Lady Hesketh

“ You will not leave the Guard. If I were you I should go to-morrow. Marry the girl as soon as she will let you, and bring her here. Then sit down and shoot partridges. She will like it. It is better than Maäsau.'
'It is altogether good to own the old place again,' Rallywood said, 'and we'll do our duty by the partridges, Major, you and I, I hope, by-and-by, but to do that and nothing else—not yet!'
'You've stalked bigger game and that has spoilt you,' grumbled the Major. 'After Count Sagan, partridges pall. Yet it is a pity.'
'I shall bring Valerie here sometimes, of course. ”

“ But,' with a man's ready thought for the woman he loves, 'you must not be found here. Say good-bye to me, Valerie.'
'John,' she clung to him, 'how can I let you go? You are dying for Maäsau—for my father—for me—yes, yes, I can guess all!'
'Valerie, do you know what your love is to me? I need nothing more. I have not thought of what there is beyond, but when you want me you will find me waiting.'
In the long silence life itself might have been suspended. ”

“ But the most curious part was to see the women, who at once excited and expressed curiosity. They were very brown, and some of them, from the effects of fatigue and a hot sun, were, when cursorily looked at, truly hideous; but, in all of them, the outline of beauty was perceptible, either in their frame, or in their face. Wherever, likewise, a girl or young woman was to be seen, she would very often prove to be of great beauty; and black and swimming eyes were never-failing features. Lady Hester, remarkable herself for the fairness of her complexion, served as a foil to them, and they to her. ”

“ Counsellor opened the stove and threw in the remnant of his cigar.
'Ah!' he commented significantly; 'and I presume Unziar goes there to meet you. I begin to see.'
Rallywood laughed.
'I'm hanged if I do! By the way, the Countess wants of all things to make a friend of you. She says the English are so reliable. But you are such an old bear the women can't get at you.'
'So much the better for me,' was the grim reply. 'Also I am sorry that I can't reciprocate the Countess's opinion of me. There are very few reliable women. ”

“ Hesketh, holding her youngest by the hand and piloting it (whether a boy or a girl does not exactly make itself apparent to a superficial observation) up the aisle in front of her, at the manifest peril of falling over it, and trying by jerks of the arm to shake its stare off the Spawer, which, however, requires a stronger arm. They disappear into a pew somewhere under the lectern, where much sibilant whispering begins to issue immediately upon their incarceration, as though they were cooking something ”

“ It may seem strange that Lady Hester, who had lived a good deal in the world, should never have met a character of this type, but so it was; she belonged to a certain “fast set” in society, who seem to ask for a kind of indemnity for all they do, by never, on any occasion, stopping to criticise their neighbors. This semblance of good nature is a better defensive armor than the uninitiated know of, enlisting all loose sympathies with its possessor, and even gaining for its advocates that great floating majority who speak much and think little. ”

“ It is also conclusive. Besides, we shall have gained our point. The fellow's breach of faith is our point. Valerie will be disillusioned; for recollect, I pray you, that Valerie is in love with honour.'
CHAPTER XXIII. HOW RALLYWOOD HAD HIS ORDERS.
Unziar had already departed to the Frontier on a secret errand when Rallywood started for the Chancellerie through the slush and fog. It was yet early in the afternoon, and an hour when the Duke sometimes drove out. As Rallywood trotted along the embankment by the river, he saw the outriders of the Duke's carriage coming towards him. ”

“ She is a tall, handsome young creature, standing fully five feet five in her dainty little black silk stockings. Her eyes are dark and almond-shaped like her brother's, and there is a little droop at the far corners of the lids that adds singularly to their beauty; it gives them softness. Perhaps this softness had not been altogether meant, for Mother Nature had certainly not added gentleness to the many gifts she had given Miss Hescott at her birth. Not that the girl is of a nature to be detested; it is only that she is strong, intolerant, and self-satisfied. She grates a little. ”

“ A man who says 'No' to-day may be won to consent to-morrow under altered conditions of weather and diet. Therefore the Chancellor, who had avoided his daughter since her return, made choice of a dismal morning to bring his influence to bear upon her. He relied a good deal upon Valerie's affection for himself, which was strong and single-hearted. Moreover, he had trained her to the masculine habit of taking a broad view, a bird's-eye view, of the whole of a given subject, instead of turning the microscope of her emotions on any one point, after the manner of women. ”

“ One has illusions, doubtless, but none so entirely absurd! I have idealised my own desire merely. I want good luck. I am "Good Luck!"' She spoke the last two words in English, smiling back at Elmur.
The Baron bowed. He was not beaten yet.
'That is well,' he exclaimed; 'since the cavalry and Guard are disowned, it means that the good luck is for the poor diplomat!'
'Provisionally, yes,' said the girl.
'Mademoiselle Selpdorf has already given this waltz to me,' said Unziar, stepping forward. ”

“ Rallywood started. The Duke made him a sign to approach. Then, rising from his chair, he took the young man's arm, and leaning heavily upon it, moved towards the card-room, meeting Unziar with Mdlle. Selpdorf on the way.
'Hey, Mademoiselle Valerie,' he stopped abruptly, 'would you teach my Guards treason?'
'To teach your Highness's Guards treason is impossible!' replied Valerie, with a slight lifting of her proud head.
'The influence of a beautiful woman has no limit,' retorted the Duke. ”

“ There were good-natured people who said that Lady Hester's admiration had another source, and that, as a somewhat passee beauty, she knew the full value of a younger and handsomer woman in attracting to her circle and society all that was distinguished by rank or station. ”

“ So Heskett departs, much exercised in mind, and in the lowest spirits, being full of vague doubts, yet with a keen consciousness that by his promise to Miss Chesney he has forfeited his dearest joy, and that from him the glory of life has departed. No more poaching, no more snaring, no more midnight excursions fraught with delicious danger: how is he to get on in future, with nothing to murder but time? ”

“ These despatches may be yours, but you know how they have come into my charge. As long as I am a soldier of Maäsau, my duty to her comes first of all. I cannot let you go nor can I give up these despatches! Curse you!' a strong flash of emotion breaking in upon the restraint of his speech, 'why have you no sword? If you had killed me——'
Counsellor put his watch back into his pocket.
'A man's country should be his conscience,' said the old diplomatist, as one who pronounces a definite and unassailable truth. Then he waited.
Rallywood stood up. ”

“ The victim on that occasion had been a young attaché, who, before a delighted coffee-room, had perpetrated an imitation of an American lady who found young men on the Continent "so flighty." The culprit had protested that no one in particular had been intended, but in matters where his wife's lack of common-sense was concerned Hexham seldom allowed himself the luxury of a doubt, and he had dealt with the attaché with a carafe. ”

“ We may laugh at conventional methods, but even in Révonde there are some which must be yielded to.'
'I don't think,' said Valerie, 'we yield to many in Révonde.'
Rallywood saw a group of people advancing towards them. Valerie, with her changes of mood and manner, distracted him, and drove him on to say what he had resolved never to be tempted into saying.
'I am a soldier—only a soldier; I gain a livelihood, but no more. I have no luck and no genius. To make a fortune or a name is beyond me. And without fortune many desirable things are impossible.'
Valerie turned upon him a bewildering smile. ”

“ Miss Hessel never entered the marriage relation. She is not to be undervalued because of her freedom from conjugal engagements. From the ranks of maidenhood have risen some of the noblest specimens of noble womanhood. Long will our soldiers talk of Miss Nightingale moving to and fro on the shores of the Euxine, like an angel of mercy. Long will our navvies think of the happy hours spent in Beckenham, where Miss Marsh taught them to live “soberly, righteously, and godly.” Long will Miss Faithful be remembered by the needy of her own sex in pursuit of employment. ”

“ And Rallywood? Rallywood sat in his quarters thinking thoughts that, like music, lead sometimes on to exaltation. His earthly life was done, and he looked out into the dim beyond fearlessly. His eyes were set and sad, for he should see her face and hear Valerie's voice no more, but he would be waiting in that somewhere for her. A man in the supremer hours often turns again to the faiths of his childhood; so now Rallywood, at the summit of his life, found himself given back all those lost dreams. ”

“ And yet she has hardly ever looked lovelier than now, with her eyes a little widened by her late grief, and her hair so sweetly disturbed, and her little slender form showing through the open folds of the long white gown that covers her.
"Don't go. Don't!" says Tom Hescott; his tone is so full of poignant anguish that she stops short. "Stay a moment." In his despair he has caught a fold of her gown. To do him fair justice, he honestly believes that she hates her husband, and that she is thoroughly unhappy with him. Unhappy with great cause. ”

“ If he were to return to-morrow to the narrow quarters he had occupied for so many months, the very memory of her would glorify the wooden walls, and even the old barren monotony of life with the frontier patrol be chequered and cheered by the knowledge that somewhere under the same skies Valerie Selpdorf lived and smiled.
The beggars of love—such as Rallywood—are apt to believe that in the mere fact of owning remembrance, they own wealth which can never be expended. ”

“ She looked at Hexham. The light of battle still glinted in his eyes. She looked at me, and beheld me, in fancy, sharing the fate of the victim of the lobby. Perhaps a dormant taste for intrigue; perhaps an appearance of gentility on my part to which she was mistaken enough to trust; more probably a natural desire to free herself as quickly as possible from a situation which her lack of mental ballast exaggerated to itself; perhaps a mingling of all three led her finally to lean forward and say:
"Peter, I want to introduce you to Mr.——"
"Shimmelpinneck," I murmured. ”

“ I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester could deal fiercely with those she hated. One man above all others (he is now uprooted from society, and cast away for ever) she blasted with her wrath. You would have thought that in the scornfulness of her nature she must have sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness than of skill ”

“ How foolish it was of Hezekiah to think she could stay on the old farm and fight down the ambition which leaped like fire in her veins. She was made for a greater world than that; she was born to dwell in the city of big things. So she had put him out of her mind. It is easy at seventeen, when art beckons.
But a mere voice proved to be unreliable as a provider of food, shelter, and clothes. A hall bedroom soon became her palace, and the Supreme Lunch her banquet hall. Determination, once so firmly rooted, shriveled up like a thirsty flower. ”

“ Between Jane’s virtues and Annie’s three hundred golden sovereigns Hezekiah had not hesitated a moment. Golden sovereigns were solid facts; wifely virtues, by a serious-minded and strong-willed husband, could be instilled—at all events, light-heartedness suppressed. The two men, Hezekiah urged by his own ambition, Solomon by his wife’s, had arrived in London within a year of one another: Hezekiah to open a grocer’s shop in Kensington, which those who should have known assured him was a hopeless neighbourhood. But Hezekiah had the instinct of the money-maker. ”

“ Such, at least, became the feeling of Lady Hester as she witnessed those travesties of grandeur, the originals of which had left her awe-stricken and amazed.
Shorn of fortune, deprived of all the illusions which her newly adopted creed had thrown around her, uncheered by that crowd of flatterers which used to form her circle, is it any wonder if her spirits and her temper gave way, and that she fancied herself the very type of misery and desertion? The last solace of such minds is in the pity they bestow upon themselves ”

“ A proud and stately yet most graceful-looking girl, Hester had a lissom figure a trifle over the middle height, hair of the richest and deepest brown, dark violet-coloured and velvety-like eyes with full lids, long lashes, and brows that were black; a dazzling complexion, a beautiful smile when pleased, and hands and feet that showed race and breeding beyond all doubt.
Roland was quite aware that Hester was no longer a child, but a girl almost out of her teens, and one that looked older than her years. ”

“ Meshmûshy is by nature so inaccessible, that no person, from mere idle curiosity, would think of ascending to it. There, her society was literally confined to myself; for the priests were too unmannered to gain access to her presence, and the shaykh of the village was a farmer, without any other knowledge than that required for his agricultural occupations.
That Lady Hester had no thoughts at this time of going to Europe, much less of returning to England, is pretty evident. ”