4. CHAPTER IV.
A little after two o'clock on the following
Wednesday, Tremlet's cabriolet stopped near the
perron of Willis's rooms in King street, and while he
sent up his card to the lady patronesses for his ticket
to that night's Almack's, he busied himself in looking
into the crowd of carriages about him, and reading on
the faces of their fair occupants the hope and anxiety
to which they were a prey till John the footman
brought them tickets or despair. Drawn up on the
opposite side of the street, stood a family-carriage of
the old style, covered with half the arms of the herald's
office, and containing a fat dowager and three very overdressed
daughters. Watching them, to see the effect
of their application, stood upon the sidewalk three or
four young men from the neighboring club-house, and
at the moment Tremlet was observing these circumstances,
a foreign britscka, containing a beautiful woman
of a reputation better understood than expressed
in the conclave above stairs, flew round the corner of
St. James's street, and very nearly drove into the open
mouth of the junior partner's cabriolet.
“I will bet you a Ukraine colt against this fine bay
of yours,” said the Russian secretary of legation, advancing
from the group of dandies to Tremlet, “that
miladi, yonder, with all the best blood of England in
her own and her daughters' red faces, gets no tickets
this morning.”
“I'll take a bet upon the lady who has nearly
extinguished me, if you like,” answered Tremlet,
gazing with admiration at the calm, delicate, child-like
looking creature, who sat before him in the
britscka.
“No!” said the secretary, “for Almack's is a republic
of beauty, and she'll be voted in without either
blood or virtue. Par exémple, Lady Ravelgold's
voucher is good here, though she does study tableaux
in Lothbury—eh, Tremlet?”
Totally unaware of the unlucky discovery by the
fireworks at Lady Roseberry's fête, Tremlet colored
and was inclined to take the insinuation as an affront;
but a laugh from the dandies drew off his companion's
attention, and he observed the dowager's footman
standing at her coach window with his empty hands
held up in most expressive negation, while the three
young ladies within sat aghast, in all the agonies of
disappointed hopes. The lumbering carriage got into
motion—its ineffective blazonry paled by the mortified
blush of its occupants—and, as the junior partner
drove away, philosophizing on the arbitrary opinions
and unprovoked insults of polite society, the britscka
shot by, showing him, as he leaned forward, a lovely
woman who bent on him the most dangerous eyes in
London, and an Almack's ticket lying on the unoccupied
cushion beside her.
The white redievo upon the pale blue wall of Almack's
showed every crack in its stucco flowers, and
the faded chaperons who had defects of a similar description
to conceal, took warning of the walls, and
retreated to the friendlier dimness of the tea-room.
Collinet was beginning the second set of quadrilles,
and among the fairest of the surpassingly beautiful
women who were moving to his heavenly music, was
Lady Imogen Ravelgold, the lovelier to-night for the
first heavy sadness that had ever dimmed the roses
in her cheek. Her lady-mother divided her thoughts
between what this could mean, and whether Mr.
Tremlet would come to the ball; and when, presently
after, in the dos-a-dos, she forgot to look at her daughter,
on seeing that gentleman enter, she lost a very
good opportunity for a guess at the cause of Lady
Imogen's paleness.
To the pure and true eye that appreciates the
divinity of the form after which woman is made, it
would have been a glorious feast to have seen the perfection
of shape, color, motion, and countenance, shown
that night on the bright floor of Almack's. For the
young and beautiful girls whose envied destiny is to
commence their woman's history in this exclusive
hall, there exists aids to beauty known to no other
class or nation. Perpetual vigilance over every limb
from the cradle up; physical education of a perfection,
discipline, and judgment, pursued only at great
expense and under great responsibility; moral education
of the highest kind, habitual consciousness of
rank, exclusive contact with elegance and luxury, and
a freedom of intellectual culture which breathes a soul
through the face before passion has touched it with a
line or a shade—these are some of the circumstances
which make Almack's the cynosure of the world for
adorable and radiant beauty.
There were three ladies who had come to Almack's
with a definite object that night, each of whom was
destined to be surprised and foiled: Lady Ravelgold,
who feared she had been abrupt with the inexperienced
banker, but trusted to find him softened by a day or
two's reflection; Mrs. St. Leger, the lady of the
britscka who had ordered supper for two on her arrival
at home from her morning's drive, and intended
to have the company of the handsome creature she
had nearly run over in King street; and Lady Imogen
Ravelgold as will appear in the sequel.
Tremlet stood in the entrance from the tea-room a
moment, gathering courage to walk alone into such a
dazzling scene, and then, having caught a glimpse of
the glossy lines of Lady Imogen's head at the farthest
end of the room, he was advancing toward her, when he
was addressed by a lady who leaned against one of the
slender columns of the orchestra. After a sweetly-phrased
apology for having nearly knocked out his
braits that morning with her horses' fore feet, Mrs. St.
Leger took his arm, and walking deliberately two or
three times up and down the room, took possession, at
last, of a banquette on the highest range, so far from any
other person, that it would have been a marked rudeness
to have left her alone. Tremlet took his seat by
her with this instinctive feeling, trusting that some of
her acquaintances would soon approach, and give him
a fair excuse to leave her; but he soon became
amused with her piquant style of conversation, and,
not aware of being observed, fell into the attitude of a
pleased and earnest listener.
Lady Ravelgold's feelings during this petit entretien,
were of a very positive description. She had
an instinctive knowledge, and consequently a jealous
dislike of Mrs. St. Leger's character; and, still under
the delusion that the young banker's liberality was
prompted by a secret passion for herself, she saw her
credit in the city and her hold upon the affections of
Tremlet (for whom she had really conceived a violent
affection), melting away in every smile of the dangerous
woman who engrossed him. As she looked around
for a friend, to whose ear she might communicate
some of the suffocating poison in her own heart, Lady
Imogen returned to her from a galopade; and, like a
second dagger into the heart of the pure-minded girl,
went this second proof of her lover's corrupt principle
and conduct. Unwilling to believe even her own eyes
on the night of Lady Roseberry's fête, she had summoned
resolution on the road home to ask an explanation
of her mother. Embarrassed by the abrupt question,
Lady Ravelgold felt obliged to make a partial
confidence of the state of her pecuniary affairs; and
to clear herself, she represented Tremlet as having
taken advantage of her obligations to him, to push a
dishonorable suit. The scene disclosed by the sudden
blaze of the fireworks being thus simply explained
Lady Imogen determined at once to give up
Tremlet's acquaintance altogether; a resolution which
his open flirtation with a woman of Mrs. St. Leger's
character served to confirm. She had, however, one
errand with him, prompted by her filial feelings and
favored by an accidental circumstance which will appear.
“Do you believe in animal magnetism?” asked
Mrs. St. Leger, “for by the fixedness of Lady Ravelgold's
eyes in this quarter,something is going to happen
to one of us.”
The next moment the Russian secretary approached
and took his seat by Mrs. St. Leger, and with
diplomatic address contrived to convey to Tremlet's
ear that Lady Ravelgold wished to speak with him.
The banker rose, but the quick wit of his companion
comprehended the manœuvre.
“Ah! I see how it is,” she said, “but stay—you'll
sup with me to-night? Promise me—parole d'honneur!”
“Parole!” answered Tremlet, making his way
out between the seats, half pleased and half embarrassed.
“As for you, Monsieur le Secretaire,” said Mrs.
St. Leger, “you have forfeited my favor, and may
sup elsewhere. How dare you conspire against me?”
While the Russian was making his peace, Tremlet
crossed over to Lady Ravelgold; but, astonished
at the change in Lady Imogen, he soon broke in
abruptly upon her mother's conversation, to ask her
to dance. She accepted his hand for a quadrille;
but as they walked down the room in search of a vis-à-vis.
she complained of heat, and asked timidly if he
would take her to the tea-room.
“Mr. Tremlet,” she said, fixing her eyes upon the
cup of tea which he had given her, and which she
found some difficulty in holding, “I have come here
to-night to communicate to you some important information,
to ask a favor, and to break off an acquaintance
which has lasted too long.”
Lady Imogen stopped, for the blood had fled from
her lips, and she was compelled to ask his arm for a
support. She drew herself up to her fullest height
the next moment, looked at Tremlet, who stood in
speechless astonishment, and with a strong effort, commenced
again in a low, firm tone—
“I have been acquainted with you some time, sir,
and have never inquired, nor knew more than your
name, up to this day. I suffered myself to be pleased
too blindly—”
“Dear Lady Imogen!”
“Stay a moment, sir! I will proceed directly to
my business. I received this morning a letter from
the senior partner of a mercantile house in the city,
with which you are connected. It is written on the
supposition that I have some interest in you, and informs
me that you are not, as you yourself suppose,
the son of the gentleman who writes the letter.”
“Madam!”
“That gentleman, sir, as you know, never was
married. He informs me that in the course of many
financial visits to St. Petersburgh, he formed a friendship
with Count Manteuffel, then minister of finance
to the emperor, whose tragical end, in consequence
of his extensive defalcations, is well known. In
brief, sir, you were his child, and were taken by this
English banker, and carefully educated as his own, in
happy ignorance, as he imagined, of your father's misfortunes
and mournful death.”
Tremlet leaned against the wall, unable to reply
to this astounding intelligence, and Lady Imogen
went on.
“Your title and estates have been restored to you
at the request of your kind benefactor, and you are
now the heir to a princely fortune, and a count of
the Russian empire. Here is the letter, sir, which
is of no value to me now. Mr. Tremlet! one word
more, sir.”
Lady Imogen grasped for breath.
“In return, sir, for much interest given you heretofore—in
return, sir, for this information—”
“Speak, dear Lady Imogen!”
“Spare my mother!”
“Mrs. St. Leger's carriage stops the way!” shouted
a servant at that moment, at the top of the stairs;
and as if there were a spell in the sound to nerve her
resolution anew, Lady Imogen Ravelgold shook the
tears from her eyes, bowed coldly to Tremlet, and
passed out into the dressing-room.
“If you please, sir,” said a servant, approaching the
amazed banker, “Mrs. St. Leger waits for you in her
carriage.”
“Will you come home and sup with us?” said
Lady Ravelgold at the same instant, joining him in
the tea-room.
“I shall be only too happy, Lady Ravelgold.”
The bold coachman of Mrs. St. Leger continued
to “stop the way,” spite of policemen and infuriated
footmen, for some fifteen minutes. At the end of
that time Mr. Tremlet appeared, handing down
Lady Ravelgold and her daughter, who walked to
their chariot, which was a few steps behind; and
very much to Mrs. St. Leger's astonishment, the
handsome banker sprang past her horses' heads a
minute after, jumped into his cabriolet, which stood
on the opposite side of the street, and drove after
the vanishing chariot as if his life depended on overtaking
it. Still Mrs. St. Leger's carriage “stopped
the way.” But, in a few minutes after, the same
footman who had summoned Tremlet in vain, returned
with the Russian secretary, doomed in blessed
unconsciousness to play the pis aller at her tête-à-tête supper in Spring Gardens.
