A Lady of Quality

F >> Frances Hodgson Burnett >> A Lady of Quality


She had never seen him before; he must either be a stranger or a rare
visitor. As Clorinda was beyond a woman's height, he was beyond a man's.

He carried himself as kingly as she did nobly; he had a countenance of
strong, manly beauty, and a deep tawny eye, thick-fringed and full of
fire; orders glittered upon his breast, and he wore a fair periwig, which
became him wondrously, and seemed to make his eye more deep and burning
by its contrast.

Beside his strength and majesty of bearing the stripling beauty of John
Oxon would have seemed slight and paltry, a thing for flippant women to
trifle with.

Mistress Anne looked at him with an admiration somewhat like reverence,
and as she did so a sudden thought rose to her mind, and even as it rose,
she marked what his gaze rested on, and how it dwelt upon it, and knew
that he had stepped apart to stand and gaze as she did--only with a man's
hid fervour--at her sister's self.

'Twas as if suddenly a strange secret had been told her. She read it in
his face, because he thought himself unobserved, and for a space had cast
his mask aside. He stood and gazed as a man who, starving at soul, fed
himself through his eyes, having no hope of other sustenance, or as a man
weary with long carrying of a burden, for a space laid it down for rest
and to gather power to go on. She heard him draw a deep sigh almost
stifled in its birth, and there was that in his face which she felt it
was unseemly that a stranger like herself should behold, himself
unknowing of her near presence.

She gently rose from her corner, wondering if she could retire from her
retreat without attracting his observation; but as she did so, chance
caused him to withdraw himself a little farther within the shadow of the
screen, and doing so, he beheld her.

Then his face changed; the mask of noble calmness, for a moment fallen,
resumed itself, and he bowed before her with the reverence of a courtly
gentleman, undisturbed by the unexpectedness of his recognition of her
neighbourhood.

"Madam," he said, "pardon my unconsciousness that you were near me. You
would pass?" And he made way for her.

She curtseyed, asking his pardon with her dull, soft eyes.

"Sir," she answered, "I but retired here for a moment's rest from the
throng and gaiety, to which I am unaccustomed. But chiefly I sat in
retirement that I might watch--my sister."

"Your sister, madam?" he said, as if the questioning echo were almost
involuntary, and he bowed again in some apology.

"My Lady Dunstanwolde," she replied. "I take such pleasure in her
loveliness and in all that pertains to her, it is a happiness to me to
but look on."

Whatsoever the thing was in her loving mood which touched him and found
echo in his own, he was so far moved that he answered to her with
something less of ceremoniousness; remembering also, in truth, that she
was a lady he had heard of, and recalling her relationship and name.

"It is then Mistress Anne Wildairs I am honoured by having speech with,"
he said. "My Lady Dunstanwolde has spoken of you in my presence. I am
my lord's kinsman the Duke of Osmonde;" again bowing, and Anne curtseyed
low once more.

Despite his greatness, she felt a kindness and grace in him which was not
condescension, and which almost dispelled the timidity which, being part
of her nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she addressed or was
addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, bowing his bright curls, and seeming
ever to mock with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome with shy
awkwardness and blushes; but this man, who seemed as far above him in
person and rank and mind as a god is above a graceful painted puppet,
even appeared to give of his own noble strength to her poor weakness. He
bore himself towards her with a courtly respect such as no human being
had ever shown to her before. He besought her again to be seated in her
nook, and stood before her conversing with such delicate sympathy with
her mood as seemed to raise her to the pedestal on which stood less
humble women. All those who passed before them he knew and could speak
easily of. The high deeds of those who were statesmen, or men honoured
at Court or in the field, he was familiar with; and of those who were
beauties or notable gentlewomen he had always something courtly to say.

Her own worship of her sister she knew full well he understood, though he
spoke of her but little.

"Well may you gaze at her," he said. "So does all the world, and honours
and adores."

He proffered her at last his arm, and she, having strangely taken
courage, let him lead her through the rooms and persuade her to some
refreshment. Seeing her so wondrously emerge from her chrysalis, and
under the protection of so distinguished a companion, all looked at her
as she passed with curious amazement, and indeed Mistress Anne was all
but overpowered by the reverence shown them as they made their way.

As they came again into the apartment wherein the host and hostess
received their guests, Anne felt her escort pause, and looked up at him
to see the meaning of his sudden hesitation. He was gazing intently, not
at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde.

"Madam," he said, "pardon me that I seem to detain you, but--but I look
at my kinsman. Madam," with a sudden fear in his voice, "he is ailing--he
sways as he stands. Let us go to him. Quickly! He falls!"

And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a dismayed cry from the
guests about them, and there was a surging movement; and as they pressed
forward themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstanwolde no more
above the people, for he had indeed fallen and lay outstretched and
deathly on the floor.

'Twas but a few seconds before she and Osmonde were close enough to him
to mark his fallen face and ghastly pallor, and a strange dew starting
out upon his brow.

But 'twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate body, waving all else
aside with a great majestic gesture of her arm.

"Back! back!" she cried. "Air! air! and water! My lord! My dear lord!"

But he did not answer, or even stir, though she bent close to him and
thrust her hand within his breast. And then the frightened guests beheld
a strange but beautiful and loving thing, such as might have moved any
heart to tenderness and wonder. This great beauty, this worshipped
creature, put her arms beneath and about the helpless, awful body--for so
its pallor and stillness indeed made it--and lifted it in their powerful
whiteness as if it had been the body of a child, and so bore it to a
couch near and laid it down, kneeling beside it.

Anne and Osmonde were beside her. Osmonde pale himself, but gently calm
and strong. He had despatched for a physician the instant he saw the
fall.

"My lady," he said, bending over her, "permit me to approach. I have
some knowledge of these seizures. Your pardon!"

He knelt also and took the moveless hand, feeling the pulse; he, too,
thrust his hand within the breast and held it there, looking at the
sunken face.

"My dear lord," her ladyship was saying, as if to the prostrate man's ear
alone, knowing that her tender voice must reach him if aught would--as
indeed was truth. "Edward! My dear--dear lord!"

Osmonde held his hand steadily over the heart. The guests shrunk back,
stricken with terror.

There was that in this corner of the splendid room which turned faces
pale.

Osmonde slowly withdrew his hand, and turning to the kneeling woman--with
a pallor like that of marble, but with a noble tenderness and pity in his
eyes--

"My lady," he said, "you are a brave woman. Your great courage must
sustain you. The heart beats no more. A noble life is finished."

* * * * *

The guests heard, and drew still farther back, a woman or two faintly
whimpering; a hurrying lacquey parted the crowd, and so, way being made
for him, the physician came quickly forward.

Anne put her shaking hands up to cover her gaze. Osmonde stood still,
looking down. My Lady Dunstanwolde knelt by the couch and hid her
beautiful face upon the dead man's breast.




CHAPTER XII--Which treats of the obsequies of my Lord of Dunstanwolde, of
his lady's widowhood, and of her return to town


All that remained of my Lord Dunstanwolde was borne back to his ancestral
home, and there laid to rest in the ancient tomb in which his fathers
slept. Many came from town to pay him respect, and the Duke of Osmonde
was, as was but fitting, among them. The countess kept her own
apartments, and none but her sister, Mistress Anne, beheld her.

The night before the final ceremonies she spent sitting by her lord's
coffin, and to Anne it seemed that her mood was a stranger one, than ever
woman had before been ruled by. She did not weep or moan, and only once
kneeled down. In her sweeping black robes she seemed more a majestic
creature than she had ever been, and her beauty more that of a statue
than of a mortal woman. She sent away all other watchers, keeping only
her sister with her, and Anne observed in her a strange protecting
gentleness when she spoke of the dead man.

"I do not know whether dead men can feel and hear," she said. "Sometimes
there has come into my mind--and made me shudder--the thought that,
though they lie so still, mayhap they know what we do--and how they are
spoken of as nothings whom live men and women but wait a moment to thrust
away, that their own living may go on again in its accustomed way, or
perchance more merrily. If my lord knows aught, he will be grateful that
I watch by him to-night in this solemn room. He was ever grateful, and
moved by any tenderness of mine."

'Twas as she said, the room was solemn, and this almost to awfulness. It
was a huge cold chamber at best, and draped with black, and hung with
hatchments; a silent gloom filled it which made it like a tomb. Tall wax-
candles burned in it dimly, but adding to its solemn shadows with their
faint light; and in his rich coffin the dead man lay in his shroud, his
hands like carvings of yellowed ivory clasped upon his breast.

Mistress Anne dared not have entered the place alone, and was so overcome
at sight of the pinched nostrils and sunk eyes that she turned cold with
fear. But Clorinda seemed to feel no dread or shrinking. She went and
stood beside the great funeral-draped bed of state on which the coffin
lay, and thus standing, looked down with a grave, protecting pity in her
face. Then she stooped and kissed the dead man long upon the brow.

"I will sit by you to-night," she said. "That which lies here will be
alone to-morrow. I will not leave you this last night. Had I been in
your place you would not leave me."

She sat down beside him and laid her strong warm hand upon his cold waxen
ones, closing it over them as if she would give them heat. Anne knelt
and prayed--that all might be forgiven, that sins might be blotted out,
that this kind poor soul might find love and peace in the kingdom of
Heaven, and might not learn there what might make bitter the memory of
his last year of rapture and love. She was so simple that she forgot
that no knowledge of the past could embitter aught when a soul looked
back from Paradise.

Throughout the watches of the night her sister sat and held the dead
man's hand; she saw her more than once smooth his grey hair almost as a
mother might have touched a sick sleeping child's; again she kissed his
forehead, speaking to him gently, as if to tell him he need not fear, for
she was close at hand; just once she knelt, and Anne wondered if she
prayed, and in what manner, knowing that prayer was not her habit.

'Twas just before dawn she knelt so, and when she rose and stood beside
him, looking down again, she drew from the folds of her robe a little
package.

"Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that bound it, "when first I
was his wife I found him one day at his desk looking at these things as
they lay upon his hand. He thought at first it would offend me to find
him so; but I told him that I was gentler than he thought--though not so
gentle as the poor innocent girl who died in giving him his child. 'Twas
her picture he was gazing at, and a little ring and two locks of hair--one
a brown ringlet from her head, and one--such a tiny wisp of down--from
the head of her infant. I told him to keep them always and look at them
often, remembering how innocent she had been, and that she had died for
him. There were tears on my hand when he kissed it in thanking me. He
kept the little package in his desk, and I have brought it to him."

The miniature was of a sweet-faced girl with large loving childish eyes,
and cheeks that blushed like the early morning. Clorinda looked at her
almost with tenderness.

"There is no marrying or giving in marriage, 'tis said," quoth she; "but
were there, 'tis you who were his wife--not I. I was but a lighter
thing, though I bore his name and he honoured me. When you and your
child greet him he will forget me--and all will be well."

She held the miniature and the soft hair to his cold lips a moment, and
Anne saw with wonder that her own mouth worked. She slipped the ring on
his least finger, and hid the picture and the ringlets within the palms
of his folded hands.

"He was a good man," she said; "he was the first good man that I had ever
known." And she held out her hand to Anne and drew her from 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 him.