TALES OF THE PERIOD.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 117, 9 December 1882, Page 200

TALES OF THE PERIOD.

By Mbs Fob.beßteb,

*He wins, he wins ! No, d — n him, hs doesn't !' The speaker is a lady. ' A ladg forsooth !' cries the reader. Sir or Madam, if you will take the trouble to reach down Johnson from the shelf, you will see that, in defining the noun lady, the great lexicographer makes no mention of refined manners or gentle bearing, but simply explains it as a word meaning a woman of high rank. Therefore, as the young girl who makes this outrageously unferninine exclamation is the granddaughter on one side of an earl, and on the other of a baronet, and moves in good society, she is perfectly entitled to be called a lady. The words are half smothered, it is true, but they are. heard by a man who, in the general excitement caused by the appi'oach of the horses, has been pushed close to the speaker. He turns and looks at her with an expression of disgust which he does not for an instant attempt to conceal; and then, the race being over, and the crowd dispersed, he moves away from her. ' I thought,' he said to a friend, ' that only ladies were allowed here.' The place is Sandown. 'Quite true. Why?' 'Is that a lady ?' indicating with his eyes the girl who has so offended his ears. ' Certainly. She is a Miss Wylde. Eather rapid, but what a glorious figure, hasn't she ?' * Yes,' answers Alan Fane. He is a handsome man of some three-and-thirty, home about a month from India, where he has spent the last ten years. His return was occasioned by his quite unexpected succession to ten thousand a year. The last race is over ; there is a rush for the members' train. As Fane is hurrying along the platform, looking de&pai'ingly in at the crowded carriages, a voice cries, ' Here you are, Fane ! Get in here.' When he is in, he sees that there is not a seat for him, and that there are two ladies in the carriage. ' I will wait for the next train,' he says, preparing to withdraw. 'Nonsense! it's all right. We shall have two or three more in before we've done.' At this moment Fane becomes aware that one of the ladies is Miss Wyide. ' Here, Bournemouth,' she says to a fair, goodlooking young fellow with a blase expression, ' you may sit on my lap if you like.' Lord Bournemouth coolly and at once accepts her invitation. 'O, get out ! You're too heavy. I didn't mean it,' rejoins the fair one, laughing. And then she happens to meet the eyes of Captain Fane fixed upon her with unmistakable disgust. A slight flush comes to her cheeks, an expression of defiance to her eyes, and then the determination seems to take hold of her to give him something to be shocked for. And by the time the train reaches Yauxhall, he is as thoroughly shocked and disgusted as ever he was in his life. Miss Wylde's companion, Lady Blanc Dasshe, far excels her in the piquancy of her conversation, but then she is a married woman. 'Do you mean to say,' Captain Fane asks his friend as the carriage takes them on to Waterloo, * that those women are tolerated in society ?' ' Tolerated, my dear fellow ! They are bright ornaments of it. Of course they are in a fast set, but it is a set people are very glad to get into.' ' Gtood Grod !' exclaims Fane, with such solemn horror that his friend cannot forbear laughing. He is a little surprised too, for Fane has the reputation of being anything but a moral or sfcraitlaced man. ' Society has changed since I remember it,' adds Alan. 'You will soon get used to the change,' says his friend, 'and find it uncommonly pleasant too. This time next year I shouldn't wonder if you are married to the professional beauty of the day, and if Mrs Fane does not figure largely amongst the photographs in the shop-windows.' ' Ah,' replies Fane sardonically, 'we never know what might happen. This time last year by income wasn't ten thousand shillings, and I never expected it to be much more ; now it is as many thousand pounds.' ' Therefore they will marry you, and will take no denial, my dear old fellow !' 'Will they!' Garlands of flowers, music, waxlights, youth, and good looks. Of such is composed Lady X.Z.s ball, at which Captain Fane finds himself assisting. Lady Blanc Dasshe and Miss Wylde are there ; and Fane has been reluctantly compelled to admit to himself that the girl's face is almost beautiful, while her figure is quite perfect. Somehow he feels irritated with himself because he cannot help watching her 5 he objects to her style, he objects violently to the use she makes of her magnificent dark-blue eyes. He has lost sight of her at this moment, and is standing idly in a doorway, when a friend's voice whispers, • Would you like to be introduced to Miss Wylde ?' ' Not for worlds !' he replies emphatically ; and then, turning, has' the unexpected pleasure of seeing that young lady on his friend's arm. That both should colour violently is only a natural consequence of the situation. The lady is of course the first to recover. 'Pray don't distress me by refusing!' she utters, with stinging sarcasm, whilst those wonderful eyes of hers blaze with a dark fire. I was going to ask you to dance.' ' I shall be delighted,' he stammers, overwhelmed with confusion, giving her his arm. ' I am not going to dance this— it is a quadrille,' she says. 'Let us go where my partner won't find me !' and she leads him half down the stairs to a corner with a low couch and velvet curtains. She throws herself upon it, and deliberately draws one curtain to screen herself from the public gaze. This action brings back Fone's coldness and disgust in a moment. She contemplates him with perfect calmness. ' Why " not for worlds "?' she asks. Fane .feels not only embarrassed, but angry. The girl's behaviour is so daring and unfeminine, that she seems to him to have lost the right to the courtesy which, is the special due from his sex to hers. * Because,' he answers coldlf , ' I have not the remotest idea what to say to you,'

' Really !' with, a mocking laugh, ' How is that ?' He is silent, and she repeats the question. ' Do you insist on knowing ?' he inquires. ' Of course I do.' 'It is rather an awkward thing to say,' he observes, halting for a moment. ' I shall enjoy it all the more,' remarks the girl defiantly. - He looks her in the face with perfect coolness, and says deliberately, 'I know how to talk to a lady, and I know how to talk to women of a class that it is not usual to speak of before ladies ; but I have not the remotest idea what to say to anyone who is just between the two.' If Miss Wylde was in want of a new sensation, she has got it with a vengeance this time. Her face is scarlet ; she trembles with anger ; and yet she has shx'ewdness enough to know that by forcing herself ujjon this man, she lias handed the reins and the whip into his keeping. ' Will you explain yourself ?' sue asked, controlling her voice by a violent effort. Alan Fane never felt more uncomfortable in his life, but he resolved, now he had the chance, to make the most of it. ' I had the honour,' he says ' of standing next you at Sandown, and heard you damn a horse for not winning. Afterwards, you invited a man in my presence to sit in your lap, and exchanged repartees of a questionable nature with your male companions. These are the manners and. customs of that class which,' bowing, 'I dare not name before a lady. I meet you next in the house of a person whose claim to that title is indisputable. I must, therefore, ask you to excuse my embarrassment. You see, I have been away from England for ten years, and when I left there were only ladies and — and — the other thing.' The most deadly humiliation had taken possession of the great breast. If there had been a covert impertinence in Captain Fane's manner she could have borne it better ; but his voice was cold and matter-of-fact, and his air that of a man who answered simply a question put to him. What could she do ? She would rather die than put her hand on his arm again. She felt almost on the verge of bursting into tears. One moment, and she had pulled back the curtain and fled, leaving Fane sitting there with very mixed feelings. ' After all, it served her right,' he said to himself. Then he descended the stairs and left the house. * * # * «

It was a December afternoon, and Captain Fane was lying on a sofa beside a cosy fire. He had a broken leg, and tliafc kept him quiet. 'What cursed bad luck!' lie kept saying to himself. ' Upon my word, it was very good of that girl.' The explanation of these two remarks is as follows : First, he had come down to stay with i a friend for a week's hunting, and his horse had fallen, rolled upon him, broken his leg, and kicked him in the head. Secondly, he had learned that, whilst insensible, Miss Wylde, who lived in the country, had ridden up, exhibited the greatest nerve and presence of mind, had caused him to be carried to a neighbouring cottage, and gone herself at full speed for a doctor. ' Upon my soul !' said Fane to himself, ' I think if I'd been a woman, and a man had said to me what I did to her, he might have lain there for me.' He was alone and found it dull, so he tried to amuse himself by thinking. 'After all, they say she is not a bad girl,' he mused. ' A weak, silly thing to be got hold of by a fast, good-for-nothing woman like Lady Blanc. But thank goodness she's gone off with Charlie , so she won't have a chance of spoiling any more girls.' The door opened, and who should come in but Miss Wylde, and alone. She walked straight up to him, and said, with a friendly nod, ' Well, and how are you getting on ?" She was looking lovely. A slight colour in her cheeks, a more than wonted lustre in her deepcoloured eyes, and her figure set off to perfection by the neatest of habits. Fane felt covered with confusion. If she had forgotten that little episode at the ball, he had not. ' Excuse my not being able to rise,' he stammered. ' I — I — believe — I am .told that I owe a great debt to you.' ' Oh, no ; not at all,' she answers, bringing a small chair and sitting down beside him, so that the firelight plays on her really charming face. 1 1 met Mrs Aylmer, and she told mp you were here alone, and that it would be a charity to come and talk to you. I did not feel altogether sure of that,' with a ring of mockery in her tone, c because, you know, conversation can't be all on one side, and you have not the remotest idea ef what to say to one, as you once said. Fane's confusion is really painful. 'Are you fond of music'?' inquires Miss Wylde, after a moment's pause, during which she seemed to be enjoying his discomfiture. ' Passionately,' he answers. She rises and. opens the piano, plays a few soft chords, and then she sings in the loveliest, sweetest voice he has ever heard. And as he listens with a delight that grows to rapture, he forgets what he has thought of her in the past, and looks at her almost with reverence, as though she were some white-winged angel. From song to song she goes, all tender, pathetic, harmonious, till suddenly she breaks into a snatch of a music-hall song. ' Stop ! Eor Heaven's sake, stop !' almost shrieks Fane, so loud that she looks at him startled, and gets up from the piano. ' How jould you,' he says reproachfully, ' after you had carried me right up into heaven !' ' O !' she answers coolly enough, ' I did not know how your particular taste ran. Bournemouth, now, doats on the song, and yawns over the others.' ' Bournemouth is a brainless fool !' cries Fane, with intense irritation. 'I suppose,' observed Miss Wylde, calmly, seating herself at a little distance from him, 1 that it is in India's burning clime you have acquired your charming habit of out-spoken-nesb ?'

' I am a brute,' he says contritely, ' and I beg you ten thousand pardons. But to see you looking like an angel, to hear your exquisite voice, and then to be brought down with, a run to the memory of a low music-hall — ' ' Thank you,' returns his companion. ' I will take the sweet with the bitter and try to get them to mix.' She sifcs and talks to him for half an hour quite sweetly and gently, without once saying anything .to shock or vex him. ' You "will come again, "won't you ?' he urges, in tones of deepest entreaty, as he holds the hand she gives him at parting. ' Perhaps,' she says, with a tantalising smile fi'om her wonderful eyes. When she has gone, Fane lies back and thinks what a madness of delight it would be to have those eyes always looking at him with that expression. But it would be madness of quite another kind, he reflects, to see them fixed in the same way on any other man. A week goes by, Alan is still confined to the sofa, and every day, regularly his lovely visitant comes and sings and talks to him. In the whole week not one trace of her cloven foot has appeared. On the seventh day, as she sits beside him she says suddenly, ' I am going away to-morrow.' Then Fane is quite certain of what he before suspected, that he is madly, passionately in love with her. He looks yearningly, wistfully, at her for a moment ; then, turning away with a heavy sigh, he says, : ' Perhaps it is as well, after all.' 1 Why ?' she asks quietly. ' Because,' he answers in a suppressed voice, ' if I saw much more of you, I should be obliged to make a fool of myself.' i 1 How ?' still the same contained voice and ! manner. j 'By asking you to marry me. Of course, 5 j hurriedly, ' I know you would refuse me. Some- i times,' with a sharp upward glance, ' I think you j want to make me do it in revenge for my brutal rudeness to you.' A slight blush comes into the girl's face. ' No,' she says ; ' I don't bear malice. I hated you for the time ;O, koto I hated you ! I had serious thoughts of getting Bournemouth or one i of them to call you out. Well,' her voice trembling, ' suppose you made a fool of yourself, and — and — suppose I let you ; what then ?' He seizes her hand and draws her towards him. 'Do you know,' he cries, his eyes flashing and every feature quivering with intense excitement, ' I worship you to that degree, that it lies in your power to make my whole life a curse to me ? Not by refusing me— l might get over that ; men do somehow — but by marrying me, and then changing from the angel you have been lately to what you were when I first saw you.' 1 What was I then ?' she asks. ' A devil ?' 'No.' ' Something between the two ?' maliciously, I seem always destined to be something between two things.' ' Don't !' he cries, almost violently ' For Heaven's sake, don't jest about it ! O, if you knew how men adore and reverence good woman, and how they loathe a fastness and coarseness that makes ladies seem to 'approach, what is common and unchaste, you could, never, never try to lower yourselves in our eyes, and think it good fun! I have a mother — a saint, an angel,' hotly. ' Never did I hear an ungentle, unseemly word from her lips. What do you think I should feel if my, wife rapped out an oath or told a doubtful story in her presence ?' ' O, then you think me capable of that ?" asks the girl, in a quiet voice, but with tears of bitter mortification in her eyes. ' My darling,' he cries, beside himself, ' I don't kuow what to think ! I only know thai I love you with all my soul.' She drags her hand from his grasp and moves away. Never has he so cruelly felt his helplessness. If it were not for his broken leg, he would rush to her ; he would not let her go. ' Come back, darling !' he implores. { For Heaven's sake, come back and tell me that you care for me !' ' No,' she cries, with flashing eyes, ' not until you have more confidence in me than you 6eem to have to-day.' And to Fane's agony she goes out, and he hears her ride away.

Some one told me the other day that Miss Wylde had become quite altered and quiet. Some one else told me that a Captain Fane is madly in love with her, but that she has refused him. It is, however, thought that she will not improbably exert the prerogative of her sex, and revoke her first decision.