CHAPTER XI
WHEREIN A NOBLE LIFE COMES TO AN END
A Lady of Quality | ||
11. CHAPTER XI
WHEREIN A NOBLE LIFE COMES TO AN END
WHEN Dunstanwolde and his lady went back to their house in town, Mistress Anne went with them. Clorinda willed that it should be so. She made her there as peaceful and retired a nest of her own as she had given to her at Dunstanwolde. By strange good fortune, Barbara had been wedded to a plain gentleman, who, being a widower with children, needed a helpmeet in his modest household, and through a distant relationship to Mistress Wimpole encountered her charge, and saw in her meekness of spirit the thing which might fall into the supplying of his needs. A beauty or a fine lady would not have suited him; he wanted but a housewife and a mother for his orphaned children, and this a young woman who had lived straitly and been forced to many contrivances for mere decency of apparel and ordinary comfort might be trained to become.
So it fell that Mistress Anne could go to London without pangs of conscience at leaving her sister in the country and alone. The stateliness of the town mansion, my Lady Dunstanwolde's retinue of lackeys
"'Twas grand and like a beautiful show!" she said, when she came home the first time. "But do not take me often, sister, I am too plain and shy, and feel that I am naught in it."
But, though she kept as much apart from the great world of fashion as she could, she contrived to know of all her sister's triumphs, to see her when she went forth in her bravery, though 'twere but to drive in the Mall, to be in her closet with her on great nights when her tire-women were decking her in brocades and jewels, that she might show her highest beauty at some assembly or ball of state. And at all these
They held one night a splendid assembly, at which a member of the royal house was present. That night Clorinda bade her sister appear.
"Sometimes—I do not command it always—but sometimes you must show yourself to our guests. My Lord will not be pleased else. He says it is not fitting that his wife's sister should remain unseen as if we hid her away through ungraciousness. Your woman will prepare for you all things needful. I myself will see that your dress becomes you. I have commanded it already, and given much thought to its shape and color I would have you very comely, Anne." And she kissed her lightly on her cheek, almost as gently as she sometimes kissed her lord's gray hair. In truth, though she was still a proud lady and stately in her ways, there had come upon her some strange subtle change Anne could not understand.
On the day on which the assembly was held, Mistress Anne's woman brought to her a beautiful robe. 'Twas flowered satin of the sheen and softness of a dove's breast, and the lace adorning it was like a spider's web for gossamer fineness; the robe was sweetly fashioned, fitting her shape wondrously, and when she was attired in it at night a little color came
To-night she placed herself in the shadow of a screen, from which retreat she could see Clorinda and Dunstanwolde as they received their guests. Thus she found enjoyment enough, for, in truth, her love and almost abject passion of adoration for her sister had grown, as his Lordship's had, with every hour. For a season there had rested upon her a black shadow, beneath which she wept and trembled, bewildered and lost, though even at its darkest the object of her humble love had been a star whose brightness was not dimmed, because it could not be so whatsoever passed before it. This cloud, however, being, it seemed, dispelled, the star had shone but more brilliant in its high place and she the more passionately worshiped it. To sit apart and see her idol's radiance, to mark her as she reigned and seemed the more royal when she bent the knee to royalty itself, to see the shimmer of her jewels crowning her midnight hair and clasping the warm whiteness of her noble neck, to observe the admiration in all eyes as they dwelt upon her, this was, indeed, enough of happiness.
"She is as ever," she murmured, "not so much a woman as a proud, lovely goddess who has deigned
'Twas but a little later than she had thought this, that she remarked a gentleman step aside and stand quite near without observing her. Feeling that she had no testimony to her fancifulness, she found herself thinking, in a vague fashion, that he, too, had come there because he chose to be unobserved. 'Twould not have been so easy for him to retire as it had been for her smallness and insignificance to do so, and, indeed, she did not fancy that he meant to conceal himself, but merely to stand for a quiet moment a little apart from the crowd.
And as she looked up at him, wondering why this should be, she saw he was the noblest and most stately gentleman she had ever beheld.
She had never seen him before; he must either be a stranger or a rare visitor. As Clorinda was beyond a woman's height, he was beyond a man's. He carried himself as kingly as she did nobly; he had a countenance of strong manly beauty, and a deep tawny eye, thick-fringed and full of fire; orders glittered upon his breast, and he wore a fair periwig which became him wondrously and seemed to make his eye more deep and burning by its contrast.
Beside his strength and majesty of bearing, the stripling beauty of John Oxon would have seemed slight and paltry, a thing for flippant women to trifle with.
Mistress Anne looked at him with an admiration somewhat like reverence, and as she did so a sudden thought rose in her mind, and even as it rose she marked what his gaze rested on, and how it dwelt upon it, and knew that he had stepped apart to stand and gaze as she did—only with a man's hid fervor—at her sister's self!
'Twas as if suddenly a strange secret had been told her. She read it in his face, because he thought himself unobserved and for a space had cast his mask aside. He stood and gazed as a man who, starving at soul, fed himself through his eyes, having no hope of other sustenance, or as a man weary with long carrying of a burden, for a space laid it down for rest and to gather power to go on. She heard him draw a deep sigh, almost stifled in its birth, and there was that in his face which she felt it was unseemly that a stranger like herself should behold, himself unknowing of her near presence.
She gently rose from her corner, wondering if she could retire from her retreat without attracting his observation, but as she did so, chance caused him to withdraw himself a little further within the shadow of the screen, and doing so, he beheld her.
Then his face changed, the mask of noble calmness, for a moment fallen, resumed itself, and he bowed
"Madam," he said, "pardon my unconsciousness that you were near me. You would pass?" And he made way for her.
She courtesied, asking his pardon with her dull, soft eyes.
"Sir," she answered, "I but retired here for a moment's rest from the throng and gaiety, to which I am unaccustomed. But chiefly I sat in retirement that I might watch my sister."
"Your sister, madam?" he said, as if the questioning echo were almost involuntary, and he bowed again in some apology.
"My Lady Dunstanwolde," she replied; "I take such pleasure in her loveliness, and in all that pertains to her, it is a happiness to me to but look on."
Whatsoever the thing was in her loving mood which touched him and found echo in his own, he was so far moved that he answered to her with something less of ceremoniousness, remembering also in truth that she was a lady he had heard of, and recalling her relationship and name.
"It is, then, Mistress Anne Wildairs I am honored by having speech with," he said. "My Lady Dunstanwolde has spoken of you in my presence. I am my Lord's kinsman, the Duke of Osmonde," again bowing, and Anne courtesied low once more.
Despite his greatness she felt a kindness and grace
Her own worship of her sister she knew full well he understood, though he spoke of her but little.
"Well may you gaze at her," he said. "So does all the world—and honors and adores."
He proffered her, at last, his arm, and she, having strangely taken courage, let him lead her through the rooms and persuade her to some refreshment. Seeing her so wondrously emerged from her chrysalis and
As they came again into the apartment wherein the host and hostess received their guests, Anne felt her escort pause, and looked up at him to see the meaning of his sudden hesitation. He was gazing intently, not at Clorinda, but at the Earl of Dunstanwolde.
"Madam," he said, "pardon me that I seem to detain you; but— but I look at my kinsman. Madam," with a sudden fear in his voice, "he is ailing—he sways as he stands. Let us go to him quickly! He falls!"
And, in sooth, at that very moment there arose a dismayed cry from the guests about them, and there was a surging movement, and as they pressed forward themselves through the throng, Anne saw Dunstanwolde no more above the people, for he had indeed fallen, and lay outstretched and deathly on the floor.
'Twas but a few seconds before she and Osmonde were close enough to him to mark his sunken face and ghastly pallor and a strange dew starting out upon his brow.
But 'twas his wife who knelt beside his prostrate body, waving all else aside with a great majestic gesture of her arm.
"Back! back!" she cried. "Air! air and water. My Lord! My dear Lord!"
But he did not answer or even stir—though she
"My Lady," he said, bending over her, "permit me to approach! I have some knowledge of these seizures. Your pardon!"
He knelt also and took the moveless hand, feeling the pulse; he, too, thrust his hand within the breast and held it there, looking at the sunken face.
"My dear Lord," her Ladyship was saying, as if to the prostrate man's ear alone, knowing that her tender voice must reach him if aught would—as indeed was truth. "Edward! My dear—dear Lord!"
Osmonde held the hand steadily over the heart—the guests shrunk back, stricken with terror.
There was that in this corner of the splendid room which turned faces pale.
Osmonde slowly withdrew his hand, and turning to the kneeling woman—with a pallor like that of marble, but with a noble tenderness and pity in his eyes—
"My lady," he said, "you are a brave woman. Your great courage must sustain you. His heart beats no more. A noble life is finished."
. . . . . . . . . . .
The guests heard and drew still farther back, a woman or two faintly whimpering, a hurrying lackey parted the crowd, and so, way being made for him, the physician came quickly forward.
Anne put her shaking hands up to cover her gaze. Osmonde stood still, looking down. My Lady of Dunstanwolde knelt by the couch and hid her beautiful face upon the dead man's breast.
CHAPTER XI
WHEREIN A NOBLE LIFE COMES TO AN END
A Lady of Quality | ||