CHAPTER XVII--Wherein his Grace of Osmonde's courier arrives from
France
The stronghold of her security lay in the fact that her household so
stood in awe of her, and that this room, which was one of the
richest and most beautiful, though not the largest, in the mansion,
all her servitors had learned to regard as a sort of sacred place in
which none dared to set foot unless invited or commanded to enter.
Within its four walls she read and wrote in the morning hours, no
servant entering unless summoned by her; and the apartment seeming,
as it were, a citadel, none approached without previous parley. In
the afternoon the doors were thrown open, and she entertained there
such visitors as came with less formality than statelier assemblages
demanded. When she went out of it this morning to go to her chamber
that her habit might be changed and her toilette made, she glanced
about her with a steady countenance.
"Until the babblers flock in to chatter of the modes and
playhouses," she said, "all will be as quiet as the grave. Then I
must stand near, and plan well, and be in such beauty and spirit
that they will see naught but me."
In the afternoon 'twas the fashion for those who had naught more
serious in their hands than the killing of time to pay visits to
each other's houses, and drinking dishes of tea, to dispose of their
neighbours' characters, discuss the play-houses, the latest fashions
in furbelows or commodes, and make love either lightly or with
serious intent. One may be sure that at my Lady Dunstanwolde's many
dishes of Bohea were drunk, and many ogling glances and much
witticism exchanged. There was in these days even a greater
following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty on the verge of
becoming a great duchess is not like to be neglected by her
acquaintance, and thus her ladyship held assemblies both gay and
brilliantly varied, which were the delight of the fashionable
triflers of the day.
This afternoon they flocked in greater numbers than usual. The
episode of the breaking of Devil, the unexpected return of his Grace
of Osmonde, the preparations for the union, had given an extra
stimulant to that interest in her ladyship which was ever great
enough to need none. Thereunto was added the piquancy of the
stories of the noticeable demeanour of Sir John Oxon, of what had
seemed to be so plain a rebellion against his fate, and also of my
lady's open and cold displeasure at the manner of his bearing
himself as a disappointed man who presumed to show anger against
that to which he should gallantly have been resigned, as one who is
conquered by the chance of war. Those who had beheld the two ride
homeward together in the morning, were full of curiousness, and one
and another, mentioning the matter, exchanged glances, speaking
plainly of desire to know more of what had passed, and of hope that
chance might throw the two together again in public, where more of
interest might be gathered. It seemed indeed not unlikely that Sir
John might appear among the tea-bibbers, and perchance 'twas for
this lively reason that my lady's room was this afternoon more than
usually full of gay spirits and gossip-loving ones.
They found, however, only her ladyship's self and her sister,
Mistress Anne, who, of truth, did not often join her tea-parties,
finding them so given up to fashionable chatter and worldly
witticisms that she felt herself somewhat out of place. The world
knew Mistress Anne but as a dull, plain gentlewoman, whom her more
brilliant and fortunate sister gave gracious protection to, and none
missed her when she was absent, or observed her greatly when she
appeared upon the scene. To-day she was perchance more observed
than usual, because her pallor was so great a contrast to her
ladyship's splendour of beauty and colour. The contrast between
them was ever a great one; but this afternoon Mistress Anne's always
pale countenance seemed almost livid, there were rings of pain or
illness round her eyes, and her features looked drawn and pinched.
My Lady Dunstanwolde, clad in a great rich petticoat of crimson
flowered satin, with wondrous yellow Mechlin for her ruffles, and
with her glorious hair dressed like a tower, looked taller, more
goddess-like and full of splendid fire than ever she had been before
beheld, or so her visitors said to her and to each other; though, to
tell the truth, this was no new story, she being one of those women
having the curious power of inspiring the beholder with the feeling
each time he encountered them that he had never before seen them in
such beauty and bloom.
When she had come down the staircase from her chamber, Anne, who had
been standing at the foot, had indeed started somewhat at the sight
of her rich dress and brilliant hues.
"Why do you jump as if I were a ghost, Anne?" she asked. "Do I look
like one? My looking-glass did not tell me so."
"No," said Anne; "you--are so--so crimson and splendid--and I--"
Her ladyship came swiftly down the stairs to her.
"You are not crimson and splendid," she said. "'Tis you who are a
ghost. What is it?"
Anne let her soft, dull eyes rest upon her for a moment helplessly,
and when she replied her voice sounded weak.
"I think--I am ill, sister," she said. "I seem to tremble and feel
faint."
"Go then to bed and see the physician. You must be cared for," said
her ladyship. "In sooth, you look ill indeed."
"Nay," said Anne; "I beg you, sister, this afternoon let me be with
you; it will sustain me. You are so strong--let me--"
She put out her hand as if to touch her, but it dropped at her side
as though its strength was gone.
"But there will be many babbling people," said her sister, with a
curious look. "You do not like company, and these days my rooms are
full. 'Twill irk and tire you."
"I care not for the people--I would be with you," Anne said, in
strange imploring. "I have a sick fancy that I am afraid to sit
alone in my chamber. 'Tis but weakness. Let me this afternoon be
with you."
"Go then and change your robe," said Clorinda, "and put some red
upon your cheeks. You may come if you will. You are a strange
creature Anne."
And thus saying, she passed into her apartment. As there are blows
and pain which end in insensibility or delirium, so there are
catastrophes and perils which are so great as to produce something
near akin to these. As she had stood before her mirror in her
chamber watching her reflection, while her woman attired her in her
crimson flowered satin and builded up her stately head-dress, this
other woman had felt that the hour when she could have shrieked and
raved and betrayed herself had passed by, and left a deadness like a
calm behind, as though horror had stunned all pain and yet left her
senses clear. She forgot not the thing which lay staring upward
blankly at the under part of the couch which hid it--the look of its
fixed eyes, its outspread locks, and the purple indentation on the
temple she saw as clearly as she had seen them in that first mad
moment when she had stood staring downward at the thing itself; but
the coursing of her blood was stilled, the gallop of her pulses, and
that wild hysteric leaping of her heart into her throat, choking her
and forcing her to gasp and pant in that way which in women must
ever end in shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of the air. But
for the feminine softness to which her nature had given way for the
first time, since the power of love had mastered her, there was no
thing of earth could have happened to her which would have brought
this rolling ball to her throat, this tremor to her body--since the
hour of her birth she had never been attacked by such a female
folly, as she would indeed have regarded it once; but now 'twas
different--for a while she had been a woman--a woman who had flung
herself upon the bosom of him who was her soul's lord, and resting
there, her old rigid strength had been relaxed.
But 'twas not this woman who had known tender yielding who returned
to take her place in the Panelled Parlour, knowing of the companion
who waited near her unseen--for it was as her companion she thought
of him, as she had thought of him when he followed her in the Mall,
forced himself into her box at the play, or stood by her shoulder at
assemblies; he had placed himself by her side again, and would stay
there until she could rid herself of him.
"After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my part," she said,
"and then may I live a freed woman."
'Twas always upon the divan she took her place when she received her
visitors, who were accustomed to finding her enthroned there. This
afternoon when she came into the room she paused for a space, and
stood beside it, the parlour being yet empty. She felt her face
grow a little cold, as if it paled, and her under-lip drew itself
tight across her teeth.
"In a graveyard," she said, "I have sat upon the stone ledge of a
tomb, and beneath there was--worse than this, could I but have seen
it. This is no more."
When the Sir Humphreys and Lord Charleses, Lady Bettys and Mistress
Lovelys were announced in flocks, fluttering and chattering, she
rose from her old place to meet them, and was brilliant graciousness
itself. She hearkened to their gossipings, and though 'twas not her
way to join in them, she was this day witty in such way as robbed
them of the dulness in which sometimes gossip ends. It was a varied
company which gathered about her; but to each she gave his or her
moment, and in that moment said that which they would afterwards
remember. With those of the Court she talked royalty, the humours
of her Majesty, the severities of her Grace of Marlborough; with
statesmen she spoke with such intellect and discretion that they
went away pondering on the good fortune which had befallen one man
when it seemed that it was of such proportions as might have
satisfied a dozen, for it seemed not fair to them that his Grace of
Osmonde, having already rank, wealth, and fame, should have added to
them a gift of such magnificence as this beauteous woman would
bring; with beaux and wits she made dazzling jests; and to the
beauties who desired their flatteries she gave praise so adroit that
they were stimulated to plume their feathers afresh and cease to
fear the rivalry of her loveliness.
And yet while she so bore herself, never once did she cease to feel
the presence of that which, lying near, seemed to her racked soul as
one who lay and listened with staring eyes which mocked; for there
was a thought which would not leave her, which was, that it could
hear, that it could see through the glazing on its blue orbs, and
that knowing itself bound by the moveless irons of death and
dumbness it impotently raged and cursed that it could not burst them
and shriek out its vengeance, rolling forth among her worshippers at
their feet and hers.
"But he CAN not," she said, within her clenched teeth, again and
again--"THAT he cannot."
Once as she said this to herself she caught Anne's eyes fixed
helplessly upon her, it seeming to be as the poor woman had said,
that her weakness caused her to desire to abide near her sister's
strength and draw support from it; for she had remained at my lady's
side closely since she had descended to the room, and now seemed to
implore some protection for which she was too timid to openly make
request.
"You are too weak to stay, Anne," her ladyship said. "'Twould be
better that you should retire."
"I am weak," the poor thing answered, in low tones--"but not too
weak to stay. I am always weak. Would that I were of your strength
and courage. Let me sit down--sister-- here." She touched the
divan's cushions with a shaking hand, gazing upward wearily--
perchance remembering that this place seemed ever a sort of throne
none other than the hostess queen herself presumed to encroach upon.
"You are too meek, poor sister," quoth Clorinda. "'Tis not a chair
of coronation or the woolsack of a judge. Sit! sit!--and let me
call for wine!"
She spoke to a lacquey and bade him bring the drink, for even as she
sank into her place Anne's cheeks grew whiter.
When 'twas brought, her ladyship poured it forth and gave it to her
sister with her own hand, obliging her to drink enough to bring her
colour back. Having seen to this, she addressed the servant who had
obeyed her order.
"Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon?" she demanded, in that
clear, ringing voice of hers, whose music ever arrested those
surrounding her, whether they were concerned in her speech or no;
but now all felt sufficient interest to prick up ears and hearken to
what was said.
"No, my lady," the lacquey answered. "He said that you had bidden
him to wait."
"But not all day, poor fool," she said, setting down Anne's empty
glass upon the salver. "Did he think I bade him stand about the
door all night? Bring me his message when he comes."
"'Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk," she said to those
nearest her. "One cannot pay for wit with wages and livery. They
can but obey the literal word. Sir John, leaving me in haste this
morning, I forgot a question I would have asked, and sent a lacquey
to recall him."
Anne sat upright.
"Sister--I pray you--another glass of wine."
My lady gave it to her at once, and she drained it eagerly.
"Was he overtaken?" said a curious matron, who wished not to see the
subject closed.
"No," quoth her ladyship, with a light laugh--"though he must have
been in haste, for the man was sent after him in but a moment's
time. 'Twas then I told the fellow to go later to his lodgings and
deliver my message into Sir John's own hand, whence it seems that he
thinks that he must await him till he comes."
Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip; for she had felt it
bolder to let it lie there as if forgotten, because her pulse had
sprung so at first sight of it when she came down, and she had so
quailed before the desire to thrust it away, to hide it from her
sight. "And that I quail before," she had said, "I must have the
will to face--or I am lost." So she had let it stay.
A languishing beauty, with melting blue eyes and a pretty fashion of
ever keeping before the world of her admirers her waxen delicacy,
lifted the heavy thing in her frail white hand.
"How can your ladyship wield it?" she said. "It is so heavy for a
woman--but your ladyship is--is not--"
"Not quite a woman," said the beautiful creature, standing at her
full great height, and smiling down at this blue and white piece of
frailty with the flashing splendour of her eyes.
"Not quite a woman," cried two wits at once. "A goddess rather--an
Olympian goddess."
The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to
disparage her ethereal charms. She lifted the weapon with a great
effort, which showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the
sweet tracery of blue veins upon it.
"Nay," she said lispingly, "it needs the muscle of a great man to
lift it. I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse." And
to show how coarse a strength was needed and how far her femininity
lacked such vigour, she dropped it upon the floor--and it rolled
beneath the edge of the divan.
"Now," the thought shot through my lady's brain, as a bolt shoots
from the sky--"now--he LAUGHS!"
She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux at
once, and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and
rummaged, had not God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought in
that terrible mad second--God!--and only a mind that is not human
could have told why.
For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking, was before
them all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust her
hand below, and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.
"'Tis here," she said, "and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at its
falling--its weight is so great."
Clorinda took it from her hand.
"I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, "and for
quieter ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by."
She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.
"It was ever heavy--but for Devil. 'Tis done with," she said; and
there came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a
flood of crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who
looked and heard, said to themselves that 'twas the thought of
Osmonde who had so changed her, which made her blush. But a few
moments later they beheld the same glow mount again. A lacquey
entered, bearing a salver on which lay two letters. One was a large
one, sealed with a ducal coronet, and this she saw first, and took
in her hand even before the man had time to speak.
"His Grace's courier has arrived from France," he said; "the package
was ordered to be delivered at once."
"It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped," she
said, and then the other missive caught her eye.
"'Tis your ladyship's own," the lacquey explained somewhat
anxiously. "'Twas brought back, Sir John not having yet come home,
and Jenfry having waited three hours."
"'Twas long enough," quoth her ladyship. "'Twill do to-morrow."
She did not lay Osmonde's letter aside, but kept it in her hand, and
seeing that she waited for their retirement to read it, her guests
began to make their farewells. One by one or in groups of twos and
threes they left her, the men bowing low, and going away fretted by
the memory of the picture she made--a tall and regal figure in her
flowered crimson, her stateliness seeming relaxed and softened by
the mere holding of the sealed missive in her hand. But the women
were vaguely envious, not of Osmonde, but of her before whom there
lay outspread as far as life's horizon reached, a future of such
perfect love and joy; for Gerald Mertoun had been marked by feminine
eyes since his earliest youth, and had seemed to embody all that
woman's dreams or woman's ambitions or her love could desire.
When the last was gone, Clorinda turned, tore her letter open, and
held it hard to her lips. Before she read a word she kissed it
passionately a score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing
at her; and having kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks
warm with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising
and falling in a tempest of tender, fluttering breaths--and 'twas
these words her eyes devoured
"If I should head this page I write to you 'Goddess and Queen, and
Empress of my deepest soul,' what more should I be saying than 'My
Love' and 'My Clorinda,' since these express all the soul of man
could crave for or his body desire. The body and soul of me so long
for thee, sweetheart, and sweetest beautiful woman that the hand of
Nature ever fashioned for the joy of mortals, that I have had need
to pray Heaven's help to aid me to endure the passing of the days
that lie between me and the hour which will make me the most
strangely, rapturously, happy man, not in England, not in the world,
but in all God's universe. I must pray Heaven again, and indeed do
and will, for humbleness which shall teach me to remember that I am
not deity, but mere man--mere man--though I shall hold a goddess to
my breast and gaze into eyes which are like deep pools of Paradise,
and yet answer mine with the marvel of such love as none but such a
soul could make a woman's, and so fit to mate with man's. In the
heavy days when I was wont to gaze at you from afar with burning
heart, my unceasing anguish was that even high honour itself could
not subdue and conquer the thoughts which leaped within me even as
my pulse leaped, and even as my pulse could not be stilled unless by
death. And one that for ever haunted--ay, and taunted--me was the
image of how your tall, beauteous body would yield itself to a
strong man's arm, and your noble head with its heavy tower of hair
resting upon his shoulder--the centres of his very being would be
thrilled and shaken by the uplifting of such melting eyes as surely
man ne'er gazed within on earth before, and the ripe and scarlet bow
of a mouth so beauteous and so sweet with womanhood. This beset me
day and night, and with such torture that I feared betimes my brain
might reel and I become a lost and ruined madman. And now--it is no
more forbidden me to dwell upon it--nay, I lie waking at night,
wooing the picture to me, and at times I rise from my dreams to
kneel by my bedside and thank God that He hath given me at last what
surely is my own!-for so it seems to me, my love, that each of us is
but a part of the other, and that such forces of Nature rush to meet
together in us, that Nature herself would cry out were we rent
apart. If there were aught to rise like a ghost between us, if
there were aught that could sunder us--noble soul, let us but swear
that it shall weld us but the closer together, and that locked in
each other's arms its blows shall not even make our united strength
to sway. Sweetest lady, your lovely lip will curve in smiles, and
you will say, 'He is mad with his joy--my Gerald' (for never till my
heart stops at its last beat and leaves me still, a dead man, cold
upon my bed, can I forget the music of your speech when you spoke
those words, 'My Gerald! My Gerald.') And indeed I crave your
pardon, for a man so filled with rapture cannot be quite sane, and
sometimes I wonder if I walk through the palace gardens like one who
is drunk, so does my brain reel. But soon, my heavenly, noble love,
my exile will be over, and this is in truth what my letter is to
tell you, that in four days your lacqueys will throw open your doors
to me and I shall enter, and being led to you, shall kneel at your
feet and kiss the hem of your robe, and then rise standing to fold
her who will so soon be my very wife to my throbbing breast."
Back to her face had come all the softness which had been lost, the
hard lines were gone, the tender curves had returned, her lashes
looked as if they were moist. Anne, sitting rigidly and gazing at
her, was afraid to speak, knowing that she was not for the time on
earth, but that the sound of a voice would bring her back to it, and
that 'twas well she should be away as long as she might.
She read the letter, not once, but thrice, dwelling upon every word,
'twas plain; and when she had reached the last one, turning back the
pages and beginning again. When she looked up at last, 'twas with
an almost wild little smile, for she had indeed for that one moment
forgotten.
"Locked in each other's arms," she said--"locked in each other's
arms. My Gerald! My Gerald! 'What surely is my own--my own'!"
Anne rose and came to her, laying her hand on her arm. She spoke in
a voice low, hushed, and strained.
"Come away, sister," she said, "for a little while--come away."
