London Pride by M. E. Braddon

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"Nay, dearest, was it not an evidence of his love that he should desire you
to keep your mind pure as well as your face fair?"

"No, he has never loved me. It is only a churlish jealousy that would shut
me up in a harem like a Turk's wife, and part me from the friend I like
best in the world--with the purest platonic affection."

"Hyacinth, don't be angry with me for being out of the fashion; but indeed
I cannot think it right for a wife to care for the company of any other man
but her husband."

"And my husband is so entertaining! Sure any woman might be content
with such gay company--such flashes of wit--such light raillery!" cried
Hyacinth, scornfully, walking up and down the room, plucking at the
lace upon her sleeves with restless hands, her bosom heaving, her eyes
steel-bright with anger. "Since his sickness last year, he has been the
image of melancholy; he has held himself aloof from me as if _I_ had had
the pestilence. I was content that it should be so. I had my children and
you, and one who loved me better, in his light way, than any of you--and I
could do without Lord Fareham. But now he forbids me to see an old friend
that is dangerously ill, and every drop of blood in my veins boils in
rebellion against his tyranny!"

It was in the early dusk, an hour or so after dinner. Angela sat silent in
the shadow of a bay window, quite as heavy-hearted as her sister--sorry for
Hyacinth, but still sorrier for Hyacinth's husband, yet feeling that there
was treachery and unkindness in making him first in her thoughts. But
surely, surely he deserved a better wife than this! Surely he deserved a
wife's love--this man who stood alone among the men she knew, hating all
evil things, honouring all things good and noble! He had been unkind to
her--cold and cruel--since that fatal night. He had let her understand that
all friendship between them was at an end for ever, and that she had become
despicable in his sight; and she had submitted to be scorned by him, since
it was impossible that she should clear herself. She had made her sisterly
sacrifice for a sister who regarded it very lightly; to whose light fancy
that night and all it involved counted but as a scene in a comedy; and she
could not unmake it. But having so sacrificed his good opinion whose esteem
she valued, she wanted to see some happy result, and to save this splendid
home from shipwreck.

Suddenly, with a passionate impulse, she went to her sister, and put her
arms round her and kissed her.

"Hyacinth, you shall not continue in this folly," she cried, "to fret for
that shallow idler, whose love is lighter than thistledown, whose element
is the ruelle of one of those libertine French duchesses he is ever talking
about. To rebel against the noblest gentleman in England! Oh, sister,
you must know him better than I do; and yet I, who am nothing to him, am
wretched when I see him ill-used. Indeed, Hyacinth, you are acting like a
wicked wife. You should never have wished to see De Malfort again, after
the peril of that night. You should have known that he had no esteem
for you, that he was a traitor--that his design was the wickedest,
cruellest----"

"I don't pretend to know a man's mind as well as you--neither De Malfort's
nor my husband's. You have needed but the experience of a year to make you
wise enough in the world's ways to instruct your elders. I am not going to
be preached to----Hark!" she cried, running to the nearest window, and
looking out at the river, "that is better than your sermons."

It was the sound of fiddles playing the symphony of a song she knew
well--one of De Malfort's, a French chanson, her latest favourite, the
words adapted from a little poem by Voiture, "Pour vos beaux yeux."

She opened the casement, and Angela stood beside her looking down at a boat
in which several muffled figures were seated, and which was moored to the
terrace wall.

There were three violins and a 'cello, and a quartette of singing-boys with
fair young faces smiling in the light of the lamps that hung in front of
Fareham's house.

The evening was still, and mild as early autumn, and the plash of oars
passing up and down the river sounded like a part of the music--

"Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play,
Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair,
Love does on both her lips for ever stray,
And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there;
In all her outward parts love's always seen;
But, oh, he never went within."

It was a song of Cowley's, which De Malfort had lately set to music, and to
a melody which Hyacinth especially admired.

"A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought of such a thing. Lying ill
and alone, he sends me the sweetest token of his regard--my favourite air,
his own setting--the last song I ever heard him sing. And you wonder that I
value so pure, so disinterested a love!" protested Hyacinth to her sister,
in the silence at the end of the song.

"Sing again, sweet boys, sing again!" she cried, snatching a purse from her
pocket, and flinging it with impetuous aim into the boat.

It hit one of the fiddlers on the head, and there was a laugh, and in a
trice the largesse was divided and pocketed.

"They are from his Majesty's choir; I know their voices," said Hyacinth,
"so fresh, and pure. They are the prettiest singers in the chapel. That
little monkey with the cherub's voice is Purcell--Dr. Blow's favourite
pupil--and a rare genius."

They sang another song from De Malfort's repertoire, an Italian serenade,
which Hyacinth had heard in the brilliant days before her marriage, when
the Italian Opera was still a new thing in Paris. The melody brought back
the memory of her happy girlhood with a rush of sudden tears.

The little concert lasted for something less than an hour, with intervals
of light music, dances and marches, between the singing. Boats passed and
repassed. Strange voices joined in a refrain now and then, and the sisters
stood at the open window enthralled by the charm of the music and the
scene. London lay in ruins yonder to the east, and Sir Matthew Hale and
other judges were sitting at Clifford's Inn to decide questions of title
and boundary, and the obligation to rebuild; but here in this western
London there were long ranges of lighted windows shining through the wintry
mists, wherries passing up and down with lanterns at their prows, an air of
life and gaiety hanging over that river which had carried so many a noble
victim to his doom yonder, where the four towers stood black against the
starlit greyness, unscathed by fire, and untouched by time.

The last notes of a good-night song dwindled and died, to the accompaniment
of dipping oars, as the boat moved slowly along the tideway, and lost
itself among other boats--jovial cits going eastward, from an afternoon at
the King's theatre, modish gallants voyaging westward from play-house or
tavern, some going home to domesticity, others intent upon pleasure and
intrigue, as the darkness came down, and the hour for supper and deeper
drinking drew near. And who would have thought, watching the lighted
windows of palace and tavern, hearing those joyous sounds of glee or catch
trolled by voices that reeked of wine--who would have thought of the
dead-cart, and the unnumbered dead lying in the pest pits yonder, or the
city in ruins, or the King enslaved to a foreign power, and pledged to a
hated Church? London, gay, splendid, and prosperous, the queen-city of the
world as she seemed to those who loved her--could rise glorious from the
ashes of a fire unparalleled in modern history, and to Charles and Wren it
might be given to realise a boast which in Augustus had been little more
than an imperial phrase.

CHAPTER XIX.

DIDO.

The armed neutrality between man and wife continued, and the domestic sky
at Fareham House was dark and depressing. Lady Fareham, who had hitherto
been remarkable for a girlish amiability of speech which went well with her
girlish beauty, became now the height of the mode for acidity and slander.
The worst of the evil speakers on her ladyship's visiting-day flavoured the
China tea with no bitterer allusions than those that fell from the rosy
lips of the hostess. And, for the colouring of those lips, which once owed
their vermeil tint only to nature, Lady Fareham was now dependent upon Mrs.
Lewin, as well as for the carnation of cheeks that looked pallid and sunken
in the glass which reflected the sad mourning face.

Mrs. Lewin brought roses and lilies in her queer little china pots and
powder boxes, pencils and brushes, perfumes and washes without number. It
cost as much to keep a complexion as to keep a horse. And Mrs. Lewin was
infinitely useful at this juncture, since she called every day at St.
James's Street, to carry a lace cravat, or a ribbon, or a flask of essence
to the invalid languishing in lodgings there, and visited by all the town,
except Fareham and his wife. De Malfort had lain for a fortnight at Lady
Castlemaine's house, alternately petted and neglected by his fair hostess,
as the fit took her, since she showed herself ever of the chameleon breed,
and hovered betwixt angel and devil. His surgeon told him in confidence
that when once his wound was healed enough to allow his removal, the sooner
he quitted that feverish company the better it would be for his chance of a
speedy convalescence. So, at the end of the second week, he was moved in
a covered litter to his own lodgings, where his faithful valet, who had
followed his fortunes since he came to man's estate, was quite capable of
nursing him.

The town soon discovered the breach between Lord Fareham and his friend--a
breach commented upon with many shoulder-shrugs, and not a few coarse
innuendoes. Lady Lucretia Topham insisted upon making her way to the sick
man's room, in the teeth of messages delivered by his valet, which, even to
a less intelligent mind than Lady Lucretia's, might have conveyed the fact
that she was not wanted. She flung herself on her knees by De Malfort's
bed, and wept and raved at the brutality which had deprived the world of
his charming company--and herself of the only man she had ever loved. De
Malfort, fevered and vexed at her intrusion, and at this renewal of fires
long burnt out, had yet discretion enough to threaten her with his dire
displeasure if she betrayed the secret of his illness.

"I have sworn Dangerfield and Masaroon to silence," he said. "Except
servants, who have been paid to keep mute, you are the only other witness
of our quarrel; and if the story becomes town talk, I shall know whose busy
tongue set it going--and then--well, there are things I might tell that
your ladyship would hardly like the world to know."

"Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once in a way when luck has
been adverse----"

"Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to blab of a money transaction
with a lady. There are secrets more tender--more romantic."

"Those secrets can be easily denied, wretch. However, I know you would not
injure me with a husband so odious and tyrannical that I stood excused in
advance for inconstancy when I stooped to wed country manners and stubborn
ignorance. Indeed, mon ami, if you will but take pains to recover, I will
never breathe a word about the duel; but if--if--" a sob indicated the
tragic possibility which Lady Lucretia dared not put into words--"I will do
all that a weak woman can do to get Fareham hanged for murder. There has
never been a peer hanged in England, I believe. He should be the first."

"Dear soul, there need be no hanging! I have been on the mending hand for a
week, or my doctors would not have let you upstairs. There, go, my pretty
Lucrece; but if your milliner or your shoemaker is pressing, there are a
few jacobuses in the right-hand drawer of yonder escritoire, and you may
as well take them as leave them for my valet to steal. He is one of those
excellent old servants who make no distinctions, and he robs me as freely
as he robbed my father before me."

"Mrs. Lewin is always pressing," sighed Lady Lucretia. "She made me a gown
like that of Lady Fareham's, for which you were all eyes. I ordered
the brocade to please you; and now I am wearing it when you are not at
Whitehall. Well, as you are so kind, I will be your debtor for another
trifling loan. It is wicked to leave money where it tempts a good servant
to dishonesty. Ah, Henri"--she was pocketing the gold as she talked--"if
ten years of my life could save you ten days of pain and fever, how gladly
would I give them to you!"

"Ah, douce, if there were a market for the exchange of such commodities,
what a roaring trade would be done there! I never loved a woman yet but she
offered me her life, or an instalment of it."

"I have emptied your drawer," laughing coyly. "There is just enough to keep
Lewin in good humour till you are well again, and we can be partners at
basset."

"It will be very long before I play basset in London."

"Oh, but indeed you will soon be well."

"Well enough to change the scene, I hope. It needs change of places and
persons to make life bearable. I long to be at the Louvre again, to see a
play by Moliere's company, as only they can act, instead of the loathsome
translations we get here, in which all that there is of wit and charm in
the original is transmuted to coarseness and vulgarity. When I leave this
bed, Lucrece, it will be for Paris."

"Why, it will be ages before you are strong enough for such a journey."

"Oh, I will risk that. I hate London so badly, that to escape from it will
work a miraculous cure for me."

* * * * *

An armed neutrality! Even the children felt the change in the atmosphere of
home, and nestled closer to their aunt, who never changed to them.

"Father mostly looks angry," Henriette complained, "and mother is always
unhappy, if she is not laughing and talking in the midst of company; and
neither of them ever seems to want me. I wish I was grown up, so that I
could be maid of honour to the Queen or the Duchess, and live at Whitehall.
Mademoiselle told me that there is always life and pleasure at Court."

"Your father does not love the Court, dearest, and mademoiselle should be
wiser than to talk to you of such things, when she is here to teach you
dancing and French literature."

"Mademoiselle" was a governess lately imported from Paris, recommended by
Mademoiselle Scudery, and full of high-flown ideas expressed in high-flown
language. All Paris had laughed at Moliere's _Precieuses Ridicules_; but
the Precieuses themselves, and their friends, protested that the popular
farce was aimed only at the low-born imitators of those great ladies who
had originated the school of superfine culture and romantic aspirations.

"Sapho" herself, in tracing her own portrait with a careful and elaborate
pencil, told the world how shamefully she had been imitated by the spurious
middle-class Saphos, who set up their salons, and vied with the sacred
house of Rambouillet, and the privileged coterie of the Rue de Temple.

Lady Fareham had not ceased to believe in her dear, plain, witty Scudery,
and was delighted to secure a governess of her choosing, whereby Papillon,
who loved freedom and idleness, and hated lessons of all kinds, was set
down to write themes upon chivalry, politeness, benevolence, pride, war,
and other abstractions; or to fill in bouts-rimes, by way of enlarging her
acquaintance with the French language, which she had chattered freely all
her life. Mademoiselle insisted upon all the niceties of phraseology as
discussed in the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre.

There had been a change of late in Fareham's manner to his sister-in-law,
a change refreshing to her troubled spirit as mercy, that gentle dew from
heaven, to the criminal. He had been kinder; and though he spent very few
of his hours with the women of his household, he had talked to Angela
somewhat in the friendly tone of those fondly remembered days at Chilton,
when he had taught her to row and ride, to manage a spirited palfrey and
fly a falcon, and had been in all things her mentor and friend. He seemed
less oppressed with gloom as time went on, but had his sullen fits still,
and, after being kind and courteous to wife and sister, and playful with
his children, would leave them suddenly, and return no more to the saloon
or drawing-room that evening. Yet on the whole the sky was lightening. He
ignored Hyacinth's resentment, endured her pettishness, and was studiously
polite to her.

* * * * *

It was on Lady Fareham's visiting-day, deep in that very severe winter,
that some news was told her which came like a thunder-clap, and which it
needed all the weak soul's power of self-repression to suffer without
swooning or hysterics.

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, gorgeous in velvet and fur, her thickly painted
countenance framed in a furred hood, entered fussily upon a little coterie
in which Masaroon, vapouring about the last performance at the King's
theatre, was the principal figure.

"There was a little woman spoke the epilogue," he said, "a little creature
in a monstrous big hat, as large and as round as a cart-wheel, which vastly
amused his Majesty."

"The hat?"

"Nay, it was woman and hat. The thing is so small it might have been
scarce noticed without the hat, but it has a pretty little, insignificant,
crumpled face, and laughs all over its face till it has no eyes, and then
stops laughing suddenly, and the eyes shine out, twinkling and dancing like
stars reflected in running water, and it stamps its little foot upon the
stage in a comic passion--and--_nous verrons_. It sold oranges in the pit,
folks tell me, a year ago. It may be selling sinecures and captaincies in a
year or two, and putting another shilling in the pound upon land."

"Is it that brazen little comedy actress you are talking of, Masaroon?"
Lady Sarah asked, when she had exchanged curtsies with the ladies of the
company, and established herself on the most comfortable tabouret, near
Lady Fareham's tea-table; "Mrs. Glyn--Wynn--Gwyn? I wonder a man of wit can
notice such a vulgar creature, a she-jack-pudden, fit only to please the
rabble in the gallery."

"Ay, but there is a finer sort of rabble--a rabble of quality--beginning
with his Majesty, that are always pleased with anything new. And this
little creature is as fresh as a spring morning. To see her laugh, to hear
the ring of it, clear and sweet as a skylark's song! On my life, madam, the
town has a new toy; and Mrs. Gwyn will be the rage in high quarters. You
should have seen Castlemaine's scowl when Rowley laughed, and ducked under
the box almost, in an ecstasy of amusement at the huge hat."

"Lady Castlemaine's brow would thunder-cloud if his Majesty looked at a fly
on a window-pane. But she has something else to provoke her frowns to-day."

"What is that, chere dame?" asked Hyacinth, snatching a favourite fan from
Sir Ralph, who was teasing one of the Blenheims with African feathers that
were almost priceless.

"The desertion of an old friend. The Comte de Malfort has left England."

Lady Fareham turned livid under her rouge. Angela ran to her and leant
over her, upon a pretence of rescuing the fan and chiding the dogs; and so
contrived to screen her sister's change of complexion from the malignity of
her dearest friends.

"Left England! Why, he is confined to his bed with a fever!" Hyacinth said
faintly, when she had somewhat recovered from the shock.

"Nay, it seems that he began to go abroad last week, but would see no
company, except a confidential friend or so. He left London this morning
for Dover."

"No doubt he has business in Burgundy, where his estate is, and at Paris,
where he is of importance at the Court," said Hyacinth, as lightly as she
could; "but I'll wager anything anybody likes that he will be in London
again in a month."

"I'll take you for those black pearls in your ears, ma mie," said Lady
Sarah. "His furniture is to be sold by auction next week. I saw a bill on
the house this afternoon. It is sudden! Perhaps the Castlemaine had become
too exacting!"

"Castlemaine!" faltered Hyacinth, agitated beyond her power of
self-control. "Why, what is she to him more than she is to other men?"

"Very little, perhaps," said Sir Ralph, and then everybody laughed, and
Hyacinth felt herself sitting among them like a child, understanding
nothing of their smiles and shrugs, the malice in their sly interchange of
glances.

She sat among them feeling as if her heart were turned to stone. He had
left the country without even bidding her farewell--her faithful slave,
upon whose devotion she counted as surely as upon the rising of the sun.
Whatever her husband might do to separate her from this friend of her
girlhood, she had feared no defection upon De Malfort's part. He would
always be near at hand, waiting and watching for the happier days that were
to smile upon their innocent loves. She had written to him every day during
his illness. Good Mrs. Lewin had taken the letters to him, and had brought
her his replies. He had not written so often, or at such length, as she,
and had pleaded the languor of convalescence as his excuse; but all his
billets-doux had been in the same delicious hyperbole, the language of
the Pays du Tendre. She sat silent while her visitors talked about him,
plucking a reputation as mercilessly as a kitchen wench plucks a fowl. He
was gone. He had left the country deep in debt. It was his landlord who
had stuck up that notice of a sale by auction. Tailors and shoemakers,
perruquiers and perfumers were bewailing his flight.

So much for the sordid side of things. But what of those numerous affairs
of the heart--those entanglements which had made his life one long
intrigue?

Lady Sarah sat simpering and nodding as Masaroon whispered close in her
ear.

Barbara? Oh, that was almost as old as the story of Antony and Cleopatra.
She had paid his debts--and he had paid hers. Their purse had been in
common. And the handsome maid of honour? Ah, poor silly soul! That was a
horrid, ugly business, and his Majesty's part in it the horridest. And Mrs.
Levington, the rich silk mercer's wife? That was a serious attachment. It
was said that the husband attempted poison, when De Malfort refused him the
satisfaction of a gentleman. And the poor woman was sent to die of _ennui_
and rheumatism in a castle among the Irish bogs, where her citizen husband
had set up as a landed squire.

The fine company discussed all these foul stories with gusto, insinuating
much more than they expressed in words. Never until to-day had they spoken
so freely of De Malfort in Lady Fareham's presence; but the story had got
about of a breach between Hyacinth and her admirer, and it was supposed
that any abuse of the defaulter would be pleasant in her ears. And then,
he was ruined and gone; and there is no vulture's feast sweeter than to
banquet upon a departed rival's character.

Hyacinth listened in dull silence, as if her sensations were suddenly
benumbed. She felt nothing but a horrible surprise. Her lover--her platonic
lover--that other half of her mind and heart--with whom she had been in
such tender sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle that the same thoughts
sprang up simultaneously in the minds of each, the same language leapt to
their lips, and they laughed to find their words alike. It had been only a
shallow woman's shallow love--but trivial woes are tragedies for trivial
minds; and when her guests had gradually melted away, dispersing themselves
with reciprocal curtsies and airy compliments, elegant in their modish
iniquity as a troop of vicious fairies--Hyacinth stood on the hearth where
they had left her, a statue of despair.

Angela went to her, when the stately double doors had closed on the last
of the gossips and lackeys, and they two were alone amidst the spacious
splendour. The younger sister hugged the elder to her breast, and kissed
her, and cried over her, like a mother comforting her disappointed child.

"Don't heed that shameful talk, dearest. No character is safe with them. Be
sure Monsieur de Malfort is not the reprobate they would make him. You have
known him nearly all your life. You know him too well to judge him by the
idle talk of the town."

"No, no; I have never known him. He has always worn a mask. He is as false
as Satan. Don't talk to me--don't kiss me, child. You have smeared my face
horribly with your kisses and tears. Your pity drives me mad. How can you
understand these things--you who have never loved any one? What can you
know of what women feel? There, silly fool! you are trembling as if I had
hit you," as Angela withdrew her arms suddenly, and stood aloof. "I have
been a virtuous wife, sister, in a town where scarce one woman in ten is
true to her marriage vows. I have never sinned against my husband; but I
have never loved him. Henri had my heart before I knew what the word, love
meant; and in all these years we have loved each other with the purest,
noblest affection--at least he made me believe my love was reciprocated.
We have enjoyed a most exquisite communion of thought and feeling. His
letters--you shall read his letters some day--so noble, so brilliant--all
poetry, and chivalry, and wit. I lived upon his letters when fate parted
us. And when he followed us to England, I thought it was for my sake that
he came--only for me. And to hear that he was her lover--hers--that woman!
To know that he came to me--with sweetest words upon his lips--knelt to
kiss the tips of my fingers--as if it were a privilege to die for--from
her arms, from her caresses--the wickedest woman in England--and the
loveliest!"

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