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diff --git a/9377-0.txt b/9377-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9c41e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/9377-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17076 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of London Pride, Or, When the World Was Younger, by M. E. Braddon + +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 +www.gutenberg.org. 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. + +Title: London Pride + Or, When the World Was Younger + +Author: M. E. Braddon + +Release Date: September 26, 2003 [eBook #9377] +[Most recently updated: March 18, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON PRIDE, OR, WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER *** + + + + +London Pride + +OR +WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER + +by M. E. Braddon + + +_Author of “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,” “ISHMAEL,” ETC._ + +1896 + + + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM + CHAPTER II. WITHIN CONVENT WALLS + CHAPTER III. LETTERS FROM HOME + CHAPTER IV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW + CHAPTER V. A MINISTERING ANGEL + CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD + CHAPTER VII. AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION + CHAPTER VIII. SUPERIOR TO FASHION + CHAPTER IX. IN A PURITAN HOUSE + CHAPTER X. THE PRIEST’S HOLE + CHAPTER XL. LIGHTER THAN VANITY + CHAPTER XII. LADY FAREHAM’S DAY + CHAPTER XIII. THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT + CHAPTER XIV. THE MILLBANK GHOST + CHAPTER XV. FALCON AND DOVE + CHAPTER XVI. WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? + CHAPTER XVII. THE MOTIVE—MURDER + CHAPTER XVIII. REVELATIONS + CHAPTER XIX. DIDO + CHAPTER XX. PHILASTER + CHAPTER XXI. GOOD-BYE, LONDON + CHAPTER XXII. AT THE MANOR MOAT + CHAPTER XXIII. PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE + CHAPTER XXIV. “QUITE OUT OF FASHION” + CHAPTER XXV. HIGH STAKES + CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE COURT OF KING’S BENCH + CHAPTER XXVII. BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE + CHAPTER XXVIII. IN A DEAD CALM + + + + +CHAPTER I. +A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“You are crying again, father,” she said, full of pity. “You were +crying last night. Do you always cry when it grows dark?” + +“It does not become a man to shed tears in the daylight, little maid,” +her father answered gently. + +“Is it for the poor King you are crying—the King those wicked men +murdered?” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“Yes, love.” + +“Did Bradshaw murder him?” + +“No, dearest, ’twas in France he was slain—in Paris; stabbed to death +by a madman.” + +“And was the Queen sorry?” + +“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.” + +“Poor Queen!” piped the small sweet voice, “I am so sorry for her.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The pictures, not being either portable or readily convertible into +cash, had remained on the old panelled walls. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She was a tall woman, advanced in years, with a handsome, but +melancholy countenance. She greeted the cavalier as a familiar friend. + +“Welcome to Flanders!” she said. “You have fled from that accursed +country where our Church is despised and persecuted——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“True, reverend mother; yet those blasphemous levellers who call us +‘Malignants’ have dubbed themselves ‘Saints.’” + +“Then affairs go no better with you in England, I fear, Sir John?” + +“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.” + +The nun looked at him wistfully, with clasped hands, as one who half +apprehended his meaning. + +“The King!” she faltered, “still a prisoner?” + +“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——” + +The pious lady shivered and crossed herself at this praise of the +heretic queen—praise that could only come from a heretic. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“Was it Cromwell’s work?” she asked. + +“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.” + +“’Twas likely he remembered Strafford, and that he prospered no better +for having flung a faithful dog to the wolves,” said the nun. + +“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.” + +“Did they dare condemn their King?” + +“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!” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +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. + +And now he mourned his martyred King more bitterly than he would have +mourned his own brother. + +The little girl slipped from the reverend mother’s lap, and ran across +the room to her father. + +“Don’t cry, father!” she murmured, with her own eyes streaming. “It +hurts me to see you.” + +“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?” + +“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——” + +“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?” + +The child flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. It was her only +answer, but that mute reply was a vow. + +“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.” + +“Soon,” murmured the child, “soon, father?” + +“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!” + +“Why should not Hyacinth come to us and be reared with Angela?” asked +the reverend mother. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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” + +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. + +He plucked himself from that gentle embrace, and walked quickly to the +door. + +“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. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Hyacinth!” cried Angela, in a flutter of delight. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking +at the sacred images and prints, the _tableau_ over the mantelpiece, +which told, with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the +convent pupils in learning and domestic virtues. + +“What a humdrum, dismal room!” she cried. “You should see our convent +parlours in Paris. At the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, _par +exemple_, 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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +“I should dearly like to see your children, Hyacinth,” answered her +sister. + +“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.” + +“Why so long, sister?” + +“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 +_Naseby_—mark you, the _Naseby_—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!” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“Mischievous as a Barbary ape—kind, and sweet as the west wind,” said +Sir John. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +She explored the countenance long and earnestly. + +“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?” + +Angela faltered: but was unskilled in flattery, and could not reply +with a compliment. + +“No, sister; surely none have ever called this countenance handsome; +but it is a face to set one thinking.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Yet their kin is of the most distant,” said Hyacinth. “It is strange +that there should be any likeness.” + +“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” + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +LETTERS FROM HOME. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _porte cochère_. + +“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, _très chère_, 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. + +“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? + +“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.” + +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. + +Mother Anastasia expressed considerable displeasure at Madame de +Montrond’s disposal of her wealth. + +“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!” + +“Dear aunt, I am more than content——” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Another letter from Hyacinth announced the death of Mazarin. + +“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. + +“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. + +“All that is most agreeable in our court is imitated from the Palais +Royal and the Louvre. + +“‘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. + +“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!” + + +In a letter of later date Lady Fareham expatiated upon the folly of her +sister’s spiritual guides. + +“I am desolated, _ma mie_, 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. + +“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. + +“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 _are_ +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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Here everything is on such a small scale, _si mesquin!_” 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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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 _au grand +serieux_. ‘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.’ + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Angela ran to receive her father, and could scarce speak to him, she +was so startled, and yet so glad. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +He had flung his arm round his daughter’s neck as they paced slowly +side by side. + +“Have you come to stay at Louvain, sir?” she asked, timidly. + +“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.’” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But to have you disrespected, sir; you, so brave, so noble! You who +gave the best years of your life to your royal master!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But Queen Catherine, sir—does not she favour you? My aunt says she is +a good woman.” + +“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.” + +“And the King—is he so unkind to her?” + +“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.” + +“But could a good man violate a treaty?” + +“Ambition knows no laws, sweet, nor ever has since Hannibal.” + +“Then King Louis is no better a man than King Charles?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“And Hyacinth? She can walk scatheless through that Court furnace. She +writes of Whitehall as if it were Paradise.” + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +And now on being told she must not go, her spirit rose against the +Superior’s authority. + +“I recognise no earthly power that can keep me from those I love in +their time of peril!” she said. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Lady Fareham is doubtless in Oxfordshire.” + +“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.” + +“You have chosen an ill time for home-sickness, when a pestilence is +raging.” + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Then those were right who told me that it was for fear of the plague +her Majesty left London?” said Angela. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You speak like one who has seen better days,” said Angela. + +“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.” + +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. + +“This, madam, is Fareham House,” said the boatman, holding out his hand +for his fee. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“God guard thy young life, mistress!” he cried, and the wherry shot out +into the stream. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _fleur-de-lys_, 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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +One of the little dogs leapt on the bed, and licked his master’s face +again and again, whining piteously between whiles. + +The sick man looked at Angela with awful, unseeing eyes, and then burst +into a wild laugh— + +“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, +“_Boutte-selle! boutte-selle! Monte à cheval! monte à cheval! à l’arme, +à l’arme!_” + +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. + +“_O, la folle entreprise du Prince de Condé_,” 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. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +A MINISTERING ANGEL. + + +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. + +“Alas! poor gentleman, to be left by some mercenary wretch—left to die +like the camel in the desert!” + +She bent over him, and laid her hand with gentle firmness upon his +death-cold forehead. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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— + +“Leave me not, thou holy visitant—leave not my soul in hell!” + +“I will return!” she cried. “Have no fear, sir; I go to fetch some +wine.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Would he die in that sleep? she wondered. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?” said Angela interrogatively. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that would sure be your +first and chiefest thought?” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“It was as speedily as I could procure it from the cellar below.” + +“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?” + +“I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, and with such +skill as I can command.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“There is the door facing the river, too, by which I entered.” + +“Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good heart, madam. Before +eleven you shall have a sturdy watchman on the premises.” + +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 _feux d’artifice_ 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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +“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.” + +“Nay, indeed, my lord, your good doctor would have discovered your +desolate condition, and would have brought Mrs. Basset to nurse you.” + +“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 +_terra firma_ 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?” + +Angela put her finger on her lip, and with the other hand drew the +silken coverlet over the sick man’s shoulders. + +“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.” + +“I would swallow the stuff were it Locusta’s hell-broth, for your +sake.” + +“You will take it for wisdom’s sake, that you may mend speedily, and go +home to my sister,” said Angela. + +“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.” + +“I have no fear, sir. You are not the first plague-patient I have +nursed.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Dies Irae_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“At Cromwell’s? At Bradshaw’s?” + +“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.” + +“Oh, surely, surely you loved him?” + +“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.” + +“Oh, my lord, say not that you think him a bad man!” + +“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?” + +“It must seem strange to you, looking back from the Court, as +Hyacinth’s letters have painted it—to that time of trouble?” + +“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.” + +“Yet whatever your lordship may say——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Nor shall thou quarrel with me, sweetheart; but we will be fast +friends always. Do I not owe thee my life?” + +“I will not hear you say so; it is blasphemy against your Creator, who +relented and spared you.” + +“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—” + +“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.” + +“But the beaux and belles of Whitehall have not seen the city as my +brave girl saw it,” cried Fareham. + +“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.’” + +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. + +They pushed on to High Wycombe before night-fall, and supped +_tête-à-tête_ 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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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!” + +Fareham told Angela much of his past life during the freedom of that +long _tête-à-tête_, 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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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. + +“Nay, you should have seen the change in _his_ 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.” + +“You talk as if you loved him dearly.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“Are we near them now?” she asked eagerly, knowing that her +brother-in-law’s mansion lay within a few miles of Oxford. + +“We are very near,” answered Fareham; “I can see the chimneys, and the +white stone pillars of the great gate.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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 +_l’ami de la maison_ 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. + +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 +_bouts rimés_. 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. + +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. + +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 _ad +libitum_ on the ceiling of the Banqueting House. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“And you are not afraid of the contagion?” + +“Afraid! Why, I wanted mother to take me to you as soon as I heard you +were ill.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Gud! what a delicate wit! The sweet child is positively _tuant_,” +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. + +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. + +“I must go with his lordship,” cried Papillon, and leapt into the coach +before her father. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. + + +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. + +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 _gouvernante_, 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. + +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 _The Weekly +Gazette_ 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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Oh, sister, it is dreadful to think of such a troop! I am always +meeting strange faces. How many servants have you?” + +“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.” + +“More than fifty people to wait upon four!” + +“For our state and importance, _chérie_. 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.” + +“But could they not be better regulated?” + +“They are, when Manningtree is at home. He has them all under his +thumb.” + +“And he is an honest, conscientious man?” + +“Who knows? I dare say he robs us, and takes a _pot de vin_ 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.” + +“And you, dear Hyacinth. Do you keep no accounts?” + +“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.” + +“It all seems so strange to me,” murmured Angela. + +“My aunt supervised all the expenditure of the convent, and was unhappy +if she discovered waste in the smallest item.” + +“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, _vogue la +galère_—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.” + +“But, sister, you would not consort with an infamous woman?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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:— + + “With a fa, la, la, +Perhaps permit some happier man +To kiss your hand or flirt your fan, + With a fa, la, la.” + + +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. + +“Music, and moonlight, and a garden. You might fancy yourself amidst +the grottoes and terraces of St. Germain.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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 _plaisance_ 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. + +“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.’” + +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 _cortége_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _gouvernante_ 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. + +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. + +“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—” + +She glanced from her sister’s _décolleté_ 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. + +“Nay, sweetheart, let not thy modesty take fright. Thou shalt be clad +as demurely as the nun thou hast escaped being— + +‘And sable stole of Cyprus lawn +Over thy decent shoulders drawn.’ + + +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 _débutante_ in our modish world, and must be +dressed as modestly as you can contrive, to be consistent with the +fashion.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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 _protegée_?” + +“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.” + +“Wait till we are in London, Angélique. Here we endure existence. It is +only in London that we live.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Nay, if she wants to disgust them with painted faces she has but to +show her own.” + +“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.” + +“A Frenchman?” + +“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.” + +“What infinite trouble about a gown—and for you who would look lovely +in anything!” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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? + +She was still more shocked when Hyacinth talked of Lady Castlemaine +with a good-humoured indulgence. + +“There is something fine about her,” Lady Fareham said one day, “in +spite of her tempers and pranks.” + +“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?” + +“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 _milieu_, 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.” + +“Sister, I fear you left half your heart in France.” + +“Nay, sweet; perhaps some of it has followed me,” answered Hyacinth, +with a blush and an enigmatic smile. “_Peste_! 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.” + +“But you regret Paris?” + +“_Hélas_! 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, _bouts rimés_ 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.” + +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. + +“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. _Trop doré_, 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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I’ll go and saddle Brownie. Will you come for a ride, Aunt Angy?” + +“Yes, dear, if her ladyship does not want me at home.” + +“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.” + +The child ran off rejoicing. + +“Precocious little devil! She will pick up all our jargon before she is +in her teens.” + +“Dear sister, if you talk so indiscreetly before her——” + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +SUPERIOR TO FASHION. + + +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. + +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. + +Fareham took off his hat, bowed low in a grave and stately salutation, +and passed on; but Charles called him back. + +“Nay, Fareham, has the world grown so dull that you have nothing to +tell us this November morning?” + +“Indeed, sir, I fear that my riverside hermitage can afford very little +news that could interest your Majesty or these ladies.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Angela contemplated her with the reverence youth gives to consummate +beauty, unaware that she was admiring the notorious Barbara Palmer. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Not you, Fairest. You should be the last to cultivate mnemonics for +yourself or for your friends. Is your father in England, sweet +mistress?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“I detest the idea of a Republic.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“I did not know you were a Republican, like Sir Denzil Warner.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“Hyacinth has her fancies about Warner,” Fareham said presently, as +they strolled along. + +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. + +“Hyacinth has fancies about many things,” she said, blushing a little. + +Fareham noted the slightness of the blush. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Strafford—a murderer! No, no.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +Again there was a silence, and then, in a deeper tone, after a long +sigh, Fareham said— + +“I love and honour my wife; I adore my children; yet I am alone, +Angela, and I shall be alone till death.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“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.” + +Again a silence, briefer than the last, and he went on:— + +“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 +_gouvernante_—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?” + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +IN A PURITAN HOUSE. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“No; but if the long faces are the faces of men who think, something +may come of their thoughts for the good of humanity.” + +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. + +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. + +She stood up boldly for the faith of her maternal ancestors. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“How scornfully you jeer at him!” + +“Oh, I have no more scorn than the Cavalier’s natural contempt for the +Roundhead. A hereditary hatred, perhaps.” + +“You say such hard things of his Majesty that one might often take you +to be of Sir Denzil’s way of thinking.” + +“I never think about the King. I only wonder. I may sometimes express +my wonderment too freely for a loyal subject.” + +“I cannot vouch for Angela, but I will wager that he is deep in love,” +persisted Hyacinth. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“If thou wouldst but see my Angela,” pleaded the son, with a caressing +arm about his mother’s spare shoulders. + +“Thine! What! is she thine—pledged and promised already? Then, indeed, +these white hairs will go down with sorrow to the grave.” + +“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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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.” + +Denzil was in attendance upon aunt and niece. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Cakes in plenty, but I fear there will be no mince pies. My mother +does not love Christmas dainties.” + +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, +_alias_ Papillon. + +They crossed the river, Angela and Denzil each taking an oar, while +Papillon pretended to steer, a process which she effected chiefly by +screaming. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Mother, I have brought Mrs. Angela Kirkland and her niece to visit you +this Christmas morning.” + +“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. + +“But as for Christmas, ’tis one of those superstitious observances +which I have ever associated with a Church I abhor.” + +Denzil reddened furiously. To have brought this upon his beloved! + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“What, madam, are you sorry that Jesus Christ was born to-day?” asked +Papillon. + +“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.” + +“Are you not glad you are to dine at the Abbey to-day, Sir Denzil?” +asked Papillon, by way of commentary. + +“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.” + +“Mrs. Kirkland is as much an anchorite as yourself, mother. She takes +no wine.” + +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. + +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— + +“And this is Lady Fareham’s daughter? She is as pretty as a picture.” + +“And I am as good as a picture—sometimes, madam,” chirped Papillon. +“Mother says I am _douce comme un image._” + +“When thou hast been silent or still for five minutes,” said Angela, +“and that is but seldom.” + +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. + +Papillon clapped her hands at sight of the large plum cake, the jug of +milk, and bowl of blackberry conserve. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _melée_. 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. + +“You keep Court hours even in the country,” said Lady Warner. “I dined +half an hour before you came.” + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE PRIEST’S HOLE. + + +Denzil dined at the Abbey, where he was always made welcome. Lady +Fareham had been warmly insistent upon his presence at their Christmas +gaieties. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“We are going to play games after dinner!” cried Henriette, from her +place at her father’s elbow. + +His lordship was the only person who ever reproved her seriously, yet +she loved him best of all her kindred or friends. + +“Aunt Angy is going to play hide-and-seek with us. Will you play, Sir +Denzil?” + +“I shall think myself privileged if I may join in your amusements.” + +“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.” + +“Hush, Henriette! you are much too pert,” remonstrated Fareham. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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 _ever_ +going to leave off eating, we may as well begin our games before it is +quite dark. Perhaps _you_ are ready, auntie, if nobody else is.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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 _mother_” +concluded Papillon, in a tone which implied a poor opinion of the +maternal charms. + +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. + +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. + +Papillon ran in at the door and ejaculated her disgust at De Malfort’s +desertion. + +“Was there ever such laziness? It’s bad enough in Georgie to be so +idle; but then,_ he_ has over-eaten himself.” + +“And how do you know that I haven’t over-eaten myself, mistress?” asked +De Malfort. + +“You never do that; but you often drink too much—much, much, much too +much!” + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“Not I, fair slanderer. I am a salamander, and love the fire.” + +“Is that a kind of Turk? Good-bye. I’m going to hide.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“I know of better hiding-places,” answered the child, and vanished, +banging the great door behind her. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“No, no. We will be inside the house.” + +“Do you promise that, pretty lady?” + +“Yes, I promise.” + +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. + +“I’ll wager he was singing when you saw him just now.” + +“Yes, he is always singing foolish French songs—and I’m sure you can’t +understand ’em.” + +“I’ve learnt the French ever since I was as old as you, Mistress +Henriette.” + +“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.” + +“I should be very sorry if I could not understand a French ballad, +little miss.” + +“Would you—would you, really?” cried Papillon, her face alight with +impish mirth. “Then, of course, you understand this— + +Oh, la d’moiselle, comme elle est sot-te, + Eh, je me moque de sa sot-ti-se! +Eh, la d’moiselle, comme elle est bê-te, + Eh, je m’ris de sa bê-ti-se!” + + +She sang this impromptu nonsense _prestissimo_ as she danced out of the +room, leaving the accomplished Dorothy vexed and perplexed at not +having understood a single word. + +It was nearly an hour later when Denzil entered the saloon hurriedly, +pale and perturbed of aspect, with Dorothy and her brother following +him. + +“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—” + +“In every closet,” interrupted Dorothy. + +“In every corner of the staircases and passages,” said Squire Dan. + +“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.” + +Fareham hurried to the door, taking instant alarm—anxious, pale, alert. + +“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?” + +“Yes; we have opened every chest.” + +“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. + +“It is no theme for jesting. I hate these tricks of hiding in strange +corners,” said Fareham. “Now, show me where they left you.” + +“In the long gallery.” + +“They have gone up to the roof, perhaps.” + +“We have been in the roof,” said Denzil. + +“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. + +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. + +Fareham tramped the house from cellar to garret, Denzil alone +accompanying him. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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!” + +“I do not believe they are out-of-doors,” Denzil answered. “Your +daughter promised that they would not leave the house.” + +“My daughter tells the truth. It is her chief virtue.” + +“And yet we have hunted in every hole and corner,” said Denzil, +dejectedly. + +“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!” + +He was halfway up the staircase to the second story before he had +uttered the last of these exclamations, Denzil following him. + +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. + +“You hear them?” cried Fareham. “Quick, quick!” + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +Fareham put her aside without looking at her. + +“Angela! Great God! She is dead!” + +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. + +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. + +“I am sorry I have not Papillon’s courage,” she said. + +“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. + +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. + +“Father is angry with me,” said the girl; “he won’t speak to me.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Nobody has even thought of supper.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“But what shall I say when they ask me? I must not tell them a story.” + +“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.” + +“Yes. I will keep your secret,” Denzil answered, cold as ice; and said +no word more. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +LIGHTER THAN VANITY. + + +“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?” + +“It wants no witch to tell that little girls are foolish and +mischievous,” answered Fareham. + +“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.” + +“What would the costume be?” asked Papillon. + +“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.” + +“Monsieur le Comte makes a joke of everything. But what would father +have said if we had never been found?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Tush, child! what do you know of their wickedness, after a century?” + +“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 _was_ St. Sebastian; but nobody believed him.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I believe you are either an infidel or a Puritan.” + +“A cross between the two, perhaps—a mongrel in religion, as I am a +mongrel in politics.” + +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 _Gazette_, while he sat gloomy and apart. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Gazette_ 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. + +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. + +“Of two profligate brothers I prefer the bolder sinner,” said Fareham. +“Bigotry and debauchery are an ill mixture.” + +“I doubt if his Majesty frets for the want of an heir,” remarked De +Malfort. “He is not a family man.” + +“He is not a one family man, Count,” answered Fareham. + +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 _gouvernante_, 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. + +“Has his lordship gone to Oxford?” Angela asked, after a silence broken +only by her sister’s yawns. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“Unhappy, child! What reason has he to be unhappy?” + +“Ah, dearest, it is that I would have you discover. ’Tis a wife’s +business to know what grieves her husband.” + +“Unless it be Mrs. Lewin’s bill—who is an inexorable harpy—I know of no +act of mine that can afflict him.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But of late he has been always silent and gloomy.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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! _Hélas_, +those were sad losses!” + +“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——” + +“Suspect! Fareham! Are you afraid I shall make Fareham jealous, because +I sing duets and cudgel these poor brains to make _bouts rimés_ 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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“Henriette, you are an ill-bred child to call your master so rude a +name,” remonstrated her mother, languidly. + +“’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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +LADY FAREHAM’S DAY. + + +A month later the _Oxford Gazette_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“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 _Broken Hearts_ and _Philasters_. I am all for the +genius of comedy.” + +“Then satisfy your inclinations, and read Molière. He is second only to +Shakespeare.” + +“I have him by heart already.” + +The _Broken Heart_ and _Philaster_ 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. + +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! + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“There will be floods which may make fords impassable.” + +“We can avoid every ford—there is always a _détour_ by the lanes.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“And risk spoiling the prettiest thing you own—your face—by a +plague-spot.” + +“The King is there—the plague is ended.” + +“Do you think he is a God, that the pestilence will flee at his +coming?” + +“I think his courage is godlike. To be the first to return to that +abandoned city.” + +“What of Monk and the Archbishop, who never left it?” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“We shall be laughed at if we do not hasten after him.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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”? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?’” + +“It is curious,” said Hyacinth, “how little the town seems changed +after all those horrors. I miss nobody I know.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“The greatest poet! Sure you would not compare Milton with Waller?” + +“Indeed I would not, Lady Fareham.” + +“Nor with Cowley, nor Denham—dear cracked-brained Denham?” + +“Nor with Denham. To my fancy he stands as high above them as the +pole-star over your ladyship’s garden lamps.” + +“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 _Comus_.” + +“A name that will live, Lady Fareham, when Waller and Denham are +shadows, remembered only for an occasional couplet.” + +“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 _Comus_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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——” + +“Lady Fareham, you allow your tongue too much licence——” + +“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.” + +“A pretty woman should never talk politics, Hyacinth.” + +“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.” + +“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—_Measure for Measure_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_, the +interstices filled in with the utmost ingenuity. But Shakespeare +unadulterated—faugh!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Plays which her Majesty patronises can scarcely be unfit entertainment +for her subjects,” remarked another lady. + +“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.” + +“Nor should _I_ understand anything low or vulgar,” said Hyacinth. + +“Then, madam, you are best at home, for the whole entertainment would +be Hebrew to you.” + +“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.” + +“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——” + +“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 _Cinna_ with the _Indian Queen_.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no such women among my +friends——” + +“And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more pungent,” said +Lady Sarah. + +“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 +_Epsom Wells_ 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.’” + +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. + +“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.” + +“And if the generality of his female characters conduct themselves +badly there is always one heroine of irreproachable morals,” said Lady +Sarah. + +“Who talks like a moral dragoon,” said Fareham. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“He may do that safely, so long as he has men like Colbert for +puppets——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Who takes four shillings in every country gentleman’s pound to spend +on the pleasures of London,” interjected Masaroon. “Royalty is plaguey +expensive.” + +The company sighed a melancholy assent. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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 _ad libitum_ upon a national exchequer.” + +“The exchequer Rowley draws upon should be as deep and wide as the +river Pactolus; for he is a spendthrift by instinct,” said Fareham. + +“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——” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“A MAN—like Henry the Fifth, or Oliver Cromwell, or Elizabeth.” + +“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.” + +“Greatness has the privilege of small failings, or it would scarce be +human. Elizabeth and Julius Caesar might be excused some harmless +vanities.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Protector! Nay, surely she needs no protector out-of-doors, when she +has Fareham and me within!” + +“Beauty has always need of defenders.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +He turned away suddenly and walked to the window. + +“Denzil! Why, what is the matter? You are weeping!” + +“Forgive me!” he said, recovering himself. “Indeed, I am not ashamed of +a tributary tear to virtue and beauty like your sister’s.” + +“Dear friend, I shall not be happy till I call you brother.” + +She gave him both her hands, and he bent down to kiss them. + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. + + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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— + +“‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, + Old Time still is a-flying; +And this same flower that smiles to-day, + To-morrow will be dying.” + + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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!’ + +“‘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.’ + +“‘But if Sandwich does not believe in the everlasting joys of the +heavenly Jerusalem—and prefers to anticipate his harvest of joy!’ said +Fareham. + +“‘Then he is the more to be pitied,’ interrupted Mr. Evelyn. + +“‘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.’ + +“Mr. Evelyn sighed, and looked at my brother with mild reproof. + +“‘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.’ + +“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. _If_ God is not the +God I have worshipped, and in whose goodness I rest all my hopes of +future bliss; _if_ 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. + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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. + +“‘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. + +“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? + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“Write to me soon, dearest, and as long a letter as I have written to +you. + +“À toi de cœur, +“ANGELA.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +THE MILLBANK GHOST. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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 _bona-robas_. He was a fat, double-chinned little +man, the essence of good nature, and perfectly unconscious of being an +offence to fine people. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You don’t give your peruke a chance, Jerry, while you frame that ugly +phiz in it.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“You are growing old, Wilmot. The years are telling upon your spirits.” + +“I was nineteen last birthday, and ’tis fit I should feel the burden of +time, and think of virtue and a rich wife.” + +“Like Mrs. Mallet, for example.” + +“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.” + +Mr. Dubbin was released from his lady’s _sotto voce_ 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. + +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. + +“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——” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“There is no such sylph in London.” + +“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.” + +“I will do more. I will get you a real habit.” + +“But there are no nuns so white as the ghost.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“What a child you are,” she said, “to be pleased with such folly!” + +“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 _felo de se_, but that so +many of us should take the trouble to live.” + +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. + +There were stone benches along the two side walls, and Lady Sarah’s +_prévoyance_ 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. + +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. + +“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.” + +The damsel had started to her feet, and indignantly snatched her satin +petticoat from contact with the citizen’s porpoise figure. + +“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.” + +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 _see_ something, a real manifestation of the supernatural. + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +The monks, hustled out of their disguise, were Rochester, Masaroon, and +Lady Sarah’s young brother, George Saddington. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +FALCON AND DOVE. + + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Paris! And pray, my lord, what business takes you to Paris?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“To leave London—no! But there have been long moping months in +Oxfordshire when it would have been a relief to change the scene.” + +“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.” + +“Which you know I cannot, or you would scarce make so liberal an +offer.” + +“Très chère, you are pleased to be petulant. But I repeat my question. +Is there anything you want at Paris?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“You envy her a kind of notoriety which I do not covet for my wife!” + +“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.” + +“I admit that sin wears a bolder front than it did in the last century. +Angela, can I find nothing for you in Paris?” + +“No; I thank your lordship. You and sister are both so generous to me +that I have lost the capacity to wish for anything.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“A foe only to hypocrites and pretenders, Angela. I will bring you his +_Tartuffe_, if it is printed; or still better, _Le Misanthrope_, 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.” + +“You can jeer at that poor lady’s poetry, yet take pleasure in such +balderdash as Hudibras!” + +“I love wit, dearest; though I am not witty. But as for your Princesse +de Cleves, I find her ineffably dull.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Not more so than your _Hamlet_ or _Othello_. 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.” + +“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 _Hamlet_ +and _Macbeth_, 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.” + +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.” + +Denzil sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompanying Angela, +children, and _gouvernante_, 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. + +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. + +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 _gouvernante_ was fat +and lazy and good-tempered, had attended upon Henriette from babyhood, +and always did as she was told. + +“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.” + +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. + +“I think Mr. Spavinger’s trick must have cured your sister’s fine +friends of all belief in ghosts,” he said. + +“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.” + +“There have been no more midnight parties since Lady Sarah’s assembly, +I think?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was for ordering her +coaches and retiring to Chilton. + +“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.” + +Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat. + +“It were a deliberate suicide,” he said. “London, when everybody has +left—all the bodies we count worthy to live, _par exemple_—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.” + +“Find anything new, even if it fail to amuse me. I am sick of +everything I know.” + +“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.” + +“Most of my dearest friends are in the country.” + +“Nay, there is Lady Lucretia Topham, whom I know you hate; and Lady +Sarah and the Dubbins are still in Covent Garden.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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 _my_ 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.” + +“Who invented that powder?” + +“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.” + +“You might expect the worst in her case, knowing the wretched life she +leads with Monsieur.” + +“Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. There are +compensations.” + +“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.” + +“You had better not say that, for I doubt she has only one kind of +enemy.” + +“As how?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get them in the proper +temper.” + +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 _rôle_ whenever +she was called upon. + +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. + +“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!” + +“Barbara! You are vastly free with her ladyship’s name.” + +“Not freer than she has ever been with her friendship.” + +“Henri, if I thought——” + +“What, dearest?” + +“That you had ever cared for that—wanton——” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“De Malfort, you know I must not listen to foolish raptures.” + +“I know you have been refusing to hear for the last two years.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“If you did she would refuse, belike, for she is under Fareham’s thumb; +and he disapproves of everything human.” + +“Under Fareham’s thumb! What nonsense! Indeed I must invite her. She +would think it so strange to be omitted.” + +“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.” + +“But she will hear me order the barge—or will see me start.” + +“There will be no barge. I shall carry you to Millbank in my coach, +after your evening’s entertainment, wherever that may be.” + +“I had better take my own carriage at least, or my chair.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE? + + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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! + +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—_the_ General _par +excellence_, George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his Lord High Admiral +and brother—_par excellence_ 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, _The Parson’s Widow_, was said to be all froth and sparkle and +current interest, fresh as the last _London Gazette_, and spiced with +allusions to the late sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a +wide field for the ridiculous. + +Hyacinth was to be present at this Court function; but not a word was +to be said to Angela about the entertainment. + +“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.” + +“Faute de mieux.” + +“You are so ready to jeer! Yes, I know I am a neglectful mother. But +what would you have?” + +“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.” + +“Oh, I know you! It is the wicked women you admire—like Madame Palmer.” + +“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.” + +“All the town! Why, there is no one in London!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“I should have taken you for a very silly little person who wanted to +frighten her friends by catching an inflammation of the lungs.” + +“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.” + +“Your ladyship knows that dogs in a bed-chamber are unwholesome,” said +Priscilla. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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.” + +“You will do nothing of the kind, Mrs. Henriette; for I shall sit in +your room till you are sound asleep,” said Priscilla. + +“Then you will have to sit there all night; and I shall have somebody +to talk to.” + +“I shall not allow you to talk.” + +“Will you gag me, or put a pillow over my face, like the Blackamoor in +the play?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Fate cannot be so perverse as to bring him back on the only night when +his return would be troublesome,” she said. + +“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. + +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. + +“You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs,” he +said. “Where is your sister?” + +“At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury’s.” + +“So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in the +hall, say they set her down at the palace.” + +“At Whitehall?” + +“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. + +“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——” + +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? + +Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with angry suspicion. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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!” + +“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.” + +She moved quickly past him towards the house. + +“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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Whose coach is this?” she asked. + +“Mr. Malfy’s, your ladyship.” + +“The French gentleman from St. James’s Street, my lady,” explained the +other man. + +“Did you bring Monsieur de Malfort here?” + +“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. + +Angela waited to ask no further questions, but made straight for the +unglazed window, through which Mr. Spavinger and his companions had +entered. + +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. + +Her voice was clearer than his; and Angela heard her repeating with a +piteous shrillness, “No, no, no! No, Henri, no!” + +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. + +“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.” + +“I have come to save my sister from a villain, sir. But oh, my sweet, I +little dreamt thou hadst such need of me!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Fareham! In London?” + +“Returned an hour ago. Hark!” + +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. + +“He is here!” cried Hyacinth, distractedly. “For God’s sake, hide me +from him! Not for worlds—not for worlds would I meet him!” + +“Nay, you have nothing to fear. It is Monsieur de Malfort who has to +answer for what he has done.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“You shall not!” sobbed Hyacinth. “I will not have your blood on my +head! Come, come—by the garden—by the river!” + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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!” + +The hooded figure rose at his bidding, and he saw the face in the +lamplight. + +“You!” he gasped. “You!” + +“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?” + +“You!” he repeated. “You!” + +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. + +“‘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.” + +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— + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“Fareham, you cover me with insults!” + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +“Your paramour has got clear off,” he said; and then asked curtly, “How +came you by that boat?” + +“I brought it from Fareham House.” + +“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.” + +He pulled off his doublet as he stepped into the boat; then seated +himself and took the sculls. + +“Has your lordship not left a horse waiting for you?” Angela inquired +hesitatingly. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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— + +“There is a fire, my lord!—a great fire, I doubt, in the city.” + +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. + +Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls from the rowlocks. + +“A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it meant the fulfilment of +prophecy!” + +“What prophecy, sir?” + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +It was but the beginning of that stupendous destruction, yet it was +already great enough to seem like the end of all things. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Auntie, where have you been?” + +“Is your mother with you?” Angela asked. + +“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. + +She came flying downstairs in her pretty silken deshabille, with her +hair streaming, and flung her arm round her aunt’s neck. + +“Ma chatte, where have you been?” + +“On the terrace.” + +“Fi donc, menteuse! I saw you and my father land at the west stairs, +five minutes ago.” + +“We had been looking at the fire.” + +“And never offered to take me with you! What a greedy pig!” + +“Indeed, dearest, it is no scene for little girls to look upon.” + +“And when I am grown up what shall I have to talk about if I miss all +the great sights?” + +“Come to your room, love. You will see only too much from your windows. +I am going to your mother.” + +“Ce n’est pas la peine. She is in one of her tempers, and has locked +herself in.” + +“No matter. She will see me.” + +“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.” + +“Where were you that you know so much?” + +“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.” + +“Inquisitive child!” + +“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!” + +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. + +“I must speak with you,” she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +THE MOTIVE—MURDER. + + +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 _haut gout_ of Paris +and London was wanting to them. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“If you can but get yourself talked about you may marry as high as you +choose,” Lady Fareham told her sister. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Charles treated him with chill civility. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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— + +“‘La douce erreur ne s’appelait point crime; +Les vices délicats se nommaient des plaisirs.’” + + +“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!” + +“Thou insolent brat! To be eighteen years of age and think thyself +irresistible!” + +“Does your Majesty suppose I shall be more attractive at six and +thirty?” + +“Yes, villain; for at my age thou wilt have experience.” + +“And a reputation for incorrigible vice. No woman of taste can resist +that.” + +“And pray who is Mrs. Kirkland’s lover?” + +“A Puritan baronet. One Denzil Warner.” + +“There was a Warner killed at Hoptown Heath.” + +“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.” + +“And the lady favours this psalm-singing rebel?” + +“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.” + +“Why did not Lady Fareham return the Countess’s visit?” + +There was no need to ask what Countess. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“The Chancellor is a domestic man; as your Majesty may infer from the +size and splendour of his new house.” + +“He is an expensive man, Wilmot I believe he got more by the sale of +Dunkirk than his master did.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Indeed, madam, my wife has all the pleasure she desires—her +visiting-day, her friends.” + +“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.” + +“My Lord Rochester has a precocious wit which amuses my wife and her +sister.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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?” + +“It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, madam. She has the good +sense to pretend that he amuses her.” + +“And no more understands a jest than she does Hebrew.” + +“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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“You were telling us of a new palace at Versailles——” + +“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——” + +“Are those such good women?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +Some one tapped him on the shoulder with an ostrich fan. He turned, and +saw Lady Castlemaine close at his elbow. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was secure; but she took +these transient fancies _moult serieusement_. 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. + +“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. + +“Your ladyship will excuse me. I am expected at home.” + +“What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you to a _tête-à-tête_. 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.” + +“Your ladyship is all goodness,” said Fareham, quickly. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“An Israelite in the house of Dagon!” he said, _sotto voce_, 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?” + +“It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of +youth and innocence.” + +“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.” + +“Be assured I am altogether human—at least upon the worser side of +humanity.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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.” + +“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.” + +“But will your ladyship neither sup nor play?” asked Sedley. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was conscious of Fareham’s +lingering. + +“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.” + +“I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for cards than for +feasting.” + +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. + +“I thought you were a Puritan, Lord Fareham.” + +“I am a man; and I know what it is to suffer the hell-fire of +jealousy.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Once he caught the hand and kissed it in transit. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“My cards have brought your lordship bad luck,” said Lady Lucretia, who +watched De Malfort’s winnings with an air of personal interest. + +“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.” + +“Fareham, are you mad?” cried De Malfort, starting to his feet. “To +insult your friend’s country, and, by basest implication, your friend.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“There shall be something redder than Burgundy spilt before we have +done!” he said. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“And I’m with De Malfort,” said Masaroon. “He had more than enough +provocation.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You are forgetting your winnings,” remonstrated the lady, pointing to +the pile of gold. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“You mean business, so we may sink the parade of the fencing saloon,” +said Dangerfield. “Advance, gentlemen.” + +“A pity,” murmured Masaroon, “there is nothing prettier than the salute +_à la Française_.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +De Malfort fell heavily in the arms of the two seconds, who both sprang +to his assistance. + +“Is it fatal?” asked Fareham, standing motionless as stone, while the +other men knelt on either side of De Malfort. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You are mad—stark, staring mad!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +It was Lady Castlemaine. She leant out of the window and called to +them. + +“What has happened? Is any one hurt? I’ll wager a thousand pounds you +devils have been fighting.” + +“De Malfort is stabbed!” Masaroon answered. + +“Not dead?” she shrieked, leaning farther out of the window. + +“No; but it looks dangerous.” + +“Bring him into my house this instant! I’ll send my fellows to help. +Have you sent for a surgeon?” + +“The surgeon is here.” + +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!” + +“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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +REVELATIONS. + + +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. + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“Call it not courtship, Ralph. Lady Fareham and I are old playfellows. +We were reared in the _pays du tendre_, 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.” + +“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.” + +“Ay, he came to quarrel—but not about his wife.” + +Pressed to explain this dubious phrase, De Malfort affected a fit of +languor, and would talk no more. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Tyrant! tyrant!” + +“You astound me, Hyacinth! Would you dispute the favours of a fop with +your young sister?” + +“With my sister!” she cried, scornfully. + +“Ay, with your sister, whom he has courted assiduously; but with no +honourable motive! I have seen his designs.” + +“Well, perhaps you are right. He may care for Angela—and think her too +poor to marry.” + +“He is a traitor and a villain——” + +“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.” + +“I will never ask her to marry a man she cannot love.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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_ 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!” + +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. + +Suddenly, with a passionate impulse, she went to her sister, and put +her arms round her and kissed her. + +“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——” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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— + +“Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play, + Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair, +Love does on both her lips for ever stray, + And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there; +In all her outward parts love’s always seen; +But, oh, he never went within.” + + +It was a song of Cowley’s, which De Malfort had lately set to music, +and to a melody which Hyacinth especially admired. + +“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. + +“Sing again, sweet boys, sing again!” she cried, snatching a purse from +her pocket, and flinging it with impetuous aim into the boat. + +It hit one of the fiddlers on the head, and there was a laugh, and in a +trice the largesse was divided and pocketed. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +DIDO. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once in a way when luck has +been adverse——” + +“Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to blab of a money +transaction with a lady. There are secrets more tender—more romantic.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“It will be very long before I play basset in London.” + +“Oh, but indeed you will soon be well.” + +“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.” + +“Why, it will be ages before you are strong enough for such a journey.” + +“Oh, I will risk that. I hate London so badly, that to escape from it +will work a miraculous cure for me.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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 _Precieuses +Ridicules_; 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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“The hat?” + +“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—_nous +verrons_. 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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“The desertion of an old friend. The Comte de Malfort has left +England.” + +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. + +“Left England! Why, he is confined to his bed with a fever!” Hyacinth +said faintly, when she had somewhat recovered from the shock. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“Castlemaine!” faltered Hyacinth, agitated beyond her power of +self-control. “Why, what is she to him more than she is to other men?” + +“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. + +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. + +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? + +Lady Sarah sat simpering and nodding as Masaroon whispered close in her +ear. + +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 _ennui_ and rheumatism in a castle among the +Irish bogs, where her citizen husband had set up as a landed squire. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort is gone.” + +“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!” + +“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——” + +“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——” + +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. + +Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister’s arms. + +“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!” + +“Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve that name——” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“Well? Have you a letter for me?” she asked, when her woman had +retired, and Mrs. Lewin had bustled and curtsied across the room. + +“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——” + +“And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur——” + +“Marifleur! If your ladyship knew the creature as well as I do, you’d +call her Sally Cramp.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Mrs. Lewin watched her for a few minutes, and then produced some pieces +of silk out of her muff. + +“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.” + +“Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin—and good night to you.” + +“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——” + +Lady Fareham rang her hand-bell with a vehemence that suggested anger. + +“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.” + +“Mrs. Kirkland has been asking to see your ladyship.” + +“I will see no one to-night. Tell Mrs. Kirkland so, with my love.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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 _jeu +de volant_ 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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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— + +‘Love in your heart as idly burns, +As fire in antique Roman urns.’ + + +“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? + +“‘Go, lovely rose!’ + +“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! + +“DE MALFORT.” + + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“And I was so proud of his devotion—I carried my slave everywhere with +me. Oh, fool, fool, fool!” + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. +PHILASTER. + + +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. + +Lady Fareham had an air of caring for neither town nor country, but on +the whole preferred town. + +“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.” + +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. + +“We are winning our liberties from him,” Denzil said. + +“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?” + +“But if you win liberty while he is King, if wise laws are +established—” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Lies Fareham’s safety so very near your heart?” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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?” + +“Oh, Denzil, you fill me with sorrow! Have I not said everything to +discourage you?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“How dare you——” she began. + +“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.’” + +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. + +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? + +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. + +“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.” + +“You pretend to be his lordship’s friend, and you speak slander of +him.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“If you love me I could win you to my way of thinking,” he said. + +“You mean that if I loved you I should love you better than I love +God?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Papillon came flying along the terrace, her skirts and waving tresses +spread wide in the wind, a welcome intruder. + +“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 _Philaster_ 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 _Philaster_ was a comedy. I +should like to see _Love in a Tub_. 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?” + +“I know not if I am bidden, or if there be a place for me.” + +“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 +_Cid_. 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. + +_Philaster!_ 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. + +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. + +She found Fareham and her sister in the hall, ready to step into the +coach. + +“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.” + +“You would have pleased me more if you had offered me the chance of +seeing a new comedy,” his wife retorted, pettishly. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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— + + “If it be love +To forget all respect of his own friends +In thinking on your face.” + + +Was it by chance that Fareham sighed as those lines were spoken? And +again— + +“If, when he goes to rest (which will not be), +’Twixt every prayer he says he names you once.” + + +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?— + +“How heaven is in your eyes, but in your hearts +More hell than hell has; how your tongues, like scorpions, +Both heal and poison; how your thoughts are woven +With thousand changes in one subtle web, +And worn so by you. How that foolish man +That reads the story of a woman’s face, +And dies believing it is lost for ever.” + + +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— + +“Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing +Worthy your noble thoughts; ’tis not a life, +’Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.” + + +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. + +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. + +“Never, sir, will I +Marry; it is a thing within my vow.” + + +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. + +“It is a thing within my vow.” + + +The line repeated itself in Angela’s mind as Denzil met them at the +door, and handed her into the coach. + +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. + +“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. + +“They light the streets better in Paris,” complained Hyacinth. “In the +Rue de Touraine we had a lamp to every house.” + +“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.” + +She pointed to a small round lamp that made a bubble of light in an +abyss of gloom. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Pshaw, child, ’twas absolute glass—arrant trumpery.” + +“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.” + +“You see, madam, what a good school the play-house is for your child,” +said Fareham grimly. + +“I never asked you to take our child there.” + +“Nay, Hyacinth; but a mother should enter no scene unfit for her +daughter’s innocence.” + +“Oh, my lord, your opinions are of the Protectorate. You would be +better in New England—tilling your fields reclaimed from the waste.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“The beauty and grace of life—houses that are whited sepulchres, +banquets where there is no love.” + +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. + +Papillon sprang off the coach step into her father’s arms. + +“Sweetheart, why are you so sad?” she asked. “You look more unhappy +than Philaster when he thought his lady loved him not.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Thou hadst eaten too much supper, sweet. Such dreams are warnings +against excess of pies and jellies. Go, love; I have business.” + +“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. + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. +GOOD-BYE, LONDON. + + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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’? + +“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. + +“Thine till death, +“WARNER.” + + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“How the girl looks at me!” Sir John said, surprising his daughter’s +earnest gaze. “Does she take me for a ghost?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Thou shouldst not envy sin in high places, Hyacinth.” + +“Envy! I envy a——” + +“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.” + +“I can but wonder that she, above all women, should ever cease to be a +widow.” + +“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.” + +The sisters listened in respectful silence. The old cavalier cut a +fresh slice of chine, sighed, and continued his sermon. + +“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?” + +“With all my heart, sir.” + +“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?” + +“Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you.” + +“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.” + +“I could not bear for her to be long away from me,” said Hyacinth. “She +is the only companion I have in the world.” + +“Except your husband.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let me look at you, now +the candles are lighted.” + +The footmen had lighted clusters of wax candles on either side the tall +chimney-piece. + +Sir John drew his elder daughter to the light, and scrutinised her face +with a father’s privilege of uncompromising survey. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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 _sub Jove_, 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.” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There was a chorus of courteous bewailing at the notion of Mrs. +Kirkland’s departure. + +Sir Ralph Masaroon pretended to be in despair. + +“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?— + +‘The twinkling stars begin to muster, +And glitter with their borrowed lustre.’ + + +But what’s to become of me without the sun? I shall have no one to +side-glass in the Ring.” + +“Indeed, Sir Ralph, I did not know that you ever side-glassed me!” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“Look out for the scarecrows in Sir John’s fields, for the odds are you +will see me some day disguised as one.” + +“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. + +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. + +“I am like Milton,” she said. “I adore a rural life. To hear the cock— + +‘From his watchtower in the skies, +When the horse and hound do rise.’ + + +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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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——” + +“Or seduce his mistress——” + +“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 _de +facto;_ 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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Henriette laughed outright at this final clause. + +“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.” + +“The lightest touch, Papillon; not so hard as you strike your favourite +baby.” + +“Oh, she doesn’t hurt me; but the disrespect of it! Her only daughter, +and nearly as high as she is!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You shall come to the Manor. It will be a change, even though you hate +the country and love London.” + +“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?” + +“I think thou hast impudence for anything, dearest.” + +“I would rather act that page than Pauline in _Polyeucte_, 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.” + +“Ah, Heaven forbid!” + +“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——” + +“Ah, sweetheart, I want to hear no more of her!” + +“Why, don’t you like her? I thought you did not know her. She never +comes here.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +AT THE MANOR MOAT. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Reuben, and Marjory, the old cook, famous in her day as any +_cordon-bleu_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“I hope madam likes the chamber we have prepared for her?” the old man +said, as she stood dreaming. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“She is a girl I had out of Oxfordshire.” + +“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.” + +“Oh, sir, if a Romanist were to say as much as that!” said Angela, +laughing. + +“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.” + +“Have you seen Lady Fareham of late years?” + +“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.” + +“Are you not an Anabaptist now, Reuben?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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 +_chef_, contrasted with the chine of beef and huge farmhouse loaf that +accompanied the knight’s old October. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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—” + +“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.” + +“She is foolish to talk of services I would have given as willingly to +a sick beggar,” Angela answered, impatiently. + +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. + +“Well, it is uncommon strange,” he said, “if one so fair has no +sweetheart among all the sparks of Whitehall.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. + + +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. + +“He will die just when you love him best,” she said. + +“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.” + +“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——” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +Well, it was past—the exquisite bliss, the unconscious sin, the +confidence, the danger. All had vanished into the grave of +irrecoverable days. + +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. + +“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 _pis aller_. 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.” + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Sir Denzil!” + +“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.” + +“Father, how could you——” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +Angela’s spirit rose against this recurrence of her sister’s sermon. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“When you were young, father, did you love the first comer; only +because she was handsome and civil?” + +“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. + +“Then you can comprehend, dear sir, that a man may be honourable, and +courteous, and handsome, and yet not win a woman’s love.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“And Fareham? Has he that same air of not belonging to the family which +I remarked of him in London?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“I never saw Mr. Dante’s comedy acted, and confess myself ignorant of +its merits.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, +“_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_.” + +“’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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Indeed, sir, if a love as earnest as man ever experienced—” + +“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.” + +“You loved your King, sir, I take it, with a personal affection.” + +“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.” + +“I take it that the lower class are no politicians, and loved their +King for his private virtues.” + +“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.” + +“His son is strangely unlike him in domestic matters.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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— + +“He either fears his fate too much, + Or his desert is small, +Who fears to put it to the touch, + And win or lose it all.” + + +Sir John pushed him towards his fate with affectionate urgency. + +“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.” + +“Not for worlds, sir, would I owe to authority what love cannot freely +grant—” + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“My horse is at the door, Angela, and I am come to bid you good-bye,” +he said in a grave voice. + +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. + +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. + +“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——” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Alas!” + +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. + +“Alas!” + +No need for more than that sad dissyllable. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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 _protégé’s_ wooing. + +“Well, sweetheart,” he began, taking her to his bosom and kissing her. +“Do I salute the future Lady Warner?” + +“No, sir; I am too well content with the name I inherit to desire any +other.” + +“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?” + +“He has been both importunate and impertinent, sir, and he has had his +answer. I hope I may never see him again.” + +“What! you have refused him? You must be mad!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The Dutch fleet was at Chatham. Ships were being sunk across the +Medway, to stop the invader. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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.” + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Chatterer, chatterer, how happy I am to see thee! But is not your +mother with you?” + +“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.” + +“And mademoiselle”—with a curtsy to the lady in grey—“has brought you +all this long way through the heat to see me?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Two coaches!” exclaimed Angela. + +“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. + +“Come, child, and rest, out of the sun; and you, mademoiselle, must +need refreshment after so long a drive.” + +“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. + +“I was not tired in the least,” asserted Henriette. “We stopped at the +Crown at Thame and had strawberries and milk.” + +“_You_ had strawberries and milk, mon enfant. I have a digestion which +will not allow such liberties.” + +“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.” + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“There are six men besides the black boy,” sighed Reuben; they will +devour us a week’s provision of butcher’s meat.” + +“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 +_tête-à-tête!_ Ma’amselle”—with a wave of the peacock fan—“can take a +siesta, and forget the dust of the road, while we converse.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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 +_ennui_ 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. + +“I don’t understand you, Henriette.” + +“If you call me Henriette I shall be sure you are angry with me.” + +“No, love, not angry, but surprised.” + +“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?” + +“Do you mean Sir Denzil?” + +“Sans doute. Have you a crowd of servants?” + +“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——” + +“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.” + +“I would rather do what is right and honest, my dearest It is dishonest +to marry without love.” + +“Then half mother’s fine friends must be dishonest, for I dare swear +that very few of them love their husbands.” + +“Henriette, you talk of things you don’t know.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +Angela sat silent, and the hand Henriette was clasping grew cold as +ice. + +“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. + +“No, child. Why should he interfere? It is no business of his.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But was it indeed my father’s fault? Is it because you adore him that +you refused Sir Denzil?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Ma tres chère, it is so easy to talk—but when thou thyself art a +woman——” + +“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.” + +Angela sat dumb, her eyes fixed on vacancy. + +“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!” + +The slender arms tightened their caress, the pretty little brown face +pressed itself against Angela’s pale, cold cheek. + +“For my sake, sweetheart, say thou wilt have him. I will go to see thee +every day.” + +“I have been here for months and you have not come, though I begged you +in a dozen letters.” + +“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.” + +She was almost stifling her aunt with kisses in the intervals of her +eager speech. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Henriette, if you repeat that odious phrase I shall hate you!” + +“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.” + +“You are mad, Henriette! I have promised nothing.” + +“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!” + +“It is useless to argue with you.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“I like this old-fashioned rustic diet,” she said condescendingly. + +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. + +“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. + +“I hope, dear, thou wilt not expire on the journey home.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +“His adoring slave,” she repeated, with her hands clasped above her +uncovered head. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +She knelt down to unbuckle the spur-straps, and while on her knees she +said— + +“You look sad, sir. I fear you found ill news at London.” + +“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.” + +“You mean that men blame his Majesty?” + +“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.” + +“Dear sir, this confusion cannot last.” + +“It will last as long as the world’s history lasts. Our humiliation +will never be forgotten.” + +“But Englishmen will not look on idle. There must be brave men up in +arms.” + +“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 _Royal +Charles_ carried off with insulting triumph! Oh, child, it is not the +loss that galls; it is the dishonour!” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“Do you count a disobedient daughter among your cares, sir?” + +“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.” + +“Your spirit shall not rest broken if my obedience can mend it, sir,” +she said gently, dropping on her knees beside his chair. + +“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?” + +“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——” + +“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 _Royal +Charles_ 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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. +“QUITE OUT OF FASHION.” + + +Denzil received the good news by the hands of a mounted messenger in +the following forenoon. + +The Knight had written, “Ride—ride—ride!” in the Elizabethan style, on +the cover of his letter, which contained but two brief sentences— + +“Womanlike, she has changed her mind. Come when thou wilt, dear son.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“You may at least be sure of my honesty. I profess nothing but the +desire to be your true and obedient wife——” + +“Obedient! You shall be my empress.” + +“No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to make my father happy, +and you too, sir, if I can.” + +“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——” + +Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked himself lest he +should offend, and the speech ended in a sob. + +“My Angela, my angel!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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 _have been_! 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?” + +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. + +“She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been,” said Sir John, +“forgetting that Buckingham was the King’s evil genius.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“Who was he, sir?” asked Denzil. + +“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.” + +“None foresaw that the war would last so long or end in murder, I +doubt, sir,” said Angela. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, with time; the latter +you will never be.” + +“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.” + +Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. Lewin and the +waiting-woman following, laden with parcels. + +“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.” + +“Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less cause for heart-ache +than you?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Chut! tu vas un peu trop loin, Lewin!” remonstrated Lady Fareham. + +“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——” + +“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. + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest,” Angela said +interrogatively. + +“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.” + +“Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?” asked her sister, with a sudden +coldness. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Murder!” + +“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.” + +Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could +not. + +“Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you +have so little cause for sadness?” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“Your husband, sister!” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“You can answer for him, I’ll warrant” + +“And there are other claims upon your love—your children.” + +“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.” + +“Indeed, dearest?” + +“And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thou +not, ma très chère?” + +“You forget Denzil’s hatred of finery.” + +“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.” + +“Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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, _en +passant_, would have become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she but +obtained her cousin’s permission to cast herself away on Lauzun. + +“Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess a +becoming gown for me?” remonstrated Angela. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late +Mr. Cowley in praise of rusticity. + +“Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley,” she cried. + +“‘Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, +Hear the soft winds, above me plying, +With all their wanton boughs dispute.’ + + +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. + +“And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?” + +“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.” + +A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised +her sister’s face with increased concern. + +“Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you are +seriously indisposed,” she said earnestly. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. +HIGH STAKES. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Oh, sir, my sister is ill!” she cried; “I read sorrow in your +face—seriously ill—dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity’s sake!” + +“Yes, she is ill.” + +“Not dead?” + +“No, no.” + +“But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw her that there was +something amiss. Has she sent you to fetch me?” + +“Yes; you are wanted.” + +“Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the coach to be got ready. +And Betty must go with me.” + +“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.” + +“Do you mean that she may die before I can reach her?” + +“I know not,” stamping his foot impatiently. “Fate holds the keys. But +you had best waste no time on questions.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for gluttony.” + +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. + +“Are you coming?” he asked. + +“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?” + +“No. But she is in a bad way. And you—you—you—are wanted. Will you +come? Ay or no?” + +“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.” + +He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil’s name, as if he had been +stung. + +“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. + +“Will not your lordship bait your horses before you start?” Reuben +asked deferentially. + +“No time, fellow. There is no time. How often must I tell you so?” +retorted Fareham. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +In one of those intervals he asked her if she were tired. + +“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.” + +“Yes, she is in danger. There is no doubt of that.” + +“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?” + +“My lord! Why do you ‘my lord’ me?” + +“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?” + +“In an hour, at latest, Angela.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“Rest, when my sister may be dying! Not a moment more than is needed to +change horses.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Will you take me to my sister at once?” Angela asked, stopping on the +threshold of the library, when Fareham had opened the door. + +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. + +“You had better warm yourself after your night ride, and eat and drink +something before you see her.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Great God! what do you mean? You told me your wife was here—ill—dying +perhaps.” + +“I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will do desperate +things.” + +“Where is my sister? Is she dead?” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +“I have but one thing to say, sir. Let me out of this hateful house.” + +“What then? Would you walk back to the Manor Moat, through the +night—alone?” + +“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!” + +“Mistress, we will soon put an end to that charge. Lies there have +been, but that is none. ’Tis you are the slanderer there.” + +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. + +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:— + +“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. + +“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. + +“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! + +“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. + +“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.” + +“What think you of that, Angela, for the letter of a she-cynic?” + +“It is blotted with her tears. She wrote in sorrow, despairing of your +love.” + +“She managed to exist for a round dozen years without my love—or +doubting it—so long as she had her _cavalière servante_. 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. + +“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.” + +“Your husband!” + +“He will be my husband a fortnight hence.” + +“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.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“Oh, God!” she murmured. “I thought this man held me in honour and +esteem.” + +“Do I not honour you? Ah, love, what can a man do more than offer his +life to her he loves——” + +“And if he is another woman’s husband?” + +“That tie is broken.” + +“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.” + +“Angela!” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“My sister—your wife?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Bellario had no thought that was not virtue’s,” she answered faintly; +and he took that fainter tone for a yielding will. + +“She would not have left Philaster if he had been alone in the +wilderness, miserable for want of her love.” + +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. + +He kissed her on the brow. + +“My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness,” he whispered. “Thy +free will shall decide whether I live or die.” + +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. + +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. + +As he came near, the knocking began again, with greater vehemence, and +a voice, which he knew for Sir John’s, called— + +“Open the door, in the King’s name, or we will break it open!” + +There was a pause; those without evidently waiting for the result of +that last and loudest summons. + +Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling the gravel drive, +the jingle of bit and chain, and the click of steel scabbards. + +Sir John had not come alone. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Denzil! How did you find me here?” + +“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!” + +“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?” + +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. + +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!” + +“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. + +“The door will not open at your bidding!” Fareham said fiercely. + +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. + +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. + +“Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!” cried Denzil. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. +IN THE COURT OF KING’S BENCH. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +“The man was mistaken in his métier,” he had told Lady Sarah, when the +scandal was discussed in her drawing-room. “The _rôle_ 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— + +‘That old Pyg—what d’ye call him—malion +That cut his mistress out of stone, +Had not so hard a hearted one.’ + + +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!” + +“Do you think us all so easily won?” asked Lady Sarah, piqued. + +“Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you +have still been kind to me.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +The defendant having pleaded “Not guilty,” the Jury were charged in the +usual manner and with all solemnity. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“And on arriving at the defendant’s house what was your reception?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“No, sir. She went willingly, under a delusion.” + +“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?” + +“Lady Fareham did not appear in good health when she was last at the +Manor, and her sister was already uneasy about her.” + +“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?” + +“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. + +“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—” + +The deep and angry tones of his client interrupted the silvery-tongued +Counsellor. + +“If you think to help me, sir, by traducing the lady, I repudiate your +advocacy.” + +“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?” + +“I know no such thing.” + +“Do I understand, then, that from the time of your first proposals she +was willing to marry Sir Denzil Warner?” + +“She was not willing.” + +“I would have wagered as much. Did you fathom her reason for declining +so proper an alliance?” + +“I did not trouble myself about her reasons. I knew that time would +wear them away.” + +“And I doubt you trusted to a father’s authority?” + +“No, sir. I promised my daughter that I would not force her +inclinations.” + +“But you used all methods of persuasion. How long was it before July +the 4th that Mrs. Angela consented to marry Sir Denzil?” + +“I cannot be over precise upon that point. I have no record of the +date.” + +“But you have the faculty of memory, sir; and this is a point which a +father would not easily forget.” + +“It may have been a fortnight before.” + +“And until that time the lady was unwilling?” + +“Yes.” + +“She refused positively to accept the match you urged upon her?” + +“She refused.” + +“And finally consented, I will wager, with marked reluctance?” + +“No, sir, there was no reluctance. She came to me of her own accord, +and surprised me by her submission.” + +“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.” + +“Lies—foul lies!” cried the old Cavalier, almost strangled with +passion. + +He plucked at the knot of his cravat, trying to loosen it, feeling +himself threatened with apoplexy. + +“Call Mistress Angela Kirkland,” said the Serjeant, in strong steady +tones that contrasted with the indignant father’s hoarse and gasping +utterance. + +“S’life! the business becomes every moment more interesting,” whispered +Lady Sarah. “Will he make that sly slut own her misconduct in open +court?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“I knew that he loved me.” + +A heart-breaking groan from Sir John Kirkland was hushed down by an +usher of the court. + +“You knew that he loved you, and that he designed to carry you beyond +seas?” + +“Yes.” + +“And you were willing to leave your father’s custody and go with the +defendant as his paramour?” + +There was a pause, and the white cheek crimsoned, and the heavy eyelids +fell over agonised eyes. + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +Fareham’s deep tones startled the audience. + +“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.” + +“Your lordship has pleaded not guilty.” + +“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.” + +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. + +He dragged her out of the close-packed court, and into the open Hall. + +“Wanton!” he hissed in her ear, “shameless wanton!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +“An unarmed man, Sir John! Is that your old-world chivalry?” Fareham +asked, quietly. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. +BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. + + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands shrunken with age. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“No penance, sir, but peace and contentment; so I am but forgiven.” + +“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!” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you must be mistaken.” + +“Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But your lawyer could claim custody of the children for you, perhaps.” + +“I think not, Angela, unless there was a criminal neglect of their +bodies. The law takes no account of souls.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Our goods are packed and ready for shipping,” he said. “My daughter +and I will begin our journey to Montpelier early next week.” + +It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his daughter in that +sick-room. + +“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. + +“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!” + +“Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused——” + +“It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from +this house.” + +“Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness——” + +“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. + +He was gone before she could reply. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my life that he is +deeply concerned about them.” + +“Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would blacken your sister’s +character to make him a saint.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by the funereal image. + +“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.” + +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 _London Gazette_ that the post had brought him. + +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. + +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. + +Old Reuben, having seen the footman, went himself to admit the +visitors, with his grandson and slave in attendance. + +“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.” + +A shrill voice greeted him from the coach window before he reached the +gate. + +“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.” + +“Indeed, your ladyship, when your legs are as old as mine——” + +“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. + +“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?” + +“Yes, your lordship, from the raising of Hampden’s regiment.” + +“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.” + +“To live here, your honour?” + +“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.” + +“Lord, how the young master do talk!” exclaimed Reuben, with an +admiring grin. + +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. + +“It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear him prattle,” Reuben +said afterwards. + +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. + +“My father sends you this letter, sir.” + +“Is your father at Chilton?” + +“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?” + +“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. + +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. + +“Reuben will take care of them, dearest.” + +“Why, your voice shakes like your hands; and oh, how white you are. But +you are glad to see us, I hope?” + +“Gladder than I can say, Henriette.” + +“I am glad you don’t call me Papillon. I have left off that ridiculous +name, which I ought never to have permitted.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“A pretty gouvernante!” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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, + +“Your obedient servant, and a penitent sinner, +“FAREHAM.” + + +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. + +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. + +“I cannot read it, sir,” she sobbed; “tell me only, are we to keep the +children?” + +“Yes. Henceforward they are our children; and it will be the business +of our lives to make them happy.” + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +IN A DEAD CALM. + + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“F.” + + +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 _cavalière servante_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +As her life had been brilliant and conspicuous, so her retirement from +the world was not without _éclat_. 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. + +THE END. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON PRIDE, OR, WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +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. 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