Chapter XVII--Wherein his Grace of Osmonde's courier arrives from France

A Lady of Quality

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

The stronghold of her security lay in the fact that her household
so stood in awe of her, and that this room, which was one of the
richest and most beautiful, though not the largest, in the mansion,
all her servitors had learned to regard as a sort of sacred place in
which none dared to set foot unless invited or commanded to enter.
Within its four walls she read and wrote in the morning hours, no
servant entering unless summoned by her; and the apartment seeming,
as it were, a citadel, none approached without previous parley. In
the afternoon the doors were thrown open, and she entertained there
such visitors as came with less formality than statelier assemblages
demanded. When she went out of it this morning to go to her chamber
that her habit might be changed and her toilette made, she glanced
about her with a steady countenance.

"Until the babblers flock in to chatter of the modes and
playhouses," she said, "all will be as quiet as the grave. Then I
must stand near, and plan well, and be in such beauty and spirit that
they will see naught but me."

In the afternoon 'twas the fashion for those who had naught more
serious in their hands than the killing of time to pay visits to each
other's houses, and drinking dishes of tea, to dispose of their
neighbours' characters, discuss the play-houses, the latest fashions
in furbelows or commodes, and make love either lightly or with
serious intent. One may be sure that at my Lady Dunstanwolde's many
dishes of Bohea were drunk, and many ogling glances and much
witticism exchanged. There was in these days even a greater
following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty on the verge of
becoming a great duchess is not like to be neglected by her
acquaintance, and thus her ladyship held assemblies both gay and
brilliantly varied, which were the delight of the fashionable
triflers of the day.

This afternoon they flocked in greater numbers than usual. The
episode of the breaking of Devil, the unexpected return of his Grace
of Osmonde, the preparations for the union, had given an extra
stimulant to that interest in her ladyship which was ever great
enough to need none. Thereunto was added the piquancy of the stories
of the noticeable demeanour of Sir John Oxon, of what had seemed to
be so plain a rebellion against his fate, and also of my lady's open
and cold displeasure at the manner of his bearing himself as a
disappointed man who presumed to show anger against that to which he
should gallantly have been resigned, as one who is conquered by the
chance of war. Those who had beheld the two ride homeward together
in the morning, were full of curiousness, and one and another,
mentioning the matter, exchanged glances, speaking plainly of desire
to know more of what had passed, and of hope that chance might throw
the two together again in public, where more of interest might be
gathered. It seemed indeed not unlikely that Sir John might appear
among the tea-bibbers, and perchance 'twas for this lively reason
that my lady's room was this afternoon more than usually full of gay
spirits and gossip-loving ones.

They found, however, only her ladyship's self and her sister,
Mistress Anne, who, of truth, did not often join her tea-parties,
finding them so given up to fashionable chatter and worldly
witticisms that she felt herself somewhat out of place. The world
knew Mistress Anne but as a dull, plain gentlewoman, whom her more
brilliant and fortunate sister gave gracious protection to, and none
missed her when she was absent, or observed her greatly when she
appeared upon the scene. To-day she was perchance more observed than
usual, because her pallor was so great a contrast to her ladyship's
splendour of beauty and colour. The contrast between them was ever a
great one; but this afternoon Mistress Anne's always pale countenance
seemed almost livid, there were rings of pain or illness round her
eyes, and her features looked drawn and pinched. My Lady
Dunstanwolde, clad in a great rich petticoat of crimson flowered
satin, with wondrous yellow Mechlin for her ruffles, and with her
glorious hair dressed like a tower, looked taller, more goddess-like
and full of splendid fire than ever she had been before beheld, or so
her visitors said to her and to each other; though, to tell the
truth, this was no new story, she being one of those women having the
curious power of inspiring the beholder with the feeling each time he
encountered them that he had never before seen them in such beauty
and bloom.

When she had come down the staircase from her chamber, Anne, who
had been standing at the foot, had indeed started somewhat at the
sight of her rich dress and brilliant hues.

"Why do you jump as if I were a ghost, Anne?" she asked. "Do I
look like one? My looking-glass did not tell me so."

"No," said Anne; "you--are so--so crimson and splendid--and
I--"

Her ladyship came swiftly down the stairs to her.

"You are not crimson and splendid," she said. "'Tis you who are
a ghost. What is it?"

Anne let her soft, dull eyes rest upon her for a moment
helplessly, and when she replied her voice sounded weak.

"I think--I am ill, sister," she said. "I seem to tremble and
feel faint."

"Go then to bed and see the physician. You must be cared for,"
said her ladyship. "In sooth, you look ill indeed."

"Nay," said Anne; "I beg you, sister, this afternoon let me be
with you; it will sustain me. You are so strong--let me--"

She put out her hand as if to touch her, but it dropped at her
side as though its strength was gone.

"But there will be many babbling people," said her sister, with
a curious look. "You do not like company, and these days my rooms
are full. 'Twill irk and tire you."

"I care not for the people--I would be with you," Anne said, in
strange imploring. "I have a sick fancy that I am afraid to sit
alone in my chamber. 'Tis but weakness. Let me this afternoon be
with you."

"Go then and change your robe," said Clorinda, "and put some red
upon your cheeks. You may come if you will. You are a strange
creature Anne."

And thus saying, she passed into her apartment. As there are
blows and pain which end in insensibility or delirium, so there are
catastrophes and perils which are so great as to produce something
near akin to these. As she had stood before her mirror in her
chamber watching her reflection, while her woman attired her in her
crimson flowered satin and builded up her stately head-dress, this
other woman had felt that the hour when she could have shrieked and
raved and betrayed herself had passed by, and left a deadness like a
calm behind, as though horror had stunned all pain and yet left her
senses clear. She forgot not the thing which lay staring upward
blankly at the under part of the couch which hid it--the look of its
fixed eyes, its outspread locks, and the purple indentation on the
temple she saw as clearly as she had seen them in that first mad
moment when she had stood staring downward at the thing itself; but
the coursing of her blood was stilled, the gallop of her pulses, and
that wild hysteric leaping of her heart into her throat, choking her
and forcing her to gasp and pant in that way which in women must ever
end in shrieks and cries and sobbing beatings of the air. But for
the feminine softness to which her nature had given way for the first
time, since the power of love had mastered her, there was no thing of
earth could have happened to her which would have brought this
rolling ball to her throat, this tremor to her body--since the hour
of her birth she had never been attacked by such a female folly, as
she would indeed have regarded it once; but now 'twas different--for
a while she had been a woman--a woman who had flung herself upon the
bosom of him who was her soul's lord, and resting there, her old
rigid strength had been relaxed.

But 'twas not this woman who had known tender yielding who
returned to take her place in the Panelled Parlour, knowing of the
companion who waited near her unseen--for it was as her companion she
thought of him, as she had thought of him when he followed her in the
Mall, forced himself into her box at the play, or stood by her
shoulder at assemblies; he had placed himself by her side again, and
would stay there until she could rid herself of him.

"After to-night he will be gone, if I act well my part," she
said, "and then may I live a freed woman."

'Twas always upon the divan she took her place when she received
her visitors, who were accustomed to finding her enthroned there.
This afternoon when she came into the room she paused for a space,
and stood beside it, the parlour being yet empty. She felt her face
grow a little cold, as if it paled, and her under-lip drew itself
tight across her teeth.

"In a graveyard," she said, "I have sat upon the stone ledge of
a tomb, and beneath there was--worse than this, could I but have seen
it. This is no more."

When the Sir Humphreys and Lord Charleses, Lady Bettys and
Mistress Lovelys were announced in flocks, fluttering and chattering,
she rose from her old place to meet them, and was brilliant
graciousness itself. She hearkened to their gossipings, and though
'twas not her way to join in them, she was this day witty in such way
as robbed them of the dulness in which sometimes gossip ends. It was
a varied company which gathered about her; but to each she gave his
or her moment, and in that moment said that which they would
afterwards remember. With those of the Court she talked royalty, the
humours of her Majesty, the severities of her Grace of Marlborough;
with statesmen she spoke with such intellect and discretion that they
went away pondering on the good fortune which had befallen one man
when it seemed that it was of such proportions as might have
satisfied a dozen, for it seemed not fair to them that his Grace of
Osmonde, having already rank, wealth, and fame, should have added to
them a gift of such magnificence as this beauteous woman would bring;
with beaux and wits she made dazzling jests; and to the beauties who
desired their flatteries she gave praise so adroit that they were
stimulated to plume their feathers afresh and cease to fear the
rivalry of her loveliness.

And yet while she so bore herself, never once did she cease to
feel the presence of that which, lying near, seemed to her racked
soul as one who lay and listened with staring eyes which mocked; for
there was a thought which would not leave her, which was, that it
could hear, that it could see through the glazing on its blue orbs,
and that knowing itself bound by the moveless irons of death and
dumbness it impotently raged and cursed that it could not burst them
and shriek out its vengeance, rolling forth among her worshippers at
their feet and hers.

"But he can not," she said, within her clenched teeth, again and
again--"that he cannot."

Once as she said this to herself she caught Anne's eyes fixed
helplessly upon her, it seeming to be as the poor woman had said,
that her weakness caused her to desire to abide near her sister's
strength and draw support from it; for she had remained at my lady's
side closely since she had descended to the room, and now seemed to
implore some protection for which she was too timid to openly make
request.

"You are too weak to stay, Anne," her ladyship said. "'Twould
be better that you should retire."

"I am weak," the poor thing answered, in low tones--"but not too
weak to stay. I am always weak. Would that I were of your strength
and courage. Let me sit down--sister-- here." She touched the
divan's cushions with a shaking hand, gazing upward wearily--
perchance remembering that this place seemed ever a sort of throne
none other than the hostess queen herself presumed to encroach
upon.

"You are too meek, poor sister," quoth Clorinda. "'Tis not a
chair of coronation or the woolsack of a judge. Sit! sit!--and let
me call for wine!"

She spoke to a lacquey and bade him bring the drink, for even as
she sank into her place Anne's cheeks grew whiter.

When 'twas brought, her ladyship poured it forth and gave it to
her sister with her own hand, obliging her to drink enough to bring
her colour back. Having seen to this, she addressed the servant who
had obeyed her order.

"Hath Jenfry returned from Sir John Oxon?" she demanded, in that
clear, ringing voice of hers, whose music ever arrested those
surrounding her, whether they were concerned in her speech or no; but
now all felt sufficient interest to prick up ears and hearken to what
was said.

"No, my lady," the lacquey answered. "He said that you had
bidden him to wait."

"But not all day, poor fool," she said, setting down Anne's
empty glass upon the salver. "Did he think I bade him stand about
the door all night? Bring me his message when he comes."

"'Tis ever thus with these dull serving folk," she said to those
nearest her. "One cannot pay for wit with wages and livery. They
can but obey the literal word. Sir John, leaving me in haste this
morning, I forgot a question I would have asked, and sent a lacquey
to recall him."

Anne sat upright.

"Sister--I pray you--another glass of wine."

My lady gave it to her at once, and she drained it eagerly.

"Was he overtaken?" said a curious matron, who wished not to see
the subject closed.

"No," quoth her ladyship, with a light laugh--"though he must
have been in haste, for the man was sent after him in but a moment's
time. 'Twas then I told the fellow to go later to his lodgings and
deliver my message into Sir John's own hand, whence it seems that he
thinks that he must await him till he comes."

Upon a table near there lay the loaded whip; for she had felt it
bolder to let it lie there as if forgotten, because her pulse had
sprung so at first sight of it when she came down, and she had so
quailed before the desire to thrust it away, to hide it from her
sight. "And that I quail before," she had said, "I must have the
will to face--or I am lost." So she had let it stay.

A languishing beauty, with melting blue eyes and a pretty
fashion of ever keeping before the world of her admirers her waxen
delicacy, lifted the heavy thing in her frail white hand.

"How can your ladyship wield it?" she said. "It is so heavy for
a woman--but your ladyship is--is not--"

"Not quite a woman," said the beautiful creature, standing at
her full great height, and smiling down at this blue and white piece
of frailty with the flashing splendour of her eyes.

"Not quite a woman," cried two wits at once. "A goddess
rather--an Olympian goddess."

The languisher could not endure comparisons which so seemed to
disparage her ethereal charms. She lifted the weapon with a great
effort, which showed the slimness of her delicate fair wrist and the
sweet tracery of blue veins upon it.

"Nay," she said lispingly, "it needs the muscle of a great man
to lift it. I could not hold it--much less beat with it a horse."
And to show how coarse a strength was needed and how far her
femininity lacked such vigour, she dropped it upon the floor--and it
rolled beneath the edge of the divan.

"Now," the thought shot through my lady's brain, as a bolt
shoots from the sky--"now--he laughs!"

She had no time to stir--there were upon their knees three beaux
at once, and each would sure have thrust his arm below the seat and
rummaged, had not God saved her! Yes, 'twas of God she thought in
that terrible mad second--God!--and only a mind that is not human
could have told why.

For Anne--poor Mistress Anne--white-faced and shaking, was
before them all, and with a strange adroitness stooped,--and thrust
her hand below, and drawing the thing forth, held it up to view.

"'Tis here," she said, "and in sooth, sister, I wonder not at
its falling--its weight is so great."

Clorinda took it from her hand.

"I shall break no more beasts like Devil," she said, "and for
quieter ones it weighs too much; I shall lay it by."

She crossed the room and laid it upon a shelf.

"It was ever heavy--but for Devil. 'Tis done with," she said;
and there came back to her face--which for a second had lost hue--a
flood of crimson so glowing, and a smile so strange, that those who
looked and heard, said to themselves that 'twas the thought of
Osmonde who had so changed her, which made her blush. But a few
moments later they beheld the same glow mount again. A lacquey
entered, bearing a salver on which lay two letters. One was a large
one, sealed with a ducal coronet, and this she saw first, and took in
her hand even before the man had time to speak.

"His Grace's courier has arrived from France," he said; "the
package was ordered to be delivered at once."

"It must be that his Grace returns earlier than we had hoped,"
she said, and then the other missive caught her eye.

"'Tis your ladyship's own," the lacquey explained somewhat
anxiously. "'Twas brought back, Sir John not having yet come home,
and Jenfry having waited three hours."

"'Twas long enough," quoth her ladyship. "'Twill do
to-morrow."

She did not lay Osmonde's letter aside, but kept it in her hand,
and seeing that she waited for their retirement to read it, her
guests began to make their farewells. One by one or in groups of
twos and threes they left her, the men bowing low, and going away
fretted by the memory of the picture she made--a tall and regal
figure in her flowered crimson, her stateliness seeming relaxed and
softened by the mere holding of the sealed missive in her hand. But
the women were vaguely envious, not of Osmonde, but of her before
whom there lay outspread as far as life's horizon reached, a future
of such perfect love and joy; for Gerald Mertoun had been marked by
feminine eyes since his earliest youth, and had seemed to embody all
that woman's dreams or woman's ambitions or her love could desire.

When the last was gone, Clorinda turned, tore her letter open,
and held it hard to her lips. Before she read a word she kissed it
passionately a score of times, paying no heed that Anne sate gazing
at her; and having kissed it so, she fell to reading it, her cheeks
warm with the glow of a sweet and splendid passion, her bosom rising
and falling in a tempest of tender, fluttering breaths--and 'twas
these words her eyes devoured

"If I should head this page I write to you 'Goddess and Queen,
and Empress of my deepest soul,' what more should I be saying than
'My Love' and 'My Clorinda,' since these express all the soul of man
could crave for or his body desire. The body and soul of me so long
for thee, sweetheart, and sweetest beautiful woman that the hand of
Nature ever fashioned for the joy of mortals, that I have had need to
pray Heaven's help to aid me to endure the passing of the days that
lie between me and the hour which will make me the most strangely,
rapturously, happy man, not in England, not in the world, but in all
God's universe. I must pray Heaven again, and indeed do and will,
for humbleness which shall teach me to remember that I am not deity,
but mere man--mere man--though I shall hold a goddess to my breast
and gaze into eyes which are like deep pools of Paradise, and yet
answer mine with the marvel of such love as none but such a soul
could make a woman's, and so fit to mate with man's. In the heavy
days when I was wont to gaze at you from afar with burning heart, my
unceasing anguish was that even high honour itself could not subdue
and conquer the thoughts which leaped within me even as my pulse
leaped, and even as my pulse could not be stilled unless by death.
And one that for ever haunted--ay, and taunted--me was the image of
how your tall, beauteous body would yield itself to a strong man's
arm, and your noble head with its heavy tower of hair resting upon
his shoulder--the centres of his very being would be thrilled and
shaken by the uplifting of such melting eyes as surely man ne'er
gazed within on earth before, and the ripe and scarlet bow of a mouth
so beauteous and so sweet with womanhood. This beset me day and
night, and with such torture that I feared betimes my brain might
reel and I become a lost and ruined madman. And now--it is no more
forbidden me to dwell upon it--nay, I lie waking at night, wooing the
picture to me, and at times I rise from my dreams to kneel by my
bedside and thank God that He hath given me at last what surely is my
own!-for so it seems to me, my love, that each of us is but a part of
the other, and that such forces of Nature rush to meet together in
us, that Nature herself would cry out were we rent apart. If there
were aught to rise like a ghost between us, if there were aught that
could sunder us--noble soul, let us but swear that it shall weld us
but the closer together, and that locked in each other's arms its
blows shall not even make our united strength to sway. Sweetest
lady, your lovely lip will curve in smiles, and you will say, 'He is
mad with his joy--my Gerald' (for never till my heart stops at its
last beat and leaves me still, a dead man, cold upon my bed, can I
forget the music of your speech when you spoke those words, 'My
Gerald! My Gerald.') And indeed I crave your pardon, for a man so
filled with rapture cannot be quite sane, and sometimes I wonder if I
walk through the palace gardens like one who is drunk, so does my
brain reel. But soon, my heavenly, noble love, my exile will be
over, and this is in truth what my letter is to tell you, that in
four days your lacqueys will throw open your doors to me and I shall
enter, and being led to you, shall kneel at your feet and kiss the
hem of your robe, and then rise standing to fold her who will so soon
be my very wife to my throbbing breast."

Back to her face had come all the softness which had been lost,
the hard lines were gone, the tender curves had returned, her lashes
looked as if they were moist. Anne, sitting rigidly and gazing at
her, was afraid to speak, knowing that she was not for the time on
earth, but that the sound of a voice would bring her back to it, and
that 'twas well she should be away as long as she might.

She read the letter, not once, but thrice, dwelling upon every
word, 'twas plain; and when she had reached the last one, turning
back the pages and beginning again. When she looked up at last,
'twas with an almost wild little smile, for she had indeed for that
one moment forgotten.

"Locked in each other's arms," she said--"locked in each other's
arms. My Gerald! My Gerald! 'What surely is my own--my own'!"

Anne rose and came to her, laying her hand on her arm. She
spoke in a voice low, hushed, and strained.

"Come away, sister," she said, "for a little while--come
away."