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) 📗

of easy virtue in a pot-house quarrel.  There was no human creature near her who had mind or heart enough to see the awfulness of her condition, or to strive to teach her to check her passions; and in the midst of these perilous surroundings the little virago grew handsomer and of finer carriage every hour, as if on the rank diet that fed her she throve and flourished.

There came a day at last when she had reached six years old, when by a trick of chance a turn was given to the wheel of her fate.

She had not reached three when a groom first set her on a horse’s back and led her about the stable-yard, and she had so delighted in her exalted position, and had so shouted for pleasure and clutched her steed’s rein and clucked at him, that her audience had looked on with roars of laughter.  From that time she would be put up every day, and as time went on showed such unchildish courage and spirit that she furnished to her servant companions a new pastime.  Soon she would not be held on, but riding astride like a boy, would sit up as straight as a man and swear at her horse, beating him with her heels and little fists if his pace did not suit her.  She knew no fear, and would have used a whip so readily that the men did not dare to trust her with one, and knew they must not mount her on a steed too mettlesome.  By the time she passed her sixth birthday she could ride as well as a grown man, and was as familiar with her father’s horses as he himself, though he knew nothing of the matter, it being always contrived that she should be out of sight when he visited his hunters.

It so chanced that the horse he rode the oftenest was her favourite, and many were the tempests of rage she fell into when she went to the stable to play with the animal and did not find him in his stall, because his master had ordered him out.  At such times she would storm at the men in the stable-yard and call them ill names for their impudence in letting the beast go, which would cause them great merriment, as she knew nothing of who the man was who had balked her, since she was, in truth, not so much as conscious of her father’s existence, never having seen or even heard more of him than his name, which she in no manner connected with herself.

“Could Sir Jeoffry himself but once see and hear her when she storms at us and him, because he dares to ride his own beast,” one of the older men said once, in the midst of their laughter, “I swear he would burst forth laughing and be taken with her impudent spirit, her temper is so like his own.  She is his own flesh and blood, and as full of hell-fire as he.”

Upon this morning which proved eventful to her, she had gone to the stables, as was her daily custom, and going into the stall where the big black horse was wont to stand, she found it empty.  Her spirit rose hot within her in the moment.  She clenched her fists, and began to stamp and swear in such a manner as it would be scarce fitting to record.

“Where is he now?” she cried.  “He is my own horse, and shall not be ridden.  Who is the man who takes him?  Who?  Who?”

“’Tis a fellow who hath no manners,” said the man she stormed at, grinning and thrusting his tongue in his cheek.  “He says ’tis his beast, and not yours, and he will have him when he chooses.”

“’Tis not his—’tis mine!” shrieked Miss, her little face inflamed with passion.  “I will kill him!  ’Tis my horse.  He shall be mine!”

For a while the men tormented her, to hear her rave and see her passion, for, in truth, the greater tempest she was in, the better she was worth beholding, having a colour so rich, and eyes so great and black and flaming.  At such times there was naught of the feminine in her, and indeed always she looked more like a handsome boy than a girl, her growth being for her age extraordinary.  At length a lad who was a helper said to mock her—

“The man hath him at the door before the great steps now.  I saw him stand there waiting but a moment ago.  The man hath gone in the house.”

She turned and ran to find him.  The front part of the house she barely knew the outside of, as she was kept safely in the west wing and below stairs, and when taken out for the air was always led privately by a side way—never passing through the great hall, where her father might chance to encounter her.

She knew best this side-entrance, and made her way to it, meaning to search until she found the front.  She got into the house, and her spirit being roused, marched boldly through corridors and into rooms she had never seen before, and being so mere a child, notwithstanding her strange wilfulness and daring, the novelty of the things she saw so far distracted her mind from the cause of her anger that she stopped more than once to stare up at a portrait on a wall, or to take in her hand something she was curious concerning.

When she at last reached the entrance-hall, coming into it through a door she pushed open, using all her childish strength, she stood in the midst of it and gazed about her with a new curiosity and pleasure.  It was a fine place, with antlers, and arms, and foxes’ brushes hung upon the walls, and with carved panels of black oak, and oaken floor and furnishings.  All in it was disorderly and showed rough usage; but once it had been a notable feature of the house, and well worth better care than had been bestowed upon it.  She discovered on the walls many trophies that attracted her, but these she could not reach, and could only gaze and wonder at; but on an old oaken settle she found some things she could lay hands on, and forthwith seized and sat down upon the floor to play with them.  One of them was a hunting-crop, which she brandished grandly, until she was more taken with a powder-flask which it so happened her father, Sir Jeoffry, had lain down but a few minutes before, in passing through.  He was going forth coursing, and had stepped into the dining-hall to toss off a bumper of brandy.

When he had helped himself from the buffet, and came back in haste, the first thing he clapped eyes on was his offspring pouring forth the powder from his flask upon the oaken floor.  He had never seen her since that first occasion after the unfortunate incident of her birth, and beholding a child wasting his good powder at the moment he most wanted it and had no time to spare, and also not having had it recalled to his mind for years that he was a parent, except when he found himself forced reluctantly to pay for some small need, he beheld in the young offender only some impudent servant’s brat, who had strayed into his domain and applied itself at once to mischief.

He sprang upon her, and seizing her by the arm, whirled her to her feet with no little violence, snatching the powder-flask from her, and dealing her a sound box on the ear.

“Blood and damnation on thee, thou impudent little baggage!” he shouted.  “I’ll break thy neck for thee, little scurvy beast;” and pulled the bell as he were like to break the wire.

But he had reckoned falsely on what he dealt with.  Miss uttered a shriek of rage which rang through the roof like a clarion.  She snatched the crop from the floor, rushed at him, and fell upon him like a thousand little devils, beating his big legs with all the strength of her passion, and pouring forth oaths such as would have done credit to Doll Lightfoot herself.

“Damn thee!—damn thee!”—she roared and screamed, flogging him.  “I’ll tear thy eyes out!  I’ll cut thy liver from thee!  Damn thy soul to hell!”

And this choice volley was with such spirit and fury poured forth, that Sir Jeoffry let his hand drop from the bell, fell into a great burst of laughter, and stood thus roaring while she beat him and shrieked and stormed.

The servants, hearing the jangled bell, attracted by the tumult, and of a sudden missing Mistress Clorinda, ran in consternation to the hall, and there beheld this truly pretty sight—Miss beating her father’s legs, and tearing at him tooth and nail, while he stood shouting with laughter as if he would split his sides.

“Who is the little cockatrice?” he cried, the tears streaming down his florid cheeks.  “Who is the young she-devil?  Ods bodikins, who is she?”

For a second or so the servants stared at each other aghast, not knowing what to say, or venturing to utter a word; and then the nurse, who had come up panting, dared to gasp forth the truth.

“’Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry,” she stammered—“my lady’s last infant—the one of whom she died in childbed.”

His big laugh broke in two, as one might say.  He looked down at the young fury and stared.  She was out of breath with beating him, and had ceased and fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, breathing defiance and hatred.  Her big black eyes were flames, her head was thrown up and back, her cheeks were blood scarlet, and her great crop of crow-black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little virago face, as if it might change into Medusa’s snakes.

“Damn thee!” she shrieked at him again.  “I’ll kill thee, devil!”

Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh.

“Clorinda do they call thee, wench?” he said.  “Jeoffry thou shouldst have been but for thy mother’s folly.  A fiercer little devil for thy size I never saw—nor a handsomer one.”

And he seized her from where she stood, and held her at his big arms’ length, gazing at her uncanny beauty with looks that took her in from head to foot.

CHAPTER III—Wherein Sir Jeoffry’s boon companions drink a toast

Her beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of limb, and great growth for her age, would have pleased him if she had possessed no other attraction, but the daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so amused him and suited his roystering tastes that he took to her as the finest plaything in the world.

He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made friends with her, but at first she would have none of him, and scowled at him in spite of all he did.  The brandy by this time had mounted to his head and put him in the mood for frolic, liquor oftenest making him gamesome.  He felt as if he were playing with a young dog or marking the spirit of a little fighting cock.  He ordered the servants back to their kitchen, who stole away, the women amazed, and the men concealing grins which burst forth into guffaws of laughter when they came into their hall below.

“’Tis as we said,” they chuckled.  “He had but to see her beauty and find her a bigger devil than he, and ’twas done.  The mettle of her—damning and flogging him!  Never was there a finer sight!  She feared him no more than if he had been a spaniel—and he roaring and laughing till he was like to burst.”

“Dost know who I am?” Sir Jeoffry was asking the child, grinning himself as he stood before her where she sat on the oaken settle on which he had lifted her.

“No,” quoth little Mistress, her black brows drawn down, her handsome owl’s eyes verily seeming to look him through and through in search of somewhat; for, in sooth, her rage abating before his jovial humour, the big burly laugher attracted her attention, though she was not disposed to show him that she leaned towards any favour or yielding.

“I am thy Dad,” he said.  “’Twas thy Dad thou gavest such a trouncing.  And thou hast an arm, too.  Let’s cast an eye on it.”

He took her wrist and pushed up her sleeve, but she dragged back.

“Will not be mauled,” she cried.  “Get away from me!”

He shouted with laughter again.  He had seen that the little arm was as white and hard as marble, and had such muscles as a great boy might have been a braggart about.

“By Gad!” he said, elated.  “What a wench of six years old.  Wilt have my crop and trounce thy Dad again!”

He picked up the crop from