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) 📗

thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden, and springing high the instant the match struck the fuel it leaped from.  It was a thought so daring and so strange that even she gasped once, being appalled, and her hands, stealing to her brow, clutched at the hair that grew there, feeling it seem to rise and stand erect.

“Is it madness to so dare?” she said hoarsely, and for an instant, shuddering, hid her eyes, but then uncovered and showed them burning.  “Nay! not as I will dare it,” she said, “for it will make me steel.  You fell well,” she said to the stone-faced thing, “and as you lie there, seem to tell me what to do, in your own despite.  You would not have so helped me had you known.  Now ’tis ’twixt Fate and I—a human thing—who is but a hunted woman.”

She put her strong hand forth and thrust him—he was already stiffening—backward from the shoulder, there being no shrinking on her face as she felt his flesh yield beneath her touch, for she had passed the barrier lying between that which is mere life and that which is pitiless hell, and could feel naught that was human.  A poor wild beast at bay, pressed on all sides by dogs, by huntsmen, by resistless weapons, by Nature’s pitiless self—glaring with bloodshot eyes, panting, with fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended agony—might feel thus.  ’Tis but a hunted beast; but ’tis alone, and faces so the terror and anguish of death.

The thing gazing with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; she thrust it farther backward still, and letting the draperies fall, steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid from sight.

“Until to-night,” she said, “you will lie well there.  And then—and then—”

She picked up the long silken lock of hair which lay like a serpent at her feet, and threw it into the fire, watching it burn, as all hair burns, with slow hissing, and she watched it till ’twas gone.

Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her eyeballs and her brow, her thoughts moving in great leaps.  Although it reeled, the brain which had worked for her ever, worked clear and strong, setting before her what was impending, arguing her case, showing her where dangers would arise, how she must provide against them, what she must defend and set at defiance.  The power of will with which she had been endowed at birth, and which had but grown stronger by its exercise, was indeed to be compared to some great engine whose lever ’tis not nature should be placed in human hands; but on that lever her hand rested now, and to herself she vowed she would control it, since only thus might she be saved.  The torture she had undergone for months, the warring of the evil past with the noble present, of that which was sweet and passionately loving woman with that which was all but devil, had strung her to a pitch so intense and high that on the falling of this unnatural and unforeseen blow she was left scarce a human thing.  Looking back, she saw herself a creature doomed from birth; and here in one moment seemed to stand a force ranged in mad battle with the fate which had doomed her.

“’Twas ordained that the blow should fall so,” she said, “and those who did it laugh—laugh at me.”

’Twas but a moment, and her sharp breathing became even and regular as though at her command; her face composed itself, and she turned to the bell and rang it as with imperious haste.

When the lacquey entered, she was standing holding papers in her hand as if she had but just been consulting them.

“Follow Sir John Oxon,” she commanded.  “Tell him I have forgot an important thing and beg him to return at once.  Lose no time.  He has but just left me and can scarce be out of sight.”

The fellow saw there was no time to lose.  They all feared that imperial eye of hers and fled to obey its glances.  Bowing, he turned, and hastened to do her bidding, fearing to admit that he had not seen the guest leave, because to do so would be to confess that he had been absent from his post, which was indeed the truth.

She knew he would come back shortly, and thus he did, entering somewhat breathed by his haste.

“My lady,” he said, “I went quickly to the street, and indeed to the corner of it, but Sir John was not within sight.”

“Fool, you were not swift enough!” she said angrily.  “Wait, you must go to his lodgings with a note.  The matter is of importance.”

She went to a table—’twas close to the divan, so close that if she had thrust forth her foot she could have touched what lay beneath it—and wrote hastily a few lines.  They were to request that which was stiffening within three feet of her to return to her as quickly as possible that she might make inquiries of an important nature which she had forgotten at his departure.

“Take this to Sir John’s lodgings,” she said.  “Let there be no loitering by the way.  Deliver into his own hands, and bring back at once his answer.”

Then she was left alone again, and being so left, paced the room slowly, her gaze upon the floor.

“That was well done,” she said.  “When he returns and has not found him, I will be angered, and send him again to wait.”

She stayed her pacing, and passed her hand across her face.

“’Tis like a nightmare,” she said—“as if one dreamed, and choked, and panted, and would scream aloud, but could not.  I cannot!  I must not!  Would that I might shriek, and dash myself upon the floor, and beat my head upon it until I lay—as he does.”

She stood a moment, breathing fast, her eyes widening, that part of her which was weak woman for the moment putting her in parlous danger, realising the which she pressed her sides with hands that were of steel.

“Wait! wait!” she said to herself.  “This is going mad.  This is loosening hold, and being beaten by that One who hates me and laughs to see what I have come to.”

Naught but that unnatural engine of will could have held her within bounds and restrained the mounting female weakness that beset her; but this engine being stronger than all else, it beat her womanish and swooning terrors down.

“Through this one day I must live,” she said, “and plan, and guard each moment that doth pass.  My face must tell no tale, my voice must hint none.  He will be still—God knows he will be still enough.”

Upon the divan itself there had been lying a little dog; ’twas a King Charles’ spaniel, a delicate pampered thing, which attached itself to her, and was not easily driven away.  Once during the last hour the fierce, ill-hushed voices had disturbed it, and it had given vent to a fretted bark, but being a luxurious little beast, it had soon curled up among its cushions and gone to sleep again.  But as its mistress walked about muttering low words and ofttimes breathing sharp breaths, it became disturbed again.  Perhaps through some instinct of which naught is known by human creatures, it felt the strange presence of a thing which roused it.  It stirred, at first drowsily, and lifted its head and sniffed; then it stretched its limbs, and having done so, stood up, turning on its mistress a troubled eye, and this she saw and stopped to meet it.  ’Twas a strange look she bestowed upon it, a startled and fearful one; her thought drew the blood up to her cheek, but backward again it flowed when the little beast lifted its nose and gave a low but woeful howl.  Twice it did this, and then jumped down, and standing before the edge of the couch, stood there sniffing.

There was no mistake, some instinct of which it knew not the meaning had set it on, and it would not be thrust back.  In all beasts this strange thing has been remarked—that they know that which ends them all, and so revolt against it that they cannot be at rest so long as it is near them, but must roar, or whinny, or howl until ’tis out of the reach of their scent.  And so ’twas plain this little beast knew and was afraid and restless.  He would not let it be, but roved about, sniffing and whining, and not daring to thrust his head beneath the falling draperies, but growing more and yet more excited and terrified, until at last he stopped, raised head in air, and gave vent to a longer, louder, and more dolorous howl, and albeit to one with so strange and noticeable a sound that her heart turned over in her breast as she stooped and caught him in her grasp, and shuddered as she stood upright, holding him to her side, her hand over his mouth.  But he would not be hushed, and struggled to get down as if indeed he would go mad unless he might get to the thing and rave at it.

“If I send thee from the room thou wilt come back, poor Frisk,” she said.  “There will be no keeping thee away, and I have never ordered thee away before.  Why couldst thou not keep still?  Nay, ’twas not dog nature.”

That it was not so was plain by his struggles and the yelps but poorly stifled by her grasp.

She put her hand about his little neck, turning, in sooth, very pale.

“Thou too, poor little beast,” she said.  “Thou too, who art so small a thing and never harmed me.”

When the lacquey came back he wore an air more timorous than before.

“Your ladyship,” he faltered, “Sir John had not yet reached his lodgings.  His servant knew not when he might expect him.”

“In an hour go again and wait,” she commanded.  “He must return ere long if he has not left town.”

And having said this, pointed to a little silken heap which lay outstretched limp upon the floor.  “’Tis poor Frisk, who has had some strange spasm, and fell, striking his head.  He hath been ailing for days, and howled loudly but an hour ago.  Take him away, poor beast.”

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 playhouses, 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