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_No. 77_] =APPLETONS'= [_50 cts._
TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY July 15, 1891 $10.00 PER ANNUM
MAID MARIAN
_And Other Stories_
BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
AUTHOR OF THROCKMORTON, LITTLE JARVIS, Etc.
[Illustration]
ENTERED AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK AS SECOND-CLASS MAIL MATTER
D. APPLETON & CO., NEW YORK
* * * * * *
MISS SEAWELL'S BOOKS.
THROCKMORTON.
A novel presenting a strong study of contrasting characters, by an
author intimately acquainted with her scene and background--the
Virginia of the years immediately following the war. Paper, 50
cents; specially bound in cloth, $1.00.
"The incidents are of great interest, well-imagined, and admirably
carried out. But the notable feature of the book is the rare charm of
its literary expression. The language is full of grace and wit and
delicate sensibility. To read is to be beguiled."--_New York Sun._
"The pages of 'Throckmorton' are alive with picturesque sketches. Its
humor is never forced, and its pathos is never overdone. It is a novel
to linger over."--_The Critic._
"A charming story. The author has used good English, and the reader
yields to the fascination of her style."--_The Book Buyer._
"There are many quaintly humorous touches, chief among them the
terrible frankness of the delightful old Mrs. Sherrard. The pathos
is simple and sincere. Temple Freke is as real and as fascinating a
personage as has sauntered into literature for many a day. Daring
flashes of unconventional common-sense wait to surprise the reader on
dozens of pages."--_Boston Transcript._
"Strong in motive, and equally strong in conception and construction.
The author's style is charmingly easy, and the story is altogether
delightful."--_Boston Times._
"'Throckmorton' seems to be the product of a writer so rich in
resources of character, motives, and localities, that a restraining
hand is ever apparent."--_St. Paul Pioneer-Press._
"Altogether, one of the ablest of the Town and Country
Library."--_Montreal Gazette._
LITTLE JARVIS.
The story of the heroic midshipman of the frigate Constellation.
The second of the _Youth's Companion_ prize stories. Illustrated
by J. O. Davidson and George Wharton Edwards. 8vo. Cloth, with
specially designed cover, $1.00.
"Miss Seawell owns a very capable and a very delicate pen."--_New York
Sun._
"The little book is one of the very best the season has brought
us."--_Detroit Free Press._
"A pathetic, charming tale. 'Little Jams' will thrill many a boy's
heart...."--_Brooklyn Standard-Union._
"The story of the heroism and death of Little Jarvis will thrill the
heart of every reader."--_Boston Home Journal._
_For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by mail on receipt of
price by the publishers_,
=D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York=.
* * * * * *
MAID MARIAN
AND OTHER STORIES
by
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
Author of Throckmorton, Little Jarvis, etc.
[Illustration]
New York
D. Appleton and Company
1891
COPYRIGHT, 1891,
bY D. APPLETON aND COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MAID MARIAN 5
LITTLE MISSY 43
THE SEA FORTUNES OF DICKY CAREW 57
THE KOURÁSOFFS 80
A VIRGINIA COLONEL 109
THE VALBELLA BROTHERS 129
THEODORA 151
TUBAL THE FIDDLER 183
PRISCILLA 198
KAINTUCK 220
MAID MARIAN.
Yes, it was surely the embodiment of feminine beauty--the dark,
narrow-lidded eyes, wide apart--did you ever notice the terrible
intelligence in the eyes of a portrait?--the slim patrician nose, the
hair so quaintly coifed with pearl, the uplifted hand: no wonder that
Macfarren gazed at it with something like reverence. You will be apt
to imagine that Macfarren was an enthusiast, possibly with darkly
curling hair and of a Byronic-Dantesque cast of countenance. Quite
the contrary. He was a keen-witted, hard-headed New York lawyer fast
galloping out of his forties--a well-made, well-dressed man, with a
clear-cut, sensible face. His hair had been trifled with by the hand of
Time, and what remained is not worth describing.
Nor was the place sanctified by the lady Marian's portrait a Norman
abbey, nor yet a battlemented castle. It was a room sliced off from
the place where the housemaids kept their brooms and dust-pans on
the third floor of a New York hotel. Macfarren had kept those rooms
for twenty years. Meanwhile, bachelors' flats had sprung up all over
town, but he was conservative and kept his modest suite of two rooms
until the advent of the Lady Marian made another room a necessity.
For the portrait was so large--a full-length--and so conspicuous
that it would have monopolized the whole of the cosey sitting-room.
Besides, Macfarren had a--superstition, perhaps--something about the
portrait which made him shrink from exposing it to the vulgar gaze
of the waiters and bell-boys who saw the inside of his room, and the
jokes--how he would have chafed under them!--of the good fellows who
came in occasionally for a quiet smoke and chat.
It seemed as if Destiny had had a share in giving to him the Lady
Marian. Some years before, loitering in England, he had wandered into
King's Lyndon, an old show-place in one of the midland counties and
had seen this picture. It made a strange impression on him; and he was
singularly unsusceptible to anything but ideas: they always impressed
him tremendously. He was surprised and almost ashamed of the hold
this face took upon him. He carried it in his mind through fifteen
years, and once or twice when he had been arguing a case before a
learned judge the sedate, black figure on the bench had become Lady
Marian, resplendent in white and pearls, and he had experienced a queer
sensation as if he were pleading his cause to her instead of to the
honorable court. And the other day on a flying trip to London he had
suddenly come across her in an auction-room where a sale of antiques
and curios was going on, and, with a recklessness entirely foreign to
his natural conservatism, he had bought her at a high figure--bought
his divinity of fifteen years for hard cash. He had also hired a
room for her, and, coming home to dinner on this particular evening,
when, for the first time she hung in beauty on his walls, he entered
the place made glorious by her presence, and, carefully closing the
door after him, stood in homage before her. He had been smoking, but
an instinctive reverence made him remove his cigar from his lips. He
looked long and steadily. This picture had helped him to understand
himself. Would he have otherwise known that under this cool exterior,
this nature so distinctly intellectual, existed a sentiment so deep, so
strong, so romantic? It came home to him that he was very like those
old pagans who first took statues as their symbols and then came to
worship the symbols. Then he looked into the eyes, and presently the
eyes looked at him, loftily, yet not unkindly. And then--ah! sweet,
strange, delicious moment--the lips parted into a dazzling smile!
Macfarren, moving mechanically like a sleep-walker, picked up a small
lighted lamp from a table near, although the gas in a gaudy chandelier
flared brightly above him, and examined the picture. He put the lamp
down carefully. He was a member of the Nineteenth Century Club, and
had heard some queer talk about psychology and theosophy which had
impressed him as being rather more baseless and extravagant than Jack
and the Bean-stalk. What, then, was this? He walked rapidly into the
outer sitting-room, locked the door, and returned. And there, sitting
gracefully upright in a chair, was the Lady Marian.
Something common to worshipers in all ages happened to Macfarren. He
fell on his knees. Lady Marian seemed in no wise disconcerted, and,
leaning forward, held out her hand. Macfarren kissed passionately the
warm pink palm.
"Friend," said she, in a soft and composed voice, "how came I hither?"
The question confused Macfarren hopelessly. He dared not tell her that
he had bought her--that she came in a box which was opened in the
custom-house, and that he had paid a thirty-per-cent _ad valorem_ duty
on her. He was inexpert as a liar, although quick at diplomacy. He
could only murmur, after an awkward pause, "I do not know."
"The last thing I remember," said Marian, looking around the unfamiliar
room with calmly inquisitive eyes, "was a ball at Kenilworth, whither I
went with Lady Stukely. My Lord of Leicester told me that our sovereign
lady Queen Bess had signified that she would not excuse me from my turn
of duty as bed-chamber-woman; and then he drank to my success at court
in red wine, and I drank too. And I was moderate--I only drank two
small flagons of red wine, a tankard of sack, and one poor half-gallon
of good mulled ale."
Lady Marian uttered this quite composedly, but to say that Macfarren
was completely staggered is hardly putting it strong enough,
particularly as she finished up by adding with an air of charming
modesty, "I was too bashful to take more!"
Macfarren gasped as he looked at her, but if she had told him that she
had drank a brewery dry, it could not have dissolved the instant magic
charm that her grace and beauty had laid softly upon him. In fact his
only comment when the Lady Marian looked at him inquiringly, as if to
ask his opinion, was--
"That's little enough, Lady Marian, if one is thirsty."
This astounding fib did not seem to strike Lady Marian as a fib at all,
and she only asked eagerly:
"Think you the wine was drugged?"
Having entered on his career as a liar, there was now no retreat for
Macfarren. Moreover, he was really at a loss for opinions, and his only
resource was to lie, promptly, thoroughly, and consistently.
"I think not," he replied, humbly. "A lady of rank would scarcely be
so treated in the house of her friends, and besides," he added, with
the mendacity of a man in love. "You drank so little--not more than a
gallon altogether."
Marian's countenance assumed a look of genuine relief.
"They would hardly dare to play so scurvy a trick on the daughter of
Lord Howard de Winstanley. And, although I have heard dark tales of
what was done to Amy Robsart--thou dost know Amy, the daughter of Sir
John Robsart of Cumnor Hall?"
"I have heard of her," replied Macfarren, and, his self-possession
returning, he added, boldly, "through Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford."
"Of what shire, pr'ythee?" asked Marian.
Macfarren had not practiced law at the New York bar for twenty years
without being able to extricate himself from a tight place. He
really could not recall for the moment what county in Scotland held
Abbotsford, but he replied, at a venture:
"In Perthshire. Have you never heard of Melrose Abbey, near Jedburgh?"
Marian shook her head and glanced at Macfarren with something like
scorn in her clear eyes.
"I belike me not of the Scotch. It is a false and treacherous race,
they say. They come to England and tell us they have noble castles
and stately manor-houses in Scotland, and, forsooth, they are nothing
more than hovels and swineherds' cottages. The Abbotsford of which Sir
Walter told thee is like enough a huntsman's lodge."
"Indeed it is not," said Macfarren, earnestly. "It is a magnificent
baronial hall. I have been there myself, and," he added, feeling
obliged to say something in defense of Sir Walter Scott's character,
"Sir Walter is a--er--a most respectable person."
"'Tis likely," replied Lady Marian, half scornfully, "and this
Abbotsford, no doubt, is well furnished with household stuff he ravaged
from English homes over the border. I think I have heard of him--and
that he is but little better than a border ruffian."
Macfarren, seeing it was impossible to rehabilitate Sir Walter's
character, wisely refrained from further efforts in that direction.
"Thou art an Englishman, I see," she said, after a moment, "although
thy speech is not like that about King's Lyndon. Mayhap thou art from
London. Thy sober dress makes me think thou art from the Middle Temple."
This was extremely fortunate for Macfarren, who feared at every moment
she would discover he was not of noble blood, and that therefore he
should be scorned of her.
"I am a barrister," he answered eagerly.
Marian smiled sweetly: "Some ladies of rank condemn lawyers for mere
clerks and scriveners, but my father, the Lord Howard de Winstanley,
tells me that at court, Queen Bess doth treat them like lords and
gentlemen--and, although they rank not with the nobility, yet are they
equal with the gentry and the churchmen. Hast thou been to London ever?"
"I was there only three weeks ago," said Macfarren promptly.
Marian's eyes sparkled. "How doth the queen? Didst thou go to court?
Are the ruffs and fardingales as huge as ever? How of my Lord Essex, in
Ireland?"
"The queen was very well," said Macfarren.
"Where didst thou see her?" demanded Marian, before Macfarren, who was
about to give her an account of the Earl of Essex's adventures in
Ireland, could add a word.
"In--in Westminster Abbey," said Macfarren lamely. This was a wretched
subterfuge, but it satisfied Marian, who exclaimed:
"And who attended her? Was it at nooning or evening service? And has
she aged, as much I fear she hath?"
"She looked just as she has for a long, long time, ever since I first
saw her," said he, desperately. Clearly, she would ask embarrassing
questions. "But," he added, artfully, "I was not presented to her, nor
did she even honor me with a glance."
Marian smiled: "Poor queen! her eyesight doth somewhat fail. But,
friend, what is thy name? and is there no entertainment to be had here?"
Macfarren had never before been ashamed of his name, but he wished
he could have said he was a Cecil, a Fairfax, a Beauclerk, or any
other proud Elizabethan name. He could only say, with a kind of proud
humility:
"My name is Macfarren, and I and all that is mine are at your service."
"Well said!" cried Marian. "But tell me, whose roof doth now shelter
me? Whose house is this?"
"It is an ho--an inn," answered Macfarren.
"And a good hostelry, I do think," said Marian, glancing around,
"though not like the inns of Suffolk. But, since thou wast in London
lately, we can not be far from there."
"Only seven days," replied Macfarren, with nervous audacity.
"But seven days! Then can my father come for me, if thou wilt send a
messenger by post!"
"Indeed I will," responded Macfarren, with a sinking heart and a guilty
conscience as he uttered this last colossal falsehood.
"And now," said Marian, as if entirely satisfied with the proposed
arrangement, "let us see what victual mine host can provide. Beshrew me
if I have tasted aught since we dined, at an hour before noon."
Macfarren looked furtively at his watch. It was half-past six--just his
dinner-hour. It would be easy enough to take Marian down to dinner, if
he could get one of the score of pleasant married women in the hotel
with whom he was on friendly terms to go with her; and, although it is
always awkward to suggest a chaperon to a girl, yet it must be done.
"We will go to the dining-room immediately. But I must secure a
chaperon for you. That would be necessary, you know, to prevent talk,"
said Macfarren.
"A chaperon?" asked Marian, wonderingly. "Is it a head-covering, lest
the wind should rumple my coif? Or is it one of the new coaches brought
from France, in which I hear the nobility take the air?"
"It is neither," answered Macfarren, feeling anxious that no objection
should be made to the arrangement. "It is a married lady to attend
you--" He halted, but Marian took it up at once.
"A lady-in-waiting, meanest thou? If she is of suitable rank I shall be
well pleased. At King's Lyndon I had two damsels, daughters of knights,
to wait on my pleasure. Whom wilt have to attend me?"
Macfarren went through with a rapid mental calculation. A brilliant
idea suddenly came to him. Mrs. Dietrick Van Tromp, one of the most
distinguished women of New York society, had come to the hotel for
a few days while her Fifth Avenue mansion was in the hands of the
decorators. He knew her, and knew her weakness for the English
aristocracy. She dearly loved a lord, and, next to that, any member of
a peer's family. So, after an instant's thought, he responded:
"I'll get Mrs. Dietrick Van Tromp."
Marian seemed anything but struck by the name.
"And who is Dame Van Tromp?" she demanded, haughtily.
Macfarren was a brave man, but at that he quaked. Mrs. Dietrick
Van Tromp's husband was a silent partner in one of the greatest
silk-importing firms in New York, and, although Mrs. Van Tromp
considered the fact that her husband's name did not appear in the
firm-name relieved him from the stigma of work, yet it would be hard to
make that nice distinction clear to Marian. So, after an uneasy pause,
Macfarren could only blurt out:
"She is the wife of a silk-merchant."
Lady Marian surveyed him with a wide-eyed amazement, not unmixed with
contempt.
"A mercer's wife to attend the daughter of Lord Howard de Winstanley?
Nay, hadst thou not better call the kitchen scullion to keep her
company? Friend, I like thee well, but I fear thou art a stranger to
good company."
Macfarren, thoroughly abashed, remained silent, while a burning blush
came to his face. The unmerited scorn of this lovely girl was hard to
bear.
"Dost thou not know some one of rank to keep me company?" she asked,
presently, with some petulance.
Macfarren ran hastily over in his mind a half-dozen names of the wives
of titled and untitled Englishmen then in New York whom he had met in
society. No, none of them would do; and, besides, he could not take the
liberty.
"Dear lady," he said, after an embarrassed pause, "I myself am a
commoner. I have no title except that of a gentleman and an honest man.
I can not stoop to ask favors of those with whom my acquaintance is but
slight. I offer you the protection of people like myself. You will not
want for respect among them."
At this Marian jumped up with the greatest animation. "Now, by my
faith, I see thou art truly a gentleman, no matter what thy birth may
be; for birth is but an accident. But honor, wisdom, and valor are no
accidents. Nor is that noble science, the art of being a gentleman,
an accident, and, although I will not go with the mercer's wife, yet
will I go alone with thee--for I see thou art both learned and polite;
and look you, friend, for all that I value my place, I esteem honor,
wisdom, and valor more than anything else in the world." And then,
laughing, she added, "Hunger doth pinch me, and thou must take me
quickly to the banqueting-hall to appease this gnawing."
Macfarren smiled too. A nature so noble as hers could easily cast
aside the fetters of conventional rank. She evidently believed in the
great republic of merit, although she could not formulate her belief.
She rose and moved gracefully forward to the door which Macfarren
held open respectfully for her. As she passed by him into the clearer
light of the little drawing-room and the brilliant corridor beyond, he
received a kind of electric shock at her extreme loveliness. She wore
a trailing gown of brocaded satin, and her long hanging sleeves were
lined with crimson velvet and trimmed with swan's-down. A mighty ruff
encircled her neck, and her hair was curiously arranged with pearls.
Her slender hands were crossed before her. As she stepped out in the
hall she noticed the carpet, which had escaped her observation before.
She started back.
"What! dost thou lay fine cloths upon the floor instead of rushes? I
would like to have a gown of this rich stuff when I go to court. Canst
thou not buy me enough for a train, or even a petticoat?"
"Certainly, with pleasure," said Macfarren.
"But will it not cost a prince's ransom?" cried Marian, anxiously,
stooping down and picking up a small rug that lay before the door.
"Think how my lady Stukely would fume if she saw me with a petticoat of
this queenly stuff."
She held the rug up before her in admiration, but, as if suddenly
ashamed of her childishness, dropped it and walked rapidly down the
corridor, Macfarren keeping at her side. Macfarren knew but little of
the dress of women, and, having seen many startling costumes in New
York society of late years, flattered himself that his companion's
guise was not much out of the ordinary run. But his illusion vanished
when Mrs. Dietrick Van Tromp swept out, gorgeous in dinner-dress, from
a door opening on the corridor. He saw at once that she was stricken
with surprise, and, as she bowed to him, her eyes asked, expressively:
"Who is she?"
Nor was Marian one whit less impressed with the descendant of the
Knickerbockers. She gave one comprehensive glance of admiration, and
whispered hurriedly to Macfarren:
"What noble dame is that?"
Macfarren felt a certain malicious pleasure as he answered, _sotto
voce_:
"That is Mrs. Dietrick Van Tromp, the lady who I suggested should
attend you to the table."
Marian's countenance changed to one of angry and amazed disgust.
"If mercers' wives dress thus, how can they be told from queens and
princesses?" she inquired, haughtily.
"They can't," responded Macfarren, "except that queens and princesses
are usually much less toploftical."
"But," demanded Marian, "are there not sumptuary laws that forbid the
daughters of tradesmen and merchants from wearing stuffs reserved for
the nobility and gentry?"
"There has been a very strong effort to pass sumptuary laws in Ohio
and Georgia and Maine and Kansas, but they have generally proved
inoperative," answered Macfarren. Seeing, however, his companion's
puzzled look, he hastened forward and said, "Ah! there is the elevator."
Mrs. Van Tromp had preceded them, and stood by the door. As Marian
and Macfarren approached, the former gave her a look of unmistakable
disdain, which, to Macfarren's horror, was supplemented by a command
given in a clear and self-possessed voice:
"Give place, madam."
Mrs. Van Tromp made no reply, but glanced, stupefied for a moment, at
Macfarren, who turned pale and then red. A flush rose to her face, and,
without replying, she turned half around from Marian and rang the bell
again.
The elevator then appeared at the top of the opening, and slowly
descended.
Marian's look of scorn and disdain gradually changed to one of genuine
alarm. She clutched Macfarren nervously by the arm. Her breath came
in short, quick gasps, and as the elevator boy threw the sliding door
open she almost shrieked. Mrs. Van Tromp, without noticing either
Macfarren or his companion, calm as if nothing out of the common run
had occurred, stepped in and began coolly arranging a stray lock of
her hair before the mirrors with which the elevator was lined. The boy
waited, the rope in his hand, looking impatiently at Macfarren. A lucky
idea flew into Macfarren's mind.
"If you don't get in, she'll think you are afraid," he whispered.
The effect was magical. Marian raised her lovely, proud head and
stepped gingerly in, the boy shut the door with a loud whack, and,
with a vicious pull at the rope, they began to descend. Macfarren saw,
however, by the tightly compressed lips and the hands fiercely clinched
to prevent their trembling, that Marian was suffering all the tortures
of a proud soul in a paroxysm of fear. Surreptitiously he saw her
make the sign of the cross on her breast. He dared not address Mrs.
Van Tromp, who, though blandness itself in her air and countenance,
yet, indicated dangerous possibilities; so to all three the ride was
uncomfortable and the atmosphere surcharged with electricity.
The elevator stopped at the door of the dining-room. This opened on
a broad, square corridor, red-carpeted, the lofty ceiling and walls
elaborately frescoed. The dining-room itself was a noble apartment,
seating five hundred persons, blazing from end to end with crystal
chandeliers which were reflected in great mirrors placed at intervals.
It was full of that subtile flavor of luxury peculiar to the best
American hotels. The broad doorway, with its folding leaves wide open,
was guarded by a magnificent person who looked like a major-general
in plain clothes, but who was really the head waiter; and from within
this huge doorway poured a flood of warm light, of soft chatter, of
delicious and enticing odors.
But here a terrible development seemed likely to occur. Mrs. Van Tromp,
with a slight and supercilious inclination of her head, was about to
step out, as the elevator-boy flung the door open with a bang.
But Marian was too adroit for her. With an indescribably quick and
graceful motion she too made for the door. The elevator-boy, with a
delighted grin, gave way for the two ladies. He hoped to witness one
of those feminine wrangles which sometimes vary the monotony of hotel
life. The two ladies stood up boldly facing each other. Marian spoke
first.
"Madam, what may your name be?"
Mrs. Van Tromp paused for a moment. Should she reply to her or not? But
a glance at the beauty and undeniable elegance of the new-comer, and
a knowledge of Macfarren's position in the world, seemed to determine
that the enemy before her was worthy of her steel. So she replied, in
her stateliest manner:
"I am not aware of any obligation that I am under to tell you my name;
but, if it affords you any peculiar pleasure, I will say that I am Mrs.
Dietrick Van Tromp. Now, will you be good enough to let me pass?"
"Nay, are you not a silk-merchant's wife, madam?" asked Marian,
holding her ground stoutly.
An angry blush rose to Mrs. Van Tromp's cheek. This was clearly
unendurable.
"I am. Nor have I ever had occasion to blush for any of my husband's
commercial transactions; and I insist" (in the tone of "I command")
"that you let me pass."
"Let you pass before the daughter of Lord Howard de Winstanley? Madam,
if even for the sake of blessed peace I let you pass, would I not do my
lineage wrong, my order wrong? Is not the law of precedence well fixed?
Good lack! when peddlers' wives take the way of peers' daughters, then
will there be fine coil."
Mrs. Van Tromp started back as if she had been shot. She turned to
Macfarren with a look which said, "Explain." Macfarren saw the road to
peace open.
"May I present to you the Lady Marian de Winstanley, of King's Lyndon,
in Suffolk?" Feeling obliged to say something more, he added, "The Lady
Marian is unused to our methods, and--a--does not fully--"
But Mrs. Van Tromp relieved him of the embarrassment of proceeding
further. She held out her hand to Marian with a brilliant smile. "How
am I to apologize?" she said. "I didn't comprehend. How rude you
must have thought me! Of course Lady Marian could not be expected to
understand our methods."
"Ah!" said Marian, with beautiful condescension, "although our ways
differ, I make no doubt that humble folk have as many sterling virtues
as the nobility and gentry."
"Yes," said Mrs. Van Tromp, thinking her new acquaintance's remark
included herself, Mrs. Van Tromp, among the gentry anyhow. "Of course
we are very new, and society, outside of a small set in New York and
a few families at Newport, is crude. Fortunately, here we have an old
Knickerbocker circle--"
"Knicker--what?" asked Lady Marian, somewhat saucily.
"Bocker," answered Mrs. Van Tromp, affably.
"Knickerbocker: The old Dutch families. We try to keep
to ourselves as much as possible--and we have the
AssociationofcolonialdamesthedaughtersoftheAmericanrevolution--" Mrs.
Van Tromp rattled this and several other names off volubly, although
she had heretofore maintained a carefully acquired English slowness of
speech, and wound up with--
"But unluckily, we have no hereditary nobility."
"Yet," responded Marian, "you do ape us wonderfully well. I have not
seen many mercers' wives who looked the noble dame like you."
Mrs. Van Tromp did not know whether to be pleased or not with this
remark; but it is hard to fall out with peers' daughters, and, besides,
from Lady Marian's occasional use of "thee" and "thou" she rashly
assumed that she was one of the dozen or so members of the society of
Friends in the English Peerage, and she knew plain speaking was a
characteristic of the Friends. So she only laughed brightly and said:
"You'll certainly take the _pas_ now."
Lady Marian, nothing loath, stepped out of the elevator.
Mrs. Van Tromp turned to whisper to Macfarren, "So charming! So unique!
I declare, I knew her to be a person of high rank the very moment I saw
her. And wasn't it kind of her to excuse my rudeness? Pray add your
apologies to mine."
Macfarren, with a sardonic grin, agreed.
They were now standing in the corridor. A dozen or more men were
passing back and forth, giving their hats and coats to the young man
who presided over the shelf-like arrangement of such articles, stopping
to chat with one another, and all gazing with unfeigned admiration
at Macfarren's companion. He nodded to them carelessly, while Mrs.
Van Tromp carefully avoided seeing them, especially those who came
suspiciously near her. She meant to monopolize this precious scion of
the nobility herself. Already before her delighted vision came the
dream of a visit to King's Lyndon, and the charms of her next season in
London. Four times had she crossed the ocean in vain, and never had she
been able to get presented at court; but this lucky accident might do
the whole business for her.
"My friend," said Marian, turning to Macfarren, "I would not thou
shouldst think me fearful,--my grandsire drew a mighty bow at Bosworth
Field, and none of my race have a drop of craven blood,--but I feared
me yon contrivance was something supernatural. Tell me, was there
anything of the black art in it? I made me the sign of the cross, that
doth keep devils at bay; but the thing I saw was marvelous."
"It is perfectly right," said Macfarren, glad to relieve her. "It was
all done with a rope and pulley. But let us go in to dinner."
"Thou shalt walk by my side," said Marian to Mrs. Van Tromp. "Thou
seest I am not always the proud creature thou took'st me for."
The association with the great had its disadvantages, thought Mrs. Van
Tromp as she accepted this gracious condescension, but its advantages
were too obvious to be overlooked. So, with much satisfaction, she
supported Marian on the left, while Macfarren walked by her on the
right. Marian took an opportunity to whisper to Macfarren, "I tolerate
her only for your sake," in a tone which made him thrill with delight.
At the doorway the head-waiter saluted them with a profound bow. Marian
stopped short, and, carefully disposing of her train, made in return a
courtesy so deep and so graceful that every eye was turned on her. As
they passed on, she said, "I know neither the name nor the rank of the
person I courtesied to, but I am sure he hath an air of breeding."
When they entered the room everybody's attention was fixed upon them.
Marian bore the scrutiny with perfect composure. Like all truly
beautiful women, she seemed superbly unconscious of it, and, as she
swept with majestic grace toward the upper part of the room, Macfarren
glowed with pride at presenting so much dignity and loveliness to an
admiring world. When they reached Mrs. Van Tromp's table, that lady
gave unmistakable signs of a willingness to leave her own table for
the privilege of dining with Lady Marian and Macfarren; but Macfarren,
albeit the most courteous of men, had a fund of polite resolution that
had more than once brought Mrs. Van Tromp and other grand dames to bay.
He meant to have a _tête-à-tête_ with Marian: so, with consummate tact,
he managed to leave Mrs. Van Tromp in the lurch and to take his seat
with Marian at a table at the very top of the room. He had a design in
this which quickly bore fruit. Marian remarked with pleasure that the
top of the room was given her without dissent. There was no one at the
table except themselves.
When they were seated, and the waiter had handed them each a _menu_
card, Macfarren observed that Marian was deeply puzzled by hers.
"What may this mean?" she asked. "It is not English, nor French, nor
Latin, although it doth somewhat resemble all three. Or is it," she
asked, archly, "a madrigal writ in my honor?"
"No," said Macfarren, smiling; "although, if one could write at all,
one might be inspired by such a theme."
It was an old, old compliment, but it was evidently new to Marian, who
smiled, and said, "Thou hast a dainty wit."
Macfarren concluded not to trouble her about the _menu_, as she
probably knew nothing about it: so he beckoned to the waiter, and said,
"Turtle-soup for both." The waiter vanished.
Marian had not ceased to gaze about her with an air of surprised
admiration.
"Never saw I so fine an hostelry before," said she. "Art thou not
deceiving me, and is not this the house of some feudal prince?"
"Indeed it is not," replied Macfarren, earnestly. "It is nothing but an
inn, I assure you."
"And all these gayly-costumed people--are they not persons of
consideration?"
"Some of them are," answered Macfarren, "but most of them are merchants
and traders."
Just then the waiter brought a tiny silver-plated tureen of soup and
set it down before them. At that moment Macfarren caught sight of Mrs.
Van Tromp at the next table but one, who smiled coquettishly at him
and held up a glass of red wine in expressive pantomime. But, while he
was watching her, he saw a sudden change come over her face--a look
of paralyzed astonishment: she sat, her hand holding the wineglass
suspended in the air, a silhouette, motionless against the background,
and rigid with amazement. Macfarren turned to his companion, and saw
at once. Marian had raised the tureen to her dainty mouth, and was
drinking the turtle-soup without the formality of a soup-plate or a
tablespoon.
Macfarren was of a nature too loyal to see anything to excite mirth in
this unexpected breach of custom in the woman he had loved for fifteen
years: he only felt a blind and furious anger against those who might
make her a subject of ridicule. Marian, however, had no suspicion of
what was passing in his mind, but, after draining the tureen, set it
down with a sigh of satisfaction, saying, "By my faith, that was a
royal dish of broth."
Mrs. Van Tromp's horrified amazement was bad enough, but when Macfarren
turned and saw James, his waiter for ten years, heretofore a model of
gravity and discreetness, with his mouth stretched from ear to ear
convulsed with silent laughter, he could scarcely refrain from braining
him with the water-decanter before him. In an instant James saw the
dangerous look in Macfarren's eye, and, as if by magic, his countenance
assumed its look of wonted stolidity, but not until Macfarren had
hissed at him, in an aside, "Confound your infernal insolence, if you
smile again I'll break every bone in your rascally body." James was an
arrant coward, and not a tremor appeared upon the placid surface of
his countenance during the rest of the dinner--not even when he handed
Macfarren a card from Mrs. Van Tromp, on which was scrawled, "_Quite
unconventional, but so high-bred._"
Then came the ordering of the dinner. Macfarren, without consulting
his _vis-à-vis_, did it all. He did not bother with the _entrées_, but
required plain roast beef, potatoes, and plum-pudding.
Meanwhile Marian continued to gaze around with delight. Macfarren
felt at every moment the subtile charm of her exquisite womanhood.
Understanding as he did the reason of her peculiar ignorance of
every-day matters, nothing she did shocked him. Marian talked gayly and
unreservedly, and promised him a wild boar's head for his Christmas
dinner if he came to King's Lyndon. "And, though they may want to place
thee with the clerks and the chaplain," she said, smiling, "I will have
thee above the salt with me, for I see thou hast the heart and soul as
well as the manners of a gentleman."
In a few minutes the simple dinner ordered by Macfarren came. Marian's
eyes glistened as they rested on the roast beef. "That came from a
goodly baron of roast beef; but where is the ale wherewith to wash it
down?" she asked.
Macfarren, with a terrible recollection of Marian's performances in
the ale-drinking line, hastily took up the wine-list, marked off two
bottles of Bass's ale, and handed it to the obsequious James, who
disappeared and in a few moments returned with it. He fetched glasses
with a flourish, and, drawing the cork, the creamy flood poured into
the tumbler at Marian's plate. This, however, did not seem to please
Marian. Looking around, she saw near by a pitcher. "Bring me yon
tankard," she said to James. James, warned by the light in Macfarren's
eye, brought the pitcher. Marian, quietly pouring all of the ale in
her glass, and all left in the bottle, into the pitcher, James in a
twinkling opened the other bottle and poured it in also, when, lifting
the pitcher as she had done the tureen of soup to her rosy lips, she
drank the quart of ale in a single breath.
Macfarren's agony of pity was painful to him. The idea that she
would be laughed at inspired him with frenzy. Yet, having perfect
self-control, he gave no outward indication of the tumult within him,
and managed to say in quite his ordinary voice to Marian, "Won't you
let me give you some of this roast beef?"
"In faith I will," responded Marian, with alacrity, and, reaching over,
she picked up a large slice of rare beef in her fingers and began
munching it with much enjoyment. Macfarren was past being flustered
then.
"Won't you have some potatoes?" he asked, politely.
"Some--what didst thou say?"
"Potatoes. Just try some."
"What strange stuff is that? Will it not give me a palsy, or the
falling sickness? Methinks I have heard they were poisonous."
"They are excellent and very wholesome," said Macfarren, helping her,
and gently thrusting a fork into her hand. "Sir Walter Raleigh brought
them from--from--" he felt a strange hesitation at saying the word
"America."
"Then will I try them," said Marian, dropping the fork and taking a
spoon. "Dost thou know Sir Walter?" asked she, while busily engaged in
munching the beef and ladling up the potatoes.
"I know all about him," said Macfarren.
"And my Lord Cecil of Burleigh?"
"Oh, yes. A very great man. Sir Walter I take to be one of the noblest
characters of the reign of Queen Bess."
"Then," said Lady Marian, bridling, and laying down her spoon, "thou
must have strange notions of loyalty. Sir Walter is a dangerous man;
and if the queen should let him out from the Tower, where he now
languishes in just punishment for his crimes, the realm will rue it. He
hath dealings with the devil, hath Sir Walter."
A sudden idea came to Macfarren. "Have you ever heard," he asked,
eagerly, "of a maker of plays at the Globe Theatre, in Blackfriars--one
William Shakespeare?"
"I have heard of him," carelessly replied Marian--"an indifferent good
player. Our lady the queen hath taken some small notice of him. For my
part, I wonder she should trouble about a beggarly strolling play-actor
like this Jack Shakespeare. Now, Ben Jonson hath writ good plays, and
he is of better birth and breeding than Tom Shakespeare--or Jack, or
what you will."
The depth of Macfarren's infatuation may be judged when he let this
speech pass unchallenged.
Although Marian ate heartily, yet the dinner was comparatively short,
and Macfarren had no idea of ordering any dessert but the pudding.
Before he knew it, however, the table had been cleared, and James had
placed before them not only plum-pudding, but a strawberry ice and
a dish of nuts and raisins. Lady Marian attacked the nuts first,
cracking them between her small strong white teeth like a squirrel,
and then said to Macfarren, "Lend me thy dagger for the pudding."
Macfarren gazed at her stupidly. "Hast not thou a dagger?" she asked,
impatiently. "These pointless blades I see here can cut nothing. Feel
in thy belt."
Mechanically Macfarren put his hand in his pocket, and, drawing out his
penknife, opened the largest blade, and handed it to her. This seemed
to pacify Marian, who with the assistance of her fingers, speedily
disposed of the pudding.
Then came the strawberry ice. With a silent but dreadful apprehension
Macfarren watched her, and when something between a shriek and a
groan pierced the air, he was the only person in the dining-room who
was not surprised. Marian had gulped down half the plateful at once.
Clapping her hands to her face, she rocked back and forth in her chair,
evidently suffering agony. Several ladies half rose from their chairs;
the head-waiter rushed forward; but Mrs. Van Tromp was already on the
spot, holding Marian's hands.
"Dear Lady Marian, tell us what it is," she asked, in soothing tones.
"I know not," said Marian, faintly. "I think it must have been that
evil stuff called potatoes. As soon as I had swallowed it I felt
a giddiness, my head whirled, and I have heard it hath subtle and
dangerous qualities."
"It couldn't have been the potatoes, do you think?" said Mrs. Van
Tromp. "Perhaps it was the ale."
"Thou art a fool," responded Marian, tartly. "Dost thou think a Howard
de Winstanley so lily-livered that one poor beaker of ale--and weak at
that--could do this mischief?"
Mrs. Van Tromp was considerably nettled by this speech, but the name
Howard de Winstanley had not lost its magic.
"Let us get out of here," said Macfarren, hurriedly; and, Marian
rising, he offered her his arm, and, with Mrs. Van Tromp on the other
side, they went out of the dining-room as they had entered it, and, as
before, were the cynosure of all eyes.
When they reached the corridor, Macfarren realized that he must have a
little while to think before taking another step. What to do with his
fair _protégée_ was troubling him excessively; and so, to gain at least
a few minutes' time, he proposed that they should enter a little alcove
at the end of the main hall, where a tiny fire crackled cheerfully.
So he led the way, and Marian sank on the luxurious sofa, while Mrs.
Van Tromp drew up a chair, and, spreading wide her gorgeous fan of
peacocks' feathers, settled herself to hear all about King's Lyndon.
"Now do tell us about your lovely place in Suffolk. I am very fond of
those old English places. The last time we were in England we spent a
delightful week at Fairlight, Sir Herbert Cheevor's place in Suffolk.
It was charming--no Americans except ourselves."
This last was the most charming part of it to Mrs. Van Tromp.
"I know Fairlight well," replied Marian; "although it has been some
years since I was there. But the Cheevors--what Cheevors? It is the
manor house of the Shadwells."
"Yes, a good many years ago; but--"
Macfarren here, seeing trouble ahead, cut in dexterously by a sly jog
of Mrs. Van Tromp's elbow, by which she dropped her fan, and, with
a thousand apologies for his awkwardness, he picked it up. The ruse
succeeded, temporarily.
"I'm sure you'll like it here," continued Mrs. Van Tromp, "so many
English are here this winter. There's quite a little colony on Staten
Island. Of course you'll be invited to the F. C. D. C's and the
Patriarchs and Matriarchs?"
Marian, without answering, turned two wondering eyes on Macfarren. Him
at least she could understand.
"They are balls and banquets," he explained.
Marian turned to Mrs. Van Tromp. "I can not go except my father, the
Lord Howard de Winstanley, go with me, or else my lady Stukely," she
said.
"Oh, there won't be any trouble about that. I will see that your father
and Lady Stukely get cards," responded Mrs. Van Tromp, eagerly.
Here was a go, indeed--taking Lord Howard de Winstanley and Lady Marian
de Winstanley and Lady Stukely all to the Matriarchs under her wing!
What a happy woman then was Mrs. Van Tromp!
But if the mention of these magic names filled the descendant of the
Knickerbockers with rapture, what were her blissful feelings when Lady
Marian said gravely:
"I am bed-chamber woman to the queen, and she hath got so vexatious in
her old age, that I know not if she will excuse either my poor self or
Lady Stukely from court, even for a day."
Mrs. Van Tromp, although a matron of the strictest propriety could
at that instant have embraced Macfarren for having introduced her to
Lady Marian. Macfarren, in spite of the strange and _risqué_ position
in which he found himself and the woman he most honored in the world,
could scarcely keep his countenance. Mrs. Van Tromp's expressive face,
sparkling with pleasure, was in striking contrast to Lady Marian's
statuesque calm.
"Now, pray, tell us something about the queen," kept on Mrs. Van Tromp.
"We all take such an interest in everything relating to her--such a
model woman in every respect."
"Is she?" dryly remarked Marian. "I know she hath a heavy hand. See you
this ear of mine? Well, one day, as I was in her closet, handing her
her petticoat, I happened to glance sidewise out of the window at my
Lord Essex in the court-yard, and the queen fetched me such a box on
the ear, it stings me yet, and called me a lazy vixen, with eyes for
none but cavaliers, and if I did not behave myself better she would
pack me off home. And being vexed and sore, I did complain to my Lord
Bishop of London, who told me he could do nothing to help me, for the
queen had sworn at him like any trooper as he stood in his bishop's
robes, and had kicked and cuffed him most cruelly."
Mrs. Van Tromp's countenance was a study during all this. She finally
murmured faintly:
"I'd no idea the queen was that sort of a person."
"And," continued Lady Marian, animated by the recital of her wrongs at
the queen's hands, "she doth wear apparel too young for her years, and
paints her face, albeit she be near seventy. And dances--"
"Dances!" said Mrs. Van Tromp, almost breathless with surprise.
"Yes," promptly answered Lady Marian, getting up with alacrity, "not a
stately measure like this--"
And here, she walked with matchless grace, a few steps of a courtly
dance.
"But a hoydenish thing like this--"
Throwing her train over her arm, Lady Marian executed a _pas de seul_
that would have done credit to any ballet girl in the world. Her heels
flew up and her toes flew out, her skirts whirled wildly about, and she
was a perfect picture of grace and _abandon_.
To a man of Macfarren's nature, who had a tender respect for all women,
this exhibition, however graceful, could not but be painful. But when
the woman in the case was the one dearest to him in the whole world,
the pain became agony. But far was it from Mrs. Van Tromp to be shocked
at any performance of Lady Marian de Winstanley, bed-chamber woman to
the queen.
"Is that the queen's favorite dance?" she cried. "Then, dear Lady
Marian, may I ask you to teach me a few steps of it."
And the first thing Macfarren saw, Mrs. Van Tromp's train was over her
arm and she was capering about as furiously as Lady Marian.
Now, although Macfarren was suffering the tortures of the damned, in
addition to which he momentarily expected the angry interference of
the proprietor, and to have the misery of seeing Lady Marian thrust
disgracefully out of the hotel, the spectacle of Mrs. Van Tromp as an
elderly Bacchante was too much for him. He lay back in his chair and
laughed until he thought he should have died. A cow trying to walk
a tight rope would have been graceful compared to Mrs. Van Tromp's
elephantine attempts--but when with a final hop, skip and a jump, she
asked him what he thought of it, he lied desperately.
"Beautiful--beautiful!" he cried, "you'll make a sensation, sure--and
Van Tromp will get a divorce," he added mentally.
Mrs. Van Tromp and Lady Marian, each exhausted by the exercise, sat
down panting--and Macfarren drew a long breath of relief when the show
was over.
Mrs. Van Tromp, after fanning herself for a moment turned to Lady
Marian and asked:
"Were you ill coming over in the steamer?"
"What?" inquired Marian.
Mrs. Van Tromp repeated her question, adding, "I always feel every
revolution of the screw myself."
"What means she?" asked Marian of Macfarren. "Steamer--screw--what are
they? I never saw them in Suffolk, or Norfolk either."