The Ladies": A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty Part 14

Her voice died on her lips. She hung her head in agony. He took her up.

"The task is too hard for you. Let me continue. Your mama said that, if she and your sister withdrew and left you with me, if you put forth your charms (and G.o.d knows there were never such!), 'twas possible you might set the sweetest trap for the rich man, and with his aid clamber out of the mud and sit secure beside him. Confirm me if I don't err. Confess!"

"I confess." The words scarce broke the silence.

"And love was not in the bargain," the cruel voice persisted. "Mama did not enquire whether James Hamilton was distasteful to you or the reverse.

He was a moneybag--no man. Confess again."

"I confess. Sir, we have used you very ill. I ask your pardon. I was a fair mark for insult." Her head dropped lower. She could not otherwise hide her face, but shame overflowed it in waves of crimson.

"To be frank, Madam, I have never found your mother congenial company.

'Twas not for her I sought this house. Tell me, was this her plot only?

Was it acceptable to you?"

"At least, I followed it. She is my mother. I am one flesh and blood with her. If she is a plotter, so too am I. I bid your Grace farewell, and pray for so much pity as that you will never come this way again, nor see me, lest I die at your feet."

"Madam, do I owe you no apology?"

"I think none, your Grace. You acted as the woman you took me for might, I suppose, expect. Let me go."

A singular thing happened here. The Duke, the haughtiest and coldest of men, bent his knee and carried her hand to his lips. So on Birthnights he kissed the late Queen's hand, she standing before the Throne. Then stood very grave. "Madam, I entreat your pardon. I have shown you a side of a man's character very unfitting for your eyes and you but the child you are. Forgive me, and ere we part for ever, answer me one question, in token of your pardon. Had I been but James Hamilton, the lowest of my clan--could you have honoured me with any regard?"

She stammered, trembling before this melancholy gentleness.

"I know not."

He persisted, gentle but firm:

"We have perhaps something to pardon each other. I ask again--would this have been possible?"

Constrained, she sought for breath. Because a cold handsome face softens, because distrust is melted, shall a woman let her heart fly like a bird to a man's bosom?

"Sir, you ask more than I can answer."

Still the eyes insisted, and now the strong hand held hers.

"Sir--I think--I believe--it had not been impossible."

"What--not James Hamilton--no more?--with a shieling on the moors, and the heather-c.o.c.k for food, and a Hamilton plaid to wrap his heart's darling, and a fire of peats to sit by, and this hand empty but for love and his claymore?--Would the beauty of the world have come to his breast?"

His voice was a strong music--a river in spate. His eyes caught hers and held them.

"'Tis not impossible. But oh, how should I prove it--prove it? There's not a word I say but rings false now. Leave me--leave me. I have said too much."

"You can't prove it? But you can, and if you prove it, I will distrust G.o.d's mercy before I will distrust my girl. All you have told me was known to me--known to all the town. It rings through the streets that the fair Gunnings and their mother are schemers; that they love none and seek only the best price for their charms. Marry me now, this hour, Elizabeth, and face the world that will call you plotter and adventuress. For they will so! There's no club in town but will ring with the story of how the beauty was cunningly left to a half-drunk man's advances. That's how Horry Walpole and all the old women of both s.e.xes will have it! All this will be known through your mother's folly and your Abigail's chatter, and they will tell how you trapped me, how I would have escaped and could not for the snares about my feet. Marry me and face this, if you will, and I will believe you love me, for you will stand a disgraced woman for all time.

Marry me not, and I will make your way easy with gold, and your mother shall tell her own tale, and not a smirch on your name and fear not but another rich man will give you all I could, and not a spot on it. Choose now once and for all. I have seen and I know how my coronet will sting you with shame--with shame set in it."

He did not embrace her. 'Twas the strangest wooing. The clock pointed to eleven. The house was dead silent. Her eyes widened with pain and fear.

She looked piteously at him.

"They will say you caught me drunk, whom you could not catch sober. They will say you forced the marriage, lest I escape. There is nothing they will not say but the truth--that my sweetheart is the sweetest, the purest, the proudest woman alive. Your delicacy will be trod in the mud, Madam. Will you take your man at that? Will you crawl through the dirt to his heart?"

His fire kindled hers. Her eyes glittered.

"And if they believed me worthless--that is not what I ask. What would your Grace think?"

He smiled with peculiar sweetness.

"Child, you know. Look at me."

And still she trembled.

"Beloved, adored!" he cried. "Think you I knew not 'twas death to you to tell the truth? Shall a man find a pearl in the dirt and not set it over his heart. I have loved you since first I saw your fair face, and now I honour you. Come to me and bless me; and when these fools cackle and gibber, I shall know how to protect my wife."

His arms went round her.

"I will do it," she said.

The minutes pa.s.sed in an exquisite joy, plucked out of shame like a rose from a torrent. He left her and went to the door, and leaning over the bal.u.s.trade, called down the stair:--

"Armitage!"

A young man, handsomely dressed and something of a fop after his valet-fashion, sprang up the stair--his Grace's gentleman. His master, very tranquil and haughty, was by the door--the fair Miss Gunning erect in her chair.

"Armitage, proceed at once to my house, and acquaint my chaplain, Mr MacDonald, that this lady and I are to be married immediately. Desire him to come hither with all that is necessary, and lose not a moment."

And seeing Armitage hesitate like a man wonderstruck, the Duke stamped his foot and set him flying down the way he came, calling after him:--

"Desire Mrs Abigail to come up this moment."

They heard the door shut violently, and Mrs Abigail came up, very demure and curtseying to the ground.

"Be seated, good woman. Your lady will excuse you. We wait the Reverend Mr MacDonald, with ring and licence, and you and Armitage shall serve for witnesses to the marriage. Now I think of it, call also the woman of the house."

He carried it masterfully, and Elizabeth, no more than any other woman, could be insensible to that charming tyranny. He stood behind her chair while the woman called for Mrs Mann--who came, mortally afraid of her company.

"Shall Mrs Abigail braid my hair?--it tumbles all about me," says Elizabeth, questioning her master timidly.

"'Tis so great a beauty I will not have it hid," he cries, standing behind her chair where the long locks lay on the ground.

Silence again, and the time pa.s.sing.

At last, a sound as if Armitage propelled somewhat before him up the stair, and into the room walks his Grace's gentleman, and before him a stout personage in bands and ca.s.sock, so breathless from haste as to be incapable of any speech.

"Hath he the licence?"

"He hath, your Grace, but he declares that the occasion being so great, and the inc.u.mbent of Mayfair Chapel, Dr Keith, being at home and the chapel open, for the greater solemnity 'twere well to have the marriage solemnised there. 'Tis but ten minutes, and I have brought the chariot, if it please your Grace."