London Pride by M. E. Braddon

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"This demoiselle is none of your sort," Hortense said. "You must not judge
English ladies by your maids of honour. Celles la sont des drolesses, sans
foi ni loi."

"Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey woolsey, or Norwich
drugget, she will find her mistake. I never courted the custom of little
gentlemen's wives, with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to do
anything for this stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham must give me the order. I
am no servant of Madame Kirkland."

* * * * *

Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady Fareham with a
fretful tearfulness, as of one whose over strung nerves were on the verge
of hysteria.

"There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest," Angela said
interrogatively.

"Something! A hundred things. I am at cross purposes with life. But I
should have been worse had you been obstinate and still refused this
gentleman."

"Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?" asked her sister, with a sudden
coldness.

"Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister has been wise in good
time, and you will be the happiest wife in England; for I believe your
Puritan is a saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, who are
the most incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if you heard the stories Lewin
tells me--even of that young Rochester--scarce out of his teens. And the
Duke--not a jot better than the King--and with so much less grace in his
iniquity. Well, you will be married at the Chapel Royal, and spend your
wedding night at Fareham House. We will have a great supper. His Majesty
will come, of course. He owes us that much civility."

"Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be married in our dear
mother's oratory, by your chaplain. Sure, dearest, you know I have never
taken kindly to Court splendours."

"Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like a star, that last night you
were ever at Whitehall, Henri sitting close beside you. 'Twas the night
he took ill of a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes whether
there was not a mystery of attempted murder behind that long sickness."

"Murder!"

"A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not that an attempt at murder
on the part of him who deliberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past,
and he is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, there might
never have been any such person as Henri de Malfort."

Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could not.

"Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you have
so little cause for sadness?"

"Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend who
brought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? A
traitor, I know--like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he would
have been true had I been kinder, and trusted him."

"Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He was
too near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against your
husband. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the King
admires?"

"Sunk--low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle of
fame--courted--flattered--poetised--painted. They will be famous for
centuries after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shame
nowadays, except that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of.
I have wasted my life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who had
my complexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I have
consented to be a nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and my
poor painted face shocks me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; and
there is nothing left for me--nothing."

"Your husband, sister!"

"Sister, do not mock me! You know how much Fareham is to me. We were chosen
for each other, and fancied we were in love for the first few years, while
he was so often called away from me, that his coming back made a festival,
and renewed affection. He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I was
proud of him, and called him my hero. But after the treaty of the Pyrenees
our passion cooled, and he grew too much the school-master. And when he
recovered of the contagion, he had recovered of any love-sickness he ever
had for me!"

"Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking them. His lordship needs
but some sign of affection on your part to be as fond a husband as ever he
was."

"You can answer for him, I'll warrant"

"And there are other claims upon your love--your children."

"Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks herself handsomer and
cleverer than ever I was. George, who is a lump of selfishness, and cares
more for his ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I tell you
there is nothing left for me, except fine houses and carriages; and to show
my fading beauty dressed in the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and to
startle people from the observation of my wrinkles by the boldness of my
patches. I was the first to wear a coach and horses across my forehead--in
London, at least. They had these follies in Paris three years ago."

"Indeed, dearest?"

"And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thou
not, ma tres chere?"

"You forget Denzil's hatred of finery."

"But the wedding is the bride's festival. The bridegroom hardly counts.
Nay, love, you need fear no immodest fooling when you bid good night to the
company; nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the door of your
chamber. There was none of that antique nonsense when Lady Sandwich married
her daughter. All vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver's day have gone to
the ragbag of worn-out English customs. We were so coarse a nation, till we
learnt manners in exile. Let me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me,
and wean me from melancholic fancies."

"Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars."

After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to the house in order to
choose the wedding gown; and here in the panelled parlour they found the
two gentlemen, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the noonday sun
upon them, newly returned from Aylesbury, where they had ridden in the
freshness of the early morning to choose a team of plough-horses at
the fair; and who were more disconcerted than gratified at finding the
dinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. Lewin, Madame Hortense, and an array of
finery that made the room look like a stall in the Exchange.

It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs of dinner. Sir John
and Sir Denzil were both sharp set after their ride, and were looking by no
means kindly on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela appeared
upon the scene.

"Nothing could happen luckier," said Lady Fareham, when she had saluted
Denzil, and embraced her father with "Pish, sir! how you smell of clover
and new-mown grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust."

Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in choosing the wedding
gown--a somewhat empty compliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since she
would not hear of the simple canary brocade which Denzil selected, and
which Mrs. Lewin protested was only good enough to make his lady
a bed-gown; or of the pale grey atlas which her father considered
suitable--since, indeed, she would have nothing but a white satin, powdered
with silver fleurs de luces, which she remarked, _en passant_, would
have become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she but obtained her cousin's
permission to cast herself away on Lauzun.

"Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess a
becoming gown for me?" remonstrated Angela.

"Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee than poor Louise, who
has no more complexion left than I have. She was in her heyday when she
held the Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the most popular
people in Paris. She has made herself a laughing-stock since then. That is
settled, Lewin"--with a nod to the milliner--"the silver fleurs de luces
for the wedding mantua. And now be quick with your samples."

All Angela's remonstrances were as vain to-day as they had been on the
occasion of her first acquaintance with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement of
discussing and selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham's
spirits like a draught of saumur. She was generous by nature, extravagant
by long habit.

"Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give you your wedding
clothes, when you are marrying the man I chose for you," she protested.
"The cherry-coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; 'tis the very shade
for my sister's fair skin. Indeed, Denzil"--nodding at him, as he stood
watching them, with that hopelessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner's
shop--"I have been your best friend from the beginning, and, but for me,
you might never have won your sweetheart to listen to you. Mazarine hoods
are as ancient as the pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer."

It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate.
Hyacinth had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobody
there who wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nine
o'clock, and she had servants enough to take care of her on the road; so
Mrs. Lewin and her ladyship's woman were entertained in the steward's
room, where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in his
master's house before the troubles--and where the mantua-maker ate and
drank all she could get, and dozed and yawned through the old man's
reminiscences.

The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about in
the sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp--and took
a dish of the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at the
end of the grass walk.

Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr.
Cowley in praise of rusticity.

"Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley," she cried.

"'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds, above me plying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute.'

Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was shamefully treated
in town--a devoted servant to bankrupt royalty for all the best years of
his life, and fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into power.
Ah me, 'tis an ill world we live in, and London is the most hateful spot in
it," she concluded, with a sigh.

"And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?"

"Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have a crowd of fine people.
It would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I were
content to see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or two
with their ill-dressed wives, at my sister's marriage. London is the only
decent place--after Paris--to live in; but the country is a peacefuller
place in which to die."

A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised her
sister's face with increased concern.

"Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you are
seriously indisposed," she said earnestly.

"If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary of living there is only
one sensible thing left to do--if Providence will but be kind and help one
to do it. I am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep water. But
to fade away in a gentle disease--a quiet ebbing of the vital stream--is
the luckiest thing that can befall one who is tired of life."

Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy strain, and still
more alarmed by the change in her looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush,
fever-bright eyes, Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, and
be nursed and cared for.

"Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power over a sick person,"
Hyacinth interjected scornfully, and then in the next moment apologised for
the little spurt of retrospective jealousy.

"Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier than you are at Chilton,"
pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, who had been protesting that nobody wanted
her, now declared that she could not leave home, and recited a list of
duties, social and domestic.

"I shall not have half an hour to spare until I go to London next week to
prepare for the wedding," she said. The date had been fixed while they sat
at dinner; Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while Denzil
assented with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by in pale silence, submissive
to the will of others. They were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, and
it was now the end of June--little more than a fortnight's interval in
which to meditate upon the beginning of a new life.

Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, and as many of the new
clothes as a supernatural address, industry, and obligingness, could
produce within the time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and parted
from her father and sister in excellent spirits; but her haggard face
haunted Angela in troubled dreams all that night, and she thought of her
with anxiety during the next few days, and most of all upon one long sultry
day, the 4th of July, which was the third day she had spent in unbroken
solitude since her father and Denzil had ridden away in the dim early
morning, while the pastures were veiled in summer haze, on the first stage
of a journey to London, hoping, with a long rest between noon and evening,
to ride thirty-seven miles before night.

They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, and to execute the
marriage settlement, Sir John vastly anxious about this business, in his
ignorance of law and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London only
long enough to transact their business, and would then return post-haste to
the Manor; but as they were to ride their own horses all the way, and as
lawyers are notoriously slow, Angela had been told not to expect them till
the fourth evening after their departure. In her lonely rambles that long
summer day, with her spaniel Ganymede, and her father's favourite pointer,
for her only companions, Angela's thoughts dwelt ever on the past. Of the
future--even that so near future of her marriage--she thought hardly at
all. That future had been disposed of by others. Her fate had been settled
for her; and she was told that by her submission she would make those she
loved happy. Her father would have the son he longed for, and would be
sure of her faithful devotion till the end of his days--or of hers, should
untimely death intervene. Hyacinth's foolish jealousy would be dispelled by
the act which gave her sister's honour into a husband's custody. And for
him, that presumptuous lover who had taken so little pains to hide his
wicked passion, if in any audacious hour he had dared to believe her guilty
of reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be answered at
once and for ever by her marriage with Denzil--Denzil who was Fareham's
junior by fifteen years, his superior in every advantage of person, as
she told herself with a bitter smile; for even while she thought of that
superiority--the statuesque regularity of feature, the clear colouring of
a complexion warmed with the glow of health, the deep blue of large
well-opened eyes, the light free carriage of one who had led an active
country life--even while she thought of Denzil, another face and figure
flashed upon her memory--rugged and dark, the forehead deeper lined than
years justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow of the projecting
brow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders bent as if under the burden of
melancholy thoughts.

O God! this was the face she loved. The only face that had ever touched the
springs of joy and pain. It was nearly half a year since she had seen him.
Their meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew that Denzil
regarded him with a distrust which made friendship out of the question; and
it would be her duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible.
Family meetings there must be, considering the short distance between
Chilton and the Manor, feastings and junketings in company once or twice in
the summer, lest it should be thought Sir John and his lordship were ill
friends. But Angela knew that in any such social gathering, sitting at the
overloaded board, amid the steam of rich viands, and the noise of many
voices, she and Fareham would be as far apart as if the Indian Ocean rolled
between them.

Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; and he would take her
hand in greeting, and would kiss her on the lips as she stood before him in
her wedding finery, that splendour of white and silver which would provoke
him to scornful wonder at her trivial pleasure in sumptuous clothes. Thus
once they must meet. Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so often
shunned her, taking such obvious trouble to keep his distance; but he could
hardly absent himself from her wedding. The scandal would be too great.

Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull aching misery must be lived
through somehow; and neither her father nor Denzil must ever have occasion
to suspect her unhappiness.

"Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain me in my sorrow! Guard
and deliver me from sinful thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thy
great sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? Subdue and bend
me to obedience and humility. Let me be an affectionate daughter, a dutiful
wife, a friend and comforter to my poor neighbours."

So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil,
kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where no
human eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer day
she held commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memory
of past happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of those
placid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil had
shadowed her friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to remember
and regret. That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction of
the believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could help her. Long and
fervent were her prayers in that woodland sanctuary where she made her
pious retreat; nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, which
included much earnest supplication for the welfare here and hereafter
of that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a protecting and almost
maternal love. Years counted for very little in the relations between these
sisters.

The day wore to its close--the most solemn day in Angela's life since that
which she had spent in the Reverend Mother's death-chamber, kneeling in the
faint yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylight
was excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthly
interests as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughts
had mounted heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. How
had she changed for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirations
of that time!

CHAPTER XXV.

HIGH STAKES.

Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting at her embroidery frame
between nine and ten, while the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall and
corridors, and old Reuben's voice hectoring the maids, told her that the
servants were closing the house before going to bed. Reuben would be coming
to her presently, no doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour,
wanting to carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were to see her
safely disposed of before he went to his garret. She meant, on this
occasion, to resist his friendly tyranny, having so little inclination for
sleep, and hoping to find peace of mind and distraction in this elaborate
embroidery of gold thread and many-coloured silks, which was destined to
adorn her father's person, on the facings of a new-fashioned doublet.

Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinize the shading of her
silks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minute
afterwards a bell rang loudly.

Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no doubt; no one else. He had
hurried his business through, and returned a day earlier than he had hoped.
Or could it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had come to
tell her ill news? Or was it a messenger from her sister? She had time to
contemplate several evil contingencies while she stood in the hall watching
Reuben withdraw various bolts and bars.

The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in high-riding boots and
slouched hat standing on the threshold, while in the moonlight behind him
she could distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led horse, as
well as the horse from which the visitor had just dismounted.

The face that looked at her from the doorway was the face which had haunted
her with cruel persistency through that long day, chaining her thoughts to
earth.

Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, deadly pale, while she
was collecting her senses, trying to understand this most unlooked-for
presence. Why was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil.

"Oh, sir, my sister is ill!" she cried; "I read sorrow in your
face--seriously ill--dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity's sake!"

"Yes, she is ill."

"Not dead?"

"No, no."

"But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw her that there was
something amiss. Has she sent you to fetch me?"

"Yes; you are wanted."

"Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the coach to be got ready. And
Betty must go with me."

"You will need no coach, Angela. Nor is there time to spare for any such
creeping conveyance. I have brought Zephyr. You remember how you loved him.
He is swift, and gentle as the wind after which we named him; sure of foot,
easy to ride. The roads are good after yesterday's rain, and the moon will
last us most of our way. We shall be at Chilton in two hours. Put on your
coat and hat. Indeed, there is no time to be lost."

"Do you mean that she may die before I can reach her?"

"I know not," stamping his foot impatiently. "Fate holds the keys. But you
had best waste no time on questions."

His manner was one of command, and he seemed to apprehend no possibility
of hesitation on her part. Reuben ran to his pantry, and came back with a
tankard of wine, which he offered to the visitor with tremulous respect,
almost ready to kneel.

"Our best Burgundy, my lord. Your lordship must be dry after your long
ride; and if your lordship would care to sup, there is good picking on last
Monday's chine, and a capon from madam's supper scarce touched with the
carving-knife."

"Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for gluttony."

Reuben, pressing the tankard upon him, he drank some wine with an automatic
air, and still stood with his eyes fixed on Angela's pallid countenance,
waiting her decision.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"Does she want me? Has she asked for me? Oh, for God's sake, my lord, tell
me more! Is she dangerously ill? Have the doctors given her over?"

"No. But she is in a bad way. And you--you--you--are wanted. Will you come?
Ay or no?"

"Yes. It is my duty to go to her. But when my father and Denzil come back
to-morrow, Reuben must be able to tell them why I went; and the nature
of my sister's illness. Were it not so serious that there is no time for
hesitation, it would ill become me to leave this house in my father's
absence."

He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil's name, as if he had been stung.

"Yes, I will explain; I can make all clear to this gentleman here while you
put on your cloak. Bring the black to the door," he called to his man.

"Will not your lordship bait your horses before you start?" Reuben asked
deferentially.

"No time, fellow. There is no time. How often must I tell you so?" retorted
Fareham.

Reuben's village breeding had given him an exaggerated respect for
aristocracy. He had grown up in the midst of small country gentlemen,
rural squires, among whom the man with three thousand a year in land was a
magnate, and there had never been more than one nobleman resident within a
day's ride of the Manor Moat. To Reuben, therefore, a peer was like a god;
and he would have no more questioned Lord Fareham's will than a disciple of
Hobbes would have imputed injustice to Kings.

Angela returned in a few minutes, having changed her silken gown for a neat
cloth riding-skirt and close-fitting hood. She carried nothing with her,
being assured that her sister's wardrobe would be at her disposal, and
having no mind to spend a minute more in preparation than was absolutely
necessary. Brief as her toilet was, she had time to consider Lord Fareham's
countenance and manner, the cold distance of his address, and to scorn
herself for having thought of him in her reveries that day as loving her
always and till death. It was far better so. The abyss that parted them
could not yawn too wide. She put a stern restraint upon herself, so that
there should be nothing hysterical in her manner, lest her fears about her
sister's health should be mistaken for agitation at his presence. She stood
beside the horse, straight and firm, with her hand on the pommel, and
sprang lightly into the saddle as Fareham's strong arm lifted her. Yet
she could but notice that his hand shook as he gave her the bridle, and
arranged the cloth petticoat over her foot.

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