Love's Labour won. A novel

Front matter

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Chapter I

A LAWN-TENNIS PARTY. ' Is your friend Captain 'Lonsdale, with whom you danced eo often this season ' ' Who danced so often with me ! There is a difference, Miss Tremayne.' ' Well, is he here to-day ?' ' I think not. Do you know him ?' 'Oh, so well ; I met Montague so often in Calcutta, at the Government House, the race-course, on the Esplanade, and everywhere else.' ' Montague !' thought Miss Talbot, over whose soft face a shade of annoyance passed. Considering that since the commencement of the London season in question, Melanie Talbot had been engaged to Montague Lonsdale, she had some cause to resent the free appropriation of his Christian name by the brilliant and flighty Hilda Tremayne, the enterprising daughter — the only and spoiled one — of an Indian general, then on leave in England.

Hilda, a garrison belle, but of a very superior fashion, was well up in all military society, and was decidedly popular at Aldershot, Folkestone, and other red-coat circles within easy distance of London. She and her friend, or acquaintance rather, were two more than handsome girls, and were guests at Chillington Park, a stately place on the Thames, an hour or so distant by rail from town ; and both were enjoying to the fullest extent a brilliant lawn-tennis party, given by the aunt of the latter, Mrs. Chillington, a wealthy and fashionable widow, of whom more anon, and whose social gatherings, especially of this kind, were extremely popular. Lawn-tennis is essentially a jovial, a graceful, and a friendly game, that brings into contact many who otherwise might never meet or learn to know each other, making (like the Scottish golf, for older folks) all its votaries kin, at least for the time ; and it is the one great game in which the youth of both sexes can meet on almost equal terms, and in which female play is almost equal to male in dexterity.

Few sights can surpass, in attraction, a tennis lawn in the well-kept grounds attached to a stately English house, such as Chillington — the courts duly chalked on the smooth green sward, the nettings tightly ' belayed,' and the players of both sexes in their piquante and bright-coloured costumes, arrayed for the merry struggle, with a goodly number of gossiping friends and chaperons, now too old to handle a racquet or display their figures, seated on benches and sofas under the broad and rustling leafage of summer. The dulcet sound of the English girls' voices, their pure happy laughter, is then mingled with the music of the band, that adds zest to their enjoyment without disturbing them, whilst the sunny air is laden with the fragrance of the season from parterre and border, where dark and yellow wall-flowers, clumps of lavender-colouredaubrietia, patches of white candy tuft, clusters of polyanthus, sheets of pansies and tulips of every shade and hue are seen.

At Chillington, to the bank of the river far stretched the velvety lawn of emerald green, shaded by tall and ancient trees; where — till August — the nightingale proved himself sleepless by day as well as night, while the cows swung their long tails in the soft breeze, till they could be driven quietly home to be milked. Liveried servants and other ' helps ' went round with iced champagne cups, strawberries and cream, or the inevitable five o'clock tea, all the more enjoyable amid such a scene, and arnid so many sweet sounds in the warm open air and on the fresh and fragrant grass. On the latter, young fellows were lounging at the feet of girls on rustic chairs, fanning A LAWN-TENNIS PARTY. 11 themselves with their racquets, and talking the usual commonplaces; and there, too, was more than one stately dowager promenading slowly or seated amid the rose-bushes, talking scandal, perhaps, over dainty cups of tea and dishes of bright hued fruit. 'To the dweller in town,' says an essayist, 'lawn-tennis as a rule means lawn-tennis, and nothing more ; the game, the whole game, and nothing but the game ; and lawn-tennis has, perforce, to dispense with buttercups and daisies, nut-hatches, singing-birds, and parterres of shimmering flowers.

A good ground, good balls, andgood players suffice, for the object is muscular, not æsthetic. Possibly some earnest urban devotees of the game would regard the proximity of tulips and wall-flowers as Punch's Nimrod regarded those "stinking violets"; for Englishmen soon learn to manage without the elegances and luxuries of life, and to be satisfied with a due supply of its necessities. In the front rank of the latter, for the dwellers in our northern climes, is exercise. Next to that is the need of contending with someone about something.' But amid the delightful surroundings afforded by Chill ington Park, the joyous activity and grace of the young girls put to shame the blase Englishman-about-town, and com pelled more than one to forget his inane drawl and that adopted manner which is so suggestive of perpetual boredom and effeminate weakness ; while even amid the crowd, many couples could have their special tete-a-tete unknown to chaperon — that tete-a-tete, when lips can form tender words unheard by others, and ' eyes look love to eyes that speak again' ; for such gatherings are excellent for the purpose, as two may isolate themselves while the world surges closely round them.

They may be close together, and yet seem practically far apart ; and on these occasions topic and tone, glance and manner, may wax perilously confidential indeed. Tired of playing, Melanie Talbot had taken a seat on a rustic sofa, at a little distance from the numerous party, and there she had been joined by Miss Tremayne, who asked, in the most casual way, apparently, the question with which this chapter opens. The claim to a prior intimacy on the part of Miss Tremayne, and so far away as India too, was in itself displeasing to Melanie Talbot, who, however, could not deny that Hilda was a striking figure in her well-plumed hat and very piquante lawn-tennis costume. She was tall, large, fair-sk>nned, and languishing, with soft brown hair, and bright hazel eyes of nearly the same tint as her hair, heavily lidded, darkly lashed, and ever varying in expression as the spirit moved her.

Perhaps a residence in India affected her manner, for, like Byron's Dudu, she certainly was ' Languishing and lazy, Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy ;' and in company was most attractive and chic — to use that new French word for which there is no equivalent in English. But in the grace of her form, and the rare beauty of her small patrician face, Melanie Talbot was in no way her inferior, and fully surpassed her in that most attractive beauty which lies less in feature and complexion — ex pression, changing with every emotion. Her figure was slender, lithe, and perfect ; her face had a pure profile, and her eyes were of that gray-blue which runs black at times ; and her hair, of darkest brown, formed glorious coils around a most shapely head — yet so coiled by the deft fingers of her aunt's maid, Mademoiselle Clochette, as not to conceal its form.

Melanie's complexion was brilliantly fair, colourless, in fact ; and her curved lips were so scarlet that one might have thought she touched them with crime vermilla, yet it was the pure vermilion of nature. In the land of lovely women, both girls were beautiful. ' And Captain Lonsdale never once spoke of me to you ?' said Miss Tremayne, after a pause, during which she had been slowly fanning herself. 'No.' ' Strange !' said the other, with a curl of her handsome lip. ' Why strange ?' But for reasons of her own, this indolent beauty only replied by a soft dreamy smile of wonderful depth. Her remarks, and others made before, though too probably prompted by mere vanity, not unnaturally rankled in the mind of Melanie, whom Miss Tremayne sought to inspire with rivalry and jealousy. A LA WN.TENNIS PARTY. 13 A rather awkward silence ensued, till it was broken by a gentleman, who claimed the latter for a new set.

She rose and swept away with smiling alacrity, and Melanie Talbot was left alone ; but for a minute only, and a sigh of annoyance escaped her when she saw her bete noir, Sir Brisco Braybrooke, approaching. Melanie Talbot (so named by her godmother, a French lady, of Pondicherry), the penniless orphan of a distinguished officer of H.M. Indian army, had been for a season chaper oned by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Chillington, of Chillington Park, the wealthy, proud, and somewhat selfish bugbear of the girl — a bugbear, because of her assumption and high handed interference. And now, the tennis-party we have described was, to Melanie, the closing scene of her season and her ' opportunities,' of which, she had been candidly in formed, 'it was her bounden duty to make the most'; and if Aunt Chillington knew aught about Montague Lonsdale, and how dear he was to Melanie, his existence was carefully ignored by that worthy lady, whose hopes for her niece were based on a wealthy marriage, her fortune being her face, which had procured for her all that remained of the elderly admirer who now advanced with mincing step to take the seat on the rustic sofa just vacated by Miss Tremayne.

Erect, above the middle height, and inclined to be stout, Sir Brisco, past his sixtieth year, was certainly a suavely mannered and pleasant-looking man, somewhat regardless of appearance as to costume, with a face expressive of strong will. His gray eyebrows were bushy, while his hair and moustache were white, coarse, stubbly, and altogether disin clined to be smoothed or brushed. Regarding Melanie admiringly, with a gleam in his old crow's-footed eyes, he said : ' A brilliant gathering, and most charming day I' ' About a hundred persons have made the same original remark to me,' replied Melanie, almost pettishly. ' Then I make the hundred-and-first ?' ' Yes,' said she, colouring with annoyance at her own ill concealed discourtesy. 'So brilliant, indeed,' continued the baronet, ignoring it, •that we. might fancy the times had come again referred to by Sir Thomas Malory in his black-letter boo!:, which gives us an account of King Arthur, with his knights and ladies, all in green, riding near London by the margin of the Thames in search of bunches of white-thorn blossom.

An American writer,' he continued, bending his old head nearer hers, 'says we English have no climate — only samples; and Talleyrand also asserted that we have no climate — only weather ; and yet, is not to-day lovely ?' Melanie bowed, but it was evident that her mature admirer did not intend to descant longer on that safe topic, the weather, as he said, in his most suave tone, whilst stoop ing still nearer her : ' Chillington, I believe, is famous for its arum lilies. Shall we go into the conservatory close by ?' ' But then we should not hear the band in that receptacle for earwigs.' ' It is only playing one of those foreign noises which we English, for lack of something of our own, call music,' said he, with a little air of annoyance. ' I knew you would be here, and though I detest gatherings of this kind, I came in consequence, Miss Talbot.' He saw a little colour sweep over her face, leaving it paler than before ; but resumed in a very low voice : 'You know, so I need not repeat, the regard, the love I have for you, Melanie.

I must call you Melanie,' he added, as a gesture of impatience escaped her. She raised her eyes and looked at him ; but for several secret reasons and terrors of her own yet to be related, she gave no reply. ' Do you doubt my love for you ?' he asked, with his white moustache within an inch of her lovely little ear. 'No, Sir Brisco.' ' How then ?' ' I doubt having any to give you in return for it.' 'This is hard to bear. It will come in time. I have been abrupt, perhaps ; but to see you so sweeps all prudence away.' ' Surely this is a strange place for such speeches — or such a conversation I' ' You declined the orthodox conservatory.' 'Orthodox — in novels.' A LAWN-TENNIS PARTY. 15 'And often in real life too, Melanie.' ' You have no right to call me by my Christian name ! said she, colouring now.

To him, when her aunt was not present, she was usually defiant, quizzical, or cold. He thought then that he would like to play Pygmalion to her Galatea, only he was too old and too obese lor the part of the sculptor of Cyprus. ' And you leave this to-morrow, Miss Talbot ?' said he. ' Yes, Sir Brisco.' He paused, and then said : ' I have so much to say again that I have said before, I know ; but tell me, have you quite reconsidered the offer I made you, with the full consent of your aunt, Mrs. Chilling ton ?' ' Yes, Sir Brisco.' ' And — and you may in time accept it ? Have I any chance of success — any hope of winning you to be my wife ?' he persisted. ' Do not recur to that subject, Sir Brisco,' said the girl bitterly, painfully, as she thought of how she was circum stanced ; ' you do not know all ; I cannot tell you all.' Her tone impressed him, for he was a proud man.

He drew back a little, and his heart throbbed with vague dis trust. He had now proposed twice to the girl, though his knowledge of her family and her past was scanty. He only knew that she was beautiful, perfectly ladylike, and that the position of her aunt in society was irreproachable. She was young, and he loved her with all the curiously mingled emotions of a man of his years, when much of the fatherly is apt to blend with the lover — his hopes encouraged by a knowledge of his great wealth, his superior position, and that worship of the golden which he saw daily practised in the circle amid which he moved. ' I shall be content to wait — not a year,' he added, colouring as he thought of the years' he had attained to, ' but till I can win your love at last.' ' It may not be — it cannot be !' said Melanie, in a tremulous voice, as she cast down her eyes and felt her engagement ring under her glove — not that she needed to gather courage or a power of resistance therefrom. 'And see, Sir Brisco, people are approaching.

Here comes Miss Tremayne already.' ' Allow me,' said Sir Brisco, offering his arm. But Melanie ignored it. He bowed low and turned almost sadly away, but not before he could overhear Hilda say laughingly to a smart young fellow in a gay tennis suit who escorted her : 'Of course, Miss Smith— or Smythe, as she calls herself — is a goose ! If I have a supreme horror in this world, it is to see a girl marrying a man old enough to be her father. And for what ? The sake of money !'

Chapter II. Aunt Chillington

The last carriages had rolled away through the lodge gates, the guests were gone, the brilliant fete was over, and visions of her aunt Chillington's animadversions and censures, uttered in clear and shrill staccato English, and those of her guardian, Uncle Grimshaw, in the background, rose up to torture Melanie. Better, she thought, any humiliating occupation, if honest ■ — teaching, telegraphy, companionship — than undergoing the lectures of either ; but for what was she fitted ? She had been openly and selfishly warned by both to ' make good use of the opportunities ' her aunt's invitation afforded her, and one of the ways in which she had done so was to decline the proposal of the wealthy old baronet. Thoroughly would Melanie have enjoyed her season in London with Aunt Chillington but for one feature in the picture — the baronet ; and even the society of Montague Lonsdale was almost unable to compensate her for the annoyance it entailed.

She had revelled in the gay, wonderful streets ; the sunny park ; the Row, with its brilliant show of fine equipages and beautiful women ; the four-in-hand meet by the Serpentine, the trooping of the colours at the Horse Guards ; the grand A UNT CHILLINGTON. 17 old Abbey and ponderous St. Paul's ; the ladies' gallery in the House, with its grotesque screen of brass wire ; the opera and balls without number ; and now all was over for her, and, like Cinderella, she was going to a somewhat sordid home — sordid, at least, as compared with Chillington Fark — where she knew she would be unwelcome ; where Montague Londsdalc's advent would be unwelcome too ; but where she hoped, at least, to be beyond the ken of Sir Brisco Braybrooke for a time — if only for a time. ' Love is no love if it comes not at once,' says a poet, and in her first meeting with Montague Lonsdale the whole tenor of her young life was changed at once — and his too, for that matter, for though he had seen and known many beautiful and attractive women, the meeting with Melanie was the first in which he had looked into a girl's eyes and felt that magnetic influence which rendered him almost unable to take his own gaze away.

Even for the rich dresses, for street and Row and ball room, she was indebted to her aunt, but for her magnificent fans and bouquets to Captain Lonsdale, Sir Brisco, and other admirers, some of whom had even lost little bets to her at Ascot and Goodwood, in the most graceful way imaginable — bets wliich she blushed to win, though she saw Hilda Tremayne and others do so without compunction. The most rural of lanes— those lovely lanes which are so peculiarly English — led from every side to the fair white manor house of Chillington, on the summit of a grassy slope, where a few ornamental deer might be seen grazing with the sunlight falling on their sleek and dappled coats. Over a stately terrace, as a plateau, with carved stone vases full of brilliant flowers, was the house, with its peri style of four Corinthian columns, nearly forty feet in height, with a rich entablature and pediment, in the tympanum of which were the griffins' heads and three oysters, scalloped, quarterly, beingthe arms of Alderman Chillington, a city mag nate of the early days of George III., the first founder of the family.

Evidences of wealth and luxury were apparent on every hand. The house is famous for a saloon, on the ceiling of which is an immense painting of Aurora, copied from that of Guido in the Respiglori Palace ; a stuccoed dining-room, wherein Admirals Pocock and Keppel had been feasted after the bombardment of Havannah ; and for all manner of hand some things in the guest-room, corridors, and staircase ; and a wonderful blue drawing-room, with curios, the collection of the Alderman's descendants, who, in taste and education, surpassed himself, of course. To the blue drawing-room, then, Melanie was solemnly summoned by her aunt Chillington, after the guests had departed, and with a beating heart the girl entered what was a species of torture-chamber to her. There Aunt Chillington had seated herself, as if in judg ment on a throne, on a blue satin ottoman in the very centre of the room, and was slowly fanning herself and looking as grim as Medusa, as she prepared to expound the law to the shrinking Melanie.

One of Mrs. Chillington's chief aims in life was to be deemed the best dressed woman of her set. She was tall, slender, and aristocratic in bearing, and actually handsome, though past her sixtieth year ; but the world had gone very easily and luxuriously with her in her wifehood and widowhood. She was inordinately proud of her birth as a Talbot, and, as a supposed descendant of that Richard de Talbot whom the Domesday Book records as holding nine pieces of land from Walter of Buckingham, was somewhat inclined to under value the family into which she had married, though for money. She was also proud of her small hands and feet. Her eyes were keen and dark. She had a well-bred face and a great quantity of magnificently soft and silky white hair. With all her pride, she was cold, calculating, and selfish.

The baronet, before leaving, had evidently reported to her the bad success of his suit. 'And so— so you have actually refused Sir Brisco,' said the old lady, eyeing her with a steel-like glance, while her nether lip quivered with indignation ; ' refused him a second time — after all my trouble, care, expense, and anxiety ?' Melanie was silent. ' Answer me, dear !' We fear she pronounced the term of affection, 'dear,' AUNT CHILLINGTON. 19 sharply, after the usual manner of an ill-tempered English woman, when she means to be remarkably incisive. 'Yes, aunt.' ' If it is not too late, or too much beneath your ambition -—^20,000 a-year — I wish you would reconsider this act of insane and most outrageous folly.' Melanie shook her head. ' His settlements will be all that we can desire.' ' But — he is so old, aunt.' » Old !' 'Too much so for my taste and years ; and if good-natured, stupid, not chic enough ' 'Not what enough?

Don't use that horrid word, dear !' ' Surely I deserve something better at the hands of Fate, and something tells me I shall get it too,' said the girl, nervously, and a trifle defiantly. ' Surely a girl, if marriageable at eighteen, is able to please and judge for herself.' ' But not if poor, miserably poor, as you are,' was the Stinging retort. ' And, anyway, her father and mother, or guardians, may not think she is able to judge for her self.' 'Why, aunt?' 'Because that they lived longer — got over all the non sense of life ' 'And forgot that they married about the same years them selves.' ' Exactly ; it is the way of the world ; and if you will have romance, be assured that Sir Brisco loves you.' 'Perhaps so — as much as such a "Grandfather Whitehead" can ; but certainly I cannot be the first love of his life,' said Melanie, with irritation quivering on her lip. ' The second, perhaps, and consequently the best.' Melanie laughed almost scornfully at this remark. ' Remember what someone says — and what, perhaps, he thinks,' she said ; and then, hoping, but in vain, to make her aunt smile, she sang — • " First love is a pretty romance, But not half so sweet as 'tis reckoned } And when one awakes from the trance, There's a vast deal of love in the second, ' " And e'en should a second subside, A lover should never despair ; The world is uncommonly wide, And the women uncommonly fair. ' " The poets their raptures may tell, Who have never been put to the test ; A first love is all very well, But, believe me, the last one's the best." * ' This spirit of banter is most unbecoming, Melanie ." said Mrs. Chillington, starting up from the ottoman and fanning herself with angry vigour. 'You are a most un grateful girl !' Then poor Melanie, finding that her desperate attempt at playfulness failed, felt her eyes suffuse with tears. ' I am most grateful to you for all your great kindness to me, aunt ; for all your good wishes and intentions regarding me, and those of my uncle Grimshaw too ; but — but,' she added, as the image of Montague Lonsdale rose before her, ' I cannot destroy my whole life, and that of another too.' ' Another !

To whom do you refer ?' asked her aunt, sharply. Blushing deeply for the word that had unwittingly escaped, fear made the girl take refuge in a little duplicity. 'My brother, poor Reggie, would think that I sacrificed myself for his interests, and the conviction would break his heart.' ' Fiddlesticks ! You are aware that since you came here to Chillington your uncle Grimshaw — burdened as the poor man is with you and that helpless creature Reggie — has been compelled to take a smaller house, and at a greater distance from town, for economy. As for Reggie, it would be well indeed if he were out of the world.' ' Oh, aunt, aunt !' exclaimed Melanie, her hot tears falling now. ' Poor Reggie — so helpless, so gentle, so gentlemanly, ever full of apologies for the trouble he gives. How can you speak of him thus?' Mrs. Chillington coloured a little at the effect of her remark, but said : ' Why, girl, with Sir Brisco, apart from the settlements, you might have a maniage that would surpass any St. A UNT CHILLINGTON. 21 George's has ever seen — twelve bridesmaids, perhaps — the richest lace, the richest satin, the Braybrooke diamonds, the greatest wedding-cake ' ' And the most indigestible !' ' Mockery again !

This affair is more serious than you imagine, and that you will find it to be when you go home to-morrow. What is to become of you ? You are as much unfitted to be a governess as to submit to the humiliation of being a companion ; and if you scout at such an unexcep tional offer as that of Sir Brisco, I repeat, what — as a penniless and dependent girl — is to become of you ?' ' God alone knows !' sighed Melanie wearily. And with all the softness of her beauty, she looked too statuesque too calm and grand and beautifully fair of com plexion for either line of life ; and, sooth to say, no lady with growing up sons or younger brothers would have had her. The girl bowed her head under her pitiless aunt's bitter home truths, a prey to love, to grief, perplexity, and sorest anxiety. ' She shall marry him yet, or I shall have done with her for ever I' thought Mrs. Chillington, as she swept away to her room, in such a frame of mind and undignified rage that she furiously summoned her maid, Clochette, to apply a handkerchief dipped in the inevitable compound of Johann Maria Farina to her temples.