Only a Face, and other tales

Front matter

Only a Face, AND #t!nr Units. Only a Face, AND #%r CaLcs. BY MES. ALEXANDEE FEASEE, AUTHOR OF " NOT WHILE SHE LIVES," " FAITHLESS," ""DENISON'S WIFE," ETC. "Dum vivimus, vivamus." LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1873. [AU rights reserved.'] LONDON : SIT ILL, L'DWAKBS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDC3 STREET, COVENT GARDEN. "In Bkmoriam/' aDJjje 8tb of Pair. CONTENTS, PAGE ONLY A FACE 1 BEE DARRELL 16 FIORELLA : A WAIF 59 EVE 114 LA GITANA 180 FRAGMENTS OF A BROKEN LIFE 164 THE SIN OF MAUDE CONYERS 174 THE CURSE OF TYRRELL 220 AN EPISODE OF THE EAST 247 THE MARQUISE DE L'ORME 252 SYBIL ASHTON 276 JUST A DREAM . . 3 1 5 MY SISTER ALICE ONLT A FACE. ||$Sr-iip5|f| WAS sauntering slowly homewards one /!§* ww^J niS^' about half-past eleven, after Y^S» vtitek navinS attended at the Adelphi Theatre, }E|jHg$§k in common with my brethren of the Press, the first representation of a drama by a very popular author.

Cigar in mouth, and in deep cogitation as to the sort of critique that the new piece deserved in the columns of the next day's Daily Tattler, I was startled by a hand being laid gently on my arm — just touching me ever so lightly and no more. My eyes rested on the hand — gloveless, but resembling a fairy snowflake — then my gaze wandered farther on towards its owner's face, and there it remained for a moment or so, spellbound. Big soft eyes, with their iris as deeply violet as the petals of a heartsease, and with their lids fringed with long curling lashes, looked deprecatingly into mine. Bright chestnut hair waved freely off a low white brow, surmounting a little Greek nose and a rosebud mouth, slightly open, showing a row of glistening teeth. Only a face, nothing more; but the face of a woman angel !

Who could she be ? I wondered to myself, this Titania, this embodiment of a poet's dream, this delicate apparition, this lonely waif — wandering in the evil London streets, side by side with unblushing effrontery and hideous flaunting vice ? Not one of that sisterhood, I divined at a glance, as she stood shyly beside me, and spoke in hesitating accents. " Oh, sir, where is Charing Cross Station ? I have lost my way, and it is very late !" " Charing Cross ! Why, you must have passed it, I fancy." " Passed it ? But I was so frightened !" and she shot a furtive, nervous glance over her shoulder. Noting the suggestive movement, I too turned round, and saw that the poor child had apparently fallen into the camp of the Philistines. Close behind us, eyeing the girl, stood a short, thick set man, dark -browed, and with the prominent features that appertain to the tribe of Israel.

Chapter I

'■^Ssr-fS^SN a sky of darkling crimson, blent here «J™ wli* an(l there by Nature's cunning hand W0A (^Kg? with a few soft feathery clouds, Hes sj^fig) g^p* perion was just trembling, pale and faint, *^****'A^ into life as the solemn strains of the antiphony floated out full and sonorous into the evening gloam from Darrell Church. A quaintly picturesque and antique church of pure Gothic build, with heavy clusters of broad-leaved ivy covering and overhanging the huge grey stone but tresses, and with small square windows, ruby and amber stained, and of mediæval design. The long aisles and scantily-filled pews looked dark and dreary, and their still occupants presented an aspect somewhat weirdlike in the shimmering twilight amidst the deep quietude that reigned in the building ; in which, even through the drowsy tones of the preacher, it was easy to hear the leaflets flutter ing against one another in the summer wind, the resonant voices of the children playing on the village green, and the hoarse " caw caw" of the rooks upon the summit of the old church roof.

Up in the narrow gallery — that seemed to rest mid air, while parts of it were even partially lost in the pervading gloom — a man sat leaning forwards, with big muscular arms crossed tightly over a broad chest, and with eyes dreamily absorbed in the scene below him. A man wonderfully handsome, though without owning any strict regularity of feature ; with honesty of purpose shining out of the great dark eyes, and with truth playing on the well-cut lips, that, in spite of the quiet power of the face, were as soft and tender in expression as a woman's. It was a countenance that invited trust, and would never betray it. Looking upon him, you fell at once to wondering what manner of history his life contained. It did not require much proficiency in the art of an throposcopy to find out that Frank Standish had a character, although to analyse that character properly might have been a much more arduous task.

It would have been difficult for a spectator to have divined the tenor of his thoughts from his face now; he might have been thinking possibly of days long gone by, brought back to his memory by a stray waft of scented lilacs borne to him by the breeze — days perhaps that had been so sad and so desolate, that he would have fain thrust their recollection into Lethe, and drowned the bitter feelings they evoked in a draught of that anodyne — oblivion ; or he might per chance have been wandering far from religion into an untimely dream of a terrestrial paradise, with some sweet Eve by his side. His eyes first rested on a tiny twig tapping gently against the panes ; then scanned carelessly the placid physiognomy of the Reverend Hugh Dacres, as though his ear did not take in much of a not very erudite discourse from the Ephesians ; then they wandered to and finally settled upon the figure of a slim girl, on whom a gleam fell from the coloured casement anent her, Kghting up shy grey orbs and pale pure features like a youthful saint's, with thick black lashes resting closely and demurely upon marble cheeks.

Standish looked down upon her face, and as he looked an unutterable softness — a sort of tremulous tenderness — crept over his own. His life had been lonely from boyhood. His mother was the only being he had ever truly loved, and when her dead form was carried away from his sight for ever, his heart had seemed to shrink within itself, as it were ; and although he had registered no vow of celibacy, no bright or beaming woman's face had displaced the image with wan lineaments and silvered hair that was enshrined in his inmost soul. But now in the twilight he was picturing to himself that slight white-robed figure flitting like a sunbeam in and out of an old-fashioned cottage, whose diamond paned windows were enframed in masses of dark foliage that cast a pleasant but chequered shade within, and created queer arabesques of light beneath his feet.

He was fancying he saw that pure white face brightening into smiles at his approach, hiding its gladness upon his breast, leaning its wealth of tresses on his shoulder, and growing nearer and nearer to his heart each hour of his life. Dreams ! glorious but fantastical ; born of folly, woven by hope, and, in truth, only heralds of dis appointment and despair ; but he lost himself in them until the final benediction recalled him to a sense of where he was; and from under the jetty lashes he caught a fleeting glance as Nell Dacres, with the rest of the congregation, passed quietly out of the church. By the time Standish had descended the stairs, the building was well-nigh deserted, and the white-robed angel of heaven he had conjured up for himself had disappeared from view. Outside the church porch stood a small phaeton, and by it a woman's figure, tall, and richly dressed.

As Frank's footsteps resounded on the gravel path she turned suddenly towards him ; then, even as he gazed eagerly, she stepped into the carriage, and was quickly out of sight. Her face seemed to flash upon him like a fate — a radiant fate ! A brilliant beautiful picture, she had stood before him for an instant, with sunlit hair gleaming up like a crown of gold in the half-dusk, and with vivid peachy tints showing up the deep rich violet of her eyes. Frank's breath came short and fast ; for a moment his heart throbbed hard with a decrotic motion it had never felt before, and he wondered what it could be that ailed him. Could the strange overpowering thraldom of his senses and captivation of his imagination be a sudden commingling of two human souls, or the insanity that belonged to unripe years, namely, " love at first sight ?" he asked himself wrathfully, scorning the miserable deficiency in moral strength that could succumb to mere womanly beauty.

Then he hurriedly and somewhat unevenly traversed the main road, and walked homewards through the peaceful country lanes, with none but the sleepy birds to mark the unwonted flush that burned upon his cheeks ; but as he lifted the latch of the gate that led up to his domicile, something seemed to draw him back ; a feeling new- 2—2 born, but full of strength, arrested his steps. It was a dread to find himself at home and alone with that brilliant face in his mind ; and an earnest desire, that seemed to him ridiculously inadequate to the occasion, seized him to try and shake off at once and for ever the curious tenacious hold that the vision had taken of him. So, after a pause, he slowly retraced his way and entered the parsonage — a long, low, white house, with irregular gables overhanging the windows, that opened upon a large primitive garden with narrow paths and stiff-clipped yew-trees, and grassy mounds bedecked with blood-red carnations, and tall lilies with graceful heads and golden bosoms.

As the hours of the evening wore on, the bewilder ing emotions that the momentary apparition had produced faded partially from Frank's memory, as, within a window wreathed in lavish tangles of wild rose, with the subtle fragrance of invisible flowers stealing up from outside, he sat with Nell Dacres' little white hand close clasped within his own, while, by the light Hesperion gave, he watched the black lashes kiss a blushing face, and a happy smile flit over the softest, sweetest lips in the world. Only once the vision came back to him vividly, and that was when a stargleam, glancing athwart Nell's raven tresses, flashed them for an instant into the golden glory that its head had worn. And he said, blaming himself inwardly for his indulgence in a dangerous curiosity but feeling himself helpless to refrain from it "I saw a new face this evening near Darrell Church • I wonder who it could have been."

To save his life he knew he could not have satisfied himself in a direct straightforward manner, although he burnt with impatience to hear her name. " Perhaps it was Mr. Morris, the new. tenant of Goldthorn Farm," Nell suggested. " Was the person short and stout, and altogether very uninteresting ?" Standish could not repress a shudder. Somehow it seemed to hurt him to listen to such words in con junction with the being in his thoughts, although he knew of course that they could in no wise be applicable to her. He could not speak for a little while, and then, in spite of his efforts, his voice shook just a little, aud he looked out into the garden as he replied — " It was a lady, Nell, and rather a pretty one." And then he fell to despising himself for the mean ness that could utter falsehood, when he recollected that " faint praise is more damning than censure."

" Rather a pretty one !" he reiterated to himself angrily. Maddening in her beauty, he should have said ; but he dared not speak his soul, sitting there beneath the starlight, that looked so inexpressibly pure and calm and holy, by its contrast with the wild passions of human nature, and with his affianced wife within his circling arm. " I know who it was !" exclaimed Nell Dacres suddenly, with unwonted animation in her gentle voice. " It was Beatrice Darrell — ' Queen Bee,' as she used to be called as a child. Oh, Frank !" — and in her enthusiasm she clasped her pretty hands together in a devotional attitude that suited her style admirably — "is she not beautiful and bright as an angel ?" Standish looked down at her ; his nature had one weakness that amounted to a blemish ; his feelings were slaves to that which pleased his eye.

It might have been that he was a born artist, and that his perception of the " beautiful" was keener than other men's, and ruled his imagination more than mere material form and colouring should do; but there was an innate refinement and delicacy in his organi zation which restricted the influence of " beauty" to his " imagination " exclusively, and prevented him from falling into sensualism. " Not half such an angel as you are, dear," he whispered softly ; and the girl, to hide the gratifica tion his words gave her, leant out and plucked a rose, and busied herself with fastening it into his coat. A little later, after pressing his good-night on her red lips at the garden gate beneath the liquid lustre of a big yellow moon, he went to rest with Nell Dacres' Madonna-like face kept determinedly before him ; but when human resolution had melted away in sleep, it was Bee Darrell who haunted him all through the night in long and feverish dreams.

Chapter II

The Darrells of Darrell Court were prouder of their pedigree than any family in the United Kingdom. The first from whom they dated was a famous Count Guy D'Arrelle, who in the year 1690 commanded a body of picked men sent over by King Louis XIV. to aid James Stuart in retaining his crown. Brave as Bassompierre, lavish as Lauzun, and voluptuous as Trimalcyon of ancient days, Count Guy was a soldier of true mettle, and after many a wonderful feat of prowess and valoui-, he met a soldier's glorious death at the battle of Aughrim, side by side, and, tradition saith, hand clasped in hand with his old friend and gallant leader St. Ruth, leaving a son who settled in one of the English shires, and married the daughter of a grand but impoverished duke. As time wore on, and the famdy became naturalized Britons, the old name, bereft of the " de" that in Gallic guaranteed birth and blood, became anglicized into Darrell ; but pride, lavishness, and love of pomp descended from generation to generation without change or abatement.

The exchequer of the Darrells was not, however, so weighty as their pedigree, and for years the strictest inward economy had been essential to sustain necessary outward appearances. Fortunately Providence had willed that the line should be carried on by females, the husband of each having been forced to assume the old name, and no spendthrift heirs had thus mortgaged the glorious old estate : which however was wofully neglected from pressure of finances. But though Darrell Court was very dilapidated, and indeed in some parts scarcely habitable, yet a sense of obligation due to " noblesse " kept up a certain grandeur in the household arrangements. The meals, though frugal, sometimes hardly exceeding " a dinner of herbs," were yet served-up in good old silver by powdered lacqueys, who contemptuously regarded the commonplace fare on its transit from the kitchen to the noble banqueting hall, in which the roof above occasionally let in rain as well as sunshine.

The enormous griffins that reared their eagle heads on leonine forms on either side of the grand portal were minus their proper proportions, and the great stone garland of " fleur de lys" that encircled the " D'Arrelle" crown was broken as though the hand of a cruel foe had striven to crush the form of the flowers and the symmetry of the leaves into an unseemly mass, while the crown itself, black with age,. looked gloomy and funereal. The dry moat that surrounded the Court was a grave for the fallen leaves that died in splendid cere ments of yellow andbrown and crimson beneath the chill autumnal sunshine, and the shrubberies and gardens were a jungle of sweets untended by human skill, while masses of hardy glechoma hid unsightly walls and gaping crevices from view of the mullioned windows.

On the terrace wall, by the side of a tall orange tree, leant " Bee," sole daughter of the Darrells' " house and heart," and heiress to their pride and penury. The last beams of the setting sun were lingering over her head, whose sympathetic brightness seemed to arrest them. The charm of her beauty was in the perfect radiance that emanated from every feature of her face. The deep violet eyes appeared ta laugh into your own, and the arch face literally flashed out with smiles. She was conversing with a man who leant over the wall in an indolent attitude, and whose gaze was riveted on the scarlet lips as she spoke. Her feelings for Cyril Mayne, had they been properly analysed, would not have exposed to view a single soft point about them. And in spite of the gentle words and beaming smiles with which she fed him, now and then, an acute observer might have often detected a. frown cross rapidly over the ivory forehead, and the little white teeth pressed almost fiercely down upon the ripe under lip, that looked as if a "a bee had newly stung it."

It could scarcely have been the per sonal appearance of her companion that displeased her ; for Mayne was a good-looking man, with a lithe elegant figure, and an insouciance in his manner that sat well upon him, and showed him at once to be an habitue of " good society." His eyes looked out lazily but good-temperedly, and his facile mouth had a pleasant expression. But notwithstanding his at tractions, Bee cared for him no more than if he had been as repellent as a satyr. He had for her but one salient recommendation — he was rich ; and that word of four letters contained his passport to Bee's favour. The only daughter of the Darrells, imbued by Nature with family pride and ambition, and nurtured in the midst of galling economies that assimilated but ill with her grandiose notions and aspirations, had long ago breathed a vow, with a solemnity that would have be fitted a better cause, that her earthly god should be " gold."

Gold, by which she could renovate the home whose every stone she loved so well, and by the aid of which she could reach the pinnacle of fashion and position that she deemed her natural sphere by right of birth and beauty. Even as a child, when regally lording it over her playmates, with her little figure drawn up to its fullest height, and her violet orbs flashing imperiously, until she cowed them with her liliputian majesty into being always greeted as " Queen Bee," she could chafe angrily in her heart at the mockery of the sobriquet, although outwardly she would sustain the appellation to perfection. She knew that she was proud and patrician, but she also knew too well that she was a "pauper." And the miserable indignity of the last deteriorated greatly from the pleasure of being well-born.

Yet, if she had been put to the test, she would not have given up her noble lineage for all the contents of the English Mint. She did not feel one atom of love for Mayne ; but the glitter of his wealth blinded her vision, and she could not relinquish the gratification of possessing it. Simply a woman, with all the terrible weakness and instability that sometimes belong to woman's nature, she was dazzled by the richness of the frame into over looking the deficiencies in the picture it surrounded. But she was in no haste to rivet matrimonial manacles on her alabaster arms, even though they were to be made of purest metal. She only wished to keep the mine open as an El Dorado in case of necessity. So she smiled at him often when her brow was frowning, and uttered soft nothings while her very soul revolted against the deceitful part she was acting.

But the smiles were baits to the glittering fish she desired to feel upon her hook, and once there, she knew she could play with him like an expert angler, until the time when she should require to land him safely beside her. " The Court is a charming place," Mayne said rather languidly, as he looked down on the tangle of foliage, shining bronze in the sunset, and at the gigantic elms and oaks that skirted the domain, and stood here and there royal and sturdy, like so many strong props to the falling house. Cyril had pur sang running through his veins, and he was quite capable of appreciating the mournful beauty and decaying grandeur of the old place and its surroundings. But his motive in eulogizing its charms was not to display the artistic resources he possessed ; it was simply an excuse for bringing home to Bee's mind the wonderful advantages that would accrue to her acres from some few thousands being expended upon them.

Bee, in spite of her apparent volatility, was per fectly alive to his meaning, although she wilfully appeared to misunderstand the drift of his remarks. " But just look there, Miss Darrell !" he exclaimed with a tone of feigned surprise, as though the subject he alluded to had just struck him. " A wing ou the left of the Court seems to have fallen in slightly. And actually some of the big greystones have injured the end of the terrace, and are scattered on the rosary walk. Only yesterday, as I walked through the grounds in a brown study, with my thoughts .away — where, deponent saith not," and he glanced meaningly at her, while she turned haughtily from him — " I stumbled, at the peril of my life, over a heap of bricks that had evidently formed the side wall of the gate lodge. Then, no sooner had I recovered my equili brium and my breath than over I went again upon some fine old trees, that must have been felled by mistake, I am sure."

Bee's cheeks flushed scarlet, and a scornful light filled her eyes. If she could have withered him by the lightning of her glance, she would willingly have done so then and there. She thought the man was actually bold enough to beard the lion in his den, daring to assert such mean falsehoods, when he must have known that bricks and stones were not to be stuck together by an empty purse, and that the old trees, each branch and leaf and twig of which were so precious to her, had been cut down in their glory — not by mistake, but to help pay for the savoury dishes that composed his fare during his visit to the house of her father. " People in their right senses do not usually indulge in silvan promenades with their eyes shut," she snapped out very sharply. She felt inclined to crush him to powder beneath her military heel for his im pertinence ; and there was a stinging sarcasm in her voice as she added, " Do you know, Mr. Mayne, I am so hopelessly stupid that I cannot comprehend how such swells as you are can bring yourselves to enter on such common vulgar topics as bricks and mortar, and paltry brushwood."

Cyril was too good-tempered to feel resentment at the tone she had assumed ; and he was a little posed at his move, which he had considered a wise one, having been so entirely in a wrong direction. So he smiled deprecatingly at her, and just a little foolishly, and then he hung over the parapet and hummed audibly, in rather indifferent tune, the ancient ditty, " Then teach me how to woo thee, love." Bee stamped her little foot impatiently before he arrived at the end of the first verse ; then all of a sudden she recollected that her singing bird was only fluttering near, that he was not captured, and that if her mood did not change, he might spread his jewelled wings and fly out of her reach altogether. " I am afraid I was captious, Mr. Mayne," she essayed to say amiably. " After all, it only shows a friendly interest in Darrell, your remarking one or two things that papa has overlooked.

He is such an invalid, that he has no strength or energy to go through his banking accounts at present." Cyril looked sympathizingly at her grave face ; but he could hardly restrain a laugh at the notion of Mr. Darrell's lacking the strength and energy to look over what would probably be a " blank." But he knew that this fact was his greatest help in arriving at the desideratum he had in view — namely Bee herself. " Miss Darrell, Bee !" he began nervously, " I know how dearly you love Darrell, and that no place, however beautiful, would find as much favour in your eyes as your home. But could you not make up your mind to become my wife and to put up with Mayne Towers until your father is stronger and capable of ordering necessary repairs to the Court ? Mayne is not a bad place on the whole, Bee !"

And he really looked loverlike and earnest, as he added, " And all you can desire in the world shall be yours, as mistress of it I" Then he heaved a great sigh of relief that the declaration that had been hovering for long on his lips had finally found language. Bee was a little taken aback. She had, it was true, long ago made up her mind to be the suzeraine of Mayne Towers — but not yet, not yet. She felt as if she was stifling, although the pleasant summer breeze that came whistling through her ancestral trees lifted her golden hair off her temples, and fanned her hot face. She could not have bound herself for ever and aye at that moment to save her life. Somehow she felt as if his soft words, instead of touching her, had raised up a great hard barrier against him in her breast. She had never cared for him less than when he had for the first time looked really sincere, and had displayed some emotion in his usually vapid voice.

And then her glance rested dreamily on the scene that lay around her, and her soul seemed to open, as it were, to the prospect of wealth, and to shut itself against womanly longing for a life of love. She would not give her suitor his conge, but she could ask for reprieve, for a little reflection, ere she decided her fate for ever. " You have taken me by surprise, Mr. Mayne. Really I scarcely know how to answer you. We have been acquainted so short a time ; and I should not like to marry you until you know me better." " Don't wait for that, Bee," he interrupted, hastily. " I am quite willing to risk my chance of happiness on the knowledge I have of you already." " But," she said, hesitatingly, " I feel it would be best for both of us not to be hasty. If you really do like me, you can wait for me a little.

Jacob served seven years for Rachel ; and when he was disappointed, he went on patiently for double that time, you know," she said, coquettishly, charming him by her manner. " So be it. I am content to bide your time, so as at the end of it you become my wife, dearest Bee." And he took her hand, and tried to draw her gently towards him, thinking to seal the troth-plight on her tempting lips. But not a bit of it. Before he could imprint a kiss on her palm, she laughed brightly into his face, and glided quickly from the terrace into the great door of the house, that in the twilight yawned like a black chasm to receive her.

Chapter III

Nell Dacres stood at the garden gate, after the parting beneath the big yellow moon, until Standish's figure had completely disappeared from view. Then she went back to her own little room, with her delicate cheeks flushed with brightest rose, just where Frank's last kisses had been pressed, and with his murmured " Good-night" stdl lingering upon her shell like ear. She looked very sweet sitting there with her long black hair, loosened from the comb, streaming over her snow-white shoulders, and with one bare dimpled arm supporting her head as she indulged in a delicious reverie of love — love in its first flush and dawn, with its bloom all unbrushed by contact with the world, and unblemished by selfishness. Her mouth had half parted in a beatific smile, and the black lashes drooped over eyes filled with a happy light.

It was quite in the beginning of summer when she had leant against the bay-window, with tangled blossoms forming a variegated framework for her head, and had heard Frank ask her to be his wife. It was the month of August now, with gentle winds of the golden weather plaj'ing over the parsonage garden, and sweeping the fluttering leaves in rainbow heaps under the stately oaks that fringed the broad main road. The warm sun was scorching the nodding blades of the tall green grass down in the adjacent valley, and sending fierce beams right through heavy foliage, and gilding the eddying ripples of the mill stream. And the sweet roses were red and blooming like Nell's own lips; and yet Frank Standish was an earnest lover still, and had not tired of whispering how dear she was to him. He spoke the truth, too.