"I don"t suppose they care a b.u.t.ton what we call it," Angelica decided off-hand, out of her own inner consciousness. "But you would not like us to be either "con" or "per," would you?" she asked the bishop.
"I am afraid I must not discuss so serious a question with you to-day," he answered. "I am very busy, and I must go back to my work."
"I thought you looked unsettled," Angelica observed. "I know what it is when you"ve got to come to the drawing room, and want to be somewhere else. They won"t excuse us at home as a rule, but we"ll excuse you, if you like."
"Eh--thank you," the old gentleman answered, glancing with a smile at his wife.
"But I should think some tea would do you good," Diavolo suggested.
"Have you not had any tea?" Edith asked, stretching her hand out toward the bell.
"Well, yes," he answered. "We"ve had a little"--the tone implied, "but not nearly enough."
"We always like your cakes, you know," said Angelica; "and ours at Hamilton House are generally nice; but at Morne they"re sometimes sodden."
The bishop withdrew at this point, and the children devoted the rest of their attention to the cakes.
"Now we"ve got to go and settle with Mr. Ellis," Diavolo remarked to Angelica, yawning, as they walked their ponies out of the palace grounds.
"Well, at any rate, we"ve done the celebration thoroughly," she answered, "and enjoyed it. He won"t be able to help that now. Oh--by the way! here"s grandpapa"s ring. I forgot it."
"It doesn"t matter," said Diavolo. "He knows you"ll take care of it."
Almost at the same moment the old duke at Morne missed the ring, and remarked: "Ah, I remember, Angelica has it. She put it on her finger when she was sitting beside me this afternoon."
"Shall I go at once to Hamilton House, and bring it back with me?" Father Ricardo asked, somewhat officiously.
"No, sir, thank you," said the duke with dignity. "My grand-daughter will return the ring when it suits her convenience."
Next day Angelica begged her father to take the ring back for her with a note of apology explaining that she had forgotten it, and expressing her regret.
CHAPTER XXI.
Part of the old gray palace at Morningquest had been a monastery. The walls were thick, the windows gothic, the bedrooms small, the reception rooms huge, as if built for the accommodation of a whole community at a time; and with unexpected alcoves and angles and deep embrasures, all very picturesque, and also extremely inconvenient; but Edith Beale, who had been born in the palace and grown up there, under the protection of the great cathedral, as it were, and the influence of its wonderful chime, was never conscious of the inconvenience, and would not, at any rate, have exchanged it for the comfort and luxury of the best appointed modern house. The Bishop of Morningquest and Mrs. Beale had three sons, but Edith was their only daughter, their white child, their pearl; and certainly she was a lovely specimen of a well-bred English girl.
On the day following that upon which the Heavenly Twins had celebrated the important occasion of their first spontaneous "Kow-tow," as they called it, in the early morning Edith, being still asleep, turned toward the east window of her room, the blind of which was up, and fell into a dream. The sun, as he rose, smiled in upon her. She had flung her left hand up above her head with the pink palm outward, and the fingers half bent; the right lay on the sheet beside her, palm downward, spread out, and all relaxed.
Her whole att.i.tude expressed the most complete abandonment of deep and restful sleep.
The night had been warm, and the heavier draperies had slipped from her bed on the farther side, leaving only the sheet.
Her warm bright hair, partly loosened from the one thick braid into which it had been plaited, fell from off the pillow to the floor on her right, and the sun, looking in, lit it up and made it sparkle. She left that window with the blind undrawn so that he might arouse her every morning; and now, as the first pale ray gleamed over her face, her eyelids quivered, and half opened, but she was still busy with her dream and did not wake. She lived in an atmosphere of dreams and of mystic old a.s.sociations. Events of the days gone by were often more distinctly pictured in her mind than incidents of yesterday. Mrs. Orton Beg, her mother, and all the gentle mannered, pure-minded women among whom she had grown up, thought less of this world, even as they knew it, than of the next as they imagined it to be; and they received and treasured with perfect faith every legend, hint, and shadow of a communication which they believed to have come to them from thence. They neglected the good they might have done here in order to enjoy their bright and tranquil dreams of the hereafter. Their spiritual food was faith and hope. They kept their tempers even and unruffled by never allowing themselves to think or know, so far as it is possible with average intelligence not to do either in this world, anything that is evil of anybody. They prided themselves on only believing all that is good of their fellow-creatures; this was their idea of Christian charity. Thus they always believed the best about everybody, not on evidence, but upon principle; and then they acted as if their att.i.tude had made their acquaintances all they desired them to be.
They seemed to think that by ignoring the existence of sin, by refusing to obtain any knowledge of it, they somehow helped to check it; and they could not have conceived that their att.i.tude made it safe to sin, so that, when they refused to know and to resist, they were actually countenancing evil and encouraging it. The kind of Christian charity from which they suffered was a vice in itself. To keep their own minds pure was the great object of their lives, which really meant to save themselves from the horror and pain of knowing.
Edith, by descent, by teaching, by a.s.sociation, and in virtue of the complete ignorance in which she had been kept, was essentially one of that set. It is impossible for any adult creature to be more spiritually minded than she was. She lived in a state of exquisite feeling. The whole training of her mind had been so directed as to make her existence one long beatific vision, and she was unconsciously prepared to resent in her gentle way, and to banish at once, if possible, any disturbing thought that might break in upon it.
In her dream that morning she smiled at first, and then she fairly laughed. She had met the Heavenly Twins, and they were telling her something--what was it? The most amusing thing she had ever heard them say; she knew it by the way it had made her laugh--why couldn"t she repeat it?
She was trying to tell her mother, and while in the act, she became suddenly aware of a strange place, and Diavolo kneeling at her feet, clasping her left hand, and kissing it. She felt the touch of his lips distinctly; they were soft and warm. He was beseeching her to marry him, she understood, and she was going to laugh at him for being a ridiculous boy, but it was the steadfast, dark blue eyes of Lord Dawne that met hers, and she was looking up at him, and not down at the fair-haired Diavolo kneeling before her. She caught the gloss on Lord Dawne"s black hair, the curve of his slight moustache, and the gleam of his white teeth. He was grave, but his lips were parted, and he carried a little child in his arms, and the expression of his face was like the dear Lord"s in a picture of the Good Shepherd which she had in her room. He held the little child out to her. She took it from him, smiling, raised its little velvet cheek to hers, and then drew back to look at it, but was horrified because it was not beautiful at all as it had been the moment before, but deformed, and its poor little body was covered with sores. The sight sickened her, and she tried to cover it with her own clothes. She tore at the skirt of her gown. She struggled to take off a cloak she wore. She stripped herself in the endeavour and cried aloud in her shame, but she could not help herself, and Dawne could not help her, and in the agony of the attempt she awoke, and sprang up, clutching at the bedclothes, but was not able to find them at first, because they had fallen on the floor; and she fancied herself still in her horrible dream. Big drops of perspiration stood on her forehead, her eyes were dazzled by the sun, and she was all confused.
She jumped out of bed and stood a moment, trying to collect herself; and the first thing she saw distinctly was the picture of the Saviour on the wall. A _Prie-dieu_ stood beneath it, and she went and knelt there, her beautiful yellow hair streaming behind her, her eyes fixed on the wonderful, sad, sweet face.
"Dear Lord," she prayed pa.s.sionately, "keep me from all knowledge of unholy things,"--by which she meant sights and circ.u.mstances that were unlovely, and horrified.
She knelt for some minutes longer, with all articulate thought suspended; but by degrees there came to her that glow in the chest, that expansion of it which is the accompaniment of the exalted sentiment known to us as adoration, or love; love purged of all earthly admixture of doubt and fear, which is the most delicious sensation human nature is capable of experiencing. And presently she arose, free from the painful impression made by the revolting details of her dream, put her hands under her hair at the back of her neck, and then raised them up above her head and her hair with them, stretching herself and yawning slightly. Then she brought her hair all around to the right in a ma.s.s, and let it hang down to her knees, and looked at it dreamily; and then began to twist it slowly, preparatory to coiling it round her head. She went to the dressing-table for hairpins to fasten it, holding up her long nightdress above her white feet with one hand that she might not trip, and, standing before the mirror, blushed at the beauty of her own reflection. When she had put her hair out of the way, she glanced at her bed somewhat longingly, then at her watch. It was very early, and the morning was chilly, so she put on her white flannel dressing gown, got a book, returned to her bed, and propped herself up in a comfortable position for reading; and so she spent the time happily until her maid came to call her. Her book that morning was "The Life of Frances Ridley Havergal," and she found it absorbingly interesting.
CHAPTER XXII.
The ladies of an artist"s family usually arrange and decorate their rooms in a way which recalls the manner called artistic, more especially when the artist is a figure or subject, as distinguished from a landscape painter, for the latter lives too much in the free fresh air to cultivate draperies, even if he does not absolutely detest them as being stuffy; and in the same way the bedroom of the only daughter of the Bishop of Morningquest would have made you think of matters ecclesiastical. The room itself, with its thick walls, high stone mantelpiece, small gothic windows, and plain ridged vault, was so in fact; and a sense of suitability as well as the natural inclination of the occupant had led her to choose the furniture and decoration as severely in keeping as possible.
The pictures consisted of photographs or engravings of sacred subjects, all of Roman Catholic origin. There was a "Virgin and Child," by Botticelli, and another by Perugini; "Our Lady of the Cat," by Baroccio; the exquisite "Vision of St. Helena," by Paolo Veronese; Correggio"s "Ecce h.o.m.o"; and others less well-known; with a ghastly Crucifixion too painful to be endured, especially by a young girl, had not custom dulled all genuine perception of the horror of it. The whole effect, however, was a delicious impression of freshness and serenity, which inspired something of the same respect for Edith"s sanctum that one felt for Edith herself, as was evident on one occasion, when, the ladies of his family being absent, the Bishop of Morningquest had taken Mr. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, a gentleman who had lately settled in that neighbourhood, over the palace.
When they came to Edith"s room, he had opened the door absently, and then, remembering whose it was, he said: "My daughter"s room," and they had both looked in without entering, and both becoming aware at the same moment that they had their hats on, removed them involuntarily.
Edith"s dress too, was characteristic. All the ornamentation was out of sight, the lining of her gowns being often more costly than the materials of which they were made. In the same way, her simple unaffected manners were the plain garment which concealed the fine quality and cultivation of her mind. She might have done great good in the world had she known of the evil; she would have fought for the right in defiance of every prejudice, as women do. But she had never been allowed to see the enemy. She had been fitted by education to move in the society of saints and angels only, and so rendered as unsuited as she was unprepared to cope with the world she would have to meet in that state of life to which, as she herself would have phrased it, it had pleased G.o.d to call her.
When she left her room that morning she went to her mother"s sitting room, which was on the same floor.
Edith and her mother usually breakfasted here together. Sometimes the bishop joined them and chatted over an extra cup of tea; but he was an early riser, and had generally breakfasted with his chaplain and private secretary, and done an hour"s work or so before his wife appeared. For Mrs. Beale was delicate at that time, and obliged to forego the early breakfast with her husband which had hitherto been the habit and pleasure of her whole married life.
The bishop did not come up to the sitting room that morning, however, and when Edith and her mother had breakfasted they read the Psalms for the day together, and a chapter of the Bible, verse by verse. Then Edith wrote some notes for her mother, who was busy making a cushion for a bazaar; after which she went into the garden and gathered flowers in one of the conservatories, which she brought in to paint on a screen she was making, also for the bazaar.
Mother and daughter worked together without any conversation to speak of until lunch: they were too busy to talk. After lunch they drove out into the country and paid a call. On the way back Edith noticed a beggar, a young, slender, very delicate-looking girl, lying across the footpath with her feet toward the road. A tiny baby lay on her lap. Her head and shoulders were pillowed upon the high bank which flanked the path, her face was raised as if her last look had been up at the sky above her, her hands had slipped helplessly on to the ground on either side of her, releasing the child, which had rolled over on to its face and so continued inertly.
Edith caught only a pa.s.sing glimpse of the group, and she made no remark until they had driven on some distance; but then she asked: "Did you notice that poor girl, mother?"
"No," Mrs. Beale answered. "Where was she?"
"Lying on the ground. She had a baby on her lap. I think she was ill."
They were in an open carriage, and Mrs. Beale looked round over the back of it. It was a straight road, but she could only see something lying on the footpath, which looked like a bundle at that distance.
"Are you sure it was a girl?" she said.
"Yes, quite, mother," Edith answered.
"Stop the carriage, then," said Mrs. Beale; "and we will turn back and see what we can do."
They found the girl in the same att.i.tude. Edith was about to alight, but her mother stopped her.
"Let Edwards" (the footman, who was an old servant), "see what is the matter," she said.
Edith instantly sat down again, and the footman went and stood by the girl, looking down at her curiously. Then he stooped, took off his glove, and put the points of the four fingers of his right hand on her chest, like an amateur doctor afraid of soiling his hands, a perfunctory way of ascertaining if she still breathed.
"I know who it is, ma"am," he said, returning to the carriage. "She"s French, and was a dressmaker in Morning-quest. There were two of them, sisters, doing a very good business, but they got to know some of the gentry--"