NEWS OF LADY LORRIMER.
Old Lord Verney, of all persons in the world, took a fancy to take me
down to the tea-room. I think he believed, as other wiser people did,
that papa, who was certainly clever, and a very shrewd club-house
politician, might come to be somebody in the House, in time.
As usual, he was telling an interminable story, without point or
beginning or end, about himself, and all mixed up with the minister, and
the opposition leader, and an amendment, and some dismal bill, that I
instantly lost my way in. As we entered the tea-room, a large room
opening from the landing, he nodded, without interrupting his story, to
a gentleman who was going downstairs. My eye followed this recognition,
and I saw a tall, rather good-looking young man. I saw him only for a
moment. I was so startled that I involuntarily almost stopped Lord
Verney as we passed; but I recovered myself instantly. It was
tantalising. He always talks as if he were making a speech; one can't,
without rudeness, edge in a word; he is so pompous, I dare not interrupt
him. He did that office for himself, however, by taking an ice; and I
seized the transitory silence, and instantly asked him the name of the
gentleman to whom he had bowed; I thought he said, "Mr. Jennings," and
as a clever artist of that odd name had lately painted a portrait of
Lord Verney, I was satisfied that I had heard him aright.
This was to be a night of odd recognitions. I was engaged to Lord John
Roxford, who came up, and saying, "I think this is our dance, Miss
Ware?" took me away, to my great relief, from Lord Verney. Well, we
danced and talked a little; and I learned nothing that I remember,
except that he was to return to Paris the next day. Before he took me to
mamma, however, he said:
"A very dear friend has asked me, as the greatest favour I can do him,
to introduce him to you, Miss Ware; you will allow me?"
He repeated, I thought--for he was looking for him, and his face at that
moment was turned a little away, and the noise considerable--the same
name that Lord Verney had mentioned. As Rebecca Torkill used to say, "my
heart jumped into my mouth," as I consented. A moment more, and I found
myself actually acquainted with the very man! How strange it seemed! Was
that smiling young man of fashion the same I had seen stretched on the
rugged peat and roots at Plas Ylwd, with white face and leaden lips, and
shirt soaked in blood? He was, with his white-gloved hand on the
pier-table beside me, inquiring what dance I could give him. I was
engaged for this; but I could not risk the chance of forfeiting my talk
with my new acquaintance. I gave it to him, and having the next at my
disposal, transferred it to the injured man whom I had ousted.
The squabble, the innocent surprise, the regrets, the other hypocrisies,
and finally the compromise over, away we went to take our places in the
quadrille. I was glad it was not a round dance. I wanted to hear him
talk a little. How strange it seemed to me, standing beside him in this
artificial atmosphere of wax-light and music! Each affecting the air of
an acquaintance made then and there; each perfectly recognising the
other, as we stood side by side talking of the new primo tenore, the
play, the Aztecs, and I know not what besides!
This young man's manner was different from what I had been accustomed to
in ball-rooms. There was none of the trifling, and no sign of the
admiration which the conversation and looks of others seemed to imply.
His tone, perfectly gentleman-like, was merely friendly, and he seemed
to take an interest in me, much as I fancied an unknown relation might.
We talked of things of no particular interest, until he happened to ask
something of my occasional wanderings in the country. It was my
opportunity, and I seized it like a general.
"I like the country," I said. "I enjoy it thoroughly; I've lived nearly
all my life in the country, in a place I am so fond of, called Malory. I
think all about there so beautiful! It is close to Cardyllion--have you
ever seen Cardyllion?"
"Yes, I've been to Cardyllion once--only once, I think. I did not see a
great deal of it. But you, now, see a great deal more of the
country--you have been to the lakes?"
"Oh! yes; but I want to ask how you liked Cardyllion. How long is it
since you were there?"
"About two years, or a little more, perhaps," he answered.
"Oh! that's just about the time the Conway Castle was wrecked--how awful
that was! I had a companion then, my dearest friend--Laura Grey was her
name; she left us so suddenly, when I was away from Malory, and I have
never seen her since. I have been longing so to meet any one who could
tell me anything about her. You don't happen to know any one, do you,
who knows a young lady of that name? I make it a rule to ask every one I
can; and I'm sure I shall make her out at last."
"Nothing like perseverance," said he. "I shall be most happy to be
enlisted; and if I should light upon a lady of that name, I may tell her
that Miss Ware is very well, and happy?"
"No, not happy--at least, not quite happy, until she writes to tell me
where she is, or comes to see me; and tell her I could not have believed
she would have been so unkind."
Conversations are as suddenly cut short in ball-rooms as they are in a
beleaguered city, where the head of one of the interlocutors is carried
off by a round-shot. Our dialogue ended with the sudden arrival of the
ill-used man, whom I could no longer postpone, and who carried me off,
very much vexed, as you may suppose, and scarcely giving my companion
time to make a bow.
Never was "fast dance" so slow as this! At length it was over, and
wherever I went my eyes wandered hither and thither in search of the
tall young man with whom I had danced. The man who had figured in a
scene which had so often returned to my imagination was now gone; I saw
him neither in the dancing-rooms nor in any others. By this time there
was a constant double current to and from the supper-room, up and down
the stairs. As I went down, immediately before me was Monsieur
Droqville. He did not follow the stream, but passed into the hall.
* * * * *
Monsieur Droqville put on his loose black wrapper, and wound a shawl
about his throat, and glanced, from habit, with his shrewd, hard eyes at
the servants as he passed through them in the hall. He jumped into a
cab, told the driver where to stop, lighted a cigar, and smoked.
He got out at the corner of a fashionable but rather dingy street not
very far away. Then he dismissed his vehicle, walked up the pavement
smoking, passed into a still quieter street, also fashionable, that
opens from it at an obtuse angle. Here he walked slowly, and, as it
were, softly. The faint echo of his own steps was the only sound that
met him as he entered it. He crossed, threw his head back, and shrewdly
scanned the upper windows, blowing out a thin stream of tobacco-smoke as
he looked.
"Not flown yet, _animula_, _vagula blandula_? Still on the perch," he
said, as he crossed the street again.
His cigar was just out, and he threw it away as he reached the steps. He
did not need to knock or ring; he admitted himself with a latch-key. A
bedroom candlestick in the hall had a candle still burning in it. He
took it and walked quietly up. The boards of the stairs and lobbies were
bare, and a little dust lay on the wall and bannister, indicating the
neglected state of a house abandoned by its tenants for a journey or a
very long stay in the country. He opened the back drawing-room door and
put his head in. A pair of candles lighted the room. A thin elderly
lady, in an odd costume, was the only person there. She wore a white,
quilted headcloth, a black robe, and her beads and cross were at her
side. She was reading, with spectacles on, a small book which she held
open in both hands, as he peeped in. With a slight start she rose. There
was a little crucifix on the table, and a coloured print of the Madonna
hung on the wall, on the nail from which a Watteau had been temporarily
removed.
"Has your patient been anointed yet?" said Monsieur Droqville, in his
short nasal tones.
"Not yet, reverend father," she answered. They were both speaking
French.
"Has she been since nearly _in articulo_?"
"At about eleven o'clock, reverend father, her soul seemed at her very
lips."
"In this complaint so it will often be. Is Sister Cecilia upstairs?"
"Yes, reverend father."
"Father Edwyn here?"
"Yes, reverend father."
He withdrew his head, closed the door, and walked upstairs. He tapped
gently at the door of the front bedroom.
A French nun, in a habit precisely similar to that of the lady
downstairs, stood noiselessly at the door. She was comparatively young,
wore no spectacles, and had a kind and rather sad countenance. He
whispered a word to her, heard her answer softly, and then he entered
the room with a soundless step--it was thickly carpeted, and furnished
luxuriously--and stood at the side of a huge four-post bed, with stately
curtains of silk, within which a miserable shrunken old woman, with a
face brown as clay, sunk and flaccid, and staring feebly with wide
glassy eyes, with her back coiled into a curve, and laden with shawls,
was set up, among pillows, breathing, or rather gasping, with
difficulty.
Here she was, bent, we may say, in the grip of two murderers, heart
complaint and cancer. The irresistible chemistry of death had set in;
the return of "earth to earth" was going on. Who could have recognised,
in this breathing effigy of death, poor Lady Lorrimer? But disease now
and then makes short work of such transformations.
The good nurse here, like the other downstairs, had her little picture
against the wall, and had been curtseying and crossing herself before
it, in honest prayer for the dying old lady, to whom Monsieur Droqville
whispered something, and then leaned his ear close to her lips. He felt
her pulse, and said, "Madame has some time still to meditate and pray."
Again his ear was to her lips. "Doubt it not, madame. Every
consolation."
She whispered something more; it lasted longer, and was more earnest
this time. Her head was nodding on her shoulders, and her eyes were
turned up to his dark energetic face, imploringly.
"You can't do that, madame--it is not yours--you have given it to God."
The woman turned her eyes on him with a piteous look.
"No, madame," he said, sharply; "it is too late to withhold a part.
This, madame, is temptation--a weakness of earth; the promises are to
her that overcometh."
Her only answer was an hysterical whimper and imperfect sobbing.
"Be calm," he resumed. "It is meritorious. Discharge your mind of it,
and the memory of your sacrifice will be sweeter, and its promise more
glorious the nearer you draw to your darkest hour on earth."
She had another word to say; her fingers were creeping on the coverlet
to his hand.
"No, madame, there won't be any struggle--you will faint, that is all,
and waken, we trust among the blest. I'm sorry I can't stay just now.
But Father Edwyn is here, and Dr. Garnet."
Again she turned her wavering head towards him, and lifted her eyes, as
if to speak.
"No, no, you must not exert yourself--husband your strength--you'll want
it, madame."
It was plain, however, she would have one last word more, and a little
sourly he stooped his ear again.
"Pardon me, madame, I never said or supposed that after you signed it
you were still at liberty to deal with any part; if you have courage to
take it back, it is another matter. I won't send you before the Judge
Eternal with a sacrilege in your right hand."
He spoke quietly, but very sternly, raising his finger upward, with his
eyes fixed upon her, while his dark face looked pale.
She answered only with the same helpless whimper. He beckoned to the
nun.
"Let me see that book."
He looked through its pages.
"Read aloud to madame the four first elevations; agony is near."
As he passed from the room, he beckoned the lady in the religious habit
again, and whispered in her ear in the lobby:
"Lock this door, and admit none but those you know."
He went down this time to the front drawing-room, and entered it
suddenly. Mr. Carmel was seated there, with candles beside him, reading.
Down went his book instantly, and he rose.
"Our good friend upstairs won't last beyond three or four
hours--possibly five," began Monsieur Droqville. "Garnet will be here in
a few minutes; keep the doors bolted! people might come in and disturb
the old lady. You need not mind now. I locked the hall-door as I came
in. Why don't you make more way with Miss Ware? Her mother is no
obstacle--favourable rather. Her father is a mere pagan, and never at
home; and the girl likes you."
Mr. Carmel stared.
"Yes, you are blind; but I have my eyes. Why don't you read your
Montaigne? '_Les agaceries des femmes sont des declarations d'amour._'
You interest her, and yet you profit nothing by your advantage. There
she is, romantic, passionate, Quixotic, and makes, without knowing it, a
hero of you. You are not what I thought you."
Mr. Carmel's colour flushed to his very temples; he looked pained and
agitated; his eyes were lowered before his superior.
"Why need you look like a fool? Understand me," continued Monsieur
Droqville, in his grim, harsh nasals. "The weaknesses of human nature
are Heaven's opportunities. The godly man knows how to use them with
purity. She is not conscious of the position she gives you; but you
should understand its powers. You can illuminate, elevate, save her."
He paused for a moment; Mr. Carmel stood before him with his eyes
lowered.
"What account am I to give of you?" he resumed. "Remember, you have no
business to be afraid. You must use all influences to save a soul, and
serve the Church. A good soldier fights with every weapon he has--sword,
pistol, bayonet, fist--in the cause of his king. What shall I say of
you? A loyal soldier, but wanting head, wanting action, wanting presence
of mind. A theorist, a scholar, a deliberator. But not a man for the
field; no _coup d'oeil_, no promptitude, no perception of a great law,
where it is opposed by a small quibble, no power of deciding between a
trifle and an enormity, between seeing your king robbed or breaking the
thief's fingers. Why, can't you see that the power that commands is also
the power that absolves? I thought you had tact--I thought you had
insinuation. Have I been mistaken? If so, we must cut out other work for
you. Have you anything to say?"
He paused only for a second, and in that second Mr. Carmel raised his
head to speak; but with a slight downward motion of his hand, and a
frown, Droqville silenced him, and proceeded:
"True, I told you not to precipitate matters. But you need not let the
fire go out, because I told you not to set the chimney in a blaze. There
is Mrs. Ware; her most useful position is where she is, _in equilibrio_.
She can serve no one by declaring herself a Catholic; the _eclat_ of
such a thing would spoil the other mission, that must be conducted with
judgment and patience. The old man I told you of is a Puritan, and must
see or suspect nothing. While he lives there can be no avowal. But up to
that point all must now proceed. Ha! there goes a carriage--that's the
third I have heard--Lady Mardykes's party breaking up. The Wares don't
return this way. I'll see you again to-morrow. To-night you accomplish
your duty here. The old woman upstairs will scarcely last till dawn."
He nodded and left the room as suddenly as he had entered it.