At Heart a Rake

Front matter

AT HEART A RAKE. BY FLORENCE MARRYAT, Author of "Love's Conflict," " My Sister the Actress," Jones," "There is no Death," &c, &c, &c. "And every woman is at heart a rake." — Pope. LONDON : HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. 1S95. LONDON: PRINTED BV HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS. E.C. CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. The Macnaughtens at Home . . i II. Colonel and Mrs. Bernard . . 21 III. Lord Lisnor's Family .... 38 IV. Lady Phyllis Discourses on Marriage 56 V. Nells Secret Disappointment . . 72 VI. Mrs. Bernard Learns to Deceive . 94 VII. A Society "At Home" . . .116 VIII. Cissy's Ears are Boxed . . .146 IX. The Pushahead Club . . .167 X. Lady Phyllis Rebels . . . .185 XI. The First Link Broken . . . 200 XII. Captain Austin's Resolution . .225 XIII. The Ladies' Committee . .

Contents. IV CHAPTER. PAGE. XIV. The Denouement . . . . • 27° XV. Phyllis is Incredulous . . • 295 XVI. The Separation . 3°° XVII. The Earl Reasons in Vain . . 332 XVIII. In the Hayfields 35 l XIX. Nelly's Lover 376 XX. Lady Phyllis Resigns .... 389 XXI. On Board the Evaline . . . 417 XXII. At the Alhambra .... 432 XXIII. An Unexpected Visitor . . 444 XXIV. The Aftermath . . . . . AT HKART A RAKE.

Chapter I

The Macnaughtens at Home. Mr. Ronald Macnaughten sat opposite to his wife, Lady Phyllis Macnaughten, at the dinner table, in their house at Hill Street, in Berkeley Square. He was a handsome, fashionable-looking man of seven-and-twenty, and she was one of the acknowledged beauties of the season. They possessed youth, wealth, birth, and good looks, and yet, neither of them seemed happy, or even con tented. Lady Phyllis was the fifth daughter of the Earl of Lisnor, of Sedgeley Manor, in Hampshire, and Ronald Macnaughten had some of the oldest and bluest blood in Scotland running in his veins, and was prouder of his clansmen than he would have been of claiming lineage with the highest title in the United Kingdom. Like most men of his nationality, he was exceedingly proud — quick to resent an insult — and rather hot-tempered — passionate in every way, in fact, but with feelings so deep that, when once attracted, they were not B easily detached again.

He was a clever young man, with a power of concentration of intellect which would have made him capable of achieving great things in one of the learned professions ; and it was rather a misfortune than otherwise that he had inherited so large a fortune from his late father that it had not been thought necessary to bring him up to work for his living. He had been married to Lady Phyllis for four years — theirs had been purely a love match — and they had never yet encountered any serious cause for disagreement. But with their abundance of this world's goods, they had not been called upon to do anything more than to amuse themselves. The room they occupied was sufficient proof of the style in which they lived. It was a lofty apartment of perhaps forty feet by twenty-five — furnished in the most sumptuous manner.

The Persian carpet which covered the floor was so thick as to break the heaviest footfall, the massively-carved sideboard was loaded with silver and cut glass, the chandelier which hung over the dining table, and threw the soft light of wax candles upon the various flowers and fruit that adorned it, was of pale green Venetian glass. Around the walls were hung several paintings not too many, but all good of their kind. Con spicuous amongst them were the portraits of the master and mistress of the house, painted on the occasion of their marriage, by one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the time. That of Lady Phyllis occupied the place of honour on the right side of the mantelpiece. It represented her in a white dress, with her hands filled with flowers, and the smiling, innocent maiden of eighteen seemed to gaze wistfully at the juvenile matron of twenty-two, as if she would ask what had happened to cause so great a change in her.

Not that Lady Phyllis was any less beautiful than she had been four years before. On the contrary, marriage and motherhood had only served to ripen and enhance her charms. But she certainly looked more serious — and she certainly was more silent than had been her wont. Mr. Macnaughten, regarding her from the opposite side of the table, over the silver epergne of ferns and flowers, wondered listlessly where the difference lay. The butler kept on offering her wine, and the powdered footman handed her delicate dishes in succession. She only uttered languidly " No ! " to each one of them. At last her husband observed her want of appetite. " Are you not going to eat anything to-night ? " he said. " If ever you took the trouble to look at me," she answered, somewhat pettishly, "you would know that I never eat anything at this hour !

I hate late dinners ! " " Why ? Because I happen to like them ? " he asked, sarcastically, as he helped himself a second time to a ragout that the servant handed him. Lady Phyllis answered nothing. The expression of her face, as she gently waved her ostrich fan to B and fro, indicated that she did not consider his remark worthy of a reply. Macnaughten looked at her. She was lovelier than usual that evening, attired in a robe of the palest pink crepe, trimmed with marabout feathers of the same tint. " You look very ' fit.' Are we going out again to-night?" he inquired, as his eyes were bent admiringly on her. " I have a box for the Gaiety ! But perhaps you have made other plans. If so, pray don't let mine interfere with them. I can look after myself perfectly well. My cousin will meet me at the theatre."

" I shall accompany you," he replied, indifferently. There was a silence between them of some minutes after that, broken by himself. " Have you had any callers to-day, Phyllis? " " No one of any consequence ! Mrs. Pryce and Captain Nelson, and Lady Salcott, and — and — Percy Sefton." " Lord Percy Sefton appears to be a standing dish in this establishment," said Mr. Macnaughten, with a frown. " Couldn't you make him understand that a little of him goes a long way? " "What! when he's my own cousin? That would be extremely polite ! It may be the fashion in Scotland to give people broad hints to make themselves scarce, but we are not quite so barbaric in England." " It's politer than kicking them out," remarked Macnaughten, significantly. "Why, Sefton is here almost every day ! How you can stand the conversation of such an idiot, beats me !

He can talk of nothing but himself ! " '! Well ! you can hardly expect me to sit at home all the afternoon and receive no one ! " retorted his wife. " You don't take much pains to amuse me yourself." " The time is past when I had the power to do ii so. "Had you ever the power?" she asked in an aggravating manner. " It isn't every clever man that can make himself amusing. It requires a particular tact — a knowledge of men and women, which you have never taken the trouble to acquire." " You should rather say a stock of small gossip — an impertinent curiosity about matters that concern no one but the persons interested in them ; a power of magnifying every molehill into a mountain for the benefit of the idle and inquisitive. You are right, Phyllis. I have never taken the trouble to acquire so mean a virtue, and I never shall."

" And are not, in consequence, amusing," said Lady Phyllis, as she rose from table and left the room to assume her mantle and wraps. Macnaughten sat where she left him, thoughtful and introspective. What was it that had come into their lives ? He could recall the time when they had been foolishly unhappy, if separated only for a little while, when they had counted the hours spent apart, and flown into each other's arms with rapture as soon as re-united. He could remember when their passionate, overwhelming love had kept them awake at night, counting the moments till they should meet again — and now it seemed as if parting would be rather a relief than otherwise to both of them. What a little chatterbox Phyllis used to be in the first months of their married life ! She seemed never weary of telling him her thoughts and ideas on all sorts of subjects, and now she scarcely opened her mouth when they were alone together, and grew impatient if he talked to her !

And yet she was an unusually animated woman in society — rather celebrated for her brilliant repartees, and the bright, witty manner in which she related anything for the benefit of her audience — a woman who could amuse a stranger for a whole evening, and inspire him with the utmost admiration for her physical and mental charms. How was it ? How had the change come about ? Not that Ronald Macnaughten suspected his wife of caring for any man more than for himself. He was a true and faithful husband to her, and it is only faithless husbands — those who know what they are to other men's wives — who stoop to suspect their own. But the gloss seemed to be wearing off their married life, and he did not hold himself entirely guiltless in the matter. He, too, often felt the same sense of dulness and ennui that Phyllis seemed to do, and enjoyed an evening spent with his friends far more than those at home.

He was conscious that Mrs. Leyton's singing appealed to him more than that of his wife (though there was a time when he had considered Lady Phyllis's voice the sweetest he had ever heard), and that he felt livelier and better able to talk in any company but her's. How was it ? Whence had it come ? He had loved her passionately, and he told himself that he loved her passionately still, and yet he was happier away with his own sex in the shooting field or the smoking concert, or with the other sex in a drawing-room or the box of a theatre. These thoughts made his handsome face look harassed and careworn, and the light manner in which Phyllis had taken lately to speaking of acts of feminine carelessness and folly, at which formerly she would have shuddered, troubled him still more. Surely, surely, she could never arrive at the pitch of approving of the fast manners and appearance of some of the women of the present day, of up holding them in their acts of rebellion and attempts to procure an unseemly liberty.

And then Mac naughten thought that perhaps that little fool Percy Sefton encouraged Phyllis in these absurd ideas, and he ground his teeth in consequence. At that juncture hiswife re-entered the room. She was looking lovely — a wife of whom any man might have been proud — yet Macnaughten put her cloak about her snowy shoulders without a compliment or a caress. He had given her so many caresses which she had neither returned, nor seemed to appreciate — and, to tell the truth, he was becoming a little tired of kissing her himself. Half the charm of a kiss lies in the pleasure it is supposed to bestow, and though the French say there is always one who kisses and one who holds out the cheek, the man is a fool who goes on kissing in the circumstances. But there was one thing which Mr. Macnaughten evidently did miss, for he asked presently : "Where is Roy?"

" Upstairs with Reynolds," replied Lady Phyllis, carelessly, " do you wish to see him ? " " Why ! of course I wish to see him. Do I ever go out without saying good-night to my little boy?" "/ said goodnight to him upstairs," replied Lady Phyllis, " but if you wish to see him, you must ring the nursery bell. Be quick, though, for the carriage has been standing at the door for some time!" " Oh ! d — n the carriage ! " exclaimed Mac naughten, as he pulled the bell furiously and ordered his son and heir to be brought downstairs at once. Little Roy, now three years old, quite justified the pride taken in him by both his young parents. As he burst into the dining-room, in his embroidered frock, with a sash of the Macnaughton plaid tied round his waist, his father caught him up in an ecstasy of delight.

The baby had his mother's loveliness, combined with his father's strength, and was a very beautiful specimen of childhood. Reynolds, the head nurse, who appeared immediately in his wake, was almost as proud of her charge as his parents were, and spent all her time in arranging his love-locks and decking his little person. Had Master Roy Macnaughten been heir to the Throne of England, he could not have been more worshipped nor looked after. His immediate presence even seemed to draw the hearts of his young father and mother closer together, for as the child stretched out his arms towards Lady Phyllis, exclaiming, " Pretty Ma-ma ! " Macnaughten stretched his head also towards that of his wife, and echoing the baby's cry of, " pretty Ma-ma ! " kissed her on the cheek — an attention at which, for a wonder, she smiled.

But the carriage was waiting for them, so, with many kisses, and grasp ing a bunch of raisins in one hand and a candied orange in the other, Master Roy was dismissed to his nursery. "How he grows!" remarked Macnaughten, as he ensconced himself by the side of his wife in the satin-lined brougham, "I think the child is handsomer every time I see him." " Yes ! — but you will ruin his stomach by giving him those indigestible candies to eat. I've told you hundreds of times, but you men are all so selfish. Your love consists in gratifying yourselves, at whatever cost to the creature you profess to love." " I wouldn't harm my little Roy for all the world ! " said Macnaughten, dubiously. But Lady Phyllis seemed to have returned to her former mood, and did not speak another word until they arrived at the theatre.

The burlesque was scream ingly funny, and the artists were in their happiest moods. Yet Lady Phyllis Macnaughten looked utterly bored and indifferent to what was going on before her. Once or twice her husband, who really enjoyed it, turned to her for an answering laugh, and then she would force a smile and say, " Very funny, isn't it, Ronald?" and relapse again into boredom. At last her eyes sparkled, as she caught sight of some acquaintances in the stalls. " There are the Levisons ! Don't you see them, in the third row of the stalls ? Do go and ask them to come up here, Ronald? I haven't seen Mrs. Levison for an age." " What on earth do you want to see her for — that fat, vulgar old Jewess ! I should have thought that the very sight of her would have made you run a mile the other way." " We don't think together, you see !

As it happens, Mrs. Levison is one of the most amusing women I meet ! She knows everybody and every thing. It is quite a treat to hear her talk ! Are you going to do as I ask you or not ? If it is too much trouble to go downstairs for me I will send a waiter." "Well! wait till this act's over. Not even for that delightful creature, Mrs. Levison, can I miss this dance of Letty Lind's ! " Before the act had ended, however, Ronald Macnaughten's bete noir Lord Percy Sefton, had entered the box and estab lished himself behind his cousin's chair. This little gentleman had positively nothing to recommend him except the fact of being a lord, so he made as much of it as he could, and had consequently gained the reputation of being " a bit of a cad " amongst his own sex. He was but a midget of a man, standing about five feet nothing in his stockings, but he talked as if he were six feet high.

He took his success with the fair sex as a matter of course, whilst they used to say that it didn't signify what familiarities one allowed to Lord Percy, because he was so small. This is a common error with women, who often end by learning that small knives can cut as well as large ones. Lord Percy naturally made much of his relationship to Lady Phyllis, and many men envied him the privileges of cousinship with so beautiful a woman. Even her husband, though weary of her himself, watched the bright eyes and increased colour with which she welcomed Lord Percy's advent, with jealous gloom, as he tried to catch the import of their conversation. Lady Phyllis, who had sat and gazed at the broad comedy enacting before her with solemn eyes and closed lips, now began to smile at everything, even to laugh at the jokes, and chattered as freely as she knew how.

It was evidently her husband who bored her, not the burlesque nor the artists who interpreted it. So thought Ronald Macnaughten, as he retreated to the back of the box, and ceased, in his turn, to find amusement in the scene before him. As the act ended, he addressed his wife : " Do you wish me to give your message to Mrs. Levison now, Phyllis ? " She turned her animated face towards him. How sweet she looked when she smiled and showed her charming little white teeth ! " Oh, no ! thank you. I had forgotten all about them. They would fill up the box too much. Mrs. Levison takes the place of two, doesn't she, Percy ? But lend me your lorgnettes for a minute, Ronald ; there is such a lovely diamond necklace in the stage-box opposite. I can see it flashing like electricity from over here." But just as she was about to adjust the glasses to suit her sight, the door of their box opened to admit an intimate friend of theirs — Mr. Dalgairns, a barrister, who was also a well-known critic and journalist.

He shook hands cordially with both Macnaughten and his wife, nodded to Lord Percy Sefton, and made a few remarks on the show they were witnessing.. "Wonderful little woman, Letty Lind ; there'll never be another like her when she is gone. All life and movement, like an electric eel. That woman will dance in her coffin ! " "What a gruesome idea," cried Lady Phyllis. " Surely, Mr. Dalgairns, you will allow her to have a little rest then. She will want it, poor thing! " "Do women ever require rest?" demanded Dalgairns, cynically. " They are the very perfection of unrest, to my idea. Always scheming to upset themselves, or somebody else. What they will arrive at, at last, the Lord who made them only knows. Have you read this new monstrosity in the shape of feminine literature, ' The Revolt of the Harem ' ?

" " No," replied Lady Phyllis. " Then my advice to you is — Don't ! " "Why? Is it so bad, Mr. Dalgairns ? " It is far worse than ' bad,' it is foully improper and indecent. We London men and women are, unfortunately, but too well acquainted with badness ; it surround us in every shape and form ; but revelling in indecency is an amusement which, thank God, Englishwomen have still to learn to relish. ' The Revolt of the Harem ' is not clever, except in a very crude way ; it is neither well constructed nor well written, it is simply indecent. For that reason it will claim many readers, but no one who will be any the better for perusing it." " How very horrible ! " said Lady Phyllis. " Who is the author ? " "A woman, of course. No man would have ventured to touch such subjects out of a medical work.

She calls herself Emma Noble. I do not know if the name is assumed or not. No one does, Miss Noble being unknown to Fame, excepting as having published the most disgusting novel of the season." " By Jove ! " exclaimed Lord Percy, " I must get that book." " Do," replied Mr. Dalgairns. " It will just suit you, Lord Percy. It may not be able to teach you much, but it will doubtless recall several spicy reminiscences of your own career." " Teach me much ! Well, I should think it would be a clever book that could do that, eh ! Dalgairns ? I meant I should get it to laugh at, by Jove ! Fancy ! a woman having the audacity to set up to teach anything to us men ! " " Now, be careful what you say about women, Percy. Remember, I am present," exclaimed Lady- Phyllis, laughing. Her cousin stooped over her chair and whispered something in her ear.

Macnaughten could not catch the words, but he saw his wife grow crimson, and guessed that it was either a compliment or an equivocal remark that had so affected her. But he had no time to do more than notice it ; Dalgairns was speaking to him again. "What utter fools women are beginning to make of themselves," he said confidentially, at the back of the box. " Not content with their clubs and their colleges, they have now begun to try and rival the men in cricketing, and golfing, and cycling." " Impossible ! " said Macnaughten ; " no gentle women would attempt such things." " I cannot answer for their being gentlewomen," replied his friend ; " but I know that they attempt them. Are you acquainted with any of the members of the Pushahead Club ? " "No." "Well, my boy, until you are, don't venture to pass an opinion on the subject.

A glance into that sanctuary would make you open your eyes. I tell you that women have lost their heads. They are turning everything upside down. In a few years there will be no women left. All the sweet, soft, loveable creatures, in whom we took so great a pride, will have been swept off the face of the earth, and in their stead we shall have a race of rivals — volunteering, footballing, swearing, and drinking bipeds, who are neither " flesh, fowl, nor good red herrin'." " Well ! thank God, my wife is not that sort of woman ! If she were, I should get a separation from her at once ! " " No ! Lady Phyllis does not seem that sort, and you may well thank God for it ! Keep her as she is, man — and don't let her become acquainted with any of these she-men. They would only spoil her! This book now, of which I am speaking — which I have had the delightful task of reviewing and cutting up to the best of my ability — get it and read it if you wish to be enlightened as to what women want in these days.

It is beastly ! — that's the only name for it — not fit for any decent woman to look at ! " By this time the burlesque was drawing to a close, and Lady Phyllis again elevated her lorgnettes to have a look at the diamond necklace opposite. However many diamonds women may possess of their own, they are never tired of looking at those of some one else — in hopes, perhaps of discovering they are the inferior of the two. But as Lady Phyllis adjusted the glasses, and looked through them, she gave a little scream of surprise. "It is — I am sure it is — Cissy Brandon, who was at school with me at Brighton ! But can it be ? — how altered she seems — she looks older than I do, at least I think so, and she is two years younger ! Do look at her, Percy," handing the lorgnettes to her cousin, " that girl in the white dress with an oldish man — her father, perhaps ; but I believe, now I come to think of it, that her mother was a widow.

What do you think of her? " glancing at Lord Percy anxiously, as if he were the oracle of Delphos itself. " Not bad," was his lordship's verdict; "wants fattening — ought to cover up those salt cellars, you know — face, pretty, but too dark for my taste, and rather commonplace. Don't think much of her — no style," he concluded, as he put down the glasses, with an air of having wasted his time. " Give them to me," exclaimed Lady Phyllis, eagerly, "I want to look at her again to make sure! Oh ! it is Cissy ! it must be ! She was such a dear little thing at school — so good-natured, and my especial chum. I long to meet her again ! How can I let her know I am here, Percy ? I wouldn't > miss seeing her, now I have found her, for all the world ! " " It's easy enough," replied his lordship ; " write a message on your playbill, and I'll take it round to her box."

" But suppose it shouldn't be Cissy after all," suggested Lady Phyllis." " I haven't seen her for nearly six years, you know ! And yet, it is so exactly like her ! " " Oh ! risk it ! " said her cousin, with the most perfect nonchalance ; " she can't be affronted, you know — must take it as a compliment — any way I'll find out the truth and put your mind at rest, so give me the note ! " " It's a fearful scrawl," said Lady Phyllis, laughing, as she delivered over the twisted morsel of playbill, " but Cissy will excuse it ! " Then, as Lord Percy left the box, she looked round at her husband and saw he was alone. " Where is Mr. Dalgairns," she asked ; " has he gone?" " You did not offer him much inducement to stay," replied Macnaughten, " considering that you did not address half-a-dozen words to him whilst he was here.

I don't admire your taste in pre ferring the vapid conversation of a fool like Sefton to that of a clever man like Dalgairns." " One doesn't come to the theatre to be talked to, or at (which is more in Mr. Dalgairn's style) cleverly, but to see the piece. Besides, with you for a listener, he doubtless did not want to waste c his cleverness on me ! He did not consider me worthy of it!" " You are right there," retorted Macnaughten. " I don't think any man could despise women more than Dalgairns does. He cannot say enough against them, for their folly and pig-headedness." " Much obliged to him, I'm sure ! I return thanks for the sex," replied his wife. " He says, at the rate they are going on now, we shall soon have no loveable women left, and, as a natural consequence, no marriages." " Mercy ! what a loss !

" cried Lady Phyllis. " Then we shall have got our own way indeed." "What folly it is to talk like this. What would women do without men ? They would be lost without them ; besides, there must be marriages, or the race would end." " I shouldn't call that a misfortune ; at least, on our side," exclaimed Lady Phyllis. " You would advise your sex, then, to relinquish all the delights of love and motherhood for the sake of what? — working for themselves and by themselves, instead of finding all the comforts of life provided for them ? " " Oh ! for Heaven's sake, don't let's have an argument on the subject," said Lady Phyllis, peevishly. " Here is Percy, come back with my message. Well ! is it Cissy ? " she continued, as her cousin re-entered the box. " Yes, you are right ; but the lady is no longer Miss Brandon, but Mrs. Bernard.

The gentleman with her, whom you thought might be her father, turns out to be her husband, Colonel Bernard. She is delighted at the prospect of meeting you again, and says that, as soon as the piece is over, her husband will bring her round to your box, if you will wait for her." "Of course I will. Did you tell her my name? I suppose she knows I have been martyrised as well as herself ? " "Yes; I made that plain also. She's really not so bad upon a nearer inspection. Brown as a berry, but with pretty features. I fancy I shall like her ; she has a winning little way," said Lord Percy, as he attempted to pull his half-inch of flaxen moustache." The expression which Lady Phyllis had used in speaking of her marriage, " martyrised," had irritated Roland Macnaughten's already wounded spirit. Things appear so different to us at different times.