"A thing that hath no existence between man and woman in this world, so
mixed is it with lust and hatred and jealousy. True, there is love, but it
is not that one. 'T is the loves filial and paternal, and friendship,
better than all the loves the rhymesters hang with their namby-pamby. The
love between the sexes--'t is a game wherein the weaker loses, and
then--_voe victis!_ Hast forgot thy Latin, child?"
And then I broke out into a great sobbing, as if my bursting heart would
break; for, I know not why, but this cut me like a knife. And he took my
hand with anxious kindness to soothe me; and at the bird's rustle in the
tree, dropt it and stood apart. He lived in the eye of the world even in
such affections as he owned. But I sobbed on.
"Pray, pray, don't sob, Stella," he says. "This is mighty, mighty ill and
like a child. Dry those pretty eyes,--prettier, gadso! than any Lady
Mary's of them all!--and tell me wherein I have offended 'T was not
willingly."
So, drowned in tears, I lookt up, and having lookt, turned away weeping,
and could say no more. For what skill had I to argufy with a man of such
infinite parts? And yet well I knew that in this matter of love I was the
wiser, though but a simpleton. But he caught my hands.
"Have I hurt thee, Stella? I were a devil if I did. What ails my girl at
love? What is it to thee? Keep away from that raging fire. Souse it with
every stream of reason and honour. Heap the ice of the Pole on it, for it
is not only hell itself but feeds the flame of hell eternal."
He so wrung my hand that it pained; and I saw his face work like a man
most desperately sick and ill. It dried the tears in my eyes, and I stood
trembling and staring upon him, and the twilight was sweet about us with a
smell of grass and growing things and flowers; a night for lovers--and I
most miserable.
"I doubt--" he began and stopt; and then, with a cry that choked in his
throat, he put his arms about me and I laid my head on his breast.
Should I blame myself for that half-hour? Should I blame my Dear, the
Desire of mine eyes? 'T was but a step to take across the line that parts
innocence from--No, no, never will I say guilt! 'T was not guilt, if all
the tongues of men and angels should so preach. 'T is in the later denial
of love that guilt lay hid. But these things I did not then know, and I
thought in my simplicity the world changed and the foolish girl become a
woman and beloved, and our lives together in a fair prospect before us.
And suddenly--"Go--go!" he cried, rejecting me and thrusting me from him.
"Go, and never again let me see your face. I sicken--I sicken at what is
done. No--no! Speak not, utter not, lest I strike you and myself dead.
Leave me, for God's pity's sake! Go!"
So did the Angel with the flaming sword drive our first parents out of
Paradise. I drew apart shuddering, and he cried after me in a loud
whisper:--
"Let none see your face. Go in by the covered door, and so to your room,
and plead headache if Dingley see you. Go."
I left him in the dark. I drew my palatine about my face and none saw; and
so to my room, and outed the light, and sat by the window till the dawn
came.
Now, if I am condemned herein, I take the blame, but cannot change my
thought. What woman in giving all met ever so sorry a return--and why? I
broke my brain with thinking, and at that time found no answer. Later, I
knew. But to escape the hue and cry of question, I washed the tears from
my eyes in the morning, and so to the housekeeper's room. And he was
there, reading in a great book, and my heart leapt like the last leap of a
hare with the dogs on it.
"Why, Stellakin--saucy-nose!" says he, laughing, but his face was pale. He
could cheat with his words, but I saw his face bleacht like a linen clout
behind his laugh, and I swear at that time he loved me, though he loved
advancement better. "You are bright and early, young woman! Are you for
the garden, to get you a stomach for breakfast? Well, so-so! and pray for
poor Presto as you go; for in honour and conscience, his Ppt is the child
of his heart."
How could I endure this? I closed the door, and left him laughing with
white lips.
So went the day, and now I saw his drift. He would hold the little
language of childhood for a shield betwixt us. I should be nothing more
for ever than Ppt,--poor pretty thing,--Stellakin, the pretty rogue. He
would not fail in this, but only in all my hopes. He would give me all but
that I longed for. He would glut me with sugar-comfits but never a taste
of the living bread.
And next day a new thing. Dingley and I sitting together, he came upon us,
and in all he said included ker. She was his second MD. He was her poor
Presto, also. I saw his will and knew he built a fence about himself.
Sometimes I thought I had but a mean spirit so to live, and thought to ask
his meaning; but dared not, for he struck an awe into my very soul. So
gradually the days covered that sunset, and't was impossible I should
speak; and life went by, and still I studied with him, but Dingley always
present.
Hath he a heart? I know not. That sunset was a grave between us; and had
the corpse risen and stared him in the face, I think he had run mad. In my
solitary hours, I would imagine I spoke. Sometimes I would kneel before
him entreating, and he would raise me up, as a certain king did another
Esther. Sometimes he would fall at my knees, and I would bow my head upon
him, weeping for joy.
But yet always I knew that, if we glanced near that secret, he would rise
and stare upon me with a ghastly face, and I would see him no more. Yet at
that time he loved me. To himself he will not lie in reading this.
'Twas in 1699 Sir William Temple died, and the household at Moor Park was
broke up. Mr Swift took the kindest part in my settlement and the laying
out of my little fortune. "And be easy about money, you nauti-nauti, dear
girls," says he to old Dingley and me; "for what is mine is yours; and
were it my blood, 't is all one."
And so laid his plans that we should come to Ireland, where he had
preferment at Laracor near Dublin, and the prebend of Dunlavin in St.
Patrick's Cathedral. And, God forgive me, I asked myself if the thought to
keep me under his guidance mingled not itself with all his kindness.
So I, being twenty years old, and Dingley a kind bustling woman, we went;
and Ireland was a kindly home, for 't was near him, and I might see him.
Not as I would--oh, never that! but as a friend, provided 't was with
caution. For as he now mounted in the Church, and his ambition
strengthened on him (and sure Wolsey himself did not more suffer from that
failing of noble minds), caution grew to be his main thought; for he said
the adventure of our coming looked so like a frolic that censure might
hold as if there were a secret history in such a removal; but this would
soon blow over by circumspect conduct, and this too was used to put a
distance between us. But 't was the condition of our intercourse, and thus
I accepted it. For aught I could discern, all else was clean forgot, and
we lodged near him and met as friends--no more.
Nor could I think otherwise when Mr Tisdall, his friend, made suit to me.
I was cold,--what else,--for I thought myself a wife, if a forsaken one,
and Mr Tisdall imagined that Dr Swift opposed his suit, objecting that his
means did not come up to the expectation he formed for me, who was, he
said, in a manner, his ward.
Poor Mr Tisdall writ in haste on this, and brought me Dr Swift's reply
(who had not broke the matter to me) and thus it ran:--
My conjecture is that you think I obstruct your inclinations to please my
own. In answer to all which I will, upon my conscience and honour, tell
you the naked truth, [The naked truth! O God, if it were told!] If my
fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly
make your choice, because I never saw that person whose conversation I
entirely valued but hers. This was the utmost I ever gave way to. [But
once--but once!] And this regard of mine never once entered my head as an
impediment to you, since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing
for ladies to marry, and that time takes off the lustre of virgins in all
other eyes but mine.
This Mr Tisdall offered on his knees, declaring it must remove my last
objections, since the worthy friend of my childhood supported his suit. I
received it sedately, and dismist him with the compunction so worthy a
gentleman merited. Was this letter honest to his friend? I say not.
Henceforth he disliked Mr Tisdall. Could I impute this to jealousy? Why
not? A man will be jealous if his dog but lick the hand of another; and,
though he reserve himself perfect freedom, no man must so much as sigh for
the woman he hath once honoured with his regard. Truly there is a
something Oriental in the passions of men; and if a woman break through
this, 'tis at her peril.
So stood matters when the Doctor went to London, an: 1710, on his errand
of obtaining the First Fruits for the Irish Church from the Crown--and he
chosen all others to this, for his commanding talent and presence, though
then but forty-two years of age, and many dignitaries older, yet not
wiser. It created much envy.
I missed him, and yet took a sad ease in his going. 'Twas the easier to
talk with Dingley, to play at ombre with the Dean and Mrs Walls; for when
he was in presence, my heart waited upon his speech, and he wounded with
many a word and look he thought not on. And he writ often in the form of a
Journal to Dingley and me, saying:--
"I will write something every day to MD, and when it is full, will send
it; and that will be pretty, and I will always be in conversation with MD,
and MD with Presto."
'T was near a year since his going when Mrs Coleburn came to Dublin, full
of London talk, and her friendship with the great Dr Swift, the hope of
the Tories. Indeed, it made her a great woman with the clergy in Dublin,
that she knew so much of his sayings and doings, and in what high company
he was got, and the clutter he made in London. Much was true, as I knew
under his own hand. Much was idle twattle and the giddiness of a woman
that will be talking. Now, one day, she visited me, dressed out in the
last London mode, and talked as I knotted, and presently says she:--
"And, Mrs Johnson, what will be said, the Doctor being made a Bishop as he
now looks for, if he bring home a fine young bride from London? Sure he
lives at Mrs Vanhomrigh's, so often is he there; and Hessy is as pretty a
girl as eye can see, in her young twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.
I have ever said the Doctor was not on the market for nothing. He is not
the man for a portionless beauty. Hath he wrote of this? for all the
tongues are wagging, and the lady in such a blaze with the tender passion
that she can't by any means smother it."
"Doctor Swift hath often writ of Mrs Vanhomrigh and her hospitalities,"
says I, smiling. "Also of the charming Miss V. Her name is no stranger
here."
So I baffled the woman, and could see her petty malice dumbed. I held the
smile on my face like a mask.
"Well, 'tis a charming creature, and the Doctor commends her wit in all
quarters; and 't is certain lie should be a judge, for he tutors her in
Latin. There's many a man would gladly tutor the seductive Miss Hessy."
When she took leave, I writ to the kind Patty Holt in London. When her
reply returned, 't was but to confirm Mrs Coleburn. Then I turned over all
his letters--yet did not need--for mention of this woman, and found but
three, though of the mother and her house he writ in almost every letter,
but making somewhat too light of it. 'Twas a raging pain that he should be
her tutor--I had thought that was mine only and not to recur--a memory
stored where neither rust nor moth might touch it. Well--what could I but
hate the girl? And to hate is a bitter thing: it saps the life and breaks
the strength, and so no escape night or day. I must then fancy his letters
cooling, and later says Dingley unprompted:--
"The Doctor is took up with his fine friends and his business. La!--for
sure he writes not as he did, but is plaguey busy. Two simple women can't
expect so much of his time that duchesses go begging for."
He stayed long away, and Patty Holt writ often, discreet and willing to
serve me; and one day comes a packet from her, and when I cut the seals,
out falls a letter--his. I read it first.
Miss Hessy, I am so weary of this place ['t was Windsor] that I am
resolved to leave it in two days. I will come as early on Monday as I can
find opportunity, and will take a little Grub Street lodgings pretty near
where I did before, and will dine with you three times a week and tell you
a thousand secrets, provided you will have no quarrels with me. I long to
drink a dish of coffee in the sluttery, and hear you dun me for secrets,
and "Drink your coffee--why don't you drink your coffee?"
So he writ, and more--much more could I read unsaid. For him, this was
much--I knew it. Then, another letter--a woman's hand.
It is inexpressible the concern I am in ever since I heard from Mrs Lewis
that your head is so much out of order. Who is your physician? Satisfy me
so much as to tell me what medicines you have took and do take. O what
would I give to know how you do this instant. My fortune is too hard. Your
absence was enough without this cruel addition. I have done all that was
possible to hinder myself from writing for fear of breaking my promise;
but it is all in vain; for had I vowed neither to touch pen, ink, or
paper, I certainly should have had some other invention, and I am
impatient to the last degree to hear how you are. I hope I shall soon have
you here.
The two were wrapt in a sheet from Patty who had writ thereon:--"Dropt by
the Doctor when in a giddy attack, visiting me."
I think she was shamed. So was not I. As well ask the hound if he is
shamed when tracking the deer. Had it been to save my life, instead of
lose it, I had less eagerly read. 'T was clear they understood one
another. With me, in his caution, Dingley must be joined when he writ.
With her, not so. Her happiness was a knife turned in a bleeding wound.
So I writ him, in a letter of many matters, somewhat scornfully of the
family as marvelling a little that he whom all solicited could be
satisfied with such inconsiderable people. In time he replied thus:--
Sir A. Fountaine and I dined by invitation with Mrs V. You say they are of
no consequence--why, they keep as good female company as I do male. I see
all the drabs of quality at this end of the town with them. I saw two Lady
Bettys there this afternoon. Rare walking in the Park now. Why don't you
walk in the Green of St. Stephen's? What beasts the Irish women are, never
to walk. Men hide not matters so well as women. They say too much or not
enough.
Much later he writ: "I found Mrs V. all in combustion with her landlord.
Her eldest daughter is of age, and going to Ireland to look after her
fortune and get it in her own hands."
So I was to think it concerned them not to be apart. Immediately I set my
wits to discover where was her estate, and 't was not long ere I knew 't
was Marlay Abbey, near Celbridge; but the lady would reside in Dublin
while making her dispositions, being Mrs Emerson's guest, and was like to
be at a rout at her house. 'Twas long since I attended a rout, but I
intrigued to be bidden as courtiers intrigue for an inch of blue ribbon;
and in such a fever and anguish as I think I had died of it if not
successful.
So, when the day was come, I went with Mrs Stoyte; and the first person I
saw was a young lady on the stair-head as we went up, and Mrs Emerson
presenting her to many. A fine young London madam, who curtseyed to me,
taking no more heed than of any other.
Shall I admit her beauty? I did not think her charming, despite fine
sparkling eyes and a luxuriance of brown hair. Her lips were full and her
chin round, but she looked full her age, and between the brows was a line
that I would call the Doctor's sign-manual. I have it myself--I have seen
it in others--'t is the claw-foot of care, care never-ending and cruel
unrest, and hope that sickens the spirit and fades the bloom; and in her,
though but just of age, the first bloom was gone that is like morning dew
in a young girl's eyes. He loves to tyrannise over women and show his
familiarity by a certain brutality of address, and the line comes not
slowly.
I caught sight of her person with mine in a long glass--she in her
sea-green sacque flowered with pink, and myself in gray,--"an angel's face
a little cracked,"--that was the best he could say for Stella! She gave
not a thought to the faded Dublin lady that would have given all but her
eternal hope to read in that girl's soul. Oh, the mask of the human face
behind which none may look!
[Illustration: Hester Vanhomrigh--Vanessa]
So she went, and after a year he returned, now Dean of St. Patrick. He was
kind, but 't was a kindness that stood apart and viewed itself carefully,
lest it diminish my due. 'Twas easy seen he was engaged in thought.
Well--shall a woman expect more from a man in the world's eye? Let her be
humbly grateful for the crumbs he lets fall.
Also for the crumbs from her rival's table; for Miss Hessy following, and
now an orphan, was established soon after at Marlay; and whether I would
or not, I knew when the Dean's rides took him that way, my Mrs Prue being
courted by his man Samuel, and all he did trickling through that channel.
'T was at this time also that copies were handed about of his poem,
"Cadenus and Vanessa," and 't was the very top of talk and admiration.
Many might guess who was the lady, and the Dean was mighty angry, and said
'twas but a jest, and no friend to him who took it otherwise.
He asked me with a feigned carelessness if I had read it; and I replying
carelessly that I thought it extreme fine and could wish he would write
oftener in that vein, he smiled and looked pleased, and so it passed. But
again and yet again I conned the lines:--
'T is to the world a secret yet
Whether the nymph, to please her swain,
Talks in a high romantic strain,
Or whether he at last descends
To act with less seraphic ends.
Or, to compound the business, whether
They temper love and books together,
Must never to mankind be told,
Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold.
I knew the meaning of that passage where others guesst. I read it by the
light of a sunset many years gone, and lived in hell.
'T was when Mr Dean was next in London, came a letter to me
Madam, I have great and urgent reason to wish the honour of meeting you
and a half hour's conversation. Any place you may condescend to appoint
will be perfectly agreeable and the favour prized by
Your obedient humble servant,