A Vagabond Heroine. BY MRS. EDWARDES, AUTHOR OF ARCHIE LOVELL,' 'OUGHT WE TO VISIT HER?' &c. CHAPTER VIII. VANITY V. CONSCIENCE. MRS. AUGUSTUS JONES, Belinda Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Clapham. So Belinda, when she is alone, rings every possible change upon her future titles as a matron, and finds each tuneless. But then the diamonds-reflection that, ere this, has governed the conduct of so many a wiser, older, better woman. Belinda's life of late years! has not brought her into personal contact with many of the outward belongings of wealth. One tremendously showy and massive brilliant was wont to sparkle in Major O'Shea's neck-tie; but that, likelier than not, thinks the girl, with a sigh, was paste. Papa used to say, when he was in a moralising mood, that everything was paste in this degenerate nineteenth century. "There has been a bronze age, my child, and an iron age," Cornelius would tell her. "This is the age of paste. And, in the long run, the counterfeit answers just as well as the reality." If paste diamonds, in the long run, would answer as well as real ones, why become the wife of Mr. Jones, and live at Clapham for the sake of them? Ah, but there are the riding-horses as well-the riding-horses, the silk dresses, the opera box. . . . Wistfully gazing through the open window at the sky, Belinda thinks of the remote Belgravian days when her papa was in the first delightful flush of Rose's money. The days of dinner-parties and balls, when even she, Belinda, wore pretty frocks, and occasionally tasted the society of lovely bare-necked beings, with flowers in their hair, silken trains, fans, lovers; instead of watching them forlornly from without, as she did to-night. How would she look bare-necked, with flowers in her hair, with a train, a fan, lovers? How if she should attempt a rehearsal of the effect (lovers excepted) with such rough materials as she may have at hand? Miss Burke, as it chances, has left the key of her travelling-case in the lock. Alas, the frame of mind for wrong-doing given, and when does the demon, opportunity, fail any of us? And in Miss Burke's travelling-case lies, neatly folded, that lady's best black silk dress. In shorter time than it has taken me to write, Belinda, candle in hand, glides into the adjoining room, the sanctuary of Miss Burke's maiden charms, opens the case, gazes, vacillates-handles. The skirt is too long, for Miss Burke is of loftier stature than herself; so much the grander will be her train. And the sleeves must be tucked up, and the bodice pinned down, and white lace, also of Miss Burke's, added, here and there, for lightness. Never in her life before has Belinda touched thread and needle, save under stress of direst necessity. But with the very first awakening of love in a young girl's heart awaken the instincts of millinery. She collects together such dislocated sewing implements as the household can boast; with absorbed interest stitches down a fold here, puckers up a plait there; finally skips lightly out of her own dingy Cinderella frock, and a minute later stands radiant, in the majesty of rustling silk, short sleeves, bare throat, and train-a young lady. She is not an ugly girl, after all. So much the tarnished glass upon Miss Burke's dressing-table assures her promptly. Her neck and shoulders look lily fair compared to the sun-tan of her face; her arms are delicately fashioned, and tolerably plump for seventeen. But the pig-tails! She snatches off the hideous frayed-out green ribbon, unplaits them, and behold! the ill-kempt neglected hair falls round her slender figure in waves of silky chestnut. A pair of gloves, of Miss Burke's, supplies an impromptu cushion, over which she coifs it high above her forehead, as the little Spanish blonde in pink (the blonde Roger Temple admired) was coiffed to-night. A scarlet passion-flower, wet with dew, from the balcony, finishes the picture. Not ugly? Why she is pretty already-a year or two hence will be admirably so, prettier than was ever Rosie in her prime-thinks Belinda, gazing at her own transfigured self in a kind of rapture. The only thing she lacks now is jewelry-earrings, bracelets, a necklace for her throat; the Jones diamonds, in short. Pending the possession of these, could no substitute be found to give one some imperfect foreshadowing of their splendour? To the female conscience, once fairly deadened by vanity, all successive downward steps come easily enough. If a necklace be wanting, a necklace must be got; honestly, if one can, but got. On the landing of the second floor stands, as we know, the life-sized figure of a saint; martyred, satin-slippered, glittering with gorgeous paste adornments. If the good old Beata would only lend that necklace of hers for half an hour, ten minutes, long enough to yield one some faint foretaste of the sweets of brilliants! If-assuming her permission-one were to borrow it, say! The glass case can be opened by a cunning hand from the back: this fact, Belinda discovered when the first-floor lodger presented the saint with a new laced handkerchief at Easter. And no living soul is about; and it could not, surely, be much of a sin, considering that the saint is but a big wax doll with bead eyes . . . and indeed if it were sin, is it not all-important, Mr. Jones and his suit impending, for Belinda to ascertain practically, whether diamonds are becoming to the complexion, and so worth the sacrifice of a life or not? She creeps down the echoing stone stairs; her heart beating, her unaccustomed feet entangling themselves at every movement in her trailing skirt; she reaches the landing of the second floor. There stands the Beata, her livid hands crossed on her breast, her bead eyes awfully wide open. There are the paste brilliants. A struggling moonbeam rests on them; they glitter with deathly, horrible fascination. Belinda's heart and courage wax chill. Suppose the outraged saint should come some night, and, standing beside her bed, lay an icy retributive hand upon her face! To meddle with these holy persons' beads, for aught she knows, may be the most mortal of crimes, and-" Crime, or no crime, I will do it!" decides the girl with the spasmodic coward's courage of her sex. Now, may fortune be her friend! May no inmate of the house pass from floor to floor while the sacrilegious act is being carried into effect! The cranky fastening of the glass door gives a groan as she opens it, causing Belinda's guilty conscience to quake again; but no ear save her own hears the sound. She unclasps the necklace, shivering as her fingers come in contact with the clammy wax throat, then bears away her booty, her legs trembling under her at every step, upstairs. She takes it to the light of her solitary candle; admires its mock effulgence; clasps it, trembling, round her little warm soft neck; surveys herself on tip-toe in the tarnished mirror above the chimney-piece. And where is conscience, now, where remorse? Admirable monitors of men, the moment possession has brought satiety, why is it that Conscience and Remorse hold their peace as long as the taste of the apple continues sweet between our teeth? She surveys herself, well nigh awe-stricken by her own fairness. She feels that to be the possessor of real diamonds she would cheerfully become Mrs. Augustus Jones and start for Clapham to-morrow. Now nothing is wanting but a fan and lovers. The fan can be had; a huge gilt and black structure, of the date of thirty years ago, which lies, for ornament, on the mantleshelf; and of this Belinda possesses herself. But the lovers? Bah! some unimportant details are sure to be wanting at every rehearsal ! When the prologue is over, the play played out in earnest, the lovers, it may be supposed, will come of themselves. She struts up and down the room, her train outstretched, her fan in motion, her eyes glancing complacently at the mignon little figure the glass gives her duskily back. "If Captain Temple could see me if Captain Temple could see me now!" thinks vanity. "If he knew I could be anything but ragged, and hideous, and a gamin." "And if he did know this, what would Captain Temple care ?" says another sterner voice than that of vanity. "Of what account is the whole world to him by the side of Rose and Rose's beauty?" A sudden leaden weight sinks dead on Belinda's heart. She is nothing to Roger Temple; holds no more place in his present than in his future. She seems to stifle. The saint's paste diamonds must, surely, be too heavy, so painful is the choking feeling in her throat. Turning abruptly away from the sight of her finery and of herself, she extinguishes the candle; then goes out, bare-armed, bare-necked, in her diamond necklace and train, upon the balcony. It is now past midnight, and something like cooler air begins to stir across the sleeping country. Balmy sweet is the air; every floor of the vast old house has its balcony, every balcony its flowers; the sky is all a-quiver with stars; mountains, river, plains, are lying in one great hush of purple sleep. Belinda rests her arm against the iron balustrade, and gazing away westward, towards the rugged line of Spanish coast, muses. Spain or Clapham? She has learnt much since she asked herself the same question this afternoon; unknowingly has passed the traditional brook, perhaps, where womanhood and childhood meet; for very certain has accepted Mr. Jones, elected in cold blood for Clapham; Clapham, respectability, riches. And yet and yet, if Maria José (or some one else) were to appear before her just now, and Click, click, goes the sharp sound of a vesuvian-close, as it seems, beside Belinda's ear. She turns with a start, and there, on the adjoining balcony, en robe de chambre, and placidly lighting his midnight pipe of peace, stands Roger Temple. Roger may breakfast with Rose, may dine with Rose, walk with Rose, spend any number of hours during the day that he chooses alone with Rose; but it would be the acme of indiscretion for him to lodge under the same roof with her. Thus the widow, well versed in the minutiae of surface morals, decides. And so-from Scylla to Charybdis-fate and the landlord of the Hôtel Isabella together, have contrived to lodge him under the same roof with Belinda. The Maison Lohobiague has two flights of stairs in these modern times has indeed been converted into two distinct houses—one of which is rented by the people of the Isabella as a succursale, or wing for overflowing guests, during the bathing season. Belinda sees him, grasps the whole dramatic capabilities of the situation in a moment, but gives no sign. I have said that nature has endowed the child with abundant imitative talent; everyday association with the Basques, the most excitement-seeking, playloving people in Europe, has stimulated the talent into a kind of passion. Now, she feels, is a magnificent opportunity for her to act, and with a purpose. A glance at Roger Temple's face convinces her that he does not recognise Rosie's vagrant out-at-elbows stepdaughter under the disguise of civilisation. Now she will have a rare opportunity of arriving at a truth or two; now may she even test the practical worth of a "lifelong fidelity," see if this devoted lover cannot be led into a passing flirtation-moonlight, loneliness, the certainty of the crime remaining undetected, favouring. With an assumption of unconsciousness the most perfect, she resumes her former attitude, and, after a minute or two of silence, sings, in that undertone for which we have no word in English-the whisper of singing-a stanza of the mendicant student serenade, familiar from one end of the Peninsula to the other: "Desde que soy estudiante, Desde que llevo manteo, Con suelas de zapatero." She has a sweet, a sympathetic voice, in posse, like the beauty of her face; and melody and voice alike harmonise deliciously with every external accessory of the scene. "Brava, brava!" exclaims Roger, when she had finished. "That first verse was so excellently sung, that it makes me eager for the second." Belinda, thus unceremoniously accosted, turns upon him in all the conscious virtue of a trained dress and paste necklace. "Señor!" she exclaims, holding her head up with dignity, and in such a position that the moon shines upon its soft young outline full. "I beg a thousand pardons," says Roger, putting his pipe hastily out of sight. "But the señora's song was so charming, I forgot that we had no master of the ceremonies to introduce us. Has it not a second verse?" "My song has a second and a third verse," replies Belinda, in English, strongly flavoured with Castilian gutturals. "I must acquaint his lordship, however, that I believed myself to be alone. I never sing for the pleasure of strangers, except when I am on the stage." "The stage!" repeats Roger Temple, scrutinising the girlish face and figure critically. "Why, is it possible?" "I have acted as long as I can remember," says Belinda, with all the effrontery conceivable. "If his English excellency has travelled through any of the principal Spanish towns, he must have heard me." "When the señora favours me with her name I shall be able to question my memory more accurately," answers Roger. Belinda pauses for a minute or two; then, "My name on the stage is Lágrimas," she tells him; "or, as you would say it in English, 'Tears.' Doleful, is it not? But I do not wish it changed. Who would not sooner be called Tears than Laughter?" She sighs, and, half turning from him, rests her cheek down |