Proper Pride ... A new edition

Chapter I. Malta

PgjKH-ECEMBER in Malta is very different from r Ky«| that month in England. There is no yjg^g snow, no black frost, no fog ; a bright, turquoise-blue sky, and deep indigo sea, smooth as glass, and dotted here and there with the white sails of fishing boats, make a be coming background for this buff-coloured island. The air is soft, yet exhilarating ; a perfume of oranges, cheroots, and flowers pervades the atmosphere. Little boys, with superb dark eyes, are thrusting delicious bunches of roses and heliotrope into the hands of passers-by, and demanding ' six pence.' The new piano-organs are grinding away mercilessly at the corner of every street. A trooper, a Peninsular and Oriental, and a vicious looking ironclad are all in simultaneously, and Valetta is crammed. Such, at least, was the scene one December afternoon, not many years ago.

It was the fashionable hour ; the Strada Reale was full of shoppers, sightseers, and loungers ; half the garrison was strolling up and down. Fat monks in A brown, thin nuns in black, fruit-sellers, Maltese women in their picturesque faldettas, soldiers, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggar men, and no doubt thieves, thronged the hot white pavement. Outside Mariche's, the well-known tobacconist, two young men, bearing the unmistakable stamp of the British warrior of the period, were smoking the inevitable weed. Cox, ' the horsey,' with hands in pockets, was holding forth at intervals, to Brown, ' the blase] and ladies' man par excellence, of the gallant smashers. ' Never saw such a hole as this is in my life — never ! No hunting, no shooting, no sport of any kind. Think of all the tip-top runs they are having at home now !

If The Field is to be be lieved, there never was such going ; nor, for the matter of that, such grief. Here we are — stuck on an island ; water wherever you look ; not a horse worth twenty pounds in the place ! ' ' Oh come, my dear fellow,' remonstrated his friend, ' what about the Colonel's barb, and half-a dozen others I could mention ? ' ' Well, not a hunter, at any rate, and that's all the same. If we are left here another year, I be lieve I shall cut my throat — or get married! Looking at his companion with critical gravity, to see how he took this tremendous alternative, but observing no wonderful expression of alarm or anxiety depicted on his face, he continued to puff furiously at the cigar which he held almost savagely between his set teeth. Suddenly he ex claimed, — 'By Jove! there's that Miss Saville that all the fellows are talking about !

Why, she's nothing but a schoolgirl after all.' ' Nevertheless she is the prettiest girl in Valetta,' replied Mr Brown, taking his cheroot out of his mouth and gazing with an air of languid approval after a tall slight figure, in a well-cut blue serge Malta 3 costume, that, in company with an elderly lady, was crossing the Palace Square. ' By the way, Brown, who is this Miss Saville when she is at home ? ' ' Miss Saville,' replied Brown, propping himself against the doorway, and evidently preparing for a narrative, ' is — In the first place, an heiress, four thousand a-year, my dear boy — think of that.' Encouraged by a nod from Cox, he proceeded, — ' She is also an orphan.' ' Good ! ' quoth Cox emphatically. ' But you need not run away with the idea that she is an unprotected female. She has a guardian,' continued his friend impressively. ' It seems that her father, General Saville, saved or made a lot of money out in India, and this girl was his only child.

Her mother died when she was a baby, and she was sent home and received a first-class education, including all the extras. Are you listening ? ' ' Of course I am ; get on with the story.' ' Well, old Saville, who had always meant to come home and live on his fortune and repose on his laurels, trusted too long to the climate, and left his bones in the cemetery at Lahore, and his daughter to his great chum, Sir Greville Fairfax, with her fortune and her hand, both tightly tied up, not to marry without his full consent, not to come of age till she was five-and-twenty, and all that sort of thing, you know.' ' Yes, yes ; go on.' ' Hurry no man's cattle, the day is young,' said Brown, removing his cheroot after two or three pulls, and contemplating it with apparent interest. 'About six months later,' he proceeded, oracu larly, ' Sir Greville died suddenly of heart disease, and it was found by his will that he had passed on the guardianship of the fair Alice to his son — to his son, a young fellow of four-and-twenty, a captain in the Fifth Hussars, and now with his regiment in India.

What do you think of that ? ' ' Think ! ' returned his friend, with emphasis ; ' I think it was meant as an uncommonly strong hint for the son to marry her.' ' And so he will, be sure. A pretty girl, with four thousand pounds a-year and no relations, is not to be had every day. I only wish I had such a chance. But I am afraid that a sub in a marching regiment, with a pittance of a hundred pounds a-year and his pay, would be rather out of the running.' ' You may say so,' replied Cox candidly, plung ing his hands still deeper into his pockets. ' That old dowager would make short work of " the likes of you," as they say in the Green Isle.' ' No doubt she would. She is a Miss Fane, an aunt of Fairfax's, and has been all autumn at Nice ; and is now here on a visit to the Lee-Dormers. Of course she will keep the fair Alice for her nephew.' ' How do you know all this ?

How do you know her name is Alice ? ' inquired Captain Cox. ' Oh, I know a good many things,' returned his friend, with careless complacency, resuming his cheroot and a critical inspection of all passers-by. His companion gazed at him for some moments with a kind of sleepy admiration, and then suddenly burst out, — ' Is this Fairfax a dark, slim, good-looking fellow? for I recollect a Fairfax, an Al rider, winning the Grand Military at Punchestown some three years ago ; he was in the cavalry, I know.' 'Yes, that's he — Reginald Fairfax. Since then he has been improving the shining hour in the gorgeous East, tiger-shooting, pig-sticking, polo playing, and so on. His regiment is in this season's reliefs, and, very likely, on its way home now.' ' But the Fairfax I knew had lots of coin, never went near a lady, and would be the last man in the world to settle down and get married.

He cared for nothing but sport of all kinds — hunting, racing, shooting, and so on ; and if he is the identi cal guardian, Miss Saville is likely to remain Miss Saville as far as he is concerned. Money would be no temptation to him,' he concluded, triumphantly. ' Well,' rejoined Mr Brown, ' if he won't marry her someone else will; it will be all the same to you and me. Here, my cheroot is out ; come along and take a turn in the Strada, and give the natives a treat.' Exeunt, arm-in-arm.

Chapter II. Alice Saville

AMONG the passengers who landed at South ampton from the Peninsular and Oriental Rosetta, one warm August afternoon in the year 1858, was a stout, well-to-do Bengali ayah. Her stoutness spoke for itself, her gold nose-jewel, heavy seed pearl earrings, massive necklet, bangles, and toe rings amply vouched for her monetary ease. She carried on one arm a thick black-and-red plaid shawl (her own property), and on the other a pale, fragile, wistful-looking infant, dressed in a short white embroidered pelisse, white bonnet, and enor mous black sash. This miserable, puny little orphan had lived and thriven, and developed into the beauty and heiress alluded to by Captains Brown and Cox. All through her early childhood she had been the care, no less than the idol, of her grand-aunt and uncle Saville, an old maid and an old bachelor, who resided in an imposing but slightly dilapidated mansion in the centre of a large wild looking demesne, near some unpronounceable village in the south of Ireland.

Here, for nearly ten years, little Alice — thanks to a supposed delicate constitution — was allowed unlimited freedom from lessons, lectures, punish ments, and all the restraints that young people of her years specially detest. It was true that her fond aunt made a valiant attempt to ' do lessons ' with her for one hour daily ; but how often was that hour curtailed in deference to the pleading of a jovial, indulgent old grand-uncle ? Allowed her own way almost entirely, she brooked no constraint ; for she had a fine spirit, as her relations complacently remarked. Her violent bursts of passion were passed by unchecked. It was merely the Saville temper, as much heredi tary, and seemingly as much to be proud of, as her violet eyes and the far-famed Saville nose. Mounted on her chesnut pony she would accompany her uncle in his rides or scour solus round the fields, with her long golden hair streaming in the wind, looking far more like a spirit than an ordinary Christian child. ' Ay, but isn't she the beautiful fair creature to be born in that black country ? ' the servants and retainers would observe to each other, with mingled admiration and amazement.

At ten years of age Alice Saville could barely read ; wrote large intoxicated-looking round-hand ; knew nought of arithmetic, sewing, or spelling ; and was, without doubt, as pretty and complete a little dunce as could be found in the whole pro vince of Munster. Nevertheless, she had some accomplishments. She was a wonderful rider for her years, and could and would ride any colt on the premises ; gaily careering round and round the lawn, and sticking on as if she were part and parcel of the animal, to the pride and delight of all beholders. Moreover, she could jabber Irish, and was well versed in all the old lore, legends, fairy-tales, and superstitions current within the four adjoining counties. Alice had ten years of boundless liberty, and at the end of that time her uncle died, his estate passed to the next heir, and his sister, finding herself no longer the mistress of a large, liberally kept establishment, but, on the contrary, an old maid in straitened circumstances, removed to a small house in the suburbs of Dublin, and talked of sending her niece to school.

Alarming rumours now began to reach Sir Greville Fairfax. His ward was an unkempt, un educated, bare-legged little wretch, running wild among the bogs of Ireland. What a terrible picture was conjured up before his mental vision. He became at once alive to a sense of his responsi bilities, and sought the advice of his most imme diate matronly neighbours without a day's delay. ' She must be sent abroad ! ' this was the universal opinion, that rather disappointed her guardian ; for, to tell the truth, he had had hopes of keeping her under his own roof, with a governess to look after her manners and education. Since his son had gone to Sandhurst the house seemed remark ably lonely and silent, and he would have liked the child of his old friend Maurice Saville to have made her home with him. He had been her guardian now for more than a year, and he had actually never seen her.

But when he had taken the suffrages of his most intimate lady-friends, this hope was quenched. ' She must be sent abroad,' was their verdict ; nothing else could possibly counteract that odious Irish accent. Lady Bertram knew of such a charming establishment where two of her nieces had been for years. Three miles from the city of Tours, and within sight of the village of Roche-Corbon, stood an old grey chateau, almost buried in woods. The Revolution of '92 had most effectually dispersed its former owners, who surely in their wildest flight of imagination never dreamt that their venerable roof-tree would become one day a boarding-school for the English ' Mees ' — ' Not a school,' Madame Daverne affirmed, merely a few young friends, whose education she undertook to superintend for the consideration of three hundred pounds per annum ; and a very good investment Madame found that old chateau and its rickety obsolete furniture.

It is true that she kept a char a bane and a pair of fat white horses for the use of her young friends. How otherwise could they go to Tours thrice a-week to receive lessons in music, singing, painting, riding, fencing, and dancing ? How otherwise attend the English church once a day on Sunday? But Jules and his horses were not an expensive item — rent and living were cheap ; Madame was a manager, a strict dis ciplinarian, and a most excellent teacher. The chateau at Rougemont was a delightful place to its young English inmates, entirely dif ferent to a great, formal, stiff house at home, with so many rooms on each floor, all the same size, and nothing interesting or unusual from garret to cellar. Here in the chateau, with its little pepper castor towers and corkscrew staircases, they were constantly making some novel discovery, whether of a secret panel, or a secret stair, a well, a picture, or a grave.

It had even been hinted that an oubliette was somewhere on the premises. Rouge mont far more resembled the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty, with its large kitchen and hall, long stone passages and spacious courtyard, than the orthodox establishment for young ladies. It was surrounded by a garden laid out in terraces, connected by slights of shallow steps, and ornamented with clipped yew-trees, closely resembling in shape the toy-trees of the sheepfolds of our youth, and a wonderful and varied collection of stone, plaster, and even coloured wooden statues, which burst upon the eye in the most unlooked-for and surprising manner. Madame Daverne, the English widow of a French avocat, was a little, thin, middle-aged woman, invariably dressed in grey, and never seen without her spectacles. She wore her still abun dant dark hair in plain bandeaux — a long-exploded fashion — and no cap.

Although her domestic arrangements were managed on a liberal English scale, and she believed in plenty of cold water, open windows, and tea, still she had lived sufficiently long in the country of her adoption to have imbibed a very strong prejudice in favour of sur veillance, especially as regarded the young friends under her care. No idle chatter about the boys at the Lycee of love, of lovers, was ever permitted ; novels and romances were unknown and unread. The great outside world, with its sayings and doings, was an unexplored region to Madame Daverne's pupils. Nevertheless, her six young friends found a good deal of happiness in each other's society ; they spent a very busy, healthy life — rambles in the forest, tennis, la grace, and gardening were their usual amusements, and every Thursday during summer and autumn they made expeditions to Loches, Blios, Chinonceaux, Plessis les Tours, Amboise, or other places of, as Madame observed, ' well-known historical interest.' More than six years had passed since the wild little Irish imp had arrived at Rougemont ; and in those years what a change had come over her !

How marvellously she had improved ! Her gusts of passion were among the things of the past, her goat-like impulses had been subdued, her craving to ride every horse she met had long been curbed, io Proper Pride. her ignorance — who dares to talk of ignorance in connection with Madame Daverne's most brilliant and most accomplished pupil ? Few girls take leave of school and school-fellows with as much regret as Alice Saville. Rougemont has been her home, and she has no desire to leave the shelter of its grey walls and venture out into the world alone among strangers. She loves every stick and stone about the old place ; every feature in the landscape she looks out on is a dear familiar friend ; from the ' Lanterne ' itself to venerable Marmoutier, from Marmoutier to the Cathedral, whence comes the Angelus, faintly audible across the waters of the swiftly-rolling, poplar-fringed Loire.

To-morrow Alice is to leave Rougemont for ever. Miss Fane, her guardian's aunt, is at this instant in the city of Tours. To-morrow she comes to fetch her away ; and no child at the zenith of her enjoyment at a children's party ever heard the terrible words, ' Your nurse has come,' with a chillier thrill of dismay than did Alice, when Madame Daverne announced to her that her future protector was about to remove her from her care. Alice and her friends are sitting on some broken stone steps; she in the middle, of course — for is not this their last evening together? and are they not all very fond of Alice, and very, very sorry that she is leaving them ? They may well be fond of Alice, for she is the brightest creature that ever lived, and the life and soul of the little community ; a favourite with everyone, from Madame herself down to an old \amefemme de menage occasionally called in on domestic emergencies.

Who could sing, and dance, and tell ghost-stories like her? Who dressed up and acted with the inimitable talent of their fair haired school-fellow ? Who was as generous, as unselfish, as ready to help, to give, or to lend, as Alice ? Bright and gay, warm-hearted and clever, all the inmates of Rougemont know that when she departs she will leave a blank behind her im possible to fill. Think of the prettiest girl you ever saw, and it may give you some faint idea of Alice Saville, as she sat on the topmost step but one, with her hands locked round her knees (an easy if not graceful attitude), and her eyes gazing down on the valley of the Loire for the last time. Had your beauty mischievous violet eyes — eyes whose colour was a mystery to many, owing to their rapid change of expression and their sweeping black lashes ; quantities of golden-brown wavy hair rippling and curling away from her forehead, a roseleaf complexion, a purely Grecian profile, and seventeen summers ?

The farewells have been said three months ago ; many tears were shed — and dried ; and now the curtain rises upon new scenes. Touraine and its picturesque old chateaux and dim green woods fade away, to give place to the narrow, sun scorched, steppy streets of Valetta. In a cool spacious apartment, overlooking a Moorish courtyard, filled with orange-trees in green tubs, and various semi-tropical plants, Alice and Miss Fane are sitting reading. The post has just come in, and Miss Fane is revelling in an abundant supply of letters, which flutter and rustle in an aggravating manner as the cool sea-breeze steals in and plays with them, and seems to try to snatch from their recipient the full enjoyment of their contents. The breeze plays tenderly and lovingly with Alice Saville's stray little curls, but she reads on and takes no notice.

Nothing short of a ' Levanter ' would rouse her from her study ■ — ' Ivanhoe.' The world of fiction has been opened to her at last ! Miss Fane thinks that ' there is no harm in the Waverley Novels, with the exception of the "Heart of Midlothian ;"' that is carefully put aside ; any of the others Alice may read ; and Alice is rapidly devouring them. Her crewel-work lies neglected on the floor ; her cup of tea stands at her elbow untasted ; and all her thoughts are entirely engrossed in the storming of Torquilstone Castle. Miss Fane and Alice had spent the autumn in visiting Rome, Florence, and Nice, and were spending a few weeks in Malta before returning to London, where they were to reside together ; and Alice was to make her debut the ensuing season. She found Valetta altogether delightful.

Fresh from her studies, with the history of the crusades and of the Knights of Rhodes and Malta still green in her memory, the half-mediæval, half-oriental aspect of the place fascinated her beyond measure. Many an hour did she spend in the old Cathedral of St John, endeavouring to decipher the tombs with which its numerous chapels are paved. Her knowledge of French and Italian helped her to find out the meaning of their Latin inscriptions, and many and various were the stories she men tally wove about those valiant, war-worn, monkish soldiers lying beneath her feet. ' Exploring ' was Alice's favourite recreation, as she was not, strictly speaking, ' out ' as yet ; and balls, dancelettes, and yachting picnics were unknown pleasures. The long narrow streets, the ' Nix Mangiare ' stairs, the odd steep ascents, were an amusing and delightful novelty to her light, active feet, but a sore detested pilgrimage to Miss Fane's gaunt old bones.

The mysterious little shops that line these queer streets of stairs were another peren nial source of interest, including the sleek cats that sat sentry in almost every doorway. The Maltese themselves were capital subjects for sketches or study ; whether they lay flat on their backs, basking in the sun, with their caps pulled over their faces, or lounged in lazy groups about the corners of picturesque old houses, or drove their huge betasselled mules up and down the steep stradas, they were ever and always a fresh novelty to Alice. She little knew that she herself out rivalled the 'fried monks' as one of the 'sights of Malta ; ' or that she was the object of gen eral interest and admiration, as, escorted by her austere-looking chaperon, she roamed about, satis fying the curiosity of youth and the craving of a highly imaginative mind.

Miss Fane had been working steadily through her correspondence. Long crossed letters, resembling lattice -work, occupied her for the best part of an hour. At length she came to one in a bold, black, manly hand, not crossed, not even filling two pages. She knit her brows more than once as she perused it, then slowly folded it, put it in its envelope, and fastened a look that a basi lisk might have envied on her companion. Glancing up from her novel with a frank, fearless countenance, she encountered Miss Fane's cold grey eyes critically surveying her over the top of her tortoiseshell pince-nez. To describe Miss Fane more paticularly, she was a prim, dignified, elderly lady, seated bolt upright on the most un compromising chair in the room. She had well cut aristocratic features ; a high, arrogant-looking nose ; rather a spiteful mouth ; iron-grey sausage curls, carefully arranged on either temple, and sur mounted by a sensibly sedate cap.

A very hand some brown silk dress, as stiff as herself, completed her costume. Not being overburdened with this world's goods, owing to the failure of the bank in which most of her fortune had been invested, she had accepted a very handsome allowance, and the post of chaperon to her nephew's ward. If she could have had this immense increase to her income without the ward, so much the better ; girls were not to her taste ! but though narrow-minded, frigid, and intensely selfish, she was strictly conscientious, according to her lights, and was thoroughly prepared to do her duty by her young companion. ' Alice,' she said, glancing from Alice to the note she held in her hand, and then back again with an air of hesitation, ' I have just heard from my nephew, your guardian, you know. He expects to leave India immediately ; and if the Euphrates stops here for coaling, he says he will come and look us up.

Would you like to read his letter ? Per haps I ought not to show it to you ; but it will give you some idea of the kind of young man he is.' ' Thank you,' replied his ward, stretching out a slim, ready hand ; ' if you really think I may, Miss Fane ? ' she added, interrogatively, whereupon Miss Fane handed her her nephew's effusion, which ran as follows : — ' Cheetapore. 'My DEAR Aunt Mary, — I got your last letter all right. I did not answer it at once as I had nothing to say, and am no scribe at the best of times. I quite agree with you, that you had much better take entire charge of Miss Saville now she has left school ; but why not have kept her there another year or two ? Your suggestion is excellent, and you will make a much more fitting guardian than my unworthy self. I do not know what on earth I should have done with her if you had not come to the rescue.

I cannot imagine what possessed my father to leave me, of all people, guardian to a girl. Of course I shall look after her money affairs, etc., but I hope you will take her off my hands completely. No doubt she will marry soon, as you say she is pretty, and if the parti is anything like a decent fellow, and comes up to the mark in the way of settlements, you may take my consent for granted — I shall say : " Bless you, my children," with unmixed satisfaction. I am bringing you some shawls, curios, etc., to make amends for my shortcomings as a correspondent. We sail from Bombay on the twenty-second, and if we coal at Malta I shall look you up. What in the world took you there ? It strikes me you are becoming a regular "globe trotter" in your old age. — Your affectionate nephew, ' R. M. Fairfax.' ' What a funny letter, or note rather ! ' exclaimed Alice ; ' only two sides of the paper.

The Fifth Hussars have a very pretty crest ; and what a good hand he writes ! He certainly seems very anxious to get rid of me, does he not, Miss Fane ? I am afraid I am a great infliction,' she added, colouring ; ' but I will do my best to trouble him as little as possible.' 'I will make you a much more suitable guardian,' returned Miss Fane complacently. ' I do not know what my brother-in-law could have been dreaming about when he made his will. Poor man ! he naturally thought he had yet many years to live, and never contemplated your having such a pre posterously young guardian. Reginald cares for nothing beyond his profession — horses, racing and men's society. My brother-in-law spoiled him as a boy, and allowed him his own way completely, though I believe he was a good son and very much attached to his father.

Greville was a weak-minded man,' she pursued, shaking her head reflectively, ' governed first by his wife, and then by his son. Reginald has always been his own master, and is headstrong and overbearing to the last degree.' ' You don't like him, Miss Fane ? ' inquired Alice, slightly raising her eyebrows. ' Ah, well ! ' hesitatingly, ' I don't exactly say that ; I have seen so little of him since he was a boy ; and then he was, without exception, the most troublesome, mischievous, impudent urchin I ever came across ; always in trouble, falling out of trees, or downstairs, or off his pony ; playing practical jokes ; fighting the gardener's big boys ; riding his father's hunters on the sly. He kept everyone in hot water. I spent six months at Looton, and added six years to my life,' concluded Miss Fane, nodding her head with much solemnity.

The truth was, Miss Fane had gone to Looton on a very long visit, with the intention of remain ing permanently as virtual mistress. Her easy going brother-in-law would have made no objec tion, but her impish nephew immediately saw through her object, and made her life unbearable. His practical jokes were chiefly at her expense, and the way in which he teased her beloved poodle was simply intolerable. She had to give up her intention of remaining, and leave what she had fully intended to have been a most luxurious home. This she had never forgotten, nor forgiven ; her 'feelings on the subject had been stifled, but they smouldered. She never cared for her nephew — never would ; he was far too like his mother — her handsome step-sister — whom she had detested with all her heart. Nevertheless, she found it to her advantage to be on apparently good terms with her liberal and wealthy relative, who had not the remotest idea of the real feelings his aunt secretly cherished towards him.

About a week later the Euphrates came into Malta, late one evening. Miss Fane and the Lee- Dormers were dining at the Governor's ; Alice, not being ' out,' had tea solus at home. Time hung heavily on her hands ; her book was stupid, she was not in the humour for music, and it was too early to go to bed. Opening the win dow, she stepped out on the balcony that ran all round the house, and overlooked the courtyard. Here she remained for a long time, her chin resting on her hand, indulging in a day-dream — 'in maiden meditation, fancy free.' The air was laden with the perfume of twenty different flowers ; but the fragrant orange-trees in their tubs down below overpowered all. ' How delicious ! ' said Alice to herself, sniffing the air. ' If I am ever married — which is not very likely — I shall have a wreath of real orange-blos soms, always supposing I can get them.' Presently she turned her attention to the stars, and endeavoured to make out some of the constel lations, not very successfully, it must be confessed.