LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1046, 1 November 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE FAIR FACE IN THE YELLOW CHARIOT. A Park Romance of the Last London Season. [“London Society.”] A bachelor still young and well-to-do is for obvious reasons an object of the deepest interest to his friends of the opposite sex. Lord Featherstone was as popular with ladies as if he had been a spirit-rapper, or a Hindoo potentate with diamonds to scatter broadcast and a suppressed begum in the background at home. They were always telling him that it was a sin and a shame the blinds in the town house should be constantly down ; the hall filled only with shooting-parties ; the jewels buried in the strong room at the Bank. And his heart ! What a priceless fjewel was that for some sweet maiden to win and wear ! Seared affections ! Ridiculous piudery ! He had been a desperate flirt, no doubt ; what matter ? All men were flirts ; many with less excuse than Lord Featherstone, who, as an excellent parti, like the Sovereign, could do no wrong. He had been wild, 'perhaps ; but a man might be Avild and yet not wicked ; while for those who are their own fathers, enjoying their own titles and their own estates, the world makes ample concessions, When the time came for settling down, there would not he a happier or more fortunate girl in the three kingdoms than she whom the Marquis of Featherstone elected to make his wife. Only he would not settle down. He meant to have his fling first ; and probably it was his habit of throwing himself about that made him so difficult to catch. He was as wary as an old cockatoo; prompt to cut himself free from the most serious entanglements. After making hot love for a week during wet weather in a country house, papa and mamma heard that he had broken Jiia leg in two places, or that typhoid fever had laid him low. His last affair was with a gay widow, who thought him safely hooked; but at the last moment be sent a postcard, conveying brief regrets, and sailed in his yacht for the South Seas. He was absent after this for two or three years ; but presently, wearying of the constant; wandering to and fro, he returned, and took up the threads of his old life The season was at its height, if that lugubrious a ason of 1876 can be said to have ever risen above a dead level of lugubrious dulness. Hin friends said he was a fool to come back. Never had there been a season so 1 slow nothing going on-- not a creature in town. ‘Looks like it!’ thought Lord Featherstone, as he tried to make his way through the senicU ranks upon the stairs in a certain mansion in Oirosveuor square. The Duchess of Welshpool was ‘ at homo,’ and many of her guests wished they could say the same. In the entrance hall men and women stood a dozen deep, pressing slowly towards the grand staircase, where two streams clashed

together, flushed dancers coming down for cooling drinks, and the new arrivals eager to bow their bow, and in their turn come away. Now and again there was a positive dead lock. It was idle to say ‘ H'xcuse me;’ or ‘You are on a lady’s dress,’ or ' Would you allow me to pass?’ Until the wave surged onward every one was suspended, and held fast in situ, as if suddenly frozen cold. Not that the metaphor held good ; for the atmosphere reminded Featherstone of the tropics he had just left. A crush of this kind is especially favour able for the minute observation of one’s fellow-creatures. Half a minute was enough to solve the mystery of Mrs Chromer’s yellow hair, and of the complexion people said was like milk. Little Penteagle.’s wig, again, could not be disguised, nor the high colour which old General Bawcock resolutely denied was rouge. But these sights, although curious, were not enthralling to a man who had just seen Fusiama and the Taj Mahal; and Lord Featherstone was on the point of turning tail and leaving the house when a bright face in the crowd arrested his attention, and he resolved to stay—at least until he could ascertain to whom it belonged. It was quite a new face to him ; the face of a girl still fresh, and seemingly un accustomed to the town. A merry pi quante face, with small but perfect features, violet eyes, and a laughing mouth, showing often the whitest teeth. A face strikingly beautiful, but innocent and childish, just as the ways of its owner were unconventional and unconstrained. She laughed outright once ; he could hear her quite plainly, and saw her shake out her curls in the plentitude of her merriment. A most bewitching captivating young person, and Featherstone was determined to find out who she was. Surely some one could introduce him. He looked round in vain. No one near at hand whom he knew well enough to ask to do the needful. Quite half an-hour elapsed before he caught Tommy Cutler, who knew all the world, and then, going to where he had last seen the girl, they found she had disappeared. ‘ Most provoking !’ he said. * Can’t you tell me who she is ?’ ‘ Who’s who in 1876 ! Which who do you mean? You must be more precise.’ ‘ She had gray ’ ‘ Hair ? That’s coming in. 1 shall wear mine white soon ; it gives one an air of wisdom.’ ‘You want it. But there—there she goes ! Come on, man !’ And he moved away rapidly when another voice, speaking in soft, almost caressing, tones, stopped him. ‘ Lord Featherstone —back in civilisation ! When did you arrive?’ ‘ A few days ago,’ he replied nonchalantly, as he shook hands. ‘ What a delightful dance !’ and he proceeded to hurry on in pursuit. But Lady Carstairs was an old flame; one who had helped to bring him out as a lad, who had encouraged an i petted him, and, to tell the truth, flirted with him enough to make Sir John jealous had he been a sillier man. She did not mean to be passed by now with a few words. ‘ Pray give me your arm, T ord Featherstone. I should like to hear some of your adventures. I am not interfering, I hope V ‘ I was going to dance ’ ‘You dance ! What new miracle is this ? Who is the charmer who has led you astray V ‘ He’s smitten,’ said Tommy Cutler. ‘All of a heap. Some new face.’ ‘ A new face is more attractive than an old friend, ’ said Lady Carstairs rather bitterly. ‘ Old friends sometimes have new faces. Mrs Chromer, for instance, who changes hers like the chameleon does his skin. But perhaps you can enlighten me —’ And he described the face which had so strongly attracted him. ‘ It won’t do, Lord Featherstone. Very charming, I daresay, but conveys nothing to my mind. Golden hair, blue eyes, drab dress, and yellow trimmings—there are a dozen such here to-night. It was a pretty face, eh? 'Yes, that will be the end of it. You particular men, after years of the most fastidious fault-finding, surrender to some doll’s face, merely pretty without expression. But after all, it’s high time you took a wife; it is, indeed.’ ‘I nearly did abroad.’ ‘ A savage ? a squaw ?’ ‘ Yes ; one of the carraway-seed Indians from the western slopes of the Allephanies. She was very fashionable; wore false hair —the scalps of her enemies inherited from her father.’ ‘ An heirloom, I suppose, said Lady Carstairs, who thought herself a wit. ‘Avery econ-mical young person, who could dine off Brizil nuts, and who had no dressmaker’s bill—to speak of.’ ‘ What a pity you did not bring her to Court ! She would have made a sensation ! But we could do better than this for you ; only you behave so badly to them all. There was Millicent ’ ‘ No man likes to be told of his sins Some day 1 will come and confess them, and you shall give me absolution. Now, 1 think I shall go to Pratt’s.’ They had walked through the rooms quite without success. The young lady of whom they were in search had doubtless left the ball. What matter? Next morning he would have forgotten this fair face altogether. It was curious how quickly Lord Featherstone had resumed the old yoke. Not many weeks ago he was living a half-savage life in far-off wilds, hobnobbing with lied Indians, paddling his own canoe among the islands of the < outh Pacific, doing everywhere as the natives did; and now once more he became a fashionable Londoner, and did as everybody did in town. After breakfast a canter in tbe Park, meeting their friends, male and female, of whom the former offered him the odds, the latter carried him home to lunch ; later, a look in at Hurlingliara or at Lillie bridge, back to some favorite boudoir for a quiet prmcenal tea, a sumptuous dinner, a glimpse at the Opera or ‘ the House,’ balls, drums, at home—anything that might be going, and the best of what there was f W hat a slave I am !’ he was saying, as he jogged slowly towards the Pew some days after the Duchess of Welshpool’s ball. ■ I say each season will be my last, but I cannot stay away from three in succession. Hevc am I at it again; sucked into tbe Maelstrom already, and swimming round like an empty hen-coop or a light-beaded cork. But what else can I do ? Politics the game is not worth the caudle ; •cience— I’m not clever enough ; art—l haven’t the special gifts ; travel—l’ve tried it; litera-

ture every one soldiers, shoeblacks, dowagers, and dames de comptoir —writes books; philanthropy no faith, phil-wnnan-thropy is more in my line. And yet I’ve never been really bitten yet. They’re too eager, all of them ; and the mothers force the running so. If I could only meet some simple little woman who’d take me for myself, and not because I was a good parti , I’d marry her out of hand, I would, and settle down. Marriage is a real solid occupation. and I’d like to try it, if I could only meet with the right sort of girl. But where is she to be found He had been riding on at a sharp canter, which increased, as he left the more frequented parts of the Bow, to a handgallop. So by the Serpentine, past the Magazine, round by the Upper Bow, towards the Marble Arch, and he was galloping still as he turned southward meaning only to draw rein when ho neared the Achilles statue and joined once more in the crowd. But an unexpected vision suddenly arrested his course. ‘ By Jove ! That face again !’ Yes, the girl he had seen but a few nights since ; the fair fresh young face which had taken his fancy by storm. She was alone, seated in a quaint old-fashioned yellow chariot, a ramshackle mediaeval conveyance, probably as old as the hills. It hung on high springs of an antiquated pattern, its lining was of faded purple, its hammerclotn had a fringe of tarnished gilding, its coachman was an aged retainer, with a mottled face, and livery that showed white at the seams ; while the horses he drove were long past mark of teeth; a fossil carriage which had lain for centuries at rest, and which when dug up should have gone to a museum, and not, as now, into active life. (To he. continued.')