8. CHAPTER VIII.
Clay threw the volume aside, in which he had been
reading, and taking up “the red book,” looked for
the county address of Sir Harry Freer, the exponent
(only) of Lady Fanny Freer, who, though the “nicest
possible creature,” is not the heroine of this story.
Sir Harry's ancestral domain turned out to be a portion
of the earth's surface in that county of England
where the old gentry look down upon very famous
lords as too new, and proportionately upon all other
families that have not degenerated since William the
conqueror.
Sir Harry had married an earl's daughter; but as
the earldom was not only the fruit of two generations
of public and political eminence, Sir Harry was not
considered in Cheshire as having made more than a
tolerable match; and if she passed for a “Cheshire
cheese” in London, he passed for but the rind in the
county. In the county therefore there was a lord
paramount of Freer Hall, and in town, a lady paramount
of Brook-street; and it was under the town
dynasty that Miss Blanch Beaufin was invited up from
Cheshire to pass a first winter in London — Miss
Beaufin being the daughter of a descendant of a Norman
retainer of the first Sir Harry, and the relative
position of the families having been rigidly kept up to
the existing epoch.
The address found in the red book was described
upon the following letter: —
“Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside
the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run
down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone, ask
up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my
hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody
more pretty than yourself for our mutual
security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence,
you will excuse the brevity of
Yours truly,
“Ernest Clay.
“N. B. Tell me in your answer if Blanch Beaufin
is within a morning's ride.”
Lady Fanny was a warm-hearted, extravagant
beautiful creature of impulse, a passionate friend of
Clay's (for such women there are), without a spice of
flirtation. She was a perennial belle in London; and
he had begun his acquaintance with her by throwing
himself at her head in the approved fashion — in love
to the degree of rose-asking and sonnet-writing. As
she did not laugh when he sighed, however, but only
told him very seriously that she was not a bit in love
with him, and thought he was throwing away his
time, he easily forgave her insensibility, and they became
very warm allies. Spoiled favorite as he was
of London society, Clay had qualities for a very sincere
friendship; and Lady Fanny, full of irregular
talent, had also a strong vein of common sense, and
perfectly understood him. This explanation to the
reader. It would have saved some trouble and pain
if it had been made by some good angel to Sir Harry
Freer.
As the London coach rattled under the bridged
gate of the gloomy old town of Chester, Lady Fanny's
dashing ponies were almost on their haunches with
her impetuous pull-up at the hotel; and returning
with a nod the coachman's respectful bow, she put
her long whip in at the coach window to shake hands
with Clay, and in a few minutes they were again off
the pavements, and taking the road at her ladyship's
usual speed.
“Steady, Flash! steady!” (she ran on, talking to
Clay, and her ponies in the same breath), “doleful
ride down, isn't it? — (keep up, Tom, you villain!) —
very good of you to come, I'm sure, dear Ernest, and
you'll stay; how long will you stay? (down, Flash!)
— Oh, Miss Beaufin! I've something to say to you
about Blanch Beaufin! I didn't answer your Nota
Bene — (go along, Tom! that pony wants blooding) —
because to tell the truth, it's a delicate subject at
Freer Hall, and I would rather talk than write about
it. You see — (will you be done, Flash!) — the
Beaufins, though very nice people, and Blanch quite
a love — (go along, lazy Tom!) — the Beaufins, I say,
are rated rather crockery in Cheshire. And I am
ashamed to own, really quite ashamed, I have not
been near them in a month. Shameful, isn't it?
There's good action, Ernest! Look at that nigh
pony; not a blemish in him; and such a goer in single
harness! Well, I'll go around by the Beaufins
now.”
“Pray consider, Lady Fanny!” interrupted Clay
deprecatingly, “eighteen hours in a coach.”
“Not to go in! oh, not to go in! Blanch is very ill,
and sees nobody; — and (come, Tom! come!) — I only
heard of it this morning — (there's for your laziness,
you stupid horse!, — We'll, just call and ask how she is,
though Sir Harry — ”
“Is she very ill, then?” asked Clay, with a concern
which made Lady Fanny turn her eyes from her
ponies' ears to look at him.
“They say, very! Of course, Sir Harry can't forbid
a visit to the sick.”
“Surely he does not forbid you to call on Blanch
Beaufin!”
“Not `forbid' precisely; that wouldn't do — (gently,
sweet Flash! now, Tom! now, lazy! trot fair through
the hollow!) — but I invited her to pass the winter
with me without consulting him, and he liked it well
enough, till he got back among his stupid neighbors
— (well done, Flash! plague take that bothering
whipple-tree!) — and they and their awkward daughters,
whom I might have invited — (whoa! Flash!) — if I
had wanted a menagerie, set him to looking into her
pedigree. There's the house; the old house with
the vines over it yonder! So then, Sir Harry — such
a sweet girl, too — set his face against the acquaintance.
Here we are! — (Whoa, bays! whoa!) Hold the
reins a moment while I run in!”
More to quell a vague and apprehensive feeling of
remorse than to wile away idle time, Clay passed the
reins back to the stripling in gray livery behind, and
walked round Lady Fanny's ponies, expressing his
admiration of them and the turnout altogether.
“Yes, sir,” said the lad, who seemed to have caught
some of the cleverness of his mistress, for he scarce
looked fourteen, “they're a touch above anything in
Cheshire! Look at the forehand of that nigh 'un,
sir! — arm and withers like a greyhound, and yet what
a quarter for trotting, sir! Quite the right thing all
over! Carries his flag that way quite natural; never
was nicked, sir! Did you take notice, begging your
pardon, sir, how milady put through that hollow?
Wasn't it fine, sir? Tother's a goodish nag, too,
but, nothing to Flash; can't spread, somehow; that's
Sir Harry's picking up, and never was a match; no
blood in Tom, sir! Look at his fetlock: underbred,
but a jimpy nag for a roadster, if a man wanted work
out on him. See how he blows, sir, and Flash as
still as a stopped wheel!”
Lady Fanny's reappearance at the door of the
house interrupted her page's eulogy on the bays; and
with a very altered expression of countenance she resumed
the reins, and drove slowly homeward.
“She is very ill, very ill! but she wishes to see
you, and you must go there; but not to-morrow.
She is passing a crisis now, and her physician says,
will be easier if not better, after to-morrow. Poor
girl! dear Blanch! Ah, Clay! but no — no matter;
I shall talk about it with more composure by-and-by
— poor Blanch!”
Lady Fanny's tears rained upon her two hands as
she let out her impatient horses to be sooner at home,
and, in half an hour, Clay was alone in his luxurious
quarters, under Sir Harry's roof, with two hours to
dinner, and more than thoughts enough, and very sad
ones, to make him glad of time and solitude.
Freer Hall was full of company — Sir Harry's company
— and Clay, with the quiet assurance of a London
star, used to the dominant, took his station by Lady
Fanny on entering the drawing-room, and when dinner
was announced, gave her his arm, without troubling
himself to remember that there was a baronet who had
claim to the honor, and of whom he must simply make
a mortal enemy. At table, the conversation ran mainly
in Sir Harry's vein, hunting, and Clay did not even
take the listener's part; but, in a low tone, talked of
London to Lady Fanny — her ladyship (unaccountably
to her husband and his friends, who were used to
furnish her more merriment than revery) pensive
and out of spirits. With the announcement of coffee
in the drawing-room, Clay disappeared with her, and
their evening was tête-atête, for Sir Harry and his
friends were three-bottle men, and commonly bade
good-night to ladies when the ladies left the table.
If there had been a second thought in the convivial
squirearchy, they would have troubled their heads
less about a man who did not exhibit the first symptom
of love for the wife — civility to the husband. But
this is a hand-to-mouth world in the way of knowledge,
and nothing is stored but experiences, lifetime
by lifetime.
Another day passed and another, and mystery seemed
the ruling spirit of the hour, for there were enigmas
for all. Regularly, morning and afternoon, the high
stepping ponies were ordered round, and Lady Fanny
(with Mr. Clay for company to the gate) visited the
Beaufins, now against positive orders from the irate
Sir Harry, and daily, Clay's reserve with his beautiful
hostess increased, and his distress of mind with it, for
both he and she were alarmed with the one piece of
unexplained intelligence between them — Miss Beaufin
would see Mr. Clay when she should be dying!
Not before — for worlds not before — and of the physician
constantly in attendance (Lady Fanny often
present), Clay knew that the poor girl besought with
an eagerness, to the last degree touching and earnest,
to know when hope could be given over. She
was indulged, unquestioned, as a dying daughter;
and, whatever might be her secret, Lady Fanny
promised that at the turning hour, come what would
of distressing and painful, she would herself come
with Mr. Clay to her death-bed.
Sir Harry and his friends were in the billiard-room,
and Lady Fanny and Clay breakfasting together, when
a note was brought in by one of the footmen, who
waited for an answer.
“Say that I will come,” said Lady Fanny, “and
stay, George! See that my ponies are harnessed immediately;
put the head of the phaeton up, and let it
stand in the coach-house. And, Timson!” she added
to the butler who stood at the side-table, “if Sir Harry
inquires for me, say that I am gone to visit a sick
friend.”
Lady Fanny walked to the window. It rained in
torrents. There was no need of explanation to Clay;
he understood the note and its meaning.
“The offices connect with the stables by a covered
way,” she said, “and we will get in there. Shall you
be ready in a few minutes?”
“Quite, dear Lady Fanny! I am ready now.”
“The rain is rather fortunate than otherwise,” she
added, in going out, “for Sir Harry will not see us
go; and he might throw an obstacle in the way, and
make it difficult to manage. Wrap well up, Ernest!”
The butler looked inquisitively at Clay and his mistress,
but both were preoccupied, and in ten minutes
the rapid phaeton was on its way, the ponies pressing
on the bit as if the eagerness of the two hearts beating
behind them was communicated through the reins,
and Lady Fanny, contrary to her wont, driving in unencouraging
silence. The three or four miles between
Freer Hall and their destination were soon traversed,
and under the small porte-cochere of the ancient mansion
the ponies stood panting and sheltered.
“Kind Lady Fanny! God bless you!” said a tall,
dark man, of a very striking exterior, coming out to
the phaeton. “And you, sir, are welcome!”
They followed him into the little parlor, where Clay
was presented by Lady Fanny to the mother of Miss
Beaufin, a singularly yet sadly sweet woman in voice,
person, and address; to the old, white-haired vicar,
and to the physician, who returned his bow with a
cold and very formal salute.
“There is no time to be lost.” said he, “and at the
request of Miss Beaufin, Lady Fanny and this gentleman
will please go to her chamber without us. I can
trust your ladyship to see that her remainder of life
is not shortened nor harassed by needless agitation.”
Clay's heart beat violently. At the extremity of
the long and dimly-lighted passage thrown open by
the father to Lady Fanny, he saw a while curtained
bed — the death-bed, he knew, of the gay and fair
flower of a London season, the wonder and idol of
difficult fashion, and unadmiring rank. Blanch Beaufin
had appeared like a marvel in the brilliant circles of
Lady Fanny's acquaintance, a distinguished, unconscious,
dazzling girl, of whom her fair introductress
(either in mischief or good nature) would say nothing
but that she was her neighbor in Cheshire, though
all that nature could lavish on one human creature
seemed hers, with all that high birth could stamp on
mien, countenance, and manners. Clay paid her his
tribute with the rest — the hundred who flattered and
followed her; but she was a proud girl, and though
he seized every opportunity of being near her, nothing
in her manner betrayed to him that he was not counted
among the hundred. A London season fleets fast,
and, taken by surprise with Lady Fanny's early departure
for the country, her farewells were written
on the corners of cards, and with a secret deep buried
in the heart, she was brought back to the retirement
of home.
Brief history of the breaking of a heart!
Lady Fanny started slightly on entering the chamber.
The sick girl sat propped in an arm chair,
dressed in snowy white; even her slight foot appearing
beneath the edge of her dress in a slipper of white
satin. Her brown hair fell in profuse ringlets over
her shoulders; but it was gathered behind into a
knot, and from it depended a white veil, the diamonds
which fastened it, pressing to the glossy curve of her
head, a slender stem of orange-flowers. Her features
were of that slight mould which shows sickness by
little except higher transparency of the blue veins,
and brighter redness in the lips, and as she smiled
with suffused cheek, and held out her gloved hand to
Clay, with a vain effort to articulate, he passed his
hands across his eyes and looked inquiringly at his
friend. He had expected, though he had never
realized, that she would be altered. She looked
almost as he had left her. He remembered her only
as he had oftenest seen her — dressed for ball or party,
and but for the solemnity of the preparation he had
gone through, he might have thought his feelings
had been played upon only; that Blanch Beaufin
was well — still beautiful and well; that he should
again see her in the brilliant circles of London; still
love her as he secretly did, and receive what he now
felt would be under any circumstances a gift of
Heaven, the assurance of a return. This and a world
of confused emotion, tumultuously and in an instant,
rushed through his heart; for there are moments in
which we live lives of feeling and thought; moments,
glances, which supply years of secret or bitter memory.
This is but a sketch — but an outline of a tale over
true. Were there space, were there time to follow
out the traverse thread of its mere mournful incidents,
we might write the reverse side of a leaf of life ever
read partially and wrong — the life of the gay and unlamenting.
Sickness and death had here broken
down a wall of adamant between two creatures, every
way formed for each other. In health and ordinary
regularity of circumstances, they would have loved as
truly and deeply as those in humbler or in more fortunate
relative positions; but they probably would
never have been united. It is the system, the necessary
system of the class to which Clay belonged, to
turn adroitly and gayly off every shaft to the heart;
to take advantage of no opening to affection; to
smother all preference that would lead to an interchange
of hallowed vows; to profess insensibility
equally polished and hardened on the subject of pure
love; to forswear marriage, and make of it a mock
and an impossibility. And whose handiwork is this
unnatural order of society? Was it established by
the fortunate and joyous — by the wealthy and untrammelled,
at liberty to range the world if they liked,
and marry where they chose, but preferring gayety to
happiness, and lawless liberty to virtuous love? No,
indeed! not by these! Show me one such man, and
I will show you a rare perversion of common feeling
— a man who under any circumstances would have
been cold and eccentric. It is not to those able to
marry where they will, that the class of London gay
men owe their system of mocking opinions. But it
is to the companions of fortunate men — gifted like
them, in all but fortune, and holding their caste by
the tenure of forsworn ties — abiding in the paradise
of aristocracy, with pure love for the forbidden fruit!
Are such men insensible to love? Has this forbidden
joy — this one thing hallowed in a bad world; has it no
temptation for the gay man? Is his better nature
quite dead within him? Is he never ill and sad where
gayety can not reach him? Does he envy the rich
young lord (his friend), everything but his blushing
and pure bride? Is he poet or wit, or the mirror of
taste and elegance, yet incapable of discerning the
qualities of a true love; the celestial refinement of a
maiden passion, lawful and fearless, devoted because
spotless, and enduring because made up half of prayer
and gratitude to her Maker? Does he not know distinctions
of feeling, as he knows character in a play?
Does he not discriminate between purity and guilt in
love, as he does in his nice judgment of honor and
taste? Is he gayly dead to the deepest and most
elevated cravings of nature — love, passionate, single-hearted,
and holy? Trust me, there is a bitterness
whose depths we can only fathom by refinement!
To move among creatures embellished and elevated
to the last point of human attainment, lovely and unsullied,
and know yourself (as to all but gazing on and
appreciating them) a pariah and an outcast! to breathe
their air, and be the companion and apparent equal of
those for whose bliss they are created, and to whom
they are offered for choice, with the profusion of
flowers in a garden — (the chooser and possessor of
the brightest your inferior in all else) — to live thus;
to suffer thus, and still smile and call it choice and
your own way to happiness — this is mockery indeed!
He who now stood in the death-room of Blanch
Beaufin, had felt it in its bitterest intensity!
“Mr. Clay! — Ernest!” said the now pale creature,
breaking the silence with a strong effort, for he had
dropped on his knee at her side in ungovernable emotion,
and, as yet, had but articulated her name — “Ernest!
I have but little time for anything — least of all
for disguise or ceremony. I am assured that I am dying.
I am convinced,” she added firmly, taking up
the watch that lay beside her, “that I have been told
the truth, and that when this hourhand comes round
again, I shall be dead. I will conceal nothing. They
have given me cordials that will support me one hour,
and for that hour — and for eternity — I wish — if I may
be so blest — if God will permit — to be your wife!”
Lady Fanny Freer rose and came to her with rapid
steps, and Clay sprang to his feet, and in a passion of
tears exclaimed, “Oh God! can this be true!”
“Answer me quickly!” she continued, in a voice
raised, but breaking through sobs, “an hour is short —
oh how short, when it is the last! I can not stay with
you long, were you a thousand times mine. Tell
me, Ernest! — shall it be? — shall I be wedded ere I
die? — wedded now?”
A passionate gesture to Lady Fanny was all the
answer Clay could make, and in another moment the
aged vicar was in the chamber, with her parents and
the physician, to all of whom a few words explained
a mystery which her bridal attire had already half unravelled.
Blanch spoke quickly — “Shall he proceed, Ernest?”
Her prayer-book was open on her knee, and Clay
gave it to the vicar, who, with a quick sense of sympathy,
and with but a glance at the weeping and silent
parents, read without delay the hallowed ceremonial.
Clay's countenance elevated and cleared as he proceeded,
and Blanch, with her large suffused eyes fixed
on his, listened with a smile, serene, but expressive of
unspeakable rapture. Her beauty had never been so
radiant, so angelic. In heaven, on her bridal night,
beatified spirit as she was, she could not have been
more beautiful!
One instant of embarrassment occurred, unobserved
by the dying bride, but, with the thoughtfulness of
womanly generosity, Lady Fanny had foreseen it, and,
drawing off her own wedding-ring, she passed it into
Ernest's hand ere the interruption became apparent.
Alas! the emaciated hand ungloved to receive it!
That wasted finger pointed indeed to heaven! Till
then, Clay had felt almost in a dream. But here was
suffering — sickness — death! This told what the hectic
brightness and the faultless features would fain
deny — what the fragrant and still unwithering flowers
upon her temples would seem to mock! But the
hectic was already fading, and the flowers outlived the
light in the dark eyes they shaded!
The vicar joined their hands with the solemn adjuration,
“Those whom God hath joined together let
no man put asunder;” and Clay rose from his knees,
and pressing his first kiss upon her lips, strained her
passionately to his heart.
“Mine in heaven!” she cried, giving way at last to
her tears, as she closed her slight arms over his neck;
“mine in heaven! Is it not so, mother! father! is
he not mine now? There is no giving in marriage in
heaven, but the ties, hallowed here, are not forgotten
there! Tell me they are not! Speak to me, my
husband! Press me to your heart, Ernest! Your
wife — oh, I thank God!”
The physician sprang forward and laid his hand
upon her pulse. She fell back upon her pillows, and
with a smile upon her lips, and the tears still wet upon
her long and drooping lashes, lay dead.
Lady Fanny took the mother by the arm, and with
a gesture to the father and the physician to follow,
they retired and left the bridegroom alone.
Life is full of sudden transitions; and the next
event in that of Ernest Clay, was a duel with Sir Harry
Freer — if the Morning Post was to be believed —
“occasioned by the indiscretion of Lady Fanny, who,
in a giddy moment, it appears, had given to her admirer,
Sir Harry's opponent, her wedding-ring!”
