The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

M >> Madame Sarah Grand >> The Heavenly Twins

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62

"You might go into Parliament," his uncle suggested.

"Ah, no!" Diavolo answered seriously. "I should never dream of undertaking
any of the actual work of the world while there are plenty of good women
to do it for me. My modest idea was to be a musician, or philanthropic
lecturer, or artist of some kind--something that gives pleasure, you know,
and the proceeds to be devoted to the indigent."

"May I ask if you belong to the peace party?" said the duke.

"I am a peace party myself," Diavolo answered. "Anybody who has lived as
long with Angelica as I have would be that--if he were not a party in
pieces."

"I admire your wit!" said Angelica sarcastically.

Diavolo bestowed a grateful smile upon her.

"But everything is easy enough for a man of intellect," she went on,
"whatever his position. It is _our_ powers that are wasted."

"Vanity! vanity!" said Lady Fulda. "Why do you suppose that your abilities
are superior?"

"I can prove that they are!" Angelica answered hotly. Then suddenly her
spirits went up, and she began to be sociable.

For a few days after this the Heavenly Twins appeared to be very busy.
They both wrote a great deal, and also practised regularly on their
violins and the piano; and they made some mysterious expeditions, slipping
away unattended into Morningquest. It was suspected that they had
something serious on hand, but Father Ricardo being away, the spy-system
was suspended, so nobody knew. One morning, however, big placards, which
had been printed in London, appeared on every hoarding in Morningquest,
announcing in the largest type that Miss Hamilton-Wells and Mr. Theodore
Hamilton-Wells would give an entertainment in the Theatre for the benefit
of certain of the city charities, which were specified. The programme
opened with music, which was to be followed by a speech from Mr. Theodore
Hamilton-Wells, and to conclude with a monologue, entitled "The Condemned
Cell," to be delivered by Miss Hamilton-Wells, who had written it
specially for the occasion. This was the news which greeted Mr.
Hamilton-Wells and Lady Adeline upon their return from their voyage round
the world; and, like everybody else, when they first saw the placard,
which was as they drove from the station through Morningquest to the
castle, they exclaimed: "Who on earth is Mr. _Theodore_
Hamilton-Wells?"

The old duke was rather taken with the idea of the entertainment. It was
something quite in the manner of his youth, and if it had not been for the
inopportune arrival of his son-in-law and daughter, the Heavenly Twins
would probably have carried out their programme under his distinguished
patronage. Dr. Galbraith was all in favour of letting them do it, Lord
Dawne was neutral; but Mr. Hamilton-Wells objected. He caused the
announcement to be cancelled, and handsomely indemnified the various
charities named to be recipients of the possible proceeds.

Diavolo did not much mind. He was prepared to do all that Angelica
required of him, but when the necessity was removed he acknowledged that
it would have been rather a bore, and afterward spoke disrespectfully of
the whole project as "The Condemned Sell."

Angelica raged.

But the energy which Mr. Hamilton-Wells had collected during his travels
was not yet expended. He summoned a family council at Morne to sit upon
the twins, and having tried them in their absence they were sent for to be
sentenced without the option of appeal. Angelica was to be presented at
Court and otherwise "brought out" in proper splendour immediately; while,
with a view to going into the Guards eventually, Diavolo was to be sent to
Sandhurst, as soon as he had passed the necessary examinations, about
which Mr. Ellis said there would be no difficulty _if Diavolo chose_.

Diavolo shrugged his shoulders, and said that _he_ didn't mind.

Angelica said nothing, but her brow contracted. Diavolo's indifference was
putting an end to everything. It was not that she had any actual objection
to going to Court and coming out, but only to the way in which the
arrangement had been made--to the coercion in fact. She was too shrewd,
however, not to perceive that, in consequence of Diavolo's attitude,
rebellion on her part would be both undignified and ineffectual. So she
held her peace, and went to walk off her irritation in the grounds alone;
and there she encountered her fast friend of many years' standing, Mr.
Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, who was just riding in to lunch at the castle. When
he saw her he dismounted, and Angelica snatched the whip from his hand,
and clenching her teeth gave the horse a vicious slash with it, which set
him off at a gallop into the woods.

Mr. Kilroy let him go, but he was silent for some seconds, and then he
asked her in his peculiarly kindly way: "What is the matter, Angelica?"

"Marry me!" said Angelica, stamping her foot at him--"Marry me, _and
let me do as I like_."

CHAPTER XII.

Evadne spent eighteen months in Malta without going from the island for a
change, but at the end of her second cold season she went to Switzerland
with the Malcomsons and Sillingers, and Colonel Colquhoun went on leave at
the same time alone to some place which he vaguely described as "The
Continent."

When they met again, Evadne noticed a change in him, and she feared it was
a change for the worse. He was out of health, out of temper, and
depressed.

He had spent most of his leave at Monte Carlo, but he did not say so at
first; he was waiting for her to question him. Had she done so he would
have said something snappy about feminine curiosity; as she did not do so,
he lost his temper, went off to the mess, and drank too much.

It is a terrible thing for a man to be brought into constant association
with a woman who never does anything--in a small way--that he can carp at,
or says a word he can contradict. She robs him of all his most cherished
illusions; she shakes his confidence in his own infallible strength,
discernment, knowledge, judgment, and superiority generally; she outrages
his prejudices on the subject of what a woman ought to be, and leaves him
nothing with which to compare himself to his own advantage. This is the
miserable state to which Evadne was rapidly reducing poor Colonel
Colquhoun--not, certainly, of malice-prepense, but with the best
intentions. He did not like her opinions, therefore she ceased to express
opinions in his presence. He took exception to many of her observations,
and so she let the words, "I think" fall out of her vocabulary, and
confined her talk to a clear narrative of occurrences, uninterrupted by
comments. It was an art which she had to acquire, for she had no natural
aptitude for it, her faculty of observation having hitherto served as an
instrument with which she could extract lessons from life; a lens used for
the purpose of collecting data on exact scientific principles as matter
from which to draw conclusions; but with practice she became an adept in
the art of describing the one while at the same time withholding the
other, so that her conversation interested Colonel Colquhoun without,
however, giving him anything to cavil at. It was like a dish exactly
suited to his taste, but delicate to insipidity because his palate was
hardened to pepper. When she returned from Switzerland she gave him
details of her own doings which were interesting enough to take him out of
himself, until one day, when, unfortunately, it occurred to him that she
was making an effort to entertain him, and he determined that he would
_not_ be entertained--like a child, indeed! She might be a deuced
clever woman and all that, but he wasn't going to have those feminine airs
of superiority; so he snubbed her into silence, and having succeeded, he
became exceedingly annoyed because she would not talk. It was opposition
he wanted, not acquiescence, but she was not clever enough with all her
cleverness, this straightforward nineteenth century young woman, to
understand such subtleties. She had always heard that the contrariness of
women was a cause of provocation, and she could never have been made to
comprehend that the removal of the cause would be even more provoking than
the contrariness. The great endeavour of her life had been to cultivate or
acquire the qualities in which she understood that women are wanting, and
when she succeeded she expected to please; but she found Colonel Colquhoun
as "peculiar" on the subject as her father had been when she proved that,
although of the imbecile sex, she could do arithmetic. Colonel Colquhoun
waited a week to snap at her for asking him how he had spent his leave,
but he was obliged at last to give up all hope of being questioned; and
then he felt himself aggrieved. She certainly took no interest in him
whatever, he reflected; she didn't care a rap if he went to the dogs
altogether--in fact, she would probably be rather glad, because then she
would be free. She would waste a world of attention and care upon any
dirty little child she picked up in the street, but for him she had
neither thought nor sympathy. Clearly she wanted to get rid of him; and
she should get rid of him. He felt he was going to the bad; he
_would_ go to the bad; it was all her fault, and she should know it.
He had treated her with every possible consideration; she had never had
the slightest cause for complaint. He had even stuck up for her against
his own interests with her old ass of a father--and, by Jove! while she
was treating him, Colonel Colquhoun, commanding a crack corps, and one of
the smartest officers in her Majesty's service, with studied indifference,
she was thinking affectionately of the same dear old pompous portly papa,
to whom, in fact, she had never borne the slightest ill-will, Colonel
Colquhoun was sure, although he had done her the injury of allowing her to
marry herself to the kind of man whom it was against her principles even
to countenance.

But at this point his irritation overflowed. He could contain himself no
longer.

"Do you know where I spent most of my leave?" he asked one morning at
breakfast.

"No," Evadne answered innocently.

"At Monte Carlo," he said, with emphasis.

"I hope you enjoyed it. I have always heard it is a very beautiful place,"
she responded tranquilly.

"It's effect on my exchequer has not been beautiful," he observed grimly.

"Indeed," she answered. "Is it so expensive?"

"Gambling is, when you lose," he declared.

"Ah, yes. I forgot the tables at Monte Carlo," she remarked quite
cheerfully. "I suppose you can lose a great deal there."

"You can lose all you possess."

"Well, yes--of course you could if you liked; but I am quite sure you
would never do anything so stupid."

He looked at her curiously: "You don't disapprove of gambling, then?" he
asked.

"I? Oh--of course, I disapprove. But then you see I have no taste for it"--
this was apologetically said to signify that she did not in the least mean
to sit in judgment upon him.

"You have a fine taste for driving people to such extremities, then," he
asserted.

She looked at him inquiringly.

"What I mean is this," he explained: "that if I could have been with you,
I should not have gone to Monte Carlo."

Evadne kept her countenance--with some difficulty; for just as Colonel
Colquhoun spoke she recollected a conversation they had had at breakfast
one morning under precisely similar circumstances, that is to say, each in
their accustomed place and temper, she placidly content, he politely
striving to bottle up the chronic form of irritation from which he
suffered at that time of the day so as to keep it nice and hot for the
benefit of his officers and men; for Colonel Colquhoun in the presence of
a lady was one person, but Colonel Colquhoun in his own orderly room or on
parade was quite another. While in barracks he was in the habit of
swearing with the same ease and as unaffectedly as he made the responses
in church. He probably did it from a sense of duty, because he had been
brought up in that school of colonel, and in the course of years would
naturally come to consider that a volley of oaths on parade, although not
laid down in the "Drill Book," was as much a part of his profession of
arms as "Good Lord, deliver us!" is of the church service. At all events,
he did both punctually at the right time and place, and never mixed his
week-day oaths with his Sunday responses, which was creditable. In fact,
he seemed to have the power of changing his frame of mind completely for
the different occasions, and would be prepared in advance, as was evident
from the fact that if a glove went wrong just as he was starting for
church, he would send up for another pair amiably; but if a similar
accident happened when he was on his way to parade, he would swear at his
man till he surprised him--the man not being a soldier servant.

But what very nearly made Evadne smile was the distinct recollection she
had of having asked him earnestly to join her party in Switzerland when he
went on leave, and of his answering "No," he should not care about that,
and suggesting that she should meet him at Monaco instead. She fancied he
must have a bad memory, but of course she said nothing; what is the use of
saying anything? She thought, however, that had she been under his orders,
the invitation to go to Monaco would have been a command, and the present
implied reproach a direct accusation.

She was most anxious that he should understand perfectly that she quite
shrank from interfering with him in any way.

One night--not knowing if he were at home or not--she had occasion to go
downstairs for a book she had forgotten. There was no noise in the house,
and consequently when she opened the drawing room door she was startled to
find that the room was brilliantly lighted, and that there was a party
assembled there, consisting of three strange ladies, loud in appearance,
one or two men she knew, and some she had not seen before. The majority
were seated at a card-table playing, while the rest stood round looking on;
and they must have reached a momentous point in the game, for Evadne had
not heard a sound to warn her of their presence before she saw them.

Colonel Colquhoun was one of those looking on at the game, and one of the
first to see her. He changed countenance, and came forward hastily,
conscious of the strange contrast she presented to those women, flushed
with wine and horrid excitement, gambling at the table, as she stood
there, rooted to the spot with surprise, in her gold-embroidered,
ivory-white draperies, with a half-inquiring, half-bewildered look on her
sweet grave face. It was a vision of holiness breaking in upon a scene of
sin, and his one thought was to get her away. There was always that saving
grace of the fallen angel about him, he never depreciated what he had
lost, but sometimes sighed for it sorrowfully.

"I beg your pardon for this intrusion," Evadne said, looking at him
pointedly so as to ignore the rest of the party. "I did not even know that
you were at home. I had forgotten a book and came for it. Will you kindly
give it to me? It is called"--she hesitated. "But it does not matter," she
added quickly. "I will read something else. Good-night!" and she turned,
smiling, without seeming to have seen anyone but Colonel Colquhoun, and
calmly swept from the room.

"St. Monica the Complacent, I should say," one of the men suggested.

"Or Vengeance smiling with murder in her mind," said another.

"No, a saint for certain," jeered one of the women.

"Why not say an angel at once?" cried another.

"I shouldn't have thought Colquhoun could keep either upon the premises,"
laughed the third.

"The lady you are pleased to criticise is my wife, gentlemen," said
Colonel Colquhoun, lashing out at them suddenly, his face blazing with
rage.

The women tried not to be abashed; the men apologised; but the game was
over for that night, and the party broke up abruptly.

When they had gone, Colonel Colquhoun looked about for Evadne's book, and
found it--not a difficult matter, for she had a bad habit of leaving the
book she was reading open and face downward on any piece of furniture not
intended to hold books, by preference a chair where somebody might sit
down upon it. This one happened to be upon the piano stool. Colonel
Colquhoun glanced at the title as he picked it up, and reading "A Vision
of Sin," understood why she had shrunk from naming it. He appreciated her
delicacy, but he feared the discernment which had shown her the necessity
for it, and he determined to disarm her resentment next day by making her
a proper apology at once.

He went down late to breakfast, expecting black looks at least, and was
surprised to find her calm and equable as usual, and busy, keeping his
breakfast hot for him.

"I wish to apologise to you for the scene you witnessed last night," he
began ceremoniously.

"I think I owe _you_ an apology for taking you unawares like that,"
she interrupted cheerfully, giving her best attention to a very full cup
of coffee she was carefully carrying round the table to him. "But I hope
you understand it was an accident."

"I quite understood," he answered sullenly. "But I want to explain that
those people were also here by accident--at least I was not altogether
responsible for their presence. They were a party from one of the yachts
in the harbour. I met them here at the door, just as I was coming in last
night, and they forced themselves in uninvited. I hope you believe that I
would not willingly bring anyone to the house whom I could not introduce
to you."

"Oh, I quite believe it," she answered cordially. "You are always most
kind, most considerate. But I fear," she added with concern, "that my
being here must inconvenience you at times. Pray, pray, do not let that be
the case. I should regret it infinitely if you did."

When Evadne left Colonel Colquhoun he threw himself into a chair, and sat,
chin on chest, hands in pockets, legs stretched out before him, giving way
to a fit of deep disgust. He had always had a poor opinion of women, but
now he began to despair of them altogether. "And this comes of letting
them have their own way, and educating them," he reflected. "The first
thing they do when they begin to know anything is to turn round upon us,
and say we aren't good enough. And, by Jove! if we aren't, isn't it their
fault? Isn't it their business to keep us right? When a fellow's had too
good a time in his youth and suffered for it, what is to become of him if
he can't find some innocent girl to believe in him and marry him? But
there soon won't be any innocent girls. Here am I now, a most utter bad
lot, and Evadne knows it, and what does she do? apologizes for appearing
at an inopportune time! Now, Beston's wife would have brought the house
about his ears if she'd caught him with that precious party I had here
last night; and that's what a woman ought to do. She ought to _care_.
She ought to be jealous, and cry her eyes out. She ought to go down on her
knees and take some trouble to save a fellow's soul,"--it may be
mentioned, by the way, that if Evadne _had_ done so, Colonel
Colquhoun would certainly have sworn at her "for meddling with things
she'd no business to know anything about"; it was, however, not what he
_would_ but what she _should_ have done that he was considering
just then. "That's the proper thing to do," he concluded; "and I don't see
what's to be gained by this _cursed_ cold-blooded indifference."

Articulation ceased here because the startling theory that a vicious
dissipated man is not a fallen angel easily picked up, but a frightful
source of crime and disease, recurred to him, with the charitable
suggestion that a repentant woman of his own class would be the proper
person to reform him; ideas which settled upon his soul and silenced him,
being full-fraught for him with the cruel certainty that the end of "all
_true_ womanliness" is at hand.

CHAPTER XIII.

Colonel Colquhoun's first interest in Evadne lasted longer than might have
been expected, but the pleasure of hanging about her palled on him at
last, and then he fell off in his kind attentions. This did not happen,
however, as soon as it would have done by many months, had their relations
been other than they were. It began in the usual way. Little acts to which
she had become accustomed were omitted, resumed again, and once more
omitted, intermittently, then finally allowed to drop altogether. When the
change had set in for certain, Evadne regretted it. The kindly feeling for
each other which had come to exist between them was largely due to her
appreciation of the numberless little attentions which it had pleased him
to pay her at first; they had not palled upon her, and she missed
them--not as a wife would have done, however, and that she knew; so that
when the fact that there _was_ to be a falling off became apparent,
she found in it yet another cause for self-congratulation, and one that
was great enough to remove all sting from the regret. What she was
prepared to resent, however, was any renewal of the gush after it had once
ceased; she required to be held, in higher estimation than a toy which
could be dropped and taken up again upon occasion--and Colonel Colquhoun
gave her an opportunity, and, what was worse, provoked her into saying so,
to her intense mortification when she came to reflect.

There was to be a ball at the palace one night, a grand affair, given in
honour of that same fat foreign prince who had stayed with her people at
Fraylingay, just before she came out, and had been struck by the promise
of her appearance. In the early days of their acquaintance, Colonel
Colquhoun had given her some very beautiful antique ornaments of Egyptian
design, and she determined to wear them on this occasion for the first
time, but when she came to try them with a modern ball-dress, she found
that they made the latter look detestably vulgar. She therefore determined
to design a costume, or to adapt one, which should be more in keeping with
the artistic beauty of her jewels; and this idea, with the help of an
excellent maid, she managed to carry out to perfection--which, by the way,
was the accident that led her finally to adopt a distinctive style of
dress, always a dangerous experiment, but in her case, fortunately, so
admirably successful, that it was never remarked upon as strange by people
of taste; only as appropriate.

Colonel Colquhoun dined at mess on the night of the ball, and did not
trouble himself to come back to escort her. He said he would meet her at
the palace, and if he missed her in the crowd there were sure to be plenty
of other men only too glad to offer her an arm. He had been most
particular never to allow her to go anywhere alone at first--rather
inconveniently so sometimes, but that she had endured. She was reflecting
upon the change as she sat at her solitary dinner that evening, and she
concluded by cheerfully assuring herself that she really was beginning to
feel quite as if she were married. But, afterward, when she found herself
in the drawing room it seemed big and bare, and all the more so for being
brilliantly lighted; and suddenly she felt herself a very little body all
alone. There was no bitterness in the feeling, however, because there was
no one neglecting her whose duty it was to keep her heart up; but it
threatened to grow upon her all the same, and in order to distract herself
she went downstairs to choose a bouquet. She had several sent her for
every occasion, and they were always arranged on a table in the hall so
that she might take the one that pleased her best as she went out. There
were more than usual this evening. There was one from the Grand Duke,
which she put aside. There was one from Colonel Colquhoun; he always
ordered them by the dozen for the different ladies of his acquaintance.
She picked it up and looked at it. It was beautiful in its way, but sent
at the florist's discretion, not chosen to suit her gown, and it did not
suit it, so that she could not have used it in any case; yet she put it
down with a sigh. The next was of yellow roses, violets, and maidenhair
fern, very sweet: "With Lord Groome's compliments," she read on the card
that was tied to it. "He is back then, I suppose," she thought. "Funny old
man! Very sorry, but you won't do." The next was from one of the
survivals, a man she loathed. She thought it an impertinence for him to
have sent her flowers at all, and she threw them under the table. The rest
she took up one after the other, reading the cards attached, and admiring
or disapproving of the different combinations without gratitude or
sentiment; she knew that self-interest prompted all of the offerings that
were not merely sent just because it was the right thing to do. There was
one unconventional bunch, however, that caught her eye. It was a mere
handful of scarlet flowers tied loosely together with ribbons of their own
colour and the same tint of green as their leaves. It was from a young
subaltern in the regiment, a boy whom she had noticed first because he was
the same age and somewhat resembled her brother Bertram; and had grown to
like afterward for himself. His flowers were the first to arouse her to
any expression of pleasure. The arrangement was new at the time, but it
has since become common enough.