The Ladies": A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty Part 3

How could I endure this? I closed the door, and left him laughing with white lips.

So went the day, and now I saw his drift. He would hold the little language of childhood for a shield betwixt us. I should be nothing more for ever than Ppt,--poor pretty thing,--Stellakin, the pretty rogue. He would not fail in this, but only in all my hopes. He would give me all but that I longed for. He would glut me with sugar-comfits but never a taste of the living bread.

And next day a new thing. Dingley and I sitting together, he came upon us, and in all he said included ker. She was his second MD. He was her poor Presto, also. I saw his will and knew he built a fence about himself.

Sometimes I thought I had but a mean spirit so to live, and thought to ask his meaning; but dared not, for he struck an awe into my very soul. So gradually the days covered that sunset, and't was impossible I should speak; and life went by, and still I studied with him, but Dingley always present.

Hath he a heart? I know not. That sunset was a grave between us; and had the corpse risen and stared him in the face, I think he had run mad. In my solitary hours, I would imagine I spoke. Sometimes I would kneel before him entreating, and he would raise me up, as a certain king did another Esther. Sometimes he would fall at my knees, and I would bow my head upon him, weeping for joy.

But yet always I knew that, if we glanced near that secret, he would rise and stare upon me with a ghastly face, and I would see him no more. Yet at that time he loved me. To himself he will not lie in reading this.

'Twas in 1699 Sir William Temple died, and the household at Moor Park was broke up. Mr Swift took the kindest part in my settlement and the laying out of my little fortune. "And be easy about money, you nauti-nauti, dear girls," says he to old Dingley and me; "for what is mine is yours; and were it my blood, 't is all one."

And so laid his plans that we should come to Ireland, where he had preferment at Laracor near Dublin, and the prebend of Dunlavin in St.

Patrick's Cathedral. And, G.o.d forgive me, I asked myself if the thought to keep me under his guidance mingled not itself with all his kindness.

So I, being twenty years old, and Dingley a kind bustling woman, we went; and Ireland was a kindly home, for 't was near him, and I might see him.

Not as I would--oh, never that! but as a friend, provided 't was with caution. For as he now mounted in the Church, and his ambition strengthened on him (and sure Wolsey himself did not more suffer from that failing of n.o.ble minds), caution grew to be his main thought; for he said the adventure of our coming looked so like a frolic that censure might hold as if there were a secret history in such a removal; but this would soon blow over by circ.u.mspect conduct, and this too was used to put a distance between us. But 't was the condition of our intercourse, and thus I accepted it. For aught I could discern, all else was clean forgot, and we lodged near him and met as friends--no more.

Nor could I think otherwise when Mr Tisdall, his friend, made suit to me.

I was cold,--what else,--for I thought myself a wife, if a forsaken one, and Mr Tisdall imagined that Dr Swift opposed his suit, objecting that his means did not come up to the expectation he formed for me, who was, he said, in a manner, his ward.

Poor Mr Tisdall writ in haste on this, and brought me Dr Swift's reply (who had not broke the matter to me) and thus it ran:--

My conjecture is that you think I obstruct your inclinations to please my own. In answer to all which I will, upon my conscience and honour, tell you the naked truth, [The naked truth! O G.o.d, if it were told!] If my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly make your choice, because I never saw that person whose conversation I entirely valued but hers. This was the utmost I ever gave way to. [But once--but once!] And this regard of mine never once entered my head as an impediment to you, since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, and that time takes off the l.u.s.tre of virgins in all other eyes but mine.

This Mr Tisdall offered on his knees, declaring it must remove my last objections, since the worthy friend of my childhood supported his suit. I received it sedately, and dismist him with the compunction so worthy a gentleman merited. Was this letter honest to his friend? I say not.

Henceforth he disliked Mr Tisdall. Could I impute this to jealousy? Why not? A man will be jealous if his dog but lick the hand of another; and, though he reserve himself perfect freedom, no man must so much as sigh for the woman he hath once honoured with his regard. Truly there is a something Oriental in the pa.s.sions of men; and if a woman break through this, 'tis at her peril.

So stood matters when the Doctor went to London, an: 1710, on his errand of obtaining the First Fruits for the Irish Church from the Crown--and he chosen all others to this, for his commanding talent and presence, though then but forty-two years of age, and many dignitaries older, yet not wiser. It created much envy.

I missed him, and yet took a sad ease in his going. 'Twas the easier to talk with Dingley, to play at ombre with the Dean and Mrs Walls; for when he was in presence, my heart waited upon his speech, and he wounded with many a word and look he thought not on. And he writ often in the form of a Journal to Dingley and me, saying:--

"I will write something every day to MD, and when it is full, will send it; and that will be pretty, and I will always be in conversation with MD, and MD with Presto."

'T was near a year since his going when Mrs Coleburn came to Dublin, full of London talk, and her friendship with the great Dr Swift, the hope of the Tories. Indeed, it made her a great woman with the clergy in Dublin, that she knew so much of his sayings and doings, and in what high company he was got, and the clutter he made in London. Much was true, as I knew under his own hand. Much was idle t.w.a.ttle and the giddiness of a woman that will be talking. Now, one day, she visited me, dressed out in the last London mode, and talked as I knotted, and presently says she:--

"And, Mrs Johnson, what will be said, the Doctor being made a Bishop as he now looks for, if he bring home a fine young bride from London? Sure he lives at Mrs Vanhomrigh's, so often is he there; and Hessy is as pretty a girl as eye can see, in her young twenties and a bit of a fortune to boot.

I have ever said the Doctor was not on the market for nothing. He is not the man for a portionless beauty. Hath he wrote of this? for all the tongues are wagging, and the lady in such a blaze with the tender pa.s.sion that she can't by any means smother it."

"Doctor Swift hath often writ of Mrs Vanhomrigh and her hospitalities,"

says I, smiling. "Also of the charming Miss V. Her name is no stranger here."

So I baffled the woman, and could see her petty malice dumbed. I held the smile on my face like a mask.

"Well, 'tis a charming creature, and the Doctor commends her wit in all quarters; and 't is certain lie should be a judge, for he tutors her in Latin. There's many a man would gladly tutor the seductive Miss Hessy."

When she took leave, I writ to the kind Patty Holt in London. When her reply returned, 't was but to confirm Mrs Coleburn. Then I turned over all his letters--yet did not need--for mention of this woman, and found but three, though of the mother and her house he writ in almost every letter, but making somewhat too light of it. 'Twas a raging pain that he should be her tutor--I had thought that was mine only and not to recur--a memory stored where neither rust nor moth might touch it. Well--what could I but hate the girl? And to hate is a bitter thing: it saps the life and breaks the strength, and so no escape night or day. I must then fancy his letters cooling, and later says Dingley unprompted:--

"The Doctor is took up with his fine friends and his business. La!--for sure he writes not as he did, but is plaguey busy. Two simple women can't expect so much of his time that d.u.c.h.esses go begging for."

He stayed long away, and Patty Holt writ often, discreet and willing to serve me; and one day comes a packet from her, and when I cut the seals, out falls a letter--his. I read it first.

Miss Hessy, I am so weary of this place ['t was Windsor] that I am resolved to leave it in two days. I will come as early on Monday as I can find opportunity, and will take a little Grub Street lodgings pretty near where I did before, and will dine with you three times a week and tell you a thousand secrets, provided you will have no quarrels with me. I long to drink a dish of coffee in the s.l.u.ttery, and hear you dun me for secrets, and "Drink your coffee--why don't you drink your coffee?"

So he writ, and more--much more could I read unsaid. For him, this was much--I knew it. Then, another letter--a woman's hand.

It is inexpressible the concern I am in ever since I heard from Mrs Lewis that your head is so much out of order. Who is your physician? Satisfy me so much as to tell me what medicines you have took and do take. O what would I give to know how you do this instant. My fortune is too hard. Your absence was enough without this cruel addition. I have done all that was possible to hinder myself from writing for fear of breaking my promise; but it is all in vain; for had I vowed neither to touch pen, ink, or paper, I certainly should have had some other invention, and I am impatient to the last degree to hear how you are. I hope I shall soon have you here.

The two were wrapt in a sheet from Patty who had writ thereon:--"Dropt by the Doctor when in a giddy attack, visiting me."

I think she was shamed. So was not I. As well ask the hound if he is shamed when tracking the deer. Had it been to save my life, instead of lose it, I had less eagerly read. 'T was clear they understood one another. With me, in his caution, Dingley must be joined when he writ.

With her, not so. Her happiness was a knife turned in a bleeding wound.

So I writ him, in a letter of many matters, somewhat scornfully of the family as marvelling a little that he whom all solicited could be satisfied with such inconsiderable people. In time he replied thus:--

Sir A. Fountaine and I dined by invitation with Mrs V. You say they are of no consequence--why, they keep as good female company as I do male. I see all the drabs of quality at this end of the town with them. I saw two Lady Bettys there this afternoon. Rare walking in the Park now. Why don't you walk in the Green of St. Stephen's? What beasts the Irish women are, never to walk. Men hide not matters so well as women. They say too much or not enough.

Much later he writ: "I found Mrs V. all in combustion with her landlord.

Her eldest daughter is of age, and going to Ireland to look after her fortune and get it in her own hands."

So I was to think it concerned them not to be apart. Immediately I set my wits to discover where was her estate, and 't was not long ere I knew 't was Marlay Abbey, near Celbridge; but the lady would reside in Dublin while making her dispositions, being Mrs Emerson's guest, and was like to be at a rout at her house. 'Twas long since I attended a rout, but I intrigued to be bidden as courtiers intrigue for an inch of blue ribbon; and in such a fever and anguish as I think I had died of it if not successful.

So, when the day was come, I went with Mrs Stoyte; and the first person I saw was a young lady on the stair-head as we went up, and Mrs Emerson presenting her to many. A fine young London madam, who curtseyed to me, taking no more heed than of any other.

Shall I admit her beauty? I did not think her charming, despite fine sparkling eyes and a luxuriance of brown hair. Her lips were full and her chin round, but she looked full her age, and between the brows was a line that I would call the Doctor's sign-manual. I have it myself--I have seen it in others--'t is the claw-foot of care, care never-ending and cruel unrest, and hope that sickens the spirit and fades the bloom; and in her, though but just of age, the first bloom was gone that is like morning dew in a young girl's eyes. He loves to tyrannise over women and show his familiarity by a certain brutality of address, and the line comes not slowly.

I caught sight of her person with mine in a long gla.s.s--she in her sea-green sacque flowered with pink, and myself in gray,--"an angel's face a little cracked,"--that was the best he could say for Stella! She gave not a thought to the faded Dublin lady that would have given all but her eternal hope to read in that girl's soul. Oh, the mask of the human face behind which none may look!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hester Vanhomrigh--Vanessa]

So she went, and after a year he returned, now Dean of St. Patrick. He was kind, but 't was a kindness that stood apart and viewed itself carefully, lest it diminish my due. 'Twas easy seen he was engaged in thought. Well-- shall a woman expect more from a man in the world's eye? Let her be humbly grateful for the crumbs he lets fall.

Also for the crumbs from her rival's table; for Miss Hessy following, and now an orphan, was established soon after at Marlay; and whether I would or not, I knew when the Dean's rides took him that way, my Mrs Prue being courted by his man Samuel, and all he did trickling through that channel.

'T was at this time also that copies were handed about of his poem, "Cadenus and Vanessa," and 't was the very top of talk and admiration.

Many might guess who was the lady, and the Dean was mighty angry, and said 'twas but a jest, and no friend to him who took it otherwise.

He asked me with a feigned carelessness if I had read it; and I replying carelessly that I thought it extreme fine and could wish he would write oftener in that vein, he smiled and looked pleased, and so it pa.s.sed. But again and yet again I conned the lines:--

'T is to the world a secret yet Whether the nymph, to please her swain, Talks in a high romantic strain, Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends.

Or, to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together, Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold.

I knew the meaning of that pa.s.sage where others guesst. I read it by the light of a sunset many years gone, and lived in h.e.l.l.

'T was when Mr Dean was next in London, came a letter to me

Madam, I have great and urgent reason to wish the honour of meeting you and a half hour's conversation. Any place you may condescend to appoint will be perfectly agreeable and the favour prized by