Margery Travers

Front matter

■ ■ VOL. BY A. E. N. BEWICKE AUTHOR OF " THE LAST OF THE JERNINGHAMES," "ONWARDS, BUT WHITHER?" &c, &c. " How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from hiB father's or his mother's life?" Esierson. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1878. AU rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.

Book I

(CONTINCED.). TEMPTED. VOL. II. B

CHAPTER XIII. AMONG THE LILIES AND THE ROSES.

rTIHEY were all seated round the dinner- -*- table, that expanse of silver epergnes and cut glass and flowers so often trans formed into an instrument of torture by modern luxury. For the space of at least one hour and a half Lottie might expect to sit beside Dalrymple Bruce, looking across the table at Margery and Allan, sitting side by side, Margery rather cold and stately, Allan Avith an uncomfortable fear lest he might be boring her. Allan b had never been afraid of boring anyone before, but he was often now afraid lest he was boring Margery. It is a fear which generally brings its own fulfilment with it. " Do you like my dress ?" she had asked, as they had moved in to dinner. " It Avas very kind of Una to give it to me. Is it not pretty ?" " Lovely ! — like everything you wear," Allan had answered, lovingly.

Margery's shoulders had absolutely moved ; she could not be said to have shrugged them, but they had moved. She had not spoken to him about her dress æsthetically, or in any way difficult to an swer — simply asked him whether he found it pretty or not, and even then he could not discriminate. Everything she wore was alike lovely to him. It certainly was discouraging. Dalrymple noticed that moArement of her shoulders ; he saw also that, as she sat doAvn, she glanced round at all the luxury around her, and then glanced at Allan coldly, gravely, appraisingly, as if she were taking stock of him also, and that then she sighed. The artist's glowing eyes were fixed upon her, and forced her to look up ; his expression seemed to say that he had read her thoughts. " Only courage !" he murmured. He spoke low and involuntarily, looking aAvay quickly again as he did so, but Mar gery heard him, and looked down.

She could not quite think what his words signi fied. " What were you saying ?" asked Lottie. "Did I speak?" said he, starting. "I was only studying Miss Travers' face. I must certainly paint her. In what charac ter ?" "As an enchantress," replied Lottie, quickly. " And you can put a row of men standing staring like stuck pigs, with their mouths open. That is the way you all stand, when Miss Travers comes into the room." The artist flashed a quick glance at her. "Does Stapleton stand like a stuck pig ?" he asked. Lottie's eyes flashed too, while her face flushed a little. " No, he doesn't. Besides, he has a right to look at her ; he is engaged to her. But I hate to see Lord Talboys and the others. They are a well-assorted pair," she added, carelessly, tossing her head in the direction of Margery and Allan.

" Admirably," answered the artist, much in the same tone. Lottie stared at him. " Do you really think so?" she asked. " I think it a thing to be admired at, if not admired, that two such different charac ters should have come together," replied the artist, again thrown off his guard. " A woman full of fire and flame and genius to marry an inanity " " You certainly do not read faces so well as I should expect, if you find Mr. Stapleton's inane." " It may be full of meaning," replied the artist, contemptuously. " But not for her. To her it is inane. Good heavens ! Avhy does she marry him? She had such a noble contempt for the things most women care for, when I knew her last. She had it in her to be something so very great. And to think that she should marry for a little money in the end ! It must cost her terribly."

" She is not marrying for money," replied Lottie, quickly. " He has next to nothing ; and, besides — I despise the girl, but this much I will say for her, she would marry him just the same, if he lost every penny he possesses. So much good there certainly is in her." The artist flashed another quick glance at her. Then he looked across the table at Margery, as if he, out of all there, were her friend, and knew all about her, and she knew he did. Margery Avas surprised into an answering glance. "You despise her ?" " Must not a woman always despise an other woman, when she sees her so little valuing a man's true love and devotion ? Allan Stapleton is worth ever so many of your beautiful Miss Travers, but she does not see it. She despises him." Thus impetuously, and from her heart, spoke the New York belle, who generally treated it as a sort of matter-of-course that men should lose their hearts, and women despise them.

" He certainly is sufficiently in love with her," said the artist, after a few moments, musingly. " See, she has spoken to him, and he is taking salt with his pudding in consequence. A man might live on such a smile as that." Whilst commenting on Allan's inadvert ence, he was himself quite unaware that he was eating nothing. But Lottie replied drily, " He would find it very poor living, I guess, and so will Mr. Stapleton, when he has nothing else to live upon. He is not the kind of man to make a fortune, and he had much better have fallen in love with a girl who had one ready made." " What is a fortune ?" asked Dalrymple, leaning back now with the air of a real Bohemian, and contemplating the heiress half satirically. " Remember, you speak to an unbeliever in the god of the period. I might have been heir to a place at least as fine as this, and unembarrassed, but I chose to be an artist, and was disinherited.

It grieved my mother dreadfully, and that I shall always regret, but my life would have been simply thrown away had I given up Art. I told my uncle so, and that he might do what he liked with his money, and make what will he liked, for all I cared." " And the end of it all is, you paint por traits for money. I do not call that Art," said Lottie, contemptuously. The hour and a half were nearly at an end, but the time was dragging so, she could not be commonly courteous any longer. Besides, she was thoroughly put out, and when an American girl is so, she generally shows it very plainly, differing in this as much as in anything from her English cousin, who does not commonly air her little tempers in society. The artist, however, was not easily affronted. He smiled a pitying smile as he thought to himself — " So she is in love with him too !

What can there be in that Stapleton, I wonder? An heiress and a prhna donna ! Prima donna, indeed ! She is only donna in the world for me. But he can't make her love him — he can't succeed in that. Yet she'll marry him all the same, my peerless Madge Travers, the lady of my dreams for so many years, and people Avill say she has done well for her self, I daresay. Yet she might as well marry a duke, as she isn't a bit in love. And to think of this little Yankee belle caring so much for him ! I like the girl, thouo-h — I honour her. Not even in her jealousy of her rival Avill she lower the man she loves in her OAvn eyes by acknow ledging that he is being married for his money, I like her spirit. Dear me ! why doesn't the fellow see what's good for him, and leave Madge alone ?" "You promised you would sing to me," he said to Margery, when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies after dinner.

Margery rose at once and went to the piano. "What shall I sing?" she asked. There was a great charm about her do cility ; people expected to meet with resist ance from her, and, meeting none, were surprised agreeably ; yet there was a possibility of this docility becoming mono tonous. With 'Allan the possibility seemed very near at hand, for he was docile also. His conversations with Miss Spluck were much more animated than those with Mar gery ; the Yankee girl's spirit had not been early broken by a too rough Avorld. But neither had Dalrymple's ; he was quite un tamed as yet, and Margery's docility did not risk making conversation with him dull. " Sing something full, and rich, and pas sionate." " Like your face," his eyes added for him. " I like lights and shades, and everything that appeals to the emotions.

I am not really musical, unfortunately, but no man can follow up two arts." Yet Margery felt that she was singing to a connoisseur, and as she finished, Dalrym ple hummed a bar with a slightly different rendering from what she had given to the words, and she saw at once the improve ment, and sang the last part of the song over again. All the other people in the room, with their want of true musical ap preciation, had faded into nonentities for her, and she was conscious only of Dal rymple, who alone appreciated her song. Yet when the others applauded, he remain ed silent. "You are beyond compliment," he said, when they had finished. " I look upon it as impertinence. That felicitd alone would liave won you a dozen encores in any capi tal in Europe." " You think so," said Margery, casting her eyes down humbly, as before a great critic, and then looking up again question ingly.

" And you think it such a little thing to be a lady in comparison ?" Dalrymple's eyes answered for him. " I shall paint you as a prima donna," he said. Lottie was so near that her dress was rustling against Margery's, but their hearts were far as the poles asunder. It was some time already since a friendly word had been exchanged between them. Lottie was looking pale now, glancing up at Allan, as her fingers trifled with the flowers in her dress. What a sweet face it was, that of the American heiress. No man who looked at her ever wished to see her tricked out in jewelry. Lottie would look just as pretty in a cotton gown in a cottage par lour as she ever could look. And she seemed to have learnt her own style at last. Nothing could have surpassed the apparent simplicity of her white muslin dress this evening, though a scrutinising eye might perhaps have discovered that it was not quite so simple as it appeared.

Anyhow, she had never looked prettier or sweeter, as thought Harry Yorke, who had made a compact of friendship with her in their first ride together, and broken it in the very making. He had said to her, "If you Averen't such an awfully great heiress, I believe I should have been head over ears in love with you long ago. But as it is, every time I look at you, I see the spectre of your money-bags keeping guard over you." "Well, give up the idea of falling in love with me, and let us be friends — real, true, good friends. I believe that will exorcise the spectre as well as anything," Lottie had replied, laughingly. She called him Harry from that time forward, and vowed he was a regular Eng lishman, and one of the best young fellows in the world. But Harry never presumed to call her Lottie, and he sometimes wished she would not be quite so friendly with him.

He knew she was an heiress, of course, and he knew he was head over ears in debt, but he was head over ears in love too, poor Harry ! In truth, he would not have been in such difficulties, had he ever learnt the art of concentrating his attention upon money matters, and he could not ac quire it now on a sudden. He could not be always remembering that Miss Spluck was a great heiress. There were other things about her, that had much more of interest and of charm for him. He thought he had never seen her look sweeter than this evening. As for Margery, he admired her beauty very much, and also her singing, but he agreed with Lottie in thinking that she was not the kind of girl a man would care to marry. Now Lottie was. Allan also thought Lottie had never looked prettier, as he came up to her, and said to her, it was a long time since he had heard her sing.

Would she not give them a song that evening ? " What ! after Miss Travers !" exclaimed Lottie. " Who would venture to sing after Miss Travers ?" " Does her music deprive us of all else ?" asked Allan, looking down into her pensive, upturned face with his kindly, straightfor ward glance. vol. n. c MARGERY TRAA^ERS. "Yes, it deprives you of all else," said Lottie, with a bitter little laugh. She had always been capricious, but she seemed to have become yet more capricious of late. Though she had only accepted the invitation to the Priory on condition that Dalrymple Bruce should come there also to paint her picture, and had paid him a fancy price of her own for it beforehand, yet she would not consent to give him a sitting next day. " Paint me as I am here," said she, with a little impatient shrug of her shoulders, " sitting among the roses and the lilies.

I am not going to shut myself up in a stuffy room on a day like this — no, not for all the Academies in the Avorld." One of Dalrymple's conditions had been that the picture was to be exhibited when finished. " I can take a sketch of you in this way, if you like," said the artist, who could not afford to lose his time, and yet was in no mood to humour the heiress's caprices. He looked dispirited and pre-occupied this morning. There was no glow in his face or in his eyes ; no one, to see him now, would haAre taken him for the enthusiast of the evening before. " I see my first idea of your face was quite wrong," he said, with an air of contrition over his mistake. " It will not do to paint you in a cloud of white tulle and pink roses, such as one sees at least a dozen of in the Academy every year.

Your portrait must be much less conventional, with something pensive and romantic about it." "Yes, just as she is sitting now," said Margery, softly, " her hands lightly folded on her lap, the flowers dropping through her fingers, and those two tall white lilies standing up against the sky behind her. c2 Only I should like it to be evening, and the sky a much deeper colour, and one last lingering ray, which one feels must fade in another minute, lighting up her face and hair." " Excellent ! excellent !" cried the artist, his face brightening as his eyes met Mar gery's, and looked deep into them for a moment. " How did you think it all out? That is the very thing, only I must change places with you, then, please. You remember Les Illusions Perdues at the Luxembourg ?" he continued, looking anxiously at Lottie, who still sat with her head drooped, and the flowers dropping through her fingers, as though she had no part in the conversation.

"As if she had made a mistake, and couldn't help it," said Margery. " But I have made no mistake !" cried Lottie, raising her head impetuously. "Please sit still, Miss Spluck," said Dal rymple, Avith a tone of irritation. " I will try to do the best I can out here, since you wish it. But if you are to move in cessantly, there is no use in my attempting anything. Your face a little more turned away, please, as you were before. You can see presently how you like the pose." Lottie fell back into her former attitude listlessly, only raising her eyebrows a little at the tone of authority, which in general would have inclined her to insubordination. But she was too languid for that just then. They had wandered into a part of the garden laid out in accordance with Lady Mary's suggestions. Lady Mary said she would as soon make herself into a geo metrical figure as let her flowers grow in one, and often protested against the ap parent connection in the modern mind between geraniums and ribbon gardening, carrying her prejudice against the latter so far as not even to admit the former among her favourite flowers, at least not in their dwarf variety.

She had no objection to a geranium as a bush, covered with loose hanging crimson petals. Thus Wo tall virgin lilies stood behind Lottie on one side ; on the other, a bush of monthly roses almost pushed itself into her lap, whilst Margery's dark hair was lighted up by a rich scarlet salvia, and at the same time she had nothing to do but put out her hand, and gather a Avhole handful of sweet scented carnations. Una had, of course, chosen a loAvly seat embowered in white jasmine, her favourite place. She was busily employed rigging a miniature boat that Allan had made out of a walnut shell ; he was rather clever at such contrivances. Lord Talboys, who was not equally clever, was helping her. Harry Yorke lay like a dog at Lottie's feet, and gathered up the mangled flowers that she let fall. Margery had got hold of an accordion, and every noAV and then played little wailing melodies upon it.

Dalrymple alone was hard at work ; he was one of those artists whose first sketches are fascinating, and he knew everyone would be pleased ; the colour deepened on his cheek as he painted. Sir James Stapleton came out and looked at them. He said, jocosely, he had heard of a flower called Love in Idleness, but he had no idea till now what a plentiful crop there was of it in his garden. Well, anyhow it was better than Love in the Mist, and he laughed and went away, saying Allan was no good now, and he must look after everything himself. " Is there anything you ought to do?" asked Margery, dropping her accordion. " No, nothing. Sit still. What can I do better than sit and look at you ?" was his reply. How was it that Margery met Dalrym ple's eye just at that moment? Properly he ought to have been looking at Miss Spluck, and not at all in her direction.

She coloured deeply, and picked up her accordion. " You will make me cry, if you go on with that much longer," said Lottie, pet tishly. " It is bad enough to have one's picture painted pensive, and having made a mistake. But you've played one heart broken air after another, till really I feel quite inclined to thank Lord Talboys for laughing, though I know it is only over some mistake he has made. Why can't we all laugh over our mistakes ?" A dead silence. " Oh, my ! since when have I been sent to CoArentry, that nobody answers Avhen I speak ?" asked the heiress, laughingly. " My dear Miss Spluck, what's the mat ter ?" asked Una, looking round. " Did you ever see such a duck of a sail? Lord Talboys made it all himself." " If that isn't lovely !" cried Lottie. " When, with my own eyes, I saw you cut it out, and seAV it yourself, aud the two of you have been at least half an hour fixing it between you.

Am I not fixed yet, Mr. Bruce ? I've sat so still, I doubt if I'll ever be able to move again, if I don't move soon. " This will give you some idea of the effect I wish to produce," said the artist, turnino: his unfinished sketch towards her. She bent forward, and took it in her own hands. " How do you like it ?" she asked, ad dressing Allan, who, from his position on MARGERY TRAArERS. the grass, was conveniently placed for looking over her shoulder. " It is very pretty," he said, hesitatingly — " very pretty indeed. I daresay it will be very like you. But I should like to see you looking quite different." " Me, or my picture ?" asked Lottie. " Both," replied Allan, decidedly, after moving a little and looking into her face for a moment. " I didn't think you looked like — that kind of girl.

And now I see you do. But you were quite different when you danced through a whole waltz with me last season. You wouldn't keep it up so long now, I am afraid." " Try," pouted the petted beauty. " Why don't you have some dancing here ? You English never do seem to have a real nice time of it. Now if this were America, there'd be gales of laughter and dancing every evening." " Gales of laughter !" said Allan. " How nice ! I wish we Avere in America ! But Ave'll do our best for you here, Miss Spluck. Una, how soon can we get up a ball ? You would like it, too, wouldn't you, Margery?" Her eyes did not meet the artist's this time, but she saw his colour deepen as she answered, in her most docile tone, " Yes, very much." " I don't know what you mean. Staple ton," said Harry Yorke. " I think this sketch perfectly delightful ; and if the picture is only like it, I am sure it will collect the greatest crowd in the Academy.

Then they all looked at the sketch, and were delighted. Only Margery said no thing. Dalrymple sat with his eyes fixed on the ground and a settled colour on his cheeks, and, instead of being elated by his praises, looked rather like a dog that had been beaten. At last he got up, and began putting away his sketch. As he did so, he said, very low, " Have I failed to carry out your idea, Miss Travers ?" Margery looked up surprised. "My idea!" she said. "It is only you who have got an idea — you only are aim ing at something, and we all — are just getting through life. Yes, I like your sketch very much." He looked up now, and she saw his eyes were full of tears. " Thank you," he said, but with such a sigh of relief that Harry Yorke clapped him on the shoulder, and said, " Why, old fellow, Miss Spluck was very much pleased with your sketch.

You're not out of heart with it, are you?" "No — not now," said Dalrymple, and Avalked off with it into the house. His was a nature that demanded sympa thy, and somehow he also had felt that he was quite differently placed from all the others — he alone at work, and for his bread. But not till Margery had spoken had his position seemed a glorious one. Then she put him on a pedestal, and made him piti ful of her that she did not stand there also. But these natures that demand so much sympathy are not the most sympa thetic. Dalrymple went into the house, all his thoughts concentred on himself, and happy that she pronounced his art not ignoble, he having already recognised hers as the noblest, such as he had once dreamed — but, alas ! dreamed only — his might also be. Deep hidden in his heart was the sense of failure.

He had dreamt sublimely, and thus drawing-room praises passed over him unheeded ; not so critic ism, for the inner voice echoed that, and intensified it. But when Margery ex pressed satisfaction with his sketch, he accepted her praise as that of one for whom the laurel crown was already twined, would she but bend her head to receive it, and he looked at his sketch, and saAv that that, at least, was charming, and set to work to prepare his canvas for the finished picture with redoubled ardour.

CHAPTER XIV. THE DAY-DREAM.

TTTHEN Dalrymple Bruce first talked ™ " of painting Margery, Allan was rather taken by the idea, but when he found she was not to sit to him like Lottie in the garden, but in an artistically darkened room, and with fixed hours for sit tings, he would gladly have discouraged the whole proceeding. Everyone, however, seemed against him. Lady Stapleton said languidly it would be a pity for her not to do so, and Sir James called it a lucky chance, while Una quietly drew Margery's arm through her own, saying, "Come Avith me, and I'll dress you, and arrange everything. Now don't fuss, Allan ; Miss Spluck and some of the other ladies are going to ride, and they will want cavaliers. You can surely spare Margery for one afternoon." " How are you going to be painted, dearest ?" asked Allan. His voice always had a different tone when he spoke to her, and he looked at her beseechingly.

But Margery did uot look up, though her colour deepened. " Mr. Bruce said as a Prima Donna, so I hope I am to have a carpet of bouquets at my feet, and a curtain behind me, I suppose. They had entered the room now, which Dalrymple had already arranged as a studio, and where he was receiving them with the manner in which he generally did the honours of his studio, not at all as if he had been spending all the morning with them, and were staying in the house. Allan's brow darkened a little. "Asa Prima Donna. Is not that rather a common idea ? One has seen quantities of Prima Donnas." " You know Miss Travers' face so well, perhaps you Avould advise me," said Dal rymple, retreating a little with his arms folded in a manner peculiar to himself, and with an elaborate courtesy not at all calcu lated to encourage Allan to proffer his ad vice.

" Friends often give hints. If you would kindly seat yourself in that arm chair, Miss Travers, your face a little more to the light. What do you think of that pose?" he asked of Allan. " Miss Travers must always look beauti ful in every position," said Allan, with dignity. "But would it not be better to think of some idea as you did for Miss D VOL. Spluck ? Do you mean it to be a portrait, or a fancy picture ?" " Both — either," said the artist, carelessly, forgetting himself for the moment in the contemplation of Margery, sitting passive before them with that graceful abandon so distinctly not English. " An ideal." " An ideal ! — your ideal ?" Allan looked up a little surprised. " My ideal ! No, indeed. I should be proud of such a conception. But just as Miss Travers is sitting now with her chin resting on her hand, and her eyes far away, one might call it the Day-Dream.

She is at all times beautiful as a dream." He added, as if to himself, " Too beautiful to be true." Then, ixmsing himself by an effort from his reverie, " You said, Miss Stapleton, you had some Indian shawls. Would you allow me to try the effect? Here ! are they ? A thousand thanks," and he moved towards a sofa on which Una was already displaying the shawls. " That is a pretty simile for you, Mar gery," said Allan, turning and bending over her now. " Beautiful as a dream, too beautiful to be true." " Do you think me false, then?" asked Margery, looking up now almost fiercely. "My dearest, you know I did not mean that." "No, dear Allan, no. I know you did not. But Mr. Bruce, he is full of doubles entendres." " How do you know that already ?" asked Allan, glancing at the artist, who, Avith his back turned, appeared fully intent upon the shawls.

Margery looked confused for a moment, then she said, " I knew him long ago." " Only for three days, I thought ?" D " That is a long time sometimes," said Margery. " Now, Allan, you and I must vanish," cried Una. " Mr. Bruce has chosen his drapery and prepared his canvas, and he must be left to devise his own positions. It is such bad taste to interfere," she Avhispered, " when you have not ordered the picture. Or have you, perhaps ?" " No," said Allan. " Am I in your way, Mr. Bruce ?" speaking very stiffly and politely. " Not at all, not at all," said Dalrymple, almost equally stiffly. " I am only afraid you may find it rather tedious. Miss Travers has been good enough to promise me a regular sitting, such as I am afraid I am never likely to obtain from Miss Spluck. Americans do not quite understand the exigencies of portrait-painting, and that a model is then really a necessity."