CHAPTER XVIII
T’WAS a se’nnight later and Diana, recovered but pale enough still, sat in the Duchess’s library and tried to read in a book but could not, so pressing was her own history.
For, it had been notified to her by her Grace that the long run of “The Beggar’s Opera” was over. With the three leaders changed it struggled on a few nights as on crutches, but a meeting between the patentees of the playhouse and Mr. Gay had decided it should now be laid on the shelf till the next season. So the walls that had echoed so often to her voice were now unfaithful and echoed as blithely to others and the fickle public laughed, applauded and forgot her.
’Twas a wounding thought. However she might dread certain things the playhouse brought her it had been her grand triumph, and re-made her life into a marvel she herself could scarce understand. Wonderful figures, the Duke, her Grace, my Lady Fanny Armine, and many more now walked in her world familiar and kindly. While she lay abed weak and sad, my Lady Fanny visited her, sometimes alone, sometimes with her friend, brought her posies, rare fruits, talked with her softly, surrounded her with delicate cares, until she won Diana’s heart and her languid eyes brightened when she heard the little high-heeled step come tripping to her door.
’Twas very wonderful. Wonderful beyond all speech that these great ladies should so obligingly bestow any of their time and thought upon a stranger whose fate had drifted her into their sight as the sea drifts its weeds, to be borne away on the next tide.
For the hour was now arrived when she must bid farewell to Queensbury House that was grown so dear to her heart. As she lay in the red velvet bed gazing upon the room grown so familiar, she had spent much time considering in what most dutiful and grateful terms she must take her farewell of the Duchess.
Her Grace being absent at Kensington that day and my Lady Fanny entering unexpected, she resolved to consult her Ladyship. She now sat in a great library chair with the Duchess’s paper-cutting in her hand, a pastime all the mode and introduced at that house by the gifted Mrs. Pendarves, cousin to her Grace. With pointed scissors Diana snipped the paper into little rosy figures, urns, and temples in the Greek taste for decorating mantels and boxes in colors on a black background. Mr. Pope himself, the famous poet, had been pleased to direct the production of certain of these scenes from his own rendering of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and to commend Diana’s skill.
“Our device shall be joyous, Madam,” says he. “You are too young and fortunate to represent the grief of Andromeda and Hecuba, or the rape of Helen. No,—Mrs. Fenton with her little sharp weapon, shall depict the Princess Nausicaa playing at ball with her maidens, or the divine Calypso singing as she speeds her golden shuttle, till all the woods ring to that celestial harmony. And, if you please, Madam, I would have the Princess to resemble the lady who reproduces her features, since no more youthful and lovely model can be. And Calypso also, since her melody cannot excel Mrs. Polly’s.” For even Mr. Pope diluted his venom when he spoke with her, and gazed with pleasure on a creature of such obliging sweetness.
She rose and curtseyed to my Lady and drew a chair, and presently displayed her little works to the critic.
“But you haven’t obeyed Mr. Pope, Diana. This Grecian Princess is more like Mrs. Pendarves than the model chose by Mr. Pope, and Calypso—who is she? I suspect this Hermes to be——”
She stopt suddenly, a little confused, but Diana, untroubled by knowledge of her thoughts, replied calmly.
“Madam, I thought of my Lord Baltimore in snipping it. My kind wishes attend his Lordship. I hope his wound heals.”
’Twas said with such a complete serenity and absence of any second meaning that my Lady could accept of it with the same tranquillity.
“You think of him then kindly?” says she. “I have heard the story. Don’t fear to speak.”
“Without doubt, Madam. I feared his Lordship at one time, but ’tis long past, and he hath made amends so generous as blots out all offence. What!—do not we all err? and shall we not ask pardon? He hath a generous heart that would pay a debt with interest.”
“And if you think thus, is your forgiveness not akin to pity and pity to love? Did he not swear to wait until all hope was past?”
“Madam, give me leave to say I think your Ladyship does not wholly understand him. I judge that he is one who pursues with such ardour that he will not be hindered. Let any obstacle be in his way and it shall be destroyed. But gained—the dust is then bruised on the butterfly’s wings and he will cast it aside and chase another. When his generous heart made that surprising offer ’twas because he saw his poor prize torn from him. At that moment the world would not have been overmuch to give. But supposing my vanity believed him stable there would be a rude awakening. If we could read now his Lordship’s thoughts I doubt not but he rejoices at his escape. He is one whose mind and inclinations will ever be stronger than the motions of his heart. He will not again risk refusal.”
“You are a philosopher in hoop and gown, child. Will you not allow him a lover?”
“A lover of the chase, Madam. I think no more where I am concerned. Whether one day he shall meet his true mate, ’tis not for me to say. But I doubt.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“With me, Madam, trust and love go hand in hand. I don’t love my Lord Baltimore, but wish him extreme well. I am willing to have hopes of him however if he find the lady I imagine.”
“Describe her, child.”
“She should, Madam, be beautiful of face and person, swift-witted and therefore able to meet and counter him on all points. He must not have any superiority allowed him. Her parts must out-top his, so that at all times he knows her superior though he won’t admit it. Yet must all this be tempered with a charming sweetness, with gentle glances and endearing approaches, and over it must be thrown the veil of dignity and modesty. See the drawing the gifted Madam Pendarves hath made of the chaste Penelope. That is what my poor words would express but cannot.”
She unrolled a classical drawing of Penelope confronting the lawless suitors, and Lady Fanny gazed at it.
“She moves a goddess,” said she. “But where are these paragons, Diana? Sure my Lord must go unwedded to his grave if he waits for this!”
“No, Madam. My Lord has not eyes to see and he will marry as most men marry and be the worse for it. ’Tis only such a woman could endure and temper his failings. Another were mad to attempt it.”
“I think, child, you say very true,” replied her hearer and fell into a musing. Presently—
“Diana, have you ever loved a man? What is love?”
“I know so little that my thought is not worth words.”
“Then you have thoughts?”
“Yes, Madam. Sure every woman must.”
They were both silent. Her Ladyship then resumed, not looking in the girl’s face.
“I heard the whole story, child, and with me ’tis safe. Dare I say that what touched me the most sensibly (next to your own sufferings) was my Lord Duke’s? Sure he spoke from his heart! He can do no other.”
“His Grace spoke on a very noble sensibility, Madam. ’Twas designed to comfort a poor distrest nearly-undone girl with the thought that she might still hold the respect of a man of honour. I took it no other. Your Ladyship will remember ’twas a scene very moving, and such draws words that overtop the more sober judgment.”
“You are wise, Diana, as your sister goddess Minerva, yet I think you mistook here. Suppose, however, his Grace might mean to the full what he said, what would your heart reply?”
“That, Madam, I could only tell to his Grace,” says the girl softly, “ ’twould be dishonourable else. Shall I drape Calypso’s robe from the right or left shoulder?”
Her gentleness was a rebuke, and my Lady admired and wondered at the grace and dignity that gave it. Indeed she had learnt much and swiftly in the society of such perfectly well-bred women and men as she lived with in Queensbury House. Good manners are an infection not to be resisted by gentle and pliable natures and they were native to her inclinations, and did but adorn a fine heart.
“Your Ladyship,” says she presently, “I beg your counsel. I must leave here very shortly and I would do all in the way that best should testify my grateful heart to her Grace. What should I say? or write?”
“Who can teach you, child! All you do must be pleasing. But I think she will not have you go. What are your hopes?”
“I shall play no more. I could love it if men and women would let one be, but this they will not. I have spoke with Mrs. Pendarves and ’tis her opinion I could teach singing. Her goodness has promised me pupils.”
“Yes—but, child, when you leave the Duchess—I would have you visit with me for awhile.”
She looked up with the glowing smile that won all hearts.
“I thank you indeed, Madam, though ’tis of a piece with all your kindness in my sickness. To be with you cheers the heart like sunshine,—and how shall I merit such goodness?”
“But ’tis for my own selfish sake!” cries Lady Fanny. “Mine is a solitary life, and I think I could comprehend a friend. Yes—friend, child. Don’t look so frightened. We are both women and young, why may I not choose a friend!”
She had not intended it. She was not easy won and her Ladyship’s pride was a fortress, but at this silver summons she surrendered like others, and indeed forgot the grand scheme. She desired Diana about her very earnestly, and the Duke’s advancement slipt from her thoughts.
“If her Grace will part with you, come to me!” says she eagerly. “I will do my utmost for your happiness, and you shall set my posies for me, sing to me, counsel me, for indeed I see you very capable of it. What say you?”
Diana would have spoken, but for a moment astonishment hindered her, and ere she could reply the door swung open and the Duke of Bolton entered. He had not seen her since the dreadful Sunday that even now poisoned her dreams.
Curtseys from the ladies to his Grace, bows of the courtliest ere he would seat himself beside them. Her Ladyship’s dream blew away like a gay-coloured bubble in a breeze that must shatter it. A dream indeed. There was another future in store for the young creature beside her and she herself was pledged to it.
“You come very seasonable!” says she, gathering up her fan and gloves,—“for I am expected at my Lady Carteret’s for basset and scandal. At least four reputations will escape with scarce a scratch if I am absent. ’Tis me for the death-blow!”
She drew her gay glitter over her face as quick as her capuchin over her damask gown. It needed the time and the place for my Lady to disclose the unmodish truth that among her other possessions she ranked a heart and a true one. Bolton however needed not testimony.
She kissed Diana on the cheek at parting, and turning on her little heel, made to go. At the door she paused, Bolton leading her.
“Diana,” says she, “for a moment I will play Mr. Pope’s oracle at Delphi. Happiness has wings. When she alights, capture her that moment. Cage her, close the door on the lovely thing, for if she flies she flies for ever. Be wise in time!”
She curtseyed once more and tripped downstairs all gaiety, touching his hand with but the tips of her fingers. As he handed her down the great steps she paused a moment more, and said softly:
“Were I a man and such a woman within my reach, I would win her if I died for it.”
“And I,” said he, “if I did not bring her dishonour for my first lover’s gift.”
“I think—” says my Lady deliberately, “that honour and dishonour are words we play with. Honour is a thing of the soul. It resides within and none but ourselves shall judge for us. The world cannot.”
She looked strangely at him, and was gone.
“I have done my part by Kitty, but how about Diana?” says she to herself, watching him reascend the steps.
Being much at his ease in that house he went up again unannounced and Diana, thinking him gone for good, was still in her chair, snipping away patiently at the Duchess’s little figures. She spent much time in catching up with her Grace’s cast needleworks and others, for ’twas Kitty’s way to snatch at a pleasure and forsake it almost instantly for the next, Diana or another following in her wake to gather the fragments.
So he found her, leaning pensive over her paper gods and goddesses.
“I rejoice I find you alone, Madam,” say he, standing very tall and troubled before her—“I would hear how you do. You are still pale—almost as when I saw you in that cursed room. O, ’tis too much to think on what you suffered. But are you indeed well?”
She looked up and would have spoke, but he was instantly at her feet.
“If to have dreamed of you nightly and thought of you the live-long day deserves compassion, grant it to me, and answer me one question—one only!”
Does a woman think in these moments of sweet madness? Not she—how should she, with the one voice in her ears, the one face pleading, quivering before her. In that sudden passion she could not speak nor look. Her hands clasped in her lap, she gazed down on them and all her being was to hear.
He did not touch her, but leaned from his chair so that he appeared to kneel. Certainly the man’s heart knelt as before a shrine.
“What I would know is this— Why did you reject Baltimore? I know no other woman that had done it. Is your heart so hard? Could you not forgive the man? Men err and women should pardon.”
She never raised the veil of her lashes, only her hands trembled a little. Was he pleading for the absent?
“Since I saw you this question hath torn me. Is your chastity so cold, Diana, that you only cannot pity the flame you inspire? You saw him falsely changed, wounded, repentant, and yet you refused him. Tell me why, I beseech you.”
“I pitied him. I would have bound his wound,” she said at last, very low.
“Then why—why?” says he urgently. “Pity is near love, they say.”
“I cannot love him, your Grace. You counselled me once to marry. I could not. My heart spoke for me and refused.”
He considered on that a moment, then continued.
“You know what followed. You heard me, and now I ask a question so mad that you’ll do well to kill me with the scorn in those large eyes— But answer first. Could I have said what he said—had I been free and not a fettered slave, would you have dismist me also?”
Then, in a quick revulsion—“No, don’t answer, for I have no strength to hear.”
He hid his face in his hands, propping them on his knee. So, quivering in every limb, she laid hers on them and drew them gently away until his eyes looked into hers.
“Let me answer, my Lord Duke. ’Twill ease my heart that answered for me when you spoke. Had Lord Baltimore been you, I could have loved the very ground he stood on—but refused.”
“And why?” Their hands were claspt now each in each, their pulses beat one measure.
“Why? because if a woman loves her lover she will not ruin him, and I am what all the world knows me, and you a great Prince.”
“Had I been free,” he said in a hot whisper, “and you had said that folly I had crushed your sweetness in my arms till you had no strength to speak, to whisper, but only to love.”
He made as though he would have done it, then dropt her hands.
“But I am not free,” he said with an infinite melancholy. “You do well to be silent.”
“I love you—I love you,” she cried. “Is that to be silent? When you spoke this before that man I was like to have died for joy and sorrow. O heart of my heart, you suffer and I with you.”
She threw her head back with closed eyes, the tears slipping from beneath the long lashes,—a pitiful fair face indeed for a lover to see. He knelt now and gathered her in his arms with a tenderness unspeakable.
“My true love, my heart’s delight—not a look, not a word of yours now but shall live in my soul for ever, for this hour is the first and the last. I will not risk my treasure on the edge of a precipice. Dear, could I make you mine tonight, could I share my dukedom with you in open honour, it is yours as I am your man to my life’s end. But since this is impossible put your beloved arms about me this once and then bid me go. Drive me from Paradise into the wilderness and shut the door upon me and forget me.”
How could she speak? She claspt her arms about him as he knelt and these two unhappy lovers clung together in silence, with the salt of tears in their kisses, the passion of parting to redouble the passion of love and make it terrible as when death seizes life at its fullest and drags it down into the dark.
She knew so little of his life—of his will, that she could plead neither for herself nor him. If he willed it so it must be. Yet every pulse of her beating bosom pleaded for her—and as her arms relaxed his heart followed them.
“But let my girl hear me,” he entreated. “You shall be my care though we may not meet. All I have is yours, and we will find a home for you. You shall not play. You are mine always—mine only. Promise me this, my beloved, my worship! Sweet.”
“I promise.”
Again a heavy silence. Then again he looked into her eyes—
“And if the day should ever come that death releases me from a bondage unbearable, then I swear that before God and man you shall be my Duchess—my Queen. And because I believe that this day shall and must come, teach me to have courage. With your own beloved lips bid me spare you and myself, and go.”
She clung the closer to him now.
“You will not bid me. Then where shall I find strength? In this thought only—that if I stay I plunge my treasure into ruin. The Duchess, my Lady Fanny,—all the chaste women you love will shrink from you, and the day come when you could loathe me for the wrong I did you. Tell me, is it not so?”
She could not answer. ’Tis impossible to measure the future by the present. She too had no courage for this. Let him judge and break their life or save it. But ’twas all shot with joy like a gold thread running through a black warp, for her head lay on his breast, his face touched hers, his arms encircled her. O exquisite pain,—O cruel joy—how do creatures of mere fallible flesh and blood endure these transports of the spirit and survive them?
“Diana—speak!” he entreated.
Still lying against his heart, she spoke at last,
“I cannot judge. I am too weak. I am in your hands for I am dearer to you than I am to myself and as for you—I love you. But this I know for true, that to the last hour of my life I shall remember this and be proud that my beloved judged me worthy—were it but for this happy hour.”
She drew herself away that she might look at him—their hands still claspt, and as they so stood, the door opened softly, and the Duchess came in and stopt a moment and then came forward, treading very softly.