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) 📗

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