London Pride by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> London Pride

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It had been a hot, dry summer, and the grass in the parks was burnt to a
dull brown--had, indeed, almost ceased to be grass--while the atmosphere in
town had a fiery taste, and was heavy with the dust which whitened all the
roadways, and which the faintest breath of wind dispersed. Here on the
flowing tide there was coolness, and the long rank grass upon those low
sedgy shores was still green.

Lady Fareham supported the August heats sitting on her terrace, with a
cluster of friends about her, and her musicians and singing-boys grouped
in the distance, ready to perform at her bidding; but Henriette and her
brother soon tired of that luxurious repose, and would urge their aunt
to assist in a river expedition. The _gouvernante_ was fat and lazy and
good-tempered, had attended upon Henriette from babyhood, and always did as
she was told.

"Her ladyship says I must have some clever person instead of Priscilla
before I am a year older," Henriette told her aunt; "but I have promised
poor old Prissy to hate the new person consumedly."

Angela and Denzil laughed as they rowed past the ruined abbey, seen dimly
across the low water-meadow, where cows of the same colour were all lying
in the same attitude, chewing the cud.

"I think Mr. Spavinger's trick must have cured your sister's fine friends
of all belief in ghosts," he said.

"I doubt they would be as ready to believe--or to pretend to
believe--to-morrow," answered Angela. "They think of nothing from morning
till night but how to amuse themselves; and when every pleasure has been
exhausted, I suppose fear comes in as a form of entertainment, and they
want the shock of seeing a ghost."

"There have been no more midnight parties since Lady Sarah's assembly, I
think?"

"Not among people of quality, perhaps; but there have been citizens'
parties. I heard Monsieur de Malfort telling my sister about a supper given
by a wealthy wine-cooper's lady from Aldersgate. The city people copy
everything that their superiors wear or do."

"Even to their morals," said Denzil. "'Twere happy if the so-called
superiors would remember that, and upon what a fertile ground they sow
the seed of new vices. It is like the importation of a new weed or a new
insect, which, beginning with an accident, may end in ruined crops and a
country's famine."

Without deliberate disobedience to her husband, Lady Fareham made the best
use of her time during his absence in Paris. The public theatres had not
yet re-opened after the horror of the plague. Whitehall was a desert, the
King and his chief following being at Tunbridge. It was the dullest season
of the year, and the recrudescence of the contagion in the low-lying towns
along the Thames--Deptford, Greenwich, and the neighbourhood--together with
some isolated cases in London, made people more serious than usual, despite
of the so-called victory over the Dutch, which, although a mixed benefit,
was celebrated piously by a day of General Thanksgiving.

Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was for ordering her
coaches and retiring to Chilton.

"It is mortal dull at the Abbey," she said, "but at least we have the
hawks, and breezy hills to ride over, instead of this sickly city
atmosphere, which to my nostrils smells of the pestilence."

Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat.

"It were a deliberate suicide," he said. "London, when everybody has
left--all the bodies we count worthy to live, _par exemple_--is a more
delightful place than you can imagine. There are a host of vulgar
amusements which you would not dare to visit when your friends are in town;
and which are ten times as amusing as the pleasures you know by heart. Have
you ever been to the Bear Garden? I'll warrant you no, though 'tis but
across the river at Bankside. We'll go there this afternoon, if you like,
and see how the common people taste life. Then there are the gardens at
Islington. There are mountebanks, and palmists, and fortune-tellers,
who will frighten you out of your wits for a shilling. There's a man at
Clerkenwell, a jeweller's journeyman from Venice, who pretends to practise
the transmutation of metals, and to make gold. He squeezed hundreds out of
that old miser Denham, who was afraid to have the law of him for imposture,
lest all London should laugh at his own credulity and applaud the
cheat. And you have not seen the Italian puppet-play, which is vastly
entertaining. I could find you novelty and amusement for a month."

"Find anything new, even if it fail to amuse me. I am sick of everything I
know."

"And then there is our midnight party at Millbank, the ghost-party, at
which you are to frighten your dearest friends out of their poor little
wits."

"Most of my dearest friends are in the country."

"Nay, there is Lady Lucretia Topham, whom I know you hate; and Lady Sarah
and the Dubbins are still in Covent Garden."

"I will have no Dubbin--a toping wretch--and she is a too incongruous
mixture, with her Edinburgh lingo and her Whitehall arrogance. Besides, the
whole notion of a mock ghost was vulgarised by Wilmot's foolery, who ought
to have been born a saltimbanque, and spent his life in a fair. No, I have
abandoned the scheme."

"What! after I have been taxing my invention to produce the most terrible
illusion that was ever witnessed? Will you let a clown like Spavinger--a
well-born stable-boy--baulk us of our triumph? I am sending to Paris for
a powder to burn in a corner of the room, which will throw the ghastliest
pallor upon your countenance. When I devise a ghost, it shall be no
impromptu spectre in yellow riding-boots, but a vision so awful, so true
an image of a being returned from the dead, that the stoutest nerves will
thrill and tremble at the apparition. The nun's habit is coming from Paris.
I have asked my cousin, Madame de Fiesque, to obtain it for me at the
Carmelites."

"You are taking a vast deal of trouble. But what kind of assembly can we
muster at this dead season?" "Leave all in my hands. I will find you some
of the choicest spirits. It is to be _my_ party. I will not even tell you
what night I fix upon, till all is ready. So make no engagements for your
evenings, and tell nobody anything."

"Who invented that powder?"

"A French chemist. He has it of all colours, and can flood a scene in
golden light, or the rose of dawn, or the crimson of sunset, or a pale
silvery blueness that you would swear was moonshine. It has been used in
all the Court ballets. I saw Madame once look as ghastly as death itself,
and all the Court was seized with terror. Some blundering fool had
burnt the wrong powder, which cast a greenish tint over the faces, and
Henriette's long thin features had a look of death. It seemed the forecast
of an early grave; and some of us shuddered, as at a prophecy of evil."

"You might expect the worst in her case, knowing the wretched life she
leads with Monsieur."

"Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. There are
compensations."

"If you mean scandal, I will not hear a word. She is adorable. The most
sympathetic person I know--good even to her enemies--who are legion."

"You had better not say that, for I doubt she has only one kind of enemy."

"As how?"

"The admirers she has encouraged and disappointed. Yes, she is adorable,
wofully thin, and, I fear, consumptive, but royal: and adorable, 'douceur
et lumiere,' as Bossuet calls her. But to return to my ghost-party."

"If you were wise, you would abandon the notion. I doubt that in spite of
your powders your friends will never believe in a ghost."

"Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get them in the proper
temper."

That idea of figuring in a picturesque habit, and in a halo of churchyard
light, was irresistible. Hyacinth promised to conform to Malfort's plans,
and to be ready to assume her phantom _role_ whenever she was called upon.

Angela knew something of the scheme, and that there was to be another
assembly at Millbank; but her sister had seemed disinclined to talk of
the plan in her presence--a curious reticence in one whose sentiments and
caprices were usually given to the world at large with perfect freedom. For
once in her life Hyacinth had a secret air, and checked herself suddenly in
the midst of her light babble at a look from De Malfort, who had urged her
to keep her sister out of their midnight party.

"I pledge my honour that there shall be nothing to offend," he told her,
"but I hope to have the wittiest coxcombs in London, and we want no prudes
to strangle every jest with a long-drawn lip and an alarmed eye. Your
sister has a pale, fragile prettiness which pleases an eye satiated with
the exuberant charms of your Rubens and Titian women; but she is not
handsome enough to give herself airs; and she is a little inclined that
way. By the faith of a gentleman, I have suffered scowls from her that I
would scarce have endured from Barbara!"

"Barbara! You are vastly free with her ladyship's name."

"Not freer than she has ever been with her friendship."

"Henri, if I thought----"

"What, dearest?"

"That you had ever cared for that--wanton----"

"Could you think it, when you know my life in England has been one long
tragedy of loving in vain--of sighing only to be denied--of secret
tears--and public submission."

"Do not talk so," she exclaimed, starting up from her low tabouret, and
moving hastily to the open window, to fresh air and sunshine, rippling
river and blue sky, escaping from an atmosphere that had become feverish.

"De Malfort, you know I must not listen to foolish raptures."

"I know you have been refusing to hear for the last two years."

They were on the terrace now, she leaning on the broad marble balustrade,
he standing beside her, and all the traffic of London moving with the tide
below them.

"To return to our party," she said, in a lighter tone, for that spurt of
jealousy had betrayed her into seriousness. "It will be very awkward not to
invite my sister to go with me."

"If you did she would refuse, belike, for she is under Fareham's thumb; and
he disapproves of everything human."

"Under Fareham's thumb! What nonsense! Indeed I must invite her. She would
think it so strange to be omitted."

"Not if you manage things cleverly. The party is to be a surprise. You can
tell her next morning you knew nothing about it beforehand."

"But she will hear me order the barge--or will see me start."

"There will be no barge. I shall carry you to Millbank in my coach, after
your evening's entertainment, wherever that may be."

"I had better take my own carriage at least, or my chair."

"You can have a chair, if you are too prudish to use my coach, but it shall
be got for you at the moment. We won't have your own chairman and links to
chatter and betray you before you have played the ghost. Remember you
come to my party not as a guest, but as a performer. If they ask why Lady
Fareham is absent I shall say you refused to take part in our foolery."

"Oh, you must invent some better excuse. They will never believe anything
rational of me. Say I was disappointed of a hat or a mantua. Well, it
shall be as you wish. Angela is apt to be tiresome. I hate a disapproving
carriage, especially in a younger sister."

Angela was puzzled by Hyacinth's demeanour. A want of frankness in one so
frank by nature aroused her fears. She was puzzled and anxious, and longed
for Fareham's return, lest his giddy-pated wife should be guilty of some
innocent indiscretion that might vex him.

"Oh! if she but valued him at his just worth she would value his opinion
second only to the approval of conscience," she thought, sadly, ever
regretful of her sister's too obvious indifference towards so kind a
husband.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?

It was Saturday, the first of September, and the hot dry weather having
continued with but trifling changes throughout the month, the atmosphere
was at its sultriest, and the burnt grass in the parks looked as if even
the dews of morning and evening had ceased to moisten it, while the arid
and dusty foliage gave no feeling of coolness, and the very shadows cast
upon that parched ground seemed hot. Morning was sultry as noon; evening
brought but little refreshment; while the night was hotter than the day.
People complained that the season was even more sickly than in the plague
year, and prophesied a new and worse outbreak of the pestilence. Was not
this the fatal year about which there had been darkest prophecies? 1666!
Something awful, something tragical was to make this triplicate of sixes
for ever memorable. Sixty-five had been terrible, sixty-six was to bring
a greater horror; doubtless a recrudescence of that dire malady which had
desolated London.

"And this time," says one modish raven, "'twill be the quality that will
suffer. The lower 'classis' has paid its penalty, and only the strong and
hardy are left. We. have plenty of weaklings and corrupt constitutions that
will take fire at a spark. I should not wonder were the contagion to rage
worst at Whitehall. The buildings lie low, and there is ever a nucleus
of fever somewhere in that conglomeration of slaughter-houses, bakeries,
kitchens, stables, cider-houses, coal-yards, and over-crowded servants'
lodgings."

"One gets but casual whiffs from their private butcheries and bakeries,"
says another. "What I complain of is the atmosphere of his Majesty's
apartments, where one can scarce breathe for the stench of those cursed
spaniels he so delights in."

Every one agreed that the long dry summer menaced some catastrophic change
which should surprise this easy-going age as the plague had done last year.
But oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched those light minds!
and, if Providence had designed to warn or to punish, how vain had been
the warning, and how soon forgotten the penalty that had left the worst
offenders unstricken!

There was to be a play at Whitehall that evening, his Majesty and the Court
having returned from Tunbridge Wells, the business of the navy calling
Charles to council with his faithful General--_the_ General _par
excellence_, George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his Lord High Admiral and
brother--_par excellence_ the Duke. Even in briefest residence, and on
sternest business intent, with the welfare and honour of the nation
contingent on their consultations, to build or not to build warships of the
first magnitude, the ball of pleasure must be kept rolling. So Killigrew
was to produce a new version of an old comedy, written in the forties,
but now polished up to the modern style of wit. This new-old play, _The
Parson's Widow_, was said to be all froth and sparkle and current interest,
fresh as the last _London Gazette_, and spiced with allusions to the
late sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a wide field for the
ridiculous.

Hyacinth was to be present at this Court function; but not a word was to be
said to Angela about the entertainment.

"She would only preach me a sermon upon Fareham's tastes and wishes, and
urge me to stay away because he abhors a fashionable comedy," she told De
Malfort, "I shall say I am going to Lady Sarah's to play basset. Ange hates
cards, and will not desire to go with me. She is always happy with the
children, who adore her."

"Faute de mieux."

"You are so ready to jeer! Yes, I know I am a neglectful mother. But what
would you have?"

"I would have you as you are," he answered, "and only as you are; or for
choice a trifle worse than you are; and so much nearer my own level."

"Oh, I know you! It is the wicked women you admire--like Madame Palmer."

"Always harping upon Barbara. 'My mother had a maid called Barbara.' His
Majesty has--a lady of the same melodious name. Well, I have a world of
engagements between now and nine o'clock, when the play begins. I shall be
at the door to lift you out of your chair. Cover yourself with your richest
jewels--or at least those you love best--so that you may blaze like the sun
when you cast off the nun's habit. All the town will be there to admire
you."

"All the town! Why, there is no one in London!"

"Indeed, you mistake. Travelling is so easy nowadays. People tear to and
fro between Tunbridge and St James's as often as they once circulated
betwixt London and Chelsea. Were it not for the highwaymen we should be
always on the road."

Angela and her niece were on the terrace in the evening coolness. The
atmosphere was less oppressive here by the flowing tide than anywhere
else in London; but even here there was a heaviness in the night air, and
Henriette sprawled her long thin legs wearily on the cushioned bench where
she lay, and vowed that it would be sheer folly for Priscilla to insist
upon her going to bed at her usual hour of nine, when everybody knew she
could not sleep.

"I scarce closed my eyes last night," she protested, "and I had half a
mind to put on a petticoat and come down to the terrace. I could have come
through the yellow drawing-room, where the men usually forget to close the
shutters. And I should have brought my theorbo and serenaded you. Should
you have taken me for a fairy, chere, if you had heard me singing?"

"I should have taken you for a very silly little person who wanted to
frighten her friends by catching an inflammation of the lungs."

"Well, you see, I thought better of it, though it would have been
impossible to catch cold on such a stifling night I heard every clock
strike in Westminster and London. It was light at five, yet the night
seemed endless. I would have welcomed even a mouse behind the wainscot.
Priscilla is an odious tyrant," making a face at the easy-tempered
gouvernante sitting by; "she won't let me have my dogs in my room at
night."

"Your ladyship knows that dogs in a bed-chamber are unwholesome," said
Priscilla.

"No, you foolish old thing; my ladyship knows the contrary; for his
Majesty's bed-chamber swarms with them, and he has them on his bed
even--whole families--mothers and their puppies. Why can't I have a few
dear little mischievous innocents to amuse me in the long dreary nights?"

By dint of clamour and expostulation the honourable Henriette contrived
to stay up till ten o'clock was belled with solemn tone from St. Paul's
Cathedral, which magnificent church was speedily to be put in hand for
restoration, at a great expenditure. The wooden scaffolding which had been
necessary for a careful examination of the building was still up. Until
the striking of the great city clock, Papillon had resolutely disputed the
lateness of the hour, putting forward her own timekeeper as infallible--a
little fat round purple enamel watch with diamond figures, and gold hands
much bent from being pushed backwards and forwards, to bring recorded time
into unison with the young lady's desires--a watch to which no sensible
person could give the slightest credit. The clocks of London having
demonstrated the futility of any reference to that ill-used Geneva toy, she
consented to retire, but was reluctant to the last.

"I am going to bed," she told her aunt, "because this absurd old Prissy
insists upon it, but I don't expect a quarter of an hour's sleep between
now and morning; and most of the time I shall be looking out of the window,
watching for the turn of the tide, to see the barges and boats swinging
round."

"You will do nothing of the kind, Mrs. Henriette; for I shall sit in your
room till you are sound asleep," said Priscilla.

"Then you will have to sit there all night; and I shall have somebody to
talk to."

"I shall not allow you to talk."

"Will you gag me, or put a pillow over my face, like the Blackamoor in the
play?"

The minx and her governess retired, still disputing, after Angela had been
desperately hugged by Henriette, who brimmed over with warmest affection in
the midst of her insolence. They were gone, their voices sounding in the
stillness on the terrace, and then on the staircase, and through the great
empty rooms, where the windows were open to the sultry night, while the
host of idle servants caroused in the basement, in a spacious room with a
vaulted roof, like a college hall, where they were free to be as noisy or
as drunken as they pleased. My lady was out, had taken only her chair, and
running footmen, and had sent chairmen and footmen back from Whitehall,
with an intimation that they would be wanted no more that night.

Angela lingered on the terrace in the sultry summer gloom, watching
solitary boats moving to and fro, shadowy as Charon's. She dreaded the
stillness of silent rooms, and to be alone with her own thoughts, which
were not of the happiest. Her sister's relations with De Malfort troubled
her, innocent as they doubtless were: innocent as that close friendship of
Henrietta of England with her cousin of France, when they two spent the
fair midsummer nights roaming in palace gardens, close as lovers, but
only fast friends. Malicious tongues had babbled even of that innocent
friendship; and there were those who said that if Monsieur behaved liked
a brute to his lovely young wife, it was because he had good reason for
jealousy of Louis in the past, as well as of De Guiche in the present.
These innocent friendships are ever the cause of uneasiness to the
lookers-on. It is like seeing children at play on the edge of a cliff. They
are too near danger and destruction.

Hyacinth, being about as able to carry a secret as to carry an elephant,
had betrayed by a hundred indications that a plot of some kind was being
hatched between her and De Malfort. And to-night, before going out, she
had made too much fuss about so simple a matter as a basset-party at Lady
Sarah's, who had her basset-table every night, and was popularly supposed
to keep house upon her winnings, and to have no higher code of honour than
De Gramont had when he invited a brother officer to supper on purpose to
rook him.

Mr. Killigrew's comedy had been discussed in Angela's hearing. People who
had been deprived of the theatre for over a year were greedy and eager
spectators of all the plays produced at Court; but this production was an
exceptional event. Killigrew's wit and impudence and impecuniosity were the
talk of the town, and anything written by that audacious jester was sure to
be worth hearing.

Had her sister gone to Whitehall to see the new comedy, in direct
disobedience to her husband, instead of to so accustomed an entertainment
as Lady Sarah's basset-table? And was that the only mystery between
Hyacinth and De Malfort? Or was there something else--some ghost-party,
such as they had planned and talked about openly till a fortnight ago,
and had suddenly dropped altogether, as if the notion were abandoned and
forgotten? It was so unlike Hyacinth to be secret about anything; and
her sister feared, therefore, that there was some plot of De Malfort's
contriving--De Malfort, whom she regarded with distrust and even
repugnance; for she could recall no sentiment of his that did not make
for evil. Beneath that gossamer veil of airy language which he flung over
vicious theories, the conscienceless, unrelenting character of the man had
been discovered by those clear eyes of the meditative onlooker. Alas!
what a man to be her sister's closest friend, claiming privileges by long
association, which Hyacinth would have been the last to grant her dissolute
admirers of yesterday, but which were only the more perilous for those
memories of childhood that justified a so dangerous friendship.

She was startled from these painful reflections by the clatter of horses'
hoofs on the paved courtyard east of the house, and the jingle of
sword-belt and bit, sounds instantly followed by the ringing of the bell at
the principal door.

Was it her sister coming home so early? No, Lady Fareham had gone out in
her chair. Was it his lordship returning unannounced? He had stated no time
for his return, telling his wife only that, on his business in Paris being
finished, he would come back without delay. Indeed, Hyacinth had debated
the chances of his arrival this very evening with half a dozen of her
particular friends, who knew that she was going to see Mr. Killigrew's
play.

"Fate cannot be so perverse as to bring him back on the only night when his
return would be troublesome," she said.

"Fate is always perverse, and a husband is very lucky if there is but one
day out of seven on which his return would be troublesome," answered one of
her gossips.

Fate had been perverse, for Angela heard her brother-in-law's deep strong
voice talking in the hall, and presently he came down the marble steps to
the terrace, and came towards her, white with Kentish dust, and carrying an
open letter in his hand. She had risen at the sound of the bell, and was
hurrying to the house as he met her. He came close up to her, scarcely
according her the civility of greeting. Never had she seen his countenance
more gloomy.

"You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs," he said.
"Where is your sister?"

"At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury's."

"So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in the
hall, say they set her down at the palace."

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