London Pride Or When the World Was Younger Part 27

"And her admirers. Rochester is always hanging about your garden, or landing from his wherry, when I go by; or, if he himself be not visible, there are a couple of his watermen on your steps."

"My Lord Rochester has a precocious wit which amuses my wife and her sister."

"And then there is De Malfort-an impertinent, second only to Gramont. He and Lady Fareham are twin stars. I have seldom seen them apart."

"Since De Malfort has the honour of being somewhat intimate with your ladys.h.i.+p, he has doubtless given you full particulars of his friends.h.i.+p for my wife. I a.s.sure you it will bear being talked about. There are no secrets in it."

"Really; I thought I had heard something about a sedan which took the wrong road after Killigrew's play. But that was the night before the fire. Good G.o.d! my lord, your face darkens as if a man had struck you. Whatever happened before the fire should have been burnt out of our memories by this time."

"I see his Majesty looking this way, madam, and I have not yet paid my respects to him," Fareham said, moving away, but a dazzling hand on his sleeve arrested him.

"Oh, your respects will keep; he has Miss Stewart giggling at his elbow. Strange, is it not, that a woman with as much brain as a pigeon can amuse a man who reckons himself both wise and witty?"

"It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, madam. She has the good sense to pretend that he amuses her."

"And no more understands a jest than she does Hebrew."

"She is conscious of pretty teeth and an enchanting smile. Wit or understanding would be superfluous," answered Fareham, bowing his adieu to the Sultana in chief.

There was a great a.s.sembly, with music and dancing, on the Queen's birthday, to which Lord and Lady Fareham and Mistress Kirkland were invited; and again Angela saw and wondered at the splendid scene, and at this brilliant world, which calamity could not touch. Pestilence had ravaged the city, flames had devoured it-yet here there were only smiling people, gorgeous dress, incomparable jewels. The plague had not touched them, and the fire had not reached them. Such afflictions are for the common herd. Angela promenaded with De Malfort in the s.p.a.cious banqueting-hall, with its ceiling of such prodigious height that the apotheosis of King James, and all the emblematical figures, triumphal cars, lions, bears and rams, corn-sheaves and baskets of fruit, which filled the panels, might as well have been executed by a sign-painter's rough-and-ready brush, as by the pencil of the great Fleming.

"We are a little kinder to Rubens at the Louvre," said De Malfort, noting her upward gaze; "for we allow his elaborate glorification of his Majesty's grandfather and grandmother about half a mile of wall. But I forgot, you have not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri's vanity inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent shoulders-the Roman-nosed Bearnais, with his pointed beard and stiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac's knife snapped that valiant life! And you have never seen Paris? You look about you with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ceiling, those candlebra for splendour."

"Can there be a scene more splendid?" asked Angela, pleased to keep him by her side, rather than see him devote himself to her sister; grateful for his attention in that crowd where most people were strangers, and where Lord Fareham had not vouchsafed the slightest notice of her.

"When you have seen the Louvre, you will wonder that any King, with a sense of his own consequence in the world, can inhabit such a hovel as Whitehall-this congeries of shabby apartments, the offices of servants, the lodgings of followers and dependents, soldiers and civilians-huddled in a confused labyrinth of brick and stone-redeemed from squalor only by one fine room. Could you see the grand proportions, the colossal majesty of the great Henri's palace-that palace whose costly completion sat heavy upon Sully's careful soul! Henri loved to build-and his grandson, Louis, inherits that Augustan taste."

"You were telling us of a new palace at Versailles--"

"A royal city in stone-white-dazzling-grandiose. The mortar was scarcely dry when I was there in March; but you should have seen the mi-careme ball. The finest masquerade that was ever beheld in Europe. All Paris came in masks to see that magnificent spectacle. His Majesty allowed entrance to all-and those who came were feasted at a banquet which only Rabelais could fairly describe. And then with our splendour there is an elegant restraint-a decency unknown here. Compare these women-Lady Shrewsbury yonder, Lady Chesterfield, the fat woman in sea-green and silver-Lady Castlemaine, brazen in orange velvet and emeralds-compare them with Conde's sister, with the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon, the Princess Palatine--"

"Are those such good women?"

"Humph! They are ladies. These are the kind of women King Charles admires. They are as distinct a race as the dogs that lie in his bed-chamber, and follow him in his walks, a species of his own creation. They do not even affect modesty. But I am turning preacher, like Fareham. Come, there is to be an entertainment in the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage-and Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer, is to perform."

They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained at Angela's side till the end of the performance, and attended her to the supper-table afterwards. Fareham watched them from his place in the background. He stood ever aloof from the royal focus, the beauty, and the wit, the most dazzling jewels, the most splendid raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it.

Yes; the pa.s.sion which these two entertained for each other was patent to every eye; but had it been an honourable attachment upon De Malfort's side, he would have declared himself before now. He would not have abandoned the field to such a sober suitor as Denzil. Henri de Malfort loved her, and she fed his pa.s.sion with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of the most musical voice Fareham had ever listened to.

"The voice that came to me in my desolation-the sweetest sound that ever fell on a dying man's ear," he thought, recalling those solitary days and nights in the plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fond longing, "that arm which shows dazzling white against the purple velvet of his sleeve is the arm that held up my aching head, in the dawn of returning reason; those are the eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, so anxious for my recovery. Oh, lovely angel, I would be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink a cup of water from that dear hand-only to feel the touch of those light fingers on my forehead! There was a magic in that touch that surpa.s.sed the healing powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in those benignant eyes. But, oh, she is changed since then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of this modish Tophet She has been taught to dress and look like the women around her-a little more modest-but after the same fas.h.i.+on. The nun I wors.h.i.+pped is no more."

Some one tapped him on the shoulder with an ostrich fan. He turned, and saw Lady Castlemaine close at his elbow.

"Image of gloom, will you lead me to my rooms?" she asked, in a curious voice, her dark blue eyes deepened by the pallor that showed through her rouge.

"I shall esteem myself too much honoured by that office," he answered, as she took his arm and moved quickly, with hurried footsteps, through the lessening throng.

"Oh, there is no one to dispute the honour with you. Sometimes I have a mob to hustle me to my lodgings, borne on the current of their adulation-sometimes I move through a desert, as I do to-night. Your face attracted me-for I believe it is the only one at Whitehall as gloomy as my own-unless there are some of my creditors, men to whom I owe gaming debts."

It was curious to note that subtle change in the faces of those they pa.s.sed, which Barbara Palmer knew so well-faces that changed, obedient to the weatherc.o.c.k of royal caprice-the countenances of courtiers who even yet had not learnt justly to weigh the influence of that imperial favourite, or to understand that she ruled their King with a power which no transient fancy for newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the sulks, frowns and mournful looks for gossip Pepys to jot down in his diary, and the next day the sun would be s.h.i.+ning again, and the King would be at supper with "the lady."

Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was secure; but she took these transient fancies moult serieus.e.m.e.nt. Her jealous soul could tolerate no rival-or it may be that she really loved the King. He had given himself to her in the flush of his triumphant return, while he was still young enough to feel a genuine pa.s.sion. For her sake he had been a cruel husband, an insolent tyrant to an inoffensive wife; for her sake he had squandered his people's money, and outraged every moral law; and it may be that she remembered these things, and hated him the more fiercely for them when he was inconstant. She was a woman of extremes, in whose tropical temperament there was no medium between hatred and love.

"You will sup with me, Fareham?" she said, as he waited on the threshold of her lodgings, which were in a detached pile of buildings, near the Holbein Gateway, and looking upon an enclosed and somewhat gloomy garden.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p will excuse me. I am expected at home."

"What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you to a tete-a-tete. I shall have some company, though the drove have gone to the Stewarts' in a hope of getting asked to supper-which but a few of them can realise in her mean lodgings. You had better stay. I may have Buckhurst, Sedley, De Malfort, and a few more of the pretty fellows-enough to empty your pockets at ba.s.set."

"Your ladys.h.i.+p is all goodness," said Fareham, quickly.

De Malfort's name had decided him. He followed his hostess through a crowd of lackeys, a splendour of wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned and flashed upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her complexion the peach in its ripest bloom, the orange sheen of her velvet mantua s.h.i.+ning out against a background of purple damask curtains embroidered with gold.

The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. Warmth, opulence, hospitality, were all expressed in the brilliantly lighted room, where luxurious fauteuils, after the new French fas.h.i.+on, stood about, ready to receive her ladys.h.i.+p's guests.

These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. Less than twenty men, and about a dozen women, were enough to add an air of living gaiety to the brilliancy of light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. He kissed her ladys.h.i.+p's hand, looked about him, and recognised Fareham with open wonder.

"An Israelite in the house of Dagon!" he said, sotto voce, as he approached him. "What, Fareham, have you given your neck to the yoke?

Do you yield to the charm which has subjugated such lighter natures as Villiers and Buckhurst?"

"It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of youth and innocence."

"Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to discover that? We all wors.h.i.+p innocence, were it but for its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or a yellow diamond above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you here! It is the most human thing I have known of you since you recovered of the contagion; for you have been a gloomier man from that time."

"Be a.s.sured I am altogether human-at least upon the worser side of humanity."

"How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, you should fight against that melancholic habit. Her ladys.h.i.+p is in the black sulks. We are in for a pleasant evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm at us to-morrow; call us sycophants and time-servers, swear she would hold no further commerce with any manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she is a magnificent termagant. If Cleopatra was half as handsome, I can forgive Antony for following her to ruin at Actium."

"There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen," said Lady Castlemaine, who was standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of whispering women.

They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridiculing old Rowley, to gratify their hostess. She knew them by heart-their falsehood and hollowness. She knew that they were ready, every one of them, to steal her royal lover, had they but the chance of such a conquest; yet it solaced her soreness to hear Miss Stewart depreciated even by those false lips-"She was too tall." "Her Britannia profile looked as if it was cut out of wood." "She was bold, bad, designing." "It was she who would have the King, not the King who would have her."

"You are too malicious, my dearest Price," said Lady Castlemaine, with more good humour than had been seen in her countenance that evening. "Buckhurst, will you take Mrs. Price to supper? There are cards in the gallery. Pray amuse yourselves."

"But will your ladys.h.i.+p neither sup nor play?" asked Sedley.

"My ladys.h.i.+p has a raging headache. What devil! Did I not lose enough to some of you blackguards last night? Do you want to rook me again? Pray amuse yourselves, friends. No doubt his Majesty is being exquisitely entertained where he is; but I doubt if he will get as good a supper as you will find in the next room."

The significant laugh which concluded her speech was too angry for mirth, and the blackness of her brow forbade questioning. All the town knew next day that she had contrived to get the royal supper intercepted and carried off, on its way from the King's kitchen to Miss Stewart's lodgings, and that his Majesty had a Barmecide feast at the table of beauty. It was a joke quite in the humour of the age.

The company melted out of the room; all but Fareham, who watched Lady Castlemaine as she stood by the hearth in an att.i.tude of hopeless self-forgetfulness, leaning against the lofty sculptured chimney-piece, one slender foot in gold-embroidered slipper and transparent stocking poised on the brazen fender, and her proud eyelids lowered as if there was nothing in this world worth looking at but the pile of s.h.i.+p's timber, burning with many-coloured flames upon the silver andirons.

In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was conscious of Fareham's lingering.

"Why do you stay, my lord?" she asked, without looking up. "If your purse is heavy there are friends of mine yonder who will lighten it for you, fairly or foully. I have never made up my mind how far a gentleman may be a rogue with impunity. If you don't love losing money you had best eat a good supper and begone."

"I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for cards than for feasting."

She did not answer him, but clasped her hands suddenly before her face and gave a heart-breaking sigh. Fareham paused on the threshold of the gallery, watching her, and then went slowly back, bent down to take the hand that had dropped at her side, and pressed his lips upon it, silently, respectfully, with a kind of homage that had become strange of late years to Barbara Palmer. Adorers she had and to spare, toadeaters and flatterers, a regiment of mercenaries; but these all wanted something of her-kisses, smiles, influence, money. Disinterested respect was new.