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HIS GRACE OF OSMONDE
[Illustration: "'From this night all men shall kneel--all men on whom I
deign to cast my eyes'"--_See p_ 187]
HIS GRACE OF OSMONDE
BEING THE PORTIONS OF THAT NOBLEMAN'S LIFE
OMITTED IN THE RELATION OF HIS LADY'S
STORY PRESENTED TO THE WORLD OF
FASHION UNDER THE TITLE OF A
LADY OF QUALITY
BY
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1914
1897, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
_Were Nature just to Man from his first hour, he need not ask
for Mercy; then 'tis for us--the toys of Nature--to be both
just and merciful, for so only can the wrongs she does be
undone_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FIFTH DAY OF APRIL, 1676 1
II. "HE IS THE KING" 13
III. SIR JEOFFRY WILDAIRS 26
IV. "GOD HAVE MERCY ON ITS EVIL FORTUNES" 35
V. MY LORD MARQUESS PLUNGES INTO THE THAMES 55
VI. "NO; SHE HAS NOT YET COME TO COURT" 65
VII. "'TIS CLO WILDAIRS, MAN--ALL THE COUNTY KNOWS THE VIXEN" 77
VIII. IN WHICH MY LADY BETTY TANTILLION WRITES OF A SCANDAL 92
IX. SIR JOHN OXON LAYS A WAGER AT CRIBB'S COFFEE HOUSE 107
X. MY LORD MARQUESS RIDES TO CAMYLOTT 119
XI. "IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN--IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!" 133
XII. IN WHICH IS SOLD A PORTRAIT 141
XIII. "YOUR--GRACE!" 158
XIV. "FOR ALL HER YOUTH--THERE IS NO OTHER WOMAN LIKE HER" 179
XV. "AND 'TWAS THE TOWN RAKE AND BEAUTY--SIR JOHN OXON" 190
XVI. A RUMOUR 197
XVII. AS HUGH DE MERTOUN RODE 217
XVIII. A NIGHT IN WHICH MY LORD DUKE DID NOT SLEEP 235
XIX. "THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE--" 248
XX. AT CAMYLOTT 261
XXI. UPON THE MOOR 274
XXII. MY LADY DUNSTANWOLDE IS WIDOWED 299
XXIII. HER LADYSHIP RETURNS TO TOWN 319
XXIV. SIR JOHN OXON RETURNS ALSO 337
XXV. TO-MORROW 351
XXVI. A DEAD ROSE 363
XXVII. "'TWAS THE NIGHT THOU HIDST THE PACKAGE IN THE WALL" 381
XXVIII. SIR JOHN RIDES OUT OF TOWN 394
XXIX. AT THE COW AT WICKBEN 405
XXX. ON TYBURN HILL 423
XXXI. THEIR GRACES KEEP THEIR WEDDING DAY AT CAMYLOTT 440
XXXII. IN THE TURRET CHAMBER--AND IN CAMYLOTT WOOD 457
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'From this night all men shall kneel--all men on whom I
deign to cast my eyes'" _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
"Your Grace, it is this lady who is to do me the great
honour of becoming my Lady Dunstanwolde" 232
HIS GRACE OF OSMONDE
_CHAPTER I_
_The Fifth Day of April, 1676_
Upon the village of Camylott there had rested since the earliest peep
of dawn a hush of affectionate and anxious expectancy, the very
plough-boys going about their labours without boisterous laughter, the
children playing quietly, and the good wives in their kitchens and
dairies bustling less than usual and modulating the sharpness of their
voices, the most motherly among them in truth finding themselves
falling into whispering as they gossiped of the great subject of the
hour.
"The swallows were but just beginning to stir and twitter in their
nests under the eaves when I heard the horses' hoofs a-clatter on the
high road," said Dame Watt to her neighbour as they stood in close
confab in her small front garden. "Lord's mercy! though I have lain
down expecting it every night for a week, the heart of me leapt up in
my throat and I jounced Gregory with a thump in his back to wake him
from his snoring. 'Gregory,' cries I, ''tis sure begun. God be kind to
her young Grace this day. There goes a messenger clattering over the
road. Hearken to his horse's feet.'"
Dame Bush, her neighbour, being the good mother of fourteen stalwart
boys and girls, heaved a lusty sigh, the sound of which was a thing
suggesting much experience and fellow-feeling even with noble ladies at
such times.
"There is not a woman's heart in Camylott village," said she, "which
doth not beat for her to-day--and for his Grace and the heir or heiress
that will come of these hours of hers. God bless all three!"
"Lord, how the tiny thing hath been loved and waited for!" said Dame
Watt. "'Tis somewhat to be born a great Duke's child! And how its
mother hath been cherished and kept like a young saint in a shrine!"
"If 'tis not a great child and a beauteous one 'twill be a wondrous
thing, its parents being both beautiful and happy, and both deep in
love," quoth motherly Bush.
"Ay, it beginneth well; it beginneth well," said Dame Watt--"a being
born to wealth and state. What with chaplains and governors of virtue
and learning, there seemeth no way for it to go astray in life or grow
to aught but holy greatness. It should be the finest duke or duchess in
all England some day, surely."
"Heaven ordains a fair life for some new-born things, 'twould seem,"
said Bush, "and a black one for others; and the good can no more be
escaped than the bad. There goes my Matthew in his ploughboy's smock
across the fields. 'Tis a good lad and a handsome. Why was he not a
great lord's son?"
Neighbour Watt laughed.
"Because thou wert an honest woman and not a beauty," quoth she.
The small black eyes set deep in Bush's broad red face twinkled
somewhat at the rough jest, but not in hearty mirth. She rubbed her
hand across her mouth with an awkward gesture.
"Ay," answered she, "but 'twas not that I meant. I thought of all this
child is born to--love and wealth and learning--and that others are
born to naught but ill."
"Lawk! let us not even speak of ill on such a day," said her neighbour.
"Look at the sky's blueness and the spring bursting forth in every
branch and clod--and the very skylarks singing hard as if for joy."
"Ay," said Joan Bush, "and look up village street to the Plough Horse,
and see thy Gregory and my Will and their mates pouring down ale to
drink a health to it--and to her Grace and to my lord Duke, and to the
fine Court doctors, and to the nurses, and to the Chaplain, and to old
Rowe who waits about to be ready to ring a peal on the church bells.
They'll find toasts enough, I warrant."
"That will they," said Dame Watt, but she chuckled good-naturedly, as
if she held no grudge against ale drinking for this one day at least.
'Twas true the men found toasts enough and were willing to drink them
as they would have been to drink even such as were less popular. These,
in sooth, were near their hearts; and there was reason they should be,
no nobleman being more just and kindly to his tenants than his Grace of
Osmonde, and no lady more deservedly beloved and looked up to with
admiring awe than his young Duchess, now being tenderly watched over at
Camylott Tower by one of Queen Catherine's own physicians and a score
of assistants, nurses, and underlings.
Even at this moment, William Bush was holding forth to the company
gathered about the door of the Plough Horse, he having risen from the
oaken bench at its threshold to have his pewter tankard filled again.
"'Tis not alone Duke he will be," quoth he, "but with titles and
estates enough to make a man feel like King Charles himself. 'Tis thus
he will be writ down in history, as his Grace his father hath been
before him: Duke of Osmonde--Marquess of Roxholm--Earl of Osmonde--Earl
of Marlowell--Baron Dorlocke of Paulyn, and Baron Mertoun of
Charleroy."
"Can a man then be six men at once?" said Gregory Watt.
"Ay, and each of him be master of a great house and rich estate. 'Tis
so with this one. 'Tis said the Court itself waits to hear the news."
Stout Tom Comfort broke forth into a laugh.
"'Tis not often the Court waits," says he, "to hear news so honest. At
Camylott Tower lies one Duchess whom King Charles did not make, thank
God, but was made one by her husband."
Will Bush set down his tankard with a smack upon the table before the
sitting-bench.
"She had but once appeared at Whitehall when his Grace met her and fell
deep in love that hour," he said.
"Was't not rumoured," said Tom Comfort, somewhat lowering his voice,
"that _He_ cast glances her way as he casts them on every young beauty
brought before him, and that his Grace could scarce hold his
tongue--King or no King?"
"Ay," said Will Bush, sharply, "his royal glance fell on her, and he
made a jest on what a man's joy would be whose fortune it was to see
her violet eyes melt in love--and his Grace went to her mother, the
Lady Elspeth, and besought her to let him proffer his vows to the young
lady; and she was his Duchess in ten months' time--and Madame Carwell
had come from France, and in a year was made Duchess of Portsmouth."
"Heard you not that she too--some three weeks past--?" quoth Comfort,
who was as fond of gossip as an old woman.
"Seventeen days gone," put in Bush; "and 'twas dead, by Heaven's mercy,
poor brat. They say she loses her looks, and that his Majesty tires of
her, and looks already toward other quarters." And so they sat over
their ale and gossiped, they being supplied with anecdote by his
Grace's gentleman's gentleman, who was fond of Court life and found the
country tiresome, and whose habit it was to spend an occasional evening
at the Plough Horse for the pleasure of having even an audience of
yokels; liking it the better since, being yokels, they would listen
open-mouthed and staring by the hour to his swagger and stories of
Whitehall and Hampton Court, and the many beauties who surrounded the
sacred person of his most gracious Majesty, King Charles the Second.
Every yokel in the country had heard rumours of these ladies, but Mr.
Mount gave those at Camylott village details which were often true and
always picturesque.
"What could be expected," he would say, "of a man who had lived in gay
exile through his first years, and then of a sudden was made a King,
and had all the beauties of England kneeling before him--and he with a
squat, black, long-toothed Portugee fastened to him for a wife? And
Mistress Barbara Palmer at him from his first landing on English soil
to be restored--she that was made my Lady Castlemaine."
And then he would relate stories of this beauteous fury, and her
tempestuous quarrels with the King, and of how 'twas known his ease and
pleasure-loving nature stood in terror of her violence and gave way
before it with bribes and promises through sheer weariness.
"'Tis not that he loves her best," said Mr. Mount, snuff-taking in
graceful Court fashion, "for he hath loved a dozen since; but she is a
shrew, and can rave and bluster at him till he would hang her with
jewels, and give her his crown itself to quieten her furies. 'Tis the
pretty orange wench and actor woman Nell Gwynne who will please him
longest, for she is a good-humoured baggage and witty, and gives him
rest."
'Twas not alone Charles who was pleased with Nell Gwynne. All England
liked her, and the lower orders best of all, because she was merry and
kind of heart and her jokes and open-handedness pleased them. They were
deep in the midst of a story of a poor gentleman in orders whom she
had rescued from the debtors' prison, when old Rowe, who had been
watching the road leading from the park gates, pricked up his ears and
left his seat, trembling with excitement.
"'Tis a horse galloping," he cried; and as they all turned to look he
flung his cap in the air. "'Tis the messenger," he burst forth, "and he
waves his hat in his hand as if he had gone mad with joy. Off go I to
the church tower as fast as legs will carry me."
And off he hobbled, and the messenger galloped onward, flourishing his
hat as he rode, and giving it no rest till he drew rein before the
Plough Horse door, and all gathered about him to hear his news.
"An heir--an heir!" he cried. "'Tis an heir, and as lusty as a young
lion. Gerald Walter John Percy Mertoun, next Duke of Osmonde! Hurrah,
hurrah, hurrah!"
And at the words all the men shouted and flung up their hats, the
landlord with his wife and children ran forth, women rushed out of
their cottages and cried for joy--and the bells in the old church's
grey tower swung and rang such a peal of gladness as sounded as if they
had gone wild in their ecstacy of welcome to the new-born thing.
In all England there was no nobleman's estate adorned by a house more
beautiful than was the Tower of Camylott. Through the centuries in
which it had stood upon the fair hill which was its site, there had
passed no reign in which a king or queen had not been guest there, and
no pair of royal eyes had looked from its window quite without envy,
upon the richly timbered, far reaching park and the broad lovely land
rolling away to the sea. There was no palace with such lands spread
before it, and there were few kings' houses as stately and beauteous in
their proportions as was this one.
The fairest room in the fair house had ever been the one known as her
Grace's White Chamber. 'Twas a spacious room with white panelled walls
and large mullioned windows looking forth over green hill and vale and
purple woodland melting into the blue horizon. The ivy grew thick about
the windows, and birds nested therein and twittered tenderly in their
little homes. The Duchess greatly loved the sound, as she did the
fragrance of flowers with which the air of the White Chamber was ever
sweet, and which was wafted up to it by each wandering breeze from the
flower-beds blooming on the terrace below.
In this room--as the bells in the church tower rang their joyous
peal--her young Grace lay in her great bed, her new-born child on her
arm and her lord seated close to her pillow, holding her little hand
to his lips, his lashes somewhat moist as he hung over his treasures.
"You scarce can believe that he is here," the Duchess whispered with a
touching softness. "Indeed, I scarce believe it myself. 'Twas not fair
of him to keep us waiting five years when we so greatly yearned for his
coming. Perhaps he waited, knowing that we expected so much from
him--such beauty and such wisdom and such strength. Let us look at him
together, love. The physician will order you away from me soon, but let
us see first how handsome he is."
She thrust the covering aside and the two heads--one golden and one
brown--pressed closer together that they might the better behold the
infant charms which were such joy to them.
"I would not let them bind his little limbs and head as is their way,"
she said. "From the first hour I spoke with his chief nurse, I gave her
my command that he should be left free to grow and to kick his pretty
legs as soon as he was strong enough. See, John, he stirs them a little
now. They say he is of wondrous size and long and finely made, and
indeed he seems so to me--and 'tis not only because I am so proud, is
it?"
"I know but little of their looks when they are so young, sweet," her
lord answered, his voice and eyes as tender as her own; for in sooth he
felt himself moved as he had been at no other hour in his life before,
though he was a man of a nature as gentle as 'twas strong. "I will own
that I had ever thought of them as strange, unbeauteous red things a
man almost held in fear, and whose ugliness a woman but loved because
she was near angel; but this one--" and he drew nearer still with a
grave countenance--"surely it looks not like the rest. 'Tis not so red
and crumple-visaged--its tiny face hath a sort of comeliness. It hath a
broad brow, and its eyes will sure be large and well set."
The Duchess slipped her fair arm about his neck--he was so near to her
'twas easy done--and her smile trembled into sweet tears which were
half laughter.
"Ah, we love him so," she cried, "how could we think him like any
other? We love him so and are so happy and so proud."
And for a moment they remained silent, their cheeks pressed together,
the scent of the spring flowers wafting up to them from the terrace,
the church bells pealing out through the radiant air.
"He was born of love," his mother whispered at last. "He will live amid
love and see only honour and nobleness."
"He will grow to be a noble gentleman," said my lord Duke. "And some
day he will love a noble lady, and they will be as we have been--as we
have been, beloved."
And their faces turned towards each other as if some law of nature drew
them, and their lips met--and their child stirred softly in its first
sleep.
_CHAPTER II_
"_He is the King_"
The bells pealed at intervals throughout the day in at least five
villages over which his Grace of Osmonde was lord--at Roxholm they
pealed, at Marlowell Dane, at Paulyn Dorlocke, at Mertounhurst, at
Camylott--and in each place, when night fell, bonfires were lighted and
oxen roasted whole, while there were dancing and fiddling and drinking
of ale on each village green.
In truth, as Dame Watt had said, he had begun well--Gerald Walter John
Percy Mertoun, Marquess of Roxholm; and well it seemed he would go on.
He throve in such a way as was a wonder to his physicians and nurses,
the first gentlemen finding themselves with no occasion for practising
their skill, since he suffered from no infant ailments whatsoever, but
fed and slept and grew lustier and fairer every hour. He grew so
finely--perhaps because his young mother had defied ancient custom and
forbidden his limbs and body to be bound--that at three months he was
as big and strong as an infant of half a year. 'Twas plain he was built
for a tall man with broad shoulders and noble head. But a few months
had passed before his baby features modelled themselves into promise
of marked beauty, and his brown eyes gazed back at human beings, not
with infant vagueness, but with a look which had in it somewhat of
question and reply. His retinue of serving-women were filled with such
ardent pride in him that his chief nurse had much to do to keep the
peace among them, each wishing to be first with him, and being jealous
of another who made him laugh and crow and stretch forth his arms that
she might take him. The Commandress-in-Chief of the nurses was no
ordinary female. She was the widow of a poor chaplain--her name
Mistress Rebecca Halsell--and she gratefully rejoiced to have had the
happiness to fall into a place of such honour and responsibility. She
was of sober age, and being motherly as well as discreet, kept such
faithful watch over him as few children begin life under.
The figure of this good woman throughout his childhood stood out from
among all others surrounding him, with singular distinctness. She
seemed not like a servant, nor was she like any other in the household.
As he ripened in years, he realised that in his earliest memories of
her there was a recollection of a certain grave respect she had seemed
to pay him, and he saw it had been not mere deference but respect, as
though he had been a man in miniature, and one to whom, despite his
tender youth, dignity and reason should be qualities of nature, and
therefore might be demanded from him in all things. As early as thought
began to form itself clearly in him, he singled out Mistress Halsell as
a person to reflect upon. When he was too young to know wherefore, he
comprehended vaguely that she was of a world to which the rest of his
attendants did not belong. 'Twas not that she was of greatly superior
education and manners, since all those who waited upon him had been
carefully chosen; 'twas that she seemed to love him more gravely than
did the others, and to mean a deeper thing when she called him "my lord
Marquess." She was a pock-marked woman (she having taken the disease
from her late husband the Chaplain, who had died of that scourge), and
in her earliest bloom could have been but plainly favoured. She had a
large-boned frame, and but for a good and serious carriage would have
seemed awkward. She had, however, the good fortune to be the possessor
of a mellow voice, and to have clear grey eyes, set well and deep in
her head, and full of earnest meaning.
"Her I shall always remember," the young Marquess often said when he
had grown to be a man and was Duke, and had wife and children of his
own. "I loved to sit upon her knee, and lean against her breast, and
gaze up into her eyes. 'Twas my child-fancy that there was deep within
them something like a star, and when I gazed at it, I felt a kind of
loving awe such as grew within me when I lay and looked up at a star in
the sky."
His mother's eyes were of so dark a violet that 'twas his fancy of them
that they looked like the velvet of a purple pansy. Her complexion was
of roses and lilies, and had in truth by nature that sweet bloom which
Sir Peter Lely was kind enough to bestow upon every beauty of King
Charles's court his brush made to live on canvas. She was indeed a
lovely creature and a happy one, her life with her husband and child so
contenting her that, young though she was, she cared as little for
Court life as my lord Duke, who, having lived longer in its midst than
she, had no taste for its intrigues and the vices which so flourished
in its hot-bed. Though the noblest Duke in England, and of a family
whose whole history was enriched with services to the royal house, his
habits and likings were not such as made noblemen favourites at the
court of Charles the Second. He was not given to loose adventure, and
had not won the heart of my Lady Castlemaine, since he had made no love
to her, which was not a thing to be lightly forgiven to any handsome
and stalwart gentleman. Besides this, he had been so moved by the
piteous case of the poor Queen, during her one hopeless battle for her
rights when this termagant beauty was first thrust upon her as lady of
her bedchamber, that on those cruel days during the struggle when the
poor Catherine had found herself sitting alone, deserted, while her
husband and her courtiers gathered in laughing, worshipping groups
about her triumphant rival, this one gentleman had sought by his
courteous respect to support her in her humiliated desolation, though
the King himself had first looked black and then had privately mocked
at him.
"He hath fallen in love with her," the Castlemaine had said afterwards
to a derisive group; "he hath fallen deep in love--with her long teeth
and her Portuguese farthingale."
"She needs love, poor soul, Heaven knows," the Duke returned, when this
speech was repeated to him. "A poor girl taken from her own country,
married to a King, and then insulted by his Court and his mistresses!
Some man should remember her youth and desolateness, and not forget
that another man has broke her heart and lets his women laugh at her
misfortunes."
'Twould have been a dangerous speech perhaps had a man of the Court of
Henry the Eighth made it, even to a friend, but Charles was too lightly
vicious and too fond of gay scenes to be savage. His brutality was such
as was carelessly wreaked on hearts instead of heads--hearts he
polluted, made toys of, flung in the mire or broke; heads he left on
the shoulders they belonged to. But he did not love his Grace of
Osmonde, and though his rank and character were such that he could not
well treat him with indignity, he did not regret that after his Grace's
marriage with the Lady Rosalys Delile he appeared but seldom at Court.
"He is a tiresome fellow, for one can find no fault with him," his
Majesty said, fretfully. "Odd's fish! fortune is on his side where my
house is concerned. His father fought at Edgehill and Marston Moor, and
they tell me died but two years after Naseby of a wound he had there.
Let him go and bury himself on his great estates, play the benefactor
to his tenantry, listen to his Chaplain's homilies, and pay stately
visits to the manors of his neighbours."
His Grace lived much in the country, not being fond of town, but he did
not bury himself and his fair spouse. Few men lived more active lives
and found such joy in existence. He entertained at his country seats
most brilliantly, since, though he went but seldom to London, he was
able to offer London such pleasures and allurements that it was glad to
come to him. There were those who were delighted to leave the Court
itself to visit Roxholm or Camylott or some other of his domains. Men
who loved hunting and out-of-door life found entertainment on the
estates of a man who was the most splendid sportsman of his day, whose
moors and forests provided the finest game and his stables the finest
horses in England. Women who were beauties found that in his stately
rooms they might gather courts about them. Men of letters knew that in
his libraries they might delve deep into the richest mines. Those who
loved art found treasures in his galleries, and wide comprehension and
finished tastes in their master.
And over the assemblies, banquets, and brilliant hunt balls there
presided the woman with the loveliest eyes, 'twas said, in England,
Scotland, Ireland, or Wales--the violet eyes King Charles had been
stirred by and which had caused him a bitter scene with my Lady
Castlemaine, whose eyes were neither violet nor depths of tender
purity. The sweetest eyes in the world, all vowed them to be; and there
was no man or woman, gentle or simple, who was not rejoiced by their
smiling.
"In my book of pictures," said the little Marquess to his mother once,
"there is an angel. She looks as you do when you come in your white
robe to kiss me before you go down to dine with the ladies and
gentlemen who are our guests. Your little shining crown is made of
glittering stones, and hers is only gold. Angels wear only golden
crowns--but you are like her, mother, only more beautiful."
The child from his first years was used to the passing and repassing
across his horizon of brilliant figures and interesting ones. From the
big mullioned window of his nursery he could see the visitors come and
go, he watched the beaux and beauties saunter in the park and
pleasaunce in their brocades, laces, and plumed hats, he saw the
scarlet coats ride forth to hunt, and at times fine chariots roll up
the avenue with great people in them come to make visits of state. His
little life was full of fair pictures and fair stories of them. When
the house was filled with brilliant company he liked nothing so much as
to sit on Mistress Halsell's knee or in his chair by her side and ask
her questions about the guests he caught glimpses of as they passed to
and fro. He was a child of strong imagination and with a great liking
for the romantic and poetic. He would have told to him again and again
any rumour of adventure connected with those he had beheld. He was
greatly pleased by the foreign ladies and gentlemen who were among the
guests--he liked to hear of the Court of King Louis the Fourteenth, and
to have pointed out to him those visitors who were personages connected
with it. He was attracted by the sound of foreign tongues, and would
inquire to which country a gentleman or lady belonged, and would thrust
his head out of the window when they sauntered on the terraces below
that he might hear them speak their language. As was natural, he heard
much interesting gossip from his attendants when they were not aware
that he was observing, they feeling secure in his extreme youth. He
could not himself exactly have explained how his conception of the
difference between the French and English Courts arose, but at seven
years old, he in some way knew that King Louis was a finer gentleman
than King Charles, that his Court was more elegant, and that the
beauties who ruled it were not merry orange wenches, or romping card
house-building maids of honour, or splendid viragoes who raved and
stamped and poured forth oaths as fishwives do. How did he know it--and
many other things also? He knew it as children always know things their
elders do not suspect them of remarking, but which, falling upon their
little ears sink deep into their tiny minds, and lying there like seeds
in rich earth, put forth shoots and press upwards until they pierce
through the darkness and flower and bear fruit in the light of day. He
knew that a certain great Duchess of Portsmouth had been sent over from
France by King Louis to gain something from King Charles, who had
fallen in love with her. The meaning of "falling in love" he was yet
vague in his understanding of, but he knew that the people hated her
because they thought she played tricks and would make trouble for
England if she led the King as she tried to do. The common people
called her "Madame Carwell," that being their pronunciation of the
French name she had borne before she had been made a Duchess. He had
once heard his nurses Alison and Grace gossiping together of a great
service of gold the King had given her, and which, when it had been on
exhibition, had made the people so angry that they had said they would
like to see it melted and poured down her throat. "If he must give it,"
they had grumbled, "he had better have bestowed it upon Madame Ellen."
Hearing this, my lord Marquess had left his playing and gone to the
women, where they stood enjoying their gossip and not thinking of him.
He stood and looked up at Alison in his grave little way.
"Who is Madame Ellen, Alison?" he inquired.
"Good Lord!" the woman exclaimed, aside to her companion.
"Why do the people like her better than the other?" he persisted.
At this moment Mistress Halsell entered the nursery, and her keen eye
saw at once that his young Lordship had put some question to his
attendants which they scarce knew how to answer.
"What does my lord Marquess ask, Grace?" she said; and my lord Marquess
turned and looked at herself.
"I heard them speak of Madame Ellen," he answered. "They said something
about some pretty things made of gold and that the people were angry
that they were for her Grace of Portsmouth instead of Madame Ellen. Why
do they like her better?"
Mistress Halsell took his hand and walked with him to their favourite
seat in the big window.
"It is because she is the better woman of the two, my lord," she said.
"Is the other one bad, then?" he inquired. "And why does his Majesty
give her things made of gold?"
"To pay her," answered Mistress Rebecca, looking thoughtfully out of
the window.
"For what?" the young Marquess asked.
"For--for that an honest woman should not take pay for."
"Then why does he love her? Is he a bad King?" his voice lowering as he
said it and his brown-eyed, ruddy little face grown solemn.
"A quiet woman in a place like mine cannot judge of Kings," she
answered; "but to be King is a grave thing."
"Grave!" cried he; "I thought it was very splendid. All England belongs
to him; he wears a gold crown and people kneel to kiss his hand. My
father and mother kneel to him when they go to the Court."
"That is why it is grave," said Mistress Rebecca. "All the people look
to him for their example. Because he is their head they follow him. He
can lead them to good or evil. He can help England to be honest or
base. He is the KING."
The little fellow looked out upon the fair scene spread before him.
Many thoughts he could not yet have found words for welled up within
him and moved him vaguely.
"He is the King," he repeated, softly; "he is the _King_!"
Mistress Rebecca looked at him with tender, searching eyes. She had,
through her own thoughts, learned how much these small
creatures--sometimes dealt with so carelessly--felt when they were too
young for phrases, and how much, also, they remembered their whole
lives through.
"He is the King," she said, "and a King must think of his people. A
Duke, too, must think of his--as his Grace, your father, thinks, never
dealing lightly with his great name or his great house, or those of
whom he is governor."
The boy climbed upon her knee and sat there, leaning against her as he
loved to do. His eyes rested on the far edge of the farthest purple
moor, behind which the sun seemed to be slipping away into some other
world he knew not of. The little clouds floating in the high blue sky
were rosy where they were not golden; a flock of rooks was flying
slowly homeward over the tree-tops, cawing lazily as they came. A great
and beautiful stillness seemed to rest on all the earth, and his little
mind was full of strange ponderings, leading him through labyrinths of
dreams he would remember and comprehend the deep meaning of only when
he was a man. Somehow all his thoughts were trooping round about a rich
and brilliant figure which was a sort of image standing to him for the
personality of his Most Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second--the
King who was not quite a King, though all England looked to him, and he
could lead it to good or evil.
_CHAPTER III_
_Sir Jeoffry Wildairs_
It was not common in those days for young gentlemen of quality to love
their books too dearly; in truth, men of all ranks and ages were given
rather to leaving learning and the effort to acquire it to those who
depended upon professions to gain their bread for them. Men of rank and
fortune had too many amusements which required no aid from books,
which, indeed, were not greatly the fashion. For country gentlemen
there was hunting, coursing, cock-fights, the exhilarating watching of
cudgelling bouts between yokels, besides visiting, and much eating and
drinking and smoking of tobacco while jovial, and sometimes not too
fastidious stories were told. When a man went up to town he had other
pleasures to fill his time, and whether he was a country gentleman
making his yearly visit or a fashionable rake and beau, his
entertainment was not usually derived from books, a man who spent much
time with them being indeed generally regarded as a milksop. But from
the time when he lay stretched upon his nursery floor and gazed at
pictures and lettering he had not learned to read, the little Marquess
had a fondness for books. He learned to read early, and once having
learned, was never so full of pleasure as when he had a volume to pore
over. At first he revelled in stories of magicians, giants, afrits, and
gnomes, but as soon as his tutors took him in hand he wakened every day
to some new interest. Languages ancient and modern he learned with
great rapidity, having a special fondness for them, and at thirteen
could speak French, high Dutch, and Italian excellently well for his
years, besides having a scholarly knowledge of Latin and Greek. His
tutor, Mr. Fox, an elderly scholar of honourable birth and many
attainments, was as proud of his talents and advancement as his female
attendants had been of his strength and beauty in his infancy. This
gentleman, whose income had been reduced by misfortune, who had lost
his wife and children tragically by one illness, and who had come to
undertake his pupil an almost brokenhearted man, found in the promise
of this young mind a solace he had never hoped to know again.
"I have taught young gentlemen before," he remarked privately to
Mistress Halsell--"one at least with royal blood in his veins, though
he was not called prince--but my lord Marquess has a fire I have seen
in no other. To set him to work upon a new branch of study is like
setting a flame to brushwood. 'Tis as though he burned his way to that
he would reach." The same fire expressed itself in all he did. He was
passionately fond of all boyish sports, and there was no bodily feat he
undertook which he did not finally perform better than others of his
age performed it. He could leap, run, fence, shoot at a mark; there was
no horse he could not ride, and at ten he stood as tall as a boy of
fourteen, and was stalwart and graceful into the bargain. Of his beauty
there could be no question, it being of an order which marked him in
any assembly. 'Twas not only that his features were of so fine a
moulding, that his thick hair curled about his brow in splendid rings,
and that he had a large deep eye, tawny brown and fearless as a young
lion's, but there was in the carriage of his head, the bearing of his
body, the very movement of his limbs a thing which stamped him. In
truth, it was as if nature, in a lavish mood and having leisure, had
built a human creature of her best and launched him furnished forth
with her fairest fortunes, that she might behold what he would do. The
first time he was taken by his parents to London, there was a day upon
which, while walking in the garden of Hampton Court, accompanied by his
governor, he found himself stopped by a splendid haughty lady, whom Mr.
Fox saluted with some fearfulness when she addressed him. She asked the
boy's name, and, putting her hand on his shoulder, so held him that
she might look at him well.
"The little Roxholm," she said. "Yes, his mother was the beauty who--"
'Twas as if she checked her speech. She made a quick, imperious
movement with her head, and added: "He is all rumour said of him;" and
she turned away with such abruptness that the child asked himself how
he had vexed her, and wondered also at her manners, he being used only
to grace and courtesy.
They were near the end of the terrace which looked upon the River
Thames, and she went with her companion and leaned upon the stone
balustrades, looking out upon the water with fierce eyes. "The woman
who could give him a son like that," she said, "could hold him against
all others, and demand what she chose. Squat Catherine herself could do
it."
Little Roxholm heard her.
"She is a very handsome lady," he said, innocently, "though she has a
strange way. Is she of the Court, and do you know her name?"
"'Tis her Grace the Duchess of Cleveland," answered Mr. Fox, gravely,
as they walked away.
He was seven years old at this time, and 'twas during this visit to
town that he heard a conversation which made a great impression upon
him, opening up as it did new vistas of childish thinking. Having
known but one phase of existence, he was not aware that he had lived
the life of a young prince in a fairy tale, and that there were other
children whose surroundings were as gloomy as his were fair and bright.
He was one day comfortably ensconced in the deep embrasure of a window,
a book upon his knee, when Mistress Halsell and one of the upper
servants came into the room upon which his study opened, and presently
his ear was attracted by a thing they were speaking of with some
feeling.
"As sweetly pretty a young lady as ever one beheld," he heard. "Never
saw I a fairer skin or eyes more hyacinth-blue--and her hair trailing
to the ground like a mantle, and as soft and fine as silk."
'Twas this which made him stop in his reading. The description seeming
so like that of a beauty in a story of chivalry in which knights fought
for such loveliness.
"And now," the voice went on, "after but a few years of marriage all
her beauty lost so that none would know her! Four poor, weak girl
infants she hath given birth to, and her husband, Sir Jeoffry, in a
fury at the coming of each, raging that it is not an heir. Before the
first came he had begun to slight her, and when 'twas born a girl he
well-nigh broke her heart. He is a great, bold, handsome man, and she,
poor little lady, hopeless in her worship of him. And the next year
there was another girl, and each year since--and Sir Jeoffry spends his
time in riot and drinking and ill-living--and she fades away in her
wing of the house, scarce ever seen."
"Poor, uncared-for thing, 'twould be happier if God took her, and her
children, too," said Mistress Halsell.
"Three have been taken," replied her companion, in a low voice.
"Neither she nor they have strength. And ah! to see her in these
days--her pretty face grown thin and haggard, the blue of her eyes
drenched out with weeping. 'Tis told he once said to her, 'When a woman
grows thin and yellow, her husband will go in search of better looks,
and none has right to blame him.' 'Twas on a day when she had dressed
herself in her best to please him, but a few weeks after her third
infant came into the world. And so weak was she, poor lady, and so hurt
in spirit, that she gave a little sob and swooned."
The young Marquess read his book no more. He drew down his handsome
childish brow and stared straight before him through the window. He was
a boy with a fiery spirit, despite his general amiability of demeanour,
and, had he lived among tormentors and tyrants and been ill-treated,
would have had an ungovernable temper. The thing he had heard filled
him with a kind of rage against this big handsome man who treated his
lady cruelly and hated her infants. 'Twas all brutal and wicked and
unfair, as if one should heartlessly beat a little dog that loved one.
The picture brought before him was hideous and made him grow hot. His
spirit had never been tamed, he had the blood of fighting men in his
veins, and he had read innumerable stories of chivalry. He wished he
were big enough to go forth in search of such men as this Sir Jeoffry,
and strike them to the earth with his sword.
On such evenings as their Graces did not entertain, he was taken by his
governour to spend an hour with his father and mother in the
withdrawing-room, where they sat, and on this evening, when he went to
them, each of them observed that he spoke less than usual and seemed in
a new mood. He had always been filled with a passionate adoration of
his mother, and was much given to following her with his eyes; but this
night his gaze was fixed upon her in such earnest scrutiny that at last
her Grace asked him laughingly what he saw in her looks more than
ordinary. He had kept very close to her, and had held her hand, and
kissed it more than once since he had been in the room. He lifted it to
his lips again now, and pressed an impassioned kiss upon its fairness.
"You were never treated cruelly," he said. "No one would ever dare to
speak so to you that you would sob and swoon. If any dared!" and his
little hand involuntarily went to his side with a fierce childish
gesture which made my lord Duke laugh delightedly.
"'Tis in his blood to draw," he said. "Bravo! Roxholm; bravo!"
His mother looked at his beautiful little face and, seeing a thing in
his eyes which women who are mothers detect in the eyes of their
offspring when others observe little, put a hand on each of his
shoulders and went upon one knee so that she could be on a level with
his face and see deeper.
"What," she said, with a tender comprehending warmth, "you have been
hearing of some poor lady who is hardly treated, and you cannot endure
to think of it, because you are a man even though you are but seven
years old;" and she bent forward and kissed him with a lovely passion
and her violet eyes bedewed. "Yes, love," she said, "you are a Man. All
Osmondes are when they are born, I think. Indeed, John"--with the
sweetest laughing look at her lord, who stood worshipping her from his
place at the opposite side of the hearth--"I am sure that when you were
seven years old, if you had had a little sword, you would have drawn it
to defend a woman against a giant, though he had been big enough to
have eaten you at one mouthful--and Gerald is like you," proudly.
"Gerald is a Man, too."
"'Tis not fair," cried little Roxholm, passionately, "'tis not fair
that a big gentleman should be so harsh to a poor lady who loves him,
that he should make her cry till the blue goes from her eyes and she is
beautiful no longer, and that he should hate her infants because they
are not boys. And when she tried to please him he made her sob and
swoon away. He should be killed for it--he should be killed."
His father and mother glanced at each other. "Surely," her Grace said,
"he must have heard of the wicked Gloucestershire baronet my Lord
Dunstanwolde told us stories of--Sir Jeoffry."
"Ay, his name was Sir Jeoffry," cried Roxholm, eagerly. "Sir Jeoffry it
was they said."
"Yes," said my lord Duke, "Sir Jeoffry Wildairs, and a rank, heartless
brute he is to be the father of helpless girl children."
_CHAPTER IV_
"_God Have Mercy on its Evil Fortunes_"
In the constantly changing panorama which passes before the mind of a
child, it is certain no picture dawns and fades without leaving some
trace behind. The exact images may not be recorded, but the effect
produced by their passing will remain and become part of the palimpsest
of life and character. The panorama which passed before the mental
vision of the boy Marquess during the years of his early youth was not
only brilliant but full of great changes, being indeed such a panorama
as could not fail to produce strong and formative impressions upon a
growing mind. The doings of Charles Stuart's dissolute and brilliant
Court he began life hearing stories of; before he had reached ten years
of age, King Charles had died and James the Second was ruler of
England; in three years more his Majesty had been deserted by all and
had fled to the protection of Louis of France, leaving his crown behind
him to be offered to and accepted by William of Orange and Mary, his
well-beloved wife; but four years later Queen Mary had died of
small-pox and left her husband overwhelmed with grief, crying that he
had been the happiest of men and was now the most miserable. Kings are
not made and deposed, crowned and buried and mourned, without pomps,
ceremonials, and the occurring of events which must move even the
common mind to observation and reflection. This young mind was of no
common mould, it having come into the world active and by nature ready
to receive impressions, and from its earliest consciousness had been
watched and cultured in such manner as must have enriched even the
poorest understanding. As children of ordinary rank are familiar with
games, and hear of simple every-day events that happen to their
neighbours, this heir to a dukedom was familiar with the game of Courts
and rulers and heard daily discussion of Kings and great statesmen--of
their rights and wrongs, their triumphs and failures. The changing
events made such discussion inevitable, and the boy, being through
their wise affection treated almost as the companion of his parents,
heard much important conversation which filled him with deep interest
and led him into grave thinking which greatly developed his powers of
mind. Among the many memories which remained with him throughout his
life, and which in his later years he realised, had left a singularly
definite image upon his mind, was this small incident of his first
hearing of the Gloucestershire baronet whose lady had wept the blue
from her eyes in her wretchedness under his brutal neglect and cruelty.
The impression doubtless owed much of its vividness to the fact that
'twas made so early as to be the first realising of the existence of a
world where misery dwelt as a common thing, where men were coarse and
cruel, where women were tyrannised over and treated roughly, and where
children were unloved and neglected. Into this world he had previously
obtained no glimpse; but, once having realised its existence, he could
not easily forget it. Often as time passed he found himself haunted by
thoughts of the poor injured lady and her children, and being a
creature of strong imagination, there would rise before him mental
pictures of what a household might be whose master was a coarse rioter
before whom his wife and children cowered in fear.
So it happened in his conversing with Mistress Halsell he broached the
subject of the Gloucestershire baronet, and the good woman, seeing that
his speech did not arise from idle curiosity, told him what she knew of
this most unhappy family.