In Silk Attire: A Novel

Arrived there, he ordered the waiter to take up to the smoking-room a bottle of the pale port which the Count was in the habit of drinking there. Then he countermanded the order.

"I needn't make a beast of myself because I feel happy," he said to himself, wisely, as he went into the dining-room. "Alfred, I'll have a bit of cold chicken, and a bottle of the wine that you flatter yourself is Château Yquem."

Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red hair and no h's, was not less astonished than the Count's coachman had been. However, he brought the various dishes, and then the wine. The Count poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and took a draught of it:

"Here's to her health, whether the wine came from Bordeaux or Biberich!"

But as a rule the Château Yquem of clubs is a cold drink, which never sparkled under the warm sun of France; and so, as the Count went upstairs to the smoking-room, he returned to his old love, and told them to send him a pint-bottle of port. He had already put twenty-two shillings' worth of wine into his capacious interior; and he had only to add a glass or two of port, and surround his face with the perfume of an old, hard, and dry cigar, in order to get into that happy mood when visions are born of the half-somnolent brain.

"… I have done it – I have broken the ice, and there is still hope. Her face was pleased, her smile was friendly, her soft clear eyes – fancy having that smile and those eyes at your breakfast-table every morning, to sweeten the morning air for you, and make you snap your fingers at the outside world. 'Gad, I could write poetry about her. I'll livepoetry – which will be something better…"

At this moment there looked into the room a handsome and dressy young gentleman who was the funny fellow of the club. He lived by his wits, and managed to make a good income, considering the material on which he had to work.

"What a courageous man – port in the forenoon!" he said, to the Count.

The other said nothing, but inwardly devoted the newcomer to the deeps of Hades.

"And smoking to our old port!"

"A cigar doesn't make much difference to club-wines, young gentleman," said the Count, grandly.

"Heard a good thing just now. Fellow was abusing Scotchmen to a Scotch tradesman, and of course Bannockburn was mentioned. 'Why,' says the Englishman, 'plenty of my countrymen were buried at Bannockburn, and there you have rich harvests of grain. Plenty of your countrymen were buried at Culloden, and there you have only a barren waste. Scotchmen can't even fatten the land.'"

"Did he kill him?"

"No; the Englishman was a customer."

Once more the Count was left to his happy imaginings.

"Then the marriage," he thought to himself, "then the marriage, – the girls in white, champagne, fun, horses, and flowers, and away for France! No Trouville for me, no Etretât, no Biarritz. A quiet old Norman town, with an old inn, and an old priest; and she and I walking about like the lord and lady of the place, with all the children turning and looking at her as if she were an Italian saint come down from one of the pictures in the church. This is what I offer her – instead of what? A sempstress's garret in Camden Town, or a music-mistress's lodgings in Islington, surrounded by squalid and dingy people, glaring publichouses, smoke, foul air, wretchedness, and misery. I take her from the slums of Islington, and I lead her down into the sweet air of Kent, and I make a queen of her!"

The Count's face beamed with pleasure, and port. The very nimbleness of his own imagination tickled him —

"Look at her! In a white cool morning-dress, with her big heaps of black hair braided up, as she goes daintily down into the garden in the warm sunshine, and her little fingers are gathering a bouquet for her breast. The raw-boned wives of your country gentry, trying to cut a dash on the money they get from selling their extra fruit and potatoes, turn and look at my soft little Italian princess as she lies back in her barouche, and regards them kindly enough, God bless her! What a job I shall have to teach her her position – to let her know that now she is a lady the time for general good-humour is gone! Mrs. Anerley, yes; but none of your clergymen's wives, nor your doctors' wives, nor your cow-breeding squires' wives for her! Day after day, week after week, nothing but brightness, and pleasure, and change. All this I am going to give her in exchange for the squalor of Islington!"

The Count regarded himself as the best of men. At this moment, however, there strolled into the smoking-room a certain Colonel Tyrwhitt, who was connected by blood or marriage with half-a-dozen peerages, had a cousin in the Cabinet, and wore on his finger a ring given him by the decent and devout old King of Saxony. This colonel – "a poor devil I could buy up twenty times over," said the Count, many a time – walked up to the fireplace, and turning, proceeded to contemplate the Count, his wine, and cigar, as if these objects had no sensible existence. He stroked his grey moustache once or twice, yawned very openly, and then walked lazily out of the room again without having uttered a word.

"D – n him!" said the Count, mentally; "the wretched pauper, who lives by loo, and looks as grand as an emperor because he has some swell relations, who won't give him a farthing. These are the people who will be struck dumb with amazement and envy by-and-by. My time is coming.

"'Ah! my dear fellah!' says this colonel to me, some morning; 'I've heard the news. Congratulate you – all my heart. Lord Bockerminster tells me you've some wonderful shooting down in Berks.'

"'So I have,' says I; 'and I should be glad, Colonel, to ask you down, but you know my wife and I have to be rather select in our choice of visitors – '

"'What the devil do you mean?' says he.

"'Only that our list of invitations is closed for the present.'

"Suppose he gets furious? Let him! I don't know much about fencing or pistol-shooting, but I'd undertake to punch his head twenty times a week."

The Count took another sip of port, and pacified himself.

"Then the presentations to Her Majesty. I shouldn't wonder if the Queen took us up when she gets to learn Annie's story. It would be just like the Queen to make some sort of compensation; and once she saw her it would be all right. The Court Circular– 'Osborne, May 1. Count Schönstein and Lady Annie Knottingley had the honour of dining with the Queen and the Royal Family.' Lord Bockerminster comes up to me, and says —

"'Schönstein, old boy, when are you going to give me a turn at your pheasants? I hear you have the best preserves in the South of England.'

"'Well, you see, my lord,' I say, carelessly, 'I have the Duke of S – and a party of gentlemen going down on the 1st, and the Duke is so particular about the people he meets that I – you understand?'

"And why only a Duke? The Prince of Wales is as fond of pheasant-shooting as anybody else, I suppose. Why shouldn't he come down with the Princess and a party? And I'd make the papers talk of the splendid hospitality of the place, if I paid, damme, a thousand pounds for every dish. Then to see the Princess – God bless her, for she's the handsomest woman in England, bar one! – walking down on the terrace with Annie, while the Prince comes up to me and chaffs me about some blunder I made the day before. Then I say —

"'Well, your Royal Highness, if your Royal Highness was over at Schönstein and shooting with my keepers there, perhaps you might put your foot in it too.'

"'Count Schönstein,' says he, 'you're a good fellow and a trump, and you'll come with your pretty wife and see us at Marlborough House?'"

The Count broke into a loud and triumphant laugh, and had nearly demolished the glass in front of him by an unlucky sweep of the arm. Indeed, further than this interview with these celebrated persons, the imagination of the Count could not carry him. He could wish for nothing beyond these things except the perpetuity of them. The Prince of Wales should live for ever, if only to be his friend.

And if this ultimate and royal view of the future was even more pleasing than the immediate and personal one, it never occurred to him that there could be any material change in passing from one to the other. Annie Brunel was to be grateful and loving towards him for having taken her from "the squalor of Islington" to give her a wealthy station; she was to be equally grateful and loving when she found herself the means of securing to her husband that position and respect which he had deceived her to obtain. Such trifling points were lost in the full glory which now bathed the future that lay before his eyes. Annie Brunel had shown herself not unwilling to consent, which was equivalent to consenting; and there only remained to be reaped all the gorgeous happiness which his imagination, assisted by a tolerable quantity of wine, could conceive.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MOTHER CHRISTMAS'S STORY

Annie Brunel ran into Mrs. Christmas's room the moment Count Schönstein had left, and, sitting down by the bedside, took the old woman's lean hand in hers.

"Lady Jane, I have been looking over the advertisements in the Times, and do you know what I have found?"

"No."

"One offering me a marvellous lot of money, and a fine house in the country, with nice fresh air and constant attendance for you. Horses, carriages, opera-boxes, months at the seaside – everything complete. There!"

"Why don't you take it, sweetheart?" said the old woman, with a faint smile.

"Because – I don't say that I shan't take it – there is a condition attached, and such a condition! Not to puzzle you, mother, any more, Count Schönstein wants me to be his wife. Now!"

"Are you serious, Annie?" said Mrs. Christmas, her aged eyes full of astonishment.

"I can't say. I don't think the Count was. You know he is not a witty man, mother, and it mightbe a joke. But if it was a joke, he acted the part admirably – he pulled two leaves out of my photographic album, and nibbled a hole in the table-cover with his nail. He sate so, Lady Jane, and said, in a deep bass voice, 'Miss Brunel, I have 30,000*l.* a year; I am old; I am affectionate; and will you marry me?' Anything more romantic you could not imagine: and the sighs he heaved, and the anxiety of his face, would have been admirable, had he been dressed as 'Orlando,' and playing to my 'Rosalind.' 'For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.' 'Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!'"

"Sweetheart, have you grown mad? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. Must I describe the whole scene to you? – my lover's fearful diffidence, my gentle silence, his growing confidence, my wonder and bewilderment, finally, his half-concealed joy, and my hasty rush to you, Lady Jane, to tell you the news?"

"And a pretty return you are making for any man's confidence and affection, to go on in that way. What did you say to him?"

"Nothing."

"And what do you mean to say?"

"Nothing. What can I say, Lady Jane? I am sure he must have been joking; and, if not, he ought to have been. At the same time, I don't laugh at the Count himself, mother, but at his position a few minutes ago."