CHAPTER XXIV.
"QUITE OUT OF FASHION."
Denzil received the good news by the hands of a mounted messenger in thefollowing forenoon.
The Knight had written, "Ride--ride--ride!" in the Elizabethan style, onthe cover of his letter, which contained but two brief sentences--
"Womanlike, she has changed her mind. Come when thou wilt, dear son."
And the son-in-law-to-be lost not an hour. He was at the Manor beforenight-fall. He was a member of the quiet household again, subservient tohis mistress in everything.
"There are some words that must needs be spoken before we are agreed,"Angela said, when they found themselves alone for the first time, in thegarden, on the morning after his return, and when Denzil would fain havetaken her to his breast and ratified their betrothal with a kiss. "I thinkyou know as well as I do that it is my father's wish that has made mechange."
"So long as you change not again, dear, I am of all men the happiest. Yes,I know 'tis Sir John's wooing that won you, not mine. And that I havestill to conquer your heart, though your hand is promised me. Yet I do notdespair of being loved in as full measure as I love. My faith is strong inthe power of an honest affection."
"You may at least be sure of my honesty. I profess nothing but the desireto be your true and obedient wife----"
"Obedient! You shall be my empress."
"No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to make my father happy, andyou too, sir, if I can."
"Ah, my soul, that is so easy for you. You have but to let me live in yourdear company. I doubt I would rather be miserable with you than happy withany other woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and I will be moresubmissive than Socrates. But you are all mildness--perfect Christian,perfect woman. You cannot miss being perfect as wife--and----"
Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked himself lest he shouldoffend, and the speech ended in a sob.
"My Angela, my angel!"
He took her to his heart, and kissed the fair brow, cold under hispassionate kisses. That word "angel" turned her to ice. It conjured backthe sound of a voice that it was sin to remember. Fareham had called herso; not once, but many times, in their placid days of friendship, beforethe fiery breath of passion had withered all the flowers in her earthlyparadise--before the knowledge of evil had clouded the brightness of theworld.
A gentle peace reigned at the Manor after Angela's betrothal. Sir John washappier than he had been since the days of his youth, before the comingof that cloud no bigger than a man's hand, when John Hampden's stubbornresistance of a thirty-shilling rate had brought Crown and People face toface upon the burning question of Ship-money, and kindled the fire that wasto devour England. From the hour he left his young wife to follow the Kingto Yorkshire Sir John's existence had known little of rest or of comfort,or even of glory. He had fought on the losing side, and had missed thefame of those who fell and took the rank of heroes by an untimely death.Hardship and danger, wounds and sickness, straitened means and scanty fare,had been his portion for three bitter years; and then had come a period ofpatient service, of schemes and intrigues foredoomed to failure; of goingto and fro, from Jersey to Paris, from Paris to Ireland, from Irelandto Cornwall, journeying hither and thither at the behest of a shifty,irresolute man, or a passionate, imprudent woman, as the case might be; nowfrom the King to the Queen, now from the Queen to this or that ally; futileerrands, unskilful combinations, failure on every hand, till the last fataljourney, on which he was an unwilling attendant, the flight from HamptonCourt to Titchfield, when the fated King broke faith with his enemies in anunfinished negotiation.
Foreign adventure had followed English hardships, and the soldier hadbeen tossed on the stormy sea of European warfare. He had been graciouslyreceived at the French Court, but only to feel himself a stranger there,and to have his English clothes and English accent laughed at by Gramontand Bussy, and the accomplished St. Evremond, and the frivolous herd oftheir imitators; to see even the Queen, for whom he had spent hislast jacobus, smile behind her fan at his bevues, and whisper to hersister-in-law while he knelt to kiss the little white hand that had led aKing to ruin. Everywhere the stern Malignant had found himself outside thecircle of the elect. At the Hotel de Rambouillet, in the splendid houses ofthe newly built Place Royale, in the salons of Duchesses, and the tavernsof courtly roysterers and drunken poets, at Cormier's, or at the PineApple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all the better for aChristian gentleman not to understand the talk of the wits that flashed anddrank there. Everywhere he had been a stranger and aloof. It was only undercanvas, in danger and privation, that he lost the sense of being onetoo many in the world. There John Kirkland found his level, shoulder toshoulder with Conde and Turenne. The stout Cavalier was second to nosoldier in Louis' splendid army; was of the stamp of an earlier race even,better inured to hardship than any save that heroic Prince, the Achillesof his day, who to the graces of a modern courtier joined the temper of anancient Greek.
His daughter Hyacinth had given him the utmost affection which such anature could give; but it was the affection of a trained singing-bird, ora pug-nosed spaniel; and the father, though he admired her beauty, and waspleased with her caresses, was shrewd enough to perceive the lightnessof her disposition and the shallowness of her mind. He rejoiced in hermarriage with a man of Fareham's strong character.
"I have married thee to a husband who will know how to rule a wife," hetold her on the night of her wedding. "You have but to obey and to behappy; for he is rich enough to indulge all your fancies, and will notcomplain if you waste the gold that would pay a company of foot on thedecoration of your poor little person."
"The tone in which you speak of my poor little person, sir, can but remindme how much I need the tailor and the milliner," answered Hyacinth,dropping her favourite curtsy, which she was ever ready to practise at theslightest provocation.
"Nay, petite chatte, you know I think you the loveliest creature at SaintGermain or the Louvre, far surpassing in beauty the Cardinal's niece, whohas managed to set young Louis' heart throbbing with a boyish passion. ButI doubt you bestow too much care on the cherishing of a gift so fleeting."
"You have said the word, sir. 'Tis because it is so fleeting I must needstake care of my beauty. We poor women are like the butterflies and theroses. We have as brief a summer. You men, who value us only for ouroutward show, should pardon some vanity in creatures so ephemeral."
"Ephemeral scarce applies to a sex which owns such an example as yourgrandmother, who has lived to reckon her servants among the grandsons ofher earliest lovers."
"Not lived, sir! No woman lives after thirty. She can but exist, and dreamthat she is still admired. La Marquise has been dead for the last twentyyears, but she won't own it. Ah, sir, c'est un triste supplice to _havebeen_! I wonder how those poor ghosts can bear that earthly purgatory whichthey call old age? Look at Madame de Sable, par exemple, once a beauty, nowonly a tradition. And Queen Anne! Old people say she was beautiful, andthat Buckingham risked being torn by wild horses--like Ravaillac--onlyto kiss her hand by stealth in a moonlit garden; and would have plungedEngland in war but for an excuse to come back to Paris. Who would go to warfor Anne's haggard countenance nowadays?"
Even in Lady Fareham's household the Cavalier soon began to fancy himselfan inhabitant too much; a dull, grey ghost from a tragical past. He couldnot keep himself from talking of the martyred King, and those bitter yearsthrough which he had followed his master's sinking fortunes. He toldstories of York and of Beverley; of the scarcity of cash which reduced hisMajesty's Court to but one table; of that bitter affront at Coventry; ofthe evil omens that had marked the raising of the Standard on the hill atNottingham, and filled superstitious minds with dark forebodings, remindingold men of that sad shower of rain that fell when Charles was proclaimed atWhitehall, on the day of his accession, and of the shock of earthquake onhis coronation day; of Edgehill and Lindsey's death; of the profligateconduct of the Cavalier regiments,
and the steady, dogged force of theirpsalm-singing adversaries; of Queen Henrietta's courage, and beauty, andwilfulness, and her fatal influence upon an adoring husband.
"She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been," said Sir John, "forgettingthat Buckingham was the King's evil genius."
That lively and eminently artificial society of the Rue de Touraine soonwearied of Sir John's reminiscences. King Charles's execution had recededinto the dim grey of history. He might as well have told them anecdotesof Cinq Mars, or of the great Henri, or of Moses or Abraham. Life wenton rapid wheels in patrician Paris. They had Conde to talk about, andMazarin's numerous nieces, and the opera, that new importation from Italy,which the Cardinal was bringing into fashion; while in the remote past ofhalf a dozen years back the Fronde was the only interesting subject, andeven that was worn threadbare; the adventures of the Duchess, the conductof the Prince in prison, the intrigues of Cardinal and Queen, Mademoiselle,yellow-haired Beaufort, duels of five against five--all--all these wereancient history as compared with young Louis and his passion for Marie deMancini, and the scheming of her wily uncle to marry all his nieces toreigning princes or embryo kings.
And then the affectations and conceits of that elegant circle, the sonnetsand madrigals, the "bouts-rimes," the practical jokes, the logic-choppingand straw-splitting of those ultra-fine intellects, the romances where thepersonages of the day masqueraded under Greek or Roman or Oriental aliases,books written in a flowery language which the Cavalier did not understand,and full of allusions that were dark to him; while not to know andappreciate those master-works placed him outside the pale.
He rejoiced in escaping from that overcharged atmosphere to the tavern, tothe camp, anywhere. He followed the exiled Stuarts in their wanderings,paid his homage to the Princess of Orange, roamed from scene to scene, astranger and one too many wherever he went.
Then came the hardest blow of all--the chilling disillusion that awaitedmany of Charles's faithful friends, who were not of such politicalimportance as to command their recompense. Neglect and forgetfulness wereSir John Kirkland's portion; and for him and for such as he that causticdefinition of the Act of Indemnity was a hard and cruel truth. It was anAct of Indemnity for the King's enemies and of oblivion for his friends.Sir John's spirits had hardly recovered from the bitterness of disappointedaffection when he came back to the old home, though his chagrin was sevenyears old. But now, in his delight at the alliance with Denzil Warner, heseemed to have renewed his lease of cheerfulness and bodily vigour. He rodeand walked about the lanes and woods with erect head and elastic limbs. Heplayed bowls with Denzil in the summer evenings. He went fishing with hisdaughter and her sweetheart. He revelled in the simple rustic life, andtold them stories of his boyhood, when James was King, and many a queerstory of that eccentric monarch and of the rising star, George Villiers.
"Ah, what a history that was!" he exclaimed. "His mother trained him as ifwith a foreknowledge of that star-like ascendency. He was schooled to shineand dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and women admire. Idoubt she never thought of the mind inside him, or cared whether he had aheart or a lump of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither tothink nor to pity--only to shine; to be quick with his tongue in half adozen languages, with his sword after half a dozen modes of fence. He couldkill his man in the French, or the Italian, or the Spanish manner. He wascosmopolitan in the knowledge of evil. He had every device that can make aman brilliant and dangerous. He mounted every rung of the ladder, leapingfrom step to step. He ascended, swift as a shooting star, from plaincountry gentleman to the level of princes. And he expired with anejaculation, astonished to find himself mortal, slain in a moment by thethrust of a ten-penny knife. I remember as if it were yesterday how menlooked and spoke when the news came to London, and how some said thismurder would be the saving of King Charles. I know of one man at least whowas glad."
"Who was he, sir?" asked Denzil.
"He who had the greatest mind among Englishmen--Thomas Wentworth.Buckingham had held him at a distance from the King, and his strongpassionate temper was seething with indignation at being kept aloof bythat silken sybarite--an impotent General, a fatal counsellor. After theFavourite's death there came a time of peace and plenty. The pestilence hadpassed, the war was over. Charles was happy with his Henriette and theirlovely children. Wentworth was in Ireland. The Parliament House stood stilland empty, doors shut, swallows building under the eaves. I look back, andthose placid years melt into each other like one long summer. And then,again, as 'twere yesterday, I hear Hampden's drums and fifes in thelanes, and see the rebels' flag with that hateful legend, 'Vestigia nullaretrorsum,' and Buckinghamshire peasants are under arms, and the King andhis people have begun to hate and fear each other."
"None foresaw that the war would last so long or end in murder, I doubt,sir," said Angela.
"Nay, child; we who were loyal thought to see that rabble withered by thebreath of kingly nostrils. A word should have brought them to the dust."
"There might be so easy a victory, perhaps, sir, from a King who knew howto speak the right word at the right moment, how to comply graciously witha just demand, and how to be firm in a righteous denial," replied Denzil;"but with Charles a stammering speech was but the outward expression of awavering mind. He was a man who never listened to an appeal, but alwaysyielded to a threat, were it only loud enough."
The wedding was to be soon. Marriages were patched up quickly in thelight-hearted sixties. And here there was nothing to wait for. Sir John hadfound Denzil compliant on every minor question, and willing to make hishome at the Manor during his mother's lifetime.
"The old lady would never stomach a Papist daughter-in-law," said Sir John;and Denzil was fain to confess that Lady Warner would not easily reconcileherself with Angela's creed, though she could not fail of loving Angelaherself.
"My daughter would have neither peace nor liberty under a Puritan's roof,"Sir John said; "and I should have neither son nor daughter, and should be aloser by my girl's marriage. You shall be as much master here, Denzil, asif this were your own house--which it will be when I have moved to my lastbillet. Give me a couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for mydogs, and I want no more. You and Angela may introduce as many new fashionsas you like; dine at two o'clock, and sip your unwholesome Indian drink ofan evening. The fine ladies in Paris were beginning to take tea when I waslast there, though by the faces they made over the stuff it might have beenpoison. I can smoke my pipe in the chimney-corner, and look on and admireat the new generation. I shall not feel myself one too many at yourfireside, as I used sometimes in the Rue de Touraine, when those struttingGallic cocks were quizzing me."
* * * * *
There were clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs again in front of thefloriated iron gate; but this time it was not the Honourable Henriette whocame tripping along the gravel path on two-inch heels, but my Lady Fareham,who walked languidly, with the assistance of a gold-headed cane, and wholooked pale and thin in her apple-green satin gown and silver-braidedpetticoat.
She, too, came attended by a second coach, which was filled by herladyship's French waiting-woman, Mrs. Lewin, and a pile of boxes andparcels.
"I'll wager that in the rapture and romance of your sweethearting you havenot given a thought to petticoats and mantuas," she said, after she hadembraced her sister, who was horrified at the sight of that paintedharridan from London.
Angela blushed at those words, "rapture and romance," knowing how littlethere had been of either in her thoughts, or in Denzil's sober courtship.Romance! Alas! there had been but one romance in her life, and that aguilty one, which she must ever remember with remorse.
"Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered."
"I have gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talkof gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked,with more temper than she was wont to show.
"My sisterly kindness br
ought her. You are an ungrateful hussy for lookingvexed when I have come a score of miles through the dust to do you aservice."
"Ah, dearest, I am grateful to you for coming. But, alas! you are lookingpale and thin. Heaven forbid that you have been indisposed, and we inignorance of your suffering."
"No, I am well enough, though every one assures me I look ill; which is buta civil mode of telling me I am growing old and ugly."
"Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, with time; the latter youwill never be."
"Your servant, Sir Denzil, has taught you to pay antique compliments. Well,now we will talk business. I had occasion to send for Lewin--my toilet wasin a horrid state of decay; and then it seemed to me, knowing your foolishindifference, that even your wedding gown would not be chosen unless Isaw to it. So here is Lewin with Lyons and Genoa silks of the very latestpatterns. She has but just come from Paris, and is full of Parisian modesand Court scandals. The King posted off to Versailles directly after hismother's death, and has not returned to the Louvre since. He amuseshimself by spending millions on building, and making passionate love toMademoiselle la Valliere, who encourages him by pretending an excessivemodesty, and exaggerates every favour by penitential tears. I doubt hisattachment to so melancholy a mistress will hardly last a lifetime. She isnot beautiful; she has a halting gait; and she is no more virtuous than anyother young woman who makes a show of resistance to enhance the merit ofher surrender."
Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. Lewin and thewaiting-woman following, laden with parcels.
"Queer, dear old hovel!" she exclaimed, sinking languidly upon a tabouret,and fanning herself exhaustedly, while the mantua-maker opened her boxes,and laid out her sample breadths of richly decorated brocade, or silver andgold enwrought satin. "How well I remember being whipped over my horn-bookin this very room! And there is the bowling green where I used to race withthe Italian greyhound my grandmother brought me from Paris. I look back,and it seems a dream of some other child running about in the sunshine. Itis so hard to believe that joyous little being--who knew not the meaning ofheart-ache--was I."
"Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less cause for heart-ache thanyou?"
"Have I not cause? Not when my glass tells me youth is gone, and beautyis waning? Not when there is no one in this wide world who cares a strawwhether I am handsome or hideous? I would as lief be dead as despised andneglected."
"Sorella mia, questa donna ti ascolta," murmured Angela; "come and look atthe old gardens, sister, while Mrs. Lewin spreads out her wares. And prayconsider, madam," turning to the mantua-maker, "that those peacock purplesand gold embroideries have no temptations for me. I am marrying a countrygentleman, and am to lead a country life. My gowns must be such as willnot be spoilt by a walk in dusty lanes, or a visit to a farm-labourer'scottage."
"Eh, gud, your ladyship, do not tell me that you would bury so much beautyamong sheep and cows, and odious ploughmen's wives and dairy-women. A monthor so of rustic life in summer between Epsom and Tunbridge Wells may bewell enough, to rest your beauty--without patches or a French head--out ofsight of your admirers. But to live in the country! Only a jealous husbandcould ever propose more than an annual six weeks of rustic seclusion to awife under sixty. Lord Chesterfield was considered as cruel for taking hisCountess to the rocks and ravines of Derbyshire as Sir John Denham forpoisoning his poor lady."
"Chut! tu vas un peu trop loin, Lewin!" remonstrated Lady Fareham.
"But, in truly, your ladyship, when I hear Mrs. Kirkland talk of a husbandwho would have her waste her beauty upon clod-polls and dairy-maids, andnever wear a mantua worth looking at----"
"I doubt my husband will be guided by his own likings rather than by Mrs.Lewin's tastes and opinions," said Angela, with a stately curtsy, which wasdesigned to put the forward tradeswoman in her place, and which took thatpersonage's breath away.
"There never was anything like the insolence of a handsome young womanbefore she has been educated by a lover," she said to her ladyship'sFrenchwoman, with a vindictive smile and scornful shrug of bloatedshoulders, when the sisters had left the parlour. "But wait till her firstintrigue, and then it is 'My dearest Lewin, wilt thou make me everlastinglybeholden to thee by taking this letter--thou knowest to whom?' Or, in aflood of tears, 'Lewin, you are my only friend--and if you cannot find mesome good and serviceable woman who would give me a home where I can hidefrom the cruel eye of the world, I must take poison.' No insolence then,mark you, Madame Hortense!"
"This demoiselle is none of your sort," Hortense said. "You must not judgeEnglish ladies by your maids of honour. Celles la sont des drolesses, sansfoi ni loi."
"Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey woolsey, or Norwichdrugget, she will find her mistake. I never courted the custom of littlegentlemen's wives, with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to doanything for this stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham must give me the order. Iam no servant of Madame Kirkland."
* * * * *
Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady Fareham with afretful tearfulness, as of one whose over strung nerves were on the vergeof hysteria.
"There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest," Angela saidinterrogatively.
"Something! A hundred things. I am at cross purposes with life. But Ishould have been worse had you been obstinate and still refused thisgentleman."
"Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?" asked her sister, with a suddencoldness.
"Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister has been wise in goodtime, and you will be the happiest wife in England; for I believe yourPuritan is a saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, who arethe most incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if you heard the stories Lewintells me--even of that young Rochester--scarce out of his teens. And theDuke--not a jot better than the King--and with so much less grace in hisiniquity. Well, you will be married at the Chapel Royal, and spend yourwedding night at Fareham House. We will have a great supper. His Majestywill come, of course. He owes us that much civility."
"Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be married in our dearmother's oratory, by your chaplain. Sure, dearest, you know I have nevertaken kindly to Court splendours."
"Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like a star, that last night youwere ever at Whitehall, Henri sitting close beside you. 'Twas the nighthe took ill of a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes whetherthere was not a mystery of attempted murder behind that long sickness."
"Murder!"
"A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not that an attempt at murderon the part of him who deliberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past,and he is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, there mightnever have been any such person as Henri de Malfort."
Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could not.
"Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you haveso little cause for sadness?"
"Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend whobrought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? Atraitor, I know--like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he wouldhave been true had I been kinder, and trusted him."
"Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He wastoo near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against yourhusband. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the Kingadmires?"
"Sunk--low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle offame--courted--flattered--poetised--painted. They will be famous forcenturies after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shamenowadays, except that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of.I have wasted my life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who hadmy complexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I haveconsented to be a nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and mypoor painted face shocks me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; andt
here is nothing left for me--nothing."
"Your husband, sister!"
"Sister, do not mock me! You know how much Fareham is to me. We were chosenfor each other, and fancied we were in love for the first few years, whilehe was so often called away from me, that his coming back made a festival,and renewed affection. He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I wasproud of him, and called him my hero. But after the treaty of the Pyreneesour passion cooled, and he grew too much the school-master. And when herecovered of the contagion, he had recovered of any love-sickness he everhad for me!"
"Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking them. His lordship needsbut some sign of affection on your part to be as fond a husband as ever hewas."
"You can answer for him, I'll warrant"
"And there are other claims upon your love--your children."
"Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks herself handsomer andcleverer than ever I was. George, who is a lump of selfishness, and caresmore for his ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I tell youthere is nothing left for me, except fine houses and carriages; and to showmy fading beauty dressed in the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and tostartle people from the observation of my wrinkles by the boldness of mypatches. I was the first to wear a coach and horses across my forehead--inLondon, at least. They had these follies in Paris three years ago."
"Indeed, dearest?"
"And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thounot, ma tres chere?"
"You forget Denzil's hatred of finery."
"But the wedding is the bride's festival. The bridegroom hardly counts.Nay, love, you need fear no immodest fooling when you bid good night to thecompany; nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the door of yourchamber. There was none of that antique nonsense when Lady Sandwich marriedher daughter. All vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver's day have gone tothe ragbag of worn-out English customs. We were so coarse a nation, till welearnt manners in exile. Let me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me,and wean me from melancholic fancies."
"Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars."
After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to the house in order tochoose the wedding gown; and here in the panelled parlour they found thetwo gentlemen, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the noonday sunupon them, newly returned from Aylesbury, where they had ridden in thefreshness of the early morning to choose a team of plough-horses atthe fair; and who were more disconcerted than gratified at finding thedinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. Lewin, Madame Hortense, and an array offinery that made the room look like a stall in the Exchange.
It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs of dinner. Sir Johnand Sir Denzil were both sharp set after their ride, and were looking by nomeans kindly on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela appearedupon the scene.
"Nothing could happen luckier," said Lady Fareham, when she had salutedDenzil, and embraced her father with "Pish, sir! how you smell of cloverand new-mown grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust."
Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in choosing the weddinggown--a somewhat empty compliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since shewould not hear of the simple canary brocade which Denzil selected, andwhich Mrs. Lewin protested was only good enough to make his ladya bed-gown; or of the pale grey atlas which her father consideredsuitable--since, indeed, she would have nothing but a white satin, powderedwith silver fleurs de luces, which she remarked, _en passant_, wouldhave become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she but obtained her cousin'spermission to cast herself away on Lauzun.
"Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess abecoming gown for me?" remonstrated Angela.
"Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee than poor Louise, whohas no more complexion left than I have. She was in her heyday when sheheld the Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the most popularpeople in Paris. She has made herself a laughing-stock since then. That issettled, Lewin"--with a nod to the milliner--"the silver fleurs de lucesfor the wedding mantua. And now be quick with your samples."
All Angela's remonstrances were as vain to-day as they had been on theoccasion of her first acquaintance with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement ofdiscussing and selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham'sspirits like a draught of saumur. She was generous by nature, extravagantby long habit.
"Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give you your weddingclothes, when you are marrying the man I chose for you," she protested."The cherry-coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; 'tis the very shadefor my sister's fair skin. Indeed, Denzil"--nodding at him, as he stoodwatching them, with that hopelessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner'sshop--"I have been your best friend from the beginning, and, but for me,you might never have won your sweetheart to listen to you. Mazarine hoodsare as ancient as the pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer."
It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate.Hyacinth had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobodythere who wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nineo'clock, and she had servants enough to take care of her on the road; soMrs. Lewin and her ladyship's woman were entertained in the steward'sroom, where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in hismaster's house before the troubles--and where the mantua-maker ate anddrank all she could get, and dozed and yawned through the old man'sreminiscences.
The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about inthe sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp--and tooka dish of the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at theend of the grass walk.
Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr.Cowley in praise of rusticity.
"Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley," she cried.
"'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me plying, With all their wanton boughs dispute.'
Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was shamefully treatedin town--a devoted servant to bankrupt royalty for all the best years ofhis life, and fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into power.Ah me, 'tis an ill world we live in, and London is the most hateful spot init," she concluded, with a sigh.
"And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?"
"Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have a crowd of fine people.It would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I werecontent to see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or twowith their ill-dressed wives, at my sister's marriage. London is the onlydecent place--after Paris--to live in; but the country is a peacefullerplace in which to die."
A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised hersister's face with increased concern.
"Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you areseriously indisposed," she said earnestly.
"If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary of living there is onlyone sensible thing left to do--if Providence will but be kind and help oneto do it. I am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep water. Butto fade away in a gentle disease--a quiet ebbing of the vital stream--isthe luckiest thing that can befall one who is tired of life."
Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy strain, and stillmore alarmed by the change in her looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush,fever-bright eyes, Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, andbe nursed and cared for.
"Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power over a sick person,"Hyacinth interjected scornfully, and then in the next moment apologised forthe little spurt of retrospective jealousy.
"Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier than you are at Chilton,"pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, who had been protesting that nobody wantedher, now declared that she could not leave home, and recited a list ofduties, social and domestic.
"I shal
l not have half an hour to spare until I go to London next week toprepare for the wedding," she said. The date had been fixed while they satat dinner; Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while Denzilassented with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by in pale silence, submissiveto the will of others. They were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, andit was now the end of June--little more than a fortnight's interval inwhich to meditate upon the beginning of a new life.
Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, and as many of the newclothes as a supernatural address, industry, and obligingness, couldproduce within the time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and partedfrom her father and sister in excellent spirits; but her haggard facehaunted Angela in troubled dreams all that night, and she thought of herwith anxiety during the next few days, and most of all upon one long sultryday, the 4th of July, which was the third day she had spent in unbrokensolitude since her father and Denzil had ridden away in the dim earlymorning, while the pastures were veiled in summer haze, on the first stageof a journey to London, hoping, with a long rest between noon and evening,to ride thirty-seven miles before night.
They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, and to execute themarriage settlement, Sir John vastly anxious about this business, in hisignorance of law and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London onlylong enough to transact their business, and would then return post-haste tothe Manor; but as they were to ride their own horses all the way, and aslawyers are notoriously slow, Angela had been told not to expect them tillthe fourth evening after their departure. In her lonely rambles that longsummer day, with her spaniel Ganymede, and her father's favourite pointer,for her only companions, Angela's thoughts dwelt ever on the past. Of thefuture--even that so near future of her marriage--she thought hardly atall. That future had been disposed of by others. Her fate had been settledfor her; and she was told that by her submission she would make those sheloved happy. Her father would have the son he longed for, and would besure of her faithful devotion till the end of his days--or of hers, shoulduntimely death intervene. Hyacinth's foolish jealousy would be dispelled bythe act which gave her sister's honour into a husband's custody. And forhim, that presumptuous lover who had taken so little pains to hide hiswicked passion, if in any audacious hour he had dared to believe her guiltyof reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be answered atonce and for ever by her marriage with Denzil--Denzil who was Fareham'sjunior by fifteen years, his superior in every advantage of person, asshe told herself with a bitter smile; for even while she thought of thatsuperiority--the statuesque regularity of feature, the clear colouring ofa complexion warmed with the glow of health, the deep blue of largewell-opened eyes, the light free carriage of one who had led an activecountry life--even while she thought of Denzil, another face and figureflashed upon her memory--rugged and dark, the forehead deeper lined thanyears justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow of the projectingbrow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders bent as if under the burden ofmelancholy thoughts.
O God! this was the face she loved. The only face that had ever touched thesprings of joy and pain. It was nearly half a year since she had seen him.Their meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew that Denzilregarded him with a distrust which made friendship out of the question; andit would be her duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible.Family meetings there must be, considering the short distance betweenChilton and the Manor, feastings and junketings in company once or twice inthe summer, lest it should be thought Sir John and his lordship were illfriends. But Angela knew that in any such social gathering, sitting at theoverloaded board, amid the steam of rich viands, and the noise of manyvoices, she and Fareham would be as far apart as if the Indian Ocean rolledbetween them.
Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; and he would take herhand in greeting, and would kiss her on the lips as she stood before him inher wedding finery, that splendour of white and silver which would provokehim to scornful wonder at her trivial pleasure in sumptuous clothes. Thusonce they must meet. Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so oftenshunned her, taking such obvious trouble to keep his distance; but he couldhardly absent himself from her wedding. The scandal would be too great.
Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull aching misery must be livedthrough somehow; and neither her father nor Denzil must ever have occasionto suspect her unhappiness.
"Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain me in my sorrow! Guardand deliver me from sinful thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thygreat sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? Subdue and bendme to obedience and humility. Let me be an affectionate daughter, a dutifulwife, a friend and comforter to my poor neighbours."
So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil,kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where nohuman eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer dayshe held commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memoryof past happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of thoseplacid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil hadshadowed her friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to rememberand regret. That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction ofthe believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could help her. Long andfervent were her prayers in that woodland sanctuary where she made herpious retreat; nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, whichincluded much earnest supplication for the welfare here and hereafterof that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a protecting and almostmaternal love. Years counted for very little in the relations between thesesisters.
The day wore to its close--the most solemn day in Angela's life since thatwhich she had spent in the Reverend Mother's death-chamber, kneeling in thefaint yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylightwas excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthlyinterests as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughtshad mounted heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. Howhad she changed for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirationsof that time!