'
' I am not prejudiced,' she answered, with a
bitter sigb. * Heaven knows how willingly I
would try to love anyone who loves you, but a
woman's intuition sees farther sometimes than
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 185
a man's discernment can penetrate, and in Miss
Trefusis, beyond beauty of form and feature, I see
nothing that will satisfy you : there is no beauty
of mind, no beauty of heart ! The impression she
gives me is, that she is an able schemer, a clever
actress, quick to seize on the weak points of those
around her, and turn them to her own advantage ;
but that she is forgive me ! illiterate, ambitious,
and heartless ! '
* You wrong her and you wrong yourself ! '
broke in De Vigne passionately. * Your anxiety
for me warps alike your own penetration and
charity of feeling. I should have thought you
were above such injustice ! '
* I only wish I may do her injustice,' answered
his mother, gravely. * But oh, Granville, I fear
I fear ! Dearest, do not be angry, none will ever
love you more unselfishly than I ! If I tremble
for your future, it is only that I know your cha-
racter so well. I know all that, as years go on,
your mind will require, your heart exact, from the
woman who is your wife. I know how quickly
the glamour fades in the test of constant inter-
course. A commonplace, domestic woman would
drive you from her side to another's; a hard,
tyrannous, beautiful woman will freeze you into
ice, like herself. I, who love you so dearly, how
186 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
can I look calmly on to see the shipwreck of
your life ? My darling ! my darling ! I would
almost as soon hear that you had died on a
battle-field, as your father did before you, as hear
that you had given your fate into that woman's
hands ! '
His mother s tenderness and grief touched De
Vigne deeply ; he knew how well she loved him,
and that this was the first time she had sought to
cross his will, but he stooped and kissed her with
fond words, and rose, of the same persuasion
still ! It were as easy to turn the west wind from
its course, as it sweeps wild and free over the sea
and land, as by words or counsel, laws or warn-
ings, to attempt to stem the self-willed, headlong
current of a man's mad passion.
Had any whispered warning to Acis of his fate,
would he have ever listened or cared when, in
the sunset glow, he saw the witching gleam of
Galatea's golden hair ? When the son of Myrha
gazed up into the divine eyes, and felt his own
lips glow at the touch of ' lava kisses,' could he
foresee, or, had he foreseen, would he have ever
heeded, the dark hour when he should lie dying,
on those same Idalian shores ?
The Trefusis played her cards ably. A few
days after she played her ace of trumps, and her
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 187
opponents were obliged to throw up their hands.
De Vigne did not ask his mother to invite her
and Lady Fantyre there; infatuated though he
was, and wisely careless on such subjects gene-
rally, I think he felt that the old ci-devant orange-
girl, with her nasty stories, her dingy reputation,
and her clever tricks with the four honours, was
not a guest suitable to his high-born, high-bred
mother. But a day or two after was his birth-
day, a day which, contrary to his own taste, but
in accordance with old habit, had been celebrated,
whether he was present or not, with wonderful
eclat and magnificence. This year, as usual, * the
County,' and parts of surrounding counties, too,
came to a dinner and ball at Vigne; and the
Levisons had been included in the invitations a
month before we went down, now, of course, the
Trefusis would accompany them.
As De Vigne had not even the slight admixture
of Roger de Coverley benevolence assumed by
some county men at the present time, as he had
not the slightest taste for oats or barley, did not
care two straws how his farms went or how his
lands were let, and hated toadying and flummery
as cordially as he hated bad wine, the proceedings
of the day very naturally bored him immensely ;
and he threw himself down, after replying to his
188 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
tenants' speeches, on one of the couches of the
smoking-room, with an anathema on the whole
thing.
' What a happy fellow you are, Sahretasche ! '
said he to the Colonel, who had retired from the
scene to one of the sofas with a pile of periodi-
cals and a case of genuine Manillas. * You have
nothing on your hands but your town-house, that
you can shut up, and your Highland lodge, where
you can leave your dogs for ten months in the
year; and have no yeomanry, tenants, and ser-
vants, to look to you yearly for sirloins and Octo-
ber, and a speech that is more trouble to make
than fifty parliamentary ones !'
* Ah ! my dear fellow,' yawned Sahretasche, ' I
did stay in that tent pitying you beyond measure,
till my feelings and my nerves couldn't stand see-
ing you martyrized, and scenting that very ex-
cellent beef, and hearing those edifying cheers any
longer; so, as I couldn't help you^ I took com-
passion on myself, shut myself up with the maga-
zines, and thanked Heaven I was not born to that
desideratum " a fine landed property ! " '
De Vigne laughed.
' Well, it's over now ! I shouldn't mind it so
much if they would 't talk such bosh to one's
face ^praising me for my liberality and noble-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 189
tnindedness, and calling me public-spirited and
generous, and Heaven knows what. They're
a good-hearted set of fellows, though, I be-
lieve '
* Possibly,' said Sabretasche ; * but what extent
of good-heartedness can make up for those dread-
fully broad o's and a's,.and those terrific " Sunday-
going suits," and those stubble-like heads of hair
plastered down with oil ? '
* Not to you, you confounded refiner of refined
gold,' laughed De Vigne. *By-the-by, Sabre-
tasche, don't you sometimes paint lilies in your
studio ? That raffine operation would suit you to
a T. I suppose you never made love to a woman
who was not the ultra-essence of good breeding
and Grecian outline ? '
Sebretasehe gave a sort of shudder; at some
recollection, or at the simple suggestion.
' Well,' said De Vigne ; * Cupid has a vernacular
of his own which levels rank sometimes ; a pretty
face, is a pretty fac^, whether it is under a Paris
bonnet^ or a cottage straw. But what I hate so,
in this sort of affair, is the false light in which
it makes one stand. Here am I, who don't see
Vigne for nine months out of the year, sometimes
not at all, who delegate all the bother of it to
my steward, who neither know nor care when the
190 "held in BONDAGE;" OK,
rents are paid, nor how the lands are divided,
cheered by these people as if I were a sort of god
and king over them and, deuce take them ! they
mean it, too ! Their fathers' fathers worshipped my
father's fietthers, and so they, in a more modem
fashion, cheer and toast me as if I were a combined
Cincinnatus and Titus 1 You know well enough I
am nothing of the kind ! I don't think I have a
spark of benevolence in my composition. I could
no more get up an interest in model cottages, and
prize fruit, than I could in Cochin-Chinas or worsted
work, and the consequence is that I feel a hum-
bug, and instead of returning thanks to-day to my
big farmers, and my small retainers, I should have
liked to have said to them, " My good fellows, you
are utterly mistaken in your man. I am glad you
are doing well, and I won't let any of you be
ground down if I know it ; but otherwise I don't
care a jot about any of you, and this annual affair is
a very great bore to me, whatever it may be to you;
and I take this opportunity of assuring you that,
far from being a demigod, I am a very graceless
cavalry man, and instead of doing any good with
my twenty thousand a year, I only make ducks
and drakes of it as fast as I possibly can." If I
had said that to thera, I should have relieved
myself, had no more toadying, and felt that the
GRAirVILLE DE VIGNE. 191
Vigneites and I understood one another. What a
horrid bother it is one can't tell truth in the world !'
* Most people find the bother lie, in having to
tell the truth occasionally!' said the Colonel, with
his enigmatical smile. * You might enjoy having,
like F6nelon's happy islanders, only to open your
eyes to let your thoughts be read, but I am afraid
such an eaposS would hardly suit most of us. You
don't agree with'Talleyrand, that language is given
us to conceal our thoughts ? '
De Vigne looked at him as he poked up his pipe.
* Devil take you, Sabretasche ! Who is to know
what you mean, or what you think, or what you
are?'
* My dear fellow,' said the Colonel, cutting the
Westminster slowly with one hand, and taking out
his cigar with the other, * nobody, I hope, for /
agree with Talleyrand, if you don't.'
The County came a few to dinner, many to
the ball, presenting all the varied forms of that
peculiar little oligarchy ; a Duke, two Marquises,
two Eai'ls, four or five Barons, high-dried, grand
old Dowagers, with fresh, pretty-looking daugh-
ters as ready for fun and flirtation as their maids ;
stiltified County Queens, with daughters long on
hand, who had taken refuge in High-Churching
their village, and starched themselves very stiff in
192 "held in bondage;" or,
the operation. Pretty married women, who waltzed
in a nutshell, and had many more of us after them
than the girls. Coufity beauties, accustomed to
carry all before them at race balls if not at Al-
mack's, and to be Empresses at archery fetes if
they were only units in Belgravia. Hunting
Baronets, who liked the music of the pack when
they threw up their heads, much better than the
music of D'Albert s waltzes. Members with the
down hardly on their cheeks; other Members,
whose mission seemed to lie much more in the
saddle than the benches. Rectors by the dozen,
who found a village dance on the green sinful, but
a ball at Vigne a very pardonable error ; scores of
military men, who flirted more desperately and
meant less by it than any fellows in the room ;
all the County, in fact, and among them little old
Fantyre, with her hooked nose, and her queer re-
putation, her dirty, priceless lace, and her jewels
got nobody knew how, and her daughter, niece,
or companion, the intrigante^ the interloper, but
decidedly the belle of the rooms, the handsome
and haughty Trefiisis. Superbly, in truth, she
looked in some dress, as light and brilliant as sum-
mer clouds, with the rose tint of sunset on them,
while her eyes, dark and lustrous as an East-
ern's, shot their dangerous languid glances. One
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 193
could hardly wonder that De Vigne offended past
redemption the Ladies-in-their-own-right, all the
great heiresses, all the County princesses royal,
all the archery-party beauties; and careless
of rank, right, or comment, opened the ball
with the Trefusis. It was her crowning tri-
umph, and she knew it. She knew that what
he dared to begin, he would dare to follow out,
and that the more censure he provoked, the
more certainly would he persevere in his own
will.
* We have lost the game ! ' said Sabretasche to
me, as he passed me, waltzing with Adelina
Ferrers.
It was true. De Vigne was then waltzing
that same valse with her; whirling her round,
the white lilies of her bouquet de corsage crushed
against his breast; her forehead resting on his
shoulder, his moustaches touching her hair as
he whispered in her ear, his face glad, proud,
eager, impassioned; while the County femi-
nine sneered, and whispered behind their fans,
* what could De Vigne possibly see in that
woman ? ' and the men swore what a deuced fine
creature she was, and wondered what Trefusis she
might be ?
And that waltz over De Vigne gave her hia
VOL. I.
194 "HELD m BONDAGE;" OR,
ami and led her oat of the ball-room to take
some ioe, and then strolled on with her into the
i^onservatories* which, thanks to Lady Flora, were
brilliant as the glories of the tropics, and odorous
as a rich Indian night, with their fragrance ex^
-haling from citron and cypress groves, and their
heavy clusters of magnolias and mangoes. Ther^
in that atmosphere, that hour, so sure to banish
prudence and fan the fires of passion ; . th^re, to
the Woman beside him, glorious as one of the
West Indian flowers above their heads, but chill
land unmoved at heart, as one of their brilliant
itnd waxen petals, De Vigne poured out in terse
and glowing words the love that Beauty alone so
madly and strangely awakened, lajring generously
and trustfully, as knight of old laid his spoils and
his life, at his queen's feet, his home, his name, his
honour before the woman he loved. And she sim-*
ulated tenderness to perfection ; she threw it into
her lustrous eyes, she forced it into her blushing
cheek, it trembled in her softened voice, it
glanced upwards under her dark lashes. It was
all a Lie, but a lie marvellously acted:- and
while De Vigne bent over her, covering her
lips with passionate caresses, drinking in with
every breath a fresh draught of intoxication,
his heart beating loud and quick with the
GRANVILLE DE ViaNE. 195
triumph of success, was it a marvel that he
forgot his past, his future, his own experience,
others' warnings, anything and everything, save
the Present, in its full and triumphant de-
lirium?
o2
196 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER IX.
THE BLOW THAT A WOMAN DEALT.
* I SAY, Arthur ^she has outwitted us ! '
' The devil she has. Colonel ! '
* Who would have believed him so mad ? '
* Who would have believed her so artful ? *
* Chevasney, men are great fools ! *
* And women wonderful actresses, Colonel ! '
* Right; but it is a cursed pity.*
* That De Vigne is taken in, or that women are
embodied lies, sir which ? '
* Both ! '
And with his equanimity most unusually ruffled,
and his rwnchalant impassiveness strangely dis-
turbed, Sabretasche turned away out of the ball-
room, which De Vigne and the Trefusis, after a
prolonged absence, had just re-entered ; his face
saying plainly enough, that his cause was won ;
hers telling as clearly, that Vigne and its master
were captured.
When the dawn was rising, and the great gates
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 197
had closed after the last carriage- wheels, De Vigne
went to his mother in her dressing-room. He
wished to tell, yet he shrank from paining her
it came out with a jerk at last ^*My mother,
wish me joy ! I have won her, and /have no fear ! *
And when his mother fiilly realized his words,
she burst into the most bitter tears that she had
ever shed for him ; for whatever in his whole life
De Vigne's faults might be to others, in his con-
duct to his mother he had none. He let her
tears have their way; he hardly knew how to
console her ; he only put his arm gently round
her as if to assure her that no wife should ever
come between herself and him. When she raised
her head she was deathly pale ^pale, as if the
whole of his ftiture hung a dead and hopeless
weight upon her. She said no more against it ;
it was done, and she was both too wise, and loved
him too truly, to vex and chafe him with useless
opposition. But she threw her arms round him,
and kissed him, long and breathlessly, as she had
kissed him in his child's cot long ago, thinking of
his father lying dead on the Indian shore vidth
the colours for his shroud.
* My darling ! my darling ! God bless you !
God give you a happy future, and a Wife who will
love you, as you can love will love ! '
198 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
' That passionate broken prayer was all his
mother ever said to him of his marriage.
De Vigne received few congratulations; but
that sort of thing was quite contrary to his taste,
and on opposition, none of his relatives, not even
the overbearing, knock-me-down. Marchioness of
Marqueterie, who gave the law to everybody,
dared to venture. She only expressed her opinion
by ordering her own carriage for the hour, and the
day, at which the Trefiisis came for the first time
to stay at Vignp. Lady Flora treated the Tre-
^sis with a generous courtesy, which did its best
to grow into something warmer, and watched her
with a wistful Hnxiety which was very touching.
But it was evident to everyone that, though her
future daughter-in-law was most carefully atten-
tive, reverential, and gentle to De Vigne's mother,
repressing everything in herself, or in Lady Fan-
tpe, that could in the slightest degree shock or
wound her refined and highly -cultivated taste,
she and Lady Flora could never assimilate, or
even approach. This careful courtesy was all that
would ever link them together, and, in this in-
stance at least, the extremes did not touch.
However, for the three weeks longer, that I
remained there, on the surface all went on remark-
ably smooth. The Ferrers, of course, had left
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. X99
with their mother. The Trefiisis, as I have said,
as irreproachable. Sabretasche ^as infinitelj
too polished a gentleman, to show disapproval
of what he had no earthly business with; and
limited himself to an occasional satiric remark
on her, so veiled in subtle wit and courtesy,
that, shrewd as she was, she felt the sting, but
could not find the point of attack clearly enough
to return it. De Vigne, of course, saw everything
couleur de rose^ and only chafed with impatience at
the probation of an engagement which the Tre-
fusis would not allow to end before Christmas (I
think she rather enjoyed fretting and irritating him
with denial and delay) ; and his mother resigned
herself to the inevitable, and did her very best,
poor lady ! to find out some trace of that beauty
of heart, thought, and mind, which her delicate
feminine instinct had told her, was wanting in the
magnificent personal gifts with which nature bad
enriched the woman who was to be his wife.
So all went harmoniously on at Vigne through-
out that autumn ; and the County talked them*
selves hoarse, speculating on his union with an
unknown, sans rank, pestige, history, or any
thing to entitle her to such an honour, in
whom, whether she were daughter or protegee of
that disreputable old woman, Sarah Lady Fan-
200 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
tyre, Society could decide nothing for certain, nor
make out anything at all satisfactory. No wonder
the County were up at arms, and hardly knew
which to censure the most De Vigne for daring
to make such a misalliance, or the Trefusis for
daring to accept it ! And the Colonel thought
with the County,
* If I ever took the trouble (which I don't,
because hate is an exhausting and silly thing) to
hate anybody, it would be that remarkably hand^
some and remarkably detestable Trefusis,' said
Sabretasche, as he wrapped a plaid round his
knees on the box of the drag, which was to con-
vey him and me to the station, to take the
train for Northamptonshire. To which county,
well-beloved of every Englishman for the mere
name of Pytchley, Sabretasche was going down
for the five weeks that still remained of his leave,
having invited me to accompany him ; and where
I enjoyed myself uncommonly, hunting with
that slap-up Pack, and managing more than once
to be in at the finish, by dint of following that
best of mottoes, for which we are indebted to the
best Master of Hounds who ever went to cover,
* Throw your heart over, and your horse will
follow ! '
Each day I spent with him I grew more at-
aRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 201
tacbed to the Colonel ; the longer I saw him in his
own house, so perfect a gentleman, so perfect a
host; the longer I listened to his easy, playful
talk on men and things, his subtle and profound
satire on hypocrisies and follies. It was impos-
sible not to get, as ladies say, fond of Sabretasche ;
his courtly urbanity, his graceful generosity, his
ready wit, all made him so charming a companion ;
though of the real man it was difficult, as De
Vigne said, to judge, through the nonchalance, in-
dolence, and impassiveness, with which the Colonel
chose to veil all that he said or did. He might
have some secret or other in his past life, or his
present career, which no man ever knew; he
might be only, what he said he was, an idler, a
trifler, a dilettante, a blase and tired man of the
world, a nil admirari-ist. Nobody could tell.
Only this I could see, gay, careless, indolent
though he was, that in spite of the refined selfish-
ness, the exquisite epicureanism, the voluptuous
enjoyment of life which his friends and foes attri-
buted to him, Vivian Sabretasche, like most of
the world's merry-makers, was sometimes sad
enough at heart.
* Friends? I don't believe in friends, my dear
boy,' said the Colonel, one night when we sat over
the fire, after a run with the Pytchley ; a splendid
202 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
burst over the country up wind, fifteen minutes alone
with the hounds ; and a kill in the open. * There
are hundreds of good fellows who like Vivian
Sabretasche, and run after him because he amuses
them, and is a little of the fashion, and is held a
good judge of their wine, and their stud, and their
pictures. But let Vivian Sabretasche come to
grief to-morrow, let his Lares go to the Jews, and
his Penates to the devil; let the Clubs, instead of
quoting, black-ball him, and the ^ Court Circular,'
instead of putting him in the Fashionable InteU
ligence, cite him among the Criminal Cases, which
of his bosom friends will be so anxious then to
take his arm down St. James's Street ? Which of
them all will invite and flatter him then ? Will
Orestes send him haunches of venison? Will
lolaiis uncork his comet wine for him, and Pylades
stretch out his hand to him, and pick his fallen
pride out of the dirt of the gutter, and fight his
battle for him when he has crippled himself?
Pshaw ! my dear Arthur, I take men at my
valuation, not at their ownl Don't you
know
^^ Si vous 6tes dans la dt^tresse,
O mes amis, cachez-le bien,
Car Phomme est bon et s'int^resse
A ceux qui n'ont besoin de rien ! *' *
V
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 203
* It is a sad doctrine, Colonel/ said I, who was
a boy, and wished to disbelieve him.
He laughed a little. *Sad? Oh, I don*t
see that ; nothing in life is worth calling sad.
According to Heraclitus, everything is sad; ac-
cording to Democritus, nothing is sad. The true
secret is to take things as they come, and not
trouble yourself suflSciently about anything to give
it power to trouble you. Enjoy your youth. Take
mine and your school-friend Ovid's counsel
^' Utendum est setate. Cito pede labitur setas. ...
Hac mihi de spina grata corona data est." '
* But how's one to keep clear of the thorns ? '
* By flying butterfly-like, from rose to rose, and
handling it so delicately, as not to give it time
to prick you ! . Love makes a poetic and unphilo-
sophic man, like Dante or Petrarca, unhappy;
but do you suppose that Lauzun, Grammont, the
Due de Richelieu, were ever made unhappy by
love ? No, the very idea makes one laugh ; the
poets took it au sSneuXy and sufiered iii conse-
quence ; the courtiers only made it their pastime,
and enjoyed it proportionately. It all depends on
the way one lays hold of the roses of life ; som6
men only enjoy the dew and fragrance of the
flower, others mismanage it somehow, and get
only the thorns.-
204 "HELD IN BONDAOE;" OR,
* You've the secret, then, Colonel,' said I,
laughing, * for you get a whole conservatory of the
most delicious under the sun, and not a thorn,
rd bet, among them ? '
* Or, at all events, my skin is hard enough not
to be pricked,' smiled Sabretasche. ^I think
many men begin life, like the sand on the top
of a drum, which obeys every undulation of the air
from the notes of a violin near ; they are sensi-
tive and susceptible, shrinking at vnrong or injury,
easily moved, quickly touched. As years go on, the
same men are like the same sand when it has been
pressed, and hardened, and burnt in fusion heat,
and exposed to frosty air, and made into polished,
impenetrable glass, on which you can make no
impression, off whose icy surface everything glides
away, and which it is impossible to cut with the
hardest and keenest of knives. The sand is the
same sand ; it is the treatment it has met with
that has changed it. How I do prose to you,
Arthur! and of all the ills, a man has least
right to inflict on another, are his own theo-
ries or ideas ! Fill your glass, my boy, and pass
me those macaroons. How can those poor crea-
tures live who don't know of the Marcobrunnen
and Macaroons of existence ? It is a good thing
to have money, isn't it ? It not only buys us friends.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 205
but it buys us what is of infinitely more value
all the pleasant WttleagremerUs of life. 1 would not
keep in the world at all if I did not lie on rose-
leaves ! '
Wherewith the Colonel nestled himself more
comfortably into his armchair, laid his head on
the cushions, closed his eyes, and smoked away
at his perfumed hookah, the most fragrant and
delicate Narghille, that ever came out of Persia.
On the 31st of December, Sabretasche auii De
Vigne, Curly and I (Curly had got his commis*
sion in the Coldstreams, and was the prettiest,
daintiest, most flattered, and most flirted with
young Guardsman of his time), went down by the
express, through the snow-whitened fields and
hedges, to Vigne, where, contrary to custom, its
master was to take his bride on the first morning
of the New Year. It was to be a very gay wed-
ding. De Vigne, always liberal to excess, now
perfectly lavish in his gifts, had followed the
French fashion, he said, and given her a corbeille
fit for a princess of Blood Royal, which the Tre-
fusis, having no delicacy of appropriation, accepted
as a right, lliere were to be twelve bridesmaids,
not the quite exclusive, and ultra high-bred, young
ladies who would have followed Adelina or Blanche
Ferrers, but still very stylish-fooH/iy girls, ac-
206 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
quaintances of the Trefusis. There were to be
such a break&st and such rejoicings, as had never
before been seen, even at tliat proverbially magni-
ficent place. Such a wedding was entirely con-
trary to De Yigne's taste and ideas, but the more
others had chosen to run down the Trefusis, the
more did he delight to honour her, and therefore
he had asked almost everybody he knew, and
almost everybody went ; for all who knew him
wished him well, except his aunt and her daughters
the Ladies Ferrers. They went, because else, the
,world might have said that they were disappointed
he had not married Blanche; but very far from
wishing him well, I think they fervently hoped
he might repent his hasty step, in sackcloth and
ashes, and their costly wedding presents were
piuch like Judas's kisses. Wedding presents sin-
gularly often are ! As she writes the delicately
mauve-tinted congratulatory note, wishing dearest
Adeliza every joy that earth can give, and assur-
ing her she is the very beau ideal of a perfect
wife, is not Madame ten to one saying to her
elder daughter, *How strange it is that Fitz
should have been taken in such a bold, flirty girl,
and nothing pretty in her, to my taste?' And
as we shake Fitz's hand at our Club, telling him
he is the Iqckiest dog going to have such a pretty
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 207
girl, and such a lot of money by one coupj are we
not fifty to one thinking, 'Poor wretch ! he's glad
^f the tin, I suppose, to : keep him out of the
Queen's Bench ? But, by George ; though I am
hard up, I wouldn't take one of those confounded
Peyton women if I knew it ! Won't she just
check him nicely, with her cheque-book and her
consols !'
One could hardly wonder that if the Trefusis
had been proved a perfect Messalina or Fredfer
gonde, no man in love with her would have given
her up as she sat that last evening of the Old
Year on one of the low couches beside the
drawing-room fire at Vigne, looking with the
ruddy glow of the fire-gleam's upon her like one
of Rubens', or Guide's, dark, glowing^ volup-
tuous goddesses or sybils. De Vigne was lean-
ing over her with eyes for none but her. His
mother jsat opposite them both, delicate, graceful,
fragile, with her diaphanoiis hands, and fair pure
profile, and rich, soft, black lace felling in folds
around her, her eyes yearningly fixed upon her
son ; while just 'behind her, plajdng ^cartS with
Curly, who was devotedly forfd of that little,
dangerous French game, was old Lady Fantyre,
with her keen, wicked eye, and her rouged,
withered cheek, and hef fen and feathers, flowers
208 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
and jewels, and her dress dScoUetie at seventy-
six!
* Look at De Vigne ! ' said Sabretasche to me.
* His desires on the eve of fulfilment, he imagines
his happiness will be also. How he bends over that
chair, and looks down into her eyes, as if all his
heaven hung there ! Twelve months hence he will
wish to God he had never looked upon her face.'
* Good Heavens, Colonel ! ' I cried involuntarily,
t what evil, or horror, do you know of her ? *
* None of her, personally,' said Sabretasche, with
a surprised smile. ^ But is she not a woman ; and
is not De Vigne, poor fellow, marrying too early ?
With such premises my prophecy requires no
diviner's art to make it a very safe one. As
great a contrast as that rouged, atrociously-
dressed, abominable old orange-woman is to his
own charming and graceful mother, will be De
Vigne's real future to his imaginary one. How-
ever, he is probably in Socrates' predicament,
whether he take a wife or not, either way he will
repent; and he must be satisfied ; he will have the
handsomest woman in England ! Few men have
as much as that ! '
* Ladies ought to hate you, sir,' said I, * instead
of loving you as idolatrously as they do ; for you
certainly are their bitterest enemy ? *
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 209
* Not I,' laughed Sabretasche. * I am very fond
of them, except when they try and hook my
favourite friends, and then I would say to them,
as Thales said to his mother, that in their youth
men are too young to be fettered, and after
their youth they are too old. I am sorry for De
Vigne very sorry; he is doing what in a little
time, and for all his life through, he will long to
undo. But he must have his own way ; and per-
haps, after all, as Emerson says, marriage may be
an open question, as it is alleged from the begin-
ning of the world, that such as are in the institu-
tion want to get out, and such as are out want
to get in ! Marriage is like a mirage : all the
beauty it possesses lies in keeping at a distance
from it.'
He moved away with that light laugh which
always perplexed you as to whether he meant
what he said in mockery or earnest, and began to
arrange the pieces for a game at chess with one of
the ladies. He was very right. His wife would
be the woman of all others, from whom, in maturer
years, De Vigne would be most certain to revolt.
A man's later loves, are sure to be widely distinct in
style from his earlier. In his youth, he only asks
for what charms his eyes and senses ; in manhood
if he be a man of intellect at all ^he will go
VOL. I. p
210 "held m bondage;" or,
further, and require interest for his mind, and
sponse for his heart.
The last hour of the Old Year chimed at once
from the bell-tower of Vigne, the belfry of the old
village-church, and the countless clocks through-
out the house ; as a little gold Bayadere on the
mantel-piece struck the twelve strokes slowly and
musically on her tambourine. Lady Flora, in her
own boudoir, heard it with passionate tears, and
on her knees, prayed for her son's new future which
this New Year heralded. De Vigne, alone in the
library with his betrothed, heard it, and pressed
his lips to hers, with words of rapturous delight,
to welcome this New Year coming to them both.
Sabretasche heard it as he leant over the chair of
a lovely married woman, flirting a ouirance, and
bent backward to me as I passed him : ^ There goes
the death-knell ! The last day of De Vigne's free-
dom is over. Go and put on sackcloth and ashes,
Arthur/
The ColonePs words weighed curiously upon me
as I rose and dressed on the morning of New
Year's-day. I, a young fellow, who looked on life
and all its chances as gaily as on a game at cricket,
who should have come to this wedding as I had
gone to a dozen others, only to enjoy myself, drink
the Ai and Sillery, and flirt with all the bridesmaids.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 211
dressed with almost as dead a chill upon me, I
could not have told why, as if I had come to
De Vigne's funeral rather than to his marriage.
There seemed little reason for regret, however,
as I met him that morning coming out of his
room, and held out his hand with his sunny smile.
I wished him joy in very few words I wished it
him too well to be able to get up an eloquent or
studied speech.
* Thank you, dear Arthur,' he answered, turning
his door-handle with a joyous, light-hearted laugh ;
* I am sure all the fairies would come and bless my
marriage if you'd anything to do with the ordering
of them. Come in, old fellow, and have a cigar
^my last bachelor smoke it will keep me quiet
till she is out of her maid's hands. Faugh ! how
I hate the folly of wedding ceremonial ! The idea
of dressing up Love in white favours, and giving
him brid^-cake ! It was not so Cupid and Psyche
were wed. I think Eros would have turned his
back on the whole affidr if they had subjected him
to a bishop's drawl, and an attorney's prosaic busi-
ness, eh ? Try those Manillas, Arthur.'
He smoked because, my dear young ladies, men
accustomed to the horrid weed, can't do without
it, even on their wedding-day ; but quiet he was
not : he had at all times more of the tornado in
p2
212 " HELD m BONDAGE ;" OR,
him, than anything like the Coloners equable eafm;
and he was restless and excitable, and happy as
only a man in the same cloudless and eager youth,
with the same fearless and vehement passion, can
ever be. He soon threw down his cigar, for a
servant came to tell him that his mother would
like to see him in her own room ; and De Vigne,
who had been ceaselessly darting glances at the
clock, which, I dare say, seemed to him to crawl
on its way, went out, joyous as Romeo's,
' Come what sorrow may
It cannot countervail this interchange of joy.'
He never thought of Friar Laurence's prophetic
reply :
^ These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume ! '
By noon we were all ready. In the dining-hall,
with its bronzes and its deer-heads, and the regi-
mental colours of his father's Corps looped up
between the two end windows, with his helmet,
sabre, and gloves above them, the breakfast, sump-
tuous enough to have done for St. James's or the
Tuileries, was set out, with its gold plate, its hot-
house flowers, and its thousand delicacies ; and in
the private Chapel the wedding party was assem-
bled, with the sun streaming brightly in, through
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 213
the coloured light of the stained windows. It was
a very brilliant gathering. There were the Mar-
chioness of Malachite and the Ladies Ferrers,
looking bored to the last extreme, and appearing
to consider it too great an honour for the mosaic
pavement to have the glory of bearing their foot-
steps. There were other dainty ladies of rank,
friends of Lady Flora's. There were the dozen
bridesmaids in their gauzy dresses and their
wreaths of holly or of forget-me-not ; there were
hosts of men, chiefly military, whose morning
mufti threw in just enough shade among the
bright dresses, as brilliant by themselves as a bou-
quet of exotics. There were, strangely enough,
close together, bizarre, quick-eyed, queer old Lady
Fantyre, and soft, fragile Lady Flora ; and, there
was De Vigne, standing near his mother, chatting
and laughing with Sabretasche, but all his senses
alive, to catch the first sound which should tell
him, of the advent of his bride.
How well I can see him now, as if it were but
yesterday, standing on the altar-steps where his
ancestors, through long ages past, had wedded noble
gentlewomen and fair patrician girls from the best
and bravest Houses in the land I can see him
now, standing erect, his head up, one hand in
the breast of his waistcoat, his eyes, dark as night,
214 "held m BONDAGE;"* OR,
brilliant and luminous with eagerness ; a flash of
excitement and anticipation on his face; not a
shade, not a fear, seeming to rest upon him ! His
mother's eyes were riveted on him, with a mournful
tenderness, she c6uld not, or did not care to^ con-
ceal; her lips quivered; she looked at me, and
shook her head. That wedding party was very
brilliant, but there was a strange, dull gloom over
it which everyone felt, yet none could explain ; and
little of the joyous light-heartedness which make
" marriage-bells " proverbial for mirth and gaiety.
There was a very low but an irrepressible mur-
mur of applause, as his bride swept silently up
the aisle. Never had we seen her look so hand-
some. Her voluptuous form wsls shrouded in
the shower of lace that fell around her, and
about her, from her head, till it trailed behind
her on the ground. The glowing damask-rose
hue of her cheeks, not one whit the paler this
morning, and the splendid brilliance of her eyes,
were enhanced, not hidden, by the filmy floating veil.
A wreath of orange-flowers, of course was woven
in her hair, and a ceinture of diamonds, worthy an
imperial trousseau one of the gifts of her lavish
and bewitched loverwere jewels fitted to her.
She was matchless as a dream of Rubens' ; but
I looked in vain, as her eyes rested on De
GRANVnXB DE VIGNB. 216
Vigne's, for one saving shadow of love, joy,
natural emotion, tremulous feeling, to denote that
he was not utterly thrown away ; and only wedded
to a priceless statue of responseless marble !
She passed up to the altar with her retinue of
bridesmaids, in their snowy dresses and bright
wreaths, into the light streaming from the painted
windows. She stood beside him ; and the service
began ; one of the Ferrers family, the Bishop of
Southdown, read the few words which linked thetii
for life with the iron fetters of the Church. Every*
one who caught the glad^ firm, eager tone of De
Vigne's * / wiU^* remembers it to this day re-
members with what trusting love, what unhesi-
tating promptitude he took that vow for * better
or worse ! ' Prophetic words ! which say, whatever
ill may eome of that rash oath sworn, there will
be no remedy for it ; no help, no repentance that
will be of any avail ; no furnace strong enough, to
unsolder the chains they forge for ever !
De Vigne passed the ring over her finger ; they
knelt down, and the priest stretched his hands
over them, and forbade those whom God had
joined together any Man to put asunder. And
they rose husband and wife.
They came down the altar steps, De Vigne's
ace radiant) in its frank joy, its noble pride.
216 "held in bondage; or,
lookiDg down upon her with his brilliant eyes,
now soft and gleaming ; while she looked
straight before her, her lips slightly parted with
a smile, probably of triumph and of exultation,
that she, unknown and unsupported, called by all
an interloper, by many an adventuress, was now
the wife of the last of a haughty House, whose
pride throughout lengthened centuries had ever
been that all its men were brave and all its women
chaste ; that not a taint rested on its name, not a
stain upon its blood, not a spot upon its shield.
We passed down the chapel into the vestry,
De Vigne gazing down on her vrith all the
eagerness of passion. But he had no an-
swering glance of love. The day of acting, be-
cause the need for acting, was over now. The
register was open; he took the quill, and
dashed down hastily his old ancestral name ; pass-
ing it into her hand with fondly whispered words.
She took it, threw back her veil, and wrote
" Lucy Trefusis or Davis."
De Vigne was bending fondly over her, his lips
touching her hair, with its virginal crown, as she
. wrote. With one great cry he suddenly sprang
up, as men will do upon a battle-field^when struck
with their death-wound. Seizing her hands in
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 217
his, he held her away from him, readingher face
line by line, feature by feature, with the dim
horror of a man in some vague dream of hideous
agony. And she smiled up in his face ; the smile
of a fiend.
* Granville de Vigne, do you know me now ? '
Aye ! he knew her now. He still held her at
arms' length, staring down upon her, the truth in
all its vile horror, its abhorred shame, eating
gradually into his very life ; seeming as it were to
turn his warm blood to ice, and chill his very
heart to stone. She laughed a mocking derisive
laugh, which broke strangely, coarsely, brutally,
on the dead silence round them.
* Yes ! Granville, yes ! my young lover, I am
your Wife, of your own act, your own will. Do
you remember the poor mistress you mocked at ?
Do you remember the summer day when you
laughed at my vengeance? Do you remember, my
husband f Before all your titled crowd, I take
my revenge, that it may be the more complete.
I would not wait for it, nor spare you one iota
of your shame, nor let you keep it secret hidden
in your heart ! I renounce my own ambitions to
humble you lower still. They are hearing ua!
All your haughty relatives, your fastidious friends,
who have tried so long to stop you in your mad
218 "held m BONDAGE.;" OR,
passion. . They listen to me ! They see you dis-
honoured for ever in your eyes and theirs ! They
will go and tell the world, what you would never have
told it, that the last of his Ldne has given his home^
his honour, his mother's place, his Other's name
that proud name which only yesterday you told me
no disgrace had ever touched, no bad blood ever
borne 1 to the despised love of his boyhood, his
own cast-off low-born toy ; a beggar's child ; a '
*Pbacb!'
At that single word, hoarse as a death-cry in
its unutterable agony, she was silenced perforce.
The blood had left his lips, and cheeks, a blue and
ghastly hue ; and settled on his forehead in a dark
crimson stain like the stain on his own honour.
His eyes were set and fixed, as in some mortal tor-
ture, wide-open and vacant in their pain ; his teeth
were clenched as men clench them in their last
struggle ; and his hand was pressed upon his heart,
as he gasped for breath, like one suffocated by
a deadly grip that throttles him. In the horror
of the moment, all round him were dumb and
paralyzed ; even she, in her rancorous hate, paused,
awe-stricken at the ruin she had wrought, silent
before the anguish, shame, and loathing that con-
vulsed his face, as he flung her from him with a
wild shrill laugh.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 219
* Peace! woman devil! or I sliall have your
life!'
But his mother threw herself before him. * Oh,
God ! he is mad ! Stay, for my sake, stay ! '
He strained her to his heart with convulsive
force :
* Let me go let me go ! *
None could attempt to arrest him. He pushed
his way through the crowd, hurling them aside,
like a madman, and we heard the rapid rush of
carriage-wheels as they rolled away God knows
where.
220 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER X.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW YEAR.
On another New Year's Day, ten years from that
fetal marriage in the church at Vigne, the tropic
sun streamed down on parched sand, and tangled
jungle, where, in the sultry stillness of the noon, a
contest for life and death was raging. Far away
on the blue hills slept the golden day ; the great
palm-leaves drooped languidly; the jaguars, andthe
tigers, lay couched in the grasses; the florikens, and
parrots, closed their soft, brilliant-hued wings to
sleep; all nature in the vast solitudes was at
peace; even the broad sheet of the river was
calm as a tideless lake, pausing in its rapid rush,
from its mountain cradle, to its ocean grave. All
nature was hushed and still, but the passions of
man were warring ; when do they ever rest ? It
was a skirmish of English cavalry andBeloochee in-
fantry, in a small plain between large woods or hunt-
ing grounds, and the red sun shone with an arid glare
on the glittering sabres, and white linen helmets
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 221
of the Europeans, and the gorgeous turbans,
and dark shields of the mountaineers, who were
darkening the air with their clashing swords,
and breaking the holy hush of wood and hills
with long rolling shouts, loud and terrible as
thunder. The mountaineers doubled the English
force ; they had surprised them, moreover, as, not
thinking of attack, they trotted onwards from one
garrison to another, and the struggle was sharp and
fierce. The English were but a handful of Hussars,
under command of their Major, and the odds were
great against them. But at their head was one to
whom fear was a word in an unknown tongue, in
whose blood was fire, and whose heart was bronze.
Sitting down in his saddle as calmly as at a meet,
his eyes steady and quick as an eagle's, hewing
right and left like a common trooper, the English
Major fought his way. The Beloochee swords
gleamed round him without harm, while, crashing
through their bright-hued turbans, every stroke
of his sabre told. They surged around him, they
climbed, they wrestled, they tore, they panted for
his blood, they caught his charger's bridle, they op-
posed before him one dense and bristling forest of
swords ; still, he bore a charmed life, alike in single
combat hand to hand, or in the broken charge of
his scattered troop. In the fierce noontide glow; in
222 "HELD m BOISDAGB;" OR,
the pitiless vertical sun-rays ; while the wild shouts
of the natives rang up to the heavens, and the
ceaseless clang and clash of the sabres and shields
startled the birds from their rest, and the tigers
from their lair ; the English Major fought like grim
death, as these blows glanced harmless off him, as
from Achilles of old ; fought till the native warriors,
savage heroes though they were, fled from his path,
awe-stricken at his fierce valour, at his matchless
strength, at his god-like charm from danger. He
pursued them at the head of his Cavalry, after
the skirmish was over, far away across the plain ;
then, as he drew bridle, and put his reeking sword
back into its sheath, another man near him, looked
at him in amazement : * On my life, De Vigne,
what an odd fellow you are ! You look like the
very devil in the midst of the fight ; and yet when
it's over, after sharper work than any even we
have seen, deuce take you if you're not as cool as
if you'd walked out of a barrack-yard ! '
The same 1st of January, while they were en-
joying this Cavalry skirmish in Scinde, we were
bored to death by a review at Woolwich. The
day was soft and bright, no snow or frost, as Sabre
tasche, with his Italianized constitution, remarked
GRANVILLB DE VIGNB. 223
*
with a thanksgiving. There was Royalty to inspect
us ; there were pretty women in their carriages in
the inner circle ; and there was as superb a lun-
cheon as any military man could ask, in the finest
mess-room in England ; and we, ungrateful, I sup-
pose, for the goods the gods gave us, swore away
at it all, as the greatest curse imaginable. It is a
pretty scene enough, I dare say, to those who have
only to look on; the bright uniforms and the
white plumes, the greys and the bays, the chesnuts
and the roans, the dashing staff and the cannon's
peaceful roar, the marching and the counter-
marching, the storming and the sortie, the rush and
the charge ! I dare say it may be all very amusing
to lookers-on, but to us, heated and bothered and
tired, obliged to go into harness, which we hated
as cordially as we loved it the first day we sported
in our Comethood, it was a nuisance inexpressible,
and we should have far preferred fatiguing our-
selves for some better purpose under the jungle-
trees in Scinde.
We were profoundly thankful when it was all
over and done vnth, when H.R.H. F.M . had de-
parted to Windsor without luncheon, and we were
free to go up and chat with the women in the
inner circle, and take them into the mess-room.
There were very few we knew, yet up in town ;
224 "held in bondage; or,
but Parliament was about to meet, unusually
early that year, and there were several from
jointure houses, or little villas at Richmond, or
Twickenham, or Kew, with whom we were well
acquainted.
* There is Lady Molyneux,' said Sabretasche,
who was now Lieut.-Colonel of Ours. * I dare say
that is her daughter with her. I remember sh
came out last season, and was very much a
mired, but I missed her by going that Ionian Is
trip with Brabazon. Shall we go and be intro-
duced, Arthur? She does not look bad style,
thougti to be sure these English winter days, are
as destructive to a woman's beauty, as anything
well can be !'
The Colonel wheeled his horse round up to the
Molyneux barouche, and I followed him. Ten
years had not altered Sabretasche in one iota ; he
had led the same lounging, indolent, fashionable,
artistic kind of life ; his face was as handsome, his
wit as light, his conquests as various and far-famed
as ever. He was still soldier, artist, sculptor, di-
lettante, man of fashion, all in one, the universal
criterion of taste, the critic of all beauties, pictures,
singers, or horses, popular with all men, adored by
all women, and really chained by none. There-
fore Vivian Sabretasche, whose word at White's
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 225
or the U. S. could do more to damage, or increase,
her daughters reputation as a belle, than any
other man's, had a very pleasant bow and smile
in the distance, from Lady Molyneux ; and a very
delicate lavender kid glove belonging to that
peeress, put between his fingers, when he and I
rode up to her carriage.
* Ah ! * cried the Viscountess, a pretty, super-
cilious-looking woman, who was passSe^ but would
not \ij any means allow it, * I am delighted to see
yQfiii)oth. We only came to town yesterday;
Lor^ Molyneux has taken a house in Lowndes
Square, and there is positively scarcely a soul that
we know here as yet ! Rushbrooke persuaded us
to come to this review to-day, and Violet wished
it. Allow me to introduce my daughter to you.
Violet, my love, Colonel Sabretasche, Mr. Che-
vasney,Miss Molyneux.'
Violet Molyneux looked up in the Colonel's
face as he bowed to her ; and probably thought
at least she looked as if she did that she had
never seen any man so attractive, as he returned
her gaze with his soft, mournful eyes, and that
exquisite gentleness of manner, to which he owed
half his reputation in the tender secrets of the
boudoir and flirting-room ; and leaning his hand
on the door of the carriage, bent down from his
VOL. I. Q
226 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
saddle, studying the new beauty, while be laugbed
and cbatted with her and her mother. We used
to say Sabretasche kept a list of the new beauties
entered for the year, as * Bell's Life * has a list of
the young fillies entered for the Oaks ; made a
cross against those worth noticing, and checked
off those already flirted with and slain ; for the
Colonel was indisputably as dangerous to the beau
BBxe as Lauzun.
Violet Molyneux was certainly worthy of
being entered in this mythical book if it existed ;
her complexion white as Parian, with a wild-rose
colour in her cheeks, her eyes large, brilliant, and
wonderfully expressive, generally flashing with the
sweetest laughter ; her hair of a soft, bright, ches-
nut hue; her figure slight but perfect in sym-
metry; on her delicate features the stamp of
quick intelligence, heightened by the greatest
culture ; and in her whole air and manner the
grace of high rank, and fashionable dress. Gifted
with the gayest spirits, the cleverest brain, and
the sweetest temper possible, one could not wonder
that she was talked over at Clubs; engaged by
more than her tablets could record at every ball,
and followed by a perfect cavalcade when she
cantered down the Ride. Sabretasche soon took
her off to the mess-room, a Lieutenant-General
GRANTILLE BE VIGNE. 227
escorting her mother, and I found myself sitting
on her left at the luncheon : an occasion I did not
improve as much as I otherwise should have done,
from the fact of his being on the other side, and
persuading the young lady to give all her atten-
tion to him; for, though he was scarcely ever
really interested in any woman, he liked to flirt
with them all, and always made himself charming.
The Hon. Violet seemed to find him charming
too ; and chatted with him gaily and frankly, as if
she had known him for ages.
* How I enjoyed the review to day ! ' she began.
* If there are three sights greater favourites of
mine than another, they are a review, a race, and
a meet, because of the dear horses.'
* Oi* their masters ? ' said Sabretasche, quietly*
Violet Molyneux laughed.
' Oh ! their masters are very pleasant too, though
they are certainly never so handsome, or so tract-
able, or so honest as their quadrupeds ! Most of
my friends abuse gentlemen. I don't; they are
always kind to me, and unless they are very young
or stupid, generally speaking amusing.'
* Miss Molyneux, what a treat ! ' smiled Sabre-
tasche, who could say impudent things so gracefully,
that every one liked them from his lips. * You
have the candour to say what every other young
q2
228 "HftLD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
lady thinks. We know you all like us very much, but
none of you will ever admit it ! You say you en-
joyed the review ? I thought no belle, after her first
season, ever condescended to ^ enjoy " anything/
* Don't they?' laughed Violet; *how I pity
them ! I am an exception, then, for I enjoy an
immense number of things; everything, indeed,
except my presentation, where I was ironed quite
flat, and very nearly crushed to death, and, finally,
came before her Majesty in a state of collapse,
like a maimed india-rubber ball. Not enjoy
things! Why, I enjoy my morning gallop on
Bonbon ; I enjoy my flowers, and birds, and dogs.
I delight in the opera, I adore waltzing, I perfectly
idolize music, and the day when a really good
book comes out, or a really good painting is ex-
hibited, I am in a seventh heaven. Not enjoy
things! Oh, Colonel Sabretasche, when I cease
to enjoy life, I hope I shall cease to live ! '
* You will die very early, then!' said Sabretasche,
with something of that deepened melancholy
which occasionally stole over him, but which he
was always careful to conceal in society.
She started, and turned her bright eyes upou
him, surprised and stilled :
* Colonel Sabretasche ! Why ? '
He smiled ; his usual gay, courteous smile :
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 229
' Because the gods will grudge earth so fair a
flower, and men so true a vision, of what angels
ought to be ; but ^thanks to preachers, poets, and
painters never are*
She shook her head with a pretty impatience :
' Ah ! pray do not waste compliments upon me ;
I detest them/
*Vraiment?' murmured the Colonel, with a
little, quiet, incredulous glance.
* Yes, I do indeed. You don't believe me, I
dare say ? Because I have so many of them, Cap-
tain Chevasney ? Perhaps it is, I have many more
than are really complimentary, either to my taste
or my intellect.'
' Ladies like compliments as children like bon-
bons,' said Sabretasche, in his low trainavie voice.
' They will take them till they can take no more ;
but if they see ever so insignificant a one going to
another, how they long for it, how they grudge it,
how they bum to add it to their store ! This is
oeil de perdrix, will you try it ?
*No, thank you,' answered the Hon. Violet,
with a ringing laugh. The sarcasms on her sex
did not seem to touch or disturb her ; she rather
enjoyed them than otherwise. * What is the news
to-day ? '
* Nothing remarkable,' answered Sabretasche.
230 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
* Births, deaths, and marriages all put together, to
remind men, like Philip of Macedon's valet, that
they come into the world, to suffer in it, and go out
again ! Much like all other news. Miss Moljneux,
except that your name is down as among those
arrived in town, and my friend De Vigne is men-
tioned for the Bath/
* Ah ! that Major de Vigne ! * cried Violet.
Where is he ? who is he ? what has he really
been doing? I heard Lord Hilton talking about
him last night, saying that he had been a most
wonderful fellow in India, and that the natives
called him what was it ? " the Charmed Life," I
think. Is he your friend ? '
* My best,' said Sabretasche. * Not Jonathan
to my David, you know, nor lolaiis to my Orestes ;
we don't do that sort of thing in these days. We
like each other, but as for dying for each other,
that would be far too much trouble ; and, besides,
it would be bad ton too demonstrative. But I
like him ; he is as true steel as any man I know,
and I shall be delighted to have a cigar with him
again, provided it is not too strong a one. Dying
for one's Patroclus would be preferable to en-
during his bad tobacco.'
Violet looked at him with her radiant glance:
* Well, Colonel Sabretasche, if your cigar be not
GKANVILLB DE VIGNE. 231
kindled warmer than your friendship, it will very
soon go out again, that's all ! '
^ Soil ! there are plenty more in the case,' smiled
Sabretasche, *and one Havannah is as good as
another, for anything I see. But about De Vigne
you have heard quite truly ; he has been fighting
in Scinde like all the Knights of the Round Table
merged in one. He is Major of the th Hussars,
and he has done more with his handful than a
general of division might have done with a whole
squadron. His Colonel was put hore de combat
with a ball in his hip, and De Vigne, of course,
had the command for some time. The natives
call him the Charmed Life, because, despite the
risks he runs, and the carelessness with which he
has exposed his life, he has not had a single scratch ;
and both the Sepoys he fights with^ and the Beloo-
chees he fights against, stand in a sort of awe of
him. The th is ordered home, so we are look-
ing out to see him soon. I shall be heartily glad,
poor old fellow ! '
* Provided, I suppose, he brings cheroots with
him good enough to allow him admittance ? ' said
Violet.
^ Sou8 erdendu^ said the Colonel. *I would in-
finitely prefer losing a friend to incurring a dis^
agreeable sensation. Would not you I '
232 "held in bondage; or,
* Oh ! of course^* answered the young lady, with
a rapid flash of her mischievous eyes. * Frederick's
feelings, when he saw Katte beheaded, must have
been trifling child's play, to what the Sybarite
suffered from the doubled rose-leaves ! '
* Undoubtedly,' said Sabretasche, tranquilly. * I
am glad you agree with me ! If we do not take
care and undouble the rose-leaves for ourselves,
we may depend on it we shall find no one who
will take so much trouble for us. To Aide4oi et
Dim favderOy they should add Aide4oi et le monde
faiderOy for I have always noticed that Providence
and the world generally befriend those who can do
without their help.'
* Perhaps there is a deeper meaning in that,'
answered Violet, * and more justice than first
seems? After all, those who do aid themselves
may deserve it the most, and those whose heads
and hands are silent and idle, hardly have a right
to have the bonbons of existence picked out and
given to them.'
* I don't know whether we have a right to
them, but we find them pleasant, and that is all
I look at ; and besides, Miss Molyneux, when you
have lived a little longer in the world, you will
invariably find that it is to those who have much,
that much is given, and vice versd. Guineas pour
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 233
into the gold plate held by that " decidedly pious
person," Lord Savinggrace, but pence will do for
the parish poor-box. Turtle and tokay are given
to an heir-apparent^ but a cutlet and new port will
suffice for a younger son. Establish yourself on a
pedestal, the world will worship you, even though
the pedestal be of very poor brick and mortar ; lie
modestly down on a moorland, though it be, like
James Fergusson, for genius to study science, why,
you may lie there for ever if you wait for anybody
to pick you up ! The world has a trick of serving,
like the Swiss Guard and the secret police, which-
ever side is uppermost and pays them best. How-
ever, thank Heaven I want nothing of it, and it is
very civil to me.'
* Because you want nothing of it ? '
* Precisely.*
234 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER XI.
THE * CHARMED LIFE ' OOMES BACK AMONG US.
Thank Grod I have found a girl who has some
notion of conversation. I believe, with the Per-
sians, that ten measures of talk were ^ent down
from Heaven, and the ladies took nine; but of
conversation, argument, repartee the real use of
that most most facile, dexterous, sharp-pointed
weapon, the tongue what woman has a notion ?
They employ a thousand superlatives in describing
a dress, they exhaust a million expletives in
damning their bosom friend, their boudoirs hear
more twaddle than the Commons si c'est possU
hie I and they rail harder over their coflTee-cups,
at their sisters' short-comings, than a popular
preacher over his sounding-board, at the vices he
pets sub rosa. But as for conversation, they have
not a notion of it ; if you begin an argument, they
either get into a passion or subside into mono-
syllables ! A woman who has good conversation
is as rare as one who does not care for scandal. I
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 235
have met them in Paris salons, and we have found
one to-day.'
So spoke Sabretasche at mess that night h
propos of Violet Molyneux, who was under dis-
cussion in common with our ox-tail and our
wine.
* Then you allow her your approval, Colonel,'
said Montressor, of Ours.
* Certainly I do,' said Sabretasche. * This soup
is not good, it is too thin. She is exquisitely
pretty, even through my eye-glass, which has a
sad knack of finding the lilies cosmetique and the
eyebrows tinting; and, what is much better, she
is actually natural and fresh, and can talk as if
Nature had given her brains, and reading had
cultivated them. I dare say they count on her
making a good marriage.'
' No doubt they do. Jockey Jack has hardly a
rap,' replied another man. * They can't keep up
their Irish place, so they hang out in town three
parts of the year, and take a shooting-box, or visit
about for the rest. Confound it, I wouldn't be
one of the Upper House, without a good pot of
money to keep up my dignity, for anything I could
see ! Violet came out last season, you know ? '
* Yes, I know ; I remember hearing she made a
great sensation,' answered the Colonel. * Ormsby
236 "HELD m bondage; or,
told me she was the best thing of the season the
first, by-the-by, I was ever out of London. Lady
Molyneux must try to run down Regalia, or
Cavendish Grey, or one of the great matrimonal
coups. My lady knows how to manoeuvre, too ;
I wonder she should have a daughter so frank and
unaffected.'
* They've seen nothing of one another/ answered
Pigott, who always knew everything about every-
body, from the price Lord Goodwood gave for his
thorough-bred roan fillies, to the private thoughts
that Lady Honoria Bandoline wrote each night in
her violet-velvet diary. * My lady's always run-
ning out somewhere ; if you were to call at eight
in the morning you'd find her gone off to early
Matins ; if you were to call at twelve, she'd be
off to the Sanctified and Born-again Clear-
starchers' jubilee with Lord Savinggrace ; at two,
she'd be closeted and lunching with her spiritual
master whoever he chance to be who giveis
her confession and eats her croquis; at three^
she'd be having a snug boudoir flirtation ; at
four, she'd be in the Park, of course, or at a
morning concert; at six, she'd be dressing for
dinner ; at ten, she'd be off to three or four balls
and crushes ; and so between the two she certainly
carries out that delightful work, " How to Make
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 237
the Best of Both Worlds," which my Low Church
sister sent me the other day ! '
* With the idea that you were doing your very
utmost to make the worst of 'em, Charlie?'
laughed Sabretasche. ^ I don't know the volume
Heaven forfend ! but the title sounds to me
sneaky, as if it wanted to get the sweets out of
both, yet compromise itself with neither. Your
sketch of Lady Molyneux is as true to life as one
of Leech's ; but certainly her child is about as un-
like her as could possibly be imagined.'
*0h, by George! yes,' assented Montressor,
heartily ; ' Mis Vy hasn't one bit of nonsense
about her.'
* And she's a divine waltzer turn her round
in a nutshell.'
* And can't she ride, just ! '
* And her voice smashes Alboni's to pieces, her
shake's perfection.'
* And she can talk ! ' added Sabretasche, in his
quiet voice. * I will call in Lowndes Square to-
morrow. So the th is ordered home? We
shall see De Vigne again.'
^Unless he exchange to a regiment still on
active service,' said Pigott.
* He won't do that,' I answered. * I heard from
him last Marseilles mail^ and he said he intended
238 "heu) m bondage;" or,
to return overland. Poor fellow ? what ages it is
since we've seen him ! '
a
*It is ten years, isn't it?' said Sabretasche,
setting down his champagne-glass with half a sigh.
* He has had some sharp work out there. I hope
it has done him good. I never wish to see a man
look as he looked last time I saw him.'
* Where's his rascallj wife ? ' asked Montressor.
* The Trefusis ? For Heaven's sake don't call
her his wife,' said I, impatiently. * FIX never give
her his name, though the law may. She is at
Paris, cut by all his set of course, living with the
Fantyre, in a dashing hotel in the Champs Elysees,
keeping a green and gold Chasseur six feet high,
and giving mimes soirees to a certain class of un-
titled English and titled French, who don't care a
fig for her story, and care a good deal for her
suppers.'
* Which she buys with De Vigne's tin, hang
her ! She calls herself Mrs. De Vigne, I think ! *
* She is Mrs. De Vigne,' said Sabretasche, with
that bitter sneer which occasionally passed over
his features. ' You forget the sanctity, solemnity,
and beauty of the marriage tie, my dear Mon-
tressor. You know it is too " holy " to be severed,
either by reason, justice, or common sense ! '
*Holy fiddlesticks. Colonel/ retorted Mon-
GRAinriLLB DE VIGNB. 239
tressoFj contemptuously ; *the best law for that
confounded woman would have been Lynch law ;
and if I'd had my way, I would have taken her
out of church that morning and shot her straight
away out of hand.'
* Too handsome to be shot, Fred.'
* She will not be so handsome in a few years;
she will soon grow coarse,' said the Colonel, that
most fastidious of female critics. ^ She is the
full-blown dashing style to strike youngsters, but
there is not a single charm that will Idst!
* Are there in any of them ? None last long
with you, Colonel, I fancy ? '
Sabretasche laughed gaily.
* To be sure not !
" Therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled."
Don't you admit the truth of that ? '
* I should hope I do. Well, after all, his mar-
riage won't matter to De Vigne, except the loss
of the three thousand a year he allows her'; to be
sure, there's the blow to his pride, and he is a
terribly proud fellow.'
Sabretasche looked up, * Some men's honour
is sensitive, Pigott ; others like their understand-
ings somewhat dull.'
Pigott did not relish the hit.
240 "held in bondage;" or,
* Well, why did he do it ? He needn't have
been such a fool ! ' he said, sulkily.
Sabretasche's eyes lit angrily.
* If you are never more of a fool, Pigott, than
De Vigne, you may thank Heaven ! His passions
led him into error; but if every man I know
were as worthy respect as he, the world would be
a better one. /, at least, will never sit by to hear
him ridiculed.'
Those were very strong words from our care-
less, impassive, indolent Colonel, and they had their
effect accordingly. He spoke very quietly not rais-
ing his voice ; but Pigott cared not to provoke him
further. He drank down his sherry with rather a
nervous laugh :
* Oh ! we know he's a brick ; all I hope is, that
he won't come home and tumble into love with
Violet Molyneux, or some other young filly.'
Sabretasche laughed ; he hated dissensions, and
was always ready to restore harmony to any
table.
* I hope not, too. That young Irish beauty is
exceedingly love-provoking. She has done a good
deal of damage, hasn't she ? '
Six weeks or so after this, I was dining with
Sabretasche at his own house one of those
charming, exclusive little dinner parties which were
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 241
his spedalite. The other men had just left ; and
the Colonel and I were sitting before the inner
drawing-room fire, with the Cid stretched on
the rug between us; Sabretasche lying full
length on a sofa inhaling perfame from his
hookah, and I in a low chair smoking, talking of
De Vigne, for the th had been ordered home,
and he coming vid Marseilles, was expected in d
few days at furthest.
^ What a sin it is that such a union should be
valid,' said Sabretasche. *I think I hear that
wretched woman tell me, with her cold, trium-
phant smile, " Colonel Sabretasche, my father's
name was Trefusis, my mother's name was Davis
one was a gentleman, the other a beggar-girl.
I have as much, or as little, right to one as to the
other. Let your friend sue for a divorce, the law
will not give it him." '
' Too true ; the law will not. Our divorce law
. 9
IS
* An ineflScient, insufficient, cruel farce ! ' said
Sabretasche, more energetically than I had ever
heard him say anything in his life. ' In an infatuated
hour a man saddles himself with a she-devil like
the Trefasis a liar, a drunkard, a mad woman ;
what redress is there for him ? None. All his
life through he must drag on the same clog;
VOL. I. R
242 "held in bondage;" or,
fettering all his energies, crushing out all his
hopes, chaining down his very life, festering at
his very heart-strings. There, at his hearth,
must sit the embodied curse there, in his home,
it must dwell there, at his side, it must be, till
God release him from it ! '
I looked up at him in surprise, it was very un-
usual to see him so warm about anything. He
took up his hookah again ; yawned, and pointed
to a marble statuette of his own chipping, on
which the firelight was gleaming.
^ Look at that little Venus Anadyomene, Arthur^
vrith the fire-light shining on her; quite Rem-
brandtesque, isn't it ? I'll paint it so to-morrow.'
* Do, and give the picture to Violet Molyneux.
But if you divorce for insanity, every husband sick
of his wife can get a certificate of lunacy agaii^t
her ? If for drunkenness, what woman will be safe
from having drams innumerable sworn to her ? If
for incompatibility of temper, after every little
temporary quarrel, scores would fly to the divorce
courts, and be heartily sorry for it after ? Come,
how would you redress it?'
*My dear fellow,' said Sabretasche, languidly,
* I'm not in parliament, thank Heaven for it ; for,
if I were, my conscience would be always pricking
me to try and introduce a little common sense
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 243
among that body, and, as the operation would be
of an Augean-stable character, I*m much too idle
a man for it to be to my taste. You talk like a
sage. / only feel for poor De Vigne, I mean/
* You don't feel more for him than I, Colonel
the Jezebel of a woman ! That such an union
should be legal, is a disgrace. At the same time,
divorce seems to me, of all the niceties of legis-
lature, the most ticklish and unsatisfactory to
adjust. If you were to shut the door on divorce,
there is an evil unbearable; if you open it too
wide, almost as much harm may accrue ? '
* My dear Chevasney, you talk like a pater-
familias, a Solon of seventy, a moral machine
without blood, or bones, or feelings,' said Sabre-
tashe, impatiently. * I don't care a straw for
theories; I look at facts. Put yourself in the
position, Arthur, and then sit in judgment. I take
it if every man had to do that, the laws would
be at once wiser and more lenient ; whereas now,
on the contrary, it is your man who has the stolen
pieces in his pocket, who cries out the most vehe-
mently for the thief to be hanged, hoping to throw
off suspicion ! Put yourself in the position ! Now
you are young and easily swayed, you fall in love
as you phrase it with some fine figure or pretty
face. Down you go headlong, never stopping to
r2
244 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
consider whether her mind is attuned to yours, her
tastes in common with yours, her character such as
will go well with yours, in the long intercourse
that takes so much to make it harmony, so little
to make it discord. You marry her ; the honey-
moon is barely out, before the bandage is off your
eyes. We will suppose you see your wife in her
true colours coarse, perhaps low-bred, with not
a fibre of her moral nature that is attuned to yours,
not a chord in heart or mind that is in harmony
with yours. She revolts all your better tastes,
she checks all your warmer feelings, she debases
all your higher instincts ; union with her, humbles
you in your own eyes; contact and association
with her, lower your tone of thought, and imper-
ceptibly draw you down to her own level. Your
home is one ceaseless scene of pitiful jangle, or of
coarser violence. She makes your house a hell,
she peoples your hearth with fiends ; she and her
children hideous likenesses of herself bear your
own name, and make you loathe it. Perhaps you
meet one the utter contrast of her, the fond ideal in
your youth of what your wife was to be ; one in
whom you realize all you might have been, all you
might have done! You look on Heaven, and
devils hold you back. You thirst for a purer life,
and fiends mock at you and will not let you reach
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB, 245
it. What escape is there for you? None but
the grave ! Realize this realize it and you will
feel how as a prisoner lies dying for the scent of
the fresh air, while the free man sits contentedly
within ; so a man, happily married, or not married
at all, looks on the question of divorce, in a very
different light to a man fettered thus, with the
torments of both Prometheus and Tantalus, the
vulture gnawing at his vitals, the lost joys mocking
him out of reach ! '
His indolence was gone, his impassiveness
changed to vivid earnestness ; his melancholy eyes
darkened and dilated : I shuddered involuntarily.
*You draw a terrible picture, Colonel, and a
true enough one, no doubt, as many men would
witness if one could see into their homes and
hearts. But what I want to know is, how to
redress it ? What judge could dive into the hid-
den mysteries of human life, the unuttered secrets
of mutual love or mutual hate? What judge
could say where the blame lay ; or, seeing only
the surface, and hearing only the outside, weigh
the just points of fitness or unfitness ? Who can
decide between man and woman ? Who, seeing
the little of the inner existence that is ever re-
vealed in a law court, could judge between them?
We know how mischievously absurd the divorce
246 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
mania was in Germany? How Dorothea Veit
broke with the best of husbands, on the plea of
** want of sympathy,** and went over to Frederick
Schlegel ; and how the Sensitive doctrine of
which Schleiermacher was inaugurator, made it
only necessary to be tied, to feel the want of being
** sympathetically matched," and being untied
again. Men would marry then as carelessly as
they flirt now, and would, as soon as a pretty face
had grown stale to their eye, find out that she
was a vixen, a virago, addicted to gin, or anything
that suited their purpose, though she might really
have every virtue under heaven. Don't you think
that it is impossible, as long as human nature is
so changeable, and short-sighted, or marriage num-
bered among our social institutions at all, to trim
between too much liberty in it and too little ? *
*Hu8h, hush, my good Arthur!' cried the
Colonel, with a gesture of deprecation; ^pray
keep all that for the benches of St. Stephen's
some twenty years hence, it is far too chill, sage,
and rational for me to appreciate it. I prefer
feeling to reasoning always have done. Possibly,
the evils might accrue that you prophesy; but
that does not at all disprove what I say, that the
marriage fetters are at times the heaviest handcuffs
men can wear; heavier than those which chain
GRANVILLE DE TIGNE. 247
the galley-slave to his oar, for he has comtiiitted
crime to justify his punishment, whereas a man
tricked into marridge by an artful intrigante, or
hurried into it by a mad fancy, has done no harm
to any one except himself ! If you have such a
taste for reason, listen to what John Milton-
that grave, calm Puritan and philosophic Repub-
lican, the last man in the universe to let his
passions run away with him says on the score/
He stretched out his. hand to a stand of books
near him, and took otlt a Tetrachordon, bound,
as all his books were, in cream-coloured velliim.
* Hear what John Milton says : " Him I hold
more in the way to perfection who foregoes an
impious, ungodly, and discordant wedlock, to live
according to peace, and love, and God's insti-
tution, in a fitter choice; than be who debars
himself the happy experience of all godly, which
is peaceful conversation in his family, to live a
contentious and unchristian life not to be avoided ;
in temptations not to be lived in; only for the
false keeping of a most unreal nullity, a marriage
that hath no affinity with God's intentions, a
daring phantasm, a mere toy of terror; awing
weak senses, to the lamentable superstition 6f
mining themselves : the remedy whereof God in
his law vouchsafes us; which, nfot to dare use,
248 " HELD IN BONDAGE ; OR,
he warranting, is not our perfection, but is our
infirmity, our little iaitb, our timorous and low
conceit of charity ; and in them, who force us to it,
is their masking pride, and vanity, to seem holier
and more circumspect than God." What do you
say now ? Can you deny the justice, the wisdom,
the wide charity and reason of his arguments ?
It is true he was unhappy with his wife, but he
was a man to speak, not from passion, but from
conviction. Milton was made of that stern stuff
that would have you cut off your right hand if it
offended you. In Rome he would have been a
Virginius, a Cincinnatus ; in the early Christians'
days, he would have died with Stephen, endured
with Paul. He is not a man like myself, who do
no earthly good that I know of, who am swayed
by impulse, imagination, passion a hundred thou-
sand things, who have never checked a wish or
denied a desire. Milton is one of your saints and
heroes, yet even he has the compassionate wisdom
to see that divorce would save many a man, whom
an unfit union drives headlong to his ruin. He
knows that it is cowardice and hypocrisy, and, as
he says, a wish to seem holier and more circum-
spect than God, which makes your precisians for-
bid what nature and reason alike demand, and to
which, if the Church and the Law forbade freedom
GRAISTILLE DE VIGNE. 249
ever so, men would find some means to pioneer
their own way. You may cage an eagle out of
the sunlight, but the bird will find some road to
life, and light, and liberty ; or die beating his wings
in hopeless effort. Look there ! Good Heavens ! *
I sprang up ; he rose very quickly for his usual
indolent movements. In the doorway stood De
Vigne, and we grasped his hands silently, none of
us speaking. The memory of that last scene in
the chapel at his fatal Marriage Altar, was strong
upon us all.
Then Sabretasche put his hand on his shoulder,
pushed him gently into an arm-chair before the
fire, and said, softly, as a man speaks to a woman,
^ Dear old fellow ! there is no need for us to say
welcome home ? '
De Vigne looked up with something of his old
smile, though it faded instantly.
* No need, indeed : and dorCt say it. I know
you are both glad to see me, and let us forget that
we have ever been separated. Arthur, old boy, if
it wouldn't sound an insult, I should tell you you
were groum ; and as for you, Sabretasche, you are
not a whit altered ; it is my belief you wouldn't
change if you lived as long as Sue's Wandering
Jew ! They told me at the barracks, Arthur was
dining with you, and so I ^me on straight. My
250 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
luggage is still in the Pera^ but I brought up sotne
cheroots. Try them, both of you.*
We saw that he wished to sweep away the past,
and avoid all allusion to his own iBte ; and we fell
in with his humour. Smoking round the fire, we
tried to ignore every painful subject; but as I
looked at him, I found it hard not to utter aloud
my curse on the woman who had sent hitn out into
exile.
Ten long years had not passed without leaving
their stamp upon him. His face had lost the glow,
the bright eagerness the rounded outline of his
earlier youth. Pale he had always been but now
the pallor was that of marble, as if the hot young
blood surging through his veins had been suddenly
frozen ; as when the first breath of winter checks,
the free, warm, vehement waters in their course,
and chills them into ice. It was still the face of a
man of wayward will, and strong passions, but of
waywardness which had cost him dear, and of pas-
sions that were chained down perhaps for ever.
,You have seen good service out there, De
Vigne,* begun Sabretasche, to lighten the gloom
which was stealing upon us. * On my word we
feel quite proud of you ! What a lion you have
been, old fellow/
De Vigne smiled.
GRAJS^VILLE DE VIGNE. 251
* I looked a lion because I was among puppy
dogs ! Yes, I saw good service, not so much,
though, as I should have liked. Some of it was
pretty sharp work, but we dawdled a whole year
away at that miserable Calcutta court ; if it had
not been for pig-sticking I should never have
borne it at all, but I got no end of spears. Then
we went up to a hill station, where there was
nobody but an old judge, and a missionary or two,
who had been bankrupt shoemakers, and taken to
dispensing Grace, as a means of getting a few
shillings from those discerning Christians who
sent them out, firmly crediting their assurances
that they felt " specially called.*' There the hill
deer, and the ortolans, and a tiger or two, kept us
going; and then we were ordered off to have a
shy at the mountain rebels. They fought magni-
ficently, I must say. Ah! by Jove!' cried De
Vigne, his eyes lighting up, * there at last I really
lived. The constant danger, the ceaseless vigi-
lance, the free life, the sharp service, roused me
up, and gave me a zest for existence which I
thought I had lost for ever.'
*
* Nonsense, nonsense ! ' cried the Colonel. * You
will have zest enough in it again by-and-by. No
man on the sunny side of forty has lost what he
may not regain.'
252 **HELD IN BONDAGE v" OR,
* Except where one &lse step has murdered
pride and ruined honour !' said De Vigne, between
his teeth. * Well, Sabretascbe, what have yaa
been doing all these years ? Flirting, buying pic-
tures and painting them, setting the fashion, and
criticizing new singers, as usual, I suppose.'
* Don't talk of the years ! ' cried Sabretasche,
lifting his eyebrows. * If I see to-morrow I shall
be forty-five. It is disagreeable to grow old ; one
begins to doubt one's attractions ! '
*You are young enough! and yet, I don't
know ; it is a popular fallacy that time counts by
years. One is old according to the style of one's
life, not the length of it.'
* I heard Violet Molyneux tell you last night.
Colonel, that you were in your second youth, and
the first prime of manhood. So take comfort,'
said I.
He smiled. Poor little fool!' he muttered,
under his moustaches.
Viojet Molyneux who is she?' asked De
Vigne. That's a new name to me. Is she a
daughter of Jockey Jack, as we used to call
him?'
Yes,' I answered; and a lovely creature.
She's a fresh beauty, and a new love for Sabre-
tasche, who worships him most devoutly especially
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 253
since she came to his studio this morning and saw
his last painting of Esmeralda and Djali.'
* Don't crack me up, Arthur,' said Sabretasche,
rather impatiently. * Jockey Jack has a daughter
who knows how to talk, and sings well enough
to please me (two especial miracles, as you can
fancy, my dear De Vigne) ; but, certainly, both
her tongue and her thorax, do their business un-
usually well, and she is very lovely to boot. What
have I been doing, did you say ? Leading just
the same life I have led for the last twenty years.
Making love to scores of women, wasting my time
over marble and canvas, heading a Hyde Park
campaign, or directing a Richmond fete ! Ca-
ramba ! one gets tired of it.'
*Why lead it, then?'
* Because none are any better. Do my scien-
tific friends, who absorb their energies in classify-
ing a fossil encrinite ; my parliamentary friends,
who concentrate their energies in bribing the Un-
washed; my philanthropic friends, who hoax the
public, and get hoaxed themselves, by every text-
quoting thief who has the knack, and the tact, to
touch up their weak points ; my literary friends,
who write to line portmanteaus; my celebrated
firiends, who toil to get heart-disease, and three
damning lines in history, do these, any of them.
4..V
254 "held in bondage;" or,
enjoy themselves one wit the more ; or ikil to SBf
with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities all is vanity"?
Tell me so show me so, and I will begin thdr
life to-morrow. Our vocation is to amuse our-
selves, and slay our fellow-creatures by way of in-
termediate pastime; and it is as good a one^ for
all I can see, as any other.'
*To slay our fellow-creatures!' cried De Vigne.
* Come, come, put it a little more gracefully. Tn
fight like Britons to die for our colours. Some-
thing a little more poetic and patriotic 1 '
* Same thing, my dear De Vigne ; only the
wording different ! '
^ You like the same life as the Cid, Colonel,'
said I, smiling. To eat daintily, sleep warmly,
lie on cushions without anybody to trouble you,
and kill your game when the spirit moves you.'
*And love most truly, and do my duty, as far
as I see it, most faithfully? No, no, Arthur,
that doesn't do for me at all; it's not in my
role.'
'You'll write on the Cid's grave,' said De
Vigne, ' as Byron wrote on Boatswain's,
" In life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend/* '
* Yes, indeed ; and like him
I never had but one, and here he lies."
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 255
The Cid/ said Sabretasche, drawing the dog's ears
through his hands *the Cid is the only thing
that cares for me/
^ For you^ the adored of all women, the cher ami
of all beauties, the " good fellow " of every man
worth knowing in town ! What do you mean by
only having a dog to care for you ? The world
would never believe you/
' I mean what I say. Bon Dim I how much
does the world know of any of us ? '
* Little enough/ said De Vigne, * but it is
always of those of whom it knows least, that
it will affect to know most; and the stranger
you sit next at a dinner-party, is ten to one
far better acquainted with your business than
you are yourself. We shall hear you are to
marry what is her name? Violet Molyneux
soon ? '
*Not 1/ said Sabretasche; *at least you may
hear it, but I shall live, and die, as I am now
alone ! Who would care for reports ? I can as
soon imagine a man taking heed of every tuft of
dandelion that passes him in the air, or every in-
sect that crawls beneath his feet, as taking note of
the reports that buzz round his career.'
' By Jove, yes ! ' cried De Vigne. ' Out campaign-
ing, one is free from all that trash. Before the can-
256 "held in bondage;" or,
non's mouth men cannot stop to split straws ; and
with one's own life on a thread, one cannot stop to
ruin another's character. I do not know how it
is, I have read pretty widely, hut philosophers
never preached endurance to me as well as Na-
ture. A few months ago I was camping out to
net ortolans. Round us was the dense stretch of
the forests and jungles ; no wind, no sound, ex-
cept the cry of the hill deer; nothing stirring,
except now and then an antelope flitting like a
ghost across the clearing, and, over it all, the
southern stars. On my life, as I lay there hy our
watch-fire alone, with my pipe, it struck me that,
if we would let her. Nature would be a truer
teacher than creeds or homilies. Human life
seems so small beside the vast life of great forests.
The calm grand silence rebukes our own feverish-
ness. We who fancy that the eyes of all the uni-
verse are on us, that we are the sole love and
charge of its Creator, feel what ephemera we are
in the giant scale of existence; what countless
myriads of such as we, have been swept from their
place out of sight, and not a law of the spheres
around been stirred, not a moment*s pause been
caused, in the silent march of creation ! Under
men's tutelage, I grow impatient and irritated.
What gage have I that they know better than I ?
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 257
They rouse me into questioninsf their dosftnas, into
penLung their myLries, into .rchl4 ouL .nd
proving, the nullity of the truths they assume for
granted ; but under the teaching of Nature I am
silent. I recognize my own inferiority. I grow
ashamed of my own pride.'
* Aye ! ' answered Sabretasche. * A wayside
flower, a sunny savannah, even a little bit of
lichen on a stone in the Campagna, has taught
one truer lessons thian are taught in the forum or
the pulpit. Man sees so little of his fellow-man ;
he is so ready to condemn, so slow to sympathize
with him, that, if he attempt to teach, he is far
more apt to irritate than aid ; but, to the voices of
Nature, the bluntest sense can hardly fail to listen,
and they speak in a tongue, translatable alike to
the Indian in his woods, and the savant in his
study.'
* But one is apt to lose sight of Nature in the
hurry and conflict of actual every-day social life ?
Standing alone among the Alps, a man learns his
own insignificance ; but once back in the world,
the first line of a favourable review, the first
hurrah of an admiring constituency, the first ap-
plause that feeds his ear in the world he lives in,
will give him back his self-appreciation, and he
will find it hard not to fancy himself of the im-
VOL. I. s
258 "held in bondage;" or,
portanoe to the universe that he is to his clique.
That is partly why I was unwilling to leave cam-
paigning. There the jungle and the stars took me
in handy and there, by my camp-fire, I would listen
to them, though God knows whether I be the
better for it. Here, on the contrary, men will be
prating at me, and I shall chafe at them, and it
will be a wonder if I do not kick out at some of
them. My guerilla life suits me better than my
fashionable one.'
^ You are too good for it all the same/ said
Sabretasche ; ^ and if you should put the kicking
process into execution, it will be a little whole-
some chastisement for them, and a little sanitary
exertion for you ! Jungles and planets are grander
and truer, sans doute^ but Johannisberger and So-
ciety are equally good for men in their way, and,
besides they are very pleasant ! '
' Your acme of praise, Sabretasche,' laughed De
Vigne. ' I agree with you that human nature is,
after all, the best book ve can learn, only the
study is irritating, and one sees so much en 7ioir
there, that if we look too long we are apt to fling
away our lexicon, with a curse.'
'The best way, after all,' said the Colonel, with
a cross between a yawn and a sigh, 'is to take
nothing seriously! Men and women are mario-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 259
nettes ; learn the tricks of their wires and strings,
and make them perform, at your will, tragedy,
comedy, farce, whatever pleases your mood. Hu-
man life is a kaleidoscope, with which the wise
man amuses himself; it has pretty pictures for the
eye, if you know how to shake them up, and. as
for analyzing it, pulling it to pieces, for being only
bits of cork and burnt glass, and quarrelling with
it for being trumpery instead of h(m& fide bril-
liants cui bono ? you won't make it any
better/
' Possibly ; but I shall not be taken in by it.'
' My dear fellow, I think the time when we are
taken in by it is the happiest part of our lives/
* Maybe. His drum is no pleasure to a boy
after he has broken it, and found the music is
empty wind, with no mystery about it whatever !
I say, what is your clock ? Am I not keeping you
from some engagement or other ? '
* None at all,' answered Sabretasche, * and you
will just sit where you are for the next four hours.
Give me another cheroot, and take some more
brandy. Is it likely we shall let you off early ? '
We did not let him off early ; and all the small
hours had chimed before we had done talking,
with the fire burning brightly, and the Cid lying
full length between us, with his muzzle between
s2
260 "held in bondage; or,
his fore-pads, while De Vigne told us tales of his
Indian campaign that roused even listless Sabre-
tasche, and fired my blood like the war-note of
the Long Roll, or the trumpet call of Boot and
Saddle!
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 261
CHAPTER XII.
SABRETASCHE, HAVING MOWED DOWN MANY
FLOWERS, DETERMINES TO SPARE ONE VIOLET.
From the hour he had left her in the vestry
at Vigne church, De Vigne had never seen the
woman who, by law, stood branded on him as his
wife. His passion changed to loathing, and the
hate wherewith he hated her was far greater than
the love wherewith he had loved her. Could it
be otherwise ? Could any man feel anything but
deadliest hate towards the woman who had out-
witted and entrapped him, outraged his honour,
shivered his pride to the dust, and shaped her ven-
geance in a form which must press upon him with
a dead and ice-cold weight, strike from his path
all the natural joys that bloom so brightly for a
man so young ; and stretch over his whole exist-
ence a shadow all the blacker that its giant upas-
tree sprang from the forgotten seed of a boyish
sin. He left her in the madness of his agony;
and swore never to touch even her hand again.
262 "held in bondage; or,
Passion changed to abhorrence, and what had
charmed and intoxicated him with the sensual
beaaties of form, now filled him only with abhor-
rence and disgust. He saw her bearing his own
name, holding his own honour ; coarse, cruel, ill-
born, ill-bred, the pollution of her past life vainly
covered with the varnish of society; and seeing
her thus, knew that till one or other was in the
grave this woman was his wife. Remorse, too,
was added to his curse. His mother had died of
that fatal blow which had struck at the root of
her son's peace and honour. She had been for
some years aware, though she had never allowed
De Vigne to be told of the frail tenure on which
she held her life, that any sudden emotion or
excitement might at any time be her death-blow :
a secret she had kept with that silent heroism of
which here and there women are found capable.
As De Vigne left the chapel, Sabretasche had
lifted her up in what he believed to be a faint-
ing fit: it was a swoon, from which she never
awoke, and her son was left to bear his curse
alone.
I have seen men writhing in their death agony,
I have seen women stretched across the lifeless
body of their lover on the battle-field; I have
seen the torture of human souls cooped up by
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 263
shoals in hospital sick-wards ; I have seen mortal
suffering in almost all its phases ^and they are
varied and pitiful enough, God knows! but I never
saw any so silent and yet so awful as De Vigne's,
when we hurried after him up to town. When we
found him, the Trefusis's revenge had done its
work upon him ; lengthened years would not
have quenched life, and light, and youth, as the
remorse, the humiliation, the conflicting passions
at war within him, had already done. The
tidings we brought crowned the anguish that had
entered into his life. Gently as Sabretasche
broke it to him, I thought it would have killed
him. His lips turned grey as stone, he staggered
like a drunken man, and threw up his arms in his
blind agony.
* My God ! and / have murdered her ! ' That
was all he said. Under what throes his iron
pride was bowed in his night watches beside the
lifeless form of the mother whose love for him had
slain her, no one knew. He was alone in his
doom, and I could only guess by my knowledge of
him how madly he cursed the passions that had
wrought his ruin, how long and silently the vul-
ture of remorse gnawed his heart away, with the
haunting memory of his folly and its fruit.
As rapidly as possible he exchanged into the
264 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
^th Hussars, and sailed for Scinde. He saw
none of his old companions and acquaintance,
save the Colonel and myself; he shunned all who
had been witnesses of his marriage, all who knew
of the stain upon his name. It is easy to bear
the contempt and censure of the world when
defiance of its laws brings fame and rapture ; but
its sneer may be hard even to a brave man to
bear, when the world has cause to call him Fool,
when it can triumph in vaunting its own superior
penetration, in recalling its own wise prophecies
of his fall, and in compelling him to make the
most difficult of all confessions to a proud heart
* / was wrong I '
He commissioned Sabretasche to make arrange-
ments with his wife, but all that the Colonel,
consummate man of the world though he was,
could do, was to exact that she should receive an
allowance of three thousand a year, on condition
that she never came to England. The Trefusis
accepted it, possibly because she knew the law
would not give her so much, and went to Paris
and the Bads, leading a pleasant life enough, I
doubt not, but careful to make it far too proper a
one outwardly, at the least to give him any
chance of a divorce. Separated from him at the
altar, she was still legally his wife and bore his
GRANVILLE DE VIGISFE. 265
name. By what miracle of metamorphosis, by
what agency, assistance, or self-education, she had
been enabled to change and exalt herself, we knew
not then, nor till long afterwards. That De Vigne
had not recognized her was scarce astonishing.
In those long years the unformed girl of seventeen
had changed into the mature beauty of five-and-
twenty ; she had grown taller, her form had deve-
loped, fashion, dress, and taste lent her beauty a
thousand aids unknown to her in her earlier days.
It was not wonderful that, having forgotten Lucy
Davis, and almost all connected with her, he should
fail to recognize her in so utterly diflferent a sphere,
so entirely altered as she was in feature, manner,
station, and appearance ; though how she had so
metamorphosed herself I used to think over many
and many a time, never able to find a solution.
At length, after ten years' absence, De Vigne
returned home to resume the social life he had
so suddenly snapped asunder. To careless eyes
he was much the same, but / felt that the
whole man was changed. Reserved, sceptical of
all truth and of all worth, his generous trust
changed to chill suspicion, his fiery impetuosity
chained down under a semblance of icy cyni-
cism, his strong passions held down under
an iron curb, the treachery of which he had
266 "held in bondage;" or,
been the victim seemed to have virholly altered
his once frank, virarm, and cordial nature.
* The fact is/ said Curly to me, as we were riding
down Piccadilly to the Park, *De Vigne, poor
fellow ! is as frozen by this miserable mSsallicmce
as the ships in the Arctic Seas. It would do him
a world of good to fall in love again, but he won't.
Ah, by Jove, here he is ! Beautiful creature, that
mare, of his is three parts thorough-bred; and
just look at her wild eye. How are you, De Vigne ?
My dear fellow, I'm deucedly glad you're come
back ! '
* Very kind of you, Curly,' laughed De Vigne,
* but I'm not sure I re-echo you. A gallop in the
cool night through the jungle is preferable to
pacing up and down the Ride yonder.'
' Wait till the Ride is full,' replied Curly, * with
all the gouty wits, and the dandy politicians, and
the amazoned belles, and the intensely got-up
stock-brokers, and the immensely showy livery-
stable hacks, who would go so delightfully if they
weren't, par hasard^ broken- winded, or knocked-
kneed by way of diversity ! Wait till the season,
my good fellow till you drink Seltzer as thirstily
as a tired hound drinks water, till you spend the
summer nights crushed up on the staircases, till
you waste a couple of hundred giving a dinner to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 267
men and women who, having eaten your croustodes,
drive away to demolish your character, wait
till the season, and then you'll admit the supe-
riority of ^ enjoyment to be * found in Town !
There's nobody in it yet, except, indeed, Violet
Molyneux.'
' Whom I have not seen,' said De Vigne ; * but
I will call, for I used to know her mother very
well ; an eminently religious flirt ! I have a cu-
riosity to see this young beauty, because she has
Sabretasche's good word.'
* A good word, by-the-by, that's apt to do them
as much damage in one way as his condemnation
does in another. She little knows what a desperate
Lothario he is. I wonder if he'll ever marry ? '
' I wonder if you'll ever hang yourself. Curly ? *
said De Vigne, dryly. * I say, shall we go and
call on the Molyneux now ? May as well.'
* Do ! I like calling,' responded Curly. * You
kill the hour, you learn all the news, you enjoy
the luxury of hearing one best friend scandalize
and cut up another dear acquaintance ; and you
can win Lady A.'s love for life by revealing to her
the strictly private secret Mrs. B. has just con-
fided to you, under a solemn seal of silence,
relative to Miss C. ! Society wouldn't half go on;
there wouldn't be a tithe of the on dits sown that
268 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
are necessary to our welfare if it weren't for that
blessed institution, " morning calls." '
Lady Molyneux was at home, a rare thing for
that restless mosaic of religion and fashion, of
decided ^ton^ and pronounced * piety;' and we
found her, chatting with one of her beloved
spiritual brothers, the Bishop of Campanile, a
most pleasant bon viveur^ by no means a Saint
Anthony on the score of earthly temptations,
while in a low chair sat Violet Molyneux talking
to Sabretasche, who was listening to her with an
air of half-indolent amusement, and magnetizing
her with the soft lustrous gaze of his mournful
eyes, that had wound their way into so many
women's love.
Lady Molyneux welcomed us all charmingly.
She was made of milk of roses, that dear woman;
while there was a shadow of impatience in her
daughter's tell-tales eyes at having her talk in-
terrupted : of course she was too much of a
lady to show it, and the Colonel, who had a
knack of monopolizing a woman quietly, did not
give up his seat, and soon resumed his discussion
with her, which it seemed was on the poets of the
present day.
' What do you think of the " Ideals of the Lotus
and the Lily ? " ' asked Violet of De Vigne, re-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 269
ferring to the book they were discussing, the last
mystical nonsense that had issued from the ima-
gination of the pet rhymer of the day.
* I cannot say I think much,' smiled De Vigne.
* To read that man's works one wants a dictionary
of all his unintelligible jargon, his " double-bar-
relled adjectives," his purposely-obscured meanings!
I suppose he fancies chiaT^oscuro the best tone for
paintings, that he draws his word-pictures in such
densely dark style.'
' All that is treason here, De Vigne,' said
Sabretasche, with a smile. * Miss Molyneux is
the patron and champion of everything visionary,
high wrought, and unintelligible to ordinary mor-
tals. ThiBse raving individuals, "sad only for
wantonness," strangely please dreamy young ladies
and gentlemen ignorant of the true meaning, sor-
rows, and burdens of this " work-a-day world." '
Violet made him a graceful reverence.
* Thank you. Is that a hit at me ? It does not
strike home, if it is, because my worst enemies
could never say I was dreamy, though they may
call me what is it, high wrought ? But you for-
get, that feeling romance, as you are pleased to
call it has been the germ and nurse of all great
writers. The swan must suffer before it sings.
Did not his child-love inspire Dante? Would
270 "held IX BONDAGE;" OR,
Petrarch have been all he is but for the " amore
veementissimo ma unico ed onesto f " Did not his
passion for Mary Chaworth have its influence for
life upon the writings of Byron ? And was not
Leonora d'Este to Tasso what Diana's kiss was to
Endymion ? '
'And was not the domestic misery of Milton's
married life the inspiration of that glorious tirade
upon women in Adam's magnificent speech?' asked
Sabretasche quietly ; ' and but for Anne Hathaway^
might we have ever had that fiery oration of
Posthumus :
" Even to vice
They are not constant ; but are changing still
One vice, but of a minute old, for one
Not half so old as that ? " '
' Some better woman taught him, then/ cried
Violet, ' that from women's eyes
" Sparkles still the right Promethean fire.
They are the books, the arts, the academes
That show, contain, and nourish all the world ! " '
Sabretasche bowed his head in acknowledgment
of defeat.
' You have conquered me, as Rosaline conquered
Biron ! '
He said the words as he had said such things to
scores of other women as lovely as Violet Moly-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 271
neux ; from anybody else she would have taken
them at their value ; at the Coloners glance her
colour deepened.
' But don't you think, Miss Molyneux,' suggested
De Vigne, * that when Tasso languished in Fer-
rara dungeons, he must have wished he had never
seen the Este family? Don't you fancy that
Gemma Donati must have rather cancelled Dante's
good opinion of the heau sexe^ and that his " wife
of savage temper " may have been a bitter tonic,
rather than sweet balm to his genius ? And as
for Byron well! Miss Milbanks was rather a
thorn in his side, wasn't she ? And with all the
romance in the world, I think, when he called on
Mrs. Musters, he must have thought he had been
rather a fool. What do you say ? '
*I say. Major De Vigne,' responded Violet,
* that you have not a trace, not a particle, not an
infinitesimal germ of romance ! '
' Thank Heaven no ! ' said De Vigne, with a
laugh.
I doubt, though, if the laugh was heartfelt. I
dare say he thought of the time when romance
was hot and strong in him, and trust and faith
strong too !
' I pity you, then ! Where I think you sceptical
men err so much,' said Violet, turning her bril-
272 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
liant eyes on Sabretasche, Ms in confounding
false and true, good and bad, feeling with senti-
ment, geniu^ with pretension. Why at one sweep
condemn the expression of unusual feeling as
sentiment, simply because it is unusual? Deep
feeling is rare ; but it does not follow that it is
unreal. You tread on a thousand ordinary flowers
daisies, buttercups, cowslips, anemones ^in an
every-day walk ; they are all fair, all full of life ;
but out of all the Flora, there is only one Sensitive
Plant that shrinks and trembles at your touch.
Yet, though the Sensitive Plant is organized so
fiw more tenderly, it is no artificial offspring of
mechanism, but as fresh and real, and living a
thing as any of the others ! '
De Vigne and Curly were now chatting with
Lady Molyneux, whose bishop had taken his conge.
Sabretasche still sat by Violet a little apart.
* I believe you,' he said, gently ; * there are
sensitive plants, so fresh and fair, that it is a sin
they should ever have to shiver in rude hands,
and learn to bend with the world's breath. But
live as long as we have, and you will know that
the deep feeling of which you are thinking is never
found in unison with the poetic and drivelling
sentiment we ridicule. Boys' sorrows vent them-
selves in words ^men's griefs are voiceless. If
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 273
ever you feel pray God you never may vital
suffering, you will find that it will never seek
solace in confidences, never lament itself^ but
rather hug its torture closer, as the Spartan child
hugged the fierce wolf-fangs. You will find the
difference between the fictitious sorrows which
run abroad proclaiming their own wrongs; and
the grief which lies next the heart night and
day, and, like the iron cross of the Romish
priest, eats it slowly, but none thf less surely,
away.'
They were strange words to come from Vivian
Sabretasche! Violet looked at him in surprise,
and her laughing eyes grew sad and dimmed.
He had forgotten for the moment where he was ;
at her earnest gaze he roused himself with the
faintest tinge of colour on his face.
' I am going to ask you to do me a most
intense kindness; would you mind singing me
HuUah's "Three Fishers?" I declare to you it
has haunted me ever since I heard you sing it on
Tuesday night; and it is so seldom I hear any
music that is not a screech rarely, indeed, any-
thing that satisfies me as your songs do.'
She sprang up joyously. ' Oh yes, if you will
sing me those glorious Italian songs of yours.
* Major de Vigne, if you have no romance, I am
VOL. L T
274 "held in bondage;" or,
quite sore you cannot care for music, so I give
you full leave to talk to mamma as loudly as ever
you like, I am going to sing only to Colonel
Sabretascbe/
Sabretasche looked half-pleased, half-amused at
the distinction accorded to him, and followed her
to the back drawing-room, where he leaned on the
piano looking down upon her, while Violet sang
with one of the best gifts of nature a clear, bell-
like, melodious voice, highly tutored, and as flexible
and free as the song of a mavis in spring-time. I
am not sure whether her mother was best pleased
or not at that musical tSte-a^Stey for Sabretasche
had an universal reputation as a most unscrupulous
flirt, and Lady Molyneux knew his character too
well to think he was likely to be doing any more
than playing with Violet, as the most attractive
beauty in town. But then, again, his word was
almost law in all matters of taste. He could
injure Violet irretrievably by a depreciating criti-
cism, and could make her of tenfold more market-
able value by an approving word, for there were
numbers of men at the Clubs who moulded them-
selves by his dictum. So Lady Molyneux let
them alone.
I don't suppose, however, that she noticed
Violet drawing out a large bunch of her floral
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 275
namesakes from a Bohemian glass, and lifting
them up for Sabretasche to scent.
* Are they not delicious ? They remind me of
dear old Corallyne, when I used to gather them
out of the fresh damp moss. Do you know Kerry,
Colonel Sabretasche ? No ? Oh, you should go
there ; it is so beautiful, with its blue lakes, and
its wild mountains, and its green, fragrant wood-
lands.*
^ I should like it, I dare say,' said Sabretasche,
smiling, * with you for my guide. I want some
added charm now to give ** greenness to the grass
and glory to the flower." Once I enjoyed them
for themselves, as you do ; but as one gets on in
life there is too silent a rebuke in nature for us to
enjoy it unrestrainedly. Is Lord Molyneux*s estate
in Kerry ? '
' Don't call it an estate,' laughed Violet ; * it
always amuses me so when I see it put down in
the peerage. It is only miles and miles of moor-
land, with nothing growing on it but tangled
wood and glorious wild-flowers. There are one or
two cabins with inhabitants like kelpies. The
house has been, perhaps, very grand when all we
Irish were kings, and you Sassenachs, Roman
slaves; but at the present moment, having lost
three-quarters of its roof and nine-tenths of its
T 2
276 "held in bondage;" or,
timbers, having rat8, and owls, and ghosts innu-
merable, no windows, and no furniture, you would
probably think it more picturesque than comfort-
able, and feel more inclined to paint it than to
live in it/
* But you lived in it ? '
* Ah ! when I was a child ; but it was a little
better then. There was a comfortable room or
two in it, and I was very happy there with my fa-
vourite governess and my little rough pony, when
papa and mamma were up here or in Paris, and
left us to ourselves in Corallyne. I wonder if I
shall ever be as happy as I was there ? *
* You are very happy here ? ' said Sabretasche,
with a sort of pity for the joyous heart to which
sorrow was yet but a name.
* Happy? Oh, yes; I enjoy myself, and I am
always light-hearted ; but I have things to annoy
me here ; the artifices and frivolity of society
worry me. I want to say always what I think,
and nobody seems to do it in the world.'
* The world would be in hot water if they did.
But pray speak it to me.'
* I always do ! Yes, I enjoy London life. I like
the whirl, the excitement, the intellectual dis-
cussion, the vivid, real life men lead here. I
should enjoy it entirely if I did not see too many
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 277
hard, cruel, worn faces under the feir smiling
masks.'
' Pauvre enfant I ' murmured Sabretasche. * Do
you suppose there are any light hearts under the
dominoes ? '
* Yours is not a light one ? '
* Mine ! ' echoed the Colonel, with a strangely
melancholy intonation ; then he laughed his gay
soft laugh. * If it is not, mademoiselle, you are
the first who had penetration enough to find it
out. I am quSteur of amusement in general to
all my friends ! There is De Vigne going, and
so must I. I shall not thank you for your
songs.'
' No ! I am so tired of meaningless thanks and
va^jid compliments,* she said laughingly. *You
would not have asked me to sing if you had not
wished to hear me, for I know that on principle
you never bore yourself.'
'Never,' replied Sabretasche, in his usual in-
dolent tone. *No one is worth such a self-
sacrifice.'
'Not even I?' asked Violet, raising her eye-
brows.
' To suppose such a case, I must first imagine
you boring me, which just at present is an hypo-
thesis not to be imagined by any stretch of poetic
278 "held in bondage;** or,
ikncy,* laughed Sabretasche, as he held out
hand to bid her good morning.
She held the violets up to him.
* You have forgotten the flowers ? '
* May I have them ? ' he asked, softly, with one
of those glances, in which his lengthened expe-
rience in that mysterious book, a woman's heart,
had perfected him.
She gave them to him with a bright flush and
smile. He slipped them hastily into the breast of
his waistcoat, and came forward to Lady MqIj-
neux.
' Violet, my love,' began her mother, as the door
closed on us, * Colonel Sabretasche comes here a
great deal ; I wish you would not be quite so
quite so expansive with him.'
* Expansive ! ' repeated Violet, in sheer as-
tonishment. * What do you mean ? '
* I mean what I say, my dear Violet,' repeated
the Viscountess, the milk of roses turning a little
sour. * You treat him quite as familiarly as if he
were your father or your lover. You need not co-
lour, I don't say he is the last ; God forbid he should
be, with his principles. I know he makes himself
agreeable to you, but so, as every one will tell
you, he has done for the last twenty years to any
pretty woman that came across his path ; and your
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 279
speech to his friend De Vigne, about " singing Cfrdy
to Colonel Sabretasche," was not alone unmaidenly,
it was absurd/
' How so ? I only eared for him to hear it and
like it/
' It was all very well for him to hear it and like
it/ replied my lady, irritably prominent piety has
a queer knack of souring the temper *his ex-
treme fastidiousness makes his good word well
worth having ; the best way to make your opinion
of value in society is to admire nothing, as he
does ! But, at the same time, it is a dear way of
gaining his applause to keep all other men in the
background while you are flirting with him. Be-
fore you saw him you liked Begalia, and Killury,
and plenty of others, well enough ; now you really
attend to no one else/
' Because I see their inferiority to him,' inter-
rupted Violet, vehemently, * All they can do is to
ride, and waltz, and smoke ; he has the genius of
an artist. They think they please me by vapid
flattery; he knows better. They are one's sub-
jects, he is one's master ! '
Lady Molyneux was seriously appalled by such
an outburst. She raised her eyebrows sarcas^
ticaJly :
*You admire Vivian Sabretasche very mucbs
280 "held IX BONDAGE;** OR,
Violet? I should not advise you to say so, my
dear.'
* Why not? it is the truth.*
* Few truths can be spoken,' replied the emi-
nently religious, fashionable lady, coldly. * Why
you had better not proclaim your very Quixotic
admiration for Sabretasche, because he bears as
bad a character for morality as he bears a good
one for talent and fashion. What his life has been
every one knows ; he is a most unpnncipled liber-
tine. No one ever dreams of expecting anything
serious of him ; he is the last man in the universe
to marry, but a flirtation vnth him may very greatly
injure your prospects '
* Oh, mamma, pray don't ! ' said Violet, with a
dash of contemptuous hauteur. * I am so sick of
those words ; they are so lowering, so pitiful, so
conventional, making a market of oneself! I
cannot bear to hear you speak so. As to his being
to his meaning anything " serious," I would
rather die than learn to look upon him as a spe-
culation, or class him with all those men who try
to buy me with their settlements. As to his life,
he has led the same life as most men, probably ;
but you need only look in his eyes to see whe-
ther anything base or cruel can attach itself
to him.*
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 281
Her mother sighed, and sneered, and smiled
unpleasantly.
* My love, the way you talk is too absurd. You
forget yourself strangely. How is it possible for
you to judge of the character of a man over forty,
a blase man of the world, who was one of the
greatest roues about town while you were a little
child in the nursery; it is too ridiculous! But
go and dress for dinner. The dear bishop, and
Cavendish Grey, and Killury will dine here.'
* Poor sensitive plant, it would be a pity my
hands should touch it and wither its freshness and
fairness,' thought the Colonel, as he turned his
tilbury from the door. * Vivian Sabretasche, I say,
are you growing a fool ? Don't you know that the
golden gates won't open for you? You barred
them yourself; you have no right to complain.
Have you not been going to the bad all the days
of your life ? Have you not persuaded the world,
ever since you lived in it, that you are a reckless,
devil-may-care Don Juan, a smasher of the entire
Decalogue ? Why should you now, just because
you have looked into that girl's bright eyes, be
trying to trick yourself and her into the idea that
you possess such affairs as heart, and feeling, and
regrets, because she, fresh to life, is innocent
enough to have a taste for such nonsense ? All
282 "HBLD IN BONDAGE; OR,
folly all folly! Back to your animate firiends,
horses and men, and your inanimate loves, chisel
and palate, or you may grow a fool in your older
years, as many wise men have done before. You've
pulled up many fair flowers in your day, you can
surely leave that one Violet in peace.'
^ Oh, mamma, she is such a pretty girl, and
Ashton is so abominably stupid ; he must have
knocked them down on purpose. Open the door.
Colonel Sabretasche, and let me out. It is of no
use telling me not I will ! '
With which enunciation of her own self-will
the Hon. Violet Molyneux sprang to the ground
in the middle of St. James's Street, just opposite
the bay-window, to the unspeakable horror of her
mother, and the excessive amusement of De Vigne
and Sabretasche, who were driving in the Moly-
neux barouche. One of the powdered, white-
wanded, six-feet-high plushes that swayed to and
fro at the back of the carriage, having dismounted
at some order of his mistress's, had happened to
push, as those noble and stately creatures are
given to pushing every plebeian peripatetic, against
a young girl passing on the pavement. The girl
had with her a portfolio of pictures, which the
abrupt rencontre with Ashton sent out of her
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 283
grasp, scattering its contents to the four winds of
heaven, and to apologize was the work of a second
with that perfectly courteous, but, according to her
mamma and her female friends, much too impul-
sive and unconventional young beauty, the Hon.
Violet, whose fatal lessons, learnt on the wild
moorlands and among the fragrant woods of her
beloved Corallyne, the aristocratic experiences of
her single season had been sadly unable to unteach
her.
' Ashton, how can you be so careless ? Pick
those drawings up immediately and very care-
fully,' said the young beauty, as, turning to the
young girl, she apologized with polished courtesy
for the accident her servant had caused, while
Ashton, in disgusting violence to his own feelings,
was compelled to bend his stately form, and even
to so far fall from his pedestal of po\^dered pro-
priety and flunkeyism grandeur, as to run yes,
absolutely run after one of the sketches, which,
wafted by a little breeze that must have been that
mischievous imp Puck himself, ambled gently and
tantalizingly down the street. The young girl
thanked her with as bright a smile as Violet's,
and votes were divided in the club windows as to
which of the two was the most charming, though
the one was a fashionable belle, with every adjunct
284 "held in bondage;" or,
of taste and dress, and the other an unpro-
tected little thing walking with a woman-servant
in St. James's Street; an artist probably, or a
governess. She took her portfolio (by this time
men in the clubs were all looking on, heartily
amused, and Sabretasche and De Vigne were
picking up the pictures, on the back of which
they had time to observe the initials "A. T., St.
Crucis-on-the-hill, Richmond Park," with much
more diligence than the grandiose Ashton ;)
thanked Violet with a low graceful bow, and was
passing on, when she looked up at De Vigne.
Her lips parted, her eyes darkened, her face
brightened ; she stood still a minute, then she
came back: *Sir Folko!' But he neither saw nor
heard her, his foot was on the step of the ba-
rouche ; Ashton shut the door with a clang,
swung himself up on the footboard, and the
carriage rolled away into Pall Mall.
* Violet, Violet ! how you forget yorself, my
love ? ' whispered Lady Molyneux, scandalized and
horror-stricken. * I wish you would not be quite
so impulsive. All the gentlemen in White's were
staring at you.'
* Let them stare, mamma, dear,' laughed Violet,
merrily. * It is a very innocent amusement, it
gives them a great deal of pleasure and does me
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 285
no harm. What glorious blue eyes that girl had,
and such lovely hair. You should laud me for my
magnanimity in praising another woman so pretty.'
' For magnanimity in that line is not a virtue
of your sex,' said De Vigne.
* You cynical man ! I don't see why it should
not be.'
* Don't you ? Did you, on your honour, then,
fair lady, ever speak well of a rival.'
* T never had one/
* You never could,' whispered Sabretasche, bend-
ing forward to tuck the tiger-skin over her.
' But supposing you had?' persisted De Vigne.
' I hope I should be above maligning her ; but
I am afraid to think how I should hate her.'
She spoke with such unnecessary vehemence,
that her mother and De Vigne stared. Violet's
eyes met the Colonel's ; her colour rose, and he,
incongruously enough, turned his head away.
* If Miss Molyneux treats the visionary things
of life 80 earnestly, what will she do when she
comes to the realities ? ' laughed De Vigne.
Lady Molyneux sighed ; on occasions she would
play at tender maternity, but it did not sit well
upon her.
* Ah ! Major de Vigne, if we did not find some
armour besides our own strength in our life
286 "held in bondage;" or,
pUgrimage, few of os women would be able to
endure to the end of the Via Dolorosa.'
* True ! Britomart soon finds a buckler studded
with the diamonds of a good dower, or stifibned
with the parchment-skins of handsome settle-
ments ; and, tender and gentle as she looks, ma-
nages to go through the skirmish very unscathed
by dint of the vizor she keeps down so wisely,
and the sharp lance of the tongue she keeps al-
ways in rest against friend and foe ! '
* What thrusts of the spear you deserve. Major
de Vigne ; you are worse than your friend, and he
is bad enough ! ' cried Violet, looking rather
lovingly, however, on the Colonel, despite his
errors. * I am sure if women take to lance and
vizor, it is only in self-defence, for you would
pierce us with your arrows if you could find a hole
in our armour.'
' But here and there is a woman who unhorses
us at once, and on whom it is a shame to draw
our swords. Agnes Hotots are very rare, but
when we do find them, Ringsdale is safe to go
down before them,' said Sabretasche, with his elo-
quent glance.
' I should think you have both of you been
conquered or imprisoned some time or other by
some Cynisca, or Maria de Jesu, whom you can-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 287
not forgive, and who makes you so bitter upon us
all ! ' laughed Violet.
She said it in the gay innocence of her heart !
Both were silent: and Violet instinctively felt
that she had trodden on dangerous ground then
De Vigne laughed, though a curse would have
been better in unison with his thoughts.
*Miss Molyneux, with all due deference to
your sex, there are few men I fear, who, if they
told you the truth, would not have to confess
having found, that those warm and charming feel-
ings with which you young ladies start fresh in
life, have a knack of disappearing in the atmo-
sphere of society, aa gold disappears melted and
swallowed up in aqua regia.'
'Will you let your pure gold be lost in De
Vigne's metaphorical aqua regia ? ' whispered the
Colonel, half smiling, half sadly, as he handed her
out, at her own house.
* Oh ! never ! *
' You mean it now, but Well, we shall see ! '
And Sabretasche led her up the steps with his
low, careless laugh. * When you are Madame la
Princess d'Hautecour, or her Grace of Regalia, per-
haps you will not smile so kindly on your old
friends ! '
She turned pale ; her large eyes filled with un-
288 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
shed tears. She thought of the violets she had
given him a few days before.
*You are unkind and unjust, Colonel Sabre-
tasche,' she said haughtily. * I thought you more
kind, more true '
' I am neither,' said Sabretasche, abruptly for
that ultra suave and tender squire of dames.
' Ask your mamma for my character, and be-
lieve what she will tell you. I would rather
you erred in thinking too ill though that peo-
ple would say is impossible than too well of
me.'
* I could never think ill of you '
* You would be wrong, then,' said Sabretasche,
gravely.
Just then her mother and De Vigne entered,
and the Colonel, with his light laugh, turned round
to them with some jest. Violet could not rally
quite so quickly.
That night, at a loo party at Sabretasche's
house, De Vigne and I told the other fellows of
Violet's impulsive action in St. James's Street ;
while the Colonel went on with his game in
silence.
* She's a great deal too impulsive ; it's horrid
bad ton,' yawned little Lord Killtime, an utterly
blase gentleman of nineteen.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 289
I like it/ said Curly. It's a wonderful treat
now-a-days to see a girl natural.'
She is very lovely, there is no doubt about
that/ said De Vigne. I dare say they mean to
set her up high in the market. Her mother is
trying hard for Regalia.'
He's a lost man, then/ said Wyndham, who
had cut the Lower House and Bed Tape for the
lighter loves of Pam and Miss. * I never knew
the Molyneux, senior, make hard running after
any fellow but what she finished him (she's re-
treated into the bosom of the Church no w^ and
puts up with portly bishops and handsome popu-
lar preachers : women often do when they get
passees ; the Church is not so difficile as the laity,
I presume !) ; but ten or less years ago I vow it
was dangerous to come within the signal of her
fan, she'd such a clever way of setting at you.'
Jockey Jack didn't care,' laughed St. Lys, of
the Eleventh. *Well, her daughter's no ma-
noeuvrer ; and, by George, it's worth a guinea a
turn to waltz with her.'
She's not bad looking,' sneered Vane Castle-
ton, the youngest son of his Grace of Tiara, the
worst of all those by no means incorruptible, and
very far from stainless pillars of the state, the
*Castleton family.* But, by George, I never
VOL. L u
290 "hrld in bondage;** or,
came across so bold, off-hand, spirited a young
filly.*
Sabretasche looked up, anger in his languid,
tired eyes.
* Permit me to differ from you, Castleton. Your
remark, I must say, is as much signalized by know-
ledge of character as it is by elegance of phra-
seology ! Young fellows like Killtime may make
such mistakes of judgment ; we who know the
world should be wiser.*
De Vigne, sitting next him, looked up and
raised his eyebrows at the GoloneFs unusual in-
terference and warmth.
'Ettu, BrvieV
Sabretasche understood, and gave him an ad-
monitory kick under the table.
* Whose portrait is that, Sabretasche?* asked
De Vigne, to stop Vane Ca8tleton*s tongue, point-
ing to a portrait over the mantelpiece in the inner
drawing-room, where we were playing; the por-
trait of a very pretty woman.
* My mother, when she was twenty. Didn*t
you know it ? It was taken just before she mar-
ried. I believe it was an exact likeness, but I
don't remember her.*
* It reminds me of somebody I cannot think
of whom. I beg your pardon, I take " miss." '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 291
* Why will you talk through the game ? ' said
L * Don't you think the picture is like that
girl who occasioned Violet's championship this
morning? That's whom you are thinking of, I
dare say.'
* Who's talking now, I wonder ? ' said De Vigne.
* Heart's trumps ? I did not notice that girl ; I
was too amused to see Miss Molyneux. No, it is
somebody else, but who, I cannot think, for the
life of me/
*Nor can I help you,* said Sabretasche, *for
there is not a creature related to my mother living.
But now Arthur mentions it, that little girl was
not unlike her ; at least, I fancy she had the same
coloured hair. A propos of likenesses, there will
be a very pretty picture of Lady Geraldine Ormsby
in the Exhibition this year. I saw it, half finished,
at Maclise's yesterday.'
*Why don't you exhibit, Sabretasche?' said
Wyndham. ' You paint a deuced deal better than
half those Fellows and Associates ! '
* Bien ohligS I ' cried the Colonel. I should be
particularly sorry to hang up my pets off my easel
to be put level with people's boots, or high above
their possible vision, or if honoured vrith the
" second row " be flanked by shocking red-
haired pre-Raphaelite angels and staring por-
u 2
292 "held in bondage;'* or,
traits of gentlemen in militia uniform ; and criti-
cized by a crowd of would-be cognoscente and di-
lettante cockneys, with a catalogue in their hand
and Ruskin rules in their mind, who go into
ecstasies over cottage scenes with all Teniers'
vulgarities, and none of Teniers' redeeming talent.
Exhibit my pictures ? The fates forefend ! Wynd-
ham, help yourself to that Chablis, and, De Vigne,
there is some of our pet Madeira* How sorry I
am Madeira now grows graves instead of grapes !
Nonsense ! Don't any of you think of going
yet. Let us sit down again for a few more
rounds.'
We did, and we played till the raw February
dawn was growing gray in the streets, while we
laughed and talked over Sabretasche's wine
laughs that might have jarred on Violet's ear,
and talk that might have made her young
heart heavy, coming from her hero's lips. But
when we were gone, and the fire was burning
low, the Colonel sat before the dying embers
with his dog's head upon his knee, and
thought :
* What a fool I am ! Women, wine, cards, art,
play are they all losing their enchantment ? Are
my rose-leaves beginning to lose their scent, and
crumple under me? That girl child she is to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 293
me-^has been the only one who has had pene-
tration enough to see that the bal masque has
ceased its charm. She reads me truer than all of
them. She will believe no ill of me. She almost
makes me wish there were no ill for her to be-
lieve ! Shall she be the first woman to whom I
have shown mercy, the first for whom I have re-
nounced self? Cid, old boy ! is your master wholly
dead to generosity and honour because the world
happens to say he is ? '
That night De Vigne and I smoked our pipes
together over his fire in Wilton Crescent, where
he had taken a furnished house, Vigne had been
shut up since his mother's death, and he rarely
alluded even distantly to the scene of his folly and
his wrongs ; I do not think he could have endured
to revisit, far less to live in it.
^ Is Sabretasche really getting touched by that
bewitching Irish girl ? * said I to him, as we sat
smoking.
* God knows ! He was rather touchy about
her, wasn't he ? But that might only be for the
pleasure of setting down Castleton, a temptation I
don't think I could forego myself. According to
his own showing, he's never in love with any
woman, but he makes love to almost all he comes
across.' _
294 "held in bondage; or,
Oh, he's a deuced fellow for women !
but he might be really caught at last, you
know/
Certainly/ assented De Vigne ; none are so
wise that they may not become fools ! Socrates,
when he was old, sage that he was, did not read in
the same book with a woman without falling in
love with her.'
You are complimentary to love ? Is it inva-
riably a folly ? '
^ I think so. At least, all / wish for is to keep
clear of it all the rest of my life.'
Why?'
Good God ! need you ask ? From my boy-
hood I was the fool of my passions. To love a
woman was to win her. I stopped for no con-
sideration, no duty, no obstacle; I let nothing
come between me and my will. I was as obstinate
to those who tried ever to stop me in any pursuit,
as I was weak and mad in yielding up my birth-
right at any price, if I could but buy the mess of
porridge on which I had for the time being set
my fancy. Scores of times I did that scores of
times some worthless idol became the thing on
which I staked my soul. Once I did it too often !
It is such eternal misery that that woman, so low-
born, so low-bred, shameless, degraded, all that I
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 295
know her to be, should bear my name, should pro-
claim abroad all the folly into which my reckless
passions led me. Thank God I knew it when I
did thank God I left her as I did thank God
that no devils like herself were bom to perpetuate
my shame, and make me loathe my name because
they bore it ! Then you ask me if I am steeled
to love ! It has changed my whole nature the
misery of that loathsome connection ! It is not
the tie I care for it is the shame, Arthur the
bitter, burning, shame ! It is the odium of know-
ing that she bears my name, the humiliation that
twice in my life have I been fooled by her beauty ;
it is the agony that my mother, the only pure, the
only true friend whom fate ever gave me, was
murdered by my reckless passions ! '
His hands clenched on the arms of his chair,
and the black veins swelled upon his face; it
looked as though cast in chill, grey stone. It was
my first glimpse of those ghastly dark hours, which,
exorcised or invisible, in society and ordinary life,
fastened relentlessly upon him in his hours of
solitude ; of that sleepless and merciless Remorse
which dogged his steps by day, and made night
horrible.
At that same hour, in a little bed whose curtains
296
^^HELD IX BONDAGE;** OR,
and linen were white and pure as lilies^ a joang
girl slept, like a rosebud lying on new-iklleii snow;
her gold^i hair fell over her shoulders, her bine
ejes were closed under their black, silky lashes,
a bright, happy smile was on her lips, and as she
turned in her dreams, she spoke unconsciously in
her sleep two words * Sir Folko ! *
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 297
CHAPTER XTII.
THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES IS FOUND IN
RICHMOND.
Not content with his house in Park Lane, Sabre-
tasche had lately bought, beside it, a place at
Richmond that had belonged to a rich old Indian
millionnaire. It had been originally built and
laid out by people of good taste, and the merchant
had not lived long enough in it to spoil it : he
had only christened it the * Dilcoosha,' which title,
being out of the common, Sabretasche retained.
It was very charming, with it8 gardens, sloping
down to the Thames, and was a pet with the
Colonel; a sort of Strawberry Hill, save that
his taste was much more symmetrical and grace-
ful than Horace's ; and he spent plenty of both
time and money, touching it up and perfecting it
till it was beautiful in its way as Luciennes. De
Vigne and I drove down there one morning,
towards the end of February, to see the paces
tried, on a level bit of grass-land outside the
298 "held in bondage;*' or,
grounds, of a chesnut Sabretasche had entered for
Ascot. Stable slang and the delights of ^ossj
men ' were not refined enough for the Coloners
taste, but he liked to keep a good racing* stud ;
and he wished to have De Yigne's opinion on
Coronet, who had won the Champagne Stakes the
autumn before at Doncaster, and run a good
second at the Cesarewitch ; for De Vigne, who
was very well known in the Ring and the Rooms,
was one of the surest prophets of success or failure
that ever talked over a coming Derby on a Sunday
afternoon at Tattersall's.
* What trick do you think my man Harris
served me yesterday ? ' said De Vigne, as we
came near Richmond.
'Harris that good-natured fellow? What
has he done ? '
Cut and run with a dozen of my shirts, three
morning, two dress-coats; in fact, a complete
wardrobe; and twenty pounds or so I really
forget how much exactly that I had left on the
dressing-table when I went to mess last night.
And that man I took out of actual starvation at
Bombay! have forgiven him fifty peccadilloes,
let him off when I found him taking a case of
my sherry, because he blubbered and said it was
for his mother, found up the poor old woman, who
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 299
wasrCt a myth, and wrote to Stevens at Vigne to
give her an almshouse ; and then this fellow walks
off with my goods! And you talk to me of
people's gratitude! Bah! How can you have
the face, Arthur, to ask me to admire human
nature ? '
* I don't ask you to admire it Heaven fore-
fend ! I don't like it well enough myself. What
a rascal ! Ton my life there seems a fate in
your seeing the dark side of humanity.'
* The dark side ? Where's any otlier ? I never
found any gratitude yet, and I don't expect any.
People court you while you're of use to them ;
when you are not, you may go hang. Indeed^
they will help to swing you off the stage, to lessen
their own sense of obligation. By Jove ! we're
half-an-hour too early for the Colonel.'
' Too early ? ' said I. * Then let's go and see
that pretty little artist of St. James's Street. I
always meant to look her up ; and you said she
lived somewhere near here.'
* I think she did ; St. Crucis something or
other. What a naughty fellow you are, Arthur,'
laughed De Vigne. * We'll try and find her out,
if you like ; though I don't think it's worth while.
Hallo ! my good man ; is there a place called St.
Crucis anywhere in Richmond ? '
300 "held in bondage;" or,
* St. Crucis-on-the-Hill be you meaning, sir? a
little farm V said the hedge-cutter he asked, ^ho
was sitting in the sun eating his dinner. ' Take the
road to your left, then the turning to the right, and
a mile straight on will see you there.' De Vigne
tossed him half-a-crown, tooled the greys in the
direction told him, and we soon arrived in the quiet
lane where the little farm-house stood ; turned in
at the gate it was as much as the dashing mail-
phffiton could do to pass it and into a small paved
court on one side of which stood the house, long,
low, thatched, and picturesque, more like Hamp-
shire than Middlesex ; with a garden, an orchard,
and a paddock adjoining ; all now black and bare
in the chill February morning.
* Does a young lady, an artist, reside here ? ' De
Vigne inquired at the door; scarcely had he
spoken than the young girl herself, looking tempt-
ingly pretty in-doors, came out of an inner room
and ran up to him. ' Ah ! it is you ? how glad I
am ! Do come in, pray do ? '
* What a strange little thing !' whispered De
Vigne to me, as we followed her through the house
to a room at the west end, a long, low chamber
with an easel standing in its bay-window, and
water-colours, etchings, pastels, etudes, pictures of
all kinds, hung about its walls ; while some books.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 301
and casts, and flowers, gave a refinement to its
plain simplicity, often wanting in many a gilt and
gorgeous drawing-room I have entered.
* So you recognized me ? How kind of you to
come!' said the girl, looking up in De Vigne's
face.
DeVigne was wholly surprised; he looked at
her for some moments.
* Recognize you ? I am ashamed to say I do
not.'
* Ah ! and yet you have called on me. I do not
understand?' said the little artist, with a sunny
smile, but very marked bewilderment in her eyes
and words. *! have never forgotten yow, Sir
Folko. I knew you the other day, when that
young lady's servant knocked down my portfolio.
Have you quite forgotten little Alma ? I am so
glad to see you ^you cannot think how much ! '
And Alma Tressillian held out both her hands
to him, with a bright, joyous welcome on her
upraised face.
* Little Alma!' repeated De Vigne. 'Yes,
yes! I remember you now. Where could my
mind have gone not to recognize you at once?
You are not the least altered since you were a
child. But how can you have come from Lorave
to London ? Come, tell me everything ? My dear
302 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
child, you are not more pleased to see me than I
am to see you ! '
Alma was little altered since her childhood:
now, as then, her golden hair and eloquent dark-
blue eyes, with the constant change, and play, and
animation of all her features, made her j^reatest
beauty. They were not regularly beautiful as
Violet Molyneux's, their mobility and extreme in-
tellectuality of expression was their chief charm,
after all. She was not so tall as Violet, nor had
she that exquisite and perfect form which made
the belle of the season compared with Pauline
Bonaparte ; but she had something graceful and
fairy-esque about her, and both her face and figure
were instinct with a life, an intelligence, a radi-
ance of expression which promised you a rare
combination of sweet temper and hot passions,
intense susceptibility, and highly-cultivated intel-
lect. You might not have called her pretty : you
must have called her much more irresistibly
winning and attractive.
*Come, tell me everything about yourself,'
repeated De Vigne, as he pushed a low chair for
her, and threw himself down on an arm-chair
near. * You must remember Captain Chevasney
as well as you do me. We shall both of us
be anxious to hear all you have to tell ; tho.ugh.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 303
I am ashamed to say that in taking the liberty to
call on the fair artist whose pictures I picked up,
I had no idea I should meet my little friend the
Queen of the Fairies ! '
* Indeed ! Then I wonder you came, though I
am very glad to see you? Why should you call
on a stranger! Yes, I recollect Captain Che-
vasney,' smiled Alma, with a pretty bend of her
head (she did not add *as well'). *I was so
sorry when you did not see me that day in Pall
Mall ; I thought I might never come across you
again.'
*But where is your grandpapa ? is he in
town ? '
She looked down, and her lips quivered :
' Grandpapa has been dead three years.'
*Dead! My dear child, how careless of me!
I am grieved, indeed ! ' exclaimed De Vigne, in-
voluntarily.
* You could not tell,* answered Alma, looking
up at him, great tears in her blue eyes. ^ He
died more than three years ago, but it is as fresh
to m^ as if it were but yesterday. Nobody will
ever love me as he did. He was so kind, so
gentle, so good. In losing him I lost everything ;
I prayed day and night that I might die with
him ; he was my only friend ! '
304 "held in bondage; or,
'Poor little Alma!' said De Vigne, touched
out of that haaghty reserve uow habitual to him.
' I am grieved to hear it, both for the loss to 70a
of your only protector, and the loss to the world
of as true-hearted a man as ever breathed. If I
had been in England he would have seen me at
Lorave, as I promised, but I have been in India
since we parted. I wish I had written to him ; I
ought to have done so; but one never knows
things till too late.'
* He left a letter for you, in case I should ever
meet you. You were the only person kind to us
after the loss of his fortune,' said Alma, as she
sprang across the room all her movements were
rapid and foreign knelt down before a desk, and
brought an unsealed envelope to De Vigne, di-
rected to him by a hand now powerless for
ever.
*This for me? I wish I had seen him,' said
De Vigne, as he put it away in the breast of his
coat. ' I ought to have written to him ; but my
own affairs engrossed me, and we are all pro-
found egotists, you know, to whatever unselfish-
ness we may pretend. What was the cause of
his death ? Will it pain you to tell me ? '
* Paralysis. He had a paralytic stroke six
months before, which ended in congestion of the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 305
brain. But how gentle, how good, how patient
he was through it all ! '
She stopped again ; the tears rolled off her lashes.
She was quite unaccustomed to conceal what she
felt, and she did not know that feeling is bad ton 1
* And you have been in England ever since ? '
asked De Vigne, to divert her thoughts.
* Oh no!' she answered, brushing the tears off her
lashes. * You know the governess grandpapa took
for me to Lorave ? She has been extremely kind.
She was vnth me at his death. I was fifteen then,
and for a year afterwards she stayed with me in
Lorave; I loved the place so dearly, dearer still
after his grave was there, and I could not bear to
leave it. But Miss Russell had no money, and no
home. She works for her living, and she could
not waste her time on me. She was obliged to
look for another situation, and when she came
over to ifr-^it is in a rector s family near Staines
I came with her, and she placed me here. My
old nurse has this farm ; grandpapa bought it for
her many years ago, when she left us and married.
Her husband is dead, but she still keeps the farm,
and makes bread to send into town. It was the
only place we knew of, and nurse was so delighted
to let me have the rooms, that I have been here
ever since.'
VOL. I. X
306 "held in bondage;" or,
' Poor little thing, what a life ! ' cried De Vigne,
involuntarily. ' How dull you must be. Alma.'
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her
shoulders. Gesticulation was natural to her, and
she had caught it from the Italians at Lorave.
' Buried alive ! Sylvo to talk to, and the flowers
to talk to me ; that is my society. But wherever
I might have been, I should have missed him
equally, and I can never be alone while I have my
easel and my books.'
*Have you painted these?' I exclaimed, in
surprise, for there were masterly strokes in the
sketches on the walls that would have shamed
more than one * Associate.'
' Yes. An Italian artist, spending the summer
at Lorave, saw me drawing one day, something
as Cimabue saw little Giotto, and had me to his
studio, and gave me a regular course of instruction.
He told me I might equal Elizabetta Sirani. I
shall never do that, I am afraid, but I find a very
good sale for my sketches; they take them at
Ackermann's and Rowney's, and I work hard. I
sketch every day out of doors, to catch the winter
and summer tints. But I hate winter; it is so
unkind, so cheerless ! I always paint Summer in
my pictures ; not your poor pale English season,
but summer golden and glorious, with the boughs
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 307
hanging to the ground with the weight of their
own beauty, and the vineyards and corn-fields
glowing with their rich prpmise ! '
* Enthusiastic as ever?' laughed De Vigne.
* How are our friends the fairies, Alma ? '
* Do you suppose I shall give news of them
to a disbeliever?' said Alma, vrtth a toss of her
head. * I have not forgotten your want of faith.
Are you as great a sceptic now ? '
* Ten times more not only of fairy lore, but of
pretty well everything else. Fairies are as well
worth credence as all the other faiths of the
day; I would as soon credit Queen Mab as a
"doctrinal point!" What do you think of the
fairies now ? '
* Look? Do you not think I sketched that from
sight ! ' said Alma, turning her easel to him, where
she had drawn a true Titania, such as ^ on pressed
flowers does sleep,' for whom * the cowslips tall
her pensioners be : '
' Where oxlips and the nodding violets grow,
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine.
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine,
Lulled in those flowers with dances and delight ; '
the veritable fairy queen of those dainty offsprings
of romance, who used to meet
' in grove or green.
By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen.'
x2
308 "held in bondage;** or,
* How splendidly you draw. Alma ! ' exclaimed
De Vigne. * If you exhibited at the Water-Colour
Society, you would excite as much wonder as Rosa
Bonheur. And do these pay you well ? *
^ Yes ; at least, what seems so to me.'
* Pauvre enfant I ' smiled De Vigne ; her ideas
of wealth and his were strikingly different. * A
friend of mine is a great connoisseur of these
things. I must show them to him some day ; but
I cannot stay now, for T have an engagement at
two, and it is now striking.*
* But you will come and see me again,' inter-
rupted Alma, beseechingly. * Pray do. You can-
not think how lonely I am. I have no friends,
you know.'
* Oh yes, I will come,' answered De Vigne. * T
have much more to hear about you and your pur-
suits. How could you know us, Alma, after so
long ? '
* I did not know Captain Chevasney,' said the
little lady, with uncomplimentary frankness, * but
I knew you perfectly. The first picture I could
sketch was one of you for Sir Folko. You know
I always thought you like him ! Besides, grand-
papa talked of you so constantly, and I was so
expecting you to come to Lorave with your yacht,
as you had promised, that it was impossible for me
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 309
to forget you. I was so grieved when you did not
notice me in Pall Mall. I called you, but you did
not hear. You were thinking of that young lady.
How lovely she was ! Who is she? '
* Lord Molyneux's daughter, I was not think-
ing of her, though, but that the pair of horses in
her carriage were not worth half \yhat I heard
they gave for them,' said De Vigne, laughing, as
he offered her his hand; *and now, good-by. I
am very pleased to have found you out, and you
must pardon us our impertinence in calling on one
whom we thought a stranger, since it has led us
to one whom we may fairly claim as an old friend !'
Alma looked gratefully in his face, and bid him,
with a radiant smile, not defer his visit to St.
Crucis, as he had done his yachting to Lorave.
She guessed little enough whai had prevented that
yachting to Lorave.
* Strange we should have lighted on that child !
That's your doing, Arthur, going after the beaux
yeux ! ' said he, as we drove to the Dilcoosha.
^ She is the same frank, impulsive, enthusiastic
little thing as when we first saw her. She was
the heiress of Wieve Hurst then ; now she has to
work for her bread. Who can prophesy the ups
and downs of life ? Boughton Tressillian was game
to the backbone. Perhaps she inherits some of his
310 "held in BONDAGE;** OR,
pluck it is to be hoped so she will want it. A
woman, young, unprotected, and attractive as she
looks, is pretty sure to come to grief some way or
other. Her very virtues will be her min ! She
is not one of your sensible, prudent, cold, common-
place women, who go through the world scathless ;
too wise to err, too selfish to sacrifice themselves !
Alma will come to grie^ I am afraid. Here, take
the reins, Arthur, and I will see what her grand-
father says/
He tore open the letter, and gave a long
whistle.
* What s the matter ? ' said I.
^ She isn't his grandchild after all.'
* Not ? His daughter, I suppose ? '
* No ; no relation at all. The letter is broken
off unfinished ; probably where his hand failed
him, poor old man. He says my name recurred
to him as the only person who had not heeded his
decline of fortune, and the only man of honour whom
he could trust. Out of his income as consul he con-
trived to save her a few hundreds voila tout!
He must leave her, of course, to struggle for her-
self; and this is what weighs so heavily upon him,
because, it seems, he adopted this child when she
was two years old, believing he would make her
an heiress ; and, according to his view of the case.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 311
he considers he has done her a great wrong. Who
she is he does not tell me, except that she was a
little Italian girl. He was going, no doubt, to
add more, as he began the letter by saying he
wished her secret to be known' to some one,
and having heard much of my mother, appealed to
her, through me, to aid and serve Alma if she
would; but here the sentence breaks off un-
finished.'
* Do you think Alma knows it ; she calls him
her grandfather still ? '
* Can't say yet of course she does,' said De
Vigne, with a cynical smile. * No woman's curi-
osity ever allowed her to keep an unsealed letter
three years and never look into it ! Here we are.
It will be as well not to tell Sabretasche of his neigh-
bour, eh ? He is such a deuced fellow for women,
and she would be certain to go down before his
thousand^nd-one accomplishments ! Not that it
would matter much, perhaps ; she will be some-
body's prey, no doubt, and she might as well be
the Colonel's, save that he is a little quicker fickle
than most, knowing better than most, the value of
his toys.'
With which concluding sarcasm De Vigne
threw the reins to his groom, who met him at the
door, and entered that abode of perfect taste and
312 ^HELD IN BONDAGE;'' OR,
epicurean luxury, known as the Dilcoosha, where
Sabretasche and luncheon were waiting for us. And
where, after due discussion of Strasbourg* p&tes,
Comet Hock, Bass, and the news of the daj, we
inspected the chesnut's paces, pronounced him
pretty certain, unless something unforeseen in the
way of twitch and opium-ball occurred, to win the
Queen's Gup, and drove back to town together,
De Vigne to go to billiards at Pratt's, Sabretasche
to accompany the Molyneux to a morning concert,
and I to call on a certain lady who had well-nigh
broken my heart, when it was young and break-
able, who had exchanged rings with me under the
Kensington Garden trees, when she was fresh, fair,
Gwen Brandling, and who was now staying in
town as Madame la Duchesse de la Vieillecour,
black velvet and point replacing the muslin and
ribbons, dignity in the stead of girlish grace, and a
fin sowrire of skilled coquetry in lieu of that heart-
felt smile, Gwen's whilom charm. I take it
doves are sold by the dozen on the altar-steps of
St. George's? but ^it is true that the doves
have a strange passion for the gold coins that
buy them, and would not fly away if they
could ?
NHmporte ! Madame de la Vieillecour and I
met as became people living in good society ; if
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 313
less fresh she was perhaps more f^cinating, and
though one begins life tender and transparent as
Sevres, one is stone-china, luckily, long before the
finish, warranted never to break at any blows
whatever.
314 "held m BONDAQE;" OR,
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW A WIFE TALKED OF HER HUSBAND.
In a very gay and gaudy drawing-room in the
Champs Elysees, in an arm-chair, with her feet on a
chaufferettej in a rich cashmere and laces, looking
a very imposing and richly-coloured picture, sat
De Vigne's wife, none the less handsome for the
wear of Paris life, intermixed with visits to the
Bads, where she was almost as great an attraction
as the green tables, and the sound of her name as
great a charm as the irresistible " Faites voire jeu^
messieurs I " A little fuller about the cheek and
chin, a trifle more Juno-esque in form, a little
higher tinted in the carnation hue of her roses,
but otherwise none the worse for the ten years
that had passed since she wore the orange-blos-
soms and the diamond ceinture on her marriage
morning.
She had an English paper in her hand, and was
running her eye over the fashionable intelligence.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 315
Opposite to her was old Fantyre, her nose a little
more hooked, her eye sharper, her rouge higher,
a little more dirty, witty, and detestable, than of
yore; taking what she called a demie-iasse^ but
which looked uncommonly like cognac uncon-
taminated by Mocha. And these two led a
tery pleasant life in Paris; with the old lady's
quick wits, questionable introductions, and imper-
turbable impudence, and the younger one's beauty,
riches, and excessive freedom !
* What's the matter, my dear?' asked Lady
Fantyre; *you don't look best pleased.'
*I 2cai not pleased,' said the Trefusis (such I
must call her), her brow dark, and her fiill under-
lip protruded. * De Vigne is back.'
Dear, dear! how tiresome !' cried the Fantyre ;
* and just when you'd begun to hope he'd been
killed in India. Well, that is annoying. It's a
nice property to be kept out of, ain't it ? But
you see, my dear, strong men of his age are not
good ones to be heir to, even with all the chances
of war. So he's come back, is he ? What for, I
wonder ? '
*Here it is, among the arrivals: "Claridge's
Hotel : Major de Vigne." He is come back
because he is tired of Scinde, probably. I wonder
316 "held in bondage;" or,
if he will come to Paris ? I should like to meet
him/ And the Trefusis laughed, showing her
white teeth.
Why, my dear? To give him a dose of
aconite ? No, you're too prudent to do anything
of that sort. Whatever other commandments
you break, my dear, it won't be the Sixth, because
there's a capital punishment for it,' said the old
lady, chuckling at the idea. * You'd like to meet
him, you say I shouldn't. I don't forget his
face in the vestry. Lord ! how he did look ! his
face as white as a corpse, and as fierce as the
devil's.'
* Did you ever see the devil ? ' sneered the Tre-
fusis.
*Yes, my dear in a scarlet cashmere; and
very well he looks in women's clothes, too,' said
the Fantyre, with a diabolical grin.
The Trefusis laughed too.
* He has found me dangerous, at any rate/
* Well, yes ; everybody has, I think, that has
the pleasure of your acquaintance,' chuckled Lady
Fantyre. * But I don't think so much of your
revenge, myself. Very poor ! What's three thou-
sand a year out of his property ? And as for not
letting him marry, I think that's ofitener kindness
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 317
than cruelty to a man. Don't you think it would
have been better to have queened it at Vigne, and
had an establishment in Eaton Square, and spent
his twenty thousand a year for him, and made
yourself a London leader of fashion, and ridden
over the necks of those haughty Ferrers people,
and all his stifF-necked friends that beautiful
creature, Vivian Sabretasche, among em. What
do you think, eh ? '
*It might have been better for me, but it
would have spoilt my revenge. He would have
left me sooner or later, and as he is infinitely too
proud and reserved a man to have told any living
soul the secret of his disgrace, I should have
lost the one grand sting in my vengeance his
humiliation before the world/
* Pooh, pooh, my dear, a man of fortune is
never humiliated ; the world's too fond of him !
The sins of the fethers are only visited on the
children where the children are going down in
the world.' (The Fantyre might be a nasty old
woman, but she spoke greater truths than most
good people.) *So, you sacrificed your aggran-
disement to your revenge ? Not over sensible, that.'
* You can't accuse me of often yielding to any
weakness,' said the Trefusis, with a look in her
318 "held in bondage;** or,
eye like a vicious mare's. * However, my revenge
is not finished yet/
*Eh? Not? What's the next act? On my
word, you're a clever woman, Lucy. You do my
heart good.'
The first time, by the way, that Lady Fantyre
ever acknowledged to a heart, or the Trefiisis
received such a compliment !
* This. I know his nature you do not. Some
day or other De Vigne will love again, and passion-
ately. Then he will want to be free ; then, in-
deed, he shall realize the force of the fetters by
which I hold him.'
The old lady chuckled over the amusing pros-
pect.
* Very likely, my dear. It's just what they can't
do, that they always want to do. Tell a man
wine's good for him, and forbid him water, he'd
forswear his cellar, and run to the pump imme-
diately! And if you heard that he'd fallen in
love, what would you do ? '
' Go to England, and put myself between her
and him, as his deserted, injured, much enduring,
and loving wife.'
Old Fantyre drank up her coffee, and nodded
approvingly.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 319
* That's right, my dear ! Play your game. Play
it out ; only take care to keep the honours in your
own hand, and never trump your partner's card/
*Not much fear of my doing that,' said the
Trefusis, with a smile.
There was not, indeed ; she marked her cards
too cleverly, for she was keen enough to be Queen
of the Paris Greeks.
HAPTER I.
"L*AMinfi EST L'aMOUR SANS AILES.**
Scarcely anyone was in town except a few very
early birds, heralds of the coming season, and
the Members, victims to an unpitying nation ;
but there were still some people one knew dotted
about in Belgravia and Park Lane, others in
jointure-houses or villas up ^ Tamese Ripe,' among
them a very pretty widow, Leila Lady Puffdoff,
who dwelt in the retirement of her dower-house
at Twickenham, and enlivened the latter portion
of her veuvage by matinees musicaleSf breakfasts,
and luncheons for some of those dear friends who
had been the detestation of le feu Puffdoff. To
a combination of all three, Sabretasche, De Vigne,
Curly, a man called Monckton, and myself, drove
VOL. n. B
2 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
in De Vigne's drag a day or two after our ren-
contre with little Alma Tressillian.
* An amateur aflStir, isn't it ? ' asked De Vigne.
* Artistes' morning concerts are bad enough, where
Italian singers barbarize " Annie Laurie " into an
allegro movement with shakes and aspeggios, and
English singers scream Italian with vile British
o's and a's ; but amateur matinSes musicaleSy where
highly-finished young beauties in becoming morn-
ing toilettes excruciate one's ears, whether they
have melody in their voices or no, just because
they have been taught by Garcia or Gardoni, are
absolutely unbearable. Pon't you think so, you
worshipper of harmony ? '
*I? Certainly,' responded Sabretasche. *As
a' rule, I shun all amateur things. Where pro-
fessional people, who have applied sixteen hours
a day, all their energies, and all their capabilities,
to one subject, even then rarely succeed, how is it
possible but that the performances of those who
take up the study as a pastime must be a mise-
rable failure, or at best but second-rate ? Occa-
sionally, however (indeed, whenever you see it,
but the sight is so rare !), talent will do for you
without study more than study ever will '
* As you will show us in your songs this morn-
ing, I suppose ? ' laughed Monckton.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 3
' If I sang ill I should never sing at all/ replied
Sabretascbe, carelessly, with that consciousness
of power which true talent is as sure to have, as
it is sure not to have undue self-appreciation. * I
mean, however, in Miss Molyneux's Aria ; even
you will admire that, De Vigne.'
* Violet ? * said Monckton. * She does sing tole-
rably ; but I can't say I like that girl so much
too satirical for a woman.'
^ I dare say you may find her so. I know
popular preachers who consider Thackeray too
satirical as an author, because he drew the por-
trait of Charles Honeymann,' said Sabretasche,
quietly.
^Something new to hear the Colonel defend-
ing a woman's character/ whispered the injured
Monckton to tne on the back seat. ' He generally
is more the cause of blackening 'em, eh ? '
Sabretasche was quite right ; it was a treat to
hear Violet Moljmeux's rich, passionate, bell-like
voice. We, just at that time barren of Prime
donnOf had heard nothing like it of late ; and
Violet's voice was really one which, as a profes-
sional, would have ranked her very high. Besides,
there was a tone in it, a certain freshness and
gladness, mingled with a strange pathos and pas*
sion, which moved even those among her auditors
b2
4 "held in bondage;'' or,
most blasts, most fastidious, and most ready to
sneer, into silence and admiration.
* That is music,* said De Vigne, in the door of
the music-room. ' If she would sing at morning
concerts I would forswear them no longer. Look
at that fellow ; if he be ever really caught at all,
it will be by her voice.'
I looked at * that fellow,* being Sabretasche,
who leaned against the organ, close to Violet
Molyneux ; his face was calm and impassive as
ever, but his melancholy eyes were fixed upon her
with such intense earnestness, that Violet, glancing
up at him as she sang, coloured, despite all her
self-possession, and her voice was unsteady for
half a note. Lauzun though the Colonel was, I
believe Violet's voice pleased him still more than
her beauty. The latter beguiled the senses, as
many others had before ; the former beguiled the
soul, a &r rarer charm !
* You came late ; half our concert was over ? '
said Violet to him, after luncheon, as they stood
talking in a winter-garden, one of the whims
and a very charming whim, too of the Puff-
doffs.
^ I came in time to sing what I had promised,
and to hear what I desired, your '
* You did like it?'
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 5
* Too well to compliment you on it. I " liked "
it as I liked, or rather I /eft it as I have felt,
occasionally, the tender and holy beauty of Ra-
phael, the hushed glories of a summer night, the
mystical chimes of a starlit sea. Your voice did
me good, as those things did, until the feverish
fret and noise of practical life wore off their in-
fluence again.'
Violet gave a deep sigh of delight.
' You make me so happy ! I often think that
the doctrine of immortality has no better plea
than the vague yearning for something unseen
and unconceived, the unuttered desire which rises
in us, at the sound of true music. I have heard
music at which I could have shed more bitter
tears than any I have known, for I have had no
sorrow, and which answered the restless passions
of my heart better than any human mind that
ever wrote.'
* Quite true ; and that is why, to me, music is
one of the strangest gifts to men. Painting creates,
but creates by imitation. If a man imagine an
angel, he must paint from the woman's face that
he loves best the Foniarina sat for the Madonna.
If he paint a god, he must take a man for model ;
anything different from man would be grotesque-
We never see a Jupiter, or a Christ that is any-
6 "held in bondage; or,
thing more than a fiercely-handsome, or a sadly-
handsome man. Music, on the contrary, creates
from a spirit-world of its own : the fable of Or-
pheus and its lyre is not wholly a fable. In the
passionate crash and tumult of an overture, in
the tender pathos of one low tenor note, in the
full swell of a Magnificat, in the low sigh of a
Miserere, the human heart throws off the frip-
pery and worry of the world, the nobler impulses,
the softer charity, the unuttered aspirations, that
are buried, yet still live, beneath so much that is
garish and contemptible, wake up; and a man
remembers all he is and all he might have
been, and grieves, as the dwellers in Arcadia
grieved over their exile, over his better nature
lost.*
* Ah,' answered Violet, her gay spirits saddened
by the tone in which Sabretasche, ordinarily so
careless, light, nonchalant, and unruffled, spoke, ^ if
we were always what we are in such moments,
how different would the world be! If human
nature lasted what it is in its best moments, poets
would have no need to fable of an Eden.*
Sabretasche looked down on her long and
earnestly.
* Do you know that you are to me something as
music is to you ? When I am with you I am
GRANVtlXE DE VIGNE. 7
truer and better ; I breathe a purer atmosphere.
You make me for the time being, feel as I used
to feel in my golden days. You bring me back
enthusiasm, belief in human nature, noble aspira-
tions, purer tastes, tenderer thoughts in a word,
you bring me back youth ! '
Violet lifted her eyes to his full of the hap-
piness his words gave her ; and Sabretasche^s hand
rested on hers as she played with a West Indian
creeper clinging round the sides of a vase of
myrtles. The colour wavered in the Parian fair-
ness of her &ce ; her eyes and lips were tremu-
lous with a vague sense of delight and expects*
tion, but ^he took his hand away with a short
quick sigh, and set himself to bending the creeper
into order.
There was a dead silence^ a disappointed shadow
stole unconsciously over Violet's tell-tale face.
She looked up quickly.
* Why do you always talk of youth as a thing
passed away from you ? It is such folly. You
are now in your best years.*
^ It is past and gone from my hesurt.'
* But might it not have a resurrection ? *
* It might, but it may not/
Violet mused a moment over the anomalous
reply.
8 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
* What curse have you on you*? * she said, in-
voluntarilv.
Sabretasche turned his eyes on her filled with
unutterable sadness.
^ Do not rouse my demon ; let him sleep while
he can ! But, Violet, when you hear about in the
world of which you and I are both votaries
as hear you have done and will do many tales of
my past and my present, many reports and scan-
dais circulated by my friends, believe them or not
as you like by what you know of me ; but believe,
at the least, that I am neither so light-hearted
nor so hard-hearted as they consider me. You are
kind enough to honour me with your ^your in-
terest ; you will never guess how dearly I prize
it; but there are things in my career which I
cannot reveal to you, and against interest in me
and my fate I warn you ; it can bring you no
happiness, for it can never go beyond friend-
ship!'
It was a strange speech from a man to
a woman; especially from a man famous for
his conquests, to a woman famous for her
beauty !
He saw a shiver pass over Violet's form,
and the delicate rose hue of her cheeks
faded utterly. He sighed bitterly as he added,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 9
the blue veins rising in his calm white fore-
head:
* None to love me have I ; I never had, I never
may have ! *
Great tears gathered slowly in Violet's eyes,
and despite all her self-control, fell down on the
glowing petals of the West Indian flowers.
*But you will let me know more of you
than anyone else does?' she said, in a hurried,
broken voice. * You will not at least forbid me
your friendship ? '
* Friendship friendship ! * repeated Sabre-
tasche, with a strange smile. ^ You do not know
what an idle word, what a treacherous salve, what
a vain impossibility is friendship between men and
vromen! Yet if you are willing to give me yours,
I will do my best to merit it, and to keep myself
to it. Now let us go. I like too well to be with
you to dare be with you long.*
* What does Sabretasche mean with Moly-
neux's daughter?* said De Vigne to me in a
cabinet de peinture^ De Vigne having only just
escaped from the harpy*s clutch of the little
Countess's fairy fingers.
* How should I tell ? He's a confounded in-
constant fellow, you know. He's always flirting
with some woman or other.*
10 "held IK BONDAGE; OR,
* Flirtation doesn't make men look as he looked
while he listened to her. Flirtation amuses. Sa-
bretasche is not amused here, but rather, I should
say, intensely worried.'
*What should worry him? He could marry
the girl if he wished/
* How can you tell ? *
* Well, I suppose so. The Molyneux would let
him have her fast enough. Her mother wants
to get her off; she don't like two milliners' bills
in Regent Street and the Palais-Royal. But you
interesting yourself in a love affair ! What a Saul
among the prophets ! '
* Spare your wit, Arthur. I never meddle with
such tinder, I assure you. I am not overfond of
my fellow-creatures, but I don*t hate them in-
tensely enough to help them to marry. I say,
have you not been suflSciently bored here ? The
concert is over. Let us go, shall we ? *
* With pleasure. I say you have not paid your
promised visit to little Tressillian Tisn't far;
we might walk over, eh ? *
* So we will. Are you after poor Alma's cheve^
lure dorSe already ? ' laughed De Vigne. * Make
her mistress of Longholme, Chevasney, and I'll
give her away to you with pleasure. I won't be
a party to other conditions, for her grandfather's
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 11
sake ^her guardian's sake, rather. By the way,
I must make out whether she knows or not that
the relationship was a mjrth/
* Thank you. I have no private reason for pro-
posing the call, except the always good and excel-
lent Que of passing the time and seeing a pretty
woman. There is the Puffdoff coming after you
again. Let's get away while we can.'
We were soon out of that little bijou of a
dower-house that shrined the weeds and wiles of
the late Puffdoff 's handsome Countess, and smok-
ing our cigars, as we walked across to Rich-
mond.
Alma was sitting at her easel, with her back to
the door, painting earnestly, with little Sylvo at
her side. She was dressed prettily, inexpensively,
I have no doubt, but somehow more picturesquely
than many of the women in hundred guinea
dresses and point worth a dowry the picturesque-
ness of artistic taste, and innate refinement, which
gave her the brilliance and grace of a picture.
She turned rapidly at the closing of the door,
sprang up, and ran towards De Vigne with that
impulsiveness which always made her seem much
younger than she was.
* Ah ! you have come at last ! I began to think
you would cheat me as you cheated me of the
12 "held in bondare;" or,
yachting trip to Lorave; and yet I thought you
would not disappoint me/
* No, but I shall scold you,' said De Vigne, * for
sitting there, wearing your eyes out as Mrs. Lee
phrases it over your easel. Why do you do it ? *
^It is my only companion," pleaded Alma.
* With my brush I can escape away into an ideal
world, and shut out the real and actual, with all
its harshness, trials, and privations. You know
the sun shines only for me upon canvas ; and be-
sides,' she added, with a gay smile, * to take a
practical view of it, I must make what talent I
have into gold.'
* Poor little thing ! ' exclaimed De Vigne.' It
struck him, who had flung about thousands at his
pleasure ever since he was a boy, as singular, and
as somehow unjust, that this girl, young as she
was, should have to labour for her living with the
genius with which nature had endowed her so
royally ^genius the divine, the god-given, the
signet-seal, so rare, so priceless, with which nature
marks the few who are to ennoble and sanctify
the mass !
* Ah ! lamK poor little thing !' repeated Alma,
with a mom mutine indicative of supreme self-pity
and indignation at her fate. ^ I should love society ;
I see nothing but nurse and Sylvo. I love fun ; I
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 13
have nobody to talk to but the goldfinch. - I
hate soh'tude, and I am always alone. I should
like beautiful music, beautiful pictures, gardens^
statues, conservatories, luxuries. This quiet life
is not at all my rdle ; I vegetate in it/
' More honour to you to bear it so well. Miss
Tressillian,' said L
* Oh, I don't bear it well,' interrupted Alma.
* I sometimes get as impatient as a bird beating its
"wings against a cage; I grow as restless in its
monotony as you can fancy. I am not a philo-
sopher, and never shall be.'
* Life will make you one in spite of yourself,'
said De Vigne.
* Never ! If I ever come to rose-leaves, I will
lie down on them coite qui coHtte. As long as I
can only get a straw mattress, there is not much
virtue in renunciation.'
* But there are cankerous worms in rose-leaves,'
smiled De Vigne.
* But who would ever enjoy the roses if they
were always remembering that? Where is the
good ? '
*You little epicurean!' laughed De Vigne,
looking at her amusedly. His remembrance of
her as a child made him treat her with a cer-
tain gentle familiarity. * You would have a brief
14 "held in bondage;" or,
summery like the butterflies. That sort of sum-
mer costs dear, when the butterfly lies dying on
the brown autumn leaves, and envies the bee
housed safely at home/
^ JSTimporte V cried the little lady, recklessly.
*The butterfly, at least, has enjoyed life, and the
bee, I would bet, goes on humming and bustling
all the year round, never knowing whether the
fuchsias are red or white, as long as there is honey
in them ; only looking in orchises with an eye to
business, and never giving a minute in his breath-
less toil to scent the heliotropes, or kiss the blue-^
bells, for their beauty's sake ! '
^ Possibly not ; but when the fuchsias and
orchises, blue-bells and heliotropes, are withered
and dried, and raked away by ruhless gardeners
for the unpoetic destiny of making leaf mould J
and the ground is frozen, and the trees are bare,
and the wind whistles over the snow ^how then ?
Which is the best ofi^, butterfly or bee ? '
* Hold your tongue ! ' laughed Alma. * You
put me in mind of those horrible moral apologues,
and that detestable incitement to supreme selfish-
ness, " La cigale ay ant chanti tout VM^^ where the
ant is made out a most praiseworthy person, but
appears to me simply cruel and mean. But to
answer you is easy enough. What good does the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 15
bee get from his hard work? Has his honey
taken away from him for other people's eating,
and is smoked out of his house, poor little thing,
by human monsters, whom, if he knew his power,
he could sting to death ! The butterfly, on the
contrary, enjoys himself to the last, dies in the
course of nature, and leaves others to enjoy them-
selves after him.*
* You did not lose your tongue in Lorave,
Alma V said De Vigne, with a grave air of soli-
citous interest.
With the little Tressillian he had a little of his
old fun, something of his old laugh.
* No, indeed ; and I should be very sorry if I
had, for I love talking.'
* You need not tell us that,* smiled De Vigne. .
* I will never talk to you again,' cried Alma,
with supreme dignity : * or, rather, I never would
if I were not too magnanimous to avenge an insult
by such enormous punishment.'
' To yourself. Just so. You are quite right,'
said De Vigne, with an amused smile. * What
are you painting now. Alma ? May we see ? '
* I was drawing you,' she answered, turning the
easel towards him. It was a really wonderful
portrait from memory, done in pastels.
*My likeness? By Jove!' cried De Vigne,
16 "held IN BON0AGB;" OR,
* What on earth put it into your head, petite, to
do that ? '
' I knew you would make a splendid picture
your face is beautiful,' answered Alma^ tran-
quilly/
Whereon De Vigne went into a fit of laughter,
the first real laughter that I had heard since his
marriage-day.
*Why do you laugh?' asked Alma; *I only
tell you the truth ? '
At which gratifying assurance De Vigne
laughed still more. The girl amused him, as
Richelieu's and Montaigne's little cats amused
them when they laid down the sceptre and the
pen, and tied the string to their kittens' corks.
And thinking of her still merely as Tressillian's
little granddaughter, he was not on his guard with
her as with other women, and treated her with
cordiality and freedom.
* Well, Alma, I am extremely obliged to you.
You have made a much handsomer fellow of me
than Maclise would have done, I am afraid,' said
he, smiling; *and if ever my picture is wanted
side by side with Wellington's, I hope, for the
sake of creating an impression on posterity, that
you will be kind enough to paint it for me.'
^ It is not more handsome than you,' said Alma.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 17
resolutely. * It is too bad of you to laugh so, but
that is like men's ingratitude/
* Don't abuse us,' said De Vigne ; ' that is so
stale a stage-trick! Women are eternally run-
ning after us, and eternally vowing that they
would not stir a step for any of us. They spend
their whole existence in trying to catch us, but
their whole breath reiterating that they only take
us out of compassion. If I hear a lady abuse or
find fault with us, I know that her grapes ^^ sont
trqp verts, et bom pour des goujatsr '
Alma laughed :
* Very probably. But I don't abuse you. I
prefer yours to my own sex. Your code of honour
is far better than ours.'
* The generality of women have no notion of
honour at all ! ' said De Vigne ; * they tell false-
hoods and circulate scandals without being called
to account for it, and the laxity of honour in
trifles that they learn in the nursery and school-
rooms corrodes their sense of right towards others
in all their after-life. A boy at school is soon
taught that, however lax he may be in other
things, it is " sneaky " to peach, and learns a
rough sort of Spartan honour ; a girl, on the con-
trary, tells tales of her sisters unreproved, and
hears mamma in her drawing-room take away the
VOL. u.
18 "held in bondage; or,
character of a " dearest friend " whom she sees
her meet the next moment with a caress and an
endearment. But modem society is too ** reli-
gious " to remember to be honourable ; and is too
occupied with proclaiming its " morality ** to have
any time to give to common honesty.'
' As Sir John Lacquers taught us ! '
* Lacquers and scores like him, whose slips are
passed over because their scrip is inscribed with a
large text, and pilgrim's purse full of Almighty
Dollars. I think of publishing a "Manual of
Early Lessons for Eminent Christians:" L Do
good so that not only your right hand knows it,
but all your neighbourhood likewise. II. Give as
it is likely to be given unto you. III. Strain
very hard at a sin the size of a gnat if it be your
poor relation's, and swallow one the size of a
camel if it be your patron's. IV. Never pray in
your closet, as no one will be the wiser, but go as
high as you can on the housetop, that society
may think you the holiest man in Israel. V.
Borrow of your friend without paying him, be-
cause he will not harm you, but give good interest
to strangers, because they may have the law on
you. VI. Judge severely, that gaining applause
for your condemnation of others you may contrive
to hide your own shortcomings. VII. Eat pdtes
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 19
de foie gras in secresy, but have jours maigres in
public, that men who cannot see jou in secret
may reward you openly ! I could write a whole
Paraphrase of the Gospel as used and translated
by the " Church of England " and other elect of
the kingdom of Heaven ; an election, by the way,
exceedingly like that of Themistocles, where every
man writes down his own name first, entirely
regardless of lack of right or qualification for the
honour ! '
*But different in this respect,' said Alma, *that
there the generals did remember to put Themis-
toclesa fter them ; whereas the shining lights of the
different creeds are a great deal too occupied with
securing their own future comfort to think of
drawing any of their brothers up with them. The
churches all take a cross for their symbol ; they
would be nearer the truth if they took the beam
without the transverse ; for egotism is more their
point than self-sacrifice ! But will you look at
mypet-picture?'
The picture she spoke of stood with its face to
the wall. As she turned it round, De Vigne and
I gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise, it
so far surpassed anything We should have fancied
a girl of her age could have accomplished. The
picture was one not possible to criticize chilly by
c2
20 "held in bondage;" or,
exacting rules of art and of perspective. One
looked at it as Murillo looked at the first Madonna
of his wonderful mulatto, not to discuss critically,
but to admire the genius stamped upon it, to
admire the vivid breathing vitality, the delicate
grace, and wonderful power marked upon its
canvas.
De Vigne looked at it silently while Alma
spoke; he continued silent some minutes after
she had ceased ; then he turned suddenly :
* Alma, if you choose, you can be as great a
woman as Elizabeth Sirani a greater than Rosa
Bonheur, because what she gives to horses and
cows, you will give to human nature. Be content.
Whatever sorrows or privations come to you, you
will have God's best gift, which no man can take
away, the greatest prize in life genius ! '
Alma looked up at him, her eyes brilliant as
diamonds, her whole face flushed, her lips trem-
bling.
' You think so ? Thank God ! I would have
died to hear yon say that.* i
* Better live to prove it !' said De Vigne, mourn-
fully. * Your picture is both well conceived and
well carried out : it tells its own story ; the imagin-
ing of it is poetic, the treatment artistic. There
are faults, no doubt, but I like it too well to look
GRANA^ILLE DE VIGNE. 21
out for them. Will you let me have it at my
house a little while ? I have some friends vrho
are artists, others who are cognoscenti, and I should
like to hear their opinion on it.'
* Will you keep it? ' asked Alma, with the first
shyness I had seen in her. * If you would hang
it anywhere in your house, and just look at it now
and then, I should be so glad. Will you ? '
* I will keep it with pleasure, my dear child ;
but I will keep it as I would Landseer's, or Mul-
ready's, by being allowed the pleasure of adding it
to my collection. Your picture is worth '
' Oh, don't talk of " worth !" ' cried Alma, vehe-
mently. * Take it take it, as I give it you, with
all my heart ! I am so glad to give you anything,
you were so kind to him ! ' Did he say anything
in his letter to you that I might hear ? *
De Vigne turned quickly :
* Did you not read it ? It was unsealed.'
' Read it ? No ! You could not think for a
moment that another person's letter was less sacred
to me because it happened to be unsealed ! That
is not your own code, I should say. What right
have you to suppose me more dishonourable than
yourself?*
Her eyes sparkled dangerously, the colour was
hot in her cheeks, the imputation had roused her
22 "held in bondage;" or^
spirit, and her fiery indignation was as becoming
as it was amusing.
*I beg your pardon. I was wrong/ said De
Vigne. * You have a man's sense of honour, not
a woman's ; I am glad of it. Your grandpapa
says very little. It was merely to ask me if I met
you, to be your friend. It is little enough 1 can
ever aid you in, and my friendship will be of little
use to you, but, such as it is, it will be yours, if
you like to take it.'
She held her hand out to him by way of answer !
There were too many tears in her voice for her to
trust herself to say anything.
*You do not remember your parents at all?'
asked De Vigne.
She shook her head :
* I remember no home but Weive Hurst. Nurse
told me both died when I was a baby, and that grand-
papa could never bear me to mention them to him :
I don't know why. How happy I was at Weive
Hurst ! I wonder if I shall ever be again ? *
*To be sure you will,' said De Vigne, kindly.
* You have a capacity for happiness, and are gay
under heavy clouds ; at eighteen no one has said
good-by to all the sunshine of life. Well, you
have read Monte Christo ! You must remember
his last words.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 23
* " Attendre et e^perer " f repeated Alma. * To
me they are the saddest words in human language.
They are so seldom the joy-bells to herald a new
future they are so often the death-knell to a
past wasted in futile striving and disappointed
desire. " Attendre et espirer ! " How many golden
days pass in trusting to those words ; and when
their trust be at last recompensed, how often the
fulfilment comes too late to be enjoyed. ^^ Attendre
et esperer ! '* Ah ! that is all very well for those
who have some fixed goal in view some aim
which they will attain if they have but energy
and patience enough to go steadily on to the end ;
but only to wait for an indefinite better fate,
which year after year retreats still farther only
to hope against hope for what never comes, and in
all probability will never come that is not quite
so easy/
* If not, it is the lot of all. I agree with you,
nothing chafes and frets one more than waiting ;
it wears all the bloom off the fruit to waste all our
golden hours gazing at it afar off, and longing for
it with Tantalus thirst. It has never suited me.
I have too often brushed the bloom off mine
plucking them too soon. I agree with you, to
wait for happiness is a living death, to hope for it
is a dreamer's phantasy; but it is not like 7/our
24 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
usual doctrine, you little enthusiast, who are still
such a child that you believe in the possible re-
alization of all your fond ideals ? What were you
saying to me the other day at Strawberry Hill
about Chatterton, that if the poor boy had only
had the courage to wait and hope, he might have
reaped long years of honour and fame ? '
^ But Chatterton had an aim ; and he had more ;
he had genius. I know he was goaded to mad-
ness by poverty. I know how bitter must have
been the weary fret of thinking what he should
eat, and wherewithal he should be clothed, the jar
and grind of every-day wants, of petty, inexorable
cares. At the same time, I wonder that he did not
live for his works ; that for their sake he did not
suffer and endure ; that he did not live to make
the world acknowledge all that marked him out
from the common herd. I know how he wearied
of life ; yet I wished he had conquered it. Genius
should ever be stronger than its detractors.
" What is the use of my writing poetry that no
one reads? " asked Shelley. Yet he knew that
the time would come when it would be read by
men wiser than those of his generation, and he
wrote on, following the inspiration of his own
divine gift. Men know and acknowledge now
how divine a gift it was.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 25
* True,* answered De Vigiie ; * wrestle with fate,
and it will bless you, is a wise and a right counsel ;
still here and there in that wrestling-match it is
possible to get a croc en jamhe^ which leaves us at
the mercy of Fate, do what we may to resist her.
Men of genius have very rarely been appreciated
in their own time. Too often nations spend
wealth upon a monument to him whom they let
die for want of a shilling. Too many, like Cer-
vantes, have lacked bread while they penned what
served to make their country honoured and illus-
trious. They could write of him :
'* Porque se digva qua uno mano herida
Pudo dar h, su dueno eterna vida ; "
but they could leave him to poverty for all that.
A prophet has no honour in his own country, still
less in his own time ; but if the prophets be true
and wise men they will not look for honour, bui
follow Philip Sydney's counsel, look in their own
hearts and write, and leave the seed in their brain
as ploughmen the corn in the furrows content
that it will bring forth a harvest at the last, if it
be ripe, good wheat.'
*Yet it is sad if they are forced to see only
the dark and barren earth, and the golden harvest
only rise to wave over their tomb ? '
' It is ; but, petite, there are few things not sad
26 "held in bondage; or,
in life, and one of the saddest of them is, as Emerson
says, '^ the madness with which the passing age mis-
chooses the object on which all candles shine, and
all eyes are turned," The populace who crowd-
ed to look at Charles and Louise de Kerroualle
coming to Hampton never knew or thought of
Cromwells Latin secretary, dictating in his study,
old, blind, and poor. Well, it only shows us what
fools men are, either to court the world or care
for it ! A propos of cilkhres. Alma, you, vowed as
you are to historic associations, should never be
dull here, with all the souvenirs that are round
Richmond and Twickenham ? '
* Ah ! ' said Alma turning her bright beaming
face on him, * how often I think of them all ! ^of
the talk round that little deal table in the Grotto ;
of Swift, with his brilliant azure eyes, and his
wonderful satire, and his exigeant selfish loves;
of Mrs. Clive, with her humorous stories ; and
Harry Fielding, laughing as he wrote his scenes,
and packing away his papers to eat his scrag of
mutton as gleefully as if it were an entremet ; and
Walpole, fitting up a Gothic chapel and writing
for a Paris suit, publishing " Otranto,*' and talking,
scandales in Boodle's how often I think of them ! '
* You need not tell me that,' laughed De Vigne.
* With your historic passion, you live in the past.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 27
Well ! it is safer and less deceptive, if not less
visionary, than living in the future/
* Perhaps I do both ; yet I have little to hope
from the future/
* Why ? ' said De Vigne, kindly. * Who knows
but what one of your old favourites, the fairies,
may bring good gifts to their little queen ? We
will hope so, at least/
Alma shook her head. ^ I am afraid not. The
only fairy that has any power now is Money ; and
the good gifts the gods give us now-a-days, only
go to those who have golden coffers to put them
in!'
The morning after, while De Vigne was break-
fasting, the cart that brought in Mrs. Lee's home-
made bread to town left at his house Alma's pic-
ture ; she had looked, I suppose, for his address in
the Court Guide, and rememembered her promise,
though I am afraid the recipient of her gift had
forgotten the subject altogether.
When it came, however, he hung it in a good
light, and pointed it out to Sabretasche, who
dined with him that night, to meet a mutual
Paris friend.
* What do you think of that picture. Colonel ? '
he said, as we came into the drawing-room for a
rubber. Whist was no great favourite with De
28 "held in bondage;" or,
Vigne; he preferred the rapidity and exciting
whirl of loo or lansquenet ; but he played it well,
and Sabretasche and De Cassagnac were especially
fond of it. It suited the Colonel to lean back in
a soft chair, and make those calm, subtle com-
binations. He said the game was so deliciously
tranquil and silent !
Sabretasche set down his coffee-cup, put his
glass in his eye, and lounged up to it.
* Of this water-colour ? I like it exceedingly.
Where did you get it? It is not the style of any
one I know ; it is more like one of your country-
men's, Cassagnac, eh ? It wants toning down ;
the light through that stained window is a trifle
too bright, but the boy's face is perfect I would
give something to have idealized it ; and the hair
is as soft as silk. I like it extremely, De Vigne.
Where did you get it ? '
' I picked it up by accident. It pleased my eye,
and I wanted to know if my eye led me right. I
know you are a great connoisseur.'
* There is true power in it, and an exquisite
delicacy of touch. The artist is young, isn't he ?
Do you know him ? '
* Slightly. He works for his livelihood, and is
only eighteen.'
* Eighteen ? By Jove ! if the boy go on as he
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 29
has begun he will beat Maclise and Ingress. Has
he ever tried his hand at oils ? '
*I don't know, I'm sure/
' It*s a pity he shouldn't. He works for his live-
lihood, you say ? If he will do me a picture as
good as this, leaving the subject to himself, I will
give him fifty guineas for it, if he think that suf-
ficient. Some day, when we have nothing better
to do, you will take me to his studio a garret in
Poland Street, probably, is it not ? Those poor
wretches ! How they live on bread-and-cheese
and a pipe of bird's-eye, I cannot conceive ! If the
time ever come when I have my turbot and hock
no longer, I shall resort to an overdose of morphia.
What is the value of life when life is no longer
enjoyment ? '
* Yet,' suggested De Vigne,' * if only those were
alive who enjoyed living, the earth would be bar-
ren very speedily. I fancy.'
*That depends on how you read enjoyment,',
said De Cassagnac.
'Enjoyment is easily enough defined taking
pleasure in things, and having things in which to
take pleasure ! Some men have the power to en-
joy, and not the opportunity ; others the oppor-
tunity, and not the power ; the combination of
both makes the enjoyment, I take it.'
30 "held in bondage;' or,
^But eDJoyment is a very different thing to
different men. Enjoyment, for Sabretasche, lies
in soirSes^ like the Gore House, or Madame de
Sable's, wine as good as your claret, women as
pretty as La Dorah, good music, good painting,
and immeasurable dolce. Enjoyment lies, for
Professor Owen, in the fossil tooth of an ichthyo-
saurus ; for an Italian lazzarone, in sun, dirt, and
maccaroni ; for a woman, in dress, conquests, and
tall footmen ; for the Tipton Slasher, in the belt,
undisputed: enjoyments are as myriad as the
stars/
* I know what you mean, my dear fellow,' said
Sabretasche, dropping his eye-glass, and taking up
his cup again. * You mean that Hodge, the brick-
layer, goes home covered with whitewash, sits
down to Dutch cheese, with the brats screaming
about, with the same relish as I sit down to my
very best-served dinner. It is true, so far, that I
should rather be in purgatory than in whitewash,
should turn sick at the cheese, murder the chil-
dren and kill my own self afterwards ; and that
Hodge, by dint of habit and blunted senses,
can support life where I should end it in pure
self-defence. But I do not believe that Hodge
enjoys himself how should he, poor wretch !
with not a single agrSmeni of life ? He does not
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 31
know all be misses, and be is not much better
tban tbe beast of tbe field ; but at the same time
be only endures life, he can't be said to enjoy it.
I agree with De Vigne, that there is but one
definition of enjoyment, and the " two handfuls,
with quiet and contentment of spirit,'* is a poetic
myth, for poverty and enjoyment can by no means
run in tandem/
* And contentment is another myth,' added De
Vigne. * If a man has all he wants, he is con-
tented, because he has no wish beyond, and is a
happy man ; if he has not what he wants, and is
conscious of something lacking, he cannot be
called contented, for he is not so.'
* Precisely ! I don't look to be contented, that is
not in the lot of man ; all I ask are the agrSmmts
and refinements of life, and without them life is a
curse. Neither Diogenes, limiting himself to cab-
bages and water, nor Alexander, drunk with the
conquest of the empires, was one bit more con-
tented at heart than the other. Discontent
prompted the one to quit mankind and cast off
wealth, the other to rule mankind and amass
wealth.'
* And, after all, there is no virtue in content-
ment, since contentment is satisfaction in one's
lot; there is far more virtue in endurance
32 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
strong, manful, steady, endurance of a fate that
is adverse, and which one admits to be such, but
against which one still fights hard. Patience is
all very well, but pluck is better,' said De Vigne.
The tables are set. Shall we cut for partners?
You and Cassagnac ! Chevasney and I may give
ourselves up for lost ! '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 33
CHAPTER II.
THE FAWN ROBIN HOOD WAS TO SPARE.
De Vigne never did anything by halves, to use
a sufficiently expressive, if not over, elegant, col-
loquialism. He hated and mistrusted women, not
individually, but sweepingly, en masse. At the
same time, there were in him, naturally, too much
chivalry and generosity not to make him pity the
* Little Tressillian,' and show her kindness to the
best of his power. In the first place, the girl was
alone, and had no money ; in the second, he had
known her as a child, still held her as such, in-
deed, and never thought of classing her among
his detested * beau sexe ; ' in the third, the letter of
Boughton Tressillian had in a way recommended
her to his care, and, though De Vigne would have
been the first to laugh at another man who had
taken up a girl of eighteen as KproUgee^ and made
sure no harm could come of it, he really looked
on Alma as a child, though a very attractive and
interesting child it is true, and would have stared
VOL. II. D
34 "held in BONDAGE;'* OR,
at you if you had made his kindness to her the
subject of one of those jests customary on the
acquaintance of a man about town and an unpro-
tected girl. As he had promised, he picked out
some of the choicest books of his library, not
such as young ladies read generally, but such as
it might be better if they did and sent them to
her, with the reviews and periodicals of the month.
He sent her, too, one of his parrots, for her to
teach, he said, she being such an admirable adept
in the locutory art, and ordered her a cart-
load of flowers, to put her in mind of Weive
Hurst,
* Her room looked so pitifully dull, poor child ! '
said he, one morning, when I was lunching with
him. * Those flowers will brighten it up a little.
Raymond, did you send Robert down with those
things to Richmond ? '
* Yes, Major.'
I chanced to look at the man as he spoke ; he
was the new valet, a smooth, fair-faced fellow,
really gentlemanlike to look at, not, qa va
sans dire, the * gentlemanism ' of high breeding,
but the gentlemanlyism of many an oily
parson or sleek parvenu. There was a sly
twinkle in his light eyes, and a quick, fox-
like glance as he answered his master, which
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 35
looked as if he at least attached some amuse-
ment to the Major's acquaintance with the pretty
artiste.
De Vigne, unhappily, never remembered the
presence of servants ; he thought they . had no
more eyes or ears than the chairs or tables around
him. They served him as the plates or the glasses
did, and they were no more than those to him ;
though more mischief, reports, and enibrouillements
have come from the prying eyes, coarse tongues,
and second-hand slanders of those * necessary evils '
than we ever dream of, for the buzz of the servants'
hall is often as poisonous as the subdued murmur
of the scandal-retailing boudoir above stairs.
How it came about, I don't know, but Alma,
some way or other, was not long kept in petto.
Some three weeks after Sabretasche, Curly, Severn,
Castleton, and one or two other men, were at De
Vigne's house. We had been playing Baccarat,
his favourite game, and were now supping, be-
tween three and four, chatting of two-year-olds
and Derby prophecies, of bon mots and beauties,
of how Mademoiselle Fifine had fleeced little
Pulteney, and Bob Green's roan mare won a
handicap for 200 sovs., of Lilla Dorah's last ex-
travagance in the * shady groves of the Evangelist,'
and of the decidedly bad ankles now displayed to
i2
36 "held in bondage;" or,
us at Her Majesty's ; with similiar floating topics
of the town.
It was curious to see the difference between
men's outer and inner lives. There was Sabre-
tasche lying back in the very easiest chair in the
room, witty, charming, urbane, with not a trace on
his calm delicate features of the care within him
that he had bade Violet Molyneux not tempt him
to unveil. There was Tom Severn, of the Queen's
Bays, with twenty * in re's ' hanging over his head,
and a hundred * little bills ' on his mind, going to
the dogs by express train, who had been playing
away as if he had had Coutts* to back him. There
was Wyndham, with as dark and melancholy a past
as ever pursued a man, a past of which I know he
repented, not in ostentatious sackcloth and ashes,
but bitterly and unfeignedly in silence and humility,
tossing down Moet's with a gay laugh and a ready
jest, as agreeable in the card-room as he was elo-
quent in the Lower House. There was Charlie
Fitzhardinge, who, ten years ago, had accidentally
killed his youngest brother, a Benjamin tenderly
and deeply loved by him, and had never ceased to
be haunted by that fair distorted face, laughing
and chatting as if he had never had a care on his
shoulders. There was Vane Castleton, the worst,
as I have told you, of all Tiara's sons ; with his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 37
low voice, his fair smooth brow, his engaging ad-
dress, whom nobody would have thought would
have hurt a fly, yet whom we called * Butcher,'
because, in his petty malignity, he had hamstrung
a luckless mare of his for not winning a Sweep-
stakes, and had shot dead the brother of a girl
whom he had eloped with, and left three weeks
after without a shilling to help herself, for trying,
poor boy ! to revenge his sister ; there was De
Vigne yet no! De Vigne's face was no mask, but
was the type true enough of his character and
wore the truce of an unquiet fate.
* Halloa, De Vigne,' began Tom Severn, * a
pretty story this is about you, you sly dog ! So
this painter of yours we were all called in to
admire, a little time ago, is a little concealed
Venus, eh ? '
De Vigne looked up from helping me to some
mayonnaise.
* Explain yourself, Tom; I don't understand you.'
* WbrCt understand, you mean. YoU know
you've a little beauty locked up all to yourself at
Richmond, and never have told it to your bosom
friends. Shockingly shabby of you, De Vigne, to
show us that water-colour and let us believe it
was done by a young fellow in Poland Street !
However, I suppose you don't want any rivals
38 "held in bondage;" or,
poaching on your manor, and the girl is stunning,
the blokes say, so we must forgive you.*
De Vigne looked supremely disdainful and a
little annoyed.
* Pray, my dear Severn, may I ask where you
picked up this cock-and-bull story ? '
* Oh, yes. Winters, and Egerton, and Steele
were making chaff about it in the Army and Navy
this morning, saying Hercules had found his
Omphale, and they were glad of it, for Dejanira
was a devil ! '
The blood flushed over De Vigne's white fore-
head as Severn, in the thoughtlessness of his heart,
spoke what he meant as good nature ; even yet he
could not hear unmoved, the slightest allusion to
the Trefiisis, the one disgrace upon his life, the
one stain upon his name.
*How they heard it I can't tell you,' said
Severn ; * you must ask 'eni. Somebody saw the
girl looking after you at the gate, I believe. She's
a deuced pretty thing trust you for that, though.
But what do you call it a cock-and-bull story for ?
It's too likely a one for you to deny it with any
chance of our believing you, and Heaven knows
why you should try. You may hate women now,
but everybody knows you never forswore them.
We are all shepherds here, as Bobin Hood says.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 39
De Vigne was annoyed : in the first place, that
this report, which could but be detrimental to her,
should, in so brief a time, already have circulated
about himself and Alma ; in the second, any
interference with him or his pursuits or plans
always irritated him exceedingly ; in the third, he
knew that if he ever disabused their minds of his
having any connection with Alma, to know that a
pretty woman was living alone and unprotected
was for these fellows to ferret her out immediately,
to which her metier of professional artist would
give them the means at once. He was exceed-
ingly annoyed ; but he was too wise a man not to
know that manifestation of his annoyance would
be the surest way to confirm the gossip that had
got about concerning them, which for himself, of
course, didn't matter two straws.
He laughed slightly. * We are, it is true, Tom ;
nevertheless, there is a fawn here and there that
it is the duty of all of us, Robin Hoods though we
be, to spare; don't you know that? I assure you that
the gossip you have heard is pure gossip, but gossip
which annoys me, for this reason, that the lady who
is the innocent subject of it is the granddaughter
of a late friend of mine, Tressillian, of Weive
Hurst, whom I met accidentally a few weeks ago.
Her picture hangs in my room because she wished
40 "held in bondage; or,
to have Sabretasche's judgment upon it, as a
dilettante. Beyond, I have no interest in her, nor
she in me, and for the sake of my dead friend, any
insult to her name I shall certainly consider as one
to my own/
He spoke quietly and carelessly, but his words
had weight. De Vigne had never been known to
condescend to a lie, not even to a subterfuge or a
prevarication, and there was a haughty noli me
tangere air about him.
* All right, old boy,' said Tom. * / didn't know,
you see ; fellows will talk.'
* Of course they will,* said De Vigne, eating his
marinade leisurely ; ' and in nine times out of ten
they would have been right. I never set up to be
a pharisee, God knows! However, I have no
temptation now, for love affairs are no longer to
my taste. I leave them to Corydons like Curly.'
* But, hang it ! De Vigne,' said Vane Castleton,
* Tom's description of this little Trevelyan, Tre-
vanion what is it ? ^is so delightful, if you don't
care for her yourself, you might let your friends.
Introduce us all, do.'
* Thank you, Castleton,' said De Vigne, drily.
* Though you are a Duke's son, I must say I don't
think you a very desirable addition to a lady's
acquaintance/
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 41
He cordially detested Castleton, than ivho a
vainer or more intensely selfish fellow never curled
his whiskers nor befooled women, and he had only
invited him because he had been arm-in-arm with
Severn when De Vigne had asked Tom that morn-
ing in Regent Street.
Lord Vane pushed his fine fair curls off his fore-
head an habitual trick of his ; his brow was verv
low, and his blond hair, of which he took immense
care, was everlastingly falling across his eyes.
* Jealous, after all ! A trifle of the dog in the
manger, eh ? with all your philosophy and a
a what do you call it, chivalry ? ' he said, with
a supercilious smile.
I knew De Vigne was growing impatient ; his
eyes brightened, his mouth grew set, and he pulled
his left wristband over his wrist with a jerk. I
think that left arm felt an intense longing in its
muscles and sinews to ^straighten from the
shoulder ;' with him, as with David, it was a great
diflSculty to keep the fire from * kindling.' But
he spoke quietly, very quietly for him ; more so
than he would have done if no other name than
his own had been implicated in it ; for he knew
the world too well not to know, also, that to make
a woman the subject of a dispute or a brawl is
to do her the worst service you can.
42 "held in bondage; or,
^ I shall not take your speech as it might be
taken, Castleton,' he said, gravely, with a haughty
smile upon his lips. * My friends accept my word,
and understand my meaning ; what you may think
of me or not is really of so little conse(]uence that
I do not care to inquire your opinion.'
Castleton's eyes scintillated with that cold un-
pleasant glare with which light eyes sometimes
kindle when angry. If he had been an Eton or
Rugby boy, one would have called him * sulky ; '
for a man of rank and fashion the word would have
been too small. A scene might have ensued, but
Sabretasche ^most inimitable tactician broke
the silence with his soft low voice :
' De Vigne, do you know that Harvey Good-
win's steel greys are going for an old song in the
Yard ? I fancy I shall buy them.'
So the conversation was turned, and Alma's
name was dropped. Curly, however, half out of
mechancetey half because he never heard of a pretty
woman without making a point of seeing her,
never let De Vigne alone till he had promised to
introduce him to her.
* Do, old fellow,' urged Curly, * because you
know I remember her at Weive Hurst, and she
had such deuced lovely eyes then. Do ! I pro-
mise you to treat her as if she were the richest
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 43
heiress in the kingdom and hedged round with
a perfect abatis of chaperones. I can't say
more ! '
So De Vigne took him down, being quite sure
that if he did not show him the way Curly would
find it for himself, and knowing, too, that Curly,
though he was a * little wild,* as good natured-
ladies phrase it, was a true gentleman ; and when
a man is that, you may trust him, where his
honour is touched or his generosity concerned, to
break through his outer shell of fashion, ennui, or
dissipation, and ^ come out strong.'
So De Vigne, as I say, took him down one
morning, when we had nothing to do, to St. Crucis.
It was a queer idea, as conventionalities go, for a
young girl to receive our visits without any chape-
rone to protect her and play propriety; but the
little lady was one out of a thousand ; she could
do things that no other woman could, and she
welcomed us with such a mixture of frank and
child-like simplicity, with the self-possession, wit,
and ease of a woman accustomed to society, that it
was very pretty to see her. And we should have
known but a very trifle of life if we had not felt
how utterly distant from boldness of any kind was
our Little Tressillian's charming vivacity and can-
dour a vivacity that can only come from an un-
44 "held in bondage;" or,
burdened mind, a candour that can only spring
from a heart that thinks no ill because it means
none. * To the pure all things are pure.' True
words ! Many a spotless rain-drop gleams unsoiled
on a filthy and betrodden trottoir ; many a worm
grovels in native mud beneath an unspotted and
virgin covering of fairest snow.
It was really pretty to see Alma entertain her
callers. She was perfectly natural, because she
never thought about herself. She was delighted
to see De Vigne, and happy to see us as be had
brought us not quite as flattering a reason for
our welcome as Curly and I were accustomed to
receive.
* Have you walked every day. Alma, as I told
you ? ' said De Vigne.
* Not every day,' said Alma, penitentially. * I
will when the summer comes, but the eternal spring
upon my canvas is much dearer and more tempt-
ing to me than your chill and changeable English
spring.'
* You are very naughty, then,' said De Vigne ;
*you will be sorry ten years hence for having
wasted your health. What is your aim in work-
ing eternally like this ? '
*To make money to buy my shoes, and my
gloves, and my dresses. I have nobody to buy
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 45
them for me; that is aim practical enough to
please you, is it not ? '
* But that is not your only one, I fancy ? ' smiled
Curly. * Miss Tressillian scarcely looks like the
expounder of prosaic doctrine.*
* No ; not my only one,' answered Alma, quickly,
her dark blue eyes lighting up under their silky
and upcurled lashes. * They say there is no love
more tender than the love of an artist for his work,
whether he is author, painter, or musician ; and I
believe it For the fruit of your talent you bear
a love that no one, save those who feel it, can ever
attempt to understand. You long to strengthen
your wings, to exert your strength, to cultivate
your powers, till you can make them such as must
command applause ; and when I see a masterpiece,
of whatever genre^ I feel as if I should never rest,
till I, too, had laid some worthy offering upon the
altar of Art.'
Ideal and enthusiastic as the words may
seem, coldly considered; as she spoke them, with
her eloquent voice and gesticulation, and her
whole face beaming with the earnestness of her
own belief, we, quickest of all mortals to sneer at
'sentiment,' felt no inclination to ridicule here,
but rather a sad regret for the cold winds that we
knew would soon break and scatter the warm
46 "held in bondage; or,
petals of this bright, joyous, Southern flower,
and gave a wistful backward glance to the time
when we, too, had h'ke thoughts ^we, too, like
fervour !
De Vigne felt it ; but, as his wont was, turned
it with a laugh :
* Curly, you need not have started that young
lady ! In that fertile brain I ought to have warned
you there is a powder-magazine of enthusiasm
ready to explode at the mere hint of a firebrand,
which one ought not to approach within a mile at
the least. It will blow itself up some day in its
own excessive energy, and get quenched in the
world's cold water ! '
* Heaven forefend ! ' cried Curly. * The enthu-
siasm, which you so irreverently compare to gun-
powder, is too rare and too precious not to be
taken all the care of that one can. If the ladies of
the world had a little of such fire, we, their sons,
or lovers, or brothers, might be a trifle less use-
less, vapid, and wearied.'
* Quenched in the world's cold water ! ' cried
Alma, who had been pondering on De Vigne's
speech, and had never heard poor Curly's. *It
never shall be, Sir Folko. The fire of true enthu-
siasm is like the fires of Baku, which no water
can ever attempt to quench, and which burn
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 47
steadily on from night to day, and year to year,
because their well-spring is eternal.'
^ Or because the gases are poisonous, and no-
body cares to approach them ? ' asked De Vigne
mischievously.
I noticed that Alma was the first who had
brought back in any degree the love of merriment
and repartee natural to him in his youth ; the
first with whom, since his fatal marriage-day, he
had ever cordially laughed. She called him Sir
Folko, because she persisted in the resemblance
between him and her favourite knight which she
had discovered in her childhood, and because, as
she told him, * Major de Vigne ' was so cere-
monious. His manner with her, like that to a
pretty spoilt child, had established a curiously
familiar friendship between them, strangely differ-
ent from the usual intercourse of men and young
girls ; for De Vigne received from her the com-
pliments and frankly-expressed admiration that
come ordinarily from the man to the woman.
Somehow or other, it seemed perfectly natural
between them^ and, aprhs tout^ Eve's
' My author and disposer ! what thou wilst,
Unargued I obey. God is thy law,
Thou mine '
is strangely touching, sweet, and natural.
48 "held in boxdaoe;" or,
Curly was enchanted with her; he went into
tenfold more raptures about her than the beauties
of the Drawing-room, with their perfect toumures
and sweeping trains, had ever extorted from him;
she was *just his style; ' a thing, however, that
Curly was perpetually avowing of every different
style of blonde and brunette, tall or small, statu-
esque or kittenish, as they chanced to chase one
another in and out of his capacious heart.
* She is a little darling ! ' he swore earnestly, as
we drove homewards, *and certainly the very
prettiest woman I have ever seen.'
* Rather overdone that. Curly,' said De Vigne^
drily, * considering all the regular beauties you
have worshipped, and that Alma is no regular
beauty at all.*
* No, she's much better,' said Curly, decidedly.
* Where's the regular beauty that's worth that
little dear's grace, and vivacity, and lovely
colouring ? '
De Vigne put up his eyebrows, as if he would
not give much for the praise of such an universal
admirer as Curly was, of all degrees and orders.
GRATTVILLE DE VIGNE. 49
CHAPTER III.
LE CHAT QUI DORMAIT.
* Who is that Little Tressillian they were talking
of at De Vigne s the other night ? ' Sabretasche
asked me one morning, in the window at White s
^his club, /?ar exceUeme^ where he was referee and
criterion on all things of art, fashion, and society,
and where his word could crush a belle, sell a pic-
ture, and condemn a coterie.
He shrugged his shoulders as I told him, and
stroked his moustaches :
Very little good will come of thai; at least
for her ; for him there will be an amusement for a
time, then a certain regret remorse, perhaps, as
he is very generous-hearted and then a separa-
tion, and oblivion.'
* Do you think so ? I fancy De Vigne paid too
heavy a price for passion to have any fancy to let
its reins loose again.'
* Mon cher, mon cher ! ' cried Sabretasche, im-
patiently, * if Phaeton had not been killed by that
VOL. II. E
50 "held m bot)aoe; or,
thunderbolt, do you suppose that the houleversemenl
and the conflagration would have deterred him
from driving his father's chariot as often as Sol
would let hira have it ? '
'Possibly not; but I mean that De Vigne is
thoroughly steeled against all female humanity.
The sex of the Trefusis cannot possibly, he thinks,
have any good in it ; and I believe he only takes
what notice he does of Alma Tressillian from
friendship for her old grandfather and pity for her
desolate position."
* Friendship pity ? For Heaven's sake, Arthur,
do not you, a man of the world, talk such non-
sense. To what, pray, do friendship and pity
invariably bring men and women ? De Vigne and
his protegee are walking upon mines.'
* Which will explode beneath them V
' Sans doute. We are, unhappily, mortal, mon
ami ! I will go down and see this little Tressil-
lian some day when I have nothing to do. Let
me see; she is painting that picture for me, of
course, that I ordered of him from his un-
known artist. He must take me down: I
shall soon see how the land lies between
them,'
Accordingly, Sabretasche one day, when De
Vigne and he were driving down to a dinner at
GRANVILLE DR VIGNE. 51
the Castle, took out his watch, and found De
Vigne's clocks had been too fast.
* We shall be there half-an-hour too soon, my
dear fellow. Turn aside, and take me to see this
little friend of yours with the pretty name and
the pretty pictures. If you refuse, I shall think
Vane Castleton is right, and that you are like the
femed dog in the manger. I have a right to see
the artist that is executing my own order.'
De Vigne nodded, and turned the horses'
heads towards St. Crucis, not with an over-good
grace, for he knew Sabretasche's reputation, and
the Colonel, with his fascination and his bonnes
fortwfies^ was not exactly the man that, whether
dog in the manger or not, De Vigne thought a
very safe fnend for his little 'Tressillian. But
there was no possibility of resisting Sabretasche
when he had set his mind upon anything. Very
quietly, very gently, but very securely, ho kept
his hold upon it till he had it yielded up to
him.
So De Vigne had to introduce the Colonel, who
dropped into an easy chair beside Alma, with his
eye-glass up, and began to talk to her. He was a
great adept in the art of " bringing out." He had
a way of hovering over a woman, and fixing his
beautiful eyes on her, and talking softly and plea*
e2
52 "JEELD IN BONDAGE;' OB,
santly, so that the subject under his skilful mes-
merism developed talent that might otherwise never
have gleamed out ; and with Alma, who could talk
with any and everybody on all subjects under the
sun, from metaphysics and ethics to her kitten's
collar, and who would discuss philosophies with
you as readily as she would chatter nonsense to
her parrot, Sabretasche had little diflSculty.
De Vigne let the Colonel have all the talk to
himself, irritated at the sight of his immovable
and inquiring eye-glass, and the sound of his low,
trainantey musical voice. Now and then, amidst
his conversation, the Colonel shot a glance at him,
and went on with his criticisms on Art, sacred,
legendary, and historic; and on painting in the me-
diaeval and the modern styles, vdth such a deep
knowledge and refined appreciation of his subject
as few presidents of the R. A. have ever shovm in
their lectures.
At last De Vigne rose, impatient past endur-
ance, though he could hardly have told you why.
* It is half-past six, Sabretasche ; the turbot and
turtle will be cold.'
The Colonel smiled :
* Thank you, my dear fellow ; there are a few
things in life more attractive than turtle or tur-
bot. The men will wait; they would be the
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 53
last to hnrry ns if they knew our provocation for
delay/
De Vigne could have found it in his heart to
have kicked the Colonel for that speech, and the
soft sweet glance accompanying it. *He will
spoil that little thing,' he thought, angrily. * No
woman's head is strong enough to stand his and
Curly's flattery.'
* I like your little lady, De Vigne,' said Sabre-
tasche, as they drove away. * She is really very
charming, good style, and strikingly clever.'
* She is not mine^ said De Vigne, with a haughty
stare of surprise.
* Well ! she will be, I dare say.'
* Indeed no. I did not suppose your notions of
my honour, or rather dishonour, were like Vane
Castleton's.'
* Nor are they, cher ami^ said the Colonel, with
that grave gentleness which occasionally replaced
his worldly wit and gay ordinary tone. * But like
him I know the world ; and I know, as you would,
too, if you thought a moment, that a man of your
age, cannot have that sort of friendly intercourse
with a girl of hers, without its surely ripening into
something infinitely warmer and more dangerous.
You would be the first to sneer at an attempt at
platonics in another ; you are the last man in the
54 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
world to dream of such follies yourself. Tied as
you are, you cannot frequent her society without
danger for her ; and for you, probably remorse at
the least, satiety and regret. With nine men out
of ten the result would be a liaison Jiightly formed
and as lightly broken ; but you have an uncommon
nature, and a young girl like little Tressillian
your warmth of heart would never let you desert.
I hate advising ; I never do it to anybody. My
life has left me little title to counsel men against
sins and follies which I daily commit myself; nor
do I count as sins many things the world con-
demns as such. Only here 1 see so plainly what
will come of it, that I do not like you to rush into
it blindfold and repent afterwards. Because you
have had fifty such loves which cost you nothing,
that is no reason that the fifty-first may not cost
you some pain, some very great pain, in its forma-
tion or its severance '
' You mean very kindly, Sabretasche, but there
is no question of "love" here,' interrupted De
Vigne, with his impatient hauteur. ' In the first
place, you, so well read in woman's character,
might know she is far too frank and familiar with
me for any fear of the kind. In another I have
paid too much for passion ever to risk it again,
and I hope I know too well what is ' due from
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 55
honour and generosity to win the love of a young
unprotected girl while I am by my own folly fet-
tered and cursed by marriage ties. Sins enough
I have upon my soul, God knows, but there is no
danger of my. erring here. I have no temptation ;
but if I had I should resist it ; to take advantage
of her innocence and ignorance of my history
would be a blackguard's act, to which no madness,
even if I felt it, would ever make me condescend
to stoop!*
De Vigne spoke with all the sternness and im-
patience natural to him when roused, spoke in
overstrong terms, as men do of a &ult they are
sure they shall never commit themselves. Sabre-
tasche listened, an unusual angry shadow gather-
ing in his large soft eyes, and a bitter sneer on his
features, as he leaned back and folded his arms to
silence and dolce.
' Most immaculate Pharisee ! Remember . a
divine injunction, ^^Let him that standeth take
heed lest he fall." '
De Vigne cut his horses impatiently with the
whip.
' I am no Pharisee, but I am, with all my faults
and vices, a man of honour, I hope.'
Sabretasche answered nothing, but annoyance
was still in his eyes, and a sneer still on his lips.
66 "held in bondage;" or,
De Vigne had one striking fault, namely, that
if advised not to do a thing, that thing would he
go and do straightway ; moreover, being a man of
strong will and resolve, and very reliant on his
own strength, he was apt, as in his fatal marriage,
to go headlong, perfectly safe in his own power
to guide himself, to judge for himself, and to draw
back when it was needful. Therefore, he paid no
attention whatever to Sabretasche's counsels, but,
as it chanced, went down to see Alma rather more
often than he had done before ; for she had said
how much she wished she could exhibit at the
Water-Colour Society, which De Vigne, knowing
something of the president, and of the society in
general, had been able to manage for her.
* What should I do without you ? * said Alma,
fervently, to him one day, when he went there to
tell her her picture was accepted. * You are so
kind to me. Sir Folko ! '
* I ? Not at all, my dear child, I vrish you would
not exalt me to such a pinnacle. What will you
say when I tumble down one day, and you see
nothing of me but worthless shivers ? '
* Reverence you still,' said Alma, softly. *A
fragment of the Parthenon is worth a whole spot-
less and unbroken modem building. If my ideal
were to &11, 1 should treasure the dust.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 5^
But, seriously/ he interrupted her, ' I wish you
would Dot get into the habit of rating me so high,
Alma. I don^t in the least come up to it. You
do not guess ^how should you ? you cannot even
in fancy, picture the life that I, and men like me,
lead ; you cannot imagine the wild follies with
which we drown our past, the reckless pleasures
with which we pass our present, our temptations,
our weaknesses, our errors ; how should you, child
as you are, living out of the world in a solitude
peopled only with the bright fancies of your own
pure imagination, that never incarnates the hideous
fauns and beckoning bacchanals which haunt and
fever ours ? '
* But I can,' said Alma, earnestly, looking up to
him. * I do not go into the world, it is true, but
still I know the world to a certain extent. Mon-
taigne, Rochefoucauld, Rabelais, Goethe, Emerson,
Bolingbroke, the translated classics, do you not
think they teach me the world, or, at least, of
what makes the world. Human Nature, better
than the few hours at a dinner-table, or the
gossip of morning calls, which you tell me is all
girls in good society see of life ? You know. Sir
Folko, it always seems to me, that women, fenced
in as they are, in educated circles, by boundaries
which they cannot overstep, except to their own
68 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
hindrance ; screened from all temptations ; de-
prived of all opportunity to wander, if they wished,
out of the beaten track ; should be ffentle to your
sex, whose whole life is one long temptation, and
to whose lips is almost forced that Circean " cup
of life" whose flowers round its brim hide the
poisons at its dregs. Women have, if they ac-
knowledged them, passions, ambitions, impatience
at their own monotonous role, longings for the
living life denied to them ; but everything tends
to crush these down in them, has thus tended
through so many generations, that it has come to
be an accepted thing that they must be calm, fair,
pulseless statues ; and when here and there a
woman dares to acknowledge that her heart beats,
and that nature is not wholly dead within her,
the world stares at her, and rails at her, for there
is no Mte noire so terrible to the world as Truth !
No, I can fancy your temptations, I can picture
your errors and your follies, I can understand how
you drink your poison one hour because you liked
its flavour, and drink more the next hour to make
you forget your weakness in having yielded to it
at all. That my own solitude and imagination
are only peopled with shapes bright and fair, I
must thank Heaven and not myself. If I had
been born in squalor and nursed in vice, what
GRANVILLE D^ VIGXE. 59
would circumstance and surroundings have made
me ? Oh, I think, instead of the Pharisee's pre-
sumptuous ^ I thank God that I am holier than
he," our thanksgiving should be, ^^ I thank God that
I have so little opportunity to do evil ! " and we
should forgive, as we wish to be forgiven ourselves,
those whose temptations, either from their own
nature, or from the outer world, have been so much
greater than our own/
Her voice was wonderfully musical, with a
strange pathos in it; and her gesticulation had
all the grace and fervour of her Southern origin.
Her words sent a thrill to De Vigne's heart ; they
were the first gentle and tolerant words he had
heard since his mother had died. He had known
but two classes of women : those who shared his
errors and pandered to his pleasures, whose life
disgusted, while their beauty lured him; and
those whose illiberality and whose sermons only
roused him to more wayward rebellion against the
social laws which they expounded. It touched
him singularly to hear words at once so true, so
liberal, and so humble, from one on whose young
life he knew that no stain had rested ; to meet
with so much comprehension from a heart, com-
pared with his own, as pure and spotless from all
error as the snow-white roses in her windows, on
60 "held m bondage;" or,
which the morning dewdrops rested without soil.
And at her words something of De Vigne's old
nature began to wake into new existence, as, after
a long and weary sleep, the eyelids tremble before
the soul arouses to the heat and action of the
day.
A memory of the woman called his wife passed
over him he could scarcely tell why or how
with a cold chill, like the air of a pestilent
charnel-house.
* Alma, if women were like you, men might be
better than they are. Child, I wish you would
not talk as you do. You wake up thoughts and
memories that had far better sleep.'
She touched his hand gently :
* Sir Folko, what are those memories ? '
He drew his hand away and laughed, not
joyously, but that laugh which has less joy in it
even than tears :
' Don't you know a proverb, Alma " N'heillez
pas le chat qui dort ? " *
* But were the cat a tiger I would not fear it, if
it were yours.'
* But / fear it.'
There was more meaning in that than Alma
guessed. The impetuous passion that had blasted
his life, and linked his name with the Trefusis,
GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 61
would be while his life lasted, a giant whose
throes and mighty will would always hold him
captive in his chains !
He was silent; he sat looking out of the
window by which he sat, and playing with a
branch of the white rose. His lips were pressed
together, his eyebrows slightly contracted, his eyes
troubled, as if he were looking far away which
indeed he was to a white headstone lying among
fragrant violet tufts under the old elms at Vigne,
with the spring sunshine, in its fitful lights and
shadows, playing fondly round the name of the
only woman who had loved him at once fondly
and unselfishly.
Alma looked at him long and wistfully, some
of his darker shadows flung on her own bright
and sunny nature as the yew-tree throws the
dark shadows of its boughs over the golden cow-
slips that nestle at its roots.
At last she bent forward, lifting her soft frank
eyes to his.
*Sir Folko, where are your thoughts? Tell
me/
Her voice won its way to his heart ; he knew
that interest, not curiosity, spoke in it, and he
answered gently.
' With my mother.'
62 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
It was the first time he had spoken of her to
Alma ^he never breathed her name to anyone.
* You loved her dearly ? *
* Very dearly.'
Alma's eyes filled with tears, a passion very
rare with her.
* Tell me of her,' she said softly,
* No. I cannot talk of her.'
* Because you loved her so much ? '
No. Because I killed her.'
This was the great remorse of his life ; that his
folly had cost him his name and, as he considered,
his honour, was less bitter to him than that it
had cost his mother s life.
Alma, at his reply ^uttered almost involuntarily
under his breath ^gazed at him, horror-stricken,
with wild terror in her large eyes ; yet De Vigne
might have noticed that she did not shrink from,
but rather drew the closer to, him. Her expres-
sion recalled his thoughts.
* Not that, not that,' he said hastily. ' My hand
never harmed her, but my passions did. My own
headlong and wilful folly sent her to her grave.
Child ! you may well thank God if Temptation
never enter your life. No man has strength
against it.'
For the first time De Vigne felt an inclination
GRANVILLE DE TIGXE. 63
to disclose his marriage; to tell her what he
would have told to no other living being : of all
his own madness had cost him, of the fatal re*
venge the Trefusis had taken, of the headlong
impetuosity which had led him to raise the
daughter of a beggar-woman to one of the
proudest names in England, of the fatal curse
which he had drawn on his own head, and the
iron fetters which his own hand had forged. The
words were already on his lips, in another minute
he would have bent his pride and laid bare his
secret to her, if at that moment the door had not
opened to admit Alma's late governess.
Alma was very right our life hinges upon
Opportunity !
De Vigne never again felt a wish to tell her
of his marriage.
64 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER IV.
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA.
May came ; it was the height of the season ; town
was full ; Her Majesty had given her first levee ;
Belgravia and Mayfair were occupied ; the Ride
and the Ring were full, too, at six o'clock every
day, and the thousand toys with which Babylon
amuses her grown babies were ready, among others
the Exhibition of Fine Arts, where, on its first
day, De Vigne and I went to lounge away an
hour, chiefly for the great entertainment and fun
afforded to persons of sane mind by the eccen-
tricities of the pre-Raphaelite gentlemen.
In the entrance we met Lady Molyneux and
her daughter, Sabretasche and his young Grace of
Regalia with them. It was easy to see which the
Viscountess favoured the most.
*Are you come to be disenchanted with all
living womanhood by the contemplation of Messrs.
Millais and Hunt's ideals, Major de Vigne?' asked
Violet, giving him her hand, looking a very lovely
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 65
sample of * living womanhood.' Ladies said she
"WSB very extravagant in dress. She might be;
she was naturally lavish, and liked instinctively all
that vras graceful in form or colouring ; but I only
know she dressed perfectly, and, what was better,
never thought about it.
* Perhaps we should suffer less disappointment
if ladies t4ere like Millais's ideals,' smiled De
Vigne. *From those rough red-haired, long-
limbed women we should never look for much
perfection; whereas the faces and forms of our
living beauties are rather like Belladonna, beau-
tiful to look at, but destruction to approach or
trust!'
* You are incorrigible ! ' cried Violet, with a
tiny shrug of her shoulders, * and forget that if
Belladonna is a poison to those who don't know
how to use it, it is a medicine and a balm to those
who do.'
* But for one cautious enough to cure himself,
how many unwary are poisoned for life ! ' laughed
De Vigne.
He said it as a jest, but a bitter memory
prompted it.
' Send that fellah to Coventry, Miss Molyneux,
do,' lisped Regalia ; * he's so dweadfully rude.'
' Not yet ; sarcasms are infinitely more refresh-
VOL. 11. F
66 "held in bondage; or,
ing than empty compliments,' said Violet, with a
pcornful flash of her brilliant eyes. The little
Duke was idiot enough to attempt to flatter Violet
Molyneux, to whom the pas in beauty and talent
was indisputably given! * Colonel Sabretasche,
take my catalogue, I have not looked into it yet,
and mark all our favourites for me. I am
. going to enjoy the pictures now, and talk to
nobody.'
A charming ruse on the young lady's part to
keep Sabretasche at her side and make him talk
to her, for they passed over eleven pictures, and
lingered over a twelfth, while he discoursed on the
Italian and French, the German and the English
schools.
* Why have you never been to see me for four
days?' asked Violet, standing before one of the
glorious sea pieces of Stanfield.
Sabretasche hesitated a moment.
* I have had other engagements.'
Violet's eyes flashed. 'I beg your pardon.
Colonel Sabretasche ; not being capricious myself,
it did not occur to me that you were so. How-
ever, if it is a matter of so little moment to you,
it is of still less to me.'
*Did I not tell you,' whispered Sabretasche,
that I like too well to be with you to dare to be
ORANYILLE DE VIGNE. 67
vnih you much. You cannot have forgotten our
conversation at Richmond V
*No,' she answered, hurriedly; *but you pro-
mised me your friendship, and you have no right
to take it away. I do not pretend to understand
yon, I do not seek to know more than you choose
to tell me, but since you once promised to be my
friend, you have no right *
* Violet, for God's sake do not break my heart ! '
broke in Sabretasche, his voice scarcely above his
breath, but full of such intense anguish that she
was startled. * Your friend I cannot be ; anything
dearer I may not be. Forget me, and all interest
in my fete. Of your interest in me I am utterly un-
worthy ; and I would rather that you should credit
all the evil that the world attributes to me, and,
crediting it, learn to hate me, than think that I,
in my own utter selfishness, had thrown one shade
on your young life, mingled one regret with your
bright future.'
They were both leaning against the rail ; no one
saw Violet's face as she answered him.
* To speak of hate from me to you is folly, and
it is too late to command forgetfulness. If you
had no right to make me remember you, you have
still less right to bid me forget you.'
* Violet, come and look at this picture of
F 2
68 "held in bondage;" or,
Lance's, Regalia talks of buying it,' said her
mother's cold, slow, languid voice.
Violet turned, and though she smiled and spoke
about the picture in question with some of her
old vivacity and self-possession, her face had lost
its brilliant tinting, and her white teeth were set
together.
De Vigne joined them at that minute.
' Miss Molyneux, I want to show you a painting
in the Middle Room. It is just your style, I
fancy. Will you come and look at it ? '
We all went into the Middle Room after him,
Sabretasche too, pausing occasionally to look at
some of the luckless exiles near the ceiling with
his lorgnon. By-the-way, what a farce it is to hang
pictures where one must have a lorgnon to look
at them ; the exhibition of the Few is the sup-
pression of the Many !
* Voila ! ' said De Vigne. * Am I wrong ? '
Don't you like it?'
' Like it ! ' echoed Violet. ' O, how beautiful ! '
Quite forgetful that she was the centre of a
crowd who were looking at her much more than
at the paintings on the walls, she stood, the colour
back in her cheeks, her eyes lifted to the picture.
The painting deserved it. It was Love old in
^ story, yet new to every human heart the love of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 69
Francesca and Paolo, often essayed by artists, yet
never rendered, even by Ary Scheffer, as Dante
vronld have had it, and as it was rendered here.
There were no vulgarities of a &bled Hell;
there were the two, alone in that true torture
^ Bicordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria '
yet happy because together. Her face and form
were in full light, his in shadow. Heart beating
against heart, their arms round each other, they
looked down into each other's eyes. On his face
were the fierce passions, against which he had had
no strength, mingled with deep and yearning re-
gret for the fate he had drawn in with his own.
On hers, lifted up to him, was all the love at sight
of which he who beheld it ' swooned even as unto
death ; ' the love
* ^placer si forte
Che come vedi ancor non m^abbandona *
the fove which made hell, paradise ; and torture
together, dearer than heaven alone. Her face
spoke, her clinging arms circled him as though
defying power in eternity strong enough to part
them; her eyes looked into his with unutter-
able tenderness, anguish for his sorrow, ecstasy in
his presence ! and on Tier soft lips, still trembling
with the memory of that first kiss which had been
70 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
their ruin, was all the heroism and all the passion,
all the fidelity, devotion, and joy in him alone,
spoken in that one sentence
' Questi che mai da me non fia diviso ! '
The picture told its tale ; crowds gathered round
it ; and those who could not wholly appreciate its
wonderful colouring and skill were awed by its
living humanity, its passionate tenderness, its ex-
quisite beauty.
Violet stood, regardless of the men and women
around her, looking up at the Francesca, a fervent
response to it, a yearning sympathy with the
warm human love and joys of which it breathed,
written on her mobile features.
She turned away from it with a heavy sigh,
and the flush deepened in her cheeks as she met
Sabretasche's eyes, who now stood behind her.
*You are pleased with that picture,* he said,
bending his head. ^
* Is it not beautiful V cried Violet, passionately.
' It is not to be criticized ; it is to be loved. It is
art and poetry and human nature blended in one.
Whoever painted it, interprets art as no other
artist here can do. He has loved and felt his
subjept, and makes othenS in the force of his
genius feel and love it too. Listen how every one
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 71
is praising it ! Tbej all admire it, yet not nine
out of ten of these people can understand it. Tell
me who painted it, quick ! Now you are looking
in the last room, and it is 226, Middle Room.
Oh ! give me the catalogue ! '
She took it out of bis hands with that rapid
yiracity which worried her mother so dreadfully
as bad ton, and turned the leaves over till she
reached 226. Paolo and Francesca Vivian
Sabretasche.
^ Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del cestui piacer si forte,
Che come vedi ancor dod m'abbandona
Ajnor condusse noi ad una morte " '
She dropped the book; she could not speak
but she held out her hand to him, and Sabre-
tasche took it for an instant as they leaned over
the rail together in the security and solitude of
a crowd.'
* Do not speak of it here,' he whispered, as he
bent down for the fallen catalogue.
* Ton my honour, Sabretasche,' whispered little
Regalia ' we're all so astonished turning artist,
eh? Never knew you exhibited. Splendid pic-
ture ah really ! '
* You do me much honour,* said Sabretasche,
coldly he hated the little puppy who was always
72 "held in bondage;" or,
dawdling after Violet ' but I should prefer not to
be congratulated before a room full of people.'
* On my life, old fellow, I envy you,' said De
Vigne, too low for any one to hear him ; * not for
being the talk of the room, for that is neither to
your taste nor mine, but for having such magnifi-
cent talent as you have given us here/
* Cui bono ? ' said Sabretasche, with his slight
smile, that was too gentle for discontent, and too
sad for cynicism.
* I had not an idea whose Francesca I was bring-
ing Miss Molyneux to see,'*De Vigne continued.
* How came you to exhibit this year ? '
* Oh, I have been a dabbler in art a long time,'
laughed the Colonel. * Many of the Forty are my
intimate friends; they would not have rejected
anything I sent.'
' They would have been mad to reject the Fran-
cesca ; they have nothing to compete with it on
the walls. I wish you were in Poland Street, Sa-
bretasche, that one could order of you. You are
the first fine gentleman, since Sir George Beau-
mont, who has turned " artiste veritable," and you
grace it better than he.'
Sabretasche and his Grace of Regalia, De Vigne,
and I, went to luncheon that day vrith Lady Moly-
neux in Loundes Square, at which meal the Colonel
GRAyVILLE DE VICJXK. 7J
made himself so channing, lively, mid winninpr, tliat
the Viscountess, strong as were her leaniiij^ to
her pet Duke, could not but admit that he shone to
veiy small advantage, and made a mental mem.
never to invite the two together again. The
Molyneux were devoting that morning to picture-
viewing. And from the Royal Academy, after
luncheon, they went to the French aquarelles, in
Pall Mall, and thence to the AVater-Colour Exhi-
bition, whither De Vigne and I followed them in
his tilbury.
* I wonder what they will say to Alma's picture,'
said De Vigne, as we alighted. * I wish it may
make a hit, as it is her livelihood now, poor child ! '
Strange enough, it was before Alma's picture
that we found most people in the room congre-
gated ; and Violet turned to us :
Come and look here. Major De Vigne ; this
** Louis Dix-sept in the Tower of the Temple," by
MissTrevelyan Trevanion no,Tressillian who-
ever she be is the gem of the collection to my
mind. There is an unlucky green ticket on it,
else I would purchase it. What enviable talent !
I wish I were Miss Tressillian ! '
' How rash you are ! ' said De Vigne. * How
can you tell but that Miss Tressillian may be some
masculine woman living in an entresol, painting
74 "HELD IN BONDAGE;'* OR,
with a clay pipe between her teeth, and horses and
cows, for veritable models in a litter adjoining,
dressing like George Sand, and deriving inspira-
tion from gin ? '
* What a shameful picture ! * cried Violet, indig-
nantly. * I do not know her, nor anything about
her, it is true, but I am perfectly certain that the
woman who idealized and carried out this painting,
with so much delicacy and grace, must have a deli-
cate and graceful mind herself/
* Or,' continued De Vigne, ruthlessly, * she may
now, for anything you can tell, be a meUlefiUe who
has consecrated her life to art, and grown old and
ugly in the consecration, and who'
* Be quiet. Major De Vigne,' interrupted Violet,
* I am perfectly certain that the artist would corre-
spond to the picture: Raphael was as beautiful as his
paintings, Michael Angelo was of noble appearance,
Mozart and Mendelssohn had faces full of music '
* Fuseli, too, was,' said De Vigne, mischievously,
* remarkably like his grand archangels ; Reynolds,
in his brown coat and wig, is so poetic that one
could have no other ideal of the " Golden Age ; "
Turner's appearance was so artistic that one would
have imagined him a farmer bent on crops ; fat
and snuffy Handel is the embodiment of the beauty
of the Cangio d'Aspett
GRAJSrVILLE DE VIGNB. 75
' How tiresome you are ! ' interrupted Violet
again, * I am establishing a theory ; I don't care
for facts ^no theorists ever do in these days ! I
maintain that a graceful and ennobling art must
leave its trace on the thought and mind and man-
ners of its expositors (I know you are going to re-
mind me of Morland at the hedge-alehouse, of
Opie, and the " little Jew-broker," and of NoUi-
kens making the writing-paper label for the single
bottle of claret) ; never mind, I keep to my theory,
and I am sure that this Miss Tressillian, who has
bad the happiness to paint the lovely face of that
little Dauphin, would, if we could see her, corres-
pond to it ; and I envy her without the slightest he-
sitation.'
* You have no need to envy any one,' whispered
Regalia.
Violet turned impatiently from him, and began
to talk to Sabretasche about one of those ever-
charming pictures of Mr. Edmund Warren. De
Vigne looked at me and smiled, thinking with how
much more grounds the little Tressillian had envied
Violet Molyneux.
* I wish I could tell you half I feel about your
Francesca,' said Violet, lifting her eyes to Sabre-
tasche's face, as they stood apart from anybody
else in a part of the room little frequented, for
76 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
there were few people there that morning, and
those few were round Alma's pet picture. * You
can never guess how I reverence your genius, how
it speaks to my heart, how it reveals to me all your
inner nature, which the world, much as it admires
you, never sees or dreams of seeing.'
Sabretasche bent his head ; her words went too
near home to him to let him answer them.
' All your pictures,' Violet went on, * bear the
stamp of a master's talent, but this ^how beautiful
it is! I might have known no other hand but
yours could have called it into life. Have you
long finished it ? '
* I finished the painting two years ago ; but
three months ago I saw for the first time the face
that answered my ideal, the face that expressed
all that I would have expressed in Francesca. I
effaced what I had painted, and in its stead I
placed yours.'
Violet's eyes dropped; the delicate colour in
her cheeks deepened. She had been dimly con-
scious of a resemblance in the painting, and De
Vigne's glance from Francesca to herself had told
her that he at the least saw it also ; and, indeed, the
face of the painting, with its delicate and impas-
sioned features, and the form, with its voluptuous
grace, were singularly like her own.
GRAXVILLK T)K VIGXK. 4 1
Sabretascbe looked closer at her.
* Yoa could love like Francesco,' be said iuvo-
luntarily.
It was not above bis breatb, but his face gave
it all the eloquence it lacked, as hers all the re-
sponse it needed.
She beard bis short quick breathing as he stood
beside her ; she felt the passionate words which
rose to bis lips ; she knew that if over a man's love
was liers bis was then. But he was long silent, and
-when be spoke his voice was full of that utter
anguish which had startled her twice before.
*Keep it, then, and give it to some man more
worthy it than I ! '
* Violet, my love, are you not tired of all this ? '
said Lady Molyneux, sweeping up. ' It is half-
past four, and I want to go to Swan and Edgar's.
Pictures make one's head ache so ; I was never
so ill in my life as I was after the Sistine chapel.'
Sabretascbe took her to their carriage without
another word between them.
The next day, to our surprise, the Colonel asked
for leave, got it, and went away.
* What the deuce is tliat for, Colonel ? ' said I.
' Never been out of town in the season before, have
you?'
* Just the reason why I should be now, my dear
78 "held m BONDAGE;'* OR,
fellow/ responded Sabretasche, lazily. * Twenty
years of the same thing is enough to tire one of it,
if the thing were paradise itself; and when it
comes to be only dusty paves, whitebait dinners,
and club gossip, ennui is very pardonable. The
medical men tell me, if I don't give up Pleasure
for a little time, Pleasure will give up Me. You
know I am not over-strong ; so I shall go to the
Continent, and look at it in spring, before there
are the pests of English touring about, with Mur-
ray's, carpet-bags, and sandwiches.'
He vouchsafed no more on the subject, but
went. His departure was talked of in clubs and
boudoirs ; women missed him as they would have
missed no other man in London, for Sabretasche
was universal censor, referee, regulator of fashion,
his bow was the best thing in the Park, his fetes
at Richmond the most charming and exclusive of
the season ; but people absent on tours are soon
forgotten, like dead leaves sucked under a water-
wheel and whirled away ; and after the first day,
perhaps, nobody save De Vigne and I remarked
how triste his house in Park Lane looked with the
green persiennes closed over its sunny bay-win-
dows.
Whatever his motive, the Colonel was gone to
that golden land where the foamy Rhone speeds
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 79
on her course, and Marseilles lies by the free blue
sea, and the Pic du Midi rears its stately head.
Hie Colonel was gone, and all the clubs, and
drawing-rooms, and journals were speaking of his
fVancesca; speaking, for once, unanimously, in
admiration for its wonderful union of art and
timth. The Francesca was the theme of the
day in artistic circles : its masterly conception and
unexceptionable handling would for any pencil have
gained it fame ; and in fashionable circles it only
needed the well-known name of Vivian Sabre-
tasche to give it at once an interest and a brevet
of Talua The Francesca was talked of by every-
body, and strangely enough, the picture most
appreciated in another line by the papers and the
virtuosi, was the Little Tressillian's, which, with
its subject, its treatment, and the truthful ren-
dering of the boy's face, attracted more attention
than any woman's picture had done for a long
time ; the art reviews were almost unanimous in
its praise ; certain faults were pointed out ^re-
viewers must always find some as a sort of voucher
of their own discernment but for all that, Alma's
first picture was a very decided success.
Not long after the Exhibition, De Vigne, one
morning after early parade, ordered his horse
round, put some of the journals in his coat-pocket,
80 "held in bondage;" or,
and rode towards Richmond, with the double
purpose of having a cool morning gallop before
the bother of the day commenced, and of seeing
Alma, which he had not done since the success
of her picture. He rode fast ; I believe it would
have been as great a misery to him to be obliged
to do a thing slowly as it would have been to
Sabretasche to do it quickly! and he enjoyed
the fresh morning, with the free, pure air of
spring. His nature was naturally a very happy
one ; his character was too strong, vigorous, and
impatient to allow melancholy to become habitual
to him ; he was too young for his fate, however
it preyed upon his pride, to be constantly before
him; his wife was, indeed, a bitter memory to
him, but she was but a memory to him now, and
a man imperceptibly forgets what is never recalled
to him. Except occasional deep fits of gloom and
an unvarying cynical sarcasm, De Vigne had cured
himself of the utter despondency into which his
marriage had first thrown him ; the pace at which
he lived, if the pleasures were stale, was such as
does not leave a man much time for thought, and
now, ag he rode along, some of his natural spirits
came back to him, as they generally do in the
saddle to a man fond of riding.
'At home of course? ' he said to Mrs. Lee, as
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 81
she opened the door to him said it with that care-
less hauteur which was the result of habit, not of
intention. De Vigne was very republican in his
theories, but the patrician came out in him malgre
lui!
. * Yes, sir,' said the old nurse, giving him her
lowest curtsey. 'Yes, sir, she's at home, and
there's a young gentleman a calling on her. I'm
glad of it ; she wants somebody to talk to bad
enough. 'Tain't right, you know, sir, for a merry
child like that to be cooped up alone ; you might
as well put a bird in a cage and tie its beak up,
80 that it couldn't sing ! It's that young gentleman
as came with you, sir, the other day.'
De Vigne stroked his moustaches.
* Oh, ho ! Master Curly's found his way, has
he. I dare say she'll be a confounded little flirt,
like all the rest of them, when she has the op-
portunity,' was his reflection, more natural than
complimentary, as he opened the door of Alma's
room, where the little lady was sitting, as usual
in the window, among the birds and flowers De
Vigne had sent her ; Curly, lying back in a chaise
longue, talking to her quite as softly and far more
interestedly than he was wont to talk to the
beauties in his mother's drawing-room.
But Alma cut him short in the middle of a
VOL. II. G
82 "held in bondage; or,
sentence as she turned her head at the opening
of the door, and sprang up at the sight of De
Vigne.
* How glad I am ! How good you are to come
so early.'
* Not good at all ; the air is beautiful to-day,
one only wants to be fishing in a mountain burn
to enjoy it thoroughly. Hallo, Curly ! ' said De
Vigne, throwing himself into an arm-chair ; * how
are you ? How did you manage to get up so early ?
I thought you never were up till after one, except
on Derby Day ? '
* Or other temptation greater still,* said Curly,
with an eloquent glance of his long violet eyes at
Alma.
' Do you mean that for a compliment to me ? *
said the Little Tressillian, with that gay, rebel-
lious air which was so pretty in her. * In the
first place, I do not believe it, for there* is no
woman on the face of the earth who could attempt
to rival a horse ; and in the second, I should not
thank you for it if I did, for compliments are only
fit for empty heads to feed on !'
* Meaning, you think yours the very reverse of
empty ? ' said De Vigne, quietly.
* Certainly. I am not a boarding-school girl,
monsieur,' said Alma, indignantly. ^ I have filled
GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 83
it with what food I can get for it, and I know at
least enough to feel that I know nothing ^the
first step to wisdom the sages say.'
* But if you dislike compliments you might at
least accept homage,' said Curly, smiling,
* Homage ? Oh ! yes, as much as you like. I
should like to he worshipped by the world, and
petted by a few,'
* I dare say you would,' said De Vigne. * I
can't say you rdesires are characterized by great
modesty ! '
* Well, I speak the truth,' said Alma, naively.
* I should like to be admired by the thousands,
and loved just by one or two.'
* You have only to be seen to have your first
wish,' said Curly, softly, * and only to be known to
have much more than your second.'
Alma turned away impatiently ; she had a sad
knack of showing when she was annoyed.
* Really you are intolerable. Colonel Brandling.
You spoil conversation utterly. I say those things
because I mean them, not to make you flatter me.
I shall talk only to Sir Folko, for he understands
me, and answers me properly.'
With which lecture to Curly she twisted her low
chair nearer to De Vigne, and looked up in his
face, much as spaniels look up in their master's,
g2
84 "held in bondage;" or,
liking a kick from them better than a caress from
a stranger.
* Have you seen Miss Molyneux lately ? *
' Yes ; and not long ago I heard Miss Moly-
neux envying you ! *
* Me ! / envy Aer, if you like. How does she
know me ! What has she heard about me ? Who
has told her anything of me ? '
' Gently, gently, de grdce ! I don't know that
she has heard anything of you, or that anybody
has told her any thing about you ; but she has seen
something of yours, and admired it exceedingly.
* Ah ! my picture ! * cried Alma, joyously, her
envy and her wrongs passing away like summer
shadows off a sunny landscape. ' What has been
said about it ? Who has seen it ? Do the papers
mention it ? Have the *
* One question at a time, please, then perhaps I
may contrive to answer them : ' said De Vigne,
smiling ; * though the best answer to them all will
be for you to read these. Here, see how you like
that ! '
He took a critique by a well-known Art-critic
out of his pocket, and gave it to her, pointing out,
among many condemnatory notices of other works,
the brief words in praise of her own, worth more
than whole pages of warmer laudation but less dis-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 85
eriminating criticism, which Alma read with her
eyes beaming, and her whole fiEu^e in a rose flush
of delight.
*Wait a minute; reserve your raptures,* said
De Vigne, putting the Times ' and other papers
before her. * If the first review sends you into
such a state of exultation, we shall lose sight of
you altogether over these.*
* Ah, they make me so happy ! ' she cried, with
none of the dignity and tranquil pride becoming
to a successful artist, but with a wild, gleeful,
triumph amusing to behold. * I used to think my
pictures would be liked if people saw them ; but
I never hoped they would be admired like this ;
and it is all owing to you ; without you I should
never have had it ! '
* Indeed you would, though. You have nothing
to thank me for, I can assure you.*
* I have ! You knew ho v I could exhibit it ;
you did it all for me ; but for you my picture
would now be hanging here, unnoticed and un-
praised; and you know well enough that your
few words are of more value to me than all these !'
With which Alma tossed over the table, with con-
temptuous energy, the reviews which had charmed
her a minute or two before.
* Very unwise,' said De Vigne, dryly. * These
86 "held in bondage;" or,
will make your ikme and your money ; my words
can do you no good whatever/
She twisted herself away from him with one of
her rapid, un-English movements.
' How courteous he is ! You are very forbear-
ing. Miss Tressillian, to put up with him !' said
Curly, who had been listening, half amusedly, half
irritably, to this conversation, which excluded
him.
Alma was angry with De Vigne herself, but she
was not going to let anyone else be so too.
* Forbearing? What do you mean? I should
be very ungrateful if I were not thankful for such
a friend.*
' Now that is too bad,' said Curly, plaintively.
* I, who really admire your most marvellous talent,
only get tabooed for being a flatterer, while he is
thought perfection, and pleases by being most
abominably rude.'
* You had better not measure yourself with him.
Colonel Brandling,' said Alma, with that mis-
chievous impudence which sat well upon her,
though no other woman, I believe, could have had
it with such impunity.
*Vous me piquez, mademoiselle,' said Curly,
* You will tempt me by your very prohibition to
enter the lists with him. I should not care to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 87
dispute the belt with him in most things, but for
euch a prize *
* What nonsense are you talking, Curiy,' said
De Vigne, with that certain chill hauteur now so
customary to him, but which Alma had never yet
seen in him. ' A prize to be fought for must be
disputed. Don't bring hot-pressed compliments
here to spoil the atmosphere.'
* That's right, take my part,' interrupted Alma,
not understanding his speech as Curly understood
it. *You see, Colonel Brandling, that sort of
high-flown flattery is no compliment ; if the man .
mean it, it says little for his intellect, for we are
none of us angels without wings, as you call us ;
and if he do not mean it, it says little for ours, for
it is easy to tell when anyone is really liking or
only laughing at us.'
* Indeed !' said Curly. ' I wish we were as clear
when ladies were liking or laughing at us; it
would save us a good many disappointments, when
enchanting forms of life and light, who have softly
murmured tenderest words when they stole our
hearts away in tulle illusion at a hunt ball, how to
us as chillily as to a first introduction when we
meet them afterwards en Amazone in the Ride,
with somebody as rich as he is gouty, on their off-
side.'
88 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
* Serve you right for being so credulous,' said
De Vigne. ' Women are either actresses or fools ;
if they are amiable they are stupid, and if they are
clever they are artful. '
* Like Thackeray's heroines,' suggested'Curly.
' Exactly ; shows how well the man knows life.
The first thing the world teaches a clever woman
is to banish her heart. Women may thrive on
talent, they are certain to go to rack and ruin on
feeling.'
* I don't agree with you,' said Alma, looking up,
ready for a combat.
* Don't jQxiy petite ? ' laughed De Vigne, * I think
you will when you have a few more years over
your head, and have seen the world a little,'
* No, I do not,' returned the Little Tressillian,
decidedly, * I believe that in proportion as you feel
so do you suffer ; but I deny that all clever women
are actresses. Where will you go for all your no-
blest actions but to women of intellect and mind ?
Sappho's heart inspired the genius which has come
down to us through such lengthened ages. Was
it not love and genius in one, which immortalized
Heloise? Was it not intellect, joined to their
love for their country, which have placed the deeds
of Polycrita, Hortensia, Hersillia, Mademoiselle
de la Rochefoucauld, among the records of patriot-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 89
ism ? One of the truest affections we have beard
of was that of Vittoria Colonna for Pescara, of the
woman who ranks only second to Petrarch, the
friend of Pope, and Bembo, and Catarini, the
adored of Michael Angelo, the admired of Ariosto !
Oh, you are very wrong ; where you find the glow-
ing imagination, there, too, will you find as ardent
affections ; where there is expansive intellect there
and there only, will be charity, tolerance, clear
perception, just discrimination ; with a large brain,
a large heart, the more cultured the intelligence,
the more sensitive the susceptibilities ! Lucy
Edgermond would make your tea for you tolerably,
and head your table respectably, and blush where
she ought, and say Yes and No like a well-bred
woman : but in Corinne alone will you find passion
to beat with your own, intellect to match with
your own, sympathy, comprehension, elevation, all
that a woman should give to the man she loves ! *
A Corinne in her own way I can fancy she looked,
too, her blue eyes scintillating like stars in her
earnestness, and her voice rising and falling in im-
passioned vehemence, accompanied with her viva-
cious and unconscious gesticulation, a trick, proba-
bly, of her foreign blood. Curly listened to her
with amazement, this was something quite new to
him ; it was not so new to De Vigne, but it touched
90 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
him with something deeper, more like regret than
amusement. A glimpse of the golden land is pain
when we know the door is locked, and the key
irrevocably lost.
* Do you suppose, petite,' he said, with a bitter
smile, * that if there were Corinnes in tlie land men
would be such fools as to go and take the Lucies
of modern society in their stead ? Heaven knows,
if there were women such as you describe, we might
be better men ; more earnest in our lives, more
faithful in our loves ! But you draw from the
ideal, I from the real, two altitudes very far wide
apart; as far apart, my child, as dawn and mid-
night.'
His tone checked and saddened Alma's bright
and enthusiastic nature. She gave a heavy sigh.
* It is midnight with you, I am afraid, and I so
want it to be noon !
He answered with a laugh.
* If it be, it is like midnight at a bal (T Opera^
with plenty of gaslights, transparencies, music, and
amusement enough to send the sun jealous, and
making believe the day has dawned ! '
* But don't the gaslights, and transparencies, and
all the rest of your hal d' Opera look tawdry and
garish when the day is really up and on them ? '
*We never let the daylight in,' laughed De
GRANVILLE DK VTONE. 91
Vigne; *and won't remember that we ever had
any brighter light than our coloured lamps. Why
should we ? They do well enough for all intents
and purposes.'
Alma shook her head :
*They won't content you always/
* Oh yes, they will ; I have no desires now but
to live without worry, and die in some good hard
fight in harness, like my father. What ! are you
going. Curly ? Ill come with you.*
* Yes I must,' said Curly. * I'm going to a con-
founded dejeuner in Palace Gardens, at that little
flirt's, Jerry Maberly. I shall barely get back in
time. How time slips in some places. If I pro-
mise to leave compliments, i. e, in your case, truth,
behind me, may I not come again ? Pray be mer-
ciful, and allow me.'
* How can I prevent you ? ' said Alma, in a
laughing unconsciousness of Curly's meaning.
* Certainly, come if you like ; it is kind of you, for
I am very dull here all alone. I am no philoso-
pher, and cannot make a virtue of necessity, and
pretend to take my tub and cabbage-leaves in pre-
ference to a causeuse and delicate mayonnaise.*
* Capricious, like all your sex. You are asking
for compliments now. Alma. " On ne Ixme 6!ot*
dinaire que pour Stre loue,'' ' said De Vigne, dryly.
92 "held in bondage;" or,
' Am I ? I did not mean it so,' answered the
girl, innocently.
* Nor did I take it so,' said Curly, bending to-
wards her as he took her hand ; * so I shall not
say how I thank you for your permission, but only
avail myself of it as often as I can.'
De Vigne stood looking disdainfully on, stroking
his moustaches; and thinking, I dare say, what
arrant flirts all women were at heart, and what
fools men were to pander to their vanities.
He bid her good morning with that careless
hauteur which he had often with everybody else,
but very rarely with her. While he stood at the
door waiting for his groom, he heard Alma's
voice :
* Come back a minute.'
He went back, as in courtesy bound.
* Why did you speak so crossly to me ? '
* I ! I was not aware of it.'
*But I was, and it was not kind of you. Sir
Folko.'
* Why will you persist in calling me like that
knight sans peur et sans reproche ? ' said De Vigne,
impatiently. * I tell you I have nothing in com-
mou with him with his pure life and his spotless
shield. He did no evil; I do Heaven knows
how much ! He surmounted his temptations ; I
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 93
have always succumbed to mine. He had a con-
science at ease ; mine might be as great a torture
as the rack. His past was one of wise thoughts
and noble deeds ; mine can show neither the one
nor the other/
* Of your life you know best ; but in your cha-
racter I choose to see the resemblance,' replied
Alma, always resolute to her own opinion. * Was
he not a man who feared nothing, who was fierce
to his foes and generous to those who trusted
him ? As for his past, he had probably drawn ex-
perience from error, as men ever do ; and learnt
wisdom out of folly. And as for his stainless
shield^ is not your haughty De Vigne honour as
unsullied as when it passed to you ? '
* No,' said De Vigne, fiercely. * My folly
stained it, and the stain is the curse of my life.
Child, why will you speak of such things ? If you
care for my friendship, you must never allude to
my past.'
Deadly memories were stirring in him. Most
women might have been afraid of him in his
haughty anger. She was not. She looked up at
him, bewildered, it is true, but with a strange
mingling of girlish tenderness and woman's pas-
sion, both unconscious of themselves.
* Oh, I will not ! Do forgive me ! '
94 "held in bondage;" or,
* Yes, yes, I forgive you,' said De Vigne, hastily.
'Don't exalt me into a god. Alma, that's all;
for I am very mortal/
He laid his hand on her shoulder, with the
familiar kindness he had grown into with her.
In another second he was across his horse's
back, and riding out of the court-yard with Curly,
while she stood in the doorway looking after him,
shading her eyes from the May sun, which touched
up her golden hair and her bright-hued dress into
a brilliant tableau, under the low, dark porch of
her home.
Curly rode on quietly for some little way, busy-
ing his mind with rolling the leaves round a
Manilla, and lighting it en route, while De Vigne
puffed away at a giant Havannah, between regu-
lating which and keeping his fidgetty Grey Derby
quiet (he usually rode horses that would have
thrown any other man but him or M. Rarey), he
had little leisure for roadside conversation.
At last Curly broke silence, flicking his mare's
ears thoughtfully.
* Well, De Vigne ! I don't know what to make
of it!'
* Don't know what to make of what?' demanded
De Vigne, curtly.
He was a little impatient with his Frestonhills
GRANVILLE DK VIOXK. 95
pet. One may not care two straws for pheasant-
shooting nay, one may even have spraineil one*8
arm, so that it is a physical impossibility to lift an
Enfield to one's shoulder and yet, so dog-in-
mangerish is human nature, that one could kick a
fellow who ventures to come in and touch a head
of our defendu or uncared-for game !
* Of that little thing,' returned Curly musingly.
* I don't understand her.'
* Very possibly ! '
* Why very possibly ? I know a good deal of
women, good, bad, and indifferent, but Til be
hanged if I can understand that Little Tressillian.
She is so frank and free one might take no end of
advantage of her ; and yet, somehow, deuce take
it, one earCt The girl's truth and fearlessness are
more protection to her than other women's pru-
deries and chevaux-de-frise.'
De Vigne did not answer, but smoked silently.
* She is a little darling,' resumed Curly, medi-
tatively. ' One feels a better fellow with her
eh?'
* Can't say,' replied De Vigne. ' I have gene-
rally looked on young ladies, for inflammable boys
like you, as dangerous stimulants rather than as
calming tonics.'
* Confound your matter-of-fact,' swore Curly.
96 "held in bondage; or,
* You may laugh at it if you like, but I mean it.
She makes me think of things that one pooh-
poohs and forgets in the bustle of the world. She's
a vast lot too good to be shut up in that brown
old house, with only a kitten to play with, and an
old nurse to take care of her.'
^She seems to have made an impression on
you !'
* Certainly she has !' said Curly, gaily. * And,
'pon my life, what makes still more impression on
me, De Vigne, is, that you and I should be going
calling on and chatting with her as harmlessly as
if she were our sister, when we ought to be making
desperate love to her, if she hadn't such con-
founded trusting eyes of hers that they make one
ashamed of one's own thoughts ! Ton my life, it's
very extraordinary!'
* If extraordinary, it is only honour,' said De
Vigne, with his coldest hauteur, * towards a young,
guileless girl, utterly unprotected, save by her
own defencelessness. For my own part, as a
" married man " (how cold his sneer grew at those
words !), I have no right to ^ enter the lists " with
you, as you poetically phrased it to-day ; and for
yourself, you are too true a gentleman. Curly,
though it is " our way " to be unscrupulous in
such matters, to take unfair advantage of my in-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 97
troduction. Indeed, if you did, I, to whom
Mr. Tressillian appealed for what slight assistance
I have it in my power to afford her, should hold
myself responsible for having made you known to
her, and should be bound to take the insult as to
myself;
Curly, at the beginning of De Vigne's very
calm, but very grandiose speech, opened his lazy
violet eyes, and stared at him ; but as he went on,
he turned to his old Frestonhills hero with his
smile, so young in its brightness :
* Quite right, De Vigne. You are a brick ; and
if I do any harm to that dear Little Tressillian, I
give you free leave to shoot me dead like a dog,
and I should richly deserve it too. But go and
see her I must, for she is worth all the women we
shall meet at Jerry's to-day, though they do count
themselves the creme de la crSme.^
* The crSme de la crSme can be, at the best, only
skim ! ' said De Vigne, with his ready fling of sar-
casm; 'but I am not going to the Maberlys', thank
you. Early strawberries and late on dits are both
flavourless to my taste; the fault of my own
palate perhaps. I shall go and lunch at the
U. S., and play a game or two at pool. How
pleasant the wind is! Grey Derby wants a
gallop.'
VOL. II. H
98 "held IN" bondage; or,
Palamon and Arcite were not truer or warmer
friends than De Vigne and Curly; but, when a
woman's face dazzled the eyes of both, the death-
blow was struck to friendship, and the seeds of
feud were sown.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 99
CHAPTER V.
THE SKELETON WHICH SOCIETY HAD NEVER SEEN.
On the 12th of May, Leila Countess of Puffdorff
gave a ball, concert, and sort of moonlight fete,
all three in one, at her charming dower-house at
Twickenham. All our set went, and all of Ours,
for le feu Puffdorff had been in the Dashers, and
out of a tender memory of him, his young widow
made pets ^of all the Corps ; not, one is sure,
because we were counted the handsomest set of
men in all Arms, but out of pure love and re-
spect for our late gouty Colonel, who, Georges
Dandin in Jife, became a Mausolus when under
the sod. Who upholds that the good is oft inter-
red with our bones? Tisn't true though it is
Shakspeare who says it ; if you leave your stmily,
or your pet hospital a good many thousands, you
will get the cardinal virtues, and a trifle more,
in letters of gold on your tomb ; though if you
have lived up to your income, or forgotten to
insure, any penny-a-lining La Monnoye will do to
h2
100 "held in bondage;" or,
scribble your epitaph, and break off with * Cest
trop mentir pour cinq jScus ! ' Le feu Puffdorff
became * my poor dear lord,' as soon as the grave
closed over him ; pour cause ' my poor dear
lord ' had left his Countess most admirably well
off, and with some of this ' last bequest ' the little
widow gave us a charming fete on this 12th of May-
I went to the ball late; De Vigne chose
instead to go to a card party at Wyndham's,
where play was certain to be high. He preferred
men's society to women's at all times, and I must
say I think he showed his judgment ! The first
person I saw was Violet, on Curly 's arm, with
whom she had been waltzing. Brilliant and
lovely she looked, with all her highjbred grace
and finish about her ; but she had lost her colour,
there was an absence of all that free spontaneous
gaiety, and there was a certain distraction in her
eyes, which made me guess the Colonel's abrupt
departure had not been without its effect upon our
most radiant beauty. She had promised me the
sixth dance the previous day in the Park, and as
I waltzed with her, pour m'amuser I mentioned
Sabretasche's name casually, when, despite all her
sang-froid, a slight flush in her cheeks showed
she did not hear it with indifference. When I
resigned her to Regalia, I strolled through the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 101
rooms with the other beaute regnante of the
night, Madame la Duchesse de La Vieillecour.
Good Heavens ! what relationship was there
between that stately, haughty-eyed woman, with
her Court atmosphere about her calm but
finished coquetteries, and bright-faced, blithe-
voiced Gwen Brandling, who had given me that
ring under the trees in Kensington Gardens ten
years before? Ah, well! Time changes us all.
The ring was old-fashioned now; and Mads^me
and I made love more amusingly and more wisely,
if less truly than earnestly, than in those old silly
days when we were in love^ before I had learned
experience and she had taken up prudence and
ducal quarterings !
I was sitting under one of the luxuriant
festoons of creepers in the winter garden with
her Excellency ; revenging, perhaps a little more
naturally than rightly, on Madame de La Vieil-
lecour the desertion of Gwen Brandling: and
I suppose I was getting a trifle too sarcastic in the
memories I was recalling to her, for she broke
off our conversation suddenly, and not with that
subtle tact which Tuileries air had taught her.
*Look! Is it possible? Is not that Colonel
Sabretasche ? I thought he was gone to Biarritz
for his health.'
102 "held in bondage;" or,
I looked ; it was Sabretasche, to my supreme
astonishment, for his leave had not nearly ex-
pired; and in a letter De Vigne had had from
him a day or two previous, there had been no
mention of his intending to return.
*How charming he is, your Colonel!' said
Madame de La Vieillecour, languidly. * I never
met anybody handsomer or more witty in all Paris.
Bring him here, I want to speak to him.'
* Surprised to see me, Arthur?' said Sabre-
tasche, laughing, as I went up to him, obedient
to her desires. * I always told you never to be
astonished at anjrthing I do* Madame de La
Vieillecour there ? She does me much honour.
Is she trying to make you singe your wings
again?'
He came up to her with me, of course, and
stood chatting some minutes.
^ I am only this moment arrived,' he said, in
answer to her. * When I reached Park Lane this
evening, I found Lady Puffdorff s card ; so I dined,
dressed, and came off, for I knew I should meet
all my old friends here. Yes, I am much better,
thank you ; the sweet air of the Pyrenees must
always do one good, and then they give all the
credit to the Bianitz* baths ! Shockingly unjust,
but what is just in this world ? '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 103
He stayed chatting some moments, though his
eyes glanced impatiently through the rooms. The
air of the Pyrenees had indeed done him good ;
his listless melancholy, which had grown on him
so much during the last month, had entirely worn
off; there was a clear mind-at-ease look ahout him
as if he were relieved of some weight that had
worn him down, and there was a true ring about
his voice and laugh which had not been there,
gay as he was accounted, since I had known him,
even when he was ten years younger than he was
now. He soon left Madame de La Vieillecour, and
lounged through the rooms, exchanging a smile,
or a bow, or a few words with almost every one
he met, for Sabretasche had a most illimitable
acquaintance.
Violet Molyneux was sitting down after her
waltz with Regalia, leaning back on a couch,
fanning herself slowly, and attending very little
to the crowd of men who had gathered, as they
were certain to do, round the beauty of the season.
She generally laughed, and talked, and jested
with them all, so that her pet friends called her
a shocking flirt, but to-night she was listless and
silent, playing absently with her bouquet, though
admiring glances enough were bent upon her, and
delicate flattery enough breathed in her ears, to
104 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
have roused the Sleeping Beauty herself from
her trance.
It required more, however, to rouse her ; that
little more she had, in a voice well accustomed
to give meaning to such words, which whis-
pered :
*How can I hope I have been remembered
when you have so many to teach you to forget ? '
She looked up ; her wild-rose colour came back
into her cheeks ; she gave him her hand without
a word, and one of her vassals, a young Viscount,
in the Rifles, relinquished his place beside her to
Sabretasche. Then she talked to him, quietly
enough, on indifferent subjects, as if neither
remembered their last strange interview in the
Water-colour Exhibition, as if the Francesca
were not in both their minds, as if love were not
lying at the heart and gleaming in the eyes of
each of them !
Sabretasche asked her to waltz ; she could not,
since she had only the minute before refused
Regalia ; but she took his arm and strolled into
the winter-garden, leaving the full rise and swell
of the ball-room music with the subdued hum
and murmur of Society, in the distance.
He spoke of trifles as they passed the different
groups that were laughing, chatting, or flirting in
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 105
the several rooms ; but his eyes were on hers, and
spoke a more eloquent language. Violet never
asked him of his sudden return or his abrupt de-
parture. She w^s too happy to be with him again
to care through what right or reason she was so.
Gradually they grew silent, as they strolled on
through the conservatories till they were alone.
One side of the winter-garden was open to the
still night, where the midnight stars shone on trees
and statues, with lamps gleaming between, while
the nightingales sang their chants of love, which
give utterance in their unknown tongue to those
diviner thoughts,, that yearning sadness, which lie
far down unseen in Human nature.
The night was still, there was no sound save the
distant music and the sweet gush of the nightin-
gales' songs close by ; the wind swept gently in
till the air was full of the dreamy and voluptuous
fragrance which lulls the senses and woos the heart
to those softer moments which, could they but
last, would make men never need to dream of
heaven. Such hours are rare ; what wonder if to
win them we risk all, if in them we cry, with the
Lotus Eaters,
" Let us alone. What is it that will last ?
All thiDgs are taken from us and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
106 "held in bondage;" or,
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have ,
To war with evil ? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave ?
All things have rest and ripen toward the grave
In silence ; ripen, Ml, and cease.
Give us long rest, or death ; dark death or dreamful ease."
He, in the still beauty of the night, could listen
to every breath and hear each heart-throb of the
woman he loved, as he looked into her face with
its delicate and impassioned beauty the beauty
of the Francesca. All the passion that was in
him stirred and trembled at it; the voluptuous
spell of the hour stole over his thoughts and senses ;
he stooped towards her :
* Violet ! '
It was only one word he spoke : but in it all
was uttered to them both.
He drew her to his heart, pressing his lips on
hers in kisses long and passionate as those that
doomed Francesca. And the stars shone softly,
and the nightingales sang under the early roses in
the fair spring night, while two human hearts met
and were at rest.
# # # # #^ 1^ #
When they went back into the ball-room the
waltz had its charm, the music its melody, the
flowers their fragrance again, for Violet; for a
touch of the hand, a glance of the eyes were suffi-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 107
cient eloquence between them, and his whispered
Good night, as he led her to her carriage, was
dearer to her than any flattery poet or prince had
ever breathed. Nay, she was so happy that she even
smiled brightly on Regalia, to her mother's joy
so happy, that when she reached the solitude of
her own chamber, she threw herself on her knees
in her glittering gossamer ball-dress, with as un-
checked and impetuous tears of rapture as if she
had been Little Alma in her cottage home, rather
than the beauty of the Season, with Coronets at
her feet.
Lord Molyneux was a poor Irish peer ; Sabre-
tasche was rich, of high family, a man whose word
was law, whose pre-eminence in fashion and ton
was acknowledged, whose admiration was honour,
and at whose oflfer of marriage anyone would feel
proud. His social position was so good, his settle-'
ments would be so unexceptionable, why! even
our dear saint, the Bishop of Comet-Hock, though
he shook his head over Sabretasche's sins, and ex-
pressed his opinion with considerable certainty
concerning the warmth of his ultimate reception
^you know where would have handed him over
with the greatest eagerness either of his pretty,
extravagant daughters, had the Colonel deigned to
ask for one of them. Therefore, when Sabretasche
108 "held in bondage; or,
called the morning after, and made formal propo-
sals for Violet, Jockey Jack, though considerably
astonished ; as society had settled that Sabretasche
would never marry, as decidedly as it had settled
that he was Mephistopheles in fascinating guise ;
was excessively pleased, assented readily, and had
but one drawback on his mind telling his vnfe
that lady having set her affections on things above,
namely, little Regalia's balls and strawberry-leaves.
When he came out of Molyneux's study that
morning, he naturally took his way to where his
young love sat alone. She sprang up as he entered,
with so fond a smile and so bright a blush, that
Sabretasche thought he had never seen anything
of half so much beauty, sated as he had been with
beauty all his days.
* How lovely you are ! ' he said, involuntarily,
some minutes after, as he sat beside her on the
couch, passing his hand over the soft perfumed
hair that rested against his arm.
* Oh ! do not tell me that. So many do ! ' cried
Violet. * I like you to see in me what.no one else
sees.'
* I see a great deal in you that no one else sees ;
whole tableaux of heart and mind, that no one
else can have fa glance at,' said Sabretasche,
smiling. 'But I am proud of your beauty, my
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 109
lovely Francesca, for all that ; though it may be a
fact patent to all eyes.'
* Then I am glad I have it ! I would be a thou-
sand times worthier of you if I could.'
* The difficulty " to be worthy '' is not on your
side,' said he, with a shade of his old sadness. *I can-
not bear to think that a life so pure as yours should
be dedicated to a life so impure as mine. How
spotless is your past, Violet how dark is mine ! '
* But how few have been my temptations how
many yours ! ' she interrupted him, softly. * I shall
not love you the less, through whatever fires you
may have passed. A woman's office is to console,
not to censure ; and if a man have trust in her
enough to reveal his past sins or sorrows, her plea-
sure should be to teach him to forsake them and
forget them.'
* God bless you ! If my care and tenderness
can repay, your future shall reward you,' he whis-
pered. ' What I have chiefly to tell you, is of
wrongs done to me wrongs that have sealed my
lips to you till now wrongs that have weighed
on me for more than twenty long years, and
made me the enigmatical and wayward man I
probably have seemed. It is a long story, but
one I would rather you should know before you
fully give yourself to me.'
110 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
She looked up at him with a silent promise that
in heart she was already given to him ; and lean-
ing against him, Violet listened to the story
which every different scandalmonger had guessed
at, and each separate coterie tried, and vainly
tried, to probe the story of the Colonel's early
life.
*You know,' began Sabretasche, *that I was
born and educated in Italy ; indulged in all things
by my father, and accustomed to every luxury, I
grew up with much of the softness, voluptuousness,
and passion of the Italian character, while at fif-
teen I knew life as many a man of five-and-twenty,
brought up in seclusion and puritanism here, does
not. But though I was in the Neapolitan service,
and first in pleasure and levity among the young
noblesse, I was still impressionable and romantic,
with too much of the poetry and imagination of
the country in me to be blase, though I might be
inconstant. I never recall the memory of my
youth, up to three-and-twenty^ without regret, it
was so full of enjoyment. In the summer of my
four-and-twentieth year I left Naples, during the
hot season, to stay with a friend of mine, whose
estates lay in Tuscany. You were in Tuscany last
year. How fair the country is under the shadow
of the Apennines, with its brown olive woods and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. Ill
its glorious sunsets ! It is strange how the curse
of its ingratitude to its noblest sons still clings to
it, so favoured by nature as it is ! Delia Torre's
place was some six or seven miles from Sienna.
I had gone up to Florence previously with my father,
whose oldest friend was consul there ; and travel-
ling across Tuscany where malaria was then rife, a
low fever attacked me. I was travelling vetturino
^there were no railways there in those days
and my servant, finding that I was much too ill
to go on, stopped of his own accord at a village
not very far from Cachiano. The single act of
a servant, who would have died to serve either
me or my father, grew into the curse of my life !
The name of the village was Montepulto. I dare
say you passed through it ; it is beautifully placed,
its few scattered houses, with their high peaked
rooft, standing among the great groves of chesnuts
and the gray thickets of olives, with vineyards and
woods of genista and myrtle lying in the glowing
sunlight. There Anzoletto stopped of his own
accord. I was too ill to dissent ; and as the car-
riage pulled up before the single wretched little
inn the place afforded, the priest of the village,
who was passing, offered me the use of his own
house. I had hardly power to accept or refuse,
but Anzoletto seized on the offer eagerly ; and I
112 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
was conveyed to the house, where, for many days,
I knew nothing of what passed, except that I
suffered and dreamt. When I awoke from sleep
one evening into consciousness, I saw the red sun-
set streaming through the purple vine around my
lattice, Anzoletto asleep by my bedside, and a
woman of great beauty watching me : of great
beauty, Violet, but not your beauty. It seemed
to me then the face of an angel : afterwards, God
forgive her ! I knew it as the face of a fiend. She
was the niece, some said the daughter, of the priest
of Montepulto. She was then five-and-twenty
when men love women their own age, or older, no
good can come of it and very beautiful : a Tuscan
beauty, with blonde hair, and long, large, dark
eyes ; a lovely woman, in fact, with a certain Ian-
guid grace which charmed one like music. She
had, too, a certain aristocracy of air. The priest
himself was of noble though decayed family; a
sleek, silent, suave man, discontented with his
humble position in Montepulto, but meek and
lowly-minded, according to his own telling, as a
religieux could be. 1 awoke to see Silvia da'
Castrone by my bedside. I recovered to have her
constantly beside me, to gaze on her dangerous
charms in the equally dangerous lassitude of con-
valescence. There is a certain languid pleasure
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 113
in recovery from illness when one is young that
makes all things seem couleur de rose ; to me, with
my impressionable senses and my Southern tem-
perament, there was something in this seclusion,
shared with one as beautiful as the scenes among
which I found her, which appealed irresistibly at
once to poetry and passion, then the two dominant
elements in my character ; and to my desires, with
which no ambitions greater than those of pleasure,
and no pains harsher than those of love, had at
that time mingled. Sufficient to say, I began to
loYe this woman ; as I recovered my love grew,
till sense, prudence, pride, all that might have
restrained me, were submerged in it. I loved her
tenderly, honourably, as ever man could love
woman. I decked her in all the brilliant hues of
a poet's fancy, I thought her the realization of all
my sweetest ideals, I believed I loved for all eter-
nity ! I never stopped to learn her nature, her
character, her thoughts ; I never paused to learn
if she in any way accorded to all my requirements
and ideas ; I loved her I married her ! Heavens,
what that madness has cost me !'
The memory came over him with a deadly
shudder ; at its recollection the fell shade it had
so long cast on him returned again, and he pressed
Violet convulsively to his heart, as if with her
VOL. II. I
114 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
warm, young love to crush out the burden of that
cold and cruel dead one; the intelligence of his
marriage cast a death-like chill over her, but even
in its pain her first impulse was to console him.
She lifted her head and kissed his cheek, the first
caress she had ever offered him, as if to show
more tenderly than words could give them, her
sympathy and her affection. As silently he
thanked her : then with an effort he resumed his
story.
* We were married by the priest Castrone, and
for a few weeks I believed my fairest dreams were
realized. Violet, do not let my story pain you.
All men have many early loves before they reach
that fuller and* stronger one which is the crown
of their existence. I was happy, then, when I
was a boy, and when you were not born, my dar-
ling ! but you will give me greater happiness, as
passionate, and more perfect. We were married ;
and for a week or two the surrender of my liberty
seemed trifling pay indeed for the rapture it had
brought me. The first shock back to actual life
was a letter from my father. I dared not tell him
of my hasty step; not from any anger that I
should have met, but from the grief it would have
caused him, for the only thing he had ever inter-
dicted to me was an early or an unequal marriage.
GRA]^ILLE DE VIGNE. 115
Fortunately, the letter was only to ask me to go
to England on some business for him. I went, of
course, taking Sylvia with me ; and while in Lon-
don, at her suggestion (it did not occur to me, or
I should have made it), we had the ceremony
again performed in a Protestant church. She
said it pleased her to be united to me by the reli-
gion of my country as well as of her own. I loved
her, and believed her, and was only too happy to
make still faster, if I could, the fetters which
bound me to a woman I idolized ! We were a
month or two in England ; then we returned, and
I bought her a little villa just outside Naples,
where every spare moment that I had formerly
given to dissipation or amusement, or idle dream-
ing by the sea-shore, I now gave to my wife. Oh,
my love! my love! that any should have borne
that title before you ! Gradually now dawned on
me the truth which she had carefully concealed
during our earlier intercourse; that, graceful,
gentle as she was in seeming, her temper was the
temper of a fiend, her passions such as would have
disgraced the vilest woman in a street-brawl!
Fancy what it was to me, with my taste, over-
-refined, accustomed at home to the gentlest tones
and softest voices, abhorring what was harsh, vul-
gar, or unharmonious ; to hear the woman I wor-
i2
116 "held in bondage;" or,
shipped meet me, if I was a moment later than
she expected, or the presents I brought her a trifle
less costly than she had anticipated meet me
with a torrent of reproaches and invectives, her
beautiful features distorted with fury, her soft eyes
lurid with flame, her coral lips quivering with
deadly venom, railing alike at her dogs, her ser-
vants, and her husband ! a fury a she-devil !
Good Heavens! what fiercer torment can there
be for man than to be linked for life with a vixen,
a virago? None can tell how it wears all the
beauty of his life away ; how surely, like the drop-
ping of water on a stone, it eats away his peace ;
bow it lowers him, how it degrades him in his own
eyes, how it drags him down to her own level,
until it is a miracle if it do not rouse in him her
own coarse and humiliating passions! Looking
back on those daily scenes of disgrace and misery
which grew, as week and month rolled by^ each
time worse and worse, as my words ceased to have
the slightest weight, I wonder how I endured
them as I did ; yet what is more incredible still,
I yet loved her despite the hideous deformity of her
fiendish nature, for a virago is a fiend, and of the
deadliest sort. Still, though my life grew a very*
agony to me, and the weight of my secret from
my father unbearable ^I dared not tell him, for
GRAirVILLE DE VIGNE. 117
he was in such delicate health that the shock
might have been fatal I was never neglectful of
her. Strange as it seems, little as the world would
believe it, I vxu8 most constant to, and patient
vrith her. I have done little good in my life, God
knows, but in my duty as a husband to her, boy
as I was, I may truly say I never failed. Some
twelve months after our marriage she gave birth
to a daughter. I was very sorry. I am not
domestic ^never shall be ^and a child vras the
last inconvenience and annoyance I should have
wished added to the menage. I hoped, however,
that it might soften her temper. It did not ; and
my life became literally a curse.
* At this time Sylvia's brother eame to Naples,
a showy, handsome, vulgar young man, with none
of her exterior delicacy, who had been my detes-
tation in Montepulto. Naturally he came to his
sister's house, thomgh he had no liking for me, for
our antipathy was mutual ; but he quartered him-
self on his sister, for he was poor, and had nothing
to do. I generally, when I went to her after
Castrone's arrival, found him and some of his
friends rollicking, do-nothing, mawoais sujetSy like
himself smoking and drinking there; while
Sylvia, decked with her old smiles, and adorned
in the rich dress it had been my delight to bestow
118 "held in bondage;" or,
on her, lay on her couch, flirting her fan or touch-
ing her guitar ; her lovely voice had been one of
her greatest charms for me; but, once married,
she never let me hear it. The men were odious
to me^ accustomed as I was to the best society of
the old Italian noblesse, but I was so sick and
heart-weary of the constant contentions which
awaited me in my wife's home, that I was glad of
the presence of other persons to prevent a scene
of passion and abuse. The chief visitor at Sylvia's
house was a friend of her brother's an artist of
the name of Lani a young fellow, exceedingly
handsome, in a coarse, full-coloured style, though
utterly detestable to me, with his loud voice, his
vulgar foppism, and his would-be wit. He pleased
Sylvia, however; a fact to which I never attached
any importance, for I was not at all of a suspicious
or sceptical nature then, and I am never one of
those who think that a woman must necessarily
be faithless to her husband because she likes the
society of another man ; on the contrary, a hus-
band's hold on her affection mnst be very slight,
if, to keep it, he must subject her to a seclusion
almost conventual. Fidelity is no fidelity unless
it has opportunity to swerve if it choose. So, to
he jealous of Lani never occurred to me. I could
never have stooped to it, had it even done so.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 119
for I held my own honour infinitely too high
to dream that another could sully it. My trust
and my security were rudely destroyed! Six
months more went on. Sylvia clamoured cease-
lessly for the acknowledgment of our marriage ;
in vain I pleaded to her that my father was on
his death-bed, that the physicians told me that
the slightest mental shock would end his exist-
ence, and that as soon as ever I had lost him,
which must be at farthest in a few months' time,
1 would acknowledge her as my wife, and take
her to England, where large property had just
been left me. Such a plea would, you would
think, have been enough for any woman's heart.
It availed nothing with her; she made it the
occasion for such awful scenes of execration and
passion as I pray Heaven I may never see in
woman or man again. I refused to endanger my
father's life to please her caprices. The result
was one so degrading to her, so full of shame
and misery to me, that for several days I could
not bring myself to enter her presence again. My
love was gone, trampled down under her coarse
and cruel invectives. In the place of my lovely
and idolized wife I found a fiend ; and I repented
too late the irrevocable folly of an Early Marriage,
the curse of so many men. When at last I went
120 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
to what should have been my home, and was my
hell ; the windows of some of the rooms stood
open ; I walked up the gardens and through those
windows into the rooms unannounced, as a man
in his own house thinks he is at liberty to do.
How one remembers trifles on such days of anguish
as that was to me ! I remember the very play of
the sunshine on the ilex-leaves, I remember how
I brushed the boughs of the magnolias out of my
path as I went up the verandah steps ! Unseen
myself, I saw Lani and my wife : his arms were
round her, her head upon his breast, and I caught
words which, though insuflScient for law, told me
of her infidelity. God help me ! what I suffered !
Young, unsuspicious, acutely sensitive, painfully
alive to the slightest stain upon my honour, to be
displaced by this vulgar, low-bred rival ! Great
Heavens ! how bitter was my shame/
Violet's hands clenched on his in the horror of
his wrongs :
* Oh, my dearest, my dearest ! Would to Heaven
I could avenge you ! '
* Death has avenged me, my darling ! Those
few words which fell on my ear, in the first
paralysed moment of the treachery which had
availed itself of my unsuspecting hospitality to
rob me of my honour, were sufficient for me.
GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 121
Even then I had memory enough to keep myself
from stooping to the degradation of a spy, and
from lowering myself before the man who had
betrayed me. I went farther into the room, and
they saw me. Lani had the grace to look guilty
and ashamed ; . for only the day before he had
asked me to lend him money, and I had complied.
I remember being perfectly calm and self-pos-
sessed ; one often is so in hours of the greatest
suffering or excitement. I motioned him to the
door; and he slunk like a hound afraid of a
double thonging. He went out, and I was left
alone with my wife. Do you wonder that I
have loathed and abhorred that title, holding it
as a synonym with all that is base, and treacherous,
and shameful a curse from which there is no
escape a clog, rather than take which into his
nfe a man had better forego all love, all pleasure,
all passion a mess of porridge with poison in the
cup, for which he must give up all the priceless
birthright of liberty and peace, never enjoyed
and never valued till they are lost for ever, past
recall ?
' Do you think there was any shame, remorse,
repentance on her face, any regret for the abuse
of all my confidence, any consciousness of the
fidelity thus repaid, of the trust thus returned?
122 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
No ; in her face there was only a devilish laugh.
She met me with a sneer and a scoff; she had
the brazen falseness to deny her infidelity, for she
knew that admission would divorce her and give
me freedom ; and when I taxed her with it, she
only answered with invectives, with violence,
insult, and opprobrium. It seemed as if a demon
entered into her when she became possessed with
that fearful and fiend-like passion. I will not
sully your ears with all the disgraceful details of
the scene where a woman gave reins to her fell
passiohs, and forgot sex, truth, all things, even
common decency of language or of conduct:
suffice it, it ended in worse violence still. As I
rose, to leave her for ever, and end the last of
these horrible interviews, which destroyed all my
self-respect, and withered all my youth, she sprang
upon me like a tigress, and struck at my breast
with a stiletto, which lay on a table near, among
other things of curioas workmanship. Strong as
I was at that time, I could scarcely master her
a furious woman is jnore savage in her wrath
than any beast of prey ; she clung to me, yelling
hideous words, and striking blindly at me with
her dagger. Fortunately for me, the stiletto was
old and blunt, and could not penetrate through
the cloth of my coat. By sheer force I wrenched
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 123
myself from her grasp, unclenched her fingers
from the handle of the dagger, and left her pros-
trate, from the violence of her own passions, her
beautiful hair unloosened in the struggle, her
hands cut and torn in her own wild fencing with
the stiletto, her eyes glaring with the ferocity of
a tigress, her lips covered with foam. From that
hour I never saw her face, Last week I read the
tidings of her death.'
Sabretasche paused. He had not recalled the
dread memory of his marriage without bitter pain ;
never till now had his lips breathed one word of
his story to a living creature, and he could not
lift the veil from the secret buried for twenty
years without the murderous air from the tomb
poisoning the free, pure atmosphere which he now
breathed. All the colour fled from Violet's lips
and cheeks ; she burst into convulsive sobs, and
trembling painfully, shrank closer into his arms,
as if the dead wife could come and claim him
from her.
Gently and tenderly he caressed and calmed
her.
* My precious one, I would not have told you
my story if I had known how it would pain you.
I did not like you to be in ignorance of my pre-
vious marriage, and I could not tell you the fact,
124 "held m BONDAGE;" OR,
without telling you also, the history of the
wretched woman who held from me the title you
have promised me to bear. But do not let it
weigh on you. Great as my wrongs were I can
forgive them now. She can harm me no longer;
and you will teach me in the sunshine of your
presence to forget the deadly shadow of her past.
I will tell you no more to-day, you look so pale.
What will your mother say to me for sending
away your brilliant bloom ? She likes me little
enough already ! Do you wish me to go on ?
Then promise me to give me my old gay smiles ;
I should be sad, indeed, for my early fate to cast
the slightest shade on your shadowless life ! Well,
I left her, as I said. It is useless to dwell on the
anguish, the misery, the shame which had crowded
into my young heart. To have my name stained,
my wife stolen from me by that low-bred cur,
and to know that to this woman I was chained,
till one or other of us should be laid in the grave !
it was enough to drive a man of four-and-
twenty to any recklessness or any crime. With
that shame and horror upon me, I had to watch
over the dying hours of my father. He died
shortly afterwards in my arms, peacefully, as he
had spent his life. I saw the grave close over
one from whom I had never had an angry word
GBANVELLE DE VIGNE, 125
or a harsh glance, and reckless and heart-broken,
I came to England. I took Counsel's advice about
my marriage ; they told me it was perfectly legal
and valid, and that the evidence, however morally
or rationally clear, was not strong enough to
dissolve the unholy ties which bound me to one
whom in my heart I knew a virago, a liar, an
adulteress, who would, if she could, have added
murder to her list of crimes. Of her I never had
heard a word. I left her, at once and for ever,
to her lovers and her passions.'
* Did the child die ? ' asked Violet. * I wish you
had had no child, Vivian. I am jealous of every-
thing that has ever been yours ! . . . Pray God
that I may live and make atonement to you ! '
*My darling!' he murmured fondly. * You
need be jealous of nothing in my past; none
have been to me what you are and will be. I
never remembered the child. She was nothing to
me ; how could I even know that she was mine ?
But some years afterwards, they told me she had
died in infancy. So best with such a mother!
What could she but be now ? I came to England,
entered the army, and began the life I have led ever
since, plunging into dissipation, to still the fatal
memories that stirred within me ; revenging my-
self on that sex whom I had before trusted and
126 "held in bondage;" or,
worshipped ; gaining for myself the reputation, to
which your mother and the rest of the world still
hold, of an unscrupulous profligate ; none guessing
how my heart ached while my lips laughed ; how,
sceptical by force, I yet longed to believe ; and how
the heart of my boyhood craved to love and be
loved. Three years after my arrival here, the
sight of Castrone recalled to me the past in all its
hideous horror. What errand think you he, shame-
less as his sister, came upon me ? None less than
to extort money from me by the threat, in Sylvia s
name, that she would come over to England and
proclaim herself my wife. I was weak to yield
his demand to him, and not to have the servants
show him at once out of the house ; but money
was plentiful, his presence was loathsome; the
idea of seeing that woman, of being forced to en-
dure her presence, of having the mistress of young
Lani known in England as my wife, was so hor-
rible, that, without thinking, I snatched at the
only means of security. I paid him what he asked
exorbitant, of course and hung that other
millstone round my neck for life ! From that
time, to within the last twelvemonths, her brother
has come to me, whenever his or her exchequer
failed ; she was not above living on the husband
she had wronged ! For twenty years I kept my
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 127
secret ; all I had to remind me of my fatal tie
was the annual visit of Castrone. Can any one
wonder that when I met you I forgot oftentimes
my own fetters, and, what was worse, your danger ?
In my many loves I have only, I confess, sought
pleasure and revenged myself on Sylvia's sex
how could I think well or mercifully of women ?
But you roused in me something infinitely deeper,
and more tender. In you the soft idyls of my
lost dreams lived again ; with you the grace and
glory of my lost youth returned. Before, as a,
man of the world bitterly as I felt the secret
disgrace of it I experienced no inconvenience
from the tie. I wooed many lightly, won them
easily, forsook them recklessly. None of the
three could I do with you. They only charmed
my senses; you won into my heart; they had
amused me, you grew dear to me a wide dif-
ference, Violet, in a woman's influence upon a
man. At first, I confess I flirted carelessly with
you. But when the full beauties of your heart
and mind unfolded themselves to me for the first
time, I remembered mercy, even while I learnt
that for the last time I loved ! How great were
my sufferings I need not tell you. Unable to bear
the misery of constant intercourse with you, con-
scious in myself that if long under the temptation
128 "held in bondage;" or,
I should give way under it, and say words for
which, when you knew all, you might learn to
hate me '
* Oh, never, never ! ' whispered Violet, fondly.
* I should always love you, come what might/
Sabretasche passed his hand fondly over her
brow:
* I knew well that you would. But it was the
very consciousness that if you loved, you would
love very differently to the frivolous and incon-
stant women of our set, which roused me into
mercy to you. I left for the south of France, to
give myself time for reflection, or vain hope !
to forget you, as I had forgotten many ; to give
you time to find, if it so chanced, some one who,
more worthy of your attachment, would reward it
with the legitimate happiness which the world
smiles upon. In a week from leaving London I was
in the Pyrenees, intending to stay there for some
time for the sake of the sea-bathings; but the first
evening I was at Biarritz, I took up over my cho-
colate an Italian newspaper how it chanced to
come there I know not it was the * Nazionale*
of Naples. Among the deaths I read that of
my wife ! Great heaven ! that a husband's first
thoughts should be a thanksgiving for the death
of the woman he once fondly loved, over whose
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 129
sleep he once watched, and in whom he once
reposed his name, his trust, his honour ! I read it
over and over again, the letters danced and swam
before my eyes ; I, whom the world says nothing
can disturb or ruffle, shook in every nerve, as I
leaned out into the evening air, dizzy and deli-
rious with the rush of past memories, and future
hopes, that surged over my brain ! With that one
fateful line I was free ! No prisoner ever wel-
comed liberty with such rapturous ecstasy as I.
The blight was off my life, the curse was taken
from my soul, my heart beat free again as it had
never done during the twenty long years that
the bitter shame and misery of my marriage had
weighed upon me. Love and youth and joy were
mine again. A new existence, fresher and fairer,
had come back to me. My cruel enemy, who had
given my honour to a cur, and who had yet stooped
to live on the money she robbed from the boy-
husband she had wronged, was dead, and I at last
was free free to offer to you the fondest love
man ever offered woman free to receive at your
hands the golden gifts, robbed from me for so
long. Violet, I know that I shall not ask for
them in vain ? '
She lifted her face to his with broken words,
in her eyes gleaming unshed tears ; and as his lips
VOL. n. K
130 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
lingered upon hers, the new youth and joy he
coveted came back to Sabretasche, never, he
fondly thought, to leave him again while both
their lives should last.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 131
CHAPTER VI.
ONE OF THE SUMMER DAYS BEFORE THE STORM.
The Derby fell late that year. The day was a
brilliant, sunshiny one, as it ought to be, for it is
the sole day in our existence when we are excited
and do not, as usual, think it necessary to be bored
to death to save our characters. We confess to a
wild anxiety at the magic word * Start ! ' to which
no other sight on earth could rouse us. We watch
with thrilling eagerness the horses rounding the
Comer as we should watch the beauty of no Gala-
tea, however irresistible ; and we see the favourite
do the distance with enthusiastic intoxication, to
which all the other excitements on earth could
never fire our blood ! From my earliest recollec-
tion since I rode races with the stable boys at five
years old, and was discovered indulging in that re-
prehensible pastime by my tutor (a mild and in-
offensive Ch. Ch. man, to whom * Bell's Life ' was
a dead letter, and the chariot-racing at Borne and
k2
132 "held in bondage;" or,
Elis the only painful reading in the classics), my
passion has been the Turf. The Turf ! ^there
must needs be some strange attraction in our
English sport. It has lovers more faithful than
women ever win ; it has victims, voluntary holo-
causts upon its altars, more numerous than any
creed that ever brought men to martyrdom ; its
iron chains are hugged where other silken fetters
have grown wearisome ; its fascination lasts while
the taste of the wine may pall and the beauty of
feminine grace may satiate. Men are constant to
its mystic charms where they tire of love's beguile-
ments ; they give with a lavish hand to it what
they would deny to any living thing. Olden
chivalry, modern ambition, boast no disciples so
faithful as the followers of the Turf; and, to the
Turf, men yield up what women whom they love
would ask in vain ; lands, fortunes, years, ener-
gies, powers ; till their mistress has beggared them
of all even too often robbed them of honour
itself!
To the Derby, of course, we went Curly, I,
and some other men, in De Vigne's drag, lunched
off Rhenish, and Guinness, and Meet, and all the
delicacies Fortnum and Mason ever packed in a
hamper for Epsom ; and drove back to mess along
the crowded road. Dropping the others en route.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 133
De Vigne drove me on to dine with him at his
own house in Wilton Crescent.
* Come into my room first, old fellow,' he said,
as we passed up the stairs. * I bought my wedding
presents for Sabretasche and his wife that will be,
yesterday, and want to show them to you. Holloa !
what the deuce is that fellow Raymond doing ?
reading my letters as I live ! I think I am fated
to come across rascals ! However, as they make
up nine-tenths of the world, I suppose I can't be
surprised at the constant rencontres ! '
From the top of the staircase we saw, though
at some distance, straight through into De Vigne's
bedroom, the door of which stood open. At the
writing-table in the centre sat his head valet*
Raymond, so earnestly reading some of the corre-
spondence upon it, that he never heard or saw us.
De Vigne sometimes wrote his letters in his bed-
room ; he always read those by the first post over
his matutinal coffee ; and as he was immeasurably
careless both with his papers and his money, his
servants had always full opportunity to peruse
the one and take the other. If he had seen the
man taking ten pounds off his dressiug-table, he
would have had a fling at human nature, thought
it was the way of that class of people, and kept
the man on, because he was a useful servant, and
134 "held in BONDAGE;' OR,
no more of a thief, probably, than another would
be. But no matter in what rank a dishonoar-
able or a sneaky thing, a breach of trust in any
way, always irritated him beyond conception ; he
had been betrayed in greater or minor things so
often, and treachery was so utterly foreign to
his own frank and impetuous nature, that
his impatience at it was very pardonable. I
could see his eyebrows contract ominously; he
went up, stretched his hand over the man's
shoulder, and took the letter quietly out of his
grasp.
* Go to Mills for your next month's wages, and
leave this evening.'
Raymond, sleek, and smooth, and impenetrable
as he was, started violently, and changed colour ;
but his answer was very ready.
*Why, Major? I was merely sorting your
papers, sir. You have often ordered me to do
that.'
*No lies leave the room!* said his master,
briefly, as he turned to me. * Arthur, here are
the things I mentioned. Come and look at
{them.'
His valet did not obey his order; he still
lingered. He began again, in his soft, purring
:tone :
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 135
' You wouldn't dismiss me like this, Major, if
you knew what I could tell you/
' Leave the room, and send Robert to me,' said
De Vigne, with that stern hauteur which always
came up when people teazed him. He had had
his own way from his infancy, and was totally unac-
customed to being crossed. It is bad training
for the world for a man to have been obeyed from
his cradle.
'You would give me a good deal. Major, to
know what I know. I have a secret in my keep-
ing, sir, that you would pay me handsomely to
learn '
' Silence ^and leave the room ! ' reiterated De
Vigne, with an impatient stamp of his foot.
Raymond bowed, with the grace becoming a
groom of the chambers.
' Certainly, sir. I hope you will pardon me for
having troubled you.'
Wherewith Ue backed out with all the sang-
froid imaginable, and De Vigne turned to me :
* Cool fellow, isn't he ? '
* Yes, but you might as well have heard what
he had to say.'
' My dear fellow, why ? ' cried De Vigne, with
his most grandiose and contemptuous smile.
' What could tha,t man possibly know that
136 "held i\ bondage ;" or,
conld coDcem me. It vrss only a rase to get
money out of me, or twist his low-bred cariosity
in spying over my letters into a matter of mo-
ment. I was especially annoyed at it, becanse
the letter he was reading is a note from Alma ;
nothing in it ^merely to answer a question I
asked her about one of her pictures; but yon
know the child has an enthusiastic way of ex-
pressing herself at all tiroes means nothing, but
sounds a great deal, and the " Dear Sir Folko,**
and " your ever grateful Little Alma," and all the
rest of it the days are so long when I don't go
to see her, and she envies the women who are in
my set and always with me and all that reads
rather . . . . / know how she means it, but a com-
mon man like Raymond will put a very different
significance upon it.'
' Most probably. / know how she means it
too ; still, you know the old saying, De Vigne,
relative to toying with edged tools ? *
* No, I don't,' said De Vigne, curtly ; * or at
least I should say I know edged tools, when I
see them, as well as you do, and am old enough,
if I did come across them, not to cut myself with
them. I can't think what has possessed Sabre-
tasche and you to try and sermonize to me!
Heaven knows you need to lecture yourselves,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 137
both of you ! I don't stand it very well from him ;
but I'll be shot if I do from you, you young dog,
whom I patronized in jackets in Frestonhills !
Get out with you, and let Robert take the Derby
dust off you in the blue-room/
And he threw Alma's note into a private drawer
(to be kept, I wonder ?), and pushed me out by
the shoulders.
No Cup day ever was so ill-bred as to send
dusky English rain-drops on the exquisite toilettes
that grace the most aristocratic race in the uni-
verse, and we had * Queen's weather ' for Ascot.
We had all betted on the Colonel's chesnut, who
won the Ascot Cup, distancing all the rest of the
first flight at an easy swinging gallop, without
any apparent effort ;* and when we had seen the
race fairly run, we went up to the Molyneux car-
riage to congratulate the Colonel on his chesnut's
triumph : Sabretasche being missed from his usual
circle of titled betting-men and great turfites,
and, for the first time in all his life, watching
Ascot run, with his attention more given to the
face beside him, than the course before.
His old-accustomed bay-window saw compara-
* I have taken a liberty with the Ascot of '54, which I trust
will be pardoned me at the Corner ! Ouida.
138 "held in bondage;" or,
lively little of him ; his mornings were given to
Violet in the tete-a-tete of her boudoir; in the
Ride and the Ring he was by her side or in her
carriage ; and the whist-tables of the United, the
guinea points of the Travellers', the coulisses,
the lansquenet parties, saw but very little of him.
The Colonel, for the time being, was lost to us
and to * life,' which he had lived so recklessly and
graced so brilliantly for so many years ; and I
suppose his new occupation charmed him, for
when we did get an hour or two of him, he was
certainly more delightful than ever: there was
such a joyous ring in his ever-brilliant wit such
gentleness, to all people and all things, out of the
abundance of his own happiness such a depth of
rest and contentment, in lieu of that touching and
deep-seated melancholy, which had gone down so
far into his character under his gay and fashion-
able exterior, that it had seemed as if nothing
would uproot it. So happily does human life
forget its past sorrows in present joy, as the green
meadows grow dark or golden, according as the
summer sun fades on and off them ! His mar-
riage was fixed to take place in a few weeks, and
all the prosaic details which attend on love in these
days of matter-of-fact and almighty dollars (how
often to tarnish and corrode it !) grew in his hands
GRANTILLE DE* VIGNE. 139
into the generous gifts of love to love, the out-
ward symbols of the inward worship. So sur-
rounded, and with such a future lying before her,
in its brilliant colours and seductive witchery, can
you not fancy that our ever-radiant beauty looked
^how, words are not warm enough to tell; it
would need a brush of power diviner than Titian's
to picture to you Violet Molyneux's face as it was
then, the incarnation of young, shadowless, bril-
liant, impassioned life !
* I knew we should win ! * she said, as we
approached her barouche. *Did I not tell you
so, Major de Vigne ? '
* You did, * fair prophetess ; and if you will
always honour me with your clairvoyant instruc-
tions, I will always make up my books accord-
ingly.'
* The number of bets / have made to-day is
something frightful/ answered Violet. *If that
darling horse had failed me I should have been
utterly ruined in gloves.'
* As it is, you will have bracelets and negliges
enough to fill Hunt and Roskell's ! You are most
dangerous to approach, Miss Molyneux, in more
ways than one,' said Vane Castleton, who was
leaning against the carriage door flirting vnth her
mother.
140 "held lit BONDAGE;" OR,
* Oh ! pray don't, Lord Vane ; you talk as if I
were some grim and terrible Thalestris!' cried
Violet, with contemptuous impatience, looking at
Sabretasche with a laugh.
* Thalestris ! ' repeated Sabretasche, smiling.
* You have but very little of the Amazon about
you ; not enough, perhaps, if your lines had fallen
in hard places.*
* Instead of rose-leaves ! Yet I think I can fight
my own battles ? '
* Oh yes ! ' laughed Sabretasche. * I never
meant to hint but that you had, in very great per-
fection, that prerogative par excellence of woman,
that Damascus blade, whose brilliantchasing makes
us treat it as a toy, until the point has wounded us
the tongue ! '
* If mine is a Damascus blade, yours is an Ex-
calibur itself ! Le fourgon se moque de la peUe^
monsieur I '
*An English inelegance taking refuge in a
foreign idiom ! What true feminine diplomacy ! '
laughed Sabretasche, resting his eyes on her with
that deep tenderness for her, for all she did,
and said, and thought, which had grown into his
life.
She laughed too a sweet, gay laugh of perfect
happiness.
GBANVILLE DE VIGNE. 141
* Ah ! there is Her Majesty going off the stand
before Queen Violet goes too ! Colonel Sabre-
tasche tells me, Major de Vigne, that you know
the artist of that lovely " Louis Dix-sept,** and that
she is a lady living at Richmond. May I go and
see her ? '
* Certainly, if you will be so kind/
De Vigne felt a certain annoyance; why, I
doubt if he could have told a certain selfish de-
sire to keep his little flower blooming unseen,
save by his own eyes, acting unconsciously upon
him.
* The kindness will be to me. Is she young ? *
* Yes.'
* And very pretty ? '
* Really I cannot say ; ladies' tastes differ from
ours on such points.'
*I hope she is,' said Violet, plaintively. *I
never did like plain people, never could ! I dare
say it is very wrong, but I think one likes a hand-
some face as naturally as one prefers a lily to a
dandelion ; and I am quite certain the artist of
that sketch must be pretty she could not help
it.'
* She is pretty,' said Sabretasche ; at least attrac-
tive what you will call so.'
' Then will you take me to see her to-morrow,
142 "held in bondage;" or,
Major de Vigne, and introduce us? Of course
you will ; no one refuses me anything ! You can
come with me, can you not, Vivian ? We will all
ride down there early, shall we ? '
* Yes, and lunch at the Dilcoosha, if Lady Moly-
neux permit ? '
* Go where ? Do what ? ' asked the Viscountess,
languidly, turning reluctantly from her, I presume,
interesting conversation with Vane Castleton.
Sabretasche repeated his question.
*To see an artist, and lunch with you? Oh
yes, I shall be very happy, I don't think we have
any engagements for to-morrow morning,' said
Lady Molyneux, turning again to Castleton.
* Are you going to the Luraleys to-night. Vane ? '
The morning after, half-a-dozen of us rode down
out of Lowndes Square. First, the Colonel and
Violet ; next, the Viscountess and her pet. Vane
Castleton ; then De Vigne and I De Vigne, I
must confess, in one of his most haughty, reserved,
and impatient moods, annoyed, more than he knew,
at having to take people to see Alma, whom he
had had to himself so long that he seemed to con-
sider any other visit to her as an invasion on his
own ' vested interests.' Besides, he was irritated
to be tricked into taking Vane Castleton there, of
all men in the world ! Lady Molyneux had asked
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 143
him ; De Vigne knew nothing of his addition to
the party until he had reached Lowndes Square,
and to make any comment on, or opposition to it,
would have been as useless as unwise.
* Does Miss Tressillian live alone with an old
nurse, Major De Vigne ? ' Lady Molyneux was
asking, in that voice which was langour and
superciliousness embodied. * How very queer
so young a girl ! To be sure, she is only an
artist ! Artists are queer people generally. Still,
it is very odd ! '
* Artists, like other people, must live ; and if
they have happened to have lost their parents,
they cannot live with them, I presume,' re-
sponded De Vigne, dryly. The Viscountess had
always an irritating effect upon his nerves.
* No, of course not : still, there are plenty of
places where a girl can take refuge that are most
irreproachable a school, for instance. She would
be much better, I should fancy, as a teacher,
or a '
*She happens to be a gentlewoman,' inter-
rupted De Vigne, quietly, *and nurtured in as
much luxury and refinement as your daughter/
* Indeed ! ' said the Viscountess, with a nasty
sneer and upraised eyebrows. * Pray, is she quite
a quite sl proper person for Violet to visit? *
144 " HELD IN BONDAGE ; OR,
De Vigne's slumbering wrath roused up ; every
vein glowed with righteous anger and scom for
the Pharisaic Peeress, of whose own under-cur-
rents he knew a story or two not quite so spot-
less as might have been.
* Lady Molyneux, if the ladies your daughter
meets in our set at Court and Drawing-room,
balls and operas, the immaculate Cordelias and
Lucretias of English Matronage, could lay claim
to half as pure a life, and half as pure a heart, as
the young girl you are so ready to suspect and to
condemn, it might be better for them and for
their husbands ! '
It was a more outspoken, and, in this case,
more personal, speech than is customary to the
bland reserve and reticence customary in * good
society,' where we may sin, but may not say we
do, and where it is only permitted to ridicule or
blackguard our friends behind their backs. The
Viscountess reddened under her delicate rouge,
and turned with a laugh to Castleton. The white
gate and dark thatched gables of St. Crucis Farm
were now close at hand, and De Vigne rode for-
ward.
*What a picturesque place!' cried Violet,
dropping her reins on her mare's neck. Oh,
Vivian, do look at those little lovely yellow
^
GRANVILLE BE VIGNE. 145
chickens, and that great China rose climbing all
over the house, and the veritable lattice windows,
and that splendid black cat in the sunshine!
Wouldn't you like to live here ? *
Sabretasche shook his head, and would have
crossed himself had he been a Catholic.
* My dear Violet ! Heaven forfend ! I cannot
sav I should.'
* Nor she either,' laughed De Vigne. * She
will be much more in her element in its neigh-
bour, your luxurious Dilcoosha.'
Sabretasche smiled, Violet's delicate colour
deepened, to vie with the China roses she ad-
mired, while the Colonel lifted her from her sad-
dle close to the objects of her attachment, the
little lovely yellow chickens, surely the prettiest
of all new-born things ; humiliatingly pretty beside
the rough ugliness of new-born man, who piques
himself on being lord of all created creatures;
God knows why, except that he is slowest in
development, and quickest in evil !
Certainly the old farm-house looked its best
that day, the grey stone, the black wooden porch,
the dark thatch, with its sombre lichens, that had
all appeared so dark and dreary in the dim Feb-
ruary light in which we first saw them, were only
antiquated in the full glow of the June sunlight.
VOL. II. L
146 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
The deep cool shadows of the two great chesnut
trees beside it, with their large leaves and snowy
pyramidal blossoms, the warm colours of the
China roses and the honeysuckles against its walls,
of the fiill-blossomed apple-trees, and the fragrant
lilacs those delicate perfiimy boughs that Horace
Walpole, the man of wit and gossip, courts and
salons, patches and powders, still found time to
love gave it the picturesqueness and brightness
which charmed Violet at first sight ; for not more
different is the view of human life in youth and
age, than the view of the same place in summer
and winter. If our life were but all youth ! if
our year were but all summer !
Out of the wide, low lattice window of her
own room, half shadowed by the great branches
of the chesnut-trees, with their melange of green
and white, yet with the full glow of the golden
morning sunbeams, and the rose-hued reflex of
the China roses upon her, Alma was leaning as
we alighted. Like her home, she chanced to look
her prettiest and most picturesque that day ; a
picture shrined in the dark chesnut-boughs and
the glowing flowers a picture which we could
see, though she could not see us.
Is that Miss Tressillian ? How lovely she is ! '
cried Violet, enthusiastically.
GRANVILLE BE VIGNE. 147
Sabretasche, thinking of her alone, smiled at
her ecstasies. The Viscountess raised her glass
with supercilious and hypercritic curiosity. Cas-
tleton did the same, with the look in his eyes
that he had given the night before to the very
superior ankles of a new danseuse. De Vigne
caught the look by George ! how his eyes flashed
and he led the way into the house, sorely wrath-
ful within him. Alma's innate high breeding
never showed itself more than now when she
received her unexpected influx of visitors. The
girl had seen no society, had never been * finished,'
nor taught to * give a reception ; ' yet her inborn
self-possession and tact never deserted her, and
if she had been brought up all her days in the
salons of the Tuileries or St. James, it would have
been impossible to show more calm and winning
grace than she did at this sudden inroad on the
conventual solitude of her studio. Violet and
she fraternized immediately ; it was no visit from
a fashionable beauty to a friendless artist, for
Violet was infinitely too much of a lady not
to recognize the intuitive aristocracy which in
the Little Tressillian was thoroughly stamped in
blood and feature, manner and mind, and would
have survived all adventitious circumstances or
surroundings. There was, besides, a certain re-
l2
148 "held in bondage; or,
semblance, which we had often noticed, in their
natures, their vivacity, and their perfect freedom
from all affectations.
The Viscountess sat down on a low chair in a
state of supercilious apathy. She cared nothing
for pictures. The parrot's talk, which was cer-
tainly very voluble, made her head ache, and Vane
Castleton was infinitely too full of admiration of
Alma to please her ladyship. De Vigne, when he
had done the introductory part of the action,
played with Sylvio, only looking up when Alma
addressed him, and then answering her more dis-
tantly and briefly than his wont. He could have
shot Castleton with great pleasure for the free
glance of his bold light eyes, and such a murderous
frame of mind rather spoils a man for society,
however great he may generally be as a conversa-
tionalist !
We, however, managed to keep up the ball of
talk very gaily, even without him. It was chiefly,
of course, upon art turning on Alma's pictures,
which drew warm praises from Violet and Castle-
ton, and, what was much more, from that most
fastidious critic and connoisseur, the Colonel. We
were in no hurry to leave. Castleton evidently
thought the chevelure doree charming ; women were
all of one class to him all to be bought ; some
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 149
with higher prices and some with lower, and he
drew no distinction between them, except that
some were blondes and some brunes. Violet liked
leaning against the old oak window-seat scenting
the roses, and listening to Sabretasche's classic and
charming disquisitions upon painting, and Alma
herself was in her element with highly-bred and
highly-educated people. We were in no hurry to
go ; but Lady Molyneux was, and was much too
bored to stay there long.
* You will come and see me ? * said her daughter,
holding out her hand to Alma. Oh yes, you
must. Mamma, is not Thursday our next " At
Home"? Miss Tressillian would like to meet
some of our celebrities, I am sure ; and they
would like to see her, for every one has admired
her "Louis Dix-sept." Have you any engage-
ment?*
Of course Alma had none. She gave a glance
at De Vigne, to see if he wished her to go, but as
he was absorbed in teaching Sylvio to sit on his
hind legs and hold a riding-whip on his nose, she
found no responsive glance, and had to accept it
without consulting him. Violet taking acceptance
for granted, and her mamma, who did not care to
contradict her before Sabretasche, joining lan-
guidly in the invitation, the Little Tressillian stood
150 "held est bondage;' or,
booked for the Thursday soiree in Lowndes
Square.
Violet bade her good-day, with that suave
warmth which ikshionable life could never ice out
of her, and the Viscountess swept out of the room,
and down the garden, in no very amiable frame of
mind. She rather affected {mtronizing artists of
all kinds, and had brought out several proteges,
though she unhappily had dropped them as soon as
their novelty had worn off; but to patronize a
girl's genius, whose face Vane Castleton admired,
was a very different matter, for my lady was just
now as much in love as she had ever been in love
with anything, except herdelf, and there is no pas-
sion more exigeant and tenacious than the fancy
of a woman, passSe herself, for a young and hand-
some man ! De Vigne was a little behind the
rest as he left the room, and Alma called him
back, her fece fiiU of the delight that Violet's
invitation had given her.
* Oh, Sir Folko ! I am so happy. Was it not
kind of Miss Molyneux ? '
* Very kind indeed.'
* Don't you like me to go ? '
*I? What have I to do with it? On the
contrary, I think you will enjoy yourself very
much.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 151
* You will be there, of course V
* I don't know. Perhaps.'
* Oh, you will,' cried Alma, plaintively. * You
would not spoil all my pleasure, surely ? But why
have you spoken so little to me this morning ? '
* You have had plenty of others to talk to you,'
said De Vigne, coldly. *At least, you have
seemed very much amused.'
*Sir Folko, that is very cruel,' cried Alma,
vehemently. 'You know as well as I can tell
you, that if you are not kind to me, all the world
can give me no pleasure.'
* Nonsense ! Good-by, petite,' said De Vigne,
hastily, but kindly, for his momentary irritation
had passed, as he swung through the garden and
threw himself across his horse.
* What a little darling she is, Vivian?' said
Violet, as they cantered along the road. * Don't
you think so ? '
Sabretasche laughed :
* Really, I did not notice her much. There is
but one " darling" for me now.'
' Deuced nice little thing, that ! ' said Castleton
to me; * uncommonly pretty feet she has; I
caught sight of one of them. I suppose she's
De Vigne's game, bagged already probably, else,
on my honour, I shouldn't mind dethroning La
152 "held in bondage;" or,
Valdare, and promoting her, French women
have such deuced extravagant ideas/
I believe if De Vigne had heard him he vrould
have knocked Castleton straiffht off his horse ! His
cool way of disposing of Alma irritated even me a
little, and I told him, a trifle sharply, that I thought
he had better call on his honour' to remember that
Miss Tressillian had birth and education, and that
she was hardly to be classed with the Anonyma
of our acquaintance. To which Castleton re-
sponded with a shrug of his shoulders and a twist
of his whiskers :
* Bless your soul, my dear fellow, women are all
alike ! Never knew either you or De Vigne scru-
pulous before ; ' and rode on vrith the Viscountess,
asking me, with a sneer, if I was * the Major's
gamekeeper ? '
De Vigne was very quick to act, but he was un-
willing to analyze. It always fidgeted him to rea-
son on, to dissect, and to investigate his own feel-
ings ; he was not cold enough to sit on a court-
martial on his own heart, to cut it up and put it in
a microscope, like Gosse over a trog or a dianthis,
or to imitate De Quincey's habit of speculating on
his own emotions. He was utterly incapable of
laying his own feelings before him, as an anatomist
lays a human skeleton, counting the bones, and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 153
muscles, and points of ossification, it is true, but
missing the flesh, the colouring, the quick flow of
blood, the warm moving life which gave to that
bare skeleton all its glow and beauty. De Vigne
acted, and did not stop to ask himself why he did
so nine times out of ten ; therefore he never in-
quired, or thought of inquiring, why he had expe-
rienced such unnecessary and unreasonable anger
at Castleton and Alma, but only felt remorsefully
that he had lacked kindness in not sympathizing
with the poor child in her very natural delight at
her invitation to Lowndes Square. Whenever he
thought he had been unkind, if it were to a dog,
he was not easy till he had made reparation ; and
not stopping to remember that unkindness from
him might be the greater kindness in the end, he
sent her down on Thursday morning the best bou-
quet the pick of Covent Garden could give him,
clasped round with a parure of jewels, as delicate in
workmanship as rare in value, with a line, ' Wear
them to-night in memory of your grandfather's
friendship for *^ Sir Folko." '
De Vigne's virtues led him as often into
temptation as otner men's vice. When he
sent those flowers and pearls to the Little
Tressillian, I am certain he had no deeper
motive, no other thought, than to make reparation
154 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
for his unkindness, and to give her as delicately as
he could ornaments he knew that she must need.
With him no error was foreplanned and premedi-
tated. He might have slain you in a passion, per-
haps, but he could never have stilettoed you in
cold blood. There was not a taint of malice or
design, not a trace of the * serpent nature ' in his
character.
GRANVILLE DE VIGXE, 155
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE OLDEN DELIRIUM AWOKE LIKE A GIANT
PROM HIS SLUMBERS.
The Molyneux rooms in Lowndes Square were
ftill ; not crowded, the Viscountess knew too well
the art of society to cram her apartments, as is the
present habitude, till lords and ladies jostle and
crush one another like so many Johns and Marys
crowding before a fair the rooms were full, and
* brilliantly attended,' as the morning papers had
it next day, for though they were of the fourth
order of nobility, the Molyneux had as exclusive
a set as any in town, and knew * everybody.'
' Everybody ! ' Comprehensive yet exclusive
phrase ! meaning, in their lips, just the creme de la
creme, and nothing whatever below it ; meaning,
in a Warden's, all his Chapter ; in a schoolgirl's,
all her schoolfellows ; in a leg's, all the * ossy-men ; '
in an author's, those who read him; in a painter's,
those who praise him ; in a rector's, those who tes-
156 "held in bondage;" or,
timonialize and saint him ! In addition to the
haute volee of fashion there was the ha/ute voUe of
intellect at the Viscountesses Reception, for Lady
Molyneux dearly loved to have a lion (though
whether a writer who honours the nations, or an
Eastern prince in native ugliness and jewellery*
was perhaps immaterial to her !) ; and many of our
best authors and artists were not only acquaint-
ances of hers, but intimate friends of Sabre tasche^s,
who at any time threw over the most aristocratic
crush for the simplest intellectual rfeunion, pre-
ferring, as he used to say, the God-given cordon
of Brain to the ribbons of Bath or Garter.
I went there early, leaving a dinner-party in
Eaton Square sooner than perhaps I should have
done, from a trifle of curiosity I felt to see how
the * Little Tressillian ' comported herself in her
new sphere ; and I confess I did not expect to see
her quite so thoroughly at home, and quite so
much of a star in her own way as I found her to
be. I have told you she had nothing of Violet's
regular and perfect beauty regular as a classic
statue, perfect as an exquisitely-tinted picture
yet, someway or other. Alma told as well in her
way as the lovely Irish belle in hers ; told even bet-
ter than the Lady Ela Ashbumington, our modem
Medici Venus but who, alas ! like the Venus,
GRANVILLB DE VIGNE. 157
never opens those perfectly-chiselled lips ; or the
exquisite Mrs. Tite Delafield, whose form would
rival Canova's Pauline, if it weren't made by her
caaturikre: or even Madame la Duchesse de la
Vieillecour, now that ah me ! the sweet rose
bloom is due to Palais Royal shops, and the once
innocent lips only breathe coquetries studied be-
forehand, while her maid brushes out her long
hair, and Gwen ' pshaw ! Madame la Duchesse
^glances alternately from Octave Feuillet's or
Feydeau's last novel, to her Dresden-framed
mirror.
Yes, Alma won upon all ; whether it was her
freshness, whether it was her natural abandon,
whether it was her unusual talent, wit, and gay
self-possession (for if there is a being on earth
whom I hate, 'tis Byron's * bread-and-butter miss'),
I must leave undetermined. Probably, it was
that nameless something which one would think
Mephistopheles himself had given some women,
so surely and so unreasoningly do men go down
before it, whether they will or no. The women
Sneered at her, and smiled superciliously, but that
was of course ! See two pretty women look at
each other there is defiance in the mutual re-
gard, and each thinks in her own heart, ^ Je mis
me f rotter corUre Wellington 1' One might have
158 "held in bondage;" or,
imagined that those high-bred beauties, with their
style and their Paris dress, their acknowledged
beauty, and their assured conquests, could well
have spared Alma a few of the leaves out of their
weighty bay wreaths. Yet I believe in my soul
they grudged her even the stalks, and absolutely
condescended to honour her with a sneer (surest
sign of feminine envy) when they saw not only
a leaf or two, but a good many garlands of rose
and myrtle going to her in the Olympic game
of ' Shining.'
An R. A. complimented her on her talent, a
Cabinet minister smiled at her repartee, a great
litterateur exchanged mots with her. Curly fell
more deeply in love with her than ever, Castleton
was rapturous about her feet, very blasts men
about town went the length of exciting them-
selves to ask her to dance, and Attaches and
Guardsmen warmed into stronger admiration than
their customary nil admirari-ism usually per-
mitted, about her. Yet she bent forward to
me as I approached her with a very eager
whisper :
' Oh, Captain Chevasney ! isn't Major De Vigne
coming ? '
I really couldn't tell her, as I had not seen
him all day, save for a few minutes in Pall Mall ;
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 159
and the disappointment on her face was amusing.
But a minute afterwards her eyes flashed, the
colour deepened in her cheeks.
* There he is ! ' she said, with an under-breath
of delight. And her attention to Curly, and
Castleton, and the other men, began to wander
considerably.
There he was, leaning against the doorway,
looking bored, I was going to say, but that is
rather too affected a thing, and not earnest nor
ardent enough for any feeling of De Vigne's ; it
was rather the look of a man too impatient and
too spirited for the quiet trivialities around him,
who would prefer ' fierce love and faithless war '
to drawing-room flirtations and polite character-
damning ; the look of a horse who wants to be
scenting powder and leading a charge, and is
ridden quietly along smooth downs where nothing
is stirring, with a curb which he does not relish.
Ostensibly, he was chatting with a member of the
Lower House : absolutely, he was watching Alma
with that look in his eyes, caused, I think, by a
certain peculiarity of dropping the lashes oyer
them when he was angry, which made me fancy
he was not overpleased to see the men crowding
round the little lady.
^ He won't come and speak to me. Do go and
160 "held in bondage;" or,
ask him to come/ whispered Alma, confidentially,
to me.
I laughed he had not been more than three
minutes in the room ! and obeyed her behest.
* Your little friend wants you to go and talk to
her, De Vigne.'
He glanced towards her.
* She is quite as well without any attention from
me, considering the reports that have already
risen concerning us, and she seems admirably
amused as it is.'
* Halloa ! are we jealous ? *
* Jealous ! Of what j^pray ? ' asked my lord,
with supreme scorn.
And moving across the room at once in Alma's
direction (without thinking of it, I had suggested
the very thing to send him to her, in sheer de-
fiance), he joined the group gathered round the
Little Tressillian, whose radiant smile at his ap-
proach made Castleton sneer and poor Curly swear
sotto voce under his moustaches. De Vigne, how-
ever, did not say much to her ; he shook hands
with her, said one or two things, and then talking
with Tom Severn (whom Alma had attracted to
her side) about the ties shot off at Homsey Wood
that morning, left the little lady so much to the
other men, that though he was within a yard of
GRANVILLK DK VIOXK. I (51
her, she thought she preferred him in her studio
at St. Crucis than in the crowded salons of that
* set ' of his in which she had wished to meet
him.
I)e Vigne talked to those about him, but he
meanwhile watched her dancing, lightly and grace-
fully as a Spanish girl or an Eastern bayadere;
watched her, the fact dawning on him, with a
certain warning thrill, that she was not, after all,
a little thing to laugh at, and play with, and pet
innocently, as he did his spaniel, but a woman, as
dangerous to men as she was attractive to them,
who could no more be trifled with without the
trifling falling back again upon the trifler, than
absinthe can be drunk like water, or opium
eaten long without delirium.
Certain jealousies surged up in his heart, cer-
tain embers that had slumbered long began to
quicken into flame ; the blood that he had tried
to chill into ice-water rushed through his veins
with something of its natural rapidity and fire.
He had pooh-poohed Sabretasche's earnest and
my half-laughing counsels; he now heeded as
little what ought to have roused him much more,
the throbs of his own heart, and the passions
stirring into life within him.
She was a child ; his own honour was guard
VOL. n. M
162 "held in bondage; or,
sufBcient against love growing up between them.
So he would have said if he had ever reasoned on
it. But he was not cold enough for such self-
examination, and even now, though jealousy was
waking up in him, he was wilfully blind to it, and
to the irritation, which the sight of the other
men crowding round, and claiming, her excited in
him.
* Don't you mean to dance with me ? ' whispered
Alma, piteously, as he passed her after the waltz
was over.
^ I seldom dance,' he answered.
It was the truth : waltzing used to be a passion
with him, but since the Trefusis had waltzed his
reason away, the dance had brought disagreeable
associations with it.
* But you must waltz with me ! '
* Hush ! All the room will hear you,' said De
Vigne, smiling in spite of himself. ^ Let me look
at your list, then ! '
* Oh, I would not make any engagements. I
might have been engaged ten deep. Sir FoJko, but
I kept them all free for you.'
*May I have the honour of the next waltz
with you, then. Miss TressiJlian ? ' asked De
Vigne, in a louder tone, for the benefit of the
people round.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 163
As he put his arm round her, and whirled her
into the circle, he remembered, with a shudder at
the memory, that the last woman he had waltzed
with was the Trefusis. In India wilder sports
and more exciting amusements had filled his
time, and since he had been in England he had
chiefly frequented men's society.
*You had my note. Sir Folko?' was Alma's
first question. * I could never thank you for your
beautiful gifts, I could never tell you what hap-
piness they gave me.'
* You have said far more than enough, petite,'
said De Vigne, hastily.
* No ; ' persisted Alma, * I could neoer say
enough to thank you for all your lavish kindness
to me.'
' Nonsense,' laughed De Vigne. ' I have given
jewels to many other women, Alma, but none of
them thought they had any need to feel any
gratitude to me. The gratitude they thought was
due to thefm for having allowed me to oflTer them
the gift!'
He spoke with something of a sneer, from the
memory of how to him, at least women, high
and low, had ever been cheap, and worthless as
most cheap things are ; and the words cast a chill
over his listener. For the first time the serpent
M 2
164 "held in bondage; or,
entered into Alma's Eden entered, as in Milton's
apologue, with the first dawning knowledge of
Passion. Unshed tears sprang into her eyes,
making them flash and gleam as brilliantly as the
gems he had given her.
* If you did not give them from kindness,' she
said, passionately, *take them back. My hap-
piness in them is gone.'
* Silly child ! ' said De Vigne, half smiling at
her vehement tones. * Should I have given them
to you if I had not cared to do so ? On the con-
trary, I am always glad to give you any pleasures
if I can. But do you suppose. Alma, that I have
gone all my life without giving presents to any
one till I gave them to you ? '
Alma laughed, but she looked, half vexed, up
in his face even still ;
' No, I do not. Sir Folko ; but you should not
give them to me as you gave them to other
women, any more than you should class me with
other women. You have told me you did not ? '
* My dear Alma, I cannot puzzle out all your
wonderful distinctions and definitions,' interrupted
De Vigne, hastily. * Have you enjoyed the even-
ing as much as you anticipated ? '
^Oh, it is delightful!' cried the little lady,
with that rapid alternation from sorrow to mirth
k
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 165
due to her extreme susceptibility to external im-
pressions.
De Vigne raised his eyebrows, and interrupted
her again, somewhat unwarrantably :
* You are a finished coquette, Alma.'
Her blue eyes opened wide under their black
lashes :
* Sir Folko ! I ? '
*Yes, you. I am not finding fault with you
for it. All women are who can be. I only
wonder where, in your seclusion, you have learned
all those pretty wiles and ways that women, versed
in society from their childhood, fail to acquire.
Who has taught you all those dangerous tricks,
from whom have you imitated your skill in cap-
tivating Curly and Castleton and Severn, and all
those other men, however different their styles or
tastes? You are an accomplished flirt, petite, and
I congratulate you on your proficiency.'
He spoke with most unnecessary bitterness,
much more than he was conscious of, and certainly
much more than he ought to have used, for the Lit-
tle TressilHan was just as much of a coquette if
you like to call it so and no more of one, than
De Vigne in reality liked , for he measured women
by their power of fascination. But now the devil
of jealousy had entered into him.
166 "held in bondage; or,
Her eyes flashed, her lips quivered a little;
Alma was not a woman to sit down tranquilly
under injustice; her nature was too passionate
not to be indignant under accusation, though it
was at the same time much too tender not to
forgive it as rapidly where she loved the of-
fender.
* For shame, Sir Folko ! You are cruelly un-
just : you know as well as I do that you do not
believe what you say, though Heaven knows why
you say it! I am not aware that I have any
** wiles and ways " as you so kindly term them
but I do know that no one has "taught V them to
me. What I think I say; what I feel I tell
people ; if I am happy, I do not conceal it.
" Coquette ! *' I have heard you use that word to
women you despise. Coquette, I have heard you
say, means one to whom all men are equal. I
thank you greatly for your kind opinion of me ! '
* Hush, hush ! Heaven knows that was far from
my thoughts ! Forgive me, I know you have no
artifice or affectation, and I should never attribute
them to you. Let nothing I say vex you. If
you knew all, you would not wonder that I am
sceptical and suspicious, and sometimes perhaps
unjust.'
He spoke kindly, gently, almost fondly. He
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 167
was angry with himself for having spoiled her
unclouded pleasure. She looked up in his face
with a saddened, reproachful tenderness, which
had never been in her eyes before, different to
their impetuous vexation, different still to their
frank, affectionate confidence :
* Yes ; but trust me at least, if you doubt all
the world ? '
'Idol'
He spoke in a low whisper, her heart throbbing
against his, her breath upon his cheek, his hand
closing tight upon hers in the caress of the waltz ;
and witU the voluptuous swell of the music, the
tender and passionate light of the eyes that were
lifted to his, for the first time there awoke, and
trembled in them both, the dawn of that passion
which the one had never before known, which
to the other had been so fierce and fatal a
curse.
At that moment the music ceased : De Vigne
gave her his arm in silence, and soon after seated
himself by her on one of the couches, while other
men came round her, taking ices and talking the
usual ball-room chit-chat. It was strange how much
that single evening did for Alma ; she was admired,
courted, followed ; she learnt her own power, she
received the myrtle crown due to her own attrac-
168 "held in bondage;*' or,
tions, to the grace and talent of Nature she
seemed to acquire the grace and talent of Society,
and to the charming and winning ways of her
girlhood, she ad^ed the witchery, wit, and fasci-
nation of a woman of the world. In that one
night she grew tenfold more attractive than
before ; she was like a bird, who never sings so
well till he has tried his wings.
Not even Lady Ela, or Madame la Duchesse,
had more men anxious for the pleasure of taking
them to their carriages, than the young debutante.
Curly 's soft words pleaded for the distinction;
Tom Severn would fain have had it ; Gastleton
tried hard to give her his arm; but De Vigne
kept them all off, and took her down with that
tranquil appropriativeness which he thought his
intimacy with her would warrant. He would not
have been best pleased if he had heard the laugh
and the remarks that followed them, from the
men that were on the staircase watching the
women leave ! The gas-light shone on her eyes,
as she leaned forwards in the carriage, and put
out both her hands to him.
*Sir Folko! if I could but thank you as I
feel ! '
' If I could but prove to you you have nothing
to thank me for ! '
GRAlSrVILLE DE VIGNE. 169
^ At least, I have all the happiness that is in
my life?'
* Happiness ? Hush ! ' said De Vigne, passion-
ately. * How can you tell but that some day you
may hate me, loathe me, and wish to God that we
had never met ? '
* I ? O Heaven ! no. If I were to die by your
hand, I would pray with my latest breath that
God might bless you.'
* You would ? Poor child ! Alma, good
night ! '
* Good night.'
Those two good nights were very soft and low *
spoken with a more tender intonation than any
words that had ever passed between them. His
hands closed tightly upon hers; the love of
woman, his favourite toy in early youth, the stake
on which he risked so much in early manhood,
was beguiling him again. His head was bent so
that his lips almost touched her brow ; perhaps
they might have touched, and lingered there
but, * Way for the Duchesse de la Vieillecour's
carriage!* was shouted; the coachman started
off his horses, and De Vigne stood beneath the
awning, with the bright gas glare around and the
dark street beyond him, while his heart stirred
and his pulses quickened as, since his marriage-
170 "held in bondage;" or,
day, he had vowed they never should again for
any woman's sake.
He walked home alone, without waiting for his
night-cab, or, indeed, remembering it, smoking as
he paced the streets, forsaken in the early morn-
ing save by some wretched women reeling out of a
gin-palace, or some groups quitting a casino with
riotous mirthless laughter. He walked home,
restless, impatient, ill at ease, with two faces
before him haunting him as relentlessly as in the
phantasmagoria of fever the faces of the Trefusis
and of Alma the one with her sensual, the other
with her spiritual loveliness; the one who had
destroyed his youth, the other who had given it
back to him, side by side in their startling and
forcible contrast, as in the Eastern fable the good
angel sits on the right shoulder and the bad augel
on the left, neither leaving us, each pursuing us
throughout the day and night.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 171
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COST OF HONOUR.
The ball at Lady Molyneux's was on the 25th of
June. On the day after, just a fortnight before
the 10th, which was fixed as his marriage-day,
Sabretasche gave a fete at his Dilcoosha. That
exquisite place, which had always reminded me of
Vathek and of Fonthill, it had been a whim of
his to embellish in every possible way before his
engagement ; and now he seemed to take a delight
in making Violet's home as luxurious as his wealth
and his art could combine to render it. I went
over it with him one day, and I told him that if
ever I wanted to do up old Longholme as lavishly,
I hoped he would come and act as superintendent
of the works. Certainly, if Violet had married
the highest peer in the realm, she could not have
had a more lovely shrine than the Dilcoosha.
Regalia's grim and grand old castle in Merioneth-
shire would have looked very dull and dark after
Sabretasche's villa. The grounds were artificially
172 **HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
made as wild and luxuriant as any woodland in the
heart of the provinces, while yet all the resources
of horticulture were lavished on them. The
conservatories excelled Chatsworth's ; with here
and there, among their glories of blossom and
colouring, a marble group or a single statuette,
such as the rifling of Parisian, and Florentine, and
Roman studios could give him. The suite of
drawing-rooms opened out of them, a soft, demi-
lumiere streaming through rose-hued glass on a
thousand gems of art that were gathered in
them. Violet's morning room (I hate the word
* boudoir;' stockbrokers' Hackney or Peekham
villas boast their * boudoirs,' and tradesmen's
wives sit puffing under finery in ' boudoirs,' while
their lords take invoices in white aprons, or ad-
vertise their ' Nonpareil trousers,' their genuine
Glenlivat, or ne plus ultra coats!) was hung in
pale green and gold, with a choice library collected
in quaint mediaeval book-stands, the deep bay-
window opening on to the river view the
grounds afforded, the walls painted in illustration
of Lallah Rookh, and the greatest gems the house
contained in sculpture or in art shrined here in
her honour. Her bedroom and her dressing-room
were unrivalled; the bed was of carved ivory, the
curtams of rose silk and white lace, caught up by
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE 173
a chain of flowers, moulded and chased in silver ;
all the hangings of the rooms were rose and silver,
while silver lamps swung from the ceiling, giving
out perfume as they burned. It was a home fit
for an imperial bride, and though a still fairer
shrine, and for a purer deity, made me think of
Luciennes, where the * very locks of the doors
were works of art and chefs-d'ceuvre of taste/
On the 26th Sabretasche gave a fete at the
Dilcoosha, a day to be spent, according to Violet's
programme, so that, as she said, * she might catch
a glimpse of the Summer, and forget the Season
for an hour or two ;' and as the Colonel's Dilcoosha
was known to afford, if anything could, the requi-
sites for enjoying a long day, no one, even the
most ennuy^^ was bored at the prospect, especially
as his invitations were invariably very exclusive,
and I know people who would rush into that
quarter where is written
^^ Lasciate ogne speranza, o voi ch'entrate,"
if the admissions were exclusive ; and would de-
cline Paradise if its golden gates were opened to
the multitude !
The luncheon was gay and brilliant ; repartee
flowed vnth the still A'i, and mots sparkled with
the Johannisberg. Sabretasche showed nowhere
174 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
to better advantage than as a host ; his Chester-
field courtesy, his gracefiil urbanity, his careful
attention to everybody, and every trifle, above all,
his art in starting conversation and drawing people
out, always made parties at his house more charm-
ing than at any other.
During the luncheon, De Vigne sat next to
Leila Puffdoff, who, as I have before hinted, was
willing to make more love to him than Granville
cared to make to her. De Vigne was much set upon
by fine ladies, and she flirted vnth hipi desperately
during the luncheon, and made him row her on
the river afterwards, part of the grounds of the
Dilcoosha sloping downwards to the Thames, and
drooping their willow and larch boughs into the
water. De Vigne took the sculls, as in duty
bound, and rowed her a good way down, under
the arching branches ; but though Lady Pufidoff
put out all her charms, she could not lure him
into anything as warm or tender as she would
have liked; she was piqued possibly what he
wished to make her bid him scull her back to
the Dilcoosha, and, as soon as she was lauded,
went off to listen to Gardoni, with Crowndiamonds,
Castleton's eldest brother. De Vigne was pro-
foundly thankful to be released ; he had a fkncy
to leave all these people and scenes, which were
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 175
SO stale, and go where his heart inclined him, go
and see Alma Tressillian.
He knew the way by the river to St. Crucis ;
took the oars of the little boat which the Countess
had just vacated, and pulled himself up Thames
to a point where he knew a path led to the
farm-house, as he had once or twice walked down
to the bank with Alma by it, and rowed her
a mile or so on the water, amused with her
amusement in seeing those steamers, barges, and
cockle-shell boats in which Cockneys love
to disport themselves on that unodoriferous
stream.
He moored the boat to the bank, thinking of
the careless days when he had pulled up the river
with the Eton Eight, enjoying the glories of suc-
cess at the Brocas and Little Surley ; and walked
onwards to St. Crucis, with that swinging cavalry
step which had beaten many good pedestrians and
stalwart mountain guides in both hemispheres.
He strode along, too, to uneasy thoughts ; he was
conscious of a keener desire to sec the Little
Tressillian than he would confess to himself, and,
at the same time, he had a remorseful conviction
that it might be better to stay away, a suggestion
to which he was equally reluctant to listen. A
quarter of an hour brought him in sight of St.
176 "held in bondage;" or,
Crucis ; but with that sight he saw, too Curly,
who had apparently forsaken. the Dilcoosha for the
same purpose as himself. Curly had just pushed
open the gate and entered, as if he liked his des-
tination ; and De Vigne paused a moment behind
.him, under the road-side trees, wavering in his
mind whether he should follow him or not.
Where he stood he could see the garden, in all
its untrained profuse summer beauty; the great
chesnuts, with their snowy blossoms, that the wind
was scattering over the turf beneath; and under
the trees he saw Alma, and beside her, bending
eagerly forward. Vane Castleton ! He, too, then,
had left Sabretasche's fete to find his way after
Alma ! ' Curse the fellow ! swore De Vigne, in
his teeth, * how dare he come after her?' If he
had followed his instinct, he would have taken
Castleton up by his coat-collar and kicked him out
of the garden like a dog ; though probably, for
that matter, Castleton had as much right there as
himself?
Curly had pushed open the gate and entered,
and Alma, catching sight of him as he went across
the garden, sprang up, left Castleton rather unce-
remoniously, and came to meet him with a glad
greeting, and something of that gay, bright smile
which De Vigne liked to consider his own and his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 177
unshared property. Curly answered it with an
air more tender than mere compliment, and sat
down beside her, giving Castleton such a glance
as a man only gives to a rival who has forestalled
him.
De Vigne took in the whole scene at a glance,
and construed it, as his scepticism and his know-
ledge of women suggested to him. The darker
passions of his character rose up ; the venom of
jealousy entered into him again.
* She is a thorough-paced coquette, like all the
rest,' he thought. * I will not add another to the
fools who pander to her vanity.'
He swung round and retraced his steps, leaving
Alma sitting under her chesnut with Castleton
and Curly. It cut him to the soul that those
men should be near her, teaching her the power,
and, with the power, the artifices of her sex,
gaining who could say they would not, one or
other of them ? their way into her heart ! He
was mad with himself for the jealousy he felt ; and
fiercely and futilely he tried to persuade himself,
tried till at last he succeeded, that it was but his
regret at the inevitable fate which would await
Boughton Tressillian's adopted child if she lis-
tened to the love of Castleton, or even of Curly ;
for Curly, though frankhearted and honourable as
VOL. II. N
178 "held in bondage;" or,
a man could be, was young, wild, and held women
lightly.
All the fire which lay asleep under the armour
of ice which he had put on to guard himself from
a sex that had wronged him, was stirred and
kindled into flame. He might as yet seek to
give them, and to conceal them to himself under,
other names, but at work within were his old foes
jealousy and passion. The gay glitter of society,
as he joined a group under the fragrant lines of
the Dilcoosha, where Violet, Madame de la Vieil-
lecour, and others, were competing in skill as
Toxopholites for the prizes Sabretasche had rifled
from Howell and James's stores, seemed strangely
at variance with the tempest working up in his
heart ; and while he laughed and jested with the
women there, he could not forget for one instant
the Little Tressillian, as he left her smiling on
those men ! It was a far greater relief to him
than he would own to himself, when not long
afterwards he saw Castleton discussing the merits
and demerits of her bow with Ela Ashburnington ;
and in half an hour's time, or a trifle more, heard
Curly chatting frothy badinage with Mrs. Tite De-
lafield : though, following the dictate of his nature,
there was no bodily injury he could not have
found it in his heart to wreak upon them both,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 179
even on his own Frestonhills pet, for having won
those gay bright smiles under the chesnuts at
St. Crueis.
He would scarcely have been less wmthful if he
had heard Crowndiamonds saying to his brother,
* Where the deuce have you been to, Vane ?
Helena sent me to look for you, but I couldn't
find you anywhere.'
* I was after something far prettier than the did
woman,' was Castleton's graceful reply.
' Helena' was nobody less than my Lady Moly-
neux, with whom this noble scion of the House of
Tiara had been liS in a closer friendship than
Jockey Jack would have relished had he not
been taught to take such friendships as matters
of course.
* I've been to see that little girl TressiUian
called to look at her pictures, of course ; studios
are deuced nice excuse, by Jove !'
And Lord Vane curled his whiskers and laughed
at some joke not wholly explained.
' What, that little thing who was at Helena's
last night,' asked Crowndiamonds, * that you and
the other fellows made such a fuss about ? Heaven
knows why! she's too petite for me. Besides,
somebody said she was De Vigne's property!'
*What if she were? If he dont't take care
n2
180 "held is bondage; or,
of his game, other men may poach it, mayn't
they?'
Meanwhile that summer day passed away in
colours to Violet as glorious as those that tinged
its evening sky when the sun went down behind
the limes. Bright as the western light were her
present and her future ; secure she dreamed from
the grey twilight or the starless night, which over-
shadow the brightest human life, not less surely
than they overtake the fairest summer day. Of
twilight taint, much less of midnight shadow,
Violet knew no fear. I have never seen on earth
not even imagined in song nor idealized in art
any face so expressive of brilliant youth as hers.
When it was in repose there was the light of a
smile on her lips ; and the joyousness of the spirit
within seemed to linger far down in the sunny
depths of her eyes, as on the violet waves of the
Mediterranean we have seen the gleam and the
glow of the rays from a sunrise hidden from our
view. There was something in her face that
touched the most cynical amongst us, and sub-
dued the most supercilious or systematic of all
those women of the world into a vague regret for
the spring-time of their days, when they, too, were
in their golden hours, and they, too, believed in
Love and Life.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 181
Never had Violet given freer rein to the joyous
spirits of her nature than on that day ; never had
he more completely surrendered himself to the
new happiness he had won ! He loved her with a
strangely tender love. He loved her, as we love
very rarely, for
^ As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers,
And place them on their breast, but place to die ;
Thus the frail beings we should fondly cherish
Are laid within our bosoms but to perish ! '
He loved her better than himself.
* Ah ! Violet, time has leaden wings ! ' he
whispered to her as, when they escaped unnoticed
from the crowd, he led her through her own apart-
ments, locked to the ingress of others. *A fort-
night is not long, yet to me, while it keeps you
from me, it seems eternity ! Would to God you
were mine now ! '
The soft hue that wavered in her cheeks, the
low sigh, love's tenderest interpreter, that parted
her lips, re-echoed his wish, though words were
silent.
*You will love me thus always Vivian,' she
whispered, * never less tenderly, never less warmly,
never calmly, chillily, as men learn, they say, to
love women whom they have won ? *
* Never, my own love ! Calm, chill affections were
182 "held in bondage; or,
death to me as to you. My love has ever been as
warm as my native Southern suns ; for you it will
be as eternal.'
* Then what can part us ? ' murmured Violet,
lifting her face to his, with a smile upon her lips,
and in her eyes the joy secure from all terror and
all tarnish. * No power on earth ! And so well
do we love, that if death took one, he would strike
the other !'
* Hush ! ' whispered Sabretasche, fondly. * Why
speak of death or sorrow, my dearest ? Our fate is
life and joy ; and life and joy together ! We love ;
and in that word all happiness earth can know is
given to us both.'
He paused, and the silence that is sweeter than
any words supplied his broken words cold inter-
preters at best of the heart's most eloquent
utterances.
When all his other guests had left the Dil-
coosha, Lady Molyneux gave him the third seat
in her carriage back to town. The summer dawn
was very bright and still, with not a trace of
human life abroad, save in some gardeners' carts
wending their way slowly to Covent Garden with
their fresh pile of newly-gathered vegetables or
fragrant load of nodding hothouse flowers
flowers destined to wither in the soft, cruel hand
GRANTILLE DE VIGXE. 183
of some jewelled beauty, or droop and die, pining
for their native sunlight, under the smoke-shroud
of the Great City, as sweet natures and warm
hearts shrink or hatden, under the blight of a chill
world, or the pressure of an uncongenial existence.
There was no sign of human life, but the birds
were lifting up sweet gushes of natural song, the
dew was among the daisied grass, and the southerly
wind was tossing the wayside boughs up in its
play, and filling the air with a fragrance, brought
miles and miles on its rapid wings from the free,
fresh woodlands far away.
There was a soft beauty in the summer dawn
that chimed sweet cadence with their thoughts as
Violet and Sabretasche drove homewards ; while
Lady Molyneux worked throughout the season
for fashion's sake as hard as Hood's poor shirt-
maker for very life slept, though she would have
denied it, tranquilly and well. They enjoyed the
sweet daybreak as people do whose hearts are fall
of gladness ; she, with that love of all fair things
and that susceptibility to externals natural to
youth and to a heart which has never yet known
care ; he, with that poetic keenness to all things
in life and nature which had in boyhood made the
mere murmur of the Mediterranean waves, or the
setting of the sun, or the sighing of winds amoiig
184 "held in bondage;" or,
the olive-groves, pleasure to his senses. When the
future is fair to us, how fair looks the green and
laughing earth !
And she looked up in her lover's eyes :
* Oh, Vivian, how beautiful is life ! '
* With love ! '
Life and love were botli beautiful to him as he
whispered a farewell but for a few hours in Violet's
ear, bent his head for one soft hurried kiss from
the lips whose caresses were consecrated to him,
and descended from the carriage at the door of
his house in Park-lane.
It was past six o'clock when he reached his home,
and threw himself down on one of the couches of
that favourite room of his on the ground-floor,
which adjoined and opened into his studio, where
the morning light fell full on his easel, on a portrait
of Violet in pastel. He lay smoking his narghile
with that voluptuous indolence habitual to him
looking at the picture where his own art had re-
created the beauty of his young love feeling in
memory the loving, lingering touch of her lips
and dreaming over that fresh happiness whose
solitary reveries were dearer to him now than
society or sleep.
His life had never seemed so sweet, the peace
he had won so perfect; and when his servant
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 185
rapped gently at the door, though infinitely too
sweet-tempered, and, truth to tell, too lazy, to
irritate himself about trifles, he was annoyed to be
disturbed.
* I told you not to interrupt me till I rang for
my chocolate.'
* I beg your pardon. Colonel,' answered his man,
submissively. * I should not, but there is a per-
son asking to see you upon business, and, as he
said it was of great importance, I did not know,
sir, what would be best to do/
* What is always best to do is to obey me to the
letter ^you can never be wrong then. The per-
son could have waited. What is his name ? '
* He would not give it, sir ; he wished to see
you.'
* I see no one before two o'clock in the day.
Go tell him so.'
The man obeyed ; but in a minute or two he
returned.
*The gentleman will take no denial. Colonel.
He begs you to see him.'
*What an impertinent fellow!' said Sabre-
tasche, with surprise. *Tell him I will not see
him, that is sufficient. I see no one who does not
send in his card.'
* But, sir but '
186 "heij) in bondage;" or,
*Well, what? Speak out,' said Sabretasche
irritated at the disturbance. It seemed to let in
the disagreeables of outer life.
* But, sir, he says his business concerns you, and
and Miss Molyneux, sir.'
The man hesitated even servants living with
Sabretasche caught something of his delicacy and
refinement, and he knew intuitively how the
mention of her name would annoy his master. A
flush of astonishment and anger rose over Sabre-
tasclie's forehead. He was but too sensitive over
Violet, perhaps, from what he considered as the
deep disgrace of his first marriage, and he almost
disliked to hear servants' lips breathe his idol's
name. * Show him in,' he said briefly, signing the
man away. His past had been too fateful for him
to join in Violet's cloudless and fearless trust in
the future. One of the bitterest curses of sorrow
is the fear that it leaves behind it ; making us,
with the sweetest cup to our lips, dread the un-
seen hand that will dash it down, hanging the
funeral pall of the past over the most flittering
bridal clothes of the present, and poisoning the
sunshine that lies before us with the memory of
those clouds which, having so often come before,
must, it seems to us, come yet again. When
sorrow has once been upon us, we have no longer
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 187
faith in life we have but Hope, and Hope, God-
given as she is, is but fearful, and fluttering, and
evanescent at her best.
He lay still; the sunlight falling upon him and
upon the brilliant face on the easel at his side.
Vulgar and cruel eyes looked in on the scene
at the luxurious and beautiful studio, where every
trifle was a gem of art, and at the man with all
his grace and beauty, all his delicate and artistic
surroundings : and a vulgar and cruel mind gloated
with delight on the desolation and torture it had
power to introduce into that peaceful life. Sabre-
tasche lifted his eyes indolently as he did so the
slight flush upon his face died away; he grew
pallid as death. For he saw the man who was
linked with his hours of greatest shame, of most
bitter misery the brother and the emissary of his
faithless wife ! Involuntarily he rose, fascinated
by the sight of the man connected with the deepest
wrong and greatest shame of his life : and the
Italian looked at him with a smile that showed
his glittering white teeth, as a hound, who has
seized the noblest of Highland royals at bay,
shows his in the cruel struggle.
* Signor Castrone, this is a very unexpected in-
trusion,' said Sabretasche, in Italian, with all the
loathing that he felt for this scoundrel who had
188 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
stooped to live upon gold wrung from the husband
whom his own sister had wronged. * Your negotia-
tions with me are at an end. Allow me to request
you to withdraw.'
* Wait one moment, Signor Sabretasche,' an-
swered the Neapolitan, with a cunning leer in his
bright sharp eyes. * Are our negotiations at an
end?'
* So entirely, that if you do not leave my pre-
sence I shall be compelled to bid my servants
make you.'
The Italian laughed. The cold, contemptuous
tone stung him, and gave him but the greater
gusto for his task.
* Not so fast, buon' amico, not so fast ; we are
brothers-in-law, remember! It would not do for
us to quarrel.'
The blood crimsoned Sabretasche's face up to
his very temples.
*The tie you dare to mention, and appeal to,
ofoght to be your bitterest disgrace. Since you
are dead to shame, I need feel none for you ; and
if you do not leave the room, my servants will
compel you.'
* Per fede!' said the Italian, with a scoffing
laugh. * You will scarcely call your household in
to witness your connection with me. They can
GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 189
hear the secret if you choose ; it matters Dothing
to me ; only I fancied that now, of all times, you
would rather have kept it underhand. You are
going to be married, caro, I hear, to a lovely
English aristocrat is it so?'
Sabretasche answered nothing, but stretched
out his hand to the bell-handle in the wall nearest
him. He felt it was beneath him to bandy words
with such a man as Giuseppe da' Castrone, who, a
sort of gentlen^anlike lazzarone, half swindler,
half idler, a Southern Boheniien^ had lived on his
wits till he had lost all the traces of better feeling
with which he perhaps might have begun life.
He touched Sabretasche's wrist as the Coloners
white, slender hand was approaching the bell.
Sabretasche flung off the grasp as if it had been
pollution ; but before he could ring the Neapoli-
tan interposed with a smile, half cunning, half
malicious :
* Would it not have been wiser, Eccelenza, be-
fore you had taken one wife to have made sure
you had lost the other?'
Despite his nerve and habitual impassiveness,
Sabretasche started: a deadly anguish of dread
fastened upon him.
* Yours is a very stale device,' he said, calmly.
* Too melodramatic to extort money from me. If
190 "held in bondage;*' or,
you want a few scudi to buy you niaccaroni, or
game away at dominoes, ask for them in plain
words, and I may give you them out of charity.'
He stood leaning his arm upon the top of his
easel; his tall and graceful figure erect; pride,
scorn, loathing written on his features, and in the
depths of his eyes; speaking gently and slowly,
but very bitterly ! ^in his low and silvery voice.
The tone, the glance, woke all the malice that
slept in the Italian's heart for his sister's high-born
and high-souled husband. His eyes glittered like
an angry animal's ; he dropped the smoother tone
which he had used before, for one of coarse and
malicious vindictiveness.
* Santa Maria! don't take that proud tone with
me, carissimo, or I may make you glad to change
it, and turn your threats into prayers ! You are
not quite so near happiness as you fancy, my fine
gentleman. That is your young love's picture, no
doubt? Ah! it is a fair face; it will go hard
to lose it, I dare say? It would go harder
still if the proud, fastidious Vivian Sabretasche
were tried for bigamy! It would not look
pretty in the London papers, where his name
has been so often as a leader of fashion
and '
Before he could end his sentence Sabretasche
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 191
had sprung at him, rapidly and lightly as a panther,
and seized him by the throat :
* Wretch, you lie! How dare you to insult
me ! By Heaven ! if it were not too great honour
for you, I would kill you where you stand ! '
So* fierce was the grasp of his white slender
fingers in the passion into which his gentle na-
ture was at length roused, that the Italian,
almost throttled, struggled with difficulty from
his hold.
*You lie!' said Sabrelasche, flinging him off
with a force that sent him reeling from him.
* The woman whom you dare to recall as my wife
is dead ! '
*Per Dio, is she? You will find to the con-
trary, bel signer. Basta! but your hands have no
baby's grasp ; you had better have joined them in
prayer, best brother-in-law. If you marry the
English beauty, you will have two wives on your
shoulders, and one has been more than you have
managed ! '
Sabretasche's eyes were fixed upon him, fasci-
nated by horror as an antelope by a rattlesnake.
*Two wives two wives!' he muttered incohe-
rently, like a man in delirium. * She is dead, I
tell you she is dead!'
Then the sense, and transparent falsity, of what
192 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
the Neapolitan had said came clearer to his mind,
and, with an effort, he regained his calm and
haughty tone, speaking slowly between his teeth.
Signor Castrone, once more I will request you,
for your own sake, to leave this house quietly,
without compelling me to the force I am loth to
use. With her, the grave buries all past errors ;
but with you, I still shall treat as with any other
swindler. I am not a likely person to be terrified
by secret inuendoes or open insults. This time I
will let you go you are beneath my anger but
if you intrude yourself into this house, or venture
to approach me again, I shall call in the law to
rid me of a pest.'
Something in his voice, which, soft as it was
in his native Italian, bore a subtle magic of com-
mand, had awed the coarser nature into silence
while he spoke ; but wlien he paused, Castrone
broke out into a long, discordant, malicious laugh,
jarring like jangled bells upon every nerve and
chord in his listener s heart.
*Diavolo! buon' amico, it will be I more likely
who will have the law upon you 1 Sylvia is alive
alive! and your lawful wife, from whom nothing
but death can ever divorce you. I do not think
she loves you well enough, milor, to let another
woman reign in her stead, without making you
GRANVILLE DE VIGKE. 193
pay the heaviest penalty she can, for your double
marriage ! Wait ! you saw the death of a Sylvia
da' Castrone in an Italian paper, I dare say ? You
had the certificate of such a death from Naples?
Very possibly, but her aunt Sylvia da* Castrone
died last May in Naples, and it was her obituary
that you saw. If Sylvia died (as Santa Maria
forbid !), it would be recorded as what she is, and
what she will be while life lasts the wife of
Vivian Sabretasche. She lives nay, she is in
London, ready to proclaim her right to your
name to your new love or, if your union take
place before she can do so, she will then prose-
cute you according to your English law. She was
married in England, you remember ; she has not
lost the certificate, and the register is correct; I
saw it but this morning. It is no idle tale, I tell
you, buon' amico. I know you too well to try
and palm one off upon you unless I could sub-
stantiate it. Your wife is alive, cognate mio ! I
fear me there will be some few difficulties in the
way of your marrying your young beauty ? '
As the Italian spoke, his coarse malicious laugh,
like the hissing of a serpent, falling like seeth-
ing fire on his listener's heart, Sabretasche stood
gazing upon him. In his parted lips, in his eyes
wide open with the horror of amazement, on every
VOL. II.
194 "held in bondage;" or,
feature, already blanched and wan, was marked
the deadly anguish of despair, then, as the full
meaning of the words he heard, cut gradually into
his brain, his strength gave way, and he sank
down upon his couch, covering his face with his
hands, while cold drops of agony stood upon
his brow, and a bitter cry broke from the great
passion that had grown and strengthened and en-
twined itself around his heart, till it were easier
to drain that heart of its life-blood than its love.
And the Neapolitan stood by, gloating at the
ruin he had wrought. He had longed for years
to revenge the silent scorn, the cutting contempt,
the high-bred hauteur with which the man upon
whose gold he had lived had treated him he
had thirsted for the time to come when Sa-
bretasche should be humbled before him ^when
it should be his turn to hold the power which
could at will remove or let fall the sword that
hung above his victim's head when it should be
his to see, writhing in anguish before him, the
haughty gentleman at whose glance and whose
word he had so often flinched and slunk away.
He stood by and watched him, and Sabretasche
had forgot all sense of his presence, all memory
of the coarse, cruel eyes which looked on the
grief of one who so long had persuaded the world
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 195
that he valued life too little to give it aught but
smiles ; and Castrone laughed, the laugh of a de-
mon, at his own fell work.
'Milor does not seem charmed to hear of his
wife ; it does not seem to bring him the con-
nubial rapture one would expect ? '
The jeer, the taunt, the mockery of his woe,
stung to madness the heart of the man who shrank
even from the sympathy of friends, and who had
oftentimes won the imputation of callousness of
feeling, because he felt too deeply to bear to un-
veil his sorrows to the glare of daylight and
the sneers of men.
Sabretascbe started, as at the sharp touch of
the knife searching a fresh wound, and shivered as
if with the cold of death. He lifted his face, aged
in those brief moments as by long years of woe,
and there the brother of his wife read desolation
enough to satiate a fiend.
* If this were your errand,' he said, with effort
and his voice was hollow almost to inarticulateness,
* you have no further excuse for intrusion. I shall
take means for verifying your story; and now
begone, while I can keep my hands off you.'
* Here is your proof, Eccellenza ! '
Sabretasche mechanically read the paper held
out to him ; it contained but two lines.
o2
196 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
' If you will, you can see me once more to-day ;
but only to remind you that while I live no
other can call herself, your Wife,'
Though he had not seen it for more than twenty
long years, he knew the writing to be his wife's.
All hope died in him then; he knew that she
lived the woman who had wedded him to
misery and disgrace; the woman who now
came forward, after the absence and the silence of
a score of years, to ban him from the better life
to which a gentler and a purer hand was about
to lead him.
'I see her!' he cried, his passionate anguish, his
loathing hatred, breaking out in a rapid rush of
words, * / see the. woman who disgraced my name,
who betrayed my love ; who for twenty years has
lived upon my gold, yet never addressed to me
one word of repentance or remorse ; never one
word to confess her crimes ; never one prayer to
ask forgiveness of her sin ! / see her ! How dares
she ask it ? How dares she sign herself by the
name she has polluted? Go! tell her that I
will bribe her no more, that she is free to do her
worst that devils can prompt her, that she may
proclaim her marriage with me far and wide ; /
care not ! She may write her lying story in all the
papers if she will ; she may persuade all England
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 197
and all Italy that she is a fond, deserted wife, and
I a cruel faithless husband : she may bring my
name into Law Courts if she choose to sue me for
her maintenance ; but tell her, once for all, I give
her no more bribes, /disown her, though the
world will not divorce me. Now go; go, I
tell you, or by God I will not let you leave in
peace ! '
The fierce but coward nature of the Neapolitan
quailed before the passion of the usually gentle
and impassive Englishman. He spoke softly, more
timidly, smoothing down the coarseness of his
tone.
* But, signore, listen. If you feel thus towards
my poor sister, and will not believe that your
hatred to her is without cause, would you not
rather that the world knew nothing of your mar-
riage?*
* Since it cannot be broken, all the world may
know it. I will bribe you no longer. Begone ! '
* Nay, one word but one word, signore. If I
could show you how you might still wed your
young English love *
The fierce gesture of his listener warned him to
hasten, if he would be heard ; and Castrone's in-
stinct told him how sharper thstfi a dagger's thrust,
and more bitter than poison 46 the man of reserve
198 "held in bondage;" or,
and refinement, was this rending of the veil of
the one sacred temple by a coarse and sacrilegious
hand!
* Listen,' he said, in his sweet swift language,
with a glitter in his Iceen bright eyes. * No one
living knows of your union with my sister save
ourselves ; men do not dream that you are married,
much less will they think of turning over registers
for a date of more than twenty years ago. Your
young love, her father, her friends, all your circle,
need never know your wife is living unless you or
Sylvia, or I tell them. If any question ever arose
about your first marriage, your word would be
amply sufficient. They would never insult a
gentleman like Vivian Sabretasche by doubting
him and prying into details of his past ! Sylvia
and I are poor; per Baccho, she has luxurious
habits, and I an Italian who is noble cannot
soil his hands with work ! Signer mio, we are as
poor as the rats in the Vicaria ; and if, as you say,
you will not support your wife as you have done
hitherto, she must apply to your law for mainten^
ance. She will do so, and, basta! it is no more
than her rights; had she followed my counsels,
she would not have let them lie unasserted so
long. But she bids me make you this offer. If
you will pay us down ten thousand it is but
OKAXVILLE DE ViaNE. 199
a drop in the ocean out of all your wealth we
are very moderate ; we will bind ourselves by every
oath most sacred in your eyes and in ours (and we
Catholics keep our oaths ; we are not blasphemers
like your churchmen, who kiss the book in courts
and perjure themselves five seconds after !) never
to reveal your marriage. You may wed your
young English aristocrat, she will never know that
another lives who might dispute her title. Men
say you love her strangely well and you are more
than half Southern, signer ; yours will be no calm
and frigid happiness, such as content the cold tame
English ? You need have no scruple, for, since
you say you disown her, whatever the law decree,
you must feel as divorced as though men's words
had unlocked your fetters, and per Dio! if
twenty long years' separation is not divorce in
Heaven's sight, what is 1 Accept our offer your
marriage is virtually dissolved as though no tie of
law existed ; and long years of love and happiness
await you with the woman you idolize ? Refuse it,
your marriage will be known all over England ;
and you will see your English love the wedded
wife of some other and some happier-fated man ?
Choose, signer the choice is very easy you who
have never hesitated to pay any price for Pleasure,
will hardly refuse so small a price for Happiness I
200 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
Choose, signor, you hold the game in your own
hands/
With subtle ingenuity, devilish skill, was the
temptation put! The Neapolitan watched the
speeding of his poisoned arrows, and saw that they
had hit their quarry. Sabretasche leaned against
the wall, his lips pressed in to keep down the
agony within him to which he would not give vent ;
a shiver passing over his frame which was burn-
ing with feverish passions; he breathed in quick,
short gasps, as if panting for very life ; while his
eyes were fixed on that brilliant fece, whose loving
gaze turned on him from the canvas, tempted him,
how fiercely! how pitilessly! as woman's beauty
has ever tempted man's honour to its fall.
There on the lifeless easel beamed the fair, fond
face, pleading for her joy and his own. Before
him stretched two lives : one radiant and blessed,
full of the rest for which his heart was weary, the
beloved companionship, that makes existence of
beauty and of value ; the other desolate, with no
release from the chains that fettered him as the
bonds which bound the living man to the dead
corpse, no relief from the haunting passions, which
would burn within, till stilled in the slumber of
the grave! All wooed him to the one; all man-
hood rebelled against the other !
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 201
All urged him to listen to his tempter all
save the honour, which shrank from the stain of
a Lie. He had paid down all prices save this
for pleasure; he would not pay this now, even
though the barter were hell for heaven. His eyes
were still fastened upon her picture, and there her
own answered his clear, fond, true, even while
tempting him his better angel still. He could not
win her by wrong, woo her with deception; he
loved her too well to wed her by a fraud, and
the knightly soul that slept beneath the worldly
exterior of the man of fashion and of pleasure,
revolted from the shame of betraying a heart
which trusted him, by concealment and by false-
hood. He would not give her his name, knowing
it was not hers ; call her his wife, knowing the
title was denied her ; live with her day by day,
knowing at every moment he had wronged her
and deceived her; receive her innocent caresses,
vnth the barrier of that deadly shadow between
them, which, if she saw it not, could never leave
his sight, nor rid him of its haunting presence.
Deadly was the temptation deadly its struggle.
Great drops stood upon his brow, his lips turned
white as in the agonies of death, his hands clenched
as in the . combat with some actual foe, and the
anguish of his heart broke out in a bitter moan :
202 "held in bondage;" or,
* My God ! I have no strength for this ! '
* Why endure it, then ? * whispered the low,
subtle voice of the Italian. * Freedom is in your
own hands;
But the tempter had lost his power ! the man
whom the world said denied himself no pleasure
and no wish, and called a heartless and selfish
libertine, put aside the joys which could only
be bought with Dishonour. Again with the
spring of a panther he leapt forward ; the blood
staining his face, and about his lips a black
and ghastly hue, as he caught the Italian ia
his grip :
* Hound! you tempt me to wrong her! take
your price ! '
He lifted him from the ground with his left
hand, opened the door, and threw him down the
steps that parted the studio from the corridor.
The Italian lay there, stunned with the fall;
Sabretasche closed the door upon him, and went
in again alone alone, in what a solitude !
Long hours afterwards he re-issued from his
chamber and entered his carriage, drawing down
both blinds. A strange silence fell upon his
house ; many of his servants loved him, through
a service of kindness on the one hand, and fidelity
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 203
on the other, and they knew that some great
sorrow had fallen on their master. The footmen
in Lowndes Square, accustomed to his entrance,
were about to show him, unasked, to the room
where Violet was ; but Sabretasche signed them
back, and he went up the stairs to her chamber
alone. At the door he paused what wonder?
Gould his heart but fail him when he was about
to quench all radiance from the eyes that took
their brightness only from him? to carry the
chill of death into a life which had hitherto not
known even a passing shade? to say to the
woman pledged to be his wife, ' I am the husband
of another ! ' It is no exaggeration that he would
have gone with thanksgiving to his own grave ;
life could have no greater bitterness for him
than this.
Many moments passed ; the time told off by
the thick, slow throbs of his heart: then he
opened the door and entered.
She looked up as the handle turned, dropped her
book, and sprang forwards, her hands outstretched,
her smile full of gladness ; not even a trace of
long passed shadows on the fair young brow that
had never known care, or sorrow, or remorse.
In her joy, not noticing the change upon his face,
she welcomed him with fond words and fonder
204 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
caresses, her arms stealing softly round his neck ;
and each touch of her lips, to him, like scorching
fire.
* Oh, Vivian ! ' she cried, * you said you would
be here four hours ago, you should never be away
from me ? You know I don't believe in military
duties ! / should be your only thought.'
She looked up in his face as she spoke, and as
she did so, her gay smile faded, and the sweet
laughter from her eyes was quenched in the
shadow that already fell upon her from the curse
he bore.
* Vivian ! you are not well ? Oh, Heaven ! what
is it?'
He pressed her in his arms. * Hush, hush, or
you will kill me/
Then the colour fled from her face ; her eyes
grew full of pitiful fear and half-conscious anguish,
like a startled deer catching the first distant ring
of the hunters' feet. She hid her face upon his
breast, and clung to him in dread of the unknovm
horror, while her voice rose in a plaintive
cry, * Vivian, dearest ! what is it no evil to
you?'
He held her in his arms as if no earthly power
should rend her from him ; and his lips quivered
with anguish. ' I cannot tell you the worst that
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 205
could happen to us both ! Would to God that I
had died ere I linked your fate to mine ! '
Clinging to him more closely, she looked up
into his eyes ; there she read, or guessed, the truth,
and, with a bitter wail, her arms unloosed their
clasp, and she sank down from his embrace, lying
on the ground in all her delicate beauty, stricken
by her great grief, crushed and unconscious, like
a broken flower in a tempest.
206 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER IX.
HOW A WOMAN WOKE FEUD BETWIlT PALAMON
AND ARCITE,
Can you not fancy how eagerly all town, ever on
the qui vive after scandal and gossip, darted like
the vultures on a dying lion on the story of
Vivian Sabretasche's marriage? They were so
outraged at its having been so long and carefully
concealed, that those who collected scandals of
their neighbours, as industriously and persistently
as Paris chiffoniers their rags, grubbing for them
often in quite as filthy places, revenged them-
selves for the wrong he had done them, by telling
it, garbled and distorted in every way. Heaven
knows through whom it first chiefly spread,
whether from the lips of my Lady Molyneux, who
hated him and loved the telling, or through his
wife and her brother, who probably supplied the
Court Talebearer^ the St. James's Tittletatler^ and
such like journals, with the vague, yet damning,
versions that appeared in them, of the ' Early
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 207
history of a Colonel in the Queen's Cavalry, well
known in fashionable circles as a dilettante, a lion,
and a leader of ton, who has recently sought the
hand of the beautiful daughter of an Irish Peer,
and would have led her to the altar in a few days*
time, but for the unhappy, yet, considering the cir-
cumstances, fortunate discovery of the existence
of a first marriage, concealed by Colonel S. for the
space of twenty years ; during which period, it is
said, the unfortunate wife has lived upon extra-
neous charity, denied even the ordinary necessities
of existence by her unnatural husband, who, hav-
ing wooed her in a passing caprice, abandoned her
when one would have supposed his extreme youth
might have preserved him from the barbarity, and
we, the moral censors of the age, must say, how-
ever reluctantly, villainy of such a course!!'
How it spread I cannot say. I only know it
flew like wildfire. There were many who hated
him, and all his ' dearest friends ' glutted over
the story so long hidden from their inquiring eyes.
Old dowagers mumbled it over their whist-tables,
married beauties whispered it behind their fans,
loungers gossiped of it in club-rooms ; and in all
was the version different. Men in general took his
part ; but women, the soft-voiced murderers of so
much fair fame sided, without exception, against
208 "held in BONDAGE;" OK,
him ; called him villain ! betrayer ! all the names
in their sentimental yocabulary ; pitied his * poor
dear wife ; ' doubted not she was a sweet creature
sacrificed and thrown away ; lamented poor darl-
ing Violet's fate, sighed over her infatuation for
one against whom they had all warned her, and
agreed that such a wretch should be excluded
from society!
' I knew it ! * said Lady Molyneux, with calm
satiric bitterness, and that air of superiority which
people assume when they give you what Madame
de Stael wisely terms that singular consolation,
*Je V avals him ditV *I knew it I always told
you what would come of that engagement I was
always certain what that man really was. To
think of my sweet child running such a risk 1 If
the marriage had taken place before this SclairdS"
sementy I positively could not have visited my own
daughter ! Too terrible too terrible ! '
* If it had, Helena,* answered her husband, * I
think you might have " visited " poor Vy without
disgrace. She would have been, at least, faithful
to one^ which certain stories would say, my lady,
you are not always so careful to be ! '
The Viscountess deigned no reply to the coarse
insinuation, but covered her face in her handker-
chief, only repeating :
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 209
* I knew it ! I knew it all along ! If / had
had my way, Violet would now be the honoured
wife of one of the first Peers of the '
* If you did know it, madame/ interrupted
Jockey Jack, sharply *if you diji know poor
Sabretasche's wife was alive, it's a pity you did not
tell us so. I won't have him blamed ; I tell you
he's a splendid fellow a splendid fellow and the
Tictim of a rascally woman. He can't marry Vy,
of course more fools those who make the laws I
but I won't turn my back on him. He's not
the only husband who has very good motives for
divorce^ though the facts may not be quite clear
to satisfy the courts.'
With which fling at his wife. Jockey Jack,
moved with more or less sympathy from personal
motives for his daughter's lover, took his hat and
gloves, and banged out of the house, meeting on
the door-step the Hon. Lascelles Faineant, who
had received that morning in his Albany chambers
a delicate missive from his virtuous Viscountess,
commencing, ' Ami choisi de mon coeur.*
So the journals teemed, and the coteries gos-
sipped, of depths they could neither guess at nor
understand. Sabretasche's fastidious delicacy could
no longer shield him from coarse remark. The
marriage which he considered disgrace, the love
VOL. II. p
210 "HEU) IN BONDAGE; OR,
which he held as the most sacred part of his life,
were the themes of London gossip, to be treated
with a jeer, or, at best, with what was far more
distasteful to him, pity. Scandal was however
innocuous to him now ; he was blind and deaf to
all things, save his own anguish, and that of the
woman who loved him.
It was piteous, they tell me, to see the change
in Violet under the first grief of her life and
such grief! Such a shock from a bright and
laughing future to the utter desolation of a beg-
gared present, has before now unseated intellects
not perhaps the weaker for their susceptibility.
From wild disconnected utterances of passionate
sorrow she would sink into a silent, voiceless suf-
fering, worse to witness than any tears or laments.
She would lie in Sabretasche's arms, with her
bright-haired head stricken to the dust, uttering
low plaintive moans that entered his very soul
with stabs far keener than the keenest steel;
then she would cling to him, lifting her blanched
face to his, praying to him never to leave her, or
shrink still closer to him, wishing she had died
before she had brought sorrow on his head. It
must have been a piteous sight one to ring up
from earth to Heaven to claim vengeance against
the ourse of laws that join hands set dead in
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 211
wrath against each other, and part hearts formed
for each other s joy and linked by holiest love !
It did not induce brain fever, or harm her so^
belles lectrices. If we went down under every
stroke in that way as novelists assume, we should
all be loved of Heaven if that love be shown by
early graves, as the old Greeks say.
Violet's young life flowed in her veins still purely
and strongly imder the dead weight that the mind
bore. But for a day or so her reason indeed
seemed in danger, both were alike perilous to it,
her delirious agony or her mute tearless sorrow ;
and when her mother approached her, pouring in
her common-place sympathies, Violet gazed at
her with an unconscious look in those eyes, once
so radiant with vivid intelligence, which made
even Lady Molyneux shudder with a vague terror,
and a consciousness of the presence of a grief far
beyond her powers to cure or calm. Sabretasche
alone had influence over her. With miraculous
self-command and self-sacrifice, while his pwn
heart was breaking,, he calmed himself to calm
her : he alone had any power to soothe her, and
he would surrender the right to none.
* You had better not see her again,' her father
said to him one day * much better not, for both
of you. No good can come of it, much harm
p2
212 "held in bondage; or,
may. You will not misunderstand me when I
say I must put an end to your visits. It gives
me intense regret. I have not known you these
past months without learning to admire and to
esteem you ; still, Sabretasche, you can well un-
derstand, that for poor Vy's sake '
*Not see her again?' repeated Sabretasche,
with something of his old sneering smile upon
his worn, wearied, haggard features. *Are you
human, Molyneux, that you say that coldly and
calmly to a man who, to win your daughter,
would brave death and shame, heaven and hell,
yet who loved her better than himself, and would
not do her wrong, even to purchase the sole para-
dise he craves, the sole chance of joy earth will
ever again offer him V
* I know, I know,' answered Jockey Jack,
hastily. * You are a splendid fellow, Sabretasche.
I honour you from my soul. I have told my wife
so, I would tell any one so. At the same time,
it is just hecausCj God help you ! you have such a
passion for poor Vy, that I tell you and I mean
it, too, and I think you must see it yourself that
you had far better not meet each other any more,
and, indeed, I cannot, as her father allow it '
* No ? ' said Sabretasche, with a sternness
and fierceness! which Lord Molyneux had never
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 213
imagined in his nature. * No ? You side then,
my Lord Molyneux, with those who think, be-
cause misfortune has overtaken a man, he must
have no mercy shovn:! him. Listen to me ! You
are taking dangerous measures. I tell you that,
so well does Violet love me, that I have but to
say to her, " Take pity on me, and give yourself
to me," and I could make her leave you and her
mother, her country and her friends, and follow
me wherever I chose to lead her. If I exert my
power over her, I believe that no authority of
yours can or vnll keep her from me. It is not
your word, nor society's dictum, that holds me
back ; it is solely and entirely because, young,
pure-hearted, devoted as she is, I will not wrong
her fond trust in me, by turning it to my own
desires. I will not let my passions blind me to
what is right to her. I will not woo her in her
youth to a path which, in maturer years, she might
live to regret, and long to retrace. I will not do
it. If I have not spared any other woman in my
life, I will spare her. But, at the same time, I
will not be parted from her utterly ; I will not be
compelled to forsake her in the hour of suffering
I have brought upon her. As long as she loves
me, I will not entirely surrender her to you or to
any other man. You judge rightly ; I dare not
2 14 " HBLB IN BONDAGE ; OR,
be with her long. God help me ! I should have
no strength. A field is open now to every soldier ;
if my Corps had not been ordered out, I should
have exchanged, and gone on active service. My
death would be the happiest thing for her ; dead,
I might be forgotten and replaced ; but for our
fiirewell, eternal as it may be, I will choose my own
hour. No man shall dictate or interfere between
myself and Violet, who now ought to be so near
to one another !'
Sternly and passionately as he had spoken, his
lips quivered, his voice sank to a hoarse whisper,
and he turned his head away from the gaze of his
fellow-man. The honest heart of blunt, simple,
obtuse Jockey Jack, stirred for once into sympathy
with the susceptible, sensitive, passionate nature
beside him. He was silent for a moment, re-
volving in his mind the strange problem of this
deep and tender love his daughter had awakened,
musing over a character so unlike his own, so far
above any with which he had come in contact.
Then he stretched out his hand with a sudden
impulse :
* Have your own way, you are right enough. I
put more faith in your honour than in bars and
bolts. If you love Violet thus, / can't say you
shall not see her ; her heart's nigh broken as it is.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 215
God help you both ! I'll trust you with her as I
would myself!'
I think Sabretasche had pledged himself to
more than he could have fulfilled. It would have
been beyond the strength of man to have seen her
brilliant and laughing eyes heavy with tears wrung
from her heart's depths, her head, with its wealth
of chesnut hair, bowed and bent with the weight
of an anguish too great to bear ; to have heard the
low moan with which she would lie for hours on the
cushions of her boudoir, like a summer rose snapped
off in the fury of a tempest to have been tor-
tured with the touch of her hands clinging to him,
with her wild entreaties to him not to leave her,
with her words in calmer moments promising
eternal fidelity to him, and vowing to keep true
to him, true as though she were his wife it had
been more than the strength of man to have en-
dured all this, and kept his word so constantly in
sight as never to whisper to her of possible joy,
never to woo her to a forbidden future.
He did keep it, with iron nerve and giant self-
subjection, wonderful indeed in one, bom in the
voluptuous South, and accustomed to an existence,
if of most refined, still of most complete, self-in-
dulgence. He did keep it, though his heart would
have broken- if hearts did break in the agony
216 "held is doxdage;" ok,
crowded into those few brief davs. Had his tor-
tore lasted longer, I doabt if he would have borne
up against it ; for, strong as his honour was, his
love was stronger stilL But the English and
French troops were gathering in the East ; months
before, the Gnards had tramped through London
streets in the grej of the morning, with their band
playing their old cheery tunes, and their Queen
wishing them God speed. For several months in
Woolwich Dockyards transports had been filling
and ships weighing anchor, and decks crowding
with line on line of troops. Already through Eng-
land, after a forty years' peace, the military
spirit of the nation had awoke ; the trumpet-call
rang through the country, sounding far away
through the length and breadth of the land, arous-
ing the slumbering embers of war that had slept
since Waterloo ; already bitter partings were tak-
ing place in stately English homes, and by lowly
farmstead hearths; and young gallant blood warmed
for the strife, longing for the struggle to come,
and knowing nothing of the deadly work of priva-
tion and disease, waiting, and chafing, and dying
oiF under inaction, that was to be their doom.
Ours were ordered to the Crimea with but a fort-
night's time for preparation; where sharp work
was to be done the Dashers were pretty sure to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 217
be in request. We were glad enough to catch a
glimpse of active service and real life, after long
years of dawdling in London drawing-rooms, and
boring ourselves with the routine of pleasures of
which we had long tired. We had plenty to do
in the few days' notice ; fresh harness, fresh horses,
new rifles, and old liaisons; cases of Bass and
cognac ; partings with fair women ; buying in
camp furniture; burning the souvenirs of half
a dozen seasons ; the young ones thinking
of Moore and Byron, the Bosphorus and
veiled Haidees we of Turkish tobacco, Syrian
stallions, Minies, and Long Enfields. We had
all plenty to do, and the Crimea came to us
as a good bit of fiin, to take the place that
year of the Western Highlands, the English
open, or yachting up to Norway, or through
the Levant.
* Colonel Brandling wishes to speak to you,
Major,' said his man to De Vigne, one morning
when Granville was dressing, after exercising his
troop up at Wormwood Scrubs.
'Colonel Brandling? Ask him if he'd mind
coming up to me here, if he's in a hurry,'
answered De Vigne, going on brushing his
whiskers. He did not bear Curly the greatest
good will since seeing him under the chesnut-
218 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
trees at St. Crucis where, by the way, he him-
self had not been since.
* May I come in, old fellow ? ' asked Curly's
voice at the door.
* Certainly. Entrez ! You are an early visitor.
Curly,' said De Vigne, rather curtly. ' I thought
you'd prefer coming up here instead of waiting
ten minutes while I washed my hands and put
myself en bourgeois.'
*Yes, I have come early,' began Curly, so
abstractedly that De Vigne swung round, and
noticed with astonishment that his light-hearted
Frestonhill's pet seemed strangely down in the
mouth. Curly was distrait and absent ; he looked
worried, and there were dark circles beneath his
eyes as of a man who has passed the night tossing
on his bed to painful thoughts.
* What's the matter. Curly ? ' asked De Vigne.
* Has Heliotrope gone lame. Lord Ormolu turned
crusty, Eudoxie Lemaire deserted you, or what
is it?'
Curly smiled, but very sadly.
* Nothing new ; I have made a fool of myself,
that's all.'
* And are come to me for auricular confession ?
What is the matter. Curly ? '
* Imprimis. I have asked a woman to be my
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 219
wife,' answered Curly, with a nervous laugh,
plajing with the bouquet bottles on the table.
De Vigne started perceptibly ; he looked up
with a rapid glance of interrogation, but he did
not speak, except a rather haughty and impatient
* Indeed ! *
Curlv did not notice his manner, he was too ill
at ease, too thoroughly absorbed in his own
thoughts, too entirely at a loss, for the first time
in his life, how to express what he wanted to
say. Curly had often come to De Vigne with the
embarrassments and difficulties of his life ; when
he had dropped more over the Oaks than he knew
exactly how to pay, or entangled himself where
a tigress grip held him tighter than he relished ;
but there are other things that a man cannot so
readily say to another.
* Well ? ' said De Vigne, impatient at his
silence, and more anxious, perhaps, than he would
have allowed to hear the end of these confessions.
* Certainly the step shows no great wisdom. Who
has bewitched you into it ? '
* You can guess, I should say.'
* Not I ; I am no (Edipus ; and of all riddles,
men's folly with women is the hardest to read.'
* Yet you might. Who can be with her and
resist her '
220 "held in BOISDAGE;" OR,
*Her? who? Speak intelligibly, Curly,' said
De Vigne, . irritably. * Remember your lover's
raptures are Arabic to me.'
*In a word then,' said Curly, hurriedly, 'I love
Alma Tressillian, and I have told her so.'
De Vigne's eyebrows contracted, his lips turned
pale, and he set them into a hard straight line,
as I have seen him when suffering severe physical
pain.
* She has accepted you, of course ? '
Had Curly been less preoccupied, he must
have thought how huskily and coldly the question
was spoken.
Curly shook his head.
* No ? exclaimed De Vigne, his eyes lighting
up from their haughty impassibility into pas-
sionate eagerness.
* No ! Plenty of women have loved me, too ;
yet when I am more in earnest than I ever was,
I can awaken no response. I love her very
dearly, Heaven knows. I would give her my
name, my rank, my riches, were they a thousand
times greater than they are. Good Heavens !
it seems very bitter that love like mine should
count for nothing, when other men, only seeking
to gratify their passions or gain their own selfish
ends, win all before them.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 221
His voice trembled as he spoke ! his gay and
careless spirits were beaten down ; fpr the first
time in his bright butterfly life Sorrow had come
upon him. Its touch is death, and its breath the
chill air of the charnel-house, even when we have
had it by us waking and sleeping, in our bed and
at our board, peopling our solitude and poisoning
our Falernian, rising with the morning sun and
with the evening stars ; how much heavier then
must be the iron hand, how much more chill its
breath, ice cold as the air of a grave, to one who
has never known its presence !
^ Wer nie sein Brod mit Tranen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen ^achte.
Auf seinera Bette weinend sass
Der kent euch nicht ihr himlischen Machte/
Curly's voice trembled ; he leaned his arm on
the dressing-table, and his head upon his hand ;
his rejection had cut him more keenly to the
heart than he cared another man should seel
De Vigne stood still, an eager gladness in his
eyes, a faint flush of colour on his face, his heart
beating freely and his pulses throbbing quickly ;
that vehement and exultant joy of which his
nature was capable, stirred in him at the thought
of Curly's rejection. We never know how we
value a thing till its loss is threatened !
222 "held in bondage;" or,
He did not answer for some moments ; then he
laid his hand on Curly's shoulder with that old
gentleness he had always used to his old Freston-
hills favourite.
* Dear old fellow, it is hard. I am very '
He stopped abruptly, he would have added,
* sorry for you,' but De Vigne knew that he was
not sorry in his heart, and the innate truth that
was in the man checked the lie that conven-
tionality would have pardoned.
Curly threw off his hand and started to his feet.
Something in De Vigne's tone struck on his
lover's keen senses with a suspicion that before
had never crossed him, absorbed as he had been
in his own love for the Little Tressillian, and
his own hopes and fears for his favour in her
eyes,
* Spare yourself the falsehood,' he said, coldly,
as he had never spoken before to his idolized
* senior pupil.' * Commiseration from a rival is
simply insult.'
*A rival?' repeated De Vigne, that fiery
blood of his always ready too ready, at times
to rise up in anger.
* Yes, and a successful one, perhaps,' said Curly,
as hotly, for at the sting of jealousy the sweetest
temper can turn into hate. * You could not say
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 223
on yodr honour, De Vigne, that my rejection by
her gives you pain. If you did your face would
belie you ! You love her as v^^ell as I ; you are
jealous over her ; perhaps you have already taken
advantage of her youth and her ignorance of the
world and her trust in you, to sacrifice her to
your own inconstant passions '
* Silence ! ' said De Vigne, fiercely. * Your
very supposition is an insult to my honour.'
* Do you care nothing for her, then ? '
The dark blood of his race rose over De Vigne's
forehead ; his eyes lighted ; he looked like a lion
longing to spring upon his foe. He to have his
heart probed rudely like this to endure to have
his dearest secrets dragged to daylight he to be
questioned, counselled, arraigned in accusation by
another man ! Curly had forgotten his character,
or he would have hardly thought to gain his
secret by provocation and condemnation. De
Vigne restrained his anger only by a mighty effort
of will, and he threw back his hand with that
gesture, habitually expressive with him of con-
temptuous irritation.
* If you came here to cross-question me, you
were singularly unwise. I am not very likely to
be patient under such treatment. Whatever my
feelings might be on any subject of the kind,
224 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
do you suppose it is probable I should confide
them to you ? *
So haughtily careless was his tone, that Curly,
catching at straws as men in love will do, began
to hope that De Vigne, cold and cynical as he had
been to women ever since his fatal marriage,
might, after all, be indifferent to his protegee.
* If it be an insult to your honour, then,' he
said, eagerly, * to hint that you love her, or think
of her otherwise than as a sister, you can have no
objection to do for me what I came to ask of
you.'
* What is that?' asked De Vigne, coldly. He
could not forgive Curly any of his words; if he
resented the accusation of loving Alma, because it
startled him into consciousness of what he had
been unwilling to admit to himself, he resented
still more the supposition that he cared for Alma
as a sister, since it involved the deduction that she
might love him as a brother ! And that fra-
ternal calmness of affection ill chimed in with an
impetuous nature that knew few shades between
hate and love, between profound indifference or
entire possession ?
* Alma rejected me ! ' answered poor Curly ; all
the unconscious dignity of sorrow was lent to his
still girlish and Greek-like beauty, and a sadness
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE* 225
strangely calm and deep for his gay insouciant
character had settled in his blue eyes. * I offered
her what few men would have thought it necessary
to offer her, unprotected as she is. Yet she re-
jected me, though gently and tenderly, for she has
nothing harsh in her. But sometimes we know a
woman's refusal is not positive. I thought that
perhaps (you have great influence over her) you
could put this before her; persuade her at the
least not to deny me all hope ; plead my cause
with her ; ask her to let me wait ? If it were even
as long as Jacob for Rachel, I would bear it. I
would try to be more worthy of her, to make her
fonder of me. I would shake off the idleness and
uselessness of my present life. I would gain a
name that would do her honour. I would do
anything, everything, if aaly she would give me
hope !'
He spoke fervently and earnestly ; pale as death
with the love that brought no joy ! his delicate
girlish face stamped pitifully with the anguish of
uncontrollable anxiety, yet with a new nobility
upon it from the chivalric honour and high de-
votedness which Alma had awakened in him.
He was silent and De Vigne as well. De
Vigne leaned against one of the windows of his
bedroom, his face turned away from Curly, and
VOL. n. Q
226 "held in bondage;" or,
his eyes fixed on the gay street below. Curly's
words stirred him strangely ; they revealed his own
heart to him ; they contrasted with such love as
he had always known ; they stung him with the
thought, how much better sheltered from the
storms of passion and the chill blasts of the world
in Curly's bosom, than in his own, would be this
fragile and soft-winged little dove, now coveted
by both.
Curly repeated his question in low tones.
* De Vigne, will you do it ? Will you plead
my cause with her ? If she be so little to you it
will cost you nothing ! '
Again he did not answer, the question struck
too closely home. It woke up in all its force the
passion which had before slumbered in some uncon-
sciousness. When asked to give her to another,
he learned how dear she was to him himself.
Hot and jealous by nature as a Southern, how
could he plead with her to give the joys to his
rival of which a cruel fate had robbed him ? how
could he give the woman he would win for him-
self, away to the arms of another ?
* Answer me, De Vigne. Yes or no ?'
*No!'
And haughtily calm as the response was, in his
heart went up a bitter cry, *God help me. I cannot V
k
GRANyiLLE DE VIGNE. 227
* Then you love her, and have lied !'
De Vigne sprang forward like a tiger at the
hiss of the murderous and cowardly bullet that has
roused him from his lair; the fire of just anger
now burned in his dark eyes, and his teeth were
set like a man who holds his vengeance with
difficulty in check. Involuntarily he lifted his
right arm; another man he would have struck
down at his feet for that dastard word. But with
an effort how great only those who knew his
nature could appreciate ^he held his anger, in, as
he would have held a chafing and fiery horse with
iron hand upon its reins.
* Your love has maddened you, or you would
scarcely havegdared to use' that word to me. If I
did not pity you, and if I had not liked you since
you were a little fair-faced boy, I should make
you answer for that insult in other ways than
speech. If I were to love any woman, what right
have you to dictate to me my actions or dispute
my will ? You might know of old that I suflfer no
man's interference with me and mine.'
* I have no power to dispute your will,' inter-
rupted Curly, * nor to arrest your actions. Would
to heaven I had ! But as a man who loves her
truly and honourably himself, I will tell you,
whether I have a right or no, that no prevarica-
q2
228 "held in bondage;" or,
tion on your part hides from me that you at least
share my madness. I will tell you, too, though
you slew me to-morrow for it, that she is too pure
to be made the plaything of your fickle passions,
and cast off when you are weary of her face and
seek a newer mistress. I will tell you that the
man who wrongs her trust in him, and betrays her
guileless frankness, will carry a sin in his bosom
greater than Cain's fratricide. I will tell you
that, if you go on as you have done from day to
day concealing your marriage, yet knitting her
heart to yours if you do not at once reveal your
history to her, and leave her free to act for her-
self, to love you or to leave you, to save herself
from you or to sacrifice herself for you, as she
please, that for all your unstained name and un-
suspected honour, / shall call you a coward ! *
* My God ! * muttered De Vigne, * that I should
live to hear another man speak such words to me.
I wonder I do not kill you where you stand ! *
/ wonder, too, he kept down his wrath even to
the point he did, for De Vigne's nature had no
trace of the lamb in it, and to attack his honour
was a worse crime than to attack his life. Deadly
passion was between those two men then, sweeping
away all ancient memories of boyish days, all
gentler touches of brighter hours and kinder com-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 229
munion. Their eyes met fierce, steady, full of
fire, and love, and hate ; De Vigne's hand clenched
harder on his breast, and with the other he signed
him to the door. The wildest passions were at war
within him ; his instinct thirsted to revenge the
first insult he had ever known, yet his kingly soul
at the daring that defied him, yielded something
like that knightly admiration with which the
Thirty looked upon the Thirty when the sun went
down on Carnac. '
* Go ^go ! I honour you for your defence of
her, but such words as have passed between us, no
blood can wash out, nor after words efface ! '
Curly bent his head and left him ; he had done
all he could. When they met again ! Ah!
God knows if our meetings were foreseen, many
voices would-be softer, many farewells warmer,
many lips that smile would quiver, many eyes that
laugh would linger long with salt tears in them,
many hands would never quit their clasp that
touch another with light careless grasp, at partings
where no prescience warns, no second-sight can
guide!
Curly left him, and De Vigne threw himself into
an arm-chair, all the fiery thoughts roused in him
beating like the strong pinions of chained eagles.
The passions which had already cost him so much.
230 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
and which from his fatal marriage-day he had
vowed should never regain their Circean hold
upon him, were now let loose, and rioted in his
heart. He knew that he loved, as he had sworn
to himself never to love woman ; that the honour
and the pride on which he had piqued himself had
been futile to save him from the danger which he
had so scornfiiUy derided and recklessly provoked ;
that his own iron-will, on which he had so fear-
lessly relied, had been powerless to hold him back
from the old intoxication, whose fiery draught had
poisoned him even in its sweetness, and to whose
delirium he had vowed never again to succumb.
He loved her, and De Vigne was not a man
cold enough, or, as the world would phrase it, vir-
tuous enough, to say to the woman he idolized,
* Flee from me society will not smile upon our
love/ Yet Curly's words had struck into his brain
with marks of fire. * Going on as you have done
day by day, deceiving her by concealment of your
marriage, yet knitting her heart to yours ! ' These
stung him cruelly, for, of all sins, De Vigne
abhorred concealment or cowardice ; of all men,
he was most punctilious in his ideas of truth and
honour, and his conscience told him that had he
acted straightforwardly, or, for her, wisely, he would
have let Alma know in the earliest days of their
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 231
intimacy of the cruel ties of Church and Law
which fettered him with so uncongenial and so un-
merited a chain. True, he had never concealed it
from bad motives; it was solely his disgust at
every thought of the Trefusis, and the semi-ob-
livion into which never seeing his wife to remind
him of it the bare fact of his so-called marriage
had sunk, which had prevented his revealing it.
He had never thought the matter would be of
consequence to her ; he had looked on her as a
mere acquaintance, and it had no more occurred to
him to tell her his history, than it had done to talk
it over in the clubs. The imputation of want of
candour, of lacking to a young girl the honour he
had been ever so scrupulous in yielding to men,
stung him however to the quick. Other words, too,
lingered on his mind, bringing with them keen,
sharp pain. The doubt whether his love was returned
was to him like the bitterness of death. It should
not have been, we know, had he been unselfish as
he ought ; he should have prayed for punishment
to fall upon his head, and for her to be spared the
fruits of his own imprudence ; but what man
amongst us can put his hand upon his heart, and
say before God that he could have summoned up
such unselfishness under such a temptation ? Not
I not you not Granville de Vigne, for, as
232 "held in bondage; or,
Sabretasche would have said, we are unhappily
mortal, mon ami !
One resolution he made amidst the whirl of
thoughts and feelings which the stormy scene
with Curly had so unexpectedly called into life
that was to tell her of his marriage at once. Per-
haps there mingled with it some thought that by
Alma's reception of it he would see how little or
how much she cared for him. I know not ; if
there were I dare throw no stone at him. How
many of my motives ^how many of yours of any
man's, are unmixed and undefiled ? He resolved
to tell her, to be cold and guarded with her, to let
her see no sign or shadow of the passion she had
awakened. All his past warnings had failed to
teach him wisdom ; he still trusted in his own
strength, still believed his will powerful enough to
hold his love down without word or token of it,
while it gnawed at his heart-strings in the very
presence of the woman who had awakened it !
Once more De Vigne had gone down before his
old foe and syren. Passion ; like Sisera before the
treacherous wife of Heber the Kenite, at her feet
he bowed and fell.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 233
CHAPTEE X.
THE ORDEAL BY FIRE.
There was the beauty of the * summer-time ' in
the fragrant air, and on the moistened roads, and
on the rich green woodlands, but it never reached
his eyes or heart as De Vigne rode to Richmond,
spurring his horse into a mad gallop, with that
one world within him which blinds a man to all
the rest of earth. He galloped on and on, never
slackening his pace ; for the first time in all his
soldier's life he felt dread dread of telling the
woman he loved, that he was tied to the woman
he hated ! His piilse throbbed and his heart beat
loudly as he came in sight of the farmhouse of
St. Crucis, and saw coming out of the little gate,
and taking his horse's bridle off the post Vane
Castleton.
*Good Heavens!' thought De Vigne, with a
deadly anguish tightening at his heart, ' is she,
then, like the rest ? Has she duped us all ? Is
her guileless frankness as great a lie as other
women's artifice ? '
234 "held m bondage;" or,
Castleton did not see him; he threw himself
across his bay, and rode down the opposite road.
De Vigne wavered a moment; sceptical as he
was, he was almost ready to turn his horse's head
and leave her, never to see her again. If she
chose Castleton, let him have her ! But love con-
quered ; the girl's face had grown too dear to
him for him of his own act never to look upon it
again. He flung his bridle over the gate, pushed
the little wicket open, and entered the garden. In
the window, with her eyes lifted upwards to a lark
singing far above in the blue ether, the chesnut-
boughs hanging over her in their dark green
framework, the honeysuckles and china roses bend-
ing down tiU they touched her shining golden
hair ; her cheeks a little flushed, was Alma.
At the sight of her he trembled like a woman
with the passion that had grown silently up and
ripened into such sudden force. How could he
give her up to any living man ? Right or wrong,
how could he so tame down his inborn nature as
to wish to win from such a woman only the calm,
chill affection of a sister ?
That mad jealousy which had awoke in all its
fire at the sight of Castleton, and the suspicion
that it was for Castleton's sake and not for his
own that she had rejected Curly's suit, drove all
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 235
ft
memory of the Trefusis, all recollection of what
he came to avow to Alma, from his mind !
He stood and looked at her the rush of that
delirium, half rapture and half suffering, which, for
long years, none of her sex had had the power to
rouse in him, told him that he should not dare to
trust himself in her presence, for no will, however
strong, could have strength enough to tame its
fever down and chill his veins into ice- water.
Still he lingered, not master of himself. The
man's nature, alive and vigorous, rebelled against
the stoicism he had thought to graft upon it, and
flung off the cold and alien bonds of the chill
philosophy circumstances had taught him to adopt.
His heart was made for passionate joys; and
against reason it demanded its rights and cla-
moured for his freedom. He lingered there loth
who can marvel? ^to close upon himself the
golden gates of a fuller, sweeter, more glorious
existence ; and turn away to bear an unmerited
curse alone a wanderer from that Eden which
was his right and heritage as a man. He lingered
then she looked up and saw him, her lips parted
with a low, glad cry, the rose flush deepened in her
cheeks, the first blush she had ever given for him.
She sprang down from the window, which was
scarcely a foot above the ground, ran across the
236 "held in rondage;" or,
lawn as lightly as a fawn, and stood by bis
side.
*0b, Sir Folko! bow long you bave been
away ! '
How could be leave ber tben ?
Sbe came and stood by bim ; ber golden bair
nearly toucbing bis arm, ber fingers still on bis
band, ber glad beaming face turned up to bis with
the full glow of the afternoon sunshine upon it.
Sbe stood by bim, only thinking of her happiness
at seeing bim, never dreaming of the torture her
presence was to bim ^a torment yet an ecstasy,
like the exultation and the awakening of an opium-
smoker combined in one. . Seeing ber thus, with
ber hand in bis, ber eyes looking upwards to him,
so near to ber that be could count every breath
that parted ber soft warm lips, it was bard for
bim to keep stern and cold to her, repress the
words that bung upon his lips, chain down the im-
pulse that rose in bim with irresistible longing to
take ber to bis heart, and carry ber far away where
no man could touch ber, and no false laws deny
bim the love that was bis common birthright
among men.
* What a long time you bave been away. Sir
Folko!' began Alma again. *Ten whole days!
You bave never been to see me since that beau-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 237
tiful ball. I thought you were sure to come the
next day, or the day after, at the latest. Have
you been out of town ? *
* Oh no ! ' said De Vigne, moving towards the
house without looking at her.
* Then why have you been so long ? *
' I have been engaged, and you have had plenty
of other visitors/ he answered, his jealousy of Vane
Castleton working up into a bitterness he could
not wholly conceal.
She coloured. Looking aside at her, he saw
the flush in her cheeks. She had never looked
confused before at any words of his, and he put it
down, not to his own abruptness, but to the me-
mory of his rival.
* No visitors whom I care for,' said Alma, with
that pretty petulance which became her so well.
* I have told you till I am tired of telling you that
nobody makes up, or ever could make up, to me
for your absence ! '
* Still, when I am absent,' he said, with that
satire which with him was often a veil to very
deep feeling, *you can console yourself very
agreeably with other men ! '
They had now passed into her room. He leant
against the side of the window, playing impa-
tiently with sprays of the honeysuckle and
238 "held in bondage;" or,
climatis that hung round it, snapping the sprays
and throwing the fragrant flowers recklessly on the
grass outside the sill, careless of the ruin of
beauty he was causing. She stood opposite to
him, stroking the parrot's scarlet crest uncon-
sciously she and her bird making a brilliant
picture.
* If I thought so,' she answered quickly, * I
should not honour the woman I suspected by any
visits at all, were I you/
* Is that a hint to me to leave your new friend
Castleton the monopoly?' asked De Vigne, be-
tween his teeth.
' Sir Folko ! '
That was all she deigned to answer her eyes
flashing fire in their dark-blue depths, her cheeks
hot as the crimson roses above her head, her ex-
pressive lips fiill of tremulous indignation, her
attitude, all fire and grace and outraged pride,
said the rest. There was fascination about her
then suflicient to madden any man who loved
her!
* Would you try to make me believe, then, that
you do not know that Castleton loves you ? '
asked De Vigne, fiercely.
Alma's cheeks glowed to a warmer crimson still,
and resentment at his tone flashed from under her
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 239
black lashes, like azure ligbtning. He had put
her passions up now.
* You must be mad to speak to me in that tone !
I bear no imputation of a falsehood even from you.
I do not suppose Lord Vane loves me, as you
phrase it ! That he flatters me, and would talk
more foolish nonsense still, I know.*
^You will be very unwise if you give ear or
weight to his " foolish nonsense ; " many a girl, as
young and as fair as you, have been ruined by
listening to it,' interrupted De Vigne. He was so
mad that Vane Castleton should even have dreamt
that he would win her ; he was so rife with pas-
sions wild and reckless, that rather than stand
calmly by the girl, he must upbraid her ; and the
storm that was in his heart found vent in cruel and
sarcastic words, being denied the softer and natural
outlet of love vows and fond caresses. The love
that murdered Desdemona, and condemned He-
loise to a living death, is not dead in the world yet.
* Castleton can love, not as you idealize it, perhaps,
but as he holds it. There is no man so brutal, so
heartless, or so egotistical, but can love as he
translates the word, at least for his own private
ends or selfish gratification. " Love" is men's
amusement, like horse-racing, or gaming, or drink-
ing, and you would not find that "bad men"
240 "held in bondage; or,
abstain from it rather the contrary, I am afraid I
Castleton will love you, I dare say, if you let him,
very dearly for a month or two ! '
Alma gazed at him, her large eyes wide open,
like a startled gazelle's, her cheeks crimson with
the blush his manner and his subject awoke.
* Sir Folko, what has come to you ? Are you
mad? '
* Perhaps,' said De Vigne, between his teeth.
* All T say is, that you are unwise to receive Cas-
tleton's visits and listen to his flattering compli-
ments. Many women have rued them.'
' Sir Folko ! What right have you to speak to
me like this ?' interrupted Alma, with a passionate
gesture. * What right have you to suppose that I
should stoop to Vane Castleton, or any other
man ? If you had listened to me you would have
heard that his fulsome compliments are detestable
to me, that I hate them and loathe them, that I
told him so this very afternoon, and that I shall
have strangely mistaken him if ever he repeats
his visits here again. Would you wish to give me
over to your friend ? Would you think so meanly
of me as to Oh, Sir Folko, Heaven forgive
you!'
She stood beside him passionate as a little
Pythoness, with all the fervour of her moiety of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. .241
Italian nature awoke and aroused; her cheeks
crimson with her indignation, her grief, and her
vehemence, her lips just parted with their rush of
words, her head thrown back in defiance, her
hands clenched together, and in her large brilliant
eyes inexpressible tenderness, reproach, and wist-
ftil agony. Her gaze was fixed upon him even
while her heart heaved with the new emotions his
words had aroused ; and tears rose in her throat
and gathered in her eyes those tears of blood,
the tears of woman's love. All his passions surged
up in De Vigne's heart with resistless force ; that
love which had crept into his heart with such
insidious stealth, and burst into such sudden flame
but a few hours before, mastered and conquered
him. In her strange and brilliant fascination, in
her fond and childlike frankness, in her newly-
dawned and impassioned tenderness she stood be-
fore him. Will, power, reason, self-control were
shivered to the winds, he was no statue of clay, no
sculptured god of stone to resist such fierce temp-
tation to pass over and reject all for which
nature, and manhood, and tenderness pleaded to
put away with unshaken hand the love for which
every fibre of his being yearned !
She stood before him in all her witchery of
womanhood, and before her De Vigne*s strength
VOL. II. R
242 "held- IX BONDAGE;" OR,
bowed down and fell ; the loTe within him wrest-
led with and overthrew him ; every nenre of his
frame thrilled and throbbed, every vein seemed
turned to fire ; he seized her in his arms where
she stood, he crashed her slight form against his
heart in an embrace long and close enough for a
farewell, while he covered her fluked cheeks and
soft warm lips with 'lava kisses melting while
they burned/ He needed no words to tell him
he was loved ; between them now there was an
eloquence compared to which all speech is dumb.
Those moments of deep rapture passed un-
counted by De Vigne, conscious only of that
ecstasy of which he had been robbed so long,
which was to his heart as the flowing of water-
springs through a dry land; all the outer world
was forgotten by him, all his unnatural and cruel
ties faded from his memory ; all he remembered
was that he loved and was loved ! Holding her
still in his arms he leaned against the side of the
window, the soft summer wind fanning their
brows, flushed with their mutual joy ; his passion
spending itself in broken sighs and deep delight,
and hurried words and fond caresses.
* You love me, Alma ? ' he whispered eagerly.
* For ever!' she murmured, looking up into
his face, while warm blushes tinged her cheeks
GltANVILLE DE VIGNE. 243
and brow. How could I choose but love
you V
She paused abruptly with a deep-drawn sigh,
awed at the depth and vehemence of her own
love. How could he think of anything save the
heaven shrined for him in those fond words and
loving eyes ? He clasped her closer still against
his breast, pressing his lips on hers with all the
fire of his vehement nature.
* My God ! Would to heaven I could reward
you for it ! '
Alma, who knew not his meaning, looked up
with a smile, half rfiy, half mournful, yet inex-
pressibly beautifii], with its frank gladness and
deep tenderness.
' Ah, what reward is there like your love ? '
De Vigne kissed her Ups to silence ; he dare
not listen to the eloquence that lured him in its
unconscious innocence with such fierce temptation.
For, now that the first moments of wild rapture
had passed, came the memory of his marriage, of
his resolves, of his duty, shown him by a much
younger, ,and in such matters equally latitudi-
narian a man, and acknowledged to himself by
reason and honour, justice and generosity ; of his
right to tell her fully and freely of the fetters that
held him, and the woman whom Law decreed to be^
r2
244 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
though heart and nature refused ever to acknow-
ledge as, his wife. All these rushed on him, and
stood between him and his new-won heaven, as
we have seen the dark and spectral Shadow
of the Hartz Mountains rise up cold, and grim,
between us and the sweet rose-hued dawn which
is breaking over the hills and valleys, and chasing
away with its golden glories, the poisonous shades
and shapes of night.
He had no power to end with his own hand this
fresh and glorious existence which had opened be-
fore him. If he had ended with absinthe or with
laudanum his own life, men would have prosed
sermons over him, and printed his condemnation
in glaring letters ; yet, alas ! for charity or judg-
ment, they would have condemned him equally
because he shrank from this far worse and more
cruel self-murder the assassination of joy, the
suicide of the soul. By Heaven, men need be
gods to conform to all the laws of men ! We
must love life so well, that when it is at its
darkest, its loneliest, brimful with misery, bitter
and poisonous as hemlock, we must never, in our
hardest hours of solitude, feel for an instant
tempted to flee from its fret and anguish to the
silent sleep of the tomb. Yet we must love it
so little, that when it smiles the sweetest, when it
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 245
is fair as the dawn and generous as the sunshine,
when it has led us irom the dark and pestilent
gloom of a charnel-house back to a laughing and
joyous earth, when it has turned our tears into
smiles, our sorrow into joy, our solitude into a
heaven of delight, then with an unhesitating hand
we are to put aside the glorious cup of life, and
turn away, without one backward glance, from our
loved Eden into the land of darkness, of silence,
and of tears. Alas ! if God be as harsh to us as
man is to his fellow-man !
*How well do you love me, Alma?* he said,
abruptly, as they sat beside the open bay-window,
his arms round her, her head leaning against his
breast, and on her face the flush of joy too deep
to last.
* How well do I love you V she repeated, with
her bid, arch, amused smile playing round her
lips. * Tell me, first, how many petals there are
in those roses, how many leaves on the chesnut-
boughs, how many feathers in that butterfly's
wings then perhaps I may tell you how well I
love you. Sir Folko ! '
De Vigne could not but smile at the poetry
and enthusiasm of the reply so like Alma her-
self ; but as he smiled he sighed impatiently.
* I am " Sir Folko " no longer, Alma ; the name
246 "held m bondage; or,
was never appropriate. I have always told you
I am no stainless knight. Call me Granville. I
have no one to give me the old familiar name
now/
* Granville!' murmured Alma, repeating the
name to herself, with a deeper flush on her
cheeks. * Granville ! Yes it is a beautiful name,
and I love it because it is yours ; yet I love Sir
Folko best, because others have called you Gran-
ville before me, but " Sir Folko " is all my own !'
Her innocent speech stung him to the heart ;
he remembered how truth, and honour, and jus-
tice demanded of him to tell her wJio had ' called
him Granville before her.'
He interrupted her hastily :
*But you have not answered my question.
How much do you love me ? Come, tell me ! '
* Ho,w can I tell you ? ' she answered, looking
up in his face with that smile so tender that it
was almost mournful. * It seems to me that no
one could ever have loved as I do you. How
much do I love you ? Oh ! I will tell you when
you number the rose-leaves or count the river
waves, then, but not till then, could I ever gauge
my love for you ! '
He pressed her closer to him, yet he asked a
t^ruel question :
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 247
*But if I left you now-^if I were ordered
on foreign service, for instance, and died in
battle, could you not find fresh happiness without
me?'
She clung to him, all her radiant joy banished,
her face white and her eyes wild with a prescient
dread :
*0h! why do you torture me so? such jests
are cruel ! I do not tell you I would die for you,
that is a hackneyed phrase not fit for deep and
earnest love like ours, though, Heaven knows,
existence would be no sacrifice if given up to
serve you ; but I would live for you I mil live
for you as no woman ever lived for man. I will
increase all talents God has given me that you
may be prouder of me ; I will try and root out
all my faults, that you may love me better. If
ever you lose your wealth, as rich men have done,
I will work for you, and glory in my task. To
share the pomp of others would be misery, to
share your poverty, joy. I will pray to Heaven
that I may always be beautiful in your eyes ; but
if you ever love another, do not tell me, but kill
me, as Alarcos slew his wife: to lose my life
would be sweeter than to lose your love. If war
calls you, I will follow death and danger would
have no terror by your side and if you died in
248 "held in bondaqe;" or,
battle, I would be truer to you, till we met
beyond the grave, than woman ever was to any
living love. But my God ! you hfuw how well
I love you ; why do you torture me thus ! '
She had spoken with all that impassioned
fervour natural to her, but passion so intense
treads close on anguish ; all the soft bloom of
youth and joy forsook her lips, and her head
drooped upon her bosom, which heaved with
uncontrollable sobs. Poor child ! they were the
first of those waters of Marah which flow side by
side with the hot springs of Passion. De Vigne
pressed her to his heart, lifted her face to his,
and called back life to her cheeks with breathless
caresses, as if he would repay with that mute
eloquence the love which touched him too deeply
to answer it in words. It struck far down into his
heart, this generous, and high-souled tenderness.
All its devotion and heroism ; all its unselfishness,
and warmth, and trust; all the diviner essence
which breathed in it, marking it out from man's
and woman's ordinary loves, brutal on the one
side, exigeant and egotistical on the other ; struck
home to his better nature and there came upon
him a mortal anguish of regret and shame that
here he should give nothing, but gain all. In
those few hours she had grown unutterably dear
GRANVILLB DE VIGNE. 249
to him, though, save a few murmured and feverish
veords, his passions were too strong to form them-
selves to speech. But one other question he put
to her:
* Darling, if you love me like this, would you
be content with me for your sole companion,
away from the pleasures of society, alone in a soli-
tude of the heart ? For me, with me, could you
bear the world's sneer ? With the warmth of love
around you, would you care what the world said
of you ? Should I be sufficient for you, if others
look coldly and neglected you ? '
Even now his literal meaning did not occur to
her; she neither knew nor dreamt of any ties
that bound him; and she still thought he was
trying to see how little or how much she loved
him.
* Why do you ask me ? * she said, almost im-
patiently, her eyes growing dark and humid with
her great love for him. * You know well enough
that "for you," and "with you," are talismans
all-powerful with me. Your smile is my sole joy,
your coldness my sole sorrow. You are all the
world to me ; Sir Folko Granville, why vnll you
doubt me ? '
* I do ru)t doubt you ! It would be better for
you if your love were less true, or mine more
250 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
worthy it. Oh, Alma! Alma! Would to God
we had met earlier ! '
But she did not hear his muttered words, nor
see the hot tears that stood in his eyes; tears
wrung from his very heart's depths; tears of
gratitude, regret, remorse, and wholly of tender-
ness, as he bent over her, pressing his burning
lips to her flushed brow and soft cheeks, warm
with a feverish glow, the glow of joy, predestined
not to last.
And now the sun was near his setting, and all
the earth was brilliant with the imperial glories
that attend the gorgeous burial of a summer-day.
Mingling rays of crimson and of gold stretched
across the sky, steeping in light the snow-white
fleecy clouds that rose up on the horizon, like the
silvery mountain range of some far-off and Arca-
dian land. The roses glowed a deeper hue, the
chesnut-boughs drooped nearer to the earth ; the
flowers hung their heads, drunk with the evening
dew ; the birds were rocked by the warm west
wind ; delicious odour from the lime-leaves filled
the air, while already on the warm and ra-
diant day descended the tender and voluptuous
night.
The Sunset hour, when the busy day still lingers
on the earth, bowed down with the weight of sins
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 251
and sorrows with which in one brief twelve hours the
sons of men have laden her ; and the night sweeps
down with noiseless wing from heaven, to lay her
soft hand on weary human eyes, and lead them
into dream-land, to rest awhile from toil and care ;
is ever full of Nature's deepest poetry. The work-
ing man at sunset, leaves his plough and his hard
toil for daily bread, and catches one glimpse of
God's great mystery of beauty, as he sees the
evening dew glisten in the dying buds of the
flowers his plough has slain. The Ave Maria at
sunset, wings its solemn chant over the woods and
mountains, golden in God's own light, and min-
gles its human worship with the pure voiceless
prayer of the fair earth. The soul of man at sun-
set, shakes off the dust of the working world, and
with its rest has time to listen to the sweeter
under-notes and more spiritual harmonies which
lie under the rushing current of our outer life ;
and at sunset our hearts grow tenderer to those
we hate, and more awake to all the silent beauty
of existence which our strife, and fret, and follies
mar and ruin ; and when we love as the warm
sunset fades, and the dreamy night draws on, all
the poetry and passion that lie in us wake from
their slumber, and our heart throbs with its subtle
and voluptuous J^eauty.
252 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
The golden rays of the sun, while it still lin-
gered over the earth, as a lover loth to part, fell
upon Alma's hair, and lit up her features with a
strange radiance, touching the lips and cheeks
into a richer glow, and darkening her eyes into a
still deeper brilliance. They were silent; they
needed no words between them, a whisper now
and then was all; their thoughts were better
uttered by the caresses he lavished upon her, in
the vehemence of his new-bom love. The dan-
gerous spell of the hour stole upon them ; her soft
arms were round his neck ; his lips rested on her
flushed brow ; while one hand played with a thick
silky lock of her golden hair which had escaped
from the rest and hung down to her waist, twist-
ing it round his fingers and drawing it out, half
in admiration of its beauty, half in absence of
thought. And as the sun sank out of sight below
the horizon, and the little crescent of the moon
rose clearer in the evening mists, and the air
grew sweeter with the perfume of the early
night. Alma might have known that the heart
on which her young head rested, was throbbing
loudly with fiercer and more restless passion than
the loving and tender joy which made her heart
its own unclouded heaven.
And still he had not told her gf his marriage ;
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 253
and still he said to himself, ' I ought to leave her,
but, God forgive me ! / cannot J
On their delicious solitude the sound of a horse's
hoofs broke suddenly, with the harsh clang and
clamour of the outer world. All was so still
around Alma's sequestered home, especially in the
summer evenings, when the animal life about
the farm was at rest, that the unusual sound
brought, by its sudden inroad, the serpent of
social life into the solitude of the heart, from
which for a while all memory of the prying and
fretting world had been excluded.
llie horse's gallop ceased at the little gate, and
the wicket was opened with a clash of its iron latch.
De Vigne started, with a vague dread that some
one had come to try and rob him of his new-won
treasure. The strongest nerves grow highly strung
at times ; and when the poetry of life wakes in the
hearts of men of action, and passion rises up out
of their ordinarily calm existence, their whole
souls stir with it, as the great seas, that do not
move for light showers or low winds, arise at the
sound of the tempest, till all nature is awed at
their vehemence, and their own lowest depths
tremble with the convulsion.
* What is the matter ? ' whispered Alma, as she
254 "held in bondage;'' or,
saw his eyes straining eagerly to see who the new
comer was.
^Nothing, nothing,' he answered hastily. He
could not tell her that the vague dread upon him
(upon him ! he who had laughed at every danger,
and held his own against every foe) was the terror
and the horror of that woman whom the Law
called his Wife. He gave a deep sigh of relief as
he saw that it was only his own groom, Warren,
coming up the path with a note in his hand ; but
the blood mounted to his forehead in anger at the
interruption. With the contradictory wayward-
ness of human nature, while he knew that he
should never leave Alma, unless some imperative
call aided him to drag himself from her side, he
could have found it in his heart to slay the man
who would force him, however innocently, from
his paradise !
The note was merely from Dunbar, major of
Ours, to ask to see him at once, on business of
urgent military importance ; but as the envelope
was marked outside ^ Immediate,' his confidential
servant had sent a groom off with it as soon as
he had seen it.
De Vigne read the note in silence, only point-
ing to Alma the words on it, * Let me see you, if
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 255
possible, early this evening,' and sat still, tearing
the paper into little pieces, with his teeth set, his
face deadly pale, and a bitter struggle in his heart
a struggle more hard and cruel, even than to
most men, to one who had followed all his im-
pulses, whose will had been unbridled from his
cradle, with whom to wish and to have had always
been synonymous, and whose passions were as
strong as renunciation was unaccustomed. With a
fierce oath muttered in his teeth he sprang to his
feet ; half awed by the sternness on his face, the
grey pallor of his cheek, and the flashing fire of
his eyes, she took his hands in her own with the
caressing fondness of her usual manner.
' Must you go ? Can't you give jne one half
hour more ? The hours were always so long when
you were away ; what will they be now ? Give
me ten minutes more just ten minutes ! '
Her loving, innocent words, the clinging touch
of her hands, the witchery of her face, lifted up to
his in the twilight shadows what torture they
were to him !
* Hush, hush ! ' he said, fiercely, crushing her in
a passionate farewell embrace. ^ Do not ask me ;
for God's sake, let me go while I can ! Kiss me
and forgive me, my worshipped darling, for all the
256 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
sins in my past, and my acts and my thoughts, of
which your guileless heart never dreams ! '
She did not understand him ; she had no clue
to the wild desires rioting in his heart ; but love
taught her the sympathy, experience alone could
not have given ; her kisses, warm and soft as the
touch of rose-leaves, answered his prayer, and her
words were fond as human words could be.
* Since I love you, how could I help but forgive
you whatever there might be ? No sin that you
could tell me of would /visit upon you. I do not
know what your words mean, but I do know how
well I love you ; too well to listen what others
might ever say of you ; too well to care what your
past may have been. There is nothing but ten-
derness and faith between us; there never can
be, there never shall be. Good night. God bless
you!'
* God bless you ! ' murmured De Vigne, inco-
herently. ' Let me go, let me go. Alma, while I
have strength !'....
In another moment the ring of his horse's hoofs
rung loud on the stony road, growing fainter and
fainter on the evening air, till it died away to
silence ; while Alma leaned out under the chesnut-
boughs, looking up to the stars that were shining
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 257
in the deep blue sky, now that the golden sunset
had faded, with tears of joy on her long black
lashes and sighs of delight on her warm lips^
dreaming her sweet love idyll, and thinking of
the morrow that would bring him to her again.
VOL. n.
258 "held in bondage;" or
CHAPTER XI-
A BITTERNESS GREATER THAN DEATH.
As soon as De Vigne reached town he drove to
Dunbar's, who in a very few words told him what
he wanted of him, which was to exchange with
him back into the Dashers, and go out to the
Crimea in his stead; but in lieu of the eager
assent he had anticipated from so inveterate a
campaigner and thorough-bred a soldier, he was
astonished to see De Vigne pause, hesitate, and
wait irresolute.
* I thought you would like it, old fellow,' said
Dunbar. * The exchange would be easily effected.
I should be no good in the Crimea ; the winter
season would send me to glory in no time with
my confounded bronchia, while you seemed to
enjoy yourself so thoroughly out in India, polish-
ing off those black devils, that I thought you'd be
delighted to get a chance of active service again.*
* I enjoy campaigning; no man more so,' said
^
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE* 259
De Vigne, shortly; *and to give up a cbance of
active service is almost as great a sacrifice to me
as anything. At the same time, circumstances
have arisen which make me doubt whether I can
go in your stead or not. Will you give me
twenty- fours to decide ? '
* Very well if you like. I know you will tell
me this time to-morrow that you have already
ordered your cases of Bass, and looked over your
new rifles. You will never be able to resist the
combined seductions of Turkish liaisons and Rus-
sian spearing/ laughed Dunbar.
De Vigne laughed too ; though, Heaven knows,
laughter was far enough from his heart :
* Very possibly. Fll send you a line to-morrow
evening, yes or no.'
* Oh ! it's sure to be yes,' said Dunbar. * You
were always the very deuce for war and women,
but I think campaigning carried the day.'
De Vigne laughed again, par complaisance ;
but he thought of one woman he had learnt to
love more dearly than anything else in earth or
heaven. He left Dunbar, went back to his house,
and shut himself in his ^^wn room. He lit his
cigar, opened the window, and leaned out into the
night. His honour and his love were at war, and
the calm and holy midnight irritated an^ inflamed^
s2
260 "held in bondage;" or,
where at another time it might have soothed him.
Never in all his life, with its errors, its hot in-
stincts, its generous impulses, its haughty honour,
never stained by a mean thought, but often
hazarded by reckless passions, had his nature
been so fairly roused as now. He knew that he
had fallen far from his standard of truth and can-
dour, in the concealment of his marriage, which
had gone on from day to day till he had won the
deepest love he had ever had, ostensibly a free
man; and that knowledge cut him to the soul,
and gave him the keenest remorse which he had
ever known; for though he had done much
sin in haste, his conscience was ever tender,
and nothing could ever blunt him to any derelic-
tion from frankness and honesty. But he knew,
too now, that the evil was done, and that to leave
her would be to quench all the youth and glory from
her young days, and refuse her the sole consolation
in his power to give her, which was his love, nolight
treasure to a woman of her mind and nature.
*God help her!* he muttered to himself, as he
looked down into the dark and silent street ; * I
will be truer to her than any husband ever was to
tvife. She is my wife by love, by reason, by right,
and when others sneer at her or pass her coldly by
because she has sacrificed herself for me, I will
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 261
atone to her for all I will give up the world, and
live for her alone. Since I have crushed my little
flower in my headlong path, I will make up to
her by guarding her from all blight or storm.
Would to Heaven I were worthy of her ! '
That night his resolve was made. To-morrow
he would tell her of his marriage tell her all. If
she still loved him, and still wished to live for him,
entirely as his heart was bound to the Service, he
would throw up his commission and take her to
Italy or the Ionian Isles, where he would lavish on
her all the luxuries and pleasures wealth could
bring, and give her what would be all-sufficient to
her affectionate and unselfish nature love. He
would live for her alone ; if, in time, he missed
the glare and excitement of his past life with men
this sacrifice, in return, he at the least owed her;
he would not bring her to the din of cities where
coarse glances might pain the heart that had as yet
known no shame, and where cparse judges would
class her with the base Floras and Leilas of her
sex.
Military duties kept him until late the next day.
A soldier's life is not all play, though the foes to a
standing army are given to making it out such.
Several things called his attention that morning,
and he had afterwards to attend the first sitting of
262 "held m bondage;*' or,
a court-martial on one of those low practical jokes
with which raw boys, bringing their public school
vulgarities with them, stigmatize a Service that
enrols the best gentlemen, the highest courage,
and the most finished chivalry of Europe, whose
enemies delightedly pounce on the exception to
uphold it as the rule.
The court-martial was not over till between two
and three; De Vigne then hastily got unhar-
nessed, and threw himself across his horse. When
he had once determined on a thing he never looked
back ; sometimes it had been better for him if he
had. Yet, in the long run, I have known more
mischief done by indecision of character than any-
thing else in the world, and he is safe to be the
strongest and stoutest-hearted who never looks
back, whether he has determined on quitting
Sodom or on staying in it. The evil lies in hasty
judgment, not in prompt action.
Right or wrong, however, he never had looked
back in any course. His mind was made up if
Alma still loved him on hearing all, to take her to
some southern solitude, and give up his life to her ;
if she Kproached and condemned him, to fight
in. the Crimea till he fell and nothing would
have stirred either of his resolves. He rode at a
gallop from London to Richmond rode to the
ORANVILLE DE VIGNB. 263
fevered thoughts that chased each other through
his mind, many of them of bitter pain and sharp
stinging regret, for to the man of honour it was
no h'ght trial to say to the woman who had trusted
him, * I have deceived you ! * some of them of
involuntary self-reproach at the memory of how
little he had merited and fulfilled the trust
Boughton Tressillian had placed in him, 'as a
man who will not misjudge my motives nor wroiig
my confidence.' Yet all fears were crossed, and
all remorse silenced, and outweighed by that wild
joy of which his nature was capable.
All more gloomy memories vanished, as shadows
slink away before the noon, as he came within
sight of Alma's home. He pulled up his horse
with such abruptness that the beast reared and fell
back on his haunches ; he threw himself off the
saddle with a headlong impetuosity that might
have lost him life or limb, flung the bridle over
the post, and entered. The morning was grey and
wet strange contrast to the radiant summer
night before the birds were silent, the flowers
were snapped off their stems, their scattered petals
lying stained and trodden on the moist gravel ;
his hurried steps stamped the discoloured rose-
leaves into the earth, and the dripping chesnut-
boughs shook raindrops on him as he passed.
264 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
He brushed past the dank bushes in haste,
careless, indeed unconscious, of* the rain that fell
upon him. With all the impatience of his nature
he glanced up at the house as he approached. He
expected to find her looking out for him, to see
her eyes fixed wistfully upon the gate, and to watch
the radiance of joy dawn upon her face as she be-
held him. He wanted to see that her thoughts
and moments were consecrated to him, in his ab-
sence as well as his presence, and to have in her
joyous w^lcome and her rapid bound to meet him,
sure evidence still of her love.
With a strange, disproportionate anxiety he
brushed past the dripping boughs, ran up the steps
of her bay-window, pushed open the glass door,
and entered. There were her easel, her flowers,
her little terrier, Pauline upon her stand pluming
her feathers, and congratulating herself on her own
beauty, one of his own books, * Notre Dame,*
open on her low chair, with some moss-roses flung
down in a hurry on its leaves ; her colours, and
brushes, and half-finished sketches scattered over
the room but the mistress and queen of it was
absent. There was no sweet welcome for him, no
loving radiant face uplifted to his, no rapid mu-
sical voice to whisper in his ear earnest impas-
sioned words, no soft caresses to linger on his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE* 265
lips, no warm young heart to beat against his
own.
He glanced hastily round on the still deserted
chamber^ then opened the door, and called her by
her name. The house was low and not large, and
he knew she would come at the sound of his voice
as a spaniel at its master's call. There was no
reply; the building was silent as death, and his
heart beat thickly with a vague and startled ,dread.
He went on to the staircase and repeated her
name; still there was no reply. Had she been
anywhere in the house, small as it was, he knew
she would have heard and answered him. A
horrible unexplained fear fastened upon him, and
he turned into a dark old-fashioned bedchamber,
the door of which stood open, for in its farther
window he caught sight of the old woman, her
nurse, alone, in her wicker-chair, her head covered
with her apron, rocking herself to and fro in the
silent and querulous grief of age.
It is no metaphor that the beating of his heart
stood still as he beheld her grief, which, mute as it
was, spoke to him in a hundred hideous suggestions.
She started up as his step rang on the bare floor,
and wrung her hands, the tears falling down her
wrinkled cheeks :
266 "held in bondage ;** or,
*0h, sir! oh, sir! my poor young lady ^my
pretty darling *
His hand clenched on her arm like an iron vice.
* My God ! what has happened?*
* That ever I should live to see the day,' moaned
the old woman. * That ever I couldn't have died
afore it. My pretty dear my sweet little lady
that I nursed on my knee when she was a little
laughing *
His grasp crushed on to her wrist, while his
words broke from him inarticulate in his dire
agony :
* Answer me ^what is it ? Where is she ?
Speak do you hear?'
The woman heard him, and waved to and fro
in the garrulous grief of her years.
* Yes, sir ^yes ; but I am half crazed. She's
gone my poor dear darling ! '
* Gone dead f '
The hue of death itself spread over his face.
He let go his hold upon her arm and staggered
backwards, all life seeming to cease in the mortal
terror of suspense and dread.
*No, sir no, thank Heaven!' murmured the
woman, blind to the agony before her in her own
half-fretful sorrow. * Not dead, the pretty dear.
GRANVILLfi DE VIGNE. 267
though some, I dare say, would sooner see her in
her coffin, and sure she might be happier in her
grave than shell be now, poor child ! '
The blood rushed back to his brain and heart ;
his strong nerves trembled, and he shook in every
limb in the anguished agitation of that brief mo-
ment which seemed to him a ceaseless eternity
of torture. If not dead she could not be lost to
him ; no human hand had power to take her from
his arms!
He seized the garrulous woman in a grasp
whose fervency terrified her :
* Where is she then? Speak in a word
veithout that senseless babble.'
* Yes, sir, yes,' sobbed the old nurse, half lost in
her quavering sorrow, but terrified at his manner
and his tone. ^ She's gone away, sir, vnth that
soft, lying, purring villain oh. Lord ! what is his
name ? that false, silky, girl-faced lord a duke's
son they said he was who was always hankering
after her, and coming to buy pictures, and cared
no more for pictures than that cat. She's gone
off with him, sir, and he'll no more marry her
than he'll marry me ; and he'll leave her to starve
in some foreign land, and I shall never see her
face again. Oh, Lord ! oh. Lord ! sir, you men
have much to answer for '
268 "held IX BONDAGE;" OR,
* She is gone ! with him ! '
If she had not been so wrapped in her own
rambling regrets she must have noticed the un-
utterable anguish in his hoarse and broken words
as he grasped her arm with almost the wild,
unconscious ferocity of madness :
* Woman, it is a vile plot a lie ! She has
been trapped, deceived. She has not gone of her
own will ! '
* Yes, sir, she is she's gone of her own mind,
her own choice,' moaned the old nurse.
* I tell you she did not it is a lie,' swore De
Vigne. *He has stolen her, tricked her, fooled
her away. It is a lie, I tell you, and you have
been bribed to forge it. He has decoyed her
away, and employed you for his accomplice, to
pass this tale on me. My God ! if you do not
acknowledge the truth I will find a way to make;
you ! '
Terrified at his violence the old woman shook
with fear, tears falling dovm her pale and with-
ered cheeks :
* I tell you truth, sir ^before Heaven I do. Do
you think / should injure her, my pretty little
lady, that I've loved like my own child ever since
my poor master brought her from foreign lands,
a little, lisping, gold-haired thing ? Do you think
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 269
I slioiild join in a plot against her, wheii I've loved
her all her life ? Don't you think, sir, I'd be the
first to screen her and the last to blarae her ? I
tell you truth, sir, and it breaks my heart in the
telling. She went of her own free will, and no-
thing could stop her. She must have planned it
all with him yesterday when he was here : the cruel
villain ! I knew he didn't come after them pic-
tures; but I never thought Miss Alma would
have come to this. She went of her own will,
sir she did, indeed ! Lord Vane's carriage
came here between twelve and one this morning ;
not him in it, but his valet, and he asked
straight for Miss Tressillian, and said he had a
message for her, and went in to give it. I
thought nothing of it, so many people have been
coming and going lately for the pictures; and
indeed, sir, I thought he was your servant, for the
man looked like one you used to send here, till
^y boy, Tom, came in, and said he*d asked the
coachman, and the coachman told him his master
was the Duke of Tiara's son. The man wasn't
there long before I heard Miss Alma run up-
stairs, and as I went across the passage I see her
coming down them, with her little black hat on,
and a cloak over her muslin dress ; and a queer
dread come over me, as it were, for I see her face
270 "held in bondage;*' or,
was flushed, and she'd tears in her eyes, and a
wild, excited look ; and I asked her where she was
going. But she didn't seem to hear me ; and she
brushed past me to v. here the man was standing.
" I am ready," she says to him, very excited like ;
and then I caught hold of her I couldn't help it,
sir and I said, though I didn't know where or
why she was going, " Don't go, Miss Alma ! don't
go, my darling." But she turned her face to me,
with her sweet smile ^you know her pretty, im-
perious, impatient ways " I must, nurse !" and I
got hold of her, and kept on saying, " Don't go.
Miss Alma, don't! tell me where you're going,
at least do! my dear little lady!" But you
know, sir, if she's set her heart on a thing, it ain't
never easy to set her against it ; and there was
tears in her eyes. She broke away with that
wilfulness she's had ever since she was a little
child: "I cannot stop, nurse let me go!" and
she broke away, as I said, and went down the
garden path, sir, the man following after her, and
she entered Lord Vane's carriage, and the valet
got up in front, and they drove away, sir, down
the road ; and that's the last I ever see of my
poor master s darling, Heaven bless her ! and she'll
be led into sorrow, and ruin, and shame, and she'll
think it's all for love, poor child ; and he'll break
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 271
her heart, and her high proud spirit, and then
he'll leave her to beg for her bread ; for that bird's
better notions of work than she ; and a deal fit
she is to cope with the world, that's so cold and
cruel to them that go against it ! '
But long ere she ceased her garrulous grief,
heedless of his presence or his absence in her
absorbed sorrow for her lost darling, De Vigne
had staggered from the chamber, literally blinded
and stunned by the blow he had received. A sick
and deadly faintness as after a vital wound stole
over him, every shadow of colour faded from his
face as on his marriage-day, leaving it a grey and
ashy hue even to his very lips; his brain was
dizzy Mdth a fiery weight that seemed to press
upon it ; he felt his way, as if it were dark, into
an adjoining room, and sank down upon its single
sofa, all the strength of his vigorous manhood
broken and cast down by his great agony. How
great that agony was Heaven only knew.
He threw back, as a hideous nightmare, the
thought that Alma could be false to him ; that a
girl so young, so frank, so fond, could be so arch
an actress; that all those loving words, thosQ
sweet caresses, that earnest and impassioned affec-
tion lavished on him but a few short hours before,
were all a lie. Yet the curse of evidence chimed
272 "held in bondage;" or,
strangely in ; he recalled her blush at his men-
tion of Castleton's name ; he remembered that
his ex -valet, Raymond, had entered Castleton's
service on being discharged from his ; the mere
circumstance of her having left with anyone, for
anywhere, without an explanation, a word, or a
message to him her lover, whom she had parted
with so passionately the night before these alone
wrote out her condemnation, and shattered all
hope before his eyes.
He sat there in as mortal anguish as man ever
knew. If wrong there had been in his acts and
his thoughts it was fearfully and cruelly avenged,
and the punishment far outweighed the sin.
Across the midnight darkness of his mind gleamed
lightning flashes of fiery thoughts. Once he
started to his feet in the delirium of jealousy he
swore to find Castleton wherever he had hid, and
make him yield her up, or fight for her till one or
the other fell. But pride was not all dead in him
nor ever would be while he had life. Since she
had gone to another, let another keep her !
And now it was that the great faults of De
Vigne's nature hasty doubt and passionate judg-
ment came out and rose up against him, marring
his life once more. That rank scepticism which
one betrayal had engrafted on a nature naturally
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 273
trusting and unsuspicious, never permitted him to
pause, to weigh, to reflect ; with the rapidity of
vehement and jealous passion, from devoted faith
in the woman he loved, he turned to hideous dis-
belief in her, and classed her recklessly and madly
with the vilest and the falsest of her sex. Of no
avail the thousand memories of Alma's childlike
purity and truth, which one moment's thought
would have summoned up in her defence ; of no
avail the fond and noble words spoken to him but
the day before, which one moment's recollection
would have brought to his mind to vouch for her
innocence, and set before him in its vile treachery,
the plot to which she had fallen victim ; of no
avail! Passionate in every impulse, hasty in
every judgment, too cruelly stung to remember in
his madness any reason or any justice, he seized
the very poison that was his death-draught, and
grasped a lie as truth.
How long he sat there he never knew ; time was
a long blank to him ; roll on as it might, it could
only serve him in so far as it brought him nearer to
his grave. His brain was on fire, his thoughts lost
in one sharp, stinging agony that had entered into
his life never to quit it; he sat there in dull stupor
till her little dog, that had followed him up the
stains, and now crouched near him, awed as animals
VOL. II. T
274 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
always are at the sight of human suffering, crept up
and licked his hand, uttering a long, bw whine, as
if mourning for the one lost to them both. The
touch roused him : how often in happier days, before
the curse of love rose up between them, had he
smiled to see her plajring like a child with her little
terrier ! The touch roused him, calling him back
to the life charged with such unutterable woe.
He lifted his head and looked around ; the clouds
had rolled away, and the evening sun, bursting out
in all its glory, shone with OTuel mockery into the
little chamber which, as it chanced, was Alma's
apartment. The lattice windows were open, and
the wind swept in, stirring the muslin curtains of
the little white bed where, night after night, her
blue eyes had closed in sleep, as pure and sweet
as a harebell folding itself to slumber. As he
lifted his eyes and looked around the little cham*
her, his glance fell upon his own portrait, which
hung against the wall with the sunlight streaming
full upon it the portrait which she had drawn
from childish memory of her friend * Sir Folko.*
The sight of the picture told him that it was her
room into which he had staggered in his uncon-
scious suffering, and recalled to him the early days
when she had first shown him that portrait, lavish-
ing on him her innocent gratitude, her playful
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 275
tenderness ; the early days when their intercourse
had been shadowless, and the curse of love had
not entered their lives and risen up between them.
As he gazed around him, at all the trifles that spoke
to him like living things of the woman he had
loved and lost, the bitter agony in his soul grew
greater than he could bear ; the fierce tension of
his strained nerves gave way; with one cry to
Heaven in his mortal anguish, he fell like a
drunken man across the little couch, his brow
resting on the pillow where her golden head had
so often lain in childlike sleep, deep sobs heaving
his breast, burning tears forcing themselves from
his eyes, tears which seemed to vrring his very
life-blood from him in their fiery rain, yet tears
which saved him in that horrible hour from mad-
ness.
# # # 4(
That night he wrote thus briefly to the Major :
' Dear Dunbar, I desire to exchange with
you if it can be efiected. There is no time to be
lost.
* Yours sincerely,
* Granville de Vigne.'
T 2
276 "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER XII.
THE BRIDAL JEWELS GO TO THE MONT DE PI^TE.
In their salon in the Champs Elysees, that
crowded, gaudy, and much-bedizened room, sat
as they had sat twelve months before, old Fantyre
and the Trefusis, the old woman huddled up
among a pile of cushions, shawls, and furs, with
her feet on a chaufferettey older and uglier, with
her wig awry, and her little piercing black eyes
roving about like a monkey's as she drank her
accustomed demie tasse^ which, as I before ob-
served, looked most suspiciously like cognac un-
defiled. The younger one, with her coarse, dash-
ing, full-blown, highly-tinted beauty not shown
oft* to the best advantage, for it was quite early
morning, madame rietait pas visible^ of course, in
common with all Parisiennes, whether Parisienne
by birth or by adoption ; and not being visible,
the Trefusis had not thought it worth her while
to dress, but hastily enveloped in a peignoir
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 277
looked certainly, though she was a fine woman
still, not exactly calculated to please taste, used
to the sight, and the society, of delicate aristo-
crates.
* Well, my dear, ain't he killed yet?' demanded
old Fantyre, in her liveliest treble.
' No,' said the Trefusis, running her eye through
the Returns of the 25th October. * Halkett, Nolan,
Lord Fitzgibbon lots of them but *
* Not the right one,* chuckled the old Fantyre,
who, though she had her own private reasons for
desiring De Vigne's demise, as his property was
so ruled that a considerable portion must have
have come to his wife whether he had willed it
so or not, had still that exquisite pleasure in the
Trefusis's mortification, which better people than
the old Viscountess indulge in now and then at
their friends' expense. * Deuce take the man!
Tiresome creature it is ; shot and sabre carry off
lots of pretty fellows out there. Why on earth
can't they touch him ? And that beautiful crea-
ture, Vivian Sabretasche, is he all right ?'
' Slightly wounded that's all.'
How cross you are, my dear. If you must
not wear widow's weeds, I can't help it, can I ?
They are not becoming, my dear not at all;
though if a woman knows how to manage 'em,
278 "held tn bondage;" or,
she may do a good deal under her crape. Men
ain't afraid of a widow as they are of an unmar-
ried woman, though Heaven knows they need be
if they knew all ; the " dear departed " 's a capital
dodge to secure a new pigeon. Mark my words,
my dear, De Vigne won't die just because you
wish him ! '
*Wish him!' reiterated the Trefusis. *How
disagreeably you phrase things, Lady Fantyre.'
* Give 'em their right names, my dear ? Yes,
I believe that is uncommon disagreeable for most
people,' chuckled the old woman. * In my time,
you know, we weren't so particular; if we did
naughty things (and we did very many, my dear,
almost as many as people do now 1), we weren't
ashamed to call 'em by their dictionary names.
Humbug's a new-fangled thing, as well as a new-
feingled word. They say we were coarse ; I don't
know, I'm sure ; I suppose we were ; but I know
we didn't love things under the rose, and sneak
out of 'em in daylight, as you nineteenth-century
people do ; our men, if they went to the casinoes
at night, didn't go to Bible meetings, and Mainten-
ance-of- Immaculate-Society boards, and Regene-
rated Magdalen s' Refuges the next morning
as they do now-a-days. However, if we were more
consistent, we weren't so " Christian," I sup-
GRANVILLE DE VTGNE. 279
pose ! Lor' bless me, what a deal of cant there
is about in the world now ; even you, whom I did
think was pretty well as unscrupulous as anybody
I ever met, won't allow you'd have liked to see De
Vigne among them Returns. I know when poor old
Fan tyre died, Lady Rougepot says to me, " What
a relief, my dear ! " and I'm sure / never thought
of differing from her for a minute ! You've never
had but one checkmate in your life, Lucy with
that little girl Trevelyan Tressillian what's her
name ? '
* Little devil ! ' said the Trefusis, bitterly ; she
had not grown the choicest in her expressions,
from constant contact with the Fantyre. * I saw
her again the other day.'
*Here?'
* Yes ; in the Rue Vivienne in a fleuriste's
shop. I passed her quite close; she knew me
again. I could tell that by the scorn there was
in her eyes, and the sneer that came on her lips.
Little fool! with the marriage certificate before
her very eyes, she wouldn't believe the truth.'
* The scheme was so good, it deserved complete
success. I hate that little thing such a child as
she looks to have put one down, and outgeneralled
one's plans.'
' Child ! ' chuckled old Fantyre ; ' she wasn't so
280 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
much of a child but what she could give you one
of the best retorts I ever heard. " It was a pity
you didn't learn the semblance of a lady, to support
you in the assumption of your role ! " Vastly good,
vastly good; how delighted Selwyn would have
been with that/
* Little devil ! ' repeated the Trefiisis again. ' I
hate the sight of that girl's great dark-blue eyes.
De Vigne shall never see her again if / can help
it, little, contemptuous, haughty creature ! '
' She's a lady, ain't she ? ' said the Fantyre,
drily.
^ Fm sure I don't know. She is as proud as a
princess, though she's nothing but an artist after
all. Good gracious ! Who is that ? ' said the
Trefusis, as she heard a ring at the entrance,
giving a hurried dismayed glance at her r^gligk,
* It can't be Anatole nor De Brissac ; they never
come so early.*
* If they do, my dear, beauty unadorned, you
know '
* Stuff!' said the Trefusis, angrily. * Beauty
unadorned would get uncommonly few admirers
in these days. Perhaps it's nobody for us.'
As she spoke a servant entered, and brought
her a piece of paper with a few words pn it, un-
folded and unsealed.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. ^ 281
' What's that, my dear ? ' asked Lady Fantyre,
eagerly.
* Only my dressmaker,' said the Trefusis, with
affected carelessness, but with an uneasy frown,
which did not escape the quick old lady.
* Dressmaker ! * chuckled the Fantyre, as she
was left alone. ' If you've any secrets from me,
my dear, we shall soon quarrel. I've no objection
whatever to living with you as long as you have
that poor fellow's three thousand a year, and we
can make a tidy little income with you to attract
the young men, and me to play whist and ^carte
with 'em ; but if you begin to hold any cards I
don't see, I shall throw up the game, though we
have played it some time together.'
While old Fantyre, who had this single virtue
amongst all her vices, that she was candid about
them, thus talked to herself over her cognac and
^ofiee, the Trefusis had gone, demie-toilette and all,
into the salle, where there awaited her a neat,
slight, fair man, with a delicate hadine and gold
studs, who looked something between a valet, an
actor, and a would-be-dandy such as you may see
by scores any day on the Boulevards, hanging about
the Bads, or lounging in the parterre of the Odeon.
He smiled, a curious slight smile, as the Tre-
fusis entered.
282 "held in bondage;" or,
* Vous voUcLj Madame ! Not en grande tenue to-
day ; too early for your pigeons, I suppose ? I dare
say you and the old lady make a very good thing
out of it, though of course you only entertain im-
maculate society, for fear you should give the
Major a chance to bring you up before a certain
Law Court, eh ? '
* What did you come for so soon again ? ' de-
manded the Trefusis, abruptly, with as scant
courtesy as might be. ' I have only five minutes to
spare, you had better not waste it in idle talk.'
* What do I come for, ma belle ? Now, what
shovM I come for? What do I ever come for,
pray ? ' returned her visitor, in nowise displeased,
but rather amused at her annoyance.
* Money ! ' retorted the Trefusis. * You will
get none to-day.'
The man laughed.
' Now why always keep up this little farce ?
Money I wish for money you will give me.
Why make the same amusing little denial of it
every time ? '
* It is no amusing little denial to-day, at all
events,' said the Trefusis, coldly. * I have none
left. I cannot give you what I have not.'
He laughed, and played a tattoo with the cor-
nelian head of his cane.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 283
* Very well, then I will go to the Major.'
* You cannot. He is in the Crimea.'
* To the Crimea I can go to-morrow, helU amie^
in the service of a gentleman who has a fancy to
visit it. But I am tired ' of playing the valet,
though it is amusing enough sometimes ; and, in-
deed, as you pay so very badly, I have been
thinking of writing to De Vigne, he will give me
anything I ask, for my information.'
The Trefusis's eyes grew fiercer, but she turned
pale and wavered.
' A line of mine will tell the Major, you know,
belle amie, and I don't fancy he will be inclined to
be very gentle to his wife, n^e Lucy Davis, eh ? '
he went on, amused to watch the changes on her
face. ' He will pay very highly, too what are a
few thousands to him? ^he is as lavish as the
winds ; as proud as the devil, and hating Mme. sa
femme as he does, he will give me, I have no
doubt, anything I ask. It will be a much better
investment for me; I won't trouble you any
more, Lucy; I shall write to your husband at
once.'
He rose, and took his hat; but the Trefusis
interrupted him.
'Stay wait a moment how much do you
want ? '
284 "held in bondage; or,
' Fifty pounds now, and as much this day
week ? '
* Impossible ! I have not half '
* Glad to hear it, madame. The Major will be
the much better paymaster. With his thousands
I can get a life annuity, buy stock, take shares, do
what I Uke, even who knows ? become an emi-
nently respectable member of society ! Adieu !
ma belle ; when we next meet it may be in the
Law Courts over the water.'
' You villain ! ' began the Trefusis savagely, with
a fierce flash of her black eyes.
He laughed :
* Not at all ; you have the monopoly of any
villany there may be in the transaction. Adieu
what shall I say from you to the Major any
tender message?'
* Wait,' cried the Trefusis, hurriedly. * I have
five naps I could let you have more to-morrow ;
and you could take one of my bracelets '
' One ! No, thank you, the other plan will be
best for me. I am tired of these instalments,
and De Vigne '
* But my diamonds, then the ceinture he was
fool enough to give me * She tried to speak
coldly, but there was a trembling eagerness in her
manner which belied her assumed calmness.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 285
' Fool, indeed ! and to think he was a man of
the world ! Your diamonds ! ma chere^ you must
be in strange fear, indeed, to offer me them.
They must be worth no end, or they would not
be the Major's giving. Well, come I am will-
ing to spare you, if I can, for old acquaintance
sake.'
When he left the house, he carried with him
that diamond ceinture worthy of an Empress
which De Vigne had bought, in his lover's mad-
ness, for his bride ten years before, and took it
up to the Mont de Pi^t6. Three thousand a
year was not a bad income, but the Trefusis's
dress, the Fantyre's wines, the petits soupers, and
her numerous Paris amusements, ran away with it
very fast ; and though ^cart^, vingt-et-un, and
whist added considerably to their resources, the
Trefusis was very often hard up, as people who
have lived on their wits all their lives not unfre-
quently are. One would fancy such sharpening
upon the grindstone of want might teach them
economy in prosperity ; but I don't think it often
does; canaille ever glory in the ostentation of
money, and waste hundreds in grand dinners, to
grudge the pineapple. Besides, the Trefusis, too,
had a drain on her exchequer, of which the world
and even Argus-eyed old Fantyre was ignorant-
286 "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE CHERSONESUS.
Aladyn and Devno! those green stretching
meadows, those rich dense forests, catching the
golden glow of the sunshine of the East those
sloping hill-sides, with the clematis, and acacia,
and wild vine clinging to them, and the laughing
waters of lake and stream sleeping at their base
who could believe that horrible pestilential vapour
stole up from them, like a murderer in the dark,
and breathing fever, ague, and dysentery into the
tents of a slumbering Army, stabbed the sleepers
while they lay, unconscious of the assassin's hand
that was draining away their life and strength ?
Yet at the very names of Aladyn and Devno rise
to memory days of futile longing and weary in-
action, of negligence inconceivable, and ennui
unutterable, of life spent for the lack of simplest
common sense, and graves filled by a schoolboy
greed for fruit such fruit as in such a land was
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 287
poison, when backed by a mad draught of raki.
Days, when forbidden to seek another foe, English-
men and Frenchmen went down powerless and
spiritless before the cholera, which had its deadly
grip upon them ere they heard its stealthy step.
Days, when you could not stroll on the beacb, with-
out finding at your feet a corpse, hastily thrust into
the loosened sand^ for dogs to gnaw aud vultures to
make their meal, or look across the harbour with-
out seeing some dead body floating, upright and
horrible, in the face of the summer sun. Days,
when pestilence was abroad through the encamp-
ment from Monastir to Varna.
We went out to the Crimea gladly enough ;
most of us had a sort of indistinct panorama of
skirmishes and excitement, of breathless charges
and handsome Turkish women, of dangers, diffi-
culties, and good tough struggles, pleasant as sport
but higher spiced ; of a dashing, brilliant cam-
paign, where we should taste real life and give
hard hits, and win perhaps some honour, and
where we should say, ' Si Von meurt^ eh bien, tant
pis!* in the gay words of the merry French
bivouac-song. We thought of what our governors
or grandsires had done in the Peninsula, and
longed to do the same we did. not guess that as
different as the bundles of linen, with wrinkled,
288 "held in bondage;" or,
hideous features, that the Tartars called women,
were to the lovely prisoners from the convents of
flaming Badajoz, would be the weary, dreary,
protracted waiting while the batteries strove to
beat in the walls of Sebastopol, to the brilliant
and rapid assault by which Ciudad Rodrigo was
won ! I do not like to write of the Crimea ; so
many painful memories come up with its very
name ; memories such as all who were there must
have by the score. Nothing personal prompts my
anger ; I liked the campaign well enough myself,
having one of the very few tents that stood the
hurricane, not missing more than nine-tenths of
my letters, enjoying the exceptional blessing of
something like a coat, and being now and then the
happy recipient of a turkey, or some coffee that
was not ground beans.
I was rewarded as much as any man could ex-
pect to be. I have a medal (shared in common
with Baltic sailors who never saw the foe, save
when securely anchored off Cronstadt) and clasps,
like the privates of the Line, though I am not
aware that any infantry man was present at the
Balaklava charge. I am perfectly content myself,
being independent of that very precarious thing
* promotion for distinguished services.' But when
I think of them all, my dead friends, whose bodies
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 289
lie thick where the sweet wild lavender is blowing
over the barren steppes of the Chersonese this
summer's day, I remember, wrathfully, how civi-
lians, by their own warm hearths, sat and dictated
measures by which whole regiments, starving with
cold, sickened and died ; and how Indian officers,
used to .the luxurious style of Eastern warfare and
travel, asserted those privations to be ^ nothing,'
which they were not called to bear ; and I fear I
fear that England may one day live to want such
sons of hers as she let suffer and rot on the barren
plains of the Crimea, in such misery as she would
shudder to entail on a pauper or a convict.
Few of us will ever forget our first bivouac on
the Chersonese soil that pitiless drenching down-
pour of sheets of ink-black water ! What a night
it was ! De Vigne, ever reckless of weather, had
not even a blanket to wrap round him, and lay
in the puddles of which the morass-like earth was
full, with the rain pouring down upon him, while
Sabretasche, who had loved to surround himself
vdtb all that could lull the senses and shut out the
harsher world, passed the night in a storm to
which we should not expose a dog, in discomfort
for which we should pity a beggar; yet gave
away the only shelter he had, a Highland plaid, to
a young boy who had but lately joined, a little
VOL. II. u
290 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
fellow with a iace as fair as a girl's, and who had
harely seen seventeen summers, who was shivering
and shuddering with incipient ague. .
The stamp of their bitter fate was upon both
those men ; the wounds were too deadly and too re-
cent to be yet skinned over ; healed they deemed
they never would be. How Violet and Sabretasche
parted Heaven only knew; no human eyes had
pried in upon them in that darkest hour; they
had parted on the very day that should have been
their marriage day ; parted whether ever to meet
again on earth who could tell? His trial was
known to all ; even the men, who had admired
Violet's fair face when she had driven up to the
barracks, had caught some glimmering of it, and
there was not one who did not, in his own way,
reverence the Colonel's sorrow.
De Vigne was yet more altered than he, and
I saw with astonishment all the icy coldness
which had grown on him after his fatal marriage,
but which had of late been dissipated, now closing
round him again. I could but guess at the cause,
when* before the embarkation, I, knowing nothing,
had asked him if he had been to bid Alma good-
by ; and he had turned on to me, his face white
as death, his eyes black as night :
* Never breathe that name to me again ! '
GRAKVILLE DE VIGNE. 291
I knew him too well to press questions upon
him, and I was obliged to be content with iny sus-
picions as to the solution. But I was pained to
see the bitter 'gloom which had gathered round
him again, too deeply for trouble, danger, excite-
ment, or care of comment, to have any power to
dissipate it. He had an impatient, irritable hau-
teur to his men quite foreign to him, for to his sol-
diers he was invariably considerate ; he was much
more harsh and stem in his orders, for before he
had abhorred anything like martinetism ; and there
was a settled and iron gloom upon him with which,
every now and then, it seemed as if the fiery
nature in him were at war, struggling like the
flames of a volcano, within its prison of ice. From
the time he took Dunbar's place as Major of Ours,
I never saw him smile ; but I did see him now and
then, when he was sitting smoking in the door of
his tent, or riding beside me home from a dog-
hunt or a hurdle-race, look across to where the sea
lay, with a passionate agony in his eyes. All he
seemed to live for was headlong and reckless
danger, if he could have had it. The thing
that roused him the most was when St. A^-
naud. Bosquet, Forey, and their staff rode
along the front of our columns before Alma,
and we were told what the Marshal said to
u2
292 "held in bondage;" or,
the 55th, * English, I hope you will Kght well
to-day.'
By Heaven !' swore De Vigne, fiercely, * if I
had been near that fellow, I would have told him
we will fight as we fought at Waterloo ! '
It was a bitter trial to him, as to us all, that
the Cavalry could not do more on the 20th, when
we sat in our saddles, seeing the serried columns
of the Line dash through the hissing waters, red
with blood and foaming with the storm of shot,
and force their way through the vineyards of the
Alma ^that little tortuous stream where we tasted
blood for the first time on Crimean soil, whose
name, with all his self-command, made De Vigne
wince, more than a Cossack lance thrust through his
side would have done. To have to sit through that
day like targets for the Russians' round shots, while
their storm of balls tore through our lines, and
ripped up our horses, was too quiet business for any
of us.
We were weary of inaction ; our Arm had had
little or nothing to do ; we were not allowed to
push on the pursuit at Alma, nor the charge at
Mackenzie's Farm ; we were stung by certain in-
dividual sneers that we were * too fine gentlemen
for our work,' and we were longing to prove that
if we were ' above our business of collecting sup-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 293
plies for the army/ we could, if we had the chance,
send home to England such a tale as would show
them how cheaply the " fine gentlemen " of the
Light Cavalry held life when honour claimed it, and
would cover our slanderers for ever in the shame of
their own lives. And our time came at last, when
we were roused by the notes of Boot and Saddle,
and drawn up on the slopes behind the redoubts.
The story of that day is well enough known in
England. How brightly the sun shone that morn-
ing, dancing on the blue strip of sea, and flashing
on the lines of steel gleaming and bristling below;
on the solid masses of the Russians, with their
glittering lances and sabres, and their gay ac-
coutred skirmishers whirling before their line of
march like swallows in the air ; on the fierce-eyed
Zouaves lying behind the earthworks; on our
Light and Heavy brigades in front of our camp ;
on Sir Colin's Highlanders drawn up two deep;
for the 93rd did not need to alter their line even
to receive the magnificent charge of Muscovite
cavalry ! How brightly the sun shone, and
how breathlessly we waited in that dead silence,
only broken by the clink and the ring of the
horses' bits and the unsheathing of sabres, as the
Russians came up the valley, those splendid masses
of cavalry moving en echelon to the attack !
294 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
Breathless every man on the slopes and in the
valley ; French and English ; soldier and ama-
teur; while the grand line of the Muscovite
Horse rode on to the 93rd, who quietly awaited
them, motionless and impenetrable as granite,
firm and invulnerable as their own Highland sea-
walls awaited them, till their second volley, roll-
ing out on the clear morning air, sent that splendid
body of horse flying, shivered like sea-foam break-
ing on a rock. Then came the time for Scarlett
and his Heavies and all the lookers-on gathered
up yonder on the heights, held their breath when
Greys and Enniskilleners, with the joyous cheer
of the one, the wild shout of the other ringing
through the air, rushed at the massive columns of
the Russians, charged them, shaking their serried
masses as a hurricane shakes woodland trees, and
closing with their second line as it came up to
retrieve the lost honour of the priest-blessed
lances, mingled pele-mele with them, reckless of
all odds, cutting their way inch by inch through
the dense squadrons closing round them those
* beautiful grey horses' pushing their road with
that dash and daring which had once won them
Napoleon's admiration ^till the Ist Royals, with
the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, dashed to the res-
cue, and sent the Russian columns flying over the
ORANVILLE DE VIGNE. 295
plain, like a routed herd of cattle without a leader.
How the lookers-on cheered, waving their caps in
their hands and shouting rapturous applause, till
the heights rang again, as the Brigadier and his
Heavies rode back from their assault! and De
Vigne muttered, as he glanced down the line of
our light brigade :
' By Heaven ! when is our turn to come ? *
Our turn was near at hand, An hour after we
received the order to advance on the Russian
guns. With the blame, on whomsoever it may
lie of that rash order, I have nothing to do. That
vexatious question can never be settled, since he
on whose shoulders they place it, lies in the valley
of Balaklava, the first who fell, and cannot raise
his voice to reply, or give the lie, if it be a lie, to
his calumniators. If Louis Nolan were to blame,
his love for our Arm, and his jealousy over its
honour, his belief that Light Cavalry would do
the work of demigods, and his irritation that
hitherto we had not been given the opportunity
we might have had, must plead his excuse ; and I
think his brilliant courage, and the memory of
that joyous cheer which ended in the wild death-
cry which none who heard can ever forget, might
silence the angry jar and jangle of contention above
his grave, and set the seals of oblivion upon his error?
296 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;** OR,
The order was given us to take the Russian
guns. For the first time since we had landed a
light of joy and pleasure came into the Coloners
eyes ; and his old smile flashed over De Vigne's
iace. We were so sick of inaction, of riding about
the Chersonese doing nothing, and letting other
men's names go home in the despatches !
At ten minutes past eleven we of the Light BA-
gade shook our bridles and dashed off with Cardigan,
in the morning sunlight towards the Russian bat-
tery. Lookers-on tell me they could hardly credit
that so few in numbers, entirely unsupported, were
going to charge an army in position ; andothat they
gave us up for hopeless destruction as we swept
past them full gallop, the sunshine catching the
points of our sabres and flashing off our harness.
If they did not credit it, we did. We knew it
was against all maxims of war for Cavalry to act
without support, or infantry at hand. We knew
that in all probability few indeed, if any of us,
would ever come back from that rapid and deadly
ride. But the order was given. There were the
guns and away we went, quickening from trot to
canter, and from canter to gallop, as we drew
nearer to them. On we went, spurring our horses
across the space that divided us from those grim
fiery mouths. On we went : Sabretasche's voice
GRANVIDLE DE VIGNE. 297
cheering us on, and the delicate white hand that
Belgravian belles admired, pointing to the guns
before us ; De Vigne sitting down in his saddle as
in bygone days, when he led the field across
Northampton pastures. On we went I All J
was conscious of was of a feverish exultation ;
a wild, causeless delight ; a fierce, tiger-like
longing to be at them, and upon them. The ring
of the horses' iron hoofs, the chink of the rattling
bits, the clashing of chains and sabres, the whistle
and screech of the bullets as they flew amongst us
from the redoubt, all made music in my ear.
God knows how it is, but in such hours as that
the last thing one thinks of is the death so near
at hand. Though men reeled from their saddles
and fell lifeless to the ground at every step, and
riderless chargers fled snorting and wounded from
our ranks; though the guns from the redoubt
poured on us as we swept past, and volleys of
rifles and musketry raked our ranks ; though every
moment great gaps were made, till the fire broke
our first line, and the second had to fill it up ;
though from the thirty guns before us poured a
deadly fire, whose murderous balls fell amongst
us as we rode, clearing scores of saddles, sweeping
down horses and men, and strewing the plain as
we passed with quivering human bodies, and
298 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
chargers rolling over and over in their death-
agony, on we rode, down into that fiery em-
brace of smoke and flame, that stretched out its
arms and hissed its fell kisses at us from the Rus-
sian line. De Vigne spurred his horse into the
dense smoke of the blazing batteries as Sabre-
tasche led us in between the guns. Everyone
was for himself then, as we dashed into the bat-
tery and sabred the gunners at their posts, while
the oblique fire from the hills, and the direct fire
of musketry, poured in upon us. Prodigies of
valour were done there, never to be chronicled.
Twice through the blinding smoke I saw De
Vigne beside me~the Charmed Life, as they had
called him in India ^reckless of the storm of balls
that fell about him, sitting in his saddle as firmly
as if he were at a Pytchley meet. We had no
breathing- time to think of others in that desperate
struggle, but once I heard Pigott near me shout
out, * The Colonel's down ! ' Thank God it was
not true ; down he was, to be sure, for his horse
was killed under him by a round shot ; but he
sprang up again in an instant, as collectedly
as though he were pacing the Ring in Hyde Park,
and vaulted on a riderless charger that was by
him. That wild mel^e! I remember nothing
distinctly in it, save the mad thirst for blood that
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 299
at such a time rises in one as savagely as in a
beast of prey. A shot struck my left arm, break-
ing the bone above my wrist ; but I was conscious
of no pain as we broke through the column of
Russian infantry, sending them flying before us,
broken and scattered like thistle-down upon the
wind, and were returning from our charge, as
brilliantly as the Scots and Enniskilleners had
returned from theirs, when the flank fire from the
hill battery opened upon us an enemy we could
not reach or silence and a mass of Russian
Lancers were hurled upon our flank. Shewell
and his 8th cut through them ^we stayed for an
encounter, hemmed in on every side, our little
handful shrouded by the dense squadrons of their
troops. It was hot work, work that strewed the
plain with the English Light Brigade, as a harvest-
field is strewn with wheat-ears ere the sheaves are
gathered. But we should have broken through
them still, no matter what the odds, for there were
deeds of individual daring done in that desperate
struggle, which would make the chillest blood
glow, and the most lethargic listener kindle into
admiration. We should have cut through them,
coute que coAte^ but that horrible volley of grape
and canister, on which all Europe has cried shame,
poured on friend and foe from the gunners who
300 "held in bondage; or,
had fled before our charge, the balls singing with
their murderous hiss through the air, and falling
on the striving mass of human life, where JBnglish
and Russian fought together, carrying death and
destruction with its coward fire into the ranks of
both, and stamping the Church-blessed troops of
the Czar with ineflaceable infamy.
It was with bitter hearts and deadly thoughts
that we the remnant of the Six Hundred, rode
back, leaving the flower of the Liglit Brigade dead
or dying before those murderous Russian guns ;
and it was all done, all over, in five-and-twenty
minutes less than a fast up-wind fox-hunt would
have taken at home !
De Vigne was unhurt. The Charmed Life
must still have had his spell about him, for if any
man in the Cavalry had risked danger and courted
death that day he had done so ; but he rode out
of the lines at Balaklava without even a scratch.
Sabretasche had been hit by a ball which had
only grazed his shoulder; the rqffine man of
fashion would have laughed at a much more
deadly wound. We were not too *fine gen-
tlemen' for thai work ! Days afterwards he
looked back to the plain where so many of his
Dashers had fallen, torn and mangled in the
bloody jaws of those grim batteries, the daring
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 301
spirits quenched, the vigorous lives spent, the
gallant forms food for the worms, and he turned
to De Vigne with a mournful smile, * Cui bono 1 '
True indeed m io/iof that waste of heroic
human life. There was a bitter significance in his
favourite sarcasm, which the potentates, who for
their own private ends had drenched the Cherso-
nese in blood, would have found it hard to answer.
Cui bono indeed ! Their bones lie whitening there
in the valley of Balaklava; fresh fancies amuse
and agitate the nations ; the Light Cavalry Charge
is coldly criticized and pronounced tomfoolery,
and their names are only remembered in the
hearts of some few women whose lives were deso-
lation when they fell.
Winter in the Crimea the Crimea of 1854-55.
The very words are enough to bring up again to me-
mory that sharp, stinging wind, of whose concentred
cold none can imagine in the faintest degree, save
those who have weathered a winter in tents on the
barren steppes before Sebastopol. Writing those
very words is enough to bring up before one, the
bleak, chill, dark stretch of ground, with its hor-
rible roads turned to water-courses, or frozen like
miles of broken glass ; the slopes, vast morasses of
mud and quagmire, or trackless wastes of snow ;
the hurricane, wild as a tropical tornado, whirling
302 " HELD IX BONDAGE ;" OR,
the tents in mid-air, and turning men and horses
roofless into the terrible winter night ; the long
hours of darkness, of storm, of blinding snow, of
howling wind, of pouring ink-black rain, in which
the men, in the trenches, and the coyering parties
and pickets, watched with eyes that must never
close, and senses that might never weary ; the
days when under those pitiless skies officers and
men shared alike the common fate, worse clad
than a beggar, worse cared for than a cab-horse ;
all rise up before one as by incantation, at those
mere words. Winter in the Crimea.
My left arm turned out so tedious and tiresome
that I was obliged to go down to Balaklava for a
short time. The day before I went up again to
the front, a transport came into harbour witli a
reinforcement of the th from England. I
watched them land : their fresh healthy faces, their
neat uniforms, their general trim, and all-over-like-
fi^oing look, contrast enough to the men in the
trenches at the front ; and as I was looking at
them disembark I saw a face I knew well the
face fair and delicate as a girl, with his long light
curls and his blue eyes, and his lithe slight figure,
of our little Curly of Frestonhills. Twelve
months before, Curly had changed from his cap-
taincy in the Coldstreams to the Lieutenant-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 305
Colouelcy of the tb, and had been savage enough
at having done so when the Household Brigades
went out to the Crimea ; but now his turn had
come. We met as old friends did meet out
there, and had a long haver of the things that had
been done in England since we left, and the
things we had done ourselves in the Chersonese.
Knowing nothing of those fierce words which had
passed between Curly and De Vigne, I was sur-
prised at the silence with which Curly listened to
my details of the heroic pluck with which our
Frestonhills hero had cut his way through the
Russian squadrons on the morning of the 25th ;
knowing nothing, either of the love which had
entered into them both for the same woman, I
set my foot in it unawares by asking him if he
had seen the Little Tressillian before he left?
Curly, though Heaven knows life had seasoned
him as it seasons us all, busied himself with
poking up his pipe, while the muscles of his lips
twitched, as he answered simply, * No ! '
* No ! What, didn't you even go to bid her
good-by ? '
' For Heaven s sake, Arthur, hold your tongue ! *
said Curly, more sharply than I had ever heard
him speak. ' It is grossest brutality to jest on
such a subject.'
304 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
* Brutality to ask after the Little Tressillian ? *
I repeated, in sheer amazement. * My dear fellow,
what on earth do you mean ? What has happened
to Alma ? Is she dead ? '
' Would to Heaven she were, rather than what
they say she is : another added to Vane Castle-
ton s list of victims ! '
The anguish in his voice was unmistakable. I
stared at him in amazement. The Little Tres-
sillian gone over to Vane Castleton ! That girl
whose face was truth, and innocence, and candour
in itself! I stared at him in mute bewilderment.
The bursting of Whistling Dick between us at
that moment would not have astonished me
more.
*Alma Vane Castleton! My dear Curly,
there must be some mistake.'
* God knows ! ' he answered between his teeth.
* / do not credit it, yet there are the facts : She
has left St. Crucis ; her nurse saw her leave in
Castleton's brougham, and she has never returned.
She must have been deluded away; she never
could have gone willingly. He may have lured
her with a false marriage. God knows ! I should
have found him out to know the truth, and shot
him dead if he had beguiled her away against her
will, but I never heard of it until the day before we
GRAIS^ILLE DE VIGNE. 305
sailed. I could not leave my regiment at the
eleventh hour.'
* Do you care so much for her, then ? '
* I loved her very dearly,' said Curly, simply,
with his pipe between his lips. * Don't talk of it
again, Arthur, please ; she cared nothing for me,
but / will never believe her face told a lie.'
He was silent ; and since the loss of Alma had
stung him so keenly and so deeply, that not even
the elasticity of his gay, light, affectionate nature,
could rebound or recover from it, it was easy to
understand how it had overwhelmed De Vigne, if,
as I doubted not, the love that Sabretasche had
predicted had come between himself and the
Little Tressillian.
The fierce words that had passed between them
were not forgotten. De Vigne was not a man to
forgive in a moment. Curly, with reasons of his
own for believing that, true or untrue, this story
of Alma's flight with Vane Castleton, the heart of
the woman he loved was De Vigne's, and De
Vigne's alone ; sought no reconciliation. Perhaps
he harboured a suspicion that it had been to
him, and not to Castleton, Alma had flown, for
he knew De Vigne would have left the woman
he most tenderly loved, at any call to arms. They
seldom met De Vigne being in Lord Lucan's
VOL. II. X
306 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
oamp, and Curly in that of the Light Division
and they avoided each other by mutual consent.
The love of woman had come between them, and
stretched like a great gulf between De Vigne and
the young fellow he had liked ever since he was a
little fair-haired, bright-eyed boy.
Curly came just in time for that grey wintry
dawn, when the bells of Sebastopol rang through
the dark, foggy air, and the dense masses of troops,
for whom mass had been said, stole through the
falling rain up the heights of the valley of Inker-
mann.
Curly was in time for Inkermann, and for the
winter work in the trenches, where he, so late the
Adonis of the Guards, the * best style' in the Park,
the darling of Belgravian boudoirs, who at home
never began his day till two o'clock, had to turn
into the trenches in rain, which made the traverses
like Dutch dykes, or in blinding snow blown into
his eyes ; to come back to a tent without fire, to
food either semi-raw or else burnt black as a
cinder ; and to sleep rudely, roused by a hurricane
that whirled away his sole frail shelter, and turned
him out into the bitter black Crimean night. That
winter showed us campaigning with the gloss off;
no brilliant succession of battles, the space be-
tween each filled up with the capture of fallen
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 307
cities, and balls and love-making in friendly ones,
such as make the history of the war among the
green sierras of Spain so favourite a theme for
fiction and romance ; but nothing save an eternal
cannonading from the dawn of one day to the
dawn of another; nothing but months dragging
away one after another, seeing horses and men
dying off by scores.
The weary inactivity of the siege, which weighed
down even the lightest hearts before Sebastopol, was
but one long torture to De Vigne, who longed for
danger and excitement as the sole anodyne to a
passion which pursued him as the Furies pursued
Orestes ; while Sabretasche, the most luxurious
of voluptuaries, bore uncomplainingly the mise-
ries of that Crimean winter. The wild Cherso-
nese hurricane turned him out at night, shelter-
less, to the full fury of the storm ; his food
was such as at home he would have forbidden to
be given to his Newfoundland* dog ; his ser-
vant had to fight with another for some scanty
brushwood to light his fire ; loathsome centi-
pedes crawled over his very bed ; he had to
wade through mud, and rain, and filth, over paths
marked out by the sick and dying fallen by the
roadside, with the carrion birds whirling aloft over
the spot where the corpses lay. Yet I never heard
308 "held in bondage; or,
him utter a complaint^ except, indeed, when he
turned to me with a smile :
* How horrible it is, Arthur, not to be able to
wash one's hands ! '
One night, just before we were ordered into
Balaklaya, a friend of his who was staying on board
one of the vessels in the harbour was dining with
him De Vigne, a French colonel of cavalry,
whom Sabretasche had known in Paris, a man of
the th Lancers, and myself, making up the
party. All of us thought of the Coloners charm-
ing dinners in Park Lane as we sat down to this,
the best money could procure, and miraculously
luxurious for the Crimea a turkey, some pre-
served beef, and a little jam, with some brandy
and whisky, for which his man had paid a price
you would not believe, if I recorded it parole
d'honneur.
* I am equally glad to see you, Carlton,' said
Sabretasche, * but I'm afraid I can't entertain you
quite so well as I did in Park Lane. II faut
manger pour vivrCy else I fancy you would hardly
be inclined to touch much of anything we can
give you in the Crimea.'
*The deuce, Sabretasche! we have what we
care for; our Amphitryon,' said Carlton. *I
wonder when we shall have you back among us ?
GRANVILLE D;B VIGNE. 309
I say, you're quite a hero, De Vigne, in England.
Lady Puffdoff and scores of your old loves are
gone mad about you, and have been working their
snowy fingers to the bone over all sorts of wool
things for you and the rest of the Dashers, that
are now tumbling about in the holds, and will rot
in Balaklava harbour, I suppose, till the hot
weather comes/
* Hero ! Bosh ! ' said De Vigne, with his most
contemptuous sneer. *If the people at home
would just believe the men are dying away here,
more than three thousand sick in camp, and
would provide for them with just a little common
practical sense, they'd do us more service than by
writing ballads about us, aud showering epithets
on us that they'll forget in twelve months' time,
when they are running after some new hobby.'
(De Vigne spoke prophetically !)
' But you like campaigning, though you rough
it, old fellow ? ' asked Carlton.
. * By George ! I should say so ! If I were a
medical man, and had to deal with hypochondriacs,
frenzied poets, nervous litterateurs, or worn-out
public men, I would send them all off to active
service. Boot and Saddle would soon have all the
nonsense out of them, and send them back much
healthier and better fellows. Campaigning is the
310 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
only thing to put a dash of cayenne pepper into
the soup of life/
* Our cayenne gets rather damped here/ smiled
Sabretasche. * I confess I miss my " Times/* my
reading-chair, my periodicals, my papers, my
club the *' sweet shady side of Pall Mall;"
above all, Society. All these are great agremens
of life/
* But confess, Colonel, you're less fastidious and
less dandified,' asked De Vigne.
* I never was a dandy. I dress well, of course ;
any man of good taste does by instinct. As for
fastidiousness, I manage with a shirt a week in the
Crimea, because I can't have more; but I shall
have two per diem again as soon as ever I go
back. I let my beard grow here because I have
no time to have it shaved; but I shall have it
very gladly cut to a decent length as soon as I
rejoice in a decent valet ! '
* Nonsense ! What are shirts or beards, com-
pared with the vervCy the excitement, the reality
of active service ? '
* Certainly nothing ! If our days here were all
twenty-fifths of October, they would be delight-
ful,' said Sabretasche, with that sad smile which,
when he exerted himself to be cheerful, showed
how painful and unreal the effort was. ^ All I say
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 311
is, that I do prefer an Auxerre carpet to this ex-
tremely perilous mud ; that I do like much better
to have hot water and almond soap, to being only
able to wash my hands at very distant intervals ;
and it would be ridiculous to pretend that I don't
think a dinner at the Star and Garter more
palatable than this tough turkey ; nor my usual
toilette more agreeable than these ragged and non-
descript garments?'
' And yet one has never heard a word of com-
plaint from that fellow from our first bivouac till
now ! ' said De Vigne to Carlton.
' Cui bono ? ' smiled Sabretasche. ' It all comes
in the fortune of war. Besides, there is not a
murmur heard out here ; the Dashers will hardly
set the example! Come, Carlton, you have not
told us half the news.'
Carlton told us plenty of news ; of marriages
and deaths; intrigues of the boudoir and the
cabinet ; of who had won the Grand Military, and
who was favourite for the Cesarewitch; of how
Dunbar had married Ela Ashburnham, and Jack
Mortimer's wife run away with his groom ; of how
Fitzturf had been outlawed for seventy-thousand,
and Monteith made a pot of money at the Oc-
tober meetings ; of all the odds and ends of
the chat, on dits, scandals, and gossip he had
312 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
brought from the lobby, the clubs, and the draw-
ing-rooms.
* I say, De Vigne,' said he, at the last, * do
you remember that bewitching Little Tressillian,
who was at a ball in Lowndes Square, and whom
all the men went so mad about ? You knew her
very well, though, didn't you ? '
Carlton had never heard much of the intimacy
between De Vigne and Alma, and never guessed
on what ground he trod ; by the feeble lamplight
I could see De Vigne's face grow crimson with the
blood that leapt into it.
* What of her?'
Carlton never noticed the chill stern tone of
those brief words, hissed rather than spoken be-
tween his set teeth.
* What of her ? Only that people say she le-
vanted with that cursed fool, Castleton. I pity her
if she did ! I fancy it's true, too, because as I
came through Paris where I know he is on my
way here, I saw her in a carriage in the Champs
Elysees that was waiting at a door, a very dashing
carriage, too. I didn't know her enough to speak
to her, but I recognized her in a second it's a
face you can't forget. I should have thought she'd
been a cut above that, wouldn't you ? But, women
are all alike.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 313
De Vigne sat quite still without moving a
muscle, but I saw in his face the death-like pallor
I had seen there on his marriage-day. Happily for
him, at that moment an orderly came to the door
with a despatch from head-quarters to Sabretasche,
and De Vigne, rising, bid us good night, and went
out into the storm of pitiless, drenching, driving
rain to seek his own tent.
The next morning a mail came in : there were
some letters from Violet, by the flush that rose on
the Colonel's impassive face as he received his epis-
tles, and there were more than a dozen for De Vigne,
some from men who really liked him, some from
Leila Puifdoff*, and women who liked to write to
one of the most distinguished men of the famous
Light Brigade. He read them pour samuser. The
last he took up, struck him keener than a sabre's
thrust it was in Alma's handwriting. Twenty-
four hours before he would have seized it, hoping
against hope for an explanation of that mystery
which had robbed him so strangely and suddenly
of her. But now, sceptical of all good, credulous
of all evil, he never for a moment doubted, or
dreamed of doubting, Carlton's story. Circum-
stantial evidence, damned her, and with that insane
haste which had cost him so much all his life
long, without waiting or pausing, allowing her no
VOL. IL Y
314 "HELD IN BONDAGE."
justice, DO hearing, he tore her letter open, then
flung it from him, with an oath, as he saw its
heading, * No. ^ Champs Elysees, Paris.' It was
confirmation only too strong of Carlton's tale for
him to doubt it.
^ He has deserted her, and she turns to me to be-
fool me a second time ! ' was his madman's thought
as he flung her letter from him ; then resealed with-
out reading it, and directed it back to her before his
purpose should fail him. So, in our madness, we fling
our better fate, happiness away ! One letter still re-
mained unread, indeed unnoticed, which De Vigne
neyer saw until he took it up to light his pipe late
that night; then he opened it mechanically, glanced
to the last line, and found the signature was that
of the valet whom he had dischiarged for reading
Alma's note in Wilton Crescent: *A begging-
letter, of course,' he thought, too heart-sick with
his own thoughts to pay more heed to it, as he
struck a match, held it in the flame, and lighted
his meerchaum with it.
So we throw aside, as valueless cards, the ho-
nours life deals us in its uncertain whist !
CHAPTER L
THE GAZELLE m THE TIGER's FANGS.
Vane Casti^ton had gone mad about Alma. I
do not mean that he loved her, as poor Curly did,
well enough to marry her ; nor as De Vigne, who
would have thrown everything away to vein her ;
but he was wild about her, as very heartless men,
chh'es demoiseUeSy can be wild about a woman who
has bewitched them. He was first of all fascinated
by her, then he was piqued by the wish to rival
De Vigne, whom he disliked for some sharp say-
ings thrown carelessly at him ; then, he was in-
censed by Alma's contemptuous treatment of
him ; and at last he swore to go there no more,
to be treated de haut en bos by * that bewitching
little syren,' but to vdn her by fraud or force.
She might hate him, he did not care for that ; he
did not think, with Montaigne, that a conquest, to
be of value, must be de bonne volante on the part
of the captured ; and if he had been in the East
he would have sent his slaves, had her blindfolded,
and kept her in his seraglio, without regard as to
whether tears or smiles were the consequence.
Not being able to act so summarily, and the
House of Tiara having been, from time immemo-
rial, as eccentric as Wharton, and as unscrupulous
as the Mohawks, he hit upon a plan seemingly
more fitted for bygone days than for our practical
and prosaic age, where police prevent all escapades,
and telegrams anticipate all denouements. But
the more eccentric the thing, the more pleasure
was it to Castleton, who had something of the
evil vanity of Sedley, and liked to set the town
talking of his bad deeds, as other men like to make
it gossip of their great ones; he liked to out-
Herod Herod, and his reputation for unscrupulous
vice was as dear to him as though it had been the
fame of the soldier or the statesman ; he loved his
mere approach to damn a woman*s character, d la
Caligula, and if he could win Alma by some plot
which would increase his notoriety so much the
better.
On the morrow after De Vigue's visit to her.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. o
Alma sat waiting to catch the first faint beat of
his horse's hoofs. She had done nothing that
morning; her easel had lost all charm for her;
Sylvo and Pauline obtained but little attention ;
and after she had filled the room with flowers,
singing soft Italian barcarolles while she gathered
them, till the goldfinches and the thrushes strained
their throats to rival her, she threw herself down
on the steps of the window to watch for her
lover's coming, full of that feverish and impas-
sioned joy which can scarcely credit its own
existence.
When noon had passed, her restlessness grew
into anxiety she had expected him early ; with
a union of child-like and lover-like impatience she
had risen with her friends the birds, hoping that
he might surprise her at breakfast. Twenty times
that morning had she run down to the gate, never
heeding the soft summer rain that fell upon her
hair, to look along the road. About one o'clock
she stood leaning over the little wicket a fair
enough picture a deep flush of anxiety was upon
her cheeks, her eyes darkening with excitement
and the thousand fluttering thoughts stirring in
her heart ; while, with that longing to look well
in his eyes which had its spring in something far
nobler than coquetry, her dress was as graceful as
b2
4 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OK,
her simple, but always tasteful toilette could
afford. As she stood, the sound of hoofs rang
upon the highway in the distance; the colour
deepened in her cheeks, her whole face lighted
up, her heart beat fast against the wooden bar
on which she rested. She was opening the gate to
meet him : but, when the horseman came nearer
to her view she saw that it was not De Vigne, but
Curly ; not the one for whom her heart waited, but
the one whom it rejected. He threw himself off
his saddle, and caught her hand :
^Alma! for Heaven's sake do not turn away
from me.'
She drew it impatiently away : she held it as
De Vigne's ^it was to be touched by no other.
Poor Curly came at an unlucky hour to plead
his cause !
^ Alma, is your resolution fully taken V he said,
catching her hand once more in his too tightly
for her to extricate it. * Listen to me but one
word; I love you so well, so dearly! Can you
not give me one hope ? Can you not feel some
pity ? '
Again she drew herself away, more gently ; for
her first irritation had passed, and she was too
compassionate a nature not to feel regret for the
sorrow of which she was the cause. A look of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 5
pain passed over her glad face as she answered
him, naively :
' Why ask me ? What I told you two days ago
was the truth, I thank you very much for all
your kindness, but I could never have loved you/
* You wovM have done, but for De Vigne/
A brighter flush rose over her brow ; she lifted
her head with a proud, eager gladness upon it ;
she misunderstood him, and fancied De Vigne had
told his friend of their mutual love.
* No, no ; if I had never known him I should
have loved my ideal, of which he alone could have
been the realization. You are mistaken ; I could
never have loved any other !'
The speech had a strange combination of girlish
fondness and impassioned tenderness; it was a
speech to fall chill as ice upon the heart of her
listener; he who loved her so well, and, as is so
often the fate of true affection, could win not one
fond word in return !
Curly 's hands grasped the rail of the gate ! his
face looked aged ten years with the marks of pain
upon it.
* He has told you, then ? ' he said, abruptly.
He meant of De Vigne's marriage, she thought
he meant of De Vigne's love, and answered with
a deep blush over her face :
6 ^^HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
*Yes!'
* My Grod ! and you stoop to listen to his
love?'
* Stoop ? it is be who stoops to me ! '
She gloried in her love, and would no more
have thought of evading acknowledgment of it
than Ghelonis or Eponina of evading exile or
death.
* Heaven help me, then and you ! '
The two last words were too low for her to
hear; but, touched by the suffering on his face,
she stretched out the hand she had withdrawn.
* Indeed I am grieved myself to grieve you!
Forget me; or, until you do, at least forgive
me!'
* Forgive you ! ' repeated Curly, * what would I
not! but forget you ^never! Oh, my love, my
darling ! ' he cried, clasping her hands close up to
his heart, * would to God you would listen to me.
I would make you so happy : you will never be
so with De Vigne. He loves you selfishly; he
will sacrifice you to himself; and I, all that life
can give shall be yours, ^my name, my home,
my rank, and with time I will make you love
At first she had listened to him in vague stupe-
faction; when she did conjiprehend his meaning
GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. '
she wrenched her hands away for the last time,
her eyes flashing with anger, passion of another
sort crimsoning her brow.
Do you dare to insult me with such words ?
Do you venture to suppose that any living man
could ever make me faithless to him ? You are a
true fi-iend indeed to come and slander him in his
absence! He would have scorned to take such
mean advantage over you I '
With those vehement words, natural in her, but
how bitter to him ! Alma swept from him. His
hands grasped the gate-bar till the rusty nails in
the wood forced themselves throu h his gloves
into the flesh, and watched her till the last gleam
of her golden hair had vanished from his sight.
Then he threw himself across his saddle, and
galloped down the road, the ring of the hoofs
growing fainter on Alma's ear as she listened for
those that should grow nearer and nearer till they
should bring De Vigne to her side. She had no
thought for Curly, and no pity ; I think she would
have had more if she had known that never
again on earth would she look upon that fair,
fond face, which would so soon lie turned upwards
to the pitiless sky, unconscious and calm amidst
the roar of musketry and the glare of a captured
citadel.
8 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
She threw herself down upon a couch, excited
still with the glow of indignation that Curly s
words had roused in her. Impetuous always, she
was like a little lioness at any imputation on De
Vigne 2 whether he had been right or wrong, she
would have flung herself headlong into his defence ;
and, had she seen any faults in her idol, she would
have died before she let another breathe them.
Scarcely had the gallop of Curly's horse ceased to
mingle with the fall of the rain-drops and the
rustle of the chesnut-leaves, when the roll of car-
riage wheels broke on her ear. She started up
this time she felt sure it was he ^and even Pauline
screamed the name she had caught from Alma,
*SirFolko! SirFolko!'
But the girl's joyous heart fell when she saw a
hired brougham standing at her gate, for she
knew that if De Vigne ever drove down, he drove
in one of his mail-phaetons, with his grooms. Out
of the brougham came a lady; tall, stately, superbly
dressed, gathering her rich skirts round with one
hand as she came up the gravel path. Alma
watched her with irritation and no sort of interest ;
she did not know her, and she supposed she was
some stranger called to look at her pictures
since her Louis Dix-sept had been exhibited at
the Water-Colours she had had many such visitors.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 9
The lady turned, of course, to the side of the
house to approach the hall door, and Alma lay
quiet on her couch stroking Pauline's scarlet crest,
while the bird reiterated its cry, * Sir Folko ! Sir
Folko!'
She rose and bowed as her visitor entered, and
looked at her steadily, with a trick Alma had of
studying every new physiognomy that came before
her, forming her likes and dislikes thereon ; ra-
pidly, indeed, but often unerringly. The present
survey displeased her, as her guest slightly bent
her stately head. They were a strange contrast !
The woman tall, her figure very full, too full for
beauty; artistic rouge upon her cheeks, and tinting
round her superb black eyes ; her attire splendid,
her jewels glittering, yet with some indefinable
want of the lady upon her : the girl small, slight,
lind simply dressed, with native grace and aris-
tocracy in all her movements, and her air of
mingled child-likeness, intelligence, and brilliance.
Alma rolled a chair towards her, and looked a
mute inquiry as to her visitor's errand. Her
guest's eyes were fixed upon her in curious
scrutiny ; she seemed a woman of the world, yet
appeared at a loss how to explain her call, and
played with the fringe of her parasol as she said,
' Have I the pleasure of seeing Miss Tressillian ? '
10 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
Alma bent her head.
She toyed uneasily with the long fringe as she
went on, never relaxing her gaze at Alma :
* May I inquire, too, whether you are acquainted
with Major De Vigne?'
At the abrupt mention of his name, a hot blush
came in Alma's face ; again she bowed in silence.
* You are very intimate with him much inter-
ested in him, are you not ? '
Alma rose, her slight figure haughtily erect, her
eyes sufiSciently indicative of resentment at her
visitor s unceremonious intrusion :
' Pardon me, madam, if I inquire by what title
you venture to intrude such questions upon me?'
* My title is clear enough,' answered her guest,
with a certain sardonic smile, which did not escape
Alma's quick perception, and increased her distrust
of her interrogator, * Perhaps you may guess it
when I ask you but one more question : Are you
aware that Major de Vigne is a married man ?'
For a moment the cruel abruptness of the ques-
tion sent back the blood to the girl's heart, and her
companion's bold, harsh eyes watched with infinite
amusement the quiver that passed over her bright
young face. But it was only for a moment : the
next. Alma smiled at the idea, as if Sir Folko
would conceal anything from her above all, con-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 11
ceal that! Her rapid instincts made her mis-
trust and dislike this woman; she imagined it
was some one who, having a grudge against De
Vigne, tried this method to injure him, and her
clear, fearless eyes flashed contemptuous anger
on her questioner; she deigned no answer to the
inquiry.
* Major De Vigne is my friend. I allow no
stranger to mention his name to me except with
the respect it deserves. I am quite at a loss to
conceive why you should trouble yourself to insult
me with these unwarranted interrogations. You
will excuse me if I say that I am much engaged
just now, and should be glad to be left alone.'
She bowed as she spoke, and moved across the
room to the bell, but her visitor would not take
the hint, however unmistakable; she sat still,
leaning back in her chair playing with her parasol,
probably puzzled whether or no the Little Tres-
sillian was aware of her lover's marriage. High-
cou raged and thoroughly * game' as Alma was, she
felt repugnance to this woman a certain vague
fear of, and dislike to being alone with, her.
Her visitor rose too, and took a different tone,
fixing her black eyes, in whose bold stare spoke
a dark past, and an unscrupulous character, on
those which were clear with innocence and youth.
12 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
* You take too high a tone, young girl ; if you
do not know of his marriage, you are to be pitied ;
if you do, you are to be blamed indeed ; and if you
have any shame in you, you will never, out of re-
gard for yourself and justice to me, see Granville
de Vigne again, when I tell you that / am his
wife!'
* His wife ! ' With ashy lips Alma re-echoed the
words, * his toife ! ' that coarse, cruel-eyed woman,
with her bold stare, and her gorgeous dress, which
yet could not give her the stamp of Birth; for
Time had not passed wholly lightly on the Trefusis,
and now there was more trace of the Frestonhills
milliner in her than of the varnish she had adopted
from the Parisiennes, for at thirty-seven the Tre-
fusis had grown vulgar ! That woman his wife !
Alma, true to her faith in, and reverence of, De
Vigne, could have laughed at the mere thought !
That woman his wife ! his ! when but a few
hours before he had called her his own, and kissed
her, when she spoke to him of their sweet future
together ! She knew it was a plot againt him ; she
would not join in it by lending ear to it. He could
never have loved that woman with her rouged
cheeks, her tinted eyelids, her cruel eyes, her cold,
harsh voice. Alma did not remember that a man's
first love is invariably the reverse of his last !
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 13
* You his wife ! ' sbe repeated, with a contempt
which excited the savage nature of her listener, as
the Trefusis had excited the slumbering fire of
Alma's character. *You his wife? Before pre-
tending to such a title, you should first have learnt
the semblance of a lady to uphold you in the
assumption of your role ! Your impertinence in
addressing me I shall not honour by resenting;
but your ill-done plot, I must tell you, will scarcely
pass current with me/
She spoke haughtily and impatiently, anger and
disdain flashing from her expressive face, which
never cared to attempt concealment of any thought
passing through her mind.
' Plot ! ' repeated the Trefusis, vnth a snarl on her
lips like a hound catching hold of its prey. * You
think it a plot, young lady ? or do you only say so
to brazen it out before a woman you have foully
wronged ? If it 3^ a plot, what say you then to
that ? '
Not letting go her hold upon it, she held before
Alma's eyes the certificate of her marriage.
*Readit!'
Alma, who had never seen a document of the
kind, saw only a printed paper, and put it aside
with a haughty gesture ; she would have none of
this woman's enforced confidences ! But the Tre-
I
14 "held in bondage; or,
fusis caught her little delicate wrist and held the
certificate so tbat Alma could not choose but see
the names with that prolix preamble by which his
Grace of Canterbury so graciously permits an En-
glishman to wed.
Then Alma's face grew white, even to her lips ;
for an instant her heart stopped with a dull anguish
of horror, but, true to her allegiance, refused, even
in the fitce of proof, the doubt that would dishonour
him ; no thought that was treachery to her lover
should dwell in her mind, no stranger should whis-
per of him in his absence to her ! She threw off
the Trefusis's hand as though it had been the gripe
of an adder's fangs, her soft eyes flashing like dark
blue steel.
* Leave my presence ! Leave it ! It is useless to
seek to injure him with me,*
As she spoke she rang the bell, and the single
servant of the house responded to the summons ;
Alma bowed her head with the stately grace of an
Empress signing to her Household^ 'Show this
lady to the door.'
For once in her life the Trefusis was baffled ;
she knew not how to play her next card, uncertain
whether Alma was aware or unaware of her mar-
riage to De Vigne. She had hoped to find a weak
and timorous young girl, whom her dignity would
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 15
awe and her story overwhelm, but she was cheated
of her second revenge. Mortified and incensed
she swung round, with her devil's sneer upon her
fine bold features :
* Excuse me, Miss Tressillian, for my very mis-
placed pity ! I fancied you a young and orphaned
girl, whom knowledge of the truth might warn from
an evil course ; I regret to find one on whom all
warnings are thrown away, and who gives insult
where she should ask for pardon. No other mo-
tive than pity for you prompted my call. I have
been too often the victim of Major de Vigne's in-
constancy, for it to have any longer power to
wound me.'
Then the woman, whom Church and Law termed
his Wife, swept from the room, and the girl was
left once more to her solitude. In that solitude
the high-strung nerves gave way ; while her sword
and her shield were wanted she had done battle for
him gallantly ; but now that they were no longer
needed her courage forsook her, and she lay on the
couch sobbing bitterly. Tears had always been
very rare with her, but of late they had found their
way much oftener to the eyes which should have
been as shadowless as the Southern skies, whose
hue they took ; with passion, all other floodgates
of the heart are loosed. Her wild rapture had its
16 "HELD IN BONDAGE;*' OR,
reaction ; vehement joys ever pay their own price !
She did not credit what the Trefiisis had told her ;
her own quick perception, true in its deduction^
though here not true in fact, knew that no really
injured wife would have taken the tone of her
visitor, nor such means of making her wrongs and
her title known; there was something moreover
false, coarse, cruel, which struck at once on her
delicate senses ; she felt sure it was some slander,
and the certificate a forgery; she had read of
women who had taken similar revenge upon men.
* So many must have loved him,' thought Alma,
* and so many, therefore, will hate me as I should
hate any who took him from me/ So she reasoned
with that loyal love which, truer than the love that
is fabled as blindj will, if it see a stain on its idol,
veil it from all eyes, even from its own. Still it
had left upon her a sort of vague dull weight ; she
felt afraid, she scarcely knew of what, a terror lest
her new-won joys should leave her as suddenly as
they had come to her : she would have given years
of her young life to look in his eyes again, and hear
his voice.
Once more the roll of carriage-wheels inter-
rupted the ceaseless fall of the heavy rain. Alma
started up; dashing the tears from her flushed
cheeks. She had suffered a good deal in her brief
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 17
life but she had never known anything like the
terror which, crowding the pain of hours into a
single minute, laid its leaden hand upon her when
she saw not De Vigne but his servant Raymond
alone approach.
* Oh my Grod ! what has ha]pened ? He is ill ! '
she uttered, unconsciously: her nerves were un-
strung by her interview with the Trefusis, and her
imagination seized on all the evil that could have
befallen him whom she loved so well.
She stood with her hands clenched in the effort
to repress the emotion she could not show to a
servant, and as Raymond approached her, with
^ the silken suavity which characterized that prize
valet, he seemed, for once, to be hurried and
anxious.
* Madam,' he began, with one of the reverential
salaams which would have qualified him to be
groom of the chamber, * in riding home last even-
ing Major De Vigne was thrown from his horse.'
^GoodGod! is he hurt?'
No presence could restrain the agony spoken in
those few brief words.
* Yes much, madam,' said Raymond, hesitat-
ingly. * The hurt might not perhaps be so severe,
but inflammation, and consequently fever, h,ave set
in. He is at timm unconscious, and at those timcis
VOL. IIL
18 "held in bondage;" or,
he is constantly speaking of you, Miss Tressillian ;
muttering your name, and calling you to come to
him so incessantly, that the surgeon told me, if I
knew who the lady was that the Major meant, to
fetch her, for that his life depended on his being
kept as calm as possible. So, madam, I ventured
to come and inform you, I could not tell what to
do. I hope I have done right ? I brought the
carriage in case you might be kind enough to
come '
All the light died out of the face so radiant but
a short time before ! She was white as a corpse,
save for the blue veins which stood out upon her
temples and her hands. She gave one low, deep
sob, tears would not come to her relief; and her
throat was hoarse and dry as after a long illness,
when she answered :
* Right quite right. I shall be ready in a mo-
ment.'
Alma's love was infinitely too true, eager, and
active, to stand still and weep. She never paused
to reason or reflect ; all she thought of was De
Vigne in suffering, perhaps in danger. He wanted
her that was enough! She ran upstairs, her
heart suffocated with the sobs to which she would
not give way while he needed nerve and action to
aid him took her hat, threw a large cloak over
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 19
her dress, and was beside tbe carriage in an in-
stant.
* Tbe Major was riding towards Windsor, madam,
so be is now at tbe nearest bouse to tbe place
wbere be was tbrown. It is many miles from
here,' said Raymond, as be opened tbe door.
Alma bent her bead ; her thoughts were too full
to notice that the man had said on bis entrance
that bis master was riding home, now that be had
been going across to Windsor ; or to remark tbe
improbability of ])e Vigne's having gone so far tbe
previous night. Tbe door was shut, Raymond got
upon the box, and tbe brougham rolled away, bear-
ing them from St. Crucis.
The drive was through tbe heavy rain, which fell
without cessation. Sbe could not remember how
far Windsor was from Richmond ; she knew little
or nothing of London or its environs, indeed of
England itself, so secluded bad her life been since
sbe quitted Lorave ; but tbe way seemed intermi-
nable. So horrible grew tbe long dreary drive,
through roads so strange to her, in her fear and
anxiety, with the ceaseless sigh and sob of the
ilrencbing rain, that Alma, impressionable as most
enthusiastic natures are, became nervous and fear-
ful, and excited to a vague and heavy dread of some
approaching evil. All her radiant joy of the mom-
c2
20 " HELD IN BONDAOB ; OR,
ing had died away. That dreary, solitary drive !
how long it seemed ; how horrible the grey, dark
storm, the ceaseless roll of the wheels, the weari-
some, unfamiliar road ! Alma, as if conscious of
her doom, cowered down in a corner of the car-
riage, like a young child fearful of the dark, looking
back on the sweet^ past of yesterday, as beside the
grave of one they have loved, men look back on
the time when the dead lips were smiling, and the
closed eyes were bright.
The carriage stopped at last on the outskirts of
Windsor, rolled through iron scroll-gates under
some dripping larch-trees, through small grounds
very ill kept, with long grass and flowers run
wild, and a statue or two, moss-grown, grim, and
broken : the very aspect of the place struck a fresh
chill into her heart, and nothing in the house
itself reassured her. It was a cross between an
old country-house and a lorette's villa, and had an
untidy, dissipated, unpleasant look about it to
one long used to the brilliant sunlight of Lorave.
It seemed a house that might have seen dark sto-
ries and painful scenes, smothered from the light
of justice, between those irregular and dirty walls.
The carriage stopped again before a low side-
door, and Alma now thought little of the house
only of the one who had sought its temporary
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 21
asylum. She sprang from the brougham the
instant Raymond let down the steps.
* Where is your master ? '
*I will take you to him, madam, if you will
have the kindness to follow me/ said that silky
valet.
Alma bent her head in acquiescence, and fol-
lowed him through several crooked passages and
tortuous corridors, through which she could not
have found her way back unaided ; at last he
throw open the door of a room, and stood aside
for her to enter. It was now nearly nine o'clock ;
the dense clouds and drenching rain had made it
as dark in the open country as though it were
fully night; and in this chamber, of which the
curtains before the windows at the far end were
drawn. Alma could see nothing save the indistinct
outline of a table and some chairs near her. She
turned hastily to Raymond :
' Is Major de Vigne '
But the valet had withdrawn, closing the door
behind her, and she heard a sharp click like the
turning of a key in a lock. Then a deadly
agony of fear came upon her, and she trembled
from head to foot ; horrid sights, sounds, thoughts,
seemed to hover round her; she had had from
infancy a strange terror of being alone in dark-
22 "held in bondage;" or,
ness, and she stretched out her hand with a
pitiful cry :
* Sir Folko Granville where are you ? '
In answer to her call a man's form drew near,
indistinct in the gloom, and in her ear a voice
whispered :
^ My beautiful, my idolized Alma ! there is one
here who loves you dearer than him you call.
If I have erred in bringfng you hither, pardon at
least a fault of too much love !'....
A shriek of loathing, despair, horror, and an-
guish burst from Alma's lips, ringing shrill and loud
through the darkened room, she knew that the
speaker was Castleton ! She struggled from his
grasp, and mastering her terror with the courage
which was planted side by side in her nature with
so much that was poetic and susceptible, she
turned on him haughtily :
'Lord Vane, what do you think to gain by
daring to insult me thus? Major de Vigne's
servant brought me here to see his master, who
was dangerously hurt, I desire you to leave me,
or, if this be your house, and you have one trace
of a gentleman's honour left in you, to tell me at
once where I may find my friend ? '
Castleton could have laughed outright at the
little fool's simplicity, but he was willing to win
GRANTILLE DE VIGNE. 23
her by gentle means if he could, perhsfe^s, for there
are few men entirely blunted and inured to shame;
he scarcely relished the fiery scotn of the eyes that
flashed upon him in the twilight.
* Do not be so severe upon me,' he said, softly.
* Surely one so gentle to all others may pardon an
offence bom from a passion to which she of all
others should show some pity ? I would have told
you yesterday how madly I love you and my
love is no cold English fancy. Alma ! I love you,
my divine little angel ; and my idolatry has driven
me perhaps to error, but an error such as women
should surely pardon.*
* Off! do not touch me ! ' cried Alma, fiercely,
as his hand wandered towards the delicate form
that he could crush in his grasp as a tiger's fangs
a young gazelle. * Your words are shame, your
love pollution, your presence hateful ! Insult me
no more, but answer me, yes or no, where is Major
de Vigne ? '
* De Vigne ? The devil knows ! He is with his
wife, I dare say ; he can't hear you, and would not
help you if he did.'
^ It is a lie ! ' moaned Alma, almost delirious
with fear and passion. * He has no wife ; and he
will revenge me all your dastard insults !'....
* How will he hear of them, pretty one ? ' laughed
24 "held in bondage;" or,
Castleton, seizing her in his anns, while his hot
breath sullied her cheeks. * Do you think, now I
have you, I shall let you go again ? I have hardly
caged ray bird only to let her fly ! We shall clip
your wings, loveliest, till you like your captivity
too well to try and free yourself. You are mine
now, Alma who can save you ? '
*I shall never be yours dastard! coward!'
gasped she, striking him a fierce blow with her
clenched hands upon his eyes, in her agony, as she
struggled in the iron grasp of his embrace, mad-
dened by the loathsome kisses he branded on her
lips the abhorred caresses that seemed to pollute
her with infamy and shame. Involuntarily he
loosened his hold one moment, in the sharp pain
and sudden blindness of the unexpected blow.
That moment was enough for her ; she wrenched
herself from him, flew across the room, tore aside
the curtain of one of the windows ; by good for-
tune it was open, and, without heeding what
height she might fall, leaped from its low sill on
to the ground without. Tlie window was five
feet otf the lawn below, but happily for her
there lay just where she alighted a large heap
of cut grass-^all that had been mown off the turf
that morning having been gathered together just
beneath the window. It broke her fall, but she
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 25
Ibj stunned till Castleton's voice from the chamber
made her spring to her feet, like a hare that has
Iain down panting to rest in its run for life, and
starts off again with every nerve quivering and
every sense stretched, at the bay of the hounds in
pursuit. She sprang to her feet, and ran along the
lawn. The grounds were a labyrinth to her, the
light was dim and dusky, the rain still fell in
torrents, but Alma's single thought was to get
away from that horrible house, to which she had
been lured for such a horrible fate. She fled
across the lawn, and through a grove of young firs,
taking the first path that presented itself, the road
through the plantation, which led her on about a
quarter of a mile; she flew over the dank wet
turf with the speed of a hunted antelope. Yet to
her, with the dread of pursuit upon her, thinking
every moment she heard steps behind her, feeling
every instant in imagination the grasp of her hated
lover and foe, it seemed as though leaden weights
were on her ankles, and each step she took
bare her a hundred steps backward. At the
end of the plantation was a staken-bound fence,
and a high gate, with spikes on its top rail. Her
heart grew sick with terror : if she turned back
she would &11 into Castleton's grasp as surely as a
fox that doubles from a wall falls a victim to the^
jl^ 'HELD IS BOTmiGE;** OK,
^*4, She knew he wonld parBoe her; to retrace
)K^ lt} would be to meet him, and Alma knew
i^ W merrj the would find at his hands. An old
^VM^, jfnUieriug up his tools after thinning the
llHi^ and loosening the earth round the roots, was
MfVir the gatA and to him Alma rushed :
' Lot me through ! let me through, for (}od's
aake * ' she gasped, her fingers clenching on his
anu, the wild terror on her face telling her story
without wtwls,
*r)\e old }H^asant, a hard-featured, kindly-eyed
K\\%\ man, Kn^ketl at her in amaiement
* l\uir bonny child, where would ye go ? '
* l4et me through quick- quick, for the love of
lUNHveu^' whis|ered Alma, panting with her
biVHil^ltvis raciv
W'iihout another question the woodsman un-
U^oked the gate, and let her pass; she flew through
it witli a murmured * God reward you ! ' and as he
looked t)m padlock after her and took up bis axe
and 8)mde, he muttered to his own thoughts,
Oastleton would flav me alive if he could for
that ; but I don't care she's too bonnie a birdie
fur such an evil cage/
Once through the gate, she found herself where
two cross-roads met; ignorant which led back
to London, she took the one on her right and ran
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 27
on ; the thick drops of the shower, that still fell
fast and heavily on her golden hair, that had fallen
dishevelled and unbound in her wrestling with
Castleton ; her heart beating, her delicate limbs,
unused to all fatigue, already beginning to fail her,
every nerve on the rack in the dread horror of
pursuit, strained to such tension that not a bough
cracked in the wind or a rain-drop splashed in the
puddles but she thought it was his emissaries
chasing her. On and on she ran, her hair stream-
ing behind her, heavy and dank with water, her
feet soaked and clogged with the weight of the
mud gathered fresh with every step, and every
sinew throbbing, cracking, aching with that merci^.
less race from what was worse than death. At
last she could do no more ; with all her terror, all
her spirit, ever much greater than her strength,
Nature rebelled against the unnatural strain. She
could not run, but she walked on and on, halting
for breath, toiling wearily, ready to sink down on
the wet, cold earth, murmuring every now and
then De Vigne's name, or gasping a prayer to
God. On she still went, she knew not where,
only away away for ever from her abhorred
pursuer.
Tenderly nurtured, delicately bred, sensitive as
a hothouse flower, this child of art, of love, of re-
28 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
finement, with her high-wrought imagination, her
delicate mould of form and thought, her childlike
fear of solitude in darkness, suffered tortures. On
and on she dragged her weary way, till the dusky
haze of rain and fog deepened to the denser gloom
of night, and the storm ceased and the moon came
out over the glades of Windsor Forest. She had
toiled on till she had reached the outskirts of the
royal park, and as the moonlight shivered on the
gaunt boughs and played on the wet leaves, Alma
stopped, powerless to stir again, and a deadly
terror of something vague and unknown crept
upon her, for her brain was strongly creative, her
nerves tender, her mind steeped in poetry, ro-
mance, and out-of-the-world lore even from her
childhood, when she had believed in fairies because
Shakspeare and Milton wrote of them. A deadly
terror came upon her ; a hundred wild stories that
she would have laughed at at another hour rose
in chaos before her mind, bewildered already with
the horrors of the past day. She was afraid to be
alone with that vast silent forest, those cold,
solemn stars ! She was afraid of the night, of the
stillness, of the solitude ; she who but so few
hours before had been gathered to her lovers
heart and sheltered in his arms, there, as she had
thought, to find asylum all her life. She was
GRANVILLE DE TIGNE. 29
afraid; a cold trembling seized her, she looked
wildly up at the gaunt boughs and silver foliage
in the moonlight ; no sound in the hushed night
but the hooting of an owl or the clash of the horns
of fighting stags. Hideous phantoms glared
around; vile shapes gibbered in her ear. One
sob rose in her throat, De Vigne's name rang
through the quiet woodlands and up to the dark
skies, then she fell forward insensible on the
tangled moss, her long bright hair trailing on the
grass, her fair brow lying on the dank earth, hr
hands clenched on the gnarled roots.
There she lay ; and as if in pity for this fair,
fragile, human thing, the summer winds sighed
softly over her, and touched her brow with cool
caresses as they played among her wet and golden
curls. She had no power to move, to stir even a
limb ; terror, fatigue, that horrible and breathless
race through the pitiless storm, had beaten all the
young life out of her. Nature could do no more ;
the spirit could no longer bear up against the
suffering of the body ; where she had fallen she
lay, broken and worn out ; if Castleton had been
upon her she could not have risen or dragged her-
self one other step. She was but half conscious ;
wild thoughts, vague horrors, loathsome sights and
sounds, indistinct with the unembodied terrors of
30 ** HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
night-dreams, flickered at times before her closed
eyes, and hovered on the borders of her brain ;
still she lay there, powerless to move from the
phantasms of her mind, equally powerless to repel
them with her will. All volition was gone;
terror and bodily fatigue had done their work, till
the mind itself at last succumbed, outwearied, and
a heavy, dreamless sleep stole on her, the sleep of
nature utterly worn out. There she lay on the
cold, dank moss, the dark brushwood waving over
her, above her the silent heavens, with their chill,
pale stars, while the great boughs of the forest
stirred with a mournful shiver, and through their
silent glades moved, with melancholy sigh and
measure, the wind of the summer night.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 31
CHAPTER IL
BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.
The morning dawned ; the berds of deer rose from
their fern couches, and trooped down to the pools
for their morning drink, and fragrance rose up
from the wet grass that sparkled in the light after
the storm of the past day, and from the deep
dells, and shadowy glades, and sunny knolls of the
Royal Forest. One of the rangers, a white-haired
old man, who had lived in the stately woodlands
till he loved them almost as men love their own
ancestral homes, was going home for his breakfast,
when he caught sight of something gleaming white
among the brushwood on the outskirts of the
forest, and drawing near, saw Alma as she slept.
He was going to awaken her somewhat roughly
perhaps, but her attitude touched him, and as he
stooped over her and marked the fine texture of
the dress, soaked through with mud and rain, her
delicate hands, the circles under the eyes dark as
the lashes resting on them, and the parted lips.
32 "HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
through which every breath came with feyerish
and painfiil effort, he shrank involuntarily from
touching harshly what seemed so fragile and at his
his mercy.
He stooped over her perplexed. He did not
like to leave her ; he did not like to move her.
* Poor pretty child ! ' he muttered, drawing her
thick golden hair through his rough fingers. * Who's
sent her to such a bed, I wonder ? If she's been
lying out all night, she's caught her death of cold.
I should like to take her home, poor young thing ;
but what would the old woman say ? '
The worthy man, being a trifie henpecked,
paused at this view of the question ; his charity
halting before the dread of another's condemna-
tion of it, as charity in the great world shrinks
and hides her head before the dread of the ^ qv!en
dira-t'On ! ' He wavered ; he could not leave her
there; he was afraid, poor fellow, to take her
home, lest a hissing voice should condemn his
folly, and a shrew's vituperations reward him for
his Samaritanism ; and his dog, with the true in-
stinct and ready kindness with which animals often
shame their owners, began to lick the burning
hands with his great tongue in honest well*
meaning to do good, and to offer what help lay in
hb power.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 33
As his master waTered, ashamed to leave, afraid
to take her with him a lady and two little girls, a
goYemess and her pupils, walking before their
breakfast, drew near, too. The keeper knew
them, and looked op as they approached, for they
were astonished as well as he at this woman's form,
with the white dress and golden hair, lying down
on the dark dank moss.
*Dear me, Reuben dear me, what is this?'
asked the governess, a little, tremulous, . shy per-
son, while the children's eyes grew round and
bright, with wonder and pleasure at seeing some-
thing strange to tell when they reached home.
* It's a girl, ma am,' responded the keeper, lite-
rally, while the lady drew near a little cautiously;
for, though a good-hearted, gentle creature, she
tms a woman, and by no means exempt from
the peculiar theories of her sex ; and no lady, we
know, will look at another, however in distress or
want, unless she knows she is * proper' for her
own pure- eyes to rest upon.
* It's a woman,* went on Reuben. * She looks
like a lady, too, ma'am leastways her face and her
hands do and her dress is like them bits of cob-
web that fine ladies wear, that are no goodxat all
for wind and weather. If she's been lying here all
night, sure she'll die afore along ; by the look on
VOL. III. D
34 ^^HLD IN bondage; or,
her, I fear she's been out in all the rain last even-
ing. She's only asleep now, ma am, though she
do look like a corpse, and you see it ain't a little
thing for poor people like us to get an invalid into
our house for, maybe, two or three months, and a
long doctor's bill, and perhaps in the end nothing
to pay it with ; and as for the workhouse '
* Couldn't we take her home with us ? I am
sure mamma would let us. Don't you think we
might. Miss Bussel ? ' asked the younger girl.
* Hush, Cecy ! Don't be silly. How could we
take a person home that we know nothing about ?
She can't be a very nice person, you are sure,
Cecy, or she wouldn't be out here all alone,' said
her elder sister, reprovingly, who had already
learnt her little lesson in the world's back-reading
of charity, and had already a special little jury of
her own for haranguing and converting people
according to the practices she saw around her.
* Let me look at her, poor young creature. Let
me look at this poor young thing !' said the gover-
ness, her compassion getting the better of her
prudence. She stooped over the figure that lay
so ijiotionless amidst all their speculations upon
her, turned her face gently towards the light, and,
as the sun-rays fell upon it, cried out in bitter
horror, * Alma ! Alma ! How can she have come
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 35
here?* And, to the children's wonder, their
governess sank on her knees by the girl, pushing
the damp hair off her forehead, kissing and
weeping over her in her astonishment and her
sorrow.
*Do you know her, ma'am?' asked the keeper,
* Do you know her ? ' cried the children, in shrill
chorus of surprise and curiosity. The poor lady
could not answer them at first ; she was speech-
less vnth bewilderment to find her darling lying
here sleeping, with the damp earth for her pil-
low, out under the morning skies, with nothing to
shelter her from night dew or noontide sun, as
lonely, as wretched, as homeless as the most ab*
ject outcast flying for her life.
Whether she woke or not she could not tell ; a
heavy, struggling sigh heaved her chest ; she tried
to turn, but had no power ; then her eyes unclosed,
but there was no consciousness in them; the
lids dropped again immediately ; a shiver of icy
cold ran through her ; she lay motionless as the
dead.
* What can we do with her? ' cried poor Miss
Bussel, half beside herself with grief for the girl
and powerlessness to aid her, for in her own home
she was but a dependent. ^ What shall we do ! '
cried the poor lady. * She will die, if she is half
d2
36 "held in BONDAGE;** OR,
an hour longer without medical aid. Poor little
darling, what can ever have brought her to
this'
'I'll take her to our house/ said Reuben,
decided at last. * Since you know her, ma*am,
that'll be everything to my missis.'
* Do, pray do,' assented the governess, eagerly ;
she would have done anything that anybody could
have suggested, no matter how much to her
own hindrance, but by nature she was nervous,
timid, and undecided. ^Take her at once, and
pray move her tenderly. I must see the young
ladies home, but I shall be at your cottage as
soon as you are. Take her up gently. My poor
darling ! '
Reuben lifted the girl in his arms, and laid the
golden head with no harsh touch against his
shoulder. They might have taken her where they
would. Alma knew nothing of it. Miss Russel
looked at her lingeringly a moment; she longed
to go with her, but she dared not take her pupils
to see a girl whom their reverend father * did not
know.' She retraced her steps rapidly, and
Reuben went onwards with his burden.
She was as good as her promise. The keeper's
wife, with no over good grace, had but just re-
ceived her new charge, wi h much amazement and
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 37
grumbling, when the governess came, and helped
her to lay Alma on the couch, bathe her burning
temples, bind up her long, damp hair, and then
wait wait, unable to do more, till medical aid
should arrive.
For six weeks Alma lay on that bed, unable to
move hand or foot, unconscious to everything
surrounding her, her brow knit with pain, her eyes
wide open, without sense or thought, a burning
glare in her aching eyeballs, her cheeks flushed
deeply, her long hair wet with the ice laid on her
temples her mind gone, not in raving or chatter-
ing delirium, but into a strange, dull, voiceless
unconsciousness, in which the only tie that linked
her to life and reason was that one name which
now and then she murmured faint and low, ^ Sir
Folko ! Granville ! '
The night out in the forest brought on inflam-
ation of the lungs ; and against her danger, her
own youth, and the skill that grappled for her with
death, alone enabled her to battle. At last youth
and science conquered ; at last the bent brow grew
calm, the crimson flush paled upon her face, her
breathing grew more even, her voice ceased to
murmur its piteous wail, and she slept.
*She will live now,' said her doctor, watching
that calm and all-healing sleep.
38 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
* Who is that man whose name she mutters so
constantly ? ' asked Montressor, the doctor, outside
her door, while Alma slept.
Miss Russel was somewhat embarrassed to
reply ; her calm and prudent nature had puzzled
in vain over Alma's strange, expansive attach-
ment, half childish in its frankness, but so wildly
passionate in its strength.
* Really I can hardly tell. I fancy I beh'eve
she means a friend of Mr. Tressillian's, of whom
I know she was very fond.*
Montressor smiled.
* Can we find him ? He should be within call,
for if she has wanted him so much in unconscious-
ness, she had better not be excited by asking for
iiim in vain when she awakes. What is he ?*
*An officer in the Army in the Cavalry I
believe,' answered the governess, much more in-
clined to keep De Vigne away than to bring him
there.
* A soldier ? Oh, we can soon learn his where-
abouts, then. What is his name, do you know ? *
* Major de Vigne,' said the governess, reluc-
tantly. Montressor put the name in his note-book.
Two days after he called on Miss Russel :
*I wrote to the Horse Guards for Major de
Yigne's address. They tell me he is gone to the
GRANVILLE DB VIGXB. 39
Crimea. Tiresome fellow! he would have been
my best tonic'
The doctor might well say so, for when at
length she awoke from the lengthened sleep that
had given her back life, enfeebled as she was, so
much so that for many days she lay as motionless,
though not as unconscious as before, the first
words she spoke, which scarcely stirred the air,
were:
* Where is he ? Bring him here. Pray do ; he
will come if you tell him I am ill. Go and find
him. Go ! '
And little as the governess could sympathize
with or comprehend this to her strangely repre-
hensible attachment for a man who, as she thought,
had never said a word of affection in return, who
certainly had never offered to make Alma his wife
the only act on a man's part that could possibly
justify a woman in liking him, according to that
prudent and tranquil lady's theory she grieved
solely to have no answer with which to relieve
that ceaseless and plaintive question, * Why does
he not come ? Why don't you send for him ? '
and, far from quick at a subterfuge, and loathing a
falsehood, she was obliged to have recourse to an
evasion.
And Alma, too weak to rebel, too exhausted
40 ^^HELD IN bondage;" or,
still to recall anything of the past^ burst into tears,
and lay with her face to the wall, weeping low,
heart-broken sobs that went to the heart of those
who heard them.
^She will never get well like this,' said Mon-
tressor, in despair at seeing his victory of science
over death being undone again as fast as it could.
* Who is this Major de Vigne ? Deuce take the
man, why did he go away just when one wanted
him the most ? Was Miss Tressillian engaged to
him?'
'Not that I ever heard,' replied Miss Russel,
sorely troubled with the subject. * But, you see,
Mr. Montressor, she has very strong affections, and
she has led a strange, solitary life, and Major de
Vigne was her grandpapa's friend, and has been
very kind to her since she came to England, but-^
you knoW' it would hardly be correct, if he were
in England, for him to come here '
* Correct!' repeated Montressor, with a smile
that the man of the world could not for the life of
him repress at the good governess's prudery, * we
medical men, my dear lady, have no time to stop
for conventionalities when life is in the balance
If Major de Vigne were anywhere in this country
I would make him come and quiet my patient by
a sight of him ; all she does is to sob quietly, and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 41
murmur that man s name to herself, and if we
cannot get at the mind we cannot work miracles
with the body. Any shock would be better than
this dreamy lethargy; there is no knowing to
what mischief it may not lead. I shall tell her he
is gone to the Crimea ! '
* Whom do you wish so much to see ? ' asked
Montressor, gently, when he visited Alma on the
morrow and found her lying in the same despond-
ent attitude, no colour in her cheek, no light in
her sunk eyes.
Alma's mind was not yet wholly awake, but
dim memories of what had passed, and what bad
brought her there, hovered through her brain,
entangled with the phantasma of delirium. All
she was fully awake to, and vividly conscious of,
was her love for De Vigne : so strong was that
that she started up in her bed when Montressor
asked the question, her eyes getting back some of
their old luminous light.
*Sir Folko Granville! I am sure they have
not told him I am ill, or he would have come. . If
I could see my old nurse she would tell him
where is she, too? it is so strange so very
strange ! Will t/ou tell him ? do, pray do ! ' And
Alma sank back upon her pillows with a heavy
weary sigh.
42 "held in bondage;" or,
MoDtressor put his hand upon her pulse and
kept it there.
*Do you love this friend of yours so much,
then ? ' he asked her, gently still.
Alma looked at him a moment ; then her eyes
drooped, her mind was dawning, and with it
dawned the recognition of Montressor as a stranger,
and that reluctance to speak of De Vigne to others
which was hlended with her demonstrative frank-
ness to him. She answered him more calmly,
with a simplicity and fervour which touched
Montressor, though the unmasked human nature
which his profession had often shown him had
made him naturally sceptical of many of the dis-
plays of feeling that he saw.
*Yes,' said Alma, lifting her eyes to his face.
* Yes, he is all I have on earth ! and he will come
to me ^he will, indeed ^if you will only let him
know. I cannot think why he is not here. I
wish I could remember
She pressed her hands to her forehead ^the his-
tory of the last two months began to come to her,
but still slowly and confusedly.
*Keep quiet, and you will remember every-^
thing.'
Alma shook her head with a faint sign of dis-
sent. * Not if you keep him away from me it is
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 43
a plot, I know it is a plot ! Why am I to lie here
and never see him ; it is cruel ! I cannot think
why you all try to keep him away '
She was getting excited ; two feverish spots
burned in her cheeks, and her eyes glowed luridly.
* No one is trying to keep him away,' said Mon-
tressor gravely and slowly. *Who should plot
against you, poor child? But your friend is a
soldier, and soldiers cannot always be where they
would. There is a war, you know, between
England and Russia, and Major de Yigne has
been sent off to the Crimea/
He spoke purposely in few and simple words,
not to confuse her with lengthened sentences or
verbose preparation. As he expected it took
instant effect. Alma sprang up in her bed.
* Gone gone-away from me!'
Montressor looked at her kindly and steadily:
* Yes ; it was his duty as a soldier.*
* Gone ! gone ! Oh, my God ! And to war !
Gone ! and he never came for one farewell. He
may be ill, and I shall not be there ; he may die,
and I shall not know it ; he may lie in his grave,
and I shall not be with him ! Gone ! gone ! If
it be true, let me go to him ; God will give me
strength^ and I love him too well for death to
have power over me till I meet him once again/
44 ^HLD IN BONDAGE; OR,
. In her delirious agony she would have sprung
from her couch had not Montressor held her down
in a firm grasp.
^ Lie still, and listen to me. It is true Major
de y igne is gone to the Crimea ; probably he was
ordered off, as officers often are, on a moment's
notice. He may have sent to you, he may have
gone to take leave of you, but that would have
been at your home, he could not tell that you
were here. If you wish to see him again if you
wish, as you say, to follow him to the Crimea
you must calm yourself. If you love your friend,
you must do what I am sure he would wish you
^your utmost to be quiet and to recover.'
She listened to him with more comprehension
in her large, sad eyes than had been in them since
Montressor first saw her. * Thank you, thank
you ; you are very kind ! ' But then her head
drooped on her hands, and a storm of tears con-
vulsed her frame. * Gone ! gone ! Oh, life of my
life, why did you leave me ? '
But Montressor did not mind those tears there
were vitality, passion, reality, and strength in
them. He left her to go his rounds, and when
he was alone, with this shock, all the past, link
(On link, came slowly to Alma's mind. That
horrible race in the midsummer storm, the terrors
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 45
of that night in Windsor Forest, which had ended
in bringing her thither, came back upon her
memory: and De Vigne had doubtless heard of
that flight with Castleton, and, accrediting evil of
lier, had given her up and gone to the Crimea !
She could have shrieked aloud in her agony to
have lost him thus.
There was but one remembrance which forced
her to calm herself, the one on which Montressor
had relied ; that to dispel in any way this hideout
barrier that had risen up between them, she must
recover. In Alma, with all her childlike gaiety
and reckless impulsiveness, there was much strong
volition, much concentrated fixity of will and
purpose ; she had not a grain of patience, but she
had much resolution.
Reuben's close cottage did not facilitate her
restoration; light, air, comforts, atmosphere, all
that were most needful for her, were inaccessible
there. She had barely strength enough to be
lifted from her bed without fainting, and Montres-
sor saw that without the freedom of air, to which
she was accustomed, she would never be better.
Miss Russel's rector, like many another rector,
since he *knew nothing of the young person,*
would not have thought of wasting one of his
spare beds on a stranger *of no connections,'
46 ^^HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
and * you know, my dear, for anything we can tell,
perhaps of no very pure moral character,' as he
remarked to his wife, previous to rustling into
church in his stiff and majestic surplice, and giving
for his text the story of Mary Magdalene. Mon-
tressor was not counted a good man by his rector ;
indeed, having certain latitudinarian opinions of
his own, consequent on his study of man and of
nature, and not always keeping them to himself,
as privately as prudence and his practice might
have suggested, was somewhat of a thorn in the
rector's side, especially as in argument Montressor
inevitably floored him with extreme humiliation,
and the rector being once driven to define Grace
by him was compelled to the extremely un-
comfortable and illogical answer, for which he
would have scolded his wife's youngest Sunday
scholar, * Well, dear me, sir ; why, sir, grace is
grace ! ' Montressor, moreover, did not always
go to church, but preferred strolling in Windsor
Forest, and thinking of that great God of Nature
whom men dwarf in their sermons and exclude
from their lives. Therefore, you see it was very
natural for poor Miss Russel to look to the rector,
and not to Montressor for Charity ; but and I
fancy that is as natural too it was in him and
not in the rector that she found it. 'Montressor
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 47
knew that a week or two in a house like his
might secure Alma's restoration, while she might
linger on and on for an indefinite time in the
oppressive atmosphere of Reuben's cottage, close,
dark, and unodorous. As soon as she was able
to be moved, Alma, too weak to protest against
his will, was carried to his house ; and there did
daily grow stronger and better, and now began to
recover as rapidly as she had been slow to do so
before.
Mrs. Montressor, young herself, had taken a
deep interest in her husband's patient. She
received her in her house with delight, and felt a
not unpardonable curiosity to know her story, and
how she came there that midsummer night. This
Alma, as soon as she was able, told her. She
spoke very little of De Vigne ; his name was too
dear to her to bring it forward more than she
could help, but all the rest she told frankly and
folly, as was due, to her new-found friends.
As soon as ever she had strength enough to
vmte. Alma's first effort was to pen to De Vigne
the whole detail of Castleton's plot, pouring out to
him all her love and sorrow. When that was
done, she sank back on her pillows with more
bitter tears than she had ever shed. Many weary
weeks must come and pass away, many weary
48 "held in bondage; or,
days must dawn, and many nights must fall, before
she could have an answer ; and even now, before
that reached him, what evil might not have
befallen him !
* Would it cost much money to go to the
Crimea ? ' she asked her doctor, as he paid her his
visit that evening, fixing her eyes on his vnth
their earnest and brilliant regard.
* A great deal, my little lady.'
* How much ? ' asked Alma, wistfully.
* A hundred or two, at the least.'
Her lips quivered, and her head drooped with a
heavy sigh.
* Ah, and I have nothing ! But, Mr. Montressor,
are there not nurses with the army ? Have I not
heard that ladies sometimes go to be in the hos-
pitals ? Could not I go out to him in that way ? '
Montressor smiled, amused yet touched.
* Poor child ! you are much fit for a nurse !
What do you know of wounds, of sickness, of
death ? What qualification have you to induce
them to give you such an ofiice ? Do you think
they would take such a fair face as yours among
the sick wards? No, no, that is impracticable.
You must wait : the lesson hardest of all to learn
one, I dare say, you have never had to learn
at all.'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 49
It was true she never had, and it was one she
never would learn; she would fret her life out
like a fettered nightingale, but she never would
endure confinement calmly like a caged bird. Not
only would she have gone to the Crimea had she
been rich, but had she but known of any means
she would have worked her way there at any cost
or any pain, only to be near him in his danger, and
to hear him say that for all the witness against
her he knew that she was his and his alone. But
Alma had to bow before that curse, under which
much that is strongest, noblest, and best in Genius,
Talent, and Love, has gone down, never able to
shake off its cruel chain upon their wings, the
barren curse of Want of Money !
Of course she was desirous to leave Montressor's
house as soon as she was able, and warmly as they
pressed her to stay, she fixed the earliest day she
could bear the drive for her return to St. Crucis,
She had not waited till her return to know when
and how De Vigne had heard of her flight with
Castleton. Old Mrs. Lee had written her word,
as calm lookers-on often do write of the fiercest
passions and bitterest sorrows that pass unseen
before their very eyes, 'The Major called, my
darling child, and I telled him all as I thought it
to be, but as, thank Almighty God, it wasn't.
VOL. III. E
i
50 "held in bondage; or.
He took it uncommon quiet like, and walked
out, and I haven't seen not nothing of him since.'
How deep into Alma's heart went those few
common words 'uncommon quiet like, and then
walked out.' What volumes they spoke to her
of that mighty passion, still and iron-bound as the
ice mountains of the Arctic; but as certain as
they to burst and break away, bringing death and
destruction in its fall ! More for the suffering she
had caused him, than for that which had fallen
upon herself, did Alma mourn for the impetuosity,
which had flung her so unconscious an assistant
into Castleton's plot. * If he die / shall have
murdered him ! ' That was the one cry, that went
up from her heart every hour.
The day was fixed for her to leave Windsor for
St. Crucis. Montressor and his wife were both
unwilling to part with her ; for her story had all
won them to her ; and there was a peculiar, name-
less charm in her foreign fervour, joinec^ to the
childlike softness of her voice and manners.
* The Molyneux are going to Paris,' said Mon-
tressor to his wife, the morning before Alma left
them.
' Indeed ! Why and when? '
* Well, in the first place. Miss Molyneux must
have change of air somewhere. I suggested Italy,
GRAXVILLE DE VIGNB. 51
but she would not hear of it ! her mother, Paris,
to which her ladyship has certain religious, socijil,
and fashionable leanings, ail drawing her at once ;
and to that she assented. Pawr causCj it is nearer
the Crimea ! '
* Is that Violet Moljmeux ? ' asked Alma, eagerly.
They had fancied her asleep upon the sofe. * Is
she not married to Colonel Sabretasche ? '
*No!' answered Montressor. *A fortnight
before their wedding-day, his first wife, whom he
believed dead, came forward and asserted her
rights. I never heard all the details. Now he
has gone to the Crimea but do you know
her?'
Yes ! Another wife ! how she must hate that
woman !' And Alma shuddered as she thought
how she would have hated the Trefusis if that lie,
that fable, had been true !
*And the wife, eh, what pity, for her, Miss
Tressillian ! ' smiled Montressor.
Alma shook her head. * None ! If she had
left her husband all those years, long enough to
make him think her dead, she could care nothing
for him.'
* Perhaps he left her. More probable ! '
* Is Colonel Sabretasche gone to the Crimea ? '
asked Alma, disregarding his suggestion. It
E 2
52 "held in bondage;" or,
touched her strangely, this story of that radiant
h^\e whom she had once envied.
* Yes, and he could hardly have refiised the
campaign, even had it taken him from his bridal
days/
* No ; but she would have gone with him \
and they are going to Paris, you say ? '
* Yes, I recommended it ; so did Dr. Watson,
when he sounded Miss Molyneux's lungs, and
agreed with me that there was no mischief yet
though there may be before long. After her
parting with the Colonel, she lay in a dead swoon^
from which they could not wake her. They sent
for the physicians and for me ; and since then she
has never truly recovered ; she will smile, she will
talk to her mother, to her friends; but her health
suffers. Lady Molyneux would like to have a
companion for her in Paris ; the Vicountess will
have a thousand religious excitements and social
amusements, in which her daughter will not
participate. I did not know I thought would
you ' And Montressor hesitated ; for though
he knew how unprovided for, Alma was, he had
too much delicacy to touch upon it.
* Would they take me ? ' said Alma, lifting her
head. The sentence 'Paris is nearer the Crimea'
rang in her ear.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 53
* Would you go ? '
* Yes, yes if I am free to leave them when I
will. Miss Moljnieux was very kind to me; I
think she would take me if she knew/
* I will mention it to the Viscountess when I go
to town to-morrow/ said Montressor. * Since
you know them, I have no doubt she will be very
happy to give you the preference, and change of
air will do you good as well as her daughter.'
Montressor was as good as his word. Some
years before, Violet's brother, then a graceless
Etonian, now a young attache to the British Lega-
tion at Paris, had been nearly drowned in the
Thames, and had been pulled out at last to go
through a severe attack of bronchitis, which all
but cost him his life, would probably have done so
quite but for Montressor, to whom Jockey Jack
was so grateful for saving his heir's life, that be
gave the doctor the most beautiful mare in his
stables, and had him called in whenever there was
any illness in the family, though Montressor, at the
onset, had mortally offended Madame by assur-
ing her she would have very good health if she
would only leave off sal- volatile, and get up before
one o'clock in the day. On that Lady Moly-
neux had had nothing more to say to him till her
pet physician, who had k-ept her good graces by
54 "held in bondage;" or,
magnifying her migraines and flattering her nerves,
had once very nearly killed her by doctoring her
for phthisis when her disease was bat the more
unpoetic ailment of the liver. Since that time
he had always had a certain influence over the
Viscountess, possibly because he was the only
man who had seen her without her rouge, and
told her the truth courteously but uncompro-
misingly, and when he mentioned Alma as a
companion for Violet, her ladyship graciously
acquiesced. ^ Miss Tressillian ? She did not
recollect the name. Very likely she had seen
her, but she really could not remember. Artist,
was she ? Oh, she thought she hod some recol-
lection of a girl Violet patronized, but she couldn't
remember. If Mr. Montressor recommended her,
that was everything ; as long as she was ladylike
and of unimpeachable character, that was all she
required. She only wanted her to be with them
in case Violet were unwell or declined society.
She must be free to leave them any day she chose ?
What a very singular stipulation ! However,
rather than have any more trouble about it,
would he have the goodness to tell her she would
give her fifty guineas and her travelling expenses ;
and they should leave London that day week/
^ Fifty guineas ! Less than her maid makes by
ORAinriLLE DE VIGNB. 55
lier place ! ' thought Moutressor, as he threw
himself into a hansom to drive back to the Waterloo
station. He was a generous man himself; he
had no cant of benevolence about him ; he con-
sidered that to people delicately nurtured, the
struggles, the mortification, the narrowed lines of
poverty are far harder than to the poor, born '
amidst squalor^ nurtured in deprivation, whose
mofit resplendent memories and dreams are of fat
bacon and fried potatoes. He was generous, but
discriminately so: and though he compelled
his just dues from the man who had lamb and
peas at their earliest, while by a wobegone face
and dexterous text he was making the rector
believe him an object of profoundest pity, Mon-
tressor would not take a farthing from the young
girl, on whose delicate organization and quick
susceptibilities he knew the poverty, from which
her own talents had alone protected her, and from
which in illness they could not guard her, must
prey heavily.
56 "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER III.
ONE OF THOSE WHOM ENGLAND HAS FORGOTTEN.
The chill Crimean winds blew from the north of
Sebastopol, and the dust whirled and skerried
before our eyes, as we kept the line in front
of Cathcart's Hill on the morning of the 8th
September, while the Guards stood ready in
Woronzoff Road, and the Second and Light Divi-
sions moved down to the trenches, and the Staff
stationed themselves in the second parallel of
the Green Hill Battery, and the amateurs, who
had come out to see what was doing in the
Crimea, as they went other years to Norwegian
fishing or Baden roulette, were scattered about
in yachting costume, and stirred to a little
excitement as the Russian shells began to burst
among us, and the bombs to fall with thuds loud
enough to startle the strongest nerves.
What would young ladies at home, full of
visions of conquering heroes and myrtle and bay
leaves, and all the pomp and circumstances of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 57
war, have said if, in that cold, dusty, raw Crimean
morning, they had seen General Simpson, with
only nose and eyes exposed, coddled up in a
great-coat ; and General Jones, a hero in spite of
costume, in his red bonnet de nuity a more natural
accompaniment to a Caudle lecture than to a
siege; and Sir Richard, with his pocket-hand-
kerchief tied over his ears after the manner of
old ladies afliicted with catarrh ? Ah me ! it was
not much like Davy Baird leading the forlorn
hope under the hot sun of Seringapatam, or
Wellington, *pale but ever collected,' giving
his prompt orders from the high ground behind
San Christoval! Yet, God knows, there was
daring and gallantry enough that day to have
made of the Redan a second Ciudad Rodrigo;
that it was not so, was no fault of the troops;
the men whom Unett and Windham tossed up
to lead, would, had they been allowed, have given
England Success as they gave her Pluck : and the
dead bodies piled high on the slopes of the Great
Redan, were offered up as cheerfully as though
the fancied paradise of the Mahometan soldier
awaited them, instead of the ordinary rewards of
the British one abuse and oblivion.
We could see little beyond the great dull
parapets of the Redan, and the troops that were
68 "HELD IN bondage;" or,
pouring into and over it, and, though they were
forced back again under the dense smoke of the
Russian musketry, twice capturing the position,
and twice pushed back down the slopes, slippery
with human blood and piled with human bodies.
It was afterwards, from the wounded that were
brought down the Woronzoff Road, and from the
remnant that came back unscathed from the
reeking salient, that we heard the detail of the
struggle.
We heard how three times Windham sent for
the support, without which nothing decisive could
be done in that fatal scene of carnage, where the
British,, unbacked, had nothing but broken ranks
to oppose to the steady fire of the enemy, and to
the fresh troops who were swarming from the
town and the evacuated Malakoff. We heard
how, when at last he had leave 'to take the
Royals,' the permission came too late. We
heard how hand-to-hand our fellows stood their
ground against the granite mass, that, swelling
every moment from the rear, pressed down upon
them, till those who had held the salient, (uur
supported for an hour and three-quarters, under
a fire that thinned their ranks as a scythe mows
down meadow grass, grappling to the last with
the Russians in the embrace of death,) were
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 59
forced from the loose earth and breaking gabions
which made their ground, pelted with great stones,
and driven down by the iron tramp that crushed
alike friend and foe, till slipping, panting, bleed-
ing, exhausted, pele-mele they fell on to the
mads of bayonets, muskets, and quivering life
mingled together in the ditch below; the men
rolling over each other like loose stones down
a crevasse; the living crushed by the dead,
the dying struggling under the weight of the
wounded; the scarps giving way and burying
the living, while those who could struggle from
the horrible heap of human life, where the men
lay four deep, ran for life and death to reach
the English trench. We heard that, and more
too. Sad stories passed from one to another.
We were all down in the mouth that night;
for though the oflScers had been game as men
could be, flinging down their lives as of no
account, their men had not imitated them ; and
it was hardly the tale that we, after the long
winter of '54-'55, and the weary, dreary, hope-
less months of inaction, had hoped to be re-
warded with, by sending home to England.
Wellington was wont to say that the saddest
thing, after a defeat, was a victory. I think
his iron heart would have broken over the
60 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
loss of human life, on the parapets of the
Redan.
We knew that Curly was to lead the th
with the Light Division that day^ and we thought
of him anxiously enough when we saw from
Cathcart's Hill the smoke pouring out from the
rugged parapets, and the troops fighting their way
over, only to be sent forth again decimated and
exhausted.
I saw him early on the morning of the 8th,
when we were all looking forward to the attack,
as he was chatting with some other fellows,
dressed in that careless nondescript costume which
dandies of the Queen's had adopted, his old gay
smile on his lips, a cap much the worse for wind
and weather on those silky yellow locks that we
had teazed his life out about in the old school-
days ; and a pipe of good Turkish tobacco peering
out from beneath his long blond moustaches. As
we paced past him in the raw grey morning, I laugh-
ingly wished him good luck ; he laughed, too, as
he told us he was going in for the honours now.
De Vigne, as we passed, pulled up his horse for
a second, bent from his saddle, and gave him
his hand, with a sudden impulse; for the first
moment Curly's eyes flashed with angry fire ;
then the better spirit in him conquered, his hand
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 61
closed firm and wann on De Vigne's, and they
looked at one another as they had used to do
in days gone by, before the love of woman had
parted them.
There was no time for speech ; that cordial
shake of their hands was their silent greeting and
farewell, and we rode onwards to form the line
on Cathcart's Hill I think De Vigne thought
more than once of his old school pet, when, from
our post, we saw the ramparts of the Redan
belching forth fire and smoke, and the ambulances
coming down the Woronzoff Road with their
heavy and pitiful burdens. Both he and I, I fancy,
thought a good deal about Curly that day, as we
saw them through the clouds of dust and smoke
scale the parapet, then lost them amidst the
obscurity which the fire of the musketry and the
flames of the burning embrasure raised around
the scene of carnage and confusion ; and whether
he was there among the remnant who were forced
over the parapet and fell, or jumped, pele-mele
into that mass of human misery below, where
English pluck was still so strong among them
that some laughs they say were heard at their
own misery, we could not tell. But late that
night, Kennedy, one of his sergeants, told to
De Vigne and me and a few other men, another
62 "held in bondage; or,
of those stories of individual heroism so great in
their example, so unfortunate in their reward;
telling it in rough, brief words, with an earnest-
ness that gave it eloquence to us, with those
frowning ramparts in front, and those crowded
hospitals behind :
* We was a'most the first into the Redan,
Major. When I see the ladders, so few, and
what there was on 'em so short, I began to think
as how we should never get in at all ; but Colonel
Brandling, he leaped into the ditch and scrambled
up the other side as quick as a cat, with a cheer
to do your heart good, and we went a'course
after him and scaled the parapet, while the
Russians ran back and got behind the traverses
to fire upon us as soon as we got atop. What
possessed 'em I don't know, Major, but you've
heard that some of our men began loading and
file-firing instead of foUering their officers to the
front; so many trench-bred infantry men mU
keep popping away for ever if you let em; but
the Colonel led on to the breastwork with his
cigar in his mouth, just where he'd put it for a
lark when he jumped on the parapet. There was
nobody to support us, and our force weren't strong
enough to carry it, and we had to go back and
get behind the traverses, where our men were
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 63
firing on the Russians, and there we stayed, sir,
packed together as close as sheep in a fold, firing
into the Redan as long as our powder lasted. I
can't tell you. Major, very well how it all went
on ; it wasn't a right assault like, it was all hurry-
scurry and confusion, and though the officers died
game, they couldn't form the troops 'cause they
were so few, sir, and the salient so narrow. But
it was the Colonel I was to tell you about. Major.
I was beside hiui a'most all the time. At first he
seemed as if nothing would hit him; one ball
knocked his cap oflT, and another grazed his hair,
but he took it all as careless as if he was at a ball,
and he just turned to me, sir, with his merry smile :
"Good fun, eh, Kennedy?" . Them was the last
words he spoke, sir. Just at that minute the enemy
charged us with the bayonet, and the devils behind
em began to pour volleys on us from the breast-
work. Four of them Russians closed round the
Colonel, and he'd nothing but his sword against
their cursed bayonets. I closed with one on em j
he was as hard as death to grip with. The
Colonel killed two of 'em off hand, though they
was twice as big as he, but the third, just as his
arm was lifted, ran him right through the left
lung. Then he fell straight down, Major, and I
was a going to fight my way to him and carry him
64 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
off in my arms, and I would ha' done it, sir, too,
but the Russians pressed so hard on the front
ranks that they pushed us straight off the parapet,
and I only caught a sight of the Colonel lifting
himself up on his elbow, and waving us on with a
smile^ God bless him ! and then I fell over into
the ditch, with Pat O'Leary a-top of me, and I
see him no more. Major, and he must be dead, sir,
or else a prisoner in that d d city/
And honest Kennedy, whose feeling had carried
him beyond recollection of delicate language or
other presence than his own, stopped abruptly.
In his own words, he * felt like a fool,' for Curly,
like Eman of the 41st, was loved by all the men
who served under him.
De Vigne set his teeth hard as he listened.
Memories of his Frestonhills pet thronged upon
him ; the little fellow who had been so eager for
his notice, so proud of his patronage ; the merry,
light-hearted child, with his golden locks and his
fearless spirits ; the wild young Cantab ; the dandy
Guardsman; the warm, true, honest heart, un-
stained by the world he lived in ; the friend, the
rival ! Poor little Curly ! and he was lying
yonder, behind those smoking ramparts, wounded
and a prisoner perhaps dead !
For an instant De Vigne's eyes flashed with
GRANVILLE D VIGNE. 65
eagle glance over the stormed city, Wing there
grim and gaunt, in the shadow of the gray-hued*
daj; I believe he would not have hesitated to
cross those death-strewn lines alone, and rescue
Curly or &11 with him.
The Crimea is not so far distant^but the world,
knows how we were awakened, the morning after,
by the Russian general's masterly retreat, by
thunder louder than that which had stunned our
ears for twelve months long, by the explosion of
the Flagstaff and Carden batteries, by the tramp
of those dense columns of Russian infantry passing
to the opposite side, by the glare of the flames
from Fort Nicholas, by the huge columns of black
smoke rising from Fort Paul, by the sight of that
fair and stately Empress of the Euxine abandoned
and in^flames ! Little^did the people at home
hearing Litanies read and hymns sung in the
village churches among the fresh English wood-
lands dream what a grand funeral mass for our
dead was shaking the earth with its echoes that
Sabbath morning in the Crimea.
It was as late as Wednesday, before De Vigne
and I got passes from the Adjutant-General's
office, and went into the town before whose
granite 'ramparts we had lain watching and wait-
ing for twelve weary months. What a road it
VOL. III. p
66 "held in bondage;" or,
was through the French works ! a very fair Rosa-
mond's maze of trenches, zig-zags, and parallels,
across the sap, threading our way through the
heaps of dead, where the men lay so thickly one
on the other, just as they had fallen, shoulder to
shoulder, till we were inside the Malakoff. Four
piles of dead were heaped together like broken
meat on a butcher's stall ^not a whit more ten-
derly and cleared out of the way like carrion ;
the ground was broken up into great pools of
blood, black and noisome; troops of flies were
swarming like mimic vultures on bodies still
warm, on men still conscious, crowding over the
festering wounds (for these men had lain there
since Saturday at noon !), buzzing their death-
rattle in ears already maddened with torture.
That was what we saw in the Malakoff^, what we
saw a little later in the Great Redan, where among
cook-houses, brimful of human blood, English and
Russian lay clasped together in a fell embrace,
petrified by death ; where the British lay in heaps,
mangled beyond recognition by their dearest
friends, or scorched and blackened by the recent
explosions ; and where how strange they looked
there ! there stood outside the entrance of one of
the houses, a vase of flowers, and a little canary !
But we did not stay to notice the once white and
GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 67
stately city, now black and broken with our shot ;
we went straight on towards Fort Paul, as yet
untouched, where stood the hospital, that chamber
of horrors, that worse than charnel-house, from
which strong men retreated, unable to bear up
against the loathsome terrors it enclosed. That
long low room, with its arched roof, its square
pillars, its dim, cavernous light coming in through
the shattered windows, was a sight worse than all
the fabled horrors of painter, or poet, or author ;
full of torment torment to which the crudest
torture of Domitian or Nero were mercy a hell
where human frames were racked with every pos-
sible agony, not as a chastisement for sin, but as a
reward for heroism ! De Vigne, used as he had
been to death and pain, closed his eyes involun-i
tarily as he entered. There they lay, packed as
closely together as dead animals in a slaughter-
house the many Russians, the few English sol-
diers, who had been dragged there after the assault,
to die as they might ; they would but have cum-
bered the retreat, and their lives were valueless
now ! There they lay ; some on the floor that
was slippery with blood like a shamble ; some on
pallets, saturated with the stream that carried
away their life in its deadly flow ; some on straw,
crimson and noisome, the home of the most
F 2
68 "held in bondage ; or,
horrible vermin ; some dead hastily flung down to
be out of the way, black and swollen, a mass of
putrefaction, the eyes forced from the sockets, the
tongue protruding, the features distended in hideous
grotesqueness ; other dead, burnt, and charred in
the explosion, a heap of blanched bones and gory
clothes and blackened flesh, the men who but a
few hours before had been instinct with health and
hope and gallant fearless life! Living men in
horrible companionship with these corpses, writhing
in torture which there was no hand to relieve, no
help from heaven or earth to aid, with their jagged
and broken limbs twisted and powerless, were
calling for water, for help, for pity ; shrieking out
in wild delirium or disconnected prayer the name
of the woman they had loved or the God who had
forsaken them, or rolling beneath their wretched
beds in the agony of pain and thirst which had
driven them to madness, glaring out upon us with
the piteous helplessness of a hunted animal, or
the ferocious unconsciousness of insanity.
We passed through one of these chambers of
terrors, our hearts sickened and our senses reeling
at the hideous sight, the intolerable stench, that
met us at every step. Great God ! what must
those have endured who lay there days and nights
with not a drop of water to soften their baked
^
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 69
throats, not a kind touch to bind up their gaping
wounds, not a human voice to whisper pity for
their anguish ; before their dying eyes scenes to
make a strong man reel and stagger, and in their
dying ears the shrieks of suffering equal to their
own, the thunder of exploding magazines, the
shock of falling fortresses, the burst of shells
falling through the roof, the hiss and crash and
roar of the flaming city round them!
We passed through one chamber in which we
saw no one who could be Curlv, or at least who
we could believe was he ; for few of the faces there
could have been recognized by their nearest and
their dearest, since not Edith's quest of Harold
wanted so keen an eye of love, as was needed to
seek for friend or brother, in the hospital of Sebas-
topol.
We entered a second room, where the sights
and the odours were yet more appalling than in
the first. Beside one pallet De Vigne paused
and bent down ; then his dark bronze cheek grew
white, and he dropped on his knee beside the
wretched bed at last he had found Curly. Curly !
still alive, in that scene of misery, lying on the
mattress that was soaked through with his life-
blood, the wound in his shoulder open and fester-
ing, his eyes closed, his bright hair dull and damp
70 "held in bondage;" or,
with the dew of suffering that stood upon his
brow, his face of a livid blue-white hue ; the gay,
gallant, chivalrous English gentleman, thrown down
to die, as he would not have had a dog left in its
suffering. On one side of him was a black charred
corpse, swollen in one place, burnt to the bone in
another ; the woman that loved him best could
not have known that hideous mass ! On the other
side of him, close by, was a young Russian oflScer
but just dead, with his hands, small and fair as a
girl's, filled with the straw that he had clutched
at in his death-agony; and between these two
dead men lay Curly.
De Yigne knelt down beside him, lifting his
head upon his arm. *My God, Arthur, is he
dead ? '
At the familiar voice his eyes unclosed, first
vnth a dreamy vacant stare in them his mother's
heart would have broken at the wreck of beauty
in that face, so fair, so delicate, but a few days
before !
* Curly, Curly, dear old fellow ! don't you know
me?'
Curly looked at him dreamily, unconsciously.
* What ! is that the prayer-bell ? Is the Doctor
VFaiting ? '
His thoughts were back among the old school-
GRANVILLE DK VIGNE. 71
days at Frestonhills, when we first met at the old
Chancery when we little thought how we were
doomed to part under the murderous shadow of
Fort Paul.
De Vigne bent nearer to him. ' Look at me,
dear old boy. You must know m^. Curly.'
But he did not ; his head tossed wearily from
side to side, the fever of his wounds had mounted
to his brain, and he moaned out delirious discon-
nected words.
' Why don't they form into line, Kennedy why
don't they form into line ? If there were more of
us, we could take that breastwork. Water?
water ! Is there not a drop of water anywhere ?
We shall die of thirst. I should like to die in
harness, but it is hard to die of thirst like a mad
dog like a mad dog ha! ha!' (Both of us
shuddered, as the mocking, hideous laughter rang
through the chamber of death.) * Alma ! Who
talked of Alma ? Can't you bring her here before
I die ? I think she would be kinder to me now,
perhaps ; I loved her very much ; she did not
care for me she loves De Vigne. You know
how I have hated him my God! how I have
hated him and yet Oh, for mercy sake, give
me water water for the love of Heaven ! '
At the muttered raving words De Vigne's face
72 "held m BONDAGE;" OR
j^rew as livid for the moment as that of the dead
Russian beside him, and his hand trembled as he
took a flask from his belt that he had filled with
brandy before starting, and held it to Curly's lips.
How eagerly he drank and drank, as if life and
reason would flow back to him with the draught !
For a time it gave him strength to fling off the
faintnessand delirium fastening upon him, his eyes
grew clearer and softer, and as De Vigne raised
him into a sitting posture, and supported him on
his arm with all the gentle care of a woman, he
revived a little, and looked at him with a conscious
and grateful regard.
* De Vigne ! How do you come here ! Where
am I ? Oh ! I know ; is the city taken, then ? *
Dying as he was, the old spirit in him rallied
and flashed up for a brief moment, while De Vigne
told him how the Russians had retreated, leaving
Sebastopol in flames. But he was too far gone to
revive long ; he lay with his head resting on De
Vigne's arm, his eyelids closed again, his breathing
faint and quick, all his beauty, and his manbood,
and his strength, striken down into the saddest
wreck that human eyes can, see and human pas-
sions cause. Few could have recognized him in
the wounded wretch who was stretched on that
gore-stained pallet, vnth his life ebbing away sim-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 73
ply for want of that common care that a friendless
beggar would have been given at home.
*Is the city won? ' he asked again ; his low and
feeble words scarcely heard in the shrieks, the
moans, the muttered prayers, the groans, the oaths
around him.
*Yes; they have abandoned it to us,' De
Vigne answered, not heeding the pestilence of
which the air was reeking, and from which many
a man as strong as he, had turned heart-sick away.
*I am glad of that,' said Curly, dreamily.
' England is sure to win ; she is never beaten, is
she? I should like to fight once more for her,
but I never shall, old fellow ; the days here how
many are they? ^have done for me. It is hard
to die like this, De Vigne ? ' And a shudder ran
through his frame, that was quivering with every
torture. *God knows, I longed to fall in the
field, but not a bullet would hit me there ; however,
it does not matter; it comes to the same thing.
Tell my mother I die quite content, quite happy.
Tell her not to regret me, I have thought of her
often, very often and bid my father if he loves
me, to be kinder to Gus Gus was a good old
boy, though we made game of him.'
Curly paused ; slowly and painfully as he had
spoken, the exertion was greater then his fading
74 "held in BONDAGE;" OK,
Strength could bear; he, three days before, full
of manly vigour, grace, and beauty, was power-
less as a new-bom child, helpless as a paralyzed
old man ; stricken down like a gracious and beau-
tiful cedar-tree by the hacking strokes of the
woodman's axe, its life crushed, its glory withered,
only to be piled amidst a heap of others to make
the bonfires for a conqueror's ovation !
De Vigne bent over him, his cheek growing
whiter as he thought of the boy's early promise
and sunny boyhood, and of the man's death,
amidst such horror, filth, and desolation as
England would have shuddered to compel her
paupers, her convicts, nay, the very unowned dogs
about her streets, to suffer in; yet made small
count of having forced on her heroes, to die in
like mu Trained cattle.
' Curly, dear Curly,' he whispered, pushing off
the clammy hair from Brandling's forehead as
gently as any woman, * why talk of death ? Once
out of this d d hole you will get well, old
fellow ; you shall get well. We shall have
many a day together still at home among the
bracken and the stubble.'
Curly smiled faintly :
' No ! I do not die from the wounds ; what has
killed me, De Vigne ' and at the memory the old
GRANVILLE DK VIGNE. 75
delirious vagueness grew over his eyes, which
waudered away into the depths of his dire pri-
son-house * have been the sights, the scents, the
sounds. Oh, my God, the horrors I have seen!
In sermons we used to hear them try sometimes
to describe a hell; if those preachers had been
here as I have been, they would have seen we
don't want devils to help us make one men are
quite enough ! The stench, the ravings, the roar
of the flames round us, the vile creeping things,
the blasphemy, the prayers, the horrible thirst
oh, God ! I prayed for madness, De Vigne 5
prayed for it as I never prayed for anything in all
my life before, and yet, I am no coward either ! '
He stopped again, a deathly gray spread over
his face, and a cold shiver ran through him ; the
brain, last of all to die, the part immortal and
vital amidst so much death, triumphed yet awhile
over the dissolution of the body. Curly knew
that he was dying fast, and signed De Vigne
down nearer still to him.
' De Vigne, when the war is over, and you go
back to England, first of all try and seek out
Alma.'
The fierce red blood crimsoned De Vigne's very
brow ; had it been a living and not a dying man
who had dared to breathe that name to him, he
76 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
would have provoked a reply he would have little
eared to hear. All the mad passion, all the
infinite tenderness there were in his heart, for his
lost love, rose up at the abrupt mention of her.
* Will you promise me? ' asked Curly ; to give
me peace in my death-hour, promise me.'
*No,' said De Vigne, between his teeth,
clenched like an iron vice. *I cannot promise
you. Why should you wish me ? You loved her
yourself '
* Because I loved her myself, because I love her
still ; love her so well, that it is the thought that
in my grave I shall never hear her voice, never
see her eyes, never meet her agairiy that makes me
shrink from death,' said Curly ; an unutterable
tenderness and despair in those faint broken tones
whose last utterance was Alma's name. ' I do
love her, too well to believe what you believe,
that she is Castleton's mistress.'
De Vigne's hands clenched the straw of the
pallet like a man in bodily agony.
* For God's sake be silent ! Do not drive me
to madness. Do you think I should believe it
without proof? '
' On the spur of anger and jealousy you might.
I do not know, I cannot tell, but I could never
think her capable of falsehood, of dishonour,'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 77
whispered Curly, his breath growing shorter, his
eyes more dim, though even on liis haggard cheek
a flush just rose, wavered, and died out, as he went
on: *The day she she rejected me I accused
her of her love for you, and then she answered me
as a woman would hardly have done if she had
not cared for you very dearly. Before I left
England I left alM had to her; it is little enough,
but it will keep her from want. Let some one seek
her out, even though she were sunk in the lowest
shame, and see that they give her my money. It
will save her from the vile abyss to which Castle-
ton would leave her to sink down as she might;
as she must. Promise me, De Vigne, or you,
Chevasney, promise me, or I cannot die in
peace.'
* No, no, / promise you.'
Hoarse and low as De Vigne's voice was. Curly
heard it, a look of gratitude came into the eyes
once so bright and fearless, now so dim and dull.
* And if you find that she does love you, you
will not reward her for her love as we have done
too many ? '
Whiter and whiter yet grew De Vigne's face,
as bis hands clenched harder on the straw of
Curly's bed ; it was some moments before he
spoke :
78 "held in bondage; or,
* I da/re not promise that. God help me ! '
But his words fell on ears deaf at last to the
harsh fret and bustle of the world ; the faintiiess
of that terrible last struggle of brain and body
with the coming chill of death, had crept over
poor* Curly. Sudden shiverings seized him, the
mind, vanquished at last, began to wander from
earth whither who can dare to say? dark-blue
shadows deepened under his hollow eyes, the life
in him still lingered, as though loth to leave the
form so brief a space ago full of such beautiful
youth, such gracious manhood. To watch it
flickering, struggling, growing fainter and fainter,
ebbing away so slowly, so surely, dying out pain-
fully, reluctantly ; and to know that it might all
have been spared by the common care that at
home would be given to a horse to a dog! God
knows, there are sights and thoughts in this world
that might well turn men to fiends! He gave
one sigh, one heavy sigh deep drawn, and turned
upon his side : * My mother Alma ! ' Those
were the last words he uttered; then all light
died out of his eyes, and the life so young, so
brave, so gallant, had fled away for ever.
De Vigne bent over the reeking straw that was
now the funeral bier of as loyal a heart as ever spent
itself in England's gause ; and bitter tears, wrung
GRANVILLE DE VlttXE. 7J^
from his proud eyes, fell on the cold brow, and
the rigid features that never more would light
up with the kind, fond, fearless smile of friendship,
truth, and welcome.
I loved him,' he muttered. *God help me!
Such is ever my fate! My mother Alma
Curly all lost; and no bullet will come to
tnei:
In his own arms De Vigne bore Curly out from
the loathsome charnel-house, where the living had
been entombed vnth the dead. We buried him
with many another, as loyal and gallant as he,
who had died on the slope of the Great Redan ;
and we gave him a soldier's gravestone ; a plain
white wood cross with his name and his regiment
marked upon it, such as were planted thick in,
those two long years, on the hills and valleys of
the Crimea. God knows if it be there now, or if
the Russian peasant have struck it down and
levelled the little mound with his ploughshare and
the hoofs of his heavy oxen. We have left him
in his distant grave. England, whom he remem-
bered in his death-hour, has forgotten him long
ere this. Like many another soldier lying in the
green sierras of Spain, among the pathless jungle
of the tropics, amidst the golden corn of Waterloo,
and the white headstones upon Cathcart's Hill;
80 "held in bondage;" or,
the country for which he fell scarcely heard his
name, and never heeded his fate. There he lies
in his distant grave, the white and gleaming City
he died to win stately and restored to all her
ancient beauty ; the waters of the Alma rolling
through its vineyards as peacefully as though no
streams of blood had ever mingled with its flow ;
the surge of the Euxine Sea beating slowly on the
Crimean sands a requiem for the buried dead.
There he lies in his distant grave; God requite
England if ever she forget him, and those who
braved his danger, found his death, and shared his
grave.
ORAITV^ILLE DE YTGNE. 81
CHAPTER IV.
HOW INCONSTANCY WAS VOTED A VIRTUE.
There was a ball at the Tuileries; that stately
palace which has seen so many dynasties and so
many generations, from the polished Pairs de
France gathered round the courtly and brilliant
Bourbons, to the Mar^chaux roturiers, with their
strong swords and their broad accents, crowding
about the Petit Caporal, taking camp tone into
palace salons. There were at the Tuileries that
night all the English 61ite, of course, in honour of
the * alliance ; ' and there was among the other
foreign guests one Prince Carl of Vallenstein-
Seidlitz, an Austrian, with an infinitesimal duchy
and a magnificent figure, at all, strong fellow, with
the blue eyes and fair hair of the Teuton race, a
man of few words and only two passions : the one
for * belles tallies,' the other for * gros jeu.'
He had been exchanging a few monosyllables
with the Empress, and now leant against the wall
of qne of the other reception-rooms, regarding,
VOL. III. G
82 "held in BONDAGE;'' OR,
with calm admiration, the beauty of the Duchesse
d'Albe, until his attention wandered to a new face
that he had not seen before, and he turned to a
young fellow belonging to the British Legation,
and demanded, with more consideration of brevity
than of grammar, * Qui ? '
* Ma sosur, mon Prince.^
* Ciel ! quelle taiUe ; pas trap grande, mais
quelle taiUe V
With which, for him, warm encomium Prince
Carl stroked his blonde moustaches and studied
her silently for five minutes. Then he asked
another question : .
* Why have I never seen her ? '
' Because she is in love with a married man who
is in the Crimea, and but for my mother she
would never go into society.'
* Hein ! A married man ! Haw, women love
forbidden fruit ! Introduce her to me.'
Rushbrooke Molyneux introduced the Duke
of Vallenstein-Seidlitz to his sister, and the bold
Teuton eyes fastened on Violet with delight at
that lovely form, whose grace and outline eclipsed
all he had ever seen. I am not sure that a casual
observer would have noticed any change in our
brilliant belle. The eyes had lost their rianl and
cloudless regard; and the smile that had before
GRANVILLE DE VTONE. 83
been so spontaneous and so heartfelt, now faded
off her lips the moment courtesy ceased to require
it. Beyond that, there was little alteration. At
her years the most bitter curse upon the mind does
not stamp itself upon the features ; moreover she
knew that she was pitied and that he was blamed,
and that knowledge was sufficient to rouse her
Irish spirit to lace the world, which would only
have amused itself with her sorrow and taken
occasion for fresh condemnation of him : so she
let the wolf gnaw at her vitals, but suffered no
word of pain to escape which might be construed
into a reproach to the absent.
Vallenstein looked on her helle taiUe, and on
her proud face, never noticing the weary depths
in the eyes that seemed ' looking afar off,' and the
haughty chillness of tone into which Violet,
surrounded with men who would willingly have
taught her to forget, had unconsciously fallen in
self-defence ; but thought to himself, as he drove
away to a less formal entertainment at the Caf^
Anglais : * Qui le diable est cepeste d'homme marie ?
N'importel Je la ferai Voublier,^ And Lady
Molyneux thought, as her maid unfastened her
diamond tiara : * If the cards are played well, I
may make Violet Duchess of Vallenstein-Seidlitz.
It would be the best match of the season. What
G 2
84 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;' OR,
a pity it seems Sabretasche has never had anything
happen to him ! if he were not in that Crimea,
alive, to write her letters and feed this romance, I
could soon bring her to reason. However, as it
is, a great deal may be done by firmness; if I
could only persuade Violet how utterly unneces-
sary a grande passion is indeed, in marriage,
positively inconvenient ! Her dresses mount up
very expensively. I must have that lace only
three hundred guineas, dirt cheap! and I don't
believe the women will let me have it unless I
pay part of their bill, tiresome creatures. I paid
them up every farthing seven years ago, but that
sort of persons grows so rude now-a-days, instead of
being thankful for one's custom, that it is utterly
insufferable. I must certainly marry Violet to
somebody, and I vrill not procrastinate about it
any longer. I shall be firm with her ! '
The Molyneux had come to vrinter in Paris.
Gorallyne, though it looked well enough in Burke,
was utterly uninhabitable; London was out of
the question till March, and the Viscountess,
tired of travelling, and bored with the Bads, had
taken a suite in an hotel in the Champs Elysees,
where slie contrived to spend her days tolerably
pleasantly, especially as there was a remarkably
handsome Confessor, who gave her unusual pi-
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 85
quaucy in her religious excitemeDts, and made her
think seriously of the duties of auricular confession.
(It is commonly said that women make the best
devotees doubtless for causes too lengthy to
enter upon here but I wonder, if religions had
no priests how many of their fairer disciples would
they retain?) And now, Lady Molyneux had
another object in life to woo Prince Carl for her
daughter. Bent on that purpose, she tried to
make the Hotel Clachy very delightful to him,
and succeeded. Violet paid him no attention
barely as much as courtesy dictated to a man of
his rank and to her father's guest but he cared
nothing for conversation, and as long as she sat
there, however haughtily silent, and he could
admire her belle taille as he liked, he wished for
no words, though he might have desired a few
smiles. Still she was the first woman who had
neglected him, and to men as courted as the
Austrian this is a better spur than any, and he
really grew interested when he found it not so
easy ' de la faire ovblier!
* C'est en bon trairij thought my lady ; * if only
Violet were more tractable, and Sabretasche
would not write ! ' would not live was in her
thoughts, but naturally so religiously-minded a
woman could hardly 'murder with a wish/ and
i
86 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
having no other weapons than her natural ones
of tongue and thought, she planned out a series
of ingenious persecutions against her daughter till
she should have induced her to marry.
* My dear Violot, oblige me with a few minutes'
conversation,' said my lady, one morning.
Violet looked up and followed her passively;
her manner was as soft and gentle as of old even
gentler still to those about her but the chill of
her great grief was upon her, and her mother's
persistence had taught her a somewhat haughty
reserve quite foreign to her nature, in defence
not only of herself, but of the allegiance, which
she never attempted to conceal, that she gave to
him as faithfully as though he had been her
husband.
* My dear Violet,' began the Viscountess, seat-
ing herself opposite to her daughter in her own
room, * may I ask whether you absolutely intend
dedicating all your days to Vivian Sabretasche?
Do you really mean to devote yourself to maiden-
hood all your life because one man happens not
to be able to marry you ? '
The colour rose on Violet's brow ; the sensitive
wound shrank at any touch ; and my Lady Moly-
neux, religious and gentle woman though she was,
could use Belgravian Billingsgate on occasion.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. ST
* Why do you renew that subject ? You know
as well as I, that I shall never marry. It is a
subject which concerns no one but myself, and I
have told you, once for all, that I hold myself as
fully bound to him as if the vows we hoped to
take had passed between us ? '
Her voice trembled as she spoke, though her
teeth were set together. The Viscountess sighed
and sneered.
*Then do you mean that you will refuse
Regalia ? '
* I have refused him.'
* You have ! ' And my lady, with a smile,
drank a little eau-de-Cologne by way of refresh-
ment after hearing such a statement. ^ I suppose
you know, Violet, that you will have no money ;
that if you do not make a good match now you
are young and pretty, nobody will take you when
you are the dowerless passie daughter of a penni-
less Irish Peer? And Vallenstein-Seidlitz, may
I inquire if you have refused Aim, too ? '
*He has not given me the opportunity; if he
do, I shall.'
*If he do, you will? You must be mad
absolutely mad ! ' cried her mother, too horrified
for expression. * Don't you know that there is
not a girl in the English, or the French empire,
88 **HBLD IN BONDAGE; OR,
who would not take such an offer as his, and
accept it with thanksgiving? '
'Oh yes? I could not sell myself to better
advantage ! '
*Sell yourself?' repeated the peeress. Fine
ladies are not often fond of hearing things called
by their proper names.
*Yes, sell myself,' repeated Violet, bitterly,
leaning against the mantelpiece, with a painful
smile upon her lips. * Would you not put me
up to auction, knock me down to the highest
bidder? Marriage is the mart, mothers the
auctioneers, and he who bids the highest wins*
Women are like racers, brought up only to run
for Cups, and win handicaps for their owners.'
* Nonsense?' said her mother, impatiently.
*You have lost your senses, I think. There is
no question of " selling," as you term it. Marriage
is a social compact, of course, where alliances
suitable in position, birth, and wealth, are studied.
Why should you pretend to be wiser than all the
rest of the world? Most amiable and excellent
women have married without thinking love a
necessary ingredient. Why should you object to
a good alliance if it be a manage de convenance ? '
* Because I consider a manage de convenance
the most gross of all social falsehood! You
GRANVILLB DE VIGNK. 89
prostitute the most sacred vow3 and outrage the
closest ties; you carry a lie to your husband's
heart and home. You marry him for his money
or his rank, and simulate an attachment for him
that you know to be hypocrisy. You stand
before God's altar with an untruth upon your lips,
and either share an unhallowed barter, or deceive
and trick an affection that loves and honours you*
The Quadroon girl sold in the slave-market is not
so utterly polluted, as the woman free, educated,
and enlightened, who barters herself for a ^^ mar-
riage for position ! " '
Something of her old passionate eloquence was
roused in her, as she spoke with contempt and
bitterness. Her heart was sick of the follies and
conventionalities which surrounded her, so mesh-
ing her in that it needed both spirit and endurance
to keep free and true amidst them all. Lady
Molyneux was silent for a minute, possibly in
astonishment at this novel view of that usual
desideratum ^a marriage for position.
* My dear Violet, your views are very singular
very extraordinary. You are much too free of
thought. If you had listened to me once before,
you would never have had the misery of your
present unhappy infatuation. The eye of society
is upon you; you must act with dignity; society
90 "held in* BONDAGE; OR,
demands it of you. You must not disgrace your
family by pining after a married man. It was
very sad, I know very sad that affair; and I
dare say you were very attached to him. Every-
body knows he was a most handsome, gifted,
fascinating creature, though, alas ! utterly un-
principled. Still, I think your first feeling should
have been one of intense thankfulness at being
preserved from the fate you might have had.
Only fancy if his wife had not declared her claims
before your tnarriage with him ! Only fancy,
what your position in society would have been !
Every one would have pitied you, of course, but
not a creature could have visited you ! '
The silent scorn in her daughter's eyes made
her pause ; she could not but read the contempt
of her own doctrines in them, which Violet felt
too deeply to put into words.
* I have no doubt it was a very great trial,' she
continued, hurriedly ; * I am not denying that, of
course ; still, what I mean is, that your duty, your
moral duty, Violet, was, as soon as you found that
Vivian Sabretasche was the husband of another,
to do your very utmost to forget him, certainly
not to foster and cherish his memory as persist-
ently and wilfully as you do. It is an entire
twelvemonth since you parted from him, and yet,
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 91
instead of trying to banish all remembrance of
your unhappy engagement and breaking entirely
with him, you keep up a correspondence with him
more foolish your lather to allow it ! and ob-
stinately refuse to form a more fortunate attach-
ment, and marry well. I tell you that your
affection, however legitimate its commencement,
became wrong, morally wrong ^ as soon as you
learned that he was married to another woman.'
At last the Viscountess paused for breath ; the
scorn which had been gathering deeper and deeper
in Violet's face burst into words ; she lifted her
head, that her mother might not see the thick
blinding tears that gathered in her eyes :
* A sin ? You cannot mean what you say !
The sin, if you like, were indeed to forsake him
and forget him ; that were a crime, of which, if
I were capable, you would indeed have reason to
blush for me. When I know him, worthy of
every sacrifice that any woman could make him,
so true and generous that he chose misery for
himself rather than falsehood towards me, am I
then to turn round and say to him, " Because you
cannot marry me in other words, contribute to
my own aggrandisement, and flatter my own self-
love, I choose to forget all that has passed between
us, to ignore all the fidelity I once vowed to you,
92 "held in bondage; or,
and sell whatever charms I have to some buyer
free to bid a better price for them ? " '
The satiric bitterness in her tone stung her
mother into shame, or as faint an approach to it as
she could feel, and, like most people, she covered
an indefensible argument with vague irritation.
* Really, Violet, your tone is highly unbecom-
ing: I have absolutely no patience with your
folly ! '
Violet stopped her with a gesture as of physical
suffering, but with a dignity in her face that awed
even her mother into silence.
* Not even you shall ever apply such a term to
any devotion I can show to him. He is worthy
all the love of a woman far nobler and better than
I ever shall be. I promised him my allegiance
once when the world smiled upon our love ;
because the world now frowns instead, do you
suppose that I shall withdraw it? Do not
torture me any more with this cruel discussion ;
it is ended once for all. I shall never marry ; it
will always be as useless to urge me as it is useless
now. God knows whether we may ever meet
again ; but, living or dead, I am for ever bound
to him.'
Every vestige of colour fled from her face as
she spoke ; her fingers were clasped together till
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 93
her rings cut into the skin ; and there was that
in her voice, which might have touched into
sympathy, even the coldest nature. But (I do
not think one can blame my Lady Molyneux ; if
she was bom without feelings, perhaps she was
hardly more responsible for the non-possession of
them, than the idiot for the total absence of brain)
her mother was not even silenced.
* Is that your final decision ? * she said, with a
sneer. * Very well, then ! I will tell Vallenstein
that my daughter intends to lead a semi-con-
ventual life, with the celibacy, but not the holy
purpose, of a nun, because she is dying for a hand-
some roue who happens to be a married man. I
dare say he will enjoy telling the story at the
Tuileries; and there are plenty of women, my
love, who will like nothing better than a laugh
against you.^
* You can say what you please,' answered Violet,
between her teeth.
But that she was her mother, the Viscountess
would have had a far sharper retort.
* Of course I can ? And stories grow strangely
in passing from mouth to mouth ! Dear me, is it
three o'clock ? And I was to be at Notre-Dame
by half-past, to hear that divine creature, Alexis
Dupont ! ' And my lady floated fJrom the room.
94 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
while her daughter leant her bead upon the
mantelpiece, the tears she had forced back while
in her mother's presence falling hot and thick on
the chill marble ^not more chill than the natures
that surrounded her in the gay world of which she
was weary. Her heart was sick within her, the
burden of her life grew heavier than she knew
how to bear :
* Vivian, Vivian, why did you forsake me ? Any
fate were better than this any fate, any fate!
Would to God that I could die with you ! ' burst
from her lips, while the form that Vallenstein
coveted shook with uncontrollable sobs.
How long she stood there she did not know,
till hands as soft as her own touched hers, a face
as fair as her own was lifted to hers, a voice
whispered, ' Why are you in pain ? For you, of
all, life should be bright and beautiful ! '
.. Violet Molyneux stooped and touched with her
lips the brow that had once flushed beneath
De Vigne's caresses.
^ Alma, tell me, what do you call fidelity ? '
* Fidelity?' repeated Alma, with that instan-
taneous flash of responsive feeling on her mobile
features which it had been De Vigne's pleasure to
summon up and watch at his will. ^ There is
little of it in the world, I fancy. A marriage is
GRANVILLE DE VTGNE. 95
to me null and void without fidelity, not only of
act but of thought, of mind, of heart ; and fidelity
makes in God's sight a marriage tie holier than
any man can forge, and one which no human laws
can sever. What do I call fidelity ? I think it is to
keep faithful through good report and evil report,
through suffering, and, if need be, through shame ;
it is to credit no evil of the onp loved from other
lips, and if told that such evil is true by his own,
to blot it out as though it never had been ; to
keep true to him through all appearance, however
against him, through silence, and absence, and
trial ; never to forsake him even by one thought,
and to brave all the world to serve him ; that is
what seems fidelity to me, nothing less nothing
less ! *
Her eyes flashed, her lips quivered. A tender
love, an undying sorrow, were spoken on her face,
as, turned full to Violet the sunlight fell upon it.
Violet looked at her and sighed ; she was too
unselfish not to regret, even amidst her own
sorrow, that another should share a similar fate ;
and she felt little doubt either that De Vigne
cared nothing for his former protegee, or that he
had left her, with his love spoken but his mar-
riage told. She liked the depth of feeling and
delicacy of nature which had made Alma hold her
96 "held in bondage;" or,
attachment to him too sacredly to speak of it, and
hear his name, when it was occasionally mentioned
in the Molyneux circle, without betrajring * the
secret wound beneath the cloak,* loving the hand
that had given that wound too well to murmur to
others at its pain. The similarity of their fate
touched her. She stooped over Alma and passed
her hand over the golden hair that De Vigne
had drawn through his fingers those shining
silken threads that bad held him closer than chains
of iron.
* You are right ! We must give "nothing less." '
This was all that passed between them, then or
afterwards on what lay nearest to the hearts of
both, yet that little was enough to awake a close
sympathy between them, none the less real be-
cause it was silent. To Alma life was very bitter
now. Twelve months had passed, and she was
still as far from De Vigne as when she lay chained
to her sick-bed. The letter she had written at
Montressor*s had miscarried; De Vigne had
never had it. Hearing nothing from him, she
had written again a letter which would have
touched a heart far harder and more steeled
against her than his. That letter she received
back, sealed again, and directed to her in a writing
which she knew but too well, firmly, boldly, with
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 97
not a trace allowed to appear in the clear cali-
graphy of the agony in which the words were
penned. She knew then that he believed her false
to him; that the circumstantial evidence which
had told so strongly against her had crushed out
all faith and trust and tenderness in his heart to-
wards her. It was the most cruel wound Alma
had ever had, to find herself so readily doubted,
so harshly given up, so unjustly denied even a
hearing. Injustice was always very bitter to her ;
it roused all that was dark and fiery in her cha-
racter. From anybody else she would never have
forgotten or pardoned it ; certainly never have
stooped to clear herself from it. De Vigne she
forgave, and thought less of her own wrong than
of all she knew that he endured.
Alma, with all her impulsiveness and expansive-
ness, was sensitive to all touch of those more
delicate mimosas that she sheltered in her heart ;
over them she was haughty, proud, reserved. She
had, moreover, great self-control. De Vigne's
name was too dear to her to be breathed before
others. She had resided twelve months with
the Molyneux ; and they never knfew, though he
was often mentioned casually, that his name
merely spoken by another's voice struck like steel
to her heart.
VOL. III. H
98 "held in bondage;" or,
Alma's principles of honour and of trust were
far more acute and refined than those of most
people ; the love De Vigne had lavished on her
was sacred to her; a treasure reposed in her
alone, not to be spread out before other eyes.
Violet, the only one who would have translated
the dilated terror of her eyes when the morning
papers came in, the anguish of her face when she
bent over the Returns of killed and wounded, the
gleam of her eyes whenever De Vigne's name was
mentioned by any man who had come back from
the Crimea from ill-health or to bring despatches^
Violet was too absorbed in her own thoughts
to notice what passed beside her, or at least to
reflect upon it. She was kind to her, as she
would have been to any one in a subordinate situ-
ation ; still more so one, to whom she had always
had a certain attraction, ever since she had heard
of her as the artist of the Louis Dix-Sept. But,
until the moment when Alma's definition of
fidelity unwittingly betrayed her, Violet had
noticed her but little, and never discovered her
secret.
It was a peculiar position that Alma occupied
in the Molyneux household in Paris. The Hon.
Rushbrooke, admiring her chevelure dor^e^ had
thought he could make much the same love to her
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 99
as to his mother's maid, whenever that soubrette
chanced to be a pretty one ; and Lady Molyneux
had scarcely ever spoken to her, save when, struck
with her great taste in dress, she would fain have
had her turned into a sort of chef de toilette. But
Jockey Jack vowed she was as much of a lady as
any of them ; swore he'd known Tressillian in early
days ; by George, he would have them civil to the
little girl, and was civil to her himself, in his bluff,
blunt, kindly-meant way ; and Violet, won towards
her as months passed on, sought refuge in her
society from the inanities, frivolities, scandals, and
manoeuvres constantly poured into her ears by her
mother, and from the whirl of a circle whose
gaieties were now so foreign to her, until a tacit
sympathy and a sincere regard grew up between
them the friendless artiste and the fashionable
aristocrate.
h2
100 "held in bondage;" or,
CHAPTER V.
THE TORTURES OP TANTALUS.
It was Christmas night Christmas-eve and t^e
midnight mass was rising and ialling in its solemn
chant through the long aisles of Notre Dame.
The incense floated upwards to the dim vaulted
roof, the starry lights glittered on the gorgeous
high altar, while the sweet swell of the cathedral
choir rose on the still, hushed air, as through
Paris, under the winter stars, there tolled one by
one the twelve strokes of the midnight hour.
Midnight mass in Notre Dame ! it were hard
to hear it bursting in its glorious harmony, after
the dead silence of the assembled multitude, once
from priest and people, choir and altar, without
something of that sadness and that veneration
which lie in most of us, though too often lost and
silenced in the fret and hurry of our life.
One by one the midnight strokes tolled slowly
out upon the Christmas air ; hushed as though no
human heart beat amongst them, the gathered
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 101
thousands knelt in prayer ; the last stroke fell and
lingered on their ears, and then, over their bowed
heads, rolled the rich cadence of the choir and the
full swell of the oi^an-notes. Among the mul-
titude knelt Violet Molyneux and Alma, their
thoughts far from creeds or formularies, from re^
ligious differences or religious credulities, but their
hearts bowed in prayer for those far distant.
What was to them church, place, creed ? thus they
prayed in the solitude of their own chambers;
thus they would have prayed beside the sick-beds
of Scutari ; thus they now prayed in the hushed
aisles of Notre Dame, where, if forms differed,
human hearts at least beat beside them and around,
with hopes, fears, griefs, passions, pleading for
mercy, as in theirs !
As they passed out of the great door to the
carriage, in the frosty starlit night, both started,
as a voice whispered by their side :
* Per Carita I date la limosina per amor del
Figlia di Dio I '
They scarcely saw the beggar's face, coming out
of the gas glare into the moonlit night, but they
heard the voice, broken, almost fierce perhaps
with hunger! in its supplication, and both in-
stinctively, and contrary to the custom of either,
stretched out their hands with an alms on Christ-
102 "held* IN BONDAGE;" OR,
mas-eve. As it chanced, Alma was the nearer to
the suppliant, who caught her offered gift, but did
not see Violet's. The crowd following, pushed
them on ; and their carriage rolled away, while the
woman, with Alma's coin in her hand, looked after
them with a strange expression on her haggard
face, partly euriosity, partly hate, partly fear, yet
with a tinge of regret and pain, as she muttered,
in Tuscan :
* Santa Maria I qusto sorriso mi fa pehsare
di gli I Epreaagio ddli morte ma^er chi ? '
The wild gaze of the Italian's fierce dark eyes,
the haunting tone of that shrill * Carita ! Carita !
still lingered in Alma's mind as she rolled through
the gay gas-lighted streets of Paris ; and her young
eyes closed, with a despairing sigh, and a sickening
shudder of dread, at this mysterious Human Life,
which is so short in years, so long in suffering.
The Paris winter passed ; passed as Paris winters
ever do, with a gay whirl of glittering life for the
rich, with cold, and hunger, and suffering for the
poor ; the gas flowers of Mabille, burning at the
same hour, with the candle that gleamed its sickly
light on the dead bodies at the Morgue. The
Paris winter passed, and Violet Molyneux was^till
the belle of its soirees ; that chill hauteur which
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 103
in self-defence she had assumed, was no barrier
between her and the love that was pressed upon
her from all quarters and highest ranks, evident
though it vt^s by her equable coldness to all, that
her exquisite loveliness would never be given to
any. In February, Lord Molyneux received a
letter with the stately royal seal of the Vallen-
stein-Seidlitz, requesting the honour of his
daughter's hand. It came to him when they were
at dinner ; even vrith the length of the table be-
tween them, his wife knew, or thought she knew,
the armorial bearings of the seal, as it lay upwards
unopened, and congratulated herself, though with a
rapid cast forwards as to how many hundreds the
trousseau would cost ; but the trousseau would be
one final expense, and Yiolefs dress in the
present state of things, was an annual destruction
of what without her my lady would have had for
her own silks and laces, jewellery and point. As
they took their coffee, preparatory to going
to a ball at the British Embassy, Jockey Jack
broke the seal, perused the missive, and in silence
handed it to his daughter. Violet read it, with
pain, for she foresaw that she should not be al-
lowed to reject this, as she had done others,
without contention and upbraiding ; and gave it
back to him as silently, but the thin, jewelled
104 "held in bondage;" or,
band of her mother intercepted it, with a snappish
sneer:
Is your own wife, Lord Molyneux, to be ex-
cluded from all your confidences with your
daughter?'
* What answer, Vy ? ' asked Jockey Jack, turn-
ing a deaf ear to his lady, who had a knack of
bringing forward her relationship to him on any
disagreeable occasion, such as opening his notes
or referring her creditors to him, but on all others
ignored it very completely.
*The same as usual, papa,' answered Violet,
bending down to him.
Lady Molyneux read Vallenstein's formal and
courtly letter with calm deliberation through her
gold eye-glass ; and Alma rose and left the room,
guessing, with intuitive tact and delicacy of per-
ception, that this was some matter which they
would prefer to discuss alone. Lady Molyneux
read the letter, then folded it up and put it in its
envelope.
* Violet, would it be too much for me to ask to
be allowed to share the confidence you gave your
papa just now ? Might I inquire what reply you
send to Vallenstein?*
Violet gave one sigh of inexpressible weariness ;
she was so tired of this ceaseless contention, the
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 105
continual dropping of water on a stone; this
jangling and upbraiding ; the martyrdom of daily
petty badgering and polished vituperation.
* Certainly you may, mamma. I thank Prince
Carl for the honour he has done me ; and I reject
his offer with all the gratitude for his generosity
that it merits.'
Lady Molyneux shrugged her shoulders, and
did not condescend to answer her. She turned
to her husband, who was beating an impatient
tattoo on the back of his couch.
* My dear Molyneux, do you intend, too, to
refuse Prince Carl's proposals ? '
Jockey Jack looked up with a curse on women's
tongues, and on their tomfoolery of marriage and
giving in marriage, ready to dissent from his wife
at a moment's notice.
* Vallenstein does not propose for m^, my dear.
I have nothing to do with it, except to tell him,
as decently as I can, that Vy is very much obliged
to him, but would rather be excused.'
*Then you mean to countenance her in her
folly ? '
* I don't know what you mean by countenancing
her ; she is old enough to judge for herself, espe-
cially about her own husband. I dare say a royal
marriage would have had great attractions for
106 **HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
you, Helena, but if your daughter thinks differ-
ently there is no reason for you to quarrel about
it,' said Jockey Jack, who did not see why one
man was not as good as another to Violet, nor
yet, if they were not, why she should be bullied
about it.
* / see one if you do not,* said his wife, fidgidly.
* It is of the greatest importance that she should
marry soon and marry well. The singularly un-
fortunate circumstances that attended her lament-
able engagement an engagement that would
never have been entered into if I had been listened
to have laid her open to a great deal of remark,
never beneficial to any woman '
*Do you speak feelingly?' interrupted Lord
Molyneux, sotto voce.
* Indeed, very prejudicial,' continued his wife,
imperturbably. * Violet has now been out three
years ; girls that were debutantes with her have
settled well long ago. Beatrice Carteret, with
not a tithe of her advantages, married the Duke
of St. Orme in her first season : and that remark-
ably ordinary little Selina Albany drew Whitebait
into a proposal, and he settled a hundred thousand
upon her for pin-money ^
* That'll do, that'll do,' cut in Molyneux,
impatiently. *St. Orn^e is an old brute, who
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 107
bullied his first wife into consumption, and as for
Whitebait, he's a young fool, whom his uncle
tried to get shut up for idiocy; if Vy can't do
better than that, I would rather she lived and
died a Molyneux. If you've no better arguments
for marriage, Helena *
* At all events,' said my lady, with her nastiest
sneer, * they would either of them make as good
husbands as your Ekvourite would have done with
a wife in petto ! She has been immensely admired ;
she has made more conquests, I have no doubt,
than any woman of her years ; but men will not
go and recount their own rejections ; other ladies
will not believe me when I tell them whom she
might have married very naturally, too ^and all
the world knows of her is her devotion to a mar-
ried man ! I leave it to her own sense to deter-
mine, whether that is a very advantageous report
to cling to her in circles, where women dislike her
as their rival, and men whom she has rejected are
not very likely to be over-merciful in their terms
of speaking of her. Of course it is all hushed
when I draw near, but I have overheard more
than one remark very detrimental to her. In a
little time men vnll become very shy of making
one their wife, whose name has been so long
in connection with a married man's, and whose
108 "held in bondage;' or,
ridiculous (Uoouement to Colonel Sabretasche has
been the most amusing theme in salons where
he has been so famous for love not quite so
constant ! Therefore, I say it is most important
she should marry soon, and marry well ; and to
reject such proposals as Prince Carl's would be
madness a man who could wed, if he chose,
with one of the royal houses of Europe ! A
letter of refusal shall never be sent to Vallen-
tein'
* Ah ! well, I'm sure I don't know,' said poor
Jockey Jack, bewildered with this lengthened
lecture. * Come, Vy, your mamma speaks reason-
ably for once ! You know I am very much at-
tached to Sabretasche very much ^and I admit
you don't see any other man so handsome or so
accomplished, and all that sort of thing ; and he
was deuced mad about you, poor fellow! But
then, you see, as long as there's that confounded
wife of his in the way, and her life's just as good
as his, he can't marry you, with our devilish
laws ; and, ten to one if ever the time come that
he can, he won't care a straw about you that's
very much the way with us men and you'll have
wasted all your youth and your beauty for no-
thing, my poor pet ! You see, we are not rich,
and if you were well married ^it's most women's
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 109
ambition, at the least ! Come, Vy, what do you
say?^
Violet rose and leaned against the console,
with her head erect, her little pearly teeth set
tight, her lips closed in a haughty, scornful curve
over them, her face very pale pale, but resolute
as Eponina's or Gertrude von der Wart's and I
think the martyrdom of endurance is worse than
the martyrdom of action !
*I say what I am weary of saying-that it is
useless, and will ever be useless, to urge me to
the sin of infidelity, which you raise into a virtue
because it is expedient ! Let me alone ! it is
all I ask. I go into society because you desire
it ; it is hard that you will persecute me on the
one subject which is the most painful of all.
Let me alone ! what I may suffer, I never
intrude upon you. If you wish to be free from
me if I cost you anything you grudge only
allow me to work for myself to go into the world,
where for your sake I am not known, and, under
another name, gain money for myself; I have
often been told my voice would bring me more
wealth than I should need. Only give me per-
mission, I will never complain ; but consent to be
given over to Vallenstein, or any other man, I
will not! To be sold by you to the highest
110 "held in bondage;" or,
bidder to be forced into a union I should loathe
to be compelled to a marriage that would be
infidelity to both ! I know what you mean : an
unwedded daughter is an expense, and, as society
counts, somewhat a discredit. If you feel it so,
I am willing to support myself ; if you allowed it,
I should find no shame in that ; bnt^ once for all, I
swear^ that unless God will that I should ever marry
him whom I love and honour, I will be no man's
wife. If you care nothing for my peace, if you
will not listen to my prayers, if you will not pity
me in my trial at least, you will not seek to
make me break my oath !'
Jockey Jack rose from his seat, and left the
room ; he felt it was his duty to upbraid her for
her folly; but he had not the heart to do it,
and true Briton! left the room, ashamed of
the emotion which showed that all good and
generous things were not wholly dead within him.
At the ball at the English Embassy that
night all beauty paled before hers ; men looking
on it would have given ten years of their lives to
win one smile from those lovely eyes, to have
made one blush glow on that pure, colourless
cheek ; young, unnoticed debutantes looked at her
as she passed them, with that crowd gathered
round her which everywhere lingered on her steps.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 111
and wished, with all the envy of women and all
the fervour of their years, that they were she the
belle of Paris ^in whose praise there was not one
dissentient voice, in whom the most fastidious and
hypercritical could not find a flaw. If they had
seen the reverse picture, the Queen of Society
without that crown which veas so weary a weight
upon her aching brows if they had seen her that
night, the flowers off her luxuriant hair, the glit-
tering jewels off her arms, kneeling there by
her bedside in solitude, which no human eyes pro-
faned, they would have paused before they envied
Violet Molyneux, courted, followed, worshipped
though she was. If the world went home vrith most
of us, I fear it would have sadder stories to tell
than the cancans and the grivois tales in which its
heart delights ; the lips that sing our gayest barca-
rolles in society, often have barely strength enough
to murmur a broken prayer in the solitude of
their lonely hours, when the mask is off and the
green curtain is down !
It was the beginning of April ; the chesnuts of
the Tuileries were just thrusting out their first
green buds, bringing to Alma's thoughts those
chesnut-boughs at her old nurse's home, under
whose leafy shadows in the sunshine of two sum-
mers past 3he had drunk of that fatal intoxica-
112 "held in bondage;' or,
tion, whose delirium is more rapturous, and whose
awakening more bitter, than the dreams of the
opium-eater. Meanwhile for one end she had
worked unwearyingly. Greatly to her mother's
annoyance, Violet had introduced her talent
into notice among the dilettanti of Paris. Many
were ready to admire anything that would win
them favour with the English beauty; others
really saw, and were struck with, the wonderful
dash and vitality in the outlines, the delicacy and
brilliance of the colouring ; orders in plenty were
given her, more than she could have completed in
a dozen years, and Alma excluded herself from the
society into which her own genius and Violet's
patronage would have introduced her, that she
might work, with her art and her hands, and her
rich glowing imagination, till she had money to take
her to the Crimea to win him back, or die. Poor
child ! how few ' win back' all that makes their
life's glory, whatever stake it be ; yet we live
live to the full age of human life. When we woo
death he comes not ; when we bar the chamber-
door, then he enters with his chill breath and
stealthy step.
Her hoard was completed. Never did miser
gaze on his treasure, never wife on her hus-
band's ransom, never captive on the warrant of
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB, 113
his freedom, never author on the darlings of his
brain, with fonder rapture, with more grateful
joy, than Alma on the money won by her own
hands, which was to bear her to her lover. The
thousand miles seemed now but as a span ; love
would cross all the lands, bridge all the seas, that
parted her from him ! She would go to him, she
would find him; she would risk all to see him
once again, to kneel at his feet, to swear to him
she was liis^ and his alone; to force him to believe
her!
Alma looked at her precious gold that was to
take her to his side, that was to bring him back
to her; gold won by the head and hand for the
service of the heart, that was chained down, its high
thoughts clogged, its beating wings fettered, its
spirit bruised, but never beaten, by the curse of
want of money. It was won; the modem god
without whose aid human life may struggle and
fall and rise again, and again struggle and again
fall, and go down at the last in the unequal fight
of right against might, talent against wealth, ho-
nesty against expediency, for all the world may
care. It was won ; and not an hour longer should
any human force keep her from that distant goal
whither for twenty weary months her heart had
turned so constantly. She locked her money in a
VOL. III. I
114 "held in bondage; or,
secret drawer (she ^generous as the winds had
grown as careful of that treasure as any hoard-
ing Dives ! ), and left her room to seek Violet
Molyneux, and tell her she must leave her. It was
impossible for her not to be grateful to Violet
for the generous delicacy, the tact, the kindness
with which she smoothed away all that her mother
would have made painful in the position of any
employee ; and Violet grew fond of her, as all who
knew the Little Tressillian were wont to do, even
despite themselves, won by her winning, impulsive^
graceful * ways,' ^natural to her as its songs to a
bird, its vivacity to a kitten, its play in the even-
ing wind to a flower.
She sat down in the inner drawing-room. She
did not see Violet, and supposed her to be in her
own boudoir, where the belle of Paris spent each
day until two, denied to all, often in penning
those letters, which were her lover's only solace
through the long Crimean nights.
Suddenly, however, she heard Bushbrooke
Molyneux's voice in the outer room ; she did not
like him, and he called her, like Vane Castleton,
a * little devil,' because, when he had tried to
make such love to her as he thought her position
in his family warranted. Alma's hauteur to him
and the keen satire with which the little lady
GRANVILLE DE VIONB. 115
knew how to take care of herself very well, and
to hit hard where she did not admire the style of
attention paid to her, had annoyed the attach^
exceedingly, and irremediably wounded his amour
propre.
* Vy, am I a good shot ? ' he was saying.
* You know you are,* answered his sister's voice ;
she was probably surprised at so irrelevant a
question.
* Very well ; then if you won't marry Vallen-
stein the Dashers, you see, are coming home,
and as soon as Colonel Sabretasche is in England
I shall challenge him, he will meet me, and I shall
shoot him here just here, Vy where life ceases
instantaneously.'
A low cry of horror burst from his sister's lips.
Alma involuntarily rose and looked into the room ;
she saw that Violet had started from her brother's
side, her face blanched with amazement, and her
eyes fastened on him with the fascination and the
loathing with which a bird gazes up into a snake's
green fiery eyes.
* Bushbrooke ! Great Heaven ! you would stain
your hand with murder ? '
* Murder ! What an idea ! Duelling is legiti-
mate, ma soeur, in this country at least ; and I dare
say your lover will find his way to Paris, though
i2
116 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
he is such a "man of honour." Listen ta me,
Vy ; seriously, you must be mad to be taking the
veil, as it were, for a fellow who can't marry you
for the best of all reasons, that he is another
woman's husband. It's the greatest tomfoolery
one ever heard. Why shouldn't you do like any-
other girl send this bosh of romance to the deuce
and settle well. Any woman going would be
wild to have a chance of winning Vallenstein.
He's an out-and-out better match than we could
have looked for ; and he'll be very facile, Violet ;
he will be an easy husband after a little time, and
you can invite Sabretasche to your Court '
*God help me! if my brother tempt me to
double dishonour!'
The words broke from her almost unconsciously.
She deigned no answer to him, but stood looking
at him with such loathing and contempt^ that
Rushbrooke Molyneux, though he was far gone in
shamelessness, shrank before it.
But like many such natures, coward at heart,
he could bully a woman.
* Well, will you marry Prince Carl, or not ? '
*I have told you once for all wo.'
Violet stood, her head just turned over her
shoulder to him as she was about to leave the
room ; her calm, resolute, contemptuous tone
GRANVILLB DB ViaNB. 117
Stung him into irritation ; and Rushbrooke had set
his heart on his sister's becoming Vallenstein's
wife, for certain pecuniary reasons of his own,
having lost very heavily to the Prince at the
French Derby, and over Baccarat.
*You are quite determined? Then I shoot
Sabretasche dead four-and-twenty hours after I
see him next. Come, Vy, choose : the wedding-
ring for yourself, or the grave for your lover ? *
He meant what he said ^for the time at least ;
and Violet knew he was quite capable of doing all
he said, and more, if he threatened it. Her love
subdued her pride ; in the frenzy of the moment
she turned back and caught both her brother's
hands :
'Rushbrooke! are you utterly merciless ut-
terly brutal ? Not to save my own life would I
kneel to you; but to save his I would stoop
lower, were it possible ! I know that he would
choose murder from you, rather than infidelity
from me. If you take his life, you take mine ;
my existence is bound with his you will scarcely
brand yourself a fratricide ? '
' Splendid acting, Vy, said her brother, coldly.
You always did act well, though ; you played in
the Belvoir theatricals when you were only ten, I
remember. Come, think better of it ; marry
118 "held in BONDAGE; OR,
Yallenstein, atid your idol is safe from me. If you
boast your love is so great, you might surely save
the man's life ? '
* God help me I ' moaned Violet,
* Will you marry Prince Carl ? '
*No!*
* You will " murder" Vivian Sabretasche then,
as you term it ? '
Another cry burst from Violet's lips, forced out
as from a woman on the rack of the Star Chamber
or the Inquisition. Then she lifted her eyes to
him, with deep dark circles under them, her face
fall of unutterable anguish, but with a strange
nobility upon it.
* I would rather leave him in God's hands
than yours. He will protect him from you! I
have told you, I will never break my faith to
him!'
* Very well ! I will go and have a look at my
pistols,' smiled her brother, as he rose.
But Violet's courage gave way, she fell heavily
forwards on a couch.
* My beloved ! my beloved ! God knows I
would give my life for yours, but they shall never
make me false to you ! You would not wish it
you would not wish it, darling, ^not to save your
life'
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 119
Alma could stay no longer ; with one bound,
like a young panther, she was in the room and
kneeling beside Violet, while she turned her
beaming, flashing eyes, full of their azure fire,
upon Violet's brother,
* She gave you your right title. Fratricide !
You are more than that, you are a brute, and were
I of your own sex, I would make you feel it,
boasted duellist, or rather murderer, though you
be. What is your sister s marriage to you, that
you should seek to force her into a union that she
loathes ? Prince Carl himself would cry shame on
you. Go, go, and never come near your sister till
you come to ask her pardon for your inhuman
words and dastard act.'
With all her old passion. Alma spoke, like a
little Pythoness in her vn^th; every one of her
words brought a flush of shame to his cheek, and
he forgot that it was his mother's dependent whom
he should have cowed with a word and threatened
with dismissal.
He left the room, murmuring something of
Vallenstein, his friend devotedly attached
Violet's unfortunate attachment only meant to
frighten her, of course nothing more nothing
more. Then he backed out; and Violet lifted
her face with a painful tremulousness on the lips..
120 "hbld in bondage;" or,
* Alma, I have not forgotten your definition of
fidelity'/
The smile with which she spoke struck to her
listener's heart ; and she looked up at her with
an answering regard, that seemed to Violet like
an angel promise, and prophecy, for the future :
'To those who are thus fiuthfiil reward will
come ! '
Violet tried to smile again, hut her lips quivered
in the eflfort, and she rose and left the room ; while
Alma, seizing the paper that Bushbrooke had
flung down, tore it apart with breathless haste,
remembering his words, * The Dashers are coming
home. '
De Vigne had been much altered since Curly s
death. Curly's words had let in one ray of hope,
and he cursed the headlong impetuosity which had
made him send her letter back unopened. There
was hope, and sometimes De Vigne strove with all
his force to shut it out, lest it should break in and
fool him once again ; at others he clung to it as
men do to the only chance that makes their life of
value. Heaven knows that if his love for Alma
had been error, it brought him punishment enough.
Whichever way it turned, he saw enough to mad-
den him. If she were false to him, his life would
be one long and bitter curse ; if he had judged
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 121
her too harshly, and his neglect and cruelty had
driven her to desperation, and sent her, young, un-
protected, attractive as she was to men, into the
chill world to battle with poverty, he shuddered to
think what might have been her fate, so delicate,
so trusting, so easily misunderstood ; if she were
true to him, across the heaven that opened to him
with that hope, there stretched the dark memory
of the .^ .ho bore hte name.
His love for her had changed as near to hate as
his nature, generous and inherently forgiving,
would allow. He had loved her, but with the love
that slew Desdemona, that murdered Mariamne ;
a love that would have perilled all forone caress
of hers, but would have sent her to her grave
rather than have seen a rival's hand touch her,
another's lips come near her ; a love inexorable as
death, that must have all, or nothing.
But in those long vrinter nights, tossing on his
camp bed, Curl/s words, like voices from the grave,
recurred ceaselessly to him, and as a burst of tears
anguish in itself ^yet relieves the still worse
suffering of the brain, so gentler thoughts of
Alma, a ray of hope, a gleam of trust, softened
and relieved the bitter despair and hopeless agony
of the past months. Was his own past so pure^
his own life so perfect, that he had any right
122 "hBLD in BONDAGE;" OR,
to cast a stone at her, even though her error
and her perfidy had blasted all his peace? De
Vigne remembered, with a pang, how Sabre-
tasche had said to him, * Let him that standeth
take heed lest he fall,' and how he had retorted,
in the pride of his unassailed strength, that to
win a ydung girl's love, bound and fettered as he
was, would be a blackguard's act ; yet his honour
had gone down before his passion, and he had
forgotten the ties that bound him, until, had she
been true to him,^ it would have been useless to
remember them.
If she had been false to him, if she had been
Vane Castleton's toy for the hour and the play-
thmg of others since, he would try to find her,
save her, shield her from her fate, even though to
find her, and to leave her so, broke his own
heart. If she had been true to him, and others
had wronged her youth and her guilelessness, he
would drag her from their clutches ; and no matter
into what depths of misery she had sunk, he would
raise her up, avenge her, and if ever his name be-
came his own again, give it, with his love and
honour, to her in the sight of men. Across the
darker passions of his soul gleamed the Pity and
the Pardon he had once had need to ask of her.
His love grew gentler, nobler, tenderer ; and he
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE, 123
thought, amidst the anguish of those still night-
watches, * Who am I, to sit in judgment on her
or any other ? '
De Vigne at last had learnt a lesson that he
had never learned before in all his life he had
learnt to love not only for himself ^ but more
purely, more holily, more unselfishly.
But at Constantinople ^he whom all the army
called by his Indian sobriquet of the Charmed
Life, whom shot and shell, death and danger, had
alike spared; who had ridden unharmed out of
the fatal melee before the guns of Balaklava,
though the last to leave those doomed and death-
haunted lines ; at Constantinople De Vigne was
chained on a sick-bed by the bitterest of all our
Crimean foes the cholera. It was touch and go
with him ; his life was very nearly added to those
ghastly Returns, which witnessed how much
human life was lost out there by mismanagement
and procrastination. Thank God, the strength of
his constitution pulled him through at last, but
the Dashers sailed for England without him. I
got leave to stay with him. I would have been
cashiered rather than leave him alone in the
Scutari sick-wards in that pestilential place, which
sounds so poetic and delicious with its long, lovely
name, its Golden Horn, its glistening Bosphorus,
124 ^^HELD IN BONDAGE; OR,
its gleaming minarets, its Leilas, its Dudiis, its
bulbuls, and its beauty ; but is, as all of us can
mtness, a very abomination for a sick man to
dwell in, with its dirt, its fleas, its mosquitoes, its
jabbering crowds chattering every lingo, its abomi-
nable little Turks with their eternal ' Bono
Johnny/ and its air rife with disease, malaria, and
filth.
Sabretasche offered willingly to stay too.
* No, no ; go to England, Sabretasche,* said De
Vigne, signing the Colonel down towards him in
one of his intervals of comparative ease, * Before
long I hope to follow you, and you would do me
much more service if you would if you could
without bringing her name forward at all, learn
something for me of '
He stopped; he could not speak her name
without a sharp spasm as of severe physical pain.
Sabretasche bent his head till his lips were close
to De Vigne's ear ; it was the first time he had
heard him allude to her throughout the campaign.
' Of Alma Tressillian ? ' he said, softly.
De Yigne signed him assent, and a silent
pressure of his hand was bond enough between
them. If Sabretasche had been like some emi-
nent Christians of my acquaintance,.he might have
taken the occasion to exalt his own superior fore-
GRANVILLE DB VIONE. 125
foresight in prophesying the trouble that would be
bom from De Vigne's careless intimacy with the
Little Tressillian; being nothing more than a
*bon camarade/ with a generous mind, a kind
heart, and a gentleman's tact, he felt no tempta-
tion to do anjrthing of the kind.
Some three weeks after Ours had got under
weigh for England, I was sitting by De Vigne's
couch reading to him from some of the periodi-
cals my mother had sent me. It was Hamley of
the Artillery's ' Lady Lee,' which ought to interest
anybody if a novel ever can ; but I doubt if De
Yigne heard a word of it. He lay in one position ;
his head turned away from me, his eyes fixed
on the light rosy eastern clouds, his right hand
clenched hard upon the bed-clothes as though it
would lift him perforce from that cruel inaction,
as it had aided him so many times in life. I was
glad that at that minute an old Indian comrade of
his come en route from Calcutta to England via
Constantinople to have a look at the seat of war
was shown into his room ; hoping that courtesy
might rouse him more than Hamley 's lively story
had power to do.
The man was a major in the Cavalry (Queen's
9a va sans dire), of the name of De Vine a
resemblance near enough, I dare say, to justify
126 "held IN BONDAGE;" OR,
Mrs. Malaprop and Co. in thinking them brothers,
and the Heralds' Office in making them out twa
branches of the same house.
He sat and chatted some time of their old
Scinde reminiscences ; heartily sorry to see De
Vigne knocked down as he was, and congratu-
lating him warmly on the honours he had won
honours for which, in truth, though, De Vigne
cared very little, as long as he had had the de-
light of fighting well, and was thought to *have
done his duty.'
At last the man rose to go, and had bidden us
good-by, when he turned back :
* I say, old fellow, I've forgotten the chief thing
I came here to tell you. This letter of yours has
been voyaging after me, sent from Calcutta to
Delhi, and from Delhi to Rohilcunde, and God
knows where, till it came to my hand about four
months ago. I was just going to open it when I
saw the g in the name, and the * Crimea,' which
the donkeys at the Post-office overlooked. You
see your correspondent has put you Hussars, I
suppose that led to the mistake. It's a lady's
writing: I hope the delay's been no damage to
your fair friend, whoever she be. I dare say you
have 'em by scores from a dozen diffisrent quarters,
so this one has been no loss. By George! it'
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 127
seven o'clock, and I'm to dine at the embassy.
Good night, old fellow ; I shall come and see 70a
to-morrow/
Scrawled over with the different postscripts and
addresses, so that nothing of the original address
was visible save the * Major de Vigne,' Alma's
writing was recognized by him ere it had left the
other s hand ; almost before the door had closed he
wrenched it open, and turning away from me, read
the many close-written and tear-blotted pages
that she had penned to him on her sick-bed at
Montressor's. Knowing he would wish to read
on unwitnessed, I left the room.
He did read on, and, when he had read all,
bowing his head upon his hands, he wept like
a woman. For in that hour of joy just won,
for which his heart went up to God in trembling
gratitude between him, and the love that was
his heritage and right as man, there stood the
dark shadow, the relentless phantom of his Mar-
riage. It is bitter. Heaven knows, to be alone in
the Shadow of Death, with no ray of light to
guide, no gleam of hope to aid us ; but even more
bitter than this, is it to stand as he now stood,
with the sudden gleam and radiance of a sunshine
that he must never enjoy playing even at his
very feet ; to stand as he now stood, fettered
128 "HELD IN BONDAGE ;** OR,
by irons that long ago bis own bands had
forged ; beld back by tbe Eumenides of bis own
beadlong follies ; divided from all be loved as by
a great gulf, by tbe fell consequences of tbe Past ;
bis own passions tbeir own Nemesis.
Would you know tbe poison tbat stung bim in
tbe cup of bis joy ? It was tbis single passage ;
*Sbe told me sbe was your wife, Granville!
your tmfel tbat coarse, loud-voiced, cruel-eyed
woman ! But tbat at tbe moment I bated ber so
bitterly for ber assumption, I could bave laugbed
in ber face ! I could not belp telling ber it was
a pity sbe did not learn tbe semblance of a lady
to support ber in ber role ; for I bated ber so
mucb for daring, even in pretence, to take your
name to venture to claim you. If it was wrong,
I could not help it : I love you so dearly that I
could never bear even an imaginary rival. That
woman your wife ! Not even when she showed
me some paper or other she said was a marriage
certificate, did a thought of belief in her story
which would have been disbelief in you cross
my mind for a moment ; and when I discovered
Vane Castleton's cruel plot, and saw so plainly
bow this woman must have been an emissary of
his to try and wean me firom you, I thanked God
that I bad never been disloyal to you even with a
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 129
thought. I trusted you too well ever to believe
that you vi^ould have kept such a secret from me.
I loved you too fondly to vi^rong you in your
absence by want of that faith which it is your
right to expect and mine to give ! '
Those were the words that struck him more
fiercely than any dagger's thrust. This was the
wound which that soft and childlike hand, that
would have been itself cut off rather than have
harmed him, gave him in the very words that
vowed her love* This is what chained him, Tan-
talus-like, from the heaven long yearned for, now
so near, but near only to mock his fetters, to
elude his grasp.
He must stand before her and say, ' Your faith
was misplaced that woman is my wife ! '
VOL. III.
130 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
CHAPTER VI.
THE WIFE TO WHOM SABRETASCHE WAS BOUND.
The first chesnut-leaves of the Tuileries were
silvered in the moonlight, and the dark Seine
wound under the gloomy bridges of the old
town out under the wooded heights of St. Ger-
main, where the oaks that had listened to the
love of Louise de la Valliere, were thrusting out
their earliest spring-buds. It was night, and the
deep calm heavens bent above, as if in tenderness
for the fair white City that lay in the valley of the
Seine, like one of the gleaming lilies of its own
exiled Bourbons. Around it, in the grand old
chase of St. Cloud, in the forest aisles of Fon-
tainebleau, among the silent terraces of Versailles
and Neuilly, the night was calm, still, hushed to
holy silence ; whilst in the City of pleasures, of
blood, of mirth, of death, of wit, of strife, in the
City of Mirabeau and Andre Chenier, of Rivarol
and St. Just, of Marie Antoinette and Theroigne
de M^ricourt, the night was full of jests, and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. ^ 131
laughter, as the gas-flowers of Mabille were lit,
and the Imperial household thronged the palace of
the Bourbons, and the crowds filled the Boulevards
and the Cafes Chantants ; the Chaumi^re and the
Chateau des Fleurs, for Paris was awake, crowned
with flowers, with laughter on her lips and spark-
ling in her eyes, gay as a young girl at her first
ball gay as she has ever been, even on the
eve of her darkest tragedies, her most terrible
hours.
The soft spring night came down on Paris.
Before the cheval-glass in her luxurious bed-
chamber, with jewels on her hair and in her
bosom, stood the belle of its most aristocratic
reunions, shuddering, even while her maid clasped
the pearls upon her arm for a ball at Madame de
LaVieillecours, at the memory of those words from
her brother's lips, which bade her choose between
infidelity or death. At the window of her own
room, looking up to the clear stars that seemed to
rebuke from their calm and holy stillness, the gay
and feverish fret of the human life below. Alma
Tressillian gazed on the spring night, her eyes
brilliant with the radiance of hope ; he was com-
ing home ^her lover, her idol ; what could await
her now but a return of that joy once so rudely
shivered from her grasp ? Not very many yards ofl^,
k2
132 . "held in bondage;" or,
in her crowded and bizarre boudoir, where finery
stood the stead of taste, and overloading passed
for luxury, the Trefiisis read the line in the English
papers which announced the arrival of her hus-
band's troop, and threw it with an oath to Lady
Fantyre, that the Crimea had not rid her of his
life, and left her mistress of the portion of his
wealth that would have come to her for the law
would have recognized her rights as [his * wife,*
and she was in diflSculties and in debt. Under^
neath the windows, that shone bright with the
wax-lights of Violet's toilette-table, stood a woman,
once as beautiful as she, but now haggard, tawdry,
pitiful to look upon, begging of the passers-by for
the coins which would procure her a draught of
absinthe ; that deadly tempter, that sure, slow, re-
lentless murderer who, Jael-like, soothes us for the
moment to drive the iron nail into our brain while
we slumber, and whom, madman-like, we seek
and crave and thirst for, though we know the end
is death. Those four women how unlike they
were ! Dissimilar as night and dawn ; as fragi-ant
roses and dank nightshade ; as the two spirits that
in fable and apologue hover over our path, the one
to lead us to a Gehenna, the other to an Eden ;
dissimilar enough, God knows. Yet the same stars
looked down on them, the same men had loved
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 133
them, and, in one chain of circumstances, Fate had
bound and woven them together.
That same night Sabretasche arrived in Paris.
Rumours had reached him of Violet's engagement
to Prince Carl of Vallenstein-Seidlitz. Believe
them for an instant he did not.
But the rumour of her projected union with
Vallenstein struck him with a sudden and deadly
chill ; he realized for the first time the possibility
that, one day, if he could not claim her, another
might. He remembered women who had loved,
perhaps, as fondly as she, who had gone to their
husband 8 arms with hearts aching for another ;
and Sabretasche, despite his faith, trembled for
the treasure of which another man might rob him
any moment, and he have no right or power to
avenge the theft! I suppose he ought to have
rejoiced if Violet had been able to have found
that happiness with some other which he was
unable to give her. But Sabretasche was only
mortal, as I have often told you, and before we
can love quite so exquisitely, I fear we shall have
to ostracize love altogether. He cares but little
for his jewel, who sees it gleaming in his rival'si
crown and does not long to tear it from the hated
brows and hide it in his bosom, where no other
eyes, save his own, shall see its radiance.
134 "held in bondage; or,
Sabretasche went to Paris as soon as bis men
were landed at Portsmoutb, to learn wbat trutb or
untruth tbere was in this report; to look ^if
unseen himself once more upon her, before
another's right should claim the beauty once his
won. He must see her, and if she told him she
could, without regret or lingering pain, wed any
other, he would not curse her nor reproach her,
he would have no right to do so ; but he would
pray God to bless her, and then leave her, and
never look upon her face again.
It was eleven o'clock when Sabretasche^ alone,
drove from the Hdtel de Londres to the hotel
where the Molyneux lived in the Champs Elys^es.
His heart beat thick as he drew near the house
in which she dwelt. A carriage stood before the
entrance, the door was wide open, the hall was
bright with its wax-lights, the servants were mov-
ing to and fro, and in the full glare of the light
he beheld that face, which with the din of war
and death around had never for an hour ceased to
haunt him. There she stood, unconscious of the eyes
whose gaze she often thought would have power to
recall her from the tomb ; a narrow band of gold
and pearls clasping her wavy chesnut hair ; her
large eyes darker and more brilliant still from the
shadow beneath their lids ; about her all the grace
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 135
and fascination of her surpassing loveliness ; and
as he looked on her, taking her fiin from a servant,
she crossed the pavement and entered the car-
riage, still unconscious that in the darkness of the
night the life she held so dear was beating close
to hers !
The carriage rolled down the Champs Elysees.
Ere the door closed, Sabretasche went up to a
servant, lounging against the portal to talk to
a pretty bouquetiere of his acquaintance.
* Ou va t-on ? ' he asked, rapidly.
The man Lord Molyneux's own man started
as he recognized Sabretasche, whom he had known
so well two years before.
' Pardon, monsieur ! Milord et mUadi et made-
moiseUe are gone to Madame de La Vieillecour's.
May I dare express to monsieur my gladness at
seeing him safely from the Crimea ? Can I also
ojffer monsieur? ' began Alceste, hesitatingly,
noticing the deadly whiteness of his &ce. The
question roused him to his old refined hatred of
notice or publicity, and with a hasty negative he
turned, and drove back to the Hotel de Londres*
As he had driven from the Gare, he had met
Leonce de La Vieillecour, the Due's son by an
early marriage, who had bidden him go to see his
handsome heUe mere at her bal masque that night,
136 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
to which Sabretasche had given a hasty negative.
Now he drove to Vieillecour s rooms in the Chaus-
see d'Antin, and asked him to take him with him
to the Duchess's ball. Leonce gladly assented,
gave him a domino and a mask, and drove him to
one of the most brilliant and amusing reunions of
the season, for the most celebrated and beauti-
ful women in Paris were there; and the mask
gave it much of the zest, and the freedom of a
bal de Vopera a hal de V opera where all the
revellers had pure descents and stately escutch-
eons, though not, perhaps, much more stainless
reputations than the fair maskers of more * equi-
vocal position,' who were treading the boards, and
drinking the champagne, of the opera festivities.
Not desirous of recognition, Sabretasche per-
suaded Leonce to leave him, telling him he was
tired, and would rather look on than join in the
society around him. Vieillecour quitted him, and
Sabretasche, the best-known man in Europe, the
hel esprit whose wit was quoted and fashion fol-
lowed, whose bow was a brevet of rank, was alone
in that truest solitude, the solitude of a crowd.
Hots de vue hors d^ esprit is the motto of the great
world, which buries its greatest hero in Westmin-
ster Abbey and its fairest beauty in Pere la Chaise,
then fills up their places, and thinks no more of
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 137
them in its ebb and its flow, from the day when the
dust of their tombs fell on their coffin-plates !
He moved through the rooms, threading his
way through those brilliant butterflies who toil
so wearily on the treadmill of fashion. As yet
he saw not the one he sought ; though now and
then he heard from men as they passed by him
praises of her beauty, praises which turned his
blood to fire. Once, a man in a violet domino
powdered with violets in gold passed him quickly ;
jealousy quickened his senses, and, despite his
mask, he recognized Carl of Vallenstein-Seidlitz,
with whom in days gone by he had drunk Johannis-
berg, and played ecarte, and smoked Havannahs
under the linden-trees of his summer palace, little
foreseeing that the day perhaps would come, when
Vallenstein would rob him of the one, once pro-
mised as his wife.
He lost the Prince in the crowd ; and still no-
where could he find her, whom his eyes ached
with longing to gaze upon again, and L^once de
La Vieillecour dragged him perforce to see the
Duchess, to speak to Madame of the Crimea and
of Curly.
Gwen Brandling and Madame de La Vieillecour
must truly have been two different beings, that
she could talk with scarce a tremor of that ter-
138 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
rible death-scene in the hospital of St. Paul
talk of it flirting her fan, and glancing through
her mask with those magnificent eyes, while the
dance-music rang out in her ears ! Did she really
think so little of her brother, of the fair child with
his golden curls and his gleeful laugh, who had
played with her under the shadow of the lime-
trees in their old home, long years before, when
the world and its prizes were no more to her, than
the polished chesnuts lying at her feet, and no pro-
phetic shadow foretold to him his dying hour in
the horrors of Sebastopol ? Did she really think
no more of him, as she waltzed in that brilliant
circle with the arms of a royal Prince around her ?
Had the ^ belle position ' she worshipped, so utterly
chilled all remnants of Gwen Brandling out of
Madame de La Vieillecour ? God knows ! I will
not judge her. Because there are no tears seen
in our eyes, it does not follow we are dead to
grief.
The windows of the ball-room, that equalled
in size and splendour the famous Galerie de
Glaces, opened at the far end, on to a terrace
overlooking the cool shadowy gardens of the
hotel; and dropping the curtain of one of the
windows behind him, Sabretasche stood a moment
in the calm air. At the end of the terrace.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 139
*
having evidently quitted the ball-room as he had
done by one of the twelve vrindows that opened
on the terrace, stood a woman and a man. With
all his trust in her, Sabretasche's heart beat thick
vnth jealousy, doubt, and hate, as he saw Violet ;
and beside her, bending towards her, the domino
of Carl of Vallenstein, his mask in his hand, and
on his impassive Teuton features an eagerness and
a glow but very rarely wakened there.
Not for his life could Sabretasche have stirred
a step from where he stood ; fascinated, basilisk-
like, he gazed upon the woman he loved, and the
man, whom the world said was soon to win from
her the title by which, but two years before, he
had hoped to have called her. He stood and
gazed upon them, upon the one, whom he would
have cherished so fondly ; and upon the spoiler,
the rival, who had stolen from him all he
valued upon earth. They were speaking in
French, and some of their words came to him
where he stood.
* That is your last resolve ? '
Yes,' answered Violet; and at the sound of
that sweet and musical voice, whose harmony had
been so long silent to him, Sabretasche's veins
thrilled with that strange ecstasy of delight which
borders close on pain. *I am not ungrateful.
140 "held in bondage;" or,
moDsieur, for the honour you would do me ; but
to accept it would be a crime in me and a trea-
son to you. I know I grieve to know that
others may have misled you, and not replied to
you at the first as I bid them, and I sought this
opportunity to tell you frankly, and once for all,
that I can never be your wife.'
* Because you love another ! '
Violet drew away from him with her haughtiest
grace.
'If I do, monsieur, such knowledge should
surely have prevented your seeking me as you
have now done. I should have thought you too
proud to wish for an unwilling bride.'
' But I love you so tenderly, mademoiselle ; I
would win you at every risk, and if you give me
your hand, I will do my best to make your heart
mine too '
Violet put out her hand with an impatient
deprecatory gesture.
' It is impossible, monsieur ! Do not urge me
further. Leave me, I beg of you. I shall never
marry. I should have hoped my friends had
made you understand this ; but since they misled
you, there was but one open and honourable
course for me to pursue to tell you at once,
myself, that, much as I thank you for the honour
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 141
you would do me, I can never be your wife, nor
any other's. Your words only pain me ; you are
too true a gentleman to press me longer. Leave
me, I entreat of you, sire.'
He was too true a gentleman to press her
further ; he bowed low, and left her ; he would
not honour her with another word of regret,
though it cut him hard, for he^ Carl of Vallen-
stein, who might have mated with almost any
royal house in Europe ! to be rejected by the
daughter of a poor Irish peer ; and as his violet
domino floated past, Sabretasche heard him mut-
ter, under his blondes moustaches, ^Qiie le diahle
emporte cepeste d^homme marie I *
He lifted the curtain of one of the windows,
and went back into the brilliantly-lighted ball-
room ; and Sabretasche was at last alone with
the woman he loved,
* Vivian my husband ! I will be tnie to you.
Truer than wife ever was ! '
It was a stifled, heart-broken whisper that
scarcely stirred the air, but it roused a tempest
in the heart of the man who heard it. With
yearning love he stretched out his arms, mur-
muring her name that name which had been
on his lips in so many dreams, broken by the din
of hostile cannon. She turned, and, with a low.
142 "held in bondage; or,
faint cry, sprang forward, and fell upon his heart.
That meeting was sacred; unseen by any eyes
save those of the pale calm stars, which watch so
much of this world's deepest grief and sweetest
rapture. For awhile, in the joy of re-union, they
forgot all save that they were together save that
he held her, with that heart beating against his
which no man as yet had had power to win from
him save that he had come back to her from
danger and suffering, out of the very shadow of
the valley of death, from under the very stroke of
the angel of destruction.
On such a meeting we will not dwell ; there is
little such joy on earth, and what there is, is
sacred. As, after a dream of the night in which
those we have lost live again, and the days long
gone by bloom once more tot us with all their
sunshine and their fragrance, we awake in the gray
dawn of the winter's morning, with all the sorrow
and theburden, the darkness and the weariness, of
our actual life rushing back upon us ; so they
awoke to the memory that they had met only
to part again that they had had an interval
of rest, given them only like the accused in the
torture-room, even that they might live to suffer
the more.
They must part ! If it be hard to part a living
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 143
member from a quivering human body, is it not
harder to sever from each other two human hearts
such as God formed to beat as one, and which
are only torn asunder, at the cost of every quiver-
ing nerve, and every clinging fibre? Heaven
knows, few enough hearts in this world beat in
unison for those that do, to need be parted ! And
as the memory of their inexorable fate rose up
before him. Sabre tasche shuddered at the sight
of that exquisite loveliness, condemned for his
sake to a solitary and unblessed life, desolate as
a widow, without even the title and the memories
of a wife. Involuntarily he drew her closer to
him involuntarily he murmured :
* Oh, my God ! Violet, we cannot live thus ! '
What comfort had she to give him ? None. She
could only weep passionate tears, clinging to him
and vowing she would be true to him always true
to him, whatever chanced.
* '* True to me !" God bless you ! And I have
nothing to give you in return but suffering I
have nothing to reward you with, but anguish and
trial ! If I could but bear your burden with mine !
If I could but suffer alone '
* No, no,' she murmured vaguely, * not alone
not alone. What we suffer, let us suffer together.
You would not have me cease to love you V
144 "held in bondage;" or,
* My God ! no. And yet, if I were not selfisli,
I should bid you forget me, and try to rejoice, if
you obeyed. Violet, if ever you should' and,
despite all his effort, his voice was all but inaudi-
ble with the anguish and the tenderness he tried
to hold down and rein in * if you should think at
any time it were possible to find happiness with
another if you fancy you could in other loves
forget my fatal passion, which has been only
doomed to crowd your years with suffering be
happy ; I will never reproach you. Do not think
of what /shall suffer ; no complaint of mine shall
ever trouble you. I will try and thank God that
he has not, through me, cursed the life dearer
than my own, and in time, perhaps, I may learn
to bless the one who has given you the joy I
would have '
He ceased ; his voice was low and broken ; he
could not complete his generous speech ; the great
love in him overpowered every other feeling ; he
could not bid her wed another ! Who amongst
us would ask of any man to sign his own death-
warrant? Who can wonder that Sabretasche
shrank from consigning himself to a living death,
to an existence hopeless as the grave, with throes
of mortal agony that would never cease as long as
there were blood in his veins, and vitality in his
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 145
heart ? She looked up in his face, the moonlight
gleaming in her eyes, in which was the smile of
a love without hope, yet faithful to the end
such a smile as a woman might give from the
scaffold, to one whom she would fain comfort to
the last.
' Do you remember, Vivian, when you first told
me you loved me, I said I was yours yours for
life and death yours for ever ? That vow is as
sacred to me as though it were my marriage oath
to you. Love, happiness, home and with an-
other ? You can know me little, my own dearest,
to speak so to me ? Others have tried to urge
me to infidelity. I never thought you would insult
me too. Noble, generous, unselfish as your love
is, I, who thought once to be your wife I will be
worthy of it, and I count sorrow from your hand
fisur dearer than joy from any other's !'
Sabretasche could not answer her ; he tried to
thank her, he tried to bless her for her words, but
his voice failed him. To have such love as this
given him, and to be forced by fate to live as
though he had it not ! to leave her as though she
were nothing to him, when, only grown dearer by
absence, to part from her was to wrench away his
very life ! They might have been so happy, if
in his early youth he had not wedded !
VOL. III. L
146 "held in bondage; or,
His burden grew heavier than he could bear:
With her words dawned the ideal of so fair a life !
It rose up before his grasp with all its sweetest
glories. The world the world what was that
to them ? he had but to stretch out his hand, and
say to the woman who loved him, * Come !'
His burden grew heavier than he could bear.
He became deatlily pale ; his head was drooped till
his lips rested on her hair ; he stood immovable,
save for the fast thick throbs of his heart, and the
convulsive strength with which he pressed her
against his breast. The physical conflicts he had
of late passed through, were peace, rest, child's
play, compared with this deadly struggle that
waited for him in the first hour of his return !
Suddenly he lifted his head.
* I have no strength for this ! Let us go into
the world. I must put some shield between us
and this torture.'
He spoke rapidly, almost harshly ; it was the
first time that his voice had ever lost its softness,
his manner the tenderness natural to him at all
times, and doubly gentle ever to her. She gave
one heavy, hopeless sigh, and Sabretasche, as he
heard it, shivered from head to foot. He dared
no longer be with her alone, and he led her back
into the crowded ball-room. There were many
GRANVILLE DE VIONE. 147
masks worn that night, at that bal masqu^ of the
Duchesse de La Vieillecour's !
Violet left immediately; she told her father
she felt unwell and wanted rest. It was true
enough! Sabretasche had quitted the house at
once ; he could not be with her before the eyes
of others, and he watched her as he had watched
her in the Champs Elys^es, going to her carriage,
with all her high-bred and delicate beauty ^that
beauty that must never be his.
He reproached himself for having given her
the torture of the past hour. Such tempests of
the heart as they passed through that night, do
the work of years upon those who endure them.
Thinking of her trial before his own, Sabretasche,
who felt as if he could never make reparation to
her for having drawn down on her the curse of
his own fate, at any cost to himself would, had he
been able, have spared her, were it but an iota
of the grief brought on her young head. He
loved Violet Molyneux with such love as is very
rare among men or women !
He walked along under the calm April skies,
careless of the groups that jostled him on the trot-
toir, from the gay students, chanting their chansons
h hoire^ to the piteous outcasts whose last home
would be the Morgue; from the light-hearted,
L 2
148 "held in bondage;" or,
bright-eye grisette of the Quartier Latin, to the
wretched chiflTonnier of the Faubourg d'Enfer,
stopping to carry rags and filth away as wealth.
He wallced along, wandering iar, across the Pont
Neuf, and into the old Cit^, unconscious where he
went, blind to the holy beauty of the midnight
stars, deaf to the noisy laughter of the midnight
revellers, till a shrill voice struck on his ear, the
voice of a woman, * Limosina per la coarithj signer 1 '
The language of his childhood and his youth,
always stirred a chord of tenderness and of regret
in his heart. For his fondest endearments, Italian
words rose to his lips, and in his hours of strongest
passion, Italian was the language in which he
would first and most naturally have spoken. De-
spite tiie chain that Italy had hung upon him, he
loved her, and he loved her language, with one of
the deep and mournful attachments with which
we love what has cost us heavily, and which is yet
dear to us. From his musings, that shrill voice,
with its * Carithy oarith, signor I ' startled him with
a sudden shock. Perhaps something in the tones
stung him with a vague pang of remembrance, a
pang as of an old wound suddenly struck in the
dark by an unseen hand. At any rate, involun-
tarily, for the sake of the Italian words, he
stretched out his hand with the alms she begged.
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 149
The face was haggard, faded, stamped with the
Tiolence of a fiendish temper, inflamed with the
passion for drink ; the eyes red, the lips thin, the
brow contracted, the hair gray and spare the
fttoe of a virago, the face of a drunkard. Still,
with an electric thrill of memory, it took him
back to another face, twenty years younger, with
delicate colouring, smooth brow, long shining hair,
and dark voluptuous eyes ^another, yet the same,
marked and ruined even then with the stain of
the same virago passions.
He gazed upon her, that dim and horrible me*
mory straggling into birth by the light of the gas.
lamp ; her bloodshot eyes looked up at him ; and
thusy after twenty years, Sabretasche and his ftith-
less wife met once again in life.
He gazed upon ^er as men in ancient days
gazed on the horrible visage of the Medusa, fasci-
nated with a spell that, while they loathed it,
held them tight bound there, to look till their
eyes grew dim and their hearts sick unto death
on what they dreaded and abhorred ; fascinated,
he gazed upon her, the woman who had betrayed
him ; fascinated, she gazed on him, the husband
she had wronged. They recognized each other ;
the tie that had once bound them, the wrong that
had once parted them, would have taught th^n
150 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
to know each other, though twice twenty years
had parted them ; he who had wedded and loved
her, she who had wedded and dishonoured him.
There they stood, in the midnight streets of
Paris, iace to face once more. They, husband
and wife! They, those whom God had joined to-
gether ! Oh ! farce and folly and falsehood ! There
they stood together. The man, with his refined
and noble bearing, his generous and chivalric
nature, his highly-cultured intellect, his &sti-
dious tastes, his proud susceptibilities, sensitive to
dishonour, incapable of a base thought or a mean
act. And she the beauty she had once owned
distorted with the vile temper and ravings of a
shrew ; on face and form the stamp of a virago's
passions, of a conscience dead, of a brain besotted
with the drink to which she had latterly flown as
consoler and companion ; a creature from whom a
passer-by would shrink with loathing of the evil
gleaming in her eyes ; the type of that lowest,
most debased, most loathsome womanhood, ruined
by the worst of passions, drink, from whom, if
such reeled out before him from a gin-palace, or
passed him on the pav^ he shrank with disgust.
Yet these were husband and wife !
She looked up in his face up into those
melancholy and lustrous eyes, which seemed to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 151
her the eyes of an avenging angel ; for, the last
time that they had gazed upon her he had flung
her jfrom him in self-defence a murderess in her
mad and vengeful temper, in her dire hatred of him
for coming betveeen her and the love that sinned
against him.
All his vrrongs, all the memories of that betrayal
of v^^hich he had no 'proof to give the world, but
vehich had stung and eaten into his very soul
all the torture which his tie to this woman had
brought on his head and on hers who was dearer
than his life ^all the joys of which this wife, so
false to him, had robbed him all the horror, the
bitterness, the misery of his bondage to this woman
all rushed upon him at the sight of the wife to
whom fate condemned him. His face grew stem,
vnth an iron bitterness rare with him. Wronged
pride, outraged trust, violated honour, loathing,
scorn, pity, an unspoken accusation, which was
more full of reproach and rebuke than any words,
were vmtten on his face as, sick unto death, he
turned involuntarily from her deeply as she had
erred to him, she was sunk too low for him to
upbraid. With a shudder he turned from her;
but with an inarticulate cry and gurgle in her
throat, she fell down on the flagstone of the street.
Confused, and but half-conscious from the draught
162 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
with which she bad drugged her thoughts and
satisfied the passion which had grown upon her,
as the passion for drink grows ever on its vic-
tims; strongly imbued with the superstition of her
country; while vague stray remnants of the mira-
cles, the credulities, and the legends of her religion
still dwelt in her mind too deep for any crime, to
uproot her belief in them ; the pale stem face
of her husband, with the dark, melancholy, re-
proachful eyes that gazed upon her with a Yoice-
less rebuke which touched her into remorse for
the lengthened wrong her life had done him,
seemed, as he stood suddenly before her in the
iaint cold light of the moon, as the face of an
Avenging Angel beckoning her to the chastise-
ment of her crimes. Debilitated and semi-deli-
rious, her strength eaten and burnt away by the
deadly absinthe, her mind hazy and clouded,
impressionable to the superstitions of her creed
and country; struck with terror at what her weak
mind fancied was a messenger of retribution from
the heaven she alternately reviled, blasphemed, and
dreaded ; with a shrill cry of horror and appeal, she
fell down at Sabretasche s feet a helpless, move-
less mass, lying still, death-like, huddled together
in the cold, clear moonlight, on the glistening
pavement, before the man her life had wronged.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 153
Sabretasche's impulse was to leave her there;
to fly for ever from the spectacle of the woman he
had once loved fondly, and who had once slept
innocently on his heart, thus lost and thus de-
graded ; to leave for ever the presence of a wife
who outraged every sense, every taste, every feel-
ing, but to whom the law still bound him, because
from a drunkard no divorce is granted !
But pity, duty, humanity stayed him. Though
she was his enemy, she w^ a woman ; though
she had wronged him, she was now in want ;
though she had forsaken, betrayed, and robbed
him of more than twenty long years' peace and
joy, she had once been his love. He had once
vowed to cherish and protect her, and, though
Heaven knows, she had long ago lost all right or
power to appeal to those vows, or that care, he
would not leave her there, alone in the Paris
streets at midnight, lying in the kennel like a
dog. A crowd gathered round them in an instant
round the man with his patrician s grace and
beauty, and the woman lying at his feet, squalid
and repulsive, all the more loathsome, for the
shadow of past loveliness that remained, showing
all that nature would have left so fair, but for the
vile human passions that had ruined and destroyed
it Among the crowd was a young medical
154 "held in BONDAGE;" OK,
Student from the Quartier Latin, on his way from
the Morgue, who stooped down to look at her as
she la J, and then raised his eyes to Sabretasehe.
' Monsieur I regardez comme elle saigne I '
A dark crimson stream was welling from her
lips out on to the pavement, white and glistening
in the moonlight. With a sickening shudder
Sabretasehe turned away. He had seen the
horrors of war; he had looked on suffering and
bloodshed with that calmness and tranquillity of
nerve which soldiers learn perforce ; but a sudden
faintness seized him at the sight of that life-
stream which, perchance, bore with it the last
throbs of an existence which was the curse of
his own. The street faded from his view, the
voices of men grew confused in his ear, the gray
moonlight seemed to whirl round and round him
in a dizzy haze, out of which glared and laughed
in mocking horror the face of a fiend the face of
his Wife. His brain lost all consciousness; life
seemed slipping from his grasp ; he saw nothing,
he heard nothing, he was conscious of nothing,
save that horrible loathsome face close to his,
with its wild bloodshot eyes dragging him with
her down, down, down away from life into a
vague hell of horror.
The night wind fanning his brow awoke him
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 155
from his swoon; the voices aroand him seemed
to bring with them a glad rush of free, healthful,
welcome life; the delirium of his brain faded
away in the clear light of the moon. The
truth rushed on him with the questions of the
medical student as to his own health, the young
fellow having noticed the sudden stagger with
which he reeled back, and the deadly pallor of
his face. He answered the glance with which
Sabretasche asked the question his lips refused to
put into words.
^They have taken that poor woman, monsieur,
to the Caf(6 Euphrosyne to see what's the matter
with her before she goes to the hospital. My
friend LafitoUe is with her.'
Sabretasche thanked him for his care, and asked
him to show him the Cafe Euphrosyne. He longed
to leave the place, to go where he could run no
risk of hearing, seeing, coming again in contact
with the terrible phantom of the night the
phantom that was no spirit-form moulded by the
fancies of his brain to be dissolved in the clear and
sunny light of morning, but a dark and hopeless
reality from which there was no awakening. But
he knew by her prayer, * Caritk ! carita ! ' that she
must be in want, poverty-stricken, and probably,
now that he could make no more money from her
156 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
claims on himself deserted by her brother; and
the heart of Sabretasche was too generous, too
gentle, too full of knightly and chivalric feeling,
to leave her without aid to suffer, perhaps to die,
homeless and destitute in the hospital of a foreign
city.
The Caf6 Euphrosyne was rather a low and not
over-cleanly house in the by-street into which
Sabretasche unconsciously had wandered, chiefly
frequented by the small shopkeepers of the quar-
tier; but the people of the house were good-
hearted, good-natured, cheerful people a man
and his wife, with whom the world went very well
in their own small part of it, and who, unlike the
generality of people with whom the world goes
well, were very ready and willing to aid. if they
could, any with whom it went ill. Their caf6 was
open and lighted ; Gringoire Virelois the young
Spicier over the way was giving a supper after
the Cirque Olympique to his jiancie^ Rose Dodu,
and her friends, and in an inner room the good
mistress of the house was venting pitiful exclama-
tions and voluble compassion on the poor woman
whom her bon ami, the water-carrier, had lifted on
his broad Auvergnat shoulders and borne into her
caf4 at the instance of M. LafitoUe, a medical
student.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 157
There, on a table, lay the once beautiful Tuscan,
surrounded by a crowd the many curious, the
few compassionate ^the life-blood still dropping
slowly from between her thin ashy lips, her blood-
shot eyes closed, her haggard cheeks more hollow
still from their leaden hue, the hair that he re-
membered so golden and luxuriant now thin and
spare, and streaked with gray, far more so than her
years warranted. As Sabretasche drew near the
door of the chamber a murmur ran among the
people that the English milord knew something of
her, and on the strength of it LafitoUe came for-
ward to Sabretasche.
* Pardon, monsieur, but may I ask if you know
anything of this poor woman, of her family, of
where she comes from ? If not, she shall go to the
hospital ! '
The flush of pain and of pride that passed over
Sabretasche's foce, and then passed away, leaving
it palid as any statuary, did not escape the young
student's quick eyes.
* No,' he answered quickly. * Do not send her
to the hospital. Let her remain here; I will
defray the expenses.'
He took out his purse as he spoke, and at sight
of the glittering gold within it, and the sum he
tendered her out of it, Madame Kiolette, though
158 "held in bondage;" or,
as little mercenary as a woman can be who lives
by the money she makes, thought what an ad-
mirable thing it is to fall in by fate with an
English milord ; and immediately acquiesced in his
wish for her to receive the stranger, and listened
with the humblest respect while he bade her do
all that was necessary, and send for some surgeon,
whom the young student recommended as the
nearest and the most clever.
Sabretasche waited there, leaning against the
door of the caf(6, the night wind blowing on his
fevered forehead, a thousand conflicting thoughts
and feelings at war within him, till the surgeon who
had been brought thither came down the stairs.
As he passed him, Sabretasche arrested him.
* Monsieur, allow me to ask. Is she will
she'
He paused ; not to save his life could he have
framed the question to ask if hers were in
jeopardy ; hers, dark with the wrong of twenty
years' wrong to him ; hers, so long the curse upon
his own ; hers, the sole bar between himself and
Violet.
* Will she live ? ' guessed the surgeon. * No,
not likely. She has poisoned herself with ab-
sinthe, poor wretch. I suppose you found her on
the pavement, monsieur ? It is very generous to
GRANVILLE DE VIGXE. 159
assist her so liberally. SbockiDg thing that ab-
sinthe shocking ! Bonsoir, monsieur/
The surgeon, without awaiting a reply to any
of his questions, went off, impatient to return to
the 6cart6 he had left to attend his summons to
the Caf6 Euphrosyne, and Sabretasche still leaned
against the door-post in the clear starlight, while
the soft, fresh rush of the night wind, and the
noisy revelry from Rose Dodu's betrothal supper,
alike passed by him unheeded.
His heart throbbed, his pulse beat rapid time,
his brain whirled with the tide of emotions that
rushed through him. For more than twenty years
he had not seen his wife ; he had left her that day
when he had flung her from him, in self-defence,
as he would have flung a tigress clinging to him
with its cruel griffes, a young and beautiful woman,
with the rounded form, the delicate outline, the
luxuriant hair, the rich colouring of youth. As
such he had always thought of her. In absence we
seldom give account for the ravages of time ; and
this haggard, wild-eyed woman, with her whitening
hair, her thin lips, her hollow cheeks, her remnant
of bygone loveliness, only suflScient to render more
distinct the ruinous touch of years of bad passions,
and of that deadly love of stimulants which
stamps itself so surely on its victims, seemed
160 "held in bondage;" or,
to him like some hideous caricature or phantom,
rather than the real presence of his wife. For
more than a score of years his eyes had not rested
on her, and the change which time had wrought,
and temper and drink hastened, shocked him, as
a young child, laughing at its own gay, fair face in
a mirror, would start, if in its stead he saw the
worn and withered features he should wear in
his old age. This sudden resurrection of the me-
mories of his youth ; this sudden meeting with
the wife so long unseen ; this abrupt transition
from the delicate, fresh, and exquisite loveliness
of Violet Molyneux, to the worn, haggard, repul-
sive form of the woman who barred him from her ;
took a strange hold upon him, and struck him with
a strange shock : such as I have felt coming out
of the warm, bright, voluptuous sunshine of a sum-
mer's day into the silent, damp, midnight gloom
of a cavern. And side by side with this face,
seen in the glare of the gaslight, with that harsh
voice and shrill cry for alms, * Carita ! cairta ! '
and those wild, bloodshot eyes lifted to his, rose
the memory of the one so young, so fair, with its
soft lips white with pain, and the clinging clasp of
the fond hands, and the quiver in the low and
tender voice, *I count sorrow from your hand
dearer than joy from any other.' Side by side
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 161
they rose before him ; and, with such delirium as
they might know who, on the scaffold, putting up
their last prayer to God, and taking their last look
of the golden sunlight and the laughing earth, saw
the Pardon which beckoned them to life among
their fellow-men from the very border of their
grave, there came rushing through his heart and
brain the thought of freedom ^the freedom that
would come with Death ! To banish it he would
have needed to be Deity, not Man.
He leaned there against the door, his thoughts
mingling in strange chaos, death and life ; at once
going back to the buried past of his youth and on
to the possible future of his manhood. Rose
Dodu and her party, brushing past him with their
light French jests, going homewards after their
merry supper, roused him to the actual moment ;
and ere the house closed for the night he
turned and sought Madame Biolette, to bid her
have all that might be necessary for the comfort
and the care of her charge, and wait for no solace
that money could bring, to soothe the dreary pas-
sage to the grave, of the woman whose life had
blasted his. Church people, I know, looked on
Sabretasche as an ame damn^e and a lost spirit
as a child of wrath, ungodly, worldly, given over
to dissipation, and scepticism, and self-indulgence
VOL. III. M
162 "held in bondage;" or,
^yet, if I had wronged him, or were in need, I
would rather have his reading of charity and
forgiveness than that of ^eminent Christians,'
though theirs is ^ doctrinal and by grace,' and his
the simple offspring of a gentle heart, a generous
nature, and a tolerant mind, which, knowing
much evil in itself, forbore to avenge much evil
in others.
Madame Riolette listened to his injunctions
with the reverence which gleaming Napoleons are
sure to gain for their owner all the world over, and
promised to give the sufferer every care and com-
fort a promise she would have kept without any
bribe, for she was full of the ready and vivacious
kindness of her country, and was one of the best-
natured little women that ever breathed.
' Monsieur would not like to speak to the poor
woman ? ' she asked, hesitatingly.
' No, no,' said Sabretasche, hastily, with that
flush of pain which every thought of his wife
brought with it.
*But, monsieur,' went on Madame Riolette,
submissively, her little head, with its white cap
and its ponderous earrings, hung bashfiilly down,
a&aid of seeming rude to this English milord,
in whom she, with French intuition, discerned
that ring of ' aristocrat,' which true in heart to the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 163
white lilies, the Riolette reverenced and adored
' if monsieur could speak Italian it would be such a
kindness to the poor woman. No one in the
house could, and since she had become conscious,
she kept murmuring Italian words, and seemed so
wretched no one could understand them. As
monsieur had been already so nobly benevolent to
her, if monsieur would not mind adding so greatly
to his goodness *
And Madame Riolette paused, awed to silence
by the pallor and the set sternness on Sabretasche's
face. She thought he was angry with her for her
audacity, and began a trembling apology. Poor
woman ! his thoughts were far enough away from
her. A struggle rose within him ; he had an un-
conquerable loathing and shrinking, from ever
looking again upon the face of the woman who
had wronged him ; yet, a strange mournful sort of
pity awoke in him, as he heard of her muttering
words in their mutual language in foreign ears
upon her death-bed, and he thought of her young,
lovely, as he had first seen her among the pale-
green olives of Montepulto, almost as young, al-
most as lovely as Violet Molyneux.
He stood still some moments, his face turned
from the inquisitorial light of Madame Riolette's
hand-lamp ; then he lifted his head :
m2
164 "held in bondage; or,
* Lead the way/
She led the way up a narrow staircase and along
a little corridor, and opened for him a door
through which Sabretasche had to bend his head
to pass, and ushered him into a chamber ; small,
it is true, but with all the prettiness and comforts
Madame Biolette had been able to gather into it,
and neither close nor hot, but full of the sweet
evening air that had come in ; blowing far from the
olive-groves of the sufferer's native Tuscany, across
the purple Alps and the blue mountains of Au-
vergne, over the deep woods, and stretching
meadows, and rushing rivers of the interior, till it
came fresh and fragrant, laden with life and per-
fume, bearing healing on its wings, to the heated,
feverish, crowded streets of Paris.
Sabretasche took the lamp from the woman's
hand, and signed her to .retire, a hint which
Madame Riolette interpreted by seating herself
by the little table in the window and taking out
her knitting, pondering, acute Parisienne that she
was, on what possible connection there could be
between thq poor, haggard, wretched-looking wo-
man on her bed, and the graceful, aristocratic
milord Anglais.
By the light of the kmp in his hand, Sabre-
tasche stood and gazed upon his wife, as she lay
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 165
unconscious of his gaze, with her eyes closed, and
scarcely a pulsation to be seen that could mark
life from death. He looked upon her face, with
the stamp of vicious and virago passion on every
line, on the bony, nervous hand that had been
raised, in their last parting, against his life;
the hand which bore on its finger the key that
had locked the fetters of marriage round and
about him with such pitiless force, the badge of a
life-long bondage, the seal that stamped the death-
warrant of his liberty and peace! the wedding-
ring that in the joyous glow, and blind fond trust
of youth, he had placed there, his heart beating
high, with all a lover's tenderest thoughts, the
sign as he then believed of life-long joy and union
with a woman who loved him as well and as truly
as he loved her ! He thought of his bride as she
had looked to him on his marriage morning in
Tuscany, fair as woman could ever need to be, with
the orange-flowers and myrtles gathered with the
dews of dawn glittering upon them, wreathed
among her rich and golden hair ; he looked upon
her now, with the work of twenty years stamped
upon her face, twenty years of wrong, of evil, of
debasing thought, of avaricious passions, in which
she had lived on the money of the husband she
had wronged, to spend it in the lowest of all vices,
166 "held in bondage;" or,
drink. He knew nothing of how those twenty
years had been passed, but he could divine
nearly enough, seeing the wreck and ruin they
had wrought. And he was tied to this woman !
^if she rose from that bed of sickness, he was
bound to her by law ! His heart recoiled with
horror, and sickened at the thought ; reason,
sense, nature revolted, outraged and indignant
at the hideous bondage. He longed to call the
world that condemned him to such, around him
where he stood, and ask them how they dared to
fetter him to such a wife, to such a tie ; chaining
him to more horrible companionship than those
inflict who chain the living body to the festering
corpse, never to be unloosed till welcome death
release the prisoner, consigned to such horror
unspeakable, by his own kind, by his own fellow-
men!
As he gazed upon her, the light of the lamp
falling on her eyes, aroused her from the semi-
conscious trance into which she had fallen,
weakened by the loss of blood, which, though
not great, had taken away the little strength
and power which she had, all vitality and health
having been eaten gradually up by the poison she
had loved and courted poison slow, but ever
sure. .
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 167
Her eyes unclosed and fastened on him with a
wild, vacant stare ; then she covered her face with
her hands,' and cowered down among the bed-
clothes in mortal terror, muttering trembling and
disjointed words :
Oh, Santa Maria! have mercy, have mercy! '
I have erred, I have sinned, I confess it ! Send
him away, send him away; he will kill me with
his calm sad eyes, they pierce into my soul ! I
was mad I hated him I knew not what I did.
Oh, Mother of God, call him away ! I am ready,
I will come to the lowest hell if you will, so that
I may not see him. His eyes, his eyes. Holy
Jesus, call him away ! '
Her voice rose in a faint, shrill shriek, the
phantasma of her brain was torture to her. She
cowered down among the clothes, trembling^ and
terror-stricken, before the gaze of the man she
had betrayed, who, to her wandering brain, seemed
like an avenging angel sent to carry her to an
eternal abode among the damned.
*Poor soul, poor soul!' murmured Madame
Riolette to her knitting-needles, * that's how she's
been going on for the last hour. I wish the
milord Anglais would let me send for the Pere
Lavoisier. If anybody can give rest to a weary
sinner it is he.'
168 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
Sick at heart with the scene, and filled with a
mournful pity for the wreck he saw before him,
Sabretasche tried to calm her with some Italian
words of reassurance and compassion ; but the
sound of her native language seemed only to
excite her more wildly still. She glared at him ;
her dark eyes, bloodshot and opened wide, re-
calling to him their last parting, when they had
glittered upon him with the fire of a tigress, and
the hatred of a murderess. She sprang up with
a convulsive movement and signed him frantically
firom her.
* Go away, go away ! I know you ; you are
Vivian, my husband ; you are come from hell to
fetch me. I have sinned against you, and I
would sin again. I hate you I hate you ! Go to
your English love ! but you can never marry her
^you can never marry her. / am your wife.
All the world will tell you so, and I will not let
you kill me. I will live I will live, to curse you
as I have '
She sank back on her pillows, her little
strength exhausted with the violence of her
passions; her eyes still glaring, but half con-
sciously, on him quivering, panting, foaming at
the. mouth like a wild animal after a combat ;
there was little of humanity, nothing of wo-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB, 169
manhood, left in her and this woman was his
vnfe.
She lay on the bed, her wild eyes fixed on him,
breathing loudly and quickly, defiant, though
powerless, like a wounded tigress, stricken down
in her strength, but with the fell ferocious instinct
still alive within her. Then she began again to
shrink, and tremble, and cower before her own
thoughts ; and hiding her face in her hands, be-
gan to weep, murmuring some Latin words of the
Church prayers, and calling on the Virgin's aid.
* I have sinned I have sinned ; oh, Madre di
Dio, save me! Fill Redemptor mundi Deus,
miserere nobis. What are the words what are
the words ; will no one say them ? I used to know
them so well ! I can remember nothing ; perhaps
I am dying dying, unconfessed and unabsolved.
Where is Padre Cyrillo, he would give me absolu-
tion ? Let me confess, let me confess, O Santa
Maria, before I die ! '
Weary of the scene whose horrors he had no
power to soften, heart-sick of the human degrada-
tion before him, Sabretasche turned to Madame
Riolette :
* Is there no priest you could summon ? '
* Oh, yes, monsieur,' answered that good little
Catholic, warmly, * There is the Pere Lavoisier,
170 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
the cure of Sainte C^cile, and so good a man !
He will rise any hour, and go through any
weather, to bring a ray of comfort to any soul ;
and he can speak her language, too, for he is
half Italian.'
* Send for him,' said Sabretasche, briefly, * and
show me to another room. You shall be well
paid for all your trouble. I knew your patient in
other days ; I intend to remain here till the
surgeon s next visit.'
He spoke more briefly and hurriedly than was
his wont ; but Madame Riolette did not heed it.
3he would have been only too glad to have him
always there, provided he paid as he had done
that night, and ushered him with many apologies
into the room which had lately witnessed Rose
Dodu's fHe des f/mgaiUes. The scent of the air,
reeking with stale wine and the odours of the late
supper, struck distastefully on Sabretasche's senses,
so used to refinement and luxury that no campaign-
ing could dull or blunt them ; and throwing open
one of the small casements, he sat down by the
open window, leaning out into the cool, silent
street, over whose high pointed roofs the gray
dawn was growing lighter, and the morning stars
larger. He felt a strange, irresistible fascination
to stay there till he knew whether this life would
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 171
revive to be again a curse to his ; or whether the
icy hand of death would unloose the fetters man
refused to sever. Yet they were horrible hours
hours of fear and longing, of dread which seemed
so hideously near akin to murder ; of wild, delirious
hope, which for his life he could not have chilled ;
horrible hours to him in which he waited to know
whether with another's death existence would
bloom anew for him, and from another's grave
the flowers of hope spring up in all their
glories.
He had bade Madame Riolette, when she had
brought him some cafe au lait and brandy for
he had taken nothing for many hours to let him
know when the surgeon had paid his next visit ;
and awaiting the medical man s opinion, he sat
by the open window, while the soft April dawn
grew clearer and brighter, and the sparrows began
to twitter on the house-tops, and the hum of
human life to awake in Paris. He sat there, for
what seemed to him an eternity, his nerves
strung to tension, till every slight sound in the
street below him, the taking down of the shop
shutters, the cry of the water-carriers, the bark of
the dogs, jarred upon his brain, and every minute
passed heavily away as though it were a cycle of
time. His heart beat fast and thick as a knock
172 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
came on the panels of the door, and it was with
difficulty he. could steady his voice to give the
permission to enter. He expected to see the
surgeon; instead, he saw the cur6 of Sainte
C^cile, a mild, silver-haired, gentle-voiced old
man, of whom all Madame Riolette's praise
was true.
* May I speak to monsieur ? '
* Certainly, mon pere^ answered Sabretasche, to
whom, from his long years' residence in Italy,
the title came naturally.
* You know the sufferer to whom I was called ? *
Sabretasche bent his head ; evasion of the truth
never at any moment occurred to him.
* You are her husband ? '
The blood rushed over his face ; he, the haughty
gentleman, the refined patrician, shrank as from
the insult of a blow, from the abrupt question which
told him, that his connection with the woman who
dishonoured his name, who cursed his career, who
blotted his escutcheon, and had now sunk so low
that any honest day-labourer might have shrunk
from acknowledging her as his wife, was no longer
a secret, but known so widely that a stranger
might unhesitatingly tax him with it.
' By whose authority do you put these questions
to me?' he asked, with that careless hauteur
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 173
which had made the boldest man among his ac-
quaintance pause before he provoked Vivian Sa-
bretasche.
* By no authority, monsieur/ replied the priest,
mildly, * except that which commands me to do
what I think right without regard to its conse-
quences to me. Under the seal of confession I
have heard the sufferer's story ; the one her life
has sinned against is her husband ; him she saw
this night standing by her bedside ; him she will
never now rest without seeing again, to ask his
pardon. When Madame Riolette told me of your
benevolence to the poor woman who had been
found dying in the street, I thought you must
be he whom she implores Heaven to bring to her,
that she may sue for his forgiveness before the
grave closes over her '
* Is she dying ? ' His voice was hoarse and in-
articulate as he asked the brief question.
* Fast ; when another night closes in nay,
most likely when noon is here, she will have
ceased to live.'
Sabretasche turned to the window, and leaned
his forehead on his arm, the blood rushed like
lightning through his veins, his breathing was
quick and loud, like a man who, having borne a
weary burden through a long day of heat and
174 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OB,
toil, flings it suddenly aside ; and his lips moved
with a single word, too low to stir the air, hut
full of inexpressihle tenderness and thanksgiving,
the one word, * Violet ! ' Alone, he would have
bowed his face upon his hands and wept like a
woman ; in the presence of another he turned
vnth that calm and equable gravity which until
he had last loved, nothing had had power to dis-
turb. The traces of deep and strong emotions
were on his face, but he spoke as tranquilly as of
old.
* You have guessed rightly ; I am her husband
by law, though I myself for twenty years have
never held, nor would ever hold, myself as bound
in any way by moral right to her. She has for-
feited all claim or title to call me by such a name.
Since you have heard her story if she have told
it you as truthfully as those of your creed profess to
tell everything in their confession you can judge
that an interview between one who has caused,
and another who has suflFered from, a lifelong
wrong, could be productive of peace to neither.
I have cared for her, finding her suddenly ill in
the streets ; I have sent for medical aid ; I have
given Madame Riolette, and I now give you, fall
power to do everything that wealth can do to
soothe and soften her last moments ; beyond that,
GRANVILLE DB VIQNE. 175
I do not recognize her as my wife, and I refuse to
see again a woman who, when I left her, would
have sought my life, and who, even now, drove
me away from her with curses.'
He spoke calmly, but there was a set stern-
ness on his face ; compassion had made him act
gently to his wife, but it had not banished the
haughty and bitter wrath which wronged pride
and outraged trust had ever awakened at her
memory or her name.
*But, monsieur,' interrupted the old cure, gently,
* if your wrongs are great, death will soon expiate
them ; if her errors to you are many, she will be
soon judged by a God more merciful, we must all
for our own sakes hope, than Man is ever to his
fellows. I have just administered'the last offices
to her. I should scarcely have done that had she
been still hardened and impenitent. She repents ;
can any of us do more than that, monsieur ? And
have not all, even the very best, much of which
we must repent if we have any conscience left ?
It is hardly fitting for us to sit in judgment on
any other, when in ourselves we have much evil
unexamined and unannealed, and, if there were no
outer checks, but constant opportunity and temp-
tation, crime enough in the purest of us to make
earth a hell ? Your wife repents, monsieur. She
176 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
has something to confess to you, without which
she cannot die in peace, not even in such peace
as she may yet win, poor soul ! A word from
you will calm her, will give her the only comfort
she can ever have this side the grave. You have
very much to pardon ; but oh, monsieur, when
you lie on your own death-bed, you will thank
God if you have conquered yourself, and not been
harsh to her on hers.'
They were simple words. The cure of Sainte
Cecile had never had much eloquence, and had
been chosen for a crowded parish, where kind
words and good deeds were more wanted, and
better understood, than rounded periods and glow-
ing tropes. They were simple words, but they
touched the heart of his auditor, awaking all that
was gentle, just, and tolerant in his nature. It
was true. What was he, that he should judge ?
what his life, that he had title to condemn an-
other? It was the creed he had ever held in that
fashionable world, where men and women sin
themselves and redeem their errors by raking up
scandal, and preaching moral sermons upon others,
and seek to hide the holes in their own garments
by hooting after another's rags ; it had ever been
his creed that toleration, and not severity, was the
duty of humanity, and he had sneered with his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 177
most subtle wit at those, who from the pulpit or
the forum, rebuked the sins they in themselves
covered, with their surplices, or their robes. Should
he turn apostate from his creed now, when it
called him to act up to it ? Should he dare to
be harsh to this woman, simply because it hap-
pened to be against himself that her errors had
been committed ? He wavered a moment, then
his sense of clemency and justice conquered.
* You are right. I have no title to judge her.
I will see her, if you think it best.'
And the priest, as he looked up into his face,
with its pale and delicate beauty, and its earnest
and melancholy eyes, thought * what a noble heart
this woman has wronged and thrown away.'
VOL. in. N
178 "held in bondage;" or.
CHAPTER VII.
RaLGASE.
Alone, Sabretasche mounted the narrow staircase,
entered the bed-chamber, and signed to Madame
Biolette to leave him there alone, by the gray
faint light of the dawn, he drew near the death-
bed of his wife, and stood silently beside her.
The opiate the surgeon had given her in his second
visit had soothed and calmed her ; the wildness
and ferocity of her eyes had gone, but the hand
of death lay heavily upon her. She looked up
once at him as he stood there, then covered her
face with her hands and wept, not loudly or pas-
sionately, but long and unrestrainedly, like a child
after a great terror.
* I hear that you wished to see me,' said Sabre-
tasche, in that low, sweet, melodious tongue in
which, long ago, among the orange-trees and olive-
groves of Tuscany, he had vowed his love-words
to her.
She lifted her eyes to his with a shrinking
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 179
shame, and terror, that touched him to the
core.
*I have wronged you I have hated you I
have cursed you I have stood between you and
your happiness for twenty weary years,' she
moaned. * You can never forgive me never
never ; it were too much to hope ! Yet I wanted
to see you once before I die ; I wanted to tell you
all. Even though your last words be a curse upon
me, I should have no right to complain. I have
deserved it.'
* You need not fear my curse,' answered Sabre-
tasche, slowly and with effort, as though speech
were painful. * If I cannot say I forgive, I am
not likely to insult you in your suffering with
useless recrimination. We have been separated for
one-and-twenty years ; I am willing not to evoke
the wrongs and dishonour of the past, but to part
in such peace as memory will allow.'
He spoke gently, but with an involuntary stern-
ness and a deep melancholy, so deep that it was an
unconscious reproach, which struck with a keener
pang into the heart of the woman who had
wronged him than violent words of fierce up-
braiding. She clenched her hands convulsively :
* Do not speak so gently, for God's sake, or you
will kill me! I would rather hear you curse,
n2
180 "held in bondage;" or,
rebuke, reproach, upbraid me ; anything rather
than those low, soft tones. I have wronged you,
hated you, lied to you ; robbed you, betrayed you,
dishonoured you ; to speak so gently to me is to
heap coals of fire on my head! I repent I
repent, God knows; but, at the eleventh hour,
what value is my remorse ? For twenty years I
have wronged you ; what good is it for me to tell
you I repent when I am dying, and can harm you
no longer if I would ? '
Sabrel asche was silent ; her voice, her gestures,
her w^ords struck open his wounds afresh. He felt
afresh the cruel, bitter sting of his betrayal ; he
thought of Violet, of all he had suffered, of all
he had made her suffer ; and his hatred for the
w^oman who had stood so long between them
flamed up in all its strength. He might have
pardoned his own wrongs, but the sufferings of the
one beloved by him never !
His wife glanced upvrard at his averted face, and
shivered at the dark look it wore :
* Madre di Dio ! you will never forgive me ? \
He was silent. Again she repeated her pas-
sionate wailing prayer :
* Madre di Dio ! you will never forgive me ? '
He glanced at her with a shudder and a weary
sickening sigh from his heart's depths :
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 181
* / cannot / *
The words roused the evil in her, which the
Cure had thought those vain Mast offices' had
exorcised ; the savage passion gleamed again in
them, and she sprang up like a dying panther :
' No ! because you love your English mistress !
Would to Heaven I could live and keep you from
her ! '
* Silence ! ' broke in Sabretasche, so sternly that
she started and trembled as she heard him.
' Never dare to pollute her name with your lips!
I came at your request, but not to be reproached
or questioned. Your own conscience must accuse
you of the vn-ong you did me. For more than
twenty years you were content to live upon the
gold of the husband you had betrayed. For more
than twenty years you have been a clog upon my
life, a stain upon my name, a festering wound in
tny side, a bar from all peace, all happiness; and
yet because I could not prove^ you would not even
make the only reparation left in your power
acknowledgment of the wrong you knew had
parted us.'
* But I acknowledge it now ; I repent it now^
Vivian ! No one can do more than that ! '
To the lips of the man of the world rose natu-
rally the satire which was habitual. Yes ! she
182 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
confessed and repented now that life was ebbing
from her grasp, revenge no longer possible, and
acknowledgment unneeded; as people who have
played their last card out on earth, turn frightened,
with weakened nerve, to God, insulting Him and
flattering their priests with * death-bed repent-
ances!' and timorous recantations, which thej
would have laughed at in their day of better health
and stronger brain ! But he was too generous and
too merciful to utter the sneer which rose in-
voluntarily to his lips, to a woman helpless and
dying, who, however bitterly she had betrayed him,
was now powerless to harm. The wretched state
of a creature he had once loved, struck him with
keen pain ; her suffering, her poverty, her degra-
dation touched him, and he could not look on the
utter wreck of what he had last seen, perfect in
youth and beauty, without pity, in which his own
hate was quenched, his own wrong avenged* He
answered her more gently, and very sadly :
* I did not come here to reproach you. Your
conscience must know the wrong you did me, and
my own life has not been pure enough to give me
any title to fling a stone at you.'
Well said ! Libertine, sceptic, egotist, man of
pleasure and fashion, as society called him, he
could act up, with his most cruel enemy, to his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 183
doctrine of toleration. It is more than most do
who preach louder and with more * orthodoxy ! *
But then Sabretasche did not pretend to be a
saint; he was simply a man of honour! She
looked at him long and wonderingly: to the
fierce, inconstant, and yindictive Tuscan, this jus-
tice simply for the sake (t/* justice, this toleration,
given to her against his impulse, merely because
he considered it her due, was new and very
strange.
' You humble me bitterly,' she said, between
her teeth. ^ But I have sinned ; it is right
punishment. I did wrong you. I wedded you
because I was sick of being caged in Montepulto.
I never loved you ; and the solitude you seemed
to think like Paradise, sickened and annoyed me,
till I succeeded in making it a Hell. I cared
nothing for anything you cared for; your love of
refinement was a constant restraint upon me;
your mode of thought and feeling a constant an-
noyance to me. I grew to hate you, because you
were too high, too delicate, too much of a gentle-
man for me ; your superiority jarred upon me, I
hated you for it. I hated you even for your affec-
tion, your gentleness, your generosity, your sweet
temper, which were so many silent rebukes to me.
I hated you still more when I loved Fulberto Lani.'
184 "held in bondage;" or,
As she spoke her lover^s name, a shudder of dark
loathing passed over his face ; he thought of her
paramour coarse, illiterate, low-bom, low-bred
^and felt, fresh as though dealt him but yester-
day, the sting of his wife's infidelity.
* I hated you,' went on the Tuscan, rapidly,
with the fictitious force given her from the opiate;
' and when you surprised him with me, and taxed
me, I would not confess to it, for I knew the con-
fession would set you free, and I swore you should
rue the fetters with which we had loaded each
other. You left me. Well you might! Not
long after, Lani left me too; he was an idle,
worthless, inconstant do-nothing, the lover of half
the women in Naples, and faithful to none. Then
^you know how, yearly, my brother extorted
from you the money on which we lived ? Pepe
was extravagant; I lived in gaiety and excite-
ment, and sank lower and lower every day. I
should have disgraced you, indeed, if our con-
nection bad been declared to your aristocratic
friends! I a drunkard your wife! At last
after twenty years, we heard that you loved a
young English girl ; loved her more than you had
done other women ; loved her so that you would
have married her.' ....
She was touching on dangerous chords if she
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 185
wanted his forgiveness ! his face grew dark, his
soft sad eyes stern, and he turned involuntarily
from her.
* When we heard that you were in love with
her, and that you were going to the south of
France, Pepe, unknown to you, followed, and laid
in your way the Neapolitan journal with the death
of my aunt Sylvia ; he knew it was so worded
that you would helieve 1 was dead, would deem
yourself free, and would marry again where you
loved. He guessed rightly ; then, thinking to get
from you a heavy bribe for silence, he went to you
to offer, if you married your young English love,
never to betray your connection with us. You
refused. We could not understand your scruples*
The signorina would never have known that her
marriage was illegal, or that she was not really
your wife. You refused, and we were beggared.
I had no money to go to law against you to make
you provide for me, as Pepe had threatened.
We could bribe you no longer, and you went to
the war in the East. My brother left me to shift
for myself as I might, when he could no longer
make money by my name ; and I was very poor
how poor you cannot think. I have sunk lower
and lower, till you have found me a beggar in the
streets of Paris. I have done you cruel wrong ;
186 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
I have given you hate for love, betrayal for trust ;
I have robbed you for twenty years ; I have stood
between you and your happiness, and gloried in
the curse I was to you '
She stopped, panting for breath, and exhausted ;
and Sabretasche stood looking out of the window
at the dawn, as it rose clearer and brighter in the
fair morning skies. It had been, indeed, God
knows, a cruel wrong a wrong which had
stretched over all the years of his prime a wrong
which had stolen all peace and joy from him, and
from one far dearer than himself.
' Come here ! Come nearer ! ' said his wife, in
faint and hollow tones, as the temporary strength
that her cordial had given her, faded away.
His face was still white and sternly set as he
turned unwillingly.
' Look at me ! ' she moaned piteously, lifting to
his the drawn, thin, sallow face, from which every
trace of beauty had long departed; and as he
looked he shuddered.
* Now can you curse me ? Has not life avenged
you?'
He was silent ; if life had avenged his wrongs
on her, he felt that it had cursed him for no sin,
chastised him for no error, since to this woman,
at least, he had given affection and good faith, and
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 187
had been rewarded by infidelity, ingratitude, and
hate !
* Say something to me, Vivian,' she moaned, in
pitiful despair 'say something gentler to me!
If you knew what it is to die with the curse of
one we have injured on our heads! The past is
so horrible, the future so dark ! Oh, Gi)d ! Do
not send me down into my grave with your curse
upon me, to pursue me through eternity, to hunt
me into hell ! '
' Hush ! ' said Sabretasche, his low soft tones
falling with a 'peace, be still!' on the storm of
remorse and misery before him. Hush! / do
not curse you God forbid I tell you my own
life is not pure enough for me to have any right
to condemn yours. If I cannot say that 1 forgive
you at least I will do my best to think as gently
of you as I can, and to forget the past. I cannot
promise more.'
She caught his hands in hers ; she wept, she
thanked, she blessed him, with all the excitable
vehemence of her national character. Weakened
by suffering, terrified by death, she seemed to cling
to but one thought, one hope the forgiveness of
the man whose love she had wronged from the
hour she had stood with him at the marriage
altar; that tiatal marriage alt^ i^ often the
188 "held IX BONDAGE;*' OR,
funeral pjrre for all man's hopes, and peace, and
liberty; where, as by the priests of old, living
hnman sonls are offered up in cruel holocausts to
a fanatic folly !
*I have but one thing more to tell you I
roust hasten before my strength fails me,' she
began, raising herself upon the pillows * I want
to speak to you, Vivian, of my child your
child'
*The child of such a mother! I will hear
nothing of her !'
* Santa Maria ! why V
* Why ? Dare you ask ? How can I tell that
she was mine ? And even if she were, what sort
of woman must she be, reared by you ? You try
my forbearance too far. I come here at your de-
sire, I forgive you my own wrongs ; but do more
bo connected again vrith the past curse of my
life, or recognize in the slightest way any one of the
brood that conspired to stain my name, to rob me
of my peace, and to bribe me to a lie; ^give my
name or my countenance to one bred up under
the tutelage of those who, shameless themselves,
betrayed me in my youth, and tempted me in my
manhood to dishonour once for all, I tell you,
woman, that / tmll not /'
He spoke with more impatient anger and pas-
GRAXYILLE DE VIQXE. 189
sionate bitterness than were often roused in his
gentle and indolent nature. She had presumed
too far on his forbearance ! to try and farm on
him a daughter of hers, probably Lani's child, or,
if his own, one, whose education and mode of life
must have made such as he would blush for, such
as he would loathe ; ^to be asked to give to such
an one his name the name that Violet Molyneux
Mould take ; roused all that was haughtiest and
darkest in his nature. She had gone too fer. The
very thought was hateful, abhorrent, loathsome !
*She was your child,' the Tuscan repeated
eagerly * I swear it, and I should hardly perjure
myself on my death-bed ! God knows whether
she is Uving now or not ; I cannot have harmed
her, for I have not seen her ever since she was
two years old I put her out to nurse as soon as
she was born, in a village near Naples, with a
peasant-woman. Six months after her birth you
and I parted, never to meet again till to-night !
When the child was two years old her foster-
mother brought her to me; she was going far
away I forget where Calabria, I think, and she
could keep her with her no longer. She was very
lovely, poor little thing, but she reminded me of
you.'
' Silence !' broke in Sabretasche, passionately.
190 "held in bondage; or,
To have any link of the hated chain of the past
ding about him still; to have any one of this
loathsome Tuscan brood forced on him now, when
death was nigh to relieve him from the shame
which had festered into his soul so long, stung
him beyond endurance. The child of such a
mother! what had he for her but hatred?
* Silence ! I will not hear her name. I will have
none of her ; if she press her claim on me I will
refuse to acknowledge her. Whether or no she
be daughter of mine, I disown her for ever, she is
dead to me for ever. Great GU)d ! is the madness
of my boyhood never to cease from pursuing
me!'
The dying woman raised herself on her bed
with eager thirsty haste to speak while yet her
brain could serve her, while yet her lips could
move :
* But you must hear me ^you must ! I cannot
die in peace unless I tell you she was your
child!'
* My child or not she was yours^ and I disown
her! My life shall not be shamed by her, my
name shall not be polluted by her.'
* But hear me *
* I vM not. If she be mine, I will acknowledge
no daughter of yours. You have dishonoured me
GRANVILLE DB VIGNB. 191
enough; my future at least shall be free from
you.'
*But hear her story hear her story! You
need never see her, never know her, but let me
confess all to you let me die in peace,* wailed
the wretched woman, piteously. * Before her
birth I never sinned to you ; I would not lie now,
now, on my death-bed, face to face with Satan and
Hell ! She was not like you, but she had some-
thing of your look sometimes, something of your
smile; her voice was like yours, too, and you
were her father! and I hated the very sight of
her face. She did not like me ^how should she !
I was a stranger to her. She was unhappy at the
loss of her nurse ; she was afraid of me ; I dare
say I was cruel to her. At that time an English
gentleman, who was staying in Naples, saw her,
and took a great fancy to her. His own little
granddaughter, the same age as herself, had lately
died ; the only relative of any kind he had left to
him. She pleased him very much ; he fancied he
could trace a resemblance between her and his
dead grandchild, and, after a time, he offered to
adopt her, and to take her to England, to bring
her up as if she were his own ; that she was not
so, no one would know, for his son's little girl,
whose parents had both died since her birth, had
192 "HELD IN bondage;" or,
been born in Italy, and had never been taken
home. I was only too glad to be rid for ever of
her, she made me think constantly of you, and I
hated you more bitterly since I had wronged you.
I let her go, poor little child ! I had some con-
science left, and I could not bear to hear her
voice even in the distance ; I could not bear to
see her smile, for she seemed to haunt me and
reproach me for the wrong I had done her father.
I let her go with the Englishman ; and I have
never seen her since. God knows, wherever she
has been, she has been better than she would have
been with me. I have never seen her; but on
Christmas-eve, at Notre Dame, a young girl ten-
dered me charity, and as I looked in her face
something struck me as like your child's as like
what she might be as a woman. I do not know
it was very vague but her smile made me
think of you, and she gave me something of that
sad, gentle, pitying look with which you had left
me twenty years before. Most likely it was mere
fancy but it made me think of her and you. If
I had not sent her from me, I should not be alone
in my misery, as I am now ! '
She ceased, and tears rolled slowly down her
haggard cheeks. All her life this woman had
thrown away the human love which had been
. GRAlSrVILLE DE VIGNE. 193
offered her; without it her death-bed was very
cheerless, with but two memories beside it of the
husband she had wronged and the child she had
deserted.
' You never knew that English stranger, Vivian? '
she asked, wistfully.
' What was his name ? ' asked Sabretasche,
coldly.
* Tressillian.'
' Tressillian \ ' repeated Sabretasche, with an
involuntary start * Tressillian ! And your daugh-
ter's name ? '
' Was Alma.'
' Alma Tressillian ! Good God ! '
And as things long forgotten recur to memory
at a sudden touch akin to them, he remembered
how we had noticed her resemblance to his mo-
ther's portrait hanging in his drawing-room ; how
he himself had observed the likeness, though, oc-
cupied with other thoughts, it had made no im-
pression upon him ; Alma Tressillian his daughter !
Little as he had noticed her, now, swift as thought,
there came to his mind all he had ever seen or
heard of her ; he remembered his two visits to St.
Crucis ; he remembered her extraordinary talent
for art the genius inherited from himself; and
he remembered, too, what Carlton had told that
VOL. III. o
194 "held in bondage;" or,
night in the Crimea, that she was the mistress of
Vane Castieton. Was it true ? Despite her edu-
cation, her frankness, her apparent delicacy, had
she, indeed, hid unseen within her the leaven of
her mother's nature? Had heartlessness, sen-
suality, treachery of character, been the sole inhe-
ritance his wife had bequeathed her child ? As
these memories and thoughts rushed rapidly and
disconnectedly through his brain, she watched the
swift changes of expression which swept over his
face.
She grasped his arm eagerly :
* You have seen her you know her, Vivian ?
What is she like now ? Is she a true, fond, pure-
hearted woman, or is she like me ? Is she cursed
with any of my vile passions ? If she be, seek her
out. For the love of Heaven, find her and redeem
her from her fate, if to do it you must tell her how
low her mother has fallen ; her mother, who loved
her less than the very beasts of the field can love
their offspring/
To have told this dying wretched woman of that
baseless scandal with Vane Castieton, of which he
knew nothing, and which all his knowledge of
human character made him doubt, would have been
brutality. He answered her gently and sooth-
ingly :
' GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 195
* I have seen her ; or, at least I have seen a lady
whom I always heard was Mr. Tressillian's grand-
daughter ; not much of her, it is true, but suflSeient
to make me think her a " true, fond, pure-hearted
woman " ^all that a mother might most long for
her daughter to be. Will you swear to me before
God that she was my child ? '
With her national vehemence that vehemence
of expression which Alma had inherited from her
the Tuscan kissed the little ebony crucifix which
Madame Riolette had placed before her :
* I swear it, Vivian, as I hope for pardon for my
sins from that God whom my whole life has out-
raged ! '
Sabretasche silently bowed his head. He knew
that though she might have lied to him the mo-
ment before, she would not. have dared to swear a
falsehood to him by that symbol, which her church
had taught her to hold so sacred ; and though at
another hour he would have smiled at the super-'
stition which made an oath sacred, where honour
would have been broken ruthlessly ; something,
despite all his wrongs, touched him painfully in
these hopeless last hours of the woman whom
he once had loved in his warm, glad, poetic
youth that youth which she had quenched
and ruined with the bitterness of betrayal, and
o2
196 "held in bondage; oft,
bound down into bondage with the curse of iron
chains.
She asked one more question :
* Where did you see her, Vivian ? '
* Twice at her own home, and once at the house
of one of our English nobles/
* And was she happy ? '
* She seemed so/
* Thank God ! You will never tell her about
me never mention me to her never let her
know that the mother who neglected her, fell so
low and vile, that she was a beggar in the streets ;
a thing whom she passed by with a dole of charity,
with a pitying shudder? Never tell her. Pro-
mise me you will not. Why should she hear of
me, only to know that I first hated and then dis-
graced her ? Promise me, Vivian ! '
* I promise ! '
Little as she could understand him, she knew
' him too well to exact an oath from him.
She looked at him wistfully :
* You are very noble ! You shame me more
with your goodness than you could have done with
curses and reproaches.'
* No,' answered Sabretasche, gently. * I have no
claim to virtue. My life has been far too full of
errors and self-indulgence, for me to have title left
GRANVILIiE DB VIGNE. 197
to give me right to condemn another. If you
have sinned, so have I. No human beings are
spotless enough to judge each other. As for
curses, God forbid ! They would be rancorous
indeed, to follow you to the grave.'
She gave a weary sigh ; his forgiveness humbled
and shamed her more than any upbraidings. Then
her eyes closed, and she lay still. All the extra-
neous strength and vigour, given her by cordial
and opium, had died away. She lay still, her
breathing short and weak, her brow contracted,
her limbs exhausted and powerless, the hand of
death heavy upon her ; her lips apart, her cheeks
gray and hollow, her brain confused, and weighed
down with the cloudy thoughts, and memories,
and fears, which haunted her last hours.
And Sabretasche stood beside her, musing on
the strange accident which had led him to the
death-bed of the woman who had made all the
misery of his life ; of that cruel and inexorable tie
which had bound him for so long ; of the deep,
unsolved problem of human nature ; that book
written in such different language for every reader,
that it is little marvel that every man thinks his
own the universal tongue, and fails even to spell
out his brother's translation of it. This woman
had hated him ; he had loathed her ; they had
198 "held in bondage;" or,
been chained together by a rite the worid chose
to call indissoluble ; they had been parted by a
fierce and ineffaceable wrong ; after twenty years'
severance, what could this man and woman, once
connected by the closest tie, once parted by the
hottest passions, know of each other ? what could
they read of each other's heart ? what could they
tell or understand of each other's temptations,
sufferings, and errors ? And yet Church and Law,
in mock morality, God help us ! had bound them
together, till Death, more powerful and more
kindly than their fellow-men, should come to the
rescue and release them !
That lifelong union of Marriage! Verily, to
enter into it, it needs a great and an abiding
love.
So he stood watching beside his dying wife. A
future, fond and radiant, lay for him in the soft
haze of coming years ; yet, ere he turned to it, he
paused a moment to look back to the past, to its
sorrow, its sin, its trial, its conflict, its bitter
wrongs. And with a new-born and unutterable
happiness awaking in him^ a saddened pity stole
over him for the broken wreck of humanity which
lay in its last feeble life- throbs before his eyes ;
and hatred, resentment, scorn, faded away,
quenched in deep compassion. If his character
GRANVILLE DE VIGNB. 199
had been hers, his impulses, opportunities, edu-
cation, temptation hers, how could he tell but
what his sins had been like hers also ? They were
such, indeed, to him, whose nature was generosity,
and idol honour, as seemed darkest and most
loathsome ; but in that dying chamber he bowed
his head, and turned his eyes away from them.
Just and tolerant to the last, he held it not his
office to condemn now, above all, when Death
came as his avenger.
So he stood and watched beside his dying wife,
the woman who had wedded him only to eman-
cipate herself from an irksome home, and who
had been a ruthless barrier between himself and
liberty and peace stood and watched her, while
without, the bright morning light dawned in the
eastern skies, and the song of the birds made
sweet music beneath the eaves^ and the soft
western winds swept in through the casement
into the chamber of the dying ; herald of the Life
bom for him, and come to him, out of Death.
Suddenly her eyes unclosed with a vague, lifeless
stare, and she awoke to semi-consciousness as the
bells of Notre Dame chimed the hour of seven
awoke startled, dreamy, delirious.
' Hark ! there is the church-bell. What is it?
200 "held IN BONDAGE;" OR,
Ah ! I remember, we used to gather the lilies and
the orange-flowers to dress up the high altar at
home. I wish I could go there once just once
before I die, to see the vineyards, and the wheat-
fields, and the olive-groves again There are such
sweet warm winds, such bright glowing skies
ah ! I was happy, I was innocent, I was sinless
there I Why are those bells ringing ? Are they
for early mass ? No ; it is the Angelus. I forgot !
We must take lilies, plenty of lilies for the altar ;
but / must not touch them, I should soil them,
the hlies are so pure, so spotless, and I am so
sunk, so polluted ; . . . . the lilies would wither
if my hands touched . them, and the priests would
thrust me from the altar, and the Virgin would
ask me for my child. I used to pray ; I cannot
now ! Hark ! those bells are ringing, and I know
the words but I cannot say them Help
me, help me. Pray, pray ; do you hear pray ! '
With piteous agony the cry rang out on the
still air of the breaking day, as the dews gathered
gray and thick upon her brow, and the glazing
mist came over her sight, and in the darkness of
coming death she struggled for memory and
prayer, as a child gropes in the gloom.
' Pray pray ! What are the words ? Say
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 201
them in pity, in mercy ! He has forgiven ;
God will forgive ! Pray pray ! '
And the voice of the man whom her life had
wronged, fell softly on her ear through the dull,
dizzy mists of death, as he bent over her and
uttered with soothing pity the words of her
Church, the prayer of her childhood, which from
his lips to. her was the seal of an eternal and com-
passionate Pardon :
^ Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum :
adveniat regnum tuum ; fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo et in
terra ; panem nostrum quotidianum, da nobis hodie ; et di-
mitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus
nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem sed libera nos a
malo. Amen ! '
Standing beside his dying wife, he spoke the
prayer to the One Creator the prayer which
should have no Creeds ; and as the old familiar
words winged their way to her, bringing on their
echoes, memories of days long past, and inno-
cence long lost, the vnld eyes grew tamer, the
bent brow relaxed, the hardened lines of age and
vice, grew soft ; and before the last Amen had left
his lips, with one faint, broken, mournful sigh,
she died. And he standing beside her, bowed his
head in reverence, before the great mystery of life
202 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
and death ; and thanked God that his last words to
her had been of mercy and of pardon, that his
last words had been to her, even as the words of
Arthur unto Guinevere
^ All is passed ; the sin is sinned, and I,
Lo I I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives ; do thou for thine own soul the rest.'
GKANVILLE DE VIGNE. 203
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU.
On the meeting of those so long held apart by the
laws of Man, I need not dwell. Nothing now
stood between them ; and within a few days of the
night that Sabretasche had arrived in Paris, Violet
Molyneux became his wife.
No empty conventionalities kept them apart;
they cared nothing what the world wondered, nor
how it talked ; and they never thought of the ma-
licious versions of their story, which were the one
theme in Parisian salons. They went to the south
of France for the whole of the coming year, to be
away from that gay efiervescing world of which
both were weary; and, under the purple skies, in
the golden air, and amidst the luxurious solitudes
of the Midi, shut out from those who had caressed,
adored, and slandered him far from the fret and
hum and buz of outer life, Sabretasche surrendered
himself to that love which gave him back the
dreams of his lost youth, and ev^n as night slinks
204 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OK,
away before the fullness of the dawn, so the sha-
dows of his past fell behind him for evermore.
# # # # *
Sabretasche kept his promise. Alma never
knew that it was to her own mother she had
given charity after midnight mass at the doors of
Notre Dame. All that had passed in that last
interview vnth his dead vnfe, he told to Violet.
To find in Alma the daughter of her own lover
that child whom she had hated with the fond,
jealous vehemence with which a woman who loves
hates all or anything that has any tie to, or con-
nection with, her lover, or shows that another
has been as near to him as she ; was intensely
painful to her.
* Your child and hers I ' she repeated. ' I can
never see her again! Do not ask me, I should
never look upon her face without recalling her
mother the traitorous wife who could betray
youV
That was her first impulse; but her sense of
justice conquered this. If she had never known
her before, nothing on earth would have induced
her to see the daughter of his dead wife ; and he
noticed the involuntary shudder with which she
first met Alma, after his relation of her connection
with himself: but she was too generous and too
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 205
just to allow the feeling influence ; and in truth,
for I do not wish to claim for her any virtue she
does not possess, she was too full of trembling
gratitude at her own joy to bear a harsh thought
to any soul on earth.
Bound by his promise to his wife, Sabretasche
had been undecided whether or not to tell his
daughter of the relation there was between them.
It was almost impossible to do so without letting
her learn, at least in some degree, what her mo-
ther's character and life had been ; her first ques-
tions so naturally would be about her mother, her
dead mother, of whom she would be anxious to
hear all. He had nothing to say but what would
pain her ; nothing but what would compel him to
break his last promise to the dead. Moreover it
would have seemed a useless cruelty to rend asun-
der the happy associations and belief of twenty
years, to substitute in their stead, a parentage
that must give her pain.
He felt himself also, no pleasure at the disco-
very, nor any sudden affection for her sprung up
in the night like a mushroom, after the custom of
men who find unknown daughters in romances,
and are prepared to be devoted to them, good or
bad, interesting or uninteresting, from the simple
fact of their being their own children. On the
206 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
contrary, to know that there was one living who
bore in her the blood of the wife who had been
his curse, was keenly painful to him; and he
shrank from any remembrance or acknowledgment
to the world, of her tie to himself. But, for De
Vigne's sake, he had been interested in her before ;
and for this, he strove to conquer the repugnance
that he felt to her from her mother ; and wished
to place her above the necessity of relying upon
her talents, and to give her that position in the
world, to which her adoption by Tressillian, as
well as her relationship to himself, entitled hen
To do this was diffi(;ult, without telling her what
he vidshed to avoid; but he placed in Lord
Molyneux's hands (to whom he told all) a sum,
sufficient to maintain her in affluence, which,
relying on her ignorance of law, could be given
her as a remnant of the property of her grand-
father, suddenly repaid by those who had swindled
him of it. And Alma heard the Viscount's rela-
tion of her sudden inheritance, unsuspicious that
any other story was concealed behind it ; she was
too ignorant of all legal matters to detect any
flaw there might be in the tale; she knew her
grandfather had lost an immense fortune in the
bank, and in speculation ; she was not surprised a
small portion should be recovered unexpectedly.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 207
Indeed, beyond thanking Lord Molyneux for
having so kindly interested himself in her con-
cerns, the subject occupied but few of her
thoughts; for, the moment that she had seen
Sabretasche in the salons of the Molyneux hotel,
and that he had recoguized her kindly and cour-
teously, she had asked him for De Vigne, and he
had told her of his gallantry, his daring, and the
safety with which, despite his brilliant and reck-
less courage, he had come through all; but did
not tell her of his illness, only mentioning that
he had been detained in Scutari, and would soon
come home, through Paris.
* Is the curse of the marriage-tie to fall there,
too ? ' thought Sabretasche. * How will it end
for them both?*
It was early morning when De Vigne arrived
in Paris.
Alma's letter had sent new life and strength
into his veins; from that hour he recovered
sufficiently to be moved on board the yacht of a
man we knew, who, having come cruising about
the Bosphorus, offefed to give us a run to Mar-
seilles. The sea air completed the recovery her
letter had begun; he lay on the deck smoking,
and breathing in vidth the fresh Mediterranean
wind his old health and strength, and by the time
208 " HELD IN BONDAGE ;" OR,
the 'Sea-foam' ran into harbour he was himself
again.
It was early morning when we reached Paris
a bright spring morning in May. After the dis-
comfort, the dirt, the myriad disagreeables of Con-
stantinople ; after the mud and rain and snow and
cheerlessness of the Crimea ; how gay and plea-
sant looked those sunny streets of Paris, where
primroses and violets, cassi and lemonade, were
being cried ; where Polichinelle was performing,
and char-a-bancs starting with light-hearted stu-
dents for a day in the Bois du Boulogne; and
everywhere around us we heard chattering, laugh-
ing, voluble, musical, that silvery, pleasant lan-
guage, as familiar to us as our own! What a
contrast it was ! a contrast very agreeable, let a
man be ever so vou au tambour y after nearly two
years such campaigning as we had tasted in the
Crimea !
I drove at once to the Gare de Strasbourg on
my way to England ; De Vigne remained in Paris ;
he had an oath of vengeance to work out ; a pur-
pose to be wrought, that in the old Pagan creed he
held as righteous. And, to keep the vow which
he had sworn, he went straight from the Station
to the Rue Lafitte, to a house which stood near
the Maison Doree, and of which the various floors
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 209
"were let to various English bachelors whose hi-
vemages were annually Paris.
Castleton sat in his chambers, smoking, break-
fasting, reading the papers, and chatting with two
of his particular chums, who had dropped in after
keeping it up all the night through, in private
salons of the Cafe Anglais. Castleton was hardly
up to the mark that morning; he was annoyed
and irritated at several things ; first, that he had
serious doubts as to the soundness of Lancer s
off-leg, and if Lancer did not come in at the
distance winner of the French Derby, Lord Vane's
prospects would look blacker than would be de-
sirable ; in the second, the Ministry had behaved
with the grossest ingratitude, by refusing him,
through his father, a certain post he coveted, a
piece of ill-natured squeamishness on their part,
as they had but lately given a deanery to his
brother, a spirit rather worse than himself; in the
fourth, a larger number of little bills were floating
about than was pleasant, and if there was not
speedily a general election, by which he could
slip into one of those neat little boroughs that
were honoured by being kept in his Grace of
Tiara's pocket, he was likely to be troubled with
more applications than he could, not alone meet
of that he never thought but stave off to
VOL. III. p
210 "held IX BONDAGE;" OR,
some dim future era. Altogether, Castleton was
not in an over-good humour that morning; had
sworn at his valet, and lashed his terrier till it
hoveled, and found everything at cross purposes
and a bore, from his chocolate, which was badly
milled, to the news he had lately heard, that the
woman whose childish hand had struck him for
a coward's deed, was in Paris with those, to whom
if her lips revealed the outrage once attempted to
her, would fearfully and bitterly avenge it on his
head. So altogether things looked dark; and
they looked no better when, on issuing from his
chamber to go to the drag that awaited him in the
street below, he came suddenly face to face with
the man he hated and feared, because he was the
man that Alma loved.
They met abruptly on the stairs as the one was
quitting, the other approaching, the landing-place
they met abruptly, with barely a foot between
them De Vigne and Vane Castleton; he who
had insulted her past all forgiveness, and he who
would not have seen a hair of her head injured
without revenging it. Involuntarily, they both
stood silent for a moment. De Vigne looked at
him, every vein a'flame with passion, recalling all
that she had told him had been poured into her
young ear in that horrible hour. His lips were
GRANVILLE DE VIQNE. 21 J.
pale, and set with a stern fixed purpose ; his eyes
burning with the hatred that was rioting within
him ; his right hand clenching hard on the riding-
switch he held, as if he longed to change it into a
deadlier and more dangerous weapon. He seemed
to hear Castleton's hateful love-vows, and her
piteous cry of terror and supplication ; he seemed
to see the loathsome caress with which he had
dared to touch her lips; he seemed to feel her
struggling, as if for life or death, in the vulture
clutches of her hated foe ! What wonder that
his hand clenched on his riding-whip, as if thirst-
ing for that surer and deadlier weapon with which,
in other days, his grandsires had defended their
honour and their love !
Castleton was no coward had he been, the
Tiara blood, bad though it might be in other veays,
would have disowned him yet at the eagle eyes
that flashed so suddenly upon him, his own fell
for an instant. But only for an instant ; he reco-
vered himself to have the first word, with a sneer
on his lips and in his cold, light eyes :
*De Vigne! My dear fellow, how are you?
Didn't know you were in France. Gome to rest
yourself from that deuced hard campaign, eh ? '
' No,' said De Vigne, between his teeth, which
were set like a lion's at sight of his foe. * I am
p2
212 "held IX bondage;" or,
come for a harder task to try and teach a scoun-
drel what honour and dishonour mean ! '
His tones were too significant to leave Castle-
ton in any doubt as to the application of his words.
He drew in his lips with a nervous, savage twitch.
He laughedy with a forced sneer.
* Jealous! Are you come to bully me about
that little girl of yours what was her name
something with a Tre, I know ? Really, you will
waste your wrath and your powder. I have
nothing whatever to do with her ; she did not take
me in '
The words had barely passed his lips before De
Vigne's grasp was on him, tight, firm, relentless ;
he might with as much use have tried to escape
from the iron jaws of a tiger seeking his prey, as
from the grasp of the man who loved the woman
he had insulted. De Vigne's face was white with
passion, his eyes burning with fiery anger, the
wrath that was in him quivering and thrilling in
every vein and sinew to hear her name on that
liar's lips ! He seized him in his iron grasp, and
shook him like a little dog.
* Blackguard ! that is the last of your dastard
lies you shall ever dare to utter ! You are too
low for the revenge one man of honour takes
upon another; you are only fit to be punished
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 213
as one punishes a yelping mongrel or a sneaking
hound ! '
Holding him there, powerless, in the grip of
his left hand, he thrashed him with his riding-
switch as a man would thrash a cur thrashed
him with all the passion that was in him, till the
little whip snapped in two. Then he lifted him
up as one would lift a dead rat or a broken bough,
and threw him down the whole stone flight of the
staircase : in his wrath, he seemed to have the
strength of a giant.
Castleton lay at the foot of the stairs, stunned
and insensible. His valet and the people of the
house gazed on the scene, too amazed to interrupt
it or aid him. His two friends, standing in the
street criticizing the roans in his drag, rushed in at
the echo of the fall. De Vigne stepped over his
body, giving it a spurn with his foot as be passed.
* The deuce, De Vigne ! ' began one of them.
* What's up what's amiss ? '
De Vigne laughed a haughty sneer upon his
face:
' Only a little lesson given to your friend. Lord
Monckton. Few will disagree with me in think-
ing it wanted ; if they do, I can be heard of at the
Hotel de Londres. Good day to you ! '
As he walked out into the street to his horse,
214 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
wbicli was waiting for him, a small, sleek, fair
man came up to him with deferential ceremoni-
ousnesB.
' I beg your pardon, Major, for intruding ; but
might I be allowed to inquire whether you received
a letter from me when you were before Sebas-
topol ? '
De Vigne signed him away with the broken
handle of his whip :
* When I discharge my servants, I do not ex-
pect to be followed and annoyed with their im-
pertinence/
* I mean no impertinence. Major,' persisted the
man, * and I should not be likely to intrude upon
you without some warrant, sir. Did you read my
letter?'
* Bead it ? Do you suppose I read the begging-
letters with which rogues pester me? It is no
use to waste your words here. Take yourself off! '
He spoke haughtily and angrily, as he put his
foot in the stirrup ; he remembered the share
Raymond, then in Castleton's employ, had taken
in that vile plot, but he could not degrade her
by bringing her name up to a servant, and lower
himself by stooping to resent the mere hired vil-
lany of Castleton's abettor.
* It was not a begging-letter. Major. It would
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 215
have told you something of great importance to
you, sir, if you had chosen to read it.'
* Silence!' said De Vigne, as he threw him-
self across the saddle, shook the bridle from bis
grasp, and rode away up the Rue Lafitte, turning
towards the hotel in the Champs Elys^es, whence
that letter, he had returned unread, he remembered
had been dated by Alma, and bestowing no more
thought on his quondam valet, in the passion that
still flamed in him, despite his vengeance.
He could have slain Castleton, the man who
would have robbed him of his one earthly trea-
sure ; who hod robbed him of her for two years. He
could have slain him, the man who had polluted
her name by association with his ; who had dared
to profane those young lips with his loathed and
brutal caresses. He could have slain him, as
Moses slew the Egyptian, in the fiery wrath and
hatred of the moment ; but he refrained, aj3 David
refrained from slaying Saul, when the man who
had wronged him lay in his power, sleeping and
defenceless, in the still gloom of midnight. Oh !
mes freres, virtue lies not, as some think, in being
too pure for temptation to enter into us, but
rather in proportion to the strength of the seduc-
tion and the power of the temptation we resist. If
there be such to whom like temptation never
216 " HELD IX BONDAGE ; OR,
come, happy for them, their path through life is
safe and easy. If they never know the delicious
perfume of the rose-garland, they never know the
bitterness of the fennel and amarinth ; yet closer
to human sympathies and dearer to human hearts
^nobler, warmer, more natural is the man who
loves and hates, errs, struggles, and repents; is
quick to joy and quick to pain ; who sins in haste,
but is ever ready to atone, and who, though pass-
ing through the fire of his own thoughts, comes
like gold worthier from the furnace.
Vane Castleton rose from that fall, sunk and
degraded for ever. He had been thrashed by De
Vigne as a hound by its keeper ; he knew that
stigma would cling to him as long as he lived.
Monckton, his valet, his groom, the people of the
house, had all seen it ; seen him powerless in De
Vigne's grasp ; seen him held and lashed, like
a yelping puppy in a hunting-field. The tale
would be told in circles of all classes ; it would
spread like wildfire. No food so dear to the
generality as gossip above all, gossip spiced with
scandal it would be known in his club, in his
clique, all over town. Monckton lost no time
in detailing, at the Circle, how * that dare-devil
De Vigne pitched into poor Vane. Some row
about a woman, I don't know who; but I can
GRAXVILLE DE VIGNE. 217
swear to the severity of the thrashing ; and he
kicked him afterwards, by Jove! he did. Some-
body should send it to the papers ! '
Alma was amply revenged. Castleton's debts,
his difficulties, his bad odour in general, crowned
by the story of a horsewhipping that he did not
dare revenge^ made it impossible to stay, cut by
every man worth knowing; all his daily haunts,
filled by old acquaintances, who either dropped
him entirely, or shook him off as plainly as they
could; every house where he was wont to dine
or lounge away his hours, full of the story ; Paris
and London closed as effectually as though every-
body had ostracized him. He did not wait his
ostracism, but fearful lest law should take further
cognizance of his attempted evil deed, slunk out
of Paris before nightfall. He now usually lives
about the Bads ; his society is not what one of the
ducal house of Tiara might reasonably expect, and
they tell me there is no more dangerous hand at
trapping young pigeons, and fleecing them of all
their valuable feathers. It is rather an unworthy
office for one of his order, but nature will out, and
it will have the best of the game, and so Vane
Castleton, with a great name, a good position, and
every chance to make fair running in the race of
life if he had chosen ; bom with the nature of the
218 " HELD IX BONDAGE ;" OR,
bully, and the sharper in him, sank at last, despite
all, to their level.
Arrived at the hotel in the Champs Elys^es,
De Yigne found, to his amazement, that it was
Lord Molyneux's, and was told, in words which
were black letter to him, that Mademoiselle Tres*
sillian was not there, but had gone to the
Duchesse de La Yieillecour's villa, the Diaman da
Foret, at Fontainebleau ; * every one knew the
villa ; Monsieur would be certain to find it ; and
Mademoiselle had left word that her address was
to be given to anyone who called.' With which
assurance the porter returned to his plate of onion
soup inside his den ; and De Vigne, bewildered,
rode on to the Gare for Fontainebleau.
Minutes seemed to him hours; the train ap-
peared to creep along its weary ironway ; every-
thing was strange to him. Her close acquaintance
with the Molyneux appeared inexplicable. The
letter that vowed her love to him had been writ-
ten nearly two years before. Since then she might
have changed ; she might have loved some other ;
she might even have pledged herself to another
man? He tortured himself with every form of
dread and doubt, as the train dragged on till it
stopped at Fontainebleau, the sun shining on the
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 219
quiet French town, on the stately historic castle^
on the deep majestic woods that saw the loves of
Henri Quatre, the beauty of Gabrielle d'Estr^es,
the death of the grand Coude, and the despair of
the man who, abandoned alike by his Courtiers
whom he had ennobled, his Marshals whom he
had created, and his People whom he had rescued
from the bloody fangs of The Terror,- signed the
act of his abdication in his favourite, palace, where
that child was baptized who has lived to restore
his name and to ascend his throne.
The train stopped, and he went at once to the
Hotel de la Ville de Lyon, where, fifteen or six-
teen years before, he remembered giving a bril-
liant dinner to Rose Luillhier, then first dancer
of the Op^ra, a gay, flippant little blonde, whom
he had driven round, in a four-in-hand,, by the
Carrefour des Boux and Franchard to see the
Roche qui Pleure, and had drunk champagne and
sung Stranger songs, and enjoyed his Bacchanalia
with all the joyous, careless revelry of spirits un-
damped and unwearied.
Now^ Rose Luillhier was a faded, ugly, broken-
down woman, who, falling through a trap-door,
and ruining her beauty for ever, had been glad to
keep a Mont de Pi^te in a small way, in a dingy,
dark, loathsome hole in the Faubourg d'Enfer;
220 " HELD IX BONDAGE ;" OR,
and he be dared not trust bis present ; he dared
not look at his fiiture !
He inquired the way to Madame de La Vieille-
cour 8 maison de plaisanee. It lay on the other
side of the forest, to the south-west, they told him,
and they had not a carriage left in the coach-
house, nor a horse in the stable, there were so
many pleasure parties to the forest or the palace
in this month. He went to the Londres, to the
Nord, to the Aigle Noir, to the Lion d*Or; all
their conveyances were hired. It was a saint's
day and a holiday in Paris, and numerous parties
of every grade, had come to spend the sweet
spring-hours in the leafy shades, and majestic
futailles, of Fontainebleau. He went to Nargein's
and to Bernard's, in the Rue de France ; but he
could find no conveyance there. Impatient of
delay, he asked how far it was to walk.
* Mais a pen pres sept kilometres, monsieur,'
said the man of whom he inquired. * Voyez done,
monsieur! Vous partirez par la Barriere de
Paris, suivrez le chemin de cbasse jusqu'a la
Batte des Aires, prendrez le sentier jusqu' au foret
du Gros Fouteau, apres cela le sentier de I'Amitie,
et aux Gorges de la SoUe, monsieur '
De Vigne heard no more of the Frenchman's
voluble and bewildering directions; a fierce oath
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 221
broke from him under his breath, as three car-
riages swept past him. In the first sat a young
Parisian lioriy and the woman who called herself
his Wife ! From under her parasol of pink silk and
lace, as she leaned forward, full-blown, high-
coloured, coarse, with a smile on her lips, and that
vindictive triumph in her cruel eyes which he
knew so well, he saw her face that face unseen
for eleven long years, since the day he had thrown
her from him in the chapel at Vigne. He knew
her in an instant, despite every alteration and
they were not few that time had made and faint
and sick, he reeled against the wall of Nargein's
dwelling.
The Trefusis, the woman he so unutterably
loathed, so fiercely hated ! Was it prophetic that
this fiend should for ever stand between him
and the better angel of his life ! She knew him,
too, for she started visibly; then she leant for-
ward and bowed to him, with a cruel, mocking,
leering smile.
* Who's that fine man, maheUeV asked Anatole
de Beauvoisier.
* My husband ! ' answered the Trefusis, with her
coarse, harsh laugh.
Anatole had a great admiration for this hand-
some Englishwoman, yet he estimated her rightly
222
"held in bondage;" or,
enough to murmur to himself, * Poor devil ! Don't
I pity him ! '
A deadly sickness came over De Vigne, and a
fierce ungovernable thirst for vengeance on her
entered into him. He hated her so unspeakably !
That viroman who stood an eternal bar between
him, and love, and peace and honour !
He broke from Nargein's foreman with a hasty
douceur, and took the route by the Barri^re de
Paris, trusting to memory to lead him across the
forest, in the direction of the Diaman du ForSt.
He followed the hunting-path that leads to the
magnificent forest of the Grand Fouteau. It was
now after noon, and the soft golden sunlight turned
to bronze the giant bolls of the old oaks. All
around him was hushed in the heart of the great
royal forest ; and the birds were singing in the
dense foliage of those shadowy avenues, that had
used to echo with the bay of hounds, the ring of
horses' hoofs, the mellow notes of hunting calls,
when through their sunny glades the gay courtiers
of Valois, Navarre, and Bourbon had ridden for
the pleasure of the Chasse and the Cur^e. All
was silent around him, save for the musical mur-
mur, nameless yet distinguishable, as of the coming
summer breathing its life and spirit into the ten-
der leaves, the waving grasses, and the waters of
GRANVILLfi DE TIGNE. 223
lake and fountain, long chilled and silenced by the
iron touch of the past winter. He strode along
through the hunting-path, edged on one side with
brushwood and on the other with the great forest
trees, only thinking sufficiently of the way he went
to take the paths that bore to the north-west, and
struck into the Fulaci du Gros Fouteau, knowing
that ; by keeping to his left, he should come upon
the road to Chailly, brushing his way hastily
through the tangled^ forest-branches that had stood
the sunshine and the storm of centuries. As he
swung along, he glanced upwards to put aside the
boughs ; and with an inarticulate cry, sprang for-
ward.
Half sitting, half lying on the fallen trunk of a
beech that had been struck by lightning a few
days before, the sunshine falling down through the
thick branches on her, he saw once more the
woman he loved !
In another moment she was on his heart, cling-
ing there as if no earthly power should ever part
them, weeping and laughing in her agony of glad-
ness, while he held her in his embrace, crushing
her against his breast, their long caresses more
eloquent than words. Then Alma raised her face
to his, flushing with a bright rich glow, her arms
clinging closer and closer round him :
224 "held IX BONDAGE;" OR,
* You do not doubt me now ? You will never
leave rae ^never ? '
* Never, my God !' And bs he poured out upon
her in his kisses the passion which words were too
cold and tame to utter, he forgot utterly, entirely
that cold, cruel, jeering face which had passed
him but an hour before, and forgot, also, the
ties that bound him.
Their joy was too deep for tranquillity ; all she
cared for was to look up into his eyes; all he
cared for was to drink of the fresh sweet waters of
human affection ; to lavish on the only thing he
loved all the pent-up well-springs of his heart ; to
hold her there close close, so that none could
come to rob him of her a second time the one
lost to him for so long !
Do you wonder at him? Go and travel in
Sahara, across that great, dreary, blinding, shadow-
less, hopeless plain of glaring yellow sand, where
you see no living thing save the vulture whirling
aloft awaiting some dead camel ere it can make
its loathsome feast ; travel with the thirst of the
desert upon you, your throat parching, your eyes
starting, your whole frame quivering with longing
for the simple drop of water which your fellows
fling away unvalued. When you came to the
clear cool springs flowing under the friendly sha-
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 225
dows of the banyans and the palms, would you
have the courage to turn away and leave the
draught un tasted, and go back alone into the
desert to die?
It was long before they could speak of what
they had both suffered, when at last she told him
all, more fully than her letter had done, of Castle-
ton's brutality, the dark fierce blood surged over
his brow, and in his teeth he muttered a fierce oath.
* By Heaven f I wish I had not let him go with
life!'
' What are you saying?* she whispered, where
she lay folded in his arms.
He kissed the lips he would not answer :
'Do not ask! To think that dastard villain
dared to lay his hand upon you wakes crime in
me ! My darling, my precious one ! to think that
brute should have ventured to lure you in his
hateful toils, should have polluted your ears with
his loathsome vows, should have dared to touch
your little hand with his '
He stopped ; his fierce anger overmastered him.
To think the dastard love, which was poison to
any woman, should have been breathed on Aer, oir
whom he would have had the summer wind never
play too rudely ; to think that his hated kiss
should have ventured to touch those soft warm
VOL. III. Q
226 "held in bondage;*' or,
lips, pure as ungathered rose-leaves, which were
consecrated wholly to himself !
*Do not grieve at it!' whispered Alma, ca-
ressingly. * Do not think of it. Now I have you
I could pardon anything. A^en life is beautiful
and God's mercy great, one cannot harbour hard
thoughts of any one ? It is when we saffer that
we could revenge.'
He pressed her closer to his heart :
* You are better than I, my little one ! '
' No ! ' she murmured passionately, * I am better
than none ; still less than you, noble as you are in
thought and in deed, in heart and in soul. Ah ! I
loved and reverenced you before ; but since your
courage, your suffering, your daring, 1 love you more
dearly, I reverence you more sacredly than ever,
my love, my lord, my husband ! '
As the last word fell on his ear, De Vigne started
as at a mortal wound from the steel ! That title
from her lips struck him keenly, bitterly as any*
sword-thrust ! To have to tell her he had deceived
her, to have to give a death-blow to this unsuspi-
cious confidence, this radiant, shadowless happiness
with which she clung to him, as if, now they were
together, life had brought her heaven upon earth ;
to have to quench the light in her sunny eyes, and
tell her that another called him by that name!
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 22T
The hand that held both hers trembled ; the
glow faded off his face ; his heart turned sick ;
how could he tell her that for two long years the
secret of his life had been withheld from her
that, married, he had gone to her as a free man
that, bound himself, he had won her love that he
had gone on from day to day, from week to week,
with that fatal tie unacknowledged, that dark and
cruel secret unconfessed ? And she looked up in
his face, as she clung to him, with such a world of
worship, such eager joy in her brilliant, loving
eyes, that seemed never to weary of gazing into
his ! And he had to say to her : * Your trust is
unmerited ! I have deceived you ! '
Unconsciously the woman, who would have
perilled her life to save him a single pang, struck
a yet sharper blow to the just-opened wound!
Noticing the gloom that gathered in his eyes, to
dispel it, she laughed, with her old gay childlike
insouciance :
* Yes ! in one thing T am better than you ; I
have more faith ! You could think evil of me, but
/never dreamt of doubting ^^m. Yet, Sir Folko,
I had stronger evidence still ! But then I trusted
you, my lord, my love ! I would have disbelieved
angels had they come to witness against you ; in
your absence none should dare to slander you to
q2
228 "held in bondage;" or,
me; and if they had brought proofs of every force
under the sun, I would have thrown tliem in their
teeth as falsehoods and as forgeries, if they had
stained your honour ! '
She spoke, her rich low voice thrilling with that
eloquence which always came to her when roused
to deep emotion or to warm excitement. Yet
every one of those noble and tender words
quivered like a knife in his heart ! He bent his
head till his brow rested on her hair; and the
man, whose iron nerves had not quailed, nor pulse
beat one shade quicker, before the deadly flame
blazing from the thirty guns at Balaklava, shud-
dered as he thought, ' How can I tell her I have
deceived her!' Unconscious of the sting which
lay for him in her innocent trust, she spoke
again scorn, contempt, and haughty impatience
at the memory, passing over her face, with one of
those rapid mutations of expression which gave
its greatest charm.
* Oh, Granville, how I hated that woman Lord
Vane sent to pretend to be your wife! She was
such a bold, coarse, cruel-eyed woman, with not the
trace of a lady in her, for all her showy, gorgeous
dress. Who do you think she could have been ?
Some actress, I should fancy should not you ?
whom he paid to take the role, but she did it very
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 229
badly,' And Alma laughed ^a low, glad, silvery
laugh at the recollection ! * She was not much
like a woman who had loved and lost you ; there
was not a shadow of regret, or tenderness, or soft-
ness in her when she spoke of you, and to think
she should dare take your name should dare
presume to claim y(m ! Oh ! Granville, how I
hated her the coarse, audacious woman, who
dared to insult us both. But I never believed her,
my own dearest. Thank God my trust in you
never wavered for an instant, she never tempted
me even in one passing thought to disgrace you,
with the doubt that that low, bad woman had
ever been aught to you. Thank God, I was
too worthy of your love to insult you with a
thought of credence in her ! '
'Stop, stop for the love of Heaven or you
will kill me ! ' He felt his heart would break,
his brain give way, if she said another word to
add to the coals of fire she was heaping on his
head ! Her unconscious gladness, her noble faith,
seemed to brand his soul with shame and suffering,
which years would never have power to efface ;
to have to tell her her trust had been misplaced ;
to have to confess to her that this woman
was his wife ; to have to answer her with what
would quench and darken all her glad and
230 "held in bondage; or,
generous faith, and, for aught he knew, turn her
from him for ever.
Startled and terrified, she tried to look into his
face ; but his head was bent, so that she could see
nbthing save the blue veins swellingon his forehead.
* What have I said what have T done ? ' cried
Alma, piteously. * Speak to me, answer me, for
Heaven's sake ! '
He did not answer her. What could he say ?
The veins on his temples grew like cords, and
over his face stole that dead, gray pallor which
had overspread it upon his marriage day. A
vague and horrible terror came upon the woman
who loved him. She threw her arms round his
neck ; she pressed her warm lips to his forehead,
pale and lined with the bitter thoughts in his brain ;
she only thought of him then, never of herself.
' Tell me, what liave I said I, who would give
my life to spare you the slightest pain ? '
He seized her in his arms; he pressed her
against his heart, throbbing to suffocation :
* My worshipped darling ! do not speak gently
to me ! Hate me ! Curse me ! . . . That woman
is my wife ! '
It was told at last the stain on his name, the
curse on his life, the secret kept so long ! Her
face was raised to his ; its fair bloom changed to
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 231
his own bloodless and lifeless pallor, her eyes wide
open, with a vague, amazed horror in them. She
scarcely underetood what he had said ; she could
not realize it in its faintest shadow.
* Your wife ! ' she repeated, mechanically, after
him. * Your wife ! You are jesting, you are
trying me ; ^it is not true !*
He held her closer to him, and rested his lips
on her hair; he could not bear to see those fond,
frank eyes gaze into his with that pitiful terror,
that haunting, pleading earnestness, which would
not believe even his own words against him !
* God forgive me, it is true ! '
With a cry that rang through the forest silence,
she bowed down before the blow dealt to her by
the hand that she loved best. She did not weep,
like most women, but the blood rushed to her face,
then left it white and colourless as death. She
pressed her hand upon her heart, struggling for
breath, looking up in his face as a spaniel that its
master had slain would look up in his, the love
outliving and pardoning the death-blow.
For the moment he thought he had killed her.
In an insanity of anguish he called upon her
name ; he covered her blanched lips with kisses ;
he vowed to God that he loved her dearer than
any husband ever loved his wife ; that he hated
232 "held in bondage;" or,
tbe woman who bore his name, whom he had left
from the very altar ! He called her his own, his
love, his darling; he swore never to leave her while
his life lasted ; he besought her, if ever she had
cared for him, to look at him, and tell him she
forgave him !
She did not shrink from, but citing to, him,
breathless, trembling, quivering with pain, like a
delicate animal after a cruel blow.
' Forgive you ! Yes ! What would / not for-
give ! But '
Her voice broke down in convulsive sobs, and
she lay in his arms weeping unrestrainedly, with
all the force and vehemence of her nature ; while
he bowed his head over her, and his own bitter,
scorching tears fell on her golden hair. He let
her weep on and on. He could not speak to her;
he could only clasp her to him, murmuring broken
earnest words of agonized remorse.
Once she looked up at him with those radiant
eyes, from which he had quenched the light and
glory :
' You do not love her ? You cannot ! '
There was her old vehemence in the question
as passionately he answered her :
' Love her ! Great Heaven ! no word could tell
how I hate her; how I have hated her ever since
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 233
that cursed day when she first took my name, to
stain it and dishonour it. My precious one ! my
hate for her is as great as my love for you; greater
it cannot be ! '
* And yet she is your wife ! O God, have
pity on us ! '
Her lips turned white, as if in bodily pain, her
eyes closed, and she shivered as with great cold.
He pressed her against his heart; great drops
of suffering stood upon his brow. It was an
agony greater than death to him to see the misery
on her face, and to know that he had brought it
there ^he who would have sheltered her from
every chill breath, guarded her from every touch
of the sorrow common to all human kind !
* Would to Heaven I had died before my selfish
passions brought my curse on your young head,'
he muttered, as he bent over her. * You forgive
me but you cannot love me after I have deceived
you ! You cannot love me, false as I have been to
truth and honour! God knows I meant no de-
liberate wrong. I never sought you as libertines
will seek. I never knew I loved you till the day
I spoke my love the day we parted ! I had gone
on and on, without thinking that I lived a lie!
You cannot love me after this ;~ nor pity me,
though I have sunk so low?'
234 "held in bondage;" or,
Breathless he waited for her answer breathless
and trembling, his face white as hers, his haughty
lips quivering, his head bent and humbled, as he
made the hardest, yet the noblest confession a
proud man can ever make * / vxis wrong V
She lifted her face to his, in the first bitterness
of her grief her thought was of him and not of
herself.
* Love you ? I must while my life lasts.
Nothing could change me to you; if you were
to err, to alter, to fall as low as man can fall, if
all the world stoned and hooted you, / would
cling the closer to you, and we would defy it, or
endure it together I '
She spoke with her old vehemence, her arms
twining close about his neck, her lips soft and
warm against his cheek, her eyes gazing up into
his, brilliant vnth the love that was the life of her
life ; then the passion faded from her eyes, the
glow from her face; with a convulsive sob her
head drooped upon her breast, and she fell forward
on his arm, weeping hopelessly, wearily, agomzedly,
as women in the Crimea wept over their husbands'
graves.
* God help me ! I do not know what I say !
If I am wrong, tell me; if T sin, slay me but
cease to love you I camwt ! '
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 235
CHAPTER IX.
THE CROWNING TEMPTATION OF A TEMPTED LIFE.
In a few broken, earnest words, De Vigne told
her tbe history of that fatal marriage-bond which
had cost his mother's life, stained his name,
banished him from his bome, cursed his life with a
bitter and futile regret, and now brought misery
on a life dearer than his own. And it touched
him deeply to see, as she listened to his story, how
utterly her own sorrow was merged into her grief
for him ; her misery at all he suffered in his cruel
bondage ; her loathing at the thought of all he had
borne for those long years, in even nominal con-
nection with such as his wife was. It touched him
deeply to see how her own wrongs faded away
unremembered in her grief for him, and she was
more dear, more dangerous to him in that hour of
suffering, than in her gayest, sweetest, or most
bewitching moments.
Wrapt in that silent communion, absorbed in
the bitterness in which the first hours of their
236 " HELD IN BONDAGJE ;" OR,
reunion were steeped, neither heard a footfall on
the forest turf, nor saw the presence of one, who,
drawing near them, looked on the completion of
that vengeance which had struck its first blow so
many years before, and now came to deal its last.
They neither saw nor heard her, till her chill,
coarse, harsh tones stirred the sweet, spft air.
* Miss Tressillian, two years ago you chose to
disbelieve, or feign to disbelieve, my claims upon
your lover. Ask Major De Vigne now, in my
presence, if he can dare to deny that I am his
lawful and wedded wife ? '
With a cry of horror. Alma looked up. With
a fierce oath he sprang to his feet, standing at last
face to face, as he had stood at the marriage-altar
with the woman whom the Church and Law had
made his wife. Thus they met at last in the silent
aisles of the forest ; thus they met at last, those
two fierce foes whom the marriage-laws assumed
to hold as ' two whom God had joined together ! '
And she stood looking at him with a cruel laugh,
a leering triumph in her eyes, a devilish sneer
upon her lip, hating him still with a chill and
ceaseless hate ; while he gazed down upon her as
men gazed upon the loathsome and accursed sight of
the Lamia, while between them, clinging to his arm
in terror, as if te shield him from the hatred of his
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 237
deadliest eneinv, was the woman he loved. On the
one hand, the vile mistress who had cursed his
life; on the other, the better angel, which had
nestled in his heart to touch all its deeper chords,
and waken all its purer love.
The Trefusis looked at him, and smiled ; a smile
that chilled his blood as the cold gleam of a
dagger in the moonlight, chills the blood of a man,
waking from sweet dreams to find himself fet-
tered and bound in the clutches of his most cruel
foe.
* Ask him. Miss Tressillian ! ' she said again.
* You disbelieved me. See if Granville de Vigne,
who in bygone days used to boast very grandly of
his truth and honour, dare tell you a lie before my
face, and say that I am not his Wife.'
Cold, swift, and haughty, rushed the words to
Alma's lips, with the scorti and fire latent in her
Southern nature.
' He would not lower himself so far to your
level, as even to conceal the truth. I know all !
and if the sorrow be his, the shame of his marriage
rests solely upon you.'
She laughed, that coarse, harsh laugh which,
with many other of the traces of her origin and
her innate vulgarity, had crept out since, her
aim attained, she had flung off that uncongenial
238 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
gloss and varnish of refinement which she had
assumed to lure her prey.
* You take the high hand, young lady ! Well,
you are wise to make the most of a bad bargain ;
and since you cannot be his wife, to pretend it is
the more honourable post to be his mistress ! I
wish you joy ; his love has ever been so very
famous for its constancy ! '
* Woman ! silence ! ' broke in De Vigne, and
even the Trefusis paused for the moment, and
shrank from the lurid fire flashing from his eyes,
the dark wrath gathered in his face. * Dare to
breathe another of your brutal insults in her ear,
and I swear your sex shall not shield you from my
vengeance. You have wronged me enough. Your
ribald jests shall never soil her purity! My love,
my darling ! ' he whispered passionately, bowing
his head over Alma, who still clung unconsciously
to his arm, her colour changing, her fiice fiill of
horror, terror, loathing, at the first coarse words
that had ever been spoken to her ^that had ever
breathed to her of shame ! * do not heed her ; do
not listen to her. She is a bold, bad woman. O
God, forgive me ! that I should have brought you
to this ! '
* Purity ! ' re-echoed the Trefusis, with her cold,
loud laugh. ^ Since when has that new idol had
GRANVILLE DE VIGISTE. 239
any attraction for you ? In bygone days if the
external pleased your senses, I never knew you
care for over-cleanliness of mind and character!
How long have you began to learn platonics?
The role will hardly suit you long, I fancy. If
this pretty child like to be added to the string of
your cast-off loves, it is no concern of mine, though
you are my husband/
His face grew white as death ; he forced to
stand by and hear what he worshipped, insulted
thus ! With a fierce gesture, forgetfiil of her sex,
he would have struck her in his wrath, his grief,
his insulted pride, his maddened anguish ; but
Alma caught his arm :
* For my sake '
The low words, the touch of her hand, the
sight of her upraised face, stood between him and
his passion as no other thing on earth would have
done. For 'her sake' his arm dropped. The
dark blood surged over his brow ; and he put his
hand upon his breast, as he had done at the mar-
riage-altar, to keep down the storm of passions
raging in his heart.
* Out of my sight, out of my sight,' he muttered
in his teeth, * or by God I shall do what you will
wish to your dying day undone ! '
Something in the grand wrath of this tempes-
240 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
tuous and fiery nature awed and stilled even her ;
a dogged sullenness overspread her face ; she was
foiled and mastered, and for the first time her
revenge was wrested from her grasp. She could
not turn what he now loved from him.
At that minute light laughter, lighter footsteps,
low, gay voices, broke on their ear, and through
the beech-boughs of the Gros Fouteau came
Madame de La Vieillecour and her party. The
Duchess recognized De Vigne with surprise; she
saw, moreover, that they arrived at an untimely
season on a painful scene ; but coming forward
with her hands outstretched, she welcomed him
home with pleasant fluent words of congratu-
lation.
It was well for him that he had learnt, long years
before, the first lesson society gives its pupils : to
smile when their hearts are breaking, to wear a
tranquil, unmoved air while the vultures gnaw at
their life-strings ; or he could hardly have an-
swered the new comers, while the stormy passions,
just aroused in all their fullest strength, raged
and warred in his heart ; while on the one side
stood the woman he loved, on the othdr the wife
he loathed !
* Come back to dine with us,' continued Madamo
de La Vieillecour ; * the carriages are waiting.
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 241
Alma, ma belle, you look ill ; you are tired, and
the sun has been too hot.'
She turned away with her gay party, talking to
De Vigne, who instinctively followed, when sud-
denly on his ear, the clear, cold, hard tones of the
Trefusis (at whom, since his last words, he had not
glanced, and whom Madame de La Vieillecour
had not observed in the twilight of the forest,
which was growing dark, now that the sun had
set) hissed through the air, arresting all :
* Granville, may I trouble you for a few words
before you leave ? I thought it was not usual for
a husband to accept an invitation before his wife's
face, in which she was not included ! '
The Duchess turned quickly; the harsh and
rapid English was lost on the rest of the party,
but she, despite all her tact and high breeding,
stared, first at the speaker, then at De Vigne.
* Mais I qvsUe est done cette femme ! ^
He did not hear her ; he had swung round, his
face, even to his lips, white with passion. Careless
of all observers. Alma clasped both hands upon
his arm :
* Do not go,' she whispered. * Come with me.
Do not stay with her, if you love me ! '
For once he was deaf to her prayer ; his lips
quivered in torture to have that woman, bold
VOL. III. B
242 "HELD IN BONDAGE;" OR,
bad, low, hateful, all he knew her to be, stand
there and claim him as her husband! ^A few
words with me ! ' he muttered deliriously, * Yes ;
we will have a few more words! By Heaven,
they shall be such as you will remember to your
grave/
Alma clung to his arm, breathless, trembling,
blanched with fear. * If you love me, do not stay !
She vnll madden you, she will goad you to some
crime ! leave her to do her worst. She is beneath
your vengeance ! '
For the first time he was deaf to her entreaties
for the first time he would not listen to her
voice. He put her hands off his arm, and an-
swered her in the same low tone :
* I will rejoin you. Fear nothing from me :
in all I do and say while my life lasts, I shall re-
member yofa. Go ! '
He spoke gently, but too firmly for her to resist
him, and turned to the Duchess.
' Allow me, Madame, to speak a few words with
this person? I will rejoin you. You do not dine
till nine ? '
* No. I will leave horses for you at the en-
trance of the Gros Fouteau au revoir ! '
Certain indistinct memories arose in the Du-
chess's mind of a story her brother, little Curly
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 2*43
had told her, long ago, of some unhappy and ill-
assorted marriage which De Vigne had made ; and
she rapidly guessed all the truth. They went ; a
turn hid them from sight, and De Vigne was alone
with his wife, in the twilight deepening around
them. For a moment neither spoke. Perhaps
the memory was too strong in both of twelve
years before, when they had stood thus, face to
face, before the marriage-altar, to take the mar-
riage vows on one side a lie and a fraud, on the
other a curse life-long and inexorable.
Alma knew him aright this woman maddened
him. She had set light to all the hottest passions
in him, and they now flared and raged far beyond
power of his to still them. His loathing for one
who only bore his name to dishonour it, and only
used the tie of wife to torture and insult him,
overmastered reason and self-control, and un-
loosed the bonds of all that was darker and most
dangerous in his character.
She looked at him and laughed, with that coarse
sneer which had been on her lips when she signed
her name in the chapel at Vigne.
* So ! Granville de Vigne, we have met at last !
You have found my promised revenge no child's
play, no absurd bombast as you fancied it, eh ?
You are my husband, my husband "until death
r2
244 "held in bondage;" or,
us shall part." Do you remember the sweet words
of the marriage service that bound us together
for life ? I have driven you from your home ; I
have made the memory of your mother weigh on
you with the weight of murder ; I have cheapened
your name to the world and made it hateful to
you ; I stand a bar, as long as you and I shall
live, to your peace and happiness. You laughed
once when I vowed to be revenged on you ; you
can hardly laugh at it now ! '
'Silence ! fiend incarnate ! ' burst from De Vigne,
the mad agony in him breaking bounds. *0h!
wretch, divorced in truth, from the day we stood
together at the altar, evil enough I have done to
God and man, but not enough to be cursed with
you!'
She laughed again that coarse and brutal
laugh which thrilled through his every nerve.
* No doubt you hate me hotly enough ! You
want your freedom, De Vigne. You want to
wash off the stain from your name. You want
to go back to your lordly home without my
memory poisoning the air. You want your
liberty, if only on the old plea for which you
used to want all things that were not easy to
get, because it is unattainable. Of course you
hate me ! Perhaps that gold-haired child whom
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 245
I found you weeping over so pathetically, find-
ing mere love an unprofitable connection, wants
to work on you to put your freedom in her
hands, and you would fain be quit of me, to
pay down the same price again for a new pas-
sion '
With a fierce spring De Vigne seized her in
his grasp, crushing her as in an iron vice.
* Dare to say one word of her again, and I shall
forget your sex ! Let her alone, I tell you, or by
Heaven it may be worse for you than you ever
dream 1 '
She quailed before the passion in his voice, the
strength of the grip in which he held her. But
her fiendish delight in goading him to fiiry out-
weighed her fear. She laughed again :
* Sullied ! polluted ! I fancy your protection
will do that more completely than my pity, espe-
cially when you select for your inamorata one of
Vane Castleton's forsaken loves ! '
An oath, so fierce, that it startled even her, stop-
ped her in her jeering slander. The boiling oil was
flung upon the seething flames, lashing them into
fury. He was stung past all endurance, and the
insult to the woman whom he knew as stainless as
the virgin snow, goaded him to insanity ; he nei-
ther knew nor cared in that moment what he did ;
246 "held in bondage;" or,
the blood surged over his brain, and flamed in his
veins like molten fire ; he gripped her in his grasp
as a tiger his prey.
* Woman, silence! Would to Grod you were
of my sex, that I could wreak such vengeance
on you as you should carry to the grave.'
Her fierce and cruel eyes laughed into his in the
dull gray twilight, with leering triumph over the
misery she caused.
^ It is a pity there are laws as inexorable on
murder as on marriage! You would not be the
first husband who killed his wife when he fell in
love with another woman ^
She stopped, stricken with sudden awe and fear,
at the passion she had stung, and tortured, into
being. As the iron gripe of his hands clenched
harder and harder upon her, for the first time it
flashed upon her that she was in his power ^the
power of the man she had so bitterly wronged,
and whom she had now goaded on to reckless
fiiry and despair ! She knew his fiery passions
she knew his lion-like strength she knew his
long and unavenged wrongs ; and she trembled,
and shiveredj and turned pale in his relentless
grasp, for she was in his hands, and had aroused a
tempest she knew not how to allay.
* Wretch, accursed ! if you tempt me to wash
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 247
out my wrongs, and slay you where you stand,
your blood will be on your own head ! '
His voice, as it hissed out in the horrible whis-
per, sounded strange even to his own ear, his brain
thrilled and throbbed, flashes of fire danced before
his eyes, through which he saw, cruel and hateful,
the face of his temptress of his wife ! The pale
heavens whirled around him, the giant forms of
the forest trees seemed dark and ghastly shapes.
His grasp tightened and tightened on her ; she
had no strength against him ; her life was in his
power, that life which only existed to do him
hideous wrong ; that life which stood an eternal
bar between him and love, and peace, and honour ;
that one human life which stood barring him out
from all he coveted, and which in one flash of time
he could snap, and still, and destroy for ever from
his path, which its presence so long had cursed.
They were alone, shrouded and sheltered in the
solitude of the coniing night ; in that dense forest,
there were no eyes to see, no ears to listen, no
voices to whisper whatever might be done under
the cover of those silent beechwood shades.
That horrible hour of temptation ! coming on
him when, with every passion stung to madness^
his blood glowed ready to receive the poison .'
The night wq^s still around them, there was not a
248 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
sound save the sigh of the leaves ; not a thing to
look upon them, save the little crescent moon and
the stars, which were arising slovrly one by one.
Night and Solitude twin tempters gathered
round him ; his heart stood still, his brain was on
fire, his eyes blind and dizzy ; alone, out of the
gray and whirling haze around him he saw her
mocking, fiendish gaze, and the voice of a fell
Temptation wrhispered in his ear, * Her life is in
your hands, revenge yourself. Wash out the
stain upon your name, win back the liberty you
crave, efface the loathsome insults on the woman
you love. She stands between you and the
heaven you crave take the life that destroys
your own. For your love she gave you fraud ;
for your trust, betrayal ; for your name, disgrace.
Avenge it ! Is it not just ? One blow, never heard,
and never known by any mortal thing, and you
have freedom back, and love ! '
His brain reeled ; his grasp tightened and tight-
ened upon her, too strong for her to have power or
movement left. The night whirled around him,
the pale blue skies grew crimson as with blood,
the great gnarled trunks of the trees seemed to
mock and grin like horrid spirits, goading him to
evil, his passions surged in madness through his
veins ; and clear and ghastly he seemed to hear a
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 249
tempter's voice : ' Avenge your wrongs, and you
are free ! '
With a cry to God, a throe of agony, he flung
the fell allurement from him, and threw her from
his grasp. * Devil, temptress! thank your God,
not me, I have not murdered you to-night.!'
She lay where he had thrown her, stunned, less
by the fall than by the terror of the moment past
that moment of temptation which had seemed
eternity to both. She lay there motionless, and
he fled from her fled as men flee from death or
capture fled from that crime which had lured him
so nearly to its deadly brink ; which so nearly had
cursed and haunted his life with the relentless
terror, the hideous weight, of a human life, silenced
and shattered by his hand, lain by his deed in its
grave, sent by his will from its rightful place and
presence in the living, laughing earth, into the
dark and deadly mysteries of the tomb.
He fled from the hideous temptation which had
assailed him in that hour of madness he fled
from the devil of Opportunity to which so many
sins are due, and from whose absence so many
virtues date : flinging it away from him with a
Arm hand, not daring to stay to test his strength
by pausing in its presence. He fled on and on, in
the twilight gloom, through the trembling leaves.
250 "held in bondaqe;" or,
and evening shadows ; he fled on under the gaunt
boughs and tangled aisles of the woodland ; dark
passions warring and rioting within him. Dizzy
with the whirling of his brain, every nerve strung
to tension, and quivering and throbbing with the
fierce torture of the ordeal past, he sank down at
last as one whom the blood-hounds have chased,
half conscious, on the cool fresh turf, with a cry of
agony and thanksgiving : * My God ! my God ! I
thank thee that my hands are stainless from this
sin!'
The silver scimetar of the young moon rose
over the forest, the twilight deepened, and the
night came down on Fontainebleau, veiling town
and woodland, lake and palace, in its soft and hal-
lowing light ; still he lay there, exhausted with the
conflict; worn out with that fell struggle with
temptation, where submission had been so easy,
victory so hard. And as the twilight shadows
deepened round him, and the dews gathered
thicker, and the numberless soft voices of the
night chimed through the silent forest glades, he
thanked God that his heart was free, his hands
stainless, from the guilt, which, if never known by
his fellow-men, would yet have haunted him with
its horrible presence throughout his life, poisoned
the purest air he breathed, turned the fairest
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 251
heaven that smiled on him into a hell, waked him
from his sweetest sleep to start and shudder at
the chill touch of remembered crime, and cursed
his dying bed with a horror that would have pur-
sued him to the very borders of his grave. He
thanked God that for once in his life he had re-
sisted the mad temptation of the hour, and thrust
away the evil of Thought ere it had had time to
fester into Deed ; he thanked God that the dead
weight of a human life was not upon his soul, to
rise and drive him, Orestes-like, from every haven
of rest, to damn him in his softest hours of joy, to
make him shrink from the light of heaven, and
tremble at the rustle of the trees, and quail before
the innocent and holy beauty of the earth crim-
soned with his guilt. He thanked God that he
could meet the innocent eyes of the woman he
loved without a secret on his soul ; that he could
take her hands without staining them with the
guilt on his ; that he could hold her to his heart,
without the deadly presence of that crime between
them with which, to win her, he would have dark-
ened earth, and burdened both their lives. He
thanked God that he could stand there in the
solemn aisles of the Forest and feel the wind fan
his hair, and hear the sighing of the woodland
boughs, and look upwards to the holy stillness of
252 "held in bondage;" or,
the skies without the myriad voices of the Earth
and Heaven calling on him to answer for his guilt
that he could stand there under the fair evening
stars, stainless from the guilt which had tempted
him in the darkest hour of his life, able to look up
with a clear brow, and a fearless conscience, into
the pure eyes of night !
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 253
CHAPTER X.
TRIED IN THE FIRE, AND PROVEN*
It is strange how the outer world surrounds yet
never touches the inner ; how the gay and lighter
threads of life intervene yet never mingle with
those that are darkest and sternest, as the parasite
clings to the forest tree, united yet ever dissimilar!
From the twilight gloom of the silent forest, from
solitude and temptation and suffering, De Vigne
passed suddenly into the glitter and glow and
brilliance, the light laughter and the ringing jests,
and the peopled salons of the Diaman du Foret.
From the dense woods and the stirless silence of
the night, only haunted by the presence of the
woman who had cursed his life, and well-nigh
lured him to irrevocable and ineffaceable guilt, he
came by abrupt transition into a gay and brilliant
society, from which all sombre shadows were ban-
ished, and where its groups, laughing, jesting, flirt-
ing, carrying on the light intrigues of the hour,
seemed for the time as though no sorrow or
254 "held in bondage;" or,
suffering, bitterness or passion, had ever intruded
amongst them. Strange contrast ! those glittering
salons, and that dark and deadly solitude of the
beech woods of the Gros Fouteau not stranger
than the contrast between the face which had lured
him to crime and misery, in the dense shadow of
the forest gloom ; and the one on which he looked
as, when away from the gaiety and the gossip, the
light laughter and the subdued murmur of society,
he drew her, after awhile, unnoticed, out on to the
terrace which overlooked the wooded and stately
gardens of the Diaman du Foret, where the moon-
beams slept on lawn and lake, avenue and sta-
tue, in the calm May night, that shrouded Fon-
tainebleau, town and palace and forest, in its
silvery mist.
Neither of them spoke; neither could have
found voice to utter all that arose in their hearts
at the touch of each other's hand, the gaze of each
other's eyes, the sense of each other's presence.
Dark and heavy upon them was the weight of
that past hour. Silent they stood together in the
solitude of the night that was calm, hushed, and
peaceful, fit for a love either more tranquil, or
more fully blessed, than theirs.
His voice was hoarse and broken as he spoke at
last, bowing his head over her :
GRANVILLE DB VIGNE. 255
* I have sinned before Heaven and before thee.
I have fallen very low ! '
She did not answer him, she only lifted her
eyes to his. By the silvery gleam of the night he
could see the unswerving fidelity, after all, through
all, promised him for all eternity while her heart
should beat, and her eyes have life to gaze upon
his face.
Now he knew, never again to doubt it, how
unwearyingly, and how entirely, this imperishable
and unselfish love which he had won, would cling
around him to his dying day. The night was still,
not a murmur stirred among the trees, not a breath
moved upon the surface of the little lake, not a
cloud swept across the pale, pure stars, gleaming
beyond in the blue heavens. The earth was hushed
in deep repose, nature slept the solemn and tranquil
sleep which no fret and wrath of man has power to
weaken or arrest ; while he, the mortal, with
human love trembling on his lips, and human
suifering quivering in his heart, told in broken
earnest words the confession of that dire tempta-
tion which so nearly had ripened into crime. He
laid his heart bare to her, with all its sins and
weaknesses, its errors and its impulses, knowing
that his trust was sacred, secure of sympathy, and
tenderness, and pity. He spoke to her as men can
256 "held in BONDAGE;" OR,
never speak to men, as they can seldom speak to
women. He told her of that darker nature born
in him, as more or less in all, which had slumbered
unknown, till opportunity awoke it ; and which
then, aroused in all its force, had wrestled with all
that was merciful, gentle, and better within him.
He told her of that fell Tempter of Thought which
had arisen so suddenly in night and solitude, and
whispered him to a deed that would give him
back his freedom, avenge his wrongs, and shatter
the fetters that weighed him down with their
unmerited burden. He told how he had fled
from it, how he had conquered it, how he had
escaped with pure hands and stainless soul, to
render thanks to God for his deliverance, in the
solemn forest-aisles of that temple, where man
best meets the mystery of Deity ; which human
hands never fashioned, and human creeds, and
follies, and priestcraft cannot enter to lower and
pollute.
He told her, laying bare to her all the deadly
crime begotten in his heart, and so well-nigh
wrought by his hand into the black guilt with
which one human life stifles and tramples out
another : then, he asked her :
' Can you love me ^after this ? '
She lifted up her face, that was white as death
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE, 257
where the light of the moon shone upon it ; and
her voice was low and tremulous, yet sustained
with the great heroic tenderness which did not
shrink from him in his sin, which did not recoil
from him in his fell temptation, but which forgot
and washed out its own wrong in the deep waters
of an exhaustless love.
* I shall love you while I have life ! I have
said it ; I can say no more. Let the world con-
demn you you are the dearer to me I '
He crushed her closer in his arms.
' Great Heaven ! Such love as yours binds us
with stronger force, and consecrates holier tie,
than any priestcraft can ever forge. She is not
my wife. Reason, right, sense, justice, all di-
vorced her from the very hour I left her at the
altar, my bitter enemy, my relentless foe, who
won me by deceit, who would have made my life
a hell, who renders me a devil, not a man \ She
my wife ! Great God, I renounce her ! '
Alma, as the fierce words were muttered in his
throat, clung to him, her voice low and dreamy,
like the voice of one in feverish pain.
* She is no wife of yours ; a woman that could
hate you and betray you ! A woman whom you
left at the altar! How can they bind you to
her?'
VOL. IIL s
258 "held in bondage;" or,
*They may! / care not, save that she holds
the name that should be yours. This was all that
was wanting to fill up the measure of my hate for
her. Let fools go babble of her claims upon me
if they will ! From the hour we parted at the
altar I never saw her face until this night ; from
this night I divorce her before God. She is no
wife of mine ; her rights are mere legal quibbles,
love never forged, fidelity never sanctified, God
never blessed them ! I claim my heritage of
justice as a man my right to live, to love, to
taste the common happiness of my fellows. The
very birds around us find their mates ! Why are
we, alone of all the earth, to be wrenched apart,
and condemned to live and die asunder? Why
are we, alone, to be forced to surrender all that
makes life of joy and value ? Alma ! surely we
love well enough to defy the world together ? '
He paused abruptly, his frame shook with the
great passions in him, which were stronger than
his strength ; the words broke from him unawares
the words that would decide their fate ! her face
was flushed to a deep scarlet glow as he looked
down on it by the silvery light of the moon, her
hands closed tighter upon his, her lips quivered,
and he felt her slight, delicate form tremble in his
arms. She clung closer to him still, her breathing
GRANVILLE DE VIGNE. 259
hurried and low, like broken, rapid sigbs ; her eyes,
humid and dark as night, fell beneath his; that
one word, ' together,' stirred the depths of her
heart, as the storm-winds the depths of the sea.
Two years before, she would have scarce compre-
hended the extent of the sacrifice asked of her,
more than Mignon or Haidee ; scarce known more
fully than they, all it called on her to surren-
der. Now she knew its meaning ; knew that this
man, who was thus pitilessly cursed for no crime,
nor error, but simply for a mistake the fatal
and irrevocable mistake of early marriage would
be condemned by the world if he took his just
heritage of freedom. She knew that, for a divine
compassion, an imperishable love, she, who clung
to him, would be laid by social law beneath a
social ban, would be forbid by it from every sphere
and every honour that were her due by birth, by
intellect, by right. She knew her sacrifice. She
knew that she should decide the destiny of her
whole future ; and the proud nature, though strong
enough to defy both, was one to abhor any free
glance, to resent every scornful word : the haughty
and delicate spirit was one to feel keenly, yielding
one inch of her just place. But she loved, and
the world was far from her; she loved, and her
life lay in his. Fidelity is the marriage-bond of
Grod: the laws of man cannot command it, the
laws of man are void without it. Would she not
render it unto him, even to her grave ? Would
she not be his wife in the sight of Heaven ? Suf-
fering for him would be proudly borne, sacrifice to
him would be gladly given. She would have fol-
lowed him to the darkness of the tomb ; she would
have passed with him through the furnace of the
fires ; content, always content, so that her hands
were closed on his, so that she had strength to
look up to his &ce.
This is sin, say you ? Verily, if it be so, it is
the sublimest sin that ever outshone virtue !
He bent his head lower and lower, and his words
were hoarse and few.
* Can you love me enough for this?'
He felt a shudder as of icy cold run through her
frame as she lay folded in his embrace. By the
white light of the moon, he saw the scarlet blush
upon her face waver, and burn, and deepen;
quick, tremulous sighs heaved her heart ; her arms
wreathed and twined closer and closer about him ;
her eyes gleamed with an undying and eternal love,
as they met his own in the pale, soft radiance of
the stars.
* You are my world, my all ! Your will is
mine !'
The words were spoken that would give her to
him.
The whisper died away, scarce stirring the air ;
the fevered flush upon her face glowed warm, then
changed to a marble whiteness. She clung to him
closer still; and passionate tears,. born from the
strong emotions of the hour, welled slowly up, and
fell from those eyes which she had first lifted to
his when she was a little child, flinging flowers at
him in the old library at Weivehurst. She loved
him, she pitied him ; she would forsake all to give
him back that happiness of which another's fraud
had robbed him. She thought of nothing then
save him ; and if he had stretched out his hand
and bade her follow him into the dark, cold shadows
of the grave, she would have gone with him fondly,
fearlessly, unselfishly, still thinking only of him ;
what comfort she could give, what trial share, what
pain avert. She loved him. She was tried in the
fire, and proven. The world, I say, was very far
from Alma then as far as the fret, and noise, and
bustle of the city streets, are from the fair and
solemn stars of heaven.
And in the stillness of the night their lips met.
She would give up the world for him.
*.
He parted from the w6man he loved, upon the
terrace that night, under the starry summer
skies ; he could not return to the crowded salon
within; he could not join again the glitter and
gaiety of French society ; and he took his way
across the park towards the little village of
Chailly, to rest there for the few short hours
which remained before sunrise.
It was now midnight; all was still as the
silence of the grave about him, while he went
across the great stretches of sward under the trees,
with only the hoot of a night bird in his ear;
or the stealing of a fox among the brush woods
breaking the deep tranquillity. The awe of that
great guilt which so near had been his, was
still upon him; the weight of his erring past
hung on him ; his heart was sad and heavy,
and the fruit of his own bygone madness was
bitter in his teeth. His pride was bent; his iron
will broken ; his deep passions chastened ; a chasm
of crime had yawned at his feet, to leave him a
humbler and a gentler man. And the bitterness
of a yearning and futile remorse, a remorse which
made him loathe himself, a remorse which gnawed
and seared his heart like scorching fire, was on
him, as he remembered across the far stretch of
misspent years, his mother's prophecy :
'You will love again; to find the crowning
sorrow of your life, or drag another in, to share
your curse ! '
Like the blow of a knife into open, bleeding
wounds, struck a few coarse laughing words whis-
pered in his ear, as he paced through the dense
woodland in the shadows and the stillness of the
midnight hour :
*Do you love your wife any dearer to-night,
sir ; or are you thinking what a cursed mistake
you made a dozen years ago ? '
He swung round, starting like a thoro'bred
under the galling and the rending of the spur ;
in the moonlight solitude the words sounded like
the hissing gibe of demons, mocking in his ear,
and jabbering at his bondage. Close behind him,
in the dim light, he saw his ex-valet, Raymond,
with a laugh upon his face, as the moon shone
full on it.
Stung past endurance by the impudent leer of
this cur who dogged his steps even in solitude ;
maddened at the words which made a brutal jest
of the deadly curse upon his life, De Vigne, by
sheer instinct, and without thought or pause,
seized him by his throat, and flung him away
from him, as men fling a dog out of their path.
* Hound ! learn how I bear with insolence ! '
The man fell with a heavy crash among the
brushwood ; but the ferns and gorse of the thick
undergrowth tempered his fall, and with a mut-
tered oath he gathered himself slowlj up, and
sprang with a light bound after De Vigue :
*Sir! sir, listen! Don't be so hasty. Major.
I mean you no insult, before God I don't. I can
do for you what nobody else can ! '
De Vigne motioned him aside :
' Out of my way, or I shall do you a mischief! '
But the man was undaunted, and ran beside
him, to keep pace with his swift strides, panting,
breathless, eager :
*Do hear me, sir, do. By Heaven, sir, I can
free you from your wife ! '
At the words, spoken in such an hour, De
Vigne staggered as if a shot had struck him,
and reeled backward against the tall moss-grown
fence which ran along the borders of the park ;
in the gray moonlight the man Raymotid saw
the dark blood that stained his face, then faded,
leaving it an ashy pallor, and the gesture with
which his hand went to his heart, like one under
the heavy suffocation of asphyxia :
'Free! Free! OGod!'
His voice rattled incoherently in his throat, he
paused for breath, he looked up to the starlit
skies with a wild appealing stare, the earth reeled
round him, his eyes swam, he wondered whether
this were delirium or dream.
The man was awed and frightened at his look ;
and came up to him and shook him by the arm :
* Sir, sir, for Heaven's sake don't look like that !
It's truth I'm telling you. She's not your wife,
sir!
De Vigne's eyes turned on him with a mute,
imploring, unconscious prayer; his lips quivered,
his veins swelled, his voice shook, hoarse, stifled,
inarticulate : the agony of joy unnerves us more
than the agony of death ! '
* Not my wife ! Not I Good God ! you are not
brute enough to lie to hoax. . . . '
The words died in his throat, and the man
looked up at him steadily and fearlessly in the
clear light slanting in through the boughs.
* Tore George, sir, no. I wouldn't be such a
blackguard ! ' he said, heartily. ' It ain't no lie !
I can do for you what no divorce laws can,
thanks to the timorous fools that frame them. If
those gentlemen were all fettered themselves,
they'd make the gate go a little easier to open!
I can set you free, but how I won't tell you till
we come a little to terras'
Free ! Not to Bonnevard, pining in the dark-
ness and wretchedness of Chillon was freedom.
what it was to him. Free! The very thought
maddened him with eager, impatient, breathless
thirst for certainty. He seized the man by the
shoulders in his iron grip :
* Great Heaven! Tell me all ^all; do you
hear ? all ! '
* Gently, gently, Major/ said Raymond, wincing
under his grasp, * or I shall have no breath to tell
you anything. I can set you free, sir; and I don't
wonder you wish to be rid of her ! But before I
tell you how, you must tell me if you will give me
the proper price for information/
De Vigne shook him like a little dog.
* Cur ! Do you think I will make a compact
with such as you ? Out with all you know, and I
will reward you afterwards : out with it, or it will
be the worse for you ! '
*But, Major/ persisted the man, halting for
breath, * if I tell you all first, what gage have I
that you will not act on my information, and never
give me a farthing?'
' My word ! ' gasped De Vigne, hurling the
answer down his throat. * It is bond enough !
Speak; do you hear? Is she not my wife V
* No, Sir ; because ! she was mine first ! '
' Yours? Then'
' Your marriage is null and void, sir.'
As the words of his release were uttered in the
hushed stillness of the midnight woodlands, De
Vigne staggered against the fence, dizzy and blind as
in delirium. Free ! Free ! his name once more his
own, purified from the taint of her claim upon it ;
free ! his home once more his own, purged from
the dark and haunting memories of an irremedi-
able past ; free ! from the bitterness of his own
folly, so long repented of in agony and solitude ;
free ! to recompense with honour in the sight of
men, the love which would have given up all
for his sake, and followed him, content, to any
fate.
Breathless with his new-born hope, he leaned
there in the solitude of the night, forgetful of
Raymond's presence, seeing, hearing, heeding no-
thing, save that one word -free ! the blood flow-
ing with fever-heat through all his veins, every
nerve throbbing with the electric shock, his whole
frame trembling with voiceless thanksgiving.
He covered his eyes with his hand, like a man
dazzled with the sudden radiance of a noontide
sun.
* Will you swear that ? '
' Aye, sir, on the Bible, and before all the
courts and judges in the land, if you like.'
De Vigne gave one quick, deep sigh, flinging
off from him for ever the iron burden of man j
years:
^ Tell me all, quick, from beginning to end, and
give me all your proofs.'
He spoke with the eager, wayward, restless im-
patience of his boyhood ; the old light gleamed in
his eyes, the old music rang in his voice. The
chains were struck off; he was free !
* Very well, sir. I must make a long story of
it. Nineteen years ago, sir, Lucy Davis was a
very dashing-looking girl as you thought. Major,
at that time ^and I was twenty-two, and much
more easily taken in, than I was when I had seen
a little more of human nature. My name was
Trefiisis, sir, not Raymond at all. I took an alias
when I entered your service. My father was a
Newmarket leg, and he made a good pot of money
one way and another; and he had more gentle-
men in his power, and more of your peerage
swells, sir, under his dirty old thumb, knowing all
that he knew, and having done for 'em all that he
had done, than you'd believe if I was to swear it
to you. He wanted to make a gentleman of me.
" Charlie, my boy," he used to say, " with brains
and tin you may be as good as them swells any
day ; they hain't no sort of business to look down
on you. I've done dirty work enough to serve
them, I reckon." He wanted to make a gentle-
man of me, and he gave me a capital education,
and more money and fine clothes than any boy in
the school. He went to glory when I was about
eighteen, sir, leaving me all his tin to do just
whatever I liked with, and not a soul to say me
nay. I soon spent it, sir ; every stiver was gone
in no time. I bought horses, and jewellery, and
wine. I betted, I played ; in short, I made ducks
and drakes with it in a very few years with a lot
of idle young dogs like myself. Jimmy Jarvis
you will have heard of him, sir ? was going to
have a mill with the Brownlow Bby, at Greystone
Green, and I went down with two or three others
to see the fight. While I was in Frestonhills, sir,
I saw Lucy Davis in the milliner's shop in High
Street, and I fell straight in love with her for her
great black eyes and her bright carnation colour.
I went to church to see her the next day, and
bowed to her ; and so we got acquainted, sir, and
I fell more and more in love, and I wouldn't have
stirred from Frestonhills just then to have made
my fortune. That was a year after you had left,
sir. But I knew nothing about yoiir affair, sir,
then trust her !
* Well ! I was in love with Lucy, and she thought
me a man of fashion and of fortune, and married
me ; the register is in the church of Frestonhills ;
you can see it, sir, any day you like. In six months
I thought myself a great fool for having fettered
myself. Lucy's temper was horrid ; always had
been and when she found out that all my riches
would soon make themselves wings and flee away,
it was not softened much. She helped me to spend
my money, sir, for twelve months, leading me
about as wretched a life as any woman could lead
a man. We lived chiefly abroad, sir, at the Ger-
man Baths ; then the tin was all gone, and Lucy
grew a very virago ; as she had taken me only
out of ambition, it was a hard cut to her, I dare
say, to find me a mere nobody. We parted by
mutual consent; I left her at Wiesbaden, and
went my own ways ; she had spent every shilling
I had. Some time after I was fool enough to
forge a cheque ; it was found out, and they shipped
me ofi^ to the colonies, and Lucy was free of me.
Some years after, I learnt what she did with her-
self; at Wiesbaden old Lady Fantyre was staying,
rouging, gambling, and living by her wits, as you
know she always has done, sir, ever since anybody
can remember her. She saw Lucy at the Kursaal,
and Lucy had improved wonderfully in twelve
months ; she could get up a smattering of things
very fast ; she could dress well on little or no-
thing ; she had quick wits, and a haughty, defiant,
knock-me-down manner that concealed ail her
ignorance, and carried everything before her. Old
Fantyre took a fancy to her ; she wanted to have
a companion, somebody to make her up well for
the evenings, and read her novels to her, and
humour her caprices, and amuse the young fel-
lows while she fleeced them at ecarte or vingt-et-
un. Lucy seemed just fit for her place. She
didn't know she was married ; Lucy made herself
out an unprotected girl, whom you, sir, had de-
serted, and old Fantyre took her into her service.
Now, Lucy was uncommonly clever, hard-hearted,
and sharp-sighted ; she humoured the old woman,
she made herself necessary to her, she chimed in
with all her sayings, she listened to all her stories,
she got into her good graces, and made her do
pretty well what she chose. You remember, sir,
perhaps, that when you and Lucy parted at Fres-
tonhills she told you she'd be revenged on you.
She isn't a wpman to forget. he told Lady Fan-
tyre about you, and she induced her to think that
if she could catch you and marry you, what a
capital thing it would be for both of them, and
how royally they could help you to spend your
fortune.
* I must tell you, Lucy had heard that the
government ship that had taken me out to Botany
Bay had foundered, and she didn't know that I
and a few others had managed to drift in the jolly-
boat till an American cruiser picked us up. She
thought I was drowned, or else she would have been
too wide awake to go in for bigamy. Clever women
don't do that foolery out of novels ! Old Fantyre
listened, agreed, and took her to England, and
introduced her as her niece. There, as you know,
sir, you met her, and fell into her toils again. I
don't wonder you did not know her. Years and
society and dress, and the education she'd given,
herself, made such a diflFerence. Four years after
you had married her, I came to Europe, and went
as valet to the Due de Vermuth. I often wondered
what had become of my wife; till one Sunday,
when I went to the Pr^ Catalan, I saw a lady in
a carriage, talking and laughing with a number of
young fellows round her. She was a remarkably
fine-looking woman, and something in her face
struck me as like my wife. At that minute she
saw me. She turned as white as her rouge would
let her, gave a sort of scream, and stared at me.
Perhaps she thought she saw my ghost. At any
rate, she pulled the check-string, and drove away
from me as fast as she could. Of course I didn't
let her give me the slip like that. I followed her
to a dashing hotel in the Champs Elysees, and just
stepped up to her, and said, " Well, old girl, how
are you?" Horrible she looked as if she longed
to kill me ^and, indeed, I dare say she did. She
signed me not to blow on her, and said, '^ Not now ;
come at eight this evening." I went ; and she told
me all her story, and offered me, if I would keep
quiet and tell nobody she was my wife, to go shares
with me in the money you allowed her provided
she lived out of England. I thought about it a
little ; I saw I should get nothing by proclaiming
our marriage ; I closed with her, and lived at my
ease. But she grew screwy ; she didn't pay up to
time. She used to anticipate the money, and then
defraud me of my share. At last it came into my
head, when I heard you had come back from India,
to see what sort of gentleman you were, and
whether you wanted your freedom bad enough to
pay me a high price for it. You required a valet.
I entei-ed your service ; and when I was sent down
to Richmond with the parrot and the books and
the flowers, and so on, for that little lady no.
Major, don't stop me, I mean no offence to her
I thought the time would soon come, when
you'd give any price for your freedom, for I heard
plenty of talk, sir, at that time, about you and
her ; servants trouble themselves more about their
master s business than they do aboat their own.
The day you dismissed me from your service, I
was going to tell you, if you had only listened.
But you were so impatient and so haughty, that I
thought I'd let you go on in ignorance, and free
yourself, if ever you wanted, as best you might.
I entered Lord Vane Castleton's service then.
You know he was gone quite mad about Miss
Tressillian. It seems, sir, he had been very good
friends with Lucy in Paris, and he wrote and told
her you were in love again, and with somebody
who, he thought, didn't know you were married,
and that if she wished to put a stop to it, she
should come over and tell the young lady. Over
she did come, saw him first, and then went to St.
Crucis ; and after she'd been / didn't know she
was in London he sent me to bring Miss Tres-
sillian to Windsor, while you were sitting in court-
martial on Mr. Halkett. Mine was a dirty job, sir,
I know, and a rascally one. Don't look at me so
fiercely, Major, for God's sake ! I am sorry I did
it now, for she'd sweet blue eyes, that lady, and I
was never quite easy till I knew she'd got out of
Lord Vane's clutches. Then you went to the
Crimea, and Lucy paid worse and worse. At last
I thought I would try you again, if only to spite
Lucy, who was living in splendour, and grudging
me every shilling. I wrote to you at the Criiriea
I tried to speak to you in the Rue Lafitte
finally, I tracked yoii here. Now I've told you all.
Major. I know you well enough to know your
word is as sure a bond as another man's cheque ;
and if you'll go with me, sir, to Trinity Church,
Frestonhills, I'll show you the register of my tiaar-
riage, which makes yours null and void.'
And thus in the hush around, only broken by the
sough of the wind, or the sweep of a night bird,
he heard the history which set him free. His arm
was wound about the stem of a tree nigh, for he
was dizzv like a man after a mortal blow; he
shaded his eyes with his hand; his lips moved
silently in voiceless prayer to God, and whispers
to the woman whom he loved ; his breathing came
short and thick ; his whole frame trembled like a
woman's. The ecstasy of that hour ! No criminal,
condemned to death and suddenly reprieved, felt
the warm rush of fresh air welcoming him as he
issued a free man from the darkness of his
prison-cell of doom; with more bewildering joy,
than he now felt; his liberty from the festering
and bitter chains which so long had dragged upon
him his liberty from the weary weight, the re-
pented folly, the bitter curse of Early Marriage.
He was silent, breathing fast and loud, struggling
to realize his freedom from his bondage.
Then he threw back his head with a proud, joyous
gesture; he looked up to the brilliant summer
stars shining above his head ; he drew in with a
deep long breath the free sweet air that streamed
around him. He turned his eyes upon the man,
flashing with their old, shadowless light :
* Right! I would pay any price for freedom.
Let us go to-night to England. I will not lose an
hour a moment ! '
CHAPTER XL
FREED FROM BONDAGE.
Frestonhills, unchanged, lay nestling among the
green pastures and fresh woods of Berkshire, and
all the old familiar places struck strangely on him
as he passed them on the morrow. There flowed
the silver Kennet, bright and rapid as of old,
rushing on its swift sunny way past the wild luxu-
riant hedges ; and through the quiet country towns
and villages. There, on its banks, were schoolboys
lying among the purple clover and under the fra-
grant hawthorns, as poor little Curly had done
long years ago. There were the dark palings^ and
the forest-trees of Weivehurst, long changed to
other hands before its rightful owner was laid to
rest, his grave marked only by a simple wooden
cross, under the southern skies of Lorave. There,
against the blue heavens, rose above its woods the
grey pinnacles of the old house where Alma Tres-
sillian had made the roof ring with her childish
laughter, playing under the golden laburnums that
flung the same shadows on the lawn, now, as then.
There was the old Chancery, its gable roofs and
its low ivy-grown walls ; as he passed a lady
glanced up, gardening among her geraniums and
heliotropes it was Miss Arabella the ringlets
very gray now! A little farther on, in the old
playing-field, there were the wickets, and the bats,
and the jumping poles, and four or five boys, in
their shirt sleeves and their straw hats, enjoying
their half-holiday, as we had done before them.
So life goes on ; when one is bowled out, another
is ready to step into his shoes, and, no matter how
many the ball of death may knock over, the
cricket of Ufe is kept up the same, and players are
never wanting !
The register lay on the table, under the arched
Norman window of the vestry of the church where,
twenty years before, we had fidgeted through the
dreary periods of the rector's cruel sermon fiiU an
hour long, and cast glances over our hymn-books
at the pastrycook's pretty daughters.
The great old register, ponderous and dusty, lay
on the table, the sunbeams from the stained glass
above, falling on its leather binding and its thickly-
written leaves, full of so many records of man's joy
and sorrow, crowded with so many names which
now were empty sounds; penned by so many
hands which were now crumbled to dust under the
churchyard sods near by. The great register lay
on its table in the dark, quiet, solitary vestry
the last he had seen was the one in which he had
signed his doom, twelve years before, in the church
at Vigne. The old sexton unlocked the book,
and with shaking, infirm hand turned over the
leaves one after the other. De Vigne leant against
the table, watching for the entry, his breath short
and laboured, his pulse beating, a mist before his
eyes, a great agony of dread the dread of decep-
tion tightening his heart, and oppressing him to
suffocation. If the man^s story were not true !
if this, too, were a hoax and a fraud ! Breathless,
trembling in every limb with fear and hope, he
bent over the book, pushing the old man's hand
away; his agony of impatience could not brook
the slow and awkward fumbling of leaf after leaf,
by the palsied feebleness of age. He thrust
the pages back, one after another, till he reached
the year 18 . Entry after entry met his eye;
from lords of the manor, their ancestral names
dashed across the page ; from poor peasants, who
could only make their mark ; from feminine sig-
natures, trembling and illegible^ marriage after
marriage met his eager glance, but not yet the
one which was to loosen his fetters and set him
free. He turned the leaves over, one after the
other, his heart throbbing thick with wild hope
and irrepressible fear. At last, the setting sod,
shining in through the rich hues, the rabies and
the ambers, the heads of saints^ and blazoned
shields, on the stained window above his head,
flung radiant colours on one dim yellow sheet,
illumining with its aureole of light the two signa-
tures he sought the words that gave him ransom
the names that struck off his chains
Charles Trefusis.
Lucy Davis.
And as his eyes fell upon the page which freed
him from the wife who had so long cursed his life,
and stained his honour, and made his name abhor-
rent in his sight because she bore it, De Vigne
staggered forward, and, flinging the casement open,
leant out into the calm, fresh evening, stunned by
his sudden deliverance as by some mortal blow,
and gasping for breath, while the warm westerly
wind swept over him, like a man who has escaped
from the lurid heat of fire into the pure, sweet air
of a breaking dawn.
He was Free ! The life which he had so madly
sought to spend like water, and fling off from him
as an evil too bitter to be borne, among the jun-
gles of Scinde and on the steppes of the Crimea,
was once more rich, and precious, and beloved ;
he learned at last what his wayward nature had
been long ere it would believe, that the fate we
deem a curse, is oftentimes an angel in disguise, if
we wait patiently for the unfolding of its wings
from the darkness which enshrouds them.
CHAPTER XII.
NEMESIS.
Two days after there was a fete given at Enghien,
at the princely maison de plaisance of an Elnglish
Earl a stoat, bloated old man, lavish as the wind,
and rich as a Russian, who, consequently, had all
the most seductive Parisiennes to make love to
him ; Dalilah caring very little who her Samson
be, provided she can cut off his locks to her own
advantage. The fete was of unusual magnificence,
and the Empress of it was * the Trefiisis,' as we
call her, *that poor fellow De Vigne's vidfe ^a
very fast lot, too,* as men in general called her
*ma Heine,' as the Earl of Morehampton called
her, in that pleasant femiliarity which she ever
readily admitted* to those good friends of hers,
who emptied half the Palais Royal upon her in
bijouterie, jewellery, and other innocent gifts of
amity; a fEtmiliarity that always stopped just
short of the divorce court, over the water. The
Trefiisis reigned at Enghien, and remarkably well
she looked in her sovereignty, her jewelled ivory
parasol handle for her sceptre, and her handsome
eyes for her droit de conquete. Only three nights
before she had lain on the dank grass in the Royal
Forest, where the mad agony of a man, whom she
had goaded and taunted, had flung her off, bidding
her thank God, not him, he had not murdered her
in that ghastly temptation. Only three nights
before ! but to-day she sat under the limes at
Enghien, the very memory of that hour cast
behind her for evermore, save when she re-
membered how she had jeered, how she had
triumphed remembered in gloating glee, for her
victim could not escape her snare ! The Treiusis
had rarely looked better never felt more secure
in her completed vengeance upon De Vigne, her
omnipotent sway over Morehampton, and all her
lordly claque, than now. She was beautifully
rouged, the carnation tint rich and soft, and
defying all detection; her black Chantilly lace
sweeping around her superb form ; a parure of
amethysts glittering in her bosom, as she drove
down to the villa in the Earl's carriage, and
reigned under the limes in dominance and triumph,
as she had reigned since the day she had first
looked at her own face in the mirror, and sworn
by that face, to rise, and to revenge.
In brilliant style Morehampton had prepared to
receive her, for he admired the quasi-milliner of
Frestonhills more than anjrthing else, for the time
being, to the extreme rage of La Baronne de
Breloques, Mademoiselle Celeste Papillon of the
Fran^ais, and many other fair Parisiennes. There
was the villa itself, luxurious as Eugene Sue's ; and
there were grounds with alcoves, and statues, and
rosieries ; there was a * pavilion des arts,' where
some of the best cantatrici in Paris sang like
nightingales ; there was a dejeuner, with the best
cookery in France who can say more? there
were wines that would have made Rahab or
Father Mathew swear, with Trimalchio, *Vita
vinum est ; ' there were plenty of men, lions^
litterateurs, and milors Anglais, who were not
bored here, because they could say and do just
what they pleased, with no restraint upon them
whatever. And there were plenty of women (very
handsome ones, too, for the Earl would never have
wasted his invitations on plain faces), who smoked,
and laughed at grivoises tales, and drank the
Johannisberg and the Steinberg very freely for
such dainty lips, and imitated us with their
iranchant manners, their slang, and their lionneism,
in everything except their toilettes, which were
exclusively feminine in their brilliance and volu-
minous extent.
The dejeuner was over, during which the noble
Earl, as his friends in the Upper House termed him,
when they were most politely damning him, was
exceedingly devoted to the Trefusis, and thought
he had never seen anything finer than those
admirably-tinted eyes and beautifully-coloured
cheeks. He did not care for your nymphs of
eighteen, they were generally too shy and too
thin for his taste ; he liked Men conservees^ full-
blown, magnificent roses, like the ex-milliner.
The dejeuner was over, at which the Trefusis had
reigned with supreme contentment, laughed very
loudly, and drank champagne enough for a young
cornet just joined ; at which old Fantyre had
enjoyed the pat6s de foie gras and other de-
licacies, like an old gourmette as she was, told
dirty stories in broad Irish-French, and chuckled
in herself to see gouty old Morehampton playing
the gallant ; and at which Mademoiselle Papillon
could have fainted with spite, but not willing to
give the detested Englishwoman so enormous a
triumph, resisted her feelings with noble heroism.
The ddjeuner was over, and the guests had
broken up into groups, dispersing themselves over
the villa and its grounds. The Trefusis and More-
hampton took themselves to the Pavilion des
Arts ; but, after hearing one song from the
* Traviata,' Ma Reine was bored she cared
nothing for music and she threw herself down
on a seat under some linden-trees to take ice,
listen to his private band, which was playing close
by, and flatter him about his new barouche, which
she knew would be offered her as soon as she had
praised it. It was by such gifts as these she
managed to eke out her income, and live au
premier in the Champs Elys^es. Morehampton
flung himself on the grass at her feet, forgetful of
gout and lumbago; other men gathered round her;
she was * a deuced fine woman,' they thought, but,
* by George ! they didn't envy De Vigne.' The
band played valses and Beranger airs; the Earl
was diverted between admiration of the black
eyes above, and rueful recollections of the damp
turf beneath, him ; Mademoiselle Papillon made
desperate love to Leslie Egerton, of the Queen's
Bays, but ne,ver missed a word or a glance that
went on under the lime-toees for all that, with
that peculiar double set of optics and oral nerves
with which women seem gifted. Very brilliant,
and pleasant, and lively, and Watteau-like it all
was ; and, standing under an alcove at some little
distance, mingling unnoticed with the crowd of
domestics, stood Raymond, alias Charles Trefusis,
come to claim his wife, as he had been bound to
do on receipt of De Vigne's reward none the
less weighty a one, you may be sure, because the
man had been given only a promise, and not a
bond. De Vigne's honour in those matters was in
exact inverse ratio to the world's.
* By Jove ! sir, ' the fellow whispered to me I
had come with him to see he kept good faith, and
did not give us the slip * just look at her, what a
dash she cuts, and what a fool she's making of
that old lord! That's Lord Morehampton, ain't
it, sir ? I think I remember him in Pall Mall. I
suppose Lucy's bewitched him. Isn't she a won*
derful woman, sir ! Who'd think,. to see her now,
that she was ever the daughter of a beggar-wo-
man, and a little milliner girl at Frestonhills,
making bonnets and dresses for parsons' wives ! '
I looked at her as he spoke, and, though it
seemed wonderful to him, it did not seem won-
derful to me. Lucy Davis's rise was such a rise
as Lucy Davis was certain to make, favoured by
opportunity as she had been neither more nor
less of a rise than a hard-headed, unscrupulous,
excessively handsome woman, determined to push
her way, and able to take the best possible ad-
vantage of every turn of the wheel, was pretty
sure to effect. She could not make herself a
gentlewoman she could not make herself a woman
of talent or of ton. She was merely what
she had been for the last dozen years, with the aid
of money, dress, and assurance a dashing, hand-
some, skilful intrigante, whose magnificence of
form made men forget her style, and whose full-
blown beauty made them content with the paucity
of ideas, and the vulgar harshness of toue, in the
few words which ever passed her lips, i^hich were
too wise to essay often, that sure touchstone of
mind and education conversation.
Raymond stood looking at her, a cunning, mali-
cious gleam of satisfaction in his little light eyes.
His wife had made a better thing of life than he ;
he detested her accordingly; he had many old
grudges to pay off against her for bitter, snarling
words, and money flung to him, because she feared
him, with a sneer and an invective ; he hated her
for having lived in clover, while he had not even
had a taste of luxury, save the luxuries of flun-
keyism and valetdom, since they parted, and he
enjoyed pulling her up in the midst of her glories
with such malignant pleasure as was natural to his
disposition. She had married him at two-and-
twenty ; she had made him repent of it before the
honeymoon was out; she had played her cards
since to her own glorification and his mortifica-
tion ; there was plenty in all that to give him no
little enjoyment in throwing her back, with a
jerk, in the midst of her race. He stood looking
at her with a peculiar smile on his lips. I dare say
he was thinking what a fool he had been to fall in
love with the Uack-eyed milliner of Frestonhills,
and what a far greater fool still was his lordship
of Morehampton to waste so mnch time and so
much money, such wines, such jewellery, and such
adoration, on this full-blown rose, whom no one
ever tried to gather, but they impaled themselves
upon her dexterously moss-hidden thorns.
At last the Trefusis, tired of ices, cancans, and
Morehampton's florid compliments, rose to go
into the house, and look at some Rose Du Berri
vases that had belonged to Madame de Parabere ;
Morehampton sprung to his feet with boyish light-
ness and gallant disregard of the gout, and then
her husband stepped forward; and I doubt if
Nemesis, though she often took a more imposing,
ever assumed a deadlier guise than that of the
ci-devant valet !
The Trefiisis gave an irrepressible start as she
saw him ; the colour left her lips ; her cheeks it
could not leave. She began laughing and talking
to Morehampton hurriedly, nervously, incohe-
rently, but there was a wild, lurid gleam in her
eyes, restless and savage. Her husband touched
his hat submissively, but with a queer smile still
on his face :
*I beg your pardon, my lord, but may I be
allowed to relieve you of the escort of my wife ? '
Morehampton twisted himself round, stuck his
gold glass in his eye, and stared with all his
might; the men crowded closer, stroking their
moustaches in curiosity and surprise ; the English
women, who could understand the speech, sus-
pended the spoonfuls of ice that were en route to
their lips, and broke off their conversation for a
minute ; the Trefusis flushed scarlet to her very
brow, her eyes scintillated and glared like a
tigress just stung by a shot that inflames all her
savage nature into fury ever ready with a lie,
she clung to Morehampton's arm :
* My dear lord ! I know this poor creature very
well ; he is a lunatic a confirmed lunatic a harm-
less one quite ; it is one of his hallucinations that
every woman he sees and admires is his wife, who
ran away from him, and turned his brain with
her infidelity. He is harmless at least I have
always heard so but pray tell your servants to
take him away. It is very horrible ! '
It was an admirably-told falsehood ! told,
too, with the most natural ease, the most na-
tural compassion imaginable and it passed muster
with Morehampton, who signed to two of his
lacqueys.
* Seize that fellow and turn him out of the
grounds. How did he get in, Soames ? Go for
some gendarmes if he resist you/ said the Earl,
aloud : then bent his head, and added (sotto voce),
* How grieved I am, dearest, that you should be
so absurdly annoyed. What a shockingly stupid
fellow ! Brain turned, you say and for a
wife 1 '
But Raymond signed off the two footmen, who
were circling gingerly round him like two dogs
round a hedgehog, not admiring their task,^
having a genuine horror of lunacy, and being
enervated, probably, by the epicureanisms of
plush-existence.
' That is a pretty story, my lord, only, unfortu-
nately, it isn't true. Ben trovato but all a hum-
bug ! I am as sane as anybody here ; much too
sane to have my brain turned because my wife ran
away from me. Most men would thank their
stars for such a kind deliverance ! I am come to
claim mine, though, f(^ a little business there is
to be done, and she is on your arm, my lord. She
married me nineteen years ago, and made me
repent of it before a month was out.'
* Dear, dear ! how absurd, and yet how shocking !
Pray send him away,' whispered the Trefusis,
cliDging to the Earls arm, looking, it must be
confessed, more like a demon than a divinitj, for
her lips were white and twitching savagely, and
the spots of rouge glared scarlet.
' Do you hear me, fellows ? Turn that impu-
dent rascal out ! ' swore Morehampton.
That fellow's wife ! Why, she's De Vigne's
wife. Everybody knows that ! * muttered Leslie
Egerton, sticking his glass in his eye. ^ Saw him
married myself, poor wretch ! '
^ Mais quest-ce que c'esl doncV asked Made-
moiselle Papillon, edging herself in with a dim
delicious idea that it was something detrimental to
her rival.
*Kick him out!' *Tum him out!' * An
escaped lunatic ! ' ^ Impertinent rascal ! ' ' Ma
foi ! qu!a4'U done I ' * Mais comme c'est extraor-
dinaire V ^ Dieul quest-ce que cela veut dire!*
resounded on all sides from Morehampton's guests
and the Trefusis's adorers.
* Major de Vigne's wife?' repeated Raymond.
* No, she's not, gentlemen : he knows it now, too,
and thanks Heaven for it. She married me, as I
say, nineteen years ago ; more fool I to let her !
Twelve years ago she married Major de Vigne.
So you see, my lord, she is my wife, not his, and
I believe what she has done is given a nasty, coarse,
impolite term by law. What I tell you is quite
true. Here's Captain Chevasney, my lord, who
will tell you the same, and tell it better than I.
Come, old girl, you've had a long holiday; you
must come with me and work for a little while
now.'
He spoke with a diabolical grin, and, thus
appealed to, I went forward and gave More-
hampton as succinctly as I could the outlines of
the story. The Trefusis's fece grew gray as ashes,
save where the rouge remained in two bright
crimson spots fixed and unchanged, her eyes glit-
tered in tiger-like fury, and her parasol fell to
the ground, its ivory handle snapped in two as
her hands clenched upon it, only with a violent
effort restraining herself from flying at mine or
her husband's throat. For the first time in her
life, the clever Greek had her own marked
card turned against her ; her schemes of malice, of
vengeance^ of ambition, were all swept away like
cobwebs, never to be gathered up again. De
Vigne was free, and she was caught in her own
toils !
She swung round, sweeping her black Chantilly
lace round her, and scattering her sandal-wood
perfume on the air, laughing :
And do you believe this cock-and-bull story,
Lord Moreliampton?' Her voice came out in a
low, fierce .hiss, like a serpent's, while her large,
sensual, ruby lips curled and quivered with impo-
tent rage. * Do you believe this valet's tale,
bribed by a man who would move heaven and
earth to prove his lawful marriage false, and the
corroborating story told so glibly by a gentleman
who, though he calls himself a man of honour,
would swear black were white to pleasure his
friend ? '
*Come, come, there, my lady!' laughed Ray-
mond. Wait a bit. Don't call us bad names.
You can't ride the high horse any more like that,
and if you don't take care what you say we'll have
you up for libel ; we will, I assure you. Come,
you used to be wide-awake once, and if you don't
keep a civil tongue in your head it may be the
worse for you.'
* Lord Morehampton, will you endure this ? ^ I
must appeal,' began the Trefusis, turning again
to that Noble Earl, who, with his double eye-
glass in his eye, and his under-lip dropped in
extreme astonishment, was too much amazed,
and too much annoyed, at such an unseemly and
untimely interruption to his morning ,fete to
take any part in the proceedings whatever. He
was a little shy of her, indeed, and kept edging
back slowly and surely. She was trembling now
from head to foot with rage at her defeat, terror
for the consequences of the esclandre, mad wrath
and hatred* that her prey had slipped from her
leash.
Her husband interrupted her with a coarse
laugh, before she could finish her sentence.
* You appeal to your cavalier servente^ madame ?
Oh ! if my Lord Morehampton likes to protect
you, / have no objection ; it will take a good deal
of trouble off my hands, and I only wish him joy
of his bargain. And next time, Lucy, make sure
your chickens are hatched before you begin to
count them ! '
At so summary a proposition jfrom a husbands
the Earl involuntarily drew back, blank dismay
visible on his purple and supine features. The
offer alarmed him ! The Trefusis was a deuced
handsome woman, but she was a deuced expensive
one too, thought he, and he hardly desired to be
saddled with her pour toujours. Added to his
other expenses, for a permanence, she would go
very near to ruin him, not to mention tears, re-
proaches, and scenes from many other quarters ;
and * she is a very vixen of a temper ! ' reflected
his lordship, wisely^ as he edged a little further
back, and left her standing alone who is not
alone in defeat ?
The Trefiisis looked round on the crowds as
they hung back from her, with a scathing, de-
fiant glance, her fierce black eyes seeming to
smite and wither all they lit on; great savage
lines gathered round her mouth and down her
brow, that was dark with mortification and im-
potent chained-up fury. She glanced around, her
lips twitching like a snared animal's, her face
ashy gray, save where the crimson rouge burned
in two oval patches, flaring there like streaks
of flame, in hideous contrast to the deathly
pallor of the rest. She was defeated, outdone,
humiliated; the frauds and schemes of twenty
years fruitless and unavailing in the end ; her
victim free, her enemies triumphant ! She glared
upon us all, till the boldest women shrank away
terrified, and the men shuddered as they thought
what a fiend incarnate this their * belle fern me*
was ! Then she gathered her costly lace around
her. To do her justice, she was game to the
last!
* Order my carriage ! '
She was beaten, but she would not show it;
and to her carriage she swept, her rich Chan-
tilly gathered round her, her silks rustling, her
perfume scenting the air, her trained dress brush-
ing the lime-blossoms off the lawn, her step stately
and measured, her head defiantly erect ; leaving on
the grass behind her the fragile ivory handle, symbol
of her foiled vengeance, her impotent wrath
her dethroned sovereignty. There was a moment's
silence as she swept across the lawn, her tall Chas-
seur, in his dashing green and gold uniform, walking
before her, her two footmen with their long white
wands behind, and at her side, dogging her foot-
steps, with his sneer of retribution and his smile
of vengeance, the valet who had claimed her as
his wife. There was a moment's silence ; then the
tongues were loosened, and her friends, and her
rivals, and her adorers spake.
* Gad ! ' quoth my Lord of Morehampton, * she
looked quite ugly, pon my soul she did, with those
great rouge spots on her cheeks. Curse it ! how
deuced shocking!*
" Man Dim, milor^ sneered Mademoiselle Papil-
lon, * I congratulate you ! Perhaps you will take
the role of the third husband V
* Better go and be Queen of the Greeks deuced
sharp woman!' said Lee Philipps.
* Always said that creature was a bad lot.
Plucky enough, though ! ' remarked Leslie Egerton,
with his cigarette in his teeth. * What a joUj
thing for De Vigne! Prime, ain't it?'
' The biter bit ! ' chuckled old Fantvre. * Well,
she was very useful to me, but she was always a
bad lot, as you say, Leslie ; horrid temper ! She
should have managed her game better. I've no
patience with people who don't make sure of their
cards ! Dear, dear! who'll read me to sleep of a
night?'
And the others all crowded round me, dirty old
Fan tyre peering closest of all, with her little bright,
cunning, inquisitive eyes :
* Come, tell us, Chevasney, is it true ? '
* I say, old fellow, what's the row ? '
So the world talks of us, either in our sorrows
or our sins ! They were full of curiosity, annoy-
ance, amusement as it happened to affect them
individually ; none of them stopped to regret the
great lie, to remember the great wrong, to grieve
for the debased human nature, and the bitter satire
on the Holy Bond of Marriage, that stood out in
such black letters in the new story which I added
to their repertoire of scandals. Cancans amuse
us ; we never stop to recollect the guilt, the sorrow,
or the falsehood that must give them their foun-
dation-stone, their colouring, and their flavour !
Mademoiselle Papillon was perchance nearest of
all to the moral of the scene, when she shrugged
her little plump shoulders :
* Who would ever dare marry ! It is a lottery
in which all draw blanks. In love, one is an
angel ; in marriage, a fiend ! Paf ! who would risk
one's neck in its halter!'
CHAPTER XIII.
VALETE.
The spring sunshine which lit up the sparkling
wines, and glittering toilettes, and gorgeous liveries
of the fete at Enghien, shining on the TreAisis's
parure of amethysts, and on the rich scarlet rouge
of her cheeks that flag of defiance which flaunted
there in defeat as in victory ! shone at the same
hour through the dark luxuriant foliage of the
chesnuts at the Diaman du Foret in Fontainebleau,
on the lilac-boughs 'heavy with massed blossom, on
the hal&opened rosebuds clinging round the wood-
work of the antique walls, and on the swallow's
nest nestled under the broad shadow of the eaves.
A warm amber light lay on the earth, and in it
the gnats were whirling at their play, and the early
butterflies fluttering their saffron wings; whilst
the distant chimes of a church clock afar off, were
ringing the quarters slowly, on the stillness which
nothing broke. And out on the dark oaken sill
of one of the windows, drooping her head upon her
hands, while the light flickered down upon her hair
through the network of the leaves, leant a woman,
alone ; heedless, in the depth of her own thought, of
the play of the south wind, or the songs of the birds,
as both made music about her. She was alone,
nothing near her save the bee droning in the cup
of the early rose, or the yellow butterfly that set-
tled on her hair unnoticed. Her head was bent,
resting on her hand ; her face was very pale, save
when now and then a deep warm flush passed over
it, suddenly to fade again as quickly; her eyes
were dark and dreamy, with a yearning tenderness ;
and on her lips was a smile, mournful yet proud,
as, half unconsciously, they uttered the words of
her thoughts aloud : * I will not leave thee, no, nor
yet forsake thee. Where thou goest, I will go ;
thy people shall be my people, and thy Grod my
God!'
They were the words of an oath an oath to
whose keeping she would dedicate her life, even
though, to so keep it^ that life should be in the
world's eyes condemned and sacrificed. She leant
there, against the dark woodwork, alone, the
silence unbroken that reigned about her, save
when the wind swept through the fragrant branches
above, or the rush of a bird's delicate wings cleft
the air. Suddenly in the stillness, while yet it
was so distant that no other ear could have heard
it she caught a footfall, while its sound was so
faint that it did not hresk the silence, as the
spaniel catches the step of his master while yet
afar off. She lifted her head with the wild, eager
grace that was as natural to her as its freedom to
a flower, her eyes growing dark and humid in
their expectancy, her colour changing swiftly with
the force of a joy so keen that it trenched on
anguish, with the hot vivid flush of a love strong
as the life in which it was embedded and en-
twined. Then, with a low, glad cry, Alma sprang,
swift as an antelope, to meet him, and to cling to
him, as she would have clung to him through evil
and adversity, through the scorch of shame and
the throes of death, through the taunts of the
world, and the ghastly terrors of the grave.
For many moments De Vigne could find no
words even to tell her that which she never dreamed
of, that which panted on his lips ; he held her in
his arms, crushing her in one long, close embrace,
meeting as those meet who would not spend one
hour of their lives asunder. For many moments
he bent over her, speechless, breathless, straining
her madly to him, spending on her lips the passion
that found no fitting utterance in words ; then,
stifled and hoarse in its very agony of joy, his voice
broke out :
' You will be my wife this day this hour !
Alma ! thank God with me I am free!'
The day stole onward ; faintly from the far dis-
tance swung the silvery sound of evening bells;
the low south winds stirred amongst the lilac-
blossoms, shaking their rich fragrance out upon
the air ; the bees hummed themselves to slumber
in the hearts of folded roses ; the mellow amber
light grew deeper and clearer, while the day was
passing onward, ere long to sink into night. And
as the rays of the western sun through the parted
network of the leaves fell about his feet, shining
in the eyes of the woman he loved, and bathing
her hair in light where it swept across his breast,
De Vigne bowed his head in thanksgiving ; not
alone for the joy in which his life was steeped,
not alone for his freedom from his deadly curse,
but for that hour, past yet still so near ; so near
that still he sickened at it, as men at the memory
of some horrible death they have but by a hair's
breadth escaped. That hour when, for the first
time in all his wayward, headlong, vehement man-
hood, he had resisted ; and flung off from him the
crime which, yielded to but for one fleeting instant,
would, though never tracked or known by
man, have made him taste fire in every kiss, quail
before the light of every day, and start in the
sweat of agony, and the terror of remembered guilt
from his sweetest rest, his most delicious sleep.
That hour in the forest solitude, when, goaded,
taunted, reviled, maddened, he had been face to
fiice with what he loathed, parted by her from
what he loved, yet had had strength to fling her
from him, unharmed and unchastised ^That hour
which had been the crowning temptation of
his life when he had had force to cast it behind
him with a firm hand, and to flee from it
fearing himself^ as the wisest and holiest amongst
us, need do in those dark hours which come to all,
when there is but a plank between us and the
fathomless abyss of some great guilt.
And while the starlit night of the early summer
stole onwards towards the earth, De Vigne
bowed his head over the woman who had cleaved
to him through all, and looking backward to his
Past, thanked God.
CHAPTER XIV.
ADIEU AU LECTEUR!
The history is told ! It is one simple enough and
common enough in this world, and merely traces
out the evil which accrued to two men in
similar circumstances, although of different tem-
peraments, from that error of judgment an Early
Marriage. Both my friends took advantage of
their liberty, you see, to tie themselves again !
I donH say in that respect, * Go thou and do
likewise,' ami lecteur, if you be similarly situated,
but rather, if you are free keep so ! A wise
man, they say, knows when he is well off!
In * The Times' the other day, I read among the
deaths, *At Paris, in her ninety-seventh year,
Sarah, Viscountess Fantyre.' Gone at last, poor
old woman, under the sod, where shrewdness and
trickery, rouge and trump cards, are of no avail
to her, though she held by them to the last. She
died as she had lived, I hear, sitting at her whist-
table, be-wigged and be-rouged, gathering her
dirty, costly lace about her, quoting George
Selwyn, dealing herself two honours and six
trumps, picking up the guineas with a cunning
twinkle of her monkeyish eyes, when Death tap-
ped her on the brain, and old Fantyre was carried
off the scene in an apoplectic fit ; while her part-
ner, the Comte de Beaujeu, murmured over his
tabatiere, * Peste ! Death is horribly ill-bred ; he
should have let us played the conqueror! '
What memoirs the old woman might have left
us ; dirty ones, sans doute, but what memoirs of
intrigues, plots, scandals, schemes ; what rich
glimpses behind the cards, what amusing peeps
beneath the purple! A great many people,
though, are glad, I dare say, that the Fantyre
experiences are not down in black and white, and
no publisher, perhaps, would have been courageous
enough to risk their issua They would have
blackened plenty of fair reputations had their gun-
powder burst ; they would have ofiended a world
which loves to prate of its morals, cackle of its
purity, and double-lock its chamber-doors ; they
would have given us keys to many skeleton cup-
boards, which we should have opened, to turn away
more heart-sick than before !
Her protegee, the Trefusis, has in no wise gone
off the scene, nor did she consent to drop down
into a valet's wife. Her exposure at Moreharap-
ton's villa had been the most bitter thing life
could have brought her, for she had read enough
of Rochefoucauld to think with him, * le ridicule
deshonore plus que le d^shonneur.' She sought
the friendly shadow of Notre Dame de Lorette.
Fearing her husband no longer, she bribed him no
more ; and if you like to sec her any day, walk
dovm the Rue Breda, or look out in the Pre
Catalan for a carriage with lapis-lazuli liveries,
dashing as the Montespan's, * and you will have
pointed to you in a moment the full-blown mag-
nificence (now certainly coarse, and I dare say
only got up at infinite trouble from Blanc de Perle
and BuUi's best rouge) of the quasi-milliner of
Frestonhills. She has at present, en proie^ a
Russian prince, and thrives upon roubles. Her
imperial sables are the envy of the Quartier; and
as women who range under the Piratical Flag
don't trouble their heads with a Future, the Tre-
fusis does not stop to think that she may end in
le Maison Dieu, with a bowl of soupe maigre,
when her beauty shall utterly have lost all that
superb and sensual bloom which lured De Vigne
in his hot youth to such deadly cost.
A young man married is a man that's marred.'
How can the man fail to be so, who chooses
his yoke-fellow for life, in all the blind haste,
the crude taste of his earlier years, when taste
in all things alters so utterly from youth to
manhood? In what the youth thinks so wise,
lair, excellent, half a score or a score years
later on he sees but little beauty. I have heard
young fellows in their college terms, utterly
recant in June, all they swore by religiously
in January, equally earnest and sincere, moreover,
in their recantation and their adoration ! Taste,
bias, opinion, judgment, all alter as judgment
widens, taste ripens, and sight grows keener from
longer mixing amidst the world, and longer study-
ing its varied views. God help, then, the man
who has taken to his heart, and into his life, a
wife who, fair in his eyes in all the glamour
of love, all the * purpureal light of youth,' is as
insufficient to him in his maturer years as are the
weaker thoughts, the cruder studies, the unformed
judgment, the boyish revelries of his youth. The
thoughts might be well in their way, the studies
beneficial, the judgment generous and just, the
revels harmless, but he has outgrown them gone
beyond them left them far behind him; and he
can no more return to them, and find them suf-
ficient for him, than he can return to the Gradus
ad Parnassum of his first school-days. So the
wife, too, may be good in her way : he may strive
to be faithful to her and to cleave to her as he has
sworn to do ; he may seek with all his might to
come to her side, to bring back the old feeling, to
join the broken chain, to find her all he needs and
all he used to think her ; he may strive with all
his might to do this, but it is Sysiphus-labour; the
scales have fallen from his eyes, he loves her no
longer ! It is not his fault ; she belongs to the
things of his youth which pleased a crude taste,
an immature judgment ; he sees her now as she is,
and she is far below him, far behind him ; if he
progress he goes on alone, if he fall back to
her level, his mind deteriorates with every day that
dawns! Would he bring to the Commons no
arguments riper than the crude debates that were
his glory at the Union ; would he condemn him-
self in science never to discard the unsound
theories that were the delight of his early
speculations; would he deny himself the right
to fling aside the moonshine philosophies, the
cobweb metaphysics that he wove in his youth,
and forbid himself title to advance beyond them ?
Surely not ! Yet he would chain himself through
his lifelong to a yoke-fellow as unfit and insuflRcient
to his older years, as ever the theories and thoughts
of his youth can be ; as fatal to his peace while he
is bound to her, as they would be fetal to the
mind they dwarfed, to the brain they crammed
into a prison-cell!
In youth Rosaline seems very fair,
* None else being by
Herself poised with herself in either eye.'
A young man meets a young girl in society, or
at the sea-side, or on the deck of a Rhine steamer;
she has nice fresh colouring, bright blue eyes, or
black ones, as the case may be, very nice ankles,
and a charming voice. She is a pretty girl to
everybody ; to him, she is beautiful divine !
He thinks, over his pipe, that she is just his ideal
of (Enone, if he be of a poetic turn ; or meditates
that she's * a clipper of a girl, and, by Jupiter !
what a pretty foot ! * if of a material disposition.
He fells in love with her, as the phrase goes ; he
flirts with her at water-parties, and pays her a few
morning calls ; he sees her trifling with a bit of
fancy-work, and hears her pretty voice say a few
things about the weather. A few oecillades, a
few waltzes, a few tete-k-tete, and he proposes.
It is a pretty dream for a few months ; an easy
yoke, perhaps, for a few years ; then gradually the
illusions drop one by one, as the leaves drop from
a shaken rose, loth, yet forced to fall. He finds
her mind narrowed, bigoted, ill-stored, with no
single thought in it akin to his own. What
could he learn of it in those few morning calls,
those few ball-room talks, when the glamour
was on him, and he would have cared nothing
though she could not have spelled his name?
Or ^he finds her a bad temper (when does
temper ever show in society, and how could
he 1 her ,itho societ/s l.romg e,e upon
her ?), snarling at her servants, her dogs, the soup,
the east winds ; meeting him with petulant acer-
bity, revenging on him her milliner's neglect, her
maid's stupidity, her migraine, or her torn Mechlin !
Or he finds her a heartless coquette, cheapening
his honour, holding his name as carelessly as a
child holds a mirror, forgetting, like the child,
that a breath on it is a stain ; turning a deaf ear
to his remonstrance ; flinging at him, with a sneer,
some died-out folly * before / knew you, sir ! '
that she has ferreted out ; goading him to words
that he knows, for his own dignity, were best
unsaid, then turning to hysteria and se posant
en martyre 1 Or and this, I take it, is the worst
case for both the wife is ii good wife, as many
(ladies say most) wives are ; he knows it, he feels
it, he honours her for it, but she is a bitter dis-
appointment to him ! He comes home worn-out
with the day's labour, but successful from it ; he
sits down to a tete-a-tete dinner ; he tells her of
the hard-won election, the hot-worded debate in
the House, the issue of a great law case that he
has brought off victorious, the compliment to his
corps from the commander-in-chief, of the one
thing that is the essence of his life and the end
of his ambition; she listens with a vague, amiable,
absent smile, but her heart is not with him, nor her
ear. *Yes, dear ^indeed how very nice! But
cook has ruined that splendid haunch. Do look !
it is really burnt to a cinder ! ' She never gives
him any more than that ! She cannot help it ;
her mission is emphatically to * suckle fools and
chronicle small-beer.' The perpetual drop, drop,
of her small worries, her puerile pleasures, is like
the ceaseless dropping of water on his brain ; she
is less capable of understanding him in his defeats,
his victories, his struggles, than the senseless
writing-paper, which, though it cannot respond
to them, at least lets him score his thoughts on
its blank pages, and will bear them unobliterated !
Yet this disunion in union is common enough in
this world, tr^s chers ; when a man marries early
it is too generally certain.
A man early married, moreover, is prematurely
aged. While he is yet young his wife is old;
while he is in the fullest vigour of his manhood,
she is gray, and faded, and ageing ; youth has long
gone ixom her, while in him it is still fresh ; and
while away from her he is young, by her side he
feels old. Married in youth he takes upon him-
self burdens that should never weigh save upon
middle age ; in middle age he plays the part that
should be reserved for age alone.
And, to take it in a more practical senses
scarcely the less inevitably from every point is
^ a young man married a man that's marred.' If
to men of fortune, with every opiate of pleasure
and excitement to drown the gall and fret of un-
congenial or unhappy union, early marriage blots
and mars life as it does, how much more bitter
still to those who are poor and struggling with the
burden of work, hardly done and scantily paid,
upon their shoulders, is its fatal error I A young
fellow starts in life with no capital, but a good
education and a profession, which, like all profes*
sions, cannot be lucrative to him till time has
mellowed his reputation, and experience made
him, more or less, a name in it. It brings him
quite enough for his garqon wants ; he lives com-
fortably enough in his chambers or his lodgings,
with no weightier daily outlay than his Cavendish
and his chop ; study comes easy to him, with a
brain that has no care gnawing on it ; society is
cheap, for his chums come contentedly for a pipe,
and some punch, or some beer, and think none the
worse of him because he does not give them turtle
and Vin Mosseux. He can live for little if he
like ; if he want change and travel, he can take
his knapsack and a walking tour; nobody is de-
pendent on him ; if he be straitened by poverty,
the strain is on him alone ; he is not tortured by
the cry of those who look to him for daily bread,
the world is before him, to choose at least where
he will work in it ; in a word, he is free 1 But, if
he marries, his up-hill career is fettered by a clog
which draws him backward every step he sets ; his
profession is inadequate to meet the expenses that
crowd in on him ; if he keep manfully and honestly
out of debt, economy and privation eat his very
life away, as, say what romancists may, they ever
must ; if he live beyond his income, as too many
professional men are almost driven to do in our
day, there is a pressure on him like the weights
they laid upon offenders in the old Newgate press-
yards. He toils, he struggles, he works, as brain-
workers must, feverishly and at express speed to
keep in the van at all ; he is old, while by right of
years he should yet be young, in the constant
harassing rack and strain to ' keep up appearances,'
and seem well off while every shilling is of con-
sequence ; he writes for his bread with the bray of
brawling children above his head ; he goes to his
office turning over and over in wretched arith-
metic the sums he owes to the baker and the
butcher ; he smiles courteously upon his patients
or his clients with the iron in his soul and county-
court summonses hanging over his head. He goes
back from his rounds or his office, or comes out of
his study after a long day, jaded, fagged, worn
out ; comes, not to quiet, to peace, to solitude,
with a weed and a book, to anything that would
soothe the fagged nerves and ease the strain for
an hour at least : but only for some miserable
petty worry, some fresh small care ; to hear his
wife going into mortal agonies because her
youngest son has the measles, or bear the leer of
the servants when they say *the tax-gatherer's
called again, and, please, must he go away ? '
Wise are the old words of Walter Raleigh :
* Thou bindest thyself for life, for that which will
perchance never last nor please thee one year :
for the desire dieth when it is obtained, and the
affection perisheth when it is satisfied ! *
Corregio literally dying in the heat and burden
of the day, of the weary weight, the torturing
rack of home-cares; his family and his poverty
dragging him downward and clogging his genius
as the drenching rains upon its wings clog the
flight of a bird ; is but sample of the death-in-life,
the age-in-youth, the self-begotten curse, the self-
lelected doom, that almost inevitably dog the steps
of a man who has married early, be his station
what it may, be his choice what it will.
^ This spring of Love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which shows now all the beauty of the sun.
And by-and-by a cloud takes all away ! '
Such is love, rarely anything better, scarcely
ever anything more durable. Such are all early
loves, invariably, inevitably. God help, then,
though we may count them by the myriad, those
who in, and for, that one brief *April day/ which,
warm and shadowless at morning, sees the frost
down long before night, pay, rashly as Esau paid in
the moment of eager delight, when no price was
counted, and no value asked ; pay, with headstrong
thoughtlessness, in madman's haste, the one price-
less birthright upon earth Freedom !