There were stone benches along the two side walls, and Lady Sarah"s prevoyance had secured cushions or carpets for her guests to sit upon; and here the superst.i.tious sat in patient weariness, Angela among them, with Denzil still at her side, scornful of credulous folly, but loving to be with her he adored. Lady Fareham had been tempted out-of-doors by De Malfort to look at the moonlight on the river, and had not returned. Rochester and his crew had also vanished directly after supper; and for company Angela had on her left hand Mr. Dubbin, far advanced in liquor, and trembling at every breath of summer wind that fluttered the ivy round the ruined window, and at every shadow that moved upon the moonlit wall. His wife was on the other side of the hall, whispering with Lady Sarah, and both so deep in a court scandal-in which the "K" and the "D" recurred very often-that they had almost forgotten the purpose of that moonlight sitting.
Suddenly in the distance there sounded a long shrill wailing, as of a soul in agony, whereupon Mr. Dubbin, after clinging wildly to Angela, and being somewhat roughly flung aside by Denzil, collapsed altogether, and rolled upon the ground.
"Lady Euphemia," cried Mrs. Townshend, a young lady who had been sitting next the obnoxious citizen, "be pleased to look after your drunken husband. If you take the low-bred sot into company, you should at least charge yourself with the care of his manners."
The damsel had started to her feet, and indignantly s.n.a.t.c.hed her satin petticoat from contact with the citizen"s porpoise figure.
"I hate mixed company," she told Angela, "and old maids who marry tallow-chandlers. If a woman of rank marries a shopkeeper she ought never to be allowed west of Temple Bar."
This young lady was no believer in ghosts; but others of the company were too scared for speech. All had risen, and were staring in the direction whence that dismal shriek had come. A trick, perhaps, since anybody with strong lungs-dairymaid or cowboy-could shriek. They all wanted to see something, a real manifestation of the supernatural.
The unearthly sound was repeated, and the next moment a spectral shape, in flowing white garments, rushed through the great window, and crossed the hall, followed by three other shapes in dark loose robes, with hooded heads. One carried a rope, another a pickaxe, the third a trowel and hod of mortar. They crossed the hall with flying footsteps-shadowlike-the pale shape in distracted flight, the dark shapes pursuing, and came to a stop close against the wall, which had been vacated by the scared a.s.sembly, scattering as if the king of terrors had appeared among them-yet with fascinated eyes fixed on those fearsome figures.
"It is the nun herself!" cried Lady Sarah, apprehension and triumph contending in her agitated spirits; for it was surely a feather in her ladyship"s cap to have produced such a phantasmal train at her party. "The nun and her executioners!"
The company fell back from the ghostly troop, recoiling till they were all cl.u.s.tered against the opposite wall, leaving a clear s.p.a.ce in front of the spectres, whence they looked on, shuddering, at the tragedy of the erring Sister"s fate, repeated in dumb show. The white-robed figure knelt and grovelled at the feet of those hooded executioners. One seized and bound her, with strange automatic action, unlike the movements of living creatures, and another smote the wall with a pickaxe that made no sound, while the third waited with his trowel and mortar. It was a gruesome sight to those who knew the story-a gruesome, yet an enjoyable spectacle; since, as Lady Sarah"s friends had not had the pleasure of knowing the sinning Sister in the flesh, they watched this ghostly representation of her suffering with as keen an interest as they would have felt had they been privileged to see Claud Duval swing at Tyburn.
The person most terrified by this ghostly show was the only one who had the hardihood to tackle the performers. This was Mr. Dubbin, who sat on the ground watching the shadowy figures, sobered by fear, and his shrewd city senses gradually returning to a brain bemused by Burgundy.
"Look at her boots!" he cried suddenly, scrambling to his feet, and pointing to the nun, who, in sprawling and writhing at the feet of her executioner, had revealed more leg and foot than were consistent with her spectral whiteness. "She wears yaller boots, as substantial as any shoe leather among the company. I"ll swear to them yaller boots."
A chorus of laughter followed this attack-laughter which found a smothered echo among the ghosts. The spell was broken; disillusion followed the exquisite thrill of fear; and all Lady Sarah"s male visitors made a rush upon the guilty nun. The loose white robe was stripped off, and little Jerry Spavinger, gentleman jock, famous on the Heath, and at Doncaster, stood revealed, in his shirt and breeches, and those light riding-boots which he rarely exchanged for a more courtly chaussure.
The monks, hustled out of their disguise, were Rochester, Masaroon, and Lady Sarah"s young brother, George Saddington.
"From my Lord Rochester I expect nothing but pot-house buffoonery; but I take it vastly ill on your part, George, to join in making me a laughing-stock," remonstrated Lady Sarah.
"Indeed, sister, you have to thank his light-headed lordship for giving a spirited end to your a.s.sembly. Could you conceive how preposterous you and your friends looked sitting against the walls, mute as stockfish, and suggesting nothing but a Quaker"s meeting, you would make us your lowest curtsy, and thank us kindly for having helped you out of a dilemma."
Lady Sarah, who was too much of a woman of the world to quarrel seriously with a Court favourite, furled the fan with which she had been cooling her indignation, and tapped young Wilmot playfully on that oval cheek where the beard had scarce begun to grow.
"Thou art the most incorrigible wretch of thy years in London," she said, "and it is impossible to help being angry with thee or to help forgiving thee."
The saunterers on the willow-shadowed banks came strolling in. Lady Fareham"s cornets and fiddles sounded a March in Alceste; and the party broke up in laughter and good temper, Mr. Dubbin being much complimented upon his having detected Spavinger"s boots.
"I ought to know "em," he answered ruefully. "I lost a hundred meggs on him Toosday se"nnight, at Windsor races; and I had time to take the pattern of them boots while he was crawling in, a bad third."
CHAPTER XV.
FALCON AND DOVE.
"Has your ladyship any commands for Paris?" Lord Fareham asked, one August afternoon, when the ghost party at Millbank was almost forgotten amid a succession of entertainments on land and river; a fortnight at Epsom to drink the waters; and a fortnight at Tunbridge-where the Queen and Court were spending the close of summer-to neutralise the bad effects of Epsom chalybeates with a regimen of Kentish sulphur. If n.o.body at either resort drank deeper of the medicinal springs than Hyacinth-who had ordered her physician to order her that treatment-the risk of harm or the possibility of benefit was of the smallest. But at Epsom there had been a good deal of gay company, and a greater liberty of manners than in London; for, indeed, as Rochester a.s.sured Lady Fareham, "the freedom of Epsom allowed almost nothing to be scandalous." And at Tunbridge there were dances by torchlight on the common. "And at the worst," Lady Fareham told her friends, "a fortnight or so at the Wells helps to shorten the summer."
It was the middle of August when they went back to Fareham House, hot, dry weather, and London seemed to be living on the Thames, so thick was the throng of boats going up and down the river, so that with an afternoon tide running up it seemed as if barges, luggers, and wherries were moving in one solid block into the sunset sky.
De Malfort had been attached to her ladyship"s party at Epsom, and at Tunbridge Wells. He had his own lodgings, but seldom occupied them, except in that period between four or five in the morning and two in the afternoon, which Rochester and he called night. His days were pa.s.sed chiefly in attendance upon Lady Fareham-singing and playing, fetching and carrying combing her favourite spaniel with the same ivory pocket-comb that arranged his own waterfall curls; or reading a French romance to her, or teaching her the newest game of cards, or the last dancing-step imported from Fontainebleau or St. Cloud, or some new grace or fashion in dancing, the holding of the hand lower or higher; the latest manner of pa.s.saging in a bransle or a coranto, as performed by the French King and Madame Henriette, the two finest dancers in France; Conde, once so famous for his dancing, now appearing in those gay scenes but seldom.
"Have you any commands for Paris, Hyacinth?" repeated Lord Fareham, his wife being for the moment too surprised to answer him. "Or have you, sister? I am starting for France to-morrow. I shall ride to Dover-lying a night at Sittingbourne, perhaps-and cross by the Packet that goes twice a week to Calais."
"Paris! And pray, my lord, what business takes you to Paris?"
"There is a great collection of books to be sold there next week. The library of your old admirer, Nicolas Fouquet, whom you knew in his splendour, but who has been a prisoner at Pignerol for a year and a half."
"Poor wretch!" cried De Malfort, "I was at the Chamber with Madame de Sevigne very often during his long tedious trial. Mon dieu! what courage, what talent he showed in defending himself! Every safeguard of the law was violated in order to silence him and prove him guilty; his papers seized in his absence, no friend or servant allowed to protect his interest, no inventory taken-doc.u.ments suppressed that might have served for his defence, forgeries inserted by his foes. He had an implacable enemy, and he the highest in the land. He was the scapegoat of the past, and had to answer for a system of plunder that made Mazarin the richest man in France."
"I don"t wonder that Louis was angry with a servant who had the insolence to entertain his Majesty with a splendour that surpa.s.sed his own," said Lady Fareham. "I should like to have been at those fetes at Vaux. But although Fareham talks so lightly of travelling to Paris to choose a few dusty books, he has always discouraged me from going there to see old friends, and my own house-which I grieve to think of-abandoned to the carelessness of servants."
"Dearest, the cleverest woman in the world cannot be in two places at once; and it seems to me you have ever had your days here so full of agreeable engagements that you can have scarcely desired to leave London," answered Fareham, with his grave smile.
"To leave London-no! But there have been long moping months in Oxfordshire when it would have been a relief to change the scene."
"Then, indeed, had you been very earnest in wanting such a change, I am sure you would have taken it. I have never forbidden your going to Paris, nor refused to accompany you there. You may go with me to-morrow, if you can be ready."
"Which you know I cannot, or you would scarce make so liberal an offer."
"Tres chere, you are pleased to be petulant. But I repeat my question. Is there anything you want at Paris?"
"Anything? A million things! Everything! But they are things which you would not be able to choose-except, perhaps, some of the new lace. I might trust you to buy that, though I"ll wager you will bring me a hideous pattern-and some white Cypress powder-and a piece of the ash-coloured velvet Madame wore last winter. I have friends who can choose for you, if I write to them; and you will have but to bring the goods, and see they suffer no harm on the voyage. And you can go to the Rue de Tourain and see whether my servants are keeping the house in tolerable order."
"With your ladyship"s permission I will lodge there while I am in Paris, which will be but long enough to attend the sale of books, and see some old friends. If I am detained it will be by finding my friends out of town, and having to make a journey to see them. I shall not go beyond Fontainebleau at furthest."
"Dear Fontainebleau! It is of all French palaces my favourite. I always envy Diana of Poitiers for having her cypher emblazoned all over that lovely gallery-Henri and Diane! Diane and Henri! Ah, me!"
"You envy her a kind of notoriety which I do not covet for my wife!"
"You always take one au pied de la lettre; but seriously, Madame de Breze was an honest woman compared with the lady who lodges by the Holbein Gate."
"I admit that sin wears a bolder front than it did in the last century.
Angela, can I find nothing for you in Paris?"
"No; I thank your lordship. You and sister are both so generous to me that I have lost the capacity to wish for anything."
"And as Lewin crosses the Channel three or four times a year, I doubt we positively have the Paris fashions as soon as the Parisians themselves," added Hyacinth.
"That is an agreeable hallucination with which Englishwomen have ever consoled themselves for not being French," said De Malfort, who sat lolling against the marble bal.u.s.trade, nursing the guitar on which he had been playing when Fareham interrupted their noontide idleness; "but your ladyship may be sure that London milliners are ever a twelvemonth in the rear of Paris fashions. It is not that they do not see the new mode. They see it, and think it hideous; and it takes a year to teach them that it is the one perfect style possible."
"I was not thinking of kerchiefs or petticoats," said Fareham. "You are a book-lover, sister, like myself. Can I bring you no books you wish for?"
"If there were a new comedy by Moliere; but I fear it is wrong to read him, since in his late play, performed before the King at Versailles, he is so cruel an enemy to our Church."
"A foe only to hypocrites and pretenders, Angela. I will bring you his Tartuffe, if it is printed; or still better, Le Misanthrope, which I am told is the finest comedy that was ever written; and the latest romance, in twenty volumes or so, by one of those lady authors Hyacinth so admires, but which I own to finding as tedious as the divine Orinda"s verses."
"You can jeer at that poor lady"s poetry, yet take pleasure in such balderdash as Hudibras!"
"I love wit, dearest; though I am not witty. But as for your Princesse de Cleves, I find her ineffably dull."
"That is because you do not take the trouble to discover for whom the characters are meant. You lack the key to the imbroglio," said his wife, with a superior air.
"I do not care for a book that is a series of enigmas. Don Quixote needs no such guess-work. Shakespeare"s characters are painted not from the petty models of yesterday and to-day, but from mankind in every age and every climate. Moliere"s and Calderon"s personages stand on as solid a basis. In less than half a century your "Grand Cyrus" will be insufferable jargon."