"I am his friend. I could find it in my heart to pity him for loving you. Indeed, it has been in friendship that I have tried to interest him in a great national question-to wean him from his darling sin. But were you my wife he should never cross our threshold. The day that made us one should make you and Fareham strangers. It is for you to choose, Angela, between two men who love you-one near your own age, free, G.o.d-fearing; the other nearly old enough to be your father, bound by the tie which your Church deems indissoluble, whose love is insult and pollution, and can but end in shame and despair. It is for you to choose between honest and dishonest love."
"There is a n.o.bler choice open to me," she said, more calmly than she had yet spoken, and with a pale dignity in her countenance that awed him. A thrill of admiration and fear ran along his nerves as he looked at her. She seemed transfigured. "There is a higher and better love," she said. "This is not the first time that I have considered a sure way out of all my difficulties. I can go back to the convent where, in my dear Aunt Anastasia, I saw so splendid an example of a holy life hidden from the world."
"Life buried in a living grave!" cried Denzil, horror-stricken at the idea of such a sacrifice. "Free-will and reason obscured in a cloud of incense! All the great uses of a n.o.ble life brought down to petty observances and childish mummeries, prayers and genuflections before waxen relics and dressed-up madonnas. Oh, my dearest girl, next worst only to the dominion of sin is the slavery of a false religion. I would have thee free as air-free and enlightened-released from the trammels of Rome, happy in thyself and useful to thy fellow-creatures."
"You see, Sir Denzil, even if we loved each other, we could never think alike," Angela said, with a gentle sadness. "Our minds would always dwell far apart. Things that are dear and sacred to me are hateful to you."
"If you love me I could win you to my way of thinking," he said.
"You mean that if I loved you I should love you better than I love G.o.d?"
"Not so, dear. But you would open your mind to the truth. St. Paul sanctified union between Christian and pagan, and deemed the unbelieving wife sanctified by the believing husband. There can be no sin, therefore, despite my poor mother"s violent opinions, in the union of those who worship the same G.o.d, and whose creed differs only in particulars. "How knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" Indeed, love, I doubt not my power to wean you from the errors of your early education."
"Cannot you see how wide apart we are? Every word you say widens the gulf betwixt us. Indeed, Sir Denzil, you had best remain my friend. You can be nothing else."
She turned from him almost impatiently. Young, handsome, of a frank and generous nature, he yet lacked the gifts that charm women; or at least this one woman was cold to him. It might be that in his own nature there was a coldness, a something wanting, the fire we miss in that great poet of the age, whose verse could rise to themes transcendent, but never burnt with the white heat of human pa.s.sion.
Papillon came flying along the terrace, her skirts and waving tresses spread wide in the wind, a welcome intruder.
"What are you and Sir Denzil doing in the cold? I have news for my dear, dearest auntie. My lord is in a good humour, and Philaster is to be acted by the Duke"s servants, and her ladyship"s footmen are keeping places for us in the boxes. I have only seen three plays in my life, and they were all sad ones. I wish Philaster was a comedy. I should like to see Love in a Tub. That must be full of drollery. But his honour likes only grave plays. Be brisk, auntie! The coach will be at the door directly. Come and put on your hood. His lordship says we need no masks. I should have loved to wear a mask. Are you coming to the play, Sir Denzil?"
"I know not if I am bidden, or if there be a place for me."
"Why, you can stand with the fops in the pit, and you can buy us some China oranges. I heard Lady Sarah tell my mother that the new little actress with the pretty feet was once an orange-girl, who lived with Lord Buckhurst. Why did he have an orange-girl to live with him? He must be vastly fond of oranges. I should love to sell oranges in the pit, if I could be an actress afterwards. I would rather be an actress than a d.u.c.h.ess. Mademoiselle taught me Chimene"s tirades in Corneille"s Cid. I learn quicker than any pupil she ever had. Monsieur de Malfort once said I was a born actress," pursued Papillon, as they walked to the house.
Philaster! That story of unhappy love-so pure, patient, melancholy, disinterested. How often Angela had hung over the page, in the solitude of her own chamber! And to hear the lines spoken to-day, when a tempest of emotion had been raised in her breast, with Fareham by her side; to meet his glances at this or that moment of the play, when the devoted girl was revealing the secret of her pa.s.sionate heart. Yet never was love freer from taint of sin, and the end of the play was in no wise tragic. That pure affection was encouraged and sanctified by the happy bride. Bellario was not to be banished, but sheltered.
Alas! yes; but this was love unreturned. There was no answering warmth on Philaster"s part, no fire of pa.s.sion to scathe and destroy; only a gentle grat.i.tude for the girl"s devotion-a brother"s, not a lover"s regard.
She found Fareham and her sister in the hall, ready to step into the coach.
"I saw the name of your favourite play on the posts as I walked home," he said; "and as Hyacinth is always teasing me for denying her the play-house, I thought this was a good opportunity for pleasing you both."
"You would have pleased me more if you had offered me the chance of seeing a new comedy," his wife retorted, pettishly.
"Ah, dearest, let us not resume an old quarrel. The play-wrights of Elizabeth"s age were poets and gentlemen. The men who write for us are blackguards and empty-headed fops. We have novelty, which is all most of us want, a hundred new plays in a year, of which scarce one will be remembered after the year is out."
"Who wants to remember? The highest merit in a play is that it should be a reflection of to-day; and who minds if it be stale to-morrow? To hold the mirror up to nature, doesn"t your Shakespeare say? And what more transient than the image in a gla.s.s? A comedy should be like one"s hat or one"s gown, the top of the mode to-day, and cast off and forgotten, in a week."
"That is what our fine gentlemen think; who are satisfied if their wit gets three days" acceptance, and some substantial compliment from the patron to whom they dedicate their trash."
His lordship"s liveries and four grey horses made a stir in Lincoln"s Inn Fields, and startled the crowd at the doors of the New Theatre; and within the house Lady Fareham and her sister divided the attention of the pit with their royal highnesses the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, who no longer amused or scandalised the audience by those honeymoon coquetries which had distinguished their earlier appearances in public. d.u.c.h.ess Anne was growing stout, and fast losing her beauty, and Duke James was imitating his brother"s infidelities, after his own stealthy fashion; so it may be that Clarendon"s daughter was no more happy than her sister-in-law the Queen, nor than her father the Chancellor, over whom the shadows of royal disfavour were darkening.
Lady Fareham lolled languidly back in her box, and let all the audience see her indifference to Fletcher"s poetic dialogue. Angela sat motionless, her hands clasped in her lap, entranced by that romantic story, and the acting which gave life and reality to that poetic fable, as well it might when the incomparable Betterton played Philaster. Fareham stood beside his wife, looking down at the stage, and sometimes, as Angela looked up, their eyes met in one swift flash of responsive thought; met and glanced away, as if each knew the peril of such meetings-
"If it be love To forget all respect of his own friends In thinking on your face."
Was it by chance that Fareham sighed as those lines were spoken? And again-
"If, when he goes to rest (which will not be), "Twixt every prayer he says he names you once."
And again, was it chance that brought that swift, half-angry, questioning look upon her from those severe eyes in the midst of Philaster"s tirade?-
"How heaven is in your eyes, but in your hearts More h.e.l.l than h.e.l.l has; how your tongues, like scorpions, Both heal and poison; how your thoughts are woven With thousand changes in one subtle web, And worn so by you. How that foolish man That reads the story of a woman"s face, And dies believing it is lost for ever."
It was Angela whose eyes unconsciously sought his when that pa.s.sage occurred which had written itself upon her heart long ago at Chilton when she first read the play-
"Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing Worthy your n.o.ble thoughts; "tis not a life, "Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away."
What was her poor life worth-so lonely even in her sister"s house-so desolate when his eyes looked not upon her in kindness? After having lived for two brief summers and winters in his cherished company, having learnt to know what a proud, honourable man was like, his disdain of vice, his indifference to Court favour, his aspirations for liberty; after having known him, and loved him with silent and secret love, what better could she do than bury herself within convent walls, and spend the rest of her days in praying for those she loved? Alas, he had such need that some faithful soul should soar heavenward in supplication for him who had himself so weak a hold upon the skies! Alas, to think of him as unbelieving, putting his trust in the opinions of infidels like Hobbes and Spinoza, rather than leaning on that Rock of Ages the Church of St. Peter.
If she could not live for him-if it were a sin even to dwell under the same roof with him-she could at least die for him-die to the world of pleasure and folly, of beauty and splendour, die to friendship and love; sink all individuality under the monastic rule; cease to be, except as a part in a great organisation, an atom acting and acted upon by higher powers; surrendering every desire and every hope that distinguished her from the mult.i.tude of women vowed to a holy life.
"Never, sir, will I Marry; it is a thing within my vow."
The voice of the actress sounded silver-clear as Bellario spoke her last speech, finishing her story of a love which can submit to take the lower place, and asks but little of fate.
"It is a thing within my vow."
The line repeated itself in Angela"s mind as Denzil met them at the door, and handed her into the coach.
Should she prove of weaker stuff than the sad Eufrasia, and accept a husband she did not love? This humdrum modern age allowed of no romance. She could not stain her face with walnut juice, and disguise herself as a footboy, and live unknown in his service, to wait upon him when he was weary, to nurse him when he was sick. Such a life she would have deemed exquisitely happy; but the hard everyday world had no room for such dreams. In this unromantic age Dion"s daughter would be recognised within twenty-four hours of her putting on male attire. The golden days of poetry were dead. Una would find no lion to fawn at her feet. She would be mobbed in the Strand.
"Oh, that it could have been!" thought Angela, as the coach jolted and rumbled through the narrow ways, and shaved awkward corners with its ponderous wheels, and got its horses entangled with other n.o.ble teams, to the provocation of much ill-language from postillions, and flunkeys, and linkmen, for it was dark when they came out of the theatre, and a thick mist was rising from the river, and flambeaux were flaring up and down the dim narrow thoroughfares.
"They light the streets better in Paris," complained Hyacinth. "In the Rue de Touraine we had a lamp to every house."
"I like to see the links moving up and down," said Papillon; ""tis ever so much prettier than lanterns that stand still-like that one at the corner."
She pointed to a small round lamp that made a bubble of light in an abyss of gloom.
"Here the lamps stink more than they light," said Hyacinth. "How the coach rocks-those blockheads will end by upsetting it. I should have been twice as well in my chair."
Angela sat in her place, lost in thought, and hardly conscious of the jolting coach, or of Papillon"s prattle, who would not be satisfied till she had dragged her aunt into the conversation.
"Did you not love the play, and would you not love to be a princess like Arethusa, and to wear such a necklace? Mother"s diamonds are not half as big."
"Pshaw, child, "twas absolute gla.s.s-arrant trumpery."
"But her gown was not trumpery. It was Lady Castlemaine"s last birthday gown. I heard a lady telling her friend about it in the seat next mine. Lady Castlemaine gave it to the actress; and it cost three hundred pounds-and Lady Castlemaine is all that there is of the most extravagant, the lady said, and old Rowley has to pay her debts-(who is old Rowley, and why does he pay people"s debts?)-though she is the most unscrupulous-I forget the word-in London."
"You see, madam, what a good school the play-house is for your child," said Fareham grimly.
"I never asked you to take our child there."
"Nay, Hyacinth; but a mother should enter no scene unfit for her daughter"s innocence."
"Oh, my lord, your opinions are of the Protectorate. You would be better in New England-tilling your fields reclaimed from the waste."
"Yes, I might be better there, reclaimed from the waste-of London life.
Strange that your talk should hit upon New England. I was thinking of that New World not an hour ago at the play-thinking what a happy innocent life a man might lead there, were he but young and free, with one he loved."
"Innocent, yes; happy, no; unless he were a savage or a peasant," Hyacinth exclaimed disdainfully. "We that have known the grace and beauty of life cannot go back to the habits of our ancestors, to eat without forks, and cover our floors with rushes instead of Persian carpets."
"The beauty and grace of life-houses that are whited sepulchres, banquets where there is no love."
The coach stopped before the tall Italian doorway, and Fareham handed out his wife and sister in silence; but there was one of the party to whom it was unnatural to be mute.