Chapter XIII--Wherein a deadly war begins

A Lady of Quality

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

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.

Before he went away he bent low and long over Clorinda's hand,
pressing his lips to it with a tenderness which strove not to conceal
itself. And the hand was not withdrawn, her ladyship standing in
sweet yielding, the tender crimson trembling on her cheek. Anne
herself trembled, watching her new, strange loveliness with a sense
of fascination; she could scarce withdraw her eyes, it seemed so as
if the woman had been reborn.

"Your Grace will come to us again," my lady said, in a soft
voice. "We are two lonely women," with her radiant compelling smile,
"and need your kindly countenancing."

His eyes dwelt deep in hers as he answered, and there was a
flush upon his own cheek, man and warrior though he was.

"If I might come as often as I would," he said, "I should be at
your door, perhaps, with too great frequency."

"Nay, your Grace," she answered. "Come as often as we
would--and see who wearies first. 'Twill not be ourselves."

He kissed her hand again, and this time 'twas passionately, and
when he left her presence it was with a look of radiance on his noble
face, and with the bearing of a king new crowned.

For a few moments' space she stood where he had parted from her,
looking as though listening to the sound of his step, as if she would
not lose a footfall; then she went to the window, and stood among the
flowers there, looking down into the street, and Anne saw that she
watched his equipage.

'Twas early summer, and the sunshine flooded her from head to
foot; the window and balcony were full of flowers--yellow jonquils
and daffodils, white narcissus, and all things fragrant of the
spring. The scent of them floated about her like an incense, and a
straying zephyr blew great puffs of their sweetness back into the
room. Anne felt it all about her, and remembered it until she was an
aged woman.

Clorinda's bosom rose high in an exultant, rapturous sigh.

"'Tis the Spring that comes," she murmured breathlessly. "Never
hath it come to me before."

Even as she said the words, at the very moment of her speaking,
Fate--a strange Fate indeed--brought to her yet another visitor. The
door was thrown open wide, and in he came, a lacquey crying aloud his
name. 'Twas Sir John Oxon.

* * *

Those of the World of Fashion who were wont to gossip, had
bestowed upon them a fruitful subject for discussion over their
tea-tables, in the future of the widowed Lady Dunstanwolde. All the
men being enamoured of her, 'twas not likely that she would long
remain unmarried, her period of mourning being over; and,
accordingly, forthwith there was every day chosen for her a new
husband by those who concerned themselves in her affairs, and they
were many. One week 'twas a great general she was said to smile on;
again, a great beau and female conqueror, it being argued that,
having made her first marriage for rank and wealth, and being a
passionate and fantastic beauty, she would this time allow herself to
be ruled by her caprice, and wed for love; again, a certain marquis
was named, and after him a young earl renowned for both beauty and
wealth; but though each and all of those selected were known to have
laid themselves at her feet, none of them seemed to have met with the
favour they besought for.

There were two men, however, who were more spoken of than all
the rest, and whose court awakened a more lively interest; indeed,
'twas an interest which was lively enough at times to become almost a
matter of contention, for those who upheld the cause of the one man
would not hear of the success of the other, the claims of each being
considered of such different nature. These two men were the Duke of
Osmonde and Sir John Oxon. 'Twas the soberer and more dignified who
were sure his Grace had but to proffer his suit to gain it, and their
sole wonder lay in that he did not speak more quickly.

"But being a man of such noble mind, it may be that he would
leave her to her freedom yet a few months, because, despite her
stateliness, she is but young, and 'twould be like his honourableness
to wish that she should see many men while she is free to choose, as
she has never been before. For these days she is not a poor beauty
as she was when she took Dunstanwolde."

The less serious, or less worldly, especially the sentimental
spinsters and matrons and romantic young, who had heard and enjoyed
the rumours of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs' strange early days, were
prone to build much upon a certain story of that time.

"Sir John Oxon was her first love," they said. "He went to her
father's house a beautiful young man in his earliest bloom, and she
had never encountered such an one before, having only known country
dolts and her father's friends. 'Twas said they loved each other,
but were both passionate and proud, and quarrelled bitterly. Sir
John went to France to strive to forget her in gay living; he even
obeyed his mother and paid court to another woman, and Mistress
Clorinda, being of fierce haughtiness, revenged herself by marrying
Lord Dunstanwolde."

"But she has never deigned to forgive him," 'twas also said.
"She is too haughty and of too high a temper to forgive easily that a
man should seem to desert her for another woman's favour. Even when
'twas whispered that she favoured him, she was disdainful, and
sometimes flouted him bitterly, as was her way with all men. She was
never gentle, and had always a cutting wit. She will use him hardly
before she relents; but if he sues patiently enough with such grace
as he uses with other women, love will conquer her at last, for 'twas
her first."

She showed him no great favour, it was true; and yet it seemed
she granted him more privilege than she had done during her lord's
life, for he was persistent in his following her, and would come to
her house whether of her will or of his own. Sometimes he came there
when the Duke of Osmonde was with her--this happened more than once-
-and then her ladyship's face, which was ever warmly beautiful when
Osmonde was near, would curiously change. It would grow pale and
cold; but in her eyes would burn a strange light which one man knew
was as the light in the eyes of a tigress lying chained, but
crouching to leap. But it was not Osmonde who felt this, he saw only
that she changed colour, and having heard the story of her girlhood,
a little chill of doubt would fall upon his noble heart. It was not
doubt of her, but of himself, and fear that his great passion made
him blind; for he was the one man chivalrous enough to remember how
young she was, and to see the cruelty of the Fate which had given her
unmothered childhood into the hands of a coarse rioter and debauchee,
making her his plaything and his whim. And if in her first hours of
bloom she had been thrown with youthful manhood and beauty, what more
in the course of nature than that she should have learned to love;
and being separated from her young lover by their mutual youthful
faults of pride and passionateness of temper, what more natural than,
being free again, and he suing with all his soul, that her heart
should return to him, even though through a struggle with pride. In
her lord's lifetime he had not seen Oxon near her; and in those days
when he had so struggled with his own surging love, and striven to
bear himself nobly, he had kept away from her, knowing that his
passion was too great and strong for any man to always hold at bay
and make no sign, because at brief instants he trembled before the
thought that in her eyes he had seen that which would have sprung to
answer the same self in him if she had been a free woman. But now
when, despite her coldness, which never melted to John Oxon, she
still turned pale and seemed to fall under a restraint on his coming,
a man of sufficient high dignity to be splendidly modest where his
own merit was concerned, might well feel that for this there must be
a reason, and it might be a grave one.

So though he would not give up his suit until he was sure that
'twas either useless or unfair, he did not press it as he would have
done, but saw his lady when he could, and watched with all the
tenderness of passion her lovely face and eyes. But one short town
season passed before he won his prize; but to poor Anne it seemed
that in its passing she lived years.

Poor woman, as she had grown thin and large-eyed in those days
gone by, she grew so again. Time in passing had taught her so much
that others did not know; and as she served her sister, and waited on
her wishes, she saw that of which no other dreamed, and saw without
daring to speak, or show by any sign, her knowledge.

The day when Lady Dunstanwolde had turned from standing among
her daffodils, and had found herself confronting the open door of her
saloon, and John Oxon passing through it, Mistress Anne had seen that
in her face and his which had given to her a shock of terror. In John
Oxon's blue eyes there had been a set fierce look, and in Clorinda's
a blaze which had been like a declaration of war; and these same
looks she had seen since that day, again and again. Gradually it had
become her sister's habit to take Anne with her into the world as she
had not done before her widowhood, and Anne knew whence this custom
came. There were times when, by use of her presence, she could avoid
those she wished to thrust aside, and Anne noted, with a cold sinking
of the spirit, that the one she would plan to elude most frequently
was Sir John Oxon; and this was not done easily. The young man's gay
lightness of demeanour had changed. The few years that had passed
since he had come to pay his courts to the young beauty in male
attire, had brought experiences to him which had been bitter enough.
He had squandered his fortune, and failed to reinstate himself by
marriage; his dissipations had told upon him, and he had lost his
spirit and good-humour; his mocking wit had gained a bitterness; his
gallantry had no longer the gaiety of youth. And the woman he had
loved for an hour with youthful passion, and had dared to dream of
casting aside in boyish insolence, had risen like a phoenix, and
soared high and triumphant to the very sun itself. "He was ever
base," Clorinda had said. "As he was at first he is now," and in the
saying there was truth. If she had been helpless and heartbroken,
and had pined for him, he would have treated her as a victim, and
disdained her humiliation and grief; magnificent, powerful, rich, in
fullest beauty, and disdaining himself, she filled him with a mad
passion of love which was strangely mixed with hatred and cruelty.
To see her surrounded by her worshippers, courted by the Court
itself, all eyes drawn towards her as she moved, all hearts laid at
her feet, was torture to him. In such cases as his and hers, it was
the woman who should sue for love's return, and watch the averted
face, longing for the moment when it would deign to turn and she
could catch the cold eye and plead piteously with her own. This he
had seen; this, men like himself, but older, had taught him with
vicious art; but here was a woman who had scorned him at the hour
which should have been the moment of his greatest powerfulness, who
had mocked at and lashed him in the face with the high derision of a
creature above law, and who never for one instant had bent her neck
to the yoke which women must bear. She had laughed it to scorn--and
him--and all things-- and gone on her way, crowned with her scarlet
roses, to wealth, and rank, and power, and adulation; while he--the
man, whose right it was to be transgressor--had fallen upon hard
fortune, and was losing step by step all she had won. In his way he
loved her madly--as he had loved her before, and as he would have
loved any woman who embodied triumph and beauty; and burning with
desire for both, and with jealous rage of all, he swore he would not
be outdone, befooled, cast aside, and trampled on.

At the playhouse when she looked from her box, she saw him
leaning against some pillar or stationed in some noticeable spot, his
bold blue eyes fixed burningly upon her; at fashionable assemblies he
made his way to her side and stood near her, gazing, or dropping
words into her ear; at church he placed himself in some pew near by,
that she and all the world might behold him; when she left her coach
and walked in the Mall he joined her or walked behind. At such times
in my lady's close-fringed eyes there shone a steady gleam; but they
were ever eyes that glowed, and there were none who had ever come
close enough to her to know her well, and so there were none who read
its meaning. Only Anne knew as no other creature could, and looked
on with secret terror and dismay. The world but said that he was a
man mad with love, and desperate at the knowledge of the powerfulness
of his rivals, could not live beyond sight of her.

They did not hear the words that passed between them at times
when he stood near her in some crowd, and dropped, as 'twas thought,
words of burning prayer and love into her ear. 'Twas said that it
was like her to listen with unchanging face, and when she deigned
reply, to answer without turning towards him. But such words and
replies it had more than once been Anne's ill-fortune to be near
enough to catch, and hearing them she had shuddered.

One night at a grand rout, the Duke of Osmonde but just having
left the reigning beauty's side, she heard the voice she hated close
by her, speaking.

"You think you can disdain me to the end," it said. "Your
ladyship is sure so?"

She did not turn or answer, and there followed a low laugh.

"You think a man will lie beneath your feet and be trodden upon
without speaking. You are too high and bold."

She waved her painted fan, and gazed steadily before her at the
crowd, now and then bending her head in gracious greeting and smiling
at some passer-by.

"If I could tell the story of the rose garden, and of what the
sun- dial saw, and what the moon shone on--" he said.

He heard her draw her breath sharply through her teeth, he saw
her white bosom lift as if a wild beast leapt within it, and he
laughed again.

"His Grace of Osmonde returns," he said; and then marking, as he
never failed to do, bitterly against his will, the grace and majesty
of this rival, who was one of the greatest and bravest of England's
gentlemen, and knowing that she marked it too, his rage so mounted
that it overcame him.

"Sometimes," he said, "methinks that I shall kill you!"

"Would you gain your end thereby?" she answered, in a voice as
low and deadly.

"I would frustrate his--and yours."

"Do it, then," she hissed back, "some day when you think I fear
you."

"'Twould be too easy," he answered. "You fear it too little.
There are bitterer things."

She rose and met his Grace, who had approached her. Always to
his greatness and his noble heart she turned with that new feeling of
dependence which her whole life had never brought to her before. His
deep eyes, falling on her tenderly as she rose, were filled with
protecting concern. Involuntarily he hastened his steps.

"Will your Grace take me to my coach?" she said. "I am not
well. May I--go?" as gently as a tender, appealing girl.

And moved by this, as by her pallor, more than his man's words
could have told, he gave her his arm and drew her quickly and
supportingly away.

Mistress Anne did not sleep well that night, having much to
distract her mind and keep her awake, as was often in these days the
case. When at length she closed her eyes her slumber was fitful and
broken by dreams, and in the mid hour of the darkness she wakened
with a start as if some sound had aroused her. Perhaps there had
been some sound, though all was still when she opened her eyes; but
in the chair by her bedside sat Clorinda in her night-rail, her hands
wrung hard together on her knee, her black eyes staring under a brow
knit into straight deep lines.

"Sister!" cried Anne, starting up in bed. "Sister!"

Clorinda slowly turned her head towards her, whereupon Anne saw
that in her face there was a look as if of horror which struggled
with a grief, a woe, too monstrous to be borne.

"Lie down, Anne," she said. "Be not afraid--'tis only I,"
bitterly- -"who need fear?"

Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face in her thin
hands. She knew so well that this was true.

"I never thought the time would come," her sister said, "when I
should seek you for protection. A thing has come upon me--perhaps I
shall go mad--to-night, alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a
woman--'twas not like me, was it?"

Mistress Anne crept near the bed's edge, and stretching forth a
hand, touched hers, which were as cold as marble.

"Stay with me, sister," she prayed. "Sister, do not go!
What--what can I say?"

"Naught," was the steady answer. "There is naught to be said.
You were always a woman--I was never one--till now."

She rose up from her chair and threw up her arms, pacing to and
fro.

"I am a desperate creature," she cried. "Why was I born?"

She walked the room almost like a thing mad and caged.

"Why was I thrown into the world?" striking her breast. "Why
was I made so--and not one to watch or care through those mad years?
To be given a body like this--and tossed to the wolves."

She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so stood white
and strange and beauteous as a statue, with drops like great pearls
running down her lovely cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly,
like a child.

"I was thrown to them," she wailed piteously, "and they harried
me-- and left the marks of their great teeth--and of the scars I
cannot rid myself--and since it was my fate--pronounced from my first
hour- -why was not this," clutching her breast, "left hard as 'twas
at first? Not a woman's--not a woman's, but a she-cub's. Ah! 'twas
not just--not just that it should be so!"

Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees
and clinging to her, weeping bitterly.

"Poor heart!" she cried. "Poor, dearest heart!"

Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She
started as if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.

"I have gone mad," she said. "What is it I do?" She passed her
hand across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. "Yes," she
said; "this it is to be a woman--to turn weak and run to other
women--and weep and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman!" She
stood with her clenched hands pressed against her breast. "In any
fair fight," she said, "I could have struck back blow for blow--and
mine would have been the heaviest; but being changed into a woman, my
arms are taken from me. He who strikes, aims at my bared breast-
-and that he knows and triumphs in."

She set her teeth together, and ground them, and the look, which
was like that of a chained and harried tigress, lit itself in her
eyes.

"But there is none shall beat me," she said through these fierce
shut teeth. "Nay I there is none! Get up, Anne," bending to raise
her. "Get up, or I shall be kneeling too--and I must stand upon my
feet."

She made a motion as if she would have turned and gone from the
room without further explanation, but Anne still clung to her. She
was afraid of her again, but her piteous love was stronger than her
fear.

"Let me go with you," she cried. "Let me but go and lie in your
closet that I may be near, if you should call."

Clorinda put her hands upon her shoulders, and stooping, kissed
her, which in all their lives she had done but once or twice.

"God bless thee, poor Anne," she said. "I think thou wouldst
lie on my threshold and watch the whole night through, if I should
need it; but I have given way to womanish vapours too much--I must go
and be alone. I was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look
at thy good face--I did not mean to wake thee. Go back to bed."

She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch herself, making
her lie down, and drawing the coverlet about her; after which she
stood upright with a strange smile, laying her hands lightly about
her own white throat.

"When I was a new-born thing and had a little throat and a weak
breath," she cried, "'twould have been an easy thing to end me. I
have been told I lay beneath my mother when they found her dead. If,
when she felt her breath leaving her, she had laid her hand upon my
mouth and stopped mine, I should not," with the little laugh
again--"I should not lie awake to-night."

And then she went away.