LADY HAMILTON
The daisies we string in chains before ten, we tread under foot without
compunction after twenty. Cerise, pacing a noble terrace rolled and
levelled beneath the windows of her husband’s home, gave no thought to
the humble petals bending to her light footfall, and rising again when it
passed on; gave no thought to the flaring hollyhocks, the crimson roses,
all the bright array of autumn’s gaudier flowers flaunting about her in
the imposing splendour of maturity; gave no thought even to the fair
expanse of moor and meadow, dale and dingle, copse and corn-field, wood,
wold, and water, on which her eyes were bent.
She might have travelled many a mile, too, even through beautiful
England, without beholding such a scene. Overhead, the sky, clear and
pure in the late summer, or the early autumn, seemed but of a deeper
blue, because flecked here and there with wind-swept streaks of misty
white. Around her glowed, in Nature’s gaudiest patch-work, all the
garden beauty that had survived July. On a lower level by a few inches
lay a smooth, trim bowling-green, dotted with its unfinished game; and
downward still, foot by foot, like a wide green staircase, row after
row of terraces were banked, and squared, and spread between their
close-cut black yew hedges, till they descended to the ivy-grown wall
that divided pleasure-ground from park. Here, slopes of tufted grass,
swelling into bolder outlines as they receded, rolled, like the volume of
a freshening sea, into knolls, and dips, and ridges, feathered in waving
fern—dotted with goodly oaks—traversed by deep, narrow glades, in which
the deer were feeding—shy, wild, and undisturbed. Beyond this, again, the
variegated plain, rich in orchards, hedgerows, and enclosures studded
with shocks of corn, seamed too by the silver of more than one glistening
stream, was girdled by a belt of purple moorland; while, in the far
distance, the horizon was shut in by a long low range of hills, lost in a
grey-blue vapour, where they melted into sky.
Behind her stood the grim and weatherworn mansion, with its thick stone
walls, dented, battered, and defaced, as if it had defied a thousand
tempests and more than one siege, which, indeed, was the fact. Every old
woman in the country-side could tell how the square grey keep, at the end
of the south wing, had resisted the Douglas, and there was no mistaking
Cromwell’s handwriting on more than one rent in the comparatively modern
portions of the building. Hamilton Hill, though it had never been
called a fort, a castle, or even a hall, was known far and wide for a
stronghold, that, well supplied and garrisoned, might keep fifty miles of
the surrounding district in check; and the husband of Cerise was now lord
of Hamilton Hill.
No longer the soldier adventurer, the leader of Grey Musketeers, compound
of courtier and bravo—no longer the doubtful skipper of a suspicious
craft, half-trader, half-pirate—Sir George Hamilton, with position,
property, tenants, and influence, found himself a very different person
from the Captain George who used to relieve guard at the Palais Royal,
and lay ‘The Bashful Maid’ broadside on to a Spanish galleon deep in the
water, with her colours down and her foresail aback, a rich prize and an
easy prey. Ere the brigantine had dropped her anchor in the first English
port she made, George received intelligence of his far-off kinsman’s
death, and his own succession to a noble inheritance. It came at an
opportune moment, and he was disposed to make the most of it. Therefore
it was that Cerise (now Lady Hamilton) looked from the lofty terrace
over many a mile of fair English scenery, much of which belonged, like
herself, to the man she loved.
They were fairly settled now, and had taken their established place—no
lowly station—amongst their neighbours. Precedence had not, indeed, been
yielded them without a struggle; for in the last as in the present
century, detraction claimed a fair fling at all new-comers, and not what
they were, but _who_ they were, was the important question amongst a
provincial aristocracy, who made up by minute inquiry for the limited
sphere of their research. At first people whispered that the husband
was an adventurer and the wife an actress. Well, if not an actress, at
least a dancing-girl, whom he had picked up in Spain, in Paris, in the
West Indies, at Tangiers, Tripoli, or Japan! Lady Hamilton’s beauty, her
refined manners, her exquisite dresses, warranted the meanest opinion
of her in the minds of her own sex; and although, when they could no
longer conceal from themselves that she was a Montmirail of the real
Montmirails, they were obliged to own she had at least the advantage of
a high birth, I doubt if they loved her any better than before. They
pitied Sir George, they said, one and all—“He, if you like, was charming.
He had been page to the great King; he had been adored by the ladies of
the French Court; he had killed a Prince of the Blood in a duel; he had
sacked a convent of Spanish nuns, and wore the rosary of the Lady Abbess
under his waistcoat; he had been dreadfully wicked, but he was so polite!
he had the _bel air_; he had the _tourneur Louis Quatorze_; he had the
manners of the princes, and the electors, and the archdukes now passing
away. Such men would be _impossible_ soon; and to think he could have
been entrapped by that tawdry Frenchified Miss, with her airs and graces,
her fans and furbelows, and yards of the best Mechlin lace on the dress
she went gardening in! It was nothing to _them_, of course, that the
man should have committed such an absurdity; but, in common humanity,
they could not help being sorry for it, and, unless they were very much
deceived, so was he!”
With the squires, again, and county grandees of the male sex, including
two or three baronets, a knight of the shire, and the lord-lieutenant
himself, it was quite different. These honest gentlemen, whether fresh
or fasting in the morning, or bemused with claret towards the afternoon,
prostrated themselves before Cerise, and did homage to her charms.
Her blue eyes, her rosy lips, the way her gloves fitted, the slender
proportions of her feet, the influence of her soft, sweet manner,
resulting from a kindly, innocent heart—above all, the foreign accent,
which added yet another grace, childish, mirth-inspiring, and bewitching,
to everything she said—caused men of all ages and opinions to place their
necks voluntarily beneath the yoke. They swore by her; they toasted her;
they broke glasses innumerable in her honour; they vowed, with repeated
imprecations, nothing had ever been seen like her before; and they held
out to her husband the right hand of fellowship, as much for her sake as
for his own.
Sir George’s popularity increased on acquaintance. A man who could fly
a hawk with science—who could kill his game on the wing—who could ride
any horse perfectly straight over any part of their country—who seemed
to care very little for politics, except in so far as that the rights of
_venerie_ should be protected—who was reputed a consummate swordsman,
and seen, on occasion, to empty his bottle of claret with exceeding
good-will—was not likely to remain long in the background amongst the
hardy northern gentlemen with whom his lot was cast. Very soon Sir George
Hamilton’s society was sought as eagerly by both sexes, as his wife’s
beauty was admired by the one and envied—shall I say denied?—by the other.
Notwithstanding female criticism, which female instinct may possibly rate
at its true value, Cerise found herself very happy. Certainly, the life
she led was very different from that to which she had been accustomed in
her youth. An English lady of the last century devoted much of her time
to duties that are now generally performed by a housekeeper, and Cerise
had resolved to become a thorough English lady simply, I imagine, because
she thought it would please George. So she rose early, inspected the
dairies, betrayed contemptible ignorance in the manufacture of butter and
cream, reviewed vast stores of linen, put her white arms through a coarse
canvas apron, and splashed little dabs of jam upon her delicate nose,
with the conviction that she was a perfectly competent and efficient
housewife. Such occupations, if more healthy, were certainly less
exciting than the ever-recurring gaieties of the family hotel in Paris,
less agreeable than the luxurious tropical indolence of Montmirail West.
There were servants, plenty of them, at Hamilton Hill, who would
literally have shed their blood in defence of their mistress, but they
showed neither the blind obedience of the negro nor the shrewd readiness
of the Parisian domestic. On the contrary, they seemed persuaded
that length of service entitled them to be obstinate, perverse, and
utterly negligent of orders. There were two or three seniors of whom
Lady Hamilton positively stood in awe, and an old grey-headed butler,
perfectly useless from gout and obesity, would expostulate angrily with
his mistress for walking bareheaded on the terrace in an east wind. That
same east wind, too, was another trial to Cerise. It gave her cold, it
made her shiver, and she was almost afraid it sometimes made her cross.
There were drawbacks, you see, even to a love-match, a fortune, and
Hamilton Hill!
Yet she was very happy. She continually repeated to herself how happy
she was. To be sure, she missed her mother’s society, missed it far
more than she expected when at first she acquired the freedom of the
Matron’s Guild. Perhaps, too, she may have missed the incense of flattery
so delicately offered at the receptions of the Marquise; nay, even the
ponderous and well-turned compliments of the Prince-Marshal, who, to
do him justice, treated her with a chivalrous affection, compounded of
romantic devotion to her mother, and paternal regard for herself. But I
am sure she would never have allowed that a drop could be wanting in the
full cup of her happiness, for was not George the whole world to her, and
had she not got him here all to herself?
She walked thoughtfully on the terrace, surrounded by the glorious
beauty of earth and sky, looking, and seeing not. Perhaps she was
back in Touraine amongst the vineyards, perhaps she was in the shady
convent-garden, cooling her temples in the pure fresh breeze that
whispered to the beeches how it had gathered perfumes from the orchards
and the hedgerows and the scented meadows of pleasant Normandy. Perhaps
she was rustling through a minuet in the same set with a daughter of
France, or fanning mamma in the hot West Indian evening, or straining her
eyes to windward from the deck of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ with George’s arm
round her waist, and his telescope pointing to the distant sail, that
seemed plain to every eye on board but hers. At any rate, she appeared
to be leagues off in mind, though her dainty feet, with slow, measured
steps, were pacing to and fro on the terrace at Hamilton Hill. All at
once her colour came, her eyes sparkled, she brightened up like one who
wakes from sleep, for her heart still leaped to the trample of boot and
jingle of spur, as it had leaped in the days gone by, when a certain
Musketeer would visit his guard at unseasonable hours, that he might have
an excuse for passing under her window.
She ran across the terrace to meet him, with a little exclamation of
delight. “How long you have been, George!” she said, smiling up in his
face; “_why_ did you not ride faster? It is so dull here without _you_.”
She had him by the arm, and clasped her pretty white hands across his
sleeve, leaning her weight on his wrist. He looked affectionately down in
the fair young face, but he had come at a gallop for five or six miles
across the moor, as the state of his boots no less than his flushed face
indicated, and he did not feel inclined to admit he had been dilatory, so
his answer was less that of the lover than the husband.
“Dull, Cerise! I am sorry you find this place so dull, seeing that you
and I must spend the greater part of our lives here. I thought you liked
England, and a country life!”
Why is a man flattered by those exactions in a mistress that gall him so
in a wife? Perhaps it is because a generous nature concedes willingly
the favour, but is stern to resist the claim. When his mistress says
she cannot do without him, all the protective instincts, so strong in
masculine affection rise in her behalf, but the same sentiment expressed
by one who assumes a right to his time and attention, rather awakes a
sense of apprehension, and a spirit of revolt. Where woman only sees
the single instance, man establishes the broad principle. If he yields
on this occasion, he fears his time will never again be his own, and
such misgivings show no little ignorance of the nature with which he
has to deal, a nature to be guided rather than taught, persuaded rather
than convinced, sometimes advised, but never confuted, and on which
close reasoning is but labour thrown away. I think that woman wise who
is careful never to weary her husband. The little god thrives well on
smiles, and is seldom stronger than when in tears. While he frowns and
sets his teeth, he is capable of a lion’s efforts and a mule’s endurance,
but when he begins to yawn, he is but like other children, and soon falls
fast asleep.
Cerise hated George to speak to her in that grave tone. It grated on
the poor girl’s nerves, and frightened her besides, which was indeed
unreasonable, for he had never said a harsh word to her in his life. She
looked timidly in his face, and answered meekly enough—
“Every place is dull to me, George, without you. I wish I could be
always with you—to help you with the tenants, to dine with you at the
court-house, to sit behind you on Emerald when you go for a gallop across
the moor. Why could I not ride with you this morning?”
He laughed good-humouredly, and stroked the hands clasped on his wrist.
“It would have been the very thing, Cerise!” said he. “I think I see
you assisting at a cock-fight, placing the fowls, picking them up, and
counting them out! I think I can see Sir Marmaduke’s face when you walked
into the pit. I think I can hear the charitable remarks of all our county
ladies, who are not disposed to let you off more easily, my dear, because
you are so much better-looking and better dressed than anything they ever
saw north of the Trent. Yes, my darling, come to the next cock-fight by
all means. _Il ne manquerait que ça!_”
The little French sentence was music to her ears. It was the language
in which he had wooed her; and though she spoke _his_ language now
assiduously, and spoke it well, the other was her mother-tongue. She
laughed, too.
“Perhaps I shall take you at your word,” said she, “though it is a cruel,
horrid, wicked amusement. Did you win, George?”
“Fifty gold pieces!” was his answer; “and the same on a return match next
week, which I am equally sure of. They will get you two new dresses from
Paris.”
“I want no dresses from Paris,” said she, drawing him towards the
bowling-green. “I want you to help me in my garden. Come and look at my
Provence roses.”
But Sir George had no time to spare even for so tempting a pursuit. A
fresh horse was even now waiting to carry him ten miles off to a training
of the militia, in which constitutional force, as became his station, he
took a proper interest. He was the country gentleman now from head to
heel, and frequented all gatherings and demonstrations in which country
gentlemen take delight. Of these, a cock-fight was not the most refined,
but it was the fashion of his time and class, so we must not judge him
more severely than did Cerise, who, truth to tell, thought he could not
possibly do wrong, and would have given him absolution for a worse crime,
in consideration of his accompanying her to the garden to look at her
Provence roses.
“To-morrow,” said he; husbandlike, missing the chance of a compliment
about the roses, which a lover would not have let slip; the latter,
indeed, if obliged to depart, would probably have ridden away with one
of the flowers in his bosom. “To-morrow, Cerise. I have a press of
business to-day, but will get back in time for dinner.” And touching her
forehead lightly with his lips, Sir George was gone before she could stop
him, and in another minute his horse’s hoofs were clattering out of the
stable-yard.
From the terrace where she stood, Cerise watched his receding figure
as he galloped merrily down the park, knee-deep in fern, threading the
old oaks, and sending the deer scampering on all sides across the open;
watched him with a cloud upon her young face, and a quiver about her
mouth, that was near akin to tears; watched long after he was out of
sight, and then turned wearily away with a languid step and a deep-drawn
sigh.
She was but going through the ordeal that sooner or later must be endured
by every young wife who dearly loves her husband. She was but learning
the unavoidable lesson that marriage is not courtship, that reality
is not illusion, that the consistent tenderness of a husband, if more
practical, is less flattering than the romantic adoration of a lover. She
was beginning to shape into suspicion certain vague misgivings which had
lately haunted her, that although George was all the world to _her_, she
was only part of the world to George! It is from the sweetest dreams
that we are most unwilling to awake, and therefore it is no wonder that
Lady Hamilton’s preoccupation prevented her observing a strange horseman
riding up the avenue, slowly and laboriously, as though after a long
journey, of which the final destination seemed to be Hamilton Hill.