A Lady of Quality Part 15

Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face in her thin hands. She knew so well that this was true.

"I never thought the time would come," her sister said, "when I should seek you for protection. A thing has come upon me-perhaps I shall go mad-to-night, alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a woman-'twas not like me, was it?"

Mistress Anne crept near the bed's edge, and stretching forth a hand, touched hers, which were as cold as marble.

"Stay with me, sister," she prayed. "Sister, do not go! What-what can I say?"

"Naught," was the steady answer. "There is naught to be said. You were always a woman-I was never one-till now."

She rose up from her chair and threw up her arms, pacing to and fro.

"I am a desperate creature," she cried. "Why was I born?"

She walked the room almost like a thing mad and caged.

"Why was I thrown into the world?" striking her breast. "Why was I made so-and not one to watch or care through those mad years? To be given a body like this-and tossed to the wolves."

She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so stood white and strange and beauteous as a statue, with drops like great pearls running down her lovely cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly, like a child.

"I was thrown to them," she wailed piteously, "and they harried me-and left the marks of their great teeth-and of the scars I cannot rid myself-and since it was my fate-p.r.o.nounced from my first hour-why was not this," clutching her breast, "left hard as 'twas at first? Not a woman's-not a woman's, but a she-cub's. Ah! 'twas not just-not just that it should be so!"

Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and clinging to her, weeping bitterly.

"Poor heart!" she cried. "Poor, dearest heart!"

Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.

"I have gone mad," she said. "What is it I do?" She pa.s.sed her hand across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. "Yes," she said; "this it is to be a woman-to turn weak and run to other women-and weep and talk. Yes, by these signs I am a woman!" She stood with her clenched hands pressed against her breast. "In any fair fight," she said, "I could have struck back blow for blow-and mine would have been the heaviest; but being changed into a woman, my arms are taken from me. He who strikes, aims at my bared breast-and that he knows and triumphs in."

She set her teeth together, and ground them, and the look, which was like that of a chained and harried tigress, lit itself in her eyes.

"But there is none shall beat me," she said through these fierce shut teeth. "Nay I there is none! Get up, Anne," bending to raise her. "Get up, or I shall be kneeling too-and I must stand upon my feet."

She made a motion as if she would have turned and gone from the room without further explanation, but Anne still clung to her. She was afraid of her again, but her piteous love was stronger than her fear.

"Let me go with you," she cried. "Let me but go and lie in your closet that I may be near, if you should call."

Clorinda put her hands upon her shoulders, and stooping, kissed her, which in all their lives she had done but once or twice.

"G.o.d bless thee, poor Anne," she said. "I think thou wouldst lie on my threshold and watch the whole night through, if I should need it; but I have given way to womanish vapours too much-I must go and be alone. I was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look at thy good face-I did not mean to wake thee. Go back to bed."

She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch herself, making her lie down, and drawing the coverlet about her; after which she stood upright with a strange smile, laying her hands lightly about her own white throat.

"When I was a new-born thing and had a little throat and a weak breath," she cried, "'twould have been an easy thing to end me. I have been told I lay beneath my mother when they found her dead. If, when she felt her breath leaving her, she had laid her hand upon my mouth and stopped mine, I should not," with the little laugh again-"I should not lie awake to-night."

And then she went away.

CHAPTER XIV-Containing the history of the breaking of the horse Devil, and relates the returning of his Grace of Osmonde from France

There were in this strange nature, depths so awful and profound that it was not to be sounded or to be judged as others were. But one thing could have melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend, and this was the overwhelming pa.s.sion of love-not a slight, tender feeling, but a great and powerful one, such as could be awakened but by a being of as strong and deep a nature as itself, one who was in all things its peer.

"I have been lonely-lonely all my life," my Lady Dunstanwolde had once said to her sister, and she had indeed spoken a truth.

Even in her childhood she had felt in some strange way she stood apart from the world about her. Before she had been old enough to reason she had been conscious that she was stronger and had greater power and endurance than any human being about her. Her strength she used in these days in wilful tyranny, and indeed it was so used for many a day when she was older. The time had never been when an eye lighted on her with indifference, or when she could not rule and punish as she willed. As an infant she had browbeaten the women-servants and the stable-boys and grooms; but because of her quick wit and clever tongue, and also because no humour ever made her aught but a creature well worth looking at, they had taken her bullying in good-humour and loved her in their coa.r.s.e way. She had tyrannised over her father and his companions, and they had adored and boasted of her; but there had not been one among them whom she could have turned to if a softer moment had come upon her and she had felt the need of a friend, nor indeed one whom she did not regard privately with contempt.

A G.o.d or G.o.ddess forced upon earth and surrounded by mere human beings would surely feel a desolateness beyond the power of common words to express, and a human being endowed with powers and physical gifts so rare as to be out of all keeping with those of its fellows of ordinary build and mental stature must needs be lonely too.

She had had no companion, because she had found none like herself, and none with whom she could have aught in common. Anne she had pitied, being struck by some sense of the unfairness of her lot as compared with her own. John Oxon had moved her, bringing to her her first knowledge of buoyant, ardent youth, and blooming strength and beauty; for Dunstanwolde she had felt grat.i.tude and affection; but than these there had been no others who even distantly had touched her heart.

The night she had given her promise to Dunstanwolde, and had made her obeisance before his kinsman as she had met his deep and leonine eye, she had known that 'twas the only man's eye before which her own would fall and which held the power to rule her very soul.

She did not think this as a romantic girl would have thought it; it was revealed to her by a sudden tempestuous leap of her heart, and by a shock like terror. Here was the man who was of her own build, whose thews and sinews of mind and body was as powerful as her own-here was he who, had she met him one short year before, would have revolutionised her world.

In the days of her wifehood when she had read in his n.o.ble face something of that which he endeavoured to command and which to no other was apparent, the dignity of his self-restraint had but filled her with tenderness more pa.s.sionate and grateful.

"Had he been a villain and a coward," was her thought, "he would have made my life a bitter battle; but 'tis me he loves, not himself only, and as I honour him so does he honour me."

Now she beheld the same pa.s.sion in his eyes, but no more held in leash: his look met hers, hiding from her nothing of what his high soul burned with; and she was free-free to answer when he spoke, and only feeling one bitterness in her heart-if he had but come in time-G.o.d! why had he not been sent in time?

But, late or early, he had come; and what they had to give each other should not be mocked at and lost. The night she had ended by going to Anne's chamber, she had paced her room saying this again and again, all the strength of her being rising in revolt. She had been then a caged tigress of a verity; she had wrung her hands; she had held her palm hard against her leaping heart; she had walked madly to and fro, battling in thought with what seemed awful fate; she had flung herself upon her knees and wept bitter scalding tears.

"He is so n.o.ble," she had cried-"he is so n.o.ble-and I so worship his n.o.bleness-and I have been so base!"

And in her suffering her woman's nerves had for a moment betrayed her. Heretofore she had known no weakness of her s.e.x, but the woman soul in her so being moved, she had been broken and conquered for a s.p.a.ce, and had gone to Anne's chamber, scarcely knowing what refuge she so sought. It had been a feminine act, and she had realised all it signified when Anne sank weeping by her. Women who wept and prated together at midnight in their chambers ended by telling their secrets. So it was that it fell out that Anne saw not again the changed face to the sight of which she had that night awakened. It seemed as if my lady from that time made plans which should never for a moment leave her alone. The next day she was busied arranging a brilliant rout, the next a rich banquet, the next a great a.s.sembly; she drove in the Mall in her stateliest equipages; she walked upon its promenade, surrounded by her crowd of courtiers, smiling upon them, and answering them with shafts of graceful wit-the charm of her gaiety had never been so remarked upon, her air never so enchanting. At every notable gathering in the World of Fashion she was to be seen. Being bidden to the Court, which was at Hampton, her brilliant beauty and spirit so enlivened the royal dulness that 'twas said the Queen herself was scarce resigned to part with her, and that the ladies and gentlemen in waiting all suffered from the spleen when she withdrew. She bought at this time the fiercest but most beautiful beast of a horse she had ever mounted. The creature was superbly handsome, but apparently so unconquerable and so savage that her grooms were afraid to approach it, and indeed it could not be saddled and bitted unless she herself stood near. Even the horse-dealer, rogue though he was, had sold it to her with some approach to a qualm of conscience, having confessed to her that it had killed two grooms, and been sentenced to be shot by its first owner, and was still living only because its great beauty had led him to hesitate for a few days. It was by chance that during these few days Lady Dunstanwolde heard of it, and going to see it, desired and bought it at once.

"It is the very beast I want," she said, with a gleam in her eye. "It will please me to teach it that there is one stronger than itself."

She had much use for her loaded riding-whip; and indeed, not finding it heavy enough, ordered one made which was heavier. When she rode the beast in Hyde Park, her first battles with him were the town talk; and there were those who bribed her footmen to inform them beforehand, when my lady was to take out Devil, that they might know in time to be in the Park to see her. Fops and hunting-men laid wagers as to whether her ladyship would kill the horse or be killed by him, and followed her training of the creature with an excitement and delight quite wild.

"Well may the beast's name be Devil," said more than one looker-on; "for he is not so much horse as demon. And when he plunges and rears and shows his teeth, there is a look in his eye which flames like her own, and 'tis as if a male and female demon fought together, for surely such a woman never lived before. She will not let him conquer her, G.o.d knows; and it would seem that he was swearing in horse fashion that she should not conquer him."

When he was first bought and brought home, Mistress Anne turned ashy at the sight of him, and in her heart of hearts grieved bitterly that it had so fallen out that his Grace of Osmonde had been called away from town by high and important matters; for she knew full well, that if he had been in the neighbourhood, he would have said some discreet and tender word of warning to which her ladyship would have listened, though she would have treated with disdain the caution of any other man or woman. When she herself ventured to speak, Clorinda looked only stern.

"I have ridden only ill-tempered beasts all my life, and that for the mere pleasure of subduing them," she said. "I have no liking for a horse like a bell-wether; and if this one should break my neck, I need battle with neither men nor horses again, and I shall die at the high tide of life and power; and those who think of me afterwards will only remember that they loved me-that they loved me."

But the horse did not kill her, nor she it. Day after day she stood by while it was taken from its stall, many a time dealing with it herself, because no groom dare approach; and then she would ride it forth, and in Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous strength of her will, her wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted, actually daunting the devilish creature's courage. She would ride from the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her-and some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park gate-almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on the fretted, anguished beast, whose shining skin was covered with lather, whose mouth tossed blood-flecked foam, and whose great eye was so strangely like her own, but that hers glowed with the light of triumph, and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty, which almost seemed to blaze-her colour was so rich, the curve of her red mouth so imperial, the poise of her head, with its loosening coils of velvet black hair, so high.

"It is good for me that I do this," she said to Anne, with a short laugh, one day. "I was growing too soft-and I have need now for all my power. To fight with the demon in this beast, rouses all in me that I have held in check since I became my poor lord's wife. That the creature should have set his will against all others, and should resist me with such strength and devilishness, rouses in me the pa.s.sion of the days when I cursed and raved and struck at those who angered me. 'Tis fury that possesses me, and I could curse and shriek at him as I flog him, if 'twould be seemly. As it would not be so, I shut my teeth hard, and shriek and curse within them, and none can hear."

Among those who made it their custom to miss no day when she went forth on Devil that they might stand near and behold her, there was one man ever present, and 'twas Sir John Oxon. He would stand as near as might be and watch the battle, a stealthy fire in his eye, and a look as if the outcome of the fray had deadly meaning to him. He would gnaw his lip until at times the blood started; his face would by turns flush scarlet and turn deadly pale; he would move suddenly and restlessly, and break forth under breath into oaths of exclamation. One day a man close by him saw him suddenly lay his hand upon his sword, and having so done, still keep it there, though 'twas plain he quickly remembered where he was.

As for the horse's rider, my Lady Dunstanwolde, whose way it had been to avoid this man and to thrust him from her path by whatsoever adroit means she could use, on these occasions made no effort to evade him and his glances; in sooth, he knew, though none other did so, that when she fought with her horse she did it with a fierce joy in that he beheld her. 'Twas as though the battle was between themselves; and knowing this in the depths of such soul as he possessed, there were times when the man would have exulted to see the brute rise and fall upon her, crushing her out of life, or dash her to the earth and set his hoof upon her dazzling upturned face. Her scorn and deadly defiance of him, her beauty and maddening charm, which seemed but to increase with every hour that flew by, had roused his love to fury. Despite his youth, he was a villain, as he had ever been; even in his first freshness there had been older men-and hardened ones-who had wondered at the selfish mercilessness and blackness of the heart that was but that of a boy. They had said among themselves that at his years they had never known a creature who could be so gaily a dastard, one who could plan with such light remorselessness, and using all the gifts given him by Nature solely for his own ends, would take so much and give so little. In truth, as time had gone on, men who had been his companions, and had indeed small consciences to boast of, had begun to draw off a little from him, and frequent his company less. He chose to tell himself that this was because he had squandered his fortune and was less good company, being pursued by creditors and haunted by debts; but though there was somewhat in this, perchance 'twas not the entire truth.

"By Gad!" said one over his cups, "there are things even a rake-h.e.l.l fellow like me cannot do; but he does them, and seems not to know that they are to his discredit."