The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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But, in truth, the duke was perfectly sincere. He had turned so late in
life, however, that he was apt, by force of habit, to get muddled. His
difficulty was to disconnect the past from the present, the two having a
tendency to mix themselves up in his mind. The great interest of his old
age was the building of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Morningquest, but
occasionally--and always at the most inconvenient times--he would forget
it was a cathedral, and imagine it was an opera house he was supporting;
and when he went to distribute the prizes in the schools, he would
compliment the pretty girls on their good looks, instead of lecturing them
on the sin of vanity; and promise that they should sing in the chorus, or
dance in the ballet if their legs were good, when he should have been
discoursing about the dangers of the vain world, and pointing the moral of
happy humble obscurity. On these occasions, Lady Fulda, who was always
beside him, suffered a good deal. She would pull him up in a whisper which
he sometimes made her repeat, until everyone in the place had heard it but
himself, and then, at last, when he did understand, he would hasten to
correct himself. But, of course, it was the mistake and not the correction
which made the most lasting impression.

Lady Fulda was not at all clever. In the schoolroom she was always far
behind her sisters, Lady Adeline and Lady Claudia, and before his
conversion, her father used to say that she had the appearance of a Juno,
and the cow-like capacity one would naturally expect from the portraits of
that matron now extant. But this was not fair to her intelligence, for she
had a certain range which included sympathetic insight, and the knack of
saying the right thing both for her own purpose and for the occasion.

She had a full exterior of uncrumpled, lineless, delicately tinted flesh;
a voice that made "Good-morning" impressive when she said it; a sincerity
which paused upon every expression of opinion to weigh its worth. She
would hardly say; "It is a fine day," without first glancing at the
weather, just to be sure that it had not changed since she decided to make
the remark. And she had a great loving heart. If she did not sigh for
husband and children, it was because she was never In the presence of any
creature for many minutes without feeling a flood of tenderness for them
suffuse her whole being, so that her affections were always satisfied.
Because of her grand presence people expected great things of her, and
none of them ever went disappointed away. She filled their hearts, and
nobody ever complains of the head when the heart is full. Love was the
secret both of her beauty and her power.

The twins arrived late one day at Morne, and immediately afterward the
whole castle was pervaded by their presence, and signs of them appeared in
the most unlikely places. A mysterious packet, rolled up in a sheet of the
_Times_, considerably soiled, and known as "Angelica's work," which
nobody had ever seen opened, was found in the oriel room on the seat of
the chair sacred to the duke himself; and a cricket cap of Diavolo's was
discovered on one of the tall candles which stood on the altar in the
private chapel of the castle, as if it had been used as an extinguisher, A
peculiar intentness was also observed in the expression of the children's
countenances which was thought to betoken mischief, because always
hitherto it had been noticed that when the gravity of their demeanour was
most exemplary, the wickedness of the design upon which they were engaged
was sure to be extreme. But all the old symptoms were misleading at this
time, for the twins settled down at once, with lively intelligent
interest, to the innocent occupation of studying the ways of the
household, their own conduct being distinguished for the most part by a
masterly inactivity. For the truth was they were thinking. They had lately
taken to reading the books and papers and magazines of the day, which they
found in the library at Hamilton House; and at Morne they followed the
same occupation, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the questions which
interested them treated from different points of view. At home all had
been Liberal, Protestant, and progressive; but at Morne the tendency of
everything was Roman Catholic, Conservative, and retrograde; and they were
doing their best, as their conversations with different people at this
time showed, to discover the why and wherefore, and right and wrong of the
difference. Angelica was naturally the first to draw definite conclusions
for herself, and having made up her own mind she began to instruct
Diavolo. She was teaching him to respect women, for one thing; when he
didn't respect them she beat him; and this made him thoughtful.

"You wouldn't strike me if you didn't know that I can't strike you back,
because you're a girl," he remonstrated.

"And you wouldn't say that if you didn't know that the cruellest thing you
can do to a woman is to hurt her feelings," she retorted.

"Oh, feelings!" exclaimed Diavolo. "You've got castanets that clack where
you should have feelings."

Angelica raised her hand, and then dropped it by her side again, and
looked at him.

"What do you mean by this nonsense?" she demanded. "We always _have_
fought everything out ever since we were born."

"Yes," he said regretfully, "and you used to be as hard as nails. When I
got a good hit at you it made my knuckles tingle. But now you're getting
all boggy everywhere. Just look at your arms!"

Angelica ripped her tight sleeve open to the shoulder with one of her
sudden jerks, and looked at her arm. "Now, see mine," said Diavolo, taking
off his coat, and turning his shirt sleeve up in his more deliberate way.

Angelica held out her arm beside his to compare them. Hers was round and
white and firm, with every little blue vein visible beneath the fine
transparent skin; his was all hard muscle and bone, burnt brown with the
sun, and coarse of texture compared with hers.

"You see, now!" he said.

Angelica slowly drew down the tattered remains of her sleeve, and then she
looked at Diavolo thoughtfully, and from him to a full-length reflection
of herself in a long mirror on the wall.

"We're growing up!" she said, in a surprised sort of tone.

"_You_ are," he said, "_I_ seem to be just about as young as
ever I was."

"All the more reason that I should teach you, then," said Angelica.
"Education matures the mind, and the principal instrument of education for
your sex has always been a stick. Women are open to reason from their
cradles, but men have to be whopped. They are thrashed at school, that
being, as they have always maintained themselves, the best way to deal
with them. 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him
chasteneth him betimes.' And 'Withhold not correction from the child: for
if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.' It is only the boys,
you see, that have their minds enlarged in that way, because, if you tell
a girl a thing, she understands it at once. And when men grow up and
things go wrong, they still think they ought to thrash each other. That is
also their primitive way of settling the disputes of nations; they just
hack each other down in hundreds, sacrificing the lives which are precious
to the women they should be loving, for the sake of ideas that are always
changing. You certainly _are_ the stupid part of humanity!" she
concluded. "And how you ever discovered the way to manage each other, I
can't imagine. But it was the right one. 'A whip for the horse, a bridle
for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.'"--and so saying, she flounced
out of the room, without, however, administering the parting slap of
another kind which he expected.

But the episode made a lasting impression on Diavolo, as was apparent in
much that he said, and particularly in some remarks which he made during a
conversation he had with his grandfather toward the end of the year.

A capital understanding had always existed, between Diavolo and his
grandfather, a fact which caused Lady Adeline's heart to sink every time
she observed it, but had an opposite effect on the duke himself--a quite
exhilarating effect, indeed, which was the cause of certain of those
lapses which Lady Fulda had so often to deplore--as when, for instance, he
aided and abetted Diavolo in some of his worst tricks, and then had to sit
sheepishly by, saying nothing, when the boy was found out and corrected.
Lady Fulda was puzzled by the intelligent glances that passed between the
two at such times, but Diavolo was perfectly loyal, and never once got his
grandfather into trouble.

One of the dreams of the old duke's life was to make a good Catholic of
Diavolo, and to that end his conversation was often directed--
intermittently it is true, because Diavolo was skilled in the
art of beguiling him into other subjects when it suited himself.

The duke was turning his attention at this time, under Lady Fulda's
direction, to the spiritual welfare of that class of women which in former
times he had been accustomed to countenance in quite another way. Lady
Fulda had established a refuge for these in Morningquest, and her father
was deeply interested in the success of the undertaking. The Heavenly
Twins were also much interested. At first they could not make out why
their Aunt Fulda so often breakfasted in her outdoor dress, and whether
she had just come in or was just going out.

If there were no visitors staying at the castle, the party at breakfast
was small, there being only the old duke, Father Ricardo, Mr. Ellis, and
the Heavenly Twins, as a rule. When Lady Fulda did appear the meal was
usually half over.

The duke sat at the end of the long table, with the twins on either side
of him, but he was generally limp and querulous in the morning, and more
kindly disposed toward Father Ricardo than to his own flesh and blood, as
Angelica pointed out on one occasion.

When Lady Fulda came in she always went up to her father and kissed him.
He did not rise to receive the salute, but he invariably held her hand
some seconds, and asked: "Any news?" anxiously; to which she always
answered "Yes" or "No"; and then he would say: "You must tell me
afterward. Go to your seat now. Take plenty of rest and refreshment Both
are necessary; both are necessary!"

The Heavenly Twins were inclined to regard this scene with the scorn and
contempt of ignorance at first; but when Lord Dawne came to the castle for
a few days, with their widowed aunt Lady Claudia and Ideala, and all these
paid the same reverent attention to Lady Fulda's report as the duke and
Father Ricardo did, they reserved judgment until they should know more
about the matter.

They asked Mr. Ellis for an explanation, but he told them bluntly to mind
their own business, and further puzzled them by a remark which they
chanced to hear him make about Lady Fulda to Dr. Galbraith. They did not
overhear what Dr. Galbraith had said to lead up to it, but Mr. Ellis
answered: "Grasp her character? She is not a character at all! She's a
beautiful abstraction. Now Ideala is human."

Although the twins were Protestants by education--and also by nature, one
may say--it had pleased them to go regularly to certain services in the
chapel from the day of their arrival at the castle.

"We enjoy them very much," Angelica said, to the great delight of her aunt
and grandfather.

"I am sure the atmosphere of devotion in which we live will have its
effect upon the children," the latter said several times.

And so it had. It was never the low mass, however, at which they appeared,
but the more sensuous, sumptuous functions, when there was music, of which
they both were exceedingly fond, both of them being excellent musicians.

Soon after her arrival at the castle Angelica bought a big drum. She said
she couldn't express her feelings on any other instrument on Sunday, her
spiritual fervour was so excessive. Her behaviour in chapel, however, was
for the most part exemplary. Her aunt noticed that she often knelt all
through the service with a book before her, thoroughly absorbed. Lady
Fulda was anxious to know what the book was, and on one occasion, when
Angelica remained on her knees after the congregation had dispersed, with
her handkerchief pressed to her face, apparently deeply moved, her aunt
stole up behind her softly, and peeped over her shoulder, expecting to see
a holy "Imitation," or something of that kind; but, to her horror, she
found that the book was Burnand's "Happy Thoughts," and that Angelica's
gurglings were not tears of repentance, but suppressed explosions of
hearty laughter.

This happened during what proved to be rather a trying time for Lady
Fulda, It was while Lord Dawne, Lady Claudia, and Ideala were at the
castle, and the old duke was, as Lady Fulda delicately phrased it to her
sister Claudia in private, "inclined to be tiresome." It was at this time
that he had several relapses. One of these happened in chapel during
benediction.

The choir had been singing _O Salutaris, Hostia!_ at the conclusion
of which everybody was startled by a senile cheer from the stalls. The
duke had dosed off into a dream of the opera, and had awakened suddenly,
under the impression that a wooden image of the Blessed Virgin opposite
had just completed a lovely solo, and was unexpectedly following it up by
an audacious _pas seul_.

"Aren't our ancestors like us?" Diavolo whispered to Angelica
enthusiastically. But Angelica dampened his ardent admiration of the
_coup_ by refusing to believe that the diminutive duke had "done it
on purpose."

CHAPTER III.

The next day Diavolo happened to stroll into the oriel room about
tea-time, and finding his grandfather sitting there alone, looking down
upon Morningquest from his accustomed seat in the great deep window, which
was open, he carefully chose a soft cushion, placing it on the low sill so
that he could rest his back against it, and stretching himself out on the
floor, looked up at the old gentleman sociably.

"You're growing a big fellow, sir," the latter observed.

"But not growing so fast as Angelica is," said Diavolo.

"Ah, women mature earlier," said the duke. "But their minds never get far
beyond the first point at which they arrive."

"I suppose you mean when they marry at seventeen, or their education is
otherwise stopped short for them, just when a man is beginning his
properly?" Diavolo languidly suggested.

The duke frowned down at him. "Where is your sister?" he asked.

"That I can't tell you," Diavolo answered.

"Don't you know?" the duke said sharply.

"Yes," was the cool rejoinder; "but I don't happen to have my sister's
permission to say."

The old man's face relaxed into a smile: "That's right my boy, that's
right," he said, "Loyalty is a grand virtue. Be loyal to the ladies"--he
shook his head in search of an improving aphorism, but only succeeded in
extracting a familiar saw. "Kiss, but never tell," he said, "it's vulgarly
put, my boy, but there's a whole code in it, and a damned chivalrous code,
too. I tell you, men were gentlemen when they stuck to it."

There was a sound of stealthy footsteps in the room at this moment, and
the old duke glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, while Diavolo bent
to one side to peer round the chair his grandfather was sitting in, which
was between him and the door.

"It's one of the dogs," he said carelessly. "Father Ricardo is out, I
think."

The duke looked relieved.

"Well," Diavolo resumed, reflectively, "I should have thought myself that
it was playing it pretty low down to sneak on a woman. But, I say, sir,"
he asked innocently, "how would you define a lady-killer?"

"Lady-killer," said the little old gentleman, taking hold of his collar to
perk himself up out of his clothes, as it were, on the strength of his
past reputation: "A lady-killer is a--eh--a fellow whom
ladies--eh--admire."

"Do you mean real ladies, or only pretty women?" said Diavolo.

"Both, my boy, both," the duke answered complacently. He was beginning to
enjoy himself.

"You were one once, were you not, sir?" said Diavolo. "I suppose you had a
deuced good time?"

"Ah!" the duke ejaculated, with a sigh of retrospective satisfaction.
Then, suddenly remembering his new role, he pulled himself up, and added
severely. "But keep clear of women, my boy, keep clear of women. Women are
the very devil, sir."

"But supposing they run after _you_?" said Diavolo. "Nowadays, you
know, a fellow gets so hunted down--they say."

"Oh--ah--then. In that case, you see," said the duke, relapsing, "the
principle has always been to take the goods the gods may send you, and be
thankful."

There was a pause after this, during which the duke again recollected
himself.

"We were talking about women," he sternly recommenced, "and I was warning
you that their wiles are snares of the evil one, who finds them ever ready
to carry out his worst behests. Women are bad."

"Are they, now?" said Diavolo. "Well, I should have thought, taking them
all round, you know, that they're a precious sight better than _we_
are."

"It was a woman, my boy," the duke said solemnly, "who compassed the fall
of man."

"Well," Diavolo rejoined, with a calmly judicial air, "I've thought a good
deal about that story myself, and it doesn't seem to me to prove that
women are weak, but rather the contrary. For you see, the woman could
tempt the man easily enough; but it took the very old devil himself to
tempt the woman."

"Humph!" said the duke, looking hard at his grandson.

"And, at any rate," Diavolo pursued, "it happened a good while ago, that
business, and it's just as likely as not that it was Adam whom the devil
first put up to a thing or two, and Eve got it out of him--for I grant you
that women are curious--and then they both came a cropper together, and
it was a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. It mostly is, I
should think, in a business of that kind."

"Well, yes," said the duke. "In my own experience, I always found that we
were just about one as bad as the other"--and he chuckled.

"Then, we may conclude that there is a doubt about that Garden of Eden
story whichever way you look at it, and it's too old for an argument at
any rate," said Diavolo. "But there is no doubt about the redemption. It
was a woman who managed that little affair. And, altogether, it seems to
me, in spite of the disadvantage of being classed by law with children,
lunatics, beggars, and irresponsible people generally, that, in the matter
of who have done most good in the world, women come out a long chalk ahead
of us."

"Why the devil don't you speak English, sir!" the duke burst out testily.

Diavolo started. "Good gracious, grandpapa!" he began with his customary
deliberation, "how sudden you are! You quite made me jump. Is it the slang
you don't like?"

"Yes sir, it _is_ the slang I don't like."

"Then you've only got to say so," said Diavolo in a tone of mild
remonstrance. "You really quite upset me when you're so sudden. Angelica
will tell you I never could stand being startled. She's tried all kinds of
things to cure me. You can't frighten me, you know. It's just the jump I
object to."

"Oh, you object, do you?" said the duke, bending his brows upon him. "Then
I apologise."

"Oh, no! pray don't mention it, sir," said Diavolo. "I didn't mean you to
go so far as that, you know. And it's over in a minute."

Angelica burst into the room at this point, followed by two or three dogs,
and immediately took up her favourite position on the arm of her
grandfather's chair.

"I want some tea," she said.

"It's coming," said Diavolo.

"You say that because you don't want the trouble of getting up to ring,"
Angelica retorted.

Diavolo looked at her provokingly, and she was about to say something
tart, when a footman opened the door wide, and two others entered carrying
the tea-things, and at the same time the rest of the party began to
assemble.

Lady Fulda was the first to arrive with her widowed sister, Lady Claudia.
They presented a great contrast, the one being so perfectly lovely, the
other so decidedly plain. Lady Claudia was a tall gaunt woman, hard in
manner, with no pretension to any accomplishments; but wise, and of a
faithful, affectionate disposition, which deeply endeared her to her
friends.

Lord Dawne came in next, with Dr. Galbraith and Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe,
and these were followed by Father Ricardo and Mr. Ellis, after whom came
Ideala herself, alone.

This was before she made her name, but already people spoke of her; and
theoretically men were supposed not to like her "because of her ideas,
don't you know," which were strongly opposed in some circles, especially
by those who either did not know or could not understand them. There is no
doubt that mankind have a rooted objection to be judged when the judge is
a woman. If they cannot in common honesty deny the wisdom of her decisions
they attack her for venturing to decide at all.

"Now," said Angelica, skipping over to a couch beside which Mr. Kilroy was
sitting, "_now_, we shall have a little interesting conversation!"

"I hope you will kindly allow us to have a little interesting tea first,"
said Diavolo, who had risen politely when the other ladies entered the
room, a formality which he omitted in Angelica's case because he insisted
that she wasn't a lady.

When the tea was handed round, and the servants had withdrawn, he lounged
over to the couch where she was, in his deliberate way, sat down beside
her, and put his tea cup on the floor; and then they put their arms round
each other, slanted their heads together, and sat expectant. This had been
a favourite position of theirs from the time they could sit up at all, and
when there was a good deal of gossip going on about them it had always
been a treat to see them sitting so, with blank countenances and ears
open, collecting capital doubtless for new outrages on public decency.

"What do you want to talk about. Angelica?" Ideala asked, smiling.

"Oh, a lot of things," Angelica exclaimed, straightening herself
energetically, and giving Diavolo's head a knock with her own to make him
move it out of the way. "I've been reading, you know, and I want you to
explain. I want to know how people can be so silly."

"In what way?" Ideala asked.

"Well, I'm thinking of Aunt Fulda," said the candid Angelica. "You know,
she very much wants to make a Roman Catholic of me, and she gave me some
books to read, and of course I read them. They were all about the Church
being the true church and all that sort of thing. And then I got a lot of
books about other churches, and each said that _it_ was the true
church just as positively, and Aunt Fulda told me that anyone who would
read about _her_ church _must_ be convinced that it is the true
church, but the difficulty is to get people to read; so when I found these
other books I took them to her to show her all about the other true
churches, and I told her she ought to read them, because if there were
truth in any of them, we could none of us possibly be saved unless we
belonged to _all_ the different churches. But do you know, she
wouldn't look at a book! She said she wasn't allowed to! Now! what do you
think of that? and after telling me what a mistake it was not to read!"

Lady Fulda and her father were talking together in the window, and did not
therefore overhear these remarks, but Father Ricardo was listening, and
Ideala flashed a mischievous glance at him as Angelica spoke.

"Then," the latter continued before anyone could answer her, "Aunt Fulda
is just as good as she possibly _can_ be, and Father Ricardo says it
is because she has submitted to _his_ Holy Church; and Mrs. Orton Beg
and mamma are also as good as they possibly can be, and the Bishop of
Morningquest says that Mrs. Orton Beg is a holy woman because she is a
humble follower of Christ, but he rather shakes his head about mamma.
Uncle Dawne, however, and Dr. Galbraith both maintain that mamma is
admirable, because she doesn't trouble her head about churches and creeds
any longer. She used to do so once, but now she thinks only of what is
_morally_ right or wrong, and leaves the ecclesiastical muddle for
the divines to get out of as best they can. Mamma used to dread bringing
us to Morne when we were younger; we were always so outrageous here; and
we told her it was Aunt Fulda who made us so, because she is too good, and
the balance of nature has to be preserved. But, now, I am sure Aunt
Claudia is quite as good as she is, and so are you, and mamma, and Mrs.
Orton Beg."

Ideala smiled at her. "And so you are puzzled?" she said. "Well, now, I
will explain. Your aunts and mother, and Mrs. Orton Beg, are all of those
people born good, who would have been saints in any calendar, Buddhist,
Christian, or Jewish. They come occasionally--these good people--to cause
confusion on the subject of original sin, and overthrow the pride of
professors who maintain that their own code of religious ethics must be
the right one because it produces the best specimens of humanity. There
was a Chinese lady living at Shanghai a few years ago, a devout Buddhist,
who, in her habits of life, her character, her prayers, her penances, and
her sweetness of disposition, exactly resembled your Aunt Fulda, the only
difference between them being the names of the ideal of goodness upon whom
they called for help. Their virtues were identical, and the moral outcome
of their lives was the same."