A Lady of Quality Part 9

"But now, you called me a G.o.ddess and spoke of Olympian heights," she said; "I am not one-I am a woman who would show other women how to bear themselves in hours like these. Because I am a woman why should I kneel, and weep, and rave? What have I lost-in losing you? I should have lost the same had I been twice your wife. What is it women weep and beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s for-because they love a man-because they lose his love. They never have them."

She had finished the wreath, and held it up in the sun to look at it. What a strange beauty was hers, as she held it so-a heavy, sumptuous thing-in her white hands, her head thrown backward.

"You marry soon," she asked-"if the match is not broken?"

"Yes," he answered, watching her-a flame growing in his eyes and in his soul in his own despite.

"It cannot be too soon," she said. And she turned and faced him, holding the wreath high in her two hands poised like a crown above her head-the brilliant sun embracing her, her lips curling, her face uplifted as if she turned to defy the light, the crimson of her cheek. 'Twas as if from foot to brow the woman's whole person was a flame, rising and burning triumphant high above him. Thus for one second's s.p.a.ce she stood, dazzling his very eyesight with her strange, dauntless splendour; and then she set the great rose-wreath upon her head, so crowning it.

"You came to see me," she said, the spark in her eyes growing to the size of a star; "I bid you look at me-and see how grief has faded me these past months, and how I am bowed down by it. Look well-that you may remember."

"I look," he said, almost panting.

"Then," she said, her fine-cut nostril pinching itself with her breath, as she pointed down the path before her-"go!-back to your kennel!"

That night she appeared at the birth-night ball with the wreath of roses on her head. No other ladies wore such things, 'twas a fashion of her own; but she wore it in such beauty and with such state that it became a crown again even as it had been the first moment that she had put it on. All gazed at her as she entered, and a murmur followed her as she moved with her father up the broad oak staircase which was known through all the country for its width and ma.s.sive beauty. In the hall below guests were crowded, and there were indeed few of them who did not watch her as she mounted by Sir Jeoffry's side. In the upper hall there were guests also, some walking to and fro, some standing talking, many looking down at the arrivals as they came up.

"'Tis Mistress Wildairs," these murmured as they saw her. "Clorinda, by G.o.d!" said one of the older men to his crony who stood near him. "And crowned with roses! The vixen makes them look as if they were built of rubies in every leaf."

At the top of the great staircase there stood a gentleman, who had indeed paused a moment, spellbound, as he saw her coming. He was a man of unusual height and of a majestic mien; he wore a fair periwig, which added to his tallness; his laces and embroiderings were marvels of art and richness, and his breast blazed with orders. Strangely, she did not seem to see him; but when she reached the landing, and her face was turned so that he beheld the full blaze of its beauty, 'twas so great a wonder and revelation to him that he gave a start. The next moment almost, one of the red roses of her crown broke loose from its fastenings and fell at his very feet. His countenance changed so that it seemed almost, for a second, to lose some of its colour. He stooped and picked the rose up and held it in his hand. But Mistress Clorinda was looking at my Lord of Dunstanwolde, who was moving through the crowd to greet her. She gave him a brilliant smile, and from her l.u.s.trous eyes surely there pa.s.sed something which lit a fire of hope in his.

After she had made her obeisance to her entertainers, and her birthday greetings to the young heir, he contrived to draw closely to her side and speak a few words in a tone those near her could not hear.

"To-night, madam," he said, with melting fervour, "you deign to bring me my answer as you promised."

"Yes," she murmured. "Take me where we may be a few moments alone."

He led her to an antechamber, where they were sheltered from the gaze of the pa.s.sers-by, though all was moving gaiety about them. He fell upon his knee and bowed to kiss her fair hand. Despite the sobriety of his years, he was as eager and tender as a boy.

"Be gracious to me, madam," he implored. "I am not young enough to wait. Too many months have been thrown away."

"You need wait no longer, my lord," she said-"not one single hour."

And while he, poor gentleman, knelt, kissing her hand with adoring humbleness, she, under the splendour of her crown of roses, gazed down at his grey-sprinkled head with her great steady shining orbs, as if gazing at some almost uncomprehended piteous wonder.

In less than an hour the whole a.s.semblage knew of the event and talked of it. Young men looked daggers at Dunstanwolde and at each other; and older men wore glum or envious faces. Women told each other 'twas as they had known it would be, or 'twas a wonder that at last it had come about. Upon the arm of her lord that was to be, Mistress Clorinda pa.s.sed from room to room like a royal bride.

As she made her first turn of the ballroom, all eyes upon her, her beauty blazing at its highest, Sir John Oxon entered and stood at the door. He wore his gallant air, and smiled as ever; and when she drew near him he bowed low, and she stopped, and bent lower in a curtsey sweeping the ground.

'Twas but in the next room her lord led her to a gentleman who stood with a sort of court about him. It was the tall stranger, with the fair periwig, and the orders glittering on his breast-the one who had started at sight of her as she had reached the landing of the stairs. He held still in his hand a broken red rose, and when his eye fell on her crown the colour mounted to his cheek.

"My honoured kinsman, his Grace the Duke of Osmonde," said her affianced lord. "Your Grace-it is this lady who is to do me the great honour of becoming my Lady Dunstanwolde."

And as the deep, tawny brown eye of the man bending before her flashed into her own, for the first time in her life Mistress Clorinda's lids fell, and as she swept her curtsey of stately obeisance her heart struck like a hammer against her side.

CHAPTER IX-"I give to him the thing he craves with all his soul-myself"

In a month she was the Countess of Dunstanwolde, and reigned in her lord's great town house with a retinue of servants, her powdered lackeys among the tallest, her liveries and equipages the richest the world of fashion knew. She was presented at the Court, blazing with the Dunstanwolde jewels, and even with others her bridegroom had bought in his pa.s.sionate desire to heap upon her the magnificence which became her so well. From the hour she knelt to kiss the hand of royalty she set the town on fire. It seemed to have been ordained by Fate that her pa.s.sage through this world should be always the triumphant pa.s.sage of a conqueror. As when a baby she had ruled the servants' hall, the kennel, and the grooms' quarters, later her father and his boisterous friends, and from her fifteenth birthday the whole hunting shire she lived in, so she held her sway in the great world, as did no other lady of her rank or any higher. Those of her age seemed but girls yet by her side, whether married or unmarried, and howsoever trained to modish ways. She was but scarce eighteen at her marriage, but she was no girl, nor did she look one, glowing as was the early splendour of her bloom. Her height was far beyond the ordinary for a woman; but her shape so faultless and her carriage so regal, that though there were men upon whom she was tall enough to look down with ease, the beholder but felt that her tallness was an added grace and beauty with which all women should have been endowed, and which, as they were not, caused them to appear but insignificant. What a throat her diamonds blazed on, what shoulders and bosom her laces framed, on what a brow her coronet sat and glittered. Her lord lived as 'twere upon his knees in enraptured adoration. Since his first wife's death in his youth, he had dwelt almost entirely in the country at his house there, which was fine and stately, but had been kept gloomily half closed for a decade. His town establishment had, in truth, never been opened since his bereavement; and now-an elderly man-he returned to the gay world he had almost forgotten, with a bride whose youth and beauty set it aflame. What wonder that his head almost reeled at times and that he lost his breath before the sum of his strange late bliss, and the new lease of brilliant life which seemed to have been given to him.

In the days when, while in the country, he had heard such rumours of the lawless days of Sir Jeoffry Wildairs' daughter, when he had heard of her dauntless boldness, her shrewish temper, and her violent pa.s.sions, he had been awed at the thought of what a wife such a woman would make for a gentleman accustomed to a quiet life, and he had indeed striven hard to restrain the desperate admiration he was forced to admit she had inspired in him even at her first ball.

The effort had, in sooth, been in vain, and he had pa.s.sed many a sleepless night; and when, as time went on, he beheld her again and again, and saw with his own eyes, as well as heard from others, of the great change which seemed to have taken place in her manners and character, he began devoutly to thank Heaven for the alteration, as for a merciful boon vouchsafed to him. He had been wise enough to know that even a stronger man than himself could never conquer or rule her; and when she seemed to begin to rule herself and bear herself as befitted her birth and beauty, he had dared to allow himself to dream of what perchance might be if he had great good fortune.

In these days of her union with him, he was, indeed, almost humbly amazed at the grace and kindness she showed him every hour they pa.s.sed in each other's company. He knew that there were men, younger and handsomer than himself, who, being wedded to beauties far less triumphant than she, found that their wives had but little time to spare them from the world, which knelt at their feet, and that in some fashion they themselves seemed to fall into the background. But 'twas not so with this woman, powerful and worshipped though she might be. She bore herself with the high dignity of her rank, but rendered to him the gracious respect and deference due both to his position and his merit. She stood by his side and not before him, and her smiles and wit were bestowed upon him as generously as to others. If she had once been a vixen, she was surely so no longer, for he never heard a sharp or harsh word pa.s.s her lips, though it is true her manner was always somewhat imperial, and her lacqueys and waiting women stood in greatest awe of her. There was that in her presence and in her eye before which all commoner or weaker creatures quailed. The men of the world who flocked to pay their court to her, and the popinjays who followed them, all knew this look, and a tone in her rich voice which could cut like a knife when she chose that it should do so. But to my Lord of Dunstanwolde she was all that a worshipped lady could be.

"Your ladyship has made of me a happier man than I ever dared to dream of being, even when I was but thirty," he would say to her, with reverent devotion. "I know not what I have done to deserve this late summer which hath been given me."

"When I consented to be your wife," she answered once, "I swore to myself that I would make one for you;" and she crossed the hearth to where he sat-she was attired in all her splendour for a Court ball, and starred with jewels-bent over his chair and placed a kiss upon his grizzled hair.

Upon the night before her wedding with him, her sister, Mistress Anne, had stolen to her chamber at a late hour. When she had knocked upon the door, and had been commanded to enter, she had come in, and closing the door behind her, had stood leaning against it, looking before her, with her eyes wide with agitation and her poor face almost grey.

All the tapers for which places could be found had been gathered together, and the room was a blaze of light. In the midst of it, before her mirror, Clorinda stood attired in her bridal splendour of white satin and flowing rich lace, a diamond crescent on her head, sparks of light flaming from every point of her raiment. When she caught sight of Anne's reflection in the gla.s.s before her, she turned and stood staring at her in wonder.

"What-nay, what is this?" she cried. "What do you come for? On my soul, you come for something-or you have gone mad."

Anne started forward, trembling, her hands clasped upon her breast, and fell at her feet with sobs.

"Yes, yes," she gasped, "I came-for something-to speak-to pray you-! Sister-Clorinda, have patience with me-till my courage comes again!" and she clutched her robe.

Something which came nigh to being a shudder pa.s.sed through Mistress Clorinda's frame; but it was gone in a second, and she touched Anne-though not ungently-with her foot, withdrawing her robe.

"Do not stain it with your tears," she said, "'twould be a bad omen."

Anne buried her face in her hands and knelt so before her.

"'Tis not too late!" she said-"'tis not too late yet."

"For what?" Clorinda asked. "For what, I pray you tell me, if you can find your wits. You go beyond my patience with your folly."

"Too late to stop," said Anne-"to draw back and repent."

"What?" commanded Clorinda-"what then should I repent me?"

"This marriage," trembled Mistress Anne, taking her poor hands from her face to wring them. "It should not be."

"Fool!" quoth Clorinda. "Get up and cease your grovelling. Did you come to tell me it was not too late to draw back and refuse to be the Countess of Dunstanwolde?" and she laughed bitterly.

"But it should not be-it must not!" Anne panted. "I-I know, sister, I know-"

Clorinda bent deliberately and laid her strong, jewelled hand on her shoulder with a grasp like a vice. There was no hurry in her movement or in her air, but by sheer, slow strength she forced her head backward so that the terrified woman was staring in her face.

"Look at me," she said. "I would see you well, and be squarely looked at, that my eyes may keep you from going mad. You have pondered over this marriage until you have a frenzy. Women who live alone are sometimes so, and your brain was always weak. What is it that you know. Look-in my eyes-and tell me."