Fast and Loose Page 4

  Chapter VII

  The Luckiest Man in London

  “Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there.”

  Robert Browning: Dramatic Lyrics.

  As the Warm Roman winter melted into Spring, Jack Egerton felt growing upon him the yearning which the poet expressed above; excepting that he would have transposed the month & made it May, or, in other words, “the season.” In short, he got a little tired of his painting & the Bohemianism of his life in Rome; & would have been only too glad if he could have carried Guy off with him. But Guy would not go. His love had not been of the slight sort which can be cast off like a dress out of fashion, at the right time; & he dreaded being within reach of the possibility of seeing his cousin again. As it is with many another young man of like class & habits, the warp in his love had warped his life; an undertone of bitterness ran habitually through it now, which Jack had striven in vain to destroy. Guy had decided to spend the Summer in Alp-climbing; but he intended to stay on in Rome until the end of April, so that Jack, who started homeward in the early part of that month, left him still there. Jack got back to England in time to pay several duty visits to his relations in the country; but the opening season found him in London again, ready, as the phrase is, for everything “going.” Everybody was glad to see “Jack-All” back again; but his welcome at Swift’s was perhaps the warmest & the most heartily gratifying that he got. “Hullo, melancholy Jacques!” cried some familiar voice as Jack stalked into the reading room one mild May evening. “Back from Rome, eh? An R.A. yet?” More than one took up the chorus; & Jack found himself surrounded by a group of laughing flâneurs, all asking questions, “chaffing,” & regaling the newcomers with town news. “How’s Hastings?” said a tall Life-Guardsman (a Duke’s son) who had joined in the circle of talk over the broadcloth shoulder of a wiry little Viscount. “Didn’t Hastings go to Rome with you?” “Of course he did,” said the Viscount, who knew everybody. “Don’t you know, Hasty was so awfully gone on old Breton’s wife, & she jilted him—didn’t she, Jack? Stunning little woman!” “Yes,” said someone else, “Hasty was entirely done up by that. It was hard lines.” “Has Hasty gone in regularly for painting?” enquired the Life Guard’s man; & staunch Jack, who had not answered a word to this volley, turned the subject dexterously. “Yes. He has joined the Alpine Club.” “Instead of the Royal Academy?” “Whoever made that witticism ought to be blackballed,” said the Viscount. “Can’t you give Jack full swing, all of you?” “By all means! Fire away, old boy. How many women are you in love with, how many pictures have you sold & how many people have you quarrelled with?” “I am in love with as many women as I was before,” said our stout misogynist, “& I have sold two pictures” (“Why did you make him perjure himself?” observed the Viscount parenthetically) “& I have quarrelled with everybody who didn’t buy the rest.” There was a general laugh; & just then Lord Breton (who was one of the Patriarchs of the Club) came up & caught sight of Jack. “Ha! Mr. Egerton. I understood you were in Italy,” said his lordship condescendingly. “Have you been long in town? If you have no prior engagement, dine with me tomorrow night at 8.” And Lord Breton passed on with a bow, while Jack stood overwhelmed by this sudden condescension. “By Jove,” said the Lifeguardsman as the old peer passed out of hearing, “I believe you’re the luckiest man in London!” “Why?” said Jack, amused. “Why! Don’t you know that you’re going to dine with the fastest, handsomest, most bewitching woman in town? Don’t you know that everybody’s mad over Lady Breton?” “Yes!” added the Viscount. “Tom Fitzmore of the ____th & little Lochiel (Westmoreland’s son, you know) had a row about her that might have ended seriously if the Duchess of Westmoreland hadn’t found out & gone down on her knees to her eldest hope, imploring him to give it up. Lochiel is a muff, & went off to Scotland obediently, but Fitzmore was furious.” “They say Monsieur is as watchful as a dragon & as jealous as an old woman, but she plays her cards too cleverly for him,” resumed my lord Lifeguardsman. “I’ve danced with her once, & by Jove! it’s like moving on air with a lot of roses & soft things in your arms.” “And how she sings!” cried the Viscount, waxing warm. “I swear, it’s a pity she’s a lady. She’d make a perfect actress.” “But old B. (‘Beast’ they call him you know—‘Beauty & the Beast’),” explained the other, “is awfully suspicious & never lets her sing except to a roomfull of dowagers & ugly men.” “Thanks!” observed the quick-witted Viscount. “I’ve heard her sing twice.” “Which proves the truth of my statement,” quoth the Lifeguardsman coolly, lounging off towards another group, while the little nobleman, in a deep note of mock ferocity called after him for an explanation. This was not the last that Jack heard of Lady Breton’s praises. The next day he went to see a friend, a brother-artist (whose fame, however, exceeded Jack’s) & saw on his easel the head of a woman with a quantity of white lace & pearls folded about a throat as round & soft as a Hebe’s. Her soft, chesnut-brown hair fell in resistless little rings & wavelets about a low white arch of forehead, beneath which two brilliant hazel eyes, with curly fringes, glanced out with a half-defiant, half-enticing charm. The features, which had no especial regularity, were redeemed by the soft peachbloom on either rounded cheek, & the whole face made piquant by a small nose, slightly “tip-tilted,” & a dimple in the little white chin. Although Jack could find no real beauty in the lines of the charmingly-poised head, some nameless fascination arrested his eyes; & he stood before the picture so long that the artist, who was just then busy with another portrait called out, “What! Are you losing your heart too, Benedick?” “Who is it?” said Jack. “What! don’t you—It’s the handsomest—no, not the handsomest, nor the most beautiful, nor the prettiest, woman in London; but, I should say, the most fascinating. Isn’t that face irresistible? That is Lady Breton!” Jack started; perhaps he for the first time fully understood what had darkened Guy Hastings’ life. “Yes,” continued his friend, enthusiastically, “she is the sensation of the season. And no wonder! There is a perfect magic about her, which, I see by your face, I have been fortunate enough to reflect in part on my canvas. But if you knew her!” “I am going to dine there tonight,” said Jack turning away, his admiration changed to a sort of loathing, as he thought of the destruction those handsome eyes had wrought. “Are you? Let me congratulate you. You’re the luckiest man in London,” cried the portrait-painter, unconsciously repeating the words which had hailed Jack’s good-fortune at Swift’s the night before. “And this,” thought Egerton, “is what a woman gets for spoiling a man’s life!” Nevertheless, prompted by a certain curiosity (which Jack was careful to call a natural interest in the various phases of human nature, since to confess the desire of seeing a woman—even the woman whom all London was raving about—would have been high-treason to his cherished misogynism)—actuated, I say, by this feeling, he looked forward rather impatiently to the evening which was to introduce him to the famous Lady Breton; &, as he was ushered by a resplendent Jeames up the velvet-spread staircase of her Belgravian mansion, was aware of that pleasurable sensation with which an ardent play-goer awaits the lifting of the curtain upon the first scene of a new drama. How the curtain lifted, what scenes it disclosed, & how unexpectedly it fell, our next chapter will reveal.