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) 📗

the room with her, and two crystal tears fell upon the bosom of her black robe and slipped away like jewels.

When the funeral obsequies were over, the next of kin who was heir came to take possession of the estate which had fallen to him, and the widow retired to her father’s house for seclusion from the world.  The town house had been left to her by her deceased lord, but she did not wish to return to it until the period of her mourning was over and she laid aside her weeds.  The income the earl had been able to bestow upon her made her a rich woman, and when she chose to appear again in the world it would be with the power to mingle with it fittingly.

During her stay at her father’s house she did much to make it a more suitable abode for her, ordering down from London furnishings and workmen to set her own apartments and Anne’s in order.  But she would not occupy the rooms she had lived in heretofore.  For some reason it seemed to be her whim to have begun to have an enmity for them.  The first day she entered them with Anne she stopped upon the threshold.

“I will not stay here,” she said.  “I never loved the rooms—and now I hate them.  It seems to me it was another woman who lived in them—in another world.  ’Tis so long ago that ’tis ghostly.  Make ready the old red chambers for me,” to her woman; “I will live there.  They have been long closed, and are worm-eaten and mouldy perchance; but a great fire will warm them.  And I will have furnishings from London to make them fit for habitation.”

The next day it seemed for a brief space as if she would have changed even from the red chambers.

“I did not know,” she said, turning with a sudden movement from a side window, “that one might see the old rose garden from here.  I would not have taken the room had I guessed it.  It is too dreary a wilderness, with its tangle of briars and its broken sun-dial.”

“You cannot see the dial from here,” said Anne, coming towards her with a strange paleness and haste.  “One cannot see within the garden from any window, surely.”

“Nay,” said Clorinda; “’tis not near enough, and the hedges are too high; but one knows ’tis there, and ’tis tiresome.”

“Let us draw the curtains and not look, and forget it,” said poor Anne.  And she drew the draperies with a trembling hand; and ever after while they dwelt in the room they stayed so.

My lady wore her mourning for more than a year, and in her sombre trailing weeds was a wonder to behold.  She lived in her father’s house, and saw no company, but sat or walked and drove with her sister Anne, and visited the poor.  The perfect stateliness of her decorum was more talked about than any levity would have been; those who were wont to gossip expecting that having made her fine match and been so soon rid of her lord, she would begin to show her strange wild breeding again, and indulge in fantastical whims.  That she should wear her mourning with unflinching dignity and withdraw from the world as strictly as if she had been a lady of royal blood mourning her prince, was the unexpected thing, and so was talked of everywhere.

At the end of the eighteenth month she sent one day for Anne, who, coming at her bidding, found her standing in her chamber surrounded by black robes and draperies piled upon the bed, and chairs, and floor, their sombreness darkening the room like a cloud; but she stood in their midst in a trailing garment of pure white, and in her bosom was a bright red rose tied with a knot of scarlet ribband, whose ends fell floating.  Her woman was upon her knees before a coffer in which she was laying the weeds as she folded them.

Mistress Anne paused within the doorway, her eyes dazzled by the tall radiant shape and blot of scarlet colour as if by the shining of the sun.  She knew in that moment that all was changed, and that the world of darkness they had been living in for the past months was swept from existence.  When her sister had worn her mourning weeds she had seemed somehow almost pale; but now she stood in the sunlight with the rich scarlet on her cheek and lip, and the stars in her great eyes.

“Come in, sister Anne,” she said.  “I lay aside my weeds, and my woman is folding them away for me.  Dost know of any poor creature newly left a widow whom some of them would be a help to?  ’Tis a pity that so much sombreness should lie in chests when there are perhaps poor souls to whom it would be a godsend.”

Before the day was over, there was not a shred of black stuff left in sight; such as had not been sent out of the house to be distributed, being packed away in coffers in the garrets under the leads.

“You will wear it no more, sister?” Anne asked once.  “You will wear gay colours—as if it had never been?”

“It is as if it had never been,” Clorinda answered.  “Ere now her lord is happy with her, and he is so happy that I am forgot.  I had a fancy that—perhaps at first—well, if he had looked down on earth—remembering—he would have seen I was faithful in my honouring of him.  But now, I am sure—”

She stopped with a half laugh.  “’Twas but a fancy,” she said.  “Perchance he has known naught since that night he fell at my feet—and even so, poor gentleman, he hath a happy fate.  Yes, I will wear gay colours,” flinging up her arms as if she dropped fetters, and stretched her beauteous limbs for ease—“gay colours—and roses and rich jewels—and all things—all that will make me beautiful!”

The next day there came a chest from London, packed close with splendid raiment; when she drove out again in her chariot her servants’ sad-coloured liveries had been laid by, and she was attired in rich hues, amidst which she glowed like some flower new bloomed.

Her house in town was thrown open again, and set in order for her coming.  She made her journey back in state, Mistress Anne accompanying her in her travelling-coach.  As she passed over the highroad with her equipage and her retinue, or spent the night for rest at the best inns in the towns and villages, all seemed to know her name and state.

“’Tis the young widow of the Earl of Dunstanwolde,” people said to each other—“she that is the great beauty, and of such a wit and spirit that she is scarce like a mere young lady.  ’Twas said she wed him for his rank; but afterwards ’twas known she made him a happy gentleman, though she gave him no heir.  She wore weeds for him beyond the accustomed time, and is but now issuing from her retirement.”

Mistress Anne felt as if she were attending some royal lady’s progress, people so gazed at them and nudged each other, wondered and admired.

“You do not mind that all eyes rest on you,” she said to her sister; “you are accustomed to be gazed at.”

“I have been gazed at all my life,” my lady answered; “I scarce take note of it.”

On their arrival at home they met with fitting welcome and reverence.  The doors of the town house were thrown open wide, and in the hall the servants stood in line, the housekeeper at the head with her keys at her girdle, the little jet-black negro page grinning beneath his turban with joy to see his lady again, he worshipping her as a sort of fetich, after the manner of his race.  ’Twas his duty to take heed to the pet dogs, and he stood holding by their little silver chains a smart-faced pug and a pretty spaniel.  His lady stopped a moment to pat them and to speak to him a word of praise of their condition; and being so favoured, he spoke also, rolling his eyes in his delight at finding somewhat to impart.

“Yesterday, ladyship, when I took them out,” he said, “a gentleman marked them, knowing whose they were.  He asked me when my lady came again to town, and I answered him to-day.  ’Twas the fair gentleman in his own hair.”

“’Twas Sir John Oxon, your ladyship,” said the lacquey nearest to him.

Her ladyship left caressing her spaniel and stood upright.  Little Nero was frightened, fearing she was angered; she stood so straight and tall, but she said nothing and passed on.

At the top of the staircase she turned to Mistress Anne with a laugh.

“Thy favourite again, Anne,” she said.  “He means to haunt me, now we are alone.  ’Tis thee he comes after.”

CHAPTER XIII—Wherein a deadly war begins

The town and the World of Fashion greeted her on her return with open arms.  Those who looked on when she bent the knee to kiss the hand of Royalty at the next drawing-room, whispered among themselves that bereavement had not dimmed her charms, which were even more radiant than they had been at her presentation on her marriage, and that the mind of no man or woman could dwell on aught as mournful as widowhood in connection with her, or, indeed, could think of anything but her brilliant beauty.  ’Twas as if from this time she was launched into a new life.  Being rich, of high rank, and no longer an unmarried woman, her position had a dignity and freedom which there was no creature but might have envied.  As the wife of Dunstanwolde she had been the fashion, and adored by all who dared adore her; but as his widow she was surrounded and besieged.  A fortune, a toast, a wit, and a beauty, she combined all the things either man or woman could desire to attach themselves to the train of; and had her air been less regal, and her wit less keen of edge, she would have been so beset by flatterers and toadies that life would have been burdensome.  But this she would not have, and was swift enough to detect the man whose debts drove him to the expedient of daring to privately think of the usefulness of her fortune, or the woman who manoeuvred to gain reputation or success by means of her position and power.

“They would be about me like vultures if I were weak fool enough to let them,” she said to Anne.  “They cringe and grovel like spaniels, and flatter till ’tis like to make one sick.  ’Tis always so with toadies; they have not the wit to see that their flattery is an insolence, since it supposes adulation so rare that one may be moved by it.  The men with empty pockets would marry me, forsooth, and the women be dragged into company clinging to my petticoats.  But they are learning.  I do not shrink from giving them sharp lessons.”

This she did without mercy, and in time cleared herself of hangers-on, so that her banquets and assemblies were the most distinguished of the time, and the men who paid their court to her were of such place and fortune that their worship could but be disinterested.

Among the earliest to wait upon her was his Grace of Osmonde, who found her one day alone, save for the presence of Mistress Anne, whom she kept often with her.  When the lacquey announced him, Anne, who sat upon the same seat with her, felt her slightly start, and looking up, saw in her countenance a thing she had never beheld before, nor had indeed ever dreamed of beholding.  It was a strange, sweet crimson which flowed over her face, and seemed to give a wondrous deepness to her lovely orbs.  She rose as a queen might have risen had a king come to her, but never had there been such pulsing softness in her look before.  ’Twas in some curious fashion like the look of a girl; and, in sooth, she was but a girl in years, but so different to all others of her age, and had lived so singular a life, that no one ever thought of her but as a woman, or would have deemed it aught but folly to credit her with any tender emotion or blushing warmth girlhood might be allowed.

His Grace was as courtly of bearing as he had ever been.  He stayed not long, and during his visit conversed but on such subjects as a kinsman may graciously touch upon; but Anne noted in him a new look also, though she could scarce have told what it might be.  She thought that he looked happier, and her fancy was that some burden had fallen from