diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:08 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:08 -0700 |
| commit | 5f51844e0af71d893c6041caaec0551832aae76a (patch) | |
| tree | 2e577ebcfaeb206364a64d86ac7c3178e092581a /9377-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '9377-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 9377-h/9377-h.htm | 20967 |
1 files changed, 20967 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/9377-h/9377-h.htm b/9377-h/9377-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6613b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/9377-h/9377-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20967 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of London Pride, by M. E. Braddon</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of London Pride, Or, When the World Was Younger, by M. E. Braddon</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: London Pride<br/> + Or, When the World Was Younger</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: M. E. Braddon</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 26, 2003 [eBook #9377]<br /> +[Most recently updated: March 18, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON PRIDE, OR, WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER ***</div> + +<h1>London Pride</h1> + +<h5>OR</h5> + +<h5>WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER</h5> + +<h2 class="no-break">by M. E. Braddon</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Author of “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,” “ISHMAEL,” ETC.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +1896 +</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. WITHIN CONVENT WALLS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. LETTERS FROM HOME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. A MINISTERING ANGEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. SUPERIOR TO FASHION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. IN A PURITAN HOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE PRIEST’S HOLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XL. LIGHTER THAN VANITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. LADY FAREHAM’S DAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE MILLBANK GHOST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. FALCON AND DOVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. THE MOTIVE—MURDER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. REVELATIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. DIDO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. PHILASTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. GOOD-BYE, LONDON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. AT THE MANOR MOAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. “QUITE OUT OF FASHION”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. HIGH STAKES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE COURT OF KING’S BENCH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. IN A DEAD CALM</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM.</h2> + +<p> +The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleet rattled +against the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickening dusk. A +bitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy. +</p> + +<p> +A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardest frost +this generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, and tempestuous +winds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep gable ends and tall +chimney-stacks on London Bridge. A never-to-be-forgotten winter, which had +witnessed the martyrdom of England’s King, and the exile of her chief nobility, +while a rabble Parliament rode roughshod over a cowed people. Gloom and sour +visages prevailed, the maypoles were down, the play-houses were closed, the +bear-gardens were empty, the cock-pits were desolate; and a saddened +population, impoverished and depressed by the sacrifices that had been exacted +and the tyranny that had been exercised in the name of Liberty, were ground +under the iron heel of Cromwell’s red-coats. +</p> + +<p> +The pitiless journey from London to Louvain, a journey of many days and nights, +prolonged by accident and difficulty, had been spun out to uttermost tedium for +those two in the heavily moving old leathern coach. Who and what were they, +these wearied travellers, journeying together silently towards a destination +which promised but little of pleasure or luxury by way of welcome—a destination +which meant severance for those two? +</p> + +<p> +One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, Bucks, a notorious Malignant, a +grey-bearded cavalier, aged by trouble and hard fighting; a soldier and servant +who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, and must needs begin +the world anew now that his master was murdered, his own goods confiscated, the +old family mansion, the house in which his parents died and his children were +born, emptied of all its valuables, and left to the care of servants, and his +master’s son a wanderer in a foreign land, with little hope of ever winning +back crown and sceptre. +</p> + +<p> +Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John’s stern, strongly marked +countenance, as he sat staring out at the level landscape through the unglazed +coach window, staring blankly across those wind-swept Flemish fields where the +cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonous expanse, crossed by +ice-bound dykes that looked black as ink, save where the last rays of the +setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-red splashes. Pollard willows +indicated the edge of one field, gaunt poplars marked the boundary of another, +alike leafless and unbeautiful, standing darkly out against the dim grey sky. +Night was hastening towards the travellers, narrowing and blotting out that +level landscape, field, dyke, and leafless wood. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John put his head out of the coach window, and looked anxiously along the +straight road, peering through the shades of evening in the hope of seeing the +crocketed spires and fair cupolas of Louvain in the distance. But he could see +nothing save a waste of level pastures and the gathering darkness. Not a light +anywhere, not a sign of human habitation. +</p> + +<p> +Useless to gaze any longer into the impenetrable night. The traveller leant +back into a corner of the carriage with folded arms, and, with a deep sigh, +composed himself for slumber. He had slept but little for the last week. The +passage from Harwich to Ostend in a fishing-smack had been a perilous transit, +prolonged by adverse winds. Sleep had been impossible on board that wretched +craft; and the land journey had been fraught with vexation and delays of all +kinds—stupidity of postillions, dearth of horseflesh, badness of the roads—all +things that can vex and hinder. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John’s travelling companion, a small child in a cloak and hood, crept +closer to him in the darkness, nestled up against his elbow, and pushed her +little cold hand into his leathern glove. +</p> + +<p> +“You are crying again, father,” she said, full of pity. “You were crying last +night. Do you always cry when it grows dark?” +</p> + +<p> +“It does not become a man to shed tears in the daylight, little maid,” her +father answered gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it for the poor King you are crying—the King those wicked men murdered?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, Angela, for the King; and for the Queen and her fatherless children still +more than for the King, for he has crowned himself with a crown of glory, the +diadem of martyrs, and is resting from labour and sorrow, to rise victorious at +the great day, when his enemies and his murderers shall stand ashamed before +him. I weep for that once so lovely lady—widowed, discrowned, needy, desolate—a +beggar in the land where her father was a great king. A hard fate, Angela, +father and husband both murdered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was the Queen’s father murdered too?” asked the silver-sweet voice out of +darkness, a pretty piping note like the song of a bird. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did Bradshaw murder him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, dearest, ’twas in France he was slain—in Paris; stabbed to death by a +madman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And was the Queen sorry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sweetheart, she has drained the cup of sorrow. She was but a child when +her father died. She can but dimly remember that dreadful day. And now she +sits, banished and widowed, to hear of her husband’s martyrdom; her elder sons +wanderers, her young daughter a prisoner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Queen!” piped the small sweet voice, “I am so sorry for her.” +</p> + +<p> +Little had she ever known but sorrow, this child of the Great Rebellion, born +in the old Buckinghamshire manor house, while her father was at Falmouth with +the Prince—born in the midst of civil war, a stormy petrel, bringing no message +of peace from those unknown skies whence she came, a harbinger of woe. Infant +eyes love bright colours. This baby’s eyes looked upon a house hung with black. +Her mother died before the child was a fortnight old. They had christened her +Angela. “Angel of Death,” said the father, when the news of his loss reached +him, after the lapse of many days. His fair young wife’s coffin was in the +family vault under the parish church of St. Nicholas in the Vale, before he +knew that he had lost her. +</p> + +<p> +There was an elder daughter, Hyacinth, seven years the senior, who had been +sent across the Channel in the care of an old servant at the beginning of the +troubles between King and Parliament. +</p> + +<p> +She had been placed in the charge of her maternal grandmother, the Marquise de +Montrond, who had taken ship for Calais when the Court left London, leaving her +royal mistress to weather the storm. A lady who had wealth and prestige in her +own country, who had been a famous beauty when Richelieu was in power, and who +had been admired by that serious and sober monarch, Louis the Thirteenth, could +scarcely be expected to put up with the shifts and shortcomings of an Oxford +lodging-house, with the ever-present fear of finding herself in a town besieged +by Lord Essex and the rebel army. +</p> + +<p> +With Madame de Montrond, Hyacinth had been reared, partly in a mediaeval +mansion, with a portcullis and four squat towers, near the Château d’Arques, +and partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in the Marais. The sisters +had never looked upon each other’s faces, Angela having entered upon the +troubled scene after Hyacinth had been carried across the Channel to her +grandmother. And now the father was racked with anxiety lest evil should befall +that elder daughter in the war between Mazarin and the Parliament, which was +reported to rage with increasing fury. +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s awakening reason became conscious of a world where all was fear and +sadness. The stories she heard in her childhood were stories of that fierce war +which was reaching its disastrous close while she was in her cradle. She was +told of the happy peaceful England of old, before darkness and confusion +gathered over the land; before the hearts of the people were set against their +King by a wicked and rebellious Parliament. +</p> + +<p> +She heard of battles lost by the King and his partisans; cities besieged and +taken; a flash of victory followed by humiliating reverses; the King’s party +always at a disadvantage; and hence the falling away of the feeble and the +false, the treachery of those who had seemed friends, the impotence of the +faithful. +</p> + +<p> +Angela heard so often and so much of these things—from old Lady Kirkland, her +grandmother, and from the grey-haired servants at the manor—that she grew to +understand them with a comprehension seemingly far beyond her tender years. But +a child so reared is inevitably older than her years. This little one had never +known childish pleasures or play, childish companions or childish fancies. +</p> + +<p> +She roamed about the spacious gardens, full of saddest thoughts, burdened with +all the cares that weighed down that kingly head yonder; or she stood before +the pictured face of the monarch with clasped hands and tearful eyes, looking +up at him with the adoring compassion of a child prone to hero-worship—thinking +of him already as saint and martyr—whose martyrdom was not yet consummated in +blood. +</p> + +<p> +King Charles had presented his faithful servant, Sir John Kirkland, with a +half-length replica of one of his Vandyke portraits, a beautiful head, with a +strange inward look—that look of isolation and aloofness which we who know his +story take for a prophecy of doom—which the sculptor Bernini had remarked, when +he modelled the royal head for marble. The picture hung in the place of honour +in the long narrow gallery at the Manor Moat, with trophies of Flodden and +Zutphen arranged against the blackened oak panelling above it. The Kirklands +had been a race of soldiers since the days of Edward III. The house was full of +war-like decorations—tattered colours, old armour, memorials of fighting +Kirklands who had long been dust. +</p> + +<p> +There came an evil day when the rabble rout of Cromwell’s crop-haired soldiery +burst into the manor house to pillage and destroy, carrying off curios and +relics that were the gradual accumulation of a century and a half of peaceful +occupation. +</p> + +<p> +The old Dowager’s grey hairs had barely saved her from outrage on that bitter +day. It was only her utter helplessness and afflicted condition that prevailed +upon the Parliamentary captain, and prevented him from carrying out his design, +which was to haul her off to one of those London prisons at that time so gorged +with Royalist captives that the devilish ingenuity of the Parliament had +devised floating gaols on the Thames, where persons of quality and character +were herded together below decks, to the loss of health, and even of life. +</p> + +<p> +Happily for old Lady Kirkland, she was too lame to walk, and her enemies had no +horse or carriage in which to convey her; so she was left at peace in her son’s +plundered mansion, whence all that was valuable and easily portable was carried +away by the Roundheads. Silver plate and family plate had been sacrificed to +the King’s necessities. +</p> + +<p> +The pictures, not being either portable or readily convertible into cash, had +remained on the old panelled walls. +</p> + +<p> +Angela used to go from the King’s picture to her father’s. Sir John’s was a +more rugged face than the Stuart’s, with a harder expression; but the child’s +heart went out to the image of the father she had never seen since the dawn of +consciousness. He had made a hurried journey to that quiet Buckinghamshire +valley soon after her birth—had looked at the baby in her cradle, and then had +gone down into the vault where his young wife was lying, and had stayed for +more than an hour in cold and darkness alone with his dead. That lovely French +wife had been his junior by more than twenty years, and he had loved her +passionately—had loved her and left her for duty’s sake. No Kirkland had ever +faltered in his fidelity to crown and king. This John Kirkland had sacrificed +all things, and, alone with his beloved dead in the darkness of that narrow +charnel house, it seemed to him that there was nothing left for him except to +cleave to those fallen fortunes and patiently await the issue. +</p> + +<p> +He had fought in many battles and had escaped with a few scars; and he was +carrying his daughter to Louvain, intending to place her in the charge of her +great-aunt, Madame de Montrond’s half sister, who was head of a convent in that +city, a safe and pious shelter, where the child might be reared in her mother’s +faith. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Kirkland, the only daughter of the Marquise de Montrond, one of Queen +Henrietta Maria’s ladies-in-waiting, had been a papist, and, although Sir John +had adhered steadfastly to the principles of the Reformed Church, he had +promised his bride, and the Marquise, her mother, that if their nuptials were +blessed with offspring, their children should be educated in the Roman faith—a +promise difficult of performance in a land where a stormy tide ran high against +Rome, and where Popery was a scarlet spectre that alarmed the ignorant and +maddened the bigoted. And now, duly provided with a safe conduct from the +regicide, Bradshaw, he was journeying to the city where he was to part with his +daughter for an indefinite period. He had seen but little of her, and yet it +seemed as hard to part thus as if she had prattled at his knees and nestled in +his arms every day of her young life. +</p> + +<p> +At last across the distance, against the wind-driven clouds of that stormy +winter sky, John Kirkland saw the lights of the city—not many lights or +brilliant of their kind, but a glimmer here and there—and behind the glimmer +the dark bulk of masonry, roofs, steeples, watch-towers, bridges. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage stopped at one of the gates of the city, and there were questions +asked and answered, and papers shown, but there was no obstacle to the entrance +of the travellers. The name of the Ursuline Convent acted like a charm, for +Louvain was papist to the core in these days of Spanish dominion. It had been a +city of refuge nearly a hundred years ago for all that was truest and bravest +and noblest among English Roman Catholics, in the cruel days of Queen +Elizabeth, and Englishmen had become the leading spirits of the University +there, and had attracted the youth of Romanist England to the sober old Flemish +town, before the establishment of Dr. Allan’s rival seminary at Douai, Sir John +could have found no safer haven for his little ewe lamb. +</p> + +<p> +The tired horses blundered heavily along the stony streets, and crossed more +than one bridge. The town seemed pervaded by water, a deep narrow stream like a +canal, on which the houses looked, as if in feeble mockery of Venice—houses +with steep crow-step gables, some of them richly decorated; narrow windows for +the most part dark, but with here and there the yellow light of lamp or candle. +</p> + +<p> +The convent faced a broad open square, and had a large walled garden in its +rear. The coach stopped in front of a handsome doorway, and after the +travellers had been scrutinised and interrogated by the portress through an +opening in the door, they were admitted into a spacious hall, paved with black +and white marble, and adorned with a statue of the Virgin Mother, and thence to +a parlour dimly lighted by a small oil lamp, where they waited for about ten +minutes, the little girl shivering with cold, before the Superior appeared. +</p> + +<p> +She was a tall woman, advanced in years, with a handsome, but melancholy +countenance. She greeted the cavalier as a familiar friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome to Flanders!” she said. “You have fled from that accursed country +where our Church is despised and persecuted——” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, reverend kinswoman, I have fled but to go back again as fast as horses +and sails can carry me. While the fortunes of my King are at stake, my place is +in England, or it may be in Scotland, where there are still those who are ready +to fight to the death in the royal cause. But I have brought this little one +for shelter and safe keeping, and tender usage, trusting in you who are of kin +to her as I could trust no one else—and, furthermore, that she may be reared in +the faith of her dead mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet soul!” murmured the nun. “It was well for her to be taken from your +troubled England to the kingdom of the saints and martyrs.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, reverend mother; yet those blasphemous levellers who call us +‘Malignants’ have dubbed themselves ‘Saints.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Then affairs go no better with you in England, I fear, Sir John?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, madam, they go so ill that they have reached the lowest depth of infamy. +Hell itself hath seen no spectacle more awful, no murder more barbarous, no +horrider triumph of wickedness, than the crime which was perpetrated this day +se’nnight at Whitehall.” +</p> + +<p> +The nun looked at him wistfully, with clasped hands, as one who half +apprehended his meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“The King!” she faltered, “still a prisoner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, reverend lady, but a prisoner in Paradise, where angels are his guards, +and saints and martyrs his companions. He has regained his crown; but it is the +crown of martyrdom, the aureole of slaughtered saints. England, our little +England that was once so great under the strong rule of that virgin-queen who +made herself the arbiter of Christendom, and the wonder of the world——” +</p> + +<p> +The pious lady shivered and crossed herself at this praise of the heretic +queen—praise that could only come from a heretic. +</p> + +<p> +“Our blessed and peaceful England has become a den of thieves, given over to +the ravening wolves of rebellion and dissent, the penniless soldiery who would +bring down all men’s fortunes to their own level, seize all, eat and drink all, +and trample crown and peerage in the mire. They have slain him, reverend +mother, this impious herd—they gave him the mockery of a trial—just as his +Master, Christ, was mocked. They spurned and spat upon him, even as our +Redeemer was spurned; and then, on the Sabbath day, they cried aloud in their +conventicles, ‘Lord, hast Thou not smelt a sweet savour of blood?’ Ay, these +murderers gloried in their crime, bragged of their gory hands, lifted them up +towards heaven as a token of righteousness!” +</p> + +<p> +The cavalier was pacing to and fro in the dimness of the convent parlour, with +quick, agitated steps, his nostrils quivering, grizzled brows bent over angry +eyes, his hand trembling with rage as it clutched his sword-hilt. +</p> + +<p> +The reverend mother drew Angela to her side, took off the little black silk +hood, and laid her hand caressingly on the soft brown hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it Cromwell’s work?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, reverend mother, I doubt whether of his own accord Cromwell would have +done this thing. He is a villain, a damnable villain—but he is a glorious +villain. The Parliament had made their covenant with the King at Newport—a +bargain which gave them all, and left him nothing—save only his broken health, +grey hairs, and the bare name of King. He would have been but a phantom of +authority, powerless as the royal spectres Aeneas met in the under-world. They +had got all from him—all save the betrayal of his friends. There he budged not, +but was firm as rock.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas likely he remembered Strafford, and that he prospered no better for +having flung a faithful dog to the wolves,” said the nun. +</p> + +<p> +“Remembered Strafford? Ay, that memory has been a pillow of thorns through many +a sleepless night. No, it was not Cromwell who sought the King’s blood—it has +been shed with his sanction. The Parliament had got all, and would have been +content; but the faction they had created was too strong for them. The +levellers sent their spokesman—one Pride, an ex-drayman, now colonel of +horse—to the door of the House of Commons, who arrested the more faithful and +moderate members, imposed himself and his rebel crew upon the House, and +hurried on that violation of constitutional law, that travesty of justice, +which compelled an anointed King to stand before the lowest of his subjects—the +jacks-in-office of a mutinous commonalty—to answer for having fought in defence +of his own inviolable rights.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did they dare condemn their King?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, madam, they found him guilty of high treason, in that he had taken arms +against the Parliament. They sentenced their royal master to death—and seven +days ago London saw the spectacle of judicial murder—a blameless King slain by +the minion of an armed rabble!” +</p> + +<p> +“But did the people—the English people—suffer this in silence? The wisest and +best of them could surely be assembled in your great city. Did the citizens of +London stand placidly by to see this deed accomplished?” +</p> + +<p> +“They were like sheep before the shearer. They were dumb. Great God! can I ever +forget that sea of white faces under the grey winter sky, or the universal +groan that went up to heaven when the stroke of the axe sounded on the block, +and men knew that the murder of their King was consummated; and when that +anointed head with its grey hairs, whitened with sorrow, mark you, not with +age, was lifted up, bloody, terrible, and proclaimed the head of a traitor? Ah, +reverend mother, ten such moments will age a man by ten years. Was it not the +most portentous tragedy which the earth has ever seen since He who was both God +and Man died upon Calvary? Other judicial sacrifices have been, but never of a +victim as guiltless and as noble. Had you but seen the calm beauty of his +countenance as he turned it towards the people! Oh, my King, my master, my +beloved friend, when shall I see that face in Paradise, with the blood washed +from that royal brow, with the smile of the redeemed upon those lips!” +</p> + +<p> +He flung himself into a chair, covered his face with those weather-stained +hands, which had broadened by much grasping of sword and pistol, pike and gun, +and sobbed aloud, with a fierce passion that convulsed the strong muscular +frame. Of all the King’s servants this one had been the most steadfast, was +marked in the black book of the Parliament as a notorious Malignant. From the +raising of the standard on the castle-hill at Nottingham—in the sad evening of +a tempestuous day, with but scanty attendance, and only evil presages—to the +treaty at Newport, and the prison on the low Hampshire coast, this man had been +his master’s constant companion and friend; fighting in every battle, cleaving +to King and Prince in spite of every opposing influence, carrying letters +between father and son in the teeth of the enemy, humbling himself as a +servant, and performing menial labours, in those latter days of bitterness and +outrage, when all courtly surroundings were denied the fallen monarch. +</p> + +<p> +And now he mourned his martyred King more bitterly than he would have mourned +his own brother. +</p> + +<p> +The little girl slipped from the reverend mother’s lap, and ran across the room +to her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t cry, father!” she murmured, with her own eyes streaming. “It hurts me to +see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Angela,” he answered, clasping her to his breast. “Forgive me that I +think more of my dead King than of my living daughter. Poor child, thou hast +seen nothing but sorrow since thou wert born; a land racked by civil war; +Englishmen changed into devils; a home ravaged and made desolate; threatenings +and curses; thy good grandmother’s days shortened by sorrow and rough usage. +Thou wert born into a house of mourning, and hast seen nothing but black since +thou hadst eyes to notice the things around thee. Those tender ears should have +heard only loving words. But it is over, dearest; and thou hast found a haven +within these walls. You will take care of her, will you not, madam, for the +sake of the niece you loved?” +</p> + +<p> +“She shall be the apple of my eye. No evil shall come near her that my care and +my prayers can avert. God has been very gracious to our order—in all troublous +times we have been protected. We have many pupils from the best families of +Flanders—and some even from Paris, whence parents are glad to remove their +children from the confusion of the time. You need fear nothing while this sweet +child is with us; and if in years to come she should desire to enter our +order——” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lord forbid!” cried the cavalier. “I want her to be a good and pious +papist, madam, like her sweet mother; but never a nun. I look to her as the +staff and comfort of my declining years. Thou wilt not abandon thy father, wilt +thou, little one, when thou shalt be tall and strong as a bulrush, and he shall +be bent and gnarled with age, like the old medlar on the lawn at the Manor? +Thou wilt be his rod and staff, wilt thou not, sweetheart?” +</p> + +<p> +The child flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. It was her only answer, +but that mute reply was a vow. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou wilt stay here till England’s troubles are over, Angela, and that base +herd yonder have been trampled down. Thou wilt be happy here, and wilt mind thy +book, and be obedient to those good ladies who will teach thee; and some day, +when our country is at peace, I will come back to fetch thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Soon,” murmured the child, “soon, father?” +</p> + +<p> +“God grant it may be soon, my beloved! It is hard for father and children to be +scattered, as we are scattered; thy sister Hyacinth in Paris, and thou in +Flanders, and I in England. Yet it must needs be so for a while!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should not Hyacinth come to us and be reared with Angela?” asked the +reverend mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, madam, Hyacinth is well cared for with your sister, Madame de Montrond. +She is as dear to her maternal grandmother as this little one here was to my +good mother, whose death last year left us a house of mourning. Hyacinth will +doubtless inherit a considerable portion of Madame de Montrond’s wealth, which +is not insignificant. She is being brought up in the precincts of the Court.” +</p> + +<p> +“A worldly and a dangerous school for one so young,” said the nun, with a sigh. +“I have heard my father talk of what life was like at the Louvre when the +Béarnais reigned there in the flower of his manhood, newly master of Paris, +flushed with hard-won victory, and but lately reconciled to the Church.” +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks that great captain’s court must have been laxer than that of Queen +Anne and the Cardinal. I have been told that the child-king is being reared, as +it were, in a cloister, so strict are mother and guardian. My only fear for +Hyacinth is the troubled state of the city, given over to civil warfare only +less virulent than that which has desolated England. I hear that the Fronde is +no war of epigrams and pamphlets, but that men are as earnest and bloodthirsty +as they were in the League. I shall go from here to Paris to see my first-born +before I make my way back to London.” +</p> + +<p> +“I question if you will find her at Paris,” said the reverend mother. “I had +news from a priest in the diocese of the Coadjutor. The Queen-mother left the +city secretly with her chosen favourites in the dead of the night on the sixth +of this month, after having kept the festival of Twelfth Night in a merry +humour with her Court. Even her waiting-women knew nothing of her plans. They +went to St. Germain, where they found the chateau unfurnished, and where all +the Court had to sleep upon was a few loads of straw. Hatred of the Cardinal is +growing fiercer every day, and Paris is in a state of siege. The Princes are +siding with Mathieu Molé and his Parliament, and the Provincial Parliaments are +taking up the quarrel. God grant that it may not be in France as it has been +with you in your unhappy England; but I fear the Spanish Queen and her Italian +minister scarce know the temper of the French people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, good friend, we have fallen upon evil days, and the spirit of revolt is +everywhere; but if there is trouble at the French Court, there is all the more +need that I should make my way thither, be it at St. Germain or at Paris, and +so assure myself of my pretty Hyacinth’s safety. She was so sweet an infant +when my good and faithful steward carried her across the sea to Dieppe. Never +shall I forget that sad moment of parting; when the baby arms were wreathed +round my sweet saint’s neck; she so soon to become again a mother, so brave and +patient in her sorrow at parting with her first-born. Ah, sister, there are +moments in this life that a man must needs remember, even amidst the wreck of +his country.” He dashed away a tear or two, and then turned to his kinswoman +with outstretched hands and said, “Good night, dear and reverend mother; good +night and good-bye. I shall sleep at the nearest inn, and shall be on the road +again at daybreak. Good-bye, my soul’s delight” +</p> + +<p> +He clasped his daughter in his arms, with something of despair in the fervour +of his embrace, telling himself, as the soft cheek was pressed against his own, +how many years might pass ere he would again so clasp that tender form and feel +those innocent kisses on his bearded lips. She and the elder girl were all that +were left to him of love and comfort, and the elder sister had been taken from +him while she was a little child. He would not have known her had he met her +unawares; nor had he ever felt for her such a pathetic love as for this +guiltless death-angel, this baby whose coming had ruined his life, whose love +was nevertheless the only drop of sweetness in his cup. +</p> + +<p> +He plucked himself from that gentle embrace, and walked quickly to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“You will apply to me for whatever money is needed for the child’s maintenance +and education,” he said, and in the next moment was gone. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +WITHIN CONVENT WALLS.</h2> + +<p> +More than ten years had come and gone since that bleak February evening when +Sir John Kirkland carried his little daughter to a place of safety, in the old +city of Louvain, and in all those years the child had grown like a flower in a +sheltered garden, where cold winds never come. The bud had matured into the +blossom in that mild atmosphere of piety and peace; and now, in this fair +springtide of 1660, a girlish face watched from the convent casement for the +coming of the father whom Angela Kirkland had not looked upon since she was a +child, and the sister she had never seen. +</p> + +<p> +They were to arrive to-day, father and sister, on a brief visit to the quiet +Flemish city. Yonder in England there had been curious changes since the stern +Protector turned his rugged face to the wall, and laid down that golden sceptre +with which he had ruled as with a rod of iron. Kingly title would he none; yet +where kings had chastised with whips, he had chastised with scorpions. Ireland +could tell how the little finger of Cromwell had been heavier than the arm of +the Stuarts. She had trembled and had obeyed, and had prospered under that +scorpion rule, and England’s armaments had been the terror of every sea while +Cromwell stood at the helm; but now that strong brain and bold heart were in +the dust, and it had taken England little more than a year to discover that +Puritanism and the Rump were a mistake, and that to the core of her heart she +was loyal to her hereditary King. +</p> + +<p> +She asked not what manner of man this hereditary ruler might be; asked not +whether he were wise or foolish, faithful or treacherous. She forgot all of +tyranny and of double-dealing she had suffered from his forbears. She forgot +even her terror of the scarlet spectre, the grim wolf of Rome, in her disgust +at Puritan fervour which had torn down altar-rails, usurped church pulpits, +destroyed the beauty of ancient cathedrals. Like a woman or a child, she held +out her arms to the unknown, in a natural recoil from that iron rule which had +extinguished her gaiety, silenced her noble liturgy, made innocent pleasures +and elegant arts things forbidden. She wanted her churches, and her theatres, +her cock-pits and taverns, and bear-gardens and maypoles back again. She wanted +to be ruled by the law, and not by the sword; and she longed with a romantic +longing for that young wanderer who had fled from her shores in a fishing-boat, +with his life in his hand, to return in a glad procession of great ships +dancing over summer seas, eating, drinking, gaming, in a coat worth scarce +thirty shillings, and with empty pockets for his loyal subjects to make haste +and fill. +</p> + +<p> +Angela had the convent parlour all to herself this fair spring morning. She was +the favourite pupil of the nuns, had taken no vows, pledged herself to no +noviciate, ever mindful of her promise to her father. She had lived as happily +and as merrily in that abode of piety as she could have lived in the finest +palace in Europe. There were other maidens, daughters of the French and Flemish +nobility, who were taught and reared within those sombre precincts, and with +them she had played and worked and laboured at such studies as became a young +lady of quality. Like that fair daughter of affliction, Henrietta of England, +she had gained in education by the troubles which had made her girlhood a time +of seclusion. She had been first the plaything of those elder girls who were +finishing their education in the convent, her childishness appealing to their +love and pity; and then, after being the plaything of the nuns and the elder +pupils, she became the favourite of her contemporaries, and in a manner their +queen. She was more thoughtful than her class-fellows, in advance of her years +in piety and intelligence; and they, knowing her sad story—how she was severed +from her country and kindred, her father a wanderer with his King, her sister +bred up at a foreign Court—had first compassionated and then admired her. From +her twelfth year upwards her intellectual superiority had been recognised in +the convent, alike by the nuns and their pupils. Her aptitude at all learning, +and her simple but profound piety, had impressed everybody. At fourteen years +of age they had christened her “the little wonder;” but later, seeing that +their praises embarrassed and even distressed her, they had desisted from such +loving flatteries, and were content to worship her with a silent adulation. +</p> + +<p> +Her father’s visits to the Flemish city had been few and far apart, fondly +though he loved his motherless girl. He had been a wanderer for the most part +during those years, tossed upon troubled seas, fighting with Condé against +Mazarin and Anne of Austria, and reconciled with the Court later, when peace +was made, and his friends the Princes were forgiven; an exile from France of +his own free will when Louis banished his first cousin, the King of England, in +order to truckle to the triumphant usurper. He had led an adventurous life, and +had cared very little what became of him in a topsy-turvy world. But now all +things were changed. Richard Cromwell’s brief and irresolute rule had shattered +the Commonwealth, and made Englishmen eager for a king. The country was already +tired of him whose succession had been admitted with blank acquiescence; and +Monk and the army were soon to become masters of the situation. There was hope +that the General was rightly affected, and that the King would have his own +again; and that such of his followers as had not compounded with the +Parliamentary Commission would get back their confiscated estates; and that all +who had suffered in person or pocket for loyalty’s sake would be recompensed +for their sacrifices. +</p> + +<p> +It was five years since Sir John’s last appearance at the convent, and Angela’s +heart beat fast at the thought that he was so near. She was to see him this +very day; nay, perhaps this very hour. His coach might have passed the gate of +the town already. He was bringing his elder daughter with him, that sister +whose face she had never seen, save in a miniature, and who was now a great +lady, the wife of Baron Fareham, of Chilton Abbey, Oxon, Fareham Park, in the +County of Hants, and Fareham House, London, a nobleman whose estates had come +through the ordeal of the Parliamentary Commission with a reasonable fine, and +to whom extra favour had been shown by the Commissioners, because he was known +to be at heart a Republican. In the mean time, Lady Fareham had a liberal +income allowed her by the Marquise, her grandmother, and she and her husband +had been among the most splendid foreigners at the French Court, where the +lady’s beauty and wit had placed her conspicuously in that galaxy of brilliant +women who shone and sparkled about the sun of the European firmament—Le roi +soleil, or “the King,” par excellence, who took the blazing sun for his crest. +The Fronde had been a time of pleasurable excitement to the high-spirited girl, +whose mixed blood ran like quicksilver, and who delighted in danger and party +strife, stratagem and intrigue. The story of her courage and gaiety of heart in +the siege of Paris, she being then little more than a child, had reached the +Flemish convent long after the acts recorded had been forgotten at Paris and +St. Germain. +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s heart beat fast at the thought of being restored to these dear ones, +were it only for a short span. They were not going to carry her away from the +convent; and, indeed, seeing that she so loved her aunt, the good reverend +mother, and that her heart cleaved to those walls and to the holy exercises +which filled so great a part of her life, her father, in replying to a letter +in which she had besought him to release her from her promise and allow her to +dedicate herself to God, had told her that, although he could not surrender his +daughter, to whom he looked for the comfort of his closing years, he would not +urge her to leave the Ursulines until he should feel himself old and feeble, +and in need of her tender care. Meanwhile she might be a nun in all but the +vows, and a dutiful niece to her kind aunt, Mother Anastasia, whose advanced +years and failing health needed all consideration. +</p> + +<p> +But now, before he went back to England, whither he hoped to accompany the King +and the Princes ere the year was much older, Sir John Kirkland was coming to +visit his younger daughter, bringing Lady Fareham, whose husband was now in +attendance upon His Majesty in Holland, where there were serious negotiations +on hand—negotiations which would have been full of peril to the English +messengers two years ago, when that excellent preacher and holy man, Dr. Hewer, +of St. Gregory, was beheaded for having intelligence with the King, through the +Marquess of Ormond. +</p> + +<p> +The parlour window jutted into the square over against the town hall, and +Angela could see the whole length of the narrow street along which her father’s +carriage must come. +</p> + +<p> +The tall, slim figure and the fair, girlish face stood out in full relief +against the grey stone mullion, bathed in sunlight. The graceful form was +undisguised by courtly apparel. The soft brown hair fell in loose ringlets, +which were drawn back from the brow by a band of black ribbon. The girl’s gown +was of soft grey woollen stuff, relieved by a cambric collar covering the +shoulders, and by cambric elbow-sleeves. A coral and silver rosary was her only +ornament; but face and form needed no aid from satins or velvets, Venetian lace +or Indian filagree. +</p> + +<p> +The sweet, serious face was chiefly notable for eyes of darkest grey, under +brows that were firmly arched and almost black. The hair was a dark brown, the +complexion somewhat too pale for beauty. Indeed, that low-toned colouring made +some people blind to the fine and regular modelling of the high-bred face; +while there were others who saw no charm in a countenance which seemed too +thoughtful for early youth, and therefore lacking in one of youth’s chief +attractions—gladness. +</p> + +<p> +The face lighted suddenly at this moment, as four great grey Flanders horses +came clattering along the narrow street and into the square, dragging a heavy +painted wooden coach after them. The girl opened the casement and craned out +her neck to look at the arrival The coach stopped at the convent door, and a +footman alighted and rang the convent bell, to the interested curiosity of two +or three loungers upon the steps of the town hall over the way. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, it was her father, greyer but less sad of visage than at his last visit. +His doublet and cloak were handsomer than the clothes he had worn then, though +they were still of the same fashion, that English mode which he had affected +before the beginning of the troubles, and which he had never changed. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately after him there alighted a vision of beauty, the loveliest of +ladies, in sky-blue velvet and pale grey fur, and with a long white feather +encircling a sky-blue hat, and a collar of Venetian lace veiling a bosom that +scintillated with jewels. +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth!” cried Angela, in a flutter of delight. +</p> + +<p> +The portress peered at the visitors through her spy-hole, and being satisfied +that they were the expected guests, speedily opened the iron-clamped door. +</p> + +<p> +There was no one to interfere between father and daughter, sister and sister, +in the convent parlour. Angela had her dear people all to herself, the Mother +Superior respecting the confidences and outpourings of love, which neither +father nor children would wish to be witnessed even by a kinswoman. Thus, by a +rare breach of conventual discipline, Angela was allowed to receive her guests +alone. +</p> + +<p> +The lay-sister opened the parlour door and ushered in the visitors, and Angela +ran to meet her father, and fell sobbing upon his breast, her face hidden +against his velvet doublet, her arms clasping his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“What, mistress, hast thou so watery a welcome, now that the clouds have passed +away, and every loyal English heart is joyful?” cried Sir John, in a voice that +was somewhat husky, but with a great show of gaiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, I have waited so long, so long for this day. Sometimes I thought it +would never come, that I should never see my dear father again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child! it would have been only my desert hadst thou forgotten me +altogether. I might have come to you sooner, pretty one; indeed, I would have +come, only things went ill with me. I was down-hearted and hopeless of any good +fortune in a world that seemed given over to psalm-singing scoundrels; and till +the tide turned I had no heart to come nigh you. But now fortunes are mended, +the King’s and mine, and you have a father once again, and shall have a home +by-and-by, the house where you were born, and where your angel-mother made my +life blessed. You are like her, Angela!” holding back the pale face in his +strong hands, and gazing upon it earnestly. “Yes, you favour your mother; but +your face is over sad for your years. Look at your sister here! Would you not +say a sunbeam had taken woman’s shape and come dancing into the room?” +</p> + +<p> +Angela looked round and greeted the lady, who had stood aside while father and +daughter met. Yes, such a face suggested sunlight and summer, birds, +butterflies, all things buoyant and gladsome. A complexion of dazzling +fairness, pearly, transparent, with ever-varying carnations; eyes of +heavenliest blue, liquid, laughing, brimming with espiéglerie; a slim little +nose with an upward tilt, which expressed a contemptuous gaiety, an inquiring +curiosity; a dimpled chin sloping a little towards the full round throat; the +bust and shoulders of a Venus, the waist of a sylph, set off by the +close-fitting velvet bodice, with its diamond and turquoise buttons; hair of +palest gold, fluffed out into curls that were traps for sunbeams; hands and +arms of a milky whiteness emerging from the large loose elbow-sleeves—a radiant +apparition which took Angela by surprise. She had seen Flemish vraus in the +richest attire, and among them there had been women as handsome as Helena +Forment; but this vision of a fine lady from the court of the “roi soleil” was +a revelation. Until this moment, the girl had hardly known what grace and +beauty meant. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and let me hug you, my dearest Puritan,” cried Hyacinth, holding out her +arms. “Why do you suffer your custodians to clothe you in that odious grey, +which puts me in mind of lank-haired psalm-singing scum, and all their hateful +works? I would have you sparkling in white satin and silver, or blushing in +brocade powdered with forget-me-nots and rosebuds. What would Fareham say if I +told him I had a Puritan in grey woollen stuff for my sister? He sends you his +love, dear, and bids me tell you there shall be always an honoured place in our +home for you, be it in England or France, in town or country. And why should +you not fill that place at once, sister? Your education is finished, and to be +sure you must be tired of these stone walls and this sleepy town.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Hyacinth, I love the convent and the friends who have made it my home. You +and Lord Fareham are very kind, but I could not leave our reverend mother; she +is not so well or so strong as she used to be, and I think she likes to have me +with her, because though she loves us all, down to the humblest of the +lay-sisters, I am of her kin, and seem nearest to her. I don’t want to forsake +her; and if it was not against my father’s wish I should like to end my days in +this house, and to give my thoughts to God.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is because thou knowest nought of the world outside, sweetheart,” +protested Hyacinth. “I admire the readiness with which folks will renounce a +banquet they have never tasted. A single day at the Louvre or the Palais Royal +would change your inclinations at once and for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is too young for a court life, or a town life either,” said Sir John. “And +I have no mind to remove her from this safe shelter till the King shall be firm +upon his throne, and our poor country shall have settled into a stable and +peaceful condition. But there must be no vows, Angela, no renunciation of +kindred and home. I look to thee for the comfort of my old age!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear father, I will never disobey you. I shall remember always that my first +duty is to you; and when you want me, you have but to summon me; and whether +you are at home or abroad, in wealth and honour, or in exile and poverty, I +will go to you, and be glad and happy to be your daughter and your servant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew thou wouldst, dearest. I have never forgotten how the soft little arms +clung about my neck, and how the baby lips kissed me, in this same parlour, +when my heart was weighed down by a load of iron, and there seemed no ray of +hope for England or me. You were my comforter then, and you will be my +comforter in the days to come. Hyacinth here is of the butterfly breed. She is +fair to look upon, and tender and loving; but she is ever on the wing. And she +has her husband and her children to cherish, and cannot be burdened with the +care of a broken-down greybeard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Broken-down! Why, you are as brave a gallant as the youngest cavalier in the +King’s service,” cried Hyacinth. “I would pit my father against Montagu or +Buckingham, Buckhurst or Roscommon—against the gayest, the boldest of them all, +on land or sea. Broken-down, forsooth! We will hear no such words from you, +sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all your wits to take your +proper place at Court as sage counsellor and friend of the new King. Sure he +will need his father’s friends about him to teach him state-craft—he who has +led such a gay, good-for-nothing life as a penniless rover, with scarce a sound +coat to his back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Hyacinth, the King will have no need of us old Malignants. We have had +our day. He has shrewd Ned Hyde for counsellor, and in that one long head there +is craft enough to govern a kingdom. The new Court will be a young Court, and +the fashion of it will be new. We old fellows, who were gallant and gay enough +in the forties, when we fought against Essex and his tawny scarves, would be +but laughable figures at the Court of a young man bred half in Paris, and +steeped in French fashions and French follies. No, Hyacinth, it is for you and +your husband the new day dawns. If I get back to my old meads and woods and the +house where I was born, I will sit quietly down in the chimney corner, and take +to cattle-breeding, and a pack of harriers, for the diversion of my declining +years. And when my Angela can make up her mind to leave her good aunt she shall +keep house for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should love to be your housekeeper, dearest father. If it please Heaven to +restore my aunt to health and strength, I will go to you with a heart full of +joy,” said the girl, hanging caressingly upon the old cavalier’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking at the +sacred images and prints, the <i>tableau</i> over the mantelpiece, which told, +with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent pupils in +learning and domestic virtues. +</p> + +<p> +“What a humdrum, dismal room!” she cried. “You should see our convent parlours +in Paris. At the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, <i>par exemple</i>, the +Queen-mother’s favourite convent, and at Chaillot, the house founded by Queen +Henrietta—such pictures, and ornaments, and embroidered hangings, and +tapestries worked by devotees. This room of yours, sister, stinks of poverty, +as your Flemish streets stink of garlic and cabbage. Faugh! I know not which is +worse!” +</p> + +<p> +Having thus delivered herself of her disgust, she darted upon her younger +sister, laid her hands upon the girl’s shoulders, and contemplated her with +mock seriousness. +</p> + +<p> +“What a precocious young saint thou art, with no more interest in the world +outside this naked parlour than if thou wert yonder image of the Holy Mother. +Not a question of my husband, or my children, or of the last fashion in hood +and mantle, or of the new laced gloves, or the French King’s latest divinity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should dearly like to see your children, Hyacinth,” answered her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! they are the most enchanting creatures, the girl a perpetual sunbeam, +ethereal, elfish, a being of life and movement, and with a loquacity that never +tires; the boy a lump of honey, fat, sleek, lazily beautiful. I am never tired +of admiring them, when I have time to see them. Papillon—an old friend of mine +has surnamed her Papillon because she is never still—was five years old on +March 19. We were at St. Germain on her birthday. You should have seen the toys +and trinkets and sweetmeats which the Court showered upon her—the King and +Queen, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, the Princess Henrietta, her godmother—everybody +had a gift for the daughter of La folle Baronne Fareham. Yes, they are lovely +creatures, Angela; and I am miserable to think that it may be half a year +before I see their sweet faces again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why so long, sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because they are at the Château de Montrond, grandmother’s place near Dieppe, +and because Fareham and I are going hence to Breda to meet the King, our own +King Charles, and help lead him home in triumph. In London the mob are +shouting, roaring, singing, for their King; and Montagu’s fleet lies in the +Downs, waiting but the signal from Parliament to cross to Holland. He who left +his country in a scurvy fishing-boat will go back to England in a mighty +man-of-war, the <i>Naseby</i>—mark you, the <i>Naseby</i>—christened by that +Usurper, in insolent remembrance of a rebel victory; but Charles will doubtless +change that hated name. He must not be put in mind of a fight where rebels had +the better of loyal gentlemen. He will sail home over those dancing seas, with +a fleet of great white-winged ships circling round him like a flight of silvery +doves. Oh, what a turn of fortune’s wheel! I am wild with rapture at the +thought of it!” +</p> + +<p> +“You love England better than France, though you must be almost a stranger +there,” said Angela, wonderingly, looking at a miniature which her sister wore +in a bracelet. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, love, ’tis in Paris I am an insignificant alien, though they are ever so +kind and flattering to me. At St Germain I was only Madame de Montrond’s +grand-daughter—the wife of a somewhat morose gentleman who was cleverer at +winning battles than at gaining hearts. At Whitehall I shall be Lady Fareham, +and shall enjoy my full consequence as the wife of an English nobleman of +ancient lineage and fine estate, for, I am happy to tell you, his lordship’s +property suffered less than most people’s in the rebellion, and anything his +father lost when he fought for the good cause will be given back to the son now +the good cause is triumphant, with additions, perhaps—an earl’s coronet instead +of a baron’s beggarly pearls. I should like Papillon to be Lady Henrietta.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you will send for your children, doubtless, when you are sure all is safe +in England?” said Angela, still contemplating the portrait in the bracelet, +which her sister had unclasped while she talked. “This is Papillon, I know. +What a sweet, kind, mischievous face!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mischievous as a Barbary ape—kind, and sweet as the west wind,” said Sir John. +</p> + +<p> +“And your boy?” asked Angela, reclasping the bracelet on the fair, round arm, +having looked her fill at the mutinous eyes, the brown, crisply curling hair, +dainty, pointed chin, and dimpled cheeks. “Have you his picture, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not his; but I wear his father’s likeness somewhere betwixt buckram and +Flanders lace,” answered Hyacinth, gaily, pulling a locket from amidst the +splendours of her corsage. “I call it next my heart; but there is a stout +fortification of whalebone between heart and picture. You have gloated enough +on the daughter’s impertinent visage. Look now at the father, whom she +resembles in little, as a kitten resembles a tiger.” +</p> + +<p> +She handed her sister an oval locket, bordered with diamonds, and held by a +slender Indian chain; and Angela saw the face of the brother-in-law whose +kindness and hospitality had been so freely promised to her. +</p> + +<p> +She explored the countenance long and earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, do you think I chose him for his beauty?” asked Hyacinth. “You have +devoured every lineament with that serious gaze of yours, as if you were trying +to read the spirit behind that mask of flesh. Do you think him handsome?” +</p> + +<p> +Angela faltered: but was unskilled in flattery, and could not reply with a +compliment. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sister; surely none have ever called this countenance handsome; but it is +a face to set one thinking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, child, and he who owns the face is a man to set one thinking. He has made +me think many a time when I would have travelled a day’s journey to escape the +thoughts he forced upon me. He was not made to bask in the sunshine of life. He +is a stormy petrel. It was for his ugliness I chose him. Those dark stern +features, that imperious mouth, and a brow like the Olympian Jove. He scared me +into loving him. I sheltered myself upon his breast from the thunder of his +brow, the lightning of his eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has a look of his cousin Wentworth,” said Sir John. “I never see him but I +think of that murdered man—my father’s friend and mine—whom I have never ceased +to mourn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet their kin is of the most distant,” said Hyacinth. “It is strange that +there should be any likeness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faces appear and reappear in families,” answered her father. “You may observe +that curiously recurring likeness in any picture-gallery, if the family +portraits cover a century or two. Louis has little in common with his +grandfather; but two hundred years hence there may be a prince of the royal +house whose every feature shall recall Henry the Great” +</p> + +<p> +The portrait was returned to its hiding-place, under perfumed lace and cobweb +lawn, and the reverend mother entered the parlour, ready for conversation, and +eager to hear the history of the last six weeks, of the collapse of that +military despotism which had convulsed England and dominated Europe, and was +now melting into thin air as ghosts dissolve at cock-crow, of the secret +negotiations between Monk and Grenville, now known to everybody; of the King’s +gracious amnesty and promise of universal pardon, save for some score or so of +conspicuous villains, whose hands were dyed with the Royal Martyr’s blood. +</p> + +<p> +She was full of questioning: and, above all, eager to know whether it was true +that King Charles was at heart as staunch a papist as his brother the Duke of +York was believed to be, though even the Duke lacked the courage to bear +witness to the true faith. +</p> + +<p> +Two lay-sisters brought in a repast of cakes and syrups and light wines, such +delicate and dainty food as the pious ladies of the convent were especially +skilled in preparing, and which they deemed all-sufficient for the +entertainment of company; even when one of their guests was a rugged soldier +like Sir John Kirkland. When the light collation had been tasted and praised, +the coach came to the door again, and swallowed up the beautiful lady and the +old cavalier, who vanished from Angela’s sight in a cloud of dust, waving hands +from the coach window. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +LETTERS FROM HOME.</h2> + +<p> +The quiet days went by, and grew into years, and time was only marked by the +gradual failure of the reverend mother’s health; so gradual, so gentle a decay, +that it was only when looking back on St. Sylvester’s Eve that her great-niece +became aware how much of strength and activity had been lost since the Superior +knelt in her place near the altar, listening to the solemn music of the +midnight Mass that sanctified the passing of the year. This year the reverend +mother was led to her seat between two nuns, who sustained her feeble limbs. +This year the meek knees, which had worn the marble floor in long hours of +prayer during eighty pious years, could no longer bend. The meek head was +bowed, the bloodless hands were lifted up in supplication, but the fingers were +wasted and stiffened, and there was pain in every movement of the joints. +</p> + +<p> +There was no actual malady, only the slow death in life called old age. All the +patient needed was rest and tender nursing. This last her great-niece supplied, +together with the gentlest companionship. No highly trained nurse, the product +of modern science, could have been more efficient than the instinct of +affection had made Angela. And then the patient’s temper was so amiable, her +mind, undimmed after eighty-three years of life, was a mirror of God. She +thought of her fellow-creatures with a Divine charity; she worshipped her +Creator with an implicit faith. For her in many a waking vision the heavens +opened and the spirits of departed saints descended from their abode in bliss +to hold converse with her. Eighty years of her life had been given to religious +exercises and charitable deeds. Motherless before she could speak, she had +entered the convent as a pupil at three years of age, and had taken the veil at +seventeen. Her father had married a great heiress, whose only child, a +daughter, was allowed to absorb all the small stock of parental affection; and +there was no one to dispute Anastasia’s desire for the cloister. All she knew +of the world outside those walls was from hearsay. A rare visit from her lovely +half-sister, the Marquise de Montrond, had astonished her with the sight of a +distinguished Parisienne, and left her wondering. She had never read a secular +book. She knew not the meaning of the word pleasure, save in the mild +amusements permitted to the convent children—till they left the convent as +young women—on the evening of a saint’s day; a stately dance of curtsyings and +waving arms; a little childish play, dramatising some incident in the lives of +the saints. So she lived her eighty years of obedience and quiet usefulness, +learning and teaching, serving and governing. She had lived through the Thirty +Years’ War, through the devastations of Wallenstein, the cruelties of Bavarian +Tilly, the judicial murder of Egmont and Horn. She had heard of villages burnt, +populations put to the sword, women and children killed by thousands. She had +conversed with those who remembered the League; she had seen the nuns weeping +for Edward Campion’s cruel fate; she had heard Masses sung for the soul of +murdered Mary Stuart. She had heard of Raleigh’s visions of conquest and of +gold, setting his prison-blanched face towards the West, in the afternoon of +life, to encounter bereavement, treachery, sickening failure, and go back to +his native England to expiate the dreams of genius with the blood of a martyr. +And through all the changes and chances of that eventful century she had lived +apart, full of pity and wonder, in a charmed circle of piety and love. +</p> + +<p> +Her room, in these peaceful stages of the closing scene, was a haven of rest. +Angela loved the seclusion of the panelled chamber, with its heavily mullioned +casement facing the south-west, and the polished oak floor, on which the red +and gold of the sunset were mirrored, as on the dark stillness of a moorland +tarn. For her every object in the room had its interest or its charm. The +associations of childhood hallowed them all. The large ivory crucifix, yellow +with age, dim with the kisses of adoring lips; the delf statuettes of Mary and +Joseph, flaming with gaudy colour; the figure of the Saviour and St. John the +Baptist, delicately carved out of boxwood, in a group representing the baptism +in the river Jordan, the holy dove trembling on a wire over the Divine head; +the books, the pictures, the rosaries: all these she had gazed at reverently +when all things were new, and the convent passages places of shuddering, and +the service of the Mass an unintelligible mystery. She had grown up within +those solemn walls; and now, seeing her kinswoman’s life gently ebbing away, +she could but wonder what she would have to do in this world when another took +the Superior’s place, and the tie that bound her to Louvain would be broken. +</p> + +<p> +The lady who would in all probability succeed Mother Anastasia as Superior was +a clever, domineering woman, whom Angela loved least of all the nuns—a widow of +good birth and fortune, and a thorough Fleming; stolid, bigoted, prejudiced, +and taking much credit to herself for the wealth she had brought to the +convent, apt to talk of the class-room and the chapel her money had helped to +build and restore as “my class-room,” or “my chapel.” +</p> + +<p> +No; Angela had no desire to remain in the convent when her dear kinswoman +should have vanished from the scene her presence sanctified. The house would be +haunted with sorrowful memories. It would be time for her to claim that home +which her father had talked of sharing with her in his old age. She could just +faintly remember the house in which she was born—the moat, the fish-pond, the +thick walls of yew, the peacocks and lions cut in box, of which the gardener +who clipped them was so proud. Faintly, faintly, the picture of the old house +came back to her; built of grey stone, and stained with moss, grave and +substantial, occupying three sides of a quadrangle, a house of many windows, +few of which were intended to open, a house of dark passages, like these in the +convent, and flights of shallow steps, and curious turns and twistings here and +there. There were living birds that sunned their spreading tails and stalked in +slow stateliness on the turf terraces, as well as those peacocks clipped out of +yew. The house lay in a Buckinghamshire valley, shut round and sheltered by +hills and coppices, where there was an abundance of game. Angela had seen the +low, cavern-like larder hung with pheasants and hares. +</p> + +<p> +Her heart yearned towards the old house, so distinctly pictured by memory, +though perchance with some differences from the actual scene. The mansion would +seem smaller to her, doubtless, beholding it with the eyes of womanhood, than +childish memory made it. But to live there with her father, to wait upon him +and tend him, to have Hyacinth’s children there, playing in the gardens as she +had played, would be as happy a life as her fancy could compass. +</p> + +<p> +All that she knew of the march of events during those tranquil years in the +convent came to her in letters from her sister, who was a vivacious +letter-writer, and prided herself upon her epistolary talent—as indeed upon her +general superiority, from a literary standpoint, to the women of her day. +</p> + +<p> +It was a pleasure to Lady Fareham in some rare interval of solitude—when the +weather was too severe for her to venture outside the hall door, even in her +comfortable coach, and when by some curious concatenation she happened to be +without visitors—to open her portfolio and prattle with her pen to her sister, +as she would have prattled with her tongue to the visitors whom snow or tempest +kept away. Her letters written from London were apt to be rare and brief, +Angela noted; but from his lordship’s mansion near Oxford, or at the Grange +between Fareham and Winchester—once the property of the brothers of St. +Cross—she always sent a budget. Few of these lengthy epistles contained +anything bearing upon Angela’s own existence—except the oft-repeated entreaty +that she would make haste and join them—or even the flippant suggestion that +Mother Anastasia should make haste and die. They were of the nature of +news-letters; but the news was tinctured by the feminine medium through which +it came, and there was a flavour of egotism in almost every page. Lady Fareham +wrote as only a pretty woman, courted, flattered, and indulged by everybody +about her, ever since she could remember, could be forgiven for writing. People +had petted her and worshipped her with such uniform subservience that she had +grown to thirty years of age without knowing that she was selfish, accepting +homage and submission as a law of the universe, as kings and princes do. +</p> + +<p> +Only in one of those letters was there that which might be called a momentous +fact, but which Angela took as easily as if it had been a mere detail, to be +dismissed from her thoughts when the letter had been laid aside. +</p> + +<p> +It was a letter with a black seal, announcing the death of the Marquise de +Montrond, who had expired of an apoplexy at her house in the Marais, after a +supper party at which Mademoiselle, Madame de Longueville, Madame de +Montausier, the Duchesse de Bouillon, Lauzun, St. Evremond, cheery little +Godeau, Bishop of Vence, and half a dozen other famous wits had been present, a +supper bristling with royal personages. Death had come with appalling +suddenness while the lamps of the festival were burning, and the cards were +still upon the tables, and the last carriage had but just rolled under the +<i>porte cochère</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the manner of death she would have chosen,” wrote Hyacinth. “She never +missed confession on the first Sunday of the month; and she was so generous to +the Church and to the poor that her director declared she would have been too +saintly for earth, but for the human weakness of liking fine company. And now, +dearest, I have to tell you how she has disposed of her fortune; and I hope, if +you should think she has not used you generously, you will do me the justice to +believe that I have neither courted her for her wealth nor influenced her to my +dear sister’s disadvantage. You will consider, <i>très chère</i>, that I was +with her from my eighth year until the other day when Fareham brought me to +England. She loved me passionately in my childhood, and has often told me since +that she never felt towards me as a grandmother, but as if she had been +actually my mother, being indeed still a young woman when she adopted me, and +by strangers always mistaken for my mother. She was handsome to the last, and +young in mind and in habits long after youth had left her. I was said to be the +image of what she was when she rivalled Madame de Hautefort in the affections +of the late King. You must consider, sweetheart, that he was the most moral of +men, and that with him love meant a passion as free from sensual taint as the +preferences of a sylph. I think my good grandmother loved me all the better for +this fancied resemblance. She would arrange her jewels about my hair and bosom, +as she had worn them when Buckingham came wooing for his master; and then she +would bid her page hold a mirror before me and tell me to look at the face of +which Queen Anne had been jealous, and for which Cinq Mars had run mad. And +then she would shed a tear or two over the years and the charms that were gone, +till I brought the cards and cheered her spirits with her favourite game of +primero. +</p> + +<p> +“She had her fits of temper and little tantrums sometimes, Ange, and it needed +some patience to restrain one’s tongue from insolence; but I am happy to +remember that I ever bore her in profound respect, and that I never made her +seriously angry but once—which was when I, being then almost a child, went out +into the streets of Paris with Henri de Malfort and a wild party, masked, to +hear Beaufort address the populace in the market-place, and when I was so +unlucky as to lose the emerald cross given her by the great Cardinal, for whom, +I believe, she had a sneaking kindness. Why else should she have so hated his +Eminence’s very much favoured niece, Madame de Combalet? +</p> + +<p> +“But to return to that which concerns my dear sister. Regarding me as her own +daughter, the Marquise has lavished her bounties upon me almost to the +exclusion of my own sweet Angela. In a word, dearest, she leaves you a modest +income of four hundred louis—or about three hundred pounds sterling—the rental +of two farms in Normandy; and all the rest of her fortune she bequeaths to me, +and Papillon after me, including her house in the Marais—sadly out of fashion +now that everybody of consequence is moving to the Place Royale—and her château +near Dieppe; besides all her jewels, many of which I have had in my possession +ever since my marriage. My sweet sister shall take her choice of a carcanet +among those old-fashioned trinkets. And now, dearest, if you are left with a +pittance that will but serve to pay for your gloves and fans at the Middle +Exchange, and perhaps to buy you an Indian night-gown in the course of the +year—for your Court petticoats and mantuas will cost three times as much—you +have but to remember that my purse is to be yours, and my home yours, and that +Fareham and I do but wait to welcome you either to Fareham House, in the +Strand, or to Chiltern Abbey, near Oxford. The Grange near Fareham I never +intend to re-enter if I can help it. The place is a warren of rats, which the +servants take for ghosts. If you love water you will love our houses, for the +river runs near them both; indeed, when in London, we almost think ourselves in +Venice, save that we have a spacious garden, which I am told few of the +Venetians can command, their city being built upon an assemblage of minuscule +islets, linked together by innumerable bridges.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela smiled as she looked down at her black gown—the week-day uniform of the +convent school, exchanged for a somewhat superior grey stuff on Sundays and +holidays—smiled at the notion of spending the rent of two farms upon her +toilet. And how much more ridiculous seemed the assertion that to appear at +King Charles’s Court she must spend thrice as much! Yet she could but remember +that Hyacinth had described trains and petticoats so loaded with jewelled +embroidery that it was a penance to wear them—lace worth hundreds of +pounds—plumed hats that cost as much as a year’s maintenance in the convent. +</p> + +<p> +Mother Anastasia expressed considerable displeasure at Madame de Montrond’s +disposal of her wealth. +</p> + +<p> +“This is what it is to live in a Court, and to care only for earthly things!” +she said. “All sense of justice is lost in that world of vanity and self-love. +You are as near akin to the Marquise as your sister; and yet, because she was +familiar with the one and not with the other—and because her vain, foolish soul +took pleasure in a beauty that recalled her own perishable charms, she leaves +one sister a great fortune and the other a pittance!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear aunt, I am more than content——” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am not content for you, Angela. Had the estate been divided equally you +might have taken the veil, and succeeded to my place in this beloved house, +which needs the accession of wealth to maintain it in usefulness and dignity.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela would not wound her aunt’s feelings by one word of disparagement of the +house in which she had been reared; but, looking along the dim avenue of the +future, she yearned for some wider horizon than the sky, barred with tall +poplars which rose high above the garden wall that formed the limit of her +daily walks. Her rambles, her recreations, had all been confined within that +space of seven or eight acres, and she thought sometimes with a sudden longing +of those hills and valleys of fertile Buckinghamshire, which lay so far back in +the dawn of her mind, and were yet so distinctly pictured in her memory. +</p> + +<p> +And London—that wonderful city of which her sister wrote in such glowing words! +the long range of palaces beside the swift-flowing river, wider than the Seine +where it reflects the gloomy bulk of the Louvre and the Temple! Were it only +once in her life, she would like to see London—the King, the two Queens, +Whitehall, and Somerset House. She would like to see all the splendour of Court +and city; and then to taste the placid retirement of the house in the valley, +and to be her father’s housekeeper and companion. +</p> + +<p> +Another letter from Hyacinth announced the death of Mazarin. +</p> + +<p> +“The Cardinal is no more. He died in the day of success, having got the better +of all his enemies. A violent access of gout was followed by an affection of +the chest which proved fatal. His sick-room was crowded with courtiers and +sycophants, and he was selling sinecures up to the day of his death. Fareham +says his death-bed was like a money-changer’s counter. He was passionately fond +of hocca, the Italian game which he brought into fashion, and which ruined half +the young men about the Court. The counterpane was scattered with money and +playing cards, which were only brushed aside to make room for the last +Sacraments. My Lord Clarendon declares that his spirits never recovered from +the shock of his Majesty’s restoration, which falsified all his calculations. +He might have made his favourite niece Queen of England; but his Italian +caution restrained him, and the beautiful Hortense has to put up with a +new-made duke—a title bought with her uncle’s money—to whom the Cardinal +affianced her on his death-bed. He was a remarkable man, and so profound a +dissembler that his pretended opposition to King Louis’ marriage with his niece +Olympe Mancini would have deceived the shrewdest observer, had we not all known +that he ardently desired the union, and that it was only his fear of Queen +Anne’s anger which prevented it. Her Spanish pride was in arms at the notion, +and she would not have stopped short at revolution to prevent or to revenge +such an alliance. +</p> + +<p> +“This was perhaps the only occasion upon which she ever seriously opposed +Mazarin. With him expires all her political power. She is now as much a cypher +as in the time of the late King, when France had only one master, the great +Cardinal. He who is just dead, Fareham says, was but a little Richelieu; and he +recalls how when the great Cardinal died people scarce dared tell one another +of his death, so profound was the awe in which he was held. He left the King a +nullity, and the Queen all powerful. She was young and beautiful then, you see; +her husband was marked for death, her son was an infant. All France was hers—a +kingdom of courtiers and flatterers. And now she is old and ailing; and Mazarin +being gone, the young King will submit to no minister who claims to be anything +better than a clerk or a secretary. Colbert he must tolerate—for Colbert means +prosperity—but Colbert will have to obey. My friend, the Duchesse de +Longueville, who is now living in strict retirement, writes me the most +exquisite letters; and from her I hear all that happens in that country which I +sometimes fancy is more my own than the duller climate where my lot is now +cast. Fifteen years at the French Court have made me in heart and mind almost a +Frenchwoman; nor can I fail to be influenced by my maternal ancestry. I find it +difficult sometimes to remember my English, when conversing with the +clod-hoppers of Oxfordshire, who have no French, yet insist, for finery’s sake, +upon larding their rustic English with French words. +</p> + +<p> +“All that is most agreeable in our court is imitated from the Palais Royal and +the Louvre. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Whitehall is but the shadow of a shadow,’ says Fareham, in one of his +philosophy fits, preaching upon the changes he has seen in Paris and London. +And, indeed, it is strange to have lived through two revolutions, one so awful +in its final catastrophe that it dwarfs the other, yet both terrible; for I, +who was a witness of the sufferings of Princes and Princesses during the two +wars of the Fronde, am not inclined to think lightly of a civil war which cost +France some of the flower of her nobility, and made her greatest hero a +prisoner and an exile for seven years of his life. +</p> + +<p> +“But oh, my dear, it was a romantic time! and I look back and am proud to have +lived in it. I was but twelve years old at the siege of Paris; but I was in +Madame de Longueville’s room, at the Hôtel de Ville, while the fighting was +going on, and the officers, in their steel cuirasses, coming in from the thick +of the strife. Such a confusion of fine ladies and armed men—breast-plates and +blue scarves—fiddles squeaking in the salon, trumpets sounding in the square +below!” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +In a letter of later date Lady Fareham expatiated upon the folly of her +sister’s spiritual guides. +</p> + +<p> +“I am desolated, <i>ma mie</i>, by the absurd restriction which forbids you to +profit by my New Year’s gift. I thought, when I sent you all the volumes of la +Scudèry’s enchanting romance, I had laid up for you a year of enjoyment, and +that, touched by the baguette of that exquisite fancy, your convent walls would +fall, like those of Jericho at the sound of Jewish trumpets, and you would be +transported in imagination to the finest society in the world—the company of +Cyrus and Mandane—under which Oriental disguise you are shown every feature of +mind and person in Condé and his heroic sister, my esteemed friend, the +Duchesse de Longueville. As I was one of the first to appreciate Mademoiselle +Scudèry’s genius, and to detect behind the name of the brother the tender +sentiments and delicate refinement of the sister’s chaster pen, so I believe I +was the first to call the Duchesse ‘Mandane,’ a sobriquet which soon became +general among her intimates. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not to read ‘Le Grand Cyrus,” your aunt tells you, because it is a +romance! That is to say, you are forbidden to peruse the most faithful history +of your own time, and to familiarise yourself with the persons and minds of +great people whom you may never be so fortunate as to meet in the flesh. I +myself, dearest Ange, have had the felicity to live among these princely +persons, to revel in the conversations of the Hôtel de Rambouillet—not, +perhaps, as our grandmother would have told you, in its most glorious +period—but at least while it was still the focus of all that is choicest in +letters and in art. Did we not hear M. Poquelin read his first comedy before it +was represented by Monsieur’s company in the beautiful theatre at the Palais +Royal, built by Richelieu, when it was the Palais Cardinal? Not read ‘Le Grand +Cyrus,’ and on the score of morality! Why, this most delightful book was +written by one of the most moral women in Paris—one of the chastest—against +whose reputation no word of slander has ever been breathed! It must, indeed, be +confessed that Sapho is of an ugliness which would protect her even were she +not guarded by the aegis of genius. She is one of those fortunate unfortunates +who can walk through the furnace of a Court unscathed, and leave a reputation +for modesty in an age that scarce credits virtue in woman. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear, dear child, that these narrow-minded restrictions of your convent will +leave you of a surpassing ignorance, which may cover you with confusion when +you find yourself in fine company. There are accomplishments without which +youth is no more admired than age and grey hairs; and to sparkle with wit or +astonish with learning is a necessity for a woman of quality. It is only by the +advantages of education that we can show ourselves superior to such a hussy as +Albemarle’s gutter-bred duchess, who was the faithless wife of a sailor or +barber—I forget which—and who hangs like a millstone upon the General’s neck +now that he has climbed to the zenith. To have perfect Italian and some Spanish +is as needful as to have fine eyes and complexion nowadays. And to dance +admirably is a gift indispensable to a lady. Alas! I fear that those little +feet of yours—I hope they <i>are</i> small—have never been taught to move in a +coranto or a contre-danse, and that you will have to learn the alphabet of +dancing at an age when most women are finished performers. The great Condé, +while winning sieges and battles that surpassed the feats of Greeks and Romans, +contrived to make himself the finest dancer of his day, and won more admiration +in high-bred circles by his graceful movements, which every one could +understand and admire, than by prodigies of valour at Dunkirk or Nordlingen.” +</p> + +<p> +The above was one of Lady Fareham’s most serious letters. Her pen was +exercised, for the most part, in a lighter vein. She wrote of the Court +beauties, the Court jests—practical jokes some of them, which our finer minds +of to-day would consider in execrable taste—such jests as we read of in +Grammont’s memoirs, which generally aimed at making an ugly woman ridiculous, +or an injured husband the sport and victim of wicked lover and heartless wife. +No sense of the fitness of things constrained her ladyship from communicating +these Court scandals to her guileless sister. Did they not comprise the only +news worth anybody’s attention, and relate to the only class of people who had +any tangible existence for Lady Fareham? There were millions of human beings, +no doubt, living and acting and suffering on the surface of the earth, outside +the stellary circles of which Louis and Charles were the suns; but there was no +interstellar medium of sympathy to convey the idea of those exterior +populations to Hyacinth’s mind. She knew of the populace, French or English, as +of something which was occasionally given to become dangerous and +revolutionary, which sometimes starved and sometimes died of the plague, and +was always unpleasing to the educated eye. +</p> + +<p> +Masquerades, plays, races at Newmarket, dances, duels, losses at cards—Lady +Fareham touched every subject, and expatiated on all; but she had usually more +to tell of the country she had left than of that in which she was living. +</p> + +<p> +“Here everything is on such a small scale, <i>si mesquin!</i>” she wrote. +“Whitehall covers a large area, but it is only a fine banqueting hall and a +labyrinth of lodgings, without suite or stateliness. The pictures in the late +King’s cabinet are said to be the finest in the world, but they are a kind of +pieces for which I care very little—Flemish and Dutch chiefly—with a series of +cartoons by Raphael, which connoisseurs affect to admire, but which, did they +belong to me, I would gladly exchange for a set of Mortlake tapestries. +</p> + +<p> +“His Majesty here builds ships, while the King of France builds palaces. I am +told Louis is spending millions on the new palace at Versailles, an ungrateful +site—no water, no noble prospect as at St. Germain, no population. The King +likes the spot all the better, Madame tells me, because he has to create his +own landscape, to conjure lakes and cataracts out of dry ground. The buildings +have been but two years in progress, and it must be long before these colossal +foundations are crowned with the edifice which Louis and his architect, +Mansart, have planned. Colbert is furious at this squandering of vast sums on a +provincial palace, while the Louvre, the birthplace and home of dynasties, +remains unfinished. +</p> + +<p> +“The King’s reason for disliking St. Germain—a château his mother has always +loved—has in it something childish and fantastic, if, as my dear duchess +declares, he hates the place only because he can see the towers of St. Denis +from the terrace, and is thus hourly reminded of death and the grave. I can +hardly believe that a being of such superior intelligence could be governed by +any such horror of man’s inevitable end. I would far sooner attribute the vast +expenditure of Versailles to the common love of monarchs and great men for +building houses too large for their necessities. Indeed, it was but yesterday +that Fareham took me to see the palace—for I can call it by no meaner name—that +Lord Clarendon is building for himself in the open country at the top of St. +James’s Street. It promises to be the finest house in town, and, although not +covering so much ground as Whitehall, is judged far superior to that inchoate +mass in its fine proportions and the perfect symmetry of its saloons and +galleries. There is a garden a-making, projected by Mr. Evelyn, a great +authority on trees and gardens. A crowd of fine company had assembled to see +the newly finished hall and dining parlour, among them a fussy person, who came +in attendance upon my Lord Sandwich, and who was more voluble than became his +quality as a clerk in the Navy Office. He was periwigged and dressed as fine as +his master, and, on my being civil to him, talked much of himself and of divers +taverns in the city where the dinners were either vastly good or vastly ill. I +told him that as I never dined at a tavern the subject was altogether beyond +the scope of my intelligence, at which Sandwich and Fareham laughed, and my +pertinacious gentleman blushed as red as the heels of his shoes. I am told the +creature has a pretty taste in music, and is the son of a tailor, but professes +a genteel ancestry, and occasionally pushes into the best company. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I describe to you one of my latest conquests, sweetheart? ’Tis a boy—an +actual beardless boy of eighteen summers; but such a boy! So beautiful, so +insolent, with an impudence that can confront Lord Clarendon himself, the +gravest of noblemen, who, with the sole exception of my Lord Southampton, is +the one man who has never crossed Mrs. Palmer’s threshold, or bowed his neck +under that splendid fury’s yoke. My admirer thinks no more of smoking these +grave nobles, men of a former generation, who learnt their manners at the court +of a serious and august King, than I do of teasing my falcon. He laughs at +them, jokes with them in Greek or in Latin, has a ready answer and a witty quip +for every turn of the discourse; will even interrupt his Majesty in one of +those anecdotes of his Scottish martyrdom which he tells so well and tells so +often. Lucifer himself could not be more arrogant or more audacious than this +bewitching boy-lover of mine, who writes verses in English or Latin as easy as +I can toss a shuttlecock. I doubt the greater number of his verses are scarce +proper reading for you or me, Angela; for I see the men gather round him in +corners as he murmurs his latest madrigal to a chosen half-dozen or so; and I +guess by their subdued tittering that the lines are not over modest; while by +the sidelong glances the listeners cast round, now at my Lady Castlemaine, and +anon at some other goddess in the royal pantheon, I have a shrewd notion as to +what alabaster breast my witty lover’s shafts are aimed at. +</p> + +<p> +“This youthful devotee of mine is the son of a certain Lord Wilmot, who fought +on the late King’s side in the troubles. This creature went to the university +of Oxford at twelve years old—as it were, straight from his go-cart to college, +and was master of arts at fourteen. He has made the grand tour, and pretends to +have seen so much of this life that he has found out the worthlessness of it. +Even while he woes me with a most romantic ardour, he affects to have outgrown +the capacity to love. +</p> + +<p> +“Think not, dearest, that I outstep the bounds of matronly modesty by this airy +philandering with my young Lord Rochester, or that my serious Fareham is ever +offended at our pretty trifling. He laughs at the lad as heartily as I do, +invites him to our table, and is amused by his monkeyish tricks. A woman of +quality must have followers; and a pert, fantastical boy is the safest of +lovers. Slander itself could scarce accuse Lady Fareham, who has had +soldier-princes and statesmen at her feet, of an unworthy tenderness for a +jackanapes of seventeen; for, indeed, I believe his eighteenth birthday is +still in the womb of time. I would with all my heart thou wert here to share +our innocent diversions; and I know not which of all my playthings thou wouldst +esteem highest, the falcon, my darling spaniels, made up of soft silken curls +and intelligent brown eyes, or Rochester. Nay, let me not forget the children, +Papillon and Cupid, who are truly very pretty creatures, though consummate +plagues. The girl, Papillon, has a tongue which Wilmot says is the nearest +approach to perpetual motion that he has yet discovered; and the boy, who was +but seven last birthday, is full of mischief, in which my admirer counsels and +abets him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, this London, sweetheart, and this Court! How wide those violet eyes would +open couldst thou but look suddenly in upon us after supper at Basset, or in +the park, or at the play-house, when the orange girls are smoking the pretty +fellows in the pit, and my Lady Castlemaine is leaning half out of her box to +talk to the King in his! I thought I had seen enough of festivals and dances, +stage-plays and courtly diversions beyond sea; but the Court entertainments at +Paris or St. Germain differed as much from the festivities of Whitehall as a +cathedral service from a dance in a booth at Bartholomew Fair. His Majesty of +France never forgets that he is a king. His Majesty of England only remembers +his kingship when he wants a new subsidy, or to get a Bill hurried through the +Houses. Louis at four-and-twenty was serious enough for fifty. Charles at +thirty-four has the careless humour of a schoolboy. He is royal in nothing +except his extravagance, which has squandered more millions than I dare mention +since he landed at Dover. +</p> + +<p> +“I am growing almost as sober as my solemn spouse, who will ever be railing at +the King and the Duke, and even more bitterly at the favourite, his Grace of +Buckingham, who is assuredly one of the most agreeable men in London. I asked +Fareham only yesterday why he went to Court, if his Majesty’s company is thus +distasteful to him. ‘It is not to his company I object, but to his principles,’ +he answered, in that earnest fashion of his which takes the lightest questions +<i>au grand serieux</i>. ‘I see in him a man who, with natural parts far above +the average, makes himself the jest of meaner intellects, and the dupe of +greedy courtesans; a man who, trained in the stern school of adversity, +overshadowed by the great horror of his father’s tragical doom, accepts life as +one long jest, and being, by a concatenation of circumstances bordering on the +miraculous, restored to the privileges of hereditary monarchy, takes all +possible pains to prove the uselessness of kings. I see a man who, borne back +to power by the irresistible current of the people’s affections, has broken +every pledge he gave that people in the flush and triumph of his return. I see +one who, in his own person, cares neither for Paul nor Peter, and yet can +tamely witness the persecution of his people because they do not conform to a +State religion—can allow good and pious men to be driven out of the pulpits +where they have preached the Gospel of Christ, and suffer wives and children to +starve because the head of the household has a conscience. I see a king +careless of the welfare of his people, and the honour and glory of his reign; +affecting to be a patriot, and a man of business, on the strength of an +extravagant fancy for shipbuilding; careless of everything save the empty +pleasure of an idle hour. A king who lavishes thousands upon wantons and +profligates, and who ever gives not to the most worthy, but to the most +importunate.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I laughed at this tirade, and told him, what indeed I believe, that he is at +heart a Puritan, and would better consort with Baxter and Bunyan, and that +frousy crew, than with Buckhurst and Sedley, or his brilliant kinsman, +Roscommon.” +</p> + +<p> +From her father directly, Angela heard nothing, and her sister’s allusions to +him were of the briefest, anxiously as she had questioned that lively +letter-writer. Yes, her father was well, Hyacinth told her; but he stayed +mostly at the Manor Moat. He did not care for the Court gaieties. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he thinks we have all parted company with our wits,” she wrote. “He +seldom sees me but to lecture me, in a sidelong way, upon my folly; for his +railing at the company I keep hits me by implication. I believe these old +courtiers of the late King are Puritans at heart; and that if Archbishop Laud +were alive he would be as bitter against the sins of the town as any of the +cushion-thumping Anabaptists that preach to the elect in back rooms and blind +alleys. My father talks and thinks as if he had spent all his years of exile in +the cave of the Seven Sleepers. And yet he fought shoulder to shoulder with +some of the finest gentlemen in France—Condé, Turenne, Gramont, St. Evremond, +Bussy, and the rest of them. But all the world is young, and full of wit and +mirth, since his Majesty came to his own; and elderly limbs are too stiff to +trip in our new dances. I doubt my father’s mind is as old-fashioned, and of as +rigid a shape as his Court suit, at sight of which my best friends can scarce +refrain from laughing.” +</p> + +<p> +This light mention of a parent whom she reverenced wounded Angela to the quick; +and that wound was deepened a year later, when she was surprised by a visit +from her father, of which no letter had forewarned her. She was walking in the +convent garden, in her hour of recreation, tasting the sunny air, and the +beauty of the many-coloured tulips in the long narrow borders, between two +espalier rows trained with an exquisite neatness, and reputed to bear the +finest golden pippins and Bergamot pears within fifty miles of the city. The +trees were in blossom, and a wall of pink and white bloom rose up on either +hand above the scarlet and amber tulips. +</p> + +<p> +Turning at the end of the long alley, where it met a wall that in August was +flushed with the crimson velvet of peaches and nectarines, Angela saw a man +advancing from the further end of the walk, attended by a lay sister. The +high-crowned hat and pointed beard, the tall figure in a grey doublet crossed +with a black sword-belt, the walk, the bearing, were unmistakable. It might +have been a figure that had stepped out of Vandyke’s canvas. It had nothing of +the fuss and flutter, the feathers and ruffles, the loose flow of brocade and +velvet, that marked the costume of the young French Court. +</p> + +<p> +Angela ran to receive her father, and could scarce speak to him, she was so +startled, and yet so glad. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, when I prayed for you at Mass this morning, how little I hoped for so +much happiness! I had a letter from Hyacinth only a week ago, and she wrote +nothing of your intentions. I knew not that you had crossed the sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sweetheart, Hyacinth sees me too rarely, and is too full of her own +affairs, ever to be beforehand with my intentions; and, although I have been +long heartily sick of England, I only made up my mind to come to Flanders less +than a week ago. No sooner thought of than done. I came by our old road, in a +merchant craft from Harwich to Ostend, and the rest of the way in the saddle. +Not quite so fast as they used to ride that carried his Majesty’s post from +London to York, in the beginning of the troubles, when the loyal gentlemen +along the north road would galop faster with despatches and treaties than ever +they rode after a stag. Ah, child, how hopeful we were in those days; and how +we all told each other it was but a passing storm at Westminster, which could +all be lulled by a little civil concession here and there on the King’s part! +And so it might, perhaps, if he would but have conceded the right thing at the +right time—yielded but just the inch they asked for when they first +asked—instead of shilly-shallying till they got angry, and wanted ells instead +of inches. ’Tis the stitch in time, Angela, that saves trouble, in politics as +well as in thy petticoat.” +</p> + +<p> +He had flung his arm round his daughter’s neck as they paced slowly side by +side. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you come to stay at Louvain, sir?” she asked, timidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, love, the place is too quiet for me. I could not stay in a town that is +given over to learning and piety. The sound of their everlasting carillon would +tease my ear with the thought, ‘Lo, another quarter of an hour gone of my poor +remnant of days, and nothing to do but to doze in the sunshine or fondle my +spaniel, fill my pipe, or ride a lazy horse on a level road, such as I have +ever hated.’” +</p> + +<p> +“But why did you tire of England, sir? I thought the King would have wanted you +always near him. You, his father’s close friend, who suffered so much for Royal +friendship. Surely he loves and cherishes you! He must be a base, ungrateful +man if he do not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the King is grateful, Angela, grateful enough and to spare. He never sees +me at Court but he has some gracious speech about his father’s regard for me. +It grows irksome at last, by sheer repetition. The turn of the sentence varies, +for his Majesty has a fine standing army of words, but the gist of the phrase +is always the same, and it means, ‘Here is a tiresome old Put to whom I must +say something civil for the sake of his ancient vicissitudes.’ And then his +phalanx of foppery stares at me as if I were a Topinambou; and since I have +seen them mimic Ned Hyde’s stately speech and manners, I doubt not before I +have crossed the ante-room I have served to make sport for the crew, since +their wit has but two phases—ordure and mimickry. Look not so glum, daughter. I +am glad to be out of a Court which is most like—such places as I dare not name +to thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“But to have you disrespected, sir; you, so brave, so noble! You who gave the +best years of your life to your royal master!” +</p> + +<p> +“What I gave I gave, child. I gave him youth—that never comes back—and fortune, +that is not worth grieving for. And now that I have begun to lose the reckoning +of my years since fifty, I feel I had best take myself back to that roving life +in which I have no time to brood upon losses and sorrows.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear father, I am sure you must mistake the King’s feelings towards you. It is +not possible that he can think lightly of such devotion as yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sweetheart, who said he thinks lightly? He never thinks of me at all, or +of anything serious under God’s sky. So long as he has spending money, and can +live in a circle of bright eyes, and hear only flippant tongues that offer him +a curious incense of flattery spiced with impertinence, Charles Stuart has all +of this life that he values. And for the next—a man who is shrewdly suspected +of being a papist, while he is attached by gravest vows to the Church of +England, must needs hold heaven’s rewards and hell’s torments lightly.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Queen Catherine, sir—does not she favour you? My aunt says she is a good +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a good woman, and the nearest approach to a cypher to be found at Hampton +Court or Whitehall. Young Lord Rochester has written a poem upon ‘Nothing.’ He +might have taken Queen Catherine’s name as a synonym. She is nothing; she +counts for nothing. Her love can benefit nobody; her hatred, were the poor soul +capable of hating persistently, can do no one harm.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the King—is he so unkind to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Unkind! No. He allows her to live. Nay, when for a few days—the brief felicity +of her poor life—she seemed on the point of dying, he was stricken with remorse +for all that he had not been to her, and was kind, and begged her to live for +his sake. The polite gentleman meant it for a compliment—one of those pious +falsehoods that men murmur in dying ears—but she took him at his word and +recovered; and she is there still, a little dark lady in a fine gown, of whom +nobody takes any notice, beyond the emptiest formality of bent knees and +backward steps. There are long evenings at Hampton Court in which she is scarce +spoken to, save when she fawns upon the fortunate lady whom she began by +hating. Oh, child, I should not talk to you of these things; but some of the +disgust that has made my life bitter bubbles over in spite of me. I am a +wanderer and an exile again, dear heart. I would sooner trail a pike abroad +than suffer neglect at home. I will fight under any flag so long as it flies +not for my country’s foe. I am going back to my old friends at the Louvre, to +those few who are old enough to care for me; and if there come a war with +Spain, why my sword may be of some small use to young Louis, whose mother was +always gracious to me in the old days at St. Germain, when she knew not in the +morning whether she would go safe to bed at night. A golden age of peace has +followed that wild time; but the Spanish king’s death is like to light the +torch and set the war-dogs barking. Louis will thrust his sword through the +treaty of the Pyrenees if he see the way to a throne t’other side of the +mountains.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could a good man violate a treaty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ambition knows no laws, sweet, nor ever has since Hannibal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then King Louis is no better a man than King Charles?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot answer for that, Angela; but I’ll warrant him a better king from the +kingly point of view. Scarce had death freed him from the Cardinal’s +leading-strings than he snatched the reins of power, showed his ministers that +he meant to drive the coach. He has a head as fit for business as if he had +been the son of a woollen-draper. Mazarin took pains to keep him ignorant of +everything that a king ought to know; but that shrewd judgment of his taught +him that he must know as much as his servants, unless he wanted them to be his +masters. He has the pride of Lucifer, with a strength of will and power of +application as great as Richelieu’s. You will live to see that no second +Richelieu, no new Mazarin, will arise in his reign. His ministers will serve +him, and go down before him, like Nicolas Fouquet, to whom he has been +implacable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor gentleman! My aunt told me that when his judges sentenced him to +banishment from France, the King changed the sentence to imprisonment for +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt if the King ever forgave those fêtes at Vaux, which were designed to +dazzle Mademoiselle la Vallière, whom this man had the presumption to love. One +may pity so terrible a fall, yet it is but the ruin of a bold sensualist, who +played with millions as other men play with tennis balls, and who would have +drained the exchequer by his briberies and extravagances if he had not been +brought to a dead stop. The world has been growing wickeder, dearest, while +this fair head has risen from my knee to my shoulder; but what have you to do +with its wickedness? Here you are happy and at peace——” +</p> + +<p> +“Not happy, father, if you are to hazard your life in battles and sieges. Oh, +sir, that life is too dear to us, your children, to be risked so lightly. You +have done your share of soldiering. Everybody that ever heard your name in +England or in France knows it is the name of a brave captain—a leader of men. +For our sakes, take your rest now, dear sir. I should not sleep in peace if I +knew you were with Condé’s army. I should dream of you wounded and dying. I +cannot bear to think of leaving my aunt now that she is old and feeble; but my +first duty is to you, and if you want me I will go with you wherever you may +please to make your home. I am not afraid of strange countries.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spoken like my sweet daughter, whose baby arms clasped my neck in the day of +despair. But you must stay with the reverend mother, sweetheart. These bones of +mine must be something stiffer before they will consent to rest in the chimney +corner, or sit in the shade of a yew hedge while other men throw the bowls. +When I have knocked about the world a few years longer, and when Mother +Anastasia is at rest, thou shalt come to me at the Manor, and I will find thee +a noble husband, and will end my days with my children and grandchildren. The +world has so changed since the forties, that I shall think I have lived +centuries instead of decades, when the farewell hour strikes. In the mean time +I am pleased that you should be here. The Court is no place for a pure maiden, +though some sweet saints there be who can walk unsmirched in the midst of +corruption.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Hyacinth? She can walk scatheless through that Court furnace. She writes +of Whitehall as if it were Paradise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth has a husband to take care of her; a man with a brave headpiece of +his own, who lets her spark it with the fairest company in the town, but would +make short work of any fop who dared attempt the insolence of a suitor. +Hyacinth has seen the worst and the best of two Courts, and has an experience +of the Palais Royal and St. Germain which should keep her safe at Whitehall.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John and his daughter spent half a day together in the garden and the +parlour, where the traveller was entertained with a collation and a bottle of +excellent Beaujolais before his horse was brought to the door. Angela saw him +mount, and ride slowly away in the melancholy afternoon light, and she felt as +if he were riding out of her life for ever. She went back to her aunt’s room +with an aching heart. Had not that kind lady, her mother in all the essentials +of maternal love, been so near the end of her days, and so dependent on her +niece’s affection, the girl would have clung about her father’s neck, and +implored him to go no more a-soldiering, and to make himself a home with her in +England. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.</h2> + +<p> +The reverend mother lingered till the beginning of summer, and it was on a +lovely June evening, while the nightingales were singing in the convent garden, +that the holy life slipped away into the Great Unknown. She died as a child +falls asleep, the saintly grey head lying peacefully on Angela’s supporting +arm, the last look of the dying eyes resting on that tender nurse with infinite +love. +</p> + +<p> +She was gone, and Angela felt strangely alone. Her contemporaries, the chosen +friend who had been to her almost as a sister, the girls by whose side she had +sat in class, had all left the convent. At twenty-one years of age, she seemed +to belong to a former generation; most of the pupils had finished their +education at seventeen or eighteen, and had returned to their homes in +Flanders, France, or England. There had been several English pupils, for +Louvain and Douai had for a century been the seminaries for English Romanists. +</p> + +<p> +The pupils of to-day were Angela’s juniors, with whom she had nothing in +common, except to teach English to a class of small Flemings, who were almost +unteachable. +</p> + +<p> +She had heard no more from her father, and knew not where or with whom he might +have cast in his lot. She wrote to him under cover to her sister; but of late +Hyacinth’s letters had been rare and brief, only long enough, indeed, to +apologise for their brevity. Lady Fareham had been in London or at Hampton +Court from the beginning of the previous winter. There was talk of the plague +having come to London from Amsterdam, that the Privy Council was sitting at +Sion House, instead of in London, that the judges had removed to Windsor, and +that the Court might speedily remove to Salisbury or Oxford. “And if the Court +goes to Oxford, we shall go to Chilton,” wrote Hyacinth; and that was the last +of her communications. +</p> + +<p> +July passed without news from father or sister; and Angela grew daily more +uneasy about both. The great horror of the plague was in the air. It had been +raging in Amsterdam in the previous summer and autumn, and a nun had brought +the disease to Louvain, where she might have died in the convent infirmary but +for Angela’s devoted attention. She had assisted the over-worked infirmarian at +a time of unusual sickness—for there was a good deal of illness among the nuns +and pupils that summer—mostly engendered of the fear lest the pestilence in +Holland should reach Flanders. Doctor and infirmarian had alike praised the +girl’s quiet courage, and her instinct for doing the right thing. +</p> + +<p> +Remembering all the nun had told of the horrors of Amsterdam, Angela awaited +with fear and trembling for news from London; and as the summer wore on, every +news-letter that reached the Ursulines brought tidings of increasing sickness +in the great prosperous city, which was being gradually deserted by all who +could afford to travel. The Court had moved first to Hampton Court, in June, +and later to Salisbury, where again the French Ambassador’s people reported +strange horrors—corpses found lying in the street hard by their lodgings—the +King’s servants sickening. The air of the cathedral city was tainted—though +deaths had been few as compared with London, which was becoming one vast +lazar-house—and it was thought the Court and Ambassadors would remove +themselves to Oxford, where Parliament was to assemble in the autumn, instead +of at Westminster. +</p> + +<p> +Most alarming of all was the news that the Queen-mother had fled with all her +people, and most of her treasures, from her palace at Somerset House—for +Henrietta Maria was not a woman to fly before a phantom fear. She had seen too +much of the stern realities of life to be scared by shadows; and she had +neither establishment nor power in France equal to those she left in England. +In Paris the daughter of the great Henry was a dependent. In London she was +second only to the King; and her Court was more esteemed than Whitehall. +</p> + +<p> +“If she has fled, there must be reason for it,” said the newly elected +Superior, who boasted of correspondents at Paris, notably a cousin in that +famous convent, the Visitandines de Chaillot, founded by Queen Henrietta, and +which had ever been a centre of political and religious intrigue, the most +fashionable, patrician, exalted, and altogether worldly establishment. +</p> + +<p> +Alarmed at this dismal news, Angela wrote urgently to her sister, but with no +effect; and the passage of every day, with occasional rumours of an increasing +death-rate in London, strengthened her fears, until terror nerved her to a +desperate resolve. She would go to London to see her sister; to nurse her if +she were sick; to mourn for her if she were dead. +</p> + +<p> +The Superior did all she could to oppose this decision, and even asserted +authority over the pupil who, since her eighteenth year had been released from +discipline, subject but to the lightest laws of the convent. As the great-niece +and beloved child of the late Superior she had enjoyed all possible privileges; +while the liberal sum annually remitted for her maintenance gave her a certain +importance in the house. +</p> + +<p> +And now on being told she must not go, her spirit rose against the Superior’s +authority. +</p> + +<p> +“I recognise no earthly power that can keep me from those I love in their time +of peril!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You do not know that they are in sickness or danger. My last letters from +Paris stated that it was only the low people whom the contagion in London was +attacking.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it was only the low people, why did the Queen-mother leave? If it was safe +for my sister to be in London it would have been safe for the Queen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Fareham is doubtless in Oxfordshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have written to Chilton Abbey as well as to Fareham House, and I can get no +answer. Indeed, reverend mother, it is time for me to go to those to whom I +belong. I never meant to stay in this house after my aunt’s death. I have only +been waiting my father’s orders. If all be well with my sister I shall go to +the Manor Moat, and wait his commands quietly there. I am home-sick for +England.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have chosen an ill time for home-sickness, when a pestilence is raging.” +</p> + +<p> +Argument could not touch the girl, whose mind was braced for battle. The +reverend mother ceded with as good a grace as she could assume, on the top of a +very arbitrary temper. An English priest was heard of who was about to travel +to London on his return to a noble friend and patron in the north of England, +in whose house he had lived before the troubles; and in this good man’s charge +Angela was permitted to depart, on a long and weary journey by way of Antwerp +and the Scheldt. They were five days at sea, the voyage lengthened by the +almost unprecedented calm which had prevailed all that fatal summer—a weary +voyage in a small trading vessel, on board which Angela had to suffer every +hardship that a delicate woman can be subjected to on board ship: a wretched +berth in a floating cellar called a cabin, want of fresh water, of female +attendance, and of any food but the coarsest. These deprivations she bore +without a murmur. It was only the slowness of the passage that troubled her. +</p> + +<p> +The great city came in view at last, the long roof of St. Paul’s dominating the +thickly clustered gables and chimneys, and the vessel dropped anchor opposite +the dark walls of the Tower, whose form had been made familiar to Angela by a +print in a History of London, which she had hung over many an evening in Mother +Anastasia’s parlour. A row-boat conveyed her and her fellow-traveller to the +Tower stairs, where they landed, the priest being duly provided with an +efficient voucher that they came from a city free of the plague. Yes, this was +London. Her foot touched her native soil for the first time after fifteen years +of absence. The good-natured priest would not leave her till he had seen her in +charge of an elderly and most reputable waterman, recommended by the custodian +of the stairs. Then he bade her an affectionate adieu, and fared on his way to +a house in the city, where one of his kinsfolk, a devout Catholic, dwelt +quietly hidden from the public eye, and where he would rest for the night +before setting out on his journey to the north. +</p> + +<p> +After the impetuous passage through the deep, dark arch of the bridge, the boat +moved slowly up the river in the peaceful eventide, and Angela’s eyes opened +wide with wonder as she looked on the splendours of that silent highway, this +evening verily silent, for the traffic of business and pleasure had stopped in +the terror of the pestilence, like a clock that had run down. It was said by +one who had seen the fairest cities of Europe that “the most glorious sight in +the world, take land and water together, was to come upon a high tide from +Gravesend, and shoot the bridge to Westminster;” and to the convent-bred maiden +how much more astonishing was that prospect! +</p> + +<p> +The boat passed in front of Lord Arundel’s sumptuous mansion, with its spacious +garden, where marble statues showed white in the midst of quincunxes, and prim +hedges of cypress and yew; past the Palace of the Savoy, with its massive +towers, battlemented roof, and double line of mullioned windows fronting the +river; past Worcester House, where Lord Chancellor Hyde had been living in a +sober splendour, while his princely mansion was building yonder on the Hounslow +Road, or that portion thereof lately known as Piccadilly. That was the +ambitious pile of which Hyacinth had written, a house of clouded memories and +briefest tenure; foredoomed to vanish like a palace seen in a dream; a +transient magnificence, indescribable; known for a little while opprobriously +as Dunkirk House, the supposed result of the Chancellor’s too facile assistance +in the surrender of that last rag of French territory. The boat passed before +Rutland House and Cecil House, some portion of which had lately been converted +into the Middle Exchange, the haunt of fine ladies and Golconda of gentlewomen +milliners, favourite scene for assignations and intrigues; and so by Durham +House, where in the Protector Seymour’s time the Royal Mint had been +established; a house whose stately rooms were haunted by tragic associations, +shadows of Northumberland’s niece and victim, hapless Jane Grey, and of fated +Raleigh. Here, too, commerce shouldered aristocracy, and the New Exchange of +King James’s time competed with the Middle Exchange of later date, providing +more milliners, perfumers, glovers, barbers, and toymen, and more opportunity +for illicit loves and secret meetings. +</p> + +<p> +Before Angela’s eyes those splendid mansions passed like phantom pictures. The +westering sunlight showed golden above the dark Abbey, while she sat silent, +with awe-stricken gaze, looking out upon this widespread city that lay +chastened and afflicted under the hand of an angry God. The beautiful, gay, +proud, and splendid London of the West, the new London of Covent Garden, St. +James’s Street, and Piccadilly, whose glories her sister’s pen had depicted +with such fond enthusiasm, was now deserted by the rabble of quality who had +peopled its palaces, while the old London of the East, the historic city, was +sitting in sackcloth and ashes, a place of lamentations, a city where men and +women rose up in the morning hale and healthy, and at night-fall were carried +away in the dead-cart, to be flung into the pit where the dead lay shroudless +and unhonoured. +</p> + +<p> +How still and sweet the summer air seemed in that sunset hour; how placid the +light ripple of the incoming tide; how soothing even the silence of the city! +And yet it all meant death. It was but a few months since the fatal infection +had been brought from Holland in a bundle of merchandise: and, behold, through +city and suburbs, the pestilence had crept with slow and stealthy foot, now on +this side of a street, now on another. The history of the plague was like a +game at draughts, where man after man vanishes off the board, and the game can +only end by exhaustion. +</p> + +<p> +“See, mistress, yonder is Somerset House,” said the boatman, pointing to one of +the most commanding façades in that highway of palaces. “That is the palace +which the Queen-mother has raised from the ashes of the ruins her folly made, +for the husband who loved her too well. She came back to us no wiser for years +of exile—came back with her priests and her Italian singing-boys, her +incense-bearers and golden candlesticks and gaudy rags of Rome. She fled from +England with the roar of cannon in her ears, and the fear of death in her +heart. She came back in pride and vain-glory, and boasted that had she known +the English people better, she would never have gone away; and she has +squandered thousands in yonder palace, upon floors of coloured woods, and +Italian marbles—the people’s money, mark you, money that should have built +ships and fed sailors; and she meant to end her days among us. But a worse +enemy than Cromwell has driven her out of the house that she made beautiful for +herself; and who knows if she will ever see London again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then those were right who told me that it was for fear of the plague her +Majesty left London?” said Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“For what else should she flee? She was loth enough to leave, you may be sure, +for she had seated herself in her pride yonder, and her Court was as splendid, +and more looked up to than Queen Catherine’s. The Queen-mother is the prouder +woman, and held her head higher than her son’s wife has ever dared to hold +hers; yet there are those who say King Charles’s widow has fallen so low as to +marry Lord St. Albans, a son of Belial, who would hazard his immortal soul on a +cast of the dice, and lose it as freely as he has squandered his royal +mistress’s money. She paid for Jermyn’s feasting and wine-bibbing in Paris, +’tis said, when her son and his friends were on short commons.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do wrong to slander that royal lady,” remonstrated Angela. “She is of all +widows the saddest and most desolate—ever the mark of evil fortune. Even in the +glorious year of her son’s restoration sorrow pursued her, and she had to mourn +a daughter and a son. She is a most unhappy lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would scarcely say as much, young madam, had you seen her in her pomp and +power yonder. And as for Lord St. Albans, if he is not her husband—! Well, thou +art a young innocent thing—so I had best hold my peace. Both palaces are empty +and forsaken, both Whitehall and Somerset House. The rats and the spiders can +take their own pleasure in the rooms that were full of music and dancing, +card-playing and feasting, two or three months ago. Why, there was no better +sight in London, after the dead-cart, than to watch the train of carriages and +horsemen, carts and wagons, upon any of the great high-roads, carrying the +people of London away to the country, as if the whole city had been moving in +one mass like a routed army.” +</p> + +<p> +“But in palaces and noblemen’s houses surely there would be little danger?” +said Angela. “Plagues and fevers are the outcome of hunger and uncleanliness, +and all such evils as the poor have to suffer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, but the pestilence that walketh in darkness is no respecter of persons,” +answered the grim boatman. “I grant you that death has dealt hardest with the +poor who dwell in crowded lanes and alleys. But now the very air reeks with +poison. It may be carried in the folds of a woman’s gown, or among the feathers +of a courtier’s hat. They are wise to go who can go. It is only such as I, who +have to work for my grandchildren’s bread, that must needs stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak like one who has seen better days,” said Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“I was a sergeant in Hampden’s regiment, madam, and went all through the war. +When the King came back I had friends who stood by me, and bought me this boat. +I was used to handle an oar in my boyhood, when I lived on a little bit of a +farm that belonged to my father, between Reading and Henley. I was oftener on +the water than on the land in those days. There are some who have treated me +roughly because I fought against the late King; but folks are beginning to find +out that the Brewer’s disbanded red-coats can be honest and serviceable in time +of peace.” +</p> + +<p> +After passing the Queen-mother’s desolate palace the boat crept along near the +Middlesex shore, till it stopped at the bottom of a flight of stone steps, +against which the tide washed with a pleasant rippling sound, and above which +there rose the walls of a stately building facing south-west; small as compared +with Somerset and Northumberland houses, midway between which it stood, yet a +spacious and noble mansion, with a richly decorated river-front, lofty windows +with sculptured pediments, floriated cornice, and two side towers topped with +leaded cupolas, the whole edifice gilded by the low sun, and very beautiful to +look upon, the windows gleaming as if there were a thousand candles burning +within, a light that gave a false idea of life and festivity, since that +brilliant illumination was only a reflected glory. +</p> + +<p> +“This, madam, is Fareham House,” said the boatman, holding out his hand for his +fee. +</p> + +<p> +He charged treble the sum he would have asked half a year ago. In this time of +evil those intrepid spirits who still plied their trades in the tainted city +demanded a heavy fee for their labour; and it would have been hard to dispute +their claim, since each man knew that he risked his life, and that the limbs +which toiled to-day might be lifeless clay to-night. There was an awfulness +about the time, a taste and odour of death mixed with all the common things of +daily life, a morbid dwelling upon thoughts of corruption, a feverish +expectancy of the end of all things, which no man can rightly conceive who has +not passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. +</p> + +<p> +Angela paid the man his price without question. She stepped lightly from the +boat, while he deposited her two small leather-covered trunks on the stone +landing-place in front of the Italian terrace which occupied the whole length +of the façade. She went up a flight of marble steps, to a door facing the +river. Here she rang a bell which pealed long and loud over the quiet water, a +bell that must have been heard upon the Surrey shore. Yet no one opened the +great oak door; and Angela had a sudden sinking at the heart as the slow +minutes passed and brought no sound of footsteps within, no scrooping of a bolt +to betoken the opening of the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Belike the house is deserted, madam,” said the boatman, who had moored his +wherry to the landing-stage, and had carried the two trunks to the doorstep. +“You had best try if the door be fastened or no. Stay!” he cried suddenly, +pointing upwards, “Go not in, madam, for your life! Look at the red cross on +the door, the sign of a plague-stricken house.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela looked up with awe and horror. A great cross was smeared upon the door +with red paint, and above it some one had scrawled the words, “Lord, have mercy +upon us!” +</p> + +<p> +And the sister she loved, and the children whose faces she had never seen, were +within that house, sick and in peril of death, perhaps dying—or dead! She did +not hesitate for an instant, but took hold of the heavy iron ring which served +as a handle for the door and tried to open it. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no fear for myself,” she said to the boatman; “I have nursed the sick +and the fever-stricken, and am not afraid of contagion—and there are those +within whom I love. Good night, friend.” +</p> + +<p> +The handle of the door turned somewhat stiffly in her hand, but it did turn, +and the door opened, and she stood upon the threshold looking into a vast hall +that was wrapped in shadow, save for a shaft of golden light that streamed from +an oval window on the staircase. Other windows there were on each side of the +door, shuttered and barred. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing her enter the house, the old Cromwellian shrugged his shoulders, shook +his head despondently, shoved the two trunks hastily over the threshold, ran +back to his boat, and pushed off. +</p> + +<p> +“God guard thy young life, mistress!” he cried, and the wherry shot out into +the stream. +</p> + +<p> +There had been silence on the river, the silence of a deserted city at +eventide; but that had seemed as nothing to the stillness of this marble-paved +hall, where the sunset was reflected on the dark oak panelling in one lurid +splash like blood. +</p> + +<p> +Not a mortal to be seen. Not a sound of voice or footstep. A crowd of gods and +goddesses in draperies of azure and crimson, purple and orange, looked down +from the ceiling. Curtains of tawny velvet hung beside the shuttered windows. A +great brazen candelabrum, filled with half-consumed candles, stood tall and +splendid at the foot of a wide oak staircase, the banister-rail whereof was +cushioned with tawny velvet. Splendour of fabric, wood and marble, colour and +gilding, showed on every side; but of humanity there was no sign. +</p> + +<p> +Angela shuddered at the sight of all that splendour, as if death were playing +hide and seek in those voluminous curtains, or were lurking in the deep shadow +which the massive staircase cast across the hall. She looked about her, full of +fear, then seeing a silver bell upon the table, she took it up and rang it +loudly. Upon the same carved ebony table there lay a plumed hat, a cane with an +amber handle, and a velvet cloak neatly folded, as if placed ready for the +master of the house, when he went abroad; but looking at these things closely, +even in that dim light, she saw that cloak and hat were white with dust, and, +more even than the silence, that spectacle of the thick dust on the dark velvet +impressed her with the idea of a deserted house. +</p> + +<p> +She had no lack of courage, this pupil of the Flemish nuns, and her footstep +did not falter as she went quickly up the broad staircase until she found +herself in a spacious gallery, and amidst a flood of light, for the windows on +this upper or noble floor were all unshuttered, and the sunset streamed in +through the lofty Italian casements. Fareham House was built upon the plan of +the Hôtel de Rambouillet, of which the illustrious Catherine de Vivonne was +herself at once owner and architect. The staircase, instead of being a central +feature, was at the western end of the house, allowing space for an unbroken +suite of rooms communicating one with the other, and terminating in an +apartment with a fine oriel window looking east. +</p> + +<p> +The folding doors of a spacious saloon stood wide open, and Angela entered a +room whose splendour was a surprise to her who had been accustomed to the sober +simplicity of a convent parlour and the cold grey walls of the refectory, where +the only picture was a pinched and angular Virgin by Memling, and the only +ornament a crucifix of ebony and brass. +</p> + +<p> +Here for the first time she beheld a saloon for whose decoration palaces had +been ransacked and churches desecrated—the stolen treasures of many an +ancestral mansion, spoil of rough soldiery or city rabble, things that had been +slyly stowed away by their possessors during the stern simplicity of the +Commonwealth, and had been brought out of their hiding-places and sold to the +highest bidder. Gold and silver had been melted down in the Great Rebellion; +but art treasures would not serve to pay soldiers or to buy ammunition; so +these had escaped the melting-pot. At home and abroad the storehouses of +curiosity merchants had been explored to beautify Lady Fareham’s +reception-rooms; and in the fading light Angela gazed upon hangings that were +worthy of a royal palace, upon Italian crystals and Indian carvings, upon ivory +and amber and jade and jasper, upon tables of Florentine mosaic, and ebony +cabinets incrusted with rare agates, and upon pictures in frames of massive and +elaborate carving, Venetian mirrors which gave back the dying light from a +thousand facets, curtains and portières of sumptuous brocade, gold-embroidered, +gorgeous with the silken semblance of peacock plumage, done with the needle, +from the royal manufactory of the Crown Furniture at the Gobelins. +</p> + +<p> +She passed into an ante-room, with tapestried walls, and a divan covered with +raised velvet, a music desk of gilded wood, and a spinet, on which was painted +the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Beyond this there was the dining-room, more +soberly though no less richly furnished than the saloon. Here the hangings were +of Cordovan leather, stamped and gilded with <i>fleur-de-lys</i>, suggesting a +French origin, and indeed these very hangings had been bought by a Dutch Jew +dealer in the time of the Fronde, had belonged to the hated minister Mazarin, +and had been sold among other of his effects when he fled from Paris: to vanish +for a brief season behind the clouds of public animosity, and to blaze out +again, an elderly phoenix, in a new palace, adorned with new treasures of art +and industry that made royal princes envious. +</p> + +<p> +Angela gazed on all this splendour as one bewildered. In front of that gilded +wall, quivering in mid-air, as if it had been painted upon the shaft of light +that streamed in from the tall window, her fancy pictured the blood-red cross +and the piteous legend, “Lord, have mercy on us!” written in the same blood +colour. For herself she had neither horror of the pestilence nor fear of death. +Religion had familiarised her mind with the image of the destroyer. From her +childhood she had been acquainted with the grave, and with visions of a world +beyond the grave. It was not for herself she trembled, but for her sister, and +her sister’s children; for Lord Fareham, whose likeness she recalled even at +this moment, the grave dark face which Hyacinth had shown her on the locket she +wore upon her neck, the face which Sir John said reminded him of Strafford. +</p> + +<p> +“He has just that fatal look,” her father had told her afterwards when they +talked of Fareham, “the look that men saw in Wentworth’s face when he came from +Ireland, and in his Majesty’s countenance, after Wentworth’s murder.” +</p> + +<p> +While she stood in the dying light, wavering for a moment, doubtful which way +to turn—since the room had no less than three tall oak doors, two of them +ajar—there came a pattering upon the polished floor, a scampering of feet that +were lighter and quicker than those of the smallest child, and the first living +creature Angela saw in that silent house came running towards her. It was only +a little black-and-tan spaniel, with long silky hair and drooping ears, and +great brown eyes, fond and gentle, a very toy and trifle in the canine kingdom; +yet the sight of that living thing thrilled her awe-stricken heart, and her +tears came thick and fast as she knelt and took the little dog in her arms and +pressed him against her bosom, and kissed the cold muzzle, and looked, half +laughing, half crying, into the pathetic brown eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“At least there is life near. This dog would not be left in a deserted house,” +she thought, as the creature trembled against her bosom and licked the hand +that held him. +</p> + +<p> +The pattering was repeated in the adjoining room, and another spaniel, which +might have been twin brother of the one she held, came through the half open +door, and ran to her, and set up a jealous barking which reverberated in the +lofty room, and from within that unseen chamber on the other side of the door +there came a groan, a deep and hollow sound, as of mortal agony. +</p> + +<p> +She set down the dog in an instant, and was on her feet again, trembling but +alert. She pushed the door a little wider and went into the next apartment, a +bedroom more splendid than any bed-chamber her fancy had ever depicted when she +read of royal palaces. +</p> + +<p> +The walls were hung with Mortlake tapestries, representing in four great panels +the story of Perseus and Andromeda, and the Rape of Proserpine. To her who knew +not the old Greek fables those figures looked strangely diabolical. Naked +maiden and fiery dragon, flying horse and Greek hero, Demeter and Persephone, +hell-god and chariot, seemed alike demonaic and unholy, seen in the dim light +of expiring day. The high chimney-piece, with its Oriental jars, blood-red and +amber, faced her as she entered the room, and opposite the three tall windows +stood the state bed, of carved ebony, the posts adorned with massive bouquets +of chased silver flowers, the curtains of wine coloured velvet, heavy with +bullion fringes. One curtain had been looped back, showing the amber satin +lining, and on this bed of state lay a man, writhing in agony, with one +bloodless hand plucking at the cambric upon his bosom, while with the other he +grasped the ebony bed-post in a paroxysm of pain. +</p> + +<p> +Angela knew that dark and powerful face at the first glance, though the +features were distorted by suffering. This sick man, the sole occupant of a +deserted mansion, was her brother-in-law, Lord Fareham. A large high-backed +armchair stood beside the bed, and on this Angela seated herself. She +recollected the Superior’s injunction just in time to put one of the +anti-pestilential lozenges into her mouth before she bent over the sufferer, +and took his clammy hand in hers, and endured the acrimony of his poisonous +breath. That anxious gaze, the dark yellow complexion, and those great beads of +sweat that poured down the pinched countenance too plainly indicated the +disease which had desolated London. The Moslem’s invisible plague-angel had +entered this palace, and had touched the master with his deadly lance. That +terrible Presence, which for the most part had been found among the dwellings +of the poor, was here amidst purple and fine linen, here on this bed of state, +enthroned in ebony and silver, hung round with velvet and bullion. She needed +not to discover the pestilential spots beneath that semi-diaphanous cambric +which hung loose upon the muscular frame, to be convinced of the cruel fact. +Here, abandoned and alone, lay the master of the house, with nothing better +than a pair of spaniels for his companions, and neither nurse nor watcher, wife +nor friend, to help him towards recovery, or to comfort his passing soul. +</p> + +<p> +One of the little dogs leapt on the bed, and licked his master’s face again and +again, whining piteously between whiles. +</p> + +<p> +The sick man looked at Angela with awful, unseeing eyes, and then burst into a +wild laugh— +</p> + +<p> +“See them run, the crop-headed clod-hoppers!” he cried. “Ride after them—mow +them down—scatter the rebel clot-pols! The day is ours!” And then, passing from +English to French, from visions of Lindsey and Rupert and the pursuit at +Edgehill to memories of Condé and Turenne, he shouted with the voice that was +like the sound of a trumpet, “<i>Boutte-selle! boutte-selle! Monte à cheval! +monte à cheval! à l’arme, à l’arme!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He was in the field of battle again. His wandering wits had carried him back to +his first fight, when he was a lad in his father’s company of horse, following +the King’s fortunes, breathing gunpowder, and splashed with human blood for the +first time—when it was not so long since he had been blooded at the death of +his first fox. He was a young man again, with the Prince, that Bourbon prince +and hero whom he loved and honoured far above any of his own countrymen. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>O, la folle entreprise du Prince de Condé</i>,” he sang, waving his hand +above his head, while the spaniels barked loud and shrill, adding their clamour +to his. He raved of battles and sieges. He was lying in the trenches, in cold +and rain and wind—in the tempestuous darkness. He was mounting the breach at +Dunkirk against the Spaniard; at Charenton in a hand-to-hand fight with +Frondeurs. He raved of Châtillon and Chanleu, and the slaughter of that fatal +day when Condé mourned a friend and each side lost a leader. Fever gave force +to gesture and voice; but in the midst of his ravings he fell back, half +fainting, upon the pillow, his heart beating in a tumult which fluttered the +lace upon the bosom of his shirt, while the acrid drops upon his brow gathered +thicker than poisonous dew. Angela remembered how last year in Holland these +death-like sweats had not always pointed to a fatal result, but in some cases +had afforded an outlet to the pestilential influences, though in too many +instances they had served only to enfeeble the patient, the fire of disease +still burning, while the damps of approaching dissolution oozed from the +fevered body—flame within and ice without. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +A MINISTERING ANGEL.</h2> + +<p> +Angela flung off hood and mantle, and looked anxiously round the room. There +were some empty phials and ointment boxes, some soiled linen rags and wet +sponges, upon a table near the bed, and the chamber reeked with the odour of +drugs, hartshorn and elder vinegar, cantharides, and aloes; enough to show that +a doctor had been there, and that there had been some attempt at nursing the +patient. But she had heard how in Holland the nurses had sometimes robbed and +abandoned their charges, taking advantage of the confusions and uncertainties +of that period of despair, quick and skilful to profit by sudden death, and the +fears and agonies of relatives and friends, whose grief made plunder easy. She +deemed it likely that one of those devilish women had first pretended to +succour, and had then abandoned Lord Fareham to his fate, after robbing his +house. Indeed, the open doors of a stately inlaid wardrobe between two windows +over against the bed, and the confused appearance of the clothes and linen on +the shelves, indicated that it had been ransacked by hasty hands; while, +doubtless, there had been many valuables lying loose about a house where there +was every indication of a careless profusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! poor gentleman, to be left by some mercenary wretch—left to die like the +camel in the desert!” +</p> + +<p> +She bent over him, and laid her hand with gentle firmness upon his death-cold +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“What! are there saints and angels in hell as well as felons and devils?” he +cried, clutching her by the wrist, and looking up at her with distended eyes, +in which the natural colour of the eye-ball was tarnished almost to blackness +with injected blood. +</p> + +<p> +For long and lonely hours, that seemed an eternity, he had been tossing in a +burning fever upon that disordered bed, until he verily believed himself in a +place of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double sense which goes with +delirium—the consciousness of his real surroundings, the tapestry and furniture +of his own chamber, and yet the conviction that this was hell, and had always +been hell, and that he had descended to this terrible under-world through +infinite abysses of darkness. The glow of sunset had been to him the fierce +light of everlasting flames; the burning of fever was the fire that is never +quenched; the pain that racked his limbs was the worm that dieth not. And now +in his torment there came the vision of a seraphic face bending over him in +gentle solicitude; a face that brought comfort with it, even in the midst of +his agony. After that one wild question he sank slowly back upon the pillows, +and lay faint and weak, his breathing scarce audible. Angela laid her fingers +on his wrist. The pulse was fluttering and intermittent. +</p> + +<p> +She remembered every detail of her aunt’s treatment of the plague-patient in +the convent infirmary, and how the turning-point of the malady and beginning of +cure had seemed to be brought about by a draught of strong wine which the +reverend mother had made her give the poor fainting creature at a crisis of +extreme weakness. She looked about the room for any flask which might contain +wine; but there was nothing there except the apothecary’s phials and +medicaments. +</p> + +<p> +It was dusk already, and she was alone in a strange house. It would seem no +easy task to find what she wanted, but the case was desperate, and she knew +enough of this mysterious disease to know that if the patient could not rally +speedily from his prostrate condition the end must be near. With steady brain +she set herself to face the difficulty—first to administer something which +should sustain the sick man’s strength, and then, without loss of time, to seek +a physician, and bring him to that deserted bed. Wine was the one thing she +could trust to in this crisis; for of the doses and lotions on yonder table she +knew nothing, nor had her experience made her a believer in the happy influence +of drugs. +</p> + +<p> +Her first search must be for light with which to explore the lower part of the +house, where in pantry or stillroom, or, if not above ground, in the cellars, +she must find what she wanted. Surely somewhere in that spacious bed-chamber +there would be tinder-box and matches. There were a pair of silver candlesticks +on the dressing-table, with thick wax candles burnt nearly to the sockets. +</p> + +<p> +A careful search at last discovered a tinder-box and matches in a dark angle of +the fireless hearth, hidden behind the heavy iron dog. She struck a light, +kindled her match, and lighted a candle, the sick man’s eyes following all her +movements, but his lips mute. As she went out of the door he called after her— +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me not, thou holy visitant—leave not my soul in hell!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will return!” she cried. “Have no fear, sir; I go to fetch some wine.” +</p> + +<p> +Her errand was not done quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had noted on +her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms—the littered treasures of +amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver—she had seen only an empty +wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down the wide, shallow stairs to the +lower floor, and here she found herself in a labyrinth of passages opening into +small rooms and servants’ offices. Here there were darkness and gloom rather +than splendour; though in many of those smaller rooms there was a sober and +substantial luxury which became the inferior apartments of a palace. She came +at last to a room which she took to be the butler’s office, where there were +dressers with a great array of costly Venetian glass, and a great many pieces +of silver—cups, tankards, salvers, and other ornamental plate—in presses behind +glazed doors. One of the glass panels had been broken, and the shelves in that +press were empty. +</p> + +<p> +Wine there was none to be found in any part of the room; but a small army of +empty bottles in a corner of the floor, and a confusion of greasy plates, +knives, chicken bones, and other scraps, indicated that there had been +carousing here at no remote time. +</p> + +<p> +The cellars were doubtless below these offices; but the wine-cellars would +assuredly be locked, and she had to search for the keys. She opened drawer +after drawer in the lower part of the presses, and at last, in an inner and +secret drawer, found a multitude of keys, some of which were provided with +parchment labels, and among these happily were two labelled “Ye great wine +cellar, S.” and “Ye smaller wine cellar, W.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a point gained; but the search had occupied a considerable time. She +had yet enough candle to last for about half an hour, and her next business was +to find one of those cellars which those keys opened. She was intensely anxious +to return to her patient, having heard how in some cases unhappy wretches had +leapt from the bed of death and rushed out-of-doors, delirious, half naked, to +anticipate their end by a fatal chill. +</p> + +<p> +On her way to the butler’s office she had seen a stone archway at the head of a +flight of stairs leading down into darkness. By this staircase she hoped to +find the wine-cellars, and presently descended, her candlestick in one hand, +and the two great keys in the other. As she went down into the stone basement, +which was built with the solidity of a dungeon, she heard the plash of the +tide, and felt that she was now on a level with the river. Here she found +herself again in a labyrinth of passages, with many doors standing ajar. At the +end of one passage she came to a locked door, and on trying her keys, found one +of them to fit the lock; it was “Ye great wine cellar, S.,” and she understood +by the initial “S.” that the cellar looked south and faced the river. +</p> + +<p> +She turned the heavy key with an effort that strained the slender fingers which +held it; but she was unconscious of the pain, and wondered afterwards to see +her hand dented and bruised where the iron had wrung it. The clumsy door +revolved on massive hinges, and she entered a cellar so large that the light of +her candle did not reach the furthermost corners and recesses. +</p> + +<p> +This cellar was built in a series of arches, fitted with stone bins, and in the +upper part of one southward-fronting arch there was a narrow grating, through +which came the cool breath of evening air and the sound of water lapping +against stone. A patch of faint light showed pale against the iron bars, and as +Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through the grating, and ran +along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as he scuttled across them. +Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, and she knew that the loathsome +thing was on the floor upon which she was standing. She lowered her light +shudderingly, and, for the first time since she entered that house of dread, +the young brave heart sank with the sickness of fear. +</p> + +<p> +The cellar might swarm with such creatures; the darkness of the fast-coming +night might be alive with them! And if yonder dungeon-like door were to swing +to and shut with a spring lock, she might perish there in the darkness. She +might die the most hideous of deaths, and her fate remain for ever unknown. +</p> + +<p> +In a sudden panic she rushed back to the door, and pushed it wider—pushed it to +its extremest opening. It seemed too heavy to be likely to swing back upon its +hinges; yet the mere idea of such a contingency appalled her. Remembering her +labour in unlocking the door from the outside, she doubted if she could open it +from within were it once to close upon that awful vault. And all this time the +lapping of the tide against the stone sounded louder, and she saw little spirts +of spray flashing against the bars in the lessening light. +</p> + +<p> +She collected herself with an effort, and began her search for the wine. Sack +was the wine she had given to the sick nun, and it was that wine for which she +looked. Of Burgundy, and claret, labelled “Clary Wine,” she found several full +bins, and more that were nearly empty. Tokay and other rarer wines were denoted +by the parchment labels which hung above each bin; but it was some minutes +before she came to a bin labelled “Sherris,” which she knew was another name +for sack. The bottles had evidently been undisturbed for a long time, for the +bin was full of cobweb, and the thick coating of dust upon the glass betokened +a respectable age in the wine. She carried off two bottles, one under each arm, +and then, with even quicker steps than had brought her to that darksome place, +she hastened back to the upper floor, leaving the key in the cellar door, and +the door unlocked. There would be time enough to look after Lord Fareham’s wine +when she had cared for Lord Fareham himself. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes were fixed upon the doorway as she entered. They shone upon her in the +dusk with an awful glassiness, as if life’s last look had become fixed in +death. He did not speak as she drew near the bed, and set the wine bottles down +upon the table among the drugs and cataplasms. +</p> + +<p> +She had found a silver-handled corkscrew in the butler’s room among the relics +of the feast, and with this she opened one of the bottles, Fareham watching her +all the time. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that some new alexipharmic?” he asked with a sudden rational air, which was +almost as startling as if a dead man had spoken. “I will have no more of their +loathsome drugs. They have made an apothecary’s shop of my body. I would rather +they let me rot by the plague than that they should poison me with their +antidotes, or dissolve me to death with their sudorifics.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is not a medicine, Lord Fareham, but your own wine; and I want you to +drink a long draught of it, and then, who knows but you may sleep off your +malady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sleep in the grave, sweet friend! I have seen the tokens on my breast that +mean death. There is but one inevitable end for all who are so marked. ’Tis +like the forester’s notch upon the tree. It means doom. He was king of the +forest once, perhaps; but no matter. His time has come. Oh, Lord, thou hast +tormented me with hot burning coals!” he cried, in a sudden access of pain; and +in the next minute he was raving. +</p> + +<p> +Angela filled a beaker with the bright golden wine, and offered it to the sick +man’s lips. It was not without infinite pains and coaxing that she induced him +to drink; but, when once his parched lips had tasted the cold liquor, he drank +eagerly, as if that strong wine had been a draught of water. He gave a deep +sigh of solace when the beaker was empty, for he had been enduring an agony of +thirst through all the glare and heat of the afternoon, and there was +unspeakable comfort in that first long drink. He would have drunk foul water +with almost as keen a relish. +</p> + +<p> +He talked fast and furiously, in the disjointed sentences of delirium, for some +little time; and then, little by little, he grew more tranquil; and Angela, +sitting beside the bed, with her fingers laid gently on his wrist, marked the +quieter beat of the pulse, which no longer fluttered like the wing of a +frightened bird. Then with deep thankfulness she saw the eyelids droop over the +bloodshot eyeballs, while the breathing grew slower and heavier as sleep +clouded the wearied brain. The spaniels crept nearer him, and nestled close to +his pillow, so that the man’s dark locks were mixed with the silken curls of +the dogs. +</p> + +<p> +Would he die in that sleep? she wondered. +</p> + +<p> +It was only now for the first time since she entered this unpeopled house that +she had leisure to speculate on the circumstances which had brought about such +loneliness and neglect, here where rank and state, and wealth almost without +limit should have secured the patient every care and comfort that devoted +service could lavish upon a sufferer. How was it that she found her sister’s +husband abandoned to the care of hirelings, left to the chances of paid +service? +</p> + +<p> +To the cloister-reared maiden the idea of wifely duty was elevated almost to a +religion. To father or to husband she would have given a boundless devotion, in +sickness most of all devoted. To leave husband or father in a plague-stricken +city would have seemed to her a crime as abominable as Tullia’s, a treachery +base as Goneril’s or Regan’s. Could it be that her sister, that bright and +lovely creature, whose face she remembered as a sunbeam incarnate, could she +have been swept away by the pestilence which spared neither youth nor beauty, +neither the strong man nor the weakling child? Her heart grew heavy as lead at +the thought that this stranger, by whose pillow she was watching, might be the +sole survivor in that forsaken palace, and that in a few more hours he, too, +would be numbered with the dead, in that dreadful city where Death reigned +omnipotent, and where the living seemed but a vanishing minority, pale shadows +of living creatures passing silently along one inevitable pathway to the +pest-house or pit. +</p> + +<p> +That calm sleep of the plague-stricken might mean recovery, or it might mean +death. Angela examined the potions and unguents on the table near the bed, and +read the instructions on jars and phials. One was an alexipharmic draught, to +be taken the last thing at night, another a sudorific, to be administered once +in every hour. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not wake him to give him the finest medicine that ever physician +prescribed,” Angela said to herself. “I remember what a happy change one hour +of quiet slumber made in Sister Monica, when she was all but dead of a quartan +fever. Sleep is God’s physic.” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt upon a Prie-Dieu chair remote from the bed, knowing that contagion +lurked amid those voluminous hangings, beneath that stately canopy with its +lustrous satin lining, on which the light of the wax candles was reflected in +shining patches as upon a lake of golden water. She had no fear of the +pestilence; but an instinctive prudence made her hold herself aloof, now that +there was nothing more to be done for the sufferer. +</p> + +<p> +She remained long in prayer, repeating one of those litanies which she had +learnt in her infancy, and which of late had seemed to her to have somewhat too +set and mechanical a rhythm. The earnestness and fervour seemed to have gone +out of them in somewise since she had come to womanhood. The names of the +saints her lips invoked were dull and cold, and evolved no image of human or +superhuman love and power. What need of intercessors whose personality was +vague and dim, whose earthly histories were made up of truth so interwoven with +fable that she scarce dared believe even that which might be true? In the One +Crucified was help for all sinners, gospel and creed, the rule of life here, +the promise of immortality hereafter. +</p> + +<p> +The litanies to Virgin and Saints were said as a duty—a part of implicit +obedience which was the groundwork of her religion; and then all the +aspirations of her heart, her prayers for the sick man yonder, her fears for +her absent sister, for her father in his foreign wanderings, went up in one +stream of invocation to Christ the Redeemer. To Him, and Him alone, the strong +flame of faith and love rose, like the incense upon an altar—the altar of a +girl’s trusting heart. +</p> + +<p> +She was so lost in meditation that she was unconscious of an approaching +footstep in the stillness of the deserted house, till it drew near to the +threshold of the sick-room. The night was close and sultry, so she had left the +door open, and that slow tread had crossed the threshold by the time she rose +from her knees. Her heart beat fast, startled by the first human presence which +she had known in that melancholy place, save the presence of the pest-stricken +sufferer. +</p> + +<p> +She found herself face to face with a middle-aged gentleman of medium stature, +clad in the sober colouring that suggested one of the learned professions. He +appeared even more startled than Angela at the unexpected vision which met his +gaze, faintly seen in the dim light. +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for a few moments, and then the stranger saluted the lady +with a formal reverence, as he laid down his gold-handled cane. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely, madam, this mansion of my Lord Fareham’s must be enchanted,” he said. +“I left a crowd of attendants, and the stir of life below and above stairs, +only this forenoon last past. I find silence and vacancy. That is scarce +strange in this dejected and unhappy time; for it is but too common a trick of +hireling nurses to abandon their patients, and for servants to plunder and then +desert a sick house. But to find an angel where I left a hag! That is the +miracle! And an angel who has brought healing, if I mistake not,” he added, in +a lower voice, bending over the speaker. +</p> + +<p> +“I am no angel, sir, but a weak, erring mortal,” answered the girl, gravely. +“For pity’s sake, kind doctor—since I doubt not you are my lord’s +physician—tell me where are my dearest sister, Lady Fareham, and her children. +Tell me the worst, I entreat you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet lady, there is no ill news to tell. Her ladyship and the little ones are +safe at my lord’s house in Oxfordshire, and it is only his lordship yonder who +has fallen a victim to the contagion. Lady Fareham and her girl and boy have +not been in London since the plague began to rage. My lord had business in the +city, and came hither alone. He and the young Lord Rochester, who is the most +audacious infidel this town can show, have been bidding defiance to the +pestilence, deeming their nobility safe from a sickness which has for the most +part chosen its victims among the vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +“His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?” said Angela interrogatively. +</p> + +<p> +“I left him at eleven o’clock this morning with but scanty hope of finding him +alive after sundown. The woman I left to nurse him was his house-steward’s +wife, and far above the common kind of plague-nurse. I did not think she would +turn traitor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her husband has proved a false steward. The house has been robbed of plate and +valuables, as I believe, from signs I saw below stairs; and I suppose husband +and wife went off together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alack! madam, this pestilence has brought into play some of the worst +attributes of human nature. The tokens and loathly boils which break out upon +the flesh of the plague-stricken are less revolting to humanity than the +cruelty of those who minister to the sick, and whose only desire is to profit +by the miseries that surround them; wretches so vile that they have been known +wilfully to convey the seeds of death from house to house, in order to infect +the sound, and so enlarge their area of gains. It was an artful device of those +plunderers to paint the red cross on the door, and thus scare away any visitor +who might have discovered their depredations. But you, madam, a being so young +and fragile, have you no fear of the contagion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, I know that I am in God’s hand. Yonder poor gentleman is not the +first plague-patient I have nursed. There was a nun came from Holland to our +convent at Louvain last year, and had scarce been one night in the house before +tokens of the pestilence were discovered upon her. I helped the infirmarian to +nurse her, and with God’s help we brought her round. My aunt, the reverend +mother, bade me give her the best wine there was in the house—strong Spanish +wine that a rich merchant had given to the convent for the use of the sick—and +it was as though that good wine drove the poison from her blood. She recovered +by the grace of God after only a few days’ careful nursing. Finding his +lordship stricken with such great weakness, I ventured to give him a draught of +the best sack I could find in his cellar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear lady, thou art a miracle of good sense and compassionate bounty. I doubt +thou hast saved thy sister from widow’s weeds,” said Dr. Hodgkin, seated by the +bed, with his fingers on the patient’s wrist, and his massive gold watch in the +other hand. “This sound sleep promises well, and the pulse beats somewhat +slower and steadier than it did this morning. Then the case seemed hopeless, +and I feared to give wine—though a free use of generous wine is my particular +treatment—lest it should fly to his brain, and disturb his intellectuals at a +time when he should need all his senses for the final disposition of his +affairs. Great estates sometimes hang upon the breath of a dying man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that would sure be your first and +chiefest thought?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, my pretty miss; but I had other measures. Apollo twangs not ever on +the same bowstring. Did my sudorific work well, think you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was bathed in perspiration when first I found him; but the sweat-drops +seemed cold and deadly, as if life itself were being dissolved out of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, there are cases in which that copious sweat is the forerunner of +dissolution; but in others it augurs cure. The pent-up poison which is +corrupting the patient’s blood finds a sudden vent, its virulence is diluted, +and if the end prove fatal, it is that the patient lacks power to rally after +the ravages of the disease, rather than that the poison kills. Was it instantly +after that profuse sweat you gave him the wine, I wonder?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was as speedily as I could procure it from the cellar below.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that strong wine, given in the nick of time, reassembled Nature’s +scattered forces, and rekindled the flame of life. Upon my soul, sweet young +lady, I believe thou hast saved him! All the drugs in Bucklersbury could do no +more. And now tell me what symptoms you have noted since you have watched by +his bed; and tell me further if you have strength to continue his nurse, with +such precautions as I shall dictate, and such help as I can send you in the +shape of a stout, honest, serving-wench of mine, and a man to guard the lower +part of your house, and fetch and carry for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, and with such skill as I +can command.” +</p> + +<p> +“Those delicate fingers were formed to minister to the sick. And you will not +shrink from loathsome offices—from the application of cataplasms, from +cleansing foul sores? Those blains and boils upon that poor body will need care +for many days to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will shrink from nothing that may be needful for his benefit. I should love +to go on nursing him, were it only for my sister’s sake. How sorry she would +feel to be so far from him, could she but know of his sickness!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I believe Lady Fareham would be sorry,” answered the physician, with a +dry little laugh; “though there are not many married ladies about Rowley’s +court of whom I would diagnose as much. Not Lady Denham, for instance, that +handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarian poet, who would +rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine at Whitehall; or Lady +Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough to show discontent at a +peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozen others I could name, were +not such scandals as these Hebrew to thine innocent ear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, my sister has written of Court scandals in many of her letters, and +it has grieved me to think her lot should be cast among people of whose +reckless doings she tells me with a lively wit that makes sin seem something +less than sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such word as ‘sin’ in Charles Stuart’s Court, my dear young lady. +It is harder to achieve bad repute nowadays than it was once to be thought a +saint. Existence in this town is a succession of bagatelles. Men’s lives and +women’s reputations drift down to the bottomless pit upon a rivulet of epigrams +and chansons. You have heard of that Dance of Death, which was one of the +nervous diseases of the fifteenth century—a malady which, after beginning with +one lively caperer, would infect a whole townspeople, and send an entire +population curvetting and prancing, until death stopped them. I sometimes +think, when I watch the follies at Whitehall, that those graceful dancers, +sliding upon pointed toe through a coranto, amid a blaze of candles and +star-shine of diamonds, are capering along the same fatal road by which St. +Vitus lured his votaries to the grave. And then I look at Rowley’s licentious +eye and cynical lip, and think to myself, ‘This man’s father perished on the +scaffold; this man’s lovely ancestress paid the penalty of her manifold +treacheries after sixteen years’ imprisonment; this man has passed through the +jaws of death, has left his country a fugitive and a pauper, has returned as if +by a miracle, carried back to a throne upon the hearts of his people; and +behold him now—saunterer, sybarite, sensualist—strolling through life without +one noble aim or one virtuous instinct; a King who traffics in the pride and +honour of his country, and would sell her most precious possessions, level her +strongest defences, if his cousin and patron t’other side the Channel would but +bid high enough.’ But a plague on my tongue, dear lady, that it must always be +wagging. Not one word more, save for instructions.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Hodgkin loved talking even better than he loved a fee, and he allowed +himself a physician’s licence to be prosy; but he now proceeded to give minute +directions for the treatment of the patient—the poultices and stoups and +lotions which were to reduce the external indications of the contagion, the +medicines which were to be given at intervals during the night. Medicine in +those days left very little to Nature, and if patients perished it was seldom +for want of drugs and medicaments. +</p> + +<p> +“The servant I send you will bring meat and all needful herbs for making a +strong broth, with which you will feed the patient once an hour. There are many +who hold with the boiling of gold in such a broth, but I will not enter upon +the merits of aurum potabile as a fortifiant. I take it that in this case you +will find beef and mutton serve your turn. I shall send you from my own larder +as much beef as will suffice for to-night’s use; and to-morrow your servant +must go to the place where the country people sell their goods, butchers’ meat, +poultry, and garden-stuff; for the butchers’ shops of London are nearly all +closed, and people scent contagion in any intercourse with their +fellow-citizens. You will have, therefore, to look to the country people for +your supplies; but of all this my own man will give you information. So now, +good night, sweet young lady. It is on the stroke of nine. Before eleven you +shall have those who will help and protect you. Meanwhile you had best go +downstairs with me, and lock and bolt the great door leading into the garden, +which I found ajar.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is the door facing the river, too, by which I entered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good heart, madam. Before eleven you +shall have a sturdy watchman on the premises.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela took a lighted candle and followed the physician through the great empty +rooms, and down the echoing staircase; under the ceiling where Jove, with +upraised goblet, drank to his queen, while all the galaxy of the Greek pantheon +circled his imperial throne. Upon how many a festal procession had those +Olympians looked down since that famous house-warming, when the colours were +fresh from the painter’s brush, and when the third Lord Fareham’s friend and +gossip, King James, deigned to witness the representation of Jonson’s “Time +Vindicated,” enacted by ladies and gentlemen of quality, in the great saloon, a +performance which—with the banquet and confectionery brought from Paris, and +“the sweet waters which came down the room like a shower from heaven,” as one +wrote who was present at that splendid entertainment, and the <i>feux +d’artifice</i> on the river—cost his lordship a year’s income, but stamped him +at once a fine gentleman. Had he been a trifle handsomer, and somewhat softer +of speech, that masque and banquet might have placed Richard Revel, Baron +Fareham, in the front rank of royal favourites; but the Revels were always a +black-visaged race, with more force than comeliness in their countenances, and +more gall than honey upon their tongues. +</p> + +<p> +It was past eleven before the expected succour arrived, and in the interval +Lord Fareham had awakened once, and had swallowed a composing draught, having +apparently but little consciousness of the hand that administered it. At twenty +minutes past eleven Angela heard the bell ring, and ran blithely down the now +familiar staircase to open the garden door, outside which she found a +middle-aged woman and a tall, sturdy young man, each carrying a bundle. These +were the nurse and the watchman sent by Dr. Hodgkin. The woman gave Angela a +slip of paper from the doctor, by way of introduction. +</p> + +<p> +“You will find Bridget Basset a worthy woman, and able to turn her hand to +anything; and Thomas Stokes is an honest, serviceable youth, whom you may trust +upon the premises, till some of his lordship’s servants can be sent from +Chilton Abbey, where I take it there is a large staff.” +</p> + +<p> +It was with an unspeakable relief that Angela welcomed these humble friends. +The silence of the great empty house had been weighing upon her spirits, until +the sense of solitude and helplessness had grown almost unbearable. Again and +again she had watched Lord Fareham turn his feverish head upon his pillow, +while the parched lips moved in inarticulate mutterings; and she had thought of +what she should do if a stronger delirium were to possess him, and he were to +try and do himself some mischief. If he were to start up from his bed and rush +through the empty rooms, or burst open one of yonder lofty casements and fling +himself headlong to the terrace below! She had been told of the terrible things +that plague-patients had done to themselves in their agony; how they had run +naked into the streets to perish on the stones of the highway; how they had +gashed themselves with knives; or set fire to their bed-clothes, seeking any +escape from the torments of that foul disease. She knew that those burning +plague-spots, which her hands had dressed, must cause a continual anguish that +might wear out the patience of a saint; and as the dark face turned on the +tumbled pillow, she saw by the clenched teeth and writhing lips, and the +convulsive frown of the strongly marked brows, that even in delirium the +sufferer was struggling to restrain all unmanly expressions of his agony. But +now, at least, there would be this strong, capable woman to share in the long +night watch; and if the patient grew desperate there would be three pair of +hands to protect him from his own fury. +</p> + +<p> +She made her arrangements promptly and decisively. Mrs. Basset was to stay all +night with her in the patient’s chamber, with such needful intervals of rest as +each might take without leaving the sick-room; and Stokes was first to see to +the fastening of the various basement doors, and to assure himself that there +was no one hidden either in the cellars or on the ground floor; also to examine +all upper chambers, and lock all doors; and was then to make himself a bed in a +dressing closet adjoining Lord Fareham’s chamber, and was to lie there in his +clothes, ready to help at any hour of the night, should help be wanted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD.</h2> + +<p> +Three nights and days had gone since Angela first set her foot upon the +threshold of Fareham House, and in all that time she had not once gone out into +the great city, where dismal silence reigned by day and night, save for the +hideous cries of the men with the dead-carts, calling to the inhabitants of the +infected houses to bring out their dead, and roaring their awful summons with +as automatic a monotony as if they had been hawking some common necessary of +life—a dismal cry that was but occasionally varied by the hollow tones of a +Puritan fanatic, stalking, gaunt and half clad, along the Strand, and shouting +some sentence of fatal bodement from the Hebrew prophets; just as before the +siege of Titus there walked through the streets of Jerusalem one who cried, +“Woe to the wicked city!” and whose voice could not be stopped but by death. +</p> + +<p> +In those three days and nights the worst symptoms of the contagion were +subjugated. But the ravages of the disease had left the patient in a state of +weakness which bordered on death; and his nurses were full of apprehension lest +the shattered forces of his constitution should fail even in the hour of +recovery. The violence of the fever was abated, and the delirium had become +intermittent, while there were hours in which the sufferer was conscious and +reasonable, in which calmer intervals he would fain have talked with Angela +more than her anxiety would allow. +</p> + +<p> +He was full of wonder at her presence in that house; and when he had been told +who she was, he wanted to know how and why she had come there. By what happy +accident, by what interposition of Providence, had she been sent to save him +from a hideous death? +</p> + +<p> +“I should have died but for you,” he said. “I should have lain here till the +cart fetched my putrid carcase. I should be rotting in one of their plague-pits +yonder, behind the old Abbey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, indeed, my lord, your good doctor would have discovered your desolate +condition, and would have brought Mrs. Basset to nurse you.” +</p> + +<p> +“He would have been too late. I was drifting out to the dark sea of death. I +felt as if the river were bearing me so much nearer to that unknown sea with +every ripple of the hurrying tide. ’Twas your draught of strong wine snatched +me back from the cruel river, drew me on to <i>terra firma</i> again, renewed +my consciousness of manhood, and that I was not a weed to be washed away. Oh, +that wine! Ye gods! what elixir to this parched, burning throat! Did ever +drunkard in all Alsatia snatch such fierce joy from a brimmer?” +</p> + +<p> +Angela put her finger on her lip, and with the other hand drew the silken +coverlet over the sick man’s shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not to talk,” she said, “you are to sleep. Slumber is to be your diet +and medicine after that good soup at which you make such a wry face.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would swallow the stuff were it Locusta’s hell-broth, for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will take it for wisdom’s sake, that you may mend speedily, and go home to +my sister,” said Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“Home, yes! It will be bliss ineffable to see flowery pastures and wooded hills +after this pest-haunted town; but oh, Angela, mine angel, why dost thou linger +in this poisonous chamber where every breath of mine exhales infection? Why do +you not fly while you are still unstricken? Truly the plague-fiend cometh as a +thief in the night. To-day you are safe. To-night you may be doomed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no fear, sir. You are not the first plague-patient I have nursed.” +</p> + +<p> +“And thou fanciest thyself pestilence-proof! Sweet girl, it may be that the +divine lymph which fills those azure veins has no affinity with poisons that +slay rude mortals like myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you ever be talking?” she said with grave reproach, and left him to the +care of Mrs. Basset, whose comfortable and stolid personality did not stimulate +his imagination. +</p> + +<p> +She had a strong desire to explore that city of which she had yet seen so +little, and her patient being now arrived at a state of his disorder when it +was best for him to be tempted to prolonged slumbers by silence and solitude, +she put on her hood and gloves and went out alone to see the horrors of the +deserted streets, of which nurse Basset had given her so appalling a picture. +</p> + +<p> +It was four o’clock, and the afternoon was at its hottest; the blue of a +cloudless sky was reflected in the blue of the silent river, where, instead of +the flotilla of gaily painted wherries, the procession of gilded barges, the +music and song, the ceaseless traffic of Court and City, there was only the +faint ripple of the stream, or here and there a solitary barge creeping slowly +down the tide with ineffectual sail napping in the sultry atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +That unusual calm which had marked this never-to-be-forgotten year, from the +beginning of spring, was yet unbroken, and the silent city lay like a great +ship becalmed on a tropical ocean; the same dead silence; the same cruel, +smiling sky above; the same hopeless submission to fate in every soul on board +that death-ship. How would those poor dying creatures, panting out their latest +breath in sultry, airless chambers, have welcomed the rush of rain, the cool +freshness of a strong wind blowing along those sun-baked streets, sweeping away +the polluted dust, dispersing noxious odours, bringing the pure scents of +far-off woodlands, of hillside heather and autumn gorse, the sweetness of the +country across the corruption of the town. But at this dreadful season, when +storm and rain would have been welcomed with passionate thanksgiving, the skies +were brass, and the ground was arid and fiery as the sands of the Arabian +desert, while even the grass that grew in the streets, where last year +multitudinous feet had trodden, sickened as it grew, and faded speedily from +green to yellow. +</p> + +<p> +Pausing on the garden terrace to survey the prospect before she descended to +the street, Angela thought of that river as her imagination had depicted it, +after reading a letter of Hyacinth’s, written so late as last May; the gay +processions, the gaudy liveries of watermen and servants, the gilded barges, +the sound of viol and guitar, the harmony of voices in part songs, “Go, lovely +rose,” or “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?” the beauty and the splendour; fair +faces under vast plumed hats, those picturesque hats which the maids of honour +snatched from each other’s heads with giddy laughter, exchanging head-gear here +on the royal barge, as they did sometimes walking about the great rooms at +Whitehall; the King with his boon companions clustered round him on the richly +carpeted daïs in the stern, his courtiers and his favoured mistresses; haughty +Castlemaine, empres, regnant over the royal heart, false, dissolute, impudent, +glorious as Cleopatra when her purple sails bore her down the swift-flowing +Cydnus; the wit and folly and gladness. All had vanished like the visions of a +dreamer; and there remained but this mourning city, with its closed windows and +doors, its watchmen guarding the marked houses, lest disease and death should +hold communion with that poor remnant of health and life left in the infected +town. Would that fantastic vision of careless, pleasure-loving monarch and +butterfly Court ever be realised again? Angela thought not. It seemed to her +serious mind that the glory of those wild years since his Majesty’s restoration +was a delusive and pernicious brightness which could never shine again. That +extravagant splendour, that reckless gaiety had borne beneath their glittering +surface the seeds of ruin and death. An angry God had stretched out His hand +against the wicked city where sin and profaneness sat in the high places. If +Charles Stuart and his courtiers ever came back to London they would return +sobered and chastened, taught wisdom by adversity. The Puritan spirit would +reign once more in the land, and an age of penitence and Lenten self-abasement +would succeed the orgies of the Restoration; while the light loves of +Whitehall, the noble ladies, the impudent actresses, would vanish into +obscurity. Angela’s loyal young heart was full of faith in the King. She was +ready to believe that his sins were the sins of a man whose head had been +turned by the sudden change from exile to a throne, from poverty to wealth, +from dependence upon his Bourbon cousin and his friends in Holland to the +lavish subsidies of a too-indulgent Commons. +</p> + +<p> +No words could paint the desolation which reigned between the Strand and the +City in that fatal summer, now drawing to its melancholy close. More than once +in her brief pilgrimage Angela drew back, shuddering, from the embrasure of a +door, or the inlet to some narrow alley, at sight of death lying on the +threshold, stiff, stark, unheeded; more than once in her progress from the New +Exchange to St Paul’s she heard the shrill wail of women lamenting for a soul +just departed. Death was about and around her. The great bell of the cathedral +tolled with an inexorable stroke in the summer stillness, as it had tolled +every day through those long months of heat, and drought, and ever-growing +fear, and ever-thickening graves. +</p> + +<p> +Eastward there rose the red glare of a great fire, and she feared that some of +those old wooden houses in the narrower streets were blazing, but on inquiry of +a solitary foot passenger, she learnt that this fire was one of many which had +been burning for three days, at street corners and in open spaces, at a great +expense of sea-coal, with the hope of purifying the atmosphere and dispersing +poisonous gases—but that so far no amelioration had followed upon this outlay +and labour. She came presently to a junction of roads near the Fleet ditch, and +saw the huge coal-fire flaming with a sickly glare in the sunshine, tended by a +spectral figure, half-clad and hungry-looking, to whom she gave an alms; and at +this juncture of ways a great peril awaited her, for there sprang, as it were, +out of the very ground, so quickly did they assemble from neighbouring courts +and alleys, a throng of mendicants, who clustered round her, with filthy hands +outstretched, and shrill voices imploring charity. So wasted were their +half-naked limbs, so ghastly and livid their countenances, that they might have +all been plague-patients, and Angela recoiled from them in horror. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your distance, for pity’s sake, good friends, and I will give you all the +money I carry,” she exclaimed, and there was something of command in her voice +and aspect, as she stood before them, straight and tall, with pale, earnest +face. +</p> + +<p> +They fell off a little way, and waited till she scattered the contents of her +purse—small Flemish coin—upon the ground in front of her, where they scrambled +for it, snarling and scuffling with each other like dogs fighting for a bone. +</p> + +<p> +Hastening her footsteps after the horror of that encounter, she went by Ludgate +Hill to the great cathedral, keeping carefully to the middle of the street, and +glancing at the walls and shuttered casements on either side of her, recalling +that appalling story which the Italian choir-mistress at the Ursulines had told +her of the great plague in Milan—how one morning the walls and doors of many +houses in the city had been found smeared with some foul substance, in broad +streaks of white and yellow, which was believed to be a poisonous compost +carrying contagion to every creature who touched or went within the influence +of its mephitic odour; how this thing had happened not once, but many times; +until the Milanese believed that Satan himself was the prime mover in this +horror, and that there were a company of wretches who had sold themselves to +the devil, and were his servants and agents, spreading disease and death +through the city. Strange tales were told of those who had seen the foul fiend +face to face, and had refused his proffered gold. Innocent men were denounced, +and but narrowly escaped being torn limb from limb, or trampled to death, under +the suspicion of being concerned in this anointing of the walls, and even the +cathedral benches, with plague-poison; yet no death, that the nun could +remember, had ever been traced directly to the compost. It was a mysterious +terror which struck deep into the hearts of a frightened people, so that at +last, against his better reason, and at the repeated prayer of his flock, the +good Archbishop allowed the crystal coffin of St. Carlo Borromeo to be carried +in solemn procession, upon the shoulders of Cardinals, from end to end of the +city—on which occasion all Milan crowded into the streets, and clustered thick +on either side of the pompous train of monks and incense-bearers, priests and +acolytes. But soon there fell a deeper despair upon the inhabitants of the +doomed city; for within two days after this solemn carrying of the saintly +remains the death-rate had tripled and there was scarce a house in which the +contagion had not entered. Then it was said that the anointers had been in +active work in the midst of the crowd, and had been busiest in the public +squares where the bearers of the crystal coffin halted for a space with their +sacred load, and where the people clustered thickest. The Archbishop had +foreseen the danger of this gathering of the people, many but just recovering +from the disease, many infected and unconscious of their state; but his flock +saw only the handiwork of the fiend in this increase of evil. +</p> + +<p> +In Protestant London there had been less inclination to superstition; yet even +here a comet which, under ordinary circumstances, would have appeared but as +other comets, was thought to wear the shape of a fiery sword stretched over the +city in awful threatening. +</p> + +<p> +Full of pity and of gravest, saddest thoughts, the lonely girl walked through +the lonely town to that part of the city where the streets were narrowest, a +labyrinth of lanes and alleys, with a church-tower or steeple rising up amidst +the crowded dwellings at almost every point to which the eye looked. Angela +wondered at the sight of so many fine churches in this heretical land. Many of +these city churches were left open in this day of wrath, so that unhappy souls +who had a mind to pray might go in at will, and kneel there. Angela peered in +at an old church in a narrow court, holding the door a little way ajar, and +looking along the cold grey nave. All was gloom and silence, save for a +monotonous and suppressed murmur of one invisible worshipper in a pew near the +altar, who varied his supplicatory mutterings with long-drawn sighs. +</p> + +<p> +Angela turned with a shudder from the cold emptiness of the great grey church, +with its sombre woodwork, and lack of all those beautiful forms which appeal to +the heart and imagination in a Romanist temple. She thought how in Flanders +there would have been tapers burning, and censors swinging, and the rolling +thunder of the organ pealing along the vaulted roof in the solemn strains of a +<i>Dies Irae</i>, lifting the soul of the worshipper into the far-off heaven of +the world beyond death, soothing the sorrowful heart with visions of eternal +bliss. +</p> + +<p> +She wandered through the maze of streets and lanes, sometimes coming back +unawares to a street she had lately traversed, till at last she came to a +church that was not silent, for through the open door she heard a voice within, +preaching or praying. She hesitated for a few minutes on the threshold, having +been taught that it was a sin to enter a Protestant church; and then something +within her, some new sense of independence and revolt against old traditions, +moved her to enter, and take her place quietly in one of the curious wooden +boxes where the sparse congregation were seated, listening to a man in a Geneva +gown, who was preaching in a tall oaken pulpit, surmounted by a massive +sounding-board, and furnished with a crimson velvet cushion, which the preacher +used with great effect during his discourse, now folding his arms upon it and +leaning forward to argue familiarly with his flock, now stretching a long, lean +arm above it to point a denouncing finger at the sinners below, anon +belabouring it severely in the passion of his eloquence. +</p> + +<p> +The flock was small, but devout, consisting for the most part of middle-aged +and elderly persons in sombre attire and of Puritanical aspect; for the +preacher was one of those Calvinistic clergy of Cromwell’s time who had been +lately evicted from their pulpits, and prosecuted for assembling congregations +under the roofs of private citizens, and had shown a noble perseverance in +serving God in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. And now, though the +Primate had remained at his post, unfaltering and unafraid, many of the +orthodox shepherds had fled and left their sheep, being too careful of their +own tender persons to remain in the plague-stricken town and minister to the +sick and dying; whereupon the evicted clergy had in some cases taken possession +of the deserted pulpits and the silent churches, and were preaching Christ’s +Gospel to that remnant of the faithful which feared not to assemble in the +House of God. +</p> + +<p> +Angela listened to a sermon marked by a rough eloquence which enchained her +attention and moved her heart. It was not difficult to utter heart-stirring +words or move the tender breast to pity when the Preacher’s theme was death; +with all its train of attendant agonies; its partings and farewells; its awful +suddenness, as shown in this pestilence, where a young man rejoicing in his +health and strength at noontide sees, as the sun slopes westward, the +death-tokens on his bosom, and is lying dumb and stark at night-fall; where the +joyous maiden is surprised in the midst of her mirth by the apparition of the +plague-spot, and in a few hours is lifeless clay. The Preacher dwelt upon the +sins and follies and vanities of the inhabitants of that great city; their +alacrity in the pursuit of pleasure; their slackness in the service of God. +</p> + +<p> +“A man who will give twenty shillings for a pair of laced gloves to a pretty +shopwoman at the New Exchange, will grudge a crown for the maintenance of God’s +people that are in distress; and one who is not hardy enough to walk half a +mile to church, will stand for a whole afternoon in the pit of a theatre, to +see painted women-actors defile a stage that was evil enough in the late King’s +time, but which has in these latter days sunk to a depth of infamy that it +befits not me to speak of in this holy place. Oh, my Brethren, out of that +glittering dream which you have dreamt since his Majesty’s return, out of the +groves of Baal, where you have sung and danced, and feasted, worshipping false +gods, steeping your benighted souls in the vices of pagans and +image-worshippers, it has pleased the God of Israel to give you a rough waking. +Can you doubt that this plague, which has desolated a city, and filled many a +yawning pit with the promiscuous dead, has been God’s way of chastening a +profligate people, a people caring only for fleshly pleasures, for rich meats +and strong wines, for fine clothing and jovial company, and despising the +spiritual blessings that the Almighty Father has reserved for them that love +Him? Oh, my afflicted Brethren, bethink you that this pestilence is a +chastisement upon a blind and foolish people; and if it strikes the innocent as +well as the guilty, if it falls as heavily upon the spotless virgin as upon the +hoary sinner, remember that it is not for us to measure the workings of +Omnipotence with the fathom-line of our earthly intellects; or to say this fair +girl should be spared, and that hoary sinner taken. Has not the Angel of Death +ever chosen the fairest blossoms? His business is to people the skies rather +than to depopulate the earth. The innocent are taken, but the warning is for +the guilty; for the sinners whose debaucheries have made this world so polluted +a place that God’s greatest mercy to the pure is an early death. The call is +loud and instant, a call to repentance and sacrifice. Let each bear his portion +of suffering with patience, as under that wise rule of a score years past each +family forewent a weekly meal to help those who needed bread. Let each +acknowledge his debt to God, and be content to have paid it in a season of +universal sorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +And then the Preacher turned from that awful image of an angry and avenging God +to contemplate Divine compassion in the Redeemer of mankind—godlike power +joined with human love. He preached of Christ the Saviour with a fulness and a +force which were new to Angela. He held up that commanding, that touching +image, unobscured by any other personality. All those surrounding figures which +Angela had seen crowded around the godlike form, all those sufferings and +virtues of the spotless Mother of God were ignored in that impassioned oration. +The preacher held up Christ crucified, Him only, as the fountain of pity and +pardon. He reduced Christianity to its simplest elements, primitive as when the +memory of the God-man was yet fresh in the minds of those who had seen the +Divine countenance and listened to the Divine voice; and Angela felt as she had +never felt before the singleness and purity of the Christian’s faith. +</p> + +<p> +It was the day of long sermons, when a preacher who measured his discourse by +the sands of an hour-glass was deemed moderate. Among the Nonconformists there +were those who turned the glass, and let the flood of eloquence flow on far +into the second hour. The old man had been preaching a long time when Angela +awoke as from a dream, and remembered that sick-chamber where duty called her. +She left the church quietly and hurried westward, guided chiefly by the sun, +till she found herself once more in the Strand; and very soon afterwards she +was ringing the bell at the chief entrance of Fareham House. She returned far +more depressed in spirits than she went out, for all the horror of the +plague-stricken city was upon her; and, fresh from the spectacle of death, she +felt less hopeful of Lord Fareham’s recovery. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Stokes opened the great door to admit that one modest figure, a door +which looked as if it should open only to noble visitors, to a procession of +courtiers and court beauties, in the fitful light of wind-blown torches. +Thomas, when interrogated, was not cheerful in his account of the patient’s +health during Angela’s absence. My lord had been strangely disordered; Mrs. +Basset had found the fever increasing, and was “afeared the gentleman was +relapsing.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s heart sickened at the thought. The Preacher had dwelt on the sudden +alternations of the disease, how apparent recovery was sometimes the precursor +of death. She hurried up the stairs, and through the seemingly endless suite of +rooms which nobody wanted, which never might be inhabited again perhaps, except +by bats and owls, to his lordship’s chamber, and found him sitting up in bed, +with his eyes fixed on the door by which she entered. +</p> + +<p> +“At last!” he cried. “Why did you inflict such torturing apprehensions upon me? +This woman has been telling me of the horrors of the streets where you have +been; and I figured you stricken suddenly with this foul malady, creeping into +some deserted alley to expire uncared for, dying with your head upon a stone, +lying there to be carried off by the dead-cart. You must not leave this house +again, save for the coach that shall fetch you to Oxfordshire to join Hyacinth +and her children—and that coach shall start to-morrow. I am a madman to have +let you stay so long in this infected house.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget that I am plague-proof,” she answered, throwing off hood and cloak, +and going to his bedside, to the chair in which she had spent many hours +watching by him and praying for him. +</p> + +<p> +No, there was no relapse. He had only been restless and uneasy because of her +absence. The disease was conquered, the pest-spots were healing fairly, and his +nurses had only to contend against the weakness and depression which seemed but +the natural sequence of the malady. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Hodgkin was satisfied with his patient’s progress. He had written to Lady +Fareham, advising her to send some of her servants with horses for his +lordship’s coach, and to provide for relays of post-horses between London and +Oxfordshire, a matter of easier accomplishment than it would have been in the +earlier summer, when the quality were flying to the country, and post-horses +were at a premium. Now there were but few people of rank or standing who had +the courage to stay in town, like the Archbishop, who had not left Lambeth, or +the stout old Duke of Albemarle, at the Cockpit, who feared the pestilence no +more than he feared sword or cannon. +</p> + +<p> +Two of his lordship’s lackeys, and his Oxfordshire major-domo and clerk of the +kitchen, arrived a week after Angela’s landing, bringing loving letters from +Hyacinth to her husband and sister. The physician had so written as not to +scare the wife. She had been told that her husband had been ill, but was in a +fair way to recovery, and would post to Oxfordshire as soon as he was strong +enough for the journey, carrying his sister-in-law with him, and lying at the +accustomed inn at High Wycombe, or perchance resting two nights and spending +three days upon the road. +</p> + +<p> +That was a happy day for Angela when her patient was well enough to start on +his journey. She had been longing to see her sister and the children, longing +still more intensely to escape from the horror of that house, where death had +seemed to lie in ambush behind the tapestry hangings, and where few of her +hours had been free from a great fear. Even while Fareham was on the high-road +to recovery there had been in her mind the ever-present dread of a relapse. She +rejoiced with fear and trembling, and was almost afraid to believe physician +and nurse when they assured her that all danger was over. +</p> + +<p> +The pestilence had passed by, and they went out in the sunshine, in the +freshness of a September morning, balmy, yet cool, with a scent of flowers from +the gardens of Lambeth and Bankside blowing across the river. Even this +terrible London, the forsaken city, looked fair in the morning light; her +palaces and churches, her streets of heavily timbered houses, their projecting +windows enriched with carved wood and wrought iron—streets that recalled the +days of the Tudors and even suggested an earlier and rougher age, when the +French King rode in all honour, albeit a prisoner, at his conqueror’s side; or +later, when fallen Richard, shorn of all royal dignity, rode abject and forlorn +through the city, and caps were flung up for his usurping cousin. But oh, the +horror of closed shops and deserted houses, and pestiferous wretches running by +the coach door in their poisonous rags, begging alms, whenever the horses went +slowly, in those narrow streets that lay between Fareham House and Westminster! +</p> + +<p> +To Angela’s wondering eyes Westminster Hall and the Abbey offered a new idea of +magnificence, so grandly placed, so dignified in their antiquity. Fareham +watched her eager countenance as the great family coach, which had been sent up +from Oxfordshire for his accommodation, moved ponderously westward, past the +Chancellor’s new palace, and other new mansions, to the Hercules Pillars Inn, +past Knightsbridge and Kensington, and then northward by rustic lanes, and +through the village of Ealing to the Oxford road. +</p> + +<p> +The family coach was as big as a small parlour, and afforded ample room for the +convalescent to recline at his ease on one seat, while Angela and the steward, +a confidential servant with the manners of a courtier, sat side by side upon +the other. +</p> + +<p> +They had the two spaniels with them, Puck and Ganymede, silky-haired little +beasts, black and tan, with bulging foreheads, crowded with intellect, pug +noses so short as hardly to count for noses, goggle eyes that expressed +shrewdness, greediness, and affection. Puck snuggled cosily in the soft lace of +his lordship’s shirt; Ganymede sat and blinked at the sunshine from Angela’s +lap. Both snarled at Mr. Manningtree, the steward, and resented the slightest +familiarity on his part. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Fareham’s thoughtful face brightened with its rare smile—half amused, half +cynical—as he watched Angela’s eager looks, devouring every object on the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Those grave eyes look at our London grandeurs with a meek wonder, something as +thy namesake an angel might look upon the splendours of Babylon. You can +remember nothing of yonder palace, or senate house, or Abbey, I think, child?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I remember the Abbey, though it looked different then. I saw it through a +cloud of falling snow. It was all faint and dim there. There were soldiers in +the streets, and it was bitter cold; and my father sat in the coach with his +elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. And when I spoke to him, +and tried to pull his hands away—for I was afraid of that hidden face—he shook +me off and groaned aloud. Oh, such a harrowing groan! I should have thought him +mad had I known what madness meant; but I know not what I thought. I remember +only that I was frightened. And later, when I asked him why he was sorry, he +said it was for the King.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, poor King! We have all supped full of sorrow for his sake. We have cursed +and hated his enemies, and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have +dug them out of the darkness where the worms were eating them. We have been +distraught with indignation, cruel in our fury; and I look back to-day, after +fifteen years, and see but too clearly now that Charles Stuart’s death lies at +one man’s door.” +</p> + +<p> +“At Cromwell’s? At Bradshaw’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, child; at his own. Cromwell would have never been heard of, save in +Huntingdon Market-place, as a God-fearing yeoman, had Charles been strong and +true. The King’s weakness was Cromwell’s opportunity. He dug his own grave with +false promises, with shilly-shally, with an inimitable talent for always doing +the wrong thing and choosing the wrong road. Open not so wide those reproachful +eyes. Oh, I grant you, he was a noble king, a king of kings to walk in a royal +procession, to sit upon a daïs under a velvet and gold canopy, to receive +ambassadors, and patronise foreign painters, and fulfil all that is splendid +and stately in ideal kingship. He was an adoring husband—confiding to +simplicity—a kind father, a fond friend, though never a firm one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, surely, surely you loved him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not as your father loved him, for I never suffered with him. It was those who +sacrificed the most who loved him best, those who were with him to the end, +long after common sense told them his cause was hopeless; indeed, I believe my +father knew as much at Nottingham, when that luckless standard was blown down +in the tempest. Those who starved for him, and lay out on barren moors through +the cold English nights for him, and wore their clothes threadbare and their +shoes into holes for him, and left wife and children, and melted their silver +and squandered their gold for him—those are the men who love his memory +dearest, and for whose poor sakes we of the younger generation must make +believe to think him a saint and a martyr.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my lord, say not that you think him a bad man!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bad! Nay, I believe that all his instincts were virtuous and honourable, and +that—until the whirlwind of those latter days in which he scarce knew what he +was doing—he meant fairly by his people, and had their welfare at heart. He +might have done far better for himself and others had he been a brave bad man +like Wentworth—audacious, unscrupulous, driving straight to a fixed goal. No, +Angela, he was that which is worse for mankind—an obstinate, weak man. A bundle +of impulses, some good and some evil; a man who had many chances, and lost them +all; who loved foolishly and too well, and let himself be ruled by a wife who +could not rule herself. Blind impulse, passionate folly were sailing the State +ship through that sea of troubles which could be crossed but by a navigator as +politic, profound, and crafty as Richelieu or Mazarin. Who can wonder that the +Royal Charles went down?” +</p> + +<p> +“It must seem strange to you, looking back from the Court, as Hyacinth’s +letters have painted it—to that time of trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“Strange! I stand in the crowd at Whitehall sometimes, amidst their masking and +folly, their frolic schemes, their malice, their jeering wit and riotous +merriment, and wonder whether it is all a dream, and I shall wake and see the +England of ’44, the year Henrietta Maria vanished—a discrowned fugitive, from +the scene where she had lived to do harm. I look along the perspective of +painted faces and flowing hair, jewels, and gay colours, towards that window +through which Charles I. walked to his bloody death, suffered with a kingly +grandeur that made the world forget all that was poor and petty in his life; +and I wonder does anyone else recall that suffering or reflect upon that doom. +Not one! Each has his jest, and his mistress—the eyes he worships, the lips he +adores. It is only the rural Put that feels himself lost in the crowd whose +thoughts turn sadly to the sad past.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet whatever your lordship may say——” +</p> + +<p> +“Tush, child, I am no lordship to you! Call me brother, or Fareham; and never +talk to me as if I were anything else than your brother in affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is sweet to hear you say so much, sir,” she answered gently. “I have often +envied my companions at the Ursulines when they talked of their brothers. It +was so strange to hear them tell of bickering and ill-will between brother and +sister. Had God given me a brother, I would not quarrel with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor shall thou quarrel with me, sweetheart; but we will be fast friends +always. Do I not owe thee my life?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not hear you say so; it is blasphemy against your Creator, who relented +and spared you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! you think that Omnipotence, in the inaccessible mystery of Heaven, keeps +the muster-roll of earth open before Him, and reckons each little life as it +drops off the list? That is hardly my notion of Divinity. I see the Almighty +rather as the Roman poet saw Him—an inexorable Father, hurling the thunderbolt +our folly has deserved from His red right hand, yet merciful to stay that hand +when we have taken our punishment meekly. That, Angela, is the nearest my mind +can reach to the idea of a personal God. But do not bend those pencilled brows +with such a sad perplexity. You know, doubtless, that I come of a Catholic +family, and was bred in the old faith. Alas! I have conformed ill to Church +discipline. I am no theologian, nor quite an infidel, and should be as much at +sea in an argument with Hobbes as with Bossuet. Trouble not thy gentle spirit +for my sins of thought or deed. Your tender care has given me time to repent +all my errors. You were going to tell my lordship something, when I chid you +for excess of ceremony—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir—brother, I had but to say that this wicked Court, of which my father +and you have spoken so ill, can scarcely fail to be turned from its sins by so +terrible a visitation. Those who have looked upon the city as I saw it a week +ago can scarce return with unchastened hearts to feasting and dancing and idle +company.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the beaux and belles of Whitehall have not seen the city as my brave girl +saw it,” cried Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“They have not met the dead-cart, nor heard the groans of the dying, nor seen +the red cross upon the doors. They made off with the first rumour of peril. The +roads were crowded with their coaches, their saddle-horses, their furniture and +finery; one could scarce command a post-horse for love or money. ‘A thousand +less this week,’ says one. ‘We may be going back to town and have the theatres +open again in the cold weather.’” +</p> + +<p> +They dined at the Crown, at Uxbridge, which was that “fair house at the end of +the town” provided for the meeting of the late King’s Commissioners with the +representatives of the Parliament in the year ’44. Fareham showed his +sister-in-law a spacious panelled parlour, which was that “fair room in the +middle of the house” that had been handsomely dressed up for the Commissioners +to sit in. +</p> + +<p> +They pushed on to High Wycombe before night-fall, and supped <i>tête-à-tête</i> +in the best room of the inn, with Fareham’s faithful Manningtree to bring in +the chief dish, and the people of the house to wait upon them. They were very +friendly and happy together, Fareham telling his companion much of his +adventurous life in France, and how in the first Fronde war he had been on the +side of Queen and Minister, and afterwards, for love and admiration of Condé, +had joined the party of the Princes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was a time worth living in—a good education for the boy-king, Louis, +for it showed him that the hereditary ruler of a great nation has something +more to do than to be born, and to exist, and to spend money.” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Fareham described the shining lights of that brilliant court with a +caustic tongue; but he was more indulgent to the follies of the Palais Royal +and the Louvre than he had been to the debaucheries of Whitehall. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a grace even in their vices,” he said. “Their wit is lighter, and +there is more mind in their follies. Our mirth is vulgar even when it is not +bestial. I know of no Parisian adventure so degrading as certain pranks of +Buckhurst’s, which I would not dare mention in your hearing. We imitate them, +and out-herod Herod, but we are never like them. We send to Paris for our +clothes, and borrow their newest words—for they are ever inventing some cant +phrase to startle dulness—and we make our language a foreign farrago. Why, here +is even plain John Evelyn, that most pious of pedants, pleading for the +enlistment of a troop of Gallic substantives and adjectives to eke out our +native English!” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham told Angela much of his past life during the freedom of that long +<i>tête-à-tête</i>, talking to her as if she had indeed been a young sister +from whom he had been separated since her childhood. That mild, pensive manner +promised sympathy and understanding, and he unconsciously inclined to confide +his thoughts and opinions to her, as well as the history of his youth. +</p> + +<p> +He had fought at Edgehill as a lad of thirteen, had been with the King at +Beverley, York, and Nottingham, and had only left the Court to accompany the +Prince of Wales to Jersey, and afterwards to Paris. +</p> + +<p> +“I soon sickened of a Court life and its petty plots and parlour intrigues,” he +told Angela, “and was glad to join Condé’s army, where my father’s influence +got me a captaincy before I was eighteen. To fight under such a leader as that +was to serve under the god of war. I can imagine Mars himself no grander +soldier. Oh, my dear, what a man! Nay, I will not call him by that common name. +He was something more or less than man—of another species. In the thick of the +fight a lion; in his dominion over armies, in his calmness amidst danger, a +god. Shall I ever see it again, I wonder—that vulture face, those eyes that +flashed Jove’s red lightning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your own face changes when you speak of him,” said Angela, awe-stricken at +that fierce energy which heroic memories evoked in Fareham’s wasted +countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, you should have seen the change in <i>his</i> face when he flung off the +courtier for the captain. His whole being was transformed. Those who knew Condé +at St. Germain, at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, at the Palais Royal, knew not the +measure or the might of that great nature. He was born to conquer. But you must +not think that with him victory meant brute force. It meant thought and +patience, the power to foresee and to combine, the rapid apprehension of +opposing circumstances, the just measure of his own materials. A strict +disciplinarian, a severe master, but willing to work at the lowest details, the +humblest offices of war. A soldier, did I say? He was the Genius of modern +warfare.” +</p> + +<p> +“You talk as if you loved him dearly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I loved him as I shall never love any other man. He was my friend as well as +my General. But I claim no merit in loving one whom all the world honoured. +Could you have seen princes and nobles, as I saw them when I was a boy at +Paris, standing on chairs, on tables, kneeling, to drink his health! A demi-god +could have received no more fervent adulation. Alas! sister, I look back at +those years of foreign service and know they were the best of my life!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +They started early next morning, and were within half a dozen miles of Oxford +before the sun was low. They drove by a level road that skirted the river; and +now, for the first time, Angela saw that river flowing placidly through a rural +landscape, the rich green of marshy meadows in the foreground, and low wooded +hills on the opposite bank, while midway across the stream an islet covered +with reed and willow cast a shadow over the rosy water painted by the western +sun. +</p> + +<p> +“Are we near them now?” she asked eagerly, knowing that her brother-in-law’s +mansion lay within a few miles of Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +“We are very near,” answered Fareham; “I can see the chimneys, and the white +stone pillars of the great gate.” +</p> + +<p> +He had his head out of the carriage, looking sunward, shading his eyes with his +big doe-skin gauntlet as he looked. Those two days on the road, the fresh +autumn air, the generous diet, the variety and movement of the journey, had +made a new man of him. Lean and gaunt he must needs be for some time to come; +but the dark face was no longer bloodless; the eyes had the fire of health. +</p> + +<p> +“I see the gate—and there is more than that in view!” he cried excitedly. “Your +sister is coming in a troop to meet us, with her children, and visitors, and +servants. Stop the coach, Manningtree, and let us out.” +</p> + +<p> +The post-boys pulled up their horses, and the steward opened the coach door and +assisted his master to alight. Fareham’s footsteps were somewhat uncertain as +he walked slowly along the waste grass by the roadside, leaning a little upon +Angela’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham came running towards them in advance of children and friends, an +airy figure in blue and white, her fair hair flying in the wind, her arms +stretched out as if to greet them from afar. She clasped her sister to her +breast even before she saluted her husband, clasped her and kissed her, +laughing between the kisses. +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome, my escaped nun!” she cried. “I never thought they would let thee out +of thy prison, or that thou wouldst muster courage to break thy bonds. Welcome, +and a hundred times, welcome. And that thou shouldst have nursed and tended my +ailing lord! Oh, the wonder of it! While I, within a hundred miles of him, knew +not that he was ill, here didst thou come across seas to save him! Why, ’tis a +modern fairy tale.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she is the good fairy,” said Fareham, taking his wife’s face between his +two hands and bending down to kiss the white forehead under its cloud of pale +golden curls, “and you must cherish her for all the rest of your life. But for +her I should have died alone in that great gaudy house, and the rats would have +eaten me, and then perhaps you would have cared no longer for the mansion, and +would have had to build another further west, by my Lord Clarendon’s, where all +the fine folks are going—and that would have been a pity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Fareham, do not begin with thy irony-stop! I know all your organ tones, +from the tenor of your kindness to the bourdon of your displeasure. Do you +think I am not glad to have you here safe and sound? Do you think I have not +been miserable about you since I knew of your sickness? Monsieur de Malfort +will tell you whether I have been unhappy or not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Malfort! What wind blew you hither at this perilous season, when +Englishmen are going abroad for fear of the pestilence, and when your friend St +Evremond has fled from the beauties of Oxford to the malodorous sewers and +fusty fraus of the Netherlands?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no fear of the contagion, and I wanted to see my friends. I am in +lodgings in Oxford, where there is almost as much good company as there ever +was at Whitehall.” +</p> + +<p> +The Comte de Malfort and Fareham clasped hands with a cordiality which bespoke +old friendship; and it was only an instinctive recoil on the part of the +Englishman which spared him his friend’s kisses. They had lived in camps and in +courts together, these two, and had much in common, and much that was +antagonistic, in temperament and habits, Malfort being lazy and luxurious, when +no fighting was on hand; a man whose one business, when not under canvas, was +to surpass everybody else in the fashion and folly of the hour, to be quite the +finest gentleman in whatever company he found himself. +</p> + +<p> +He was a godson and favourite of Madame de Montrond, who had numbered his +father among the army of her devoted admirers. He had been Hyacinth’s +playfellow and slave in her early girlhood, and had been <i>l’ami de la +maison</i> in those brilliant years of the young King’s reign, when the +Farehams were living in the Marais. To him had been permitted all privileges +that a being as harmless and innocent as he was polished and elegant might be +allowed, by a husband who had too much confidence in his wife’s virtue, and too +good an opinion of his own merits to be easily jealous. Nor was Henri de +Malfort a man to provoke jealousy by any superior gifts of mind or person. +Nature had not been especially kind to him. His features were insignificant, +his eyes pale, and he had not escaped that scourge of the seventeenth century, +the small-pox. His pale and clear complexion was but slightly pitted, however, +and his eyelids had not suffered. Men were inclined to call him ugly; women +thought him interesting. His frame was badly built from the athlete’s point of +view; but it had the suppleness which makes the graceful dancer, and was an +elegant scaffolding on which to hang the picturesque costume of the day. For +the rest, all that he was he had made himself, during those eighteen years of +intelligent self-culture, which had been his engrossing occupation since his +fifteenth birthday, when he determined to be one of the finest gentlemen of his +epoch. +</p> + +<p> +A fine gentleman at the Court of Louis had to be something more than a figure +steeped in perfumes and hung with ribbons. His red-heeled shoes, his periwig +and cannon sleeves, were indispensable to fashion, but not enough for fame. The +favoured guest of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and of Mademoiselle de Scudèry’s +“Saturdays,” must have wit and learning, or at least that capacity for smart +speech and pedantic allusion which might pass current for both in a society +where the critics were chiefly feminine. Henri de Malfort had graduated in a +college of blue-stockings. He had grown up in an atmosphere of gunpowder and +<i>bouts rimés</i>. He had stormed the breach at sieges where the assault was +led off by a company of violins, in the Spanish fashion. He had fought with +distinction under the finest soldiers in Europe, and had seen some of his +dearest friends expire at his side. +</p> + +<p> +Unlike Gramont and St. Évremond, he was still in the floodtide of royal favour +in his own country; and it seemed a curious caprice that had led him to follow +those gentlemen to England, to shine in a duller society, and sparkle at a less +magnificent court. +</p> + +<p> +The children hung upon their father, Papillon on one side, Cupid on the other, +and it was in them rather than in her sister’s friend that Angela was +interested. The girl resembled her mother only in the grace and flexibility of +her slender form, the quickness of her movements, and the vivacity of her +speech. Her hair and eyes were dark, like her father’s, and her colouring was +that of a brunette, with something of a pale bronze under the delicate carmine +of her cheeks. The boy favoured his mother, and was worthy of the sobriquet +Rochester had bestowed upon him. His blue eyes, chubby cheeks, cherry lips, and +golden hair were like the typical Cupid of Rubens, and might be seen repeated +<i>ad libitum</i> on the ceiling of the Banqueting House. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll warrant this is all flummery,” said Fareham, looking down at the girl as +she hung upon him. “Thou art not glad to see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am so glad that I could eat you, as the Giant would have eaten Jack,” +answered the girl, leaping up to kiss him, her hair flying back like a dark +cloud, her nimble legs struggling for freedom in her long brocade petticoat. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are not afraid of the contagion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid! Why, I wanted mother to take me to you as soon as I heard you were +ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have been smoke-dried and pickled in strong waters, until Dr. Hodgkin +accounts me safe, or I would not come nigh thee. See, sweetheart, this is your +aunt, whom you are to love next best to your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not so well as you, sir. You are first,” said the child, and then turned +to Angela and held up her rosebud mouth to be kissed. “You saved my father’s +life,” she said. “If you ever want anybody to die for you let it be me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gud! what a delicate wit! The sweet child is positively <i>tuant</i>,” +exclaimed a young lady, who was strolling beside them, and whom Lady Fareham +had not taken the trouble to introduce by name to any one, but who was now +accounted for as a country neighbour, Mrs. Dorothy Lettsome. +</p> + +<p> +Angela was watching her brother-in-law as they sauntered along, and she saw +that the fatigue and agitation of this meeting were beginning to affect him. He +was carrying his hat in one hand, while the other caressed Papillon. There were +beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his footsteps began to drag a +little. Happily the coach had kept a few paces in their rear, and Manningtree +was walking beside it; so Angela proposed that his lordship should resume his +seat in the vehicle and drive on to his house, while she went on foot with her +sister. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go with his lordship,” cried Papillon, and leapt into the coach before +her father. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth put her arm through Angela’s, and led her slowly along the grassy walk +to the great gates, the Frenchman and Mrs. Lettsome following; and unversed as +the convent-bred girl was in the ways of this particular world, she could +nevertheless perceive that in the conversation between these two, M. de Malfort +was amusing himself at the expense of his fair companion. His own English was +by no means despicable, as he had spent more than a year, at the Embassy +immediately after the Restoration, to say nothing of his constant intercourse +with the Farehams and other English exiles in France; but he was encouraging +the young lady to talk to him in French, which was spoken with an affected +drawl, that was even more ridiculous than its errors in grammar. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION.</h2> + +<p> +Nothing could have been more cordial than Lady Fareham’s welcome to her sister, +nor were it easy to imagine a life more delightful than that at Chilton Abbey +in that autumnal season, when every stage of the decaying year clothed itself +with a variety and brilliancy of colouring which made ruin beautiful, and +disguised the approach of winter, as a court harridan might hide age and +wrinkles under a yellow satin mask and flame-coloured domino. The Abbey was one +of those capacious, irregular buildings in which all that a house was in the +past and all that it is in the present are composed into a harmonious whole, +and in which past and present are so cunningly interwoven that it would have +been difficult for any one but an architect to distinguish where the +improvements and additions of yesterday were grafted on to the masonry of the +fourteenth century. Here, where the spacious plate-room and pantry began, there +were walls massive enough for the immuring of refractory nuns; and this +corkscrew Jacobean staircase, which wound with carved balusters up to the +garret story, had its foundations in a flight of Cyclopean stone steps that +descended to the cellars, where the monks kept their strong liquors and brewed +their beer. Half of my lady’s drawing-room had been the refectory, and the long +dining-parlour still showed the groined roof of an ancient cloister; while the +music-room, into which it opened, had been designed by Inigo Jones, and built +by the last Lord Fareham. All that there is of the romantic in this kind of +architectural patchwork had been enhanced by the collection of old furniture +that the present possessors of the Abbey had imported from Lady Fareham’s +château in Normandy, and which was more interesting though less splendid than +the furniture of Fareham’s town mansion, as it was the result of gradual +accumulation in the Montrond family, or of purchase from the wreck of noble +houses, ruined in the civil war which had distracted France before the reign of +the Béarnais. +</p> + +<p> +To Angela the change from an enclosed convent to such a house as Chilton Abbey, +was a change that filled all her days with wonder. The splendour, the air of +careless luxury that pervaded her sister’s house, and suggested costliness and +waste in every detail, could but be distressing to the pupil of Flemish nuns, +who had seen even the trenchers scraped to make soup for the poor, and every +morsel of bread garnered as if it were gold dust. From that sparse fare of the +convent to this Rabelaisian plenty, this plethora of meat and poultry, huge +game pies and elaborate confectionery, this perpetual too much of everything, +was a transition that startled and shocked her. She heard with wonder of the +numerous dinner tables that were spread every day at Chilton. Mr. Manningtree’s +table, at which the Roman Priest from Oxford dined, except on those rare +occasions when he was invited to sit down with the quality; and Mrs. Hubbock’s +table, where the superior servants dined, and at which Henriette’s +dancing-master considered it a privilege to over-eat himself; and the two great +tables in the servants’ hall, twenty at each table; and the <i>gouvernante</i>, +Mrs. Priscilla Goodman’s table in the blue parlour upstairs, at which my lady’s +English and French waiting-women, and my lord’s gentlemen ate, and at which +Henriette and her brother were supposed to take their meals, but where they +seldom appeared, usually claiming the right to eat with their parents. She +wondered as she heard of the fine-drawn distinctions among that rabble of +servants, the upper ranks of whom were supplied by the small gentry—of servants +who waited upon servants, and again other servants who waited on those, down to +that lowest stratum of kitchen sluts and turnspits, who actually made their own +beds and scraped their own trenchers. Everywhere there was lavish +expenditure—everywhere the abundance which, among that uneducated and +unthoughtful class, ever degenerates into wanton waste. +</p> + +<p> +It sickened Angela to see the long dining-table loaded, day after day, with +dishes that were many of them left untouched amidst the superabundance, while +the massive Cromwellian sideboard seemed to need all the thickness of its gouty +legs to sustain the “regalia” of hams and tongues, pasties, salads and jellies. +And all this time <i>The Weekly Gazette</i> from London told of the unexampled +distress in that afflicted city, which was but the natural result of an +epidemic that had driven all the well-to-do away, and left neither trade nor +employment for the lower classes. +</p> + +<p> +“What becomes of that mountain of food?” Angela asked her sister, after her +second dinner at Chilton, by which time she and Hyacinth had become familiar +and at ease with each other. “Is it given to the poor?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some of it, perhaps, love; but I’ll warrant that most of it is eaten in the +offices—with many a handsome sirloin and haunch to boot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sister, it is dreadful to think of such a troop! I am always meeting +strange faces. How many servants have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have never reckoned them. Manningtree knows, no doubt; for his wages book +would tell him. I take it there may be more than fifty, and less than a +hundred. Anyhow, we could not exist were they fewer.” +</p> + +<p> +“More than fifty people to wait upon four!” +</p> + +<p> +“For our state and importance, <i>chérie</i>. We are very ill-waited upon. I +nearly died last week before I could get any one to bring me my afternoon +chocolate. The men had all rushed off to a bull-baiting, and the women were +romping or fighting in the laundry, except my own women, who are too genteel to +play with the under-servants, and had taken a holiday to go and see a tragedy +at Oxford. I found myself in a deserted house. I might have been burnt alive, +or have expired in a fit, for aught any of those over-fed devils cared.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could they not be better regulated?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are, when Manningtree is at home. He has them all under his thumb.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he is an honest, conscientious man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows? I dare say he robs us, and takes a <i>pot de vin</i> wherever ’tis +offered. But it is better to be robbed by one than by an army; and if +Manningtree keeps others from cheating he is worth his wages.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you, dear Hyacinth. Do you keep no accounts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep accounts! Why, my dearest simpleton, did you ever hear of a woman of +quality keeping accounts—unless it were some lunatic universal genius like her +Grace of Newcastle, who rises in the middle of the night to scribble verses, +and who might do anything preposterous. Keep accounts! Why, if you was to tell +me that two and two make five I couldn’t controvert you, from my own +knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +“It all seems so strange to me,” murmured Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“My aunt supervised all the expenditure of the convent, and was unhappy if she +discovered waste in the smallest item.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unhappy! Yes, my dear innocent. And do you think if I was to investigate the +cost of kitchen and cellar, and calculate how many pounds of meat each of our +tall lackeys consumes per diem, I should not speedily be plagued into grey +hairs and wrinkles? I hope we are rich enough to support their wastefulness. +And if we are not—why, <i>vogue la galère</i>—when we are ruined the King must +do something for Fareham—make him Lord Chancellor. His Majesty is mighty sick +of poor old Clarendon and his lectures. Fareham has a long head, and would do +as well as anybody else for Chancellor if he would but show himself at Court +oftener, and conform to the fashion of the time, instead of holding himself +aloof, with a Puritanical disdain for amusements and people that please his +betters. He has taken a leaf out of Lord Southampton’s book, and would not +allow me to return a visit Lady Castlemaine paid me the other day, in the +utmost friendliness: and to slight her is the quickest way to offend his +Majesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, sister, you would not consort with an infamous woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Infamous! Who told you she is infamous? Your innocency should be ignorant of +such trumpery tittle-tattle. And one can be civil without consorting, as you +call it.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela took her sister’s reckless speech for mere sportiveness. Hyacinth might +be careless and ignorant of business, but his lordship doubtless knew the +extent of his income, and was too grave and experienced a personage to be a +spendthrift. He had confessed to seven and thirty, which to the girl of twenty +seemed serious middle-age. +</p> + +<p> +There were musicians in her ladyship’s household—youths who played lute and +viol, and sang the dainty, meaningless songs of the latest ballad-mongers very +prettily. The warm weather, which had a bad effect upon the bills of mortality, +was so far advantageous that it allowed these gentlemen to sing in the garden +while the family were at supper, or on the river while the family were taking +their evening airing. Their newest performance was an arrangement of Lord +Dorset’s lines—“To all you ladies now on land,” set as a round. There could +scarcely be anything prettier than the dying fall of the refrain that ended +every verse:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “With a fa, la, la,<br/> +Perhaps permit some happier man<br/> +To kiss your hand or flirt your fan,<br/> + With a fa, la, la.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The last lines died away in the distance of the moonlit garden, as the singers +slowly retired, while Henri de Malfort illustrated that final couplet with +Hyacinth’s fan, as he sat beside her. +</p> + +<p> +“Music, and moonlight, and a garden. You might fancy yourself amidst the +grottoes and terraces of St. Germain.” +</p> + +<p> +“I note that whenever there is anything meritorious in our English life Malfort +is reminded of France, and when he discovers any obnoxious feature in our +manners or habits he expatiates on the vast difference between the two +nations,” said his lordship. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Fareham, I am a human being. When I am in England I remember all I loved +in my own country. I must return to it before I shall understand the worth of +all I leave here—and the understanding may be bitter. Call your singers back, +and let us have those two last verses again. ’Tis a fine tune, and your fellows +perform it with sweetness and brio.” +</p> + +<p> +The song was new. The victory which it celebrated was fresh in the minds of +men. The disgrace of later Dutch experiences—the ships in the Nore ravaging and +insulting—was yet to come. England still believed her floating castles +invincible. +</p> + +<p> +To Angela’s mind the life at Chilton was full of change and joyous expectancy. +No hour of the day but offered some variety of recreation, from battledore and +shuttlecock in the <i>plaisance</i> to long days with the hounds or the hawks. +Angela learnt to ride in less than a month, instructed by the stud-groom, a +gentleman of considerable importance in the household; an old campaigner, who +had groomed Fareham’s horses after many a battle, and many a skirmish, and had +suffered scant food and rough quarters without murmuring; and also with +considerable assistance and counsel from Lord Fareham, and occasional lectures +from Papillon, who was a Diana at ten years old, and rode with her father in +the first flight. Angela was soon equal to accompanying her sister in the +hunting-field, for Hyacinth liked following the chase after the French rather +than the English fashion, affecting no ruder sport than to wait at an opening +of the wood, or on the crest of a common, to see hounds and riders sweep by; +or, favoured by chance now and then, to signal the villain’s whereabouts by a +lace handkerchief waved high above her head. This was how a beautiful lady who +had hunted in the forests of St. Germain and Fontainebleau understood sport; +and such performances as this Angela found easy and agreeable. They had many +cavaliers who came to talk with them for a few minutes, to tell them what was +doing or not doing yonder where the hounds were hidden in thicket or coppice; +but Henri de Malfort was their most constant attendant. He rarely left them, +and dawdled through the earlier half of an October day, walking his horse from +point to point, or dismounting at sheltered corners to stand and talk at Lady +Fareham’s side, with a patience that made Angela wonder at the contrast between +English headlong eagerness, crashing and splashing through hedge and brook, and +French indifference. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not Fareham’s passion for mud,” he explained to her, when she remarked +upon his lack of interest in the chase, even when the music of the hounds was +ringing through wood and valley, now close beside them, anon diminishing in the +distance, thin in the thin air. “If he comes not home at dark plastered with +mire from boots to eyebrows he will cry, like Alexander, ‘I have lost a day.’” +</p> + +<p> +Partridge-hawking in the wide fields between Chilton and Nettlebed was more to +Malfort’s taste, and it was a sport for which Lady Fareham expressed a certain +enthusiasm, and for which she attired herself to the perfection of picturesque +costume. Her hunting-coats were marvels of embroidery on atlas and smooth +cloth; but her smartest velvet and brocade she kept for the sunny mornings, +when, with hooded peregrine on wrist, she sallied forth intent on slaughter, +Angela, Papillon, and De Malfort for her <i>cortége</i>, an easy-paced horse to +amble over the grass with her, and the Dutch falconer to tell her the right +moment at which to slip her falcon’s hood. +</p> + +<p> +The nuns at the Ursuline Convent would scarcely have recognised their quondam +pupil in the girl on the grey palfrey, whose hair flew loose under a beaver +hat, mingling its tresses with the long ostrich plume, whose trimly fitting +jacket had a masculine air which only accentuated the womanliness of the fair +face above it, and whose complexion, somewhat too colourless within the convent +walls, now glowed with a carnation that brightened and darkened the large grey +eyes into new beauty. +</p> + +<p> +That open-air life was a revelation to the cloister-bred girl. Could this earth +hold greater bliss than to roam at large over spacious gardens, to cross the +river, sculling her boat with strong hands, with her niece Henriette, otherwise +Papillon, sitting in the stern to steer, and scream instructions to the novice +in navigation; and then to lose themselves in the woods on the further shore, +to wander in a labyrinth of reddening beeches, and oaks on which the thick +foliage still kept its dusky green; to emerge upon open lawns where the pale +gold birches looked like fairy trees, and where amber and crimson toadstools +shone like jewels on the skirts of the dense undergrowth of holly and hawthorn? +The liberty of it all, the delicious feeling of freedom, the release from +convent rules and convent hours, bells ringing for chapel, bells ringing for +meals, bells ringing to mark the end of the brief recreation—a perpetual +ringing and drilling which had made conventual life a dull machine, working +always in the same grooves. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, this liberty, this variety, this beauty in all things around and about her! +How the young glad soul, newly escaped from prison, revelled and expatiated in +its freedom! Papillon, who at ten years old, had skimmed the cream off all the +simple pleasures, appointed herself her aunt’s instructress in most things, and +taught her to row, with some help from Lord Fareham, who was an expert +waterman; and, at the same time, tried to teach her to despise the country, and +all rustic pleasures, except hunting—although in her inmost heart the minx +preferred the liberty of Oxfordshire woods to the splendour of Fareham House, +where she was cooped in a nursery with her <i>gouvernante</i> for the greater +part of her time, and was only exhibited like a doll to her mother’s fine +company, or seated upon a cushion to tinkle a saraband and display her +precocious talent on the guitar, which she played almost as badly as Lady +Fareham herself, at whose feeble endeavours even the courteous De Malfort +laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Never was sister kinder than Hyacinth, impelled by that impulsive sweetness +which was her chief characteristic, and also, it might be, moved to lavish +generosity by some scruples of conscience with regard to her grandmother’s +will. Her first business was to send for the best milliner in Oxford, a London +Madam who had followed her court customers to the university town, and to order +everything that was beautiful and seemly for a young person of quality. +</p> + +<p> +“I implore you not to make me too fine, dearest,” pleaded Angela, who was more +horrified at the milliner’s painted face and exuberant figure than charmed by +the contents of the baskets which she had brought with her in the spacious +leather coach—velvets and brocades, hoods and gloves, silk stockings, fans, +perfumes and pulvilios, sweet-bags and scented boxes—all of which the woman +spread out upon Lady Fareham’s embroidered satin bed, for the young lady’s +admiration. “I pray you remember that I am accustomed to have only two gowns—a +black and a grey. You will make me afraid of my image in the glass if you dress +me like—like—” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced from her sister’s <i>décolleté</i> bodice to the far more appalling +charms of the milliner, which a gauze kerchief rather emphasised than +concealed, and could find no proper conclusion for her sentence. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sweetheart, let not thy modesty take fright. Thou shalt be clad as +demurely as the nun thou hast escaped being— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘And sable stole of Cyprus lawn<br/> +Over thy decent shoulders drawn.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +We will have no blacks, but as much decency as you choose. You will mark the +distinction between my sister and your maids of honour, Mrs. Lewin. She is but +a <i>débutante</i> in our modish world, and must be dressed as modestly as you +can contrive, to be consistent with the fashion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my lady, I catch your ladyship’s meaning, and your ladyship’s instructions +shall be carried out as far as can be without making a savage of the young +lady. I know what some young ladies are when they first come to Court. I had +fuss enough with Miss Hamilton before I could persuade her to have her bodice +cut like a Christian. And even the beautiful Miss Brooks were all for high +tuckers and modesty-pieces when I began to make for them; but they soon came +round. And now with my Lady Denham it is always, ‘Gud, Lewin, do you call that +the right cut for a bosom? Udsbud, woman, you haven’t made the curve half deep +enough.’ And with my Lady Chesterfield it is, ‘Sure, if they say my legs are +thick and ugly, I’ll let them know my shoulders are worth looking at. Give me +your scissors, creature,’ and then with her own delicate hand she will scoop me +a good inch off the satin, till I am fit to swoon at seeing the cold steel +against her milk-white flesh.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lewin talked with but little interruption for the best part of an hour +while measuring her new customer, showing her pattern-book, and exhibiting the +ready-made wares she had brought, the greater number of which Hyacinth insisted +on buying for Angela—who was horrified at the slanderous innuendoes that +dropped in casual abundance from the painted lips of the milliner; horrified, +too, that her sister could loll back in her armchair and laugh at the woman’s +coarse and malignant talk. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sister, you are far too generous, and you have overpowered me with +gifts,” she said, when the milliner had curtsied herself out of the room; “for +I fear my own income will never pay for all these costly things. Three pounds, +I think she said, was the price of the Mazarine hood alone—and there are +stockings and gloves innumerable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mon Ange, while you are with me your own income is but for charities and +vails. I will have it spent for nothing else. You know how rich the Marquise +has made me—while I believe Fareham is a kind of modern Croesus, though we do +not boast of his wealth, for all that is most substantial in his fortune comes +from his mother, whose father was a great merchant trading with Spain and the +Indies, all through James’s reign, and luckier in the hunt for gold than poor +Raleigh. Never must you talk to me of obligation. Are we not sisters, and was +it not a mere accident that made me the elder, and Madame de Montrond’s +<i>protegée</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no words to thank you for so much kindness. I will only say I am so +happy here that I could never have believed there was such full content on this +sinful earth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till we are in London, Angélique. Here we endure existence. It is only in +London that we live.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I believe the country will always please me better than the town. But, +sister, do you not hate that Mrs. Lewin—that horrid painted face and evil +tongue?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dearest child, one hates a milliner for the spoiling of a bodice or the ill +cut of a sleeve—not for her character. I believe Mrs. Lewin’s is among the +worst, and that she has had as many intrigues as Lady Castlemaine. As for her +painting, doubtless she does that to remind her customers that she sells +alabaster powder and ceruse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, if she wants to disgust them with painted faces she has but to show her +own.” +</p> + +<p> +“I grant she lays the stuff on badly. I hope, if I live to have as many +wrinkles, I shall fill them better than she does. Yet who can tell what a +hideous toad she might be in her natural skin? It may be Christian charity that +induces her to paint, and so to spare us the sight of a monster. She will make +thee a beauty, Ange, be sure of that. For satin or velvet, birthday or gala +gowns, nobody can beat her. The wretch has had thousands of my money, so I +ought to know. But for thy riding-habit and hawking-jacket we want the firmer +grip of a man’s hand. Those must be made by Roget.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Frenchman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, child. One only accepts British workmanship when a Parisian artist is not +to be had. Clever as Lewin is, if I want to eclipse my dearest enemy on any +special occasion I send Manningtree across the Channel, or ask De Malfort to +let his valet—who spends his life in transit like a king’s messenger—bring me +the latest confection from the Rue de Richelieu.” +</p> + +<p> +“What infinite trouble about a gown—and for you who would look lovely in +anything!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tush, child! You have never seen me in ‘anything.’ If ever you should surprise +me in an ill gown you will see how much the feathers make the bird. Poets and +play-wrights may pretend to believe that we need no embellishment from art; but +the very men who write all that romantic nonsense are the first to court a +well-dressed woman. And there are few of them who could calculate with any +exactness the relation of beauty to its surroundings. That is why women go deep +into debt to their milliners, and would sooner be dead in well-made +graveclothes than alive in an old-fashioned mantua.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela could not be in her sister’s company for a month without discovering +that Lady Fareham’s whole life was given up to the worship of the trivial. She +was kind, she was amiable, generous, even to recklessness. She was not +irreligious, heard Mass and went to confession as often as the hard conditions +of an alien and jealously treated Church would allow, had never disputed the +truth of any tenet that was taught her—but of serious views, of an earnest +consideration of life and death, husband and children, Hyacinth Fareham was as +incapable as her ten-year-old daughter. Indeed, it sometimes seemed to Angela +that the child had broader and deeper thoughts than the mother, and saw her +surroundings with a shrewder and clearer eye, despite the natural frivolity of +childhood, and the exuberance of a fine physique. +</p> + +<p> +It was not for the younger sister to teach the elder, nor did Angela deem +herself capable of teaching. Her nature was thoughtful and earnest: but she +lacked that experience of life which can alone give the thinker a broad and +philosophic view of other people’s conduct. She was still far from the stage of +existence in which to understand all is to pardon all. +</p> + +<p> +She beheld the life about her with wonder and bewilderment. It was so pleasant, +so full of beauty and variety; yet things were said and done that shocked her. +There was nothing in her sister’s own behaviour to alarm her modesty; but to +hear her sister talk of other women’s conduct outraged all her ideas of decency +and virtue. If there were really such wickedness in the world, women so +shameless and vile, was it right that good women should know of them, that pure +lips should speak of their iniquity? +</p> + +<p> +She was still more shocked when Hyacinth talked of Lady Castlemaine with a +good-humoured indulgence. +</p> + +<p> +“There is something fine about her,” Lady Fareham said one day, “in spite of +her tempers and pranks.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Angela, aghast, having thought these creatures unrecognised by +any honest woman, “do you know her—that Lady Castlemaine of whom you have told +me such dreadful things?” +</p> + +<p> +“C’est vrai. J’en ai dit des raides. Mon Ange, in town one must needs know +everybody, though I doubt that after not returning her visit t’other day, I +shall be in her black books, and in somebody else’s. She has never been one of +my intimates. If I were often at Whitehall, I should have to be friends with +her. But Fareham is jealous of Court influences; and I am only allowed to +appear on gala nights—perhaps not a half-dozen times in a season. There is a +distinction in not showing one’s self often; but it is provoking to hear of the +frolics and jollities which go on every day and every night, and from which I +am banished. It mattered little while the Queen-mother was at Somerset House, +for her Court ranked higher—and was certainly more refined in its +splendour—than her son’s ragamuffin herd. But now she is gone, I shall miss our +intellectual <i>milieu</i>, and wish myself in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, +where the Hôtel du Rambouillet, even in its decline, offers a finer style of +company than anything you will see in England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister, I fear you left half your heart in France.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sweet; perhaps some of it has followed me,” answered Hyacinth, with a +blush and an enigmatic smile. “<i>Peste</i>! I am not a woman to make a fuss +about hearts! There is not a grain of tragedy in my composition. I am like that +girl in the play we saw at Oxford t’other day. Fletcher’s was it, or +Shakespeare’s? ‘A star danced, and under that was I born.’ Yes, I was born +under a dancing star; and I shall never break my heart—for love.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you regret Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hélas</i>! Paris means my girlhood; and were you to take me back there +to-morrow you could not make me seventeen again—and so where’s the use? I +should see wrinkles in the faces of my friends; and should know that they were +seeing the same ugly lines in mine. Indeed, Ange, I think it is my youth I sigh +for rather than the friends I lived with. They were such merry days: battles +and sieges in the provinces, parliaments disputing here and there; Condé in and +out of prison—now the King’s loyal servant, now in arms against him; swords +clashing, cannon roaring under our very windows; alarm bells pealing, cries of +fire, barricades in the streets; and amidst it all, lute and theorbo, <i>bouts +rimés</i> and madrigals, dancing and play-acting, and foolish practical jests! +One could not take the smallest step in life but one of the wits would make a +song about it. Oh, it was a boisterous time! And we were all mad, I think; so +lightly did we reckon life and death, even when the cannon slew some of our +noblest, and the finest saloons were hung with black. You have done less than +live, Angélique, not to have lived in that time.” +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth loved to ring the changes on her sister’s name. Angela was too +English, and sounded too much like the name of a nun; but Angélique suggested +one of the most enchanting personalities in that brilliant circle on which Lady +Fareham so often rhapsodised. This was the beautiful Angélique Paulet, whose +father invented the tax called by his name, La Paulette—a financial measure, +which was the main cause of the first Fronde war. +</p> + +<p> +“I only knew her when she was between fifty and sixty,” said Lady Fareham, “but +she hardly looked forty; and she was still handsome, in spite of her red hair. +<i>Trop doré</i>, her admirers called it; but, my love, it was as red as that +scullion’s we saw in the poultry yard yesterday. She was a reigning beauty at +three Courts, and had a crowd of adorers when she was only fourteen. Ah, +Papillon, you may open your eyes! What will you be at fourteen? Still playing +with your babies, or mad about your shock dogs, I dare swear!” +</p> + +<p> +“I gave my babies to the housekeeper’s grand-daughter last year,” said +Papillon, much offended, “when father gave me the peregrine. I only care for +live things now I am old.” +</p> + +<p> +“And at fourteen thou wilt be an awkward, long-legged wench that will frighten +away all my admirers, yet not be worth the trouble of a compliment on thine own +account.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want no such stuff!” cried Papillon. “Do you think I would like a French fop +always at my elbow as Monsieur de Malfort is ever at yours? I love hunting and +hawking, and a man that can ride, and shoot, and row, and fight, like father or +Sir Denzil Warner—not a man who thinks more of his ribbons and periwig and +cannon-sleeves than of killing his fox or flying his falcon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are beginning to have opinions!” sighed Hyacinth. “I am indeed an old +woman! Go and find yourself something to play with, alive or dead. You are +vastly too clever for my company.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go and saddle Brownie. Will you come for a ride, Aunt Angy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, dear, if her ladyship does not want me at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her ladyship knows your heart is in the fields and woods. Yes, sweetheart, +saddle your pony, and order your aunt’s horse and a pair of grooms to take care +of you.” +</p> + +<p> +The child ran off rejoicing. +</p> + +<p> +“Precocious little devil! She will pick up all our jargon before she is in her +teens.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sister, if you talk so indiscreetly before her——” +</p> + +<p> +“Indiscreet! Am I really so indiscreet? That is Fareham’s word. I believe I was +born so. But I was telling you about your namesake, Mademoiselle Paulet. She +began to reign when Henri was king, and no doubt he was one of her most ardent +admirers. Don’t look frightened! She was always a model of virtue. Mademoiselle +Scudèry has devoted pages to painting her perfections under an Oriental alias. +She sang, she danced, she talked divinely. She did everything better than +everybody else. Priests and Bishops praised her. And after changes and losses +and troubles, she died far from Paris, a spinster, nearly sixty years old. It +was a paltry finish to a life that began in a blaze of glory.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +SUPERIOR TO FASHION.</h2> + +<p> +At Oxford Angela was so happy as to be presented to Catharine of Braganza, a +little dark woman, whose attire still bore some traces of its original +Portuguese heaviness; such a dress—clumsy, ugly, infinitely rich and +expensive—as one sees in old portraits of Spanish and Netherlandish matrons, in +which every elaborate detail of the costly fabric seems to have been devised in +the research of ugliness. She saw the King also; met him casually—she walking +with her brother-in-law, while Lady Fareham and her friends ran from shop to +shop in the High Street—in Magdalen College grounds, a group of beauties and a +family of spaniels fawning upon him as he sauntered slowly, or stopped to feed +the swans that swam close by the bank, keeping pace with him, and stretching +long necks in greedy solicitation. +</p> + +<p> +The loveliest woman Angela had ever seen—tall, built like a goddess—walked on +the King’s right hand. She carried a heap of broken bread in the satin +petticoat which she held up over one white arm, while with her other hand she +gave the pieces one by one to the King. Angela saw that as each hunch changed +hands the royal fingers touched the lady’s tapering finger-tips and tried to +detain them. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham took off his hat, bowed low in a grave and stately salutation, and +passed on; but Charles called him back. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Fareham, has the world grown so dull that you have nothing to tell us +this November morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, I fear that my riverside hermitage can afford very little news +that could interest your Majesty or these ladies.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fox gone to ground, an otter killed among your reeds, or a hawk in the +sulks, is an event in the country. Anything would be a relief from the weekly +total of London deaths, which is our chief subject of conversation, or the +General’s complaints that there is no one in town but himself to transact +business, or dismal prophecies of a Nonconformist rebellion that is to follow +the Five Mile Act.” +</p> + +<p> +The group of ladies stared at Angela in a smiling silence, one haughtier than +the rest standing a little aloof. She was older, and of a more audacious +loveliness than the lady who carried broken bread in her petticoat; but she too +was splendidly beautiful as a goddess on a painted ceiling, and as much painted +perhaps. +</p> + +<p> +Angela contemplated her with the reverence youth gives to consummate beauty, +unaware that she was admiring the notorious Barbara Palmer. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham waited, hat in hand, grave almost to sullenness. It was not for him to +do more than reply to his Majesty’s remarks, nor could he retire till +dismissed. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a strange face at your side, man. Pray introduce the lady,” said the +King, smiling at Angela, whose vivid blush was as fresh as Miss Stewart’s had +been a year or two ago, before she had her first quarrel with Lady Castlemaine, +or rode in Gramont’s glass coach, or gave her classic profile to embellish the +coin of the realm—the “common drudge ’tween man and man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have the honour to present my sister-in-law, Mistress Kirkland, to your +Majesty.” The King shook hands with Angela in the easiest way, as if he had +been mortal. +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome to our poor court, Mistress Kirkland. Your father was my father’s +friend and companion in the evil days. They starved together at Beverley, and +rode side by side through the Warwickshire lanes to suffer the insolence of +Coventry. I have not forgotten. If I had I have a monitor yonder to remind me,” +glancing in the direction of a middle-aged gentleman, stately, and sober of +attire, who was walking slowly towards them. “The Chancellor is a living +chronicle, and his conversation chiefly consists in reminiscences of events I +would rather forget.” +</p> + +<p> +“Memory is an invention of Old Nick,” said Lady Castlemaine. “Who the deuce +wants to remember anything, except what cards are out and what are in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not you, Fairest. You should be the last to cultivate mnemonics for yourself +or for your friends. Is your father in England, sweet mistress?” +</p> + +<p> +Angela faltered a negative, as if with somebody else’s voice—or so it seemed to +her. A swarthy, heavy-browed man, wearing a dark-blue ribbon and a star—a man +with whom his intimates jested in shameless freedom—a man whom the town called +Rowley, after some ignominious quadruped—a man who had distinguished himself +neither in the field nor in the drawing-room by any excellence above the +majority, since the wit men praised has resolved itself for posterity into half +a dozen happy repartees. Only this! But he was a King, a crowned and anointed +King, and even Angela, who was less frivolous and shallow than most women, +stood before him abashed and dazzled. +</p> + +<p> +His Majesty bowed a gracious adieu, yawned, flung another crust to the swans, +and sauntered on, the Stewart whispering in his ear, the Castlemaine talking +loud to her neighbour, Lady Chesterfield, this latter lady very pretty, very +bold and mischievous, newly restored to the Court after exile with her jealous +husband at his mansion in Wales. +</p> + +<p> +They were gone; Charles to be button-holed by Lord Clarendon, who waited for +him at the end of the walk; the ladies to wander as they pleased till the +two-o’clock dinner. They were gone, like a dream of beauty and splendour, and +Fareham and Angela pursued their walk by the river, grey in the sunless +November. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sister, you have seen the man whom we brought back in a whirlwind of +loyalty five years ago, and for whose sake we rebuilt the fabric of monarchical +government. Do you think we are much the gainers by that tempest of enthusiasm +which blew us home Charles the Second? We had suffered all the trouble of the +change to a Republic; a life that should have been sacred had been sacrificed +to the principles of liberty. While abhorring the regicides, we might have +profited by their crime. We might have been a free state to-day, like the +United Provinces. Do you think we are better off with a King like Rowley, to +amuse himself at the expense of the nation?” +</p> + +<p> +“I detest the idea of a Republic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Youth worships the supernatural in anointed kings. Think not that I am opposed +to a constitutional monarchy, so long as it works well for the majority. But +when England had with such terrible convulsions shaken off all those shackles +and trappings of royalty, and when the ship, so lightened, had sailed so +steadily with no ballast but common sense, does it not seem almost a pity to +undo what has been done—to begin again the long procession of good kings and +bad kings, foolish or wise—for the sake of such a man as yonder saunterer?” +with a glance towards the British Sultan and his harem. +</p> + +<p> +“England was never better governed than by Cromwell,” he continued. “She was +tranquil at home and victorious abroad, admired and feared. Mazarin, while +pretending to be the faithful friend of Charles, was the obsequious courtier of +Oliver. The finest form of government is a limited despotism. See how France +prospered under the sagacious tyrant, Louis the Eleventh, under the +soldier-statesman, Sully, under pure reason incarnate in Richelieu. Whether you +call your tyrant king or protector, minister or president, matters nothing. It +is the man and not the institution, the mind and not the machinery that is +wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not know you were a Republican, like Sir Denzil Warner.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am nothing now I have left off being a soldier. I have no strong opinions +about anything. I am a looker on; and life seems little more real to me than a +stage play. Warner is of a different stamp. He is an enthusiastic in +politics—godson of Horn’s—a disciple of Milton’s, the son of a Puritan, and a +Puritan himself. A fine nature, Angela, allied to a handsome presence.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Denzil Warner was their neighbour at Chilton, and Angela had met him often +enough for them to become friends. He had ridden by her side with hawk and +hound, had been one of her instructors in English sport, and had sometimes, by +an accident, joined her and Henriette in their boating expeditions, and helped +her to perfect herself in the management of a pair of sculls. +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth has her fancies about Warner,” Fareham said presently, as they +strolled along. +</p> + +<p> +There was a significance in his tone that the girl could not mistake; more +especially as her sister had not been reticent about those notions to which +Fareham alluded. +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth has fancies about many things,” she said, blushing a little. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham noted the slightness of the blush. +</p> + +<p> +“I verily believe that handsome youth has found you adamant,” he said, after a +thoughtful silence. “Yet you might easily choose a worse suitor. Your sister +has often the strangest whims about marriage-making; but in this fancy I did +not oppose her. It would be a very suitable alliance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope your lordship does not begin to think me a burden on your household,” +faltered Angela, wounded by his cold-blooded air in disposing of her. “When you +and my sister are tired of me I can go back to my convent.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Return to those imprisoning walls; immure your sweet youth in a +cloister? Not for the Indies. I would not suffer such a sacrifice. Tired of +you! I—so deeply bound! I who owe you my life! I who looked up out of a burning +hell of pain and madness and saw an angel standing by my bed! Tired of you! +Indeed you know me better than to think so badly of me were it but in one flash +of thought. You can need no protestations from me. Only, as a young and +beautiful woman, living in an age that is full of peril for women, I should +like to see you married to a good and true man—such as Denzil Warner.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to disappoint you,” Angela answered coldly; “but Papillon and I +have agreed that I am always to be her spinster aunt, and am to keep her house +when she is married, and wear a linsey gown and a bunch of keys at my girdle, +like Mrs. Hubbuck, at Chilton.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just like Henriette. She takes after her mother, and thinks that this +globe and all the people upon it were created principally for her pleasure. The +Americas to give her chocolate, the Indian isles to sweeten it for her, the +ocean tides to bring her feathers and finery. She is her own centre and +circumference, like her mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should not say such an ill thing of your wife, Fareham,” said Angela, +deeply shocked. “Hyacinth is not one to look into the heart of things. She has +too happy a disposition for grave backward-reaching thoughts; but I will swear +that she loves you—ay—almost to reverence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to reverence, to over much reverence, perhaps. She might have given a +freer, fonder love to a more amiable man. I have some strain of my unhappy +kinsman’s temper, perhaps—the disposition that keeps a wife at a distance. He +managed to make three wives afraid of him; and it was darkly rumoured that he +killed one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strafford—a murderer! No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by intent. An accident—only an accident. They who most hated him pretended +that he pushed her from him somewhat roughly when she was least able to bear +roughness, and that the after consequences of the blow were fatal. He was one +of the doomed always, you see. He knew that himself, and told his bosom friend +that he was not long-lived. The brand of misfortune was upon him even at the +height of his power. You may read his destiny in his face.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked on in silence for some time, Angela depressed and unhappy. It +seemed as if Fareham had lifted a mask and shown her his real countenance, with +all the lines that tell a life history. She had suspected that he was not +happy; that the joyous existence amidst fairest surroundings which seemed so +exquisite to her was dull and vapid for him. She could but think that he was +like her father, and that action and danger were necessary to him, and that it +was only this rustic tranquillity that weighed upon his spirits. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not for a moment believe that I would speak slightingly of your sister,” +Fareham resumed, after that silent interval. “It were indeed an ill thing in +me—most of all to disparage her in your hearing. She is lovely, accomplished, +learned even, after the fashion of the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. She used to +shine among the brightest at the Scudèrys’ Saturday parties, which were the +most wearisome assemblies I ever ran away from. The match was made for us by +others, and I was her betrothed husband before I saw her. Yet I loved her at +first sight. Who could help loving a face as fair as morning over the eastward +hills, a voice as sweet as the nightingales in the Tuileries garden? She was so +young—a child almost; so gentle and confiding. And to see her now with Papillon +is to question which is the younger, mother or daughter. Love her? Why, of +course I love her. I loved her then. I love her now. Her beauty has but ripened +with the passing years; and she has walked the furnace of fine company in two +cities, and has never been seared by fire. Love her! Could a man help loving +beauty, and frankness, and a natural innocence which cannot be spoiled even by +the knowledge of things evil, even by daily contact with sin in high places?” +</p> + +<p> +Again there was a silence, and then, in a deeper tone, after a long sigh, +Fareham said— +</p> + +<p> +“I love and honour my wife; I adore my children; yet I am alone, Angela, and I +shall be alone till death.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, you do; you understand as well as I who suffer. My wife and I love +each other dearly. If she have a fit of the vapours, or an aching tooth, I am +wretched. But we have never been companions. The things that she loves are +charmless for me. She is enchanted with people from whom I run away. Is it +companionship, do you think, for me to look on while she walks a coranto or +tosses shuttlecocks with De Malfort? Roxalana is as much my companion when I +admire her on the stage from my seat in the pit. There are times when my wife +seems no nearer to me than a beautiful picture. If I sit in a corner, and +listen to her pretty babble about the last fan she bought at the Middle +Exchange, or the last witless comedy she saw at the King’s Theatre, is that +companionship, think you? I may be charmed to-day—as I was charmed ten years +ago—with the silvery sweetness of her voice, with the graceful turn of her +head, the white roundness of her throat. At least I am constant. There is no +change in her or in me. We are just as near and just as far apart as when the +priest joined our hands at St. Eustache. And it must be so to the end, I +suppose; and I think the fault is in me. I am out of joint with the world I +live in. I cannot set myself in tune with their new music. I look back, and +remember, and regret; yet hardly know why I remember or what I regret.” +</p> + +<p> +Again a silence, briefer than the last, and he went on:— +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think it strange that I talk so freely—to you—who are scarce more than +a child, less learned than Henriette in worldly knowledge? It is a comfort +sometimes to talk of one’s self; of what one has missed as well as of what one +has. And you have such an air of being wise beyond your years; wise in all +thoughts that are not of the world—thoughts of things of which there is no +truck at the Exchanges; which no one buys or sells at Abingdon fair. And you +are so near allied to me—a sister! I never had a sister of my own blood, +Angela. I was an only child. Solitude was my portion. I lived alone with my +tutor and <i>gouvernante</i>—a poor relation of my mother’s—alone in a house +that was mostly deserted, for Lord and Lady Fareham were in London with the +King, till the troubles brought the Court to Christchurch, and them to Chilton. +I have had few in whom to confide. And you—remember what you have been to me, +and do not wonder if I trust you more than others. Thou didst go down to the +very grave with me, didst pluck me out of the pit. Corruption could not touch a +creature so lovely and so innocent Thou didst walk unharmed through the +charnel-house. Remembering this, as I ever must remember, can you wonder that +you are nearer to me than all the rest of the world?” +</p> + +<p> +She had seated herself on a bench that commanded a view of the river, and her +dreaming eyes were looking far away along the dim perspective of mist and +water, bare pollard willows, ragged sedges. Her head drooped a little so that +he could not see her face, and one ungloved hand hung listlessly at her side. +</p> + +<p> +He bent down to take the slender hand in his, lifted it to his lips, and +quickly let it go; but not before she had felt his tears upon it. She looked up +a few minutes later, and the place was empty. Her tears fell thick and fast. +Never before had she suffered this exquisite pain—sadness so intense, yet +touching so close on joy. She sat alone in the inexpressible melancholy of the +late autumn; pale mists rising from the river; dead leaves falling; and +Fareham’s tears upon her hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +IN A PURITAN HOUSE.</h2> + +<p> +How quickly the days passed in that gay household at Chilton! and yet every day +of Angela’s life held so much of action and emotion that, looking back at +Christmas time to the three months that had slipped by since she had brought +Fareham from his sick bed to his country home, she could but experience that +common feeling of youth in such circumstances. Surely it was half a lifetime +that had lapsed; or else she, by some subtle and supernatural change, had +become a new creature. +</p> + +<p> +She thought of her life in the Convent, thought of it much and deeply on those +Sunday mornings when she and her sister and De Malfort and a score or so of +servants crept quietly to a room in the heart of the house where a Priest, who +had been fetched from Oxford in, Lady Fareham’s coach, said Mass within locked +doors. The familiar words of the service, the odour of the incense, brought +back the old time—the unforgotten atmosphere, the dull tranquillity of ten +years, which had been as one year by reason of their level monotony. +</p> + +<p> +Could she go back to such a life as that? Go back! Leave all she loved? At the +mere suggestion her trembling hand was stretched out involuntarily to clasp her +niece Henriette, kneeling beside her. Leave them—leave those with whom and for +whom she lived? Leave this loving child—her sister—her brother? Fareham had +told her to call him “Brother.” He had been to her as a brother, with all a +brother’s kindness, counselling her, confiding in her. +</p> + +<p> +Only with one person at Chilton Abbey had she ever conversed as seriously as +with Fareham, and that person was Sir Denzil Warner, who at five and twenty was +more serious in his way of looking at serious things than most men of fifty. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot make a jest of life,” he said once, in reply to some flippant speech +of De Malfort’s; “it is too painful a business for the majority.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has that to do with us—the minority? Can we smooth a sick man’s pillow by +pulling a long face? We shall do him more good by tossing him a crown, if he be +poor; or helping to build him a hospital by the sacrifice of a night’s winnings +at ombre. Long faces help nobody; that is what you Puritans will never +consider.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but if the long faces are the faces of men who think, something may come +of their thoughts for the good of humanity.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil Warner was the only person who ever spoke to Angela of her religion. +With extreme courtesy, and with gentle excuses for his temerity in touching on +so delicate a theme, he ventured to express his abhorrence of the superstitions +interwoven with the Romanist’s creed. He talked as one who had sat at the feet +of the blind poet—talked sometimes in the very words of John Milton. +</p> + +<p> +There was much in what he said that appealed to her reason; but there was no +charm in that severer form of worship which he offered in exchange for her own. +He was frank and generous; he had a fine nature, but was too much given to +judging his fellow-men. He had all the arrogance of Puritanism superadded to +the natural arrogance of youth that has never known humiliating reverses, that +has never been the servant of circumstance. He was Angela’s senior by something +less than four years; yet it seemed to her that he was in every attribute +infinitely her superior. In education, in depth of thought, in resolution for +good, and scorn of evil. If he loved her—as Hyacinth insisted upon +declaring—there was nothing of youthful impetuosity in his passion. He had, +indeed, betrayed his sentiments by no direct speech. He had told her gravely +that he was interested in her, and deeply concerned that one so worthy and so +amiable should have been brought up in the house of idolaters, should have been +taught falsehood instead of truth. +</p> + +<p> +She stood up boldly for the faith of her maternal ancestors. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot continue your friend if you speak evil of those I love, Sir Denzil,” +she said. “Could you have seen the lives of those good ladies of the Ursuline +Convent, their unselfishness, their charity, you must needs have respected +their religion. I cannot think why you love to say hard words of us Catholics; +for in all I have ever heard or seen of the lives of the Nonconformists they +approach us far more nearly in their principles than the members of the Church +of England, who, if my sister does not paint them with too black a brush, +practise their religion with a laxity and indifference that would go far to +turn religion to a jest.” +</p> + +<p> +Whatever Sir Denzil’s ideas might be upon the question of creed—and he did not +scruple to tell Angela that he thought every Papist foredoomed to everlasting +punishment—he showed so much pleasure in her society as to be at Chilton Abbey, +and the sharer of her walks and rides, as often as possible. Lady Fareham +encouraged his visits, and was always gracious to him. She discovered that he +possessed the gift of music, though not in the same remarkable degree as Henri +de Malfort, who played the guitar exquisitely, and into whose hands you had but +to put a musical instrument for him to extract sweetness from it. Lute or +theorbo, viola or viol di gamba, treble or bass, came alike to his hand and +ear. Some instruments he had studied; with some his skill came by intuition. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil Warner performed very creditably upon the organ. He had played on John +Milton’s organ in St. Bride’s Church, when he was a boy, and he had played of +late in the church at Chalfont St. Giles, where he had visited Milton +frequently, since the poet had left his lodgings in Artillery Walk, carrying +his family and his books to that sequestered village in the shelter of the +hills between Uxbridge and Beaconsfield. Here from the lips of his sometime +tutor the Puritan had heard such stories of the Court as made him hourly +expectant of exterminating fires. Doubtless the fire would have come, as it +came upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but for those righteous lives of the +Nonconformists, which redeemed the time; quiet, god-fearing lives in dull old +city houses, in streets almost as narrow as those which Milton remembered in +his beloved Italy; streets where the sun looked in for an hour, shooting golden +arrows down upon the diamond-paned casements, and deepening the shadow of the +massive timbers that held up the overlapping stories, looked in and bade “good +night” within an hour or so, leaving an atmosphere of sober grey, cool, and +quiet, and dull, in those obscure streets and alleys where the great traffic of +Cheapside or Ludgate sounded like the murmur of a far-off sea. +</p> + +<p> +Pious men and women worshipped the implacable God of the Puritans in the secret +chambers of those narrow streets; and those who gathered together in these +days—if they rejected the Liturgy of the Church of England—must indeed be few, +and must meet by stealth, as if to pray or preach after their own manner were a +crime. Charles, within a year or so of his general amnesty and happy +restoration, had made such worship criminal; and now the Five Mile Act, lately +passed at Oxford, had rendered the restrictions and penalties of Nonconformity +utterly intolerable. Men were lying in prison here and there about merry +England for no greater offence than preaching the gospel to a handful of +God-fearing people. But that a Puritan tinker should moulder for a dozen years +in a damp jail could count for little against the blessed fact of the Maypole +reinstated in the Strand, and five play-houses in London performing ribald +comedies, till but recently, when the plague shut their doors. +</p> + +<p> +Milton, old and blind, and somewhat soured by domestic disappointments, had +imparted no optimistic philosophy to young Denzil Warner, whose father he had +known and loved. The fight at Hopton Heath had made Denzil fatherless; the +Colonel of Warner’s horse riding to his death in the last fatal charge of that +memorable day. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil had grown up under the prosperous rule of the Protector, and his boyhood +had been spent in the guardianship of a most watchful and serious-minded +mother. He had been somewhat over-cosseted and apron-stringed, it may be, in +that tranquil atmosphere of the rich widow’s house; but not all Lady Warner’s +tenderness could make her son a milksop. Except for a period of two years in +London, when he had lived under the roof of the great Republican, a docile +pupil to a stern but kind master, Denzil had lived mostly under the open sky, +was a keen sportsman, and loved the country with almost as sensitive a love as +his quondam master and present friend, John Milton; and it was perhaps this +appreciation of rural beauty which had made a bond of friendship between the +great poet and the Puritan squire. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a knack of painting rural scenes which needs but to be joined with +the gift of music to make you a poet,” he said, when Denzil had been +expatiating upon the landscape amidst which he had enjoyed his last bout of +falconry, or his last run with his half-dozen couple of hounds. “You are almost +as the power of sight to me when you describe those downs and valleys whose +every shape and shadow I once knew so well. Alas, that I should be changed so +much and they so little!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is one thing, sir, to feel that this world is beautiful, and another to +find golden words and phrases which to a prisoner in the Tower could conjure up +as fair a landscape as Claude Lorraine ever painted. Those sonorous and +mellifluous lines which you were so gracious as to repeat to me, forming part +of the great epic which the world is waiting for, bear witness to the power +that can turn words into music, and make pictures out of the common tongue. +That splendid art, sir, is but given to one man in a century—or in several +centuries; since I know but Dante and Virgil who have ever equalled your vision +of heaven and hell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not over-praise me, Denzil, in thy charity to poverty and affliction. It is +pleasing to be understood by a youth who loves hawk and hound better than +books; for it offers the promise of popular appreciation in years to come. Yet +the world is so little athirst for my epic that I doubt if I shall find a +bookseller to give me a few pounds for the right to print a work that has cost +me years of thought and laborious revision. But at least it has been my +consolation in the long blank night of my decay, and has saved me many a +heart-ache. For while I am building up my verses, and engraving line after line +upon the tablets of memory, I can forget that I am blind, and poor, and +neglected, and that the dear saint I loved was snatched from me in the noontide +of our happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil talked much of John Milton in his conversations with Angela, during +those rides or rambles, in which Papillon was their only chaperon. Lady Fareham +sauntered, like her royal master; but she rarely walked a mile at a stretch; +and she was pleased to encourage the rural wanderings that brought her sister +and Warner into a closer intimacy, and promised well for the success of her +matrimonial scheme. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe they adore each other already,” she told Fareham one morning, +standing by his side in the great stone porch, to watch those three youthful +figures ride away, aunt and niece side by side, on palfrey and pony, with +Denzil for their cavalier. +</p> + +<p> +“You are always over-quick to be sure of anything that suits your own fancy, +dearest,” answered Fareham, watching them to the curve of the avenue; “but I +see no signs of favour to that solemn youth in your sister. She suffers his +attentions out of pure civility. He is an accomplished horseman, having given +all his life to learning how to jump a fence gracefully; and his company is at +least better than a groom’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“How scornfully you jeer at him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have no more scorn than the Cavalier’s natural contempt for the +Roundhead. A hereditary hatred, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“You say such hard things of his Majesty that one might often take you to be of +Sir Denzil’s way of thinking.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never think about the King. I only wonder. I may sometimes express my +wonderment too freely for a loyal subject.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot vouch for Angela, but I will wager that he is deep in love,” +persisted Hyacinth. +</p> + +<p> +“Have it your own way, sweetheart. He is dull enough to be deep in debt, or +love, or politics, anything dismal and troublesome,” answered his lordship, as +he strolled off with his spaniels; not those dainty toy dogs which had been his +companions at the gate of death, but the fine liver-and-black shooting dogs +that lived in the kennels, and thought it doghood’s highest privilege to attend +their lord in his walks, whether with or without a gun. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +His lordship kept open Christmas that year at Chilton Abbey, and there was +great festivity, chiefly devised and carried out by the household, as Fareham +and his wife were too much of the modern fashion, and too cosmopolitan in their +ideas, to appreciate the fuss and feasting of an English Christmas. They +submitted, however, to the festival as arranged for them by Mr. Manningtree and +Mrs. Hubbuck—the copious feasting for servants and dependents, the mummers and +carolsingers, the garlands and greenery which disguised the fine old tapestry, +and made a bower of the vaulted hall. Everything was done with a lavish +plenteousness, and no doubt the household enjoyed the fun and feasting all the +more because of that dismal season of a few years back, when all Christmas +ceremonies had been denounced as idolatrous, and when the members of the +Anglican Church had assembled for their Christmas service secretly in private +houses, and as much under the ban of the law as the Nonconformists were now. +</p> + +<p> +Angela was interested in everything in that bright world where all things were +new. The children piping Christmas hymns in the clear cold morning enchanted +her. She ran down to kiss and fondle the smaller among them, and finding them +thinly clad promised to make them warm cloaks and hoods as fast as her fingers +could sew. Denzil found her there in the wide snowy space before the porch, +prattling with the children, bare-headed, her soft brown hair blown about in +the wind; and he was moved, as a man must needs be moved by the aspect of the +woman that he loves caressing a small child, melted almost to tears by the +thought that in some blessed time to come she might so caress, only more +warmly, a child whose existence should be their bond of union. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, being both shy and somewhat cold of temperament, he restrained +himself, and greeted her only as a friend; for his mother’s influence was +holding him back, urging him not to marry a Papist, were she ever so lovely or +lovable. +</p> + +<p> +He had known Angela for nearly three months, and his acquaintance with her had +reached this point of intimacy, yet Lady Warner had never seen her. This fact +distressed him, and he had tried hard to awaken his mother’s interest by +praises of the Fareham family and of Angela’s exquisite character; but the +Scarlet Spectre came between the Puritan lady and the house of Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing you can tell me about this girl, upon whom I fear you have +foolishly set your affection, which can make me forget that she has been nursed +and swaddled in the bondage of a corrupt Church, taught to worship idols, and +to cherish lying traditions, while the light of God’s holy word has been made +dark for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is young enough to embrace a purer creed, and to walk by the clearer light +that leads your footsteps, mother. If she were my wife I should not despair of +winning her to think as we do.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in all the length of England was there no young woman of right principles +fit to be thy wife, that thou must needs fall into the snare of the first +Popish witch who set her lure for thee?” +</p> + +<p> +“Popish witch! Oh, mother, how ill you can conceive the image of my dear love, +who has no witchcraft but beauty, no charm so potent as her truth and +innocency!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know them—these children of the Scarlet Woman—and I know their works, and +the fate of those who trust them. The late King—weak and stubborn as he +was—might have been alive this day, and reigning over a contented people, but +for that fair witch who ruled him. It was the Frenchwoman’s sorceries that +wrought Charles’s ruin.” +</p> + +<p> +“If thou wouldst but see my Angela,” pleaded the son, with a caressing arm +about his mother’s spare shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Thine! What! is she thine—pledged and promised already? Then, indeed, these +white hairs will go down with sorrow to the grave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, I doubt if thou couldst find so much as a single grey hair in that +comely head of thine,” said the son; and the mother smiled in the midst of her +affliction. +</p> + +<p> +“And as for promise—there has been none. I have said no word of love; nor have +I been encouraged to speak by any token of liking on the lady’s part. I stand +aloof and admire, and wonder at so much modesty and intelligence in Lady +Fareham’s sister. Let me bring her to see you, mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is your house, Denzil. Were you to fill it with the sons and daughters of +Belial, I could but pray that your eyes might be opened to their iniquity. I +could not shut these doors against you or your companions. But I want no Popish +women here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you do not know! Wait until you have seen her,” urged Denzil, with the +lover’s confidence in the omnipotence of his mistress’s charms. +</p> + +<p> +And now on this Christmas Day there came the opportunity Denzil had been +waiting for. The weather was cold and bright, the landscape was blotted out +with snow; and the lake in Chilton Park offered a sound surface for the +exercise of that novel amusement of skating, an accomplishment which Lord +Fareham had acquired while in the Low Countries, and in which he had been +Denzil’s instructor during the late severe weather. Angela, at her +brother-in-law’s entreaty, had also adventured herself upon a pair of skates, +and had speedily found delight in the swift motion, which seemed to her like +the flight of a bird skimming the steely surface of the frozen lake, and +incomparable in enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +“It is even more delightful than a gallop on Zephyr,” she told her sister, who +stood on the bank with a cluster of gay company, watching the skaters. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt not that; since there is even more danger of getting your neck broken +upon runaway skates than on a runaway horse,” answered Hyacinth. +</p> + +<p> +After an hour on the lake, in which Denzil had distinguished himself by his +mastery of the new exercise, being always at hand to support his mistress at +the slightest indication of peril, she consented to the removal of her skates, +at Papillon’s earnest entreaty, who wanted her aunt to walk with her before +dinner. After dinner there would be the swift-coming December twilight, and +Christmas games, snap-dragon and the like, which Papillon, although a little +fine lady, reproducing all her mother’s likes and dislikes in miniature, could +not, as a human child, altogether disregard. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care about such nonsense as Georgie does,” she told her aunt, with +condescending reference to her brother; “but I like to see the others amused. +Those village children are such funny little savages. They stick their fingers +in their mouths and grin at me, and call me ‘Your annar,’ or ‘Your worship,’ +and say ‘Anan’ to everything. They are like Audrey in the play you read to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil was in attendance upon aunt and niece. +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to come with us, you must invent a pretty walk, Sir Denzil,” said +Papillon. “I am tired of long lanes and ploughed fields.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know of one of the pleasantest rambles in the shire—across the woods to the +Grange. And we can rest there for half an hour, if Mrs. Angela will allow us, +and take a light refreshment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Sir Denzil, that is the very thing,” answered Papillon, breathlessly. “I +am dying of hunger. And I don’t want to go back to the Abbey. Will there be any +cakes or mince pies at the Grange?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cakes in plenty, but I fear there will be no mince pies. My mother does not +love Christmas dainties.” +</p> + +<p> +Henriette wanted to know why. She was always wanting the reason of things. A +bright inquiring little mind, perpetually on the alert for novelty; an +imitative brain like a monkey’s; hands and feet that know not rest; and there +you have the Honourable Henrietta Maria Revel, <i>alias</i> Papillon. +</p> + +<p> +They crossed the river, Angela and Denzil each taking an oar, while Papillon +pretended to steer, a process which she effected chiefly by screaming. +</p> + +<p> +“Another lump of ice!” she shrieked. “We shall be swamped. I believe the river +will be frozen before Twelfth Night, and we shall be able to dance upon it. We +must have bonfires and roast an ox for the poor people. Mrs. Hubbuck told me +they roasted an ox the year King Charles was beheaded. Horrid brutes—to think +that they could eat at such a time! If they had been sorry they could not have +relished roast beef.” +</p> + +<p> +Hadley Grange, commonly known as the Grange, was in every detail the antithesis +of Chilton Abbey. At the Abbey the eye was dazzled, the mind was bewildered, by +an excess of splendour—an over-much of everything gorgeous or beautiful. At the +Grange sight and mind were rested by the low tone of colour, the quaker-like +precision of form. All the furniture in the house was Elizabethan, plain, +ponderous, the conscientious work of Oxfordshire mechanics. On one side of the +house there was a bowling green, on the other a physic garden, where odours of +medicinal herbs, camomile, fennel, rosemary, rue, hung ever on the surrounding +air. There was nothing modern in Lady Warner’s house but the spotless +cleanliness; the perfume of last summer’s roses and lavender; the polished +surface of tables and cabinets, oak chests and oak floors, testifying to the +inexorable industry of rustic housemaids. In all other respects the Grange was +like a house that had just awakened from a century of sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Warner rose from her high-backed chair by the chimney corner in the oak +parlour, and laid aside the book she had been reading, to welcome her son, +startled at seeing him followed by a tall, fair girl in a black mantle and +hood, and a little slip of a thing, with bright dark eyes and small determined +face, pert, pointed, interrogative, framed in swansdown—a small aërial figure +in a white cloth cloak, and a scarlet brocade frock, under which two little red +shoes danced into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, I have brought Mrs. Angela Kirkland and her niece to visit you this +Christmas morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Kirkland and her niece are welcome,” and Lady Warner made a deep curtsy, +not like one of Lady Fareham’s sinking curtseys, as of one near swooning in an +ecstasy of politeness, but dignified and inflexible, straight down and straight +up again. +</p> + +<p> +“But as for Christmas, ’tis one of those superstitious observances which I have +ever associated with a Church I abhor.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil reddened furiously. To have brought this upon his beloved! +</p> + +<p> +Angela drew herself up, and paled at the unexpected assault. The brutality of +it was startling, though she knew, from Denzil’s opinions, that his mother must +be an enemy of her faith. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, madam, I am sorry that anybody in England should think it an ill thing +to celebrate the birthday of our Redeemer and Lord,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think, young lady, that foolish romping games, and huge chines of beef, +and smoking ale made luscious with spices and roasted pippins, and +carol-singing and play-acting, can be the proper honouring of Him who was God +first and for ever, and Man only for one brief interval in His eternal +existence? To keep God’s birthday with drunken rioting! What blasphemy! If you +can think that there is not more profaneness than piety in such sensual +revelries—why, it is that you do not know how to think. You would have learnt +to reason better had you known that sweet poet and musician, and true thinker, +Mr. John Milton, with whom it was my privilege to converse frequently during my +husband’s lifetime, and afterwards when he condescended to accept my son for +his pupil, and spent three days and nights under this roof.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Milton is still at Chalfont, mother. So you may hope to see him again with +a less journey than to London,” said Denzil, seizing the first chance of a +change in the conversation; “and here is a little Miss to whom I have promised +a light collation, with some of your Jersey milk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mistress Kirkland and her niece shall have the best I can provide. The larder +will furnish something acceptable, I doubt not, although I and my household +observe this day as a fast.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, madam, are you sorry that Jesus Christ was born to-day?” asked Papillon. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry for my sins, little mistress, and for the sins of all mankind, +which nothing but His blood could wash away. To remember His birth is to +remember that He died for us; and that is why I spend the twenty-fifth of +December in fasting and prayer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you not glad you are to dine at the Abbey to-day, Sir Denzil?” asked +Papillon, by way of commentary. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I put no restraint on my son. He can serve God after his own manner, and +veer with every wind of passion or fancy, if he will. But you shall have your +cake and draught of milk, little lady, and you too, Mistress Kirkland, will, I +hope, taste our Jersey milk, unless you would prefer a glass of Malmsey wine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Kirkland is as much an anchorite as yourself, mother. She takes no wine.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Warner was the soul of hospitality, and particularly proud of her dairy. +When kept clear of theology and politics she was not an ill-natured woman. But +to be a Puritan in the year of the Five Mile Act was not to think kindly of the +Government under which she lived; while her sense of her own wrongs was +intensified by rumours of over-indulgence shown to Papists, and the broad +assertion that King and Duke were Roman Catholic at heart, and waited only the +convenient hour to reforge the fetters that had bound England to Rome. +</p> + +<p> +She was fond of children, most of all of little girls, never having had a +daughter. She bent down to kiss Henriette, and then turned to Angela with her +kindest smile— +</p> + +<p> +“And this is Lady Fareham’s daughter? She is as pretty as a picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I am as good as a picture—sometimes, madam,” chirped Papillon. “Mother +says I am <i>douce comme un image.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“When thou hast been silent or still for five minutes,” said Angela, “and that +is but seldom.” +</p> + +<p> +A loud hand-bell summoned the butler, and an Arcadian meal was speedily set out +on a table in the hall, where a great fire of logs burnt as merrily as if it +had been designed to enliven a Christmas-keeping household. Indeed there was +nothing miserly or sparing about the housekeeping at the Grange, which +harmonised with the sombre richness of Lady Warner’s grey brocade gown, from +the old-fashioned silk mercer’s at the sign of the Flower-de-luce, in +Cheapside. There was liberality without waste, and a certain quiet refinement +in every detail, which reminded Angela of the convent parlour and her aunt’s +room—and contrasted curiously with the elegant disorder of her sister’s +surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon clapped her hands at sight of the large plum cake, the jug of milk, +and bowl of blackberry conserve. +</p> + +<p> +“I was so hungry,” she said, apologetically, after Denzil had supplied her with +generous slices of cake, and large spoonfuls of jam. “I did not know that +Nonconformists had such nice things to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think we all lay in gaol to suffer cold and hunger for the faith that +is in us, like that poor preacher at Bedford?” asked Lady Warner, bitterly. “It +will come to that some day, perhaps, under the new Act.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you show Mistress Kirkland your house, mother, and your dairy?” Denzil +asked hurriedly. “I know she would like to see one of the neatest dairies in +Oxfordshire.” +</p> + +<p> +No request could be more acceptable to Lady Warner, who was a housekeeper first +and a controversialist afterwards. Inclined as she was to rail against the +Church of Rome—partly because she had made up her mind upon hearsay, chiefly +Miltonian, that Roman Catholicism was only another name for image-worship and +martyr-burning, and partly on account of the favour that had been shown to +Papists, as compared with the cruel treatment of Nonconformists—still there was +a charm in Angela’s gentle beauty against which the daughterless matron could +not steel her heart. She melted in the space of a quarter of an hour, while +Denzil was encouraging Henriette to over-eat herself, and trying to persuade +Angela to taste this or that dainty, or reproaching her for taking so little; +and by the time the child had finished her copious meal, Lady Warner was +telling herself how dearly she might have loved this girl for a +daughter-in-law, were it not for that fatal objection of a corrupt and +pernicious creed. +</p> + +<p> +No! Lovely as she was, modest, refined, and in all things worthy to be loved, +the question of creed must be a stumbling-block. And then there were other +objections. Rural gossip, the loose talk of servants, had brought a highly +coloured description of Lady Fareham’s household to her neighbour’s ears. The +extravagant splendour, the waste and idleness, the late hours, the worship of +pleasure, the visiting, the singing, and dancing, and junketing, and worst of +all, the too-indulgent friendship shown to a Parisian fopling, had formed the +subject of conversation in many an assembly of pious ladies, and hands and +eyebrows had been uplifted at the iniquities of Chilton Abbey, as second only +to the monstrous goings-on of the Court at Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +Almost ever since the Restoration Lady Warner had been living in meek +expectancy of fire from heaven; and the chastisement of this memorable year had +seemed to her the inevitable realisation of her fears. The fiery rain had come +down—impalpable, invisible, leaving its deadly tokens in burning plague spots, +the forerunners of death. That the contagion had mostly visited that humbler +class of persons who had been strangers to the excesses and pleasures of the +Court made nothing against Lady Warner’s conviction that this scourge was +Heaven’s vengeance upon fashionable vice. Her son had brought her stories of +the life at Whitehall, terrible pictures of iniquity, conveyed in the scathing +words of one who sat apart, in a humble lodging, where for him the light of day +came not, and heard with disgust and horror of that wave of debauchery which +had swept over the city he loved, since the triumph of the Royalists. And Lady +Warner had heard the words of Milton, and had listened with a reverence as +profound as if the blind poet had been the prophet of Israel, alone in his +place of hiding, holding himself aloof from an idolatrous monarch and a wicked +people. +</p> + +<p> +And now her son had brought her this fair girl, upon whom he had set his +foolish hopes, a Papist, and the sister of a woman whose ways were the ways +of—! A favourite scriptural substantive closed the sentence in Lady Warner’s +mind. +</p> + +<p> +No; it might not be. Whatever power she had over her son must be used against +his Papistical syren. She would treat her with courtesy, show her house and +dairy, and there an end. And so they repaired to the offices, with Papillon +running backwards and forwards as they went along, exclaiming and questioning, +delighted with the shining oak floors and great oak chests in the corridor, and +the armour in the hall, where, as the sacred and central object, hung the +breastplate Sir George Warner wore when he fell at Hopton Heath, dinted by +sword and pike, as the enemy’s horse rode him down in the <i>melée</i>. His +orange scarf, soiled and torn, was looped across the steel cuirass. Papillon +admired everything, most of all the great cool dairy, which had once been a +chapel, and where the piscina was converted to a niche for a polished brass +milk-can, to the horror of Angela, who could say no word in praise of a place +that had been created by the profanation of holy things. A chapel turned into a +storehouse for milk and butter! Was this how Protestants valued consecrated +places? An awe-stricken silence came upon her, and she was glad when Denzil +remembered that they would have barely time to walk back to the Abbey before +the two o’clock dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“You keep Court hours even in the country,” said Lady Warner. “I dined half an +hour before you came.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care if I have no dinner to-day,” said Papillon; “but I hope I shall +be able to eat a mince pie. Why don’t you love mince pies, madam? He”—pointing +to Denzil—“says you do not.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br/> +THE PRIEST’S HOLE.</h2> + +<p> +Denzil dined at the Abbey, where he was always made welcome. Lady Fareham had +been warmly insistent upon his presence at their Christmas gaieties. +</p> + +<p> +“We want to show you a Cavalier’s Christmas,” she told him at dinner, he seated +at her side in the place of honour, while Angela sat at the other end of the +table between Fareham and De Malfort. “For ourselves we care little for such +simple sports: but for the poor folk and the children Yule should be a season +to be remembered for good cheer and merriment through all their slow, dull +year. Poor wretches! I think of their hard life sometimes, and wonder they +don’t either drown themselves or massacre us.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are like the beasts of the field, Lady Fareham. They have learnt patience +from the habit of suffering. They are born poor, and they die poor. It is happy +for us that they are not learned enough to consider the inequalities of +fortune, or we should have the rising of want against abundance, a bitterer +strife, perhaps, than the strife of adverse creeds, which made Ireland so +bloody a spectacle for the world’s wonder thirty years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we shall make them all happy this afternoon; and there will be a supper +in the great stone barn which will acquaint them with abundance for this one +evening at least,” answered Hyacinth, gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“We are going to play games after dinner!” cried Henriette, from her place at +her father’s elbow. +</p> + +<p> +His lordship was the only person who ever reproved her seriously, yet she loved +him best of all her kindred or friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Angy is going to play hide-and-seek with us. Will you play, Sir Denzil?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall think myself privileged if I may join in your amusements.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a courteous speech! You will be cutting off your pretty curly hair, and +putting on a French perruque, like his”—pointing to De Malfort. “Please do not. +You would be like everybody else in London—and now you are only like +yourself—and vastly handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, Henriette! you are much too pert,” remonstrated Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’tis the very truth, father. All the women who visit mother paint their +faces, so that they are all alike; and all the men talk alike, so that I don’t +know one from t’other, except Lord Rochester, who is impudenter and younger +than the others, and gives me more sugar-plums and pays me prettier compliments +than anybody else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue, mistress! A dinner-table is no place for pert children. Thy +brother there has better manners,” said her father, pointing to the cherubic +son and heir, whose ideas were concentrated upon a loaded plate of red-deer +pasty. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that he is greedier than I,” retorted Papillon. “He will eat till he +won’t be able to run about with us after dinner; and then he will sprawl upon +mother’s satin train by the fire, with Ganymede and Phosphor, and she will tell +everybody how good and gentle he is, and how much better bred than his sister. +And now, if people are <i>ever</i> going to leave off eating, we may as well +begin our games before it is quite dark. Perhaps <i>you</i> are ready, auntie, +if nobody else is.” +</p> + +<p> +Dinner may have ended a little quicker for this speech, although Papillon was +sternly suppressed, and bade to keep silence or leave the table. She obeyed so +far as to make no further remarks, but expressed her contempt for the gluttony +of her elders by several loud yawns, and bounced up out of her seat, like a +ball from a racket, directly the little gentleman in black sitting near his +lordship had murmured a discreet thanksgiving. This gentleman was the Roman +Catholic priest from Oxford, who had said Mass early that morning in the +muniment room, and had been invited to his lordship’s table in honour of the +festival. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon led all the games, and ordered everybody about. Mrs. Dorothy Lettsome, +the young lady who was sorry she had not had the honour to be born in France, +was of the party, with her brother, honest Dan Lettsome, an Oxfordshire squire, +who had been in London only once in his life, to see the Coronation, and had +nearly lost his life, as well as his purse and jewellery, in a tavern, after +that august ceremonial. This bitter experience had given him a distaste for the +pleasures of the town which his poor sister deplored exceedingly; since she was +dependent upon his coffers, and subject to his authority, and had no hope of +leaving Oxfordshire unless she were fortunate enough to find a town-bred +husband. +</p> + +<p> +These two joined in the sports with ardour, Squire Dan glad to be moving about, +rather than to sit still and listen to music which he hated, or to conversation +to which he could contribute neither wit nor sense, unless the kennel or the +gun-room were the topic under discussion. The talk of a lady and gentleman who +had graduated in the salons of the Hôtel de Rambouillet was a foreign language +to him; and he told his sister that it was all one to him whether Lady Fareham +and the Mounseer talked French or English, since it was quite as hard to +understand ’em in one language as in t’other. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon, this rustic youth adored. He knew no greater pleasure than to break +and train a pony for her, to teach her the true knack of clearing a hedge, to +explain the habits and nature of those vermin in whose lawless lives she was +deeply interested—rats, weasels, badgers, and such-like—to attend her when she +hunted, or flew her peregrine. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will marry me, sweetheart, when you are of the marrying age, I would +rather wait half a dozen years for you than have the best woman in Oxfordshire +that I know of at this present.” +</p> + +<p> +“Marry you!” cried Lord Fareham’s daughter. “Why, I shall marry no one under an +earl; and I hope it will be a duke or a marquis. Marchioness is a pretty title: +it sounds better than duchess, because it is in three syllables—mar-chion-ess,” +with an affected drawl. “I am going to be very beautiful. Mrs. Hubbuck says so, +and mother’s own woman; and I heard that painted old wretch, Mrs. Lewin, tell +mother so. ‘Eh, gud, your la’ship, the young miss will be almost as great a +beauty as your la’ship’s self!’ Mrs. Lewin always begins her speeches with ‘Eh, +gud!’ or ‘What devil!’ But I hope I shall be handsomer than <i>mother</i>” +concluded Papillon, in a tone which implied a poor opinion of the maternal +charms. +</p> + +<p> +And now on this Christmas evening, in the thickening twilight of the rambling +old house, through long galleries, crooked passages, queer little turns at +right angles, rooms opening out of rooms, half a dozen in succession, Squire +Dan led the games, ordered about all the time by Papillon, whom he talked of +admiringly as a high-mettled filly, declaring that she had more tricks than the +running-horse he was training for Abingdon races. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort, after assisting in their sports for a quarter of an hour with +considerable spirit, had deserted them, and sneaked off to the great saloon, +where he sat on the Turkey carpet at Lady Fareham’s feet, singing chansonettes +to his guitar, while George and the spaniels sprawled beside him, the whole +group making a picture of indolent enjoyment, fitfully lighted by the blaze of +a yule log that filled the width of the chimney. Fareham and the Priest were +playing chess at the other end of the long low room, by the light of a single +candle. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon ran in at the door and ejaculated her disgust at De Malfort’s +desertion. +</p> + +<p> +“Was there ever such laziness? It’s bad enough in Georgie to be so idle; but +then,<i> he</i> has over-eaten himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how do you know that I haven’t over-eaten myself, mistress?” asked De +Malfort. +</p> + +<p> +“You never do that; but you often drink too much—much, much, much too much!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a slanderous thing to say of your mother’s most devoted servant,” +laughed De Malfort. “And pray how does a baby-girl like you know when a +gentleman has been more thirsty than discreet?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the way you talk—always French. Jarni! ch’dame, n’savons joui d’ n’belle +s’rée—n’fam-partie d’ombre. Moi j’ai p’du n’belle f’tune, p’rol’d’nneur! You +clip your words to nothing. Aren’t you coming to play hide-and-seek?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I, fair slanderer. I am a salamander, and love the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that a kind of Turk? Good-bye. I’m going to hide.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beware of the chests in the gallery, sweetheart,” said her father, who heard +only this last sentence, as his daughter ran past him towards the door. “When I +was in Italy I was told of a bride who hid herself in an old dower-chest, on +her wedding-day—and the lid clapped to with a spring and kept her there for +half a century.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no spring that ever locksmith wrought that will keep down Papillon,” +cried De Malfort, sounding a light accompaniment to his words on the guitar +strings, with delicatest touch, like fairy music. +</p> + +<p> +“I know of better hiding-places,” answered the child, and vanished, banging the +great door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +She found her aunt with Dorothy Lettsome and her brother and Denzil in the +gallery above stairs, walking up and down, and listening with every indication +of weariness to the Squire’s discourse about his hunters and running-horses. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we are going to have real good sport!” cried Papillon. “Aunt Angy and I +are to hide, and you three are to look for us. You must stop in this gallery +for ten minutes by the French clock yonder—with the door shut. You must give us +ten minutes’ law, Mr. Lettsome, as you did the hare the other day, when I was +out with you—and then you may begin to look for us. Promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stay, little miss, you will be outside the house belike, roaming lord knows +where; in the shrubberies, or the barns, or halfway to Oxford—while we are made +fools of here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. We will be inside the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you promise that, pretty lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dorothy suggested that there had been enough of childish play, and that it +would be pleasanter to sit in the saloon with her ladyship, and hear Monsieur +de Malfort sing. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll wager he was singing when you saw him just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he is always singing foolish French songs—and I’m sure you can’t +understand ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve learnt the French ever since I was as old as you, Mistress Henriette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that was too late to begin. People who learn French out of books know what +it looks like, but not what it sounds like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be very sorry if I could not understand a French ballad, little +miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you—would you, really?” cried Papillon, her face alight with impish +mirth. “Then, of course, you understand this— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Oh, la d’moiselle, comme elle est sot-te,<br/> + Eh, je me moque de sa sot-ti-se!<br/> +Eh, la d’moiselle, comme elle est bê-te,<br/> + Eh, je m’ris de sa bê-ti-se!” +</p> + +<p> +She sang this impromptu nonsense <i>prestissimo</i> as she danced out of the +room, leaving the accomplished Dorothy vexed and perplexed at not having +understood a single word. +</p> + +<p> +It was nearly an hour later when Denzil entered the saloon hurriedly, pale and +perturbed of aspect, with Dorothy and her brother following him. +</p> + +<p> +“We have been hunting all over the house for Mrs. Angela and Henriette,” Denzil +said, and Fareham started up from the chess-table, scared at the young man’s +agitated tone and pallid countenance. “We have looked in every room—” +</p> + +<p> +“In every closet,” interrupted Dorothy. +</p> + +<p> +“In every corner of the staircases and passages,” said Squire Dan. +</p> + +<p> +“Can your lordship help us? There may be places you know of which we do not +know?” said Denzil, his voice trembling a little. “It is alarming that they +should be so long in concealment. We have called to them in every part of the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham hurried to the door, taking instant alarm—anxious, pale, alert. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” he said to the others. “The oak chests in the music-room—the great +Florentine coffer in the gallery? Have you looked in those?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; we have opened every chest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, to see Sir Denzil turn over piles of tapestries, you would have thought +he was looking for a fairy that could hide in the folds of a curtain!” said +Lettsome. +</p> + +<p> +“It is no theme for jesting. I hate these tricks of hiding in strange corners,” +said Fareham. “Now, show me where they left you.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the long gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have gone up to the roof, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have been in the roof,” said Denzil. +</p> + +<p> +“I have scarcely recovered my senses after the cracked skull I got from one of +your tie-beams,” added Lettsome; and Fareham saw that both men had their +doublets coated with dust and cobwebs, in a manner which indicated a +remorseless searching of places unvisited by housemaids and brooms. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dorothy, with a due regard for her dainty lace kerchief and ruffles, and +her cherry silk petticoat, had avoided these loathly places, the abode of +darkness, haunted by the fear of rats. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham tramped the house from cellar to garret, Denzil alone accompanying him. +</p> + +<p> +“We want no posse comitatus,” he had said, somewhat discourteously. “You, +Squire, had best go and mend your cracked head in the eating-parlour with a +brimmer or two of clary wine; and you, Mrs. Dorothy, can go and keep her +ladyship company. But not a word of our fright. Swoons and screaming would only +hinder us.” +</p> + +<p> +He took Mrs. Lettsome’s arm, and led her to the staircase, pushing the Squire +after her, and then turned his anxious countenance to Denzil. +</p> + +<p> +“If they are not to be found in the house, they must be found outside the +house. Oh, the folly, the madness of it! A December night—snow on the ground—a +rising wind—another fall of snow, perhaps—and those two afoot and alone!” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not believe they are out-of-doors,” Denzil answered. “Your daughter +promised that they would not leave the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter tells the truth. It is her chief virtue.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet we have hunted in every hole and corner,” said Denzil, dejectedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Hole!” cried Fareham, almost in a shout. “Thou hast hit it, man! That one word +is a flash of lightning. The Priest’s Hole! Come this way. Bring your candle!” +snatching up that which he had himself set down on a table, when he stood still +to deliberate. “The Priest’s Hole? The child knew the secret of it—fool that I +was ever to show her. God! what a place to hide in on a winter night!” +</p> + +<p> +He was halfway up the staircase to the second story before he had uttered the +last of these exclamations, Denzil following him. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, through the stillness of the house, there sounded a faint far-off +cry, the shrill thin sound of a child’s voice. Fareham and Warner would hardly +have heard it had they not been sportsmen, with ears trained to listen for +distant sounds. No view-hallo sounding across miles of wood and valley was ever +fainter or more ethereal. +</p> + +<p> +“You hear them?” cried Fareham. “Quick, quick!” +</p> + +<p> +He led the way along a narrow gallery, about eight feet high, where people had +danced in Elizabeth’s time, when the house was newly converted to secular uses; +and then into a room in which there were several iron chests, the muniment +room, where a sliding panel, of which the master of the house knew the trick, +revealed an opening in the wall. Fareham squeezed himself through the gap, +still carrying the tall iron candlestick, with flaring candle, and vanished. +Denzil followed, and found himself descending a narrow stone staircase, very +steep, built into an angle of the great chimney, while as if from the bowels of +the earth there came, louder at every step, that shrill cry of distress, in a +voice he could not doubt was Henriette’s. +</p> + +<p> +“The other is mute,” groaned Fareham; “scared to death, perhaps, like a +frightened bird.” And then he called, “I am coming. You are safe, love; safe, +safe!” And then he groaned aloud, “Oh, the madness, the folly of it!” +</p> + +<p> +Halfway down the staircase there was a sudden gap of six feet, down which +Fareham dropped with his hands on the lowest stair, Denzil following; a break +in the continuity of the descent planned for the discomfiture of strangers and +the protection of the family hiding-place. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham and Denzil were on a narrow stone landing at the bottom of the house; +and the child’s wail of anguish changed to a joyous shriek, “Father, father!” +close in their ears. Fareham set his shoulder against the heavy oak door, and +it burst inwards. There had been no question of secret spring or complicated +machinery; but the great, clumsy door dragged upon its rusty hinges, and the +united strength of the two girls had not served to pull it open, though +Papillon, in her eagerness for concealment in the first fever of hiding, had +been strong enough to push the door till she had jammed it, and thus made all +after efforts vain. +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” she cried, leaping into his arms, as he came into the room, large +enough to hold six-men standing upright; but a hideous den in which to perish +alone in the dark. “Oh, father! I thought no one would ever find us. I was +afraid we should have died like the Italian lady—and people would have found +our skeletons and wondered about us. I never was afraid before. Not when the +great horse reared as high as a house—and her ladyship screamed. I only laughed +then—but to-night I have been afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham put her aside without looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela! Great God! She is dead!” +</p> + +<p> +No, she was not dead, only in a half swoon, leaning against the angle of the +wall, ghastly white in the flare of the candles. She was not quite unconscious. +She knew whose strong arms were holding her, whose lips were so near her own, +whose head bent suddenly upon her breast, leaning against the lace kerchief, to +listen for the beating of her heart. +</p> + +<p> +She made a great effort to relieve his fear, understanding dimly that he +thought her dead; but could only murmur broken syllables, till he carried her +up three or four stairs, to a secret door that opened into the garden. There in +the wintry air, under the steely light of wintry stars, her senses came back to +her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry I have not Papillon’s courage,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Tu m’as donné une affreuse peur—je te croyais morte,” muttered Fareham, +letting his arms drop like lead as she released herself from their support. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil and Henriette were close to them. They had come to the open door for +fresh air, after the charnel-like chill and closeness of the small underground +chamber. +</p> + +<p> +“Father is angry with me,” said the girl; “he won’t speak to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Angry! no, no;” and he bent to kiss her. “But oh, child, the folly of it! She +might have died—you too—found just an hour too late.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have taken a long time to kill me,” said Papillon; “but I was very +cold, and my teeth were chattering, and I should soon have been hungry. Have +you had supper yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody has even thought of supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad of that. And I may have supper with you, mayn’t I, and eat what I +like, because it’s Christmas, and because I might have been starved to death in +the Priest’s Hole. But it was a good hiding-place, tout de meme. Who guessed at +last?” +</p> + +<p> +“The only person who knew of the place, child. And now, remember, the secret is +to be kept. Your dungeon may some day save an honest man’s life. You must tell +nobody where you were hid.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what shall I say when they ask me? I must not tell them a story.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say you were hidden in the great chimney—which is truth; for the Priest’s Hole +is but a recess at the back of the chimney. And you, Warner,” turning to +Denzil, who had not spoken since the opening of the door, “I know you’ll keep +the secret.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I will keep your secret,” Denzil answered, cold as ice; and said no word +more. +</p> + +<p> +They walked slowly round the house by the terrace, where the clipped yews stood +out like obelisks against the bleak bright sky. Papillon ran and skipped at her +father’s side, clinging to him, expatiating upon her sufferings in the dust and +darkness. Denzil followed with, Angela, in a dead silence. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br/> +LIGHTER THAN VANITY.</h2> + +<p> +“I think father must be a witch,” Henriette said at dinner next day, “or why +did he tell me of the Italian lady who was shut in the dower-chest, just before +Angela and I were lost in”—she checked herself at a look from his lordship—“in +the chimney?” +</p> + +<p> +“It wants no witch to tell that little girls are foolish and mischievous,” +answered Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“You ladies must have been vastly black when you came out of your +hiding-place,” said De Malfort. “I should have been sorry to see so much beauty +disguised in soot. Perhaps Mrs. Kirkland means to appear in the character of a +chimney at our next Court masquerade. She would cause as great a stir as Lady +Muskerry, in all her Babylonian splendour; but for other reasons. Nothing could +mitigate the Muskerry’s ugliness; and no disguise could hide Mrs. Angela’s +beauty.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would the costume be?” asked Papillon. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, something simple. A long black satin gown, and a brick-dust velvet hat, +tall and curiously twisted, like your Tudor chimney; and a cluster of grey +feathers on the top, to represent smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur le Comte makes a joke of everything. But what would father have said +if we had never been found?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have said that they are right who swear there is a curse upon all +property taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter upon +Chilton Abbey,” answered his lordship’s grave deep voice from the end of the +table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and silent, save when +directly addressed. +</p> + +<p> +Her ladyship and De Malfort had always plenty to talk about. They had the past +as well as the present for their discourse, and were always sighing for the +vanished glories of their youth—at Paris, at Fontainebleau, at St. Germain. Nor +were they restricted to the realities of the present and the memories of the +past; they had that wider world of unreality in which to circulate; they had +the Scudèry language at the tips of their tongues, the fantastic sentimentalism +of that marvellous old maid who invented the seventeenth-century hero and +heroine; or who crystallised the vanishing figures of that brilliant age and +made them immortal. All that little language of toyshop platonics had become a +natural form of speech with these two, bred and educated in the Marais, while +it was still the select and aristocratic quarter of Paris. +</p> + +<p> +To-day Hyacinth and her old playfellow had been chattering like children, or +birds in an aviary, and with little more sense in their conversation; but at +this talk of the Church’s ban, Hyacinth stopped in her prattle and was almost +serious. +</p> + +<p> +“I sometimes think we shall have bad luck in this house,” she said, “or that we +shall see the ghosts of the wicked monks who were turned out to make room for +Fareham’s great-grandfather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tush, child! what do you know of their wickedness, after a century?” +</p> + +<p> +“They were very wicked, I believe, for it was one of those quiet little +monasteries where the monks could do all manner of evil things, and raise the +devil, if they liked, without anybody knowing. And when Henry the Eighth sent +his Commissioners, they were taken by surprise; and the altar at which they +worshipped Beelzebub was found in a side chapel, and a wax figure of the King +stuck with arrows, like St. Sebastian. The Abbot pretended it <i>was</i> St. +Sebastian; but nobody believed him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody wanted to believe him,” said Fareham. “King Henry made an example of +Chilton Abbey, and gave it to my worthy ancestor, who was a fourth cousin of +Jane Seymour’s, and had turned Protestant to please his royal master. He went +back to the Church of Rome on his death-bed, and we Revels have been Papists +ever since. I wish the Church joy of us!” +</p> + +<p> +“The Church has neither profit nor honour from you,” said his wife, shaking her +fan at him. “You seldom go to Mass; you never go to confession.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather keep my sins to myself, and atone for them by the pangs of a +wounded conscience. That is too easy a religion which shifts the burden of +guilt on to the shoulders of a stipendiary priest, and walks away from the +confessional absolved by the payment of a few extra prayers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you are either an infidel or a Puritan.” +</p> + +<p> +“A cross between the two, perhaps—a mongrel in religion, as I am a mongrel in +politics.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela looked up at him with sad eyes—reproachful, yet full of pity. She +remembered his wild talk, semi-delirious some of it, all feverish and excited, +during his illness, and how she had listened with aching heart to the ravings +of one so near death, and so unfit to die. And now that the pestilence had +passed him by, now that he was a strong man again, with half a lifetime before +him, her heart was still heavy for him. She who sat in the theatre of life as a +spectator had discovered that her sister’s husband was not happy. The trifles +that delighted Hyacinth left Fareham unamused and discontented; and his wife +knew not that there was anything wanting to his felicity. She could go on +prattling like a child, could be in a fever about a fan or a bunch of ribbons, +could talk for an hour of a new play or the contents of the French +<i>Gazette</i>, while he sat gloomy and apart. +</p> + +<p> +The sympathy, the companionship that should be in marriage was wanting here. +Angela saw and deplored this distance, scarce daring to touch so delicate a +theme, fearful lest she, the younger, should seem to sermonise the elder; and +yet she could not be silent for ever while duty and religion urged her to +speak. +</p> + +<p> +At Chilton Abbey the sisters were rarely alone. Papillon was almost always with +them; and De Malfort spent more of his life in attendance upon Lady Fareham +than at Oxford, where he was supposed to be living. Mrs. Lettsome and her +brother were frequent guests; and coach-loads of fine people came over from the +court almost every day. Indeed, it was only Fareham’s character—austere as +Clarendon’s or Southampton’s—which kept the finest of all company at a +distance. Lady Castlemaine had called at Chilton in her coach-and-four early in +July; and her visit had not been returned—a slight which the proud beauty +bitterly resented: and from that time she had lost no opportunity of +depreciating Lady Fareham. Happily her jests, not over refined in quality, had +not been repeated to Hyacinth’s husband. +</p> + +<p> +One January afternoon the longed-for opportunity came. The sisters were sitting +alone in front of the vast mediaeval chimney, where the Abbots of old had burnt +their surplus timber—Angela busy with her embroidery frame, working a satin +coverlet for her niece’s bed; Hyacinth yawning over a volume of Cyrus; in whose +stately pages she loved to recognise the portraits of her dearest friends, and +for which she was a living key. Angela was now familiar with the famous +romance, which she had read with deepest interest, enlightened by her sister. +As an eastern story—a record of battles and sieges evolved from a clever +spinster’s brain, an account of men and women who had never lived—the book +might have seemed passing dull; but the story of actual lives, of living, +breathing beauty, and valour that still burnt in warrior breasts, the keen and +clever analysis of men and women who were making history, could not fail to +interest an intelligent girl, to whom all things in life were new. +</p> + +<p> +Angela read of the siege of Dunkirk, where Fareham had fought; of the +tempestuous weather; the camp in the midst of salt marshes and quicksands, and +all the sufferings and perils of life in the trenches. He had been in more than +one of those battles which mademoiselle’s conscientious pen depicted with such +graphic power, the <i>Gazette</i> at her elbow as she wrote. The names of +battles, sieges, Generals, had been on his lips in his delirious ravings. He +had talked of the taking of Charenton, the key to Paris, a stronghold +dominating Seine and Marne; of Clanleu, the brave defender of the fortress; of +Châtillon, who led the charge—both killed there—Châtillon, the friend of Condé, +who wept bitterest tears for a loss that poisoned victory. Read by these +lights, the “Grand Cyrus” was a book to be pored over, a book to bend over in +the grey winter dusk, reading by the broad blaze of the logs that flamed and +crackled on wrought-iron standards. Just as merrily the blaze had spread its +ruddy light over the room when it was a monkish refectory, and when the droning +of a youthful brother reading aloud to the fraternity as they ate their supper +was the only sound, except the clattering of knives and grinding of jaws. +</p> + +<p> +Now the room was her ladyship’s drawing-room, bright with Gobelins tapestry, +dazzling with Venetian mirrors, gaudy with gold and colour, the black oak floor +enlivened by many-hued carpets from our new colony of Tangiers. Fareham told +his wife that her Moorish carpets had cost the country fifty times the price +she had paid for them, and were associated with an irrevocable evil in the +existence of a childless Queen; but that piece of malice, Hyacinth told him, +had no foundation but his hatred of the Duke, who had always been perfectly +civil to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Of two profligate brothers I prefer the bolder sinner,” said Fareham. “Bigotry +and debauchery are an ill mixture.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt if his Majesty frets for the want of an heir,” remarked De Malfort. +“He is not a family man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not a one family man, Count,” answered Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham and De Malfort were both away on this January evening. Papillon was +taking a dancing lesson from a wizened old Frenchman, who brought himself and +his fiddle from Oxford twice a week for the damsel’s instruction. Mrs. +Priscilla, nurse and <i>gouvernante</i>, attended these lessons, at which the +Honourable Henrietta Maria Revel gave herself prodigious airs, and was indeed +so rude to the poor old professor that her aunt had declined to assist at any +more performances. +</p> + +<p> +“Has his lordship gone to Oxford?” Angela asked, after a silence broken only by +her sister’s yawns. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt he is anywhere rather than in such good company,” Hyacinth answered, +carelessly. “He hates the King, and would like to preach at him, as John Knox +did at his great-grandmother. Fareham is riding, or roving with his dogs, I +dare say. He has a gloomy taste for solitude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, do you not see that he is unhappy?” Angela asked, suddenly, and the +pain in her voice startled her sister from the contemplation of the sublime +Mandane. +</p> + +<p> +“Unhappy, child! What reason has he to be unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dearest, it is that I would have you discover. ’Tis a wife’s business to +know what grieves her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless it be Mrs. Lewin’s bill—who is an inexorable harpy—I know of no act of +mine that can afflict him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not mean that his gloom was caused by any act of yours, sister. I only +urge you to discover why he is so sad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sad? Sullen, you mean. He has a fine, generous nature. I am sure it is not +Lewin’s charges that trouble him. But he had always a sullen temper—by fits and +starts.” +</p> + +<p> +“But of late he has been always silent and gloomy.” +</p> + +<p> +“How the child watches him! Ma très chère, that silence is natural. There are +but two things Fareham loves—the first, war; the second, sport. If he cannot be +storming a town, he loves to be killing a fox. This fireside life of ours—our +books and music, our idle talk of plays and dances—wearies him. You may see how +he avoids us—except out-of-doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Hyacinth, forgive me!” Angela began, falteringly, leaving her embroidery +frame and moving to the other side of the hearth, where she dropped on her +knees by her ladyship’s chair, and was almost swallowed up in the ample folds +of her brocade train. “Is it not possible that Lord Fareham is pained to see +you so much gayer and more familiar with Monsieur de Malfort than you ever are +with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gayer! more familiar!” cried Hyacinth. “Can you conceive any creature gay and +familiar with Fareham? One could as soon be gay with Don Quixote; indeed, there +is much in common between the knight of the rueful countenance and my husband. +Gay and familiar! And pray, mistress, why should I not take life pleasantly +with a man who understands me, and in whose friendship I have grown up almost +as if we were brother and sister? Do you forget that I have known Henri ever +since I was ten years old—that we played battledore and shuttlecock together in +our dear garden in the Rue de Touraine, next the bowling-green, when he was at +school with the Jesuit Fathers, and used to spend all his holiday afternoons +with the Marquise? I think I only learnt to know the saints’ days because they +brought me my playfellow. And when I was old enough to attend the Court—and, +indeed, I was but a child when I first appeared there—it was Henri who sang my +praises, and brought a crowd of admirers about me. Ah, what a life it was! Love +in the city, and war at the gates: plots, battles, barricades! How happy we all +were! except when there came the news of some great man killed, and walls were +hung with black, where there had been a thousand wax candles and a crowd of +dancers. Châtillon, Chabot, Laval! <i>Hélas</i>, those were sad losses!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sister, I can understand your affection for an old friend, but I would +not have you place him above your husband; least of all would I have his +lordship suspect that you preferred the friend to the husband——” +</p> + +<p> +“Suspect! Fareham! Are you afraid I shall make Fareham jealous, because I sing +duets and cudgel these poor brains to make <i>bouts rimés</i> with De Malfort? +Ah, child, how little those watchful eyes of yours have discovered the man’s +character! Fareham jealous! Why, at St. Germain he has seen me surrounded by +adorers; the subject of more madrigals than would fill a big book. At the +Louvre he has seen me the—what is that Mr. What’s-his-name, your friend’s old +school-master, the Republican poet, calls it—‘the cynosure of neighbouring +eyes.’ Don’t think me vain, ma mie. I am an old woman now, and I hate my +looking-glass ever since it has shown me my first wrinkle; but in those days I +had almost as many admirers as Madame Henriette, or the Princess Palatine, or +the fair-haired Duchess. I was called la belle Anglaise.” +</p> + +<p> +It was difficult to sound a warning-note in ears so obstinately deaf to all +serious things. Papillon came bounding in after her dancing-lesson—exuberant, +loquacious. +</p> + +<p> +“The little beast has taught me a new step in the coranto. See, mother,” and +the slim small figure was drawn up to its fullest, and the thin little lithe +arms were curved with a studied grace, as Papillon slid and tripped across the +room, her dainty little features illumined by a smirk of ineffable conceit. +</p> + +<p> +“Henriette, you are an ill-bred child to call your master so rude a name,” +remonstrated her mother, languidly. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis the name you called him last week when his dirty shoes left marks on the +stairs. He changes his shoes in my presence,” added Papillon, disgustedly. “I +saw a hole in his stocking. Monsieur de Malfort calls him Cut-Caper.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br/> +LADY FAREHAM’S DAY.</h2> + +<p> +A month later the <i>Oxford Gazette</i> brought Lady Fareham the welcomest news +that she had read for ever so long. The London death-rate had decreased, and +his Majesty had gone to Hampton Court, attended by the Duke and Prince Rupert, +Lord Clarendon, and his other indispensable advisers, and a retinue of +servants, to be within easy distance of that sturdy soldier Albemarle, who had +remained in London, unafraid of the pestilence; and who declared that while it +was essential for him to be in frequent communication with his Majesty, it +would be perilous to the interests of the State for him to absent himself from +London; for the Dutch war had gone drivelling on ever since the victory in +June, and that victory was not to be supposed final. Indeed, according to the +General, there was need of speedy action and a considerable increase of our +naval strength. +</p> + +<p> +Windsor had been thought of in the first place as a residence for the King; but +the law courts had been transferred there, and the judges and their following +had overrun the town, while there was a report of an infected house there. So +it had been resolved that his Majesty should make a brief residence at Hampton +Court, leaving the Queen, the Duchess, and their belongings at Oxford, whither +he could return as soon as the business of providing for the setting out of the +fleet had been arranged between him and the General, who could travel in a day +backwards and forwards between the Cockpit and Wolsey’s palace. +</p> + +<p> +When this news came they were snowed up at Chilton. Sport of all kinds had been +stopped, and Fareham, who, in his wife’s parlance, lived in his boots all the +winter, had to amuse himself without the aid of horse and hound; while even +walking was made difficult by the snowdrifts that blocked the lanes, and +reduced the face of Nature to one muffled and monotonous whiteness, while all +the edges of the landscape were outlined vaguely against the misty greyness of +the sky. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth spent her days half in yawning and sighing, and half in idle laughter +and childish games with Henriette and De Malfort. When she was gay she was as +much a child as her daughter; when she was fretful and hipped, it was a +childish discontent. +</p> + +<p> +They played battledore and shuttlecock in the picture-gallery, and my lady +laughed when her volant struck some reverend judge or venerable bishop a rap on +the nose. They sat for hours twanging guitars, Hyacinth taking her music-lesson +from De Malfort, whose exquisite taste and touch made a guitar seem a different +instrument from that on which his pupil’s delicate fingers nipped a wiry +melody, more suggestive of finger-nails than music. +</p> + +<p> +He taught her, and took all possible pains in the teaching, and laughed at her, +and told her plainly that she had no talent for music. He told her that in her +hands the finest lute Laux Maler ever made, mellowed by three centuries, would +be but wood and catgut. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the prettiest head in the world, and a forehead as white as Queen +Anne’s,” he said one day, with a light touch on the ringletted brow, “but there +is nothing inside. I wonder if there is anything here?” and the same light +touch fluttered for an instant against her brocade bodice, at the spot where +fancy locates the faculty of loving and suffering. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed at his rude speeches, just as she laughed at his flatteries—as if +there were safety in that atmosphere of idle mirth. Angela heard and wondered, +wondering most perhaps what occupied and interested Lord Fareham in those white +winter days, when he lived for the greater part alone in his own rooms, or +pacing the long walks from which the gardeners had cleared the snow. He spent +some of his time indoors, deep in a book. She knew as much as that. He had +allowed Angela to read some of his favourites, though he would not permit any +of the new comedies, which everybody at Court was reading, to enter his house, +much to Lady Fareham’s annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +“I am half a century behind all my friends in intelligence,” she said, “because +of your Puritanism. One tires of your everlasting gloomy tragedies—your +<i>Broken Hearts</i> and <i>Philasters</i>. I am all for the genius of comedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then satisfy your inclinations, and read Molière. He is second only to +Shakespeare.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have him by heart already.” +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Broken Heart</i> and <i>Philaster</i> delighted Angela; indeed, she had +read the latter play so often, and with such deep interest, that many passages +in it had engraved themselves on her memory, and recurred to her sometimes in +the silence of wakeful nights. +</p> + +<p> +That character of Bellario touched her as no heroine of the “Grand Cyrus” had +power to move her. How elaborately artificial seemed the Scudèry’s polished +tirades, her refinements and quintessences of the grand passion, as compared +with the fervid simplicity of the woman-page—a love so humble, so intense, so +unselfish! +</p> + +<p> +Sir Denzil came to Chilton nearly every day, and was always graciously received +by her ladyship. His Puritan gravity fell away from him like a pilgrim’s cloak, +in the light air of Hyacinth’s amusements. He seemed to grow younger; and +Henriette’s sharp eyes discovered an improvement in his dress. +</p> + +<p> +“This is your second new suit since Christmas,” she said, “and I’ll swear it is +made by the King’s tailor. Regardez done, madame! What exquisite embroidery, +silver and gold thread intermixed with little sparks of garnets sewn in the +pattern! It is better than anything of his lordship’s. I wish I had a father +who dressed well. I’m sure mine must be the shabbiest lord at Whitehall. You +have no right to be more modish than monsieur mon père, Sir Denzil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold that insolent tongue, p’tit drôle!” cried the mother. “Sir Denzil is +younger by a dozen years than his lordship, and has his reputation to make at +Court, and with the ladies he will meet there. I hope you are coming to London, +Denzil. You shall have a seat in one of our coaches as soon as the death-rate +diminishes, and this odious weather breaks up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your ladyship is all goodness. I shall go where my lode-star leads,” answered +Denzil, looking at Angela, and blushing at the audacity of his speech. +</p> + +<p> +He was one of those modest lovers who rarely bring a blush to the cheek of the +beloved object, but are so poor-spirited as to do most of the blushing +themselves. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A week later Lady Fareham could do nothing but praise that severe weather which +she had pronounced odious, for her husband, coming in from Oxford after a ride +along the road, deep with melting snow, brought the news of a considerable +diminution in the London death-rate; and the more startling news that his +Majesty had removed to Whitehall for the quicker despatch of business with the +Duke of Albemarle, albeit the bills of mortality recorded fifteen hundred +deaths from the pestilence in the previous week, and although not a carriage +appeared in the deserted streets of the metropolis except those in his +Majesty’s train. +</p> + +<p> +“How brave, how admirable!” cried Hyacinth, clapping her hands in the +exuberance of her joy. “Then we can go to London to-morrow, if horses and +coaches can be made ready. Give your orders at once, Fareham, I beseech you. +The thaw has set in. There will be no snow to stop us.” +</p> + +<p> +“There will be floods which may make fords impassable.” +</p> + +<p> +“We can avoid every ford—there is always a <i>détour</i> by the lanes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any idea what the lanes will be like after two feet deep of snow? Be +sure, my love, you are happier twanging your lute by this fireside than you +would be stuck in a quagmire, perishing with cold in a windy coach.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will risk the quagmires and the windy coach. Oh, my lord, if you ever loved +me let us set out to-morrow. I languish for Fareham House—my basset-table, my +friends, my watermen to waft me to and fro between Blackfriars and Westminster, +the mercers in St. Paul’s Churchyard, the Middle Exchange. I have not bought +myself anything pretty since Christmas. Let us go to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“And risk spoiling the prettiest thing you own—your face—by a plague-spot.” +</p> + +<p> +“The King is there—the plague is ended.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think he is a God, that the pestilence will flee at his coming?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think his courage is godlike. To be the first to return to that abandoned +city.” +</p> + +<p> +“What of Monk and the Archbishop, who never left it?” +</p> + +<p> +“A rough old soldier! A Churchman! Such lives were meant to face danger. But +his Majesty! A man for whom existence should be one long holiday?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has done his best to make it so; but the pestilence has shown him that +there are grim realities in life. Don’t fret, dearest. We will go to town as +soon as it is prudent to make the move. Kings must brave great hazards; and +there is no reason that little people like us should risk our lives because the +necessities of State compel his Majesty to imperil his.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall be laughed at if we do not hasten after him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let them laugh who please. I have passed through the ordeal, Hyacinth. I don’t +want a second attack of the sickness; nor would I for worlds that you or your +sister should run into the mouth of danger. Besides, you can lose little +pleasure by being absent; for the play-houses are all closed, and the Court is +in mourning for the French Queen-mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Queen Anne!” sighed Hyacinth. “She was always kind to me. And to die of a +cancer—after out-living those she most loved! King Louis would scarcely believe +she was seriously ill, till she was at the point of death. But we know what +mourning means at Whitehall—Lady Castlemaine in black velvet, with forty +thousand pounds in diamonds to enliven it; a concert instead of a play, +perhaps; and the King sitting in a corner whispering with Mrs. Stewart. But as +for the contagion, you will see that everybody will rush back to London, and +that you and I will be laughing-stocks.” +</p> + +<p> +The next week justified Lady Fareham’s assertion. As soon as it was known that +the King had established himself at Whitehall, the great people came back to +their London houses, and the town began to fill. It was as if a God had smiled +upon the smitten city, and that healing and happiness radiated from the golden +halo round that anointed head. Was not this the monarch of whom the most +eloquent preacher of the age had written, “In the arms of whose justice and +wisdom we lie down in safety”? +</p> + +<p> +London flung off her cerements—erased her plague-marks. The dead-cart’s +dreadful bell no longer sounded in the silence of an afflicted city. Coffins no +longer stood at every other door; the pits at Finsbury, in Tothill Fields, at +Islington, were all filled up and trampled down; and the grass was beginning to +grow over the forgotten dead. The Judges came back to Westminster. London was +alive again—alive and healed; basking in the sunshine of Royalty. +</p> + +<p> +Nowhere was London more alive in the month of March than at Fareham House on +the Thames, where the Fareham liveries of green and gold showed conspicuous +upon his lordship’s watermen, lounging about the stone steps that led down to +the water, or waiting in the terraced garden, which was one of the finest on +the river. Wherries of various weights and sizes filled one spacious boathouse, +and in another handsome stone edifice with a vaulted roof Lord Fareham’s barge +lay in state, glorious in cream colour and gold, with green velvet cushions and +Oriental carpets, as splendid as that blue-and-gold barge which Charles had +sent as a present to Madame, a vessel to out-glitter Cleopatra’s galley, when +her ladyship and her friends and their singing-boys and musicians filled it for +a voyage to Hampton Court. +</p> + +<p> +The barge was used on festive occasions, or for country voyages, as to Hampton +or Greenwich; the wherries were in constant requisition. Along that shining +waterway rank and fashion, commerce and business, were moving backwards and +forwards all day long. That more novel mode of transit, the hackney coach, was +only resorted to in foul weather; for the Legislature had handicapped the +coaching trade in the interests of the watermen, and coaches were few and dear. +</p> + +<p> +If Angela had loved the country, she was not less charmed with London under its +altered aspect. All this gaiety and splendour, this movement and brightness, +astonished and dazzled her. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I am very shallow-minded,” she told Denzil when he asked her +opinion of London. “It seems an enchanted place, and I can scarcely believe it +is the same dreadful city I saw a few months ago, when the dead were lying in +the streets. Oh, how clearly it comes back to me—those empty streets, the smoke +of the fires, the wretched ragged creatures begging for bread! I looked down a +narrow court, and saw a corpse lying there, and a child wailing over it; and a +little way farther on a woman flung up a window, and screamed out, ‘Dead, dead! +The last of my children is dead! Has God no relenting mercy?’” +</p> + +<p> +“It is curious,” said Hyacinth, “how little the town seems changed after all +those horrors. I miss nobody I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, madam,” said Denzil, “there have only died one hundred and sixty thousand +people, mostly of the lower classes; or at least that is the record of the +bills; but I am told the mortality has been twice as much, for people have had +a secret way of dying and burying their dead. If your ladyship could have heard +the account that Mr. Milton gave me this morning of the sufferings he saw +before he left London, you would not think the visitation a light one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder you consort with such a rebellious subject as Mr. Milton,” said +Hyacinth. “A creature of Cromwell’s, who wrote with hideous malevolence and +disrespect of the murdered King, who was in hiding for ever so long after his +Majesty’s return, and who now escapes a prison only by the royal clemency.” +</p> + +<p> +“The King lacks only that culminating distinction of having persecuted the +greatest poet of the age in order to stand equal to the bigots who murdered +Giordano Bruno,” said Denzil. +</p> + +<p> +“The greatest poet! Sure you would not compare Milton with Waller?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I would not, Lady Fareham.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor with Cowley, nor Denham—dear cracked-brained Denham?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor with Denham. To my fancy he stands as high above them as the pole-star +over your ladyship’s garden lamps.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pamphleteer who has scribbled schoolboy Latin verses, and a few short poems; +and, let me see, a masque—yes, a masque that he wrote for Lord Bridgewater’s +children before the troubles. I have heard my father talk of it. I think he +called the thing <i>Comus</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“A name that will live, Lady Fareham, when Waller and Denham are shadows, +remembered only for an occasional couplet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but who cares what people will think two or three hundred years hence? +Waller’s verses please us now. The people who come after me can please +themselves, and may read <i>Comus</i> to their hearts’ content. I know his +lordship reads Milton, as he does Shakespeare, and all the cramped old +play-wrights of Elizabeth’s time. Henri, sing us that song of Waller’s, ‘Go, +lovely rose.’ I would give all Mr. Milton has written for that perfection.” +</p> + +<p> +They were sitting on the terrace above the river in the golden light of an +afternoon that was fair and warm as May, though by the calendar ’twas March. +The capricious climate had changed from austere winter to smiling spring. +Skylarks were singing over the fields at Hampstead, and over the plague-pits at +Islington, and all London was rejoicing in blue skies and sunshine. Trade was +awakening from a death-like sleep. The theatres were closed; but there were +plays acted now and then at Court. The New and the Middle Exchange were alive +with beribboned fops and painted belles. +</p> + +<p> +It was Lady Fareham’s visiting-day. The tall windows of her saloon were open to +the terrace, French windows that reached from ceiling to floor, like those at +the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and which Hyacinth had substituted for the small +Jacobean casements, when she took possession of her husband’s ancestral +mansion. Saloon and terrace were one on a balmy afternoon like this; and her +ladyship’s guests wandered in and out at their pleasure. Her lackeys, handing +chocolate and cakes on silver or gold salvers, were so many as to seem +ubiquitous; and in the saloon, presided over by Angela, there was a still +choicer refreshment to be obtained at a tea-table, where tiny cups of the new +China drink were dispensed to those who cared for exotic novelties. +</p> + +<p> +“Prythee, take your guitar and sing to us, were it but to change the +conversation,” cried Hyacinth; and De Malfort took up his guitar and began, in +the sweetest of tenors, “Go, lovely rose.” +</p> + +<p> +He had all her ladyship’s visitors, chiefly feminine, round him before he had +finished the first verse. That gift of song, that exquisite touch upon the +Spanish guitar, were irresistible. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Fareham landed at the lower flight of steps as the song ended, and came +slowly along the terrace, saluting his wife’s friends with a grave courtesy. He +brought an atmosphere of silence and restraint with him, it seemed to some of +his wife’s visitors, for the babble that usually follows the end of a song was +wanting. +</p> + +<p> +Most of Lady Fareham’s friends affected literature, and professed familiarity +with two books which had caught the public taste on opposite sides of the +Channel. In London people quoted Butler, and vowed there was no wit so racy as +the wit in “Hudibras.” In Paris the cultured were all striving to talk like +Rochefoucauld’s “Maxims,” which had lately delighted the Gallic mind by the +frank cynicism that drew everybody’s attention to somebody else’s failings. +</p> + +<p> +“Himself the vainest of men, ’tis scarce wonderful that he takes vanity to be +the mainspring that moves the human species,” said De Malfort, when some one +had found fault with the Duke’s analysis. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, now we shall hear nothing but stale Rochefoucauldisms, sneers at love and +friendship, disparagement of our ill-used sex! Where has my grave husband been, +I wonder?” said Hyacinth. “Upon my honour, Fareham, your brow looks as sombre +as if it were burdened with the care of the nation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been with one who has to carry the greater part of that burden, my +lady, and my spirits may have caught some touch of his uneasiness.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been prosing with that pragmatical personage at Dunkirk—nay, I beg +the Lord Chancellor’s pardon, Clarendon House. Are not his marbles and +tapestries much finer than ours? And yet he began life as a sneaking lawyer, +the younger son of a small Wiltshire squire——” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Fareham, you allow your tongue too much licence——” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I speak but the common feeling. Everybody is tired of a Minister who is a +hundred years behind the age. He should have lived under Elizabeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty woman should never talk politics, Hyacinth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of what else can I talk when the theatres are closed, and you deny me the +privilege of seeing the last comedy performed at Whitehall? Is it not rank +tyranny in his lordship, Lady Sarah?” turning to one of her intimates, a lady +who had been a beauty at the court of Henrietta Maria in the beginning of the +troubles, and who from old habit still thought herself lovely and beloved. “I +appeal to your ladyship’s common sense. Is it not monstrous to deprive me of +the only real diversion in the town? I was not allowed to enter a theatre at +all last year, except when his favourite Shakespeare or Fletcher was acted, and +that was but a dozen times, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hang Shakespeare!” cried a gentleman whose periwig occupied nearly as much +space against the blue of a vernal sky as all the rest of his dapper little +person. “Gud, my lord, it is vastly old-fashioned in your lordship to taste +Shakespeare!” protested Sir Ralph Masaroon, shaking a cloud of pulvilio out of +his cataract of curls. “There was a pretty enough play concocted t’other day +out of two of his—a tragedy and comedy—<i>Measure for Measure</i> and <i>Much +Ado about Nothing</i>, the interstices filled in with the utmost ingenuity. But +Shakespeare unadulterated—faugh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a fantastical person, perhaps, Sir Ralph; but I would rather my wife saw +ten of Shakespeare’s plays—in spite of their occasional coarseness—than one of +your modern comedies.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should revolt against such tyranny,” said Lady Sarah. “I have always +appreciated Shakespeare, but I adore a witty comedy, and I never allowed my +husband to dictate to me on a question of taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“Plays which her Majesty patronises can scarcely be unfit entertainment for her +subjects,” remarked another lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Our Portuguese Queen is an excellent judge of the niceties of our language,” +said Fareham. “I question if she understands five sentences in as many acts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor should <i>I</i> understand anything low or vulgar,” said Hyacinth. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, madam, you are best at home, for the whole entertainment would be Hebrew +to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That cannot be,” protested Lady Sarah; “for all our plays are written by +gentlemen. The hack writers of King James’s time have been shoved aside. It is +the mark of a man of quality to write a comedy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a pity that fine gentlemen should write foul jests. Nay, it is a subject +I can scarce speak of with patience, when I remember what the English stage has +been, and hear what it is; when I recall what Lord Clarendon has told me of his +Majesty’s father, for whom Shakespeare was a closet companion, who loved all +that was noblest in the drama of the Elizabethan age. Time, which should have +refined and improved the stage, has sunk it in ignominy. We stand alone among +nations in our worship of the obscene. You have seen plays enough in Paris, +Hyacinth. Recall the themes that pleased you at the Marais and the Hôtel de +Bourgogne; the stories of classic heroism, of Christian fortitude, of manhood +and womanhood lifted to the sublime. You who, in your girlhood, were familiar +with the austere genius of Corneille——” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sick of that Frenchman’s name,” interjected Lady Sarah. “St. Évremond was +always praising him, and had the audacity to pronounce him superior to Dryden; +to compare <i>Cinna</i> with the <i>Indian Queen</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“A comparison which makes one sorry for Mr. Dryden,” said Fareham. “I have +heard that Condé, when a young man, was affected to tears at the scene between +Augustus and his foe.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must have been very young,” said Lady Fareham. “But I am not going to +depreciate Corneille, or to pretend that the French theatre is not vastly +superior to our own. I would only protest that if our laughter-loving King +prefers farce to tragedy, and rhyme to blankverse, his subjects should +accommodate themselves to his taste, and enjoy the plays he likes. It is a +foolish prejudice that deprives me of such a pleasure. I could always go in a +mask.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you put a mask upon your mind, and preserve that unstained in an +atmosphere of corruption? Indeed, your ladyship does not know what you are +asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiest subjects +are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolish or lascivious +in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, which makes a young and +beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting the extreme of masculine +profligacy with the extreme of feminine silliness. Will you encourage by your +presence the wretches who libel your sex? Will you sit smiling to see your +sisters in the pillory of satire?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no such women among my friends——” +</p> + +<p> +“And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more pungent,” said Lady Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +“An enemy! The man who can so write of women is your worst enemy. The day will +come, perhaps, long after we are dust, when the women in <i>Epsom Wells</i> +will be thought pictures from life. ‘Such an one,’ people will say, as they +stand to read your epitaph, ‘was this Lady Sarah, whose virtues are recorded +here in Latin superlatives. We know her better in the pages of Shadwell.’” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah paled under her rouge at that image of a tomb, as Fareham’s falcon +eye singled her out in the light-hearted group of which De Malfort was the +central figure, sitting on the marble balustrade, in an easy impertinent +attitude, swinging his legs, and dandling his guitar. She was less concerned at +the thought of what posterity might say of her morals than at the idea that she +must inevitably die. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word against Shad,” protested Sir Ralph. “I have roared with laughter at +his last play. Never did any one so hit the follies of town and country. His +rural Put is perfection; his London rook is to the very life.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if the generality of his female characters conduct themselves badly there +is always one heroine of irreproachable morals,” said Lady Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +“Who talks like a moral dragoon,” said Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dem, we must have the play-houses!” cried Masaroon. “Consider how dull +town is without them. They are the only assemblies that please quality and +riffraff alike. Sure ’tis the nature of wit to bubble into licentiousness, as +champagne foams over the rim of a glass; and, after all, who listens to the +play? Half the time one is talking to some adventurous miss, who will swallow a +compliment from a stranger if he offer it with a china orange. Or, perhaps, +there is quarrelling; and all our eyes and ears are on the scufflers. One may +ogle a pretty actress on the stage; but who listens to the play, except the +cits and commonalty?” +</p> + +<p> +“And even they are more eyes than ears,” said Lady Sarah, “and are gazing at +the King and Queen, or the Duke and Duchess, when they should be ‘following an +intrigue by Shadwell or Dryden.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardieu!” exclaimed De Malfort, “there are tragedies and comedies in the boxes +deeper and more human than anything that is acted on the stage. To watch the +Queen, sitting silent and melancholy, while Madame Barbara lolls across half a +dozen people to talk to his Majesty, dazzling him with her brilliant eyes, +bewildering him by her daring speech. Or, on other nights to see the same lady +out of favour, sitting apart, with an ivory shoulder turned towards Royalty, +scowling at the audience like a thunder-cloud.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is but natural, perhaps, that such a Court should inspire such a +stage,” returned Fareham, “and that for the heroic drama of Beaumont and +Fletcher, Webster, Massinger, and Ford, we should have a gross caricature of +our own follies and our own vices. Nay, so essential is foulness to the modern +stage that when the manager ventures a serious play, he takes care to introduce +it with some filthy prologue, and to spice the finish with a filthier +epilogue.” +</p> + +<p> +“Zounds, Fareham!” cried Masaroon, “when one has yawned or slept through five +acts of dull heroics, one needs to be stung into wakefulness by a high-spiced +epilogue. For my taste your epilogue can’t be too pungent to give a flavour to +my oysters and Rhenish. Gud, my lord, we must have something to talk about when +we leave the play-house!” +</p> + +<p> +“His lordship is spoilt; we are all spoilt for London after having lived in the +most exquisite city in the world,” drawled Mrs. Danville, one of Lady Fareham’s +particular friends, who had been educated at the Visitandines with the Princess +Henrietta, now Duchess of Orleans. “Who can tolerate the coarse manners and +sea-coal fires of London after the smokeless skies and exquisite courtesies of +Parisian good company in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre—a society so refined that +a fault in grammar shocks as much as a slit nose at Charing Cross? I shudder +when I recall the Saturdays in the Rue du Temple, and compare the conversations +there, the play of wit and fancy, the elaborate arguments upon platonic love, +the graceful raillery, with any assembly in London—except yours, Hyacinth. At +Fareham House we breathe a finer air, although his lordship’s esprit moqueur +will not allow us any superiority to the coarse English mob.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, Mrs. Danville, even your prejudice cannot deny London fine gentlemen +and wits,” remonstrated Sir Ralph. “A court that can boast a Buckhurst, a +Rochester, an Etherege, a Sedley——” +</p> + +<p> +“There is not one of them can compare with Voiture or Godeau, with Bussy or St. +Évremond, still less with Scarron or Molière,” said De Malfort. “I have heard +more wit in one evening at Scarron’s than in a week at Whitehall. Wit in France +has its basis in thought and erudition. Here it is the sparkle and froth of +empty minds, a trick of speech, a knack of saying brutal things under a +pretence of humour, varnishing real impertinence with mock wit. I have heard +Rowley laugh at insolences which, addressed to Louis, would have ensured the +speaker a year in the Bastille.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would not exchange our easy-tempered King for your graceful despot,” said +Fareham. “Pride is the mainspring that moves Louis’ self-absorbed soul. His +mother instilled it into his mind almost before he could speak. He was bred in +the belief that he has no more parallel or fellow than the sun which he has +chosen for his emblem. And then, for moral worth, he is little better than his +cousin, Louis has all Charles’s elegant vices, plus tyranny.” +</p> + +<p> +“Louis is every inch a King. Your easy-tempered gentleman at Whitehall is only +a tradition,” answered De Malfort. “He is but an extravagantly paid official, +whose office is a sinecure, and who sells something of his prerogative every +session for a new grant of money. I dare adventure, by the end of his reign, +Charles will have done more than Cromwell to increase the liberty of the +subject and to demonstrate the insignificance of kings.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt the easy-tempered sinecurist who trusts the business of the State to +the nation’s representatives will wear longer than your officious tyrant, who +wants to hold all the strings in his own fingers.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may do that safely, so long as he has men like Colbert for puppets——” +</p> + +<p> +“Men!” cried Fareham. “A man of so rare an honesty must not be thought of in +the plural. Colbert’s talent, probity, and honour constitute a phoenix that +appears once in a century; and, given those rare qualities in the man, it needs +a Richelieu to inspire the minister, and a Mazarin to teach him his craft, and +to prepare him for double-dealing in others which his own direct mind could +never have imagined. Trained first by one of the greatest, and next by one of +the subtlest statesmen the world has ever seen, the provincial woollen-draper’s +son has all the qualities needed to raise France to the pinnacle of fortune, if +his master will but give him a free hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate, he will make Jacques Bonhomme pay handsomely for his Majesty’s +new palaces and new loves,” said De Malfort. “Colbert adores the King, and is +blind to his follies, which are no more economical than the vulgar pleasures of +your jovial Rowley.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who takes four shillings in every country gentleman’s pound to spend on the +pleasures of London,” interjected Masaroon. “Royalty is plaguey expensive.” +</p> + +<p> +The company sighed a melancholy assent. +</p> + +<p> +“And one can never tell whether the money they squeeze out of us goes to build +a new ship, or to pay Lady Castlemaine’s gambling debts,” said Lady Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no doubt the lady, as Hyde calls her, has her tithes,” said De Malfort. “I +have observed she always flames in new jewels after a subsidy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Royal accounts should be kept so that every tax-payer could look into them,” +said Masaroon. “The King has spent millions. We were all so foolishly fond of +him in the joyful day of his restoration that we allowed him to wallow in +extravagance, and asked no questions; and for a man who had worn threadbare +velvet and tarnished gold, and lived upon loans and gratuities from foreign +princes and particulars, it was a new sensation to draw <i>ad libitum</i> upon +a national exchequer.” +</p> + +<p> +“The exchequer Rowley draws upon should be as deep and wide as the river +Pactolus; for he is a spendthrift by instinct,” said Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet his largest expenditure can hardly equal his cousin’s drain upon the +revenue. Mansart is spending millions on Versailles, with his bastard Italian +architecture, his bloated garlands and festoons, his stone lilies and +pomegranates. Charles builds no palaces, initiates no war——” +</p> + +<p> +“And will leave neither palace nor monument; will have lived only to have +diminished the dignity and importance of his country. Restored to kingdom and +power as if by a miracle, he makes it his chief business to show Englishmen how +well they could have done without him,” said Denzil Warner, who had been +hanging over Angela’s tea-table until just now, when they both sauntered on to +the terrace, the lady’s office being fulfilled, the little Chinese teapot +emptied of its costly contents, and the tiny tea-cups distributed among the +modish few who relished, or pretended to relish, the new drink. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a Republican, Sir Denzil, fostered by an arrant demagogue!” exclaimed +Masaroon, with a contemptuous shake of his shoulder ribbons. “You hate the King +because he is a King.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, I despise him because he is so much less than a King. Nobody could +hate Charles the Second. He is not big enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dem, we want no meddlesome Kings to quarrel with their neighbours, and set +Europe by the ears! The treaty of the Pyrenees may be a fine thing for France; +but how many noble gentlemen’s lives it cost, to say nothing of the common +people! Rowley is the finest gentleman in his kingdom, and the most +good-natured. Eh, gud, sirs! what more would you have?” +</p> + +<p> +“A MAN—like Henry the Fifth, or Oliver Cromwell, or Elizabeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, she had need possess the manly virtues, for she must have been an +untowardly female—a sour, lantern-jawed spinster, with all the inclinations but +none of the qualities of a coquette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Greatness has the privilege of small failings, or it would scarce be human. +Elizabeth and Julius Caesar might be excused some harmless vanities.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The spring evenings were now mild enough for promenading St. James’s Park, and +the Mall was crowded night after night by the finest company in London. +Hyacinth walked in the Mall, and appeared occasionally in her coach in Hyde +Park; but she repeatedly reminded her friends how inferior was the mill-round +of the Ring to the procession of open carriages along the Cours la Reine, by +the side of the Seine; the splendour of the women’s dress, outshone sometimes +by the extravagant decoration of their coaches and the richness of their +liveries; the crowds of horsemen, the finest gentlemen in France, riding at the +coach doors, and bandying jests and compliments with Beauty, enthroned in her +triumphal chariot. Gay, joyous sunsets; light laughter; delicate feasting in +Renard’s garden, hard by the Tuileries. To remember that fairer and different +scene was to recall the freshness of youth, the romance of a first love. +</p> + +<p> +Here in the Mall there was gaiety enough and to spare. A crowd of fine people +that sometimes thickened to a mob, hustled by the cits and starveling poets who +came to stare at them. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, since St. James’s Park was fashion’s favourite promenade, Lady Fareham +affected it, and took a turn or two nearly every evening, alighting from her +chair at one gate and returning to it at another, on her way to rout or dance. +She took Angela with her; and De Malfort and Sir Denzil were generally in +attendance upon them, Denzil’s devotion stopping at nothing except a proposal +of marriage, for which he had not mustered courage in a friendship that had +lasted half a year. +</p> + +<p> +“Because there was one so favoured as Endymion, am I to hope for the moon to +come down and give herself to me?” he said one day, when Lady Fareham rebuked +him for his reticence. “I know your sister does not love me; yet I hang on, +hoping that love will come suddenly, like the coming of spring, which is ever a +surprise. And even if I am never to win her, it is happiness to see her and to +talk with her. I will not spoil my chance by rashness; I will not hazard +banishment from her dear company.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is lucky in such an admirer,” sighed Hyacinth. “A silent, respectful +passion is the rarest thing nowadays. Well, you deserve to conquer, Denzil; and +if my sister were not of the coldest nature I ever met in woman she would have +returned your passion ages ago, when you were so much in her company at +Chilton.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can afford to wait as long as the Greeks waited before Troy,” said Denzil; +“and I will be as constant as they were. If I cannot be her lover I can be her +friend, and her protector.” +</p> + +<p> +“Protector! Nay, surely she needs no protector out-of-doors, when she has +Fareham and me within!” +</p> + +<p> +“Beauty has always need of defenders.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not such beauty as Angela’s. In the first place, her charms are of no dazzling +order; and in the second, she has a coldness of temper and an old-fashioned +wisdom which would safeguard her amidst the rabble rout of Comus.” +</p> + +<p> +“There I believe you are right, Lady Fareham. Temptation could not touch her. +Sin, even the subtlest, could not so disguise itself that her purity would not +take alarm. Yes; she is like Milton’s lady. The tempter could not touch the +freedom of her mind. Sinful love would wither at a look from those pure eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned away suddenly and walked to the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Denzil! Why, what is the matter? You are weeping!” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me!” he said, recovering himself. “Indeed, I am not ashamed of a +tributary tear to virtue and beauty like your sister’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear friend, I shall not be happy till I call you brother.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him both her hands, and he bent down to kiss them. +</p> + +<p> +“I swear you are losing all your Anabaptist stiffness,” she said, laughingly. +“You will be ruffling it in Covent Garden with Buckhurst and his crew before +long.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT.</h2> + +<p> +One of Angela’s letters to her convent companion, the chosen friend and +confidante of childhood and girlhood, Léonie de Ville, now married to the Baron +de Beaulieu, and established in a fine house in the Place Royale, will best +depict her life and thoughts and feelings during her first London season. +</p> + +<p> +“You tell me, chère, that this London, which I have painted in somewhat +brilliant colours, must be a poor place compared with your exquisite city; but, +indeed, despite all you say of the Cours la Reine, and your splendour of gilded +coaches, fine ladies, and noble gentlemen, who ride at your coach windows, +talking to you as they rein in their spirited horses, I cannot think that your +fashionable promenade can so much surpass our Ring in Hyde Park, where the +Court airs itself daily in the new glass coaches, or outvie for gaiety our Mall +in St. James’s Park, where all the world of beauty and wit is to be met walking +up and down in the gayest, easiest way, everybody familiar and acquainted, with +the exception of a few women in masks, who are never to be spoken to or spoken +about. Indeed, my sister and I have acquired the art of appearing neither to +see nor to hear objectionable company, and pass close beside fine flaunting +masks, rub shoulders with them even—and all as if we saw them not. It is for +this that Lord Fareham hates London. Here, he says, vice takes the highest +place, and flaunts in the sun, while virtue blushes, and steals by with averted +head. But though I wonder at this Court of Whitehall, and the wicked woman who +reigns empress there, and the neglected Queen, and the ladies of honour, whose +bad conduct is on every one’s lips, I wonder more at the people and the life +you describe at the Louvre, and St. Germain, and Fontainebleau, and your new +palace of Versailles. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, Léonie, the world must be in a strange way when vice can put on all +the grace and dignity of virtue, and hold an honourable place among good and +noble women. My sister says that Madame de Montausier is a woman of stainless +character, and her husband the proudest of men; yet you tell me that both +husband and wife are full of kindness and favours for that unhappy Mlle. de la +Vallière, whose position at Court is an open insult to your Queen. Have Queens +often been so unhappy, I wonder, as her Majesty here, and your own royal +mistress? One at least was not. The martyred King was of all husbands the most +constant and affectionate, and, in the opinion of many, lost his kingdom +chiefly through his fatal indulgence of Queen Henrietta’s caprices, and his +willingness to be governed by her opinions in circumstances of difficulty, +where only the wisest heads in the land should have counselled him. But how I +am wandering from my defence of this beautiful city against your assertion of +its inferiority! I hope, chère, that you will cross the sea some day, and allow +my sister to lodge you in this house where I write; and when you look out upon +our delightful river, with its gay traffic of boats and barges passing to and +fro, and its palaces, rising from gardens and Italian terraces on either side +of the stream; when you see our ancient cathedral of St. Paul; and the Abbey of +St. Peter, lying a little back from the water, grand and ancient, and somewhat +gloomy in its massive bulk; and eastward, the old fortress-prison, with its +four towers; and the ships lying in the Pool; and fertile Bermondsey with its +gardens; and all the beauty of verdant shores and citizens’ houses between the +bridge and Greenwich, you will own that London and its adjacent villages can +compare favourably with any metropolis in the world. +</p> + +<p> +“The only complaint one hears is of its rapid growth, which is fast encroaching +upon the pleasant fields and rustic lanes behind the Lambs Conduit and +Southampton House; and on the western side spreading so rapidly that there will +soon be no country left between London and Knightsbridge. +</p> + +<p> +“How I wish thou couldst see our river-terrace on my sister’s visiting-day, +when De Malfort is lolling on the marble balustrade, singing one of your +favourite chansons to the guitar which he touches so exquisitely, and when +Hyacinth’s fine lady friends and foppish admirers are sitting about in the +sunshine! Thou wouldst confess that even Renard’s garden can show no gayer +scene. +</p> + +<p> +“It was only last Tuesday that I had the opportunity of seeing more of the city +than I had seen previously—and at its best advantage, as seen from the river. +Mr. Evelyn, of Sayes Court, had invited my sister and her husband to visit his +house and gardens. He is a great gardener and arboriculturist, as you may have +heard, for he has travelled much on the Continent, and acquired a world-wide +reputation for his knowledge of trees and flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“We were all invited—the Farehams, and my niece Henriette; and even I, whom Mr. +Evelyn had seen but once, was included in the invitation. We were to travel by +water, in his lordship’s barge, and Mr. Evelyn’s coach was to meet us at a +landing-place not far from his house. We were to start in the morning, dine +with him, and return to Fareham House before dark. Henriette was enchanted, and +I found her at prayers on Monday night praying St. Swithin, whom she believes +to have care of the weather, to allow no rain on Tuesday. +</p> + +<p> +“She looked so pretty next morning, dressed for the journey, in a light blue +cloth cloak embroidered with silver, and a hood of the same; but she brought me +bad news—my sister had a feverish headache, and begged us to go without her. I +went to Hyacinth’s room to try to persuade her to go with us, in the hope that +the fresh air along the river would cure her headache; but she had been at a +dance overnight, and was tired, and would do nothing but rest in a dark room +all day—at least, that was her resolve in the morning; but later she remembered +that it was Lady Lucretia Topham’s visiting-day, and, feeling better, ordered +her chair and went off to Bloomsbury Square, where she met all the wits, full +of a new play which had been acted at Whitehall, the public theatres being +still closed on account of the late contagion. +</p> + +<p> +“They do not act their plays here as often as Molière is acted at the Hôtel de +Bourgogne. The town is constant in nothing but wanting perpetual variety, and +the stir and bustle of a new play, which gives something for the wits to +dispute about. I think we must have three play-wrights to one of yours; but I +doubt if there is wit enough in a dozen of our writers to equal your Molière, +whose last comedy seems to surpass all that has gone before. His lordship had a +copy from Paris last week, and read the play to us in the evening. He has no +accent, and reads French beautifully, with spirit and fire, and in the +passionate scenes his great deep voice has a fine effect. +</p> + +<p> +“We left Fareham House at nine o’clock on a lovely morning, worthy this month +of May. The lessening of fires in the city since the warmer weather has freed +our skies from sea-coal smoke, and the sky last Tuesday was bluer than the +river. +</p> + +<p> +“The cream-coloured and gold barge, with twelve rowers in the Fareham green +velvet liveries, would have pleased your eyes, which have ever loved splendour; +but you might have thought the master of this splendid barge too sombre in +dress and aspect to become a scene which recalled Cleopatra’s galley. To me +there is much that is interesting in that severe and serious face, with its +olive complexion and dark eyes, shadowed by the strong, thoughtful brow. People +who knew Lord Strafford say that my brother-in-law has a look of that great, +unfortunate man—sacrificed to stem the rising flood of rebellion, and +sacrificed in vain. Fareham is his kinsman on the mother’s side, and may have +perhaps something of his powerful mind, together with the rugged grandeur of +his features and the bent carriage of his shoulders, which some one the other +day called the Strafford stoop. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been reading some of Lord Strafford’s letters, and the account of his +trial. Indeed he was an ill-used man, and the victim of private hatred—from the +Vanes and others—as much as of public faction. His trial and condemnation were +scarce less unfair—though the form and tribunal may have been legal—than his +master’s, and indeed did but forecast that most unwarrantable judgment. Is it +not strange, Léonie, to consider how much of tragical history you and I have +lived through that are yet so young? But to me it is strangest of all to see +the people in this city, who abandon themselves as freely to a life of idle +pleasures and sinful folly—at least, the majority of them—as if England had +never seen the tragedy of the late monarch’s murder, or been visited by death +in his most horrible aspect, only the year last past. My sister tells every +one, smiling, that she misses no one from the circle of her friends. She never +saw the red cross on almost every door, the coffins, and the uncoffined dead, +as I saw them one stifling summer day, nor heard the shrieks of the mourners in +houses where death was master. Nor does she suspect how near she was to missing +her husband, who was hanging between life and death when I found him, forsaken +and alone. He never talks to me of those days of sickness and slow recovery; +yet I think the memory of them must be in his mind as it is in mine, and that +this serves as a link to draw us nearer than many a real brother and sister. I +am sending you a little picture which I made of him from memory, for he has one +of those striking faces that paint themselves easily upon the mind. Tell me how +you, who are clever at reading faces, interpret this one. +</p> + +<p> +“Hélas, how I wander from our excursion! My pen winds like the river which +carried us to Deptford. Pardon, chèrie, sije m’oublie trop; mais c’est si doux +de causer avec une amie d’enfance. +</p> + +<p> +“At the Tower stairs we stopped to take on board a gentleman in a very fine +peach-blossom suit, and with a huge periwig, at which Papillon began to laugh, +and had to be chid somewhat harshly. He was a very civil-spoken, friendly +person, and he brought with him a lad carrying a viol. He is an officer of the +Admiralty, called Pepys, and, Fareham tells me, a useful, indefatigable person. +My sister met him at Clarendon House two years ago, and wrote to me about him +somewhat scornfully; but my brother respects him as shrewd and capable, and +more honest than such persons usually are. We were to fetch him to Sayes Court, +where he also was invited by Mr. Evelyn; and in talking to Henriette and me, he +expressed great regret that his wife had not been included, and he paid my +niece compliments upon her grace and beauty which I could but think very +fulsome and showing want of judgment in addressing a child. And then, seeing me +vexed, he hoped I was not jealous; at which I could hardly command my anger, +and rose in a huff and left him. But he was a person not easy to keep at a +distance, and was following me to the prow of the boat, when Fareham took hold +of him by his cannon sleeve and led him to a seat, where he kept him talking of +the navy and the great ships now a-building to replace those that have been +lost in the Dutch War. +</p> + +<p> +“When we had passed the Pool, and the busy trading ships, and all the noise of +sailors and labourers shipping or unloading cargo, and the traffic of small +boats hastening to and fro, and were out on a broad reach of the river with the +green country on either side, the lad tuned his viol, and played a pretty, +pensive air, and he and Mr. Pepys sang some verses by Herrick, one of our +favourite English poets, set for two voices— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,<br/> + Old Time still is a-flying;<br/> +And this same flower that smiles to-day,<br/> + To-morrow will be dying.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The boy had a voice like Mere Ursule’s lovely soprano, and Mr. Pepys a pretty +tenor; and you can imagine nothing more silvery sweet than the union of the two +voices to the staccato notes of the viol, dropping in here and there like music +whispered. The setting was Mr. Pepys’ own, and he seemed overcome with pride +when we praised it. When the song was over, Fareham came to the bench where +Papillon and I were sitting, and asked me what I thought of this fine Admiralty +gentleman, whereupon I confessed I liked the song better than the singer, who +at that moment was strutting on the deck like a peacock, looking at every +vessel we passed as if he were Neptune, and could sink navies with a nod. +</p> + +<p> +“Misericorde! how my letter grows! But I love to prattle to you. My sister is +all goodness to me; but she has her ideas and I have mine; and though I love +her none the less because our fancies pull us in opposite directions, I cannot +talk to her as I can write to you; and if I plague you with too much of my own +history you must not fear to tell me so. Yet if I dare judge by my own +feelings, who am never weary of your letters—nay, can never hear enough of your +thoughts and doings—I think you will bear with my expatiations, and not deem +them too impertinent. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Evelyn’s coach was waiting at the landing-stage; and that good gentleman +received us at his hall door. He is not young, and has gone through much +affliction in the loss of his dear children—one, who died of a fever during +that wicked reign of the Usurper Cromwell, was a boy of gifts and capacities +that seemed almost miraculous, and had more scholarship at five years old than +my poor woman’s mind could compass were I to live till fifty. Mr. Evelyn took a +kind of sad delight in talking to Henriette and me of this gifted child, asking +her what she knew of this and that subject, and comparing her extensive +ignorance at eleven with his lamented son’s vast knowledge at five. I was more +sorry for him than I dared to say; for I could but think this dear overtaught +child might have died from a perpetual fever of the brain as likely as from a +four days’ fever of the body; and afterwards when Mr. Evelyn talked to us of a +manner of forcing fruits to grow in strange shapes—a process in which he was +greatly interested—I thought that this dear infant’s mind had been constrained +and directed, like the fruits, into a form unnatural to childhood. Picture to +yourself, Léonie, at an age when he should have been chasing butterflies or +making himself a garden of cut-flowers stuck in the ground, this child was +labouring over Greek and Latin, and all his dreams must have been filled with +the toilsome perplexities of his daily tasks. It is happy for the bereaved +father that he takes a different view, and that his pride in the child’s +learning is even greater than his grief at having lost him. +</p> + +<p> +“At dinner the conversation was chiefly of public affairs—the navy, the war, +the King, the Duke, and the General. Mr. Evelyn told Fareham much of his +embarrassments last year, when he had the Dutch prisoners, and the sick and +wounded from the fleet, in his charge; and when there was so terrible a +scarcity of provision for these poor wretches that he was constrained to draw +largely on his own private means in order to keep them from starving. +</p> + +<p> +“Later, during the long dinner, Mr. Pepys made allusions to an unhappy passion +of his master and patron, Lord Sandwich, that had diverted his mind from public +business, and was likely to bring him to disgrace. Nothing was said plainly +about this matter, but rather in hints and innuendoes, and my brother’s brow +darkened as the conversation went on; and then, at last, after sitting silent +for some time while Mr. Evelyn and Mr. Pepys conversed, he broke up their +discourse in a rough, abrupt way he has when greatly moved. +</p> + +<p> +“‘He is a wretch—a guilty wretch—to love where he should not, to hazard the +world’s esteem, to grieve his wife, and to dishonour his name! And yet, I +wonder, is he happier in his sinful indulgence than if he had played a Roman +part, or, like the Spartan lad we read of, had let the wild-beast passion gnaw +his heart out, and yet made no sign? To suffer and die, that is virtue, I take +it, Mr. Evelyn; and you Christian sages assure us that virtue is happiness. A +strange kind of happiness!’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Christian’s law is a law of sacrifice,’ Mr. Evelyn said, in his +melancholic way. ‘The harvest of surrender here is to be garnered in a better +world.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘But if Sandwich does not believe in the everlasting joys of the heavenly +Jerusalem—and prefers to anticipate his harvest of joy!’ said Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Then he is the more to be pitied,’ interrupted Mr. Evelyn. +</p> + +<p> +“‘He is as God made him. Nothing can come out of a man but what his Maker put +in him. Your gold vase there will not turn vicious and produce copper—nor can +all your alchemy turn copper to gold. There are some of us who believe that a +man can live only once, and love only once, and be happy only once in that +pitiful span of infirmities which we call life; and that he is wisest who +gathers his roses while he may—as Mr. Pepys sang to us this morning.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Evelyn sighed, and looked at my brother with mild reproof. +</p> + +<p> +“‘If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most +miserable,’ he said. ‘My lord, when those you love people the Heavenly City, +you will begin to believe and hope as I do.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I have transcribed this conversation at full length, Léonie, because it gives +you the keynote to Fareham’s character, and accounts for much that is strange +in his conduct. Alas, that I must say it of so noble a man! He is an infidel! +Bred in our Church, he has faith neither in the Church nor in its Divine +Founder. His favourite books are metaphysical works by Descartes, Hobbes, +Spinoza. I have discovered him reading those pernicious writings whose chief +tendency is to make us question the most blessed truths our Church has taught +us, or to confuse the mind by leading us to doubt even of our own existence. I +was curious to know what there could be in books that so interested a man of +his intelligence, and asked to be allowed to read them; but the perusal only +served to make me unhappy. This daring attempt to reduce all the mysteries of +life to a simple sum in arithmetic, and to make God a mere attribute in the +mind of man, disturbed and depressed me. Indeed, there can be no more unhappy +moment in any life than that in which for the first time a terrible ‘if’ +flashes upon the mind. <i>If</i> God is not the God I have worshipped, and in +whose goodness I rest all my hopes of future bliss; <i>if</i> in the place of +an all-powerful Creator, who gave me my life and governs it, and will renew it +after the grave, there is nothing but a quality of my mind, which makes it +necessary to me to invent a Superior Being, and to worship the product of my +own imagination! Oh, Léonie, beware of these modern thinkers, who assail the +creed that has been the stronghold and comfort of humanity for sixteen hundred +years, and who employ the reason which God has given them to disprove the +existence of their Maker. Fareham insists that Spinoza is a religious man—and +has beautiful ideas about God; but I found only doubt and despair in his pages; +and I ascribe my poor brother’s melancholic disposition in some part to his +study of such philosophers. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what you would think of Fareham, did you see him daily and hourly, +almost, as I do. Would you like or dislike, admire or scorn him? I cannot tell. +His manners have none of the velvet softness which is the fashion in +London—where all the fine gentlemen shape themselves upon the Parisian model; +yet he is courteous, after his graver mode, to all women, and kind and +thoughtful of our happiness. To my sister he is all beneficence; and if he has +a fault it is over-much indulgence of her whims and extravagances—though +Hyacinth, poor soul, thinks him a tyrant because he forbids her some places of +amusement to which other women of quality resort freely. Were he my husband, I +should honour him for his desire to spare me all evil sounds and profligate +company; and so would Hyacinth, perhaps, had she leisure for reflection. But in +her London life, surrounded ever with a bevy of friends, moving like a star +amidst a galaxy of great ladies, there is little time for the free exercise of +a sound judgment, and she can but think as others bid her, who swear that her +husband is a despot. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Evelyn was absent from home on a visit; so after dinner Henriette and I, +having no hostess to entertain us, walked with our host, who showed us all the +curiosities and beauties of his garden, and condescended to instruct us upon +many interesting particulars relating to trees and flowers, and the methods of +cultivation pursued in various countries. His fig trees are as fine as those in +the convent garden at Louvain; and, indeed, walking with him in a long alley, +shut in by holly hedges of which he is especially proud, and with orchard trees +on either side, I was taken back in fancy to the old pathway along which you +and I have paced so often with Mother Agnes, talking of the time when we should +go out into the world. You have been more than three years in that world of +which you then knew so little, but it lacks still a quarter of one year since I +left that quiet and so monotonous life; and already I look back and wonder if I +ever really lived there. I cannot picture myself within those walls. I cannot +call back my own feelings or my own image at the time when I had never seen +London, when my sister was almost a stranger to me, and my sister’s husband +only a name. Yet a day of sorrow might come when I should be fain to find a +tranquil retreat in that sober place, and to spend my declining years in prayer +and meditation, as my dear aunt did spend nearly all her life. May God maintain +us in the true faith, sweet friend, so that we may ever have that sanctuary of +holy seclusion and prayer to fly to—and, oh, how deep should be our pity for a +soul like Fareham’s, which knows not the consolations nor the strength of +religion, for whom there is no armour against the arrows of death, no City of +Refuge in the day of mourning! +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed he is not happy. I question and perplex myself to find a reason for his +melancholy. He is rich in money and in powerful friends; has a wife whom all +the world admires; houses which might lodge Royalty. Perhaps it is because his +life has been over prosperous that he sickens of it, like one who flings away +from a banquet table, satiated by feasting. Life to him may be like the +weariness of our English dinners, where one mountain of food is carried away to +make room on the board for another; and where after people have sat eating and +drinking for over an hour comes a roasted swan, or a peacock, or some other +fantastical dish, which the company praise as a pretty surprise. Often, in the +midst of such a dinner, I recall our sparing meals in the convent; our soup +maigre and snow eggs, our cool salads and black bread—and regret that simple +food, while the reeking joints and hecatombs of fowl nauseate my senses. +</p> + +<p> +“It was late in the afternoon when we returned to the barge, for Mr. Pepys had +business to transact with our host, and spent an hour with him in his study, +signing papers, and looking at accounts, while Papillon and I roamed about the +garden with his lordship, conversing upon various subjects, and about Mr. +Evelyn, and his opinions and politics. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The good man has a pretty trivial taste that will keep him amused and happy +till he drops into the grave—but, lord! what insipid trash it all seems to the +heart on fire with passion!’ Fareham said in his impetuous way, as if he +despised Mr. Evelyn for taking pleasure in bagatelles. +</p> + +<p> +“The sun was setting as we passed Greenwich, and I thought of those who had +lived and made history in the old palace—Queen Elizabeth, so great, so lonely; +Shakespeare, whom his lordship honours; Bacon, said to be one of the wisest men +who have lived since the Seven of Greece; Raleigh, so brave, so adventurous, so +unhappy! Surely men and women must have been made of another stuff a century +ago; for what will those who come after us remember of the wits and beauties of +Whitehall, except that they lived and died? +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pepys was somewhat noisy on the evening voyage, and I was very glad when +he left the barge. He paid me ridiculous compliments mixed with scraps of +French and Spanish, and, finding his conversation distasteful, he insisted upon +attempting several songs—not one of which he was able to finish, and at last +began one which for some reason made his lordship angry, who gave him a cuff on +his head that scattered all the scented powder in his wig; on which, instead of +starting up furious to return the blow, as I feared to see him, Mr. Pepys gave +a little whimpering laugh, muttered something to the effect that his lordship +was vastly nice, and sank down in a corner of the cushioned seat, where he +almost instantly fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Henriette and I were spectators of this scene at some distance, I am glad to +say, for all the length of the barge divided us from the noisy singer. +</p> + +<p> +“The sun went down, and the stars stole out of the deep blue vault, and +trembled between us and those vast fields of heaven. Papillon watched their +reflection in the river, or looked at the houses along the shore, few and far +apart, where a solitary candle showed here and there. Fareham came and seated +himself near us, but talked little. We drew our cloaks closer, for the air was +cold, and Papillon nestled beside me and dropped asleep. Even the dipping of +the oars had a ghostly sound in the night stillness; and we seemed so +melancholy in this silence, and so far away from one another, that I could but +think of Charon’s boat laden with the souls of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Write to me soon, dearest, and as long a letter as I have written to you. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“À toi de cœur, <br/> +“A<small>NGELA</small>.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +THE MILLBANK GHOST.</h2> + +<p> +One of the greatest charms of London has ever been the facility of getting away +from it to some adjacent rustic or pseudo-rustic spot; and in 1666, though many +people declared that the city had outgrown all reason, and was eating up the +country, a two-mile journey would carry the Londoner from bricks and mortar to +rusticity, and while the tower of St Paul’s Cathedral was still within sight he +might lie on the grass on a wild hillside, and hear the skylark warbling in the +blue arch above him, and scent the hawthorn blowing in untrimmed hedge-rows. +And then there were the fashionable resorts—the gardens or the fields which the +town had marked as its own. Beauty and wit had their choice of such +meeting-grounds between Westminster and Barn Elms, where in the remote +solitudes along the river murder might be done in strict accordance with +etiquette, and was too seldom punished by law. +</p> + +<p> +Among the rendezvous of fashion there was one retired spot less widely known +than Fox Hall or the Mulberry Garden, but which possessed a certain repute, and +was affected rather by the exclusives than by the crowd. It was a dilapidated +building of immemorial age, known as the “haunted Abbey,” being, in fact, the +refectory of a Cistercian monastery, of which all other remains had disappeared +long ago. The Abbey had flourished in the lifetime of Sir Thomas More, and was +mentioned in some of his familiar epistles. The ruined building had been used +as a granary in the time of Charles the First; and it was only within the last +decade that it had been redeemed from that degraded use, and had been in some +measure restored and made habitable for the occupation of an old couple, who +owned the surrounding fields, and who had a small dairy farm from which they +sent fresh milk into London every morning. +</p> + +<p> +The ghostly repute of the place and the attraction of new milk, cheese cakes, +and syllabubs, had drawn a certain number of those satiated pleasure-seekers +who were ever on the alert for a new sensation, among whom there was none more +active or more noisy than Lady Sarah Tewkesbury. She had made the haunted Abbey +in a manner her own, had invited her friends to midnight parties to watch for +the ghost, and to morning parties to eat syllabubs and dance on the grass. She +had brought a shower of gold into the lap of the miserly freeholder, and had +husband and wife completely under her thumb. +</p> + +<p> +Doler, the husband, had fought in the civil war, and Mrs. Doler had been a cook +in the Fairfax household; but both had scrupulously sunk all Cromwellian +associations since his Majesty’s return, and in boasting, as he often did +boast, of having fought desperately and been left for dead at the battle of +Brentford, Mr. Doler had been careful to suppress the fact that he was a +hireling soldier of the Parliament. He would weep for the martyred King, and +tell the story of his own wounds, until it is possible he had forgotten which +side he had fought for, in remembering his personal prowess and sufferings. +</p> + +<p> +So far there had been disappointment as to the ghost. Sounds had been heard of +a most satisfying grimness, during those midnight and early morning watchings; +rappings, and scrapings, and scratching on the wall, groanings and meanings, +sighings and whisperings behind the wainscote; but nothing spectral had been +seen; and Mrs. Doler had been severely reprimanded by her patrons and +patronesses for the unwarrantable conduct of a spectre which she professed to +have seen as often as she had fingers and toes. +</p> + +<p> +It was the phantom of a nun—a woman of exceeding beauty, but white as the linen +which banded her cheek and brow. There was a dark story of violated oaths, +priestly sin, and the sleepless conscience of the dead, who could not rest even +in that dreadful grave where the sinner had been immured alive, but must needs +haunt the footsteps of the living, a wandering shade. Some there were who +disbelieved in the traditions of that living grave, and who even went so far as +to doubt the ghost; but the spectre had an established repute of more than a +century, was firmly believed in by all the children and old women of the +neighbourhood, and had been written about by students of the unseen. +</p> + +<p> +One of Lady Sarah’s parties took place at full moon, not long after the visit +to Deptford, and Lord Fareham’s barge was again employed, this time on a +nocturnal expedition up the river to the fields near the haunted Abbey, to +carry Hyacinth, her sister, De Malfort, Lord Rochester, Sir Ralph Masaroon, Sir +Denzil Warner, and a bevy of wits and beauties—beauties who had, some of them, +been carrying on the beauty-business and trading in eyes and complexion for +more than one decade, and who loved that night season when paint might be laid +on thicker than in the glare of day. +</p> + +<p> +The barge wore a much more festive aspect under her ladyship’s management than +when used by his lordship for a daylight voyage like the trip to Deptford. +Satin coverlets and tapestry curtains had been brought from Lady Fareham’s own +apartments, to be flung with studied carelessness over benches and tabourets. +Her ladyship’s singing-boys and musicians were grouped picturesquely under a +silken canopy in the bows, and a row of lanterns hung on chains festooned from +stem to stern, pretty gew-gaws, that had no illuminating power under that +all-potent moon, but which glittered with coloured light like jewels, and +twinkled and trembled in the summer air. +</p> + +<p> +A table in the stern was spread with a light collation, which gave an excuse +for the display of parcel-gilt cups, silver tankards, and Venetian wine-flasks. +A miniature fountain played perfumed waters in the midst of this splendour; and +it amused the ladies to pull off their long gloves, dip them in the scented +water, and flap them in the faces of their beaux. +</p> + +<p> +The distance was only too short, since Lady Fareham’s friends declared the +voyage was by far the pleasanter part of the entertainment. Denzil, among +others, was of this opinion, for it was his good fortune to have secured the +seat next Angela, and to be able to interest her by his account of the +buildings they passed, whose historical associations were much better known to +him than to most young men of his epoch. He had sat at the feet of a man who +scoffed at Pope and King, and hated Episcopacy, but who revered all that was +noble and excellent in England’s past. +</p> + +<p> +“Flams, mere flams!” cried Hyacinth, acknowledging the praises bestowed on her +barge; “but if you like clary wine better than skimmed milk you had best drink +a brimmer or two before you leave the barge, since ’tis odds you’ll get nothing +but syllabubs and gingerbread from Lady Sarah.” +</p> + +<p> +“A substantial supper might frighten away the ghost, who doubtless parted with +sensual propensities when she died,” said De Malfort. “How do we watch for her? +In a severe silence, as if we were at church?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw would keep silence for a week o’ Sawbaths gin Aw was sure o’ seeing a +bogle,” said Lady Euphemia Dubbin, a Scotch marquess’s daughter, who had +married a wealthy cit, and made it the chief endeavour of her life to ignore +her husband and keep him at a distance. +</p> + +<p> +She hated the man only a little less than his plebeian name, which she had not +succeeded in persuading him to change, because, forsooth, there had been +Dubbins in Mark Lane for many generations. All previous Dubbins had lived over +their warehouses and offices; but her ladyship had brought Thomas Dubbin from +Mark Lane to my Lord Bedford’s Piazza in the Convent Garden, where he endured +the tedium of existence in a fine new house in which he was afraid of his fine +new servants, and never had anything to eat that he liked, his gastronomic +taste being for dishes the very names of which were intolerable to persons of +quality. +</p> + +<p> +This evening Mr. Dubbin had been incorrigible, and had insisted on intruding +his clumsy person upon Lady Fareham’s party, arguing with a dull persistence +that his name was on her ladyship’s billet of invitation. +</p> + +<p> +“Your name is on a great many invitations only because it is my misfortune to +be called by it,” his wife told him. “To sit on a barge after ten o’clock at +night in June—the coarsest month in summer—is to court lumbago; and all I hope +is ye’ll not be punished by a worse attack than common.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Dubbin had refused to be discouraged, even by this churlishness from his +lady, and appeared in attendance upon her, wearing a magnificent birthday suit +of crimson velvet and green brocade, which he meant to present to his favourite +actor at the Duke’s Theatre, after he had exhibited himself in it half a dozen +times at Whitehall, for the benefit of the great world, and at the Mulberry +Garden for the admiration of the <i>bona-robas</i>. He was a fat, +double-chinned little man, the essence of good nature, and perfectly +unconscious of being an offence to fine people. +</p> + +<p> +Although not a wit himself, Mr. Dubbin was occasionally the cause of wit in +others, if the practice of bubbling an innocent rustic or citizen can be called +wit. Rochester and Sir Ralph Masaroon, and one Jerry Spavinger, a gentleman +jockey, who was a nobody in town, but a shining light at Newmarket, took it +upon themselves to draw the harmless citizen, and, as a preliminary to making +him ridiculous, essayed to make him drunk. +</p> + +<p> +They were clustered together in a little group somewhat apart from the rest of +the company, and were attended upon by a lackey who brought a full tankard at +the first whistle on the empty one, and whom Mr. Dubbin, after a rapid +succession of brimmers, insisted on calling “drawer.” It was very seldom that +Rochester condescended to take part in any entertainment on which the royal sun +shone not, unless it were some post-midnight marauding with Buckhurst, Sedley, +and a band of wild coursers from the purlieus of Drury Lane. He could see no +pleasure in any medium between Whitehall and Alsatia. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am not fooling on the steps of the throne, let me sprawl in the gutter +with pamphleteers and orange-girls,” said this precocious profligate. “I abhor +a reputable party among your petty nobility, and if I had not been in love with +Lady Fareham off and on, ever since I cut my second teeth, I would have no hand +in such a humdrum business as this.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s not a neater filly in the London stable than her ladyship,” said +Jerry, “and I don’t blame your taste. I was side-glassing her yesterday in Hi’ +Park, but she didn’t seem to relish the manoeuvre, though I was wearing a +Chedreux peruke that ought to strike ’em dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t give your peruke a chance, Jerry, while you frame that ugly phiz in +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not buffle the whole company, my lord?” said Masaroon, while Mr. Dubbin +talked apart with Lady Euphemia, who had come from the other end of the barge +to warn her husband against excess in Rhenish or Burgundy. “You are good at +disguises. Why not act the ghost and frighten everybody out of their senses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Il n’y a pas de quoi, Ralph. The creatures have no sense to be robbed of. They +are second-rate fashion, which is only worked by machinery. They imitate us as +monkeys do, without knowing what they aim at. Their women have virtuous +instincts, but turn wanton rather than not be like the maids of honour; and +because we have our duels their men murder each other for a shrugged shoulder +or a casual word. No, I’ll not chalk my face or smear myself with phosphorus to +amuse such trumpery. It was worth my pains to disguise myself as a German +Nostradamus, in order to fool the lovely Jennings and her friend Price—who +won’t easily forget their adventures as orange-girls in the heart of the city. +But I have done with all such follies.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are growing old, Wilmot. The years are telling upon your spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was nineteen last birthday, and ’tis fit I should feel the burden of time, +and think of virtue and a rich wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like Mrs. Mallet, for example.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, a man might do worse than win so much beauty and wealth. But the +creature is arrogant, and calls me ‘child;’ and half the peerage is after her. +But we’ll have our jest with the city scrub, Ralph; not because I bear him +malice, but because I hate his wife. And we’ll have our masquerading some time +after midnight; if you can borrow a little finery.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Dubbin was released from his lady’s <i>sotto voce</i> lecture at this +instant, and Lord Rochester continued his communication in a whisper, the +Honourable Jeremiah assenting with nods and chucklings, while Masaroon whistled +for a fresh tankard, and plied the honest merchant with a glass which he never +allowed to be empty. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The taste for masquerading was a fashion of the time, as much as combing a +periwig, or flirting a fan. While Rochester was planning a trick upon the +citizen, Lady Fareham was whispering to De Malfort under cover of the fiddles, +which were playing an Italian pazzemano, an air beloved by Henrietta of +Orleans, who danced to that music with her royal brother-in-law, in one of the +sumptuous ballets at St. Cloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should they be disappointed of their ghost,” said Hyacinth, “when it would +be so easy for me to dress up as the nun and scare them all? This white satin +gown of mine, with a few yards of white lawn arranged on my head and +shoulders——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but you have not the lawn at hand to-night, or your woman to arrange your +head,” interjected De Malfort quickly. “It would be a capital joke; but it must +be for another occasion and choicer company. The rabble you have to-night is +not worth it. Besides, there is Rochester, who is past-master in disguises, and +would smoke you at a glance. Let me arrange it some night before the end of the +summer—when there is a waning moon. It were a pity the thing were done ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you really plan a party for me, and let me appear to them on the stroke +of one, with my face whitened? I have as slender a shape as most women.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no such sylph in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I can make myself look ethereal. Will you draw the nun’s habit for me? and +I will give your picture to Lewin to copy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will do more. I will get you a real habit.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there are no nuns so white as the ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, but you may rely upon me. The nun’s robes shall be there, the +phosphorous, the blue fire, and a selection of the choicest company to tremble +at you. Leave the whole business to my care. It will amuse me to plan so +exquisite a jest for so lovely a jester.” +</p> + +<p> +He bent down to kiss her hand, till his forehead almost touched her knee, and +in the few moments that passed before he raised it, she heard him laughing +softly to himself, as if with irrepressible delight. +</p> + +<p> +“What a child you are,” she said, “to be pleased with such folly!” +</p> + +<p> +“What children we both are, Hyacinth! My sweet soul, let us always be childish, +and find pleasure in follies. Life is such a poor thing, that if we had leisure +to appraise its value we should have a contagion of suicide that would number +more deaths than the plague. Indeed, the wonder is, not that any man should +commit <i>felo de se</i>, but that so many of us should take the trouble to +live.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Lady Sarah received them at the landing-stage, with an escort of fops and fine +ladies; and the festival promised to be a success. There was a better supper, +and more wine than people expected from her ladyship; and after supper a good +many of those who pretended to have come to see the ghost, wandered off in +couples to saunter along the willow-shaded bank, while only the more earnest +spirits were content to wait and watch and listen in the great vaulted hall, +with no light but the moon which sent a flood of silver through the high Gothic +window, from which every vestige of glass had long vanished. +</p> + +<p> +There were stone benches along the two side walls, and Lady Sarah’s +<i>prévoyance</i> had secured cushions or carpets for her guests to sit upon; +and here the superstitious sat in patient weariness, Angela among them, with +Denzil still at her side, scornful of credulous folly, but loving to be with +her he adored. Lady Fareham had been tempted out-of-doors by De Malfort to look +at the moonlight on the river, and had not returned. Rochester and his crew had +also vanished directly after supper; and for company Angela had on her left +hand Mr. Dubbin, far advanced in liquor, and trembling at every breath of +summer wind that fluttered the ivy round the ruined window, and at every shadow +that moved upon the moonlit wall. His wife was on the other side of the hall, +whispering with Lady Sarah, and both so deep in a court scandal—in which the +“K” and the “D” recurred very often—that they had almost forgotten the purpose +of that moonlight sitting. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly in the distance there sounded a long shrill wailing, as of a soul in +agony, whereupon Mr. Dubbin, after clinging wildly to Angela, and being +somewhat roughly flung aside by Denzil, collapsed altogether, and rolled upon +the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Euphemia,” cried Mrs. Townshend, a young lady who had been sitting next +the obnoxious citizen, “be pleased to look after your drunken husband. If you +take the low-bred sot into company, you should at least charge yourself with +the care of his manners.” +</p> + +<p> +The damsel had started to her feet, and indignantly snatched her satin +petticoat from contact with the citizen’s porpoise figure. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate mixed company,” she told Angela, “and old maids who marry +tallow-chandlers. If a woman of rank marries a shopkeeper she ought never to be +allowed west of Temple Bar.” +</p> + +<p> +This young lady was no believer in ghosts; but others of the company were too +scared for speech. All had risen, and were staring in the direction whence that +dismal shriek had come. A trick, perhaps, since anybody with strong +lungs—dairymaid or cowboy—could shriek. They all wanted to <i>see</i> +something, a real manifestation of the supernatural. +</p> + +<p> +The unearthly sound was repeated, and the next moment a spectral shape, in +flowing white garments, rushed through the great window, and crossed the hall, +followed by three other shapes in dark loose robes, with hooded heads. One +carried a rope, another a pickaxe, the third a trowel and hod of mortar. They +crossed the hall with flying footsteps—shadowlike—the pale shape in distracted +flight, the dark shapes pursuing, and came to a stop close against the wall, +which had been vacated by the scared assembly, scattering as if the king of +terrors had appeared among them—yet with fascinated eyes fixed on those +fearsome figures. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the nun herself!” cried Lady Sarah, apprehension and triumph contending +in her agitated spirits; for it was surely a feather in her ladyship’s cap to +have produced such a phantasmal train at her party. “The nun and her +executioners!” +</p> + +<p> +The company fell back from the ghostly troop, recoiling till they were all +clustered against the opposite wall, leaving a clear space in front of the +spectres, whence they looked on, shuddering, at the tragedy of the erring +Sister’s fate, repeated in dumb show. The white-robed figure knelt and +grovelled at the feet of those hooded executioners. One seized and bound her, +with strange automatic action, unlike the movements of living creatures, and +another smote the wall with a pickaxe that made no sound, while the third +waited with his trowel and mortar. It was a gruesome sight to those who knew +the story—a gruesome, yet an enjoyable spectacle; since, as Lady Sarah’s +friends had not had the pleasure of knowing the sinning Sister in the flesh, +they watched this ghostly representation of her suffering with as keen an +interest as they would have felt had they been privileged to see Claud Duval +swing at Tyburn. +</p> + +<p> +The person most terrified by this ghostly show was the only one who had the +hardihood to tackle the performers. This was Mr. Dubbin, who sat on the ground +watching the shadowy figures, sobered by fear, and his shrewd city senses +gradually returning to a brain bemused by Burgundy. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at her boots!” he cried suddenly, scrambling to his feet, and pointing to +the nun, who, in sprawling and writhing at the feet of her executioner, had +revealed more leg and foot than were consistent with her spectral whiteness. +“She wears yaller boots, as substantial as any shoe leather among the company. +I’ll swear to them yaller boots.” +</p> + +<p> +A chorus of laughter followed this attack—laughter which found a smothered echo +among the ghosts. The spell was broken; disillusion followed the exquisite +thrill of fear; and all Lady Sarah’s male visitors made a rush upon the guilty +nun. The loose white robe was stripped off, and little Jerry Spavinger, +gentleman jock, famous on the Heath, and at Doncaster, stood revealed, in his +shirt and breeches, and those light riding-boots which he rarely exchanged for +a more courtly chaussure. +</p> + +<p> +The monks, hustled out of their disguise, were Rochester, Masaroon, and Lady +Sarah’s young brother, George Saddington. +</p> + +<p> +“From my Lord Rochester I expect nothing but pot-house buffoonery; but I take +it vastly ill on your part, George, to join in making me a laughing-stock,” +remonstrated Lady Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sister, you have to thank his light-headed lordship for giving a +spirited end to your assembly. Could you conceive how preposterous you and your +friends looked sitting against the walls, mute as stockfish, and suggesting +nothing but a Quaker’s meeting, you would make us your lowest curtsy, and thank +us kindly for having helped you out of a dilemma.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah, who was too much of a woman of the world to quarrel seriously with +a Court favourite, furled the fan with which she had been cooling her +indignation, and tapped young Wilmot playfully on that oval cheek where the +beard had scarce begun to grow. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou art the most incorrigible wretch of thy years in London,” she said, “and +it is impossible to help being angry with thee or to help forgiving thee.” +</p> + +<p> +The saunterers on the willow-shadowed banks came strolling in. Lady Fareham’s +cornets and fiddles sounded a March in Alceste; and the party broke up in +laughter and good temper, Mr. Dubbin being much complimented upon his having +detected Spavinger’s boots. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to know ’em,” he answered ruefully. “I lost a hundred meggs on him +Toosday se’nnight, at Windsor races; and I had time to take the pattern of them +boots while he was crawling in, a bad third.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br/> +FALCON AND DOVE.</h2> + +<p> +“Has your ladyship any commands for Paris?” Lord Fareham asked, one August +afternoon, when the ghost party at Millbank was almost forgotten amid a +succession of entertainments on land and river; a fortnight at Epsom to drink +the waters; and a fortnight at Tunbridge—where the Queen and Court were +spending the close of summer—to neutralise the bad effects of Epsom chalybeates +with a regimen of Kentish sulphur. If nobody at either resort drank deeper of +the medicinal springs than Hyacinth—who had ordered her physician to order her +that treatment—the risk of harm or the possibility of benefit was of the +smallest. But at Epsom there had been a good deal of gay company, and a greater +liberty of manners than in London; for, indeed, as Rochester assured Lady +Fareham, “the freedom of Epsom allowed almost nothing to be scandalous.” And at +Tunbridge there were dances by torchlight on the common. “And at the worst,” +Lady Fareham told her friends, “a fortnight or so at the Wells helps to shorten +the summer.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the middle of August when they went back to Fareham House, hot, dry +weather, and London seemed to be living on the Thames, so thick was the throng +of boats going up and down the river, so that with an afternoon tide running up +it seemed as if barges, luggers, and wherries were moving in one solid block +into the sunset sky. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort had been attached to her ladyship’s party at Epsom, and at Tunbridge +Wells. He had his own lodgings, but seldom occupied them, except in that period +between four or five in the morning and two in the afternoon, which Rochester +and he called night. His days were passed chiefly in attendance upon Lady +Fareham—singing and playing, fetching and carrying combing her favourite +spaniel with the same ivory pocket-comb that arranged his own waterfall curls; +or reading a French romance to her, or teaching her the newest game of cards, +or the last dancing-step imported from Fontainebleau or St. Cloud, or some new +grace or fashion in dancing, the holding of the hand lower or higher; the +latest manner of passaging in a bransle or a coranto, as performed by the +French King and Madame Henriette, the two finest dancers in France; Condé, once +so famous for his dancing, now appearing in those gay scenes but seldom. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any commands for Paris, Hyacinth?” repeated Lord Fareham, his wife +being for the moment too surprised to answer him. “Or have you, sister? I am +starting for France to-morrow. I shall ride to Dover—lying a night at +Sittingbourne, perhaps—and cross by the Packet that goes twice a week to +Calais.” +</p> + +<p> +“Paris! And pray, my lord, what business takes you to Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a great collection of books to be sold there next week. The library +of your old admirer, Nicolas Fouquet, whom you knew in his splendour, but who +has been a prisoner at Pignerol for a year and a half.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor wretch!” cried De Malfort, “I was at the Chamber with Madame de Sévigné +very often during his long tedious trial. Mon dieu! what courage, what talent +he showed in defending himself! Every safeguard of the law was violated in +order to silence him and prove him guilty; his papers seized in his absence, no +friend or servant allowed to protect his interest, no inventory taken—documents +suppressed that might have served for his defence, forgeries inserted by his +foes. He had an implacable enemy, and he the highest in the land. He was the +scapegoat of the past, and had to answer for a system of plunder that made +Mazarin the richest man in France.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wonder that Louis was angry with a servant who had the insolence to +entertain his Majesty with a splendour that surpassed his own,” said Lady +Fareham. “I should like to have been at those fêtes at Vaux. But although +Fareham talks so lightly of travelling to Paris to choose a few dusty books, he +has always discouraged me from going there to see old friends, and my own +house—which I grieve to think of—abandoned to the carelessness of servants.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest, the cleverest woman in the world cannot be in two places at once; and +it seems to me you have ever had your days here so full of agreeable +engagements that you can have scarcely desired to leave London,” answered +Fareham, with his grave smile. +</p> + +<p> +“To leave London—no! But there have been long moping months in Oxfordshire when +it would have been a relief to change the scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, indeed, had you been very earnest in wanting such a change, I am sure +you would have taken it. I have never forbidden your going to Paris, nor +refused to accompany you there. You may go with me to-morrow, if you can be +ready.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which you know I cannot, or you would scarce make so liberal an offer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Très chère, you are pleased to be petulant. But I repeat my question. Is there +anything you want at Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything? A million things! Everything! But they are things which you would +not be able to choose—except, perhaps, some of the new lace. I might trust you +to buy that, though I’ll wager you will bring me a hideous pattern—and some +white Cypress powder—and a piece of the ash-coloured velvet Madame wore last +winter. I have friends who can choose for you, if I write to them; and you will +have but to bring the goods, and see they suffer no harm on the voyage. And you +can go to the Rue de Tourain and see whether my servants are keeping the house +in tolerable order.” +</p> + +<p> +“With your ladyship’s permission I will lodge there while I am in Paris, which +will be but long enough to attend the sale of books, and see some old friends. +If I am detained it will be by finding my friends out of town, and having to +make a journey to see them. I shall not go beyond Fontainebleau at furthest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Fontainebleau! It is of all French palaces my favourite. I always envy +Diana of Poitiers for having her cypher emblazoned all over that lovely +gallery—Henri and Diane! Diane and Henri! Ah, me!” +</p> + +<p> +“You envy her a kind of notoriety which I do not covet for my wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“You always take one au pied de la lettre; but seriously, Madame de Brézé was +an honest woman compared with the lady who lodges by the Holbein Gate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I admit that sin wears a bolder front than it did in the last century. Angela, +can I find nothing for you in Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I thank your lordship. You and sister are both so generous to me that I +have lost the capacity to wish for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And as Lewin crosses the Channel three or four times a year, I doubt we +positively have the Paris fashions as soon as the Parisians themselves,” added +Hyacinth. +</p> + +<p> +“That is an agreeable hallucination with which Englishwomen have ever consoled +themselves for not being French,” said De Malfort, who sat lolling against the +marble balustrade, nursing the guitar on which he had been playing when Fareham +interrupted their noontide idleness; “but your ladyship may be sure that London +milliners are ever a twelvemonth in the rear of Paris fashions. It is not that +they do not see the new mode. They see it, and think it hideous; and it takes a +year to teach them that it is the one perfect style possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not thinking of kerchiefs or petticoats,” said Fareham. “You are a +book-lover, sister, like myself. Can I bring you no books you wish for?” +</p> + +<p> +“If there were a new comedy by Molière; but I fear it is wrong to read him, +since in his late play, performed before the King at Versailles, he is so cruel +an enemy to our Church.” +</p> + +<p> +“A foe only to hypocrites and pretenders, Angela. I will bring you his +<i>Tartuffe</i>, if it is printed; or still better, <i>Le Misanthrope</i>, +which I am told is the finest comedy that was ever written; and the latest +romance, in twenty volumes or so, by one of those lady authors Hyacinth so +admires, but which I own to finding as tedious as the divine Orinda’s verses.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can jeer at that poor lady’s poetry, yet take pleasure in such balderdash +as Hudibras!” +</p> + +<p> +“I love wit, dearest; though I am not witty. But as for your Princesse de +Cleves, I find her ineffably dull.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is because you do not take the trouble to discover for whom the +characters are meant. You lack the key to the imbroglio,” said his wife, with a +superior air. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not care for a book that is a series of enigmas. Don Quixote needs no +such guess-work. Shakespeare’s characters are painted not from the petty models +of yesterday and to-day, but from mankind in every age and every climate. +Molière’s and Calderon’s personages stand on as solid a basis. In less than +half a century your ‘Grand Cyrus’ will be insufferable jargon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not more so than your <i>Hamlet</i> or <i>Othello</i>. Shakespeare was but +kept in fashion during the late King’s reign because his Majesty loved him—and +will soon be forgotten, now that we have so many gayer and brisker dramatists.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whoever quotes Shakespeare, nowadays?” asked Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, who had +been showing a rustic niece the beauties of the river, as seen from Fareham +House. “Even Mr. Taylor, whose sermons bristle with elegant allusions, never +points one of his passionate climaxes with a Shakespearian line. And yet there +are some very fine lines in <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Macbeth</i>, which would +scarce sound amiss from the pulpit,” added her ladyship, condescendingly. “I +have read all the plays, some of them twice over. And I doubt that though +Shakespeare cannot hold the stage in our more enlightened age, and will be less +and less acted as the town grows more refined, his works will always be tasted +by scholars; among whom, in my modest way, I dare reckon myself.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Lord Fareham left London on horseback, with but one servant, in the early +August dawn, before the rest of the household were stirring. Hyacinth lay +nearly as late of a morning as Henrietta Maria, whom Charles used sometimes to +reproach for not being up in time for the noonday office at her own chapel. +Lady Fareham had not Portuguese Catherine’s fervour, who was often at Mass at +seven o’clock; but she did usually contrive to be present at High Mass at the +Queen’s chapel; and this was the beginning of her day. By that time Angela and +her niece and nephew had spent hours on the river, or in the meadows at +Chiswick, or on Putney Heath, ever glad to escape from the great overgrown +city, which was now licking up every stretch of green sward, and every flowery +hedgerow west of St. James’s Street. Soon there would be no country between the +Haymarket and “The Pillars of Hercules.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompanying Angela, children, and +<i>gouvernante</i>, on these rural expeditions by the great waterway; and on +such occasions he and Angela would each take an oar and row the boat for some +part of the voyage, while the watermen rested, and in this manner Angela, +instructed by Sir Denzil, considerably advanced her power as an oarswoman. It +was an exercise she loved, as indeed she loved all out-of-door exercises, from +riding with hawks and hounds to battledore and shuttlecock. But most of all, +perhaps, she loved the river, and the rhythmical dip of oars in the fresh +morning air, when every curve of the fertile shores seemed to reveal new +beauty. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a hot, dry summer, and the grass in the parks was burnt to a dull +brown—had, indeed, almost ceased to be grass—while the atmosphere in town had a +fiery taste, and was heavy with the dust which whitened all the roadways, and +which the faintest breath of wind dispersed. Here on the flowing tide there was +coolness, and the long rank grass upon those low sedgy shores was still green. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham supported the August heats sitting on her terrace, with a cluster +of friends about her, and her musicians and singing-boys grouped in the +distance, ready to perform at her bidding; but Henriette and her brother soon +tired of that luxurious repose, and would urge their aunt to assist in a river +expedition. The <i>gouvernante</i> was fat and lazy and good-tempered, had +attended upon Henriette from babyhood, and always did as she was told. +</p> + +<p> +“Her ladyship says I must have some clever person instead of Priscilla before I +am a year older,” Henriette told her aunt; “but I have promised poor old Prissy +to hate the new person consumedly.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela and Denzil laughed as they rowed past the ruined abbey, seen dimly +across the low water-meadow, where cows of the same colour were all lying in +the same attitude, chewing the cud. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Mr. Spavinger’s trick must have cured your sister’s fine friends of +all belief in ghosts,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt they would be as ready to believe—or to pretend to believe—to-morrow,” +answered Angela. “They think of nothing from morning till night but how to +amuse themselves; and when every pleasure has been exhausted, I suppose fear +comes in as a form of entertainment, and they want the shock of seeing a +ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“There have been no more midnight parties since Lady Sarah’s assembly, I +think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not among people of quality, perhaps; but there have been citizens’ parties. I +heard Monsieur de Malfort telling my sister about a supper given by a wealthy +wine-cooper’s lady from Aldersgate. The city people copy everything that their +superiors wear or do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even to their morals,” said Denzil. “’Twere happy if the so-called superiors +would remember that, and upon what a fertile ground they sow the seed of new +vices. It is like the importation of a new weed or a new insect, which, +beginning with an accident, may end in ruined crops and a country’s famine.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Without deliberate disobedience to her husband, Lady Fareham made the best use +of her time during his absence in Paris. The public theatres had not yet +re-opened after the horror of the plague. Whitehall was a desert, the King and +his chief following being at Tunbridge. It was the dullest season of the year, +and the recrudescence of the contagion in the low-lying towns along the +Thames—Deptford, Greenwich, and the neighbourhood—together with some isolated +cases in London, made people more serious than usual, despite of the so-called +victory over the Dutch, which, although a mixed benefit, was celebrated piously +by a day of General Thanksgiving. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was for ordering her coaches +and retiring to Chilton. +</p> + +<p> +“It is mortal dull at the Abbey,” she said, “but at least we have the hawks, +and breezy hills to ride over, instead of this sickly city atmosphere, which to +my nostrils smells of the pestilence.” +</p> + +<p> +Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat. +</p> + +<p> +“It were a deliberate suicide,” he said. “London, when everybody has left—all +the bodies we count worthy to live, <i>par exemple</i>—is a more delightful +place than you can imagine. There are a host of vulgar amusements which you +would not dare to visit when your friends are in town; and which are ten times +as amusing as the pleasures you know by heart. Have you ever been to the Bear +Garden? I’ll warrant you no, though ’tis but across the river at Bankside. +We’ll go there this afternoon, if you like, and see how the common people taste +life. Then there are the gardens at Islington. There are mountebanks, and +palmists, and fortune-tellers, who will frighten you out of your wits for a +shilling. There’s a man at Clerkenwell, a jeweller’s journeyman from Venice, +who pretends to practise the transmutation of metals, and to make gold. He +squeezed hundreds out of that old miser Denham, who was afraid to have the law +of him for imposture, lest all London should laugh at his own credulity and +applaud the cheat. And you have not seen the Italian puppet-play, which is +vastly entertaining. I could find you novelty and amusement for a month.” +</p> + +<p> +“Find anything new, even if it fail to amuse me. I am sick of everything I +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then there is our midnight party at Millbank, the ghost-party, at which +you are to frighten your dearest friends out of their poor little wits.” +</p> + +<p> +“Most of my dearest friends are in the country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, there is Lady Lucretia Topham, whom I know you hate; and Lady Sarah and +the Dubbins are still in Covent Garden.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will have no Dubbin—a toping wretch—and she is a too incongruous mixture, +with her Edinburgh lingo and her Whitehall arrogance. Besides, the whole notion +of a mock ghost was vulgarised by Wilmot’s foolery, who ought to have been born +a saltimbanque, and spent his life in a fair. No, I have abandoned the scheme.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! after I have been taxing my invention to produce the most terrible +illusion that was ever witnessed? Will you let a clown like Spavinger—a +well-born stable-boy—baulk us of our triumph? I am sending to Paris for a +powder to burn in a corner of the room, which will throw the ghastliest pallor +upon your countenance. When I devise a ghost, it shall be no impromptu spectre +in yellow riding-boots, but a vision so awful, so true an image of a being +returned from the dead, that the stoutest nerves will thrill and tremble at the +apparition. The nun’s habit is coming from Paris. I have asked my cousin, +Madame de Fiesque, to obtain it for me at the Carmelites.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are taking a vast deal of trouble. But what kind of assembly can we muster +at this dead season?” “Leave all in my hands. I will find you some of the +choicest spirits. It is to be <i>my</i> party. I will not even tell you what +night I fix upon, till all is ready. So make no engagements for your evenings, +and tell nobody anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who invented that powder?” +</p> + +<p> +“A French chemist. He has it of all colours, and can flood a scene in golden +light, or the rose of dawn, or the crimson of sunset, or a pale silvery +blueness that you would swear was moonshine. It has been used in all the Court +ballets. I saw Madame once look as ghastly as death itself, and all the Court +was seized with terror. Some blundering fool had burnt the wrong powder, which +cast a greenish tint over the faces, and Henriette’s long thin features had a +look of death. It seemed the forecast of an early grave; and some of us +shuddered, as at a prophecy of evil.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might expect the worst in her case, knowing the wretched life she leads +with Monsieur.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. There are compensations.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean scandal, I will not hear a word. She is adorable. The most +sympathetic person I know—good even to her enemies—who are legion.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better not say that, for I doubt she has only one kind of enemy.” +</p> + +<p> +“As how?” +</p> + +<p> +“The admirers she has encouraged and disappointed. Yes, she is adorable, +wofully thin, and, I fear, consumptive, but royal: and adorable, ‘douceur et +lumière,’ as Bossuet calls her. But to return to my ghost-party.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were wise, you would abandon the notion. I doubt that in spite of your +powders your friends will never believe in a ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get them in the proper temper.” +</p> + +<p> +That idea of figuring in a picturesque habit, and in a halo of churchyard +light, was irresistible. Hyacinth promised to conform to Malfort’s plans, and +to be ready to assume her phantom <i>rôle</i> whenever she was called upon. +</p> + +<p> +Angela knew something of the scheme, and that there was to be another assembly +at Millbank; but her sister had seemed disinclined to talk of the plan in her +presence—a curious reticence in one whose sentiments and caprices were usually +given to the world at large with perfect freedom. For once in her life Hyacinth +had a secret air, and checked herself suddenly in the midst of her light babble +at a look from De Malfort, who had urged her to keep her sister out of their +midnight party. +</p> + +<p> +“I pledge my honour that there shall be nothing to offend,” he told her, “but I +hope to have the wittiest coxcombs in London, and we want no prudes to strangle +every jest with a long-drawn lip and an alarmed eye. Your sister has a pale, +fragile prettiness which pleases an eye satiated with the exuberant charms of +your Rubens and Titian women; but she is not handsome enough to give herself +airs; and she is a little inclined that way. By the faith of a gentleman, I +have suffered scowls from her that I would scarce have endured from Barbara!” +</p> + +<p> +“Barbara! You are vastly free with her ladyship’s name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not freer than she has ever been with her friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henri, if I thought——” +</p> + +<p> +“What, dearest?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you had ever cared for that—wanton——” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you think it, when you know my life in England has been one long tragedy +of loving in vain—of sighing only to be denied—of secret tears—and public +submission.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do not talk so,” she exclaimed, starting up from her low tabouret, and moving +hastily to the open window, to fresh air and sunshine, rippling river and blue +sky, escaping from an atmosphere that had become feverish. +</p> + +<p> +“De Malfort, you know I must not listen to foolish raptures.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you have been refusing to hear for the last two years.” +</p> + +<p> +They were on the terrace now, she leaning on the broad marble balustrade, he +standing beside her, and all the traffic of London moving with the tide below +them. +</p> + +<p> +“To return to our party,” she said, in a lighter tone, for that spurt of +jealousy had betrayed her into seriousness. “It will be very awkward not to +invite my sister to go with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you did she would refuse, belike, for she is under Fareham’s thumb; and he +disapproves of everything human.” +</p> + +<p> +“Under Fareham’s thumb! What nonsense! Indeed I must invite her. She would +think it so strange to be omitted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you manage things cleverly. The party is to be a surprise. You can tell +her next morning you knew nothing about it beforehand.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she will hear me order the barge—or will see me start.” +</p> + +<p> +“There will be no barge. I shall carry you to Millbank in my coach, after your +evening’s entertainment, wherever that may be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had better take my own carriage at least, or my chair.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can have a chair, if you are too prudish to use my coach, but it shall be +got for you at the moment. We won’t have your own chairman and links to chatter +and betray you before you have played the ghost. Remember you come to my party +not as a guest, but as a performer. If they ask why Lady Fareham is absent I +shall say you refused to take part in our foolery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you must invent some better excuse. They will never believe anything +rational of me. Say I was disappointed of a hat or a mantua. Well, it shall be +as you wish. Angela is apt to be tiresome. I hate a disapproving carriage, +especially in a younger sister.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Angela was puzzled by Hyacinth’s demeanour. A want of frankness in one so frank +by nature aroused her fears. She was puzzled and anxious, and longed for +Fareham’s return, lest his giddy-pated wife should be guilty of some innocent +indiscretion that might vex him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! if she but valued him at his just worth she would value his opinion second +only to the approval of conscience,” she thought, sadly, ever regretful of her +sister’s too obvious indifference towards so kind a husband. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br/> +WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?</h2> + +<p> +It was Saturday, the first of September, and the hot dry weather having +continued with but trifling changes throughout the month, the atmosphere was at +its sultriest, and the burnt grass in the parks looked as if even the dews of +morning and evening had ceased to moisten it, while the arid and dusty foliage +gave no feeling of coolness, and the very shadows cast upon that parched ground +seemed hot. Morning was sultry as noon; evening brought but little refreshment; +while the night was hotter than the day. People complained that the season was +even more sickly than in the plague year, and prophesied a new and worse +outbreak of the pestilence. Was not this the fatal year about which there had +been darkest prophecies? 1666! Something awful, something tragical was to make +this triplicate of sixes for ever memorable. Sixty-five had been terrible, +sixty-six was to bring a greater horror; doubtless a recrudescence of that dire +malady which had desolated London. +</p> + +<p> +“And this time,” says one modish raven, “’twill be the quality that will +suffer. The lower ‘classis’ has paid its penalty, and only the strong and hardy +are left. We have plenty of weaklings and corrupt constitutions that will take +fire at a spark. I should not wonder were the contagion to rage worst at +Whitehall. The buildings lie low, and there is ever a nucleus of fever +somewhere in that conglomeration of slaughter-houses, bakeries, kitchens, +stables, cider-houses, coal-yards, and over-crowded servants’ lodgings.” +</p> + +<p> +“One gets but casual whiffs from their private butcheries and bakeries,” says +another. “What I complain of is the atmosphere of his Majesty’s apartments, +where one can scarce breathe for the stench of those cursed spaniels he so +delights in.” +</p> + +<p> +Every one agreed that the long dry summer menaced some catastrophic change +which should surprise this easy-going age as the plague had done last year. But +oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched those light minds! and, if +Providence had designed to warn or to punish, how vain had been the warning, +and how soon forgotten the penalty that had left the worst offenders +unstricken! +</p> + +<p> +There was to be a play at Whitehall that evening, his Majesty and the Court +having returned from Tunbridge Wells, the business of the navy calling Charles +to council with his faithful General—<i>the</i> General <i>par excellence</i>, +George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his Lord High Admiral and brother—<i>par +excellence</i> the Duke. Even in briefest residence, and on sternest business +intent, with the welfare and honour of the nation contingent on their +consultations, to build or not to build warships of the first magnitude, the +ball of pleasure must be kept rolling. So Killigrew was to produce a new +version of an old comedy, written in the forties, but now polished up to the +modern style of wit. This new-old play, <i>The Parson’s Widow</i>, was said to +be all froth and sparkle and current interest, fresh as the last <i>London +Gazette</i>, and spiced with allusions to the late sickness, an admirable +subject, and allowing a wide field for the ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth was to be present at this Court function; but not a word was to be +said to Angela about the entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +“She would only preach me a sermon upon Fareham’s tastes and wishes, and urge +me to stay away because he abhors a fashionable comedy,” she told De Malfort, +“I shall say I am going to Lady Sarah’s to play basset. Ange hates cards, and +will not desire to go with me. She is always happy with the children, who adore +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faute de mieux.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are so ready to jeer! Yes, I know I am a neglectful mother. But what would +you have?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would have you as you are,” he answered, “and only as you are; or for choice +a trifle worse than you are; and so much nearer my own level.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know you! It is the wicked women you admire—like Madame Palmer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Always harping upon Barbara. ‘My mother had a maid called Barbara.’ His +Majesty has—a lady of the same melodious name. Well, I have a world of +engagements between now and nine o’clock, when the play begins. I shall be at +the door to lift you out of your chair. Cover yourself with your richest +jewels—or at least those you love best—so that you may blaze like the sun when +you cast off the nun’s habit. All the town will be there to admire you.” +</p> + +<p> +“All the town! Why, there is no one in London!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, you mistake. Travelling is so easy nowadays. People tear to and fro +between Tunbridge and St James’s as often as they once circulated betwixt +London and Chelsea. Were it not for the highwaymen we should be always on the +road.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Angela and her niece were on the terrace in the evening coolness. The +atmosphere was less oppressive here by the flowing tide than anywhere else in +London; but even here there was a heaviness in the night air, and Henriette +sprawled her long thin legs wearily on the cushioned bench where she lay, and +vowed that it would be sheer folly for Priscilla to insist upon her going to +bed at her usual hour of nine, when everybody knew she could not sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“I scarce closed my eyes last night,” she protested, “and I had half a mind to +put on a petticoat and come down to the terrace. I could have come through the +yellow drawing-room, where the men usually forget to close the shutters. And I +should have brought my theorbo and serenaded you. Should you have taken me for +a fairy, chère, if you had heard me singing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have taken you for a very silly little person who wanted to frighten +her friends by catching an inflammation of the lungs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you see, I thought better of it, though it would have been impossible to +catch cold on such a stifling night I heard every clock strike in Westminster +and London. It was light at five, yet the night seemed endless. I would have +welcomed even a mouse behind the wainscot. Priscilla is an odious tyrant,” +making a face at the easy-tempered gouvernante sitting by; “she won’t let me +have my dogs in my room at night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your ladyship knows that dogs in a bed-chamber are unwholesome,” said +Priscilla. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you foolish old thing; my ladyship knows the contrary; for his Majesty’s +bed-chamber swarms with them, and he has them on his bed even—whole +families—mothers and their puppies. Why can’t I have a few dear little +mischievous innocents to amuse me in the long dreary nights?” +</p> + +<p> +By dint of clamour and expostulation the honourable Henriette contrived to stay +up till ten o’clock was belled with solemn tone from St. Paul’s Cathedral, +which magnificent church was speedily to be put in hand for restoration, at a +great expenditure. The wooden scaffolding which had been necessary for a +careful examination of the building was still up. Until the striking of the +great city clock, Papillon had resolutely disputed the lateness of the hour, +putting forward her own timekeeper as infallible—a little fat round purple +enamel watch with diamond figures, and gold hands much bent from being pushed +backwards and forwards, to bring recorded time into unison with the young +lady’s desires—a watch to which no sensible person could give the slightest +credit. The clocks of London having demonstrated the futility of any reference +to that ill-used Geneva toy, she consented to retire, but was reluctant to the +last. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to bed,” she told her aunt, “because this absurd old Prissy insists +upon it, but I don’t expect a quarter of an hour’s sleep between now and +morning; and most of the time I shall be looking out of the window, watching +for the turn of the tide, to see the barges and boats swinging round.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will do nothing of the kind, Mrs. Henriette; for I shall sit in your room +till you are sound asleep,” said Priscilla. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you will have to sit there all night; and I shall have somebody to talk +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not allow you to talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you gag me, or put a pillow over my face, like the Blackamoor in the +play?” +</p> + +<p> +The minx and her governess retired, still disputing, after Angela had been +desperately hugged by Henriette, who brimmed over with warmest affection in the +midst of her insolence. They were gone, their voices sounding in the stillness +on the terrace, and then on the staircase, and through the great empty rooms, +where the windows were open to the sultry night, while the host of idle +servants caroused in the basement, in a spacious room with a vaulted roof, like +a college hall, where they were free to be as noisy or as drunken as they +pleased. My lady was out, had taken only her chair, and running footmen, and +had sent chairmen and footmen back from Whitehall, with an intimation that they +would be wanted no more that night. +</p> + +<p> +Angela lingered on the terrace in the sultry summer gloom, watching solitary +boats moving to and fro, shadowy as Charon’s. She dreaded the stillness of +silent rooms, and to be alone with her own thoughts, which were not of the +happiest. Her sister’s relations with De Malfort troubled her, innocent as they +doubtless were: innocent as that close friendship of Henrietta of England with +her cousin of France, when they two spent the fair midsummer nights roaming in +palace gardens, close as lovers, but only fast friends. Malicious tongues had +babbled even of that innocent friendship; and there were those who said that if +Monsieur behaved liked a brute to his lovely young wife, it was because he had +good reason for jealousy of Louis in the past, as well as of De Guiche in the +present. These innocent friendships are ever the cause of uneasiness to the +lookers-on. It is like seeing children at play on the edge of a cliff. They are +too near danger and destruction. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth, being about as able to carry a secret as to carry an elephant, had +betrayed by a hundred indications that a plot of some kind was being hatched +between her and De Malfort. And to-night, before going out, she had made too +much fuss about so simple a matter as a basset-party at Lady Sarah’s, who had +her basset-table every night, and was popularly supposed to keep house upon her +winnings, and to have no higher code of honour than De Gramont had when he +invited a brother officer to supper on purpose to rook him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Killigrew’s comedy had been discussed in Angela’s hearing. People who had +been deprived of the theatre for over a year were greedy and eager spectators +of all the plays produced at Court; but this production was an exceptional +event. Killigrew’s wit and impudence and impecuniosity were the talk of the +town, and anything written by that audacious jester was sure to be worth +hearing. +</p> + +<p> +Had her sister gone to Whitehall to see the new comedy, in direct disobedience +to her husband, instead of to so accustomed an entertainment as Lady Sarah’s +basset-table? And was that the only mystery between Hyacinth and De Malfort? Or +was there something else—some ghost-party, such as they had planned and talked +about openly till a fortnight ago, and had suddenly dropped altogether, as if +the notion were abandoned and forgotten? It was so unlike Hyacinth to be secret +about anything; and her sister feared, therefore, that there was some plot of +De Malfort’s contriving—De Malfort, whom she regarded with distrust and even +repugnance; for she could recall no sentiment of his that did not make for +evil. Beneath that gossamer veil of airy language which he flung over vicious +theories, the conscienceless, unrelenting character of the man had been +discovered by those clear eyes of the meditative onlooker. Alas! what a man to +be her sister’s closest friend, claiming privileges by long association, which +Hyacinth would have been the last to grant her dissolute admirers of yesterday, +but which were only the more perilous for those memories of childhood that +justified a so dangerous friendship. +</p> + +<p> +She was startled from these painful reflections by the clatter of horses’ hoofs +on the paved courtyard east of the house, and the jingle of sword-belt and bit, +sounds instantly followed by the ringing of the bell at the principal door. +</p> + +<p> +Was it her sister coming home so early? No, Lady Fareham had gone out in her +chair. Was it his lordship returning unannounced? He had stated no time for his +return, telling his wife only that, on his business in Paris being finished, he +would come back without delay. Indeed, Hyacinth had debated the chances of his +arrival this very evening with half a dozen of her particular friends, who knew +that she was going to see Mr. Killigrew’s play. +</p> + +<p> +“Fate cannot be so perverse as to bring him back on the only night when his +return would be troublesome,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Fate is always perverse, and a husband is very lucky if there is but one day +out of seven on which his return would be troublesome,” answered one of her +gossips. +</p> + +<p> +Fate had been perverse, for Angela heard her brother-in-law’s deep strong voice +talking in the hall, and presently he came down the marble steps to the +terrace, and came towards her, white with Kentish dust, and carrying an open +letter in his hand. She had risen at the sound of the bell, and was hurrying to +the house as he met her. He came close up to her, scarcely according her the +civility of greeting. Never had she seen his countenance more gloomy. +</p> + +<p> +“You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs,” he said. “Where +is your sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in the hall, +say they set her down at the palace.” +</p> + +<p> +“At Whitehall?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, at Whitehall. There is a modish performance there to-night, I hear; but I +doubt it is over, for the Strand was crowded with hackney coaches moving +eastward. I passed a pair of handsome eyes in a gilded chair, that flashed fury +at me as I rode by, which I’ll swear were Mrs. Palmer’s; and, waiting for me in +the hall, I found this letter, that had just been handed in by a link, who +doubtless belonged to the same lady. Read, Angela; the contents are scarce long +enough to weary you.” She took the letter from him with a hand that trembled so +that she could hardly hold the sheet of paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Watch! There is an intrigue afoot this night; and you must be a greater +dullard than I think you if you cannot unmask a deceitful——” +</p> + +<p> +The final word was one which modern manners forbid in speech or printed page. +Angela’s pallid cheek flushed crimson at the sight of the vile epithet. Oh, +insane lightness of conduct which made such an insult possible! Standing there, +confronting the angry husband, with that detestable paper in her hand, she felt +a pang of compunction at the thought that she might have been more strenuous in +her arguments with her sister, more earnest and constant in reproof. When the +peace and good repute of two lives were at stake, was it for her to consider +any question of older or younger, or to be restrained by the fear of offending +a sister who had been so generous and indulgent to her? +</p> + +<p> +Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with angry suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he said, “I scarce expected a lying answer from you; and yet you join +with servants to deceive me. You know your sister is not at Lady Sarah’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing, except that, wherever she is, I will vouch that she is +innocently employed, and has done nothing to deserve that infamous aspersion,” +giving him back the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Innocently employed! You carry matters with a high hand. Innocently employed, +in a company of she-profligates, listening to Killigrew’s ribald +jokes—Killigrew, the profanest of them all, who can turn the greatest calamity +this city ever suffered to horseplay and jeering. Innocently employed, in +direct disobedience to her husband! So innocently employed that she makes her +servants—and her sister—tell lies to cover her innocence!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hector as much as you please, I have told your lordship no lies; and, with +your permission, I will leave you to recover your temper before my sister’s +return, which I doubt will happen within the next hour.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved quickly past him towards the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela, forgive me——” he began, trying to detain her; but she hurried on +through the open French window, and ran upstairs to her room, where she locked +herself in. +</p> + +<p> +For some minutes she walked up and down, profoundly agitated, thinking out the +position of affairs. To Fareham she had carried matters with a high hand, but +she was full of fear. The play was over, and her sister, who doubtless had been +among the audience, had not come home. Was she staying at the palace, gossiping +with the maids-of-honour, shining among that brilliant, unscrupulous crowd, +where intrigue was in the very air, where no woman was credited with virtue, +and every man was remorseless? +</p> + +<p> +The anonymous letter scarcely influenced Angela’s thoughts in these agitated +moments—that was but a foul assault on character by a foul-minded woman. But +the furtive confabulations of the past week must have had some motive; and her +sister’s fluttered manner before leaving the house had marked this night as the +crisis of the plot. +</p> + +<p> +Angela could imagine nothing but that ghostly masquerading which had, in the +first place, been discussed freely in her presence; and she could but wonder +that De Malfort and her sister should have made a mystery about a plan which +she had known in its inception. The more deeply she considered all the +circumstances, the more she inclined to suspect some evil intention on De +Malfort’s part, of which Hyacinth, so frank, so shallow, might be too easy a +dupe. +</p> + +<p> +“I do little good doubting and suspecting and wondering here,” she said to +herself; and after hastily lighting the candles on her toilet-table, she began +to unlace the bodice of her light-coloured silk mantua, and in a few minutes +had changed her elegant evening attire for a dark cloth gown, short in the +skirt, and loose in the sleeves, which had been made for her to wear upon the +river. In this costume she could handle a pair of sculls as freely as a +waterman. +</p> + +<p> +When she had put on a little black silk hood, she extinguished her candles, +pulled aside the curtain which obscured the open window, and looked out on the +terrace. There was just light enough to show her that the coast was clear. The +iron gate at the top of the water-stairs was seldom locked, nor were the +boat-houses often shut, as boats were being taken in and out at all hours, and, +for the rest, neglect and carelessness might always be reckoned upon in the +Fareham household. +</p> + +<p> +She ran lightly down a side staircase, and so by an obscure door to the +river-front. No, the gate was not locked, and there was not a creature within +sight to observe or impede her movements. She went down the steps to the paved +quay below the garden terrace. The house where the wherries were kept was wide +open, and, better still, there was a skiff moored by the side of the steps, as +if waiting for her; and she had but to take a pair of sculls from the rack and +step into the boat, unmoor and away westward, with swiftly dipping oars, in the +soft summer silence, broken now and then by sounds of singing—a tipsy, +unmelodious strain, perhaps, were it heard too near, but musical in the +distance—as the rise and fall of voices crept along a reach of running water. +</p> + +<p> +The night was hot and oppressive, even on the river. But it was better here +than anywhere else; and Angela breathed more freely as she bent over her +sculls, rowing with all her might, intent upon reaching that landing-stage she +knew of in the very shortest possible time. The boat was heavy, but she had the +incoming tide to help her. +</p> + +<p> +Was Fareham hunting for his wife, she wondered? Would he go to Lady Sarah’s +lodgings, in the first place; and, not finding Hyacinth there, to Whitehall? +And then, would he remember the assembly at Millbank, in which he had taken no +part, and apparently no interest? And would he extend his search to the ruined +abbey? At the worst, Angela would be there before him, to prepare her sister +for the angry suspicions which she would have to meet. He was not likely to +think of that place till he had exhausted all other chances. +</p> + +<p> +It was not much more than a mile from Fareham House to that desolate bit of +country betwixt Westminster and Chelsea, where the modern dairy-farm occupied +the old monkish pastures. As Angela ran her boat inshore, she expected to see +Venetian lanterns, and to hear music and voices, and all the indications of a +gay assembly; but there were only silence and darkness, save for one lighted +window in the dairyman’s dwelling-house, and she thought that she had come upon +a futile errand, and had been mistaken in her conjectures. +</p> + +<p> +She moored her boat to the wooden landing-stage, and went on shore to examine +the premises. The revelry might be designed for a later hour, though it was now +near midnight, and Lady Sarah’s party had assembled at eleven. She walked +across a meadow, where the dewy grass was cool under her feet, and so to the +open space in front of the dairyman’s house—a shabby building attached like a +wen to the ruined refectory. +</p> + +<p> +She started at hearing the snort of a horse, and the jingling of bit and +curb-chain, and came suddenly upon a coach-and-four, with a couple of post-boys +standing beside their team. +</p> + +<p> +“Whose coach is this?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Malfy’s, your ladyship.” +</p> + +<p> +“The French gentleman from St. James’s Street, my lady,” explained the other +man. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you bring Monsieur de Malfort here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, madam. We was told to be here at eleven, with horses as fresh as fire; and +the poor tits be mighty impatient to be moving. Steady, Champion! You’ll have +work enough this side Dartford,”—to the near leader, who was shaking his head +vehemently, and pawing the gravel. +</p> + +<p> +Angela waited to ask no further questions, but made straight for the unglazed +window, through which Mr. Spavinger and his companions had entered. +</p> + +<p> +There was no light in the great vaulted room, save the faint light of summer +stars, and two figures were there in the dimness—a woman standing straight and +tall in a satin gown, whose pale sheen reflected the starlight; a woman whose +right arm was flung above her head, bare and white, her hand clasping her brow +distractedly; and a man, who knelt at her feet, grasping the hand that hung at +her side, looking up at her, and talking eagerly, with passionate gestures. +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was clearer than his; and Angela heard her repeating with a piteous +shrillness, “No, no, no! No, Henri, no!” +</p> + +<p> +She stayed to hear no more, but sprang through the opening between the broken +mullions, and rushed to her sister’s side; and as De Malfort started to his +feet, she thrust him vehemently aside, and clasped Hyacinth in her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“You here, Mistress Kill-joy?” he muttered, in a surly tone. “May I ask what +business brought you? For I’ll swear you wasn’t invited.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have come to save my sister from a villain, sir. But oh, my sweet, I little +dreamt thou hadst such need of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, love, thou didst ever make tragedies out of nothing,” said Hyacinth, +struggling to disguise hysterical tears with airy laughter. “But I am right +glad all the same that you are come; for this gentleman has put a scurvy trick +upon me, and brought me here on pretence of a gay assembly that has no +existence.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a villain and a traitor,” said Angela, in deep, indignant tones. “Dear +love, thou hast been in danger I dare scarce think of. Fareham is searching for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fareham! In London?” +</p> + +<p> +“Returned an hour ago. Hark!” +</p> + +<p> +She lifted her finger warningly as a bell rang, and the well-known voice +sounded outside the house, calling to some one to open the door. +</p> + +<p> +“He is here!” cried Hyacinth, distractedly. “For God’s sake, hide me from him! +Not for worlds—not for worlds would I meet him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, you have nothing to fear. It is Monsieur de Malfort who has to answer for +what he has done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henri, he will kill you! Alas, you know not what he is in anger! I have seen +him, once in Paris, when he thought a man was insolent to me. God! The thunder +of his voice, the blackness of his brow! He will kill you! Oh, if you love +me—if you ever loved me—come out of his way! He is fatal with his sword!” +</p> + +<p> +“And am I such a tyro at fence, or such a poltroon as to be afraid to meet him? +No, Hyacinth, I go with you to Dover, or I stand my ground and face him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall not!” sobbed Hyacinth. “I will not have your blood on my head! Come, +come—by the garden—by the river!” +</p> + +<p> +She dragged him towards the window; he pretending to resist, as Angela thought, +yet letting himself be led as she pleased to lead him. They had but just +crossed the yawning gap between the mullions and vanished into the night, when +Fareham burst into the room with his sword drawn, and came towards Angela, who +stood in shadow, her face half hidden in her close-fitting hood. +</p> + +<p> +“So, madam, I have found you at last,” he said; “and in time to stop your +journey, though not to save myself the dishonour of a wanton wife! But it is +your paramour I am looking for, not you. Where is that craven hiding?” +</p> + +<p> +He went back to the inhabited part of the house, and returned after a hasty +examination of the premises, carrying the lamp which had lighted his search, +only to find the same solitary figure in the vast bare room. Angela had moved +nearer the window, and had sunk exhausted upon a large carved oak chair, which +might be a relic of the monkish occupation. Fareham came to her with the lamp +in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“He has given me a clean pair of heels,” he said; “but I know where to find +him. It is but a pleasure postponed. And now, woman, you had best return to the +house your folly, or your sin, has disgraced. For to-night, at least, it must +needs shelter you. Come!” +</p> + +<p> +The hooded figure rose at his bidding, and he saw the face in the lamplight. +</p> + +<p> +“You!” he gasped. “You!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Fareham, it is I. Cannot you take a kind view of a foolish business, and +believe there has been only folly and no dishonour in the purpose that brought +me here?” +</p> + +<p> +“You!” he repeated. “You!” +</p> + +<p> +His bearing was that of a man who staggers under a crushing blow, a stroke so +unexpected that he can but wonder and suffer. He set down the lamp with a +shaking hand, then took two or three hurried turns up and down the room; then +stopped abruptly by the lamp, snatched the anonymous letter from his breast, +and read the lines over again. +</p> + +<p> +“‘An intrigue on foot——’ No name. And I took it for granted my wife was meant. +I looked for folly from her; but wisdom, honour, purity, all the virtues from +you. Oh, what was the use of my fortitude, what the motive of self-conquest +here,” striking himself upon the breast, “if you were unchaste? Angela, you +have broken my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long pause before she answered, and her face was turned from him to +hide her streaming tears. At last she was able to reply calmly— +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, Fareham, you do wrong to take this matter so passionately. You may +trust my sister and me. On my honour, you have no cause to be angry with either +of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when I gave you this letter to read,” he went on, disregarding her +protestations, “you knew that you were coming here to meet a lover. You hurried +away from me, dissembler as you were, to steal to this lonely place at +midnight, to fling yourself into his arms. Tell me where he is hiding, that I +may kill him; now, while I pant for vengeance. Such rage as mine cannot wait +for idle forms. Now, now, now, is the time to reckon with your seducer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fareham, you cover me with insults!” +</p> + +<p> +He had rushed to the door, still carrying his naked sword; but he turned back +as she spoke, and stood looking at her from head to foot with a savage +scornfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“Insult!” he cried. “You have sunk too low for insult. There are no words that +I know vile enough to stigmatise such disgrace as yours! Do you know what you +have been to me, Angela? A saint—a star; ineffably pure, ineffably remote; a +creature to worship at a distance; for whose sake it was scarce a sacrifice to +repress all that is common to the base heart of man; from whom a kind word was +enough for happiness—so pure, so far away, so detached from this vile age we +live in. God, how that saintly face has cheated me! Mock saint, mock nun; a +creature of passions like my own but more stealthy; from top to toe an +incarnate lie!” +</p> + +<p> +He flung out of the room, and she heard his footsteps about the house, and +heard doors opened and shut. She waited for no more; but, being sure by this +time that her sister had left the premises, her own desire was to return to +Farebam House as soon as possible, counting upon finding Hyacinth there; yet +with a sick fear that the seducer might take base advantage of her sister’s +terror and confused spirits, and hustle her off upon the fatal journey he had +planned. +</p> + +<p> +The boat lay where she had moored it, at the foot of the wooden stair, and she +was stepping into it when Fareham ran hastily to the bank. +</p> + +<p> +“Your paramour has got clear off,” he said; and then asked curtly, “How came +you by that boat?” +</p> + +<p> +“I brought it from Fareham House.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! you came here alone by water at so late an hour! You heaven-born +adventuress! Other women need education in vice; but to you it comes by +nature.” +</p> + +<p> +He pulled off his doublet as he stepped into the boat; then seated himself and +took the sculls. +</p> + +<p> +“Has your lordship not left a horse waiting for you?” Angela inquired +hesitatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“My lordship’s horse will find his stables before morning with the groom that +has him in charge. I am going to row you home. Love expectant is bold; but +disappointed love may lack courage for a solitary jaunt after midnight. Come, +mistress, let us have no ceremony. We have done with that for ever—as we have +done with friendship. There are thousands of women in England, all much of a +pattern; and you are one of them. That is the end of our romance.” +</p> + +<p> +He bent to his work, and rowed with a steady stroke, and in a stubborn silence, +which lasted till it was more strangely broken than such angry silence is apt +to be. +</p> + +<p> +The tide was still running up, and it was as much as the single oarsman could +do, in that heavy boat, to hold his own against the stream. +</p> + +<p> +Angela sat watching him, with her gaze rooted to that dark countenance and bare +head, on which the iron-grey hair waved thick and strong, for Fareham had never +consented to envelop his neck and shoulders in a mantle of dead men’s tresses, +and wore his own hair after the fashion of Charles the First’s time. So intent +was her watch, that the objects on either shore passed her like shadows in a +dream. The Primate’s palace on her right hand, as the boat swept round that +great bend which the river makes opposite Lambeth Marsh; on her left, as they +neared London, the stern grandeur of the Abbey and St. Margaret’s. It was only +as they approached Whitehall that she became aware of a light upon the water +which was not the reflection of daybreak, and, looking suddenly up, she saw the +fierce glare of a conflagration in the eastern sky, and cried— +</p> + +<p> +“There is a fire, my lord!—a great fire, I doubt, in the city.” +</p> + +<p> +The long roof and massive tower of St Paul’s stood dark against the vivid +splendour of that sky, and every timber in the scaffolding showed like a black +lattice across the crimson and sulphur of raging flames. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls from the rowlocks. +</p> + +<p> +“A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it meant the fulfilment of +prophecy!” +</p> + +<p> +“What prophecy, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“The end of the world, with which we are threatened in this year. God, how the +flames rage and mount! Would it were the great fire, and He had come to judge +us, and to empty the vials of His wrath upon profligates and seducers!” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the face opposite, radiant with reflected rose and gold, supernal +in that strange light, and, oh, so calm in every line and feature, the large +dark eyes meeting his with a gaze that seemed to him half indignant, half +reproachful. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what hypocrites these women are!” he told himself. “And all alike—all +alike. What comedians! For acting one need not go to the Duke’s or the King’s. +One may see it at one’s own board, by one’s own hearth. Acting, nothing but +acting! And I thought that in the universal mass of falsehood and folly there +were some rare stars, dwelling apart here and there, and that she was one of +them. An idle dream! Nature has made them all in one mould, and it is but by +means and opportunity that they differ.” +</p> + +<p> +Higher and higher rose that vast sheet of vivid colour; and now every tower and +steeple was bathed in rosy light, or else stood black against the radiant +sky—towers illuminated, towers in densest shadow; the slim spars of ships +showing as if drawn with pen and ink on a sulphur background—a scene of +surpassing splendour and terror. Fareham had seen Flemish villages blazing, +Flemish citadels exploding, their fragments hurled skyward in a blue flame of +gunpowder; but never this vast arch of crimson, glowing and growing before his +astonished gaze, as he paddled the boat inshore, and stood up to watch the +great disaster. +</p> + +<p> +“God has remembered the new Sodom,” he said savagely. “He punished us with +pestilence, and we took no heed. And now He tries us with fire. But if it come +not yonder,” pointing to Whitehall, which was immediately above them, for their +boat lay close to the King’s landing-stage—“if, like the contagion, it stays in +the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive la bagatelle! We—and our +concubines—have no part in the punishment. We, who call down the fire, do not +suffer it.” +</p> + +<p> +Spellbound by that strange spectacle, Fareham stood and gazed, and Angela was +afraid to urge him to take the boat on to Fareham House, anxious as she was to +span those few hundred yards of distance, to be assured of her sister’s safety. +</p> + +<p> +They waited thus nearly an hour, the sky ever increasing in brilliancy, and the +sounds of voices and tramp of hurrying feet growing with every minute. +Whitehall was now all alive—men and women, in a careless undress, at every +window, some of them hanging half out of the window to talk to people in the +court below. Shrieks of terror or of wonder, ejaculations, and oaths sounding +on every side; while Fareham, who had moored the boat to an iron ring in the +wall by his Majesty’s stairs, stood gloomy and motionless, and made no further +comment, only watched the conflagration in dismal silence, fascinated by that +prodigious ruin. +</p> + +<p> +It was but the beginning of that stupendous destruction, yet it was already +great enough to seem like the end of all things. +</p> + +<p> +“And last night, in the Court theatre, Killigrew’s players were making a jest +of a pestilence that filled the grave-pits by thousands,” Fareham muttered, as +if awaking from a dream. “Well, the wits will have a new subject for their +mirth—London in flames.” +</p> + +<p> +He untied the rope, took his seat and rowed out into the stream. Within that +hour in which they had waited, the Thames had covered itself with traffic; +boats were moving westward, loaded with frightened souls in casual attire, and +with heaps of humble goods and chattels. Some whose houses were nearest the +river had been quick enough to save a portion of their poor possessions, and to +get them packed on barges; but these were the wise minority. The greater number +of the sufferers were stupefied by the suddenness of the calamity, the rapidity +with which destruction rushed upon them, the flames leaping from house to +house, spanning chasms of emptiness, darting hither and thither like lizards or +winged scorpions, or breaking out mysteriously in fresh places, so that already +the cry of arson had arisen, and the ever-growing fire was set down to fiendish +creatures labouring secretly at a work of universal destruction. +</p> + +<p> +Most of the sufferers looked on at the ruin of their homes, paralysed by +horror, unable to help themselves or to mitigate their losses by energetic +action of any kind. Dumb and helpless as sheep, they saw their property +destroyed, their children’s lives imperilled, and could only thank Providence, +and those few brave men who helped them in their helplessness, for escape from +a fiery death. Panic and ruin prevailed within a mile eastward of Fareham +House, when the boat ground against the edge of the marble landing-stage, and +Angela alighted and ran quickly up the stairs, and made her way straight to the +house. The door stood wide open, and candles were burning in the vestibule. The +servants were at the eastern end of the terrace watching the fire, too much +engrossed to see their master and his companion land at the western steps. +</p> + +<p> +At the foot of the great staircase Angela heard herself called by a crystalline +voice, and, looking up, saw Henriette hanging over the banister rail. +</p> + +<p> +“Auntie, where have you been?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is your mother with you?” Angela asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother is locked in her bed-chamber, and mighty sullen. She told me to go to +bed. As if anybody could lie quietly in bed with London burning!” added +Papillon, her tone implying that a great city in flames was a kind of +entertainment that could not be too highly appreciated. +</p> + +<p> +She came flying downstairs in her pretty silken deshabille, with her hair +streaming, and flung her arm round her aunt’s neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Ma chatte, where have you been?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the terrace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fi donc, menteuse! I saw you and my father land at the west stairs, five +minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“We had been looking at the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“And never offered to take me with you! What a greedy pig!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, dearest, it is no scene for little girls to look upon.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when I am grown up what shall I have to talk about if I miss all the great +sights?” +</p> + +<p> +“Come to your room, love. You will see only too much from your windows. I am +going to your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ce n’est pas la peine. She is in one of her tempers, and has locked herself +in.” +</p> + +<p> +“No matter. She will see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Je m’en doute. She came home in a coach-and-four nearly two hours ago, with +Monsieur de Malfort; and I think they must have quarrelled. They bade each +other good night so uncivilly; but he was more huffed than mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you that you know so much?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the gallery. Did I not tell you I shouldn’t be able to sleep? I went into +the gallery for coolness, and then I heard the coach in the courtyard, and the +doors opened, and I listened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Inquisitive child!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I was not inquisitive. I was only vastly hipped for want of knowing what +to do with myself. And I ran to bid her ladyship good morning, for it was close +upon one o’clock; but she frowned at me, and pushed me aside with a ‘Go to your +bed, troublesome imp! What business have you up at this hour?’ ‘As much +business as you have riding about in your coach,’ I had a mind to say, mais je +me tenais coy; and made her ladyship la belle Jennings’ curtsy instead. She +sinks lower and rises straighter than any of the other ladies. I watched her on +mother’s visiting-day. Lord, auntie, how white you are! One might take you for +a ghost!” +</p> + +<p> +Angela put the little prattler aside, more gently, perhaps, than the mother had +done, and passed hurriedly on to Lady Fareham’s room. The door was still +locked, but she would take no denial. +</p> + +<p> +“I must speak with you,” she said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br/> +THE MOTIVE—MURDER.</h2> + +<p> +For Lady Fareham and her sister September and October made a blank interval in +the story of life—uneventful as the empty page at the end of a chapter. They +spent those months at Fareham, a house which Hyacinth detested, a neighbourhood +where she had never condescended to make friends. She condemned the local +gentry as a collection of nobodies, and had never taken the trouble to please +the three or four great families within a twenty-mile drive, because, though +they had rank and consequence, they had not fashion. The <i>haut gout</i> of +Paris and London was wanting to them. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Fareham had insisted upon leaving London on the third of September, and +had, his wife declared, out of pure malignity, taken his family to Fareham, a +place she hated, rather than to Chilton, a place she loved, at least as much as +any civilised mortal could love the country. Never, Hyacinth protested, had her +husband been so sullen and ferocious. +</p> + +<p> +“He is not like an angry man,” she told Angela, “but like a wounded lion; and +yet, since your goodness took all the blame of my unlucky escapade upon your +shoulders, and he knows nothing of De Malfort’s insolent attempt to carry me +off, I see no reason why he should have become such a gloomy savage.” +</p> + +<p> +She accepted her sister’s sacrifice with an amiable lightness. How could it +harm Angela to be thought to have run out at midnight for a frolic rendezvous? +The maids of honour had some such adventure half a dozen times in a season, and +were found out, and laughed at, and laughed again, and wound up their +tempestuous careers by marrying great noblemen. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can but get yourself talked about you may marry as high as you choose,” +Lady Fareham told her sister. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Early in November they went back to London, and though all Hyacinth’s fine +people protested that the town stank of burnt wood, smoked oil, and resin, and +was altogether odious, they rejoiced not the less to be back again. Lady +Fareham plunged with renewed eagerness into the whirlpool of pleasure, and +tried to drag Angela with her; but it was a surprise to both, and to one a +cause for uneasiness, when his lordship began to show himself in scenes which +he had for the most part avoided as well as reviled. For some unexplained +reason he became now a frequent attendant at the evening festivities at +Whitehall, and without even the pretence of being interested or amused there. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham’s appearance at Court caused more surprise than pleasure in that +brilliant circle. The statue of the Comandante would scarcely have seemed a +grimmer guest. He was there in the midst of laughter and delight, with never a +smile upon his stern features. He was silent for the most part, or if badgered +into talking by some of his more familiar acquaintances, would vent his spleen +in a tirade that startled them, as the pleasant chirpings of a poultry-yard are +startled by the raid of a dog. They laughed at his conversation behind his +back; but in his presence, under the angry light of those grey eyes, the gloom +of those bent brows, they were chilled into submission and civility. He had a +dignity which made his Puritanical plainness more patrician than Rochester’s +finery, more impressive than Buckingham’s graceful splendour. The force and +vigour of his countenance were more striking than Sedley’s beauty. The eyes of +strangers singled him out in that gay throng, and people wanted to know who he +was and what he had done for fame. +</p> + +<p> +A soldier, yes, cela saute aux yeux. He could be nothing else than a soldier. A +cavalier of the old school. Albeit younger by half a lifetime than Southampton +and Clarendon, and the other ghosts of the troubles. +</p> + +<p> +Charles treated him with chill civility. +</p> + +<p> +“Why does the man come here without his wife?” he asked De Malfort. “There is a +sister, too, fresher and fairer than her ladyship. Why are we to have the +shadow without the sun? Yet it is as well, perhaps, they keep away; for I have +heard of a visit which was not returned—a condescension from a woman of the +highest rank slighted by a trumpery baron’s wife—and after an offence of that +kind she could only have brought us trouble. Why do women quarrel, Wilmot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why are there any men in the world, sir? If there were none, women would live +together like lambs in a meadow. It is only about us they fight. As for Lady +Fareham, she is adorable, though no longer young. I believe she will be thirty +on her next birthday.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the sister? She had a wild-rose prettiness, I thought, when I saw her at +Oxford. She looked like a lily till I spoke to her, and then flamed like a red +rose. So fresh, so easily startled. ’Tis pity that shyness of youthful purity +wears off in a week. I dare swear by this time Mrs. Kirkland is as brazen as +the boldest of our young houris yonder,” with a glance in the direction of the +maids of honour, the Queen’s and the Duchess’s, a bevy of chatterers, waving +fans, giggling, whispering, shoulder to shoulder with the impudentest men in +his Majesty’s kingdom; the men who gave their mornings to writing comedies +coarser than Dryden or Etherege, and their nights to cards, dice, and strong +drink; roving the streets half clad, dishevelled, wanton; beating the watch, +and insulting decent pedestrians; with occasional vicious outbreaks which would +have been revolting in a company of inebriated coal-heavers, and which brought +these fine gentlemen before a too lenient magistrate. But were not these the +manners of which St. Evremond lightly sang— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘La douce erreur ne s’appelait point crime;<br/> +Les vices délicats se nommaient des plaisirs.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Mistress Kirkland has an inexorable modesty which would outlive even a week at +Whitehall, sir,” answered Rochester. “If I did not adore the matron I should +worship the maid. Happily for the wretch who loves her I am otherwise engaged!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou insolent brat! To be eighteen years of age and think thyself +irresistible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Does your Majesty suppose I shall be more attractive at six and thirty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, villain; for at my age thou wilt have experience.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a reputation for incorrigible vice. No woman of taste can resist that.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pray who is Mrs. Kirkland’s lover?” +</p> + +<p> +“A Puritan baronet. One Denzil Warner.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a Warner killed at Hoptown Heath.” +</p> + +<p> +“His son, sir. A fellow who believes in extempore prayer and republican +government; and swears England was never so happy or prosperous as under +Cromwell.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the lady favours this psalm-singing rebel?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know not. For all I have seen of the two she has been barely civil to him. +That he adores her is obvious; and I know Lady Fareham’s heart is set upon the +match.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did not Lady Fareham return the Countess’s visit?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no need to ask what Countess. +</p> + +<p> +“Be sure, sir, the husband was to blame, if there was want of respect for that +lovely lady. I can answer for Lady Fareham’s right feeling in that matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“The husband takes a leaf out of Hyde’s book, and forgets that what may be +passed over in the Lord Chancellor, and a man of prodigious usefulness, is +intolerable in a person of Fareham’s insignificance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, insignificance is scarcely the word. I would as soon call a +thunderstorm insignificant. The man is a volcano, and may explode at any +provocation.” +</p> + +<p> +“We want no such suppressed fires at Whitehall. Nor do we want long faces; as +Clarendon may discover some day, if his sermons grow too troublesome.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Chancellor is a domestic man; as your Majesty may infer from the size and +splendour of his new house.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is an expensive man, Wilmot I believe he got more by the sale of Dunkirk +than his master did.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case your Majesty cannot do better than shift all the disgrace of the +transaction on to his shoulders. Dunkirk will be a sure card to play when +Clarendon has to go overboard.” +</p> + +<p> +That incivility of Lady Fareham’s in the matter of an unreturned visit had +rankled deep in the bosom of the King’s imperious mistress. To sin more boldly +than woman ever sinned, and yet to claim all the privileges and honours due to +virtue was but a trifling inconsistency in a mind so fortified by pride that it +scarce knew how to reckon with shame. That she, in her supremacy of beauty and +splendour, a fortune sparkling in either ear, the price of a landed estate on +her neck—that she, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, should have driven in a +windowless coach through dusty lanes, eating dirt, as it were, with her train +of court gallants on horseback at her coach doors, her ladies in a carriage in +the rear, to visit a person of Lady Fareham’s petty quality, a Buckinghamshire +Knight’s daughter married to a Baron of Henry the Eighth’s creation! And that +this amazing condescension—received with a smiling and curtsying +civility—should have been unacknowledged by any reciprocal courtesy was an +affront that could hardly be wiped out with blood. Indeed, it could never be +atoned for. The wound was poisoned, and would rankle and fester to the end of +that proud life. +</p> + +<p> +Yet on Fareham’s appearance at Whitehall Lady Castlemaine distinguished with a +marked civility, and even condescended, smilingly, as if there were no cause of +quarrel, to inquire after his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Her ladyship is as pretty as ever, though we are all growing old,” she said. +“We exchanged curtsies at Tunbridge Wells the other day. I wonder how it is we +never get further than smiles and curtsies? I should like to show the dear +woman some more substantial civility. She is buried alive in your stately house +by the river, for the want of an influential friend to show her the world we +live in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, madam, my wife has all the pleasure she desires—her visiting-day, her +friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“And her admirers. Rochester is always hanging about your garden, or landing +from his wherry, when I go by; or, if he himself be not visible, there are a +couple of his watermen on your steps.” +</p> + +<p> +“My Lord Rochester has a precocious wit which amuses my wife and her sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then there is De Malfort—an impertinent, second only to Gramont. He and +Lady Fareham are twin stars. I have seldom seen them apart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since De Malfort has the honour of being somewhat intimate with your ladyship, +he has doubtless given you full particulars of his friendship for my wife. I +assure you it will bear being talked about. There are no secrets in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really; I thought I had heard something about a sedan which took the wrong +road after Killigrew’s play. But that was the night before the fire. Good God! +my lord, your face darkens as if a man had struck you. Whatever happened before +the fire should have been burnt out of our memories by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see his Majesty looking this way, madam, and I have not yet paid my respects +to him,” Fareham said, moving away, but a dazzling hand on his sleeve arrested +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your respects will keep; he has Miss Stewart giggling at his elbow. +Strange, is it not, that a woman with as much brain as a pigeon can amuse a man +who reckons himself both wise and witty?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, madam. She has the good sense to +pretend that he amuses her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And no more understands a jest than she does Hebrew.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is conscious of pretty teeth and an enchanting smile. Wit or understanding +would be superfluous,” answered Fareham, bowing his adieu to the Sultana in +chief. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There was a great assembly, with music and dancing, on the Queen’s birthday, to +which Lord and Lady Fareham and Mistress Kirkland were invited; and again +Angela saw and wondered at the splendid scene, and at this brilliant world, +which calamity could not touch. Pestilence had ravaged the city, flames had +devoured it—yet here there were only smiling people, gorgeous dress, +incomparable jewels. The plague had not touched them, and the fire had not +reached them. Such afflictions are for the common herd. Angela promenaded with +De Malfort in the spacious banqueting-hall, with its ceiling of such prodigious +height that the apotheosis of King James, and all the emblematical figures, +triumphal cars, lions, bears and rams, corn-sheaves and baskets of fruit, which +filled the panels, might as well have been executed by a sign-painter’s +rough-and-ready brush, as by the pencil of the great Fleming. +</p> + +<p> +“We are a little kinder to Rubens at the Louvre,” said De Malfort, noting her +upward gaze; “for we allow his elaborate glorification of his Majesty’s +grandfather and grandmother about half a mile of wall. But I forgot, you have +not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri’s vanity +inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent +shoulders—the Roman-nosed Béarnais, with his pointed beard and stiff ruff. Mon +Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac’s knife snapped that valiant +life! And you have never seen Paris? You look about you with wide-open eyes, +and take this crowd, this ceiling, those candlebra for splendour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can there be a scene more splendid?” asked Angela, pleased to keep him by her +side, rather than see him devote himself to her sister; grateful for his +attention in that crowd where most people were strangers, and where Lord +Fareham had not vouchsafed the slightest notice of her. +</p> + +<p> +“When you have seen the Louvre, you will wonder that any King, with a sense of +his own consequence in the world, can inhabit such a hovel as Whitehall—this +congeries of shabby apartments, the offices of servants, the lodgings of +followers and dependents, soldiers and civilians—huddled in a confused +labyrinth of brick and stone—redeemed from squalor only by one fine room. Could +you see the grand proportions, the colossal majesty of the great Henri’s +palace—that palace whose costly completion sat heavy upon Sully’s careful soul! +Henri loved to build—and his grandson, Louis, inherits that Augustan taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were telling us of a new palace at Versailles——” +</p> + +<p> +“A royal city in stone—white—dazzling—grandiose. The mortar was scarcely dry +when I was there in March; but you should have seen the mi-careme ball. The +finest masquerade that was ever beheld in Europe. All Paris came in masks to +see that magnificent spectacle. His Majesty allowed entrance to all—and those +who came were feasted at a banquet which only Rabelais could fairly describe. +And then with our splendour there is an elegant restraint—a decency unknown +here. Compare these women—Lady Shrewsbury yonder, Lady Chesterfield, the fat +woman in sea-green and silver—Lady Castlemaine, brazen in orange velvet and +emeralds—compare them with Condé’s sister, with the Duchesse de Bouillon, the +Princess Palatine——” +</p> + +<p> +“Are those such good women?” +</p> + +<p> +“Humph! They are ladies. These are the kind of women King Charles admires. They +are as distinct a race as the dogs that lie in his bed-chamber, and follow him +in his walks, a species of his own creation. They do not even affect modesty. +But I am turning preacher, like Fareham. Come, there is to be an entertainment +in the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage—and Jacob Hall, the +rope-dancer, is to perform.” +</p> + +<p> +They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained at Angela’s side till the end +of the performance, and attended her to the supper-table afterwards. Fareham +watched them from his place in the background. He stood ever aloof from the +royal focus, the beauty, and the wit, the most dazzling jewels, the most +splendid raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; the passion which these two entertained for each other was patent to every +eye; but had it been an honourable attachment upon De Malfort’s side, he would +have declared himself before now. He would not have abandoned the field to such +a sober suitor as Denzil. Henri de Malfort loved her, and she fed his passion +with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of the most musical voice +Fareham had ever listened to. +</p> + +<p> +“The voice that came to me in my desolation—the sweetest sound that ever fell +on a dying man’s ear,” he thought, recalling those solitary days and nights in +the plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fond longing, “that arm +which shows dazzling white against the purple velvet of his sleeve is the arm +that held up my aching head, in the dawn of returning reason; those are the +eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, so anxious for my recovery. Oh, +lovely angel, I would be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink +a cup of water from that dear hand—only to feel the touch of those light +fingers on my forehead! There was a magic in that touch that surpassed the +healing powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in those benignant +eyes. But, oh, she is changed since then. She is plague-stricken with the +contagion of a profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of this +modish Tophet She has been taught to dress and look like the women around her—a +little more modest—but after the same fashion. The nun I worshipped is no +more.” +</p> + +<p> +Some one tapped him on the shoulder with an ostrich fan. He turned, and saw +Lady Castlemaine close at his elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“Image of gloom, will you lead me to my rooms?” she asked, in a curious voice, +her dark blue eyes deepened by the pallor that showed through her rouge. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall esteem myself too much honoured by that office,” he answered, as she +took his arm and moved quickly, with hurried footsteps, through the lessening +throng. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there is no one to dispute the honour with you. Sometimes I have a mob to +hustle me to my lodgings, borne on the current of their adulation—sometimes I +move through a desert, as I do to-night. Your face attracted me—for I believe +it is the only one at Whitehall as gloomy as my own—unless there are some of my +creditors, men to whom I owe gaming debts.” +</p> + +<p> +It was curious to note that subtle change in the faces of those they passed, +which Barbara Palmer knew so well—faces that changed, obedient to the +weathercock of royal caprice—the countenances of courtiers who even yet had not +learnt justly to weigh the influence of that imperial favourite, or to +understand that she ruled their King with a power which no transient fancy for +newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the sulks, frowns and mournful +looks for gossip Pepys to jot down in his diary, and the next day the sun would +be shining again, and the King would be at supper with “the lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was secure; but she took these +transient fancies <i>moult serieusement</i>. Her jealous soul could tolerate no +rival—or it may be that she really loved the King. He had given himself to her +in the flush of his triumphant return, while he was still young enough to feel +a genuine passion. For her sake he had been a cruel husband, an insolent tyrant +to an inoffensive wife; for her sake he had squandered his people’s money, and +outraged every moral law; and it may be that she remembered these things, and +hated him the more fiercely for them when he was inconstant. She was a woman of +extremes, in whose tropical temperament there was no medium between hatred and +love. +</p> + +<p> +“You will sup with me, Fareham?” she said, as he waited on the threshold of her +lodgings, which were in a detached pile of buildings, near the Holbein Gateway, +and looking upon an enclosed and somewhat gloomy garden. +</p> + +<p> +“Your ladyship will excuse me. I am expected at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you to a <i>tête-à-tête</i>. I +shall have some company, though the drove have gone to the Stewarts’ in a hope +of getting asked to supper—which but a few of them can realise in her mean +lodgings. You had better stay. I may have Buckhurst, Sedley, De Malfort, and a +few more of the pretty fellows—enough to empty your pockets at basset.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your ladyship is all goodness,” said Fareham, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort’s name had decided him. He followed his hostess through a crowd of +lackeys, a splendour of wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned and +flashed upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her complexion the +peach in its ripest bloom, the orange sheen of her velvet mantua shining out +against a background of purple damask curtains embroidered with gold. +</p> + +<p> +The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. Warmth, opulence, hospitality, +were all expressed in the brilliantly lighted room, where luxurious fauteuils, +after the new French fashion, stood about, ready to receive her ladyship’s +guests. +</p> + +<p> +These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. Less than twenty men, and +about a dozen women, were enough to add an air of living gaiety to the +brilliancy of light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. He kissed +her ladyship’s hand, looked about him, and recognised Fareham with open wonder. +</p> + +<p> +“An Israelite in the house of Dagon!” he said, <i>sotto voce</i>, as he +approached him. “What, Fareham, have you given your neck to the yoke? Do you +yield to the charm which has subjugated such lighter natures as Villiers and +Buckhurst?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of youth and +innocence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to discover that? We all worship +innocence, were it but for its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or a yellow +diamond above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you here! It is the +most human thing I have known of you since you recovered of the contagion; for +you have been a gloomier man from that time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be assured I am altogether human—at least upon the worser side of humanity.” +</p> + +<p> +“How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, you should fight against that +melancholic habit. Her ladyship is in the black sulks. We are in for a pleasant +evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm at us to-morrow; call us +sycophants and time-servers, swear she would hold no further commerce with any +manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she is a magnificent termagant. If +Cleopatra was half as handsome, I can forgive Antony for following her to ruin +at Actium.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen,” said Lady Castlemaine, who was +standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of whispering women. +</p> + +<p> +They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridiculing old Rowley, to gratify +their hostess. She knew them by heart—their falsehood and hollowness. She knew +that they were ready, every one of them, to steal her royal lover, had they but +the chance of such a conquest; yet it solaced her soreness to hear Miss Stewart +depreciated even by those false lips—“She was too tall.” “Her Britannia profile +looked as if it was cut out of wood.” “She was bold, bad, designing.” “It was +she who would have the King, not the King who would have her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are too malicious, my dearest Price,” said Lady Castlemaine, with more +good humour than had been seen in her countenance that evening. “Buckhurst, +will you take Mrs. Price to supper? There are cards in the gallery. Pray amuse +yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“But will your ladyship neither sup nor play?” asked Sedley. +</p> + +<p> +“My ladyship has a raging headache. What devil! Did I not lose enough to some +of you blackguards last night? Do you want to rook me again? Pray amuse +yourselves, friends. No doubt his Majesty is being exquisitely entertained +where he is; but I doubt if he will get as good a supper as you will find in +the next room.” +</p> + +<p> +The significant laugh which concluded her speech was too angry for mirth, and +the blackness of her brow forbade questioning. All the town knew next day that +she had contrived to get the royal supper intercepted and carried off, on its +way from the King’s kitchen to Miss Stewart’s lodgings, and that his Majesty +had a Barmecide feast at the table of beauty. It was a joke quite in the humour +of the age. +</p> + +<p> +The company melted out of the room; all but Fareham, who watched Lady +Castlemaine as she stood by the hearth in an attitude of hopeless +self-forgetfulness, leaning against the lofty sculptured chimney-piece, one +slender foot in gold-embroidered slipper and transparent stocking poised on the +brazen fender, and her proud eyelids lowered as if there was nothing in this +world worth looking at but the pile of ship’s timber, burning with +many-coloured flames upon the silver andirons. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was conscious of Fareham’s lingering. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you stay, my lord?” she asked, without looking up. “If your purse is +heavy there are friends of mine yonder who will lighten it for you, fairly or +foully. I have never made up my mind how far a gentleman may be a rogue with +impunity. If you don’t love losing money you had best eat a good supper and +begone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for cards than for feasting.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer him, but clasped her hands suddenly before her face and gave +a heart-breaking sigh. Fareham paused on the threshold of the gallery, watching +her, and then went slowly back, bent down to take the hand that had dropped at +her side, and pressed his lips upon it, silently, respectfully, with a kind of +homage that had become strange of late years to Barbara Palmer. Adorers she had +and to spare, toadeaters and flatterers, a regiment of mercenaries; but these +all wanted something of her—kisses, smiles, influence, money. Disinterested +respect was new. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you were a Puritan, Lord Fareham.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a man; and I know what it is to suffer the hell-fire of jealousy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jealousy, yes! I never was good at hiding my feelings. He treats me +shamefully. Come, now, you take me for an abandoned profligate woman, a callous +wanton. That is what the world takes me for; and, perhaps, I have deserved no +better of the world. But whatever I am ’twas he made me so. If he had been +true, I could have been constant. It is the insolence of abandonment that +stings; the careless slights, scarce conscious that he wounds. Before the eyes +of the world, too, before wretches that grin and whisper, and prophesy the day +when my pride shall be in the dust. It is treatment such as this that makes +women desperate; and if we cannot keep him we love, we make believe to love +some one else, and flaunt our fancy in the deceiver’s face. Do you think I +cared for Buckingham, with his heart of ice; or for such a snipe as Jermyn; or +for a low-born rope-dancer? No, Fareham; there has been more of rage and hate +than of passion in my caprices. And he is with Frances Stewart to-night. She +sets up for a model of chastity, and is to marry Richmond next month. But we +know, Fareham, we know. Women who ride in glass coaches should not throw +stones. I will have Charles at my feet again. I will have my foot upon his neck +again. I cannot use him too ill for the pain he gives me. There, go—go! Why did +you tempt me to lay my heart bare?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest lady, believe me, I respect your candour. My heart bleeds for your +wrongs. So beautiful, so high above all other women in the capacity to charm! +Ah, be sure such loveliness has its responsibilities. It is a gift from Heaven, +and to hold it cheap is a sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing in this life can be held too cheap. Beauty, love—all +trumpery! You would make life a tragedy. It is a farce, Fareham, a farce; and +all our pleasures and diversions only serve to make us forget what worms we +are. There, go—to cards—to supper—as you please. I am going to my bed-chamber +to rest this throbbing head. I may return and take a hand at cards by-and-by, +perhaps. Those fellows will game and booze till daylight.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham opened the door for her, as she went out, regal in port and air. She +had moved him to compassion, even while she owned herself a wanton. To love +passionately—and to see another preferred! There is a brotherhood in agony, +that brings even opposite natures into sympathy. He passed into the gallery, a +long low room, hung with modern tapestries, richly coloured, voluptuous in +design. Clusters of wax tapers in gilded sconces lit up those Paphian pictures. +There were several tables, at which the mixed company were sitting. Piles of +the new guineas, fresh from his Majesty’s Mint, shone in the candle-light. At +some tables there was a silent absorption in the game, which argued high play, +and the true gambler’s spirit; at others mirth reigned—talk, laughter, animated +looks. One of the noisiest was the table at which De Malfort was the most +conspicuous figure; his periwig the highest, his dress the most sumptuous, his +breast glittering with orders. His companions were Sir Ralph Masaroon, Colonel +Dangerfield, an old Malignant, who had hibernated during the Protectorate, and +had never left his own country, and Lady Lucretia Topham, a visiting +acquaintance of Hyacinth’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, Fareham,” cried De Malfort; “there is plenty of room for you. I’ll +wager Lady Lucretia will pass you her hand, and thank you for taking it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Lucretia is glad to be quit of such dishonest company,” said the lady, +tossing her cards upon the table, and rising in a cloud of powder and perfume, +and a flutter of lace and brocade. “If I were ill-humoured I would say you +marked the cards! but as I’m the soul of good nature, I’ll only swear you are +the luckiest dog in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are the soul of good nature, and I am the luckiest dog in the universe +when you smile upon me,” answered De Malfort, without looking up from his +cards, as the lady posed herself gracefully at the back of his chair, leaning +over his shoulder to watch his play. “I would not limit the area to any city, +however big.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham seated himself in the chair the lady had vacated, and gathered up the +cards she had abandoned. He took a handful of gold from his pocket, and put it +on the table at his elbow, all with a somewhat churlish silence, that escaped +notice where everybody was loquacious. De Malfort went on fooling with Lady +Lucretia, whose lovely hand and arm, her strongest point, descended upon a card +now and then, to indicate the play she deemed wisest. +</p> + +<p> +Once he caught the hand and kissed it in transit. +</p> + +<p> +“Wert thou as wise as this hand is fair it should direct my play; but it is +only a woman’s hand, and points the way to perdition.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham had been losing steadily from the moment he took up Lady Lucretia’s +cards; and his pile of jacobuses had been gradually passed over to De Malfort’s +side of the table. He had emptied his pockets, and had scrawled two or three +I.O.U.’s upon scraps of paper torn from a note-book. Yet he went on playing, +with the same immovable countenance. The room had emptied itself, the rest of +the visitors leaving earlier than their usual hour in that hospitable house. +Perhaps because the hostess was missing; perhaps because the royal sun was +shining elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Lackeys handed their salvers of Burgundy and Bordeaux, and the players +refreshed themselves occasionally with a brimmer of clary; but no wine +brightened Fareham’s scowling brow, or changed the gloomy intensity of his +outlook. +</p> + +<p> +“My cards have brought your lordship bad luck,” said Lady Lucretia, who watched +De Malfort’s winnings with an air of personal interest. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew my risk before I took them, madam. When an Englishman plays against a +Frenchman he is a fool if he is not prepared to be rooked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fareham, are you mad?” cried De Malfort, starting to his feet. “To insult your +friend’s country, and, by basest implication, your friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see no friend here. I say that you Frenchmen cheat at cards—on principle—and +are proud of being cheats! I have heard De Gramont brag of having lured a man +to his tent, and fed him, and wined him, and fleeced him while he was drunk.” +He took a goblet of claret from the lackey who brought his salver, emptied it, +and went on, hoarse with passion. “To the marrow of your bones you are false, +all of you! You do not cog your dice, perhaps, but you bubble your friends with +finesses, and are as much sharpers at heart as the lowest tat-mongers in +Alsatia. You empty our purses, and cozen our women with twanging guitars and +jingling rhymes, and laugh at us because we are honest and trust you. Seducers, +tricksters, poltroons!” +</p> + +<p> +The footman was at De Malfort’s elbow now. He snatched a tankard from the +salver, and flung the contents across the table, straight at Fareham’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“This bully forces me to spoil his Point de Venise,” he said coolly, as he set +down the tankard. “There should be a law for chaining up rabid curs that have +run mad without provocation.” +</p> + +<p> +Fareham sprang to his feet, black and terrible, but with a savage exultation in +his countenance. The wine poured in a red stream from his point-lace cravat, +but had not touched his face. +</p> + +<p> +“There shall be something redder than Burgundy spilt before we have done!” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Sacre nom, nous sommes tombes dans un antre de betes sauvages!” exclaimed +Masaroon, starting up, and anxiously examining the skirts of his brocade coat, +lest that sudden deluge had caught him. +</p> + +<p> +“None of your —— French to show your fine breeding!” growled the old cavalier. +“Fareham, you deserved the insult; but one red will wash out another. I’m with +your lordship.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’m with De Malfort,” said Masaroon. “He had more than enough +provocation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, gentlemen, no bloodshed!” cried Lady Lucretia; “or, if you are +going to be uncivil to each other, for God’s sake get me to my chair. I have a +husband who would never forgive me if it were said you fought for my sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will see you safely disposed of, madam, before we begin our business,” said +Colonel Dangerfield, bluntly. “Fareham, you can take the lady to her chair, +while Masaroon and I discuss particulars.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need of a discussion,” interrupted Fareham, hotly. “We have +nothing to arrange—nothing to wait for. Time, the present; place, the garden, +under these windows; weapons, the swords we wear. We shall have no witnesses +but the moon and stars. It is the dead middle of the night, and we have the +world all to ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me your rapier, then, that I may compare it with the Count’s. You are +satisfied, monsieur? ’Tis you that are the offender, and Lord Fareham has the +choice of weapons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him choose. I will fight him with cannon—or with soap-bubbles,” answered +De Malfort, lolling back in his chair, tilted at an angle of forty-five, and +drumming a gay dance tune with his finger-tips on the table. “’Tis a foolish +imbroglio from first to last: and only his lordship and I know how foolish. He +came here to provoke a quarrel, and I must indulge him. Come, Lady Lucretia”—he +turned to his fair friend, as he unbuckled his sword and flung it on the +table—“it is my place to lead you to your chair. Colonel, you and your friend +will find me below stairs in front of the Holbein Gate.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are forgetting your winnings,” remonstrated the lady, pointing to the pile +of gold. +</p> + +<p> +“The lackeys will not forget them when they clear the room,” answered De +Malfort, putting her hand through his arm, and leaving the money on the table. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Ten minutes later Fareham and De Malfort were standing front to front in the +glare of four torches, held by a brace of her ladyship’s lackeys who had been +impressed into the service, and the colder light of a moon that rode high in +the blue-black of a wintry heaven. There was not a sound but the ripple of the +unseen river, and the distant cry of a watchman in Petty France, till the clash +of swords began. +</p> + +<p> +It was decided after a brief parley that the principals only should fight. The +quarrel was private. The seconds placed their men on a piece of level turf, +five paces apart. They were bare-headed, and without coat or vest, the lace +ruffles of their shirt-sleeves rolled back to the elbow, their naked arms +ghastly white, their faces suggesting ghost or devil as the spectral moonlight +or the flame of the flambeaux shone upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean business, so we may sink the parade of the fencing saloon,” said +Dangerfield. “Advance, gentlemen.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pity,” murmured Masaroon, “there is nothing prettier than the salute <i>à la +Française</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Dangerfield handed the men their swords. They were nearly similar in fashion, +both flat-grooved blades, with needle points, and no cutting edge, furnished +with shell-guards and cross-bars in the Italian style, and were about of a +length. +</p> + +<p> +The word was given, and the business of engagement proceeded slowly and warily, +for a few moments that seemed minutes; and then the blades were firmly joined +in carte, and a series of rapid feints began, De Malfort having a slight +advantage in the neatness of his circles, and the swiftness of his wrist play. +But in these preliminary lounges and parries, he soon found he needed all his +skill to dodge his opponent’s point; for Fareham’s blade followed his own, +steadily and strongly, through every turn. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort had begun the fight with an insolent smile upon his lips, the smile +of a man who believes himself invincible, while Fareham’s countenance never +changed from the black anger that had darkened it all that night. It was a face +that meant death. A man who had never been a duellist, who had raised his voice +sternly against the practice of duelling, stood there intent upon bloodshed. +There could be no mistake as to his purpose. The quarrel was an artificial +quarrel—the object was murder. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort, provoked at the unexpected strength of Fareham’s fence, attempted a +partial disarmament, after the deadly Continental method. Joining his +opponent’s blade near the point, from a wide circular parry, he made a rapid +thrust in seconde, carrying his forte the entire length of Fareham’s blade, +almost wrenching the sword from his grasp; and then, in the next instant, +reaching forward to his fullest stretch, he lunged at his enemy’s breast, +aiming at the vital region of the heart; a thrust that must have proved fatal +had not Fareham sprung aside, and so received the blow where the sword only +grazed his ribs, inflicting a flesh-wound that showed red upon the whiteness of +his shirt. Dangerfield tore off his cravat, and wanted to bind it round his +principal’s waist; but Fareham repulsed him, and lashed into hot fury by the +Frenchman’s uncavalier-like ruse, met his adversary’s thrusts with a deadly +purpose, which drove De Malfort to reckless lunging and riposting, and the play +grew fast and fierce, while the rattle of steel seemed never likely to end. +Suddenly, timing his attack to the fraction of a second, Fareham dropped on his +left knee, and planting his left hand upon the ground, sent a murderous thrust +home under De Malfort’s guard, whose blade passed harmlessly over his +adversary’s head as he crouched on the sward. +</p> + +<p> +De Malfort fell heavily in the arms of the two seconds, who both sprang to his +assistance. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it fatal?” asked Fareham, standing motionless as stone, while the other men +knelt on either side of De Malfort. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll run for a surgeon,” said Masaroon. “There’s a fellow I know of this side +the Abbey—mends bloody noses and paints black eyes,” and he was off, running +across the grass to the nearest gate. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks plaguily like a coffin,” Dangerfield answered, with his hand on the +wounded man’s breast. “There’s throbbing here yet; but he may bleed to death, +like poor Lindsey, before surgery can help him. You had better run, Fareham. +Take horse to Dover, and get across to Calais or Ostend. You were devilish +provoking. It might go hard with you if he was to die.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not budge, Dangerfield. Didn’t you hear me say I wanted to kill him? +You might guess I didn’t care a cast of the dice for my life when I said as +much. Let them find it murder, and hang me. I wanted him out of the world, and +don’t care how soon I follow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are mad—stark, staring mad!” +</p> + +<p> +The wounded man raised himself on his elbow, groaning aloud in the agony of +movement, and beckoned Fareham, who knelt down beside him, all of a piece, like +a stone figure. +</p> + +<p> +“Fareham, you had better run; I have powerful friends. There’ll be an ugly stir +if I die of this bout. Kiss me, mon ami. I forgive you. I know what wound +rankled; ’twas for your wife’s sister you fought—not the cards.” +</p> + +<p> +He sank into Dangerfield’s arms, swooning from loss of blood, as Masaroon came +back at a run, bringing a surgeon, an elderly man of that Alsatian class which +is to be found out of bed in the small hours. He brought styptics and bandages, +and at once set about staunching the wound. +</p> + +<p> +While this was happening a curtain had been suddenly pulled aside at an upper +window in Lady Castlemaine’s lodgings, showing a light within. The window was +thrown open, and a figure appeared, clad in a white satin night-gown that +glistened in the moonlight, with a deep collar of ermine, from which the +handsomest face in London looked across the garden, to the spot where Fareham, +the seconds, and the surgeon were grouped about De Malfort. +</p> + +<p> +It was Lady Castlemaine. She leant out of the window and called to them. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened? Is any one hurt? I’ll wager a thousand pounds you devils +have been fighting.” +</p> + +<p> +“De Malfort is stabbed!” Masaroon answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Not dead?” she shrieked, leaning farther out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +“No; but it looks dangerous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bring him into my house this instant! I’ll send my fellows to help. Have you +sent for a surgeon?” +</p> + +<p> +“The surgeon is here.” +</p> + +<p> +The radiant figure vanished like a vision in the skies; and in three minutes a +door was heard opening, and a voice calling, “John, William, Hugh, Peter, every +manjack of you. Lazy devils! There’s been no time for you to fall asleep since +the company left. Stir yourselves, vermin, and out with you!” +</p> + +<p> +“We had best levant, Fareham,” muttered Dangerfield, and drew away his +principal, who went with him, silent and unresisting, having no more to do +there; not to fly the country, however, but to walk quietly home to Fareham +House, and to let himself in at the garden door, known to the household as his +lordship’s. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> +REVELATIONS.</h2> + +<p> +Lord Fareham stayed in his own house by the Thames, and nobody interfered with +his liberty, though Henri de Malfort lay for nearly a fortnight between life +and death, and it was only in the beginning of December that he was pronounced +out of danger, and was able to be removed from Lady Castlemaine’s luxurious +rooms to his own lodgings. Scandal-mongers might have made much talk of his +lying ill in her ladyship’s house, and being tenderly nursed by her, had not +Lady Castlemaine outlived the possibility of slander. It would have been as +difficult for her name to acquire any blacker stain as for a damaged reputation +to wash itself white. The secret of the encounter had been faithfully kept by +principals and seconds, De Malfort behaving with a chivalrous generosity. He +appeared, indeed, as anxious for his antagonist’s safety as for his own +recovery. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a mistake,” he said, when Masaroon pressed him with home questions. +“Every man is mad once in his life. Fareham’s madness took an angry turn +against an old friend. Why, we slept under the same blanket in the trenches +before Dunkirk; we rode shoulder to shoulder through the rain of bullets at +Chitillon; and to pick a trumpery quarrel with a brother-in-arms!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder the quarrel was not picked earlier,” Masaroon answered bluntly. “Your +courtship of the gentleman’s wife has been notorious for the last five years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call it not courtship, Ralph. Lady Fareham and I are old playfellows. We were +reared in the <i>pays du tendre</i>, Loveland—the kingdom of innocent +attachments and pure penchants, that country of which Mademoiselle Scudéry has +given us laws and a map. Your vulgar London lover cannot understand +platonics—the affection which is satisfied with a smile or a madrigal. Fareham +knows his wife and me better than to doubt us.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet he acted like a man who was madly jealous. His rudeness at the +card-table was obvious malice afore-thought. He came resolved to quarrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, he came to quarrel—but not about his wife.” +</p> + +<p> +Pressed to explain this dubious phrase, De Malfort affected a fit of languor, +and would talk no more. +</p> + +<p> +The town was told that the Comte de Malfort was ill of a quartain fever, and +much was said about his sufferings during the Fronde, his exposure to damp and +cold in the sea-marshes by Dunkirk, his rough fare and hard riding through the +war of the Princes. This fever, which hung about him so long, was an +after-consequence of hardship suffered in his youth—privations faced with a +boyish recklessness, and which he had paid for with an impaired constitution. +Fine ladies in gilded chairs, and vizard-masks in hackney coaches, called +frequently at his lodgings in St. James’s Street to inquire about his progress. +Lady Fareham’s private messenger was at his door every morning, and brought a +note, or a book, or a piece of new music from her ladyship, who had been +sternly forbidden to visit her old friend in person. +</p> + +<p> +“You grow every day a gloomier tyrant!” Hyacinth protested, with more passion +in her voice and mien than ever her husband had known. “Why should I not go to +him when he is ill—dangerously ill—dying perhaps? He is my old, old friend. I +remember no joy in life that he did not share. Why should I not go to him in +his sorrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are my wife, and I forbid you. I cannot understand this passion. I +thought you suffered the company of that empty-headed fop as you suffered your +lap-dogs—the trivial appendage of a fine lady’s state. Had I supposed that +there was anything serious in your liking—that you could think him worth anger +or tears—should have ordered your life differently, and he would have had no +place in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tyrant! tyrant!” +</p> + +<p> +“You astound me, Hyacinth! Would you dispute the favours of a fop with your +young sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“With my sister!” she cried, scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, with your sister, whom he has courted assiduously; but with no honourable +motive! I have seen his designs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps you are right. He may care for Angela—and think her too poor to +marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a traitor and a villain——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what fury! Marry my sister to Sir Denzil, and then she will be safe from +all pursuit! He will bury her alive in Oxfordshire—withdraw her for ever from +this wicked town—like poor Lady Yarborough in Cornwall.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will never ask her to marry a man she cannot love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? Are not you and I a happy couple? And how much love had we for each +other before we married? Why I scarce knew the colour of your eyes; and if I +had met you in the street, I doubt if I should have recognised you! And now, +after thirteen years of matrimony, we are at our first quarrel, and that no +lasting one. Come, Fareham, be pleasant and yielding. Let me go and see my old +playfellow. I am heartbroken for lack of his company, for fear of his death.” +</p> + +<p> +She hung upon him coaxingly, the bright blue eyes looking up at him—eyes that +had so often been compared to Madame de Longueville’s, eyes that had smiled and +beamed in many a song and madrigal by the parlour poets of the Hôtel de +Rambouillet. She was exquisitely pretty in her youthful colouring of lilies and +roses, blue eyes, and pale gold hair, and retained at thirty almost all the +charms and graces of eighteen. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham took her by both hands and held her away from him, severely +scrutinising a face which he had always been able to admire as calmly as if it +had been on canvas. +</p> + +<p> +“You look like an innocent woman,” he said, “and I have always believed you a +good woman; and have trusted my honour in your keeping—have seen that man +fawning at your feet, singing and sighing in your ear, and have thought no +evil. But now that you have told me, as plainly as woman can speak to man, that +this is the man you love, and have loved all your life, there must needs come +an end to the sighing and singing. You and Henri de Malfort must meet no more. +Nay, look not such angry scorn. I impute no guilt; but between innocence and +guilt there need be but one passionate hour. The wife goes out an honest woman, +able to look her husband in the face as you are looking at me; the wanton comes +home, and the rest of her life is a shameful lie. And the husband awakes some +day from his dream of domestic peace to discover that he has been long the +laughing-stock of the town. I will be no such fatuous husband, Hyacinth. I will +wait for no second warning.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham submitted in silence, and with deep resentment. She had never +before experienced a husband’s authority sternly exercised. She had been +forbidden the free run of London play-houses, and some of the pleasures of +Court society; but then she had been denied with all kindness, and had been +allowed so many counterbalancing extravagances, pleasures, and follies, that it +would have been difficult for her to think herself ill-used. +</p> + +<p> +She submitted angrily, passionately regretting the man whose presence had long +been the brightest element in her life. Her cheek paled; she grew indifferent +to the amusements which had been her sole occupation; she sulked in her rooms, +equally avoiding her children and their aunt; and, indeed, seemed to care for +no one’s society except Mrs. Lewin’s. The Court milliner had business with her +ladyship every day, and was regaled with cakes and liqueurs in her ladyship’s +dressing-room. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be very busy about new gowns, Hyacinth,” her husband said to her one +day at dinner. “I meet the harridan from Covent Garden on the stairs every +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not a harridan, whatever that elegant word may mean. And as for gowns, +it would be wiser for me to order no new ones, since it is but likely I shall +soon have to wear mourning for an old friend.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at her husband, defying him. He rose from the table with a sigh, and +walked out of the room. There was war between them, or at best an armed +neutrality. He looked back, and saw that he had been blind to the things he +should have seen, dull and unobservant where he should have had sense and +understanding. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not care enough for my honour,” he thought. “Was it because I cared too +little for my wife? It is indifference, and not love, that is blind.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela saw the cloud that overshadowed Fareham House with deepest distress; and +yet felt herself powerless to bring back sunshine. Her sister met her +remonstrances with scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you take the part of a tyrant against your own flesh and blood?” she asked. +“I have been too tame a slave. To keep me away from the Court while I was young +and worth looking at—to deny me amusements and admiration which are the +privilege of every woman of quality—to forbid me the play-house, and make a +country cousin of me by keeping me ignorant of modern wit. I am ashamed of my +compliance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, dearest, was it not an evidence of his love that he should desire you to +keep your mind pure as well as your face fair?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he has never loved me. It is only a churlish jealousy that would shut me +up in a harem like a Turk’s wife, and part me from the friend I like best in +the world—with the purest platonic affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, don’t be angry with me for being out of the fashion; but indeed I +cannot think it right for a wife to care for the company of any other man but +her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my husband is so entertaining! Sure any woman might be content with such +gay company—such flashes of wit—such light raillery!” cried Hyacinth, +scornfully, walking up and down the room, plucking at the lace upon her sleeves +with restless hands, her bosom heaving, her eyes steel-bright with anger. +“Since his sickness last year, he has been the image of melancholy; he has held +himself aloof from me as if <i>I</i> had had the pestilence. I was content that +it should be so. I had my children and you, and one who loved me better, in his +light way, than any of you—and I could do without Lord Fareham. But now he +forbids me to see an old friend that is dangerously ill, and every drop of +blood in my veins boils in rebellion against his tyranny!” +</p> + +<p> +It was in the early dusk, an hour or so after dinner. Angela sat silent in the +shadow of a bay window, quite as heavy-hearted as her sister—sorry for +Hyacinth, but still sorrier for Hyacinth’s husband, yet feeling that there was +treachery and unkindness in making him first in her thoughts. But surely, +surely he deserved a better wife than this! Surely he deserved a wife’s +love—this man who stood alone among the men she knew, hating all evil things, +honouring all things good and noble! He had been unkind to her—cold and +cruel—since that fatal night. He had let her understand that all friendship +between them was at an end for ever, and that she had become despicable in his +sight; and she had submitted to be scorned by him, since it was impossible that +she should clear herself. She had made her sisterly sacrifice for a sister who +regarded it very lightly; to whose light fancy that night and all it involved +counted but as a scene in a comedy; and she could not unmake it. But having so +sacrificed his good opinion whose esteem she valued, she wanted to see some +happy result, and to save this splendid home from shipwreck. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, with a passionate impulse, she went to her sister, and put her arms +round her and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, you shall not continue in this folly,” she cried, “to fret for that +shallow idler, whose love is lighter than thistledown, whose element is the +ruelle of one of those libertine French duchesses he is ever talking about. To +rebel against the noblest gentleman in England! Oh, sister, you must know him +better than I do; and yet I, who am nothing to him, am wretched when I see him +ill-used. Indeed, Hyacinth, you are acting like a wicked wife. You should never +have wished to see De Malfort again, after the peril of that night. You should +have known that he had no esteem for you, that he was a traitor—that his design +was the wickedest, cruellest——” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t pretend to know a man’s mind as well as you—neither De Malfort’s nor +my husband’s. You have needed but the experience of a year to make you wise +enough in the world’s ways to instruct your elders. I am not going to be +preached to——Hark!” she cried, running to the nearest window, and looking out +at the river, “that is better than your sermons.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the sound of fiddles playing the symphony of a song she knew well—one of +De Malfort’s, a French chanson, her latest favourite, the words adapted from a +little poem by Voiture, “Pour vos beaux yeux.” +</p> + +<p> +She opened the casement, and Angela stood beside her looking down at a boat in +which several muffled figures were seated, and which was moored to the terrace +wall. +</p> + +<p> +There were three violins and a ‘cello, and a quartette of singing-boys with +fair young faces smiling in the light of the lamps that hung in front of +Fareham’s house. +</p> + +<p> +The evening was still, and mild as early autumn, and the plash of oars passing +up and down the river sounded like a part of the music— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play,<br/> + Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair,<br/> +Love does on both her lips for ever stray,<br/> + And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there;<br/> +In all her outward parts love’s always seen;<br/> +But, oh, he never went within.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a song of Cowley’s, which De Malfort had lately set to music, and to a +melody which Hyacinth especially admired. +</p> + +<p> +“A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought of such a thing. Lying ill and +alone, he sends me the sweetest token of his regard—my favourite air, his own +setting—the last song I ever heard him sing. And you wonder that I value so +pure, so disinterested a love!” protested Hyacinth to her sister, in the +silence at the end of the song. +</p> + +<p> +“Sing again, sweet boys, sing again!” she cried, snatching a purse from her +pocket, and flinging it with impetuous aim into the boat. +</p> + +<p> +It hit one of the fiddlers on the head, and there was a laugh, and in a trice +the largesse was divided and pocketed. +</p> + +<p> +“They are from his Majesty’s choir; I know their voices,” said Hyacinth, “so +fresh, and pure. They are the prettiest singers in the chapel. That little +monkey with the cherub’s voice is Purcell—Dr. Blow’s favourite pupil—and a rare +genius.” +</p> + +<p> +They sang another song from De Malfort’s repertoire, an Italian serenade, which +Hyacinth had heard in the brilliant days before her marriage, when the Italian +Opera was still a new thing in Paris. The melody brought back the memory of her +happy girlhood with a rush of sudden tears. +</p> + +<p> +The little concert lasted for something less than an hour, with intervals of +light music, dances and marches, between the singing. Boats passed and +repassed. Strange voices joined in a refrain now and then, and the sisters +stood at the open window enthralled by the charm of the music and the scene. +London lay in ruins yonder to the east, and Sir Matthew Hale and other judges +were sitting at Clifford’s Inn to decide questions of title and boundary, and +the obligation to rebuild; but here in this western London there were long +ranges of lighted windows shining through the wintry mists, wherries passing up +and down with lanterns at their prows, an air of life and gaiety hanging over +that river which had carried so many a noble victim to his doom yonder, where +the four towers stood black against the starlit greyness, unscathed by fire, +and untouched by time. +</p> + +<p> +The last notes of a good-night song dwindled and died, to the accompaniment of +dipping oars, as the boat moved slowly along the tideway, and lost itself among +other boats—jovial cits going eastward, from an afternoon at the King’s +theatre, modish gallants voyaging westward from play-house or tavern, some +going home to domesticity, others intent upon pleasure and intrigue, as the +darkness came down, and the hour for supper and deeper drinking drew near. And +who would have thought, watching the lighted windows of palace and tavern, +hearing those joyous sounds of glee or catch trolled by voices that reeked of +wine—who would have thought of the dead-cart, and the unnumbered dead lying in +the pest pits yonder, or the city in ruins, or the King enslaved to a foreign +power, and pledged to a hated Church? London, gay, splendid, and prosperous, +the queen-city of the world as she seemed to those who loved her—could rise +glorious from the ashes of a fire unparalleled in modern history, and to +Charles and Wren it might be given to realise a boast which in Augustus had +been little more than an imperial phrase. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br/> +DIDO.</h2> + +<p> +The armed neutrality between man and wife continued, and the domestic sky at +Fareham House was dark and depressing. Lady Fareham, who had hitherto been +remarkable for a girlish amiability of speech which went well with her girlish +beauty, became now the height of the mode for acidity and slander. The worst of +the evil speakers on her ladyship’s visiting-day flavoured the China tea with +no bitterer allusions than those that fell from the rosy lips of the hostess. +And, for the colouring of those lips, which once owed their vermeil tint only +to nature, Lady Fareham was now dependent upon Mrs. Lewin, as well as for the +carnation of cheeks that looked pallid and sunken in the glass which reflected +the sad mourning face. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lewin brought roses and lilies in her queer little china pots and powder +boxes, pencils and brushes, perfumes and washes without number. It cost as much +to keep a complexion as to keep a horse. And Mrs. Lewin was infinitely useful +at this juncture, since she called every day at St. James’s Street, to carry a +lace cravat, or a ribbon, or a flask of essence to the invalid languishing in +lodgings there, and visited by all the town, except Fareham and his wife. De +Malfort had lain for a fortnight at Lady Castlemaine’s house, alternately +petted and neglected by his fair hostess, as the fit took her, since she showed +herself ever of the chameleon breed, and hovered betwixt angel and devil. His +surgeon told him in confidence that when once his wound was healed enough to +allow his removal, the sooner he quitted that feverish company the better it +would be for his chance of a speedy convalescence. So, at the end of the second +week, he was moved in a covered litter to his own lodgings, where his faithful +valet, who had followed his fortunes since he came to man’s estate, was quite +capable of nursing him. +</p> + +<p> +The town soon discovered the breach between Lord Fareham and his friend—a +breach commented upon with many shoulder-shrugs, and not a few coarse +innuendoes. Lady Lucretia Topham insisted upon making her way to the sick man’s +room, in the teeth of messages delivered by his valet, which, even to a less +intelligent mind than Lady Lucretia’s, might have conveyed the fact that she +was not wanted. She flung herself on her knees by De Malfort’s bed, and wept +and raved at the brutality which had deprived the world of his charming +company—and herself of the only man she had ever loved. De Malfort, fevered and +vexed at her intrusion, and at this renewal of fires long burnt out, had yet +discretion enough to threaten her with his dire displeasure if she betrayed the +secret of his illness. +</p> + +<p> +“I have sworn Dangerfield and Masaroon to silence,” he said. “Except servants, +who have been paid to keep mute, you are the only other witness of our quarrel; +and if the story becomes town talk, I shall know whose busy tongue set it +going—and then—well, there are things I might tell that your ladyship would +hardly like the world to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once in a way when luck has been +adverse——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to blab of a money transaction with +a lady. There are secrets more tender—more romantic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Those secrets can be easily denied, wretch. However, I know you would not +injure me with a husband so odious and tyrannical that I stood excused in +advance for inconstancy when I stooped to wed country manners and stubborn +ignorance. Indeed, mon ami, if you will but take pains to recover, I will never +breathe a word about the duel; but if—if—” a sob indicated the tragic +possibility which Lady Lucretia dared not put into words—“I will do all that a +weak woman can do to get Fareham hanged for murder. There has never been a peer +hanged in England, I believe. He should be the first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear soul, there need be no hanging! I have been on the mending hand for a +week, or my doctors would not have let you upstairs. There, go, my pretty +Lucrèce; but if your milliner or your shoemaker is pressing, there are a few +jacobuses in the right-hand drawer of yonder escritoire, and you may as well +take them as leave them for my valet to steal. He is one of those excellent old +servants who make no distinctions, and he robs me as freely as he robbed my +father before me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Lewin is always pressing,” sighed Lady Lucretia. “She made me a gown like +that of Lady Fareham’s, for which you were all eyes. I ordered the brocade to +please you; and now I am wearing it when you are not at Whitehall. Well, as you +are so kind, I will be your debtor for another trifling loan. It is wicked to +leave money where it tempts a good servant to dishonesty. Ah, Henri”—she was +pocketing the gold as she talked—“if ten years of my life could save you ten +days of pain and fever, how gladly would I give them to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, douce, if there were a market for the exchange of such commodities, what a +roaring trade would be done there! I never loved a woman yet but she offered me +her life, or an instalment of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have emptied your drawer,” laughing coyly. “There is just enough to keep +Lewin in good humour till you are well again, and we can be partners at +basset.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be very long before I play basset in London.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but indeed you will soon be well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well enough to change the scene, I hope. It needs change of places and persons +to make life bearable. I long to be at the Louvre again, to see a play by +Molière’s company, as only they can act, instead of the loathsome translations +we get here, in which all that there is of wit and charm in the original is +transmuted to coarseness and vulgarity. When I leave this bed, Lucrèce, it will +be for Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it will be ages before you are strong enough for such a journey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will risk that. I hate London so badly, that to escape from it will work +a miraculous cure for me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +An armed neutrality! Even the children felt the change in the atmosphere of +home, and nestled closer to their aunt, who never changed to them. +</p> + +<p> +“Father mostly looks angry,” Henriette complained, “and mother is always +unhappy, if she is not laughing and talking in the midst of company; and +neither of them ever seems to want me. I wish I was grown up, so that I could +be maid of honour to the Queen or the Duchess, and live at Whitehall. +Mademoiselle told me that there is always life and pleasure at Court.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father does not love the Court, dearest, and mademoiselle should be wiser +than to talk to you of such things, when she is here to teach you dancing and +French literature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mademoiselle” was a governess lately imported from Paris, recommended by +Mademoiselle Scudéry, and full of high-flown ideas expressed in high-flown +language. All Paris had laughed at Molière’s <i>Precieuses Ridicules</i>; but +the Précieuses themselves, and their friends, protested that the popular farce +was aimed only at the low-born imitators of those great ladies who had +originated the school of superfine culture and romantic aspirations. +</p> + +<p> +“Sapho” herself, in tracing her own portrait with a careful and elaborate +pencil, told the world how shamefully she had been imitated by the spurious +middle-class Saphos, who set up their salons, and vied with the sacred house of +Rambouillet, and the privileged coterie of the Rue de Temple. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham had not ceased to believe in her dear, plain, witty Scudéry, and +was delighted to secure a governess of her choosing, whereby Papillon, who +loved freedom and idleness, and hated lessons of all kinds, was set down to +write themes upon chivalry, politeness, benevolence, pride, war, and other +abstractions; or to fill in bouts-rimés, by way of enlarging her acquaintance +with the French language, which she had chattered freely all her life. +Mademoiselle insisted upon all the niceties of phraseology as discussed in the +Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre. +</p> + +<p> +There had been a change of late in Fareham’s manner to his sister-in-law, a +change refreshing to her troubled spirit as mercy, that gentle dew from heaven, +to the criminal. He had been kinder; and though he spent very few of his hours +with the women of his household, he had talked to Angela somewhat in the +friendly tone of those fondly remembered days at Chilton, when he had taught +her to row and ride, to manage a spirited palfrey and fly a falcon, and had +been in all things her mentor and friend. He seemed less oppressed with gloom +as time went on, but had his sullen fits still, and, after being kind and +courteous to wife and sister, and playful with his children, would leave them +suddenly, and return no more to the saloon or drawing-room that evening. Yet on +the whole the sky was lightening. He ignored Hyacinth’s resentment, endured her +pettishness, and was studiously polite to her. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was on Lady Fareham’s visiting-day, deep in that very severe winter, that +some news was told her which came like a thunder-clap, and which it needed all +the weak soul’s power of self-repression to suffer without swooning or +hysterics. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, gorgeous in velvet and fur, her thickly painted +countenance framed in a furred hood, entered fussily upon a little coterie in +which Masaroon, vapouring about the last performance at the King’s theatre, was +the principal figure. +</p> + +<p> +“There was a little woman spoke the epilogue,” he said, “a little creature in a +monstrous big hat, as large and as round as a cart-wheel, which vastly amused +his Majesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“The hat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, it was woman and hat. The thing is so small it might have been scarce +noticed without the hat, but it has a pretty little, insignificant, crumpled +face, and laughs all over its face till it has no eyes, and then stops laughing +suddenly, and the eyes shine out, twinkling and dancing like stars reflected in +running water, and it stamps its little foot upon the stage in a comic +passion—and—<i>nous verrons</i>. It sold oranges in the pit, folks tell me, a +year ago. It may be selling sinecures and captaincies in a year or two, and +putting another shilling in the pound upon land.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it that brazen little comedy actress you are talking of, Masaroon?” Lady +Sarah asked, when she had exchanged curtsies with the ladies of the company, +and established herself on the most comfortable tabouret, near Lady Fareham’s +tea-table; “Mrs. Glyn—Wynn—Gwyn? I wonder a man of wit can notice such a vulgar +creature, a she-jack-pudden, fit only to please the rabble in the gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, but there is a finer sort of rabble—a rabble of quality—beginning with his +Majesty, that are always pleased with anything new. And this little creature is +as fresh as a spring morning. To see her laugh, to hear the ring of it, clear +and sweet as a skylark’s song! On my life, madam, the town has a new toy; and +Mrs. Gwyn will be the rage in high quarters. You should have seen Castlemaine’s +scowl when Rowley laughed, and ducked under the box almost, in an ecstasy of +amusement at the huge hat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Castlemaine’s brow would thunder-cloud if his Majesty looked at a fly on +a window-pane. But she has something else to provoke her frowns to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that, chère dame?” asked Hyacinth, snatching a favourite fan from Sir +Ralph, who was teasing one of the Blenheims with African feathers that were +almost priceless. +</p> + +<p> +“The desertion of an old friend. The Comte de Malfort has left England.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham turned livid under her rouge. Angela ran to her and leant over +her, upon a pretence of rescuing the fan and chiding the dogs; and so contrived +to screen her sister’s change of complexion from the malignity of her dearest +friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Left England! Why, he is confined to his bed with a fever!” Hyacinth said +faintly, when she had somewhat recovered from the shock. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, it seems that he began to go abroad last week, but would see no company, +except a confidential friend or so. He left London this morning for Dover.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt he has business in Burgundy, where his estate is, and at Paris, where +he is of importance at the Court,” said Hyacinth, as lightly as she could; “but +I’ll wager anything anybody likes that he will be in London again in a month.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take you for those black pearls in your ears, ma mie,” said Lady Sarah. +“His furniture is to be sold by auction next week. I saw a bill on the house +this afternoon. It is sudden! Perhaps the Castlemaine had become too exacting!” +</p> + +<p> +“Castlemaine!” faltered Hyacinth, agitated beyond her power of self-control. +“Why, what is she to him more than she is to other men?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little, perhaps,” said Sir Ralph, and then everybody laughed, and +Hyacinth felt herself sitting among them like a child, understanding nothing of +their smiles and shrugs, the malice in their sly interchange of glances. +</p> + +<p> +She sat among them feeling as if her heart were turned to stone. He had left +the country without even bidding her farewell—her faithful slave, upon whose +devotion she counted as surely as upon the rising of the sun. Whatever her +husband might do to separate her from this friend of her girlhood, she had +feared no defection upon De Malfort’s part. He would always be near at hand, +waiting and watching for the happier days that were to smile upon their +innocent loves. She had written to him every day during his illness. Good Mrs. +Lewin had taken the letters to him, and had brought her his replies. He had not +written so often, or at such length, as she, and had pleaded the languor of +convalescence as his excuse; but all his billets-doux had been in the same +delicious hyperbole, the language of the Pays du Tendre. She sat silent while +her visitors talked about him, plucking a reputation as mercilessly as a +kitchen wench plucks a fowl. He was gone. He had left the country deep in debt. +It was his landlord who had stuck up that notice of a sale by auction. Tailors +and shoemakers, perruquiers and perfumers were bewailing his flight. +</p> + +<p> +So much for the sordid side of things. But what of those numerous affairs of +the heart—those entanglements which had made his life one long intrigue? +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah sat simpering and nodding as Masaroon whispered close in her ear. +</p> + +<p> +Barbara? Oh, that was almost as old as the story of Antony and Cleopatra. She +had paid his debts—and he had paid hers. Their purse had been in common. And +the handsome maid of honour? Ah, poor silly soul! That was a horrid, ugly +business, and his Majesty’s part in it the horridest. And Mrs. Levington, the +rich silk mercer’s wife? That was a serious attachment. It was said that the +husband attempted poison, when De Malfort refused him the satisfaction of a +gentleman. And the poor woman was sent to die of <i>ennui</i> and rheumatism in +a castle among the Irish bogs, where her citizen husband had set up as a landed +squire. +</p> + +<p> +The fine company discussed all these foul stories with gusto, insinuating much +more than they expressed in words. Never until to-day had they spoken so freely +of De Malfort in Lady Fareham’s presence; but the story had got about of a +breach between Hyacinth and her admirer, and it was supposed that any abuse of +the defaulter would be pleasant in her ears. And then, he was ruined and gone; +and there is no vulture’s feast sweeter than to banquet upon a departed rival’s +character. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth listened in dull silence, as if her sensations were suddenly benumbed. +She felt nothing but a horrible surprise. Her lover—her platonic lover—that +other half of her mind and heart—with whom she had been in such tender +sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle that the same thoughts sprang up +simultaneously in the minds of each, the same language leapt to their lips, and +they laughed to find their words alike. It had been only a shallow woman’s +shallow love—but trivial woes are tragedies for trivial minds; and when her +guests had gradually melted away, dispersing themselves with reciprocal +curtsies and airy compliments, elegant in their modish iniquity as a troop of +vicious fairies—Hyacinth stood on the hearth where they had left her, a statue +of despair. +</p> + +<p> +Angela went to her, when the stately double doors had closed on the last of the +gossips and lackeys, and they two were alone amidst the spacious splendour. The +younger sister hugged the elder to her breast, and kissed her, and cried over +her, like a mother comforting her disappointed child. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t heed that shameful talk, dearest. No character is safe with them. Be +sure Monsieur de Malfort is not the reprobate they would make him. You have +known him nearly all your life. You know him too well to judge him by the idle +talk of the town.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I have never known him. He has always worn a mask. He is as false as +Satan. Don’t talk to me—don’t kiss me, child. You have smeared my face horribly +with your kisses and tears. Your pity drives me mad. How can you understand +these things—you who have never loved any one? What can you know of what women +feel? There, silly fool! you are trembling as if I had hit you,” as Angela +withdrew her arms suddenly, and stood aloof. “I have been a virtuous wife, +sister, in a town where scarce one woman in ten is true to her marriage vows. I +have never sinned against my husband; but I have never loved him. Henri had my +heart before I knew what the word, love meant; and in all these years we have +loved each other with the purest, noblest affection—at least he made me believe +my love was reciprocated. We have enjoyed a most exquisite communion of thought +and feeling. His letters—you shall read his letters some day—so noble, so +brilliant—all poetry, and chivalry, and wit. I lived upon his letters when fate +parted us. And when he followed us to England, I thought it was for my sake +that he came—only for me. And to hear that he was her lover—hers—that woman! To +know that he came to me—with sweetest words upon his lips—knelt to kiss the +tips of my fingers—as if it were a privilege to die for—from her arms, from her +caresses—the wickedest woman in England—and the loveliest!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Hyacinth, it was a childish dream—and you have awakened! You will live to +be glad of being recalled from falsehood to truth. Your husband is worth fifty +De Malforts, did you but know it. Oh, dearest, give him your heart who ought to +be its only master. Indeed he is worthy. He stands apart—an honourable, nobly +thinking man in a world that is full of libertines. Be sure he deserves your +love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t preach to me, child! If you could give me a sleeping-draught that would +blot out memory for ever—make me forget my childhood in the Marais—my youth at +St. Germain—the dances at the Louvre—all the days when I was happiest: why, +then, perhaps, you might make me in love with Lord Fareham.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will never forgive him for going!” cried Hyacinth, passionately. +“Never—never! To give me no note of warning! To sneak away like a thief who had +stolen my diamonds! To fly for debt, too, and not come to me for money! Why +have I a fortune, if not to help those I love? But—if he was that woman’s +lover—I will never see his face again—never speak his name—never—from the +moment I am convinced of that hellish treason—never! Her lover! Lady +Castlemaine’s! We have laughed at her, together! Her lover! And there were +other women those spiteful wretches talked about just now—a tradesman’s wife! +Oh, how hateful, how hateful it all is! Angela, if it is true, I shall go mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest, to you he was but a friend—and though you may be sorry he was so +great a sinner, his sins cannot concern your happiness——” +</p> + +<p> +“What! not to know him a profligate? The man to whom I gave a chaste woman’s +love! Angela, that night, in the ruined abbey, I let him kiss me. Yes, for one +moment I was in his arms—and his lips were on mine. And he had kissed her—the +same night perhaps. Her tainted kisses were on his lips. And it was you who +saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than life—I might have given myself to +everlasting shame that night. God knows! I was in his power—her lover—judging +all women, perhaps, by his knowledge of that——” +</p> + +<p> +The epithet which closed the sentence was not a word for a woman’s lips; but it +was wrung from the soreness of a woman’s wounded heart. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +“You saved me!” she cried, hysterically. “He wanted me to go to Dover with +him—back to France—where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refused him; +but he prayed me again and again; and if you had not come to rescue me, should +I have gone on saying no? God knows if my courage would have held out. There +were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had never loved any one upon this +earth as he loved me. Hypocrite! Deceiver—liar! He loved that woman! Twenty +times handsomer than ever I was—a hundred times more wicked. It is the wicked +women that are best loved, Angela, remember that. Oh, bless you for coming to +save me! You saved Fareham’s life in the plague year. You saved me from +everlasting misery. You are our guardian angel!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve that name——” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was late in the same evening that Lady Fareham’s maid came to her +bed-chamber to inquire if she would be pleased to see Mrs. Lewin, who had +brought a pattern of a new French bodice, with her humble apologies for waiting +on her ladyship so late. +</p> + +<p> +Her ladyship would see Mrs. Lewin. She started up from the sofa where she had +been lying, her forehead bound with a handkerchief steeped in Hungary water. +She was all excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring her here instantly!” she said, and the interval necessary to conduct the +milliner up the grand staircase and along the gallery seemed an age to +Hyacinth’s impatience. +</p> + +<p> +“Well? Have you a letter for me?” she asked, when her woman had retired, and +Mrs. Lewin had bustled and curtsied across the room. +</p> + +<p> +“In truly, my lady; and I have to ask your ladyship’s pardon for not bringing +it early this morning, when his honour gave it to me with his own hand out of +‘his travelling carriage. And very white and wasted he looked, dear gentleman, +not fit for a voyage to France in this severe weather. And I was to carry you +his letter immediately; but, eh, gud! your ladyship, there was never such a +business as mine for surprises. I was putting on my cloak to step out with your +ladyship’s letter, when a coach, with a footman in the royal undress livery, +sets down at my door, and one of the Duchess’s women had come to fetch me to +her Highness; and there I was kept in her Highness’s chamber half the morning, +disputing over a paduasoy for the Shrove Tuesday masquerade—for her Highness +gets somewhat bulky, and is not easy to dress to her advantage or to my +credit—though she is a beauty compared with the Queen, who still hankers after +her hideous Portuguese fashions——” +</p> + +<p> +“And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur——” +</p> + +<p> +“Marifleur! If your ladyship knew the creature as well as I do, you’d call her +Sally Cramp.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never can remember a low English name. Marifleur seems to promise all that +there is of the most graceful and airy in a ruffled sleeve and a ribbon +shoulder-knot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to see your ladyship is in such good spirits,” said the milliner, +wondering at Lady Fareham’s flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes. +</p> + +<p> +They were brilliant with a somewhat glassy brightness, and there was a touch of +hysteria in her manner. Mrs. Lewin thought she had been drinking. Many of her +customers ended that way—took to cognac and ratafia, when choicer pleasures +were exhausted and wrinkles began to show through their paint. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth was reading De Malfort’s letter as she talked, moving about the room a +little, and then stopping in front of the fireplace, where the light from two +clusters of wax candles shone down upon the finely written page. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lewin watched her for a few minutes, and then produced some pieces of silk +out of her muff. +</p> + +<p> +“I made so bold as to bring your ladyship some patterns of Italian silks which +only came to hand this morning,” she said. “There is a cherry-red that would +become your ladyship to the T.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin—and good night to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But sure your ladyship will look at the colour? There is a pattern of amber +with gold thread might please you better. Lady Castlemaine has ordered a Court +mantua——” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham rang her hand-bell with a vehemence that suggested anger. +</p> + +<p> +“Show Mrs. Lewin to her coach,” she said shortly, when her woman appeared. +“When you have done that you may go to bed; I want nothing more to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Kirkland has been asking to see your ladyship.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will see no one to-night. Tell Mrs. Kirkland so, with my love.” +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the door when the maid and milliner were gone, and locked it, and +then ran back to the fireplace, and flung herself down upon the rug to read her +letter. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Chérie, when this is handed to you, I shall be sitting in my coach on the dull +Dover road, with frost-clouded windows and a heart heavier than your leaden +skies. Loveliest of women, all things must end; and, despite your childlike +trust in man’s virtue, you could scarce hope for eternity to a bond that was +too strong for friendship and too weak for love. Dearest, had you given +yourself that claim upon love and honour which we have talked of, and which you +have ever refused, no lesser power than death should have parted us. I would +have dared all, conquered all, for my dear mistress. But you would not. It was +not for lack of fervid prayers that the statue remained a statue; but a man +cannot go on worshipping a statue for ever. If the Holy Mother did not +sometimes vouchsafe a sign of human feeling, even good Catholics would have +left off kneeling to her image. +</p> + +<p> +“Or, shall I say, rather, that the child remains a child—fresh, and pure, and +innocent, and candid, as in the days when we played our <i>jeu de volant</i> in +your grandmother’s garden—fit emblem of the light love of our future years. You +remained a child, Hyacinth, and asked childish love-making from a man. Dearest, +accept a cruel truth from a man of the world—it is only the love you call +guilty that lasts. There is a stimulus in sin and mystery that will fan the +flame of passion and keep love alive even for an inferior object. The ugly +women know this, and make lax morals a substitute for beauty. An innocent +intrigue, a butterfly affection like ours, will seldom outlive the butterfly’s +brief day. Indeed, I sometimes admire at myself as a marvel of constancy for +having kept faith so long with a mistress who has rewarded me so sparingly. +</p> + +<p> +“So, my angel, I am leaving your foggy island, my cramped London lodgings, and +extortionate London tradesmen, on whom I have squandered so much of my fortune +that they ought to forgive me for leaving a margin of debt, which I hope to pay +the extortioners hereafter for the honour of my name. I doubt if I shall ever +revisit England. I have tasted all London pleasures, till familiarity has taken +the taste out of them; and though Paris may be only London with a difference, +that difference includes bluer skies, brighter streets and gardens, and all the +originals of which you have here the copies. There, at least, I shall have the +fashion of my peruke and my speech at first hand. Here you only adopt a mode +when Paris begins to tire of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Farewell, then, dearest lady, but let it be no tragical or eternal parting, +since your fine house in the Rue de Touraine will doubtless be honoured with +your presence some day. You have only to open a salon there in order to be the +top of the mode. Some really patrician milieu is needed to replace the antique +court of the dear old Marquise, and to extinguish the Scudéry, whose Saturdays +grow more vulgar every week. Yes, you will come to Paris, bringing that human +lily, Mrs. Angela, in your train; and I promise to make you the fashion before +your house has been open a month. The wits and Court favourites will go where I +bid them. And though your dearest friend, Madame de Longueville, has retired +from the world in which she was more queenly than the Queen, you will find +Mademoiselle de Montpensier as faithful as ever to mundane pleasures, and, +after having refused kings and princes, slavishly devoted to a colonel of +dragoons who does not care a straw for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Louise de Bourbon, a woman who can head a revolt and fire a cannon, would +think no sacrifice too great for a cold-hearted schemer like Lauzun—yet you who +swore you loved me, when the coach was waiting that would have carried me to +paradise, and made us one for all this life, could suffer a foolish girl to +separate us in the very moment of triumphant union. You were mine, Hyacinth; +heart and mind were consenting, when your convent-bred sister surprised us, and +all my hopes of bliss expired in a sermon. And now I can but say, with that +witty rhymester, whom everybody in London quotes— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Love in your heart as idly burns,<br/> +As fire in antique Roman urns.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, which means ‘God be with you.’ I know not if the fear of Him was in +your mind when you sacrificed your lover to that icy abstraction women call +virtue. The Romans had but one virtue, which meant the courage that dares; and +to me the highest type of woman would be one whose bold spirit dared and defied +the world for love’s sake. These are the women history remembers, and whom the +men who live after them worship. Cleopatra, Mary Stuart, Diana of Poictiers, +Marguerite de Valois, la Chevreuse, la Montbazon! Think you that these became +famous by keeping their lovers at a distance? +</p> + +<p> +“‘Go, lovely rose!’ +</p> + +<p> +“How often I have sung those lines, and you have listened, and nothing has come +of it; except time wasted, smiles, sighs, and tears, that ever promised, and +ever denied. Beauty, too choice to be kind, adieu! +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“D<small>E</small> M<small>ALFORT</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had read these last words, she crushed the letter in her palm, +clenching her fingers over it till the nails wounded the delicate flesh; and +then she opened her hand, and employed herself in smoothing out the crumpled +paper, as if her life depended on making the letter readable again. But her +pains could not undo what her passion had done; and finding this, she tossed +the ragged paper into the flames, and began to walk about the room in a +distracted fashion, giving a little hysterical cry every now and then, and +clasping her hands upon her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Anger, humiliation, wounded love, wounded vanity, disappointment, disillusion, +were all in that cry, and in the passionate beating of her heart, her stifled +breath, her clenched hands. +</p> + +<p> +“He was laughing when he wrote that letter—I am sure he was laughing. There was +not one serious moment, not one pang at leaving me! He has been laughing at me +ever since he came to London. I have been his fool, his amusement. Other women +have had his love, the guilty love that he praises! He has come to me straight +from their wicked houses, their feasting, and riot, and drunkenness—has come +and pretended to love poetry, and Scudéry’s romances, and music, and innocent +conversation—come to rest himself after dissolute pleasures, bringing me the +leavings of that hellish company! And I have reviled such women, and he has +pretended an equal horror of them; and he was their slave all the time, and +went from me to them, and made a jest of me for their amusement I know his +biting raillery. And he was at the play-house day after day, where I could not +go, sitting side by side with his Jezebels, laughing at filthy comedies, and at +me that was forbidden to appear there. He had pleasures of which I knew +nothing; and when I fancied our inmost souls moved in harmony, his thoughts +were full of wanton women and their wanton jests, and he smiled at my +childishness, and fooled me as children are fooled.” +</p> + +<p> +The thought was distraction. She plucked out handfuls of her pale gold hair, +the pretty blonde hair which had been almost as famous in Paris as Beaufort’s +or Madame de Longueville’s yellow locks. The thought of De Malfort’s ridicule +cut her like a whalebone whip. She had fancied herself his Beatrice, his Laura, +his Stella—a being to be worshipped as reverently as the stars, to make her +lover happy with smiles and kindly words, to stand for ever a little way off, +like a goddess in her temple, yet near enough to be adored. +</p> + +<p> +And fondly believing this to be her mission, having posed for the character, +and filled it to her own fancy, she found that she had only been a dissolute +man’s dupe all the time; and no doubt had been the laughing-stock of her +acquaintance, who looked at the game. +</p> + +<p> +“And I was so proud of his devotion—I carried my slave everywhere with me. Oh, +fool, fool, fool!” +</p> + +<p> +And then—the poor little brains being disordered by passionate +regrets—wickedest ideas ran riot in the confusion of a mind not wide enough to +hold life’s large passions. She began to be sorry that she was not like those +other women—to hate the modesty that had lost her a lover. +</p> + +<p> +To be like Barbara Castlemaine! That was woman’s only royalty. To rule with +sovereign power over the hearts and senses of men. A King for her lover, +constant in inconstancy, always going back to her from every transient +fancy—her property, her chattel; and the foremost wits and dandies of the age +for her servants, her Court of adorers, whom she ruled with frowns or smiles, +as her humour prompted. To be daring, profuse, reckless, tyrannical; to suffer +no control of heaven or men—yes, that was, indeed, to be a Queen! And compared +with such empire, the poor authority of the Précieuse, dictating the choice of +adjectives, condemning pronouns, theorising upon feelings and passions of which +in practice she knows nothing, was a thing for scornfullest laughter. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br/> +PHILASTER.</h2> + +<p> +January was nearly over, the memorial service for the martyred King was drawing +near, and royalty and fashion had deserted Whitehall for Hampton Court; yet the +Farehams lingered at their riverside mansion. His lordship had business in +London, while Sir Denzil Warner, who came to Fareham House daily, was also +detained in the city by some special attraction, which made hawk and hound, and +even his worthy mother’s company, indifferent to him. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham had an air of caring for neither town nor country, but on the +whole preferred town. +</p> + +<p> +“London has become a positive desert—and the smoke from the smouldering ruins +poisons the garden and terrace whenever there is an east wind,” she complained. +“But Oxfordshire would be a worse desert—and I believe I should die of the +spleen in a week, if I trusted myself in that great rambling Abbey. I can just +suffer life in London; so I suppose I had best stay till his lordship has +finished his business, about which he is so secret and mysterious.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil was more devoted, more solicitous to please than ever; and had a better +chance of pleasing now that most of her ladyship’s fine visitors had left town. +He read aloud to Hyacinth and her sister as they worked—or pretended to work—at +their embroidery frames. He played the organ, and sang duets with Angela. He +walked with her on the terrace, in the cold, bleak afternoon, and told her the +news of the town—not the scandals and trivialities which alone interested Lady +Fareham, but the graver facts connected with the state and the public +welfare—the prospects of war or peace, the outlook towards France and Spain, +Holland and Sweden, Andrew Marvel’s last speech, or the last grant to the King, +who might be relied on to oppose no popular measure when his lieges were about +to provide a handsome subsidy or an increase of his revenue. +</p> + +<p> +“We are winning our liberties from him,” Denzil said. +</p> + +<p> +“For the mess of pottage we give, the money he squanders on libertine +pleasures, England is buying freedom. Yet why, in the name of common sense, +maintain this phantom King, this Court which shocks and outrages every decent +Englishman’s sense of right, and maintains an ever-widening hotbed of +corruption, so that habits and extravagances once unknown beyond that focus of +all vice, are now spreading as fast as London; and wherever there are bricks +and mortar there are profligacy and irreligion? Can you wonder that all the +best and wisest in this city regret Cromwell’s iron rule, the rule of the +strongest, and deplore that so bold a stroke for liberty should have ended in +such foolish subservience to a King of whom we knew nothing when we begged him +to come and reign over us?” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you win liberty while he is King, if wise laws are established—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but we might have been noble as well as free. There is something so petty +in our resumed bondage. Figure to yourself a thoroughbred horse that had kicked +off the traces, and stood free upon the open plain with arched neck and lifted +nostrils, sniffing the morning air! and behold he creeps back to his harness, +and makes himself again a slave! We had done with the Stuarts, at the cost of a +tragedy, and in ten years we call them back again, and put on the old shackles; +and for common sense, religion, and freedom, we have the orgies of Whitehall, +and the extravagance of Lady Castlemaine. It will not last, Angela; it cannot +last. I was with his lordship in Artillery Row last night, and we talked with +the blind sage who would sacrifice the remnant of his darkened days in the +cause of liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir Denzil, I hope you are not plotting mischief—you and my brother,” Angela +said anxiously. “You are so often together; and his lordship has such a +preoccupied air.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, there is no conspiring; but there is plenty of discontent. It would +need but little to fire the train. Can any man in his senses be happy when he +sees his country, which ten years ago was at the pinnacle of power and renown, +sinking to the appanage of a foreign sovereign; England threatened with a +return to Rome; honest men forbidden to preach the gospel; and innocent seekers +after truth hounded off to gaol, to rot among malefactors, because they have +dared to worship God after their own fashion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where was your liberty of conscience under the Protectorate, when the Liturgy +was forbidden as if it were an unholy thing, when the Anglican priests were +turned out of their pulpits, and the Anglican service tolerated in only one +church in all this vast London?” Angela asked indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“That was a revolt of deep thinkers against a service which has all the +mechanical artifice of Romanism without its strong appeal to the heart and the +senses—dry, empty, rigid—a repetition of vain phrases. If I am ever to bow my +neck beneath the Church’s yoke, let me swallow the warm-blooded errors of +Papacy rather than the heartless formalism of English Episcopacy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what can you or Fareham—or a few good men like you—do to change +established things? Remember Venner’s plot, and how many lives were wasted on +that foolish, futile attempt. You can only hazard your lives, die on the +scaffold. Or would you like to see civil war again; the nation divided into +opposite camps; Englishmen fighting with Englishmen? Can you forget that +dreadful last year of the Rebellion? I was only a little child; but it is +branded deep on my memory. Can you forget the murder of the King? He was +murdered; let Mr. Milton defend the deed as he can with his riches of big +words. I have wept over the royal martyr’s own account of his sufferings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Over Dr. Gauden’s account, that is to say. ‘Eikon Basilike’ was no more +written by Charles than by Cromwell. It was a doctored composition—a +churchman’s spurious history, trumped up by Charles’s friends and partisans, +possibly with the approval of the King himself. It is a fine piece of special +pleading in a bad cause.” +</p> + +<p> +“You make me hate you when you talk so slightingly of that so ill-used King. +You will make me hate you more if you lead Fareham into danger by underhand +work against the present King.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lies Fareham’s safety so very near your heart?” +</p> + +<p> +“It lies in my heart,” she answered, looking at him, and defying him with +straight, clear gaze. “Is he not my sister’s husband, and to me as a brother? +Do you expect me to be careless about his fate? I know you are leading him into +danger. Some mischief must come of these visits to Mr. Milton, a Republican +outlaw, who has escaped the penalty of his treasonous pamphlets only because he +is blind and old and poor. I doubt there is danger in all such conferences. +Fareham is at heart a Republican. It would need little persuasion to make him a +traitor to the King.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have it in your power to make me so much your slave, that I would +sacrifice every patriotic aspiration at your bidding, Angela,” Denzil answered +gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I know not if this be the time to speak, or if, after waiting more than a +year, I may not even now be premature. Dearest girl, you know that I love +you—that I haunt this house only because you live here; that I am in London +only because my star shines there; that above all public interests you rule my +life. I have exercised a prodigious patience, only because I have a prodigious +resolution. Is it not time for me to reap my reward?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Denzil, you fill me with sorrow! Have I not said everything to discourage +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“And have I not refused to be discouraged? Angela, I am resolved to discover +the reason of your coldness. Was there ever a young and lovely woman who shut +love out of her heart? History has no record of such an one. I am of an +appropriate age, of good birth and good means, not under-educated, not brutish, +or of repulsive face and figure. If your heart is free I ought to be able to +win it. If you will not favour my suit, it must be because there is some one +else, some one who came before me, or who has crossed my path, and to whom your +heart has been secretly given.” +</p> + +<p> +She had turned from red to pale as he spoke. She stood before him in the winter +light, with her colour changing, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes cast down, +and tears trembling on the long dark lashes. +</p> + +<p> +“You have no right to question me. It is enough for you to have my honest +answer. I esteem you, but I do not love you; and it distresses me when you talk +of love.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is some one else, then! I knew it. There is some one else. For me you +are marble. You are fire for him. He is in your heart. You have said it.” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you——” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I shrink from warning you of your danger? It is Fareham you love. I +have seen you tremble at his touch—start at the sound of his footstep—that step +you know so well. His footstep? Why, the very air he breathes carries to you +the consciousness of his approach. Oh, I have watched you both, Angela; and I +know, I know. Jealous pangs have racked me, day after day; yet I have hung on. +I have been very patient. ‘She knows not the sinful impulses of her own heart,’ +I said, ‘knows not in her purity how near she goes to a fall. Here, in her +sister’s house, passionately loved by her sister’s husband! She calls him +‘brother,’ whose eyes cannot look at her without telling their story of wicked +love. She walks on the edge of a precipice—self-deceived. Were I to abandon her +she might fall. My affection is her only safeguard; and by winning her to +myself I shall snatch her from the pit of hell.’” +</p> + +<p> +It was the truth he was telling her. Yes; even when Fareham was harshest, she +had been dimly conscious that love was at the root of his unkindness. The +coldness that had held them apart since that midnight meeting had been ice over +fire. It was jealousy that had made him so angry. No word of love, directly +spoken, had ever offended her ear; but there had been many a speech of double +meaning that had set her wondering and thinking. +</p> + +<p> +And, oh! the guilt of it, when an honourable man like Denzil set her sin before +her, in plain language. She stood aghast at her own wickedness. That which had +been a sin of thought only, a secret sorrow, wrestled with in many an hour of +heartfelt prayer, with all the labour of a soul that sought heavenly aid +against earthly temptation, was conjured into hideous reality by Denzil’s plain +speech. To love her sister’s husband, to suffer his guilty love, to know +gladness only in his company, to be exquisitely happy were he but in the same +room with her—to sink to profoundest melancholy when he was absent. Oh, the sin +of it! In what degree did her guilt differ from that of the women of the Court, +who had each her open secret in some base intrigue that all the world knew and +laughed at? She had been kept aloof from that libertine crew; but was she any +better than they? Was Fareham, who openly scorned the royal debauchee, was he +any better than the King? +</p> + +<p> +She remembered how he had talked of Lord Sandwich, making excuses for a +perverted love. She had heard him speak of other offenders in the same strain. +He had been ever ready to recognise fatality where a good Catholic would have +perceived only sin. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela, believe me, you are drifting helmless in perilous waters,” Denzil +urged, while she stood beside him in mute distress. “Let me be your strong +rock. Only give me the promise of your hand. I can be patient still. I will +give time for love to grow. Grant me but the right to guard you from the danger +of an unholy passion that is always near you in this house.” +</p> + +<p> +“You pretend to be his lordship’s friend, and you speak slander of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am his friend. I could find it in my heart to pity him for loving you. +Indeed, it has been in friendship that I have tried to interest him in a great +national question—to wean him from his darling sin. But were you my wife he +should never cross our threshold. The day that made us one should make you and +Fareham strangers. It is for you to choose, Angela, between two men who love +you—one near your own age, free, God-fearing; the other nearly old enough to be +your father, bound by the tie which your Church deems indissoluble, whose love +is insult and pollution, and can but end in shame and despair. It is for you to +choose between honest and dishonest love.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a nobler choice open to me,” she said, more calmly than she had yet +spoken, and with a pale dignity in her countenance that awed him. A thrill of +admiration and fear ran along his nerves as he looked at her. She seemed +transfigured. “There is a higher and better love,” she said. “This is not the +first time that I have considered a sure way out of all my difficulties. I can +go back to the convent where, in my dear Aunt Anastasia, I saw so splendid an +example of a holy life hidden from the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Life buried in a living grave!” cried Denzil, horror-stricken at the idea of +such a sacrifice. “Free-will and reason obscured in a cloud of incense! All the +great uses of a noble life brought down to petty observances and childish +mummeries, prayers and genuflections before waxen relics and dressed-up +madonnas. Oh, my dearest girl, next worst only to the dominion of sin is the +slavery of a false religion. I would have thee free as air—free and +enlightened—released from the trammels of Rome, happy in thyself and useful to +thy fellow-creatures.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Sir Denzil, even if we loved each other, we could never think alike,” +Angela said, with a gentle sadness. “Our minds would always dwell far apart. +Things that are dear and sacred to me are hateful to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you love me I could win you to my way of thinking,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that if I loved you I should love you better than I love God?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so, dear. But you would open your mind to the truth. St. Paul sanctified +union between Christian and pagan, and deemed the unbelieving wife sanctified +by the believing husband. There can be no sin, therefore, despite my poor +mother’s violent opinions, in the union of those who worship the same God, and +whose creed differs only in particulars. ‘How knowest thou, O man, whether thou +shalt save thy wife?’ Indeed, love, I doubt not my power to wean you from the +errors of your early education.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cannot you see how wide apart we are? Every word you say widens the gulf +betwixt us. Indeed, Sir Denzil, you had best remain my friend. You can be +nothing else.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned from him almost impatiently. Young, handsome, of a frank and +generous nature, he yet lacked the gifts that charm women; or at least this one +woman was cold to him. It might be that in his own nature there was a coldness, +a something wanting, the fire we miss in that great poet of the age, whose +verse could rise to themes transcendent, but never burnt with the white heat of +human passion. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon came flying along the terrace, her skirts and waving tresses spread +wide in the wind, a welcome intruder. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you and Sir Denzil doing in the cold? I have news for my dear, +dearest auntie. My lord is in a good humour, and <i>Philaster</i> is to be +acted by the Duke’s servants, and her ladyship’s footmen are keeping places for +us in the boxes. I have only seen three plays in my life, and they were all sad +ones. I wish <i>Philaster</i> was a comedy. I should like to see <i>Love in a +Tub</i>. That must be full of drollery. But his honour likes only grave plays. +Be brisk, auntie! The coach will be at the door directly. Come and put on your +hood. His lordship says we need no masks. I should have loved to wear a mask. +Are you coming to the play, Sir Denzil?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know not if I am bidden, or if there be a place for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you can stand with the fops in the pit, and you can buy us some China +oranges. I heard Lady Sarah tell my mother that the new little actress with the +pretty feet was once an orange-girl, who lived with Lord Buckhurst. Why did he +have an orange-girl to live with him? He must be vastly fond of oranges. I +should love to sell oranges in the pit, if I could be an actress afterwards. I +would rather be an actress than a duchess. Mademoiselle taught me Chiméne’s +tirades in Corneille’s <i>Cid</i>. I learn quicker than any pupil she ever had. +Monsieur de Malfort once said I was a born actress,” pursued Papillon, as they +walked to the house. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Philaster!</i> That story of unhappy love—so pure, patient, melancholy, +disinterested. How often Angela had hung over the page, in the solitude of her +own chamber! And to hear the lines spoken to-day, when a tempest of emotion had +been raised in her breast, with Fareham by her side; to meet his glances at +this or that moment of the play, when the devoted girl was revealing the secret +of her passionate heart. Yet never was love freer from taint of sin, and the +end of the play was in no wise tragic. That pure affection was encouraged and +sanctified by the happy bride. Bellario was not to be banished, but sheltered. +</p> + +<p> +Alas! yes; but this was love unreturned. There was no answering warmth on +Philaster’s part, no fire of passion to scathe and destroy; only a gentle +gratitude for the girl’s devotion—a brother’s, not a lover’s regard. +</p> + +<p> +She found Fareham and her sister in the hall, ready to step into the coach. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw the name of your favourite play on the posts as I walked home,” he said; +“and as Hyacinth is always teasing me for denying her the play-house, I thought +this was a good opportunity for pleasing you both.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have pleased me more if you had offered me the chance of seeing a +new comedy,” his wife retorted, pettishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dearest, let us not resume an old quarrel. The play-wrights of Elizabeth’s +age were poets and gentlemen. The men who write for us are blackguards and +empty-headed fops. We have novelty, which is all most of us want, a hundred new +plays in a year, of which scarce one will be remembered after the year is out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who wants to remember? The highest merit in a play is that it should be a +reflection of to-day; and who minds if it be stale to-morrow? To hold the +mirror up to nature, doesn’t your Shakespeare say? And what more transient than +the image in a glass? A comedy should be like one’s hat or one’s gown, the top +of the mode to-day, and cast off and forgotten, in a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what our fine gentlemen think; who are satisfied if their wit gets +three days’ acceptance, and some substantial compliment from the patron to whom +they dedicate their trash.” +</p> + +<p> +His lordship’s liveries and four grey horses made a stir in Lincoln’s Inn +Fields, and startled the crowd at the doors of the New Theatre; and within the +house Lady Fareham and her sister divided the attention of the pit with their +royal highnesses the Duke and Duchess, who no longer amused or scandalised the +audience by those honeymoon coquetries which had distinguished their earlier +appearances in public. Duchess Anne was growing stout, and fast losing her +beauty, and Duke James was imitating his brother’s infidelities, after his own +stealthy fashion; so it may be that Clarendon’s daughter was no more happy than +her sister-in-law the Queen, nor than her father the Chancellor, over whom the +shadows of royal disfavour were darkening. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham lolled languidly back in her box, and let all the audience see her +indifference to Fletcher’s poetic dialogue. Angela sat motionless, her hands +clasped in her lap, entranced by that romantic story, and the acting which gave +life and reality to that poetic fable, as well it might when the incomparable +Betterton played Philaster. Fareham stood beside his wife, looking down at the +stage, and sometimes, as Angela looked up, their eyes met in one swift flash of +responsive thought; met and glanced away, as if each knew the peril of such +meetings— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “If it be love<br/> +To forget all respect of his own friends<br/> +In thinking on your face.” +</p> + +<p> +Was it by chance that Fareham sighed as those lines were spoken? And again— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“If, when he goes to rest (which will not be),<br/> +’Twixt every prayer he says he names you once.” +</p> + +<p> +And again, was it chance that brought that swift, half-angry, questioning look +upon her from those severe eyes in the midst of Philaster’s tirade?— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“How heaven is in your eyes, but in your hearts<br/> +More hell than hell has; how your tongues, like scorpions,<br/> +Both heal and poison; how your thoughts are woven<br/> +With thousand changes in one subtle web,<br/> +And worn so by you. How that foolish man<br/> +That reads the story of a woman’s face,<br/> +And dies believing it is lost for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Angela whose eyes unconsciously sought his when that passage occurred +which had written itself upon her heart long ago at Chilton when she first read +the play— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing<br/> +Worthy your noble thoughts; ’tis not a life,<br/> +’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.” +</p> + +<p> +What was her poor life worth—so lonely even in her sister’s house—so desolate +when his eyes looked not upon her in kindness? After having lived for two brief +summers and winters in his cherished company, having learnt to know what a +proud, honourable man was like, his disdain of vice, his indifference to Court +favour, his aspirations for liberty; after having known him, and loved him with +silent and secret love, what better could she do than bury herself within +convent walls, and spend the rest of her days in praying for those she loved? +Alas, he had such need that some faithful soul should soar heavenward in +supplication for him who had himself so weak a hold upon the skies! Alas, to +think of him as unbelieving, putting his trust in the opinions of infidels like +Hobbes and Spinoza, rather than leaning on that Rock of Ages the Church of St. +Peter. +</p> + +<p> +If she could not live for him—if it were a sin even to dwell under the same +roof with him—she could at least die for him—die to the world of pleasure and +folly, of beauty and splendour, die to friendship and love; sink all +individuality under the monastic rule; cease to be, except as a part in a great +organisation, an atom acting and acted upon by higher powers; surrendering +every desire and every hope that distinguished her from the multitude of women +vowed to a holy life. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Never, sir, will I<br/> +Marry; it is a thing within my vow.” +</p> + +<p> +The voice of the actress sounded silver-clear as Bellario spoke her last +speech, finishing her story of a love which can submit to take the lower place, +and asks but little of fate. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“It is a thing within my vow.” +</p> + +<p> +The line repeated itself in Angela’s mind as Denzil met them at the door, and +handed her into the coach. +</p> + +<p> +Should she prove of weaker stuff than the sad Eufrasia, and accept a husband +she did not love? This humdrum modern age allowed of no romance. She could not +stain her face with walnut juice, and disguise herself as a footboy, and live +unknown in his service, to wait upon him when he was weary, to nurse him when +he was sick. Such a life she would have deemed exquisitely happy; but the hard +everyday world had no room for such dreams. In this unromantic age Dion’s +daughter would be recognised within twenty-four hours of her putting on male +attire. The golden days of poetry were dead. Una would find no lion to fawn at +her feet. She would be mobbed in the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that it could have been!” thought Angela, as the coach jolted and rumbled +through the narrow ways, and shaved awkward corners with its ponderous wheels, +and got its horses entangled with other noble teams, to the provocation of much +ill-language from postillions, and flunkeys, and linkmen, for it was dark when +they came out of the theatre, and a thick mist was rising from the river, and +flambeaux were flaring up and down the dim narrow thoroughfares. +</p> + +<p> +“They light the streets better in Paris,” complained Hyacinth. “In the Rue de +Touraine we had a lamp to every house.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like to see the links moving up and down,” said Papillon; “’tis ever so much +prettier than lanterns that stand still—like that one at the corner.” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed to a small round lamp that made a bubble of light in an abyss of +gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“Here the lamps stink more than they light,” said Hyacinth. “How the coach +rocks—those blockheads will end by upsetting it. I should have been twice as +well in my chair.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela sat in her place, lost in thought, and hardly conscious of the jolting +coach, or of Papillon’s prattle, who would not be satisfied till she had +dragged her aunt into the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you not love the play, and would you not love to be a princess like +Arethusa, and to wear such a necklace? Mother’s diamonds are not half as big.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pshaw, child, ’twas absolute glass—arrant trumpery.” +</p> + +<p> +“But her gown was not trumpery. It was Lady Castlemaine’s last birthday gown. I +heard a lady telling her friend about it in the seat next mine. Lady +Castlemaine gave it to the actress; and it cost three hundred pounds—and Lady +Castlemaine is all that there is of the most extravagant, the lady said, and +old Rowley has to pay her debts—(who is old Rowley, and why does he pay +people’s debts?)—though she is the most unscrupulous—I forget the word—in +London.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, madam, what a good school the play-house is for your child,” said +Fareham grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“I never asked you to take our child there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Hyacinth; but a mother should enter no scene unfit for her daughter’s +innocence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my lord, your opinions are of the Protectorate. You would be better in New +England—tilling your fields reclaimed from the waste.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I might be better there, reclaimed from the waste—of London life. Strange +that your talk should hit upon New England. I was thinking of that New World +not an hour ago at the play—thinking what a happy innocent life a man might +lead there, were he but young and free, with one he loved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Innocent, yes; happy, no; unless he were a savage or a peasant,” Hyacinth +exclaimed disdainfully. “We that have known the grace and beauty of life cannot +go back to the habits of our ancestors, to eat without forks, and cover our +floors with rushes instead of Persian carpets.” +</p> + +<p> +“The beauty and grace of life—houses that are whited sepulchres, banquets where +there is no love.” +</p> + +<p> +The coach stopped before the tall Italian doorway, and Fareham handed out his +wife and sister in silence; but there was one of the party to whom it was +unnatural to be mute. +</p> + +<p> +Papillon sprang off the coach step into her father’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweetheart, why are you so sad?” she asked. “You look more unhappy than +Philaster when he thought his lady loved him not.” +</p> + +<p> +She would not be put off, but hung about him all the length of the corridor, to +the door of his room, where he parted from her with a kiss on her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“How your lips burn!” she cried. “I hope you are not sickening for the plague. +I dreamt last night that the contagion had come back; and that our new glass +coach was going about with a bell collecting the dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hadst eaten too much supper, sweet. Such dreams are warnings against +excess of pies and jellies. Go, love; I have business.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have always business now. You used to let me stay with you—even when you +was busy,” Henriette remonstrated, dejectedly, as the sonorous oak door closed +against her. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham flung himself into his chair in front of the large table, with its +heaped-up books and litter of papers. Straight before him there lay Milton’s +pamphlet—a publication of ten years ago; but he had been reading it only that +morning—“The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.” +</p> + +<p> +There were sentences which seemed to him to stand out upon the page, almost as +if written in fire; and to these he recurred again and again, brooding over and +weighing every word. “….Neither can this law be of force to engage a blameless +creature to his own perpetual sorrow, mistaken for his expected solace, without +suffering charity to step in and do a confessed good work of parting those whom +nothing holds together but this of God’s joining, falsely supposed against the +express end of his own ordinance…. ‘It is not good,’ said He, ‘that man should +be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him.’ From which words, so plain, less +cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God’s +intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of +marriage…. Again, where the mind is unsatisfied, the solitariness of man, which +God had namely and principally ordered to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, +but lies in a worse condition than the loneliest single life; for in single +life the absence and remoteness of a helper might inure him to expect his own +comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope; but here the continual sight of +his deluded thoughts, without cure, must needs be to him, if especially his +complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily trouble and pain of loss, in some +degree like that which reprobates feel.” +</p> + +<p> +He closed the book, and started up to pace the long, lofty room, full of +shadow, betwixt the light of the fire and that one pair of candles on his +reading desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Reprobate! Yes. Am not I a reprobate, and the worst, plotting against +innocence? New England,” he repeated to himself. “How much the name promises. A +new world, a new life, and old fetters struck off. God, if it could be done! It +would hurt no one—no one—except perhaps those children, who might suffer a +brief sorrow—and it would make two lives happy that must be blighted else. Two +lives! Am I so sure of her? Yes, if eyes speak true. Sure as of my own fond +passion. The contagion, quotha! I have suffered that, sweet, and know its icy +sweats and parching heats; but ’tis not so fierce a fever as that devilish +disease, the longing for your company.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br/> +GOOD-BYE, LONDON.</h2> + +<p> +Sitting in her own room before supper, a letter was brought to Angela—a long +letter, closely written, in a neat, firm hand she knew very well. +</p> + +<p> +It was from Denzil Warner; a letter full of earnest thought and warm feeling, +in which he pursued the subject of their morning’s discourse. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“We were interrupted before I had time to open my heart to you, dearest,” he +wrote; “and at a moment when we had touched on the most delicate point in our +friendship—the difference in our religious education and observance. Oh, my +beloved, let not difference in particulars divide two hearts that worship the +same God, or make a barrier between two minds that think alike upon essentials. +The Christ who died for you is not less my Saviour because I love not to +obtrude the dressed-up image of His earthly mother between His Godhead and my +prayers. In the regeneration of baptism, in the sanctity of marriage, in the +resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come, in the reality of +sin and the necessity for repentance, I believe as truly as any Papist living. +Let our lives be but once united, who knows how the future may shape and modify +our minds and our faith? I may be brought to your way of thinking, or you to +mine. I will pledge myself never to be guilty of disrespect to your religion, +or to unkindly urge you to any change in your observances. I am not one of +those who have exchanged one tyranny for another, and who, released from the +dominion of Rome, have become the slave of the Covenant. I have been taught by +one who, himself deeply religious, would have all men free to worship God by +the light of their own conscience; and to my wife, that dearer half of my soul, +I would allow perfect freedom. I suffer from the lack of poetic phrases with +which to embellish the plain reality of my love; but be sure, Angela, that you +may travel far through the world, and receive many a flowery compliment to your +beauty, yet meet none who will love you as faithfully as I have loved you for +this year last past, and as I doubt I shall love you—happy or unfortunate in my +wooing—for all the rest of my life. Think, dearest, whether it were not wise on +your part to accept the chaste and respectful homage of a suitor who is free to +love and cherish you, and thus to shield yourself from the sinful pursuit of +one who offends Heaven and dishonours you whenever he looks at you with the +eyes of a lover. I would not write harshly of a man whose very sin I pity, and +whom I believe not wholly vile; but for him, as for me, that were a happy day +which should make you my wife, and thus end the madness of unholy hopes. I +would again urge that Lady Fareham desires our union with all a sister’s +concern for you, and more than a friend’s tenderness to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I beseech your pardon and indulgence for my rough words of this morning. God +forbid that I should impute one unworthy thought to her whose virtues I honour +above all earthly merit. If your heart inclines towards one whom it were misery +for you to love, I know that it must be with an affection pure and ethereal as +the love of the disguised girl in Fletcher’s play. But, ah, dearest angel, you +know not the peril in which you walk. Your innocent mind cannot conceive the +audacious height to which unholy love may climb in a man’s fiery nature. You +cannot fathom the black depths of such a character as Fareham—a man as capable +of greatness in evil as of distinction in good. Forget not whose fierce blood +runs in those veins. Can you doubt his audacity in wrong-doing, when you +remember that he comes of the same stock which produced that renegade and +tyrant, Thomas Wentworth—a man who would have waded deep in the blood of a +nation to reach his desired goal, all the history of whose life was expressed +by him in one word—‘thorough’? +</p> + +<p> +“Do you consider what that word means to a man over whose heart sin has taken +the upper hand? Thorough! How resolute in evil, how undaunted and without limit +in baseness, is he who takes that word for his motto! Oh, my love, there are +dragons and lions about thy innocent footsteps—the dragons of lust, the lions +of presumptuous love. Flee from thy worst enemy, dearest, to the shelter of a +heart which adores thee; lean upon a breast whose pulses beat for thee with a +truth that time cannot change. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Thine till death, <br/> +“W<small>ARNER</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela tore up the letter in anger. How dared he write thus of Lord Fareham? To +impute sinful passions, guilty desires—to enter into another man’s mind, and +read the secret cipher of his thoughts and wishes with an assumed key, which +might be false? His letter was a bundle of false assumptions. What right had he +to insist that her brother-in-law cared for her with more than the affection +authorised by affinity? He had no right. She hated him for his insolent letter. +She scorned the protection of his love. She had her refuge and her shelter in a +holier love than his. The doors of the old home would open to her at a word. +</p> + +<p> +She sat on a low stool in front of the hearth, while the pile of ship timber on +the andirons burnt itself out and turned from red to grey. She sat looking into +the dying fire and recalling the pictures of the past; the dull grey convent +rooms and formal convent garden; the petty rules and restrictions; the +so-frequent functions—low mass and high, benedictions, vespers—the recurrent +sound of the chapel bell. The few dull books, permitted in the hour of +so-called recreation; the sombre grey gown, which was the only relief from +perpetual black; the limitations of that colourless life. She had been happy +with the Ursulines under her kinswoman’s gentle sway. But could she be happy +with the present Superior, whose domineering temper she knew? She had been +happy in her ignorance of the outer world; but could she be happy again in that +grey seclusion—she who had sat at the banquet of life, who had seen the beauty +and the variety of her native land? To be an exile for the rest of her days, in +the hopeless gloom of a Flemish convent, among the heavy faces of Flemish nuns! +</p> + +<p> +In the intensity of introspective thought she had forgotten one who had +forbidden that gloomy seclusion, and to whom it would be as natural for her to +look for protection and refuge as to convent or husband. From her thoughts +to-night the image of her wandering father had been absent. His appearances in +her life had been so rare and so brief, his influence on her destiny so slight, +that she was forgetful of him now in this crisis of her fate. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was within a week of that evening that the sisters were startled by the +arrival of their father, unannounced, in the dusk of the winter afternoon. He +had come by slow stages from Spain, riding the greater part of the journey—like +Howell, fifty years earlier—attended only by one faithful soldier-servant, and +enduring no small suffering, and running no slight risk, upon the road. +</p> + +<p> +“The wolves had our provender on more than one occasion,” he told them. “The +wonder is they never had us or our hackneys. I left Madrid in July, not long +after the death of my poor friend Fanshawe. Indeed, it was his friendship and +his good lady’s unvarying courtesy that took me to the capital. We had last met +at Hampton Court, with the King, shortly before his Majesty’s so ill-advised +flight; and we were bosom-friends then. And so, he being dead of a fever early +in the summer, I had no more to do but to travel slowly homeward, to end my +days in my own chimney-corner, and to claim thy promise, Angela, that thou +wouldst keep my house, and comfort my declining years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear father!” Angela murmured, hanging over him as he sat in the high-backed +velvet chair by the fire, while her ladyship’s footmen set a table near him, +with wine and provisions for an impromptu meal, Lady Fareham directing them, +and coming between-whiles to embrace her father in a flutter of spirits, the +firelight shining on her flame-coloured velvet gown and primrose taffety +petticoat, her pretty golden curls and sparkling Sévigné, her ruby necklace and +earrings, and her bright restless eyes. +</p> + +<p> +While the elder sister was all movement and agitation, the younger stood calm +and still beside her father’s chair, her hands clasped in his, her thoughtful +eyes looking down at him as he talked, stopping now and then in his story of +adventures to eat and drink. +</p> + +<p> +He looked much older than when he surprised her in the Convent garden. His hair +and beard, then iron grey, were now silver white. He wore his own hair, which +was abundant, and a beard cut after the fashion she knew in the portraits of +Henri Quatre. His clothes also were of that style, which lived now only in the +paintings of Vandyke and his school. +</p> + +<p> +“How the girl looks at me!” Sir John said, surprising his daughter’s earnest +gaze. “Does she take me for a ghost?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, she may well fancy you have come back from the other world while +you wear that antique suit,” said Hyacinth. “I hope your first business +to-morrow will be to replenish your wardrobe by the assistance of Lord +Rochester’s tailor. He is a German, and has the best cut for a justau-corps in +all the West End. Fareham is shabby enough to make a wife ashamed of him; but +his clothes are only too plain for his condition. Your Spanish cloak and +steeple hat are fitter for a travelling quack doctor than for a gentleman of +quality, and your doublet and vest might have come out of the ark.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I change them, it will be but to humour your vanity, sweetheart,” answered +her father. “I bought the suit in Paris three years ago, and I swore I would +cast them back upon the snip’s hands if he gave me any new-fangled finery. But +a riding-suit that has crossed the Pyrenees and stood a winter’s wear at +Montpelier—where I have been living since October—can scarce do credit to a +fine lady’s saloon; and thou art finest, I’ll wager, Hyacinth, where all are +fine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would not say that if you had seen Lady Castlemaine’s rooms. I would wager +that her gold and silver tapestry cost more than the contents of my house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou shouldst not envy sin in high places, Hyacinth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Envy! I envy a——” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, love, no bad names! ’Tis a sorry pass England has come to when the most +conspicuous personage at her Court is the King’s mistress. I was with Queen +Henrietta at Paris, who received me mighty kindly, and bewailed with me over +the contrast betwixt her never-to-be-forgotten husband and his sons. They have +nothing of their father, she told me, neither in person nor in mind. ‘I know +not whence their folly comes to them!’ she cried. It would have been uncivil to +remind her that her own father, hero as he was, had set no saintly example to +royal husbands; and that it is possible our princes take more of their +character from their grandfather Henry than from the martyr Charles. Poor lady, +I am told she left London deep in debt, after squandering her noble income of +these latter years, and that she has sunk in the esteem of the French court by +her alliance with Jermyn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can but wonder that she, above all women, should ever cease to be a widow.” +</p> + +<p> +“She comes of a light-minded race and nation, Angela; and it is easy to her to +forget; or she would not easily forget that so-adoring husband whose fortunes +she ruined. His most fatal errors came from his subservience to her. When I saw +her in her new splendour at Somerset House, all smiles and gaiety, with youth +and beauty revived in the sunshine of restored fortune, I could but remember +all he was, in dignity and manly affection, proud and pure as King Arthur in +the old romance, and all she cost him by womanish tyrannies and prejudices, and +difficult commands laid upon him at a juncture of so exceeding difficulty.” +</p> + +<p> +The sisters listened in respectful silence. The old cavalier cut a fresh slice +of chine, sighed, and continued his sermon. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt that while we, the lookers on, remember, they, the actors, forget; for +could the son of such a noble victim wallow in a profligate court, surrender +himself to the devilish necromancies of vicious women and viler men, if he +remembered his father’s character, and his father’s death? No; memory must be a +blank, and we, who suffered with our royal master, are fools to prate of +ingratitude or neglect, since the son who can forget such a father may well +forget his father’s servants and friends. But we will not talk of public +matters in the first hour of our greeting. Nor need I prate of the King, since +I have not come back to England to clap a periwig over my grey hairs, and play +waiter upon Court favour, and wear out the back of my coat against the tapestry +at Whitehall, standing in the rear of the crowd, to have my toes trampled upon +by the sharp heels of Court ladies, and an elbow in my stomach more often than +not. I am come, like Wolsey, girls, to lay my old bones among you. Art thou +ready, Angela? Hast thou had enough of London, and play-houses, and parks; and +wilt thou share thy father’s solitude in Buckinghamshire?” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou hast the great lady’s air and +carriage in that brave blue taffety. The nun I knew three years ago has +vanished. Can you so lightly renounce the splendour of this house, and your +sister’s company, to make a prosing old father happy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How she says that—with what a countenance of woeful resignation! But I will +not make the Manor Moat too severe a prison, dearest. You shall visit London, +and your sister, when you will. There shall be a coach and a team of stout +roadsters to pull it when they are not wanted for the plough. And the Vale of +Aylesbury is but a long day’s journey from London, while ’tis no more than a +morning’s ride to Chilton.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could not bear for her to be long away from me,” said Hyacinth. “She is the +only companion I have in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Except your husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Husbands such as mine are poor company. Fareham has a moody brow, and a mind +stuffed with public matters. He dines with Clarendon one day, and with +Albemarle another; or he goes to Deptford to grumble with Mr. Evelyn; or he +creeps away to some obscure quarter of the town to hob-nob with Milton, and +with Marvel, the member for Hull. I doubt they are all of one mind in abusing +his Majesty, and conspiring against him. If I lose my sister I shall have no +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, no one; when you have Henriette, who even three years ago had shrewdness +enough to keep an old grandfather amused with her impertinent prattle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Grandfathers are easily amused by children they see as seldom as you have seen +Papillon. To have her about you all day, with her everlasting chatter, and +questions, and remarks, and opinions (a brat of twelve with opinions), would +soon give you the vapours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let me look at you, now the +candles are lighted.” +</p> + +<p> +The footmen had lighted clusters of wax candles on either side the tall +chimney-piece. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John drew his elder daughter to the light, and scrutinised her face with a +father’s privilege of uncompromising survey. +</p> + +<p> +“You paint thick enough, i’ conscience’ name, though not quite so thick as the +Spanish señoras. They are browner than you, and need a heavier hand with white +and red. But you are haggard under all your red. You are not the woman I left +in ’65.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am near two years older than the woman you left; and as for paint, there is +not a woman over twenty in London who uses as little red and white as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has become of Fareham to-night?” Sir John asked presently, when Hyacinth +had picked up her favourite spaniel to nurse and fondle, while Angela had +resumed her occupation at an embroidery frame, and a reposeful air as of a +long-established domesticity had fallen upon the scene. +</p> + +<p> +“He is at Chilton. When he is not plotting he rushes off to Oxfordshire for the +hunting and shooting. He loves buglehorns and yelping curs, and huntsmen’s +cracked voices, far before the company of ladies or the conversation of wits.” +</p> + +<p> +“A man was never meant to sit in a velvet chair and talk fine. It is all one +for a French Abbé and a few old women in men’s clothing to sit round the room +and chop logic with a learned spinster like Mademoiselle Scudéry; but men must +live <i>sub Jove</i>, unless they are statesmen or clerks. They must have +horses and hounds, gun and spaniel, hawk or rod. I am glad Fareham loves sport. +And as for that talk of conspiring, let me not hear it from thee, Hyacinth. +’Tis a perilous discourse to but hint at treason; and your husband is a loyal +gentleman who loves, and”—with a wry face—“reveres—his King.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I was only jesting. But, indeed, a man who so disparages the things other +people love must needs be a rebel at heart. Did you hear of Monsieur de Malfort +while you were at Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +The inquiry was made with that over-acted carelessness which betrays hidden +pain; but the soldier’s senses had been blunted by the rough-and-tumble of an +adventurer’s life, and he was not on the alert for shades of feeling. +</p> + +<p> +Angela accepted her father’s return, with the new duties it imposed upon her, +as if it had been a decree of Heaven. She put aside all consideration of that +refuge which would have meant so complete a renunciation and farewell. On her +knees that night, in the midst of fervent prayers, her tears streamed fast at +the thought that, secure in the shelter of her father’s love, in the peaceful +solitude of her native valley, she could look to a far-off future when she and +Fareham might meet with out fear of sin, when no cloud of passion should darken +his brotherly affection for her; when his heart, now estranged from holy +things, would have returned to the faith of his ancestors, reconciled to God +and the Church. She could but think of him now as a fallen angel—a wanderer who +had strayed far from the only light and guide of human life, and was thus a +mark for the tempter. What lesser power than Satan’s could have so turned good +to evil; the friendship of a brother to the base passion which had made so wide +a gulf between them; and which must keep them strangers till he was cured of +his sin? Only to diabolical possession could she ascribe the change that had +come over him since those happy days when she had watched the slow dawn of +health upon his sunken cheeks, when he and she had travelled together through +the rich autumn woods, along the pleasant English roads, and when, in the +leisure of the slow journey, he had poured out his thoughts to her, the story +of his life, his opinions, expatiating in fraternal confidence upon the things +he loved and the things he hated. And at Chilton, she looked back and +remembered his goodness to her, the pains he had taken in choosing horses for +her to ride, their long mornings on the river with Henriette, their hawking +parties, and in all his tender brotherly care of her. The change in him had +come about by almost imperceptible degrees: but it had been chiefly marked by a +fitful temper that had cut her to the quick; now kind; now barely civil; +courting her company to-day; to-morrow avoiding her, as if there were contagion +in her presence. Then, after the meeting at Millbank, there had come a coldness +so icy, a sarcasm so cutting, that for a long time she had thought he hated as +much as he despised her. She had withered in his contempt. His unkindness had +overshadowed every hour of her life, and the longing to cry out to him “Indeed, +sir, your thoughts wrong me. I am not the wretch you think,” had been almost +too much for her fortitude. She had felt that she must exculpate herself, even +though in so doing she should betray her sister. But honour, and affection for +Hyacinth, had prevailed; and she had bent her shoulders to the burden of +undeserved shame. She had sat silent and abashed in his presence, like a guilty +creature. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John Kirkland spent a week at Fareham House, employed in choosing a team of +horses, suitable alike for the road and the plough, looking out, among the +coachmakers, for a second-hand travelling carriage, and eventually buying a +coach of Lady Fanshawe’s, which had been brought from Madrid with the rest of +her very extensive goods and chattels. +</p> + +<p> +One need scarce remark that it was not one of the late Ambassador’s state +carriages, his ruby velvet coach, with fringes that cost three hundred pounds, +or his brocade carriage, but a coach that had been built for the everyday use +of his suite. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John also bought a little plain silver, in place of that fine collection of +silver and parcel-gilt which had been so willingly sacrificed to royal +necessities; and though he breathed no sigh over past losses, some bitter +thoughts may have come across his cheerfulness as he heard of the splendour and +superabundance of Lady Castlemaine’s plate and jewels, or of the ring worth six +hundred pounds lately presented to a pretty actress. +</p> + +<p> +In a week he was ready for Buckinghamshire; and Angela had her trunks packed, +and had bid good-bye to her London friends, amidst the chatter of Lady +Fareham’s visiting-day, and the clear, bell-like clash of delicate china +tea-cups—miniature bowls of egg-shell porcelain, without handles, and to be +held daintily between the tips of high-bred fingers. +</p> + +<p> +There was a chorus of courteous bewailing at the notion of Mrs. Kirkland’s +departure. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Ralph Masaroon pretended to be in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it not bad enough to have had the coldest winter my youth can remember? But +you must needs take the sun from our spring. Why, the maids of honour will +count for handsome when you are gone. What’s that Butler says?— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘The twinkling stars begin to muster,<br/> +And glitter with their borrowed lustre.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But what’s to become of me without the sun? I shall have no one to side-glass +in the Ring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, Sir Ralph, I did not know that you ever side-glassed me!” +</p> + +<p> +“What, you have suffered my devotion to pass unperceived? When I have broken +half a dozen coach windows in your service, rattling a glass down with a +vehemence which would have startled a Venus in marble to turn and recognise an +adorer! Round and round the Ring I have driven for hours, on the chance of a +look. Nay, marble is not so coy as froward beauty! And at the Queen’s chapel +have I not knelt at the Mass morning after morning, at the risk of being +thought a Papist, for the sake of seeing you at prayers; and have envied the +Romish dog who handed you the aspersoir as you went out? And you to be +unconscious all the time!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, ’tis so much happier for me, Sir Ralph, since you have given me a reserve +of gratified vanity that will last me a year in the country, where I shall see +nothing but ploughmen and bird-boys.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look out for the scarecrows in Sir John’s fields, for the odds are you will +see me some day disguised as one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why disguised?” asked his friend Mr. Penington, who had lately produced a +comedy that had been acted three afternoons at the Duke’s Theatre, and one +evening at Court, which may be taken as a prosperous run for a new play. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah Tewkesbury held forth on the pleasures of a country life, and +lamented that family connections and the necessity of standing well with the +Court constrained her to spend the greater part of her existence in town. +</p> + +<p> +“I am like Milton,” she said. “I adore a rural life. To hear the cock— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘From his watchtower in the skies,<br/> +When the horse and hound do rise.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oh, I love buttercups and daisies above all the Paris finery in the Exchange; +and to steep one’s complexion in May-dew, and to sup on a syllabub or a dish of +frumenty—so cheap, too, while it costs a fortune but to scrape along in +London.” +</p> + +<p> +“The country is well enough for a month at hay-making, to romp with a bevy of +London beauties in the meadows near Tunbridge Wells, or to dance to a couple of +fiddles on the Common by moonlight,” said Mr. Penington; whereupon all agreed +that Tunbridge Wells, Epsom, Doncaster, and Newmarket were the only country +possible to people of intellect. +</p> + +<p> +“I would never go further than Epsom, if I had my will,” said Sir Ralph; “for I +see no pleasure in Newmarket for a man who keeps no running-horses, and has no +more interest in the upshot of a race than he might have in a maggot match on +his own dining-table, did he stake high enough on the result.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my sister is not to be buried in Buckinghamshire all the year round,” +explained Hyacinth. “I shall fetch her here half a dozen times in a season; and +her shortest visits must be long enough to take the country freshness out of +her complexion, and save her from becoming a milkmaid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gud, to see her freckled!” cried Penington. “I could as soon imagine Helen +with a hump. That London pallor is the choicest charm in a girl of quality—a +refined sickliness that appeals to the heart of a man of feeling, an +‘if-you-don’t-lend-me-your-arm-I-shall-swoon’ sort of air. Your country hoyden, +with her roses-and-cream complexion, and open-air manners, is more shocking +than Medusa to a man of taste.” +</p> + +<p> +The talk drifted to other topics at the mention of Buckingham, who had but +lately been let out of the Tower, where he and Lord Dorchester had been +committed for scuffling and quarrelling at the Canary Conference. +</p> + +<p> +“Has your ladyship seen the Duke and Lord Dorchester since they came out of the +house of bondage?” asked Lady Sarah. “I think Buckingham was never so gay and +handsome, and takes his imprisonment as the best joke that ever was, and is as +great at Court as ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“His Majesty is but too indulgent,” said Masaroon, “and encourages the Duke to +be insolent and careless of ceremony. He had the impertinence to show himself +at chapel before he had waited on his Majesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was very angry and forbade him the Court,” said Penington. “But Buckingham +sent the King one of his foolish, jesting letters, capped with a rhyme or two; +and if you can make Charles Stuart laugh you may pick his pocket——” +</p> + +<p> +“Or seduce his mistress——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he will forgive much to wit and gaiety. He learnt the knack of taking life +easily, while he led that queer, shifting life in exile. He was a cosmopolitan +and a soldier of fortune before he was a King <i>de facto;</i> and still wears +the loose garments of those easy, beggarly days, when he had neither money nor +care. Be sure he regrets that roving life—Madrid, Paris, the Hague—and will +never love a son as well as little Monmouth, the child of his youth.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would he not give to make that base-born brat Prince of Wales? Strange +that while Lord Ross is trying to make his offspring illegitimate by Act of +Parliament, his master’s anxieties should all tend the other way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk to me of Parliament!” cried Lady Sarah; “the tyranny of the Rump +was nothing to them. Look at the tax upon French wines, which will make it +almost impossible for a lady of small means to entertain her friends. And an +Act for burying us all in woollen, for the benefit of the English trade in +wool.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, indeed, Lady Sarah, it is we of the old faith who have most need to +complain,” said Lady Fareham, “since these wretches make us pay a double +poll-tax; and all our foreign friends are being driven away for the same +reason—just because the foolish and the ignorant must needs put down the fire +to the Catholics.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, your ladyship, the Papists have had an unlucky knack at lighting +fires, as Smithfield and Oxford can testify,” said Penington; “and perhaps, +having no more opportunity of roasting martyrs, it may please some of your +creed to burn Protestant houses, with the chance of cooking a few Protestants +inside ’em.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Angela had drawn away from the little knot of fine ladies and finer gentlemen, +and was sitting in the bay window of an ante-room, with Henriette and the boy, +who were sorely dejected at the prospect of losing her. The best consolation +she could offer was to promise that they should be invited to the Manor Moat as +soon as she and her father had settled themselves comfortably there—if their +mother could spare them. +</p> + +<p> +Henriette laughed outright at this final clause. +</p> + +<p> +“Spare us!” she cried. “Does she ever want us? I don’t think she knows when we +are in the room, unless we tread upon her gown, when she screams out ‘Little +viper!’ and hits us with her fan.” +</p> + +<p> +“The lightest touch, Papillon; not so hard as you strike your favourite baby.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she doesn’t hurt me; but the disrespect of it! Her only daughter, and +nearly as high as she is!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are an ungrateful puss to complain, when her ladyship is so kind as to let +you be here to see all her fine company.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sick of her company, almost always the same, and always talking about the +same things. The King, and the Duke, and the General, and the navy; or Lady +Castlemaine’s jewels, or the last new head from Paris, or her ladyship’s +Flanders lace. It is all as dull as ditch-water now Monsieur de Malfort is +gone. He was always pleasant, and he let me play on his guitar, though he swore +it excruciated him. And he taught me the new Versailles coranto. There’s no +pleasure for any one since he fell ill and left England.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall come to the Manor. It will be a change, even though you hate the +country and love London.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have left off loving London. I have had too much of it. If his lordship let +us go to the play-house often it would be different. Oh, how I loved +Philaster—and that exquisite page! Do you think I could act that character, +auntie, if his lordship’s tailor made me such a dress?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think thou hast impudence for anything, dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather act that page than Pauline in <i>Polyeucte</i>, though +Mademoiselle swears I speak her tirades nearly as well as an actress she once +saw at the Marais, who was too old and fat for the character. How I should love +to be an actress, and to play tragedy and comedy, and make people cry and +laugh! Indeed, I would rather be anything than a lady—unless I could be exactly +like Lady Castlemaine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Heaven forbid!” +</p> + +<p> +“But why not? I heard Sir Ralph tell mother that, let her behave as badly as +she may, she will always be atop of the tree, and that the young sparks at the +Chapel Royal hardly look at their prayer-books for gazing at her, and that the +King——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sweetheart, I want to hear no more of her!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you like her? I thought you did not know her. She never comes +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there any staghounds in the Vale of Aylesbury?” asked the boy, who had +been looking out of the window, watching the boats go by, unheeding his +sister’s babble. +</p> + +<p> +“I know not, love; but there shall be dogs enough for you to play with, I’ll +warrant, and a pony for you to ride. Grandfather shall get them for his +dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John was fond of Henriette, whom he looked upon as a marvel of precocious +brightness; but the boy was his favourite, whom he loved with an old man’s +half-melancholy affection for the creature which is to live and act a part in +the world when he, the greybeard, shall be dust. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br/> +AT THE MANOR MOAT.</h2> + +<p> +Solid, grave, and sober, grey with a quarter of a century’s neglect, the Manor +House, in the valley below Brill, differed in every detail from the historical +Chilton Abbey. It was a moated manor house, the typical house of the typical +English squire; an E-shaped house, with a capacious roof that lodged all the +household servants, and clustered chimney-stacks that accommodated a great +company of swallows. It had been built in the reign of Henry the Seventh, and +was coeval with its distinguished neighbour, the house of the Verneys, at +Middle Claydon, and it had never served any other purpose than to shelter +Englishmen of good repute in the land. Souvenirs of Bosworth field—a pair of +huge jack-boots, a two-handed sword, and a battered helmet—hung over the +chimney-piece in the low-ceiled hall; but the end of the civil war was but a +memory when the Manor House was built. After Bosworth a slumberous peace had +fallen on the land, and in the stillness of this secluded valley, sheltered +from every bleak wind by surrounding hills and woods, the gardens of the Manor +Moat had grown into a settled beauty that made the chief attraction of a +country seat which boasted so little of architectural dignity, or of expensive +fantasy in moulded brick and carved stone. Plain, sombre, with brick walls and +heavy stone mullions to low-browed windows, the Manor House stood in the midst +of gardens such as the modern millionaire may long for, but which only the grey +old gardener Time can create. +</p> + +<p> +There was more than a mile of yew hedge, eight feet high, and three feet broad, +walling in flower garden and physic garden, the latter the particular care of +the house-mothers of previous generations, the former a paradise of those old +flowers which bloom and breathe sweet odours in the pages of Shakespeare, and +jewel the verse of Milton. The fritillary here opened its dusky spotted petals +to drink the dews of May; and here, against a wall of darkest green, daffodils +bloomed unruffled by March winds. +</p> + +<p> +Verily a garden of gardens; but when Angela came there in the chill February +there were no flowers to welcome her, only the long, straight walks beside +those walls of yew, and the dark shining waters of the moat and the fish-pond, +reflecting the winter sun; and over all the scene a quiet as of the grave. +</p> + +<p> +A little colony of old servants had been left in the house, which had escaped +confiscation, albeit the property of a notorious Malignant, perhaps chiefly on +account of its insignificance, the bulk of the estate having been sold by Sir +John in ’44, when the king’s condition was waxing desperate, and money was +worth twice its value to those who clung to hope, and were ready to sacrifice +their last jacobus in the royal cause. The poor little property—shrunk to a +home-farm of ninety acres, a humble homestead, and the Manor House—may have +been thought hardly worth selling; or Sir John’s rights may have been respected +out of regard for his son-in-law, who, on the maternal side, had kindred in +high places under the Commonwealth, a fact of which Hyacinth occasionally +reminded her husband, telling him that he was by hereditary instinct a rebel +and a king-slayer. +</p> + +<p> +The farm had been taken to by Sir John’s steward, a man who in politics was of +the same easy temper as the Vicar of Bray in religion, and was a staunch +Cromwellian so long as Oliver or Richard sat at Whitehall, or would have tossed +up his cap and cheered for Monk, as Captain-General of Great Britain, had he +been called upon to till his fields and rear his stock under a military +despotism. It mattered little to any man living at ease in a fat +Buckinghamshire valley what King or Commonwealth ruled in London, so long as +there was a ready market at Aylesbury or Thame for all the farm could produce, +and civil war planted neither drake nor culverin on Brill Hill. +</p> + +<p> +The old servants had vegetated as best they might in the old house, their wages +of the scantiest; but to live and die within familiar walls was better than to +fare through a world which had no need of them. The younger members of the +household had scattered, and found new homes; but the grey-haired cook was +still in her kitchen; the old butler still wept over his pantry, where a dozen +or so of spoons, and one battered tankard of Heriot’s make, were all that +remained of that store of gold and silver which had been his pride forty years +ago, when Charles was bringing home his fair French bride, and old Thames at +London was alight with fire-works and torches, and alive with music and +singing, as the city welcomed its young Queen, and when Reuben Holden was a lad +in the pantry, learning to polish a salver or a goblet, and sorely hectored by +his uncle the butler. +</p> + +<p> +Reuben, and Marjory, the old cook, famous in her day as any <i>cordon-bleu</i>, +were the sole representatives of the once respectable household; but a couple +of stout wenches had been hired from the cluster of labourers’ hovels that +called itself a village; and these had been made to drudge as they had never +drudged before in the few days of warning which prepared Reuben for his +master’s return. +</p> + +<p> +Fires had been lighted in rooms where mould and mildew had long prevailed; +wainscots had been scrubbed and polished till the whole house reeked of +bees-wax and turpentine, to a degree that almost overpowered those pervading +odours of damp and dry rot, which can curiously exist together. The old +furniture had been made as bright as faded fabrics and worm-eaten wood could be +made by labour; and the leaping light of blazing logs, reflected on the black +oak panelling, gave a transient air of cheerfulness to the spacious +dining-parlour where Sir John and his daughter took their first meal in the old +home. And if to Angela’s eye, accustomed to the Italian loftiness of the noble +mansions on the Thames, the broad oak crossbeams seemed coming down upon her +head, there was at least an air of homely snugness in the low darkly coloured +room. +</p> + +<p> +On that first evening there had been much to interest and engage her. She had +the old house to explore, and dim childish memories to recall. Here was the +room where her mother died, the room in which she herself had first seen the +light—perhaps not until a month or so after her birth, since the +seventeenth-century baby was not flung open-eyed into her birthday sunshine, +but was swaddled and muffled in a dismal apprenticeship to life. The chamber +had been hung with “blacks” for a twelvemonth, Reuben told her, as he escorted +her over the house, and unlocked the doors of disused rooms. +</p> + +<p> +The tall bedstead with its red and yellow stamped velvet curtains and carved +ebony posts looked like an Indian temple. One might expect to see Buddha +squatting on the embroidered counterpane—the work of half a lifetime. When the +curtains were drawn back, a huge moth flew out of the darkness, and spun and +wheeled round the room with an awful humming noise, and to the superstitious +mind might have suggested a human soul embodied in this phantasmal greyness, +with power of sound in such excess of its bulk. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir John never used the room after her ladyship’s death,” Reuben explained, +“though ’tis the best bed-chamber. He has always slept in the blue room, which +is at the furthest end of the gallery from the room that has been prepared for +madam. We call that the garden room, and it is mighty pretty in summer.” +</p> + +<p> +In summer! How far it seemed to summer-time in Angela’s thoughts! What a long +gulf of nothingness to be bridged over, what a dull level plain to cross, +before June and the roses could come round again, bringing with them the memory +of last summer; and the days she had lived under the same roof with Fareham, +and the evenings when they had sat in the same room, or loitered on the +terrace, pausing now and then beside an Italian vase of gaudy flowers to look +at this or that, or to watch the mob on the river; and those rare golden days, +like that at Sayes Court, which she had spent in some excursion with Fareham +and Henriette. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope madam likes the chamber we have prepared for her?” the old man said, as +she stood dreaming. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my good friend, it is very comfortable. My woman complained of the smoky +chimney in her chamber; but no doubt we shall mend that by-and-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be strange if a gentlewoman’s servant found not something to grumble +about,” said Reuben; “they have ever less work to do than any one else in the +house, and ever make more trouble than their mistresses. I’ll settle the hussy, +with madam’s leave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, pray, Mr. Reuben, no harshness. She is a willing, kind-hearted girl, and +we shall find plenty of work for her in this big house where there are so few +servants.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s work enough for sure, if she’ll do it, and is no fine city madam +that will scream at sight of a mouse, belike.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a girl I had out of Oxfordshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if she comes out of Oxfordshire, from his lordship’s estate, I dare swear +she is a good girl. I hate your London trash; and I think the great fire would +have been a blessing in disguise if it had swept away most of such trumpery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, if a Romanist were to say as much as that!” said Angela, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, madam, I am not one of they fools that say because half London was burnt +the Papishes must have set it on fire. What good would the burning of it do +’em, poor souls? And now they are to pay double taxes, as if it was a sure +thing their faggots kindled the blaze. I know how kind and sweet a soul a +Papish may be, though she do worship idols; for I had the honour to serve your +ladyship’s mother from the hour she first entered this house till the day I +smuggled the French priest by the back stairs to carry her the holy oils. Ah! +she was a noble and lovely lady. Madam’s eyes are of her colour; and, indeed, +madam favours her mother more than my Lady Fareham does.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen Lady Fareham of late years?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, madam, she came here in her coach-and-six the summer before the +pestilence, with her two beautiful children, and a party of ladies and +gentlemen. They rode here from his Grace of Buckingham’s new mansion by the +Thames—Clefden, I think they call it; and they do say his Grace do so lavish +and squander money in the building of it, that belike he will be ruined and +dead before his palace be finished. There were three coaches full, with +servants and what not. And they brought wine, and capons ready dressed, and +confectionery, and I helped to serve a collation for them in the garden. And +after they had feasted merrily, with a vast quantity of sparkling French wine, +they all rushed through the house like madcaps, laughing and chattering, +regular French magpies, for there was more of ’em French than English, her +ladyship leading them, till she comes to the door of this room, and finds it +locked, and she begins to thump upon the panels like a spoilt child, and calls, +‘Reuben, Reuben, what is your mystery? Sure this must be the ghost-chamber! +Open, open, instantly.’ And I answered her quietly, ‘’Tis the chamber where +that sweet angel, your ladyship’s mother, lay in state, and it has never been +opened to strangers since she died.’ And all in the midst of her mirth, the +dear young lady burst out weeping, and cried, ‘My sweet, sweet mother! I +remember the last smile she gave me as if it was yesterday.’ And then she +dropped on her knees and crossed herself, and whispered a prayer, with her face +close against the door; and I knew that she was praying for her lady-mother, as +the way of your religion is, madam, to pray for the dead; and sure, though it +is a simple thing, it can do no harm; and to my thinking, when all the +foolishness is taken out of religion the warmth and the comfort seem to go too; +for I know I never used to feel a bit more comfortable after a two hours’ +sermon, when I was an Anabaptist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you not an Anabaptist now, Reuben?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord forbid, madam! I have been a member of the Church of England ever since +his Majesty’s restoration brought the Vicar to his own again, and gave us back +Christmas Day, and the organ, and the singing-boys.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Angela’s life at the Manor was so colourless that the first blossoming of a +familiar flower was an event to note and to remember. Life within convent walls +would have been scarcely more tranquil or more monotonous. Sir John rode with +his hounds three or four times a week, or was about the fields superintending +the farming operations, walking beside the ploughman as he drove his furrow, or +watching the scattering of the seed. Or he was in the narrow woodlands which +still belonged to him, and Angela, taking her solitary walk at the close of +day, heard his axe ringing through the wintry air. +</p> + +<p> +It was a peaceful, and should have been a pleasant, life, for father and for +daughter. Angela told herself that God had been very good to her in providing +this safe haven from tempestuous seas, this quiet little world, where the +pulses of passion beat not; where existence was like a sleep, a gradual +drifting away of days and weeks, marked only by the changing note of birds, the +deepening umber on the birch, the purpling of beech buds, and the starry +celandine shining out of grassy banks that had so lately been obliterated under +the drifted snow. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to be happy,” she said to herself of a morning, when she rose from her +knees, and stood looking across the garden to the grassy hills beyond, while +the beads of her rosary slipped through her languid fingers—“I ought to be +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she turned from the sunny window with a sigh, and went down the dark, +echoing staircase to the breakfast parlour, where her own little silver +chocolate-pot looked ridiculously small beside Sir John’s quart tankard, and +where the crisp, golden rolls, baked in the French fashion by the maid from +Chilton, who had been taught by Lord Fareham’s <i>chef</i>, contrasted with the +chine of beef and huge farmhouse loaf that accompanied the knight’s old +October. +</p> + +<p> +After all his Continental wanderings Sir John had come back to substantial +English fare with an unabated relish; and Angela had to sit down, day after +day, to a huge joint and an overloaded dish of poultry, and to reassure her +father when he expressed uneasiness because she ate so little. +</p> + +<p> +“Women do not want much food, sir. Martha’s rolls, and our honey, and the +conserves old Marjory makes so well, are better for me than the meat which +suits your heartier appetite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, child, if I played no stouter a part at table than you do, I should +soon be fit to play living skeleton at Aylesbury Fair. And I dubitate as to +your diet-loaves and confectionery suiting you better than a slice of chine or +sirloin, for you have a pale cheek and a pensive eye that smite me to the +heart. Indeed, I begin to question if I was kind to take you from all the +pleasures of the town to be mewed up here with a rusty old soldier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, I could be happier nowhere than here. I have had enough of London +pleasures; and I was meditating upon returning to the convent, when you came to +put an end to all my perplexities; and, sir, I think God sent you to me when I +most needed a father’s love.” +</p> + +<p> +She went to him and knelt by his chair, hiding her tearful eyes against the +cushioned arm. But, though he could not see her face, he heard the break in her +voice, and he bent down and lifted her drooping head on his breast, and kissed +the soft brown hair, and embraced her very tenderly. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweetheart, thou hast all a father’s love, and it is happiness to me to have +thee here; but old as I am, and with so little cunning to read a maiden’s +heart, I can read clear enough to know thou art not happy. Whisper, dearest. Is +it a sweetheart who sighs for thy favours far off, and will not beard this old +lion in his den? My gentle Angela would make no ill choice. Fear not to trust +me, my heart. I will love whom you love, favour whom you favour. I am no +tyrant, that my sweet daughter should grow pale with keeping secrets from me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear father, you are all goodness. No, there is no one—no one! I am happy with +you. I have no one in the world but you, and, in a so much lesser degree of +love, my sister and her children—” +</p> + +<p> +“And Fareham. He should be to you as a brother. He is of a black melancholic +humour, and not a man whom women love; but he has a heart of gold, and must +regard you with grateful affection for your goodness to him when he was sick. +Hyacinth is never weary of expatiating upon your devotion in that perilous +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is foolish to talk of services I would have given as willingly to a sick +beggar,” Angela answered, impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +Her face was still hidden against her father’s breast; but she lifted her head +presently, and the pale calmness of her countenance reassured him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is uncommon strange,” he said, “if one so fair has no sweetheart +among all the sparks of Whitehall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Fareham hates Whitehall. We have only attended there at great festivals, +when my sister’s absence would have been a slight upon her Majesty and the +Duchess.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my star, though seldom shining there, should have drawn some satellites to +her orbit. You see, dearest, I can catch the note of Court flattery. Nay, I +will press no questions. My girl shall choose her own partner; provided the man +is honest and a loyal servant of the King. Her old father shall set no +stumbling-block in the high-road to her happiness. What right has one who is +almost a pauper to stipulate for a wealthy son-in-law?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br/> +PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE.</h2> + +<p> +The quiet days went on, and the old Cavalier settled down into a tranquil +happiness, which comforted his daughter with the feeling of duty prosperously +fulfilled. To make this dear old man happy, to be his companion and friend, to +share in his rides and rambles, and of an evening to play the games he loved on +the old shovel-board in the hall, or an old-fashioned game at cards, or +backgammon beside the fire in the panelled parlour, reconciled her to the +melancholy of an existence from which hope had vanished like a light +extinguished. It seemed to her as if she had dropped back into the old life +with her great-aunt. The Manor House was just a little gayer than the Flemish +Convent—for the voices and footsteps of the few inhabitants had a freer sound, +which made the few seem more populous than the many. And then there were the +dogs. What a powerful factor in home life those four-footed friends were! +Out-of-doors a stone barn had been turned into a kennel for five couple of +foxhounds; indoors a couple of setters, sent by a friend over sea from +Waterford, had insinuated themselves into the parlour, where they established +themselves as household favourites, to the damage of those higher hereditary +qualities which fitted them for distinction with the guns. Indeed, the old +Knight was too fond of his fireside companions to care very much if he missed a +bird now and then because Cataline was over-fed or Caesar disobedient. They +stood sentinel on each side of his chair at dinner, like supporters to a +coat-of-arms. Angela had her own particular favourite in a King Charles’s +spaniel. It was the very dog which had first greeted her in the silence of the +plague-stricken house. She had chosen this one from the canine troop when her +sister offered her the gift of a dog at parting, though Hyacinth had urged her +to take something younger than this, which was over five years old. +</p> + +<p> +“He will die just when you love him best,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay; but such partings must come. I love this one because he was with me in +fear and sadness. He used to cling to me, and look up and lick my face, as if +he were telling me to hope, when my brother seemed marked for death.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Fareham! Did you desire every dog in the house—and my spaniels are of the +same breed as the King’s, and worth fifty pound apiece—you have a right to take +them. But, indeed, I would rather you chose a younger dog—and with a shorter +nose; but, of course, if you like this one best——” +</p> + +<p> +Angela held by her first choice, and Ganymede was the companion of all her +hours, walked and lived with her, and slept on a satin cushion at the foot of +her spacious four-post bed, and fretted and whined if she left him shut in an +empty room for half an hour; yet with all his refinements, and his air of being +as dainty a gentleman as any spark of quality, he had a gross passion for the +kitchen, and after nibbling sweet cakes delicately out of his mistress’s taper +fingers, he would waddle through a labyrinth of passages, and find his way to +the hog-tub, there to wallow in slush and broken victuals, till he all but +drowned himself in a flood of pot-liquor. It was hard to reconcile so much +beauty and grace, such eloquent eyes and satin coat, with tastes and desires so +vulgar; and Angela sighed over him when a scullion brought him to her, greasy +and penitent, to crouch at her feet, and deprecate her disgust with an abject +tail. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, tranquil, duteous life, how fair it might have seemed, as spring advanced, +and the garden smiled with the promise of summer, were it not for that aching +sense of loss, the some one missing, whose absence made all things grey and +cold! +</p> + +<p> +Yes, she knew now, fully realising as she had never done before, how long and +how utterly her life had been influenced by an affection which even to +contemplate was mortal sin. Yet to extinguish memory was not within her power. +She looked back and remembered how Fareham’s protecting love had enfolded her +with its gentle warmth, in those happy days at Chilton; how all she knew of +poetry and the drama, of ethics and philosophy, had been learnt from him. She +recalled his evident delight in opening the rich treasures of a mind which he +had never ceased to cultivate, even amidst the vicissitudes of a soldier’s +life, in making her familiar with the writers he loved, and teaching her to +estimate, and to discuss them. And in all their talk together he had been for +the most part careful to avoid disparagement of the religion in which she +believed—so that it was only some chance revelation of the infidel’s narrow +outlook that reminded her of his unbelief. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, his love had been round her like an atmosphere; and she had been +exquisitely happy while that unquestioning affection was hers. On her part +there had been neither doubt nor fear. It seemed the most natural thing in the +world that he should be fond of her and she of him. Affinity had made them +brother and sister; and then they had been together in sickness and in peril of +death. It might be true, as he himself had affirmed, that her so happy arrival +had saved his life; since just those hours between the departure of his +attendants and the physician’s evening visit may have been the crisis of his +disease. +</p> + +<p> +Well, it was past—the exquisite bliss, the unconscious sin, the confidence, the +danger. All had vanished into the grave of irrecoverable days. +</p> + +<p> +She had heard nothing from Denzil since she left London, nor had she +acknowledged his letter. Her silence had doubtless angered him, and all was at +an end between them, and this was what she wished. Hyacinth and her children +were at Chilton, whence came letters of complaining against the dulness of the +country, where his lordship hunted four times a week, and spent all the rest of +his time in his library, appearing only “at our stupid heavy meals; and that +not always, since on his hunting days he is far afield when I have to sit down +to the intolerable two-o’clock dinner, and make a pretence of eating—as if +anybody with more intellectuals than a sheep could dine; or as if appetite came +by staring at green fields! You remember how in London supper was the only meal +I ever cared for. There is some grace in a repast that comes after conversation +and music, or the theatre, or a round of visits—a table dazzling with lights, +and men and women ready to amuse, and be amused. But to sit down in broad +daylight, when one has scarce swallowed one’s morning chocolate, and face a +sweltering sirloin, or open a smoking veal pie! Indeed, dearest, our whole +method of feeding smacks of a vulgar brutishness, more appropriate to a company +of Topinambous than to persons of quality. Why, oh, why must these reeking +hecatombs load our tables, when they might as easily be kept out of sight upon +a buffet? The spectacle of huge mountains of meat, the steam and odour of rank +boiled and roast under one’s very nostrils, change appetite to nausea, and +would induce a delicate person to rise in disgust and fly from the dining-room. +Mais, je ne fais que divaguer; and almost forget what it was I was so earnest +to tell thee when I began my letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir Denzil Warner has been over here, his ostensible motive a civil inquiry +after my health; but I could see that his actual purpose was to hear of you. I +told him how happily your simple soul has accommodated itself to an almost +conventual seclusion, and a very inferior style of living—whereupon he smiled +his rapture, and praised you to the skies. ‘Would that she could accommodate +herself to my house as easily,’ he said; ‘she should have every indulgence that +an adoring husband could yield her.’ And then he said much more, but as lovers +always sing the same repetitive song, and have no more strings to their lyre +than the ancients had before Mercury expanded it, I confess to not listening +over carefully, and will leave you to imagine the eloquence of a manly and +honourable love. Ah, sweetheart! you do wrong to reject him. Thou hast a quiet +soothing prettiness of thine own, but art no blazing star of beauty, like the +Stewart, to bring a King to thy feet—he would have married her if poor +Catherine had not disappointed him by her recovery—and to take a Duke as <i>pis +aller</i>. Believe me, love, it were wise of you to become Lady Warner, with an +unmortgaged estate, and a husband who, in these Republican times, may rise to +distinction. He is your only earnest admirer; and a love so steadfast, backed +by a fortune so respectable, should not be discarded lightly.” +</p> + +<p> +Over all these latter passages in her sister’s letter Angela’s eye ran with a +scornful carelessness. Her womanly pride revolted at such petty schooling—that +she should be bidden to accept this young man gratefully, because he was her +only suitor. No one else had ever cared for her pale insignificance. She looked +at her clouded image in the oblong glass that hung on the panel above her +secrétaire, and whose reflection made any idea of her own looks rather +speculative than precise. It showed her a thoughtful face, too pale for beauty; +yet she could but note the harmony of lines which recalled that Venetian type +familiar to her eye in the Titians and Tintorets at Fareham House. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt I am good-looking enough for any one to be satisfied with the outward +semblance who valued the soul within,” she thought, as she turned from the +glass with a mournful sigh. +</p> + +<p> +It was not of Denzil she was thinking, but of that other who in slow +contemplative days in the library where he had taught her what books she ought +to love, and where she might never more enter, must naturally sometimes +remember her, and cast some backward thoughts to the hours they had spent +together. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth’s letter of matronly counsel was but a week old when Sir John +surprised his daughter one morning, as they sat at table, by the announcement +of a visitor to stay in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“You will order the west room to be got ready, Angela, and bid Marjory Cook +serve us some of her savourest dishes while Sir Denzil stays here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir Denzil!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma mie, Sir Denzil! Ventregris, the girl stares as if I had said Sir +Bevis of Southampton, or Sir Guy of Warwick! I knew this young gentleman’s +father before the troubles—an honest man, though he took the wrong side He paid +for his perversity with his life; so we’ll say requiescat. The young man is a +fine young man, whom I would fain have something nearer to me than he is. So at +a hint from your sister I have asked him to bring his fishing tackle and whip +our streams for a May trout or two. He may catch a finer fish than trout, +perhaps, while he is a-fishing; if you will be his guide through the meadows.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, how could you——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! thou art a sly one, fair mistress. Who was it told me there was no one? +‘No one, dear father, and indeed, sir, I was thinking of the convent when you +came to London,’ while here was as handsome a spark as one would meet in a +day’s march, sighing and dying for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, I do protest to you——” she began, with a pale distressed look that +vouched for her earnestness; but the Knight had his face in the tankard, and +set it down only to pursue his own train of thought. +</p> + +<p> +“If it had not have been for that little bird at Chilton you might have +hoodwinked me as blind as ever gerfalcon was hooded. Well, the young man will +be here before evening. I would not force your inclinations, but it is the +dearest desire of my heart to see you happily married before I blow out the +candle, and bid my last good night. And a man of honour, handsome and of +handsomest fortune, is not to be slighted.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s spirit rose against this recurrence of her sister’s sermon. +</p> + +<p> +“If Sir Denzil is coming to this house as my suitor, I will go to Louvain +without an hour’s delay that I can help,” she said resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what a vixen! Nay, dearest, there is no need for that angry flush. The +young man is too courteous to plague you with unwelcome civilities. I saw him +in London at the tennis court, and was friendly to him for his father’s memory, +knowing nothing of his desire to be my son-in-law. He is a fine player at that +royal game, and a fine man. He comes here this evening as my friend; and if you +please to treat him disdainfully, I cannot help it. But, indeed, I wonder as +much as your sister why you should not reciprocate this gentleman’s love.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you were young, father, did you love the first comer; only because she +was handsome and civil?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, child; I had seen many handsome women before I met your mother. She came +over in ’35 with the Marquise, who had been lady of honour to Queen Marie +before the Princess Henriette married our King, and Queen Henriette was fond of +her, and invited her to come to London, and she divided her life between the +two countries till the troubles, when she was one of the first to scamper off, +as you know. My wife was little more than a child when I saw her at Court, +hiding behind her mother’s large sleeves. I had seen handsomer women; but she +was the first whose face went straight to my heart. And it has dwelt there ever +since,” he concluded, with a sudden break in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you can comprehend, dear sir, that a man may be honourable, and +courteous, and handsome, and yet not win a woman’s love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it is not the man; it is love that should win, sweetheart. Love is worthy +of love. When that is the true coin it should buy its reward. Indeed I have +rarely seen it otherwise. Love begets love. Louise de la Vallière is not the +handsomest woman at the French Court. Her complexion has suffered from +small-pox, and she has a defective gait; but the King discovered a so fond and +romantic attachment to his person, a love ashamed of loving, the very poetry of +affection; and that discovery made him her slave. The Court beauties—sultanas +splendid as Vashti—look on in angry wonder. Louise is adored because she began +by adoring. Mind, I do not praise or excuse her, for ’tis a mortal sin to love +a married man, and steal him from his wife. Foolish child, how your cheek +crimsons! I do wrong to shock your innocence with my babble of a King’s +mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil arrived at sunset, on horseback, with a mounted servant in attendance, +carrying his saddle-bags and fishing tackle. It was but a short day’s ride from +Oxford. Fareham’s rides with the hounds must have brought him sometimes within +a few miles of the Manor Moat Hyacinth and her children might have ridden over +in their coach; and indeed she had promised her sister a visit in more than one +of her letters. But there had been always something to postpone the +expedition—company at home, or bad weather, or a fit of the vapours—so that the +sisters had been as much asunder as if the elder had been in Yorkshire or +Northumberland. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil brought news of the household at Chilton. Lady Fareham was as charming +as ever, and though she had complained very often of bad health, she had been +so lively and active whenever the whim took her, riding with hawk and hound, +visiting about the neighbourhood, driving into Oxford, that Denzil was of +opinion her ailments were of the spirits only, a kind of rustic malady to which +most fine ladies were subject, the nostalgia of paving-stones and oil lamps. +Henriette—she now insisted upon discarding her nick-name—was less volatile than +in London, and missed her aunt sorely, and quarrelled with mademoiselle, who +was painfully strict upon all points of speech and manners. George’s days of +unalloyed idleness were also ended, for the Roman Catholic priest was now a +resident in the house as the little boy’s tutor, besides teaching ‘Henriette +the rudiments, and instructing her in her mother’s religion. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil told them even of the guests he had met at the Abbey; but of the master +of the house his lips spoke not, till Sir John questioned him. +</p> + +<p> +“And Fareham? Has he that same air of not belonging to the family which I +remarked of him in London?” +</p> + +<p> +“His lordship has ever an air of being aloof from everybody,” Denzil answered +gravely. “He is solitary even in his sports, and his indoor life is mostly +buried in a book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, those books, they will be the ruin of nations! As books multiply, great +actions will grow less. Life’s golden hours will be wasted in dreaming over the +fancies of dead men; and the world will be over-full of brooding philosophers +like Descartes, or pamphleteers like your friend Mr. Milton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, the world is richer for such a man as John Milton, who has composed +the grandest poem in our language—an epic on a scale and subject as sublime as +the Divine Comedy of Dante.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw Mr. Dante’s comedy acted, and confess myself ignorant of its +merits.” +</p> + +<p> +“Comedy, sir, with Dante, is but a name. The Italian poem is an epic, and not a +play. Mr. Milton’s poem will be given to the world shortly, though, alas! he +will reap little substantial reward for the intellectual labour of years. +Poetry is not a marketable commodity in England, save when it flatters a royal +patron, or takes the vulgarer form of a stage-play. But this poem of Mr. +Milton’s has been the solace of his darkened life. You have heard, perhaps, of +his blindness?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he had to forego his office as Latin Secretary to that villain. To my +mind the decay of sight was a judgment upon him for having written against his +murdered King, even to the denial of his Majesty’s own account of his +sufferings. But I confess that even if the man had been a loyal subject, I have +little admiration for that class; scribblers and pamphleteers, brooders over +books, crouchers in the chimney-corner, who have never trailed a pike or slept +under the open sky. And seeing this vast increase of book-learning, and the +arising of such men as Hobbes, to question our religion—and Milton to assail +monarchy—I can but believe those who say that this old England has taken the +downward bent; that, as we are dwindling in stature, so we are decaying in +courage and capacity for action.” +</p> + +<p> +Denzil listened respectfully to the old man’s disquisitions over his morning +drink; while Reuben stood at the sideboard carving a ham or a round of powdered +beef; and while Angela sipped her chocolate out of the porcelain cup which +Hyacinth had bought for her at the Middle Exchange, where curiosities from +China and the last inventions from Paris were always to be had before they were +seen anywhere else. Nothing could be more reverential than the young man’s +bearing to his host, while his quiet friendliness set Angela at her ease, and +made her think that he had abandoned his suit, and henceforward aspired only to +such a tranquil friendship as they had enjoyed at Chilton before any word of +love had been spoken. +</p> + +<p> +Apart from the question of love and marriage, his presence was in no manner +displeasing to her; indeed, the long days in that sequestered valley lost +something of their grey monotony now that she had a companion in all her +intellectual occupations. Fondly as she loved her father, she had not been able +to hide from herself the narrowness of his education and the blind prejudice +which governed his ideas upon almost every subject, from politics to natural +history. Of the books which make the greater part of a solitary life she could +never talk to him; and it was here that she had so sorely missed the counsellor +and friend, who had taught her to love and to comprehend the great poets of the +past—Homer and Virgil, Dante and Tasso, and the deep melancholy humour of +Cervantes, and, most of all, the inexhaustible riches of the Elizabethans. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil was of a temper as thoughtful, but his studies had taken a different +direction. He was not even by taste or apprehension a poet. Had he been called +upon to criticise his tutor’s compositions, he might, like Johnson, have +objected to the metaphoric turns of Lycidas, and have missed the melody of +lines as musical as the nightingale. In that great poem of which he had been +privileged to transcribe many of the finest passages from the lips of the poet, +he admired rather the heroic patience of the blind author than the splendour of +the verse. He was more impressed by the schoolmaster’s learning than by that +God-given genius which lifted that one Englishman above every other of his age +and country. No, he was eminently prosaic, had sucked prose and plain-thinking +from his mother’s breast; but he was not the less an agreeable companion for a +girl upon whose youth an unnatural solitude had begun to weigh heavily. +</p> + +<p> +All that one mind can impart to another of a widely different fibre, Denzil had +learnt from Milton in that most impressionable period of boyhood which he had +spent in the small house in Holborn, whose back rooms looked out over the +verdant spaces of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Lord Newcastle’s palace had not +yet begun to rise from its foundations, and where the singing birds had not +been scared away by the growth of the town. A theatre now stood where the boy +and a fellow-scholar had played trap and ball, and the stately houses of Queen +Street hard by were alive with rank and fashion. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the classical curriculum which Milton had taught with the solemn +earnestness of one in whom learning is a religion, Denzil had acquired a store +of miscellaneous knowledge from the great Republican; and most interesting +among these casual instructions had been the close acquaintance with nature +gained in the course of many a rustic ramble in the country lanes beyond Gray’s +Inn, or sauntering eastward along the banks of the limpid Lee, or in the +undulating meadows beside Sir Hugh Middleton’s river. Mixed with plain facts +about plant or flower, animal or insect, Milton’s memory was stored with the +quaint absurdities of the Hermetic philosophy, that curious mixture of +deep-reaching theories and old women’s superstitions, the experience of the +peasant transmuted by the imagination of the adept. Sound and practical as the +poet had ever shown himself—save where passion got the upper hand of common +sense, as in his advocacy of divorce—he was yet not entirely free from a +leaning to Baconian superstitions, and may, with Gesner, have believed that the +pickerel weed could engender pike, and that frogs could turn to slime in +winter, and become frogs again in spring. Whatever rags of old-world fatuity +may have lingered in that strong brain, he had been not the less a delightful +teacher, and had imparted an ardent love of nature to his little family of +pupils in that peripatetic school between hawthorn hedges or in the open fields +by the Lee. +</p> + +<p> +And now, in quiet rambles with Angela, in the midst of a landscape transfigured +by that vernal beauty which begins with the waning of April, and is past and +vanished before the end of May, Denzil loved to expound the wonders of the +infinitesimal; the insect life that sparkled and hummed in the balmy air, or +flashed like living light among the dewy grasses; the life of plant and flower, +which seemed almost as personal and conscious a form of existence; since it was +difficult to believe there was no sense of struggle or of joy in those rapid +growths which shot out from a tangle of dark undergrowth upward to the +sunlight, no fondness in the wild vines that clung so close to some patriarchal +trunk, covering decay with the beautiful exuberance of youth. Denzil taught her +to realise the wonders of creation—most wonderful when most minute—for beyond +the picturesque and lovely in nature, he showed her those marvels of order, and +law, and adaptation, which speak to the naturalist with a stronger language +than beauty. +</p> + +<p> +There was a tranquil pleasure in these rustic walks, which beguiled her into +forgetfulness that this man had ever sought to be more to her than he was now—a +respectful, unobtrusive friend. Of London, and the tumultuous life going on +there, he had scarcely spoken, save to tell her that he meant to stand for +Henley at the next Parliament; nor had he alluded to the past at Chilton; nor +ever of his own accord had he spoken Lord Fareham’s name; indeed, that name was +studiously avoided by them both; and if Denzil had never before suspected +Angela of an unhappy preference for one whom she could not love without sin, he +might have had some cause for such suspicion in the eagerness with which she +changed the drift of the conversation whenever it approached that forbidden +subject. +</p> + +<p> +From his Puritanical bringing up, the theory of self-surrender and deprivation +ever kept before him, Denzil had assuredly learnt to possess his soul in +patience; and throughout all that smiling month of May, while he whipped the +capricious streams that wound about the valley, with Angela for the willing +companion of his saunterings from pool to pool, he never once alarmed her by +any hint of a warmer feeling than friendship; indeed, he thought of himself +sometimes as one who lived in an enchanted world, where to utter a certain +fatal word would be to break the spell; and whatever momentary impulse or +passionate longing, engendered by a look, a smile, the light touch of a hand, +the mere sense of proximity, might move him to speak of his love, he had +sufficient self-command to keep the fatal words unspoken. He meant to wait till +the last hour of his visit. Only when separation was imminent would he plead +his cause again. Thus at the worst he would have lost no happy hours of her +company. And, in the mean time, since she was always kind, and seemed to grow +daily more familiar and at ease in his society, he dared hope that affection +for him and forgetfulness of that other were growing side by side in her mind. +</p> + +<p> +In this companionship Angela learnt many of the secrets and subtleties of the +angler’s craft, as acquired by her teacher’s personal experience, or expounded +in that delightful book, then less than twenty years old, which has ever been +the angler’s gospel. Often after following the meandering water till a gentle +weariness invited them to rest, Angela and Denzil seated themselves on a +sheltered bank and read their Izaak Walton together, both out of the same +volume, he pleased to point out his favourite passages and to watch her smile +as she read. +</p> + +<p> +Before May was ended, she knew old Izaak almost as well as Denzil, and had +learnt to throw a fly, and to choose the likeliest spot and the happiest hour +of the day for a good trout; had learnt to watch the clouds and cloud-shadows +with an angler’s keen interest; and had amused herself with the manufacture of +an artificial minnow, upon Walton’s recipe, devoting careful labour and all the +resources of her embroidery basket—silks and silver thread—to perfecting the +delicate model, which, when completed, she presented smilingly to Denzil, who +was strangely moved by so childish a toy, and had some difficulty in +suppressing his emotion as he held the glistening silken fish in his hands, and +thought how her tapering fingers had caressed it, and how much of her very self +seemed, as he watched her, to have been enwrought with the fabric. So poor, so +trivial a thing; but her first gift! If she had tossed him a flower, plucked +that moment, he would have treasured it all his life; but this, which had cost +her so much careful work, was far more than any casual blossom. Something of +the magnetism of her mind had passed into the silver thread drawn so daintily +through her rosy fingers—something of the soft light in her eyes had mixed with +the blended colours of the silk. Foolish fancies these, but in the gravest +man’s love there is a vein of folly. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes they rode with Sir John, and in this way explored the neighbourhood, +which was rich in historical associations—some of the remote past, as when King +John kept Christmas at Brill; but chiefly of those troubled times through which +Sir John Kirkland had lived, an active participator in that deadly drama. He +showed them the site of the garrison at Brill, and trod every foot of the +earthworks to demonstrate how the hill had been fortified. He had commanded in +the defence against Hampden and his greencoats—that regiment of foot raised in +his pastoral shire, whose standard bore on one side the watchword of the +Parliament, “God with us,” and on the other Hampden’s own device, “<i>Vestigia +nulla retrorsum</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas a legend to frighten some of us, who had no Latin,” said Sir John; “but +we put his bumpkin greencoats to the rout, and trampled that insolent flag in +the mire.” +</p> + +<p> +All was peaceful now in the hamlet on the hill. Women and children were sitting +upon sunny doorsteps, with their pillows on their knees and their bobbins +moving quickly in dexterous fingers, busy at the lace-making which had been +established in Buckinghamshire more than a century before by Catherine of +Aragon, whose dowry was derived from the revenues of Steeple Claydon. The +Curate had returned to the grey old church, and rural life pursued its +slumbrous course, scarce ruffled by rumours of maritime war, or plague, or +fire. They rode to Thame—a stage on the journey to Oxford, Angela thought, as +she noted the figures on a milestone, and at a flash her memory recalled that +scene in the gardens by the river, when Fareham had spoken for the first time +of his inner life, and she had seen the man behind the mask. She thought of her +sister, so fair, so sweet, charming in her capriciousness even, yet not the +woman to fill that unquiet heart, or satisfy that sombre and earnest nature. It +was not by many words that Fareham had revealed himself. Her knowledge of his +character and feelings went deeper than the knowledge that words can impart. It +came from that constant unconscious study which a romantic girl devotes to the +character of the man who first awakens her interest. +</p> + +<p> +Angela was grave and silent throughout the drive to Thame and the return home, +riding for the most part in the rear of the two men, leaving Denzil to devote +all his attention to Sir John, who was somewhat loquacious that afternoon, +stimulated by the many memories of the troubled time which the road awakened. +Denzil listened respectfully, and went never astray in his answers, but he +looked back very often to the solitary rider who kept at some distance to avoid +the dust. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes in the early morning they all went with the otter hounds, the Knight +on horseback, Denzil and Angela on foot, and spent two or three very active +hours before breakfast in rousing the otter from his holt, and following every +flash of his head upon the stream, with that briskness and active enjoyment +which seem a part of the clear morning atmosphere, the inspiring breath of dewy +fields and flowers unfaded by the sun. All that there was of girlishness in +Angela’s spirits was awakened by those merry morning scampers by the margin of +the stream, which had often to be forded by the runners, with but’ little heed +of wet feet or splashed petticoat. The Parson and his daughters from the +village of St Nicholas joined in the sport, and were invited to the morning +drink and substantial breakfast afterwards, where the young ladies were lost in +admiration of Angela’s silver chocolate-pot and porcelain cups, while their +clerical father owned to a distaste for all morning drinks except such as owed +their flavour and strength to malt and hops. +</p> + +<p> +“If you had lived among green fields and damp marshes as long as I have, miss, +you would know what poor stuff your chocolate is to fortify a man’s bones +against ague and rheumatism. I am told the Spaniards brought it from Mexico, +where the natives eat nothing else, from which comes the copper colour of their +skins.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Denzi’s visit lasted over a month, during which time he rode into Oxfordshire +twice, to see Lady Warner, stopping a night each time, lest that worthy person +should fancy herself neglected. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John derived the utmost pleasure from the young man’s company, who bore +himself towards his host with a respectful courtesy that had gone out of +fashion after the murder of the King, and was rarely met with in an age when +elderly men were generally spoken of as “old puts,” and considered proper +subjects for “bubbling.” +</p> + +<p> +To Denzil the old campaigner opened his heart more freely than he had ever done +to any one except a brother in arms; and although he was resolute in upholding +the cause of Monarchy against Republicanism, he owned to the natural +disappointment which he had felt at the King’s neglect of old friends, and +reluctantly admitted that Charles, sauntering along Pall Mall with ruin at his +heels, and the wickedest men and women in England for his chosen companions, +was not a monarch to maintain and strengthen the public idea of the divinity +that doth hedge a King. +</p> + +<p> +“Of all the lessons danger and adversity can teach he has learnt but one,” said +Sir John, with a regretful sigh. “He has learnt the Horatian philosophy—to +snatch the pleasures of the day, and care nothing what may happen on the +morrow. I do not wonder that predictions of a sudden end to this globe of ours +should have been bruited about of late; for if lust and profaneness could draw +down fire from heaven, London would be in as perilous a case as Gomorrah. But I +doubt such particular judgments belonged but to the infancy of this world, when +men believed in a Personal God, interested in all their concerns, watchful to +bless or to punish. We have now but the God of Spinoza—a God who is in all +things and everywhere about us, of whom this Creation in which we move is but +the garment—a Universal Essence which should govern and inform all we are and +all we do; but not the Judge and Father of His people, to be reached by prayer +and touched by pity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sir, our life here and hereafter is encompassed with mystery. To think is +to be lost on the trackless ocean of doubt. The Papists have the easiest creed, +for they believe that which they are taught, and take the mysteries of the +unseen world at second hand from their Priests. A year ago, had I been happy +enough to win your daughter, I should have tried my hardest to wean her from +Rome; but I have lived and thought since then, and I have come to see that +Calvinism is a religion of despair, and that the doctrine of Predestination +involves contradictions as difficult to swallow as any fable of the Roman +Church.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is well that you should be prepared to let her keep her religion; for I +doubt she has a stubborn affection for the creed she learnt in her childhood. +Indeed, it was but the other day she talked of the cloister; and I fear she has +all the disposition to that religious prison in which her great aunt lived +contentedly for the space of a long lifetime. But it is for you, Denzil, to +cure her of that fancy, and to spare me the pain of seeing my best-beloved +child under the black veil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, if a love as earnest as man ever experienced—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Denzil, I know you love her; and I love you almost as if you were my very +son. In the years that went by after Hyacinth was born, before the beginning of +trouble, I used to long for a son, and I am afraid I did sometimes distress my +dear wife by dwelling too persistently upon disappointed hopes. And then came +chaos—England in arms, a rebellious people, a King put upon his defence—and I +had leisure to think of none but my royal master. And in the thick of the +strife my poor lamb was born to me—the bringer of my life’s great sorrow—and +there was no more thought of sons. So, you see, friend, the place in my heart +and home has waited empty for you. Win but yonder shy dove to consent, and we +shall be of one family and of one mind, and I as happy as any broken-down +campaigner in England can be—content to creep to the grave in obscurity, +forgotten by the Prince whose father it is my dear memory to have served.” +</p> + +<p> +“You loved your King, sir, I take it, with a personal affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Denzil, we all loved him. Even the common people—led as they were by +hectoring preachers of sedition, of no more truth or honesty than the +mountebanks that ply their knavish trade round Henry’s statue on the Pont +Neuf—even they, the very rabble, had their hours of loyalty. I rode with his +Majesty from Royston to Hatfield, in ’47, when the people filled the midsummer +air with his name, from hearts melting with love and pity. They strewed the +ways with boughs, and strewed the boughs with roses. So great honour has been +seldom shown to a royal captive.” +</p> + +<p> +“I take it that the lower class are no politicians, and loved their King for +his private virtues.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never was monarch worthier to be so esteemed. He was a man of deep affections, +and it was perhaps his most fatal quality where he loved to love too much. I +have no grudge against that beautiful and most accomplished woman he so +worshipped, and who was ever gracious to me; but I cannot doubt that Henrietta +Maria was his evil star. She had the fire and daring of her father, but none of +his care and affection for the people. The daughter of the most beloved of +kings had the instincts of a tyrant, and was ever urging her too pliant husband +to unpopular measures. She wanted to set that little jewelled shoe of hers on +the neck of rebellion, when she should have held out her soft white hand to +make friends of her foes. Her beauty and her grace might have done much, had +she inherited with the pride of the Medici something of their finesse and +suavity. But he loved her, Denzil, forgave all her follies, her lavish spending +and wasteful splendour. ‘My wife is a bad housekeeper,’ I heard him say once, +when she was hanging upon his chair as he sat at the end of the Council table. +The palace accounts were on the table—three thousand pounds for a +masque—extravagance only surpassed by Nicholas Fouquet twenty years afterwards, +when he was squandering the public money. ‘My wife is a bad housekeeper,’ his +Majesty said gently, and then he drew down the little French museau with a +caressing hand, and kissed her in the presence of those greybeards.” +</p> + +<p> +“His son is strangely unlike him in domestic matters.” +</p> + +<p> +“His son has the manners of a Frenchman and the morals of a Turk. He is a +despot to his wife and a slave to his mistress. There never was greater cruelty +to a woman than his Majesty’s treatment of Catherine while she was still but a +stranger in the land, and when he forced his notorious paramour upon her as her +lady of honour. Of honour, quotha! There was sorry store of honour in his +conduct. He had need feel the sting of remorse t’other day when the poor lady +was thought to be on her death-bed—so gentle, so affectionate, so broken to the +long-suffering of consort-queens, apologising for having lived to trouble him. +Ned Hyde has given me the whole story of that poor lady’s subjugation, for he +was behind the scenes, and in their secrets. Poor soul! Blood rushed from her +ears and nostrils when that shameless woman was brought to her, and she was +carried swooning to her chamber. And then she was sullen, and the King +threatened her, and sent away all her Portuguese, save one ancient waiting +woman. I grant you they were ugly devils, fit to set in a field to frighten +crows; but Catherine loved them. Royal treatment for a Christian Queen from a +Christian King! Could the Sophy do worse? And presently the poor lady yielded +(as most women will, for at heart they are slavish and love to be beaten), and +after holding herself aloof for a long time—a sad, silent, neglected figure +where all the rest were loud and merry—she made friends with the lady, and even +seemed to fawn upon her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now I dare swear the two women mingle their tears when Charles is +unfaithful to both; or Catherine weeps while Barbara curses. That would be more +in character. Fire and not water is her ladyship’s element.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Denzil, ’tis a curious change; and to have lived to see Buckingham +murdered, and Strafford sacrificed, and the Rebellion, and the Commonwealth, +and the Restoration, and the Plague, and the Fire, and to have skirmished in +the battles of Parliaments and Princes, t’other side the Channel, and seen the +tail of the Thirty Years’ War, towns ruined, villages laid waste, where Tilly +passed in blood and fire, is to have lived through as wild a variety of +fortunes as ever madman invented in a dream.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Denzil lingered at the Manor, urged again and again by his host to stay over +the day fixed for departure, and so lengthening his visit with a most willing +submission till late in June, when the silence of the nightingales made sleep +more possible, and the sunset was so late and the sunrise so early that there +seemed to be no such thing as night. He had made up his mind to plead for a +hearing in the hour of farewell; and it may have been as much from apprehension +of that fateful hour as even from the delight of being in his mistress’s +company that he acceded with alacrity when Sir John desired him to stay. But an +end must come at last to all hesitations, and a familiar verse repeated itself +in his brain with the persistent iteration of cathedral chimes— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“He either fears his fate too much,<br/> + Or his desert is small,<br/> +Who fears to put it to the touch,<br/> + And win or lose it all.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John pushed him towards his fate with affectionate urgency. +</p> + +<p> +“Never be dastardised by a girl’s refusal, man,” said the Knight, warm with his +morning draught, on that last day, when the guest’s horses had been fed for a +journey, and the saddle-bags packed. “Don’t let a simpleton’s coldness cow your +spirits. The wench likes you; else she would scarce have endured your long +sermons upon weeds and insects, or been smiling and contented in your company +all these weeks. Take heart of grace, man; and remember that though I am no +tyrannical father to drag an unwilling bride to the altar, I have all a +father’s authority, and will not have my dearest wishes baulked by the +capricious humours of a coquette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for worlds, sir, would I owe to authority what love cannot freely grant—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t chop logic, Denzil. You want my daughter; and by God you shall have her! +Win her with pretty speeches if you can. If she turn stubborn she shall have +plain English from me. I have promised not to force her inclination; but if I +am driven to harsh measures ’twill be for her own good I am severe. Ventregris! +What can fortune give her better than a handsome and virtuous husband?” +</p> + +<p> +Angela was in the garden when Denzil went to take leave of her. She was walking +up and down beside a long border of June flowers, screened from rough winds by +those thick walls of yew which gave such a comfortable sheltered feeling to the +Manor gardens, while in front of flowers and turf there sparkled the waters of +a long pond or stew, stocked with tench and carp, some among them as ancient +and as greedy as the scaly monsters of Fontainebleau. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was shining on the dark green water and the gaudy flower-bed, and +Angela’s favourite spaniel was running about the grass, barking his loudest, +chasing bird or butterfly with impotent fury, since he never caught anything. +At sight of Denzil he tore across the greensward, his silky ears flying, and +barked at him as if the young man’s appearance in that garden were an +insufferable impertinence; but, on being taken up in one strong hand, changed +his opinion, and slobbered the face of the foe in an ecstasy of affection. +</p> + +<p> +“Soho, Ganymede, thou knowest I bear thee a good heart, plaything and mere +pretence of a dog as thou art,” said Denzil, depositing their little bundle of +black-and-tan flossiness at Angela’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +He might have carried and nursed his mistress’s favourite with pleasure during +any casual sauntering and random talk; but a man could hardly ask to have his +fate decided for good or ill with a toy spaniel in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“My horse is at the door, Angela, and I am come to bid you good-bye,” he said +in a grave voice. +</p> + +<p> +The words were of the simplest; but there was something in his tone that told +her all was not said. She paled at the thought of an approaching conflict; for +she knew her father was against her, and that there must be hard fighting. +</p> + +<p> +They walked the length of flower border and lawn in silence; and then, when +they were furthest from the house, and from the hazard of eyes looking out of +windows, he stopped suddenly, and took her unresisting hand, which lay cold in +his. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest, I have kept silence through all those blessed days in which you and I +have been together; but I have not left off loving you or hoping for you. +Things have changed since I spoke to you in London last winter. I have a +powerful advocate now whose pleading ought to prevail with you—a father whose +anxious affection urges what my passionate love so ardently desires. Indeed, +dear heart, if you will be kind, you can make a father and lover happy with one +breath. You have but to say ‘Yes’ to the prayer you know of——” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! Denzil, I cannot. I am your true and faithful friend. If you were sick +and alone—as his lordship was—I would go to you and nurse you, as your friend +and sister. If you were poor and I were rich, I would divide my fortune with +you. I shall always think of you with affection—always take pleasure in your +society, if you will let me; but it must be as your sister. You have no sister, +Denzil—I no brother. Why cannot we be to each other as brother and sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only because from the hour when your beauty and sweetness began to grow into +my mind I have been your lover, and nothing else—your adoring lover. I cannot +change my fervent hope for the poor name of friend. I can never again dare be +to you what I have been in this happy season last past, unless you will let me +be more than I have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas!” +</p> + +<p> +Only that one word, with a sorrowful shake of the graceful head, covered with +feathery ringlets in the dainty fashion of that day, so becoming in youth, so +inappropriate to advancing years, when the rich profusion of curls came +straight from Chedreux, or some of his imitators, and baldness was hidden by +the spoils of the dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas!” +</p> + +<p> +No need for more than that sad dissyllable. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am no nearer winning this dear hand than I was at Fareham House?” he +said heartbrokenly, for he had built high hopes upon her kindness and willing +companionship in that Arcadian valley. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you then that I should never marry. I have not changed my mind. I never +can change. I am to be Henriette’s spinster aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Fareham’s spinster sister?” said Denzil. “I understand. We are neither of +us cured of our malady. It is my disease to love you in spite of your disdain. +It is your disease to love where you should not. Farewell!” +</p> + +<p> +He was gone before she could reply. The livid anger of his face, the deep +resentment in his voice, haunted her memory, and made life almost intolerable. +</p> + +<p> +“My sin has found me out!” she said to herself, as she paced the garden with +the rapid steps that indicate a distempered spirit. “What right has he to pry +into the depths of my mind, and ferret out all that there is of evil in my +nature? Well, he goes the surest way to make me hate him. If ever he comes here +again, I will run away and hide from all who know me. I would rather be a +farm-servant, and rise at daybreak to work in the fields, than endure his +insolence.” +</p> + +<p> +She had to bear worse pain before Denzil had ridden far upon his journey; for +her father came to the garden to seek her, eager to know the result of his +<i>protégé’s</i> wooing. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sweetheart,” he began, taking her to his bosom and kissing her. “Do I +salute the future Lady Warner?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; I am too well content with the name I inherit to desire any other.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is gracefully said, chérie; but I want to see my ewe lamb happily wedded. +Has thy sweetheart stolen away without finding courage to ask the question that +has been on the tip of his tongue for the last six weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has been both importunate and impertinent, sir, and he has had his answer. +I hope I may never see him again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! you have refused him? You must be mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; sober and sane enough to know when I am happy. I told you before this +gentleman came here that I did not mean to marry. Surely I am not so unloving a +daughter that I must be driven to take a husband, because my father will not +have me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Angela, it is for your own safety and welfare I would see you married. What +have you to succeed to when I am gone? An impoverished estate, in a country +that has seen such rough changes within a score of years that one dare scarcely +calculate upon a prolonged time of safety, even in this sequestered valley. God +only knows when cannon-balls may tear up our fields, and bullets whistle +through the copses. This Monarchy, restored with such a clamorous approval, may +endure no longer than the Commonwealth, which was thought to be lasting. His +Majesty’s trivial life and gross extravagance have disgusted and alarmed some +who loved him dearly, and have set the common people questioning whether the +rough rule of the Protector were not better than the ascendency of shameless +women and dissolute men. The pageantry of Whitehall may vanish like a parchment +scroll in a furnace, and Charles, who has tasted the sours of exile, may be +again a wanderer, dependent on the casual munificence of foreign states; and in +such an evil hour,” continued the Knight, his mind straying from the +contemplation of his daughter’s future to the memory of his own wrongs, +“Charles Stuart may remember the old puts who fought and suffered for his +father, and how scurvy a recompense they had for their services.” +</p> + +<p> +He reverted to Denzil’s offer after a brief silence, Angela walking dutifully +by his side, prepared to suffer any harshness upon his part without +complaining. +</p> + +<p> +“I love the young man, and he would be to me as a son,” he said; “the comrade +and support of my old age. I am poor, as the world goes now; have but just +enough to live modestly in this retreat, where life costs but little. He is +rich, and can give you a handsome seat near your sister’s mansion; and a house +in London if you desire one; less splendid, doubtless, than Fareham’s palace on +the Thames, but more befitting the habits and manners of an English gentleman’s +wife. He can give you hounds and hawks, your riding-horses, and your +coach-and-six. What more, in God’s name, can any reasonable woman desire?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only one thing, sir. To live my own life in peace, as my conscience and my +reason bid me. I cannot love Denzil Warner, though of late I have grown to like +and respect him as a friend and most intelligent companion. Your persistence is +fast changing friendship into dislike; and the very name of the man would +speedily become hateful to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have done!” retorted Sir John. “I am no tyrant. You must take your own +way, mistress. I can but lament that Providence gave me only two daughters, and +one of them an arrant fool.” +</p> + +<p> +He left her in a huff, and had it not been for an astonishing event, which +convulsed town and country, and suspended private interests and private +quarrels in the excitement of public affairs, she would have heard much more of +his discontent. +</p> + +<p> +The Dutch ships were at Chatham. English men-of-war were blazing at the very +mouth of the Thames, and there was panic lest the triumphant foe should sail +their fire-ships up the river to London, besiege the Tower, relight the fire +whose ashes were scarce grown cold, pillage, slaughter, destroy—as Tilly had +destroyed the wretched Provinces in the religious war. +</p> + +<p> +Here, in this sheltered haven, amidst green fields, under the lee of the Brill, +the panic and consternation were as intense as if the village of St. Nicholas +were the one spot the Dutch would make for after landing; and, indeed, there +were rustics who went to the placid scene where the infant Thame rises in its +cradle of reed and lily, half expectant of seeing Netherlandish vessels +stranded among the rushes. +</p> + +<p> +The Dutch fleet was at Chatham. Ships were being sunk across the Medway, to +stop the invader. +</p> + +<p> +Sheerness was to be fortified. London was in arms; and Brill remembered its +repulse of Hampden’s regiment with a proud consciousness of being invincible. +</p> + +<p> +The Dutch fleet saved Angela many a paternal lecture; for Sir John rode +post-haste towards London, and did not return until the end of the month. +</p> + +<p> +In London he found Hyacinth, much disturbed about her husband, who had gone as +volunteer with General Middleton, and was in command of a cavalry regiment at +Chatham. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw him in such spirits as when he left me,” Lady Fareham told her +father. “I believe he is ever happiest when he breathes gunpowder.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Sir John’s leave-taking had been curt and moody, for Angela’s offence rankled +deep in his mind; and it was as much as he could do to command his anger, even +in bidding her good-bye. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I not tell you that we live in troubled times, and that no man can foresee +the coming evil, or how great our woes and distractions may be?” he asked, with +a gloomy triumph. “Whoever thought to hear De Ruyter’s guns at Sheerness, or to +see the Royal Charles led captive? Absit omen! Who knows what destruction may +come upon that other Royal Charles, for whose safety we pray morning and night, +and who lolls across a basset-table, perhaps, with his wantons around him, +while we are on our knees supplicating the Creator for him? Who knows? We may +have London in flames again, and a conflagration more fatal than the last, thou +obstinate wench, before thou art a week older, and every able-bodied man called +away from plough and pasture to serve the King, and desolation and famine where +plenty now smiles at us. And is this a time in which to refuse a valiant and +wealthy protector, a lover as honest as ever God made; a pious, conforming +Christian, of unsullied name; a young man after my own pattern; a fine horseman +and a good farmer; one who loves a pack of hounds and a well-bred horse, a +flight of hawks and a match at bowls, better than to give chase to a she-rake +in the Mall, or to drink himself stark mad at a tavern in Covent Garden with +debauchees from Whitehall?” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John prosed and grumbled to the last moment, but could not refuse to bend +down from his saddle and kiss the fair, pale face that looked at him in piteous +deprecation at the moment of parting. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, keep a brave heart, Mistress Wilful. Thou art safe here yet awhile from +Dutch marauders. I go but to find out how much truth there is in these panic +rumours.” +</p> + +<p> +She begged him not to fatigue himself with too long stages, and went back to +the silent house, thankful to be alone in her despondency. She felt as if the +last page in her worldly life had been written. She had to turn her thoughts +backward to that quiet retreat where there would at least be peace. She had +promised her father that she would not return to the Convent while he wanted +her at home. But was that promise to hold good if he were to embitter her life +by urging her to a marriage that would only bring her unhappiness? +</p> + +<p> +She had ample leisure for thought in one summer day of a solitude so absolute +that she began to shiver in the sultry stillness of afternoon, and scarce +ventured to raise her eyes from her embroidery frame, lest some shadowy +presence, some ghost out of the dead past, should hover near, watching her as +she sat alone in scenes where that pale spirit had been living flesh. The +thought of all who had lived and died in that house—men and women of her own +race, whose qualities of mind and person she had inherited—oppressed her in the +long hours of silent reverie. Before her first day of loneliness had ended, her +spirits had sunk to deepest melancholy; and in that weaker condition of mind +she had begun to ask herself whether she had any right to oppose her father’s +wishes by denying herself to a suitor whom she esteemed and respected, and +whose filial affection would bring new sunshine into that dear father’s +declining years. She had noted their manner to each other during Denzil’s +protracted visit, and had seen all the evidences of a warm regard on both +sides. She had too complete a faith in Denzil’s sterling worth to question the +reality of any feeling which his words and manner indicated. He was above all +things a man of truth and honesty. She was roaming about the gardens with her +dog towards noon in the second day of her solitude, when across the yew hedges +she saw white clouds of dust rising from the high-road, and heard the clatter +of hoofs and roll of wheels—a noise as of a troop of cavalry—whereat Ganymede +barked himself almost into an apoplexy, and rushed across the grass like a mad +thing. +</p> + +<p> +A great cracking of whips and sound of voices, horses galloping, horses +trotting, dust enough to whiten all the hedges and greensward! Angela stood at +gaze, wondering if the Dutch were coming to storm the old house, or the county +militia coming to garrison it. +</p> + +<p> +The Manor Moat was the destination of that clamorous troop, whoever they were. +Wheels and horses stopped sharply at the great iron gate in front of the house, +and the bell began to ring furiously, while other dogs, with voices that +resembled Ganymede’s, answered his shrill bark with even shriller yelpings. +</p> + +<p> +Angela ran towards the gate, and was near enough to see it opened to admit +three black-and-tan spaniels, and one slim personage in a long flame-coloured +brocatelle gown and a large beaver hat, who approached with stately movements, +a small, pert nose held high, and rosy upper lip curled in patrician disdain of +common things, while a fan of peacock’s plumage, that flashed sapphire and +emerald in the fierce noonday sun, was waved slowly before the dainty face, +scattering the tremulous life of summer that buzzed and fluttered in the sultry +air. +</p> + +<p> +In the rear of this brilliant figure appeared a middle-aged person in a grey +silk gown and hood, and a negro page in the Fareham livery, a waiting-woman, +and a tall lackey, so many being the necessary adjuncts to the Honourable +Henrietta Maria Revel’s state when she went abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Angela ran to receive her niece with a cry of rapture, and the tall slip of a +girl in the flame-coloured frock was clasped to her aunt’s heart with a +ruthless disregard of the beaver hat and cataract of ostrich plumage. +</p> + +<p> +“Prends garde d’abimer mon chapeau, p’tite tante,” cried Henriette, “’tis one +of Lewin’s Nell Gwyn hats, and cost twenty guineas, without the buckle, which I +stole out of father’s shoe t’other day. His lordship is so careless about his +clothes that he wore the shoes two days and never knew there was a buckle +missing, and those lazy devils his servants never told him. I believe they +meant to rook him of t’other buckle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chatterer, chatterer, how happy I am to see thee! But is not your mother with +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Her ladyship is in London. Everybody of importance is scampering off to +London; and no doubt will be rushing back to the country again if the Dutch +take the Tower; but I don’t think they will while my father is able to raise a +regiment.” +</p> + +<p> +“And mademoiselle”—with a curtsy to the lady in grey—“has brought you all this +long way through the heat to see me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought mademoiselle,” Henrietta answered contemptuously, before the +Frenchwoman had finished the moue and the shrug which with her always preceded +speech; “and a fine plague I had to make her come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame will conceive that, in miladi’s absence, it was a prodigious +inconvenience to order two coaches, and travel so far. His lordship’s groom of +the chambers is my witness that I protested against such an outrageous +proceeding.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two coaches!” exclaimed Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“A coach-and-six for me and my dogs and my gouvernante, and a coach-and-four +for my people,” explained Henriette, who had modelled her equipage and suite +upon a reminiscence of the train which attended Lady Castlemaine’s visit to +Chilton, as beheld from a nursery window. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, child, and rest, out of the sun; and you, mademoiselle, must need +refreshment after so long a drive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our progress through a perpetual cloud of dust and a succession of narrow +lanes did indeed suggest the torments of purgatory; but the happiness of +madame’s gracious welcome is an all-sufficient compensation for our fatigue,” +mademoiselle replied, with a deep curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +“I was not tired in the least,” asserted Henriette. “We stopped at the Crown at +Thame and had strawberries and milk.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> had strawberries and milk, mon enfant. I have a digestion which +will not allow such liberties.” +</p> + +<p> +“And our horses were baited, and our people had their morning drink,” said +Henriette, with her grown-up air. “One ought always to remember cattle and +servants. May we put up our horses with you, auntie? We must leave you soon +after dinner, so as to be at Chilton by sunset, or mademoiselle will be afraid +of highwaymen, though I told Samuel and Peter to bring their blunderbusses in +case of an attack. Ma’amselle has no valuables, and at the worst I should but +have to give them my diamond buckle, and my locket with his lordship’s +portrait.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s cheeks flushed at that chance allusion to Fareham’s picture. It +brought back a vision of the Convent parlour, and she standing there with +Fareham’s miniature in her hand, wonderingly contemplative of the dark, strong +face. At that stage of her life she had seen so few men’s faces; and this one +had a power in it that startled her. Did she divine, by some supernatural +foreknowledge, that this face held the secret of her destiny? +</p> + +<p> +She went to the house, with Henriette’s lissom form hanging upon her, and the +grey governess tripping mincingly beside them, tottering a little upon her high +heels. +</p> + +<p> +Old Reuben had crept out into the sunshine, with a rustic footman following +him, and the cook was looking out at a window in the wing where kitchen and +servants’ hall occupied as important a position as the dining-parlour and +saloon on the opposite side. A hall with open roof, wide double staircase, and +music gallery, filled the central space between the two projecting wings, and +at the back there was a banqueting-chamber or ball-room, where in more +prosperous days, the family had been accustomed to dine on all stately +occasions—a room now shabby and grey with disuse. +</p> + +<p> +While the footman showed the way to the stables, Angela drew Reuben aside for a +brief consultation as to ways and means for a dinner that must be the best the +house could provide, and which might be served at two o’clock, the later hour +giving time for extra preparation. A capon, larded after the French fashion, a +pair of trouts, the finest the stream could furnish, or a carp stewed in clary +wine, and as many sweet kickshaws as cook’s ingenuity could furnish at so brief +a notice. Nor were waiting-woman, lackey, and postillions to be neglected. +Chine and sirloin, pudding and beer must be provided for all. +</p> + +<p> +“There are six men besides the black boy,” sighed Reuben; they will devour us a +week’s provision of butcher’s meat.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you have done your housekeeping, tante, let me go to your favourite +summer-house with you, and tell you my secrets. I am perishing for a +<i>tête-à-tête!</i> Ma’amselle”—with a wave of the peacock fan—“can take a +siesta, and forget the dust of the road, while we converse.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela ushered mademoiselle to the pretty summer-parlour, looking out upon a +geometrical arrangement of flower-beds in the Dutch manner. Chocolate and other +light refreshments were being prepared for the travellers; but Henrietta’s +impatience would wait for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not driven along these detestable roads to taste your chocolate,” she +protested. “I have a world to say to you: en attendant, mademoiselle, you will +consider everything at your disposal in the house of my grandfather, jusqu’à +deux heures.” +</p> + +<p> +She sank almost to the ground in a Whitehall curtsy, rose swift as an arrow, +tucked her arm through Angela’s, and pulled her out of the room, paying no +attention to the governess’s voluble injunctions not to expose her complexion +to the sun, or to sit in a cold wind, or to spoil her gown. +</p> + +<p> +“What a shabby old place it is!” she said, looking critically round her as they +went through the gardens. “I’m afraid you must perish with <i>ennui</i> here, +with so few servants and no company to speak of. Yes”—contemplating her +shrewdly, as they seated themselves in a stone temple at the end of the +bowling-green—“you are looking moped and ill. This valley air does not agree +with you. Well, you can have a much finer place whenever you choose. A better +house and garden, ever so much nearer Chilton. And you will choose, won’t you, +dearest?” nestling close to her, after throwing off the big hat which made such +loving contact impossible. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you, Henriette.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you call me Henriette I shall be sure you are angry with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, love, not angry, but surprised.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think I have no right to talk of your sweetheart, because I am only +thirteen—and have scarce left off playing with babies—I have hated them for +ages, only people persist in giving me the foolish puppets. I know more of the +world than you do, auntie, after being shut in a Convent the best part of your +life. Why are you so obstinate, ma chérie, in refusing a gentleman we all +like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean Sir Denzil?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sans doute. Have you a crowd of servants?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, child, only this one. But don’t you see that other people’s liking has +less to do with the question than mine? And if I do not like him well enough to +be his wife——” +</p> + +<p> +“But you ought to like him. You know how long her ladyship’s heart has been set +on the match; you must have seen what pains she took in London to have Sir +Denzil always about you. And now, after a most exemplary patience, after being +your faithful servant for over a year, he asks you to be his wife, and you +refuse, obstinately refuse. And you would rather mope here with my poor old +grandfather—in abject poverty—mother says ‘abject poverty’—than be the honoured +mistress of one of the finest seats in Oxfordshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather do what is right and honest, my dearest It is dishonest to +marry without love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then half mother’s fine friends must be dishonest, for I dare swear that very +few of them love their husbands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henriette, you talk of things you don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know! Why, there is no one in London knows more. I am always listening, +and I always remember. De Malfort used to say I had a plaguey long memory, when +I told him of things he had said a year ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear, I love you fondly, but I cannot have you talk to me of what you don’t +understand; and I am sorry Sir Denzil Warner had no more courtesy than to go +and complain of me to my sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“He did not come to Chilton to complain. Her ladyship met him on the way from +Oxford in her coach. He was riding, and she called to him to come to the coach +door. It was the day after he left you, and he was looking miserable; and she +questioned him, and he owned that his suit had been rejected, and he had no +further hope. My mother came home in a rage. But why was she angry with his +lordship? Indeed, she rated him as if it were his fault you refused Sir +Denzil.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela sat silent, and the hand Henriette was clasping grew cold as ice. +</p> + +<p> +“Did my father bid you refuse him, aunt?” asked the girl, scrutinising her +aunt’s countenance, with those dark grey eyes, so like Fareham’s in their +falcon brightness. +</p> + +<p> +“No, child. Why should he interfere? It is no business of his.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why was mother so angry? She walked up and down the room in a towering +passion. ‘This is your doing,’ she cried. ‘If she were not your adoring slave, +she would have jumped at so handsome a sweetheart. This is your witchcraft. It +is you she loves—you—you—you!’ His lordship stood dumb, and pointed to me. ‘Do +you forget your child is present?’ he said. ‘I forget everything except that +everybody uses me shamefully,’ she cried. ‘I was only made to be slighted and +trampled upon.’ His lordship made no answer, but walked to the door in that way +he ever has when he is angered—pale, frowning, silent. I was standing in his +way, and he gripped me by the arm, and dragged me out of the room. I dare +venture there is a bruise on my arm where he held me. I know his fingers hurt +me with their grip; and I could hear my lady screaming and sobbing as he took +me away. But he would not let me go back to her. He would only send her women. +‘Your mother has an interval of madness,’ he said; ‘you are best out of her +presence.’ The news of the Dutch ships came the same evening, and my father +rode off towards London, and my mother ordered her coach, and followed an hour +after. They seemed both distracted; and only because you refused Sir Denzil.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot help her ladyship’s foolishness, Papillon. She has no occasion for +any of this trouble. I am her dutiful, affectionate sister; but my heart is not +hers to give or to refuse.” +</p> + +<p> +“But was it indeed my father’s fault? Is it because you adore him that you +refused Sir Denzil?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no—no. My affection for my brother—he has been to me as a brother—can make +no difference in my regard for any one else. One cannot fall in love at +another’s ordering, or be happy with a husband of another’s choice. You will +discover that for yourself, Papillon, perhaps, when you are a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I mean to marry for wealth and station, as all the clever women do,” said +Papillon, with an upward jerk of her delicate chin. “Mrs. Lewin always says I +ought to be a duchess. I should like to have married the Duke of Monmouth, and +then, who knows, I might have been a Queen. The King’s other sons are too young +for me, and they will never have Monmouth’s chance. But, indeed, sweetheart, +you ought to marry Sir Denzil, and come and live near us at Chilton. You would +make us all happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ma tres chère, it is so easy to talk—but when thou thyself art a woman——” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never care for such trumpery as love. I mean to have a grand +house—ever so much grander than Fareham House. Perhaps I may marry a Frenchman, +and have a salon, and all the wits about me on my day. I would make it gayer +than Mademoiselle de Scudery’s Saturdays, which my governess so loves to talk +of. There should be less talk and more dancing. But listen, p’tite tante,” +clasping her arms suddenly round Angela’s neck, “I won’t leave this spot till +you have promised to change your mind about Denzil. I like him vastly; and I’m +sure there’s no reason why you should not love him—unless you really are his +lordship’s adoring slave,” emphasising those last words, “and he has forbidden +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela sat dumb, her eyes fixed on vacancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you are like the lady in those lines you made me learn, who ‘sat like +patience on a monument, smiling at grief.’ Dearest, why so sad? Remember that +fine house—and the dairy that was once a chapel. You could turn it into a +chapel again if you liked, and have your own chaplain. His Majesty takes no +heed of what we Papists do—being a Papist himself at heart, they say—though +poor wretches are dragged off to gaol for worshipping in a conventicle. What is +a conventicle? Will you not change your mind, dearest? Answer, answer, answer!” +</p> + +<p> +The slender arms tightened their caress, the pretty little brown face pressed +itself against Angela’s pale, cold cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“For my sake, sweetheart, say thou wilt have him. I will go to see thee every +day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been here for months and you have not come, though I begged you in a +dozen letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been kept at my book and my dancing lessons. Mademoiselle told her +ladyship that I was a monster of ignorance. I have been treated shamefully. I +could not have come to-day had my lady been at home; but I would not brook a +hireling’s dictation. Voyons, p’tite tante, tu seras miladi Warner. Dis, dis, +que je te fasse mourir de baisers.” +</p> + +<p> +She was almost stifling her aunt with kisses in the intervals of her eager +speech. +</p> + +<p> +“The last word has been spoken, Papillon. I have sent him away—and it was not +the first time. I had refused him before. I cannot call him back.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he shall come without calling. He is your adoring slave,” cried Henriette, +leaping up from the stone bench, and clapping her hands in an ecstasy. “He will +need no calling. Dearest, dearest, most exquisite, delectable auntie! I am so +happy! And my mother will be content. And no one shall ever say you are my +father’s slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henriette, if you repeat that odious phrase I shall hate you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you are angry. God, what a frown! I will repeat no word that angers you. +My Lady Warner—sweet Lady Warner. I vow ’tis a prettier name than Revel or +Fareham.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are mad, Henriette! I have promised nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you have, little aunt. You have promised to drop a curtsy, and say ‘Yes’ +when Sir Denzil rides this way. You sent him away in a huff. He will come back +smiling like yonder sunshine on the water. Oh, I am so happy! My doing, all my +doing!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is useless to argue with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite useless. Il n’y a pas de quoi. Nous sommes d’accord. I shall be your +chief bridesmaid. You must be married in her Majesty’s chapel at St. James’s. +The Pope will give his dispensation—if you cannot persuade Denzil to change his +religion. Were he my suitor I would twist him round my fingers,” with an airy +gesture of the small brown hand. +</p> + +<p> +There is nothing more difficult than to convince a child that she pleads in +vain for any ardently desired object. Nothing that Angela could say would +reconcile her niece to the idea of failure; so there was no help but to let her +fancy her arguments conclusive, and to change the bent of her thoughts if +possible. +</p> + +<p> +It wanted nearly an hour of dinner-time, so Angela suggested an inspection of +the home farm, which was close by, trusting that Henriette’s love of animals +would afford an all-sufficient diversion; nor was she disappointed, for the +little fine lady was quite as much at home in stable and cowshed as in a London +drawing-room, and spent a happy hour in making friends with the live stock, +from the favourite Hereford cow, queen of the herd, to the smallest bantam in +the poultry-yard. +</p> + +<p> +To this rustic entertainment followed dinner, in the preparation of which +banquet Marjory Cook had surpassed herself; and Papillon, being by this time +seriously hungry, sat and feasted to her heart’s content, discussing the marrow +pudding and the stewed carp with the acumen and authority of a professed +gourmet. +</p> + +<p> +“I like this old-fashioned rustic diet,” she said condescendingly. +</p> + +<p> +She reproached her governess with not doing justice to a syllabub; but showed +herself a fine lady by her complaint at the lack of ice for her wine. +</p> + +<p> +“My grandfather should make haste and build an icehouse before next winter,” +she drawled. “One can scarce live through this weather without ice,” fanning +herself, with excessive languor. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope, dear, thou wilt not expire on the journey home.” +</p> + +<p> +The coaches were at the gate before Papillon had finished dinner, and +Mademoiselle was in great haste to be gone, reminding her pupil that she had +travelled so far against her will and at the hazard of angering Madame la +Baronne. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame la Baronne will be enraptured when she knows what I have done to please +her,” answered Papillon, and then, with a last parting embrace, hugging her +aunt’s fair neck more energetically than ever, she whispered, “I shall tell +Denzil. You will make us all happy.” +</p> + +<p> +A cloud of dust, a clatter of hoofs, Ma’amselle’s screams as the carriage +rocked while she was mounting the steps, and with much cracking of whips and +swearing at horses from the postillions who had taken their fill of home-brewed +ale, hog’s harslet, and cold chine, and, lo, the brilliant vision of the +Honourable Henrietta Maria and her train vanished in the dust of the summer +highway, and Angela went slowly back to the long green walk beside the +fish-pond, where she was in as silent a solitude, but for a lingering +nightingale or two, as if she had been in the palace of the sleeping beauty. If +all things slumbered not, there was at least as marked a pause in life. The +Dutch might be burning more ships, and the noise of war might be coming nearer +London with every hour of the summer day. Here there was a repose as of the +after-life, when all hopes and dreams and loves and hates are done and ended, +and the soul waits in darkness and silence for the next unfolding of its wings. +</p> + +<p> +Those hateful words, “your adoring slave,” and all that speech of Hyacinth’s +which the child had repeated, haunted Angela with an agonising iteration. She +had not an instant’s doubt as to the scene being faithfully reported. She knew +how preternaturally acute Henriette’s intellect had become in the rarified +atmosphere of her mother’s drawing-room, how accurate her memory, how sharp her +ears, and how observant her eyes. Whatever Henriette reported was likely to be +to the very letter and spirit of the scene she had witnessed. And Hyacinth, her +sister, had put this shame upon her, had spoken of her in the cruelest phrase +as loving one whom it was mortal sin to love. Hyacinth, so light, so airy a +creature, whom her younger sister had ever considered as a grown-up child, had +yet been shrewd enough to fathom her mystery, and to discover that secret +attachment which had made Denzil’s suit hateful to her. “And if I do not +consent to marry him she will always think ill of me. She will think of me as a +wretch who tried to steal her husband’s love—a worse woman than Lady +Castlemaine—for she had the King’s affection before he ever saw the Queen’s +poor plain face. His adoring slave!” +</p> + +<p> +Evening shadows were around her. She had wandered into the woods, was slowly +threading the slender cattle tracks in the cool darkness; while that passionate +song of the nightingales rose in a louder ecstasy as the quiet of the night +deepened, and the young moon hung high above the edge of a wooded hill. +</p> + +<p> +“His adoring slave,” she repeated, with her hands clasped above her uncovered +head. +</p> + +<p> +Hateful, humiliating words! Yet there was a keen rapture in repeating them. +They were true words. His slave—his slave to wait upon him in sickness and +pain; to lie and watch at his door like a faithful dog; to follow him to the +wars, and clean his armour, and hold his horse, and wait in his tent to receive +him wounded, and heal his wounds where surgeons failed to cure, wanting that +intensity of attention and understanding which love alone can give; to be his +Bellario, asking nothing of him, hoping for nothing, hardly for kind words or +common courtesy, foregoing woman’s claim upon man’s chivalry, content to be +nothing—only to be near him. +</p> + +<p> +If such a life could have been—the life that poets have imagined for despairing +love! It was less than a hundred years since handsome Mrs. Southwell followed +Sir Robert Dudley to Italy, disguised as a page. But the age of romance was +past. The modern world had only laughter for such dreams. +</p> + +<p> +That revelation of Hyacinth’s jealousy had brought matters to a crisis. +Something must be done, Angela told herself, and quickly, to set her right with +her sister, and in her own esteem. She had to choose between a loveless +marriage and the Convent. By accepting one or the other she must prove that she +was not the slave of a dishonourable love. +</p> + +<p> +Marriage or the Convent? It had been easy, contemplating the step from a +distance, to choose the Convent. But when she thought of it, to-night, amid the +exquisite beauty of these woods, with the moonlit valley lying at her feet, the +winding streams reflecting that silvery light, or veiled in a pale +haze—to-night, in the liberty and loveliness of the earth, the vision of +Convent walls filled her with a shuddering horror. To be shut in that Flemish +garden for ever; her life enclosed within the straight lines of that long green +alley leading to a dead wall, darkened over by flowerless ivy. How witheringly +dull the old life showed, looking back at it after years of freedom and +enjoyment, action and variety. No, no, no! She could not bury herself alive, +could not forego the liberty to wander in a wood like this, to gaze upon scenes +as beautiful as yonder valley, to read the poets she loved, to see, perhaps, +some day those romantic scenes which she knew but as dreams—Florence, +Vallombrosa—to follow the footsteps of Milton, to see the Venice she had read +of in Howell’s Letters, to kneel at the feet of the Holy Father, in the City of +Cities. All these things would be for ever forbidden to her if she chose the +common escape from earthly sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +She thought of her whose example had furnished the theme of many a discourse at +the Convent, Mazarin’s lovely niece, the Princess de Conti, who, in the bloom +of early womanhood, was awakened from the dream of this life to the reality of +Heaven, and had renounced the pleasures of the most brilliant Court in the +world for the severities of Port Royal. She thought of that sublime heretic +Ferrar, whose later existence was one long prayer. Of how much baser a clay +must she be fashioned when her too earthly heart clung so fondly to the +loveliness of earth, and shrank with aversion from the prospect of a long life +within those walls where her childhood had been so peaceful and happy. +</p> + +<p> +“How changed, how changed and corrupted this heart has become!” she murmured, +in her dejection, “when that life which was once my most ardent desire now +seems to me worse than the grave. Anything—any life of duty in the world, +rather than that living death.” +</p> + +<p> +She was in the garden next morning at six, after a sleepless night, and she +occupied herself till noon in going about among the cottagers carrying those +small comforts which she had been in the habit of taking them, and listening +patiently to those various distresses which they were very glad to relate to +her. She taught the children, and read to the sick, and was able in this round +of duties to keep her thoughts from dwelling too persistently upon her own +trouble. After the one o’clock dinner, at which she offended old Reuben by +eating hardly anything, she went for a woodland ramble with her dogs, and it +was near sunset when she returned to the house, just in time to see two +road-stained horses being led away from the hall door. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John had come home. She found him in the dining parlour, sitting gloomy and +weary looking before the table where Reuben was arranging a hasty meal. +</p> + +<p> +“I have eaten nothing upon the road, yet I have but a poor stomach for your +bacon-ham,” he said, and then looked up at his daughter with a moody glance, as +she went towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sir, we must try to coax your appetite when you have rested a little. Let +me unbuckle your spurs and pull off your boots, while Reuben fetches your +easiest shoes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, child, that is man’s work, not for such fingers as yours. The boots are +nowise irksome—’tis another kind of shoe that pinches, Angela.” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt down to unbuckle the spur-straps, and while on her knees she said— +</p> + +<p> +“You look sad, sir. I fear you found ill news at London.” +</p> + +<p> +“I found such shame as never came before upon England, such confusion as only +traitors and profligates can know; men who have cheated and lied and wasted the +public money, left our fortresses undefended, our ships unarmed, our sailors +unpaid, half-fed, and mutinous; clamorous wives crying aloud in the streets +that their husbands should not fight and bleed for a King who starved them. +They have clapped the scoundrel who had charge of the Yard at Chatham in the +Tower—but will that mend matters? A scapegoat, belike, to suffer for higher +scoundrels. The mob is loudest against the Chancellor, who I doubt is not to +blame for our unreadiness, having little power of late over the King. Oh, there +has been iniquity upon iniquity, and men know not whom most to blame—the venal +idle servants, or the master of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that men blame his Majesty?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Angela. But when our ships were blazing at Chatham, and the Dutch +triumphing, the cry was ‘Oh, for an hour of old Noll!’ Charles has played his +cards so that he has made the loyalest hearts in England wish the Brewer back +again. They called him the Tiger of the Seas. We have no tigers now, only asses +and monkeys. Why, there was scarce a grain of sense left in London. The beat of +the drums calling out the train-bands seemed to have stupefied the people. +Everywhere madness and confusion. They have sunk their richest argosies at +Barking Creek to block the river; but the Dutch break chains, ride over sunken +ships, laugh our petty defences to scorn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sir, this confusion cannot last.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will last as long as the world’s history lasts. Our humiliation will never +be forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Englishmen will not look on idle. There must be brave men up in arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there are brave men enough—Fairfax, Ingoldsby, Bethell, Norton. The +Presbyterians come to the front in our troubles. Your brother-in-law is with +Lord Middleton. There is no lack of officers; and regiments are being raised. +But our merchant-ships, which should be quick to help us, hang back. Our +Treasury is empty, and half the goldsmiths in London are bankrupt. And our +ships that are burnt, and our ships that are taken, will not be conjured back +again. The <i>Royal Charles</i> carried off with insulting triumph! Oh, child, +it is not the loss that galls; it is the dishonour!” +</p> + +<p> +He took a draught of claret out of the tankard which Angela placed at his +elbow, and she carved the ham for him, and persuaded him to eat. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it the public misfortune that troubles you so sadly, sir?” she asked, +presently, when her father flung himself back in his chair with a heavy sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Angela, I have my peck of trouble without reckoning the ruin of my +country. But my back is broad. It can bear a burden as well as any.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you count a disobedient daughter among your cares, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Disobedient is too harsh a word. I told you I would never force your +inclinations. But I have an obstinate daughter, who has disappointed me, and +well-nigh broken my spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your spirit shall not rest broken if my obedience can mend it, sir,” she said +gently, dropping on her knees beside his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What! has that stony heart relented! Wilt thou marry him, sweetheart? Wilt +give me a son as well as a daughter, and the security that thou wilt be safe +and happy when I’m gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one can be sure of happiness, father; it comes strangely, and goes we know +not why. But if it will make your heart easier, sir, and Denzil be still of the +same mind——” +</p> + +<p> +“His mind his rock, dearest. He swore to me that he could never change. Ah, +love, you have made me happy! Let the fleet burn, the <i>Royal Charles</i> fly +Dutch colours. Here, in this quiet valley, there shall be a peaceful household +and united hearts. Angela, I love that youth! Fareham, with all his rank and +wealth, has never been so dear to me. That black visage repels love. But +Denzil’s countenance is open as the day. I can say ‘Nunc Dimittis’ with a light +heart. I can trust Denzil Warner with my daughter’s happiness.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br/> +“QUITE OUT OF FASHION.”</h2> + +<p> +Denzil received the good news by the hands of a mounted messenger in the +following forenoon. +</p> + +<p> +The Knight had written, “Ride—ride—ride!” in the Elizabethan style, on the +cover of his letter, which contained but two brief sentences— +</p> + +<p> +“Womanlike, she has changed her mind. Come when thou wilt, dear son.” +</p> + +<p> +And the son-in-law-to-be lost not an hour. He was at the Manor before +night-fall. He was a member of the quiet household again, subservient to his +mistress in everything. +</p> + +<p> +“There are some words that must needs be spoken before we are agreed,” Angela +said, when they found themselves alone for the first time, in the garden, on +the morning after his return, and when Denzil would fain have taken her to his +breast and ratified their betrothal with a kiss. “I think you know as well as I +do that it is my father’s wish that has made me change.” +</p> + +<p> +“So long as you change not again, dear, I am of all men the happiest. Yes, I +know ’tis Sir John’s wooing that won you, not mine. And that I have still to +conquer your heart, though your hand is promised me. Yet I do not despair of +being loved in as full measure as I love. My faith is strong in the power of an +honest affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may at least be sure of my honesty. I profess nothing but the desire to be +your true and obedient wife——” +</p> + +<p> +“Obedient! You shall be my empress.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to make my father happy, and you +too, sir, if I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my soul, that is so easy for you. You have but to let me live in your dear +company. I doubt I would rather be miserable with you than happy with any other +woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and I will be more submissive +than Socrates. But you are all mildness—perfect Christian, perfect woman. You +cannot miss being perfect as wife—and——” +</p> + +<p> +Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked himself lest he should +offend, and the speech ended in a sob. +</p> + +<p> +“My Angela, my angel!” +</p> + +<p> +He took her to his heart, and kissed the fair brow, cold under his passionate +kisses. That word “angel” turned her to ice. It conjured back the sound of a +voice that it was sin to remember. Fareham had called her so; not once, but +many times, in their placid days of friendship, before the fiery breath of +passion had withered all the flowers in her earthly paradise—before the +knowledge of evil had clouded the brightness of the world. +</p> + +<p> +A gentle peace reigned at the Manor after Angela’s betrothal. Sir John was +happier than he had been since the days of his youth, before the coming of that +cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, when John Hampden’s stubborn resistance of a +thirty-shilling rate had brought Crown and People face to face upon the burning +question of Ship-money, and kindled the fire that was to devour England. From +the hour he left his young wife to follow the King to Yorkshire Sir John’s +existence had known little of rest or of comfort, or even of glory. He had +fought on the losing side, and had missed the fame of those who fell and took +the rank of heroes by an untimely death. Hardship and danger, wounds and +sickness, straitened means and scanty fare, had been his portion for three +bitter years; and then had come a period of patient service, of schemes and +intrigues foredoomed to failure; of going to and fro, from Jersey to Paris, +from Paris to Ireland, from Ireland to Cornwall, journeying hither and thither +at the behest of a shifty, irresolute man, or a passionate, imprudent woman, as +the case might be; now from the King to the Queen, now from the Queen to this +or that ally; futile errands, unskilful combinations, failure on every hand, +till the last fatal journey, on which he was an unwilling attendant, the flight +from Hampton Court to Titchfield, when the fated King broke faith with his +enemies in an unfinished negotiation. +</p> + +<p> +Foreign adventure had followed English hardships, and the soldier had been +tossed on the stormy sea of European warfare. He had been graciously received +at the French Court, but only to feel himself a stranger there, and to have his +English clothes and English accent laughed at by Gramont and Bussy, and the +accomplished St. Évremond, and the frivolous herd of their imitators; to see +even the Queen, for whom he had spent his last jacobus, smile behind her fan at +his bévues, and whisper to her sister-in-law while he knelt to kiss the little +white hand that had led a King to ruin. Everywhere the stern Malignant had +found himself outside the circle of the elect. At the Hôtel de Rambouillet, in +the splendid houses of the newly built Place Royale, in the salons of +Duchesses, and the taverns of courtly roysterers and drunken poets, at +Cormier’s, or at the Pine Apple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all +the better for a Christian gentleman not to understand the talk of the wits +that flashed and drank there. Everywhere he had been a stranger and aloof. It +was only under canvas, in danger and privation, that he lost the sense of being +one too many in the world. There John Kirkland found his level, shoulder to +shoulder with Condé and Turenne. The stout Cavalier was second to no soldier in +Louis’ splendid army; was of the stamp of an earlier race even, better inured +to hardship than any save that heroic Prince, the Achilles of his day, who to +the graces of a modern courtier joined the temper of an ancient Greek. +</p> + +<p> +His daughter Hyacinth had given him the utmost affection which such a nature +could give; but it was the affection of a trained singing-bird, or a pug-nosed +spaniel; and the father, though he admired her beauty, and was pleased with her +caresses, was shrewd enough to perceive the lightness of her disposition and +the shallowness of her mind. He rejoiced in her marriage with a man of +Fareham’s strong character. +</p> + +<p> +“I have married thee to a husband who will know how to rule a wife,” he told +her on the night of her wedding. “You have but to obey and to be happy; for he +is rich enough to indulge all your fancies, and will not complain if you waste +the gold that would pay a company of foot on the decoration of your poor little +person.” +</p> + +<p> +“The tone in which you speak of my poor little person, sir, can but remind me +how much I need the tailor and the milliner,” answered Hyacinth, dropping her +favourite curtsy, which she was ever ready to practise at the slightest +provocation. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, petite chatte, you know I think you the loveliest creature at Saint +Germain or the Louvre, far surpassing in beauty the Cardinal’s niece, who has +managed to set young Louis’ heart throbbing with a boyish passion. But I doubt +you bestow too much care on the cherishing of a gift so fleeting.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have said the word, sir. ’Tis because it is so fleeting I must needs take +care of my beauty. We poor women are like the butterflies and the roses. We +have as brief a summer. You men, who value us only for our outward show, should +pardon some vanity in creatures so ephemeral.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ephemeral scarce applies to a sex which owns such an example as your +grandmother, who has lived to reckon her servants among the grandsons of her +earliest lovers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not lived, sir! No woman lives after thirty. She can but exist, and dream that +she is still admired. La Marquise has been dead for the last twenty years, but +she won’t own it. Ah, sir, c’est un triste supplice to <i>have been</i>! I +wonder how those poor ghosts can bear that earthly purgatory which they call +old age? Look at Madame de Sablé, par exemple, once a beauty, now only a +tradition. And Queen Anne! Old people say she was beautiful, and that +Buckingham risked being torn by wild horses—like Ravaillac—only to kiss her +hand by stealth in a moonlit garden; and would have plunged England in war but +for an excuse to come back to Paris. Who would go to war for Anne’s haggard +countenance nowadays?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Even in Lady Fareham’s household the Cavalier soon began to fancy himself an +inhabitant too much; a dull, grey ghost from a tragical past. He could not keep +himself from talking of the martyred King, and those bitter years through which +he had followed his master’s sinking fortunes. He told stories of York and of +Beverley; of the scarcity of cash which reduced his Majesty’s Court to but one +table; of that bitter affront at Coventry; of the evil omens that had marked +the raising of the Standard on the hill at Nottingham, and filled superstitious +minds with dark forebodings, reminding old men of that sad shower of rain that +fell when Charles was proclaimed at Whitehall, on the day of his accession, and +of the shock of earthquake on his coronation day; of Edgehill and Lindsey’s +death; of the profligate conduct of the Cavalier regiments, and the steady, +dogged force of their psalm-singing adversaries; of Queen Henrietta’s courage, +and beauty, and wilfulness, and her fatal influence upon an adoring husband. +</p> + +<p> +“She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been,” said Sir John, “forgetting +that Buckingham was the King’s evil genius.” +</p> + +<p> +That lively and eminently artificial society of the Rue de Touraine soon +wearied of Sir John’s reminiscences. King Charles’s execution had receded into +the dim grey of history. He might as well have told them anecdotes of Cinq +Mars, or of the great Henri, or of Moses or Abraham. Life went on rapid wheels +in patrician Paris. They had Condé to talk about, and Mazarin’s numerous +nieces, and the opera, that new importation from Italy, which the Cardinal was +bringing into fashion; while in the remote past of half a dozen years back the +Fronde was the only interesting subject, and even that was worn threadbare; the +adventures of the Duchess, the conduct of the Prince in prison, the intrigues +of Cardinal and Queen, Mademoiselle, yellow-haired Beaufort, duels of five +against five—all—all these were ancient history as compared with young Louis +and his passion for Marie de Mancini, and the scheming of her wily uncle to +marry all his nieces to reigning princes or embryo kings. +</p> + +<p> +And then the affectations and conceits of that elegant circle, the sonnets and +madrigals, the “bouts-rimés,” the practical jokes, the logic-chopping and +straw-splitting of those ultra-fine intellects, the romances where the +personages of the day masqueraded under Greek or Roman or Oriental aliases, +books written in a flowery language which the Cavalier did not understand, and +full of allusions that were dark to him; while not to know and appreciate those +master-works placed him outside the pale. +</p> + +<p> +He rejoiced in escaping from that overcharged atmosphere to the tavern, to the +camp, anywhere. He followed the exiled Stuarts in their wanderings, paid his +homage to the Princess of Orange, roamed from scene to scene, a stranger and +one too many wherever he went. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the hardest blow of all—the chilling disillusion that awaited many of +Charles’s faithful friends, who were not of such political importance as to +command their recompense. Neglect and forgetfulness were Sir John Kirkland’s +portion; and for him and for such as he that caustic definition of the Act of +Indemnity was a hard and cruel truth. It was an Act of Indemnity for the King’s +enemies and of oblivion for his friends. Sir John’s spirits had hardly +recovered from the bitterness of disappointed affection when he came back to +the old home, though his chagrin was seven years old. But now, in his delight +at the alliance with Denzil Warner, he seemed to have renewed his lease of +cheerfulness and bodily vigour. He rode and walked about the lanes and woods +with erect head and elastic limbs. He played bowls with Denzil in the summer +evenings. He went fishing with his daughter and her sweetheart. He revelled in +the simple rustic life, and told them stories of his boyhood, when James was +King, and many a queer story of that eccentric monarch and of the rising star, +George Villiers. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, what a history that was!” he exclaimed. “His mother trained him as if with +a foreknowledge of that star-like ascendency. He was schooled to shine and +dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and women admire. I doubt she +never thought of the mind inside him, or cared whether he had a heart or a lump +of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither to think nor to +pity—only to shine; to be quick with his tongue in half a dozen languages, with +his sword after half a dozen modes of fence. He could kill his man in the +French, or the Italian, or the Spanish manner. He was cosmopolitan in the +knowledge of evil. He had every device that can make a man brilliant and +dangerous. He mounted every rung of the ladder, leaping from step to step. He +ascended, swift as a shooting star, from plain country gentleman to the level +of princes. And he expired with an ejaculation, astonished to find himself +mortal, slain in a moment by the thrust of a ten-penny knife. I remember as if +it were yesterday how men looked and spoke when the news came to London, and +how some said this murder would be the saving of King Charles. I know of one +man at least who was glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was he, sir?” asked Denzil. +</p> + +<p> +“He who had the greatest mind among Englishmen—Thomas Wentworth. Buckingham had +held him at a distance from the King, and his strong passionate temper was +seething with indignation at being kept aloof by that silken sybarite—an +impotent General, a fatal counsellor. After the Favourite’s death there came a +time of peace and plenty. The pestilence had passed, the war was over. Charles +was happy with his Henriette and their lovely children. Wentworth was in +Ireland. The Parliament House stood still and empty, doors shut, swallows +building under the eaves. I look back, and those placid years melt into each +other like one long summer. And then, again, as ’twere yesterday, I hear +Hampden’s drums and fifes in the lanes, and see the rebels’ flag with that +hateful legend, ‘Vestigia nulla retrorsum,’ and Buckinghamshire peasants are +under arms, and the King and his people have begun to hate and fear each +other.” +</p> + +<p> +“None foresaw that the war would last so long or end in murder, I doubt, sir,” +said Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, child; we who were loyal thought to see that rabble withered by the +breath of kingly nostrils. A word should have brought them to the dust.” +</p> + +<p> +“There might be so easy a victory, perhaps, sir, from a King who knew how to +speak the right word at the right moment, how to comply graciously with a just +demand, and how to be firm in a righteous denial,” replied Denzil; “but with +Charles a stammering speech was but the outward expression of a wavering mind. +He was a man who never listened to an appeal, but always yielded to a threat, +were it only loud enough.” +</p> + +<p> +The wedding was to be soon. Marriages were patched up quickly in the +light-hearted sixties. And here there was nothing to wait for. Sir John had +found Denzil compliant on every minor question, and willing to make his home at +the Manor during his mother’s lifetime. +</p> + +<p> +“The old lady would never stomach a Papist daughter-in-law,” said Sir John; and +Denzil was fain to confess that Lady Warner would not easily reconcile herself +with Angela’s creed, though she could not fail of loving Angela herself. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter would have neither peace nor liberty under a Puritan’s roof,” Sir +John said; “and I should have neither son nor daughter, and should be a loser +by my girl’s marriage. You shall be as much master here, Denzil, as if this +were your own house—which it will be when I have moved to my last billet. Give +me a couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for my dogs, and I want +no more. You and Angela may introduce as many new fashions as you like; dine at +two o’clock, and sip your unwholesome Indian drink of an evening. The fine +ladies in Paris were beginning to take tea when I was last there, though by the +faces they made over the stuff it might have been poison. I can smoke my pipe +in the chimney-corner, and look on and admire at the new generation. I shall +not feel myself one too many at your fireside, as I used sometimes in the Rue +de Touraine, when those strutting Gallic cocks were quizzing me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There were clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs again in front of the +floriated iron gate; but this time it was not the Honourable Henriette who came +tripping along the gravel path on two-inch heels, but my Lady Fareham, who +walked languidly, with the assistance of a gold-headed cane, and who looked +pale and thin in her apple-green satin gown and silver-braided petticoat. +</p> + +<p> +She, too, came attended by a second coach, which was filled by her ladyship’s +French waiting-woman, Mrs. Lewin, and a pile of boxes and parcels. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll wager that in the rapture and romance of your sweethearting you have not +given a thought to petticoats and mantuas,” she said, after she had embraced +her sister, who was horrified at the sight of that painted harridan from +London. +</p> + +<p> +Angela blushed at those words, “rapture and romance,” knowing how little there +had been of either in her thoughts, or in Denzil’s sober courtship. Romance! +Alas! there had been but one romance in her life, and that a guilty one, which +she must ever remember with remorse. +</p> + +<p> +“Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talk of +gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?” Angela asked, with +more temper than she was wont to show. +</p> + +<p> +“My sisterly kindness brought her. You are an ungrateful hussy for looking +vexed when I have come a score of miles through the dust to do you a service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dearest, I am grateful to you for coming. But, alas! you are looking pale +and thin. Heaven forbid that you have been indisposed, and we in ignorance of +your suffering.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am well enough, though every one assures me I look ill; which is but a +civil mode of telling me I am growing old and ugly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, with time; the latter you will +never be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your servant, Sir Denzil, has taught you to pay antique compliments. Well, now +we will talk business. I had occasion to send for Lewin—my toilet was in a +horrid state of decay; and then it seemed to me, knowing your foolish +indifference, that even your wedding gown would not be chosen unless I saw to +it. So here is Lewin with Lyons and Genoa silks of the very latest patterns. +She has but just come from Paris, and is full of Parisian modes and Court +scandals. The King posted off to Versailles directly after his mother’s death, +and has not returned to the Louvre since. He amuses himself by spending +millions on building, and making passionate love to Mademoiselle la Vallière, +who encourages him by pretending an excessive modesty, and exaggerates every +favour by penitential tears. I doubt his attachment to so melancholy a mistress +will hardly last a lifetime. She is not beautiful; she has a halting gait; and +she is no more virtuous than any other young woman who makes a show of +resistance to enhance the merit of her surrender.” +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. Lewin and the waiting-woman +following, laden with parcels. +</p> + +<p> +“Queer, dear old hovel!” she exclaimed, sinking languidly upon a tabouret, and +fanning herself exhaustedly, while the mantua-maker opened her boxes, and laid +out her sample breadths of richly decorated brocade, or silver and gold +enwrought satin. “How well I remember being whipped over my horn-book in this +very room! And there is the bowling green where I used to race with the Italian +greyhound my grandmother brought me from Paris. I look back, and it seems a +dream of some other child running about in the sunshine. It is so hard to +believe that joyous little being—who knew not the meaning of heart-ache—was I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less cause for heart-ache than +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I not cause? Not when my glass tells me youth is gone, and beauty is +waning? Not when there is no one in this wide world who cares a straw whether I +am handsome or hideous? I would as lief be dead as despised and neglected.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorella mia, questa donna ti ascolta,” murmured Angela; “come and look at the +old gardens, sister, while Mrs. Lewin spreads out her wares. And pray consider, +madam,” turning to the mantua-maker, “that those peacock purples and gold +embroideries have no temptations for me. I am marrying a country gentleman, and +am to lead a country life. My gowns must be such as will not be spoilt by a +walk in dusty lanes, or a visit to a farm-labourer’s cottage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, gud, your ladyship, do not tell me that you would bury so much beauty +among sheep and cows, and odious ploughmen’s wives and dairy-women. A month or +so of rustic life in summer between Epsom and Tunbridge Wells may be well +enough, to rest your beauty—without patches or a French head—out of sight of +your admirers. But to live in the country! Only a jealous husband could ever +propose more than an annual six weeks of rustic seclusion to a wife under +sixty. Lord Chesterfield was considered as cruel for taking his Countess to the +rocks and ravines of Derbyshire as Sir John Denham for poisoning his poor +lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chut! tu vas un peu trop loin, Lewin!” remonstrated Lady Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +“But, in truly, your ladyship, when I hear Mrs. Kirkland talk of a husband who +would have her waste her beauty upon clod-polls and dairy-maids, and never wear +a mantua worth looking at——” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt my husband will be guided by his own likings rather than by Mrs. +Lewin’s tastes and opinions,” said Angela, with a stately curtsy, which was +designed to put the forward tradeswoman in her place, and which took that +personage’s breath away. +</p> + +<p> +“There never was anything like the insolence of a handsome young woman before +she has been educated by a lover,” she said to her ladyship’s Frenchwoman, with +a vindictive smile and scornful shrug of bloated shoulders, when the sisters +had left the parlour. “But wait till her first intrigue, and then it is ‘My +dearest Lewin, wilt thou make me everlastingly beholden to thee by taking this +letter—thou knowest to whom?’ Or, in a flood of tears, ‘Lewin, you are my only +friend—and if you cannot find me some good and serviceable woman who would give +me a home where I can hide from the cruel eye of the world, I must take +poison.’ No insolence then, mark you, Madame Hortense!” +</p> + +<p> +“This demoiselle is none of your sort,” Hortense said. “You must not judge +English ladies by your maids of honour. Celles là sont des drôlesses, sans foi +ni loi.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey woolsey, or Norwich drugget, +she will find her mistake. I never courted the custom of little gentlemen’s +wives, with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to do anything for this +stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham must give me the order. I am no servant of +Madame Kirkland.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady Fareham with a fretful +tearfulness, as of one whose over strung nerves were on the verge of hysteria. +</p> + +<p> +“There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest,” Angela said +interrogatively. +</p> + +<p> +“Something! A hundred things. I am at cross purposes with life. But I should +have been worse had you been obstinate and still refused this gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?” asked her sister, with a sudden +coldness. +</p> + +<p> +“Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister has been wise in good time, +and you will be the happiest wife in England; for I believe your Puritan is a +saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, who are the most +incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if you heard the stories Lewin tells me—even +of that young Rochester—scarce out of his teens. And the Duke—not a jot better +than the King—and with so much less grace in his iniquity. Well, you will be +married at the Chapel Royal, and spend your wedding night at Fareham House. We +will have a great supper. His Majesty will come, of course. He owes us that +much civility.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be married in our dear mother’s +oratory, by your chaplain. Sure, dearest, you know I have never taken kindly to +Court splendours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like a star, that last night you +were ever at Whitehall, Henri sitting close beside you. ’Twas the night he took +ill of a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes whether there was not +a mystery of attempted murder behind that long sickness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Murder!” +</p> + +<p> +“A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not that an attempt at murder on +the part of him who deliberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past, and he +is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, there might never have been +any such person as Henri de Malfort.” +</p> + +<p> +Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could not. +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you have so +little cause for sadness?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend who +brought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? A +traitor, I know—like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he would have +been true had I been kinder, and trusted him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He was too +near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against your husband. +Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the King admires?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sunk—low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle of +fame—courted—flattered—poetised—painted. They will be famous for centuries +after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shame nowadays, except +that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have wasted my +life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who had my complexion, nor +one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I have consented to be a +nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and my poor painted face shocks +me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; and there is nothing left for +me—nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your husband, sister!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister, do not mock me! You know how much Fareham is to me. We were chosen for +each other, and fancied we were in love for the first few years, while he was +so often called away from me, that his coming back made a festival, and renewed +affection. He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I was proud of him, and +called him my hero. But after the treaty of the Pyrenees our passion cooled, +and he grew too much the school-master. And when he recovered of the contagion, +he had recovered of any love-sickness he ever had for me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking them. His lordship needs but +some sign of affection on your part to be as fond a husband as ever he was.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can answer for him, I’ll warrant” +</p> + +<p> +“And there are other claims upon your love—your children.” +</p> + +<p> +“Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks herself handsomer and +cleverer than ever I was. George, who is a lump of selfishness, and cares more +for his ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I tell you there is +nothing left for me, except fine houses and carriages; and to show my fading +beauty dressed in the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and to startle +people from the observation of my wrinkles by the boldness of my patches. I was +the first to wear a coach and horses across my forehead—in London, at least. +They had these follies in Paris three years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, dearest?” +</p> + +<p> +“And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thou not, ma +très chère?” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget Denzil’s hatred of finery.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the wedding is the bride’s festival. The bridegroom hardly counts. Nay, +love, you need fear no immodest fooling when you bid good night to the company; +nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the door of your chamber. There +was none of that antique nonsense when Lady Sandwich married her daughter. All +vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver’s day have gone to the ragbag of worn-out +English customs. We were so coarse a nation, till we learnt manners in exile. +Let me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me, and wean me from melancholic +fancies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars.” +</p> + +<p> +After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to the house in order to choose +the wedding gown; and here in the panelled parlour they found the two +gentlemen, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the noonday sun upon +them, newly returned from Aylesbury, where they had ridden in the freshness of +the early morning to choose a team of plough-horses at the fair; and who were +more disconcerted than gratified at finding the dinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. +Lewin, Madame Hortense, and an array of finery that made the room look like a +stall in the Exchange. +</p> + +<p> +It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs of dinner. Sir John and +Sir Denzil were both sharp set after their ride, and were looking by no means +kindly on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela appeared upon the +scene. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing could happen luckier,” said Lady Fareham, when she had saluted Denzil, +and embraced her father with “Pish, sir! how you smell of clover and new-mown +grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust.” +</p> + +<p> +Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in choosing the wedding gown—a +somewhat empty compliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since she would not hear +of the simple canary brocade which Denzil selected, and which Mrs. Lewin +protested was only good enough to make his lady a bed-gown; or of the pale grey +atlas which her father considered suitable—since, indeed, she would have +nothing but a white satin, powdered with silver fleurs de luces, which she +remarked, <i>en passant</i>, would have become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she +but obtained her cousin’s permission to cast herself away on Lauzun. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess a becoming +gown for me?” remonstrated Angela. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee than poor Louise, who has +no more complexion left than I have. She was in her heyday when she held the +Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the most popular people in +Paris. She has made herself a laughing-stock since then. That is settled, +Lewin”—with a nod to the milliner—“the silver fleurs de luces for the wedding +mantua. And now be quick with your samples.” +</p> + +<p> +All Angela’s remonstrances were as vain to-day as they had been on the occasion +of her first acquaintance with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement of discussing and +selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham’s spirits like a draught +of saumur. She was generous by nature, extravagant by long habit. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give you your wedding clothes, +when you are marrying the man I chose for you,” she protested. “The +cherry-coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; ’tis the very shade for my +sister’s fair skin. Indeed, Denzil”—nodding at him, as he stood watching them, +with that hopelessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner’s shop—“I have been +your best friend from the beginning, and, but for me, you might never have won +your sweetheart to listen to you. Mazarine hoods are as ancient as the +pyramids, Lewin. Pr’ythee show us something newer.” +</p> + +<p> +It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate. Hyacinth +had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobody there who wanted +her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nine o’clock, and she had +servants enough to take care of her on the road; so Mrs. Lewin and her +ladyship’s woman were entertained in the steward’s room, where Reuben held +forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in his master’s house before the +troubles—and where the mantua-maker ate and drank all she could get, and dozed +and yawned through the old man’s reminiscences. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about in the +sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp—and took a dish of +the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at the end of the +grass walk. +</p> + +<p> +Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr. Cowley +in praise of rusticity. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley,” she cried. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,<br/> +Hear the soft winds, above me plying,<br/> +With all their wanton boughs dispute.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was shamefully treated in +town—a devoted servant to bankrupt royalty for all the best years of his life, +and fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into power. Ah me, ’tis an +ill world we live in, and London is the most hateful spot in it,” she +concluded, with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have a crowd of fine people. It +would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I were content to +see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or two with their +ill-dressed wives, at my sister’s marriage. London is the only decent +place—after Paris—to live in; but the country is a peacefuller place in which +to die.” +</p> + +<p> +A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised her +sister’s face with increased concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you are seriously +indisposed,” she said earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary of living there is only one +sensible thing left to do—if Providence will but be kind and help one to do it. +I am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep water. But to fade away +in a gentle disease—a quiet ebbing of the vital stream—is the luckiest thing +that can befall one who is tired of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy strain, and still more +alarmed by the change in her looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush, fever-bright +eyes, Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, and be nursed and +cared for. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power over a sick person,” Hyacinth +interjected scornfully, and then in the next moment apologised for the little +spurt of retrospective jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier than you are at Chilton,” +pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, who had been protesting that nobody wanted her, +now declared that she could not leave home, and recited a list of duties, +social and domestic. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not have half an hour to spare until I go to London next week to +prepare for the wedding,” she said. The date had been fixed while they sat at +dinner; Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while Denzil assented +with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by in pale silence, submissive to the will +of others. They were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, and it was now the +end of June—little more than a fortnight’s interval in which to meditate upon +the beginning of a new life. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, and as many of the new clothes +as a supernatural address, industry, and obligingness, could produce within the +time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and parted from her father and +sister in excellent spirits; but her haggard face haunted Angela in troubled +dreams all that night, and she thought of her with anxiety during the next few +days, and most of all upon one long sultry day, the 4th of July, which was the +third day she had spent in unbroken solitude since her father and Denzil had +ridden away in the dim early morning, while the pastures were veiled in summer +haze, on the first stage of a journey to London, hoping, with a long rest +between noon and evening, to ride thirty-seven miles before night. +</p> + +<p> +They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, and to execute the marriage +settlement, Sir John vastly anxious about this business, in his ignorance of +law and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London only long enough to +transact their business, and would then return post-haste to the Manor; but as +they were to ride their own horses all the way, and as lawyers are notoriously +slow, Angela had been told not to expect them till the fourth evening after +their departure. In her lonely rambles that long summer day, with her spaniel +Ganymede, and her father’s favourite pointer, for her only companions, Angela’s +thoughts dwelt ever on the past. Of the future—even that so near future of her +marriage—she thought hardly at all. That future had been disposed of by others. +Her fate had been settled for her; and she was told that by her submission she +would make those she loved happy. Her father would have the son he longed for, +and would be sure of her faithful devotion till the end of his days—or of hers, +should untimely death intervene. Hyacinth’s foolish jealousy would be dispelled +by the act which gave her sister’s honour into a husband’s custody. And for +him, that presumptuous lover who had taken so little pains to hide his wicked +passion, if in any audacious hour he had dared to believe her guilty of +reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be answered at once and +for ever by her marriage with Denzil—Denzil who was Fareham’s junior by fifteen +years, his superior in every advantage of person, as she told herself with a +bitter smile; for even while she thought of that superiority—the statuesque +regularity of feature, the clear colouring of a complexion warmed with the glow +of health, the deep blue of large well-opened eyes, the light free carriage of +one who had led an active country life—even while she thought of Denzil, +another face and figure flashed upon her memory—rugged and dark, the forehead +deeper lined than years justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow of +the projecting brow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders bent as if under the +burden of melancholy thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +O God! this was the face she loved. The only face that had ever touched the +springs of joy and pain. It was nearly half a year since she had seen him. +Their meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew that Denzil +regarded him with a distrust which made friendship out of the question; and it +would be her duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible. Family +meetings there must be, considering the short distance between Chilton and the +Manor, feastings and junketings in company once or twice in the summer, lest it +should be thought Sir John and his lordship were ill friends. But Angela knew +that in any such social gathering, sitting at the overloaded board, amid the +steam of rich viands, and the noise of many voices, she and Fareham would be as +far apart as if the Indian Ocean rolled between them. +</p> + +<p> +Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; and he would take her hand in +greeting, and would kiss her on the lips as she stood before him in her wedding +finery, that splendour of white and silver which would provoke him to scornful +wonder at her trivial pleasure in sumptuous clothes. Thus once they must meet. +Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so often shunned her, taking such +obvious trouble to keep his distance; but he could hardly absent himself from +her wedding. The scandal would be too great. +</p> + +<p> +Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull aching misery must be lived +through somehow; and neither her father nor Denzil must ever have occasion to +suspect her unhappiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain me in my sorrow! Guard and +deliver me from sinful thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thy great +sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? Subdue and bend me to +obedience and humility. Let me be an affectionate daughter, a dutiful wife, a +friend and comforter to my poor neighbours.” +</p> + +<p> +So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil, +kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where no human +eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer day she held +commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memory of past +happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of those placid hours at +Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil had shadowed her +friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to remember and regret. That was +the struggle in which the intense abstraction of the believer, lifting the mind +to heaven, alone could help her. Long and fervent were her prayers in that +woodland sanctuary where she made her pious retreat; nor was her sister +forgotten in those prayers, which included much earnest supplication for the +welfare here and hereafter of that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a +protecting and almost maternal love. Years counted for very little in the +relations between these sisters. +</p> + +<p> +The day wore to its close—the most solemn day in Angela’s life since that which +she had spent in the Reverend Mother’s death-chamber, kneeling in the faint +yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylight was +excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthly interests +as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughts had mounted +heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. How had she changed +for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirations of that time! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br/> +HIGH STAKES.</h2> + +<p> +Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting at her embroidery frame +between nine and ten, while the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall and +corridors, and old Reuben’s voice hectoring the maids, told her that the +servants were closing the house before going to bed. Reuben would be coming to +her presently, no doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour, wanting to +carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were to see her safely disposed of +before he went to his garret. She meant, on this occasion, to resist his +friendly tyranny, having so little inclination for sleep, and hoping to find +peace of mind and distraction in this elaborate embroidery of gold thread and +many-coloured silks, which was destined to adorn her father’s person, on the +facings of a new-fashioned doublet. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinize the shading of her silks, +the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minute afterwards a +bell rang loudly. +</p> + +<p> +Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no doubt; no one else. He had +hurried his business through, and returned a day earlier than he had hoped. Or +could it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had come to tell her +ill news? Or was it a messenger from her sister? She had time to contemplate +several evil contingencies while she stood in the hall watching Reuben withdraw +various bolts and bars. +</p> + +<p> +The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in high-riding boots and +slouched hat standing on the threshold, while in the moonlight behind him she +could distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led horse, as well as +the horse from which the visitor had just dismounted. +</p> + +<p> +The face that looked at her from the doorway was the face which had haunted her +with cruel persistency through that long day, chaining her thoughts to earth. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, deadly pale, while she was +collecting her senses, trying to understand this most unlooked-for presence. +Why was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, my sister is ill!” she cried; “I read sorrow in your face—seriously +ill—dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity’s sake!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw her that there was something +amiss. Has she sent you to fetch me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you are wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the coach to be got ready. And +Betty must go with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will need no coach, Angela. Nor is there time to spare for any such +creeping conveyance. I have brought Zephyr. You remember how you loved him. He +is swift, and gentle as the wind after which we named him; sure of foot, easy +to ride. The roads are good after yesterday’s rain, and the moon will last us +most of our way. We shall be at Chilton in two hours. Put on your coat and hat. +Indeed, there is no time to be lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean that she may die before I can reach her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know not,” stamping his foot impatiently. “Fate holds the keys. But you had +best waste no time on questions.” +</p> + +<p> +His manner was one of command, and he seemed to apprehend no possibility of +hesitation on her part. Reuben ran to his pantry, and came back with a tankard +of wine, which he offered to the visitor with tremulous respect, almost ready +to kneel. +</p> + +<p> +“Our best Burgundy, my lord. Your lordship must be dry after your long ride; +and if your lordship would care to sup, there is good picking on last Monday’s +chine, and a capon from madam’s supper scarce touched with the carving-knife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for gluttony.” +</p> + +<p> +Reuben, pressing the tankard upon him, he drank some wine with an automatic +air, and still stood with his eyes fixed on Angela’s pallid countenance, +waiting her decision. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Does she want me? Has she asked for me? Oh, for God’s sake, my lord, tell me +more! Is she dangerously ill? Have the doctors given her over?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. But she is in a bad way. And you—you—you—are wanted. Will you come? Ay or +no?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It is my duty to go to her. But when my father and Denzil come back +to-morrow, Reuben must be able to tell them why I went; and the nature of my +sister’s illness. Were it not so serious that there is no time for hesitation, +it would ill become me to leave this house in my father’s absence.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil’s name, as if he had been stung. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will explain; I can make all clear to this gentleman here while you put +on your cloak. Bring the black to the door,” he called to his man. +</p> + +<p> +“Will not your lordship bait your horses before you start?” Reuben asked +deferentially. +</p> + +<p> +“No time, fellow. There is no time. How often must I tell you so?” retorted +Fareham. +</p> + +<p> +Reuben’s village breeding had given him an exaggerated respect for aristocracy. +He had grown up in the midst of small country gentlemen, rural squires, among +whom the man with three thousand a year in land was a magnate, and there had +never been more than one nobleman resident within a day’s ride of the Manor +Moat. To Reuben, therefore, a peer was like a god; and he would have no more +questioned Lord Fareham’s will than a disciple of Hobbes would have imputed +injustice to Kings. +</p> + +<p> +Angela returned in a few minutes, having changed her silken gown for a neat +cloth riding-skirt and close-fitting hood. She carried nothing with her, being +assured that her sister’s wardrobe would be at her disposal, and having no mind +to spend a minute more in preparation than was absolutely necessary. Brief as +her toilet was, she had time to consider Lord Fareham’s countenance and manner, +the cold distance of his address, and to scorn herself for having thought of +him in her reveries that day as loving her always and till death. It was far +better so. The abyss that parted them could not yawn too wide. She put a stern +restraint upon herself, so that there should be nothing hysterical in her +manner, lest her fears about her sister’s health should be mistaken for +agitation at his presence. She stood beside the horse, straight and firm, with +her hand on the pommel, and sprang lightly into the saddle as Fareham’s strong +arm lifted her. Yet she could but notice that his hand shook as he gave her the +bridle, and arranged the cloth petticoat over her foot. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word was spoken on either side as they rode out at the gate and through +the village of St. Nicholas, beautiful in the moonlight. Such low crumbling +walls and deeply sloping roofs of cottages squatting in a tangle of garden and +orchard; such curious outlines of old brick gables in the better class houses +of miller, butcher, and general dealer; orchards and gardens and farm +buildings, with every variety of thatch and eaves, huddled together in +picturesque confusion; large spaces everywhere—pond, and village green, and +common, and copse beyond; a peaceful, prosperous settlement, which had passed +unharmed through the ordeal of the civil war, safe in its rural seclusion. Not +a word was spoken even when the village was left behind, and they were riding +on a lonely road, in so brilliant a moonlight that Angela could see every line +in her companion’s brooding face. +</p> + +<p> +Why was he so gloomy and so unkind, in an hour when his sympathy should +naturally have been given to her? Was he consumed with sorrow for his wife’s +indisposition, and did anxiety make him silent; or was he angry with himself +for not being as deeply distressed as a husband ought to be at a wife’s peril? +She knew too well how he and Hyacinth had been growing further apart day by +day, till the only link between husband and wife seemed to be a decent courtesy +and subservience to the world’s opinion. +</p> + +<p> +She recalled that other occasion when they two had made a solitary journey +together, and in as gloomy a silence—that night of the great fire, when he had +flung off his doublet and taken the sculls out of her hands, and rowed steadily +and fast, with his eyes downcast, leaving her to steer the boat as she would, +or trusting to the lateness of the hour for a clear course. He had seemed to +hate her that night just as he seemed to hate her now, as they rode mile after +mile side by side, the groom following near, now at a fast trot, now galloping +along a stretch of waste grass that bordered the highway, now breathing their +horses in a walk. +</p> + +<p> +In one of those intervals he asked her if she were tired. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. I have no power to feel anything but anxiety. If you would only be +kinder and tell me more about my sister! I fear you consider her in danger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is in danger. There is no doubt of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“O God! she looked so ill when I saw her last, and she talked so wildly. I +feared she was in a bad way. How soon shall we be at Chilton, my lord?” +</p> + +<p> +“My lord! Why do you ‘my lord’ me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can find no other name. We seem to be strangers to-night; but, indeed, names +and ceremonies matter nothing when the mind is in trouble. How soon shall we +reach the Abbey, Fareham?” +</p> + +<p> +“In an hour, at latest, Angela.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice trembled as he spoke her name, and all of force and passion that +could be breathed into a single word was in his utterance. She flushed at the +sound, and looked at him with a sudden fear; but his countenance might have +been wrought-iron, so cold and passionless and cruelly resolute looked that +rough-hewn face in the moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a fresh horse waiting for you at Thame,” he said. “I will not have you +wearied by riding a tired horse. We are within five minutes of the inn. Will +you rest there for half an hour, and take some refreshment?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rest, when my sister may be dying! Not a moment more than is needed to change +horses.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought Queen Bess, another of your favourites. ’Twas she who taught +you to ride. She will know your voice, and your light hand upon her bridle.” +</p> + +<p> +They found the Inn wrapped in slumber, like every house or cottage they had +passed; but a lantern shone within an open door in the quadrangle round which +house and stables were built. One of the Fareham grooms was there, with an +ostler to wait upon him, and three horses were brought out of their stable, +ready saddled, as the travellers rode under the archway into the yard. +</p> + +<p> +The mare was excited at finding herself on the road in the clear cool night, +with the moonlight in her eyes, and was gayer than Fareham liked to see her +under so precious a load; but Angela was no longer the novice by whose side he +had ridden nearly two years before. She handled Queen Bess firmly, and soon +settled her into a sharp trot, and kept her at it for nearly three miles. The +hour Fareham had spoken of was not exceeded by many minutes when Chilton Abbey +came in sight, the grey stone walls pale in the moonlight. All things—the long +park wall, the pillared gates, the open spaces of the park, the depth of shadow +where the old oaks and beeches spread wide and dark, had a look of unreality +which contrasted curiously with the scene as she had last beheld it in all its +daylight verdure and homeliness. +</p> + +<p> +She dropped lightly from her horse, so soon as they drew rein at an angle of +the long irregular house, where there was a door, half hidden under ivy, by +which Lord Fareham went in and out much oftener than by the principal entrance. +It opened into a passage that led straight to the library, where there was a +lamp burning to-night. Angela saw the light in the window as they rode past. +</p> + +<p> +He opened the door, which had been left on the latch, and nodded a dismissal to +the groom, who went off to the stables, leading their horses. All was dark in +the passage—dark and strangely silent; but this wing was remote from the chief +apartments and from the servants’ offices. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take me to my sister at once?” Angela asked, stopping on the +threshold of the library, when Fareham had opened the door. +</p> + +<p> +A lamp upon the tall mantelpiece feebly lighted the long low room, gloomy with +the darkness of old oak wainscot and a heavily timbered ceiling. There were two +flasks of wine upon a silver salver, and provisions for a supper, and a fire +was burning on the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better warm yourself after your night ride, and eat and drink +something before you see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. What, after riding as fast as our horses could carry us! I must go to +her this moment. Can you find me a candle?”—looking about her hurriedly as she +spoke. “But, indeed, it is no matter; I know my way to her room in the dark, +and there will be light enough from the great window.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” he cried, seizing her arm as she was leaving the room; “stop!” dragging +her back and shutting the door violently. “Your sister is not there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great God! what do you mean? You told me your wife was here—ill—dying +perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will do desperate things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is my sister? Is she dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not unless the Nemesis that waits on woman’s folly has been swifter of foot +than common. I have no wife, Angela; and you have no sister that you will ever +care to own. My Lady Fareham has crossed the narrow sea with her lover, Henri +de Malfort—her paramour always—though I once thought him yours, and tried to +kill him for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“A runaway wife! Hyacinth! Great God!” She clasped her hands before her face in +an agony of shame and despair, falling upon her knees in sudden self-abasement, +her head drooping until her brow almost touched the ground. And then, after but +a few minutes of this deep humiliation, she started to her feet with a cry of +anger. “Liar! villain! despicable, devilish villain! This is a lie, like the +other—a wicked lie! Your wife—your wife a wanton? My sister? My life upon it, +she is in London—in your house, busy preparing for my marriage. Unlock that +door, my lord; let me go this instant—back to my father. Oh, that I could be so +mad as to leave his protection at your bidding! Open the door, sir, I command +you!” +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to gain in height, and to be taller than he had thought her—he who +had so watched her, and whose memory held every line of that slender, graceful +figure. She stood straight as an arrow, looking at him with set lips and +flaming eyes, too angry to be afraid, trembling, but with indignation, not fear +of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, child,” he said gravely, “I have got you, and I mean to keep you. But you +have trusted yourself to my hospitality, and you are safe in my house as in a +sanctuary. I may be a villain, but I am not a ruffian. If I have brought you +here by a trick, you are as much mistress of your life and fate under this roof +as you ever were in your father’s house.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have but one thing to say, sir. Let me out of this hateful house.” +</p> + +<p> +“What then? Would you walk back to the Manor Moat, through the night—alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would crawl there on my hands and knees if I could not walk; anything to get +away from you. Oh, the baseness of it! To vilify my sister—for your own base +purposes. Intolerable villain!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mistress, we will soon put an end to that charge. Lies there have been, but +that is none. ’Tis you are the slanderer there.” +</p> + +<p> +He took a letter from the pocket of his doublet, and handed it to her. Then he +took the lamp from the mantelshelf and held it while she read. +</p> + +<p> +Alas, it was her sister’s hand. She knew those hurried characters too well. The +letter was blotted with ink and smeared as with tears. Angela’s tears began to +rain upon the page as she read:— +</p> + +<p> +“I have tried to be a good woman and a true wife to you, tried hard for these +many years, knowing all the time that you had left off loving me, and but for +the shame of it would have cared little, though I had as many lovers as a maid +of honour. You made life harder for me in this year last past by your passion +for my sister, which mystery of yours, silent and secret as you were, these +eyes must have been blind not to discover. +</p> + +<p> +“And while you were cold in manner and cruel of speech—slighting me ever—there +was one who loved and praised me, one whose value I knew not till he left this +country, and I found myself desolate without him. +</p> + +<p> +“He has come back. He, too, has found that I was the other half of his mind; +and that he could taste no pleasure in life unshared by me. He has come to +claim one who ever loved him, and denied him only for virtue’s sake. Virtue! +Poor fool that I was to count that a woman’s noblest quality! Why, of all +attributes, it is that the world least values. Virtue! when the starched Due de +Montausier fawns upon Louise de la Vallière, when Barbara Palmer is de facto +Queen of England. Virtue! +</p> + +<p> +“Farewell! Forget me, Fareham, as I shall try to forget you. I shall be in +Paris perhaps before you receive this letter. My house in the Rue de Touraine +is ready for me. I shall dishonour you by no open scandal. The man I love will +but rank as the friend I most value, and my other friends will ask no questions +so long as you are silent, and do not seek to disgrace me. Indeed, it were an +ill thing to pursue me with your anger; the more so as I am weak and ailing, +and may not live long to enjoy my happiness. You have given me so little that +you should in common justice spare me your hate. +</p> + +<p> +“I leave you your children, whom you have affected to love better than I; and +who have shown so little consideration for me that I shall not miss them.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“What think you of that, Angela, for the letter of a she-cynic?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is blotted with her tears. She wrote in sorrow, despairing of your love.” +</p> + +<p> +“She managed to exist for a round dozen years without my love—or doubting it—so +long as she had her <i>cavalière servante</i>. It was only when he deserted her +that she found life a burden. And now she has crossed the Rubicon. She belongs +to her age—the age of Kings’ mistresses and light women. And she will be happy, +I dare swear, as they are. It is not an age of tears. And when the fair Louise +ran away to her Convent the other day, in a passion of penitence, be sure she +only went on purpose to be brought back again. But now, sweet, say have I lied +to you about the lady who was once my wife?” he asked, pointing to the letter +in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“And who is my sister to the end of time; my sister in Eternity: in Purgatory +or in Paradise. I cannot cast her off, though you may. I will set out for Paris +to-morrow, and bring her home, if I can, to the Manor. She need trouble you no +more. My husband and I can shelter and pity her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your husband!” +</p> + +<p> +“He will be my husband a fortnight hence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never! Never, while I live to fling my body between you at the altar. His +blood or mine should choke your marriage vows. Angela, Angela, be reasonable. I +have brought you out of that trap. I have cut the net in which they had caught +you. My love, you are free, and I am free, and you belong to me. You never +loved Denzil Warner, never would love him, were you to live with him a quarter +of a century. He is ice, and you are fire. Dearest, you belong to me. He who +made us both created us to be happy together. There are strings in our hearts +that harmonize as concords in music do. We are miserable apart, both of us. We +waste, and fade, and torture ourselves in absence; but only to breathe the same +air, to sit, silent, in the same room, is to be happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go!” she cried, looking at him with wild eyes, leaning against the +locked door, her hands clutching at the latch, seeming neither to hear nor heed +his impassioned address, though every word had sunk deep enough to remain in +her memory for ever. “Let me go! You are a dishonourable villain! I came to +London alone to your deserted house. I was not afraid of death or the plague +then. I am not afraid of you now. Open this door, and let me go, never to see +your wicked face again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Angela, canst thou so play fast and loose with happiness? Look at me,” +kneeling at her feet, trying to take her hands from their hold on the latch. +“Our fate is in our power to-night. The day is near dawning, and at the stroke +of five my coach will be at the door to take us to Bristol, where the ship lies +that shall carry us to New England—to a new world, and liberty; and to the +sweet simple life that will please my dear love better than all the garish +pleasures of a licentious court. Ah, dearest, I know thy mind and heart as well +as I know my own. I know I can make thee happy in that fair new world, where we +shall begin life again, free from all old burdens; and where, if thou wilt, my +motherless children can join us, and make one loving household. My Henriette +adores you; and it were Christian charity to rescue her and her brother from +Charles Stuart’s England, and to bring them up to an honest life in a country +where men are free to worship God as He moves them. Love, you cannot deny me. +So sweet a life waits for us; and you have but to lay that dear hand in mine +and give consent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, God!” she murmured. “I thought this man held me in honour and esteem.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I not honour you? Ah, love, what can a man do more than offer his life to +her he loves——” +</p> + +<p> +“And if he is another woman’s husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“That tie is broken.” +</p> + +<p> +“I deny it. But if it were, you have been my sister’s husband, and you could be +nothing to me but my brother. You have made sisterly affection impossible, and +so, my lord, we must be strangers; and, as you are a gentleman, I bid you open +this door, and let me make my way to some more peaceful shelter than your +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Angela!” +</p> + +<p> +He tried to draw her to his breast; but she held him off with outstretched arm, +and even in the tumult of his passion the knowledge of her helplessness and his +natural shame at his own treachery kept him in check. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela, call me villain if you will, but give me a fair hearing. Dearest, the +joy or sorrow of two lives lies in your choice to-night. If you will trust me, +and go with me, I swear I will make you happy. If you are stubborn to +refuse—well, sweetheart, you will but send a man to the devil who is not wholly +bad, and who, with you for his guardian angel, might find the way to heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +“And begin the journey by a sin these lips dare not name. Oh, Fareham,” she +said, growing suddenly calm and grave, and with something of that tender +maternal manner with which she had soothed and controlled him while he had but +half his wits, and when she feared he might be lying on his death-bed, “I would +rather believe you a madman than a villain; and, indeed, all that you have done +to-night is the work of a madman, who follows his own wild fancy without power +to reason on what he does. Surely, sir, you know me too well to believe that I +would let love—were it the blindest, most absorbing passion woman ever +felt—lead me into sin so base as that you would urge. The vilest wanton at +Whitehall would shrink from stealing a sister’s husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“There would be no theft. Your sister flings me to you as a dog drops the bone +he has picked dry. She had me when I was young, and a soldier—with some +reflected glory about me from the hero I followed—and rich and happy. She +leaves me old and haggard, without aim or hope, save to win her I worship. +Shall I tell you when I began to love you, my angel?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I will listen to no more raving. Thank God, there is the daylight!” as +the cold wan dawn flickered across the room. “Will you let me beat my hands +against this door till they bleed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou shalt not harm the loveliest hands on earth,” seizing them both in his +own. “Ah, sweet, I began to love thee before ever I rose from that bed of +horror where I had been left to perish. I loved thee in my unreason, and my +love strengthened with each hour of returning sense. Our journey, I so weak, +and sick, and helpless—was a ride through Paradise. I would have had it last a +year; would have suffered sickness and pain, aching limbs and parched lips, +only to feel the light touch of this dear hand upon my brow ’twixt sleep and +waking; only to look up as I awoke, and see those sweet eyes looking down at +me. Ah, dearest, my heart arose from among the dead, and came out of the tomb +of all human affections to greet thee. Till I knew you I knew not the meaning +of love. And if you are stubborn, and will not come with me to that new world, +where we may be so happy, why, then I must go down to my grave a despairing +wretch that never knew a woman’s love.” +</p> + +<p> +“My sister—your wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never loved me. Her heart—that which she calls heart—was ever Malfort’s and +not mine. She gave me to know as much by a hundred signs and tokens which read +plain enough now, looking back, but which I scarce heeded at the time. I +believed her chaste, and she was civil, and I was satisfied. I tell you, +Angela, this heart never beat for woman till I knew you. Ah, love, be not +stone! Make not our affinity an obstacle. The Roman Church will ever grant +dispensation for a union of affinities where there is cause for indulgence. The +Church would have had Philip married to his wife’s sister Elizabeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Church holds the bond of marriage indissoluble,” Angela answered. “You are +married to my sister; and while she lives you can have no other wife.” +</p> + +<p> +Her brow was stern, her courage unfaltering; but physical force was failing +her. She leant against the door for support, and she no longer struggled to +withdraw her hands from that strong grasp which held them. She fought against +the faintness that was stealing over her senses; but her heavy eyelids were +beginning to droop, and there was a sound like rushing water in her ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela—Angela,” pleaded the tender voice, “do you forget that afternoon at the +play, and how you wept over Bellario’s fidelity—the fond girl-page who followed +him she loved; risked name and virtue; counted not the cost, in that large +simplicity of love which gives all it has to give, unquestioning? Remember +Bellario.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bellario had no thought that was not virtue’s,” she answered faintly; and he +took that fainter tone for a yielding will. +</p> + +<p> +“She would not have left Philaster if he had been alone in the wilderness, +miserable for want of her love.” +</p> + +<p> +Her white lips moved dumbly, her eyelids sank, and her head fell back upon his +shoulder, as he started up from his knees to support her sinking figure. She +was in his arms, unconscious—the image of death. +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her on the brow. +</p> + +<p> +“My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness,” he whispered. “Thy free will +shall decide whether I live or die.” +</p> + +<p> +Another sound had mingled with the rushing waters as her senses left her—the +sound of knocking at a distant door. It grew louder and louder momently, +indicating a passionate impatience in those who knocked. The sound came from +the principal door, and there was a long corridor between that door and +Fareham’s room. +</p> + +<p> +He stood listening, undecided; and then he laid the unconscious form gently on +the thick Persian carpet—knowing that for recovery the fainting girl could not +lie too low. He cast one agitated glance at the white face looking up at the +ceiling, and then went quickly to the hall. +</p> + +<p> +As he came near, the knocking began again, with greater vehemence, and a voice, +which he knew for Sir John’s, called— +</p> + +<p> +“Open the door, in the King’s name, or we will break it open!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause; those without evidently waiting for the result of that last +and loudest summons. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling the gravel drive, the +jingle of bit and chain, and the click of steel scabbards. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John had not come alone. +</p> + +<p> +“So soon; so devilish soon!” muttered Fareham. And then, as the knocking was +renewed, he turned and left the hall without a word of answer to those outside, +and hastened back to the room where he had left Angela. His brow was fixed in a +resolute frown, every nerve was braced. He had made up his mind what to do. He +had the house to himself, and was thus master of the situation, so long as he +could keep his pursuers on the outside. The upper servants—half a dozen +coach-loads—had been packed off to London, under convoy of Manningtree and Mrs. +Hubbock. The under servants—rank and file—from housemaids to turnspits, slept +in a huge barrack adjoining the stables, built in Elizabeth’s reign to +accommodate the lower grade of a nobleman’s household. These would not come +into the house to light fires and sweep rooms till six o’clock at the earliest; +and it was not yet four. Lord Fareham, therefore, had to fear no interruption +from his own people. +</p> + +<p> +There was broad daylight in the house now; yet he looked about for a candle; +found one on a side-table, in a tall silver candlestick, and stopped to light +it, before he raised the lifeless figure from the floor and lifted it into the +easiest position for carrying, the head lying on his shoulder. Then, holding +the slender waist firmly, circled by his left arm, he took the candlestick in +his right hand, and went out of the room with his burden, along a passage +leading to a seldom-used staircase, which he ascended, carrying that tall, slim +form as if it had been a feather-weight, up flight after flight, to the +muniment room in the roof. From that point his journey, and the management of +that unconscious form, and to dispose safely of the lighted candle, became more +difficult, and occupied a considerable time; during which interval the +impatience of an enraged father and a betrothed husband, outside the hall door, +increased with every minute of delay, and one of their mounted followers, of +whom they had several, was despatched to ride at a hand-gallop to the village +of Chilton, and rouse the Constable, while another was sent to Oxford for a +Magistrate’s warrant to arrest Lord Fareham on the charge of abduction. And +meanwhile the battering upon thick oaken panels with stout riding-whips, and +heavy sword-hilts, and the calling upon those within, were repeated with +unabated vehemence, while a couple of horsemen rode round the house to examine +other inlets, and do picket duty. +</p> + +<p> +The Constable and his underling were on the ground before that stubborn citadel +answered the reiterated summons; but at last there came the sound of bolts +withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a clang that echoed long +and loud in the empty hall, the door opened, and Fareham appeared on the +threshold, corpse-like in the cold raw daylight, facing his besiegers with a +determined insolence. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou most infernal villain!” cried Sir John, rushing into the hall, followed +closely by Denzil and one of the men, “what have you done with my daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Which daughter does your honour seek? If it be she whom you gave me for a +wife, she has broken the bond, and is across the sea with her paramour?” +</p> + +<p> +“You lie—reprobate! Your wife had doubtless business relating to her French +estate, which called her to Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by +your villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your sister by affinity, +should bear a blighted name. Give me back my daughter, villain—the girl you +lured from her home by the foulest deceit!” +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot see the lady to-day, gentlemen; even though you threaten me with +your weapons,” pointing with a sardonic smile to their drawn swords, “and +out-number me with your followers. The lady is gone. I am alone in the house to +submit to any affront your superior force may put upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our superiority can at least search your house,” said Denzil. “Sir John, you +had best take one way and I another. I doubt I know every room and passage in +the Abbey.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your yeoman’s manners offer a handsome return for the hospitality which +made you acquainted with my house,” said Fareham, with a contemptuous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +He followed Denzil, leaving Sir John to grope alone. The house had been +deserted but for a few days, yet the corridors and rooms had the heavy +atmosphere of places long shut from sunshine and summer breezes; while the +chilling hour, the grey ghostly light, added something phantasmal and unnatural +to the scene. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil entered room after room—below stairs and above—explored the +picture-gallery, the bed-chambers, the long low ball-room in the roof, built in +Elizabeth’s reign, when a wing had been added to the Abbey, and of late used +only for lumber. Fareham followed him close, stalking behind him in sullen +silence, with an unalterable gloom upon his face which betrayed no sudden +apprehensions, no triumph or defeat. He followed like doom, stood quietly on +one side as Denzil opened a door; waited on the threshold while the searcher +made his inspection, always with the same iron visage, offering no opposition +to the entrance of this or that chamber; only following and watching, silent, +intent, sphinx-like; till at last, fairly worn out by blank disappointment, +Denzil turned upon him in a sudden fury. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with her?” he cried, desperately. “I will stake my life she +has not left this house, and by Him who made us you shall not leave it living +unless I find her.” +</p> + +<p> +He glanced downward at the naked sword he had carried throughout his search. +Fareham’s was in the scabbard, and he answered that glance with an insulting +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You think I have murdered her, perhaps,” he said. “Well, I would rather see +her dead than yours. So far I am in capacity a murderer.” +</p> + +<p> +They met Sir John in Lady Fareham’s drawing-room, when Denzil had gone over the +whole house, trusting nothing to the father’s scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +“He has stabbed her and dropped her murdered body down a well,” cried the +Knight, half distraught. “He cannot have spirited her away otherwise. Look at +him, Denzil; look at that haggard wretch I have called my son. He has the +assassin’s aspect.” +</p> + +<p> +Something—it might be the room in which they were standing—brought back to +Angela’s betrothed the memory of that Christmas night when aunt and niece had +been missing, and when he, Denzil, had burst into this room, where Fareham was +seated at chess; who, at the first mention of Angela’s name, started up, white +with horror, to join in the search. It was he who found her then; it was he who +had hidden her now; and in the same remote and secret spot. +</p> + +<p> +“Fool that I was not to remember sooner!” cried Denzil. “I know where to find +her. Follow me, Sir John. Andrew”—calling to the servant who waited in the +hall—“follow us close.” +</p> + +<p> +He rushed along a passage, ran upstairs faster than old age, were it ever so +eager, could follow. But Fareham was nearly as fast—nearly, but not quite, able +to overtake him; for he was older, heavier, and more broken by the fever of +that night’s work than his colder-tempered rival. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil was some paces in advance when he reached the muniment room. He found +the opening in the wainscot, and the steep stair built into the chimney. Half +way to the bottom there was a gap—an integral part of the plan—and a drop of +six feet; so that a stranger in hurried pursuit would be likely to come to +grief at this point, and make time for his quarry to escape by the door that +opened on the garden. Memory, or wits sharpened by anxiety, enabled Denzil to +avoid this trap; and he was at the door of the Priest’s Hole before Fareham +began the descent. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, she was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle burning dimly on a stone +shelf above her head. She was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, her +face hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and saw her betrothed +husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Denzil! How did you find me here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be a poor slave if I had not found you, remembering the past. Great +God, how pale you are! Come, love, you are safe. Your father is here. Angela, +thou that art so soon to be my wife—face to face—here—before we leave this +accursed pit—tell me that you did not go with that villain, except for the sake +of your sick sister—that you were the victim of a heartless lie—not a party to +a trick invented to blind your father and me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt I have not all my senses yet,” she said, putting her hand to her head. +“I was told my sister wanted me, and I came. Where is Lord Fareham?” +</p> + +<p> +The terror in her countenance as she asked that question froze Denzil. Ah, he +had known it all along! That was the man she loved. Was she his victim—and a +willing victim? He felt as if a great gulf had opened between him and his +betrothed, and that all his hopes had withered. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham was at his elbow in the next moment. “Well, you have found her,” he +said; “but you shall not have her, save by force of arms. She is in my custody, +and I will keep her; or die for her if I am outnumbered!” +</p> + +<p> +“Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain her by violence? Come, madam,” +said Denzil, turning coldly to Angela, “there is a door on those stairs which +will let you out into the air. +</p> + +<p> +“The door will not open at your bidding!” Fareham said fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +He snatched Angela up in his arms before the other could prevent him, and +carried her triumphantly to the first landing-place, which was considerably +below that treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the key of the +garden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and was in the open air with his burden +before Denzil could overtake him. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself caught in a trap. He had his coach-and-six and armed +postillions waiting close by, and thought he had but to leap into it with his +prey and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach and the door one +of Sir John’s pickets was standing, who the moment the door opened whistled his +loudest, and brought Constable and man and another armed servant running +helter-skelter round an angle of the house, and so crossing the very path to +the coach. +</p> + +<p> +“Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!” cried Denzil. +</p> + +<p> +“What! And shoot the lady you have professed to love!” exclaimed Fareham, +drawing himself up, and standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless in his +arms. +</p> + +<p> +He dropped her to her feet, but held her against his left shoulder with an iron +hold, while he drew his sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzil sprang into +his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed with a shrill clash and +rattle of steel. They fought like demons, Fareham holding Angela behind him, +sheltering her with his body, and swaying from side to side in his sword-play +with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, his thick dark brows knitted over +eyes that flamed with a fiercer fire than flashed from steel meeting steel. A +shriek of horror from Angela marked the climax, as Denzil fell with Fareham’s +sword between his ribs. There had been little of dilettante science, or +graceful play of wrist in this encounter. The men had rushed at each other +savagely, like beasts in a circus, and whatever of science had guided Fareham’s +more practised hand had been employed automatically. The spirit of the +combatants was wild and fierce as the rage that moves rival stags fighting for +a mate, with bent heads and tramping hoofs, and clash of locked antlers +reverberating through the forest stillness. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham had no time to exult over his prostrate foe; Sir John and his servants, +Constable and underlings, surrounded him, and he was handcuffed and hauled off +to the coach that was to have carried him to a sinner’s paradise, before any +one had looked to Denzil’s wound, or discovered whether that violent thrust +below the right lung had been fatal. Angela sank swooning in her father’s arms. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br/> +IN THE COURT OF KING’S BENCH.</h2> + +<p> +The summer and autumn had gone by—an eventful season, for with it had vanished +from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified and serious a part +there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and in exile. The Nestor and +the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from the scene. Down those stairs by +which he had descended on his way to so many a splendid festival, himself a +statelier figure than Kings or Princes, the Chancellor had gone to banishment +and oblivion. “The lady” had looked for the last time, a laughing Jezebel, from +a palace window, exultant at her enemy’s fall; and along the river that had +carried such tragic destinies eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl +of Clarendon, had drifted quietly out of the history he had helped to make. The +ballast of that grave intellect was flung overboard so that the ship of fools +might drift the faster. +</p> + +<p> +But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, nobody thought of +Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to obliterate all +considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who were learning their +trade by listening to their betters, had been shivering on their benches in the +Common Pleas since nine o’clock, in that chilly corner where every blast from +the north or north-east swept over the low wooden partition that enclosed the +court, or cut through the chinks in the panelling. The students and juniors +were in their usual places, sitting at the feet of their favourite Common-law +Judge; but the idlers who came for amusement, to saunter about the hall, haggle +for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or flirt with the +milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal finery on the opposite +side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the +quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate—these to-day +gravitated with one accord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in +the Court of King’s Bench, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fareham, Hants, was +to be tried by a Buckinghamshire jury for abduction, with fraud, malice, and +violence, and for assault, with intent to murder. +</p> + +<p> +The rank of the offender being high, and the indictment known to involve tragic +details of family history, there had been much talk of the cause which was on +the paper for to-day; and, as a natural consequence, besides the habitual +loungers and saunterers, gossips, and book-buyers, there was a considerable +sprinkling of persons of quality, who perfumed the not too agreeable atmosphere +with pulvilio and Florentine iris powder, and the rustle of whose silks and +brocades was audible all over the Hall. Not often did such gowns sweep the dust +brought in by plebeian feet, nor such Venetian point collars rub shoulders with +the frowsy Norwich drugget worn by hireling perjurers or starveling clerks. The +modish world had come down upon the great Norman Hall like a flock of pigeons, +sleek, iridescent, all fuss and flutter; and among these unaccustomed visitors +there was prodigious impatience for the trial to begin, and a struggle for good +places that brought into full play the primitive brutality which underlies the +politeness of the civillest people. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in her anxiety to secure a good +place, had come out in her last night’s “head,” which somewhat damaged edifice +of ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now visible above the wooden +partition of the King’s Bench to the eyes of the commonalty in the hall below, +her ladyship being accommodated with a seat among the lawyers. +</p> + +<p> +One of these was a young man in a shabby gown and rumpled wig, but with a fair +complexion and tolerable features—a stranger to that court, and better known at +Hicks’s Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he had already a certain +repute for keen wits and a plausible tongue—about the youngest advocate at the +English Bar, and by some people said to be no barrister at all, but to have put +on wig and gown two years ago at Kingston Assizes and called himself to the +Bar, and stayed there by sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by +name, having deserted the city and possible briefs in order to hear the Fareham +trial, was inclined to resent being ousted by an obsequious official to make +room for Lady Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, one would suppose I was her ladyship’s footman and had been keeping her +seat for her,” he grumbled, as he reluctantly rose at the Usher’s whispered +request, and edged himself sulkily off to a corner where he found just +standing-room. +</p> + +<p> +It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had vacated, and her ladyship, after +sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to +feel internal sinkings and flutterings which presaged what she called a +“swound,” and necessitated recourse to a crystal flask of strong waters which +she had prudently brought in her muff. Other of Lady Fareham’s particular +friends were expected—Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the +same kidney; and even the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest +in the case. +</p> + +<p> +“The man was mistaken in his métier,” he had told Lady Sarah, when the scandal +was discussed in her drawing-room. “The <i>rôle</i> of seducer was not within +his means. Any one could see he was in love with the pale sister-in-law by the +manner in which he scowled at her; but it is not every woman who can be +subjugated by gloom and sullenness, though some of ’em like us tragical. My +method has been to laugh away resistance, as my wife will acknowledge, who was +the cruellest she I ever tackled, and had baffled all her other servants. +Indeed she must have been in Butler’s eye when he wrote— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘That old Pyg—what d’ye call him—malion<br/> +That cut his mistress out of stone,<br/> +Had not so hard a hearted one.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without heroics,” upon which her +ladyship, late mistress Mallett, a beauty and a fortune, smiled assent with all +the complacency of a six-months’ bride. “To see a man tried for an attempted +abduction is a sight worth a year’s income,” pursued Rochester. “I would travel +a hundred miles to behold that rare monster who has failed in his pursuit of +one of your obliging sex!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think us all so easily won?” asked Lady Sarah, piqued. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you have still +been kind to me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Muscadine before Masaroon elbowed +his way to a seat beside her, from which he audaciously dislodged a +coffee-house acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom fortune had not smiled, +with a condescending civility that was more uncivil than absolute rudeness. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll share a bottle in Hell after the trial, mon ami,” he said; and on seeing +Lady Sarah’s look of horror, he hastened to explain that Heaven, Hell, and +Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which drove a roaring trade in +strong drinks under the very roof of the Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“The King’s Attorney-general is prosecuting,” answered Sir Ralph, replying to a +question from Lady Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that dense ignorance of +legal technicalities common even to accomplished women. “It is thought the +lady’s father would have been glad for the matter to be quashed, his fugitive +daughter being restored to his custody—albeit with a damaged character—and her +elder sister having run away from her husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not hear you slander my dearest friend,” protested Lady Sarah. “Lady +Fareham left her husband, and with good cause, as his after-conduct showed. She +did not run away from him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, she had doubtless the assistance of a carriage-and-six. She would scarce +foot it from London to Dover. And now she is leading grand train in Paris, and +has taken almost as commanding a place as her friend Madame de Longueville, +penitent and retired from service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is a remarkably clever +woman,” said Lady Sarah, sententiously; “but, pray, Sir Ralph, if Mistress +Angela’s father has good reason for not prosecuting his daughter’s lover—indeed +I ever thought her an underhand hussy—why does not Sir Denzil Warner—who I hear +has been at death’s door—pursue him for assault and battery?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet out of danger. The gentleman +is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently refused to swear an +information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case will fall through, or his +lordship get off with a fine of a thousand or two. We have no longer the +blessing of a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out of sinners’ pockets, and +mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty’s Judges have a capacious stomach +for fines, and his Majesty has no objection to see his subjects’ misdemeanours +transmuted into coin.” +</p> + +<p> +And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being by this +time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought into court. +</p> + +<p> +He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years older than +when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife’s visiting day, an uninterested +member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper sunken under the strongly +marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his thick black hair were more +conspicuous. He carried his head higher than he had been accustomed to carry +it, and the broad shoulders were no longer bent in the Strafford stoop. The +spectators could see that he had braced himself for the ordeal, and would go +through the day’s work like a man of iron. +</p> + +<p> +Proclamation was made for silence, and for information, if any person could +give any, concerning the misdemeanour and offence whereof the defendant stood +impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his challenges, and the Jury, +being gentlemen of the county of Bucks, were called, challenged, and sworn. +</p> + +<p> +The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there followed a hush within the +enclosure of the court; but there was no cessation of the buzz of voices and +the tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled sounds seemed like the rise +and fall of a human ocean, as heard within that panelled sanctuary. +</p> + +<p> +The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged each other and +whispered now and then, during the reading of the indictment; but among Lady +Fareham’s friends, and the quality in general, there was a breathless silence +and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly have run her hat-pin into a snuffy +old Serjeant close beside her, who must needs talk behind his hand to his pert +junior. +</p> + +<p> +To her ladyship’s unaccustomed ears that indictment, translated literally from +the Latin original, sounded terrible as an impeachment in the subterranean +halls of the Vehm Gericht, or in the most select and secret council in the +Venetian Doge’s Palace. +</p> + +<p> +The indictment set forth “that the defendant, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, on +the 4th day of July, in the 18th year of our sovereign lord the King that now +is, at the parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucks, falsely, +unlawfully, unjustly, and wickedly, by unlawful and impure ways and means, +contriving, practising, and intending the final ruin and destruction of Mrs. +Angela Kirkland, unmarried, and one of the daughters of Sir John Kirkland, +Knight—the said lady then and there being under the custody, government, and +education of the said Sir John Kirkland, her father—he, the said Richard Revel, +Baron Fareham, then and there falsely, unlawfully, devilishly, to fulfil, +perfect, and bring to effect, his most wicked, impious, and devilish intentions +aforesaid—the said Richard Revel, Lord Fareham (then and long before, and yet, +being the husband of Mrs. Hyacinth, another daughter of the said Sir John +Kirkland, Knight, and sister of the said Mrs. Angela), against all laws as well +divine as human, impiously, wickedly, impurely, and scandalously, did tempt, +invite, and solicit, and by false and lying pretences, oaths, and affirmations, +unlawfully, unjustly, and without the leave, and against the will of the +aforesaid Sir John Kirkland, Knight, in prosecution of his most wicked intent +aforesaid, did carry off the aforesaid Mrs. Angela, she consenting in ignorance +of his real purpose, about the hour of twelve in the night-time of the said 4th +day of July, in the year aforesaid, and at the aforesaid, parish of St. +Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucks aforesaid, out of the +dwelling-house of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, did take and convey to +his own house in the county of Oxford, and did then and there detain her by +fraud, and did there keep her hidden in a secret chamber known as the Priest’s +Hole in his own house aforesaid, at the hazard of her life, and did oppose her +rescue by force of arms, and with his sword, unlawfully, murderously, and +devilishly, and in the prosecution of his wicked purpose did stab and wound Sir +Denzil Warner, Baronet, the lady’s betrothed husband, from which murderous +assault the said Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, still lies in great sickness and +danger of death, to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the ruin and +destruction of the said Mrs. Angela Kirkland, to the grief and sorrow of all +her friends, and to the evil and most pernicious example of all others in the +like case offending; and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the King, +his crown and dignity.” +</p> + +<p> +The defendant having pleaded “Not guilty,” the Jury were charged in the usual +manner and with all solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +“If you find him ‘guilty’ you are to say so; if you find him ‘not guilty’ you +are to say so, and no more, and hear your evidence.” +</p> + +<p> +The Attorney-General confined himself to a brief out-line of the tragic story, +leaving all details to be developed by the witnesses, who were allowed to give +their evidence with colloquial freedom and expansiveness. +</p> + +<p> +The first witness was old Reuben, the steward from the Manor Moat, who had not +yet emerged from that mental maze in which he had found himself upon beholding +the change that had come to pass in the great city, since the well-remembered +winter of the King’s execution, and the long frost, when he, Reuben, was last +in London. His evidence was confused and confusing; and he drew upon himself +much good-natured ridicule from the junior who opened the case. Out of various +muddle-headed answers and contradictory statements the facts of Lord Fareham’s +unexpected appearance at the Manor Moat, his account of his lady’s illness, and +his hurried departure, carrying the young madam with him on horseback, were +elicited, and the story of the ruse by which Mrs. Angela Kirkland had been +beguiled from her home was made clear to the comprehension of a superior but +rustic jury, more skilled in discriminating the points of a horse, the +qualities of an ox, or the capacity of a hound, than in differentiating truth +and falsehood in a story of wrong-doing. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John Kirkland was the next witness, and the aspect of the man, the noble +grey head, fine features, and soldierly carriage, the old-fashioned habit, the +fashion of an age not long past, but almost forgotten, enlisted the regard and +compassion of Jury and audience. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me perish if it is not a ghost from the civil wars!” whispered Sir Ralph +to Lady Sarah. “Mrs. Angela might well be romanesque and unlike the rest of us, +with such a father.” +</p> + +<p> +A spasm of pain convulsed Fareham’s face for a moment, as the old Cavalier +stood up in the witness-box, towering above the Court in that elevated +position, and, after being sworn, took one swift survey of the Bench and Jury, +and then fixed his angry gaze upon the defendant, and scarcely shifted it in +the whole course of his examination. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Gentlemen of the Jury,” said the Attorney-General, “we shall tell you +what happened at Chilton Abbey, to which place the defendant, under such +fraudulent and lying pretences as you have heard of from the last witness, +conveyed the young lady. Sir John, I will ask you to acquaint the Jury as fully +and straightforwardly as you can with the circumstances of your pursuit, and +the defendant’s reception of you and your intended son-in-law, Sir Denzil +Warner, whose deposition we have failed to obtain, but who could relate no +facts which are not equally within your own knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +“My words shall be straight and plain, sir, to denounce that unchristian wretch +whom, until this miserable business, I trusted as if he had been my son. I came +to my house, accompanied by my daughter’s plighted husband, within an hour +after that villain conveyed her away; and on hearing my old servant’s story was +quick to suspect treachery. Nor was Sir Denzil backward in his fears, which +were more instantaneous than mine; and we waited only for the saddling of fresh +horses, and rousing a couple of grooms from their beds, fellows that I could +trust for prudence and courage, before we mounted again, following in that +wretch’s track. We heard of him and his victim at the Inn where they changed +horses, she going consentingly, believing she was being taken in this haste to +attend a dying sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“And on arriving at the defendant’s house what was your reception?” +</p> + +<p> +“He opposed our entrance, until he saw that we should batter down his door if +he shut us out longer. We were not admitted until after I had sent one of my +servants for the nearest Constable; and before we had gained an entrance into +his house he had contrived to put away my daughter in a wretched hiding-place, +planned for the concealment of Romish Priests or other recusants and +malefactors, and would have kept her there, I believe, till she had perished in +that foul cavern, rather than restore her to her father and natural guardian.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is false, and you know it!” cried Fareham. “My life is of less account to +me than a hair of her head. I hid her from you, to save her from your tyranny, +and the hateful marriage to which you would have compelled her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Liar! Impudent, barbarous liar!” roared the old Knight, with his right arm +raised, and his body half out of the box, as if he would have assaulted the +defendant. “Sir John,” said the Judge, “I would be very loath to deal otherwise +than becomes me with a person of your quality; but, indeed, this is not so +handsome, and we must desire you to be calm.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I remember his infamy, and that vile assumption of my daughter’s passion +for him, which he showed in every word and act of that miserable scene.” +</p> + +<p> +He went on to relate the searching of the house, and Warner’s happy +inspiration, by which Angela’s hiding-place was discovered, and she rescued in +a fainting condition. He described the defendant’s audacious attempt to convey +her to the coach which stood ready for her abduction, and his violence in +opposing her rescue, and the fight which had well-nigh resulted in Warner’s +death. +</p> + +<p> +When Sir John’s story was finished the defendant’s advocate, who had declined +to question the old butler, rose to cross-examine this more important witness. +</p> + +<p> +“In your tracing of the defendant’s journey between your house and Chilton you +heard of no outcries of resistance upon your daughter’s side?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. She went willingly, under a delusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you think now, sir, as a man of the world, and with some knowledge of +women, that your daughter was so easily hoodwinked; she having seen her sister, +Lady Fareham, so shortly before, in good health and spirits?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Fareham did not appear in good health when she was last at the Manor, and +her sister was already uneasy about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not so uneasy as to believe her dying, and that it was needful to ride to +her helter-skelter in the night-time. Do you not think, sir, that the young +lady, who was so quick to comply with his lordship’s summons, and bustled up +and was in the saddle ten minutes after he entered the house, and was willing +to got without her own woman, or any preparation for travel, had a strong +inclination for the journey, and a great kindness for the gentleman who +solicited her company?” +</p> + +<p> +“Has that barbarous wretch set you on to slander the lady whose ruin he sought, +sir?” asked the Knight, pallid with the white heat of indignation. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Sir John, I am no slanderer; but I want the Jury to understand the +sentiments and passions which are the springs of action here, and to bear in +mind that the case they are hearing is a love story, and they can only come at +the truth by remembering their own experience as lovers—” +</p> + +<p> +The deep and angry tones of his client interrupted the silvery-tongued +Counsellor. +</p> + +<p> +“If you think to help me, sir, by traducing the lady, I repudiate your +advocacy.” +</p> + +<p> +“My lord, you are not allowed to give evidence or to interrupt the Court. You +have pleaded not guilty, and it is my duty to demonstrate your innocence. Come, +Sir John, do you not know that his lordship’s unhappy passion for his +sister-in-law was shared by the subject of it; and that she for a long time +opposed all your efforts to bring about a proper alliance for her, solely +guided and influenced by this secret passion?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know no such thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I understand, then, that from the time of your first proposals she was +willing to marry Sir Denzil Warner?” +</p> + +<p> +“She was not willing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would have wagered as much. Did you fathom her reason for declining so +proper an alliance?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not trouble myself about her reasons. I knew that time would wear them +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I doubt you trusted to a father’s authority?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. I promised my daughter that I would not force her inclinations.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you used all methods of persuasion. How long was it before July the 4th +that Mrs. Angela consented to marry Sir Denzil?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot be over precise upon that point. I have no record of the date.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have the faculty of memory, sir; and this is a point which a father +would not easily forget.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may have been a fortnight before.” +</p> + +<p> +“And until that time the lady was unwilling?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“She refused positively to accept the match you urged upon her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She refused.” +</p> + +<p> +“And finally consented, I will wager, with marked reluctance?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, there was no reluctance. She came to me of her own accord, and +surprised me by her submission.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will do, Sir John. You can stand down. I shall now proceed to call a +witness who will convince the Jury of my client’s innocence upon the first and +chief count in the indictment, abduction with fraud and violence. I shall tell +you by the lips of my witness, that if he took the lady away from her home, she +being of full age, she went freely consenting, and with knowledge of his +purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lies—foul lies!” cried the old Cavalier, almost strangled with passion. +</p> + +<p> +He plucked at the knot of his cravat, trying to loosen it, feeling himself +threatened with apoplexy. +</p> + +<p> +“Call Mistress Angela Kirkland,” said the Serjeant, in strong steady tones that +contrasted with the indignant father’s hoarse and gasping utterance. +</p> + +<p> +“S’life! the business becomes every moment more interesting,” whispered Lady +Sarah. “Will he make that sly slut own her misconduct in open court?” +</p> + +<p> +“If she blush at her slip from virtue, it will be a new sensation in a London +law-court to see the colour of shame,” replied Sir Ralph, behind his perfumed +glove; “but I warrant she’ll carry matters with a high hand, and feel herself +every inch a heroine.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela came into the court attended by her waiting-woman, who remained near the +entrance, amid the close-packed crowd of lawyers and onlookers, while her +mistress quietly followed the official who conducted her to the witness-box. +</p> + +<p> +She was dressed in black, and her countenance under her neat black hood looked +scarcely less white than her lawn neckerchief; but she stood erect and +unfaltering in that conspicuous station, and met the eyes of her interrogator +with an untroubled gaze. When her lips had touched the dirty little book, +greasy with the kisses of innumerable perjurers, the Serjeant began to question +her in a tone of odious familiarity. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my dear young lady, here is a gentleman’s liberty, and perhaps his life, +hanging on the breath of those pretty lips; so I want you to answer a few plain +questions with as plain speech as you can command, remembering that you are to +tell us the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Come, now, +dear miss, when you left your father’s house on the night of July 4, in this +present year, in Lord Fareham’s company, did you go with him of your own free +will, and with a knowledge of his purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew that he loved me.” +</p> + +<p> +A heart-breaking groan from Sir John Kirkland was hushed down by an usher of +the court. +</p> + +<p> +“You knew that he loved you, and that he designed to carry you beyond seas?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you were willing to leave your father’s custody and go with the defendant +as his paramour?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause, and the white cheek crimsoned, and the heavy eyelids fell +over agonised eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I went willingly—because I loved him;” and then with a sudden burst of +passion, “I would have died for him, or lived for him. It mattered not which.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she has lied for him—has sworn to a lie—and that to her own dishonour!” +cried Sir John, beside himself; whereupon he was sternly bidden to keep +silence. +</p> + +<p> +There was no intention that this little Buckinghamshire gentleman should be +indulged, to the injury of a person of Lord Fareham’s wealth and consequence. +The favour of the Bench obviously leant towards the defendant. +</p> + +<p> +Fareham’s deep tones startled the audience. +</p> + +<p> +“In truth, your Honour, the young lady has belied herself in order to help me,” +he said. “I cannot accept acquittal at the cost of her good name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your lordship has pleaded not guilty.” +</p> + +<p> +“And his lordship’s chivalry would revoke that plea,” cried the Counsel; “this +is most irregular. I must beg that the Bench do order the defendant to keep +silence. The witness can stand down.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela descended from the witness-box falteringly, and would perhaps have +fallen but for her father’s strong grasp, which clutched her arm as she reached +the last step. +</p> + +<p> +He dragged her out of the close-packed court, and into the open Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanton!” he hissed in her ear, “shameless wanton!” +</p> + +<p> +She answered nothing; but stood where he held her, with wild eyes looking out +of a white, rigid countenance. She had done what she had come there to do. +Persuaded by Fareham’s attorney, who had waited upon her at her lodgings when +Sir John was out of the way, she had made her ill-considered attempt to save +the man she loved, ignorant of the extent of his danger, exaggerating the +potential severity of his punishment, in the illimitable fear of a woman for +the safety of the being she loves. And now she cared nothing what became of +her, cared little even for her father’s anger or distress. There was always the +Convent, last refuge of sin or sorrow, which meant the annihilation of the +individual, and where the world’s praise or blame had no influence. +</p> + +<p> +Her woman fussed about her with a bottle of strong essence, and Sir John +dragged rather than led her along the Hall, to the great door where the coach +that had carried her from his London lodgings was in waiting. He saw her +seated, with her woman beside her, supporting her, gave the coachman his +orders, and then went hastily back to the Court of King’s Bench. +</p> + +<p> +The Court was rising; the Jury, without leaving their seats, had pronounced the +defendant guilty of a misdemeanour, not in conveying Sir John Kirkland’s +daughter away from her home, to which act she had avowed herself a consenting +party; but in detaining her in his house with violence, and in opposition to +her father and proper guardian. The Lord Chief Justice expressed his +satisfaction at this verdict, and after expatiating with pious horror upon the +evil consequences of an ungovernable passion, a guilty, soul-destroying love, a +direct inspiration of Satan, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of ten +thousand pounds, upon the payment of which sum he would be set at liberty. +</p> + +<p> +The old Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the sentence, which seemed to him +of all punishments the most futile. He had hoped to see his son-in-law sent to +the Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought that he would escape +the gallows; and for sole penalty the seducer was sentenced to forfeit less +than a year’s income. How corrupt and venal was a bench that made the law of +the land a nullity when a great personage was the law-breaker! +</p> + +<p> +He flung himself in the defendant’s way as he left the court, and struck him +across the breast with the flat of his sword. +</p> + +<p> +“An unarmed man, Sir John! Is that your old-world chivalry?” Fareham asked, +quietly. +</p> + +<p> +A crowd was round them and swords were drawn before the officer could +interfere. There were friends of Fareham’s in the court, and two of his +gentlemen; and Sir John, who was alone, might have been seriously hurt before +the authorities could put down the tumult, had not his son-in-law protected +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sheath your swords, if you love me!” he exclaimed, flinging himself in front +of Sir John. “I would not have the slightest violence offered to this +gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I would kill you if I had the chance!” cried Sir John; “that is the +difference between us. I keep no measures with the man who ruined my daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your daughter is as spotless a saint as the day she left her Convent, and you +are a blatant old fool to traduce her,” said Fareham, exasperated, as the Usher +led him away. +</p> + +<p> +His detention was no more than a formality; and as he had been previously +allowed his liberty upon bail, he was now permitted to return to his own house, +where by an order upon his banker he paid the fine, and was henceforward a free +man. +</p> + +<p> +The first use he made of his freedom was to rush to Sir John’s lodgings, only +to hear that the Cavalier, with his daughter and two servants, had left half an +hour earlier in a coach-and-four for Buckinghamshire. The people at the +lodgings did not know which road they had taken, or at what Inn they were to +lie on the way. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there will be a better chance of seeing her at the Manor than in +London,” Fareham thought; “he cannot keep so close a watch upon her there as in +the narrow space of town lodgings.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br/> +BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE.</h2> + +<p> +It was December, and the fields and pastures were white in the tardy dawn with +the frosty mists of early winter, and Sir John Kirkland was busy making his +preparations for leaving Buckinghamshire and England with his daughter. He had +come from Spain at the beginning of the year, hoping to spend the remnant of +his days in the home of his forefathers, and to lay his old bones in the family +vault; but the place was poisoned to him for evermore, he told Angela. He could +not stay where he and his had been held in highest honour, to have his daughter +pointed at by every grinning lout in hob-nailed shoes, and scorned by the +neighbouring quality. He only waited till Denzil Warner should be pronounced +out of danger and on the high-road to recovery, before he crossed the Channel. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no occasion you should leave Buckinghamshire, sir,” Angela argued. +“It is the dearest wish of my heart to return to the Convent at Louvain, and +finish my life there, sheltered from the world’s contempt.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, having failed to get your fancy, you would dedicate yourself to God?” he +cried. “No, madam. I am still your father, though you have disgraced me; and I +require a daughter’s duty from you. Oh, child, I so loved you, was so proud of +you! It is a bitter physic you have given me to drink.” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands shrunken with age. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do whatever you desire, sir. I wish no higher privilege than to wait +upon you; but when you weary of me there is ever the Convent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave that for your libertine sister. Be sure she will finish a loose life by +a conspicuous piety. She will turn saint like Madame de Longueville. Sinners +are the stuff of which modern saints are made. And women love extremes—to pass +from silk and luxury to four-o’clock matins, and the Carmelite’s woollen habit. +No, Angela, there must be no Convent for you, while I live. Your penance must +be to suffer the company of a petulant, disappointed old man.” +</p> + +<p> +“No penance, sir, but peace and contentment; so I am but forgiven.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are forgiven. There is that about you with which one cannot long be +angry—a creature so gentle and submissive, a reed that bends under a blow. Let +us not think of the past. You were a fool—but not a wanton. No, I will never +believe that! A generous, headstrong fool, ready with thine own perjured lips +to blacken thy character in order to save the villain who did his best to ruin +thee. But thou art pure,” looking down at her with a severe scrutiny. “There is +no memory of guilt in those eyes. We will go away together, and live peacefully +together, and you shall still be the staff of my failing steps, the light of my +fading eyes, the comfort of my ebbing life. Were I but easy in my mind about +those poor forsaken grandchildren, I could leave England cheerfully enough; but +to know them motherless—with such a father!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, I believe, however greatly Lord Fareham may have erred, he will +not prove a neglectful father,” Angela said, her voice growing low and +tremulous as she pronounced that fatal name. +</p> + +<p> +“You will vouch for him, no doubt. A licentious villain, but an admirable +father! No, child, Nature does not deal in such anomalies. The children are +alone at Chilton with their English gouvernante, and the prim Frenchwoman, who +takes infinite pains to perfect Henriette’s unlikeness to a human child. They +are alone, and their father is hanging about the Court.” +</p> + +<p> +“At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you must be mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, if you have reason to think those dear children neglected, is it not +your duty to protect and care for them? Their poor, mistaken mother has +abandoned them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to play the great lady in Paris, where, when I went in quest of her last +July—while thou wert lying sick here—hoping to bring back a penitent, I was +received with a triumphant insolence, finding her the centre of a circle of +flatterers, a Princess in little, with all the airs and graces and ceremonies +and hauteur of the French Blood-royal. When I charged her with being Malfort’s +mistress, and bade her pack her traps and come home with me, she deafened me +with her angry volubility. I to slander her—I, her father, when there was no +one in Paris, from the Place Royale to the Louvre, more looked up to! But when +I questioned my old friends they answered with enigmatical smiles, and assured +me that they knew nothing against my daughter’s character worse than all the +world was saying about some of the highest ladies in France—Madame, to wit; and +with this cold comfort I must needs be content, and leave her in her splendid +infamy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, be sure she will come back to us. She has been led into wrong-doing by +the artfullest of villains. She will discover the emptiness of her life, and +come back to seek the solace of her children’s love. Let us care for them +meanwhile. They have no other kindred. Think of our sweet Henriette—so rich, so +beautiful, so over-intelligent—growing from child to woman in the care of +servants, who may spoil and pervert her even by their very fondness.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a bad case, I grant; but I can stir no finger where that man is +concerned. I can hold no communication with that scoundrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your lawyer could claim custody of the children for you, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not, Angela, unless there was a criminal neglect of their bodies. The +law takes no account of souls.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela’s greatest anxiety—now that Denzil’s recovery was assured—was for the +welfare of these children whom she fondly loved, and for whom she would have +gladly played a mother’s part. She wrote in secret to her sister, entreating +her to return to England for her children’s sake, and to devote herself to them +in retirement at Chilton, leaving the scandal of her elopement to be forgotten +in the course of blameless years; so that by the time Henriette was old enough +to enter the world her mother would have recovered the esteem of worthy people, +as well as the respect of the mob. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Fareham’s tardy answer was not encouraging. She had no design of returning +to a house in which she had never been properly valued, and she admired that +her sister should talk of scandal, considering that the scandal of her own +intrigue with her brother-in-law had set all England talking, and had been +openly mentioned in the London and Oxford Gazettes. Silence about other +people’s affairs would best become a young miss who had made herself so +notorious. +</p> + +<p> +As for the children, Lady Fareham had no doubt that their father, who had ever +lavished more affection upon them than he bestowed upon his wife, might be +trusted with the care of them, however abominable his conduct might be in other +matters. But in any case her ladyship would not exchange Paris for London, +where she had been slighted and neglected at Court as well as at home. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was a tissue of injustice and egotism; and Angela gave up all hope +of influencing her sister for good; but not the hope of being useful to her +sister’s children. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as the short winter days went by, and the preparations for departure were +making, she grew more and more urgent with her father to obtain the custody of +his grandchildren, and carry them to France with him, where they might be +reared and educated under his own eye. Montpelier was the place of exile he had +chosen, a place renowned alike for its admirable climate and educational +establishments; and where Sir John had spent the previous winter, and had made +friends. +</p> + +<p> +It was to Montpelier the great Chancellor had retired from the splendours of a +princely mansion but just completed—far exceeding his own original intentions +in splendour, as the palaces of new-made men are apt to do—and from a power and +authority second only to that of kings. There the grandfather of future queens +was now residing in modest state, devoting the evening of his life to the +composition of an authentic record of the late rebellion, and of those few +years during which he had been at the head of affairs in England. Sir John +Kirkland, who had never forgotten his own disappointments in the beginning of +his master’s restored fortunes, had a fellow-feeling for “Ned Hyde” in his +fall. +</p> + +<p> +“As a statesman he was next in capacity to Wentworth,” said Sir John, “and yet +a painted favourite and a rabble of shallow wits were strong enough to +undermine him.” +</p> + +<p> +The old Knight confessed that he had ridden out of his way on several occasions +when he was visiting Warner’s sick-bed, in the hope of meeting Henrietta and +George on their ponies, and had more than once been so lucky as to see them. +</p> + +<p> +“The girl grows handsomer, and is as insolent as ever; but she has a sorrowful +look which assures me she misses her mother; though it was indeed of that +wretch, her father, she talked most. She said he had told her he was likely to +go on a foreign embassy. If it is to France he goes, there is an end of +Montpelier. The same country shall not hold him and my daughter while I live to +protect you.” +</p> + +<p> +Angela began to understand that it was his fear, or his hatred of Fareham, +which was taking him out of his native country. No word had been said of her +betrothal since that fatal night. It seemed tacitly understood that all was at +an end between her and Denzil Warner. She herself had been prostrate with a +low, nervous fever during a considerable part of that long period of +apprehension and distress in which Denzil lay almost at the point of death, +nursed by his grief-stricken mother, to whom the very name of his so lately +betrothed wife was hateful. Verily the papistical bride had brought a greater +trouble to that house than even Lady Warner’s prejudiced mind had anticipated. +Kneeling by her son’s bed, exhausted with the passion of long prayers for his +recovery, the mother’s thoughts went back to the day when Angela crossed the +threshold of that house for the first time, so fair, so modest, with a +countenance so innocent in its pensive beauty. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet she was guilty at heart even then,” Lady Warner told herself, in the +long night-watches, after the trial at Westminster Hall, when Angela’s public +confession of an unlawful love had been reported to her by her favourite +Nonconformist Divine, who had been in court throughout the trial, with Lady +Warner’s lawyer, watching the proceedings in the interest of Sit Denzil. Lady +Warner received the news of the verdict and sentence with unspeakable +indignation. +</p> + +<p> +“And my murdered son!” she gasped, “for I know not yet that God will hear my +prayers and raise him up to me again. Is his blood to count for nothing—or his +sufferings—his patient sufferings on that bed? A fine—a paltry fine—a trifle +for a rich man. I would pay thrice as much, though it beggared me, to see him +sent to the Plantations. O Judge and Avenger of Israel! Thou hast scourged us +with pestilence, and punished us with fire; but Thou hast not convinced us of +sin. The world is so sunk in wickedness that murder scarce counts for crime.” +</p> + +<p> +The day of terror was past. Denzil’s convalescence was proceeding slowly, but +without retrograde stages. His youth and temperate habits had helped his +recovery from a wound which in the earlier stages looked fatal. He was now able +to sit up in an armchair, and talk to his visitor, when Sir John rode twenty +miles to see him; but only once did his lips shape the name that had been so +dear, and that occasion was at the end of a visit which Sir John announced as +the last. +</p> + +<p> +“Our goods are packed and ready for shipping,” he said. “My daughter and I will +begin our journey to Montpelier early next week.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his daughter in that sick-room. +</p> + +<p> +“If she should ever talk of me, in the time to come,” Denzil said—speaking very +slowly, in a low voice, as if the effort, mental and physical, were almost +beyond his strength, and holding the hand which Sir John had given him in +saying good-bye—“tell her that I shall ever remember her with a compassionate +affection—ever hold her the dearest and loveliest of women—yes, even if I +should marry, and see the children of some fair and chaste wife growing up +around me. She will ever be the first. And tell her that I know she forswore +herself in the court; and that she was the innocent dupe of that villain—never +his consenting companion. And tell her that I pity her even for that so +misplaced affection which tempted her to swear to a lie. I knew, sir, always, +that she loved him and not me. Yes, from the first. Indeed, sir, it was but too +easy to read that unconscious beginning of unholy love, which grew and +strengthened like some fatal disease. I knew, but nursed the fond hope that I +could win her heart—in spite of him. I fancied that right must prevail over +wrong; but it does not, you see, sir, not always—not——” A faintness came over +him; whereupon his mother, re-entering the room at this moment, ran to him and +restored him with the strong essence that stood handy among the medicine +bottles on the table by his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“You have suffered him to talk too much,” she said, glancing angrily at Sir +John. “And I’ll warrant he has been talking of your daughter—whose name must be +poison to him. God knows ’tis worse than poison to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused——” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from this +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness——” +</p> + +<p> +“This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be plagued any more with me,” +said Sir John, lifting his hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner. +</p> + +<p> +He was gone before she could reply. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The baggage was ready—clothes, books, guns, plate, and linen—all necessaries +for an exile that might last for years, had been packed for the sea voyage; but +the trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggon that was to convey +them to the Tower Wharf, where they were to be shipped in one of the +orange-boats that came at this season from Valencia, laden with that choice and +costly fruit, and returned with a heterogeneous cargo. At Valencia the goods +would be put on board a Mediterranean coasting vessel, and landed at Cette. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John began to waver about his destination after having heard from Henriette +of her father’s possible embassy. Certainly if Fareham were to be employed in +foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a man who was so well known +there, and had spent so much of his life in France. And if Fareham were to be +at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as it was from the capital, +too near his enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“He has proved himself an indomitable villain,” thought the Knight. “And I +could not always keep as close a watch upon my daughter as I have done in the +last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I am for some other country. I +might take her to Florence, and put the Apennines between her and that daring +wretch.” +</p> + +<p> +It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for lingering, after all was +ready for the journey. He may have been much influenced by Angela’s concern +about his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving them alone in +England with only salaried guardians. +</p> + +<p> +“Their father concerns himself very little about them, you see,” he told +Angela, “since he can entertain the project of a foreign embassy, while those +little wretches are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfordshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my life that he is deeply +concerned about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would blacken your sister’s character +to make him a saint.” +</p> + +<p> +The next day was fine and sunny, a temperature as of April, after the morning +frost had melted. There was a late rose or two still lingering in the sheltered +Buckinghamshire valley, though it wanted but a fortnight of Christmas. Angela +and her father were sitting in a parlour that faced the iron gates. Since their +return from London Sir John had seemed uneasy when his daughter was out of his +sight; and she, perceiving his watchfulness and trouble, had been content to +abandon her favourite walks in the lanes and woods and to the “fair hill of +Brill,” whence the view was so lovely and so vast, on one side reaching to the +Welsh mountains, and on another commanding the nearer prospect of “the great +fat common of Ottmoor,” as Aubrey calls it, “which in some winters is like a +sea of waters.” For her father’s comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that +watched her coming in and going out, she had resigned herself to spend long +melancholy hours within doors, reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playing +backgammon—a game she detested worse even than shove-halfpenny, which latter +primitive game they played sometimes on the shovel-board in the hall. Life +could scarcely be sadder than Angela’s life in those grey winter days; and had +it not been for an occasional ride across country with her father, health and +spirits must alike have succumbed to this monotony of sadness. +</p> + +<p> +This morning, as on many mornings of late, the subject of the boy and girl at +Chilton had been discussed with the Knight’s tankard of home-brewed and his +daughter’s chocolate. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir, it would be a cruel thing for us to abandon them. At Montpelier +we shall be a fortnight’s journey from England; and if either of those dear +creatures should fall ill, dangerously ill, perhaps, their father beyond the +seas, and we, too, absent—oh, sir, figure to yourself Henriette or George dying +among strangers! A cold or a fever might carry them off in a few days; and we +should know nothing till all was over.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by the funereal image. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what a raven thou art, ever to croak dismal prophecies. The children are +strong and well, and have careful custodians. I can have no dealings with their +father. Must I tell you that a hundred times, Angela? He is a consummate +villain: and were it not that I fear to make a bigger scandal, he or I should +not have survived many hours after that iniquitous sentence.” +</p> + +<p> +A happy solution of this difficulty, which distressed the Knight much more than +his stubbornness allowed him to admit, was close at hand that morning, while +Angela bent over her embroidery frame, and her father spelt through the last +<i>London Gazette</i> that the post had brought him. +</p> + +<p> +The clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels announced a visit; and while they were +looking at the gate, full of wonder, since their visitors were of so small a +number, a footman in the Fareham livery pulled the iron ring that hung by a +chain from the stone pillar, and the bell rang loud and long in the frosty air. +The Fareham livery! Twice before the Fareham coaches and liveries had taken +that quiet household by surprise; but to-day terror rather than surprise was in +Angela’s mind as she stood in front of the window looking at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Could Fareham be so rash as to face her father, so daring as to seek a farewell +interview on the eve of departure? No, she told herself; such folly was +impossible. The visitor could be but one person—Henriette. Even assured of this +in her own mind, she did not rush to welcome her niece, but stood as if turned +to stone, waiting for the opening of the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Old Reuben, having seen the footman, went himself to admit the visitors, with +his grandson and slave in attendance. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be her little ladyship,” he said, taking his young mistress’s view of +the case. “Lord Fareham would never dare to show his deceiving face here.” +</p> + +<p> +A shrill voice greeted him from the coach window before he reached the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“You are the slowest old wretch I ever saw!” cried the voice. “Don’t you know +that when visitors of importance come to a house they expect to be let in? I +vow a convent gate would be opened quicker.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, your ladyship, when your legs are as old as mine——” +</p> + +<p> +“Which I hope they never will be,” muttered Henriette, as she descended with a +languid slowness from the coach, assisted on either side by a footman; while +George, who could not wait for her airs and graces, let himself out at the door +on the off side just as Reuben succeeded in turning the key. +</p> + +<p> +“So you are old Reuben!” he said, patting the butler on the shoulder with the +gold hilt of his riding-whip. “And you were here, like a vegetable, all through +the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, your lordship, from the raising of Hampden’s regiment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you shall tell me all about it over a pipe and a bottle. You must be +vastly good company. I am come to live here.” +</p> + +<p> +“To live here, your honour?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; sister and I are to live here while my father represents his Majesty +beyond seas. I hope you have good stabling and plenty of room. My ponies and +Mistress Henriette’s Arab horse will be here to-morrow. I doubt I shall have to +build a place for my hawks; but I suppose Sir John will find me a cottage for +my Dutch falconer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, how the young master do talk!” exclaimed Reuben, with an admiring grin. +</p> + +<p> +The boy was so rapid in his speech, had such vivacity and courage in his face, +such a spring in every movement, as if he had quicksilver in his veins, Reuben +thought; but it was only the quicksilver of youth, that Divine ichor which +lasts for so brief a season. +</p> + +<p> +“It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear him prattle,” Reuben said +afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +Sir John and his daughter had come to meet the children by this time, and there +were fond embracings, in the midst of which Henriette withdrew herself from her +grandfather’s arms, and retired a couple of paces, in order to drop him the +Jennings curtsy, sinking almost to the ground, and then rising from billows of +silk, like Venus from the sea, and handing him a letter, with a circular sweep +of her arm, learnt in London from her Parisian dancing mistress, an apprentice +of St. André’s, not from the shabby little French cut-caper from Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +“My father sends you this letter, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is your father at Chilton?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. He was with us the day before yesterday, to bid us good-bye before he +started upon his foreign embassy,” replied Henriette, struggling with her +tears, lest she should seem a child, and not the woman of fashion she aspired +to be. “He left us early in the afternoon to ride back to London, and he takes +barge this afternoon to Gravesend, to embark for Archangel, on his way to +Moscow. I doubt you know he is to be his Majesty’s Ambassador at Muscovy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing but what you told me t’other day, Henriette,” the Knight +answered, as they went to the house, where George began to run about on an +exploration of corridors, and then escaped to the stables, while Henriette +stood in front of the great wood fire, and warmed her hands in a stately +manner. +</p> + +<p> +Angela had found no words of welcome for her niece yet. She only hugged and +kissed her, and now occupied herself unfastening the child’s hood and cloak. +“How your hands shake, auntie. You must be colder than I am; though that +leathern coach lets in the wind like a sieve. I suppose my people will know +where to dispose themselves?” she added, resuming her grand air. +</p> + +<p> +“Reuben will take care of them, dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, your voice shakes like your hands; and oh, how white you are. But you are +glad to see us, I hope?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gladder than I can say, Henriette.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you don’t call me Papillon. I have left off that ridiculous name, +which I ought never to have permitted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt, mistress, you who know so much know what is in this letter,” said Sir +John, staring at Fareham’s superscription as if he had come suddenly upon an +adder. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, I only know that my father was shut in his library for a long time +writing, and was as white as my aunt is now when he brought it to me. ‘You and +George, and your gouvernante and servants, are to go to the Manor Moat the day +after to-morrow,’ he said, ‘and you are to give this letter into your +grandfather’s hand.’ I have done my duty, and await your Honour’s pleasure. Our +gouvernante is not the Frenchwoman. Father dismissed her for neglecting my +education, and walking out after dark with Daniel Lettsome. ’Tis only +Priscilla, who is something between a servant and a friend, and who does +everything I tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty gouvernante!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, sir, she is as plain as a pikestaff; that is one of her merits. +Mademoiselle thought herself pretty, and angled for a rich husband. Please be +so good as to read your letter, grandfather, for I believe it is about us.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir John broke the seal, and began to read the letter with a frowning brow, +which lightened as he read. Angela stood with her niece clasped in her arms, +and watched her father’s countenance across the silky brown head that nestled +against her bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“SIR,—Were it not in the interests of others, who must needs hold a place in +your affection second only to that they have in my heart, I should scarce +presume to address you; but it is to the grandfather of my children I write, +rather than to the gentleman whom I have so deeply offended. I look back, sir, +and repent the violence of that unhappy night; but know no change in the +melancholy passion that impelled me to crime. It would have been better for me +had I been the worst rake-hell at Whitehall, than to have held myself aloof +from the modish vices of my day, only to concentrate all my desires and +affections there, where it was most sinful to place them. +</p> + +<p> +“Enough, sir. Did I stand alone I should have found an easy solution of all +difficulties, and you, and the lady my madness has so insulted, would have been +rid for ever of the despicable wretch who now addresses you. +</p> + +<p> +“I had to remember the dear innocents who bring you this letter, and it was of +them I thought when I humbled myself to turn courtier in order to obtain the +post of Ambassador to Muscovy—in which savage place I shall be so remote from +all who ever knew me in this country, that I shall be as good as dead; and you +would have as much compunction in withholding your love and protection from my +boy and girl as if they were de facto orphans. I send them to you, sir, +unheralded. I fling them into the bosom of your love. They are rich, and the +allowance that will be paid you for them will cover, I apprehend, all outlays +on their behalf, or can be increased at your pleasure. My lawyers, whom you +know, will be at your service for all communications; and they will spare you +the pain of correspondence with me. +</p> + +<p> +“I leave the nurture, education, and happiness of these, my only son and +daughter, solely in your care and authority. They have been reared in over-much +luxury, and have been spoiled by injudicious indulgence. But their faults are +trivial faults, and are all on the surface. They are truthful, and have warm +and generous hearts. I shall deem it a further favour if you will allow their +nurse, or nurse-gouvernante, Mrs. Priscilla Baker, to remain with them, as your +servant, and subject to your authority. Their horses, ponies, hawks, and +hounds, carriages, etc., must be accommodated, or not, at your pleasure. My +girl is greatly taken up with the Arab horse I gave her on her last birthday, +and I should be glad if your stable could shelter him. I subscribe myself, +perhaps for the last time, sir, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Your obedient servant, and a penitent sinner,<br/> +“F<small>AREHAM</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +When he had come to the end of the letter, reading slowly and thoughtfully, Sir +John handed it to his daughter, in a dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +She tried to read; but at sight of the beloved writing a rush of tears blinded +her, and she gave the letter back to her father. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot read it, sir,” she sobbed; “tell me only, are we to keep the +children?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Henceforward they are our children; and it will be the business of our +lives to make them happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you cry, tante, I shall think you are vexed that we have come to plague +you,” said Henriette, with a pretty, womanly air. “I am very sorry for his poor +lordship, for he also cried when he kissed us; but he will have skating and +sledging in Muscovy, and he will shoot bears; so he will be very happy.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/> +IN A DEAD CALM.</h2> + +<p> +The great bales and chests, and leather trunks, on the filling whereof Sir +John’s household had bestowed a week’s labour, were all unpacked and cleared +out of the hall, to make room for a waggon load of packages from Chilton Abbey, +which preliminary waggon was followed day after day by other conveyances laden +with other possessions of the Honourable Henriette, or the Honourable George. +The young lady’s virginals, her guitar, her embroidery frames, her books, her +“babies,” which the maids had packed, although it was long since she had played +with them; the young gentleman’s guns and whips, tennis rackets, bows and +arrows, and a mass of heterogeneous goods; there seemed no end to the two +children’s personal property, and it was well that the old house was +sufficiently spacious to afford a wing for their occupation. They brought their +gouvernante, and a valet and maid, the falconer, and three grooms, for whom +lodgings had to be found out-of-doors. The valet and waiting-woman spent some +days in distributing and arranging all that mass of belongings; but at the end +of their labour the children’s rooms looked more cheerful than their luxurious +quarters at Chilton, and the children themselves were delighted with their new +home. +</p> + +<p> +“We are lodged ever so much better here than at the Abbey,” George told his +grandfather. “We were ever so far away from father and mother, and the house +was under a curse, being stolen from the Church in King Henry’s reign. Once, +when I had a fever, an old grey monk came and sat at the foot of the bed, +between the curtains, and wouldn’t go away. He sat there always, till I began +to get well again. Father said there was nothing there, and it was only the +fever made me see him; but I know it was the ghost of one of the monks who were +flung out to starve when the Abbey was seized by Cromwell’s men. Not Oliver +Cromwell, grandfather; but another bad man of the name, who had his head cut +off afterwards; though I doubt he deserved the axe less than the Brewer did.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no more talk of Montpelier or exile. A new life began in the old +house in the valley, with new pleasures, new motives, new duties—a life in +which the children were paramount. These two eager young minds ruled at the +Manor Moat. For them the fish-pond teemed with carp and tench, for them hawks +flew, and hounds ran, and horses and ponies were moving from morning till +twilight; for them Sir John grew young again, and hunted fox and hare, and rode +with the hawks with all the pertinacity of youth, for whom there is no such +word as enough. For them the happy grandfather lived in his boots from October +to March, and the adoring aunt spent industrious hours in the fabrication of +flies for trout, after the recipes in Mr. Walton’s agreeable book. The whole +establishment was ordered for their comfort and pleasure; but their education +and improvement were also considered in everything. A Roman Catholic gentleman, +from St. Omer, was engaged as George’s tutor, and to teach Angela and Henriette +Latin and Italian, studies in which the niece was stimulated to industry by her +desire to surpass her aunt, an ambition which her volatile spirits never +allowed her to realise. For all other learning and accomplishments Angela was +her only teacher, and as the girl grew to womanhood aunt and niece read and +studied together, like sisters, rather than like pupil and mistress; and Angela +taught Henriette to love those books which Fareham had given her, and so in a +manner the intellect of the banished father influenced the growing mind of the +child. Together, and of one opinion in all things, aunt and niece visited and +ministered to the neighbouring poor, or entertained their genteel neighbours in +a style at once friendly and elegant. No existence could have been calmer or +happier, to one who was content to renounce all passionate hopes and desires, +all the romantic aspirations of youth; and Angela had resigned herself to such +renunciation when she rose from her sick-bed, after the tragedy at Chilton. +Here was the calm of the Convent without its restrictions and limitations, the +peace which is not of this world, and yet liberty to enjoy all that is fairest +and noblest in this world; for had not Sir John pledged himself to take his +daughter and niece and nephew for the grand tour through France and Italy, soon +after George’s seventeenth birthday? Father Andrea, who was of Florentine +birth, would go with them; and with such a cicisbeo, they would see and +understand all the treasures of the past and the present, antique and modern +art. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Fareham was still in the north of Europe; but, after three years in +Russia, had been transferred from Moscow to Copenhagen, where he was in high +favour with the King of Denmark. +</p> + +<p> +Denzil Warner had lately married a young lady of fortune, the only child and +heiress of a Wiltshire gentleman, who had made a considerable figure in +Parliament under the Protector, but was now retired from public affairs. +</p> + +<p> +And all that remained to Angela of her story of impassioned love, sole evidence +of the homage that had been offered to her beauty or her youth, was a letter, +now long grown dim with tears, which Henriette had given to her on the first +night the children spent under their grandfather’s roof. +</p> + +<p> +“I was to hand you this when no one was by,” the girl said simply, and left her +aunt standing mute and pale with a sealed letter in her hand. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“How shall I thank or praise you for the sacrifice your love made for one so +unworthy—a sacrifice that cut me to the heart? Alas, my beloved, it would have +been better for both of us hadst thou given me thyself rather than so empty a +gift as thy good name. I hoped to tell you, lip to lip, in one last meeting, +all my gratitude and all my hopeless love; but though I have watched and hung +about your gardens and meadows day after day, you have been too jealously +guarded, or have kept too close, and only with my pen can I bid you an eternal +farewell. +</p> + +<p> +“I go out of your life for ever, since I am leaving for a distant country with +the fixed intention never to return to England. I bequeath you my children, as +if I left you a rag of my own lacerated heart. +</p> + +<p> +“If you ever think of me, I pray you to consider the story of my life as that +of an invincible passion, wicked and desperate if you will, but constant as +life and death. You were, and are, and will be to my latest breath, my only +love. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you will think sometimes, as I shall think always, that we might have +lived innocently and happily in New England, forgetting and forgotten by the +rabble we left behind us, having shaken off the slough of an unhappy life, +beginning the world again, under new names, in a new climate and country. It +was a guilty dream to entertain, perhaps; but I shall dream it often enough in +a strange land, among strange faces and strange manners—shall dream of you on +my death-bed, and open dying eyes to see you standing by my bedside, looking +down at me with that sweetly sorrowful look I remember best of all the varying +expressions in the face I worship.—Farewell for ever. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“F.” +</p> + +<p> +While her son and daughter were growing up at the Manor Moat, Lady Fareham +sparkled at the French Court, one of the most brilliant figures in that +brilliant world, a frequent guest at the Louvre and Palais Royal, and the +brand-new palace of Versailles, where the largest Court that had ever collected +round a throne was accommodated in a building of Palladian richness in ornament +and detail, a Palace whose offices were spacious enough for two thousand +servants. No foreigner at the great King’s court was more admired than the +lovely Lady Fareham, whose separation from her black-browed husband occasioned +no scandal in a society where the husbands of beautiful women were for the most +part gentlemen who pursued their own vulgar amours abroad, and allowed a wide +liberty to the Venus at home; nor was Henri de Malfort’s constant attendance +upon her ladyship a cause of evil-speaking, since there was scarce a woman of +consequence who had not her <i>cavalière servante</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Sévigné, in one of those budgets of Parisian scandal with which she +cheered a kinsman’s banishment, assured Bussy de Rabutin that Lady Fareham had +paid her friend’s debts more than once since her return to France; but +constancy such as De Malfort’s could hardly be expected were not the golden +fetters of love riveted by the harder metal of self-interest. Their alliance +was looked on with favour by all that brilliant world, and even tolerated by +that severe moralist, the Due du Montausier, who had been lately rewarded for +his wife’s civility to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, now Duchess and reigning +favourite, by being made guardian of the infant Dauphin. +</p> + +<p> +Every one approved, every one admired; and Hyacinth’s life in the land she +loved was like a long summer day. But darkness came upon that day as suddenly +as the night of the tropics. She rose one morning, light-hearted and happy, to +pursue the careless round of pleasure. She lay down in a darkened chamber, +never again to mix in that splendid crowd. +</p> + +<p> +Betwixt noon and twilight Henri de Malfort had fallen in a combat of eight, a +combat so savage as to recall that fatal fight of five against five during the +Fronde, in which Nemours had fallen, shot through the heart by Beaufort. +</p> + +<p> +The light words of a fool in a tavern, backed by three other fools, had led to +this encounter, in which De Malfort had been the challenger. He and one of his +friends died on the ground, while three on the other side were mortally +wounded. It would henceforth be fully understood that Lady Fareham’s name was +not for ribald jesters; but the man Lady Fareham loved was dead, and her life +of pleasure had ended with a pistol-ball from an unerring hand. To her it +seemed the hand of Fate. She scarcely thought of the man who had killed him. +</p> + +<p> +As her life had been brilliant and conspicuous, so her retirement from the +world was not without <i>éclat</i>. Royalty witnessed the solemn office of the +Church which transformed Hyacinth, Lady Fareham, into Mère Agnes, of the Seven +Wounds; while, seated in the royal tribune, a King’s mistress, beautiful and +adored, thought of a day when she, too, might bring to yonder altar the +sacrifice of a broken spirit and a life that had outlived earthly happiness. +</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON PRIDE, OR, WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html> + + |