_ CHAPTER XVI
THAT ready-minded lady extricated herself from the pots, and wriggled
out of the moral situation. "I was a listener, dear! an unwilling
listener; but now I do not regret it. How nobly you behaved!" and with
this she came at her with open arms, crying, "My own dear niece."
Her own dear niece recoiled with a shiver, and put up both her hands
as a shield.
"Oh, don't touch me, please. I never heard of a lady listening"
She then turned her back on her aunt in a somewhat uncourtier-like
manner, and darted out of the place, every fiber of her frame strung
up tight with excitement. She felt she was not the calm, dispassionate
being of yesterday, and hurried to her own room and locked herself in.
Mrs. Bazalgette remained behind in a state of bitter mortification,
and breathing fury on her small scale. But what could she do? David
would be out of her reach in a few minutes, and Lucy was scarce
vulnerable.
In the absence of any definite spite, she thought she could not go
wrong in thwarting whatever Lucy wished, and her wish had been that
David should go. Besides, if she kept him in the house, who knows, she
might pique him with Lucy, and even yet turn him her way; so she lay
in wait for him in the hall. He soon appeared with his bag in his
hand. She inquired, with great simplicity, where he was going. He told
her he was going away. She remonstrated, first tenderly, then almost
angrily. "We all counted on you to play the violin. We can't dance to
the piano alone."
"I am very sorry, but I have got my orders." Then this subtle lady
said, carelessly, "Lucy will be _au desespoir._ She will get no
dancing. She said to me just now, 'Aunt, do try and persuade Mr. Dodd
to stay over the ball. We shall miss him so.'"
"When did she say that?"
"Just this minute. Standing at the door there."
"Very well; then I'll stay over the ball." And without a word more he
carried his bag and violin-case up to his room again. Oh, how La
Bazalgette hated him! She now resigned all hope of fighting with him,
and contented herself with the pleasure of watching him and Lucy
together. One would be wretched, and the other must be uncomfortable.
Lucy did not come down to dinner; she was lying down with headache.
She even sent a message to Mrs. Bazalgette to know whether she could
be dispensed with at the ball. Answer, "Impossible!" At half-past
eight she got up, put on her costume, took it off again, and dressed
in white watered silk. Her assumption of a character was confined to
wearing a little crown rising to a peak in front. Many of the guests
had arrived when she glided into the room looking every inch a queen.
David was dazzled at her, and awestruck at her beauty and mien, and at
his own presumption.
Her eye fell on him. She gave a little start, but passed on without a
word. The carpets had been taken up, and the dancing began.
Mrs. Bazalgette arranged that Lucy and David should play pianoforte
and violin until some lady could be found to take her part.
I incline to think Mrs. Bazalgette, spiteful as mortified vanity is
apt to be, did not know the depth of anguish her subtle vengeance
inflicted on David Dodd.
He was pale and stern with the bitter struggle for composure. He
ground his teeth, fixed his eyes on the music-book, and plowed the
merry tunes as the fainting ox plows the furrow. He dared not look at
Lucy, nor did he speak to her more than was necessary for what they
were doing, nor she to him. She was vexed with him for subjecting
himself and her to unnecessary pain, and in the eye of society--her
divinity.
Another unhappy one was Mr. Fountain. He sat disconsolate on a seat
all alone. Mrs. Bazalgette fluttered about like a butterfly, and
sparkled like a Chinese firework.
Two young ladies, sisters, went to the piano to give Miss Fountain an
opportunity of dancing. She danced quadrilles with four or five
gentlemen, including her special admirers. She declined to waltz: "I
have a little headache; nothing to speak of."
She then sat down to the piano again. "I can play alone, Mr. Dodd; you
have not danced at all."
"I am not in the humor."
"Very well."
This time they played some of the tunes they had rehearsed together
that happy evening, and David's lip quivered.
Lucy eyed him unobserved.
"Was this wise--to subject yourself to this?"
"I must obey orders, whatever it costs me--'ri tum ti tum ti tum ti
tum.'"
"Who ordered you to neglect my advice?--'ri tum tum tum.'"
_"You_ did--'ri tum ti tum tiddy iddy.'"
A look of silent disdain: "Ri tum, ti tum, tiddy iddy." (Ah! perdona
for relating things as they happen, and not as your grand writers
pretend they happen.)
Between the quadrilles she asked an explanation.
"Your aunt met me with my bag in my hand, and told me you wanted me to
play to the company."
When he said this, David heard a sound like the click of a trigger. He
looked up; it was Lucy clinching her teeth convulsively. But time was
up: the woman of the world must go on like the prizefighter. The
couples were waiting.
"Ri tum ti tum ti tum ti tum tiddy iddy." For all that, she did not
finish the tune. In the middle of it she said to David, "'Ri tum ti
tum--' can you get through this without me?--'ri tum.'"
"If I can get through life without you, I can surely get through this
twaddle: 'ri tum ti tum ti tum ti tum tiddy iddy.'" Lucy started from
her seat, leaving David plowing solo. She started from her seat and
stood a moment, looking like an angel stung by vipers. Her eye went
all round the room in one moment in search of some one to blight. It
surprised Mr. Hardie and Mrs. Bazalgette sitting together and casting
ironical glances pianoward: "So she has been betraying to Mr. Hardie
the secret she gained by listening," thought Lucy. The pair were
probably enjoying David's mortification, his misery.
She walked very slowly down the room to this couple. She looked them
long and full in the face with that confronting yet overlooking glance
which women of the world can command on great occasions. It fell, and
pressed on them both like lead, they could not have told you why. They
looked at one another ruefully when she had passed them, and then
their eyes followed her. They saw her walk straight up to her uncle,
and sit down by him, and take his hand. They exchanged another uneasy
look.
"Uncle," said Lucy, speaking very quickly, "you are unhappy. I am the
cause. I am come to say that I promise you not to marry anyone my aunt
shall propose to me."
"My dear girl, then you won't marry that shopkeeper there?"
"What need of names, still less of epithets? I will marry no friend of
hers."
"Ah! now you are my brother's daughter again."
"No, I love you no better than I did this morning; but the--"
Celestial happiness diffused itself over old Fountain's face, and Lucy
glided back to the piano just as the quadrille ended.
"Give me your arm, Mr. Dodd," said she, authoritatively. She took his
arm, and made the tour of the room leaning on him, and chatting gayly.
She introduced him to the best people, and contrived to appear to the
whole room joyous and flattered, leaning on David's arm.
The young fellows envied him so.
Every now and then David felt her noble white arm twitch convulsively,
and her fingers pinch the cloth of his sleeve where it was loose.
She guided him to the supper-room. It was empty. "Oblige me with a
glass of water."
He gave it her. She drank it.
"Mr. Dodd, the advice I gave you with my own lips I never retracted.
My aunt imposed upon you. It was done to mortify you. It has failed,
as you may have observed. My head aches so, it is intolerable. When
they ask you where I am, say I am unwell, and have retired to my room.
I shall not be at breakfast; directly after breakfast go to your
sister, and tell her your friend Lucy declined you, though she knows
your value, and would not let you be mortified by nullities and
heartless fools. Good-by, Mr. Dodd; try and believe that none of us
you leave in this house are worth remembering, far less regretting."
She vanished haughtily; David crept back to the ball-room. It seemed
dark by comparison now she who lent it luster was gone. He stayed a
few minutes, then heavy-hearted to bed.
The next morning he shook hands with Mr. Bazalgette, the only one who
was up, kissed the terrible infant, who, suddenly remembering his many
virtues, formally forgave him his one piece of injustice, and, as he
came, so he went away, his bag on his shoulder and his violin-case in
his hand.
He went to Cousin Mary and asked for Eve. Cousin Mary's face turned
red: "You will find her at No. 80 in this street. She is gone into
lodgings." The fact is, the cousins had had a tiff, and Eve had left
the house that moment.
Oh! my sweet, my beloved heroines--you young vipers, when will you
learn to be faultless, like other people? You have turned my face into
a peony, blushing for you at every fourth page.
David came into her apartment. He smiled sweetly, but sadly. "Well, it
is all over. I have offered, and been declined."
At seeing him so quiet and resigned, Eve burst out crying.
"Don't you cry, dear," said David. "It is best so. It is almost a
relief. Anything before the suspense I was enduring."
Then Eve, recovering her spirits by the help of anger, began to abuse
Lucy for a cold-hearted, deceitful girl; but David stopped her
sternly.
"Not a word against her--not a word. I should hate anyone that
miscalled her. She speaks well of you, Eve; why need you speak ill of
her? She and I parted friends, and friends let us be. There is no hate
can lie alongside love in a true heart. No, let nobody speak of her at
all to me. I shan't; my thoughts, they are my own. 'Go to your
sister,' said she, and here I am; and I beg your pardon, Eve, for
neglecting you as I have of late."
"Oh, never mind _that,_ David; _our_ affection will outlast
this folly many a long year."
"Please God! Your hand in mine, Eve, my lamb, and let us talk of
ourselves and mother: the time is short."
They sat hand in hand, and never mentioned Lucy's name again; and,
strange to say, it was David who consoled Eve; for, now the battle was
lost, her spirit seemed to have all deserted her, and she kept
bursting out crying every now and then irrelevantly.
It was three in the afternoon. David was sitting by the window, and
Eve packing his chest in the same room, not to be out of his sight a
minute, when suddenly he started up and cried, "There she is," and an
instinctive unreasonable joy illumined his face; the next moment his
countenance fell.
The carriage passed down the street.
"I remember now," muttered David, "I heard she was to go sailing, and
Mr. Talboys was to be skipper of the boat. Ah! well."
"Well, let them sail, David. It is not your business."
"That it is not, Eve--nobody's less than mine.
"Eve, there is plenty of wind blowing up from the nor'east."
"Is there? I am afraid that will bring your ship down quick."
"Yes; but it is not that. I am afraid that lubber won't think of
looking to windward."
"Nonsense about the wind; it is a beautiful day. Come, David, it is no
use lighting against nature. Put on your hat, then, and run down to
the beach, and see the last of her; only, for my sake, don't let the
others see you, to jeer you."
"No, no."
"And mind and be back to dinner at four. I have got a nice roast fowl
for you."
"Ay ay."
A little before four o'clock a sailor brought a note from David,
written hastily in pencil. It was sent up to Eve. She read it, and
clasped her hands vehemently.
"Oh, David, she was born to be your destruction." _