A Lady of Quality Part 16

There had been a time when without this woman's beauty he might have lived-indeed, he had left it of his own free vicious will; but in these days, when his fortunes had changed and she represented all that he stood most desperately in need of, her beauty drove him mad. In his haunting of her, as he followed her from place to place, his pa.s.sion grew day by day, and all the more gained strength and fierceness because it was so mixed with hate. He tossed upon his bed at night and cursed her; he remembered the wild past, and the memory all but drove him to delirium. He knew of what stern stuff she was made, and that even if her love had died, she would have held to her compact like grim death, even while loathing him. And he had cast all this aside in one mad moment of boyish cupidity and folly; and now that she was so radiant and entrancing a thing, and wealth, and splendour, and rank, and luxury lay in the hollow of her hand, she fixed her beauteous devil's eyes upon him with a scorn in their black depths which seemed to burn like fires of h.e.l.l.

The great brute who dashed, and plunged, and pranced beneath her seemed to have sworn to conquer her as he had sworn himself; but let him plunge and kick as he would, there was no quailing in her eye, she sat like a creature who was superhuman, and her hand was iron, her wrist was steel. She held him so that he could not do his worst without such pain as would drive him mad; she lashed him, and rained on him such blows as almost made him blind. Once at the very worst, Devil dancing near him, she looked down from his back into John Oxon's face, and he cursed aloud, her eye so told him his own story and hers. In those days their souls met in such combat as it seemed must end in murder itself.

"You will not conquer him," he said to her one morning, forcing himself near enough to speak.

"I will, unless he kills me," she answered, "and that methinks he will find it hard to do."

"He will kill you," he said. "I would, were I in his four shoes."

"You would if you could," were her words; "but you could not with his bit in your mouth and my hand on the snaffle. And if he killed me, still 'twould be he, not I, was beaten; since he could only kill what any b.l.o.o.d.y villain could with any knife. He is a brute beast, and I am that which was given dominion over such. Look on till I have done with him."

And thus, with other beholders, though in a different mood from theirs, he did, until a day when even the most sceptical saw that the brute came to the fray with less of courage, as if there had at last come into his brain the dawning of a fear of that which rid him, and all his madness could not displace from its throne upon his back.

"By G.o.d!" cried more than one of the bystanders, seeing this, despite the animal's fury, "the beast gives way! He gives way! She has him!" And John Oxon, shutting his teeth, cut short an oath and turned pale as death.

From that moment her victory was a thing a.s.sured. The duel of strength became less desperate, and having once begun to learn his lesson, the brute was made to learn it well. His bearing was a thing superb to behold; once taught obedience, there would scarce be a horse like him in the whole of England. And day by day this he learned from her, and being mastered, was put through his paces, and led to answer to the rein, so that he trotted, cantered, galloped, and leaped as a bird flies. Then as the town had come to see him fight for freedom, it came to see him adorn the victory of the being who had conquered him, and over their dishes of tea in the afternoon beaux and beauties of fas.h.i.+on gossiped of the interesting and exciting event; and there were vapourish ladies who vowed they could not have beaten a brute so, and that surely my Lady Dunstanwolde must have looked hot and blowzy while she did it, and have had the air of a great rough man; and there were some pretty tiffs and even quarrels when the men swore that never had she looked so magnificent a beauty and so inflamed the hearts of all beholding her.

On the first day after her ladys.h.i.+p's last battle with her horse, the one which ended in such victory to her that she rode him home hard through the streets without an outbreak, he white with lather, and marked with stripes, but his large eye holding in its velvet a look which seemed almost like a human thought-on that day after there occurred a thing which gave the town new matter to talk of.

His Grace of Osmonde had been in France, called there by business of the State, and during his absence the gossip concerning the horse Devil had taken the place of that which had before touched on himself. 'Twas not announced that he was to return to England, and indeed there were those who, speaking with authority, said that for two weeks at least his affairs abroad would not be brought to a close; and yet on this morning, as my Lady Dunstanwolde rode 'neath the trees, holding Devil well in hand, and watching him with eagle keenness of eye, many looking on in wait for the moment when the brute might break forth suddenly again, a horseman was seen approaching at a pace so rapid that 'twas on the verge of a gallop, and the first man who beheld him looked amazed and lifted his hat, and the next, seeing him, spoke to another, who bowed with him, and all along the line of loungers hats were removed, and people wore the air of seeing a man unexpectedly, and hearing a name spoken in exclamation by his side, Sir John Oxon looked round and beheld ride by my lord Duke of Osmonde. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly, and all the Park was gay with bright warmth and greenness of turf and trees. Clorinda felt the glow of the summer morning permeate her being. She kept her watch upon her beast; but he was going well, and in her soul she knew that he was beaten, and that her victory had been beheld by the one man who knew that it meant to her that which it seemed to mean also to himself. And filled with this thought and the joy of it, she rode beneath the trees, and so was riding with splendid spirit when she heard a horse behind her, and looked up as it drew near, and the rich crimson swept over her in a sweet flood, so that it seemed to her she felt it warm on her very shoulders, 'neath her habit, for 'twas Osmonde's self who had followed and reached her, and uncovered, keeping pace by her side.

Ah, what a face he had, and how his eyes burned as they rested on her. It was such a look she met, that for a moment she could not find speech, and he himself spoke as a man who, through some deep emotion, has almost lost his breath.

"My Lady Dunstanwolde," he began; and then with a sudden pa.s.sion, "Clorinda, my beloved!" The time had come when he could not keep silence, and with great leapings of her heart she knew. Yet not one word said she, for she could not; but her beauty, glowing and quivering under his eyes' great fire, answered enough.

"Were it not that I fear for your sake the beast you ride," he said, "I would lay my hand upon his bridle, that I might crush your hand in mine. At post-haste I have come from France, hearing this thing-that you endangered every day that which I love so madly. My G.o.d! beloved, cruel, cruel woman-sure you must know!"

She answered with a breathless wild surrender. "Yes, yes!" she gasped, "I know."

"And yet you braved this danger, knowing that you might leave me a widowed man for life."

"But," she said, with a smile whose melting radiance seemed akin to tears-"but see how I have beaten him-and all is pa.s.sed."

"Yes, yes," he said, "as you have conquered all-as you have conquered me-and did from the first hour. But G.o.d forbid that you should make me suffer so again."

"Your Grace," she said, faltering, "I-I will not!"

"Forgive me for the tempest of my pa.s.sion," he said. "'Twas not thus I had thought to come to make my suit. 'Tis scarcely fitting that it should be so; but I was almost mad when I first heard this rumour, knowing my duty would not loose me to come to you at once-and knowing you so well, that only if your heart had melted to the one who besought you, you would give up."

"I-give up," she answered; "I give up."

"I wors.h.i.+p you," he said; "I wors.h.i.+p you." And their meeting eyes were drowned in each other's tenderness.

They galloped side by side, and the watchers looked on, exchanging words and glances, seeing in her beauteous, glowing face, in his joyous one, the final answer to the question they had so often asked each other. 'Twas his Grace of Osmonde who was the happy man, he and no other. That was a thing plain indeed to be seen, for they were too high above the common world to feel that they must play the paltry part of outward trifling to deceive it; and as the sun pierces through clouds and is stronger than they, so their love shone like the light of day itself through poor conventions. They did not know the people gazed and whispered, and if they had known it, the thing would have counted for naught with them.

"See!" said my lady, patting her Devil's neck-"see, he knows that you have come, and frets no more."

They rode homeward together, the great beauty and the great duke, and all the town beheld; and after they had pa.s.sed him where he stood, John Oxon mounted his own horse and galloped away, white-lipped and with mad eyes.

"Let me escort you home," the duke had said, "that I may kneel to you there, and pour forth my heart as I have so dreamed of doing. To-morrow I must go back to France, because I left my errand incomplete. I stole from duty the time to come to you, and I must return as quickly as I came." So he took her home; and as they entered the wide hall together, side by side, the attendant lacqueys bowed to the ground in deep, welcoming obeisance, knowing it was their future lord and master they received.

Together they went to her own sitting-room, called the Panelled Parlour, a beautiful great room hung with rare pictures, warm with floods of the bright summer suns.h.i.+ne, and perfumed with bowls of summer flowers; and as the lacquey departed, bowing, and closed the door behind him, they turned and were enfolded close in each other's arms, and stood so, with their hearts beating as surely it seemed to them human hearts had never beat before.

"Oh! my dear love, my heavenly love!" he cried. "It has been so long-I have lived in prison and in fetters-and it has been so long!"

Even as my Lord Dunstanwolde had found cause to wonder at her gentle ways, so was this man amazed at her great sweetness, now that he might cross the threshold of her heart. She gave of herself as an empress might give of her store of imperial jewels, with sumptuous lavishness, knowing that the store could not fail. In truth, it seemed that it must be a dream that she so stood before him in all her great, rich loveliness, leaning against his heaving breast, her arms as tender as his own, her regal head thrown backward that they might gaze into the depths of each other's eyes.

"From that first hour that I looked up at you," she said, "I knew you were my lord-my lord! And a fierce pain stabbed my heart, knowing you had come too late by but one hour; for had it not been that Dunstanwolde had led me to you, I knew-ah! how well I knew-that our hearts would have beaten together not as two hearts but as one."

"As they do now," he cried.

"As they do now," she answered-"as they do now!"

"And from the moment that your rose fell at my feet and I raised it in my hand," he said, "I knew I held some rapture which was my own. And when you stood before me at Dunstanwolde's side and our eyes met, I could not understand-nay, I could scarce believe that it had been taken from me."

There, in her arms, among the flowers and in the sweetness of the sun, he lived again the past, telling her of the days when, knowing his danger, he had held himself aloof, declining to come to her lord's house with the familiarity of a kinsman, because the pang of seeing her often was too great to bear; and relating to her also the story of the hours when he had watched her and she had not known his nearness or guessed his pain, when she had pa.s.sed in her equipage, not seeing him, or giving him but a gracious smile. He had walked outside her window at midnight sometimes, too, coming because he was a despairing man, and could not sleep, and returning homeward, having found no rest, but only increase of anguish. "Sometimes," he said, "I dared not look into your eyes, fearing my own would betray me; but now I can gaze into your soul itself, for the midnight is over-and joy cometh with the morning."

As he had spoken, he had caressed softly with his hand her cheek and her crown of hair, and such was his great gentleness that 'twas as if he touched lovingly a child; for into her face there had come that look which it would seem that in the arms of the man she loves every true woman wears-a look which is somehow like a child's in its trusting, sweet surrender and appeal, whatsoever may be her stateliness and the splendour of her beauty.

Yet as he touched her cheek so and her eyes so dwelt on him, suddenly her head fell heavily upon his breast, hiding her face, even while her unwreathing arms held more closely.

"Oh! those mad days before!" she cried-"Oh! those mad, mad days before!"

"Nay, they are long pa.s.sed, sweet," he said, in his deep, n.o.ble voice, thinking that she spoke of the wildness of her girlish years-"and all our days of joy are yet to come."

"Yes, yes," she cried, clinging closer, yet with shuddering, "they were before-the joy-the joy is all to come."

CHAPTER XV-In which Sir John Oxon finds again a trophy he had lost

His Grace of Osmonde went back to France to complete his business, and all the world knew that when he returned to England 'twould be to make his preparations for his marriage with my Lady Dunstanwolde. It was a marriage not long to be postponed, and her ladys.h.i.+p herself was known already to be engaged with lacemen, linen-drapers, toyshop women, and goldsmiths. Mercers awaited upon her at her house, accompanied by their attendants, bearing burdens of brocades and silks, and splendid stuffs of all sorts. Her chariot was to be seen standing before their shops, and the interest in her purchases was so great that fas.h.i.+onable beauties would contrive to visit the counters at the same hours as herself, so that they might catch glimpses of what she chose. In her own great house all was repressed excitement; her women were enraptured at being allowed the mere handling and laying away of the glories of her wardrobe; the lacqueys held themselves with greater state, knowing that they were soon to be a duke's servants; her little black Nero strutted about, his turban set upon his pate with a majestic c.o.c.k, and disdained to enter into battle with such pages of his own colour as wore only silver collars, he feeling a.s.sured that his own would soon be of gold.

The World of Fas.h.i.+on said when her ladys.h.i.+p's equipage drove by, that her beauty was like that of the G.o.d of day at morning, and that 'twas plain that no man or woman had ever beheld her as his Grace of Osmonde would.

"She loves at last," a wit said. "Until the time that such a woman loves, however great her splendour, she is as the sun behind a cloud."

"And now this one hath come forth, and s.h.i.+nes so that she warms us in mere pa.s.sing," said another. "What eyes, and what a mouth, with that strange smile upon it. Whoever saw such before? and when she came to town with my Lord Dunstanwolde, who, beholding her, would have believed that she could wear such a look?"

In sooth, there was that in her face and in her voice when she spoke which almost made Anne weep, through its strange sweetness and radiance. 'Twas as if the flood of her joy had swept away all hardness and disdain. Her eyes, which had seemed to mock at all they rested on, mocked no more, but ever seemed to smile at some dear inward thought.

One night when she went forth to a Court ball, being all attired in brocade of white and silver, and glittering with the Dunstanwolde diamonds, which starred her as with great sparkling dewdrops, and yet had not the radiance of her eyes and smile, she was so purely wonderful a vision that Anne, who had been watching her through all the time when she had been under the hands of her tirewoman, and beholding her now so dazzling and white a s.h.i.+ning creature, fell upon her knees to kiss her hand almost as one who wors.h.i.+ps.

"Oh, sister," she said, "you look like a spirit. It is as if with the earth you had naught to do-as if your eyes saw Heaven itself and Him who reigns there."

The lovely orbs of Clorinda shone more still like the great star of morning.

"Sister Anne," she said, laying her hand on her white breast, "at times I think that I must almost be a spirit, I feel such heavenly joy. It is as if He whom you believe in, and who can forgive and wipe out sins, has forgiven me, and has granted it to me, that I may begin my poor life again. Ah! I will make it better; I will try to make it as near an angel's life as a woman can; and I will do no wrong, but only good; and I will believe, and pray every day upon my knees-and all my prayers will be that I may so live that my dear lord-my Gerald-could forgive me all that I have ever done-and seeing my soul, would know me worthy of him. Oh! we are strange things, we human creatures, Anne," with a tremulous smile; "we do not believe until we want a thing, and feel that we shall die if 'tis not granted to us; and then we kneel and kneel and believe, because we must have somewhat to ask help from."