A Lady of Quality<br />Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bicke by Frances Hodgson Burnett (e ink epub reader .TXT) 📗

him to uphold his high ideals.  Nay, he knew she understood him even now, and was stirred by what stirred him also, even though they met but rarely, and when they encountered each other, spoke but as kinsman and kinswoman who would show each other all gracious respect and honour.  It was because of this pang which struck his great heart at times that he was not a frequent visitor at my Lord Dunstanwolde’s mansion, but appeared there only at such assemblies as were matters of ceremony, his absence from which would have been a noted thing.  His kinsman was fond of him, and though himself of so much riper age, honoured him greatly.  At times he strove to lure him into visits of greater familiarity; but though his kindness was never met coldly or repulsed, a further intimacy was in some gracious way avoided.

“My lady must beguile you to be less formal with us,” said Dunstanwolde.  And later her ladyship spoke as her husband had privately desired: “My lord would be made greatly happy if your Grace would honour our house oftener,” she said one night, when at the end of a great ball he was bidding her adieu.

Osmonde’s deep eye met hers gently and held it.  “My Lord Dunstanwolde is always gracious and warm of heart to his kinsman,” he replied.  “Do not let him think me discourteous or ungrateful.  In truth, your ladyship, I am neither the one nor the other.”

The eyes of each gazed into the other’s steadfastly and gravely.  The Duke of Osmonde thought of Juno’s as he looked at hers; they were of such velvet, and held such fathomless deeps.

“Your Grace is not so free as lesser men,” Clorinda said.  “You cannot come and go as you would.”

“No,” he answered gravely, “I cannot, as I would.”

And this was all.

It having been known by all the world that, despite her beauty and her conquests, Mistress Clorinda Wildairs had not smiled with great favour upon Sir John Oxon in the country, it was not wondered at or made any matter of gossip that the Countess of Dunstanwolde was but little familiar with him and saw him but rarely at her house in town.

Once or twice he had appeared there, it is true, at my Lord Dunstanwolde’s instance, but my lady herself scarce seemed to see him after her first courtesies as hostess were over.

“You never smiled on him, my love,” Dunstanwolde said to his wife.  “You bore yourself towards him but cavalierly, as was your ladyship’s way—with all but one poor servant,” tenderly; “but he was one of the many who followed in your train, and if these gay young fellows stay away, ’twill be said that I keep them at a distance because I am afraid of their youth and gallantry.  I would not have it fancied that I was so ungrateful as to presume upon your goodness and not leave to you your freedom.”

“Nor would I, my lord,” she answered.  “But he will not come often; I do not love him well enough.”

His marriage with the heiress who had wealth in the West Indies was broken off, or rather ’twas said had come to naught.  All the town knew it, and wondered, and talked, because it had been believed at first that the young lady was much enamoured of him, and that he would soon lead her to the altar, the which his creditors had greatly rejoiced over as promising them some hope that her fortune would pay their bills of which they had been in despair.  Later, however, gossip said that the heiress had not been so tender as was thought; that, indeed, she had been found to be in love with another man, and that even had she not, she had heard such stories of Sir John as promised but little nuptial happiness for any woman that took him to husband.

When my Lord Dunstanwolde brought his bride to town, and she soared at once to splendid triumph and renown, inflaming every heart, and setting every tongue at work, clamouring her praises, Sir John Oxon saw her from afar in all the scenes of brilliant fashion she frequented and reigned queen of.  ’Twas from afar, it might be said, he saw her only, though he was often near her, because she bore herself as if she did not observe him, or as though he were a thing which did not exist.  The first time that she deigned to address him was upon an occasion when she found herself standing so near him at an assembly that in the crowd she brushed him with her robe.  His blue eyes were fixed burningly upon her, and as she brushed him he drew in a hard breath, which she hearing, turned slowly and let her own eyes fall upon his face.

“You did not marry,” she said.

“No, I did not marry,” he answered, in a low, bitter voice.  “’Twas your ladyship who did that.”

She faintly, slowly smiled.

“I should not have been like to do otherwise,” she said; “’tis an honourable condition.  I would advise you to enter it.”

CHAPTER XI—Wherein a noble life comes to an end

When the earl and his countess went to their house in the country, there fell to Mistress Anne a great and curious piece of good fortune.  In her wildest dreams she had never dared to hope that such a thing might be.

My Lady Dunstanwolde, on her first visit home, bore her sister back with her to the manor, and there established her.  She gave her a suite of rooms and a waiting woman of her own, and even provided her with a suitable wardrobe.  This last she had chosen herself with a taste and fitness which only such wit as her own could have devised.

“They are not great rooms I give thee, Anne,” she said, “but quiet and small ones, which you can make home-like in such ways as I know your taste lies.  My lord has aided me to choose romances for your shelves, he knowing more of books than I do.  And I shall not dress thee out like a peacock with gay colours and great farthingales.  They would frighten thee, poor woman, and be a burden with their weight.  I have chosen such things as are not too splendid, but will suit thy pale face and shot partridge eyes.”

Anne stood in the middle of her room and looked about at its comforts, wondering.

“Sister,” she said, “why are you so good to me?  What have I done to serve you?  Why is it Anne instead of Barbara you are so gracious to?”

“Perchance because I am a vain woman and would be worshipped as you worship me.”

“But you are always worshipped,” Anne faltered.

“Ay, by men!” said Clorinda, mocking; “but not by women.  And it may be that my pride is so high that I must be worshipped by a woman too.  You would always love me, sister Anne.  If you saw me break the law—if you saw me stab the man I hated to the heart, you would think it must be pardoned to me.”

She laughed, and yet her voice was such that Anne lost her breath and caught at it again.

“Ay, I should love you, sister!” she cried.  “Even then I could not but love you.  I should know you could not strike so an innocent creature, and that to be so hated he must have been worthy of hate.  You—are not like other women, sister Clorinda; but you could not be base—for you have a great heart.”

Clorinda put her hand to her side and laughed again, but with less mocking in her laughter.

“What do you know of my heart, Anne?” she said.  “Till late I did not know it beat, myself.  My lord says ’tis a great one and noble, but I know ’tis his own that is so.  Have I done honestly by him, Anne, as I told you I would?  Have I been fair in my bargain—as fair as an honest man, and not a puling, slippery woman?”

“You have been a great lady,” Anne answered, her great dull, soft eyes filling with slow tears as she gazed at her.  “He says that you have given to him a year of Heaven, and that you seem to him like some archangel—for the lower angels seem not high enough to set beside you.”

“’Tis as I said—’tis his heart that is noble,” said Clorinda.  “But I vowed it should be so.  He paid—he paid!”

The country saw her lord’s happiness as the town had done, and wondered at it no less.  The manor was thrown open, and guests came down from town; great dinners and balls being given, at which all the country saw the mistress reign at her consort’s side with such a grace as no lady ever had worn before.  Sir Jeoffry, appearing at these assemblies, was so amazed that he forgot to muddle himself with drink, in gazing at his daughter and following her in all her movements.

“Look at her!” he said to his old boon companions and hers, who were as much awed as he.  “Lord! who would think she was the strapping, handsome shrew that swore, and sang men’s songs to us, and rode to the hunt in breeches.”

He was awed at the thought of paying fatherly visits to her house, and would have kept away, but that she was kind to him in the way he was best able to understand.

“I am country-bred, and have not the manners of your town men, my lady,” he said to her, as he sat with her alone on one of the first mornings he spent with her in her private apartment.  “I am used to rap out an oath or an ill-mannered word when it comes to me.  Dunstanwolde has weaned you of hearing such things—and I am too old a dog to change.”

“Wouldst have thought I was too old to change,” answered she, “but I was not.  Did I not tell thee I would be a great lady?  There is naught a man or woman cannot learn who hath the wit.”

“Thou hadst it, Clo,” said Sir Jeoffry, gazing at her with a sort of slow wonder.  “Thou hadst it.  If thou hadst not—!”  He paused, and shook his head, and there was a rough emotion in his coarse face.  “I was not the man to have made aught but a baggage of thee, Clo.  I taught thee naught decent, and thou never heard or saw aught to teach thee.  Damn me!” almost with moisture in his eyes, “if I know what kept thee from going to ruin before thou wert fifteen.”

She sat and watched him steadily.

“Nor I,” quoth she, in answer.  “Nor I—but here thou seest me, Dad—an earl’s lady, sitting before thee.”

“’Twas thy wit,” said he, still moved, and fairly maudlin.  “’Twas thy wit and thy devil’s will!”

“Ay,” she answered, “’twas they—my wit and my devil’s will!”

She rode to the hunt with him as she had been wont to do, but she wore the latest fashion in hunting habit and coat; and though ’twould not have been possible for her to sit her horse better than of old, or to take hedges and ditches with greater daring and spirit, yet in some way every man who rode with her felt that ’twas a great lady who led the field.  The horse she rode was a fierce, beauteous devil of a beast which Sir Jeoffry himself would scarce have mounted even in his younger days; but she carried her loaded whip, and she sat upon the brute as if she scarcely felt its temper, and held it with a wrist of steel.

My Lord Dunstanwolde did not hunt this season.  He had never been greatly fond of the sport, and at this time was a little ailing, but he would not let his lady give up her pleasure because he could not join it.

“Nay,” he said, “’tis not for the queen of the hunting-field to stay at home to nurse an old man’s aches.  My pride would not let it be so.  Your father will attend you.  Go—and lead them all, my dear.”

In the field appeared Sir John Oxon, who for a brief visit was at Eldershawe.  He rode close to my lady, though she had naught to say to him after her first greetings of civility.  He looked not as fresh and glowing with youth as had been his wont only a year ago.  His reckless wildness of life and his town debaucheries had at last touched his bloom, perhaps.  He had a haggard look at moments when his countenance was not lighted by excitement.  ’Twas whispered that he was deep enough in debt to be greatly straitened, and that his marriage having come to naught his creditors were besetting him without mercy.  This and more than this, no one knew so well as my Lady Dunstanwolde; but of a certainty