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diff --git a/1550.txt b/1550.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6091d64 --- /dev/null +++ b/1550.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8950 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Lady of Quality, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Lady of Quality + + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Release Date: March 24, 2005 [eBook #1550] +[Last updated: December 9, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LADY OF QUALITY*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1896 Frederick Warne & Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +A LADY OF QUALITY + + +Being a most curious, hitherto unknown +history, as related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff +but not presented to the World of +Fashion through the pages of +The Tatler, and now for the +first time written down +by +Francis Hodgson Burnett + + Were Nature just to Man from his first hour, he need not ask for + Mercy; then 'tis for us--the toys of Nature--to be both just and + merciful, for so only can the wrongs she does be undone. + + + + +CHAPTER I--The twenty-fourth day of November 1690 + + +On a wintry morning at the close of 1690, the sun shining faint and red +through a light fog, there was a great noise of baying dogs, loud voices, +and trampling of horses in the courtyard at Wildairs Hall; Sir Jeoffry +being about to go forth a-hunting, and being a man with a choleric temper +and big, loud voice, and given to oaths and noise even when in +good-humour, his riding forth with his friends at any time was attended +with boisterous commotion. This morning it was more so than usual, for +he had guests with him who had come to his house the day before, and had +supped late and drunk deeply, whereby the day found them, some with +headaches, some with a nausea at their stomachs, and some only in an evil +humour which made them curse at their horses when they were restless, and +break into loud surly laughs when a coarse joke was made. There were +many such jokes, Sir Jeoffry and his boon companions being renowned +throughout the county for the freedom of their conversation as for the +scandal of their pastimes, and this day 'twas well indeed, as their loud- +voiced, oath-besprinkled jests rang out on the cold air, that there were +no ladies about to ride forth with them. + +'Twas Sir Jeoffry who was louder than any other, he having drunk even +deeper than the rest, and though 'twas his boast that he could carry a +bottle more than any man, and see all his guests under the table, his +last night's bout had left him in ill-humour and boisterous. He strode +about, casting oaths at the dogs and rating the servants, and when he +mounted his big black horse 'twas amid such a clamour of voices and +baying hounds that the place was like Pandemonium. + +He was a large man of florid good looks, black eyes, and full habit of +body, and had been much renowned in his youth for his great strength, +which was indeed almost that of a giant, and for his deeds of prowess in +the saddle and at the table when the bottle went round. There were many +evil stories of his roysterings, but it was not his way to think of them +as evil, but rather to his credit as a man of the world, for, when he +heard that they were gossiped about, he greeted the information with a +loud triumphant laugh. He had married, when she was fifteen, the +blooming toast of the county, for whom his passion had long died out, +having indeed departed with the honeymoon, which had been of the +briefest, and afterwards he having borne her a grudge for what he chose +to consider her undutiful conduct. This grudge was founded on the fact +that, though she had presented him each year since their marriage with a +child, after nine years had passed none had yet been sons, and, as he was +bitterly at odds with his next of kin, he considered each of his +offspring an ill turn done him. + +He spent but little time in her society, for she was a poor, gentle +creature of no spirit, who found little happiness in her lot, since her +lord treated her with scant civility, and her children one after another +sickened and died in their infancy until but two were left. He scarce +remembered her existence when he did not see her face, and he was +certainly not thinking of her this morning, having other things in view, +and yet it so fell out that, while a groom was shortening a stirrup and +being sworn at for his awkwardness, he by accident cast his eye upward to +a chamber window peering out of the thick ivy on the stone. Doing so he +saw an old woman draw back the curtain and look down upon him as if +searching for him with a purpose. + +He uttered an exclamation of anger. + +"Damnation! Mother Posset again," he said. "What does she there, old +frump?" + +The curtain fell and the woman disappeared, but in a few minutes more an +unheard-of thing happened--among the servants in the hall, the same old +woman appeared making her way with a hurried fretfulness, and she +descended haltingly the stone steps and came to his side where he sat on +his black horse. + +"The Devil!" he exclaimed--"what are you here for? 'Tis not time for +another wench upstairs, surely?" + +"'Tis not time," answered the old nurse acidly, taking her tone from his +own. "But there is one, but an hour old, and my lady--" + +"Be damned to her!" quoth Sir Jeoffry savagely. "A ninth one--and 'tis +nine too many. 'Tis more than man can bear. She does it but to spite +me." + +"'Tis ill treatment for a gentleman who wants an heir," the old woman +answered, as disrespectful of his spouse as he was, being a time-serving +crone, and knowing that it paid but poorly to coddle women who did not as +their husbands would have them in the way of offspring. "It should have +been a fine boy, but it is not, and my lady--" + +"Damn her puling tricks!" said Sir Jeoffry again, pulling at his horse's +bit until the beast reared. + +"She would not let me rest until I came to you," said the nurse +resentfully. "She would have you told that she felt strangely, and +before you went forth would have a word with you." + +"I cannot come, and am not in the mood for it if I could," was his +answer. "What folly does she give way to? This is the ninth time she +hath felt strangely, and I have felt as squeamish as she--but nine is +more than I have patience for." + +"She is light-headed, mayhap," said the nurse. "She lieth huddled in a +heap, staring and muttering, and she would leave me no peace till I +promised to say to you, 'For the sake of poor little Daphne, whom you +will sure remember.' She pinched my hand and said it again and again." + +Sir Jeoffry dragged at his horse's mouth and swore again. + +"She was fifteen then, and had not given me nine yellow-faced wenches," +he said. "Tell her I had gone a-hunting and you were too late;" and he +struck his big black beast with the whip, and it bounded away with him, +hounds and huntsmen and fellow-roysterers galloping after, his guests, +who had caught at the reason of his wrath, grinning as they rode. + +* * * * * + +In a huge chamber hung with tattered tapestries and barely set forth with +cumbersome pieces of furnishing, my lady lay in a gloomy, canopied bed, +with her new-born child at her side, but not looking at or touching it, +seeming rather to have withdrawn herself from the pillow on which it lay +in its swaddling-clothes. + +She was but a little lady, and now, as she lay in the large bed, her face +and form shrunken and drawn with suffering, she looked scarce bigger than +a child. In the brief days of her happiness those who toasted her had +called her Titania for her fairy slightness and delicate beauty, but then +her fair wavy locks had been of a length that touched the ground when her +woman unbound them, and she had had the colour of a wild rose and the +eyes of a tender little fawn. Sir Jeoffry for a month or so had paid +tempestuous court to her, and had so won her heart with his dashing way +of love-making and the daringness of his reputation, that she had thought +herself--being child enough to think so--the luckiest young lady in the +world that his black eye should have fallen upon her with favour. Each +year since, with the bearing of each child, she had lost some of her +beauty. With each one her lovely hair fell out still more, her wild-rose +colour faded, and her shape was spoiled. She grew thin and yellow, only +a scant covering of the fair hair was left her, and her eyes were big and +sunken. Her marriage having displeased her family, and Sir Jeoffry +having a distaste for the ceremonies of visiting and entertainment, save +where his own cronies were concerned, she had no friends, and grew +lonelier and lonelier as the sad years went by. She being so without +hope and her life so dreary, her children were neither strong nor +beautiful, and died quickly, each one bringing her only the anguish of +birth and death. This wintry morning her ninth lay slumbering by her +side; the noise of baying dogs and boisterous men had died away with the +last sound of the horses' hoofs; the little light which came into the +room through the ivied window was a faint yellowish red; she was cold, +because the fire in the chimney was but a scant, failing one; she was +alone--and she knew that the time had come for her death. This she knew +full well. + +She was alone, because, being so disrespected and deserted by her lord, +and being of a timid and gentle nature, she could not command her +insufficient retinue of servants, and none served her as was their duty. +The old woman Sir Jeoffry had dubbed Mother Posset had been her sole +attendant at such times as these for the past five years, because she +would come to her for a less fee than a better woman, and Sir Jeoffry had +sworn he would not pay for wenches being brought into the world. She was +a slovenly, guzzling old crone, who drank caudle from morning till night, +and demanded good living as a support during the performance of her +trying duties; but these last she contrived to make wondrous light, +knowing that there was none to reprove her. + +"A fine night I have had," she had grumbled when she brought back Sir +Jeoffry's answer to her lady's message. "My old bones are like to break, +and my back will not straighten itself. I will go to the kitchen to get +victuals and somewhat to warm me; your ladyship's own woman shall sit +with you." + +Her ladyship's "own woman" was also the sole attendant of the two little +girls, Barbara and Anne, whose nursery was in another wing of the house, +and my lady knew full well she would not come if she were told, and that +there would be no message sent to her. + +She knew, too, that the fire was going out, but, though she shivered +under the bed-clothes, she was too weak to call the woman back when she +saw her depart without putting fresh fuel upon it. + +So she lay alone, poor lady, and there was no sound about her, and her +thin little mouth began to feebly quiver, and her great eyes, which +stared at the hangings, to fill with slow cold tears, for in sooth they +were not warm, but seemed to chill her poor cheeks as they rolled slowly +down them, leaving a wet streak behind them which she was too far gone in +weakness to attempt to lift her hand to wipe away. + +"Nine times like this," she panted faintly, "and 'tis for naught but +oaths and hard words that blame me. I was but a child myself and he +loved me. When 'twas 'My Daphne,' and 'My beauteous little Daphne,' he +loved me in his own man's way. But now--" she faintly rolled her head +from side to side. "Women are poor things"--a chill salt tear sliding +past her lips so that she tasted its bitterness--"only to be kissed for +an hour, and then like this--only for this and nothing else. I would +that this one had been dead." + +Her breath came slower and more pantingly, and her eyes stared more +widely. + +"I was but a child," she whispered--"a child--as--as this will be--if she +lives fifteen years." + +Despite her weakness, and it was great and woefully increasing with each +panting breath, she slowly laboured to turn herself towards the pillow on +which her offspring lay, and, this done, she lay staring at the child and +gasping, her thin chest rising and falling convulsively. Ah, how she +panted, and how she stared, the glaze of death stealing slowly over her +wide-opened eyes; and yet, dimming as they were, they saw in the sleeping +infant a strange and troublous thing--though it was but a few hours old +'twas not as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usually are, its +little head was covered with thick black silk, and its small features +were of singular definiteness. She dragged herself nearer to gaze. + +"She looks not like the others," she said. "They had no beauty--and are +safe. She--she will be like--Jeoffry--and like _me_." + +The dying fire fell lower with a shuddering sound. + +"If she is--beautiful, and has but her father, and no mother!" she +whispered, the words dragged forth slowly, "only evil can come to her. +From her first hour--she will know naught else, poor heart, poor heart!" + +There was a rattling in her throat as she breathed, but in her glazing +eyes a gleam like passion leaped, and gasping, she dragged nearer. + +"'Tis not fair," she cried. "If I--if I could lay my hand upon thy +mouth--and stop thy breathing--thou poor thing, 'twould be fairer--but--I +have no strength." + +She gathered all her dying will and brought her hand up to the infant's +mouth. A wild look was on her poor, small face, she panted and fell +forward on its breast, the rattle in her throat growing louder. The +child awakened, opening great black eyes, and with her dying weakness its +new-born life struggled. Her cold hand lay upon its mouth, and her +head upon its body, for she was too far gone to move if she had willed to +do so. But the tiny creature's strength was marvellous. It gasped, it +fought, its little limbs struggled beneath her, it writhed until the cold +hand fell away, and then, its baby mouth set free, it fell a-shrieking. +Its cries were not like those of a new-born thing, but fierce and shrill, +and even held the sound of infant passion. 'Twas not a thing to let its +life go easily, 'twas of those born to do battle. + +Its lusty screaming pierced her ear perhaps--she drew a long, slow +breath, and then another, and another still--the last one trembled and +stopped short, and the last cinder fell dead from the fire. + +* * * * * + +When the nurse came bustling and fretting back, the chamber was cold as +the grave's self--there were only dead embers on the hearth, the new-born +child's cries filled all the desolate air, and my lady was lying stone +dead, her poor head resting on her offspring's feet, the while her open +glazed eyes seemed to stare at it as if in asking Fate some awful +question. + + + + +CHAPTER II--In which Sir Jeoffry encounters his offspring + + +In a remote wing of the house, in barren, ill-kept rooms, the poor +infants of the dead lady had struggled through their brief lives, and +given them up, one after the other. Sir Jeoffry had not wished to see +them, nor had he done so, but upon the rarest occasions, and then nearly +always by some untoward accident. The six who had died, even their +mother had scarcely wept for; her weeping had been that they should have +been fated to come into the world, and when they went out of it she knew +she need not mourn their going as untimely. The two who had not +perished, she had regarded sadly day by day, seeing they had no beauty +and that their faces promised none. Naught but great beauty would have +excused their existence in their father's eyes, as beauty might have +helped them to good matches which would have rid him of them. But 'twas +the sad ill fortune of the children Anne and Barbara to have been treated +by Nature in a way but niggardly. They were pale young misses, with +insignificant faces and snub noses, resembling an aunt who died a +spinster, as they themselves seemed most likely to. Sir Jeoffry could +not bear the sight of them, and they fled at the sound of his footsteps, +if it so happened that by chance they heard it, huddling together in +corners, and slinking behind doors or anything big enough to hide them. +They had no playthings and no companions and no pleasures but such as the +innocent invention of childhood contrives for itself. + +After their mother's death a youth desolate and strange indeed lay before +them. A spinster who was a poor relation was the only person of +respectable breeding who ever came near them. To save herself from +genteel starvation, she had offered herself for the place of governess to +them, though she was fitted for the position neither by education nor +character. Mistress Margery Wimpole was a poor, dull creature, having no +wilful harm in her, but endowed with neither dignity nor wit. She lived +in fear of Sir Jeoffry, and in fear of the servants, who knew full well +that she was an humble dependant, and treated her as one. She hid away +with her pupils in the bare school-room in the west wing, and taught +them to spell and write and work samplers. She herself knew no more. + +The child who had cost her mother her life had no happier prospect than +her sisters. Her father felt her more an intruder than they had been, he +being of the mind that to house and feed and clothe, howsoever poorly, +these three burdens on him was a drain scarcely to be borne. His wife +had been a toast and not a fortune, and his estate not being great, he +possessed no more than his drinking, roystering, and gambling made full +demands upon. + +The child was baptized Clorinda, and bred, so to speak, from her first +hour, in the garret and the servants' hall. Once only did her father +behold her during her infancy, which event was a mere accident, as he had +expressed no wish to see her, and only came upon her in the nurse's arms +some weeks after her mother's death. 'Twas quite by chance. The woman, +who was young and buxom, had begun an intrigue with a groom, and having a +mind to see him, was crossing the stable-yard, carrying her charge with +her, when Sir Jeoffry came by to visit a horse. + +The woman came plump upon him, entering a stable as he came out of it; +she gave a frightened start, and almost let the child drop, at which it +set up a strong, shrill cry, and thus Sir Jeoffry saw it, and seeing it, +was thrown at once into a passion which expressed itself after the manner +of all his emotion, and left the nurse quaking with fear. + +"Thunder and damnation!" he exclaimed, as he strode away after the +encounter; "'tis the ugliest yet. A yellow-faced girl brat, with eyes +like an owl's in an ivy-bush, and with a voice like a very peacocks. +Another mawking, plain slut that no man will take off my hands." + +He did not see her again for six years. But little wit was needed to +learn that 'twas best to keep her out of his sight, as her sisters were +kept, and this was done without difficulty, as he avoided the wing of the +house where the children lived, as if it were stricken with the plague. + +But the child Clorinda, it seemed, was of lustier stock than her older +sisters, and this those about her soon found out to their grievous +disturbance. When Mother Posset had drawn her from under her dead +mother's body she had not left shrieking for an hour, but had kept up her +fierce cries until the roof rang with them, and the old woman had jogged +her about and beat her back in the hopes of stifling her, until she was +exhausted and dismayed. For the child would not be stilled, and seemed +to have such strength and persistence in her as surely infant never +showed before. + +"Never saw I such a brat among all I have brought into the world," old +Posset quavered. "She hath the voice of a six-months boy. It cracks my +very ears. Hush thee, then, thou little wild cat." + +This was but the beginning. From the first she grew apace, and in a few +months was a bouncing infant, with a strong back, and a power to make +herself heard such as had not before appeared in the family. When she +desired a thing, she yelled and roared with such a vigour as left no +peace for any creature about her until she was humoured, and this being +the case, rather than have their conversation and love-making put a stop +to, the servants gave her her way. In this they but followed the example +of their betters, of whom we know that it is not to the most virtuous +they submit or to the most learned, but to those who, being crossed, can +conduct themselves in a manner so disagreeable, shrewish or violent, that +life is a burden until they have their will. This the child Clorinda had +the infant wit to discover early, and having once discovered it, she +never ceased to take advantage of her knowledge. Having found in the +days when her one desire was pap, that she had but to roar lustily enough +to find it beside her in her porringer, she tried the game upon all other +occasions. When she had reached but a twelvemonth, she stood stoutly +upon her little feet, and beat her sisters to gain their playthings, and +her nurse for wanting to change her smock. She was so easily thrown into +furies, and so raged and stamped in her baby way that she was a sight to +behold, and the men-servants found amusement in badgering her. To set +Mistress Clorinda in their midst on a winter's night when they were dull, +and to torment her until her little face grew scarlet with the blood +which flew up into it, and she ran from one to the other beating them and +screaming like a young spitfire, was among them a favourite +entertainment. + +"Ifackens!" said the butler one night, "but she is as like Sir Jeoffry in +her temper as one pea is like another. Ay, but she grows blood red just +as he does, and curses in her little way as he does in man's words among +his hounds in their kennel." + +"And she will be of his build, too," said the housekeeper. "What mishap +changed her to a maid instead of a boy, I know not. She would have made +a strapping heir. She has the thigh and shoulders of a handsome +man-child at this hour, and she is not three years old." + +"Sir Jeoffry missed his mark when he called her an ugly brat," said the +woman who had nursed her. "She will be a handsome woman--though large in +build, it may be. She will be a brown beauty, but she will have a colour +in her cheeks and lips like the red of Christmas holly, and her owl's +eyes are as black as sloes, and have fringes on them like the curtains of +a window. See how her hair grows thick on her little head, and how it +curls in great rings. My lady, her poor mother, was once a beauty, but +she was no such beauty as this one will be, for she has her father's long +limbs and fine shoulders, and the will to make every man look her way." + +"Yes," said the housekeeper, who was an elderly woman, "there will be +doings--there will be doings when she is a ripe young maid. She will +take her way, and God grant she mayn't be _too_ like her father and +follow his." + +It was true that she had no resemblance to her plain sisters, and bore no +likeness to them in character. The two elder children, Anne and Barbara, +were too meek-spirited to be troublesome; but during Clorinda's infancy +Mistress Margery Wimpole watched her rapid growth with fear and qualms. +She dare not reprove the servants who were ruining her by their +treatment, and whose manners were forming her own. Sir Jeoffry's +servants were no more moral than their master, and being brought up as +she was among them, their young mistress became strangely familiar with +many sights and sounds it is not the fortune of most young misses of +breeding to see and hear. The cooks and kitchen-wenches were flighty +with the grooms and men-servants, and little Mistress Clorinda, having a +passion for horses and dogs, spent many an hour in the stables with the +women who, for reasons of their own, were pleased enough to take her +there as an excuse for seeking amusement for themselves. She played in +the kennels and among the horses' heels, and learned to use oaths as +roundly as any Giles or Tom whose work was to wield the curry comb. It +was indeed a curious thing to hear her red baby mouth pour forth curses +and unseemly words as she would at any one who crossed her. Her temper +and hot-headedness carried all before them, and the grooms and stable- +boys found great sport in the language my young lady used in her innocent +furies. But balk her in a whim, and she would pour forth the eloquence +of a fish-wife or a lady of easy virtue in a pot-house quarrel. There +was no human creature near her who had mind or heart enough to see the +awfulness of her condition, or to strive to teach her to check her +passions; and in the midst of these perilous surroundings the little +virago grew handsomer and of finer carriage every hour, as if on the rank +diet that fed her she throve and flourished. + +There came a day at last when she had reached six years old, when by a +trick of chance a turn was given to the wheel of her fate. + +She had not reached three when a groom first set her on a horse's back +and led her about the stable-yard, and she had so delighted in her +exalted position, and had so shouted for pleasure and clutched her +steed's rein and clucked at him, that her audience had looked on with +roars of laughter. From that time she would be put up every day, and as +time went on showed such unchildish courage and spirit that she furnished +to her servant companions a new pastime. Soon she would not be held on, +but riding astride like a boy, would sit up as straight as a man and +swear at her horse, beating him with her heels and little fists if his +pace did not suit her. She knew no fear, and would have used a whip so +readily that the men did not dare to trust her with one, and knew they +must not mount her on a steed too mettlesome. By the time she passed her +sixth birthday she could ride as well as a grown man, and was as familiar +with her father's horses as he himself, though he knew nothing of the +matter, it being always contrived that she should be out of sight when he +visited his hunters. + +It so chanced that the horse he rode the oftenest was her favourite, and +many were the tempests of rage she fell into when she went to the stable +to play with the animal and did not find him in his stall, because his +master had ordered him out. At such times she would storm at the men in +the stable-yard and call them ill names for their impudence in letting +the beast go, which would cause them great merriment, as she knew nothing +of who the man was who had balked her, since she was, in truth, not so +much as conscious of her father's existence, never having seen or even +heard more of him than his name, which she in no manner connected with +herself. + +"Could Sir Jeoffry himself but once see and hear her when she storms at +us and him, because he dares to ride his own beast," one of the older men +said once, in the midst of their laughter, "I swear he would burst forth +laughing and be taken with her impudent spirit, her temper is so like his +own. She is his own flesh and blood, and as full of hell-fire as he." + +Upon this morning which proved eventful to her, she had gone to the +stables, as was her daily custom, and going into the stall where the big +black horse was wont to stand, she found it empty. Her spirit rose hot +within her in the moment. She clenched her fists, and began to stamp and +swear in such a manner as it would be scarce fitting to record. + +"Where is he now?" she cried. "He is my own horse, and shall not be +ridden. Who is the man who takes him? Who? Who?" + +"'Tis a fellow who hath no manners," said the man she stormed at, +grinning and thrusting his tongue in his cheek. "He says 'tis his beast, +and not yours, and he will have him when he chooses." + +"'Tis not his--'tis mine!" shrieked Miss, her little face inflamed with +passion. "I will kill him! 'Tis my horse. He _shall_ be mine!" + +For a while the men tormented her, to hear her rave and see her passion, +for, in truth, the greater tempest she was in, the better she was worth +beholding, having a colour so rich, and eyes so great and black and +flaming. At such times there was naught of the feminine in her, and +indeed always she looked more like a handsome boy than a girl, her growth +being for her age extraordinary. At length a lad who was a helper said +to mock her-- + +"The man hath him at the door before the great steps now. I saw him +stand there waiting but a moment ago. The man hath gone in the house." + +She turned and ran to find him. The front part of the house she barely +knew the outside of, as she was kept safely in the west wing and below +stairs, and when taken out for the air was always led privately by a side +way--never passing through the great hall, where her father might chance +to encounter her. + +She knew best this side-entrance, and made her way to it, meaning to +search until she found the front. She got into the house, and her spirit +being roused, marched boldly through corridors and into rooms she had +never seen before, and being so mere a child, notwithstanding her strange +wilfulness and daring, the novelty of the things she saw so far +distracted her mind from the cause of her anger that she stopped more +than once to stare up at a portrait on a wall, or to take in her hand +something she was curious concerning. + +When she at last reached the entrance-hall, coming into it through a door +she pushed open, using all her childish strength, she stood in the midst +of it and gazed about her with a new curiosity and pleasure. It was a +fine place, with antlers, and arms, and foxes' brushes hung upon the +walls, and with carved panels of black oak, and oaken floor and +furnishings. All in it was disorderly and showed rough usage; but once +it had been a notable feature of the house, and well worth better care +than had been bestowed upon it. She discovered on the walls many +trophies that attracted her, but these she could not reach, and could +only gaze and wonder at; but on an old oaken settle she found some things +she could lay hands on, and forthwith seized and sat down upon the floor +to play with them. One of them was a hunting-crop, which she brandished +grandly, until she was more taken with a powder-flask which it so +happened her father, Sir Jeoffry, had lain down but a few minutes before, +in passing through. He was going forth coursing, and had stepped into +the dining-hall to toss off a bumper of brandy. + +When he had helped himself from the buffet, and came back in haste, the +first thing he clapped eyes on was his offspring pouring forth the powder +from his flask upon the oaken floor. He had never seen her since that +first occasion after the unfortunate incident of her birth, and beholding +a child wasting his good powder at the moment he most wanted it and had +no time to spare, and also not having had it recalled to his mind for +years that he was a parent, except when he found himself forced +reluctantly to pay for some small need, he beheld in the young offender +only some impudent servant's brat, who had strayed into his domain and +applied itself at once to mischief. + +He sprang upon her, and seizing her by the arm, whirled her to her feet +with no little violence, snatching the powder-flask from her, and dealing +her a sound box on the ear. + +"Blood and damnation on thee, thou impudent little baggage!" he shouted. +"I'll break thy neck for thee, little scurvy beast;" and pulled the bell +as he were like to break the wire. + +But he had reckoned falsely on what he dealt with. Miss uttered a shriek +of rage which rang through the roof like a clarion. She snatched the +crop from the floor, rushed at him, and fell upon him like a thousand +little devils, beating his big legs with all the strength of her passion, +and pouring forth oaths such as would have done credit to Doll Lightfoot +herself. + +"Damn _thee_!--damn _thee_!"--she roared and screamed, flogging him. +"I'll tear thy eyes out! I'll cut thy liver from thee! Damn thy soul to +hell!" + +And this choice volley was with such spirit and fury poured forth, that +Sir Jeoffry let his hand drop from the bell, fell into a great burst of +laughter, and stood thus roaring while she beat him and shrieked and +stormed. + +The servants, hearing the jangled bell, attracted by the tumult, and of a +sudden missing Mistress Clorinda, ran in consternation to the hall, and +there beheld this truly pretty sight--Miss beating her father's legs, and +tearing at him tooth and nail, while he stood shouting with laughter as +if he would split his sides. + +"Who is the little cockatrice?" he cried, the tears streaming down his +florid cheeks. "Who is the young she-devil? Ods bodikins, who is she?" + +For a second or so the servants stared at each other aghast, not knowing +what to say, or venturing to utter a word; and then the nurse, who had +come up panting, dared to gasp forth the truth. + +"'Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry," she stammered--"my lady's last +infant--the one of whom she died in childbed." + +His big laugh broke in two, as one might say. He looked down at the +young fury and stared. She was out of breath with beating him, and had +ceased and fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, breathing +defiance and hatred. Her big black eyes were flames, her head was thrown +up and back, her cheeks were blood scarlet, and her great crop of crow- +black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little virago face, as +if it might change into Medusa's snakes. + +"Damn thee!" she shrieked at him again. "I'll kill thee, devil!" + +Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh. + +"Clorinda do they call thee, wench?" he said. "Jeoffry thou shouldst +have been but for thy mother's folly. A fiercer little devil for thy +size I never saw--nor a handsomer one." + +And he seized her from where she stood, and held her at his big arms' +length, gazing at her uncanny beauty with looks that took her in from +head to foot. + + + + +CHAPTER III--Wherein Sir Jeoffry's boon companions drink a toast + + +Her beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of limb, and great growth +for her age, would have pleased him if she had possessed no other +attraction, but the daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so +amused him and suited his roystering tastes that he took to her as the +finest plaything in the world. + +He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made +friends with her, but at first she would have none of him, and scowled at +him in spite of all he did. The brandy by this time had mounted to his +head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor oftenest making him +gamesome. He felt as if he were playing with a young dog or marking the +spirit of a little fighting cock. He ordered the servants back to their +kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, and the men concealing grins +which burst forth into guffaws of laughter when they came into their hall +below. + +"'Tis as we said," they chuckled. "He had but to see her beauty and find +her a bigger devil than he, and 'twas done. The mettle of her--damning +and flogging him! Never was there a finer sight! She feared him no more +than if he had been a spaniel--and he roaring and laughing till he was +like to burst." + +"Dost know who I am?" Sir Jeoffry was asking the child, grinning himself +as he stood before her where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had +lifted her. + +"No," quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn down, her handsome +owl's eyes verily seeming to look him through and through in search of +somewhat; for, in sooth, her rage abating before his jovial humour, the +big burly laugher attracted her attention, though she was not disposed to +show him that she leaned towards any favour or yielding. + +"I am thy Dad," he said. "'Twas thy Dad thou gavest such a trouncing. +And thou hast an arm, too. Let's cast an eye on it." + +He took her wrist and pushed up her sleeve, but she dragged back. + +"Will not be mauled," she cried. "Get away from me!" + +He shouted with laughter again. He had seen that the little arm was as +white and hard as marble, and had such muscles as a great boy might have +been a braggart about. + +"By Gad!" he said, elated. "What a wench of six years old. Wilt have my +crop and trounce thy Dad again!" + +He picked up the crop from the place where she had thrown it, and +forthwith gave it in her hand. She took it, but was no more in the +humour to beat him, and as she looked still frowning from him to the +whip, the latter brought back to her mind the horse she had set out in +search of. + +"Where is my horse?" she said, and 'twas in the tone of an imperial +demand. "Where is he?" + +"Thy horse!" he echoed. "Which is thy horse then?" + +"Rake is my horse," she answered--"the big black one. The man took him +again;" and she ripped out a few more oaths and unchaste expressions, +threatening what she would do for the man in question; the which +delighted him more than ever. "Rake is my horse," she ended. "None else +shall ride him." + +"None else?" cried he. "Thou canst not ride him, baggage!" + +She looked at him with scornful majesty. + +"Where is he?" she demanded. And the next instant hearing the beast's +restless feet grinding into the gravel outside as he fretted at having +been kept waiting so long, she remembered what the stable-boy had said of +having seen her favourite standing before the door, and struggling and +dropping from the settle, she ran to look out; whereupon having done so, +she shouted in triumph. + +"He is here!" she said. "I see him;" and went pell-mell down the stone +steps to his side. + +Sir Jeoffry followed her in haste. 'Twould not have been to his humour +now to have her brains kicked out. + +"Hey!" he called, as he hurried. "Keep away from his heels, thou little +devil." + +But she had run to the big beast's head with another shout, and caught +him round his foreleg, laughing, and Rake bent his head down and nosed +her in a fumbling caress, on which, the bridle coming within her reach, +she seized it and held his head that she might pat him, to which +familiarity the beast was plainly well accustomed. + +"He is my horse," quoth she grandly when her father reached her. "He +will not let Giles play so." + +Sir Jeoffry gazed and swelled with pleasure in her. + +"Would have said 'twas a lie if I had not seen it," he said to himself. +"'Tis no girl this, I swear. I thought 'twas my horse," he said to her, +"but 'tis plain enough he is thine." + +"Put me up!" said his new-found offspring. + +"Hast rid him before?" Sir Jeoffry asked, with some lingering misgiving. +"Tell thy Dad if thou hast rid him." + +She gave him a look askance under her long fringed lids--a surly yet half- +slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had +the cunning wit and shrewdness of a child witch. + +"Ay!" quoth she. "Put me up--Dad!" + +He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having been too many years +bemuddled with drink, but he had a rough instinct which showed him all +the wondrous shrewdness of her casting that last word at him to wheedle +him, even though she looked sullen in the saying it. It made him roar +again for very exultation. + +"Put me up, Dad!" he cried. "That will I--and see what thou wilt do." + +He lifted her, she springing as he set his hands beneath her arms, and +flinging her legs over astride across the saddle when she reached it. She +was all fire and excitement, and caught the reins like an old huntsman, +and with such a grasp as was amazing. She sat up with a straight, strong +back, her whole face glowing and sparkling with exultant joy. Rake +seemed to answer to her excited little laugh almost as much as to her +hand. It seemed to wake his spirit and put him in good-humour. He +started off with her down the avenue at a light, spirited trot, while +she, clinging with her little legs and sitting firm and fearless, made +him change into canter and gallop, having actually learned all his paces +like a lesson, and knowing his mouth as did his groom, who was her +familiar and slave. Had she been of the build ordinary with children of +her age, she could not have stayed upon his back; but she sat him like a +child jockey, and Sir Jeoffry, watching and following her, clapped his +hands boisterously and hallooed for joy. + +"Lord, Lord!" he said. "There's not a man in the shire has such another +little devil--and Rake, 'her horse,'" grinning--"and she to ride him so. +I love thee, wench--hang me if I do not!" + +She made him play with her and with Rake for a good hour, and then took +him back to the stables, and there ordered him about finely among the +dogs and horses, perceiving that somehow this great man she had got hold +of was a creature who was in power and could be made use of. + +When they returned to the house, he had her to eat her mid-day meal with +him, when she called for ale, and drank it, and did good trencher duty, +making him the while roar with laughter at her impudent child-talk. + +"Never have I so split my sides since I was twenty," he said. "It makes +me young again to roar so. She shall not leave my sight, since by chance +I have found her. 'Tis too good a joke to lose, when times are dull, as +they get to be as a man's years go on." + +He sent for her woman and laid strange new commands on her. + +"Where hath she hitherto been kept?" he asked. + +"In the west wing, where are the nurseries, and where Mistress Wimpole +abides with Mistress Barbara and Mistress Anne," the woman answered, with +a frightened curtsey. + +"Henceforth she shall live in this part of the house where I do," he +said. "Make ready the chambers that were my lady's, and prepare to stay +there with her." + +From that hour the child's fate was sealed. He made himself her +playfellow, and romped with and indulged her until she became fonder of +him than of any groom or stable-boy she had been companions with before. +But, indeed, she had never been given to bestowing much affection on +those around her, seeming to feel herself too high a personage to show +softness. The ones she showed most favour to were those who served her +best; and even to them it was always _favour_ she showed, not tenderness. +Certain dogs and horses she was fond of, Rake coming nearest to her +heart, and the place her father won in her affections was somewhat like +to Rake's. She made him her servant and tyrannised over him, but at the +same time followed and imitated him as if she had been a young spaniel he +was training. The life the child led, it would have broken a motherly +woman's heart to hear about; but there was no good woman near her, her +mother's relatives, and even Sir Jeoffry's own, having cut themselves off +early from them--Wildairs Hall and its master being no great credit to +those having the misfortune to be connected with them. The neighbouring +gentry had gradually ceased to visit the family some time before her +ladyship's death, and since then the only guests who frequented the place +were a circle of hunting, drinking, and guzzling boon companions of Sir +Jeoffry's own, who joined him in all his carousals and debaucheries. + +To these he announced his discovery of his daughter with tumultuous +delight. He told them, amid storms of laughter, of his first encounter +with her; of her flogging him with his own crop, and cursing him like a +trooper; of her claiming Rake as her own horse, and swearing at the man +who had dared to take him from the stable to ride; and of her sitting him +like an infant jockey, and seeming, by some strange power, to have +mastered him as no other had been able heretofore to do. Then he had her +brought into the dining-room, where they sat over their bottles drinking +deep, and setting her on the table, he exhibited her to them, boasting of +her beauty, showing them her splendid arm and leg and thigh, measuring +her height, and exciting her to test the strength of the grip of her hand +and the power of her little fist. + +"Saw you ever a wench like her?" he cried, as they all shouted with +laughter and made jokes not too polite, but such as were of the sole kind +they were given to. "Has any man among you begot a boy as big and +handsome? Hang me! if she would not knock down any lad of ten if she +were in a fury." + +"We wild dogs are out of favour with the women," cried one of the best +pleased among them, a certain Lord Eldershawe, whose seat was a few miles +from Wildairs Hall--"women like nincompoops and chaplains. Let us take +this one for our toast, and bring her up as girls should be brought up to +be companions for men. I give you, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs--Mistress +Clorinda, the enslaver of six years old--bumpers, lads!--bumpers!" + +And they set her in the very midst of the big table and drank her health, +standing, bursting into a jovial, ribald song; and the child, excited by +the noise and laughter, actually broke forth and joined them in a high, +strong treble, the song being one she was quite familiar with, having +heard it often enough in the stable to have learned the words pat. + +* * * * * + +Two weeks after his meeting with her, Sir Jeoffry was seized with the +whim to go up to London and set her forth with finery. 'Twas but rarely +he went up to town, having neither money to waste, nor finding great +attraction in the more civilised quarters of the world. He brought her +back such clothes as for richness and odd, unsuitable fashion child never +wore before. There were brocades that stood alone with splendour of +fabric, there was rich lace, fine linen, ribbands, farthingales, +swansdown tippets, and little slippers with high red heels. He had a +wardrobe made for her such as the finest lady of fashion could scarcely +boast, and the tiny creature was decked out in it, and on great occasions +even strung with her dead mother's jewels. + +Among these strange things, he had the fantastical notion to have made +for her several suits of boy's clothes: pink and blue satin coats, little +white, or amber, or blue satin breeches, ruffles of lace, and waistcoats +embroidered with colours and silver or gold. There was also a small +scarlet-coated hunting costume and all the paraphernalia of the chase. It +was Sir Jeoffry's finest joke to bid her woman dress her as a boy, and +then he would have her brought to the table where he and his fellows were +dining together, and she would toss off her little bumper with the best +of them, and rip out childish oaths, and sing them, to their delight, +songs she had learned from the stable-boys. She cared more for dogs and +horses than for finery, and when she was not in the humour to be made a +puppet of, neither tirewoman nor devil could put her into her brocades; +but she liked the excitement of the dining-room, and, as time went on, +would be dressed in her flowered petticoats in a passion of eagerness to +go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gewgaws with men old +enough to be her father, and loose enough to find her premature airs and +graces a fine joke indeed. She ruled them all with her temper and her +shrewish will. She would have her way in all things, or there should be +no sport with her, and she would sing no songs for them, but would flout +them bitterly, and sit in a great chair with her black brows drawn down, +and her whole small person breathing rancour and disdain. + +Sir Jeoffry, who had bullied his wife, had now the pleasurable experience +of being henpecked by his daughter; for so, indeed, he was. Miss ruled +him with a rod of iron, and wielded her weapon with such skill that +before a year had elapsed he obeyed her as the servants below stairs had +done in her infancy. She had no fear of his great oaths, for she +possessed a strangely varied stock of her own upon which she could always +draw, and her voice being more shrill than his, if not of such bigness, +her ear-piercing shrieks and indomitable perseverance always proved too +much for him in the end. It must be admitted likewise that her violence +of temper and power of will were somewhat beyond his own, notwithstanding +her tender years and his reputation. In fact, he found himself obliged +to observe this, and finally made something of a merit and joke of it. + +"There is no managing of the little shrew," he would say. "Neither man +nor devil can bend or break her. If I smashed every bone in her carcass, +she would die shrieking hell at me and defiance." + +If one admits the truth, it must be owned that if she had not had +bestowed upon her by nature gifts of beauty and vivacity so +extraordinary, and had been cursed with a thousandth part of the +vixenishness she displayed every day of her life, he would have broken +every bone in her carcass without a scruple or a qualm. But her beauty +seemed but to grow with every hour that passed, and it was by exceeding +good fortune exactly the fashion of beauty which he admired the most. +When she attained her tenth year she was as tall as a fine boy of twelve, +and of such a shape and carriage as young Diana herself might have +envied. Her limbs were long, and most divinely moulded, and of a +strength that caused admiration and amazement in all beholders. Her +father taught her to follow him in the hunting-field, and when she +appeared upon her horse, clad in her little breeches and top-boots and +scarlet coat, child though she was, she set the field on fire. She +learned full early how to coquet and roll her fine eyes; but it is also +true that she was not much of a languisher, as all her ogling was of a +destructive or proudly-attacking kind. It was her habit to leave others +to languish, and herself to lead them with disdainful vivacity to doing +so. She was the talk, and, it must be admitted, the scandal, of the +county by the day she was fifteen. The part wherein she lived was a +boisterous hunting shire where there were wide ditches and high hedges to +leap, and rough hills and moors to gallop over, and within the region +neither polite life nor polite education were much thought of; but even +in the worst portions of it there were occasional virtuous matrons who +shook their heads with much gravity and wonder over the beautiful +Mistress Clorinda. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--Lord Twemlow's chaplain visits his patron's kinsman, and +Mistress Clorinda shines on her birthday night + + +Uncivilised and almost savage as her girlish life was, and unregulated by +any outward training as was her mind, there were none who came in contact +with her who could be blind to a certain strong, clear wit, and +unconquerableness of purpose, for which she was remarkable. She ever +knew full well what she desired to gain or to avoid, and once having +fixed her mind upon any object, she showed an adroitness and brilliancy +of resource, a control of herself and others, the which there was no +circumventing. She never made a blunder because she could not control +the expression of her emotions; and when she gave way to a passion, 'twas +because she chose to do so, having naught to lose, and in the midst of +all their riotous jesting with her the boon companions of Sir Jeoffry +knew this. + +"Had she a secret to keep, child though she is," said Eldershawe, "there +is none--man or woman--who could scare or surprise it from her; and 'tis +a strange quality to note so early in a female creature." + +She spent her days with her father and his dissolute friends, treated +half like a boy, half a fantastical queen, until she was fourteen. She +hunted and coursed, shot birds, leaped hedges and ditches, reigned at the +riotous feastings, and coquetted with these mature, and in some cases +elderly, men, as if she looked forward to doing naught else all her life. + +But one day, after she had gone out hunting with her father, riding Rake, +who had been given to her, and wearing her scarlet coat, breeches, and +top-boots, one of the few remaining members of her mother's family sent +his chaplain to remonstrate and advise her father to command her to +forbear from appearing in such impudent attire. + +There was, indeed, a stirring scene when this message was delivered by +its bearer. The chaplain was an awkward, timid creature, who had heard +stories enough of Wildairs Hall and its master to undertake his mission +with a quaking soul. To have refused to obey any behest of his patron +would have cost him his living, and knowing this beyond a doubt, he was +forced to gird up his loins and gather together all the little courage he +could muster to beard the lion in his den. + +The first thing he beheld on entering the big hall was a beautiful tall +youth wearing his own rich black hair, and dressed in scarlet coat for +hunting. He was playing with a dog, making it leap over his crop, and +both laughing and swearing at its clumsiness. He glanced at the chaplain +with a laughing, brilliant eye, returning the poor man's humble bow with +a slight nod as he plainly hearkened to what he said as he explained his +errand. + +"I come from my Lord Twemlow, who is your master's kinsman," the chaplain +faltered; "I am bidden to see and speak to him if it be possible, and his +lordship much desires that Sir Jeoffry will allow it to be so. My Lord +Twemlow--" + +The beautiful youth left his playing with the dog and came forward with +all the air of the young master of the house. + +"My Lord Twemlow sends you?" he said. "'Tis long since his lordship +favoured us with messages. Where is Sir Jeoffry, Lovatt?" + +"In the dining-hall," answered the servant. "He went there but a moment +past, Mistress." + +The chaplain gave such a start as made him drop his shovel hat. +"Mistress!" And this was she--this fine young creature who was tall and +grandly enough built and knit to seem a radiant being even when clad in +masculine attire. He picked up his hat and bowed so low that it almost +swept the floor in his obeisance. He was not used to female beauty which +deigned to cast great smiling eyes upon him, for at my Lord Twemlow's +table he sat so far below the salt that women looked not his way. + +This beauty looked at him as if she was amused at the thought of +something in her own mind. He wondered tremblingly if she guessed what +he came for and knew how her father would receive it. + +"Come with me," she said; "I will take you to him. He would not see you +if I did not. He does not love his lordship tenderly enough." + +She led the way, holding her head jauntily and high, while he cast down +his eyes lest his gaze should be led to wander in a way unseemly in one +of his cloth. Such a foot and such--! He felt it more becoming and +safer to lift his eyes to the ceiling and keep them there, which gave him +somewhat the aspect of one praying. + +Sir Jeoffry stood at the buffet with a flagon of ale in his hand, taking +his stirrup cup. At the sight of a stranger and one attired in the garb +of a chaplain, he scowled surprisedly. + +"What's this?" quoth he. "What dost want, Clo? I have no leisure for a +sermon." + +Mistress Clorinda went to the buffet and filled a tankard for herself and +carried it back to the table, on the edge of which she half sat, with one +leg bent, one foot resting on the floor. + +"Time thou wilt have to take, Dad," she said, with an arch grin, showing +two rows of gleaming pearls. "This gentleman is my Lord Twemlow's +chaplain, whom he sends to exhort you, requesting you to have the +civility to hear him." + +"Exhort be damned, and Twemlow be damned too!" cried Sir Jeoffry, who had +a great quarrel with his lordship and hated him bitterly. "What does the +canting fool mean?" + +"Sir," faltered the poor message-bearer, "his lordship hath--hath been +concerned--having heard--" + +The handsome creature balanced against the table took the tankard from +her lips and laughed. + +"Having heard thy daughter rides to field in breeches, and is an unseemly- +behaving wench," she cried, "his lordship sends his chaplain to deliver a +discourse thereon--not choosing to come himself. Is not that thy errand, +reverend sir?" + +The chaplain, poor man, turned pale, having caught, as she spoke, a +glimpse of Sir Jeoffry's reddening visage. + +"Madam," he faltered, bowing--"Madam, I ask pardon of you most humbly! If +it were your pleasure to deign to--to--allow me--" + +She set the tankard on the table with a rollicking smack, and thrust her +hands in her breeches-pockets, swaying with laughter; and, indeed, 'twas +ringing music, her rich great laugh, which, when she grew of riper years, +was much lauded and written verses on by her numerous swains. + +"If 'twere my pleasure to go away and allow you to speak, free from the +awkwardness of a young lady's presence," she said. "But 'tis not, as it +happens, and if I stay here, I shall be a protection." + +In truth, he required one. Sir Jeoffry broke into a torrent of +blasphemy. He damned both kinsman and chaplain, and raged at the +impudence of both in daring to approach him, swearing to horsewhip my +lord if they ever met, and to have the chaplain kicked out of the house, +and beyond the park gates themselves. But Mistress Clorinda chose to +make it her whim to take it in better humour, and as a joke with a fine +point to it. She laughed at her father's storming, and while the +chaplain quailed before it with pallid countenance and fairly hang-dog +look, she seemed to find it but a cause for outbursts of merriment. + +"Hold thy tongue a bit, Dad," she cried, when he had reached his loudest, +"and let his reverence tell us what his message is. We have not even +heard it." + +"Want not to hear it!" shouted Sir Jeoffry. "Dost think I'll stand his +impudence? Not I!" + +"What was your message?" demanded the young lady of the chaplain. "You +cannot return without delivering it. Tell it to me. _I_ choose it shall +be told." + +The chaplain clutched and fumbled with his hat, pale, and dropping his +eyes upon the floor, for very fear. + +"Pluck up thy courage, man," said Clorinda. "I will uphold thee. The +message?" + +"Your pardon, Madam--'twas this," the chaplain faltered. "My lord +commanded me to warn your honoured father--that if he did not beg you to +leave off wearing--wearing--" + +"Breeches," said Mistress Clorinda, slapping her knee. + +The chaplain blushed with modesty, though he was a man of sallow +countenance. + +"No gentleman," he went on, going more lamely at each +word--"notwithstanding your great beauty--no gentleman--" + +"Would marry me?" the young lady ended for him, with merciful +good-humour. + +"For if you--if a young lady be permitted to bear herself in such a +manner as will cause her to be held lightly, she can make no match that +will not be a dishonour to her family--and--and--" + +"And may do worse!" quoth Mistress Clo, and laughed until the room rang. + +Sir Jeoffry's rage was such as made him like to burst; but she restrained +him when he would have flung his tankard at the chaplain's head, and amid +his storm of curses bundled the poor man out of the room, picking up his +hat which in his hurry and fright he let fall, and thrusting it into his +hand. + +"Tell his lordship," she said, laughing still as she spoke the final +words, "that I say he is right--and I will see to it that no disgrace +befalls him." + +"Forsooth, Dad," she said, returning, "perhaps the old son of +a--"--something unmannerly--"is not so great a fool. As for me, I mean +to make a fine marriage and be a great lady, and I know of none +hereabouts to suit me but the old Earl of Dunstanwolde, and 'tis said he +rates at all but modest women, and, in faith, he might not find breeches +mannerly. I will not hunt in them again." + +She did not, though once or twice when she was in a wild mood, and her +father entertained at dinner those of his companions whom she was the +most inclined to, she swaggered in among them in her daintiest suits of +male attire, and caused their wine-shot eyes to gloat over her boyish- +maiden charms and jaunty airs and graces. + +On the night of her fifteenth birthday Sir Jeoffry gave a great dinner to +his boon companions and hers. She had herself commanded that there +should be no ladies at the feast; for she chose to announce that she +should appear at no more such, having the wit to see that she was too +tall a young lady for childish follies, and that she had now arrived at +an age when her market must be made. + +"I shall have women enough henceforth to be dull with," she said. "Thou +art but a poor match-maker, Dad, or wouldst have thought of it for me. +But not once has it come into thy pate that I have no mother to angle in +my cause and teach me how to cast sheep's eyes at bachelors. Long-tailed +petticoats from this time for me, and hoops and patches, and ogling over +fans--until at last, if I play my cards well, some great lord will look +my way and be taken by my shape and my manners." + +"With thy shape, Clo, God knows every man will," laughed Sir Jeoffry, +"but I fear me not with thy manners. Thou hast the manners of a baggage, +and they are second nature to thee." + +"They are what I was born with," answered Mistress Clorinda. "They came +from him that begot me, and he has not since improved them. But +now"--making a great sweeping curtsey, her impudent bright beauty almost +dazzling his eyes--"now, after my birth-night, they will be bettered; but +this one night I will have my last fling." + +When the men trooped into the black oak wainscotted dining-hall on the +eventful night, they found their audacious young hostess awaiting them in +greater and more daring beauty than they had ever before beheld. She +wore knee-breeches of white satin, a pink satin coat embroidered with +silver roses, white silk stockings, and shoes with great buckles of +brilliants, revealing a leg so round and strong and delicately moulded, +and a foot so arched and slender, as surely never before, they swore one +and all, woman had had to display. She met them standing jauntily +astride upon the hearth, her back to the fire, and she greeted each one +as he came with some pretty impudence. Her hair was tied back and +powdered, her black eyes were like lodestars, drawing all men, and her +colour was that of a ripe pomegranate. She had a fine, haughty little +Roman nose, a mouth like a scarlet bow, a wonderful long throat, and +round cleft chin. A dazzling mien indeed she possessed, and ready enough +she was to shine before them. Sir Jeoffry was now elderly, having been a +man of forty when united to his conjugal companion. Most of his friends +were of his own age, so that it had not been with unripe youth Mistress +Clorinda had been in the habit of consorting. But upon this night a +newcomer was among the guests. He was a young relation of one of the +older men, and having come to his kinsman's house upon a visit, and +having proved himself, in spite of his youth, to be a young fellow of +humour, high courage in the hunting-field, and by no means averse either +to entering upon or discussing intrigue and gallant adventure, had made +himself something of a favourite. His youthful beauty for a man almost +equalled that of Mistress Clorinda herself. He had an elegant, fine +shape, of great strength and vigour, his countenance was delicately ruddy +and handsomely featured, his curling fair hair flowed loose upon his +shoulders, and, though masculine in mould, his ankle was as slender and +his buckled shoe as arched as her own. + +He was, it is true, twenty-four years of age and a man, while she was but +fifteen and a woman, but being so tall and built with such unusual vigour +of symmetry, she was a beauteous match for him, and both being attired in +fashionable masculine habit, these two pretty young fellows standing +smiling saucily at each other were a charming, though singular, +spectacle. + +This young man was already well known in the modish world of town for his +beauty and adventurous spirit. He was indeed already a beau and +conqueror of female hearts. It was suspected that he cherished a private +ambition to set the modes in beauties and embroidered waistcoats himself +in time, and be as renowned abroad and as much the town talk as certain +other celebrated beaux had been before him. The art of ogling tenderly +and of uttering soft nothings he had learned during his first season in +town, and as he had a great melting blue eye, the figure of an Adonis, +and a white and shapely hand for a ring, he was well equipped for +conquest. He had darted many an inflaming glance at Mistress Clorinda +before the first meats were removed. Even in London he had heard a vague +rumour of this handsome young woman, bred among her father's dogs, +horses, and boon companions, and ripening into a beauty likely to make +town faces pale. He had almost fallen into the spleen on hearing that +she had left her boy's clothes and vowed she would wear them no more, as +above all things he had desired to see how she carried them and what +charms they revealed. On hearing from his host and kinsman that she had +said that on her birth-night she would bid them farewell for ever by +donning them for the last time, he was consumed with eagerness to obtain +an invitation. This his kinsman besought for him, and, behold! the first +glance the beauty shot at him pierced his inflammable bosom like a dart. +Never before had it been his fortune to behold female charms so dazzling +and eyes of such lustre and young majesty. The lovely baggage had a +saucy way of standing with her white jewelled hands in her pockets like a +pretty fop, and throwing up her little head like a modish beauty who was +of royal blood; and these two tricks alone, he felt, might have set on +fire the heart of a man years older and colder than himself. + +If she had been of the order of soft-natured charmers, they would have +fallen into each other's eyes before the wine was changed; but this +Mistress Clorinda was not. She did not fear to meet the full battery of +his enamoured glances, but she did not choose to return them. She played +her part of the pretty young fellow who was a high-spirited beauty, with +more of wit and fire than she had ever played it before. The rollicking +hunting-squires, who had been her play-fellows so long, devoured her with +their delighted glances and roared with laughter at her sallies. Their +jokes and flatteries were not of the most seemly, but she had not been +bred to seemliness and modesty, and was no more ignorant than if she had +been, in sooth, some gay young springald of a lad. To her it was part of +the entertainment that upon this last night they conducted themselves as +beseemed her boyish masquerading. Though country-bred, she had lived +among companions who were men of the world and lived without restraints, +and she had so far learned from them that at fifteen years old she was as +worldly and as familiar with the devices of intrigue as she would be at +forty. So far she had not been pushed to practising them, her singular +life having thrown her among few of her own age, and those had chanced to +be of a sort she disdainfully counted as country bumpkins. + +But the young gallant introduced to-night into the world she lived in was +no bumpkin, and was a dandy of the town. His name was Sir John Oxon, and +he had just come into his title and a pretty property. His hands were as +white and bejewelled as her own, his habit was of the latest fashionable +cut, and his fair flowing locks scattered a delicate French perfume she +did not even know the name of. + +But though she observed all these attractions and found them powerful, +young Sir John remarked, with a slight sinking qualm, that her great eye +did not fall before his amorous glances, but met them with high smiling +readiness, and her colour never blanched or heightened a whit for all +their masterly skilfulness. But he had sworn to himself that he would +approach close enough to her to fire off some fine speech before the +night was ended, and he endeavoured to bear himself with at least an +outward air of patience until he beheld his opportunity. + +When the last dish was removed and bottles and bumpers stood upon the +board, she sprang up on her chair and stood before them all, smiling down +the long table with eyes like flashing jewels. Her hands were thrust in +her pockets--with her pretty young fop's air, and she drew herself to her +full comely height, her beauteous lithe limbs and slender feet set +smartly together. Twenty pairs of masculine eyes were turned upon her +beauty, but none so ardently as the young one's across the table. + +"Look your last on my fine shape," she proclaimed in her high, rich +voice. "You will see but little of the lower part of it when it is hid +in farthingales and petticoats. Look your last before I go to don my +fine lady's furbelows." + +And when they filled their glasses and lifted them and shouted admiring +jests to her, she broke into one of her stable-boy songs, and sang it in +the voice of a skylark. + +No man among them was used to showing her the courtesies of polite +breeding. She had been too long a boy to them for that to have entered +any mind, and when she finished her song, sprang down, and made for the +door, Sir John beheld his long-looked-for chance, and was there before +her to open it with a great bow, made with his hand upon his heart and +his fair locks falling. + +"You rob us of the rapture of beholding great beauties, Madam," he said +in a low, impassioned voice. "But there should be indeed but _one_ happy +man whose bliss it is to gaze upon such perfections." + +"I am fifteen years old to-night," she answered; "and as yet I have not +set eyes upon him." + +"How do you know that, madam?" he said, bowing lower still. + +She laughed her great rich laugh. + +"Forsooth, I do not know," she retorted. "He may be here this very night +among this company; and as it might be so, I go to don my modesty." + +And she bestowed on him a parting shot in the shape of one of her +prettiest young fop waves of the hand, and was gone from him. + +* * * * * + +When the door closed behind her and Sir John Oxon returned to the table, +for a while a sort of dulness fell upon the party. Not being of quick +minds or sentiments, these country roisterers failed to understand the +heavy cloud of spleen and lack of spirit they experienced, and as they +filled their glasses and tossed off one bumper after another to cure it, +they soon began again to laugh and fell into boisterous joking. + +They talked mostly, indeed, of their young playfellow, of whom they felt, +in some indistinct manner, they were to be bereft; they rallied Sir +Jeoffry, told stories of her childhood and made pictures of her budding +beauties, comparing them with those of young ladies who were celebrated +toasts. + +"She will sail among them like a royal frigate," said one; "and they will +pale before her lustre as a tallow dip does before an illumination." + +The clock struck twelve before she returned to them. Just as the last +stroke sounded the door was thrown open, and there she stood, a woman on +each side of her, holding a large silver candelabra bright with wax +tapers high above her, so that she was in a flood of light. + +She was attired in rich brocade of crimson and silver, and wore a great +hooped petticoat, which showed off her grandeur, her waist of no more +bigness than a man's hands could clasp, set in its midst like the stem of +a flower; her black hair was rolled high and circled with jewels, her +fair long throat blazed with a collar of diamonds, and the majesty of her +eye and lip and brow made up a mien so dazzling that every man sprang to +his feet beholding her. + +She made a sweeping obeisance and then stood up before them, her head +thrown back and her lips curving in the triumphant mocking smile of a +great beauty looking upon them all as vassals. + +"Down upon your knees," she cried, "and drink to me kneeling. From this +night all men must bend so--all men on whom I deign to cast my eyes." + + + + +CHAPTER V--"Not I," said she. "There thou mayst trust me. I would not +be found out." + + +She went no more a-hunting in boy's clothes, but from this time forward +wore brocades and paduasoys, fine lawn and lace. Her tirewoman was kept +so busily engaged upon making rich habits, fragrant waters and essences, +and so running at her bidding to change her gown or dress her head in +some new fashion, that her life was made to her a weighty burden to bear, +and also a painful one. Her place had before been an easy one but for +her mistress's choleric temper, but it was so no more. Never had young +lady been so exacting and so tempestuous when not pleased with the +adorning of her face and shape. In the presence of polite strangers, +whether ladies or gentlemen, Mistress Clorinda in these days chose to +chasten her language and give less rein to her fantastical passions, but +alone in her closet with her woman, if a riband did but not suit her +fancy, or a hoop not please, she did not fear to be as scurrilous as she +chose. In this discreet retirement she rapped out oaths and boxed her +woman's ears with a vigorous hand, tore off her gowns and stamped them +beneath her feet, or flung pots of pomade at the poor woman's head. She +took these freedoms with such a readiness and spirit that she was served +with a despatch and humbleness scarcely to be equalled, and, it is +certain, never excelled. + +The high courage and undaunted will which had been the engines she had +used to gain her will from her infant years aided her in these days to +carry out what her keen mind and woman's wit had designed, which was to +take the county by storm with her beauty, and reign toast and enslaver +until such time as she won the prize of a husband of rich estates and +notable rank. + +It was soon bruited abroad, to the amazement of the county, that Mistress +Clorinda Wildairs had changed her strange and unseemly habits of life, +and had become as much a young lady of fashion and breeding as her birth +and charm demanded. This was first made known by her appearing one +Sunday morning at church, accompanied--as though attended with a retinue +of servitors--by Mistress Wimpole and her two sisters, whose plain faces, +awkward shape, and still more awkward attire were such a foil to her +glowing loveliness as set it in high relief. It was seldom that the +coach from Wildairs Hall drew up before the lych-gate, but upon rare +Sunday mornings Mistress Wimpole and her two charges contrived, if Sir +Jeoffry was not in an ill-humour and the coachman was complaisant, to be +driven to service. Usually, however, they trudged afoot, and, if the day +chanced to be sultry, arrived with their snub-nosed faces of a high and +shiny colour, or if the country roads were wet, with their petticoats +bemired. + +This morning, when the coach drew up, the horses were well groomed, the +coachman smartly dressed, and a footman was in attendance, who sprang to +earth and opened the door with a flourish. + +The loiterers in the churchyard, and those who were approaching the gate +or passing towards the church porch, stared with eyes wide stretched in +wonder and incredulity. Never had such a thing before been beheld or +heard of as what they now saw in broad daylight. + +Mistress Clorinda, clad in highest town fashion, in brocades and silver +lace and splendid furbelows, stepped forth from the chariot with the air +of a queen. She had the majestic composure of a young lady who had worn +nothing less modish than such raiment all her life, and who had prayed +decorously beneath her neighbours' eyes since she had left her nurse's +care. + +Her sisters and their governess looked timorous, and as if they knew not +where to cast their eyes for shamefacedness; but not so Mistress +Clorinda, who moved forward with a stately, swimming gait, her fine head +in the air. As she stepped into the porch a young gentleman drew back +and made a profound obeisance to her. She cast her eyes upon him and +returned it with a grace and condescension which struck the beholders +dumb with admiring awe. To some of the people of a commoner sort he was +a stranger, but all connected with the gentry knew he was Sir John Oxon, +who was staying at Eldershawe Park with his relative, whose estate it +was. + +How Mistress Clorinda contrived to manage it no one was aware but +herself, but after a few appearances at church she appeared at other +places. She was seen at dinners at fine houses, and began to be seen at +routs and balls. Where she was seen she shone, and with such radiance as +caused matchmaking matrons great dismay, and their daughters woeful +qualms. Once having shone, she could not be extinguished or hidden under +a bushel; for, being of rank and highly connected through mother as well +as father, and playing her cards with great wit and skill, she could not +be thrust aside. + +At her first hunt ball she set aflame every male breast in the shire, +unmasking such a battery of charms as no man could withstand the fire of. +Her dazzling eye, her wondrous shape, the rich music of her laugh, and +the mocking wit of her sharp saucy tongue were weapons to have armed a +dozen women, and she was but one, and in the first rich tempting glow of +blooming youth. + +She turned more heads and caused more quarrels than she could have +counted had she sat up half the night. She went to her coach with her +father followed by a dozen gallants, each ready to spit the other for a +smile. Her smiles were wondrous, but there seemed always a touch of +mockery or disdain in them which made them more remembered than if they +had been softer. + +One man there was, who perchance found something in her high glance not +wholly scornful, but he was used to soft treatment from women, and had, +in sooth, expected milder glances than were bestowed upon him. This was +young Sir John Oxon, who had found himself among the fair sex that night +as great a beau as she had been a belle; but two dances he had won from +her, and this was more than any other man could boast, and what other +gallants envied him with darkest hatred. + +Sir Jeoffry, who had watched her as she queened it amongst rakes and fops +and honest country squires and knights, had marked the vigour with which +they plied her with an emotion which was a new sensation to his drink- +bemuddled brain. So far as it was in his nature to love another than +himself, he had learned to love this young lovely virago of his own flesh +and blood, perchance because she was the only creature who had never +quailed before him, and had always known how to bend him to her will. + +When the chariot rode away, he looked at her as she sat erect in the +early morning light, as unblenching, bright, and untouched in bloom as if +she had that moment risen from her pillow and washed her face in dew. He +was not so drunk as he had been at midnight, but he was a little maudlin. + +"By God, thou art handsome, Clo!" he said. "By God, I never saw a finer +woman!" + +"Nor I," she answered back, "which I thank Heaven for." + +"Thou pretty, brazen baggage," her father laughed. "Old Dunstanwolde +looked thee well over to-night. He never looked away from the moment he +clapped eyes on thee." + +"That I knew better than thee, Dad," said the beauty; "and I saw that he +could not have done it if he had tried. If there comes no richer, +younger great gentleman, he shall marry me." + +"Thou hast a sharp eye and a keen wit," said Sir Jeoffry, looking askance +at her with a new maggot in his brain. "Wouldst never play the fool, I +warrant. They will press thee hard and 'twill be hard to withstand their +love-making, but I shall never have to mount and ride off with pistols in +my holsters to bring back a man and make him marry thee, as Chris Crowell +had to do for his youngest wench. Thou wouldst never play the fool, I +warrant--wouldst thou, Clo?" + +She tossed her head and laughed like a young scornful devil, showing her +white pearl teeth between her lips' scarlet. + +"Not I," she said. "There thou mayst trust me. _I_ would not be found +out." + +She played her part as triumphant beauty so successfully that the +cleverest managing mother in the universe could not have bettered her +position. Gallants brawled for her; honest men fell at her feet; +romantic swains wrote verses to her, praising her eyes, her delicate +bosom, the carnation of her cheek, and the awful majesty of her mien. In +every revel she was queen, in every contest of beauties Venus, in every +spectacle of triumph empress of them all. + +The Earl of Dunstanwolde, who had the oldest name and the richest estates +in his own county and the six adjoining ones, who, having made a love- +match in his prime, and lost wife and heir but a year after his nuptials, +had been the despair of every maid and mother who knew him, because he +would not be melted to a marriageable mood. After the hunt ball this +mourning nobleman, who was by this time of ripe years, had appeared in +the world again as he had not done for many years. Before many months +had elapsed, it was known that his admiration of the new beauty was +confessed, and it was believed that he but waited further knowledge of +her to advance to the point of laying his title and estates at her feet. + +But though, two years before, the entire county would have rated low +indeed the wit and foresight of the man who had even hinted the +possibility of such honour and good fortune being in prospect for the +young lady, so great was Mistress Clorinda's brilliant and noble beauty, +and with such majesty she bore herself in these times, that there were +even those who doubted whether she would think my lord a rich enough +prize for her, and if, when he fell upon his knees, she would deign to +become his countess, feeling that she had such splendid wares to dispose +of as might be bartered for a duke, when she went to town and to court. + +During the length of more than one man's lifetime after, the reign of +Mistress Clorinda Wildairs was a memory recalled over the bottle at the +dining-table among men, some of whom had but heard their fathers vaunt +her beauties. It seemed as if in her person there was not a single flaw, +or indeed a charm, which had not reached the highest point of beauty. For +shape she might have vied with young Diana, mounted side by side with her +upon a pedestal; her raven locks were of a length and luxuriance to +clothe her as a garment, her great eye commanded and flashed as Juno's +might have done in the goddess's divinest moments of lovely pride, and +though it was said none ever saw it languish, each man who adored her was +maddened by the secret belief that Venus' self could not so melt in love +as she if she would stoop to loving--as each one prayed she +might--himself. Her hands and feet, her neck, the slimness of her waist, +her mantling crimson and ivory white, her little ear, her scarlet lip, +the pearls between them and her long white throat, were perfection each +and all, and catalogued with oaths of rapture. + +"She hath such beauties," one admirer said, "that a man must toast them +all and cannot drink to her as to a single woman. And she hath so many +that to slight none her servant must go from the table reeling." + +There was but one thing connected with her which was not a weapon to her +hand, and this was, that she was not a fortune. Sir Jeoffry had drunk +and rioted until he had but little left. He had cut his timber and let +his estate go to rack, having, indeed, no money to keep it up. The great +Hall, which had once been a fine old place, was almost a ruin. Its +carved oak and noble rooms and galleries were all of its past splendours +that remained. All had been sold that could be sold, and all the outcome +had been spent. The county, indeed, wondered where Mistress Clorinda's +fine clothes came from, and knew full well why she was not taken to court +to kneel to the Queen. That she was waiting for this to make her match, +the envious were quite sure, and did not hesitate to whisper pretty +loudly. + +The name of one man of rank and fortune after another was spoken of as +that of a suitor to her hand, but in some way it was discovered that she +refused them all. It was also known that they continued to worship her, +and that at any moment she could call even the best among them back. It +seemed that, while all the men were enamoured of her, there was not one +who could cure himself of his passion, however hopeless it might be. + +Her wit was as great as her beauty, and she had a spirit before which no +man could stand if she chose to be disdainful. To some she was so, and +had the whim to flout them with great brilliancy. Encounters with her +were always remembered, and if heard by those not concerned, were +considered worthy both of recollection and of being repeated to the +world; she had a tongue so nimble and a wit so full of fire. + +Young Sir John Oxon's visit to his relative at Eldershawe being at an +end, he returned to town, and remaining there through a few weeks of +fashionable gaiety, won new reputations as a triumpher over the female +heart. He made some renowned conquests and set the mode in some new +essences and sword-knots. But even these triumphs appeared to pall upon +him shortly, since he deserted the town and returned again to the +country, where, on this occasion, he did not stay with his relative, but +with Sir Jeoffry himself, who had taken a boisterous fancy to him. + +It had been much marked since the altered life of Mistress Clorinda that +she, who had previously defied all rules laid down on behaviour for young +ladies, and had been thought to do so because she knew none of them, now +proved that her wild fashion had been but wilfulness, since it was seen +that she must have observed and marked manners with the best. There +seemed no decorum she did not know how to observe with the most natural +grace. It was, indeed, all grace and majesty, there being no suggestion +of the prude about her, but rather the manner of a young lady having been +born with pride and stateliness, and most carefully bred. This was the +result of her wondrous wit, the highness of her talents, and the strength +of her will, which was of such power that she could carry out without +fail anything she chose to undertake. There are some women who have +beauty, and some who have wit or vigour of understanding, but she +possessed all three, and with them such courage and strength of nerve as +would have well equipped a man. + +Quick as her wit was and ready as were her brilliant quips and sallies, +there was no levity in her demeanour, and she kept Mistress Margery +Wimpole in discreet attendance upon her, as if she had been the daughter +of a Spanish Hidalgo, never to be approached except in the presence of +her duenna. Poor Mistress Margery, finding her old fears removed, was +overpowered with new ones. She had no lawlessness or hoyden manners to +contend with, but instead a haughtiness so high and demands so great that +her powers could scarcely satisfy the one or her spirit stand up before +the other. + +"It is as if one were lady-in-waiting to her Majesty's self," she used to +whimper when she was alone and dare do so. "Surely the Queen has not +such a will and such a temper. She will have me toil to look worthy of +her in my habit, and bear myself like a duchess in dignity. Alack! I +have practised my obeisance by the hour to perfect it, so that I may +escape her wrath. And I must know how to look, and when and where to +sit, and with what air of being near at hand, while I must see nothing! +And I must drag my failing limbs hither and thither with genteel ease +while I ache from head to foot, being neither young nor strong." + +The poor lady was so overawed by, and yet so admired, her charge, that it +was piteous to behold. + +"She is an arrant fool," quoth Mistress Clorinda to her father. "A nice +duenna she would be, forsooth, if she were with a woman who needed +watching. She could be hoodwinked as it pleased me a dozen times a day. +It is I who am her guard, not she mine! But a beauty must drag some spy +about with her, it seems, and she I can make to obey me like a spaniel. +We can afford no better, and she is well born, and since I bought her the +purple paduasoy and the new lappets she has looked well enough to serve." + +"Dunstanwolde need not fear for thee now," said Sir Jeoffry. "Thou art a +clever and foreseeing wench, Clo." + +"Dunstanwolde nor any man!" she answered. "There will be no gossip of +me. It is Anne and Barbara thou must look to, Dad, lest their plain +faces lead them to show soft hearts. My face is my fortune!" + +When Sir John Oxon paid his visit to Sir Jeoffry the days of Mistress +Margery were filled with carking care. The night before he arrived, +Mistress Clorinda called her to her closet and laid upon her her commands +in her own high way. She was under her woman's hands, and while her +great mantle of black hair fell over the back of her chair and lay on the +floor, her tirewoman passing the brush over it, lock by lock, she was at +her greatest beauty. Either she had been angered or pleased, for her +cheek wore a bloom even deeper and richer than usual, and there was a +spark like a diamond under the fringe of her lashes. + +At her first timorous glance at her, Mistress Margery thought she must +have been angered, the spark so burned in her eyes, and so evident was +the light but quick heave of her bosom; but the next moment it seemed as +if she must be in a pleasant humour, for a little smile deepened the +dimples in the corner of her bowed, full lips. But quickly she looked up +and resumed her stately air. + +"This gentleman who comes to visit to-morrow," she said, "Sir John +Oxon--do you know aught of him?" + +"But little, Madame," Mistress Margery answered with fear and humility. + +"Then it will be well that you should, since I have commands to lay upon +you concerning him," said the beauty. + +"You do me honour," said the poor gentlewoman. + +Mistress Clorinda looked her straight in the face. + +"He is a gentleman from town, the kinsman of Lord Eldershawe," she said. +"He is a handsome man, concerning whom many women have been fools. He +chooses to allow it to be said that he is a conqueror of female hearts +and virtue, even among women of fashion and rank. If this be said in the +town, what may not be said in the country? He shall wear no such graces +here. He chooses to pay his court to me. He is my father's guest and a +man of fashion. Let him make as many fine speeches as he has the will +to. I will listen or not as I choose. I am used to words. But see that +we are not left alone." + +The tirewoman pricked up her ears. Clorinda saw her in the glass. + +"Attend to thy business if thou dost not want a box o' the ear," she said +in a tone which made the woman start. + +"You would not be left alone with the gentleman, Madam?" faltered +Mistress Margery. + +"If he comes to boast of conquests," said Mistress Clorinda, looking at +her straight again and drawing down her black brows, "I will play as +cleverly as he. He cannot boast greatly of one whom he never makes his +court to but in the presence of a kinswoman of ripe years. Understand +that this is to be your task." + +"I will remember," Madam, answered Mistress Margery. "I will bear myself +as you command." + +"That is well," said Mistress Clorinda. "I will keep you no more. You +may go." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--Relating how Mistress Anne discovered a miniature + + +The good gentlewoman took her leave gladly. She had spent a life in +timid fears of such things and persons as were not formed by Nature to +excite them, but never had she experienced such humble terrors as those +with which Mistress Clorinda inspired her. Never did she approach her +without inward tremor, and never did she receive permission to depart +from her presence without relief. And yet her beauty and wit and spirit +had no admirer regarding them with more of wondering awe. + +In the bare west wing of the house, comfortless though the neglect of its +master had made it, there was one corner where she was unafraid. Her +first charges, Mistress Barbara and Mistress Anne, were young ladies of +gentle spirit. Their sister had said of them that their spirit was as +poor as their looks. It could not be said of them by any one that they +had any pretension to beauty, but that which Mistress Clorinda rated at +as poor spirit was the one element of comfort in their poor dependent +kinswoman's life. They gave her no ill words, they indulged in no +fantastical whims and vapours, and they did not even seem to expect other +entertainment than to walk the country roads, to play with their little +lap-dog Cupid, wind silks for their needlework, and please themselves +with their embroidery-frames. + +To them their sister appeared a goddess whom it would be presumptuous to +approach in any frame of mind quite ordinary. Her beauty must be +heightened by rich adornments, while their plain looks were left without +the poorest aid. It seemed but fitting that what there was to spend must +be spent on her. They showed no signs of resentment, and took with +gratitude such cast-off finery as she deigned at times to bestow upon +them, when it was no longer useful to herself. She was too full of the +occupations of pleasure to have had time to notice them, even if her +nature had inclined her to the observance of family affections. It was +their habit, when they knew of her going out in state, to watch her +incoming and outgoing through a peep-hole in a chamber window. Mistress +Margery told them stories of her admirers and of her triumphs, of the +county gentlemen of fortune who had offered themselves to her, and of the +modes of life in town of the handsome Sir John Oxon, who, without doubt, +was of the circle of her admiring attendants, if he had not fallen +totally her victim, as others had. + +Of the two young women, it was Mistress Anne who had the more parts, and +the attraction of the mind the least dull. In sooth, Nature had dealt +with both in a niggardly fashion, but Mistress Barbara was the plainer +and the more foolish. Mistress Anne had, perchance, the tenderer +feelings, and was in secret given to a certain sentimentality. She was +thin and stooping, and had but a muddy complexion; her hair was heavy, it +is true, but its thickness and weight seemed naught but an ungrateful +burden; and she had a dull, soft eye. In private she was fond of reading +such romances as she could procure by stealth from the library of books +gathered together in past times by some ancestor Sir Jeoffry regarded as +an idiot. Doubtless she met with strange reading in the volumes she took +to her closet, and her simple virgin mind found cause for the solving of +many problems; but from the pages she contrived to cull stories of lordly +lovers and cruel or kind beauties, whose romances created for her a +strange world of pleasure in the midst of her loneliness. Poor, +neglected young female, with every guileless maiden instinct withered at +birth, she had need of some tender dreams to dwell upon, though Fate +herself seemed to have decreed that they must be no more than visions. + +It was, in sooth, always the beauteous Clorinda about whose charms she +builded her romances. In her great power she saw that for which knights +fought in tourney and great kings committed royal sins, and to her +splendid beauty she had in secrecy felt that all might be forgiven. She +cherished such fancies of her, that one morning, when she believed her +absent from the house, she stole into the corridor upon which Clorinda's +apartment opened. Her first timid thought had been, that if a chamber +door were opened she might catch a glimpse of some of the splendours her +sister's woman was surely laying out for her wearing at a birth-night +ball, at the house of one of the gentry of the neighbourhood. But it so +happened that she really found the door of entrance open, which, indeed, +she had not more than dared to hope, and finding it so, she stayed her +footsteps to gaze with beating heart within. On the great bed, which was +of carved oak and canopied with tattered tapestry, there lay spread such +splendours as she had never beheld near to before. 'Twas blue and silver +brocade Mistress Clorinda was to shine in to-night; it lay spread forth +in all its dimensions. The beautiful bosom and shoulders were to be +bared to the eyes of scores of adorers, but rich lace was to set their +beauties forth, and strings of pearls. Why Sir Jeoffry had not sold his +lady's jewels before he became enamoured of her six-year-old child it +would be hard to explain. There was a great painted fan with jewels in +the sticks, and on the floor--as if peeping forth from beneath the +bravery of the expanded petticoats--was a pair of blue and silver shoes, +high-heeled and arched and slender. In gazing at them Mistress Anne lost +her breath, thinking that in some fashion they had a regal air of being +made to trample hearts beneath them. + +To the gentle, hapless virgin, to whom such possessions were as the +wardrobe of a queen, the temptation to behold them near was too great. +She could not forbear from passing the threshold, and she did with +heaving breast. She approached the bed and gazed; she dared to touch the +scented gloves that lay by the outspread petticoat of blue and silver; +she even laid a trembling finger upon the pointed bodice, which was so +slender that it seemed small enough for even a child. + +"Ah me," she sighed gently, "how beautiful she will be! How beautiful! +And all of them will fall at her feet, as is not to be wondered at. And +it was always so all her life, even when she was an infant, and all gave +her her will because of her beauty and her power. She hath a great +power. Barbara and I are not so. We are dull and weak, and dare not +speak our minds. It is as if we were creatures of another world; but He +who rules all things has so willed it for us. He has given it to us for +our portion--our portion." + +Her dull, poor face dropped a little as she spoke the words, and her eyes +fell upon the beauteous tiny shoes, which seemed to trample even when no +foot was within them. She stooped to take one in her hand, but as she +was about to lift it something which seemed to have been dropped upon the +floor, and to have rolled beneath the valance of the bed, touched her +hand. It was a thing to which a riband was attached--an ivory +miniature--and she picked it up wondering. She stood up gazing at it, in +such bewilderment to find her eyes upon it that she scarce knew what she +did. She did not mean to pry; she would not have had the daring so to do +if she had possessed the inclination. But the instant her eyes told her +what they saw, she started and blushed as she had never blushed before in +her tame life. The warm rose mantled her cheeks, and even suffused the +neck her chaste kerchief hid. Her eye kindled with admiration and an +emotion new to her indeed. + +"How beautiful!" she said. "He is like a young Adonis, and has the +bearing of a royal prince! How can it--by what strange chance hath it +come here?" + +She had not regarded it more than long enough to have uttered these +words, when a fear came upon her, and she felt that she had fallen into +misfortune. + +"What must I do with it?" she trembled. "What will she say, whether she +knows of its being within the chamber or not? She will be angry with me +that I have dared to touch it. What shall I do?" + +She regarded it again with eyes almost suffused. Her blush and the +sensibility of her emotion gave to her plain countenance a new liveliness +of tint and expression. + +"I will put it back where I found it," she said, "and the one who knows +it will find it later. It cannot be she--it cannot be she! If I laid it +on her table she would rate me bitterly--and she can be bitter when she +will." + +She bent and placed it within the shadow of the valance again, and as she +felt it touch the hard oak of the polished floor her bosom rose with a +soft sigh. + +"It is an unseemly thing to do," she said; "'tis as though one were +uncivil; but I dare not--I dare not do otherwise." + +She would have turned to leave the apartment, being much overcome by the +incident, but just as she would have done so she heard the sound of +horses' feet through the window by which she must pass, and looked out to +see if it was Clorinda who was returning from her ride. Mistress +Clorinda was a matchless horsewoman, and a marvel of loveliness and +spirit she looked when she rode, sitting upon a horse such as no other +woman dared to mount--always an animal of the greatest beauty, but of so +dangerous a spirit that her riding-whip was loaded like a man's. + +This time it was not she; and when Mistress Anne beheld the young +gentleman who had drawn rein in the court she started backward and put +her hand to her heart, the blood mantling her pale cheek again in a +flood. But having started back, the next instant she started forward to +gaze again, all her timid soul in her eyes. + +"'Tis he!" she panted; "'tis he himself! He hath come in hope to speak +with my sister, and she is abroad. Poor gentleman, he hath come in such +high spirit, and must ride back heavy of heart. How comely, and how +finely clad he is!" + +He was, in sooth, with his rich riding-habit, his handsome face, his +plumed hat, and the sun shining on the fair luxuriant locks which fell +beneath it. It was Sir John Oxon, and he was habited as when he rode in +the park in town and the court was there. Not so were attired the +country gentry whom Anne had been wont to see, though many of them were +well mounted, knowing horseflesh and naught else, as they did. + +She pressed her cheek against the side of the oriel window, over which +the ivy grew thickly. She was so intent that she could not withdraw her +gaze. She watched him as he turned away, having received his dismissal, +and she pressed her face closer that she might follow him as he rode down +the long avenue of oak-trees, his servant riding behind. + +Thus she bent forward gazing, until he turned and the oaks hid him from +her sight; and even then the spell was not dissolved, and she still +regarded the place where he had passed, until a sound behind her made her +start violently. It was a peal of laughter, high and rich, and when she +so started and turned to see whom it might be, she beheld her sister +Clorinda, who was standing just within the threshold, as if movement had +been arrested by what had met her eye as she came in. Poor Anne put her +hand to her side again. + +"Oh sister!" she gasped; "oh sister!" but could say no more. + +She saw that she had thought falsely, and that Clorinda had not been out +at all, for she was in home attire; and even in the midst of her +trepidation there sprang into Anne's mind the awful thought that through +some servant's blunder the comely young visitor had been sent away. For +herself, she expected but to be driven forth with wrathful, disdainful +words for her presumption. For what else could she hope from this +splendid creature, who, while of her own flesh and blood, had never +seemed to regard her as being more than a poor superfluous underling? But +strangely enough, there was no anger in Clorinda's eyes; she but laughed, +as though what she had seen had made her merry. + +"You here, Anne," she said, "and looking with light-mindedness after +gallant gentlemen! Mistress Margery should see to this and watch more +closely, or we shall have unseemly stories told. _You_, sister, with +your modest face and bashfulness! I had not thought it of you." + +Suddenly she crossed the room to where her sister stood drooping, and +seized her by the shoulder, so that she could look her well in the face. + +"What," she said, with a mocking not quite harsh--"What is this? Does a +glance at a fine gallant, even taken from behind an oriel window, make +such change indeed? I never before saw this look, nor this colour, +forsooth; it hath improved thee wondrously, Anne--wondrously." + +"Sister," faltered Anne, "I so desired to see your birth-night ball-gown, +of which Mistress Margery hath much spoken--I so desired--I thought it +would not matter if, the door being open and it spread forth upon the +bed--I--I stole a look at it. And then I was tempted--and came in." + +"And then was tempted more," Clorinda laughed, still regarding her +downcast countenance shrewdly, "by a thing far less to be resisted--a +fine gentleman from town, with love-locks falling on his shoulders and +ladies' hearts strung at his saddle-bow by scores. Which found you the +most beautiful?" + +"Your gown is splendid, sister," said Anne, with modest shyness. "There +will be no beauty who will wear another like it; or should there be one, +she will not carry it as you will." + +"But the man--the man, Anne," Clorinda laughed again. "What of the man?" + +Anne plucked up just enough of her poor spirit to raise her eyes to the +brilliant ones that mocked at her. + +"With such gentlemen, sister," she said, "is it like that _I_ have aught +to do?" + +Mistress Clorinda dropped her hand and left laughing. + +"'Tis true," she said, "it is not; but for this one time, Anne, thou +lookest almost a woman." + +"'Tis not beauty alone that makes womanhood," said Anne, her head on her +breast again. "In some book I have read that--that it is mostly pain. I +am woman enough for that." + +"You have read--you have read," quoted Clorinda. "You are the bookworm, +I remember, and filch romances and poems from the shelves. And you have +read that it is mostly pain that makes a woman? 'Tis not true. 'Tis a +poor lie. _I_ am a woman and I do not suffer--for I _will_ not, that I +swear! And when I take an oath I keep it, mark you! It is men women +suffer for; that was what your scholar meant--for such fine gentlemen as +the one you have just watched while he rode away. More fools they! No +man shall make _me_ womanly in such a fashion, I promise you! Let _them_ +wince and kneel; _I_ will not." + +"Sister," Anne faltered, "I thought you were not within. The gentleman +who rode away--did the servants know?" + +"That did they," quoth Clorinda, mocking again. "They knew that I would +not receive him to-day, and so sent him away. He might have known as +much himself, but he is an arrant popinjay, and thinks all women wish to +look at his fine shape, and hear him flatter them when he is in the +mood." + +"You would not--let him enter?" + +Clorinda threw her graceful body into a chair with more light laughter. + +"I would not," she answered. "You cannot understand such ingratitude, +poor Anne; you would have treated him more softly. Sit down and talk to +me, and I will show thee my furbelows myself. All women like to chatter +of their laced bodices and petticoats. _That_ is what makes a woman." + +Anne was tremulous with relief and pleasure. It was as if a queen had +bid her to be seated. She sat almost with the humble lack of ease a +serving-woman might have shown. She had never seen Clorinda wear such an +air before, and never had she dreamed that she would so open herself to +any fellow-creature. She knew but little of what her sister was +capable--of the brilliancy of her charm when she chose to condescend, of +the deigning softness of her manner when she chose to please, of her arch- +pleasantries and cutting wit, and of the strange power she could wield +over any human being, gentle or simple, with whom she came in contact. +But if she had not known of these things before, she learned to know them +this morning. For some reason best known to herself, Mistress Clorinda +was in a high good humour. She kept Anne with her for more than an hour, +and was dazzling through every moment of its passing. She showed her the +splendours she was to shine in at the birth-night ball, even bringing +forth her jewels and displaying them. She told her stories of the house +of which the young heir to-day attained his majority, and mocked at the +poor youth because he was ungainly, and at a distance had been her slave +since his nineteenth year. + +"I have scarce looked at him," she said. "He is a lout, with great eyes +staring, and a red nose. It does not need that one should look at men to +win them. They look at us, and that is enough." + +To poor Mistress Anne, who had seen no company and listened to no wits, +the entertainment bestowed upon her was as wonderful as a night at the +playhouse would have been. To watch the vivid changing face; to hearken +to jesting stories of men and women who seemed like the heroes and +heroines of her romances; to hear love itself--the love she trembled and +palpitated at the mere thought of--spoken of openly as an experience +which fell to all; to hear it mocked at with dainty or biting quips; to +learn that women of all ages played with, enjoyed, or lost themselves for +it--it was with her as if a nun had been withdrawn from her cloister and +plunged into the vortex of the world. + +"Sister," she said, looking at the Beauty with humble, adoring eyes, "you +make me feel that my romances are true. You tell such things. It is +like seeing pictures of things to hear you talk. No wonder that all +listen to you, for indeed 'tis wonderful the way you have with words. You +use them so that 'tis as though they had shapes of their own and colours, +and you builded with them. I thank you for being so gracious to me, who +have seen so little, and cannot tell the poor, quiet things I have seen." + +And being led into the loving boldness by her gratitude, she bent forward +and touched with her lips the fair hand resting on the chair's arm. + +Mistress Clorinda fixed her fine eyes upon her in a new way. + +"I' faith, it doth not seem fair, Anne," she said. "I should not like to +change lives with thee. Thou hast eyes like a shot pheasant--soft, and +with the bright hid beneath the dull. Some man might love them, even if +thou art no beauty. Stay," suddenly; "methinks--" + +She uprose from her chair and went to the oaken wardrobe, and threw the +door of it open wide while she looked within. + +"There is a gown and tippet or so here, and a hood and some ribands I +might do without," she said. "My woman shall bear them to your chamber, +and show you how to set them to rights. She is a nimble-fingered +creature, and a gown of mine would give almost stuff enough to make you +two. Then some days, when I am not going abroad and Mistress Margery +frets me too much, I will send for you to sit with me, and you shall +listen to the gossip when a visitor drops in to have a dish of tea." + +Anne would have kissed her feet then, if she had dared to do so. She +blushed red all over, and adored her with a more worshipping gaze than +before. + +"I should not have dared to hope so much," she stammered. "I could +not--perhaps it is not fitting--perhaps I could not bear myself as I +should. I would try to show myself a gentlewoman and seemly. I--I _am_ +a gentlewoman, though I have learned so little. I could not be aught but +a gentlewoman, could I, sister, being of your own blood and my parents' +child?" half afraid to presume even this much. + +"No," said Clorinda. "Do not be a fool, Anne, and carry yourself too +humbly before the world. You can be as humble as you like to me." + +"I shall--I shall be your servant and worship you, sister," cried the +poor soul, and she drew near and kissed again the white hand which had +bestowed with such royal bounty all this joy. It would not have occurred +to her that a cast-off robe and riband were but small largesse. + +It was not a minute after this grateful caress that Clorinda made a sharp +movement--a movement which was so sharp that it seemed to be one of +dismay. At first, as if involuntarily, she had raised her hand to her +tucker, and after doing so she started--though 'twas but for a second's +space, after which her face was as it had been before. + +"What is it?" exclaimed Anne. "Have you lost anything?" + +"No," quoth Mistress Clorinda quite carelessly, as she once more turned +to the contents of the oaken wardrobe; "but I thought I missed a trinket +I was wearing for a wager, and I would not lose it before the bet is +won." + +"Sister," ventured Anne before she left her and went away to her own dull +world in the west wing, "there is a thing I can do if you will allow me. +I can mend your tapestry hangings which have holes in them. I am quick +at my needle, and should love to serve you in such poor ways as I can; +and it is not seemly that they should be so worn. All things about you +should be beautiful and well kept." + +"Can you make these broken things beautiful?" said Clorinda. "Then +indeed you shall. You may come here to mend them when you will." + +"They are very fine hangings, though so old and ill cared for," said +Anne, looking up at them; "and I shall be only too happy sitting here +thinking of all you are doing while I am at my work." + +"Thinking of all I am doing?" laughed Mistress Clorinda. "That would +give you such wondrous things to dream of, Anne, that you would have no +time for your needle, and my hangings would stay as they are." + +"I can think and darn also," said Mistress Anne, "so I will come." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--'Twas the face of Sir John Oxon the moon shone upon + + +From that time henceforward into the young woman's dull life there came a +little change. It did not seem a little change to her, but a great one, +though to others it would have seemed slight indeed. She was an +affectionate, house-wifely creature, who would have made the best of +wives and mothers if it had been so ordained by Fortune, and something of +her natural instincts found outlet in the furtive service she paid her +sister, who became the empress of her soul. She darned and patched the +tattered hangings with a wonderful neatness, and the hours she spent at +work in the chamber were to her almost as sacred as hours spent at +religious duty, or as those nuns and novices give to embroidering altar- +cloths. There was a brightness in the room that seemed in no other in +the house, and the lingering essences in the air of it were as incense to +her. In secrecy she even busied herself with keeping things in better +order than Rebecca, Mistress Clorinda's woman, had ever had time to do +before. She also contrived to get into her own hands some duties that +were Rebecca's own. She could mend lace cleverly and arrange +riband-knots with taste, and even change the fashion of a gown. The hard- +worked tirewoman was but too glad to be relieved, and kept her secret +well, being praised many times for the set or fashion of a thing into +which she had not so much as set a needle. Being a shrewd baggage, she +was wise enough always to relate to Anne the story of her mistress's +pleasure, having the wit to read in her delight that she would be +encouraged to fresh effort. + +At times it so befell that, when Anne went into the bed-chamber, she +found the beauty there, who, if she chanced to be in the humour, would +detain her in her presence for a space and bewitch her over again. In +sooth, it seemed that she took a pleasure in showing her female adorer +how wondrously full of all fascinations she could be. At such times +Anne's plain face would almost bloom with excitement, and her shot +pheasant's eyes would glow as if beholding a goddess. + +She neither saw nor heard more of the miniature on the riband. It used +to make her tremble at times to fancy that by some strange chance it +might still be under the bed, and that the handsome face smiled and the +blue eyes gazed in the very apartment where she herself sat and her +sister was robed and disrobed in all her beauty. + +She used all her modest skill in fitting to her own shape and +refurnishing the cast-off bits of finery bestowed upon her. It was all +set to rights long before Clorinda recalled to mind that she had promised +that Anne should sometime see her chance visitors take their dish of tea +with her. + +But one day, for some cause, she did remember, and sent for her. + +Anne ran to her bed-chamber and donned her remodelled gown with shaking +hands. She laughed a little hysterically as she did it, seeing her plain +snub-nosed face in the glass. She tried to dress her head in a fashion +new to her, and knew she did it ill and untidily, but had no time to +change it. If she had had some red she would have put it on, but such +vanities were not in her chamber or Barbara's. So she rubbed her cheeks +hard, and even pinched them, so that in the end they looked as if they +were badly rouged. It seemed to her that her nose grew red too, and +indeed 'twas no wonder, for her hands and feet were like ice. + +"She must be ashamed of me," the humble creature said to herself. "And +if she is ashamed she will be angered and send me away and be friends no +more." + +She did not deceive herself, poor thing, and imagine she had the chance +of being regarded with any great lenience if she appeared ill. + +"Mistress Clorinda begged that you would come quickly," said Rebecca, +knocking at the door. + +So she caught her handkerchief, which was scented, as all her garments +were, with dried rose-leaves from the garden, which she had conserved +herself, and went down to the chintz parlour trembling. + +It was a great room with white panels, and flowered coverings to the +furniture. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen standing talking +and laughing loudly together. The men outnumbered the women, and most of +them stood in a circle about Mistress Clorinda, who sat upright in a +great flowered chair, smiling with her mocking, stately air, as if she +defied them to dare to speak what they felt. + +Anne came in like a mouse. Nobody saw her. She did not, indeed, know +what to do. She dared not remain standing all alone, so she crept to the +place where her sister's chair was, and stood a little behind its high +back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like to choke her. + +They were only country gentlemen who made the circle, but to her they +seemed dashing gallants. That some of them had red noses as well as +cheeks, and that their voices were big and their gallantries boisterous, +was no drawback to their manly charms, she having seen no other finer +gentlemen. They were specimens of the great conquering creature Man, +whom all women must aspire to please if they have the fortunate power; +and each and all of them were plainly trying to please Clorinda, and not +she them. + +And so Anne gazed at them with admiring awe, waiting until there should +come a pause in which she might presume to call her sister's attention to +her presence; but suddenly, before she had indeed made up her mind how +she might best announce herself, there spoke behind her a voice of +silver. + +"It is only goddesses," said the voice, "who waft about them as they move +the musk of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign over us in +town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of +rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe but their +perfume." + +And there, at her side, was bowing, in cinnamon and crimson, with +jewelled buttons on his velvet coat, the beautiful being whose fair locks +the sun had shone on the morning she had watched him ride away--the man +whom the imperial beauty had dismissed and called a popinjay. + +Clorinda looked under her lashes towards him without turning, but in so +doing beheld Anne standing in waiting. + +"A fine speech lost," she said, "though 'twas well enough for the +country, Sir John. 'Tis thrown away, because 'tis not I who am scented +with rose-leaves, but Anne there, whom you must not ogle. Come hither, +sister, and do not hide as if you were ashamed to be looked at." + +And she drew her forward, and there Anne stood, and all of them stared at +her poor, plain, blushing face, and the Adonis in cinnamon and crimson +bowed low, as if she had been a duchess, that being his conqueror's way +with gentle or simple, maid, wife, or widow, beauty or homespun +uncomeliness. + +It was so with him always; he could never resist the chance of luring to +himself a woman's heart, whether he wanted it or not, and he had a charm, +a strange and wonderful one, it could not be denied. Anne palpitated +indeed as she made her curtsey to him, and wondered if Heaven had ever +before made so fine a gentleman and so beautiful a being. + +She went but seldom to this room again, and when she went she stood +always in the background, far more in fear that some one would address +her than that she should meet with neglect. She was used to neglect, and +to being regarded as a nonentity, and aught else discomfited her. All +her pleasure was to hear what was said, though 'twas not always of the +finest wit--and to watch Clorinda play the queen among her admirers and +her slaves. She would not have dared to speak of Sir John Oxon +frequently--indeed, she let fall his name but rarely; but she learned a +curious wit in contriving to hear all things concerning him. It was her +habit cunningly to lead Mistress Margery to talking about him and +relating long histories of his conquests and his grace. Mistress Wimpole +knew many of them, having, for a staid and prudent matron, a lively +interest in his ways. It seemed, truly--if one must believe her long- +winded stories--that no duchess under seventy had escaped weeping for him +and losing rest, and that ladies of all ranks had committed follies for +his sake. + +Mistress Anne, having led her to this fruitful subject, would sit and +listen, bending over her embroidery frame with strange emotions, causing +her virgin breast to ache with their swelling. She would lie awake at +night thinking in the dark, with her heart beating. Surely, surely there +was no other man on earth who was so fitted to Clorinda, and to whom it +was so suited that this empress should give her charms. Surely no woman, +however beautiful or proud, could dismiss his suit when he pressed it. +And then, poor woman, her imagination strove to paint the splendour of +their mutual love, though of such love she knew so little. But it must, +in sooth, be bliss and rapture; and perchance, was her humble thought, +she might see it from afar, and hear of it. And when they went to court, +and Clorinda had a great mansion in town, and many servants who needed a +housewife's eye upon their doings to restrain them from wastefulness and +riot, might it not chance to be that if she served well now, and had the +courage to plead with her then, she might be permitted to serve her +there, living quite apart in some quiet corner of the house. And then +her wild thoughts would go so far that she would dream--reddening at her +own boldness--of a child who might be born to them, a lordly infant son +and heir, whose eyes might be blue and winning, and his hair in great +fair locks, and whom she might nurse and tend and be a slave to--and +love--and love--and love, and who might end by knowing she was his tender +servant, always to be counted on, and might look at her with that wooing, +laughing glance, and even love her too. + +The night Clorinda laid her commands upon Mistress Wimpole concerning the +coming of Sir John Oxon, that matron, after receiving them, hurried to +her other charges, flurried and full of talk, and poured forth her wonder +and admiration at length. + +"She is a wondrous lady!" she said--"she is indeed! It is not alone her +beauty, but her spirit and her wit. Mark you how she sees all things and +lets none pass, and can lay a plan as prudent as any lady old enough to +be twice her mother. She knows all the ways of the world of fashion, and +will guard herself against gossip in such a way that none can gainsay her +high virtue. Her spirit is too great to allow that she may even _seem_ +to be as the town ladies. She will not have it! Sir John will not find +his court easy to pay. She will not allow that he shall be able to say +to any one that he has seen her alone a moment. Thus, she says, he +cannot boast. If all ladies were as wise and cunning, there would be no +tales to tell." She talked long and garrulously, and set forth to them +how Mistress Clorinda had looked straight at her with her black eyes, +until she had almost shaken as she sat, because it seemed as though she +dared her to disobey her will; and how she had sat with her hair trailing +upon the floor over the chair's back, and at first it had seemed that she +was flushed with anger, but next as if she had smiled. + +"Betimes," said Mistress Wimpole, "I am afraid when she smiles, but to- +night some thought had crossed her mind that pleased her. I think it was +that she liked to think that he who has conquered so many ladies will +find that he is to be outwitted and made a mock of. She likes that +others shall be beaten if she thinks them impudent. She liked it as a +child, and would flog the stable-boys with her little whip until they +knelt to beg her pardon for their freedoms." + +That night Mistress Anne went to her bed-chamber with her head full of +wandering thoughts, and she had not the power to bid them disperse +themselves and leave her--indeed, she scarce wished for it. She was +thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride +that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her +breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How could it be +possible that she could treat with disdain this gallant gentleman, if he +loved her, as he surely must? Herself she had been sure that she had +seen an ardent flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had +bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance of the +rose leaves he had thought wafted from her robe. How could a woman whom +he loved resist him? How could she cause him to suffer by forcing him to +stand at arm's length when he sighed to draw near and breathe his passion +at her feet? + +In the silence of her chamber as she disrobed, she sighed with restless +pain, but did not know that her sighing was for grief that love--of which +there seemed so little in some lives--could be wasted and flung away. She +could not fall into slumber when she lay down upon her pillow, but tossed +from side to side with a burdened heart. + +"She is so young and beautiful and proud," she thought. "It is because I +am so much older that I can see these things--that I see that this is +surely the one man who should be her husband. There may be many others, +but they are none of them her equals, and she would scorn and hate them +when she was once bound to them for life. This one is as beautiful as +she--and full of grace, and wit, and spirit. She could not look down +upon him, however wrath she was at any time. Ah me! She should not +spurn him, surely she should not!" + +She was so restless and ill at ease that she could not lie upon her bed, +but rose therefrom, as she often did in her wakeful hours, and went to +her lattice, gently opening it to look out upon the night, and calm +herself by sitting with her face uplifted to the stars, which from her +childhood she had fancied looked down upon her kindly and as if they +would give her comfort. + +To-night there were no stars. There should have been a moon +three-quarters full, but, in the evening, clouds had drifted across the +sky and closed over all heavily, so that no moonlight was to be seen, +save when a rare sudden gust made a ragged rent, for a moment, in the +blackness. + +She did not sit this time, but knelt, clad in her night-rail as she was. +All was sunk into the profoundest silence of the night. By this time the +entire household had been long enough abed to be plunged in sleep. She +alone was waking, and being of that simple mind which, like a child's, +must ever bear its trouble to a protecting strength, she looked up at the +darkness of the cloudy sky and prayed for the better fortune of the man +who had indeed not remembered her existence after the moment he had made +her his obeisance. She was too plain and sober a creature to be +remembered. + +"Perchance," she murmured, "he is at this moment also looking at the +clouds from his window, because he cannot sleep for thinking that in two +days he will be beneath her father's roof and will see her loveliness, +and he must needs be contriving within his mind what he will say, if she +do but look as if she might regard him with favour, which I pray she +will." + +From the path below, that moment there rose a slight sound, so slight a +one that for a moment she thought she must have been deceived in +believing it had fallen upon her ear. All was still after it for full +two minutes, and had she heard no more she would have surely forgotten +she had heard aught, or would have believed herself but the victim of +fancy. But after the long pause the same sound came again, though this +time it was slighter; yet, despite its slightness, it seemed to her to be +the crushing of the earth and stone beneath a cautious foot. It was a +foot so cautious that it was surely stealthy and scarce dared to advance +at all. And then all was still again. She was for a moment overcome +with fears, not being of a courageous temper, and having heard, but of +late, of a bold gipsy vagabond who, with a companion, had broken into the +lower rooms of a house of the neighbourhood, and being surprised by its +owner, had only been overcome and captured after a desperate fight, in +which shots were exchanged, and one of the hurriedly-awakened servants +killed. So she leaned forward to hearken further, wondering what she +should do to best alarm the house, and, as she bent so, she heard the +sound again and a smothered oath, and with her straining eyes saw that +surely upon the path there stood a dark-draped figure. She rose with +great care to her feet, and stood a moment shaking and clinging to the +window-ledge, while she bethought her of what servants she could wake +first, and how she could reach her father's room. Her poor heart beat in +her side, and her breath came quickly. The soundlessness of the night +was broken by one of the strange sudden gusts of wind which tossed the +trees, and tore at the clouds as they hurried. She heard the footsteps +again, as if it feared its own sound the less when the wind might cover +it. A faint pale gleam showed between two dark clouds behind which the +moon had been hidden; it grew brighter, and a jagged rent was torn, so +that the moon herself for a second or so shone out dazzling bright before +the clouds rushed over her again and shut her in. + +It was at this very instant Mistress Anne heard the footsteps once more, +and saw full well a figure in dark cloak and hat which stepped quickly +into the shade of a great tree. But more she saw--and clapped her hand +upon her mouth to stifle the cry that would have otherwise risen in spite +of her--that notwithstanding his fair locks were thrust out of sight +beneath his hat, and he looked strange and almost uncomely, it was the +face of Sir John Oxon, the moon, bursting through the jagged clouds, had +shone upon. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--Two meet in the deserted rose garden, and the old Earl of +Dunstanwolde is made a happy man + + +It was not until three days later, instead of two, that Sir John Oxon +rode into the courtyard with his servant behind him. He had been +detained on his journey, but looked as if his impatience had not caused +him to suffer, for he wore his finest air of spirit and beauty, and when +he was alone with Sir Jeoffry, made his compliments to the absent ladies, +and inquired of their health with his best town grace. + +Mistress Clorinda did not appear until the dining hour, when she swept +into the room like a queen, followed by her sister, Anne, and Mistress +Wimpole, this being the first occasion of Mistress Anne's dining, as it +were, in state with her family. + +The honour had so alarmed her, that she looked pale, and so ugly that Sir +Jeoffry scowled at sight of her, and swore under his breath to Clorinda +that she should have been allowed to come. + +"I know my own affairs the best, by your leave, sir," answered Clorinda, +as low and with a grand flash of her eye. "She hath been drilled well." + +This she had indeed, and so had Mistress Wimpole, and throughout Sir John +Oxon's stay they were called upon to see that they played well their +parts. Two weeks he stayed and then rode gaily back to town, and when +Clorinda made her sweeping curtsey to the ground to him upon the +threshold of the flowered room in which he bade her farewell, both Anne +and Mistress Wimpole curtseyed a step behind her. + +"Now that he has gone and you have shown me that you can attend me as I +wish," she said, turning to them as the sound of his horse's hoofs died +away, "it will not trouble me should he choose some day to come again. He +has not carried with him much that he can boast of." + +In truth, it seemed to the outer world that she had held him well in +hand. If he had come as a sighing lover, the whole county knew she had +shown him but small favour. She had invited companies to the house on +several occasions, and all could see how she bore herself towards him. +She carried herself with a certain proud courtesy as becoming the +daughter of his host, but her wit did not spare him, and sometimes when +it was more than in common cutting he was seen to wince though he held +himself gallantly. There were one or two who thought they now and then +had seen his blue eyes fall upon her when he believed none were looking, +and rest there burningly for a moment, but 'twas never for more than an +instant, when he would rouse himself with a start and turn away. + +She had been for a month or two less given to passionate outbreaks, +having indeed decided that it was to her interest as a young lady and a +future great one to curb herself. Her tirewoman, Rebecca, had begun to +dare to breathe more freely when she was engaged about her person, and +had, in truth, spoken of her pleasanter fortune among her fellows in the +servants' hall. + +But a night or two after the visitor took his departure, she gave way to +such an outburst as even Rebecca had scarce ever beheld, being roused to +it by a small thing in one sense, though in yet another perhaps great +enough, since it touched upon the despoiling of one of her beauties. + +She was at her toilet-table being prepared for the night, and her long +hair brushed and dressed before retiring. Mistress Wimpole had come in +to the chamber to do something at her bidding, and chancing to stand +gazing at her great and heavy fall of locks as she was waiting, she +observed a thing which caused her, foolish woman that she was, to give a +start and utter an unwise exclamation. + +"Madam!" she gasped--"madam!" + +"What then!" quoth Mistress Clorinda angrily. "You bring my heart to my +throat!" + +"Your hair!" stammered Wimpole, losing all her small wit--"your beauteous +hair! A lock is gone, madam!" + +Clorinda started to her feet, and flung the great black mass over her +white shoulder, that she might see it in the glass. + +"Gone!" she cried. "Where? How? What mean you? Ah-h!" + +Her voice rose to a sound that was well-nigh a scream. She saw the +rifled spot--a place where a great lock had been severed jaggedly--and it +must have been five feet long. + +She turned and sprang upon her woman, her beautiful face distorted with +fury, and her eyes like flames of fire. She seized her by each shoulder +and boxed her ears until her head spun round and bells rang within it. + +"'Twas you!" she shrieked. "'Twas you--she-devil-beast--slut that you +are! 'Twas when you used your scissors to the new head you made for me. +You set it on my hair that you might set a loop--and in your sluttish way +you snipped a lock by accident and hid it from me." + +She beat her till her own black hair flew about her like the mane of a +fury; and having used her hands till they were tired, she took her brush +from the table and beat her with that till the room echoed with the blows +on the stout shoulders. + +"Mistress, 'twas not so!" cried the poor thing, sobbing and struggling. +"'Twas not so, madam!" + +"Madam, you will kill the woman," wept Mistress Wimpole. "I beseech +you--! 'Tis not seemly, I beseech--" + +Mistress Clorinda flung her woman from her and threw the brush at +Mistress Wimpole, crying at her with the lordly rage she had been wont to +shriek with when she wore breeches. + +"Damnation to thy seemliness!" she cried, "and to thee too! Get thee +gone--from me, both--get thee gone from my sight!" + +And both women fled weeping, and sobbing, and gasping from the room +incontinently. + +She was shrewish and sullen with her woman for days after, and it was the +poor creature's labour to keep from her sight, when she dressed her head, +the place from whence the lock had been taken. In the servants' hall the +woman vowed that it was not she who had cut it, that she had had no +accident, though it was true she had used the scissors about her head, +yet it was but in snipping a ribbon, and she had not touched a hair. + +"If she were another lady," she said, "I should swear some gallant had +robbed her of it; but, forsooth, she does not allow them to come near +enough for such sport, and with five feet of hair wound up in coronals, +how could a man unwind a lock, even if 'twas permitted him to stand at +her very side." + +Two years passed, and the beauty had no greater fields to conquer than +those she found in the country, since her father, Sir Jeoffry, had not +the money to take her to town, he becoming more and more involved and so +fallen into debt that it was even whispered that at times it went hard +with him to keep even the poor household he had. + +Mistress Clorinda's fortunes the gentry of the neighbourhood discussed +with growing interest and curiosity. What was like to become of her +great gifts and powers in the end, if she could never show them to the +great world, and have the chance to carry her splendid wares to the +fashionable market where there were men of quality and wealth who would +be like to bid for them. She had not chosen to accept any of those who +had offered themselves so far, and it was believed that for some reason +she had held off my lord of Dunstanwolde in his suit. 'Twas evident that +he admired her greatly, and why he had not already made her his countess +was a sort of mystery which was productive of many discussions and bore +much talking over. Some said that, with all her beauty and his +admiration, he was wary and waited, and some were pleased to say that the +reason he waited was because the young lady herself contrived that he +should, it being her desire to make an open conquest of Sir John Oxon, +and show him to the world as her slave, before she made up her mind to +make even a much greater match. Some hinted that for all her +disdainfulness and haughty pride she would marry Sir John if he asked +her, but that he being as brilliant a beau as she a beauty, he was too +fond of his pleasures and his gay town life to give them up even to a +goddess who had no fortune. His own had not been a great one, and he had +squandered it magnificently, his extravagances being renowned in the +world of fashion, and having indeed founded for him his reputation. + +It was, however, still his way to accept frequent hospitalities from his +kinsman Eldershawe, and Sir Jeoffry was always rejoiced enough to secure +him as his companion for a few days when he could lure him from the +dissipation of the town. At such times it never failed that Mistress +Wimpole and poor Anne kept their guard. Clorinda never allowed them to +relax their vigilance, and Mistress Wimpole ceased to feel afraid, and +became accustomed to her duties, but Anne never did so. She looked +always her palest and ugliest when Sir John was in the house, and she +would glance with sad wonder and timid adoration from him to Clorinda; +but sometimes when she looked at Sir John her plain face would grow +crimson, and once or twice he caught her at the folly, and when she +dropped her eyes overwhelmed with shame, he faintly smiled to himself, +seeing in her a new though humble conquest. + +There came a day when in the hunting-field there passed from mouth to +mouth a rumour, and Sir Jeoffry, hearing it, came pounding over on his +big black horse to his daughter and told it to her in great spirits. + +"He is a sly dog, John Oxon," he said, a broad grin on his rubicund face. +"This very week he comes to us, and he and I are cronies, yet he has +blabbed nothing of what is being buzzed about by all the world." + +"He has learned how to keep a closed mouth," said Mistress Clorinda, +without asking a question. + +"But 'tis marriage he is so mum about, bless ye!" said Sir Jeoffry. "And +that is not a thing to be hid long. He is to be shortly married, they +say. My lady, his mother, has found him a great fortune in a new beauty +but just come to town. She hath great estates in the West Indies, as +well as a fine fortune in England--and all the world is besieging her; +but Jack hath come and bowed sighing before her, and writ some verses, +and borne her off from them all." + +"'Tis time," said Clorinda, "that he should marry some woman who can pay +his debts and keep him out of the spunging house, for to that he will +come if he does not play his cards with skill." + +Sir Jeoffry looked at her askance and rubbed his red chin. + +"I wish thou hadst liked him, Clo," he said, "and ye had both had +fortunes to match. I love the fellow, and ye would have made a handsome +pair." + +Mistress Clorinda laughed, sitting straight in her saddle, her fine eyes +unblenching, though the sun struck them. + +"We had fortunes to match," she said--"I was a beggar and he was a +spendthrift. Here comes Lord Dunstanwolde." + +And as the gentleman rode near, it seemed to his dazzled eyes that the +sun so shone down upon her because she was a goddess and drew it from the +heavens. + +In the west wing of the Hall 'twas talked of between Mistress Wimpole and +her charges, that a rumour of Sir John Oxon's marriage was afloat. + +"Yet can I not believe it," said Mistress Margery; "for if ever a +gentleman was deep in love, though he bitterly strove to hide it, 'twas +Sir John, and with Mistress Clorinda." + +"But she," faltered Anne, looking pale and even agitated--"she was always +disdainful to him and held him at arm's length. I--I wished she would +have treated him more kindly." + +"'Tis not her way to treat men kindly," said Mistress Wimpole. + +But whether the rumour was true or false--and there were those who +bestowed no credit upon it, and said it was mere town talk, and that the +same things had been bruited abroad before--it so chanced that Sir John +paid no visit to his relative or to Sir Jeoffry for several months. 'Twas +heard once that he had gone to France, and at the French Court was making +as great a figure as he had made at the English one, but of this even his +kinsman Lord Eldershawe could speak no more certainly than he could of +the first matter. + +The suit of my Lord of Dunstanwolde--if suit it was--during these months +appeared to advance somewhat. All orders of surmises were made +concerning it--that Mistress Clorinda had privately quarrelled with Sir +John and sent him packing; that he had tired of his love-making, as 'twas +well known he had done many times before, and having squandered his +possessions and finding himself in open straits, must needs patch up his +fortunes in a hurry with the first heiress whose estate suited him. But +'twas the women who said these things; the men swore that no man could +tire of or desert such spirit and beauty, and that if Sir John Oxon +stayed away 'twas because he had been commanded to do so, it never having +been Mistress Clorinda's intention to do more than play with him awhile, +she having been witty against him always for a fop, and meaning herself +to accept no man as a husband who could not give her both rank and +wealth. + +"We know her," said the old boon companions of her childhood, as they +talked of her over their bottles. "She knew her price and would bargain +for it when she was not eight years old, and would give us songs and +kisses but when she was paid for them with sweet things and knickknacks +from the toy-shops. She will marry no man who cannot make her at least a +countess, and she would take him but because there was not a duke at +hand. We know her, and her beauty's ways." + +But they did not know her; none knew her, save herself. + +In the west wing, which grew more bare and ill-furnished as things wore +out and time went by, Mistress Anne waxed thinner and paler. She was so +thin in two months' time, that her soft, dull eyes looked twice their +natural size, and seemed to stare piteously at people. One day, indeed, +as she sat at work in her sister's room, Clorinda being there at the +time, the beauty, turning and beholding her face suddenly, uttered a +violent exclamation. + +"Why look you at me so?" she said. "Your eyes stand out of your head +like a new-hatched, unfeathered bird's. They irk me with their strange +asking look. Why do you stare at me?" + +"I do not know," Anne faltered. "I could not tell you, sister. My eyes +seem to stare so because of my thinness. I have seen them in my mirror." + +"Why do you grow thin?" quoth Clorinda harshly. "You are not ill." + +"I--I do not know," again Anne faltered. "Naught ails me. I do not +know. For--forgive me!" + +Clorinda laughed. + +"Soft little fool," she said, "why should you ask me to forgive you? I +might as fairly ask you to forgive _me_, that I keep my shape and show no +wasting." + +Anne rose from her chair and hurried to her sister's side, sinking upon +her knees there to kiss her hand. + +"Sister," she said, "one could never dream that you could need pardon. I +love you so--that all you do, it seems to me must be right--whatsoever it +might be." + +Clorinda drew her fair hands away and clasped them on the top of her +head, proudly, as if she crowned herself thereby, her great and splendid +eyes setting themselves upon her sister's face. + +"All that I do," she said slowly, and with the steadfast high arrogance +of an empress' self--"All that I do _is_ right--for me. I make it so by +doing it. Do you think that I am conquered by the laws that other women +crouch and whine before, because they dare not break them, though they +long to do so? _I_ am my own law--and the law of some others." + +It was by this time the first month of the summer, and to-night there was +again a birth-night ball, at which the beauty was to dazzle all eyes; but +'twas of greater import than the one she had graced previously, it being +to celebrate the majority of the heir to an old name and estate, who had +been orphaned early, and was highly connected, counting, indeed, among +the members of his family the Duke of Osmonde, who was one of the richest +and most envied nobles in Great Britain, his dukedom being of the oldest, +his numerous estates the most splendid and beautiful, and the long +history of his family full of heroic deeds. This nobleman was also a +distant kinsman to the Earl of Dunstanwolde, and at this ball, for the +first time for months, Sir John Oxon appeared again. + +He did not arrive on the gay scene until an hour somewhat late. But +there was one who had seen him early, though no human soul had known of +the event. + +In the rambling, ill-cared for grounds of Wildairs Hall there was an old +rose-garden, which had once been the pride and pleasure of some lady of +the house, though this had been long ago; and now it was but a lonely +wilderness where roses only grew because the dead Lady Wildairs had loved +them, and Barbara and Anne had tended them, and with their own hands +planted and pruned during their childhood and young maiden days. But of +late years even they had seemed to have forgotten it, having become +discouraged, perchance, having no gardeners to do the rougher work, and +the weeds and brambles so running riot. There were high hedges and +winding paths overgrown and run wild; the stronger rose-bushes grew in +tangled masses, flinging forth their rich blooms among the weeds; such as +were more delicate, struggling to live among them, became more frail and +scant-blossoming season by season; a careless foot would have trodden +them beneath it as their branches grew long and trailed in the grass; but +for many months no foot had trodden there at all, and it was a beauteous +place deserted. + +In the centre was an ancient broken sun-dial, which was in these days in +the midst of a sort of thicket, where a bold tangle of the finest red +roses clambered, and, defying neglect, flaunted their rich colour in the +sun. + +And though the place had been so long forgotten, and it was not the +custom for it to be visited, about this garlanded broken sun-dial the +grass was a little trodden, and on the morning of the young heir's coming +of age some one stood there in the glowing sunlight as if waiting. + +This was no less than Mistress Clorinda herself. She was clad in a +morning gown of white, which seemed to make of her more than ever a tall, +transcendent creature, less a woman than a conquering goddess; and she +had piled the dial with scarlet red roses, which she was choosing to +weave into a massive wreath or crown, for some purpose best known to +herself. Her head seemed haughtier and more splendidly held on high even +than was its common wont, but upon these roses her lustrous eyes were +downcast and were curiously smiling, as also was her ripe, arching lip, +whose scarlet the blossoms vied with but poorly. It was a smile like +this, perhaps, which Mistress Wimpole feared and trembled before, for +'twas not a tender smile nor a melting one. If she was waiting, she did +not wait long, nor, to be sure, would she have long waited if she had +been kept by any daring laggard. This was not her way. + +'Twas not a laggard who came soon, stepping hurriedly with light feet +upon the grass, as though he feared the sound which might be made if he +had trodden upon the gravel. It was Sir John Oxon who came towards her +in his riding costume. + +He came and stood before her on the other side of the dial, and made her +a bow so low that a quick eye might have thought 'twas almost mocking. +His feather, sweeping the ground, caught a fallen rose, which clung to +it. His beauty, when he stood upright, seemed to defy the very morning's +self and all the morning world; but Mistress Clorinda did not lift her +eyes, but kept them upon her roses, and went on weaving. + +"Why did you choose to come?" she asked. + +"Why did you choose to keep the tryst in answer to my message?" he +replied to her. + +At this she lifted her great shining eyes and fixed them full upon him. + +"I wished," she said, "to hear what you would say--but more to _see_ you +than to hear." + +"And I," he began--"I came--" + +She held up her white hand with a long-stemmed rose in it--as though a +queen should lift a sceptre. + +"You came," she answered, "more to see _me_ than to hear. You made that +blunder." + +"You choose to bear yourself like a goddess, and disdain me from Olympian +heights," he said. "I had the wit to guess it would be so." + +She shook her royal head, faintly and most strangely smiling. + +"That you had not," was her clear-worded answer. "That is a later +thought sprung up since you have seen my face. 'Twas quick--for you--but +not quick enough." And the smile in her eyes was maddening. "You +thought to see a woman crushed and weeping, her beauty bent before you, +her locks dishevelled, her streaming eyes lifted to Heaven--and you--with +prayers, swearing that not Heaven could help her so much as your deigning +magnanimity. You have seen women do this before, you would have seen +_me_ do it--at your feet--crying out that I was lost--lost for ever. +_That_ you expected! 'Tis not here." + +Debauched as his youth was, and free from all touch of heart or +conscience--for from his earliest boyhood he had been the pupil of rakes +and fashionable villains--well as he thought he knew all women and their +ways, betraying or betrayed--this creature taught him a new thing, a new +mood in woman, a new power which came upon him like a thunderbolt. + +"Gods!" he exclaimed, catching his breath, and even falling back apace, +"Damnation! you are _not_ a woman!" + +She laughed again, weaving her roses, but not allowing that his eyes +should loose themselves from hers. + +"But now, you called me a goddess and spoke of Olympian heights," she +said; "I am not one--I am a woman who would show other women how to bear +themselves in hours like these. Because I am a woman why should I kneel, +and weep, and rave? What have I lost--in losing you? I should have lost +the same had I been twice your wife. What is it women weep and beat +their breasts for--because they love a man--because they lose his love. +They never have them." + +She had finished the wreath, and held it up in the sun to look at it. +What a strange beauty was hers, as she held it so--a heavy, sumptuous +thing--in her white hands, her head thrown backward. + +"You marry soon," she asked--"if the match is not broken?" + +"Yes," he answered, watching her--a flame growing in his eyes and in his +soul in his own despite. + +"It cannot be too soon," she said. And she turned and faced him, holding +the wreath high in her two hands poised like a crown above her head--the +brilliant sun embracing her, her lips curling, her face uplifted as if +she turned to defy the light, the crimson of her cheek. 'Twas as if from +foot to brow the woman's whole person was a flame, rising and burning +triumphant high above him. Thus for one second's space she stood, +dazzling his very eyesight with her strange, dauntless splendour; and +then she set the great rose-wreath upon her head, so crowning it. + +"You came to see me," she said, the spark in her eyes growing to the size +of a star; "I bid you look at me--and see how grief has faded me these +past months, and how I am bowed down by it. Look well--that you may +remember." + +"I look," he said, almost panting. + +"Then," she said, her fine-cut nostril pinching itself with her breath, +as she pointed down the path before her--"_go_!--back to your kennel!" + +* * * * * + +That night she appeared at the birth-night ball with the wreath of roses +on her head. No other ladies wore such things, 'twas a fashion of her +own; but she wore it in such beauty and with such state that it became a +crown again even as it had been the first moment that she had put it on. +All gazed at her as she entered, and a murmur followed her as she moved +with her father up the broad oak staircase which was known through all +the country for its width and massive beauty. In the hall below guests +were crowded, and there were indeed few of them who did not watch her as +she mounted by Sir Jeoffry's side. In the upper hall there were guests +also, some walking to and fro, some standing talking, many looking down +at the arrivals as they came up. + +"'Tis Mistress Wildairs," these murmured as they saw her. "Clorinda, by +God!" said one of the older men to his crony who stood near him. "And +crowned with roses! The vixen makes them look as if they were built of +rubies in every leaf." + +At the top of the great staircase there stood a gentleman, who had indeed +paused a moment, spellbound, as he saw her coming. He was a man of +unusual height and of a majestic mien; he wore a fair periwig, which +added to his tallness; his laces and embroiderings were marvels of art +and richness, and his breast blazed with orders. Strangely, she did not +seem to see him; but when she reached the landing, and her face was +turned so that he beheld the full blaze of its beauty, 'twas so great a +wonder and revelation to him that he gave a start. The next moment +almost, one of the red roses of her crown broke loose from its fastenings +and fell at his very feet. His countenance changed so that it seemed +almost, for a second, to lose some of its colour. He stooped and picked +the rose up and held it in his hand. But Mistress Clorinda was looking +at my Lord of Dunstanwolde, who was moving through the crowd to greet +her. She gave him a brilliant smile, and from her lustrous eyes surely +there passed something which lit a fire of hope in his. + +After she had made her obeisance to her entertainers, and her birthday +greetings to the young heir, he contrived to draw closely to her side and +speak a few words in a tone those near her could not hear. + +"To-night, madam," he said, with melting fervour, "you deign to bring me +my answer as you promised." + +"Yes," she murmured. "Take me where we may be a few moments alone." + +He led her to an antechamber, where they were sheltered from the gaze of +the passers-by, though all was moving gaiety about them. He fell upon +his knee and bowed to kiss her fair hand. Despite the sobriety of his +years, he was as eager and tender as a boy. + +"Be gracious to me, madam," he implored. "I am not young enough to wait. +Too many months have been thrown away." + +"You need wait no longer, my lord," she said--"not one single hour." + +And while he, poor gentleman, knelt, kissing her hand with adoring +humbleness, she, under the splendour of her crown of roses, gazed down at +his grey-sprinkled head with her great steady shining orbs, as if gazing +at some almost uncomprehended piteous wonder. + +In less than an hour the whole assemblage knew of the event and talked of +it. Young men looked daggers at Dunstanwolde and at each other; and +older men wore glum or envious faces. Women told each other 'twas as +they had known it would be, or 'twas a wonder that at last it had come +about. Upon the arm of her lord that was to be, Mistress Clorinda passed +from room to room like a royal bride. + +As she made her first turn of the ballroom, all eyes upon her, her beauty +blazing at its highest, Sir John Oxon entered and stood at the door. He +wore his gallant air, and smiled as ever; and when she drew near him he +bowed low, and she stopped, and bent lower in a curtsey sweeping the +ground. + +'Twas but in the next room her lord led her to a gentleman who stood with +a sort of court about him. It was the tall stranger, with the fair +periwig, and the orders glittering on his breast--the one who had started +at sight of her as she had reached the landing of the stairs. He held +still in his hand a broken red rose, and when his eye fell on her crown +the colour mounted to his cheek. + +"My honoured kinsman, his Grace the Duke of Osmonde," said her affianced +lord. "Your Grace--it is this lady who is to do me the great honour of +becoming my Lady Dunstanwolde." + +And as the deep, tawny brown eye of the man bending before her flashed +into her own, for the first time in her life Mistress Clorinda's lids +fell, and as she swept her curtsey of stately obeisance her heart struck +like a hammer against her side. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--"I give to him the thing he craves with all his soul--myself" + + +In a month she was the Countess of Dunstanwolde, and reigned in her +lord's great town house with a retinue of servants, her powdered lackeys +among the tallest, her liveries and equipages the richest the world of +fashion knew. She was presented at the Court, blazing with the +Dunstanwolde jewels, and even with others her bridegroom had bought in +his passionate desire to heap upon her the magnificence which became her +so well. From the hour she knelt to kiss the hand of royalty she set the +town on fire. It seemed to have been ordained by Fate that her passage +through this world should be always the triumphant passage of a +conqueror. As when a baby she had ruled the servants' hall, the kennel, +and the grooms' quarters, later her father and his boisterous friends, +and from her fifteenth birthday the whole hunting shire she lived in, so +she held her sway in the great world, as did no other lady of her rank or +any higher. Those of her age seemed but girls yet by her side, whether +married or unmarried, and howsoever trained to modish ways. She was but +scarce eighteen at her marriage, but she was no girl, nor did she look +one, glowing as was the early splendour of her bloom. Her height was far +beyond the ordinary for a woman; but her shape so faultless and her +carriage so regal, that though there were men upon whom she was tall +enough to look down with ease, the beholder but felt that her tallness +was an added grace and beauty with which all women should have been +endowed, and which, as they were not, caused them to appear but +insignificant. What a throat her diamonds blazed on, what shoulders and +bosom her laces framed, on what a brow her coronet sat and glittered. Her +lord lived as 'twere upon his knees in enraptured adoration. Since his +first wife's death in his youth, he had dwelt almost entirely in the +country at his house there, which was fine and stately, but had been kept +gloomily half closed for a decade. His town establishment had, in truth, +never been opened since his bereavement; and now--an elderly man--he +returned to the gay world he had almost forgotten, with a bride whose +youth and beauty set it aflame. What wonder that his head almost reeled +at times and that he lost his breath before the sum of his strange late +bliss, and the new lease of brilliant life which seemed to have been +given to him. + +In the days when, while in the country, he had heard such rumours of the +lawless days of Sir Jeoffry Wildairs' daughter, when he had heard of her +dauntless boldness, her shrewish temper, and her violent passions, he had +been awed at the thought of what a wife such a woman would make for a +gentleman accustomed to a quiet life, and he had indeed striven hard to +restrain the desperate admiration he was forced to admit she had inspired +in him even at her first ball. + +The effort had, in sooth, been in vain, and he had passed many a +sleepless night; and when, as time went on, he beheld her again and +again, and saw with his own eyes, as well as heard from others, of the +great change which seemed to have taken place in her manners and +character, he began devoutly to thank Heaven for the alteration, as for a +merciful boon vouchsafed to him. He had been wise enough to know that +even a stronger man than himself could never conquer or rule her; and +when she seemed to begin to rule herself and bear herself as befitted her +birth and beauty, he had dared to allow himself to dream of what +perchance might be if he had great good fortune. + +In these days of her union with him, he was, indeed, almost humbly amazed +at the grace and kindness she showed him every hour they passed in each +other's company. He knew that there were men, younger and handsomer than +himself, who, being wedded to beauties far less triumphant than she, +found that their wives had but little time to spare them from the world, +which knelt at their feet, and that in some fashion they themselves +seemed to fall into the background. But 'twas not so with this woman, +powerful and worshipped though she might be. She bore herself with the +high dignity of her rank, but rendered to him the gracious respect and +deference due both to his position and his merit. She stood by his side +and not before him, and her smiles and wit were bestowed upon him as +generously as to others. If she had once been a vixen, she was surely so +no longer, for he never heard a sharp or harsh word pass her lips, though +it is true her manner was always somewhat imperial, and her lacqueys and +waiting women stood in greatest awe of her. There was that in her +presence and in her eye before which all commoner or weaker creatures +quailed. The men of the world who flocked to pay their court to her, and +the popinjays who followed them, all knew this look, and a tone in her +rich voice which could cut like a knife when she chose that it should do +so. But to my Lord of Dunstanwolde she was all that a worshipped lady +could be. + +"Your ladyship has made of me a happier man than I ever dared to dream of +being, even when I was but thirty," he would say to her, with reverent +devotion. "I know not what I have done to deserve this late summer which +hath been given me." + +"When I consented to be your wife," she answered once, "I swore to myself +that I would make one for you;" and she crossed the hearth to where he +sat--she was attired in all her splendour for a Court ball, and starred +with jewels--bent over his chair and placed a kiss upon his grizzled +hair. + +Upon the night before her wedding with him, her sister, Mistress Anne, +had stolen to her chamber at a late hour. When she had knocked upon the +door, and had been commanded to enter, she had come in, and closing the +door behind her, had stood leaning against it, looking before her, with +her eyes wide with agitation and her poor face almost grey. + +All the tapers for which places could be found had been gathered +together, and the room was a blaze of light. In the midst of it, before +her mirror, Clorinda stood attired in her bridal splendour of white satin +and flowing rich lace, a diamond crescent on her head, sparks of light +flaming from every point of her raiment. When she caught sight of Anne's +reflection in the glass before her, she turned and stood staring at her +in wonder. + +"What--nay, what is this?" she cried. "What do you come for? On my +soul, you come for something--or you have gone mad." + +Anne started forward, trembling, her hands clasped upon her breast, and +fell at her feet with sobs. + +"Yes, yes," she gasped, "I came--for something--to speak--to pray you--! +Sister--Clorinda, have patience with me--till my courage comes again!" +and she clutched her robe. + +Something which came nigh to being a shudder passed through Mistress +Clorinda's frame; but it was gone in a second, and she touched +Anne--though not ungently--with her foot, withdrawing her robe. + +"Do not stain it with your tears," she said, "'twould be a bad omen." + +Anne buried her face in her hands and knelt so before her. + +"'Tis not too late!" she said--"'tis not too late yet." + +"For what?" Clorinda asked. "For what, I pray you tell me, if you can +find your wits. You go beyond my patience with your folly." + +"Too late to stop," said Anne--"to draw back and repent." + +"What?" commanded Clorinda--"what then should I repent me?" + +"This marriage," trembled Mistress Anne, taking her poor hands from her +face to wring them. "It should not be." + +"Fool!" quoth Clorinda. "Get up and cease your grovelling. Did you come +to tell me it was not too late to draw back and refuse to be the Countess +of Dunstanwolde?" and she laughed bitterly. + +"But it should not be--it must not!" Anne panted. "I--I know, sister, I +know--" + +Clorinda bent deliberately and laid her strong, jewelled hand on her +shoulder with a grasp like a vice. There was no hurry in her movement or +in her air, but by sheer, slow strength she forced her head backward so +that the terrified woman was staring in her face. + +"Look at me," she said. "I would see you well, and be squarely looked +at, that my eyes may keep you from going mad. You have pondered over +this marriage until you have a frenzy. Women who live alone are +sometimes so, and your brain was always weak. What is it that you know. +Look--in my eyes--and tell me." + +It seemed as if her gaze stabbed through Anne's eyes to the very centre +of her brain. Anne tried to bear it, and shrunk and withered; she would +have fallen upon the floor at her feet a helpless, sobbing heap, but the +white hand would not let her go. + +"Find your courage--if you have lost it--and speak plain words," Clorinda +commanded. Anne tried to writhe away, but could not again, and burst +into passionate, hopeless weeping. + +"I cannot--I dare not!" she gasped. "I am afraid. You are right; my +brain is weak, and I--but that--that gentleman--who so loved you--" + +"Which?" said Clorinda, with a brief scornful laugh. + +"The one who was so handsome--with the fair locks and the gallant air--" + +"The one you fell in love with and stared at through the window," said +Clorinda, with her brief laugh again. "John Oxon! He has victims +enough, forsooth, to have spared such an one as you are." + +"But he loved you!" cried Anne piteously, "and it must have been that +you--you too, sister--or--or else--" She choked again with sobs, and +Clorinda released her grasp upon her shoulder and stood upright. + +"He wants none of me--nor I of him," she said, with strange sternness. +"We have done with one another. Get up upon your feet if you would not +have me thrust you out into the corridor." + +She turned from her, and walking back to her dressing-table, stood there +steadying the diadem on her hair, which had loosed a fastening when Anne +tried to writhe away from her. Anne half sat, half knelt upon the floor, +staring at her with wet, wild eyes of misery and fear. + +"Leave your kneeling," commanded her sister again, "and come here." + +Anne staggered to her feet and obeyed her behest. In the glass she could +see the resplendent reflection; but Clorinda did not deign to turn +towards her while she addressed her, changing the while the brilliants in +her hair. + +"Hark you, sister Anne," she said. "I read you better than you think. +You are a poor thing, but you love me and--in my fashion--I think I love +you somewhat too. You think I should not marry a gentleman whom you +fancy I do not love as I might a younger, handsomer man. You are full of +love, and spinster dreams of it which make you flighty. I love my Lord +of Dunstanwolde as well as any other man, and better than some, for I do +not hate him. He has a fine estate, and is a gentleman--and worships me. +Since I have been promised to him, I own I have for a moment seen another +gentleman who _might_--but 'twas but for a moment, and 'tis done with. +'Twas too late then. If we had met two years agone 'twould not have been +so. My Lord Dunstanwolde gives to me wealth, and rank, and life at +Court. I give to him the thing he craves with all his soul--myself. It +is an honest bargain, and I shall bear my part of it with honesty. I +have no virtues--where should I have got them from, forsooth, in a life +like mine? I mean I have no women's virtues; but I have one that is +sometimes--not always--a man's. 'Tis that I am not a coward and a +trickster, and keep my word when 'tis given. You fear that I shall lead +my lord a bitter life of it. 'Twill not be so. He shall live smoothly, +and not suffer from me. What he has paid for he shall honestly have. I +will not cheat him as weaker women do their husbands; for he pays--poor +gentleman--he pays." + +And then, still looking at the glass, she pointed to the doorway through +which her sister had come, and in obedience to her gesture of command, +Mistress Anne stole silently away. + + + + +CHAPTER X--"Yes--I have marked him" + + +Through the brilliant, happy year succeeding to his marriage my Lord of +Dunstanwolde lived like a man who dreams a blissful dream and knows it is +one. + +"I feel," he said to his lady, "as if 'twere too great rapture to last, +and yet what end could come, unless you ceased to be kind to me; and, in +truth, I feel that you are too noble above all other women to change, +unless I were more unworthy than I could ever be since you are mine." + +Both in the town and in the country, which last place heard many things +of his condition and estate through rumour, he was the man most wondered +at and envied of his time--envied because of his strange happiness; +wondered at because having, when long past youth, borne off this arrogant +beauty from all other aspirants she showed no arrogance to him, and was +as perfect a wife as could have been some woman without gifts whom he had +lifted from low estate and endowed with rank and fortune. She seemed +both to respect himself and her position as his lady and spouse. Her +manner of reigning in his household was among his many delights the +greatest. It was a great house, and an old one, built long before by a +Dunstanwolde whose lavish feasts and riotous banquets had been the +notable feature of his life. It was curiously rambling in its structure. +The rooms of entertainment were large and splendid, the halls and +staircases stately; below stairs there was space for an army of servants +to be disposed of; and its network of cellars and wine-vaults was so +beyond all need that more than one long arched stone passage was shut up +as being without use, and but letting cold, damp air into corridors +leading to the servants' quarters. It was, indeed, my Lady Dunstanwolde +who had ordered the closing of this part when it had been her pleasure to +be shown her domain by her housekeeper, the which had greatly awed and +impressed her household as signifying that, exalted lady as she was, her +wit was practical as well as brilliant, and that her eyes being open to +her surroundings, she meant not that her lacqueys should rob her and her +scullions filch, thinking that she was so high that she was ignorant of +common things and blind. + +"You will be well housed and fed and paid your dues," she said to them; +"but the first man or woman who does a task ill or dishonestly will be +turned from his place that hour. I deal justice--not mercy." + +"Such a mistress they have never had before," said my lord when she +related this to him. "Nay, they have never dreamed of such a lady--one +who can be at once so severe and so kind. But there is none other such, +my dearest one. They will fear and worship you." + +She gave him one of her sweet, splendid smiles. It was the sweetness she +at rare times gave her splendid smile which was her marvellous power. + +"I would not be too grand a lady to be a good housewife," she said. "I +may not order your dinners, my dear lord, or sweep your corridors, but +they shall know I rule your household and would rule it well." + +"You are a goddess!" he cried, kneeling to her, enraptured. "And you +have given yourself to a poor mortal man, who can but worship you." + +"You give me all I have," she said, "and you love me nobly, and I am +grateful." + +Her assemblies were the most brilliant in the town, and the most to be +desired entrance to. Wits and beauties planned and intrigued that they +might be bidden to her house; beaux and fine ladies fell into the spleen +if she neglected them. Her lord's kinsman the Duke of Osmonde, who had +been present when she first knelt to Royalty, had scarce removed his eyes +from her so long as he could gaze. He went to Dunstanwolde afterwards +and congratulated him with stately courtesy upon his great good fortune +and happiness, speaking almost with fire of her beauty and majesty, and +thanking his kinsman that through him such perfections had been given to +their name and house. From that time, at all special assemblies given by +his kinsman he was present, the observed of all observers. He was a man +of whom 'twas said that he was the most magnificent gentleman in Europe; +that there was none to compare with him in the combination of gifts given +both by Nature and Fortune. His beauty both of feature and carriage was +of the greatest, his mind was of the highest, and his education far +beyond that of the age he lived in. It was not the fashion of the day +that men of his rank should devote themselves to the cultivation of their +intellects instead of to a life of pleasure; but this he had done from +his earliest youth, and now, in his perfect though early maturity, he had +no equal in polished knowledge and charm of bearing. He was the patron +of literature and art; men of genius were not kept waiting in his +antechamber, but were received by him with courtesy and honour. At the +Court 'twas well known there was no man who stood so near the throne in +favour, and that there was no union so exalted that he might not have +made his suit as rather that of a superior than an equal. The Queen both +loved and honoured him, and condescended to avow as much with gracious +frankness. She knew no other man, she deigned to say, who was so worthy +of honour and affection, and that he had not married must be because +there was no woman who could meet him on ground that was equal. If there +were no scandals about him--and there were none--'twas not because he was +cold of heart or imagination. No man or woman could look into his deep +eye and not know that when love came to him 'twould be a burning passion, +and an evil fate if it went ill instead of happily. + +"Being past his callow, youthful days, 'tis time he made some woman a +duchess," Dunstanwolde said reflectively once to his wife. "'Twould be +more fitting that he should; and it is his way to honour his house in all +things, and bear himself without fault as the head of it. Methinks it +strange he makes no move to do it." + +"No, 'tis not strange," said my lady, looking under her black-fringed +lids at the glow of the fire, as though reflecting also. "There is no +strangeness in it." + +"Why not?" her lord asked. + +"There is no mate for him," she answered slowly. "A man like him must +mate as well as marry, or he will break his heart with silent raging at +the weakness of the thing he is tied to. He is too strong and splendid +for a common woman. If he married one, 'twould be as if a lion had taken +to himself for mate a jackal or a sheep. Ah!" with a long drawn +breath--"he would go mad--mad with misery;" and her hands, which lay upon +her knee, wrung themselves hard together, though none could see it. + +"He should have a goddess, were they not so rare," said Dunstanwolde, +gently smiling. "He should hold a bitter grudge against me, that I, his +unworthy kinsman, have been given the only one." + +"Yes, he should have a goddess," said my lady slowly again; "and there +are but women, naught but women." + +"You have marked him well," said her lord, admiring her wisdom. "Methinks +that you--though you have spoken to him but little, and have but of late +become his kinswoman--have marked and read him better than the rest of +us." + +"Yes--I have marked him," was her answer. + +"He is a man to mark, and I have a keen eye." She rose up as she spoke, +and stood before the fire, lifted by some strong feeling to her fullest +height, and towering there, splendid in the shadow--for 'twas by twilight +they talked. "He is a Man," she said--"he is a Man! Nay, he is as God +meant man should be. And if men were so, there would be women great +enough for them to mate with and to give the world men like them." And +but that she stood in the shadow, her lord would have seen the crimson +torrent rush up her cheek and brow, and overspread her long round throat +itself. + +If none other had known of it, there was one man who knew that she had +marked him, though she had borne herself towards him always with her +stateliest grace. This man was his Grace the Duke himself. From the +hour that he had stood transfixed as he watched her come up the broad oak +stair, from the moment that the red rose fell from her wreath at his +feet, and he had stooped to lift it in his hand, he had seen her as no +other man had seen her, and he had known that had he not come but just +too late, she would have been his own. Each time he had beheld her since +that night he had felt this burn more deeply in his soul. He was too +high and fine in all his thoughts to say to himself that in her he saw +for the first time the woman who was his peer; but this was very truth--or +might have been, if Fate had set her youth elsewhere, and a lady who was +noble and her own mother had trained and guarded her. When he saw her at +the Court surrounded, as she ever was, by a court of her own; when he saw +her reigning in her lord's house, receiving and doing gracious honour to +his guests and hers; when she passed him in her coach, drawing every eye +by the majesty of her presence, as she drove through the town, he felt a +deep pang, which was all the greater that his honour bade him conquer it. +He had no ignoble thought of her, he would have scorned to sully his soul +with any light passion; to him she was the woman who might have been his +beloved wife and duchess, who would have upheld with him the honour and +traditions of his house, whose strength and power and beauty would have +been handed down to his children, who so would have been born endowed +with gifts befitting the state to which Heaven had called them. It was +of this he thought when he saw her, and of naught less like to do her +honour. And as he had marked her so, he saw in her eyes, despite her +dignity and grace, she had marked him. He did not know how closely, or +that she gave him the attention he could not restrain himself from +bestowing upon her. But when he bowed before her, and she greeted him +with all courtesy, he saw in her great, splendid eye that had Fate willed +it so, she would have understood all his thoughts, shared all his +ambitions, and aided him to uphold his high ideals. Nay, he knew she +understood him even now, and was stirred by what stirred him also, even +though they met but rarely, and when they encountered each other, spoke +but as kinsman and kinswoman who would show each other all gracious +respect and honour. It was because of this pang which struck his great +heart at times that he was not a frequent visitor at my Lord +Dunstanwolde's mansion, but appeared there only at such assemblies as +were matters of ceremony, his absence from which would have been a noted +thing. His kinsman was fond of him, and though himself of so much riper +age, honoured him greatly. At times he strove to lure him into visits of +greater familiarity; but though his kindness was never met coldly or +repulsed, a further intimacy was in some gracious way avoided. + +"My lady must beguile you to be less formal with us," said Dunstanwolde. +And later her ladyship spoke as her husband had privately desired: "My +lord would be made greatly happy if your Grace would honour our house +oftener," she said one night, when at the end of a great ball he was +bidding her adieu. + +Osmonde's deep eye met hers gently and held it. "My Lord Dunstanwolde is +always gracious and warm of heart to his kinsman," he replied. "Do not +let him think me discourteous or ungrateful. In truth, your ladyship, I +am neither the one nor the other." + +The eyes of each gazed into the other's steadfastly and gravely. The +Duke of Osmonde thought of Juno's as he looked at hers; they were of such +velvet, and held such fathomless deeps. + +"Your Grace is not so free as lesser men," Clorinda said. "You cannot +come and go as you would." + +"No," he answered gravely, "I cannot, as I would." + +And this was all. + +It having been known by all the world that, despite her beauty and her +conquests, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs had not smiled with great favour +upon Sir John Oxon in the country, it was not wondered at or made any +matter of gossip that the Countess of Dunstanwolde was but little +familiar with him and saw him but rarely at her house in town. + +Once or twice he had appeared there, it is true, at my Lord +Dunstanwolde's instance, but my lady herself scarce seemed to see him +after her first courtesies as hostess were over. + +"You never smiled on him, my love," Dunstanwolde said to his wife. "You +bore yourself towards him but cavalierly, as was your ladyship's way--with +all but one poor servant," tenderly; "but he was one of the many who +followed in your train, and if these gay young fellows stay away, 'twill +be said that I keep them at a distance because I am afraid of their youth +and gallantry. I would not have it fancied that I was so ungrateful as +to presume upon your goodness and not leave to you your freedom." + +"Nor would I, my lord," she answered. "But he will not come often; I do +not love him well enough." + +His marriage with the heiress who had wealth in the West Indies was +broken off, or rather 'twas said had come to naught. All the town knew +it, and wondered, and talked, because it had been believed at first that +the young lady was much enamoured of him, and that he would soon lead her +to the altar, the which his creditors had greatly rejoiced over as +promising them some hope that her fortune would pay their bills of which +they had been in despair. Later, however, gossip said that the heiress +had not been so tender as was thought; that, indeed, she had been found +to be in love with another man, and that even had she not, she had heard +such stories of Sir John as promised but little nuptial happiness for any +woman that took him to husband. + +When my Lord Dunstanwolde brought his bride to town, and she soared at +once to splendid triumph and renown, inflaming every heart, and setting +every tongue at work, clamouring her praises, Sir John Oxon saw her from +afar in all the scenes of brilliant fashion she frequented and reigned +queen of. 'Twas from afar, it might be said, he saw her only, though he +was often near her, because she bore herself as if she did not observe +him, or as though he were a thing which did not exist. The first time +that she deigned to address him was upon an occasion when she found +herself standing so near him at an assembly that in the crowd she brushed +him with her robe. His blue eyes were fixed burningly upon her, and as +she brushed him he drew in a hard breath, which she hearing, turned +slowly and let her own eyes fall upon his face. + +"You did not marry," she said. + +"No, I did not marry," he answered, in a low, bitter voice. "'Twas your +ladyship who did that." + +She faintly, slowly smiled. + +"I should not have been like to do otherwise," she said; "'tis an +honourable condition. I would advise you to enter it." + + + + +CHAPTER XI--Wherein a noble life comes to an end + + +When the earl and his countess went to their house in the country, there +fell to Mistress Anne a great and curious piece of good fortune. In her +wildest dreams she had never dared to hope that such a thing might be. + +My Lady Dunstanwolde, on her first visit home, bore her sister back with +her to the manor, and there established her. She gave her a suite of +rooms and a waiting woman of her own, and even provided her with a +suitable wardrobe. This last she had chosen herself with a taste and +fitness which only such wit as her own could have devised. + +"They are not great rooms I give thee, Anne," she said, "but quiet and +small ones, which you can make home-like in such ways as I know your +taste lies. My lord has aided me to choose romances for your shelves, he +knowing more of books than I do. And I shall not dress thee out like a +peacock with gay colours and great farthingales. They would frighten +thee, poor woman, and be a burden with their weight. I have chosen such +things as are not too splendid, but will suit thy pale face and shot +partridge eyes." + +Anne stood in the middle of her room and looked about at its comforts, +wondering. + +"Sister," she said, "why are you so good to me? What have I done to +serve you? Why is it Anne instead of Barbara you are so gracious to?" + +"Perchance because I am a vain woman and would be worshipped as you +worship me." + +"But you are always worshipped," Anne faltered. + +"Ay, by men!" said Clorinda, mocking; "but not by women. And it may be +that my pride is so high that I must be worshipped by a woman too. You +would always love me, sister Anne. If you saw me break the law--if you +saw me stab the man I hated to the heart, you would think it must be +pardoned to me." + +She laughed, and yet her voice was such that Anne lost her breath and +caught at it again. + +"Ay, I should love you, sister!" she cried. "Even then I could not but +love you. I should know you could not strike so an innocent creature, +and that to be so hated he must have been worthy of hate. You--are not +like other women, sister Clorinda; but you could not be base--for you +have a great heart." + +Clorinda put her hand to her side and laughed again, but with less +mocking in her laughter. + +"What do you know of my heart, Anne?" she said. "Till late I did not +know it beat, myself. My lord says 'tis a great one and noble, but I +know 'tis his own that is so. Have I done honestly by him, Anne, as I +told you I would? Have I been fair in my bargain--as fair as an honest +man, and not a puling, slippery woman?" + +"You have been a great lady," Anne answered, her great dull, soft eyes +filling with slow tears as she gazed at her. "He says that you have +given to him a year of Heaven, and that you seem to him like some +archangel--for the lower angels seem not high enough to set beside you." + +"'Tis as I said--'tis his heart that is noble," said Clorinda. "But I +vowed it should be so. He paid--he paid!" + +The country saw her lord's happiness as the town had done, and wondered +at it no less. The manor was thrown open, and guests came down from +town; great dinners and balls being given, at which all the country saw +the mistress reign at her consort's side with such a grace as no lady +ever had worn before. Sir Jeoffry, appearing at these assemblies, was so +amazed that he forgot to muddle himself with drink, in gazing at his +daughter and following her in all her movements. + +"Look at her!" he said to his old boon companions and hers, who were as +much awed as he. "Lord! who would think she was the strapping, handsome +shrew that swore, and sang men's songs to us, and rode to the hunt in +breeches." + +He was awed at the thought of paying fatherly visits to her house, and +would have kept away, but that she was kind to him in the way he was best +able to understand. + +"I am country-bred, and have not the manners of your town men, my lady," +he said to her, as he sat with her alone on one of the first mornings he +spent with her in her private apartment. "I am used to rap out an oath +or an ill-mannered word when it comes to me. Dunstanwolde has weaned you +of hearing such things--and I am too old a dog to change." + +"Wouldst have thought I was too old to change," answered she, "but I was +not. Did I not tell thee I would be a great lady? There is naught a man +or woman cannot learn who hath the wit." + +"Thou hadst it, Clo," said Sir Jeoffry, gazing at her with a sort of slow +wonder. "Thou hadst it. If thou hadst not--!" He paused, and shook his +head, and there was a rough emotion in his coarse face. "I was not the +man to have made aught but a baggage of thee, Clo. I taught thee naught +decent, and thou never heard or saw aught to teach thee. Damn me!" +almost with moisture in his eyes, "if I know what kept thee from going to +ruin before thou wert fifteen." + +She sat and watched him steadily. + +"Nor I," quoth she, in answer. "Nor I--but here thou seest me, Dad--an +earl's lady, sitting before thee." + +"'Twas thy wit," said he, still moved, and fairly maudlin. "'Twas thy +wit and thy devil's will!" + +"Ay," she answered, "'twas they--my wit and my devil's will!" + +She rode to the hunt with him as she had been wont to do, but she wore +the latest fashion in hunting habit and coat; and though 'twould not have +been possible for her to sit her horse better than of old, or to take +hedges and ditches with greater daring and spirit, yet in some way every +man who rode with her felt that 'twas a great lady who led the field. The +horse she rode was a fierce, beauteous devil of a beast which Sir Jeoffry +himself would scarce have mounted even in his younger days; but she +carried her loaded whip, and she sat upon the brute as if she scarcely +felt its temper, and held it with a wrist of steel. + +My Lord Dunstanwolde did not hunt this season. He had never been greatly +fond of the sport, and at this time was a little ailing, but he would not +let his lady give up her pleasure because he could not join it. + +"Nay," he said, "'tis not for the queen of the hunting-field to stay at +home to nurse an old man's aches. My pride would not let it be so. Your +father will attend you. Go--and lead them all, my dear." + +In the field appeared Sir John Oxon, who for a brief visit was at +Eldershawe. He rode close to my lady, though she had naught to say to +him after her first greetings of civility. He looked not as fresh and +glowing with youth as had been his wont only a year ago. His reckless +wildness of life and his town debaucheries had at last touched his bloom, +perhaps. He had a haggard look at moments when his countenance was not +lighted by excitement. 'Twas whispered that he was deep enough in debt +to be greatly straitened, and that his marriage having come to naught his +creditors were besetting him without mercy. This and more than this, no +one knew so well as my Lady Dunstanwolde; but of a certainty she had +little pity for his evil case, if one might judge by her face, when in +the course of the running he took a hedge behind her, and pressing his +horse, came up by her side and spoke. + +"Clorinda," he began breathlessly, through set teeth. + +She could have left him and not answered, but she chose to restrain the +pace of her wild beast for a moment and look at him. + +"'Your ladyship!'" she corrected his audacity. "Or--'my Lady +Dunstanwolde.'" + +"There was a time"--he said. + +"This morning," she said, "I found a letter in a casket in my closet. I +do not know the mad villain who wrote it. I never knew him." + +"You did not," he cried, with an oath, and then laughed scornfully. + +"The letter lies in ashes on the hearth," she said. "'Twas burned +unopened. Do not ride so close, Sir John, and do not play the madman and +the beast with the wife of my Lord Dunstanwolde." + +"'The wife!'" he answered. "'My lord!' 'Tis a new game this, and well +played, by God!" + +She did not so much as waver in her look, and her wide eyes smiled. + +"Quite new," she answered him--"quite new. And could I not have played +it well and fairly, I would not have touched the cards. Keep your horse +off, Sir John. Mine is restive, and likes not another beast near him;" +and she touched the creature with her whip, and he was gone like a +thunderbolt. + +The next day, being in her room, Anne saw her come from her +dressing-table with a sealed letter in her hand. She went to the bell +and rang it. + +"Anne," she said, "I am going to rate my woman and turn her from my +service. I shall not beat or swear at her as I was wont to do with my +women in time past. You will be afraid, perhaps; but you must stay with +me." + +She was standing by the fire with the letter held almost at arm's length +in her finger-tips, when the woman entered, who, seeing her face, turned +pale, and casting her eyes upon the letter, paler still, and began to +shake. + +"You have attended mistresses of other ways than mine," her lady said in +her slow, clear voice, which seemed to cut as knives do. "Some fool and +madman has bribed you to serve him. You cannot serve me also. Come +hither and put this in the fire. If 'twere to be done I would make you +hold it in the live coals with your hand." + +The woman came shuddering, looking as if she thought she might be struck +dead. She took the letter and kneeled, ashen pale, to burn it. When +'twas done, her mistress pointed to the door. + +"Go and gather your goods and chattels together, and leave within this +hour," she said. "I will be my own tirewoman till I can find one who +comes to me honest." + +When she was gone, Anne sat gazing at the ashes on the hearth. She was +pale also. + +"Sister," she said, "do you--" + +"Yes," answered my lady. "'Tis a man who loved me, a cur and a knave. He +thought for an hour he was cured of his passion. I could have told him +'twould spring up and burn more fierce than ever when he saw another man +possess me. 'Tis so with knaves and curs; and 'tis so with him. He hath +gone mad again." + +"Ay, mad!" cried Anne--"mad, and base, and wicked!" + +Clorinda gazed at the ashes, her lips curling. + +"He was ever base," she said--"as he was at first, so he is now. 'Tis +thy favourite, Anne," lightly, and she delicately spurned the blackened +tinder with her foot--"thy favourite, John Oxon." + +Mistress Anne crouched in her seat and hid her face in her thin hands. + +"Oh, my lady!" she cried, not feeling that she could say "sister," "if he +be base, and ever was so, pity him, pity him! The base need pity more +than all." + +For she had loved him madly, all unknowing her own passion, not presuming +even to look up in his beautiful face, thinking of him only as the slave +of her sister, and in dead secrecy knowing strange things--strange +things! And when she had seen the letter she had known the handwriting, +and the beating of her simple heart had well-nigh strangled her--for she +had seen words writ by him before. + +* * * * * + +When Dunstanwolde and his lady went back to their house in town, Mistress +Anne went with them. Clorinda willed that it should be so. She made her +there as peaceful and retired a nest of her own as she had given to her +at Dunstanwolde. By strange good fortune Barbara had been wedded to a +plain gentleman, who, being a widower with children, needed a help-meet +in his modest household, and through a distant relationship to Mistress +Wimpole, encountered her charge, and saw in her meekness of spirit the +thing which might fall into the supplying of his needs. A beauty or a +fine lady would not have suited him; he wanted but a housewife and a +mother for his orphaned children, and this, a young woman who had lived +straitly, and been forced to many contrivances for mere decency of +apparel and ordinary comfort, might be trained to become. + +So it fell that Mistress Anne could go to London without pangs of +conscience at leaving her sister in the country and alone. The +stateliness of the town mansion, my Lady Dunstanwolde's retinue of +lacqueys and serving-women, her little black page, who waited on her and +took her pug dogs to walk, her wardrobe, and jewels, and equipages, were +each and all marvels to her, but seemed to her mind so far befitting that +she remembered, wondering, the days when she had darned the tattered +tapestry in her chamber, and changed the ribbands and fashions of her +gowns. Being now attired fittingly, though soberly as became her, she +was not in these days--at least, as far as outward seeming went--an +awkward blot upon the scene when she appeared among her sister's company; +but at heart she was as timid and shrinking as ever, and never mingled +with the guests in the great rooms when she could avoid so doing. Once +or twice she went forth with Clorinda in her coach and six, and saw the +glittering world, while she drew back into her corner of the equipage and +gazed with all a country-bred woman's timorous admiration. + +"'Twas grand and like a beautiful show!" she said, when she came home the +first time. "But do not take me often, sister; I am too plain and shy, +and feel that I am naught in it." + +But though she kept as much apart from the great World of Fashion as she +could, she contrived to know of all her sister's triumphs; to see her +when she went forth in her bravery, though 'twere but to drive in the +Mall; to be in her closet with her on great nights when her tirewomen +were decking her in brocades and jewels, that she might show her highest +beauty at some assembly or ball of State. And at all these times, as +also at all others, she knew that she but shared her own love and dazzled +admiration with my Lord Dunstanwolde, whose tenderness, being so fed by +his lady's unfailing graciousness of bearing and kindly looks and words, +grew with every hour that passed. + +They held one night a splendid assembly at which a member of the Royal +House was present. That night Clorinda bade her sister appear. + +"Sometimes--I do not command it always--but sometimes you must show +yourself to our guests. My lord will not be pleased else. He says it is +not fitting that his wife's sister should remain unseen as if we hid her +away through ungraciousness. Your woman will prepare for you all things +needful. I myself will see that your dress becomes you. I have +commanded it already, and given much thought to its shape and colour. I +would have you very comely, Anne." And she kissed her lightly on her +cheek--almost as gently as she sometimes kissed her lord's grey hair. In +truth, though she was still a proud lady and stately in her ways, there +had come upon her some strange subtle change Anne could not understand. + +On the day on which the assembly was held, Mistress Anne's woman brought +to her a beautiful robe. 'Twas flowered satin of the sheen and softness +of a dove's breast, and the lace adorning it was like a spider's web for +gossamer fineness. The robe was sweetly fashioned, fitting her shape +wondrously; and when she was attired in it at night a little colour came +into her cheeks to see herself so far beyond all comeliness she had ever +known before. When she found herself in the midst of the dazzling scene +in the rooms of entertainment, she was glad when at last she could feel +herself lost among the crowd of guests. Her only pleasure in such scenes +was to withdraw to some hidden corner and look on as at a pageant or a +play. To-night she placed herself in the shadow of a screen, from which +retreat she could see Clorinda and Dunstanwolde as they received their +guests. Thus she found enjoyment enough; for, in truth, her love and +almost abject passion of adoration for her sister had grown as his +lordship's had, with every hour. For a season there had rested upon her +a black shadow beneath which she wept and trembled, bewildered and lost; +though even at its darkest the object of her humble love had been a star +whose brightness was not dimmed, because it could not be so whatsoever +passed before it. This cloud, however, being it seemed dispelled, the +star had shone but more brilliant in its high place, and she the more +passionately worshipped it. To sit apart and see her idol's radiance, to +mark her as she reigned and seemed the more royal when she bent the knee +to royalty itself, to see the shimmer of her jewels crowning her midnight +hair and crashing the warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the +admiration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her--this was, indeed, enough +of happiness. + +"She is, as ever," she murmured, "not so much a woman as a proud lovely +goddess who has deigned to descend to earth. But my lord does not look +like himself. He seems shrunk in the face and old, and his eyes have +rings about them. I like not that. He is so kind a gentleman and so +happy that his body should not fail him. I have marked that he has +looked colourless for days, and Clorinda questioned him kindly on it, but +he said he suffered naught." + +'Twas but a little later than she had thought this, that she remarked a +gentleman step aside and stand quite near without observing her. Feeling +that she had no testimony to her fancifulness, she found herself thinking +in a vague fashion that he, too, had come there because he chose to be +unobserved. 'Twould not have been so easy for him to retire as it had +been for her smallness and insignificance to do so; and, indeed, she did +not fancy that he meant to conceal himself, but merely to stand for a +quiet moment a little apart from the crowd. + +And as she looked up at him, wondering why this should be, she saw he was +the noblest and most stately gentleman she had ever beheld. + +She had never seen him before; he must either be a stranger or a rare +visitor. As Clorinda was beyond a woman's height, he was beyond a man's. + +He carried himself as kingly as she did nobly; he had a countenance of +strong, manly beauty, and a deep tawny eye, thick-fringed and full of +fire; orders glittered upon his breast, and he wore a fair periwig, which +became him wondrously, and seemed to make his eye more deep and burning +by its contrast. + +Beside his strength and majesty of bearing the stripling beauty of John +Oxon would have seemed slight and paltry, a thing for flippant women to +trifle with. + +Mistress Anne looked at him with an admiration somewhat like reverence, +and as she did so a sudden thought rose to her mind, and even as it rose, +she marked what his gaze rested on, and how it dwelt upon it, and knew +that he had stepped apart to stand and gaze as she did--only with a man's +hid fervour--at her sister's self. + +'Twas as if suddenly a strange secret had been told her. She read it in +his face, because he thought himself unobserved, and for a space had cast +his mask aside. He stood and gazed as a man who, starving at soul, fed +himself through his eyes, having no hope of other sustenance, or as a man +weary with long carrying of a burden, for a space laid it down for rest +and to gather power to go on. She heard him draw a deep sigh almost +stifled in its birth, and there was that in his face which she felt it +was unseemly that a stranger like herself should behold, himself +unknowing of her near presence. + +She gently rose from her corner, wondering if she could retire from her +retreat without attracting his observation; but as she did so, chance +caused him to withdraw himself a little farther within the shadow of the +screen, and doing so, he beheld her. + +Then his face changed; the mask of noble calmness, for a moment fallen, +resumed itself, and he bowed before her with the reverence of a courtly +gentleman, undisturbed by the unexpectedness of his recognition of her +neighbourhood. + +"Madam," he said, "pardon my unconsciousness that you were near me. You +would pass?" And he made way for her. + +She curtseyed, asking his pardon with her dull, soft eyes. + +"Sir," she answered, "I but retired here for a moment's rest from the +throng and gaiety, to which I am unaccustomed. But chiefly I sat in +retirement that I might watch--my sister." + +"Your sister, madam?" he said, as if the questioning echo were almost +involuntary, and he bowed again in some apology. + +"My Lady Dunstanwolde," she replied. "I take such pleasure in her +loveliness and in all that pertains to her, it is a happiness to me to +but look on." + +Whatsoever the thing was in her loving mood which touched him and found +echo in his own, he was so far moved that he answered to her with +something less of ceremoniousness; remembering also, in truth, that she +was a lady he had heard of, and recalling her relationship and name. + +"It is then Mistress Anne Wildairs I am honoured by having speech with," +he said. "My Lady Dunstanwolde has spoken of you in my presence. I am +my lord's kinsman the Duke of Osmonde;" again bowing, and Anne curtseyed +low once more. + +Despite his greatness, she felt a kindness and grace in him which was not +condescension, and which almost dispelled the timidity which, being part +of her nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she addressed or was +addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, bowing his bright curls, and seeming +ever to mock with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome with shy +awkwardness and blushes; but this man, who seemed as far above him in +person and rank and mind as a god is above a graceful painted puppet, +even appeared to give of his own noble strength to her poor weakness. He +bore himself towards her with a courtly respect such as no human being +had ever shown to her before. He besought her again to be seated in her +nook, and stood before her conversing with such delicate sympathy with +her mood as seemed to raise her to the pedestal on which stood less +humble women. All those who passed before them he knew and could speak +easily of. The high deeds of those who were statesmen, or men honoured +at Court or in the field, he was familiar with; and of those who were +beauties or notable gentlewomen he had always something courtly to say. + +Her own worship of her sister she knew full well he understood, though he +spoke of her but little. + +"Well may you gaze at her," he said. "So does all the world, and honours +and adores." + +He proffered her at last his arm, and she, having strangely taken +courage, let him lead her through the rooms and persuade her to some +refreshment. Seeing her so wondrously emerge from her chrysalis, and +under the protection of so distinguished a companion, all looked at her +as she passed with curious amazement, and indeed Mistress Anne was all +but overpowered by the reverence shown them as they made their way. + +As they came again into the apartment wherein the host and hostess +received their guests, Anne felt her escort pause, and looked up at him +to see the meaning of his sudden hesitation. He was gazing intently, not +at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde. + +"Madam," he said, "pardon me that I seem to detain you, but--but I look +at my kinsman. Madam," with a sudden fear in his voice, "he is ailing--he +sways as he stands. Let us go to him. Quickly! He falls!" + +And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a dismayed cry from the +guests about them, and there was a surging movement; and as they pressed +forward themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstanwolde no more +above the people, for he had indeed fallen and lay outstretched and +deathly on the floor. + +'Twas but a few seconds before she and Osmonde were close enough to him +to mark his fallen face and ghastly pallor, and a strange dew starting +out upon his brow. + +But 'twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate body, waving all else +aside with a great majestic gesture of her arm. + +"Back! back!" she cried. "Air! air! and water! My lord! My dear lord!" + +But he did not answer, or even stir, though she bent close to him and +thrust her hand within his breast. And then the frightened guests beheld +a strange but beautiful and loving thing, such as might have moved any +heart to tenderness and wonder. This great beauty, this worshipped +creature, put her arms beneath and about the helpless, awful body--for so +its pallor and stillness indeed made it--and lifted it in their powerful +whiteness as if it had been the body of a child, and so bore it to a +couch near and laid it down, kneeling beside it. + +Anne and Osmonde were beside her. Osmonde pale himself, but gently calm +and strong. He had despatched for a physician the instant he saw the +fall. + +"My lady," he said, bending over her, "permit me to approach. I have +some knowledge of these seizures. Your pardon!" + +He knelt also and took the moveless hand, feeling the pulse; he, too, +thrust his hand within the breast and held it there, looking at the +sunken face. + +"My dear lord," her ladyship was saying, as if to the prostrate man's ear +alone, knowing that her tender voice must reach him if aught would--as +indeed was truth. "Edward! My dear--dear lord!" + +Osmonde held his hand steadily over the heart. The guests shrunk back, +stricken with terror. + +There was that in this corner of the splendid room which turned faces +pale. + +Osmonde slowly withdrew his hand, and turning to the kneeling woman--with +a pallor like that of marble, but with a noble tenderness and pity in his +eyes-- + +"My lady," he said, "you are a brave woman. Your great courage must +sustain you. The heart beats no more. A noble life is finished." + +* * * * * + +The guests heard, and drew still farther back, a woman or two faintly +whimpering; a hurrying lacquey parted the crowd, and so, way being made +for him, the physician came quickly forward. + +Anne put her shaking hands up to cover her gaze. Osmonde stood still, +looking down. My Lady Dunstanwolde knelt by the couch and hid her +beautiful face upon the dead man's breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--Which treats of the obsequies of my Lord of Dunstanwolde, of +his lady's widowhood, and of her return to town + + +All that remained of my Lord Dunstanwolde was borne back to his ancestral +home, and there laid to rest in the ancient tomb in which his fathers +slept. Many came from town to pay him respect, and the Duke of Osmonde +was, as was but fitting, among them. The countess kept her own +apartments, and none but her sister, Mistress Anne, beheld her. + +The night before the final ceremonies she spent sitting by her lord's +coffin, and to Anne it seemed that her mood was a stranger one, than ever +woman had before been ruled by. She did not weep or moan, and only once +kneeled down. In her sweeping black robes she seemed more a majestic +creature than she had ever been, and her beauty more that of a statue +than of a mortal woman. She sent away all other watchers, keeping only +her sister with her, and Anne observed in her a strange protecting +gentleness when she spoke of the dead man. + +"I do not know whether dead men can feel and hear," she said. "Sometimes +there has come into my mind--and made me shudder--the thought that, +though they lie so still, mayhap they know what we do--and how they are +spoken of as nothings whom live men and women but wait a moment to thrust +away, that their own living may go on again in its accustomed way, or +perchance more merrily. If my lord knows aught, he will be grateful that +I watch by him to-night in this solemn room. He was ever grateful, and +moved by any tenderness of mine." + +'Twas as she said, the room was solemn, and this almost to awfulness. It +was a huge cold chamber at best, and draped with black, and hung with +hatchments; a silent gloom filled it which made it like a tomb. Tall wax- +candles burned in it dimly, but adding to its solemn shadows with their +faint light; and in his rich coffin the dead man lay in his shroud, his +hands like carvings of yellowed ivory clasped upon his breast. + +Mistress Anne dared not have entered the place alone, and was so overcome +at sight of the pinched nostrils and sunk eyes that she turned cold with +fear. But Clorinda seemed to feel no dread or shrinking. She went and +stood beside the great funeral-draped bed of state on which the coffin +lay, and thus standing, looked down with a grave, protecting pity in her +face. Then she stooped and kissed the dead man long upon the brow. + +"I will sit by you to-night," she said. "That which lies here will be +alone to-morrow. I will not leave you this last night. Had I been in +your place you would not leave me." + +She sat down beside him and laid her strong warm hand upon his cold waxen +ones, closing it over them as if she would give them heat. Anne knelt +and prayed--that all might be forgiven, that sins might be blotted out, +that this kind poor soul might find love and peace in the kingdom of +Heaven, and might not learn there what might make bitter the memory of +his last year of rapture and love. She was so simple that she forgot +that no knowledge of the past could embitter aught when a soul looked +back from Paradise. + +Throughout the watches of the night her sister sat and held the dead +man's hand; she saw her more than once smooth his grey hair almost as a +mother might have touched a sick sleeping child's; again she kissed his +forehead, speaking to him gently, as if to tell him he need not fear, for +she was close at hand; just once she knelt, and Anne wondered if she +prayed, and in what manner, knowing that prayer was not her habit. + +'Twas just before dawn she knelt so, and when she rose and stood beside +him, looking down again, she drew from the folds of her robe a little +package. + +"Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that bound it, "when first I +was his wife I found him one day at his desk looking at these things as +they lay upon his hand. He thought at first it would offend me to find +him so; but I told him that I was gentler than he thought--though not so +gentle as the poor innocent girl who died in giving him his child. 'Twas +her picture he was gazing at, and a little ring and two locks of hair--one +a brown ringlet from her head, and one--such a tiny wisp of down--from +the head of her infant. I told him to keep them always and look at them +often, remembering how innocent she had been, and that she had died for +him. There were tears on my hand when he kissed it in thanking me. He +kept the little package in his desk, and I have brought it to him." + +The miniature was of a sweet-faced girl with large loving childish eyes, +and cheeks that blushed like the early morning. Clorinda looked at her +almost with tenderness. + +"There is no marrying or giving in marriage, 'tis said," quoth she; "but +were there, 'tis you who were his wife--not I. I was but a lighter +thing, though I bore his name and he honoured me. When you and your +child greet him he will forget me--and all will be well." + +She held the miniature and the soft hair to his cold lips a moment, and +Anne saw with wonder that her own mouth worked. She slipped the ring on +his least finger, and hid the picture and the ringlets within the palms +of his folded hands. + +"He was a good man," she said; "he was the first good man that I had ever +known." And she held out her hand to Anne and drew her from the room +with her, and two crystal tears fell upon the bosom of her black robe and +slipped away like jewels. + +When the funeral obsequies were over, the next of kin who was heir came +to take possession of the estate which had fallen to him, and the widow +retired to her father's house for seclusion from the world. The town +house had been left to her by her deceased lord, but she did not wish to +return to it until the period of her mourning was over and she laid aside +her weeds. The income the earl had been able to bestow upon her made her +a rich woman, and when she chose to appear again in the world it would be +with the power to mingle with it fittingly. + +During her stay at her father's house she did much to make it a more +suitable abode for her, ordering down from London furnishings and workmen +to set her own apartments and Anne's in order. But she would not occupy +the rooms she had lived in heretofore. For some reason it seemed to be +her whim to have begun to have an enmity for them. The first day she +entered them with Anne she stopped upon the threshold. + +"I will not stay here," she said. "I never loved the rooms--and now I +hate them. It seems to me it was another woman who lived in them--in +another world. 'Tis so long ago that 'tis ghostly. Make ready the old +red chambers for me," to her woman; "I will live there. They have been +long closed, and are worm-eaten and mouldy perchance; but a great fire +will warm them. And I will have furnishings from London to make them fit +for habitation." + +The next day it seemed for a brief space as if she would have changed +even from the red chambers. + +"I did not know," she said, turning with a sudden movement from a side +window, "that one might see the old rose garden from here. I would not +have taken the room had I guessed it. It is too dreary a wilderness, +with its tangle of briars and its broken sun-dial." + +"You cannot see the dial from here," said Anne, coming towards her with a +strange paleness and haste. "One cannot see _within_ the garden from any +window, surely." + +"Nay," said Clorinda; "'tis not near enough, and the hedges are too high; +but one knows 'tis there, and 'tis tiresome." + +"Let us draw the curtains and not look, and forget it," said poor Anne. +And she drew the draperies with a trembling hand; and ever after while +they dwelt in the room they stayed so. + +My lady wore her mourning for more than a year, and in her sombre +trailing weeds was a wonder to behold. She lived in her father's house, +and saw no company, but sat or walked and drove with her sister Anne, and +visited the poor. The perfect stateliness of her decorum was more talked +about than any levity would have been; those who were wont to gossip +expecting that having made her fine match and been so soon rid of her +lord, she would begin to show her strange wild breeding again, and +indulge in fantastical whims. That she should wear her mourning with +unflinching dignity and withdraw from the world as strictly as if she had +been a lady of royal blood mourning her prince, was the unexpected thing, +and so was talked of everywhere. + +At the end of the eighteenth month she sent one day for Anne, who, coming +at her bidding, found her standing in her chamber surrounded by black +robes and draperies piled upon the bed, and chairs, and floor, their +sombreness darkening the room like a cloud; but she stood in their midst +in a trailing garment of pure white, and in her bosom was a bright red +rose tied with a knot of scarlet ribband, whose ends fell floating. Her +woman was upon her knees before a coffer in which she was laying the +weeds as she folded them. + +Mistress Anne paused within the doorway, her eyes dazzled by the tall +radiant shape and blot of scarlet colour as if by the shining of the sun. +She knew in that moment that all was changed, and that the world of +darkness they had been living in for the past months was swept from +existence. When her sister had worn her mourning weeds she had seemed +somehow almost pale; but now she stood in the sunlight with the rich +scarlet on her cheek and lip, and the stars in her great eyes. + +"Come in, sister Anne," she said. "I lay aside my weeds, and my woman is +folding them away for me. Dost know of any poor creature newly left a +widow whom some of them would be a help to? 'Tis a pity that so much +sombreness should lie in chests when there are perhaps poor souls to whom +it would be a godsend." + +Before the day was over, there was not a shred of black stuff left in +sight; such as had not been sent out of the house to be distributed, +being packed away in coffers in the garrets under the leads. + +"You will wear it no more, sister?" Anne asked once. "You will wear gay +colours--as if it had never been?" + +"It _is_ as if it had never been," Clorinda answered. "Ere now her lord +is happy with her, and he is so happy that I am forgot. I had a fancy +that--perhaps at first--well, if he had looked down on earth-- +remembering--he would have seen I was faithful in my honouring of him. +But now, I am sure--" + +She stopped with a half laugh. "'Twas but a fancy," she said. "Perchance +he has known naught since that night he fell at my feet--and even so, +poor gentleman, he hath a happy fate. Yes, I will wear gay colours," +flinging up her arms as if she dropped fetters, and stretched her +beauteous limbs for ease--"gay colours--and roses and rich jewels--and +all things--_all_ that will make me beautiful!" + +The next day there came a chest from London, packed close with splendid +raiment; when she drove out again in her chariot her servants' +sad-coloured liveries had been laid by, and she was attired in rich hues, +amidst which she glowed like some flower new bloomed. + +Her house in town was thrown open again, and set in order for her coming. +She made her journey back in state, Mistress Anne accompanying her in her +travelling-coach. As she passed over the highroad with her equipage and +her retinue, or spent the night for rest at the best inns in the towns +and villages, all seemed to know her name and state. + +"'Tis the young widow of the Earl of Dunstanwolde," people said to each +other--"she that is the great beauty, and of such a wit and spirit that +she is scarce like a mere young lady. 'Twas said she wed him for his +rank; but afterwards 'twas known she made him a happy gentleman, though +she gave him no heir. She wore weeds for him beyond the accustomed time, +and is but now issuing from her retirement." + +Mistress Anne felt as if she were attending some royal lady's progress, +people so gazed at them and nudged each other, wondered and admired. + +"You do not mind that all eyes rest on you," she said to her sister; "you +are accustomed to be gazed at." + +"I have been gazed at all my life," my lady answered; "I scarce take note +of it." + +On their arrival at home they met with fitting welcome and reverence. The +doors of the town house were thrown open wide, and in the hall the +servants stood in line, the housekeeper at the head with her keys at her +girdle, the little jet-black negro page grinning beneath his turban with +joy to see his lady again, he worshipping her as a sort of fetich, after +the manner of his race. 'Twas his duty to take heed to the pet dogs, and +he stood holding by their little silver chains a smart-faced pug and a +pretty spaniel. His lady stopped a moment to pat them and to speak to +him a word of praise of their condition; and being so favoured, he spoke +also, rolling his eyes in his delight at finding somewhat to impart. + +"Yesterday, ladyship, when I took them out," he said, "a gentleman marked +them, knowing whose they were. He asked me when my lady came again to +town, and I answered him to-day. 'Twas the fair gentleman in his own +hair." + +"'Twas Sir John Oxon, your ladyship," said the lacquey nearest to him. + +Her ladyship left caressing her spaniel and stood upright. Little Nero +was frightened, fearing she was angered; she stood so straight and tall, +but she said nothing and passed on. + +At the top of the staircase she turned to Mistress Anne with a laugh. + +"Thy favourite again, Anne," she said. "He means to haunt me, now we are +alone. 'Tis thee he comes after." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--Wherein a deadly war begins + + +The town and the World of Fashion greeted her on her return with open +arms. Those who looked on when she bent the knee to kiss the hand of +Royalty at the next drawing-room, whispered among themselves that +bereavement had not dimmed her charms, which were even more radiant than +they had been at her presentation on her marriage, and that the mind of +no man or woman could dwell on aught as mournful as widowhood in +connection with her, or, indeed, could think of anything but her +brilliant beauty. 'Twas as if from this time she was launched into a new +life. Being rich, of high rank, and no longer an unmarried woman, her +position had a dignity and freedom which there was no creature but might +have envied. As the wife of Dunstanwolde she had been the fashion, and +adored by all who dared adore her; but as his widow she was surrounded +and besieged. A fortune, a toast, a wit, and a beauty, she combined all +the things either man or woman could desire to attach themselves to the +train of; and had her air been less regal, and her wit less keen of edge, +she would have been so beset by flatterers and toadies that life would +have been burdensome. But this she would not have, and was swift enough +to detect the man whose debts drove him to the expedient of daring to +privately think of the usefulness of her fortune, or the woman who +manoeuvred to gain reputation or success by means of her position and +power. + +"They would be about me like vultures if I were weak fool enough to let +them," she said to Anne. "They cringe and grovel like spaniels, and +flatter till 'tis like to make one sick. 'Tis always so with toadies; +they have not the wit to see that their flattery is an insolence, since +it supposes adulation so rare that one may be moved by it. The men with +empty pockets would marry me, forsooth, and the women be dragged into +company clinging to my petticoats. But they are learning. I do not +shrink from giving them sharp lessons." + +This she did without mercy, and in time cleared herself of hangers-on, so +that her banquets and assemblies were the most distinguished of the time, +and the men who paid their court to her were of such place and fortune +that their worship could but be disinterested. + +Among the earliest to wait upon her was his Grace of Osmonde, who found +her one day alone, save for the presence of Mistress Anne, whom she kept +often with her. When the lacquey announced him, Anne, who sat upon the +same seat with her, felt her slightly start, and looking up, saw in her +countenance a thing she had never beheld before, nor had indeed ever +dreamed of beholding. It was a strange, sweet crimson which flowed over +her face, and seemed to give a wondrous deepness to her lovely orbs. She +rose as a queen might have risen had a king come to her, but never had +there been such pulsing softness in her look before. 'Twas in some +curious fashion like the look of a girl; and, in sooth, she was but a +girl in years, but so different to all others of her age, and had lived +so singular a life, that no one ever thought of her but as a woman, or +would have deemed it aught but folly to credit her with any tender +emotion or blushing warmth girlhood might be allowed. + +His Grace was as courtly of bearing as he had ever been. He stayed not +long, and during his visit conversed but on such subjects as a kinsman +may graciously touch upon; but Anne noted in him a new look also, though +she could scarce have told what it might be. She thought that he looked +happier, and her fancy was that some burden had fallen from him. + +Before he went away he bent low and long over Clorinda's hand, pressing +his lips to it with a tenderness which strove not to conceal itself. And +the hand was not withdrawn, her ladyship standing in sweet yielding, the +tender crimson trembling on her cheek. Anne herself trembled, watching +her new, strange loveliness with a sense of fascination; she could scarce +withdraw her eyes, it seemed so as if the woman had been reborn. + +"Your Grace will come to us again," my lady said, in a soft voice. "We +are two lonely women," with her radiant compelling smile, "and need your +kindly countenancing." + +His eyes dwelt deep in hers as he answered, and there was a flush upon +his own cheek, man and warrior though he was. + +"If I might come as often as I would," he said, "I should be at your +door, perhaps, with too great frequency." + +"Nay, your Grace," she answered. "Come as often as _we_ would--and see +who wearies first. 'Twill not be ourselves." + +He kissed her hand again, and this time 'twas passionately, and when he +left her presence it was with a look of radiance on his noble face, and +with the bearing of a king new crowned. + +For a few moments' space she stood where he had parted from her, looking +as though listening to the sound of his step, as if she would not lose a +footfall; then she went to the window, and stood among the flowers there, +looking down into the street, and Anne saw that she watched his equipage. + +'Twas early summer, and the sunshine flooded her from head to foot; the +window and balcony were full of flowers--yellow jonquils and daffodils, +white narcissus, and all things fragrant of the spring. The scent of +them floated about her like an incense, and a straying zephyr blew great +puffs of their sweetness back into the room. Anne felt it all about her, +and remembered it until she was an aged woman. + +Clorinda's bosom rose high in an exultant, rapturous sigh. + +"'Tis the Spring that comes," she murmured breathlessly. "Never hath it +come to me before." + +Even as she said the words, at the very moment of her speaking, Fate--a +strange Fate indeed--brought to her yet another visitor. The door was +thrown open wide, and in he came, a lacquey crying aloud his name. 'Twas +Sir John Oxon. + +* * * * * + +Those of the World of Fashion who were wont to gossip, had bestowed upon +them a fruitful subject for discussion over their tea-tables, in the +future of the widowed Lady Dunstanwolde. All the men being enamoured of +her, 'twas not likely that she would long remain unmarried, her period of +mourning being over; and, accordingly, forthwith there was every day +chosen for her a new husband by those who concerned themselves in her +affairs, and they were many. One week 'twas a great general she was said +to smile on; again, a great beau and female conqueror, it being argued +that, having made her first marriage for rank and wealth, and being a +passionate and fantastic beauty, she would this time allow herself to be +ruled by her caprice, and wed for love; again, a certain marquis was +named, and after him a young earl renowned for both beauty and wealth; +but though each and all of those selected were known to have laid +themselves at her feet, none of them seemed to have met with the favour +they besought for. + +There were two men, however, who were more spoken of than all the rest, +and whose court awakened a more lively interest; indeed, 'twas an +interest which was lively enough at times to become almost a matter of +contention, for those who upheld the cause of the one man would not hear +of the success of the other, the claims of each being considered of such +different nature. These two men were the Duke of Osmonde and Sir John +Oxon. 'Twas the soberer and more dignified who were sure his Grace had +but to proffer his suit to gain it, and their sole wonder lay in that he +did not speak more quickly. + +"But being a man of such noble mind, it may be that he would leave her to +her freedom yet a few months, because, despite her stateliness, she is +but young, and 'twould be like his honourableness to wish that she should +see many men while she is free to choose, as she has never been before. +For these days she is not a poor beauty as she was when she took +Dunstanwolde." + +The less serious, or less worldly, especially the sentimental spinsters +and matrons and romantic young, who had heard and enjoyed the rumours of +Mistress Clorinda Wildairs' strange early days, were prone to build much +upon a certain story of that time. + +"Sir John Oxon was her first love," they said. "He went to her father's +house a beautiful young man in his earliest bloom, and she had never +encountered such an one before, having only known country dolts and her +father's friends. 'Twas said they loved each other, but were both +passionate and proud, and quarrelled bitterly. Sir John went to France +to strive to forget her in gay living; he even obeyed his mother and paid +court to another woman, and Mistress Clorinda, being of fierce +haughtiness, revenged herself by marrying Lord Dunstanwolde." + +"But she has never deigned to forgive him," 'twas also said. "She is too +haughty and of too high a temper to forgive easily that a man should seem +to desert her for another woman's favour. Even when 'twas whispered that +she favoured him, she was disdainful, and sometimes flouted him bitterly, +as was her way with all men. She was never gentle, and had always a +cutting wit. She will use him hardly before she relents; but if he sues +patiently enough with such grace as he uses with other women, love will +conquer her at last, for 'twas her first." + +She showed him no great favour, it was true; and yet it seemed she +granted him more privilege than she had done during her lord's life, for +he was persistent in his following her, and would come to her house +whether of her will or of his own. Sometimes he came there when the Duke +of Osmonde was with her--this happened more than once--and then her +ladyship's face, which was ever warmly beautiful when Osmonde was near, +would curiously change. It would grow pale and cold; but in her eyes +would burn a strange light which one man knew was as the light in the +eyes of a tigress lying chained, but crouching to leap. But it was not +Osmonde who felt this, he saw only that she changed colour, and having +heard the story of her girlhood, a little chill of doubt would fall upon +his noble heart. It was not doubt of her, but of himself, and fear that +his great passion made him blind; for he was the one man chivalrous +enough to remember how young she was, and to see the cruelty of the Fate +which had given her unmothered childhood into the hands of a coarse +rioter and debauchee, making her his plaything and his whim. And if in +her first hours of bloom she had been thrown with youthful manhood and +beauty, what more in the course of nature than that she should have +learned to love; and being separated from her young lover by their mutual +youthful faults of pride and passionateness of temper, what more natural +than, being free again, and he suing with all his soul, that her heart +should return to him, even though through a struggle with pride. In her +lord's lifetime he had not seen Oxon near her; and in those days when he +had so struggled with his own surging love, and striven to bear himself +nobly, he had kept away from her, knowing that his passion was too great +and strong for any man to always hold at bay and make no sign, because at +brief instants he trembled before the thought that in her eyes he had +seen that which would have sprung to answer the same self in him if she +had been a free woman. But now when, despite her coldness, which never +melted to John Oxon, she still turned pale and seemed to fall under a +restraint on his coming, a man of sufficient high dignity to be +splendidly modest where his own merit was concerned, might well feel that +for this there must be a reason, and it might be a grave one. + +So though he would not give up his suit until he was sure that 'twas +either useless or unfair, he did not press it as he would have done, but +saw his lady when he could, and watched with all the tenderness of +passion her lovely face and eyes. But one short town season passed +before he won his prize; but to poor Anne it seemed that in its passing +she lived years. + +Poor woman, as she had grown thin and large-eyed in those days gone by, +she grew so again. Time in passing had taught her so much that others +did not know; and as she served her sister, and waited on her wishes, she +saw that of which no other dreamed, and saw without daring to speak, or +show by any sign, her knowledge. + +The day when Lady Dunstanwolde had turned from standing among her +daffodils, and had found herself confronting the open door of her saloon, +and John Oxon passing through it, Mistress Anne had seen that in her face +and his which had given to her a shock of terror. In John Oxon's blue +eyes there had been a set fierce look, and in Clorinda's a blaze which +had been like a declaration of war; and these same looks she had seen +since that day, again and again. Gradually it had become her sister's +habit to take Anne with her into the world as she had not done before her +widowhood, and Anne knew whence this custom came. There were times when, +by use of her presence, she could avoid those she wished to thrust aside, +and Anne noted, with a cold sinking of the spirit, that the one she would +plan to elude most frequently was Sir John Oxon; and this was not done +easily. The young man's gay lightness of demeanour had changed. The few +years that had passed since he had come to pay his courts to the young +beauty in male attire, had brought experiences to him which had been +bitter enough. He had squandered his fortune, and failed to reinstate +himself by marriage; his dissipations had told upon him, and he had lost +his spirit and good-humour; his mocking wit had gained a bitterness; his +gallantry had no longer the gaiety of youth. And the woman he had loved +for an hour with youthful passion, and had dared to dream of casting +aside in boyish insolence, had risen like a phoenix, and soared high and +triumphant to the very sun itself. "He was ever base," Clorinda had +said. "As he was at first he is now," and in the saying there was truth. +If she had been helpless and heartbroken, and had pined for him, he would +have treated her as a victim, and disdained her humiliation and grief; +magnificent, powerful, rich, in fullest beauty, and disdaining himself, +she filled him with a mad passion of love which was strangely mixed with +hatred and cruelty. To see her surrounded by her worshippers, courted by +the Court itself, all eyes drawn towards her as she moved, all hearts +laid at her feet, was torture to him. In such cases as his and hers, it +was the woman who should sue for love's return, and watch the averted +face, longing for the moment when it would deign to turn and she could +catch the cold eye and plead piteously with her own. This he had seen; +this, men like himself, but older, had taught him with vicious art; but +here was a woman who had scorned him at the hour which should have been +the moment of his greatest powerfulness, who had mocked at and lashed him +in the face with the high derision of a creature above law, and who never +for one instant had bent her neck to the yoke which women must bear. She +had laughed it to scorn--and him--and all things--and gone on her way, +crowned with her scarlet roses, to wealth, and rank, and power, and +adulation; while he--the man, whose right it was to be transgressor--had +fallen upon hard fortune, and was losing step by step all she had won. In +his way he loved her madly--as he had loved her before, and as he would +have loved any woman who embodied triumph and beauty; and burning with +desire for both, and with jealous rage of all, he swore he would not be +outdone, befooled, cast aside, and trampled on. + +At the playhouse when she looked from her box, she saw him leaning +against some pillar or stationed in some noticeable spot, his bold blue +eyes fixed burningly upon her; at fashionable assemblies he made his way +to her side and stood near her, gazing, or dropping words into her ear; +at church he placed himself in some pew near by, that she and all the +world might behold him; when she left her coach and walked in the Mall he +joined her or walked behind. At such times in my lady's close-fringed +eyes there shone a steady gleam; but they were ever eyes that glowed, and +there were none who had ever come close enough to her to know her well, +and so there were none who read its meaning. Only Anne knew as no other +creature could, and looked on with secret terror and dismay. The world +but said that he was a man mad with love, and desperate at the knowledge +of the powerfulness of his rivals, could not live beyond sight of her. + +They did not hear the words that passed between them at times when he +stood near her in some crowd, and dropped, as 'twas thought, words of +burning prayer and love into her ear. 'Twas said that it was like her to +listen with unchanging face, and when she deigned reply, to answer +without turning towards him. But such words and replies it had more than +once been Anne's ill-fortune to be near enough to catch, and hearing them +she had shuddered. + +One night at a grand rout, the Duke of Osmonde but just having left the +reigning beauty's side, she heard the voice she hated close by her, +speaking. + +"You think you can disdain me to the end," it said. "Your ladyship is +_sure_ so?" + +She did not turn or answer, and there followed a low laugh. + +"You think a man will lie beneath your feet and be trodden upon without +speaking. You are too high and bold." + +She waved her painted fan, and gazed steadily before her at the crowd, +now and then bending her head in gracious greeting and smiling at some +passer-by. + +"If I could tell the story of the rose garden, and of what the sun-dial +saw, and what the moon shone on--" he said. + +He heard her draw her breath sharply through her teeth, he saw her white +bosom lift as if a wild beast leapt within it, and he laughed again. + +"His Grace of Osmonde returns," he said; and then marking, as he never +failed to do, bitterly against his will, the grace and majesty of this +rival, who was one of the greatest and bravest of England's gentlemen, +and knowing that she marked it too, his rage so mounted that it overcame +him. + +"Sometimes," he said, "methinks that I shall _kill_ you!" + +"Would you gain your end thereby?" she answered, in a voice as low and +deadly. + +"I would frustrate his--and yours." + +"Do it, then," she hissed back, "some day when you think I fear you." + +"'Twould be too easy," he answered. "You fear it too little. There are +bitterer things." + +She rose and met his Grace, who had approached her. Always to his +greatness and his noble heart she turned with that new feeling of +dependence which her whole life had never brought to her before. His +deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were filled with +protecting concern. Involuntarily he hastened his steps. + +"Will your Grace take me to my coach?" she said. "I am not well. May +I--go?" as gently as a tender, appealing girl. + +And moved by this, as by her pallor, more than his man's words could have +told, he gave her his arm and drew her quickly and supportingly away. + +Mistress Anne did not sleep well that night, having much to distract her +mind and keep her awake, as was often in these days the case. When at +length she closed her eyes her slumber was fitful and broken by dreams, +and in the mid hour of the darkness she wakened with a start as if some +sound had aroused her. Perhaps there had been some sound, though all was +still when she opened her eyes; but in the chair by her bedside sat +Clorinda in her night-rail, her hands wrung hard together on her knee, +her black eyes staring under a brow knit into straight deep lines. + +"Sister!" cried Anne, starting up in bed. "Sister!" + +Clorinda slowly turned her head towards her, whereupon Anne saw that in +her face there was a look as if of horror which struggled with a grief, a +woe, too monstrous to be borne. + +"Lie down, Anne," she said. "Be not afraid--'tis only I," bitterly--"who +need fear?" + +Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face in her thin hands. She +knew so well that this was true. + +"I never thought the time would come," her sister said, "when I should +seek you for protection. A thing has come upon me--perhaps I shall go +mad--to-night, alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a woman--'twas not +like me, was it?" + +Mistress Anne crept near the bed's edge, and stretching forth a hand, +touched hers, which were as cold as marble. + +"Stay with me, sister," she prayed. "Sister, do not go! What--what can +I say?" + +"Naught," was the steady answer. "There is naught to be said. You were +always a woman--I was never one--till now." + +She rose up from her chair and threw up her arms, pacing to and fro. + +"I am a desperate creature," she cried. "Why was I born?" + +She walked the room almost like a thing mad and caged. + +"Why was I thrown into the world?" striking her breast. "Why was I made +so--and not one to watch or care through those mad years? To be given a +body like this--and tossed to the wolves." + +She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so stood white and strange +and beauteous as a statue, with drops like great pearls running down her +lovely cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly, like a child. + +"I was thrown to them," she wailed piteously, "and they harried me--and +left the marks of their great teeth--and of the scars I cannot rid +myself--and since it was my fate--pronounced from my first hour--why was +not this," clutching her breast, "left hard as 'twas at first? Not a +woman's--not a woman's, but a she-cub's. Ah! 'twas not just--not just +that it should be so!" + +Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and +clinging to her, weeping bitterly. + +"Poor heart!" she cried. "Poor, dearest heart!" + +Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as +if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid. + +"I have gone mad," she said. "What is it I do?" She passed her hand +across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. "Yes," she said; "this +it is to be a woman--to turn weak and run to other women--and weep and +talk. Yes, by these signs I _am_ a woman!" She stood with her clenched +hands pressed against her breast. "In any fair fight," she said, "I +could have struck back blow for blow--and mine would have been the +heaviest; but being changed into a woman, my arms are taken from me. He +who strikes, aims at my bared breast--and that he knows and triumphs in." + +She set her teeth together, and ground them, and the look, which was like +that of a chained and harried tigress, lit itself in her eyes. + +"But there is _none_ shall beat me," she said through these fierce shut +teeth. "Nay I there is _none_! Get up, Anne," bending to raise her. +"Get up, or I shall be kneeling too--and I must stand upon my feet." + +She made a motion as if she would have turned and gone from the room +without further explanation, but Anne still clung to her. She was afraid +of her again, but her piteous love was stronger than her fear. + +"Let me go with you," she cried. "Let me but go and lie in your closet +that I may be near, if you should call." + +Clorinda put her hands upon her shoulders, and stooping, kissed her, +which in all their lives she had done but once or twice. + +"God bless thee, poor Anne," she said. "I think thou wouldst lie on my +threshold and watch the whole night through, if I should need it; but I +have given way to womanish vapours too much--I must go and be alone. I +was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look at thy good face--I +did not mean to wake thee. Go back to bed." + +She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch herself, making her lie +down, and drawing the coverlet about her; after which she stood upright +with a strange smile, laying her hands lightly about her own white +throat. + +"When I was a new-born thing and had a little throat and a weak breath," +she cried, "'twould have been an easy thing to end me. I have been told +I lay beneath my mother when they found her dead. If, when she felt her +breath leaving her, she had laid her hand upon my mouth and stopped mine, +I should not," with the little laugh again--"I should not lie awake to- +night." + +And then she went away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--Containing the history of the breaking of the horse Devil, +and relates the returning of his Grace of Osmonde from France + + +There were in this strange nature, depths so awful and profound that it +was not to be sounded or to be judged as others were. But one thing +could have melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend, and this +was the overwhelming passion of love--not a slight, tender feeling, but a +great and powerful one, such as could be awakened but by a being of as +strong and deep a nature as itself, one who was in all things its peer. + +"I have been lonely--lonely all my life," my Lady Dunstanwolde had once +said to her sister, and she had indeed spoken a truth. + +Even in her childhood she had felt in some strange way she stood apart +from the world about her. Before she had been old enough to reason she +had been conscious that she was stronger and had greater power and +endurance than any human being about her. Her strength she used in these +days in wilful tyranny, and indeed it was so used for many a day when she +was older. The time had never been when an eye lighted on her with +indifference, or when she could not rule and punish as she willed. As an +infant she had browbeaten the women-servants and the stable-boys and +grooms; but because of her quick wit and clever tongue, and also because +no humour ever made her aught but a creature well worth looking at, they +had taken her bullying in good-humour and loved her in their coarse way. +She had tyrannised over her father and his companions, and they had +adored and boasted of her; but there had not been one among them whom she +could have turned to if a softer moment had come upon her and she had +felt the need of a friend, nor indeed one whom she did not regard +privately with contempt. + +A god or goddess forced upon earth and surrounded by mere human beings +would surely feel a desolateness beyond the power of common words to +express, and a human being endowed with powers and physical gifts so rare +as to be out of all keeping with those of its fellows of ordinary build +and mental stature must needs be lonely too. + +She had had no companion, because she had found none like herself, and +none with whom she could have aught in common. Anne she had pitied, +being struck by some sense of the unfairness of her lot as compared with +her own. John Oxon had moved her, bringing to her her first knowledge of +buoyant, ardent youth, and blooming strength and beauty; for Dunstanwolde +she had felt gratitude and affection; but than these there had been no +others who even distantly had touched her heart. + +The night she had given her promise to Dunstanwolde, and had made her +obeisance before his kinsman as she had met his deep and leonine eye, she +had known that 'twas the only man's eye before which her own would fall +and which held the power to rule her very soul. + +She did not think this as a romantic girl would have thought it; it was +revealed to her by a sudden tempestuous leap of her heart, and by a shock +like terror. Here was the man who was of her own build, whose thews and +sinews of mind and body was as powerful as her own--here was he who, had +she met him one short year before, would have revolutionised her world. + +In the days of her wifehood when she had read in his noble face something +of that which he endeavoured to command and which to no other was +apparent, the dignity of his self-restraint had but filled her with +tenderness more passionate and grateful. + +"Had he been a villain and a coward," was her thought, "he would have +made my life a bitter battle; but 'tis me he loves, not himself only, and +as I honour him so does he honour me." + +Now she beheld the same passion in his eyes, but no more held in leash: +his look met hers, hiding from her nothing of what his high soul burned +with; and she was free--free to answer when he spoke, and only feeling +one bitterness in her heart--if he had but come in time--God! why had he +not been sent in time? + +But, late or early, he had come; and what they had to give each other +should not be mocked at and lost. The night she had ended by going to +Anne's chamber, she had paced her room saying this again and again, all +the strength of her being rising in revolt. She had been then a caged +tigress of a verity; she had wrung her hands; she had held her palm hard +against her leaping heart; she had walked madly to and fro, battling in +thought with what seemed awful fate; she had flung herself upon her knees +and wept bitter scalding tears. + +"He is so noble," she had cried--"he is so noble--and I so worship his +nobleness--and I have been so base!" + +And in her suffering her woman's nerves had for a moment betrayed her. +Heretofore she had known no weakness of her sex, but the woman soul in +her so being moved, she had been broken and conquered for a space, and +had gone to Anne's chamber, scarcely knowing what refuge she so sought. +It had been a feminine act, and she had realised all it signified when +Anne sank weeping by her. Women who wept and prated together at midnight +in their chambers ended by telling their secrets. So it was that it fell +out that Anne saw not again the changed face to the sight of which she +had that night awakened. It seemed as if my lady from that time made +plans which should never for a moment leave her alone. The next day she +was busied arranging a brilliant rout, the next a rich banquet, the next +a great assembly; she drove in the Mall in her stateliest equipages; she +walked upon its promenade, surrounded by her crowd of courtiers, smiling +upon them, and answering them with shafts of graceful wit--the charm of +her gaiety had never been so remarked upon, her air never so enchanting. +At every notable gathering in the World of Fashion she was to be seen. +Being bidden to the Court, which was at Hampton, her brilliant beauty and +spirit so enlivened the royal dulness that 'twas said the Queen herself +was scarce resigned to part with her, and that the ladies and gentlemen +in waiting all suffered from the spleen when she withdrew. She bought at +this time the fiercest but most beautiful beast of a horse she had ever +mounted. The creature was superbly handsome, but apparently so +unconquerable and so savage that her grooms were afraid to approach it, +and indeed it could not be saddled and bitted unless she herself stood +near. Even the horse-dealer, rogue though he was, had sold it to her +with some approach to a qualm of conscience, having confessed to her that +it had killed two grooms, and been sentenced to be shot by its first +owner, and was still living only because its great beauty had led him to +hesitate for a few days. It was by chance that during these few days +Lady Dunstanwolde heard of it, and going to see it, desired and bought it +at once. + +"It is the very beast I want," she said, with a gleam in her eye. "It +will please me to teach it that there is one stronger than itself." + +She had much use for her loaded riding-whip; and indeed, not finding it +heavy enough, ordered one made which was heavier. When she rode the +beast in Hyde Park, her first battles with him were the town talk; and +there were those who bribed her footmen to inform them beforehand, when +my lady was to take out Devil, that they might know in time to be in the +Park to see her. Fops and hunting-men laid wagers as to whether her +ladyship would kill the horse or be killed by him, and followed her +training of the creature with an excitement and delight quite wild. + +"Well may the beast's name be Devil," said more than one looker-on; "for +he is not so much horse as demon. And when he plunges and rears and +shows his teeth, there is a look in his eye which flames like her own, +and 'tis as if a male and female demon fought together, for surely such a +woman never lived before. She will not let him conquer her, God knows; +and it would seem that he was swearing in horse fashion that she should +not conquer him." + +When he was first bought and brought home, Mistress Anne turned ashy at +the sight of him, and in her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had +so fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called away from town by +high and important matters; for she knew full well, that if he had been +in the neighbourhood, he would have said some discreet and tender word of +warning to which her ladyship would have listened, though she would have +treated with disdain the caution of any other man or woman. When she +herself ventured to speak, Clorinda looked only stern. + +"I have ridden only ill-tempered beasts all my life, and that for the +mere pleasure of subduing them," she said. "I have no liking for a horse +like a bell-wether; and if this one should break my neck, I need battle +with neither men nor horses again, and I shall die at the high tide of +life and power; and those who think of me afterwards will only remember +that they loved me--that they loved me." + +But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after day she stood by +while it was taken from its stall, many a time dealing with it herself, +because no groom dare approach; and then she would ride it forth, and in +Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous strength of her will, her +wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted, +actually daunting the devilish creature's courage. She would ride from +the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her--and +some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park +gate--almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on +the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather, +whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam, and whose great eye was so +strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph, +and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such +times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty, +which almost seemed to blaze--her colour was so rich, the curve of her +red mouth so imperial, the poise of her head, with its loosening coils of +velvet black hair, so high. + +"It is good for me that I do this," she said to Anne, with a short laugh, +one day. "I was growing too soft--and I have need now for all my power. +To fight with the demon in this beast, rouses all in me that I have held +in check since I became my poor lord's wife. That the creature should +have set his will against all others, and should resist me with such +strength and devilishness, rouses in me the passion of the days when I +cursed and raved and struck at those who angered me. 'Tis fury that +possesses me, and I could curse and shriek at him as I flog him, if +'twould be seemly. As it would not be so, I shut my teeth hard, and +shriek and curse within them, and none can hear." + +Among those who made it their custom to miss no day when she went forth +on Devil that they might stand near and behold her, there was one man +ever present, and 'twas Sir John Oxon. He would stand as near as might +be and watch the battle, a stealthy fire in his eye, and a look as if the +outcome of the fray had deadly meaning to him. He would gnaw his lip +until at times the blood started; his face would by turns flush scarlet +and turn deadly pale; he would move suddenly and restlessly, and break +forth under breath into oaths of exclamation. One day a man close by him +saw him suddenly lay his hand upon his sword, and having so done, still +keep it there, though 'twas plain he quickly remembered where he was. + +As for the horse's rider, my Lady Dunstanwolde, whose way it had been to +avoid this man and to thrust him from her path by whatsoever adroit means +she could use, on these occasions made no effort to evade him and his +glances; in sooth, he knew, though none other did so, that when she +fought with her horse she did it with a fierce joy in that he beheld her. +'Twas as though the battle was between themselves; and knowing this in +the depths of such soul as he possessed, there were times when the man +would have exulted to see the brute rise and fall upon her, crushing her +out of life, or dash her to the earth and set his hoof upon her dazzling +upturned face. Her scorn and deadly defiance of him, her beauty and +maddening charm, which seemed but to increase with every hour that flew +by, had roused his love to fury. Despite his youth, he was a villain, as +he had ever been; even in his first freshness there had been older +men--and hardened ones--who had wondered at the selfish mercilessness and +blackness of the heart that was but that of a boy. They had said among +themselves that at his years they had never known a creature who could be +so gaily a dastard, one who could plan with such light remorselessness, +and using all the gifts given him by Nature solely for his own ends, +would take so much and give so little. In truth, as time had gone on, +men who had been his companions, and had indeed small consciences to +boast of, had begun to draw off a little from him, and frequent his +company less. He chose to tell himself that this was because he had +squandered his fortune and was less good company, being pursued by +creditors and haunted by debts; but though there was somewhat in this, +perchance 'twas not the entire truth. + +"By Gad!" said one over his cups, "there are things even a rake-hell +fellow like me cannot do; but he does them, and seems not to know that +they are to his discredit." + +There had been a time when without this woman's beauty he might have +lived--indeed, he had left it of his own free vicious will; but in these +days, when his fortunes had changed and she represented all that he stood +most desperately in need of, her beauty drove him mad. In his haunting +of her, as he followed her from place to place, his passion grew day by +day, and all the more gained strength and fierceness because it was so +mixed with hate. He tossed upon his bed at night and cursed her; he +remembered the wild past, and the memory all but drove him to delirium. +He knew of what stern stuff she was made, and that even if her love had +died, she would have held to her compact like grim death, even while +loathing him. And he had cast all this aside in one mad moment of boyish +cupidity and folly; and now that she was so radiant and entrancing a +thing, and wealth, and splendour, and rank, and luxury lay in the hollow +of her hand, she fixed her beauteous devil's eyes upon him with a scorn +in their black depths which seemed to burn like fires of hell. + +The great brute who dashed, and plunged, and pranced beneath her seemed +to have sworn to conquer her as he had sworn himself; but let him plunge +and kick as he would, there was no quailing in her eye, she sat like a +creature who was superhuman, and her hand was iron, her wrist was steel. +She held him so that he could not do his worst without such pain as would +drive him mad; she lashed him, and rained on him such blows as almost +made him blind. Once at the very worst, Devil dancing near him, she +looked down from his back into John Oxon's face, and he cursed aloud, her +eye so told him his own story and hers. In those days their souls met in +such combat as it seemed must end in murder itself. + +"You will not conquer him," he said to her one morning, forcing himself +near enough to speak. + +"I will, unless he kills me," she answered, "and that methinks he will +find it hard to do." + +"He will kill you," he said. "I would, were I in his four shoes." + +"You would if you could," were her words; "but you could not with his bit +in your mouth and my hand on the snaffle. And if he killed me, still +'twould be he, not I, was beaten; since he could only kill what any +bloody villain could with any knife. He is a brute beast, and I am that +which was given dominion over such. Look on till I have done with him." + +And thus, with other beholders, though in a different mood from theirs, +he did, until a day when even the most sceptical saw that the brute came +to the fray with less of courage, as if there had at last come into his +brain the dawning of a fear of that which rid him, and all his madness +could not displace from its throne upon his back. + +"By God!" cried more than one of the bystanders, seeing this, despite the +animal's fury, "the beast gives way! He gives way! She has him!" And +John Oxon, shutting his teeth, cut short an oath and turned pale as +death. + +From that moment her victory was a thing assured. The duel of strength +became less desperate, and having once begun to learn his lesson, the +brute was made to learn it well. His bearing was a thing superb to +behold; once taught obedience, there would scarce be a horse like him in +the whole of England. And day by day this he learned from her, and being +mastered, was put through his paces, and led to answer to the rein, so +that he trotted, cantered, galloped, and leaped as a bird flies. Then as +the town had come to see him fight for freedom, it came to see him adorn +the victory of the being who had conquered him, and over their dishes of +tea in the afternoon beaux and beauties of fashion gossiped of the +interesting and exciting event; and there were vapourish ladies who vowed +they could not have beaten a brute so, and that surely my Lady +Dunstanwolde must have looked hot and blowzy while she did it, and have +had the air of a great rough man; and there were some pretty tiffs and +even quarrels when the men swore that never had she looked so magnificent +a beauty and so inflamed the hearts of all beholding her. + +On the first day after her ladyship's last battle with her horse, the one +which ended in such victory to her that she rode him home hard through +the streets without an outbreak, he white with lather, and marked with +stripes, but his large eye holding in its velvet a look which seemed +almost like a human thought--on that day after there occurred a thing +which gave the town new matter to talk of. + +His Grace of Osmonde had been in France, called there by business of the +State, and during his absence the gossip concerning the horse Devil had +taken the place of that which had before touched on himself. 'Twas not +announced that he was to return to England, and indeed there were those +who, speaking with authority, said that for two weeks at least his +affairs abroad would not be brought to a close; and yet on this morning, +as my Lady Dunstanwolde rode 'neath the trees, holding Devil well in +hand, and watching him with eagle keenness of eye, many looking on in +wait for the moment when the brute might break forth suddenly again, a +horseman was seen approaching at a pace so rapid that 'twas on the verge +of a gallop, and the first man who beheld him looked amazed and lifted +his hat, and the next, seeing him, spoke to another, who bowed with him, +and all along the line of loungers hats were removed, and people wore the +air of seeing a man unexpectedly, and hearing a name spoken in +exclamation by his side, Sir John Oxon looked round and beheld ride by my +lord Duke of Osmonde. The sun was shining brilliantly, and all the Park +was gay with bright warmth and greenness of turf and trees. Clorinda +felt the glow of the summer morning permeate her being. She kept her +watch upon her beast; but he was going well, and in her soul she knew +that he was beaten, and that her victory had been beheld by the one man +who knew that it meant to her that which it seemed to mean also to +himself. And filled with this thought and the joy of it, she rode +beneath the trees, and so was riding with splendid spirit when she heard +a horse behind her, and looked up as it drew near, and the rich crimson +swept over her in a sweet flood, so that it seemed to her she felt it +warm on her very shoulders, 'neath her habit, for 'twas Osmonde's self +who had followed and reached her, and uncovered, keeping pace by her +side. + +Ah, what a face he had, and how his eyes burned as they rested on her. It +was such a look she met, that for a moment she could not find speech, and +he himself spoke as a man who, through some deep emotion, has almost lost +his breath. + +"My Lady Dunstanwolde," he began; and then with a sudden passion, +"Clorinda, my beloved!" The time had come when he could not keep +silence, and with great leapings of her heart she knew. Yet not one word +said she, for she could not; but her beauty, glowing and quivering under +his eyes' great fire, answered enough. + +"Were it not that I fear for your sake the beast you ride," he said, "I +would lay my hand upon his bridle, that I might crush your hand in mine. +At post-haste I have come from France, hearing this thing--that you +endangered every day that which I love so madly. My God! beloved, cruel, +cruel woman--sure you must know!" + +She answered with a breathless wild surrender. "Yes, yes!" she gasped, +"I know." + +"And yet you braved this danger, knowing that you might leave me a +widowed man for life." + +"But," she said, with a smile whose melting radiance seemed akin to +tears--"but see how I have beaten him--and all is passed." + +"Yes, yes," he said, "as you have conquered all--as you have conquered +me--and did from the first hour. But God forbid that you should make me +suffer so again." + +"Your Grace," she said, faltering, "I--I will not!" + +"Forgive me for the tempest of my passion," he said. "'Twas not thus I +had thought to come to make my suit. 'Tis scarcely fitting that it +should be so; but I was almost mad when I first heard this rumour, +knowing my duty would not loose me to come to you at once--and knowing +you so well, that only if your heart had melted to the one who besought +you, you would give up." + +"I--give up," she answered; "I give up." + +"I worship you," he said; "I worship you." And their meeting eyes were +drowned in each other's tenderness. + +They galloped side by side, and the watchers looked on, exchanging words +and glances, seeing in her beauteous, glowing face, in his joyous one, +the final answer to the question they had so often asked each other. +'Twas his Grace of Osmonde who was the happy man, he and no other. That +was a thing plain indeed to be seen, for they were too high above the +common world to feel that they must play the paltry part of outward +trifling to deceive it; and as the sun pierces through clouds and is +stronger than they, so their love shone like the light of day itself +through poor conventions. They did not know the people gazed and +whispered, and if they had known it, the thing would have counted for +naught with them. + +"See!" said my lady, patting her Devil's neck--"see, he knows that you +have come, and frets no more." + +They rode homeward together, the great beauty and the great duke, and all +the town beheld; and after they had passed him where he stood, John Oxon +mounted his own horse and galloped away, white-lipped and with mad eyes. + +"Let me escort you home," the duke had said, "that I may kneel to you +there, and pour forth my heart as I have so dreamed of doing. To-morrow +I must go back to France, because I left my errand incomplete. I stole +from duty the time to come to you, and I must return as quickly as I +came." So he took her home; and as they entered the wide hall together, +side by side, the attendant lacqueys bowed to the ground in deep, +welcoming obeisance, knowing it was their future lord and master they +received. + +Together they went to her own sitting-room, called the Panelled Parlour, +a beautiful great room hung with rare pictures, warm with floods of the +bright summer sunshine, and perfumed with bowls of summer flowers; and as +the lacquey departed, bowing, and closed the door behind him, they turned +and were enfolded close in each other's arms, and stood so, with their +hearts beating as surely it seemed to them human hearts had never beat +before. + +"Oh! my dear love, my heavenly love!" he cried. "It has been so long--I +have lived in prison and in fetters--and it has been so long!" + +Even as my Lord Dunstanwolde had found cause to wonder at her gentle +ways, so was this man amazed at her great sweetness, now that he might +cross the threshold of her heart. She gave of herself as an empress +might give of her store of imperial jewels, with sumptuous lavishness, +knowing that the store could not fail. In truth, it seemed that it must +be a dream that she so stood before him in all her great, rich +loveliness, leaning against his heaving breast, her arms as tender as his +own, her regal head thrown backward that they might gaze into the depths +of each other's eyes. + +"From that first hour that I looked up at you," she said, "I knew you +were my lord--my lord! And a fierce pain stabbed my heart, knowing you +had come too late by but one hour; for had it not been that Dunstanwolde +had led me to you, I knew--ah! how well I knew--that our hearts would +have beaten together not as two hearts but as one." + +"As they do now," he cried. + +"As they do now," she answered--"as they do now!" + +"And from the moment that your rose fell at my feet and I raised it in my +hand," he said, "I knew I held some rapture which was my own. And when +you stood before me at Dunstanwolde's side and our eyes met, I could not +understand--nay, I could scarce believe that it had been taken from me." + +There, in her arms, among the flowers and in the sweetness of the sun, he +lived again the past, telling her of the days when, knowing his danger, +he had held himself aloof, declining to come to her lord's house with the +familiarity of a kinsman, because the pang of seeing her often was too +great to bear; and relating to her also the story of the hours when he +had watched her and she had not known his nearness or guessed his pain, +when she had passed in her equipage, not seeing him, or giving him but a +gracious smile. He had walked outside her window at midnight sometimes, +too, coming because he was a despairing man, and could not sleep, and +returning homeward, having found no rest, but only increase of anguish. +"Sometimes," he said, "I dared not look into your eyes, fearing my own +would betray me; but now I can gaze into your soul itself, for the +midnight is over--and joy cometh with the morning." + +As he had spoken, he had caressed softly with his hand her cheek and her +crown of hair, and such was his great gentleness that 'twas as if he +touched lovingly a child; for into her face there had come that look +which it would seem that in the arms of the man she loves every true +woman wears--a look which is somehow like a child's in its trusting, +sweet surrender and appeal, whatsoever may be her stateliness and the +splendour of her beauty. + +Yet as he touched her cheek so and her eyes so dwelt on him, suddenly her +head fell heavily upon his breast, hiding her face, even while her +unwreathing arms held more closely. + +"Oh! those mad days before!" she cried--"Oh! those mad, mad days before!" + +"Nay, they are long passed, sweet," he said, in his deep, noble voice, +thinking that she spoke of the wildness of her girlish years--"and all +our days of joy are yet to come." + +"Yes, yes," she cried, clinging closer, yet with shuddering, "they were +_before_--the joy--the joy is all to come." + + + + +CHAPTER XV--In which Sir John Oxon finds again a trophy he had lost + + +His Grace of Osmonde went back to France to complete his business, and +all the world knew that when he returned to England 'twould be to make +his preparations for his marriage with my Lady Dunstanwolde. It was a +marriage not long to be postponed, and her ladyship herself was known +already to be engaged with lacemen, linen-drapers, toyshop women, and +goldsmiths. Mercers awaited upon her at her house, accompanied by their +attendants, bearing burdens of brocades and silks, and splendid stuffs of +all sorts. Her chariot was to be seen standing before their shops, and +the interest in her purchases was so great that fashionable beauties +would contrive to visit the counters at the same hours as herself, so +that they might catch glimpses of what she chose. In her own great house +all was repressed excitement; her women were enraptured at being allowed +the mere handling and laying away of the glories of her wardrobe; the +lacqueys held themselves with greater state, knowing that they were soon +to be a duke's servants; her little black Nero strutted about, his turban +set upon his pate with a majestic cock, and disdained to enter into +battle with such pages of his own colour as wore only silver collars, he +feeling assured that his own would soon be of gold. + +The World of Fashion said when her ladyship's equipage drove by, that her +beauty was like that of the god of day at morning, and that 'twas plain +that no man or woman had ever beheld her as his Grace of Osmonde would. + +"She loves at last," a wit said. "Until the time that such a woman +loves, however great her splendour, she is as the sun behind a cloud." + +"And now this one hath come forth, and shines so that she warms us in +mere passing," said another. "What eyes, and what a mouth, with that +strange smile upon it. Whoever saw such before? and when she came to +town with my Lord Dunstanwolde, who, beholding her, would have believed +that she could wear such a look?" + +In sooth, there was that in her face and in her voice when she spoke +which almost made Anne weep, through its strange sweetness and radiance. +'Twas as if the flood of her joy had swept away all hardness and disdain. +Her eyes, which had seemed to mock at all they rested on, mocked no more, +but ever seemed to smile at some dear inward thought. + +One night when she went forth to a Court ball, being all attired in +brocade of white and silver, and glittering with the Dunstanwolde +diamonds, which starred her as with great sparkling dewdrops, and yet had +not the radiance of her eyes and smile, she was so purely wonderful a +vision that Anne, who had been watching her through all the time when she +had been under the hands of her tirewoman, and beholding her now so +dazzling and white a shining creature, fell upon her knees to kiss her +hand almost as one who worships. + +"Oh, sister," she said, "you look like a spirit. It is as if with the +earth you had naught to do--as if your eyes saw Heaven itself and Him who +reigns there." + +The lovely orbs of Clorinda shone more still like the great star of +morning. + +"Sister Anne," she said, laying her hand on her white breast, "at times I +think that I must almost be a spirit, I feel such heavenly joy. It is as +if He whom you believe in, and who can forgive and wipe out sins, has +forgiven me, and has granted it to me, that I may begin my poor life +again. Ah! I will make it better; I will try to make it as near an +angel's life as a woman can; and I will do no wrong, but only good; and I +will believe, and pray every day upon my knees--and all my prayers will +be that I may so live that my dear lord--my Gerald--could forgive me all +that I have ever done--and seeing my soul, would know me worthy of him. +Oh! we are strange things, we human creatures, Anne," with a tremulous +smile; "we do not believe until we want a thing, and feel that we shall +die if 'tis not granted to us; and then we kneel and kneel and believe, +because we _must_ have somewhat to ask help from." + +"But all help has been given to you," poor tender Anne said, kissing her +hand again; "and I will pray, I will pray--" + +"Ay, pray, Anne, pray with all thy soul," Clorinda answered; "I need thy +praying--and thou didst believe always, and have asked so little that has +been given thee." + +"Thou wast given me, sister," said Anne. "Thou hast given me a home and +kindness such as I never dared to hope; thou hast been like a great star +to me--I have had none other, and I thank Heaven on my knees each night +for the brightness my star has shed on me." + +"Poor Anne, dear Anne!" Clorinda said, laying her arms about her and +kissing her. "Pray for thy star, good, tender Anne, that its light may +not be quenched." Then with a sudden movement her hand was pressed upon +her bosom again. "Ah, Anne," she cried, and in the music of her voice, +agony itself was ringing--"Anne, there is but one thing on this earth God +rules over--but one thing that belongs--_belongs_ to me; and 'tis Gerald +Mertoun--and he is mine and _shall_ not be taken from me, for he is a +part of me, and I a part of him!" + +"He will not be," said Anne--"he will not." + +"He cannot," Clorinda answered--"he shall not! 'Twould not be human." + +She drew a long breath and was calm again. + +"Did it reach your ears," she said, reclasping a band of jewels on her +arm, "that John Oxon had been offered a place in a foreign Court, and +that 'twas said he would soon leave England?" + +"I heard some rumour of it," Anne answered, her emotion getting the +better of her usual discreet speech. "God grant it may be true!" + +"Ay!" said Clorinda, "would God that he were gone!" + +But that he was not, for when she entered the assembly that night he was +standing near the door as though he lay in waiting for her, and his eyes +met hers with a leaping gleam, which was a thing of such exultation that +to encounter it was like having a knife thrust deep into her side and +through and through it, for she knew full well that he could not wear +such a look unless he had some strength of which she knew not. + +This gleam was in his eyes each time she found herself drawn to them, and +it seemed as though she could look nowhere without encountering his gaze. +He followed her from room to room, placing himself where she could not +lift her eyes without beholding him; when she walked a minuet with a +royal duke, he stood and watched her with such a look in his face as drew +all eyes towards him. + +"'Tis as if he threatens her," one said. "He has gone mad with +disappointed love." + +But 'twas not love that was in his look, but the madness of long-thwarted +passion mixed with hate and mockery; and this she saw, and girded her +soul with all its strength, knowing that she had a fiercer beast to deal +with, and a more vicious and dangerous one, than her horse Devil. That +he kept at first at a distance from her, and but looked on with this +secret exultant glow in his bad, beauteous eyes, told her that at last he +felt he held some power in his hands, against which all her defiance +would be as naught. Till this hour, though she had suffered, and when +alone had writhed in agony of grief and bitter shame, in his presence she +had never flinched. Her strength she knew was greater than his; but his +baseness was his weapon, and the depths of that baseness she knew she had +never reached. + +At midnight, having just made obeisance before Royalty retiring, she felt +that at length he had drawn near and was standing at her side. + +"To-night," he said, in the low undertone it was his way to keep for such +occasions, knowing how he could pierce her ear--"to-night you are Juno's +self--a very Queen of Heaven!" + +She made no answer. + +"And I have stood and watched you moving among all lesser goddesses as +the moon sails among the stars, and I have smiled in thinking of what +these lesser deities would say if they had known what I bear in my breast +to-night." + +She did not even make a movement--in truth, she felt that at his next +words she might change to stone. + +"I have found it," he said--"I have it here--the lost treasure--the tress +of hair like a raven's wing and six feet long. Is there another woman in +England who could give a man a lock like it?" + +She felt then that she had, in sooth, changed to stone; her heart hung +without moving in her breast; her eyes felt great and hollow and staring +as she lifted them to him. + +"I knew not," she said slowly, and with bated breath, for the awfulness +of the moment had even made her body weak as she had never known it feel +before--"I knew not truly that hell made things like you." + +Whereupon he made a movement forward, and the crowd about surged nearer +with hasty exclamations, for the strange weakness of her body had +overpowered her in a way mysterious to her, and she had changed to +marble, growing too heavy of weight for her sinking limbs. And those in +the surrounding groups saw a marvellous thing--the same being that my +Lady Dunstanwolde swayed as she turned, and falling, lay stretched, as if +dead, in her white and silver and flashing jewels at the startled +beholders' feet. + +* * * * * + +She wore no radiant look when she went home that night. She would go +home alone and unescorted, excepting by her lacqueys, refusing all offers +of companionship when once placed in her equipage. There were, of +course, gentlemen who would not be denied leading her to her coach; John +Oxon was among them, and at the last pressed close, with a manner of +great ceremony, speaking a final word. + +"'Tis useless, your ladyship," he murmured, as he made his obeisance +gallantly, and though the words were uttered in his lowest tone and with +great softness, they reached her ear as he intended that they should. "To- +morrow morning I shall wait upon you." + +Anne had forborne going to bed, and waited for her return, longing to see +her spirit's face again before she slept; for this poor tender creature, +being denied all woman's loves and joys by Fate, who had made her as she +was, so lived in her sister's beauty and triumphs that 'twas as if in +some far-off way she shared them, and herself experienced through them +the joy of being a woman transcendently beautiful and transcendently +beloved. To-night she had spent her waiting hours in her closet and upon +her knees, praying with all humble adoration of the Being she approached. +She was wont to pray long and fervently each day, thanking Heaven for the +smallest things and the most common, and imploring continuance of the +mercy which bestowed them upon her poor unworthiness. For her sister her +prayers were offered up night and morning, and ofttimes in hours between, +and to-night she prayed not for herself at all, but for Clorinda and for +his Grace of Osmonde, that their love might be crowned with happiness, +and that no shadow might intervene to cloud its brightness, and the +tender rapture in her sister's softened look, which was to her a thing so +wonderful that she thought of it with reverence as a holy thing. + +Her prayers being at length ended, she had risen from her knees and sat +down, taking a sacred book to read, a book of sermons such as 'twas her +simple habit to pore over with entire respect and child-like faith, and +being in the midst of her favourite homily, she heard the chariot's +returning wheels, and left her chair, surprised, because she had not yet +begun to expect the sound. + +"'Tis my sister," she said, with a soft, sentimental smile. "Osmonde not +being among the guests, she hath no pleasure in mingling with them." + +She went below to the room her ladyship usually went to first on her +return at night from any gathering, and there she found her sitting as +though she had dropped there in the corner of a great divan, her hands +hanging clasped before her on her knee, her head hanging forward on her +fallen chest, her large eyes staring into space. + +"Clorinda! Clorinda!" Anne cried, running to her and kneeling at her +side. "Clorinda! God have mercy! What is't?" + +Never before had her face worn such a look--'twas colourless, and so +drawn and fallen in that 'twas indeed almost as if all her great beauty +was gone; but the thing most awful to poor Anne was that all the new +softness seemed as if it had been stamped out, and the fierce hardness +had come back and was engraven in its place, mingled with a horrible +despair. + +"An hour ago," she said, "I swooned. That is why I look thus. 'Tis yet +another sign that I am a woman--a woman!" + +"You are ill--you swooned?" cried Anne. "I must send for your physician. +Have you not ordered that he be sent for yourself? If Osmonde were here, +how perturbed he would be!" + +"Osmonde!" said my lady. "Gerald! Is there a Gerald, Anne?" + +"Sister!" cried Anne, affrighted by her strange look--"oh, sister!" + +"I have seen heaven," Clorinda said; "I have stood on the threshold and +seen through the part-opened gate--and then have been dragged back to +hell." + +Anne clung to her, gazing upwards at her eyes, in sheer despair. + +"But back to hell I will not go," she went on saying. "Had I not seen +Heaven, they might perhaps have dragged me; but now I will not go--I will +not, that I swear! There is a thing which cannot be endured. Bear it no +woman should. Even I, who was not born a woman, but a wolf's she-cub, I +cannot. 'Twas not I, 'twas Fate," she said--"'twas not I, 'twas +Fate--'twas the great wheel we are bound to, which goes round and round +that we may be broken on it. 'Twas not I who bound myself there; and I +will not be broken so." + +She said the words through her clenched teeth, and with all the mad +passion of her most lawless years; even at Anne she looked almost in the +old ungentle fashion, as though half scorning all weaker than herself, +and having small patience with them. + +"There will be a way," she said--"there will be a way. I shall not swoon +again." + +She left her divan and stood upright, the colour having come back to her +face; but the look Anne worshipped not having returned with it, 'twas as +though Mistress Clorinda Wildairs had been born again. + +"To-morrow morning I go forth on Devil," she said; "and I shall be abroad +if any visitors come." + +What passed in her chamber that night no human being knew. Anne, who +left her own apartment and crept into a chamber near hers to lie and +watch, knew that she paced to and fro, but heard no other sound, and +dared not intrude upon her. + +When she came forth in the morning she wore the high look she had been +wont to wear in the years gone by, when she ruled in her father's house, +and rode to the hunt with a following of gay middle-aged and elderly +rioters. Her eye was brilliant, and her colour matched it. She held her +head with the old dauntless carriage, and there was that in her voice +before which her women quaked, and her lacqueys hurried to do her +bidding. + +Devil himself felt this same thing in the touch of her hand upon his +bridle when she mounted him at the door, and seemed to glance askance at +her sideways. + +She took no servant with her, and did not ride to the Park, but to the +country. Once on the highroad, she rode fast and hard, only galloping +straight before her as the way led, and having no intention. Where she +was going she knew not; but why she rode on horseback she knew full well, +it being because the wild, almost fierce motion was in keeping with the +tempest in her soul. Thoughts rushed through her brain even as she +rushed through the air on Devil's back, and each leaping after the other, +seemed to tear more madly. + +"What shall I do?" she was saying to herself. "What thing is there for +me to do? I am trapped like a hunted beast, and there is no way forth." + +The blood went like a torrent through her veins, so that she seemed to +hear it roaring in her ears; her heart thundered in her side, or 'twas so +she thought of it as it bounded, while she recalled the past and looked +upon the present. + +"What else could have been?" she groaned. "Naught else--naught else. +'Twas a trick--a trick of Fate to ruin me for my punishment." + +When she had gone forth it had been with no hope in her breast that her +wit might devise a way to free herself from the thing which so beset her, +for she had no weak fancies that there dwelt in this base soul any germ +of honour which might lead it to relenting. As she had sat in her dark +room at night, crouched upon the floor, and clenching her hands, as the +mad thoughts went whirling through her brain, she had stared her Fate in +the face and known all its awfulness. Before her lay the rapture of a +great, sweet, honourable passion, a high and noble life lived in such +bliss as rarely fell to lot of woman--on this one man she knew that she +could lavish all the splendour of her nature, and make his life a heaven, +as hers would be. Behind her lay the mad, uncared-for years, and one +black memory blighting all to come, though 'twould have been but a black +memory with no power to blight if the heaven of love had not so opened to +her and with its light cast all else into shadow. + +"If 'twere not love," she cried--"if 'twere but ambition, I could defy it +to the last; but 'tis love--love--love, and it will kill me to forego +it." + +Even as she moaned the words she heard hoof beats near her, and a +horseman leaped the hedge and was at her side. She set her teeth, and +turning, stared into John Oxon's face. + +"Did you think I would not follow you?" he asked. + +"No," she answered. + +"I have followed you at a distance hitherto," he said; "now I shall +follow close." + +She did not speak, but galloped on. + +"Think you you can outride me?" he said grimly, quickening his steed's +pace. "I go with your ladyship to your own house. For fear of scandal +you have not openly rebuffed me previous to this time; for a like reason +you will not order your lacqueys to shut your door when I enter it with +you." + +My Lady Dunstanwolde turned to gaze at him again. The sun shone on his +bright falling locks and his blue eyes as she had seen it shine in days +which seemed so strangely long passed by, though they were not five years +agone. + +"'Tis strange," she said, with a measure of wonder, "to live and be so +black a devil." + +"Bah! my lady," he said, "these are fine words--and fine words do not +hold between us. Let us leave them. I would escort you home, and speak +to you in private." There was that in his mocking that was madness to +her, and made her sick and dizzy with the boiling of the blood which +surged to her brain. The fury of passion which had been a terror to all +about her when she had been a child was upon her once more, and though +she had thought herself freed from its dominion, she knew it again and +all it meant. She felt the thundering beat in her side, the hot flood +leaping to her cheek, the flame burning her eyes themselves as if fire +was within them. Had he been other than he was, her face itself would +have been a warning. But he pressed her hard. As he would have slunk +away a beaten cur if she had held the victory in her hands, so feeling +that the power was his, he exulted over the despairing frenzy which was +in her look. + +"I pay back old scores," he said. "There are many to pay. When you +crowned yourself with roses and set your foot upon my face, your ladyship +thought not of this! When you gave yourself to Dunstanwolde and spat at +me, you did not dream that there could come a time when I might goad as +you did." + +She struck Devil with her whip, who leaped forward; but Sir John followed +hard behind her. He had a swift horse too, and urged him fiercely, so +that between these two there was a race as if for life or death. The +beasts bounded forward, spurning the earth beneath their feet. My lady's +face was set, her eyes were burning flame, her breath came short and +pantingly between her teeth. Oxon's fair face was white with passion; he +panted also, but strained every nerve to keep at her side, and kept +there. + +"Keep back! I warn thee!" she cried once, almost gasping. + +"Keep back!" he answered, blind with rage. "I will follow thee to hell!" + +And in this wise they galloped over the white road until the hedges +disappeared and they were in the streets, and people turned to look at +them, and even stood and stared. Then she drew rein a little and went +slower, knowing with shuddering agony that the trap was closing about +her. + +"What is it that you would say to me?" she asked him breathlessly. + +"That which I would say within four walls that you may hear it all," he +answered. "This time 'tis not idle threatening. I have a thing to show +you." + +Through the streets they went, and as her horse's hoofs beat the +pavement, and the passers-by, looking towards her, gazed curiously at so +fine a lady on so splendid a brute, she lifted her eyes to the houses, +the booths, the faces, and the sky, with a strange fancy that she looked +about her as a man looks who, doomed to death, is being drawn in his cart +to Tyburn tree. For 'twas to death she went, nor to naught else could +she compare it, and she was so young and strong, and full of love and +life, and there should have been such bliss and peace before her but for +one madness of her all-unknowing days. And this beside her--this man +with the fair face and looks and beauteous devil's eyes, was her hangman, +and carried his rope with him, and soon would fit it close about her +neck. + +When they rode through the part of the town where abode the World of +Fashion, those who saw them knew them, and marvelled that the two should +be together. + +"But perhaps his love has made him sue for pardon that he has so borne +himself," some said, "and she has chosen to be gracious to him, since she +is gracious in these days to all." + +When they reached her house he dismounted with her, wearing an outward +air of courtesy; but his eye mocked her, as she knew. His horse was in a +lather of sweat, and he spoke to a servant. + +"Take my beast home," he said. "He is too hot to stand, and I shall not +soon be ready." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--Dealing with that which was done in the Panelled Parlour + + +He followed her to the Panelled Parlour, the one to which she had taken +Osmonde on the day of their bliss, the one in which in the afternoon she +received those who came to pay court to her over a dish of tea. In the +mornings none entered it but herself or some invited guest. 'Twas not +the room she would have chosen for him; but when he said to her, "'Twere +best your ladyship took me to some private place," she had known there +was no other so safe. + +When the door was closed behind them, and they stood face to face, they +were a strange pair to behold--she with mad defiance battling with mad +despair in her face; he with the mocking which every woman who had ever +trusted him or loved him had lived to see in his face when all was lost. +Few men there lived who were as vile as he, his power of villainy lying +in that he knew not the meaning of man's shame or honour. + +"Now," she said, "tell me the worst." + +"'Tis not so bad," he answered, "that a man should claim his own, and +swear that no other man shall take it from him. That I have sworn, and +that I will hold to." + +"Your own!" she said--"your own you call it--villain!" + +"My own, since I can keep it," quoth he. "Before you were my Lord of +Dunstanwolde's you were mine--of your own free will." + +"Nay, nay," she cried. "God! through some madness I knew not the +awfulness of--because I was so young and had known naught but evil--and +you were so base and wise." + +"Was your ladyship an innocent?" he answered. "It seemed not so to me." + +"An innocent of all good," she cried--"of all things good on earth--of +all that I know now, having seen manhood and honour." + +"His Grace of Osmonde has not been told this," he said; "and I should +make it all plain to him." + +"What do you ask, devil?" she broke forth. "What is't you ask?" + +"That you shall not be the Duchess of Osmonde," he said, drawing near to +her; "that you shall be the wife of Sir John Oxon, as you once called +yourself for a brief space, though no priest had mumbled over us--" + +"Who was't divorced us?" she said, gasping; "for I was an honest thing, +though I knew no other virtue. Who was't divorced us?" + +"I confess," he answered, bowing, "that 'twas I--for the time being. I +was young, and perhaps fickle--" + +"And you left me," she cried, "and I found that you had come but for a +bet--and since I so bore myself that you could not boast, and since I was +not a rich woman whose fortune would be of use to you, you followed +another and left me--me!" + +"As his Grace of Osmonde will when I tell him my story," he answered. "He +is not one to brook that such things can be told of the mother of his +heirs." + +She would have shrieked aloud but that she clutched her throat in time. + +"Tell him!" she cried, "tell him, and see if he will hear you. Your word +against mine!" + +"Think you I do not know that full well," he answered, and he brought +forth a little package folded in silk. "Why have I done naught but +threaten till this time? If I went to him without proof, he would run me +through with his sword as I were a mad dog. But is there another woman +in England from whose head her lover could ravish a lock as long and +black as this?" + +He unfolded the silk, and let other silk unfold itself, a great and thick +ring of raven hair which uncoiled its serpent length, and though he held +it high, was long enough after surging from his hand to lie upon the +floor. + +"Merciful God!" she cried, and shuddering, hid her face. + +"'Twas a bet, I own," he said; "I heard too much of the mad beauty and +her disdain of men not to be fired by a desire to prove to her and +others, that she was but a woman after all, and so was to be won. I took +an oath that I would come back some day with a trophy--and this I cut +when you knew not that I did it." + +She clutched her throat again to keep from shrieking in her--impotent +horror. + +"Devil, craven, and loathsome--and he knows not what he is!" she gasped. +"He is a mad thing who knows not that all his thoughts are of hell." + +'Twas, in sooth, a strange and monstrous thing to see him so unwavering +and bold, flinching before no ignominy, shrinking not to speak openly the +thing before the mere accusation of which other men's blood would have +boiled. + +"When I bore it away with me," he said, "I lived wildly for a space, and +in those days put it in a place of safety, and when I was sober again I +had forgot where. Yesterday, by a strange chance, I came upon it. Think +you it can be mistaken for any other woman's hair?" + +At this she held up her hand. + +"Wait," she said. "You will go to Osmonde, you will tell him this, you +will--" + +"I will tell him all the story of the rose garden and of the sun-dial, +and the beauty who had wit enough to scorn a man in public that she might +more safely hold tryst with him alone. She had great wit and cunning for +a beauty of sixteen. 'Twould be well for her lord to have keen eyes when +she is twenty." + +He should have seen the warning in her eyes, for there was warning enough +in their flaming depths. + +"All that you can say I know," she said--"all that you can say! And I +love him. There is no other man on earth. Were he a beggar, I would +tramp the highroad by his side and go hungered with him. He is my lord, +and I his mate--his mate!" + +"That you will not be," he answered, made devilish by her words. "He is +a high and noble gentleman, and wants no man's cast-off plaything for his +wife." + +Her breast leaped up and down in her panting as she pressed her hand upon +it; her breath came in sharp puffs through her nostrils. + +"And once," she breathed--"and once--I _loved_ thee--cur!" + +He was mad with exultant villainy and passion, and he broke into a laugh. + +"Loved me!" he said. "Thou! As thou lovedst me--and as thou lovest +him--so will Moll Easy love any man--for a crown." + +Her whip lay upon the table, she caught and whirled it in the air. She +was blind with the surging of her blood, and saw not how she caught or +held it, or what she did--only that she struck! + +And 'twas his temple that the loaded weapon met, and 'twas wielded by a +wrist whose sinews were of steel, and even as it struck he gasped, +casting up his hands, and thereupon fell, and lay stretched at her feet! + +But the awful tempest which swept over her had her so under its dominion +that she was like a branch whirled on the wings of the storm. She scarce +noted that he fell, or noting it, gave it not one thought as she dashed +from one end of the apartment to the other with the fierce striding of a +mad woman. + +"Devil!" she cried, "and cur! and for thee I blasted all the years to +come! To a beast so base I gave all that an empress' self could give--all +life--all love--for ever. And he comes back--shameless--to barter like a +cheating huckster, because his trade goes ill, and I--I could stock his +counters once again." + +She strode towards him, raving. + +"Think you I do not know, woman's bully and poltroon, that you plot to +sell yourself, because your day has come, and no woman will bid for such +an outcast, saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin--rise, lest I +kill thee!" + +In her blind madness she lashed him once across the face again. And he +stirred not--and something in the resistless feeling of the flesh beneath +the whip, and in the quiet of his lying, caused her to pause and stand +panting and staring at the thing which lay before her. For it was a +Thing, and as she stood staring, with wild heaving breast, this she saw. +'Twas but a thing--a thing lying inert, its fair locks outspread, its +eyes rolled upward till the blue was almost lost; a purple indentation on +the right temple from which there oozed a tiny thread of blood. + +* * * * * + +"There will be a way," she had said, and yet in her most mad despair, of +this way she had never thought; though strange it had been, considering +her lawless past, that she had not--never of this way--never! +Notwithstanding which, in one frenzied moment in which she had known +naught but her delirium, her loaded whip had found it for her--the way! + +And yet it being so found, and she stood staring, seeing what she had +done--seeing what had befallen--'twas as if the blow had been struck not +at her own temple but at her heart--a great and heavy shock, which left +her bloodless, and choked, and gasping. + +"What! what!" she panted. "Nay! nay! nay!" and her eyes grew wide and +wild. + +She sank upon her knees, so shuddering that her teeth began to chatter. +She pushed him and shook him by the shoulder. + +"Stir!" she cried in a loud whisper. "Move thee! Why dost thou lie so? +Stir!" + +Yet he stirred not, but lay inert, only with his lips drawn back, showing +his white teeth a little, as if her horrid agony made him begin to laugh. +Shuddering, she drew slowly nearer, her eyes more awful than his own. Her +hand crept shaking to his wrist and clutched it. There was naught +astir--naught! It stole to his breast, and baring it, pressed close. +That was still and moveless as his pulse; for life was ended, and a +hundred mouldering years would not bring more of death. + +"I have _killed_ thee," she breathed. "I have _killed_ thee--though I +meant it not--even hell itself doth know. Thou art a dead man--and this +is the worst of all!" + +His hand fell heavily from hers, and she still knelt staring, such a look +coming into her face as throughout her life had never been there +before--for 'twas the look of a creature who, being tortured, the worst +at last being reached, begins to smile at Fate. + +"I have killed him!" she said, in a low, awful voice; "and he lies +here--and outside people walk, and know not. But _he_ knows--and I--and +as he lies methinks he smiles--knowing what he has done!" + +She crouched even lower still, the closer to behold him, and indeed it +seemed his still face sneered as if defying her now to rid herself of +him! 'Twas as though he lay there mockingly content, saying, "Now that I +lie here, 'tis for _you_--for _you_ to move me." + +She rose and stood up rigid, and all the muscles of her limbs were drawn +as though she were a creature stretched upon a rack; for the horror of +this which had befallen her seemed to fill the place about her, and leave +her no air to breathe nor light to see. + +"Now!" she cried, "if I would give way--and go mad, as I could but do, +for there is naught else left--if I would but give way, that which is +I--and has lived but a poor score of years--would be done with for all +time. All whirls before me. 'Twas I who struck the blow--and I am a +woman--and I could go raving--and cry out and call them in, and point to +him, and tell them how 'twas done--all!--all!" + +She choked, and clutched her bosom, holding its heaving down so fiercely +that her nails bruised it through her habit's cloth; for she felt that +she had begun to rave already, and that the waves of such a tempest were +arising as, if not quelled at their first swell, would sweep her from her +feet and engulf her for ever. + +"That--that!" she gasped--"nay--that I swear I will not do! There was +always One who hated me--and doomed and hunted me from the hour I lay +'neath my dead mother's corpse, a new-born thing. I know not whom it +was--or why--or how--but 'twas so! I was made evil, and cast helpless +amid evil fates, and having done the things that were ordained, and there +was no escape from, I was shown noble manhood and high honour, and taught +to worship, as I worship now. An angel might so love and be made higher. +And at the gate of heaven a devil grins at me and plucks me back, and +taunts and mires me, and I fall--on _this_!" + +She stretched forth her arms in a great gesture, wherein it seemed that +surely she defied earth and heaven. + +"No hope--no mercy--naught but doom and hell," she cried, "unless the +thing that is tortured be the stronger. Now--unless Fate bray me +small--the stronger I will be!" + +She looked down at the thing before her. How its stone face sneered, and +even in its sneering seemed to disregard her. She knelt by it again, her +blood surging through her body, which had been cold, speaking as if she +would force her voice to pierce its deadened ear. + +"Ay, mock!" she said, setting her teeth, "thinking that I am +conquered--yet am I not! 'Twas an honest blow struck by a creature +goaded past all thought! Ay, mock--and yet, but for one man's sake, +would I call in those outside and stand before them, crying: 'Here is a +villain whom I struck in madness--and he lies dead! I ask not mercy, but +only justice.'" + +She crouched still nearer, her breath and words coming hard and quick. +'Twas indeed as if she spoke to a living man who heard--as if she +answered what he had said. + +"There would be men in England who would give it me," she raved, +whispering. "That would there, I swear! But there would be dullards and +dastards who would not. He would give it--he! Ay, mock as thou wilt! +But between his high honour and love and me thy carrion _shall_ not +come!" + +By her great divan the dead man had fallen, and so near to it he lay that +one arm was hidden by the draperies; and at this moment this she +saw--before having seemed to see nothing but the death in his face. A +thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden, and springing high the +instant the match struck the fuel it leaped from. It was a thought so +daring and so strange that even she gasped once, being appalled, and her +hands, stealing to her brow, clutched at the hair that grew there, +feeling it seem to rise and stand erect. + +"Is it madness to so dare?" she said hoarsely, and for an instant, +shuddering, hid her eyes, but then uncovered and showed them burning. +"Nay! not as I will dare it," she said, "for it will make me steel. You +fell well," she said to the stone-faced thing, "and as you lie there, +seem to tell me what to do, in your own despite. You would not have so +helped me had you known. Now 'tis 'twixt Fate and I--a human thing--who +is but a hunted woman." + +She put her strong hand forth and thrust him--he was already +stiffening--backward from the shoulder, there being no shrinking on her +face as she felt his flesh yield beneath her touch, for she had passed +the barrier lying between that which is mere life and that which is +pitiless hell, and could feel naught that was human. A poor wild beast +at bay, pressed on all sides by dogs, by huntsmen, by resistless weapons, +by Nature's pitiless self--glaring with bloodshot eyes, panting, with +fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended agony--might feel thus. +'Tis but a hunted beast; but 'tis alone, and faces so the terror and +anguish of death. + +The thing gazing with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put +forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it +lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes +seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; +she thrust it farther backward still, and letting the draperies fall, +steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid from +sight. + +"Until to-night," she said, "you will lie well there. And then--and +then--" + +She picked up the long silken lock of hair which lay like a serpent at +her feet, and threw it into the fire, watching it burn, as all hair +burns, with slow hissing, and she watched it till 'twas gone. + +Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her eyeballs and her brow, her +thoughts moving in great leaps. Although it reeled, the brain which had +worked for her ever, worked clear and strong, setting before her what was +impending, arguing her case, showing her where dangers would arise, how +she must provide against them, what she must defend and set at defiance. +The power of will with which she had been endowed at birth, and which had +but grown stronger by its exercise, was indeed to be compared to some +great engine whose lever 'tis not nature should be placed in human hands; +but on that lever her hand rested now, and to herself she vowed she would +control it, since only thus might she be saved. The torture she had +undergone for months, the warring of the evil past with the noble +present, of that which was sweet and passionately loving woman with that +which was all but devil, had strung her to a pitch so intense and high +that on the falling of this unnatural and unforeseen blow she was left +scarce a human thing. Looking back, she saw herself a creature doomed +from birth; and here in one moment seemed to stand a force ranged in mad +battle with the fate which had doomed her. + +"'Twas ordained that the blow should fall so," she said, "and those who +did it laugh--laugh at me." + +'Twas but a moment, and her sharp breathing became even and regular as +though at her command; her face composed itself, and she turned to the +bell and rang it as with imperious haste. + +When the lacquey entered, she was standing holding papers in her hand as +if she had but just been consulting them. + +"Follow Sir John Oxon," she commanded. "Tell him I have forgot an +important thing and beg him to return at once. Lose no time. He has but +just left me and can scarce be out of sight." + +The fellow saw there was no time to lose. They all feared that imperial +eye of hers and fled to obey its glances. Bowing, he turned, and +hastened to do her bidding, fearing to admit that he had not seen the +guest leave, because to do so would be to confess that he had been absent +from his post, which was indeed the truth. + +She knew he would come back shortly, and thus he did, entering somewhat +breathed by his haste. + +"My lady," he said, "I went quickly to the street, and indeed to the +corner of it, but Sir John was not within sight." + +"Fool, you were not swift enough!" she said angrily. "Wait, you must go +to his lodgings with a note. The matter is of importance." + +She went to a table--'twas close to the divan, so close that if she had +thrust forth her foot she could have touched what lay beneath it--and +wrote hastily a few lines. They were to request that which was +stiffening within three feet of her to return to her as quickly as +possible that she might make inquiries of an important nature which she +had forgotten at his departure. + +"Take this to Sir John's lodgings," she said. "Let there be no loitering +by the way. Deliver into his own hands, and bring back at once his +answer." + +Then she was left alone again, and being so left, paced the room slowly, +her gaze upon the floor. + +"That was well done," she said. "When he returns and has not found him, +I will be angered, and send him again to wait." + +She stayed her pacing, and passed her hand across her face. + +"'Tis like a nightmare," she said--"as if one dreamed, and choked, and +panted, and would scream aloud, but could not. I cannot! I must not! +Would that I might shriek, and dash myself upon the floor, and beat my +head upon it until I lay--as _he_ does." + +She stood a moment, breathing fast, her eyes widening, that part of her +which was weak woman for the moment putting her in parlous danger, +realising the which she pressed her sides with hands that were of steel. + +"Wait! wait!" she said to herself. "This is going mad. This is +loosening hold, and being beaten by that One who hates me and laughs to +see what I have come to." + +Naught but that unnatural engine of will could have held her within +bounds and restrained the mounting female weakness that beset her; but +this engine being stronger than all else, it beat her womanish and +swooning terrors down. + +"Through this one day I must live," she said, "and plan, and guard each +moment that doth pass. My face must tell no tale, my voice must hint +none. He will be still--God knows he will be still enough." + +Upon the divan itself there had been lying a little dog; 'twas a King +Charles' spaniel, a delicate pampered thing, which attached itself to +her, and was not easily driven away. Once during the last hour the +fierce, ill-hushed voices had disturbed it, and it had given vent to a +fretted bark, but being a luxurious little beast, it had soon curled up +among its cushions and gone to sleep again. But as its mistress walked +about muttering low words and ofttimes breathing sharp breaths, it became +disturbed again. Perhaps through some instinct of which naught is known +by human creatures, it felt the strange presence of a thing which roused +it. It stirred, at first drowsily, and lifted its head and sniffed; then +it stretched its limbs, and having done so, stood up, turning on its +mistress a troubled eye, and this she saw and stopped to meet it. 'Twas +a strange look she bestowed upon it, a startled and fearful one; her +thought drew the blood up to her cheek, but backward again it flowed when +the little beast lifted its nose and gave a low but woeful howl. Twice +it did this, and then jumped down, and standing before the edge of the +couch, stood there sniffing. + +There was no mistake, some instinct of which it knew not the meaning had +set it on, and it would not be thrust back. In all beasts this strange +thing has been remarked--that they know that which ends them all, and so +revolt against it that they cannot be at rest so long as it is near them, +but must roar, or whinny, or howl until 'tis out of the reach of their +scent. And so 'twas plain this little beast knew and was afraid and +restless. He would not let it be, but roved about, sniffing and whining, +and not daring to thrust his head beneath the falling draperies, but +growing more and yet more excited and terrified, until at last he +stopped, raised head in air, and gave vent to a longer, louder, and more +dolorous howl, and albeit to one with so strange and noticeable a sound +that her heart turned over in her breast as she stooped and caught him in +her grasp, and shuddered as she stood upright, holding him to her side, +her hand over his mouth. But he would not be hushed, and struggled to +get down as if indeed he would go mad unless he might get to the thing +and rave at it. + +"If I send thee from the room thou wilt come back, poor Frisk," she said. +"There will be no keeping thee away, and I have never ordered thee away +before. Why couldst thou not keep still? Nay, 'twas not dog nature." + +That it was not so was plain by his struggles and the yelps but poorly +stifled by her grasp. + +She put her hand about his little neck, turning, in sooth, very pale. + +"Thou too, poor little beast," she said. "Thou too, who art so small a +thing and never harmed me." + +When the lacquey came back he wore an air more timorous than before. + +"Your ladyship," he faltered, "Sir John had not yet reached his lodgings. +His servant knew not when he might expect him." + +"In an hour go again and wait," she commanded. "He must return ere long +if he has not left town." + +And having said this, pointed to a little silken heap which lay +outstretched limp upon the floor. "'Tis poor Frisk, who has had some +strange spasm, and fell, striking his head. He hath been ailing for +days, and howled loudly but an hour ago. Take him away, poor beast." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--Wherein his Grace of Osmonde's courier arrives from France + + +The stronghold of her security lay in the fact that her household so +stood in awe of her, and that this room, which was one of the richest and +most beautiful, though not the largest, in the mansion, all her servitors +had learned to regard as a sort of sacred place in which none dared to +set foot unless invited or commanded to enter. Within its four walls she +read and wrote in the morning hours, no servant entering unless summoned +by her; and the apartment seeming, as it were, a citadel, none approached +without previous parley. In the afternoon the doors were thrown open, +and she entertained there such visitors as came with less formality than +statelier assemblages demanded. When she went out of it this morning to +go to her chamber that her habit might be changed and her toilette made, +she glanced about her with a steady countenance. + +"Until the babblers flock in to chatter of the modes and playhouses," she +said, "all will be as quiet as the grave. Then I must stand near, and +plan well, and be in such beauty and spirit that they will see naught but +me." + +In the afternoon 'twas the fashion for those who had naught more serious +in their hands than the killing of time to pay visits to each other's +houses, and drinking dishes of tea, to dispose of their neighbours' +characters, discuss the playhouses, the latest fashions in furbelows or +commodes, and make love either lightly or with serious intent. One may +be sure that at my Lady Dunstanwolde's many dishes of Bohea were drunk, +and many ogling glances and much witticism exchanged. There was in these +days even a greater following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty +on the verge of becoming a great duchess is not like to be neglected by +her acquaintance, and thus her ladyship held assemblies both gay and +brilliantly varied, which were the delight of the fashionable triflers of +the day. + +This afternoon they flocked in greater numbers than usual. The episode +of the breaking of Devil, the unexpected return of his Grace of Osmonde, +the preparations for the union, had given an extra stimulant to that +interest in her ladyship which was ever great enough to need none. +Thereunto was added the piquancy of the stories of the noticeable +demeanour of Sir John Oxon, of what had seemed to be so plain a rebellion +against his fate, and also of my lady's open and cold displeasure at the +manner of his bearing himself as a disappointed man who presumed to show +anger against that to which he should gallantly have been resigned, as +one who is conquered by the chance of war. Those who had beheld the two +ride homeward together in the morning, were full of curiousness, and one +and another, mentioning the matter, exchanged glances, speaking plainly +of desire to know more of what had passed, and of hope that chance might +throw the two together again in public, where more of interest might be +gathered. It seemed indeed not unlikely that Sir John might appear among +the tea-bibbers, and perchance 'twas for this lively reason that my +lady's room was this afternoon more than usually full of gay spirits and +gossip-loving ones. + +They found, however, only her ladyship's self and her sister, Mistress +Anne, who, of truth, did not often join her tea-parties, finding them so +given up to fashionable chatter and worldly witticisms that she felt +herself somewhat out of place. The world knew Mistress Anne but as a +dull, plain gentlewoman, whom her more brilliant and fortunate sister +gave gracious protection to, and none missed her when she was absent, or +observed her greatly when she appeared upon the scene. To-day she was +perchance more observed than usual, because her pallor was so great a +contrast to her ladyship's splendour of beauty and colour. The contrast +between them was ever a great one; but this afternoon Mistress Anne's +always pale countenance seemed almost livid, there were rings of pain or +illness round her eyes, and her features looked drawn and pinched. My +Lady Dunstanwolde, clad in a great rich petticoat of crimson flowered +satin, with wondrous yellow Mechlin for her ruffles, and with her +glorious hair dressed like a tower, looked taller, more goddess-like and +full of splendid fire than ever she had been before beheld, or so her +visitors said to her and to each other; though, to tell the truth, this +was no new story, she being one of those women having the curious power +of inspiring the beholder with the feeling each time he encountered them +that he had never before seen them in such beauty and bloom. + +When she had come down the staircase from her chamber, Anne, who had been +standing at the foot, had indeed started somewhat at the sight of her +rich dress and brilliant hues. + +"Why do you jump as if I were a ghost, Anne?" she asked. "Do I look like +one? My looking-glass did not tell me so." + +"No," said Anne; "you--are so--so crimson and splendid--and I--" + +Her ladyship came swiftly down the stairs to her. + +"You are not crimson and splendid," she said. "'Tis you who are a ghost. +What is it?" + +Anne let her soft, dull eyes rest upon her for a moment helplessly, and +when she replied her voice sounded weak. + +"I think--I am ill, sister," she said. "I seem to tremble and feel +faint." + +"Go then to bed and see the physician. You must be cared for," said her +ladyship. "In sooth, you look ill indeed." + +"Nay," said Anne; "I beg you, sister, this afternoon let me be with you; +it will sustain me. You are so strong--let me--" + +She put out her hand as if to touch her, but it dropped at her side as +though its strength was gone. + +"But there will be many babbling people," said her sister, with a curious +look. "You do not like company, and these days my rooms are full. 'Twill +irk and tire you." + +"I care not for the people--I would be with you," Anne said, in strange +imploring. "I have a sick fancy that I am afraid to sit alone in my +chamber. 'Tis but weakness. Let me this afternoon be with you." + +"Go then and change your robe," said Clorinda, "and put some red upon +your cheeks. You may come if you will. You are a strange creature, +Anne." + +And thus saying, she passed into her apartment. As there are blows and +pain which end in insensibility or delirium, so there are catastrophes +and perils which are so great as to produce something near akin to these. +As she had stood before her mirror in her chamber watching her +reflection, while her woman attired her in her crimson flowered satin and +builded up her stately head-dress, this other woman had felt that the +hour when she could have shrieked and raved and betrayed herself had +passed by, and left a deadness like a calm behind, as though horror had +stunned all pain and yet left her senses clear. She forgot not the thing +which lay staring upward blankly at the under part of the couch which hid +it--the look of its fixed eyes, its outspread locks, and the purple +indentation on the temple she saw as clearly as she had seen them in that +first mad moment when she had stood staring downward at the thing itself; +but the coursing of her blood was stilled, the gallop of her pulses, and +that wild hysteric leaping of her heart into her throat, choking her and +forcing her to gasp and pant in that way which in women must ever end in +shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of the air. But for the feminine +softness to which her nature had given way for the first time, since the +power of love had mastered her, there was no thing of earth could have +happened to her which would have brought this rolling ball to her throat, +this tremor to her body--since the hour of her birth she had never been +attacked by such a female folly, as she would indeed have regarded it +once; but now 'twas different--for a while she had been a woman--a woman +who had flung herself upon the bosom of him who was her soul's lord, and +resting there, her old rigid strength had been relaxed. + +But 'twas not this woman who had known tender yielding who returned to +take her place in the Panelled Parlour, knowing of the companion who +waited near her unseen--for it was as her companion she thought of him, +as she had thought of him when he followed her in the Mall, forced +himself into her box at the play, or stood by her shoulder at assemblies; +he had placed himself by her side again, and would stay there until she +could rid herself of him. + +"After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my part," she said, "and +then may I live a freed woman." + +'Twas always upon the divan she took her place when she received her +visitors, who were accustomed to finding her enthroned there. This +afternoon when she came into the room she paused for a space, and stood +beside it, the parlour being yet empty. She felt her face grow a little +cold, as if it paled, and her under-lip drew itself tight across her +teeth. + +"In a graveyard," she said, "I have sat upon the stone ledge of a tomb, +and beneath there was--worse than this, could I but have seen it. This +is no more." + +When the Sir Humphreys and Lord Charleses, Lady Bettys and Mistress +Lovelys were announced in flocks, fluttering and chattering, she rose +from her old place to meet them, and was brilliant graciousness itself. +She hearkened to their gossipings, and though 'twas not her way to join +in them, she was this day witty in such way as robbed them of the dulness +in which sometimes gossip ends. It was a varied company which gathered +about her; but to each she gave his or her moment, and in that moment +said that which they would afterwards remember. With those of the Court +she talked royalty, the humours of her Majesty, the severities of her +Grace of Marlborough; with statesmen she spoke with such intellect and +discretion that they went away pondering on the good fortune which had +befallen one man when it seemed that it was of such proportions as might +have satisfied a dozen, for it seemed not fair to them that his Grace of +Osmonde, having already rank, wealth, and fame, should have added to them +a gift of such magnificence as this beauteous woman would bring; with +beaux and wits she made dazzling jests; and to the beauties who desired +their flatteries she gave praise so adroit that they were stimulated to +plume their feathers afresh and cease to fear the rivalry of her +loveliness. + +And yet while she so bore herself, never once did she cease to feel the +presence of that which, lying near, seemed to her racked soul as one who +lay and listened with staring eyes which mocked; for there was a thought +which would not leave her, which was, that it could hear, that it could +see through the glazing on its blue orbs, and that knowing itself bound +by the moveless irons of death and dumbness it impotently raged and +cursed that it could not burst them and shriek out its vengeance, rolling +forth among her worshippers at their feet and hers. + +"But he _can_ not," she said, within her clenched teeth, again and +again--"_that_ he cannot." + +Once as she said this to herself she caught Anne's eyes fixed helplessly +upon her, it seeming to be as the poor woman had said, that her weakness +caused her to desire to abide near her sister's strength and draw support +from it; for she had remained at my lady's side closely since she had +descended to the room, and now seemed to implore some protection for +which she was too timid to openly make request. + +"You are too weak to stay, Anne," her ladyship said. "'Twould be better +that you should retire." + +"I am weak," the poor thing answered, in low tones--"but not too weak to +stay. I am always weak. Would that I were of your strength and courage. +Let me sit down--sister--here." She touched the divan's cushions with a +shaking hand, gazing upward wearily--perchance remembering that this +place seemed ever a sort of throne none other than the hostess queen +herself presumed to encroach upon. + +"You are too meek, poor sister," quoth Clorinda. "'Tis not a chair of +coronation or the woolsack of a judge. Sit! sit!--and let me call for +wine!" + +She spoke to a lacquey and bade him bring the drink, for even as she sank +into her place Anne's cheeks grew whiter. + +When 'twas brought, her ladyship poured it forth and gave it to her +sister with her own hand, obliging her to drink enough to bring her +colour back. Having seen to this, she addressed the servant who had +obeyed her order. + +"Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon?" she demanded, in that clear, +ringing voice of hers, whose music ever arrested those surrounding her, +whether they were concerned in her speech or no; but now all felt +sufficient interest to prick up ears and hearken to what was said. + +"No, my lady," the lacquey answered. "He said that you had bidden him to +wait." + +"But not all day, poor fool," she said, setting down Anne's empty glass +upon the salver. "Did he think I bade him stand about the door all +night? Bring me his message when he comes." + +"'Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk," she said to those nearest +her. "One cannot pay for wit with wages and livery. They can but obey +the literal word. Sir John, leaving me in haste this morning, I forgot a +question I would have asked, and sent a lacquey to recall him." + +Anne sat upright. + +"Sister--I pray you--another glass of wine." + +My lady gave it to her at once, and she drained it eagerly. + +"Was he overtaken?" said a curious matron, who wished not to see the +subject closed. + +"No," quoth her ladyship, with a light laugh--"though he must have been +in haste, for the man was sent after him in but a moment's time. 'Twas +then I told the fellow to go later to his lodgings and deliver my message +into Sir John's own hand, whence it seems that he thinks that he must +await him till he comes." + +Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip; for she had felt it bolder +to let it lie there as if forgotten, because her pulse had sprung so at +first sight of it when she came down, and she had so quailed before the +desire to thrust it away, to hide it from her sight. "And that I quail +before," she had said, "I must have the will to face--or I am lost." So +she had let it stay. + +A languishing beauty, with melting blue eyes and a pretty fashion of ever +keeping before the world of her admirers her waxen delicacy, lifted the +heavy thing in her frail white hand. + +"How can your ladyship wield it?" she said. "It is so heavy for a +woman--but your ladyship is--is not--" + +"Not quite a woman," said the beautiful creature, standing at her full +great height, and smiling down at this blue and white piece of frailty +with the flashing splendour of her eyes. + +"Not quite a woman," cried two wits at once. "A goddess rather--an +Olympian goddess." + +The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to disparage +her ethereal charms. She lifted the weapon with a great effort, which +showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the sweet tracery of +blue veins upon it. + +"Nay," she said lispingly, "it needs the muscle of a great man to lift +it. I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse." And to show +how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity lacked such +vigour, she dropped it upon the floor--and it rolled beneath the edge of +the divan. + +"Now," the thought shot through my lady's brain, as a bolt shoots from +the sky--"now--he _laughs_!" + +She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux at once, +and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and rummaged, had +not God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought in that terrible mad +second--God!--and only a mind that is not human could have told why. + +For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking, was before them +all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust her hand below, +and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view. + +"'Tis here," she said, "and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at its +falling--its weight is so great." + +Clorinda took it from her hand. + +"I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, "and for quieter +ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by." + +She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf. + +"It was ever heavy--but for Devil. 'Tis done with," she said; and there +came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a flood of +crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who looked and +heard, said to themselves that 'twas the thought of Osmonde who had so +changed her, which made her blush. But a few moments later they beheld +the same glow mount again. A lacquey entered, bearing a salver on which +lay two letters. One was a large one, sealed with a ducal coronet, and +this she saw first, and took in her hand even before the man had time to +speak. + +"His Grace's courier has arrived from France," he said; "the package was +ordered to be delivered at once." + +"It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped," she said, +and then the other missive caught her eye. + +"'Tis your ladyship's own," the lacquey explained somewhat anxiously. +"'Twas brought back, Sir John not having yet come home, and Jenfry having +waited three hours." + +"'Twas long enough," quoth her ladyship. "'Twill do to-morrow." + +She did not lay Osmonde's letter aside, but kept it in her hand, and +seeing that she waited for their retirement to read it, her guests began +to make their farewells. One by one or in groups of twos and threes they +left her, the men bowing low, and going away fretted by the memory of the +picture she made--a tall and regal figure in her flowered crimson, her +stateliness seeming relaxed and softened by the mere holding of the +sealed missive in her hand. But the women were vaguely envious, not of +Osmonde, but of her before whom there lay outspread as far as life's +horizon reached, a future of such perfect love and joy; for Gerald +Mertoun had been marked by feminine eyes since his earliest youth, and +had seemed to embody all that woman's dreams or woman's ambitions or her +love could desire. + +When the last was gone, Clorinda turned, tore her letter open, and held +it hard to her lips. Before she read a word she kissed it passionately a +score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing at her; and having +kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks warm with the glow of a +sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising and falling in a tempest of +tender, fluttering breaths--and 'twas these words her eyes devoured: + + "If I should head this page I write to you 'Goddess and Queen, and + Empress of my deepest soul,' what more should I be saying than 'My + Love' and 'My Clorinda,' since these express all the soul of man could + crave for or his body desire. The body and soul of me so long for + thee, sweetheart, and sweetest beautiful woman that the hand of Nature + ever fashioned for the joy of mortals, that I have had need to pray + Heaven's help to aid me to endure the passing of the days that lie + between me and the hour which will make me the most strangely, + rapturously, happy man, not in England, not in the world, but in all + God's universe. I must pray Heaven again, and indeed do and will, for + humbleness which shall teach me to remember that I am not deity, but + mere man--mere man--though I shall hold a goddess to my breast and + gaze into eyes which are like deep pools of Paradise, and yet answer + mine with the marvel of such love as none but such a soul could make a + woman's, and so fit to mate with man's. In the heavy days when I was + wont to gaze at you from afar with burning heart, my unceasing anguish + was that even high honour itself could not subdue and conquer the + thoughts which leaped within me even as my pulse leaped, and even as + my pulse could not be stilled unless by death. And one that for ever + haunted--aye, and taunted--me was the image of how your tall, beauteous + body would yield itself to a strong man's arm, and your noble head + with its heavy tower of hair resting upon his shoulder--the centres of + his very being would be thrilled and shaken by the uplifting of such + melting eyes as surely man ne'er gazed within on earth before, and the + ripe and scarlet bow of a mouth so beauteous and so sweet with + womanhood. This beset me day and night, and with such torture that I + feared betimes my brain might reel and I become a lost and ruined + madman. And now--it is no more forbidden me to dwell upon it--nay, I + lie waking at night, wooing the picture to me, and at times I rise + from my dreams to kneel by my bedside and thank God that He hath given + me at last what surely is my own!--for so it seems to me, my love, that + each of us is but a part of the other, and that such forces of Nature + rush to meet together in us, that Nature herself would cry out were we + rent apart. If there were aught to rise like a ghost between us, if + there were aught that could sunder us--noble soul, let us but swear + that it shall weld us but the closer together, and that locked in each + other's arms its blows shall not even make our united strength to + sway. Sweetest lady, your lovely lip will curve in smiles, and you + will say, 'He is mad with his joy--my Gerald' (for never till my heart + stops at its last beat and leaves me still, a dead man, cold upon my + bed, can I forget the music of your speech when you spoke those words, + 'My Gerald! My Gerald.') And indeed I crave your pardon, for a man + so filled with rapture cannot be quite sane, and sometimes I wonder if + I walk through the palace gardens like one who is drunk, so does my + brain reel. But soon, my heavenly, noble love, my exile will be over, + and this is in truth what my letter is to tell you, that in four days + your lacqueys will throw open your doors to me and I shall enter, and + being led to you, shall kneel at your feet and kiss the hem of your + robe, and then rise standing to fold her who will so soon be my very + wife to my throbbing breast." + +Back to her face had come all the softness which had been lost, the hard +lines were gone, the tender curves had returned, her lashes looked as if +they were moist. Anne, sitting rigidly and gazing at her, was afraid to +speak, knowing that she was not for the time on earth, but that the sound +of a voice would bring her back to it, and that 'twas well she should be +away as long as she might. + +She read the letter, not once, but thrice, dwelling upon every word, +'twas plain; and when she had reached the last one, turning back the +pages and beginning again. When she looked up at last, 'twas with an +almost wild little smile, for she had indeed for that one moment +forgotten. + +"Locked in each other's arms," she said--"locked in each other's arms. My +Gerald! My Gerald! 'What surely is my own--my own'!" + +Anne rose and came to her, laying her hand on her arm. She spoke in a +voice low, hushed, and strained. + +"Come away, sister," she said, "for a little while--come away." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--My Lady Dunstanwolde sits late alone and writes + + +That she must leave the Panelled Parlour at her usual hour, or attract +attention by doing that to which her household was unaccustomed, she well +knew, her manner of life being ever stately and ceremonious in its +regularity. When she dined at home she and Anne partook of their repast +together in the large dining-room, the table loaded with silver dishes +and massive glittering glass, their powdered, gold-laced lacqueys in +attendance, as though a score of guests had shared the meal with them. +Since her lord's death there had been nights when her ladyship had sat +late writing letters and reading documents pertaining to her estates, the +management of which, though in a measure controlled by stewards and +attorneys, was not left to them, as the business of most great ladies is +generally left to others. All papers were examined by her, all leases +and agreements clearly understood before she signed them, and if there +were aught unsatisfactory, both stewards and lawyers were called to her +presence to explain. + +"Never did I--or any other man--meet with such a head upon a woman's +shoulders," her attorney said. And the head steward of Dunstanwolde and +Helversly learned to quake at the sight of her bold handwriting upon the +outside of a letter. + +"Such a lady!" he said--"such a lady! Lie to her if you can; palter if +you know how; try upon her the smallest honest shrewd trick, and see how +it fares with you. Were it not that she is generous as she is piercing +of eye, no man could serve her and make an honest living." + +She went to her chamber and was attired again sumptuously for dinner. +Before she descended she dismissed her woman for a space on some errand, +and when she was alone, drawing near to her mirror, gazed steadfastly +within it at her face. When she had read Osmonde's letter her cheeks had +glowed; but when she had come back to earth, and as she had sat under her +woman's hands at her toilette, bit by bit the crimson had died out as she +had thought of what was behind her and of what lay before. The thing was +so stiffly rigid by this time, and its eyes still stared so. Never had +she needed to put red upon her cheeks before, Nature having stained them +with such richness of hue; but as no lady of the day was unprovided with +her crimson, there was a little pot among her toilette ornaments which +contained all that any emergency might require. She opened this small +receptacle and took from it the red she for the first time was in want +of. + +"I must not wear a pale face, God knows," she said, and rubbed the colour +on her cheeks with boldness. + +It would have seemed that she wore her finest crimson when she went forth +full dressed from her apartment; little Nero grinned to see her, the +lacqueys saying among themselves that his Grace's courier had surely +brought good news, and that they might expect his master soon. At the +dinner-table 'twas Anne who was pale and ate but little, she having put +no red upon her cheeks, and having no appetite for what was spread before +her. She looked strangely as though she were withered and shrunken, and +her face seemed even wrinkled. My lady had small leaning towards food, +but she sent no food away untouched, forcing herself to eat, and letting +not the talk flag--though it was indeed true that 'twas she herself who +talked, Mistress Anne speaking rarely; but as it was always her way to be +silent, and a listener rather than one who conversed, this was not +greatly noticeable. + +Her Ladyship of Dunstanwolde talked of her guests of the afternoon, and +was charming and witty in her speech of them; she repeated the _mots_ of +the wits, and told some brilliant stories of certain modish ladies and +gentlemen of fashion; she had things to say of statesmen and politics, +and was sparkling indeed in speaking of the lovely languisher whose +little wrist was too delicate and slender to support the loaded whip. +While she talked, Mistress Anne's soft, dull eyes were fixed upon her +with a sort of wonder which had some of the quality of bewilderment; but +this was no new thing either, for to the one woman the other was ever +something to marvel at. + +"It is because you are so quiet a mouse, Anne," my lady said, with her +dazzling smile, "that you seem never in the way; and yet I should miss +you if I knew you were not within the house. When the duke takes me to +Camylotte you must be with me even then. It is so great a house that in +it I can find you a bower in which you can be happy even if you see us +but little. 'Tis a heavenly place I am told, and of great splendour and +beauty. The park and flower-gardens are the envy of all England." + +"You--will be very happy, sister," said Anne, "and--and like a queen." + +"Yes," was her sister's answer--"yes." And 'twas spoken with a deep in- +drawn breath. + +After the repast was ended she went back to the Panelled Parlour. + +"You may sit with me till bedtime if you desire, Anne," she said; "but +'twill be but dull for you, as I go to sit at work. I have some +documents of import to examine and much writing to do. I shall sit up +late." And upon this she turned to the lacquey holding open the door for +her passing through. "If before half-past ten there comes a message from +Sir John Oxon," she gave order, "it must be brought to me at once; but +later I must not be disturbed--it will keep until morning." + +Yet as she spoke there was before her as distinct a picture as ever of +what lay waiting and gazing in the room to which she went. + +Until twelve o'clock she sat at her table, a despatch box by her side, +papers outspread before her. Within three feet of her was the divan, but +she gave no glance to it, sitting writing, reading, and comparing +documents. At twelve o'clock she rose and rang the bell. + +"I shall be later than I thought," she said. "I need none of you who are +below stairs. Go you all to bed. Tell my woman that she also may lie +down. I will ring when I come to my chamber and have need of her. There +is yet no message from Sir John?" + +"None, my lady," the man answered. + +He went away with a relieved countenance, as she made no comment. He +knew that his fellows as well as himself would be pleased enough to be +released from duty for the night. They were a pampered lot, and had no +fancy for late hours when there were no great entertainments being held +which pleased them and gave them chances to receive vails. + +Mistress Anne sat in a large chair, huddled into a small heap, and +looking colourless and shrunken. As she heard bolts being shot and bars +put up for the closing of the house, she knew that her own dismissal was +at hand. Doors were shut below stairs, and when all was done the silence +of night reigned as it does in all households when those who work have +gone to rest. 'Twas a common thing enough, and yet this night there was +one woman who felt the stillness so deep that it made her breathing seem +a sound too loud. + +"Go to bed, Anne," she said. "You have stayed up too long." + +Anne arose from her chair and drew near to her. + +"Sister," said she, as she had said before, "let me stay." + +She was a poor weak creature, and so she looked with her pale +insignificant face and dull eyes, a wisp of loose hair lying damp on her +forehead. She seemed indeed too weak a thing to stand even for a moment +in the way of what must be done this night, and 'twas almost irritating +to be stopped by her. + +"Nay," said my Lady Dunstanwolde, her beautiful brow knitting as she +looked at her. "Go to your chamber, Anne, and to sleep. I must do my +work, and finish to-night what I have begun." + +"But--but--" Anne stammered, dominated again, and made afraid, as she +ever was, by this strong nature, "in this work you must finish--is there +not something I could do to--aid you--even in some small and poor way. Is +there--naught?" + +"Naught," answered Clorinda, her form drawn to its great full height, her +lustrous eyes darkening. "What should there be that you could +understand?" + +"Not some small thing--not some poor thing?" Anne said, her fingers +nervously twisting each other, so borne down was she by her awful +timorousness, for awful it was indeed when she saw clouds gather on her +sister's brow. "I have so loved you, sister--I have so loved you that my +mind is quickened somehow at times, and I can understand more than would +be thought--when I hope to serve you. Once you said--once you said--" + +She knew not then nor ever afterwards how it came to pass that in that +moment she found herself swept into her sister's white arms and strained +against her breast, wherein she felt the wild heart bounding; nor could +she, not being given to subtle reasoning, have comprehended the almost +fierce kiss on her cheek nor the hot drops that wet it. + +"I said that I believed that if you saw me commit murder," Clorinda +cried, "you would love me still, and be my friend and comforter." + +"I would, I would!" cried Anne. + +"And I believe your word, poor, faithful soul--I do believe it," my lady +said, and kissed her hard again, but the next instant set her free and +laughed. "But you will not be put to the test," she said, "for I have +done none. And in two days' time my Gerald will be here, and I shall be +safe--saved and happy for evermore--for evermore. There, leave me! I +would be alone and end my work." + +And she went back to her table and sat beside it, taking her pen to +write, and Anne knew that she dare say no more, and turning, went slowly +from the room, seeing for her last sight as she passed through the +doorway, the erect and splendid figure at its task, the light from the +candelabras shining upon the rubies round the snow-white neck and +wreathed about the tower of raven hair like lines of crimson. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--A piteous story is told, and the old cellars walled in + + +It is, indeed, strangely easy in the great world for a man to lose his +importance, and from having been the target for all eyes and the subject +of all conversation, to step from his place, or find it so taken by some +rival that it would seem, judging from the general obliviousness to him, +that he had never existed. But few years before no fashionable gathering +would have been felt complete had it not been graced by the presence of +the young and fascinating Lovelace, Sir John Oxon. Women favoured him, +and men made themselves his boon companions; his wit was repeated; the +fashion of his hair and the cut of his waistcoat copied. He was at first +rich and gay enough to be courted and made a favourite; but when his +fortune was squandered, and his marriage with the heiress came to naught, +those qualities which were vicious and base in him were more easy to be +seen. Besides, there came new male beauties and new dandies with greater +resources and more of prudence, and these, beginning to set fashion, win +ladies' hearts, and make conquests, so drew the attention of the public +mind that he was less noticeable, being only one of many, instead of +ruling singly as it had seemed that by some strange chance he did at +first. There were indeed so many stories told of his light ways, that +their novelty being worn off and new ones still repeated, such persons as +concerned themselves with matters of reputation either through conscience +or policy, began to speak of him with less of warmth or leniency. + +"'Tis not well for a matron with daughters to marry and with sons to keep +an eye to," it was said, "to have in her household too often a young +gentleman who has squandered his fortune in dice and drink and wild +living, and who 'twas known was cast off by a reputable young lady of +fortune." + +So there were fine ladies who began to avoid him, and those in power at +Court and in the world who regarded him with lessening favour day by day! +In truth, he had such debts, and his creditors pressed him so +ceaselessly, that even had the world's favour continued, his life must +have changed its aspect greatly. His lodgings were no longer the most +luxurious in the fashionable part of the town, his brocades and laces +were no longer of the richest, nor his habit of the very latest and most +modish cut; he had no more an equipage attracting every eye as he drove +forth, nor a gentleman's gentleman whose swagger and pomp outdid that of +all others in his world. Soon after the breaking of his marriage with +the heiress, his mother had died, and his relatives being few, and those +of an order strictly averse to the habits of ill-provided and extravagant +kinsmen, he had but few family ties. Other ties he had, 'twas true, but +they were not such as were accounted legal or worthy of attention either +by himself or those related to him. + +So it befell that when my Lady Dunstanwolde's lacquey could not find him +at his lodgings, and as the days went past neither his landlady nor his +creditors beheld him again, his absence from the scene was not considered +unaccountable by them, nor did it attract the notice it would have done +in times gone by. + +"He hath made his way out of England to escape us," said the angry +tailors and mercers--who had besieged his door in vain for months, and +who were now infuriated at the thought of their own easiness and the +impudent gay airs which had befooled them. "A good four hundred pounds +of mine hath he carried with him," said one. "And two hundred of mine!" +"And more of mine, since I am a poor man to whom a pound means twenty +guineas!" "We are all robbed, and he has cheated the debtors' prison, +wherein, if we had not been fools, he would have been clapped six months +ago." + +"Think ye he will not come back, gentlemen?" quavered his landlady. "God +knows when I have seen a guinea of his money--but he was such a handsome, +fine young nobleman, and had such a way with a poor body, and ever a +smile and a chuck o' the chin for my Jenny." + +"Look well after poor Jenny if he hath left her behind," said the tailor. + +He did not come back, indeed; and hearing the rumour that he had fled his +creditors, the world of fashion received the news with small disturbance, +all modish persons being at that time much engaged in discussion of the +approaching nuptials of her ladyship of Dunstanwolde and the Duke of +Osmonde. Close upon the discussions of the preparations came the +nuptials themselves, and then all the town was agog, and had small +leisure to think of other things. For those who were bidden to the +ceremonials and attendant entertainments, there were rich habits and +splendid robes to be prepared; and to those who had not been bidden, +there were bitter disappointments and thwarted wishes to think of. + +"Sir John Oxon has fled England to escape seeing and hearing it all," was +said. + +"He has fled to escape something more painful than the spleen," others +answered. "He had reached his rope's end, and finding that my Lady +Dunstanwolde was not of a mind to lengthen it with her fortune, having +taken a better man, and that his creditors would have no more patience, +he showed them a light pair of heels." + +Before my Lady Dunstanwolde left her house she gave orders that it be set +in order for closing for some time, having it on her mind that she should +not soon return. It was, however, to be left in such condition that at +any moment, should she wish to come to it, all could be made ready in two +days' time. To this end various repairs and changes she had planned were +to be carried out as soon as she went away from it. Among other things +was the closing with brickwork of the entrance to the passage leading to +the unused cellars. + +"'Twill make the servants' part more wholesome and less damp and +draughty," she said; "and if I should sell the place, will be to its +advantage. 'Twas a builder with little wit who planned such passages and +black holes. In spite of all the lime spread there, they were ever +mouldy and of evil odour." + +It was her command that there should be no time lost, and men were set at +work, carrying bricks and mortar. It so chanced that one of them, going +in through a back entrance with a hod over his shoulder, and being young +and lively, found his eye caught by the countenance of a pretty, +frightened-looking girl, who seemed to be loitering about watching, as if +curious or anxious. Seeing her near each time he passed, and observing +that she wished to speak, but was too timid, he addressed her-- + +"Would you know aught, mistress?" he said. + +She drew nearer gratefully, and then he saw her eyes were red as if with +weeping. + +"Think you her ladyship would let a poor girl speak a word with her?" she +said. "Think you I dare ask so much of a servant--or would they flout me +and turn me from the door? Have you seen her? Does she look like a +hard, shrewish lady?" + +"That she does not, though all stand in awe of her," he answered, pleased +to talk with so pretty a creature. "I but caught a glimpse of her when +she gave orders concerning the closing with brick of a passage-way below. +She is a tall lady, and grand and stately, but she hath a soft pair of +eyes as ever man would wish to look into, be he duke or ditcher." + +The tears began to run down the girl's cheeks. + +"Ay!" she said; "all men love her, they say. Many a poor girl's +sweetheart has been false through her--and I thought she was cruel and +ill-natured. Know you the servants that wait on her? Would you dare to +ask one for me, if he thinks she would deign to see a poor girl who would +crave the favour to be allowed to speak to her of--of a gentleman she +knows?" + +"They are but lacqueys, and I would dare to ask what was in my mind," he +answered; "but she is near her wedding-day, and little as I know of +brides' ways, I am of the mind that she will not like to be troubled." + +"That I stand in fear of," she said; "but, oh! I pray you, ask some one +of them--a kindly one." + +The young man looked aside. "Luck is with you," he said. "Here comes +one now to air himself in the sun, having naught else to do. Here is a +young woman who would speak with her ladyship," he said to the strapping +powdered fellow. + +"She had best begone," the lacquey answered, striding towards the +applicant. "Think you my lady has time to receive traipsing wenches." + +"'Twas only for a moment I asked," the girl said. "I come from--I would +speak to her of--of Sir John Oxon--whom she knows." + +The man's face changed. It was Jenfry. + +"Sir John Oxon," he said. "Then I will ask her. Had you said any other +name I would not have gone near her to-day." + +Her ladyship was in her new closet with Mistress Anne, and there the +lacquey came to her to deliver his errand. + +"A country-bred young woman, your ladyship," he said, "comes from Sir +John Oxon--" + +"From Sir John Oxon!" cried Anne, starting in her chair. + +My Lady Dunstanwolde made no start, but turned a steady countenance +towards the door, looking into the lacquey's face. + +"Then he hath returned?" she said. + +"Returned!" said Anne. + +"After the morning he rode home with me," my lady answered, "'twas said +he went away. He left his lodgings without warning. It seems he hath +come back. What does the woman want?" she ended. + +"To speak with your ladyship," replied the man, "of Sir John himself, she +says." + +"Bring her to me," her ladyship commanded. + +The girl was brought in, overawed and trembling. She was a country-bred +young creature, as the lacquey had said, being of the simple rose-and- +white freshness of seventeen years perhaps, and having childish blue eyes +and fair curling locks. + +She was so frightened by the grandeur of her surroundings, and the +splendid beauty of the lady who was so soon to be a duchess, and was +already a great earl's widow, that she could only stand within the +doorway, curtseying and trembling, with tears welling in her eyes. + +"Be not afraid," said my Lady Dunstanwolde. "Come hither, child, and +tell me what you want." Indeed, she did not look a hard or shrewish +lady; she spoke as gently as woman could, and a mildness so unexpected +produced in the young creature such a revulsion of feeling that she made +a few steps forward and fell upon her knees, weeping, and with uplifted +hands. + +"My lady," she said, "I know not how I dared to come, but that I am so +desperate--and your ladyship being so happy, it seemed--it seemed that +you might pity me, who am so helpless and know not what to do." + +Her ladyship leaned forward in her chair, her elbow on her knee, her chin +held in her hand, to gaze at her. + +"You come from Sir John Oxon?" she said. + +Anne, watching, clutched each arm of her chair. + +"Not _from_ him, asking your ladyship's pardon," said the child, +"but--but--from the country to him," her head falling on her breast, "and +I know not where he is." + +"You came _to_ him," asked my lady. "Are you," and her speech was +pitiful and slow--"are you one of those whom he has--ruined?" + +The little suppliant looked up with widening orbs. + +"How could that be, and he so virtuous and pious a gentleman?" she +faltered. + +Then did my lady rise with a sudden movement. + +"Was he so?" says she. + +"Had he not been," the child answered, "my mother would have been afraid +to trust him. I am but a poor country widow's daughter, but was well +brought up, and honestly--and when he came to our village my mother was +afraid, because he was a gentleman; but when she saw his piety, and how +he went to church and sang the psalms and prayed for grace, she let me +listen to him." + +"Did he go to church and sing and pray at first?" my lady asks. + +"'Twas in church he saw me, your ladyship," she was answered. "He said +'twas his custom to go always when he came to a new place, and that often +there he found the most heavenly faces, for 'twas piety and innocence +that made a face like to an angel's; and 'twas innocence and virtue +stirred his heart to love, and not mere beauty which so fades." + +"Go on, innocent thing," my lady said; and she turned aside to Anne, +flashing from her eyes unseen a great blaze, and speaking in a low and +hurried voice. "God's house," she said--"God's prayers--God's songs of +praise--he used them all to break a tender heart, and bring an innocent +life to ruin--and yet was he not struck dead?" + +Anne hid her face and shuddered. + +"He was a gentleman," the poor young thing cried, sobbing--"and I no fit +match for him, but that he loved me. 'Tis said love makes all equal; and +he said I was the sweetest, innocent young thing, and without me he could +not live. And he told my mother that he was not rich or the fashion now, +and had no modish friends or relations to flout any poor beauty he might +choose to wed." + +"And he would marry you?" my lady's voice broke in. "He said that he +would marry you?" + +"A thousand times, your ladyship, and so told my mother, but said I must +come to town and be married at his lodgings, or 'twould not be counted a +marriage by law, he being a town gentleman, and I from the country." + +"And you came," said Mistress Anne, down whose pale cheeks the tears were +running--"you came at his command to follow him?" + +"What day came you up to town?" demands my lady, breathless and leaning +forward. "Went you to his lodgings, and stayed you there with him,--even +for an hour?" + +The poor child gazed at her, paling. + +"He was not there!" she cried. "I came alone because he said all must be +secret at first; and my heart beat so with joy, my lady, that when the +woman of the house whereat he lodges let me in I scarce could speak. But +she was a merry woman and good-natured, and only laughed and cheered me +when she took me to his rooms, and I sate trembling." + +"What said she to you?" my lady asks, her breast heaving with her breath. + +"That he was not yet in, but that he would sure come to such a young and +pretty thing as I, and I must wait for him, for he would not forgive her +if she let me go. And the while I waited there came a man in bands and +cassock, but he had not a holy look, and late in the afternoon I heard +him making jokes with the woman outside, and they both laughed in such an +evil way that I was affrighted, and waiting till they had gone to another +part of the house, stole away." + +"But he came not back that night--thank God!" my lady said--"he came not +back." + +The girl rose from her knees, trembling, her hands clasped on her breast. + +"Why should your ladyship thank God?" she says, pure drops falling from +her eyes. "I am so humble, and had naught else but that great happiness, +and it was taken away--and you thank God." + +Then drops fell from my lady's eyes also, and she came forward and caught +the child's hand, and held it close and warm and strong, and yet with her +full lip quivering. + +"'Twas not that your joy was taken away that I thanked God," said she. "I +am not cruel--God Himself knows that, and when He smites me 'twill not be +for cruelty. I knew not what I said, and yet--tell me what did you then? +Tell me?" + +"I went to a poor house to lodge, having some little money he had given +me," the simple young thing answered. "'Twas an honest house, though +mean and comfortless. And the next day I went back to his lodgings to +question, but he had not come, and I would not go in, though the woman +tried to make me enter, saying, Sir John would surely return soon, as he +had the day before rid with my Lady Dunstanwolde and been to her house; +and 'twas plain he had meant to come to his lodgings, for her ladyship +had sent her lacquey thrice with a message." + +The hand with which Mistress Anne sate covering her eyes began to shake. +My lady's own hand would have shaken had she not been so strong a +creature. + +"And he has not yet returned, then?" she asked. "You have not seen him?" + +The girl shook her fair locks, weeping with piteous little sobs. + +"He has not," she cried, "and I know not what to do--and the great town +seems full of evil men and wicked women. I know not which way to turn, +for all plot wrong against me, and would drag me down to shamefulness--and +back to my poor mother I cannot go." + +"Wherefore not, poor child?" my lady asked her. + +"I have not been made an honest, wedded woman, and none would believe my +story, and--and he might come back." + +"And if he came back?" said her ladyship. + +At this question the girl slipped from her grasp and down upon her knees +again, catching at her rich petticoat and holding it, her eyes searching +the great lady's in imploring piteousness, her own streaming. + +"I love him," she wept--"I love him so--I cannot leave the place where he +might be. He was so beautiful and grand a gentleman, and, sure, he loved +me better than all else--and I cannot thrust away from me that last night +when he held me to his breast near our cottage door, and the nightingale +sang in the roses, and he spake such words to me. I lie and sob all +night on my hard pillow--I so long to see him and to hear his voice--and +hearing he had been with you that last morning, I dared to come, praying +that you might have heard him let drop some word that would tell me where +he may be, for I cannot go away thinking he may come back longing for +me--and I lose him and never see his face again. Oh! my lady, my lady, +this place is so full of wickedness and fierce people--and dark kennels +where crimes are done. I am affrighted for him, thinking he may have +been struck some blow, and murdered, and hid away; and none will look for +him but one who loves him--who loves him. Could it be so?--could it be? +You know the town's ways so well. I pray you, tell me--in God's name I +pray you!" + +"God's mercy!" Anne breathed, and from behind her hands came stifled +sobbing. My Lady Dunstanwolde bent down, her colour dying. + +"Nay, nay," she said, "there has been no murder done--none! Hush, poor +thing, hush thee. There is somewhat I must tell thee." + +She tried to raise her, but the child would not be raised, and clung to +her rich robe, shaking as she knelt gazing upward. + +"It is a bitter thing," my lady said, and 'twas as if her own eyes were +imploring. "God help you bear it--God help us all. He told me nothing +of his journey. I knew not he was about to take it; but wheresoever he +has travelled, 'twas best that he should go." + +"Nay! nay!" the girl cried out--"to leave me helpless. Nay! it could not +be so. He loved me--loved me--as the great duke loves you!" + +"He meant you evil," said my lady, shuddering, "and evil he would have +done you. He was a villain--a villain who meant to trick you. Had God +struck him dead that day, 'twould have been mercy to you. I knew him +well." + +The young thing gave a bitter cry and fell swooning at her feet; and down +upon her knees my lady went beside her, loosening her gown, and chafing +her poor hands as though they two had been of sister blood. + +"Call for hartshorn, Anne, and for water," she said; "she will come out +of her swooning, poor child, and if she is cared for kindly in time her +pain will pass away. God be thanked she knows no pain that cannot pass! +I will protect her--aye, that will I, as I will protect all he hath done +wrong to and deserted." + +* * * * * + +She was so strangely kind through the poor victim's swoons and weeping +that the very menials who were called to aid her went back to their hall +wondering in their talk of the noble grandness of so great a lady, who on +the very brink of her own joy could stoop to protect and comfort a +creature so far beneath her, that to most ladies her sorrow and desertion +would have been things which were too trivial to count; for 'twas +guessed, and talked over with great freedom and much shrewdness, that +this was a country victim of Sir John Oxon's, and he having deserted his +creditors, was ready enough to desert his rustic beauty, finding her heavy +on his hands. + +Below stairs the men closing the entrance to the passage with brick, +having caught snatches of the servants' gossip, talked of what they heard +among themselves as they did their work. + +"Ay, a noble lady indeed," they said. "For 'tis not a woman's way to be +kindly with the cast-off fancy of a man, even when she does not want him +herself. He was her own worshipper for many a day, Sir John; and before +she took the old earl 'twas said that for a space people believed she +loved him. She was but fifteen and a high mettled beauty; and he as +handsome as she, and had a blue eye that would melt any woman--but at +sixteen he was a town rake, and such tricks as this one he hath played +since he was a lad. 'Tis well indeed for this poor thing her ladyship +hath seen her. She hath promised to protect her, and sends her down to +Dunstanwolde with her mother this very week. Would all fine ladies were +of her kind. To hear such things of her puts a man in the humour to do +her work well." + + + + +CHAPTER XX--A noble marriage + + +When the duke came back from France, and to pay his first eager visit to +his bride that was to be, her ladyship's lacqueys led him not to the +Panelled Parlour, but to a room which he had not entered before, it being +one she had had the fancy to have remodelled and made into a beautiful +closet for herself, her great wealth rendering it possible for her to +accomplish changes without the loss of time the owners of limited purses +are subjected to in the carrying out of plans. This room she had made as +unlike the Panelled Parlour as two rooms would be unlike one another. Its +panellings were white, its furnishings were bright and delicate, its +draperies flowered with rosebuds tied in clusters with love-knots of pink +and blue; it had a large bow-window, through which the sunlight streamed, +and it was blooming with great rose-bowls overrunning with sweetness. + +From a seat in the morning sunshine among the flowers and plants in the +bow-window, there rose a tall figure in a snow-white robe--a figure like +that of a beautiful stately girl who was half an angel. It was my lady, +who came to him with blushing cheeks and radiant shining eyes, and was +swept into his arms in such a passion of love and blessed tenderness as +Heaven might have smiled to see. + +"My love! my love!" he breathed. "My life! my life and soul!" + +"My Gerald!" she cried. "My Gerald--let me say it on your breast a +thousand times!" + +"My wife!" he said--"so soon my wife and all my own until life's end." + +"Nay, nay," she cried, her cheek pressed to his own, "through all +eternity, for Love's life knows no end." + +As it had seemed to her poor lord who had died, so it seemed to this man +who lived and so worshipped her--that the wonder of her sweetness was a +thing to marvel at with passionate reverence. Being a man of greater +mind and poetic imagination than Dunstanwolde, and being himself adored +by her, as that poor gentleman had not had the good fortune to be, he had +ten thousand-fold the power and reason to see the tender radiance of her. +As she was taller than other women, so her love seemed higher and +greater, and as free from any touch of earthly poverty of feeling as her +beauty was from any flaw. In it there could be no doubt, no pride; it +could be bounded by no limit, measured by no rule, its depths sounded by +no plummet. + +His very soul was touched by her great longing to give to him the +feeling, and to feel herself, that from the hour that she had become his, +her past life was a thing blotted out. + +"I am a new created thing," she said; "until you called me 'Love' I had +no life! All before was darkness. 'Twas you, my Gerald, who said, 'Let +there be light, and there was light.'" + +"Hush, hush, sweet love," he said. "Your words would make me too near +God's self." + +"Sure Love is God," she cried, her hands upon his shoulders, her face +uplifted. "What else? Love we know; Love we worship and kneel to; Love +conquers us and gives us Heaven. Until I knew it, I believed naught. Now +I kneel each night and pray, and pray, but to be pardoned and made +worthy." + +Never before, it was true, had she knelt and prayed, but from this time +no nun in her convent knelt oftener or prayed more ardently, and her +prayer was ever that the past might be forgiven her, the future blessed, +and she taught how to so live that there should be no faintest shadow in +the years to come. + +"I know not What is above me," she said. "I cannot lie and say I love It +and believe, but if there is aught, sure It must be a power which is +great, else had the world not been so strange a thing, and I--and those +who live in it--and if He made us, He must know He is to blame when He +has made us weak or evil. And He must understand why we have been so +made, and when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him, and pray for +help and pardon, surely--surely He will lend an ear! We know naught, we +have been told naught; we have but an old book which has been handed down +through strange hands and strange tongues, and may be but poor history. +We have so little, and we are threatened so; but for love's sake I will +pray the poor prayers we are given, and for love's sake there is no dust +too low for me to lie in while I plead." + +This was the strange truth--though 'twas not so strange if the world +feared not to admit such things--that through her Gerald, who was but +noble and high-souled man, she was led to bow before God's throne as the +humblest and holiest saint bows, though she had not learned belief and +only had learned love. + +"But life lasts so short a while," she said to Osmonde. "It seems so +short when it is spent in such joy as this; and when the day comes--for, +oh! Gerald, my soul sees it already--when the day comes that I kneel by +your bedside and see your eyes close, or you kneel by mine, it _must_ be +that the one who waits behind shall know the parting is not all." + +"It could not be all, beloved," Osmonde said. "Love is sure, eternal." + +Often in these blissful hours her way was almost like a child's, she was +so tender and so clinging. At times her beauteous, great eyes were full +of an imploring which made them seem soft with tears, and thus they were +now as she looked up at him. + +"I will do all I can," she said. "I will obey every law, I will pray +often and give alms, and strive to be dutiful and--holy, that in the end +He will not thrust me from you; that I may stay near--even in the lowest +place, even in the lowest--that I may see your face and know that you see +mine. We are so in His power, He can do aught with us; but I will so +obey Him and so pray that He will let me in." + +To Anne she went with curious humility, questioning her as to her +religious duties and beliefs, asking her what books she read, and what +services she attended. + +"All your life you have been a religious woman," she said. "I used to +think it folly, but now--" + +"But now--" said Anne. + +"I know not what to think," she answered. "I would learn." + +But when she listened to Anne's simple homilies, and read her weighty +sermons, they but made her restless and unsatisfied. + +"Nay, 'tis not that," she said one day, with a deep sigh. "'Tis more +than that; 'tis deeper, and greater, and your sermons do not hold it. +They but set my brain to questioning and rebellion." + +But a short time elapsed before the marriage was solemnised, and such a +wedding the world of fashion had not taken part in for years, 'twas said. +Royalty honoured it; the greatest of the land were proud to count +themselves among the guests; the retainers, messengers, and company of +the two great houses were so numerous that in the west end of the town +the streets wore indeed quite a festal air, with the passing to and fro +of servants and gentlefolk with favours upon their arms. + +'Twas to the Tower of Camylott, the most beautiful and remote of the +bridegroom's several notable seats, that they removed their household, +when the irksomeness of the extended ceremonies and entertainments were +over--for these they were of too distinguished rank to curtail as lesser +personages might have done. But when all things were over, the stately +town houses closed, and their equipages rolled out beyond the sight of +town into the country roads, the great duke and his great duchess sat +hand in hand, gazing into each other's eyes with as simple and ardent a +joy as they had been but young 'prentice and country maid, flying to hide +from the world their love. + +"There is no other woman who is so like a queen," Osmonde said, with +tenderest smiling. "And yet your eyes wear a look so young in these days +that they are like a child's. In all their beauty, I have never seen +them so before." + +"It is because I am a new created thing, as I have told you, love," she +answered, and leaned towards him. "Do you not know I never was a child. +I bring myself to you new born. Make of me then what a woman should +be--to be beloved of husband and of God. Teach me, my Gerald. I am your +child and servant." + +'Twas ever thus, that her words when they were such as these were ended +upon his breast as she was swept there by his impassioned arm. She was +so goddess-like and beautiful a being, her life one strangely dominant +and brilliant series of triumphs, and yet she came to him with such +softness and humility of passion, that scarcely could he think himself a +waking man. + +"Surely," he said, "it is a thing too wondrous and too full of joy's +splendour to be true." + +In the golden afternoon, when the sun was deepening and mellowing towards +its setting, they and their retinue entered Camylott. The bells pealed +from the grey belfry of the old church; the villagers came forth in clean +smocks and Sunday cloaks of scarlet, and stood in the street and by the +roadside curtseying and baring their heads with rustic cheers; little +country girls with red cheeks threw posies before the horses' feet, and +into the equipage itself when they were of the bolder sort. Their +chariot passed beneath archways of flowers and boughs, and from the +battlements of the Tower of Camylott there floated a flag in the soft +wind. + +"God save your Graces," the simple people cried. "God give your Graces +joy and long life! Lord, what a beautiful pair they be. And though her +Grace was said to be a proud lady, how sweetly she smiles at a poor body. +God love ye, madam! Madam, God love ye!" + +Her Grace of Osmonde leaned forward in her equipage and smiled at the +people with the face of an angel. + +"I will teach them to love me, Gerald," she said. "I have not had love +enough." + +"Has not all the world loved you?" he said. + +"Nay," she answered, "only you, and Dunstanwolde and Anne." + +Late at night they walked together on the broad terrace before the Tower. +The blue-black vault of heaven above them was studded with myriads of +God's brilliants; below them was spread out the beauty of the land, the +rolling plains, the soft low hills, the forests and moors folded and +hidden in the swathing robe of the night; from the park and gardens +floated upward the freshness of acres of thick sward and deep fern +thicket, the fragrance of roses and a thousand flowers, the tender +sighing of the wind through the huge oaks and beeches bordering the +avenues, and reigning like kings over the seeming boundless grassy +spaces. + +As lovers have walked since the days of Eden they walked together, no +longer duke and duchess, but man and woman--near to Paradise as human +beings may draw until God breaks the chain binding them to earth; and, +indeed, it would seem that such hours are given to the straining human +soul that it may know that somewhere perfect joy must be, since sometimes +the gates are for a moment opened that Heaven's light may shine through, +so that human eyes may catch glimpses of the white and golden glories +within. + +His arm held her, she leaned against him, their slow steps so harmonising +the one with the other that they accorded with the harmony of music; the +nightingales trilling and bubbling in the rose trees were not affrighted +by the low murmur of their voices; perchance, this night they were so +near to Nature that the barriers were o'erpassed, and they and the +singers were akin. + +"Oh! to be a woman," Clorinda murmured. "To be a woman at last. All +other things I have been, and have been called 'Huntress,' 'Goddess,' +'Beauty,' 'Empress,' 'Conqueror,'--but never 'Woman.' And had our paths +not crossed, I think I never could have known what 'twas to be one, for +to be a woman one must close with the man who is one's mate. It must not +be that one looks down, or only pities or protects and guides; and only +to a few a mate seems given. And I--Gerald, how dare I walk thus at your +side and feel your heart so beat near mine, and know you love me, and so +worship you--so worship you--" + +She turned and threw herself upon his breast, which was so near. + +"Oh, woman! woman!" he breathed, straining her close. "Oh, woman who is +mine, though I am but man." + +"We are but one," she said; "one breath, one soul, one thought, and one +desire. Were it not so, I were not woman and your wife, nor you man and +my soul's lover as you are. If it were not so, we were still apart, +though we were wedded a thousand times. Apart, what are we but like +lopped-off limbs; welded together, we are--_this_." And for a moment +they spoke not, and a nightingale on the rose vine, clambering o'er the +terrace's balustrade, threw up its little head and sang as if to the +myriads of golden stars. They stood and listened, hand in hand, her +sweet breast rose and fell, her lovely face was lifted to the bespangled +sky. + +"Of all this," she said, "I am a part, as I am a part of you. To-night, +as the great earth throbs, and as the stars tremble, and as the wind +sighs, so I, being woman, throb and am tremulous and sigh also. The +earth lives for the sun, and through strange mysteries blooms forth each +season with fruits and flowers; love is my sun, and through its +sacredness I may bloom too, and be as noble as the earth and that it +bears." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--An heir is born + + +In a fair tower whose windows looked out upon spreading woods, and rich +lovely plains stretching to the freshness of the sea, Mistress Anne had +her abode which her duchess sister had given to her for her own living in +as she would. There she dwelt and prayed and looked on the new life +which so beauteously unfolded itself before her day by day, as the leaves +of a great tree unfold from buds and become noble branches, housing birds +and their nests, shading the earth and those sheltering beneath them, +braving centuries of storms. + +To this simile her simple mind oft reverted, for indeed it seemed to her +that naught more perfect and more noble in its high likeness to pure +Nature and the fulfilling of God's will than the passing days of these +two lives could be. + +"As the first two lived--Adam and Eve in their garden of Eden--they seem +to me," she used to say to her own heart; "but the Tree of Knowledge was +not forbidden them, and it has taught them naught ignoble." + +As she had been wont to watch her sister from behind the ivy of her +chamber windows, so she often watched her now, though there was no fear +in her hiding, only tenderness, it being a pleasure to her full of wonder +and reverence to see this beautiful and stately pair go lovingly and in +high and gentle converse side by side, up and down the terrace, through +the paths, among the beds of flowers, under the thick branched trees and +over the sward's softness. + +"It is as if I saw Love's self, and dwelt with it--the love God's nature +made," she said, with gentle sighs. + +For if these two had been great and beauteous before, it seemed in these +days as if life and love glowed within them, and shone through their mere +bodies as a radiant light shines through alabaster lamps. The strength +of each was so the being of the other that no thought could take form in +the brain of one without the other's stirring with it. + +"Neither of us dare be ignoble," Osmonde said, "for 'twould make poor and +base the one who was not so in truth." + +"'Twas not the way of my Lady Dunstanwolde to make a man feel that he +stood in church," a frivolous court wit once said, "but in sooth her +Grace of Osmonde has a look in her lustrous eyes which accords not with +scandalous stories and playhouse jests." + +And true it was that when they went to town they carried with them the +illumining of the pure fire which burned within their souls, and bore it +all unknowing in the midst of the trivial or designing world, which knew +not what it was that glowed about them, making things bright which had +seemed dull, and revealing darkness where there had been brilliant glare. + +They returned not to the house which had been my Lord of Dunstanwolde's, +but went to the duke's own great mansion, and there lived splendidly and +in hospitable state. Royalty honoured them, and all the wits came there, +some of those gentlemen who writ verses and dedications being by no means +averse to meeting noble lords and ladies, and finding in their loves and +graces material which might be useful. 'Twas not only Mr. Addison and +Mr. Steele, Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope, who were made welcome in the stately +rooms, but others who were more humble, not yet having won their spurs, +and how these worshipped her Grace for the generous kindness which was +not the fashion, until she set it, among great ladies, their odes and +verses could scarce express. + +"They are so poor," she said to her husband. "They are so poor, and yet +in their starved souls there is a thing which can less bear flouting than +the dull content which rules in others. I know not whether 'tis a curse +or a boon to be born so. 'Tis a bitter thing when the bird that flutters +in them has only little wings. All the more should those who are strong +protect and comfort them." + +She comforted so many creatures. In strange parts of the town, where no +other lady would have dared to go to give alms, it was rumoured that she +went and did noble things privately. In dark kennels, where thieves hid +and vagrants huddled, she carried her beauty and her stateliness, the +which when they shone on the poor rogues and victims housed there seemed +like the beams of the warm and golden sun. + +Once in a filthy hovel in a black alley she came upon a poor girl dying +of a loathsome ill, and as she stood by her bed of rags she heard in her +delirium the uttering of one man's name again and again, and when she +questioned those about she found that the sufferer had been a little +country wench enticed to town by this man for a plaything, and in a few +weeks cast off to give birth to a child in the almshouse, and then go +down to the depths of vice in the kennel. + +"What is the name she says?" her Grace asked the hag nearest to her, and +least maudlin with liquor. "I would be sure I heard it aright." + +"'Tis the name of a gentleman, your ladyship may be sure," the beldam +answered; "'tis always the name of a gentleman. And this is one I know +well, for I have heard more than one poor soul mumbling it and raving at +him in her last hours. One there was, and I knew her, a pretty rosy +thing in her country days, not sixteen, and distraught with love for him, +and lay in the street by his door praying him to take her back when he +threw her off, until the watch drove her away. And she was so mad with +love and grief she killed her girl child when 'twas born i' the kennel, +sobbing and crying that it should not live to be like her and bear +others. And she was condemned to death, and swung for it on Tyburn Tree. +And, Lord! how she cried his name as she jolted on her coffin to the +gallows, and when the hangman put the rope round her shuddering little +fair neck. 'Oh, John,' screams she, 'John Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, +'tis God should be forgiven for letting thee to live and me to die like +this.' Aye, 'twas a bitter sight! She was so little and so young, and +so affrighted. The hangman could scarce hold her. I was i' the midst o' +the crowd and cried to her to strive to stand still, 'twould be the +sooner over. But that she could not. 'Oh, John,' she screams, 'John +Oxon, God forgive thee! Nay, 'tis God should be forgiven for letting +thee to live and me to die like this!'" + +Till the last hour of the poor creature who lay before her when she heard +this thing, her Grace of Osmonde saw that she was tended, took her from +her filthy hovel, putting her in a decent house and going to her day by +day, until she received her last breath, holding her hand while the poor +wench lay staring up at her beauteous face and her great deep eyes, whose +lustrousness held such power to sustain, protect, and comfort. + +"Be not afraid, poor soul," she said, "be not afraid. I will stay near +thee. Soon all will end in sleep, and if thou wakest, sure there will be +Christ who died, and wipes all tears away. Hear me say it to thee for a +prayer," and she bent low and said it soft and clear into the deadening +ear, "He wipes all tears away--He wipes all tears away." + +The great strength she had used in the old days to conquer and subdue, to +win her will and to defend her way, seemed now a power but to protect the +suffering and uphold the weak, and this she did, not alone in hovels but +in the brilliant court and world of fashion, for there she found +suffering and weakness also, all the more bitter and sorrowful since it +dared not cry aloud. The grandeur of her beauty, the elevation of her +rank, the splendour of her wealth would have made her a protector of +great strength, but that which upheld all those who turned to her was +that which dwelt within the high soul of her, the courage and power of +love for all things human which bore upon itself, as if upon an eagle's +outspread wings, the woes dragging themselves broken and halting upon +earth. The starving beggar in the kennel felt it, and, not knowing +wherefore, drew a longer, deeper breath, as if of purer, more exalted +air; the poor poet in his garret was fed by it, and having stood near or +spoken to her, went back to his lair with lightening eyes and soul warmed +to believe that the words his Muse might speak the world might stay to +hear. + +From the hour she stayed the last moments of John Oxon's victim she set +herself a work to do. None knew it but herself at first, and later Anne, +for 'twas done privately. From the hag who had told her of the poor +girl's hanging upon Tyburn Tree, she learned things by close questioning, +which to the old woman's dull wit seemed but the curiousness of a great +lady, and from others who stood too deep in awe of her to think of her as +a mere human being, she gathered clues which led her far in the tracing +of the evils following one wicked, heartless life. Where she could hear +of man, woman, or child on whom John Oxon's sins had fallen, or who had +suffered wrong by him, there she went to help, to give light, to give +comfort and encouragement. Strangely, as it seemed to them, and as if +done by the hand of Heaven, the poor tradesmen he had robbed were paid +their dues, youth he had led into evil ways was checked mysteriously and +set in better paths; women he had dragged downward were given aid and +chance of peace or happiness; children he had cast upon the world, +unfathered, and with no prospect but the education of the gutter, and a +life of crime, were cared for by a powerful unseen hand. The pretty +country girl saved by his death, protected by her Grace, and living +innocently at Dunstanwolde, memory being merciful to youth, forgot him, +gained back her young roses, and learned to smile and hope as though he +had been but a name. + +"Since 'twas I who killed him," said her Grace to her inward soul, "'tis +I must live his life which I took from him, and making it better I may be +forgiven--if there is One who dares to say to the poor thing He made, 'I +will not forgive.'" + +Surely it was said there had never been lives so beautiful and noble as +those the Duke of Osmonde and his lady lived as time went by. The Tower +of Camylott, where they had spent the first months of their wedded life, +they loved better than any other of their seats, and there they spent as +much time as their duties of Court and State allowed them. It was indeed +a splendid and beautiful estate, the stately tower being built upon an +eminence, and there rolling out before it the most lovely land in +England, moorland and hills, thick woods and broad meadows, the edge of +the heather dipping to show the soft silver of the sea. + +Here was this beauteous woman chatelaine and queen, wife of her husband +as never before, he thought, had wife blessed and glorified the existence +of mortal man. All her great beauty she gave to him in tender, joyous +tribute; all her great gifts of mind and wit and grace it seemed she +valued but as they were joys to him; in his stately households in town +and country she reigned a lovely empress, adored and obeyed with +reverence by every man or woman who served her and her lord. Among the +people on his various estates she came and went a tender goddess of +benevolence. When she appeared amid them in the first months of her +wedded life, the humble souls regarded her with awe not unmixed with +fear, having heard such wild stories of her youth at her father's house, +and of her proud state and bitter wit in the great London world when she +had been my Lady Dunstanwolde; but when she came among them all else was +forgotten in their wonder at her graciousness and noble way. + +"To see her come into a poor body's cottage, so tall and grand a lady, +and with such a carriage as she hath," they said, hobnobbing together in +their talk of her, "looking as if a crown of gold should sit on her high +black head, and then to hear her gentle speech and see the look in her +eyes as if she was but a simple new-married girl, full of her joy, and +her heart big with the wish that all other women should be as happy as +herself, it is, forsooth, a beauteous sight to see." + +"Ay, and no hovel too poor for her, and no man or woman too sinful," was +said again. + +"Heard ye how she found that poor wench of Haylits lying sobbing among +the fern in the Tower woods, and stayed and knelt beside her to hear her +trouble? The poor soul has gone to ruin at fourteen, and her father, +finding her out, beat her and thrust her from his door, and her Grace +coming through the wood at sunset--it being her way to walk about for +mere pleasure as though she had no coach to ride in--the girl says she +came through the golden glow as if she had been one of God's angels--and +she kneeled and took the poor wench in her arms--as strong as a man, +Betty says, but as soft as a young mother--and she said to her things +surely no mortal lady ever said before--that she knew naught of a surety +of what God's true will might be, or if His laws were those that have +been made by man concerning marriage by priests saying common words, but +that she surely knew of a man whose name was Christ, and He had taught +love and helpfulness and pity, and for His sake, He having earned our +trust in Him, whether He was God or man, because He hung and died in +awful torture on the Cross--for His sake all of us must love and help and +pity--'I you, poor Betty,' were her very words, 'and you me.' And then +she went to the girl's father and mother, and so talked to them that she +brought them to weeping, and begging Betty to come home; and also she +went to her sweetheart, Tom Beck, and made so tender a story to him of +the poor pretty wench whose love for him had brought her to such trouble, +that she stirred him up to falling in love again, which is not man's way +at such times, and in a week's time he and Betty went to church together, +her Grace setting them up in a cottage on the estate." + +"I used all my wit and all my tenderest words to make a picture that +would fire and touch him, Gerald," her Grace said, sitting at her +husband's side, in a great window, from which they often watched the +sunset in the valley spread below; "and that with which I am so strong +sometimes--I know not what to call it, but 'tis a power people bend to, +that I know--that I used upon him to waken his dull soul and brain. Whose +fault is it that they are dull? Poor lout, he was born so, as I was born +strong and passionate, and as you were born noble and pure and high. I +led his mind back to the past, when he had been made happy by the sight +of Betty's little smiling, blushing face, and when he had kissed her and +made love in the hayfields. And this I said--though 'twas not a thing I +have learned from any chaplain--that when 'twas said he should make an +honest woman of her, it was _my_ thought that she had been honest from +the first, being too honest to know that the world was not so, and that +even the man a woman loved with all her soul, might be a rogue, and have +no honesty in him. And at last--'twas when I talked to him about the +child--and that I put my whole soul's strength in--he burst out a-crying +like a schoolboy, and said indeed she was a fond little thing and had +loved him, and he had loved her, and 'twas a shame he had so done by her, +and he had not meant it at the first, but she was so simple, and he had +been a villain, but if he married her now, he would be called a fool, and +laughed at for his pains. Then was I angry, Gerald, and felt my eyes +flash, and I stood up tall and spoke fiercely: 'Let them dare,' I +said--'let any man or woman dare, and then will they see what his Grace +will say.'" + +Osmonde drew her to his breast, laughing into her lovely eyes. + +"Nay, 'tis not his Grace who need be called on," he said; "'tis her Grace +they love and fear, and will obey; though 'tis the sweetest, womanish +thing that you should call on me when you are power itself, and can so +rule all creatures you come near." + +"Nay," she said, with softly pleading face, "let me not rule. Rule for +me, or but help me; I so long to say your name that they may know I speak +but as your wife." + +"Who is myself," he answered--"my very self." + +"Ay," she said, with a little nod of her head, "that I know--that I am +yourself; and 'tis because of this that one of us cannot be proud with +the other, for there is no other, there is only one. And I am wrong to +say, 'Let me not rule,' for 'tis as if I said, 'You must not rule.' I +meant surely, 'God give me strength to be as noble in ruling as our love +should make me.' But just as one tree is a beech and one an oak, just as +the grass stirs when the summer wind blows over it, so a woman is a +woman, and 'tis her nature to find her joy in saying such words to the +man who loves her, when she loves as I do. Her heart is so full that she +must joy to say her husband's name as that of one she cannot think +without--who is her life as is her blood and her pulses beating. 'Tis a +joy to say your name, Gerald, as it will be a joy"--and she looked far +out across the sun-goldened valley and plains, with a strange, heavenly +sweet smile--"as it will be a joy to say our child's--and put his little +mouth to my full breast." + +"Sweet love," he cried, drawing her by the hand that he might meet the +radiance of her look--"heart's dearest!" + +She did not withhold her lovely eyes from him, but withdrew them from the +sunset's mist of gold, and the clouds piled as it were at the gates of +heaven, and they seemed to bring back some of the far-off glory with +them. Indeed, neither her smile nor she seemed at that moment to be +things of earth. She held out her fair, noble arms, and he sprang to +her, and so they stood, side beating against side. + +"Yes, love," she said--"yes, love--and I have prayed, my Gerald, that I +may give you sons who shall be men like you. But when I give you women +children, I shall pray with all my soul for them--that they may be just +and strong and noble, and life begin for them as it began not for me." + +* * * * * + +In the morning of a spring day when the cuckoos cried in the woods, and +May blossomed thick, white and pink, in all the hedges, the bells in the +grey church-steeple at Camylott rang out a joyous, jangling peal, telling +all the village that the heir had been born at the Tower. Children +stopped in their play to listen, men at their work in field and barn; +good gossips ran out of their cottage door, wiping their arms dry, from +their tubs and scrubbing-buckets, their honest red faces broadening into +maternal grins. + +"Ay, 'tis well over, that means surely," one said to the other; "and a +happy day has begun for the poor lady--though God knows she bore herself +queenly to the very last, as if she could have carried her burden for +another year, and blenched not a bit as other women do. Bless mother and +child, say I." + +"And 'tis an heir," said another. "She promised us that we should know +almost as quick as she did, and commanded old Rowe to ring a peal, and +then strike one bell loud between if 'twere a boy, and two if 'twere a +girl child. 'Tis a boy, heard you, and 'twas like her wit to invent such +a way to tell us." + +In four other villages the chimes rang just as loud and merrily, and the +women talked, and blessed her Grace and her young child, and casks of ale +were broached, and oxen roasted, and work stopped, and dancers footed it +upon the green. + +"Surely the new-born thing comes here to happiness," 'twas said +everywhere, "for never yet was woman loved as is his mother." + +In her stately bed her Grace the duchess lay, with the face of the Mother +Mary, and her man-child drinking from her breast. The duke walked softly +up and down, so full of joy that he could not sit still. When he had +entered first, it was his wife's self who had sate upright in her bed, +and herself laid his son within his arms. + +"None other shall lay him there," she said, "I have given him to you. He +is a great child, but he has not taken from me my strength." + +He was indeed a great child, even at his first hour, of limbs and +countenance so noble that nurses and physicians regarded him amazed. He +was the offspring of a great love, of noble bodies and great souls. Did +such powers alone create human beings, the earth would be peopled with a +race of giants. + +Amid the veiled spring sunshine and the flower-scented silence, broken +only by the twittering of birds nesting in the ivy, her Grace lay soft +asleep, her son resting on her arm, when Anne stole to look at her and +her child. Through the night she had knelt praying in her chamber, and +now she knelt again. She kissed the new-born thing's curled rose-leaf +hand and the lace frill of his mother's night-rail. She dared not +further disturb them. + +"Sure God forgives," she breathed--"for Christ's sake. He would not give +this little tender thing a punishment to bear." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--Mother Anne + + +There was no punishment. The tender little creature grew as a blossom +grows from bud to fairest bloom. His mother flowered as he, and spent +her days in noble cherishing of him and tender care. Such motherhood and +wifehood as were hers were as fair statues raised to Nature's self. + +"Once I thought that I was under ban," she said to her lord in one of +their sweetest hours; "but I have been given love and a life, and so I +know it cannot be. Do I fill all your being, Gerald?" + +"All, all!" he cried, "my sweet, sweet woman." + +"Leave I no longing unfulfilled, no duty undone, to you, dear love, to +the world, to human suffering I might aid? I pray Christ with all +passionate humbleness that I may not." + +"He grants your prayer," he answered, his eyes moist with worshipping +tenderness. + +"And this white soul given to me from the outer bounds we know not--it +has no stain; and the little human body it wakened to life in--think you +that Christ will help me to fold them in love high and pure enough, and +teach the human body to do honour to its soul? 'Tis not monkish scorn of +itself that I would teach the body; it is so beautiful and noble a thing, +and so full of the power of joy. Surely That which made it--in His own +image--would not that it should despise itself and its own wonders, but +do them reverence, and rejoice in them nobly, knowing all their seasons +and their changes, counting not youth folly, and manhood sinful, or age +aught but gentle ripeness passing onward? I pray for a great soul, and +great wit, and greater power to help this fair human thing to grow, and +love, and live." + +These had been born and had rested hid within her when she lay a babe +struggling 'neath her dead mother's corpse. Through the darkness of +untaught years they had grown but slowly, being so unfitly and unfairly +nourished; but Life's sun but falling on her, they seemed to strive to +fair fruition with her days. + +'Twas not mere love she gave her offspring--for she bore others as years +passed, until she was the mother of four sons and two girls, children of +strength and beauty as noted as her own; she gave them of her constant +thought, and an honour of their humanity such as taught them reverence of +themselves as of all other human things. Their love for her was such a +passion as their father bore her. She was the noblest creature that they +knew; her beauty, her great unswerving love, her truth, were things +bearing to their child eyes the unchangingness of God's stars in heaven. + +"Why is she not the Queen?" a younger one asked his father once, having +been to London and seen the Court. "The Queen is not so beautiful and +grand as she, and she could so well reign over the people. She is always +just and honourable, and fears nothing." + +From her side Mistress Anne was rarely parted. In her fair retreat at +Camylott she had lived a life all undisturbed by outward things. When +the children were born strange joy came to her. + +"Be his mother also," the duchess had said when she had drawn the clothes +aside to show her first-born sleeping in her arm. "You were made to be +the mother of things, Anne." + +"Nay, or they had been given to me," Anne had answered. + +"Mine I will share with you," her Grace had said, lifting her Madonna +face. "Kiss me, sister--kiss him, too, and bless him. Your life has +been so innocent it must be good that you should love and guard him." + +'Twas sweet to see the wit she showed in giving to poor Anne the feeling +that she shared her motherhood. She shared her tenderest cares and +duties with her. Together they bathed and clad the child in the morning, +this being their high festival, in which the nurses shared but in the +performance of small duties. Each day they played with him and laughed +as women will at such dear times, kissing his grand round limbs, crying +out at their growth, worshipping his little rosy feet, and smothering him +with caresses. And then they put him to sleep, Anne sitting close while +his mother fed him from her breast until his small red mouth parted and +slowly released her. + +When he could toddle about and was beginning to say words, there was a +morning when she bore him to Anne's tower that they might joy in him +together, as was their way. It was a beautiful thing to see her walk +carrying him in the strong and lovely curve of her arm as if his sturdy +babyhood were of no more weight than a rose, and he cuddling against her, +clinging and crowing, his wide brown eyes shining with delight. + +"He has come to pay thee court, Anne," she said. "He is a great gallant, +and knows how we are his loving slaves. He comes to say his new word +that I have taught him." + +She set him down where he stood holding to Anne's knee and showing his +new pearl teeth, in a rosy grin; his mother knelt beside him, beginning +her coaxing. + +"Who is she?" she said, pointing with her finger at Anne's face, her own +full of lovely fear lest the child should not speak rightly his lesson. +"What is her name? Mammy's man say--" and she mumbled softly with her +crimson mouth at his ear. + +The child looked up at Anne, with baby wit and laughter in his face, and +stammered sweetly-- + +"Muz--Muzzer--Anne," he said, and then being pleased with his cleverness, +danced on his little feet and said it over and over. + +Clorinda caught him up and set him on Anne's lap. + +"Know you what he calls you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little +tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty +best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he says--'tis Mother Anne." + +And then they were in each other's arms, the child between them, he +kissing both and clasping both, with little laughs of joy as if they were +but one creature. + +Each child born they clasped and kissed so, and were so clasped and +kissed by; each one calling the tender unwed woman "Mother Anne," and +having a special lovingness for her, she being the creature each one +seemed to hover about with innocent protection and companionship. + +The wonder of Anne's life grew deeper to her hour by hour, and where she +had before loved, she learned to worship, for 'twas indeed worship that +her soul was filled with. She could not look back and believe that she +had not dreamed a dream of all the fears gone by and that they held. +This--this was true--the beauty of these days, the love of them, the +generous deeds, the sweet courtesies, and gentle words spoken. This +beauteous woman dwelling in her husband's heart, giving him all joy of +life and love, ruling queenly and gracious in his house, bearing him +noble children, and tending them with the very genius of tenderness and +wisdom. + +But in Mistress Anne herself life had never been strong; she was of the +fibre of her mother, who had died in youth, crushed by its cruel weight, +and to her, living had been so great and terrible a thing. There had not +been given to her the will to battle with the Fate that fell to her, the +brain to reason and disentangle problems, or the power to set them aside. +So while her Grace of Osmonde seemed but to gain greater state and beauty +in her ripening, her sister's frail body grew more frail, and seemed to +shrink and age. Yet her face put on a strange worn sweetness, and her +soft, dull eyes had a look almost like a saint's who looks at heaven. She +prayed much, and did many charitable works both in town and country. She +read her books of devotion, and went much to church, sitting with a +reverend face through many a dull and lengthy sermon she would have felt +it sacrilegious to think of with aught but pious admiration. In the +middle of the night it was her custom to rise and offer up prayers +through the dark hours. She was an humble soul who greatly feared and +trembled before her God. + +"I waken in the night sometimes," the fair, tall child Daphne said once +to her mother, "and Mother Anne is there--she kneels and prays beside my +bed. She kneels and prays so by each one of us many a night." + +"'Tis because she is so pious a woman and so loves us," said young John, +in his stately, generous way. The house of Osmonde had never had so fine +and handsome a creature for its heir. He o'ertopped every boy of his age +in height, and the bearing of his lovely youthful body was masculine +grace itself. + +The town and the Court knew these children, and talked of their beauty +and growth as they had talked of their mother's. + +"To be the mate of such a woman, the father of such heirs, is a fate a +man might pray God for," 'twas said. "Love has not grown stale with +them. Their children are the very blossoms of it. Her eyes are deeper +pools of love each year." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--"In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall be +done to each thing He has made, by each who bears His image" + + +'Twas in these days Sir Jeoffry came to his end, it being in such way as +had been often prophesied; and when this final hour came, there was but +one who could give him comfort, and this was the daughter whose youth he +had led with such careless evilness to harm. + +If he had wondered at her when she had been my Lady Dunstanwolde, as her +Grace of Osmonde he regarded her with heavy awe. Never had she been able +to lead him to visit her at her house in town or at any other which was +her home. "'Tis all too grand for me, your Grace," he would say; "I am a +country yokel, and have hunted and drank, and lived too hard to look well +among town gentlemen. I must be drunk at dinner, and when I am in liquor +I am no ornament to a duchess's drawing-room. But what a woman you have +grown," he would say, staring at her and shaking his head. "Each time I +clap eyes on you 'tis to marvel at you, remembering what a baggage you +were, and how you kept from slipping by the way. There was Jack Oxon, +now," he added one day--"after you married Dunstanwolde, I heard a pretty +tale of Jack--that he had made a wager among his friends in town--he was +a braggart devil, Jack--that he would have you, though you were so +scornful; and knowing him to be a liar, his fellows said that unless he +could bring back a raven lock six feet long to show them, he had lost his +bet, for they would believe no other proof. And finely they scoffed at +him when he came back saying that he had had one, but had hid it away for +safety when he was drunk, and could not find it again. They so flouted +and jeered at him that swords were drawn, and blood as well. But though +he was a beauty and a crafty rake-hell fellow, you were too sharp for +him. Had you not had so shrewd a wit and strong a will, you would not +have been the greatest duchess in England, Clo, as well as the finest +woman." + +"Nay," she answered--"in those days--nay, let us not speak of them! I +would blot them out--out." + +As time went by, and the years spent in drink and debauchery began to +tell even on the big, strong body which should have served any other man +bravely long past his threescore and ten, Sir Jeoffry drank harder and +lived more wildly, sometimes being driven desperate by dulness, his +coarse pleasures having lost their potency. + +"Liquor is not as strong as it once was," he used to grumble, "and there +are fewer things to stir a man to frolic. Lord, what roaring days and +nights a man could have thirty years ago." + +So in his efforts to emulate such nights and days, he plunged deeper and +deeper into new orgies; and one night, after a heavy day's hunting, +sitting at the head of his table with his old companions, he suddenly +leaned forward, staring with starting eyes at an empty chair in a dark +corner. His face grew purple, and he gasped and gurgled. + +"What is't, Jeoff?" old Eldershawe cried, touching his shoulder with a +shaking hand. "What's the man staring at, as if he had gone mad?" + +"Jack," cried Sir Jeoffry, his eyes still farther starting from their +sockets. "Jack! what say you? I cannot hear." + +The next instant he sprang up, shrieking, and thrusting with his hands as +if warding something off. + +"Keep back!" he yelled. "There is green mould on thee. Where hast thou +been to grow mouldy? Keep back! Where hast thou been?" + +His friends at table started up, staring at him and losing colour; he +shrieked so loud and strangely, he clutched his hair with his hands, and +fell into his chair, raving, clutching, and staring, or dashing his head +down upon the table to hide his face, and then raising it as if he could +not resist being drawn in his affright to gaze again. There was no +soothing him. He shouted, and struggled with those who would have held +him. 'Twas Jack Oxon who was there, he swore--Jack, who kept stealing +slowly nearer to him, his face and his fine clothes damp and green, he +beat at the air with mad hands, and at last fell upon the floor, and +rolled, foaming at the mouth. + +They contrived, after great strugglings, to bear him to his chamber, but +it took the united strength of all who would stay near him to keep him +from making an end of himself. By the dawn of day his boon companions +stood by him with their garments torn to tatters, their faces drenched +with sweat, and their own eyes almost starting from their sockets; the +doctor who had been sent for, coming in no hurry, but scowled and shook +his head when he beheld him. + +"He is a dead man," he said, "and the wonder is that this has not come +before. He is sodden with drink and rotten with ill-living, besides +being past all the strength of youth. He dies of the life he has lived." + +'Twas little to be expected that his boon companions could desert their +homes and pleasures and tend his horrors longer than a night. Such a +sight as he presented did not inspire them to cheerful spirits. + +"Lord," said Sir Chris Crowell, "to see him clutch his flesh and shriek +and mouth, is enough to make a man live sober for his remaining days," +and he shook his big shoulders with a shudder. + +"Ugh!" he said, "God grant I may make a better end. He writhes as in +hell-fire." + +"There is but one on earth who will do aught for him," said Eldershawe. +"'Tis handsome Clo, who is a duchess; but she will come and tend him, I +could swear. Even when she was a lawless devil of a child she had a way +of standing by her friends and fearing naught." + +So after taking counsel together they sent for her, and in as many hours +as it took to drive from London, her coach stood before the door. By +this time all the household was panic-stricken and in hopeless disorder, +the women-servants scattered and shuddering in far corners of the house; +such men as could get out of the way having found work to do afield or in +the kennels, for none had nerve to stay where they could hear the +madman's shrieks and howls. + +Her Grace, entering the house, went with her woman straight to her +chamber, and shortly emerged therefrom, stripped of her rich apparel, and +clad in a gown of strong blue linen, her hair wound close, her white +hands bare of any ornament, save the band of gold which was her wedding- +ring. A serving-woman might have been clad so; but the plainness of her +garb but made her height, and strength, so reveal themselves, that the +mere sight of her woke somewhat that was like to awe in the eyes of the +servants who beheld her as she passed. + +She needed not to be led, but straightway followed the awful sounds, +until she reached the chamber behind whose door they were shut. Upon the +huge disordered bed, Sir Jeoffry writhed, and tried to tear himself, his +great sinewy and hairy body almost stark. Two of the stable men were +striving to hold him. + +The duchess went to his bedside and stood there, laying her strong white +hand upon his shuddering shoulder. + +"Father," she said, in a voice so clear, and with such a ring of steady +command, as, the men said later, might have reached a dead man's ear. +"Father, 'tis Clo!" + +Sir Jeoffry writhed his head round and glared at her, with starting eyes +and foaming mouth. + +"Who says 'tis Clo?" he shouted. "'Tis a lie! She was ever a bigger +devil than any other, though she was but a handsome wench. Jack himself +could not manage her. She beat him, and would beat him now. 'Tis a +lie!" + +All through that day and night the power of her Grace's white arm was the +thing which saved him from dashing out his brains. The two men could not +have held him, and at his greatest frenzy they observed that now and then +his bloodshot eye would glance aside at the beauteous face above him. The +sound of the word "Clo" had struck upon his brain and wakened an echo. + +She sent away the men to rest, calling for others in their places; but +leave the bedside herself she would not. 'Twas a strange thing to see +her strength and bravery, which could not be beaten down. When the +doctor came again he found her there, and changed his surly and reluctant +manner in the presence of a duchess, and one who in her close linen gown +wore such a mien. + +"You should not have left him," she said to him unbendingly, "even though +I myself can see there is little help that can be given. Thought you his +Grace and I would brook that he should die alone if we could not have +reached him?" + +Those words "his Grace and I" put a new face upon the matter, and all was +done that lay within the man's skill; but most was he disturbed +concerning the lady, who would not be sent to rest, and whose noble +consort would be justly angered if she were allowed to injure her superb +health. + +"His Grace knew what I came to do and how I should do it," the duchess +said, unbending still. "But for affairs of State which held him, he +would have been here at my side." + +She held her place throughout the second night, and that was worse than +the first--the paroxysms growing more and more awful; for Jack was within +a yard, and stretched out a green and mouldy hand, the finger-bones +showing through the flesh, the while he smiled awfully. + +At last one pealing scream rang out after another, until after making his +shuddering body into an arc resting on heels and head, the madman fell +exhausted, his flesh all quaking before the eye. Then the duchess waved +the men who helped, away. She sat upon the bed's edge close--close to +her father's body, putting her two firm hands on either of his shoulders, +holding him so, and bent down, looking into his wild face, as if she +fixed upon his very soul all the power of her wondrous will. + +"Father," she said, "look at my face. Thou canst if thou wilt. Look at +my face. Then wilt thou see 'tis Clo--and she will stand by thee." + +She kept her gaze upon his very pupils; and though 'twas at first as if +his eyes strove to break away from her look, their effort was controlled +by her steadfastness, and they wandered back at last, and her great orbs +held them. He heaved a long breath, half a big, broken sob, and lay +still, staring up at her. + +"Ay," he said, "'tis Clo! 'tis Clo!" + +The sweat began to roll from his forehead, and the tears down his cheeks. +He broke forth, wailing like a child. + +"Clo--Clo," he said, "I am in hell." + +She put her hand on his breast, keeping will and eyes set on him. + +"Nay," she answered; "thou art on earth, and in thine own bed, and I am +here, and will not leave thee." + +She made another sign to the men who stood and stared aghast in wonder at +her, but feeling in the very air about her the spell to which the madness +had given way. + +"'Twas not mere human woman who sat there," they said afterwards in the +stables among their fellows. "'Twas somewhat more. Had such a will been +in an evil thing a man's hair would have risen on his skull at the seeing +of it." + +"Go now," she said to them, "and send women to set the place in order." + +She had seen delirium and death enough in the doings of her deeds of +mercy, to know that his strength had gone and death was coming. His bed +and room were made orderly, and at last he lay in clean linen, with all +made straight. Soon his eyes seemed to sink into his head and stare from +hollows, and his skin grew grey, but ever he stared only at his +daughter's face. + +"Clo," he said at last, "stay by me! Clo, go not away!" + +"I shall not go," she answered. + +She drew a seat close to his bed and took his hand. It lay knotted and +gnarled and swollen-veined upon her smooth palm, and with her other hand +she stroked it. His breath came weak and quick, and fear grew in his +eyes. + +"What is it, Clo?" he said. "What is't?" + +"'Tis weakness," replied she, soothing him. "Soon you will sleep." + +"Ay," he said, with a breath like a sob. "'Tis over." + +His big body seemed to collapse, he shrank so in the bed-clothes. + +"What day o' the year is it?" he asked. + +"The tenth of August," was her answer. + +"Sixty-nine years from this day was I born," he said, "and now 'tis +done." + +"Nay," said she--"nay--God grant--" + +"Ay," he said, "done. Would there were nine and sixty more. What a man +I was at twenty. I want not to die, Clo. I want to live--to live--live, +and be young," gulping, "with strong muscle and moist flesh. Sixty-nine +years--and they are gone!" + +He clung to her hand, and stared at her with awful eyes. Through all his +life he had been but a great, strong, human carcass; and he was now but +the same carcass worn out, and at death's door. Of not one human thing +but of himself had he ever thought, not one creature but himself had he +ever loved--and now he lay at the end, harking back only to the wicked +years gone by. + +"None can bring them back," he shuddered. "Not even thou, Clo, who art +so strong. None--none! Canst pray, Clo?" with the gasp of a craven. + +"Not as chaplains do," she answered. "I believe not in a God who +clamours but for praise." + +"What dost believe in, then?" + +"In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall be done to each +thing He has made, by each who bears His image--ay, and mercy too--but +justice always, for justice is mercy's highest self." + +Who knows the mysteries of the human soul--who knows the workings of the +human brain? The God who is just alone. In this man's mind, which was +so near a simple beast's in all its movings, some remote, unborn +consciousness was surely reached and vaguely set astir by the clear words +thus spoken. + +"Clo, Clo!" he cried, "Clo, Clo!" in terror, clutching her the closer, +"what dost thou mean? In all my nine and sixty years--" and rolled his +head in agony. + +In all his nine and sixty years he had shown justice to no man, mercy to +no woman, since he had thought of none but Jeoffry Wildairs; and this +truth somehow dimly reached his long-dulled brain and wakened there. + +"Down on thy knees, Clo!" he gasped--"down on thy knees!" + +It was so horrible, the look struggling in his dying face, that she went +down upon her knees that moment, and so knelt, folding his shaking hands +within her own against her breast. + +"Thou who didst make him as he was born into Thy world," she said, "deal +with that to which Thou didst give life--and death. Show him in this +hour, which Thou mad'st also, that Thou art not Man who would have +vengeance, but that justice which is God." + +"Then--then," he gasped--"then will He damn me!" + +"He will weigh thee," she said; "and that which His own hand created will +He separate from that which was thine own wilful wrong--and this, sure, +He will teach thee how to expiate." + +"Clo," he cried again--"thy mother--she was but a girl, and died alone--I +did no justice to her!--Daphne! Daphne!" And he shook beneath the bed- +clothes, shuddering to his feet, his face growing more grey and pinched. + +"She loved thee once," Clorinda said. "She was a gentle soul, and would +not forget. She will show thee mercy." + +"Birth she went through," he muttered, "and death--alone. Birth and +death! Daphne, my girl--" And his voice trailed off to nothingness, and +he lay staring at space, and panting. + +The duchess sat by him and held his hand. She moved not, though at last +he seemed to fall asleep. Two hours later he began to stir. He turned +his head slowly upon his pillows until his gaze rested upon her, as she +sat fronting him. 'Twas as though he had awakened to look at her. + +"Clo!" he cried, and though his voice was but a whisper, there was both +wonder and wild question in it--"Clo!" + +But she moved not, her great eyes meeting his with steady gaze; and even +as they so looked at each other his body stretched itself, his lids +fell--and he was a dead man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--The doves sate upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed and +cooed + + +When they had had ten years of happiness, Anne died. 'Twas of no violent +illness, it seemed but that through these years of joy she had been +gradually losing life. She had grown thinner and whiter, and her soft +eyes bigger and more prayerful. 'Twas in the summer, and they were at +Camylott, when one sweet day she came from the flower-garden with her +hands full of roses, and sitting down by her sister in her morning-room, +swooned away, scattering her blossoms on her lap and at her feet. + +When she came back to consciousness she looked up at the duchess with a +strange, far look, as if her soul had wandered back from some great +distance. + +"Let me be borne to bed, sister," she said. "I would lie still. I shall +not get up again." + +The look in her face was so unearthly and a thing so full of mystery, +that her Grace's heart stood still, for in some strange way she knew the +end had come. + +They bore her to her tower and laid her in her bed, when she looked once +round the room and then at her sister. + +"'Tis a fair, peaceful room," she said. "And the prayers I have prayed +in it have been answered. To-day I saw my mother, and she told me so." + +"Anne! Anne!" cried her Grace, leaning over her and gazing fearfully +into her face; for though her words sounded like delirium, her look had +no wildness in it. And yet--"Anne, Anne! you wander, love," the duchess +cried. + +Anne smiled a strange, sweet smile. "Perchance I do," she said. "I know +not truly, but I am very happy. She said that all was over, and that I +had not done wrong. She had a fair, young face, with eyes that seemed to +have looked always at the stars of heaven. She said I had done no +wrong." + +The duchess's face laid itself down upon the pillow, a river of clear +tears running down her cheeks. + +"Wrong!" she said--"you! dear one--woman of Christ's heart, if ever lived +one. You were so weak and I so strong, and yet as I look back it seems +that all of good that made me worthy to be wife and mother I learned from +your simplicity." + +Through the tower window and the ivy closing round it, the blueness of +the summer sky was heavenly fair; soft, and light white clouds floated +across the clearness of its sapphire. On this Anne's eyes were fixed +with an uplifted tenderness until she broke her silence. + +"Soon I shall be away," she said. "Soon all will be left behind. And I +would tell you that my prayers were answered--and so, sure, yours will +be." + +No man could tell what made the duchess then fall on her knees, but she +herself knew. 'Twas that she saw in the exalted dying face that turned +to hers concealing nothing more. + +"Anne! Anne!" she cried. "Sister Anne! Mother Anne of my children! You +have known--you have known all the years and kept it hid!" + +She dropped her queenly head and shielded the whiteness of her face in +the coverlid's folds. + +"Ay, sister," Anne said, coming a little back to earth, "and from the +first. I found a letter near the sun-dial--I guessed--I loved you--and +could do naught else but guard you. Many a day have I watched within the +rose-garden--many a day--and night--God pardon me--and night. When I +knew a letter was hid, 'twas my wont to linger near, knowing that my +presence would keep others away. And when you approached--or he--I +slipped aside and waited beyond the rose hedge--that if I heard a step, I +might make some sound of warning. Sister, I was your sentinel, and being +so, knelt while on my guard, and prayed." + +"My sentinel!" Clorinda cried. "And knowing all, you so guarded me night +and day, and prayed God's pity on my poor madness and girl's frenzy!" And +she gazed at her in amaze, and with humblest, burning tears. + +"For my own poor self as well as for you, sister, did I pray God's pity +as I knelt," said Anne. "For long I knew it not--being so ignorant--but +alas! I loved him too!--I loved him too! I have loved no man other all +my days. He was unworthy any woman's love--and I was too lowly for him +to cast a glance on; but I was a woman, and God made us so." + +Clorinda clutched her pallid hand. + +"Dear God," she cried, "you loved him!" + +Anne moved upon her pillow, drawing weakly, slowly near until her white +lips were close upon her sister's ear. + +"The night," she panted--"the night you bore him--in your arms--" + +Then did the other woman give a shuddering start and lift her head, +staring with a frozen face. + +"What! what!" she cried. + +"Down the dark stairway," the panting voice went on, "to the far cellar--I +kept watch again." + +"You kept watch--you?" the duchess gasped. + +"Upon the stair which led to the servants' place--that I might stop them +if--if aught disturbed them, and they oped their doors--that I might send +them back, telling them--it was I." + +Then stooped the duchess nearer to her, her hands clutching the coverlid, +her eyes widening. + +"Anne, Anne," she cried, "you knew the awful thing that I would hide! +That too? You knew that he was _there_!" + +Anne lay upon her pillow, her own eyes gazing out through the ivy-hung +window of her tower at the blue sky and the fair, fleecy clouds. A flock +of snow-white doves were flying back and forth across it, and one sate +upon the window's deep ledge and cooed. All was warm and perfumed with +summer's sweetness. There seemed naught between her and the uplifting +blueness, and naught of the earth was near but the dove's deep-throated +cooing and the laughter of her Grace's children floating upward from the +garden of flowers below. + +"I lie upon the brink," she said--"upon the brink, sister, and methinks +my soul is too near to God's pure justice to fear as human things fear, +and judge as earth does. She said I did no wrong. Yes, I knew." + +"And knowing," her sister cried, "you came to me _that afternoon_!" + +"To stand by that which lay hidden, that I might keep the rest away. +Being a poor creature and timorous and weak--" + +"Weak! weak!" the duchess cried, amid a greater flood of streaming +tears--"ay, I have dared to call you so, who have the heart of a great +lioness. Oh, sweet Anne--weak!" + +"'Twas love," Anne whispered. "Your love was strong, and so was mine. +That other love was not for me. I knew that my long woman's life would +pass without it--for woman's life is long, alas! if love comes not. But +you were love's self, and I worshipped you and it; and to myself I +said--praying forgiveness on my knees--that one woman should know love if +I did not. And being so poor and imperfect a thing, what mattered if I +gave my soul for you--and love, which is so great, and rules the world. +Look at the doves, sister, look at them, flying past the heavenly +blueness--and she said I did no wrong." + +Her hand was wet with tears fallen upon it, as her duchess sister knelt, +and held and kissed it, sobbing. + +"You knew, poor love, you knew!" she cried. + +"Ay, all of it I knew," Anne said--"his torture of you and the madness of +your horror. And when he forced himself within the Panelled Parlour that +day of fate, I knew he came to strike some deadly blow; and in such +anguish I waited in my chamber for the end, that when it came not, I +crept down, praying that somehow I might come between--and I went in the +room!" + +"And there--what saw you?" quoth the duchess, shuddering. "Somewhat you +must have seen, or you could not have known." + +"Ay," said Anne, "and heard!" and her chest heaved. + +"Heard!" cried Clorinda. "Great God of mercy!" + +"The room was empty, and I stood alone. It was so still I was afraid; it +seemed so like the silence of the grave; and then there came a sound--a +long and shuddering breath--but one--and then--" + +The memory brought itself too keenly back, and she fell a-shivering. + +"I heard a slipping sound, and a dead hand fell on the floor-lying +outstretched, its palm turned upwards, showing beneath the valance of the +couch." + +She threw her frail arms round her sister's neck, and as Clorinda clasped +her own, breathing gaspingly, they swayed together. + +"What did you then?" the duchess cried, in a wild whisper. + +"I prayed God keep me sane--and knelt--and looked below. I thrust it +back--the dead hand, saying aloud, 'Swoon you must not, swoon you must +not, swoon you shall not--God help! God help!'--and I saw!--the purple +mark--his eyes upturned--his fair curls spread; and I lost strength and +fell upon my side, and for a minute lay there--knowing that shudder of +breath had been the very last expelling of his being, and his hand had +fallen by its own weight." + +"O God! O God! O God!" Clorinda cried, and over and over said the word, +and over again. + +"How was't--how was't?" Anne shuddered, clinging to her. "How was't +'twas done? I have so suffered, being weak--I have so prayed! God will +have mercy--but it has done me to death, this knowledge, and before I +die, I pray you tell me, that I may speak truly at God's throne." + +"O God! O God! O God!" Clorinda groaned--"O God!" and having cried so, +looking up, was blanched as a thing struck with death, her eyes like a +great stag's that stands at bay. + +"Stay, stay!" she cried, with a sudden shock of horror, for a new thought +had come to her which, strangely, she had not had before. "You thought I +_murdered_ him?" + +Convulsive sobs heaved Anne's poor chest, tears sweeping her hollow +cheeks, her thin, soft hands clinging piteously to her sister's. + +"Through all these years I have known nothing," she wept--"sister, I have +known nothing but that I found him hidden there, a dead man, whom you so +hated and so feared." + +Her hands resting upon the bed's edge, Clorinda held her body upright, +such passion of wonder, love, and pitying adoring awe in her large eyes +as was a thing like to worship. + +"You thought I _murdered_ him, and loved me still," she said. "You +thought I murdered him, and still you shielded me, and gave me chance to +live, and to repent, and know love's highest sweetness. You thought I +murdered him, and yet your soul had mercy. Now do I believe in God, for +only a God could make a heart so noble." + +"And you--did not--" cried out Anne, and raised upon her elbow, her +breast panting, but her eyes growing wide with light as from stars from +heaven. "Oh, sister love--thanks be to Christ who died!" + +The duchess rose, and stood up tall and great, her arms out-thrown. + +"I think 'twas God Himself who did it," she said, "though 'twas I who +struck the blow. He drove me mad and blind, he tortured me, and thrust +to my heart's core. He taunted me with that vile thing Nature will not +let women bear, and did it in my Gerald's name, calling on him. And then +I struck with my whip, knowing nothing, not seeing, only striking, like a +goaded dying thing. He fell--he fell and lay there--and all was done!" + +"But not with murderous thought--only through frenzy and a cruel chance--a +cruel, cruel chance. And of your own will blood is not upon your hand," +Anne panted, and sank back upon her pillow. + +"With deepest oaths I swear," Clorinda said, and she spoke through her +clenched teeth, "if I had not loved, if Gerald had not been my soul's +life and I his, I would have stood upright and laughed in his face at the +devil's threats. Should I have feared? You know me. Was there a thing +on earth or in heaven or hell I feared until love rent me. 'Twould but +have fired my blood, and made me mad with fury that dares all. 'Spread +it abroad!' I would have cried to him. 'Tell it to all the world, craven +and outcast, whose vileness all men know, and see how I shall bear +myself, and how I shall drive through the town with head erect. As I +bore myself when I set the rose crown on my head, so shall I bear myself +then. And you shall see what comes!' This would I have said, and held +to it, and gloried. But I knew love, and there was an anguish that I +could not endure--that my Gerald should look at me with changed eyes, +feeling that somewhat of his rightful meed was gone. And I was all +distraught and conquered. Of ending his base life I never thought, never +at my wildest, though I had thought to end my own; but when Fate struck +the blow for me, then I swore that carrion should not taint my whole life +through. It should not--should not--for 'twas Fate's self had doomed me +to my ruin. And there it lay until the night; for this I planned, that +being of such great strength for a woman, I could bear his body in my +arms to the farthest of that labyrinth of cellars I had commanded to be +cut off from the rest and closed; and so I did when all were sleeping--but +you, poor Anne--but you! And there I laid him, and there he lies +to-day--an evil thing turned to a handful of dust." + +"It was not murder," whispered Anne--"no, it was not." She lifted to her +sister's gaze a quivering lip. "And yet once I had loved him--years I +had loved him," she said, whispering still. "And in a woman there is +ever somewhat that the mother creature feels"--the hand which held her +sister's shook as with an ague, and her poor lip quivered--"Sister, I--saw +him again!" + +The duchess drew closer as she gasped, "Again!" + +"I could not rest," the poor voice said. "He had been so base, he was so +beautiful, and so unworthy love--and he was dead,--none knowing, +untouched by any hand that even pitied him that he was so base a thing, +for that indeed is piteous when death comes and none can be repentant. +And he lay so hard, so hard upon the stones." + +Her teeth were chattering, and with a breath drawn like a wild sob of +terror, the duchess threw her arm about her and drew her nearer. + +"Sweet Anne," she shuddered--"sweet Anne--come back--you wander!" + +"Nay, 'tis not wandering," Anne said. "'Tis true, sister. There is no +night these years gone by I have not remembered it again--and seen. In +the night after that you bore him there--I prayed until the mid-hours, +when all were sleeping fast--and then I stole down--in my bare feet, that +none could hear me--and at last I found my way in the black dark--feeling +the walls until I reached that farthest door in the stone--and then I +lighted my taper and oped it." + +"Anne!" cried the duchess--"Anne, look through the tower window at the +blueness of the sky--at the blueness, Anne!" But drops of cold water had +started out and stood upon her brow. + +"He lay there in his grave--it was a little black place with its stone +walls--his fair locks were tumbled," Anne went on, whispering. "The spot +was black upon his brow--and methought he had stopped mocking, and surely +looked upon some great and awful thing which asked of him a question. I +knelt, and laid his curls straight, and his hands, and tried to shut his +eyes, but close they would not, but stared at that which questioned. And +having loved him so, I kissed his poor cheek as his mother might have +done, that he might not stand outside, having carried not one tender +human thought with him. And, oh, I prayed, sister--I prayed for his poor +soul with all my own. 'If there is one noble or gentle thing he has ever +done through all his life,' I prayed, 'Jesus remember it--Christ do not +forget.' We who are human do so few things that are noble--oh, surely +one must count." + +The duchess's head lay near her sister's breast, and she had fallen a- +sobbing--a-sobbing and weeping like a young broken child. + +"Oh, brave and noble, pitiful, strong, fair soul!" she cried. "As Christ +loved you have loved, and He would hear your praying. Since you so +pleaded, He would find one thing to hang His mercy on." + +She lifted her fair, tear-streaming face, clasping her hands as one +praying. + +"And I--and I," she cried--"have I not built a temple on his grave? Have +I not tried to live a fair life, and be as Christ bade me? Have I not +loved, and pitied, and succoured those in pain? Have I not filled a +great man's days with bliss, and love, and wifely worship? Have I not +given him noble children, bred in high lovingness, and taught to love all +things God made, even the very beasts that perish, since they, too, +suffer as all do? Have I left aught undone? Oh, sister, I have so +prayed that I left naught. Even though I could not believe that there +was One who, ruling all, could yet be pitiless as He is to some, I have +prayed That--which sure it seems must be, though we comprehend it not--to +teach me faith in something greater than my poor self, and not of earth. +Say this to Christ's self when you are face to face--say this to Him, I +pray you! Anne, Anne, look not so strangely through the window at the +blueness of the sky, sweet soul, but look at me." + +For Anne lay upon her pillow so smiling that 'twas a strange thing to +behold. It seemed as she were smiling at the whiteness of the doves +against the blue. A moment her sister stood up watching her, and then +she stirred, meaning to go to call one of the servants waiting outside; +but though she moved not her gaze from the tower window, Mistress Anne +faintly spoke. + +"Nay--stay," she breathed. "I go--softly--stay." + +Clorinda fell upon her knees again and bent her lips close to her ear. +This was death, and yet she feared it not--this was the passing of a +soul, and while it went it seemed so fair and loving a thing that she +could ask it her last question--her greatest--knowing it was so near to +God that its answer must be rest. + +"Anne, Anne," she whispered, "must he know--my Gerald? Must I--must I +tell him all? If so I must, I will--upon my knees." + +The doves came flying downward from the blue, and lighted on the window +stone and cooed--Anne's answer was as low as her soft breath and her +still eyes were filled with joy at that she saw but which another could +not. + +"Nay," she breathed. "Tell him not. What need? Wait, and let God tell +him--who understands." + +Then did her soft breath stop, and she lay still, her eyes yet open and +smiling at the blossoms, and the doves who sate upon the window-ledge and +lowly cooed and cooed. + +* * * * * + +'Twas her duchess sister who clad her for her last sleeping, and made her +chamber fair--the hand of no other touched her; and while 'twas done the +tower chamber was full of the golden sunshine, and the doves ceased not +to flutter about the window, and coo as if they spoke lovingly to each +other of what lay within the room. + +Then the children came to look, their arms full of blossoms and flowering +sprays. They had been told only fair things of death, and knowing but +these fair things, thought of it but as the opening of a golden door. +They entered softly, as entering the chamber of a queen, and moving +tenderly, with low and gentle speech, spread all their flowers about the +bed--laying them round her head, on her breast, and in her hands, and +strewing them thick everywhere. + +"She lies in a bower and smiles at us," one said. "She hath grown +beautiful like you, mother, and her face seems like a white star in the +morning." + +"She loves us as she ever did," the fair child Daphne said; "she will +never cease to love us, and will be our angel. Now have we an angel of +our own." + +When the duke returned, who had been absent since the day before, the +duchess led him to the tower chamber, and they stood together hand in +hand and gazed at her peace. + +"Gerald," the duchess said, in her tender voice, "she smiles, does not +she?" + +"Yes," was Osmonde's answer--"yes, love, as if at God, who has smiled at +herself--faithful, tender woman heart!" + +The hand which he held in his clasp clung closer. The other crept to his +shoulder and lay there tremblingly. + +"How faithful and how tender, my Gerald," Clorinda said, "I only know. +She is my saint--sweet Anne, whom I dared treat so lightly in my poor +wayward days. Gerald, she knows all my sins, and to-day she has carried +them in her pure hands to God and asked His mercy on them. She had none +of her own." + +"And so having done, dear heart, she lies amid her flowers, and smiles," +he said, and he drew her white hand to press it against his breast. + +* * * * * + +While her body slept beneath soft turf and flowers, and that which was +her self was given in God's heaven, all joys for which her earthly being +had yearned, even when unknowing how to name its longing, each year that +passed made more complete and splendid the lives of those she so had +loved. Never, 'twas said, had woman done such deeds of gentleness and +shown so sweet and generous a wisdom as the great duchess. None who were +weak were in danger if she used her strength to aid them; no man or woman +was a lost thing whom she tried to save: such tasks she set herself as no +lady had ever given herself before; but 'twas not her way to fail--her +will being so powerful, her brain so clear, her heart so purely noble. +Pauper and prince, noble and hind honoured her and her lord alike, and +all felt wonder at their happiness. It seemed that they had learned +life's meaning and the honouring of love, and this they taught to their +children, to the enriching of a long and noble line. In the ripeness of +years they passed from earth in as beauteous peace as the sun sets, and +upon a tablet above the resting-place of their ancestors there are +inscribed lines like these:-- + + "Here sleeps by her husband the purest and noblest lady God e'er + loved, yet the high and gentle deeds of her chaste sweet life sleep + not, but live and grow, and so will do so long as earth is earth." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LADY OF QUALITY*** + + +******* This file should be named 1550.txt or 1550.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/1550 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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