"'Twould hurt any tender soul to see her," he said. "I am but a
man--and I think 'twas rage I felt--that such a thing should be cast to
ravening wolves."
"You," she cried, as if half alarmed; "you have seen her?"
"'Tis the beauty of Wildairs you speak of surely," he answered; "and I
have seen her once--and heard of her often."
"Oh, Gerald," said her Grace, "'tis cruel. If she had had a mother--if
God had but been good to her--" she put her hand up to her mouth to
check herself, in innocent dread of that her words implied. "Nay, nay,"
she said, "if I would be a pious woman I must not dare to say such
things. But oh! dearest one--if life had been fair to her, she--_She_
is the one you might have loved and who would have worshipped such a
man. It might have been--it might have been."
His colour died away and left him pale--he felt it with a sudden sense
of shock.
"It was not," he said, hurriedly. "It was not--and she is but
fourteen--and our lives lie far apart. I shall be in the field, or at
the French or Spanish Courts. And were I on English soil I--I would
keep away."
His mother turned pale also. Being his mother she felt with him the
beating of his blood--and his face had a strange look which she had
never seen before. She rose and went to him.
"Yes, yes, you are right," she exclaimed. "You could not--she could
not--! And 'twould be best to keep away--to keep away. For if you loved
her, 'twould drive you mad, and make you forget what you must be."
He tried to smile, succeeding but poorly.
"She makes us say strange things--even so far distant," he said.
"Perhaps you are right. Yes, I will keep away."
And even while he said it he was aware of a strange tumult in him, and
knew that, senseless as it might appear, a new thing had sprung to life
in him as if a flame had been lighted. And even in its first small
leaping he feared it.
'Twas a week later their Graces set forth upon their journey, and
though Roxholm rode with them to Dover, and saw them aboard the packet,
he always felt in after years that 'twas in the Long Gallery his mother
had bidden him farewell.
They stood at the deep window at the end which faced the west and
watched a glowing sunset of great splendour. Never had the earth spread
before them seemed more beautiful, or Heaven's self more near. All the
west was piled with heaps of stately golden cloud--great and high
clouds, which were like the mountains of the Delectable Land, and
filled one with awe whose eyes were lifted to their glories. And all
the fair land was flooded with their gold. Her Grace looked out to the
edge where moor and sky seemed one, and her violet eyes shone to
radiance.
"It is the loveliest place in all the world," she said. "It has been
the loveliest home--and I the happiest woman. There has not been an
hour I would not live again."
She turned and lifted her eyes to his face and put one hand on his
broad breast. "And you, Gerald," she said; "you have been happy. Tell
me you have been happy, too."
"For twenty-eight years," he said, and folded his hand over hers. "For
twenty-eight years."
She bent her face against his breast and kissed the hand closed over
her own.
"Yes--yes; you have been happy," she said. "You have said it often; but
before I went away I wanted to hear you say it once again," and as she
gazed up smiling, a last ray from the sinking sun shot through the
window and made a halo about her deep gold hair.
_CHAPTER XII_
_In Which is Sold a Portrait_
There are sure more forces in this Universe than Man has so far
discovered, and so, not dreaming of them, can neither protect himself
against, nor aid them in their workings if he would. Who has not
sometimes fancied he saw their mysterious movings and--if of daring
mind--been tempted to believe that in some future, even on this earth,
the science of their laws might be sought for and explained? Who has
not seen the time when his own life, or that of some other, seemed to
flow, as a current flows, either towards or away from some end, planned
or unplanned by his own mind. At one time he may plan and struggle,
and, in spite of all his efforts, the current sweeps him away from the
object he strives to attain--as though he were a mere feather floating
upon its stream; at another, the tide bears him onward as a boat is
borne by the rapids, towards a thing he had not dreamed of, nor even
vaguely wished to reach. At such hours, resistance seems useless. We
seize an oar, it breaks in the flood; we snatch at an overhanging
bough, it snaps or slips our grasp; we utter cries for help, those on
the bank pass by not hearing, or cast to us a rope the current bears
out of reach. Then we cry "Fate!" and either wring our hands, or curse,
or sit and gaze straight before us, while we are swept on--either over
the cataract's edge and dashed to fragments, or out to the trackless
ocean, to be tossed by wind and wave till some bark sees and saves
us--or we sink.
From the time of his mother's speech with him after her return from
Gloucestershire, thoughts such as these passed often through Roxholm's
mind. "It might have been; it might have been," she had said, and the
curious leap of blood and pulse he had felt had vaguely shocked him. It
scarcely seemed becoming that so young a creature as this lovely hoyden
should so move a man. 'Twas the fashion that girl beauties should be
women early, and at Court he had seen young things, wives and mothers
when they were scarce older; but this one seemed more than half a boy
and--and--! Yet he knew that he had been in earnest when he had said,
"I would keep away."
"I _know_," he had said to himself when he had been alone later; "I
_know_ that if the creature were a woman, 'twould be best that I should
keep away--'twould be best for any man to keep away from her, who was
not free to bear any suffering his passion for her might bring him. The
man who will be chief of a great house--whose actions affect the lives
of hundreds--is not free, even to let himself be put to the
torture"--and he smiled unconsciously the smile which was a little
grim.
He had seen and studied many women, and in studying them had learned to
know much of himself. He had not been so unconscious of them as he had
seemed. Such a man must meet with adventures at any time, and at a
period still tainted by the freedom of a dissolute reign, even though
'tis near twenty years past, his life, in his own despite, must contain
incidents which would reveal much to the world, if related to it.
Roxholm had met with such adventures, little as they were to his taste,
and had found at both foreign and English Courts that all women were
not non-attacking creatures, and in discovering this had learned that a
man must be a stone to resist the luring of some lovely eyes.
"I need not think myself invulnerable," he had thought often. "I can
resist because I have loved none of them. Had it chanced otherwise--God
have mercy on my soul!"
And now the current of his life for weeks seemed strangely set towards
one being. When he returned to London after seeing his parents depart
for Italy, he met in his first walk in the city streets his erst
fellow-collegian and officer, Lieutenant Thomas Tantillion, in England
on leave, who almost hallooed with joy at sight of him, shaking him by
the hand as if his arm had been a pump-handle, and then thrusting his
own arm through it, and insisting affectionately on dragging him along
the street that he might pour forth his renewed protestations of
affection and the story of his adventures.
"Never was I more glad to see a man," he said. "I'm damned if we
scapegraces have not missed thy good-looking face. Thou art a fine
fellow, Roxholm--and good-natured--ay, and modest, too--for all thy
beauty and learning. Many a man, with half thou hast, would wear grand
Court airs to a rattle-pated rascal like Tom Tantillion. Wilford does
it--and he is but a Viscount, and for all his straight nose and fine
eyes but five feet ten. Good Lord! he looks down on us who did not pass
well at the University, like a cock on a dunghill."
The Marquess laughed out heartily, having in his mind a lively picture
of my Lord Wilford, whose magnificence of bearing he knew well.
"Art coming back, Roxholm?" asked Tom next. "When does thy leave
expire?"
"I am coming back," Roxholm answered, "but I shall not long live a
soldier's life. 'Tis but part of what I wish to do."
"His Grace of Marlborough misses thee, I warrant," said Tom. "'Tis
often said he never loved a human thing on earth but John Churchill
and his Duchess, but I swear he warmed to thee."
"He did me honour, if 'tis true," Roxholm said, "but I am not vain
enough to believe it--gracious as he has been."
At that moment his volatile companion gave his arm a clutch and stopped
their walk as if a sudden thought had seized him.
"Where wert thou going, Roxholm?" he asked. "Lord, Lord, I was so glad
to see thee, that I forgot."
"What didst forget, Tom?"
Tom slapt his thigh hilariously. "That I had an errand on hand. A good
joke, split me, Roxholm! Come with me; I go to see the picture of a
beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes
in pawn, and lives in a garret in Rag Lane."
He was in the highest spirits over the adventure, and would drag
Roxholm with him, telling him the story as they went. The painter, who
was plainly enough a drunken rapscallion fellow, in strolling about the
country, getting his lodging and skin full of ale, now here, now there,
by daubing Turks' Heads, Foxes and Hounds, and Pigs and Whistles, as
signs for rustic ale-houses, had seen ride by one day a young lady of
such beauty that he had made a sketch of her from memory, and finding
where she lived, had hung about in the park to get a glimpse of her
again, and having succeeded, had made her portrait and brought it back
to town, in the hope that some gentleman might be taken by its charms
and buy it.
"He hath drunk himself down to his last groat, and will let it go for a
song now," said Tom. "I would get there before any other fellow does.
Jack Wyse and Hal Langton both want it, but they have gamed their
pockets empty, and wait till necessity forces him to lower his price to
their means. But an hour since I heard that he had pawned his breeches
and lay in bed writing begging letters. So now is the time to visit
him. It was in Gloucestershire he found her--"
He stopped and turned round.
"Hang me! 'Tis the very one Bet wrote of, and I read you the letter.
Dost remember it? The vixen who clouted the Chaplain for kissing her."
"Yes," said Roxholm; "I remember."
Tom rattled on in monstrous spirits. "I have had further letters from
Bet," he said, "and each is a sermon with the beauty's sins for a text.
The women are so jealous of her that the men could not forget her if
they would, they scold so everlastingly. Lord, what a stir the hoyden
is making!"
They turned into Rag Lane presently, and 'twas dingy enough, being a
dirty, narrow place, with high black houses on either side, their
windows broken and stuffed with bits of rag and paper, their doorways
ornamented with slatternly women or sodden-faced men, while up and down
ran squalid, noisy children under the flapping pieces of poor wearing
apparel hung on lines to dry.
After some questioning they found the house the man they were in search
of lived in, and 'twas a shade dingier than the rest. They mounted a
black broken-down stairway till they reached the garret, and there
knocked at the door.
For a few moments there was no answer, but that they could hear loud
and steady snores within.
"He is sleeping it off!" said Tom, grinning, and whacked loudly on the
door's cracked panels, by which, after two or three attacks, he
evidently disturbed the sleeper, who was heard first to snort and then
to begin to grumble forth drowsy profanities.
"Let us in," cried Tom. "I bring you a patron, sleepy fool."
Then 'twas plain some one tumbled from his bed and shuffled forward to
the door, whose handle he had some difficulty in turning. But when he
got the door open, and caught sight of lace and velvet, plumed hats and
shining swords, he was not so drunk but that which the sight suggested
enlivened and awaked him. He uttered an exclamation, threw the door
wide, and stood making unsteady but humbly propitiatory bows.
"Your lordships' pardon," he said. "I was asleep and knew not that such
honour awaited me. Enter, your lordships; I pray you enter."
'Twas a little mean place with no furnishings but a broken bedstead, a
rickety chair, and an uncleanly old table on which were huddled
together a dry loaf, an empty bottle, and some poor daubs of pictures.
The painter himself was an elderly man with a blotched face, a bibulous
eye, and half unclothed, he having wrapped a dirty blanket about his
body to conceal decently his lack of nether garments.
"We come to look at your portrait of the Gloucestershire beauty," said
Tom.
"All want to look at it, my Lord," said the man, with a leer, half
servile, half cunning. "There came two young gentlemen of fashion
yesterday morning, and almost lost their wits at sight of it. Either
would have bought it, but both had had ill luck at basset for a week
and so could do no more than look, and go forth with their mouths
watering."
Tom grinned.
"You painters are all rogues who would bleed every gentleman you see,"
he said.
"We are poor fellows who find it hard to sell our wares," the artist
answered. "'Tis only such as the great Mr. Kneller who do not starve,
and lie abed because their shirts and breeches are in pawn. When a man
has a picture like to take the fancy of every young nobleman in town,
he may well ask its value."
"Let us see it," cried Tom. "To a gentleman it may seem a daub."
The man looked at him slyly.
"'Twould pay me to keep it hid here and exhibit it for a fee," he said.
"The gentlemen who were here yesterday will tell others, and they will
come and ask to look at it, and then--"
"Show it to us, sir," said Roxholm, breaking in suddenly in his deeper
voice and taking a step forward.
He had stood somewhat behind, not being at first in the mood to take
part in the conversation, having no liking for the situation. That a
young lady's portrait should be stolen from her, so to speak, and put
on sale by a drunken painter without her knowledge, annoyed him--and
the man's leering hint of its future exhibition roused his blood.
"Show it to us, sir," he said, and in his voice there was that
suggestion of command which is often in the voice of a man who has had
soldiers under him.
The but half-sober limner being addressed by him for the first time,
and for the first time looking at him directly, gave way to a slight
hiccoughing start and strove to stand more steady. 'Twas no gay
youthful rake who stood before him, but plainly a great gentleman, and
most amazing tall and stately. 'Twas not a boy come to look at a
peep-show, but might be a possible patron.
"Yes, your lordship," he stammered, bowing shakily, "I--I will bring it
forth. Your lordship will find the young lady a wonder." He went
swaying across the room, and opened a cupboard in the wall. The canvas
stood propped up within, and he took it out and brought it back to
them--keeping its face turned away.
"Let me set it in as good a light as the poor place can give," he said,
and dragged forth the rickety-legged chair that he might prop it
against its back, for the moment looking less drunk and less a vagabond
in his eagerness to do his work justice; there lurking somewhere,
perhaps, in his besotted being, that love which the artist soul feels
for the labour of its dreams.
"In sooth, my lord, 'tis a thing which should have been better done,"
he said. "I could have done the young lady's loveliness more justice,
had I but had the time. First I saw her for scarce more than a moment,
and her face so haunted me that I sketched it for my own pleasure--and
then I hung about her father's park for days, until by great fortune I
came upon her one morning standing under a tree, her dogs at her feet,
and she lost in thought--and with such eyes gazing before her--! I
stood behind a tree and did my best, trembling lest she should turn.
But no man could paint her eyes, my lord," rubbing his head ruefully;
"no man could paint them. Mr. Kneller will not--when she weds a Duke
and comes to queen it at the Court."
He had managed to keep before the picture as he spoke, and now he
stepped aside and let them behold it, glancing from one to the other.
"Damn!" cried Tom Tantillion, and sprang forward from his chair at
sight of it.
My lord Marquess made no exclamation nor spoke one word. The painter
marked how tall he stood as he remained stationary, gazing. He had
folded his arms across his big chest and seemed to have unconsciously
drawn himself to his full height. Presently he spoke to the artist,
though without withdrawing his eyes from the picture.
"'Tis no daub," he said. "For a thing done hastily 'tis done well. You
have given it spirit."
'Twas fairly said. Indeed, the poor fellow knew something of his trade,
'twas evident, and perhaps for once he had been sober, and inspired by
the fire of what he saw before him.
She stood straight with her back against a tree's trunk, her hands
behind her, her eyes gazing before. She was tall and strong as young
Diana; under the shadow of her Cavalier hat, her rich-tinted face was
in splendid gloom, it seeming gloom, not only because her hair was like
night, and her long and wide eyes black, but because in her far-off
look there was gloom's self and somewhat like a hopeless rebellious
yearning. She seemed a storm embodied in the form of woman, and yet in
her black eyes' depths--as if hid behind their darkest shadows and
unknown of by her very self--there lay the possibility of a great and
strange melting--a melting which was all woman--and woman who was
queen.
"By the Lord!" cried Tom Tantillion again, and then flushed up boyishly
and broke forth into an awkward laugh. "She is too magnificent a beauty
for an empty-pocketed rascal like me to offer to buy her. I have not
what would pay for her--and she knows it. She sets her own price upon
herself, as she stands there curling her vermilion lip and daring a man
to presume to buy her cheap. 'Tis only a great Duke's son who may make
bold to bid." And he turned and bowed, half laughing, half malicious,
to Roxholm. "You, my lord Marquess; a purse as full as yours need not
bargain for the thing it would have, but clap down guineas for it."
"A great Duke's son!" "My lord Marquess!" The owner of the picture
began to prick up his ears. Yes, the truth was what he had thought it.
"The gentleman who owns this picture when the young lady comes up to
town that the world may behold her," he said, "will be a proud man."
"No gentleman would have the right to keep it if he had not her
permission," said Roxholm--and he said it without lightness.
"Most gentlemen would keep it whether she would or no," answered the
painter.
"Catch Langdon or Wyse giving it up," says Tom. "And Wyse said, that
blackguard Oxon was coming to see it because he hath made a bet on her
in open club, and hearing of the picture, said he would come to see if
she were worth his trouble--and buy her to hang in his chambers, if she
were--that he might tell her of it when he went to Gloucestershire to
lay siege to her. He brags he will persuade her he has prayed to her
image for a year."
"What is your price?" said my Lord Roxholm to the painter.
The man set one and 'twas high though 'twould not have seemed so in an
age when art was patronised and well paid for in a country where 'twas
more generously encouraged than in England in the days of good Queen
Anne. In truth, the poor fellow did not expect to get half he asked,
but hoped by beginning well to obtain from a Duke's son twice what
another gentleman would give him--and he was prepared to haggle, if
need be, for two hours.
But my lord Marquess did not haggle. There had come into his
countenance the look of a man who has made up his mind to take the
thing he wants. He drew forth his purse and paid down the sum in golden
guineas and bank-notes, the painter's eyes gloating as they were
counted on the table and his head growing giddy with his joy. He would
have enough to live drunk for a year, after his own economical methods.
A garret--and drink enough--were all he required for bliss. The picture
was to be sent forthwith to Osmonde House, and these directions given,
the two gentlemen turned to go. But at the door the Marquess paused and
spoke again.
"If any should come here before it is sent to me," he said, "remember
that 'tis already purchased and not on exhibition."
The artist bowed low a dozen times.
"On my sacred honour, your lordship," he replied, "none shall see it."
Roxholm regarded him for a moment as if a new thought had presented
itself to his mind.
"And remember also," he added, "if any should ask you to try to paint a
copy from memory--or to lie in wait for the young lady again and make
another--'tis better"--and his voice had in it both meaning and
command--"'tis far better to please a patron, than a purchaser who has
a momentary caprice. Live soberly and do honest work--and bring to me
what is worthy of inspection. You need not starve unless 'tis your
wish."
"My lord Marquess," cried the man; "your noble lordship," and he made
as if he would fall upon his knees.
Roxholm made a gesture towards the picture, still in its place upon the
crazy chair.
"I told you that was no daub," he said. "A man who can do that much can
do more if he has the spirit."
And his visitors went out and left the artist in his garret, the stormy
handsome creature gazing into space on one side, the guineas and
bank-notes on the dusty table; and after having reflected upon both for
a little space, he thrust his head out of the door and called for his
landlady, who having beheld two richly clad gentlemen come from the
attic, was inclined to feel it safe to be civil, and answering his
summons went up to him, and being called in, was paid her long unpaid
dues from the little heap on the table, the seeing of which riches
almost blinded her and sent her off willingly to the pawnbroker's to
bring back the pledged breeches and coat and linen.
"The tall gentleman with so superb an air," the poor man said, proudly,
trembling with triumphant joy, "is my lord Marquess of Roxholm, and he
is the heir of the ducal house of Osmonde, and promises me patronage."
When they passed out into the street and were on their way to St.
James's Park, Tom Tantillion was in a state of much interested
excitement.
"What shall you do with it, Roxholm?" he asked. "Have it set in a rich
gold frame and hung up on the gallery at Osmonde House--or in the
country? Good Lord! I dare not have carried her to my lodgings if I
could have bought her. She would be too high company for me and keep me
on my best manners too steady. A man dare not play the fool with such a
creature staring at him from the wall. 'Tis only a man who is a hero,
and a stately mannered one, who could stay in the same room with her
without being put out of countenance. Will she rule in the gallery in
town or in the country?"
"She will not be framed or hung, but laid away," answered Roxholm. "I
bought her that no ill-mannered rake or braggart should get her and be
insolent to her in her own despite when she could not strike him to his
knees and box his ears, as she did the Chaplain's--being only a woman
painted on canvas." And he showed his white, strong teeth a little in a
strange smile.
"What!" cried Tom. "You did not buy her for your own pleasure----?"
The Marquess stopped with a sudden movement.
"On my faith!" he exclaimed, "there is the Earl of Dunstanwolde. He
sees us and comes towards us."
_CHAPTER XIII_
"_Your--Grace_!"
"Come with me, Gerald, to Dunstan's Wolde," said my lord, as they sat
together that night in his town-house. "I would have your company if
you will give it me until you rejoin Marlborough. I am lonely in these
days."