TWAS a moving day for her Grace of Queensbury and Diana when the Duke removed her to his fine house in Pall Mall, for not only did it cause both a pang to part after so many months of mutual kindness, but in such a case must be many misgivings however courageously hid. That he should regard her as his wife was much, and it seemed each day that past added force to his tenderness, yet it must be allowed that her position at best was beset with thorns he could not blunt.
If such a case be taken lightly and gallantly—the bond of a summer’s day to be broke at nightfall—the world will laugh and let it go by with scarce a censure, but if any bold persons, breaking this rule, succeed not in getting the laugh on their side it will certainly be much against them, and they will be confounded with persons with whom they have nothing in common.
So Diana must reflect that the time might come when this situation would gall the Duke and she be the cause of it. The rude familiarities, the railleries provoked, he could deal with with his sword, but there are pangs subtle as air that cannot be so warded. He was not plagued himself with such considerations for, as men are used in love, he saw only the present deliverance from loneliness, the comfort he expected in her sweet society and all the delights of her beauties of mind and person.
’Tis to be owned that the brunt falls always on the woman. Whosoever’s was the crime of Eden, our first Mother’s daughters are reckoned the defaulters and must pay in heart and body.
Diana writ dutifully to her mother, now removed with her husband to Maidstone in Kent, and had a letter in return beseeching her rather to return to her stepfather’s roof than so involve her good name.
“Bethink you,” the letter continued, “that with the reputation you have made at Mr. Gay’s playhouse, you’ll never lack for bread and plenty and may hope an excellent marriage one of these days. ’Tis to be allowed the stage has its dangers, but prudence and courage (which your father’s daughter should not lack) will bear you through as it has done to the present. Marriage is and must ever be your object.”
And with much more to the same purpose did the mother instruct her daughter,—thus concluding:
“I would have you build no hope on the Duke’s promise to marry, for when men have attained their wishes by an easier road, marriage is the most nauseous word to them, and furthermore his greatness and riches make it an impossibility from which reason and all his friends will turn him. If you hold out against him your chance is the better, as things desired and withheld grow the more valuable. I would therefore have you by no means break with him but observe a careful chastity that shall enhance your worth, and if, as I hear, her Grace’s health be infirm, your constancy may meet its return. A waiting patience is therefore what I would have you practise.”
There was a further suggestion that if, in all honour, his Grace should settle an income on her, on her concession of giving up the playhouse to please him, it might well be accepted as a return for her sacrifice.
And so ended. The writing was the hand of her mamma, but she knew the sentiments for those of Mr. Fenton and liked them the less. ’Twas obvious he had no expectations from the Duke’s bounty. To her this must appear base and ungenerous and tinged with a low cunning she could not commend in herself should she follow it.
But lest this be partiality she laid the letter before her Duchess, on the day of their parting.
“Pah!” cries her Grace, flicking it on the floor. “Take it away, Diana. It reeks of—I won’t say what, because your mamma writ it if she did not think it. If virtue is to be a marketable commodity let it be open dealing, say I, and not served like a French ragoût with a sauce of cant. By these few and simple prescriptions you may become as cunning and accomplished a little wanton as lives in Drury Lane, and this even within the bounds of marriage. I protest I know women honourably married in the world’s eye that I hold contemptible for the very ring’s sake that shields them. O child, we know much of what our teachers tell us in these matters and on the other side have nothing but the promptings of our own love and honesty, and ’tis hard to choose for very fear’s sake.”
“ ’Tis very hard,” agrees Diana sadly. “Indeed, Madam, love and trust are all my thought and to make his life more cheerful. As to marriage ’tis not to be thought on, and if I know my own heart, I may well bear censure. But once more I entreat your Grace to tell me before I go and the last step is taken, is it truly for his good? For, if you hesitate, I will not do it, though it cost me my life to refuse him. If I injure him I am undone indeed.”
The Duchess for the first time put her arms about her and drew her to her embrace.
“My dear,” says she, “if you desert him I know not where he shall turn. ’Twill break his heart. And this I would say for yourself. Let us suppose (though I believe it not) that like all men he is inconstant and leaves you for another, yet may you yourself be faithful, and looking back remember with joy that when he asked for mercy you withheld nothing but gave all. On that record, and knowing that it wrongs his wife in nothing, you need not fear to face either life or death. It may bring you sorrow, but I think no shame that need trouble you.”
This she said with a certain solemnity of bearing—Diana looking up with awe. They clasped hands and she replied very simply:
“I thank your Grace. I will do my part whatever may chance. I have no words for your goodness and condescension to one so far beneath you, but my life shall be answerable to your expectations.”
She went downstairs alone and entered the chair that should take her to her new life, the Duchess remaining lost in thought.
’Twas an ardent lover indeed that met his love in Pall Mall, that commanded his servants to obey her as though she was the Duchess herself, that surrounded her with such indulgences as might befit a princess. And thus the step was took and she entered upon her new life.
’Twas marked by a strange circumstance, for on her reaching the house, her woman put a small box in her hand most carefully folded and sealed with the Bolton arms, and on Diana opening it alone, what must she discover within but a cross of brilliants, beautiful as that which adorned the gifted Mr. Pope’s Belinda. Indeed when she put it about her neck and so descended to Bolton, he gazed on her enraptured and quoted with delight the celebrated lines:
“On her fair breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.”
adding—
“Who gave it to my love?”
“Was it not you?”—says she in quick alarm— “ ’Twas in a box and I thought it one of your numberless generous gifts.”
He shook his head smiling—
“Some less happy adorer. My girl shan’t wear it until we know its history.”
He sent for the wrappings and she stood at his shoulder to see. Presently he looked up gravely—
“I know the sender. You shall wear it. ’Twas a generous motion.”
“May I know, your Grace!”
“Better not,” he says sighing. “ ’Twas a lady of my family, Di, I say no more.”
She also said no more, but claspt her hand about the cross.
Was their life happy? The Duke declared to himself and to his best friend that he had never known happiness before. The uncertainties and doubts past, Diana’s youth and joy overflowed the house with sunshine. Her voice filled it with harmony as of the crystal spheres, her beauty bloomed like a summer rose.
When “The Beggar’s Opera” was revived with the new season, Mr. Rich and Mr. Gay, at a supper the Duke gave, declared his Grace deserved assassination for his selfish policy in robbing the world of such a Polly as if she played now would eclipse her former self as that self eclipsed all others. His Grace laughed:
“As soon hope for the Crown jewels, Richie, as one note of Mrs. Fenton’s voice in Portugal Street. By the way, where’s Walker? Have you heard of him?”
“Not a word, your Grace. He disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. Doubtless with a new name and a new face he plays somewhere in the wilds with Bishop to keep him company! But shall Mrs. Fenton not give us a song here and now?”
“She must and shall!” cries the Duke, all pride and fondness, and so leads her to the harpsichord and sits enchanted to hear the notes of which he can never weary.
The Duchess came often and my Lady Fanny would trip in as light as air, and as had been the case with Mrs. Oldfield, yet with far better reason, the great ladies of the Duchess’s party made it their business to exalt Mrs. Fenton and require her presence at their houses when company was expected. If herself she shrank at first from such attentions, when she saw it pleased the Duke she went contented and afterwards was the happier. Indeed he was her whole study and knew it, and she his. There was not a day but made them more valuable to each other.
Was it then happiness entirely flawless? Such cannot be on earth—’tis reserved for a better world. Let us enumerate.
It severed the Duke from some of his friends both of the austere and rakish order. The former because the connection stopped short of the ring, the latter because ’twas too faithful, too sincere to meet aught but their ridicule. Had the house been one where a fellow could come and toss off his bottle to a stave of Mrs. Fenton’s with his own lovely Thais beside him, all would have been well, but this could not be, Bolton exacting as great deference in the lady’s presence as had she been the Duchess herself. Indeed, from anxiety, he might be a little more particular than needful. So this would keep away my Lord Baltimore (who had besides other reasons) and many more. He swore he regretted none of them and perhaps did not, yet might wish for the power to dispense with them rather than be dispensed with.
It pained him if a word or a breath of censure passed on others which by any stretch his beloved might apply to herself. If he saw the colour rise in her cheek on this it paled in his own, so much did he fear a sting to that tender bosom.
It pained him that her foot should be insecure in the world. True, by his testament he protected her future with every affluence, yet he must know that with his death consideration would forsake her, and so clung feverishly to life.
’Twas not until one day he came unexpectedly upon a little book wherein she writ her private thoughts (’tis to this I referred in my second chapter) that he could believe her unwounded by darts he could not shield her from. They read it together, her cheek against his, and he was the more easy because she expressed therein the most unclouded contentment, and he never guessed ’twas writ for his reading. Did I not say—such a woman can’t tell the whole truth if she would? But the crowning pain to both was when his first-born son was put in his arms,—the child that should have carried on the pride of his house and been the glory of his own declining years, and yet was nothing. He took it in his arms with a tenderness and pain inexpressible—the more so that to the lovely mother he must show nothing but gladness. Diana wept to see them thus. Who shall disentangle grief and joy in a case so singular? It is certain that those who censured might hold that hour a punishment sufficient for the two, if punishment they deserved. Would the child himself judge his parents one day? That also might come. Her thoughts of this she writ not in her book, but locked them in her own bosom.
So four years went by, and instead of wearying them, each day drew them nearer.
’Twas in France the news reached them that changed their life once more. ’Twas brought by a mounted messenger riding hard from the English Ambassador in Paris and reached the Duke late at night while Diana slept upstairs, the child beside her.
Little knowing its content, he opened and read.
“Her Grace the Duchess of Bolton died Wednesday was a week. Inform his Grace that he may return as is necessary.”
He read again and, folding it, slipped it into his breast, and went up the stair to the great room curtained with velvet and a dim light burning in a silver lamp beside the bed. She lay there in the sweetest sleep, the image of youth and innocence, one soft hand flung out over her child that slept in a bed beside her, the other across her breast. Some happy thought passed through her dreaming mind as he stood looking down, for a smile flitted across her lips and vanished leaving its pleasure behind it. Indeed for all her twenty-two years she seemed but a child herself, save for the attitude maternal of the guarding hand. The two pulled at his heart-strings now he was at the moment of decision whether to cut the bond, to leave things as they were, or to make them his own irrevocably. Stooping, he kissed her on the cheek as light as her own smile. Drowsily she woke, as held in the arms of content,—he could see the glimmer of her waking eyes through the dark lashes. Almost before they opened her arm was about his neck—as he knelt beside her.
“What does my darling standing there alone? I’m too sleepy to talk. Come and rest. It grows late.”
“Wake, Di,” says he, “There’s a journey before you. We leave in an hour for Paris.”
She turned on her elbow trying to read his face—
“Beloved, why? What is it? Good or bad?”
“As you shall take it. For me wholly good. We go to the Embassy. By this time tomorrow you will be my wife.”
She stared at him with great eyes as he put the despatch in her hand, but could not read it. She clung to him trembling like an aspen. Then, gathering voice, she whispered with passion:
“I will not. I will not. O have I not thought of this day—have I not told my heart again and yet again that you shall not ruin yourself for me. You are free now, O dearest and best. ’Tis for you to marry some pure woman and have noble children that may bear your name before all the world. I will not spoil your life. I utterly refuse.”
“There will be no purer woman than my Duchess in all the world—I will not have even you slight her! Child, what is this? If I did not talk of this day ’twas for pity of the poor soul that’s gone and has ended a life sad enough. But I have never wavered. You have been my wife, tender and true, for four years. More so you cannot be. This ceremony is not for you and me. ’Tis but for the world.”
“Then leave it so,” says she, clinging yet closer, “that if at some future time you see your duty or happiness requires it you may marry as you should. Consider, consider, my heart’s Dearest. You may live to curse me otherwise. I took you when you was lonely and could do no better, though even then a queen might have envied me. But now the darkness is over and gone, the time of the singing of birds is come.”
“There is only one bird shall sing for me,” he says, fondly clasping her yet closer. “Shall a man have the greatest treasure of the world in his hand and let it slip? Say no more, beloved, but rise and dress that we may go.”
Still with her face hidden, she stretched one arm to the child.
“ ’Tis too late for that—too late! Nothing can give him his birthright we took from him. Marry some happier woman, my heart’s dearest, and I will bless your first-born as though he were my own.”
“He is yours,” he answered steadfastly—“for this is he. We shall have others, and though this one cannot bear my title we will love him most of all. Speak no more of such idle words, my love. What are such things between you and me that know each other’s heart? Rise now and lose no time for I would have all done lest I die and leave it undone. For very love’s sake I fear.”
What more could be said? She rose, as in a dream and before the morning dawned over the hills they were in Paris, driving hard.
For great princes the way is made smooth to their desire, and that day with all due witness and ceremony were Charles Duke of Bolton and Diana Beswick made one in the presence of the Ambassador and his suite and others, all still as death to watch the haughty bridegroom and the pale and lovely bride who moved as though she saw none on earth but he. And when the words were done and the rite ended, the Ambassador himself came forward very stately and bowing to the great lady:
“Madam, I congratulate your Grace and wish you many happy years with your lord,” and so kissed her hand, the Duke smiling beside her.
’Twas when he himself kissed her hand in homage to the Duchess and her lips in homage to the wife, that her heart swelled almost to bursting with joy, and she looked up at him speechless, yet her whole soul speaking from radiant eyes.
Shall one say more of such happiness? No, for ’tis in its nature sacred and secret, and even to that dear ear she scarce could tell her rapture of content that he who knew her best should judge her worthy of the double crown of wifehood and duchess-ship. For him, eager as a boy, he never doubted, and he to whom his own rank was a trifle loved to call her “your Grace”—to see others make room for his lovely Duchess. Indeed she shone like a star released from clouds in those glad days. Himself had not known how beautiful, how glad and gay she shone to lighten all dark places.
So by easy stages they returned to London and to Bolton House and as he led her to the great drawing-room—her undisputed kingdom, a stately figure advanced to meet them and Diana curtseyed low before her Duchess. She also sank in a most splendid curtsey as when one sovereign salutes another.
“I welcome your Grace to London and to our society!”—says she formally—and then, throwing off her state and clasping and kissing Diana, was overbrimming with joy and friendship to see her.
“Why, Bolton, the duchesses will never pardon you that have brought us one so lovely as puts all of us in the shade. Kneller shall paint her portrait and Zincke her miniature and the poets write her praises, and neither poet nor painter give us her own fresh beauty. For they can neither paint nor sing her golden heart that inspires it.”
“Ah, Madam, you talk of duchesses,” says he, holding her fair hand, “but I think ’tis none but the angels can praise one another without spot of human envy as you do. Did I not say long since that my friend and my wife were both incomparable, and seeing them together again I know it true a thousandfold.”
Afterwards, they sat together in great content, for to this lady they owed their happiness and their all.
’Twas some weeks later my Lady Fanny wrote to her cousin my Lady Desmond, and this may fitly end the story of two noble hearts:
“My Kitty the kind and true, your questions I will answer as best I may, and the rather that I have no subject more ready and agreeable to my pen than our new Duchess. ’Tis impossible I should describe her Grace’s person for this I have done before, but I will say she hath put on a thousand new charms since her happy marriage in France, together with such splendours as can’t be described, and in sober truth is a radiant beauty with none to peer her but my other kind Kitty. Yet such beauties do not compete unkindly—they shine like twin stars, each lighting the other.
“Kitty, you preach often on the superlative advantage of birth, then tell me how comes it that this girl from Lord knows where, for I never judged well to enquire too curiously, moves with a tranquil grace that nothing can ruffle or confuse. You say ‘Bolton’s a man high-bred beyond the common. ’Tis from him she catches it.’ I grant you his breeding, but can say that from the first time I saw her at Queensbury House, I saw her simple and joyous and sweet-natured and judged her simplicity the highest breeding, for it can never fail being very nature’s self. You should have seen her at a rout t’other night aglitter with the Bolton diamonds, and you know them fine,—yet still with a half-Quakerish air of quaint innocence under their weight of splendour that takes all the men by storm and makes all the women appear brazen. Excepting of course your humble servant whose air of innocence is art’s perfection and in much request.
“But you ask—‘Is she received? Is the past condoned?’ ‘Do my Lady Grimalkin and Madam Prude condescend to know her Grace?’ No, Kitty, they don’t, and were I she, loud would be my thanksgivings on that head. But all the young and lovely and kind and generous flock to her and make a charming society indeed. As for Bolton, he’s transfigured. I never saw a man so youthened (forgive this new-coined word).— He will never cease to be a lover even when the days come of gout and penitence and regret for the pleasant sins one might have committed and did not. The pair shed goodness and charity and happy thoughts about them as natural as flowers.
“Is it then all a blaze of pure unmitigated joy, my Kitty asks dubious? Ah no! In looking at their little golden-curled cherub I guess their pang and my heart beats responsive. And other women less kind, less virtuous than she, have it in their power to send a shaft deep in her tender heart from which wound the blood wells to her cheek and dyes it crimson. What then? Shall presumptuous mortals hope for the happiness of angels? It cannot be, and, such as her lot is, few but must envy it.
“You ask also of my own future, my kind Kitty. Enigmatic, my dear, enigmatic to myself. I see Bas often and speak with him lightly and pass on with never a regret. He can hurt me no more. ’Tis all as dead and gone as the Pyramids. Did I ever love him? I can’t tell. ’Twas in a former life if so. Did he ever love me? He never loved or will love any but his charming self, though I hear of attentions to the rich and handsome Mrs. Janssen that may end in wedding favours. Let them! I will dance at his wedding with the lightest pair of heels there, and thank Heaven for my deliverance.
“I writ you some time since—’tis good to be a widow. So good that I purpose to remain a widow indeed. You can’t dispute my wisdom since the Apostle himself commends the State and recommends it in preference to marriage, his Sanctity forgetting, as I think, that one must endure the tribulation of the one to attain the tranquillity of the other. Well, I have endured and attained and there I leave it. If for a moment I wavered I love my widowhood the better now. Says the Prince to me the other day—‘When shall we have your wedding favours?’ Says I—‘When I learn to love trouble better than ease and prefer discomfort to comfort. And that won’t be till I lose my senses in dotage, Sir.’ There’s many a true word spoken in jest.
“Well, farewell, my kind Kitty,—but throw not a dart at my dear new Duchess. I name her the chaste Diana, and hold her so in word, thought, and deed. I fling down my glove as a challenge to man or woman who dares dispute it. And if even your dear self picks up the glove, I will fight to the death.
“And now the lights burn low and I am for sleep. I make you my curtsey. Good-night, Good-night!”
THE END