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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




Then, as her nerves were female nerves, and her fortitude female
fortitude, she gave way, for once, and began to cry patiently.

Ashmead the practical went softly away and left her, as we must leave her
for a time, to battle her business with one hand and her sorrow with the
other.


CHAPTER II.

IN the Hotel Russie, at Frankfort, there was a grand apartment, lofty,
spacious, and richly furnished, with a broad balcony overlooking the
Platz, and roofed, so to speak, with colored sun-blinds, which softened
the glare of the Rhineland sun to a rosy and mellow light.

In the veranda, a tall English gentleman was leaning over the balcony,
smoking a cigar, and being courted by a fair young lady. Her light-gray
eyes dwelt on him in a way to magnetize a man, and she purred pretty
nothings at his ear, in a soft tone she reserved for males. Her voice was
clear, loud, and rather high-pitched whenever she spoke to a person of
her own sex; a comely English blonde, with pale eyelashes; a keen,
sensible girl, and not a downright wicked one; only born artful. This was
Fanny Dover; and the tall gentleman--whose relation she was, and whose
wife she resolved to be in one year, three years, or ten, according to
his power of resistance--was Harrington Vizard, a Barfordshire squire,
with twelve thousand acres and a library.

As for Fanny, she had only two thousand pounds in all the world; so
compensating Nature endowed her with a fair complexion, gray, mesmeric
eyes, art, and resolution--qualities that often enable a poor girl to
conquer landed estates, with their male incumbrances.

Beautiful and delicate--on the surface--as was Miss Dover's courtship of
her first cousin once removed, it did not strike fire; it neither pleased
nor annoyed him; it fell as dead as a lantern firing on an iceberg. Not
that he disliked her by any means. But he was thirty-two, had seen the
world, and had been unlucky with women. So he was now a _divorce',_ and a
declared woman-hater; railed on them, and kept them at arm's-length,
Fanny Dover included. It was really comical to see with what perfect
coolness and cynical apathy he parried the stealthy advances of this
cat-like girl, a mistress in the art of pleasing--when she chose.

Inside the room, on a couch of crimson velvet, sat a young lady of rare
and dazzling beauty. Her face was a long but perfect oval, pure forehead,
straight nose, with exquisite nostrils; coral lips, and ivory teeth. But
what first struck the beholder were her glorious dark eyes, and
magnificent eyebrows as black as jet. Her hair was really like a raven's
dark-purple wing.

These beauties, in a stern character, might have inspired awe; the more
so as her form and limbs were grand and statuesque for her age; but all
was softened down to sweet womanhood by long, silken lashes, often
lowered, and a gracious face that blushed at a word, blushed little,
blushed much, blushed pinky, blushed pink, blushed roseate, blushed rosy;
and, I am sorry to say, blushed crimson, and even scarlet, in the course
of those events I am about to record, as unblushing as turnip, and cool
as cucumber. This scale of blushes arose not out of modesty alone, but
out of the wide range of her sensibility. On hearing of a noble deed, she
blushed warm approbation; at a worthy sentiment, she blushed heart-felt
sympathy. If you said a thing at the fire that might hurt some person at
the furthest window, she would blush for fear it should be overheard, and
cause pain.

In short, it was her peculiarity to blush readily for matters quite
outside herself, and to show the male observer (if any) the amazing
sensibility, apart from egotism, that sometimes adorns a young,
high-minded woman, not yet hardened by the world.

This young lady was Zoe Vizard, daughter of Harrington's father by a
Greek mother, who died when she was twelve years of age. Her mixed origin
showed itself curiously. In her figure and face she was all Greek, even
to her hand, which was molded divinely, but as long and large as befitted
her long, grand, antique arm; but her mind was Northern--not a grain of
Greek subtlety in it. Indeed, she would have made a poor hand at dark
deceit, with a transparent face and eloquent blood, that kept coursing
from her heart to her cheeks and back again, and painting her thoughts
upon her countenance.

Having installed herself, with feminine instinct, in a crimson couch that
framed her to perfection, Zoe Vizard was at work embroidering. She had
some flowers, and their leaves, lying near her on a little table, and,
with colored silks, chenille, etc., she imitated each flower and its leaf
very adroitly without a pattern. This was clever, and, indeed, rather a
rare talent; but she lowered her head over this work with a demure,
beaming complacency embroidery alone never yet excited without external
assistance. Accordingly, on a large stool, or little ottoman, at her
feet, but at a respectful distance, sat a young man, almost her match in
beauty, though in quite another style. In height about five feet ten,
broad-shouldered, clean-built, a model of strength, agility, and grace.
His face fair, fresh, and healthy-looking; his large eyes hazel; the
crisp curling hair on his shapely head a wonderful brown in the mass, but
with one thin streak of gold above the forehead, and all the loose hairs
glittering golden. A short clipped mustache saved him from looking too
feminine, yet did not hide his expressive mouth. He had white hands, as
soft and supple as a woman's, a mellow voice, and a winning tongue. This
dangerous young gentleman was gazing softly on Zoe Vizard and purring in
her ear; and she was conscious of his gaze without looking at him, and
was sipping the honey, and showed it, by seeming more absorbed in her
work than girls ever really are.

Matters, however, had not gone openly very far. She was still on her
defense: so, after imbibing his flatteries demurely a long time, she
discovered, all in one moment, that they were objectionable. "Dear me,
Mr. Severne," said she, "you do nothing but pay compliments."

"How can I help it, sitting here?" inquired he.

"There--there," said she: then, quietly, "Does it never occur to you that
only foolish people are pleased with flatteries?"

"I have heard that; but I don't believe it. I know it makes me awfully
happy whenever you say a kind word of me."

"That is far from proving your wisdom," said Zoe; "and, instead of
dwelling on my perfections, which do not exist, I wish you would _tell_
me things."

"What things?"

"How can I tell till I hear them? Well, then, things about yourself."

"That is a poor subject."

"Let me be the judge."

"Oh, there are lots of fellows who are always talking about themselves:
let me be an exception."

This answer puzzled Zoe, and she was silent, and put on a cold look. She
was not accustomed to be refused anything reasonable.

Severne examined her closely, and saw he was expected to obey her. He
then resolved to prepare, in a day or two, an autobiography full of
details that should satisfy Zoe's curiosity, and win her admiration and
her love. But he could not do it all in a moment, because his memory of
his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He
said, "Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about
_yourself--_since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be
interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the
Archipelago? or are you descended from Bacchus and Ariadne?"

"If you want sensible answers, ask sensible questions," said Zoe, trying
to frown him down with her black brows; but her sweet cheek would tint
itself, and her sweet mouth smile and expose much intercoral ivory.

"Well, then," said he, "I will ask you a prosaic question, and I only
hope you won't think it impertinent. How--ever-- did such a strangely
assorted party as yours come to travel together? And if Vizard has turned
woman-hater, as he pretends, how comes he to be at the head of a female
party who are not _all_ of them--" he hesitated.

"Go on, Mr. Severne; not all of them what?" said Zoe, prepared to stand
up for her sex.

"Not perfect?"

"That is a very cautious statement, and--there--you are as slippery as an
eel; there is no getting hold of you. Well, never mind, I will set you an
example of communicativeness, and reveal this mystery hidden as yet from
mankind."

"Speak, dread queen; thy servant heareth."

"Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Severne, you amuse _me."_

"You only interest _me,"_ was the soft reply.

Zoe blushed pink, but turned it off. "Then why do you not attend to my
interesting narrative, instead of-- Well, then, it began with my asking
the dear fellow to take me a tour, especially to Rome."

"You wanted to see the statues of your ancestors, and shame them."

"Much obliged; I was not quite such a goose. I wanted to see the Tiber,
and the Colosseum, and Trajan's Pillar, and the Tarpeian Rock, and the
one everlasting city that binds ancient and modern history together."

She flashed her great eyes on him, and he was dumb. She had risen above
the region of his ideas. Having silenced her commentator, she returned to
her story, "Well, dear Harrington said 'yes' directly. So then I told
Fanny, and she said, 'Oh, do take me with you?' Now, of course I was only
too glad to have Fanny; she is my relation, and my friend."

"Happy girl!"

"Be quiet, please. So I asked Harrington to let me have Fanny with us,
and you should have seen his face. What, he travel with a couple of us!
He-- I don't see why I should tell you what the monster said."

"Oh, yes, please do."

"You won't go telling anybody else, then?"

"Not a living soul, upon my honor."

"Well, then," he said--she began to blush like a rose--"that he looked on
me as a mere female in embryo; I had not yet developed the vices of my
sex. But Fanny Dover was a ripe flirt, and she would set me flirting, and
how could he manage the pair? In short, sir, he refused to take us, and
gave his reasons, such as they were, poor dear! Then I had to tell Fanny.
Then she began to cry, and told me to go without her. But I would not do
that, when I had once asked her. Then she clung round my neck, and kissed
me, and begged me to be cross and sullen, and tire out dear Harrington."

"That is like her."

"How do you know?" said Zoe sharply.

"Oh, I have studied her character."

"When, pray?" said Zoe, ironically, yet blushing a little, because her
secret meaning was, "You are always at my apron strings, and have no time
to fathom Fanny."

"When I have nothing better to do--when you are out of the room."

"Well, I shall be out of the room very soon, if you say another word."

"And serve me right, too. I am a fool to talk when you allow me to
listen."

"He is incorrigible!" said Zoe, pathetically. "Well, then, I refused to
pout at Harrington. It is not as if he had no reason to distrust women,
poor dear darling. I invited Fanny to stay a month with us; and, when
once she was in the house, she soon got over me, and persuaded me to play
sad, and showed me how to do it. So we wore long faces, and sweet
resignation, and were never cross, but kept turning tearful eyes upon our
victim."

"Ha! ha! How absurd of Vizard to tell you that two women would be too
much for one man."

"No, it was the truth; and girls are artful creatures, especially when
they put their heads together. But hear the end of all our cunning. One
day, after dinner, Harrington asked us to sit opposite him; so we did,
and felt guilty. He surveyed us in silence a little while, and then he
said, 'My young friends, you have played your little game pretty well,
especially you, Zoe, that are a novice in the fine arts compared with
Miss Dover.' Histrionic talent ought to be rewarded; he would relent, and
take us abroad, on one condition: there must be a chaperone. 'All the
better,' said we hypocrites, eagerly; 'and who?'"

"'Oh, a person equal to the occasion--an old maid as bitter against men
as ever grapes were sour. She would follow us upstairs, downstairs, and
into my lady's chamber. She would have an eye at the key-hole by day, and
an ear by night, when we went up to bed and talked over the events of our
frivolous day.' In short, he enumerated our duenna's perfections till our
blood ran cold; and it was ever so long before he would tell us who it
was-- Aunt Maitland. We screamed with surprise. They are like cat and
dog, and never agree, except to differ. We sought an explanation of this
strange choice. He obliged us. It was not for his gratification he took
the old cat; it was for us. She would relieve him of a vast
responsibility. The vices of her character would prove too strong for the
little faults of ours, which were only volatility, frivolity,
flirtation-- I will _not_ tell you what he said."

"I seem to hear Harrington talking," said Severne. "What on earth makes
him so hard upon women? Would you mind telling me that?"

"Never ask me that question again," said Zoe, with sudden gravity.

"Well, I won't; I'll get it out of him."

"If you say a word to him about it, I shall be shocked and offended."

She was pale and red by turns; but Severne bowed his head with a
respectful submission that disarmed her directly. She turned her head
away, and Severne, watching her, saw her eyes fill.

"How is it," said she thoughtfully, and looking away from him, "that men
leave out their sisters when they sum up womankind? Are not we women too?
My poor brother quite forgets he has one woman who will never, never
desert nor deceive him; dear, darling fellow!" and with these three last
words she rose and kissed the tips of her fingers, and waved the kiss to
Vizard with that free magnitude of gesture which belonged to antiquity:
it struck the Anglo-Saxon flirt at her feet with amazement. Not having
good enough under his skin to sympathize with that pious impulse, he
first stagnated a little while; and then, not to be silent altogether,
made his little, stale, commonplace comment on what she had told him.
"Why, it is like a novel."

"A very unromantic one," replied Zoe.

"I don't know that. I have read very interesting novels with fewer new
characters than this: there's a dark beauty, and a fair, and a duenna
with an eagle eye and an aquiline nose."

"Hush!" said Zoe: "that is her room;" and pointed to a chamber door that
opened into the apartment.

Oh, marvelous female instinct! The duenna in charge was at that moment
behind that very door, and her eye and her ear at the key-hole, turn
about.

Severne continued his remarks, but in a lower voice.

"Then there's a woman-hater and a man-hater: good for dialogue."

Now this banter did not please Zoe; so she fixed her eyes upon Severne,
and said, "You forget the principal figure--a mysterious young gentleman
who looks nineteen, and is twenty-nine, and was lost sight of in England
nine years ago. He has been traveling ever since, and where-ever he went
he flirted; we gather so much from his accomplishment in the art; fluent,
not to say voluble at times, but no egotist, for he never tells you
anything about himself, nor even about his family, still less about the
numerous _affaires de coeur_ in which he has been engaged. Perhaps he is
reserving it all for the third volume."

The attack was strong and sudden, but it failed. Severne, within the
limits of his experience, was a consummate artist, and this situation was
not new to him. He cast one gently reproachful glance on her, then
lowered his eyes to the carpet, and kept them there. "Do you think," said
he, in a low, dejected voice, "it can be any pleasure to a man to relate
the follies of an idle, aimless life? and to you, who have given me
higher aspirations, and made me awfully sorry, I cannot live my whole
life over again. I can't bear to think of the years I have wasted," said
he; "and how can I talk to you, whom I reverence, of the past follies I
despise? No, pray don't ask me to risk your esteem. It is so dear to me."

Then this artist put in practice a little maneuver he had learned of
compressing his muscles and forcing a little unwilling water into his
eyes. So, at the end of his pretty little speech, he raised two gentle,
imploring eyes, with half a tear in each of them. To be sure, Nature
assisted his art for once; he did bitterly regret, but out of pure
egotism, the years he had wasted, and wished with all his heart he had
never known any woman but Zoe Vizard.

The combination of art and sincerity was too much for the guileless and
inexperienced Zoe. She was grieved at the pain she had given, and rose to
retire, for she felt they were both on dangerous ground; but, as she
turned away, she made a little, deprecating gesture, and said, softly,
"Forgive me."

That soft tone gave Severne courage, and that gesture gave him an
opportunity. He seized her hand, murmured, "Angel of goodness!" and
bestowed a long, loving kiss on her hand that made it quiver under his
lips.

"Oh!" cried Miss Maitland, bursting into the room at the nick of time,
yet feigning amazement.

Fanny heard the ejaculations, and whipped away from Harrington into the
window. Zoe, with no motive but her own coyness, had already snatched her
hand away from Severne.

But both young ladies were one moment too late. The eagle eye of a
terrible old maid had embraced the entire situation, and they saw it had.

Harrington Vizard, Esq., smoked on, with his back to the group. But the
rest were a picture--the mutinous face and keen eyes of Fanny Dover,
bristling with defense, at the window; Zoe blushing crimson, and newly
started away from her too-enterprising wooer; and the tall, thin, grim
old maid, standing stiff, as sentinel, at the bedroom door, and gimleting
both her charges alternately with steel-gray orbs; she seemed like an
owl, all eyes and beak.

When the chaperon had fixed the situation thoroughly, she stalked erect
into the room, and said, very expressively, "I am afraid I disturb you."

Zoe, from crimson, blushed scarlet, and hung her head; but Fanny was
ready.

"La! aunt," said she, ironically, and with pertness infinite, "you know
you are always welcome. Where ever have you been all this time? We were
afraid we had lost you."

Aunt fired her pistol in reply: "I was not far off--most fortunately."

Zoe, finding that, even under crushing circumstances, Fanny had fight in
her, glided instantly to her side, and Aunt Maitland opened battle all
round.

"May I ask, sir," said she to Severne, with a horrible smile, "what you
were doing when I came in?"

Zoe clutched Fanny, and both awaited Mr. Severne's reply for one moment
with keen anxiety.

"My dear Miss Maitland," said that able young man, very respectfully, yet
with a sort of cheerful readiness, as if he were delighted at her
deigning to question him, "to tell you the truth, I was admiring Miss
Vizard's diamond ring."

Fanny tittered; Zoe blushed again at such a fib and such _aplomb._

"Oh, indeed," said Miss Maitland; "you were admiring it very close, sir."

"It is like herself--it will bear inspection."

This was wormwood to Miss Maitland. "Even in our ashes live their wonted
fires;" and, though she was sixty, she disliked to hear a young woman
praised. She bridled, then returned to the attack.

"Next time you wish to inspect it, you had better ask her _to take it
off,_ and show you."

"May I, Miss Maitland?" inquired the ingenuous youth. "She would not
think that a liberty?"

His mild effrontery staggered her for a moment, and she glared at him,
speechless, but soon recovered, and said, bitterly, "Evidently _not."_
With this she turned her back on him rather ungraciously, and opened fire
on her own sex.

"Zoe!" (sharply).

"Yes, aunt " (faintly).

"Tell your brother--if he can leave off smoking--I wish to speak to him."

Zoe hung her head, and was in no hurry to bring about the proposed
conference.

While she deliberated, says Fanny, with vast alacrity, "I'll tell him,
aunt."

"Oh, Fanny!" murmured Zoe, in a reproachful whisper.

"All right!" whispered Fanny in reply, and whipped out on to the balcony.
"Here's Aunt Maitland wants to know if you ever leave off smoking;" and
she threw a most aggressive manner into the query.

The big man replied, composedly, "Tell her I do--at meals and prayers;
but I always _sleep_ with a pipe in my mouth--heavily insured!"

"Well, then, you mustn't; for she has something very particular to say to
you when you've done smoking."

"Something particular! That means something disagreeable. Tell her I
shall be smoking all day to-day."

Fanny danced into the room and said, "He says he shall be smoking all
day, _under the circumstances."_

Miss Maitland gave this faithful messenger the look of a basilisk, and
flounced to her own room. The young ladies instantly stepped out on the
balcony, and got one on each side of Harrington, with the feminine
instinct of propitiation; for they felt sure the enemy would tell, soon
or late.

"What does the old cat want to talk to me about?" said Harrington,
lazily, to Fanny.

It was Zoe who replied:

"Can't you guess, dear?" said she, tenderly--"our misconduct." Then she
put her head on his shoulder, as much as to say, "But we have a more
lenient judge here."

"As if I could not see _that_ without her assistance!" said Harrington
Vizard. (Puff!) At which comfortable reply Zoe looked very rueful, and
Fanny burst out laughing.

Soon after this Fanny gave Zoe a look, and they retired to their rooms;
and Zoe said she would never come out again, and Fanny must stay with
her. Fanny felt sure _ennui_ would thaw that resolve in a few hours; so
she submitted, but declared it was absurd, and the very way to give a
perfect trifle importance.

"Kiss your hand!" said she, disdainfully--"that is nothing. If I was the
man, I'd have kissed both your cheeks long before this."

"And I should have boxed your ears and made you cry," said Zoe, with calm
superiority.

So she had her way, and the deserted Severne felt dull, but was too good
a general to show it. He bestowed his welcome company on Mr. Vizard,
walked with him, talked with him, and made himself so agreeable, that
Vizard, who admired him greatly, said to him, "What a good fellow you
are, to bestow your sunshine on me. I began to be afraid those girls had
got you, and tied you to their apron-strings altogether."

"Oh, no!" said Severne: "they are charming; but, after all, one can't do
without a male friend: there are so few things that interest ladies.
Unless you can talk red-hot religion, you are bound to flirt with them a
little. To be sure, they look shy, if you do, but if you don't--"

"They _are_ bored; whereas they only _looked_ shy. I know 'em. Call
another subject, please."

"Well, I will; but perhaps it may not be so agreeable a one."

"That is very unlikely," said the woman-hater, dryly.

"Well, it is Tin. I'm rather short. You see, when I fell in with you at
Monaco, I had no idea of coming this way; but, meeting with an old
college friend--what a tie college is, isn't it? There is nothing like
it; when you have been at college with a man, you seem never to wear him
out, as you do the acquaintances you make afterward."

"That is very true," said Vizard warmly.

"Isn't it? Now, for instance, if I had only known you of late years, I
should feel awfully shy of borrowing a few hundreds of you--for a month
or two."

"I don't know why you should, old fellow."

"I should, though. But having been at college together makes all the
difference. I don't mind telling you that I have never been at Homburg
without taking a turn at the table, and I am grizzling awfully now at not
having sent to my man of business for funds."

"How much do you want? That is the only question."

"Glad to hear it," thought Severne. "Well, let me see, you can't back
your luck with less than five hundred."

"Well, but we have been out two months; I am afraid I haven't so much
left. Just let me see." He took out his pocket-book, and examined his
letter of credit. "Do you want it to-day?"

"Why, yes; I do."

"Well, then, I am afraid you can only have three hundred. But I will
telegraph Herries, and funds will be here to-morrow afternoon."

"All right," said Severne.

Vizard took him to the bank, and exhausted his letter of credit: then to
the telegraph-office, and telegraphed Herries to enlarge his credit at
once. He handed Severne the three hundred pounds. The young man's eye
flashed, and it cost him an effort not to snatch them and wave them over
his head with joy: but he controlled himself, and took them like
two-pence-halfpenny. "Thank you, old fellow," said he. Then, still more
carelessly, "Like my I O U?"

"As you please," said Vizard, with similar indifference; only real.

After he had got the money, Severne's conversational powers
relaxed--short answers--long reveries.

Vizard observed, stopped short, and eyed him. "I remember something at
Oxford, and I am afraid you are a gambler; if you are, you won't be good
for much till you have lost that three hundred. It will be a dull evening
for me without you: I know what I'll do--I'll take my hen-party to the
opera at Homburg. There are stalls to be got here. I'll get one for you,
on the chance of your dropping in."

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