over, "with a velvet coat and some gold lace, and a fine new periwig
scented with orris or jessamine, and a silver-gilt sword and a hat
cocked smartly, and a snuff-box, with a lady's picture in it. I will
give thee mine, and thou shalt boast of it in company."
He slapped his thigh and laughed till his red face grew purple.
"Nay," he said, "thy father was wrong. He said I was a fool to come,
for such as me and him was out of place in town, and fine ladies'
drawing-rooms would make us feel like stable-boys. He said I would be
heart-sick and shame-faced in twelve hours, and turn tail and come back
to Gloucestershire like a whipt dog--but I shall not, I swear, but
shall be merrier and in better heart than I have been since I was
young. It gets dull in the country, Clo," shaking his head, "when a man
gets old and heavy, and 'tis worst when he has no children left to keep
him stirring. I have took a good lodging in the town, and I will dress
myself like a Court gentleman and go to the coffee-houses and the play,
and hear the wits. And I shall watch thy coach-and-six drive by and
tell the company I was thy playmate when thou wert Clo Wildairs; and
thou art not too fine a lady, even now thou art a Court beauty and a
Countess, to be kind to an old fellow from the country."
He strutted away from the mansion, the proudest and happiest man in
London, giving his hat a jaunty cock and walking with an air, his old
heart beating high with joy to feel that this beautiful creature had
not forgot old days and did not disdain him. He went to tailors and
mercers and wig-makers and furnished himself forth with fine
belongings, and looked a town gentleman indeed when he came to exhibit
himself to my lady; and before long the Mall and the park became
familiar with his sturdy old figure and beaming country face, and the
beauties and beaux and wits began to know him, and that he had been one
of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs's companions in her Gloucestershire days,
and had now come to town, drawn simply by his worship of her, that he
might delight himself by looking on at her triumphs.
There were many who honestly liked his countrified, talkative good
nature, and inviting him to their houses made a favourite of him; and
there were others who encouraged him, to hear him tell his stories; and
several modish beauties amused themselves by coquetting with him, one
of these being my Lady Betty Tantillion, who would tease and ogle him
until he was ready to lose his wits in his elderly delight. One of her
favourite tricks was to pout at him and twit him on his adoration of my
Lady Dunstanwolde, of whom she was in truth not too fond; though she
had learned to keep a civil tongue in her head, since her ladyship was
a match for half a dozen such as she, and, when she chose to use her
cutting wit, proved an antagonist as greatly to be feared as in the
days when Lady Maddon, the fair and frail "Willow Wand," had fallen
into hysteric fits in the country mercer's shop.
"You men always lose your wits when you see her," she would say. "'Tis
said Sir John Oxon"--with a malicious little glance at that gentleman,
who stood near her ladyship across the room--"'tis said Sir John Oxon
lost more, and broke a fine match, and squandered his fortune, and sank
into the evilest reputation--all for love of her."
She turned to his Grace of Osmonde, who was near, waving her fan
languishing. "Has your Grace heard that story?" she asked. His Grace
approached smiling--he never could converse with this young lady
without smiling a little--she so bore out all the promise of her
school-girl letters and reminded him of the night when he had found her
brother, Ensign Tom, and Bob Langley grinning and shouting over her
homilies on the Gloucestershire beauty.
"Which one is it?" he said. "Your ladyship has been kind enough to tell
me so many."
"'Tis the one about Sir John Oxon and her ladyship of Dunstanwolde,"
she answered, with a pretty simper. "All Gloucestershire knew how they
were in love with each other when she was Mistress Wildairs--until she
cast him off for my Lord Dunstanwolde. 'Tis said she drove him to
ruin--but now he has come back to her, and all think she will remember
her first love and yield to him at last. And surely it would be a
pretty romance."
"Jack Oxon was not drove to ruin by her ladyship," cried Sir Chris;
"not he. But deep in love with her he was, 'tis sure, and had she been
any other woman she must have been melted by him. Ecod!" looking across
the room at the two, with a reflective air, "I wonder if she was!"
"But look at his eyes now," said my Lady Betty, giving a side glance at
his Grace. "They glow like fire, and wheresoever she moves he keeps
them glued on her."
"She doth not keep hers glued on him," said Sir Chris, "but looks away
and holds her head up as if she would not see him."
"That is her way to draw him to her," cried Lady Betty. "It drives a
man wild with love to be so treated--and she is a shrewd beauty; but
when he can get near enough he stands and speaks into her ear--low,
that none may listen. I have seen him do it more than once, and she
pretends not to hearken, but hears it all, and murmurs back, no doubt,
while she seems to gaze straight before her, and waves her fan. I heard
him speak once when he did not think me close to him, and he said,
'Have you forgot--have you forgot, Clorinda?' and she answered then,
but her words I did not hear." She waved her painted fan with a
coquettish flourish. "'Tis not a new way of making love," she said with
arch knowingness. "It hath been done before."
"He hath drawn near and is speaking to her now," said Sir Chris,
staring wonderingly, "but I swear it does not look like love-making.
He looks like a man who threatens."
"He threatens he will fall on his sword if she will not yield," laughed
Lady Betty. "They all swear the same thing."
My lord Duke moved forward. He had heard this talk often before during
the past weeks, and he had seen this man haunting her presence, and
always when he was near or spoke to her a strange look on her face, a
look as if she made some struggle with herself or him--and strangest of
all, though she was so gracious to himself, something in her eyes had
seemed to hold him back from speaking, as if she said, "Not yet--not
yet! Soon--but not yet!" and though he had not understood, it had
bewildered him, and brought back a memory of the day she had sate in
the carven gilded chair and delivered her lord's message to him, and
her eyes had pleadingly forbade him to come to Dunstan's Wolde while
her words expressed her husband's hospitable desire. His passion for
her was so great and deep, 'twas a fathomless pool whose depths were
stirred by every breath of her, and so he had even waited till her eyes
should say--"Now!"
He had moved towards her this moment, because she had looked up at him,
as if she needed he should come nearer. She rose from her seat, leaving
Sir John Oxon where he stood. His Grace moved quicker and they met in
the crowd, and as she looked up at him, he saw that she had lost a
little of her radiant bloom, and she spoke in a low voice like a girl.
"Will your Grace take me to my coach?" she said. "I am not well."
And he led her, leaning on his arm, through the crowd to Mistress Anne,
who was always glad to leave any assembly--the more brilliant they, the
readier she to desert their throngs--and he escorted them to their
coach, and before he left them asked a question gravely.
"Will your ladyship permit me," he said, "to wait on you to-morrow? I
would know that your indisposition has passed."
My lady answered him in a low voice from the coach; her colour had come
back, and she gave him her hand which he kissed. Then the equipage
rolled away and he entered his own, and being driven back to Osmonde
House said to himself gravely, over and over again, one
word--"To-morrow!"
But within two hours a messenger in the royal liveries came from
Kensington and as quickly as horses could carry him my lord Duke was
with her Majesty, whom he found agitated and pale, important news from
France having but just reached her. Immediate action was necessary,
and there was none who could so well bear her private messages to the
French Court as could the man who had no interest of his own to serve,
whom Nature and experience peculiarly fitted for the direction of
affairs requiring discretion, swiftness of perception, self-control,
and dignity of bearing. 'Twas his royal Mistress herself who said these
things to his Grace, and added to her gracious commands many
condescending words and proofs of confidence, which he received with
courtly obeisance but with a galled and burning heart.
And on the coming of the morrow he was on his way to Versailles, and my
Lady Dunstanwolde, having received news of the sudden exigency and his
departure, sate in her chamber alone gazing as into vacancy, with a
hunted look in her wide eyes.
_CHAPTER XXVI_
_A Dead Rose_
Sovereigns and their thrones, statesmen and their intrigues, favourites
and their quarrels--of what moment are they to a man whose heart is on
fire and whose whole being resolves itself into but one thought of but
one creature? My lord Duke went to France as he was commanded; he had
been before at Versailles and Fontainebleau and Saint Germain, and
there were eyes which brightened at the sight of his tall form, and
there were men who while they greeted him with courteous bows and
professions of flattering welcome exchanged side glances and asked each
other momentous questions in private. He went about his business with
discretion and diplomatic skill and found that he had no reason to
despair of its accomplishment, but all his thoughts of his errand,
though he held his mind steady and could reason clearly on them, seemed
to him like the thoughts of a man in a dream who only in his private
moments awakened to the reality of existence.
"'Twas Fate again," he said, "Fate! who has always seemed to stalk in
between! If I had gone to her on that 'to-morrow,' I should have
poured forth my soul and hers would have answered me. But there shall
be another to-morrow, and I swear it shall come soon."
There was but a few hours' journey by land, and the English Channel,
between himself and London, and there was much passing to and fro; and
though the French Court had stories enough of its own, new ones were
always welcome, English gossip being thought to have a special heavy
quaintness, droll indeed. The Court of Louis found much entertainment
in the Court of Anne, and the frivolities or romances of beauties who
ate beef and drank beer and wore, 'twas said, the coquettish commode
founded on lovely Fontange's lace handkerchief, as if it were a
nightcap.
"But they have a handsome big creature there now, who is amazing," they
said with interest at this time. "She was brought up as a boy at the
_château_ of her father, and can fight with swords like a man, but is
as beautiful as the day and seven feet tall. It would be a pleasure to
see her. She is at present a widow with an immense fortune, and all the
gentlemen fight duels over her."
Both masculine and feminine members of the Court were much pleased with
this lady and found her more interesting and exciting than any of her
sister beauties. Naturally many unfounded anecdotes of her were
current, and it was said that she fought duels herself. It was not
long before it was whispered that the handsome Englishman Monsieur le
Duc d'Osmonde, the red blonde giant with the great calm eyes, was one
of the two chief pretendants to this picturesque lady's favour. Thus,
as was inevitable, my lord Duke heard all the rumours from the English
capital in one form or another. Some of them were bitter things for him
to hear, for all of them more or less touched upon Sir John Oxon, who
seemed to follow her from playhouse to assembly and to dog her very
footsteps, while all the world looked on wondering, since her ladyship
treated him with such unrelenting coldness and disdain.
His Grace had much to do at this time and did it well, but the days
seemed long, and each piece of English gossip he heard recounted added
to the length of the twenty-four hours. Then there came a story which
created an excitement greater than any other, and was chattered over
with a vivacity which made him turn pale.
In London the wonderful Amazon Milady Dunstanwolde had provided the
town with a new example of her courage and daring spirit.
"There was a man who owned the most dangerous horse in the country--a
monster, a devil." So his Grace heard the history related for the first
time in a great lady's _salon_ to breathlessly delighted listeners.
"The animal was a horror of vice and temper, but beautiful, beautiful.
A skin of black satin, a form incomparable! He has three grooms who
take care of him, and all of them are afraid; he bites, he kicks, he
rises on his hind legs and falls on those who ride him. None but those
three men dare try to manage him. Each one is a wonderful rider and
hopes to win or subdue him. It is no use. One morning the first of the
three enters his stable and does not come out. He is called and does
not answer. Someone goes to look. He is there, but he lies in a heap,
kicked to death. A few days later the second one manages to mount the
horse, taking him by surprise. At first the animal seems frightened
into quietness. Suddenly he begins to run; he goes faster and faster,
and all at once stops, and his rider flies over his head and is taken
up with a broken neck. His owner, who is a horse dealer, orders him to
be shot, but keeps him for a few days because he is so handsome. Who,
think you, hears of him and comes to buy him? It is a lady. 'He is the
very beast I want,' she says. 'It will please me to teach him there is
someone stronger than himself.' Who is it?" asked the narrator,
striking her fair hands together in a sort of exultation.
"The Countess of Dunstanwolde!" broke in a voice, and all turned
quickly to look at the speaker. It was the Duke of Osmonde.
How did Monsieur le Duc know at once, they asked laughing, and he
answered them with a slight smile, though someone remarked later that
he had looked pale. He had known that she was a marvellous horsewoman,
he had seen her in the hunting-field when she had been a child, he had
heard of her riding dangerous animals before. Everyone knew that she
was without fear. There was no other woman in England who would dare so
much.
He spoke to them in almost ordinary tones, and heard their exclamations
of admiration or prophetic fright to the end, but when he had driven
homeward and was alone in his own apartment he felt himself cold with
dread.
"And I wait here at the command of a Queen," he said, "and cannot be
loosed from my duty. And Fate may come between again--again!"--and he
almost shuddered the next instant as he heard the sound which broke
from his lips, 'twas so like a short, harsh laugh which mocked at his
own sharp horror. "'Tis not right that a woman should so play with a
man's soul," he cried fiercely; "'tis not fair she should so lay him on
the rack!"
But next, manlike, his own anguish melted him.
"She does not know," he said. "If she _knew_ she would be more gentle.
She is very noble. Had I spoke with her on that to-morrow, she would
have obeyed the commands my love would lay upon her."
"My Lady Dunstanwolde," he heard a day later, "has vowed to conquer her
great horse or be killed by it. Each day she fights a battle with it in
the park, and all the people crowd to look on. Some say it will kill
her, and some she will kill it. She is so strong and without fear."
"To one of her adorers she laughed and said that if the animal broke
her neck, she need battle with neither men nor horses again. The name
of her horse is Devil, and he is said to look like one. _Magnifique!_"
laughed the man who spoke.
By the third day, his Grace of Osmonde's valet began to look anxious.
He had attended his master ten years and had never seen him look as he
did in these days. His impression was that his Grace did not sleep,
that he had not slept for several nights. Lexton had heard him walking
in his room when he ought to have been in bed; one thing was certain,
he did not eat his meals, and one thing Lexton had always affirmed was
that he had never known a gentleman as fine and regular in his habits
as his Grace, and had always said that 'twas because he was so regular
that he was such a man as he was--so noble in his build and so clear in
his eye, and with such a grand bearing.
At last, turns up in the street young Langton, who had run over to
Paris, as he had a habit of doing when he was out of humour with his
native land, either because his creditors pressed him, or because some
lady was unkind. And he stopped my lord Duke in the Rue Royale, filled
to the brim with the excitement of the news he brought fresh from
London.
"Has your Grace heard of my Lady Dunstanwolde's breaking of the horse
Devil?" he cried. "The story has reached Paris, I know, for I heard it
spoke of scarce an hour after my arrival. On Tuesday I stood in Hyde
Park and watched the fight between them, and I think, God knows! that
surely no woman ever mounted such a beast and ran such danger before.
'Tis the fashion to go out each morning and stand looking on and laying
wagers. The stakes run high. At first the odds were all against my
lady, but on Tuesday they veered and were against the horse. How they
can stand and laugh, and lay bets, Heaven knows!" He was a good-natured
young fellow and gave a little shudder. "I could not do it. For all her
spirit and her wrists of steel, she is but a woman and a lovely
creature, and the horse is so great a demon that if he gets her from
his back and beneath his feet--good Lord! it makes me sick to think of
it." He shook his shoulders with a shudder again. "What think you," he
cried, "I heard Jack Oxon wager? He hath been watching her day after
day more fierce and eager than the rest. He turned round one moment
when the beast was doing his worst and 'twas life and death between
them. And she could hear his words, too, mark you. 'A thousand pounds
against fifty,' he says with his sneering laugh; 'a thousand pounds
that she is off his back in five minutes and that when she is dragged
away, what his heels have left of her will bear no semblance to a
woman!"
"Good God!" broke from the Duke. "This within her hearing! Good God!"
"In my belief 'twas a planned thing to make her lose her nerve," said
the young fellow. "'Tis my belief he would gloat over the killing of
her, because she has disdained him. Why is there not some man who hath
the right to stop her--I--" his honest face reddened--"what am I to
dare to speak to such a lady in advice. I know it was an impudence, and
felt it one, your Grace, but I plucked up courage to--to--follow her
home, and says I, bowing and as red as a turkey-cock, 'My lady, for the
Lord's sake give up this awfulness. Think of them that love you. Sure
there must be some heart you would tear in two. For God's sake have
pity on it wheresoever it be, though I beg your ladyship's pardon, and
'tis impudence, I know.'"
My lord Duke caught his hand and in the passionate gratitude of the
grasp he gave it forgot his own strength and that Bob was not a giant
also.
"God bless you!" he cried. "God bless you! You are a brave fellow! I--I
am her kinsman and am grateful. God bless you, man, and call on Gerald
Mertoun for a friend's service when you need it."
And he strode away, leaving Bob Langton staring after him and holding
his crushed hand tenderly, but feeling a glow at his heart, for 'tis
not every day a careless, empty-pocketed young ensign is disabled by
the grasp of a Duke's hand, and given his friendship as the result of a
mere artless impulse of boyish good-nature.
His Grace strode homeward and called Lexton to him.
"We go to England within an hour," he said. "We may remain there but a
day. Not a moment is to be lost. 'Tis of most serious import."
When he entered Osmonde House, on reaching the end of his journey, the
first person he encountered was Mr. Fox, who had just come in from Hyde
Park, where he had spent the morning.
"I have been there each day this week, your Grace," he said, and his
lips trembled somewhat as he wiped his brow. "It hath seemed to me all
the town hath been there. I--your Grace's pardon--but I could not stay
away; it seemed almost a duty. But I would gladly have been spared it.
The worst is over." And he wiped his brow again, his thin, clerical
countenance pale. "They say the horse is beat; but who knows when such
a beast is safe, and at this moment she puts him through his paces, and
they all look on applauding."
His Grace had rung the bell. "Bring Rupert," he commanded. "Rupert."
And the beast was brought without delay--as fiery a creature as the
horse Devil himself, yet no demon but a spirited brute, knowing his
master as his master knew himself; and my lord Duke came forth and
flung himself upon him, and the creature sprang forward as if they had
been one, and he felt in every nerve that his rider rode with heart
beating with passion which was resolute to overleap every obstacle in
its way, which had reached the hour when it would see none, hear of
none, submit to none, but sweep forward to its goal as though 'twere
wind or flame.
A short hour later all the town knew that my Lady Dunstanwolde had
sealed her brilliant fate. And 'twas not Sir John Oxon who was
conqueror, but his Grace of Osmonde, who, it seemed, had swept down
upon her and taken possession of his place by her side as a King might
have descended on some citadel and claimed it for his own. Great
Heaven! what a thing it had been to behold, and how those congratulated
themselves who had indeed beheld it--my lord Duke appearing upon the
scene as if by magic, he who had been known to be in France, and who
came almost at full gallop beneath the trees, plainly scarce seeing the
startled faces turned at the sound of his horse's hoofs, the hats which
were doffed at sight of him, the fair faces which lighted, the lovely,
hurried courtesies made, his own eyes being fixed upon a certain point
on the riding-road where groups stood about and her ladyship of
Dunstanwolde sat erect and glowing upon the back of her conquered
beast, the black horse Devil!
"Zounds, 'twas like a play!" cried Sir Christopher, gloating over it
when 'twas past. "There rides my lady like an empress, Devil going as
dainty as a dancing-master, and all the grandees doffing hats to her
down the line. And of a sudden one man hears hoofs pounding and turns,
and there he comes, my lord Duke of Osmonde, and he sees but one
creature and makes straight for her--and she doth not even hear him
till he is close upon her, and then she turns--blushing, good Lord! the
loveliest crimson woman ever wore. And in each other's eyes they gaze
as if Heaven's gate had opened, and 'twas not earth that was beneath
their horses' feet, and both forgot that poor plain flesh and blood
stood looking on!"
"Lud!" minced Lady Betty, applauding with her fan. "We must have it
made into a play and Mrs. Bracegirdle shall perform it."
"My old heart thumped to see it!" said Sir Chris; "it thumped, I
swear!" and he gave his stout side a feeling blow. "All her days I have
known her, and it came back to me how, when she was but a vixen of
twelve we dubbed her Duchess, and, ecod! the water came into my eyes!"
"Because she was a vixen, or because you called her Duchess?" said my
Lady Betty, with her malicious little air.
Sir Christopher stared at her; there was a touch of moisture in his old
eyes, 'twas true!
"Nay," he said, bluntly, "because she is such a damned fine woman, and
'tis all come true!"
The words these two had exchanged before the eyes of the world only
themselves could know--they had been but few, surely, and yet in ten
minutes after their first speech all those who gazed knew that the tale
was told. And as they rode homeward together beneath the arching trees
and through the crowded streets, their faces wore such looks as drew
each passer-by to turn and gaze after them, and to themselves the whole
great world had changed; and of a surety, nowhere, nowhere, two hearts
beat to such music, or two souls swayed together in such unison.
When they rode into the court at Dunstanwolde House, the lacqueys,
seeing them, drew up in state about the entrance.
"Look you," said, in an undertone to his fellow, one of the biggest and
sauciest of them, "'tis her Grace of Osmonde who returns, and we may be
a great Duke's servants if we carry ourselves with dignity."