audrey was one of the prettiest girls in the world, and beyond question the very prettiest in london. at least, ralph shawe said as much, and, although the statement was prejudiced by love, it undoubtedly was true in the main. for what other damsel, as the young man often pointed out, possessed such striking charms as audrey displayed? her bronzed and curling hair, her sparkling brown eyes, her transparent complexion, delicately hued as the dawn--these were desirable attributes in the eyes of a lover. then her small figure--she was really diminutive--had the dainty grace of a gazelle. all madame coralie's art could not have created such a buoyant figure, nor could her taste have suggested any improvement in the various frocks which clothed it on various occasions. and those slim hands and feet, that radiant smile, and the general air of youthful gaiety were the envy of the women and the admiration of the men. these declarations sound somewhat too emphatic; but they must be taken as a précis of ralph shawe's thoughts. and, being a true lover, what could he do but think in superlatives?
how such a fairy came to be the sole daughter of a prosperous, commonplace pair such as sir joseph and his wife certainly were puzzled many people. only the large quantity of money which they possessed excused their existence in the eyes of most people, although shawe found another apology for them in the undoubted fact--strange as it may appear--that they were the parents of audrey.
certainly sir joseph was clever, or he would scarcely have started life with the proverbial penny, to end as the owner of over a million. but audrey did not even inherit his type of brain, much less his massive looks. his capabilities were of the cunning, business kind, which turn others' needs to their owners' advantage, whereas the talents of audrey were more artistic and intellectual. she knew nothing of business, but she painted in water-colour with great taste, played the piano with wonderful sympathy and brilliancy, and sang like the sirens of old. also she could dance like the daughter of herodias, and if she did not win a head as her reward, she assuredly gained a heart--that of ralph shawe, of the middle temple, barrister-at-law. audrey, however, had not that one strong original talent which makes for fame in its particular direction; but she possessed a bundle of small accomplishments, which went to make up a singularly charming personality. she was an angel, said shawe, and, speaking broadly, he was correct in saying so, for audrey was as angelical as mere flesh and blood well could be.
the lovers were sauntering in kensington gardens when he said this--not for the first time--and the hour was so early that few people were about. audrey had risen at six o'clock to meet ralph at seven in the morning near the round pond, and save for the handful of working men and office-workmen, who were taking short cuts to their various employments, they had the whole delightful paradise to themselves. the sky was of a turquoise hue, not yet over-warmed by the sun, and both trees and sward looked as though they had been newly washed in the dews of night. at that early hour everything seemed paler and more delicate than in the fierce glare of noonday, and "the silent workings of the dawn"--to use keats's wonderful expression--were still in progress. a cool, dewy zephyr was breathing across the green expanse, and the leaves of many trees talked joyously. london lay all round, stirring alertly under the faint dun cloud of smoke, but the fragrant eden of the gardens preserved its almost primeval calm. and these two walked therein, like a modern adam and eve, with a sense that the surrounding loveliness exactly expressed their unspoken feelings.
"i wish we could walk here all day," said shawe, trying to express the inexpressible, and grudging the swift passing of the golden moments.
"we should only be two in a crowd," replied audrey, with the more prosaic instinct of women. "endless people come to the gardens during the day. if they were sensible they would be here now. i can't understand why the silly things remain in bed when the weather is so perfect."
"perhaps not one of them has an audrey to meet."
miss branwin laughed gaily. "i daresay every young man has an audrey of his own, just as every girl has a ralph."
"then why aren't they walking here along with us?"
"ah, they know we wish to be alone, and so have the good sense to stop in bed. and then"--she broke off laughing--"what nonsense we talk!"
"delicious nonsense, i think. let us go on talking, as we'll have enough commonsense during the day. don't you think"--ralph slipped an eager arm round her slender waist--"that you might--"
she drew back from his approaching lips with a blush, and dexterously twisted away to a safe distance. "certainly not. those workmen would see us."
"and envy me," replied ralph, sentimentally, glancing round meanwhile for some secluded spot. "don't you think that we might sit under this elm? it's not so open to--to--er--to observation, you know. may i smoke?"
"what, before breakfast?" questioned audrey, sitting down on the grass.
"i have had my breakfast--that is, so much as i could eat, with you in my thoughts, darling. and you?"
"i had a cup of tea and some thin bread-and-butter. but i shall have my real breakfast when i return home."
"and you will think of me?"
"if," said audrey, with mischievous gravity, "if it is possible to do two things at one time i shall think of you."
"darling!" and this time he really kissed her.
of course, it was all very silly, but extremely delightful, all the same; for love's commonsense is the nonsense of everyday life. a cynic would have considered the conversation of audrey and ralph to be drivel; and no doubt it was, to anyone but their very own selves. but only the birds could hear the billing and cooing which went on, until his wooing and her coquetting ended in a long silence, wherein they held each other's hand and, looking eye to eye, sighed at intervals. yet audrey was a sensible girl, and ralph was a rising barrister, winning golden opinions in the law courts. if his clients could have seen him now, acting hercules in the toils of omphale, he would never have secured another brief.
shawe was slim and dark-complexioned, with a clear-cut, classical face, eminently suited, with its steady grey eyes and firm lips, to his profession. he was handsome in a severe way, and rarely smiled, perhaps because he saw too persistently and too closely the seamy side of life with which the law has to deal. only a glance from audrey could soften his granite looks, and her mere presence changed him into a more companionable being. he loved her more than he did his profession--and that is saying a great deal, for he was ambitious, and had visions of the woolsack. many said that he might attain even to that high altitude, as he was admitted on all hands to be brilliantly clever. but just now, while playing in cupid's garden, he looked and acted like a young man of the ordinary type, because love, which is common to all, had ousted for the moment that genius which is given to few. so he sighed and she sighed, and she looked and he looked; their hands thrilled when in contact, and the birds overhead sang the songs of their hearts, which, being limited by speech, they could not utter. in this manner did they dwell in arcady and recall one hour of the golden age, when gods wooed mortal maids.
"but it's all very well," said audrey, withdrawing her hand, and breathing a final sigh of silent delight, "time is pressing, and i have to call at madame coralie's before i go home."
"who is madame coralie?" asked shawe, also sighing, as he awakened to the fact that the work-a-day world had need of him.
audrey laughed. "no mere man can understand who madame coralie is, or what she is. but if you will walk with me to walpole lane i can show you her shop--not that the shop will explain."
"what kind of goods does she sell?" asked the young barrister, lazily, and admiring the profile of his beloved.
"she sells figures and complexions and false hair and lip-salve, and--"
"stop! stop! you surely don't want any of those beastly things?"
"not yet," said audrey, significantly; "but i may some day. it is mamma who wants them just now. she has no figure, poor dear, and her complexion is like a frog's skin. i am going to call and ask how she passed the night, and i take you because we have no secrets from one another."
"is lady branwin's presence at this shop a secret?"
"of course. mamma wants to be made young and beautiful, so she goes secretly to madame coralie. a woman doesn't advertise her need of restoration."
"but i don't quite understand what sort of shop this madame coralie keeps?" said ralph, looking puzzled and contracting his dark brows.
"it's a beauty-factory," explained audrey, hugging her knees; "women like mamma go there to regain whatever looks they may have had. i shall go also some day, when i am old and scraggy."
"never, if you are my wife, dear. i want to see you grow old gracefully."
"i don't want to grow old at all; no woman ever does, you stupid thing. as to becoming your wife, i never may be. you know that."
"no, i don't, sweetest." ralph possessed himself of her frock hem and kissed it fervently. "i know that your father doesn't think i am a good match for you, and that your mother wishes you to marry a title. all the same, i intend to have my own way and make you mrs. shawe for a time."
"for a time!" cried audrey, indignantly. "what do you mean, ralph?"
"until you are lady shawe, dearest, or perhaps lady bleakleigh. that is the somerset village where i was born," explained ralph. "my father is the squire. when i get my title--and i shall some day, by sheer dint of brain-power--i shall take that title; then you will be--"
but audrey was not listening. "bleakleigh--bleakleigh," she muttered; "where have i heard that name?"
"from your father," said shawe, promptly. "he told me one evening, in a moment of expansion after dinner, that he came from bleakleigh, starting as a farm labourer to end as sir joseph branwin, the millionaire."
"he won't end at that," said audrey, gravely; "papa is too ambitious. like yourself, he intends to gain a peerage, and may some day be lord bleakleigh, before you can secure the title."
"well, it doesn't matter, so long as i secure you."
"you won't, if my parents are to be considered."
"then why consider them?" asked ralph, coolly. "i know that they both want you to marry a duke or an earl, so as to forward their plans for social advancement; but i don't see why you should be sacrificed in this way."
"oh, i shan't be sacrificed, i promise you," said audrey, nodding her small head vigorously; "and when it comes to fighting, i think that mamma will be on my side. she is very fond of me."
"of course. aren't both of your parents fond of you?"
"mamma is, but i don't think papa loves me much. he looks upon me as one of the pawns in the game of life, to be moved that he may win. you must have seen that, from the way in which he has forbidden you the house."
"i think he treated me very badly," said ralph, flushing. "i went to him and stated frankly that i loved you, explaining my prospects, which are of the best. he behaved like a--well, i can't say--"
"i can," interrupted the girl, rising, with a shrug--"like a pig."
"my dear!" shawe rose also, and looked somewhat shocked.
"oh, what is the use of mincing matters?" said audrey, wearily. "you know, and i know, and everyone else knows, that my father is a rude, blatant, uncouth labourer, just as he was when he left bleakleigh years ago. he treats my mother shamefully, and shows in every way that he has no love for me. 'honour thy father' doesn't apply to me, i assure you. i am most unhappy at home."
"i wish we could marry at once," said ralph, biting his fingers, "and then we could see little or nothing of him; but i am not yet in a position to marry, unfortunately."
"never mind, darling"--she took his arm, and they strolled across the grass towards the gravelled path--"until you are ready to marry me i shall remain true to you. i shan't marry anyone with a title, unless you become lord bleakleigh, of course; and by that time i shall be a client of madame coralie's, since you won't be lord chancellor for years and years."
"i wish you wouldn't talk of going to this beauty-factory, audrey," said the young man, irritably; "you know that i prefer you as god made you."
"now, dearest; but when i am old--"
"i shall love you all the same."
"i hope so," said audrey, with a little sigh; "but men love good looks in a woman, and when those go love grows cold."
"with mere animal men, but not with one like myself. i love with my heart more than with my eye. don't class me with your father."
"i wouldn't marry you if i did," she retorted. "it's bad enough to have sir joseph branwin as a father without taking one of his nature as a husband. if you only knew how he has insulted poor mamma about her looks! that is why she has gone to madame coralie. but i don't think that anything will do much good, even if poor mamma became as beautiful as venus. papa seems to have taken a dislike to her. it makes me very unhappy," ended the girl, with a mournful shake of the head.
ralph frowned, and considered. he hated to think that audrey's youthful spirits should be damped by the disagreement between her parents--a disagreement which rose solely from sir joseph's animal nature. with all his brain power he was a mere hog of the fields, and good looks in women alone attracted him towards the sex. shawe knew of sir joseph's attentions to various actresses and society beauties, which had been spoken about openly enough at the clubs; and it was quite likely that, now his purse gave him the power to lure women into liking, if not into love, he was growing weary of his uncomely old wife. there was something very pathetic in the shapeless, homely lady branwin seeking to recover her husband's affections by making herself attractive artificially. but he privately agreed with audrey that it was too late, and even if lady branwin became, unnaturally, as beautiful as venus, he felt certain that sir joseph would continue to dislike her. his distaste for his old wife was more than skin deep; of that ralph felt sure.
"is lady branwin at the shop now?" asked ralph, when the two passed through the side gate of the gardens at the back of the palace, and speaking anything rather than his thoughts, for obvious reasons.
"yes. she stayed there last night, so that madame coralie could decide if she would undertake to give her the necessary treatment. if she does, mamma will have to remain for a week or more. i am calling to ask what is to be done, as papa is in a bad temper because my mother stopped away. he insists that she shall return home."
"i wonder lady branwin doesn't get a separation," muttered the barrister, again reflecting on sir joseph's attentions to other women.
"if she dared to take legal proceedings papa would turn her into the street without a penny," said audrey, calmly. "i am under no illusion as to his nature, my dear. but let us get on. i wish to be home as soon as possible to give papa his breakfast. if i am not there, since mamma is still absent, he will make himself so disagreeable."
"he invariably does," said ralph, grimly; for a single interview with the millionaire had given him an astonishing insight into the man's brutal nature. "where is this shop, audrey?"
"down this lane. yonder it is, painted pink."
"what a glaring advertisement," remarked shawe, as they walked quickly down the crooked by-way. "if madame coralie paints her customers as she has done her shop, they must all look like blowsy dairymaids. she seems to be doing a good trade this morning."
"there is a crowd," admitted audrey, with an anxious glance; "but it's odd a crowd should be round the shop at this hour. madame's clients usually come at night, and very privately."
"i don't think these are customers," said shawe, as they reached the large assemblage of people which blocked the lane.
the individuals who composed the mob certainly were not the society customers of madame coralie, as they comprised poor men and women of the lowest classes, with here and there a better-dressed person. policemen were directing the throng and keeping order, but they could not prevent tongues clacking, and there was quite a babel of voices.
"what is the matter?" audrey asked a red-faced female in rusty black.
"murder!" said the woman, with relish. "one of them fine ladies who comes here to get painted has been done for."
audrey grew white and started. "do you know the name?"
"ho yes, miss. i heard a policeman say as she was called lady branwin."
"ralph, ralph!" whispered the girl, and clutched her lover to keep herself from falling. "my mother! murdered! oh, ralph!"
