"HOW SWEET AND INNOCENT'S THE COUNTRY MAID!"
Rena appeared at the promised hour next day, as punctually as if she had
been indeed that spirit of the woodland to whom Herrick likened her. He
showed her the contents of his sketch-book, told her more about his
travels, and they talked gaily and happily for nearly an hour, when she
started, looked at her watch, and vowed that she would be late for
dinner, and that her governess would be waiting for her.
"Did you tell your governess of our _rencontre_ yesterday, and how your
dogs barked at me?" asked Durnford carelessly, yet with a keen look in
his dark gray eyes.
She blushed and looked down.
"No," she faltered shyly: "she might have forbidden me to come to-day,
and I wanted so much to see the sketches. Will you mind if I tell her
to-day? I think I must tell her," she pleaded, with bewitching
_naïveté_. "Do you know that I never had a secret from her before?"
"Be sure if you do tell her she will forbid you ever to be civil to me
again," said Durnford; "there will be an end of all our pleasant gossip
across this dear old rail."
"Is it wrong, then, for me to talk to you?"
"Your governess would think it wrong: your father would shut you up and
keep you on bread and water rather than leave you at liberty to talk to
me."
"Why?" she asked, with a look of distress.
"Because you are a wealthy heiress and I am a poor devil--hack
scribbler--living by my wits."
"But you are not a bad man?" half compassionatingly, half in terror.
"There have been many worse; yet I am far from perfect. _You_ will never
hear one word of evil from my lips, or inspire one base thought in my
mind. To _you_ I shall be all goodness."
"Then Mademoiselle cannot object to my seeing you now and then; I'll
bring her here to-morrow. She can't walk so far, but I have a
pony-carriage in which I sometimes drive her round the park."
"Don't!" pleaded Herrick, clasping her hand for the first time. "Do not,
for pity's sake, dispel my happy dream; do not breathe one word of your
new friend to any one. Be assured it would end everything. You would
fade for ever from my life, like some lovely paradisaic vision, and
leave me in everlasting darkness. Let me see you now and then, just as
we have met to-day. It cannot last long; I must go back to London
shortly with my friend Lavendale. I shall be swallowed in the vortex of
London life, full of temptations and wickednesses of every kind. Be my
good angel while you can. Elderly people like your father and your
governess would never be able to understand our friendship: how pure,
how holy, how secure for you, how elevating for me. Do not tell your
governess of my existence, Miss Bosworth, or at least tell her not until
you feel there is danger or discredit in my acquaintance."
He drew himself up and took off his hat after the loftier gallantry of
those days, with a dignity that impressed the inexperienced girl. She
felt somehow that he was to be trusted; just as in the first moment of
their acquaintance she had turned to him with an instinctive confidence,
at once admitting him to her friendship.
"I am afraid it is wrong to have a secret from my good old governess, be
it ever so small a one," she said, "but I will try to oblige you, sir."
She made him a low curtsy in response to his stately bow, and ran off as
lightly as a fawn, her white gown flashing amidst the trees as she
melted from Herrick's vision.
After this there were many meetings, long confidences, much talk of the
past and of the present, but no hint about the future; interviews at
which the dogs were the only assistants, their gambols making interludes
of sportiveness in the midst of gravity. Herrick kept a close watch upon
himself, and breathed not one word of love, he knew instinctively that
to reveal himself as a lover would be to scare his innocent mistress,
and end this sweet midsummer dream of his in terror and confusion. It
was as her friend, her trusted companion, that he won her young heart,
and when, on the eve of his return to London, they parted--with paleness
and tears held back on her side, and on his with all the tokens of
passion kept in check--it was still as her friend that he bade her
good-bye.
"When I come back to Lavendale it may perchance be in a new character,"
he said, "would fortune only favour me."
"Why should you wish to change?" she asked. "Or is it that you are
thinking of some new book or play which is to make you famous?"
Herrick blushed, recalling that play which had done most for his renown.
He felt at this moment that he would rather put his right hand in the
flames like Cranmer than win money or fame by such another production.
But he was a creature of impulses, and the good impulses had just now
the upper hand. He felt purified, lifted out of himself, in this
virginal presence.
Yet as he walked back to the Manor after that tender parting--tender,
albeit no word of love was spoken--his thoughts, in spite of himself,
took an earthlier strain.
She had paled when they parted, and there had been a look in her eyes
which revealed the dawn of love. He could not doubt that she was fond of
him. Why should he not have her? A post-chaise at a handy point, a few
passionate words of entreaty, tears, despair, a threat of suicide
perhaps, and then off to London as fast as horses could carry them, and
to handy Parson Keith, who had just set up that little chapel in Mayfair
which was to be the scene of so many distinguished marriages, dukes and
beauties, senators and dukes' daughters, and who boasted that his chapel
was better than a bishopric. Why should he not so win her? There was no
chance that he would ever win her by any fairer means. And if he,
Herrick, from highflown notions of honour hung back and let her be taken
to London by the Squire, she would be run after by all the adventurers
in town, a mark for the basest stratagems, or perchance given to some
worn-out roué with a high-sounding title--money trucked against
strawberry-leaves.
No, these strained notions of chivalry became not a penniless devil, a
man who, as his enemies said, had to go tick for the paper on which he
wrote his lampoons. If he meant to win her he should win her how and
when he could, should strike at once and boldly, as your true Irish
heiress-hunter stalks his quarry, seizing the first propitious moment,
taking fortune's golden tide at the flood.
He told himself this, and even began to meditate his plan of attack, but
in the next instant relented, remembering her innocence, her
trustfulness.
"No, I will not steal her," he said. "She shall be mine if passion and
resolve can win her; but she shall be mine of her own free will. She
shall not be hustled or entrapped into marriage. She shall come to my
arms freely as a queen who mates with a subject. She shall come to me
and say, 'You, Herrick Durnford, have I chosen above all other men to
share my heart and my fortune.' Yes, by Heaven, she shall ask me to
marry her. There is nothing less than that which could justify a proud
penniless man in marrying a woman of fortune."
Those boisterous spirits who had known Mr. Durnford in Vienna and Paris,
the boon companions who had gamed and drunk and roystered with him in
the most dissipated haunts of those two dissipated cities, would
assuredly hardly have recognised their sometime associate in the man who
sauntered slowly through the woodland, with hands deep in pockets, bent
head and dreaming eyes, full of the vision of a brighter, better, and
more profitable life, which should bring him nearer the girl he loved.
What would he not do for her sake, what would he not sacrifice, what
might he not achieve? With such a pole-star to guide him, surely a man
might navigate the roughest sea.
"I will do that which I have never yet done," he said to himself, "I
will work with all my might and main. I have trifled with whatever parts
Heaven has wasted on me; I have been careless of my own gifts, have
contrived to get bread and cheese out of the mere scum that floats atop
of my mind. I will go on another principle henceforward. I will dig
deep, and if there be any genuine metal in the mine, by Heaven it shall
be worked to the uttermost! If a man can win independence by his brains
and an inkpot, it shall go hard if I am for ever a pauper. Rich I can
never be: fortunes are not made out of books: but I will earn an honest
living; and then if she love me well enough to say, 'My heart and
fortune are yours, Herrick,' I will not blush to accept the prize, and
to wear it boldly before all the world."
Sweet musings, which made the hum of summer insects and waving of summer
boughs seem the very harmony of Paradise to that fond dreamer. Yet ever
and anon athwart his tender reverie there came a darkening cloud of
doubt.
"Dreams, Herrick, dreams!" he muttered in self-scorn. "Who knows that
to-morrow night you will not be roaring drunk in some West End tavern,
having lost your last shilling at hazard, or perchance breaking crowns
and beating the watch, in company with some tearing midnight ramblers we
wot of?"
Not one word had Durnford breathed to Lavendale about his wood-nymph. He
too well knew his friend's frivolity and inconstant fancies with regard
to women. A lovely heiress would have seemed a natural prey to the
_roué_ who had ever exercised a potent fascination over the weaker sex,
and who deemed himself invincible. Lavendale had his own pursuits at
the Manor: yawned and dawdled through the day, took a hand at piquet
with Durnford of an evening, sat deep into the night in the old
chapel-room with the Italian student, poring over monkish manuscripts
and mediæval treatises in dog Latin. Lavendale cared but little for
Nature in her mildest aspects. The mountain and the torrent, stormy
volcanoes, all that is wild and wonderful in Nature, had a charm for his
eager soul; but the leafy glades of Surrey, the low hills and winding
river, interested him no more than an enamelled picture on a snuffbox.
"I cannot conceive what you can find to amuse you morning after morning
among my oaks and beeches," he exclaimed to Durnford. "You must be
horribly hipped, and you will be glad to go back to London, I take it,
even though the town must be almost empty of good company."
And now on this fair June morning, after taking his farewell of Irene,
Herrick was surprised to see Lavendale riding along the avenue leading
to the Manor House at an hour when that gentleman was generally lounging
on a sofa, sipping his midday chocolate and dallying with the _Flying
Post_ or _Read's Weekly Journal_.
"Why, Jack, what took your lordship out so early?" he asked, emerging
from a by-path, and overtaking the sauntering horse.
"Business, Herrick, business, which means money. I have been with the
village lawyer, who wrote to apprise me of an offer made by my
neighbour, Mr. Bosworth, for a paddock or two adjoining his home
farm--conterminous land, the fellow called it, all but worthless to me,
he insinuated, and tried to make me believe it grows only docks, when it
is to my knowledge as rich a pasture as any in Surrey, but to Mr.
Bosworth it would be useful, to complete his ring-fence. 'Hang his
ring-fence!' says I; 'what is he that his estate should be made perfect
to the detriment of mine? If he wants my meadow he will have to pay for
it as if it were a gold-mine in Peru.' While I was talking in comes the
Squire himself, and was vastly agreeable, professing himself charmed to
renew my acquaintance after so many years. He remembered seeing me with
my mother, he said, when I used to ride my pony beside her carriage,
and when I was the prettiest little lad in the county. Curse his
impudence for remembering me and my prettiness! And then he began to
talk about the meadows. They make a little promontory or peninsula, it
seems, that runs into his estate, which he has been extending on all
sides ever since he owned it, and spoils the look of his territory on
the map. I played him nicely, pretending to be the soul of good-nature,
meaning to get a usurer's profit on my land if I consent to sell, and it
ended in his asking me to dine with him to-day, and my accepting on
condition that I take my friend with me. 'Where I go my friend Durnford
must be made welcome,' says I. So you are booked, Herrick, for a bad
dinner, since they all say that our neighbour is a skinflint."
Herrick flushed crimson with delight. To dine under the roof that
sheltered her, to sit at meat with her perhaps, see her sweetly smiling
at him on the other side of the board, his wood-nymph become mortal, and
eating and drinking like mere vulgar clay!
"Why, Herrick, you look as pleased as if you were asked to a state
dinner at Leicester House, or to hob and nob with the chiefs of the Whig
party! I thought you would be put out at having our London trip
postponed for twenty-four hours."
"I have no passion for the distractions of St. James's, where I always
feel a fish out of water, and I have a certain curiosity about this
Squire Bosworth, whom I take to be a character."
"How pat you have his name!"
"I have a good memory for names."
"Well, hold yourself in readiness, and put on your smartest suit. Squire
Hunks dines at four. I fancy it will be a Barmecide feast, such as
little Pope hits off in an unpublished lampoon upon certain kinsfolk of
mine. But there is a daughter, it seems, and she is to sing to us after
dinner."
"What, she sings!" cried Herrick, enraptured.
"Ay, she sings, man! Why should she not sing? Half the shes in England
can pipe up some kind of strain, though with ten out of every dozen that
which delights the performer excruciates her audience. But Miss Bosworth
is an heiress, Herrick, and I mean to admire, screech she even more
hoarsely than our pied peacocks yonder."
"You mean to court Miss Bosworth, perhaps?" said Herrick, drawing
himself up stiffly.
"I mean to do as the whim seizes me--you know I was ever a creature of
whim. 'Twas a whim lost me my true love Judith: and if a whim can catch
me a pretty heiress, it will be but one sharp turn of fortune's wheel
from despair to rapture."
"How do you know that she is pretty?" grumbled Herrick, racked with
jealousy.
"I have ears, friend, and other men have tongues. 'Twas old Hunks's
lawyer sang the praises of young Miss's beauty. She is lovely, it seems,
and not an atom like her father, which would indeed have been an
altogether impossible conjunction."
Herrick went back to the Manor with his bosom torn by conflicting
emotions--fear lest his friend should turn into his rival, joy at the
thought that he was to spend some blessed hours in his idol's company.
He felt as if he could hardly live till four o'clock, so fluttered was
his heart with fond expectancy. He took out his best clothes and brushed
them carefully, and sighed over their shabbiness. The suit of
dove-coloured velvet, silver braided, and touched here and there with
scarlet, had been a handsome suit enough more than a year ago in Vienna,
where it was made: but it had passed through many a rough night of
pleasure, bore the stain of wine-splashes, and a burnt spot on one of
the lapels from the ashes of somebody's pipe. It had the air of a coat
that had lived hard, and seen bad company. Herrick flung it aside with
an oath.
"I will not wear so debauched a garment," he cried; "my gray cloth coat
is honest. I would rather look like a yeoman or a scrivener than like a
broken-down rake."
"Why, Durnford, man, you are dressed worse than a Quaker!" exclaimed
Lavendale, radiant in claret-coloured velvet coat and French-gray satin
waistcoat and smalls.
"And you are vastly too smart for a country dinner-table," said Herrick.
"O, but one cannot be too fine when one is going courting. Young misses
adore pretty colours and gay clothes. I think I see the motive of your
sober gray. It is pure generosity, a sacrifice to friendship; you would
let me dazzle without a rival."
"Dazzle to your heart's content; shine out, butterfly. I thought a few
weeks ago that you had a heart."
"You were wrong. I had a heart till Judith broke it. That was three
years ago. Since she jilted me I have had nothing here but an insatiable
passion called vanity, always hungering for new conquests. I am like
Alexander, and lament when a day has passed without a victory. I pant to
conquer the Squire's daughter. I can picture her, Herrick, a
chubby-cheeked rustic beauty, all white muslin and blue ribbons."
The Lavendale coach had been ordered out to carry the two young men to
Fairmile Court with all due ceremony.
"It smells as mouldy as a mausoleum," said his lordship, as he stepped
into the carriage.
Fairmile Court had a less neglected and desolate aspect than it had worn
fifteen years before, when the Squire adopted the vagrant's baby. The
very presence of girlhood in the gray old house seemed to have
brightened it. Mademoiselle Latour's influence had also been for good;
governess and pupil had contrived to inspire the scanty household with a
love of neatness and order; and their own deft hands had dusted and
polished the quaint old furniture, and had filled great bowls of common
garden flowers, and glorified the old fireplaces with beau-pots, and had
worked wonders without spending an extra shilling of the Squire's
beloved money. All this had been done without any resistance offered by
Mrs. Barbara Layburne, who as long as she enjoyed substantial power,
ruled over the store-closets and wine-cellars, paid tradesmen and
servants, and regulated supplies of all kinds, cared not who beautified
rooms which she never entered, or cultivated flowers which she never
looked at. As the years went by, she had retired more and more within
herself, spending her days in the solitude of that little wainscoted
parlour which she had chosen for her retreat on her first coming to
Fairmile. It was almost the smallest, and assuredly the dismallest,
room in the house, at the end of a long dark passage, and overlooking
the stable-yard. Here she lived apart from all the household, and with
no companion save that old harpsichord which startled the stillness
sometimes late in the evening, accompanying a contralto voice of
exceptional power even in its decay. Those occasional strains of melody
had a ghostlike sound to Irene's ear, and always saddened her. Indeed,
Mrs. Barbara's personality had ever been one of the overshadowing
influences of the girl's life. She shrank with an involuntary recoil
from any intercourse with that strange wreck of the past. The pale stern
face with its traces of lost beauty chilled her soul.
"I do not think you can be many years younger than Mrs. Layburne," the
girl said to her governess one day.
"I doubt if she is not my junior by some years, pet."
"And yet you never give me the idea of being old, and she seems as if
her youth and all its happiness must have come to an end a century
ago."
"Ah, that is because my youth was a very calm and quiet business, Rena,
while I doubt hers was full of incident and passion. She is an extinct
volcano, my dear. The fires were all burnt out years ago, and only the
dark grim mountain remains, enclosing nothing but ashes and hollowness.
Such women are like corpses that walk about after the spirit has fled.
Mrs. Layburne must have ceased to live long ago."
* * * * *
The two gentlemen were ushered into a long, low drawing-room,
oak-panelled and somewhat dark, the heavy mullioned windows being
designed rather for ornament than light. Some of the furniture had been
new when the house was new, other things were heirlooms from an older
house, and a few trifles had been added in the tea-drinking reign of
that good Queen and conscientious woman who had been translated from a
troubled kingdom to a peaceful one just twelve years ago. There was a
harpsichord at the further end of the room, and seated near it were two
ladies who rose at the entrance of the visitors, while Squire Bosworth,
who had been standing with his back to the flower-bedecked hearth, came
over to receive them.
"Welcome to Fairmile Court, my Lord Lavendale; your servant, Mr.
Durnford," said Bosworth, as he shook hands with his guests; "my
daughter, Miss Bosworth, Mademoiselle Latour."
The little old lady in gray satinet made a curtsy which bespoke Parisian
elegance of the highest water, and to which Herrick responded with one
of his French bows. Lavendale had eyes only for the heiress.
"Lovely as the lady in _Comus_," he said to himself, "and knows about as
much of the world and its ways, I doubt. By Heaven, she is foredoomed as
a prize to the boldest!"
Herrick and Irene greeted each other with a charming ceremony. Both
being prepared, they acted their parts admirably.
"What do you think of him, Maman?" whispered the girl to her governess,
when those two had retired from the masculine group.
"He has too much the look of a fine gentleman," answered
Mademoiselle, with her eyes upon Lavendale, "and he carries his
head with an invincible air which always makes me detest a man. Do
you remember that story I told you of Lauzun, who married la grande
Mademoiselle?--'_Louise de Bourbon, ôtez-moi mes bottes._' Does he not
look just the kind of man to make a princess of the royal blood take his
boots off, were she fool enough to marry him?"
"Why, Maman, he has a look of proud humility, but not a spark of vanity
and foolishness. O, I see, you are looking at Lord Lavendale, in his
velvet and satin. I was asking you about Mr. Durnford."
"Eh, child! what, the poor companion? Have you found time to spare _him_
a glance, when that irresistible fopling shines and sparkles there as if
he would put the very sunshine out of countenance by his brilliancy?
Yes, the companion has an interesting face, very grave, yet there is a
look about the corners of the mouth which bespeaks a cynical humour. He
looks shabby beside his patron, and poor, and, as you say, pet, he has
an air of proud humility which I rather like. It becomes a dependent to
be proud."
"O, but he is no dependent. He is a writer; has written politics, and
plays, and even verses," the girl answered eagerly.
"Why, child, when and where did you hear about him?"
"Dinner is served, sir," announced the old butler, whereby he
unconsciously extricated Irene from a dilemma. Mademoiselle forgot the
question she had asked before there was a chance of repeating it.
The dinner was much better than his lordship had anticipated, for Squire
Bosworth had sent his housekeeper peremptory orders that the meal should
be as good a one as could be provided on such short notice, and Mrs.
Layburne knew him too well to disobey him. Rare old wines had been
brought out of cobweb-festooned bins, and the good old strawberry-beds
and raspberry-bushes had yielded their treasures for the dessert. Fish
there was none attainable, but soup, and joints, and poultry were
followed by a course of pastry and rich puddings, all in the abundant
and solid fashion of the times.
Lavendale declared afterwards that he would have preferred the
scantiness of Harpagon's table to this reeking profusion. "Nobody knows
how to feed upon this side of the Channel," he complained. "For a man of
delicate appetite, who can dine off the wing of a chicken and an olive
or two, it is torture to be placed in front of a smoking sirloin, or to
be asked to dive into the infinite capacities of a huge venison pie. I
would rather sup on tripe or cow-heel with some of the wits and
garretteers we know, than be sickened by the greasy abundance of a
country gentleman's table."
But this grumbling came afterwards, and for talking's sake. Lavendale
seemed very much in his element at the Squire's board, where he sat next
the heiress, and talked to her of those London amusements of which she
knew so little, even by hearsay.
"What, have you never seen a playhouse? never played the devil with a
score or two of adorers at a masquerade?" he exclaimed.
"I have never been in London in my life," Rena answered simply.
"Impossible! Live within thirty miles of Paradise, and never try to
enter its gates!"
"Your lordship forgets that my little girl yonder is not much more than
a child, and knows much less of the world than many children."
"Faith, Mr. Bosworth, I believe that. There are children in London who
could astonish your gray hairs: drawing-room playthings that are thought
of no more consequence than a shock dog, and that nestle in their
mothers' hoops open-eyed and open-eared to everything that is going on
about them. I wonder little Pope in all his characters has never given
us the modish child. But, seriously now, Miss Bosworth here is no longer
a baby; she has been growing up, Squire, while you have looked the other
way. You must take her to London next November; you must get her
presented at Court, and let her have her fling in the winter."
"We'll think about it, my lord. How old are you, Irene?"
"I was eighteen last April, papa."
"Eighteen! Well, I suppose it is time you should see some good company.
I shall have to take a house at the West End, and Mademoiselle must get
her fan and mantilla, and prepare to play duenna. Would you like to
spend a winter in London, Rena?"
Irene hesitated, glanced at Durnford, who, on the watch for any act of
beneficence from those lovely eyes, responded with an adoring look, and
a little nod of the head, which meant "Snap at the offer of a London
season."
She remembered how he had told her he must get his living in town.
"O my dear father, there is nothing in the world I wish for so much."
The Squire sighed. This country seclusion was safe, and suited him best.
He looked thoughtfully at Lavendale. He was young, though not in his
first youth; he had a respectable title, and his estate joined that
which would some day belong to Irene. A match between those two must
needs be advantageous--if Lavendale would altogether reform his
character, and if the estate were not too heavily encumbered. The
country attorney, who looked after Lavendale's property, had assured Mr.
Bosworth that the mortgages were mere bagatelles, and of recent date.
Lavendale had been extravagant, but he had started with a handsome
fortune in ready money, the accumulation of his minority. "Well, we will
take a taste of town pleasures," said the Squire, after a pause, "if
Lord Lavendale will be our _cicisbeo_ and Mentor. I have not seen the
inside of a playhouse since the beginning of the century, and they tell
me there are now six theatres, where there used to be but two, and that
masquerades are more fashionable than ever."
They all went back to the drawing-room together, in the French fashion,
which Lavendale suggested as an improvement on English manners.
"I languish till I hear Miss Bosworth sing," he cried; and at her
father's bidding, Irene seated herself at the harpsichord, and began a
little song of Lully's with some old French words.
How full, and round, and rich the fresh young notes sounded to ears that
had been sated by fine singing in the three great capitals of London,
Paris, and Vienna! and with what tender expression the singer pronounced
those simple childlike lines about Strephon, who had abandoned his
hillside, and left his flock and Chloe lamenting! Strephon would be gone
to-morrow, and Fairmile Park would be desolate without him. They might
meet again in London in November--would so meet, most likely, for his
lordship and Mr. Durnford were inseparables; but how was the yawning
gulf between July and November to be bridged over? how was that great
gap in time to be lived through? Irene sang song after song at his
lordship's entreaty. He was not, like Mr. Topsparkle, _fanatico per la
musica_, a creature who ran after _prime donne_, and thought an Italian
tenor the noblest development of human genius; he could not sit at an
organ and play for hours like a soul possessed by the spirit of melody;
but he had a very genuine love of music, a good deal of taste, and a
little knowledge, and he hung enraptured over the harpsichord, and gave
Durnford innumerable agonies during every song Irene sang, agonies which
poisoned the sweetness of her voice and the beauty of every melody.
Scarlatti, was it? Corelli, Handel? Who cared what composer had woven
that web in which his soul was caught and tortured? She was singing to
Lavendale. It was to Lavendale her lovely eyes were lifted as she
answered his questions between the songs. Lavendale was stealing her
heart away from him, that heart which had been so nearly his.
"He has a potency with women which is almost diabolical. It may be his
faith in himself which makes him irresistible, that certainty of
conquering which almost always conquers, where there are good looks and
a spice of wit to sustain audacity. Yes, he will win her, or he will
race me hard for the prize; but by ----," and Herrick clenched his fist,
with a big oath, sitting in a shadowy corner behind the harpsichord
where nobody noted him, "he shall have a fight for it! I meant to deal
honestly with her, but I won't be cheated out of her love. If I can't
have her with fair play, I will try foul. I won't stand on one side and
doff my hat while my friend leads her to the altar."
Such a reverie as this boded ill for innocent Irene yonder, smiling at
the keys of her harpsichord, her whole soul in the music, heedless of
Lord Lavendale's compliments, neither valuing them nor fearing them, as
easy in her simplicity as a woman of fashion after her seventh season:
ill, too, for Irene boded Lavendale's musing, which tended to a
determination to win the heiress, and repair his fortunes with one
triumphant stroke. He had been told of that great _coup_ made by Mr.
Bosworth during the South Sea craze--how he had bought largely when the
shares were first issued; held gingerly, always on the alert for a
catastrophe; and how he had played a vigorous part with the bulls in
sending up the value of the stock to an almost fabulous point, and just
when the town was maddest had sold his shares for exactly ten times the
price at which he had bought them.
"God help the wretches who bought that rotten stock!" thought Lavendale.
"He only knows how the blood of suicides and the tears of orphans may
have stained that worthless paper--but that is Bosworth's business and
not mine. She is the prettiest, sweetest soul I have seen for ages, and
what would Lady Judith say if I faced her at fête or ridotto with such
beauty and freshness hanging on my arm, and a fortune behind it? That
proud soul would be humbled at the thought of my triumph. I shall never
forget her insolence as she passed me in the Park. Her pride infected
the air of London for me. I would not go back to town if she were there;
but the papers tell me she is queening it at Topsparkle's Abbey in
Hampshire, with a houseful of grand company, all the old Tories and
out-of-office gentry flattering and fawning upon her, and manoeuvring
for her husband's half-dozen boroughs."
Lord Lavendale's coach was announced at ten o'clock, and the two
gentlemen took their leave.
"If you have more guns than birds next October, you and your friends are
welcome to my pheasants, Lord Lavendale," said the Squire, as he
escorted his neighbour to the hall. "I am no sportsman, and I keep no
company. I hope we shall see more of you when you come back from town."
"Nay, Mr. Bosworth, thirty miles is not an overwhelming distance. I
think I shall take a leaf out of your book and oscillate 'twixt town and
country. I have an old house in Bloomsbury which ought to be aired
occasionally; and I have a place here that has been too long abandoned
to rats and solitude. Pray do not think that you are rid of me till
October."
They parted with cordial hand-shakings, and an assurance on his
lordship's part that there should be no difficulty about the peninsula
of meadowland.
"By Heaven, Herrick, she is an angel!" cried Lavendale, when he and his
friend were snug in the coach.
"You say that of every handsome woman you meet, from a duchess to a
rope-dancer," growled Herrick.
"Ay, but there are many degrees in the angelic host, and there are
fallen angels, and those whose wings are but slightly smirched. This one
is pure and radiant as the seraph Abdiel when he left the revolted host,
and flew straight to the throne of the Eternal. She is the divinest
creature I ever met--"
"Not excepting Lady Judith!"
"Come, there is nothing divine about _her_. We are both agreed on that
point. Never from her babyhood was she as pure and childlike as this
heavenly recluse. She is adorable, Herrick, and if I have any charm or
power with women--"
"O, the hypocrisy of that 'if'!" cried his friend, with a mocking laugh.
"Well, I will phrase it otherwise. Whatever influence I have over the
softer sex shall be exerted to the utmost to win that lovely soul--"
"And her hundred thousand or million, or whatever it may be," sneered
the other.
"And her fortune, which will help to set me up in respectability. Why,
with such wealth I might hope to buy political followers enough to make
me Prime Minister. But she is so completely lovely that I swear I should
be over head and ears in love with her if she were a milkmaid."
"Yes, and would take her for your plaything and grow tired of her in a
month, and forsake her and leave her to die heart-broken," said the
other.
"Why, Herrick, you are all bitterness to-night. You have drunk just too
much to be civil and too little to be good company. You are in the
cantankerous stage of inebriety. Why should you begrudge me an heiress
if I have the wit to win one? God knows I have never grudged you
anything, and it is your own fault that we have not been more equal
partakers of fortune."
"Forgive me, Jack, you are always generous to me: but it is because I
know you have sometimes been ungenerous to women that I feel surly and
sullen about this one. I know, too, that your heart belongs to Lady
Judith--that were you to marry this dear innocent girl to-morrow you
would desert her the day after, did that old love of yours but beckon
you with her little finger. Would it not be wiser to be true to the
ancient flame and see what kindly Fate may do for you? Mr. Topsparkle is
past sixty and has lived hard. Why should you not wait till the
inevitable reaper mows down that full-bottomed wig of his?"
"Nay, Herrick, 'tis ill waiting for dead men's shoes, and I doubt if Mr.
Topsparkle's be not a better life than mine. He has taken care of
himself and been cautious even in his pleasures, while I have defied
Fate. There is something here," touching his breast, "which warns me
that I must make the most of a short life."