CHAPTER XVII
IN Queensbury House, the Duchess sat that night in her library to hear the story from Bolton. Diana slept in her own room, worn out and wearied beyond all power of speech or even of thought.
In his splendid rooms in the next street my Lord Baltimore lay in solitude, considering the past, not entirely unhopeful for the future, and as the Duchess heard the story of his offer, she sent a kind thought to him, winged above the grimy house-tops that might well help to assuage the sting of his wounded arm.
“Good blood doesn’t lie,” says she in her bright sententious manner—“A haberdasher hadn’t acted thus, and especially before a third person. But he made his amend like a gentleman.”
“Like a gentleman!” asserts the Duke. “I never liked him so well. But a good woman makes men better, as a bad one drives them to the devil.”
“And which am I?” says she with her smile that none other ever matched.
“You are Kitty. There’s none like you. Nature broke her mould after she made you, Madam, and so did she also—with another. One other. I thank God I know the two women I love—one as a friend, the other as a lover—incomparable.”
She prest his hand softly,—nay, even touched his face,—brushing it like a butterfly’s wing for gentleness. There was a minute’s silence.
“I knew long since you loved her,” she said, “And indeed ’tis a fair creature in mind and body, and, as I think, a spotless heart. What shall her future be? Baltimore I dare swear she will never have— She’s so simple that unlike the women of our world she thinks love the only wear! and to be my Lady Baltimore nothing to the purpose. The little sweet fool! How shall it end, Bolton?”
He made a gesture of despair, but said nothing.
The Duchess continued:—
“I shall hear her tale tomorrow, and perhaps decipher her heart in it, but what then? Shall she continue at the playhouse?”
“Not if I die on the threshold. I sent a message to Rich on coming here that I would wait on him in an hour. My way is dark before me—I know not how things shall be, yet know certainly that on those boards she shall never set foot again.”
“I think you in the right,” says Kitty softly. “Yet—our poor play!”
“Madam, consider. Consult your own noble heart—you that was her first friend and she so forlorn. I know what it will reply. And consider this also,—we know Congreve said, ‘ ’Twill either take greatly or be damned confoundedly.’ Well—it has took. It has played now for fifty-eight days—a thing unknown. ’Tis Gay’s own counsel to withdraw it soon and hope for a renewal next season. It flies all over England like thistle-down on a wind. What you set out to do is done. Never was such a triumph. Spare her then, Madam, who has made it so. She is all genius, fire, and light, yet as little fit for the grossness that must meet her there as your own sister. Yet if you command her to continue she will, so deep is her gratitude to her kind protectress.”
His voice, low and pleading, the care and trouble in his face, moved his friend. She looked at him with exquisite gentleness. The world had not known the bright cold Duchess then.
“My friend, would I add one trouble to your troubles? And I think you in the right. After all—the play’s but a play—the girl is living flesh and blood, and I know in any case she could not return for many days. I’m sorry for Rich, but again—what is a Harlequin manager to the pleasure of noble persons? Go to him. But before you go, once more tell me—is there no thought in your mind for her future? Return to her mother she cannot. The husband will use her worse than the playhouse.”
“It drives me near distraught that I can think of no outlet. Were my wife other than she is—perhaps as her gentlewoman— But ’tis impossible.”
“Impossible, and can’t you hear the town’s chatter? Besides, as soon shut a swan in a poultry yard as make a waiting-gentlewoman of a girl that can sing and play and look like this. She has her own throne, Bolton. How ask her to hold her lady’s fan and gloves? Not but what I believe she would do that also, for she is all sweetness, but ’tis a thing unthinkable. Well—I must consider of it. Go you to Rich.”
He kissed her charming hand, and went his way, and the Duchess, whistling her Pompey, despatched a word to the Lady Fanny Armine.
“Come to me for a council of war tomorrow morning. Great events.”
’Tis needless to describe Mr. Rich’s consternation and frenzy when the Duke made him acquainted with the circumstances. But to do him justice, his first thought was pity for the poor girl so cruelly trapped and used.
“Why, my Lord Duke, if I had Walker here at this minute, I’d run him through the body,—Stap my vitals, if I wouldn’t,—the gross cowardly lump of flesh! Never again shall he play in company of mine, and as to meeting Mrs. Fenton—why sure the poor Polly would die of terror at his feet. ’Tis to be supposed he’s in hiding. The hue and cry shall be sent after him.”
“Why no, Mr. Rich,” says the Duke, very composed and resolute. “We choose not so. The lady’s name must not be dragged in with so vile an adventurer, nor mentioned in a breath with a woman like Bishop. My Lord Baltimore has dealt with her. She’s the worst offender, since she confesses she made the fool believe that Mrs. Fenton was taken with him. These two will trouble us no more. But—there’s a further matter. Mrs. Fenton is very ailing with the shock and horror. Her spirits are sunk very low. The Duchess judges as do I, that she could not return for a fortnight or more.”
“Lord bless me—here’s a stew! What shall I do? Why the business fell off to half when she was absent three days not long since. A fortnight! Lord! The poor child. Well, but—we must publish a part of the story without names, and her return in a fortnight will draw the whole town if but to look at her! Tell her this, your Grace, and beg her to give her adorable self all due rest.”
“You are all goodness, Sir, and your sensibility and justice are known to us, but I regret very sensibly to tell you that Mrs. Fenton returns no more. ’Tis fully determined and can’t be altered.”
’Tis well to draw a veil over the next ten minutes and Mr. Rich’s agonies,—waves breaking against a rock. The Duke was patient, he sympathized, he deplored, but held to his point immovable. Indeed it took Mr. Rich more than ten minutes to realize his fate, and he then sat with his hands on his knees, the very picture of despair.
“What in the devil’s name shall I do?” says he— “ ’Twas too good to last. Well—there’s no more to say. I beseech your Grace to leave me for I’m a sore bewildered man. It all comes together like, for the sequel—“Polly” is forbid to be played and I counted on this. She hath had two Benefits, your Grace. Indeed I have treated her well.”
“All know it,” says the Duke soothingly, “and a grateful heart is your reward. Further, Sir,—if—(and I know you are an honest man)—you can demonstrate to me that you are at a money loss in this regard you shan’t be the loser—no, nor the other patentees of the playhouse. I’ll see to that.”
Rich looked at him astonished,—then a smile more knowing than beautiful overspread his features.
“Your Grace, I say no more. I’m answered on all points. I can but wish my Mrs. Fenton well and happy whoever she may bless with her society. I don’t give up hope that we may see her again one day and she as welcome as sun in winter.”
But Bolton had marked the smile. He spoke very grave.
“Mr. Rich, I treat you as one gentleman another when I say that no conjectures must be made, that this whole story is private to your ear alone, and that the lady’s honour is and will be unsullied as snow. There the matter must abide, and in your hands I know it safe, and that your voice will repel any insinuations.”
Rich promised eagerly. What would he not have promised such a patron? But he meant and kept his promise. Future events took the matter out of his hands, and set loose circumstances he could not control, but so far as man can be true, he was true.
They parted with courtesy and mutual respect and liking, and the Duke returned a solitary and wearied man to the unloved splendours of his dreary and empty palace. Why had she refused Baltimore? That was the question that tormented him. Sure none but Love the almighty—the Lord of all, could determine a poor girl to refuse a coronet, the handsomest and most followed man in London—a man also who must adore her since he broke down his pride and laid his all before her.
As for Mr. Rich, he plunged into affairs with all but frenzy, determined to pull triumph from the wreck if possible. But his soul was sad too for his Polly with her great sweet eyes. This girl had the gift to make all love her with what love they had to give, maternal, friendly, sisterly—manly, adoring. Excepting only a rival, she had but to smile, and hearts were at her feet. Possibly the charm might be her own loving heart exprest through those clear mirrors of her violet eyes. ’Tis much to be beautiful, but goodness and beauty together, must sure be a love philtre irresistible, and if genius be added—the lady, like another Helen, fires another Troy.
With the morning my Lady Fanny’s chair, lined with puckered satin like a jewel-case to hold its jewel, stopped at the door of Queensbury House, and dainty as a newly burnished bird of paradise she alit, leaning her arm on the footman’s, and went tripping up the great steps in the early sunshine. A smile hovered like a sunbeam on her rosy lips—she palpitated to taste the mystery the Duchess exprest in her letter, and the more because her thoughts were sweetened with hope. The straying sheep might sure be reclaimed to the fold of her heart if Bolton— But who could tell? She tript the faster up the great shallow stairs scarce touching the gilt balusters with her gloved hand as she went so light.
The door opened, she ran straight into the Duchess’s arms and bestowed and took a warm and friendly kiss.
“What is’t, Kitty? Great events? I tore myself from my bed an hour early and drove my woman crazy and here I am. Don’t delay for chocolate, but speak. I die of curiosity.”
But Pompey and the chocolate must be waited for before the Duchess would speak. She then commanded that none should be admitted on any pretence, and drawing her chair to my Lady Fanny’s poured forth the story, concealing nothing.
He who had watched,—were any man thus privileged, might have read the progress of the story on the eager listening face. It darkened with anger, it softened with pity as Diana’s misery, bound, fainting, helpless, was disclosed before her.
“ ’Tis a cursed thing to be a woman!” she cried—“The world is against us. What are we but a prey from beginning to end—in love, in business, in everything. But go on!”
She struck her hands together, at the player’s insults to his victim. “Were I a man!” she cried. Indeed ’twas a quick generous soul and the friendship between those two women easy to understand while the one talked and the other heard. But ’twas when the Duchess came to Baltimore and his part in the story that a darkness clouded her bright face and her hands claspt hard in her lap.
Not a word—not a word did she say, only listened, listened. He was wounded,—she winced as if the sword pierced her bosom. Diana entreated to bandage his arm—she half drew back in suspense and doubt. But ’twas when my Lord laid his great name and person at the girl’s feet that the beating heart sent its tide of crimson over the face, that ebbing left it white and blank. The Duchess either not seeing or judging friendliness lay that way, continued with her story, but ’tis doubtful if my Lady Fanny heard for a few bitter moments.
Suddenly, the tale done, the Duchess slipt on her knees by her friend’s chair, and put her arms about her, silently. So they continued for some minutes, and a hot tear trickling down Lady Fanny’s cheek fell on the Duchess’s, and yet neither spoke, only the kneeling woman’s arms tightened about the other, and the room was still. At last, the blackbird in the gilded cage sang loud and sweet in the sunshine, and Lady Fanny started and looked down into the Duchess’s wet eyes.
“My dear, my dear, don’t cry for me. I’m not worth your tears,—A dream is broke, no more! The sun shines, the night flies and its dreams with it. But indeed my other Kitty, my Lady Desmond herself could not be more true and kind than you. I thank you, my dearest, kindest Duchess, with a full heart.”
“Fanny, my dear, have we not warrant to say a prodigal son may return?” says the other very low.
“But not a prodigal lover! They never come back. The swine and the husks and the harlots—God forgive me, I mean not the poor ill-used girl, but we all know Baltimore’s former life,—and he would have used her the like way had she consented.”
“Yet, Fanny, he made amends. Bolton hath told me he meant his offer in more than words. There must be goodness in the man, and had you but patience——”
“I have had longer patience than I would even own to myself, much less to others. But ’tis done. Besides, Kitty—’tis a horrid shock that he should thus trail his name in the dirt. A player! One may comprehend an intrigue, but this is a million times lower!”
“If you say this you never loved him, my dear, and I rejoice with you that you have found the heart you did but mislay. For love, they say, seeks not its own, rejoices in goodness—and sure that was a good motion in a man sufficiently worthless. If indeed he meant it.”
“Passion—no more!” says Lady Fanny, her fine lips hardening. “Bas would give the world in haste for any trinket he wanted, and repent at leisure, and his victims with him. Pity me no longer, my dear. I think my tears were the distillation of anger, though indeed I scarce know my own heart yet. Give me time to consider, and tell me what you have in view, for surely the world turns topsy-turvey when— Heaven help us!—I can scarce believe it! Bolton also! Do the men run mad? But he was safe in his offer. That woman, his wife, will outlive us all.”
The Duchess resumed her seat, but took her friend’s hand.
“I had rather hear you own you loved him—I can’t tell why, but ’tis so. Better pain than self-scorn.”
Lady Fanny laughed as sweet but not as true as the bird’s song.
“What use to give a diamond when a string of glass beads would be preferred? And if lost, they matter much less. Rejoice with me, Kitty, since the beads are lost, that they were glass and never saw Golconda. Now spare my pride, and let us speak of Bolton. What would you have?”
“I would have a good man and a good woman made happy,” says the courageous Duchess—“and if not after the world’s way, then after their own. Bolton’s life is like a wasting river lost in the sands, Diana’s is one of such danger and dread as I don’t like to consider.”
“Well, since rank is nothing, and good blood but to be puddled with base, and honour a mere jest, would you have him marry her? But sure you know he lost his chance to have the marriage dissolved, and a man that’s your friend has little chance with the King at present.”
“True for you, Fanny. No hope that way. Then I would—don’t so stare at me! I would have them live together as man and wife and trust to the future with hope and love to gild it.”
“A thing often done!” says Lady Fanny bitterly—“and you and I—we know our world and how it ends. Two years at the most, tears, regrets, a pension, and then the woman takes up with some one else. Look at Mrs. Oldfield. First Mainwaring. Then Churchill.”
“My Lady Fanny little understands either Bolton or his Diana in speaking thus, and I thought your wit sharp as a diamond. She is no wanton, and he—. His heart is aching, dying for love and a home and a fond woman to welcome him in it. He has tasted the pleasures—Yes, Fanny—but with weariness always, with sick distaste. I know not a man more to be pitied. And he loves this girl. He is true and tender—he would repay no love with pain. Least of all hers. Consider! You must help me judge. You half thought me jesting t’other night. I am in sober earnest.”
“And this lady who spurns coronets—will she take up the position you offer, Kitty? Will he offer it? I think you talk wild. Will he bear to see her scorned? O, let me go home! I’m sick of the world we live in—mortally sick. A fine task for us truly to help a man to his mistress!”
“Who was it said t’other night—‘The day that saw Bolton content with a good woman I’d mark with a white stone in my calendar’? I think ’twas you!”
“True. I said it. I meant it. But what part shall I play?”
The Duchess looked at her composedly.
“If she should do this, your Ladyship, would you still be her friend,— Would you treat her as his true wife, defend her name, honour her?”
“Would you?”
“Very certainly. But from me she has stolen no Bas.”
Lady Fanny laughed sadly.
“How well you know me! You play me like a puppet. Yes—because she has robbed me, I’m to act the noble part, am I?”
“She did it not willingly.”
“True. Well—you pull the string that makes me dance. You mean—why should I revenge on the girl what she could not help? You ask something of a man’s greatness of soul from me when I would hug my own little petticoated rancours. But I’ll respond. Yes, I’ll help you to make her the fashion and know herself not despised.”
“She cares not for the fashion. She cares for the friendship of women she can honour.”
“And she would honour me?”
“She does.”
“O Kitty, you wheedler! You roll the bolus in honey. But I’ll swallow it from your hand and Bolton’s. As I said t’other night when I little suspected what ’twould cost me—I’ll follow where you lead. You may use me as you will with Bolton. After all—the Queen receives Mrs. Oldfield on the sly.”
“My Lady Fanny is more than the loose-tongued Queen and she will receive Mrs. Fenton openly,” says the Duchess gravely.
“She will!” cries Lady Fanny— “O Kitty, tell me to dance on the tight-rope at the Fair, to grin through a horse-collar, to do anything in the wide world you bid me—and if your Grace does it, I’ll do it unflinching also. Let us court ridicule and worse in common!”
They kissed one another on it—the Duchess very tenderly. She knew the sore sting at her friend’s heart, for if not love in the highest, still, love is pain and hurt pride a bitter salve for it. She knew also the fine high-bred generosity that rings responsive when the steel of a high call is struck upon it, and in all London there would be no aid like Lady Fanny’s and her own for the poor lovers she would help.
“We will make them happy,” says she, “Bolton is singularly helpless where women are in hand;—Diana but a trembling girl as yet, but will be a fine woman. Come hither and see her soon, and be her judge—and her angel.”
They parted on this, my Lady Fanny carrying her hurt under a gay cover, as many of her ancestors had done a thrust through flesh and blood. Well—shall a woman fail in courage that heeds it a thousandfold more than any man—she that must oppose a tender unarmed bosom to the thrust? She knew not her own heart yet—’twas so sudden a downfall.
“When I see him I shall know. But he’ll avoid me. He has not even pity—
“I have asked grace at a graceless face
And there was none for my men and me.”
she said to her own heart. Words she often used since she knew my Lord Baltimore.
She took her pen when alone, and wrote thus to the cousin of her love:
“My Kitty, I have had a blow that leaves me bewildered. I scarce can tell whether I’m alive or dead. As a man falling from his horse picks himself up stunned and bruised and cannot say at first whether ’tis he or another—so am I. ’Tis either death or a cure, and for the life of me I know not which. When my eyes can see you shall hear. But pity me, my Kitty,—I would ask no pity but yours on whose faithful love I have reposed since I was a child. Love me also, for I am solitary. Fie, this soft self-pity—I loathe it. And I am embarked with Kitty Queensbury in an adventure so odd that sure ’tis one of her oddest, and I know not what your sedately married Ladyship would say to it or to me. Farewell, Kitty, for today. My little painted boat is run on the rocks, and I must try to drag her off and set my idle sail again and salve what I can of the wreck. She was called ‘The Hope’ and I know not whether my heart was the cargo or no. Again, when I know, I will be open with you.
“I send you my heart’s love—that love at least I can never doubt of.
“From your affectionate humble servant and cousin,
“FANNY ARMINE.”