As in a looking glass : a novel

Front matter

A LOVELY SKIN,

soft and delicate face and hands obtained by using

ROWLANDS'

CHAPTER I. Ostend, September

A neat little volume, containing blank pages, is staring me in the face, and I am about to commence a diary. I have always heard it is an idiotic thing to do, and I scarcely know what has prompted me to do it, unless it is that yearning for a confidant which I suppose comes sooner or later even to the hardest hearted and most unlikely people. I certainly have no friend whom I should care to make the recipient of my private doings and sayings. Women are proverbially untrustworthy, and men too highminded, or would make one believe so, to receive one's confidence ; hence the purchase of this book, which I shall treat as I could treat no human being, and inscribe therein my innermost thoughts, successes, and failures.

I arrived here last night from the Engadino. It is a pleasant change. The air seems quite as bracing, and the people certainly less depressing. Anything more nauseating than the combination of Church and Stage which I have encountered in Switzerland, I cannot possibly conceive. The worthy people there belong, one and all, to the " Mutual Admiration and Flattery Society," and it was positively sickening to see a hoary-headed old parson metaphorically on his knees before an ex-breakdown dancer, and a third-rate

B jeune ■premier holding wool for a decrepit old dowager. Yet there was nothing else in the way of society ; cetait a prendre ou a laisser. A few beardless youths from the Universities, whose distressing blushes, if one looked at them, reminded one of the sunrise they had come so far to see ; and that was all. I belong neither to the Church nor to the stage. It is needless, therefore, to say that I was rather out of it. At first I attempted mildly to ingratiate myself with two or three old women who did not belong to the profession to which Mrs. Langtry has devoted her genius and beauty ; but I soon found that I was no match for the toadies who surrounded them, and that I could not compete with people who live by acting. They had the ear of the psalm-singers, and were quite determined to prevent any new comer from entering the charmed circle.

Ladies who, like Sarah Bernhardt, had had " accidents " before they were married, turned up their noses in proud disdain when I attempted to converse with them. Others, who had probably passed their early childhood in the purlieus of Drury Lane, complained to the proprietor of the hotel that I had smoked a cigarette in my bedroom, and that they were made quite faint all day from the smell of it ! As for men — well, I have heard lately that the stage is being adopted by the " sons of gentlemen " as a profession ; but, if so, I can only say that that class must have been too busy studying to take a holiday, and had remained at home. No, it was absolutely necessary to be either an artist or a Christian (as they modestly call themselves), and although I have some pretensions to belonging to the latter class, I have none to the former ; and was therefore glad to shake the dust off my feet, and make for Brussels. In the evening I went to the Galerie St. Hubert, where Monbazon was playing in La Mascotte. I took Felicie, my maid, which, I believe, is about the most compromising thing one can do, a maid being the usual accompaniment of ces dames when they go to the play. I soon found out the mistake I had made, as an enterprising "brave Beige," struck by my charms, and having evidently dined not wisely but too well, sent me a note by the ouvreuse to suggest that, if la soiree de Madame were not "prise," I should confer a great favour on him by accepting an invitation to supper at the Cafe Eiche. I returned the note with a lofty air to the harridan who had brought it, and said there must be some mistake, as I had not the pleasure of the gentleman's acquaintance. Felicie grinned from ear to ear, and I regretted more than ever having brought her. This is the only incident in my two days' stay in Brussels, and, though it is a vulgar and uninteresting one, it came as a relief after the humbug and ennui of Switzerland.

If the Engadine is full of Christians, Ostend, par con' traire, is full of Jews. Noses are but of one pattern in this most delightful of watering places. The hook predominates, but it belongs to a very different kind of Hebrew to those who make life unbearable at Brighton, and turn other seaside places into Houndsditch during the summer. Here they are wealthy bankers from Berlin and Vienna, and the haute gomme of the London money-lenders. They live and are treated, at any rate by the hotel proprietors, en prince, and no wonder, when you see them occupying the best suite of rooms in the largest hotels, and imbibing champagne at every meal as if it were lager bier !

I met Lady Darner at the Kursaal last night. She looks as young as ever, and I believe still vows she is not yet

b 2 thirty, though that must be without counting les moh de nourrice! It appears that she has not yet been divorced; though how in the name of Providence she has escaped making her appearance in that Court (the only one she is ever likely to be seen in) passes my comprehension. She will, however, be useful here, as she seems to know people, and has always been very kind to me.

" Darner is shooting in Scotland, my dear," she said to me, " and begs me to join him by every post, but you know I hate the Highlands, and, moreover, I have been ordered sea-bathing, so here I am, and here I intend to remain till the end of the month."

Darner, I know, loathes her, and goes to Scotland expressly to get rid of her, and I verily believe that every bird he shoots he wishes were his wife ; so I knew exactly how much of that little taradiddle to believe.

" Is there anyone here one can know ?" I asked her.

" Oh, there are a few decent people," she said ; " and I know most of them, but I doubt if you would care about them." I forebore to ask her what she meant by that ambiguous remark, but said sweetly that I was sure I should like any friend of hers.

" You see," she continued, " this is a dull place for ladies. There is only the eternal Kursaal, and suspicious-looking donzelles, accompanied by the most obviously hired mothers. are so rife in the evening that I never care to remain there after nine o'clock. The men have their baccarat, which they play at two or three soi-disant clubs of most magnificent appearance, both inside and out, and which are accessible to anyone with money to lose. Black balls are, I should think, unknown in those establishments, and Charlie Gordon told me that the waiter of our hotel advised him

AS IX A LOOKIXG GLASS. 5

strongly to belong to one which he named, as being so much more comme ilfaut than the others, and he added that he (the waiter) would personally undertake to get Charlie elected if he cared to join it. Charlie Gordon himself having come a cropper over Goodwood, and having run across here in preference to putting in an appearance at Tattersall's, declined the honour, but he couldn't help laughing at the waiter's condescension and naivete."

We chatted pleasantly for an hour, and abused all our dearest friends to our hearts' content ; but I could not discover, even at the end of that time, what was her attraction at Ostend — sea-bathing I knew to be a farce, as dear Lady Darner has a wholesome horror of cold water, and never gets beyond a bain de son, plentifully mingled with Lubin and eau-de-Cologne. She has asked me to dinner to-morrow night. She said she had some dreadful relations of her husband's to entertain, who are here on their way home from Homburg, " and you are so clever at entertaining dull people," she complimentarily added, " that you must come. They are Sir Thomas and Lady Gage. He is music mad, so your playing and singing will delight him ; he is fearfully henpecked by his wife, who considers herself an esprit fort, and shows her supreme contempt for men in general, and her husband in particular."

At this moment her maid came up with a note, which she had evidently been told to bring as soon as it arrived. Lady Darner opened it feverishly ; but it apparently contained bad news, as she frowned ominously as it was put back into the envelope.

" Avez-vous porte la lettre chez Monsieur le Vicomte ?" she asked sharply of her maid, who replied in the affirmative.

6 AS IK A LOOKING GLASS.

"Monsieur le Vicomte /" There, then, is the object of this sejour at Ostend, and to-morrow I shall probably make his acquaintance ; but to-night I am longing for bed, so I wish her good-night, and go back to my hotel. I am too sleepy to speculate on the identity of the Vicomte or to write any more in my diary. I am reading Zola's "Pot-Bouille." It is nasty, but not amusing, and soon has the desired effect of sending me to sleep.

Ostend, September, I have been here a week, and yet have very little to record in my diary. It is getting cold, and people are rapidly reducing Ostend to the howling wilderness which it remains during nine or ten months of the year. I shall soon be leaving myself. Lady Darner is going shortly, and after her departure there will be no inducement for me to remain here. By the way, her little dinner was rather amusing, only the G.'s, myself, and the Vicomte de Bois Creve. I soon grasped the fact that my presence at the feast was only in order that she might enjoy the latter' s company more at her ease ; but although I could see the Vicomte was more or less devoted to her, yet I came in for no small share of that gentleman's attention. I was dressed in a neat, becoming black dress, ablaze with jet, and with a fair sprinkling of diamonds ; and disdaining the usual red rose in my hair, with which heroines of romance usually adorn themselves, I really think I looked rather nice. The dinner was slow, I must admit, the conversation being chiefly about the prospects of the Eoyalists in France, and the extortion of Homburg hotel-keepers, and these, to me uninteresting, topics I had to carry on single-handed with the G.'s, who, however, contradicted each other so repeatedly and so persistently that they saved me a great deal of trouble. After dinner, however, I was able to become better acquainted with Monsieur de Bois Creve\ Lady Darner and Lady Gage having retired to a sofa to converse about their respective village schools. The Belgian is a little gommeuce dressed in the most irreproachable English clothes, and with a collar which appeared to afford him the greatest inconvenience whenever he wanted to turn his head, which he very often did to see if Lady Darner was looking on and approving of our conversation.

He spoke fairly good English, and after various preliminary platitudes he asked me if I bathed at Ostend, to which I replied in the negative, with the inward reflection that if only he saw me in the sea minus my hair and complexion, to say nothing of the shade about my eyes being entirely gone, he would scarcely have asked such a silly question. " I bathe in Paradise," he said.

Failing to catch the meaning of this remark, I inquired what he meant.

" They call the bains des homm.es ' Paradis,' you know, but whether because no ladies are ever there, or on account of the absence of costume, I really don't know."

"But don't you think that ladies go to Paradise?" I inquired.

" I am sure you will," was his comforting reply ; but seeing Lady Darner's eyes fixed upon us, I drew myself up and coldly asked him " Why ?"

"Because ' les yeux gris vont an Paradis,' " was his answer, with a look evidently intended to penetrate my very soul, but which in reality did not get much further than the steel grey eyes which were going to assure me so satisfactory a future,

" Have you known Lady Darner long ?" I asked him.

" I met her last year in London ; you know I am at tha Belgian Legation. She is a great friend of yours ?''

"lam very fond of her, but I don't see much of her."

" I, too, am very fond of her."

" You must not say that," I said, laughing. " She has a husband."

" And have you ?" he asked with some eagerness.

"I have had two," I replied, evasively, keeping for a future occasion the fact of my separation from each of my spouses.

" And they are both dead?" he said interrogatively, and attempting to throw some pathos into his voice.

I longed to say, no, they are both alive and kicking, but with my usual adroitness I changed the conversation, as I deemed it unnecessary to gratify his curiosity. At this point Lady Darner evidently thought that I had had my share of the Vicomte, and came across to ask me to sing something.

"I know it's a shame to ask you so soon after dinner," she said, and might have added, and that's why I do ask you ; — " but Sir Thomas is so fond of music, and so is Monsieur de Bois Creve, that I am sure you won't mind giving us a treat."

"Do you sing any of Moore's melodies?" asked Lady Gage. I was afraid I didn't remember one.

"Do you know ' Ce que je suis sans toi ' ?" asked the Belgian, effusively, as he came up to me at the piano. " Is it a riddle or a song?" I replied, laughing; but Lady Darner immediately came up, saying — "All that I stipulate against is ' The Lost Chord,' or ' Let me dream again' ; I do so much dislike an English ballad." With these conflicting requests I struck out a line for myself and sang the Habanera from Carmen, and when I came to " Si je t'aime prends garde a toi," I looked the little Belgian full in the face, and was rewarded by a glare from Lady Darner of the most murderous description. When it was over there was a chorus of praise from every-one but the hostess, who said — " It is a pretty thing, but the words are so ridiculous, though one must remember that they are supposed to be sung by a girl in a cigar manufactory."

" She must have been an odious woman, judging from the opera," said Lady Gage.

" Merimee made her a delightfully impulsive one !" said Bois Creve\

" She may have been impulsive, but all her impulses were bad ones," replied Lady Gage, severely.

" For which she paid very dearly," I said, sadly.

" You mean with her life," said Lady Darner. " Well, I don't suppose that it was of much value to anyone !"

It depressed me to hear my favourite Carmen so energetically run down ; but, feeling that her moral character was quite indefensible, I wisely held my peace, and was glad when Bois Creve changed the conversation by asking me if I sketched. I told him it was my favourite pastime.

" Vous avez tous les talents," he said, enthusiastically. " Will you come out sketching with me to-morrow ?"

" Is Lady Darner to be of the party ?" I asked, with as much naivete as my thirty-three years' knocking about the world could produce.

" There is no party," he said, " but I can show you some pretty things to sketch if you will allow me to accompany you." But this I feel bound to decline. Then old Gage came up and asked me if I liked shells. Of course I said "Yes." One must always say yes to this sort of question.

An expedition to search for them was then proposed by him for the next day, but this Lady Darner firmly put down, and I was rather disappointed, as the Gages have a fine place in Buckinghamshire, and I was looking forward to ingratiating myself with them with a view to a visit to their highly respectable ancestral halls.

What a perpetual struggle it is to get on ! Women are always so against one, and those who require the greatest indulgence themselves are the first to put every obstacle in one's way to knowing people who could be of use in amoral rehabilitation. However, the discussion came to an end, and I felt my evening was not thrown away, for I made up my mind to " attach" Bois Creve to myself, and to pay a visit sooner or later to the Gages. I came home, wrote in my diary, and closed my eyes with the comforting reflection that ce que femme veut — somebody — I have heard it quoted both ways — veut. Next week I shall be in London — dear, foggy, disreputable London, and then for my country visita a la grace de Dieu t

CHAPTER II. Ostend (still Ostend), September

Yes, I am still at Ostend ! And so is Monsieur le Vicomte de Bois Creve, and so is Lady Darner, and so is Sir Thomas Gage, fifth baronet, and so is Lady Gage.

And all owing to a caprice of good King iEolus (I think it was iEolus). His winds, which yesterday were all easterly and apparently squabbling entre eux, to-day are unanimously and harmoniously southerly. And it has been quite summer weather ; at all events, Indian summer weather.

No ! 1 will condescend to no subterfuge, now I am talking to my only confidant. I will sully these truthful pages with no lie, however white it may be.

The strict truth is that I am staying on in consequence of the pleasant change in the weather ; they (the male worthies above mentioned) are still here in consequence of my continued presence in this favoured spot. The rest of the party (the female contingent or whatever you please to call them) are naturally at the heels of the partner of their joys, legitimate and illegitimate. And as you, dear Mrs. Diary (I have positively already taken a fancy to you, although this is only the third time I have had a chat with you), as you are to have all my secrets, I may as well at once tell you

12 AS IX A LOOKIXG GLASS.

a little secret, a very little one, just to begin with, and to accustom myself to the practice. Ce nest que le premier pas qui coute ; so here goes !

I believe those women, both those women, are jealous of me. As if I had done anything to make them jealous. As if I had not every now and then made myself scarce, and actually kept out of their way. Can I help having a better voice and being more chic than Lady Darner ? Can I help being younger and more amiable than Lady Gage ? Can I help people coming up and disturbing me when I am sitting in a quiet corner looking over the Illustrated London News ? and then, when I have a headache, can I help being absent from the table d'hote ? And when it gets better towards half-past nine and I make my appearance in the saloon, looking quite an invalid, with a pretty pale face, and a pretty pink tea-gown, can I help people being idiots and rushing at me with outrageous and unconcealed manifestations of joy and relief ? Of course not ! That is — that is, I am afraid I am falling into my old and most reprehensible habit of trying to deceive everybody, including myself. But I must not deceive you, my diary. Have I not vowed you my fullest confidence? " On recule pour mieux sauter." I have effaced myself, now and then, to make myself wanted. Now and then when I have had the opportunity (which has not been often — but even a Lady Gage and a Lady Darner cannot be always on their guard) I have used the sweet sad smile and the far-off look from grey eyes with deadly effect upon the Baronet to the irritation of the Vicomte ; and the same weapons upon the Vicomte to the obvious uneasiness and irritation of the Baronet.

Not now and then, but always (that is, almost always) I have, like some wounded dove, nestled under the portly wing of Lady Gage. I have murmured the most touching episode of my wrongs (I mean Wrongs — I always use the word as if it began with a capital W), that any woman could possibly invent, into her sympathetic ear. I have talked goodygoody to her ; I have even entrusted her with my subscription to the Church of England services, which some migratory clerical has been holding in the hotel salon.

And all the time I have seen Sir Thomas tramping up and down the terrace, furiously puffing at successive cigars, and evidently wondering when an opportunity will arrive for a tete-a-tete.

And all the time Bois Creve has been reading the Fiyaro and V Independance Behje upside down, with the determination of being first in the field when our discussion shall have ended, although his natural inclination is to the cardroom, and his desire is to the cigarette.

And Lady Darner ? Oh, Lady Dainer ! Ha ! Ha ! (It seems absurd to express laughter in writing, but I can't help it. I must place it on record that at this particular point I broke into a little fiendish cackle.) Ha ! ha ! I think Lady Damer has been sulking. At all events, she has become very thick with the Bassishaws lately — ex-Lord Mayors of London, you know. I suppose I ought to say " Ex-Lord Mayor ;" but then, you see, he has a wife — and such a wife. Yes, Lady Damer has neglected us dreadfully lately. Doubtless she began by taking her " brave Beige " to task by " making him scenes ;" and ended by finding that even a Belgian, like a worm, will turn. For yesterday morning, when I said to him what I have written above — "And Lady Damer?" he answered, as I have answered above, but moro mysteriously, " Oh, Lady Damer! Flitter

Now, what does " Fliite " mean, I should like to know? I am longing to get the account of this morning's triumph over, and pass on to the evening of the day in which I positively "led captivity captive" in the person of Sir Thomas and Bois Creve.

There I am again, quoting Scripture. I hope it doesn't look too shocking ; but if it does, recollect what doses of Lady Gage and the migratory clerical I have had lately.

I should dearly like to begin with to-day and finish with yesterday. But no, we must be methodical, we must be chronological, we must set down events as they happen. Well, then, about yesterday.

Yesterday the concho — (let me see ; where's my Webster ? Oh ! Yes, that's it) — the conchological expedition came off after all. And here I may remark, par parenthese, that, although one's education may be neither better nor worse than anybody else's, a dictionary is a most useful adjunct to one's writing materials.

Yes, in spite of Lady Gage's and Lady Darner's opposition, we have been "to look for shells." And when I say "we" I mean the author of this veracious history, and Bois Creve once again. Ha ! ha !

It was on this wise. I had satisfactorily discussed my dejeuner (I purposely abstain from saying "breakfast" which, to my mind, always suggests half-past eight in the morning, weak tea, and mildewy eggs and bacon). I had trifled with a cotelette a la reforme, spoken a word or two to half a bottle of Chateau Lafitte, and pecked at an omelette aux fines lierbes.

I had just tested by experience how many sips it takes to drain a cup of black coffee when you flavour it with a dash of cognac, and in how many puffs it is possible to reduce one of Laferme's cigarettes to a small heap of ashes.

And I was leaning against the window, looking out at the black sky and foam- crested waves, and wondering whether I should be able to stand another day of Kursaal and Terrace — Terrace and Kursaal, when — when I had an idea !

"Felicie," I cried, "get me into my tweed costume. Bring up my Alpine boots, and fetch my mackintosh."

It was not long before I had doffed my black satin dressing-gown (trimmed with gold braid and real lace — a marvel. I should be no woman if I could refrain froin a few details once in a way) and donned a tailor-made tweed suit, deerstalker hat, and neat, very neat, high lace-up boots.

It was not long before, with mackintosh on arm (the same I used to wear aboard Xo. 2's yacht), a quaint basket in one hand, and a cunning crutch stick in the other, I had sallied forth from the hotel towards the Kursaal.

It was not long before I had half opened the door of the reading-room attached to that luxurious establishment, and had presented to its admiring occupants a provoking, piquante, pretty face, just ready to nod bonjour and a tantdt.

Yes, why should I not put " pretty ?"

I was pretty that morning, and I looked my best with a

plain, high collar round a plump throat, and plain square

uffs over dogskin gloves. There is no phase of conceit

" Ah ! Madame," cried the Vicomte, hurrying up from the end of the room, " at last, there you are ; but this costume, that basket, that mackintosh !"

" Where, in the name of all that's wonderful," broke in Sir Thomas, in his gruff voice, " is the delicate Mrs. Despard about to go this rough morning ?"

"I am going to look for little shells," I answered, " and when I have found them, I'm going to put them into a little cabinet with little drawers in it. And I'm going to be a con — a concho — a conchologist. There now !"

"What, alone?" expostulated Bois Creve. "Madame would explore the desolate seashore unattended. I will never suffer it. Behold, I offer myself as escort ! Will you have of me ?"

" Oh, there is Lady Gage," I said, vouchsafing no answer to my interviewers. " I must go and say how-de-do to dear Lady Gage."

" And I peacocked accordingly across the room to dear Lady Gage, who sat fuming and bridling at the big table, apparently engrossed with the Morning Post.

[N.B. — " To peacock." — Word invented on the spur of the moment by myself, as accurately descriptive of the feminine walk nowadays — i.e., the result of a careful combination of very high heels and a good dress-improver.]

" I thought," growled Lady Gage, severely, after a limp shake hands, " that we had given up the shell expedition."

" Oh, yes, of course," I sighed meekly ; " but I am going quite alone. I could not resist the tei. ptation, although it is such dreadful weather ; I am so devoted to con — to concho — to conchology, you know."

" It is quite out of the question to go out in such weather," she replied.

" Oh, I don't mind a little wind and rain," I said, cheerfully, " it hardens one."

" I don't require hardening," she said, and looked at me as much as to say : " and I am sure you don't."

" And I will accompany you," said dear old Sir Thomas, making a supreme effort for liberty.

AS IS A L00ii.il>, (1 GLASS. 17

" My dear Sir Thomas, you will do nothing of the sort," said his wife ; " I don't wish to have you laid up with bronchitis and sore throat as you were all last winter. If Mrs. Despard is quixotic enough to brave such a day, there is no reason why you should."

Sir Thomas collapsed, beaten again in one of the numerous and ever-recurring encounters with his wife, in which, by reason of his senile imbecility, he was always bound to be defeated.

" Then I must go alone," I said, sadly, and my melancholy tones had the desired effect of producing Bois Creve from his remote corner, and he would not hear of my taking a walk unaccompanied.

It was really too silly, all this fuss about nothing at all, and malgre moi I had to accept his offer. I didn't care to be the unintentional cause of a marital wrangle between the Gages — at least not in public— and I knew it would pique Lady Darner if I accapared her man ; so feeling that it would be war to the knife with her, and having a sudden fit of utter recklessness, I put on my sweetest smile and bade him accompany me.