Checkmate Part 31

Mr. Longcluse, in the meantime, had pa.s.sed the door indicated by Lady May, and stood upon the short terrace that overlooked the pretty flower-garden cut out in grotesque patterns, so that looking down upon its ma.s.ses of crimson, blue, and yellow, as he leaned on the bal.u.s.trade, it showed beneath his eye like a wide deep-piled carpet, on the green ground of which were walking groups of people, the brilliant hues of the ladies' dresses rivalling the splendour of the verbenas, and making altogether a very gay picture.

The usual paucity of male attendance made Mr. Longcluse's task of observation easy. He was looking for Richard Arden's well-known figure among the groups, thinking that probably Alice was not far off. But he was not there, nor was Alice; and Walter Longcluse, gloomy and lonely in this gay crowd, descended the steps at the end of this terrace, and sauntered round again to the front of the house, now and then pa.s.sing some one he knew, with an exchange of a smile or a bow, and then lost again in the Vanity Fair of strange faces and voices.

Now he is at the hall door--he mounts the steps. Suddenly, as he stands upon the level platform at top, he finds himself within four feet of Richard Arden. He looks on him as he might on the carved pilaster, at the side of the hall door; no one could have guessed, by his inflexible but unaffected glance, that he and Mr. Arden had ever been acquainted.

The younger man showed something in his countenance, a sudden hauteur, a little elevation of the chin, a certain sternness, more melodramatic, though less effective, than the simple blank of Mr. Longcluse's glance.

That gentleman looked about coolly. He was in search of Miss Arden, but he did not see her. He entered the hall again, and Richard Arden a little awkwardly resumed his conversation, which had suddenly subsided into silence on Longcluse's appearance.

By this time Lady May was more at ease, having received all her company that were reasonably punctual, and in the hall Longcluse now encountered her.

"Have you seen Mr. Arden?" she inquired of him.

"Yes, he's at the door, at the steps."

"Would you mind telling him kindly that I want to say a word to him?"

"Certainly, most happy," said Longcluse, without any distinct plan as to how he was to execute her awkward commission.

"Thank you very much. But, oh! dear, here is Lady Hummington, and she wishes so much to know you; I'll send some one else. I must introduce you, come with me--Lady Hummington, I want to introduce my friend, Mr.

Longcluse." So Mr. Longcluse was presented to Lady Hummington, who was very lean, and a "blue," and most fatiguingly well up in archaeology, and all new books on dry and difficult subjects. So that Mr. Longcluse felt that he was, in _Joe Willett's_ phrase, "tackled" by a giant, and was driven to hideous exertions of attention and memory to hold his own.

When Lady Hummington, to whom it was plain kind Lady May, with an unconscious cruelty, had been describing Mr. Longcluse's accomplishments and acquirements, had taken some tea and other refection, and when Mr.

Longcluse's kindness "had her wants supplied," and she, like Scott's "old man" in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "was gratified," she proposed visiting the music-room, where she had heard a clever organist play, on a harmonium, three distinct tunes at the same time, which being composed on certain principles, that she explained with much animation and precision, harmonised very prettily.

So this clever woman directed, and Mr. Longcluse led, the way to the music-room.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

HE SEES HER.

Mr. Longcluse's attention was beginning to wander a little, and his eyes were now busy in search of some one whom he had not found; and knowing that the duration of people's stay at a garden-party is always uncertain, and that some of those gaily-plumed birds who make the flutter, and chirping, and brilliancy of the scene, hardly alight before they take wing again, he began to fear that Alice Arden had gone.

"Just like my luck!" he thought bitterly; "and if she is gone, when shall I have an opportunity of seeing her again?"

Lady Hummington's well-informed conversation had been, unheeded, accompanying the ruminations and distractions of this "pa.s.sionate pilgrim;" and as they approached the door of the music-room, the little crush there brought the learned lady's lips so near to his ear, that with a little start he heard the words--"All strictly arithmetical, you know, and adjusted by the relative frequency of vibrations. That theory, I am sure, you approve, Mr. Longcluse."

To which the distracted lover made answer, "I quite agree with you, Lady Hummington."

The music-room at Raleigh Court is an apartment of no great size, and therefore when, with Lady Hummington on his arm, he entered, it was at no great distance that he saw Miss Arden standing near the window, and talking with an elderly gentleman, whose appearance he did not know, but who seemed to be extremely interested in her conversation. She saw him, he had not a doubt, for she turned a little quickly, and looked ever so little more directly out at the window, and a very slight tinge flushed her cheek. It was quite plain, he thought, and a dreadful pang stole through his breast, that she did not choose to see him--quite plain that she did see him--and he thought, from a subtle scrutiny of her beautiful features, quite plain also that it gave her pain to meet without acknowledging him.

Lady Hummington was conversing with volubility; but the air felt icy, and there was a strange trembling at his heart, and this, in many respects, hard man of the world, felt that the tears were on the point of welling from his eyes. The struggle was but for a few moments, and he seemed quite himself again. Lady Hummington wished to go to the end of the room where the piano was, and the harmonium on which the organist had performed his feat of the three tunes. That artist was taking his departure, having a musical a.s.signation of some kind to keep. But to oblige Lady Hummington, who had heard of Thalberg's doing something of the kind, he sat down and played an elaborate piece of music on the piano with his thumbs only. This charming effort over, and applauded, the performer took his departure. And Lady Hummington said--

"I am told, Mr. Longcluse, that you are a very good musician."

"A very indifferent performer, Lady Hummington."

"Lady May Penrose tells a very different tale."

"Lady May Penrose is too kind to be critical," said Longcluse; and as he maintained this dialogue, his eye was observing every movement of Alice Arden. She seemed, however, to have quite made up her mind to stand her ground. There was a strange interest, to him, even in being in the same room with her. Perhaps Miss Arden saw that Mr. Longcluse's movements were dependent upon those of the lady whom he accompanied, and might have thought that, the musician having departed, their stay in that room would not be very long.

"I should be so glad to hear you sing, Mr. Longcluse," pursued Lady Hummington. "You have been in the East, I think; have you any of the Hindostanee songs? There are some, I have read, that embody the theories of the Brahmin philosophy."

"Long-winded songs, I fancy," said Mr. Longcluse, laughing; "it is a very voluminous philosophy, but the truth is, I've got a little cold, and I should not like to make a bad impression so early."

"But surely there are some simple little things, without very much compa.s.s, that would not distress you. How pretty those old English songs are that they are collecting and publis.h.i.+ng now! I mean songs of Shakespeare's time--Ben Jonson's, Beaumont and Fletcher's, and Ma.s.singer's, you know. Some of them are so extremely pretty!"

"Oh! yes, I'll sing you one of those with pleasure," said he with a strange alacrity, quite forgetting his cold, sitting down at the instrument, and striking two or three fierce chords.

I am sure that most of my readers are acquainted with that pretty old English song, of the time of James the First, ent.i.tled, "Once I Loved a Maiden Fair." That was the song he chose.

Never, perhaps, did he sing so well before, with a fluctuation of pathos and scorn, tenderness and hatred, expressed with real dramatic fire, and with more power of voice than at moments of less excitement he possessed. He sang it with real pa.s.sion, and produced, exactly where he wished, a strange but unavowed sensation. He omitted one verse, and the song as he delivered it was thus:--

"Once I loved a maiden fair, But she did deceive me: She with Venus could compare, In my mind, believe me.

She was young, and among All our maids the sweetest: Now I say, Ah, well-a-day!

Brightest hopes are fleetest.

Maidens wavering and untrue Many a heart have broken; Sweetest lips the world e'er knew Falsest words have spoken.

Fare thee well, faithless girl, I'll not sorrow for thee: Once I held thee dear as pearl, Now I do abhor thee."

When he had finished the song, he said coldly, but very distinctly, as he rose--

"I like that song, there is a melancholy psychology in it. It is a song worthy of Shakespeare himself."

Lady Hummington urged him with an encore, but he was proof against her entreaties. And so, after a little, she took Mr. Longcluse's arm; and Alice felt relieved when the room was rid of them.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

ABOUT THE GROUNDS.

Lady Hummington, well pleased at having found in Mr. Longcluse what she termed a kindred mind, was warned by the hour that she must depart. She took her leave of Mr. Longcluse with regret, and made him promise to come to luncheon with her on the Thursday following. Mr. Longcluse called her carriage for her, and put in, besides herself, her maiden sister and two daughters, who all exhibited the family leanness, with noses more or less red and aquiline, and small black eyes, set rather close together.

As he ascended the steps he was accosted by a damsel in distress.

"Mr. Longcluse, I'm so glad to see you! You must do a very good-natured thing," said handsome Miss Maubray, smiling on him. "I came here with old Sir Arthur and Lady Tramway, and I've lost them; and I've been bored to death by a Mr. Bagshot, and I've sent him to look for my pocket-handkerchief in the tea-room; and I want you, as you hope for mercy, to show it now, and rescue me from my troubles."

"I'm too much honoured. I'm only too happy, Miss Maubray. I shall put Mr. Bagshot to death, if you wish it, and Sir Arthur and Lady Tramway shall appear the moment you command."

Mr. Longcluse was talking his nonsense with the high spirits which sometimes attend a painful excitement.

"I told them I should get to that tree if I were lost in the crowd, and that they would be sure to find me under it after six o'clock. Do take me there; I am so afraid of Mr. Bagshot's returning!"

So over the short gra.s.s that handsome girl walked, with Mr. Longcluse at her side.