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diff --git a/78326-0.txt b/78326-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8b6f13 --- /dev/null +++ b/78326-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4980 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78326 *** + + + + + LADY BELL + + VOL. II. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + LADY BELL + + A Story of Last Century + + + BY THE AUTHOR OF “CITOYENNE JACQUELINE” + + + IN THREE VOLS.—II. + + + STRAHAN & CO. + 56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON + 1873 + + + LONDON: + PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., + CITY ROAD. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + CONTENTS OF VOL. II. + + CHAP. PAGE + I. A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST 1 + II. FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD 15 + III. KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER 28 + IV. FRIENDS IN NEED 41 + V. BOW BELLS AND THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT 58 + VI. A GAY YOUNG MADAM 71 + VII. MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE AT THE PANTHEON 82 + VIII. OPINIONS DIFFER 95 + IX. BOULTON’S COINS AND WEDGWOOD’S DISHES 106 + X. A PARTY ON THE WATER 124 + XI. DISCORD 135 + XII. THE LITTLE DINNER AT HAMPTON, WITH MUSIC ON + THE WATER 149 + XIII. A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS 162 + XIV. SIR JOSHUA AT HOME 174 + XV. THE MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT 185 + XVI. THE MASQUED BALL AS IT BEGAN IN REALITY 198 + XVII. THE “COMMON DOMINO” 210 + XVIII. ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE, AND IN LADY + BELL TREVOR AND MISS GREATHEAD’S BOX 222 + XIX. THE MEETING ON THE MALL 240 + XX. TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT? 251 + XXI. ISLINGTON CHURCH EARLY ONE MARCH MORNING 264 + XXII. BACK AT SUMMERHILL 276 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST. + + +One hot day in the latter end of June, Lady Bell was sitting in the +orchard, with Mrs. Sundon’s child in her lap, cooing to it, tickling it, +tossing it, decking it with daisies, pretending to herself and to it, +that the not-many-weeks-old child noticed and appreciated its floral +finery. + +The long, flower-besprinkled grass grew all round, beneath the bending, +leafy boughs, through the shadows of which came perpetually shifting +chequers of sunshine. There could just be seen, down a vista, the +quaint, grey house of Nutfield, with the last year’s yellow corn-stacks +beyond the orchard, mellowing and warming the green and grey tints under +the blue and white cloud-flecked sky. + +Mrs. Sundon with her fine figure and face, in one of her white wrappers +and close caps, came slowly up between the interlacing boughs; she +stopped beside Lady Bell and the child, looking down upon them. The +group was very sweet and graceful, and wanted only a St. Joseph and a +little St. John to make it stand for one of the old Italian “Riposos.” + +“Look here, Lady Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon, putting her finger on a +paragraph in a newspaper which she held in her hand. + +Lady Bell started and rose up in vague perturbation. For precaution’s +sake Mrs. Sundon had abstained from giving her friend, even in private, +that friend’s name and title, since Mrs. Sundon had discovered Lady Bell +at Nutfield. What had surprised the compromising words from Mrs. Sundon +now? + +Lady Bell took the newspaper and looked at the place indicated. Her hand +was shaking, her breath was coming fast, her eyes were dazzled; but the +intimation was so plain and direct that she took in its meaning at a +glance. There was no ambiguity there to prevent the message reaching its +destination and doing its work. “If Lady Bell Trevor wish to see her +husband in life, let her return at once to Trevor Court.” + +A mist passed before Lady Bell’s eyes; the sunny June orchard, with the +soft, fair child whom Mrs. Sundon had taken into her arms, and Mrs. +Sundon herself, all grew in a moment blurred and dark, as if the very +dews of death and remorse had fallen on them. + +“Oh, Mrs. Sundon, what shall I do?” cried Lady Bell, wringing her hands. +“I did not love him, I had no cause to love him; but I was his wife, who +was yet no wife to him, and he is a dying man.” + +“Go back to him immediately,” advised Mrs. Sundon, “while there is still +time to wipe out your offence to him—it was light compared with his to +you. But it is ill having an unsettled score with the dead. This would +hang like a millstone round your neck, and weigh you down all your +days.” + +“I’ll go back if you counsel it,” submitted Lady Bell desperately, +setting off in nervous haste to the house. “But how am I to face him? if +he have strength left to lift his hand still, will he strike me as I +have seen him strike his man? Or, if he is gone, must I stay in the +house with the dead, I who never saw anybody die but Lady Lucie, who +died blessing me? Would that I had minded her precepts better; she would +not have had me leave the worst of husbands. And how many miles will it +be to post cross country, Mrs. Sundon? you have a good head and may +guess. Can you tell me if I shall be as long in going as I was in coming +here? only I did not come straight! Oh! will you be so kind as to lend +me the money you think I shall need, for I have only three crowns in my +purse?” + +“My dear, I shall take you,” said Mrs. Sundon quietly. “Do you think I +would send you off on such an errand alone?” + +“Oh, I am so thankful,” Lady Bell admitted in her relief, “now I may do +my duty at last; no, I don’t mean that,” she checked herself the next +moment, “I cannot hear of you doing such a thing. How could you leave +your baby? You are too delicate yet for such a journey—and to go to that +neighbourhood above all others. It is vastly generous of you to propose +it, just what I should have expected from you; but, of course, I cannot +consent; I shall manage by myself, somehow.” + +“Say no more, Lady Bell,” Mrs. Sundon put an end to the discussion, “I +am going with you. The child will do very well with her nurse. Do you +think I would put my child, any more than myself, between me and my duty +and privilege? I should call that treating my child very ill, paying her +a poor compliment, for which I should hope she would never thank me. I +am abler for the journey than I was for coming here. I need not fear to +go near Chevely, which has been sold, as I dare say you’ve heard. You +cannot tell what I can do without harm to my health,” declared Mrs. +Sundon, with a little bitterness. “I travelled from what had been my +home, handed into the carriage by a bailiff on starting, and went out of +town when my child was no more than ten days old. I could not have slept +another night under that roof. But even if I had been a weaker woman, I +should not have shrunk from this poor effort, and you would not have +refused me my right.” + +Lady Bell had no longer the heart, any more than the will, to decline +Mrs. Sundon’s support in the emergency. If Mrs. Sundon’s presence made +Mr. Trevor mad—should he regard it as another act of wilful disobedience +even when Lady Bell was pretending to obey him—it would be time enough +then to undertake the ungracious task of refusing the elder woman’s +countenance. + +The great news that Mrs. Sundon and Mrs. Barlowe were to set off on +horseback within the hour, availing themselves, by permission, of Miss +Kingscote’s and Master Charles’s horses, in order to reach Lumley, where +they were to hire a chaise to proceed on a journey of indefinite +duration, fell flat. It was as nothing compared to the stunning shock +inflicted on Miss Kingscote when Mrs. Sundon saw fit to communicate to +the hostess the real rank and history of her companion. + +“Lud! lud! a Lady Bell all the time, and I to have gone and found fault +with her, and kept her pottering about my business, mending lace, and +cleaning silver, lud-a-mercy, what shall I do, brother? Mayn’t I be took +up by the King or the Lords, like the ‘torney was, whom I’ve heard tell +of, no farther gone than father and mother’s day, afore we came down in +the world, and I were a mite of a child—he gave a warrant to arrest a +fine lady in her coach in the street, at the suit of a tradesman, and he +himself was had up before the justices—I mean afore the Lords, for an +insult to the quality. Mayn’t I be had up and put in prison, though I +never knowed, nor meant it, and I’ll beg her pardon over and over again, +and she was a right-down pleasant lass, madam—Lud! I’m losing my +head—lady, save when she was in the tantrums.” + +“Nonsense, Deb,” exclaimed Master Charles impatiently; “you did her a +kindness, and helped her in her end. As it proves,” he continued a +little sarcastically; “whether Miss or Madam, she has been all along far +beyond our flight, and will never waste another thought on us, now that +she has found birds of her own feather, and is ready to go off with them +to her own perch.” + +“She were a runaway wife all the same,” reflected Miss Kingscote +sapiently, “though she were ten times a Lady Bell, and she had left her +man as must have been hers in the face of day, which made the leaving a +heap bolder in my madam—nay, my lady. I vow I as good as telled her she +was no match for the Kingscotes of Nutfield.” + +“You had nothing to do to say anything of the kind, even though this +Lady Bell had been a simple waiting-maid or scullion. I don’t care +which,” Master Charles was provoked into telling his sister, as his +good-humoured indulgence gave way. “The Kingscotes have not kept their +own in the world without loss, and they can ill afford to despise the +humblest—I say that, if I am supposed to have anything to do with the +future matching of the Kingscotes,” declared the young gentleman +loftily, “and they’ll be long enough of being matched for me, since I +could bring a mate to little better than a farm-house, and a farmer’s +kin. I’ll thank you, Deb, not to meddle in the matter.” + +“There, I’ve given offence to Master Charles,” Miss Kingscote reflected +glumly after she was alone. “He’s taken to hurting my feelings by +twitting me with what we’ve lost, as if the worsest loss weren’t mine! +not that I show it neither, for I’m sure I’m a powerful fine woman, +considering my lack of education. And so she’s Lady Bell, and if she had +bidden still, I mun have said my lady every blessed word, and run at her +heels as I’ve never made her run at mine. But if this Squire Trevor, as +she has given leg-bail to, had not come on the carpet, first and +foremost, ere we set eyes on her, mightn’t she have been my Lady Bell +Kingscote! That do sound fine! prodigious fine! But if there had never +been no Squire Trevor, there would never have been no bolting, banding +with the players, turning up at Nutfield, and making friends with Master +Charles, so there is an end on’t. My Master Charles mun go to the wars, +and risk a sabre’s cut spoiling his bonnie face,” mused Miss Kingscote, +whimpering at the very thought, “afore he fill his chimney-corner, and +bring home his lady to sit down cheek by jowl with him, while I’ll be +right glad to retire to mother’s room, save when they want my company, +for I ain’t teethy or prideful—I never were. That mun be the order of +the day, as Master Charles ought to know.” + +Even before the parting, Master Charles had cause to renounce his +mortified conviction of how little he and his sister were to Lady Bell +Trevor, and of how she had done with them from this day. + +She was grateful for the assistance and escort as far as Lumley, which +he offered so soon as he ascertained that the offer would be agreeable +to her and Madam Sundon. + +Lady Bell put her head out of the chaise window at the last. Her scared +eyes looked with almost timid beseeching into his face. She told him, +without any sign of haughtiness, but with many tokens of a retentive +memory for the smallest act of consideration and kindness, of contrition +for having played a part to him and his sister, and for not having +trusted them in full, that she had been very well off and happy at +Nutfield. She hoped that his colours would arrive soon, that he would +see a campaign to his wish, and return safe and sound to cheer his +sister’s heart. + +Lady Bell sent Miss Kingscote her grateful duty. Lady Bell trusted they +would meet again, when she would be able to finish her chair-covers. In +the meantime, she would not forget to procure patterns for Miss +Kingscote. Miss Kingscote must be especially kind to Lady Bell’s brood +of chicks—the first brood she had seen set, seen hatched, and fed every +day with her own hands. + +It was plain that for the moment, in place of being eager to resume her +cast-off rank and state, Lady Bell had forgotten where and why she was +going, and everything about Squire Trevor and his danger. It was only +when the chaise rolled off, and she sank back in her corner, that she +withdrew into herself to face the grim record of the bond she had +broken, and the forfeit she was called on to pay. + +It was on a fresh summer morning, when, having started early to +accomplish the last stage of their journey, Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon +came in sight of Trevor Court. + +The gates were standing open; early as it was, the lodge seemed +deserted, so that the chaise entered without parley. The dew was lying +like pearls on the grass by the drive, and silvering the yews on the +terrace. The spirals of smoke from the red chimney-stacks were rising +straight in the clear air. A gush of birds’ song sounded far and wide. +There was something light, bright, and exhilarating in the air, and in +the aspect of nature, which lent a peculiar charm to what was imposing +in the pile of building and its grounds. + +“I have not seen Trevor Court before, save from a distance,” Mrs. Sundon +let fall the remark. “You never told me, Lady Bell, what a fine old +place it was.” + +“I don’t think I ever noticed it till the last time I saw it,” Lady Bell +replied almost in a whisper; she recalled vividly that last time sitting +on the September morning in the travelling chariot beside its master, +who lingered in taking a short leave of his treasure. + +The next moment Lady Bell gave a shriek and put her hands before her +face. The chaise had turned into the sweep before the house, where, in +sombre contrast to the summer morning, the windows were all shrouded, +and the hatchment was up. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD. + + +It was as a quailing widow, and not as a reluctant wife, that Lady Bell +re-entered the old oak parlour, where she still trembled lest she should +hear her husband’s loud, rough accents stuttering with rage, and his +stick, when gout confined him to his chair, savagely beating the floor. + +Mrs. Walsh, in her towering cap and starched frill, received Lady Bell, +and spoke to the point, without softening or reservation. “Yes, it is +all over, Lady Bell, the Squire died last night at ten o’clock. He was +took with a jaundice on Wednesday se’en night; but no danger was +apprehended till five days ago, when Mr. Walsh writ the notice for the +papers—to no purpose, so far as the Squire’s desiring to see and speak +with you once more was concerned. You and he will not see and speak with +each other on this side of the judgment day.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Walsh, I came as fast as ever I could.” Lady Bell humbled +herself in the dust before her ancient enemy. “I know now I was a bad, +bad wife. I would give all I have in the world to be able to live the +last year over again, and do my duty by your cousin, who is lying stiff +and cold in one of these rooms, where I shall never hear him say that he +forgives me, that he makes allowance at last for my youth, my wounded +pride—what had a sinful creature to do with pride?—my forced +inclinations. Oh! tell me he did not lay his curse upon me with his last +breath?” implored Lady Bell, ready to sink down with grief and terror, +while she clasped her hands and looked up, her distended eyes brimming +over with scalding tears, in Mrs. Walsh’s inflexible face. + +“Yes, Lady Bell, you were a bad wife, and you would not take a telling +while it was in your power,” declared the uncompromising woman, standing +bolt upright, her very mittens bristling with her righteous protest. + +“Madam,” interposed Mrs. Sundon with rising indignation, “it is +monstrous to reproach this poor child at such a time. She is +sufficiently crushed by the nature of the event which has taken place, +following on her rashness. She will not be likely to forget it, even +without your accusations to embitter the blow. I vouch for Lady Bell’s +having lived in safety and honour since she quitted her husband. Madam, +you will not refuse my voucher?” + +“Madam, I have not heard your honesty questioned, therefore I grant that +Lady Bell has come back in honest company,” acknowledged Mrs. Walsh +stiffly, “which is more than might have been hoped, from her flying in +the face of law and duty, and exposing herself to the worst perils.” + +“Though you are the late Mr. Trevor’s kinswoman, you must know,” said +Mrs. Sundon, “that Lady Bell Trevor has been more sinned against than +sinning.” + +“I know that she is not too young or fair or fine to be accountable for +her errors to a Power before which the most wilful lady will not dare to +plead her daintiness,” maintained Mrs. Walsh doggedly. “But I know, too, +that you were sinned against, Lady Bell,” she added candidly, turning to +the overwhelmed offender. “So far as that goes, Squire Trevor did not +deserve your duty. But you had the will of a higher than my poor cousin +to consider, and where should we all be, if we got our due, and no more? +It was on the Squire’s mind at the last that he had wronged you; and he +sought to receive, as well as to bestow, forgiveness, before he could +die in peace.” + +“I did not merit it,” said Lady Bell; “but you told him, dear Mrs. +Walsh—oh, say that you told the old man that I forgave him, as I hope to +be forgiven?” + +“I charged him to repent, and if he had done any wrong to a +fellow-creature which he could atone for, to make amends. Then I bade +him turn for forgiveness for that, and all his sins, to the great God +and Saviour, against whom he had chiefly sinned, but who would never +refuse him forgiveness, since, in the very act of his seeking it, they +were pledged for his salvation.” + +“Oh, thank God! that he died in peace with me,” broke in Lady Bell +impetuously. + +“Rather thank God that he died in peace with his Maker, madam,” Mrs. +Walsh did not fail to rebuke her. “I think he did; I am fain to hope he +did, though he was not able to fulfil his part of the obligation here; +the will must stand for the deed. ‘Torney Kenyon, who did all the +Squire’s business, was from home, at the wedding of his son in Bristol. +We sent twice, but we could not get hold of the man in time. I think it +is better to tell you at once, Lady Bell, what you will hear later.” + +“As you will, madam,” replied Lady Bell dejectedly. + +“The Squire’s will was executed long before he ever saw your face, when +his estate was bequeathed, failing any heir of his body, to my eldest +son Jack. The substance of that will has been repeated since you +offended the Squire, and it has neither been revoked nor altered, as my +cousin certainly desired it to be altered, in his dying moments. But Mr. +Walsh and me, expecting that you, or some one for you, would answer our +summons, if you were in the country, have made up our minds, and will +answer for Jack at his college, to take your wishes on the matter.” + +“I have no wishes, Mrs. Walsh,” exclaimed Lady Bell hastily. + +“We shall let you have whatever compensation you desire,” went on Mrs. +Walsh, paying no heed to the demur, “being well aware that such were +Squire Trevor’s intentions while he was yet in the body, and in his +right mind, so that you are indebted to no bounty, but to bare justice +for your share of the worldly inheritance that our cousin has left +behind him.” + +“Madam, this honourable conduct does you and Mr. Walsh infinite credit.” +Mrs. Sundon could not refrain from awarding her hearty approbation to +her late antagonist. + +“Mrs. Sundon, I repeat that ‘tis but justice,” argued Mrs. Walsh with a +stateliness of her own, winding up with her own favourite axiom, “The +world and I have shaken hands long ago.” + +“You are all a great deal too kind to me,” wept Lady Bell, “a rebel who +deserted my post. But indeed I had liefer, if you do not think it an +impertinence in me to make an objection, that Mr. Trevor’s goods went to +you and your son Jack, his friends. I am sure I have no right to a +single sixpence.” + +“Beware of pride and sauciness still under the garb of +disinterestedness, Lady Bell,” Mrs. Walsh said severely. + +“Nay, I’ll do whatever you will,” Lady Bell hastened to amend her +statement, quite subdued, and feeling sadly as if she would never have +the heart to have a will of her own again. + +“Madam, a second time everything shall be as you will, and as your +friends—such as Madam Sundon and your man of business, if you will +please to name him—may decide for you,” Mrs. Walsh laid down the law. + +Lady Bell knew that she was not and never would be mistress of Trevor +Court. Not that she desired it; she even recoiled from it as from a +sacrilege. + +After the funeral, when the two ladies happened to be alone together, +Mrs. Sundon said to Lady Bell— + +“They are good people, these Walshes, my dear. I should think very good +people to deal with and to raise a country parish sunk in rude ignorance +and gross transgression. That was not your case exactly, but I think you +might have got on with them, and been the better and not the worse for +them. To be plain with you, I cannot help saying, though it may be +presumptuous, that I think I could have got on with them. I could +acquire a great regard for that woman, and I fancy I might have a still +greater for her good man. As for Sally, I should have sought to soften +her brusqueness; yet brusqueness is not so great a fault when it comes +to weighing faults. But you were too young, and you were petulant +between youth and hard usage.” + +“I shall get on with them now,” said Lady Bell wistfully, looking +incredibly young and very fair in the weeds which had been provided for +her, and which she had hastened to put on with her trembling frightened +fingers, as a mark of respect for the dead, doing it the more eagerly +because she had failed in respect for the living. + +“I see the servants look sourly on me, and no wonder,” confided Lady +Bell to her friend, “for they stood by their master, whom his wife left. +But I’ll bear it, and try to bring them to think better of me, though +Trevor Court is not mine, and I cannot stay here, and keep the old +people and ask them to serve me. Mrs. Walsh will see to her cousin’s +household, that is my comfort. I will do everything Mrs. Walsh bids me +from this time. I’ll be good, Mrs. Sundon,” promised Lady Bell, with a +faint smile at her own childishness. “But seriously, Mrs. Walsh took my +place, and saved me from a grievous reflection which would have haunted +my death-bed. She will teach me to be a self-denying, devoted Christian +woman like herself. I believe I did not judge Sally Walsh justly,” Lady +Bell finished with a little sigh of compunction and doubt. “I dare say +she was not so pert and rude as I thought her. I know she was far more +dutiful than I have been.” + +Mrs. Sundon said nothing more at the time; but she determined that she +would not leave Lady Bell with the Walshes, though Mrs. Sundon was able +to do them justice. “They were never the people, however good their +intentions, to have the guidance of Lady Bell,” reflected the lady. “Now +that Lady Bell’s spirit is broke and her conscience burdened, she would +become their slave. I had almost as soon put her into a nunnery, where +in the present state of her feelings, she would be content to take +refuge, but where in time she would be driven either into fanaticism or +hypocrisy, my generous, tender Lady Bell! Just when she is freed too, by +the judgment of God, from her cruel gaoler (God forgive him!) and +restored to hope and happiness. Why, there is a bright life before Lady +Bell which nothing has come to spoil beyond recall. So help me, I will +make it bright and safe for her as I would make it for my little Caro, +since Lady Bell came forward of her own sweet will and did what she +could to keep me in Paradise. Oh! it is well for Lady Bell that with all +her early trials she has not taken forbidden fruit into her mouth, and +found it turn to dust and ashes between her teeth. There is no great +good under the sun, but I will pursue the lesser good for my Lady Bell +when she begins to look up and smile again. Bless the child! what is the +loss by honest death of such a husband as Squire Trevor, though she was +desperate enough to run away from him, compared to what some women have +to bear? I will keep the knowledge of evil from her, as I would keep it +from Caro. She shall not fail to be, so far as I can help her, a devoted +Christian woman; but it shall be after her own kind. ‘Wisdom shall be +justified of all her children.’” + +The Squire’s funeral sermon was preached. It was not without its +unvarnished allusions, even though they were in the mouth of Mrs. +Walsh’s mild spouse, and not of the most redoubtable champion of truth +in the parish, to the evils of stout spirits, stormy passions, and +family discord. It was listened to with penitent humiliation and +meekness. + +A decent interval passed, and the arrangements were completed, by which +Lady Bell was put into possession of a moderate jointure, in addition to +her marriage settlement, from her deceased husband’s estate. + +Then Mrs. Sundon hurried her friend just a little on the plea of the +necessity of Mrs. Sundon’s return to her child, and carried Lady Bell +back to Nutfield in the first place. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER. + + +Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon were so well pleased with each other, that +they agreed finally to take up house together. They liked the air and +aspect of Nutfield so well, that they fixed on dwelling in the +neighbourhood, though no longer under the wing of Miss Kingscote. + +The two ladies rented one of the cottages _ornés_ which were beginning +to be built between the town of Lumley and Nutfield. + +Summerhill had for its nucleus a one-storeyed erection of black and +white timber, to which a wooden verandah had been added all round. The +whole was set in a large enough garden and paddock to afford room for +ingenuity to propose and execute a number of wonderful performances in +the shape of winding walks, mounds, grottos, bowers, even a dovecot and +a dairy. + +The house was unfurnished, so that the tenants had another gain in +fitting it up according to their tastes. Everything that Lady Bell and +Mrs. Sundon ordered for their use was bright and tasteful. There was a +good deal of white painted wood and white dimity, relieved by warm, +deep-coloured carpet-work and rich embroidery. + +The ladies gave evidence in the decorations of their house of ability +and refinement, according to the standard of their day. There were +home-manufactured brackets, sconces, card-baskets, and music-trays in +abundance. These things supplied Lady Bell with endless employment, and +were sources of pride and delight to her. + +Lady Bell had thought to herself, first when she became a widow, that +she should go softly mourning for her sins and her strife with Squire +Trevor all her days. She was perfectly sincere then, as well as +afterwards, and she did not cease to be sorry for having done wrong; but +to her surprise, and a little to her shame, not only did her youthful +spirits soon recover their elasticity and throw off the load of +contrition and melancholy reflections; but in addition she was very +happy—happier than she had ever been in her life before, not even +excepting her early days with Lady Lucie Penruddock. + +Lady Bell was not merely like one of those graceful creatures of the air +which, casting the slough of the chrysalis, rises buoyant in its +elegance and beauty. She had found a true mate, a companion and friend, +a natural equal and ally. + +Eventful as the last year had been, and calculated to develop her +nature, Lady Bell was not past the age when girls like her have the +strongest tendency to contract friendship with members of their own sex, +and when indeed for the most part the closest, firmest, womanly +friendships are formed. And that was the generation of women’s +friendships, crowned by the sacrifice of the world for each other, made +by the two ladies of Llangollen. + +There was just the amount of superiority in years, experience, and +acquirements on Mrs. Sundon’s part, and the kind of essential difference +between the young women to confirm Lady Bell’s romantic admiration for +her friend, without preventing a free and full interchange of sentiment +and opinion. + +Lady Bell resumed gladly and with grateful acknowledgment of the support +which she received from Mrs. Sundon, all Lady Bell’s native pursuits, +which had been so continually interrupted and baulked. + +A modern girl commanding a thousand modes of cultivation, until she is +oppressed by them, will find it hard to comprehend the self-respect and +satisfaction with which Lady Bell returned to her studies; her French—in +which Mrs. Sundon was a better qualified assistant, so far as speaking +went, than Mr. Greenwood at St. Bevis’s—her thrumming on a spinet, her +warbling of “Hark, the lark,” and “Waft her, angels.” + +Mrs. Sundon kept up her connection with town and the world, and had not +only fashions, but newspapers and parcels of books forwarded to her by +the carrier and the bookseller in Lumley. + +The ladies were abreast of their times (in which the war with America +was taking more and more serious proportions), and of the literature of +the day. + +“Sir Charles Grandison” was becoming an oldish book, and “Evelina” had +not yet come out. But Mr. Brooke’s “Fool of Quality” was making its +mark, and was warmly welcomed as a step in the right direction by all +good men and women, including Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell. In sermons the +ladies read Porteous or Blair. In poetry they studied Mason’s “Flower +Garden” and Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” while in travels, Pennant’s +“Tour” seemed to them to have extended to the extremity of the civilised +world. + +The absence, except at short intervals, of even a provincial theatre, +which figured so largely as an intellectual influence at the close of +the last century, was supplied in a degree to Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell. +They had the vigorous notices and criticisms of the most popular plays +and players in the town newspapers; so that even while living at a +distance, the ladies could enjoy at second-hand the heroics of “Douglas” +and the nonsense of “Polly Honeycomb.” + +Lady Bell made many charming new attainments, and that season at +Summerhill was, after all, in the fullest sense, the spring-time of her +life, when she was learning something new every day, and was fast +budding into fresh promise. + +All Lady Bell’s fine-lady gifts and graces had been originally overmuch +of the town, townish. But Mrs. Sundon had been a fine lady of the +country, as well as of the town, and could lead Lady Bell into elegant +rurality, and even inoculate the girl with a true love of the country +and of country life. + +Under Mrs. Sundon’s superintendence, Lady Bell became a lady gardener, +and advanced with rapid strides from an apprentice to a journeyman, +until, in addition to her old power of embroidering facsimiles of leaves +and flowers, she could make carpets and canopies of the plants +themselves, hang the verandah with them, and grow living orange-trees in +the window alcove of the sitting-room. She laid carnations and budded +roses, and was as intent on getting seeds of Canterbury bells and slips +of geraniums, as ever she had been on procuring patterns for aprons and +chair-covers. + +Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon had a kitchen as well as a flower-garden. They +had a white cow in the paddock in summer for their own and their baby’s +use, and they borrowed a brood of chickens from Miss Kingscote, that +they might be sure of new-laid eggs for breakfast. + +The ladies did not commit these acquisitions to their establishment +entirely to the care of their modest retinue of two maids and a man. + +Lady Bell learnt, and did not dream that the learning was derogatory to +her, to pull peas and pick gooseberries—actually to milk the cow (in a +perfunctory and not very effectual manner, it must be confessed), so +that she could aver from her personal knowledge that the syllabub, which +she had also made with her own hands, was compounded as it ought to have +been, of milk warm from the cow. She made gooseberry-fool, as well as +syllabub, and was very conceited about the deed and its success. + +Had poor Squire Trevor been alive and at Summerhill, his flighty young +wife could even have supplied him with his desiderated tansy pudding, at +this higher stage of her education, and in her greater wisdom. + +Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell dabbled in all sorts of washes, balsams, +simples, hot drinks, blackberry cheeses, and sticks of saffron. Not +being godless selfish unbelievers, and having ignorant and helpless poor +neighbours, the two ladies became in their own way unquestionable +Christian Ladies Bountiful—clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, +tending the sick, and softening the rude, so far as their light and +power went. + +Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon were the two women of highest rank and polish +for a considerable circuit of miles, but they were not on that account +disdainful and unsocial in their intercourse with their middle-class +neighbours, such as the Vicar and Mayor of Lumley, the retired military +or naval officers and their families, who occupied good houses in the +town, and cottages similar to Summerhill on the outskirts. On the +contrary, the two ladies were rightly judged models of urbanity, a +reputation which no doubt they enjoyed, being gracious where nobody +presumed on their graciousness, while they countenanced the Lumley +weddings, house-warmings, and christenings. + +Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell had a hay-making on their own lawn, to which +the whole population, so far as the Summerhill grounds would hold them, +were invited, and came and went in ecstasies with the entertainment. + +Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell became the reigning toasts of the +neighbourhood. + +It does not follow that the old world and the old town were +sycophantish; consider the women and their circumstances. + +Lady Bell Trevor, the daughter of Lord Etheredge and the widow of Squire +Trevor, of Trevor Court, in the adjoining shire, was a beautiful, +graceful, intelligent young woman of seventeen. + +Mrs. Sundon was not more than four years older, at twenty-one very +handsome, with an air of command, which had been born with her—command +too well assured to be other than simple and self-denying, or to require +haughtiness and arrogance to back its claims. + +Mrs. Sundon was a woman living in separation from her husband, it is +true, but by an act quite different from poor Lady Bell’s hushed-up +escapade. Mrs. Sundon’s separation from Gregory Sundon did not affect +her social position in the least—in effect rather elevated it. + +It was perfectly well understood through the Mayor that the details did +the greatest honour to Mrs. Sundon’s dignity and discretion. And dignity +and discretion were qualities very highly, but not unjustly, valued in a +generation liable to run into extravagant flights and excesses. + +Mrs. Sundon showed the same appreciable discretion in refraining from +accusing her husband, and in adopting, along with a chosen friend, a +life of retirement as well as of virtue in the flower of her youth, and +in bringing up her little girl—as it was quite understood Mrs. Sundon +was bringing up the child, when Caro was not yet three months old—in the +most meritorious manner. + +The very peculiarity of the two ladies’ position with the union of their +forces, gave them a freedom and weight in the society in which they +moved that they could not have commanded had they been single women, +that they could hardly have possessed had they been separate, though +each had dwelt in the house of her husband. + +With Nutfield Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon maintained the most kindly, +cheerful relations, long after use and wont had hardened Miss Kingscote +to the sound of “my lady.” When the ladies of Summerhill wished a little +variety in their domestic routine, they had only to stroll over to +Nutfield to bask in its homely cordiality, and to get a little +permissible fun out of Miss Kingscote’s uncouth whimsicalities. + +Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon could not have managed for themselves without +Master Charles to act the part of a brother to them. + +In those days, when walking on country roads was not always safe for +ladies, when they could not attend a single public place with propriety, +unless they were supported by male attendance, a gentleman who was a +privileged friend proved indispensable in every household of women. + +Sometimes the friendships thus entertained were of a peculiarly gentle +and chivalrous character, which the very scandal-loving world admitted +and respected. Thus it saw no objection—not even that of age—in the +intimate association of a young man like Master Charles with two +charming young women only a little above him in rank, since the one was +a wife and the other a widow, and both were deprived of their natural +protectors. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + FRIENDS IN NEED. + + +Only once was there an interruption threatened to the brother and sister +relations between Master Charles and the ladies of Summerhill, and that +began and ended among themselves, and had nothing to do with on-lookers. + +Master Charles called on his friends one day in a moody frame of mind. +He looked over some debatable accounts which belonged to Mrs. Sundon’s +department of the joint housekeeping. He undertook to see and settle +with the offending tradesman, and bring him to reason. He agreed to stay +to the three-o’clock dinner, and relieve Lady Bell from the chicken +carving. Still his mind was not lightened, so that his friends felt it +necessary to press him to make a clean breast of it. + +The young man admitted that he had been with a party of gentlemen on the +previous evening, when horse-racing had been discussed, and bets had +been freely given and taken over the wine. + +He had been flushed and excited like the rest, and he had made such a +book as he feared, without the greatest good luck, would be ruinous to +him, when he had not yet got his property into his own hands, and any +disgrace in money matters would put a stop to the exertions of the +friends who were seeking to procure for him a pair of colours. + +He was mad with himself, for he was by no means without sense and +shrewdness as well as principle. He heartily wished that he had joined +the army as a volunteer, sailed for Quebec or Boston in the first +transport, and been taken prisoner by the Indians, before worse happened +to him, and before he baulked the expectations of all who had taken an +interest in so foolish a fellow. He hung his head as he made the +confession. + +“Worse shall not happen,” Mrs. Sundon interposed with decision. “You are +right in consenting to confide in us; indeed, we value your confidence, +sir, and women are not always the worst councillors. I shall speak to +the Mayor to come forward and help you, if the worst come to the worst; +he will do something for my sake, as well as for yours. I shall have a +little loan at your service.” + +“And I shall club every shilling I can muster with Mrs. Sundon’s,” +proposed Lady Bell eagerly; “so pray don’t be down-hearted, Master +Charles.” + +The young man only hung his head lower. He hated to lay women under +contribution to pay for his recklessness, while he dared not, were it +but for the sake of another woman—his sister Deb—decline the assistance +offered to him in case of necessity. + +The ready generosity of his friends melted him, so that he faltered with +feeling, in place of declaiming glibly in the expression of his thanks. + +“Don’t speak of it,” Mrs. Sundon forbade him; “only let this be a lesson +to you in the future,” she added with soft earnestness. + +The young man went away subdued in his gratitude, but when the crisis +was over, he presented himself in a state of riotous glee, to free the +ladies from their promises, and demand their congratulations. + +Master Charles’s three to one and five to two had turned out, after all, +on the winning side. He had had amazing pieces of luck. + +“By George! you ladies must wish me joy, and allow me the honour and +felicity, as the town sparks say, of treating you to whatever takes your +fancy, a prince’s plume, my Lady Bell, a lace apron, Madam Sundon; sure +you richly deserve it, and I can afford to please myself for once in my +life, since in place of coming to grief by this little transaction, I +vow I have made a very good thing of it,” and he thrust his hands +braggingly into the pockets of his frock coat. + +“Yes, I claim my right to a return for my willingness to befriend you, +Master Charles,” cried Mrs. Sundon, before Lady Bell could speak. “I +thought you were to have a lesson, but I find it to be a snare. I want +no lace aprons, though I shall be happy to take one from you, if you +like to grant what I ask. Promise me solemnly, sir, on the word of a +gentleman, that you will both now and after you have entered the army, +do your best to resist betting on cards and horses, at least round a +supper-table in the heat of conviviality.” + +“But—but, Mrs. Sundon,” objected Master Charles, taken aback, becoming +immediately crest-fallen, and colouring violently. “No fellow of spirit +could be expected to give and keep such a promise. I am not soft in +these matters, I think for a novice I have shown myself as sharp as my +neighbours,” he drew himself up and laughed, though the laugh was a +little forced. “I think—I beg your pardon, but I do think you take +advantage of your kindness—I own it was very great, to seek to bind me, +as no man not a Molly Coddle and a nincompoop would be bound in the +circumstances.” + +“Oh, Master Charles, think of Henry, Earl of Morland, in the ‘Fool of +Quality,’” implored Lady Bell, “and how you were of opinion he was a +fine character, and ought to be imitated in this dissipated world.” + +“Such conduct is very fine in a book and in theory, but it won’t do for +bloods in real life and in practice,” he put her off impatiently. + +“Master Charles, I trust you will know that there are brave men and +gallant soldiers too, that no man would dare call Molly Coddles and +nincompoops, who yet set their faces against the indiscriminate betting +and gambling of this gambling age,” Mrs. Sundon told him plainly; but +that was not all. “Charles Kingscote,” she said, appealing to him, face +to face and soul to soul, as it were, when she addressed him thus by his +Christian name and surname, and with her own fine pale face working with +emotion and the anguish of remembrance. “If you only knew the misery and +degradation wrought by this curse of gambling—what generous natures have +been undone, what happy homes have been cast down in ruins, never to be +built up again. Shall I lay bare the sorrows of my life to enlighten you +and save you, if I can?” + +“No, Mrs. Sundon,” declared the young man quickly, and with pain in his +moodiness. “I shall not allow such sacrilege for my fancied needs, and I +should be an ingrate to deny your request as you put it, however +difficult it may seem to me. I give you my word, as you desire, without +farther parley—and now you will permit me to take my leave.” + +The moment he was gone, Lady Bell asked with a puzzled, pensive, rather +scared anxiety, “Will he keep his word, think you?” + +“I hope and trust he will,” replied Mrs. Sundon, looking troubled still; +“granting that it will cost him a great effort, he is manly and +honourable enough in his youth to make such an effort; and he has not +seen much bad company, that is a blessing, to corrupt him from the +beginning. Poor boy! he was so happy when he came in, and we +disappointed and mortified him. Do you know how he will regard me from +this hour, Bell?” Mrs. Sundon inquired abruptly, with a certain +wistfulness and piteousness for herself thrilling through her tones. “He +is not bumptious or quarrelsome, he is a fine, warm-hearted, +good-natured lad, but he will begin to hate the sight of me.” + +“No, no,” exclaimed Lady Bell energetically. + +“Yes, yes,” contradicted Mrs. Sundon quietly, shaking her head, “I know +all about it. A man pretends sometimes to call a woman his mistress, but +he cannot forgive her, if she ever really play the part. He will excuse +almost any error in a woman sooner than her finding him wrong, and +telling him so. She has humbled him then in his own eyes, and he cares +for that still more than being humbled in hers. She becomes irksome to +him, and he half fears her, half strives to deceive her, himself sinking +lower and lower till he ends by hating her outright. When you marry +again, Bell, if your main object be to preserve your husband’s love, +fondle and defer to him, and never admit by word or look that you +recognise he has forfeited your esteem, as well as that of every honest +man and woman, and is on the high road to destruction, carrying you and +your unborn child along with him.” + +“I shall do nothing of the kind,” protested Lady Bell, half crying at +the idea. “I shall speak the truth and clear my conscience, whether I +shame the devil or no. But on second thoughts, I shall not need, for I +shall never think of marrying again and leaving you and little Caro, and +ending our happy life here, dear,” declared Lady Bell, turning eagerly +to caress her friend. + +“You will not think of it perhaps, but you will do it all the same,” +said Mrs. Sundon as she gave back the caress; “however, we may let +sleeping dogs lie and not anticipate evil. To return to Master Charles; +see if he do not avoid me from this day.” + +For several weeks it seemed as if Mrs. Sundon’s prognostications were to +prove correct. It was not that Master Charles intermitted his visits to +Summerhill, and he was even punctilious in his continued offers of +service to the ladies; but somehow there was a change in the nature of +the intercourse, and there was a dryness approaching to sullenness in +the young gentleman’s manner to Mrs. Sundon. + +But at the close of these weeks Master Charles thought better of it, and +came looking shame-faced, yet, but frank and ingenuous as ever, and told +Mrs. Sundon, “I have been compelled to be a little more particular in my +company since the promise you made me give you, which, of course, I was +resolved to keep, come what like of it. But I have reaped the benefit of +it already, I have discovered that there are plenty of gentlemen of +parts and spirit, good judges of horse-flesh besides, who will not play +at higher than half-crown points, and will not lay a wager on a horse, +or a dog, unless it be so trifling a one that they have no anxiety about +it, and have all their minds to bestow on their proper affairs. They are +ready to welcome me to their company when they see that I prefer it. You +were quite right, Mrs. Sundon, I add my poor testimony to my promise.” + +The dryness and sullenness disappeared from that day. + +Lady Bell was jubilant at the issue, and the restoration of their +comrade, and disposed to crow over Mrs. Sundon. + +“Oh! he is a good sort, as Miss Kingscote says,” confessed the +authority, “he is more generous than his brethren. I am thankful to have +been of use to him.” This was all that Mrs. Sundon said to Lady Bell, +but in her own mind she reflected with apparent incoherence, “I could +wish that he had been higher in rank, and Miss Kingscote more +presentable. I don’t think that his being a little countrified would +have mattered to her else.” + +As a supplement to all other interests and entertainments, Mrs. Sundon +and Lady Bell had little Caro to play with—to plan for with the deepest +seriousness, to build castles in the air for with the highest +hopefulness. + +But Mrs. Sundon was different from many mothers. Mrs. Sundon not only +did not expect Lady Bell to be engrossed with her little daughter, Mrs. +Sundon herself would have thought it exceedingly ill-judged and ill-bred +to bring forward the child, and cause her to fill the first place in the +circle, forcing every other interest and satisfaction to give way to +Caro’s interest and satisfaction. + +No, little Caro, while she was dearly prized and petted, was kept quite +in her proper and purely subordinate sphere, and that under wholesome +discipline, and was decidedly a happier as well as a more modest and +artless child then and afterwards in consequence of her mother’s public +spirit in combination with her common sense. + +Mrs. Sundon would not permit Caro, unless it were absolutely +unavoidable, to interfere with a single study or pursuit, though the +mother cared for the child incessantly, and spared no thought or pains +upon her, from consecrating to Miss Caro’s wardrobe Mrs. Sundon’s most +exquisite needlework, to being the child’s first teacher in health, and +nurse in sickness. Mrs. Sundon would not allow Caro’s presence in the +morning-room—the company-room of the house, except at stated and limited +intervals. Mrs. Sundon put an interdict on Caro and her nurse being a +drag on walking and riding excursions. + +Mrs. Sundon did not carry Caro to any public place whatever, but did not +on that account withdraw from public places. Mrs. Sundon had an +old-fashioned notion that society and her friends had a claim upon her, +just as Caro had a claim, and though Caro’s claim, as her mother +delighted to acknowledge, was the greater, Mrs. Sundon did not conceive +that it ought on that account to swallow up the smaller. Mrs. Sundon +sent Caro to bed betimes, and would not suffer this, or other excellent +rules to be infringed on any pretence. + +The desirable result was twofold, Caro from her earliest infancy was one +of the healthiest, most natural, and “prettily behaved” of children. +Mrs. Sundon had the reward of being assured that the child was regarded +by all the friends of the family as a boon to be welcomed, and not as a +bore or plague to be endured. + +So summer suns and winter moons rose and set on the house at Summerhill, +and the two friends were “Bell” and “Sunny,” like sisters to each other. + +“Oh, Bell, this peaceful, rational, God-fearing time is good after the +distractions of passion and the storms of life,” Mrs. Sundon would say, +stifling all yearning in her voice, and setting her strong will to make +the best of the alleviations of her lot. + +“Yes, Sunny,” Lady Bell would answer brightly. “I get a better gardener +every month. Our place will be a spectacle next year, only the French +honeysuckle don’t smell like our common honeysuckle, exactly as lupins +are not sweet as blossoming beans. I am improving in my drawing. I +propose to try painting when the weather will allow. Mayne in Lumley is +to come out and give me open-air lessons. I shall paint our Caro nursing +her foot in its red shoe under an apple-tree—you shall see what you +shall see. But now I must tie on my hood, and run down the lane to Goody +Amos’s, with the plaster for her burn. Don’t forget that there is a +puppet-show in the town-hall, which we promised to attend this +afternoon, before drinking a dish of tea, and staying for a bit of +supper with Captain Craddock and his wife.” + +Very busy was Lady Bell—the true secret of happiness. Yet, walking home +that same evening, escorted by the gallant Captain and the Summerhill +man with a lantern, Lady Bell fell behind Mrs. Sundon and her cavalier, +and began dreaming under the stars. + +The dreams were not in the style of Dr. Young, though Lady Bell had been +lately reading his “Night Thoughts,” and admiring them greatly, as +everybody admired them then. + +The dreams implied rather a vague sense of waiting and of want, and of +stirring in the unfathomable depths even of a girl’s nature. Was +unruffled tranquillity, after all, the secret of life’s best +fulfilment?—whether was it worse to have been torn by warring passions +like Mrs. Sundon, or that passion should never be awakened in the dead +calm within? Might not the last be a greater loss to Lady Bell than the +first had proved to her friend? + +Was Lady Bell to pass through life and have adventures, be sad and glad, +poor and in comparative affluence, friendless and with many friends, a +wife and a widow, and her heart still remain void of a history? + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + BOW BELLS AND THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT. + + +“Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon one morning, looking up from a letter which she +had been reading, “here is something for you. The Sundons of Sundon +Green, who have always been on good terms with me, write to invite us to +pay them a visit in town, as they have taken a house in Cleveland Court, +St. James’s, for the winter and spring. What have I to do with town +sights and gaieties till Caro is a finished young lady? But your day is +only beginning. This invitation is the very thing for you, since I hate +to think of you being moped up here continually.” + +Lady Bell protested that she did not pine for change, and that to spend +her life with her beloved, excellent, agreeable Sunny ought to be more +than enough for her, as it would at one time have been beyond her +wildest wishes. + +But Mrs. Sundon was bent on the change for Lady Bell. “You have no +friends of your own to take you out,” Mrs. Sundon pursued the theme, +“but Lady Sundon will be quite pleased and proud to usher into the great +world a young lady of title above that of a country baronet’s wife. She +is a worthy, cordial soul, in spite of weakness for rank, and will be +really kind to you.” + +Lady Bell tried to look indifferent, but her eyes sparkled, and Mrs. +Sundon was resolute in carrying out the proposal. Nevertheless, Lady +Bell was sentimental and almost rueful the night before she was to start +for town, to which happily the Mayor of Lumley was bound in order to +figure in a deputation, and Lady Bell with a young waiting-woman who was +to be about her person, was to make the journey with the Mayor in his +semi-official capacity. + +“Caro will have forgotten me in three months,” reflected Lady Bell a +little disconsolately as she sat idle, for a wonder, in the bright, +pleasant room. “Goody Martin may have been carried off to a better world +with her cough and rheumatism. Master Charles may have got his colours, +and have marched to t’other end of this world, and been engaged in an +‘affair,’ as the newspapers call it, like the one at Lexington which we +were reading of. Your imitation Japan screens will be finished, but I +shan’t have seen every stage of the process.” + +“You won’t miss much there, Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon. + +Lady Bell continued her catalogue. “You will have read out Plutarch’s +Lives, and I shall not have had the advantage of hearing your remarks as +you went along. The spring will have come back, and be well established, +but I shall have taken a leap over the first snowdrops, crocuses, +primroses, and violets. I wonder if I shall gain enough to make up for +the loss? I begin to wonder even if I shall be permitted to come back, +and find everything as I left it here, after I have been so mad as to +quit, of my own free will, our dear, sweet home?” + +“It is not in that you need fear change,” asserted Mrs. Sundon +cheerfully, “if you come back to us unchanged yourself, Bell, that is +the question.” + +“Oh, as to that there is no fear,” declared Lady Bell confidently, +recovering her spirit. “I must ever be true to Summerhill. But ah, +Sunny!” she relapsed the next moment, “we have been so happy here—so +much happier than I ever was before. Does it not seem doubtful whether +the same happiness can be again in this troublous world?” + +“If not the same, then let us trust that there may be happiness of +another kind to supply the place of the past happiness,” Mrs. Sundon +encouraged the girl. “Come, Bell, I will not have you low on this our +last night.” + +Lady Bell forgot all her forebodings when she found herself drawing near +to London again. + +A hundred years ago, when communication was slow and difficult, and +knowledge little spread, the civilisation of the country centered +peculiarly in the capital. It was the source of every public movement, +the winter seat of the court, the high place of noble and splendid +society, the chosen resort of wisdom, wit, learning, and accomplishments +under every guise. It had its gross evils, no doubt, but so great were +its counterbalancing advantages and its general irresistible +fascination, that even the most modest and sober moralists and +philosophers, of all ages and both sexes, sighed longingly to enjoy the +benefits and charms of town life. + +And Lady Bell was town bred. The very smoke smelt sweet, and the cries +sounded melodious to her ears. + +“Oh, sir!” she addressed the Mayor as they were drawing near the great +city, while she was unable to resist putting her head out of the coach +windows. “Let us try to catch the first sound of Bow bells; let us make +my woman Rogers hear them. They do jingle so tunefully, one cannot +wonder that they caused Whittington to return, even without the cat.” + +Lady Bell’s arrant native propensity for the life, the stir, and the +variety of the town, had only been subdued into a grateful, intelligent +acknowledgment that the country also had its charms, it was not routed +out of her. She was inclined to return to her first love. + +Then, to add to the gladness of Lady Bell’s return, she was coming back +under different and happier auspices. Instead of the helpless, penniless +child, driven off to the cold welcome of St. Bevis’s, Lady Bell was an +independent woman; and though she was not a rich young widow, as Mrs. +Greenwood and Sneyd had once hoped for her, she was a young widow, with +a modest but sufficient jointure, going to her friend’s friends, who +were to consider it a credit and satisfaction to entertain her. + +The members of the Sundon family, who were in Cleveland Court, St. +James’s, were Sir Peter and Lady Sundon and her two step-daughters. The +only son of the family was a boy at school. + +Sir Peter was sixty-four, lank and lantern-jawed, and ailing, as his +appearance betokened. He had come up to town to be under some of the +medical faculty there. + +Lady Sundon was fifty-five, as hale as Sir Peter was the reverse, one of +those hearty, brisk women who did not require rouge, she was so rosy in +her matronly roundness of cheek; and did not want a stick, or the page’s +arm, she was still so active in her fulness of figure. + +The Misses Sundon were between twenty and thirty, daughters of Sir Peter +by a former marriage; while the son and heir was Lady Sundon’s only +child. The Misses Sundon were young women to whom it seemed a matter of +necessity to wear the highest heads and heels of the period, in order to +lend distinction to their poverty of form and general colourlessness. + +“You’ll be after the sights, Lady Bell,” said Sir Peter at supper. “Ah! +they ain’t worth the trouble and fatigue they give you,” he ended, +shaking his head, as he called the grapes sour which he could no longer +reach. + +“Bother! Sir Peter,” cried Lady Sundon, “to go and daunt my Lady Bell, +and she as fresh as a daisy, and as nimble as a young colt. I’ll warrant +she’ll be up to all the racketing, from the Queen’s caudle-drinking to +the opening of Ranelagh, which we can cram into the next two or three +months.” + +“Not so bad as that, Lady Sundon,” said Lady Bell; “but though I’ve seen +the sights, save it may be the newest, I confess I’ve come up to try a +taste of town gaieties again.” + +“And do you think such a fine young woman as you are will be let off +with a taste, even if that were to content you, when every maccaroni +left will be wild to make you take your fill of pleasure.” + +“La! Lady Sundon,” interposed Miss Lyddy Sundon, who, in company with +her sister, was as die-away as her stepmother was jolly, that they might +thus establish a claim to refinement and a presumptive case of +superficial grievance, against Lady Sundon. For somebody had impressed +upon the young women, that there must be hardships where there were +step-relations, and Miss Lyddy and her sister had languidly taken up the +idea as a source of interest which could not otherwise be found in their +ordinary persons, characters, and prosperous lot. “Who would care for +such rude draughts? Only a milkmaid or a ploughman could stand them. +Polite people like Lady Bell soon have enough.” + +“A fig for your philosophy, Lyddy,” protested the elder woman; “I never +saw you abstemious in your draughts, and sure I never stint you. As for +milkmaids, young women are very much alike, whether they be milkmaids or +countesses, I take it—no offence, Lady Bell. I do love a noble name and +a title, all the same.” + +“There is no offence,” Lady Bell replied with a smile. + +While Miss Lyddy insinuated a word of hurt feelings—“I wish your +ladyship would explain what you mean by not seeing me abstemious in my +draughts. I hope I know what a delicate woman owes to her nerves.” + +“Sister,”—Miss Sundon soothed the injured fine lady solemnly,—“Lady +Sundon does not mean to speak unkind. She knows that we take after our +papa, and have not her rude health and high spirits, which make her love +her joke to the degree that she may certainly mislead Lady Bell Trevor.” + +“Oh dear, no,” denied Lady Sundon with careless candour, “Lady Bell can +see for herself that you are two poor creatures not able for much, +though after all you are fit for more than you think for, only you have +got it into your heads that it is not tonish to be natural and merry as +grigs, which I was when I was like you. But it is all fudge, and you are +clean out there, as Lady Bell can tell you, and as I could have told you +myself if you would have listened to me. Ain’t the great ladies madder +than the country lasses? Han’t I seen, since I came to town, when I had +ridden out to Twickenham, her Grace of Devonshire marching in +regimentals at the head of a company of fencibles? Now, I ain’t so bad +as that, Sir Peter,” Lady Sundon challenged her valetudinarian husband. + +“No, nor need be, my lady, so long as my bridle is on your neck,” +retorted Sir Peter dryly. + +“You must have mistook,” maintained the two Misses Sundon in a breath; +“her Grace could never have done anything half so shocking. What! march +miles on a filthy miry road, in the company of hundreds of common men, +followed up by the rag, tag and bob-tail of their wives and children; +having no rest and refreshment, unless she could swig her can of ale +with the fellows at the ale-house doors!” + +“I ain’t mistaken—I can credit my own eyes,”—Lady Sundon kept her +point,—“and to march in regimentals, with a regiment of common men as +honest as their betters, was none so shocking, after the stories I have +heard told of card-playing on Sunday evenings, Sir Peter, of +masquerading, of appointments in Belsize Park, of Fleet +marriages—Parliament hath forbidden the last—you have lost that chance, +girls.” + +“Madam, would you ever liken us to it?” gasped the step-daughters. + +“Polly, your tongue wags too freely,” remonstrated her husband, “and I +won’t have you run Lady Bell and the girls off their feet. Besides, what +is to become of me?” he asked in a dolorous tone; “am I to be left to +Jebb’s gallipots and James’s powders, while you are frisking about all +day and all night? Is that what you call acting the part of a good wife, +and training up these daughters of ours in the way they should go?” + +“Oh, no fears—no fears of you, above all, my dear,” Sir Peter’s lively +helpmate reassured him. “You’ll be seen to, whatever comes of it. Were +you ever forgotten? Indeed, to suppose so, is the unkindest cut you’ve +given me and the girls this age.” And then, failing to be cut by the +cut, Lady Sundon proceeded to plan a party of pleasure. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + A GAY YOUNG MADAM. + + +With so light-hearted a head of the house, just held in check by the +mild selfishness of Sir Peter and the mild grumbling of his daughters, +Lady Bell could not have a dull time of it during her stay in town. + +No doubt there were the drawbacks which are inevitable in life, and +which make the realisation of our dearest wishes fall short of the +expectation. + +There was the tender pang with which Lady Bell, having hurried to the +spot on the first opportunity, looked on the outside of her old home, +Lady Lucie’s lodgings in Bruton Street, occupied by strangers. + +There was the pensive wonder and regret with which, forgetting the +changes in herself, Lady Bell found that even a few years had been able +to make havoc in Lady Lucie’s circle; so many of the members were old, +like Lady Lucie, and had soon followed her in death; while the younger +individuals, engrossed with their personal cares, had all but forgotten +little Lady Bell, who had so faithfully remembered them, and met her +again with the indifference of exhausted acquaintance. + +Strange moving vicissitudes had overtaken some of the old familiar +figures. + +But though they startled and affected Lady Bell for the moment, the +victims had not been so much to her, that their memory should continue +to weigh upon her mind, and the blanks which their absence made, at +first, were soon amply supplied. + +In like manner, if the very topics of conversation were changed, and +nobody seemed to remember the old Princess of Wales’s death, or the +failure of Fordyce’s Bank, Lady Bell could catch the new cue and speak +of the American war with the best. + +The Sundons, of Sundon Green, were people of good account in their own +county. Sir Peter, invalided though he was, had considerable political +influence in the heat of the strife raging between Tory and Whig. + +Lady Sundon was generally popular, even among more fastidious and +exacting people. Her good-humoured blitheness, dashed with coarseness +and worldly-mindedness, had the manifest advantage that it did not rank +high enough among the virtues to form a reproach to the halting virtue +of anybody. + +But Lady Bell possessed in herself, independent of her host and hostess, +almost all the elements calculated to insure a season’s success. She was +a complete novelty, appearing at her age, after years of rustication. +She had the benefit of acknowledged birth and breeding, to which Lady +Sundon led the way, in paying open, honest enough homage, as she frankly +confessed herself Lady Bell’s social inferior, while she displayed as +frankly her pride in taking Lady Bell about. Above all, Lady Bell was +lovely, with a dainty, arch loveliness, which her youthful widowhood +rendered peculiarly piquant. + +The presence of the Misses Sundon in Lady Bell’s company was simply the +putting of two foils beside the little lady, while the foils were useful +in dividing responsibility with her, and in rendering her security +doubly secure. + +Lady Bell was not rich to bribe suitors, but she was so far well off as +to make the pursuit of her, regarding her merely as an object of +attraction and fashion, comparatively safe to the gallant fops, wits, +and idle men of wealth and rank lounging or rioting through the hours, +and ever ready to welcome a fresh interest. + +As it happened, just at that moment, a belle’s throne was vacant, after +the conjoint reign of the three great belles of late seasons. + +Lady Mary Somerset was swiftly paying the penalty of a “wasp waist,” and +sickening to death under the burden of the honours of the Marchioness of +Granby. + +Lady Harriet Stanhope had become Lady Harriet Foley, and was on the way +with her husband to Newmarket and ruin. + +Of Lady Betty Compton, whose style and title remained unchanged, it +might be alleged, much as it was said with regard to Aristides the Just, +that the fashionable world had waxed weary of the name and fame of Lady +Betty Compton. + +Foolish Lady Betty! she ought to have inaugurated a change of some kind +betimes, and married or died after the example of her sister queens, for +there is nothing so mercurial as the wind of opinion which brings about +the installation or deposition of such an airy sovereign. + +And now Lady Bell Trevor grew the rage until she was as universal a +toast in town as she had been in humble provincial circles. + +There is no denying that Lady Bell enjoyed her success, and the writing +of it to Mrs. Sundon, in the most off-hand, unsophisticated manner. + +The pleasures of the town, which might be vapid and worse—tainted to +more thoughtful, experienced people, were very fresh and sparkling to +Lady Bell; she found a thousand things to engage and delight her at the +opera, the play-houses, the Court revisited, the ridottos, the private +assemblies. It was no trouble and distress, but great pleasure to her to +pay visits, attend auctions, and go a-shopping three mornings out of +four. It was so entire a change, though it was like native air, that she +returned to it with renewed zest. She might, probably she would, tire of +it after a time, but she could not tire of it very soon. + +And Lady Bell found it highly agreeable to be followed, besieged, even +persecuted by the attentions of those men, some of them +distinguished—whether for good or evil, or both, as elegant scholars, as +daring travellers, as dead shots (when the game was not shy partridges +or timid deer, but fellow-men, scowling in deadly enmity, pistol in +hand, at twelve paces distance), as bold riders, and betters, and +three-bottle men who, drunk or sober, could remain masters of the +situation, and make themselves listened to in the House, and out of it, +compared to the least brilliant of whom Master Charles of Nutfield was +but a comely, kindly rustic and ignoramus. + +The great proportion of these men were little in earnest in their +adulation; but Lady Bell was quite aware of the fact, and did not mind +it. Her own heart was not touched; she could meet her admirers on equal +terms, and like a child playing with fire, she feared no danger. She +liked, though it meant next to nothing, to be besieged for her hand in a +minuette or a cotillon, for the honour of serving her with tea in the +box of a coffee-room after the opera or the theatre, or of handing her +to Lady Sundon’s coach. She did not object to being spoken to, albeit +the terms were exaggerated, of the felicity of being in her presence, +and the despair of feeling her absence. She did not believe it, of +course, but it was a little intoxicating at the same time. + +Lady Sundon, who had not enjoyed any reflected triumphs on her +step-daughters’ account, was in the greatest glee at being chaperon to +so favoured a young lady. + +Mrs. Sundon, who had been brought up to the contemplation of these +triumphs, considered them quite legitimate, and viewed them as the +necessary finish to the rearing of a woman of quality, and the mode by +which her future was most frequently rounded off and settled. + +Lady Bell could have got into almost any set. Though she had no claims +to dabbling in literature, she would have been granted admittance to the +assemblies of the blues—in the drawing-rooms of Lady Charleville, Mrs. +Boscawen, and the great Mrs. Montague. But the truth was that Lady Bell +did not altogether appreciate classical poses and coquettings with the +muse, and did not care for the fine gentlemen who were so sensitive +about her reading their poems, and the great ladies who were so fond of +hearing themselves speak. + +Lady Bell had once taken a prominent part in an election, yet she was as +guileless as most young women of eighteen of comprehending or caring for +politics, unless, indeed, they bore on such sentimental, sensational +questions as the imprisonment of the Queen of Denmark—the marriage of +the Pretender—or Lord Mansfield’s decision that no slave could be sent +back from England to the chain and the lash of a taskmaster. Still, that +trifling deficiency might not have prevented her from entering the ranks +of the fair enthusiasts, who, in the vacancy or the usurped possession +of heart and mind, and in the craving for excitement which circumstances +fostered, were already short-sighted partisans and reckless agitators +for and against American independence, in sympathy with or in hostility +to French philosophers. Lady Bell would have proved an invaluable +acquisition even to the sisters Devonshire and Duncannon and to Mrs. +Crew, who would have opened their exclusive arms to her, for they forgot +to be rivals in their fervent worship at the one shrine of their +half-splendid, half-brutified idol, who could guide alike a steed and a +state. + +But Lady Bell shrank from the wild devotion to the buff and the blue, or +to any other colour of the rainbow. She contented herself with +marvelling at Anne, Duchess of Northumberland, haranguing the populace +from a window in Covent Garden, on the election of her brother-in-law, +Lord Percy, and with freely owning that this performance far surpassed +any of her, Lady Bell Trevor’s, election achievements. + +Lady Bell was too young, too pretty, and at once too rich and too poor, +to take to the card-tables, which were still more enthralling than the +hustings to their votaries, and which were the conspicuous +accompaniments of every entertainment. She might have had gambling in +her blood, through her relationship to Squire Godwin, but her life at +St. Bevis’s and Mrs. Sundon’s experience had destroyed the +constitutional predilection. + +Lady Bell was instinctively wise in not allying herself so closely to +any circle as to shut herself out from others, and in preferring to +shine as a charming visitor to each in turn. By this species of +discretion, as much as by her graces, Lady Bell won the approbation of +the master of assemblies to aristocratic London, whose notice was +honour, and his approbation the seal of taste. The exquisite, +rattling-boned, grimacing Mr. Walpole condescended to commend her, asked +to be presented to her, found out she was his cousin a hundred times +removed, and graciously invited her to the next theatrical +representations at Strawberry Hill. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE AT THE PANTHEON. + + +Lady Bell was with the Sundons at the Pantheon, which was in winter what +“dear delightful Ranelagh” was in its season, to every town +letter-writer of the generation. + +Here, too, was to be met a considerable amount of picturesqueness, +variety, and freedom in an age which alternated between excessive +ceremonial and bursts of licence. All the world could go to the Pantheon +as to Ranelagh, and, if in consequence there were, on the one hand, +greater openings to folly and vice, there were, on the other, better +provisions for rational and innocent pleasure, than in more private and +restricted places of entertainment. + +The women who groaned under the barbarous encumbrances and entanglements +of ruffled sacques, and immensely high and extravagant dressed “heads,” +at other fashionable gatherings, could come in an elegant undress to the +Pantheon as well as to Ranelagh, walk about, listen to concerts, and +form little social parties in the underground tea-room. There was a +charming demi-toilette for such places, of gowns with worked +neckerchiefs, and little hats over the hair, hanging down in curls upon +the shoulders. While the use of this privilege at a resort rendered so +brilliant, was not held to preclude distinctive touches of gay knots of +ribands, fans, and sparkling jewels. + +The gentlemen were not permitted the same relaxation in their +obligations. They must have the triangular hats mostly carried under the +arm when the hair was fully powdered, the silk stockings, and the lace +cravats. None save defiant bucks of high rank ventured to violate the +traditions of the Pantheon or Ranelagh by presenting themselves in +morning buckskins and short coats. + +Lady Bell and the Sundons had arrived too early, Lady Sundon having a +country mania for being in time at public places, to have collected any +stray members of what Lady Sundon called Lady Bell’s “pack.” + +The party with their single male attendant, a hobble-de-hoy nephew of +Sir Peter’s, had gone down-stairs to pass the interval in drinking tea, +till the main body of the company should arrive, and the tuning of the +musical instruments end. As other first-comers followed the Sundons’ +example, Lady Sundon kept on the out-look to hail acquaintances. + +Lady Bell was resting and anticipating, with lips apart and a flickering +smile, what hero of her train would turn up soonest. + +Miss Sundon was pensively helping Miss Lyddy Sundon to the last +macaroon, on which the hobble-de-hoy squire had cast a covetous eye, and +remarking with a sigh, “Sister, we need not have been so hurried as to +take away the little appetites we have, scarcely a soul is to be seen. I +understand it is the correct thing not to come till near ten o’clock. +But you and I must do as we are bidden.” + +“And a good thing for you too, girls,” proclaimed Lady Sundon, in her +slightly view-halloo voice. “What! wait till near ten and miss all the +company coming, the best part of the pleasure, and the half of the +concert—though I can’t say I care for their Italian squalling; give me +one of Lady Bell’s lessons on the spinet, or a good English chorus. But +my likings are neither here nor there. And no, say I, I shan’t be +cheated of half my treat, such as it is. There is somebody I ought to +know. Heyday! it is my own cousin, Harry Fane, come up from his ship at +Portsmouth.” + +Lady Sundon whisked off her seat, unimpeded by her size or her years, as +if she had been a girl of sixteen, and favoured by the thinness of the +company, succeeded in overtaking and tapping with her fan the shoulder +of a gentleman in blue and white uniform, whom she arrested in his +course, and brought back with her, as a reward of virtue and early +habits. + +“See what I’ve got by coming betimes, girls; sure, we might never have +set eyes on each other if the rooms had been full,” Lady Sundon cried +exultingly, and then she rattled on in one long sentence, with breaks +for breath. “You know my step-daughters, Harry, and this is Lady Bell +Trevor, a friend of Mrs. Sundon, of Chevely (at least, she used to be of +Chevely, poor soul! before Greg Sundon went all to the dogs), who does +us the honour of being with us this winter. All agog Lady Bell keeps us, +I can tell you, so that neither she, nor we, can get peace for you men.” + +“Pray don’t give me so bad a character, madam,” objected Lady Bell +demurely. + +“It has been the same tune,” maintained Lady Sundon, “since she was Lady +Bell Etheredge, Earl Etheredge’s daughter (I hope you are up in your +peerage, Harry); she had to marry old Squire Trevor, for peace, when she +was a chit of fifteen, but he is dead, and she is as bad as ever.” + +“Do you mean to fright your cousin, till he refuse to be presented to +me, Lady Sundon?” Lady Bell cut short the tale of her conquests. + +“He ain’t such a lubberly coward as to deprive himself of what blue +jackets, as well as red coats, are fighting for; if he were, he should +get no harbour from me. Lady Bell Trevor, Captain Fane of the +_Thunderbomb_. He may pull a long face at our frivolity, and pretend to +find fault with us for being children playing with toys, but he is not +such a bad fellow at bottom—as some of these misanthropes—misogynists, +what-d’ye call-‘ems.” + +“I am obliged to you for the character of a sage, cousin,” replied the +gentleman with perfect gravity, “Lady Bell Trevor, will you permit me, +so soon after being introduced, to take the liberty of pitying you, if +my cousin is serious in her account.” + +“A humorist,” Lady Bell commented to herself under her breath, “an +animal that I detest, though I understand my dear Mrs. Sundon has rather +a fancy for the species—there is no accounting for tastes—neither is the +specimen handsome to excuse him for any form of conceit. I dare say he +is clever in some dry disagreeable way.” + +Captain Fane of the _Thunderbomb_, thus apostrophized and reviewed by +bright keen eyes, was a young man of twenty-eight years. Although he was +not strictly handsome, he had a good figure, which his naval uniform set +off, and his face—with a thick cogitative nose, a wrinkle between the +eyebrows, and a tendency to squareness in the jaws—was lit up by a pair +of fine eyes, and a pleasantness in his smile when he did smile, which +was rather too seldom. + +Captain Fane accepted Lady Sundon’s invitation to join her party; he was +on very good terms with his cousin, though she announced to Lady Bell, +“he takes me off at no allowance,” and in accordance with this +communication Lady Sundon was continually nodding her head, and snapping +her fan in mock agreement with, or smart protest at, Captain Fane’s +strictures. + +The gentleman was indemnifying himself for his concession to kindred +feminine influence by the private reflection, “Here is a fine lady of +fashion whom my ‘merry wife’ of a cousin has bagged by some chance. I’d +better improve the opportunity of studying the latest shore and town +follies, grafted on a woman’s wilfulness and caprice. Heartless young +dowager (why, she looks little more than a child!) to have married an +‘old Squire Trevor’ and buried him to boot, and to be looking out for +his successor, I warrant, with what she’s been cunning enough to secure +of the defunct Squire’s goods. It is a bad, as well as a mad world, my +masters; but of all things I can’t abide an artful young woman, and this +one looks so artless (which makes the art much worse) in the middle of +her airs and graces.” + +“Harry don’t think we women have a pinch of sense,” Lady Sundon was +saying, “besides the five senses we can’t help having. As for him, I +tell him that except that he’s as sober as a judge (and he a sailor!), +and is fond of books and instruments, having his cabin fitted up with +them like a pedagogue’s den, he’s a regular chip of some of the horrid +old woman-hating admirals. You are a woman of spirit, Lady Bell. I do +wish that you would serve it out to him, or take him in hand and do +something to improve him.” + +“Pardon me, Lady Sundon, I have neither time nor talent in that way,” +Lady Bell excused herself with one of her airs, not approving of this +proposal on so short an acquaintance, to the cynical, saucy fellow’s +face. + +“And I should not be worth the trouble, Lady Bell,” the gentleman +hastened to explain; “I am afraid that I am incorrigible to any fair, +fine lady’s pains.” + +Though neither of them exactly meant it, they were both so disdainful, +that it was a good deal like flinging down gauntlets on the first brush +of their introduction—a mutual challenge, which was so far owing to Lady +Sundon’s blundering cordiality. + +“Oh! not so bad as that, Harry,” exclaimed the good lady, who really +liked her cousin, as she liked pickles or the preserved ginger, with +regard to which he had once been so mindful as to bring her a jar from +the West Indies. “I am quite convinced, Lady Bell, that he needs only to +be smiled and frowned upon by one of our sex, and to hang on our smiles +and tremble at our frowns, to be properly humbled, and made a mighty +agreeable fellow of.” + +“Indeed, ma’am,” answered Lady Bell, in a tone which sounded very much +as if she had said, “He may, or he may not; I am sure I don’t care.” + +“You are wrong, cousin,” replied Captain Fane quickly, “I don’t pretend +to be worse or better than my neighbours, certainly; but I do profess +that where neither my judgment nor my conscience is addressed, I am not +particularly susceptible to the wiles either of smiles or frowns, or for +that matter of tears.” + +“Oh, you wretch!” cried out even the Misses Sundon. + +“Why, what would you have?” remonstrated Captain Fane; “you ladies must +submit to the fact that there are some ill-conditioned rebels against +the rule of blandishments, while sea-horses of all horses are the worst +to tame. However, a truce to me and my nature, a monstrously +uninteresting subject to introduce, Lady Sundon; what have you been +doing with yourself lately?” + +“Oh, we have been doing what we could when Sir Peter would spare us, so +as to make the town and society the better even for my blowsy phiz; but +I’ve had my day, Harry, I’ve had my day. We’ve seen Mr. Garrick take +leave of the stage in the _Wonder_, and the new Italian +singer—what’s-his-name—make his first appearance in _Artaxerxes_. We’ve +heard Dr. Dodd preach in aid of the society for the recovery of the +drowned, and been present at one of Madam Montague’s dinners to the +chimney-sweeps. We’ve walked in the Mall and Kensington Gardens whenever +the sun would keep us in countenance, which was not too often, when the +sulky rogue let the Thames be froze at Mortlake during the late fall of +snow. We’ve been both to the Queen’s House and the Mansion House, and to +ever so many dinners and routs. We’ve even had our share of the new +sickness, the influenza, which is all the vogue, though we could have +dispensed with that token of fashion. I could not tell you all that +we’ve been and done, Cousin Harry.” + +“I think you’ve told me pretty well, Cousin Sundon,” quoth Harry. “I +almost hesitate to propose that you should take a stroll, you must all +be so knocked up; no wonder that Miss Sundon and Miss Lyddy look as if a +breath of air would blow them away.” + +“A fiddlestick for their being blown away! They’re quite hearty if they +would only think it. Lady Bell makes no complaint, and she is always as +fresh as paint when a new pleasure is spoke of. She is something like a +girl; I have no patience with girls being vapoured, sir, it is a +reproach on you men, if you understood it. Girls were different when I +was young, and I ain’t vapoured now that I am old. If you were to cut +and shuffle in a hornpipe, like a Jack tar on the boards, I could caper +the steps of ‘Joan Saunderson’ or ‘Nancy Dawson’ back again. Since you +won’t, let us go the round, and see and be seen by all means; what is +life without a bit of pleasure?” + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + OPINIONS DIFFER. + + +As the party went up-stairs, and strolled about amongst other animated +groups, admiring what were reckoned the Gothic portions of the Pantheon, +listening to the rising strains of the orchestra, which still admitted +the ring of laughing voices—buxom Lady Sundon grew radiant. “Now, ain’t +this nice, Harry?” she demanded triumphantly; “ain’t it something to +come on shore for—worth years of the sloppy, draggle-tailed country?” + +“As to nice, the word is too vague. I’d as lief not pledge myself to +what you mean by niceness,” he told her; “and I own to being rather +fonder of green fields than filthy streets, after a long tack of blue +waves.” + +“But this ain’t filthy streets, Harry. Now, I shall think you right down +cross and contrary, if you refuse to admit that the Pantheon, at least, +takes your fancy.” + +“Then, not to mortify you, madam, the Pantheon itself is not half so +silly or so bad as many places of public and private entertainment that +I’ve been to in my life. If I were to stay on shore, and in London, I +should not mind coming sometimes to the Pantheon.” + +“I dare say you shouldn’t—your humble servant, Harry, for the +condescension!” + +“Especially if I were to come across such a man as Admiral Byron,” +continued Captain Fane, bowing low to a bluff, elderly gentleman in +passing. “He played the man when he was no more than a middy, young +sir”—Captain Fane pointed the application by looking over his shoulder +and addressing Sir Peter’s nephew, walking between the Misses Sundon, +and instantly beginning to swell with wrath because his tender years +were hinted at—“He was a castaway on a South Sea Island, and he managed +to survive five years of hardship unparalleled in our day, among +savages. There is somebody to look at, worth a hundred of your beaux and +belles.” + +“And han’t I stared the man out,” declared Lady Sundon, “till he thinks +there’s a hole in his epaulette, or a paper pinned on his back?” + +“It isn’t the luck of every one to be a castaway on a South Sea Island, +and to learn a lesson from savages,” said Lady Bell. “Beaux and belles +can’t help their want of luck. You should be fair, Captain Fane.” + +“I’ll try, Lady Bell,” he promised, “if you’ll point out to me one man +or woman of your fine fashionables—remember, I don’t say civilians, I +hope I’m not such a swaggering fire-eater as to confine merit to one or +both of the services—who, in his or her different circumstances, has +shown half the ingenuity and energy, not to say resignation, which my +friend the Admiral was privileged, as you put it not incorrectly, to +display.” + +“Oh, come, sir!” cried Lady Bell with spirit, dropping her assumption of +meekness, “I shall not have far to seek to confute your argument, and I +shall take a woman in order to cover you with confusion. True, I don’t +say she has kindled a fire with flints, or dug up roots with her +fingers, or knocked down birds with a stick; but I conclude that you—an +educated gentleman—consider ingenuity and energy may be well bestowed in +other respects than in relieving mere gross, bodily wants.” + +“I grant you that, Lady Bell.” + +“Do you see the lady in the silver gauze?—not there, and that is not +silver gauze, that is white brocade, while the wearer is only charming +Lady Hesketh. No, here, the slight young lady in the silver gauze, with +the fine hair in a wave above her forehead, and the high aquiline +nose—do you know what she is famous for?” + +“No; I must admit my ignorance.” + +“Not for her beauty, although you may see she is beautiful; not for +being gallant General Conway’s daughter; not even for being wife of my +Lord Milton’s son, who has the finest wardrobe in London—finer even than +thirty thousand a year will stand, folks swear; for men can be as vain +as women sometimes, and a great deal more reckless in their vanity. But +Mrs. Damer puts on a mob cap and canvas apron, and with those little +white hands wields mallet and chisel, as well as moulds in wax and clay. +She hath done groups of animals as true as life, and busts of men and +women—their speaking images. She is a great sculptor, sir, such as Mr. +Bacon or Mr. Nollekens. What do you say to that?” Lady Bell wound up her +peroration by making a profound curtsey. + +“It is all gospel, Harry,” Lady Sundon confirmed the account. “They tell +me that pretty stylish woman is so far left to herself that she likes +nothing better than muddling among wet blocks and splinters of stone, +and hewing away like any stonemason.” + +“I stand corrected,” admitted Harry Fane honestly, addressing himself to +Lady Bell. “I honour the lady both for her capacity and determination.” + +“And I can assure you, sir, she is not the only woman who deserves your +honour for intellect and perseverance,” insisted Lady Bell, woman-like, +not content with the inch conceded, but proceeding to ask a yard. “Of +course it is not given to many women to be endowed like Mrs. Damer, but +if you knew my dear Mrs. Sundon, down at Summerhill, how wise she is, +how attentive to all her duties, how regular and unwearied in her +studies—well!” she broke off enthusiastically, “she shames me into +solidity and steadiness. I never have a fit of the gapes, and I am in no +way flighty when I am with her.” + +“That is a great testimony,” said Captain Fane with grave abstraction, +as if he were meditating on the force of the evidence. + +“You provoking man!” Lady Sundon reproached him, rapping him across the +fingers with her fan, while Lady Bell bit her lips with pique, and +turned away indignant at being laughed at, a process to which she was +not over much accustomed. + +Lady Bell was too proud to pout, but she had made up her mind that she +would submit to no more flouting from this impertinent, conceited +sailor, when all at once he begged her pardon, said penitently and +agreeably that Mrs. Sundon was at least fortunate in having such an +advocate that he could take the unknown lady’s superiority on trust. + +Lady Bell felt rewarded for her gallantry in fighting the humoursome +sailor, when she had constrained him to soften his looks and tones, and +to except not merely Mrs. Sundon but herself in his budget of +criticism—if Lady Sundon had let the man alone in leaving him to his +better mind, and had not, by interfering, spoilt all! + +“Mercy on us!” Lady Sundon ejaculated, “wonders will never cease; my +polar bear has paid a compliment!” + +“Not paid a compliment—told a truth,” Captain Fane had condescended to +say further, quite graciously. + +“Another, another, Harry! you’re a reformed man on the spot—see what a +pretty woman can do—a bear that has changed its skin!” Lady Sundon had +leapt too fast to a conclusion. + +“I am afraid I must damp your expectation, and shock you once more,” +alleged Captain Fane, with a perverse twinkle in his eyes, “for I was +about to add that if your Mrs. Sundon is so wondrous wise a woman, why +did she go ‘in the galley,’ as I have understood she did? I mean, why +did she throw herself away on so dissipated a man and so inveterate a +gambler as Gregory Sundon, of Chevely, whose disgrace had been so +manifest and black, that he has been suffered to drop clean out of this +corrupt enough gay world, as well as out of his wife’s offended sight. +If she was to be particular, she should have begun sooner.” + +“Sir!” replied Lady Bell, with her hot young generosity firing up in +every word, “I do not pretend to justify my friend in every act of her +life; and for the magnanimous faith with which she trusted her precious +self and her fortune to the unhappy husband who failed her, I say +nothing, save that it ill becomes even so faultless and prudent a man, +as I do not doubt Captain Fane is, to blame her.” + +“Well said—as good as a play, Lady Bell. Lady Bell, I’m proud of you,” +protested Lady Sundon. “Hit him hard when you’re at it! Yes, indeed, +you’re no better than a mean scamp, though you are my own cousin, Harry; +and I did not think it of you, for all your droll crustiness and carping +words, till Lady Bell hath opened my eyes—to twit a fine woman with her +indiscreet tenderness to one of your own ungrateful sex—as well kiss and +tell. What have you to say for yourself?” + +“Nothing!” answered Harry, with a little shrug of his broad shoulders, +“and Lady Bell need not hit harder, seeing she has hit hard enough to +floor me already. Madam, I was wrong to urge such an inconsistency in +your friend. It was ill done on my part, as you said. I cannot do less +than make amends to her and to you by saying that I am sorry for my +unhandsome words.” + +Again Lady Bell was propitiated by a new and rare flattery in finding +that she could sway and subdue not a willing slave, not an indolent, +careless adorer, but a restive and opinionative man. For here was one +who might have had the misfortune to be a little singular to begin with, +and who, after having been confined to ship-board from childhood, turned +up in the smooth, accommodating world, all angles, ready-formed +prepossessions and prejudices. + +Under the subtle incense, Lady Bell looked at her antagonist more +deliberately over her fan, and out of a pair of eyes analytically +inclined. + +She settled that though he was contradictory and a little abrupt and +harsh in his contradictions, otherwise he was not in the least +ill-mannered or boorish, but had altogether the air of a gentleman and a +man of education, and was thus of the new school of naval officers. He +looked also a man of sense, even of some benevolence, when he gave way +to her, and was so quick and candid in the kind of courage which +confessed even to so small a shortcoming as a mistaken judgment in +conversation. + +As Lady Bell arrived at this improved verdict, the music in chief began, +and the party had to take their seats and listen. + +When the concert was ended, Lady Bell was accosted and monopolized by +one after another of her numerous friends, danglers, and satellites, +until Lady Sundon’s party quitted the Pantheon. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + BOULTON’S COINS AND WEDGWOOD’S DISHES. + + +Next morning Captain Fane called for his cousins in Cleveland Court, to +inquire after Sir Peter and propose a party which should be a compromise +between his ideas and theirs. + +“You seem to have been at so many sights,” Captain Fane said, “that +there are only one or two left for you to see, but as you have gone +hitherto with the multitude, I should not wonder though you have, +without any blame to your judgments, of course, missed some choice +exhibitions.” He addressed Lady Sundon at her fringe-loom and the young +ladies at their tambour-frames. + +“Now what may they be, Harry? We shall be vastly obliged to you for +enlightening us.” Her ladyship was open to a suggestion. + +“There are the exhibitions of Mr. Boulton’s new coins, medals, and +machinery; and there is the show of the new Staffordshire ware which men +of science and taste are flocking to.” + +“Dear heart alive, are we men of science?” remonstrated Lady Sundon; +“we’ve been to Cox’s museum, where an artificial bird sings, and to the +place kept by the Swiss in King Street, Covent Garden, where the effigy +of a boy writes, and the effigy of a girl draws, and another effigy of a +young lady—the marrow of Lyddy there—plays the piano; and that is enough +science for me, if indeed, it ain’t the black art, which it is +uncommonly like. I thought you were going to tell of a fresh batch of +wild Indians, with their paint and war-dances; or of the last caught +syren, with her gills serving as curls, and a fin rising on the top of +her head for that matter instead of our present fashionable ‘heads’—odd! +ain’t it, that the syrens should have the fashions at the bottom of the +sea?—or of a new fortune-teller.” + +“What could put all these foolish things into your head, my lady?” +complained Captain Fane. + +“‘These are the least the man can have in his eye,’ I said to myself,” +she told him for her explanation. “I am extraordinary disappointed. No, +sir; you are a clever dog in your way, and not a bad dog at bottom, +since your bark is worse than your bite, though you have a little of the +bulldog in you too when your temper is fairly roused, but you have no +notion how to please and divert ladies, that’s clear.” + +“Very likely I have not,” answered Captain Fane a little glumly, “but +sure I did you no disparagement when I evened you to what delights men +of parts.” + +“No, indeed, Captain Fane,” spoke up Lady Bell, her natural and +high-bred sweetness in a ferment at the reception which had been +accorded even by good-natured Lady Sundon to the young sailor’s +overture, which was a little too affable in its tone, perhaps, but was +obliging and kindly meant. + +Farther Lady Bell hated to think that Captain Fane would suppose women +in general, and she in particular, had not minds above the vulgar +marvels which Lady Sundon had quoted. + +“If you will forgive me for saying so, Lady Sundon,” Lady Bell gave her +opinion, “you are in the wrong box. All the first people in town, ladies +as well as gentlemen, are running to look at the medallions and vases. +They were inspected by their majesties in person t’other day, and the +Queen gave an order for ornaments to the chimney-pieces of her private +rooms. I know my Mrs. Sundon would not forgive me if I returned to the +country without having set eyes on these works. I don’t pretend to be +very wise myself, but I hope I have no objection to improving my mind, +and that I have sufficient patriotism to be proud of the growing +manufactures of my country.” + +“Upon my word, Lady Bell, you put an old woman to shame,” exclaimed Lady +Sundon, always ready to admire whatever Lady Bell said or did, and yet +in earnest in her admiration. “Hear her! a young modish beauty evening +herself to self-improvement and patriotism like any wizened bookworm. +Have your way, child; I am sure it is a most creditable way, and I am +glad Captain Fane has been so mindful as to put it in your power. But as +I am a score and more of years too old for improving my mind or +patronising my country, and my inclination ain’t in that line, I shall +devote the morning to dancing attendance on my Sir Peter. It will help +to keep the poor soul sweet, and gain me liberty for some more enticing +occasion.” + +“I think we shall be able to get on without you, cousin.” + +“Get away with you, fellow. You don’t want a chaperon, Lady Bell, you +yourself are the most charming chaperon in Lon’on; while poor Nancy and +Lyddy there, that are nigh ten years older than you, never having had +the luck to be married, can’t stir abroad without me jogging at their +elbows; though, gracious me! my office is very much a sinecure so far as +the men are concerned.” + +“Good heavens! Lady Sundon, how can you tell such stories about sister’s +age and mine?” screamed Miss Lyddy. “As for men, if we were willing to +grin and ogle—” she bit her tongue in time to prevent herself adding, +“and to marry men older than our father—” + +“I don’t know that the grinning would do it, Lyddy,” observed the +incorrigible Lady Sundon, shaking her head; “you haven’t teeth for +grins, neither you nor Nancy, they’re too black. But what do you say, +girls, about this morning’s doings? Is it to be ‘hey!’ for Lady Bell and +cousin Harry, with their pots and mugs, or ‘hey!’ for a dosing and +darning match at home.” + +“Gracious, madam,” interposed Miss Sundon peevishly, “how can you phrase +it that we should cry ‘hey!’ for anything; though I am certain we are as +fond of being instructed and entertained as Lady Bell or anybody.” + +“I wish you would look sprightlier about it then, Nancy,” recommended +Lady Sundon, “for who would come to the house, I should like to know, if +they were treated to nothing but dismals—from Sir Peter’s pains to your +and Lyddy’s quarrels with the weather for taking your hair out of the +curl—and not a shade of relief from a joke or laugh to shake one’s sides +and warm one’s blood like a sip of cherry brandy?” + +When the party set out, Lady Bell took care to qualify her support of +the expedition by turning over Captain Fane to walk with one of his +cousins, while she walked with the other. “I am not going to make the +man too proud,” reflected Lady Bell, with a quiet consciousness that she +had it in her power to make a man hold up his head among his fellows; +“he is saucy enough without that.” + +The winter weather was passably dry, so that the fact of Oxford Street’s +not being paved did not materially interfere with the ladies’ comfort. +They saw a man in the act of being whipped round Covent Garden, but he +was not in their way. His worship the Mayor’s coach passed them, but +they were not aware of the circumstance that he had been robbed that +very morning, in sight of his retinue, at Turnham Green, by a single +highwayman, who swore that he would shoot whoever resisted. Though the +knowledge had travelled fast, it would not have inflicted qualms even on +the Misses Sundon, for they were not going out of town. + +The walking-party were not so fortunate as to encounter the wild +Indians, who loomed so largely in Lady Sundon’s imagination as one of +the sights of London this year; but they got a glimpse of Omiah, the +native of Otaheite brought home by Captain Cook. The drawback was that +the interesting savage was not at the moment in South Sea costume, +which, perhaps, was not exactly suited to a January day in London—on the +contrary, he formed a dingy representative of an Englishman in a frock +and pantaloons. + +In the rooms where were the last clean-cut coinage, the casts of figures +in metal, the ingenious clocks, and the skeleton models of larger +machines, which were to turn the world upside down, Lady Bell did her +best to be interested and edified. But after all she found her greatest +fascination in Captain Fane’s intelligent satisfaction, which stimulated +and warmed the whole man, so that his incredulity gave way to credulity, +and in place of sardonic fault-finding, he grew, as it sounded, quite +extravagant in his praise, and became boyish in his animation. + +“These are the marvels of creative mind, Lady Bell. They are signs of +battles won over the opposing elements. I’d liefer fight with air and +water for my fellow-creatures than fight my fellow-creatures themselves. +I’d sooner have been Mr. Boulton, of Birmingham, or the grey stooping +Scotchman his partner, Mr. Watt, who has come up to town about a patent, +and is standing yonder explaining his pistons and valves to a country +mechanic, than I would have been Admiral Rodney or poor Lord Clive.” + +“Nay, but Captain Fane, without our Admirals and Generals where would be +the victories of peace?” objected Lady Bell, putting up her little chin +shrewdly. + +“True, for our comfort,” admitted Captain Fane; “and if wishes were +horses, beggars would ride. It is one thing to command even his +Majesty’s flag-ship, and nail the colours to the mast if need be, and +another to control the elements. There were many captains in Syracuse, +but only one Archimedes. That spare stooping man is the Archimedes of +the modern world.” + +“And he hath the air of a tradesman,” said one of the Miss Sundons +softly, as if resigning herself perforce to the lamentable want of style +of the modern Archimedes. + +“Or of an old schoolmaster,” chimed in Lady Bell mischievously, with a +half inadvertent glance of approving contrast at Captain Fane’s +stalwart, well-carried figure. + +It was a “very pretty” manly figure, though it was not that of an +effeminate dandy such as Admiral Rodney had shown himself, before his +debts drove him to France, and although it had not escaped the +professional rolling gait of the sailor. + +Doubtless even so strict and wise a judge as Harry Fane was prepared to +be, felt propitiated, whether he knew it or not, by the invidious +womanish glance which contrasted the person of the great mechanic with +that of the obscure naval officer, and awarded the advantage to the +latter. + +“What would you have?” he said, smiling. “Sure he has the best to his +share, and there is an old schoolmaster in Bolt Court, at whom we should +not dare to peep, but whom ladies of quality, I am glad to say, have +paid with all the coin at their command, for his generosity towards +them.” + +“Ah! you mean the great and good Dr. Johnson,” exclaimed Lady Bell +eagerly. “My Mrs. Sundon and I, we should have been proud to wait on +him, on our bended knees, if we had got the opportunity. But I fear his +health is failing too much for him to appear often in society. I did +hope to have had a glimpse of him, though I should have half died with +fear lest he had set me down, as he is a little prone to do poor fine +ladies who do not take his fancy. But you would not compare a man of +such erudition in letters to a mere mechanic, however ingenious in his +own line?” + +“I should like to hear what the great honest man of letters would have +to say to the imputation of superiority; I should like to hear what +posterity will have to say,” exclaimed Captain Fane with lively +impatience. “But I confess I have a natural weakness for the science +which provides me with a compass, and the mechanics which build me a +ship, so that possibly I am not a fair authority on the comparative +merits of science and literature.” + +“Sir, the very fact of your owning to a natural weakness vouches for +your impartiality as a witness,” Lady Bell declared with her quaint +graciousness. + +Through what was audacious in the commendation of so young a lady, there +vibrated an exquisite under-tone of simplicity and nobleness. It +contributed to soften still further the crude stiffness, essential to +the naval moralist, not yet thirty, in his bearing towards Lady Bell, +against whose heartlessness and artfulness he had forearmed himself, +when he first contemplated with unequivocal condemnation the +inconsistency of her position as the youngest and loveliest of dowagers. + +When Captain Fane proceeded to escort his ladies to the exhibition of +Wedgwood ware, he found that there was no further call for him to point +out excellencies, extol achievements, and elicit the faint echo of his +own enthusiasm. Lady Bell especially was in unaffected delight. Her +whole artistic nature was stirred; she was excited to the highest +enjoyment. + +Lady Bell flew from fountain to statue, from plateau to vase. She hung +over the nymphs, with their garlands, over the groups of flowers—herself +the most graceful nymph and blooming flower that met the spectator’s +eye. + +She was on her own ground. The ware of Wedgwood and the designs of +Flaxman were, indeed, infinitely beyond her poor little performances in +“composition” for seals and patterns for ruffles; but the spirit of the +two was not so wide apart as to prevent Lady Bell’s entering heart and +soul into the finished work before her, and rejoicing in its +culmination. + +“If Mr. Watt is a stooping, spectacled man, whose grey hair needs no +powder, as powder will not conceal its weather-worn whiteness, what do +you say to all these elegant forms and materials owing their origin to a +small-pox-seamed working man, wanting a leg?” Captain Fane tried her. + +She only laughed. “I should say he was Vulcan himself, only Vulcan was a +smith, not a potter. But I was thinking of the shield of Achilles, of +which I have read in Mr. Pope’s ‘Homer.’ I should not mind what he was +who could shed beauty around him. Look at these sky-blues, sea-greens, +shell lilacs, and pearl-whites. Notice that cup on the stalk, Captain +Fane; what a globe, what delicately-raised birds! I vow I can count +their feathers in flight along the rim. But I am forgetting to thank +you, sir,” exclaimed Lady Bell, stopping on a sudden thought, and +turning to her conductor with frank gratitude. “You have given me a very +happy morning. And not only that, but on many another morning when I am +dabbling feebly enough with my box of colours and my embroidery +chenilles, I shall think of this morning, and recall to my profit, sure, +as well as to my pleasure, Mr. Boulton’s coins and medals, and Mr. +Wedgwood and Mr. Bentley’s least dish.” + +“Will you make me happy in return, Lady Bell, by conferring on me an +additional favour?” said Harry Fane with an impulsive stammer that was +directly opposed to his usual calmness, and yet was by no means +unbecoming in the grave young man. “Will you do me the honour to accept +this cup from me, and keep it as a trophy of Wedgwood and a memento of +what you have been so good as to call a happy morning?” and the fellow +who was known for his restiveness and captiousness, spoke the words +humbly, as if he were addressing them to a queen. + +“With the greatest pleasure, sir,” answered Lady Bell, without a shade +of reluctance, and with a sigh of pure satisfaction and exultation in +the promised possession. “I have been longing to make a purchase of a +small sample of the wonders before me, to take it home and preserve it +as one of my cherished treasures. But I feared that my shallow purse, +already well emptied with town requisitions and extravagances, could not +compass what I desired. I am trespassing on your friendliness; but +besides being yourself a lover of art, you are a kinsman of my kind +hostess, and I declare, through Sir Peter, you are related to my Mrs. +Sundon.” + +Lady Bell slightly impaired the winning ingenuousness of her acceptance +by thus arguing it out, in order to justify it in her own eyes. But she +atoned for the falling off by the evident gratification with which she +hailed a thread of connection between Captain Fane and Mrs. Sundon. + +So agreeably was Lady Bell persuaded of the slender link, that she +helped the open-handed sailor, Miss Sundon and Miss Lyddy, to choose a +piece of Wedgwood ware for Mrs. Sundon, in addition to the pieces for +Lady Sundon and the girls, and readily undertook to take care of the +former piece, convey and present it to Mrs. Sundon, along with the +almanack for her friend, and the set of flappers for Caro, which Lady +Bell had in store. + +Lady Bell made no comment, though she could hardly have overlooked a +circumstance which she might attribute, as the Sundons attributed it, to +her higher rank. There was the same characteristic difference between +Lady Bell’s cup and the plates and saucers of the others that there had +been between Benjamin’s mess and the messes of his brethren, as sent +them from the hands of Joseph, when Jacob’s sons went in and ate with +the ruler of Egypt. Lady Bell’s piece of Wedgwood ware was five times +more valuable than the other pieces. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + A PARTY ON THE WATER. + + +Captain Fane, young wiseacre as he was, reckoned foolishly with little +knowledge of the world, and less knowledge of woman’s nature, that the +next time he met Lady Bell he should take up the acquaintance at the +very point at which he had left it off, on the lucky hit of his +introducing the ladies to the galleries of science and art. + +Far from it, every incident, every influence was different. _Dramatis +personæ_ had entered on the scene who were as new as they were +distasteful to Harry Fane; but they were not new to Lady Bell, and they +and their fellows were possessed of long established claims on her +regard. + +True, some weeks had passed, during which Captain Fane had been before +his chiefs of the Admiralty, and kept hard at work on his professional +business; but a few weeks were nothing, in Harry Fane’s estimation, to +warrant this transformation. + +When Captain Fane employed his next disengaged morning, in repairing to +his cousin’s house in Cleveland Court, he found a gay company marshalled +there, about to take advantage of an unusually fine February day to have +a party on the water. + +“Well come, Harry!” cried hearty Lady Sundon; “we only lacked a naval +man to sit in the end of our barge.” + +“We shall be glad to avail ourselves of your experience, sir,” Lady +Bell, whose party it was specially, was polite enough to say; but it was +said carelessly, and she did not wait for an answer, as both her ears +were monopolized. + +The one ear was filled with the whispers of an affected, lisping woman, +into whose affectation and lisp there could yet be infused such a +judiciously-mixed spice of wit and scandal as very often rendered her +whispers irresistible to their hearers. + +Lady Bell’s remaining ear was kept fixed by the honeyed sharpness of +tongue of a long, lazy, handsome man, in the lingering exquisiteness of +costume of a purple-velvet coat and breeches and white silk stockings, +double vest—one white, the other jonquil colour—two watch guards, a +solitaire, diamond buckles, and a little hat. + +Beside this full-fledged, fine-hued gentleman, Captain Fane, in his +plain blue and white uniform, looked a very sober, and, in his present +humour, a somewhat gruff bird; but Harry took up his gold-laced hat on +the amount of encouragement he received, and went with the company. + +He was the more induced to join the party because he was all at once +seized with a burning wish and necessity to ascertain the precise terms +on which Lady Bell Trevor stood with two of her companions. + +Partial and superficial as Captain Fane’s acquaintance with the +fashionable world was, the pair were too marked for him not to have a +chance of being familiar with their antecedents. + +Sir George Waring and Mrs. Lascelles were connected by more than an +accidental association, though they had escaped the ignominy of a +miserable bond of union. The owners of the names were continually to be +seen together at the same gay parties, some of which were of a debatable +character. + +It was well understood that the couple were fast allies, though the +nature of the alliance remained a mystery. Was it friendship among the +heartless, as there is honour among thieves? Lady Bell honestly believed +so. + +Was it true, as some said, that Sir George had bought over Mrs. +Lascelles by a large debt won from her at piquet, to back him in all his +endless idle schemes and intrigues, and to play into his hand in the +fickle, evil aims of the life at once of a Sir Fribble and a Lovelace? + +Did the solution lie in an unauthorised, low-toned love between the +wickedly good-natured pair, who, with the wisdom of the serpent, held +the passion in check, and preserved their cool, careless mask, trusting +faintly that death might one day interpose in their behalf, and remove +Mrs. Lascelles’s husband, or waiting deliberately till the love rooted +in ashes and fed on malignant vapours, should be surely and for ever +extinguished? + +As for Mrs. Lascelles’s husband, he played no prominent part in the +drama, and put in no claim for sympathy. He was as basely indifferent as +the others; he simply tolerated his wife, and accorded her his +protection, so long as she did not outrage it. + +In reality there was no public scandal concerning these people; but +Harry Fane could not endure to see Lady Bell Trevor with them, on +intimate terms, and she was still seated between the two in the barge. + +Mrs. Lascelles wriggled as a serpent wriggles its glossy spots, and shot +forth unholy green fire, dragon-like, on the right of Lady Bell. + +On the left lounged Sir George, as a splendid sleek tiger steps +stealthily before it springs, and even when it is too gorged and not +greedy enough to spring, bites in wanton playfulness. + +Lady Bell was so ignorant of the true nature of such persons, that she +stopped short with admiring their orange and sable glories; she was +tickled and taken with, rather than repelled, by the green fire of Mrs. +Lascelles’s brilliant scandal, and the playful biting of Sir George’s +half-caressing, highly cultivated cynicism,—something altogether +different from Harry Fane’s wholesome, blustering criticism. + +In addition to Lady Bell’s ignorance, her perceptions were slightly +warped, so that she was disposed to be but too lenient to the hole +whence she herself had been dug, and the pit from which she had been +drawn. + +The barge swept along, among other and less ornamental barges laden with +hay, coals, sheep, and pigs, past wharfs and piers, under bridges, below +balconies and projecting stories of buildings, by gables of houses—until +it left stone and lime behind, and reached green banks and lawns, though +the trees still stretched brown, gnarled, or drooping boughs, sharp and +unclothed, against the blue of the sky. There was just the dimly sweet, +green budding of a fine February to tell that spring was at hand. + +Lady Bell smiled brightly and chatted freely with her chosen companions. + +Captain Fane had no resource but to fume secretly, and seek, as he +steered, to be contented with the companionship of the Sundons. There +was one safeguard in Lady Sundon’s irrepressible good fellowship, which +was restrained by no extreme delicacy or humility, that it combated +successfully her instinctive homage to rank and fashion, and prevented +her from being left entirely out of any group in her vicinity. + +Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles’s blandness,—the great quality on which +they prided themselves, in the absence of all higher qualities,—might +not have remained unalloyed with insolence. The gentleman and lady might +have rebuffed what they regarded as offensive intrusion in Lady Sundon’s +freedom of speech, seeing that the pair attached themselves to the +Sundons solely on Lady Bell’s account. But dear, delightful, naïve +little Lady Bell had her weaknesses, which her friends were quick enough +to perceive and respect in time. One of these weaknesses was, that she +would not submit to see snubbing administered in her presence to the +hospitable country baronet’s wife and her absurdly gawky step-daughters, +with whom she had the misfortune to be domiciled in town. + +Neither would the froward goddess consent at present to be rescued, to +quit these Sundons and put herself under the guardianship of Mrs. +Lascelles, who, if she and Sir George had got their will, would have had +Lady Bell, without delay, cut the whole connection, even so far as her +dear Mrs. Sundon. + +Mrs. Sundon was a true woman of quality, and of the world, indeed, but +she had abandoned her sphere, and might live to turn queen’s evidence +against her old world, any day. She was blue, stuck up, and tiresomely +virtuous for a young woman. Lady Bell spoilt herself by quoting and +aping this model. + +But Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles must set to work cautiously in doing +their benevolent “possible” to cure Lady Bell of this and other defects. +Rome was not built in one day, and neither in one day would a wilful +girl’s rampant staunchness and warm-heartedness be converted into a +conveniently faithless and lukewarm state of the affections. + +In the meantime, Lady Sundon had insisted on drawing everybody’s +attention to Chelsea, because she had once assisted at a “whim” there, +when she had gone over Chelsea Hospital. + +The building had, at this time, its wounded soldiers who had been +disabled at Bunker’s Hill, and some of whom Captain Fane had brought +home in his frigate. + +There was a little talk of the engagement, in which the general company +joined. It was notable that Sir George, who was a carpet knight, treated +the resistance as a sorry trifle, and always called the men who had +instituted it, “rebels.” But Captain Fane, who had seen service, and +fought stoutly against the very men, merely named them “provincials,” +and stated plainly that they were right, when they declared that they +had not lost the battle, since, though they were driven out of the +entrenchments, they had succeeded in no less an achievement than that of +blockading the English army. + +Lady Bell inquired with interest after Captain Fane’s own adventures, of +which he was specially unwilling to speak in such a company. But he told +what some of his messmates had done under fire: how they had been lying +waiting their turn from the surgeons, when red-hot shot had passed once +and again through the cockpit; notwithstanding, it had spared the +_Thunderbomb’s_ lads, though it was only for them to be lodged, by his +Majesty’s and the country’s kindness, in the other hospital, Greenwich. + +“I suppose the dear timber-toes prefer their beef salt and their tobacco +stale for the sake of old associations,” suggested Sir George mincingly. + +“Then, I’m sure it is no kindness to deny them their sweet tastes,” +followed up Mrs. Lascelles. “There need not be these rows about the +Lords of the Admiralty helping themselves to the funds. The Lords of the +Admiralty are always helping themselves to something, worse than the +Lords of the Treasury,—but both lords must live. Oh, forgive me, Captain +Fane, and don’t look so fierce. I dare say it is the shore that +demoralises your friends.” + +“I dare say it is, madam, if they are demoralised, which I, their +servant, have no business to take for granted,” replied Captain Fane +angrily. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + DISCORD. + + +“I know that the shore demoralised my friend Lady Kitty Lake,” continued +Mrs. Lascelles benignly; “she could not be prevailed on to leave it +after she had reached it again. But what do you think her Commodore did +to her, my dear Lady Bell? Kept her under closed hatches—whatever these +may be—with no more light than half a tallow candle to make her head and +do herself up, whenever the ship had taken a prize, and there was an +insinuating enemy on board. However, she stole a march on her tyrant. +She amused herself in the middle of some shocking sea-fight, by getting +herself up in an imitation of her husband’s uniform. You must know she +is a big, imposing-looking woman, and he a little ton of a man, as fat +as one of the pigs in the coops, copper colour in complexion, bristling +all over with hogs’ hair, and in the habit of amusing himself with +cursing and swearing through a speaking-trumpet. I believe he is known +as the ‘Cursing Commodore,’ though how cursing should be a means of +distinguishing him from other commodores, I am at a loss to say. Well, +the moment the firing ceased, Lady Kitty, metamorphosed into a +creditable officer, ran upon deck, and was in time to get the enemy to +deliver up to her his sword, which she returned with a genteel bow. The +Commodore was so frightened for the trick’s being noised abroad—and he +laughed at, if not superseded—that he was forced to connive at it, and +so lost the opportunity of behaving with his usual brutality.” + +“Allow me to tell you, madam,” interposed Captain Fane, very sternly for +the occasion, “that Commodore Lake has the reputation of being a most +humane, as well as a very gallant officer in his squadron, to which I +have the honour to belong.” + +“I’m quite easy, sir,” lisped Mrs. Lascelles, without a second’s +awkwardness in the concession; “I tell the story as it was told to me. +Perhaps you have also the pleasure of knowing my friend Lady Kitty.” + +“No, madam; and I conjecture that I should not feel myself at all worthy +of the acquaintance,” growled Harry Fane. + +“Oh, I don’t know that, sir,” urged Mrs. Lascelles blandly. “Lady Kitty +makes every allowance; particularly when, poor soul! she is a prisoner +in a hideous den of a ship, with none but you amiable tars to make eyes +at, in order to pass her time.” + +“Now, can’t you be amiable, Harry,” said Lady Sundon, in an audible +aside, “as madam gives you credit for being without too much reason? +Yes, I assure you, madam,” declared Lady Sundon, in a louder key, and +directly addressing Mrs. Lascelles, “if my cousin had been on ship-board +with your Lady Kitty, he would have been mighty proud to be made eyes at +by so distinguished a lady, and would have done his best to entertain +her with his books, and maps, and specimens. He is a fellow of parts, +though he don’t do himself justice, or lay himself out to be agreeable.” + +“What a pity!” exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles sleepily. + +“Ain’t it?” responded Lady Sundon, with animation. “I often tell him so. +There! Harry, do you hear that?” + +“Captain Fane is obliged to you for telling me and the world what he +takes such pains to hide under a bushel,” remarked Mrs. Lascelles; “but +Lady Kitty is like myself,—she don’t much affect books and maps.” + +“No more do I,” said Lady Sundon cordially; “and I wish Harry would +throw them aside, and cultivate company manners.” + +“La! you know you don’t practise what you preach,” objected Miss Sundon, +who had been engrossed with admiration of Mrs. Lascelles and Sir George, +but who felt that it was time to vindicate the superior delicacy of +herself and her sister from any suspicion of complicity with Lady +Sundon’s breezy vigour. “You are always professing to sister and me, +Lady Sundon, when we try to hold you again, to get you to be quiet, and +to adopt that repose which is so necessary and becoming to a delicate +female—that you despise company manners.” + +“Because I ain’t a delicate female, child, and I am your father’s wife, +the mistress of you and Lyddy and the whole house, as I can tell all +concerned,” said Lady Sundon a little indignantly. “If I were a bad +mistress of Sir Peter’s family you would not venture to speak so to me; +therefore, I can well afford to let your foolish tongue wag without +minding it,” continued Lady Sundon, rapidly cooling down and recovering +her habitual good humour. “Besides, can’t you see that I am too old to +learn company manners, as I am too old to improve my mind, which I was +telling you t’other day, Lady Bell?” + +“Don’t learn anything that is foreign to you, dear Lady Sundon.” Lady +Bell forbade any change. “Be always yourself, your best self.” + +“And I shall crave leave, without any permission granted,” spoke up +Captain Fane, “to remain myself, even my worst self, rather than take a +leaf out of another man’s book, say Sir George Waring’s.” + +“Sir, I am honoured by figuring as your example.” Sir George nodded +slightly, and took snuff. + +Lady Bell was vexed by the turn the conversation was taking, and the +utter want of harmony in her company. Of what good the clear, curling +water, the precocious spring weather, the delightful gliding motion of +the boat which the rowers were sending along so smoothly to green +Richmond and Hampton—if quarrelling were the order of the day? + +Mrs. Lascelles might not dislike it at the expense of Lady Bell and her +host’s family, because it would form a tit-bit of conversation to +retail, well spiced and served hot, in the next party which Mrs. +Lascelles should enter. + +Sir George might not mind. This fashionable goddess and god were +somewhat above human feeling, and could take their sport out of the +discomfiture of others. But these others were troubled, and showed +themselves in their worst colours, and unreasonable Lady Bell blamed +Captain Fane as the cause. Why was he so stern in contradicting Mrs. +Lascelles’s incredible story of Lady Kitty Lake? Where was the use of +contradicting it at all, when nobody believed it, and when it was not +meant to be believed? Why was he so rude to Sir George Waring? + +Lady Bell tried to make a diversion in the conversation as the boat was +approaching Richmond. She began to remark upon the houses and their +occupants. + +Then the attention of Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles became concentrated +on a white house in the background, while they expatiated on the merits +and misfortunes of its owner. + +“It is enough to make a fellow doubt all good,” protested Sir George, +with something like melancholy energy, “to think of the fate of poor +dear Lady Di, consigned from the tender mercies of a fool only to those +of a brute!” + +“And she so clever to be twice taken in,” protested Lady Bell, with soft +wonder. “She is another Mrs. Damer, Captain Fane.” She turned to Harry +in explanation, thinking to propitiate the bear, and seeking to allay a +little twinge of conscience where her sweeping censure of that gentleman +was concerned. + +Had he not been attentive and kind to her on a recent occasion? By whose +fault after all had he been suffered to fall into neglect, or to be +twitted and tormented that day, until he had assumed an attitude of +marked hostility to those around him? + +“We are speaking of Lady Di Beauclerk, who can paint like a Breughel or +a Sneyders,” finished Lady Bell. + +“I dare say, sir”—Mrs. Lascelles came between the couple with her +affectation of artlessness—“you prefer a simpler, shorter road to +excellence. You think Lady Di would have been better employed if she had +been tossing pancakes, or hemming dish-clouts.” + +“I don’t know about simpler, shorter roads,” cried Captain Fane +defiantly, “but I confess I prefer straight lines, and I have no pity to +waste on crooked ones. I do think that your paragon, Lady Di, would have +been a vast deal better employed in bearing—ay, even in seeking to +better the enormities of one sinner, than in making a trial, for a +change, by the aid of the law of divorce, how she should like the +enormities of another. And when she finds that she cannot abide the +second any more than the first, she raises a precious pother, forsooth! +because she is properly punished.” + +Lady Bell was aggrieved, even shocked, by this plain speaking. Lady Di +had been so heavily punished for her errors, that she had arrived at +their being condoned, and had come to be treated herself as a sort of +cherished pet, not by her own set alone, but by wiser men and women. + +Who or what was this sailor, that he should roughly rend social veils, +tear asunder well-bred illusions, and sit in judgment on his +fellow-creatures, whose fearful stumbling-blocks and torturing +temptations he could never fathom? + +Lady Bell would have nothing more to say to Captain Fane. She bestowed +her entire regard on Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles. When the party +landed and walked up to Hampton Court, Lady Bell went with her +particular allies without looking over her shoulder. She suffered them +to lead her through the rooms which ambition, in its ostentation and +prodigality, had built, and she lingered especially in the +“Beauty-room.” She made as if she were absorbed by the meretricious, +un-English seeming beauties, and the unedifying traditions which they +had left behind them in the gossip of Gramont, quoted aptly and with +adroit reticence by Sir George. + +She paid no heed on this occasion to the Dutch garden, the long alleys, +the goodly boughs, the bridge across the river, with the pure blue sky +over all—she treated these as if they might be left out of the count, +and as if they did not deserve her notice. + +But Sir George took her into the “Maze,” and it was on Sir George that +she called, when she was weary of bewilderment, to unravel the +labyrinth, and find her a mode of exit. + +Sir George finally conducted Lady Bell to the village inn, where the +party were to dine, and seated her at the head of the table, in the +rustic tea-room, as the queen of the feast. + +Lady Bell allowed the particularity of this homage. She received it +all—either as if she were indifferent to what it ought to tend, or as if +she had never heard that Sir George was a notorious breaker of women’s +hearts, a hardened Lothario, whose wings no woman had been able to clip, +though he had been fluttering round women from his whelpdom to his +somewhat jaded prime of puppydom. + +In that prime Sir George was still slightly Harry Fane’s junior, while +Sir George was far nearer an Adonis by nature, with every personal point +immeasurably better brought out by art. But though Sir George had not +faced a bronzing climate or a battering service, the high-pressure +atmosphere of fashionable dissipation in which he had flourished, was +more telling than either alternative. In spite of his baptismal +register, Sir George in all his elegance looked not half so fresh and +hardly so young as Captain Fane. Manliness took some indemnification, +but such indemnification has not always been valued. There have been +women to whom such a world-worn hero as Sir George is irresistibly +attractive. There are women to this day, if their qualified annalists do +not lie, who prize such a reputation as Sir George Waring’s. + +This was not the reputation of an honest fellow, a true friend, a brave +worker, a gallant gentleman, a reverent and sincere Christian, even in +sorry days, for the most part, where Christianity was concerned. But it +was the reputation of a man gnawed to the core by the rust of +selfishness and self-conceit, who could sneer with the finished grace of +a cold-hearted man of the world, pluming himself on having ate of the +tree of the knowledge of good and evil—on the evil side alone, having +summarily rejected the good as unworthy of his consideration. + +Did Lady Bell belong to the order of women who admire such men? It +looked as if this man were to her taste; and to give the devil his due, +your fine gentleman, when he had everything his own way, could be +pleasant—few pleasanter among the best of good people. The very absence +of feeling, and presence of heartless good nature, invested Sir George +with a kind of airy agreeability and versatility. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE LITTLE DINNER AT HAMPTON, WITH MUSIC ON THE WATER. + + +In the course of the little dinner in the Hampton tea-room, Sir George +would not only not sit down till the rest of the party were seated, but +he would supersede a regular waiter to wait upon his companions. It +might have been for the peculiar satisfaction of waiting on Lady Bell, +but certainly he did not confine his cares to that quarter of the table. +He, the finest gentleman in the room, but that was saying little, did +the whole waiting. He changed plates and placed glasses, and brought +round sauces, so neatly and so comically, with such cleverness, taste, +and devotion, making amends to everybody, as it were, for all his +previous shortcomings—not caring, though his own meal were cold, or +though he had not a meal at all—that it was hard, before so patent a +proof, not to think him unselfish as well as delightful. + +“Upon my word,” mumbled Lady Sundon, with her mouth full of cutlet, “Sir +George is the charmingest man going—he beats the women out and out, even +you, Lady Bell. I don’t wonder that nobody can say nay to him.” + +Mrs. Lascelles did not appear so bent on redeeming her character; she +still made wry faces and turned up her nose at the pickled walnuts and +the cherry pie. + +But Lady Bell was in her element. “I wonder if there are any cows here,” +she cried, peeping out of the window behind her. “If there had been such +a Whitefoot as we have at Summerhill, I might have run out and milked +her and whipped you a syllabub in no time. Yes, I can whip syllabubs, +Mrs. Lascelles, you need not look incredulous, and strain gooseberry +fool too, only this is not the season of the year for gooseberries.” + +“Ain’t it?” inquired Mrs. Lascelles with languid innocence. + +“Gracious, madam! did you not know that we hadn’t gooseberries in +February?” questioned Lady Sundon, staring goggle-eyed at this curious +piece of ignorance. + +Lady Bell went on without paying any heed to Mrs. Lascelles’ +affectation. “If my Mrs. Sundon or Master Charles were here they would +bear out my story.” + +“By bribery and corruption, only too excusable in such a court,” argued +Sir George. “But who may Master Charles be when he is at home? An +overgrown baby, as his name would imply, or a wild man of the woods, eh, +Lady Bell?” asked Sir George with privileged freedom, while preparing to +make his own dinner, like the most frugal of hermits, on bread and milk. +“No, don’t press any grosser fare upon me,” he waved off the eagerness +of his friends to repay his benefits. “I do enjoy an Arcadian meal at +times, when I have not only the felicity of being in Arcady, but of +being with nymphs in Arcady,” Sir George bowed, with his hand on his +heart. + +“It is fine to have the command of such language,” said Lady Sundon, +holding up her hands. + +“But about this Master Charles,” Sir George returned to the subject; +“can he, after partaking of such syllabubs and gooseberry fools, be +still a ruddy youth, with great hands and feet?” + +Lady Bell laughed, blushed, and winced a little for her friend. Beside +Sir George Master Charles would appear ruddy, and his Lumley-bought +gloves and boots did not tend to diminish the natural size of his hands +and feet; but where was the harm—in the ruddiness especially, unless she +had learnt to despise rude health, like the Misses Sundon? They had been +putting severe restraint on themselves, that they might not taste more +than a morsel, after being hours on the water, not so much to bear Sir +George company, for they had not foreseen his temperance, as to display +their own ethereal appetites. + +Harry Fane had watched Lady Bell narrowly. “She is not only of the world +worldly, she is as heartless as the others,” was his scornful +conclusion. “She is ashamed of the mere recollection of some poor +befooled country fellow, whatever he may be, better than this mocking +jackanapes; but what does it matter to me?” + +“A penny for your thoughts, Harry,” cried Lady Sundon, “or if you won’t +give us them, propose a toast, do something for the good of the +company.” + +“I drink to you, then, cousin, since you have started the idea,” replied +Captain Fane, so soberly that it was almost gloomily, after he found +that he could not escape, and that the attention of the party was +directed to him. + +“A plague on the lad! to give an old married woman who might be his +mother,” remonstrated Lady Sundon, “but if you are all so kind, thanks +to you,” and Lady Sundon beamed radiantly on the raised glasses. + +“Now, Lady Bell, I’m ready for Master Charles,” suggested Sir George, +holding up his glass of milk. + +“Nothing of the kind,” said Lady Bell, getting nettled. “At least Master +Charles is not a milksop; supposing you will pledge in no better, you +must pledge yourself, Sir George. I give ‘Sir George Waring,’ and I +couple my toast with a sentiment: ‘May we persevere in and profit by +simplicity.’” + +“I respond to your toast with the humblest gratitude, and I drink your +sentiment with all the pleasure in life, for have I not profited by +simplicity already this day?” rejoined Sir George, with perfect +good-humour, looking not a whit annoyed, but rather gratified, by Lady +Bell’s poor little wit being spent upon him—a cheerful nonchalance which +put Lady Bell to shame. + +Affronted with herself, Lady Bell began hastily to talk of the +cockle-shells which had been found by the bushel under one of the floors +of Somerset House; and that led to a discussion of the exchange which +the Queen had made in giving up Somerset House for Buckingham House. + +The discussion paved the way for Mrs. Lascelles descanting on the +petition of the maids of honour that they might get a compensation in +lieu of supper, which was worth seventy pounds more salary. + +When the party went back to the boat, the day was terminating in the +rosiest sunset which ever breathed of spring, youth, and promise. + +“I vow we must be in Arcady,” repeated Sir George. With all his pretence +at fine language, he had just the tiniest spark of the soul of a lover +of nature. Yet the glow which blushed on the water and shone on all the +faces, and was only the brighter and the gladder for the chill bleakness +of winter scarcely forsaken, awoke some small response even in his +artificial nature. + +As for Captain Fane, he sat with his cap in his hand, letting the breeze +blow in his hair, looking down the river towards the open sea, wishing +he were away in his ship. Life was bad enough on ship-board sometimes, +in the depths of tyranny, ignorance, profanity, and mutiny; but there +the mass of men, even at their worst, were toilsome men in rough +earnest. There, in the night-watches, a man could be alone with sea and +sky, until he forgot the very existence of heartless fine ladies and +expert actors of fine gentlemen. + +“We want only music to make the hour complete,” said Sir George. “Lady +Bell, might I beg—?” + +Lady Bell hesitated, then yielding to the spirit of the hour, commenced +to sing an air from the popular opera. + +Sir George struck in with a mellow second, singing being one of this +fine gentleman’s accomplishments, as well as playing on the flute and +the flageolet. + +The song was warmly applauded by all save Captain Fane. Even Lady Sundon +praised, while she frankly admitted that she did not comprehend a word +of the jargon, “but nevertheless do let us have some more of it.” + +“We shall have these boats following us, Lady Sundon,” objected Harry +Fane, looking round sharply from where he was steering, and indicating, +among the work-a-day barges, two boats filled with company, that had +been attracted like themselves to a row on the river by a day borrowed +from April and set in the end of February. These boats had already been +drawn into the wake of the first by the singing. + +“What though the boats do follow, they ain’t going to run us down,” +stout Lady Sundon made light of the demur; “you are becoming quite a +kill-joy, Harry Fane.” + +It was an extraordinary sensation for Lady Bell to have the propriety of +her behaviour doubted by a man—a sailor—before these pinks of fashion, +Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles, who had been contributing to put Lady +Bell at her ease. + +She disliked the ruggedness of Captain Fane as much as she liked the +suavity of Sir George, which no sauciness of hers could disturb, for she +had been saucy in substituting Sir George’s own name as a toast which he +might drink in milk. + +Lady Bell looked Harry Fane in the face and challenged Sir George to +accompany her in something which Lady Sundon would approve—“Begone, dull +care,” or “Pray Goody, cease,” a challenge which Sir George accepted, +nothing loth. + +But before the first song was concluded, one of the boats in the rear +shot across the bow of the Sundons’ boat, and three or four excited men, +in white vests and rich coats like Sir George’s, threatened to upset +both of the craft as they gesticulated violently, while they shouted— + +“Heyday! Waring, hold on! What little opera-girl have you got there? +Here, pitch her over to us, that she may tip us a stave. We’ve been +dining at Kew, and we’ll engage to troll, among us, as good an +accompaniment as you can contrive with your single pipe, sweet though it +be.” + +“Hold off! Annesley, Gower; mind what you’re about. You’re absurdly +wrong, I tell you, and if you don’t set yourselves right, by heavens! +I’ll have to take the correcting of you into my own hands,” called back +Sir George, frowning blackly for once in his life. + +“It is true, confound him!” cried one of the strange gentlemen, letting +his boat fall off. “He’s in other company; yonder is Mrs. Lascelles—who +would have thought it?—and there is an avenging fury of a naval officer +porting helm. Good afternoon, Sir George, good afternoon to you,” +dropped more faintly over the water. + +But Lady Bell had shrunk into herself abashed, recalled to her senses, +and deeply wounded alike in her self-respect and her pride. + +Not all the solicitations and excuses of Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles +could make Lady Bell immediately forget the indignity to which she had +exposed herself, or forgive them for promoting the exposure, though she +was silent on her feelings, and as willing as the others to welcome a +diversion. + +The day was so complete in its spring character, that at sundown a +little cloud of midges seemed to start into life and hover in the air. + +“How short their day is!” said Lady Bell regretfully for the ephemera. +“I know they are only creatures of a day, but to come and go so soon,—if +they had waited for a few more months, they might have danced through a +few more hours, and not been pinched by so sharp a death. Who knows?” + +“My dear creature,—forgive me; my best Lady Bell,” Sir George corrected +himself, “the midges have been highly honoured, even before you +condescended to pity them. They have more than served their +purpose,—they have helped to furnish an illusion for us, that this +February day by the calendar, is in the merry month of May by our +experience, and that Hampton is Arcady. Now, here we are past Chelsea, +fast coming back to the coarse dissipation of the garish town and the +cold winds of March; what should remain to the midges, but to be swept +aside with the illusion?” + +Lady Bell turned away her head and shut her eyes for a moment, she did +not wish to see even the midges swept aside. She did not like the +philosophy of which she and hers formed always the centre. She had not +consented to view life as a rainbow-hued but hollow mockery, a mere +series of convenient, spangled illusions. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS. + + +Captain Fane, of his own free will, would not have paid another visit to +Cleveland Court, before he returned to his ship. So far as it rested +with him, he had made up his mind—a great deal too tartly for perfect +indifference—to have nothing more to do with fine ladies, and to turn +his back on fine ladies’ entertainers, so long as they were cumbered +with such troublesome guests. + +But Captain Fane had business with Sir Peter, who was, indeed, about to +appoint Harry Fane one of the guardians to his young son, and so +punctilious and conscientious a young man as Harry Fane could not see it +his duty to renounce this trust because circumstances had rendered it +distasteful to him. + +Thus it happened, that while Captain Fane felt scandalised by the manner +in which Lady Bell Trevor had suffered herself to float doubly with the +tide, in the water-party, while he kept telling himself caustically that +he need not have expected anything else, and continued setting his face, +more like a flint than ever, against fashionable frivolity and levity—he +yet found himself on the steps of Sir Peter Sundon’s house. + +And at that moment Lady Bell, attended by her maid, tripped out in her +calèche and with her hands clasped in her muff, clearly starting on an +expedition. + +Lady Bell distanced and dumbfounded Captain Fane, who was unfamiliar +with the changes of mind and revolutions in tactics of even the staidest +and most demure of womankind. + +She stopped him as he was about to pass her with a formally low bow, by +holding out a friendly little hand, and bestowing on him the unsolicited +information, that she was bound for the great painter in Leicester +Fields, who had made so fine a picture of Commodore Keppel. + +She was not a sitter herself, but she had made interest to see the +paintings which Sir Joshua Reynolds had on hand. + +She knew that she should never be able to look upon her daubs after this +morning, but, woman-like, she must go and meet her fate, though it were +her demolition. + +Sir Joshua’s pictures were works of genius in his line, equal to Mr. +Boulton’s and Mr. Wedgwood’s exhibitions; therefore, she ventured to +offer Captain Fane the benefit of her ticket, as a poor return for his +former kindness. + +She was all alone, save her maid, Rogers, because Lady Sundon was +engaged with Sir Peter, and the Misses Sundon could not stand the smell +of paint without the risk of incurring megrim or vertigo. She was more +fortunate—but then she had always dabbled in paints, and so was used to +the odour. + +Before Captain Fane knew what he was about, he had turned, and was +walking away by her side in acceptance of her invitation. Neither did he +detest or despise himself for his weakness, as might have been expected. + +Lady Bell had succeeded, without a word of confession or acknowledgment, +by the shy, wistful appeal of her eyes as she prattled to him, in making +him comprehend that she had seen that he was right and she was wrong in +their respective opinions of much that had happened at the water-party. +She implied that she was sorry for having offended and alienated him; +that she had resolved on following, in future, rational pursuits, +instead of mere idle pleasure-hunting,—witness her early homage to art +this morning. + +Captain Fane could not even accuse himself of meddling in a matter which +was none of his, far less could he accuse himself of madly foolish +motives. + +Was it not in some measure the business of every honourable, kindly man +to encourage a girl like Lady Bell, in any intelligent interest that +might help to educate her, and raise her above the giddy vacant crowd of +fashionables, with whom idleness was the fruitful parent of mischief? + +Ought he not to alter his arrangements, and put himself a little out of +his way for one morning, to see that she did not fall into company like +that of the hateful Sir George Waring, when she was walking abroad with +no better protection than her maid’s? + +True, it was broad day, and with that it was also betimes in the +forenoon, doubtless an age before Sir George was up holding his levee, +in his brocade nightgown, as he sipped his chocolate, and pencilled his +daily note to Mrs. Lascelles. + +But people could not be too careful, under some conditions. Lady Sundon +was certainly as fearless and heedless, as Lady Bell was guileless and +thoughtless. It became Captain Fane’s part to supplement the absence of +some of the proper qualities of a guardian in his cousin. + +If Lady Sundon was lax, the strictness and zeal of Captain Fane on Lady +Bell’s behalf might, if the persons principally concerned had given +themselves time to think about it, have astonished even them. But this +young couple, after the questionable fashion of young couples, did not +pause to weigh their relations—they took them for granted. + +Lady Bell had even so pleasing a trust in the sedately fault-finding +young sea-captain, that she had not the slightest qualm when he at once +did her bidding and consented to be elected her escort, such as she +would have had with almost any other of the gay danglers about her, and +notably with the agreeable Sir George. “Captain Fane is such a manly, +true young spark,” she took it upon her to decide, for her private +satisfaction, though how she had arrived at the strong conclusion after +one or two bantering, bickering interviews, unless from information +derived from Lady Sundon, to whose judgment Lady Bell was not wont to +pin her faith, it puzzles one to guess. “He is a little prejudiced and +hard,” continued Lady Bell, mentally taking stock of her companion, “but +I can melt him” (there was the triumph!). “I think I know how he would +look boarding a ship, and how I could make him drop his sword,” which +was a purely imaginative vision. + +As Lady Bell and Captain Fane passed along the streets, they became +eye-witnesses to a curious political contradiction. At one thoroughfare, +men were stationed with handbills, to be distributed to respectable and +influential persons, especially to members of parliament, praying them +to stop the shedding of their American brethren’s blood. At another +thoroughfare, the pedestrians had to thread their way through a +crowd—the centre of which was the common hangman in the act of burning, +to the accompaniment of tumultuous applause, copies of a pamphlet +entitled “The Present Crisis with respect to America,” which had been +condemned by both Houses, as a flagrant insult to the King. + +Captain Fane informed Lady Bell that this difference of opinion had even +penetrated to the services. He brought forward the instance of Lord +Viscount Pitt, son to my Lord Chatham, having asked leave to resign his +commission, since he was determined not to serve in a war between the +mother country and her colony. + +“And what do you say, sir?” inquired Lady Bell. + +“I say that it is too late to stop a fratricidal war, save by fighting +it out as quickly as may be, and that even if it were not so, it is for +me to obey, not to issue, orders,” he replied with decision. + +At Leicester Fields Lady Bell’s ticket procured the admission of the +lady and her friend, first into the parlour, where an untidy, abrupt, +cordial elderly woman, was herself painting a miniature and hurriedly +sopping up her spilt paint, when she heard the steps of visitors. + +This was Mrs. Frances Reynolds, who painted “The grimly ghost of +Johnson,” and wrote the “Essay on Taste”—printed but never published. +She was soon on familiar terms with the intruders. + +“My brother will be certain to spare time for you,” Miss Reynolds +assured Lady Bell, “he is like the rest of the geniuses, not above the +flattery of such a visit. Bah! haven’t I known them all, Burke, Goldy, +Dr. Johnson, who has wished my tea-pot might never run dry, and yet +hurried off to help himself with his own spoon out of a Countess’s +sugar-bason, and been put down—to put her down in turn in the presence +of her grand company? Ah! well, I have never wished the great Doctor +would stay by his own fire-side, though he has forced Joshua to rise and +take his hat, if he would not sit on into the small hours, and have us +all winking with sleep as the only hint to our visitor to be gone. I +don’t know that we think ourselves so enviable. You’ll be sent for to +the painting-room presently, Lady Bell—no, you need not look at my baby +faces—child’s play to the doings of my brother,—the man in Cavendish +Square can never come near them, though I should not say it. But first +you must let me have a look at you, for even we poor artists hear of the +belles of the season, with other public matters, in the conversation of +sitters, and when we are bidden to look in at a conversazione, or a +rout, now and then.” + +“Oh, pray, Miss Reynolds, don’t make me public property,” cried Lady +Bell, in laughing objection. + +“If my brother seek to paint you, as he has painted so many of your +sisterhood, you will become public property, whether you like it or no,” +boasted the sister, “you cannot help it, madam, it is a tax you owe to +the country, like the tax on powder or armorial bearings. But who is +this gentleman? I did not catch his name. Oh! my brother has done many +naval men, and for my part, I like his Lord Mount Edgcumbe and Commodore +Keppel, as well as any face which he has put through his hands. My Lord +Mount Edgcumbe is a Devonshire man, and for Commodore Keppel he gave +Joshua his first lift, and we may well love a dog with the name of +‘Keppel,’ as Dr. Johnson could love a dog if it were called ‘Hervey.’” + +The garrulous inquisitive lady was interrupted by her little niece, as +quiet as the aunt was a rattle, and as shy and attentive to the +proprieties as Miss Reynolds was impetuous and eccentric. This young +girl was Sir Joshua’s Offy Palmer, whom he was to immortalise, reading +“Clarissa,” and who was to be Mrs. Gwatkin, while her sister was to be +the heiress of the largest fortune acquired by the prosecution of art in +this inartistic England, and to marry the Marquis of Thomond. She +brought a message that her uncle was free from a sitter then, and for +the next half hour, and that he was coming himself to take Lady Bell +Trevor and Captain Fane to his painting-room, where he would shew them +the pictures in his possession. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + SIR JOSHUA AT HOME. + + +In another instant there entered a fresh, almost chubby-faced gentleman, +with a dint in his nether lip, and an ear-trumpet in his hand. He was +not without a certain dapperness in the unexceptionable brown coat and +spotless ruffles, which he had substituted for his painting-coat and +plain cuffs. + +He was the briskest of gentlemen, the most obliging of geniuses who ever +kept sitters in good humour and under control, by the very ease of his +dignity in bearing with their airs and oddities. + +The contemporary of the glorious, careless good-fellow Gainsborough, of +Romney in his arrogant, one-sided power, and later of Opie, the most +self-taught and the most self-asserting painter among them—Sir Joshua +beat them all. + +It may be true that his art was pervaded with an artificial, +aristocratic flavour, and that he made a little lady of his strawberry +girl, and modern English my lords of every historical personage who +passed under his pencil. + +Painters may feel it their duty, from their watch-tower of technical +knowledge, to impress on the world their grieved conviction, that the +president of the old Academy, so widely cultivated, so full of sense and +acumen, in addition to his professional ability, and to the industry +which “never passed a day and lost a line,” the chosen friend of the +most public-spirited men of his time—yet painted deliberately for a +single generation. + +He was, according to his brethren, wilful and regardless of the +destructive nature of the pigment which he used, so that they produced a +certain effect to last his time. His accusers point in proof of their +charge to the fading lines and cracking canvas of the very works of +which all Englishmen are proud. + +So be it, if it must be so; we have still the poetry (let some hold it +fantastic) of the Tragic Muse, the gallant heroism of Keppel, the +thoughtful benevolence of Johnson, the broad archness of Nelly O’Brien; +and we have following on the dainty playfulness of “Pick-a-back” a long +train of fresh and delicate, lovely and stately, English maids and +matrons, with Sir Joshua’s quaint sweet children bringing up the rear. + +In Lady Bell’s day there was no thought, unless it were among the +chemically skilled, that these softly glowing, wonderfully blended +colours would wane, or the fine surface give way. Sir Joshua was +regarded as the quintessence of inspired and courtly painters, treading +in the footsteps of Van-dyck. + +Sir Joshua had only a few of his paintings to show the eager, +intelligent young lady, whose grace was so winning to his eye, and her +eloquence so grateful to his ear—through his trumpet—as it reached him. +There were fair ladies sacrificing to the graces and to the muses, very +interesting to Lady Bell. There was Dr. Beattie in his gown as an Oxford +Doctor of Laws, with his book on “The Immutability of Truth” under his +arm, and the Angel of Truth going before him, beating down the gruesome +figures of Sophistry, Scepticism, and Infidelity, said to personify +Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hume, which was carefully studied by Captain Fane. +There was the doom of Count Ugolino and his sons, which enchained with +the fascination of horror both of the gazers. There was the portrait of +a plump little woman, sprightly even on canvas, her high-dressed hair +wreathed with pearls, a shawl girdle binding loosely the short waist and +bodice, which Sir Joshua strove to paint into fashion—a great +improvement on the earlier elongated steel-bound waist and laced-up +bodice. + +As Sir Joshua was about to name the original, the real lady ran +unushered, in her hat and cloak, into the room. + +The new-comer had not a moment to stay to be introduced to Lady Bell +Trevor and Captain Fane. She was in haste to tell Sir Joshua that she +had just come down from the Burgh, where she had left her master at his +place of business, but nearly as ailing as the Doctor (good lack, what a +load she had on her head and shoulders!). She wished to know whether Sir +Joshua had done the re-touching which he had taken it into his head to +throw away on a barn-door face beyond improvement. Give her joy on the +audacity of complimenting herself; but she did not mean to +compliment—not that she was not well enough pleased with her own, she +would never deny it. She would like the picture packed and sent out +without loss of time. Queeney and the rest of the young fry might care +to look at it one day, when it was all that was left of their mother. +Good day to him and to all. + +“You are in luck, Lady Bell,” announced Sir Joshua, returning, briskly +rubbing his hands, from seeing the lady to her coach, “if you have not +had a previous opportunity of meeting my friend. That is Mrs. Thrale, +the wife of the great brewer, who is himself an exceedingly liberal +gentleman and well-read scholar; but his wife excels him in the +classics.” + +“She was one of the west country Lynches,” said Lady Bell, showing her +acquaintance with the lady’s antecedents. + +“It is she who has made a home for the great Doctor at that pattern of +country houses, Streatham,” continued Sir Joshua. “She has preserved an +invaluable life, madam, years longer to the country, by taking Dr. +Johnson’s health under her care, as she has often told us, and by +nursing him out of some of his worst attacks and most injurious habits. +Would to God her efforts could continue successful, both with him and +Mr. Thrale, who is, I fear, in a bad way, and on the brink of an +apoplexy.” + +“She deserves all honour,” said Lady Bell warmly. + +“The more so that her cares seem to sit lightly on her.” Captain Fane +could not resist the sly hit. + +Lady Bell flashed a little reproach upon him from her eyes, which looked +as if she were condescending to take his manners, as Mrs. Thrale had +taken Dr. Johnson’s health, under her special superintendence. + +“A matter of temperament,” pronounced the genially philosophic painter. + +Sir Joshua, who enjoyed his own reputation as an urbane and accomplished +man of the world, as he enjoyed most things in the pleasantly prosperous +places in which his lines were cast, began to talk to Captain Fane of +Captain Cook, with whom the painter’s friend, Dr. Burney’s son, had made +a voyage round the world; and of Sir Joseph Banks’s collection of +objects of natural history, which Captain Fane had seen under the care +of young Mr. Jenner, the favourite pupil of Dr. Hunter. + +Sir Joshua had made a happy choice of subjects to which Captain Fane was +alive, and in which he was well informed. The gentlemen talked like +kindred spirits, while Lady Bell, to her credit, was content to remain +in the background, and listen with deference and delight. She was +innocently proud of her companion. + +How very different was the figure which Captain Fane cut to-day, in +company with a genius who was at the same time a finished gentleman of +any school, from the figure which Captain Fane had presented at the +sailing-party! + +What other male friend of Lady Bell’s could have stood so severe a test, +and come out of it so splendidly? Not Sir George Waring, in spite of his +elegance and his musical talents, any more than Master Charles. Lady +Bell was deeply impressed by Captain Fane’s gifts, which he was really +in the habit of hiding under a bushel. She was almost provoked when Sir +Joshua remembered his duty to her, not guessing how well pleased she was +that he should forget it, and began to tell her of the one lady who +belonged to the Royal Society of Artists, Mrs. Angelica Kauffman. + +It was not a difficult process to make a digression to those ladies who +were amateur artists, and to render Lady Bell, in spite of her _savoir +faire_, bashfully grateful, by deigning to drop a hint for her benefit +on the mixing and laying-on of colours, and on the drawing of such +slight designs as Sir Joshua had himself afforded to Poggi for his fans. + +“I thought t’other morning we spent together was very happy,” Lady Bell +spoke out of the fulness of her heart to her squire when they were in +the square, and he was looking out for a chair that she might get home +in time to keep an appointment with her mantua-maker; “but I shall be +always recalling this day and its lessons when I am busiest and happiest +at Summerhill.” + +“Don’t you think I shall recall it, Lady Bell,” asked Harry Fane, “when +for a studio in which to busy myself, I shall be reduced to ‘between +decks,’ and for my fine arts shall be setting men to rig spars and haul +in sails, varied by pointing a gun instead of a telescope, and +submitting to be carried down into the cockpit?” + +“Oh, no; you won’t be carried there!” cried Lady Bell, with impetuous +haste. + +“At least I did not mean to crave pity from you,” protested Harry with +unconscious tenderness shaking his firm voice. “A grumpy, hulking fellow +who has been so much at sea that he has lost the manœuvre of giving a +wide berth to what displeases his crotchets on shore, is of no good save +to shout orders in a storm, or to keep a look-out against the national +enemy.” + +Lady Bell did not contradict him, but she looked in his face, somewhat +set and lined for a man of his age, but an honest and manly face, which +had looked its kindest on her, the hardness in which she could melt, as +she had said, like the melting of a block of ice before a meridian sun. + +She gave him a parting look as the chair-men lifted her chair, which +raised a mighty commotion, for which Lady Bell was decidedly answerable, +in the blue-coated breast of the young man—thought so long-headed and +calm-hearted, so rational, discreet, and obdurate, that he could be let +cast stones at all the follies and extravagancies of his time. Lady +Bell’s look said, “You are good for all that is cleverest, truest, +bravest—not to the world, perhaps, for you know, none better, that the +world is a giddy, vicious, Vanity Fair—but to me. You need not tell +others that I say so, but I say it; and you need not forget that I said +it, in the long days during which I am mixing with people whom you +justly despise, or have taken refuge at Summerhill; and when you are +sailing on the high seas, doing your duty like a man, guarding our +shores, and fighting our foes.” + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT. + + +Captain Fane, though he _was_ rational, and had a regard for +consequences, was fallible, and did not cease to frequent his cousin’s +house in Cleveland Court, because of that very inconsiderate look of +Lady Bell’s. + +On the contrary, he who was no dangler in drawing-rooms, and was wont to +improve his time in town by going afresh over the libraries and museums, +and by attending every gathering and discussion of scientific men, began +to haunt Lady Sundon’s rooms, until even that hospitably-disposed +kinswoman could not refrain from an uneasy private comment, “Something’s +going to happen to Harry Fane; he is turning up for ever, like a new +farthing. He used to make himself as scarce and hard to find as a gold +guinea, but now he has become dirt-cheap, and is always lying about in +everybody’s way. Lady Bell, Lady Bell, I hope you understand that I only +bade you sort my cousin in jest. I hope that you have not to answer for +a brave sailor’s undoing. He has enough of knocking about in the open +sea, without being run down in the harbour; and I consider Harry like a +son of my own, since his own folk are all dead and gone.” + +Lady Bell bore the unspoken charge as if she were perfectly innocent, +save that even a more brilliant bloom than she had shown lately, glowed +in her cheeks and was reflected in her eyes. + +Lady Bell was full of a gaiety of the season in which she was about to +take a part, and which was novel to her. “I dare say I shall soon have +had enough of the gay world—my fling, as you call it, Lady Sundon—but I +have not yet been to a masquerade,” explained Lady Bell; “I confess that +I am dying with curiosity to see what it is like. Only fancy one’s +ordinary neighbours and friends as sultanas and chimney-sweeps, Queen +Elizabeths and Richard the Thirds. Oh! I think it must be charmingly +romantic and diverting—that fun of finding people out, and of baffling +their curiosity, while you may be as witty as you please and can.” + +“All very fine, my dear; but Cornely’s masquerades were not exactly the +place for seeing proper company”—Lady Sundon played the monitor for +once—“and at the old Pantheon masquerades, Covent-Garden women and +highwaymen used to mix with the regular guests. How could it be +otherwise, when nobody could tell who was who?” + +“Yet you all went to these places, my dear Lady Sundon,” Lady Bell +coaxed her friend, “and riots have gone out of fashion. Besides, this +masquerade is to be given by the gentlemen of White’s. They are to have +lady patronesses. At an hour fixed upon, each lady and gentleman is to +unmask, so that one could not be safer in a private house. Indeed I am +very glad that the gentlemen of White’s are to be prodigiously gallant, +and give a masquerade ball this year, when I happen to be in town. +Tickets must be procured for you and Nancy and Lyddy, Lady Sundon; of +course they must. I’ll never rest till the deficiency is supplied; I’ll +not stir a foot, or order a costume, without you.” + +Lady Bell referred to the circumstance that in consequence of the run on +masquerade tickets, and the ultra exclusiveness of the set issuing them, +only one ticket to Lady Bell Trevor had found its way to Cleveland +Court. “So Nancy and Lyddy are down in the mouth,” Lady Sundon said; +“and for myself, I own I’m an old fool; but if the affair is to be above +board, I’d give my two ears yet to see the play.” + +There was less difficulty for gentlemen in getting admittance, and when +Lady Bell, the moment the club masquerade was announced, raised her +eager voice in its favour, Captain Fane had only to speak to a brother +officer, who was a member of the club, in order to have a ticket. Harry +Fane made a specious excuse to Lady Sundon for his haste to countenance +this vanity. + +“It is not that I approve of such an entertainment; I have heard from +yourself that it is one of the most lax and perilous in an age of +ridottos and public gardens—the more reason why as many sober and +virtuous people as can make an entrance, should use their right to +confront the foolish and vicious, and protect the innocent and unwary.” + +“Harry, don’t draw scores before my nose,” objected Lady Sundon +emphatically, and when the gentleman moved away discomfited, she +concluded her remark for her own benefit, “as if you would have been in +such a case to act as a bodyguard even to me and Nancy and Lyddy! The +grand passion has much to answer for, in playing such pranks with a +staid, sensible fellow, who has very little patrimony besides his pay, +and ought to know he is not a fit match for my Lady Bell. I meant that +his comb should be cut, for he carried it over high; but I’m frighted +that it is done only too closely. And he’s my own flesh and blood, +though Lady Bell is a charming young woman, and I could eat her, I have +taken to her so hugely. Besides, it is a credit and pleasure to show her +about in town, which is in the habit of thinking naught of the wares of +a country body like me.” + +Lady Bell’s influence would have gained the tickets which were wanting, +but, in the interval before the ball, there came the threat of a family +calamity that effectually prevented the Sundons’ attendance, and very +nearly put a stop to Lady Bell’s making acquaintance with the delights +of a masquerade. + +Word arrived that Lady Sundon’s only child, the son and heir of the +family, had met with a dangerous accident, by a fall from a tree, in one +of the meadows near his grammar school, a week before. He had not +recovered his senses when the letter was written, though the chances +were, from the number of days which had elapsed, that the hurt must have +yielded, so far, to medical skill. A fatal termination would have caused +the despatch of a special messenger, who would have reached London and +preceded the announcement of the accident in the slow course of post. + +But great was the flurry and distress. Poor Lady Sundon prepared to set +out instantly for the scene of the accident, to nurse her son, should +she find him alive to be nursed by her. + +The Misses Sundon, who had been wont to utter, as loudly as the +plaintiveness of their reproaches would permit, charges of undue +preference on the part of Sir Peter for his boy over his girls, and of +gross indulgence and spoiling on the part of the boy’s mother, were +sufficiently kindly women, in spite of their follies, to be cut up by +their half-brother’s danger, and to forget altogether, in their roused +and alarmed affection, that they had insisted on electing themselves the +young master’s rivals. + +Lyddy Sundon, who was the more energetic of the sisters, would not hear +of any other arrangement than that she should accompany Lady Sundon in +her journey, and remain with her, to assist in nursing the little lad. + +Lady Sundon, whose rosy, elderly face was purple with subdued +excitement, while she could not keep the moisture out of her eyes by the +repeated furtive movement of her hand across her face, did not fail to +be touched by the token of respect and regard. “I’m sure it’s very good +of you, Lyddy,” the mother said, with all her heart. “I ain’t likely to +forget it, no, nor your father neither; and I trust my Ned will remember +it when he is a man, for, by God’s mercy, he may live to see us out +yet.” + +Nancy Sundon undertook to devote herself, in his wife’s absence, to the +care of Sir Peter, naturally suffering more than ever, though he was +driven for the moment to forget his own sufferings. + +“But our trouble, which may end well, for all that is come and gone, +please God, is not your trouble, Lady Bell, so go to your masquerade +yourself, my dear,” the good-natured woman told Lady Bell at parting. +“I’ll take ‘The Cries of London’ to amuse Neddy, as you wish, and thank +you heartily for the thought. But I am sure it would vex any child of +mine on his bed, as it would vex me, if he could know that he was +keeping you, who have nothing to do with him, poor boy, save in your +good will, from a grand treat. Go when it is your day, and enjoy +yourself with the best, Lady Bell, bless you! We don’t grudge you the +enjoyment, though we have come to grief.” + +“Sure, you don’t; but never think of me, my dear Lady Sundon; may a +blessing and the best of luck go with you. I hope and pray that you will +find your boy a great deal better than you expect, and that we shall all +have such a merry meeting again that the finest masquerade will be +thrown into the shade.” And Lady Bell fully meant to give up the +masquerade. + +But scarcely had Lady Sundon and Lyddy set out, when another deliberate +post letter arrived in Cleveland Court, with the cheering tidings that +the sufferer was doing well, and was likely to recover without +sustaining any material and permanent injury from his fall. + +The chief source of anxiety was removed, and Lady Bell was free to +resume her intention of being present at the ball, and was not reduced +to eclipse its splendour by being absent, as a throng of the givers of +the feast were ready to profess. Miss Sundon might have accompanied Lady +Bell, but the former preferred, on the whole, after the late shock to +her nerves, to remain a martyr to her new responsibility, and to relapse +into luxuriating tenderly over the last grievance. + +Lady Bell, in her widowed dignity, could dispense with a companion. She +knew, moreover, with an idle, exultant throb, that in addition to her +many admirers, more or less fervent, and more or less men of many ties, +with their hearts split into segments, and distributed pretty equally +over a select circle of fashionable belles, there was one man who would +only see her in the motley company, who was in it for her sake, who, +crusty, cantankerous sailor as she had judged him at first, needed but a +wave of her hand, and a glance of her eye, to be at her side, at her +feet. + +Lady Bell, whether she confessed it to herself or not, went on to draw +conclusions from the significant circumstance that Captain Fane, of his +own free will, departed from his rule and put himself about to be one in +a scene so unpalatable to his tastes as this masquerade. + +Lady Bell did more. She looked within, and she recognised with a +breathless flutter of mingled wonder, trepidation, and bliss, an +astounding fact. The chief glory of the masquerade to her would be the +presence of this quondam growling and grave young officer. + +Lady Bell was perfectly aware that Harry Fane, though well-born, was +poor, and that—while she believed he was an excellent officer, and while +she had heard him speak like a natural philosopher to a man of genius—he +was a fellow of no mark in her fashionable world. His very profession +was against him in some respects. + +Lady Bell well knew that Captain Fane would be reckoned a most +unsuitable match, the poorest _parti_ for a beauty, a Lady Bell, a young +widow who had begun her career of worldly prosperity very fairly, and +had then taken the world by storm. Was she to end by wantonly +squandering her advantages, for which she had paid dearly enough in her +day; was she to slight the great matches that might be in store for her, +the coronets, the amorous squires, richer than Trevor of Trevor Court, +the exquisite beaux like Sir George Waring, for so sober and in the +world’s eye so insignificant a figure? Was she, as a lovely widow, +rather to copy the example of the Duchess of Manchester with her +Irishman, of whom all the world had talked, or that of the Duchess of +Leinster with her Scotchman, of whom all the world was talking, in +stooping to confer grace, than follow the lead of Lady Waldegrave in +aiming as high as the gusty neighbourhood of a throne? Lady Bell laughed +in mockery of herself a little hysterically. She made a feint of trying +to find time and heart to scold herself, and at the same time she +blushed like a rose at the mere thought, and trembled with a +newly-discovered happiness. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + THE MASQUED BALL AS IT BEGAN IN REALITY. + + +Lady Bell was coy. She was provoking, she was wilful, and she was +perverse, in the strange gladness which was so dashed with emotion, but +of which she strove hard, and almost succeeded, to show only the +frolicksome side. + +“I shan’t tell you what I am going to wear, Captain Fane,” Lady Bell +said, “and you are not to tell whether you are to be a peasant or a +prince. I shall put my fingers in my ears if you do. I mean to keep my +secret. I tell you all the fun will be in finding each other out—as if I +could not find him out among a thousand,” she said to herself, while her +glance fell beneath his reproachful gaze, “and if he should be too +stupid to guess me under a disguise,” she added—always for her own +satisfaction—“why I can take off my mask and enlighten him at any +moment.” + +Captain Fane was forced to submit, thinking in some measure, as his +mistress thought, “Well, the information beforehand would only be a +precaution to save time. However crowded the rooms may be, she can never +elude me.” + +But neither Lady Bell nor Captain Fane had ever been at a masquerade +ball. On the lady and gentleman’s separate arrivals, after a way had +been made through the excited crowd which pressed about the doors and +pushed into the lobby of the club itself, and was driven back by +watchmen, in order to witness the spectacle of the season, the scene +which presented itself was one of wild disorder. + +A great assemblage of pretentious and grotesque figures, who for the +most part could do little else to assume foreign and cast-off native +characters, strutted, stalked, shambled, stamped, bawled, growled, and +squeaked amidst a chorus of loud remarks, shouts of laughter, and roars +of derision. Communication between all save the initiated was next to +impossible. + +Lady Bell and Captain Fane lost themselves, and what was worse, could +not find each other, incontinently, and in spite of the magnet which +each formed for the other, and the conclusive test which each believed +he or she could apply to the other. + +“This is the very paradise of fools,” thought the not very tolerant +sailor, as he elbowed his way along, and doggedly resisted the audacious +attack on his notice made in very wantonness, or on mistaken premises. + +“No, I won’t ogle that intolerable shepherdess, Lady Bell never +perpetrated such a crook. + +“If Columbus keep raking me with his glass, as if I sailed in command of +his ship’s consort, I’ll be tempted to give him a knock on the head with +his own telescope. He sail a carvel or discover new lands! He is only +fit for the tub of that Diogenes which Dick Turpin has kicked over! + +“What a game for grown men and women! All the rank, wealth, and +intelligence of England engaged in it, as the news prints will have it +to-morrow. + +“Where on earth can Lady Bell be? She is not that fair one with the +locks of gold—borrowed locks clearly—over her own dark hair. No, this +lady is several inches too tall, and she walks like a stork, instead of +footing it like a fairy. + +“Crossing the line is a joke to this. The Jack Tars have more point in +their gambols. Avast! Yonder goes Neptune with his trident, summoned by +my words from the vasty deep. But I’ll have none of him. I have enough +of him on his own element, to be let off from the contact here. + +“Lady Bell is not walking in the minuet. What does she mean by thus +giving me the slip? How do I know what harm she may be running into in +the confounded freedom of this masquerade? All the rage is for +adventures, pleasant or unpleasant. I suppose every pretty woman will be +mortally disappointed if she do not have her share. Oh heavens! the +folly of women, and oh heavens! the folly of men—of a pretended Timon in +a shabby blue jacket for thinking to mend them.” + +But Captain Fane was not there in a blue jacket, shabby or otherwise, +else he might not have sought far and wide in vain. He had, between +ignorance and a spice of spite at Lady Bell, because she would not +afford him a clue to her character for the evening, taken no more +distinctive disguise than one of the abounding black dominoes or loose +cloaks, of which there were scores in the room, worn by lazy, shy, or +proud men and women, many of the former of much the same height as +Captain Fane. + +After all the domino, as proved by continental patronage, and by its +invariable use on the part of those who had covert designs to prosecute +at this or any other masquerade, was the one sufficient and safe +disguise in which men and women could glide here and there, and appear +and disappear miraculously in the crowd. + +But wearers of dominoes who wished to be known, must wait for the late +hour when every guest was to remove his or her mask, and step forth in +proper identity. + +Captain Fane’s temper was not his strong point, and his disposition was +not accommodating. He was too ruffled and piqued to receive any comfort +from the prospect of a humiliating confession of defeat, and a petition +for mercy. + +In the meantime, if her vexed partner could have known it, poor Lady +Bell was not enjoying this masquerade, to which she had looked forward +with keen, girlish zest and a softer interest. She had the sore +humiliation—granted it was by her own fault—to be recognised by a +multitude of her set, of Mrs. Lascelles’ friends and of Lady Bell’s +danglers, and yet to remain unrecognised by the one man whose +recognition she craved. + +Lady Bell had dressed herself as a gipsy fortune-teller, in a remarkably +respectable rustic gown—for a gipsy, in the authentic red cloak and +kerchief over her head, with a pack of incorrectly clean cards. But, +unfortunately, fortune-telling, though not so plentiful as blackberries +or dominoes, abounded to the degree that Captain Fane, himself +undistinguished, passed at a little distance without eliciting a spark +of the magnetic influence, the very woman who was swaying him in spite +of his reason, and almost of his conscience, who was filling him with a +strong, untrained heart’s concentrated love, which in contrast with the +calculating spent loves of the jaded hearts around, was fit to work like +madness in the brain. + +Lady Bell was greatly chagrined, half angry with Captain Fane for being +horribly, unaccountably stupid, half doubtful, with a pang, if he who +continued hidden from her, as she from him, was really in the room. +Something might have happened, a sudden appointment to a ship, an +accident—his being stopped, and wounded as well as robbed, on his way to +the ball—or a malicious story heard to her discredit, for he was precise +in his notions, and stern in upholding them, as she knew from her +experience at the water-party. + +Sailors had two standing-points from which they regarded women. The one +standing-point was that of coarser salt-water Lovelaces and Lotharios, +to whom no woman was sacred, and who trusted none. The other was that of +Turks, who locked up their women in western harems, and exacted from the +women the meekest domesticity. + +Harry Fane was no profligate Lovelace, Lady Bell was sure; but she was +not equally certain that he might not develop into a rigid, caustic +captain of his own household. + +Lady Bell had murmured loudly at the moroseness of poor old Squire +Trevor, when she, as a silly child, had tried his patience; should she +not be a fool indeed to put herself, as a woman, in the power of another +master? + +And this would not be a fine gentleman who might neglect and be +unfaithful to her, and still be suave and tolerant to her faults, having +consideration of his own grievous sins. + +This would be another sour and savage man, rendered a hundred times more +formidable in his prime by the weapons which her love and his would put +into his hands to pierce both their hearts. + +Yet she was old and wise enough to know that infinitely worse might +befall her. What a poor chance there was for women of her class and +culture in life! Humbler women might be more stolid, less alive to their +injuries, abler to keep their own. + +These were sad reflections to qualify the noisy nonsense of a +masquerade. Lady Bell was very sorry for herself, and soon grew weary of +the amusement. She discovered that it was rarely dependent on the lively +cleverness which could enter into the spirit of the game and play it out +well. The ball was kept up rather by the impudence and effrontery which +could break through every restraint, and could administer and endorse, +without flinching, the rudest rebuffs. + +The Troubadours, King Alfreds, and Friar Tucks, the Abbesses, Beggar +Girls, and Sapphos, aimed more frequently at outraging than at +expressing their _rôles_. It was regarded as the best joke when the +Troubadour flung away his guitar, King Alfred hobnobbed with Captain +Macheath, and Friar Tuck swam, sauntered, and sniffed at a vinaigrette. +In like manner fair applause was won by the Abbess entering into an open +flirtation with a soldier of fortune; by the Beggar Girl complaining +peevishly of the liberties taken by a courtier, who had trodden on her +beggar’s trappings; and by Sappho, while oppressed with a “snivelling +cold,” and beset by a most pronounced Devonshire dialect, indulging in +entirely prosaic and matter-of-fact remarks. + +No doubt, the abuse of the characters adopted, was a great deal more +easily attained than the use would have been, and, making allowance for +the average limits of human intellect, the people were wise in their +generation. But the effect was disappointing to an enthusiastic young +Lady Bell. + +The affair did not stop at a brilliant burlesque—it went as far as an +earlier screaming farce. + +Lady Bell began to grow timid and nervous as the mirth grew faster and +more furious. She clung to the support of any acquaintance such as Mrs. +Lascelles—who, the wish being father to the thought, possibly, +personated the widow loved by Sir Roger de Coverley—in passing through +the heaving, changing groups. + +Captain Fane was wrong in one suspicion: Lady Bell did not seek +adventures. On the contrary, when she saw the bold licence to which they +tended, she shrank back from them; she had very soon ceased to play the +rustic fortune-teller, as she had begun to play it with innocent spirit +and pains. She was ashamed of thinking of acting where hardly any one +else acted. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + THE “COMMON DOMINO.” + + +Lady Bell continued, however, to pay the penalty for the choice of a +character, by being accosted on the part of numerous Indian conjurers, +sailors, and Roman emperors, all uniting in the demand that she should +tell them their fortunes. Neither was the demand made in formal +histrionic phrase, but in free and easy modern language, spoken by +voices teasingly familiar to her. + +But Lady Bell was so bewildered and vexed because all her boasted +penetration had failed her, that not having succeeded in detecting the +one, she would not take the trouble to identify the many. She guessed +that some of these masquers were Sir George Waring, Lord Boscobel, +Colonel Selby; but she did not care to come to a decision. What was it +to her who they were? + +The gentlemen were not so indifferent or irresolute about the secret of +the graceful little fortune-teller. Fine gentlemen though they were, and +at their own ball, they were importunate and aggressive, until their +advances became irksome and offensive to Lady Bell. She grew sick of +them, and the whole riotous company, and wished herself with all her +heart well out of it—out of town—back to her peaceful Summerhill, with +her calm, beneficent Mrs. Sundon. + +Lady Bell absolutely declined doing any more palmistry, and put off the +pressing claimants on her powers with as much determination as she could +summon to her aid on the spur of the moment. + +“No, no, sirs, the stars are not in the ascendant,” she said, with a +very sincere sigh, “the cards won’t shuffle. You must go to another +fortune-teller.” + +“To no other, most unpropitious Sybil,” asserted one voice. + +“Let me shuffle your cards,” suggested another, offering to take the +tools of Lady Bell’s trade for the night out of her hands. + +“I’ll cross your hand with gold, my girl,” said a third, and at the same +time presumed to seize Lady Bell’s disengaged hand. + +Lady Bell was roused to a more energetic renunciation of her character. + +“I won’t be bribed. See here!” she cried. + +And raising the spread-out pack of cards, she scattered them far and +near. + +Her action was partly misunderstood, and some of her followers stopped +to pick up the cards, as Lady Bell had hoped they would. She moved on +directly, but in the little scuffle she had already been separated from +her party. For the moment the crowd had closed in between them, and Lady +Bell found herself alone in her disguise, exposed to rougher horse-play. + +Any masquer who saw a woman alone in the crowd, might regard her, +charitably, in Captain Fane’s strain, as a lady looking out for +adventures. Whether so looking out, or innocent of such an intention, +the mere fact of her having foolishly exposed herself, constituted her +good game for the buffoonery of the masquerade. + +Yet Lady Bell’s trepidation did not amount to panic, and she assured +herself that it was silly, for she had simply to take off her mask, and +show that she was Lady Bell Trevor, in order to find friends, and be +freed from molestation. Any woman who had ever sustained a serious +misadventure at a masquerade, like most women who sustained +misadventures in a wider sphere—the world, had only been too willing to +undergo the infliction, or had yielded to a private reason for risking +it, and either way had themselves to thank for their humiliation. + +But Lady Bell was certainly unwilling to plead helplessness, crave pity, +and virtually acknowledge that her natural dignity did not stand her in +good stead. Moreover, the acknowledgment ought not to be required of +her; for already some who knew her, as she was convinced, though it was +their present cue to conceal their knowledge, were there. Sir George +Waring and Colonel Selby, the first as Sir Roger de Coverley, the second +as the Lord Chancellor of England, had come up with her, holding some of +her cards in their hands. + +Lady Bell was tired, shaken. She could think of no other resource than +that of flying from her persecutors with as much speed as she could +command, or the crowd would allow. While she hurried along she held down +her head, and tried not to listen to besieging addresses, suggesting in +her attitude something of the aspect of Ferdinand seeking vainly to +shake off Ariel’s tricksy sprites; notwithstanding that Lady Bell’s foes +were of more solid substance. + +The group arrested the attention of a domino, who at once made for it, +catching up by chance as he did so one of the fortune-teller’s cards +which dropped from a gentleman’s hand. While he joined in the pursuit, +which was attracting notice, he heard bets laid on the race that caused +his blood to boil, little as bets meant at a time when men wagered on +drops running down a window-pane, on an old woman’s hobbling, or on the +hours that a sick man might live. + +The prize might be nothing to Captain Fane, for it was possibly a case +of mistaken identity where he was concerned; and even if he were in the +right, he was ignorant and jealous of Lady Bell’s reason for keeping +herself hidden from him, as it seemed. + +It might very well be that she would resent his interference. He could +not help remembering, though she had sought to atone for it, how she had +treated his opposition at the water-party. + +He might reap no thanks, only anger and disgust as the result of his +officiousness. But for her sake he would venture all. + +He scrawled with his pencil on the card which he had appropriated. “Do +you wish to get away and go home without waiting for the unmasking? I +shall put you into a chair—say yes, and I shall be satisfied that I am +right.” + +He pushed forward in advance of the others and thrust the card into Lady +Bell’s hand. + +She glanced mechanically at the writing, with which she was not +sufficiently acquainted for it to show the writer. But the electric +shock was given at last, she had not the slightest fear of trusting +herself with that domino. “Oh yes!” she drew a long sigh of relief and +joy, standing still and speaking in her natural tones. + +“A swindle, a cheat, madam,” shouted the wildest of her train; “you +decline to read our fortunes, and you answer the first question put to +you by an interloper.” + +“Gentlemen,” interposed the domino, speaking in cold tones of +indisputable authority and sober reason, “the lady is fatigued with the +foolery, and wishes to go home. I suppose you do not interfere with the +inclinations of your guests?” + +The gentlemen looked at each other and paused discomfited. + +“Sold, by Jove!” + +“I wish you joy, Sir George, of your successful rival.” + +“Devil take him, who can he be? never heard that my lady had any +troublesome appendage—country cousin, parson in disguise, former husband +come alive again, recent husband come to light.” + +Before the exclamations burst forth, the domino was leading the +fortune-teller through the crowd, compelling a passage for her, to the +door of the room, out into the vestibule, and down the stairs, at the +foot of which they stopped, and he bade a watchman call a chair. + +Then Lady Bell took off her mask, and he pulled off his, and each smiled +forgiving and forgiven in the face of the other, while the servants and +their company thought the two a proper couple (though Harry was no +Adonis), and on plain enough terms. + +But the lady and gentleman were not bent on one of the clandestine +expeditions and frantic escapades in which masquerades frequently ended, +since they would not set about it barefaced. Therefore the pair being +manifestly honest, were left to themselves, unmolested by the kind souls +that liked to look on them at a little distance. For anything more Lady +Bell and Captain Fane were deficient to the apprehension of their more +or less debased fellow-creatures in what are to them essential elements +of thrilling interest—crime and shame. + +“I am so glad to get out of it—I shall never wish to go to a masquerade +again. But could you find no better disguise than a common domino?” Lady +Bell began to recover herself, and to pout the least in the world. +“There were scores of dominoes like this,” she hinted regretfully, +putting a little finger shyly on a fold of the objectionable domino. + +“Could my Lady Bell not dress up herself more fitly than in the cloak of +a gipsy fortune-teller, when there were crowns and sceptres, wands and +wings, in the room?” the gentleman reproached his partner with delirious +fervour, softly grasping a corner of the maligned cloak. + +“I saw no acting,” cried Lady Bell in a flurry, to render the +conversation less personal. “A strolling troop, in a barn, would have +managed infinitely better. This was all fudge and lampooning. I did not +ask for true acting, but I expected something nearer to it from persons +of refinement and education. I am going to have the real thing +to-morrow.” + +“Tell me where, Lady Bell,” he solicited directly. + +“I am going to the play, sir, the veritable play; no wonder everybody +rushes to Covent Garden and Drury Lane; though some pretend that there +are private theatricals worth listening to, I should feel inclined to +doubt it, after to-night. I am to have a box in company with Miss +Greathead of Guy’s Cliff, who knows Mrs. Siddons—she is taking the +Londoners’ hearts by storm, after they nearly broke her heart years +ago.” + +“How do you know that?” he asked for the mere sake of hearing her speak +and detaining her a moment longer. + +“Oh, I know Mrs. Siddons finely,” she sparkled back upon him, enjoying +what she imagined to be his curiosity, “and perhaps some day,” she +lowered her voice inadvertently and the tell-tale colour leapt up in her +cheeks, “I shall tell you how she and I came to be personal friends. You +have never seen her? Then you have never seen such a genius on the +boards. Miss Yates is nothing to her; she eclipses Mr. Garrick himself.” + +He was not caring for geniuses on the boards at that moment, however +much he might care for them at another. What were the stage and its +stars to Harry Fane, when Lady Bell had availed herself of his +assistance, had preferred his protection to that of any man of her set +at the masquerade, and when the words, “Some day I shall tell you how +she and I came to be personal friends,” were ringing sweetly in his +ears? + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE, AND IN + LADY BELL TREVOR AND MISS GREATHEAD’S BOX. + + +Harry Fane found it easier to join Lady Bell in her box with Miss +Greathead at Covent Garden than at the masquerade ball. Notwithstanding +that, the tide which had turned and was bearing the great actress on to +fortune, was so full in its rush, that the crowd at White’s was nothing +to the jammed mass filling to suffocation the huge theatre. + +In the private box Miss Greathead, the other “Lady of Quality,” was +considerate and generous. + +She had been telling Lady Bell that she remembered when Miss Kemble came +to Miss Greathead’s mother’s house in the capacity of a waiting +gentlewoman. She had struck everybody by her commanding beauty and her +magnificent reading, and she had secured the friendship of each member +of the family, so that though she soon quitted Guy’s Cliff to be married +to her rejected lover, and to return to the boards—her true sphere—her +friends continued to watch her struggles and her progress with interest +and rejoicing. So long as she and they lived, Sarah Siddons would be +welcome among the Greatheads. + +Miss Greathead brought her story to a close abruptly, and made room for +the young officer in naval uniform. + +He looked a quiet, reserved, brave man, rather than a crowing, bullying +cock of fashion. At the same time he had been indefatigable in scaling +banisters and leaping partitions in order to reach the door of Lady Bell +Trevor and Miss Greathead’s box. He deserved the seat which he had won +next Lady Bell, though, poor fellow, he might not fill it long—and it +might be to his loss that he filled it at all. + +Miss Greathead in her woman’s heart, while she counselled expediency and +condemned imprudence with the rest of the quality, guessed what sitting +together for an hour or two was to a couple between whom there might +soon roll the seas which divide an old world from a new, and these seas +alive with transports, frigates, squadrons, hastening to meet the tug of +war. + +The pair were young fools (Miss Greathead was shocked at Lady Bell +Trevor—the daughter of an earl, though a spendthrift earl, a jointured +widow, though her jointure was not great, while the officer by his +uniform was no more than a Captain, and was not a private “fortune,” +else he could hardly have failed to be known by name to Miss +Greathead—she could not think what Lady Bell meant by thus preparing +misery for herself and another). But what would you have? such fools +abounded, would not the world be worse if it wanted them? Mrs. Siddons +was about to play just such another fool. + +At least the sailor must fill his seat as a silent partner, for Mrs. +Siddons’ acting, and the pit which hung breathless on her words, +permitted no chatter in the boxes or elsewhere. + +The play was that of _Romeo and Juliet_.[1] + + [1] This is a double anachronism, Mrs. Siddons did not play in town + again till later, and did not play Juliet till later still. + +When Mrs. Siddons took the part of Juliet, she ventured on a new and +bold stroke in the middle of her success. Since Lady Bell, a fancy-free +childish girl, though a fugitive wife, had been stirred to weep and +smile, and hang breathless over the histories of Isabella, Mrs. +Beverley, and Euphrasia, Mrs. Siddons had risen to a much loftier range +of characters, to her mature masterpieces of Lady Macbeth, Constance, +and Queen Katherine. + +But for that very reason it appeared doubtful if she could descend from +her height of ripe majestic matronhood to the dramatist’s idea of a +single-hearted love-lorn Italian girl. Even Mrs. Siddons’ superbly +developed personal traits might turn to faults and work against her in +the attempt to personate the slender, tender daughter of the Capulets. + +But no sooner did the enchantress come before her judges and begin to +weave her spells, than the velvet eyes, with their rich lashes, the +white pillars of arms with their regal sweep, became the fond dreamy +eyes, the loving, clinging arms inspired by the soul of youthful, +radiant, all-defying passion in Juliet. + +These two—Lady Bell and Captain Fane—looked at and listened to their own +story. True, they were not of sufficiently mighty quality to belong to +great rival houses, but the couple belonged in a measure to different +classes. Lady Bell might aspire to prospects as far ahead of the naval +captain at her side, though he was born and bred in her rank, as were a +Vice-Admiral’s commission, and Westminster Abbey. + +The circumstance that the difference between Lady Bell and Captain Fane +was comparatively slight, only rendered it more cruel if it were to part +them, since it did anything save prevent the rose from smelling as +sweet. + +To sit together at such a play interpreted by so consummate an actress, +and an actor who was not immeasurably behind her, was to sit like the +guilty King and Queen of Denmark and witness their crime shadowed forth +by the players. But whereas it was the past which was held up before the +shrinking eyes of the Royal Danes, it seemed a dazzling glimpse of the +future which was vouchsafed to these lovers. + +The secret of Lady Bell and Captain Fane, so far as it had remained any +secret to them, was spoken out in Shakespeare’s words and by Siddons’ +and Kemble’s voices. The true lovers there of whom the others were but a +vivid realization, sat with heaving breasts, flushed faces, and eyes +fixed on the stage, and dared not glance at each other (did not need to +for that matter), each to understand what the other felt—save once or +twice. + +At the masqued ball in the Capulets’ house, when fortune favoured the +brave so signally as to find the daring intruder his fit partner in the +daughter of the house, in a trice, Captain Fane and Lady Bell turned +simultaneously to smile to each other and to afford the opportunity for +the whisper on his part, “That fellow was in luck—he was not long in +receiving his prize.” + +At the first suggestion of a private marriage, Captain Fane again sought +and received a look as by irresistible fascination. “Do you mark that?” +said the swift meaning glance of his eyes, before which Lady Bell’s eyes +swam and fell as they had never swum and fallen before. + +There might have been many more pairs of lovers in the great crowded +house that night, taking to themselves, and making a personal matter of +the play and its playing, thus failing to view it in a speculative and +critical light. + +But there was absolutely nobody to whom Shakespeare and the Kembles were +rant and fustian, who was moved to laugh when the players wept, or to +joke and shrug when they raved. + +There was something marvellous in the unanimity of the sympathy, in the +multitude swayed like one man by the poet and the players, till the old +Italian tragedy in its passion and its piteousness lived again. + +Women clasped their hands and prayed for mercy on the young lovers, +sobbed as Juliet drank the potion and composed herself to the +semblance—too complete—of death,—and shrieked and swooned when Romeo met +Paris at the tomb—when swords were crossed and the boy husband who +believed himself widowed in the green accomplishment of his vows, +piercing and pierced, fell for ever. + +Men drew long breaths, and swore deep oaths, as over their professional +contests, their tussles in Parliament, their meetings at Chalk Farm, +their long seats at the green board. + +We have it on recent record, that in one row in the orchestra there sat +to see Mrs. Siddons play, men whose names are not forgotten, no, nor +will be, “Reynolds, Burke, Gibbon, Sheridan, Windham, Fox.” These men +were not babies, but “the tears were seen running down their dark +faces.” + +The theatre was a power in those days, and the excitement which crossed +and suspended the excitement of gaming tables and lottery drawings, was +in the main a wholesome and saving excitement. Mrs. Siddons made a +figure in Lady Bell’s history which sounds strange nowadays. Not only +did the actress chance to interfere between the girl and imminent +destitution, an incident which might in itself be passed over like any +other fortuitous incident, but at the crisis of Lady Bell’s history, +John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played Romeo and Juliet, before Captain +Fane and Lady Bell, and the players had much to answer for. + +A great deal which did come to pass might never have been. Human nature +partially roused might have struggled in vain with its swaddling-bands, +and sunk back into hopeless helplessness, unable to compass, within the +course of a few days, its deliverance by one bold stroke. The +opportunity once lost might never have returned. But in the very +striking of the clock _Romeo and Juliet_ was played. + +What hearts must have been stirred to their depths by the grand acting +of the grand old players! What moral revolutions must have been wrought +out, what life and death actions compelled—transforming ordinary men and +women into heroes and heroines! It would be curious if it were possible +to make such a reckoning. + +It may be said to the sceptical of such influences who have only sought +for them in the theatre of to-day, what woman shrieks and swoons in the +theatre now? what man, even, is seized with strong hysterics, as +happened once, among the throng who panted, sweated, and quivered to +leap on the stage, rush to the rescue, or be in at the death? + +We live in a hypercritical and cynical age, and are proud of the fact. +We should never have been touched by Dr. Dodd’s enunciation of +“Mesopotamia”—it is to be feared not even by George Whitfield’s +breathing forth of “amen,” neither by the sham nor by the reality. + +Besides, we are misled by visions of our ancestors taking snuff and +looking on at executions, and think that they felt very little, and that +in the wrong place. Whereas we are the very same men and women, except +that we are triply bound by certain refinements and restraints, and are +pleased to hug our bonds. + +Lady Bell had cried with the best, palpitated and quaked over Romeo and +Juliet. She had never once felt disturbed by the remembrance, as a +modern playgoer would have felt disturbed—nay, would have taken credit +for the feeling, that she had been behind the scenes with this Juliet, +had helped her to nurse her children, add up her bills, and eat her +prosaic meals. + +Lady Bell was not so carping and invidious. She was more womanly; she +was inclined to go to the opposite extreme in her reception of the play +and in the effect which it had upon her. + +“This Juliet was a sweet victim,” Miss Greathead had declared, wiping +her eyes when all was over. “But one must confess she had little more +than her deserts. How would it be with any girl in our days, who could +be as disobedient and deceitful and monstrously rash as Mistress Juliet +showed herself?” + +“Oh, Miss Greathead,” protested Lady Bell, forgetting everything in the +eagerness of her argument, “I don’t go in for the disobeying and +deceiving her parents—only they were so mad in their feud, that what +could she ever hope for from their reason or their duty? They drove her +to the climax of her disobedience and deceit, and that after she had +consented to be Romeo’s. Why, madam,” Lady Bell paused, clasped her +hands expressively, and exclaimed irrestrainably, “I should have done +the same.” + +“What! swallowed that horrid drug, and taken the doubtful +consequences—the only thing certain that she should overwhelm her father +and mother and whole kindred in a horrid waste of grief? Then, when she +did wake up in the dreadful shadowy tomb, because the first glimmer of +light proved to her that the dangerous stratagem had been in vain, and +she had lost her lover—— My dear, many a woman has to lose her lover,” +Miss Greathead broke off, and fanned herself, while a quiver passed over +her features. “Think of this American war, and the French wars, and the +Scotch rebellion, and all that they cost. But to count the world lost, +and refuse to live any longer without the one man! It was selfish and +cowardly, as well as blasphemous, for her to fall on his sword, and make +an end of it.” + +Lady Bell shivered. + +“There need not have been any use of violence,” she said, after a pause, +speaking from the prompting of her heart—“unless, indeed, it was because +the young Italian girl was too sorry for herself. A living death would +soon have killed her; and if it had not, death in life would have been +the greater tribute of the two.” + +“Lady Bell,” said Captain Fane in her ear, taking her hand and holding +it fast and tight, as they left the box and wended their slow way after +Miss Greathead, whom a friend was conducting to a coffee-house for +supper, “I have something to say to you, and you know it, while you have +not the heart to deny me the liberty of saying it. I am sure of this +much after to-night. Oh, the happiness of knowing that your heart is on +my side! What are the heaviest obstacles after that gracious +encouragement? But I must speak where we shall not be interrupted. Will +you be my love, and will you meet me on the Mall, where I shall be +walking by nine o’clock to-morrow morning, long before there will be any +company abroad?” + +Lady Bell hung her head and trembled, and would almost have drawn back, +frightened at the result which she had helped to provoke. + +“You will not be true to yourself and to me if you refuse me such an +interview,” he put it. “I shan’t detain you a moment against your will; +do you think I should, or wilfully expose you or your good name? Ah, +never; you know me better than think that. But although you have no +parents to control you, and are even independent of guardians, you are +so young, my darling, that it is such a miserable match for you.” + +“Hush, hush,” Lady Bell stopped him. “You don’t know how unworthy I +am—what a vain, pleasure-loving, headstrong creature.” + +“You shall have the best, the purest pleasure that I can procure for +you,” bragged Harry. “But all your friends will oppose a marriage +between us, especially at this time, when I may get orders any day to +sail for America. Even my friends, Sir Peter and Lady Sundon, will be +scandalized—as if their house had not proved a snare to me, and as if +they were answerable for their pirate of a kinsman snatching at the +treasure which he came across.” + +“I am my own mistress,” said Lady Bell, giving a welcome specimen of the +wilfulness of which she had spoken. “No one has any right to say +anything to me against my choice—as if I would listen!—unless my dear +Mrs. Sundon. Oh, I hope she will not think that we have been close and +sly. I have writ and told her that I thought one gentleman very +different from the rest whom I met in town, and that I imagined she +would like him. Only I made a mistake; for I fancied at first that he +would be more to her taste than mine. But, sir, I do not grant that you +have any title to hear what I write in my private correspondence with my +friend.” She made a faint attempt at playfulness. + +“Don’t you?” questioned Harry, showing that, glum as he had sometimes +been in Lady Bell’s company, his was not the faint heart which could not +win a fair lady. “What presumption I have been guilty of! I leaped to +the conclusion that there was to be no more secrets between us, and that +you would write to me myself for my consolation in our parting.” + +At that word of parting, Lady Bell came fluttering down from her proud +little perch, and nestled to him in an instant. + +“Harry,” she said, “I shall meet you to-morrow if you bid me. But take +care what you bid me to do, for I trust you entirely.” + +“God do so and more to me, if I fail you,” swore Harry Fane. + +“And don’t mind any foolish pother people make. I shall not mind it +much. Only I hope that they will not be very rude and disagreeable on +your account. Here is the coffee-house; and mind, we must behave +ourselves, unless we would have our engagement talked of all over the +town before it is fairly concluded.” + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE MEETING ON THE MALL. + + +By nine o’clock next morning a young naval officer was pacing the Mall +of St. James’s under the interlaced boughs of the still leafless trees. +He formed a conspicuous figure among the porters, tradesmen’s boys, +shopwomen, and message girls—all who were then to be seen on the old +promenade, which had still its fashionable frequenters at stated hours +later in the day. + +But conspicuous or unconspicuous, there was no one whose observation was +likely to signify to the gentleman, or to the lady who, taking an early +walk, attended by her maid, might encounter him, and consent to his +attendance for the rest of the way. + +The weather, which had been boasting that spring was come a fortnight +before, had reversed its sentence—now that March was not only coursing +in the blood and in the sap of the trees, but recorded in the +calendar—and insisted that the season was no other than midwinter. A +raw, surly east wind was blowing; a grey sky was overhead; the turf of +the park looked pinched; the leaflets of the trees stood arrested—their +green turned to sickly yellow. The little birds retained their songs in +their breasts, and only chirped disconsolately in a croaking fashion +down in their throats, as they hopped from bough to bough to keep +themselves warm. + +Captain Fane, with his cocked hat pulled down to his eyebrows, looked +grave and almost grim and hard-favoured as he paced the Mall. + +Captain Fane’s patience was not tried on the occasion. He had not half +crossed the park when a little figure, guarded from the chill morning +air and from prying eyes by a furred mantle and a capuchin, came towards +him. + +The figure was followed by a faithful maid in her white cap and pattens, +walking discreetly behind. + +The lady advanced, woman fashion, as if she did not see the gentleman, +but had been enticed out by the fineness of the disagreeable morning, +and by the company on the deserted Mall. She looked over her shoulder to +speak to her maid. She tacked, as she picked her steps from side to side +of the Mall, like one of the ships in Harry Fane’s squadron when the +wind was chopping afresh every minute. The figure, with its halting, +wavering, but unmistakable progress in his direction, quickened the +gentleman’s steps in accordance with his bounding pulses, and sent him +straight as a launch to meet it. + +Captain Fane was deeply sensible of the boon granted to him; but even as +he held Lady Bell’s hand in his own, his face continued grave and +contracted with trouble and pain. The first words which he said as he +turned and walked by her side, giving, not offering his arm, were words +of warning in breaking bad news. + +“It is well that you have been as good as your word, dearest, well for +your own tender heart as for my comfort in remembrance, since our first +meeting is likely to be our last. Orders from the Admiralty were waiting +my return last night. I did not know, but it was just possible that the +_Thunderbomb_ might be put in dock to lie high and dry for months. I had +even entertained the thought—but that was before I saw you and lost my +head with my heart—ah! sweet Bell, I’ll go bail you have much to account +for—of seeking to get an appointment to another ship, lest I should be +kept hanging about long on shore. Long! The time has passed like a +summer day which is all but ended. The _Thunderbomb_ is to hold itself +in readiness to weigh anchor on or about the 15th, to sail with a +detachment of troops for Boston.” + +Lady Bell had heard him without interruption till this. “Going away—away +from me, Harry?” she cried, struck heavily by the blow, “to join the +ranks of war, and dare the stormy seas while these words we have spoken +are yet on our lips! No, no, it cannot be.” + +“My love, I would I could say no and comfort you. Guess, then, what it +must be for me to leave you,” he appealed to her. + +“Then, don’t leave me,” said Lady Bell desperately. “Oh, Harry Fane, I +have been so lonely all my life, an orphan, a loveless wife—I could not +help it; I could not love poor Mr. Trevor after he had forced me, a +persecuted child, to marry him—till I found Sunny. You need not look +disappointed. She has been the dearest, best of friends and sisters to +me; but I am frighted I have misled her. I know I would leave her for my +lover, my true husband. Will you leave me after this alone again? Cruel +Harry! Lady Sundon was right. You are a hard, stubborn man.” + +“Alas! dear, how can I help it?—I, who would give my best chance of +promotion—well-nigh my life, if—not the Admiralty, but the Powers above, +would suffer me to remain with you only three months,” he protested +passionately. “It may not be, Lady Bell—I cannot even pray for it.” + +“And yet you only half approve of this American war,” she reminded him +pertinaciously. + +“That is true,” he owned; “and more than I are in the same, or a worse +predicament. Lord Effingham has followed the example of Viscount Pitt, +in requesting leave to retire from the service; and Captain Wilson, an +Irishman, who obtained his commission by raising a hundred and thirty +men off his own estate, and who has served with the greatest credit for +sixteen years, has also laid down his sword.” + +“Then why cannot you do the same?” she implored him. + +“Because I do not see it to be my duty,” he said firmly. “I don’t +approve of every tittle of the laws and their execution. For instance, a +miserable lad of fifteen was hanged t’other day for some petty theft—it +may have been no more than the filching of a sixpence, for which they +tell me another wretched fellow swung at Tyburn; but that is not to say +that I am not to maintain the laws which are just and good in the main. +This is no time to pick holes in the services, but to build them up with +our bodies and blood, and let reformation follow in due time. For +anything else—even to be with you, it would be rank selfishness.” + +“You are too strong and wise for me,” she complained a little bitterly, +averting her head. + +“You would not have me sacrifice honour and duty,” he pressed her in his +turn, “what every true man is bound to maintain in the name of God and +his fellows, whatever else he give up? Remember the line of the song you +sang the last time I stood by the harpsichord in Cleveland Court:— + + ‘I could not love thee, dear, so well, + Loved I not honour more.’ + +Sailors, like soldiers, belong specially to their king and country. +Would you wish your sailor to stain his blue jacket?” + +“No, no, I would have you my best of men,” yielded Lady Bell, with a +great sob; “but I doubt my heart is broke, for I cannot follow you into +danger, and if—if——” + +She failed in framing the conclusion, that the man she loved, and who +had just told her his love, standing there in his flower of youth, +health, and strength, might ere long fall on the deck, slippery with +blood, never to rise again, or sink in the trough of an engulphing wave, +and be washed far beyond the ken of friend or foe. + +Lady Bell broke into piteous tears. She had been, as she said, so lonely +a young creature, constrained, in the measure, to be self-sufficing, +till she had found a friend, and then a love. + +He had taught her in the shortest space to be prouder of his love than +of all else belonging to her. She had been right willing to lay down for +him her pride of birth and beauty and a belle’s worldly expectations. +She had consented gladly to resign that belleship, to affront the great +world, and, as an anti-climax after her triumphs, to make a poor love +marriage. + +But it was all in vain. No such voluntary offering was required of her. +Her new-found love was snatched from her. Her life was emptied of its +fulness at the fullest, just when she had begun to know how rich and +rapturous life might be. “Would it have been a relief to you,” asked +Captain Fane slowly, “though I would never have consented to your facing +hardship (‘fore George, to think of my Lady Bell being exposed for +me!)—if all this had occurred months earlier, and in the interval we had +braved the cold displeasure, or the hot wrath, of friends, and were wed, +man and wife, whom no man, nothing save death, could put asunder? Would +it have made a difference if you could have gone out with me, as some of +the civil authorities, Mr. Eden and others—ay, some of the officers too, +have carried out their wives?” + +“Oh, Harry, it would have been heaven compared to this!” Lady Bell +assured him fervently. + +“What!” he cried, half with tender wonder, half covetous to have the +fond assurance repeated, “you would cross the seas, and rough it among +rough sailors on board ship, and you so young and dainty. You would +dwell among strangers, many of them hostile—some say with a good cause, +but it is too late to do aught but fight its righteousness or +unrighteousness now—and we sailors might be called on to help to take +stores up the country, while we were dependent on the fidelity of our +barbarous allies, the Indians. You were never in a foreign country. You +never even tried living on board ship.” + +“Never, never,” corroborated Lady Bell, so heartily, that there was +something like cheerfulness in her tone. “But I should be with you, and +what would I mind besides? Do you think I am a coward, sir, or a peevish +woman, fit for nothing but to miss my comforts, and make a moan? Don’t +call the sailors rough, when you are a sailor.” + +“Then I am delivered from a very great temptation,” admitted Harry Fane +honestly. + +“Don’t return thanks for it,” she forbade him quickly, “when it is my +loss. Oh, Harry! I am yours—yours in our hearts; but I would I were +yours so that no man could contradict it, anyhow or anywhere,” sighed +Lady Bell, clinging to him with a creeping quailing foretaste of all the +evils which might be wrought by distance, time, the remonstrances of +friends, the misrepresentations of enemies. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT? + + +“Take care, Lady Bell!” exclaimed Harry, in rising agitation, “lest I’m +only delivered from one temptation to be plunged into another.” + +“Ah! temptations have no power for you,” proclaimed Lady Bell, with a +mixture of pride and sorrow; “you are as firm as a rock, and as +unyielding when you think you are in the right.” + +“Don’t be too sure,” said Captain Fane, and she saw that he could be +nervous with all his firmness. “I have let you say how you will want me, +because it has been marrow to my bones and joy to my heart, Bell, when +God knows I am anxious and sad enough. But at least you do not resign me +to the importunities of any rival, unless it be to the image of +Britannia herself,” he suggested, with an effort at a jest and a smile, +“flourishing, as our general figurehead, and to the death which she may +bear in her hand. Think what I must feel to leave you, exposed to the +cunning wiles of all the beaux and bucks and great matches who hunt +women as men hunt game. These men play with women, and have no +remorse—for not believing in a God in heaven, they do not believe in a +man or woman on earth. They seek to buy women, and sooner than be foiled +in the base barter which they propose, and be forced to confess their +titles, rent-rolls, money-bags, even their pretty persons, disparaged, +they will try to get the better of women by cruel arts. Such men betray +women infernally.” + +He had worked himself up till he was pouring forth a torrent of rage, +hatred, and apprehension. Cold as the morning was, he had to wipe his +forehead. + +“Why, Harry!” remonstrated Lady Bell, startled, but not altogether +offended by his jealous fury, not unwilling to be roused from the +dejection into which she was sinking, and to be diverted for a moment +from the gloomy prospect before her. + +There was no question of the gloom near at hand, and to last for many a +day. Come what liked in the future, Harry Fane was going, would go to +join his ship in the first place, and the war in the second. He might be +subjected to work, weariness, and privation, but he had action and +change for his portion. As for her, she must abide in her place forlorn, +with the brightness passed from the sky, and the zest gone out of the +feast. The “Lubin” of the song was indeed on the eve of departure, of +long uncertain tarrying, perhaps till his love’s bloom was faded, her +heart withered and dry. Lady Bell had asked once in very idleness and +restlessness, that movement, passion, even, in its pangs, might ruffle +the still waters of her heart. They were ruffled with a vengeance, +lashed into a piteous storm, to heave and swell for many a day, ere they +settled down again in peace. + +Knowing what was hanging over her, Lady Bell was fain to forget the +knowledge for a moment, in the rousing consideration that Captain Fane, +in spite of her frank confession, was half beside himself with jealousy. + +She did not altogether disapprove of this state of matters, for was it +not evidence of how well the self-controlled sailor loved her? + +She was a little frightened at the strength of his passion, +nevertheless. Extravagantly as she herself had loved him, she did not +know him fully and closely, after all. One of the charms of her love was +its mystery. + +But Lady Bell thought Harry Fane too severe in his strictures, and +certainly needing to be pulled up and taken to task. Aching as her heart +was, she tried to make believe for a brief space that the ache was not +there, and to do her part in enlightening her lover. + +She began to pout with her white face and her tearful eyes. + +“Would I forget you in your absence, Harry? Could you ever believe that? +What effect would all the wicked stratagems of the finest gentlemen have +on me?” + +“How can I tell?” he answered gloomily. “I found a whole hornet’s nest +buzzing round you when I met you first, and again at the masquerade, and +you did not seem able to put them down.” + +“Why should I put them down? They are entitled to live as well as the +rest of us, even though a busy fellow of a bee looks down upon them as +drones or butterflies; indeed they are rather that than hornets. They +have never done me harm, and they have squired and amused me many a day; +you ought to be more generous to them, sir, and to learn to keep a civil +tongue in your head.” + +“We have no time for quarrelling,” cried Harry, “you may teach me better +manners one day, if we are spared and restored to each other, and you +are still willing to undertake the office. But I could not profit by the +best of lessons, and I submit that it would be taking me altogether at a +disadvantage to begin when I am just about to bid you farewell.” + +“Not yet! not yet!” besought Lady Bell, dislodged from her poor little +temporary cranny of arch resistance and coquettish teasing, and +stretched anew, like another Andromeda, on a sheer precipice, over a sea +of misery, until she fell back into her lamentation. “If we had but +understood each other faster, and been married within these few +weeks—sailors and soldiers must woo and wed in haste—before these +terrible sailing orders arrived! Then I could have sailed with you; I +should not have been frighted, though we had encountered the enemy. I +could have kept quiet below, with you on deck to run to when the guns +ceased firing. I might have proved how little I cared for any other man +by following you all over the world.” + +“You can prove it, dear,” declared Harry Fane, hoarse with eagerness, +taking her at her word, giving the reins to his passion, and smothering +and trampling down every doubt and scruple. “Let us be married before I +go, and although I cannot take you with me, I may send for you to my +station. Some one of my old messmates and friends will be glad to do as +he would be done by, and bring you out to me in his ship.” + +Lady Bell was astounded; she had been utterly unprepared for this +catching up of her speech, heartfelt though it was. + +Harry Fane rushed on, overwhelming her with his special pleading. + +“That and that alone would reassure my mind, which is on the rack for +you, exposed on a pinnacle as you are. Don’t be vexed with me when I say +it, but you are a beautiful woman of rank, very young, greatly admired, +as you well may be, moving in gay worldly circles, which unsettle even a +man’s head, and throw dust in his eyes. You have not a near relation +whose right it would be to control and guide you, only such thoughtless, +irresponsible guardians as even my good cousin! Oh! my love, how shall I +leave you thus? for God knows how long,” he groaned in anguish, “these +six—twelve years. This horrid war has long been hanging over us. Our +American brethren are brave and resolute as we are; the strife may last +while mother country and colony hold out. How can I trust your constancy +exposed to such a test, assailed as it will be when I am gone, and you a +young woman, and therefore weak, without blame or shame to you?” + +“I understand,” acknowledged Lady Bell piteously. “I am not angry with +you for distrusting me—how can I be, when I remember how weak I was once +before? How wrong as well as weak, I know by my love for you. I was +unfair to myself and to another. Do I not shrink from looking you and +every one in the face when I think of my marriage? Do I not blush for +the name I bear, because of the reason for bearing it?—that I let myself +be sold as a chattel or a slave, rather than die free—and I was not a +loyal slave, Harry, never think it; I revolted and fled, like many +another slave.” + +He was hardly listening to her, he was so dead set on over-persuading +her and himself that he might make her his, and that by doing so, he +would save her. + +“Then do not risk danger again, you are not so much older—only a tender +girl of eighteen—widow though you are. I may not even be able to reach +you with the poor stay of letters when all your friends will be against +me. I cannot wonder and complain, but I must think of myself and my +love, and of you and yours, for you love me, and me only, Lady Bell, +your lips have sworn it now, over and over.” + +“Ay, and I swear it again,” averred Lady Bell, with fond pride. + +“No other man will ever be to you what I can be. I will say more, +cross-grained sinner as I am, I honestly believe that I shall raise you, +Bell, by your love, as you will raise me by mine. Are not true lovers +made for helpmeets as well as mates? And, although I have no cause for +boasting, less at this moment perhaps than at any other, still, do you +not love me, darling, because you think me honest, though plain, earnest +if harsh, a little wiser in my blundering, a little more bent on truth +and righteousness in my faultiness, than the ruck of those heartless +triflers and blasphemous renouncers of all obligations around you?” + +“Have I not called you the best of men?” boasted Lady Bell, with an +immensity of faith which might have staggered him and opened his eyes. +But he only shut them harder, while he modestly declined the innocent +hyperbole. + +“Oh, no, a prodigiously erring fellow, and nearly mad at this moment, I +suspect. But we should walk through life hand in hand, love, and ask to +rise to the best that nature and grace could make us. For that end we +should seek to be reverent and dutiful, and to turn our backs on +vanities, follies, and worse. It is not wrong to make this end so sure, +that if we live it cannot be baulked, and that no one can ever more come +between us to beguile us of our faith in God and each other.” + +“If I could only claim you as my wife,” he argued unweariedly, “I should +have no fear to leave you thus solemnly bound to me—thus able by +uttering one word to dismiss all suitors, or to consign them to the +tender mercies of a man whom you could then call from the ends of the +earth—too happy to come, as I came to you at the masquerade—to give you +protection. My name alone, when you choose to take it, and replace by it +the name which you tell me, hanging your head (I cannot bear to have my +love hang her head), it is no pleasure or pride for you to wear, would +protect you.” + +“Ah! Harry, shall I ever wear your dear name?” + +“If you will, Lady Bell; and I venture to affirm that it will shelter +you as the name of the husband of your own free choice. In the mean time +I shall be doing my best to make my name honourable for you. But ah, +Bell, grant me my reward now, during the few short hours which we are +yet to spend together—while it is in your power to grant it, since it is +doubtful whether I shall ever return to claim it.” + +“Come back quick, Harry, and you may blame me as you will, I shall be +too happy to be blamed by you, and to do whatever you desire,” promised +Lady Bell. + +“Heaven forgive my conceit, it was my very wonder and delight, which +caused me to find fault or fret at every small mote in my sun. But I +shall not contradict or plague you more, very likely you will soon have +seen the last of a lumpish, captious fellow, whose greatest merit that I +can see is, that he no sooner knew you than he cast his quips and +cranks, as a misanthropic sailor, to the winds, and loved you with his +whole heart and soul.” + +“Oh, heavens! seen the last, contradict—plague! Harry, while you profess +to love me, how can you speak so unkind?” + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + ISLINGTON CHURCH EARLY ONE MARCH MORNING. + + +Harry Fane was convinced of all that he had said—to the extremity of the +situation which appeared to justify a violent alternative as the only +refuge from their trouble. Naturally he succeeded in persuading Lady +Bell, while he was not even guilty of deliberately playing upon her +feelings. He was tortured with having the cup snatched from his +lips—with doubt and dread, and he groaned out his torture audibly, until +Lady Bell was brought to enter but a faltering futile objection to his +desperate project. + +“How can we get married so soon, nobody knowing, your cousin away, and +not a preparation made?” + +Nothing more easy, as the records of the generation showed, and as Lady +Bell’s own recollection might have told her. + +Even when a public marriage would be attended with difficulties, a +private marriage could be resorted to, and had been resorted to, more +than once already by officers hastily bound for America. These private +marriages were, according to convenience, announced shortly after the +event, or allowed gradually to filter out in suspicious rumours, till +the secret was no secret, by the time it was finally disclosed. + +Certainly Lady Bab Yelverton, the only child of the Earl of Suffolk, +whose runaway match had been much talked of this season, had brought +private marriages somewhat into disgrace. + +But then Lady Bab, by the way a mere chit of a girl, two years younger +than Lady Bell, had defied parental authority in the most daring and +glaring manner; Lady Bab had gone off from her father and mother’s house +with Lieutenant Gould, just returned from being wounded in America, to +be worse wounded by Cupid or Plutus at home. Lord Suffolk had threatened +his daughter with his curse, and the cutting her off with a shilling. + +Lady Bab’s gross filial undutifulness was regarded as even more +reprehensible than the Duchess of Leinster’s disregard for maternal +obligations. The duchess, who was the widowed mother of seventeen +children, as well as “the proudest, most expensive woman in town,” had +thought fit to marry her eldest son’s tutor. + +But Lady Bell had no father to curse her, and cut her off with a +shilling, and in place of seventeen chicks did not possess one whose +interest could be affected by the acquisition of a stepfather. If Lady +Bell chose to be very imprudent, she was still at liberty to please +herself. There was only her friend, Mrs. Sundon, whom Lady Bell was +bound to consult, and, fortunately or unfortunately, Mrs. Sundon was too +far away in the emergency to be consulted in time. + +Captain Fane was his own master, save when he was with his squadron. He +had fewer surviving relatives than Lady Bell owned. + +Why then should there be any privacy thought of in the matter? + +Because, although there were no near relations, there were many friends, +if there was no fortune on either side to be thrown away, there were +sufficient prospects to be sacrificed, and penalties to be incurred. +Lady Bell had been so much the rage, been believed to have the refusing +of such excellent offers, that a host of influential people, if they +knew the reckless step which she proposed to take, would rush in—all the +faster, that it was no particular business of theirs—to try if they +could not prevent the shocking disaster of an attractive young woman of +rank committing an unequal love marriage. + +Even the Sundons, who had looked on and promoted the intimacy between +the pair, would, as Captain Fane foresaw, take blame to themselves when +it was too late to oppose the grand conclusion of the intimacy. + +Lady Bell for herself, and Captain Fane for her, had a natural dislike +to the exclamations, the expostulations, and the nine days’ wonder which +they must provoke. + +Lady Bell would have to sustain the scorn, to support much that was +painful in her new position, all alone, as if she were still a widow, +should she marry Captain Fane publicly, and should he join his ship +immediately and sail on a long voyage with sea-fights in the distance. + +On the other hand, Lady Bell and Captain Fane might marry as many of +their compeers married, secretly, keep their own counsel, and none be +any the wiser, till the gentleman returned to make known the marriage +and claim his wife. + +No doubt that was the line of argument followed and found satisfactory +long ago by men and women, honourable otherwise, who allowed themselves +to become involved in the compromises, the concealments, the double +dealings, and the acted lies of private marriages, for which the +principals were not condemned by their contemporaries. + +In justice alike to our progenitors and to ourselves, we crave leave to +remember, that just as our grandfathers and grandmothers managed to +combine in their portly and stately persons, along with a foreground of +magnificence and elegance, a background of slipshodness and +sluttishness, so, even where their virtues were admirable, still their +manly morals were laxer, and their womanly manners less delicate, than +the morals and manners of the present generation. + +There was one obstacle to a private marriage in Lady Bell’s case, which +nearly compelled the couple to brave public clamour and indignation. +Lady Bell was a minor. Captain Fane, in despair at this difficulty, +hurried like a madman, braving all imputations, to the most notorious +gaming-houses in town where Squire Godwin’s whereabouts might be +discovered. + +The gallant Captain proposed, failing every other resource, to make a +forlorn appeal to Lady Bell’s nearest relations. + +The gentleman was luckier than he deserved, he stumbled on the very man +he sought, who was in London unknown to Lady Bell, and unencountered by +her. + +Captain Fane and Squire Godwin had an interview, during which the former +succeeded in coming to an arrangement with the latter, but by what +representation and inducement, by what descent to lower depths on the +part of the ruined gentleman, and by what ill-bestowal of a portion of +Harry Fane’s last prize-money, never transpired. The transaction was not +likely to be reported by Mr. Godwin, neither was it one on which Harry +Fane would care to look back. + +Captain Fane, however, took the precaution of introducing Squire Godwin +for a few moments to the Sundons’ house in Cleveland Court. + +Lady Bell met her uncle for the first time since her marriage to Squire +Trevor. She could not help regarding Squire Godwin as a bird of evil +omen. His appearance on the scene, like a malignant spectre at the +critical juncture, was a shock to Lady Bell, and smote her, while it +lasted, with blank confusion and consternation. + +But Mr. Godwin’s stay was short, since the master of the house was kept +in the dark as to the origin of a visit which he did not relish, and for +bringing about which he did not thank Captain Fane. + +Sir Peter was ready to shake himself up and put a stop to the intrusion, +while he prevented any attempt which it might imply of the resumption of +authority by Squire Godwin over his niece, Lady Bell Trevor, Sir Peter’s +honoured guest. + +Mr. Godwin did not wait to be dismissed, he took his leave, giving Lady +Bell, in her agitation, a dim impression that while his air was as +distinguished as ever, in the studied carelessness—of which the study +was so perfect, that it became invisible—and his dress as +irreproachable, every line in his handsome person was drawn more deeply +and sharply. Crows’ toes and furrows had multiplied incalculably, till +the wrinkles of premature old age were shrivelling and wizening his +face. The once noble field was all covered over with cramped, +contracted, ugly hand-writing. + +Lady Bell could not so much as rally breath and courage to inquire for +her Aunt Die. She was so simple and ignorant, that she did not even +guess what had brought her lover into strange contact and alliance with +Squire Godwin, or how the latter came by the knowledge, the merest +whisper of which was sufficient to cause her to leap from her chair, for +Mr. Godwin contrived in his brief greetings to say one or two pertinent +words aside to her. + +The Squire addressed Lady Bell Trevor with a little more consideration +than he had been wont to bestow on Lady Bell Etheredge, but there +remained the echo of the old contempt in the tone of his speech. + +“So you think to contract a second marriage, madam; well, matrimony is +honourable, though I have not tried it on my own account. I am sorry +that I cannot say much for the wisdom of the step in this instance, but +I do not presume to advise, far less to interfere. It says much for the +happiness of the last knot (eh! my Lady Bell?) that you are so keen to +tie another.” + +The one difficulty overcome, the remainder of the scheme was even +exceptionally practicable, and circumstances like cards played +themselves, as it were, in Captain Fane’s and Lady Bell’s hand. + +A letter arrived from Lady Sundon to inform Sir Peter in particular and +“all friends who were interested,” that her boy was in a fair way of +recovery, but still called for not less than a month’s nursing from her +and Lyddy. + +In the delay, Sir Peter, who was miserable, left in town with only Nancy +of all his family, and who had got all that he could expect from the +opinion of the medical men, resolved to break up his establishment in +London for the season, return to Sundon Green, and await his wife there. + +Thus the best pretext was afforded gratis to Lady Bell for sincerely +assuring Sir Peter, with grateful mention of his hospitality, that he +need not have any hesitation on her account. Her visit had already +extended beyond its proposed limits. Mrs. Sundon was anxious for Lady +Bell’s return. Lady Bell herself was beginning to long to be out of the +racket which had made a fine change, but which she did not affect for a +continuance, and to be at home again and settled down quietly at +Summerhill. + +But first Lady Bell had to spend a few days at the village of Islington, +with her old nurse at Lady Lucie Penruddock’s. + +The nurse’s accommodation was so scanty, that Lady Bell could not take +her maid. Lady Bell would come back to Cleveland Court to fetch the +servant, when Sir Peter kindly arranged to send his old coachman to be +their escort to Lumley, before the Sundons themselves went into the +country. + +Nothing could be more proper and obliging. In the meantime, Captain Fane +had taken leave of his friends in town, and started for Portsmouth, but +he journeyed by a roundabout road, and halted on the way. + +Lady Bell did think that fate had been against her, when she was +constrained to accomplish a second marriage, shorn like the first of all +state and splendour. But there was no help for it. + +In the parish church of Islington, attended by her nurse, and given away +by a friend of the nurse’s, with the clerk and the pew-opener to serve +as additional witnesses, early one stormy March morning, Lady Bell was +lawfully married to Harry Fane. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + BACK AT SUMMERHILL. + + +It was like a dream to Lady Bell as she travelled back to Summerhill. + +There passed in review before her, like the shifting scenes of a dream, +her London season and its triumphs, the love which had taken her by +storm in the middle of the world’s vanities, the declaration of love +after the play, the announcement on the Mall of the arrival of Harry +Fane’s sailing orders, the visit to Islington, the hasty private +marriage, and at last the wrench with which the bridegroom had torn +himself from his bride. + +Could it all have happened to Lady Bell, and was she really a new +creature, belonging to another, and bearing another name—his precious +name, if the truth were known? + +Or had she only awakened from a dream? The dream might have passed with +the bleakness and storms, which were over and gone, while in their place +had come the March of daffodils and bluebells ready to welcome her back +to Summerhill. + +Ah! no, Lady Bell was a new creature. Her heart was at the sea. These +land charms had become stale, flat, and unprofitable to her, since he +was not there to share them. She would give them all willingly for a +taste of the breeze, salt on her lips. Her eyes filled with tears, “idle +tears,” at the sight of a flock of curlews hovering over a waste and +recalling to her sea-gulls skimming the waves. Her whole being seemed +dissolving in yearning and longing for her lover and husband. Existence +would not be worth having till he was restored to her. + +But, in the first place, how was Lady Bell to present herself to her +dear Mrs. Sundon?—how account for the transformation in her to those +penetrating eyes, and that wise, experienced heart, unless by confiding +the truth to Mrs. Sundon? And, in that case, how was she to obtain +forgiveness for the march which she had stolen on her friend? + +Captain Fane had left Lady Bell free to take what friends she chose into +the secret. It was on her account, rather than on his, that a secret had +been made. + +Lady Bell had no thought but of telling the story to “Sunny” some +time—long before Captain Fane’s return. + +But there was no question that the telling would call for an effort on +Lady Bell’s part, tell when she might. There would be more than a breach +of confidence to receive forgiveness—more, even, than the assertion of +Lady Bell’s independence—there would be her subjugation to the powerful +influence of another, which had superseded Mrs. Sundon’s influence. + +The deed was done, yet Lady Bell felt more unequal than ever to the +sensation that she would create; the remonstrances, useless though they +must be, which she would raise, the reflections that might be cast on +another, the offence that might be taken by a friend to whom she had not +ceased to be warmly attached. In fact, instead of loving her neighbour +less, because of the one great central human love, she seemed to grow +specially tender to the wrongs and smarts of every human creature, all +for one mortal man’s dear sake. + +Withal, the bashfulness of the acknowledged bride was quadrupled in the +unacknowledged bride. True, Lady Bell had been married before, but that +marriage had been altogether different—such a miserable travesty and +poor mockery, that Lady Bell actually cried over the remembrance of her +old self, and the dead Squire, for what they had defrauded each other +of, and been defrauded of, many a time, during the first weeks of her +marriage to Harry Fane. + +It felt so strange to see Summerhill again. + +There was the dainty, slightly fantastic women’s house and grounds +exactly as she had left them, but surely with a failure in their +qualities which she had not distinguished before. + +The place presented the same want of shade and substance which Queen +Elizabeth had specially requested might be made in her picture. And the +traits of life at Summerhill had corresponded with Queen Elizabeth’s +idea that she and her maids should eat in private of the lightest and +most refined viands, while the ladies left all that was solid and strong +to the grosser appetites and needs of the gentlemen. + +Everything at Summerhill was fresh and feminine to a degree; but there +was a suspicion of flimsiness and make-believe in the very delicacy and +over-abundance of knick-knacks, where two young women had kept house +together, and sworn unalterable first friendship, presuming to turn the +course of nature, like these sister figures away among the Welsh +mountains. + +To recognise Summerhill the same as she had left it, and yet to look on +it with different eyes, knowing all the time that the difference lay in +her own eyes, was a singular half-remorseful experience to Lady Bell. +She was almost glad that Mrs. Sundon did not hear the carriage-wheels +and run out to meet her. There was only Caro in her nurse’s arms at the +door. It was a positive relief to see that Caro, quite in the course of +nature, had grown by the addition of a few more months to her short +lease of life, until there was some risk at her not knowing Caro, in +addition to the apprehended risk of Caro’s not knowing Lady Bell. There +was comfort in finding that anybody, even Caro, had undergone a change, +because of the tremendous change in Lady Bell, of which she was +tremblingly conscious. She should be thankful when the meeting with her +friend was over. + +Lady Bell hurried, stumbling in her habit, into the bright little +parlour—blindingly bright, and at the same time empty it looked, though +it had the fine presence of Mrs. Sundon advancing to its threshold. + +There were two little cries of “Bell,” “Sunny,” which had a rush of old +familiar affection in their tones that meant kisses—perfectly hearty and +sincere in their fondness, and a little laughter, with twinkled-away +tears. + +These tears seemed natural enough when Lady Bell was weary after an +exciting journey, and Mrs. Sundon might be wearier still with waiting, +and with staying all alone, having had no cheerful young friend at hand +to dissipate grievous memories. + +It seemed to Lady Bell as if a cloud of anticipated awkwardness and +indefinable constraint and distress had burst and vanished, as such +clouds will sometimes vanish at the moment of contact. She had found +again her indulgent, magnanimous Mrs. Sundon, on whose favour and +generosity Lady Bell could throw herself confidently—only she would +spare both her friend and herself in the first hours of their meeting. + +When Lady Bell had composed herself to scrutinize and draw conclusions, +it struck her with quick pain that Sunny was looking ill. + +Mrs. Sundon wore an exceedingly simple muslin dress, with the tight +sleeves ending in frills at the wrist, and falling over the hands, the +neckerchief being surmounted with the same wide plaited frills, out of +which rose the fair pillar of the throat, like the neck of a white +heifer out of a garland. + +But Lady Bell had never seen the grand womanly proportions brought +nearer to the spareness of attenuation, while the face was almost wan in +its colourlessness. + +Clearly Mrs. Sundon had not been flourishing on keeping house alone; she +had been wont to treat “nerves” and “vapours”—regarded as bodily +complaints, with lofty derision and condemnation; yet her own nerves +were unstrung, for she continued, though she did not allow it in words, +to be agitated by Lady Bell’s arrival. There was a stir and quiver of +Mrs. Sundon’s features as of a rock which had been disturbed and shaken, +and could not at once regain its entire balance and firm quietude. + +Lady Bell could not account for the involuntary disturbance and the +striving in vain to overcome it, in her friend’s expressive face, and in +her cold passive hand, which shook sensibly in Lady Bell’s feverish +clasp, unless it were that Mrs. Sundon’s health had become impaired. + +If that were so, there must be laid to Lady Bell’s charge, among other +acts of wilfulness and indiscretion, an ungracious oversight—the friend +who had been so good to Lady Bell had pined in her absence, and had been +left to pine. + +Or was it simply the disturbance in Lady Bell’s own flushed face, the +thrilling of her own pulses, which her morbid fancy and guilty +conscience transferred to her poor abused friend? + +No; here was an absent-minded, distrait woman, who had to assume an +interest which she did not feel, in narratives that ought to have been, +from her old familiarity with the scene, and her sisterly regard for the +heroine, stimulating and engrossing in their effect upon the listener. + +Lady Bell was conscious of this while she sat chattering incessantly of +all her different adventures, at the auctions and the routs, and was not +once pulled up and brought to book by such searching cross-examination +as the judge, jury, and counsel for the prosecution combined in the old +Sunny, would have known well how to conduct. + +Even when Lady Bell forced her tripping tongue to speak Captain Fane’s +name, while her eyes fell convicted, until their lashes rested on her +cheeks dyed with burning blushes, she might have spared herself the +trepidation and terror of instant discovery. Sunny’s mind was +wool-gathering, and she did not recall her scattered faculties to make a +single observation. + +Lady Bell would have begun to have a revulsion of feeling, and, from +being chilled, would have been mortified had she not been alarmed. + +As the day wore on, however, Lady Bell talked and talked her friend out +of her stupor, and procured a measure of response in home news. These +were but vapid concerns now to Lady Bell, but she was not going to +betray her conviction of their vapidness. + +Caro had cut ever so many teeth. The stubble chickens were ready for +killing. The Spanish jasmine had survived the winter. The mayor and the +good people of Lumley and Nutfield were all well, and,—oh yes, Master +Charles had got his colours, and was going up to town to practise drill +with the awkward squad in the reserve of his regiment, before he joined +the main body somewhere in the colonies—Mrs. Sundon had forgotten +exactly where. No, she could not say that she was vastly sorry for Miss +Kingscote, as the young fellow was fulfilling his calling, and going +where duty and the prospect of promotion, whether it were by life or +death, called him. + +The last words, in answer to Lady Bell’s sympathetic inquiry, were +spoken so shortly as to remind Lady Bell that there was a worse end than +that of death in Mrs. Sundon’s experience. + + END OF VOL II. + + PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Italics, bold letters and small capitals have been converted to + _underscores_, =equal signs=, and ALL CAPS respectively. + + Perceived typos have been silently corrected. + + Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. + + Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78326 *** |