Archie Lovell. A novel

Front matter

% iolnl. BY MRS. EDWARDS, AUTHOR OF "MISS FORRESTER," "MORALS OF MAYFAIR," ETC, ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1866. [The Right of Translation is Reserved!] LONDON : BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I, — ME. DURANT'S GENEROSITY 1 II. — THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 22 III. — "PLAY, OR TAKE MISS?" 4_ IV. — AMONG THE PHILISTINES 73 V. — OLD LOVE AND NEW ! 95 VI. — CAPTAIN WATERS' SENSE OP DUTY . . . 127 vii. — Archie's confession 150 VIII. — A VAMPIRE "AT HOME" 181 IX. — LE RENARD PRECHE AUX POULES . . . . 199 X. — FOUND DROWNED 211 XI. — DEAD ROSE-LEAVES ! 225 XII. — BY THE RIVER-SIDE 236 xiii.— "g. s. d." 253 XIV. — WORKING UP A CASE AECHIE LOVELL.

Chapter I. Mr

DURANT'S GENEROSITY. " And I have got the old lady's cloak on still, Mr. Durant ! What, in heaven's name, am I to do with it . " Gerald and Miss Lovell had been driven from the Thames pier to the London Bridge station, and were now waiting until a sublimely-indifferent clerk would condescend to give them information about the tidal train to Folkestone. " She told me, as we came up the river, I might wear it till we got to London ; and then in the hurry of landing I forgot all about her and her cloak and everything else. What ought I to do with it ? " " Keep it, if it is worth anything ; leave it in the waiting-room if it is not," said Gerald, un- VOL. II. Ti hesitatingly. "I wonder, Miss Lovell, that you should ask any questions on such a point." "Well, it really is old— old ! and washed and mended," said Archie, falling at once into Gerald's easy moraHty, "so it can't matter much to the owner whether it's lost or not.

I'll just keep it on for the present, and then, if I find it too warm, leave it behind me somewhere. I would never like the prince or M. Gounod, or any of my partners, to see me land on the Morteville pier in it." Only this last part of the remark Miss LoveU made to herself, not aloud. The sublimely-indifferent clerk now imparted to them that the tidal train for Folkestone left at half-past ten; in rather more than two hours, that was to say, from the present time. " And I can wait very well alone here at the station," said Archie, a Httle shyly ; " and it is reaUy time for us to say good-bye. Mr. Durant, I have given you so much trouble, and I am so much obhged to you for your kindness!" They had only talked common-places since that last whisper of Gerald's on board the steamer, and the girl turned her eyes away from him as she spoke.

" Would you rather be without me, Miss WU son . Say so, and I will go away at once." " I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Durant. I think you must have had quite enough of me without waiting any longer here." " And if I have not had enough of you ? If I want exceedingly to stay and be of some use to you to the last ? " She smUed, holding down her face stiU, and Gerald, instead of going away, told his valet, who, observant and mystified, was waiting a few yards from where they stood, to get a cab and take his luggage home at once. " Without you, sir ? " " Without me. I shan't be home till late. I am going to spend the evening at Mr. Dennison's in the Temple, most Ukely." After which Mr. Bennett went off, thankful, whatever happened, that he had at length got the luggage fairly in his own hands, and so could not by possibility be taken back to Morteville — a contingency he had several times speculated on as quite in the power of his master's companion to effect — and Mr. Durant and Archie were alone.

"Do I look mad, or foreign, or what?" she whispered, coming up close to Gerald's side. " These English people all stare at me so strangely as they go by." B Her face was flushed with excitement; her sailor's hat, as the wind had left it, a little on one side ; her long hair hanging over her neck and shoulders; and this disarray, and her singular beauty, added perhaps to the fact of her being dressed in white muslin and a scarlet cloak, undoubtedly made her look different to the female British traveller ordinarily to be met with at this hour of the night at London stations. " Perhaps if we were to go to the waiting-room," suggested Gerald, " you would like to have tea or coffee, or something, and while they are getting it, you might " " Make myself look human," interrupted Archie. " All right, only you need not have hesitated.

The faces of the people as they go by tell me plainly enough the kind of monster they think me." And then she took Gerald's arm and tripped off with him down the long-echoing passage that they were told led to the refresh ment-room. Tripped with feet that seemed to tread on air, so happy was she. The voyage had been delightful enough, but these breathless after adventures were better still ; these crowds of strangers, this foreign tongue — for to hear Eng- Ush spoken about her was foreign to Archie ; above aU, the sense of being in London, and alone, without Bettina, without her father! Once, years ago, in Florence, she had got out upon the roof of the six-storied house where they lodged, and gazed with intoxicated, wondrous delight upon the altered world at her feet. Something of the same debeious giddiness, the same sense of wrong doing and danger, and intense excitement, all blent into one, was upon her now.

Of coming to positive harm — harm from which all her future life should never thoroughly free her — she had no more fear than she had, as a child, of falling down and being killed upon the Florence pavement. In the refreshment-room a young person with an eighteen-inch waist, and shining black hair, d I'imperatrice, received with supreme composure Gerald's modest command of tea for two, and then, more than ever ashamed of herself from a certain expression she had read in the superb young per son's eyes, Miss Lovell found her way to the ladies' waiting-room. The typical occupants of ladies' waiting-rooms were there. A fierce old maid, sitting bolt upright by the table, guarding eleven packages and a bird-cage, all of which she tried with a glare to clutch every time any one looked at her ; a farmer's daughter, on her way from Somerset to a situation in Kent, who asked im becile questions, and jumped up, with her face on fire, every time she heard a door open or a bell ring; a stout lady, maternally occupied with a stout infant in a comer ; and a thin lady with six children, out of temper, two nurses, a baby, bottles, food, toys, and children's luggage of all kinds, fill ing up the remaining portions of the room.

Every woman and child present stared up with open eyes at Archie ; the old maid by the table clutched her parcels tight, and shook her head meaningly at the thin lady, as much as to say, " You see I was right, madam. No knowing what sort of characters you may meet when yon travel." " Dressing-room to the right," cried an austere personage, the presiding official of the place, who was sitting, with her hands before her, on the only comfortable chair the room afforded ; and into the dressing-room Miss Lovell, more and more ashamed of herself, fled for refuge. There was a light from a gas-burner about twenty feet high, and a tall, dim looking-glass, and some very dark-complexioned water ; no towels, no soap : can railway companies be expected to care how ladies wash their carnal hands . — but provision for the spirit in the shape of large printed texts on placards round the waUs ; a bible and prayer book on a Httle deal table ; also a missionary box.

Miss LoveU dipped her face into water, and dried it on Mr. Durant's fine lawn handkerchief, which she happened to have left in the pocket of the cloak ; pinned all her rebellious locks as tight and smooth as they would He around her head ; put her sailor's hat on straight, arranged the old red cloak decorously, and pulled down her blue gauze veil close over her face. As she walked demurely back in this improved condition, she had the satisfaction of finding that the people stared at her somewhat less. " Which shows that it was nothing but my hair that made me look odd ! " she remarked, seating herself op posite to Gerald, after ridding herself of her cloak and hat like a child, and tossing them down on a chair. " It's aU very well to follow papa's picturesque tastes in MorteviUe, but directly I come to England — I mean, if I ever come here — I shall take very good care to look Hke other people.

Now, I wonder," abruptly, "what your cousin Lucia would have thought if she had seen me a few minutes ago _ " The mere suggestion made Gerald wince. What would Lucia — what would any one who knew Lucia — think of his companion at this moment ? She was looking prettier than ever ; her face aglow from its recent bath ; her bright wet hair negligently coUed round her head ; her Httle brown hands clasped together on the table, as she leaned forward to speak to him ; her blue eyes all alight with animation as they looked full into his. Born and bred in Italy, this girl had in her very nature something of the joyous careless abandonment of the women of the south. Her voice was musical always, but she spoke out — I wiU not say loud — as Englishwomen of pure race do not; she gesticulated, ever so little, as she talked ; when she laughed, she laughed with free expansion of the chest ; with fullest showing of the white teeth.

In the drawing-room of a duchess Archie in an instant might have taken her stand as what she was ; an English girl, gentle by birth, but with some subtle inocula tion of southern eagerness and passion in her veins, and a want of manner so thorough as to be the very perfection of that which all artificial manner aims at — simplicity. But the waiting-room of the South Eastern terminus is not the drawing-room of a duchess ; and whether her hair hung down loosely over her shoulders, or was coUed in this bright broad coronet above her face, looks of admiration, a great deal too coarse for Gerald's taste to brook, continued to be cast on poor Archie from every pair of male eyes that approached her. " The English people are the worst-bred in the world," he remarked ; so pointedly that a good old papa of fifty at a neighbouring table, who had been staring at them uninterruptedly for five minutes, immediately sank his head abashed into his newspaper.

"Foreigners Hve in public, and are accustomed to it from the time they are six years old. The true Briton, when he does leave his den, stares about him as if he was at a wild beast show. Now that we are gding to eat," he added, laughing, for the girl began to look dis tressed in earnest, "we shall probably be found more interesting stUl. There is something pecu liarly grateful to the citizen mind in watching curious animals feed. You will have something to eat with your coffee ? " DoubtfuUy this, for it was not three hours since they had dined, and Gerald was ignorant as to how many meals a schoolgirl's appetite could require a day. " Please. Nothing solid, though. Bread and butter, or brioche, or some fruit." The superb young person signified, with dig nity, that bread and butter, brioche, and fruit, were things unknown to her.

There were the refreshments that they saw upon the counter ; fossilized sausage-rolls, battered old sandwiches, lava-hued buns strewn over with a cinderish deposit of currants, and packages of Wother spoon's lozenges ; and from these refreshments they could choose. " Bring some buns, then," said Gerald, point ing out what appeared to him the least horrible object present ; and buns were brought, and eaten by Archie — Mr. Durant looking on in silent wonder and admiration ; and then the tea — very hot and very ilnlike tea — was drunk ; and Archie began to put on her gloves ; and their talk went round again to what they would do with the hour and a quarter they still had to spare. " There would be no time, of course, to see anything ? " said the girl ; but her voice made it a question. " I mean anything of the London streets and shops ?

" " Well, I don't see why not," Gerald answered, taking out his watch, either because he wanted reaUy to know the time, or because he did not care just then to meet the full gaze of Archie's eyes. " These hansom fellows go so quick, I think, if we were to take one, we might have time to get to the West End and back. Picca dilly, was it not, Miss Wilson, that you wished to see ? " " Oh yes ; Piccadilly, or anywhere else," said Archie, to whom the words West End, PiccadiUy, or hansom, aU conveyed about the same meaning. " You know, of course, how much time we shall have. I'll do just as you think best." " You will, Miss WUson?" " Yes, of course." " Then let us go." And they rose ; and whUe Gerald went to pay for the tea, Archie remained before a glass that hung close beside the table, putting on her hat and arranging her collar, and smoothing back her hair — with all the little well contented gestures that come so naturally to a pretty girl before a looking-glass — and thinking how pleasant this drive by gaslight would be, and how sorry — with a great pang this ! — how sorry she would be to part from Gerald at the end of it all.

To part : to return to MorteviUe : and for him to go away and marry his cousin Lucia, and never think of her again while he lived ! When she got as far as this in her reflections, a mist swam before Miss LoveU's eyes. She brushed her hand before them hastily, for she had a child's shame of tears yet, as well as a child's facility in shedding them ; and then, looking up into the glass again, she saw not only her own face reflected there, but a man's — and a man's she knew. The vision came upon her so quickly that instead of turning round at once, she continued for a full minute to gaze,' spell-bound like one in a dream, into the glass. Where had she known that face . In what country, at what time of her life, had those rough features, that gentle kindly expression, been so familiar to her .

If her father's face had suddenly appeared above her shoulder, it could scarce have seemed more home-like than did this one; and still she could recall no name to which it belonged. It was an English face ; and what Englishman had she ever known intimately in her Hfe . She was on the point of turning round when the stranger, whoever he was, moved away abruptly ; and when she did turn, three or four men were walking near her in different directions. Which of these could have been he who stood and looked at her ? She had not the slightest clue by which to divine. One of the men was in a grey overcoat, the rest were in dark clothes. This was aU she could tell about them ; all probably that she would ever know about her vision. It must have been a chance likeness only that had startled her, she thought ; a like ness most probably to some German or ItaHan friend of her father's, who had held her on his knee when she was a child, and the remembrance of whose face had slumbered in her memory till now.

What a coward she must be that her heart should beat so quickly, the colour all die out of her cheek — she had watched it do so in the glass — for such an accident ! But accident or coincidence, whichever it was, the vision had wrought a singular and utter revulsion in Archie's feelings. The expression of that face she had seen was grave and pitying ; and instinctively she thought of it, brought her father before her and made her stop short, and reflect upon what all this was that she was doing. For the first time since she got clear of the Calais pier, she felt frightened, and wished she was at home. Bettina had often told her that men were wicked and designing — good looking, fashionable men the worst of all. How could she know that Mr. Durant was not desperately wicked, in spite of his handsome face and pleading voice ?

Suppose she went away for this drive with him, and he did not bring her back in time, and she missed the train, and never reached Morteville next morning, and when her father and Bettina came back they would find Jeanneton crying under the porte cocher, and the door locked, and herseU, Archie, gone. At this dreadful picture her lips quivered, a choking feeling rose in her throat, and when Gerald came back and offered her his arm, she was too agitated and too afraid to trust her own voice to speak. So, interpreting her altered manner in the way most flattering to himself, he led her away through the station, whispering a few encouraging words as they went, and press ing ever so shghtly the little hand that he could feel was trembling nervously as it rested on his arm. When they were outside he bade her wait one moment while he ran to had a cab from the stand, about twenty or thirty yards distant, and then Miss LoveU spoke.

" Please don't get a cab for me, Mr. Durant, I would rather not go, if you don't mind. I would rather wait here." From any other woman Gerald would have expected this change of mind, and have argued the point. From Archie he knew that it was earnest, not a feint ; and he remained dead sUent. " I hope you won't think me sUly to turn about so," she entreated him softly, "but when you were gone I began to recollect — about papa, you understand, and getting home — and I thought how dreadful it would be if I missed the train. Now, you are not cross wdth me ? " " Miss Wilson," he remarked, drUy, " tell the whole truth. You are afraid to trust yourself with me." Her hand shifted uneasUy on his arm. " I'm not afraid, Mr. Durant, but — I don't know whether I ought. Now, I just ask you — supposing it wasn't you and me at all, do you think I ought?"

" To do what ? " " To drive about with you, and — and run the chance of losing the train." " There need be no chance of losing it," he answered, promptly. "The question is, would you rather have an hour's drive through the cool streets, or remain in a suffocating waiting room here ? " " Well, then, you decide for me, please ! " She wanted desperately to see the shop-windows, and she felt how ungrateful it was, after aU his kindness, to put so little trust in him. " If you promise me to be back in good time for the train " " If I promise to do all that you wish, now and for ever, Miss Wilson, will you come ? " An unwonted tremour was in his voice, and Archie Lovell's heart vibrated to it. In love with him she was not, had never been ; save, per haps, for that second's space upon the terrace at Morteville ; but she liked him, she admired him — shall I be understood if I say that she pitied him ?

She felt for him, in spite of his eight years' seniority, something as an elder sister might feel for a brother whom she loves, but cannot thoroughly believe in ; and standing here, alone with him now, her cheeks flushed crimson with shame, to feel — even while her heart thrilled to his words — how scanty was the trust she put in him, or in his promises. And this very dis trust had weU-nigh hurried Archie into trusting him ! It seemed so cruel to hold back from him now ; during the last short hour they would be together, to deny him in anything he asked of her. " I don't know about obeying me for ever, Mr. Durant," and Gerald detected in a moment that her voice was not thoroughly steady. " There won't be much opportunity after to-night for you to obey or disobey me ; but now, if you really are sure " The words died on Archie Lovell's lips ; she drew her hand with a start from Gerald's arm.

So close that he almost touched her as he passed, a man went quickly by them in the gaslight ; a tall, large-built man, in a grey overcoat, and with a certain square-set about the head and shoulders that convinced Archie, although she saw no feature of his face, it was the same man who had looked across her shoulder into the glass. The same mysterious influence he had exercised upon her then, returned, only with double, treble strength, across her mind. She would not go away with Mr. Durant : she would wait here for the train that should take her back safely to her father and Bettina. " Are you frightened, Miss Wilson ? Did that feUow touch you as he passed ? or do you know him, or what ? " Archie's eyes, wide open, continued to follow the stranger until he was out of sight, and then, VOL. II. c and not till then, she spoke.

" I'm not frightened, Mr. Durant, but startled. That man is some one I have known — I am certain of it — and I can't help fancying that he recognised me " "Oh, not at all likely," interrupted Gerald, lightly, " and if it were so, what matter ? Now stay one moment here, while I cross the road and hail a cab." Instead of arguing any more, Archie diplomati cally stole her hand again within his arm. " Mr. Durant," she said, softly, " why should we waste the time by driving, after all ? It's the last time we shaU ever be together. Yes, the truth must be spoken at length, and we shall be far better able to talk here than rattling over the streets of London in a fiacre. Take me for a walk over the great bridge there, and I shall like it better alone with you, than being shown all the fine streets and shops in the world."

She held her face beseechingly up to his ; her voice came trembling, as it always did when she was moved ; and with some faint accent, some intonation rather, of Italian clinging to its sound. And then this change of mind was, by her Machia vellian instinctive art, rendered in itself so gra cious, so sweet, to Gerald's vanity ! He felt he could not but concede to her all she wished ; nay, he could not but acknowledge that she was too generous, too true, to be led into further folly. Corrupt Gerald Durant was not, nor cynical — although his easy nature led him into actions savouring of corruption, and of cynicism on occasions. What he most admired — consequently what he was himself good enough to recognise — in Archie, was her exceeding honesty, her un taught loyal frankness. And, call it epicureanism or virtue, he did at this moment feel that it was well that she should leave him thus ; well that he should be able to hang one unsullied portrait among the gallery of the women he had loved !

On the brink of every action — high or low, base or noble — Gerald Durant could be ever swerved aside by some sudden turn of sentiment like this. Sentimental, in reality, rather than passionate in love, it was in love-affairs, above all, that he was most prone to waver. A coarse, selfish nature like Robert Dennison's, walks straight to its im mediate gratification ; a refined selfish nature, like Gerald's, hesitates, stops short ; speculates whether occasionally a higher pleasure may not be found in abnegation ! And though such men have not c the materials in them for great heroes or for good lovers, their very weakness, somehow, makes them intensely lovable to people stronger than them selves ; and when, now and then, they do come to grief (and bring you to grief with them), you feel the whole gudt must, of necessity, belong to you, not them ; which, for the sake of their consciences, is charming.

An accident, or Archie's uncompromising honesty, had saved them both ; and already Gerald's imagination was moved by the thought of his own generosity ; by the thought, too, that Archie would be always Archie — fair, pure, un sullied — in his recoUection. Ten minutes ago, with the girl's blue eyes upraised to his, he had desired, as strongly as he ever desired anything in his life, to take her with him for that drive through London. The picturesqueness of the situation fired his fancy ! — driving with this little half-foreign girl, in her sailor's hat and white dress, along the streets of London in a hansom ; listening to her childish talk about all she saw ; holding her hand furtively in his, probably ; and watching the changed look on her face when he began to tell her at last how much he cared for her.

No ; at this point the picturesque situation became commonplace, and he had not fully thought it out. Only, if a darkened life, if ruin, if despair, had chanced to ensue in after-times, Gerald would have looked back, and firmly believed, and made every one else believe with him, that he meant no wrong ! Circumstances, picturesque circumstances, had been too strong for him : just that.

Chapter II. The Bridge Of Sighs

Archie put her hand within his arm and drew him a step towards her, or, as she meant it to be, towards London Bridge. That step was the first one in the direction of salvation. " It will be better than seeing shop-windows and streets," she said, repeating her last words. " I can imagine the London streets — I have driven through Amiens by gaslight — but I can't imagine what it is to stand at night upon a mighty bridge like that. Thank you," for he was walking obe diently by her side now. " Mr. Durant, how shall I ever thank you for all the kindness you have shown to me to-day ? " " You won't thank me in the only way I want, Miss Wilson. I don't care for any other." " In what way shall I thank you, then ? Tell me — I wiU do it." " No, you will not. You cannot. The thing is over, impossible.

You wiU go back to Morte viUe, marry your Russian prince, perhaps, and I — Miss Wilson," he interrupted himself, " I hope that you will write to me sometimes ? Write and tell me you got to the end of your journey safely, at all events." " I wiU send you a newspaper, Mr. Durant " — Gerald had already found some excuse for giving her his address — "just to let you know I am safe ; but as to writing " " As to writing ? " " No ; it would be better not. When we have said ' Good-bye,' we have said it. Our lives lie apart." " Miss WUson — Archie, what a cruel speech ! " " A true one," she answered, quietly. " My father is a poor man, Mr. Durant. A man — why should I mind telhng you ?— living a little under a cloud, poor papa ! and we write to no one. I don't know whether we shall live in Morteville any longer, or where we shall go even when we leave ; and papa and Bettina might not find it convenient that I should be writing about, giving our address.

Now, you are not angry with me for refusing ? " " No, Miss Wilson ; I succumb to it as a necessity. It would be against every natural law that I should hear from you. Lawyers, duns, cousins, are the human beings who always remember to write. The people one cares for, never ! You will remember me a month, if you are not amused, Archie ; two days, if you are." The word " Archie " had fallen from his lips so naturally that Miss Lovell felt it would have been absurd, affected, for him not to use it. " Amused or not amused, I shall remember you," she said, simply. "I shall remember you whUe I live." "And some day come to remember me with contempt probably," said Gerald. " I fancy most people do that when they think my character over." Archie was silent. " You don't contradict me ? " he persisted.