"BY VOW OBLIGED, BY PASSION LED."
Lavendale mused and brooded upon that strange story of the man who had
cheated him out of his sweetheart, if it could indeed be said that he
owed the loss of Judith's hand to Mr. Topsparkle, when he had forfeited
her affection by his own folly. But he was not the kind of man to reason
closely upon such a matter, and he resented Judith's marriage as an act
of inconstancy to himself, and Topsparkle's wealth as an impertinence.
To think that the son of a City merchant should wallow in gold,
entertain princes and politicians, while Lavendale groaned under the
burden of an encumbered estate, and endured the curse of empty coffers!
He looked up old newspapers and magazines, called at Tom Philter's
lodgings, and, with that gentleman's aid, raked over the gutter of the
past for any scrap of scandal against Mr. Topsparkle; but he could
discover no more than the journalist had told him in the first instance.
There had been a lady in the house in Soho Square, nearly forty years
ago, and that lady had been called Mrs. Topsparkle; but as she had never
appeared in public with her lord, it had been concluded that she
possessed no legal right to that name. John Churchill's encounter with
Topsparkle had been town talk for a week or so, the conqueror of
Blenheim and Malplaquet being at that period famous only for his
personal beauty, and for the scandalous adventures of his early
youth--an intrigue with a duchess, a chivalrous descent from an upper
window--and an imputation of venality which went to prove that the
avarice of the future hero was already engrained in the stripling of the
present. The mysterious lady's sudden death, in the very flower of her
youth, had imparted a fictitious interest, and she had made herself
briefly famous by that untimely doom. The papers gave exaggerated
descriptions of her beauty and broadly hinted that her fate had been as
tragic as that of Desdemona. The _Flying Post_ described how the
Nickers had broken all Mr. Topsparkle's windows with halfpence, soon
after the poor lady's funeral. Topsparkle was alluded to as the City
Othello, and in one scurrilous print was denounced as an "und-t-ct-d
ass-ss-n." However baseless the slander may have been, it had evidently
been freely circulated, and Topsparkle's subsequent residence abroad for
more than a generation had given a kind of colour to the foul charge.
Nor was this vaguely defined tragedy the only dusky page in the
millionaire's history. His general character had been vicious, his
habits on the Continent had been reported as abominable. He had been an
admiring follower in the footsteps of the Regent Orleans, and of lesser
lights in the same diabolical firmament.
And this man was Judith's husband. Yet what was it to him whether she
was happy or miserable? that old sweetheart of his, whose round white
arms had been wreathed round his neck that night in the little Chinese
room at Lady Skirmisham's, what time she swore she would be his wife,
and urged him to be true to her. Well, he had not been true; he had
played the fool with fortune, had sacrificed the one real love of his
life to mere braggadocio and the idle vanity of an hour, and his reward
was an empty heart.
Vainly did he try to fan those red embers into a new flame, to burn
before a new altar. He would have been very glad to fall in love with
Squire Bosworth's daughter. Again and again he told himself that she was
younger and lovelier than Judith, and that in her love he might find the
renewal of his wasted youth, find contentment and length of years more
surely than in that sacred art which old Vincenti had cultivated with
the enthusiast's devotion for nearly half a century, and which seemed to
have brought him but little nearer to those three great mysteries which
he sought to fathom:--
The secret of illimitable wealth by the transmutation of meaner metals
into gold and silver.
The secret of prolonged existence, to be found in some universal
panacea, guessed at, almost grasped, yet always escaping the seeker.
And thirdly, the secret of intellectual power--the intercommunion of
flesh and deity, the link between this mortal clay and the ethereal
world of angels and demons.
It seemed to Lavendale, in his dreams of the past and of the dead, in
his vivid recalling of half-forgotten words, the touch, the kiss of long
ago, that this communion between severed souls was not unknown to human
sense. If it could thus be granted in our sleeping hours, why not also
to our waking senses? To him there was something more than mere memory
in the dreamer's commune with the dead.
Vincenti pored over his old black-letter books: Roger Bacon's "Cure of
Old Age;" or the "Art of Distillation, or Practical Physick, together
with the preparation of Precipiolum, the Universal Medicine of
Paracelsus;" or the "Golden Work of Hermes Trismegistus, translated out
of Hebrew into Arabick, then into Greek, afterwards into Latin;" very
precious volumes these, in the old Venetian's sight, treasuries of the
wisdom of Eastern sages, hoarded up in the dim distance of the remote
past to be the guide of searchers after truth in the present.
His toil of nearly half a century had brought him to the threshold of
the temple, but it had not enabled him to open the door of the
sanctuary. The secret was still a secret, and he felt life waning. All
those things which made this world pleasant to the common race of
mortals Vincenti had sacrificed to the necromancer's grander idea of
bliss; he had nothing to live for except the realisation of that one
hope; and if he should die without having mastered even the meanest of
those three great secrets, he must needs confess that he had lived and
laboured in vain.
"Others may follow me," he said, with a simplicity of resignation that
was almost heroic. "Others will read what I have written, and may profit
by labours that have just missed fruition. The truth must be revealed,
the secret must be found. It is only a question of time and patience."
* * * * *
Lavendale spent his days between London and country, rushing backwards
and forwards by coach or on horseback, as whim prompted him, and in this
autumn of 1726 he seemed of all men the most whimsical. London was dull
and empty, half the fashionable world was at Twickenham, and the other
half at Bath; yet there was always a chance of playing deep, or of
getting involved in some political plot; there were always taverns, and
chocolate-houses, and clubs in full swing, and a fever of party feeling
in the air, which gave a certain amount of variety and excitement to
life. Bolingbroke was in London, plotting hard, and there were bets as
to whether he would succeed in undermining steady-going, steadfast
Robert Walpole, the greatest financier England had ever known, and the
only man of capacity wide enough to foresee the peril of the South Sea
Company, when to all the rest of the world that rotten fabric seemed the
enchanted palace and treasury of Plutus himself, containing gold enough
to enrich every one of the money-god's votaries, down to the meanest.
That stubborn good sense of his on the occasion of the South Sea fever
had established Robert Walpole's reputation as a safe minister, and the
sober common sense of the nation was with him. He had shown himself an
advocate for peace, and Bolingbroke, who in the days of Marlborough's
triumphs in the Low Countries had cavilled at the continuance of the
war, was now scornful of the Treasurer's pacific policy, and led the
chorus of the disaffected to the tune of England's decay. Lavendale
dined with Lord Bolingbroke more than once that autumn at his house in
Pall Mall, the splendid mansion in Golden Square having passed into
other hands during his lordship's exile. Lavendale was a Whig by birth
and education, but his Whiggism was not strong enough to prevent his
friendship with the most brilliant man of the age, or to exclude him
from the most intellectual circle in England. He went down to Dawley,
Bolingbroke's fancy farm near Uxbridge, where his lordship appeared to
advantage in his favourite character of country squire, and where the
ploughs and harrows painted in fresco on the walls of the hall indicated
his bucolic bent. Here Lavendale made the acquaintance of the
statesman's French wife, and here he met Pope and Swift, and Arouet de
Voltaire, who had now established himself in the neighbourhood of
London, a distinguished literary exile, and who was _l'ami de la maison_
at Dawley.
In his wild youth, when good Queen Anne was sovereign of England, and
the Mohawk Club in full swing, Lavendale had admired Henry St. John as
the type and model of all that is finest in manhood. He had been then,
in the insolence of power and floodtide of success, scheming for the
restoration of the Stuarts, while affecting to favour the Hanoverian
succession. He had ousted his old friend and patron the Duke of
Marlborough, had allowed the conqueror of Ramillies and Blenheim, the
man who had made our English arms as glorious as they had been in the
days of the Henries and the Edwards, to be humiliated by that nation
which his signal genius had elevated above all other nations. That great
man, to whom England and England's Queen owed so much, had knelt at his
sovereign's feet and besought her pardon and favour for his beautiful
termagant, whose follies might have been forgiven for the sake of the
husband who so blindly adored her. An ignominious end assuredly to royal
friendship, and royal favour, and heroic genius unfortunately mated.
Saddest page in the life of England's Captain-General, that scene in the
palace, the kneeling conqueror, and the stubborn Queen's unrelenting
wrath.
St. John, who once wrote himself down my Lord Marlborough's most devoted
and grateful servant, had helped to bring about that humiliation and
that fall from power. And then came Atropos with the fatal shears, and
just when the traitor's hopes were highest, and he was to play, in a
strictly diplomatic and unwarlike character, the great part of General
Monk, and bring about a new Restoration, with more ringing of joy-bells
and flinging of flowers, as on the glorious twenty-ninth of May, the
Queen died, and the plotter's web was rent in pieces. "What a world it
is, and how does Fortune banter us!" he cried, in bitterness of spirit.
Then came loss of office, six months of rustic retirement, watching for
any change of the wind setting Saint-Germain-wards, then the bill of
attainder, and the sudden flight of one who dared not face his accusers.
Oxford, whose timidity mid irresolution had been ridiculed by his
high-spirited colleague, had faced the danger, and escaped it; while
Bolingbroke, the high-minded and daring, had fled to France disguised
as a French messenger. And now he was in England again, debonair,
audacious, favoured by his Majesty's morganatic wife, her Grace of
Kendal, flattering everybody, charming everybody by his graces of
person, his witchery of manner, his matchless talents, his reckless
liberality.
Lavendale could but admire the sinner now, as he had admired him ten
years ago, only with a less unquestioning idolatry.
"I know he is an unprincipled scamp," he told Durnford, when his friend
remonstrated with him upon those long nights of brilliant talk and deep
drinking which he spent with the patriot. "I know he has been a
reprobate in his conduct to women, flying at all game, from the young
lady of fashion to the chance Egeria of the Mall; and he could drink us
bottle-men all under the table and keep his head clear to the last; yes,
go straight from the carouse to his office-table and pen diplomatic
correspondence, no worse for his four bottles than if he had been
drinking rose-water instead of champagne. But he drinks less now, and he
can hardly run after women as he used to do, since his adoring wife
watches him closer than ever Juno watched Jove."
"And in all probability with the same result."
"Nay, Herrick, he is too deeply immersed in statecraft to sacrifice to
Venus. He and Pulteney have sworn an alliance. They call themselves
Patriots, and are to start a newspaper before the year is out, with the
help of that scamp Amhurst, whom you must remember at Oxford, where he
was turned out of his college for profligacy and insubordination. I have
half a mind to write for them."
"You, Lavendale! Are you going to rat--turn Jacobite?"
"No, but I am rather inclined to join the Hanoverian Tories. They have
all the talents on their side. Walpole is too jealous of power. He will
suffer no rival near the throne."
"I see that St. John has been poisoning your mind against the man to
whom he owes his return from exile. But he who was ungrateful to
Marlborough may well turn upon Walpole."
"I know not that he owes much to Walpole. In the first place, he was
promised his pardon years ago--or at any rate told he might hope for
everything--by the King; and now, instead of a free pardon, he returns
on sufferance, and still languishes under the attainder which keeps him
out of the senate. He who would shed such an unwonted blaze of light
upon that dull firmament the House of Lords is constrained to grow
turnips and train foxhounds at Dawley."
"But you find he is not content with foxhounds and turnips. He is to
start a party paper which will doubtless breathe the very spirit of
rancorous opposition, cavil at every measure, gird at the chief minister
for everything he does and everything he does not do. Take my word for
it, Jack, this country of ours, with those wide dependencies which make
her chief greatness, was never in safer hands than it is under Robert
Walpole. Never was the ship of state sailed by a cleverer skipper than
Captain Robin."
"O, I hate the man," cried Lavendale contemptuously, "with his bluff
country manners and his stuttering country speech. He is on the crest of
the wave just now, after the treaty of Hanover; but wait till our
friends of the opposition begin to interrogate financial matters, and
you will see how heavily Sir Robert's popularity has been paid for out
of the national exchequer. Why, it is said he spends a thousand a week
at Houghton, to say nothing of the expenses of another establishment."
"Yes, the witch's brew has worked," said Durnford; "the magician has you
in his toils. You could not have a more fatal counsellor or a more
dangerous friend than Henry St. John."
"Not a word against him, Herrick; he is my friend."
Durnford bowed and held his peace. He was a staunch Walpolian, and had a
sincere and honest regard for that great man which was entirely
independent of self-interest. But as he was now writing regularly for
one of the Whig journals, his friend affected to think him a party hack,
and made light of all his warnings.
The friends dined at Fairmile Court about half a dozen times during the
summer and early autumn, but Lavendale had not yet declared himself as a
suitor either to the father or to the daughter; although there was
enough encouragement in the Squire's manner to bring about such a
declaration. The feelings of the young lady herself were at that period
generally regarded as a secondary consideration; but even here there was
nothing on the surface to discourage a suitor. Irene welcomed Lord
Lavendale and his friend with her brightest smile, seemed glad at their
coming and sorry when they went. She had a bewitching air of gaiety at
times which almost caught Lavendale's wavering heart; she had in other
moments a pensive manner that made her seem even more beautiful than in
those joyous moods. And yet he faltered in his purpose and hung back,
and told himself that there was no need for haste when a man is to seal
a lifelong doom.
Herrick, meanwhile, held his peace, save for an occasional word or two
with his beloved, just the assurance that she was true to him and cared
nothing for his brilliant friend. He dared ask no more than this. He was
working hard and honestly, had thoughts of trying for a seat in
Parliament at the next general election, if his friends would help him
to a borough. He had flung himself heart and soul into politics, and
had abjured drink, gaming, and all those other follies which in those
days went by the name of pleasure.
And now came wintry evenings and London fogs. The linkmen were busy
again, there were assemblies for every night in the week, sometimes as
many as seven upon one night, and women of ton went to half a dozen
parties of an evening. Fashionable beauty's sedan was a feature in the
dimly-lighted streets, escorted by running footmen armed with
blunderbusses and carrying torches; cheery the flare of those torches
across the darkness of night, with an occasional glimpse of beauty's
face behind the glass, briefest vision of sparkling eyes, flashing gems,
patches, vermilion, and powder. Now came the season of Italian opera.
Society began to rave and dispute about tall lanky Farinelli with his
seraphic voice, and short squabby Cuzzoni, also seraphic, and paid at a
rate which made Court pensioners seem the veriest paupers; albeit that
this was the golden age for place-hunters, whereby Sir Robert Walpole
was able by and by to provide snug sinecures of two or three thousand a
year for his younger son Horace provision almost more generous on the
part of Sir Robert than of the nation, were all things considered. Now
came the season of masked balls, much affected by King George, and by
his son's lesser but gayer Court at Richmond and Leicester Fields.
Lavendale was well received at Richmond Lodge, where Pope and his
literary friends were in great favour, and where the lovely Mary Lepel
was now shining as Lady Hervey; where Chesterfield, Bathurst,
Scarborough, and Hervey were the chief ornaments, all paying homage to
the wit and wisdom of clever Princess Caroline, a lady of wide reading
and strong opinions upon most points, yet astute enough always to play
second fiddle to that dull dogged husband of hers, flattering him with
subtlest flatteries, and maintaining her ascendency in spite of all
rivalries; a calm, clever, far-seeing woman, of extraordinary power of
mind and strength of purpose, standing firm as a rock amidst the
quicksands of Court life; a woman of noble disposition, whose youth had
known dependence and poverty, yet who had refused the heir to the German
Empire rather than turn Papist.
At Lord Lavendale's advice, Squire Bosworth took lodgings in Arlington
Street, over against Little St. James's Park, and brought his daughter
to London, where she was presented to his Majesty by her aunt, Lady
Tredgold, who treated herself and daughters to a London season, chiefly
at Mr. Bosworth's expense, in order to perform this duty. Herrick heard
of this London visit with an agonised heart: heard how Rena had been
presented on the Prince's birthday, and had been admired at the
birthnight ball. The town would change his wood-nymph into a fine lady;
that sweet simplicity which was her highest charm would perish in the
atmosphere of courts. How could he hope that she would be true to him
when once she discovered the power of her position as an heiress and a
beauty? She would be surrounded by fops and flatterers, run after by
every adventurer in London. "And I shall rank among the meanest of
them," thought Herrick. "What can I seem to her but an adventurer, when
once she becomes worldly-wise and learns to estimate her own value? She
will think that I tried to trap her into an engagement; she will begin
to despise me."
Agitated by these fears and doubts, Herrick found it hard to work as
steadfastly and courageously as he had been working. He found it harder
still to withstand the allurements of society, the chocolate-house and
the green cloth, the dice-box and the bottle; more especially as
Lavendale was always at his side, tempting him, accusing him of having
turned dullard and miser.
"For whom are you toiling, or for what?" his lordship asked lightly. "Do
you aspire to be a poet and diplomatist, like Prior, to write verses and
sign treaties, and live hand in glove with statesmen and princes? Or do
you want to be the petted darling of fine ladies, like Gay? Or do you
think it is in you to turn satirist, and rival Pope?--who wrote me the
genteelest letter you can imagine this morning, by the way, although
scarce able to hold a pen for two maimed and useless fingers, having
been turned over in Bolingbroke's chariot as he was driving through the
lanes between Dawley and Twit'nam on a cursedly dark night. And cursed
lanes they are in bad weather, as I can affirm, having ridden through
them when the mud was up to my horse's hocks. Come, Herrick, you were
not made to play the anchorite. There is to be a masquerade at
Heidegger's opera-house to-night, and my divinity, my wife that is to
be, will be there, her first public ball. Come and be bottle-holder. I
think I ought to declare myself to-night. A masquerade is a capital
place for a declaration. I have been reading Shakespeare's _Much Ado
about Nothing_. What a pity that fellow's comedies are so seldom acted!
There is good stuff in the worst of them."
The masked ball at the opera-house was the gayest scene in London. Every
one was there, and royalty was conspicuous, first in the person of the
old King, "a taciturn, rather splenetic elderly gentleman," in a
snuff-coloured suit with silk stockings to match, no finery but his blue
ribbon and diamond shoe-buckles, accompanied as usual by her maypole
Grace of Kendal, lank, ungainly, and plain, but dear to Majesty by long
habit, homely Joan to royal Darby. Her grace reigned alone since the
death of the Countess of Darlington, another German lady with English
title and estates, who had fattened upon the wealth of Britannia; an
obese elderly person, with round staring black eyes, reputed to have
been in early life an amazing beauty. The more well informed of the
German courtiers believed the tie between this lady and the King to be
purely platonic, that she was indeed his Majesty's half-sister--an
illegitimate daughter of the old Elector by his infamous mistress, the
Countess of Platen.
The young Court, too, was there: handsome, high-bred Caroline, with her
fine aquiline features and her clear, far-seeing eyes; meek Mrs. Howard,
with a long-suffering air of submission to royal caprices, not by any
means the triumphant style of a _maîtresse en titre_; brilliant
hoydenish Mary Bellenden, now Mrs. Campbell; and sparkling Frenchified
Mary Lepel, wife of John Lord Hervey; Chesterfield, airing his new
title, and laying about him ruthlessly with that reckless wit which
spared neither friend nor kinsfolk, heedless how deep he cut; affecting
the airs of a universal conqueror also, pretending even to favours from
women of the highest fashion, rank, and beauty, despite a squat
ungainly person and an ugly face.
Herrick entered late upon this brilliant scene. He had waited to finish
his work at the newspaper office, a dark little printer's workshop near
Smithfield, and had hastily washed off the grime of the City and flung
on a domino over his every-day clothes. It was a kind of pilgrim's cloak
which he wore, and he had put on a pilgrim's hat like Romeo's, and
carried a pilgrim's staff, when he went in quest of his Juliet.
For the first quarter of an hour his keen eyes failed to distinguish her
amidst that ever-moving, ever-changing mob of masqueraders: princes and
peasants, soldiers and chimney-sweepers, French cooks, Italian
harlequins and columbines, Venetians, Turks, Dutchmen, and Roman
emperors. The glitter and confusion of that undulating crowd, swaying to
the sound of lightest music, baffled and bewildered him; but all of a
sudden, in the stately movements of a minuet, he saw a form which at a
glance revealed the slender gracefulness of his wood-nymph. No other
form he had ever seen upon this earth had that airy motion and
exquisitely unconscious elegance.
Yes, it was she, dressed as Diana, with a diamond crescent upon her
brow, and her soft auburn hair coiled at the back of the perfectly
shaped head, a careless curl or two hanging loosely from the coils. Her
classic drapery of white and silver clothed her modestly from shoulder
to ankle, revealing only the slender feet in silver sandals. In an age
of monstrous headdresses and naked shoulders, powder and patches, that
classic form and simply braided hair had all the charm of singularity.
Herrick glanced from his beloved to her partner. A slim, elegant-looking
man in a Venetian suit, black velvet and gold, with jewelled
stiletto--Lavendale without doubt. Yes, that was his dashing air of
unconquerable self-possession, the easy consciousness of superiority. He
offered his hand to his partner when the dance was over, and led her
through the crowd, talking to her animatedly as they moved along.
Herrick could see that he was pointing out the celebrities in the mob,
giving his tongue full license as he described their characteristics,
no doubt in a series of antitheses, as was the fashion in those days,
when a modish wit depicted every man or woman of his acquaintance as a
bundle of opposite qualities, a creature made up of contradictions, and
as impossible as sphinx or chimæra.
Herrick followed them closely. He was able to follow unobserved in that
crowded assembly; moreover it was a legitimate action to follow any
woman at a masquerade. The entertainment was invented for assignations
and imbroglios, mystifications and illicit love-making. He followed
close enough to hear the drift of his friend's conversation, if not the
very words, and it relieved that sore heart of his to be assured that
there was no serious love in all that flow of talk, only gallantry and
compliment, scandal and satire.
"There goes my Lord Chesterfield, who just escapes being as ugly as
Caliban, with that huge Polyphemus head of his, yet affects elegance and
pretends to be irresistible with women. Heidegger himself--the ugliest
man in London--might almost as fitly assume the airs of an Adonis. But
there is Carteret, the most accomplished man in England, with more
languages in his head than were ever spoken at Babel; I must seize an
opportunity for presenting him to you. He is a great man, and would be a
great minister if Walpole were not jealous of him. Have you seen Mrs.
Howard--the shepherdess in pink--forty years old, and as deaf as a post?
Her royal shepherd was glaring at us from that box yonder while you were
dancing. And at the back of that large box over the stage you may see
Majesty itself, sitting in shadow with a couple of Turks in attendance
upon him, and the Duchess of Kendal in the front of the box."
"I thought kings and princes would have a grander air, would stand out
more from the common people," said Rena. "I did not expect to see the
King in his royal robes and crown, but I am vexed to find him so very
plain-looking and humdrum! I don't believe Charles I. had ever that
common look."
"We only know Charles as Vandyke painted him," said Lavendale. "I
daresay were I to conjure up his ghost for you, in his habit as he
lived, you would find him a somewhat insignificant person, with a long
narrow face and attenuated features. You would not recognise in him the
kingly figure on the white horse before which you stood so admiringly at
Hampton Court Palace yesterday. But let us talk of something more
interesting than kings and emperors. Let us talk of our dear selves. I
have a very serious theme to discuss with you, and I thought in this
light mock world, where every one is bent upon folly, you and I would be
more alone than in a wood. Dare I speak freely, Irene? Will it be to
seal my doom if I venture boldly?"
He had drawn the slight figure nearer to his side with a sudden
caressing movement, favoured by the jostling of the crowd. Durnford grew
savagely angry at that bold caress, and could scarce restrain himself
from laying violent hands upon his friend; would not, perhaps, have
forborne to part them, had not Rena herself started away with a
half-frightened, half-indignant gesture.
But lo! at that very moment, just as Lavendale turned lightly towards
the retreating nymph, bold as Apollo in pursuit of Daphne, he started
and stood stock-still, as if changed into stone by some apparition of
terror.
And yet it was not a terrific vision. It was only a woman, passing tall
among women, with the form and carriage of Juno; a woman in a Turkish
dress, glittering from brow to waistband with a galaxy of diamonds,
which flashed from the gorgeous background of an embroidered robe. The
lovely arms, of Parian whiteness, were bare to the shoulder; the lovely
bust was but little hidden by the loose outer robe and narrow inner vest
of cloth of gold. A long gauze veil fell from the jewelled turban which
the lady wore, in proud defiance, or in happy ignorance, of Oriental
restrictions.
This sultana of the hour was Lady Judith Topsparkle, and it was but the
second time Lavendale had met her since they parted in the little
Chinese room at Lady Skirmisham's.
While he stood dumfounded, scarce daring to lift his eyes to those
flashing orbs which were shining upon him out of the sultana's little
velvet mask, Irene drew still further away from him, unheeded, and
Durnford slid in between them and slipped her hand through his arm.
"May the humblest of pilgrims be Miss Bosworth's guardian and defender
in this unmannerly mob?" he asked tenderly.
She started, with a faintly tremulous movement which thrilled him with
triumphant gladness. Only at the tone or touch of one she secretly loves
is a woman so moved.
"Mr. Durnford!" she exclaimed. "How did you recognise me?"
"How did you know me so quickly, in spite of my mask?"
"By your voice, of course."
"And I you by a hundred things: by every turn of your head; by every
line of your figure; by the atmosphere that breathes around you; by the
halo of light which to my eye hovers perpetually round your head; by a
deep delight that steals over me when you are near. And you have been in
London a week and I have not seen you, and yet I have passed your door
twenty times a day. Cruel, never to discover me from your window, never
to make an excuse for five minutes' civility: were it but to drop an old
fan in the gutter and let me pick it up for you, or to send Sappho out
of doors to be all but run over, so that I might rescue her from under
a coach and six at peril of this paltry life of mine."
"Sappho is at Fairmile. My father would not let me bring her. He has
promised me a pug. Why did you not pay us a visit of your own accord?"
"I was afraid. I have waited, sneak as I am, for Lavendale to take me
with him."
"But why?" she asked, with divinest innocence.
"Lest the Squire should suspect me of being in love with you, and forbid
me his door."
This suggestion overpowered her, and she was silent. Durnford too was
silent, in a delicious pause of rapturous contentment, as he moved
slowly through the crowd with his divinity on his arm.
"Is your father here to-night?" he asked presently.
"O no. He hates all such places. My aunt, Lady Tredgold, brought me. My
two cousins are here, dressed as Polish peasants, but I have lost them
all in the crowd. My aunt is playing cards somewhere, I believe. She
left me in charge of Lord Lavendale."
"And now you are in my charge, and I shall give you up to no one but
your aunt."
"My cousins told me that she will play quadrille all night if we let her
alone. We shall have to go and fetch her when it is time to go home."
"That will not be till the sun is high. And then if your cousins are
girls of spirit they won't be too anxious for going home. We might drive
to Islington and breakfast in the gardens there by sunrise, if it were
but warmer weather. Let us be happy while we can."
"I am very happy to-night," answered Rena, with delicious simplicity.
"When I first came I thought this scene enchanting."
"And you don't think it less enchanting now?" asked Herrick, in a
pleading tone. "Surely my presence has not spoiled it for you?"
"Indeed, no: I am very glad to see you again."
And so they wandered on, in and out amidst that giddy crowd, jostling
against statesmen and fine ladies, princes and potentates; and so lost
in the delight of each other's presence that they were scarce conscious
of being in company. For them that crowd of maskers was but as a gallery
of pictures, mere scenic decoration, of no significance.
Lord Lavendale had been swallowed up in the throng, had vanished from
their sight altogether, he and his Turkish lady. By one half-haughty,
half-gracious movement of her Oriental fan she had beckoned, and he had
followed, as recklessly as Hamlet followed his father's spectre,
scarcely caring whither it led him, even were it to sudden, untimely
death.
This Oriental lady only led the way to one of the side-rooms of the
theatre--rooms where maskers supped, or gambled, or flirted, or plotted,
as circumstance and character impelled them. This room into which
Lavendale followed the sultana was devoted to cards, and two ladies and
two gentlemen were squabbling over quadrille by the light of four tall
wax candles.
Both gentlemen had removed their masks, and in one of them Lavendale
recognised Mr. Topsparkle. That painted parchment face of his was
scarcely more natural than a mask, and had something the look of one,
Lavendale thought, in the flickering light of those tall dim candles.
Lady Judith turned and made him a curtsy.
"Now does your lordship know who I am?" she asked.
"I knew you from the first instant of our meeting. Is there any woman in
London who has the imperial air of Lady Judith Topsparkle? Could a mask
hide Juno, do you think?"
"I suppose not. One ought to muffle oneself in a domino if one wanted to
be unrecognised. But I question if any of us women come here with that
view. We are too vain. We want everybody to say, 'How well she is
looking to-night! she is positively the finest woman in the room!'"
She had sunk upon a low divan, in a careless attitude which was full of
a kind of regal grace.
"I forget if you and my husband know each other?" she asked lightly.
There was not the faintest sign of emotion in her tone or her manner.
Careless lightness, the airy indifference of a fashionable acquaintance,
could not be more distinctly indicated.
"I have not yet had the felicity of being made known to Mr. Topsparkle,"
Lavendale answered, with that perfect manner of his which was
exquisitely courteous, and yet gave the lady indifference for
indifference.
"O, but you must know each other. You have so many ideas in common--you
are both travellers, both eccentrics, both much cleverer than the common
herd of humanity. Vyvyan, put down your cards for a moment if you can;
here is Lord Lavendale, who complains that you have not waited upon him
since he returned from the East."
"I am vastly to blame," replied Topsparkle, shifting his cards to his
left hand and offering the right to Lavendale, a pallid attenuated hand,
decorated with a choice intaglio and one other ring, a twice-coiled
snake with a black diamond in its head, which looked like a gem with a
history; "I am stricken with remorse at the idea of my neglect. But his
lordship's appearance in London has been meteoric rather than regular,
and I have been for the most part in the country."
"The honour of making Mr. Topsparkle's acquaintance is only more
precious because it has been deferred," answered Lavendale; and the two
gentlemen, after having shaken hands with effusion, acknowledged each
other's compliments with stately bows.
Mr. Topsparkle resumed his play, and Lavendale seated himself on the
divan beside Lady Judith.
"Shall I attend you to the dancing-room?" he asked.
"No, I am sick to death of the crowd and the heat, and all those fine
people," she answered, taking off her mask, and letting him see the
loveliness he had once adored. "Did you observe Miss Thornleigh as
Iphigenia?" she asked carelessly.
"I beheld an exquisite vision of nakedness, like Eve before the fall, at
which all the world was gazing. I thought it was meant for our universal
mother!"
"No, it was Iphigenia."
"I stand corrected. Then a scanty drapery of silvery gauze and a fillet
round the brow mean Iphigenia. Now can I understand why Diana rejected
the young lady by way of holocaust, and substituted a hind at the final
moment. Such unclothed loveliness must have appalled the modest
goddess."
Lady Judith laughed behind her fan, and shrugged her beautiful shoulders
in the loose Turkish robe, which was decency itself in comparison with
Miss Thornleigh's audacious transparency of raiment. Everything is a
question of degree, and to be half naked in those days was only modish;
but there was a boundary-line, and the beautiful Miss Thornleigh was
considered to have overstepped it.
They talked of their acquaintance upon that crowded stage yonder,
discussed the scandals of the hour, the curious marriages--an elderly
lady to her footman, a gentleman of rank to an orange-girl--there had
been a passion for oranges ever since the days of Nell Gwynne.
"I believe to sell oranges is the only passport to a fine gentleman's
favour," said Judith. "I almost wish I had begun life with a basket,
like the famous Clara, princess of the Court of Requests. I would give
much to have inspired such a passion in such a man as Henry St. John."
"It is not too late, even without the oranges," answered Lavendale,
smiling at her. "If St. John was too easily melted, be sure Bolingbroke
is not altogether adamant."
"O, but he has a farm and a French wife, and has turned respectable. The
fiery St. John of Queen Anne's time, the hawk that swooped on every
dove, is altogether extinct; there is no such person."
"Are there not rivers in Damascus?" asked Lavendale with lowered voice,
drawing nearer to her as he spoke. "Are there none who can love as St.
John loved--not wasting that exquisite passion upon an inconstant
orange-wench, but burning his lamp of life before a higher altar,
worshipping, adoring at a purer shrine?"
"Heavens, what rodomontade we are talking!" cried Lady Judith, starting
up from her divan, and moving quickly to the door. "The very air of
these dances is full of a jargon which even sensible people fall into
unawares. Come, why do you not ask my hand for a minuet? I think you and
I have danced one ages ago, and that our steps went in decent time."
"Think! Ah, I forgot how short is memory in a lady of fashion."
"O, we have so many caprices to blot the tablet. Now a new singer, and
anon a new colour in lutestring, or a new style of headdress, or a new
game at cards. Life is a series of transformations. Here is poor Dick
Steele, struck down with paralysis, and gone to end his days in
Cheshire, he who was the wittiest man in London when I first knew this
town. I heard of his malady only to-night. Life is full of sad changes.
One can hardly remember oneself of a few years ago, much less one's
friends. But I swear I should have known your lordship anywhere."
"I am proud to be so far honoured."
They reëntered the busy scene at a pause between two dances. Everybody
was walking about. The dazzle and glitter of that moving throng showed
dimly through an all-pervading cloud of powder and dust, like a tropical
haze on a marshy shore; the Babel of voices was bewildering to the ear.
"There goes Peterborough with Anastasia Robinson on his arm. I can swear
to the turn of her head, though she has muffled herself in sables as a
Russian Czarina."
"If she knew what a cook-maid the present Empress of Russia is, the lady
would hardly aspire to be mistaken for her."
"O, it is only to make us all sick with envy at the splendour of her
sables. His lordship bought them for her in Paris. They are worth a
king's ransom. 'Tis said he allows her a hundred guineas a month, but I
am sure she must spend three times as much."
"You make me feel as if I were one of the Seven Sleepers," exclaimed
Lavendale. "Is not Mrs. Robinson the very pink and pattern of virtue; so
chaste and cold a being that even the too tender wooing of Senesino in
an opera--mere stage love-making--wounded and offended her?"
"That is perfectly true; but it is no less true that she smiles upon
Lord Peterborough. Who could withstand a warrior and a hero? The man who
conquered a province with a mere handful of troops must needs be
irresistible to a weak woman. She is living at Parson's Green with her
mother; but as Peterborough spends most of his life there, people will
talk."
"In spite of the mother?"
"In spite of the mother," echoed Judith. "However, it is hinted they are
privately married, and there are those among us who still continue to
receive Mrs. Robinson under that charitable supposition; ourselves, for
instance. Topsparkle is such a fanatic about music that I hardly dare
question a soprano's reputation, or hint that a tenor has the air of
having sprung from the gutter. At Ringwood Abbey we receive every one
who can sing or play to perfection, without reference to character. I
myself own to a prejudice in favour of those ladies who are still at
their first or second lover, in preference to those who have ruined half
the pretty fellows in town. But Bononcini and Handel are the two people
who really choose our society. We have our Bononcini set and our Handel
set, and are Italian or German as those great masters dictate. But you
must come to Ringwood some day and judge for yourself. How do you like
my husband?"
This was asked abruptly, with the lightest, most impertinent air.
"Mr. Topsparkle's courtesy to me just now renders me too much his
debtor to be disinterested. I am already a partial critic. But I am told
by the indifferent world that he is a most accomplished gentleman."
"Yes, he is very clever. But it is a fantastical kind of cleverness. He
plays the organ divinely, knows ever so many modern languages, and
writes French almost as well as Monsieur le Voltaire. He has
un-Englished himself by his long residence on the Continent, and must be
judged by a foreign standard of taste."
"So long as he has succeeded in making you happy--" began Lavendale, in
a lowered voice.
"Do I not look happy?" she asked, with smiling lips under the little
velvet mask.
"You look gloriously handsome. That radiant surface is too dazzling for
me to penetrate deeper. Who could question those lovely lips when they
smile, or dare hint that silvery laughter might be artificial? I will
believe anything those lips tell me."
"Then you may believe that Mr. Topsparkle is vastly kind, and that he
has loaded me with all the luxuries women live for nowadays: lutestring
gowns, Brussels lace, diamonds, pug-dogs, black footmen, and a Swiss
porter. If he cannot always insure me peace of mind it is the fault of
my capriciousness, and not any lack of kindness in him. My bosom is
racked at this moment by the thought of the lottery. I may win ten
thousand pounds, or draw nothing but blanks. I have wasted a competence
in buying up other people's tickets, for I dreamt I won the ten thousand
pound prize, and I have been in a fever of expectation from that hour."
"I hope you will not be too much disappointed should the dream prove
false: one of those deluding visions by which the Homeric gods lead
their victims into deadly peril."
"If that dream do not come true, I swear I will never sleep again; never
more trust myself in the land of lying shadows."
"The company all seem crowding to one spot. Shall we go?"
"Yes, this instant. It is nearly time for the lottery."
She took his arm, leaning on it in her eager haste, and her lovely arm
was pressed against his heart, beating passionately with all the old
fever. It was an unholy fever, for in his heart of hearts he knew that
she was not a good woman, that she had deteriorated sorely since their
last parting, that wealth and pride of place and the flatteries of a
modish mob had perverted all of good that had been left in her nature in
those old days when she was Lady Judith Walberton. Her reckless
conversation, her air of audacity, which seemed to challenge the
rekindling of old fires, shocked even while it captivated him. There was
a strange mixture of love and pity in his mind as he gazed upon this
beautiful, brilliant, and perhaps lost creature.
The lottery was attended by a maddened crowd, almost reproducing upon a
small scale the fever and folly of that famous South Sea scheme, which
but six years ago had spread ruin and sorrow over the land, as if it had
been some scaly monster come up out of the sea to devour the inhabitants
of the earth. The monster's name was Avarice or Cupidity, most fatal
among all fiery dragons that feed upon the flesh of men. And now the
same foul beast in little was preying upon this modish crowd. There
were women who had pledged their diamond earrings to buy tickets; there
were sadder sisters who had bartered their honour: and for how many was
the agony of disappointment inevitable!
For Lady Judith among others. Her eleven numbers were all blanks. She
pushed her way through the mob in a towering passion.
"The whole thing is a cheat!" she exclaimed. "I believe the prize-winner
goes halves with the proprietor of the lottery. There must be trickery
somewhere. Did you see how delighted Lady Mary Montagu was at winning a
paltry fifty pounds? That woman is as mean as Shylock or Harpagon, or as
wicked old Sarah herself. I had eleven tickets, every one of them, as I
thought, a lucky number: one was my age doubled; the other, Topsparkle's
multiplied by nine; another had three sevens in it; another, four
threes. I had chosen them with the utmost discretion; and to think there
was not a winning number among the whole heap! I gave Lady Wharton a
ruby ring for her ticket, one of the finest in my jewel-case, the true
pigeon's-blood colour, and the creature has jewed me out of that lovely
gem for a scrap of waste pasteboard. I am provoked beyond measure!"
"But, dear Lady Judith, with inordinate wealth at your command, and with
the most indulgent of husbands for your purse-bearer, is it worth your
while to gamble?"
"Is any pleasure worth one's while?" she retorted mockingly. "They are
all empty; they are all Dead Sea apples that turn to dust and ashes. One
may as well take diversion one way as another. Topsparkle thinks he is
happy when he has collected a pack of squalling Italians or
sourcrout-eating Germans under his roof; and yet they contrive to keep
him in a fever, by their bickerings and grumblings and envyings, from
the moment of arrival to the moment of departure. Will you help me to
find my chair? I suppose there will be some of my men in the vestibule,
if they are not all drunk at some low mug-house."
"I will answer for finding you a couple of sober chairmen. You will not
wait for Mr. Topsparkle?"
"I would not disturb his game for worlds; for though he pretends I am
the only gamester in the family, he has a passion for quadrille. He
learnt the taste in the south of France, where they play hardly anything
else."
They went to the vestibule, where Lady Judith Topsparkle's running
footmen were lolling against the wall or lounging about in company with
a crowd of other lacqueys, all slightly the worse for twopenny ale, but
fairly steady upon their well-fed legs, nevertheless. Lady Judith's
liveries of orange and brown were distinguishable by their sombre
richness among gaudier suits of blue and silver or peach-blossom and
gold.
"My roquelaure," she said to one of her men, a gigantic blackamoor who
had served in the Royal Schloss at Berlin, and had been tempted away
from his Prussian Majesty's service by larger offers from Mr.
Topsparkle. His startling appearance had fascinated the wealthy
Englishman, who was instantly eager to add this exotic grace to his
household.
The giant spread a fur-lined cloak over her ladyship's shoulders, a
cloak of paduasoy which enveloped the tall form from the throat to the
feet.
"Let us go and look for my chair," she exclaimed impatiently. "This
vestibule reeks of lamp-oil and black footmen."
Lavendale accompanied her swift footsteps out into the portico.
Sedan-chairs were standing in quadruple ranks, coaches and chariots
blocked the road, shining meteoric with the blaze of their lamps and the
glitter of their harness, horses champing, snorting, pawing, in
impatience to be moving through the cold crisp air. There was a slight
frost, a faint gray fog, and, above, a new moon rode fast in a sky of
steely blue, broken by dark clouds.
"I hate to be smothered in a chair after escaping from a stifling
assembly-room," said Lady Judith, "and the night seems positively
enchanting. Would you have the courage to walk home with me?"
"It needs the courage of a lion, yet I will face the peril for the sake
of such company. But will those dainty little Turkish slippers which I
observed just now keep out the cold and damp?"
"O, they are more substantial than they look, and the stones seem quite
dry. I am not afraid. Juba, tell my chairmen I am going to walk."
Juba, Lady Judith's particular personal attendant, was quick to marshal
his men. Two went in advance of their mistress with blazing torches, two
others followed, while Juba marched at the head of the little procession
by way of advanced guard.
Thus attended, and leaning upon Lord Lavendale's arm, Lady Judith's
progress by way of Gerard Street to Soho Square had a picturesque air
which is unknown in our matter-of-fact age of well-lit streets and
miniature broughams. Everything in those days was on a grandiose scale;
and if people spent a good deal of money, they at least had their full
value in show and glitter. Those running footmen with their flaming
torches, that huge blackamoor with his splendid livery, made a display
that would have graced the semi-Oriental state of a Roman Empress in the
decadence of the Empire.
Gerard Street was alive with gaiety and fashion--beaux and belles
arriving and departing, torches flaming, harness rattling, sedans
setting down or taking up their freight at every door, footmen lounging
against every railing, link-boys rushing to and fro, making believe that
the night was dark, though the cold crescent moon kept peeping out from
amidst those black scurrying clouds and putting those resin-dropping
links to shame.
Windows blazed with the light of many candles, and shadows flitted
across many a blind. From some houses there came a gust of
noise--laughter, babble, and the rattle of dice; from another, sounds of
music now classic, then modern and fashionable. There was no such thing
as solitude for Lavendale and Lady Judith in that walk through one of
the most fashionable quarters of the town, no possibility of anything
compromising or sentimental. Their talk was of the lightest--the very
thistledown of polite conversation--with no more purpose or depth of
meaning than there is in Mr. Pope's letters to Lady Mary written a few
years before this time.
What a beautiful, frivolous, gracious creature she seemed in Lavendale's
eyes as she walked by his side, moving with swift footsteps through the
cold night! She carried herself superbly at all times, and walked like
Dian or Atalanta. Sir Robert himself had praised her carriage, and
talked of her as "a splendid mover," as if she had been one of his
Norfolk hunters. She wore her mask still, and her head was muffled in
her Turkish "asmack," and her long furred mantle reached to her heels.
Yet there was hardly a man at the Court end of London who would have
failed to recognise the lady whom a legion of admirers at White's and at
the Cocoa Tree toasted as a queen among women, and whose name had been
written with a diamond on one of the toast-glasses at the Kit-Kat Club
when she was fifteen.
"Tell me some of your Eastern adventures," she exclaimed presently. "I
have been telling you all about our town scandals, and you have told me
positively nothing of your travels. Is it true that you broke into the
seraglio at Constantinople, and were set upon by a dozen blackamoors as
big as Juba, and very nearly killed in the scuffle?"
"Just about as true as the most startling adventures of Marco Polo or
Sir John Mandeville. I saw no more of the seraglio than the cypress-tops
in the garden that surround it, and a glimpse of the palace itself
through the foliage."
"But is it not true that you brought home a Circassian slave, a peerless
beauty, and that you have her under lock and key at Lavendale Manor?"
"That also belongs to the Marco Polo order of adventures. No, Lady
Judith, the burnt-out ashes of a heart are not to be rekindled by
almond-eyed beauties with thick waists and squabby figures; I saw
nothing in the East half so lovely as that which I left in the West."
"And yet we are taught to think the Orient is full of loveliness. Here
we are at my door. Will you come in and wait for Mr. Topsparkle? I
daresay I shall have company, for I told half a dozen of my dearest
friends they might take their chocolate with me after the masquerade."
The Soho Square of 1726 was a place of palaces, but its fashion was
already waning. Monmouth House, a royal mansion built by Wren for the
luckless Duke, had fallen from Lord Bateman's occupation to a public
auction-room; and there were other signs of decay which indicated that
Golden Square to the south, and the newly planned Cavendish Square,
almost in the country, were disputing the palm with Soho, which was
beginning to assume a dilapidated air; like old Lady Orkney, or any
other famous Court beauty of a bygone generation.
Mr. Topsparkle's house was the largest and most regal-looking after
Monmouth House. It was approached by a double flight of steps, and its
pilastered balconies, pedimented windows, and Grecian cornice gave a
stately air to a building which in spaciousness and elevation was
magnificent.
But if the outer appearance of the mansion was noble and imposing, its
interior decoration made it one of the richest and most wonderful houses
in London. In all his journeyings about the face of the earth Mr.
Topsparkle had amused himself by the collection of curios; and as his
purse was long and his taste universal, he had gathered together the
most heterogeneous assemblage of the beautiful and the ugly that had
ever been amassed by one man or exhibited under one roof.
The spacious hall which Lavendale entered at Lady Judith's invitation
was hung with Venetian tapestry from the palace of a fourteenth-century
Doge, and almost black with age. But as a relief against that sombre
background there hung a unique collection of Moorish and Indian arms,
while the foreground of the room was enlivened with everything
frivolous and elegant in the way of china monsters, Meissen porcelain,
carved ivory, French fans and bonbon-boxes, filigree-silver caskets,
bronze statuettes, gold snuffboxes, and Indian gods, all scattered, as
it were, haphazard upon a variety of small tables of more or less
eccentric designs. On the left of this hall opened a suite of
drawing-rooms which served also as one continuous picture-gallery, and
which contained a collection of French and Italian masters acknowledged
to be one of the best in England. On the right was the dining-room--an
immense apartment, which better deserved the name of banqueting-hall.
Here everything was of carved oak, ponderous, gigantic, and strictly
Dutch, and here the pictures were by Dutch and Flemish painters. A
replica of Rubens' "Descent from the Cross" hung over the sideboard, and
the rest of the wall was a mosaic of cabinet pictures, every one a gem.
The hall was lighted with clusters of wax candles in bronze candelabra
dotted here and there about the tables, and making only islets of light
in the gloom of those dark walls, against which Moorish breast-plates
and Indian targets flashed and gleamed with faintly phosphorescent
brightness. But at one end of the hall there was an enormous wood fire,
which made a rosy atmosphere all round it; and it was in this roseate
glow that Judith seated herself, sinking into a capacious armchair
covered with stamped and gilt leather: a chair in which it was supposed
Count Egmont had sat when he was tried for his life in the Town Hall at
Brussels.
She flung off cloak and mask, and appeared in all the brilliancy of gold
brocade and diamonds, a beautiful dazzling apparition which seemed
hardly human in that fairy-like fire-glow. She touched a little bell,
and her lacqueys began to arrange a table for chocolate; and before it
could be brought three of her lady friends came trooping in, also
cloaked and masked, with two gentlemen in attendance upon them.
"How early you left!" said Lady Polwhele, a stout matron of fifty,
revealing a bedaubed complexion and a galaxy of patches; "I saw you
sneak away. Do you know that I won twenty pound? I feel in the seventh
heaven. It is odiously little to win, but it may be the turning-point
of my bad luck. I have been losing persistently at every venture I have
made ever since my wretched South Sea bonds, when I ought to have sold
out and didn't. I could have sold them at nine hundred, Asterley, and
can you believe that I was fool enough to keep them till they dropped to
a hundred and twenty? The idiots about me declared there must inevitably
be as rapid a rise as there had been a fall. Would you believe it, Ted?"
"I have heard the story so often that it has become an article of faith
with me," answered Mr. Asterley, with a bored look. He, too, had taken
off his mask, and revealed a small-featured, effeminate face and a faded
complexion. He had not taken to paint yet, and he looked as if he had
not slept for a week. His city-bred wife was one of Lady Polwhele's
companions, for that worthy dowager had patched up a peace with her old
admirer, and finding she could not dispense with the assiduities of the
husband, now submitted to the society of the wife as a necessary evil.
She was said to be forming Mrs. Asterley. But if the pupil was docile,
the material was of the coarsest, or so her ladyship declared in
confidence to at least fifty particular friends. "I think if any one
could make a fine lady out of a handsome dairymaid I ought to be able to
do it," she told her intimates, when she was bemoaning Mrs. Asterley's
incorrigible vulgarity.
"You have trained so many fine gentlemen that it must be agreeable to
work on the other sex by way of variety," said her confidante.
"O, I have always liked to have boys of good family about me to fetch
and carry," answered Lady Polwhele carelessly. "They are better than
black footmen; they want no wages, and they have not that horrid African
odour which makes so many fine houses smell like a zoological garden.
But for Ted Asterley's sake I should really like to make his wife
presentable. Her high-mettled prancing at the last birthnight ball
nearly set the room in a roar. Captain Bloodyer told me that her steps
in the country dance reminded him of nothing but a dealer's horse being
taught to step high over bundles of straw in a livery-yard. If the
creature would only be quiet there might be some hope for her, but her
plebeian blood has furnished her with a stock of animal spirits which
must be her ruin."
Mrs. Asterley's spirits had not abandoned her even at three o'clock in
the morning. This was her first visit to the famous house in Soho, and
she ran about the room exclaiming at everything.
"Dear, what a funny room," she cried, "with all those crooked knives and
pretty old dish-covers on the wall! I thought they kept the like of them
in the butler's pantry, but they're mighty pretty against that
carpet-work."
Then coming to a sudden stop before Lady Judith, and giggling shyly, she
exclaimed, "Lord, how I should love a room just like this, your la'ship!
It has such a sweet pretty murderous kind of an air, just like
Bluebeard's chamber, where he kept his wives' heads. I shall ask papa to
let me furnish a room the same pattern, so I shall."
"Pray do, Mrs. Asterley. The frame will charmingly suit the picture. You
have a vapourish artistic air which would be admirably set off by
antique furniture."
"My dear Belle, Mr. Topsparkle's old Venetian tapestry is both
priceless and unique," said her husband reprovingly.
"What, that old carpet-work on the walls? I thought they had that for
cheapness."
"My sweetest love, you have no more manners than a pig," said Asterley,
but with an indulgent smile at his buxom wife's low-bred simplicity
which was gall and wormwood to Lady Polwhele.
"O, but when one is blest with a wealthy father it is so natural to
suppose he can get one anything one fancies by paying for it. I am sure
I should have thought as much if my poor dear papa had not been a
pauper," said Lady Judith, with languid good-nature. "You must go to
Canons or Stowe, my dear Mrs. Asterley, and look about you. You will see
some very pretty ideas for rooms, which will put you in the right way of
furnishing your new house."
"But we have not taken a house yet. We are in a lodging over a
tallow-chandler's in the Haymarket. It is dreadful on melting days. Yet
they say Mr. Addison wrote his poem on Blenheim next door. I used to
think Blenheim was a battle, but Teddie says 'tis a poem."
"My sweet child, if you were to talk a little less and listen a little
more, there might be some hope of your arriving at an understanding of
many things that are now dark to you," said Lady Polwhele severely; and
then she peered about in the great dusky apartment, and suddenly
descried Lord Lavendale sitting a little way behind Lady Judith, and
quite in shadow.
"As I live, it is Lavendale!" she cried; "the very man I have been
pining to see these centuries. Come and sit by me on this couch, you
dear pretty fellow, and tell me where you have hidden yourself since you
came from the East."
"In the dismal seclusion of my father's favourite estate, and the only
remnant of his property which his son's follies have left intact,"
answered Lavendale gravely.
"Did not I tell you so, Asterley?" exclaimed her ladyship; "there is no
help for it, you see. He must marry an heiress. Did not I say so,
Asterley? You and I must find him an heiress."
"Forgive me, Lady Polwhele, if I submit that although you and my friend
Asterley are doubtless admirable caterers, I would rather be my own
purveyor."
"O, but heiresses are almost as extinct as the dodo. An only child of
wealthy parents is the veritable black swan. And Asterley is such a
diplomatist with women."
"Egad, his lordship is in the right in rejecting a lady of my choosing,"
simpered Asterley. "The odds are I should have insinuated my own image
into the warmest corner of the dear creature's heart before I introduced
my principal. Agents and proxies are always dangerous in love or
matrimony."
"Would it surprise Mr. Asterley to hear that the heiress is found
already?" asked Judith languidly, looking downward at the jewelled
Moorish salver and chocolate service of German china which Juba and his
minions had arranged on the table in front of her. The copper
chocolate-pot was of curious shape, and was supposed to be as ancient as
the destruction of Pompeii, and to have held some witch's concoction in
the way of a philtre for love or hate. There was a tiny spirit-lamp
under it, which burned with a diabolical blue flame.
"Found already, while Lavendale has been hiding in Surrey?" cried the
dowager. "You astound me!"
"Yes, the young lady danced at the birthnight ball, and was the observed
of all observers for her grace and beauty. Everybody was asking where
she had learnt to walk a minuet with such a mixture of ease and
stateliness, till Mary Campbell, who has the impudence of the devil,
went about asking questions, and ferreted out the new beauty's history.
She is the daughter of Squire Bosworth, Lord Lavendale's next-door
neighbour, a curious old money-grubber who made a hundred thousand
pounds in that odious South Sea scheme which beggared so many women of
fashion and disgraced not a few: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, for
instance, who still trembles at the very name of that unlucky Frenchman
whose money she ventured and lost."
"And whose very warm advances she must at one time have encouraged,"
suggested Lady Polwhele. "Poor Molly would never have been so frightened
had there not been something more than money transactions between her
and Monsieur Rémond. But pray tell us more of the heiress."
"She is as simple as Wycherley's country wife, but much more genteel,"
replied Lady Judith lightly, while Juba carried round the chocolate, and
while Lavendale sat on thorns. "She has learnt to sing and dance from a
lame old Frenchwoman, who taught Lady Tredgold's gaunt daughters--"
"And never succeeded in teaching them to step to the music," said
Asterley.
"But this girl is a born sylph, and a musician by instinct. Topsparkle
has heard of her singing, though he has never seen her, and he wants me
to ask her to Ringwood. Surely you must have observed her, Lady
Polwhele?"
"I was not at the birthnight; my dearest pug had a fit of the colic so
severe that I trembled lest every breath should be his last. I would not
have left him for a galaxy of kings and princes."
"But you must have seen her to-night. A slim, nymph-like creature,
disguised as Diana, with a silver crescent in her hair. She and
Lavendale were the prettiest couple in the room."
"Lady Judith is bent upon rekindling the ashes of a long-extinguished
vanity," said Lavendale.
"But you do not deny the South Sea heiress. You plead guilty to serious
intentions," said Lady Polwhele, shaking her fan at his lordship in a
kittenish manner.
"Gold and spices from southern seas have a pleasant sound, your
ladyship," replied Lavendale easily, "and the young lady herself is as
much too good for me as I am too bad for her."
"O, but a country-bred girl always doats upon a rake."
"'Tis only natural a rustic lass should be fond of making hay. I suppose
it is that kind of innocent wooden rake your ladyship means. _Gaudentem
patrios findere sarculo agros._"
"No, sir, a battered, hardened, brazen, half-ruined, infidel man of
fashion," answered the dowager; "that is the object a country wench
admires. If you are reformed, be sure you have spoiled your chances. You
cannot be too wicked to please sweet simplicity. It is only experienced
women of the world, like Lady Judith and me, who have a relish for
virtue."
"And then only in the abstract, I'll be sworn," cried Asterley, coming
to the tray for a second cup of chocolate, and devouring cakes out of a
silver filigree basket. "You relish virtue in your Locke or your
Addison--a stately preachment of morality in elegant Saxon-English, but
you like a man to be--a man. There is Lord Bolingbroke, for instance. Is
he not the highest example of manly perfection? _Facile primus._ An easy
first in everything: first in pleasure, idleness, and debauchery, as he
is first in learning, diplomacy, and statesmanship."
"And in lies and craft," said Lady Judith scornfully; "there he is--what
do you call it?--_primus inter primos_. I would rather have Walpole for
my type of manliness. A coarser stuff, if you will, but a far more
honest fabric; no such mixture of gold and tinsel, strength and
rottenness."
"I forgot that your ladyship belongs to the Whig faction," said
Asterley.
"O, I tie myself to no politics. If the Chevalier were a MAN, I would
rather have him to rule us than this little German king. But the little
Hanoverian is at least honest, and has shown his mettle against the
Turks, while the Stuarts are as false as they are feeble: ingrates to
their friends and trucklers to their foes."
While she was speaking, there came a great ringing of the hall-bell, and
the sound of a chair setting down outside; and then the double doors
were opened, and between a lane of footmen Mr. Topsparkle sauntered in.
He had not condescended to any further disguise than a crimson damask
domino, which he flung off as he entered, revealing a suit of tawny
velvet embroidered with gold thread, with ruffles and cravat of finest
Malines lace, his small pinched features almost overshadowed by the
fulness of his somewhat old-fashioned periwig. He saluted the company
with an air of being enraptured at seeing them, which was _de rigueur_
in that age of compliment and all-pervading artificiality.
"I vow it is our divine Lady Polwhele, looking at least a decade younger
than when these eyes last beheld her."
"Why, you foolish Topsparkle, 'twas but t'other day we met and
quarrelled for a china monster--a green dragon with a hollow stomach
for burning pastilles--at the auction-room over the way."
"Ah, but that was by daylight, and a woman's beauty when she has once
passed thirty is too delicate and evanescent for sunshine and open air.
Buxom wenches of twenty may endure the glare and the breeze: it only
makes them a trifle more blowsy; but for the refined, the intellectual,
the ethereal loveliness of _womanhood_, there must be chastened light
and gorgeous surroundings. This room becomes you as her rainbow and her
peacocks become Juno, or as the sea-foam sets off Aphrodite."
"Flatterer!" sighed her ladyship, tapping him playfully with her fan;
"you were always incorrigible. I have not forgotten the wicked things
you said to me seven years ago, when we met in Venice. Come, prince of
lies, show me your last new picture; you are always adding gems to your
collection."
"Nay, I have forsworn painting, and live only for music. I bought a
little dulcimer t'other day which belonged to good Queen Bess. Come and
look at it."
Lady Polwhele followed him into the picture-gallery, which had been
brilliantly lighted in the expectation of droppers-in after the
masquerade. And now came more setting down of chairs, swearing at
chairmen, quarrelling of link-boys, and loud ringing at the hall-bell,
and some of the most modish people in London came sauntering in to sip
Lady Judith's chocolate or Mr. Topsparkle's Tokay. The rooms were almost
full before Lord Lavendale left; and amidst that coming and going of
guests, and idle compliments and idle laughter, he had found himself
several times in close converse with Judith, they two, as they had often
been before, alone amidst the babble of the crowd.
She congratulated him with a prettily serious air, almost maternal, or
at least sisterly, upon his approaching marriage. She told him that he
had chosen wisely in selecting so lovely a girl, with a fortune large
enough to pay off his mortgages and start him afresh in life.
"I protest there is nothing settled," he said. "What you have heard is
but the town gossip--words without meaning. I have said not a word to
the lady. I grant you that her father has been monstrously civil to me,
that he is rich while I am poor, and that our estates join. Upon my
honour there is no more than this."
"0, but you have only to speak and to win. I have set my heart upon
seeing your fortune mended. I have been poor myself, and know how hard
it is for a patrician to be penniless. I shall ask Harpagon and his
daughter to Ringwood. He is an odious miser, they tell me."
"He has lived in rather a shabby way, and I believe that to accumulate
wealth is his ruling passion; but I doubt he would be willing to spend
liberally upon occasion. He has been a misanthrope rather than a miser,
Alceste rather than Harpagon."
"Whatever he is I will endure him, for his pretty daughter's sake."
"You are ever gracious and obliging. Good-night."
"Good-morning, for it has just chimed four."
They saluted each other with stateliest courtesy, and Lavendale left,
but not to go straight back to Bloomsbury. Late as it was, he felt
there was still a chance of company and play at White's chocolate-house;
so it was westward to St. James's Street he betook himself, there to
lose a few of those loose guineas which he always had in his pocket,
albeit he was practically a pauper.